A Reflections Mini-Sequel
A. V. Morgan
Part Eight
The Matron of Mysteries, Po Shen, had returned to the Matriarch's Manor bearing a satchel nearly as large as she was. That was not really surprising, since the old woman had to be at least as old as Cologne, and equally shrunken. Settling down at the table, she had asked for a carafe of water and produced what could only be an Instant Curse packet and a bag of what appeared to be very coarse salt. It was the salt that tipped Akane off. He remembered visiting Dr. Tofu with Ranma, the morning Cologne took him and the copies back to Mirror Mansion, and hearing the doctor say something about a potential cure using salted Twins water. It had something to do with altering the effects of the Chuanshontsuniichuan so that it split a person into cursed and uncursed forms, instead of creating twins with the same curse. The explanation the old woman gave, as she poured the packet and a cup of salt into the carafe—stirring the water with a long, slender stick—confirmed Akane's suspicion.
"Now, obviously, there are some risks and uncertainties," Po Shen paused to regard Akane sternly. "This is a proven method of unmasking a locked curse victim, and has successfully divided those who have mastered a curse. However, with mastery of a curse comes the possibility of multiple curses. Unsalted, this mixture would only create a double, but tainted with salt, it will split off every body an individual might possess. This is why I did not attempt to try this on your friend with the poor sense of direction."
"Are you saying that it would hurt him to be split into boy, girl and pig forms all at the same time?" Akane chewed his lip nervously.
"Honestly, the total mass involved is not significantly altered, with the piglet form thrown in. Should, say, a certain rogue known in these parts as Pantsuto Taro—" Po Shen quirked an eyebrow as she was cut off.
"Pantyhose!" Akane blurted in shocked comprehension. "He'd split up into a yeti, a bull, a crane, an eel, an octopus and a boy!"
"I see you have met him," Po Shen chuckled dryly. Clearing her throat, she elaborated, "You see the first problem. Obviously, a Jusenkyo curse seemingly defies the physical law of conservation of mass and energy. A scientist unfortunate enough to witness a transformation would suffer apoplexy over it, lacking an understanding of ki and the effects it can have on things like matter, energy, space and time. If you take the mechanics of ki into account, the conservation of mass-energy is preserved. With ki, it is possible to convert mass to energy, and then store it in an isolated pocket of space-time until needed." Po Shen noticed Akane and Nodoka gawking at her use of such modern terms, and chuckled. "In ancient times, we spoke of such things as patterns of substance and essence, and magic was simply the knowledge of how to manipulate the patterns of it all."
Po Shen waved that off. "In a normal transformation from one form to another, the expenditure of ki is virtually unnoticeable. It too tends to be conserved in the transformation, so the greatest drain is at the time one is initially cursed. This, however," she tapped the carafe, "would break up a gestalt form like Taro's, manifesting all the component aspects."
The elder paused for a moment, sharing a look with Cologne.
Cologne nodded. "We are aware that curse twins each end up with as much ki as the original victim."
"It has always seemed interesting to me how Jusenkyo curses tap into a source of raw ki, but past experience has revealed that there are limits to this particular miracle," Po Shen resumed. "As I said, the acquisition of a curse places a great demand on a victim's ki, the ki needed to destroy one form and create another. The ki demanded by a curse is taken from the limited amount possessed by the victim prior to the transformation. Somewhere during transformation a channel is opened to replenish what the curse appropriates. However, in the midst of transformation, the only thing sustaining the person between the destruction of one form and the creation of another is whatever ki remains after the curse claims its share.
"The twins curse takes a much bigger bite out of a victim, and the smaller reserve of sustaining ki has the additional task of replicating her psyche in preparation to assume control of the two bodies. Obviously, each body that is added to this equation diminishes the reserve and adds to the work it must do to supply each form with a mind," Po Shen's tone left no doubts as to the seriousness of that situation.
"Unfortunately, that is not the full extent of the problem," she grinned evilly. "There is also the physical shock of division. Splitting and merging is a traumatic process, and the shock increases geometrically for each additional separation. Since everything happens at once, the shock is experienced by all parts, and in Taro's case the shock would definitely kill him after the fact, even if the depletion of ki during the split did not," she concluded.
"The Musk used this to wipe out the original Shokei Adepts," Cologne contributed grimly, gesturing to the carafe of tainted water.
Po Shen nodded. "That is the ultimate danger of mixing curses, whether they are blended or mastered separately. Only someone with a limitless supply of ki and ridiculous tolerance for pain could survive such an attack. But, that's not a danger here," Po Shen clucked and returned to instructing Akane. "There was no reason to inflict twice as much pain on your friend just to test whether or not a ki triggered curse would be revealed by this method. In your case, there is only the usual pain, and it serves the useful purpose of confirming that you can regain your normal form."
