Author's notes:
Rewind: Let's not single out manga-Kodachi just yet; there's plenty of blame to go around in the next few chapters!
Majin: Pretty much.
DiMera: I tend to like Kodachi fics as well. As things unravelled in my head though, for this particular fic, I'm not making a lot of space to portray her in a positive light.
And as I needed a bit of social dynamite at this point, well... Angry angry Kodachi to the rescue!
Lastly, I am choosing to ignore an element of canon: I'm having Soun not know about Ryoga's curse. I can not see any way of justifying his canonical behavior otherwise, and having him not know means I can move the plot along better.
(It's never made explicit he knows in the manga, I think, but he's at least in the room when Ranma triggers the curse in the Pantyhose introduction arc.)
And now, in what what will by far be the the highest density of drama this fic has to offer, let us get on with the meltdown.
zzzzz
Ranma found herself dragged into a house. It wasn't a house house; it was a house were you could fight without breaking things. They were good sometimes, but you had to be able to fight anywhere.
People were talking around her. Somebody mentioned water. That horrible, evil, nasty thing that had turned her into a... into a...
She moaned unhappily, sinking down on her knees.
She was splashed with water again, and she panicked. But no, this was different. The water was hot. Hot water was good.
He giggled. Haah, hot water was good. The breasts were gone. He was still human, but the breasts were gone. Hot water was good.
Somebody gave him a blanket. He looked up to see the face of his mother. His mother looked worried, but was smiling, too, and she'd given him a blanket.
She smiled, and talked to him. He smiled back, but he wasn't entirely sure what she was saying.
Pop came up tot. Was pop good or bad? He was usually there when there was trouble, and when he wasn't, you could always find where he was hiding and drag him back so he could help you cheat. But then, he was also often the reason there was so much trouble.
Pop shook him a bit, and slapped him till the world stopped spinning.
For a second everyting turned black, and he thought he would finally get to sleep. But then the blackness receeded.
He focused.
Genma was scowling, but he looked worried, too.
Ranma blinked, and looked around him.
Right.
Right.
He looked around the Dojo. They were all there. The Kunos were tied up, the Tendos were looking at him, Akane-
Wow, holy crap! Akane was tied up right next to the Kunos, and there was murder in her eyes.
Oh no.
"Has Akane been cursed?" he asked, quietly.
Everyone hesitated.
He felt his heart sink. This was his fault. If he'd talked to Kodachi sooner she wouldn't have turned up and started flinging cursed water everywhere.
"What... what does she turn into?" he asked.
For answer, Soun, who stood nearest, splashed Akane with a bucket of water.
She didn't change.
He frowned. "But... but I saw her get splashed. We were both splashed..."
Akane's glare would have burned a hole in the wall if Ranma hadn't been there to intercept it.
Everyone was looking at him again.
His memories were fuzzy. There was something there that he desperately didn't want to remember, and his head seemed to have slammed the gate on everything surrounding it as well.
He had been cured. And then, just like that, he had been splashed with dozens of new curses, one after another.
And the one that had gotten Akane hadn't changed her. But he had changed, right? He had become human again.
Was there a "Cure all" spring? But wait, no, he had still become a girl when he was splashed...
What wouldn't change Akane but would change him?
As realization dawned on him, a hole opened up in his stomach. It grew.
"No..." he whimpered.
His eyes returned to Akane. Oh gods no. This was bad. No, no, no...
"I didn't mean to!" he protested, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Akane's any more than a dear could look away from the oncoming freight train, and the pit grew.
"Come now, son," Soun said, "This isn't so bad. Genma told me about this... this Spring of drowned Fiancée. All it means is we have to move that wedding up again."
"What?" Ranma asked, the shock enabling him at last to tear his eyes away from the twin gateways to the abyss.
His prospective father-in-law looked happy of all things.
Nodoka took over. "This works out wonderfully. Akane and you were always a little shy about being intimate, well now you won't be able to keep her hands off her!"
He sat with his mouth open. "You can't be serious," he managed to mouth, eventually.
"Dead serious, my boy!" This was from his father. "The sooner you two are married, the sooner Akane will accept the new circumstances."
His mother chirped in. "And then you can explore her body all you want!"
The fathers laughed.
Ranma didn't look back to Akane. He didn't dare.
Somehow, at some point, this evening had turned into a nightmare. There was no other explanation.
Had he been drugged? Might that be the cause of all these insane hallucinations? Kodachi had visited, was that it? She had thrown water at him. She must have put something in those buckets.
