Enjoy!
Tears
Chapter Two: Duet of Blue Eyes
The beach was a hot one. It was the end of summer and school was beginning to re-open all over Tokyo, so fortunately the beach Ranma and Genma arrived upon was not quite as populated as it could have been.
Needless to say, however, it was populated. And many a person feinted with shock when a Panda held up a sign to them, inquiring them of the knowledge to the whereabouts of the Nerima ward of Tokyo.
It was much easier for Ranma and Genma to acquire the needed directions when Ranma asked, as she was technically human.
"Tokyo's to the southwest… bout two hours drive yonder that'a'way." said an elderly man, when Ranma questioned him.
"Thank you very much!" Ranma replied with a formal bow. The bow was accompanied by her Panda who stood a few feet behind her.
The man was impressed, to be sure.
Ranma and Genma set off towards Tokyo on foot. If they went fast, two hours drive could be the same as about ten hours, speed walk.
The trip was made in silence as both of the two had little to say, until suddenly Ranma broke the silence.
"Pops…" Ranma questioned suddenly.
Genma moved in step beside his daughter and replied with a casual sign, "Yes?"
"I was… well I was wonderin'…" Ranma asked slowly. "Wondering… what my mother was like?"
Genma's bear face spread into a wide grin. "She was beautiful… had almost an exact copy of your face. Her hair curls completely different. When she was younger she and you would have been twins… now her hair is an off-red sort of brown… as if it faded with a little age… or at least that's what she looked like when I left her…" Genma said.
Ranma frowned… she had actually wanted details about her personality… not her appearance… but that would have to do.
"Ok." She replied dejectedly.
Genma noticed this but kept silent, knowing that whatever he said would make whatever problem Ranma was having, worse… his words had an odd way of doing that.
They arrived in Nerima around six thirty. The sun still stood in the sky, shining down in that beautiful, yet annoying way that it does whenever everywhere you look you're blinded by it.
"So where do we go pops?" Ranma asked.
Genma's sign replied simply, "Just follow me."
They walked for about seven more blocks into this strangely calm city. The sight of an enormous panda bear, though odd, didn't seem to frighten people as it should. They appeared to be more in a state of shock then actual fright.
Sooner or later they came upon a walled off, expensive looking home in a more secluded section of the ward. The house was enormous, and the lawn was… for lack of a better word enourmouser A small pond decorated the backyard, while a slim path led to a dojo that held a sign reading "Saotome School of Indiscriminate Grappling." The cobwebs adorning the entrance signaled that the place was rather unused.
"Welcome home Ranma." Genma's sign read. With that, the panda proceeded to hop into a tree and climb to the very top of it. Ranma followed silently as a young woman walked out of the front door.
"Groowwwf." Came a low, longing sort of moan from the Panda.
"Is that…?" Ranma began. At Genma's nod it was confirmed… this was her mother.
"The woman looked up into the bright, setting sun, fortunately not at them and then turned back to the house. "Ryaine, aren't you supposed to be somewhere?" The woman turned and shouted back into the house.
"Going! Going!" came a quick reply from a voice that sounded so similar to Ranma's that Ranma thought she had spoken.
Ranma rushed out of the house. Or at least Ranma thought that Ranma rushed out of the house. Granted it was a Ranma with long and unbound hair falling down about her shoulders, wearing a red skirt and shirt that had no similarities at all to the REAL Ranma's Chinese clothing. But the similarities were uncanny.
"Boy…" Genma said suddenly.
Ranma glanced at him for a moment and then said "Pops… do I have a-"
"Unbound your hair boy… I doubt it. Your mother would never betray me for another man… I know it." Genma's signs read. Then he repeated "Unbound your hair."
Ranma did so, and let her long red hair fall… it was a lot dirtier than the girl who stood below her… It didn't have the same luster and gleam as the girl… Ryaine had. However, there was no doubt that it was the same color and so incredibly similar that it would be hard to believe Ranma and Ryaine were not sisters. Ryaine had not filled out as much in the chest department, nor was she quite as tall as Ranma was. But those were the only differences.
