A Reflections Mini-Sequel
A. V. Morgan
Part Two
Ranko and Fa Shen had wandered to a remote valley some distance from the Amazon Village. Along the way, they commented on how much the landscape had changed in fifteen hundred years. The world they both knew from Fa Shen's childhood was gone forever, though the general theme and character of the area had remained consistent. The modern age had made it's mark, but it was still a rural mountain region. The people lived closer to the land, and thus had a bit more respect for it. Of course there were more OF them. In spite of the explosion of China's population, it was still possible to find an abandoned field where a martial artist could train and experiment with ki attacks without worrying about by-standers. Not that Ranko was taking that for granted. This specific place was maintained and protected by the amazons as a place for them to practice and train new students in the tribe's secret techniques. Outsiders would certainly not be found in this valley, and even amazons knew better than to spy on anyone using the training ground. Unless they wanted to get themselves killed, they would make a point of announcing themselves before they approached. The sentries around the valley would also send up an alarm if they noticed anyone entering the area, so that who ever was practicing could break off their training. Since the two girls had told Cologne that they were headed to the training ground, so that Ranko could work on some of the things she had picked up from Fa Shen, they had assurance that the sentries were on duty. As long as Ranko was cautious, she would not arouse any suspicions of the trio's secret weapon.
Before they got started, however, Ranko pulled out the compact, flipped it open, and patted it on the back. Ranma came spilling out with, of all things, a large book in his hands. Dusting himself off and hopping to his feet, he tucked the book up a sleeve.
"I see you're getting better at using the Hidden Weapons technique," Fa Shen smirked.
Ranma grinned and leaned his head to each side, popping his neck, "It's kinda handy. So, what's going on? I thought you were gonna join me?"
"What's with the book, Ranma?" Ranko inquired impishly.
"What? I was in there for over an hour, y'know. I had to do something with my time."
"Yeah, but… reading? You're kidding me, right?" Ranko prodded.
"It's a book on special techniques," Ranma defended himself. Ranko immediately looked interested and held out her hand. Ranma shook his head, "Sorry, Ranko. I want to surprise you two with this." Ranko looked hurt and offended. It did not fool Ranma a bit. Turning to Fa Shen, he commented, sotto voce, "Geez. You'd think she'd be able to wait until we got started. She'll know everything I know as soon as the circuit is formed."
Ranko frowned slightly. "Actually, that's sorta the reason I pulled you out here."
The other two gave her curious looks.
Ranko fidgeted, looking down. This was not going to be easy. Taking a deep breath, she looked up into their eyes. "I know I should have said something earlier. It's not like I'll ever be able to keep secrets from you two permanently," she began. Ranma and Fa Shen exchanged glances. When they looked back at Ranko, they were frowning. "It's not what you think. I mean, you two seemed to have figured most of it out on your own. I just didn't know how to explain the rest of it to you."
"The rest of what? What have we figured out, Ranko?" Ranma asked.
"Something about us changed the last time we formed the circuit," Ranko reminded him. He nodded and Fa Shen crossed her arms with a thoughtful expression. Ranko swallowed. "Well, that was sorta my fault," she admitted. As precisely as possible, she explained what she had discovered during their last body swap. She had noticed certain flaws in each of them and discovered she could slip through the fabric of their psyches and fix things. Part of the problem Ranma and Fa Shen had been having was because there had been parts of Ranko in the reflections that they were unable to absorb. Those pieces of her had been like broken shards in their minds. Unfortunately, those pieces had also been the things helping both of them cope with the bodies they had been trapped in. Ranma's impossible acceptance of Ranko's femininity had been a major example, but the serious part of it was her love for Ryouga. Ranko had unwittingly robbed Ranma of that, leaving the memories of their night together and Ranma's own feelings about the lost boy intact. The same thing in Fa Shen's case had freed her from Ranko's feelings for Akane. On the whole, she had made things a lot better for all of them, but she had still felt guilty for essentially stealing Ryouga from Ranma.
Ranma collected his wits, and responded, "You don't have to feel guilty about that! I was tearing myself up tryin' to figure out what to do! I mean, yeah, I was totally gone on Ryouga, but… that wasn't me. I thought my brain had snapped. I was ready to give up on bein' me altogether because of those feelings. I'm glad to know it wasn't really me!"
