Oyu no Ranma

A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by Zorknot

~~~~~Chapter 19: Purity~~~~~

Disclaimer:

What writhes in the weeping wilderness
Serpentine and green?
What bakes in barren, burnt-out, abattoirs
Amid acrid smells obscene?

Tis naught but the error wyrm!
She works out every blunder
"This is based on someone else's work!"
She says in a voice of thunder.

Yes, Takahashi Rumiko
Fashioned first these beings from cosmic clay
The error wyrm doth speak the truth
About the things with which I play.

~~~~~|\|~~~~~

You close your eyes, luxuriating in the feel of existence.

The hot water of the furo surrounds you, the steam condenses on your face. You can taste the water on your tongue: sweet, slightly metallic. You always have a thousand battles to fight at any given moment. But this is a battle you have won. You have defeated Saotome Ranma. That's one less misogynistic, violent, arrogant asshole in the world.

You open your eyes. Akane is sitting there, laying back, idly staring at the wall. She looks exactly the same as that other Akane, the one that killed you. Oh how much better she would look broken and bloodied, separated into little pieces, her eyes, brain and heart the last parts of her to work properly as you rip her to shreds. But you are better than that. You are better than anyone you know, and beside that, you are a woman. And women are peaceful. Women always use cunning to defeat their enemies, not brawn.

Oh how you hate being wrong, though. You hate being defeated, but the fact that you feel such hate is proof. You were defeated. You can't quite admit it yet though. You feel the emptiness inside like the booming of distant thunder. You swallow it back. That was a life that is no longer yours. You have a new life though, and you must make the most of it.

You can't kill Akane. Not yet. That might not be the best thing for her anyway. You can see the differences. Her short-cropped hair, her relaxed posture. She wants to be a man. She is still female inside based on her aura. She is still developing her masculine self. It's a difficult thing to do without a physical change. Still, she is making progress. You could help her. It would be so easy, and the knowledge that you could give her what she wants at any moment while you continue to deny her…well that's deliciously amusing.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Man-kane asks, looking at you askance, her nose still pointed toward the door. A somewhat feminine gesture, really, but there's not any point in keeping score.

"Like what?"

"Like you're Nabiki, cooking up some evil scheme."

"I'm just…" What would Ranma say? What do you want to say? How much of a mask should you maintain? "I'm just thinking of how I can screw with my Pops and Kumon." Yes. Perfect. Because that's an encounter you're looking forward to indeed. Still, you need to get away from Man-kane before you do something you'll regret. You need time alone to make plans and check on your other pursuits. You rise out of the furo and grab a towel.

"You think you can beat him, Ranma?" Akane asks.

Of course you can beat him! Hasn't she been paying attention? Relax. You don't want to arouse suspicion. "I told you, Akane, it's Megumi now. And it's not a question of if I can beat him, but how I will beat him."

"You sound pretty confident."

You shrug and turn away. You exit the furo room, sliding the door closed behind you. "Confident enough to give you…THIS!" you whisper and wield twin middle fingers through the closed door at Man-kane. You feel a little better. Sure it's silly, but you are in the body of a teenager now. You can be a little silly if you want.

Look at you. Long life ahead of you. So much potential. You can do whatever you want. You don't need to see your child again. You don't need to mourn your husband.

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

Different life. You are beyond that. You are bigger than those petty mortal relationships. More powerful. You are a goddess. You are going to enjoy what you have won. You are going to make the most of this life you have stolen.

