Chapter 15: New Home

"... direct approach, but that's usually the most heavily defended area. People don't protect..."

Ranma literally heard everything Genma said as they jogged through the quiet night streets of Tokyo, but she found it difficult to connect the details together into a comprehensive understanding of the Umisenken. Most of her attention was instead focused on trying to suppress the emotional turmoil within her.

"... you attack. Different targets have different values. It's the difference between a silver statue and..."

Every time she tried to focus on what he was saying, the distraction allowed the feelings enveloping her to escalate from a general constriction to a smothering presence.

"... here."

They vaulted over a tall wall and landed in a forest.

"It's the time for the final preparations," Genma said. He handed over a handkerchief. He then pulled his bandanna off, twisted it around his head, and tied the ends of it under his nose.

Ranma used the offered handkerchief to do likewise. It was an easy matter to tie it around her head in a similar fashion. The net effect was to cover her face around her eyes, somewhat like a domino mask.

"Hold this too," Genma said. He handed a large empty sack to Ranma. "Now come on."

They pushed through the brush and trees until they emerged into the clearing near the side of the Ogasawara mansion. A quick glance around using the reflected ambient light of Tokyo revealed no sentries in sight.

"It's time for the practical demonstration," Genma whispered. "This is the first thing to show you and the foundation of everything else. I told you how hiding your intentions can turn you practically invisible. Now watch carefully."

Genma adopted a slouched position with his arms limply raised in front of him. He then seemed to fade away into the darkness. The natural highlighting and tracking of Genma's presence simply stopped, and Ranma's gaze just slid past him without registering anything there as being important. She could still literally see him, like she could see each of the individual trees behind her, but it required a deliberate and unnatural effort to actually notice him. It was the difference between spotting a man in an empty street versus trying to locate him in a crowded train station, only in this case, the crowd was nothing and everything.

If this was the foundation of the Umisenken, it left little doubt as to why Genma considered this to be the greatest set of techniques he had ever created. Focusing on him required just as much effort as trying to focus on the empty air in front of her, and the distraction would be devastatingly powerful in a fight. Even outside of a fight, it would be easy to use that technique to slip past somebody. If she had known this technique two weeks earlier, Minako would have posed far less of a problem for her.

The reminder of Minako, and especially how Sachiko had helped Ranma with her, slipped through her guard and stabbed at her. Ranma quickly tried to ignore it and move on.

Ranma slouched and tried to emulate the ghost-like posture and presence she had just witnessed. She didn't feel any different, but she kept it up as she crossed the clearing to where she thought Genma had gone.

"That was pathetic. Are you even trying?" Genma whispered. His voice matched his physical presence in that it was hard to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It seemed to float through the air, being everywhere and nowhere at once. "Just stay quiet once we get inside. It's late enough that everybody should be asleep anyway."

Ranma focused her eyes, and she was sure she did in fact see Genma standing in his strange slouch to the side of a large bank of windows. On the other side of the glass was the ballroom, its size seemingly magnified by the darkness inside.

"This is the next technique: Strike of the Magpie," Genma whispered. His hands flew out, hitting against the edges of the window next to him. With each strike, he pulled back something in his fists. He then tapped the side of the window, and the whole thing tipped out towards him. He caught it and gently leaned it against the side of the wall.

"Come on," Genma whispered.

The obvious deduction made it easier for Ranma to catch Genma climbing through the hole in the wall where the window had previously been. The cold nerves she had felt from before were knotting in her stomach, but she ignored them as best she could as she followed him in. Suppressing emotions was like every other skill, she expected: the first time the technique was tried, it would be imperfect, but with subsequent efforts, she would do better. She hoped that was the case, at least, as she felt sick.

"We're changing environments now. You need to constantly be adapting to match. These dark clothes will stand out inside. Take off your jacket. We'll grab them on the way out. Leave no trace behind," Genma whispered. He took off his own jacket, revealing the beige clothing inside.

Ranma likewise followed suit.

Genma moved along the edges of the ballroom, grabbing the silver statues and lacquer containers there. Throughout this, Ranma's emotions kept whiplashing back and forth. It took a prodigious amount of effort to track and follow him, whereupon her emotions would go wild within her. She would then refocus on subduing her emotions, which would cause her to lose track of where Genma was. And the cycle continued.

The breakthrough came when Genma opened the door to the ballroom. Ranma barely noticed him do it, but the open door itself was obvious to see. She realized it was actually much easier to track the effects of his passage than Genma directly. So while following the beige body of Genma against the beige walls was like trying to trace a wisp of smoke floating away in the air, she could with only a moderate amount of difficulty follow the steady stream of silver and jade objects disappearing along half of the hallway.

"Here."

The trail of absences stopped in front of some paintings.

"Silky Darlings Liberation Strike." Genma's hands punched out and somehow managed to extract a painting without disturbing the surrounding frame at all. He repeated the process for all of the paintings lining half the hallway, which gave Ranma ample opportunity to observe the technique in use, even factoring into account the difficulty of actually watching Genma.

When they reached the study, Genma swapped his half-full sack with Ranma's empty one. He then proceeded to use the "Strike of the Spitting White Snake" to rifle through the desk drawers faster than Ranma had ever seen him move before. His search resulted in him extracting a thick envelope which appeared to be full of yen. He also took two of the books, and rolled up one of the scrolls hanging from a wall.

They double-backed the way they had come from, Genma taking the objects on the previously neglected sides of the hallways, and then climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There, Genma put down his sack and had Ranma do the same, and they jointly sneaked into the different bedrooms. In Sachiko's father's room they took some watches and cufflinks. Sachiko's grandfather's room was much more sparse, being mostly empty both in terms of things to take and of signs of habitation. Sachiko's mother's room, on the other hand, was much more bountiful, and they emerged with handfuls of emeralds, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and pearls.

Next was Sachiko's room. Inside, Ranma impulsively grabbed the picture of Sachiko and her parents. Genma snatched it out from her hand, though, and replaced it. He whispered, "That's worthless." A silver medallion seemed to appear in Ranma's empty hand. It was very similar to the commemorative medallion Ranma had received earlier in the week. "This is the kind of thing you should be trying to find; it's easy to sell and worth a lot. Now put that in your sack and come on. Time's wasting."