Ranma moved forward to one of the outermost branches of the tree for a better look.
"-back in two hours, at nine o'clock." The woman known as Nodoka was saying to her daughter.
"Rraowr," Genma muttered, trying to get his son's attention. Ranma paid him no heed as she traveled further out the branch.
"RAOWWR!" Genma growled slightly louder but still received no indication that Ranma had heard him at all. Ranma's eyes lay transfixed on the woman that was her mother, and the girl that appeared to be a younger sister.
She felt odd with her hair unbound, caressing her shoulders… she didn't like it very much either but at the moment it didn't matter. Another branch closer… another… another… SNAP!
"OW!" Came the great yelp as Ranma banged her arm on a limb and then slammed face first into the dirty ground beneath the tree.
"Crap…" Genma thought. He bounded away… it would be very odd for them to find a Giant Panda in their tree along with the girl who looked so similar. Also… Genma was on the verge of tears… how could his wife? How could she have… have…? And for her to have a child so old! Did she remain faithful to him for only a year…? Maybe two? That… that… whore!
Genma disappeared into the words on the outskirts of Nerima as Ranma and Ryaine locked eyes.
"My word!" Nodoka muttered as she looked at the dirty girl who was wearily raising herself from the ground.
"Aw Damnit! Argg! I liked this shirt!" Ranma cried as she stared at her ripped shirt. She coughed and sputtered a little bit of dirt from her mouth, glanced at her arm and shrugged at the bruise. It was just one of many. She stood and then stared into the eyes of a slightly shorter version of herself.
"A-are you alright?" Nodoka asked in a sort of shocked tone.
"Ye-yeah…" Ranma replied, not taking her eyes off of Ryaine.
Ranma and Ryaine began to circle each other… each inspecting the other in almost the exact same way. It was a scary sort of mirror effect.
"Who are you?" Ryaine suddenly asked cocking her head to the left.
"Who are you?" Ranma replied with a question of her own, using the same motion.
"Ryaine Saotome." Ryaine replied casually as she stopped circling.
"Miss, what is your name?" Nodoka asked.
Ranma tore her gaze away from one set of blue eyes, only to look into a face that was freakishly similar to her own as well. Similar in an older to younger sort of way but similar nonetheless.
"I'm Ran-er…"
Suddenly Ranma remembered what Genma had told her a few days previous. "She can't… Ranma… when I took you, when you were two years old, I made a contract with your mother. I told her that… if I didn't make you a "man among men" then you, I, and her, would commit… Seppuku."
"-Really late! I'd better be going! Sorry to bother you!" Ranma exclaimed.
With that Nodoka was greeted with an act that she hadn't seen done since her husband had left her sixteen years ago. The girl bounded upward to the upper most wall and then forward out of sight into the sunset, towards the north.
"Who… was that mom?" Ryaine asked, in a confused sort of tone.
"I… I think it… it might be… Well… she was so… similar…" Nodoka thought of how the girl had fallen from the tree, bringing back a memory of a time when she first met her husband.
Nodoka was young… about seventeen. She was beautiful, with long red hair, just like her mother had had… and her mother before that. It was a strange trait within the girls of the family.
Many people thought her odd for her strange habit, but every sunny day when the sun was going down, Nodoka would come out to the front of her home and stare at the eastern sunset. She had always done it and she assumed she always would, no matter where she was.
It just so happened to be something she was doing at this very moment. The sun was almost half way down… half way visible from where the walls circling the house ended.
Suddenly she heard a loud "THUD" on the ground and glanced over to where the sound had come from. There she saw a young man… right around her age, lying in the dirt beneath an old oak tree.
"Aw damnit! Argg! I liked this shirt!" The man cried as he stared at his ripped shirt.
"A-are you ok, sir?" Nodoka asked as she moved towards him.
Suddenly he looked up and their eyes met. His were transfixed, glossed over in a hazy sort of adoration. Hers were simply confused. "A-are you alright?" She repeated.
