Guest Ki: Chapter 3
Toss and Turn
Ranma felt like someone was trying to throw him out of his sleeping bag. 'Damn! Pops musta found me.' He opened his eyes and began his counterattack only to stop, gazing up at an enormously enlarged Akane armed with a salad fork and spoon. Around the young man were huge leaves of lettuce, shredded cabbage, radishes, sliced cucumber and other salad ingredients. Akane reached in with her tools and Ranma was again subjected to the being thrown about the inside of the huge wooden mixing bowl.
"Akane, what do you think you're doing?"
"What does it look like, Ranma? I'm getting your salad ready."
Then it hit him. Akane plus food preparation of any kind spelled disaster. He braced himself and screamed up at the Akane-occupied sky, "Baka tomboy! Are you trying to kill me? Get Kasumi to do this. Anybody but you!"
He immediately stiffened as tears formed in her eyes and a hurt look replaced the angry frown she had worn.
"Ranma, no baka!" she choked, lifting her mallet. Then Kasumi, Nabiki, Ukyo, Shampoo and a myriad of others peered scornfully over the rim of the bowl.
"You made your choice, Ranchan," said Ukyo, flipping her ponytail and turning away.
"Hai.Airen must lie in bed of lettuce pervert-girl toss for him!" sniffed Shampoo, also leaving.
Nabiki simply took her sister, Kasumi, by the arm and led her away, warning, "He can't buy his way out this time."
"Oh, my," the latter replied sadly. Then the hammer came down...
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Ranma woke with a start. It was not that the dream seemed too real, but what the dream had implied about his choices. As he tried to slow his breathing and heart rate, he felt a hand on his shoulder, turned and looked into the face of a concerned Akane Tendo.
" Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Ranma woke with a start.
'Damn,' muttered Barry grumpily, 'you're dreaming that you're dreaming! Get a life, man! Besides, the salad dressing remark was off the cuff. I really doubt it'll prove to be the cure for Nian-whatchamacallit.'
Understandably, it took Ranma a while to get back to sleep.
The next day, Ranma moved Barry from basic blocking maneuvers and strikes to begin attempting kata and test the displaced man's ability to use Ranma's already trained body to execute some speed-punches. An accomplished kempo master can strike an object a dozen times in a few seconds. That would not get them to first base against the Nerima martial artists Barry would face if something went wrong. Ranma often resorted to his Kachu Tenshin Amiguriken speed techniques, which were several magnitudes beyond what most kempo masters could ever dream of.
'Don't force it, let it flow,' recommended Ranma from a back seat inside his own head.
Barry punched the air, feeling extremely aggravated. On his own, the smoothly flowing responses of Ranma's trained body deserted him. His movements were fast, but horribly clumsy. In fact, all high-speed or high-precision movement was incredibly clumsy. "Let me stop a moment, Ranma."
'In training call me sensei, Barry-san,' warned Ranma.
"Yes, sensei." He straightened and extended Ranma's arms out to the side, otherwise maintaining the 'horse stance'. He took a deep breath and relaxed in bits and pieces, concentrating on moving individual sets of muscles. He began at the lower back and slowly worked out toward the extremities.
'What are you up to, Barry?'
"This hurts, Ranma. I think memories of my own body are confusing yours. When I was riding, I'd do this when I was stiff from a fall or out of balance with myself..."
'Barry, if you're goofin' off 'cause it's hard, I'm gonna be real disappointed,' Ranma said grumpily. 'You can't lie to me anymore than I can lie to you. 'Sides, the only way to learn is to do!'
"Yes, Master Yoda!"
'Sheesh! Why can't I get any respect around here?'
"Rodney Dangerfield you're not," returned an amused Barry.
'C'mon, Barry, spill it! What's really wrong?'
"Here! Take over your body again and see."
Ranma did and swore. His arms felt like Ryoga or Taro had been pounding on them. "Ite! What happened?"
'I don't think I'm using your muscles right,' Barry said sadly. 'It's not like starting with untrained muscles and gradually building them up as you learn the more advanced forms. Maybe it's like the amateur driver of a racecar. I just need more time and practice to adapt to the equipment available.'
