Zola2023-07-03T00:00:00+00:00https://ninshu.bar/atom.xmlninshu.bar Sample CD Indexing Project2023-07-03T00:00:00+00:002023-07-03T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/oddments/sample-cds/<p>One of the things I've started to do over the past few years is to collect sample CDs: audio CDs published in the late 1980s and early 1990s featuring raw instrument samples for musical production in sampling synthesizers. Sample CDs usually allow the user to seek to a track, each of which might contain multiple samples from a single instrument, but it is generally not possible to easily seek to an individual sample in that track. As such, I have decided to index those sample CDs I've collected such that anyone with these discs can more easily search them.</p>
<p>Each of the files linked below was derived from the hand curation of each instrument sample's initial non-zero value as visually identified using Audacity as a time from the beginning of the disc in hours, minutes, and seconds, plus an offset into that second assuming an audio sampling rate of 44,100 audio samples per second. These offsets were then automatically validated for errors and then shifted to a reasonable location between each instrument sample before a final visual review. As a result the offsets of instrument samples that are the first such sample in their track are generally not aligned with the known start of that track as reported from each CDs table of contents.</p>
<p>The instrument samples below are all indexed relative to a rip that has been calibrated to (AccurateRip offset) - 30 samples, due to evidence that this is the true start of audio on most professionally mastered audio CDs. <em>In other words:</em> To use these offsets to split a file that has been verified with AccurateRip (or ripped with a drive offset for submission to AccurateRip), 30 samples must be subtracted from each listed offset (or, alternately, re-rip the CD with an AccurateRip drive offset that is 30 samples <em>less</em> than the accepted value for your drive and then split that file on the offsets provided).</p>
<h2 id="changelog">Changelog</h2>
<p>2022-12-12 - Initial release<br>
2023-07-03 - Added Percussion 1 and Electronic 1 from the Prosōnus Sound Library, and document the existence of Stringed 3 from the same.</p>
<h2 id="list-of-indexed-sample-cds">List of Indexed Sample CDs</h2>
<p>Releases that are not linked are known only from textual sources and eBay, but are hoped to be added in the future should I ever acquire them. At this time, however, I do not currently own copies of those releases from which an index can be derived.</p>
<h3 id="mcgill-university-master-samples">McGill University Master Samples</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/mcgill_vol1.txt">Vol. 1: Solo Strings and Ensemble Violin</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/mcgill_vol2.txt">Vol. 2: Woodwinds and Brass</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/mcgill_vol3.txt">Vol. 3: Piano, Percussion, and Saxophones</a></li>
<li>Vol. 4: Rock Percussion and Tympani</li>
<li>Vol. 5: Rock Strings</li>
<li>Vol. 6: Latin Grooves 1: Solo Instruments</li>
<li>Vol. 7: Latin Grooves 2: Ensembles</li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/mcgill_vol8.txt">Vol. 8: Jazz Sounds</a></li>
<li>Vol. 9: More Strings, Winds, Pianos, and Percussion</li>
<li>Vol. 10: Pipe Organ</li>
<li>Vol. 11: Historical Instruments</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="prosonus-sound-library">Prosōnus Sound Library</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_brass1.txt">Brass 1: Trombone and Bass Trombone</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_brass2.txt">Brass 2: Trumpets, Cornet & Flugelhorn</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_brass3.txt">Brass 3: French Horn, Tuba, Tuba FX</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_brass4.txt">Brass 4: Brass Ensembles</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_electronic1.txt">Electronic 1: Synth Textures</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_keyboards1.txt">Keyboards 1: Pianos</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_percussion1.txt">Percussion 1: Exotic Percussion</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/prosonus_percussion2.txt">Percussion 2: Orchestral Percussion</a></li>
<li>Sampler Sampler</li>
<li>Sound FX 1</li>
<li>Sound FX 3: City Sound Effects</li>
<li>Stringed 1: Electric Guitar</li>
<li>Stringed 2: String Orchestra</li>
<li>Stringed 3: Violin Section & Solo Violin</li>
<li>Stringed 5: Viola & Bass: Sections & Solo</li>
<li>Woodwinds 1: Double Reeds</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="discovery-firm">Discovery Firm</h3>
<ul>
<li>Alma flamenco</li>
<li>Amazing Thailand</li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/discovery_japan.txt">Discovery Japan</a></li>
<li><a href="/data/sample-cds/discovery_easteurope.txt">From East Europe</a></li>
<li>The Legend of China</li>
</ul>
Tassarunese UCSUR Documents2023-01-16T00:00:00+00:002023-01-16T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/oddments/tassarunese-in-ucsur/<p>In late 2022, I began the process of registering a block to encode the Tassarunese script in the <a href="https://www.kreativekorp.com/ucsur/">Under-Conscript Unicode Registry</a>, graciously maintained by Rebecca G. Bettencourt as of early 2023.</p>
<p>While the majority of the script's design was fixed as of mid-2018, the push to reserve an allocation in the UCSUR has resulted in some additional evolution of punctuation and notation. As a result of this, I've created this space to serve to document the evolution of the Tassarunese UCSUR proposal as it gradually accumulates through the course of assorted projects making use of it.</p>
<h2 id="changelog">Changelog</h2>
<ul>
<li>2022-12-11 - Initial reservation filed</li>
<li>2023-01-16 - Impractical guide submitted; provisional reservation of U+EDC0 and U+EDCE retracted for further study; U+EDCF renamed to "TASSARUNESE GEMINATION MARK".</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="documents">Documents</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="../impractical-guide-to-tassarunese-script.pdf">An Impractical Guide to Tassarunese Script (as encoded in the Under-Conscript Unicode Repository)</a> [PDF]</li>
</ul>
Symphogear RSX — Chapter 2: Caught in Indra’s Net2022-07-29T00:00:00+00:002022-07-29T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/stories/symphogear-rsx-ch02-caught-in-indras-net/<div class="mixed-case">
<p>Kazanari Genjūrō breathed a small sigh of relief as the teleconference ended. Ever since the “Lunar Attack,” as it was now called, Section Two had been busy doing what clean-up it could, and that meant teleconference after teleconference for the only man able to even remotely clean up the mess Finé had left behind. It wore him out.</p>
<p>It could have been worse, he supposed. The Americans who had been appearing in some of these “high-level planning meetings” always looked like these conferences physically <em>pained</em> them. Genjūrō had heard it said that Americans had been “teleconferenced out” from growing up with the coronavirus pandemic, but he’d never thought they would look so <em>uncomfortable</em> in them. Well, orders were orders for them as much as they were for Genjūrō, he supposed.</p>
<p>Genjūrō glanced at his watch to check for any other upcoming meetings and, seeing none on his schedule, set his computer to sleep before heading out to check on the command bridge. Preparations for the transfer of Solomon’s Cane to the Americans were well underway, and, as head of Section Two, Genjūrō was committed to ensuring that it happened without a hitch. Granted, Tomosato and Fujitaka were more than capable of arranging the details of the transfer on their own, but <em>someone</em> had to give status reports on those damned teleconferences.</p>
<p>Upon returning to the bridge, Genjūrō took his seat at the console just behind his second- and third-in-command. “Have you two made any more progress on the contingency plans for Operation Tongue-Cut Sparrow?”</p>
<p>Fujitaka Sakuya, third-in-command, was first to respond. “I’ve almost completed the report laying out the contingency plans for your review, and it’s still looking a little tight on options if something goes wrong while we’re at sea. Are you sure we can’t rely on Tsubasa for the operation, commander?”</p>
<p>Tomosato Aoi, second-in-command, agreed. “Her abilities would be helpful on the battlefield. Aerial combat has been a weak spot for Hibiki, especially given that she’s lacking an Armed Gear...”</p>
<p>Genjūrō shook his head. “Hibiki did volunteer, after all, and I’m not about to revoke Tsubasa’s leave. As you know, she <em>does</em> have a concert scheduled that evening, and I am not going to disrupt those girls’ lives any more than they already have been. Speaking of which...”</p>
<p>Suddenly an alarm klaxon sounded and a clattering of keyboards soon followed. The main view screen at the front of the bridge soon lit up with the words “CODE RED: WAVE PATTERN DETECTED” emblazoned across it in bright bold red lettering. As ever, Genjūrō immediately sprang into crisis management mode. “Tomosato, Fujitaka. What’s going on? Give me a status report.”</p>
<p>It was Tomosato who responded first, her hands clacking away at her keyboard as she panned through several maps on her display. A digital oscilloscope-like display fluctuated away in a corner of her screen, its contents gradually coming into focus.</p>
<p>“We just detected an unexpected energy spike in... Nerima? Yes, looks like it’s in Area 137...” said Tomosato, throwing the contents of her display on the main view screen, including the now-fully-focused oscilloscope display. “And it looks like it’s an Aufwachen waveform!”</p>
<p>“What‽ And it’s not one of the girls?” As far as Genjūrō knew, they were still following their orders to remain on board the <em>Altamaha-ha</em> until the hand-off to the Americans was complete, the day of Tsubasa’s concert.</p>
<p>Aoi shook her head. “No, sir. The system is still looking for a match... Hold on a minute, it just found one! It’s... Bājiāoshàn?”</p>
<p>“<em>Bājiāoshàn...‽</em>” exclaimed Genjūrō.</p>
<p>This time it was Fujitaka who responded, pushing an image from his station onto the main screen next to Tomosato’s map. “It’s actually from a record we found in Dr. Sakurai’s... or rather, Finé’s personal files that we got access to after the Lunar Attack, sir. Based on the files that accompanied the signal pattern, Bājiāoshàn appears to be a Chinese relic associated with a project Finé’d been secretly collaborating with Beijing on at the same time as she’d been working with the Americans.”</p>
<p>“Damn. Finé sure worked everyone, didn’t she?”</p>
<p>Fujitaka nodded. “The thing is... the last project log entry associated with that project seemed to strongly imply that Bājiāoshàn and its wielder had gone missing about a month before the Lunar Attack, after another Symphogear in the same project had also gone missing. Finé wrote the project off as a result.”</p>
<p>Genjūrō furrowed his brows. Another Symphogear user could prove to be trouble, especially someplace like Nerima, less than twenty kilometers from downtown Tokyo. Section Two would need to act fast. Thank goodness the girls were still here while they waited for things to calm down.</p>
<p>“Tomosato, can you tell me which of the girls are currently aboard?”</p>
<p>Genjūrō’s second-in-command quickly clicked over to some ship logs. “Hmm... Looks like Tsubasa and Chris were granted leave to go ashore for personal supplies several hours ago, sir. Hibiki’s still aboard, though.”</p>
<p>“Can you patch me through to her communicator?”</p>
<p>“Already on it.”</p>
<p>Before long, the image of the heroine of the Lunar Attack had popped up on the main display, followed shortly by a quick “Hello, Hibiki here!”</p>
<p>“We’ve got an issue and we need your help while Tsubasa and Chris are still ashore. How quickly can you get to the helipad?”</p>
<p>“It’s just upstairs from my cabin, isn’t it? I can be there in a sec.”</p>
<p>“Great. We’ll fill you in on the way...”</p>
<hr />
<div class="eighty-col">
<pre><code> __
,--,/' /
戦姫絶唱 / //_,'
,--,`-'
,----, ,--------, ,---` '--, ,----------,
/____/ ,--, ,-----, /_____ / ,--, /___ ___/ /_______ /
,----, / / /____./ / / ,-----` `-, ,---' '--, ,--,/ /
/____/ / / / / /__ _ _/ /___ ___/ / / `-'
/ / __.-, ,--` / ,-` _// / / / / /
.------'` / .----` __/ /___,-' /_,-` /__/ / / .---'` /
/_______,-'` /___,--` /__/ /____,-'`
S Y M P H O G E A R
_,.._ ,.. ,..
,^` `^. _,---,__ | \ / |
| ,---. |'` ____ `.\ \ / /
| '---` | ',_ `-.' \ x /
| ,, ,.-``-. `-._ / \
| | \ \ ``-., './ /^\ \
| | \ `-,--.__./ / / \ \
`-.-` `-..',_ ,.'._./ '._.'
`''^''
MAYBE ONLY THE NEVERENDING WAVES WOULD KNOW WHAT'S BEEN DECIDED IN MY HEART...