"Ye-yeah…" came the reply.
"Here… let me help you up… wh-who are you?" She asked as she moved towards him.
"Genma Saotome… but… No, no trouble…I'm um… I'm really late! I'd better be going! Sorry to bother you!" He exclaimed.
With that, he stood and bounded to the wall, then up and over the wall and out of sight.
Nodoka had been shocked and amazed to say the least… and that was not her last encounter with Genma Saotome.
"So what do you think?" Ryaine asked her mother again.
Snapping from her reverie Nodoka looked to her daughter and answered. "It's not important daughter. What is important is that you're going to be late for your date."
"EEK!" Ryaine shrieked. "Bye mom!"
With that, another red-head sped away from the Saotome Home.
Nodoka sighed and watched as the sun finally moved below the horizon. "Ranma… was that you?" She asked herself.
Ranma followed Genma's tracks into the woods until she found herself stumbling towards a recently made camp. Suddenly, she was ambushed.
"Foolish boy! Don't you know your own weight? You should have known that branch would snap!" The signs flew at Ranma as he caught and read them one by one.
"Aw come on pops! It's not everyday someone finds out they have a sister!" Ranma exclaimed.
"That girl is NOT your sister!" The next volley of signs read.
Ranma looked at father skeptically as she weaved in and out of his barrage of signs. "Pops… I'm sorry but it looks to me like mom found herself another man." Ranma said plainly.
"RRROOWWWRRRR!" Genma roared. Suddenly an enormous vacuum blade erupted from Genma's slicing hand.
Ranma yelped for a moment before the blade narrowly missed her. "Pops! Pops settle down! Forbidden remember? Forbi-ACK!" Ranma exclaimed as she dodged three more along with no less then seven signs.
Ranma turned to face the panda again, only to find him holding her shirt lifting her into the air to his level. She wasn't sure how it happened but a sign floated behind him saying simply, in bolded capital words "TAKE THAT BACK!"
"Ok! Ok! Pops! I take it back!" Ranma said in a defensive and worried position. Ranma knew that she could have defeated her father yet again… he was letting excessive anger control his attacking. Ranma had done it herself on occasion, but she didn't think she had ever seen her father so angry.
Genma sighed and his burning eyes lightened. He lowered his daughter to the ground. "Ranma… Do-"
"I know pops… don't lose your control… it happens. For what it's worth… sorry." Ranma apologized as she put down the sign he was holding up.
Genma turned and hobbled away into a darker portion of the woods. Suddenly Ranma intercepted another sign that read. "What else do I have to teach you boy?"
Ranma looked into the shaded wood where her father was surely hiding. She sighed, dejectedly. "She is related to me though… her name… is Saotome." Ranma said into the forest.
The sound of a Panda weeping was quite possibly the most saddening and odd sound that Ranma had ever heard.
"Pop… come on… maybe… it's possible that… that… I…" Ranma stopped there. Her words were not consoling. They never had been and she knew it.
An hour later, Genma came out of the forest, into the campsite where Ranma had been training in the use of Umi-sen-ken.
She attacked him instantly, giving him something else to put his mind on. Genma smiled at his child, though she didn't know it. They fought longer and harder then they ever had before, causing many a tree to fall and many a branch to snap.
It was late in the night and one Genma Saotome was sneaking. He had a plan. It was a good plan if he could pull it off. All in all Genma wasn't very smart. But when he needed something… something as vital as the knowledge that his wife had betrayed him or not… he could be a genius. All he had to do was create a few records… If he could do that… then maybe…
The computer terminal was old and under used. Fortunately it worked just fine. The hospital was not too old. Ranma had been born there but in Genma's day, it hadn't existed. Viewing the computerized records of the place's child births he found exactly what he was looking for.
Ranma Saotome: Male
Born: May 21, 1982.