You find yourself yawning and you stagger toward the wall. You'll have to let this body sleep soon. Biology is so frustrating! But sleep isn't entirely unpleasant, and it won't be long before you can start fixing all of Ranma's problems.

~~~~~Akane~~~~~

Akane stood before the mirror and nodded at her reflection. This would do. Her hair was long, as was appropriate for a young woman, but it was kept in two tight braids tied low. Each like Ranma's pigtail, only longer, and deep blue instead of red. Her dress was simple, sleeveless and slit to allow for full leg movement. She wore the lower part of a cheongsam, which served to cover her legs. The combination made the dress almost more of a tunic, but the look was still feminine enough. She wore the thin soled slipper-like shoes that were ubiquitous in the village, though at her insistence they were treated with lye until they were a pale gray, instead of black. Everything else, the cheongsam bottoms, the dress, even the bracers she wore on her wrists, were white. She spun her mallet around one hand and brought the long handle down on the floor with a thud. The mallet glowed softly. Yes, this would do. "I am Tendo Akane, purest of the pure, and I will destroy all of the perversions of the world!"

Her expression faltered only slightly as she amended her statement. "I will battle the agents of perversion wherever I can." She was in the world now. She was herself, corrupted. She would need to be cleansed of the taint of existence, but in order to clean the universe of its filth, it was inevitable she would have to get a little filthy herself. She maintained a core of purity nonetheless. An inner truth that would remain unsullied, untouched by the wickedness of the world. All would eventually bow before this light of righteousness, and she would rise as the queen of all existence.

"Sister Tendo?" a meek, thin man with a wispy beard and large robe questioned from the doorway "Elder Ku Lon wants you to massage her feet again."

"Tell her I'll be right over, brother Dui." Akane said through gritted teeth. She swung the mallet unto her back. In the mirror she saw it grow transparent and she felt it lose mass as it floated in place behind her. A canny observer would see that there were no straps to hold the mallet in place, but most would assume she had some clever harness for the thing. It was a part of her though. A symbol of her purity. It would never leave her. At least, not as long as she wasn't doused with hot water.

A moment of a panic hit her. She smelled the lye in the soap Dui must have used recently. He had mushrooms in his breakfast. He was too close. She had to find a place to hide…

She took a breath, clenching her fists. This was her body. She was not a rat. She was Tendo Akane. She was pure.

Looking back at her bedroll and small chest of drawers before leaving, she let air out through her teeth in annoyance and picked up the small leather purse by the bedroll. It was a frustrating difference between her and the old Tendo Akane. As perverted as the girl was, that girl never had a problem keeping track of her things. For some reason though, the true Tendo Akane, the pure one, the one who would eventually lead humanity out of the darkness of depravity…was horrendously absent-minded. Elder Ku Lon said that it was because she looked at the world through a straw.

Akane grimaced as she pushed open the woven-reed door of her hut into the brightness of the village. She'd like to tell Ku Lon where she could stick her straw. It was a nice day today though. Not a cloud in sight. Men and women and their children strolling to the market. Sounds of laughter in the air. Even the long shadow of the guard at the east gate seemed strangely jolly. As if at any moment the imposing figure might give a jaunty salute.

It was the children more than anything that made the morning seem brighter. There were more than usual. Wasn't there something about a selection ceremony today? Yes, all of the masters of the village were to choose a child to train. It was an important rite of passage. Boys as well as girls would start training at five years old, but they would not have a master assigned to them until they turned twelve.

How old was Heru Pu?

He looked about three when Akane saw her. But he was so scared. That haunted look in her eyes… Akane should hate him. She was just like Ranma, changing sex with a splash of water. Except it didn't matter what temperature the water was. And somehow Akane couldn't think of him as boy or a girl. Perhaps it was Akane's tie to Jusenkyo but even when she tried, she simply could not assign a gender to him. And she had tried too. The girl was a little boy, she thought at first. She should wear his hair shorter. He should wear a dress. It was alarmingly frustrating. How could a child not be pure? How could someone be both genders without being perverted?

Maybe after her session with Ku Lon she'd check in on Heru Pu. The poor child was orphaned at such a young age. Her mother was a demon and his father little more than a henchman, even if there were rumors that he was some great warrior. The child was probably better off. He was already adopted by Ku Lon's grandson-in-law and the man seemed to treat her well. Still…Akane had killed both his parents.

To be pure was better than being impure. Of this Akane was in no doubt. But purity didn't always seem to have a moral component. She could not feel guilty. That would mean she was impure, and even if she allowed some stain upon her person due to her time in the world where such contamination was inevitable, to be in any way guilty would mean her very core was flawed. So that was impossible. But she could still feel compassion, couldn't she? In fact compassion had to be one of the purest of emotions, right?

She felt her mallet grow warm on her back. Yes, she would allow herself compassion. It would be an important quality for the savior of the universe to possess.

