Ranma Nibunnoichi - Reflections
A. V. Morgan
Part Thirty: Manly Obligations
In spite of the fact that it was almost midnight, no one in the Tendo Dojo appeared to be inclined towards bed. Ranma spotted Soun and Genma, in panda form, scowling over a game of shogi that had not even been started yet. Nabiki had the table covered in travel brochures and what appeared to be detailed files on the Kunos and their family assets, scribbling madly through calculations and muttering about the relative cost of commercial travel and bribes sufficient to allow a privately owned jet passage through China. Oddly, Cologne was at her elbow pointing out the location of air strips in Qinghai Province. The pair of them looked up as Nodoka and Ryouga followed Ranma into the room, led by Kasumi. Without a word, they cleared the table and excused themselves. Ranma shrugged and followed the two upstairs, in search of "Ranko". Through the open door of the guest room, she spotted her sitting in Akane's arms, who served as a back rest holding Ranko up right. In front of them, Shampoo was supporting a book in her lap and flipping the pages while Ranko read the text. Ukyo was off to the right, holding a drink with a straw, offering it occasionally for Ranko to drink.
"Enjoying all the attention, 'Ranko'?" Ranma teased, entering the room.
"Ranma. Close the door," Ranko snapped her head up and ordered.
Frowning, Ranma did so. "I thought I was supposed to be Ranko," she challenged, looking for an explanation. She came forward and knelt across from Ukyo. Peering at the book in Shampoo's lap, she frowned. It was written in Chinese. Most of the symbols could be related to Kanji, but the result made little to no sense. Looking up at her twin, she frowned suspiciously, "Don't tell me you're Fa Shen."
"No. But more of her memories are coming to me," she sighed, leaving the confusion that was causing her unmentioned. "The reason I am Ranko is because you are Ranma," she addressed the first question. "I've given up everything that was not mine, so you should be happy to have that back all to yourself."
Ranma paused. "Do you wanna explain that?"
"You mean you don't remember waking up?"
Ranma paled. That question stabbed through the wall of a psychic hurricane deep into the eye of calm preserving Ranma's sanity. Her instincts still insisted that she had arrived in Jusenkyo a few hours ago, got knocked into a spring and woke up to evening in the heart of Tokyo. Her first experience in her cursed form, making love with Ryouga. At the same time, her head was full of memories detailing almost a year building up to that moment. She clung to those memories desperately, needed them to preserve her sanity. It was so much easier to accept that actually going through with it, actually having sex, had triggered some kind of regression to the event that made it possible. An indication that she could not abandon her manhood. So, she had fought the strange dysphoria, denied her instincts. Ranko's question cut right through all of that. Ranma remembered waking up, helpless, with a boy she could barely remember fucking her. Somehow, Ranko knew about that?
"What would you know about that!?" Ranma demanded as a deep, burning flush darkened her face. The surprise on everyone's faces warned her too late that, whatever Ranko had meant, it had not been precisely what she feared. Her obvious embarrassment roused immediate suspicion.
"There something you wanna let us in on, Ran-chan?" Ukyo grinned.
"You do remember us pulling you out of that spring, right?"
Ranma glared at Ukyo and turned to Ranko, nodding hesitantly. Ranko knew about the dream. Not what happened AFTER she awoke. Maybe Ranma was right still. Maybe she had blacked out and somehow fell into synch with the entranced Ranma-chan. Maybe that was what triggered her regression. Clinging to that hope, Ranma addressed the question. "I had this strange dream. Ryouga and I were… uh… well, you know how we, uh… get into fights. Um. I, ah… musta gotten knocked out or somethin' and that's when I had the dream. I still don't know how you can know about that…"
"Is good you not amazon womans! You let get knocked out by Lost Boy, he be you Airen now!" Shampoo laughed. When Ranma proceeded to blush even darker, with a surprised look on his face, the others joined in and laughed until they could not breathe. Just as Shampoo recovered, she added, "You no be careful, next thing know, you get knocked UP by Lost Boy! Then in really big mess!" Shampoo fell over laughing.
Akane fought for sanity and snapped, "Geez, Shampoo! Go easy on the guy! It's bad enough he's stuck as a girl at the moment, there's no need to terrify him!" She turned a reassuring look on Ranma, and was startled by how spooked she looked. "Are you alright, Ranma?"
"I want to know what the hell is going on!"
