Chapter Four: Mine

The first sensation Ranma was aware of was a biting cold that seemed to render him tingly, then almost instantly numb. The next was –

Oh no oh no oh no -!

Ranma opened his mouth to scream and it filled with water. Blood pooled in front of his vision, and he flailed, suddenly unsure which direction was up. Then one big arm reached inside the pool, grabbed onto the back of his gi and yanked up.

Ranma fell, coughing painfully to the floor. "Hurts!" he exclaimed, when he could get the breath.

Ryoga was at his side in a minute. "Your stitches," he breathed, ripping off the bottom of Ranma's gi top as though it were cheesecloth. "I don't understand it," he muttered, under his breath. "How can you have gotten bigger?"

Ranma wasn't sure what that meant until he looked down at the stitches, which were definitely pulling, now. But the skin under Ryoga's fingers looked human, not animal, so he wasn't sure how he could've somehow grown.

Ryoga scooped Ranma up, then ducked low, bunching his muscles together before leaping high in the air.

Ranma gave a surprised, breathless gasp as Ryoga pushed off of a bamboo stalk and leapt them clear, to the ridge that surrounded the valley. "You can jump really high," Ranma observed, panting.

"Yeah, lots of practice," Ryoga agreed. "So we've got to heat some water for you, though, because – just trust me, we do," Ryoga said, and he slid his pack off his back more quickly than Ranma had seen him do so, in his limited experience. Ryoga's hands were shaking as he removed flint and a cooking pot. "I've got to go get some tinder, just – just wait here. Try not to move."

Ranma's eyes were trained on Ryoga's features, which were pinched and, judging from Ryoga's intense tone of voice and fumbling hands, Ryoga was frightened for Ranma; so Ranma did just as he'd been told and sat very still until Ryoga returned with some dried leaves and pine needles.

"Ranma," Ryoga said, once the kindling was smoking and he could add tiny sticks, "that valley is very dangerous."

Ranma nodded, solemn. "Yeah."

"Those springs – they're what make it dangerous."

"Akane told me: the springs want to curse you. And I could hear 'em, and she was surprised."

Ryoga looked up at that. "The springs want to curse you?"

"Yeah. And I guess one got me, but it must not've worked, 'cause I'm still talking to you and all."

"Ranma…"

There was that pinched face again, with a dash of something else. Ranma found himself trying to analyze the expression, but he didn't have much to go on, not having known Ryoga for all that long. Ryoga's eyes darted towards him and then away, like he didn't want to look Ranma in the eye. Maybe he didn't; maybe he was embarrassed, or avoiding talking to Ranma because it was something really bad.

"You fell into a spring in Jusenkyo. You are cursed. It's just had to tell when you're a little kid, I guess –"

Ranma looked down at his body; it looked perfectly familiar, except maybe a little thinner. "Am I taller?"

"Against all odds, yeah. Just a little." Ryoga gulped, then turned towards Ranma, finding his courage. "Ranma, you fell into a spring where a girl drowned."

"A person? Really?" Ranma blurted, before he'd had time to realize what that meant. "That's terrible!"

Ryoga nodded, then waited while Ranma put two and two together.

"I – I'm a girl?"

Ryoga nodded again, solemnly.

"But I don't feel any different!"

Only that was a lie. Ranma felt really different, scary different, and new differences seemed to pop forth with every new moment. "I – I don't sound any different!" Except he did, and moreover sounds were different in and of themselves, which – oh, no – that was crazy. Girls didn't hear things differently from boys!

"You don't sound very different, Ranma," Ryoga said, and there were layers in his voice that hadn't been there three hours ago, and his face told Ranma more than if he'd spoken a paragraph's worth. "A boy's and girl's voice is pretty similar at your age."

Ranma gulped for air, but that hurt his stitches, so he clamped a hand down on his side and tried to breathe deep and slow, like the yogi on the mountain.

"It's going to be all right," Ryoga said. "Look, I'm heating you some water. When the water gets hot enough, it'll be able to turn you back to a boy."

"Really?" Ranma gasped.

"Really – but not for good. From now on, cold water is going to make you a girl," he replied.

Cold water would make him a girl forever and ever.

"For some reason, your girl-form is taller than you right now. Ranma, how much did you grow this year?"

Ranma blinked away tears of shock and pain. "I – I haven't grown this year. I'm s-smaller than the boys my age." Which, he knew, was part of the reason his daddy had taken him from home: the boys in his form were beginning to tease him a little, push him around. He'd been ecstatic when his father informed him, steely-eyed, that he wouldn't be going back to that school, not ever.