"Well, okay, but I could sorta see that in the way you acted about it after," Ranko admitted. "The thing that's been eatin' at me, though, is that I did it without your permission. I did it to you. An' the thing that's botherin' me now is, I have that kind of power over both of you. Nothin' scares me more than knowing that somethin' can mess with my mind! I mean, that's the worst part of the whole C-C-C-Cat Fist. It totally messes with my mind! It's a part of me that can control me that I can't control. If I can hate that, I'd have to hate me, if I was you!"
Fa Shen studied her wide-eyed twin, before nodding. "Okay. Yeah. I can see why you'd be afraid to bring this up," she commented. Now that it had been explained, it did put her ill at ease. From the look of Ranma, Ranko's example had really driven the point home. She shook her head, "But you're looking at it the wrong way, Ranko."
"What do you mean?" Ranma challenged.
"How should I look at it?" Ranko hoped Fa Shen had a good suggestion.
"Well, for one thing, you're not like that cat personality. We can face you directly. You also aren't the only one with control of the situation. The decision to form the circuit is entirely mine and Ranma's. In fact, we sort of have power over you, since we can force you into it, but you can't force us. Also, we can break the circuit, and again there's nothing you can do about it…"
"Actually, I have a lot more control there than you think," Ranko admitted bitterly.
Fa Shen frowned. "Well, maybe it's not that cut and dried, BUT," she emphasized, "Ranma and I are as aware of you as you are of us. We're not out of the loop. If we have less influence than you, it's probably our fault for being more absorbed in what we're doing and not paying much attention to what you are doing. Sex does not make me incapable of coherent thought."
Ranma made an unhappy noise. The two girls looked at him oddly. Clearing his throat he muttered, "But that's what I like about sex. Losing control, but in a nice way. Letting go." Rather than try to explain, he grabbed Ranko by the arms and said, "It should be different for you. You're above it, you should have more control. Someone has to be on top of things with all that power rushing through us. It's not like you're not worried about someone getting hurt. Don't get carried away an' think that being in control means we shouldn't trust you. If I can't trust you, who can I trust?"
Ranko crossed her arms, shifting them in his grip, and met his eye sheepishly, "Would you say that if I didn't warn you and you found out on your own?"
Ranma cocked his head a little, still looking upset. It did bother him to think that his mind could be messed with, but it was not like a total stranger, or worse, his father, was the person who had that power. With a rueful smile, he countered, "Yeah, there'd be doubts and stuff. 'S not much different, though. It's not like me an' Fa Shen didn't notice somethin' different. If it happens again, well, we'll know to check with you an' find out if you did somethin' in the circuit."
"It's not like you can hurt us without hurting yourself, Ranko," Fa Shen added meaningfully. "I am sure that's why you told us instead of just letting us find out from your memories. We have to trust each other, but come on, it's not like none of us can make mistakes. You learned something new, you told us that it's dangerous, we'll try to be careful with that. What more can you ask for?"
Ranko nodded. "I don't want any of us to get hurt, that's all. I've had a taste of hating myself, and it would really mess me up to feel something like that from the two of you," she confessed. That was enough for the other two. They had experienced the awesome amplification of self-love through each other. It was not hard to imagine the terror of self-hatred enhanced and projected at them from each other. Ranma pulled Ranko closer, into a supportive hug, and Fa Shen leaned in from behind her and ran her hand over Ranko's head comfortingly. After a moment, Ranko relaxed. "If you're both okay with this, then, I guess we could get started," she suggested.
Akane jogged up the path in exasperation. Her cooking lesson had been brought to an abrupt end when Shampoo wandered in, drawn to Ukyo and Nodoka's shouts. Now, it was true, the kitchen had become quite a mess, but the okonomiyaki chef and her future mother-in-law had been so jumpy and excited over every little detail that they had made Akane extremely nervous. How could she be blamed if all that hovering and shouting made her all thumbs? Was that any reason for Shampoo to draw a sword and chase Akane clear out of the village? The way she was acting, a person would have to think she'd caught Happosai in her panty drawer—dressed in nothing but Shampoo's panties! With a sigh, Akane picked up her pace. The incident had quickly been shoved out of her mind when she stumbled into Ryouga, who announced that he had been on his way to the bath when he stumbled across Mousse, Lime and Mint. Ignoring Ryouga's confusion about why there was a large forest in Cologne's house, Akane focused on the important details. Apparently, the blind boy had enlisted the pair of Musk warriors as training partners in preparation for his marriage duel with Ranko. Ryouga had forgotten about the bath and set out in search of Ranko to warn her. Against the inhuman speed of the wolf-boy, and the titanic strength of the tiger-boy, Mousse could well improve to the point where he could give his girl friend a serious challenge. Realizing that Ryouga had a snowball's chance in hell of finding Ranko in under a week, she had decided to deliver the message herself. Having eaves dropped on Fa Shen and Ranko, when they spoke with Cologne about using the secret training ground, Akane had picked up the directions to the hidden valley.
