A Reflections Mini-Sequel
A. V. Morgan
Part Six
Before Cologne and Nodoka could rouse Ranko from her faint, a sudden cacophony echoed upstairs through the heating vent. It began with a loud cry of "Shampoo! Watch your ste—!" followed by the crash of pots and pans and a distinct splash of water. The mournful mewl of dismay was drowned out by a shriek of primal terror as Fa Shen was overcome by her siblings' fear of cats. An even greater crash followed, as she rocketed away from the curse-created feline, ploughing through the kitchen table, the pantry and the outside wall in her haste to escape. With a heavy sigh, the two older women paused only to see that Ranko was laid out comfortably before rushing downstairs to assess the damage and smooth down the ruffled feathers of their descendants. By all the signs, the kitchen had been minutes away from being perfectly neat and tidy, but Shampoo had stumbled into a mop bucket while carrying a stack of cooking implements over to the pot rack. Nodoka stepped past the pile of pots and pans scattered where Shampoo lost the ability to hold them, and gingerly slipped through the wreckage of the pantry in Fa Shen's wake. Cologne found her great-grandchild cowering in shame in a corner of the kitchen and carefully picked her up to carry her into the bath.
While the matriarch filled the bath, grateful of the fact that recent generations had brought modern plumbing and heating to the village, Nodoka managed to track down her—at once newest and oldest—daughter. Fa Shen was leaning against the opposite wall of the enclosed courtyard, panting in an effort to regain her composure, oblivious to the mess of food stuffs spilled over her during her blind demolition dodge through the pantry. As Nodoka reached out to pull the girl into a comforting embrace, however, Fa Shen suddenly noticed her disarray and held out her hands to stop her mother.
"No, don't. I'm a mess," Fa Shen scowled, running one hand over her brow to slick away a mixture of eggs, flour and various fluids from shattered jars of preserved fruits and vegetables. "It's okay, M-Mo—" she choked trying to utter the word she had used to address the woman in front of her the first time they met face to face. The difficulty was not that it was so improper to call Nodoka her mother, but that it was so hard to remember she was not Pa Shen when she did. Swallowing, and taking another calming breath, she met the woman's eyes and drew upon her connection to Ranma and Ranko, "I'm fine, Mom. I'm just not used to reacting like that to Shampoo. I just can't seem to remember she's really a girl—my friend—when she turns into a c- a c-c-ca—"
"Shhhh. It's alright, you don't have to say the word," Nodoka comforted, when it became apparent that Fa Shen's brain had locked up on the name of her children's demonic dread.
If it had not been for Kasumi taking her aside many months ago, when she had arrived at the Tendo home with a special gift for Ranko, Nodoka might have been kept ignorant of yet another of her husband's and son's dark secrets. In an effort to appeal to Ranko's maternal instincts, Nodoka had bought the girl a kitten—a much more suitable pet for a young girl than a giant panda, however well trained. Kasumi had met her at the door and stunned Nodoka with her reaction. Her normal cheerful smile turned into a manic grin at the sight of the fluffy bundle, and she had vanished for an instant, reappearing with her purse and shopping bag to drag Nodoka rapidly away from the house.
Nodoka had not been the least put out by this wordless demand to accompany the eldest Tendo daughter on a shopping trip, but she could not help but comment on the eccentricity of Kasumi's behavior. Once the girl had found them a private booth at a local café and they had been served their drinks, Kasumi had told her the story of the Cat Fist training her "cousin" Ranko Tendo had undergone. Naturally, Nodoka had been horrified. It gave her some insight into the reasons why the girl had always seemed estranged from her family. When she had demanded to know that Ranko's father had been punished for abusing his daughter in such a horrible fashion, Kasumi had decided to mince words. As she put it, Ranko's father was every bit as driven as Nodoka's husband to make his child the greatest martial artist of her generation, a mission staunchly endorsed by Ranko's mother.
"But here is the problem, Auntie," Kasumi had met her with stern and troubled eyes. "Whatever fault lies with her father for his stupidity, the fact remains that she now possesses a weakness severe enough to violate the terms of her family's pact. Her father has forbidden her to see her mother until she can cure herself of the afflictions caused by his mistakes in training. In effect, she has no mother, and because of his own shame and irresponsibility, she enjoys neither the comfort, confidence or support of her father."
"This is… Oh, Kasumi! This is simply beyond reason!"
"It is, however, a matter of honor," Kasumi sighed and sipped her tea. With a wistful look, she added, "As you are, yourself, party to a similar arrangement with your son, I find myself curious. Please keep in mind that I pose this as an example only—and nothing more—but your frank opinion in this matter might give me some insight into how Ranko's mother would respond…" Nodoka raised an eyebrow, nodding to indicate that she anticipated the question. Kasumi offered a nervous smile and looked down, "If Genma had made such a mistake with your son, would you…?"
Nodoka blinked at the memory. Kasumi had trailed off at the sight of her clutching at her wrapped katana and hastily dismissed the question, begging forgiveness for subjecting Nodoka to such an unpleasant hypothesis. Still, Nodoka had thought about it from time to time. It had encouraged her to present herself more and more as a surrogate mother for Ranko while undermining her confidence in her son's upbringing. Her belief that Genma, who had suffered so much at the hands of Happosai, would never subject her son to such abusive methods of training—whether because of the contract he had signed or to spare his son the indignity Genma had suffered—was shaken. She had adjusted, twisting her mind around the things the Master's training might encourage, once removed, and telling herself that Happosai's methods did at least stimulate very masculine attitudes. She prepared herself for the possibility that Genma might interpret the man-among-men contract in such a way that Ranma might be aggressively sexual, and reminded herself that without her influence he might indulge it in a shameless fashion. With a heavy heart, she abandoned the hope of Ranma being a true gentleman, but satisfied herself that a rogue did not necessarily violate the pact.
