Chapter 1

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Hey so there is the light novel out called tate no yuusha no nariagari and it is a really good really fun read and I found myself wondering what would happen if Ranma had been sucked into it as the main character .

If you want to read the light novel go to Baka Tsuki they have a good chunk of it up and translated.

so without further ado behold Ranma Of The Shield

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"Ranma You Jerk!" Akane howled.

Crap, he thought, flinching slightly as a mallet rocketed towards his head. What the hell had he done now? Granted most of the time this happened he was usually saying something stupid and insensitive. Of course it was his opinion that being hit in the head for an insensitive word was a bit much. Any normal person would have died instantly from the blunt force trauma of her blow. She might not have been in the same level as him or Ryoga or even Shampoo, but her strength was close.

But seriously, what the hell had he done? He was reading a freaking book for crying out loud, The Weapons of the Four Saints, author unknown. He was literally just sitting there with his mouth closed. The book was just starting with a prophecy about four heroes who would save the world and the weapons they would use, the sword, the lance, the bow, and the shield.

"This author must have had strange ideas about martial arts to consider a Shield a weapon," he thought. Within the Anything Goes style anything could be a weapon but few other styles considered the shield a weapon in its own right.

*BLAM*

The hammer smashed into his temple and he vaguely heard the girl yelling at him about reading perverted literature. "What!" he yelled back as he reached the peak of his five hundred foot climb. Why would she think that?

The book in his hand opened to black pages, "Well that's a waste," he thought, "I was kind of looking forward too...wait, is the black page expanding?"

His danger senses started buzzing as he felt the unmistakable sensation of magic, gods know he had enough life experience with the stuff to notice the way it felt. But currently flying as he was and about to begin a long, eventually painful, descent to earth, he was in no good position to do anything about it. He crossed his arms defensively, letting go of the book.

The blankness expanded and he was about a foot into his descent when his ass hit marble. His entire body stiffened in shock at the unexpected stop to his descent. He was up on his feet instantly barely avoiding falling over from the disorientation. He was standing in a throne room, just like some of those foreign history texts described. The floor was marble with a red carpet that led forward. There were twelve pillars supporting the room with banners hanging from them majestically. Around him were several men in long robes and more than a few men in armor armed with spears.

Instinct instilled into his core centered his body's stance, his arms raised in preparation for combat. That was when he saw his right arm, OK his day was officially off kilter now. Sudden magic he could deal with. Fiancée kidnapping demigods were par for the course now-a-days, along with a certain forever lost boy demanding a fight, when he wasn't too busy bathing with Akane as P-chan. But finding a shield that had not been there before, and what's more to find it fused to his arm, that was really weird. He shook his arm a little and confirmed his observation about trying to remove it and whirled about moving the shield defensively.

There were three other people standing there, one of which held a sword in his hands looking somewhat confused. He was perhaps near the same age as Ranma with dark black hair that gave him a Bishōnen look that many girls found attractive. He wore a dark jacket and black turtleneck along with dark colored slacks. The sword in his hand was ornate with a blue gem at its hilt and gold trim and outlines along the blade, shaft and hilt. Strangely Ranma noted the boy's eyes matched the gem in his blade.

Next to him was a smiling lightly blonde haired boy who did not look put out by his current situation. He was slightly taller than then the dark haired sword user and wore a uniform similar to the upper class high school students that Ranma had seen. Across his back was a bow with inlay similar to the sword but with a yellow gem fused into its core. Like the other boy beside him his eyes were an unnatural yellow matching the gem in the bow.

The third boy was taller than all of them, looking closer to an adult than a teen. His hair was longer than normal hanging about him in a playboy style. He seemed quite calm about the situation and had a gold inlaid spear with a red gem at the base of the head. And like the other two his eyes matched the gem's color.

