[Ranma][FanFic] Mistaken Identity ch. 4 repost

[HARIJUBAL]

Ahem. Here is the complete chapter Four.
[Insert Disclaimer Plug]
[Disclaimer Plug inserted]
[Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi, and published by Shogakukan. Yuri
Saotome was created by me, though heavily based upon the characters and
situations created by Rumiko Takahashi]
[WARNING! WARNING! COPYRIGHT CONTAMINATION!]

CHAPTER FOUR: Lots of flashbacks, and perhaps an origin or two.

The families Saotome and Tendo sat in the dining room. It was evening, a
dark, muggy night. The tension, while not high, was present, leaving all
slightly tense; except for Kasumi, who never saw any reason to worry. The
only
Saotome that was not in their cursed form was Yuri, who was looking forward to
not having to live a lie (I am a WOMAN! Give me frilly dresses! I want a
parfait! I have a MALLET, so don't piss me off! Ahem . . . sorry).
"So, you're Ranma, then?" asked Nabiki, trying to move the conversation along
by stating the obvious. She often had to do this, and felt pretty put upon.
So, when she did say it, she said it in as flat a way as possible. Sometimes,
it just doesn't pay to be the one without tact.
"Yes, that is who I am," said Ranma in a stilted, polite manner. She was
acting very much the proper lady after somehow changing into a kimono (with
pastel overtones and a floral pattern), that drew many an odd look from those
that did not know her, and a carefully hidden disgusted look from one who did.