It was rather funny, now, to see how she had misled herself. She had made a right fool of herself going on about Ranma's manliness, whenever events had transpired in which she narrowly caught her son engaged in rather perverted activities. In truth, Ranma was far from the womanizing, sexual athlete she had duped herself into expecting. As she had only just learned, all three of her children were embarrassingly naïve about sex, and completely at a loss over what to do about the extraordinary development of their sexuality. If not for the long talk she had with Dr. Tofu on what to expect in this area from the three of them, what she had overheard this afternoon would have caused her a string of coronaries, embolisms and conniption fits. In fact, she was rather grateful Ranko had passed out, and Fa Shen had flipped out, before Cologne could drag her into confronting her children over it.
Fa Shen, almost fully recovered from her panic, noticed the shudder that accompanied the flitter of thoughts over Nodoka's face. "Are you okay, Mom?"
"Hmmm? Oh, I was just thinking… Are you feeling better? I am sure Co—Mother has returned Shampoo to normal by now. Why don't you go inside and take a bath? You've made quite a mess of yourself," she smiled tenderly, turning to lead the way back to the house. As Fa Shen nodded, Nodoka added, "In you go then. You may as well take your time. There was something Elder Cologne and I wished to speak to you and your siblings about, but I suppose it is best to wait until Ranma is finished sparring with Ryouga and has a chance to clean up," she opened the door and gestured Fa Shen inside. "I expect we can sit down to it after dinner."
"Okay," Fa Shen smiled, holding herself cautiously as she meandered off toward the bath, to keep from dripping anything on the floor as she went. It did not occur to her to wonder how Nodoka knew Ranma was off sparring with the lost boy, as her mother drifted away towards the kitchen. At the door to the bathroom, she found a clean patch of her clothing and wiped her hand on it before reaching for the knob. Once inside the changing room, she stripped down and deposited her clothing into the hamper. She could hear Shampoo on the other side of the screen humming cheerfully in the bath and let out the breath she had been holding. "Good, she's human again."
Slipping into the bath chamber, with a smile and a wave to Shampoo, she found herself momentarily at a loss as Japanese and Amazon bathing habits conflicted inside her skull. In her own time, she did her bathing out of a basin using a ladle to rinse—at least when she bathed indoors. Otherwise she had been limited to washing in a stream and soaking in a hot spring protectively isolated from the village proper. On her travels, she had visited her share of bath houses, but only her time in Nerima had really acquainted her with the concept of a private bath—and that was deeply reinforced with experiences she had acquired from Ranko. While the tub Shampoo lounged in was far too small and incorrectly proportioned to be a proper furo, she could perch on the stool in the neighboring shower stall and wash properly before entering the clean, hot water with her sister at arms. Previously, she had simply followed Ranko's lead when they had bathed together. How odd it seemed that, left to her own devices, she became so conscious of the decisions she would otherwise automatically make in order to simply bathe.
Or maybe, she was distracting herself with these thoughts to avoid the weight of Shampoo's attention from the moment she had entered. She had recognized that keenly appreciative and hungry look the instant she had met the other amazon's eyes. Fa Shen reminded herself that Shampoo had reason enough to have developed an interest in her form, since she had spent the better part of a year in serious anticipation of consummating a marriage with "Ranma". Fa Shen was painfully aware of where that desire had led Shampoo, and how her own curiosity and drug enhanced arousal had contributed. If Fa Shen had been "man" enough, the pair of them would be married. She heard the bath water sloshing as Shampoo slipped out, prowling in her direction and Fa Shen swallowed hard.
As the other girl slipped into the stall, her hand went to the faucet and turned it to a hotter setting. Without a word Shampoo knelt behind Fa Shen, and began to scrub her back with a soapy brush. Fa Shen could feel the heat of a blush spreading through her skin as the other girl massaged a lather into it. In much the same way the body she inhabited had a muscle memory of intimacy with Ryouga, she felt instant nervousness at Shampoo's touch that harked back to the many times that girl had cornered "Ranma" in the nude, in either form. It was an automatic response dating back to the months before the cursed mirror split this body off from the original. And while Fa Shen was spared the kind of reaction she would have had in her own body, there were consequences to having sex with Shampoo that were more than skin deep.
"Shampoo," she breathed hesitantly, turning around to face the other amazon and put some distance between them. "I don't think this is…" As she came around, her words were cut off by the other girl leaning in and seizing her lips with her own. Fa Shen tried not to respond to the kiss, delicately warding off the arms that moved to encircle her as she pulled away. "Please. I can't do this…"
Shampoo allowed her to pull back until she had her back to the tiled wall of the shower stall. Then she pushed forward against her, pinning Fa Shen in place with her warm, supple flesh. In Mandarin, she challenged, "Why not? What are you afraid of, Fa Shen?"
Fa Shen grimaced, gathering her wits and restoring her composure. "I'm not afraid of anything. I just can't… I can't explain it, but believe me, it wouldn't be fair to Ranma."
