Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections
A. V. Morgan
Part Sixteen: The Drowned Girl
The heavens continued to weep, despite the absence of a certain kendoist to comment on it, as the group waited for their train, at the station servicing the town nearest to Mirror Mansion. Cologne had quietly observed the three aspects of Ranma, following the scene on the road, waiting in particular to confront the "cured" boy when she got the chance. The opportunity came at the train station, when the girls separated on the way to the platform. One went to retrieve the books Ranma-chan had gotten from Dr. Tofu from the locker they had rented before their trek to the mansion, and the other to find Ryouga and lead him to the correct platform. Ranma seemed too distracted to notice he had been left alone with the amazon matriarch. The old woman perched on the back of a bench and tapped Ranma on the shoulder.
"You did not stop to consider what you would lose for a cure, did you Son-in-law?" she challenged the boy softly, reminding him of the scene at the yatai. When they had reached the town, Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan had crowded around a yatai, the instant they scented food, nearly frightening the vendor with their hungry faces and growling stomachs. Ryouga and Cologne had paused, considering the risk to their health if they dared to come between the Saotome triplets and food in the process of placing their own orders. The street vendor recovered quickly, after he realized the quantity of food being ordered would make up for the business lost due to rain, and threw in a complementary serving for the red-headed twins, much to the disgust of Ranma and Ryouga. Aside from trading dirty looks, a few red-eyes and a little grumbling, the trio focused all their attention on inhaling their food while Cologne exchanged a bit of gossip with the cook. She could not help but notice the hint of venom in the way the girls took their little revenge on the cured boy.
Ranma turned to look at the old ghoul and snorted. "I wouldn't have thought about losing out on free food if they hadn't rubbed my nose in it," he looked away, pretending to be indifferent.
"Oh, you lost a bit more than free food. Wouldn't you say?"
"What? You think I actually liked bein' a girl half of the time!?"
"Oh, we both know my prejudices, but since it seems a worthy question, perhaps you'd care to answer it," she prodded.
"Huh?" he snapped back around to stare at her.
"Did you?"
"Of course not!"
"Oh, that's an easy answer," she dismissed. "Why don't you put some thought into it?"
"What's there to think about? I'm finally cured. The price is… it really sucks. I mean, they're both me, and they're both stuck with the curse in one way or the other, and I don't know which one has it worse!" he confessed, keeping his voice low, but unable to keep his feelings out of it.
"That's a bit more intelligent, but it doesn't answer the question, now does it?" Cologne hopped onto the arm rest so he could turn and face her more easily from the bench. Seeing the confusion on his face, she prompted, "Everything they know, up to the last hour, you know. You heard what Ranma-chan said on the road, did you not?"
He scowled, "Yeah. I heard it. But what's the point of worryin' about it? I'm just a guy now. I don't have to think about bein' a girl no more, and it's probably better if I don't. Maybe there's something to like, I really didn't get a chance to find out. The point is, I don't wanna like it. I have enough to worry about." Ranma crossed his arms and looked at the tracks again.
Cologne sighed. "If the other two are like you, which is practically certain, they will no doubt choose to think the same way."
"What are you getting at?"
"That should be simple enough for you to guess, Son-in-law," Cologne criticized. With a dignified harrumph, she interjected, "So it goes, the Elders cling to life and mete out spoonfuls of wisdom to children who can not trouble themselves to think. What is the world coming to?"
Ranma frowned and retorted, "I'm not an idiot, Cologne. I know what they're going through, and I know what they think. I spent my life on the road, so I know that the only thing I really have is myself. 'S all anyone has, really, and if life takes that away from you…" Ranma trailed off. The voices of the two girls could be heard coming closer. He turned and looked at them, each carrying a stack of books and trying to guide Ryouga along verbally.
"Your OTHER left, Ryouga! Geez! Can't you just keep your eyes on us and follow?" one of them was shouting.
"Shut up, Ranma!"
"Ranko," came the tired reply.