Ranma gingerly placed the medallion into her sack, and was rewarded for her efforts by a stab of sickness in her gut so strong that it caused her to retch. She glanced down at Sachiko, on her warm futon under her fluffy blanket, and whispered, "I'm sorry." It didn't help.

They finished the floor by checking the guest bedrooms and the bathrooms, none of which had anything Genma thought was worth taking. Then they returned back to the ground floor.

The dining room screens were apparently not worth taking, but the large box of silver utensils in the kitchen filled the last of the empty space in their sacks. Finally, they returned back to the ballroom, where they put their dark jackets back on and then exited through the still-open hole in the wall.

Once outside, Genma picked up the window from where he had leaned it against the wall earlier and placed it back in the hole. He had Ranma hold it in place while he performed the "Strike of the Honoring Cat," the name of which causing Ranma to flinch. Genma struck at the sides of the window with his hands again. Once it was done, he had Ranma release the window, which held firm.

"Always cover your tracks. An undetected thief is an unpursued thief," Genma whispered. "It will take them hours to notice anything is wrong, and even longer to figure out how we did it. That's plenty of time for us to get away."

Genma then crept back across the clearing. The lack of evidence of his movements made him harder to track, but Ranma was starting to get more practiced at it, and she was able to follow behind him despite that. Her heavy sack quietly clinked as she moved.

When they reached the trees, Genma stood up straight and dropped his arms. It caused Ranma's eyes to snap back into focus onto him, much to her relief. He removed his bandanna and restored it to its normal position. Ranma took that as her cue to remove her handkerchief and end her own attempts of performing the Umisenken.

"What a haul," Genma said as they jogged through the forest. He was no longer whispering, but he was still talking relatively quietly. "I knew it'd be worth it. This should set us up for some time to come now. You should feel good."

Ranma did her best to take Genma's statement to heart. In truth, she felt anything but.

They reached the wall at the edge of the forest and leaped over it again. The added weight and bulk of their sacks made this effort noticeably more difficult.

"When we get back, we'll take a quick nap, and then move in the morning," Genma said, now fully back to a normal speaking voice. "That friend of mine's just dying to meet you."

Ranma didn't answer. She had hoped that leaving the mansion would have brought to an end the bitter feelings which suffused her, but that had proved to not be the case. They congealed in her stomach, making her feel sluggish and far heavier than the sack in her arms. The fog of oppression swirling around her head and chest was so thick that she found that she didn't even care that she had just learned a once-in-a-lifetime-powerful set of martial arts techniques.

The return trip to camp was definitely much slower than the initial trip to the Ogasawara mansion had been. The large sack Ranma carried was heavier than the traveling pack she had shouldered through China, and it was also much less well organized. She had to juggle the unbalanced mass between her hands in order to have any chance of making progress. Even Genma, despite his substantially larger size, was obviously having a challenge keeping control of all the things he was carrying.

When they reached the temple, as was standard, Genma glanced around and then hopped over the vegetation into camp. Once inside, he dropped his sack on the ground and pulled open the tent flap to enter. Ranma was more hesitant, but she did the same, her sack sliding from her semi-limp fingers onto the ground next to Genma's before she pulled open the tent flap herself.

Genma had already flopped down onto his bedroll and was steadily breathing with a rhythmic inhalation and exhalation. It was impossible to tell if he was sleeping, but if he wasn't, he would be in short order.

Ranma flopped down onto her own cold bedroll and did her best to imitate Genma. Having been caught unprepared countless times in the past, she had learned to always grab whatever she could whenever she could. The morning would bring a fight with Genma at the absolute least, and there was certain to be a lot more, too. Most likely, it would be a long day of travel as they left to go to that unnamed friend's place. Then again, Genma had said it was somewhere in Tokyo, so maybe it wouldn't be that far. Regardless, she was long overdue for some sleep.

Despite her best efforts, though, her mind kept racing. If the disquiet she had felt after the festival could be considered unrest, what she now felt was closer to revolt. Thoughts of her time with Sachiko kept flashing in front of her: how Sachiko had helped her with the newspaper girls, and with her practice, and with her hair, and exactly how many different dinners had she provided?

It wasn't just Sachiko, either. There was her entire time in Lillian. Yoshino's intervention on that first day. The curry feast that the Yellow Rose Family and the Second-year Cherry Blossom Group had provided. Shimako's and Yoshino's generous sharing of their lunches. The plentiful snacks during meetings. The welcoming ceremony. The casual respect of the student body. The camaraderie of the Yamayurikai. Everything at Lillian had been provided freely, no theft needed.

Ranma tossed and turned in her bedroll, but she just could not find a comfortable position.

As she squirmed around, her gaze fell upon the Lillian uniform, still hanging on the far edge of the tent. In the darkness, Ranma could only make out its vague shape, but the glint of the silver rosary was still eye-catching. It made her feel even worse. Sachiko had trusted her, and she had betrayed her.

She had messed up. She knew that now. She had seriously messed up, and she felt just awful about it.

The question was, what could she do about it?

The easiest thing to do would be to sneak back into the mansion and return everything. That was impossible, though. She had no idea the original locations of everything they had taken, and more importantly, she had no illusions of her ability to reproduce the Strike of the Magpie having only seen it once. She simply had no way to sneak into the house.

If she was going to return everything, the only real way to do so would be through a direct confrontation. That was certainly a possibility, but it was equally certainly a terrible idea. There was no way to tell what Sachiko would do when she found out that Ranma had been lying to her this whole time, but it couldn't be good. That wasn't even considering what her parents would do.

The most obvious and the most prudent course of action was to just leave, disappearing into the night like Genma had planned.

That had to be the correct choice. Genma's training had been strange, but clearly there was something to the Umisenken. The demonstration she had seen had been truly awe inspiring. In a fight, turning neigh-invisible was astounding, and that was only the beginning. Hands moving faster than the eye could follow. Objects plucked through the strongest protections. It took only the smallest amount of imagination to see how the other techniques Genma had demonstrated could be made combat applicable. And that was just what she had seen this evening. There were always more advanced forms in every suite of techniques. Who knew what other tricks Genma had hidden up his proverbial sleeve?

All she had to do was to ignore the emotions roiling around inside her. That was hard to do now, but with practice, she was sure she could get there. Indeed, learning how to suppress emotions was one of the key aspects of this training. She was sure that, as time passed, she would become better at it and that the hurt would fade away as she achieved mastery.

