The next morning a beautiful sunrise appeared from the east, bringing a new day to the residents of Nerima. With the first rays of sunshine came the sound of several songbirds rejoicing the glories that were life and all that it meant. Today anything was possible. Today there was nothing that could not be done. Today was also a day where many people throughout the land would make revelations and discoveries about themselves that would forever change their lives.
"WAAAAAAHHHHH!!" SPLASH
For Ranma Saotome of the anything goes school of martial arts however, the day started out as normally as would be expected. There tended to be two ways of getting woken up, either Akane would throw water over him or his father would through him into the Koi pond. Either way, Ranma tended to start the day female.
"Pfffftttt, what the hell did you do that for Pops? It's the weekend for kami's sake!"
Genma Saotome landed on one of the rocks surrounding the pond where Ranma had the misfortune of being in at the moment. "You've been getting sloppy in your training boy. If you were half the martial artist that I am then you would have easily avoided being thrown like that."
SPLASH
"You stupid Panda, if I was half the martial artist you were then whenever I sat down I would destroy an area the size of Tokyo" yelled Ranma, who was currently pulling herself out of the pond.
# Insolent boy! #, flip ,# What did I do to deserve such a weak girl as a son? #, flip,
# Maybe I should trade you in for a son that will respect his elders. #
"Shut up pops, your getting a beating that you won't forget!"
So the daily battle over the koi pond started. Meanwhile inside the house Kasumi and Nodoka were busy preparing the morning meal for the household, Nabiki was draining her morning fix of caffeine, Mr Tendo was collecting the morning paper from the doorstep, and Akane was moping in her jealousy...err I mean righteous anger directed at the two Saotomes who dared wake her up on a weekend like this. Yeah that's right.
Anyway, it was then that Kasumi announced that breakfast was ready. This was the signal for Ranma to stop beating on her father (can't really call it sparing), who was sent crashing into the pond headfirst after a vicious roundhouse kick.
After squeezing her clothes out to get the excess water out of them, Ranma entered the dojo and took her customary place at the table. She ignored the frown that was on her mothers face when she noticed her current gender and dug into the food that was laid out in front of her after a quick thanks to Kasumi. She may be looking for her mother's acceptance, but she wasn't going to let her dictate Ranma's life to her. Over time she had gotten used to the fact that the there wasn't a cure for the curse, not since the springs of Jusenkyo were flooded after her battle with Saffron. If there wasn't a cure then Ranma was going to have to accept that she would spend half her life as a girl, and after a while it was surprisingly easy to accept. She would still accept a cure if one ever turned up, but the only reason for doing that was that the chance of her getting locked in her cursed form was far to great. She may not mind being a girl part time any more, but she didn't want to live her whole life as one.
Genma-panda turned up shortly after Ranma and made to sit down for his morning meal.
"Ahem, husband what do you think you are doing?"
# Nothing No-chan #, flip, # Just sitting down to enjoy your fine cooking. #
"While I thank you for you're comment about my cooking, I refuse to eat a meal with a common animal. If you wish to stay in that form then there is plenty of delicious bamboo outside that is perfect for pandas, only people are allowed to eat at the table."
Sulking at having to delay eating his meal and at the laughter that was following him to the kitchen, Genma headed off to change back into a human (or at least a close representation of one).
Once he returned, breakfast continued without anymore interruptions. Throughout it though Akane was looking around, as if looking for something that she had lost at some point. Eventually she gave up and asked the others for help.
"Hey, has anyone seen P-chan anywhere? He wasn't in my room when I woke up and I can't find him anywhere in the house."
"Sorry Akane dear, but I haven't seen him anywhere" replied Nodoka.
"Good riddance, the stupid pig probably got lost like usual" shot back Ranma.
"Ranma stop picking on P-chan! Honestly, getting jealous of a pig. Anyway he isn't lost, P-chan isn't Ryoga after all."
