Oyu no Ranma
(Hot Water
Ranma)
A Ranma1/2 fanfic by Zorknot
ihsahakaT okimuR ot
gnoleb sretcarahc esehT :REMIALCSID
I should explain that when I
originally wrote this I did some "research" by watching the anime.
That dug up some questions I didn’t know about before, like why doesn’t Ranma
have any pants on when she knocks Ryoga in to the spring?
And why exactly is she chasing Genma anyway? In the English version of the
anime she sounds more worried than upset at her father so it doesn’t seem like
she’d be getting back at him. And there’s the whole business with the
ponytail/pigtail. In some flashbacks its one and in others it’s the other, but
the most telling inconsistency was in the episode where Ranma talks about how
he met Shampoo. Through out the flashback she has a ponytail with a white
ribbon, but when she gets the kiss of death she has a pigtail. This is so they
could fade into the Ranma of the present in the episode, but I thought it would
be fun to try and explain it, and so I did, and it was. However the end result
is a lot of unnecessary backstory.
I still think its
somewhat entertaining; so I’m keeping it, but I just thought I’d let any new
readers know that I’m covering some old ground. If you want to follow along you
can get out episode1, 7, and the one where Shampoo first appears. I hope I’ve
made your fic reading experience more enjoyable:-)
-W.B.R.
~~~~~[Splash]~~~~~
Ranma lowers herself into the
water of the furo, triggering the change. Male once again, and taking a hot,
relaxing bath, he can almost believe he is in a hotel somewhere and that the
nightmare that had been his life has never happened. Almost.
The problem is, he can’t remember when he had ever
been in a hotel at all, much less one expensive enough to provide a furo.
Ranma sighs. He is not in a
hotel. He is in the home of the Tendos, about to get engaged to someone he
hardly even knows, he will go berserk if he sees a cat, if he ever undoes his
pig tail in male form his hair will grow at a monstrous rate, his female form
has to constantly avoid being killed by a crazed Chinese Amazon named after a
hair care product, and topping it all off there is the curse itself. The
nightmare is not over.
Still, he takes this moment of
peace for what it is and relaxes.
I’m Akane. Do you wanna be friends? YES! He hadn’t had a
real friend, his age since Ucchan. That was so long
ago and it was only for about a year then…
Which would you rather have,
Ranma, Ukyo or okonomiyaki? He was very young at the time… and hungry, but he still hates
himself for choosing okonomiyaki. If he knew that he would never see his friend
again… but then maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. He came to the realization
through the years he spent on the "training trip" that his father is
a weak-minded coward who gives Ranma’s feelings little consideration. If he
chose Ukyo the situation probably wouldn’t have changed. His father wasn’t
always bad though, Ranma remembers…
~~~~[ ~~~~
Ranma and his father are bathing
in a hot spring near Jusenkyo. It is the morning after a heavy rain, and
everything smells sweet and fresh. Everything that is, except for Ranma and his
father.
They are filthy from running
through mud, bramble, and the occasional fruit stand. Onna-Ranma chased her
panda father through forest and town in the rain seeking vengeance for her lost
manhood, which, for all she knew at the time, was lost, forever. When she
finally caught him in town near a fish stand, she gave him a sound beating,
knocking the panda out, but she did no more. He was still her father, and it
wasn’t like she could kill him or anything. Onna-Ranma stood over the body of
her once-human father for a few moments, not sure of what to do. Then she
turned around saying, "I guess I better talk to that guide an’ see if
there’s some sorta cure…" Her actions were
halted however by a lack of consciousness due to the collision of a very large
fish with her head.
When she came to, she was being
carried back to the guide’s home by the panda that had wielded the fish. Once
they got back, the guide explained how the curse worked and changed them both
to their normal forms. It was late by then and they were both tired, but the
guide wouldn’t let them sleep in his shack explaining, "Sirs are too too smelly to sleep here! This one not sleep himself if
sirs inside!" So they went outside and set up their tent. Of course, it
was still raining so they ended up sleeping in their cursed forms. Which made for a rather rude awakening when the guide tapped on the
tent flap in the twilight hour before sunrise.
