Chapter 3: Memories
Ranko stared at the negiyaki in front of her, the familiar smell tugging at her as much as Ukyo's words had. She could feel the other two girls staring at her, while she tried to process everything.
"If I am… if I am not from Jusenkyo, then… what am I?" she finally asked, looking up at Ukyo, searching the other girl's warm brown eyes for an answer.
"That's something I can'ts answer," Ukyo replied, "but you havin' been around when we was kids makes a lot of things makes more sense."
"Maybe you can try seeing if you have any other memories of Ukyo-kun that don't feel the same as Ranma memories?" Akane asked.
"Tries eatin' the negiyaki too. Sometimes taste gets associated with memories. Pretty sure Ranma had the same thing goin' on," Ukyo added.
Ranko nodded slightly, before slicing off a little bit of the green onion pancake in front of her. It tasted exquisite. The sharp cheddar and green onion balanced each other perfectly, while the sweet potato rich batter provided a body to it that filled her with warmth. Not that it was a cold day, but this wasn't a regular warmth. It was an almost spiritual warmth.
It told her she'd existed before. That she knew Ukyo. That Ukyo knew her.
"I ain't had me cookin' make people cry often. Hope those is happy tears, ducky," Ukyo said, smiling at her.
Ranko swallowed. "You tried to catch some goldfish for me at one festival, did you not?"
"Mhm, we was havin' a time! And I did catch it. Then I tried to shows it to ya, but it jumped at ya, and you got right spooked," Ukyo said, laughing.
Ranko found herself laughing too. "It surprised me!"
"Do ya remembers anything else?" Ukyo asked, leaning against her grill.
Ranko closed her eyes, focusing on the smell of the restaurant. Then something slid into place.
"There was a photography booth. They had outfits to dress up in," Ranko said, opening her eyes again. "You put on a bow tie and a tophat that was much too big for you. I… I found a purple dress that I thought was the prettiest thing I had ever seen."
"Oh! I remembers that one now! Yeah! You was so surprised when the attendant asked if you was just gonna stare at it all day or actually put it on."
Ranko nodded, getting excited about the memory. "It was also too big for me, but I felt so fancy and we… and… and then daddy…"
A rush of fear overcame Ranko. Her father's anger. The dress being pulled off and her being dragged away and then… and then…
Ranma was in a fighting pose, standing on two stools in Ucchan's. Blinking, and looking around, he saw only Akane and Ukyo staring up at him.
"Uh, what happened?" he asked, looking around some more, trying to explain what had filled his heart with so much terror just now.
"Ranko had… you might want to sit down, Ranma," Akane said.
The petite redhead hopped down, before plunking himself onto the stool beside Akane. There was a half eaten okonomiyaki sitting in front of him, though it looked a bit funny.
"Is this mine?" he asked.
"Uh… basically?" Ukyo replied.
He dug in, his stomach empty. He'd made it a few bites before he realised the girls were staring at him. "What? It's Ucchan's cookin'. It's good."
"Oh, it's not about your table manners. I've learned to get used to those by now," Akane said. "It's… well, Ukyo-kun knew Ranko."
"What? How? An'… why didn't ya ever say nothin'?" Ranma asked, turning to the chef.
"I, well, I just thought ye was like me. That you had days you bes feeling more boyish and days you bes feeling more girlish. And that you had a terrible memory," Ukyo replied. "We was kids at the time, I didn't know there could be a difference between you having different moods and ye… being different people? Or, however I should describes the situations with you an' Ranko. And that growin' up with that stupid panda for a father probably convinced ya to 'grow out' of some of your interests."
Ranma opened his mouth, but realised he had nothing to say. So he shovelled the last of the negiyaki into his mouth. He thought things over as he chewed.
"Ok, but where'd she come from if she ain't from Jusenkyo?" Ranma asked.
The two girls shrugged.
"Your old man dragged you all over, right?" Ukyo said. "Maybe ya picked up a ghost somewhere else?"
"Maybe…" Ranma replied, not really sure what to think about it all.
Akane looked deep in thought, but didn't say anything. So the conversation slid to Ukyo wanting to know about Ranma's plans. He confirmed he was planning to let Ranko take over at least once a week. Ukyo wanted to see her again next time she was up, which Ranma was quite willing to agree with. Even if he didn't know how he felt about it all, Ukyo seemed like she missed Ranko now that she knew Ranko was something more than just Ranma in an odd mood. Since Ukyo was his friend, he didn't want to see her left missing someone if he could help.