"Hmmm…" Ranma moved through a kata, stretching and exploring the damage. "No lasting harm, I guess." He sank down on his haunches to think, just in time for the overcast skies to cut loose again.
"Damn!" Ranma stood up, shook the water out of her red hair and stalked to the tent. "This weather ain't helpin' either!"
Inside the tent, Ranma poured a cup of hot water. Then, as agreed upon with Barry, he slowly sank a finger into the hot liquid. The finger made it almost to the third knuckle before the change happened. Ranma withdrew the finger and frowned at it.
"Man, I hate that!"
'It was a little odd, wasn't it?'
"Wadja mean? It was just... I dunno, slow?"
'That's not what I meant,' returned Barry excitedly. 'Even though it was your hand in the water, the change started in your head. It was like sitting in front of a searchlight turning on.'
"Yer point is?"
'Maybe the curse could be controlled through psychology, self-hypnotism for example. You know… if you don't think it feels hot or cold…"
"Nope. Won't work. The old ghoul stuck me in girl-form for six weeks with the Full-Body Cat's Tongue; even tepid water felt boiling hot. And only real hot water would let me change." Ranma shivered at the memory. "Guess we try going back, huh? Wonderful! (Snarl!)"
Barry felt queasy and it wasn't from the change. Didn't anyone ever stop torturing this boy? In the now open memories, he felt the young man's horror at his loss of 'manhood' and his fear that, due to the ridiculous but horribly dangerous old woman called Cologne, he might never regain it. What was even worse to Ranma was that, during this time, the eternal female problem had finally caught up with her. Ranma had not really believed, until then, that his change had been anything but topology. Having her first period certainly changed that! Even now, Ranma blocked the memory of her first period to a degree, as well as the subsequent, irregularly occurring, quietly endured events, filtering them out as an embarrassing, messy topic best ignored. It was the penultimate indignity of a curse that made his unique training the door prize instead of a crowning achievement. It was fortunate that Kasumi was an early riser and that the eldest Tendo sister had tremendous discretion. Ranma's pride would not have allowed him reveal his weakness to his fiancée, their fathers or the mercenary Nabiki. Barry hoped this young man never had to endure what he would consider the ultimate indignity, and quickly turned his thoughts to less dangerous subject matter.
Slowly, Ranma reached his hand catch some of the downpour. Barry shuddered as Ranma's dampening hand triggered the change. The transfer back to female was faster than the change to male, and this time Barry's perception of the event was like watching the trail of a lightning strike from cloud to horizon. The event left an almost perceptible after-image and Barry attempted to discover if this was significant. Once upon a time, Barry had run a role-playing fantasy game and read extensively about magic and the supernatural. The real thing, however, just beat all! Originally, Barry was expecting the change to focus on the sex organs, since that seemed to be the most obvious alteration, and he had focused his attention there. The change had practically blown him out of his seat, so to speak, instead originating somewhere inside the skull not far from the base of the neck. Repeated transformations should allow for analysis and permit Ranma to get a handle on this curse.
Again the hot water and Barry shuddered once more as the strings of light convulsed and reshaped in a wave. Male replaced female. Barry shook his head.
Hmmm… When Ranma growled and stuck his hand into the rain, the lightshow again shuddered from someplace in the brain out to the extremities. It definitely matched the form of the human body. Was he observing the nervous system? Nervous? Heh! He sure was, especially with the threat of enduring a woman's period! Barry really didn't want to be around on the receiving end for one of those… Uh-oh! Hold that thought. Queasiness, irritability…
'Hey, ah, Ranma,' he asked, warily, 'when is the next one due?'
"Next what?" Ranma peered under the tent flap at the falling rain, muttering crankily. She stopped just short of inserting the tip of her finger in the shallow bowl of hot water.
'Your next... you know...'
Ranma was not in the mood for the word games. "Next what?"
Then Barry understood. 'Awww, nuts! What a time to visit!'