"Ranma," Ranko interrupted, wiping her eyes dry. She had laughed so hard she started crying. Shaking her head, she returned to the point, "What I was going to say was, it wasn't a dream. Your mind has been submerged since you fell in the spring before last summer. I guess it's harder for you to tell your memories of the past year are mine than it was for Fa Shen. I know what you 'dreamed' 'cuz I was there too." She proceeded to explain what had happened to Fa Shen and herself, and what she presumed happened to Ranma. Ranma noted instantly that this shattered the plan she had been told over the phone. She could not join with Ranko; she would not regain the ability to become a man. She was locked in stunned silence as Ranko explained the theory of who she was and where she had come from. "I had no idea that waking both of you up could have killed me, I just didn't want to leave you buried there."
Ranma had gone very pale. Her instincts were screaming in agreement with Ranko and Fa Shen's logic. Her denial crumbled. Once again, her mind tried to shut down, as it had when she was cleaning up after… The trauma was beyond her grasp. The pleasure, greater than anything the boy had ever known. With a heroic effort, she struggled to remain coherent and try to understand what was going on. After a long silence, she spoke. "So, what you are saying is, everything I remember from the past year came from you. I got them from a 'projection' of you, so all her thoughts and feelings… they belong to you, not me?" she demanded in a strained voice.
Ranko nodded. "Yes. Just like everything I can remember before drowning or falling in the spring belong to Fa Shen and you." She was going to say something more, but Ranma seized up. She tightened and shook violently for several moments as she fought for control of her mind. Then, she simply sagged and keeled over backwards to stare at the ceiling. "Are you okay?"
"Up until this week, you believed you were me," Ranma had found a way to cope, searching through inherited memories and finding the overwhelming majority to be compatible with her self image. "You had no clue you could be anyone else. Except for some trouble rememberin' things I would have remembered quicker, you thought and did and said everything exactly like I would." They were statements of observation, but it sounded like she wanted someone to agree with her.
"I have to assume that. I had to have your identity stripped away from me to even begin to be any different," Ranko put carefully. Ranma crossed her arms and stared up for a little longer, before sitting upright.
"I guess I can live with it." Ranma sighed, looking years older suddenly. The shock was terrible. Numbing. Ranma had lost her manhood and almost a year of her life. The memories of a person who had thought and acted just like she would have, were a pale substitute. Even if they gave her the benefit of that year, and provided a way to deal with her present form. She had to accept them, of course. She needed them. The condition and circumstances she had inherited her body in could not be altered. It was conceivable, given the same circumstances, she would have made the same "sacrifice" as the "projected" Ranko. Unable to deny she had enjoyed her ruin, she would just have to learn to deal with it.
Pushing all of that aside, she returned to Ranko's problem. It was a nice distraction from her own problems. She took a moment to sort things out. "So, your curse is locked, and you're hovering on the brink of death. I suppose everyone else knows I'm the real Ranma, so Pops probably has some scheme cooked up to restore my manhood and push ahead with marrying me and Akane?" she quickly postulated, giving Akane a cautious, curious look. There was a round of nods. Ranma sighed. "What's it gonna take to fix you, Ranko?"
"I'm looking for ways to regenerate ki. I need to be back to full strength to close myself off from the mirror. I can't unlock my curse until then or the next change could erase me," she shuddered. She pointed at the books, "I'm looking at the bit about the Chaunshontsuniichan right now. Somehow that curse creates two bodies, each with as much ki as the original. Obviously, there's a way to draw ki directly from the soul, so I am trying to figure out how and charge myself back up."
"That actually makes sense," Ranma tilted her head in thought. Going over what she knew of ki, she quickly became distracted. She could feel how she was forced to access her new memories, just to participate in this conversation, and how each time she did she strengthened her connection to them. The boy she had been a year ago had already been irreversibly changed. Unable to avoid that, she tried not to fight it. At least she had only a year of such memories to cope with. Ranko apparently had two lifetimes, short as they were. Rather than bring that up, she picked up a question that had been on her mind coming upstairs. "What's up with Nabiki and the old mummy?"
"Emergency expedition to Jusenkyo, get boy and girl curse for Ranma and Fa Shen," Shampoo informed soberly.
Ranma felt a sudden wash of relief. If such a plan did not go completely awry, there was hope of being a man again. She could climb out of the pit she had landed in, eradicate the weakness that undermined her manhood. She hoped being male offered something to counter the irresistible temptation of intercourse as a girl. She could not conceal her eagerness as she challenged, "Seriously!?"
"Our father's insisted on taking care of the two of you immediately," Akane nodded. "Nabiki thinks she can con Kuno into letting us use his family's private jet, and Cologne knows who to contact for permits to fly directly to her home province. All three of you are going, but… Ranko can't come back until she has recovered enough to have her curse unlocked, and she has to visit the Musk for that." Akane sighed, "Unfortunately, none of the rest of us can go with you."