"Of course he isn't" Ranma mumbled to herself so no one could hear her.
"What did you say you stupid pervert!"
"Nothing you uncute tomboy!"
"Ranma, Akane!" interrupted Nodoka, "That's enough fighting, your going to be married someday after all so you should learn to get on with each other."
She then turned to Ranma, "Ok, now that breakfast is finished we should get moving if we are going to be finish tidying the house by today. There's no reason to pack your stuff as you'll be back here by tonight."
With that Nodoka stood up, and with her bundle in her arms left the Tendo dojo to head to her house. As Ranma stood to follow her, she was interrupted by Kasumi who had just entered from the kitchen.
"Wait Ranma, here are a couple of bentos for you and your mother. If you're tidying your house then you may not be able to use the kitchen to make any lunch."
"Hey thanks Kasumi, that was nice of ya" and with that Ranma left to follow her mother who was waiting at the entrance to the dojo for her.
After a couple of minutes Akane left to go to the dojo for some brick breaking therapy, and Mr Tendo left with Mr Saotome to go to the nearest bar. After all, it was never to early go drinking with a friend. All that was left was Kasumi and Nabiki, who looked like a cat who had caught the mouse.
"Why Kasumi, that was a vary considerate thing you did for our soon to be brother-in-law wasn't it? Anyone would think that you like him."
"Of course I like him Nabiki. He is a very considerate young man after all, and is a very good friend of mine," said Kasumi while clearing up the dirty plates.
"Oh, is he really just a friend to you Kasumi? From what I saw earlier you would like to be much more than a friend to him."
"Nabiki! I could never think of Ranma-chan like that. After all he's a younger man than me, and young men are so boring, plus he's Akane's fianc
"Ranma-chan huh!" Nabiki smirked, "I never knew you were so informal with him already. Anyway, now your just making excuses. You know as well as I do that our dear sister has no possible interest in him, and that Ranma is one person where boredom is not an option." If it was possible Nabiki's smirk grew even more as it took on a lecherous twist, "In fact I would imagine that due to Ranma's curse that the honey moon would be a very interesting experience indeed!"
"Nabiki!!" protested a highly embarrassed and heavily blushing Kasumi. She may have had fantasies in a very similar vein to what Nabiki had hinted at, but that didn't meant that her younger sister could broadcast them to everyone.
Nabiki's smirk turned from light hearted into a serious expression in an instant. "Seriously though Kasumi, we both know that you have feelings for him, and don't you dare deny it, though for the life of me I can't see any reason why, apart from the fact he's a hunk. So now you have to ask yourself what you are going to do about it?" Nabiki paused as she waited for Kasumi to say something.
"I can't do that Nabiki; I will not put any more pressure on poor Ranma than is already on him. You know as well as I do what his situation with his other fiancées is like. If I was to get involved then that would put pressure on our friendship, and god knows he doesn't have enough friends as it is. The last thing he needs is another girl putting pressure on him to marry her" Kasumi paused and after a moment added an after thought, "and besides, I don't think I could face the rejection if he saw me like he does Ukyo. She used to be his friend, but because she wants to marry him that friendship has been tarnished. He sees me as one of the only people here who he can trust to not exploit him, and I don't want to lose that."
Nabiki sighed to herself. Oh great she's got it bad. Why does she have to make this so difficult for herself?
"Your right Kasumi, I do know what his situation is like with the fiancée brigade. After all, for a while I was one of them remember? The reason Ranma resents this whole situation is that he had no choice in the matter, it was Genma who was responsible for the whole thing, with an exception of the whole Amazon mess, and even then Ranma doesn't have a choice in the matter." Hook.
"Well, I suppose that's true..."
Nabiki continued on, not giving Kasumi a chance to think too much about it. "If you were to at least ask him then you wouldn't be pressuring him into a situation that was out of his control, instead you could simply tell him about your feelings and allow him to get used to the idea slowly. You could easily tell him that you weren't forcing him into anything, he would respect that." Line.