</code></pre>
</div>
<hr />
<p>“I may not have a clue what’s going on here, but I, Tachibana Hibiki, am not going to let you two ruin any more kids’ playdates!” The voice of the girl in the orange and white colored Symphogear rang out loudly as she pushed Ranma’s naginata back from Shampoo using only her two hands. Staring into the determination that was fixed in the girl’s face, Ranma was shocked to see a girl who wasn’t much older than herself or Shampoo.</p>
<p>With her attack blocked, Ranma could only pull back, allowing Hibiki to push her away from Shampoo, before entering a ready stance in case she needed to re-engage.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what yer thinkin’ but I ain’t the one causing the problem here... That Chinese girl attacked me first!” Ranma explained, gesturing to the purple-haired girl crouching behind Hibiki. Hibiki turned around to look at the girl behind her, only to find herself unceremoniously swatted by one of Shampoo’s razor-bladed fans, straight into a tree.</p>
<p>“Hah! Ranma hides behind orange girl for protection? Should just die like an honorable female warrior!” yelled Shampoo, who began to once again press Ranma offensively with a series of swipes with her fans now that Hibiki was out of the way.</p>
<p>Carefully dodging each slash from Shampoo’s fan blades, Ranma began to back out of the playground, in hopes that she might find a little more room to maneuver again, even if that meant giving Shampoo more space to attack as well. Ranma therefore allowed Shampoo to continue to press her advantage until the two had backed into the middle of an athletic field. Now able to swing freely enough with her naginata to push back on Shampoo, Ranma proceeded to unleash a series of swipes with her own weapon to once again create some space between the two of them.</p>
<p>Clearly depleted of fight, both combatants took a moment to breathe.</p>
<p>“Impressed Ranma still has fight in her!” Shampoo said. “It is shameful such a warrior must die. Must end this quickly, then...”</p>
<p>Shampoo braced herself in a ready stance before once again flinging herself towards Ranma, swinging her bladed fans wide towards Ranma’s side. Just as they were about to strike Ranma, however, Shampoo felt her arm unexpectedly bounce off hard armor, before feeling a forceful blow to her chest plate push her back a few meters.</p>
<p>“Stop fighting!” came the mousy voice of Hibiki, who had once again interposed herself between the two combatants. “What’s so important that you need to fight? Can’t you two talk it out?”</p>
<p>Shampoo snorted. “Ah, One-Punch Girl has fight! Maybe she does not know Ranma’s crime?”</p>
<p>“Crime?” Hibiki glanced at Ranma, the suspicion in her eyes hinting at a suddenly growing unease with the red-head.</p>
<p>Ranma sighed. “I beat her inna tournament <em>just once</em> and she’s had it out for me ever since...”</p>
<p>“You... Beat her in a tournament?” asked Hibiki, her quizzical look swiveling back towards Shampoo.</p>
<p>“It is a great honor to win Nǚjié-zú martial arts tournament. It is a great shame for its winner to be defeated by outsider girl. Honor can only be regained with death. Hers.” replied Shampoo, flicking her fans at Ranma. “One-Punch Girl would stay safest if she lets this go.”</p>
<p>Hibiki gritted her teeth as a scowl crossed her face. “You can’t <em>kill</em> someone for that! I... I won’t let you!”</p>
<p>Shampoo laughed, taking a ready stance. “Well, if One-Punch Girl wants to fight...”</p>
<p>“If it means you won’t kill her, then I guess I have no choice...” said Hibiki, raising her fists in response.</p>
<p>Ranma watched as Shampoo made the first move, dashing towards Hibiki in an attempt to quickly do away with her in one strike of her bladed fans, only for Hibiki to deftly deflect that strike and each increasingly frustrated strike thereafter using the orange bracers on her wrists. Hibiki then began to drop back slowly towards a large building across the street that ran along the south side of the field. Surprisingly, the girl who had been readily swatted into a tree mere minutes earlier seemed to almost hold her own against the Chinese girl. It was impressive, really.</p>
<p>Even so, something had to be done about Shampoo. Ranma had now managed to somehow involve this oddly credulous Tachibana girl in what should have been <em>her</em> battle alone, and so it was on Ranma to figure out how to end it. Friend or foe, Hibiki and Ranma were on the same side, for now.</p>
<p>This, however, gave Ranma an idea. With Shampoo focused on Hibiki as she was, she left herself open to being flanked by Ranma. Perhaps if Hibiki were to play along, they might be able to corner Shampoo against the building Hibiki was falling back towards and end this once and for all. With this plan in mind, Ranma moved swiftly to close the distance between herself and Shampoo without the Chinese girl noticing.</p>
<p>Before long, Ranma had gotten within striking range of Shampoo, at which point Ranma began to push forward with her <em>ishizuki</em>, putting pressure on Shampoo to slowly pivot to do her best to defend against what had become a two-on-one fight. Frustrated by the position she found herself in, Shampoo began focusing her remaining efforts on Ranma, only to receive a crashing blow from Hibiki, plowing her into the side of the building that she’d been pushed up against.</p>
<p>The silence from the crater into which Shampoo had been punched soon gave way to the sudden rushing of blood in Ranma’s ears. A momentary lull had turned into a pregnant pause... A small respite... And then...</p>
<p><em>Crack!</em></p>
<p>A fracture which had worked its way up the side of the building groaned for a moment before giving way to a cascade of falling concrete and tiles, steam and... <em>hot water‽</em> As Ranma felt the water hit him, pushing him to the ground, he felt the spell break, the Symphogear around her shattering into nothingness as if it had been willed away.</p>
<p><em>Except it hadn’t been</em> willed <em>away.</em></p>
<p>Ranma pushed his black hair out of his face as the water flowed past, the occasional gap in the fog revealing tiling and the shapes of bodies that suggested that the three had just brought down the wall of a <em>sentō</em>. Peering through the slowly clearing steam towards where Shampoo had been, Ranma was shocked to see her staring right back at him.</p>
<p>“Female Ranma is... Male Ranma?”</p>
<p>“I... Well...” Ranma stuttered, suddenly flush with strange, awkward feelings.</p>
<p>“This...” Shampoo looked at Ranma with a strange look of apprehension, a pained sigh held close to the chest. “Must... talk to great-grandmother.”</p>
<p>As a final cloud of steam wafted by, Ranma lost sight of Shampoo, hearing only the sound of footsteps fading away in the dissipating fog. With the air gradually clearing, Ranma stood up and prepared to leave himself, swinging his arms back and forth to loosen them up...</p>
<p><em>Click!</em></p>
<p>Only to feel a pair of cuffs biting coldly into his outstretched wrists.</p>
<p>“I’m really sorry but we’ve just been asked to detain you... <em>sir?</em>” An unsteady mousy voice echoed awkwardly behind him.</p>
<p>Ranma turned around in shock, only to find Hibiki, who was now flanked by two additional Symphogear, one in blue and white, featuring a sword wielded by a stern-faced, blue-haired girl perhaps only a little older than Nabiki, the other red and white, wielded as a gun by a girl with long silver twin-tails and a grin on her face.</p>
<p>So much for making it back to the Tendōs’ for dinner.</p>
<hr />
<p>Following his arrest, Ranma had been forced to hand the pink crystal, the relic, from which his Symphogear power was derived to Hibiki. While Ranma had objected, the Symphogear user with white hair and a red Symphogear had made it clear that he would be parted from the relic at the cost of his life if it came down to it. Faced with a Symphogear fight without a Symphogear, Ranma reluctantly relented.</p>
<p>Soon after, Hibiki and the two other Symphogear led Ranma in virtual silence to a small scene beginning to unfold down the street. A brown-haired man in a business suit seemed to be directing a small throng of people in suits towards the wrecked <em>sentō</em>, gesturing to a handful of old men who had been watching the scene unfold from what had been the former male half of the facility. As he did so, several of the suits with him peeled off with pens and clipboards, making a beeline for those men, apparently to talk to them about something. Ranma could hardly say what that was, but given the appearance of the suits and the fact that he was being ushered directly towards what he could only assume was the “man in charge,” Ranma could hazard a guess.</p>
<p>“Is this him?” the man asked.</p>
<p>“Hibiki confirmed she was fighting him before arresting him, yes,” came the stony voice of the blue Symphogear wielder.</p>
<p>“Hmm... Okay, we’re going to start collecting your after-action statements. Chris, Tsubasa, would you follow me? Our detainee is going to need a guard while I do so, so Hibiki, you can give your statement later. Please keep an eye on him over there until Commander Kazanari gets here.” The man gestured to a nearby alleyway.</p>
<p>“Really? You flew us all the way out here on a helicopter just to make us give you a <em>statement?</em>” came the voice of the white-haired girl in the red Symphogear. “What kind of a outfit <em>is</em> this, anyway, making high school girls stay up late like this?”</p>
<p>“Now, Chris, we’ve got procedures...” responded the blue-haired girl in the similarly-colored Symphogear.</p>
<p>The girl named Chris stomped in a huff. “Tsubasa! Don’t tell me you like doing this sort of thing...”</p>
<p>The blue-haired girl who must have been Tsubasa scoffed. “A sword goes where it’s needed, Chris. Come along.”</p>
<p>As the two Symphogear followed the neatly-dressed man away to give their statements, Hibiki gestured for Ranma to lead the way to the alleyway the man had gestured to a moment earlier, presumably the better to keep an eye on him, he figured.</p>
<p>Having lost access to his Symphogear, Ranma had little choice but to acquiesce and see how the situation played out in the off chance he might be able to get away as Shampoo had. While his father might have welched on a promise or two to get out of a thorny situation he’d brought on himself, even Genma was wary and played it safe when government officials were involved, leading Ranma to do the same.</p>
<p>“Uh, you don’t have to stand on my account, haha!” The sudden chirping of Hibiki’s voice broke Ranma’s train of thought, causing his attention to turn toward the girl clad in orange and saffron.</p>
<p>“Uh... Sure...”</p>
<p>Uncertain of his captors’ intent, Ranma kept a close eye on Hibiki as he staked out a seat next to a nearby wall. The light brunette could clearly pack a punch with Symphogear; that much was clear from what Ranma had observed of her during their fight with Shampoo. The last thing Ranma needed was being caught off guard by someone who was easily twice as strong as Ryōga had been when he had first shown up to challenge Ranma some weeks back.</p>
<p>“I’m really sorry for putting you through all this... This is probably a real pain for you, I’m sure... I hope we can still be friends.” Hibiki’s unsteady voice gave Ranma the impression of someone who was still relatively new to whatever she was doing with her Symphogear. The earnestness was... actually rather refreshing, he had to admit.</p>
<p>“I... Well...”</p>
<p>Ranma found himself speaking almost as if unbidden.</p>
<p>Hibiki waved him off with what stuck him as mild embarrassment. “You don’t have to say anything now if you don’t like! I’m not trying to butter you up or anything, I promise!”</p>
<p>Turning her face to the ground, she continued.</p>
<p>“I dunno. I just... I don’t know how a girl like you got involved in this but... I hope we don’t have to fight again.”</p>
<p>Hibiki’s casual use of the word “<em>shōjo</em>” to describe Ranma, as if this male body of his was a simple illusion, got caught in his heart in a strange, unfamiliar way. It felt warm, almost inviting to hold onto that word: <em>shōjo</em>. Ranma could almost have forgiven her even if it turned out to be a haphazard mistake on her part.</p>
<p>“What’s that about a girl getting involved in this?”</p>
<p>Apparently the two other Symphogear users had finished their after-action reports and returned to the alley while Ranma and Hibiki had been sharing their strange moment.</p>
<p>Hibiki was quick to respond. “I was fighting alongside a red-haired girl who disappeared when the wall came down. This guy was where she had been standing so I feel like maybe...”</p>
<p>The white-haired girl named Chris laughed. “So you think he’s our Symphogear? Are you sure your head’s on straight, Hibiki?”</p>
<p>Hibiki nodded. “I know what I saw! I don’t know how it happened, but he’s got to be her!”</p>
<p>Chris looked over at Ranma and then back at Hibiki, waving her arms frantically towards the martial artist in confusion. “But look at him! He’s a <em>guy!</em> Didn’t you say that Finé told you that only girls could be Symphogear users? Because I’m pretty sure she told me something like that once...”</p>
<p>“W... Well...” Hibiki stuttered. “Maybe he’s not a Symphogear then... but then why did he have this relic, huh?”</p>
<p>Watching Hibiki wave the pink crystal around, Ranma found himself absent-mindedly reaching towards his now-bare neck. It felt strange not to be wearing it for the first time in what must have been months. It might have just been a mere <em>thing</em> to him now in a way it didn’t quite feel when he’d been in his female body, but it still itched at him in a way few other things did. “Other things” like what Hibiki had said to him only moments earlier...</p>
<p>Eventually Chris responded. “Maybe he stole it.”</p>
<p>“Chris!” came the voice of the blue-haired Symphogear user named Tsubasa. “You should know better than to make such unsavory assumptions in front of the person in question!”</p>
<p>“Do you have a better idea?”</p>
<p>Tsubasa shook her head. “No, but Commander Kazanari wouldn’t have asked us to arrest him if he didn’t have a reason.”</p>
<p>“Ladies...” came a new voice. Ranma turned to look at who had said that, only to find a blue-haired woman in her late 20s who appeared to be wearing a more formal uniform a military officer might wear. She was accompanied by a larger, middle-aged red-haired man wearing a red button-down shirt and khaki pants.</p>
<p>“Commander Kazanari will take it from here,” continued the blue-haired woman, gesturing to the three Symphogear. “I’ll take care of getting you back to HQ.”</p>
<p>Relieved of duty, the three Symphogear users finally released their Symphogear and allowed it to go... wherever it went after battle. Ranma wasn’t quite sure himself. As they proceeded to follow the blue-haired woman, Ranma found himself left alone with the older, red-haired man, to whom Hibiki had handed off Ranma’s relic just before departing, at the man’s request.</p>
<p>“I take it you must be Saotome Ranma. Wielder of the relic Maltet, if I understand correctly.”</p>
<p>Ranma eyed the man carefully. His body hid its strength poorly, as its stout arms and large torso clearly belonged to a man who had been well-versed in martial arts of some kind or other. Ranma would need to be careful in dealing with this man if he wanted any chance of getting Maltet back.</p>
<p>“What’s it to you?”</p>
<p>“The name’s Kazanari Genjūrō, head of Irregular Threat Response, Section Two. We make it our business to know things. The better to keep a lid on things like what your friend did here tonight...” The red-haired man then gestured to the gaping hole in the side of the <em>sentō</em>.</p>
<p>“She <em>ain’t</em> my friend,” Ranma spat.</p>
<p>Genjūrō chuckled. “Fair enough. I suppose you two <em>were</em> already fighting when Hibiki showed up.”</p>
<p>“You gettin’ to somethin’ here? How do you know for sure it was <em>me</em> anyway?”</p>
<p>“Well, perhaps that would be better discussed on our <em>own</em> way back to headquarters,” said Genjūrō as he unlocked Ranma’s cuffs and gestured for Ranma to take a walk with him.</p>
<p>Ranma could only hope Kasumi and the others weren’t going to keep the light on for him.</p>
<hr />
<p>Before long, Ranma found himself bundled into the passenger side of a black SUV, while Genjūrō climbed into the driver’s seat. A few minutes of quiet road navigation later, the two had made their way onto one of Tokyo’s expressways.</p>
<p>Then, at long last, Genjūrō’s deep voice uttered a single name.</p>
<p>“Dr. Sakurai Ryōko...”</p>
<p>Ranma’s stunned silence must have spoken volumes to Genjūrō, for he soon continued.</p>
<p>“On September 13^th^, 2040, Dr. Sakurai Ryōko, chief scientist of Section Two and developer of the Sakurai Theory which describes the principles of how Symphogear work, was approached at a conference by Chinese intelligence assets interested in acquiring Symphogear technology. While she had reported such contact in a timely manner and cooperated with an internal investigation on the matter, unbeknownst to us she surreptitiously began to collaborate with a team of Chinese scientists. This resulted in the opening of a research facility some thirty kilometers outside of Xining in Qinghai province in the winter of 2041--2.</p>