"Why not?" Ranma frowned.
"The jet can only carry so many people, Ranchan!"
"Who needs a jet?"
"Huh?"
"Why can't we shove everyone into the compact mirror and have Mousse fly us all there? Doesn't he sometimes carry messages that way for Cologne?"
Shampoo smacked her fist into her palm, "Is true! Mousse do all time!"
"Sometimes you frighten me," Akane gaped, staring at Ranma.
"Feelin's mutual," Ranma smirked. They knew each other that well, but technically they had just met. Ranma had to laugh. It was better than screaming. Akane stared at her in confused annoyance, eyes narrowed, as she roared hysterically. When she calmed down, she felt a lot better, but decided not to explain what had struck her as so funny. Instead, she turned to the person who made the "joke" possible. She leaned forward and put her hand on top of Ranko's as she said, "Don't worry, Ranko. We'll get you fixed up!" At the same time Ranko stiffened in surprise. "What is it?"
Ranko took her hand back and began to move her arms, slowly and steadily through part of a kata. "Wow. What did you do, Ranma?"
"I didn't do nothin'! I swear!" she waved her hands in instant denial.
"What is it Ranko?" Akane shook the smaller girl.
"When she touched me, I got a sudden rush of energy!" she stared at Ranma, and touched her again. "Huh. Nothing this time… It was sorta like you had a charge of energy built up around you, or inside of you and…" She shifted her attention inwards. She nodded gently, "Somehow you had some excess ki around you and it flowed into me when you touched me! Whatever it was, raised my ki level a bit, enough to get rid of the shakes. Ranma, can you think of anything you've done that would let you build up a charge like that!?"
Ranma blinked slowly. "Maybe our ki is close enough that you could siphon some of it off?" she suggested. Her mind was trying to do that odd shutting itself down thing again.
Ranko shook her head, "No, if that was the case, I'd have felt that earlier when Fa Shen touched me." Ranko thought back. She had been pretty numb at first, and had not noticed it at the time, but Fa Shen had casually touched her several times for comfort, support and curiosity. If there had been any ki transfer she would certainly have noticed it! "It has to be something you've done recently, since you woke up."
Ranma swallowed, in sudden panic. In search of anything "unusual" she had done, there was one overwhelmingly large suspect that immediately reared forth. Her skin chilled and prickled as she thought of it. At the same time she was shaking her head in denial.
"Damn!" Ranko looked down.
"Ranma?" Akane studied her worriedly. "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Wha-what? I mean… No. I need to- I have to talk to Ryouga… and- and my Mom."
"That was odd," Ukyo muttered as Ranma ran out of the room.
"Well, maybe we should tell Nabiki and Cologne about Ranma's idea?" Akane proposed, trying to keep her growing concern out of her voice. Ukyo shrugged and got up. She skipped out the door and down the hall to Nabiki's room and returned a moment later with the middle Tendo daughter and the amazon matriarch. Akane quickly repeated Ranma's idea to them. After they recovered from the surprise and embarrassment of overlooking that option, they huddled around Ranko and quickly considered the plan.
Ranma rushed downstairs and into the Tea Room, her mind awhirl. The instant she heard about the planned trip to Jusenkyo, she had silently resolved to avoid any and all temptations to be a girl. Unlike Ranma-chan, she had no rival in their trio for the identity of Ranma. She could understand the other girl's reasons for claiming the identity of Ranko. It was perfect for someone who was a fusion of Ranma and Fa Shen. In an odd way, Ranma could almost think of Ranko as their daughter. That feeling had inspired her promise to help fix the girl. If what she suspected was true, the only way she would be able to keep that promise was to give in to her greatest female temptation. She burst into the room and stared at Ryouga. Nodoka looked up at her, over the brim of her tea cup. Before the woman could swallow and speak, Ranma stormed over to Ryouga and hauled him to his feet. "I need to speak with you about something. Now."
"Huh?" Ryouga caught his balance.
"Ranneko," Nodoka cleared her throat and set down her cup. "I am still waiting to discuss some things with you."
Ranma glanced at her. "This will just take a moment. Can you please wait a little longer? This is important," she declared in her most serious voice. Nodoka studied her a moment then nodded. Ranma headed out to the dojo, "Come on, Ryouga."
Ryouga shrugged and allowed himself to be dragged out of the house, down the covered walkway and into the training hall. Once they were inside, alone, and the doors secured, he asked, "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"
"In a second," she brushed him off and composed her mind. She could not bring herself to talk about what they had done that night. It would be simpler to look for evidence linking their activity to the generation or separation of extra ki. She nodded and turned to study the boy across from her. "Are you familiar with your normal ki levels? Can you sense your own ki?" Ryouga nodded. "Okay, take a look now and tell me what you see."
