Akane Two-Ranma
By Ron Dow75

02: ...But at What Cost?

Weary after fighting for hours with a panda more than
three and a half times the weight she had as the petit
redhead, Akane had just needed a little rest before--

"AAAA!! That's HOT!!" cried a new tenor voice. It was
a boy's voice!!

He rose up, not feeling the familiar drop, swing and
dangle of breasts!! They had been flattened down to
the pectorals!! And those muscles bulged! All the
muscles above the lean thighs had swollen and
lengthened to encase the smaller redhead ones that
Akane had just started to adjust to. The abdomen was
solid; the waist was straight. And the hips were slim,
or seemed so under the broad back and shoulders. The
butt was tight, and, and...something was touching the
ground where nothing should.

In shock, Akane Tendou did not look at the men
standing over him, and barely comprehended what the
stocky, muscular, hairless and nude man was saying:

Genma Saotome tossed the teakettle aside. Looking down
on the teen now in his son's body, "I expected better
of you, Ranma! Ten years of training ...ten years of
pulling you away from girls ...ten years of knocking
thoughts of girls out of your head ...ten years of
instilling that girls are your opposite ...ten years
of applying the "id-scrub--" (No, you're not supposed
to know about that one)..."

Akane cried, "It's growing!" and pushed against the
lap of his shredded white kempo-gi/uniform.

Until he realized what he was pressing down: "How do
you make it stop!!?!"

That's when Akane looked up--and truly saw the totally
naked man next to him. "AAAAA!!! Get away from me!!"
he screamed, trying to use suddenly taut but shaking
muscles.

But his male organ had no problem responding: It
stiffened longer!

Genma stared, his mouth open in a pronouncement not
delivered.

The Chinese guide shook his head sadly, "Very tragic.
Boy really girl. You know before you bring him to
Juusenkyo?"

Genma roared, "NO!! This is caused by that "Spring of
Drowned Girl"!!"

Bringing it out from seemingly nowhere, the Chinese
guide produced his long, ringed placard book, "Nan-
niichuan! There very tragic story of girl who drown in
spring, one thousand five hundred year ago. Since that
time, whoever fall in spring ONLY take body of young
girl." Then speaking more to himself, "I need write
editor of "Accursed Grounds of World". He need publish
revised edition."

In his attempt to escape the naked man and the clothed
man, Akane was able to roll as he thrust his tense
slim thighs out to sprint away. Cramp! Seized!

He fell. And he fell awkwardly on top of his totally
unfamiliar equipment: "Yow-ch! These things hurt!"

Still dazed, Genma's reflex response was his old
speech about, "Be a man, Ranma! Work through the
pain!"

Meanwhile, Akane's response was to push his knees
under himself as he attempted to become fetal, "How
can guys stand to have this, this--demon!"

That broke through to Genma. He wept. "Ranma, my Son!
What has happened to you?" He clenched his fist, and
closed his eyes. "It, it couldn't be from the
treatment I've been giving you all these years!? My
pure fatherly desire to make a real man out of
you...didn't result in the spontaneous reversal of
your manhood because of the shock of becoming a girl?"

The Chinese guide said, "Eww, sir! That some side
effect."

The hurt diminished enough for coordination-challenged
Akane to make her escape again. But the nearly hard
enemy jabbed into his gi-pants the wrong way--and
wouldn't bend right! He roared, "How can guys fight
with THIS getting in the way!!?!"

Genma matched the roar, "Ranma, My Son!! Say your
stunted id didn't find its outlet in a girl's!!"

The Chinese man looking on commented, "Oo, maybe
father get conscience,"

When Akane made another, more cautious, attempt to
gain his feet, the naked man grabbed him before he
could get two steps.

Genma pulled him around and picked him up by his gi's
lapels and hoisted him into the air, "Say it, Ranma!
You're NOT interested in men!!"

Akane cried, "I'm not interested in YOU!!" and kicked
the man where he as a boy'd been hurting.