As she slipped through the thick trees blocking the entrance to the cleft leading into the high ridged valley, Akane heard voices call out in alarm, followed by a long blast on some kind of horn. Shrugging, she pressed on, darting through the narrow, water-cut chute so oddly reminiscent of the famous Antelope Path in North America. As she burst through the foliage covering the exit, she paused on the elevated rim looking down into the center of the training ground, where she could make out Ranko dropping to the ground in the same fashion that Fa Shen had at the conclusion of her battle with copy-Ranma. Like Fa Shen, she plummeted straight out of the sky, breaking centimeters from impact by releasing a massive sphere of chi, like a bomb detonating at ground level. While the red-head oriented herself, reacting to the alert from the valley's sentries, Akane sprinted down the slope towards her. As she drew close, Akane noticed that the girl was flushed and sweaty, surrounded by a fiery aura. Instead of the usual brilliant gold of confidence Akane was used to, this aura eerily mimicked true flame, shifting from a thin root of electric blue, through violet, deep purple, blood red, orange, gold and white, shot through with streamers of hot pink. In addition, it gave off a sensual, engulfing heat that made Akane's flesh grow taut while her mind wanted to roll over backwards and pant in submission.
"What…? What is this?" Akane gasped, once she was close enough to speak.
"Akane! What are you going here!" Ranko moaned, hugging herself tight in an obvious struggle for control. She had been at the very edge of losing it since she began to convert the supercharged ki into chi that could be channeled into boosting her physical attributes and special attacks. Climbing out of the crater created by the "Vengeance of Heaven—Thunder Bomb" technique, she split her attention. While she confronted Akane, she sent an impulse to Ranma and Fa Shen warning them to pause what they were doing. "You shouldn't be spying on me! Don't you know this area is off limits!"
"What?" Akane blinked. "I'm not spying…"
"Then go back to the village. I don't want you to get hurt!" Ranko interrupted.
"I can take care of myself! Why do you always act like you have to watch over me!?" Akane demanded, falling instantly into suspicion as she sensed that Ranko was just trying to brush her off. "What the hell are you doing, Ranko? This isn't your normal aura! You don't look like you can even control this!"
Ranko grit her teeth. "If those two would just stop for a minute, that wouldn't be a problem," she muttered under her breath, wiping sweat from her brow. From the corner of her eye, she could see a group of sentries burst into view, headed toward Ranko and the intruding Akane. "I'm fine, Akane. A martial-artist has to push her limits in order to get better. You should know that," Ranko retorted. Squirming at the intense heat that was being trapped against her body by the insulation of silk clothing. When she stopped being Ranma, she had taken to wearing an athletic halter or a bra for support, so she hastily pulled her shirt over her head and slipped it off. In the process, the compact she had tucked into her waist band was jerked out with her shirt tails, tumbling to the ground at Akane's feet. By the time Ranko realized what the sound of it hitting the ground meant, Akane had snatched it up.
"What are you carrying this thing around for?" Akane demanded, automatically flipping it open.
"Akane! Don't!" Ranko cried, holding out her hands. One held up gesturing for her to halt, before she could pat it on the back, the other stretched out to receive the mirror trap as she demanded, "Give it back, Akane."
The fear and desperation suddenly on Ranko's face was enough to confirm to Akane that the other girl was up to something. Unable to imagine what nefarious purposes Ranko could have for the mirror, she arrogantly slapped the back of the open mirror, to satisfy her curiosity and annoyance. "I don't see what you're all worried about. What could you possible put in here that I would…" Akane's words of dismissal cut off in a squeak of utter disbelief. There on the ground before her, naked and intertwined in the most intimate way, were Ranma and Fa Shen. All four teens remained frozen in shock and horror, as the amazon sentries closed in on them. Before they could get close enough to make out all the details, Ranko shook herself, and hissed at her twins, "Quick! Get your clothes on! People are coming!"
In a flash, Ranma and Fa Shen scooped up the clothes that had fallen out of the mirror with them. A copy of the Kama Sutra was left lying in the dirt. They lost a second when they realized that they had both grabbed their own clothes, forgetting for a moment that they had switched bodies. After trading piles, they scrambled to get dressed before the witnesses arrived.
