Chapter 1
As Ranma made her way to the Tendo dojo, unmindful of the attention that she drew from those that she passed by, she reflected on her father's foolishness. Despite having made it quite clear that she wanted to live as a girl, he had refused to accept it and constantly fought with her over it. Just thinking about it made her tail twitch, in a way that conveyed her irritation for any onlooker who couldn't see her face.
Living as a girl hadn't been her first choice, or even her second, but she had been convinced that she would be better off that way. That probably wouldn't have been the case had she turned out to be a normal girl with the usual Jusenkyo curse, but her circumstances were rather unique and ultimately a lot more beneficial considering what they could have been. In the end, said benefits had outweighed her reasons for wanting to be a man, which had mostly been trivial when all had been said and done anyway.
One of those benefits was having a good sense for when some form of misfortune was imminent, and it was at that moment that it began to alert her that something was about to happen. Her cat ears were yet another benefit that had come with her choice, and she realized what the misfortune might be when she heard her father's breathing change. Rather than give him a chance to attack and get away with whatever he had planned for her, she acted quickly and swung him face-first into a nearby lamppost without warning, which returned him to a state of unconsciousness before he could do more than release a startled yelp.
She ignored the shocked and gaping expressions from the people around her as she continued onward, her father once again an insensate mass of flesh as she dragged him along behind her. When she heard the lamppost fall over behind her a few seconds later, she couldn't help chuckling to herself because of another benefit that had come with being a girl: she now surpassed her father in terms of fighting ability, and being the one that came out on top had yet to lose its appeal.
Not long after the incident with her father, as she was about to pass by the entrance to someone's residence, she was once again alerted by a sense of impending misfortune. She paused, guessing that the trouble lie ahead of her because of the sound of splashing water that she had heard earlier, and a few seconds later she saw a ladle toss water onto the sidewalk in front of her, where she would have been at that moment had she continued walking. She didn't have to wait long before she saw an old woman appear from behind the perimeter wall, who began to wash more of the sidewalk in front of her home even though the recent rainfall should have made it unnecessary.
As she waited for the old woman to complete her task, who didn't even seem to notice her presence nearby, she thought of the other reason for why she had chosen to live as a girl: to have more control over her situation. However, she hadn't fully realized the significance of her choice until she had experienced for herself how often she would be exposed to water of either temperature when it was undesirable, rather than from just basing her decision on someone's word of advice alone.
Unlike most individuals cursed by Jusenkyo, she was fortunate enough to be able to consciously stay in her current form as a result of being as much of a spiritual entity as a physical one, due to the nyannichuan curse interacting with the effects of her neko-ken training. As it turned out, the neko-ken training was meant to be traumatic enough to affect one's spirit via the mind, so one could channel the spirit of a cat in order to gain the desired abilities. That had left its mark on her spirit, which the curse had expressed as only something magical in nature might: by manifesting it physically.
While the white cat ears and tail would likely continue to give her some problems as far as living among humans was concerned, she had experienced too much of a nomadic lifestyle to really care about what it might prevent her from doing in more formal settings and lines of work. For someone like her, having better night vision, hearing, sense of smell, flexibility and sense of balance, in addition to being more agile, more than made up for something like that. And as a very welcome bonus, being part-cat allowed her to use the neko-ken without having to be out of her mind.
Best of all, her one, true fear was no longer as much of a problem as it had once been. Thanks to the benefits of being part-cat, she was able to see cats in a new way, due in no small part to the fact that she couldn't very well be afraid of herself. She could now perceive them as equals of sorts, which went a long way in combating her ailurophobia. Now that she was part-cat, she also felt that it would be even more embarrassing to be afraid of them, which served as yet another good incentive to overcome her fear. And with the progress that she had already made toward that end, for the first time she could look forward to the possibility of actually being unafraid of cats in the future, which had its own advantageous effect on the rehabilitation process.
When the old woman had finished her task, who — at her age — had probably done it more out of habit than with any serious thought, Ranma continued onward without further delay. Upon reaching her destination, she stood outside of its walls and stared at the traditional Japanese home that she could see beyond the open gate, unsure of what to do. What her new senses were picking up about the place were nearly overwhelming, and she didn't know what to make of it because it felt neither bad nor good.
Deciding that she would need to find out what it meant for the sake of future reference, and that it would be a waste of time to turn away right at the end of her journey, she resolved to move forward with her original plan. Before doing so, however, she let go of her father's leg and leapt up to the house's roof, so she could get a good idea of where she could toss her father instead of leaving him on the porch or transporting him through the house. Upon finding a suitable location, she returned to her father and tossed him over the wall after swinging him around a few times, making sure that he would land in the garden's koi pond.