Son of:
Father: Genma Saotome
And
Mother: Nodoka Saotome
Genma smiled. He was glad he had remembered the password and username of the old doctor that had deliver his son…
Within the system he created a new child that had allegedly been born. A fake child that had never truly existed. It took a while due to the fact that typing with paws was rather difficult but he did it none the less.
Miruka Haisu: Female
Born: May 21, 1982.
Daughter of:
Father: Keno Haisu
And
Mother: Areyka Haisu.
His job at the hospital done, he moved onward to a funeral home. Creating new records, (Which luckily for him were kept on paper this time) of death of Areyka Haisu.
Areyka Haisu
Born: June 24, 1964 - Died: June 17, 1983.
Buried: June 21, 1983
at
Nerima's Cemetary
Genma smiled at himself.
The police station was a place he preferred to not be. But it was necessary.
Missing Persons Report:
Filed: July 12th, 1984.
Two person(s) have been reported missing. Their home has been left untouched for the last three months and the whereabouts of said person(s) are unknown. These person(s) are Keno Haisu and Miruka Haisu. This parent and daughter have disappeared without a trace.
Genma had to look at several other missing person reports before he considered his faked missing person's report was elaborate enough. There were, fortunately, a few missing person reports without photographs. If it became important then someone would find simply a less than detailed missing person's report. Now if someone REALLY looked into it then Ranma would be in trouble.
Genma just hoped that didn't happen.
Morning came as it always does. This morning was a bright and shiny one. It didn't reflect Genma's mood very well but Ranma was quite happy. She had finally mastered most of the forms of the Yami-sen-ken. Now all she had to do was integrate the style in with her own and blend attacks from it with ones from her current repertoire and her mastery of it would be complete.
"Ranma." Genma wrote. "I have plan."
Ranma stopped in a joking state of utter shock.
"Oh it's not that amazing… I've come up with a few before." Genma signed to his daughter's shocked face. "Now, here's what we're going to do. You have to go to school."
"School… But… I haven't… I don't need anything they teach there!" Ranma exclaimed.
Genma had sent Ranma to an all-boy's-school once upon a time, long ago. The boy had to have at least a little brains in him. Six years Ranma had been taken around, changing schools whenever it had become apparent that Ranma was becoming too connected. Fortunately, Ranma had always been a fast learner. In six weeks a seven year old Ranma learned how to read, write, add, subtract, multiply, and divide. In another six, at a different school of course, he had learned preliminary algebra and had gained an articulate vocabulary, along with slight knowledge of science applications.
But Ranma had not returned to a school since his fourteenth birthday, when he had left for China.
"Well, Ranma I can think of no better way to get you in touch with that girl. So… last night I did some tampering. I got you some records. If you don't mind wearing another name… at least for a little while…?" Genma told his daughter.
"I… I guess pop." Ranma said sullenly.
Genma's eyes lit up but no signs appeared. What did appear, however, was a piece of paper with a lot of writing on it.
"My name is Miruka Haisu?" Ranma asked. "Where'd you come up with that?"
A sign appeared in Genma's hand that said "Made it up."
"My mom died when I was little so when I was two my father took me on a sixteen year training trip in China." Ranma read aloud. "Not too much of it was a lie pops!"
She read on.
"On the way my father taught me all this academic skills that I know…" Ranma read. "Ok… now you're pushin' it…"
"Ranma… please?" Genma asked. The begging in his eyes told Ranma just how much he wanted to know what had become of his wife.
Ranma sighed. "You owe me father."
"I know son… I shouldn't… have to send you to school as a girl but…" Genma wrote. He resented having to express his grief in written word but he had no choice. At least he was becoming a master of penmanship…
An hour later and in her best clothing, which was a Chinese shirt and slick baggy pants, found Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial arts, walking to school. She was in a much more angry and sad mood than she had been that morning.
"New body… new name… I'm probably way more girly now than I ever was before… damnit… why does kami so desperately want me to be a girl?" Ranma mumbled to herself. After a moment of wondering, she thought, "How in the world do I know what "desperately" means?"