"Tendo! Hurry up and get in here, girl! My feet are on fire!"

Akane looked up at the second story of the clay structure where the elders lived. She hated old people. That didn't seem to have anything to do with purity either. Old people were just annoying.

"I've got a pot of tea, here, girl! Don't think I won't use it!"

Akane sped the rest of the way into the elder's building and up the stairs to Ku Lon's room.

"Never fails to get you moving, does it?" Ku lon noted, waggling her pot of tea in the air.

Akane felt her mallet grow hot behind her.

"Just put it down, old crone."

Ku Lon set the pot down on an end table with an amused expression. "You never called me that before."

"I guess I'm getting to know you better."

"Humor too? Intriguing. Tell me a truth and I'll let you leave without touching my feet."

A truth. This was one of the old lady's games. She said it made Akane more a person. That it grew her soul. It just made her feel sick. "The sky is blue," she said to stall.

"Now, now, Tendo. You know what I mean."

Akane took a breath. "I'm a murderer. I murdered Heru Pu's parents."

"Didn't they deserve to die? You told me as much before."

Akane looked away. Her mallet was burning hot behind her. She wanted to grab it and slam it against Ku Lon's frail looking body. But she knew the elderly lady would just dodge and send her flying. "It doesn't matter."

"You said they were perverts. Is that not true?"

The mallet was a furnace behind her. "Nyannichuan was a pervert. She deserved to die. She was a demon possessing some other person, forcing them to do her bidding." The mallet died down a little.

"And Heru Pu's father?"

Akane had barely seen the man an instant before slamming her mallet into his head. She could see his skull cracking in her mind's eye, the saliva and blood arcing in the air… She felt a stab of searing pain from the mallet behind her.

"Tendo?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

Ku Lon nodded. "That will, do, child. Sit down please. You look like you're about to crumple into a ball."

Numbly, Akane did as the old lady asked.

"You're making progress, Tendo. The villagers are saying you've been helping them when they ask. Aside from a few blow ups there've been few problems."

"Those women were kissing each other. In public! That's just…just…"

Ku Lon raised a hand. "I know. And even so, you showed restraint. No one got hurt."

"They're going to keep doing it though. Nothing got fixed."

"I'm not going to argue with you on that. The important thing is nothing got broken. You came to me instead of acting on your own. You've grown so much in only a week, but Tendo?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to promise me something now. It's something difficult and it has nothing to do with your training, at least not directly."

Akane frowned. "Okay…"

"I want you…no I should say I need you to promise me…that you will stay away from Heru Pu. I know it's a small village, but, I don't want to hear about you visiting her house, or following her home from training, okay?"

Akane was silent for a moment. Elder Ku Lon, along with most of the rest of the village had no problem identifying the young orphan as a girl. For Akane though, thinking of the child was like looking at a multifaceted stone: a shining light reflected into one eye, while the other eye saw an unlit surface. Dazzling. Disconcerting. It should have repulsed her, something being two things at once. But instead she found herself drawn in. Her feelings of guilt played a role, but there was also a pull of curiosity that made her want to know more about the child. "How did you know?" Akane asked finally.

"I'm an old lady. Your circumstances may be unique, but having a crisis of faith is something I'm familiar with. I even suspect it's a necessary step to maturity. You are, at the end of it all, human. Wanting to know one's place in the universe is part of the human condition. But that child is a human being too. And she needs time to heal."

Akane let the elder's words sink in. Ku Lon had deemed Akane human. She wasn't just a pawn of Jusenkyo. Wasn't just a demon herself. "I…"Akane started. "I promise I'll leave him alone. Until you tell me otherwise."

"You will find a way to exist, Tendo Akane. What form that existence takes is still unclear, however. I have something that may help." Ku Lon hopped from her bed to a small desk. "We don't have much of a library; so I had to have someone purchase this from a city bookstore." She held a shiny paperback book. "It's in Mandarin, I trust that's not a problem?"

Akane squinted. "What's a 'meno?'"

"Meno is the name of a Greek philosopher that has a discussion with another philosopher, Socrates." Ku Lon handed the book to her.

Akane looked at the characters on the page. She shouldn't be able to read this, part of her said. She was Japanese, never stepped foot in China before a week ago. But she understood most of the words without any difficulty. "What's this word?" she asked pointing to one of the unfamiliar characters.

"You're in the translator's introduction. That one means 'telephone'"

Akane nodded. The modern words. That's all she had trouble with. Her mallet grew warm again behind her.

"Socrates says that we never really learn anything. That we simply remember the things that we forgot when we were born."

Akane looked up, a jolt of excitement passing through her. "So…I really am more pure than she is. I remember more than she does!"

"Yes, or at least that's one way of…"

"Thank you, honored elder," Akane said, bowing deeply. "I'll read this right away!"

Akane ran out of the room and up the stairs to the roof of the elder's building. She had to read this. She had to find some way to be pure and yet human. Yes, she was pure. She was not perverted at all. This book would prove that. And she could stay here the way she was.

She wouldn't have to go back to being a rat.