"Sirs wake up now,
yes?"
"AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!"
"GRRRRRRROOOOooooooowwwwwwwf!"
Once they had calmed down again
the guide told them about a hot spring nearby where they could get clean. Ranma
and Genma eyed the guide suspiciously. "Did anything drown there that we
should know about?" Ranma asked.
The guide looked confused for a
moment the smiled goofily and laughed. "Oh sir!
You make too too funny joke, yes? That one no have
tragic story. No you worry." The guide told them how to get to the hot
spring and they left as he called out to them: "Sirs no take too long or
else miss breakfast. And if sirs find pig, this one make too delicious
Cantonese style sweet and sour pork for you!"
So now Ranma and his father are
in the hot spring relaxing as much as they can. They don’t get many chances for
a hot bath. "Ahhh, it’s good to be human!"
Genma sighs
"It’s good to be a
MAN!" Ranma agrees.
Genma shudders, "I never
wanted any of this to happen, boy. It was a training ground. It was forbidden.
I thought that it meant it was only for the toughest martial artists." He
looks to the east where diffused sunlight is starting to show through the
trees.
Ranma follows his fathers gaze
and is silent for awhile admiring the subtle beauty of the scene. He notices
then that his father’s gaze is grim and worried. "Yeah, well I already got
you back for that once. Just don’t do anything else stupid ‘kay?"
Ranma starts to seriously wash himself muttering "A martial artist’s life
is fraught with peril."
"Indeed it is" Genma
replies. "That’s it, boy! We must look at this as training!"
"How can being a girl be
training?"
"You’ll become adept at
avoiding water-type attacks!" Genma frowns for a moment realizing perhaps
that he is being stupid. "Listen, boy, we got to make the most of this.
Learn from it. Find out how to use it against an enemy."
"Hmph, easy for you to say, Pandaman. You could probably scare someone off or
knock ‘em over with your heavier body, what could I
do? Flash them?"
"Yes… such a distraction
WOULD be useful in battle…"
"NANI?"
"… I also noticed that you
caught up to me very quickly. Your speed must be greater in your cursed
form."
"Yeah, I guess I noticed
that too…" They continue comparing notes on their curses for a while and
soon they are reminiscing on past battles. For a moment, they aren’t just
father and son. They are comrades discussing old wars. They are fellow masters
discussing battle strategies. They are, for a moment, friends.
Then the sun peeks over the tops
of the trees hitting Genma’s cheek. Suddenly his eyes go wide and he leaps out
of the water and into the woods, not bothering to dry himself or to put clothes
on. He bounds away, the cold wind causing him to change, and he continues to
run through the woods. Ranma stares after the panda for a moment, then gets out of the spring himself grabbing the top of his
gi and his belt as he runs. He can’t dry off without losing too much time, so
with a grimace, Ranma jumps after his father as He too changes, becoming a she.
She catches up to the panda on a
cliff. She just managed to get the top of her gi on. ~Wait up ya old fool!~ she yells as she
jumps, trying to make up some distance. In the air, at eye level, she sees a
boy about her age wearing a yellow bandana. She reacts instinctually, kicking
him out of the way so she can land safely. Once she lands she quickly moves to
follow her father who is jumping along a series of extremely large rocks
jutting up a kilometer or so above the ground. “Come back here!” she yells as she easily follows him. She
notices that her father, not used to the center of mass of his panda body, is
having a little trouble keeping balance. For a moment she is worried: “Come
back here!” she yells again with a little of the worry evident in
her voice. Then she remembers that this is her father. He’s probably already
made the adjustment to the different mass distribution and won’t make a mistake
again. Heck, he’s tough enough that even if he DID fall it would probably
only hurt him a little Ranma then realizes that she isn’t having any
problem at all. Must be ‘cause I’m still human
By now she has reached the other
side of the string of rocks and is almost caught up to the panda. Suddenly she
hears a faint splash. What was THAT? she
wonders stopping to listen. Not hearing anything else she looks down. Whoah! I’m right above the springs! That guy I
kicked…crap! Ah well, probably would have ended up in one of those springs
anyway. Suddenly, Ranma remembers something: Hey that guy… kinda looked familiar… She tries to think, odd visions
of different types of bread swimming in her head. She shakes her head Maybe I knew him in another life or something.