Ranma risked a glance down at the shield now attached to his arm, it was in the medieval French style with a wide top, thick center, and a pointed end. Strangely the way the shield was positioned on his hand was awkward. It would be really easy to punch something with it but to use it for defense he would have to treat it like part of his arm. Which strangely worked well, if it came to a fight his arm was now a much better defensive object. Speaking of objects the shield was inlay with gold like the rest of the weapons here. Its ends were outlined in black with two lines going horizontally out to almost surrounded a large palm sized green gem. The marble floor was polished to shine and in its reflection Ranma could see his own eyes, no longer blue but green as the gem on this weapon.

Quietly so no one could hear he muttered, "What the fuck?"

The boys behind him were talking calmly as if this was just an everyday occurrence and not a sudden shift of reality. A man approached them, he wore robes similar to the men around them but his head was uncovered and a circlet of gold was around his brow. "Hero saints of old" he said loudly and dramatically.

"Please don't say it" Ranma thought, suddenly understanding a bit about his situation. If the words he expected were coming he was not going to be able to do the sensible thing and find out how to get home as quickly as possible.

"Please save our world!"

Ranma face palmed and groaned, "Crap."

The man speaking to him seemed either not to see him or just ignored his actions, "While I'm certain you are all very taken aback by your circumstances time runs short for us. Within our country of Melromarc vicious demons in large numbers have crawled out from a materialized dimensional crack and are exposing everyone to great danger!" The man took a breath and continued, "Our countries knights and adventures barely managed to eliminate the first wave of demons, but the hourglass is already indicating the next wave of calamities will soon be upon us."

Ranma looked at the man, he was clearly desperate, his voice being high and strained. The man it seemed was afraid, deathly afraid of the things he was describing. "A martial artist protects the weak" echoed his pa's voice. The old man had not given him many good things besides martial arts and that one expression. In fact, unlike some people seemed to believe, Ranma was well aware the man was a terrible parent, a horrible role model and a complete hypocrite. But that one phrase still stuck with him even if the old man had been manipulating him, he still believed those words, he still lived his life by them.

And now here he was apparently summoned to another world, a plot right out of a manga to save it from encroaching darkness. "Protect the weak" above all else, above going home, above honor, above his own life itself he would fulfill his duty as a martial artist.

But fucking hell, since when was the chaos in his life strong enough to get him sent to another world!? At the forefront of the room a man sat on his throne, dressed in regal attire with a crown atop his head. He had remained silent as the man in robes had spoken but as that man finished his voice rolled over the room. Hell, Ranma thought, they probably built the room so that his voice would echo over the whole of it.

"I am this country's king Aultcray, the thirty second ruler of Melromarc. Should you save this glorious country you will be duly compensated."

"Country" Ranma thought. "What happened to the world saving part?"

"I have aid funds prepared for you. I ask that you work to your fullest," the man paused looking over them. Perhaps Ranma imagined it but he swore that he felt an instant of killing instinct as the King's eyes passed over him.

"Now then heroes, I will now hear of your names."

The dark haired one answered first. "My name is Amaki Ren, age 16, high schooler"

The bow wielding blond stated, "I'm Kawasuki Itsuki, 17 years old, I'm in high school as well"

The taller blond spear wielder answered in a casual voice while extensively eyeing several of the ladies in the room, "My name is Kitamura Motoyasu and I'm a university student."

"Heroes of the Sword, Bow, and Spear, those called Ren, Itsuki and Motoyasu, be welcome in my court."

Ranma had been opening his mouth to say something but the king had continued on as if he was not there. He narrowed his eyes but did nothing, he could feel something was off. The way the king had spoken had deliberately cut him off, and he could sense the uneasy eyes on him from the men in the cloaks. A glance at the guards told him that they were watching and waiting to move if he did something threatening. Strange way to treat someone you summoned to save you.

The man in the gold circlet spoke up again "Now if everyone could please confirm their statuses?"

Ranma stayed quiet as two of the "Heroes" asked what he had been thinking, "Status?"

"You haven't noticed it by now?" the dark haired boy asked "Don't you see some kind of icon in your field of vision?"