Akane nodded stiffly. His body had grown increasingly tense as what he was about to do sank deeper into his consciousness. If this worked, he was about to confront his- herself in an all too literal fashion. With an odd pang, he realized that it would be yet another impossible experience he would have in common with his fiancé. "Under the circumstances, you'd think I'd be getting better at understanding hi- them," he muttered to himself plaintively.
"Well, the water is ready, Child. I'd advise you to change out of your clothes before we proceed. You will suffer enough without having to tear your way out of them when you split," Po Shen advised. "Just wrap a sheet around yourself. Or two, if you don't want to share it afterwards."
Akane blushed furiously, understanding the point of that warning. Given his normal temperament, it would not be good for his health to be male, naked and alone with his female self under a sheet. Reflexes alone would guarantee much violent pounding. Akane squeaked and shuddered as an unholy part of his mind presented a different interpretation of those words. "Good idea," he hopped up, as if fleeing from his own shadow. "I'll be right back."
"I believe we won't need an audience for this, Sisters," Cologne addressed the assembled elders. With dignity, they nodded and excused themselves, except for Po Shen. Nodoka followed the elders to the door, while Cologne ushered Mousse and Shampoo off to their rooms.
At the door, after the last of the elders had been sent off with the proper salutations, Nodoka was almost bowled over by one of her "sons" charging into the manor in something akin to a blind panic. "Ranma?" she called out, as he dodged around her at the last second.
The boy stopped suddenly, looking as though he's been stabbed, and glanced down at himself. A faint bloom of steam rose from his damp clothes, and he groaned. He could not believe he forgot to lock his curse, even with the reminder Ranma had given him earlier. Shaking his head, he met his mother's eye for a blushing second, "Er, sorry. It's me, Ranko. Someone musta thrown out their wash water when I was running by. Why don't I ever notice this stuff?" he asked himself, turning and wandering toward the kitchen for cold water. As desperate as he was to see Akane, and find out what had happened, it still was a bad idea to show up in male form. The distraction gave him a moment to wrestle with his thoughts and emotions. Absorbed in the effort to sort them into some order that would not spill out of his mouth in the worst way the moment he confronted Akane, he did not notice the carafe of water sitting on the table, or the diminutive elder sitting across the table from him, until he had almost walked by.
The action was so automatic, and his preoccupation so great, he had snatched the carafe and tipped it over his head in one fluid motion, before Po Shen could even think of giving warning.
"Goddess!!! No! Don't—!" the woman cried, leaping up at Ranko.
It was too late, water spilled over the lip as Ranko jerked in shock, whipping around to look at the elder. The old woman rocketed past, snatching the carafe out of his hand, but half it's contents were already coursing down his face, through his hair and splashing against his shoulders. The tingle of transformation set in, and then pain exploded through the emerging girl's body. She screamed in agony as the feeling of something cleaving her body in two started at the crown of her head, shot down the length of her spine and then exploded outwards to the tips of her fingers and toes.
Po Shen landed across from where she had been seated, carefully swinging the carafe through a braking arc, to keep the remaining contents from splashing wildly. Turning around, she watched the girl lurch toward her, curling up over her stomach, falling face forward to the hard wood floor. As she fell forward, the male form she had displaced reared backward, tearing his way out through the back of his shirt. The pants that had begun to slip down her hips, strained at the sudden presence of two pairs of legs, and the outside seams split with a shriek of tortured fabric. The girl's terrible scream was now echoing from the boy's throat, fading into silence as the two bodies shuddered and slumped unconscious to the ground coming to rest spooning together like lovers.
In that instant, three people crashed together in the door way.
"Ranko—!" Nodoka was shouting in alarm.
"What the hell was THAT—!?" Akane was yelling in terror.
"That was much too quick—" Cologne complained, already well aware what the screaming entailed, if not correct about who was being ripped in two. Of course finding herself squashed between Nodoka and a sheet clad male Akane, it struck her instantly that things were not as expected. Bounding into the room in Nodoka's wake, as the distraught mother homed in on her distressed child, Cologne spotted Po Shen cautiously setting the carafe back on the table and studying the red-headed boy and girl on the floor. While Nodoka sprawled beside them, Cologne came to rest beside Po Shen with a severe look on her face.
"Ranko?" Akane gasped, fitting the words and images assaulting his brain together, and creeping last into the room.
"Po Shen! Explain this!" Cologne demanded.
"I can hardly believe it, Cologne, much less explain it," the other elder confessed, still gaping in shock. "He- she stormed through the room heading for the kitchen… Wasn't even looking at me or the water. Quick as you please, she snatched the water and poured it on herself. It was totally unexpected. There was no time to stop her, let alone warn her. It's fortunate she's only got the one other form!"