"It's all the same thing!"
"I wish!"
Ranma returned his gaze to Cologne and dropped his voice, "Bein' Ranko wouldn't be that bad. I mean, she was right, I'd still be me. But I would not look forward to life as a girl." His eyes turned to watch as Ranko tossed her pile to Ranma-chan and chased off after Ryouga. "She's better than him. She always will be, but if she ends up with him she'll always be treated as less than him. She'll spend her time raising a bunch of brats who can't even find their way to the bathroom, and everything she has invested in the Art will wither away. She'll never be able to open a dojo or train, cuz no one will respect a female sensei. Even if you ignore everything my Pops says about girls, all of that is still true in Japan," he explained.
"Sadly, that is true of most of the world," Cologne sighed.
"There's more though," Ranma added. "If she chooses to be a girl, she'll have to go somewhere else, leave Nerima, or she'll never really be accepted as a girl. To everyone around her, she's a guy in a female body. The girls will never really accept her and the guys will mock her. The other one will have it worse, though. The curse will never stay hidden long enough for her to be accepted as a guy or a girl."
"Why do you refer to that one as 'her'?"
"Huh?"
"Well, for the most part, she is you. She is the original, and originally a boy. I think it's safe to say she's a man in her own mind, so why do you see her as female?"
"You're doing it too," he pointed out.
"Well, from me, ascribing the female gender is a sign of respect. You don't have the same excuse," the matriarch pointed out.
Ranma stared at her, trying to figure it out. The girl in question had closed the remaining distance and he could not comment further without her hearing.
"I can't believe that idiot!" Ranma-chan huffed, dropping the pile of medical tomes on the bench beside Ranma. "I swear, we took our eyes off him for a second and he found his way into a utility closet!"
"Ryouga could get lost in a room with no corners or doors," Ranma chuckled. He picked up one of the books and examined the title. "This is a lot of reading. We're gonna have to divide it up and break it down for each other if we're going to start training this week."
"Well, we read some of it on the train here, we can get in another hour on the way back," Ranma-chan noted, leaning over to see which book he was looking at. "I already marked some sections for us to try tonight. It would be nice if we knew someone who had read all of these and used them. Dr. Tofu might have, but he doesn't have much time to spare."
"Why don't you speak to Happosai?" Cologne put in. "I know he is rather difficult, but there are few people alive who know as much about combining shiatsu and chi techniques. My own expertise is reserved for members of the tribe, so I am limited in what I can reveal to you. Unless, of course…"
"Don't say it. You promised you wouldn't use this to force me into marrying Shampoo," Ranma and Ranma-chan said together. They looked at each other. "Uh oh. We synched."
/ "Even though you're a girl?" Ranma asked. "Oh. Almost."
\ "Even though I am a girl?" Ranma-chan asked. "Oh. Almost."
"That is both amusing and disturbing," Cologne smiled. "Sort yourselves out, then. To return to my point, Happosai is the grandmaster of your school. Seeing as you are, collectively, his best student, I am sure he would take the matter seriously enough to be of use."
"Uh, well. I sort of… trapped him in a mirror," the two winced. "I think he'd be too pissed to help if we tried to let him out to ask him."
"You have a mirror trap? Hmmm. Not hard to guess where that came from. Well, where is it?"
"At home."
"Very well then. I'll come along and go in to explain the situation to Happi so you can let him out without turning all of Nerima upside down." As she concluded, Ranko could be seen coming around the corner again, with Ryouga in tow. They arrived just in time for the train. As it pulled into the station, the group gathered up the books. A few minutes later, they were all in their seats, the trio absorbed in medical texts, and on their way home.
Outside the windows of the hurtling train, the landscape of Tokyo suburbs flashed by. In spite of the fact that train rides were unusual for Ryouga, taken more by chance than by intent, he was oblivious to the sights outside the glass. There seemed to be little reason for him to join the Saotome triplets in perusing the medical texts, since the only personal benefit he could expect from their endeavor would depend on their finding a cure for the mirror's curse and him being tempted to risk the same sort of division. He was not even thinking of that much, as compared to the consequences of either outcome to this strange situation. It was still sinking in that the Ranma he knew could die because of the reflections. That possibility was manifest in his decision to grant his mother's wishes for a manly son and a womanly daughter.