Unbeknownst to her, another shimmering golden tear slid down her cheek and onto the concrete below the fence upon which she walked. Sooner or later she decided that the people staring at her probably were beginning to think she was weird, so she hopped down from the fence… just in time to be caught with a splash of water from an elderly lady, holding a ladle, throwing water into the street.
"Just my luck…" Ranma thought.
Suddenly someone behind her began laughing.
"Ah ha ha ha! That old lady never fails to catch you, does she Ryaine?" came a soft, melodic voice.
Ranma turned and was greeted with a face about her age, perhaps a little younger. Blackish-blue waist length hair hung behind her, and her smile was genuinely breath-taking.
"I'… I'm not Ryaine." Ranma sputtered out.
"Oh REALLY!" The girl asked sarcastically. "Then who ARE you?"
Ranma, noticing the girl's playful mood, felt annoyed at being un-believed. "I'm Ra-er Miruka. Do I know you?" She asked in an up-ish sort of tone.
"Cute… so… did you get splashed again this morning Ra-er Miruka?" The girl asked still playfully. "I gotta admit, though. You're taking this ruse a long way. I don't think I've ever seen such a horrible outfit on a girl in my life…"
"Ain't nothin' wrong with my clothes." Ranma said. And with that, she stomped off towards the school.
The black haired girl was left speechless. Then, snapping from her shock, she tried to catch up with the girl whom she thought was her young genius friend.
"Yo! Wait up! Hey!" Ranma heard her cry as she ran to catch up.
"Ry-Ryaine? What's wrong with you?" The girl asked as she walked beside Ranma briskly.
"You! I already told you, I'm not Ryaine." Ranma said angrily. "I'm Miruka."
Suddenly as they approached the school, a shout occurred. "Hi Akane! I- I-it's YOU!" Ryaine cried as she ran stopped next to them.
"Yeah… Nice… to meet you too!" Ranma said sardonically to the younger version of herself.
Meanwhile, Akane, ever since seeing Ryaine approach, looked back and forth between the two in a shocked sort of way. "W-wow… Ryaine… er… um… Miruka… sorry about, well… uh. You know." Akane mumbled.
"No problem." Ranma replied. "Um… now… if you don't mind me askin'… who are you?"
"Eheh… I'm… I'm Akane Tendo of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts!" Akane exclaimed cheerfully.
Ranma's eyes widened.
"…Can you repeat that?" Ranma asked as she twitched.
"Te-tendo School, Anything Goes… Martial Arts?" Akane replied making it sound more like a question then a title.
"I… I see…" Ranma said intelligently.
Suddenly a chorus of shouts arose, with the name Akane Tendo rolling through the air like a repetitive song. It was a very bad song, too.
"You two better step back." Akane said suddenly. Then, she charged into an oncoming crowd of what appeared to be young men screaming. "I… HATE… BOYS!"
Ranma felt odd thinking it but she somehow couldn't help it. She knew she wasn't very high on this sort of totem pole as well but her thoughts were something akin to, "How… immature…" The bad thing about it was Ranma wasn't sure if she was referring to Akane or the boys… Probably the boys though.
Also, knowing that immature was yet another word she would have never learned to understand, had she not been transformed, she sighed and walked forward over mounds of disabled bodies.
"I agree." came her own voice from right next to her.
"Huh?" Ranma replied.
"How immature…" Ryaine said suddenly.
"H… how did y-?" Ranma asked suddenly but was interrupted.
"Your face looked just like mine usually does. You're unlucky. They chase me too so I'm sure they'll mistake you for me. I'm Ryaine by the way since we haven't met formally yet. It's Nice to meet you!" Ranma's look-a-like told her.
"I'm Ranma." Ranma replied, shaking her hand firmly.
To say Ryaine was shocked would be akin to saying that a supernova was pretty powerful.
Ranma, who, in truth, was Ranma and not Miruka, didn't catch her mistake at all. She walked into the school, never noticing her shocked sister's face.