"True enough," Cologne nodded, sighing heavily, "However, she's already been split by the Mirror of Broken Souls twice. There has to be a limit to how many times a single person can be divvied up!"
Po Shen remained wide eyed. Shaking her head, she observed, "She did take it rather hard." She joined Cologne in taking a closer look at the split Ranko, examining the physical and spiritual condition of each, while Nodoka fussed over them, ordering Akane to fetch them robes or something, as the single set of shredded clothing did little to protect their modesty. Reaching a quick conclusion, Po Shen sighed, "We cannot assess any mental trauma until they're awake. Physically, I doubt I've seen anyone healthier, and they appear to have a normal amount of ki. Which is to be expected."
"No, they each ended up with about half of Ranko's normal ki," Cologne corrected, privately intrigued. She had seem something similar in the way her ki was split between her reflections the night of their double date, and seemed to confirm her suspicions about why Ranko, and of late her twins, possessed a double measure of ki. It clearly had something to do with the nature of their curses. "This just dropped them back to normal standards. By my estimate, they are going to be out for a while. We should put them in their room to sleep it off." At that point, as Akane was turning to fetch something to cover the half naked red-heads, Fa Shen sprinted into the house and screeched to a halt on the threshold of the dining room.
"Ranko! I'm gonna STRANGLE you… for…" Fa Shen took in the scene. "What's going on here? How did Ranma get here so fast? And who tore the hell outta them?" she demanded, giving Akane the evil eye.
"Fa Shen?" Akane flinched, startled by the glare.
"Damn it, Akane! You've got to stop doing this to them! Why can't you just—" but Fa Shen was cut off.
"I didn't do this! Ranko did it to herself!"
Fa Shen choked back her rant, and blinked in confusion. "I don't—"
"They are both Ranko," Cologne tried to inform helpfully.
"Oh! Not again! We just went through this!" Fa Shen shouted, stomping over and grabbing the male version of her twin and shaking him. "Wake up you idiot! She gave you Ryouga! What the hell do you have left to fight over!?" To her self, she wondered at the torn clothing in deep concern. There was not enough material left to piece together a single outfit!
Sudden tense silence surrounded Fa Shen.
"Ranko! Wake up and tell me what this is about!" Fa Shen reached over and roughly nudged her. Then she noticed the silent stares. "What?"
"Do you…" Nodoka swallowed and composed herself, pointing at Ranko's male side, "Do you think that is Ranma?"
Fa Shen sighed and ran her hands through her hair, "Um. This is really complicated." Struggling to think of a simple way to explain what had happened since that afternoon, she frowned mightily. "We're not all as different as we seem," she began, unhappily. "Some things have happened tonight that have shown us that we… All three of us are exactly alike, but we've been acting differently, trying to be different parts of our self." Fa Shen bit her lip, remembering that their secret was out, and Nodoka and Cologne heard all the details.
Taking a deep breath, Fa Shen started over. "Ranma, the- the one we've been calling Ranma," she started hesitantly, before diving headlong into it, "she isn't really Ranma, anymore than I am. I can be Ranma just as well, just as completely. I was Ranma for most of today. Since Akane caught me and…" That might not have been the best thing to bring up. She hurried past it. "I figured it out first, when I went off sparring with Ryouga. We got in an argument and he accused me of destroying 'his' Ranko, the one from his date.
"This is really confusing," she warned. "When we healed Ra… When two of us had sex, it broke down the walls between all three of us. When that happens, all our memories pool, and we would switch to the personality of the memories we had gotten, so it seemed like we were trading places. So, I remembered and felt everything that had happened with Ryouga and Ranko-turned-Ranma, but all of that really happened with just one of us," Fa Shen gestured helplessly to the unconscious boy. Frowning, "Why do YOU find it strange that I think this is Ranma?"
"Because we meant just what we said. These two ARE both Ranko. The one we've been calling Ranko for the past week," Cologne clarified, following the example Fa Shen had set. "I see we're going to have to work out a new way to distinguish you three, if you all plan to keep changing personalities. But, later. What happened here is that Ranko came in and splashed herself with salted instant twins water we had prepared to discover if Akane's natural form is recoverable."
"You said, 'She gave you Ryouga'," Akane butted in. He had been growing more and more tense as Fa Shen struggled to explain herself, his mind focused in on those words, out of everything she had said, and the fact that she clearly thought she had been saying them to Ranma.
Fa Shen wanted to simply evaporate into thin air. Turning to look Akane in the eye, startled once again by the masculine appearance and the reaction it aroused in her, she shuddered. "I love Ryouga," she stated very carefully. That much was true, even if she—like Ranko—realized she could not act on it. "I love him more than I can possibly say. But. Only when I AM Ranma." That protest was thrown in too late to fight the tidal shift her speech set off. The last three words betrayed her. There was a flicker behind her eyes, and then she turned into a boy, transforming in character as well as in flesh. "I'm sorry, Akane," he bowed in exquisite misery.