Ranma grimaced as a cramp impinged on her awareness. Quickly, she dumped the hot water over her head and changed.
"Barry, I think we'll pick this up later."
Akane did a wonderful job convincing everyone she was going into a deep depression. Her father was in tears, convinced, despite Ranma's promise to return, that it was all over and the schools would never be joined. Nabiki became more brittle than ever and occasionally prodded her sister in clumsy attempts to raise her spirits. Even Kasumi went about with a worried look, though her worries actually concerned a certain black pot-bellied pig.
P-chan suspended his escape attempts when Akane started to act strange. He sat in her lap and did his best to cheer her up. Ryoga was frightened to the depths of his soul at what was planned for him, but he wouldn't desert his love at a time like this. Damn Ranma for making her suffer so!
Akane was unhappy, but hardly suffering. Her uncharacteristic quiet had more to do with internal planning and the fact that Ranma was not there for her to get upset at. That she would be seeing him without any of her competitors in only a week, had her on edge and uncertain what to hope for.
"Damn that note," she muttered. 'What had he meant by it? Why had he scratched out the word 'love'? Why…'
Periodically her internal conversations would leave her in tears, as imaginary discussions with her fiancé ended in screaming and pummeling. Other conversations went so far the other way that she curled into a ball and hid her face in shame at her fantasies.
The fact that she wasn't sleeping much did make it easier in one way for P-chan. The pig probably endured far worse beatings in Akane's bed when she was asleep than he ever did at Ranma's hands as Ryoga. Akane was an active and violent sleeper. However, the inexperienced and terminally shy martial artist — he never looked at her even semi-undressed without passing out — barely appreciated this advantage, just as he was equally clueless as to what to do about her emotional state.
She had not, as she habitually did, told him her troubles; she was concerned about tipping her hand to Nabiki or one of the rivals who might be surreptitiously listening in. So, in her silence, P-chan suffered and his day of reckoning came closer.
Kasumi was very worried. She was as disappointed as anyone could be that Ryoga had been abusing his welcome so long, posing as Akane's pet. Still, actually sending Ryoga to be ca-ca-cas— (oh, my!), fi-fi-fix— (Oh, dear!) She would not let that happen. It went far beyond honor, for heaven's sake. She pondered how she could possibly help Ryoga escape without letting him know she knew about P-chan. She supposed, if worst came to worst, she could drop him on the way to the veterinarian's office, but the lost-boy had a distressing tendency of turning up where it was most dangerous for him. If she weren't careful, he'd show up on the examination table just when she was explaining how he'd gotten away. Perhaps she could encourage Akane to leave early. Yes, with more time she might manage to improvise something. She picked up the phone and made a call, then went to the foot of the stairs.
"Akane-chan!"
Akane had been in the midst of one of the 'good' ones, the fantasies that made her wonder for the umpteenth time who was really the pervert in this relationship. She vaguely heard her sister, but was so involved in what had become a dream, she didn't respond at first. Then she over-reacted, jerking awake with a half-voiced scream that tossed a drooping P-chan off her lap to the floor and caused her to follow him off the bed in a slide and nearly squish him. She panted, half from the fear of discovery, half from reaction to her dream, and barely stifled a scream again as something squirmed under her rear end.
"Poor baby!" she cried, realizing what she had done and scooping up the half-conscious pig. She cuddled him in apology.
'Owie!' groaned P-chan. 'H-h-heavy!'
The rest of the family, already on edge from her prior behavior, jammed in the door like a remake of an old slapstick comedy. Kasumi arrived last and, after peering over their shoulders, opened the way and moved gracefully into the room. Akane did wonder briefly at the hostile looks directed at her pet.
"What!"
"Akane-chan, I really think you need a change of scenery. Why don't you leave to visit Aunt Makiko, early? She hasn't seen you since you were little and she tells wonderful tales about Mother." Kasumi's gentle smile grew wider and she tipped her head with a slight shake as Akane started to protest that it was too early.