She looks down again, seeing a
tiny panda skipping toward a tiny shack. "Aw, he just didn’t want to miss
breakfast" She says out loud "Well I ain’t
that hungry yet, and I ain’t gonna
spend the rest of the day pantsless." She runs
and jumps her way back to the hot spring, the former classmate she kicked
momentarily forgotten. When she gets there, she pauses for a moment, wondering
if she should become male again before getting dressed. She decides she’s spent
enough time in the water and puts on the boxers and the pants of her gi. Besides
Pop’s right, I need to know how this body works. She goes through her katas
for about an hour, while the last bit of moisture from the hot spring
evaporates from her body.
~~~~]~~~~
Ranma laughs. Little did he know
that he would get plenty of time to find that out how his female side worked
quite accidentally. To think that at one time his new
form had actually intrigued him. Ha! How naïve he was! Hot water was never easy
to find, and he seemed to be a magnet for the other variety. He grew to hate
his cursed form with a passion. It wasn’t so bad at Jusenkyo with no one around
but his father and the guide, but as soon as he went to any kind of town he had
to deal with men ogling him, women trying to get him to wear dresses, and the
other, more subtle differences in the way he was treated that just irked him to
no end…not to mention the crazy Amazon out for his blood. Soon every day in
town would be filled with cries of "I’m a GUY DAMMIT!" followed
usually by a fight.
If he could have just stayed at
Jusenkyo a day or so longer he might have remembered to ask the guide for a
cure, he might have learned something about how the curse worked, or at the
very least had a few days of relative peace, but noooooo.
They had to go to that stupid Amazon village for breakfast, more like a late
lunch by that point. Ranma doesn’t even remember the name, some kind of Nuche-whatzit. He, or rather she as Ranma was a girl at the
time, was too hungry to care when the guide told her. If it had been any other
day things might have gone fine, but that day was when the Amazon martial arts
competition was being held.
Perhaps it was that she couldn’t
see the sign that said, "First place". Perhaps it was because she and
her father had been on a see-food diet that often didn’t involve currency.
Perhaps it was just because she was unbelievably hungry. Whatever the reason
she and her father ate the first prize. Which made the winner
of the competition very irate. It was then that Ranma had said what he
now considers the stupidest thing he had ever said in his life Well, if I defeat you, you’ve got no problem
right?
Oh she had a problem all right.
The Amazon was easy enough to beat. She had a lot of skill and strength, but
her technique concentrated on attacks and she left a few obvious holes in her
defense. Ranma kicked into one of these holes, sending Shampoo flying. Ranma
hadn’t expected it to be so easy. She hadn’t really been to many competitions
before and so thought that most serious martial artists were more or less at
her level, so when the judge announced her the winner
she was positively giddy. In fact, she…giggled. Ranma frowns remembering. Men
don’t giggle. Men don’t hit girls. Men don’t happily tie their hair into a
pigtail while their opponent slowly gets up to give them the kiss of death.
Back then, he usually wore his
hair in a ponytail except when doing something messy, like swimming to
Anyway it was rather appropriate
that when Ranma received the kiss of death she had her hair in a pigtail. It
certainly qualified as a life or death situation. She didn’t have enough time
to tie it off so it had come undone shortly afterward as she and her father
were running, that was probably the last time she wore her hair in a pony tail.
A blood-crazed Amazon after your life will do wonders for your vanity.