"You're about to have a growth spurt, I'd guess, and your boy form is behind your girl form."

Ranma shook his head. "I don't have a boy form and a girl form, I'm just me, Ranma!"

"I know who you are, Ranma," Ryoga said, and Ranma's new girl ears perked right up at the change in tone, and he turned to stare at the older boy. "I do know you, and you have to trust that I know you'll be fine. You never lose, Ranma, and now's not the time to start."

"Yes, Ryoga."

Ryoga chuckled, losing his gravitas suddenly as he put the pot of water onto the warm coals of the fire. "That gets me every time. Who taught you to talk like that?"

"My momma did," Ranma replied. "It was 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am' when I'd been bad or she was saying something important. And sometimes in public, too."

"You haven't been bad," Ryoga said, slowly. "I know I said I was sorry you'd run off, but Shampoo was picking on you and I don't blame you for running after her. On top of that, I never forbade you from exploring. I should've, but I didn't figure you'd be able to run this far on your own."

Ranma shook his head. "You're just serious a lot. You've told me a lot of really important things, so I answer you serious."

Ryoga ducked his head for a moment, then shook it and turned to check on the temperature of the water, muttering, "not yet." Then he turned to Ranma. "I mean that – I hope you know this isn't your fault," he said. "I mean, it really isn't. And it isn't so bad. I know your father wanted you to be a man amongst men, and I think you still could be. It might even make you a better man, seeing what being a girl is like. But it – it's gonna be okay, Ranma. I promise."

Ranma absorbed this for a moment. "Girls see better in the dark," he said, suddenly.

Ryoga turned to look. "Yeah?"

"At least this one does." Ranma paused. "Me, I mean. And there's a lot more to see." Ranma wasn't sure how to explain that his field of vision seemed to have opened up, even if everything seemed oddly… flatter.

"Your eyes work differently as a girl?"

Ranma nodded. "I can't wait to see the world when it's day," he added in wonderment.

Ryoga chuckled, shaking his head. "It's just that you've never said…" He stirred the coals and peeked at the water. "Should be warm enough. Come here, Ranma."

Ranma approached and squeezed his eyes shut as warm water ran down his frame. He felt odd as his body rearranged itself, but the pain in his side subsided with a wary throb.

"Better?"

Ranma nodded.

Ryoga took a closer look at the stitches. "Seems like you only broke one or two after all," Ryoga observed, digging some gauze out of his pack and pressing it gently to the wound. "The rest are pretty red and angry, though. Are they still hurting you?"

"A little," Ranma shrugged. "Not so bad, now."

Ryoga taped the gauze in place and threw road dust over the smoking coals of their fire. Then he gathered up his stovepot and flint, packing everything neatly away.

"I'm not really sure –" Ranma began, then paused. "It's going to be okay, isn't it?"

Ryoga laughed, and something unclenched in Ranma's guts. "I promised, didn't I? A girl-curse is strange and different, Ranma, but it doesn't hurt, right? I mean, normally."

"No, it feels weird, but the only part of me that hurt when I… you know… was my stitches," Ranma replied.

"And it doesn't make you sick, right?"

"No."

"Does it… cause you to have a thirst for blood? And fangs? And to not like garlic?"

Ranma giggled. "Nooo!"

"Does it… make you tiny like a bug?"

"No!" Ranma exclaimed. He liked this game.

"Does it… make you huge like a mountain!"

"Well…" said Ranma, thoughtfully. "It does make me a little bigger."

"Giant-sized?"

"…no."

"Then what is there to worry about?" Ryoga demanded, lifting Ranma up to his hip. "I think we've had a long night. What do you say we take the fast road?"

"Mmm," Ranma agreed, because his head was already nodding. He saw a big, bright rectangle form in the air, and then they were standing outside of Shampoo's and Elder Cologne's village, striding through the streets in the moonlight. Ryoga placed his warm hand on the small of Ranma's back, and the next thing he knew, he was being deposited into a hammock-like bed inside of Elder Cologne's cottage, arms falling away from Ryoga's frame.

"Go back to sleep," Ryoga said. "We'll talk a little more in the morning. Remember that you want to see with a girl's eyes in the sunlight, okay? You're going to be all right."

Ranma tried to nod, but he was already slipping down, down, under a blanket of dark exhaustion.