Shampoo studied her with a sharp eye and a taunting grin. "It wouldn't be fair to Ranma?" she chuckled throatily. "I expected you to say Ranko." She shifted her weight, settling closer and incidentally forcing Fa Shen's legs apart, leaving her sprawled somewhat helplessly against the tile. With a probing gaze she demanded, "What does this have to do with Ranma?" When Fa Shen avoided her gaze and moved to pull her feet under her, Shampoo dropped her hands to the red-head's thighs and leaned in to thwart her. "I thought you'd prefer this. Don't you want me to give up on Ranko? Is there anyone else who can replace her in my heart? Who can be what I long for more than you?"
Fa Shen sucked in her breath, remembering their time in the compact, on the long trek across China. In the week they had spent confined with Akane, Ukyo and Nodoka, Shampoo had finally gotten around to confiding her hopes and dreams of a life shared with Ranma/Ranko. How Shampoo had longed for the possibility of an equal and friend that her prospective husband's curse had offered. How it explained her unswerving devotion to Ranko when Ranma was split off from her. Fa Shen needed no explanation. She had grown up an amazon herself, and she understood Shampoo's disdain of men, especially amazon men. From experience, Fa Shen knew the other girl had no qualms about men on a physical level, but a man could only satisfy her needs. It took another woman to satisfy her desires. "In case you've forgotten, I've been challenged by Herb," Fa Shen grasped for an excuse.
Shampoo pulled back a bit, her hands sliding sensuously down Fa Shen's thighs. "This isn't a challenge. I… I know I blundered my way into it, but… I'm only acting on the claim I have. While I can, since, as you point out, Herb might claim you for his own. I just want…" Shampoo bit her lip. "What we did before. I was… dishonest, but in my heart I meant what I said, when I seduced you. I want the pleasure of your company, your friendship, with no strings attached. I want… I need… someone safe. I am sorry I made it sound like…"
Fa Shen listened, waiting for her to complete her thought.
"I can't just give up on… on… what I feel. Don't you understand?" Shampoo looked up with a tortured expression. "If I could, I'd try to hold on to all three of you, make you all mine." She reached for Fa Shen's hand and gripped it in her own. "When it first happened, it was like… the reflections were just the hands. Nice to hold, nice to have, but not worth giving up the heart, the whole for," she laid an open palm against the swell of Fa Shen's left breast, off center toward the middle of her chest. "So I had to keep loving Ranko. But I came to understand, in each part is the whole. I see you all in each other, so I will never love one without loving the rest." The pressure of the girl's palm on her chest sent a thrill of desire rushing through Fa Shen's body, against which she closed her eyes. Shampoo made a clipped, strangled sound. Letting her hands drop, she finished by lowering her eyes and self-consciously adding, "Except, of the three, you are the one I gave myself to. You are the one who… who holds on to me."
Fa Shen looked startled by that confession. She really should not have been, considering her own observations about the physical impact of intimacy on a person. Swallowing, she shook her head, her voice sounding disconcertingly soft and low, as if it had deepened in memory of passion, "I… I have no claim on you Shampoo. No more than you have on me. What… what happened was foolish and almost disastrous for us both. I… I don't think either of us, the use of curses aside, can be man enough to satisfy the tribal laws of marriage."
Shampoo sighed at the protest. "You mean you didn't notice?"
Fa Shen blinked. "Notice what?" she squeaked. In shock, she realized that sound registered, again, far too low in her ears for such a noise. At the same time, she realized what it was that had captured Shampoo's attention and drawn it down, almost reverently, toward Fa Shen's lap. In a breathy rush, he exclaimed, "Ah, hell! I did it again!"
It occurred to Ranma that letting Ryouga carry the kettle of hot water was a clearly stupid idea, an instant too late to do anything about it. The two had been roof hopping out of the village, discussing—if such a term could apply to the argument they had gotten into—the revelations the triplets had made during the late afternoon meal. Ranma should have taken the sudden turn in Ryouga's demeanor, the accusations that snapped out in angry, dejected tones, as a sign that the lost boy was taking the notion of Ranko becoming more of a participant in Ranma and Fa Shen's sexual explorations very negatively. It hardly mattered how earnestly Ranma protested against it, Ryouga was convinced that he had every intention of exploiting Ranko's curiosity—as well as her taut, sexy bod. The problem being that both boys were keenly aware of how frantic Ranko had been getting to explore her sexuality first hand, frustrated by the complications she faced if she turned to any of the people she could safely experiment with. The "conversation" had turned ugly when Ryouga promised, "I'll kill you before I let you destroy the woman I love again!"
Ranma had reeled back in unexpected agony, all too painfully aware of how he had destroyed Ryouga's beloved. In that instant, whatever Ranko had done to disassociate Ranma from the passion of Copy-Ranko's love suddenly came unraveled. He gasped as the wound reopened in his mind and a searing, righteous, feminine rage washed through him. "I didn't have a choice! I didn't ask to wake up in your arms! I didn't ask to be forced back into being Ranma! I was ready to give that up to be with you! Even when Ranko took the lust, took away the understanding of being a girl, I loved you enough to try an' figure it all out again from scratch!" he shouted, lashing out wildly at the other boy. Ryouga stared back at him in shock, incapable of understanding this sudden, emotional outburst. "You gave up on me, Ryouga! You betrayed me! You went off with Akane to explore your girl side. You let me think you'd slept with h—HIM!"
"Wha- What are you talking about!?" Ryouga stammered, absently evading the careless blows. He scowled, "You were the one who said the woman I loved was dead! You were the one who rejected me after you got back your guy side, when I tried to give you my girl side! Do you think that was easy? Do you think I could do that for just anyone!?"
