When the world came into focus around him, Carl was surprised to find himself relaxing in a bath. Well, no. That wasn't the most surprising thing, really. Barely a shock compared to the rest of it. Lazing in a hot bath wasn't nearly as surprising as finding himself suddenly having a whole new set of memories. 16 years of memories of a completely different life.
On the plus side he now knew the Japanese language. He also had two older sisters and a father in his new life's memories. His mother had passed away some time ago, though, so that was a downer.
But even more shocking than the decade and a half of new memories was the fact that he was no longer a he.
"Well. This is going to take some getting used to." Carl muttered as he cupped his new breasts in his dainty hands. "I guess they're a decent size for a 16 year old. And perky." After fiddling around with the new equipment for a few minutes, she got out of the bath and began drying off.
Standing in front of the mirror, she posed back and forth, checking out her new/familiar dainty form. She was very fit, had dark brown eyes, black hair with natural blue highlights that went down to her mid back, and a very familiar face.
She was, unbelievably, reborn as Akane Tendo from the Ranma ½ comic.
"So…Interesting times are about to come to Nerima."
Her memories indicated that she had just finished a workout and that her father wanted her and her sisters to gather to meet him for an important announcement and to meet some guests.
While her Akane memories didn't give her any clues, her Carl memories told her exactly what it was going to be about.
The important guests would be Ranma Saotome and his father Genma. Genma was her father Soun's good friend, and her and Ranma's father was planning to join the schools in an alliance through marriage.
Which, if things went like they did in the comic then Ranma would be pawned off by her older sisters Kasumi and Nabiki onto her because he would show up in his Jusenkyo cursed form of a dainty redheaded girl.
Akane was deep in thought as she dressed in a clean gi that her former, clueless, self had laid out for after the bath.
'Well. My male pattern brain definitely doesn't like guys. And all my memories of Akane tells me how much I detest boys. There is that slightly worrying crush on Dr. Tofu Ono, but thankfully that's not really about romantic love, so much as it is admiration for someone who has helped me in the past.'
She was quite pleased that just thinking of Dr. Tofu didn't give her any warm fuzzy feelings. She still quite liked the doctor for all his help in healing her, but she had zero sexual attraction for any guys.
'So the question remains, how to handle this "engagement" to Ranma.'
She left the bath and wandered downstairs to find her sisters kneeling at a table on the opposite side of their father.
"Akane, how was your workout?" Her oldest sister Kasumi, who was like a surrogate mother that did all the housework, smiled kindly at her. She was always dressed in conservative clothes that she made herself to stretch their family's finances.
"Pretty good." Akane responded with a smile back while kneeling next to Nabiki.
"Glad you could join us, Akane." Her father, Soun, gave her a distracted yet worried nod. Akane was amused to see that her father was a bit nervous about the meeting this evening. He really had a good reason to be nervous, since he had never brought up the engagement agreement with her or her sisters before.
Nabiki, the next oldest of the three sisters, gave her, Akane, an amused grin, looking like she knew something that Akane didn't.
She might have worried a bit, if she didn't realize from her meta-knowledge that Nabiki probably practiced that grin to help her in her "business dealings". One of the rules of negotiation was to only negotiate from a position of strength, if one could help it. And appearing to know everything and have everything under control was a useful skill to have to do so.
Soun cleared his throat to get the three girl's attention.
"I called you three girls together today to inform you of an engagement agreement that will apply to one of you." Soun said sternly. "Today, one of you girl's will meet your fiancé."
"Fiance?" Nabiki asked in consternation. Akane smiled a bit inside while keeping her face from showing any emotions; had to play her part at least a little. Nabiki enjoyed flirting with boys, but it was very unlikely that she was ready to settle down.
"Yes. It's the son of a very good friend of mine. His name is Ranma Saotome." Soun said.
"So what's our fiancé's name?" Akane interrupted.
"Ranma Saotome." Soun looked at Akane weirdly, he just said that.
"So you're engaging us to your friend? Isn't that a bit weird to engage one of us to someone your age, dad?"
"No! Ranma is my friend's son's name. Genma is his father. You're getting engaged to Ranma, who is 16 years old."
"Oh, then why didn't you say that dad? I thought you were going to marry us off to an old man." Akane deadpanned while Nabiki was snickering next to her at seeing their father be messed about with a little.
"My daughters are growing up and becoming so cruel." Sound overdramatically cried. "Just today they called me an old man."
Akane rolled her eyes and took a sip of the tea that Kasumi had set out.
"So why are you engaging us to some guy we've never met before?" Nabiki asked.
"I've no interest in being engaged to a 16 year old, no matter what he looks like." Kasumi declared. "Younger men bore me."
"Kasumi brings up a good point. What kind of guy is he? Is he cute?" Nabiki asked while Akane kept sipping her tea.