But though things went haywire
pretty fast, Ranma never forgot that time in the hot spring. Yes, there were
times when his father wasn’t such a loser. There were times when he made quite
a bit of sense, and Ranma knows that he cares about him. Still, his father is
man led as much by his stomach as any sense of honor he might possess, and
although he might actually be very clever, his cowardice cancels that out. His
father is always controlling his life…just like with this stupid fiancée thing.
Look at her! Some fiancée! The taller, shorthaired girl in the
kimono. She kept on touching his breasts. He hated that. Of course she did have
a point. He couldn’t really be a fiancé to any of them if he was a girl.
I’m just glad you’re a… girl Akane said this after she and Ranma
sparred. THAT threw him for a loop. He isn’t sure how he feels about that. He
isn’t sure if perhaps he really ought to reveal to the Tendos, especially his
new friend, that he is really a guy right away. But they’ll find out sooner or
later…
Ranma’s hand goes to his pigtail.
Today is the last day…
~~~~[ ~~~~
Ranma is taking a bath in a
rented room in
Her name was Tasuke
Heiko and she was the mother of a two-year-old and
the wife of the man reputed to be the strongest in town. Ranma was pretty sure
he could take him if he needed to but that wasn’t the point. The point was that
Ranma had a job. He was getting paid. He could get food without stealing it.
She needed someone to help keep certain people out of the restaurant for a week
while they were doing some shady deals nearby. Ranma was perfect because he
wouldn’t make any of the customers feel nervous as he was not an imposing
character, but he could easily dispatch any of the criminals that threatened
the customers. Usually her husband was enough for the job, but now gangs were
starting to be more common and her husband was getting old.
Working as a bouncer was more
boring than he had thought. Most of the time he would just try to pass the time
watching the cooks make the sushi and other meals and
trying to memorize their movements as if studying martial arts moves. Every now
and then though, a gang would try to threaten the customers and Ranma would put
them down discreetly. It was so extremely dull; Ranma almost enjoyed the days
he worked as a waitress. Tasuke had oddly insisted
that he work three nights of the week in his girl form. The waitress uniform
was a sort of kimono which could pretty much be worn by a man or a woman and
also provided a disguise that could fool Shampoo as long as Ranma let her hair
out. So Ranma had hesitantly agreed to it.
Curiously there were not nearly
as many accidents as there had been on the road. Initially Ranma was especially
worried about would happen if he became male while working as a waitress
without the dragon whisker. But he always had easy access to cold water and all
that a customer ever saw was her hair flash black and then back to red as Ranma
quickly poured a beverage on herself. Aside from her hair being an inch or so
longer there were usually no major problems. More frequent of course were the
times where he would get splashed with cold water while working as a bouncer,
but this didn’t happen nearly as much as Ranma would have thought and hardly
happened at all towards the end of the week.
After he worked for a few days Tasuke had given him a red Chinese shirt and black pants.
At first, Ranma was merely properly grateful. But when he found out that he
could wear it in both his forms and it wouldn’t fall off or expose his chest...
he was practically ecstatic. Not that he cared for the most part about whether
anyone saw his girl half’s breasts, but that often led to Ranma needing to
cream someone, which was awfully inconvenient.
Each night Tasuke,
her husband and Ranma talked over tea. Ranma would tell them of his training or
what happened that day and they would tell him of their many adventures before
settling in
"You can control the curse
by scheduling periods of time in both forms" Tasuke-san
was a thin, wiry woman of medium height, shortish
hair and sharp eyes. She just oozed intelligence and experience. She had a
no-nonsense attitude that is common among teachers and business leaders. She
nevertheless was a good natured woman, quick to laugh and slow to anger. She
looked like someone a person could trust. "At first you need to be in your
cursed form longer but then, as long as you purposely change forms now and
then, the time you have to be in either form will equal out. If you spend too
much time in either form you subconsciously seek out water. After
awhile you can go for days without changing but then you need to change every
hour or so after that. It’s like a living thing you see. The change
feeds it."