<p>“This facility was utilized for the design and construction of two irregularly produced Symphogear using two ancient relics held by the Communist Party of China on behalf of the Chinese people: Bājiāoshàn, purported to be the great leafy fan encountered by Sun Wukong, and Maltet, a relic of disputed provenance that had been passed down by the British Royal Family before being gifted to China as part of a deal that secured a major economic rescue package for the United Kingdom in the late 2020s.</p>
<p>“Upon completion of the two Symphogear in late 2042, Dr. Sakurai began to search for candidates within China who might be able to wield them for formal testing. It was only by pure chance that she happened to almost immediately stumble on two perfect candidates following a domestic security operation in the Bayankala mountain range, including one Saotome Ranma, age 16, Japanese national. That would be you.”</p>
<p>A pregnant pause turned into an extended silence as Ranma found himself staring uncomfortably out the side window.</p>
<p>“L... Look. You accusin’ me of being a <em>spy</em> or sumthin’? Because going to that damned village <em>wasn’t my idea.</em>”</p>
<p>Genjūrō burst into laughter as he carefully pulled onto a offramp towards Yokohama. “No, no. I should say not. We know you weren’t there of your own free will. We know you were an involuntary test subject...”</p>
<p>“Test subject! Hah!” Ranma’s sudden interjection took both driver <em>and himself</em> by surprise. “You call what that Dr. Sakurai woman did ‘tests’? Did what happen this evening look like a test to you or those girls of yours? Are you testing them, <em>too‽</em>”</p>
<p>“No,” came Genjūrō’s immediate response.</p>
<p>“What they’ve gone through is all too real. And the same goes for you,” he continued. “I’m sorry if I’ve come off as a little cold and clinical here. Dr. Sakurai’s notes were fairly vague about what, <em>exactly</em>, she had you <em>do</em> before you went missing late this spring. About the only thing she <em>was</em> unusually clear about your so-called ‘curse’ though.”</p>
<p>Well, that certainly explained why Genjūrō seemed to have no qualms with asking for Ranma to be held despite being in his guy form.</p>
<p>“In any case, I’m not here to talk about Dr. Sakurai or your curse, Ranma. I’m here to talk about you and the future, particularly as relates to that relic of yours, and trying to avoid an <em>international incident</em> in the process. If the Chinese were to learn that both Bājiāoshàn and Maltet were fighting on Japanese soil, well...”</p>
<p>Ranma grumbled. “Look, if you want me to never use the damned thing again, just say so. It’s not like I <em>wanna</em> spend my Sunday evenings fightin’ a Symphogear in a public park.”</p>
<p>After a few moments of silence, Genjūrō posed a question to Ranma. “Ranma, what <em>do</em> you know about Symphogear?”</p>
<p>“Only what that Dr. Sakurai told me. Supernatural armor and weapons that certain girls can summon and wield through song...”</p>
<p>“And the Noise?”</p>
<p>Ranma scratched his head, baffled by the sudden change in topic. “Uh... That’s the weird aliens who killed all those people at that one concert a few years back, right? ‘The irregular threat,’ I think they were called. But that’s all from what I remember from school right after that thing happened. I don’t see how that’s related to the Symphogear though...”</p>
<p>“Ah, perhaps she didn’t tell you...” Genjūrō replied. “Though they can be used against each other like how you and your friend went at it this evening, Symphogear are primarily utilized for their role as humanity’s only known defense against the Noise. That’s why we could do with your help.”</p>
<p>“Why should I? You want to ‘test’ me like your Dr. Sakurai did?”</p>
<p>Genjūrō shook his head. “No, but I’d rather have someone wield Maltet on our side than it not be on the field at all. We might be good at ‘information management’ like you saw tonight, but it helps a lot more when we know what information needs to be managed.”</p>
<p>Ranma eyed Genjūrō suspiciously. “Sounds like a deal I can’t refuse, then.”</p>
<p>“No, nothing quite like that. We can’t <em>force</em> you to do anything, other than detain you for up to 24 hours without cause. And I don’t think you’ll need to spend nearly that much time with us, either.</p>
<p>“No, Ranma, this deal’s as square as I can make it. Being the bearer of a Symphogear is no joke. If you help us out, we’ll try to help you deal with that burden as best we can. I don’t know what you and that other girl have going on between each other, but you can be sure that we’ll be on your side if she comes back.</p>
<p>“Conversely, you don’t have to join us, but if so, you’re on your own. Our job is to control the flows of information related to Symphogear, and if we find that you’re continuing to get in the way of that control by attracting unwanted attention, we will not hesitate to interfere as we see fit, including, but not limited to, taking possession of a military-grade weapon illegally imported without an accompanying formal declaration with customs,” said Genjūrō as he gestured with his left hand to the pink crystal that was Maltet. “But I don’t think it will come to that.”</p>
<p>“And why not?” Ranma’s words dripped with skepticism.</p>
<p>“Because I think you’ll find that it’s really not so bad, working with us. Because I think you’ll find that doing so means protecting those you love. Because I think you’ll find that in doing so you’ll be able to learn something about yourself, free of the obligations and burdens of family and friends, even if that’s sometimes on the frontline of the war against the Noise.”</p>
<p>“If you say so,” replied Ranma.</p>
<p>With nothing left for either to add, driver and passenger sat silent for a time, the highway lights quietly drifting behind the SUV, one after the other.</p>
<hr />
<p>Still pondering Genjūrō’s words, Ranma soon found himself standing amongst a sea of government vehicles in a parking garage on the waterfront somewhere south of Yokohama. The garage itself appeared to be inside what must have been some sort of security perimeter, given the checkpoint that Genjūrō had been waved through just before turning into the garage.</p>
<p>“Sorry I’ve had to drag you so far away from home,” said Genjūrō as he locked the car doors behind them and gestured for Ranma to follow. “I know we aren’t exactly the easiest place to get to from Tōkyō.”</p>
<p>Genjūrō proceeded to lead Ranma out of the garage towards the waterfront, eventually crossing a gangplank and board a large submarine that had docked alongside the quay. Once on board, they then descended into the submarine itself.</p>
<p>“Welcome to the <em>Altamaha-ha</em>, the mobile headquarters of Section Two. Aside from where you’ll be questioned for our official report on the matter of your scuffle...,” said Genjūro, stopping in front of one of the doors that lined the hallway they now stood in. After a quick badge swipe, the doors slid open and revealed a brightly lit room with a variety of machinery inside, as Genjūrō continued. “... it features a medical bay well-equipped for evaluating the health of Symphogear users such as yourself. As such, we’d appreciate your cooperation with a simple health screening before your questioning, just to make sure that it isn’t taking too hard a toll on your body.”</p>
<p>“If you have to...” Ranma shrugged and began to undress, only for Genjūrō to stop him.</p>
<p>“You don’t need a place to change, do you? We’ll need to run this checkup in your girl form, since our baseline medical simulation models assume Symphogear users <em>are</em> one...”</p>
<p>Ranma paused for a moment before slipping his shirt back on. It still felt strange for someone to be as blasé about Ranma’s curse as Genjūrō was. “I... Nah, it’s fine. All I need ’s some cold water.”</p>
<p>Genjūrō nodded. “There’s a break room two doors down to the right. There should be a faucet in there.”</p>
<p>“Thanks.”</p>
<p>As Ranma stepped back into the hallway, he glanced towards the way he’d been led in and considered it briefly before turning to his right. For all that he’d known the man, Genjūrō struck Ranma as trustworthy <em>enough</em>; there was no way he was going to be made to do any fighting in a relatively tight space like this sub was, and something about the way Genjūrō had mentioned Dr. Sakurai made it seem like there was no love lost between her and Section Two.</p>
<p>Finding the second door already open to the break room, Ranma headed for the sink where he quickly poured a glass of cold water to dump on himself.</p>
<p>“You’d think they could do without the medical check,” she mumbled to herself. “Would make this a whole lot easier if they did...”</p>
<p>After placing the glass in the sink and drying her hair as best she could with some paper towels, Ranma turned to head back out into the corridor, only to bump into someone holding a mug of hot water, splashing Ranma with its contents in the process.</p>
<p>“Whoa! I was right! You <em>are</em> a girl! Well... <em>were</em> a girl?” It was Hibiki.</p>
<p>Ranma sighed and went back to the sink to begin filling another glass of water. “Boy, really. I’m Saotome Ranma. Sorry ‘bout this.”</p>
<p>“It’s no problem, really. I’m sorry about spilling hot water on you! I was just coming down here because I left my instant hot chocolate mix here on the counter and didn’t expect to run into anyone. But... If you’re here, does that mean... You’re going to be joining us??” Hibiki’s eyes seemed to light up at the thought.</p>
<p>“Couldn’t tell ya...” replied Ranma, as he once again tipped a glass full of cold water over his head, re-taking her shorter, red-haired form.</p>
<p>“Oh! You can change back!”</p>
<p>Ranma nodded. “Yeah, this curse of mine means I turn into a girl with cold water, and back with hot water. And uh... your commander needs me to be a girl for some medical screening or other, so...”</p>
<p>“Medical screening? So they’re doing it to you too, huh?”</p>
<p>Ranma raised an eyebrow. “Doin’ <em>what</em> t’ me?”</p>
<p>Hibiki laughed. “Oh, I’m just remembering how, after I first met the Commander when he’d thrown a welcoming party here, they threw me into a medical bay for a bunch of tests right afterward. Though I guess this isn’t much of a welcoming party, is it?”</p>
<p>Ranma shrugged. “I’ve had worse. Coulda been like when I first met Shampoo.”</p>
<p>“Hmm?” Hibiki cocked her head, curiosity apparently getting the better of her. “Is that the girl you were fighting tonight?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Pops and I turned up at her Chinese village a little bit after I picked up this curse. Apparently there was some sorta tournament the villagers were havin’ that day and Pops and I... Well, we ate some of the food that’d been prepared as the prize. One thing led to another and, after I beat her in a sparrin’ match, she vowed to kill me to regain her honor.”</p>
<p>Hibiki was shocked. “Kill you? For beating her in a sparring match? I can’t believe she’d do such a thing!”</p>
<p>Ranma let off a begrudging, almost bitter, laugh. “You’d think so. But then... You saw her tonight, didn’t ya? That girl will <em>not</em> take ‘buzz off’ for an answer. Been chasin’ me ever since.”</p>
<p>“I see...”</p>
<p>“And now she knows where this fiancée my father pawned off on me lives...” Ranma continued.</p>
<p>“Wait... Fiancée?”</p>
<p>Ranma could tell that Hibiki was about as incredulous as he’d been when he’d first heard the news from his father a few months previously. “Yeah, our dads sorta just forced us into an arranged marriage because we’re both from the same martial arts school... Neither of us likes it much since neither one of us had a choice in it, but... that doesn’t mean I want her hurt just because Shampoo has a bone t’ pick with me!”</p>
<p>Hibiki nodded slowly as she stared into her mug. “I... I sorta understand, to be honest. I have this one close friend who I care about very deeply. I can’t even begin to think how horrible it would be if she’d gotten hurt because of this Symphogear stuff when I first got involved. We’d normally room together at school but I can’t because we’re still supposed to be on lockdown on this ship for a couple more days. I was actually making this hot chocolate mix because it reminds me of the times we’d always do that during sleepovers. It reminds me of her and helps me sleep a little easier.”</p>
<p>“It must be hard not seeing her then...”</p>
<p>Hibiki nodded again. “I want to stay by her side, always. It’s... hard not to be. I’m sure you feel the same way about your fiancée...”</p>
<p>A vision of Akane’s smile suddenly came to Ranma’s mind, followed shortly thereafter by images of Akane from earlier that afternoon, snubbing Ranma after hearing his explanation for Shampoo’s sudden appearance.</p>
<p>“It’s... It’s complicated.”</p>
<p>Hibiki patted Ranma on the back. “It’s alright! I’m sure you’ll sort things out with her eventually!”</p>
<p>“I hope so...” Ranma sighed.</p>
<p>Hibiki eyed the packets of desiccated hot beverages on the counter top and grabbed one. “Anyway, you should probably get back to that check-up, I guess. Don’t let me keep you any longer than you need. I hope you’ll end up joining us, though!”</p>
<p>Ranma nodded and excused herself, making her way back to the medical bay, where Genjūrō and a nurse of some kind or other were standing by, ready to begin.</p>
<hr />
<p>Following a slew of medical tests that Ranma barely understood and a lengthy questioning by a young uniformed man about what, exactly, had led to the fight in Hikarigaoka Park, Ranma finally found himself ushered back into a corridor where Genjūrō stood waiting with yet another man, this time the suited man from before, when Ranma and the Symphogear had just finished fighting.</p>
<p>“Well, that’s all we need right now, Ranma. I hope you’ll give what we discussed on the ride down here some thought. Ogawa here will take you back home. Oh, and here.” Genjūrō handed Ranma a strange hand-held device. “It’s a communicator, in case you have a need to reach us.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” replied Ranma, more than happy to finally be on his way back to the Tendōs’ place.</p>
<p>Following a short walk back to the garage, Ranma again found herself on the road. Though the man named Ogawa had made some pleasantries soon after getting on the highway, the hum of the pavement thrumming beneath the two of them soon lulled Ranma to sleep. By the time she’d arrived in Nerima and Ogawa woke her up by opening her car door, the sky had lightened significantly. Dawn would come soon.</p>
<p>After thanking and waving the man off, Ranma walked through the front gates and slipped her shoes off at the front of the house. Once safely inside, Ranma quietly made her way down the <em>engawa</em> that ran alongside it and back towards the dōjō. Ranma rounded the last corner before the room she shared with her father, thinking about how she was going to somehow squeeze eight hours of sleep into 90 minutes, only to find Ryōga leaning up against the wall just outside her room.</p>
<p>Ryōga smirked. “I figured you’d be foolish enough to come back after that. I was right.”</p>
<p>“Who are ya callin’ a <em>fool</em>?”</p>
<p>“Akane was so upset after you left that only the presence of ‘P-chan’ could comfort her as she fell to sleep last night. Just think: her so-called ‘fiancée’ is fleeing from a girl who wants to kill her, going so far as to use magic armor or whatever that was to do so. And you’re telling Akane it’s just about beating this girl in a tournament? You and I both know that’s a cock and bull story, Ranma!”</p>
<p>Ranma sighed. “Why does no one believe me about this?” she lamented.</p>
<p>“Maybe because there are very few things in the world that might lead a girl to want to kill someone,” replied Ryōga. “And most of them amount to ‘that guy’s a good-for-nothing ass.’ Like you, Ranma, running from whatever terrible thing it was that you actually did to this Shampoo girl! It’s people like you that make me ashamed to be a man.”</p>
<p>“That why you were waitin’ all night for me, then? To tell me I’m an asshole who doesn’t deserve Akane but you somehow <em>do?</em>”</p>
<p>“That and to let you know that Akane will be mine for the taking if you keep this up. So honestly, Ranma? Thanks. Thanks for making it easier for me to take Akane for myself when the time comes. But until then, I’ve got training to do up in the mountains.”</p>
<p>Brusquely turning his back on Ranma, Ryōga grabbed the backpack of camping gear that had been sitting on the ground next to him before promptly proceeding to proudly plod away from Ranma.</p>
<p>As she watched Ryōga stomp away, Ranma briefly considered telling him that the street was the other direction, back where Ranma had just come from.</p>
<p>“Ah, what’s the point?” she muttered to herself.</p>
</div>Bookmarks2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:002022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/oddments/bookmarks/<p>Over the 25 years I've been online I've collected a lot of weird and wonderful bookmarks. Many of them were for once-offs or saving tabs from a browser at one point or another. Most have barely any relevance today. nevertheless, there lies buried in them the occasional gem from some project or other.</p>