"Ahem. No idea." Soun deadpanned.
"No idea?" Nabiki leaned over the table to stare in her father's eyes.
"Never met him." Soun also leaned over to go eye to eye in a battle of wills with his middle daughter.
Akane briefly thought about goosing her older sister who was wearing very short shorts that cut off at her hips and a black tank top, but she manfully refrained.
The battle of wills between Nabiki and Soun was cut off by a loud commotion from outside.
"Leggo, y'old fool!" A voice yelled while the familiar sounds of fighting came from the yard.
Her two sisters and father got up to go see what was happening.
"We have visitors!" Kasumi stated.
"Oooh. It must be Ranma!" Nabiki almost squealed as she ran to the front.
"Saotome, my friend! We've been waiting!" Soun yelled out as he followed Nabiki in running outside.
Akane stared after her family thoughtfully as they made their way to the door. Her memories of the Ranma ½ comic was spotty at best since it had been years since Carl had read it.
Her father was acting like she expected, but he didn't remember Nabiki being very friendly or interested in Ranma at all. So seeing her being all giddy and excited was a shock. Akane's memories of her middle sister being a bit of a flirt did explain some things, and maybe Ranma's curse had put Nabiki off more than Carl had remembered.
And earlier hearing Kasumi forcefully stating that younger men bored her had also shocked Akane. She didn't remember that kind of behavior from reading about Kasumi. She thought that Kasumi was much more…gentle and refined. Things were definitely different from what she expected.
'Well, I guess my memory of the events of the comic are so spotty that I can't really rely on them at all.' Akane thoughtfully thought. 'Not to mention my very presence indicates that canon events aren't guaranteed to happen. This changes things a great many things.'
A moment later Soun and Nabiki came running back in the room, followed by a very large panda carrying a struggling figure over his shoulder.
Akane kept sitting at the table, calmly sipping green tea as she eyed their guests.
Looking closely at the panda, Akane was struck by just how different it was to be in the world than to read it on a computer screen through a comic. First off, Akane noticed the sheer size and mass of the panda. It stood a head taller than her father and was a couple hundred pounds heavier.
It never occurred to her as Carl that the panda that Genma turned into was actually very large and strong. And he smelled like an animal too, which was another thing that couldn't be conveyed through the medium of a comic book. Akane wrinkled her nose as she smelled the heavy musk of the panda that Genma had turned into.
'I mean, it's a panda, one of the stupidest animals on the planet that can't even reproduce without help. And Genma's silly playing around while in his panda form didn't really convey the reality through the screen that he's a massive bear with plenty of power. Especially as a martial artist of the Anything Goes School of Martial arts, he would be able to make the most of the bear's strength.'
"Daddy… this is your friend?" Kasumi asked from where she was nervously looking over Soun's right shoulder.
"No." Sound emphatically shook his head negatively as he took a defensive stance.
"Oh." Nabiki said from where she cowered behind Soun's other shoulder. "So this panda just decided to visit! Happens all the time!"
Akane was amused to see her sister's reactions from where she sat off to the side.
The panda chose that time to grab the human form over his shoulder and to thump her down in front of him. The red haired girl in a pig tail landed on her feet and looked awkwardly up at Soun.
Akane noticed that her new body as the youngest Tendo and the red haired cursed form of Ranma Saotome were the same height. Ugh. She was short!
"You wouldn't happen to be…?" Soun asked hesitantly.
"Ranma Saotome." The red haired girl said while looking away. "Sorry 'bout this."
"At last! You've come!" Soun immediately turned excited.
"Oooh. He's cute!" Nabiki grew a smile on her face and seemed interested.
Just as Soun was going to pull Ranma into a hug, Akane punched into her father's side, knocking him off balance and onto the floor.
"Akane? What was that for?" Soun tragically asked from the floor while he acted hurt. He was too good to actually be hurt, but he liked to play around.
"You're making our guests feel uncomfortable." Akane stared her father down. She wasn't fooled by her father's dramatics. She barely punched him. "There's got to be an explanation for why a girl and a panda showed up when we were expecting a father-son duo to show up."
"Hmm?" Nabiki stepped forward, looking the red haired girl form of Ranma up and down. "'He' is a girl."
Akane slapped Nabiki's hand away that was about to poke Ranma in the boob.
"Hey! What gives, Akane?" Nabiki glared, nursing her hand that stung from the slap.
"How would you like to be poked or groped in the chest by a complete stranger?" Akane asked pointedly as she grabbed Ranma and the panda that was Genma's cursed form by one of their arms and began dragging them along with her towards the stairs. She was amused to see the dead and hopeless look on her Ranma's face lighten up a bit at the consideration being shown her.
"Kasumi, why don't you start making dinner now? I'm going to take our guests up to the bath to warm up. They've been out in the cold rain. Any explanations can wait until our guests are warm, dry, and fed."