Everyone present gaped in shock, surprised by the sudden sex-change, and blown away by the palpable presence of Ranma, where a second before they had felt Fa Shen in command of the same body.
Seeming oblivious to the reaction, "Ranma" continued. "I know we're supposed to be fiancés an' all, but that date, the things that happened before it… Everything I had done to keep from acceptin' my girl half fell apart," he cringed, suddenly becoming female again. In a more fragile voice, she picked up, "Ryouga made a woman outta me, got me to accept my girl half. Then I had to go back to bein' my old self. I didn't know how to do it. The way I was, I could only hate what I had done. I hated myself, but I had to be 'Ranma'. It was a matter of honor. The only way to do that was to bury my feelings, to pretend that it was really Ranko who loved Ryouga."
"Wasn't it?" Akane demanded, straining to contain himself.
"Well, in a way, it was," she admitted self-consciously, fidgeting nervously in place. "Ranko an' I, we'd both made the same decision, the same choices. The guy copy was supposed to go on as me, an' there was no way I was gonna go off to get a guy curse until the mirror mess was straightened out. I didn't even know if bein' a guy again was worth havin' to live with a curse again. We both had feelings for Ryouga, but since she had the curse, and could still be a man, I was the one who needed Ryouga more. I mean, if I was at all serious about seein' if I could go on full time as a girl…" Ranma paused for a while in thought.
"Ranko was the first to understand bein' a girl. I got to go a little further with it before I had to go back to bein' me. The thing is, Ranko wasn't on that date. Ranko didn't give herself to him. That was me. She can remember it, she can feel it all, but it was me who lived it," Ranma explained. Then she laughed abruptly. She had fallen so easily into the memories of Ryouga's Ranma that she had forgotten there was another Ranma inside her. Shaking her head to clear the confusion, she corrected herself sharply, "No. That's totally wrong. I was on a date with you that night, Akane."
Akane blinked in confusion, then remembered.
"It's pretty confusing," she shrugged. "Like I was in two places at once, one set of memories overpowers the other. Damn, I'm gonna have to think about this a lot more." In the back of her mind she remembered Ranko explaining that copy-Ranko had been the side of her that came from Fa Shen, while copy-Ranma had been the side of her that came from Ranma. Combined with the truth behind the personality shifts, she suddenly glimpsed an entirely different explanation of the awakening of Ranma and Fa Shen.
"So, what happened to 'my' Ranma?" Akane asked timidly.
"Er, ah," she nervously rubbed the back of her neck. The question innocently landed right on the head of her uncertainty. "That's me, I guess. I mean, it works out the same way as with Ryouga's Ranma. But, I gotta say, when I am Fa Shen, I have a real hard time dealin' with, er, me. You know, bein' Ranma." There was a long pause, as Ranma stared inward. What if it was true? What if Ranko had been right? Did that mean the other Ranma was really a Fa Shen who was assimilating her reincarnation as Ranma? Did that mean she was the real Ranma—a Ranma who was choking on the memory of who he had been in an earlier life? She frowned, focusing in on something she had refused to admit to herself and sharing it aloud, "When I am Fa Shen, I am afraid somethin' will force me to be Ranma. That I'll throw away somethin' as important as Ryouga was to me—ah, the other me—because of my sense of honor."
Akane looked away, struggling to hide a stab of misery.
Ranma looked down at the split Ranko. "An' I know I will. I just watched myself do that tonight. Ranko giving Ryouga up to save Ranma."
"Is- is that why you're usually Fa Shen? Is it YOUR sense of honor, Ranma, that forces you to be HER?" Akane asked, still not looking at him.
Ranma started, staring at him.
"I'm sorry, that was a mean question," Akane waved it off. "But, can I just ask… I need to know, and- and I can't- I can't ask HIM." He turned to look into Ranma's eyes imploringly, "Is Ryouga the only person you can love?"
There was a long pause, as Ranma continued staring at the youngest Tendo. The night of her date with Akane surging to the front of his mind. With a painful swallow, and with complete obliviousness to a sudden change back to male, he finally answered, "No. Ryouga's not the only person I love. I- I just- I don't know if things can- can work out, is all."
Akane had caught his breath at the sudden change, again, but was held even more transfixed by the look of terror underlying Ranma's steady gaze. With a nod, he stood up and stepped back. "Thanks. I- I know that wasn't easy for you. Um. Look, why don't you take these two upstairs?" he suggested, pointing them out, eager to change the subject. "I have to do this test, to see if I can ever be myself again…"
Ranma blinked a few times, struggling with the inner turmoil stirred up by his admission, and then nodded. Gathering the girl Ranko up in his arms, he shifted her onto his shoulder and reached for the boy. "Can you wait? Until I come back down? I- I'd like to be here for- well… I'm sure this is gonna work, but maybe you'd like to talk about what happened today. I- I have a lot of explaining to do."