As he continued to study the girl who had stolen his heart, and mourned for the fact that she was no longer quite the same girl as Copy-chan, he thought about Ranma-chan's pronouncement. Ranko was a female identity, not just an alias of Ranma. The two red-heads sitting side by side across the aisle from him, heads bent over their books, both yearned to be Ranma, but the boy sitting next to Ryouga had already trumped their claim. For both of them, the only lingering claim on who they were was to embrace that feminine identity.
The very idea was torturing Ryouga.
The events of the afternoon were nagging at him mercilessly. It was strange that the clarity of his thoughts and feelings had been shattered the instant his goal of finding Copy-chan had been fulfilled. When she jumped on him outside the mansion, he had panicked. He had instantly tried to deny his feelings, dreaded his attraction to the girl and freaked out at her advances. Before he could even gather his wits, he had lost her. Though he had responded to her request for his protection, he could not save her from being overwhelmed by Ranma's memory. He had tried to be brave about it, when she rejected his touch. Even as he pointed out his fallibility, wrestling with his affections with Akane and Akari, he grieved over the loss of Copy-chan. She had been so sweet, so innocent, so passionate, and he had wasted the little time she'd had hating her because of her origin in Ranma. Now she was Ranma, in mind, and he hated himself for still wanting her.
He could not even hate Ranma for this, though it really was Ranma who had taken her away forever. No, it was Ranma's fault, but all that was left of her was now a part of Ranma. A part of all three of them. At first, that had been a very abstract notion, but after witnessing Ranma-chan's actions in the rain, after hearing her declaration, there was no doubt that the girl he loved was still there. Worse, while one part of his mind linked her to Ranko, what survived of Copy-chan's physical existence, another part now clung to her in Ranma-chan. Her words, her actions, had revealed that Copy-chan's spirit endured in her. "Oh yeah, it happened when I was in love with you," she had said, when he asked if she wanted to be a girl. Her spirit had looked out of Ranma-chan's eyes at that moment, and Ryouga's heart had lurched painfully in his chest. Somehow, he had understood that she was referring to both the koi rod and the time she had spent as Copy-chan, and he had finally realized that the girl he loved had always been in Ranma, showing only when the boy dropped his guard. It had been torturing him since. The girl—no, the person—he loved was Ranma.
As much as he hated the persona that was Ranma, the person inside the personality had always drawn Ryouga. That was why he had always felt so injured by Ranma's coarse manner, rude insults and taunting behavior. It just killed him that the person he wanted to respect him most belittled him the worst. It really pissed him off that Ranma treated Akane the same way. Actually, the similarity of Ranma's treatment of them was one of the pillars of his affection for Akane. Sympathy. Ranma's abuse was the thing they had most in common. It made them natural allies, and had drawn them together several times. Now that he really was thinking about it, the other thing that drew him to Akane was that, of the people he had become most familiar with, she was the most like Ryouga himself. He could not help laughing as he suddenly pictured Akane as the female version of himself.
Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan looked up from their reading to stare at Ryouga in annoyed curiosity. "What's so funny, P-chan?" they asked in unison. Ryouga just laughed harder as the question hit him in surround-sound. "I think he's snapped," they all observed together, then noticed they had synched up. "Oh great!" they all sighed.
Cologne, after glancing out the window, cleared her throat and announced, "We're coming into Nerima. Put the books away and get ready to go. We should hurry home so I can talk to Happosai and see if we can get him to help out."