Or maybe he was just mad. Yeah... Yeah that sounded about right. After all the transformations he had undergone in just a few minutes, he must have gotten brain damage. Everything would be better in the morning. Everything would make sense. Oh gods he wanted to sleep.
He could feel Akane's eyes on him.
Genma stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Now, boy, you were talking about a cure before all this started?"
Ranma looked up at the poorly feigned casual interest in his father's face.
Well, it wasn't like panda man could make anything worse now that the Nanniichuan was gone.
He nodded, and smacked his head a couple of times to shake himself into some semblence of coherence.
He quickly regretted his decision, as the world once again turned black for a couple of seconds, and he almost fell uncouncious.
He wasn't gonna be able to keep track of lies. He'd have to tell the truth all the way.
He gestured at Kuno. "Nabiki's cash cow found out about Jusenkyo a couple weeks back, and started blabbering about a cure."
That got Genma interested."Yes, boy?"
Ranma looked over at Kuno. This was probably not how he should be telling it, but he was just too manhandled and tired to tell anything but the bluntest form of the truth he could think of.
"Well, he got it into his head that the girl form was the real me. He wanted to order Nyanniichuan, and I tricked him into getting some Nanniichuan, as well. When he showed up tonight I splashed myself with the Nanniichuan and poured the Nyanniichuan out before any of the crazy things in this place could get me cursed again."
He laughed weakly, thinking back.
"And- the Nanniichuan?" his father asked. "Where is the rest of it? Quickly son, we can still cure you if you tell me where it is!"
Ranma looked up into his father's face again.
Gee. When he was this tired, it almost seemed funny, the sincerity with which pops could lie.
"Used up," he said, whereupon his father quickly started shaking him and protesting about young people and their selfishness.
That proved too much, and the world went out of focus.
zzzzz
When her husband finally let go of shaking their child, the boy slid quietly down on the floor. She hurried over to examine him.
Her son wasn't unconscious, but he was completely out of it. She tried speaking to him reassuringly, but though his eyes came to fix upon her, he didn't say anything.
Finally, she decided to hope he would recover quickly enough to resume his part in this... this interrogation.
She rose again, and looked over on their captives. She settled on Tatewaki Kuno.
The tied up swordsman was wearing a tuxedo, which if torn and beat up now, probably hadn't been so when he had first knocked on the door.
"I'm sorry, young man, but my son is male."
In addition to being bound, the Kunos and Akane were all gagged, so there wasn't much Kuno could say in reply.
"I understand Tatewaki Kuno's appearance. But what about his sister?" She turned to meet the eyes of the girl who had been, if not the most promising martial artist amongst the girls after her son, at least in many ways the most extreme.
"Can you remain calm?" she asked.
The bound martial artist nodded.
"Did you come to attack Ranma?"
The younger Kuno hesitated. Then she nodded. Then she shook her head. Then she nodded, then she shook her head again.
She frowned.
"Can somebody please take out the girl's gag?" she asked.
Soun moved to comply, but Nabiki got there first.
She bent down to ungag the girl, and whispered something as she did.
To which the reply was "Like hell, bitch!"
The group blinked.
"What?" Nodoka asked.
"The mercenary bitch lied to us," Kodachi said,
Nabiki protested, but the Saotome matriarch cut her off. "Let the girl speak."
She turned back to Kodachi, with a warning look in her eyes. "We have been subject to your visits before, young woman. Don't think you can put this all over on one of the girls who live here."
Kodachi glared at Nabiki, but when she shifted her eyes to Nodoka the glare slowly faded into a restrained pout.
"Well, this time is different."
"How so?"
"For one thing the cutthroat bitch got me the water," Kodachi snapped, and her glare returned to Nabiki.
Nodoka gasped. She turned to Nabiki. "Is this true?"
Nabiki stood eerily silent for a second, watching Kodachi. Then she turned to Nodoka. "I told Tatewaki about Jusenkyo. He must have told her."
In addition to Kodachi's protests and insults, there was fervent head shaking on Kuno's part.
His gag, too, was removed.
"Pig-tailed girl! You must resist! You must-!" was all he got out before the gag was put back in.
"Both Tatewaki and Ranma are out of it," Nabiki said, "and I wouldn't trust Kodachi's word further than you can throw her."
Nodoka frowned, letting Kodachi hurl insults and Nabiki argue for a delay.