~~~~~|\|~~~~~

You hear the birds begin to call outside the window, so you end your dreaming and wake. When you have a physical body, the dreams are less concrete. You remember Bitch-kane trying to convince herself she is a real girl, but it doesn't seem too significant and the details soon leave your memory.

It is time to make some moves. You dress in Ranma's usual attire, making a note to make changes to it as soon as it wouldn't seem suspicious. It's all too masculine. Outside, the sky has only just begun to lighten. Man-kane will expect Ranma to train with her. Her father and Genma will be setting up the dojo for students soon. It is a risk, but if you don't do unexpected things occasionally, you'll be caught in the same traps Ranma was.

You need allies if you are going to succeed. And seeing as you can't bear to be in the same room with Akane, much less trust the murdering bitch…you are going to have to look elsewhere. You didn't see Nabiki or Ryoga in your dreams, but you still know where they are from earlier. The young dragon Asuka will likely be causing them problems. You could go directly to her grandmother's house to assist them, but that wouldn't be very helpful.

No the best way to deal with any dragon is to take control of their hoarde. You set off in the direction of the Shiratori estate.

The expansive mansions of Nerima's elite aren't too far away from the Tendo dojo. As many financial difficulties as the Tendo family has had, they are pretty well off compared to many other people. Definitely upper middle class. The Shiratori's are on a different level, but only barely. Like the Tendos, they once had a lot more money than they do now and are struggling to maintain what they have. So yes, the house has a gate and an expansive garden, but the garden is poorly maintained and there's only a couple of dogs for security. And yes, there are wide steps leading up to the main entrance, and the front of the house has ionic columns, but there is no butler to open the door, and more importantly, only a rudimentary alarm system installed.

You may have spent most of the last millennium and a half in a spiritual limbo, but you've spent the last decade or so in the body of a former gang leader. You know how to disable security alarms. Easiest thing for this kind, flip the circuit breaker. Damned fools keep that outside where anyone can get to it.

The dogs are German Shepherds, which is usually a good breed for security, but these particular dogs have not been trained very well. They have been following you around since you entered the garden, but they've just been wagging their tails and looking at you expectantly up till now. It's only when you open the circuit box that they start to bark at you. You know most people won't notice the sound or they'll just think the dogs are barking at a squirrel or something. Still, the dogs could be a problem if they aren't dealt with.

Checking to be sure you can't be seen from the street and that there are aren't any unexpected witnesses hiding behind the unkempt rose bushes or anything, you blast both of the dogs with Jusenkyo magic, turning them into girls.

The features that a cursed form possesses don't always have anything to do with the original form. Humans who get cursed to turn into other humans usually tend to have some recessive genes switched for dominant ones but otherwise look similar to their original form. Animals on the other hand, are so far apart from humans genetically that often if they enter a human curse spring, they will just be copies of the last cursed form to come out. You're not terribly interested in having two clones of you romping about in the grass naked, however, so you make a few alterations, making the curse forms have brown hair and having them be younger. The two little girls are still following you and barking, but at least now their voices aren't going carry beyond the property and if they bite it won't be as likely to break skin.

Security system disabled, you set about unlocking the door. The technique you use here is very sophisticated: you find a key under the welcome mat.

Shiratori Kaede, the dragon known to Nabiki as Grandmother Shiratori, has only visited the house once, during a house warming party when her son and daughter-in-law were just coming into their money. Kaede was always a strange person, and usually her son wanted nothing to do with her.

Cursed forms carry some remnant of the original form, but such remnants tend to skip generations. Aside from having streaks of blond hair at his temples, Kaede's son was no different from any other human. Kaede's daughter, of course was forced into a harem in the Musk empire and would still be there if she hadn't escaped to Nyuchezu shortly after giving birth to Herb. Herb, like Asuza, would one day shed his human form and become a fully-fledged dragon like his grandmother. The only difference between them is that Herb knows his parentage, while Asuza still thinks her father is just an increasingly out of touch stock broker and that her grandmother is just a fun old lady.

What all this means for you now however is that you only have a vague idea where Asuza's room might be, since you only have Kaede's memories of the house when it was first purchased a year or so before Asuza was even born. Still, there are some facts you can go on. Dragons like heights, so Asuza's room is likely on the top floor of the building. Dragons also like to have a view of the rising sun. Their circadian rhythms are somewhat more important to them than for most humans. If they don't get a burst of sunlight in the morning, they tend to be crankier than normal, a bit like how some people are with their morning coffee. The house has three floors, so two flights of stairs up and toward the East should be where Asuza's room is.

And lo! The entrance doth beckon, with the name "Azusa" writ large and in a flowery font. You open the door and take in the immensity of cuteness that is Asuza's hoarde.