Akane let her mind wander a bit as she showed Ranma and Genma to the bath while explaining where everything was on the way. Up until now Ranma hadn't said much, which was fine with her. She was going on auto pilot a bit as she considered her place in this new world.
"And here's the bath. I'll grab some spare dry clothes for you to change into and leave it outside the door." Akane said before leaving the two Jusenkyo Springs cursed individuals and shutting the door.
She then grabbed a couple of spare clothes from her father's room that should fit Ranma and Genma when they weren't in their cursed forms. While Ranma's female cursed form was the same height as her, namely short, his male form was much taller.
She then made her way down to the main room to watch as her father melodramatically lay on a futon under a blanket with tears pouring down his eyes.
"What's wrong with him?" Akane asked Nabiki while rolling her eyes at her father's antics.
"Poor daddy. He's just a bit disappointed." Kasumi answered as she entered the room with a cold compress that she put on Soun's forehead.
"He's disappointed?! Some fiancé we've got! A girl." Nabiki growled. "This is all your fault, daddy! You should have made sure!"
"Well, he said he had a son!" Soun cried out in anguish while staring blankly at the ceiling, all his hopes and dreams to unite the dojos gone like dust in the wind.
Akane tuned out Nabiki and Soun's whining while Kasumi returned to the kitchen to continue cooking dinner. She had some things to think about. She moved off to the side where a window was and looked out into the rain.
As Carl she had always felt that rain storms were comforting. That's what happens when one grew up in a perpetually sunny desert. Since rain was precious and rare, it was a delight when the rainstorms came each year.
So staring out into the rain comforted her mind while she considered her new circumstances and life.
Her old life as Carl had ended abruptly and bloodily in a Walmart due to some weird glowing blue portal, which apparently brought her here. And gender swapped her.
She thought she was doing pretty damned good at keeping a lid on her panic. Having 16 years of memories helped keep her calm as well, since everything seemed just as familiar to her as her old life as a dude. So that was good.
But her new life as Akane Tendo was bound to be…interesting. So she mentally went over some of the things she could expect in her new life.
Judging by Kasumi and Nabiki's reactions, she was definitely going to be stuck with the engagement to Ranma. And she didn't have any attraction to the male form. So that was bad news.
But the good news was that Ranma had a curse that turned him into a girl when he was splashed with cold water, and back into his male form when she was splashed with warm water. So, Ranma was sometimes in a form that she found hot. Somewhat good news.
Ranma's father Genma had been affiancing Ranma to all kinds of girls here and there as they traveled on their decade long martial arts journey.
If she was a normal girl she would think having to share her fiancé with other girls was bad. But since she was only attracted to females due to her base personality being Carl, having a bunch of hot warrior women around was a very nice thing.
'Maybe I can build a harem for Ranma with all his fiancés. That way I can benefit from having all these sexy women around too.' Akane thought. 'I mean, they can't always have Ranma's attention. If I can convince them to share, I can probably also convince them that as sister-wives we need to keep up our own "caring" relationships.'
Akane wiped some drool from her lips when she felt it slip out her mouth. Looking around, she was relieved to see that no one saw her like that.
'Well, it's a man's romance to have a harem. And since I'm no longer a man, I can only work on maximizing my fringe benefits here. And Ranma's mother does want a manly man as her son…so it all works out together pretty good.'
Akane only briefly considered going to China and finding the spring of drowned boy to regain her male form. Very briefly, and immediately rejected for a number of reasons.
For one thing the chaos of those Jusenkyo curse springs almost ensured that she wouldn't end up with the one she wanted. Something would happen to interfere and she would end up with a curse that she didn't want. It would probably be the worst thing imaginable, like ending up as a dung beetle or rat or something.
No, those curses were not to be taken lightly. She was genuinely afraid of attempting it and then having a fight break out and being locked in an even worse form than being a girl.
And with her 16 years of memories of being Akane, being a girl wasn't so bad, really.
And that brought Akane to another topic that she had been thinking about for some time. Despite the gender swap, she was very excited to be in this world because there was magic and martial arts here like in the movies and stories.
The previous Akane had already built up a foundation for her. She was very strong. Nowhere near Ranma or the Amazon's level yet. But she had a solid foundation to build on. She could become a strong martial artist and learn all kinds of Ki techniques!
Thinking about Akane's life and activities though, made her very aware that she would have to change the priorities in her life. As strong as she was, it had more to do with her father's work than it had to do with how much effort Akane put into her martial arts.
Both her older sisters had gone through the same training she had. So they also had a decent foundation. But Kasumi and Nabiki had put up such a fuss that Suon eventually let them pursue other interests.