Akane looked at him, standing with a Ranko thrown over each shoulder. With a nod, he smiled, "Take your time. It sounded like this is going to be really painful. I'm not in any real hurry to find out." Ranma returned the smile and exited. Nodoka softly excused herself, following the trio upstairs.
Shampoo and Mousse exchanged confused looks as the sounds from the room below diminished. There was no doubt that it had been enlightening for them to slip into Cologne's study to eavesdrop through the vent. Instead of just finding out if Akane's womanhood could be restored, though, they had overheard the screams of Ranko suffering the peculiar, catastrophically bad luck of the Saotome's, and the even more bizarre evolution of the triplets' identity crisis. Of course it would be bad if their presence in the study was discovered, so they wordlessly slipped away to Shampoo's room before Ranma could arrive upstairs with the twinned Ranko. The door eased shut as he reached the head of the stairs, and they turned to look at each other again.
It was an awkward moment, haunted by the peculiar history the two shared. There was a time, long ago, when they could honestly say they had been friends. When they were young enough that they had been immune to the constraints of gender, it would not have been unusual for them to skulk about together on some adventure or to retreat to Shampoo's room in the wake of some mischief. That innocent camaraderie had evaporated all too soon, when Shampoo had begun to assert her natural dominance as a girl, and Mousse's childhood affection began to turn into infatuation. That said, it had been over a decade since Mousse had been in Shampoo's room alone with her, with the door shut. It was the first tangible proof that they had been significantly affected by their recent role reversal.
Backing away from the implications of that, Shampoo cleared her throat and announced, "Maybe now good time you explain what you doing, Mousse. No have time when you come back to ask, what you thinking? You go off with Musk boys like that! You know no good can come of mixing up with likes of them!"
Mousse blushed faintly, turning to study the door. "That's not really the issue, Shampoo, and we both know it," he murmured, putting force into his words but speaking softly to minimize the offense. "Our 'marriage' changed too many things, Shampoo. Changing sexes, we both let go of a part of ourselves, our pride maybe, and at least I can't help but wonder if things were better that way."
"We agree we no talk about that, Mousse," Shampoo retorted in a strained voice.
"I think we should. I think we have to," Mousse insisted, turning to stare at her. Or, as his glasses were perched on top of his head at the moment, to stare intently at the window across the room from her. "Because it has a lot to do with what we will both be forced to do."
"Shampoo not know what Mousse talking about."
"I'm talking about love, Shampoo. I'm talking about…" he shrugged helplessly, turning to track her voice until her eyes could meet his. "I know about love, Shampoo. The world can change, or you can become a different person completely, and your love remains true. If that is true for me, if that was enough to make me marry you that way, then it's safe to say you will never really give up on Ranko. So, neither can I."
Shampoo bit her lip. It was not hard to guess what he was saying. "Is stupid, Mousse think he can have Shampoo by marrying same person as Shampoo. Shampoo not even sure, of three, which is one that can love Shampoo," she confessed, reprimandingly.
Mousse considered that. Nodding, he admitted, "It would be impossible for my plan to work without knowing which of them to challenge. The problem is, I have already issued a challenge." Technically, he should have fought Ranko already. "That is a fight I am not sure I want to win now, but at the same time I cannot afford to lose it. Not if there is a chance you're still interested in Ranko." Mousse sighed. It was funny in a way. The way he had suckered Shampoo into marriage, he had actually gained a small measure of respect from the woman he loved so desperately. "You make a good amazon woman," she had grudgingly confided in their marriage bed, in their birth tongue. The ordeal they had gone through together had opened their eyes a little to each other.
"Do you remember what we talked about that first night?" he suddenly asked. The sound of her sucking in a breath encouraged him. "My biggest fear about Saotome was always that you would break through his pride and arrogance, that he would stop denying his love for you and make you his."
Shampoo hugged her arms to her, slipping into Mandarin, "You feared this because you hoped the same of me." Shampoo remembered her reaction to that. Her immediate reaction had been to declare that she had never loved Mousse, nor would she ever, but she had bit her tongue as she made the connection. Her pursuit of Ranma was painfully similar to Mousse's pursuit of her. Her lack of love for Mousse was sort of a death knell for her own hopes. She had dredged her soul in search of some shred of love for the blind boy, as a way to convince herself that she had a chance with Ranko, or Ranma—or even Fa Shen, for that matter.