It was clearly the correct choice, except for her utter conviction that what she was doing was wrong.

That was the problem she faced. She was torn between the impossible, the terrible, and the wrong.

The whole situation was just so complicated.

Ranma continued to toss and turn. And toss. And turn. And toss. And turn. And toss. And turn.

Sleep continued to evade her, as elusive as Genma had appeared when he had demonstrated the Umisenken.

Ranma gave up the pursuit. She had come to a conclusion. It wasn't what Genma had taught her, but given recent events, Ranma was starting to lose faith in Genma's teachings. There just had to be another way.

She wasn't sure how long she had been tossing around in her bedroll, but it was still dark outside as she sat up. She listened to confirm that Genma was sleeping, and then she crept out of the tent.

Already her breathing didn't feel quite as forced, and the tension in her muscles had started to relax. It gave her the confidence to continue onward.

She reached the side of the tent and picked up the two sacks of stolen goods. They were heavy, but she thought she could manage it. Her first step forward proved her folly, though, as she nearly fell over due to the ungainly masses. There was no way she would be able to carry both sacks at once and move any faster than at a walking pace. She put one sack down and carried the other in her arms as she once again pushed past the bushes and out of the camp.

The second trip to the Ogasawara mansion was just as fast as the trip back had been, but it had a very different character. Much of the bleak ambiance surrounding her had dissipated, replaced by nervousness in equal measure. What would Sachiko say? What would the other members of the household say? What would happen? The only thing she knew for certain was that no matter anything else, the gloom surrounding her had lightened up. If only the knot in her stomach would untie itself, everything would have been great.

She reached the wall of the Ogasawara mansion and went over it again. This time Ranma jogged along the main road which led to the front entrance of the mansion. She reached the front door and then steeled herself. This was the point of no return. Even this far, she could still just turn around and go back. Once she woke everybody up, she would be committed.

"Onee-sama!" Ranma pounded on the door.

She pounded again. "Onee-sama!"

And again.

The door was opened by a bleary-eyed pretty woman dressed in a pink nightgown. She asked, "What's going on? Who are you?"

A man, presumably Mr. Ogasawara given how he matched the photograph in Sachiko's room, appeared at the top of the stairs. He was dressed in some black pajamas. He half-asked and half-shouted, "Do you have any idea what hour it is? What's this all about?"

Sayako appeared at the top of the stairs as well. She was dressed in a black nightgown. She asked, "Ranko-chan?"

Sachiko was right behind her mother. She was dressed in her white nightgown and had a look of surprise and concern on her face. As she hurried down the stairs, she asked, "Ranko?"

"Do you know her?" Mr. Ogasawara asked.

"Onee-sama!" Ranma pushed her way into the house, past the woman in the front, and towards Sachiko.

"Yes. She's Sachiko-san's petite soeur," Sayako said. She and Mr. Ogasawara started walking down the stairs as well.

"Onee-sama. I messed up," Ranma said. She stopped in front of Sachiko.

"What's wrong?" Sachiko asked.

"It's... I..." Ranma stammered. Words failed her, and she resorted to just holding out the sack in her hands. "Here."

Mr. Ogasawara reached out and took the sack, and his hands jerked down as it dropped to the ground from its weight. He knelt down and looked inside.

"What is this?" Mr. Ogasawara asked. He looked up at Ranma, and then back down into the sack. "I don't understand."

Sayako looked over her husband's shoulder. Then her eyes widened. "Is that my necklace?" She reached down and pulled out a silver necklace with a large ruby pendant.

"And that's the statue we bought in France two years ago," Mr. Ogasawara said. His head whipped up to look at an empty table on the side of a nearby hallway, and then back into the sack. He pulled out a silver statue of a ballerina and turned his gaze at Ranma. "What's the meaning of this?"

During the issue with the newspaper club's questionnaire, Sachiko had suggested that giving a clear declaration to all the involved parties was the best way. It had worked then.

"Pops and I, we stole them a few hours ago," Ranma said. Now that she had started, the words spilled out from her like water flooding through a broken dam. "We came in through the ballroom window, and pops started taking things, and he gave me stuff, too, and we went to your rooms, and we took everything, and I'm sorry." The torrent of words Ranma said matched the torrent of feelings rushing through her.

Mr. Ogasawara nodded to the woman by the door, who rushed out of the room.

"And you came to bring it back?" Sachiko asked.

"Yeah," Ranma said, shaking from the emotions she felt. The nervous tension and bitter feelings she had bottled up for the past day exploded out, leaving Ranma a confused jumble. There was nothing to do but endure it and hope to get out on the other side in one piece. Whatever would happen would happen.

Sachiko stepped forward and hugged Ranma. She said, "Shh... it's okay."

"You aren't angry?" Ranma asked.

"I'm furious..." Sachiko said. Ranma flinched. "... but not at you. You did the right thing."

Unlike Genma's commentary earlier in the night, this time Ranma actually did feel like she had done good.

Several footsteps approached. The woman from the door returned with two other unfamiliar, pretty, young women.

Mr. Ogasawara looked up at them and said, "Wake everybody up. Search the whole house. Find out what's been taken and if anything else is unusual. Be sure to check the ballroom windows."

"Yes," the women said, and they scattered to the different rooms.

Mr. Ogasawara stood up again. He looked at Ranma and asked, "Where's your father? We need to call the police."

The prompting reminded Ranma that things weren't over yet. She straightened up out of Sachiko's embrace and rubbed her blurry eyes. She was surprised to see her hands come away wet.

"He's in a small temple," Ranma said.

"A temple?" Sayako asked.

"Yeah. We set up camp in the woods near a small temple, over..." Ranma turned a bit to orient herself, and then pointed in roughly the correct direction, "...that way. From Lillian, you go down the big street. There's a park there you go across. Keep going until you get to this large Shinto temple. After it there's a bridge on the left. Go across it..."

"That's not going to work," Mr. Ogasawara said, shaking his head. "The police are going to need a specific address. Do you know it?"

"No," Ranma said. Much like the Ogasawara mansion, she had never bothered learning the address. Landmarks were far more useful for directions. It wasn't as if the trees in the forest came with numbers on them.