"Ah, yeah. And the guy that we thought was Ranma is actually your sister?"
said Nabiki, once again hating to state the obvious, yet doing so anyway.
"That is correct, yes."
"So, the question is then: Why?"
"Ah. That is something that I would like to know as well. I believe that
the
best person to answer that is Father. Father?" said Ranma as she looked
towards
her father.
"Mareeruruyru," said Genma. The sign he held however made a bit more sense
(I
know what you're thinking: Sense? From Genma? Now I know that this is an
alternate universe). It read, 'Don't look at me, I'm just a panda. Feed me.'
"Oh hohohohohohohohohohoho," laughed Ranma softly behind her hand. Akane and
Yuri freaked slightly while getting Kodachi flashbacks. "That really is quite
amusing, Father. Now, how about that explanation?" Nothing changed about her,
but her eyes started glinting slightly. It could have been the light; it
could
have been her some of her ki coming out; but whatever it was, it gave Ranma a
menacing look to her, though her face still had the same pleasant expression
as
before. Genma poured some hot water onto his head from a kettle. He composed
himself as best he could and soon launched into his explanation.
"Ahem, yes, well. Um, where to begin. Ah!" exclaimed Genma as he hit his
fist into his open palm. He grabbed the handle to the kettle once more and
turned to Ranma. Ranma faced her father, still smiling, and her eyes twinkled
once more. Genma put down the kettle and faced his audience. "Yes, well.
The
beginning is always a good place to start. [No one laughed.] It all began
when
Yuri and I went to China . . ."
* * *
"HAH-CHE!" Yuri went, her nose as red as her hair and her eyes not much
better. God, she hated her father. Stupid cheapskate, why couldn't he just
pay for passage on the ship? After all, they had enough money, but NO! they
had to stow away, and when they got found, they were dumped in the middle of
the bloody sea! She sniffled once more, trying to stop the flow of something
from her nose. As soon as she felt better, she'd kill him. Slowly, and with
a
very blunt stick. Heh . . . sniffle . . . snort.
"Stiff upper lip, girl; stiff upper lip," Genma said as he pounded on her
back
in a hearty manner. Ah, this was the life. No stifling, soul sucking
domesticity for him, no sir! Free and on the road, that was the true secret
to
happiness, at least for him. Oh, and someone to tort- . . . train. He looked
at Yuri with a certain measure of pride in his eyes. Here she was, far from
home, ill beyond all other illnesses that she had suffered in her soft life,
and already she was planning to kill him. Ah, it really was true, fatherly
pride is a heady feeling. Genma raised his fist high above his head and shook
it slightly, tears flowing from his eyes.
Yuri sniffled and coughed for a few seconds before she sighed. There he
goes,
she thought, striking that stupid 'Machismo' pose of his. How can this moron
be my father? He's not even paying any attention to me. Whoa! Heh heh heh.
He's not paying any attention to me. I'd better not laugh out loud, or he
might suspect something. Mwah ha ha.
Yuri looked around and picked up a convenient log. She picked it up and
swung
it backhand towards her father's head. Naturally, it did not connect. Genma
had, a split second before it hit, ducked under the swinging log and came up
inside the arch of her swing. He took out one of his wooden paddles and
whacked her upside the head.
"Too slow, girl, much too slow. If you're going to ambush someone, you have
to be quick and quiet. You have the silent strike down, but you're
concentrating so much on keeping it unseen that you're making it too easy to
dodge when it is seen out of the corner of the eyes." He then took out one of
his scrolls and started reading from it. It took a very long time.
At night, Yuri stared at the top of her tent, thinking. She stared, idly
following an odd stream of thought that began with her father (the jerk) and
ended with a bowl of cherries (boy, would they had been good right about
then).
If she were feeling particularly Freudian, she probably would have been quite
ill; but since she didn't know much about Freud, she didn't and she wasn't.
The nights of the wilds of China, so close to the greatest of mountain ranges
this side of the ocean surfaces were peaceful, a peace during which a soul
cannot help but reflect and be honest about oneself. It was as if the absence
of noise created a vacuum that could only be filled by angsty, introspective
psychological self-diagnosis. Yuri enjoyed that peace, if it could have been
called enjoyed.
She stopped and got up from her sleeping bag and went to her pack, rooting
through its contents.
After taking out most of the items found therein, she had located what she was
looking for: a photograph. It was a picture of a boy, around fourteen, with a
shocked expression on his face and his arms crossed in front of it; it was a
picture of her brother Ranma. More than those jerks at school, more than
anyone in the world, she hated her brother. And feared him, of course. And
that was what made it so damned . . . inconvenient. Every time she got around
him, she started crying like some sort of milksop. And she could feel it,
feel
her utter hatred towards him, just under the surface of her fear, knowing that
if she could just stop being so damned frightened, that if she could use that
hatred, that she could once and for all . . . what? What could she do? Kill
him? Oh, that thought was sweet, so sweet, to rid the world of the blight