Akane, however, had remained stock still, her mind whirling around the image that was burnt into her retinas. Thanks to Nabiki, she knew exactly what the book at her feet represented. Her older sister had threatened to sell it to Akane's fiancé as a "training manual" to be used with his curse. She had swallowed the necessity of Ranma sleeping with Fa Shen to heal Ranko. That did not mean she had any tolerance for the notion of them continuing to do so. Especially not with the frequency suggested by any attempt to master the Kama Sutra! The first hint of motion from her, Akane began to tremble with rage. Just as the red-headed boy staggered to his feet, Akane cut loose. Balling her fist low, she twisted toward him as she brought her arm up in a long, sweeping hay-maker. Catching her "fiancé" on the chin, she launched him high into the air. "You BASTARD!" she screamed, glaring hatefully after him.
"Akane!" Ranma, in Fa Shen's skin, cried out in agonized shock. She held out her hand to her, "Wait! You don't understand!"
Akane turned on her with a look of enraged contempt. "Don't. You. Dare," she hissed.
"Please, Akane. Let us explain," Ranko stepped forward.
"What's to explain, Ranko!? You were covering for them!" Akane shrieked.
"I told you not to…"
"Shut up!" Akane's voice dropped, along with her head, as tears raced down her cheeks. "I can't believe you. All of you! How could you…?" Akane twitched and brutally slapped the twin's hands away as they tried once more to reach out to her. "Don't! Don't touch me!"
Fa Shen had pulled himself together, shaking his head to clear his vision, and gotten back to his feet. As he cautiously returned to where Ranma and Ranko were trying to get through to Akane, the sentries arrived, forming a loose circle around the four teens. 'Shit. How are we supposed to explain with them listening in?' he wondered in frustration. Taking a step toward Akane, he opened, "I know what it looks like, Akane. It's okay to be mad. But you have to trust us…"
"Trust you!?" Akane whirled on him again. "Are you insane!?"
"Please," Fa Shen begged, stretching his hand out to touch hers.
Akane shuddered, and what was left of her sanity shattered. She exploded into violent motion. Following the first knee to the groin, Fa Shen was in no condition to do anything about the next hundred blows except twitch and groan. When Ranma and Ranko attempted to restrain her, she whipped around, hissing and yowling, and clawed at their arms and faces. Akane, turned human wild-cat, was enough to make both girls stumble back in shock, feeling an echo of their phobia stirring inside them. Finally, Fa Shen stopped moving and the sentries grabbed Akane and subdued her.
The sentries studied the twin girls and clucked, "You should know better. You interfere in challenge you get hurt." As the others picked up Akane, the speaker went on, "We take man-girl back to village. Maybe you two convince Ranma she give Tomboy kiss now. This one look pretty upset after be rejected last time." That was evidence that the earlier confrontation between Ranma and Akane had been gossiped through the entire village already. With a jaunty salute, the detachment of sentry women marched off, carrying Akane between them.
From the ground, Fa Shen's moaning announced his return to consciousness.
"I don't believe it," Ranma groaned in despair. What were the odds that Akane would home in on the three of them the instant they attempted to engage the circuit, get her hands on the compact, and catch them right in the act?
"So much for avoiding Akane," Ranko griped.
In spite of the fact that they had been interrupted, Ranma and Fa Shen had obviously traded places during their liaison. With the circuit broken, there was no further need for them to remain in the training ground. As far as Ranko channeling the power the trinity tapped into went, the experiment had been a success. That did not make what happened feel any less like a disaster. At least Akane had been the only witness to Ranma and Fa Shen's debauchery. The sentries had been too distracted by the fight itself to pick up on what it was really about. Not that their opinion of the fight helped matters any. When the trio returned to the village, the looks they got, especially the male Fa Shen, assured them that the details of this second battle between "Ranma" and Akane had been passed on. Worse, the village girls pounced on him and dragged him to the guard hut where Akane had been laid out to recover from being knocked out by the sentries. Fa Shen, having no idea how to explain who he really was, was busy trying to extract himself from the girls when Akane stepped out of the hut. Her confusion, at waking up in a strange place, evaporated the instant she saw Fa Shen.
"Ranma!" she snarled and stormed forward.
"Wait! Akane! I'm not…" was all Fa Shen could get out before she clocked him.