Ranma and Akane set off a bit later, the short redhead insisting it was the gentlemanly thing to do to carry Akane's bags for her. Akane was surprised, but Ranma felt a need to compensate for what was going on today, and his own outfit.
As they walked, he wondered about where Ranko could have come from. He also wondered about where she'd been. Why hadn't he remembered her at all when he started being aware of her after Jusenkyo?
Akane sat at her desk, having finished up her homework, trying to think over everything she'd learned today. Considering how much Ranko hated being in Ranma's birth form, she wondered how the girl could have handled being around before Jusenkyo. Part of her also, briefly, questioned if she could think of Ranko as actually a girl, if she wasn't a spirit from Jusenkyo. At least until she remembered she'd been fine with the idea of Ranko being a girl before learning about that theory.
Well, not fine. It still was weird to learn that Ranma, the boy she liked, had a girl in his head. Though, Akane supposed, it wasn't that much weirder than Ranma sometimes having a girl body.
Getting up, she headed downstairs. To her surprise, both her sisters were in the kitchen, Kasumi working on… something for dinner. Akane couldn't begin to guess what it was at this stage. Nabiki, meanwhile, was reading a book at the table. The book looked to be from school, going off the condition of the book.
"What's up brat?" Nabiki asked.
Akane sat down at the table herself. "I'm confused about Ranko."
"Oh?" Kasumi asked over her shoulder as she chopped some sweet potatoes.
Akane gave a quick rundown of what she'd learned today from Ukyo. Her sisters nodded along, though Kasumi seemed much more invested than Nabiki.
"I was wondering as much. I had phoned grandmother Cologne to double check a recipe while you were out, and she had expressed doubts about Ranma's theory," Kasumi said. "I was thinking that the girl might be like the cat, that she came about as a response to some trauma or another? Though… I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what she could have been a response to."
"Maybe it's just like the book my English teacher is making me read, and Ranma was exposed to some sort of experimental medicine, splitting him into his good and evil sides?" Nabiki added, lifting up her book.
While Akane was far from an expert at English language literature, even she could recognise the name 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' and what it meant.
"I don't think so. We already saw Ranma's evil side with that splitting incense incident," Kasumi replied.
"True. True… Kasumi's makes more sense than her being Ranma's evil side. That girl doesn't have an evil bone in her body," Akane said. "Unless Ranma was the evil side, but, as much of a jerk as he sometimes is, I couldn't call him 'evil'."
Too confused to think about it any more, Akane decided to head off to the dojo, to work out until dinner. Breaking concrete would be good stress relief.
Ranma was somewhere dark. After a moment of disorientation, he realised there was another child with him. His eyes adjusted, and he realised she was a girl, though she could also have passed for his twin. They were both small children, not long had passed since they'd left Ucchan behind.
He heard a noise. Turning, he realised it was a cat. No, many cats. They were coming towards him. Hissing demonic things, their eyes glowing in the dark. The girl clung to him as he tried to shield her from the advancing beasts. The pair of children were soon backed into a corner, the skinny and hungry creatures all around.
"Boys can have a rope," Genma's voice called out from above.
Ranma looked up, seeing his father standing at the pit's edge, a rough rope held loose in one hand.
"Only boys, though," Genma continued, his voice stern. "You have to promise me you won't be girly again and then this can all be over."
"You should go," the girl whispered, from behind him. "At least one of us gets out."
"Nu-uh," Ranma said, turning to glare up at his father. "I ain't leavin' Ranko down here!"
Only after he shouted her name did Ranma understand that it was indeed Ranko he was guarding. Even if she had black hair like him, instead of the red hair of the form she prefered.
A cat jumped on him while he'd been distracted by Ranko. It's needle-like teeth and claws digging into his skin. He shrieked in pain.
Ranma pulled the cat off, throwing it away from them, into the darkness of the pit.
"Just save yourself!" Ranko shouted.
He shook his head. "You're not gettin' out of here without me."
"Neither of us are getting out if we stay together," Ranko replied, as Ranma kicked another cat away.
"She's right, boy. You can leave any time. Just leave her behind!" Genma shouted down.
"No!" Ranma roared back, anything more complex escaping his young mind at the moment.