Ryouga focused his attention inward, asking, "You want to tell me what I am looking for? I don't sense any drain, but then again I have not been fighting recently. I don't know if I could power a shishihokodan right now. My ki is the strongest I've ever felt it, but I'm just not generating any heavy chi. I guess you cured me of my depression," the boy grinned. For a moment, she looked relieved, then she frowned in thought. "Is that what you wanted to know?"
"Is there any residue or charge built up?"
Ryouga concentrated harder, then nodded. "That's odd. I almost didn't notice it because it's kind of detached. It's my ki, but it's sort of been shed or split off from the rest. What does that mean?" He opened his eyes and jerked. Ranma looked like someone had killed her puppy and offered her a kitten instead. "Ranma?"
"What do I do?" she breathed in sudden desperation. More to herself than Ryouga, she babbled, "I- I- I have to tell… but then they'll know… I… Ryouga!" Ranma looked up at him, and at the sight of his concern suddenly wanted to run into his arms, be held, protected. Horrified by her emotional response, she literally jumped away from the boy to stop herself from obeying it. She wanted to scream. It was easy to integrate the memories she had gained, but along with the information came patterns of thought and action ultimately evolved from those experiences. She could not reject them, but she did not want to be controlled by them. Only the most recent developments truly scared the boy in her. Trembling, she fought the emotions they unlocked.
"What's going on?" Ryouga was hurt and concerned by her reactions.
"I don't even know where to start, man."
"Well, for one thing, what's wrong with you?'
"You don't want to know," Ranma declared, turning and walking out of the dojo. It was impossible to tell Ryouga what she had learned about herself from Ranko, how it changed everything between them beyond hope. If she could not tell him she was Ranma, she could not tell him why she was afraid to reveal the solution to Ranko's problem. If she revealed that she had sex with Ryouga, and that ever got back to her mother, Ranma was dead. She collapsed on the walk on her way back inside. "Too many secrets," she sobbed, fighting against tears that came so easily in this form.
Ryouga, having followed her, heard and saw this and felt a sharp, cold shock run up his spine. He moved to her side and picked her up, "What secrets, Ranma? What don't I want to know?"
Ranma sighed. "Hell, you'll find out anyway. I… am Ranma."
Ryouga frowned, "You've been telling me that since…"
Ranma began to shake harder. "Now I know why!" she interrupted. "I am Ranma, the real Ranma, the only Ranma there is. The girl you loved died in your arms tonight. Part of her anyway. The rest of her is upstairs," Ranma bit off as clearly as she could manage. When Ryouga stiffened in shock, Ranma broke out of his grip and ran inside. In her thoughtless desperation to get her point through his thick skull, she had said the worst possible thing. A strangled cry of rage and grief came from the boy she had just abandoned. Ranma grit her teeth and forced herself to keep walking, hating herself more with every step. Nodoka met her in the hall, took one look at her lost and self-loathing expression and dragged her into the furo. Ranma did not resist, until the woman began to undress her. "What are you doing?"
"We're taking a bath. It will give us the privacy to talk," she pulled the girl's dress up over her head and set it aside. Then she noticed the girl was only wearing a bra and stockings under it. In a voice of parental alarm, Nodoka gasped, "What happened to your panties, Ranneko?"
Kasumi had an unpleasant premonition when Ranma came downstairs and dragged Ryouga outside to talk. She knew the girl would be informed of what had happened as soon as she spoke with Ranko, in the process learning that all the obligations and privileges of being Ranma would be returned to her, along with her proper gender, in the near future. It had not taken much to guess how the revelation would impact the nascent relationship between her and Ryouga. Fa Shen had claimed to remember things from the Ranma he replaced, so Ranma probably remembered things from the Ranko she replaced, but would not want to be Ranko anymore than Fa Shen wanted to be Ranma. Kasumi put a hand to her head, staving off a headache. All confusion aside, her fear had been confirmed by the scene she just witnessed, as Ranma destroyed Ryouga with the bad news. As the girl fled, Kasumi slipped out of the shadows and knelt beside the devastated boy and gently hugged him.
As he felt the support of the eldest Tendo daughter, Ryouga articulated his suffering in a choked, soul wrenching cry. A moment later the sound of the door closing behind Ranma was heard, and Kasumi bent her head to Ryouga's ear and she murmured, "Ryouga. Ranko mentioned that this might happen because of Ranma's awakening. She asked me to bring you to her if it did, so she could explain what is really going on. Can you… keep it together long enough to hear her out?"