"Erm, I suppose so..."
"And it would be a real shame if he had the same feelings for you and neither of you told the other. A life full of happiness would be lost because the both of you were too scared to tell the other. Think about that." And sinker. With that Nabiki turned around and left the room before Kasumi could argue back. My dear, dear sister. Sometimes you are as easy to manipulate as Ranma.
She hoped that she could win Ranma's heart, if he was really the person her sister had her eyes set on. She personally couldn't see why Kasumi would be attracted to a dumb jock like Ranma, but he was a good kid so she wasn't worried about her. If anything Ranma may be able to get her sister out of the house to do more than shop for groceries.
Once she had left, the only person in the room was Kasumi as she sat at the un-cleaned table, doing some heavy thinking about her future.
Masaki house
Ayeka groggily made her way downstairs on her way to the breakfast table. She hadn't slept a wink last night. No matter what she tried; no matter how many sheep she counted, she just couldn't nod off. Every time she tried her thoughts kept coming back to Washu's breaking down the evening before.
In all the time that Ayeka had known Washu she had never seen the scientist lose control of herself like that. It was quite a shock, seeing the ever under control Washu in her brother's arms crying herself to sleep. Actually crying didn't seem to explain the situation well enough, she was sobbing her heart out. The scene was enough to melt the heart of even the coldest person, and it did enough to slightly disturb Ayeka.
The thought that kept going through her head was what on earth could make the scientist break down like that? Washu's behaviour had always been slightly erratic, but it was either very brief anger or cheerfulness, never really depression. She wasn't sure if her erratic behaviour was a way of keeping everyone from finding out what she was hiding, or if it was simply a way for her to hide the obvious pain from herself. Ayeka wasn't kidding herself, she wasn't a good enough psychiatrist to make those sort of observations, but she had learned enough from the palace tutors to notice some connections.
Once she had arrived downstairs it was obvious that she wasn't the only one to not get a good nights sleep. Everyone had bags under their eyes of varying sizes, with the only exceptions being the newly arrived galaxy police officers. From the looks on their faces they either had a tough case while on patrol, or someone had explained to them what had happened with Washu last night. Speaking of which, she was the only absentee to the downstairs gathering.
As Ayeka took her usual seat at the table, Sasami brought in the morning meal and everyone started eating in a subdued manner. Even Sasami's cooking had been affected by Washu's mood, it was still good food, but it wasn't in the same class as usual.
After five minutes of eating, Washu arrived at the table and began to eat her meal. Instantly everyone else forgot their food and all attention was focused on the diminutive scientist. It was immediately apparent that she was in a slightly better mood than the day before, but there was a hint of depression that had yet to go away.
Eventually getting fed up of the attention she was receiving, Washu decided to do something about it.
"What are you guys looking at now? I haven't got something on my shirt have I?"
"Err, not really Washu, your shirts fine. Ahh...Not that I was looking at your top of course or anything like that, but ermm...oh hell..."
"What my grandson was trying to say was that we were worried about what had happened last night, and we were wondering if you wanted to talk about it" interrupted Katshuhito much to Tenchi's relief. Today wasn't the day to have his fun embarrassing his grandson, there were far more pressing matters to deal with first.
"Oh that! Heh heh, don't worry about it. I was testing a new compound that was supposed to be an anti-depressant a hundred times more effective that any currently available. I somehow got the formula completely wrong and ended up in the state you saw me in last night that's all. So you see I'm perfectly fine, nothing at all wrong me, nope absolutely nothing." All this was said with Washu having an innocent expression on her face that could have convinced the Russians that Siberia was a really nice place to go sunbathing in winter.
"Oh that's ok then. Everyone said that you were sad last night, but you weren't, so that means everything's ok isn't it." And with that Mihoshi dug into the rice in front of her. No one else was fooled.