"Then I suppose you had best lead us there," Mr. Ogasawara said. He called down the hallway, "Noto-san!"

The woman who had been summoned earlier walked into view a few seconds later. "Yes?"

Mr. Ogasawara said, "Please ask Shimono-san to go and prepare a car. We shall be departing immediately."

"Yes," Noto said, and she walked away.

"That's right," Ranma said, causing Noto to stop and join the others in looking at her. "We need to hurry. This is only half of the stuff. The other half's back at the camp."

"And hurry," Mr. Ogasawara echoed. Noto nodded and ran.

Ranma already felt dramatically better. The weight of regret which had oppressed her earlier had now completely blown away like so much dust in the wind, and the knot in her stomach had gone a long way towards untying itself as well.

The Ogasawara family grabbed some jackets from a nearby closet. Once slightly better prepared for the chilly autumn night, they all hurried to the porte-cochere. Shimono drove up in a car, and the family poured in. Ranma took the passenger seat in front to give directions.

"Start at Lillian," Ranma said.

Shimono quickly drove to the school. With no hint of any other cars on the road to get in the way, the trip was fast. From there, Ranma directed Shimono along the route to reach the small forest which she had called home for the past two weeks.

Once at the temple, Ranma led the way forward on foot, pushing her way through the vegetation into the camp. She didn't bother trying to hide herself this time.

Inside, Genma was wide awake and was stuffing some things into his traveling pack. He barely looked over at Ranma as he asked, "Where's the other sack, boy? What'd you do with it?"

"You need to give that back," Ranma said, pointing at the sack beside Genma. She heard some rustling behind her, but she emphatically did not turn to check what it was. Her eyes were locked onto Genma, watching his every move. She had been caught off guard by too many surprise attacks over the years to ever fully trust him.

"I was afraid of this. I thought you could handle it, but I overestimated you. I see that now. You're still too immature," Genma said, shaking his head. "I can fix this. We'll need to practice more, start you with the Yamasenken and ease your way in." Genma reached down and grabbed both his pack and the sack. "This should still be enough to last us a few years at least. Come on. Grab your stuff. It's time to go."

"No."

The quiet declaration filled the nighttime clearing, surprising Ranma. It was so unexpected that it took her a moment to realize.

The voice had been hers.

Genma glowered down at Ranma. "What did you say?"

More loudly and more confidently, Ranma declared, "No! It's always the same, isn't it? Grab and go. It's like those temples, and those villages, and all those stores. I've had it. This isn't right, and I'm not doing it anymore."

"This place is making you soft. You sound like a girl," Genma said. He pulled out a thermos, yanked off the lid, and flung its contents towards Ranma. "Be a man."

Hot water arced through the air, nearly invisible in the dim ambiant light, and soaked Ranma.

Ranma disregarded the transformation and continued to concentrate on Genma. Years of practice had shown that Genma could attack or escape in a matter of moments, and that was even disregarding the newly revealed Umisenken.

"Now grab your pack and let's go. You're wasting my time," Genma said.

"I said, 'no.' This is wrong. Give that back."

Genma sighed and dropped his sack to his side. "I had hoped to do this the easy way, but I guess not." He slid his pack off his shoulders. "You're coming with me, whether you like it or not. This hurts me more than you, but it's for your own good." Genma threw his pack at Ranma's face.

Ranma knocked the pack aside and was already moving to dodge Genma's hidden punch right behind it. He followed up his dodge with a leg sweep, which Genma hopped over and tried to counter by stomping on Ranma with both of his landing feet.

It was like so many other sparring sessions they had had over the years, only with no punches pulled and no quarter given. Early in the fight, the lights around the temple clicked on, but that had no real effect on their battle. Shortly thereafter, a man shouted, "What's going on here?" However, that likewise had no real effect, as neither Ranma nor Genma paid him any attention. To be distracted was to be defeated.

Their fight went back and forth. Ranma received a nasty kick to his thigh and a grazing blow to his temple was made him go cross-eyed for a few seconds. He gave as good as he got, though, with a punch to Genma's ribs and a kick which came close to breaking Genma's arm.

The approach of a faint siren did what the lights and the unknown man's shout could not: it intruded on their fight and forced a reaction. In response, Genma tried to sweep out Ranma's legs. When Ranma was forced to dodge back to avoid it, Genma likewise flipped backwards to land near his pack.

"I don't have time for this. If you want to be stubborn, then have it your way, boy. See how long you last without me," Genma said. He adopted a slouched position and seemed to fade away from view.

If anything, it proved that Ranma had underestimated the combat effectiveness of the Umisenken. He had not foreseen how devastatingly impacting the loss of intentionality was in a fight. He could somewhat see Genma, as elusive as a whisper at the edge of his peripheral vision, but he had no idea if Genma was going to punch, kick, block, feint, jump, or anything else. The loss of that intuitive sense left Ranma bewildered and, as appropriate for a practitioner of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, needing to be prepared to react to absolutely anything at a moment's notice.

Such as the sack of stolen good on the ground seeming to fade away.

Ranma seized the opportunity to desperately lunge forward, and he managed to catch the edge of the sack. They struggled with it for a moment before a loud ripping sound tore through the clearing. Ranma fell backwards, a large swath of heavy cloth in his hands.

Glittering sparkles seemed to fall from the air itself as the trail quickly departed. Then all was silent in the clearing.

The immediate demands of battle had ended, and Ranma's tunnel-vision focus slowly disappeared. The adrenalin pumping through his system drained away, leaving him a familiar mix of hyper and exhausted.

Sachiko approached first, with her parents remaining at the edge of the camp. An elderly man wearing yellow Buddhist robes had joined them, watching from just outside the area.

"Are you really Ranko?" Sachiko asked. Confusion and hesitation permeated her voice.

Ranma looked over to her, for the first time not needing to look up to see her face. It was the moment of truth. He was nervous, but not half as much as when he had knocked on the door of the Ogasawara mansion. That had seemed to turn out okay, he reassured himself.

"No. I'm not," Ranma said. He sighed. "Ranko Sugita doesn't exist. That's just a name pops made up when he got me enrolled in Lillian. My real name's Ranma Saotome."

"But what about..." Sachiko asked. She flicked her hand up and down, gesturing towards Ranma's whole body.