The gender bending martial artist felt a stab of humility pierce him, he had been so focused on everyone else he had failed to see a little floating picture of himself that appeared when he turned his head. Ok this world was getting stranger and stranger. "Now you just concentrate you consciousness on it," Ren finished.

That part was easy, a large screen as if from a futuristic three dimensional hologram appeared before him. To the top right there was a picture of him with his age and gender above it, strangely the hologram had cursed written beside the gender. Which meant this status screen acknowledged his Jusenkyo curse, especially as his gender was listed as Male/Female.

Below the picture of himself, green eyes and all, were the words Positions with an arrow next to it, Skills below that, Magic below that and Help below that. Next to that column was another column that read Status Affects. Under it was written several things: Anything Goes Circular KI Technique, Anything Goes Way of the Monkey Status, Neko Ken Forbidden Technique, and Permanent Curse of the Drowned Girl.

Ranma blinked twice and touched the first status affect. "The Anything Goes Circular KI Technique is the result of the moxibustion status being inflicted on the individual. By taking the bodies KI, save just enough to survive, the energy is placed in an endless loop within the body. After a time the loop becomes permanent whether or not the moxibustion had been lifted. This KI loop encourages body and KI growth within the individual. Also has the side effect of making one not only immune to the moxibustion curse but any curse that would sap strength as well."

Ranma did not speak but in his mind he was screaming "That freaking perverted old man was training me that whole time?!"

Deep breaths, deep breaths, he got out of that screen and touched the second one, "The Anything Goes Way of the Monkey is the core tenet of the style. It is this mental state in which the user of Anything Goes copies enemy stances and techniques. Once a practitioner of the Anything Goes style achieves this status he or she is given the first rank of master."

*Eye twitch* "I was already a master and they never told me!" he said causing the three heroes and most of the people around him to give him a strange look.

Crap he had said that out loud. Well so what, he pushed the title Neko Ken Forbidden Technique. "A ritual in which a bestial spirit of the wild is summoned by the pain of a child and enters a symbiotic relationship with the host. Warning: Only an evil bastard or a complete moron would actually do this, due to not only the agony inflicted on the child for the ritual, but the high chance the child will be taken over by the beast. This technique gives the user a pathological fear of cats, increased XP growth, increased body growth and increased KI growth as well as KI potency."

Ranma took a deep breath and said nothing pushing the last status effect. "Permanent Curse of the Drowned Girl. This is a permanent curse in which cold water changes the user to a girl and warm water changes them back. Warning: Only a deity level being can remove this curse as there are no cures, you better get used to it. Warning: Stats of the genders may be different."

"Smart ass help system," he muttered.

Above the status conditions was his name, the words Shield Hero LV 1, and the Equipment slot which had the words "Small Shield(Legendary Weapon)." And last but not least below that to the far left was a Hexagon with words written at each point. Attack was on the top, Defense was to its left, below defense was HP, and at the bottom of the hexagon opposite from Attack was the letters MP. To MP's right was the word Intelligence, with Agility above that, and coming full circle back to Attack.

The hexagon was white filled in with blue to inform the person just what their current status was. Ranma wondered if his was broken, everything was filled in with blue save for a very sharp dip in Intelligence and a dip to the half-way point in Agility. Other than that Attack was maxed, Defence was maxed, HP was maxed, MP was, Ranma frowned as the status of MP changed, a slash appearing next to it with the word KI. OK so MP/KI was maxed.

He noticed beside the hexagon was two arrows bent into a circle. He touched it and the hexagon flipped over, a word flashing over the top saying "Girl Side." Attack dipped to about half way and HP took a moderate hit but Agility and Intelligence were suddenly maxed out.

Well that kind of made sense, he well knew his girl from was weaker but faster. However he did not remember feeling any smarter or perhaps there was a joke here he was missing.

He had pretty much ignored what was around him. The three "Heroes" next to him had been talking about games or being rewarded for their future efforts or something, he had not really paid attention.