"Oh come on Washu, do you really expect us to believe that rubbish?" said Ryoko, not believing her mother's nerve at trying to pretend yesterday didn't happen.
"Well actually, no I didn't. It was the only thing that I could come up with last night that had any chance."
"So Washu-chan, are you going to tell us what you were so upset about last night?"
"No Tenchi-dono I'm not. Like I said yesterday this is my problem and no one else's."
"But Washu-chan, you were so sad last night. I don't like seeing my friends sad like that" said Sasami.
Sigh, "Look Sasami there is really nothing wrong with me. There was something that happened a long time ago that did hurt me yes, but that was a very long time ago. I've learnt to deal with it over time and it no longer affects me. I'm perfectly ok with it now."
"I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with you there Washu-chan" stated Katshuhito. "Last night made it clear that you were having trouble dealing with whatever caused you this type of pain."
"Oh shut up Katshuhito! You're starting to overstep your boundaries. If you aren't careful I can introduce you to a couple of lab experiments I had planned that look at the aging effect of Jurians."
"Now, now Washu-chan, there's no need to do anything rash, heh heh" stammered Tenchi, hoping that he or his grandfather wouldn't be on the receiving end of whatever Washu had planned.
Katshuhito calmly took a sip of his tea before continuing. "You know Washu there is really no need to make threats like that, we are only trying to help."
"Katshuhito I don't make threats, I make promises" growled Washu
If you say so Washu, if you say so. In any case, it would be a good idea to discuss what has causing you such pain with someone. Wounds tend to get infected if they are left untreated, and depression can be seen as a wound to the soul."
"Please Washu-chan. We all really want to help you" pleaded Sasami.
Washu's shoulders slumped in resignation. "You guys really aren't going to give this up are up you?"
"No"
"Uh huh"
"Nope"
"Not happening"
"Meow"
"Affirmative"
"Oh yummy, Chocolate!!!"
Everyone just turned to stare at Mihoshi, who had discovered a chocolate bar that had been discarded under the table and was currently stuffing it into her mouth at mach 2.
"Mmmm, chooocolate"
"I think American television is having a negative effect on her" stated Ayeka.
"She is not my partner, she is not my partner, she is not my partner..." Who knew, if Kiyone repeated it enough times then it may happen, ignoring her sure wasn't working.
Katshuhito sweat dropped heavily. "Ahem. Anyway, I believe Washu was going to explain to us what she was so upset about last night."
"Fine! Since some of you have no respect for privacy," she gave a harsh glare towards Katshuhito's direction, which was completely ignored, before she continued, "I'll just have to fess up. I'm not going to explain here though, it would be best if we were to go to my lab" and with that Washu got up from the table and walked to her lab.
"But Kiyone, does this mean that there's something wrong with Washu-chan?"
"...she is not my partner, she is not my partner, she is not my partner..."
Nerima
The walk to the Saotome house was a very quiet affair. Mother and daughter hadn't said a word to each other during the whole journey. They had already passed the Nekohanten and Ucchans, and Ranma was really surprised that she hadn't been spotted already by one of her fiancées. Ranma didn't understand it; whenever she went anywhere in Nerima there was always someone bothering her for all sorts of reasons. Today however was different, she hadn't been bothered all day; well if you didn't include the way her father woke her up anyway. Ranma was just going to enjoy her luck while it lasted.
They had just arrived at the block where her mother's house was situated when Ranma's luck finally ran out for the day.
"Pigtailed girl, I found you! And hold, do mine eyes deceive me or has the foul sorcerer Saotome fled before my awesome might. Fear not young maiden beauty, let me break the spell that is on your person so that you may show your love for me!" cried the only person in Nerima who had a lower IQ than Genma as he rushed towards his love.
POW! He had only taken two steps before one of the two goddesses of his dreams showed their true state of affection for him by upper cutting him over the horizon.
"I can't believe that jerk! Is he going to get a clue or am I going to be doing this when I'm in an old folks home?"