When Ranma woke, it was with a start: Cologne was staring at him with frank curiosity.

"That's going to scar," she said.

Ranma looked down at his flat tummy, where blood had soaked through, then dried along Ryoga's makeshift bandage. "That's okay," he said slowly, "even if girls don't like scars."

"Girls like them plenty," Cologne assured him, with a thin chuckle.

"Not on themselves," Ranma countered.

"Getting a girl-curse doesn't make you a Real Woman." Cologne looked as though this were likely a good thing. Maybe she was the one who'd taught Shampoo all those backwards things about women being stronger.

"Oh, I know that," Ranma replied; but it did make him feel a little bit better to hear that womanhood didn't come solely from an accidental dunking. Ranma thought that was a little like someone falling into a spring where a guy had drowned and instantly becoming a Man Amongst Men: just not possible.

"You're awake!" Ryoga exclaimed, dusting off his hands as he strode into the cabin. "I've just been planting beans, sort of helping repay the Elder's hospitality –"

"Don't be silly," Cologne returned. "You certainly don't have to –"

"Your friends made it perfectly clear that my help was expected," Ryoga broke in. "But I don't mind. I've been feeling a little awkward, honestly, eating up all your food and lounging around."

Ranma looked up at Ryoga with his boy-eyes. All the depth, the three-dimensionality of Ryoga's face had returned, but the quirk of his lip as he replied to Cologne no longer held volumes, and therefore could no longer hold Ranma's attention for long before he found himself more absorbed with the play of the light through the window as it fell in geometric patterns.

Weird.

"…let the boy outside to run around for a bit," Cologne was saying, once Ranma snapped his attention away from the dust motes dancing in the sunny cabin air.

"Last time, he and Shampoo had an altercation –"

"I assure you," Cologne said, and Ranma blinked at the sudden change of expression, and wished its meaning were as clear to him as it would have been last night, "that there was nothing untoward in Shampoo's actions. She was attempting to prove herself the best warrior of her generation, a title she's held since she was three, and one she dearly desires to keep."

"Fighting an injured child is hardly the way to prove her strength," Ryoga said with a crooked smile, and Ranma saw a tiny charge spark the air between them. He could tell that they were arguing, but couldn't discern the meaning behind it, which made it just a touch scarier. Ranma tried to hug his knees to his chest, then winced, letting go immediately. It seemed every motion he made, no matter how careful, hurt his tummy.

"Ranma's opponents won't always be so friendly as Shampoo in the future. They will come quietly, without announcing themselves, without awaiting his recovery from their attacks. Why should Shampoo do any differently when she fights? Anything else would be a disservice to Ranma: an insult."

"You figure five years old is the time to teach that particular lesson?" Ryoga queried, and he hadn't raised his voice, but Ranma got the feeling he might as well have been shouting. Ranma was a step away from leaping down from the bed and tugging at Ryoga's wrist to get him to stop talking to Elder Cologne.

"What better time? Get them used to the real world while they're young."

"That's what his father thought."

There was a moment's quiet. Then, "I've been thinking. It's high time Shampoo learned another special technique; she picked up the Chestnut Fist so quickly."

Ryoga's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't do that."

"Why not?" Cologne's eyes gleamed as she regarded Ranma, who drew back towards the wall behind his hammock. "And perhaps the only reason it didn't work for young Ranma, here, is that he just wasn't pushed enough. Perhaps, if you tried again…?"

Ryoga slid in front of Ranma, one hand gripping the side of the makeshift bedding as though he intended to snatch Ranma up at any moment. "It's not up for discussion," he said.

Each word came out as though there were other words pushing behind them: words Ryoga didn't want to let out.

"Gracious, to think this whole regrettable conversation started just because you didn't want Shampoo playing with –"

"Damn straight I don't want your kid fighting with mine!" Ryoga shouted. "She's violent, she's undisciplined, and she's spoiled, and it's no wonder if you reward her every time she does something violent! Ranma's injured, of course he shouldn't fight until he's well, he's a child, and – and if you ever mention making him go back to – I'll die first!"

Cologne maintained a very respectful mein throughout Ryoga's rant, but towards the end, she broke into a surprisingly gentle smile. "There it is," she said, quietly. "I hope you'll forgive me for pushing you and your boy."

And what she said must've made sense to Ryoga, because he turned to face Ranma, looking shocked and dismayed.

Ranma placed a hand on Ryoga's forearm and patted, not really knowing what else to do.