"Hey you have a shield," Itsuki said.

Ranma looked up, eyebrow raised. "Well that's too bad," the older one Motoyasu said.

"Who would do that?" the bow hero asked.

But before anything else would be spoken the king stood.

The king smiled at them. "They are many people who have volunteered to join you on your journeys, you will grow and strengthen your legendary weapons with them. We are in the process of gathering them right now."

That did not make sense. "Wait" Ranma said, he had allowed just a hint of his KI to enter his voice and the sound, while not oppressing, was heard by all.

Another time there was the smallest flash on killing instinct but the king asked "Yes, Hero of the Shield?"

"If you summoned us to fight against some wave of demons, and I assume we are going to fight them together, would it not make more sense for us to learn how to fight together?"

The other three nodded slightly at his statement "Ah were it only so easy Shield, you see the legendary weapons, if near each other for long amounts of time, impede the growth of each other."

"Their sentient?" Ranma asked.

The king shrugged "That is still being argued in the academies." Before Ranma could ask anything else the king smoothly interrupted him. "The sun is already beginning to set. Brave Ones, please take your time and rest for the day. You may depart for your journey tomorrow. During that time I shall finish making arrangements and scout for talented individuals who can accompany you on your destiny."

Well that sounded all well and nice but if they were summoning them why weren't those people already on hand? He thought about it for a moment and made his best guess, they were not sure if this was going to work.

Several cute servant girls came up to them and led them off to their quarters, the spear guy shamelessly flirted with them, and the girls did not seem to mind. They did however give him a wider berth than was normal. Nothing in their faces said anything but they would quickly look away if he tried to lock eyes with them. And not in the, this guy is hot kind of way, but the, please you're scaring me, kind of way.

The guest room was huge with three beds set up and a fourth one being hurriedly put together. Again as if they had not expected a fourth. The three people with him did not say anything, not that Ranma could blame them. A bed, while nice, was not something he needed to rest. He grabbed a pillow from it and went to lie down on the floor, much to the servants shock.

But that did not matter, he opened his status window and immediately started exploring, first the weapon. Its description was interesting. The legendary weapon did not require maintenance, and it could absorb different raw materials to grow in strength. He scrolled over to the help section to look up what raw materials constituted as, "Monster parts like skin, meat, eyes, special sections like tails or wings. Also crafting items, rare materials, hair, blood..." the list went on for quite a bit. So it meant potentially anything could be absorbed by the shield or at least it was best to try most things.

He went back to the weapon and touched the icon twice, a list of branching names filled his vision, hundreds of different types of shields. "What the hell am I going to do with all of them?" Ranma wondered. Ah there was a description, "Each weapon transformation changes the users weapon, it can grant equipment bonus, and special abilities, when the requirements are met each weapon has a true power that when unsealed gives the user a permanent boost of some kind."

Ranma went back to the main screen and touched the skill section, lots of words came up most of them things like "Medicine Level - N/A" most of the skills there had that "Not Available" symbol next to them. Skills like crafting wood, crafting metal, and various other ones. But several were much different, such as "Martial Arts - Grandmaster."

His self-confidence glowed at that statement, after all he had killed a demi-god, he deserved some recognition. "Of course" his common sense said "You had a huge amount of help had you been by yourself you would have been ashes."

"Right" he muttered, in his world he probably was a grandmaster of Anything Goes, he had surpassed his dad long ago but he was still a decent length behind Happosai. Looking at this skill list and actually seeing how little he knew beyond martial arts, it was certainly thought provoking.

He touched the Martial Arts skill, it went into another screen where it listed most of his techniques and moves. "Kachü Tenshin Amaguriken (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) was there, Hiryü Shöten Ha (Ascending Dragon Strike) was there and Moko Takabisha (Pride of the Fierce Tiger). There was more to the listing than that but there were several pages of permanent stat bonuses and growth boosts that he decided to skip them. He knew his own strength and it seemed this world did too.