There was a possibility there. There had always been buried affection, and his stupid, blind devotion had often touched a chord within her. She could hardly deny that when she remembered how mercilessly she had stomped those feelings into dust. She could now add, to her reasons for despising Mousse, the fact that he had given her a strong argument for respecting his feelings. She also had to wonder if her doomed relationship with Ranma- Ranko was some kind of instant karmic retribution for her treatment of Mousse. The doubts and fears—and desperation—had been enough to prompt her to consider the most ridiculous of plans.
"I think I get where you are going," Shampoo finally nodded. "You heard that Ranko gave up on Ryouga. That means I wouldn't be able to get to her through him, like we talked about…" Shampoo trailed off. It had been a fabulously stupid plan, and while she and Mousse pretended they were not really serious about it, neither of them had come up with a better one. A plan that respected the complicated web of affections they had forced themselves to address. Sighing, she confessed, "I had my doubts about a group marriage, anyway."
"As long as I won't give up on you, and you won't give up on Saotome, do we really have a choice?"
"Not to mention, one Saotome is literally no different from another," Shampoo pointed out, with a shudder. "Fa Shen became Ranma between one word and the next. It's scary." She was tempted to mention her attempt to seduce Fa Shen earlier. At the moment, she had no idea which of them she had really cornered in the shower. Closing her eyes, she tried to work it out. Based on what she had only just overheard, the one she had come on to was now together with Ryouga. Frowning, she considered the implications of that. "They're not being very coy about their feelings for Ryouga," she observed, her throat tightening painfully.
Mousse stiffened at the effect that had on her voice, and tilted his head forward to allow his glasses to drop to the bridge of his nose. Taking a good look at her, he decided she had finally figured it out. In an odd voice, he commented, "It's kind of funny what a relief it is when you are forced to see the truth. To know the one you love truly does not love you back."
Shampoo's head snapped up. Staring at him, she could not think of anything to say for several moments. Finally, she simply asked, "What do you mean by that?"
Mousse shrugged, "There's no need to play the fool once you stop fooling yourself. As your wife, it did not take me long to figure out that you did not love me. However imperfect the marriage was, our laws did not interfere with us for once. I was forced to accept that you had not been putting on an act for your great-grandmother, pretending to hate me so no one would be suspicious of our true feelings. No, our true feelings were plain enough for all to see." The words held all the bitter venom of towering humiliation. "I was the only one who refused to see the truth."
Shampoo looked down at her feet. This explained why nothing she had done, as a man, had been enough to arouse the boy turned girl. In spite of knowing exactly what buttons to push, the realization that Shampoo felt little more than pity must have turned Mousse frigid with shame and humiliation. Ironically, if Mousse had been more responsive, the two of them would probably have been stuck with their adopted cursed forms. Not that either would really regret that, but it would have cemented their marriage. It was almost a shame. It would certainly have been simpler than throwing themselves back into the chaos surrounding Ranma. "If you had not been so blind from the beginning, chances are I would have loved you. It was your obsession that made things impossible between us," she criticized with an ounce of genuine regret. A regret she had kept to herself since puberty.
Mousse swallowed audibly.
Shampoo turned away from him to look out the window. There was something else struggling to make its way out of the depths of her mind. Something tickled forth by the scene she had overheard. Part of it was the notion that the triplets were truly identical, inside and out. "Ranko gave Ryouga to Ranma," she said aloud, probing at it like a sore tooth. Why did that bother her? If they were all the same, what difference did it make who got the one they loved? What could give one of them a better claim to him than the rest?
Shampoo punched herself in the head, "It's so obvious! Ranma was the one who slept with him!"
"Huh?" Mousse blinked, tipping sideways to lean casually against the frame of the door, and missing it completely. Picking himself up, he grumbled, "I mean, we already know this. What is your point?"
"Marriage law," Shampoo said grimly. "If what Fa Shen was saying tonight is true, there are no special exceptions for the triplets. It's the same as if they had a personality curse, or multiple personalities. Each of them is responsible for their individual actions. Being confused about who you are is no defense against the kiss of marriage! That means Ryouga is Ranma's husband!"
Mousse stood unbalanced for a moment, seriously contemplating a face plant, but something told him he had not heard the worst of Shampoo's thoughts. In a weak voice, he begged softly, "Oh, please. Please don't tell me…"
"Th- the same rules make me Fa Shen's wife," Shampoo finished.
"B- b- but HOW!?" Mousse exploded.
"It's simple," Shampoo explained in a shallow, breathless voice. "Because she's still Ranma. Another Ranma, but the one who consummated our marriage."
"But, what about you turning her into a guy?"
Shampoo tossed her head angrily, "Don't you see, if she's not JUST Fa Shen, if part of her really is Ranma, what I did isn't a crime. It might be ruthless or even cruel, but if she's even half a man at heart, I had the option of bringing the man out. Unless someone can prove I never intended to allow the girl side out again, or the way things happened, refused to let her get a nyanniichuan curse, I was well within my rights in pursuing my husband!"
