Sean Donnaly was siting in his airline seat with his eyes screwed shut using a marker to darken the lenses of his sunglasses. He put them on his face and cautiously opened first one than the other eye. He sighed with satisfaction then closed his eyes again. The plane was about to take off and situations kept his from doing anything but taking a nap untill he arived at the Tokyo airport.
"Since when have we been part of a foreign exchange program?" Ranma asked.
"This is the son of an old friend of mine." Soun said calmly (for him) "Leting him stay with us while he's in Japan is the least we can do."
"Well I hope he at least can speak Japanese." Ranma griped.
"Considering your last English test I can understand that." Akane said
"Well I don't remember you acting all that happy about it yourself."
"At least I put some effort into my schoolwork! And my grade was a lot better than yours you idiot!!"
"You didn't have to fight Ryouga the night before!"
"Stupid Macho Jerk!!"
"Clumsy Uncute Tomboy!!"
"FLIGHT 103 FROM BEIJING NOW ARIVING" the PA system stated.
"Oh, that's his flight! We'd better get ready to meet him." Soun stated glad for the interuption.
"Beijing? I thought he was an American." Ranma said.
"He is, but he told me he needed to do a few things in China before he came here. Something about a scroll in the university library, He didn't go into detail, and neither did his father."
"Well I'd like to know how you met this guy's father."
Soun face took on that Rare calm look as he said, "He was master Happosei's student when Genma and I started our studies with him. He didn't talk much about it, but apparently some personal tragedy caused him to develope an obsession with learning Martial Arts, and his persistance and drive had convinced Master Happosei to accept him. But, after continuing to train with us for a year he received word his mother was dying, and returned home. We've kept in irregular touch since then, and when I learned his son was coming here I insisted he accept my hospitality."
Sean Donnally emerged from the plane and moved slowly forward. His darkened sunglasses made it extremely difficult for him to percieve his suroundings. Well,with luck he could deal with it. He adjusted the straps on his backpack and made his way into the waiting area unroling the long sheet of paper his father had made out for him. 'This better say Soun Tendo, cause if Dad's rustier at Japanese than he thought I could be in trouble.' He thought.
"So what does he look like?" Akane asked.
"I'm not sure, Oh, that must be him now!" Soun pointed toward a long sheet of paper with the name Soun Tendo written on it in large characters. The three person welcoming commitee walked forward. ">Is you Sean?<" Soun shouted in english he hadn't used in years.
"Soun Tendo?" Sean repplied as he folded the sign and moved slowly forward slowly.
A second later Soun grabed his hand and started pumping it while saying in fast Japanese "Oh, it's good to see you my boy how's your father?"
"Uh, my father's fine. Could you slow down, dad taught me Japanese but I'm not expert yet."
"Oh I'm sorry, Is something wrong with your eyes?"
"I ... uh, caught something in China. It's not serious but my eyes are prety sensitive to light for now."
"Oh, We should bring him to see Dr. Tofu." Akane said.
"No need! no need, I'll be fine in a little while. Uh, would you mind pointing the way to the baggage claim? I've got three bags to get."
Ranma caried the trunk comprising 80% of Sean's total mass of baggage to the waiting cab, then as they drove to the dojo he considered Sean. "Mr Tendo says he met your father when he was studying Kempo."
"That's what my dad said also. He told me that his teacher was the biggest deviant he had ever met, and that he only put up with him because he was a true master Martial Artist."
"You'll get the chance to meet him soon enough. Be glad you're not a girl. But I was asking if you're father taught you anything?"
"He taught me quite a bit, though we had to put everything on hold a few years ago."
"What? Why?"
"I was going to die." Sean repplied quietly. "There wasn't as much reason to study at the time."
"Oh." Somehow Ranma couldn't think of any response.
"Well this will be your room, I do hope you'll feel up to joining us for dinner." Kasumi said as she helped Sean into the guest room.
"I can't say for certain, but for now I'd just like to lie down and perhaps sleep."
"Well, I'll go make dinner then." Kasumi said walking out the door.
'Well, I had better get some sleep.' Sean thought to himself as he turned off the lights and took off his sunglasses. Opening his eyes carefully he decided that with the blinds pulled the room was indeed dark enough and pulled off his shirt. 'Hopefully I'll shift to a more controlable trigger by tomorow and I can explain things to them without scaring them to death. Eh?' He paused his train of thought and listened to the comotion outside. His ears twiched slightly as he listened in on the conversation'Hmm, *Ranma prepare to die!* *Can't you challenge me at decent hours Ryouga?* *Shishihokodan*' Sudenly the building shook from an impact, and Sean glanced around, right into the glair of the streetlight through the sudden opening in the blinds. 'Oh great,' Sean thought as he felt the change begin, 'I guess I'll need to explain things to them now.'