This went on for a little while, and then she calmly, slowly, drew her Katana.
The two girls quieted.
Nodoka was looking at Kuno, her sword not pointed at him, but the simple, unmistakable gleam making it very clear the blade had been kept in working condition since Genma took her son on that fateful training trip all those years ago. "I will remove your gag one more time, young man. And when I do, I expect you to be quiet except for answering my questions. Are we clear?"
Kuno hesitated for the longest moment, but then he nodded. Once.
Nodoka removed the gag. "Did you or did you not pass on the information Nabiki gave you on Jusenkyo to your sister?"
Kuno restrained himself from even looking in Ranma's direction, his eyes on Nodoka."I revealed all I know of Jusenkyo to my sister, it is true, but Nabiki Tendo did not tell me where the cursed springs are located. I had to purchase the water through her."
"Exactly!" Kodachi hurried. "Then, when he told me that he had procured water from the cursed springs from Nabiki, I made contact with her as well!"
She turned to the half unconscious Ranma. "Ranma-sama I'm sorry! I thought your true form was female!" She looked frantic.
The blade was pointed ever so slightly more in the interrupting girl's direction.
"Why did you attack?" Nodoka asked.
Kodachi hesitated. She looked at her in silence for a little while, but then a stubborn glimt appeared in her eyes.
"I thought your son was that hussy all along, and that she'd played me. I wanted to show her what I thought of that."
There was no apology in her voice.
Ok, so from what she could piece together about the Black Rose, it was probably the truth. And if it was cruel and excessive, if she'd been right about her son being a girl playing her for a sap for a whole year, it didn't seem that excessive anymore.
Well.
"What about everyone else?" she asked.
She frowned. "What?"
"What about everyone else? Didn't you care you might curse one of us?"
Kodachi's eyes darted back to Ranma, and they had a pleading look in her eyes. "Please, Ranma-sama, I was so angry... I didn't think. I wanted to revenge myself, and I didn't think that I might-"
Nodoka interrupted. "No one else got cursed, so we will leave that be for now. But tell us, girl, why did you think that my son's girl form was his true self? Did not your brother explain it to you?"
Kodachi blinked. She frowed. She looked over at her elder brother, questioningly.
Tatewaki looked confused. "But... Does that mean... Is it cold water that activates the curse?"
The three adults just looked at him.
"...Yes?" Soun tried.
"But..." Kuno blinked. He looked around at their faces, confused. "But..."
His eyes landed on Ranma. "But... but then he..."
"He is a man, yes," she said.
Kuno looked at her son with a strange expression. It didn't seem angry so much as... hurt.
"Nabiki?" Nodoka asked, eyes still on the increasingly unhappy looking kendoist.
"I never said which way it worked," the middle Tendo daughter snapped. Then she blinked as she realised to whom she had spoken. She licked her lips. "Auntie Saotome, you know-"
"Don't you Auntie Saotome me, young girl. That you keep things from Kuno I've known for a while, but didn't you pause to consider what he might do if you let him go around thinking my son was a woman?"
"But he didn't do anything, Auntie, in fact he brought Ranma a cure!"
"And told his sister. Who brought new curses."
"That's hardly my fault-"
"She ordered the water!" Kodachi screamed.
The room fell into silence.
"Tatewaki," Nodoka asked, "is this true?"
"Yes, Mrs Satome."
Nodoka turned to Nabiki. "Hardly your fault?"
Nabiki crossed her arms in defiance. "It's not my responsibility, what she does with it. If Ranma had bothered to tell her about the curse at any time throughout the last year this wouldn't have happened."
"Maybe so, Nabiki, but you had to know she was going to use this water against Ranma."
The middle Tendo daughter shrugged. "After all the damage your son and husband have done over the 15 months they've been here, I'm not about to say no to cold hard cash because one of them might get a new curse."
The two women's eyes locked, and there was a drop in temperature.
"I see," Nodoka said eventually, turning away. That was revealing.
She turned back to Kodachi. "What springs did you order water from?"
"All of them," Kodachi said, neutrally. "Except for the ones my brother did."
Her gaze skipped back to Ranma for a few seconds. "I thought it was a complicated thing to get her form back to female permanently, so I tried my best to screw things up."
Nodoka met the young girl's eyes. "I would say you rather have, young Kuno."
Kodachi bit her lip, eyes tearing up.
"As for you," Nodoka said, returning her full attention to Tatewaki, "Do you understand now that my son is a man?"