Though perhaps he should branch out a little, maybe learn a bit of magic to see if he could find a reasonable way of defending against it. And medicine, heaven knew he needed it enough, granted KI increased body recovery and he had been working on something to see if he could heal others with his KI, but that was a work in progress.

"Excuse me," someone said.

Ranma turned away from the status screen and it faded back to the icon. The black haired boy Ren was standing over him, Ranma put one hand against the floor and pushed. His body flew up so that he was standing on his feet. "Yes?"

He had to give the kid credit, he did not seem surprised at all at Ranma's strangeness. "I never got your name."

"Ranma, Ranma Saotome"

They shook hands, "Ren Amaki." After a moment, "You probably were not listening but we were just discussing how we were summoned."

"Ah, guess it was pretty weird"

"Yes and it gets stranger. As far as I and the others can tell," the other two nodded at him, "we are all from different Japans."

"What?"

"We all know of different Prime Ministers, we all played different popular games that the others have ever heard of, bands, dates, years, they don't match up."

"So we are all from Japan...but we are all from different Japans...why in the hell would they waste so much energy grabbing four different people from four different realities?" Ranma mused

They shrugged, no clearer on that than he was. "I actually wanted to ask you something about your Japan."

"It probably won't help, I don't know who the Prime Minister is, I don't play video games, I never even had a TV and school was a piece of crap. So really all I know is martial arts."

All three eyes got the "Is this guy an idiot" look in them but he ignored it with long practice, he had seen it in Akane's eyes often enough.

"Hm, I see. Well at least tell us how you got here."

"Summoning, same as you"

"No I mean what happened before then."

Ranma frowned, "Does that have something to do with it?"

Ren shrugged "I don't know, my childhood friend was attacked by a serial killer, I stopped him but" he grabbed his side "I blinked once, the next thing I knew I was here."

Ranma looked the boy over once again "Is the scar still there?"

Ren nodded lifting his shirt, the scar started at just under the rib cage and went down. Ranma asked, "Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

The boy frowned but nodded, upon closer inspection he saw it "Ah, the knife went up and an angle and got the heart, then was ripped down taking some of your insides with it."

*Shrug* "I guess."

"How did you stop him?"

"What?"

"If this knife was in you, several seconds was all you could have had. There are only so many things you could have done in that time to take him down."

Ren said nothing. "You're no martial artist" Ranma said with certainty "You were probably using both hands to struggle against it, you tackled him?"

The boy sighed "I tackled him and fell on the knife,"

"Alright so how did you stop him?"

"I...I, I tore his" For the first time a little bit of green made its way to his face.

Ranma held up a hand "Ok, I understand"

The green faded. "Dying to protect someone else, doing whatever you have to do to protect someone else. I respect that."

Ranma held out his hand again and the Sword hero gave him a strange look before shaking it again. This time Ranma gave him a real shake which had the boy winching as he pulled away.

"So how did you two end up here?"

Motoyasu scratched the back of his head "I'm here because I got stabbed too."

They waited for him to explain and he gave an uncomfortable laugh "Um, I got stabbed because one girlfriend found about about my second girlfriend and did not take it too well."

"You were dating two women at the same time?"

"Um, ya."

"...I'm not gonna say you deserved to die over that because you didn't, but that was a dick move."

"Hey," he snapped, "I can't help it if the ladies love me."

Moving on, the archer Itsuki gave an uncomfortable laugh "Um, I think I got ran over when a dump truck took a sharp turn."

"So all three of you should be dead?"

They looked at each other and shrugged. "Probably, what's your story?"

Hm...how to explain that, I was hit five hundred feet into the air while reading a book and I'm pretty sure I would have survived the landing...

"I was reading a book."

"What?" they all said at the same time.

"I know. Weird stuff happens to me like that all the time."