<p>In order to make the web a more interesting place, I share the most interesting of them with you here. No guarantee is made to their contents.</p>
<h2 id="art">Art</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://anison.info/data/">Anison Generation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.effectgames.com/demos/worlds/">Living Worlds in HTML5</a></li>
<li><a href="https://anewsession.com/">New Session - TTY Real</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.urbanomic.com/document/moe/">“On the Concept of Moe”</a> by Natalie Terezi Rei Watts</li>
<li><a href="https://shotonwhat.com/">ShotOnWhat? Movies & Television</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070624223217/http://www.bewildered-art.com/catgirls/">Wilde Home for Wayward Catgirls</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="geography">Geography</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://geosite.jankrogh.com/">Jan S. Krogh's GeoSite</a></li>
<li><a href="https://maps.nls.uk/">National Library of Scotland: Maps</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.oldmapsonline.org/">Old Maps Online</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="language-and-writing">Language and Writing</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180131074239/http://www.alternative-dictionaries.net/">The Alternative Dictionaries</a></li>
<li><a href="http://fonts.tom7.com/">[DIVIDE BY ZERO] Fonts</a></li>
<li><a href="https://viss.wordpress.com/2016/01/16/the-origins-of-laphet/">Fifty Viss: “The Origins of ‘Laphet’”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://graphemica.com/">graphemica - l♥ve letters</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ht.ac.uk/">The Historical Thesaurus of English</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060820135623/http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/research/lt/projects/interlinear/">Interlinear Text Research</a></li>
<li><a href="https://arkaia.gitlab.io/www.langmaker.com/">LangMaker.com (archive)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2014/04/history-of-shavian-keyboard-imperial.html">ozTypewriter: “History of the Shavian Keyboard Imperial Good Companion Portable Typewriter”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php">ScriptSource - Writing systems, computers and people</a></li>
<li><a href="https://shadycharacters.co.uk/">Shady Characters</a></li>
<li><a href="https://transliteration.eki.ee/">Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts</a></li>
<li><a href="http://typedia.com/">Typedia</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.kreativekorp.com/ucsur/">Under-ConScript Unicode Registry</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="music">Music</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.applemusic.info/">AppleMusic.info - The definitive list of music used by Apple Inc. in commercials, keynote addresses, presentations, and other marketing materials</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.byzantinechant.org/notation.html">Byzantine Chant: Byzantine Notation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/">Pushing Ahead of the Dame</a></li>
<li><a href="http://rainboard.shiverware.com/Rainboard_-_DIY_Dynamic_Rainbow_Isomorphic_Keyboard">Rainboard - DIY Dynamic Rainbow Isomorphic Keyboard</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html">The University of Iowa Musical Instrument Samples</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="technology">Technology</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/CHU">CHU - Signal Identification Wiki</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.cpushack.com/CPU/cpu.html">Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present (V 13.4.0)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://gbdev.io/">gbdev</a></li>
<li><a href="https://xsznix.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/introducing-the-rsthd-layout/">meus recogitare et excogitare: Introducing the RSTHD layout</a></li>
<li><a href="https://tumbleweed.nu/lm-3/">LM-3 --- resurrecting the MIT CADR</a></li>
<li><a href="https://macintoshgarden.org/games/gravitation-ltd">Macintosh Garden: Gravitation Ltd.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/">9595 - Ardent Tool of Capitalism</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/TeamSubmission/n3/">Notation3 (N3): A readable RDF syntax</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.tavi.co.uk/os2pages/boot.html">The OS/2 boot sequence</a></li>
<li><a href="https://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html">Tech information in floppy disks drives and media</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/index.html">TEI (Text Encoding Initiative): P5: Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange</a></li>
<li><a href="https://archive.mith.umd.edu/tile/index.html">TILE | Text-Image Linking Environment</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn34/">Unicode Technical Note #34: Unicode Collation Case Study: Sorting French Topic Lists</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="time">Time</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://friesian.com/calendar.htm">Babylonian, Jewish, Muslim, Luni-Solar, Indian, Iranian Calendars</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ops-alaska.com/time/gangale_mst/darian.htm">The Darian System</a></li>
<li><a href="https://newearthtime.net/">New Earth Time - 360 degrees of time</a></li>
<li><a href="https://qntm.org/abolish">“So You Want to Abolish Time Zones” @ Things of Interest</a></li>
<li><a href="http://zapatopi.net/wmzcalock.html">WMZCalock</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="selected-articles">Selected Articles</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2010/05/evidence-management-explained.html"><em>The Ancestry Insider</em>: “Evidence Management Explained”</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.avclub.com/anime-was-a-safe-space-on-magical-girls-damaged-vil-1847511040"><em>AV Club</em>: “‘Anime was a safe space’: On magical girls, damaged villains, and trans adolescence”</a> by Willow Maclay and Cressa Beer</li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090704140444/http://www.digiovanni.co.uk:80/borges/borges-remembered.htm">“Borges Remembered”</a> by Norman Thomas di Giovanni</li>
<li><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/what-would-jack-bauer-do/article687726/"><em>The Globe and Mail</em>: “What would Jack Bauer do?”</a> by Colin Freeze</li>
<li><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/making-insider-trading-legal"><em>The New Yorker</em>: “Making Insider Trading Legal”</a> by Patrick Radden Keefe</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html"><em>The New York Times Magazine</em>: “The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie”</a> by John Jeremiah Sullivan</li>
<li><a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/anime/serial-experiments-lain-anime-queer-identity/"><em>Paste</em>: “<em>Serial Experiments Lain</em>: Peeling Back Layers of Queerness Through Y2K Technology”</a> by Austin Jones</li>
<li><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/08/08/remembering-richard-thompson-see-the-now-revealed-comic-ideas-he-contributed-to-pixars-inside-out/"><em>Washington Post</em>: “Remembering Richard Thompson: See the now-revealed comic ideas he contributed to Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’”</a> by Michael Cavna</li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="selected-papers-and-essays">Selected Papers and Essays</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://journals.openedition.org/histoiremesure/3942">“Addressing the Houses: The Introduction of House Numbering in Europe”</a> by Anton Tantner (2009)</li>
<li><a href="https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4156&context=gradschool_disstheses">“The Assimilation of Captives on the American Frontier in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”</a> by Joseph Norman Heard (1977)</li>
<li><a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1455518.1477940">“Data Collection with Self-Enforcing Privacy”</a> by Philippe Golle, Frank McSherry and Ilya Mironov (2008)</li>
<li><a href="https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3212&context=theses">“Giving voice to the extra-normal self with the extra-normal voice: Improvised exploration through the realms of shamanic chaos magick, insight meditation and gender performance”</a> by Sage Harlow (2019)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305748807000709">“Indexing the great ledger of the community: urban house numbering, city directories, and the production of spatial legibility”</a> by Reuben S. Rose-Redwood (2008)</li>
<li><a href="https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1284&context=fac_pubs">”Liberty of the Exercise of Religion in the Peace of Westphalia”</a> by Gordon A. Christenson (2012)</li>
<li><a href="https://ling.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/alumni%20senior%20essays/Edwin%20Everhart.pdf">“Phonological Change in Japanese-Ainu Loanwords”</a> by Edwin Everhart (2009)</li>
<li><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21796316/">“Plutonium uptake and behavior in vegetation of the desert southwest: a preliminary assessment”</a> by Eric Caldwell, Martine Duff, Caitlin Ferguson and Daniel Coughlin (2011)</li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="selected-books">Selected Books</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ezb.uni-regensburg.de/?2145218&bibid=BSB"><em>Almanach de Gotha: Annuaire Généalogique, Diplomatique et Statistique</em></a> (1821–1910)</li>
<li><a href="https://archive.org/details/glossaryofdialec00hopeuoft/"><em>A Glossary of Dialectal Place-Nomenclature to which is appended A List of Family Surnames pronounced differently from what the Spelling suggests</em></a> by Robert Charles Hope (1883)</li>
<li><a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/ien.35556012854659"><em>Cantemus: A Collection of Folk-Songs, National Songs, etc., some with French and Welsh words, suited for use in Secondary Schools, Continuation Schools, Social Centres, etc., Part II</em></a> by Maurice Jacobson (1900?)</li>
<li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oeVMAQAAIAAJ"><em>Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie: I. Band: Zeitrechnung der Babylonier, Ägypter, Mohammedaner, Perser, Inder, Südostasiaten, Chinesen, Japaner und Zentralamerikaner</em></a> by F.K. Ginzel (1906)</li>
<li><a href="http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp8/handbooks/IntroToProgramming1969.pdf"><em>Introduction to Programming: PDP-8 Family Computers</em></a> prepared by the Software Writing Group, Programming Department, Digital Equipment Corporation (1969)</li>
<li><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=bphfAAAAcAAJ"><em>A New System of Geography: Vol. 5: Germany: Circles of the Upper-Rhine, Swabia, Franconia, and Upper-Saxony</em></a> by A.F. Busching, D.D. (1762)</li>
<li><a href="https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Education/Radio-and-Television-Sound-Effects-Turnbull-1951.pdf"><em>Radio and Television Sound Effects</em></a> by Robert B. Turnbull (1951)</li>
<li><a href="https://archive.org/details/traiteznouveauxc00dufo"><em>Traitez nouveaux & curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate</em></a> by Philippe Sylvestre Dufour (1685)</li>
<li><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/THE_TRAVELLER_S_AND_TOURIST_S_GUIDE_THRO.html?id=OKAoECHHbM4C"><em>The Traveller’s and Tourist’s Guide Through the United States of America, Canada, Etc.</em></a> by W. Williams (1851)</li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="selected-wikipedia-articles">Selected Wikipedia Articles</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/ROSE">A/ROSE</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I-X">Ares I-X</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinemagraph">Cinemagraph</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar">Coligny calendar</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evenki_language">Evenki language</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-channel_Compact_Disc_Digital_Audio">Four-channel Compact Disc Digital Audio</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(moon)">Hydra (moon)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicon_(game)">Lexicon (Game)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions">List of common resolutions</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(Unicode)">Plane (Unicode)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotfindskitten">robotfindskitten</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_of_the_Tang_dynasty">Science and technology of the Tang dynasty</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph">Seikilos epitaph</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinbutsu_bunri">Shinbutsu Bunri</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shruti_(music)">Shruti (music)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassery_cuisine">Thalassery cuisine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Michael%3F">What's Michael?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamatai">Yamatai</a></li>
</ul>
</div><h2 id="other-things">Other Things</h2>
<div class="mixed-case">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/">Digital Transgender Archive</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.dogheirs.com/dogs-never-die-sleeping-in-heart/">Dogs Never Die. They are Sleeping in Your Heart.</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.freedariusnow.com/">Free Darius Now.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://vexil.prov.free.fr/pays_historiques/liste%20pays%20historiques.html">Liste des pays historiques de 1815 à 1997</a></li>
<li><a href="https://openlibrary.org/">Open Library</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040925170959/http://www.pokepale.com/">ポケモン情報サイト「palette」</a></li>
<li><a href="https://same.energy/">Same Energy | Visual Search Engine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ajfroggie.com/roads/yellowbook/">Scans from the Yellow Book</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X2308.2002B">Smaky 130 Personal Computer keyboard | X2308.2002B | Computer History Museum</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.prismnet.com/~hmiller/">Teamouse's Home</a></li>
</ul>
</div>A Patron of Potions2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:002022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/stories/a-patron-of-potions/<div class="mixed-case">
<p>Láile sighed as she stepped behind the curtains, still holding the flask Marwan had just brought back to her shop complaining of its impotence. “Another day, another unhappy customer,” she muttered.</p>
<p>For all the modest success the she’d had in opening her very own potion shop, the witchling had struggled to make a name for herself in the wider world she’d thought herself prepared for. Of the three specialty potions she made besides the usual healing and strength potions, only the one in her flask had seen any sort of significant sales: her “Best Body Potion”.</p>
<p>Láile had developed the Best Body Potion during her studies, seeking a potion that would change the quaffer’s body in whatever way they most desired. Given the relative popularity of the potion among her fellow witchlings, Láile had been certain that it would be a hit in her new home of Vindell, too. And to be fair, from the amount of Best Body Potion Láile had brewed since moving to Vindell, one could easily have been mistaken in thinking it had indeed been a popular potion, even among the local merchant class...</p>
<p>Yet for months now it seemed that just about every other customer that had left the store with a vial of Best Body Potion had come back to the store complaining about how the potion hadn’t worked in some way, shape, or form. Whichever well-dressed man it was (and it seemed like it was <em>inevitably</em> a well-heeled man) would always claim that it hadn’t worked, or that something had changed that wasn’t intended, or that some other heinous thing had resulted from the potion. And so Láile had found herself brewing potion after potion to make up for the sudden increase in failures, trying to make up for its ostensible flaws.</p>
<p>But Láile could never figure out what was wrong with her potions. She’d tried using widow’s-heart fresh from the market instead of the bottle of the dried stuff she’d been using since before she’d left for Vindell. She’d tried directing her invocations towards the local syncretic deities instead of the classical deities she’d relied on for her earlier batches of potions. She’d even tried simmering the potion for a whole day longer than recommended to help ensure its strength! Every time she tested a new batch, Láile inevitably found her potion to be stronger than ever. But no matter what tweaks Láile made to her recipe, the complaints would eventually begin to pile up, as would the demands for refunds and compensation.</p>
<p>Eventually the issue had come to the notice of the head of the weekly market in Vindell, one Marwan Presbil, who came to Láile’s store to investigate the claims himself. And sure enough, Marwan had just returned with the remainder of the potion Láile held in the flask in her hand, claiming that the Best Body Potion had done nothing to improve the whiteness of his teeth as he’d desired.</p>