The naked man nearly dropped Akane as he dropped to
the ground. {Oh, yuck!! I touched it with this bare
foot!!}

Akane's large feet on the ground, now, it was HIS turn
to look down, "And my name's NOT Ranma!! If you WERE
my dad you'd know it's Akane!"

The bald and naked man clutched her fighting gi rather
than his balls. "I AM you father!! Do not deny THAT as
well as your manhood, boy!!"

Akane fought to loosen naked man's grip on the coat,
"I will deny it, because I'm a girl!! I don't WANT to
be a boy--I HATE boys!!!" {That's it: The demon-down-
there is losing its strength!!}

Desperate, Genma yanked the body of his son down to
face him, "Remember your heritage, Ranma!! You're a
Saotome!!"

It was Akane's turn to be confused, "Make up your
mind!!" Applying his increased strength at the
pressure points of the crazy father's wrists, he said,
"Now you say I'm a rice planting girl!!" {Is that what
that drowned red-haired girl was?? What HAS that to do
with being a guy!!?!}

His hold on the boy slipping, Genma told him, "That is
what you ARE: Ranma Saotome"/rice-planting-girl"!!"

Akane frowned, wondering about what he heard, "I'm a
wild stallion with a rice planting...." He did not
finish the description.

Instead he bellowed, "PERVERT!!!" as he hit the man
over the head with a wooden mallet.

The naked man went down, unconscious.

But he hadn't fallen stomach down.

= = =
The Chinese man said, "Oo, sir--"

Akane told the other man, "Call me MISS!" renewing his
grip on the mallet's handle. The only muscle wasn't
hard was the one he most wanted soft.

The Chinese man said, "Oo, miss, you learn one of
Juusenkyo secret!"

Akane eyed him suspiciously, "Secret?" {There's no
doubt this place is full of magic.} But then her anger
focused on what was REALLY important: "The only SECRET
I'm interested in is how to get my OWN body back! I
thought once I was finished with your warrior's test,
I could become me, Akane Tendou again!! Does this look
like the body of a Japanese GIRL!?!!"

The Chinese man said, "You have body of Japanese boy,
just like before you fall into," and he held up the
placard book, "Spring of"--"

Akane swung the mallet, and hit the annoying book out
of his hands! "BEFORE I found myself in that, that
accursed spring(!) I was home in my bathroom--In
Japan!!"

The Chinese man informed her, "You in China, now...,"
and he produced ANOTHER of those long, ringed books
with Chinese characters on the placards, "...in
Quanjing Region of Balakala Range of Qinghai Province."

Finished with his blinking, Akane yelled in
frustration, "How many of those do you have!!?!"

The man said, "As many as I need. I get same place you
get hammer."

= = =
The grown bald man with his clothes on bowed, saying,
"Miss...Tendo? My name is Chorus."

At first Akane just stood there in his male body. Then
he bowed, appreciating at least the acknowledgment
that he was really, "Akane Tendou...of the Mushashi
Provence of the Nerima Prefecture, Japan." Then to be
polite, "Mr. Chorus." But as he straightened the body
up, he asked, "Mr. Chorus? That's a...unusual name,
isn't it?"

Mr. Chorus answered as he turned to go into the cabin,
"There many unusual name in this part of China, Miss
Tendou.."

Waddling after the clothed man into the cabin, the
very stiff Akane demanded, "Well!?! Are you going to
turn me back to my own self!?!!"

He went to one of the two hiking packs and bedrolls.
"I not turn you to anything, Miss. Accursed spring of
Juusenkyo give you body. Only one who tell you why is
one of Guardian of Juusenkyo."

Akane asked, " "Guardian"?"

Rummaging through one of the packs, Mr. Chorus brought
out a clean and relatively undamaged white martial
arts uniform. "Guardian protect Juusenkyo from
outside. Person, thing come, go they not know." He
turned with the kempo-gi. "Before I come here, I get
their permission, always."