Mousse closed his mouth with a snap. "Can this get any more complicated?" he demanded in irritated frustration. He could not argue with her, though. The elders would reach the same conclusion, and any ruffled feathers on the part of the bride and groom would be dismissed for the good of the tribe. The outcome was far more important after all. Taking a deep breath, he brought up the first question that came to mind, "What about Herb's challenge, then?"
Shampoo shrugged, "What about it? With her curse, my husband is capable of being Herb's wife. If he defeats her."
Mousse laughed bitterly. "And I am the idiot who just helped assure his victory," he accused himself. At least it settled the question of what to do about his challenge to Ranko. Losing that fight would not diminish his chances with Shampoo. Stumbling toward a chair, he slumped into it. Briefly, he wondered if there was a way to shift Herb's interest over to Ranko, and challenge Fa Shen himself. No doubt, Shampoo could guess his thoughts, and he forced himself to wonder if there was any point. In what way would that plan make continuing to pursue his love any less hopeless? "Damn."
Shampoo settled on her bed, studying the man who had been her wife. Seeing things in this new light did not fill her with the delight it would have two weeks ago. Instead, there was a crawling dread. A dread of lying in bed with Fa Shen, indifferent to his touch, because deep in her heart she knew he did not—maybe could not—truly love her. Her unexpected victory held the taste of ashes, and that was frightening. "Maybe it's best not to say anything about this. Maybe no one else will figure it out," she suggested timidly.
Mousse looked up at her, carefully adjusting his glasses to disguise his surprise. "You know that might not be wise. The council will be examining all of us, and if the truth comes out, they will not be pleased to hear you tried to hide this," he advised sternly. "Not that I blame you. I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Fa Shen about this, but it's not like you to back away from something like this."
Shampoo folded her hands in her lap. "She would hate me."
Mousse tried to follow her thoughts, and a moment later he bolted to his feet. The parallels between them were clear enough. If that was the conclusion she had reached, it left Mousse no doubts about her true feelings for him. But along with that stab of rejection came the seeds of a plan to sabotage the relationship between Shampoo and Fa Shen. In a tight but heated voice, he pointed out, "Being a husband would be beneath Fa Shen. No doubt she'd much prefer to be Herb's wife. With his curse, she'd have little need for a wife of her own, don't you think?"
Shampoo jerked at the spiteful tone. Still, Mousse might have a point, she nodded to herself mutely. Mousse seemed to take her action for a reply, and silently stormed out of her room. Only after he was gone, did it occur to Shampoo that she might have just created more trouble for Fa Shen. Stalking out of her room, she growled, "Stupid Mousse! Fa Shen doesn't love HIM either!" But, Mousse had not lingered to catch any last remarks from her. Shampoo paused a moment in indecision, then decided it would be best to warn Fa Shen, about herself and about Mousse betraying her to Herb.
Akane stared at herself in a torment of relief and uncertainty. She had been terribly afraid this experiment would prove the worst, but as she studied her hands she decided the pain of being split had been a small price to pay for the reassurance that somehow, some way, she would be able to return to normal. At least, she felt her present state offered some hope for her twin. She could not get the look he had given her, before storming out into the courtyard, out of her mind. She had a morbid need to know what her other self was experiencing at this moment, but she had taken Ranma's advice and remained where she was while he went after her twin. Pulling the sheet tighter around her, she looked out into the yard to see them still talking. Ranma had gone girl again, and seemed to be speaking very urgently to the male Akane.
"Even when they know it is only temporary, people suffer terribly at being cast off in their cursed form when confronted with the uncursed version," an ancient voice intruded softly.
Akane turned to look at Po Shen. "I can almost tell you what she is thinking," she confided guiltily. "I don't know what it will take to find the trigger to this curse, but I could stay the way I am now and at least I would be normal. Part of me already came to terms with being stuck as a boy the last time. It wouldn't be easy for her, but… hell, I would stay a boy if that was the only way to guarantee…"
Po Shen smiled gently, not at all surprised by the confusion that caused the girl's thoughts to break off. "I suppose anyone of good character would make such a sacrifice for the sake of those they loved. I am sure you are concerned about your family and friends, how they would take the loss of the girl they know and the appearance of a boy in her place. Of all curses, in a situation like this, yours does offer a chance of a normal life for both halves. Still, it is too great a sacrifice. It would be best to overcome this, than to try and avoid the risks."
Akane bowed her head. "It's sort of strange. I mean, I watched Ranma go through this. I watched him become a different person, and watched two different people become him. I guess I feel like it's cheating somehow if this isn't as hard on me as it was on him."