Akane really didn't have any more ambition in the Martial Arts than either of her sisters. But Suon was desperate to have an heir to his style and dojo, and had used every dirty trick he could to convince Akane to "stick with it". He even let her do the bare minimum like repetitively breaking bricks to get vent her temper over not getting her way.
'Well, I am a completely different person from Akane, even if I do have her memories.' She mused as she watched the pools of water forming, the pounding of rain splashing into those pools, the drain guiding the overflow away. Hearing the rain drumming down on the surroundings calmed her in a way that she couldn't explain. It felt so good.
'And I'm damned well going to be serious in my training from now on. How else am I going to enforce my will on all of Ranma's fiancé's and convince them they have to share him and play my games if I can't stand out as the strongest one?'
She licked her lips as she thought of all the hot girls that would be coming out of the woodwork in the future, before settling herself back into a "regular face" mask. She had to have more discipline than to show her inner emotions to just anyone at any time.
A short time later Akane heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Looking over, she realized that Soun was now sitting down reading a book and Nabiki was nowhere to be seen.
'Huh. Need to work on that situational awareness. I didn't even notice when they stopped acting all dramatic and Nabiki left the room.' Akane warned herself.
She then saw Genma and Ranma come down and stop to stare at her from where she was next to a window.
Genma looked deceptively dumpy in his clothes, and wore large glasses and a head scarf, but the corded muscles in his forearms and his thick neck proved that he was definitely a martial artist. Ranma was nearly as tall as his father and all tightly corded muscle, with thick black hair.
Even with her sexual orientation of not being interested in guys at all, Akane could admit that Ranma looked pretty good. Which was no doubt why so many girls were going to be fighting it out to be his fiancé.
"Hello. Ranma and Genma Saotome, I presume?" Akane asked with a smile. She smirked a bit more when she saw the two in front of her exchanging glances and wondering why she wasn't freaking out more to see a couple of strangers in their house.
"Yeah. That's us." Ranma said awkwardly.
"Could you get your father? Soun and I need to talk a bit first." Genma asked.
"Why don't you sit at the table first? I'll grab you some tea and snacks. From the sounds of it you've had a long journey, so relax for a bit first." Akane said as she guided them to the table.
Once she saw that the Saotome's were sitting, she entered the kitchen where Kasumi was working on preparing dinner. It was only because she was looking directly at her sister that Akane saw the wince and wary look from her oldest sister at her entrance.
"Okay. I know I'm a bad cook. But surely I'm not that bad?" Akane asked with an amused air. The Akane from the comic had been able to create powerful poisons whenever she had tried to cook. It's how she gained the nickname "kitchen destroyer".
"Oh, no Akane. It's not that you're a bad cook." Kasumi nervously prevaricated. "It's just that you seem to have a hard time concentrating. I'm almost done here, why don't you call everyone down to eat?"
Akane had a hard time not laughing at the almost desperate way that Kasumi tried to shove her out of the kitchen.
"Don't worry, I'll leave your meal alone and let you do it. Ranma and Genma just came down from their baths and I was going to grab them some tea and snacks to tide them over until dinner was ready." Akane explained.
"Oh, thank kami…I mean, that sounds fine. Let me get that organized." Kasumi quickly had a pot of tea and some fruits, crackers, and snack spread ready and Akane took the tray out to place it in front of their guests.
"Here you go. Hopefully it'll take the edge off your hunger until dinner." Akane set the tea and snacks down and sat down across from the father-son duo. The two of them didn't waste any time in devouring the food, their hands moving at lightning speed as they fought over who got what.
Akane concentrated hard, focusing on their hands as they moved slightly faster than she could keep track of. Their movements were smooth and never stopping. There was only a slight pause as they picked up a food item or delivered it to their mouth, but those pauses were disappearing as they went.
Most of their moves were aimed at each other or the food in front of each other as they attempted to steal it and eat more than the other.
Akane tried to think of how she could speed up her reaction times and movement to begin competing with the two who were moving too fast for her. Right now she was too slow, and her martial arts practice had stagnated, since the other Akane hadn't been too very interested in the Art.
One of the things that she found interesting in her memory was that at one time she was very good at what were considered the feminine skills of the household. Laundry, sewing, knitting, cooking, and cleaning. She had been much more interested in being a womanly woman when she grew up.
Even shortly after her mother died, she continued to help Kasumi around the household, and she never poisoned anyone with her food.
But then one day it was like things fritzed and it was like she was cursed. Her food came out horrible and poisoned. Her sewing and knitting ruined the material and ended up making an unholy mess of the room. Her cleaning attempts put holes in the walls and floors.
That was also when she suddenly became incredibly bad at swimming. She couldn't stay afloat for the life of her. Even using a floatation device would end up with her face down in the water.
As a result of suddenly becoming so horribly bad at swimming and anything to do with the feminine arts, Akane resentfully dedicated her life to martial arts.