that
was Ranma. But . . . despite all that mother and even Father said, she knew
that they still . . . loved that cold-heated, treacherous, schizophrenic
bastard. He didn't love them, even before the argument; he was still
playacting as he always does. But did she hate him enough to kill him? The
answer, of course, was yes. That was why she agreed to go train with father
in
the first place, so that she could be good enough to wipe that smug smirk off
his face. But . . . but . . . did she hate him enough to kill mother and
father? Because that was what would happen if she did follow through with her
desire to smash in his face and grind his ribs into his spine! God, how she
hated him. And god, how she hated herself.
Yuri tried to stop the tears, telling herself that it would make her weaker,
take away her resolve. But sometimes the soul knows better than the mind when
the right time it was to cry, and it was that time now. She cried herself to
sleep, her illness and her moment of bitterness gone and forgotten the next
morning. Amazing what a good cry could do for one's constitution.
They walked on, trekking through the wilds of China, stopping occasionally at
an interesting training ground. Some highlights were the Pits of Mortal
Danger, the Mountains of Extreme Peril, the Cairn of Falling Rocks, and the
Plain of Large Rats.
"What the hell is the matter with you, Pop? Do you have some sort of death
wish, is that it?" Yuri asked her father, incredulously staring at the
training
ground. This place had the fortune (good or bad depending on your point of
view) to be called 'The Cave of Sharp Things.' It lived up to its name.
There
were some very sharp things in there. Very large, and quite numerous, in
point
of fact. Some were scythes that were swinging on pendulums that would have
given Poe torturous wet dreams hanging from the ceiling. Some were just
particularly jagged stalactites and stalagmites. It was filled with pits,
blind turns, and lots of really, really sharp things that would give you a
nick
just by thinking of briefly glancing at them.
Genma was in heaven. Yuri was in hell.
"What do you mean, girl? This place is perfect!" Genma enthused.
"Perfect? This is the sort of place that Nazis go into and only their head
ever come out of!"
"Exactly. A challenge!"
"Oh, god. You do want to kill yourself. Well count me out! I don't want to
die in a cave with badly rusted sword sticking out of my sternum. It'd cramp
my style." Sure she wanted to train, but this wasn't training, this was
damnation.
"If you truly want to learn the Anything-Goes style, you must endure
masochistic, near suicidal, breakdown inducing, torturous training. It is all
that and more that makes a true man out of you!" Once again, Genma struck his
machismo pose.
"I'm not a man, I'm a girl," Yuri replied blandly.
"You know perfectly well what I meant."
" . . . Yeah, I do. Damn it. Oh, well. Come on, Pop, let's get going.
Death is getting pretty impatient, I'll bet," Yuri said sardonically, joining
her father in the cave's mouth.
"That's my girl! But really, you have to have a better attitude.
Confidence,
confidence is the key, girl. Without it, even the best-trained martial artist
can be defeated," Genma stated sagely. Then he leapt into the dark cave with
a
whoop of delight.
"God, you must be crazy. And I must even crazier," she said, mostly to
herself. Then she shouted as she followed her father, "Hey, you stupid old
man! You forgot the torch!"
Several hours later found them on the other side of the caves, cut, bruised,
and dead tired, but not in slices.
"Oh . . . huh . . . my . . . huh . . . god. I . . . can't . . . huh . . .
believe . . . that . . . we're . . . alive," Yuri gasped, trying to get some
air into her tortured lungs, each breath that she tried to take burning a
track
down her chest.
"That's what made it fun," Genma said cheerfully. Yuri looked at him
balefully, then collapsed on the ground, her eyes making spirals.
"So, where to next, Pop? Are we going to go training inside an active
volcano? Or how about we fall off a mountain and try to climb back up using
only our teeth?"
"Have you been reading my training manual?"
Yuri would have cried, but, as tired as she was, she merely went to sleep.
On the road to Jusenkyo, they walked. Weary from months of constant
training,
Yuri's resolve had wavered enough for her to beat a promise out of her father
that Jusenkyo would be the last place they trained in.
And also on the road to Jusenkyo, they encountered someone that they never
thought they would meet ever again, especially not in the wilds of China.
It began thusly:
"Tired. So tired. Hungry . . . I'm so hungry," Went Yuri's litany of
complaints.
"Be quiet, girl. I'm hungry as well, but you don't see me complaining, do
you?" Genma chided his daughter. His stomach growled its anger at not being
full once again, as did Yuri's.
"Hungry, tired, hungry, tired, hungry, kill you all, pretty butterflies,
hungry, death to the pigs, tired," replied Yuri, delirious from two days of no
food and constant walking.
"I could really go for some rice. And fish. Rice, and fish. Rice, fish,
and
some pickles. And sukiyaki. Rice, fish, pickles, and sukiyaki." Genma then
went on to list everything that he wanted to eat. It was quite a long list.
They were so engrossed in their little worlds of food and complaints that
they
didn't even hear the sound of a motor, nor did they hear the bleating of a
horn, nor did they hear the rapidly approaching sounds of vociferous cursing.