Akane saw that the gi was meant for him. He looked
down at the one that he, as a girl, had fought the
naked man, as a panda, in. {Well, there wouldn't be as
much exposed boy-flesh if I put it on.}

He took it. {But I'd first have to (Gulp!) strip out
of this one.}

Mr. Chorus went to rummaging through the other pack.
"People wish for new body. People want be man, woman.
Some people even want be animal. Spring area be very
crowded, be popular tourist spot, if people know." He
pulled out another, larger, kempo-gi. He turned to the
Japanese boy, "Juusenkyo then not be accursed ground,
yes?"

Akane, still holding the boy's gi, said, "Er..., yes.
I guess." {He's saying the Guardians only want certain
kinds of people popping up in their precious springs?
Warrior candidates, maybe?}

Akane looked down at the muscular body he was in, now.
{Is, is that why they gave me...this body?}

= = =
When Mr. Chorus {If that IS his name.} went outside
with the naked man's clothes, Akane was left to take
change out of the clothes he had on. While he was
coming to grips with the thought of getting a guy's
body naked, she lost the wooden mallet back to
wherever she'd pulled it originally.

{Don't think about it, just do it, get it over with
...} an edgy Akane told himself as quivering hands went
to the ties that held the pants on his {warrior's?}
body. A spasm, then a jerk went through him at the last
moment, as HER reflexes fought with the body's--

Rip! The pants came off in one tattered remnant.

"What does THAT prove!!?!" she told the invisible
Guardians she thought might be still testing her. "My
OWN body would've been strong enough to do that: This
pants and coat are ALREADY rags!"

A woman's voice said, "But this is the body that is
NOT cursed."

Akane looked towards the square window towards the
back of the whitewashed cabin. Standing on its sill
was a very little old lady with her gray hair done up
in a Chinese bun. Akane thought of her as a lady not
only for the refined, if overly precise, Japanese
dialect she used but also because of her fine silk red
robe with its black dragon writhing over the front. As
another sign of her station was the ornately carved
staff she carried. It was nearly three times as tall
as the woman herself.

Akane told her, "This is the body I curse! More than
that cute little redhead you gave me before!"

The woman said, "I am one of the Guardians of
Juusenkyo. Our place is not to decide WHO is cursed,
let alone what that curse shall be."

Akane cried, "What IS your place? At the betting
table, taking bets over who wins and loses in these
so-called 'Warrior Initiations'!?!! The game is over:
Give me my own brunet, brown-eyed, NORMAL Japanese
girl-body back!!!"

She said, "That is not what we do! And as for what is
your own body--" The small doyen leaped for the
ground a meter and a half in front of him. Akane still
took a step back, not wasn't yet ready to go into the
defend-or-attack stance. She did not see the old woman
as that kind of a threat, yet.

She should have: Quicker than he could react, the
ornate staff flew for his testicles.

And stopped.

Akane shoved the staff away, "What's the idea!?!! It
may've been decades since you've seen a naked guy, but
I'm not interested in--" Akane finally realized, and
saw, that the kempo-coat didn't hang down far enough
to cover the subject.

He screamed, "AAA!!" and pulled the front of the coat
down (and raising it in the back). His face went red.

The old woman chuckled, "It is true. You are, in fact,
a girl. A male would automatically know he had to
protect his..."family jewels"." She raised her staff,
and asked, "How did you come to be in a body that has
not yet drowned?"

It took a few stumbling starts before Akane could say,
"I, I thought...you could tell me."

"I cannot tell you," from a long, flaring, black-
trimmed sleeve the woman produced, "but perhaps the "I
Ching" sticks can."

Akane looked at the ancient red leather container. "A
fortune-telling technique?"

The woman said, "That is the true purpose of the
Guardians." She removed the gold cap. "The sticks are
what decided the boy would be allowed into Juusenkyo."

She held the open box out in front of her on top of
her palms, as if she were presenting a gift, "I am
called Attar. And you?"

Akane was already bent over; and she had no difficulty
deciding to let go of the hem of the kempo coat
pressed up against the opposing sex. She put her hands
out to accept the offering, "A, Akane, Tendou."

Madam Attar slid the wooden sticks out onto his palms.
"Akane Tendou, may the sticks recognize you, and give
you...your destiny."