Adventurers intruding upon the hoardes of ancient dragons no doubt felt their faces awash in yellow light from the reflection of torchlight hitting vast spectacles of golden and bejeweled treasure. The light that strikes your face now, however, has a decidedly pinkish hue. Tiny stuffed animals, large stuffed animals, parasols, dolls, refrigerator magnets, little wind-up toys, baby shoes for girls and boys, baby rattles, paddles, fliers printed on hot pink paper, sea shells, plastic egg shells, folding fans, electric fans, cooking pans, oven mitts, baseball mitts, back scratchers, rings for holding fancy napkins, shower curtain rings, animal-shaped inner tubes, tubes of toothpaste, ice skates, music boxes, sunglasses, glasses full of marbles, Christmas tinsel, pinwheels, pin cushions, safety pins, bouquets of fake flowers, the upside down decapitated head from a small, stone, buddha statue… all are scattered through the expanse of the room. The bed is barely discernible under all the stuffed animals and embroidered throw pillows.

There's no easy way to take control of such a preponderance of kitsch, you need to find that one special item that Asuza treasures over the others. This would be something she would keep close. On the bed then. Something that doesn't quite belong…

There. That thing that looks like a…

It is. Somehow it is. You pick it up from the bed. You lightly prod the intricate design. It seems like real gold. Real jewels. You hold it to the light. Here in the midst of all this junk, Shiratori Asuza has kept a Faberge egg.

The thing you hold in your hand is possibly worth several fortunes. It's probably some sort of forgery, but if it is, it is an incredibly intricate and well-made forgery. You aren't an art dealer, but you can tell pure gold from most alloys. The jewels you are less sure of, but regardless, the thing is something to behold. You release the latch and open the hinged top. Inside there is a small, golden dragon with tiny emeralds for eyes. It's perched on a silver sphere tarnished lightly from age. It claws at the air with its foreleg. You close the egg.

Are you going to steal it?

Yes, yes you are. Stealing something was always the plan. No reason to quibble over details. It does add a delightful frisson of excitement to the heist, though, to know that you probably hold enough financial power in your hand to topple a small government. Maybe you can figure out some way to keep it, but for now it's best used for leverage.

You wrap the egg in a towel you find in a bathroom and carry it carefully in the crook of your arm. On your way out of the house you pause considering what to do about the two girls currently sniffing each other's butts. You could blast them with magic again. Or just douse them with water from a hose or a cup.

Nah.

You just have to use a foot to keep the overly curious girls from going through the gate as you close it and you're off to Kaede's house.

,,,

Unlike when Nabiki and Ryoga first found the house yesterday evening, the door is now closed. The lights are turned off. You close your eyes and try to sense the pull of a Jusenkyo-cursed person. You can sense something that feels like Ryoga and Nabiki farther off, but not here. Where are they?

The door is locked, but you manage to break through a window in the back of the building. Everything is clean, put away. You go upstairs. This is where Asuka would be staying while her parents were away. This room is a little less maintained. The bed is made, but already there are objects all around. A napkin. A spoon, a magazine, a yellow and black bandanna, a can of tuna. Still, there's nothing here to indicate anything has gone wrong or where Asuka and the young couple might be. You check the closet. There are a great number of cute, pink, frilly outfits. There are also quite a number of skating outfits with sequins and…

Yes. Of course. They're at the ice skating rink. You look at an antique clock on one of the night stands. It reads a quarter to six. Ranma is probably already being missed. It seems a bit early for ice skating, but Asuka would probably have some sort of practice regimen that she would rope Nabiki and Ryoga into helping her with. All things considered, it doesn't look like things have turned out that bad. You might not need the egg you stole at all. That would be disappointing.

Well, you have a choice. You can try to reach Nabiki and Ryoga at the skating rink with the hope of helping them out somehow and thereby gaining their trust. Or you can go back to the Tendo dojo so Genma, Soun, and Akane don't suspect anything.

Put it another way… do you go take part in whatever chaos is going on at the ice skating rink right now, or do you try to make nice with the double of the girl who murdered you and your husband?

Right.