"This? It's a curse. There's these springs in China, called Jusenkyou. If you fall into them, you get cursed to turn into whatever drowned in them whenever you get wet."

"That's impossible," Mr. Ogasawara said. "Are telling me that you fell into a spring, so now you turn into a boy?"

"I'm a..." Ranma reflexively started shouting, but he stopped himself. He knew how Sachiko was afraid of boys, and he could imagine what his own reaction would be if he discovered somebody was really a cat in disguise. It made him shudder. On the other hand, it would be another lie to Sachiko. It was a critical moment, and he no time to truly think through the decision. He could only go with his instinct.

"I'm a guy," Ranma said. He spoke more subdued, even resigned, as compared to his initial exclamation. "I fell into nyannichuan, the spring of drowned girl. Now whenever I get splashed with cold water, I turn into a girl. I think that's where pops got the idea to enroll me in Lillian, so he could find somebody rich to rob. It just happened to be you." The alternative, that Genma had intentionally gotten Ranma cursed for just that purpose, was just too much to consider.

"So that means you're really are a boy then?" Sachiko asked.

"Yeah," Ranma said. He reflexively scratched the back of his head. "I'm really a boy. Sorry about that."

Sachiko stared at Ranma in turbulent silence.

"So what are you going to do now, then?" Sayako asked.

Ranma glanced around the clearing and took stock of the situation. Genma had left behind both of their packs when he had fled. That meant that Ranma still had access to all of their gear. With that, he was sure he could figure something out.

"Stay here, I guess, at least for tonight. The tent's still set up and everything. After that, I don't know. I've spent my whole life improvising with pops. It can't be that much harder to do it by myself. I did most of the work, anyway," Ranma said. Finding food in a city without stealing would be difficult. A forest would probably be better. Catching squirrels wasn't that hard, ever since he'd figured out the trick to it.

"No," Sachiko said. Everybody turned to look at her. "Absolutely not. No petite soeur of mine will be treated as such. It is simply unacceptable."

"Well said," Sayako said. "It is entirely right and proper for a grande soeur to provide assistance to her petite soeur in whatever way is needed. Ranma-kun, you can stay with us."

"You don't have to worry about nothing like that," Ranma said. "I mean, it's not like I'm really your petite soeur, am I?"

"What?" Sachiko asked. "Are you're saying you don't care? That everything between us was a lie, too?"

"No! That's not what I meant! It's just..." Ranma gestured down at his body. "I'm not exactly much of a petite soeur, am I?"

"That doesn't matter. What do you want me to do, give you my rosary again?" Sachiko sighed. "Very well." She walked across the clearing and picked up the silver rosary from where it lay fallen on the ground. She then walked back over to Ranma and asked, "Would you do me the honor of accepting my rosary?"

Ranma looked over to Sachiko, anticipation and hope filled his being. He somehow found it difficult to speak, but he managed to force out a thick, stammering, "Yes."

Sachiko reached up to once again drape the rosary carefully around his neck. "It fits you perfectly."

Ranma fingered the pendent in front of him. Despite being covered in dirt, the cross somehow looked even more beautiful than it had back in the school.

"Now do you believe me?" Sachiko asked.

He silently nodded, not trusting his voice at all. For the second time that night, tears were streaming from his eyes.

"Good," Sachiko said.

Sayako's enthusiastic clapping filled the clearing. She was joined a few seconds later by a confused Mr. Ogasawara, and then by an even more confused Buddhist monk standing beside him.

A visible blush came Sachiko's cheeks. She said, "Honestly. Needing to do the soeur ceremony three times. Who's ever heard of such a thing? Seriously." Despite her stern tone of voice, her mouth had taken on a definite smile.

It matched the smile on Ranma's own face. Warm happiness surrounded him.

At the side of the clearing, Sayako's clapping slowed and then quickly stopped. She looked at Sachiko and asked, "Did you say three times?"

Before Sachiko could answer, though, several police officers arrived and started asking some pointed questions. Once the basic situation became clear, they split everybody up to take statements. Ranma's interrogation was particularly long, going through details not only of the recent events but of everything leading up to the robbery. Thereafter, the monk demanded an explanation of his own as well.

Dawn was breaking by the time Ranma was able to rejoin everybody else and return to the Ogasawara mansion. A room had already been prepared for him, and it was a relief when he was able to slide into the futon in the center of it. The result of a sleepless night, and a restless previous night before it, quickly caught up to him, and he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

"... Lunch is being served, if you're interested." A voice drifted in through the door, jolting him to full awareness.

As far as ways to wake up, the promise of food made up for in anticipation what it lacked in immediacy. Ranma jumped to his feet almost as quickly as if somebody had been falling towards him with an extended elbow. He said, "I'm interested. I'm interested." He paused. A look out the window revealed that it was midday already. "But what about classes?"

"You don't remember? Today's a holiday," Sayako said from outside the door.

"It is?" Ranma asked. Now that he thought about it, he did vaguely remember somebody saying that and encouraging him to sleep in. "Right."

He opened the door and followed behind Sayako to the dining room. Sachiko and Mr. Ogasawara were already seated at the table inside. Ranma did notice a moment of tenseness, maybe even nervousness, from Sachiko when he walked in, but it disappeared so quickly that it could have been his imagination.

"Gokigenyou," Sachiko said.

"Gokigenyou," Ranma said. He took a seat next to Sachiko. Across from the table, Sayako took a seat next to Mr. Ogasawara.

Yamamura brought out a tray containing four bowls of hearty stew, three of which were half-full and one of which was filled close to the brim. At the sight of the nearly-overflowing bowl placed in front of Ranma, Mr. Ogasawara sent a questioning glance at Sayako. She met that glance with a knowing nod, which was in turn met by a small shrug back from Mr. Ogasawara.

After they had started eating, Mr. Ogasawara looked at Ranma and said, "I would like to learn more about your condition. Things were very hectic last night."

"Sure, I guess," Ranma said. The first bite of the stew made him even happier than the initial sight of it had.

Yamamura brought out two cups and two pots of water, and Ranma used them to demonstrate the transformation time after time. In terms of an actual explanation, though, he wasn't able to provide very much detail. Her experiences over the past several weeks hadn't given him any real insight into it. Hot water turned her into a boy. Cold water turned him into a girl. It really was as simple as that. She knew from the Jusenkyou Guide that the name of the spring he had fallen into was called "nyannichuan," and that a girl had drowned in that spring 1500 years ago in some tragic tale, but that really was all she knew about it. Nevertheless, everybody watched and listened to him with rapt attention.