"Ranma, is there something I should know?" said Nodoka while increasing her grip slightly on her bundle. The edge in her voice was unmistakeable; it was the same tone she used when someone wasn't being 'manly'.
"What? Oh god no! There is nothing going on between me and Kuno. He's just some nutter who thinks that me and Akane love him and he wants to show his love for the both of us. The fact that we both think he is a complete idiot is completely ignored by him."
"And this is the truth is it Ranma, I'll find out if it's not..." she said as she drew her katana slightly out of its sheath.
"Oh come on mom what do you think I am, some kind of pervert? I have no interest at all in Kuno-baka; it's all in his sick little head! Besides, I'm not interested in guys, only girls. The curse hasn't made me like that"
Nodoka suddenly reverted back to her normal calm self. "Well that's all right then. While it can be considered manly to have a following of girls to see to your needs, it isn't seen to manly if you were to join a harem of another young man's, no matter how manly he is. Well anyway, here we are, home sweet home." She opened the gate to the Saotome residence and made her way to the door, leaving Ranma at the gate wondering if her mother was a complete nutcase or not.
Saotome Residence
Ranma entered the house and took off her shoes before entering the house proper. Once she did so she saw her mother placing the family katana on the mantelpiece, before turning and regarding her son/turned daughter.
"Now Ranma, before we start I think we should get you to your proper gender. Your not a girl after all."
"Umm, yeah sure mom."
"Good, once that's done you can get started in the attic by removing anything that has got a sticky label on it saying that it should be removed. I put them on earlier in the week to make sure that we have less work to do today."
And with that she left to go to the kitchen to get some hot water, in the meantime leaving Ranma with nothing to do until her mother came back.
Masaki house
Tenchi and the others followed Washu into her lab and through a series of side rooms that each had a different set of machines inside. Several of which gave Tenchi the shivers, he had been in some of these rooms before and knew exactly what each of those machines did. The sooner he got out of there the better.
What did get his attention was that this was further into Washu's lab than any of them had been in before, with the possible exception of Mihoshi, but then she seemed to be the only person to be able to avoid any of Washu's security devices, and someone who constantly got on Washu's nerves. It was kind of funny when you thought about it, someone who took every blond sterotype and multiplied it by ten often outsmarted the greatest scientific genius in the universe.
Eventually they reached their destination. The first thing they noticed was that room was smaller than the rest that they had passed through. It also had the smallest amount of equipment, just a single desk on the far side of the room. It had a look and feel of a shrine more than a scientist's laboratory. It was on this desk that Washu sat on, while after typing a couple of buttons on her computer she managed to produce a bunch of floating cushions for the rest of the group to sit on. Once they were all seated, she began to tell her story.
Saotome Residence
Cleaning his mother's house had taken much less time than he had imagined it would. With both his mother and himself they made pretty good time cleaning the attic of broken furniture and unwanted boxes of mementos. It wasn't even lunch by the time they had finished that room and had started on the others. Contrary to what his mother had said yesterday, there wasn't all that much that needed to be removed. By the time it was time for lunch they had already finished.
He was just going through the attic one last time to see if he hadn't missed anything, when he spotted something from the corner of his eye. It was a large cardboard box with 'Ranma' written on one side in large letters. Curious as to what could be inside, Ranma decided to investigate.
Masaki house
"You see it all started when Kagato invaded my ship, the Sonja. As you all know he imprisoned me in a cryogenic chamber and sent me out to be exiled, where Mihoshi and Kiyone eventually discovered me and brought me here. Ryoko went on to be controlled by Kagato until Yosho defeated her here on earth and imprisoned her in a cave for 700 years, until she was eventually released by Tenchi."
Ryoko shivered slightly at the bad memories of being under Kagato's control and all the things he had her do in the quest for power, but she continued listening patiently none the less.