"So sorry, Tasuke-san but how do you know this?" She looked
thoughtful then, deciding how to answer. Ranma remembers her look clearly,
because it was the harbinger of the second most shocking knowledge he ever
received.
Tasuke sighed and said, as if releasing a
weight that she had been holding unconsciously for a long time, "I was
once a man." And so began the Conversation.
It began like so many
interesting conversations with the question "NANI?"
Tasuke laughed. She laughed and it seemed like
she was laughing for the first time. "What indeed, what indeed." She
reflected when she was done. "I suppose I better start at the
beginning…" and so she told her story.
Before her bout with Jusenkyo, Tasuke was fairly good martial artist himself, although his
talents were more concentrated in the occult. In meditation and chi
manipulation he found his forte. Always seeking new knowledge he traveled to
At every location he asked for
information on techniques, often trading knowledge for knowledge, but at every
location someone would inevitably mention one place: Jusenkyo. Every thing he
had heard about it was bad. It had magic though. Not just chi magic either,
real, raw, unrefined magic. Tasuke had to go there.
He talked for hours with the
guide and exchanged stories, but something kept Tasuke
there. The Guide invited him to stay for the night and Tasuke
agreed. That night, Tasuke had a dream. A girl, about
sixteen or so was running away from something. A man.
She ran up and down the rocky terrain, often loosing her footing and scrambling
up awkwardly. She ran past a cluster of pools sparkling eerily in the
moonlight. She paused for a moment as if realizing something then ran again.
Just as she came to the edge of one of the pools a rock flew at the girl’s head
and connected, knocking her into the pool. In the dream Tasuke
came up to the pool and into it seeing the body of the girl. In a sudden
movement the girl reached out of the water and pulled Tasuke
in. It was then that Tasuke woke up, cold, wet, and
female.
Tasuke Heiko paused
in her story to ask Ranma a question. "How do you feel about women,
Ranma?"
Ranma wasn’t sure how to answer
the question. "I don’t know. They’re alright I guess."
"If a man
and a woman were in a fight, who would win?"
"The
man." Ranma said
without hesitation.
Tasuke laughed again "You’ve never had a
girlfriend have you, Ranma?"
"Er…
no"
"I suppose that’ll make the
transition easier for you then. Me, I was engaged to the most beautiful woman I
ever saw."
"Transition? What do you mean?"
Tasuke sighed "Ranma, there isn’t a cure.
I’ve searched the entire world for one, and if I, someone attuned to mystic
fluxes and ki resonators can’t find it, there’s no way you will. You have many
choices but when you rule out the ones that bring insanity or death, it pretty
much comes down to two. You can either remain as you are now, a half woman,
half man... Or you can become a woman permanently."
Ranma didn’t say anything for
awhile, he just looked at Tasuke, suddenly realizing
who she was, the choices she had made, and what that meant. He didn’t accept
that there wasn’t a cure; he couldn’t, but Tasuke had
put the first tinge of doubt in his mind. That doubt would never go away. Not
wanting to think about this, Ranma finally asked, "So… you had a
girlfriend?"
" I was engaged. There is a bit of a
difference." Tasuke frowned slightly.
"What’s that?"
"Well… it was an
arrangement between our parents. I loved her anyway, so it wasn’t that bad, but
it was like we were already married. We were living together, sleeping in the
same bed, and we were close, but… looking back I wish we had more time to get
to know each other. I wish we could have had our first kiss at the end of a
date rather than… you probably don’t want to hear this. The main problem was
that I was only a little older than you are now, and I took what I had for
granted."
"What’d you do when…"
"After it happened I went
to places around the world, looking for a cure. I didn’t want to return home
uncured. I was like Odysseus, unable to come home until the curse was lifted."
"Who’s Oddypuss?"