That included Yamamura. Ranma's transformation while she had been clearing out the first course had caused her to stumble and send some bowls clattering across the room. Thereafter Yamamura continued her work with consummate professionalism, but it was very clear she was focused almost exclusively on Ranma as she brought out and cleaned up the second and third courses.

The steady stream of delightful food kept Ranma thoroughly happy throughout the experience. Regardless, she was relieved once the pots had finally run out of water and the questions had come to an end. Her hair was drenched, and she was getting tired of making the same gesture over and over.

As dessert was being set on the table, Sachiko brought up new topic. She asked, "Have you decided what you're going to do next?"

"No. Actually, I don't even know where to begin," Ranma said. She prided herself on her ability to react to and handle anything, but throughout her life, the one to decide what that anything was had always been Genma. Get moving, there's a master of the yari in Sapporo. Keep jumping, that cliff's not that high. Start swimming, China's that way. The loss of that proverbial guiding star left Ranma lost and without direction.

"Well, what do you want to do?" Sachiko asked.

Ranma froze, spoon of ice cream stuck in her mouth.

It was like the first time she had seen Nao using a rice cooker to cook soup.

A rice cooker was for cooking rice. It was even in the name. It was incredibly unintuitive to connect it together with the idea of making soup, even if it made perfect sense in hindsight once somebody had pointed it out.

Likewise, trying to connect the idea of "wanting something" with herself felt equally unintuitive. Every time she had tried to do so in the past, Genma had quickly disabused her of that folly. Ukyou is holding you back, forget it. Go back into that pit of cats; it's for your own good. Get stronger to eat; in this world the strong always feed on the weak. Sachiko's question left her confused, and she wasn't sure how to process it.

After several seconds, Ranma said, "I don't know."

"There's no rush," Sayako said. "You can stay here while you decide. It'd be good to have a boy around the house for a while." She took another look at Ranma, who had been left a girl at the end of the earlier demonstration, and lightly coughed. "Part-time, at least."

"Thanks," Ranma said. The offer solved an immediate need, but it didn't really address the larger issue she was facing. She would need to spend some time thinking about it when she had the chance. That could wait until later, though, when she didn't have a huge bowl of ice cream in front of her.

As dessert was being cleared away, Mr. Ogasawara said, "We're going back to the temple after this. We need to find everything that was lost last night. Do you want to come?"

"Sure," Ranma said. It seemed only fair to help out. Additionally, it could be a good opportunity to practice her Martial Arts Scavenger Hunting. Genma's departure meant that any further development of her martial arts would be entirely her own responsibility now.

Ranma changed and then joined the small caravan headed to the temple. He rode in a car with Sachiko. Sayako and Mr. Ogasawara rode in another car, while several maids from the mansion joined in a third car. They were met by a few more women and a group of men at the temple. Additionally, of particular interest to Ranma, a table had been set up with numerous drinks and snacks upon it. Even though lunch had just been finished, he grabbed some persimmons and munched on them as everybody was divided into teams and given an area to search.

While Ranma wasn't assigned anything to do, that didn't stop him from joining in. He jumped up to the tall branches of the trees above, causing a shout in his wake, and he leaped around from branch to branch to best survey the area. Whenever he spotted something, be it a silver bangle or a delicious mushroom, he would leap down to retrieve it using an appropriate technique before resuming his aerial search. The first time he did so, the man he landed beside gave out a shriek, but soon everybody grew accustomed to his darting around.

His efforts were energetic, but they were also mundane, not unlike performing a kata. It left him with a lot of time to contemplate things as he bounced from tree to tree to tree to ground to tree to ground to tree to tree, which was good because he needed a lot of time to think. He had some special training to accomplish, and he meant to do it as quickly as possible. The question Sachiko had presented to him of what he wanted seemed like such a simple one, but not having considered it before, it was still a challenge.

There was the obvious answer: he wanted to improve his martial arts. It was what he had been doing for his whole life, and he loved it. It really was the foundation of who he was.

Only, that wasn't it at all. It was absolutely true that he wanted to improve his martial arts, but there had to be more to it than that. After all, he could have just sneaked away into the night with Genma. That would have resulted in his learning the Umisenken, not to mention who knew how many other powerful martial arts techniques? But he hadn't. Why was that?

"Saotome-san! Over here!" a woman shouted out. It had happened a few times during the scavenger hunt whenever somebody got stuck and needed help.

Ranma jumped down to where the woman with the metal detector was calling him. A man and a woman were there yanking at some fronds, trying to get at the bracelet and scroll stuck underneath. Ranma took a more direct approach. He grabbed a nearby branch and used it to smash into the ground, causing the objects to bounce up into the air. He kicked the bracelet high, windmilled around to grab the scroll with his free hand, and then caught the bracelet on its descent. Both of these he handed to the man.

"Thanks."

"Sure," Ranma said. He then leaped back up a tree to continue his search, both for objects and for answers.

Why had he not gone with Genma? Because he had felt terrible about it. Why had he felt terrible? Because what they had been doing was wrong. Why did that matter?

The answer Ranma came to was that really what he most wanted was to be a good person. It was absolutely not the conclusion he had expected to reach, but it was the only one he could think of that made sense.

And he wanted to improve his martial arts. Obviously.

Two final sweeps through the forest revealed nothing new, and it was late in the afternoon when the search party wrapped up. The various complements and admirations offered to Ranma for his work brought a happy smile to his face. He loved having his skill acknowledged, and the sense of accomplishment made it even better. Ranma then sat with Sachiko once again as the small caravan returned to the Ogasawara mansion.

It had been a good day. Ranma had had a fantastic lunch with Sachiko, he got in some good training, the hot tub which had previously taunted and terrified him felt absolutely luxurious, and dinner was imminent. If only he could get in a good sparring session, the day would have been perfect.

That promise of that dinner was what lured Ranma out of the hot tub, and he was soon joined by the others in the dining room.

"Things went much better than I expected. I thought it'd take us two or three days to get everything," Mr. Ogasawara said after they had started the first course. "How'd you do all that?"