"Ranko?" the boy asked, grasping for a ray of hope.
"Yes. Part of what Ranma said was true. Ranma is not the girl you fell in love with. The Ranko you dated tonight was a… a projection, they said… of the Ranko upstairs. I'm still having a hard time understanding it. I think she can explain it better. Would you like me to take you up to her?" Kasumi offered.
Ryouga nodded, fighting to hold the shards of his heart together. Kasumi offered a reassuring, motherly smile, and helped the boy to his feet, then let him into the house. There was no sign of Ranma or Nodoka as they made their way to the Tea Room. Genma was waving signs madly, keeping up his side of an argument with Soun, who was straining to keep the panda from rushing out of the room.
"Father? What is going on?"
[Nodoka has Ranma!] was written on a sign Genma pulled out of the stack at his feet. He kicked over another. [She took him into the bath!] A couple more signs followed, [He doesn't understand the danger!], [I have to separate them! Rescue my son!]
At the same time, Soun was retorting. "Saotome-kun! Please be reasonable! I am sure Ranm- Ranko explained everything! Nodoka suspects nothing! You mustn't go in there! Ranma is safe from hot water, but you are not!"
[That's not the point! They're BATHING together!!!] the panda moaned.
"They're in the BATH! What else would the be doing together!?" Soun shook the panda roughly. "Get a hold of yourself, Saotome-kun!"
[But, he's never been with a naked woman before!] The sign flipped. [It's also his first time AS a naked woman!!!] A new sign. [He'll flip out! He'll expose his true identity!!!]
"Fa Shen said he should remember everything," Soun protested.
Kasumi cleared her throat. "Ranma has already talked to Ranko. Maybe you should come upstairs and she can tell you how Ranma is dealing with all of this?" she suggested. "Maybe Nabiki has worked out the details for that trip to China. You could also talk to her," Kasumi added. If nothing else, the fathers needed to concentrate on doing something productive. Both of them had been unhinged by the night's events. After demanding the families mount an immediate excursion to restore Ranma's manhood, and setting the plans in motion, they had done nothing besides brood. They had argued about what sort of state Ranma would be in when he arrived, concerned that he might reveal himself to his mother upon awakening before anyone could explain to him what had happened. Genma remembered the reaction Ranma—the person everyone had assumed was Ranma—had to being cursed. From the way Fa Shen had reacted, the two men were convinced Ranma would rouse Nodoka's suspicions. Retreating into panda form had only made Genma worse, since he could not articulate his fears, or confront the "boy" when she came home.
"Why, Kasumi! That is an excellent idea!" Soun locked his arm around the foreleg of Genma-panda and began dragging him toward the stairs. "Come on, Saotome-kun. Let's go see what Nabiki and the old woman have figured out!" With a last look in the direction of the wash room, Genma relented and allowed himself to be dragged upstairs. Kasumi and a shell-shocked Ryouga followed them. A moment later, everyone but Nodoka and Ranma was crammed into the guest room. This included Mousse who climbed in through the window as Kasumi led Ryouga over to Ranko's side.
"Why you come back here, Mousse?" Shampoo fumed.
"Now, now, Great-Granddaughter," Cologne soothed, perching on her staff and studying the boy carefully. "It's actually good that he is here, as we will need his help to restore Ranma and Fa Shen to semi-normal. Do come in, boy."
"What can he do to help my son?" Genma demanded, setting down the kettle Kasumi had left on a hot plate in the guest room after it's contents restored his human form. Considering the role the male amazon had played in provoking the current fiasco, Genma was far from willing to trust Mousse in anything.
"Actually, it was Ranma's idea," Cologne stated. She repeated Ranma's plan, with help from the girls who had first heard it, and with logistical details worked out by herself and Nabiki. "We will need most of tomorrow to prepare, since we will have to provide food, water and supplies for two to three days for each person who rides in the compact. There are some favorable routes, and good winds, but crossing the Sea of Japan and most of China is quite a bit for a duck. Wouldn't you agree, Mousse?"
"The flight is never without it's hazards, Elder, but with the right preparation, I am certain I could reach Jusenkyo in forty-eight hours or less," the boy nodded. "However, I must first take care of the business that brings me here again tonight," he raised a stalling hand and turned to approach Ranko and knelt before her, "I challenge you, Ranko, for the right to your hand in marriage."
There was an immediate uproar. Everyone spoke at once in disbelief or anger, drowning each other out. Cologne finally shouted for silence and pointed to Mousse, "Explain yourself, Mousse!"