"It was already too late!" Ranma almost shrieked. "If you'd come to me when you first turned into a girl, I'da done anything to help you. I came over that night to see if my feelings for you were stronger than for Akane! Once I realized that Ranko ended up with all the feelings I'd had from that night, how could I come between you!?"
"So you gave up on me!" Ryouga accused, his instincts suddenly catching on to the fact that he was, appearances aside, having a lover's spat—with the girl he had laid in a park in downtown Tokyo. "You kept pushing me off on Ranko! What did you expect, when both of you kept telling me she was the one! What the hell is this, now!? Why are you suddenly HER again!?"
Ranma, in the process of leaping at Ryouga, suddenly went stiff as he realized what was happening in his mind. The look of shock on his face disarmed Ryouga, causing his guard to drop just as Ranma crashed into him. The pair dropped to the ground like a pile of rocks, the kettle slipping out of Ryouga's fingers to spill its contents as it tumbled free alongside them. As his body collided with the solid wall of masculinity, a switch in Ranma's head flipped. Ryouga's arms had reflexively embraced Ranma as the hot water drenched them, tightening when Ranma's form suddenly shifted to more curvy, petite proportions. Ranma broke out of his grasp with a shuddering gasp, landing stretched out on her belly, nose to nozzle with the kettle, her eyes focused on the glint of light reflected by the last drops of moisture that dripped free of its confinement.
"Ranma?"
The redheaded girl twitched at the note of confused alarm. Rolling to her feet, she hugged herself, crying out plaintively to herself, "No! I can't BE Ranko anymore!"
"Ranko!?" Ryouga gasped, having risen to his feet at the same time as her. Before she could move out of reach, he grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her around. Ranma could hardly resist the power of his grip, but raised her hands to cover her face quickly. Not quick enough to hide the shine of tears that suddenly poured down her cheeks. "What's going on!?" Ryouga demanded, feeling deeply unsettled. He remembered hearing the three describe how their minds, their memories pooled together every time Ranma and Fa Shen became intimate. He tried to imagine the confusion that must cause all three of them, but he was not sure if it could explain the apparent identity conflict Ranma was suddenly, obviously, experiencing.
Ranma pulled free again, tersely bending to retrieve the kettle and launching herself at the rooftops while sending over her shoulder, "We spilled your water, Ryouga! I can get more at the hot springs."
Ryouga stared a second before racing to tail her. He did not dare let her out of his sight, and there was something instantly nagging at his mind. Something he had been warned about. Something about not going to the men's hot springs when he was in his girl form. His eyes widened and he poured on the speed, "Wait! Ranma! Which hot springs!?"
Ranma ignored the question, too caught up in the battle that was suddenly raging inside her. All she knew was that she had to stay away from Ryouga, or she would lose the last shred of being Ranma and become Ranko. At the moment, only the parts that were Copy-Ranko had taken hold of her, the parts that were contested equally by the persona of Ranma and the other Ranko. The Ranko who had Ryouga. The Ranko who would fully wake up if Ryouga touched her again. Unfortunately, it seemed like her flight was only a delaying tactic. Ranma could feel the elements of her psyche shifting in an irresistible tide. She recognized the feeling, something she had only experienced in the throes of passion. The feeling of becoming someone else. As this understanding bloomed, a more horrible realization struck her. If what she suspected was true, neither of the personalities currently vying for control were the person she ought to be. After all, it had only happened three times before, so by that count this was the second time she had forgotten who she really was. It even raised doubt if she was, or would ever be again, the person she was originally born as.
The interior of Cologne's study was cool and dim. Under most circumstances there was a relative quiet as well, but the faint commotion that had approached the manor house suddenly surged to alarming proportions as the large group of people poured into the dining area below, rousing Ranko from unconsciousness. Her eyes flickered open, and her addled mind tried to make sense of the riot of voices vented upwards through the grill she had only recently taken note of. Then she remembered what she had realized upon that discovery and connected the commotion with the revelation of her trinity's sexual exploration to Cologne and Nodoka. Panic instantly set in, as she jerked up into a sitting position and whipped her head around. The absence of anyone else in the room was faintly reassuring, promising at least a moment to try and decide what she had to do. Obviously, the first thing she had to do was warn her siblings.
Since the sounds of blunt force trauma had not penetrated the confusion, nor did the deathly silence of those confronted by the naked steel of her mother's katana reign, it was a safe guess that neither Ranma nor Fa Shen was present in the room below. Closing her eyes and dropping the wall she had built up to shut out the echoes of her other selves, which had existed since the second triumvirate union, Ranko was able to sense the mood, distance and general direction of her twins. Thankfully, Fa Shen was very near, in the privacy of the bath. A very odd mix of emotions stirred in her twin, blending arousal, frustration, discomfort and dismay—a confusion Ranko instantly linked to an unwanted seduction. Sensing there was no time to lose, Ranko cloaked herself in her father's Umisen-ken and slipped downstairs, avoiding the throng of people spilling out into the hall outside the crowded dining room, and into the bath.
"Who in the world could be getting a rise outta her?" Ranko muttered wonderingly to herself, pausing at the door. The thing Fa Shen had most in common with Ranma was the way they'd both respond to some guy getting frisky with them. The only man she could think of who could put the moves on any of them was Ryouga, so she hesitated. Gritting her teeth, she decided she would have to kill him later, if he was in there. Getting Fa Shen out of the house was far more important.