"Martial Arts Scavenger Hunting," Ranma said. "I learned it from Tsumugi-sensei in Kyushu."

"Martial Arts Scavenger Hunting? What's that?" Mr. Ogasawara asked.

"It's a school of martial arts based on finding and retrieving things. It's mainly focused on trying to find treasures and obscure items, but it has a lot of crossover utility, too. It's great for gathering food, and with some minor modifications, it's really good for spotting ambushes."

"Is that so?" Mr. Ogasawara asked. "I don't understand it, but I can't argue with its results. We couldn't have done it without you."

"Any time. It was good training," Ranma said.

The reminder of the afternoon also brought to mind the breakthrough that Ranma had achieved during the scavenger hunt. So, as Yamamura was bringing out the second course, Ranma excitedly turned to Sachiko and said, "By the way, I figured out what I want."

"Really?" Sachiko asked. "And what's that?"

"I want to be a good person, and I want to get better at martial arts."

Sachiko's eyes went wide. She said, "Oh."

"That's very unusual to hear from a young person," Sayako said. "That's a very difficult thing to achieve." It was the common refrain Ranma had heard so often before. "It's something people spend their whole lives on and never finish." Next would be the invitation to change his mind. "However, it's a most laudable thing to pursue. I support your decision."

"What?" Ranma asked. That wasn't at all how it was supposed to go.

"Most teenagers are so worried about things like fashion, popularity, and celebrities. Developing righteousness is far more important than all of that. It's so rare for a young person to be so clearheaded," Sayako said. "You have good taste."

"Okay," Ranma said hesitantly. The easy acceptance of his declaration felt weird, but regardless, it did mean that the first step of the special training was done and he was ready for the second one. He turned to Sachiko. "So what's the next step to figuring out what I should do next?"

Sachiko's face took on something of a frown. She said, "That's hard. I was going to say you should do what made sense to get what you want, but how do you do that? I mean, the martial arts is pretty simple. There are lots of dojos around the city. But becoming a good person?" She looked to Sayako and Mr. Ogasawara.

"It seems to me you already know the answer," Sayako said to Sachiko. "Guiding a petite soeur's moral development is also one of the responsibilities of a grande soeur, and you clearly have been doing a good job of it so far."

"But..." Sachiko said. She looked flustered and didn't continue her sentence.

Sayako smiled at Sachiko and nodded. She said, "To begin with, I would think that attending Lillian is an excellent place to learn to be a good person."

"I will remind you that Lillian is a girls' school," Mr. Ogasawara said.

"That's a good point. Then that won't work at all. However, I'm sure we can find another good school for Ranma-kun," Sayako said.

"No. I want to stay with Onee-sama and everybody else." Ranma blinked in surprise at what he had just said. Apparently he wanted more than he had realized. He would need to spend more time re-examining the question of what he wanted later.

Sachiko blushed and smiled slightly, which in turn made Ranma feel happy.

"I see," Sayako said. She shook her head. "I can appreciate wanting to attend Lillian, but I'm afraid to say that I don't see how that's possible. The cost won't be an issue, but throughout its entire history, they've never admitted a boy to the school."

"Well, there's no harm in trying to ask, at least. Is there?" Sachiko asked.

"True, you can always ask," Mr. Ogasawara said. His voice took on the deliberate cadence of a master teaching a student. "Who you plan on asking?"

"The headmistress," Sachiko answered promptly.

"Okay," Mr. Ogasawara said. "And what do you think she'll say when you ask?"

Sachiko went silent, and then she sighed. "She'll say 'no.'"

Mr. Ogasawara nodded. "And why will she say that?"

"Because the rules say that it's a girls' school, and she has no reason to let Ranma in," Sachiko said.

"Right. So then what are you going to do?" Mr. Ogasawara asked.

Sachiko thought for a few seconds. She said, "Give her a reason to let Ranma in."

"Such as?" Mr. Ogasawara asked.

"Such as..." Sachiko said slowly. After a pause, she said, "I don't know."

"Okay," Mr. Ogasawara said. He nodded his head again. "So then what are you going to do?"

Sachiko went quiet again. Several more seconds passed. She then sighed again. "I don't know."

"I know," Ranma said. Sachiko, Sayako, and Mr. Ogasawara all turned to him.

"Really?" Mr. Ogasawara asked. "Go on then."

Ranma had two generic answers to problems, and one of them was a perfect fit. He said. "I'll challenge the headmistress to a duel."

Silence filled the room. Even Yamamura stopped her setting of the third course of dinner to stare at Ranma in surprise and confusion.

"A duel?" Mr. Ogasawara asked. "You mean like a fighting duel?"

"Yeah," Ranma said. It would be a hard fight. As the student council was the strongest fighter among the students, the head of the school would naturally be the strongest fighter of them all. Still, he was more than willing to pit his skills against anybody, even a grandmaster.

"Okay," Mr. Ogasawara said hesitantly. "What will that accomplish?"

"It'll solve everything. I'll make the terms that when I win, she let's me stay in Lillian," Ranma said.

"Why do you... what if... no..." Mr. Ogasawara said. He shook his head. "Never mind. I don't know how you even came up with that idea, so let me just tell you directly that it's a bad one. If you challenge her to a fight, it will do a lot more harm that good."

"Really?" Ranma asked. In his experience, a duel usually solved more problems than it caused. A look around the room to the nodding Sachiko, Sayako, and even Yamamura convinced him that Mr. Ogasawara was probably telling the truth.

"Yes," Mr. Ogasawara said. "So do you have any other ideas?"

Ranma thought. His other generic answer didn't really seem to apply in this situation. This wasn't like trying to learn the Cinderella script, where some special training would resolve the issue. What other problems had he had in recent past? There were the various issues with the newspaper club. There was trying to get into the Ogasawara mansion.

That last thought felt promising. Something about it seemed relevant. Something about quilt-like bread, which didn't make any sense. The bread had been that early meal he had had with Sachiko. Why did that remind him of his problem of getting into the Ogasawara mansion?

He made the connection.

"Maybe ask Yoshino-san for help?" Ranma asked. She had offered to help him with his problems back then, when they had been going to lunch. Hadn't she also said Shimako and the others, too? "And everybody in the Yamayurikai?"

"That is a good idea," Sachiko said. She looked at Mr. Ogasawara. "If it's a formal request from the Yamayurikai, then the headmistress will need to take it seriously."