That sobered everyone up. Happosai had made a point of the fact that he had never learned anything intended to help people, and while he often had provided assistance to people it usually served to further his own perverted ends. Preserving the boon of multiple Ranma-chans was probably sufficient motivation for him to chip in on the effort, but it was certain to cause as much trouble as it resolved. This thought remained on their minds as the train pulled into the station and they all marched onto the platform. As they filed out of the station, Ranma-chan turned to address Cologne. "Are you sure you want him to get involved in this?" she asked with a shiver.
"Absolutely not. I must say I'd prefer you kept him locked up for eternity, but there is no challenging the fact that his expertise in this area exceeds that of anyone alive, outside of the tribe," Cologne reasserted. "I did give my word I would not pressure you to join the tribe, but it would be necessary before I can offer unconditional assistance."
"And that would mean marrying Shampoo," they guessed.
"That is the only option with the necessary expedience," Cologne nodded. "You might not have enough time to pursue an alternative method of adoption into the tribe. The laws governing such possibilities are the most strict and unyielding in our tribe. Our people have suffered too many tragedies as the result of trusting outsiders."
"Tell me about it," Ranko muttered.
Cologne froze and turned to look at the girl. The look on the girl's face sent a chill into the matriarch's bones. With studied casualness, she shifted into her native tongue and prompted the girl to continue, "Perhaps you could enlighten the others, child."
There was something about the tone of Cologne's speech, as she had commented on the basis for the severe laws of the Amazons, that had touched on a corner of Ranko's mind. She had spoken without even thinking, and responded to the prompt just as thoughtlessly. "Well, for more than a thousand years," she began, falling into perfect Mandarin while her gaze turned inward, "we accepted any woman who asked for sanctuary within the tribe, without suspicion. They had to earn status and rights through their efforts, of course, but they were never subjected to testing. It never occurred to us that our enemies would use the spring of drowned woman and lock their curses to infiltrate the tribe. My mother never forgave herself for prompting the idea when she took refuge from the Musk among the Amazons. Only the fact that the infiltrators first tried to abduct Pa Shen gave us any warning of the threat," Ranko explained, almost entranced by the memory.
Ranko blinked to erase the image of carnage that accompanied the painful memory. She then noticed the perplexed looks on Ranma and Ryouga's faces, Ranma-chan's pallor at the shared memory, and Cologne's stone expression.
"When did you learn to speak Mandarin?" Ryouga demanded in the pause. When Ranko stared back in confusion, Ryouga elaborated, "I've picked up a lot of languages in my travels, but I'm not that good with Mandarin. Cologne said something in Mandarin and you replied fluently. I only understood part of it."
"I didn't get any of it," Ranma grumbled.
Ranma-chan looked from him to her twin, then turned to Cologne. "I didn't even realize she was speaking another language. I understood. I even remembered the events she was talking about, but… I don't remember where from. It's like suddenly remembering a dream," she confided.
Cologne just stared at the girls. There it was, simple as that. It was true. Ranma was the reincarnation of Fa Shen. Both of the girls had tapped into the memory of that forgotten life. "Have you ever experienced this before?" she asked cautiously.
Both girls nodded. Even Ranma perked up and nodded. The twins looked at him, and let him speak, since he had precedence. "It's kind of strange now, but it happened when I was Copy-chan," he began. The other two nodded and he went on. "The stuff that Kuno tried to choke down my throat at the end of the date…" he shivered as he realized that he would always carry these memories. "It all mixed together and knocked me for a loop. While I was passed out I had this dream. I was at Jusenkyo, and this big battle had ended. The men were ravaging the women from my party and I was being strangled and stripped by this guy…" He blanched as he realized the man reminded him of Genma, or the panda he turned into. "The leaders stopped him from raping me, but they tied me up and threw me into a spring. I drowned…"
"I think I was remembering the death of the girl who created the Nyanniichaun," Ranko interjected.
"Fa Shen," Ranma-chan added. She scratched her head and studied the matriarch. "Have you ever heard of a cursed person discovering the memories of the person or animal their curse is based on?"