"It is a strange tale, that one. One with greater complications," Po Shen commented, nudging the girl to her feet and gesturing for her to follow. With a last look at Ranma and Otoko-Akane, she stood and re-entered the house.
In the courtyard, Ranma reached out to take Otoko-Akane's hand. "That's pretty stupid, Akane. You won't be stuck as a guy! Not if you just have faith in yourself and don't think stupid things like that!"
"Is that supposed to be comforting, you jerk!?" he snapped.
"It's supposed to be the truth, dummy!" she huffed, wishing for the millionth time that she was better with words. Fa Shen was, but this did not strike her as the best time to be Fa Shen. "The hardest part of mastering ki attacks is believing you can really pull one off. After what you did, I don't see why you think you can't find the trigger to change back. I'm tellin' you, if you just work at it, you'll be yourself again in no time. But you have to merge with your other half to do it. If I had known I could take my reflections back, that it wouldn't be like killing them, or if I hadn't let my stupid old man con me into thinkin' I should keep them, I would have gone back to normal."
"I can't go back to normal! I am cursed now! Just because it's not a water curse doesn't mean I'll never change once I can get back my normal form!" he shouted angrily. "So, maybe I don't really want to stay a guy, and maybe I could have it so I'm only a boy part of the time, but I'll never be just a girl again! If I want that, and I really do want that, this is the only way I can have it."
"Don't fool yourself, Akane," Ranma shook him wearily. "She'll never be able to live her life knowing you have shut yourself out of it, sacrificed yourself for her. It's a stupid idea, and if you fall for it, then you're just stupid, dummy."
Akane growled, fighting the urge to pummel the red-head into the ground, "I can't believe you! Can you be any more of an insensitive jerk!? Can't you even give advice without throwing insults!?"
Ranma cringed for a moment. When no blows rained down on her, she looked up through the arms she held over her head. "If that's what it takes to make you go back and reverse this. I'd do anything to keep you from makin' the same mistake I made," she insisted, gradually straightening and dropping her arms. "Maybe it's stupid to ask you to trust me, after everything… I mean, in a way this is my fault. Still, trust me about this. If you hate me for everything else, please don't hate me for trying to spare you some misery."
Akane calmed down suddenly, giving the girl's face a searching look. "It really means that much to you?"
Ranma nodded, grabbing his arm again and tugging gently in the direction of the manor.
"Fine. I'll give this a try. But, if I can't find the trigger, I will have to consider splitting off like this. I can't go back to my family like this!" he declared vehemently. Ranma cringed at the note of shame and revulsion.
As they joined Onna-Akane and the two elders, Cologne called their attention. "As you know, temporary curses can last for about a week before they begin to decay. Unlike most, this one can only be reversed by hot salt-water. Since there will be a residue in your chi for some time after you reverse the curse, you won't be able to work on the trigger safely until the contaminated chi is burned off. That means, no ki attacks!" She gave each Akane a hard, measured look. "With that in mind, you might wish to wait a while before reversing this."
"Are you suggesting this for my benefit?" Onna-Akane asked.
"You would certainly have an easier time of it than your twin, for the duration," Cologne acknowledged, watching the male twin's reaction. "However, upon merging the experiences you both have separately will pool together. Since either way you are forced to live for a while as a man, this is one way to soften the impact and possibly gain a bit of insight into yourself in the process."
Ranma gave each Akane a considering look and nodded, "You know, that's not a bad idea. A week is long enough to figure our for yourself that being split like this really sucks. That might give you the encouragement to master the trigger to your curse."
Cologne carefully hid the proud smile that wanted to surface. It looked like the child she had taken under her wing was truly gaining wisdom.
"What about Ranko?" Akane asked in stereo.
"Man, when she realizes she's been split again, she's gonna go ballistic," Ranma rolled her eyes. The sound of feet running down the steps was followed by a glimpse of Mousse's robe flashing across the doorway, as he stormed out of the house. Ranma's eyes narrowed as the sight reminded her that Duck-boy had been out consorting with the enemy earlier. As she rose, intent on pursuing him, Shampoo showed up in the door way, seeking out Ranma's gaze.
"Ranma? Shampoo need to have talk with Fa Shen. Is very important! You come with Shampoo now, yes?"
"Fa Shen? I dunno, this isn't really the time… I just saw Mousse taking off, and he and I need to have a few words," Ranma protested.
"Fa Shen have bigger problem to worry about. Is deadly serious."
Ranma turned to look at Akane, gaze moving from one version to the other. With a sigh, she turned and approached Shampoo. "You better not be playing games with me, Shampoo." As Shampoo shook her head, a faint tremor passed through the red-head's body. "Does this have something to do with Herb?" she asked, subtle changes in voice and poise conveying the personality of Fa Shen.
Shampoo shuddered, giving a nod in reply. "That too too creepy."