<p>As Láile placed the flask over her hearth, she racked her brain for any last tweak she could make to ensure that <em>this time</em> it would actually work. The last thing she needed was the head of the weekly market speaking poorly of her potions. That might drive her out of business entirely!</p>
<p>Taking care to stir the mixture carefully over the hearth, Láile soon removed it to study the reduced mixture. It seemed to be condensing to the right thickness, and its magical aura seemed spot on for what Láile expected out of her Best Body Potion. All she could do is re-dilute the concentrate with fresh mountain spring water and hope for the best. Láile picked up a sealed bottle of spring water she had recently collected during a trip north into the Vinmar Mountains and carefully decanted it into the undiluted Best Body Potion.</p>
<p>Allowing the last of it to drip into the potion, she set the empty bottle on the table next to her and sighed as she closed her eyes, letting her guard finally fall.</p>
<p>“Oh Cetra, you most sublime goddess of commerce, bless this working and save my shop...”</p>
<p>The unexpected chime of the front door suddenly reminded Láile that she still had a shop to run. Rushing back to the counter, she arrived just in time to see a lanky, almost ethereal woman close the door behind herself. As Láile watched the woman approach the counter, she found herself entranced by the woman’s appearance, her eyes an emerald green, her hair pulled back into a dark brown ponytail billowing down the woman’s back, shimmering with hints of an almost unnatural dark violet color as it bobbed back and forth behind her.</p>
<p>“Hey there, I hear you’ve got some potions for sale?” came the sultry, otherworldly voice of the woman now standing in front of Láile. “Some friends of mine suggested that I check out your stock. Would you mind showing me what you have?”</p>
<p>Láile was taken aback by the woman in front of her. The woman’s facial features, while sharp, were tied together into an altogether pleasing arrangement by a modest, angular nose and a pair of softly piercing eyes that seemed to look deep into Láile’s... <em>No wait, this was a customer!</em></p>
<p>“Huh?” Láile asked, her train of thought now interrupted. “Oh yes. Of course! I’d be happy to show you around!”</p>
<p>Stepping out from behind the counter, Láile led the woman to the far wall where a number of flasks containing liquids of assorted colors were set out on a series of shelves.</p>
<p>“Over here, we have your standard fare. We’ve got all of the usual simple restoratives and salves, from heat resist creams to healing potions... All the stock you’d expect a potion shop to carry, really!”</p>
<p>The woman looked over the shelves and nodded thoughtfully. “This all looks fine and good, but surely you have some specialty items?”</p>
<p>“Well... I do, but...” Láile stopped short, suddenly reminded of what she’d been doing just before the woman had come to the shop. How could she promote her Best Body Potion if she wasn’t even sure it was actually working? Well... There was always <em>that</em> other potion, but she doubted that the woman would be all that interested in that one...</p>
<p>The woman looked at Láile somewhat quizzically. “But...?”</p>
<p>“Well...”</p>
<p><em>It was worth a shot.</em></p>
<p>“If you happen to own a sizable estate or farm, we do carry our Happy Harvest Potion, though I imagine that might not be up your alley...”</p>
<p>The woman laughed a strangely light laugh that seemed to steady Láile’s nerves. “Nonsense! I’d love to hear about it!”</p>
<p>“Well...” Láile walked over and picked up a flask on the next wall over. “It’s been designed to be applied to your crop seeds before you sow them. If you do that at the right time, it should guarantee excellent yields...”</p>
<p>“Really!” The woman seemed... delighted? Láile could hardly believe it. “How does it work?”</p>
<p>“Well, I can’t really give away <em>trade secrets</em>, ma’am, but... If you give it a smell, you can clearly tell that it’s built on top of a standard harvest potion, but with some extra twists...”</p>
<p>Láile offered the flask to the woman to inspect, only to flinch as the front door suddenly slammed open.</p>
<p>“<em>WITCHLING!</em>” The booming voice of Marwan echoed from the front of the store.</p>
<p>If the woman had heard it though, she did not react, simply opening the stopper and taking a short whiff of the Happy Harvest Potion. “Oh, this smells like a marvelous blend. What do you call it?”</p>
<p>As Marwan’s footsteps stomped closer, Láile found herself growing nervous. “Th-the Happy Harvest P-potion, ma’am...”</p>
<p>Coming upon the strange woman from behind, Marwan threw out his arm and brusquely pushed her aside to face Láile directly.</p>
<p>“Would you mind?” the woman asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “I’m trying to hear her explain how this potion works...”</p>
<p>Marwan gave off a loud, imperious harrumph, barely taking note of the woman out of the corner of his eye. “That potion probably works as well as her so-called ‘specialty’ did for me. It’s not worth a moment of your time. Now <em>WITCHLING</em>!”</p>
<p>He turned back to face Láile, whose face was now pointed directly at the floor. “Witchling! Do you have that extra potion dose you said you would make for me?”</p>
<p>“I... I’m sorry ma’am,” Láile eeped, “you... you’ll have to excuse me for a second. I need to take care of something real fast. It shouldn’t be more than a moment...”</p>
<p>Láile scurried to the back room to grab the flask she had re-diluted only minutes before. Upon her return, she set the flask down gently in front of Marwan, who had followed Láile to the counter.</p>
<p>“With... With any luck sir, this should do it. I double checked it myself.” Láile was barely able to pick her eyes off the floor.</p>
<p>Marwan grabbed the flask in one hand and proceeded to give it a good, hard glance.</p>
<p>“This looks just like the stuff you sold me <em>earlier</em>! Are you sure this will work? I hope this isn’t a <em>trick</em>...” said Marwan, venom dripping.</p>
<p><em>Clunk!</em> The woman slammed a gold coin on the edge of the counter.</p>
<p>“How much did that ‘specialty’ cost you?” she asked.</p>
<p>Marwan looked the woman up and down with suspicion. “Two pieces of silver. Why?”</p>
<p>“I’ll pay you this entire gold coin as a refund on her behalf if you leave this woman’s shop in peace.”</p>
<p>Marwan eyed the flask and gold coin in succession. “And you would have it this way, witchling?” he asked, staring deep into Láile’s eyes.</p>
<p>Láile nodded meekly.</p>
<p>“Fine. Have it your way. It’s a deal.” Marwan set the flask down and took the proffered coin before preparing to leave.</p>
<p>“<em>Hmph.</em> You bring shame onto the very idea of commerce. May Holy Cetra bring you into disrepute!” Marwan spat as he stomped towards the front door.</p>
<p>As he flung the door open to depart, the strange, sultry voice of the woman sliced through the air with an almost unreal clarity. “Oh, sir... You might want to check your pants. Your fly’s down.”</p>
<p>Marwan stopped, glanced down, panicked, and stormed out in a huff, slamming the front door behind him.</p>
<p>Having watched it all unfold, the woman turned back towards the now beet-red face of Láile. “Hah! Did you see that? His dick was as big around as my forearm! I didn’t even think that was possible, except maybe the one time Tutunus held his bachelor party...”</p>
<p>Láile turned away from the woman, somewhat sheepishly. “Well, I... I guess maybe it worked for him after all. No reason it couldn’t work on that sort of thing, too...”</p>
<p>Láile trailed off as a realization came to her: Couldn’t the other people who claimed it wasn’t working be lying and hiding their own changes? It did seem like a possibility.... Maybe it would be worth trying to limit the next batch of Best Body Potion to be more of a “Best Face Potion”...</p>
<p>The woman suddenly interrupted Láile’s epiphany. “Anyway, I believe you were telling me about that crop potion of yours?”</p>
<p>Without even thinking, Láile found herself grabbing the woman’s hands firmly out of excitement.</p>
<p>“Oh! Yes! I think it’ll be lovely!”</p>
<p>Then, remembering herself just as suddenly, Láile let the woman’s hands go, slightly embarrassed by her absent-minded forwardness.</p>
<p>“Er right, sorry about that... I meant, ‘yes, let me show you!’ Sorry, I got a little caught up in having just figured something out...”</p>
<p>The strange woman pulled her hand back and looked at Láile with an unreadable, but clearly affected expression before quietly following the now-ebullient witchling back to the wall of potions she’d been hawking just before Marwan’s interruption.</p>
<p>“You’ll be happy to know that the Happy Harvest Potion is the product of years of work!” Láile continued, a weight now lifted from her shoulders. “When I was studying as an apprentice, I worked closely with farmers in the surrounding areas and studied which portents and omens were most related to poor harvests. My Happy Harvest Potion actually includes a number of additives designed to ward against such portents and omens and improve the overall quality of the local harvest after being tailored to the local environment...”</p>
<p>Placing the vial of Happy Harvest Potion that had been left out on a nearby table back on the wall, Láile moved to pick up another potion on the other side of the Best Body Potion display.</p>
<p>“Now this here...”</p>
<p>Just then, as Láile turned to look back at the woman to explain the virtues of her third specialty potion, she found herself face to face with the woman, Láile’s chin suddenly in the palm of the woman’s hand. Láile’s voice trailed off as she found herself entranced once more by the soft, but clearly delineated angles of the face in front of her.</p>
<p>“I have the feeling you’ll prove to be a good investment,” said the woman.</p>
<p><em>Investment? This woman? I...</em> Láile could feel her thoughts grind to a halt, before her mouth let out an unexpected “So... pretty...”</p>
<p>The woman merely smiled gently. “Shall we go to the back room to... negotiate?”</p>
<p>The witchling Láile nodded fervently and quickly scurried to lock the front door before leading the woman to the back room, behind the counter.</p>
<p>“Ah, sorry for the mess,” she said, pushing the curtain aside and hurrying to pick up a few ingredients that were still strewn about her workspace. She then gestured for the woman to follow her up the stairs and through a door, leading to a small studio apartment that was informally attached to the shop area. Láile’s home.</p>
<p>In a show of hospitality, Láile excused herself to quickly fetch some refreshments for her guest. After filling a pair of water glasses in the kitchenette, Láile turned around to bring the water to her mysterious investor, only to be faced with the full force of that woman’s radiant beauty as she lay nude on her side in Láile’s very own bed on the opposite side of the room, admiring an empty shop flask in her hand.</p>
<p>“You know, adding this spring water from the Vinmar Mountains to that potion of yours was a great idea...” mused the strange woman.</p>
<p>“Wh... You... How?” sputtered Láile, unable to hide her growing confusion or the fact that she was finding herself turned on by this sudden turn of events.</p>
<p>The woman laughed, clearly amused by how flustered she had made Láile. “You invoked me, did you not? I simply came and helped you.”</p>
<p>“Wait... <em>Cetra</em>?”</p>
<p>The goddess of commerce who laid before the witchling smiled gently, saying nothing as she set the flask on the nightstand next to Láile’s bed. This done, she turned back to face her investment., slowly running her hand along side.</p>
<p>“None other! And now it’s time for you to fulfill <em>your</em> end of the deal...”</p>
</div>Symphogear RSX — Prologue: An Unfamiliar Beginning2022-01-01T00:00:00+00:002022-01-01T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/stories/symphogear-rsx-ch00-prologue-an-unfamiliar-beginning/<div class="mixed-case">
<p>Tendō Akane could never quite explain what it was about her Sunday afternoon exercise routine that refreshed her so.</p>
<p>Certainly, the many winding streets of Nerima made each of her runs different and exciting. Since she’d started jogging nearly two years ago, she’d practically never run the same route twice, and the few times she had, had been far enough apart that she’d started to learn the rhythms of Nerima’s seasons. She knew that Yamada-<em>san</em>, the old woman who lived a few doors down and who always ran into Akane while coming out of her gate to pick up the newspaper for her lunch, bundled up come October. She knew how the corner market, the one where she would often run into Kasumi while jogging back home, would start expanding their outdoor displays in April once the days started getting warmer. She’d watched kids in playgrounds put their coats on come November and shed them by May. She’d seen Nerima in the sun, the rain, the cold.</p>
<p>She’d seen Nerima change, too... Newer apartment buildings springing up where redevelopment had been running its course... The way those fancy transparent LED displays seemed to appear in more of the high-end shopfronts all the time... New solar panels appearing on rooftops year after year... Together with the regular changing of the seasons, it almost made Akane feel like Nerima was fresh and alive.</p>
<p>And her runs left <em>her</em> feeling fresh and alive, too, each pump of the leg, each pace helping to channel her energies, calming and preparing her for her return to the Tendō household. In some ways, her jogs felt like the one chance she had each week to pull together all her regular annoyances and stresses and resolve them with one solid blow, namely the ritual smashing of concrete blocks that inevitably followed her return.</p>
<p>Jogging, then smashing. Jogging, then smashing. Something about the regularity of it helped center her... given her nerve-wracking home life.</p>
<p>And so it was one Sunday when, after popping her earbuds out, after dropping her smartphone in the hamper with her running gear, after dressing and stacking and smashing, her older sister Nabiki had interrupted her post-workout glow to say something about some boy and... an arranged marriage? No that couldn’t be right. Those things were outdated <em>over half a century ago!</em> Still, here she was, stomping down a hallway to the distant sound of thunder, dusting her hands off after dumping those concrete blocks into the trash, quite determined to get to the bottom of this.</p>
<p>Finding her father and two older sisters already seated at the table when she got there, Akane gruffly took a seat next to Nabiki, across from her father. “What’s all this I hear from Nabiki about a fiancé?”</p>
<p>Her father, Sōun, had apparently pulled himself together for the occasion, wearing his finest <em>hakama</em>. He carefully sipped his tea before setting it down in front of him as the rain began to pour down outside. He was <em>never</em> this formal. Not unless... The corner of his mouth curled into a faint grin. Oh, he was trying to cover for some foolhardy idea of his again, wasn’t he?</p>
<p>“Oh yes, the son of one of my good friends. Apparently goes by the name of Saotome Ranma.”</p>
<p>Akane was shocked. “You didn’t even know this son’s name?”</p>
<p>“Now, now, Akane,” tutted Kasumi, Akane’s oldest sister. “Surely Father has his reasons for proposing such an... unusual request...”</p>
<p>“It just so happens that I do!” Ugh. There was that grin of his, growing wider. It was definitely a bad idea, and he knew it. “You know that fewer and fewer people have been coming to train at the dōjō as I’ve grown older. And as one of the two remaining masters of Anything-Goes Style Martial Arts, it’s my <em>duty</em> to the art to ensure that the dōjō and the art live on. As the son of the only other heir to the school, I could die happy if one of you girls were to marry him and carry on the legacy of my dōjō...”</p>
<p>Akane slammed her hands on the table, barely able to contain her frustration. “Why on earth would you think it was right to marry your daughters off without their say in this day and age! Maybe that sort of thing was okay back when your <em>dad</em> was a kid, but now? In a world where you could be one of thousands of people killed in an instant at a pop concert? Get real, Dad!”</p>
<p>“It’s true, Father.” Kasumi added. “We’ve at least got to meet the guy, first. Ranma, you said?”</p>
<p><em>Very helpful, Kasumi. I’m trying to raise hell and here you are trying to make excuses!</em></p>
<p>“Oh, yes, heh, well...” There was that damned grin again. “<em>That</em> is easily fixed. You see, Ranma and his father have been on an extended training expedition that recently led them through China...”</p>
<p>Nabiki’s ears seemed to perk up at the word. “China? Wow...” Akane could tell that the gears were turning in Nabiki’s head already. Fleecing a Japanese martial artist who was rich and stupid enough to travel through <em>China</em> definitely would be <em>fun</em> for her, wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>“Is he cute?”</p>