"Odysseus…Nevermind. He’s a character in a popular story. He went
through many adventures trying to find his way home, as did I. I never found a
cure. In ten years I couldn’t find one. Finally, I grew so homesick I went to
see my fiancée. She was with another man. They all thought I had died. Like
Odysseus, no one recognized me. I had to prove who I was. Finally everybody
believed me...but then...I had to show them all the
curse. Afterwards I talked to the love of my life…For a moment she looked like
she would embrace me. Then she gave me the hardest slap I ever received in my
life and turned away. That was when I knew… my old life was over." Tasuke wiped away a tear from her cheek and sighed. "I
guess it still gets me even now."
Ranma felt tears of his own
threatening to drop from his eyes. He swallowed against the lump in his throat.
For some reason the story touched him in a way nothing had before. It wasn’t
the saddest thing he ever heard but for some reason it
made him think of his mother...and there he was trying not to cry…
"Ranma," Tasuke said, "don’t ever let anyone keep you from
crying."
"Huh?" Ranma blinked.
The moisture in his eye traveled down his face. He wiped it off and looked at
his hand in surprise. "B- but…"
Tasuke smiled, "Yes, Ranma, you’re
human."
"I’m a man! Men aren’t
supposed to cry!"
Tasuke politely smacked Ranma with a frying
pan.
"OW! What dya do THAT for!" And how did she manage to do that
politely? Ranma wondered.
"Men cry all the time,
Ranma. Your father cries, doesn’t he?"
"Well, yeah, but only when
he’s trying to get me to do something… And I never said Pops was manly."
"Some of the manliest men
in the world cry, Ranma. When you cry, and it’s for real, then it means you
care for something. It means that you respect what is lost and treasure what
remains. It also means you are willing to let it go." Tasuke
looked over Ranma’s left shoulder with a distant expression.
Ranma turned around, but all he
saw was a cabinet with a tea set made for cha-no-yo.
Ranma didn’t know that much about cha-no-yo, just
that it was a very special tea ceremony that was supposed to restore harmony
between two people. When Ranma was little Genma would sometimes read him
samurai stories…Harmony or "wa" was
extremely important to the samurai. Ranma thought about his father. He cared
for him once; he still did a little, but where was the wa? There are so many things Genma has to answer for,
but Ranma wished then, and wishes now, thinking about it, that there could be
harmony again.
"It was a long time before
I could cry about her. I kept thinking she would take me back, that she would
love me again, but she only got angrier. Finally she threatened to have me
killed if I bothered her again. That was when I knew that I was beaten. I cried
for hours and in the end did something I instantly regretted but now view as
the most beneficial rash act I’ve ever committed." Tasuke
got up and walked to the cabinet. She opened it and took out an odd metal
teakettle and a small longish vial.
"What did you..."
"I never found a cure, but
I found a few ways to lock the curse. The Musk have an
artifact called the Chisuiton which is a magical ladle that makes the water it
holds lock curses." Ranma was silent as Tasuke
filled the odd kettle with the rest of the hot water that was used to make the
tea. "This isn’t that. I’d have never touched that after I got the curse
and I stayed as far away from the Musk as possible once I got the curse
for...other reasons. This does, however work on the same principles. If you
drink the water from this kettle while you are immersed in hot water, you will
change into your cursed form and remain in that form for about six months, the
time varies of course person to person but its almost
never completely permanent." Tasuke poured water
from the locking teakettle into the vial and handed the vial to Ranma.
"Why the hell would I want that!" Ranma exclaimed.
"As I’ve said several
times, Ranma there is no cure. You have to adapt. There are two ways you can do
this. Either you keep changing back and forth willy nilly not sure of yourself and not sure what sex you’ll be
from one moment to the next, or you can get all of it over with in half a year.
The magic now in this vial feeds your curse Ranma, and after it wears off you
have three months until you are drawn toward water again. You have three months
of being whatever sex you want! This is the closest thing to a cure I found,
Ranma, don’t be so quick to refuse it."
"I dunno,
six months as a girl for three months as a mostly male...It don’t
sound all that great to me."