"Getting other people involved can help, but it can hurt, too. Are you sure they'll support you?" Mr. Ogasawara asked.

Sachiko's face fell, and she said, "I don't know. Onee-sama should help, I hope."

"Yoshino-san will, too, I'm sure," Ranma said. Yoshino had said she wanted to help if she could, and she understood guts and honor. Shimako, Ranma was less sure about. She was nice enough, but Ranma still couldn't quite figure her out.

"As for everybody else, I don't know, but they'll have to be better than the headmistress," Sachiko said.

"Okay," Mr. Ogasawara said. "So then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to call Onee-sama after dinner and let her know we need to discuss this. We have a meeting tomorrow morning anyway to determine the plans for cleaning up the festival. We can do this along with that," Sachiko said.

"Okay, good," Mr. Ogasawara said. His tone of voice switched from a teaching one to more of a deliberative one as he then turned to Ranma and said, "Now, as for you, seeing how it seems like you will be joining our household, let's figure out what that actually means."

They spent the rest of the dinner discussing exactly that. Longer, even. Even after dessert was cleared away, Yamamura kept refreshing everybody's tea as they went through the various details and living arrangements.

After that had concluded, everybody left the dining room. Sachiko went to call Youko. Tooru, as Mr. Ogasawara had suggested Ranma call him, went to his study. Ranma was the most excited, though. It was time to earn his allowance. A good spar was all that had been missing from his day, and he was looking forward to seeing what Sayako could do. She didn't look like much of a fighter, but Fukuyama had him taught a painful lesson about the dangers of underestimating a woman dressed in a kimono.

The room Sayako led him to was a strange one for the fight. Everything Ranma and Genma had taken from this room had since been replaced, and the room was full of breakable decorations and furniture. He could only speculate that Sayako's fighting style used the plentiful makeshift weapons.

After they entered, Sayako walked over to a drawer and opened it. She said to Ranma, "I keep some valuable things here. Please don't go into it on your own."

"Sure," Ranma said. He took the opportunity to adopt a ready stance.

Sayako shuffled some things around in the drawer, and Ranma watched her every move to see how she would initiate hostilities. There were a handful of pens in her easy reach, and a quick kick could send a table flying in his direction.

However, Sayako used none of the opportunities near her. She simply stood up and offered over an envelope with both of her hands. "Here you are."

"Huh?" Ranma asked. He stared at the envelope in confusion, hesitant to touch it in case it was poisoned.

"It's your allowance," Sayako said. "We just talked about it."

Ranma scratched his head. He asked, "What about the fight?"

"Fight?" Sayako asked. "What fight?"

"The fight for the allowance," Ranma said.

"I still don't understand what you mean," Sayako said.

"Aren't we supposed to fight before I get the money?" Ranma asked.

"No. Why would you even think that?" Sayako asked.

"I had to fight pops every day for my allowance," Ranma said.

"I see," Sayako said. She pursed her lips. "That's not how we do things here."

"Okay," Ranma said hesitantly. He carefully took the envelope, keeping a wary eye on Sayako in case this was a trick, and then opened it up. He then forgot all about Sayako and stared inside. He exclaimed, "This much?"

"I suppose it's true that you do eat a lot. How much more were you think of?" Sayako turned back to the drawer.

"More? I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with all this!" The envelope already contained more money than Ranma had ever seen before in his life. He had no idea how anybody could spend that much money. Even considering it was supposed to be a weekly allowance, it was still an insane amount. It was enough to eat ramen, not instant noodles but genuine ramen, for every meal and still have some left over. Maybe. Ramen was tasty.

"Oh, I see," Sayako said. She looked back at Ranma again. "To begin with, you'll need it for your bus and train fare. You can also use it to buy some snacks or anything else you want. Or you can just save it. That's a good habit to get into, too."

Now that she had mentioned it, Ranma remembered that Sachiko had paid for those tickets, plus those snacks the week before. That money had to have come from somewhere.

"Uhh... Thanks." He still felt intimidated.

"You're welcome."

"We're all set," Sachiko said as she walked into the drawing room. "We're scheduled to meet tomorrow morning at 7:30. We should be at the Rose Mansion by 7:00 so we can get everything set up before The Three Roses arrive."

"Then I would suggest you two prepare and then go to bed early tonight. It sounds like tomorrow will be a big day," Sayako said.

Sachiko nodded.

Sayako left the room while Sachiko remained and helped Ranma prepare for the upcoming meeting with the Yamayurikai.

Working on the explanation was tedious, but it was important to get right. Ranma's first attempts ended up in a jumbled mess not much better than what he had explained to the Ogasawara family in what felt like a lifetime ago back in the forest. After much work and rework, though, he finally managed to put together a basic outline which addressed all the salient points with only a minimum amount of rambling.

Unexpectedly, determining what to wear for the event proved to be quite the endeavor, too. Considering he was planning on demonstrating the curse to the Yamayurikai, nothing seemed to quite fit. Literally.

A quick experiment proved that Ranma's size increase when changing from a girl to a boy made wearing his Lillian sailor dress a rather uncomfortable experience. He proposed wearing some street clothes to the meeting, but Sachiko was insistent that that was a very bad idea; supposedly requesting to get the help of a group while simultaneously emphasizing being an outsider was a strategic blunder, and Ranma deferred to her superior expertise. The next idea of wearing the Lillian track suit was quickly discarded as well as it combined the negatives of both previous options, emphasizing being different while simultaneously not having the flexible comfort of casual clothing.

The final conclusion was for Ranma to wear one of Sachiko's substantially larger uniforms. Some quick Martial Arts Tailoring applied to it, to the amazement of the watching Sachiko and Sayako, had resulted in a sailor dress which fit Ranma's female form with some modest bagginess that could flex out to accommodate her male form as well.

Once all of that had been established, Ranma and Sachiko did one final practice to make sure they hadn't missed anything else obvious. It went cleanly, and they both agreed they were as prepared as they could be.

Despite their efforts for an early night, it was still fairly late when they were finally able to retire for the night. Ranma returned to his room and slid into the plush futon which had been prepared for him. The voluptuous warmth surrounded him as he pondered further what he wanted to do before gently drifting to sleep.

Last Updated: May 24, 2021