"No," Ryoga said, looking at him. "No, I meant –" He paused, running a hand over his face. Then he spoke to Cologne again, determined. "I'm taking him to the Tendos." He opened his eyes and took Ranma by the shoulders. "I'm taking you to the Tendos."

"I know," Ranma said, patiently, looking up into Ryoga's distressed features. "To wait for my father."

Ryoga nodded. "That's right."

"How long have you known Ranma?" Cologne inquired, and her voice wasn't just nice now: it was cautiously gentle, talking Ryoga down as easily as she'd gotten him worked up. Ranma felt a little awestruck: he still wasn't exactly certain what had happened, but he knew he would be lucky if he could manage people so well as Elder Cologne.

Ryoga only stared at him.

"Perhaps Ranma should run and play, now," the Elder went on in that same, cautious key. "I assure you, I have disciplined Shampoo, and she is certainly not inclined, anymore, to tease your child."

"Ranma's not mine," Ryoga said, slowly.

Ranma didn't know the wounded noise was going to leave him until the Elder and Ryoga were staring. He flushed self-consciously, but Ryoa pulled him quickly out of the hammock and into his arms.

"Oh, sweetheart, that's not how I mean it. I just mean – you're Genma's, you're your father's, that's all. I don't mean I don't care about – I mean, you know that I'd never let anything –"

"New to this, are we?" Cologne chuckled, thoroughly at ease again. "First-time fathers have such troubles –"

"I'm not his father! I'm – I'm his friend, I'm –" Ryoga's grip strengthened until Ranma squeaked.

"Let the boy go," Cologne said again. "It's past time we had a real talk, you and me."

But Ryoga seemed reluctant. "You wouldn't –"

"Very open-hearted, are you? Not used to deception, eh? Then let me make myself perfectly clear. Saotome Genma was a blight on this child, and I'm glad the boy's with you. Anyone who attempts the Catfist is a fool, and a thoughtless, mindless fanatic to the Art on top of that more fundamental foolishness. I would never allow Shampoo to attempt it, even if the ridiculous child were to live to come of age to try it on her own."

Ryoga met her glare-for-glare for a long moment, then set Ranma down. "Ranma," he said, without taking his eyes off of the older woman's, "go play outside, please." And then he did shoot Ranma a look, one too filled with meaning for Ranma to decipher.

But he could tell Ryoga wasn't happy, so he pressed Ryoga's hand in his. "Yes, Ryoga," he replied, and then darted as quickly as he could out the door and into the bright sunshine of a cool morning in the mountains.

A/N: I am perhaps more nervous about this chapter than the others put together. That's because I actually did research (gasp!) on the emerging science of gender differences and used the information, quite well aware that I might piss someone off by implying being a girl would give Ranma advantages in some ways and disadvantages in others.

In his brain.

Er... so I did some research, and this is what I discovered:

Women hear better than men, and are capable of detecting greater variations in tone of voice.

Women see better in the dark.

Women are many times more sensitive to touch and pain than men, and while they call a sensation 'pain' earlier than men do, they can put up with what they consider painful far longer.

Women and men's abilities in the realm of communication and spatial awareness develop at different rates. Young women are better communicators, and young men are better in the realms of the spatial and mathematical, but by the time they're grown up, they've more or less caught up with one another and can do all of these things with comparable areas (albeit different parts) of their brain lighting up. In other words, they reach the same destination, but take very different roads to get there.

Women see more colors, especially red. One out of fifty women has the ability to see a ridiculously greater variety than even other women do. Women also have a wider field of vision (better peripheral vision), but boys have better depth perception.

Girl babies spend a great deal more time looking at faces than boy babies from the first moment they open their eyes. Boy babies are equally enthralled by the motion of a mobile, but girl babies would ignore the mobile in favor of a person's face.

Most of these are things I figured Ranma would *definitely* notice, especially if his indoctrination in the lesser nature of women was not yet complete.

I should go ahead and add, in case this information were causing you to mistake me for a sexist (which would be, uhm, easy) that plenty of young men and boys are VERY emotionally savvy, and plenty of young women and girls are exceptionally skilled mathematically and spatially. Studies are based off of averages, not individual examples.

I will gladly provide you with my research links if you're interested. I think that the reason I've hung onto Ranma fanfiction as I've lost interest in other manga and anime is because of my fascination with the idea of gender. It's really incredible, weird, and absorbing for me to think about these things. I hope you found it interesting, too!