"///Hey! Get out of the road, you morons! Get out of the way! Get away!
Oh,
shit!\\\" shouted the driver of the motorcycle. He swerved around them and
ran the motorcycle right into a ditch on the side of the road. Yuri and Genma
stopped and stared, numbed to the world by their lack of nourishment. The
young man, who had jumped off the last minute, quickly dusted himself off and
walked angrily towards them.
"///Hey, you idiot! What the hell's the matter with . . .\\\ Pop?" said the
young man, his demeanor that of one who is extremely surprised.
"What?" Genma replied, his stupor broken.
"Pop? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Young man, why are you calling me 'Pop'?" asked Genma, though he had a
sneaking suspicion as to the answer, as did Yuri. Genma thanked the Gods,
while Yuri cursed them quite soundly inside her own head. "Ranma, is that
you,
boy?"
"Oh . . . my . . . goddess. I don't believe this. I do not believe this!"
Ranma, for that was who it was (who did you expect, Bugs Bunny?), said, not
believing this. "What in the hells are you doing here?"
"Training. What are you doing here, boy?" asked Genma, though he truly
didn't
want to know. Inside, Genma was dancing a Miposian dance of joy. Everything
was coming up aces for him. Now that he had found his son, he could now
follow
through with his and Soun's plan. Happy day!
"The same. So, Pop where are you . . . Pop? Hello, Pop? Hey!"
Yuri stared at Ranma trying to knock their father out of his trance. A swirl
of emotions, most of them very dark, swelled up in her. Her world had become
a
bleak and depressing place. Her rage, a primitive, childish thing that lied
in
a dark corner of her mind, overwhelmed her. Her face darkened slightly with
blood, as she slowly walked towards her brother, her intent not acknowledged
consciously, yet in that same apish corner, she knew that what she intended to
do, the consequences be damned. And then, Ranma turned. He looked at her,
and
with that look, the rage was washed under a wave of fear. She didn't know
why,
after all, she would later tell herself, he didn't look particularly
threatening. He looked bemused, and a little chagrined, most likely from the
odd coincidence of meeting family so far from home. And yet . . . and yet,
she
did. Later, when she had the time to think, she would try to remember why,
just as she always did whenever she left his presence, why did she fear him?
She knew why she hated, but why did she fear? Was it irrational? Was it . .
.
insane? No, if she thought that, if she doubted her own sanity, then did that
not mean that she was sane? Paradox, and yet another reason to hate . . . and
fear Ranma. For what he made her feel, for making her lose herself when he
was
there, and hate herself after he was gone. For that moment however, it didn't
matter. All that did was that he was staring at her, and she was scared.
Confidence, she told herself, confidence would work. And if it didn't,
blustering would.
"Hello, big brother," she said bitingly, hoping that sarcasm would hide the
quiver that she knew was present in her voice. "It's been a long time. What
has it been, two years, three? You don't call, you don't write. If I didn't
know any better, I'd say that you didn't like us. But . . . I do know better,
don't I?"
"Hello, little sister. Yes, it has been a while. I didn't have time. Yes,
you do. Are you done giving me the third degree?" he returned just as
sarcastically.
"No," she said. They let it go at that.
They stopped near the road for the night and made camp. Genma insisted that
Ranma join them in their training trip. Of course, he quickly went on, if
Ranma was going to travel with them, then it was only fair that he share any
supplies that he had. While Ranma looked on in horror, Genma and Yuri quickly
went through his victuals, leaving only a small bag of rice.
"Hey! That was my week's supply!" Ranma yelled as he desperately shook his
food pack, trying to see if they had left something besides the rice in their
feeding frenzy.
"Now, now, Ranma. You really must learn how to share. After all, is it not
a
martial artist's duty to feed the hungry?" Genma asked in that quasi-sage-like
manner.
"No!" Ranma yelled, now staring at his pack mournfully.
"Well . . . whatever, then. Say, aren't you a little young to drink this?"
Genma asked, holding up a flask.
"Hey! Not my vodka!" Ranma yelled as he jumped towards his father. They
soon
were grappling over the flask of alcohol, getting in a sip every now and then.