The cats were growing larger, their teeth and claws sharper. Ranma kept trying to fight them off, but they were nearly as big as he was now. He knew he couldn't hold out for long. He punched and kicked, giving as good as he got, and scaring off each cat that struck. Unfortunately, the cats never seemed to end. Each one he fought off was replaced by another, larger cat. Each blow he landed was answered with a scratch or a bite, his arms stinging from a thousand cuts and scratches. His muscles were aching, but Ranko was safe.
So far.
A wailing yowl broke out above the noise of the monstrous cats around them. A new shape had appeared in the darkness, and was pushing through the cats, charging towards Ranma and Ranko. His heart in his throat, Ranma turned, wrapping his arms around Ranko to shield her.
To his amazement, he wasn't attacked. Instead, whatever had charged out of the darkness had grabbed him by the gi, pulling him out of the pit. The sudden movement, mixed with the exhaustion of fighting caused his grip on Ranko to loosen. She started to fall, and she screamed, reaching out for him. He tried to hold her, but his hands were slippery with sweat and blood. He couldn't manage it.
She fell into the darkness, as whatever yowling beast was carrying him pulled him out of the pit.
Akane awoke to a crashing noise. Scrambling to her feet, she heard the splash of someone falling into the koi pond moments later. Rushing over to the Saotomes' room, she flung the door open to find Ranma pacing about the room on all fours. The moonlight glinting off his eyes told her it was the cat in front of her, though she couldn't fathom why it had awoken. There was no sign of any other feline presence in the room, only a Genma-size whole in the wall and an absence of the part time panda.
The cat looked up at her, and gave a yowling meow. It looked sad, as best as Akane could read feline emotions, repeating the long and lamentful meow.
Still confused, she crouched down, calling it over. The cat hurried over, letting her pull it into a hug. Once she was holding it, the cat began to purr, though it continued to repeat that mournful sounding meow.
"There, there. You're ok," she said, as the cat bumped its head against her cheek. "You're safe. You can sleep."
The cat yowled again, but curled up on her lap all the same. It seemed so determined it was almost as if it were trying to force itself back to sleep.
Ranma was somewhere light, falling through the air.
Jusenkyo.
He spotted the panda on a nearby bamboo pole and he fell towards the water below him. He looked up (well, down) at the water approaching and saw his reflection. The reflection he'd known before Jusenkyo.
Falling in the water, he felt the change, which seemed both familiar and new. He couldn't see it, but he knew something had happened to him.
As he sank further into the water, he found himself in what seemed to be an infinite pool, though only the small surface of the pond he'd fallen into shone with light. Sinking further into the depths he then saw her. The small child from the pit, looking the same as she'd had when she'd fallen away.
He reached out, grabbing her hand. Her hair changed the instant he took her hand, going from the black it had been to the red of his cursed form.
Then her hand grabbed his back, and her body was instantly changed from the child in the pit to his cursed female form. He didn't understand it, but he knew they needed air. He pulled her along as he swam up to the small golden ring of light representing the only escape from this endless darkness.
He broke the water's surface with a gasp, and dragged her up onto the bank. The redhead's hand continued to hold to his, but she gave no other signs of life.
Who was she, and what was she doing down there?
"What are you doing with that, Boy?" Genma asked.
(He was human again.)
"She was going to die down there, pops," Ranma said, looking up at his father. "I couldn't just leave her down there."
"She looks dead to me. She's not breathing. Put her back," Genma replied, crossing his arms and narrowing his glare.
"She held my hand. She's alive!" Ranma shouted, looking down at the other redhead. "C'mon. Wake up, miss. Ya gotta wake up…"
"She won't wake up. It's just you and me on our trip, boy. Always had been and always will be," Genma said. "Put her back. Focus on being a man. A son who's not a complete failure."
Ranma felt his grip on the girl's hand loosen. Pops was right. It was always just them. He didn't have to put her back into the darkness, but he could just leave her here. The unconscious redhead's grip tightened as his own loosened, tugging at his uncertainty.
"Let her go, boy. Don't disobey your father. You're an obedient son, aren't you?" Genma shouted.
Ranma gave a weak nod, and began to let go, when a hellish yowl cut through the air, accompanied by a third redhead slamming into Genma's gut. It ripped into the man with a feline zeal that sent a shiver down Ranma's spine. He pulled the sleeping girl closer to him, trying to shield her.