<p>Yup. Nabiki must have thought so, too.</p>
<p>“I don’t get it. What’s so great about training in China? Couldn’t he have just stayed here in Japan?” scoffed Akane.</p>
<p>“I have to agree with Akane, Father, there’s a lot we don’t really know here...” Kasumi, at least, seemed to share Akane’s concern... Or so she thought. “I mean, how old is he? Young men are a bit... tiresome...”</p>
<p>“Yeah, what <em>is</em> this Ranma guy like, anyway?” Nabiki chimed in. “You’ve never even mentioned him before now.”</p>
<p>The Tendō sisters’ father began to laugh. A deep, gutteral laugh. Akane knew that laugh. Her father had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and they all knew it.</p>
<p>“Never met the guy, actually.”</p>
<p>“<em>What?!</em>”</p>
<p>Akane’s astonishment quickly turned to confusion as the sound of shouting faintly echoed through the Tendō family’s front gate. The distant commotion was soon accompanied by a rough voice tinged with a strange sweetness yelling “Let me go, you asshole!”</p>
<p>Her father sprang to his feet at the racket. “Oh! That must be him right now!” He gestured for his daughters to follow him to the source of the noise. “Come! Come!”</p>
<p>Akane followed along after her more curious sisters, still wary of her father’s “arranged marriage” farce. The last thing she needed to deal with right now was another <em>boy</em> she was supposed to care about. Their constant affections gave her <em>enough</em> trouble every weekday. And this one might <em>marry</em> her? Ugh. Still, she supposed that she ought to see for herself...</p>
<p>Akane rounded a corner only to be greeted by the sight of her father and Nabiki dashing back down the hallway, directly towards Akane, chased by what looked to be... a giant panda? <em>Carrying a red-haired teenager?</em></p>
<p>“Hey! Put me down, jackass!” The redhead had apparently yelling <em>at</em> the panda this whole time. “You’re just freakin’ them out more!”</p>
<p>“Father... Why is there a panda in the house?” asked Kasumi.</p>
<p>Nabiki seemed equally confused. “Is this panda... your friend?”</p>
<p>Sōun shook his head in disbelief, clearly as baffled as his daughters. As if responding to their collective confusion, the panda grabbed the figure on its shoulder, and plopped it down in front of the Tendō family.</p>
<p>The figure set before them was a diminutive one, standing barely higher than Akane’s nose, if she had to guess. Stranger still were their clothes, which seemed to consist of a <em>magua</em>-like red shirt fastened down its length with yellow buttons and a pair of dark, loose-fitting pants cinched tight round the ankles and waist. If this was the Ranma her father claimed had been training in China, well... they certainly looked the part in that get up. Still, Akane had to admit: they looked oddly <em>cute</em> in it...</p>
<p>Baffled of what to make of such an offering, redhead and father stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. It was Sōun who broke the silence first. “So... You would be...”</p>
<p>The redhead turned her head away, her face filled with a strange, pained emotion Akane couldn’t quite place.</p>
<p>“Saotome Ranma... Sorry ‘bout this.”</p>
<p>Sōun, however, looked pleased and brought the redhead into a tight embrace. “Ranma! Fantastic! I’m glad you made... it...” Akane’s father trailed off suddenly, clearly disturbed by something she couldn’t make out.</p>
<p>“You... Those are...” he sputtered. The Tendō patriarch let Ranma go, giving them a strange look that quickly attracted the attention of his daughters.</p>
<p>“Is something wrong, Father?” asked Kasumi.</p>
<p>“Hmm...” Nabiki went to inspect and prod the clearly oversized chest of their new arrival. “These are breasts, Daddy. I don’t know what kind of trick you were trying to pull, but this Ranma of yours is a girl.”</p>
<p>Sōun looked distraught. “I... I’ve got to go lie down.”</p>
<hr />
<p>Tendō family and visitors crowded around the futon that had been laid out for Sōun. Akane’s father was clearly distraught, tears streaming down the sides of his face. Whatever plans he’d made for the future of the Tendō dojo had clearly been dashed to pieces by the presence of the red-haired girl sitting by his side, who was now clearly trying to be distract herself from the situation by fingering a small oblong pink gem hanging from her neck. Akane could almost feel sorry for her father. Still, it was his own fault!</p>
<p>Kasumi wrung a cold towel out in a bowl and placed it on her father’s head. “What a shock! Father must be so disappointed!”</p>
<p>“Disappointed? You’d be disappointed too if you found out that you’d almost married your daughters off to a <em>girl!</em> You’d think Daddy would know better than to assume his kids were okay with... that!” As Nabiki gestured to the redheaded girl with a flourish, Ranma reactively winced. Clearly Nabiki was none too pleased with the loss of her prospective boytoy.</p>
<p>Despite the situation, Akane found herself bristling at her sister’s comment. Something about talking about this Ranma girl as if she’d had any more say in the matter than Nabiki or Akane had, let alone that weird assumption of hers that something was inherently <em>worse</em> about marrying one of them off to a woman than a man, rubbed Akane the wrong way. In fact, given the way she was now even more awkwardly absorbed in that necklace of hers, Ranma was clearly not exactly pleased to be stuck in this situation either...</p>
<p>“Come on you two! It doesn’t matter if he’s a she! She’s still our guest!”</p>
<p>But Nabiki would apparently have none of it. “Daddy, this is all your fault! You should have made sure you were engaging us to a <em>guy!</em> How could you be so foolish and not check!”</p>
<p>“Well I was <em>told</em> he had a <em>son!</em>” Sōun replied, a note of exasperation in his voice.</p>
<p>“So?! Do you think this looks like a son??” Nabiki grabbed one of Ranma’s breasts, as if to emphasize the point.</p>
<p>Ranma pulled back from the unwanted attention, jerking away from Akane’s older sister only to cover her breasts. “You could leave th’ merchandise alone, y’know!”</p>
<p>Enough was enough. Whatever the situation was, Akane could tell that Ranma was about as done with her family’s antics as she was and could probably do with some extra space to breathe.</p>
<p><em>Wait, Ranma was supposedly a martial artist, right?</em></p>
<p>As Nabiki and Sōun continued to argue (and Kasumi did her best to mediate), Akane edged over to where Ranma was sitting and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, you want to join me in the practice hall? Dad and Nabiki are probably gonna be like this for a while. Might help take your mind off things.”</p>
<p>The redhead looked away from her necklace and up at Akane for a moment before nodding. “I... I think that’d be alright...”</p>
<p>“The name’s Akane. Sorry everything turned out to be such a mess. I hope we can still be friends...”</p>
<hr />
<p>The Tendō dōjō itself was rather modest, smaller than some Akane had visited, but larger than it ought to be, given her father’s near-complete lack of students. But that still left plenty of space for a pair of teenaged martial artists to spar...</p>
<p>“You know <em>kempo</em>, right?” Akane asked.</p>
<p>Ranma nodded. “A little...”</p>
<p>Oh! This could work out then! “Mind if we have a little match then? Just for fun!”</p>
<p>The red-haired girl seemed somewhat taken aback by the suggestion.</p>
<p>“I dunno... I sorta just thought I’d...” she trailed off.</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. We don’t have to take it super seriously. Just something to take your mind off whatever’s bothering you.”</p>
<p>Ranma hesitated for a moment before nodding. “I... I guess one small match would be alright...”</p>
<p>The two quickly bowed toward the front of the dōjō, showing their respect to the <em>shomen</em>, before moving to opposite sides of the room to face each other. While Akane quickly took to a ready stance, Ranma simply stood there, hands tucked behind her back, looking quite distracted, before shaking her head and focusing her eyes on Akane. Was this... a joke? Perhaps Ranma didn’t know much <em>kempo</em> after all.</p>
<p>Still, a match was a match, so Akane decided to move in towards the redhead and throw the first punch... only for Ranma to simply jump, tucking her legs in, allowing Akane’s fist to sail into open air. Since when were aerial acrobatics part of <em>kempo</em>?</p>
<p><em>“Yaa!”</em> Akane swept out her leg in an attempt to hit Ranma’s side, only to find the girl once again leaping high up into the air, out of her reach. <em>“Sei!”</em> A fist sailed into empty space as Ranma effortlessly dodged to one side. <em>“Hwah!”</em> Another kick dodged when Ranma ducked under it. Her moves were almost unreal!</p>
<p>Akane was growing annoyed. Dodging was all fine and good, but Akane had been expecting a bit more of... well, a fight. Ranma’s cadence was <em>all wrong!</em> Blow was supposed to eventually be exchanged for blow! That was the whole point of the art!</p>
<p>“Aren’t you going to swing at me?”</p>
<p>Saying nothing, Ranma kept dodging attack after attack, as if she knew each move Akane planned on making <em>before</em> she made it.</p>
<p><em>Why are all my strikes missing her? Shouldn’t I be able to land</em> something?</p>
<p>As her muscles began to burn from the cumulative exhaustion of her weekly jog and the plethora of attacks she had been throwing at the redhead without effect, Akane paused to catch her breath. Enough was enough! If this was how Ranma was going to play, she might as well give it her all. Clenching her fists to muster as much power and speed as she could manage, Akane came in for one last punch... only to make contact with the wall, which exploded in a blast of splinters.</p>
<p>A sudden tap on the back of her head caught Akane off-guard. As she turned and saw Ranma standing there, Akane knew that continuing was pointless. Ranma had managed to evade every one of her attacks <em>and managed to get inside her defenses without throwing a punch.</em> And now there she was, nervously laughing, clearly unsure how her sudden victory was being taken. She was certainly <em>good.</em></p>
<p>“Well... <em>That</em> was a match...” Akane tightened her belt and straightened her <em>gi</em>. “At least you’re a girl...”</p>
<p>The redhead cocked her head. “Hmm? Whaddaya mean?”</p>
<p>“Oh, just... If I’d lost to a <em>boy</em> like that... I dunno. I’d just feel awful.”</p>
<p>Ranma seemed to pause for a moment, a concerned look on her face, as if looking desperately for something to say. She then shook her head as if to disabuse herself of the idea, before silently bowing to the <em>shomen</em> once more alongside Akane.</p>
<hr />
<p>While Akane had offered to show Ranma around the rest of her house after the match, the redhead had asked to be left alone to “think through some shit”, as she had put it, leaving Akane to her own devices. With nothing else to do, Akane found herself wandering the halls of the Tendō home.</p>
<p><em>What a strange girl.</em></p>
<p>Akane couldn’t help but reflect on the enigmatic visitor as she wandered. As rough as Ranma’s speech might have made her seem at first glance, Akane saw a certain soft, feminine air about her. After all, <em>a guy</em> would have tried to take charge of the situation with her father, panda or no panda, wouldn’t he? <em>A guy</em> would have rushed her and tried to fight her, <em>or worse, refuse to.</em> But Ranma had actually fought Akane, and her style, however unorthodox it might have seemed in the moment, now struck Akane with its strangely feminine-like passivity. And there was that strange distance she seemed to keep, too! How absorbed she’d been in that necklace of hers...</p>
<p>What kind of a girl was this rough and tumble girl that had arrived on the Tendō family’s doorstep sight unseen, <em>with a giant panda?</em></p>
<p>What kind of a girl was this easily distracted girl who hid such strongly-focused passivity in her fighting style?</p>
<p><em>And this girl supposedly left China with this panda and made it all the way here without any issues?</em></p>
<p>Akane was intrigued. There was something strange and wild about Ranma that she wished she could find in herself. At least if she had, maybe she wouldn’t feel so... stuck. Day after day of the same thing: fighting the boys in the morning, pushing her way through the school day... for what? To come home to a father who barely kept a roof over their heads and two sisters that had to regularly step in on the numerous occasions he hadn’t quite managed to? Homework, perhaps practice some martial arts like a <em>hien</em> or a <em>kata</em> (depending on the day and her father’s moods), then bed. Every single day. Not much of a life.</p>
<p>She hated it.</p>
<p>At least Ranma... Ranma was different. If she were to stay for a bit while things got sorted out with this arranged marriage business... well... Maybe Akane’s life would get more interesting. She might actually have someone to talk to... They looked to be about the same age, after all. Maybe they’d go to school together and grow to be close friends as they worked on homework together and one night while they were taking a break from homework they might even...</p>
<p>Well, anyway.</p>
<p>And to think that the afternoon had started with her not even imagining that she was going to be engaged to <em>a guy!</em></p>
<hr />
<p>Akane’s reverie was broken by Nabiki. “Akane! There you are! Just wanted to let you know that the <em>furo</em>’s ready.”</p>
<p>“Oh thanks!” A bath in the <em>furo</em> <em>would</em> be pretty nice right about now.</p>
<p>Akane quickly made her way to the bathroom, following a brief detour to her bedroom to pick up a clean towel. Shutting the door behind her, Akane carefully untied the ribbon holding her hair back, and disrobed. Yes, a nice soak would put her mind more at ease.</p>
<p>She opened the door to the <em>furo</em>...</p>
<p>And found a <em>guy.</em></p>
<p>In the <em>furo</em>.</p>
<p>Buck naked.</p>
<p><em>Nice muscles though.</em></p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Akane slid the door closed behind her and took one breath, then another. Heart still pounding, head still flush with a rush of teenage hormones, she threw her <em>gi</em> back on and stepped back in the hallway. Everything was normal out here. No one had seen this? No, of course not. Today had been weird, but it couldn’t be <em>that</em> weird... And yet the inescapable fact remained: A <em>boy</em> had seen <em>her</em> in the bathroom!</p>
<p>Akane let out a blood-curdling scream that quickly broke into a cry of rage as she began pounding down the hallways toward the garden out back.</p>
<p>“I’ll kill him. I’ll drown him in that damn <em>furo</em>!”</p>
<p>She grabbed a boulder from a decorative pile of rocks and had just turned to bring it back into the house, only to once again run into Nabiki, whose curiosity about Akane’s yelling had clearly gotten the better of her.</p>
<p>“What’s going on Akane? What’s the rock for?”</p>
<p>“There’s a <em>pervert</em> in the bathroom, Nabiki! I was planning on making sure he would think twice before trying to peep on us like that again!”</p>
<p>Nabiki looked equal parts surprised and perplexed. “But... why the rock? Why didn’t you just take him on right there?”</p>
<p><em>Why indeed?</em></p>
<p>“B... Because I’m afraid! He saw me naked!”</p>
<p>By this point, even Kasumi had come to investigate the ongoing commotion. “What’s going on?”</p>
<p>Nabiki shrugged. “Akane saw some kind of perv in the bathroom.”</p>
<p>Kasumi’s brows furrowed. “Strange. I told Ranma to take a bath a little bit ago. I hope she’s okay...”</p>
<p>Just then, the floor behind the Tendō sisters gave a sudden creak, immediately drawing their attention to the person that had made it.</p>
<p>“Who... Who are you?”</p>
<p>Before them stood a young man wearing an outfit much like that which Ranma had been wearing only minutes earlier, tugging on his single black braid of hair. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deep and exhaled before opening them once more.</p>
<p>“I... I’m Saotome Ranma. Sorry ‘bout this.”</p>
<hr />
<p>Akane had heard it said that one’s introduction was the first and only opportunity to make a great impression. And whoever this boy... this <em>pervert</em> was, whether he was really Saotome Ranma or had just stolen the redhead’s name, he had not exactly made a good one.</p>
<p>In a strange stroke of fortune, however, as if to punctuate the boy’s statement with an uncanny sense of cosmic timing and a complete and utter disregard for Akane’s barely bridled anger and increasing confusion, a green laser suddenly lit the evening sky behind him and fractured the full moon into two pieces.</p>
<p>Looking back on it some time later, Akane would only ever say that <em>of course</em> someone like Ranma would show up the night the moon exploded.</p>
<div class="eighty-col">
<pre><code> __
,--,/' /
戦姫絶唱 / //_,'
,--,`-'
,----, ,--------, ,---` '--, ,----------,
/____/ ,--, ,-----, /_____ / ,--, /___ ___/ /_______ /
,----, / / /____./ / / ,-----` `-, ,---' '--, ,--,/ /
/____/ / / / / /__ _ _/ /___ ___/ / / `-'
/ / __.-, ,--` / ,-` _// / / / / /
.------'` / .----` __/ /___,-' /_,-` /__/ / / .---'` /
/_______,-'` /___,--` /__/ /____,-'`
S Y M P H O G E A R
_,.._ ,.. ,..