Cologne sighed and nodded. "Yes, I have. It is a very rare occurrence, and it only happens for one reason. The curses seem very arbitrary in how they affect their victims, but the secret, the difference between effects, is based on similarities between the victim and the curse. Each spring has a number of different effects that can be emphasized. Usually, it is the greatest difference that governs the curse. If the biggest difference is species, that is the prominent effect. If the biggest difference is sex, that is the focus of the effect. If the victim is the same species and gender, then the personality of the victim is cursed. Every spring has the ability to impose the exact form of the original victim, but over time that becomes very rare. You and Herb were cursed by the same pool, but Herb's curse turns him into a female version of himself. Your curse turns you into a twin of Fa Shen."
"Is that why we can remember something from her life?"
"No," Cologne responded. "Not precisely. Even the personality curses do not grant the memory of the person who imprinted the pool. It is true, however, that the pools do capture the mind and spirit of the original victims. A part of the soul lingers in the pool as well, while the rest is free to be reincarnated. When a person is cursed with the exact form of the original, it is because the ghost has attempted to merge with the victim to escape from its grave. That would allow the victim to gain the memory of the original, but it only succeeds if the victim happens to be a reincarnation of the original."
They all stared at her.
The storm that had raced in from the countryside had apparently decided to park itself over Nerima. While it endeavored to flood the drainage canals of the ward, the students of Furinkan High lingered in the halls, grumbling as they slipped on their outdoor shoes and crowded around the umbrella rack in vain hope of finding a loaner umbrella for the walk home. Akane and Ukyo paused as they saw Kodachi rush in from outside and sprint to where Tatewaki was waiting beside Nabiki. The middle Tendo daughter had already sold the legitimate story explaining Ranma's absence from school, but a specially tailored version was reserved for the Kuno siblings. The two official fiancées turned and followed the three as they headed into a classroom. Nabiki raised an eyebrow as Akane and Ukyo filed into the room, but ignored their presence with a shrug. Turning to the siblings, she cleared her throat.
"I am glad you could both make it here," she began. "I am afraid I have some bad news for both of you about the curse afflicting Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl."
"Tendo Nabiki, in light of all the rumors flourishing in the halls of this learning institution, I deemed it necessary to confer with you in hopes of illuminating the truth," Tatewaki spouted.
"My brother contacted me and informed me that the rabble of this school have begun speaking of some mortal peril facing my beloved Ranma-sama," Kodachi posed in anguish. "I am troubled that such rumors imply that it has become widely known that my beloved is accursedly bound to that harridan!"
"As the situation has become a danger to the health and well-being of Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl, requiring that they be excused from school, there was no way the student body would not learn the details," Nabiki dismissed the implication that she had divulged information they had paid so dearly to acquire. Rather than elaborate, she cut to the chase. "The bad news is simply this. The curses affecting Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl have bound them to each other with a fatal flaw. If the two of them are physically separated for any great length of time, they will both sicken and die. If, for any other reason, one of them dies, the other will die as well."
"Say it isn't so!"
"How can this be?"
"It's true. This has been confirmed by experts, so I warn you to keep it in mind if you value their lives. Because of the vulnerability of their condition, they cannot be exposed to certain risks that exist at school. Since that vulnerability also applies to being separated, the worst thing you could do is repeat what you tried in the park yesterday."
"But, you can't mean we must give up all hope of dating them!"
"There must be some way of undoing this tragic bond!"
"Right now, they are working on finding a solution. I recommend that you restrain yourselves and allow them time to figure it out," Nabiki warned them sternly. Of course, she had to throw them a bone. "One of the things that became clear, however, is that it could be fatal for them to become intimate. In order to prevent this, they have essentially broken up. That's the doom of the curse, to be bound to each other, but unable to risk consummating that bond." It was sort of a perversion of the truth, but she stated it in a way that would temper the Kunos' reactions. "You won't see them fawning over each other again," she promised them.