'There has to be a reason for that.' Akane thought. 'Someone did something to me, to cause me to be cursed the way I am. I always wondered why Akane thought she was good at cooking in the show, when she was so obviously a disaster in waiting. It turns out someone ruined her skills, and she just couldn't accept the new reality.'
The spectacle of the eating battle between Ranma and Genma ended and Akane looked up as she heard footsteps descending the stairs. Her father froze when he saw Genma sitting there. The two swiftly departed for another room so they could talk, leaving her alone with Ranma.
But Akane couldn't stop looking in the direction her father had gone. She had a suspicion brewing in her mind, but hoped she was wrong. Now she just needed to figure out how to check to see if her suspicion was correct.
"Thanks for the snacks. So what do you all do around here?" Ranma asked, breaking the silence that was awkward for him.
Akane retracted her gaze and looked over at the boy who was her age. He seemed a bit nervous.
"Well, I'm 16 and a sophomore in high school, so I do the usual activities and clubs most high school students do. I've been doing some martial arts in my spare time, but I haven't been putting in the time and dedication needed to really advance for some time. I plan to change that now, though. Something seems to have made me eager to learn." Akane stacked up the dishes from the snacks on the tray while talking. "What about you?"
"Me? Oh, nothing much to say. I'm also 16, and pops has had us on some martial arts training journey for the past 12 years or so. So we move around a lot, train, that kind of thing. Nothing much else."
"After so long spent on your trip you must have gotten quite skilled in the arts!" Akane eagerly said.
"Yeah. I'm pretty good." Ranma bragged. "I still can't beat pops all the time, he's still holding out on teaching me some of his skills, but I'm getting there."
"That's great! Could we train and spar together sometime?" Akane asked. "I could really use the advice to improve. I've only been maintaining instead of getting better for some time."
"Yeah, sure. That sounds fine. We can spar and I'll see if you're any good, and we'll go from there." Ranma confidently said.
"Thanks, that sounds wonderful." Akane smiled at Ranma as she picked up the tray before making her way to the kitchen. If Ranma had said something like that to the original Akane, it would have started one of their famous arguments, at the hint that he thought Akane wasn't skilled.
But the new Akane knew that Ranma wasn't the most diplomatic of people and that he genuinely didn't mean anything by his phrasing. He was just blunt and quite proud of his own skills. Since Carl/Akane knew all this and was basically a dude in mind as well, she didn't get all upset or offended. She merely accepted the offer in the spirit it was given and ignored any rudeness in the words.
Even if Ranma had been intentionally rude, it didn't matter. He agreed to train her, so she was happy. Her main goal was to get strong in the martial arts. If she was taking offense at everything her prospective training partners / sensei said, she would miss the important nuggets of wisdom and advice in how to improve.
She would just have to work with Ranma later on so he could learn how to properly talk to girls. She still needed his hard work if she was going to build a harem for the both of them to enjoy their lives with. So training for both of them was in the cards.
"Oh, Akane. Dinner will be ready in 5. Why don't you call everyone in?" Kasumi asked as she intercepted her before she could start washing the dishes.
'Oh, yeah. I make a mess of that chore too.' Akane thought as she handed over the tray. 'It's really nice of my sister to be so indirect with my handicap and not rub it in my face.'
"Okay. It smells wonderful as usual." Akane made her way out of the kitchen once more. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, Ranma. Just sit tight where you are, I'm going to go gather everyone."
"Okay." The black haired boy blinked at her in a bit of confusion at her attitude.
She could see that the boy was struggling to adapt to the domesticity of being under their roof. He certainly wasn't used to kindness and consideration, not after having lived like a wild wolf with his father on their training trip.
She stuck her head in the room where Soun and Genda were talking and was amused to see the two men sitting across from each other with stoic faces and gushes of tears falling down their cheeks.
"Kasumi says dinner will be ready in a few minutes and to make your way down." Akane said, and then blinked. The tears that were freely falling down their faces had disappeared and dried up like they had never been there in the first place.
"Okay. Thank you Akane."
After leaving the room, she began wondering just what was up with some of the comedic overreactions she'd been seeing since arriving here, like the tears flowing down Soun and Genda's faces. She wondered if it was a martial artist thing to live in a manner that was exaggerated and bigger than life.
'Well, they do have that whole thing with their ki being affected and powered by their emotions.' Akane knocked on Nabiki's door. 'Like Akane getting stronger when she was angry because she tapped into rage ki, or anger ki, or something.'
"Yeah?" Nabiki's voice called out from inside the room. Akane opened the door and stuck her head in, seeing Nabiki in her minimal after school clothes reading magazines while laying stomach down on the floor.
"Kasumi says dinner is almost ready. Come on down in a minute or so." Akane reported. "What are you reading?"