It was as she slipped from the changing room into the bath chamber that she discovered Shampoo pinning a distinctly male Fa Shen down in the shower. The pair were clothed only in a veil of steam from the streaming water. Ranko stood staring in disbelief, as part of her mind worked out what must have triggered her twin's transformation and Shampoo somewhat ruthlessly undermined whatever self-control Fa Shen possessed with her seductive kisses and caresses. The girl-turned-boy's feeble protests had diminished to a plaintive mumbling interspersed with shudders of unwanted but undeniable pleasure. Ranko ground her teeth in annoyance, finding herself forced to fight off the effects herself, as Fa Shen's arousal heightened her sensitivity to her twin.
As the connection between the triplets was reflexive, Fa Shen suddenly gasped in awareness of Ranko's concealed presence. "Ranko!?" he gasped, finally shoving Shampoo back. Ranko dropped her cloak of invisibility as Shampoo whipped her head around to spot Ranko's intrusion.
"Ranko! What you do, sneak up on Shampoo like that!?" she lapsed automatically into her broken Japanese.
Ranko glared at her twin, ignoring Shampoo. "So, what happened to worryin' about who's sleepin' with who in who's body?" Ranko challenged acidly.
"I-it's not like that!" Fa Shen blushed furiously, bouncing out of the shower stall to put Ranko between him and Shampoo.
"Whatever. We got bigger problems." Ranko turned her back on Shampoo and latched on to Fa Shen's arm, marching him out of the room. Her demeanor seemed iron clad, as she fought with the deepening arousal initiated by Fa Shen's activities and fed by the sight and feel of his naked flesh. Pausing in the change room, she growled huskily, "Get dressed. We need to find Ranma, fast."
"What's going on?" Fa Shen asked, looking three breeds of perplexed as she juggled the embarrassment of being caught male-ified in the shower with Shampoo, the growing thrill of animal magnetism strengthening the feedback between him and Ranko, and the alarm aroused by her cryptic warning.
Ranko nudged him to dress, snapping, "Mom was upstairs with Cologne all day. They heard everything we said to Ryouga." Fa Shen choked trying to gulp and gasp at the same time. Ranko bit her lip. "From the sound of it, the whole place is in an uproar."
"They told everyone!?" Fa Shen cried in disbelief.
"I don't really know WHAT is going on, but…" Ranko trailed off. Seeing Fa Shen had dressed in the instant he recovered from his shock, she grabbed his arm and urged him out into the hall, fading out of view. Fa Shen took the hint and cloaked himself a moment later. Blinded to each other, only Ranko's hand on his arm, and the resonant echoes they felt of each other, kept them aware of each other's presence as they ghosted through the house. Ranko had paused at a door, to check for observers before opening it, when Fa Shen pulled close to whisper in her ear.
"Do you think we should spy on things before we go, get an idea what's going on?"
"Too risky," Ranko muttered back. "I'm not all that sure the elders can't sense us, even in the Umisen-ken." Seeing the coast was clear, she carefully eased the door open so she and Fa Shen could slip out. Without dropping their invisibility, they both homed in on Ranma's location and began a roof vaulting sprint towards him. With a groan, Ranko realized where they were going to end up. The village hot springs, located up on the slope of one of the mountains girded by the amazon settlement. It made sense to stay near a source of hot water, to ensure that Ryouga could return to their "man to man" battle quickly if a surge of depression interrupted. Unfortunately, there were sure to be others, men, present bathing. Stopping, she slipped out of the Umisen-ken and turned to Fa Shen. He appeared, looking at her expectantly. "They're on the men's side. I'll get some hot water and meet you there."
Fa Shen nodded, well aware the men's hot springs was one of the few areas where amazon men had full autonomy. It was their sanctuary, the one place where they were free of the restrictions of amazon society. Any woman foolish enough to trespass put her fate in the hands of the gods—and there could be no mistake about the gender of the deities in question. Even in male form, Fa Shen felt distinctly uneasy about visiting it as she parted company with her twin and continued racing towards Ranma.
As he reached the hot springs, he was absolutely shocked by what he saw. For whatever reason, the fact that Ranma was currently female did not really come as a surprise. After what happened with Shampoo in the shower, the transformation was inevitable if Ranma and Ryouga happened to get into a compromising position. In the same way that Fa Shen or Ranko could bring out Ranma's male side, Ryouga was certainly able to bring out Ranma's girl side. But, that did not explain why the girl Fa Shen saw battling with the score of men present at the hot springs was moving and fighting with Fa Shen's own signature style. The influence of Ranma's skill and expertise was present, but there was no mistaking the ease and familiarity with which the girl before him called upon Fa Shen's arsenal of unique martial art and ki techniques. Fa Shen had watched Ranma and Ranko both practicing, trying to tap into the original amazon's memory to harness the abilities Fa Shen possessed. As good as the pair were at adapting such things, they had both fumbled the faintest bit, hesitated as if forced to switch gears in order to proceed with the techniques.
In the same instant he assessed the girl's fighting signature, he assessed the battle in progress and realized she would eventually lose through attrition. The twenty odd men engaging her were among the best of the tribe's male martial artists. Even if Fa Shen did not know the men personally, it only took an instant to identify most of them as the sons and heirs of male outsiders who had married into the tribe through combat. It was the only way a man born in the tribe could legally be taught to fight. If his father had triumphed in a marriage duel, he had the right to train one son as his heir. The reasons for this were the same as those for allowing the men certain sanctuaries from normal tribal law. These carefully limited freedoms, and allowances for masculine ego, staved off the kind of dissent that could lead to a war of the sexes. Cursing under his breath, Fa Shen moved to join the fray. The outcome of the battle was forgone, the only thing to be decided was whether a single man or the whole mob claimed the spoils of combat.