"Anyway, that is what you know. However, there is a part of the story that I didn't tell anyone, simply because it caused me too much pain, and at the time I didn't think it was important." Washu then started typing into her computer again and off to one side of the room appeared a large wide screen TV. Somehow Mihoshi found some popcorn and started munching away at it, but no one paid any attention to her. After Washu pressed another button a scene was shown as what most recognised as a room from the Sonja, with the man that Tenchi had to eventually kill standing over a large box. Ryoko was easily seen in a chamber on the wall either unconscious or asleep. At the moment Kagato was laughing hysterically while looking at what everyone now knew was Washu's prison.
It was at this point that Ryoko started shivering violently, the memories being too painful for her to cope with. Many were surprised when Ayeka sidled up next to her and gave her a reassuring hug, which did manage to calm Ryoko down slightly. Washu gave her a sympathetic smile before she continued on.
"As you can see, this is security footage that was recorded at the time Kagato attacked my ship. In a moment the prison I'm in is going to be sent out into empty space for me to drift around in for several thousand years." Sure enough Kagato pressed a button and Washu's prison suddenly disappeared.
"The only reason I have this security footage is because while my prison was in range it had complete access to the monitoring software on the ship. My prison was recording everything that happened on my ship for a couple of hours." On the big screen Kagato had suddenly turned around and drawn his sword at the ready, as if preparing for an attack.
"What just happened Washu-chan?" asked Tenchi.
"Kagato just spotted some movement, that's all. Anyway, this may answer your questions from earlier on."
On the screen everyone watched as Kagato made his way warily towards whatever had caught his attention, the camera moving with him. Soon he arrived at what seemed like another group of chambers like the ones Ryoko was seen in earlier, only there was something that caught everyone's eyes immediately. For inside one of the chambers was seen a small child, a baby really, with black hair and was curled up in a foetal position. While everyone was shocked at what they saw, it was Ryoko that asked the question first.
"What the hell is that?"
Washu turned and glanced at Ryoko before looking back at screen. "That, Ryoko, is your brother."
Saotome Residence
Ranma had discovered that the box with his name on contained a number of photo albums from the day he was born to the day his father had taken him on the training trip when he was five. There were also a number of official documents, including something that got Ranma very interested.
Ranma had never known when his birthday was. When he was on the training trip he just ended up celebrating on the same day as his father, it wasn't as if he was ever going to have a party to celebrate, so he had no idea when he was born. His birth certificate stated that 'Ranma Saotome was born on 30th of June 1986', a whole month from today. He was slightly disappointed to see his father named as Genma, but it wasn't the end of the world.
It was when he had opened the first of the photo albums that his mother turned up and noticed what he was looking at.
"Oh my, I haven't seen these for years! Would you mind if I looked at these with you, I'm sure you would like to know more about your family."
"Of course I don't mind mom that would be great!"
So they made their way through some fond (and quite frankly embarrassing) memories of Ranma's past, Nodoka pointing out family members that Ranma had yet to meet, and the events that had happened which led to the photos being taken. As time went on, Ranma felt his mother was losing her formal behaviour and was showing genuine happiness in her descriptions of the past, and Ranma felt much more comfortable in her company.
Nodoka was pointing out a formal portrait showing the whole family, and was describing how Ranma had been fidgeting during the whole photo shoot, when the door bell rung, signalling the fact that someone was waiting outside. Nodoka got up and headed to the door, telling Ranma to put the photo albums away when he finished looking at them.
As Ranma watched his mother leave, he let his thoughts drift to the time they had spent together today. For most of the day there had seemed to be a barrier between the two, as if no emotional interactions could occur between them. It was only when they had been looking over memories of the past where there had been any amount of friendliness on her part towards him. It was a start, hopefully a chance to be a family, like the family that was in the picture in front of him.