"Oh, just the monthly magazine Rich and Handsome. It talks about all the rich young bachelors and what they are up to in the economic field." Nabiki closed the magazine and put it away on the shelf. She got up and followed behind Akane as they made their way back down.
"So, are you reading it for the boys, or the economic advice?" Akane gently teased her sister.
"Why can't it be both?" She said. "At least with them, I can dream. Not like the failed engagement dad agreed to."
"Somehow I think there's more to the story than just a panda and a girl dad affianced us to." Akane gave a soft laugh.
"You know something! Spill it!" Nabiki tried grabbing Akane, but Akane dashed forward out of her reach and turned around at the stairs to look at her frustrated sister.
"You'll find out in a bit." Akane then dashed down the stairs with Nabiki hot on her tail, laughing at her sister's antics.
They arrived at the dining room to find everyone waiting for them, the food already on the table. Akane took her place next to Kasumi, while Nabiki paused in shock at seeing Genma and Ranma's human forms.
"Who are these two? And where is the girl and panda from earlier?" Nabiki almost demanded answers, frustrated at not knowing something.
"Nope!" Akane declared with authority when she saw the looks back and forth between Genma and Soun, Genma and Ranma, and Ranma looking off to the side with shyness and shame. "Question and answer session is after dinner. For now, we eat."
When it looked like Nabiki was about to push it, Akane narrowed her eyes and glared back while pointing at the open seat for her. Akane wasn't going to give in on this point. Everyone would eat first!
"Questions. Later. Dinner. Now." She reiterated, ignoring the looks everyone was giving each other. She knew that things would become chaotic once it was time for the explanations and she wasn't about to have her meal ruined in advance. After they had eaten was soon enough.
"Fine." Nabiki gave in, but pouted as she sat down.
Everyone began eating in silence. Akane thought it was a good and restful silence, but judging by some of the looks on other's faces, they didn't share her opinion. Which was fine. Nabiki wouldn't die from having to wait for answers. Genma and Ranma were fine putting off talking about their curse for a few more minutes and get used to being in the Tendo's house. Soun could keep his dramatics under wraps for a bit more. Kasumi…could see everyone enjoy her meal in peace, which was a thank you to the chef.
Eventually the meal was finished, the dishes cleared, and Akane and her sisters were kneeling on the ground across from where the Saotomes were kneeling. Soun was kneeling off to the side between the two groups.
"This is my dear old friend, Genma Saotome." Soun explained to his daughters.
"And this is my son, Ranma." Genma introduced.
Looking at Genma's facial features, Akane was amused that she could see the resemblance to his panda curse form. It did make her wonder if some of the speculation she had read about as Carl in his past life had any truth to it, that the curses of the Jusenkyo springs were fated for those who suffered from them. Or that they were suffering under the curses because of their karma, or to teach them a lesson of some sort based on their attitudes.
"So what's this really all about?" Nabiki asked.
"Are you really that same girl that we met with the panda?" Kasumi was tugging her pony tail over one shoulder, holding on to her hair as she tried to make sense of it.
"Hmm. Where should I begin?" Genma scratched one side of his forehead in thought. "I know…"
Without warning, his foot shot out behind him to open the sliding door while at the same time he grabbed Ranma and threw him over his shoulder outside the room.
"HEY!" Ranma got out before he landed in the pond in the yard. Ranma bust up out of the water a moment later, in her cursed girl form, red hair and clothes soaking wet. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Akane glanced at the looks on her sister's faces, seeing that they were both quite shocked at the scene.
"He's now a girl!" Kasumi exclaimed.
"My own son. So humiliating. So humiliating." While Genma was standing there, looking off to one side with tears once more streaming down his face, Ranma had jumped out of the pond and positioned himself to deliver a kick to the backside of his father, sending him into the pond as well.
"Who are you to talk about humiliation, fat bear!" Ranma said once the panda that Genma turned into jumped up out of the pond.
"Daddy? Why are you friends with them?" Kasumi asked while the Tendos watched the cursed forms of the Saotome's fighting each other in the yard, throwing punches and kicks at each other.
"They weren't like this before!" Soun declared with sweat dropping down the side of his face. "Not before they went to China…and undertook that terrifying training exercise!"
Akane just sat back and watched the fight avidly. She was seeing a whole new world of martial arts. The speed, the accuracy, the power, and the control evident in the two combatant's moves was riveting to her. She couldn't tear her eyes away, or put her concentration elsewhere. She wanted to soak up more, to watch, to learn what the Saotome's were doing, so she could emulate it!
Occasionally one of them would get a good grapple hold on the other, and the fight would immediately turn from striking to mid-air wrestling. One of them would get the leverage and hold they needed and throw the other away. But in the middle of being thrown they would regain their balance and orient themselves, bouncing off of whatever was nearby to send themselves back into the fight.