After hearing a satisfying splash from well beyond the wall, she wiped imaginary dust away from her hands and made her way to the front door, which she slid open before she announced her presence and stepped into the genkan. Between her father's arrival and her female voice, she wasn't surprised when there was an obvious delay in being received by any of the house's residents. When someone finally made an appearance, they approached her confidently yet cautiously.
The person in question was a middle-aged man who had somewhat long, dark hair and a mustache, and who wore a brown yet otherwise nondescript dōgi. Between her short stature and where she stood, his height towered over her own by a third of a meter, but she could tell that he was fairly tall to begin with. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that a girl around her own age had tagged along with him, who had chosen to stand a bit behind a corner to observe her from a relatively safe location. She had a more modern appearance than the man did, wearing a less than modest pair of cut-off shorts and a tank top, in addition to having her hair cut in a stylish bob.
"Hello," the man greeted her politely. "May I help you?"
Ranma offered him a respectful bow before she said, "I believe you were expecting me, Tendo-san. My name's Saotome Ranma, and—"
"S-Saotome Ranma," the man interrupted in a stutter, who suddenly began to act distressed, "as in: so—child of Saotome Genma?"
"That's me," Ranma confirmed, who watched as the older man began to sweat while his eyes inspected her body from head to toe, as if he hoped to find some sign of maleness beyond the obvious traits of her female form.
The girl chose that moment to leave her hiding spot and soon stood beside the man, whom she glanced at with a measure of contempt as she crossed her arms and remarked, "'No idea,' indeed, dad. 'He' is a girl."
The girl's father proceeded to faint, and Ranma reached out and grabbed his upper arm to prevent him from collapsing. With that taken care of, she looked at the man's daughter with an expression that asked, "How do we proceed?"
The girl released a long-suffering sigh. "Well, since you're the guest that we were expecting anyway," she made a gesture toward her father, "do you think you could bring him in with you?"
After nodding her head and receiving a simple, "thanks," in response, Ranma set aside her backpack and stepped out of her kung-fu shoes at the same time as she did the genkan, all while she continued to hold up the girl's father. She then slung said person over a shoulder and followed the girl into the house proper, who was silent as she led her into the living room.
There wasn't much of note in the living room, but its utility was both expected and welcome. Aside from a few odds and ends that hinted at recent and/or frequent activities, there was a table — a chabudai, to be specific — and a small television set. Around the table were the zabutons that one expected to see, and on it were several cups whose locations corresponded with where the zabutons were set. Nearby was an oscillating fan that was directed at the table, but it wasn't in use at the moment.
The number of cups and zabutons hinted at two more residents, and she found them when she looked in the direction of the garden, where one was in the garden itself while the other watched her from the engawa. The one in the garden wore a white dōgi and had her long, dark blue hair accessorized by a ribbon near the end of its length, and at the moment she was squatting beside the panda while she poked at its rotund belly with a stick. The other girl wore a modest dress and had her long, chestnut hair in a ponytail, and from her current vantage point she could just barely make out the mildly troubled expression on her face.
"Hey, Kasumi," spoke the girl that she had followed, which got the girl closest to them to turn around while the one in the garden stopped jabbing with the stick and looked in their direction, "could you get dad's futon out here?"
"Oh, dear," responded the girl who stood nearby, who sighed as she placed one of her hands upon a cheek. "Did father faint again, Nabiki?"
Nabiki smirked. "Yup. He couldn't handle the 'bad' news."
"What 'bad' news?" Asked the only remaining unnamed girl as she entered the room from the garden, who regarded Ranma with a critical eye rather than looking at the person that she had posed her question to.
Nabiki grinned as she swept her hand toward Ranma and declared, "Meet our 'fiancé,' Saotome Ranma."
"You're a girl," Kasumi stated the obvious, who blushed at the implication before Nabiki's actual message occurred to her.
"Thank goodness," said the last of the three girls, who sighed with evident relief.
"No surprise there," Nabiki quipped, her words directed at the last person who had spoken, "considering your dislike for boys, Akane."
What was being suggested both angered and flustered Akane, who shouted, "Th-that's not what I meant and you know it!"
Feeling that she had been forgotten amidst their banter, but not knowing exactly how to go about getting their attention without being rude, Ranma settled for voicing something rather than nothing at all. "Um..."
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Kasumi quickly apologized. "I'll go and get father's futon."
As she left to do just that, Ranma found herself under the scrutiny of the other two girls, which she found to be a bit uncomfortable. It wasn't so much the attention itself that bothered her, but the glances that her feline anatomy had attracted before had returned, only now their gazes were lingering a lot more because of the cessation of other matters. It was probably only a matter of time before someone brought the subject up.
However, there was yet another matter to be addressed, and Akane broached it as she stared at Ranma with suspicion. "Say, were you the one who threw the panda into our koi pond?"
Ranma had the good grace to rub the back of her head in embarrassment and look away. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I figured it'd be better than bringing him into the house."