Fa Shen sailed back about five meters, ripped right out of the hands of the girls that had pushed him at Akane to deliver his kiss. He crashed through the wall of a hut, coming to rest under a cast iron cauldron that hung from a hook in the kitchen he had entered. With a faint shriek, the hook gave way and the pot crashed down on his head. With a loud gong, he was out cold.
As Akane grunted in satisfaction and stormed away with her nose in the air, Ranma and Ranko climbed through the rubble to check on Fa Shen.
"I guess she didn't know she won the last fight," an observer commented in Mandarin.
"Maybe she expected him to propose or something, before he kissed her," another replied. "You know those foreign customs they talk about. Outsiders sure seem to do things the hard way."
"I don't know. From the look of her, I think she's pretty pissed off. Maybe she thinks she won't have to marry him if he can't give her the kiss," a third proposed.
"I can remember an outsider male doing that before," the first nodded.
"True! It is hard to give the kiss to a man… er, challenger… if he's strong enough to beat you and doesn't want to get married," the second laughed. "Maybe the Elders will have to intervene."
The other two shrugged, and the third pointed out, "No. The Elders will give Ranma a few days to try on his own." She frowned, "You know, we're all forgetting to call him 'her'. I wish we didn't have to treat a hunk like that as a female. It just seems like such a waste."
There was a round of sighs and nods, as they turned to watch Ranma and Ranko drag Fa Shen out of the ruined kitchen. With a wave, one of the other witnesses drew the twin girl's attention and smirked at them, declaring in Japanese, "Ranma very lucky! Husband-to-be VERY strong! You train right, she be good warrior. Is too too bad she have man-spirit."
"Uh…" the twins gaped.
The last speaker's companion, a male, cleared his throat and approached cautiously. Bending his head and speaking softly to Fa Shen, sparing a nervous glance at the twins, "I know you are a woman inside…" The burst of giggling from Ranma and Ranko made him jump back. Ranko sobered instantly and caught him with a hand, offering a look of apology, before he could retreat further. Swallowing, he resumed, "As an honorary woman, you ARE entitled to take a wife. Even if she is mannish, that one is female. She might respond better if you approached her as a prospective wife instead of a prospective husband." That advice given, he shrugged, bowed and excused himself to return to his own wife.
Ranko and Ranma sighed.
"Makes you proud to be an amazon, doesn't it?" Fa Shen spat bitterly.
The pair looked down at him.
Fa Shen struggled upright and shrugged their supporting hands away. "I know. That sounds odd coming from a native amazon maiden, but the fact is, I've never liked amazon men. How can you be attracted to someone whose spirit has been broken?" he challenged.
"But…"
"That's your feelings?" Ranko cut in, surprised. "I thought those were my feelings imposed on your memories. But…" she picked up on what Ranma had been about to say. "If you don't approve of it, why did you stay with the amazons?"
Fa Shen sighed and stared at them. "Why do you think? I may have hated the way we broke our men, but I was a lot more afraid of the way outsiders broke their women. Since I didn't want to be a man, I had to stay where a woman could live up to her full potential," he explained. Rubbing his head, he changed the subject, "Well. That's three times Akane's made a spectacle. She's too pissed off at us to remember what I told her this morning. What are we going to do about her?"
"What I want to know is what we're going to do about this," Ranma countered, holding one hand to her chest, with the other pressed to Fa Shen's. "I mean, do we explain to Akane about the merging and stuff? Will that make a difference?"
"Well, it's not like you were doing it for the reason she thinks," Ranko pointed out.
"No, that's just a bonus…" Ranma scowled guiltily.
Fa Shen shook his head, "I don't think we'd have to explain about the power up. Just the fact that it let's us change places—that doing that now was so we could master the curses—is more than enough justification."
"Or, do we simply avoid her until you've both succeeded?" Ranko aired. When they looked at her to explain, she nudged them both to get them walking. Once they were moving again, this time headed out of the village, she continued, "Unless we want everyone figuring out about the swap, I don't think it's a good idea for you to spend a lot of time in each other's places. At least, not if we're gonna be hangin' around here all the time. From what you said originally, Fa Shen, this method works right away, or it takes months. So, what do you think? If you haven't mastered the curses by tomorrow, do you two think you should switch back?"
Ranma and Fa Shen traded meaningful glances before nodding. Fa Shen added, "I suppose we could try it once a week switched, and make the trade at night while everyone else is sleeping. I know you can't practice with the circuit that way, but what you did today is probably enough for now, right?"