,^` `^. _,---,__ | \ / |
| ,---. |'` ____ `.\ \ / /
| '---` | ',_ `-.' \ x /
| ,, ,.-``-. `-._ / \
| | \ \ ``-., './ /^\ \
| | \ `-,--.__./ / / \ \
`-.-` `-..',_ ,.'._./ '._.'
`''^''
MAYBE ONLY THE NEVERENDING WAVES WOULD KNOW WHAT'S BEEN DECIDED IN MY HEART...
</code></pre>
</div>
</div>Symphogear RSX — Chapter 1: The Gung-Ho Girl2022-01-01T00:00:00+00:002022-01-01T00:00:00+00:00Unknownhttps://ninshu.bar/stories/symphogear-rsx-ch01-the-gung-ho-girl/<div class="mixed-case">
<p>“Ranma, if you could grab that table over there, I’ll wait here for my bubble tea and then bring everything over. P-chan, you stay here with me.”</p>
<p>Tendō Akane’s voice spoke with that certain kind of authority that could only come from someone who’d had ample experience with crowded food courts and fast food joints like the Mister Donut she and her “fiancé” had stopped at for a snack on their way home from an afternoon of shopping.</p>
<p>With no reason to object, Saotome Ranma could only nod before heading over to claim the table Akane had been pointing at, setting the shopping bags she’d been carrying for the past few hours on the seat next to her. After a minute or two of waiting for her partner, Ranma found herself idly fidgeting with her necklace. For some reason, despite everything that had happened since she’d gotten it, rolling it around in her fingers still felt strangely comforting, especially since she’d been feeling uneasy all day.</p>
<p>Ranma supposed she should have felt more at ease than she did. This had been the first weekend in some time that Ranma hadn’t been busy dealing with <em>something</em>, whether that had been dealing with Kunō-<em>sempai</em>’s unwanted attention, fighting (or, perhaps more accurately, waiting to fight) her rival Ryōga, or even taking on Kunō’s sister Kodachi in a chaotic Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics match. And <em>that</em> was just the things that had happened since she’d first arrived in Nerima that night the moon had blown up and had to somehow explain the whole “changing sex with a splash of water” thing to the Tendō family on the same night... The night everyone had decided that Akane was to be her fiancé.</p>
<p>Still, something about things finally settling down after all this time made Ranma’s skin crawl. Things <em>happened</em> to her. And when they did, she just had to deal with them, for better or for worse, and set whatever right that she could. That was just how it always was. But for nothing to be happening? It gave her the chills. Surely, it was a calm before a storm.</p>
<p>At least Ranma’d been kept busy. After finding him lying on his back staring at the ceiling after breakfast, Akane had taken the opportunity to <em>insist</em> (courtesy of a splash of cold water from the glass of water she’d been holding at the time) that Ranma accompany her to the IMA shopping center up near Hikarigaoka Park to get some proper women’s clothing for the winter. As best Ranma could tell, Akane’s interests were probably more in not having to keep sharing her clothes with Ranma, but why argue the point, especially when Nabiki had somehow managed to get Pops to cough up 20,000 yen to cover the cost of the shopping trip? How she managed that, Ranma didn’t know, and, frankly, didn’t really <em>want</em> to know.</p>
<p>Regardless of how the money had ended up in Ranma’s hands, she was now two shopping bags heavier and some 15,000 yen lighter. And despite Akane’s insistence on bringing her pet pig “P-chan” along, Ranma had managed to find a few somewhat conservative outfits which she hoped wouldn’t earn too many jabs from Ryōga... Once Ryōga’d inevitably stopped playing P-chan and changed back to his human form with a warm bath, anyway. Ranma wished she’d felt more confident and embraced some of the cuter ones, but...</p>
<p>“Here we go!”</p>
<p>Ranma’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Akane plopping a tray of donuts and drinks onto the table. Akane then proceeded to sit down across from Ranma, her little black pig jumping into her lap, ready to chow down on anything Akane would give him.</p>
<p>“So, are you happy with what you picked out?” she asked.</p>
<p>Ranma glanced at the shopping bag that she’d set on the chair next to her. What would Akane say if she told her the truth? Let alone that little pig-brain Ryōga! As far as she was aware, men weren’t supposed to enjoy picking out feminine clothes, especially long cardigans and scarves and dresses and... and... No, no, it was too complicated to explain. Best to keep it to something noncommittal. It’s what Akane would’ve expected to hear from a guy like her, right?</p>
<p>“I guess so...”</p>
<p>“Oho!” Akane’s face lit up, pleased to get a rare insight into Ranma’s inner workings. “Any favorites?”</p>
<p>Acting quickly, Ranma picked up a cake donut and shoved it in her mouth in an attempt to avoid having to talk more about what was fast becoming an uncomfortable subject. “Can’-tch’alk-eading...”</p>
<p>Akane rolled her eyes. “Fine, be that way if you want. I was just trying to make some conversation... You’d think Ranma could be a little more gracious, wouldn’t you, P-chan?” P-chan, for his part, squealed and nodded in agreement.</p>
<p>Ranma had just managed to down the spongy donut with the help of her drink when, without warning, the wall the two girls and pig were sitting near exploded into a cloud of plaster and plastic. As the dust dissipated, it became clear to all that a huge hole had been torn in the wall and a strange girl stood smack dab in the middle of it. The girl, who wore a rose-colored Chinese-style tunic and pink pants, held a pair of large <em>chuí</em>, each rod of which bore a large sphere at one end that must have been the size of the girl’s head. Her long, purple hair had been pulled into two buns, where it hadn’t been allowed to run down to the middle of her back, anyway. A fierce look of determination crossed her face.</p>
<p>“Ranma! I kill!”</p>
<p>Surprised by the sudden pronouncement from the hole in the wall, Ranma jumped to her feet to face the newcomer. She <em>knew</em> that voice. And it belonged to the <em>last</em> person she’d ever wanted to see again.</p>
<p>“Sh... Shampoo!”</p>
<p>The purple-haired girl swung one of her <em>chuí</em> at Ranma, then the other, giving the redhead barely any time to dodge. Jumping and ducking around each swing of the girl’s <em>chuí</em>, Ranma needed a diversion, and fast. Quickly glancing around the interior of the Mister Donut, she spotted a napkin holder on a nearby table and threw it at Shampoo. When she swatted at it with one of her <em>chuí</em>, it exploded in a fountain of napkins. That was good enough for Ranma, though. By the time the napkins had all fallen to the ground, she was nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>“Ranma! Where Ranma go?”</p>
<p>After a pregnant pause, Akane slowly raised her hand and pointed back at the hole in wall that the girl had arrived through. “I... I think I saw her go out through there...?”</p>
<p>The purple-haired girl could barely conceal her rage at Ranma’s sudden escape. “Ranma cannot run forever!” As if to punctuate her point, she slammed one of her <em>chuí</em> into the side of a trashcan before dashing back out the hole, presumably to look for Ranma.</p>
<p>Once the coast was clear, Akane walked over to the trashcan Shampoo had hit and rapped her knuckles on the dented lid. Ranma’s head popped out. “Is... Is she gone?”</p>
<p>Akane’s irritated face said all Ranma needed to know. “Care to explain why you have a cute girl like that after you?”</p>
<p>Ranma could tell it was going to be a long trip back home.</p>
<hr />
<div class="eighty-col">
<pre><code> __
,--,/' /
戦姫絶唱 / //_,'
,--,`-'
,----, ,--------, ,---` '--, ,----------,
/____/ ,--, ,-----, /_____ / ,--, /___ ___/ /_______ /
,----, / / /____./ / / ,-----` `-, ,---' '--, ,--,/ /
/____/ / / / / /__ _ _/ /___ ___/ / / `-'
/ / __.-, ,--` / ,-` _// / / / / /
.------'` / .----` __/ /___,-' /_,-` /__/ / / .---'` /
/_______,-'` /___,--` /__/ /____,-'`
S Y M P H O G E A R
_,.._ ,.. ,..
,^` `^. _,---,__ | \ / |
| ,---. |'` ____ `.\ \ / /
| '---` | ',_ `-.' \ x /
| ,, ,.-``-. `-._ / \
| | \ \ ``-., './ /^\ \
| | \ `-,--.__./ / / \ \
`-.-` `-..',_ ,.'._./ '._.'
`''^''
MAYBE ONLY THE NEVERENDING WAVES WOULD KNOW WHAT'S BEEN DECIDED IN MY HEART...