"B-but, Kasumi, it… I… uh, what about P-chan?" Akane recovered slightly better than normal. "He's going to need me." Akane really didn't like the idea of anyone operating on her pet, but the thought of keeping him closer to home made it tempting.
That was when Kasumi did one of the hardest things in her life.
She lied. Blatantly. Without flinching. Without even a quiver. Right to Akane's face.
"I'm sure he'll be fine. (Lie.) He'll be waiting for you when you come back. (Lie.) We'll keep him shut in your room and I'll check on him every day. (Lie.) I'm sure that after a week or so, he won't even notice that anything's missing. (Oh, boy! what a whopper!)"
P-chan grew more and more concerned at Kasumi's words. He really shivered at the 'not notice anything's missing'. But his real reaction came at Akane's reply.
"Well, okay, Kasumi. I guess I'm just being paranoid. ('What?') I'm sure P-chan will be all right with you. ('Oh, no, Akane! You can't mean...') I mean I might just upset him more or hurt him accidentally. ("Bwee!" 'Please, Akane!') It'll be best if I'm not here." ('I'm Doomed!')
Akane handed P-chan to Kasumi and began to pull clothes to pack. Kasumi looked down at the piglet, remembered that this was in fact Ryoga and passed him on to her father, with whom she was upset for maneuvering her into this fiasco. Soun, still tearing from his earlier wailing, looked down at P-chan and grimaced, holding the little animal away from his body.
P-chan, scared, frustrated and depressed, promptly bit Soun on the arm. Reactions from there were predictable.
"AAAAHHHH!"
"Growf!" )'He BIT you!'(
"HE'S BITING ME!"
"Dad! You're scaring him!" (BAM!)
"Oh, my!"
"Does this mean we get free bacon, instead of a vet bill?"
"Nabiki!"
"Just checking..."
"Honestly!"
It took all of Kasumi's skill to repair the damage, bandage her father's hand (and head) and convince Akane that she really should go to Aunt Makiko... Even if her father was beginning to act like Ranma, picking on the poor little thing.
"wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh..."
Ranma, in girl-type, snored in a ridiculously indelicate manner. Barry, the unwanted, ever-present visitor, figuratively twiddled his thumbs and debated what to do. He could and did sleep (and wanted to), or at least to shut down and experience something like it, but Ranma's snores combined with the unusual feelings of menstruation had disturbed his rest, only to be expected, given the circumstances.
Everything was soaked and they had to make a lean-to back among the trees. The structure kept off the worst of the weather and Ranma knew some tricks for staying warm using the soft new growth of fir trees as a blanket, but they couldn't escape the wet at this point.
Ranma as a boy, almost never snored; but the girl form, if she lay on her back, sawed logs enthusiastically with a cute little chirping sigh at the release of each breath. After a few hundred of those, it ceased to be cute, entertaining or anything else, except annoying. The cramps didn't help either, though they hadn't disturbed the girl yet. Cautiously, Barry tried extending his control in an attempt to roll the girl back over on her side.
Nothing happened. He couldn't get the control he needed. 'Dammit!' In fact, he couldn't get anything beyond a skin flinch reaction. 'Well, maybe I can cause her to move if I make the skin flinch enough. Hmmm… What do I do if I've got a twitch? Let's try...' What he did get was a low moan and a weird sense of altered muscle control and tension in the girl's frame. He immediately suspended operations to evaluate what happened.
His earlier success had been to twitch an involuntary response along Ranma's left leg. He had managed this by accident, but it had been the final stimulus that allowed him to see that net of energy he glimpsed during the girl-type/boy-type changes. It made him aware of access to a whole network of energy fields and flows. The main stream traveled in a loop within the body, its source approximately centered behind the navel and curling over at its highest point near the brain stem. At its lowest point, it reached the groin and traveled up to the source again. The nervous system?
'No,' Barry thought, 'They're not nerves.' He'd seen book illustrations of the human nervous system and this didn't look right. Besides, the whole thing pulsed faintly in time to Ranma's breathing. He looked at the nets of energy and the relationships. In some incomprehensible way, the loop of energy was the source, in turn, of field effects that enveloped the body and existed as part of a matrix of clusters and lines of energy.