Even in her new memories of being taught martial arts by her father, Akane had never seen such wonderful fast paced combat. Such mastery of their bodies and their three dimensional orientation, always being in control.
Soun eventually broke into the fight, interrupting them and sending them back up to the bath to change back to their normal forms. Akane felt her face shift into a pout at having the combat end too early.
Already she was internalizing what she had seen, trying to think of how she could train to emulate that kind of combat.
Despite her gender change, new memories, and slight confusion of just why she was plopped into the body of a girl, she was still ecstatic that she got a chance to train in this world. That she had the opportunity to learn to be as powerful and deadly as the best martial artists from the fantasy-fiction of her old world.
Just the opportunity to learn martial arts alone gave her the courage and incentive to deal with her new gender and life in a positive manner.
Well, that and the opportunity to enjoy a harem without the responsibility of being the guy in charge of keeping the girls happy.
(Not that she wouldn't be putting in effort to make her future harem with Ranma and his fiancés work. Strong and powerful women who spent all their time training in martial arts would require a strong hand to make sure they didn't let the little things blow up into big things.)
Well, learning martial arts, a possible harem, and the knowledge that the Jusenkyo curse was pretty much unbeatable by anything mortals could do in this world kept her content to remain as Akane Tendo, and not try to go change her gender back to Carl.
As Carl he had already been karma'd into a girl's body by his rebirth. He shuddered to think what the Jusenkyo curse would think would be a proper curse for her karma / fate / moral lesson if she pushed it. She would just have to be content with what she had in her life and live the best she could.
While Akane was busy processing what she could learn from the scene of Ranma and Genma's fight and thinking of the circumstances of her new life, she didn't notice the time pass and Ranma and Genma were soon sitting in front of the Tendos once more.
'Huh. Guess that's a bonus of being female.' Akane had a random thought pop into her head. 'I seem to be a bit better at multi-tasking now than I ever was as Carl.'
"So, my good friend. How did this…whatever this is, happen to you?" Soun asked.
"It was two fateful weeks ago…" Genma began and told the story of their training journey to China. How they had followed a guide to a legendary training grounds, guided by a Jusenkyo tour guide.
When they arrived they saw hundreds of ponds dotting the landscape. There were bamboo poles sticking up all over the place. It was obvious they were meant to engage each other in aerial combat while jumping from one bamboo pole to another.
They dropped their packs, took off their footwear, and leapt up to the bamboo poles to began fighting. They ignored the shouts of the tour guide, their focus on each other. Getting distracted mid-fight was for amateurs.
The two martial artists dove at each other, exchanging blows. Ranma temporarily gained the upper hand and sent Genma falling into one of the ponds. It took him a minute to resurface, causing Ranma to be confused at how soon his father had stopped fighting.
Suddenly a panda bear bust out of the pond. The sight shocked Ranma, since he had no idea what was going on. That distraction was enough for Genma as a panda bear to attack and knock Ranma into a different pond.
When he came out of the pond, he was now in a smaller body, that of a teenage girl.
It was at that point that Genma finally realized something strange was going on, so they paused their fight and went to question the tour guide about just what was going on and how long they could expect to stay that way. Should they continue training as they were? But they weren't in their original bodies, so the training would be less effective.
"And that's when we learned the curse was permanent." Ranma finished off the story. "Each of those ponds had something drown in them sometime in the past. The pond that pops fell into was the Spring of Drowned Panda. Anyone that falls into it is cursed to turn into a panda when splashed with cold water. They turn back into their original form when splashed with warm water."
"And my son fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl." Genma added on. "So now my son turns into a girl when splashed with cold water. So humiliating! So humiliating!" Genma sobbed.
Akane could see that Ranma was gritting his teeth in anger at his father's reaction. As if Genma was the one that was humiliated by turning into a girl more than Ranma himself.
Silence descended on the group as they considered the information.
"The legendary ground of accursed springs. It's true horror has always been shrouded in mystery. But now…" Soun filled the silence.
"Feh!" Ranma interrupted. "Whaddya mean 'true horror'?"
He turned to Genma and grabbed his gi, interrupting Genma's continued mutters of "so humiliating!"
"Yo, old man. What's the idea of draggin me to a place like that anyway!?" Ranma growled.
Genma took the opportunity to throw Ranma outside into the pond once more, turning him into a girl.
"You sound like a whining woman! Were you not prepared to give your life for the sake of your training!" Genma lectured in a self-righteous tone.
Ranma glared at Genma. "I was prepared to give my life. But my manhood is another story!"
Ranma pulled out a pot and splashed Genma with a bucket of water, turning him into a panda once more. And then they began fighting once more, exchanging strikes at a fast pace.
Akane went back into her happy place that only high speed combat or the thoughts of her future harem could bring her to.
Unfortunately, this time her enjoyment of the fight was interrupted by her two older sisters after a short few moments.