"What the hell were you thinking, Ranma!?" Fa Shen demanded, as soon as he was close enough to shout, dividing his attacks between the "prize" and the competition. "You can't be that desperate to get laid! You certainly can't be this desperate to piss me off!" he challenged, the threat of dire retribution clear in his voice.
"I don't have time to explain this, Ranma," the girl cut back tersely.
Fa Shen jerked around to stare, barely restoring his guard before a storm of retaliatory strikes clobbered him into next year. "What did you call me!?" he demanded, dodging and evading the rain of blows to close in on Ranma. To his shock, a hand reached through his guard and whipped him around. His hand was cocked and lashing out almost before the face of his assailant came into focus. "Ryouga! What the hell is going on!?"
Ryouga, who had been fighting to stay close to the red-headed girl in order to rant at Ranma, and urge her to flee from the men's hot springs, appealed to Fa Shen, "She's flipped out! Help me get her outta here!"
"I'm right here, you know!" Ranma snarled as she whipped by.
Fa Shen and Ryouga batted down and deflected half a dozen men, to maintain their position on Ranma's flank. Fa Shen glared at Ryouga, "Flipped out? What do you mean?" He shifted his stance, spotting an opening he could use to snatch Ranma out of the air and race clear of the area. Before he could spring, Ryouga grabbed him and held him back.
"Don't. She'll zap you if you try that," he warned. He slugged a few more faces, and dragged Fa Shen along a few steps to keep close to Ranko. "This is as close as she'll let me get," he informed, before answering the questions Fa Shen posed. "This started in the village. We were arguing and then he—he was a guy still at the time—he started acting like- like- when he woke up and was mixed up with Copy-Ranko. Then he turned into a girl and she said something about how she can't be Ranko and rushed off. When I caught up, she was muttering something about waking up."
"Waking up? Wha-"
"Yeah, she said she wasn't supposed to be Ranma either, so she had to wake herself up. But she sounded a little scared too, and she asked me, 'What if I'm not really Fa Shen, though? What if Ranma and Fa Shen are both dead, and we're all just Ranko? Then what?' I- I- I don't… This is all my fault, but I don't get it at all! What did I do!?" Ryouga seized Fa Shen and stared into his eyes in despair.
"She thinks she's me?" Fa Shen gaped. Taking hold of the lost boy and whipping him out of the way of an incoming attack, he added, "Is that why she called me Ranma?"
"What I wanna know-" he dodged another assailant then leapt off in Ranma's wake. "If she thinks she's you…" he continued when Fa Shen hurtled through the air beside him, trailing off to concentrate on leapfrogging off mens' heads in Ranma's wake. "What does she want to get gang raped for?" he finished as the three of them found perches on the shoulders of towering boulders.
Fa Shen huffed, while repelling a wave of men launching themselves up onto the boulders, "It's not like that. No man would dare drag a woman into sanctuary, but any girl who goes of her own free will is considered 'willing'." Fa Shen stared up at Ranma for a moment, as realization hit him. Turning back to Ryouga, he demanded, "Did she have a kettle when she came in here?"
Ryouga nodded.
"What happened to it?"
"She filled it up a while ago, but one of the men took it and ran off into the crowd," Ryouga answered, looking perplexed.
Fa Shen sighed heavily. "Damn. She's got to get that kettle."
"Why? What's the point!?"
"That's the challenge!" Fa Shen wheeled on him angrily, though more in anger with himself and Ran… Fa… the other Fa Shen. "It was one of my mother's training exercises. To fetch hot water from the men's hot springs. It was training to deal with my brother's marriage challenges. The risk of losing my virginity to a rabble of boys was as close to the risk of getting married to him—without the complications of marriage law—she could find."
"Oo-okay. But what does that prove," Ryouga felt completely lost.
"I don't know. She probably found the memory and thought it would bring my personality to the front. I still don't know why she thinks she needs to be me. What did you do to Ranma?" Fa Shen asked accusingly.
Ryouga shrugged, "I tried to ask, but all she said was that you were all wrong about the body swapping. She said something about having to assimilate the memories you were trading."
Fa Shen froze.
"There it is!" the red haired girl shouted, preparing to launch herself at a man in the throng below.
Fa Shen shouted, "Fa Shen!"
The girl paused to look at him. "Later, Ranma"
Fa Shen watched her rocket down from the precipice, throwing a ring-shaped ki blast to clear the area around the man she had targeted. With a frightening precision, she closed on him and snatched the kettle out of his hands, while beating him unconscious. In the seconds that took, the area she had cleared filled in, as masculine bodies pressed in on all sides to cut off her retreat. With one hand locked around the kettle, her ability to throw ki attacks was impaired. She managed to hit the first man who closed on her with a Raking Claws, drawing on the charged atmosphere left from a string of Vengeance of Heaven attacks, but others were able to close in on her flanks. Tucking the kettle up against her ribs, she weathered a punishing tide of striking feet and fists, shouldering her way through the crowd toward another boulder. Kicking a pebble up with her toes, she caught it in her free hand and launched it at the boulder, crying out a breaking point attack. The pebble, charged with a bit of ki, nicked the giant stone, causing it to detonate.