Ranko nodded, "Sure. I should focus more on damping the power, limiting it to something more practical." The conversion of ki to chi was a bit overwhelming. A tiny bit of ki turned into an awesome amount of chi, she had discovered. If that had not caused her to overheat, she would have been able to keep her shirt on, and would never have dropped the compact. She could have stuffed the mirror into her shadow with the hidden weapon's technique, but on the off chance that her experiment turned fatal, she did not want the compact holding Ranma and Fa Shen to be lost with her. Thanks to Happosai using that threat to hold half of her friends and family hostage, Ranko was very aware of the danger. Suddenly, she jerked her head up and swore, "Dammit! Akane has the stupid mirror!"
"What!?"
"Just before she hit Fa Shen, she slipped it into her skirt pocket," Ranko explained.
Ranma hit herself on the head. "Great. We're going to need that to switch back tonight. If we did… that… in the open, every psycho and their mother will trip over us right in the middle of it!"
"Well, I suppose we could just steal it back, right?" Fa Shen asked.
"From Akane?" Ranma bawled in disgust. "You know she's barricading herself in her room or something right now! Even if I used the Umisen-ken, some how, she's gonna end up poundin' the crap outta me!" She danced through part of a vigorous kata to burn off the surge of frustration.
"Well, better you than me, right?" Fa Shen smirked, when she dropped back into a walk.
"Ha, ha," Ranma scowled.
"But, do we have a choice?" Ranko asked.
"We could just go somewhere far away, like the hot springs at Jusenkyo. Take a few days off for training, focus all our attention on mastering the curses, switch back when we're done, then come back. It can't take me more than three days to beat this thing," Ranma declared confidently.
"True, but that means Ryouga will show up, and unless we tell everyone that's where we will be—which is like begging them to come—Akane will get it in her head to visit the hot springs. Or someone else will show up, like Herb and his cronies, Taro, some random wandering prince in search of a wife…" Ranko sighed. "That's the sort of thing that happened every single time I've gone training, when I was you."
There was a chorus of sighs.
Ranma ran her hands roughly through her hair, worn long and loose, since she was posing as Fa Shen. "Okay, this is one time the Saotome Secret Technique isn't going to work. If we can't retreat to sort things out, what does that leave? A frontal assault?"
"Well, we can't go in and beat her up…" Ranko tried to point out.
"Why not?" Fa Shen interrupted. Ranma and Ranko stared at him in shock. "What? Maybe you can't do it, but after these last two beatings, I'm not feeling all that protective of her. When she kneed me like that, I thought my guts were going to explode! I am so tempted to throw her in the Nanniichuan so I can return the favor!"
"Don't even joke about that!" Ranma growled dangerously.
Fa Shen glared at her, "Who said I was joking? I am tempted. Just stating a fact. But that's not what I had in mind. She's always been after you to fight her for real, well, you might not be able to stomach it, but I could. I don't plan to maim her or kill her, but I can keep her distracted while the two of you go after the mirror."
"You've gotta be kidding. What makes you think she'll fight you?"
"Right now? Getting her to fight me won't be the problem. It's getting through it without forcing the marriage thing forward that's the real challenge," Fa Shen admitted.
"Do you think you can manage it?" Ranko asked, beginning to take the idea seriously.
"Well, she's an outsider, so it doesn't mean anything if I win."
"Would that kill the kiss of marriage thing?" Ranma asked.
"Well, a woman can challenge her potential husband, force him to prove he really is better, and that he didn't win by a fluke, remember? Akane is good at getting the drop on you, Ranma, but most warriors can tell she is not that good at martial arts. She's 3 for 0 against you, but a serious win by you, or rather me, would put her claim in question," Fa Shen confirmed.
"Okay, that's actually a decent idea. I don't like the idea of you knocking her out, but, I trust you to do it without really hurting her," Ranma conceded unhappily. Taking a deep breath, she turned off the path and began cutting through the undergrowth.
"Ranma? Where are you going?" Ranko asked.
"The river. I'm still all messy from the swap," she replied over her shoulder. Ranko and Fa Shen looked at each other and shrugged. Following Ranma, they made their way to the river. As they caught up to her, Ranma smiled, "It's actually been a while since I've gone skinny dipping. I found a great spot for it down here the last time I went for a walk."
"Couldn't find a bridge to sit under?" Ranko asked, with half a smile.
"Actually, there is this fallen tree that spans the pool. It's not a bad place to think."