Akane almost straightened up, "What??"

Madam Attar said, "Unlike what the legends say, the
true purpose of Juusenkyo is to shape destiny. We,
the Guardians, can strengthen or weaken the destiny of
each visitor. But before we can do that service, we
must first know what your destiny is meant to be."

Akane could just curl her fingers around the "I Ching"
sticks, "I don't want to know my destiny!! I want my
body back--The one I was born with!!"

Madam Attar said with what look like sincerity, "If
there is a cure for you, it will be revealed in your
destiny."

Akane asked, "Cure?!"

The old woman nodded. "Cast the sticks, and find out
what answers we mortals are allowed to see."

Akane thought, {Well, what have I got to lose, I
guess.} and--

The voice of the naked man bellowed, "RANMA, my son!!"

Startled, Akane's hand jumped. The sticks scattered
over the dirt floor.

Mr. Chorus said, "Most sorry, Madam Attar! He get
away!"

Madam Attar vaulted with her staff, and whacked the
broad man in kempo-gi over his baldhead. "You may have
changed the course of destiny!!"

Rubbing the spot that still ached from being hit by a
hammer, Genma demanded, "Who are you, madam!!?!"

Akane went and got the unruined pants from where she'd
dropped them, "If it's really destiny, then it could
not really be changed!"

Holding out her staff to keep everybody away from the
sticks on the ground, Madam Attar told them, "The
modern term for destiny is probability."

Genma told the old woman, "A true martial artist makes
his own destiny. And by his own efforts changes the
odds to... Is she going to tell us our fortune?" The
tone of his voice had changed to one of interest.

Mr. Chorus nodded, "Yes! Madam Attar read people very
good. She always more right than even Cologne."

Akane, having put the wrong leg in a pants leg, was
now putting it in the right one, "What does a cheap
perfume have to do with knowing about the future?"

Mr. Chorus said, "No, Perfume is not cheap woman.
Madam Colo--"

Madam Attar ordered, "Quiet!! I have to sort through
this scrawl."

Akane asked, "Can't I just do it over?"

Genma said, "Ranma, that is not how the arcane arts
work."

Akane told him, "My name is not RANMA!!"

Madam Attar cried, "I have found him!"

Genma asked, "Who?"

Akane told him, "Ranma!" pulling up the pants. Then
she said to Attar, "Your magic sticks failed! They
don't recognize it's me inside his body!"

Madam Attar informed her as she stooped to pick up the
"I Ching" sticks, "They have recognized his destiny is
YOUR destiny. Both your cures can only be found in TRUE
love!"

Akane was tying the pants on. "True...Come again??"

She aimed all of the sticks at Akane and Genma, "There
is a serious imbalance in Yin! And that MUST be
corrected!!"

The wooden sticks hit shiatsu/pressure points that
rendered the two temporarily immobile.

Mr. Chorus cried, "Madam Attar, what you do!!?!"

She assured him, "I shall give you a shampoo, and you
shall forget this ever happened."

She then brought out joss/incense sticks from her
sleeves. "I am very sorry, child. That love must NOT
be gentle or sweet." She started using the joss sticks
as darts, sticking them in his (and Genma's)
acupuncture points. "And as long as you have the body
linked to accursed body, YOU are the one who has must
fulfill Ranma's destiny." She then made a book of
matches appear from her sleeves, "As he must fulfill
your part in it."

She lit the joss sticks, starting the same moxibustion
treatment Dr. Tofu had already given Ranma in Akane's
body. "May the love your souls have for each other be
strong enough to continue through your ordeals..." She
stood over the body pin-cushioned with burning incense
sticks, and prayed: " "May the Curse of Juusenkyo lead
to a greater curse"."


Notes Below:

In this Alternative Ranma, the Musk are, at best, false
claimants to Juusenkyo. It is the Amazons that are the
Guardians of the accursed springs. Why? A greater
curse?? The Amazons are like those on the world we are
familiar with. How pure do you think their motives are?