"Of course it doesn’t now
Ranma. It didn’t to me either when the old woman in that village insisted I
take it. But in my desperation that night I drank it, swearing that if I
couldn’t love her than I would never love another woman. I regretted that for a
long time, but I learned more about myself and my craft in that
six months than I ever did in all my years of training."
"So you’re saying that by
staying a girl longer you learned more about ki?"
"Definitely. Ki is the power of the soul and being a
woman allows that power to travel in new directions."
"It turned you into a
girl." Ranma accused.
"It did no such
thing."
"You’re a girl now..."
Tasuke raised her hands in front of her face
with her finger splayed and a bright pinkish light shot out and hit Ranma.
Ranma felt the change.
"So are you." Tasuke said with a smirk.
"But...I thought..."
Ranma didn’t understand. How could she make him change without water?
"I can trigger other
people’s curses without much problem. Doesn’t help me of
course. Trying to use ki magic on yourself is like trying to look into
your own eyes. The pink color is a nice touch don’t you think?" Ranma just
stared at her wide-eyed. Hearing the story was one thing, seeing evidence of it
was another. "You are a girl now Ranma. In every respect
of the word. If you still do male things than you’re a bit of a tomboy.
If you are attracted to women, then you are a lesbian. It doesn’t matter that
ten seconds ago you were a boy. It doesn’t matter that you still think of
yourself as one. It’s a really simple observation to make, Ranma. And if you
refuse to make it, then you are weakened by it."
Ranma didn’t know what to say.
"Ranma, I know you don’t
believe me now, but it’s really better if you drink the vial. Your father is
nearby... I can sense him. When he comes, and he will come, then he’s going to
use your sense of manhood against you. He’s going to make you do things that
you don’t want to do because your manhood is threatened. With that vial you can
take that power away from him. I do not know for certain if this will be so,
but I do know this is what he intends."
Ranma shook her head "I ain’t gonna be a girl for half a
year just to get back at Pops."
Tasuke sighed, "Can you please promise me
that you will at least take it with you? If you don’t use it in twenty days it
loses its power anyway and you can throw it away."
Ranma considered. There really
wasn’t any harm in humoring her. "Okay...you win...but, how am I gonna carry it?"
"You can tie it up in your
pigtail can’t you?"
"Yeah I guess so. But what
if it breaks?"
"Don’t worry about
that."
Ranma shrugged "I’ll go ahead
and wear it, I still owe ya for tha
job… but I ain’t gonna use
it." Ranma untied her hair and retied the pigtail around the vial. It was
thin enough that there wasn’t a visible difference in Ranma’s hair.
"I’ll just leave you to
your thoughts now, Ranma. Just remember, admitting that you are a girl doesn’t
make you any less of a man."
"What the hell kinda sense does that make?" Ranma asked. Tasuke just smiled and left the room. The thing was it did
sort of make sense if you thought about it.
Ranma is thinking about it now
in the bath. Technically Tasuke is right. He really
can’t get around that, but still, he can’t agree with it. The simple statement
"when I am a girl, I am a girl" was a statement that would throw
everything Ranma knew about himself into turmoil were he to agree to it.
He thinks about his father.
"He’s gonna call me a girl." Ranma knew
that as surely as Tasuke did. "He’s gonna tell me ta do something and
call me a girl if I don’t do it." Ranma felt his pigtail rethinking for a
moment the idea of just agreeing with his father and refusing to follow his
order. But if he did that, he’d have to agree that he was a girl. He just
cannot do that. He is a man and he isn’t going to say he was a girl just
because some housewife said so. A housewife who had seen
more, done more, and learn more, than Ranma could even dream.
"She’s right...I’m weak." Ranma says sadly. "When Pops comes
I’ll do whatever he says..." Ranma thinks for a moment agonizing over what
he is going to say. "Alright dammit!