"EEEEEEEEEE!!!!"
"Kasumi!" Akane shouted as she reacted to the cry. She came to a stop just outside the kitchen and looked at Kasumi who was standing there regarding the kitchen with an unusual sense of worry. "Kasumi, what's wrong?" Akane asked as the rest of the household arived behind her.
"Well... it was a very big dog, it was looking through my spice drawer."
"You've got to be kidding." Nabiki said from next to Akane.
"I'm afraid she's not." Came a voice with an american accent from the kitchen, and Sean, the owner of the voice, steped out wearing only a bathrobe, holding two canesters of spice and a glass of water. His glasses were gone revealing his dark eyes to everyone. "I hoped for the chance to explain things before something like this happened, but, well I guess I'll have to get into the details of my curse now."
"Curse," Ranma said then he frowned "Is it Jusenkyo?"
"How do you know about Jusenkyo?" Sean said with a startled expression on his face.
"Personal experience with the Nyanichuan." Akane said, then stuck out her tonge at Ranma's dirty look.
"Hum, but if it is Jusenkyo, why is your hair dry?" Nabiki asked.
*sigh* "Jusenkyo features promenently in my story, but it's at the end. The full story's a bit more complicated. I think everyone's better get comfortable because I'll be talking a while."
A few minutes later everyone was gathered around the table in the main room looking at their strange guest. With a sigh, he began his story.
"Well, it all started a few years ago. I had been training in Martial Arts under my father for several years, and sudenly we noticed that some of the injuries I got refused to heal. Anyways, the doctor did a few tests and I was diagnosed with cancer. I had surgery, the chemotheropy and radiation treatments went on for a little over a year, and then the doctors discovered that the cancer had spread, and the treatments weren't effective.
"It was about then I decided to go camping while I was still capable of enjoying it. Naturally the doctors were opposed, but they had to admit that the change in my odds of survival wouldn't be notisable, since my odds were next to nill anyways. Well, omiting a few details, while camping during the full moon, I was attacked and seriously mauled by what was suposedly a grisley bear. I was rushed to the hospital, and I stayed in intensive care for about a week. Then, my wounds started healing at an incredible rate. After a second week, there weren't even any scars left. What's more when my doctors took some x-rays, they found that my tumers had vanished. A few more tests confirmed that I had gone into spontanous remision.
"I was prety happy of course, but I've seen plenty of horor movies, and I knew that the thing which attacked me was no grisley. So when the next full moon came, I had myself locked up every night starting a full week beforehand. Lucky thing to, because it turned out that I also changed on the nights immediately preceding and following a full moon as well."
"Changed?" Akane said quietly.
"Yup. Loup-garou, lyconthrope, hengenoki, werewolf, I was one now. Took me a little while to adjust to sudenly being cured at the price of becoming a berserk monster every month. Once I did start to adjust, I started looking for a cure for myself. I had gotten online while I was stuck in bed, now I got the chance to put that knoledge to good use. I started spending all my spare time searching through references to shapeshifting and werewolves on the net. Tons of dross shifted through without any real ammount of gold to show for my efforts. Then, I had a stroke of good fortune.
In a search in the University of Bejing's network, I found an electronic copy of a scroll which had been flaged because there were a few wolf symbols in the scroll. Since it was also crossreferenced to martial arts, I decided to download an english translation and look it through. Interesting reading, but it wasn't untill the full moon the next night that I knew how interesting. I had taken a hardcopy along with me for some constructive reading while I waited for the change, and I was trying to figure out some of the things it meant. When the change hit, I was contemplating the meditation techniques it described, and as the change hit, I could feel my mind riding a wave which felt just like what was described. Anyways, by studying the scrolls I was able to fully integrate my wolf personality with my human one. So now it's just my body that changes. My mind remains a constant whatever my form."
"That's the begining, now for where Jusenkyo fits in. The scroll I downloaded was incomplete, because the Library had only uploaded one of three scrolls. I signed up for the student exchange program, and I used the oportunity to spend some time in China looking up the missing scrolls. As it turned out the University never actually possesed the scrolls, they just knew about them because they were in the possesion of the head-woman of the vilage of Juchezyu." Ranma winced. "You've been there to?" Keith asked.
"Yes." Ranma said in an anoyed voice.
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