You wonder if you still remember how to skate. It's been a long couple of decades …

~~~~~not Ranma~~~~~

There is no Ranma. There is only the cat. But she is not a cat. She is in the not-place. She has been fighting the spirits of the dead and perpetually lost.

Nameless! They cry.

She had a name once, but it doesn't fit her anymore. She is not Ranma, not Megumi, not Saotome.

All she knows is that she has to fight. She has to live. It is like it was in the pit. The clawing. The desperate yowls. She knows this environment. She has protected the child from it before. She tries to protect him now.

But where is he?

Steal her essence before she finds the thread! She's confused now, but she knows this place. We must destroy her before she finds her footing!

Three wraiths swoop down at her. She jumps and claws through all of them, only to watch them reform and swoop at her again. Two more join these first three.

Yes! Keep her distracted!

Where is the child? He is supposed to be inside of her, sleeping. But he isn't there. Another wraith joins the fray, she is boxed in from all directions. There is no sign of the child. She needs to get to safety.

Attack! The wraiths close in on her.

In a furious whirl, she manages to defend herself. But two more wraiths have joined the fight, and she is at her limit.

They must have destroyed the Ranma soul. There is only the not-cat left. In the not-place.

The not-place has embers. Lights in the distance. Lights close by. The demon Jusenkyo looms large in the above region, like a dim sun. It is not the caring lap of a nice old lady. It is not the welcoming embrace of a known friend. It is not true safety. It is like the one called Genma. Any protection the demon offers is likely to be onerous. But it is better than here. It is better than fighting mindlessly forever. And there is the thread the spirits spoke of. She can follow it and she will not be harmed. She bites the thread and straddles it with her fore and hind-legs.

She is lost to us now! May the sorrow consume her!

She glides down the thread closer and closer to the dim blue sun of Jusenkyo. Soon she at the surface, and then, inside.

Inside the demon's belly, the world is bland. There are few smells, few colors, the temperature even seems bizarrely unremarkable. No rush of warmth or shiver of chill. The things that are there are not there. They are ideas with no friction. Nothing moves or is impeded without imagination. As a cat, she has some trouble with this. She sees things as they are: the half-remembered thoughts of long-forgotten spirits still struggling to assert themselves like the last twitchings of corpse. But as a not-cat she sees things as they are intended to be: the reclining seats arranged concentrically around a ring of displays, spirits seated and standing and talking as humans might.

Cats aren't generally capable of understanding such complicated intentions. Or more precisely, there is a different set of intentions that cats comprehend that has only a small area of overlap with the human set. Were she fully a cat she would be struggling cat struggles in some cat not-place.

This realization is not a reassuring one. She feels the urge to climb, to get some height and distance from this new problem. But there is no way to do that. Not without leaving this not-place and risking the torture-death of the outside area. Before she can fully consider this, however she hears a voice. The voice comes from a spirit with the intention of a man. But he, like she, is also a cat.

"Why are you here?" the voice asks.

To understand the voice, she has to be less of a cat. This is unfair. It is not her job to be the human. That is the child's job. Her job is to protect the child.

But the child isn't here. The child is gone.

In the world of the demon she finds herself in a mostly human girl's body. She has a glowing tail that twitches and ghost-like claws that curve out from her fingers. She has ears that move toward the sound of the voice as a cat's ears can. These too no doubt glow the same as her tail. Glow yellow white like the mother cat. Like the cat who could not save her babies from starvation. Like the cat who died protecting the child Ranma.

This is not a memory the child ever had. This is her memory. Her first memory. The memory of her birth as a feline.

"Did you hear me?" The voice asks, "I said 'Why are you here?'" The man is mostly transparent, like a ghost, though not indistinct like the wraiths were. He is dressed in long white robes with large sleeves that obscure his hands. His hair is in a long braid that extends to his knees.

"The spirits don't attack me here," she says. She surprises herself. Cats don't generally talk. But she is a not-cat. And this is a not-place.

The man nods impatiently. "Yes, but why aren't you in your body? How did she force you out?"

Flashes.

Akane was naked. Ranma's penis was not erect. It had been earlier, but the situation had grown stressful. "It's okay," Akane said. "We can use a ring. I read about it. Men have to worry about it getting stuck, but you can just splash yourself so…"

"The child tried to …mate… with the Akane girl."

"The child… You mean you? Yes, you had sex with Akane. That I understand. It was painful to watch, but why would that let her in? If anything, I would think she'd stay as far away from that as possible."

"Let her in?"

"Yes. Look." The man motioned to the display directly in front of them. "Nyanni's traipsing about in your body now." The display shows Ranma's female body walking out of a building, a pink and white purse hanging from her shoulder.

She frowns. She doesn't like this. But why doesn't she like this?

"You need to get back before something permanent happens. If you even can get back. If you're here that usually means you're dead or permanently separated from your body. But you're not a partial soul, and I can see your body moving in the view screen there, so maybe there's hope for you."

"Partial soul?"

"Yes. I am the spirit of Maonichuan. You can call me Mao. I'm sort of engaged to the other part of Akane's soul. The part that Jusenkyo took. She couldn't return to her body because she was severed. There's no hope for that. Trying to put a severed partial soul back with its original soul is like trying to put a severed branch back onto a tree. As far as I know, it can't be done. The best you can do is put it in the ground and hope it grows roots. She's doing pretty well with the Amazons. I'm a little proud of her, even if I don't have any reason to be. But you, you're not a partial soul, you're the whole tree. So why are you here?"

"The child…I can't find him anymore. He was the human. He was the real one. I must be a partial soul. I couldn't protect him and…I was a part of him." Her ears lie flat against her head. Whoever this Mao person is, he doesn't understand.