Nabiki regarded her with a dubious expression on her face. "You could have just left him at the front door, you know."
"That's not the point!" Akane argued, who was now glaring at Ranma. "Pandas are an endangered species! You shouldn't treat them like that!"
Ranma sighed. "Look, I have my reasons, and I'll explain them as soon as I can relay my message to everyone, but all I can say right now is that it will be a lot more convenient to have him here instead of at the front door. So, can we put this aside for the time being?"
Akane didn't appear to be too happy about that, but she eventually crossed her arms after some consideration and grudgingly said, "Fine. Then what's up with the cat accessories?"
"I was wondering that, myself," Nabiki commented, as her eyes roamed over the so-called accessories in question.
Being that her feline traits were also a part of the explanation that she had planned to give everyone, Ranma wasn't exactly sure how to answer, in part because she didn't think that Akane would respond positively to being told that she would have to — once again — wait for an answer. In the end, she decided to be blunt about it and hope for the best, seeing as she was more familiar with that kind of tact anyway.
She sighed with resignation before stating, "They're not accessories."
Nabiki appeared to be humored by that response. "You're not actually suggesting that they're real, are you?"
"What are real?" Kasumi asked as she re-entered the room, who decided to wait for an answer instead of doing anything with the futon that was in her possession just yet.
Akane frowned as she watched Ranma's white tail move about rather convincingly. "She said that the cat ears and tail aren't accessories..."
Kasumi perked up with interest. "Really? Is it true?"
To her disappointment, Nabiki brushed the idea aside with a few waves of her hand and said, "Of course not. As if something like that could be true."
Ranma chose to remain silent for the time being, as Kasumi began to prepare the futon for her father. She hadn't planned on revealing what she was without it being a part of the explanation that she had already put together in advance, but it seemed like her prospective fiancées were already against the engagement. With that being the case, she figured that it probably wouldn't matter if she revealed the nature of her feline parts so soon, since it would likely reinforce their opposition rather than change their minds.
"Still," Akane said, her attention having not strayed from the tail, "how do you get it to move like that? If I didn't know any better..."
Ranma held up her free hand and said, "You can see for yourself after I lay your father down. How does that sound?"
Akane considered the offer for a second, wondering if the tail's operation was too complicated to explain, before she nodded her head. "Alright."
It wasn't long before the futon was ready to receive the girls' father, and Ranma was more than happy to transfer him to it. While Kasumi went to fetch a cloth and a basin of water so she could tend to her father, she decided to turn around and present Akane with her tail, but not before saying, "Okay, you can touch it, but please be careful."
Akane felt a little awkward being so near another girl's posterior as she made her inspection, because of how it would look outside of the context, but her interest in the realistically-moving tail was far stronger than any fear of embarrassment at home. Besides, if the tail was as advanced as it seemed, then what other excuse did she need to see something new? And if anyone were to ever bring up the subject at school, then she could count herself among the knowledgeable instead of being behind the times.
However, the longer that she looked at the tail and handled it, the more uneasy she became: because the tail appeared to be so real that it was simply unreal. And the more that she tried to prove to herself that it wasn't real, the more doubtful — and thus uneasy — she became. She was just about to chuckle awkwardly, and make a comment about how impressed she was, when she noticed a flap of the shirt being held closed by a frog above the opening for the tail. She had yet to see the base of the tail, where the fur met the flesh, and the thought of what she might find there caused her to gulp.
Not to be one so easily deterred by such a thing, she steeled herself and looked up at the tail's owner. "Um... Can I get a closer look?"
Ranma glanced over her shoulder to see how she intended to do that, and upon finding out turned away unconcernedly and said, "Go ahead."
Nabiki had been watching both of them since the start, keeping an eye on their faces and how their expressions changed throughout Akane's inspection, and by now she was seriously beginning to consider what it would mean if the feline anatomy happened to be real. After all, not only had Akane's expression continued to become that of someone being proved wrong over the course of her investigation, but Ranma's facial responses had coincided perfectly with how her tail had been handled.
Then her younger sister fell back onto her bottom, with a mix of surprise and awe on her face, and whispered, "It's real."
Ranma turned to face Akane as she reached behind herself to fasten her shirt back up. "I did say that they weren't accessories, didn't I?"
Nabiki licked suddenly dry lips. "You're kidding, right?"
"Would you like to check for yourself?" Ranma offered, as she made a gesture toward one of her ears.
Akane took that as an invitation, now that her surprise had passed, and with a look of determination she joined Nabiki in examining Ranma's ears. And while they eventually determined that they were real enough, what really convinced them of their authenticity was the complete absence of her human ears: because, no matter how closely they had checked the area where they should have been, they could not find any sign of them.
"This is unbelievable," Akane breathed as she took a step back from Ranma, not knowing exactly what to think yet far more intrigued than afraid.