The siblings eyes widened hopefully. Their failure the previous afternoon had grated on them both. Unable to fathom the reaction of their dates as genuine rejection, they clung to the idea that Ranma and the Pig-Tailed-Girl were driven by the warped dictates of the curse that was, as Nabiki insisted, designed to destroy them. It made a kind of sense that a curse that lured them to death in each other's arms would also drive them away from those who might come to their succor. Apparently the couple had become aware of their peril and now endeavored to thwart their doom.
"Is there nothing we can do to aid them?" Kuno asked.
"Sure," Nabiki shrugged, "Don't fight with them. Don't interfere with them. Do not try to separate them from each other. Make sure that Hinnako never uses her attacks on them. The rest is up to them and the experts."
The pair considered that thoughtfully. The idea that the well being of the objects of their affection was dependant on that of their rivals was a bitter pill to swallow. Worse, they both held the opinion that their rivals lacked the ability to resist the charms of their beloveds. It would be up to them to keep an eye on them somehow and ensure that they did not succumb to temptation. Rather than expose their intentions, they thanked Nabiki for the update and departed.
"I don't like it," Akane said after they left. "They took that a lot better than I would expect. Those two have never backed down in the face of reality. They're going to be trouble again, I just know it."
"We just need to make sure that Ran-chan and the copies never face them alone," Ukyo proposed. "The trick is to find a way to protect them without them realizing that's what we're doing. It'd hurt their pride too much to let someone defend them."
"None of them are vulnerable to any physical threat," Nabiki countered. "It's the treachery those two are capable of that's the real danger."
They sighed and headed outside to walk home. Although Ukyo burned to accompany them to the dojo and see Ranma, she had a business to run. With a heavy heart she bid them farewell at her turn and rushed to her restaurant. Akane and Nabiki trudged on through the rain, sharing the umbrella Nabiki had snagged earlier in the day with predictable foresight. Arriving home, they discovered that the others had arrived home just ahead of them.
Akane followed Nabiki into the Tea Room where the triplets were sitting around the table pouring through books. Off to the side, Ryouga was sipping tea and talking quietly with Kasumi. Seeing him, Akane smiled, remembering what she had been musing over in class. As Kasumi welcomed her sisters home, and presented snacks, Akane and Nabiki made their way to the table. Before Akane could think of a way to interrupt the reading trio, Nabiki suddenly spoke up.
"What's the trap mirror doing out on the table?"
Ranma looked up and answered, "Hey, Akane. Nabiki. Cologne thinks Happosai might be able to help us. She went in to talk to him, and calm him down so we can let him out and ask."
Akane and Nabiki stared at him for a second. Because the boy next to him had hair and clothes slightly more damp that the others, they had assumed he was Ranma, but when the other boy spoke they both felt a nagging sense that he was the real Ranma. It was not so much that his mannerisms gave him away, because the copies had inherited such things. It was something more subtle. Something in his eyes and expression that had never been in Copy-kun. The boy who greeted and answered them had more self awareness, more confidence in himself.
"How long has she been in there?" Nabiki asked, reaching out to pick the compact mirror up to examine it.
"I dunno," he shrugged. "Maybe half an hour. She went in just after we got back. It's about time to let them out, though." Nabiki opened the mirror and turned it over. She waited for him to nod before patting it on the back. Fortunately, she had turned slightly away, so the pile of lingerie that accompanied the diminutive elders did not swamp the table and bury those sitting around it.
"Hot damn! I was getting tired of bein' cooped up in there!" Happosai crowed as he landed lightly on his feet, followed by Cologne. The water balloon he lobbed caught Ranma off guard right in the face. The splash caught Ranma-kun, sitting beside him, and triggered the curse. "Well, I'll be damned! I thought I was aiming for the right one!" He picked up a towel from the edge of the table, still slightly damp from when Ranma-chan last used hot water, and pounced on the girl. "Here, Ranma-chan! Let Grandpa Happosai dry you off!" he cried as he buried himself in her bosom.
Nabiki and Akane did a double take during the transformation. They had been positive they had spotted the real Ranma too. While Ranma-chan, with assistance from Ranko, tried to subdue the perverted martial arts master, Ranma looked up and silently mouthed a thank-you.