The feline girl, perched on a now unconscious Genma's chest, turned and smiled at him. Ranma realised it (she?) had meant him no harm. Calmed, he looked down at the girl in his arms, who opened her eyes.
"Hello again, Ranma," Ranko said.
Something clicked in his head.
Ranma blinked, only to find himself in darkness again. He was in his birth form. He was also in Akane's lap, sitting in the hallway outside his room.
"Akane?" he asked, a little confused at his position.
"…Ranma?" she replied.
He nodded.
"What's going on?" she asked.
He sat up, and pulled Akane into a hug. "I remember."
"You remember?"
"I remember how there used to be times that were just total blanks. Sometimes it was an afternoon. Sometimes it was a week. An', well, pops never let us have a diary or nothing, but we had notebooks for learnin' and we used to leave each other little notes in the margins," Ranma said. "We… pops is comin'. He's gonna want ta fight, but I can't do a fight right now…"
"He left," Akane said, leaning against her bedroom door frame.
#Left?# Genma's sign read. #What do you mean: he left!?#
"I saw him jumping along on the roofs across the street, moving like a cat. Maybe he was chasing an owl or a moth or something? I don't know, cats are weird," Akane replied.
The panda of a man let out an angry growl, before marching back downstairs. Akane closed her door and walked over to her closet, opening it up. A nervous redhead looked up at her.
"I didn' touch nothin', don't worry," Ranma said.
"After seeing you today—well, yesterday, fainting from seeing bras, I trust you to behave yourself, Ranma," Akane replied, sitting down on her bed. "Still more comfortable with you in girl mode, though... Sorry."
She gestured to her chair, and the redhead walked over, sitting down.
"It's fair," Ranma muttered, pulling his legs up to hug them.
"So, you remember? Do you remember where Ranko came from, then?" Akane asked.
Ranma shook his head. "No. As far back as I can remember, she was there. Me, pops, and her."
Akane nodded. She supposed it might have happened when Ranma was very young, whatever it was.
"I also don't… uh, this might seem like a weird question, but, um, Akane, how—how old were you when your ma di—passed on?" Ranma asked.
His tone was so soft she couldn't bring herself to feel anger over the question. "I was seven. Barely. It was only a month or two after my birthday. Why?"
"And, you, well, you remember her, right?" Ranma asked, eyes fearful.
Akane nodded. "Not amazingly clearly, but, yes. I mostly remember her in the hospital. But there's other memories. Older ones. Her picking me up for Yochien. Her helping me set up the dolls for a Hinamatsuri. One time, when I was sick, and she was looking after me. Some of them are more memories of a feeling than the event itself, though… why?"
"I got nothin'. Ma said I was six when I left. I should have some memories of her, shouldn't I?" Ranma replied. "But, there's nothin'. Just me and pops and knowin' Ranko was sometimes around instead a' me."
"Well, with everything you've been through, it's no surprise you have some holes in your memories," Akane replied, giving Ranma a soft smile she hoped was reassuring. It was her best version of the one Kasumi gave her when she needed reassurance.
"Ranko can remember her, though," Ranma whispered.
"Pardon?"
"I don't know what it was that she remembered, but, while I was in yer closet, trying to see if I could remember ma, I got the feelin' that she could. An'… an' I think that can only mean one thing," Ranma said, his voice growing so soft that Akane could barely hear him, even in the quiet of the night.
"What?" Akane asked.
Ranma looked to her again, fear and pain in his eyes. "I ain't real."
"What? Ranma, how could you not be real?" Akane asked.
"Well, I ain't… I ain't the real me. I guess I, like, exist? But… I ain't ma's kid. I'm the one that's somethin' else that showed up at some point," he said, pulling his legs closer, before leaning his face against his knees. "I dunno what I am…"
Akane was frozen, not sure how to respond to that, as Ranma started sobbing. She didn't have words to help right now, but she was sure he needed a hug, and so offered that. He leaned into her, but continued to sob. Akane bit her lip, struggling for words.
Did she tell him he was wrong, when he seemed so convinced? Or would that start a fight? Was it better to tell him it didn't matter, or would that be read as a betrayal instead?
"We can visit your mom again. Maybe you just need to spend more time with her to remember her?" Akane offered. "Ranko's spent more time with her, after all."
"Maybe," Ranma managed between the sobs.