"I should think that was self explanatory, Elder. Ranko is a fine woman, and a warrior without equal under normal circumstances. Also, as I have made my intentions known, and will wait until such time as she is able to meet me in honorable combat, you now have reason to trust that no harm will befall those who travel with her in my care," Mousse declared. Then he smiled, "I will be happy to deliver her, and all who wish to accompany her, to our home in China as soon as this challenge is met."
"You won't help us get to China until I fight you!?" Ranko gasped.
"That is correct. I do not want the council to rule on your status until I have had a chance to establish my claim," Mousse nodded.
"Why are you doing this Mousse!?" Ranko pleaded. "How can you do this to Ranma and Fa Shen!?"
"As soon as Elder Cologne recognized you as an amazon, I knew I had no choice. Because of you, regardless of who you thought you were, I have lost every chance I had to marry Shampoo. Since I cannot settle for less, my only hope is to try for more. That means, I must defeat and marry you."
"What makes you think I will let you!?"
"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you have to let me try."
Ranko stiffened and stared at Cologne. "Is this true?"
Cologne nodded sadly, "I am afraid so, child. You don't have to fight him in your present condition, but, you cannot refuse the challenge without dire consequences. If you refuse, you lose the protection of your amazon 'heritage' and Shampoo would have to fulfill the Kiss of Death. If she refuses to do so, Mousse is free to proceed with his original plan to enslave Shampoo. Because I cannot allow that, the three of you would die for nothing." Cologne spat and glared at Mousse. Because all of his plotting was rooted in amazon law, she did not have the right to punish him for his impudence. "You will find no allies among her 'siblings' by denying them passage to Jusenkyo, Mousse. A very foolish move," she declared with scorn.
Mousse shrugged, "I do not agree. This will encourage them to help her recover as quickly as possible. It will guarantee that she is fit to return to China, and able to concentrate on dealing with the Musk to unlock her curse."
Ryouga, who had listened to all of this, stepped forward and clamped a fist of stone around Mousse's neck. "One of the last things Ranko told me, before Ranma woke up and destroyed her, was that it was you who caused Ranma-chan's collapse. You are responsible for the 'awakenings' that destroyed the woman I love. The woman who finally admitted that she loved me. The only thing keeping me sane right now is the thought that my Ranko was just a projection of this Ranko," he pointed at the red-head for emphasis. A bruised and sickly aura of green, purple and black was emanating around him, darkening as he spoke. "I don't know why she's suddenly subject to your amazon laws, but I can tell you this. If you force her into a loveless marriage you will not live long enough to take advantage of it," he pulled the near-sighted master of hidden weapons close, so they were staring into each other's eyes. Mousse's face was darkening in pace with Ryouga's aura. "Do I make myself clear?"
Mousse, who had not bothered to struggle, holding onto Ryouga's arm solely to ease the stress on his neck, tried to nod. Ryouga snarled and threw him to the ground, away from Ranko. While Mousse pulled himself together, gasping, Ryouga knelt before Ranko. "Kasumi said you could explain it to me. There's only one thing I need to know. Is there any hope…?" he looked up into Ranko's eyes, letting his feelings show plainly on his face.
Ranko, startled by the threat Ryouga had just delivered to Mousse, stared back at him. She had no idea what had happened on Ryouga's date, but, obviously the feelings the boy initially possessed for Copy-chan had matured toward and been returned by her projection. She wanted to ask what had happened, but could not bring herself to speak. Instead she just nodded, once, timidly. She remembered her reaction to Ryouga asking her double on a date. She did have feelings for him, and no longer any reason to doubt them. It would not be hard to follow in her projection's footsteps.
Ryouga let out a breath he had been holding and offered a weak smirk. In a small voice, he asked, "Do I have to get in line to defeat you, so I may date with you?"
Ranko chuckled.
Cologne sighed and shook her head. "Well, it seems you have all of Ranma's luck when it comes to romance, child. You've been Ranko only a few hours now, and already you have two men chasing after you. Not to mention Shampoo. At least you do not need to worry about Akane and Ukyo, since their claims are assigned to Ranma," she chuckled. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she saw the two girls she mentioned stiffen and blush. Akane went so far as to slip an arm under Ranko's chin in a hesitant, but possessive embrace. Cologne's eyes narrowed. Perhaps she had spoken too hastily.
"If Ranko chooses to remain a girl," Genma interrupted, "will Shampoo continue to pursue Ranma?"
Shampoo, who was glaring at Akane and Ukyo, turned to answer, cutting her great-grandmother off. "No. Even if Ranma become boy type again, no can claim Kiss of Marriage. Ranma must defeat Shampoo his self if want Shampoo be Ranma Airen. Is same as if amazon womans defeated by mans possessed by demon or spirit."