Soon it was turning into a drunken arts match, or would have been if they were
any good at it.
Yuri was, however, sitting in her tent, enjoying the feel of a full stomach
and putting one over on evil incarnate, as she called her brother. She put on
earphones that were connected to a c.d. player, trying to drown out the sounds
of horrible singing coming outside. Apparently, both father and son were
happy
drunks. She went to sleep muttering, 'this is a Walther PP 9mm, this is a
Colt
Peacemaker . . .'
And so they walked on, Ranma putting along in his motorcycle while Genma and
Yuri walked beside him, once in a while looking at him in envy. Once in a
while, one of them would make a comment about how weak he must be to need to
ride. Ranma would merely smile smugly and not respond beyond that.
Then, they arrived.
"Well, here we are. Jusenkyo! Ah, can't you smell it?" Genma asked as he
breathed deeply.
"What, the compost?" Yuri responded.
"No, the smell of mortal danger, the smell of terror and screaming deaths,
the
smell of fun!" Genma waxed.
"Nope. All I smell is the compost."
The fog, that had covered the valley in the pre-dawn, cleared, to reveal
Jusenkyo fully to the group. All of the springs had at least one bamboo pole
sticking out of it, or more, depending on the size of the spring. For they
ranged from the length of two footballs fields to little more than a mincing
step.
"Huh. Doesn't look too tough. Guess this one will be a cakewalk . . . not
like the last one," Yuri comment, feeling the happiest since Ranma had joined
them. Finally, a training ground that didn't have traps, pits, or scything
blades that hungered for blood.
They walked down the path to the pools, and soon encountered a stout man in a
rather aged party uniform.
"Hallo, sirs," he said in accented Japanese. "Welcome to famous training
ground of the cursed springs, Jusenkyo. I be your Guide for this journey,
yes?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Hey, is that bamboo rotten?" asked Genma as he peered
closely at the poles.
"Oh, no, sirs, they be very brand new, yes?" the guide assured him quickly.
"Oh. Damn, I was hoping that the poles were so rotten, that it would have
taken great skill to stay atop one and not break it," Genma said, much to his
disappointment and his daughter's disgust.
"Oh, did I say that they were new? I meant those, over there, no, there,
yes,
those. Those be new, yes? Planning to replace, yes? Yes," the guide said
quickly, remembering the old adage about customers.
"Oh, good," Genma said as he gleefully rubbed his hands together. Yuri
sighed
and tried to will away her headache. Ranma grimaced slightly, and tried to
find a place to hide. Genma paid the guide, and he allowed them access to the
pools, after giving a rather hurried and cryptic warning. The guide then went
inside a cottage, muttering about some sort of fruit and how much trouble they
cause. "Well, you two, how about you go spar. I want to see how you measure
up between the two of you."
"Yeah, sure. You just don't want to fight me 'cause you know that I'll kick
you sorry behind," Yuri said derisively. However, she would like a chance to
kick Ranma's head in. If she could, that is. But he is very good. Maybe
even
better than she was. Oh, boy.
Ranma and Yuri jumped onto the two closest poles, landing lightly so as to
not
break it. Ranma sat cross-legged on the pole, eyes closed and with a smug
grin
pasted on, his whole body screaming arrogance.
Yuri's fear disappeared, to be replaced by a slow-burning anger. Her eyes
narrowed, she looked at Ranma, hearing his unspoken statement quite clearly.
'You can't beat me. I'm better than you could ever be, in every way, and you
can never catch up. You can never beat me, because I've already won.
Beedah.'
It hit every one of her emotional soft points, making her feel vulnerable, and
pissing her off. She snarled in an animalistic way in her rage and leapt at
him, her hands outstretched like claws.
At the same later as before, when she was feeling particularly introspective
(it was yet another one of those quiet nights), she lamented at the unfairness
of it all. In the stories, when a person was filled with righteous fury and
goes . . . goes . . . berserk, they at least had the fortune to have a red
mist
cover their eyes during its duration. Or, at the least, a blank spot in their
minds, or at the very least, a sort of emotional detachment, like the memories
were from a television program seen a month ago. But no, when she went . . .
berserk, she had to remember everything in very fine detail. It just wasn't
fair.
Ranma, momentarily surprised by Yuri's demeanor, left himself wide open to
her
attack, if it could be called such, primal as it was. She was not trying to
incapacitate him, or even beat him to a bloody pulp. She was trying to shred
him, to chew him up, to crush him. She was not a martial artist, but, rather,
a tornado with sharp claws and teeth, and with enough arms to give even the
most enthusiastic Hindu god a run for his money in the superfluous limbs
division.
Ranma tried to push her away, but she did not move. When he punched her in
the jaw, she did not flinch; she just kept on screaming her rage. For the
first time, he was starting to get a bit nervous about a fight. A bit . . .
not much . . . after all, he was the best there was at what he did . . .
right.
He hit a pressure point on her arm, rendering it useless, if only for a
little
while. It gave him enough time to leap to a different pole, and prepare
himself for his sister.
Genma looked at the brawl with increasing horror. It was not looking good,
not good at all. His daughter had gone insane, his son was badly injured, and
it looked like they were going to keep on fighting until one of them went
down,
perhaps permanently. Coming to a quick decision, he leapt in between them,
trying to use his own body to block their blows from each other.
They were in midair, high above the forest of dead bamboo poles, Yuri clawing
away furiously, Ranma trying to hit one vital point on her body after another,
and Genma trying to block both them, with his hands and arms, if he could, but
mostly with his body. They stayed their for quite a while, but eventually
gravity had her way. They plummeted to the pools, still in the tangle. They
all fell, each into a different and quite close set of pools.
Ranma waded quickly to the surface, breathing heavily. He felt quite odd,
but
dismissed it as wooziness from blood loss. Speaking of which, he had to get
to
his first aid kit and try to staunch the blood. When he made it to dry land,
he rested for a bit, intending to rest just enough, trying to catch his
breath.