As men threw themselves away from the explosion, covering themselves against the shrapnel, she launched herself up into the air and raced away from the hot springs. Ryouga and Fa Shen hesitated long enough to see that the men all shook off the dust, roaring with laughter and boastful comments to each other. Ryouga and Fa Shen exchanged looks, one surprised and the other wry. Even though the "prize" had gotten away, it appeared that the men had enjoyed themselves immensely. They hardly seemed like a mob of would be rapists. "It's all a game, Ryouga. The stakes are high, and sometimes the 'prize' is more willing, but there was never any serious risk of injury," Fa Shen enlightened the lost boy. "Come on. I want to find out what she thinks she's doing. I really, really hope…" but Fa Shen decided not to voice her concern. He raced off, dragging Ryouga along. As they reached the head of the path back to the village, they saw Ranko—now male—had arrived.
The sun was setting, and under the canopy of trees, sheltering the pool and waterfall Ranma had led his siblings to that morning, only the light of a camp fire was holding back the cloak of darkness. Ranko found herself staring absently into the flames while thoughts ran rampant through her head. Beside her, also turned female courtesy of a misstep into the river, Ryouga looked perfectly normal. That was, lost. There had been an air of mourning hanging over their heads, aggravated by Ranko's revelation that Cologne and Nodoka had overheard them exposing their secret to Ryouga. With a male and a female Fa Shen sitting across the fire from them, it was hard not to get the feeling that Ranma had died, or that something terrible had happened to him. Onna-Fa Shen had given them a complete, detailed explanation of her ordeal, but Otoko-Fa Shen had been unable or unwilling to try and repeat her personality shift. On the surface, it seemed perfectly logical that Ranma and Fa Shen had not been swapping bodies during sex, but rather changing personalities to assimilate the experiences they swapped during the psychosexual fusion.
The trick was coming to terms with what that meant.
Ranko raised her eyes to the female Fa Shen and tried to grapple with it again. "Let me see if I've got this right. When you were arguing with Ryouga about—" she swallowed, and hastily rephrased the question to brush over what she might or might not have attempted with Ranma. "When Ryouga said… you destroyed… well, you know…" Ranko sighed and rubbed her face. A glance to the side let her see the tortured and confused emotions on Ryouga's face. "You said you felt something tear open in your mind and all the feelings, the parts of myself I took back, flooded back into you. When that happened, the 'wall' between Ranma and- and me collapsed?"
Fa Shen winced, painfully conscious of the minefield Ranko was navigating to ask that question. She gave Ryouga a studied look, then met her twin's gaze and nodded. "All the memories were there already, but… I don't know quite how to describe it. I guess the way the fit together, whatever made them a living part of me, had been choked off. When Ryouga accused me of destroying the person I had been, it was like- like I'd been accused of murder. But that couldn't be true, because that would mean it was me who was murdered. The very idea was impossible to swallow, and it- it-" Fa Shen hugged herself and looked down. "I had this moment of feeling like maybe I was dead and just didn't know it, and rejected it violently. I- it was like I jerked myself awake, but whatever I did, it was like I tore away whatever was cutting that part of myself off. Killing it."
Ranko looked at Ryouga again, to see her reaction.
Ryouga was looking down too, absorbing the tale and fighting with whatever emotions Onna-Fa Shen was eliciting.
"It was kind of like when your circulation has been cut off for a while, when the blood flow is restored. Parts of me that had gone numb came screaming back to life. It was very painful, and it made me lash out, say things Ranma could not have said with all those feelings confused or cut off," Fa Shen continued, hunching forward and shifting her arms to hug her knees to her chest. "I was all caught up in it, until I realized what was happening. About the same time I noticed it, I changed into a girl because of the way I felt about Ryouga. Except, I wasn't just switching back to the way Ranma was when he woke up. I could feel stuff that was you ready to take over. I was trying to be Ranko, but as Ranma I knew you'd claimed it, so I couldn't be you. If I had not thought that, remembered that, I don't think I could have stopped it from happening," she confessed miserable. "But I wanted it. I was so willing."
There was a long pause as she fell silent and no one wanted to comment. Onna-Fa Shen cleared her throat and confided, "It felt the same as when Ranma and I traded places except there wasn't any of the- the erotic feelings to mask it. There wasn't one of your minds linked with mine, changing with mine."
Otoko-Fa Shen shifted his weight, turning slightly to study his female half searchingly. Again, he had the eerie feeling of sitting outside himself. A feeling painfully similar to what happened when the reflections gained the memories of the original Ranko/Ranma.
"Why didn't you?" Ryouga asked softly. "I mean, what's different about you turning into Fa Shen with this Fa Shen still around?" Unvoiced was the question that was on all their minds. What happened to Ranma?
"Well, obviously, what I was feeling made me realize that maybe I had not been trading bodies, but shifting from one personality to another. With all the memories shared between us, all that has to change is the perspective. After all, if we all have the same soul, what is it that changes places? How can I go somewhere I already am?" she posed perplexedly. "When I first met Ranko in that dream, I believed that our identities, our destinies, were unique. That it created enough of a difference between us that we had to be different people in order to coexist."
Ranko frowned. She remembered the things she had struggled with when the mirror tossed her into her own identity crisis. She blurted out, "I was Ranma." The others turned to look at her, uncomprehendingly. She blinked out and repeated with emphasis, "I WAS Ranma. When I met Mom, I would sometimes be Ranko. The more stuff I did as Ranko, though, the more I became a different person when I was Ranko. It bugged me a lot, because it made me feel like maybe being Ranma was no different from being Ranko. The more they came to feel like different people, the less sure I was about who I really was."
Fa Shen smiled with faint enthusiasm, realizing how her twin's comments illustrated her point. "The problem, you see, is that we ARE the same person. On the inside. I am not so sure I really am Fa Shen. I'm only sure that I once WAS Fa Shen, and since—"
"I am Ranko," the other girl cut in perfectly.