"That is more or less correct, Shampoo," Cologne admitted. "What the council needs to determine is if Ranko is enough of a man to fulfill the Kiss of Marriage, or if she was simply pretending to be a man, in ignorance of her true gender. It's enough of an uncertainty that Mousse is free to challenge her in spite of Shampoo's claim." Cologne considered that more carefully, and noticed the position Mousse would be in if he succeeded in defeating Ranko. Like Shampoo, he would have to await the council's ruling to validate a marriage to Ranko, but in the interim he could challenge Shampoo directly over her claim. Shampoo could either forfeit her claim, or fight Mousse. If Mousse won, he had the option of claiming Shampoo, since Ranko's status was in doubt. She stared at him, and from the way he was looking at her, he had been waiting for her to figure it out. Once again, she had underestimated him.
"Well, if Ranma can figure out how she was able to charge Ranko's ki, Ranko might be back to full strength by the time we're packed for the trip," Akane noted, optimistically. Everyone, except for Shampoo and Ukyo, stared at her in shock.
"What are you talking about, Akane?" Nabiki frowned.
"I'm not sure I understand. Ranko?" Akane passed the buck.
"I don't know where it came from, or anything, but when Ranma touched me, she had a bunch of loose ki inside her or something, and it flowed into me," Ranko explained. "She doesn't seem to remember doing anything unusual, but if she can remember how she did it, and if she can do it without hurting herself, she might be able to charge me back up. If she can teach Fa Shen, the two of them together could do it twice as fast, since I'm used to having both their ki."
"What?" Ryouga asked suspiciously.
"Do you want it in Chinese?" Ranko smirked. "Since you were with Ranma, maybe you know how she did it. Can you think of anything unusual she might have done that would build up extra ki?"
Ryouga felt his system try to pale and blush at the same time. It was the only reason his color remained normal. He blinked, and cocked his jaw several times wordlessly, before noticing all the attention on him. He looked around the room, taking in the expectant looks on their faces. Swallowing hard, and frowning in thought, he realized two things. He suddenly knew why Ranma had freaked out in the dojo, and he did not dare mention the reason to anyone. With a heavy sigh, he shook his head. "No. But I'll talk to her about it."
There was a general silence, until Genma spoke up again. "Ranko? Ryouga? Can you tell me… How is my son dealing with… with everything?"
Ryouga scowled.
Ranko gave Ryouga a concerned look. "He was pretty upset about things. I think he absorbed my memories of the past year more than Fa Shen. Most of the time I thought I was him, so they're probably a lot easier to fit into his personality. He seemed to understand everything that is going on up to now, and he sounded happy about the trip to Jusenkyo."
"Can't wait to be a guy again," Ryouga muttered angrily. He forced himself to shake it off and looked at Ranko. "What about you? Do you want to be a guy again too?"
Ranko looked down at her hands. "Not permanently. I'd like to be able to though. I guess the curse is normal for me. I'd feel pretty weird about never being a guy again. I suppose if I had to be one or the other, I'd want to be able to make that choice on my own, and not be forced to live with which ever one I was stuck with because of something else."
Ryouga nodded. Closing his eyes thoughtfully, he took a deep breath. He had one last chance. He considered the mystery that was the woman he loved, the two losses he had already suffered trying to hold onto just a piece of her. If his only hope of being the man for her was to also be the woman for her, as he had suggested to Ranma, he was willing to make that sacrifice. He vowed silently that he would be part of the expedition to Jusenkyo.
There had been too many shocks and revelations in one night. For all the memories she had suddenly crammed into her head, her mind was not used to the situations she was in. She had tried to note and keep aware of such things as the need to keep Nodoka from discovering that she was Ranma, but there was a limit to the number of things she could keep in mind at one time. The most recent shock absorbed so much of her attention she had been too distracted to keep up with her mother's actions. It had not even occurred to her that there was one piece of evidence remaining from her de-flowing, more telling by its absence, until her mother confronted her about her missing panties. Her only serious thought about that, upon the resurgence of her natural persona, was a kind of relief at being spared the indignity of at least one article of feminine undergarment. She had tolerated the bra and stockings only because removing them would have drawn immediate comment. She had not expected to be undressing in front of Nodoka. Naturally, the moment she dropped her guard, that was exactly what she let happen!
Ranma stiffened. In spite of herself, she barked, "Shit!"
"Ranneko!"