Suddenly, he heard a deep roar of anger, coming towards him quickly. It was
a
boy, about his own age and looking quite familiar, in an also familiar state,
leaping from a bamboo pole and coming at him, his hands outstretched like
claws. Not even thinking about it, Ranma angled his legs and, using the boy's
own momentum, tossed him hard into the ground. Ranma then noticed something
odd. It had been in his peripheral vision for some time, but only now did he
truly notice it. It was his chest. His chest was substantially . . . larger
than it had been before. He stopped to listen to his own breathing; yes, it
too was different, higher, on a different octave. He opened up his ruined,
bloody shirt and stared. Oh, dear.
Ranma fainted.
Genma climbed out of the pool. He felt quite heavy, and for some reason, he
had on a fur coat. Odd, that. When he reached shore, he found an odd sight
awaiting him. Yuri had, somehow and for some reason, on Ranma's clothes and
was on the ground with some very nasty looking wounds on his sides. Ranma,
again somehow and for some reason, had on Yuri's rather small gi and was
unconscious. His body had made quite an impact crater when he had landed.
Quite odd, that.
Oh, ah.
He went over to the packs and rummaged through its contents, trying to find
the first aid kit. Even stranger was that somehow, he had gotten furry
gloves,
complete with claws. They were quite thick looking, yet thin enough for him
to
feel through them. He tried to get them off, but they seemed to be sewn onto
the coat. Well, time enough for that later. He finally found the kit and
went
to his daughter's side. When he got close enough, he found that the girl on
the ground wasn't his daughter. Oh, there was an amazing likeness; enough for
them to be considered sisters, if not twins. Yet, there was a different
demeanor about her, even asleep. Much like the one that Ranma gave off, come
to think of it. Yet another odd little occurrence, in a day filled with odd
occurrences. Oh, well, she was wounded quite seriously, if not life
threateningly, so he might as well help.
Thinking pure thoughts, and briefly flashing back to his old master, he
quickly bound the odd girl's wounds. It helped that she looked amazingly like
his daughter.
"Oh, too bad, you fall into Shanmaoniichuan, spring of drowned panda. There
very tragic story of panda what drowned in spring . . . um . . . long n'go.
Now, whoever fall into spring, take body of panda," said the guide, popping
out
of nowhere, carrying a wooden sign that read 'Shanmoaniichuan.'
"Graaaaaahhhhh!" went Genma. He paused and said again, "Grah?"
He looked at himself. What he had earlier dismissed as rather odd gloves
were
in fact his hands. Panda hands, to be sure, but his hands as well. That
meant
that . . . and that the girl was possibly . . . His suspicions were soon
confirmed as the guide said over the girl's body pretty much what he had said
to Genma, only instead of spring of drowned panda, he said 'spring of drowned
girl.' Then he went over to the boy whom Genma had assumed was his son, and
said 'hot-water spring of drowned boy.'
"Grah, grah grah grah," said Genma, trying to ask if there was any cure, but
he sounded as if he was gargling with a fur ball. After a few tries, he
finally gave up, and settled for writing on one of his wooden paddles. "Is
there any cure?" it read.
"Oh, no, Mr. Customer, sir. At least, not here, yes? Maybe, maybe somewhere
not here, but not here, yes? Nanniichuan could be cure, but that be before,
yes?"
"Before?" Genma's sign said, trying to take his mind off his curse by asking
about local history. Besides, maybe there could be a clue to a cure.
"Oh, there be great explosion on very mysterious mountain many years ago.
Very hot for many months, yes? And then some of the pools turn into
hot-water,
yes?"
"And that should matter?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Customer. Before, cursed men dive into Nanniichuan to be
cured.
Some be, some come out worse. But now not even that work, because . . .
well,
see, yes?" went the guide, as he took a kettle of hot water from behind his
back and poured it over Genma's head. Genma immediately turned back into a
man, for which he was very grateful. "Hot water turn you back to man, but
cold
water turn you to panda, yes? See? hot water pool no work for cure. Not even
cooled hot water from pool, yes?"
"Oh. Oh, well. Thanks for the explanation." Well, nothing for it, really.
Genma wasn't the sort to overly worry about things until later, usually when
it
was biting him upon the bottom. Not that he wouldn't chase after every
possible cure, but, on the other hand, it didn't bother him all that much.
Maybe his wife would even think it was cute. Nothing for it, really, but to
grin and bear it. Or maybe that was 'grit and bear it.' Well, certainly not
'go on a murderous rampage, feel better, then bear it.' Although that was
looking mightily good right then.
Yuri shook her head, trying to clear her headache. She looked around her,
trying to figure out how she got herself into such a large Yuri-shaped hole in
the ground. Then she remembered. Then she felt lower than the hole she was
in. How could she loose control so much? How could she try to tear off
Ranma's arms, gnaw on them and stuff them back inside a gaping hole in his
stomach? Oh, sure, it was a warming thought, but nice people like her didn't
try to do that sort of thing, even to the devil incarnate. Then she focused
on
the later bits. Why the hell did she try to kill that girl, and why did she
look so much like herself. And why was she convinced that she was Ranma. And
why did her voice sound so different?
Yuri paused as she re-ran the last question through her mind. Why did her
voice sound so different? She gave it a little test-run.
"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no
escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see." She sang
a refrain from one of her favorite songs. Her voice cracked quite
unpleasantly
when she tried to sing higher than her voice could now go, and much deeper
than
it should have. She realized that her gi was a lot tighter and more
uncomfortable than it should be. She looked down and saw that the top was
open
and her chest was a lot . . . smaller than it was. Oh, dear.
Yuri fainted.
* *