As he traced various lines, he noted that many seemed to associate with specific areas of the body. The strongest ones were centrally located and sent influence throughout the body. Hmmm… Maybe this was that ki stuff Ranma had been trying to tell him about. Some of the strongest associations, in fact the ones he had been gently tweaking, seemed to be associated with an area located deep within the body, sending delicate streamers throughout the torso. The main associations, however, extended from somewhere around the kidneys down into the groin area...
'Uh-oh!' He realized now, that these particular lines had nothing to do with major muscular control. They did, however, ah… influence things. His last attempt, where he had tried to tickle Ranma's side had gotten a tickle all right, just not in the side.
'Bad, bad, BAD!' Barry mentally smacked his hand and kicked himself in the rear. Groping Ranma from the inside out was not where he wanted to go. He just hoped the teenager would pass it off as a dream or something. God help him if he had clamped down on those controls, instead of using his lightest touch. He had a brief vision of Ranma clutching herself screaming 'Pervert!'
He spread his awareness again and was surprised to note that the energy fields that were uniquely Ranma coexisted with another set of fields. The two sets overlapped but were not the same. When he investigated the second set, it responded the way his hands would respond to his intent. Apparently, the second field was uniquely Barry Barlowe. 'Am I seeing my soul?' He noticed that his field, or aura or whatever it was, was not pulsing like Ranma's. It was steady but much dimmer. Frowning to himself, Barry sought to match up his network with Ranma's. Maybe it would help? Besides, it took his mind off that annoying snoring.
He fiddled with his ki for a while, finally encouraging it to work with Ranma's. As the network began to pulse and glow, he felt an odd sense of accomplishment. He had no idea what he'd done but, if it imitated Ranma's far better trained systems, it had to be good, right? A yawn caught Barry by surprise as Ranma shifted slightly.
Ranma's continued snores intensified with the shifted position, allowing her mouth to open even wider. A tiny trickle of drool escaped the side of her mouth. Barry could feel it tickling along a cheek and begged for motor control to do something about it. Tickling, tickling...
Delicately, Barry reached past the profusion of sexually oriented energy, to a line that had several light clusters along Ranma's sides.
For a change, it worked.
Ranma twitched, rolled over and stopped snoring. Barry sighed in relief. He'd check with Ranma in the morning about his new discovery and see how it might help in their quest for safer cohabitation or Barry's ultimate ejection and, hopefully, return to his own world. He slowly let go of consciousness...
"wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh..."
'Awww, shit!'
Ranma was on her back again. Barry sighed and reached for the energy lines that had triggered the skin twitch he'd used successfully earlier. This was going to be a long, long night.
The mists thinned as the sun rose over the top of the ridge and struck down into the valley. Had Barry Barlowe been there as a corporeal body, he would have been exhausted with bloodshot, dry eyes and a mouth that tasted like an old boot. Ranma, in girl-form at least, seemed to prefer sleeping on her back.
"wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh..."
'Yo, Ranma! Wake up!'
"wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh..."
'Hmmm. Look, it's Kuno!' Barry imaged Tatewaki Kuno approaching with roses. 'Indeed fortune smiles upon the house of Kuno,' the image orated with a flourish of the bouquet, 'for in this fragrant bower do I find the one I seek. Come, date with me!'
"Mrrug, kill ya, ya hentai...wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh... wwwWWAAH! AHHhhhh..."
Barry briefly considered projecting an image of Ranma in the grip of Kodachi, Shampoo and Ukyo, the three enthusing on how they would share him, then introduce Akane to the picture... Nah! There were boundaries one should not cross. Much as he hated to do it, he'd just have to wake Ranma the other way. Disgusted, he 'pinged' one of the energy nets he had tried so hard to avoid the night before.
"wwWWWWAAA!-UUUuu-AGH!" Ranma surged to her feet, warbling like some strange jungle bird, rubbing her breast.
'Rise and shine, Ranma-chan,' caroled Barry with false cheerfulness.