Standing at the back was Genma, wearing an obviously cheep suit that he failed to look comfortable wearing. What was worse was that the bandana on his head failed to match with the suit at all, also showing his baldness wasn't something that was recent. He had a hand on his wife's shoulder, who was sitting in front of him wearing a formal kimono with chibi-Ranma sitting on her lap, at his guess less than a year old. Ranma himself was wearing a cute little sailor suit, his hair not yet long enough to be in a pigtail, so it was still short.
Ranma wished they could be a family like this one was. While Genma was looking awkward in his suit, his posture showed that he was very protective of his new family. Nodoka was holding her young child with a beaming smile on her face, seemingly on top of the world. And as for Ranma, he couldn't remember the time when he had felt as much love and affection as the young child in the portrait did. He was laughing at the side of the camera, possibly an assistant with some sort of toy to keep his attention; his expressive eyes were filled with mirth and unconditional love that only those young, innocent few can feel.
Hang on, backup a bit. There was something wrong with the portrait, something that Ranma couldn't quite put his finger on. Checking Genma first led to nothing out of ordinary, apart from the cheap suit. There was nothing wrong with his mother; she looked as elegant as usual in her high quality kimono. Lastly he checked himself, the young child in his mother's arms. After a quick search he had found what was wrong, there was something wrong with that boy's face. Something that made him freeze and only allowing one thought to go through his head.
Since when were his eyes brown?
Authors note
I'm so good, a double cliff-hanger! Bet you know what I meant now when I wrote a summary for this story. I thought of the Saotomes being unable to have a child, and so adopting Ranma like with Superman, but I decided to do something different instead. It allows for more panda bashing, my favourite hobby.
Thanks for the reviews keep them coming in. Here are some replies to the reviews that have been sent in.
Firstly I may have only seen a couple of episodes, but I did a hell of a lot of research on the web for every point I make in the story. The problem is that with so many versions of Tenchi out there I have no idea of what is right and what is wrong, so don't be surprised if I have many different themes from different versions in this fic, or something turns up that wouldn't happen in the anime. I'm trying my best, really I am.
As for any spelling mistakes, I rely heavily on spell check; so don't be surprised if I make really stupid errors. I already highlighted a couple that have been corrected in the last chapter. I suppose that is why we have reviewers, to point out all the stupid mistakes us authors make.
As for Washu breaking down like that, I had to get her to spill the beans to the others somehow, and she is stubborn and intelligent enough to hide anything if she wants to, plus she can simply threaten to send people to her lab if they pry too much. By making her break down she can't hide it anymore. The pain of a death in the family would become easier to deal with in time, but there will be periods where Washu will be more emotionally vulnerable than others. It just so happens that Yosho was at the right place at the right time to get Washu to open up a bit, any other time and he would have failed miserably. Well, that's my theory anyway.
And Washu was found by the galaxy police floating in space in a frozen state for this fic, if I can change Ranma's species then I can do small things like that. This is my fic, so if want to do something like that then I will, so there! ;)
The idea I have about the extra gems is simple; I needed some way to explain why Ranma isn't floating around and teleporting everywhere. The next chapter will explain how they would work to activate Ranma's Masu genes, and why Washu hasn't given them to Ryoko.
I can personally see Washu as Ranma's mother; their personalities are very similar. As for the genius part, there is more than one type of genius; some people just choose to focus in areas other than academics that's all. In anything Martial arts related Ranma is a genius, just like with anything scientific Washu is a genius. They have both focused on one subject and have excelled at it, although I will have Washu teaching Ranma 'school stuff'. He will not become an over night Einstein though, so don't worry.
And for those Akane bashers out there, don't worry I'm not going to be really nice to Akane in this fic, but neither will I turn her into some sort of monster. From the stories I have read people either treat her as a saint or as the devil incarnate, I'm just trying to make her a bit more 3 dimensional that's all. There will be a lot of Akane bashing though, just to warn you.
Wow, I ended up writing a hell of a lot of stuff there. That's it for now though, hope you like this chapter and keep sending in those reviews. Just be nice to me, I've found out it's a lot easier being a reviewer than an author.