*
" . . . and that was pretty much it," said Genma, before taking another sip
of
sake. His eyes were drooping rapidly, and his face was haggard.
"Let me see if I got this straight," Nabiki said, rubbing the temples of her
forehead. "Instead of you and 'Ranma' there falling into the springs because
you were sparring, it was because a giant, flaming mongoose raced through the
valley chasing a giant flaming cobra, caused your clothes to catch on fire,
and
forced all of you to jump into a spring?" She pinched at the bridge of her
nose, and sighed.
"Yes, yes, that's it exactly. Flaming mongooses, flying through the air,
making the monkey king fall off his cloud, and dragons spouting waterfalls
through their teeth. Oh, a fruit cocktail, how pretty," gibbered Genma, his
eyes spiraling rapidly.
"Ah, interesting as all that was, it did not answer my question, father,"
stated Ranma.
"ZZZZZZ," replied Genma, fast asleep. Ranma sighed, knowing that even she
couldn't wake him up without hurting him enough for him to faint from the
pain.

"Well, how about you, Little Sister? Will you tell me why you and father
decided on this little deception?" Ranma asked in manner that brooked no
declining. Yuri sighed and tried to squash her ever-present fear of Ranma,
especially when he was play-acting more obviously.
"Sure . . . but could we do it somewhere private?" she pleaded, not wanting
the others to know. She had to reveal that she had lied to them, but she
couldn't bear the thought of why she had done it.
"Of course. That is, if Tendo-san can provide someplace. Could you,
please?"
she asked the Tendo patriarch.
"But of course," he replied, acquiescing to her request. He led them to an
empty room on the first floor that was currently being used as storage. After
groping around the darkened room for a few moments, he found the thin chain
that connected to the fluorescent lamp. The lamp flickered and clicked as
Soun
slid close the door, his shadow highlighted by the papered door, for a brief
time, until he left.
They stared at each other, near mirror images, yet so very different, their
mutual acts dropped, if only for a brief moment.
"So, what do you have to say for yourself?" asked Ranma, with no preamble.
"Nothing," Yuri muttered, looking at her feet, trying not to look at her
brother.
"Nothing, is that it?" Ranma whispered in a way that suggested that a great
deal of shouting would have replaced it, if they had the privacy. "Is that
all
you can say for using my name? My name?"
"I don't see what's so important about your name," Yuri said sullenly.
"YOU DON'T . . . no, I see that you don't," Ranma said, gaining control of
herself quite quickly. "In . . . the things that I do," she said, trying to
find the right words, "a name is pretty much all that we have. Whether it's a
moniker or an alias, a name is everything. My reputation, my history, my
methods and my skill, my status, it's all there in my name. It tells the
people that . . . contact me that I can do what I can do. A name is
everything. Without it, you're just another face in a large crowd of faces.
When you took my name, you took my reputation, you took who I was. Do you
understand? Do you?"
"You wouldn't need your name like that if you would just stop!" Yuri yelled,
forgetting her fear, and that the door was not particularly thick.
"Quietly. And shut up," Ranma said, her face deathly still. "I've already
had this conversation before, and I don't feel like having it again. Got it?"
"Fine, whatever. I don't care what the hell you do," Yuri said, trying to
affect apathy, and failing. Then her expression turned dark and she said to
him, "But Mother does, and you've hurt her, and even if she does forgive you,
I
won't."
"Fine," Ranma said, also trying to affect apathy, and also failing miserably.

Her face softened, she asked quietly, "How is Mother? Is she . . . alright?"
"The last time I talked to her, she said that she was fine. She sounded
fine,
and when I last saw her, she looked fine. Other than that, I couldn't tell.
You know how mother is, she wouldn't tell us that she was dying. Oh, wait,
you
wouldn't, would you?" Yuri said, trying to hurt her brother.
Ranma's eyes narrowed, and her face turned as stony hard as it has ever had,
but she did nothing beyond that. For a brief moment, a flicker of guilt
flared
in her eyes, before dying in the cool blue sea colored eyes.
"So, tell me why you agreed to do this?" she asked, after she unclenched her
jaw.
"After you disappeared, we were staying in a little motel in a port town . .
."
* *