I’m a girl sometimes, I gotta
get over people callin’ me that. But that don’t mean
I gotta act like one! I ain’t
gonna ever worry ‘bout clothes or cook people food,
or clean rooms, or wear dresses and stuff. I’m a man. I just got a girl’s body
sometimes. If someone calls me a girl I’ll let it slide from now on, but if
they ever say I act like one...open season" Ranma cracked his knuckles on
this thought.
That still didn’t help with his
father though. He makes an amendment: "And Pops is an idiot. Nothing he
says really matters anyway." Ranma frowns. He knows that even if he
doesn’t respond to his father’s insults, if Pops, he’ll go with him.
Suddenly he realizes the reason.
"Dammit! I miss the old bastard."
Ranma gets up and dries off with
a sigh. "Well," he says resignedly, "I guess I better go
pack." Ranma does not consider drinking the vial again. He does not throw
it away either.
~~~~]~~~~
Today is the last day.
It had taken more than two weeks
to travel all the way to
Throughout the
this time Ranma remained secure about his decision that night in the
bath. If someone called him a girl he gritted his teeth and bore it, but he
still took the liberty of reeducating those who were under the impression that
that made him less of a man. Ranma more or less forgot about the vial, except
sometimes at night, listening to his father’s panda snores, when he felt
particularly miserable. He would sometimes think of what his life would have
been like had he been born a girl. She would have stayed home with mom
probably. Would probably have had more friends.
Probably wouldn’t have a fear of cats and wouldn’t have to worry about undoing
her hair or anything else. Sometimes that life looked pretty good, and Ranma
would touch his pigtail wondering. He always decided in the end though, that he
preferred the chaos that he was living through to whatever piece of knitting he
would be working on if he were a girl.
What Akane had said though... He really wishes he could be Akane’s friend for just a
little bit longer. Ranma takes out the vial from his pigtail, and looks at it.
Ranma shakes his head. Six months is just too long, especially for such a silly
reason.
"Well, might as well throw
this away, this being the last day and all." He aims for the trash.
Now given five seconds or more
of silence the vial will wind up in the trash, never to be seen again. Akane
inevitably encounters a male Ranma and the usual hilarity ensues. But although
there are an infinite number of universes wherein those five seconds exist,
there are an equally infinite amount of universes wherein Akane decides to take
a bath on her own, or meets Kasumi shortly after Ranma is shown to her room or
is closer to the kitchen when Nabiki goes to find her. In these universes
Akane, upon seeing the clothes in the basket and exclaiming "Oh I guess we
can both take our baths!" causes Ranma to pause before throwing the
vial...
Oh no! That’s Akane! If she
sees me like this...
Ranma quickly pops the cork off
the vial, downs its contents and lays down in the furo allowing the water to
pass over his...now her head. Akane opens the door. Ranma slowly brings her
head out to see Akane in the doorway. Jeez that was close!
Akane is naked. Ranma realizing
this averts her eyes as best she can. "Umm. Hi,
Akane" Ranma hadn’t thought out this far. Akane was going to be naked in
the furo with her! And Pops how am I gonna deal
with him? And Shampoo!
"What’s wrong Ranma? You’re
looking a little nervous. Come on relax... We’re both girls right?"
"R-right." Ranma says with the wince she still
hadn’t quite gotten rid of. She thinks of the problems she will soon face and
of the somewhat different situation she is in at the moment and doesn’t know
whether to laugh or cry. Ranma is a girl...and she’s in hot water.
~~~~*~~~~~
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was
originally intended as a one-shot but I might add more to it now since it’s
just crying to be continued. I started this before I started work on Ch.2 of
Thyself Known so that’s why it’s a little weird. I’m still working on Ch. 3 of
TK. I ran into a snag and had to run away for a bit. I’m busy on another fic
now and I have to derail myself from that track before I get back to TK, but I
do plan to continue it.
A dog breeder once went to a
vet. His pure bred cocker spaniel just had a litter of puppies and one of them
was a Shitsu! When the dog breeder asked how
something like that could happen the vet just shrugged and said. "Shitsu happens."
You should never upload fics
when you’re tired...