The man shakes his head. "No. You see, if you were a partial soul, you wouldn't care. Whatever you saw or thought you saw, it wasn't you. Look, what do you think about Akane?"

Flashes.

Akane was on top. She grabbed Ranma's penis, swollen now from the black ring around its base. "Akane," Ranma said, "I don't want to do this anymore. Let's just stop, okay?"

"Shut up," Akane said and forced the penis into her body. Akane screamed in pain. She didn't stop. Akane screamed again. There was no ecstasy in the scream that the child could hear.

The child started crying. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"You can't knock it," Akane said hoarsely through gritted teeth, her eyes wild with pain, "…till you've tried it."

The cat took several breaths as the memory passed. She couldn't save the child then either. "I despise her…but…more than that I'm worried for her. I'm not sure I understand."

"Yeah," Mao said. "You're the total package. I guess you thought that turning into a cat was just a coping mechanism, and maybe it started out that way. But the way I figure it, you dump enough real emotions into part of your personality, it starts to get hard to tell which part is the real you."

"The boy is the real one. Was. He is gone now. I…"

Mao put a hand on her shoulder. "That person you were trying to be was a facade. I could see it breaking even from here."

She frowned. "No. I'm just a…I'm weak. I can't…" But it sounds wrong even to her. She is the protector. She has always been the one who steps in when things become unbearable.

"Yeah. You know that's bullshit. We don't have time. What exactly happened? How did she take control?"

"Akane…she wasn't herself. I swore to protect the weak. She was suffering from having part of her soul gone, that's why she was acting that way. He should have…" She looks up at Mao "I should have stopped her."

"You tried. You told her to stop."

"She said that one night that having sex with a man would be rape for her."

"Yeah. Look, I'm not of the female persuasion, so what I say has to be taken with a grain or two of salt. But from what I saw, you two somehow managed to rape each other at the same time."

"I am the one without honor. The boy is supposed to be better. He's not supposed to do things like that. A boy can rape a girl but a girl can't rape a boy. The boy is the one in control."

Mao gives her a look.

She looks down. She is the one in control. She is a she. She knows the nature of this place, that it shows one's true nature. She would know anyway that she was not male. Men aren't weak. Men can't be victims. She is weak. She remembers all the times she was weak. All her defeats. The boy only remembered the times he won. He couldn't handle weakness, so she protected him from that. She thought that he was the one in control…but it was her all along.

So what did that mean? Did she rape Akane? Did Akane rape her?

"I think I know what happened now," Mao says. "You felt you had no honor. To rape someone, there's hardly anything less honorable in your book. And you couldn't cope with that so you checked out, and that's when she took over."

Not exactly true. She can cope with it. She is used to being dishonorable. She remembers stealing jewelry while Genma distracted a host of theirs. She remembers the elaborate lies she told to pawnbrokers when she sold stolen goods to them. She remembers Ryoga. She wanted him to play with her like Ukyo did. And she was angry with him. Angry that he wouldn't be her friend. Angry that on that day he hadn't shown up after four days of her waiting. Knocking him off the ledge at Jusenkyo was an accident. Not making sure he was alright...She had thought it served him right whatever happened to him. And she had dared to make fun of the boy for bearing a grudge. She remembers the partner Genma worked with for a while, and how she tripped him while they were being chased by police so that he would get captured instead of her father. She remembers Ucchan. How she told him she would be with him forever, even though she knew all along that she wouldn't be. And afterward how she cried, and how she said Ucchan would come for her and take away from Genma and all the stupid things she had to do for him. When he heard this, Genma of course told her to stop being such a girl. And secretly, so secretly in only the deepest part of herself, she told herself that yes, she WAS a girl.

This is not a memory the child ever had. This is another first memory. The memory of her birth as a girl. The child was supposed to be a man. The child was the best. But she knew. She knew all along.

And she knows. She has been a girl since that moment and would have been regardless of any influence the spirit of Akane's mother may have had. Add the guilt of that poor woman's soul to the list of things for which she was ashamed. She has collected every rejected thought, every shameful moment, every misdeed and cowardly act. She is the girl Saotome Ranma wasn't supposed to be. She knows she has no honor. Rape is just one more addition.

She thought Ranma the boy existed, though. She thought she was just a voice of doubt and later, a creature born of fear. She believed the boy held some virtue that she could not possess. When that belief evaporated, she became untethered. Nyannichuan took her body before she even knew enough to fight.

She has been without a name since that moment. Defenseless except for her feral nature. Her spirit wasn't fully human, so the spirits of the dead and lost could not defeat her. And now she is here.

All she wanted was to be Akane's friend.

Since that rainy day more than a month ago Ranma had been struggling to choose between friendship and honor. It seems now that a decision has been made.

She is to have neither.

She is not Genma's son. She cannot keep the name Saotome. Neither is she Akane's friend. So she is not Megumi.

"Maybe I've been alive too long," Mao muses, "Rape didn't used to be such a big deal, you know. Young nobleman comes to a town, takes a farmer's daughter into his chamber? Well she should feel blessed to have his bastard offspring! Everybody's civilized now. Women can vote for things. It's a new world. But I don't think rape always has to be so dire. I mean in your situation, yes technically neither of you gave consent since she wasn't in her right mind, and you asked her not to do it, but can't we just say that it was all just a very bad idea that led to some very bad sex, and get over it?"

The snap kick to Mao's chin knocks the ghost man on his back. It feels satisfying.

Get over it? No. Probably not ever. But she can handle humiliation. She will shoulder the weight of her regret. She isn't perfect. She isn't even the best. But she will work at being better.

She is the cat that lived inside of the child raised by Saotome Genma. She is also the girl. She is not who she thought she was, but she is Ranma.

She is Ranma.

And she will get her life back… even if it kills her.