*
"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT!?" yelled Yuri, not believing what her father just said
to her.
"I want you to be engaged to a girl as Ranma," Genma said.
"You've . . . you've gone insane, haven't you?" Yuri asked, horrified. "I
knew that the stuff Ranma gave you to drink would rot your brain, but I never
thought that it would work that quickly."
"I have not gone insane," Genma said, with as much dignity as he could
muster.
"Right, let me explain something to you. You remember when Ranma was still
around, and I sent all those letters at that town?"
"Yeah. You even sent a letter from Ranma to Mom, which, if I remember
correctly, I said was a bad thing. But do you ever listen to me? No, of
course not. Why, if I had a hundred yen for every time you never listen to
me,
and it would have turned out a LOT better if you had, I'd be the richest gal
in
Japan," Yuri ranted. She probably would have gone on and on and on if her
father didn't hit her upside the head with one of his modified paddles.
"Quiet, you. Ahem, at any rate, one of those letters was a postcard to a
very
good friend of mine, one Tendo Soun. I think that I told you about him,
before. In that post-card, I told him that I was bringing Ranma with me to
Japan, to fulfill our sacred pact to join our two blood-lines into one," Genma
then went into his 'machismo' pose.
"Say, isn't he your cousin?" asked Yuri, breaking Genma out of his trance.
"What? No," Genma said. He then pulled out a projector, turned off the
lights, and showed various slides detailing the family genealogy. "As you can
see, Tendo and I are only distantly related through our great-grandfathers and
their mistresses, who were eventually adopted into the family. Or, if you
look
at it this way, we are related through my father's half-brother's niece's
husband's aunt's grandfather. I think."
"Whatever. The point I'm making, see, is that we already are related so
there
really isn't any point to this engagement," Yuri said, trying to derail
Genma's
plans with technicalities.
"Nonsense, we're not even closely related enough to be considered true blood,
merely connected."
"Whatever. I'm still not going to do this. I don't care what the hell you
have to say, I am not going to get married to a girl," Yuri stated vehemently.
"You won't get married. All you have to do is introduce yourself to the girl
as Ranma, get friendly and get her used to the idea of being engaged. Then,
when Ranma is found, we can quietly replace the two of you. See? Nothing can
go wrong!" Genma yelled, his hands high in imminent victory.
"You moron. That won't work," Yuri said scornfully, seeing quite a few flaws
already.
"Well, whether it works or not is not your concern. Now, will you do it?"
"No."
"Good. Now, all you have to do is . . . what?"
"I said no, you freaking psycho."
"Talk to your father with respect, girl!" he yelled, incensed.
"Only when he deserves it, you loony!"
They stood at a standoff, each waiting for the other to attack first. When
they figured that out, they mutually stood down from DefCon-2 and back into
the
DefCon-4 that was the basis of their relationship.
"You must, girl! Think of family honor! Think of pride! Think of your dear
old dad!" Genma pleaded, clutching to his daughter's feet. Yuri tried to
shake
him off, but he wasn't a student of 'Octopus' Happosai for anything.
"Get off! Get off! Get off!" she yelled with each violent kick.
"Please! Please! Please!" he yelled with each violent kick.
Finally, she stopped, hyperventilating slightly from the exertion of lifting
quite a heavy man.
"No, I won't do it. I will not spend all that time as a boy. I'm a girl,
damn it. A Girl!" Yuri yelled, in a way reminiscent to another girl messed in
the head about their sexual identity by a father. [Man, you kind of have to
wonder about Takahashi-sensei's family life for her to come up with those
wackos.] (I'm probably going to erase that as well.)
Genma didn't reply, merely sitting down. Soon, his glasses had fogged up,
and
steam was coming out of his ears. Finally, he sprang up, startling his
daughter who was staring at him, fascinated at seeing actual forethought from
her father, and slammed his fist into his palm.
"That's it!" yelled Genma, as he raised his arms in triumph. He then turned
to his daughter and said, "How far are you willing to go in the arts?"
Yuri gave this only a moment's thought, long enough for her to discard her
real answer and give one that would satisfy him. "As far as I have to."
"Good. There is a pair of arts that I developed, that are terrible and
deadly, so much so that I never allowed any but one to know of them. I would
teach them to you . . . but only if you agree to do what I have asked you,"
Genma said with great gravity.
"What's so great about these 'forbidden arts', anyway?" Yuri asked, her
curiosity piqued.
"Let me demonstrate," Genma said. He then went to over to the open window
and
stared at the ocean. Suddenly, he moved his hand faster than she had ever
seen
him move it. A ripple of something moved away from them and flew out towards
the sea. When it hit something, it just chopped it off, like a great
invisible
blade. Of course, it didn't hit anything beyond the tip of a ship, or an
occasional bird, but it was still impressive, nonetheless.

"Whoa," Yuri said in a near whisper.
"And that was but the smallest offerings of the Saotome Forbidden Arts. So,
in exchange for this knowledge, will you do me this little favor?" Genma
asked.
If that blast was just the beginning, then . . . surely . . . it wouldn't be
like it was lying . . . it wouldn't be like . . . and if . . . oh, gods,
Yuri's
thoughts ran, a jumble of guilt, greed, and vengeance. The taste of final
victory against her brother was just in sight, but only if she lied and denied
who she really was . . . just like Ranma did. She would have to become Ranma,
in order to beat Ranma. The irony killed her, a little bit at a time.
"I'll do it," Yuri said, after many minutes of deep contemplation. She then
left the room and went to the bathroom, crying silently to herself.
"Damn it," Genma said quietly.
*

* *
"And that was that," Yuri said.
"All that. All that, just so . . . so you could beat me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I hate you."
"That's it?"
"That's it. I hate you, and if I had to do it over with, all of it, I would,
just so I could beat you. I would do it all, and more," Yuri said, her face
harsh, yet her eyes showing the depths to her despair.
"Well then," Ranma said not sure what to say. He then thought of his other
concern. "So, what have you been doing in my name?"
"Well, not much. That is, until we got here. The first day was a total
nightmare . . ."

Next Chapter: An old enemy returns, a new technique is used, another
flashback,
and a car chase with more traffic violations than 'Riding Bean'. All this,
and
a mystery cameo!

Possible End Theme Song
STOMP BOX
They Might be Giants
John Henry

Stomp Box speak my thought/ Vent these voices from the dark/ Shout Shout Shout
Shout/ Scream it out/ Blast your missive/ Tell the wordless message/ Little
Stomp Box/ Tear it from my heart/ Stomp Box, voice of fear/ pour the poison in
my ear/ Kill Kill Kill Kill/ Kill me now/ Free the demon Hear the ceaseless
screaming/ Little Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart
Stomp Box speak my thought/ Vent these voices from the dark/ Shout Shout Shout
Shout/ Scream it out/ Blast your missive/ Tell the wordless message/ Little
Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart
Kill Kill Kill Kill/ kill me now/ Free the demon Hear the ceaseless screaming/
Little Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart
Heart