Ranma thought fast, her mouth already moving into defense mode, "This isn't what it looks like!" That denial immediately brought to mind what it did look like, though. Since it had been the topic of two private conversations between them, Nodoka did not need any encouragement to suspect that the girl had indulged in the very thing the woman had so carefully cautioned against. While it worried Nodoka that the girl would have rushed ahead and sated her passion, it was more upsetting to think she would deceive her or deny what she had done after Nodoka had brought the subject out into the open. It signified a lack of trust or respect that was disturbing. Ignoring the girl's protests, Nodoka knelt down, carefully examining the girl's body for evidence of the truth. Pausing at the level of her crotch, and spying a string dangling between the girl's legs, the suspicions that had popped into her mind suddenly retreated a bit.
"You use tampons," Nodoka noted idly, sitting back on her heels. It suddenly seemed so obvious, she silently cursed herself for assuming the worst. She thought a moment, then hypothesized aloud, "You didn't have a purse until I gave you one, so you could not have had anything with you. I take it you are early, and your panties were already ruined when you found a tampon dispenser?"
Ranma did not even try to work out Nodoka's logic, she just nodded. Nodoka quietly apologized for almost jumping to conclusions, but Ranma silently thanked the kami that she had, at least in a favorable direction. The two remained silent as they finished undressing and washed. Ranma concentrated carefully on keeping her eyes from focusing on her mother until they were both up to their necks in the furo.
"Did you just break up with him?" Nodoka finally broke the silence.
Ranma nodded.
"I am sorry. Everything was going so well before the truth came out. I hope this teaches you a lesson about deception, young lady," Nodoka pursed her lips sternly.
"In more ways than you know," Ranma sighed. "You wanted to talk to me about Ryouga?" she asked, hoping to spur the conversation toward it's end.
"Actually, I wished to clarify some things about you and Ranko." Nodoka cleared her throat and asked, "The curse that affects my son, does it affect you or your sister?"
"Um. It affected both of us. It's part of what made us like one person."
"I see." Nodoka thought for a moment. "Is that why Ranma was helping Ranko, because this curse is responsible for her condition?"
"It's better to say, an attempt to cure it is."
"When you declined my offer to adopt you, was that because you were not Ranko, or because you sincerely fear that you, or her, are in peril of dying?"
"Some of both. There was always the risk that Ranko, or I, would not survive a cure that benefited Ranma. There still is," she explained.
"Are you saying my son is willing to let you two die for him?" Nodoka asked in a pained voice. She was shocked when Ranma's head snapped up and she stared at Nodoka as if she had been stabbed through the gut. Unwittingly, the question had landed on the rawest nerve in her psyche. Her reluctance to share her discovery was tantamount to just that, cowardice.
Ranma swallowed hard and tried to find some way to answer. It suddenly helped that Ranma was not exactly "himself" at the moment. Her mind, racing for most of the evening, was primed perfectly, and the words she needed began to cascade through her mind. "N-Nodoka, I can't tell you how much he has risked and sacrificed already. You have no idea what a threat this curse is to his manhood, or how hard he has tried to remain worthy of being your son—a man-among-men." She slapped her hand to her breastbone and cried, "I am that threat! Ranko is that threat! To save Ranko, he will have to do something you could never forgive, something that would violate the contract irrevocably. He can save her life, he can rid himself of the curse forever, but then… then he would die for breaking a promise his stupid, ignorant, idiot of a father made on his behalf!"
"Ranneko! Surely that cannot be! How could saving a girl's life be unmanly by any stretch of the imagination!?"
"I can't tell you that without damning him here and now. What I can say is, it's not the curse that unmans him. It's the things it forces on him, the situations he has to face, the price he has to pay to get what she needs to survive." She put her hands over her face. "It's him or us. I can tell you this, there are a lot of people who want him more than me. What about you. If you had to chose between him or me, who would you want to live?"
"I want my son to live, of course, but not at your expense."
"I don't know how Ranko and I can survive without it costing Ranma his life. For Ranma to survive, both the curse and the contract, Ranko could, and I certainly would, die. That's what makes it a curse," she sighed. "Ranma knows that the manly thing to do is to sacrifice himself. It's safe to say, he knows you would expect that of him. I can't let him do that for me, but I can't stop him from doing it for Ranko. It's his decision that can save her. It's not his decision to save me. It would be kind of stupid to let myself die, though, if ends up dead because of the contract. Don't you think?"
"I had no idea he… you… faced such drastic choices."
"If I were your son, what would you have me do?"
"In this matter, only your conscience can decide," Nodoka cupped the girl's cheek, aching with sadness. "You, as much as my son, need to do what you feel is right. What is most honorable. The sacrifices are asked of you, not me, nor anyone else. If you must choose between honor and integrity, do not betray the latter. Honor can be restored."