While Nabiki was as amazed as Akane about there being a real catgirl among them, her mind was wired a bit differently from her younger sister's: where Akane saw an interesting opportunity that would likely involve friendship, she saw a novelty and a market with a high potential for profit. The problem, as she began to envision it, was that Ranma's potential for said profit would be a lot better with the girl's cooperation. Sure, she could make money off of Ranma without her consent, but she wouldn't make nearly as much of a profit before she squandered what she had, because others would see what she saw and she wouldn't have exclusive rights to it.
"What are you thinking, Nabiki?" Akane posed with a suspicious glare.
Nabiki schooled her features and tried to convince Akane that she was innocent by acting surprised. "Who, me? Whatever do you mean?"
"Nabiki..." Akane growled.
"Oh, is Akane pretending to be a doggirl?" Kasumi inquired as she re-entered the room with a basin full of water, which had a cloth hanging from its lip.
"Of course not!" Akane was quick to respond, before she continued on a more important matter. "Besides, Ranma really is a catgirl!"
By then Kasumi had sat herself behind her father's head, and her hand had paused just short of the cloth when she looked up. "Really?"
Seeing the intense look in Kasumi's eyes made Akane pause. "Er... Yes?"
"How wonderful!" Kasumi exclaimed joyfully as she clapped her hands together, whose next words — and accompanying starry-eyed gaze — made Ranma sweat. "Can we keep her?"
Akane was a bit taken aback by her sister's behavior, even though she was well aware of her soft spot for cats, and felt a bit odd about having to chide her instead of the other way around. "She's not an animal, Kasumi! You can't just—"
"Hold on!" Nabiki interjected with an outstretched hand, who was having a brainstorm that had been inspired by Kasumi's last words and needed a bit more time to work everything out. "I think we can work with that!"
"Work with what?" Akane asked, who was as confused and/or curious as Kasumi and Ranma about what she was referring to.
After gathering her thoughts, Nabiki snapped her fingers before asking, "Okay, just to be sure, none of us are interested in the engagement, right?"
When it was confirmed that no one was interested, she focused her attention on Ranma with an inquiring and somewhat critical gaze. "Before I can move on, I'd like to have something confirmed. Our father may have been under the impression that you were a boy, but your father should have known better, right?" She paused to see the catgirl's reaction before she continued, and seeing her become uncomfortable under her scrutiny confirmed what she had begun to suspect. "Unless, of course, you haven't always been a catgirl."
Realization dawned on Kasumi and Akane, and they both turned to regard said catgirl in a new light. While Kasumi's gaze was completely benign, the poignant suspicion and animosity in Akane's eyes caused Ranma to shrink back a bit.
"So you're a boy?" Akane accused, her anger clearly aroused.
"I was a boy," Ranma corrected, who was more than willing to confront the unwarranted hostility. "Why, do you have a problem with that?"
Akane crossed her arms imperiously. "As a matter of fact—"
"Girls," Nabiki tried to head off their fight, "let's not lose sight of the real issue, here." Directing her next line of inquiry toward Ranma, who was now in a glaring match with Akane, she asked, "So, I take it that your father continues to pursue the engagement because you can still become a guy?"
"That's right," Ranma confirmed, who hadn't turned her attention away from Akane. "But I've committed myself to living the rest of my life as a girl."
That took a bit of the fire out of Akane's antagonistic stance, but her suspicion inspired her to ask, "And why is that?"
"I have a lot of reasons," Ranma hedged, who was reluctant to open up to the girl that she seemed to be at odds with, "but the short answer is that it's better this way."
"I wish I was a catgirl," Kasumi sighed wistfully, before squeezing water out of the cloth and applying it to her father's forehead.
Between Kasumi creating a lull in their activity because everyone had paused to scrutinize her in some speculative way or another, and Akane backing down to consider Ranma's words, Nabiki found the opening that she needed to continue uninterrupted. And because she had received all of the right answers to her inquiries, she was finding it a bit hard to quell her eagerness to share her idea, due to the ulterior motive that had inspired its creation.
"Anyway," she began, using emphasis to ensure that she had everyone's attention, "now that I understand the situation better, I think I have an idea. If it works, then not only will we be able to avoid being engaged, but we could still honor the reason behind the engagement, because — as our father put it — it was meant to secure our family's legacy."
Ranma was certainly intrigued by what she had heard, seeing as it was very likely that her own plan would only accomplish an uphill battle on the technicality of being a girl, what with still being able to become a boy. If she could avoid getting engaged and satisfy what their fathers wanted, all while having no obligation to be a boy, then she wanted to know how to make it happen.
"What's your idea?" Ranma asked with no small amount of interest.
With a gleam in her eye, Nabiki pointed at Ranma dramatically and declared, "You'll become a part of our family... as our new pet!"