Ranma immediately noted the sudden shift in group dynamic, the three of them had found a common bond in how they got here. Whereas he did not, or was there perhaps because of something more. "Earlier you said that's too bad when you saw I had a shield, what did you mean?"

The oldest Motoyasu frowned at the other two. "Where I come from there's a game called Emerald Online Shields. People who use shields as their main weapon usually have great defense but their low attack means that it does not matter. They normally die a lot."

Remembering his status screen Ranma thought that attack was not going to be a problem, but if it made these people underestimate him that was fine. He did not expect to fight them but who knew.

"In fact it's a totally pitiful class when pitted against bosses and even common mobs."

"Why would there be mobs after us?"

"...right, never played video games. Mobs are groups of monsters people use to grind experience."

"Ah"

A servant walked in "Brave Hero's your meal has been prepared."

"Oh good," now that he thought about it he was hungry.

They were led to a great hall where huge amounts of food had been placed on a banquet table. Ranma moved passed the cooks and then, to surprise and seeming shock of all, stated piling food on a plate. "Um Hero-sama" one of the cooks said, "You don't have to eat the same food as everyone else, we have special food prepared for you."

Well that sounded nice, Ranma followed the man but did not relinquish his plate, after all he was starving.

The meal was good but then again anyone who survived Akane's food was able to eat raw meat with no immediate or lasting health problems so perhaps he was not the best judge in the world.

The evening ended with them stuffed and ready to sleep, "I suppose its time to hit the sack. We'll begin our journey tomorrow, so let's give it our best."

Everyone nodded at Motoyasu's words and went to bed, though Ranma stayed up a bit longer going over the help section. He quickly found something very important, apparently the legendary weapons could not be used in conjunction with other weapons. It did not apply to his own body but it meant he could not use a sword and shield or any other combination. Very strange, perhaps that was why he was chosen for the shield. His lifestyle had forged him into someone who did not need weapons to cause damage.

Another important and very annoying fact that he found was that, according to the help section on location, the letters of this world were different from the letters of his world. The legendary weapons translated words so there wielders could function, but nothing more. Fun, fun, fun. To read in his world he had been forced to teach himself. His pa had skipped most of the elementary education in favor of martial arts training. Ranma was determined not to get fooled by any other written contracts that had made his life hell and would learn on his own.

His clothing had been placed on the floor and he reached down to one of the pockets. He had spent a great deal of time in China and out of force of habit had started carrying around a basic Chinese to Japanese guide book just to make sure his pa was not screwing him over when he said a word Ranma did not understand.

The small pocket guide was still there apparently unaffected by the trans-dimensional warp, the book was not going to be of use here unless... He placed it on the shield still attached to his arm and wouldn't you know it worked.

There was a flash of light, the book vanished, and a voice spoke in his head "Requirements for the Rosetta Shield Unsealed."

Rosetta Shield

True Power Sealed ... Equipment Bonus: Language Learning 5 ... Special Ability: Language Guide Book

The shield on his arm had turned into a book, and the thing had flipped so the book was on the inside of his arm not the outside. He opened it and took a look, it started with the alphabet showing what letter here corresponded with the Japanese he was used to. The book had lots of chapters that each seemed to be lessons on how best to learn.

And if he guessed right the shield itself while in this form would help him learn faster. Not a useful battle shield for sure but he had a feeling that it was going to be really important later. Too bad he did not have a comic of that American super hero Captain America, perhaps it would have changed the shield into that.

With a chuckle to himself he willed the shield back to its Small Shield form and closed his eye. People back home were probably worried about now, but they would have to wait. "A Martial Artists duty is to protect the weak." This world had summoned him to protect them and his own life demanded that he at least try and do so. Besides, he needed a vacation anyway. Hopefully this would not be a permanent one, though doubt was in his mind. After all the other three were dead in their world. What if he couldn't go back?

He swiped at the air once. No matter, he had work to do and first thing he needed was a good nights sleep. Yes, sleep and then find out how this whole experience system worked.

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well hope you liked it, have a good day, fanboy out.