She looked around then sought within, growling. "Barry, did you do that? Cause if ya did, and I ever get my hands on ya..."
'Yeah, yeah. Look, sleeping beauty, you go ahead and start the daily routine. I still need a few winks.'
"Didn't sleep well, huh? You'll get used ta it if we're stuck this way long."
'The time of the month, you mean?' Barry replied unfazed. 'That wasn't what kept me awake. Anyone ever tell you, you snore?'
"Huh? Since when?"
Barry replayed a portion of the previous night for Ranma.
"Gaak! That is so-o-o un-cute!"
'Since when did you care about that?' Barry replied with a mental snort. 'The only good thing about last night was that I found out something new about our condition here. I woke you using that information.'
"Bar-r-ry-y!" Ranma's face flamed in confused reaction. "Don't even think about doing that again..."
'Jeez! Don't be a pervert, Ranma! You just do your thing and I'll go along for the snooze.' There was a feeling like the slamming of a door and Ranma was essentially alone for the first time in days.
She tested the water in the thermos and grimaced, looking at the looming skies. It was too wet to start the fire yet. As she lowered one of the caches to get some food — dried fruit and salted meat — thunder rolled and boomed across the hills as intense, scattered thunderheads moved through. The result of sun, rain and lightning would have been awe-inspiring under other circumstances, but the girl who should be a boy was less than enthused. More rain meant longer as a girl and that definitely wasn't a good thing right now. She glanced at the fruit and sniffed to identify it.
"Peachy," Ranma muttered as lightning crackled against the trees on the cliff above the lake, "Just peachy!" She chewed noisily.
Ukyo Kuonji stood behind the counter at Ucchan's carefully finishing an okonomiyaki supreme for another hungry customer. With Ranma who-knew-where and her attempt to find out foiled, it was hurry up and wait. She felt she had well and truly burned her bridges with this last act. It had been obvious to Akane that she was spying. She doubted the girl would ever forgive her now. She was a little surprised that it mattered. With a sigh and a flourish, the okonomiyaki was presented to her customer. Then she paused, as there were no other orders this late.
She found she missed Konatsu's company. She felt nothing romantically for the cross-dressing ninja, but he had been a comforting presence around the shop. The kunoichi left after the wedding, expressing his disapproval the only way he could, once words failed.
Why couldn't he see that she had to stop the wedding! It was wrong. She was Ranma's 'cute fiancée', after all. The family had been forcing the two into it with the Nannichuan water. Even Nabiki thought so. Yet the look in Ranma's eyes, both during the insanity of the failed wedding and the two times he had seen her since…
Some of the customers had asked after what they thought was a very pretty, if slightly broad-shouldered, girl. Ukyo made excuses, mentioning family problems, expressing hope that Konatsu would return, but not attempting to hide the fact that she felt she had burned her bridges there, too.
The last customer finished, paid and left. Ukyo brought in her banner and locked the door as she had many times before. She cleaned the grill, the dishes and tools and put everything away for the next day; the next lonely, empty day, with nothing resolved and no one to talk to or share her troubled heart with.
She slumped on a stool and took stock in herself: She was Ukyo Kuonji, age seventeen (just), okonomiyaki chef extraordinaire, master of Okonomiyaki-ninjitsu, heir to the Kuonji family recipes, and owner/operator of Ucchan's. She was the 'cute fiancée', the best choice among the three 'legitimate' rivals, and Ranma Saotome's oldest friend. She rated so highly he waived the criminal and civil charges that should have been brought against her for disrupting his wedding and attacking his bride. It had even forced him to avoid accusing the Kunos and the China gang. Too bad, because if anybody deserved it…
Ukyo suddenly stopped herself and considered that last bit by again in a new light. She had done the same thing as the China gang and the Loonies. They, in her opinion, deserved to be arrested and/or deported, like the dangerous gaijin they were, because of how they had chased, threatened and hurt Ranma. Last week, she had done the same thing. His best friend?
Suddenly, Ukyo got a clue.
Ucchan's did not reopen the next day.