"You just went too far, Mr. Saotome!" Kasumi cried out as she got close enough to the fight to cause the two Saotomes to pause their battle.
"Yeah! Even for martial arts training!" Nabiki added on.
"Whatever made you do something so dangerous?" Kasumi demanded.
Genma panda stared at Kasumi with a narrowed gaze for a few moments before pulling something out of nowhere and dropping it on the floor. Akane stood up and looked over her sister's shoulders as they looked over what Genma had pulled out.
"It's a Chinese map and a guide book?" Kasumi asked.
"Something about…'training grounds'." Nabiki added on.
"It's no wonder." Kasumi sighed before looking at the panda. "You can't read Chinese, can you?!"
Genma pulled out a large sphere the size of a beach ball. It split in two, spraying confetti around and a sign dropped out of it amidst the streamers. The sign read "Correct".
Akane's lips twitched in amusement to see the comedy play out with real life.
'And Genma seems to be able to use the martial arts technique that gives him a hammerspace. I've got to learn that skill so I can have my own personal dimensional pocket where I can store anything I want.' Akane drooled over the idea of learning the magical skill.
At that point Soun appeared from the side with a teapot full of boiling water and poured some onto Genma, turning him back into a person.
"Ahh! Hot! Hot! Hot!" Genma cried out.
"It's as you said, when doused with hot water, you return to human form." Soun nodded, confirming for himself what he was told earlier.
"Yes, but it needn't be quite that hot!" Genma said with a glare at his friend.
Soun then turned to Ranma. "When doused with cold water, you become a girl, but hot water turns you back into a boy!"
Ranma dodged the boiling water that Soun tried to douse her with.
"Hot water! Not boiling water!" Ranma cried out as she dodged another splash of boiling water.
"No sweat." Soun put away the pot of boiling water. A creepy smile appeared on his face as he jovially patted Ranma on the shoulder. "Your problem isn't so terrible after all."
"Huh?" Ranma was confused at the abrupt turn around and crazy look in Soun's eyes.
"My daughter Kasumi, nineteen." Soun pointed at Kasumi. Kasumi looked askance at her father.
"And Nabiki, seventeen." Nabiki narrowed her eyes in thought at her father.
"And my youngest daughter, Akane, sixteen." Akane struggled not to roll her eyes at her father who was desperate to hold to the original agreement with Genma. She already knew what would be happening, so she just kept her mouth shut since it played into her own desire to become friends with Ranma so she could have her own harem.
"Pick the one you want, and she'll be your fiancé." Soun finished with a serious look while gesturing at his three daughters.
"Oh, he wants Akane!" Kasumi immediately said, pushing her forward.
"Oh, definitely! Akane is the one for him." Nabiki said, also pushing Akane forward.
Akane smiled a bit. Yup, just as she expected from her new sisters. Looking at Ranma, she saw he was getting awfully nervous, feeling trapped.
"Hey there, Ranma. Why don't we get to know each other first while you stay here with us. See if we can become friends, train some in the martial arts, and just have some fun for a while?" She stuck out her hand for a handshake and was amused to see the palpable relief in Ranma's face that she was being so friendly instead of immediately declaring a feud with him, or glomping onto him.
"That sounds…good." Ranma said with a shy smile. Akane was pleased she had struck the right balance with the highly skilled but unsocial martial artist. She couldn't wait to get him on the practice pad and start getting tutoring from him!
"They're already a perfect couple!" Soun said gleefully to Genma, and then the two old men burst out laughing together. Almost hysterical laughter, really.
"Ignore the idiots." Akane said as she grabbed one of Ranma's arms and dragged him from the room. "Let's go to the dojo and you can show me some of those moves you were using. I can't believe how far behind I am. Your training journey must have been full of tough training for you to get so good!"
Akane was pleased to see a smile appear on Ranma's face at being acknowledged for his skills. And focusing on martial arts was loads better in Ranma's mind than talking about engagements, feelings, or any of that touchy feely crap!
She and Ranma spent the next hour and a half sparring and practicing her moves, getting instruction from him on how to improve. Like she had expected from the boy with foot-in-mouth syndrome, she was bombarded with all kinds of insults to her form, speed, and skill.
But even with all that, she was genuinely happy to be doing something so awesome that she would have never been able to do in her past life as Carl. So she let the insults that weren't meant personally slide right off her back. She was starting off with the original Akane's skills. But before long she had taken those skills and already improved them quite noticeably. And that accomplishment was all her.
At the end of the night before bed, the two of them took separate baths to get ready for bed. Akane then showed Ranma, who was back in his male form, where his room was.
She knew that currently she couldn't even keep up with Ranma in his female form, and that she would be even more outclassed by him when he was in his male form. But she was determined to catch up as soon as possible.