The young man's cheeks turned red, and he seemes to be swallowing protests as they came to him. "I understand," he said finally, through gritted teeth.
She kept the gaze going for a few more seconds, before nodding, and turning away.
As much as she had gotten to think about, Nodoka thought she was about ready to turn to the biggest mystery of the evening. The Kuno family was obviously collectively insane and would need to be dealt with in the long term, but in the short term, her son was worn out and would need a long night's sleep and a kind awakening.
But before that, she had to know what had happened with Akane.
The youngest Tendo girl had stared unblinkingly at her son, even fading in and out of consciousness as he was. And she was staring at him in a way a fiancée should never, ever stare at her betrothed.
She walked up to Akane slowly, carefully removed her gag, and touched her cheek to turn the young girl's face up to look at her.
For the first time since she was bound and unceremoniously put on the floor, Akane blinked, and her eyes turned up to meet those of the Saotome matriarch.
"What happened out there?" she asked.
Akane's head turned slowly back to Ranma, and she made a strange, rasping sound. "Pig," was the only coherent sound that came out.
Nodoka frowned. "Now Akane, I know you are uncomfortable with his new-"
Akane spoke in a low, slow voice, but the violent hatred in her words cut through Nodoka's like a knife. "I don't care about the spring of drowned fiancée."
Nodoka waited silently. She licked her lips. She asked.
"Then what is it?"
"He turned," came that same quiet, terrible voice, "into a pig."
The girl turned back to her. And now there were other emotions there; outrage, disgust, revultion. "He turned, INTO, MY, PIG!"
Akane wheezed, and as if she didn't know what to say, she made only that unnatural, rasping sound again.
"What do mean? You mean P-chan? But Akane, that was never Ranma's curse. He always turned into a girl."
Akane shivered with those dark emotions again. "There are one-use versions of the curses. He could have turned into a pig any time he wanted!"
She frowned. The girl was acting... mad. "But you've seen P-chan and Ranma fight lots of times, Akane. We all have."
"Yes," Akane whispered. "And now I know why."
"What do you mean?"
"Your son," Akane answered, through gritted teeth, "was trying to scare P-chan away, so he could take his place without getting caught!"
Nodoka backed away, shocked at what she had just heard.
"Akane, you can't believe that..."
Her prospective daughter in law - the girl her only child was engaged to marry, could not have said that. She could not.
"It all makes sense, now," the girl continued, smiling insanely through gritted teeth. "He really was a pervert... all that time..."
Nodoka slapped her.
Akane turned her glare on her. "What, Auntie Saotome? You have a different explanation?"
Nodoka blinked, looking over worriedly at her unconscious son. "I don't know," she said. "But my child wouldn't do that." She turned back to Akane. "My son would not do that to you."
Akane laughed in that strange tone of voice. "It all makes sense," she repeated, staring at her child like he was... like he was some sort of animal.
"Er, beloved?" Genma tried to say, but she ignored him.
"My son would not do that," she repeated.
Akane returned her gaze silently.
Right.
She got a cold feeling in her stomach, but with this development, there was only one course of action she could take.
She looked away from the youngest daughter of the Tendo Household, to it's leader.
"Soun?" she asked.
Her husband's old friend simply looked at her, numbly.
"I am afraid I must break the engagement."
Soun and Genma shoked.
"This arrangement was one of honour. It is clear your daughter does not believe Ranma's family has any to contribute."
She held Soun's gaze. His lips moved, but he remained silent.
She turned to her husband. "Come, dear, our house may not be fully renovated yet, but the bearing structure has been repaired, and I will no longer impose myself or my child on your old friend."
She turned back to her formerly prospective daughter in law. "Good bye, Akane Tendo.
zzzzz
A/N: Ryoga's about the only character in manga/anime I actively loathe. As I doubt the readers would like this fic to include Akane cooking pork, I won't actually have him come to Nerima in this fic. But when he does... Well, I'm not saying bad things will happen. I'm saying you decide.
Now, I always felt Ranma should have told Akane about P-chan, and shame on him for not doing so. (For one thing, shouldn't he be looking out for the honour of the girl he intends to marry, as much as his own? Is a broken promise really as damaging as allowing someone to molest your fiancée when she doesn't know about it?) He's not really lucid enough to get yelled at at the moment, of course, so I'll do something about that later. In this chapter, I just wanted to demonstrate to Nodoka in one go what Ranma has been slowly coming to realise over the course of months: Akane will never trust him.