~~~~~End of Chapter 19~~~~~

Author's note:

(5-22-2017)

As always, thank you for your reviews and follows (but mostly your reviews:-)).

This was a difficult chapter to write. I thought I might be able to get away with not describing Ranma and Akane's sex debacle in the last chapter, but there was some confusion in the reviews, and so there really was no way around it. Also where to go with Ranma's character was hard to figure out.

It's a bit like math. I know the solution, but getting the equation to work out right is tricky as hell. I've certainly made some mistakes. Please let me know if you see any. I can't always fix them, (I still get people complaining about the Japanese use in the earlier chapters, and I know the pacing is horrendous, but short of a massive rewrite I'm not sure how to fix those things) but I usually at least try to course correct so the problem is mostly gone by the next chapter.

Looking back on old chapters, I'm not sure if I've managed to keep things as consistent as I would like. If I ever get to an end, I'll have to go back and clean some things up. I'm trying to keep track of things as much as possible, but I am writing this as I go so please cut me some slack if I forget some details. Or don't, it's up to you.

Fenixphlame asked about pronoun use in the comments. I responded to him her, but it is a sore subject for some so I'll just go over my current feelings on the matter here as well. Also my position has shifted a bit since my first response, and I like any excuse to discuss the tangle of philosophy, politics, grammar, and philosophy that is gender. As far as this fic is concerned, the pronoun used for each character depends first on their physical attributes, and only after that on their mental state. This is to prevent confusion. So while a trans person may take issue with Akane being referred to as "she" all the time when the character is (to at least some extent) mentally a male, in my view since she still looks like a female and would be seen as such by a casual observer, she should be called "she." With respect, I feel this is a good practice to use in most cases.

If a real person publicly requests to be referred to a certain way, then I agree it's polite to refer to them that way if you are writing about them, but barring that, a "what you see is what you get" approach seems best. As another example, at least so far Nabiki is always mentally female and Ryoga is always mentally male. But with them currently switching sexes so much, and with their bodies being substantially different with each sex, I find it important to keep the pronouns matched to the physical bodies rather than the mental aspects.

Many times when reading Ranma fanfiction I've been thrown by a scene where I wasn't sure whether Ranma was male or female, because the author had a policy of using the same pronoun all the time. Sometimes it's not important, but there are plenty times when it is.

Outside of stories with sex changing characters, I can see more of an argument for matching pronouns to the gender (mental) rather than the sex(physical). Still, unless you're making an artistic or political point, I don't see much reason to stray beyond the WYSIWIG approach.

Pronouns, like the rest of language, are made up, and so they are inherently arbitrary. We just need to make sure we follow consistent rules. And if it's possible for a woman to be a man on the inside I think it's possible to refer to her as a "her" and have her character reveal itself to be that of a man through the course of a narrative.

That's just my current opinion, of course. I'm still figuring all this out.