"Happi," Cologne's voice cut in, in a warning tone, "you promised not to start trouble." She looked around and hopped up to the table. Kasumi was on hand to offer a cup of tea to the old woman. After thanking the eldest daughter, the matriarch took a sip, then addressed the room. "Now that everyone is home, it's time to explain where things stand. Could someone please summon the fathers?"
Kasumi rose and went out to call Soun and Genma in from the dojo. Happosai retreated from the red-heads' attempt to pulverize him, tucking a bra filched from Ranko into his gi, and settled next to Cologne. Though she noticed his prize, she was too shocked by the fact that the girl had been wearing one to glare at Happosai. Once the fathers had come in and joined everyone at the table, Cologne quickly related the events of the day. Naturally, she did not spare the youths in her recapitulation. Ranma, Ranko and Ranma-chan all blushed as hard as Ryouga when she described the meeting between them at the mansion. There were a few exclamations as she detailed the examination of the mirror and the events of the exorcism. Cologne confessed her own surprise that the procedure had restored all their memories so quickly.
"So, Boy," Genma interrupted, "you remember everything now?"
Ranma nodded. Ranma-chan explained the discovery of their ability to fall into perfect synch, and how that compelled them to establish an order of precedence, designating the boy as Ranma and the girl as Ranko, as well as the necessity for her to retain a claim to both identities or else perish.
"Unless what we discovered returning from the train station can be taken into account," Cologne interrupted the cursed teen. The triplets froze at that. They had been in shock after Cologne's revelation that Ranma was the reincarnation of the drowned girl. They had not responded as she clarified that Fa Shen had been an amazon prodigy revered since the time of her death. Sensing they had brain lock, she had dropped the subject until now.
To their relief, Genma bulldozed past the matriarch's comment to pursue his own interest. "That seems a sensible solution, at least until the matter of the bleeding is resolved. However, in light of the fact that the boy is Ranma, it is time for him to assume the responsibilities of my son. I have discussed this with Tendo-kun, and he agrees that the boy takes precedence in the engagement. I hope you find this arrangement more suitable, Akane."
Akane gulped and turned to stare at him. This was happening too fast. "I don't see how I can object. This is essentially what Ranma proposed," she admitted, referring to the conversation they had that morning. "I just didn't expect this to be resolved so quickly." She turned to Ranma-chan and Ranko and placed a hand over one of each of theirs. "I do want to remain friends with you. Both of you. Nothing has changed in that respect," she tried to placate.
They took her hands and squeezed them gently. They understood that the gesture was her way of assuring them that she did not hold their escape from the engagement against them. "Sorry 'bout this," they murmured in unison.
"It's not your fault. You just focus on finding a solution so none of you have to die, okay?"
They nodded.
Cologne resumed her narration, which quickly reached the point she had been debating since it had come up. The revelation about Fa Shen had some so unexpectedly. She had not had time to decide whether or not to share it with his friends and family, and cursed herself for saying as much as she did in her excitement. Fortunately, the need for secrecy was over. The fact was established and she could announce it with confidence. There was no risk of looking like a fool now. Bringing out the book she had made the others stop by the Cat Café to pick up, she cleared her throat. "There is one final matter which had come to light as a result of this fiasco," she announced, opening the book to the page she had marked. "Thanks to the stupidity of Kuno, Copy-chan had a near death experience and tapped into some memories that confirm one of the strangest legends of Jusenkyo." She quickly told them of ancient stories that claimed that souls of those who died in the springs could be resurrected through the power of the curse afflicting a reincarnation of that individual. "In Ranma's case, there is a record of the girl who drowned in that spring allowing us to confirm the memories they have inherited."
The others leaned in to examine the portrait revealed in the open book. It was a photograph of an exquisitely detailed painting that had been pasted carefully to the thick page. The girl it depicted could be none other than Ranma's cursed form.