Ryoga Hibiki was in a state of pure and utter calm. He ran through his katas the same way he had two years before. His muscles were stronger. Apparently, training in his little pig form to create strength had ten-folded his current ability. Ryoga wasn't certain of this of course. It could easily be something else… but Ryoga doubted it.
"Oh RYYOOOOOGA!" came the soothing, sultry, seductive voice of his lover. After three days of almost constant… ahem… payback, Ryoga had finally gotten the time to train. And here the girl was, interrupting again… how in the hell was he supposed to get his revenge on the Red-haired girl and ESPECIALLY Ranma Saotome if this girl kept constantly seducing him?
How?
…Girls really were a distraction to the art… just like his father had told him when he was nine years old.
"Yes, Makiri?" Ryoga replied annoyed.
Makiri, who had edged around it for almost every time she had asked, decided to put it bluntly this time. "Do me."
Ryoga's eyes widened as her outer clothing simply disappeared. Ryoga sighed. He was beginning to ache down there…
The first time, about three days ago when Ryoga had lost his virginity, He had been clumsy and not very good at making his lover happy. Now he was a seasoned master and it annoyed him. She had made fun of him, saying that no matter his size, he had no skill and was a pathetic lover.
Needless to say, he had proven her wrong and now the girl wouldn't leave him alone!
"Can't I just… you know… go now!" Ryoga asked.
"No." Makiri replied simply. "I… I'm really sorry about this… you've actually got me on the rebound… my boyfriend dropped me when he found out I could use magic." The girl said sadly, talking seriously for the first time in Ryoga's memory.
Suddenly she began to cry. "I'm… I'm really sorry… but… could you please… just…"
Ryoga hugged the poor girl. He personally had never been dumped… but he SO hated to see girls cry.
"I'm… uh… sorry?" He whispered in what he hoped was a consoling way.
She just made his shoulder wetter. With that, Ryoga, being the gentleman that he was, tried a different approach.
"If it would make you happy… I could… stay with you…? At least until you get over… whoever it was who left you? Would… that hel"
She kissed him full on the lips, locking her eyes with his.
After an eternity or two, they left each other and Makiri whispered… "Th-thank you.."
She walked away slowly, back towards the tent that they had both been sleeping in.
Ryoga was left wondering whether her answer was "yes" or "no."
"My name is Miruka Haisu. I've been in China for the past sixteen years and have trained all of my life in martial arts. That's all." Ranma said, repeating the same thing she had told the registration office that very morning. They had believed her quickly and when she provided signed information from Keno Haisu… her "father" she was let into school with a schedule quite quickly. While she was reprimanded about the school uniform, Ranma simply replied that if she were made to wear a uniform she would attend elsewhere. Somehow, her sternness had silenced the secretaries.
Most of the class was simply stunned at the similarities between the new girl and Ryaine.
"You can… sit next to… Ryaine, Miruka." the teacher said through her own shock.
Ryaine was staring at Miruka. Fortunately their seats were in the middle of the room, close to the back so when Ryaine slipped Ranma a note, the teacher didn't notice. "My mother always told me I had a brother named Ranma… who are you Miruka?" Ryaine asked.
Ranma sighed as she thought back on her dumb slip. First day and she had already messed up beyond repair.
Ranma sent back an equally important message asking simply. "Who is your father?"
Ryaine looked at him for a moment, confused. Then she simply replied in writing. "My mom always told me it was a man named Genma Saotome. But, not too long ago she told me that…well… she was ra… She… unwillingly participated in sexual acts which led to me. Who are you?"
Ranma felt a huge relief lift from her shoulders. Genma wouldn't be depressed anymore. True he'd be angry and probably take it out on her but that was much better than depressed.
"It's a long story." Ranma's message replied. "Tell you during lunch. I'm Ranma… Ranma Saotome."
Ryaine eyes widened again but she nodded.
With that, Miruka's head hit the desk and she fell asleep tuning out the droning of the teacher, mimicking half the class.
Ryaine watched her, disapprovingly.
End Chapter
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