</code></pre>
</div>
<hr />
<p>Ranma said little on their way back. Shampoo’s sudden appearance had upset her greatly, sending her into another of her “broodings” as Akane had taken to calling them. And so, despite Akane’s prodding, she had refused to volunteer much.</p>
<p>All Ranma would willingly offer her was a vague but technically true claim: Shampoo’d been compelled to commit an honor killing to regain face with her people after Ranma had bested her in some martial arts contest in her home village. Ranma supposed that even <em>that</em> must have sounded patently absurd to Akane, given that she’d simply dropped the matter entirely after Ranma had continued to insist it was true.</p>
<p>If she were to tell Akane the <em>whole</em> truth? No, no. That wouldn’t work at all. Akane would never believe her.</p>
<p>But then again, if Shampoo was already here in Tōkyō, that might not matter. Ranma supposed that it all depended on what Shampoo would do now that she’d followed Ranma all the way to Nerima. That worried her. She’d already had to explain to the assistant manager of the Mister Donut that she didn’t know Shampoo and couldn’t pay any damages, besides. And she didn’t want to <em>begin</em> to think what Nabiki might ask of her to help cover house repairs if Shampoo stayed in town.</p>
<p>Well, she’d just have to deal with it if it came to that. As always. Akane and the others would have no choice but to believe her if things went as badly as Ranma feared they might. But, with any luck, perhaps she’d get a few days before she ran into Shampoo again. Just enough time to come up with a plan...</p>
<p>By the time the two had arrived back at the Tendō household, Ranma had very nearly put the Shampoo incident out of mind. Informed by Kasumi that the <em>furo</em> had already been drawn for the evening (something, apparently, about an accident with a burst hose in the garden), Ranma quickly tossed her shopping bags into a corner of the room in which she and her father had been staying since they’d first arrived and made her way to the bathroom to change back into a guy before dinner.</p>
<p>After disrobing, removing her necklace, and placing the latter with her clean clothes, Ranma quickly washed up before sinking into the <em>furo</em>. As she did, Ranma found that his thoughts once more drifted to Shampoo. What <em>could</em> he do when Shampoo popped up again? It wasn’t like he had the advantage of being on the move any more. He’d have to figure something else out... Something that would send her far, far away from Japan. Far away from <em>him.</em> Things were hard enough without her hanging around trying to kill him. Things were hard enough without having to explain <em>the singing, too.</em></p>
<p>After spending enough time wrangling his thoughts, Ranma climbed out of the <em>furo</em>, dried off, and put on a set of fresh clothes, men’s this time. At least he probably wouldn’t have to deal with Shampoo again just <em>yet.</em> Tōkyō was a big city, after all.</p>
<p>And so it was that Ranma entered the Tendō family dining room only to see the purple-haired girl in question sitting at the table, quietly sipping some tea while the eldest Tendō daughter, Kasumi, was laying out place settings. “Oh, Ranma! You’ve got a guest! She just arrived with your father and says she’s been looking for you...”</p>
<p>Ranma glared at the giant panda who was laying on the floor between them, clearly sweating bullets. Noting Ranma’s irritation, the panda hastily penned and held up a sign: <em>I didn’t invite her, I swear.</em></p>
<p>“Thanks a lot, old man,” whispered Ranma. So much for a few days.</p>
<p>“Ranma?” Kasumi’s casual mention of the name had clearly grabbed the attention of Shampoo, who had now sprung to her feet. She turned to take a good look at Ranma, leaning in to study him closely.</p>
<p>“You are Ranma?” she asked, apparently unsure of his identity. She glanced at his chest and prodded it a few times, before sitting back down to her tea once more, visibly deflated. “Not my Ranma. Is man. My Ranma is girl.”</p>
<p>Half-relieved that Shampoo had not immediately recognized him in his male form, Ranma chuckled nervously. “Ha... Haha. Yeah, that’s me. Just a normal guy, that’s all!”</p>
<p>“Oh, so she’s never met the male Ranma, has she?” said Ryōga, joining the conversation halfway through with a smirk. Given the towel and shampoo Ryōga was holding, Ranma could only assume that “P-chan” had decided to take a soak in the <em>furo</em> just after Ranma had gotten out.</p>
<p>“Oh, Ryōga! Where’d you come from?” Evidently Akane had also come to join the growing hubbub in the dining room, and, given the way she was so overtly giving Ranma the cold shoulder again, was clearly irritated by the reappearance of the purple-haired Chinese girl.</p>
<p>“Since when do ya know which Ranmas she’s seen, ‘P-chan’?” asked Ranma, the pig’s name dripping with every drop of contempt he could muster.</p>
<p>Ryōga scoffed and grabbed a mop bucket that Kasumi must have been using to clean the dining room before Shampoo’s sudden arrival. “You sure you want to be bringing <em>that</em> up right this minute?” A devilish grin crossed his face. A <em>horrible, no-good</em> grin. “I mean, this Shampoo girl seems to have come all this way to find a <em>girl...</em> and it seems to me that maybe you should be taking care of that <em>first!</em>”</p>
<p>Lost Boy then proceeded to let bucket fly, dousing Ranma head-to-toe with cold, soapy water.</p>
<p>“What didja have to go and do that for?” she sputtered.</p>
<p>Ryōga ignored her.</p>
<p>“Hey, Shampoo, was it? Is <em>this</em> your Ranma?” he asked, gesturing to the redhead.</p>
<p>Looking up once more from her tea, Shampoo’s eyes seemed to suddenly shine with a fierce intensity when she saw the boy-turned-girl. “Ranma! Found you! You die! Here! Now!”</p>
<p>Suddenly, without warning, Shampoo began to sing along to a strange melody as a pink crystal dangling from a hitherto unseen necklace hanging around her neck began to resonate with a strange light...</p>
<p><em>“Reisen Bājiāoshàn teios tron...”</em></p>
<p>Shit. Shitshitshitshit.</p>
<p>A pair of glowing yellow energy rings began to circle Shampoo as she floated in the air for a few seconds. Without warning, goldenrod-colored armor with lime green accents seemed to blink into existence around her torso, replacing the simple pink clothes that she’d been wearing mere moments before. Similarly colored headgear adorned her head, featuring a pair of chunky horn-like protrusions covering each ear. Most notable, however, were the pair of yellow and green fan-like paddles that had suddenly appeared in mid-air, floating their way into each of Shampoo’s open hands. Once they were firmly in hand, the room suddenly erupted in a bright light, briefly blinding all who were present.</p>
<p>By the time the bright light had faded, however, Ranma had already bounded over the walls of the Tendō compound, and was moving fast. Shampoo quickly followed after her, clearly unwilling to lose track of her target again.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>Oh crap. Oh shit.</em></p>
<p>Of <em>course</em> Shampoo would be willing to go all out in the middle of Tōkyō. It’s not like she’d hesitated any of the other times she’d come at Ranma. Still, Ranma felt a strange duty to do something, <em>anything,</em> to avoid causing any <em>more</em> damage than she knew was likely to happen given the circumstances.</p>
<p>Dashing along the Nerima rooftops, Ranma cursed her dad once more. Why’d the old man have to bring her to a city where all the buildings were crammed together like this? Where the heck was she supposed to find enough open space to... Of course! Hikarigaoka Park! <em>Thank you, Akane...</em></p>
<p>If Shampoo was going to demand a fight right here and now, then the least Ranma could do is hold it somewhere that would be less likely to accidentally involve other people, and Ranma figured the large park out behind the IMA shopping center that Akane and Ranma had been to earlier in the day would do nicely. It might require a few minutes of hauling butt to get there, but she could handle it. At least the faint sound of Shampoo’s singing behind her let her know how much distance she’d left between them.</p>
<p>Before long, Ranma had spotted the opening in the endless ocean of rooftops that marked the edge of the park. Upon reaching it, she sprinted onwards into the park until, arriving at a baseball field somewhere in its middle, Ranma stopped running and turned to face her pursuer. “Why can’t ya just leave me alone!”</p>
<p>Shampoo either didn’t hear Ranma or didn’t care, as she immediately swung her fans at Ranma, the sharp edge of each slicing cleanly through the space in which Ranma had been standing mere moments earlier, having quickly leapt out of the way when she saw Shampoo beginning her lunge.</p>
<p>Well, if Shampoo wanted a fight, then Ranma would have to give her one. So Ranma let the strange words deep in her heart once again fill her mouth with song.</p>
<p><em>“Balitzal vascen Maltet tron...”</em></p>
<hr />
<p>A chime seemed to ring somewhere deep inside Ranma’s mind as she felt a now-familiar raging blast of wind surround her body before being pushed away by a soothing warmth that began to envelop and circle her body instead. The warmness was accompanied by a strange buzzing sensation, a series of pulsing vibrations that seemed to come as much from the gem that hung around her neck as from inside her own head, vibrations which soon resolved themselves into what could only be described as <em>music.</em></p>
<p>The warmth that flowed around her began to pool deep within her as harmonies and rhythm grew louder, each gradually filling her up in its own indescribable way, until the warmth burst out into sudden movement. It pulled and pushed at her body, contorting it like the invisible strings of a marionette, pressing her as if to dance for an unseen audience.</p>
<p>And still the music grew within her, the rhythmic beat of the song calling out, demanding her uncomfortable attention.</p>
<p>Ranma could feel the overflowing warmth pulling things from Elsewhere and draping them on her body, as if some unknowable being was playing with it like a doll. A form-fitting body suit clinging to her skin. Headgear snapping together around her ears. Pieces of armor clicking into place around her arms and waist. And still the music grew within her, the melody crying out for an instrument to start playing its notes.</p>
<p>Her notes.</p>
<p>Her voice.</p>
<p>Again the pull of the invisible, warm strings called to Ranma, this time an unwinding. The overflowing energy flowed again into and through her, pulling her down to the ground, pivoting and twisting her body as it did. Her hands found sudden grip around the long, two-handed handle of a naginata as she caught her breath and once again opened her eyes towards her foe, ready to fight.</p>
<hr />
<p>Shampoo struck first, before Ranma had gotten a chance to regain her bearings following her transformation. The Chinese girl swung her razor-bladed fans at Ranma, who only just blocked them with the <em>ebu</em> of her naginata, the staff ringing from the blow. Ranma dug her heels into the ground, barely yielding before pushing Shampoo back off her and leaping back onto the pitcher’s mound to create more space between the two. As she did, she found her voice ringing out in song...</p>
<div class="lyrics-ja">
高い空を鳥になって飛びたい<br/>
遙か遠い希望を目指して
</div>
<div class="lyrics-en">
Were I only a bird, flying high in the sky,<br/>
On my way surely, to some distant hope...
</div>
<p>Having succeeded in putting some distance between her and Shampoo, Ranma readied and lowered her weapon, preparing to thrust it at the purple-haired girl if she made another move towards Ranma.</p>
<p>“Go back to China, ya loon! Leave me alone!”</p>
<p>Shampoo shook her head and returned to a ready stance. “Nǚjié-zú law clear: Cannot rest until Ranma <em>dead!</em>” With that proclamation, the Amazon took a flying leap and proceeded to flip head over heels, aiming the bladed edge of her fans downward, directly at Ranma, who managed to roll out of the way of Shampoo’s attack in the nick of time.</p>
<div class="lyrics-ja">
見下ろしたら小さな自分がいて<br/>
ただ、がむしゃら生きてるだろうか...
</div>
<div class="lyrics-en">
If I saw my tiny self down there below,<br/>
Would I think that <em>that</em> me was carelessly free?
</div>
<p>Ranma’s lyrics came effortlessly as she stood back up and swung her naginata around, <em>muni</em> first, hoping to cut Shampoo’s legs out from under her with the back side of the blade. By the time she had brought her naginata around, however, Shampoo had again somersaulted, this time over her fans which had embedded themselves in the pitcher’s mound. In so doing, Shampoo managed to pull them free from the ground and kept clear of Ranma’s swinging blade.</p>
<p>The momentum of the fight having again returned to Shampoo, the Amazon leapt once more in the air. Unlike her previous attack, however, she moved to swat at Ranma with the flat side of one of her fans...</p>
<div class="attack-bajiaoshan"><ruby>手到擒来 <rt>The Hand Reaches, The Catch Comes</rt></ruby></div>
<p>...which suddenly expanded to the size of a small car before striking the ground below, raising a big dust cloud from the now-gouged-out pitcher’s mound. As the dust dispersed, however, it became clear that Ranma had once again managed to narrowly avoid getting hit by diving out of the way of Shampoo’s attack. Standing back up, Ranma steadied herself and tried to take stock of the situation. They were getting nowhere fast. She’d need to rely on something else to regain the advantage.</p>
<p>After quickly looking around the park for options, Ranma decided to fall back towards a playground area. While the densely packed playground equipment wouldn’t make it easy for Ranma to handle her naginata, she figured that it would be even harder for Shampoo, whose wild, two-handed attacks required even more space. Sure, the playground might end up a casualty of their fight, but it might just give Ranma the edge she needed.</p>
<p>“Ranma cannot escape!” Shampoo’s halting Japanese echoed across the park as Ranma backed towards one of the slides in the playground. Shampoo happily pressed her advantage, her opponent apparently on the back foot. It wasn’t until Ranma had climbed atop the elephant-shaped slide at the center of the playground that Shampoo had realized her mistake: atop the slide, Ranma now had the better reach. Ranma again swung her naginata back-side first, this time at Shampoo’s torso, as she continued to sing loud and clear.</p>
<div class="lyrics-ja">
こんな風に今を 見つめる事出来るなら<br/>
傷つく事もなく 明日も怖くない
</div>
<div class="lyrics-en">
Looking at the present, in that certain way,<br/>
Nothing known to harm me, future fears will fade.
</div>
<p>Crossing both fans in front of her in a kind of protective stance, the Chinese girl barely managed to block Ranma’s polearm. Even so, the momentum of its blade succeeded in pushing Shampoo back several feet, the blow of the <em>habu</em> causing her to stumble and fall to the ground. Sensing an opening, Ranma half-slid, half-skidded down the slide, swinging the butt end of her naginata at Shampoo’s fans in an attempt to knock them out of her hands.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, while the high ground had kept Ranma safe, it had also left enough space between the two for Shampoo to get out of the way of Ranma’s attack in the time it had taken Ranma to close it. With no resistance to stop it, Ranma’s <em>ishizuki</em> swung into the supports for a nearby swing set, the butt of her naginata denting the swings badly and sending a sharp jolt back up the weapon into her arms. The playground was definitely too cluttered to be fighting in for too much longer.</p>
<p>Worse still, with her hands now freed from the earlier block, the purple-haired girl again lunged at Ranma, parrying her naginata with one hand while swinging at her chest with the other, leaving the redhead no time for anything other than to lean back as much as she could to avoid the worst of the fan blades. But as the fan glanced off Ranma’s chestplate, she saw an opening.</p>
<div class="lyrics-ja">
風に乗って夢の彼方へ飛んで行きたい<br/>
勇気と言う翼を付けて
</div>
<div class="lyrics-en">
Riding on the winds, I want to fly beyond my dreams,<br/>
Wings of courage fixed upon my back.
</div>
<p>Using Shampoo’s parry to her advantage, Ranma countered mid-chorus by swinging her naginata around to hit the Chinese girl from the opposite side, which had been left open by the fan that glanced off Ranma’s chestplate. With nothing in the way to block it, the blow easily sent Shampoo sailing into a nearby tree, which proceeded to crack in two.</p>
<p>Shampoo pulled herself out of the crack in the tree trunk and steadied herself. As she readied her twin fans once more, Ranma could tell that she was only a little worse for the wear.</p>
<p>“Ranma must do more than that to stop justice of Nǚjié-zú!”</p>
<p>Using the tree trunk as make-shift launching pad, Shampoo sprang back towards Ranma, swinging her fans across each other in an x-shaped, cross-cutter movement. As the playground equipment still hemmed her in, Ranma could only dive to the ground, allowing the purple-haired girl to sail overhead and forcing her to stop herself on the far side of the playground. With her enemy again on the backfoot, Ranma stood back up quickly and rushed Shampoo, who was still trying to regain her balance from having had to unexpectedly break her leap with her feet instead of her hands.</p>
<div class="lyrics-ja">
鳥になって見下ろす心、持ち続けたい<br/>
リアルな日々に負けないよう...
</div>
<div class="lyrics-en">
Yes, I want to be a bird, one free to look upon my heart,<br/>
Never giving in, not to my ordinary days...
</div>
<p>Her song’s chorus quickly reaching its climax, Ranma swung her <em>ishizuki</em> again at Shampoo, this time from high above her head. As it did, back end of Ranma’s <em>ebu</em> seemed to grow in size and length to the size of a moderate sized tree-branch, while the end-cap itself bulged out into what looked vaguely like a large, rotating gear with etchings of vines and leaves on each tooth. In one wide and fast movement, Ranma’s <em>ishizuki</em> came in to make contact...</p>
<div class="attack-maltet">Frappe de Broussin</div>
<p>only to catch unexpectedly in the hands of a girl in an orange outfit.</p>
<p>No... A girl in an orange and white Symphogear like that of Ranma and Shampoo‽</p>
<p>Standing between the two, a short-haired brunette in the orange Symphogear seemed to strain against Ranma’s naginata, struggling to hold it steady, yet keeping it firmly away from Shampoo, with only the power of her bare hands holding it back.</p>
<p>Straining to hold the fight at bay, the newcomer’s mousy voice rang out clearly to both Ranma and Shampoo. “I may not have a clue what’s going on here, but I, Tachibana Hibiki, am not going to let you two ruin any more kids’ playdates!”</p>
</div>