Son Turned Daughter, Chapter 51
An unusual disclaimer: Ranma1/2 is the trademark of Rumiko Takahashi and VIZ Communications, and its characters have been borrowed without permission. And Son Turned Daughter was originally written back in 2002 by fanfiction author Tangent. Please see the first two chapters of this series under his pen name. This series has been written for noncommercial use only.
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This story is not about sex but gender. It is set in a late 1980's that mixes with, from the perspective of our universe, the early 1990's: a time when binary gender identity was the unquestioned norm. Ranma dys-ease with having a female brain-body is a reflection of those born with the brain-body of a gender other than the one their chemistry says they actually are.
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Chapter 51
Homebase, Akane remembered Ranma calling her that before. Again, it was as a boy. But at the time she could still think of the martial artist as what he was most of the time, a girl. But there was no way she could remember that seeing this naked boy. Not with his…, his…. "I'm getting dressed!" she announced and rushed to the suite's bathroom, slamming the door after herself.
"I better get dressed, too," Ranma said. "She don't want to see me…like this."
He, at least he hoped, understood where she was coming from. He wouldn't want to have sex with a guy. Akane didn't want to, either, even though she was and would, uncursed, always be a girl. It was something they shared, and he had to respect that. His feelings for her had never really been tied to her body. This helped to lessen his desire for that body.
But when he got up, the eyes of the objects in the Beauty and the Beast love hotel suite seemed to be staring at his exposed body, judging him.
"Okay, okay!" he cried, hurrying to pull up his pants. Then he muttered to himself, "I do have feelings for Akane's body. –Now."
Maybe, his Old Man, had actually been right about something for once. Life was simpler before he had his sexual awakening. All he had to seriously think about was martial arts and mastering his body. Now it was like his body was mastering him. Giving him thoughts he never had before.
Like, if s/he as a girl could bring herself to have sex with a guy that could encourage him to find a way for Akane to do the same with him.
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No more cosplay; outside of the love hotel, they were back in their regular clothes:
"Ranma! Haven't we done enough roofhopping for one night?!" Akane (almost) protested as she was carried by the beastly man Ranma-chan could become. At least he had her in a princess carry.
"I think I got a way to make everybody happy! Maybe."
"It's something stupid, isn't it?"
"I won't know until we talk to Ukyo and Shampoo."
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""What?! Shampoo's not here!?"
"I sent her to her grandma's." Ukyo then smiled, saying, "I wonder what her punishment's going to be for becoming my lifelong slave?"
"What!? How could you make her–anybody–a slave for life!" Akane accused. Even Ranma was taken aback. He knew his childhood friend had been taken over by a demon; was a piece of it still in her?
"It's not my rules. It's in her own amazon book of law." And she held up the book. "You know, the one that says she has to give a Kiss of Death to outsiders. Like us." She then looked at Akane; her smile was less intense, but still sort-of-menacing in a nice-girl sort of way. "And the rule is in the Kodachi Clause, too."
"You, you know that part of it!?(!)" Akane became nervous.
"I had a nice long chat on the phone with your sister, Nabiki."
"Na-bi-ki," Akane said under her breath. If she were here, she would, she would…
"I forbid you to harm her. At least until my business with her is over."
"Business?! With Nabiki?!" Maybe there was a little demon in her.
"Now, what's goin' on?" Ranma asked.
"Oh, nothing you have to worry about, Ranma-kun, Honey!" she said, grabbing an arm. If she knew how to glomp, she would have. Ranma's wannabe-a-man noticed.
But he rebelled, prying her loose. "It's gotta be everybody. Together. Or nobody." He didn't feel like an admirable hero saying that…only a pervert. Not a hateful one, though. Hopefully.
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Ukyo was now, too, dressed back in her regular clothes: her okonomiyaki uniform. And both she and Akane were upset that he was roofhopping with them under her arms; not a princess carry, not even a fireman carry, just a casual macho-man I'm-so-much-stronger-than-you carry. Casual was the sticking descriptive. They didn't feel special enough.
After dropping down in front of the yet unnamed cafe that Cologne now owned, Ranma the man still had the girls under his arm as his foot slid the door open with a side-kick.
"Our first customers!"
Blink, blink. It wasn't Shampoo. She was beautiful woman. Or was she a girl, a girl of high school age? Despite her probably Japanese face, she had the bindi mark on her forehead like some Hindi women wear. Most of her Asian-black hair was piled on top of her head above a silver headband, curls near the sides of her eyes. Her navy-blue dress was inspired by kimonos and had flared sleeves that hung from her wrists down to her above-the-knees hem. Between it and the ordinary slippers was the evidence of set her apart further was the long ribbon that seemed to float up and around her upper body, constantly fluttering and rippling without a breeze or draft.
And, oh, she had a shamisen guitar on her back.
"Uh, we're not customers."
"It's 5 am!" Akane told her.
"That is the time for the commuters to breakfast out, I believe," she said; though she did have to think about whether she was right. "Nerima is a bedroom community, is it not?"
"Will you look at this place…." Ukyo said with wonder. She had only been in the Bathhouse Cafe once; Ranma a very few times.
Akane's family, however, had eaten in it whenever they decided to spend-a-little. "It's changed! And in hours!?"
Though simple, it had a distinctly traditional Chinese feel, especially the red stripes that marked all edges of the walls, horizontal and vertical, and the squares wherever they met. But the details were different as well. The tables were none of those thrown about with some wrecked by the tornado of the ancient woman's earlier martial arts attack.
"Shampoo, introduce her to your teammates," Cologne told her great-granddaughter, pushing her forward from the other side of the kitchen opening.