"—and you," she turned to the male red-head, "were Ranma, there really wasn't any problem with me being Fa Shen again. If we kept our lives separate, if we all have different experiences, then the illusion that we're different people holds up. But, every time we pool our experiences, we have to sort out who we're supposed to be."
"But, if that's true, why hasn't Ranko switched places?" the male Fa Shen asked, pouncing on the inconsistency.
Onna-Fa Shen turned to meet Ranko's eye and they both shrugged at the same time. "Maybe because I wasn't having sex? Maybe because I sort it out as I take it in, or because I'm a mix of Ranma and Fa Shen?" Ranko guessed.
"Or maybe," Onna-Fa Shen suggested, "the flood of ki you always have to deal with interferes somehow." They all paused thoughtfully at that.
"There's only one way to test it, and if you're right, we might not want to risk it," Ranko swallowed nervously. Shaking it off, she turned to her twins and demanded, "But, for now, what about Ranma?"
"As far as I can tell, it's a question of who wants to be Ranma. We're all capable of it," Onna-Fa Shen pronounced, standing up and walking around the fire, skirting the other three. She came to a stop behind Otoko-Ranma, and laid a hand on his shoulder and gestured to herself, "I decided I was Fa Shen because, this is the body I woke up in first. But I know how I'd react if anyone asked me to stop being me to become Ranma. All I've really done is copy Ranko, making up my own mind about who I am."
Otoko-Fa Shen stiffened. He could not think of anything more difficult to face than this. Two out of three of them had taken a stand to assert their claim to an identity, leaving him only one choice if he wished to do the same. On the surface, it did not seem like a choice, but unless he made that choice Ranma would effectively cease to exist. It only became more scary as he dared to look within himself and found that everything he needed to be Ranma was there, except the thing that turned all the pieces into a whole. One thing was certain, the girl who loomed over him really was Fa Shen. She screamed it with every word, every gesture, and it had seriously freaked him out. It inspired an insane desire to fight for his identity, starting with dousing Ranko with hot water in the hope that her male form would trigger his reversion to female form, to level the playing field. He could not remember anything that felt as threatening to him as this other Fa Shen's mere presence.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I really wish you'd decided to be Ranko," he grumbled, fighting to keep the pain and frustration out of his voice. A sudden thought flashed in his brain, and sent rivers of electricity down his spine. With a look of abject horror, he breathed, "Would you please stop touching me."
Onna-Fa Shen flinched and as her hand jerked away, she seemingly teleported to the other side of the fire, her face a positive mirror of his, quickly melting into a look of blatant shame. "I'm sorry. I wasn't… thinking of… THAT."
"It wouldn't take long," the boy replied with a tremor.
"Wha-?" Ryouga looked from one to the other in confusion.
Ranko studied her twins.
"We'll… find some other way…" Fa Shen, both of them, said.
"Are we missing part of this conversation?" Ranko asked.
Both nodded. The looks they exchanged spoke volumes.
"You synched up."
They both nodded again. Ranko sighed and put her head in her hands. After a moment, she looked up and suggested, "Maybe if we form the circuit again, the two of you will merge and Ranma will be able to resurface?"
They looked at her and, with a flicker of meeting eyes, swallowed. "What do you think we were arguing about?" they demanded in unison.
Ranko frowned, straining her brain to puzzle out, from her own memory of Fa Shen, what they were talking about. "Arguing? How can you be thinking the same thing and call it an argument? What is it you two are so edgy about?" she probed, ransacking her brain for some clue. From the looks she was getting, she had better find the answer herself. They were determined to keep her in the dark. She thought of the expressions on their faces when he had asked her to stop touching him. They had looked… not afraid, exactly. More like mortified. Ranko covered her eyes, sifting through the echoes of Fa Shen in her, in search of something that might arouse such a feeling. To her surprise, she quickly came across it. Something Fa Shen had fantasized about. Something she had rejected almost instantly, because it would have involved Ranko intimately. Something Fa Shen had thought only Ranko could offer. Something one step more… perverse… than what she had experienced with Ranma.
Ranko burst out laughing and turned to stare at both of them. "Is that what you want!?" she blurted out. She doubled over and roared with mirth, squeezing her eyes tight to catch the tears that wanted to stream out. Male and female, Fa Shen stared daggers at her, clenching fists and tensing their legs to spring at her. Ranko wiped her eyes and stood, when the riot of humor relaxed its grip. "You've gotta know I've fantasized about that since… well, since I had a clue what sex was. Maybe even before that. Why do you think I was so jealous of you and Ranma!?"
Ryouga pulled at her collar and cleared her throat nervously, before complaining, "Would someone please tell me what you all are talking about?"
Ranko turned to the lost girl and grinned somewhat manically, "Hey, Ryouga. Since you've gotten your girl curse, have you found yourself wondering what it'd be like if you could, you know, be both sides at the same time? Together?"
Ryouga stared wide eyed for one second, before grinning and flushing to her roots. "Um. Ah. You see…"
Ranko laughed, "Right. If I had the chance, I'd do me in a heart beat! It seems so much less complicated than seducing Ranma or Fa Shen, or someone I'd have to get married to on the spot. Talk about making my life a lot easier!"
The two Fa Shens blushed furiously.
Ranko got serious, "Look. I'm really starting to miss Ranma. This is the only thing I can think of that won't make you feel like you're fighting over your identity. I've been there twice, and it really sucks. Give Ranma a chance to choose himself. Please."