Shampoo had been standing on this side. Her arms were crossed and under her frown her face carried a mix of emotions. One of them was shame. "This one Elder of Tribe hire because Master Spatula Girl make slave. No can be here unless Master say Shampoo can."
"I am filling in as a favor to Cologne," the girl said with demure smile.
"Granddaughter, manners!" Cologne sounded tense. "Make a proper introduction!"
"Hǎo de, Grandmother," Shampoo relented. But barely. "Name of this one is Benzaiten."
"You may call me Benten."
"Benten?" The name meant something to Ranma. "Like the space biker-chick in Urusei Yatsura?"
"Do I remind you of her? A "biker-chick"?" the girl said with amusement in her musical voice.
"No: Not at all!" Then he, embarrassed, bowed, "Sorry!" Again his big mouth had said the first thing that had come to him.
"Idiot," Akane said. "That character was named after the Goddess of Eloquence and Femininity because she was just the opposite."
Uh, right. It was a comedy.
"Is that why you quiver a guitar?" Ukyo asked. "She's also a goddess of music."
The shamisen was quickly in her hands, seemingly having passed through the halo of ribbon as if it wasn't there. "I am thinking of entertaining the customers." And she began what sounded like a complicated gidayū tune that was meant to accompany narration.
"Unless you have a puppet act to go with that, I'd say you're more likely to drive customers away," the astute businesswoman Ukyo said.
"Something more modern?" To the Japanese trio's shock, a ballad rock riff came out of an Eastern guitar not shouldn't be able to sound like a Western guitar. At least it didn't sound electric.
"I, I think I've heard that," Akane said.
Ukyo, having been exposed to a wide variety of things as a street vendor, snapped her fingers, "U2, right?"
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," Benten told them the song's name.
Then she stopped playing. "Or have I?"
Cologne frowned, her eyes calculating.
"Now, you know my name." And she gracefully nodded her head in something like a bow. "May I know the name of my Fàngkāi?" She was looking directly at the one male there.
"You are mistaken, Benten," Cologne interjected, her voice hardened. "Ranma is a cuīhuàjì."
Waving her off, the strange girl turned to Akane and Ukyo. "I take it you are like Shampoo and are Ranma's Fàngkāi as well,"
"We still don't know what that means!" Akane scowled at Shampoo.
What seemed like a shock of electricity pulsed through Shampoo's head. "Sh, Shampoo no know if Shampoo know what word mean, too." The 110 treatment threatened worse if she persisted in trying to remember.
"So, you see, we can't tell you if we are or not," Ukyo said, her guard up now.
"That will be determined while you are on being tested for recognition as Honorary Women Heroes."
"Do I have to be a girl to take it?" Ranma asked. "Can it at least wait until I get to be a man!?(!)"
"And what will make you a…man?" Benten said, grazing a warm, satiny hand against his barely stubbly cheek. She smelled of peaches.
"Benten! This is about the test of the candidates!" Cologne reminded her.
"Establish the Cuīhuàjì first," Benten sighed, disappointed. But not for long. "This is about sex, is it not?" Embarrassed, everybody, Ranma, Akane, Ukyo and even Shampoo wanted to deny it, but couldn't. "Think of me as your counselor. I am well versed on the subject. And on love, of course.
"Come, sit and have breakfast while we talk of it."
When they hesitated, she said, "I am the one who will be recommending to their Council of Elders whether you should be accepted as Honorary Women Heroes."
Ukyo was the first to take a seat at a cafe table. Then Shampoo and Akane. Ranma was the last, saying, "Why do I want to be an Honorary Women Hero, again?"
"Because if you don't, you can have a whole tribe of amazons out to give you the Kiss of Death(?)" Ukyo reminded him.
"No take gift of test is great insult to tribe!" Shampoo confirmed it.
"I still don't wanna be a woman," Ranma frowned, his arms crossed over a chest without boobs. "I haven't even become a man, yet," he muttered his frustration.
"You want to be a man. And how is that to occur?" Benten asked coyly.
"This is between me and the others."
"The others? Your harem?"
"They're my fiancees!" Even that, though, sounded wrong to him. Was it right to have more than one fiancee? It was the first step to getting married, wasn't it? When Kuno had said that the girl he didn't marry could be his concubine…. "They're my friends. If they want me, to be their boyfriend…or girlfriend…." But he straightened, feeling much less like a pervert with, "If I can make them happy, I will."
" 'Happy'?" Benten politely suppressed a chuckle. She sensed his sincerity. It was confused, but there. "Jusenkyo?" she looked towards the kitchen. Cologne nodded.
Turning back, she said, "This is an interesting dilemma. A question of firsts, is it not? The first of the firsts being, Who will make the 'boy' a 'man'?"
A grinning Shampoo immediately glomped onto Ranma's left arm. "Airen!" Ukyo answered the challenge and grabbed his right. "You're my slave and I say you can't have him!"
"My granddaughter is your slave," Cologne said. "But not during the Test. You are to be a team."
"A team with a Tiger Hierarchy," Benten said. "I will bring the cold water."
"What!?" Ranma tried to get up, but he was kept down by the two holding onto and leaning on him. Their very femaleness weakened him.
"They will be competing for the order they will come to you as…girlfriends. The prize will be…?"
"A Phoenix Pill to those who pass," Cologne informed her.
"Ah!" Benten said…before her eyes fell on Akane. "But will it be a prize to everybody(?)"
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Only Cologne has recognized Kasumi as a host to a goddess (Holy Bell). The others, if they even believe in gods, have had no reason to suspect that one is now directly involved in their lives. And could threaten the other gods themselves.
Benzaiten, one of the Seven Lucky Gods, a goddess of the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, and more before those has a goal that goes far beyond Cologne's. How serious is she about it?
The lyrics to I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I'm still running
You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Oh my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for