This is my first Ranma fanfic. I didn't know about this ML before I sent
this story off to raac (where it should be appearing soon, I hope). The
list is *very* hard to find, even when you do know about it...at least
it is when the FFML home page is down. %-)

C&C welcomed.

Benjamin Franz

"Hello Again"

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She wept soundlessly into the night beneath the bridge, hugging her
knees against her chest for the pain from inside, unaware of the
presence of the second girl - who's own emotions were less than
steady. The thoughts that flowed through her head would have been
familiar to either of them, if they had been spoken aloud: 'That
incredible jerk! How could he?! Why couldn't they understand how she
felt?' The tears streaked silently down the cheeks of the small
redhaired girl, sitting there on the bank of the river. 

                *                *                *

Akane's eyes brimmed with unspilled tears as she gripped Ranma's
shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. 

"Ranma, change back! I don't care if you are rude and insensitive. I
complain a lot, but this isn't you! If you stay like this, who will
I...what will I..."  The sentence trailed into silence, leaving the
ambiguous questions hanging in the dark air of Akane's bedroom. 

Ranma looked up at Akane, her eyes pleading for understanding, the
height difference, as always, reversed when Ranma was in her girl
form. 'I...know how you feel, but this is who I am. The male Ranma 
you knew doesn't really exist anymore.'

The flare of anger from Akane formed an almost visible aurora around
her, 'You idiot! You aren't Ranma at all! If you are going to be
that way, you can stay a girl forever as far I care!' The attack
with the wooden katana missed, whether because Akane wasn't as
serious about killing Ranma as she appeared or because of Ranma's
remarkable speed in avoiding the strikes undetermined. Regardless,
they quickly moved through the dojo and outside by the fishpond as
Akane expressed her frustration in a relentless assault and Ranma
continuously dodged. 

Ranma never saw the rock she tripped over. The unexpected backwards
tumble into the fishpond, and the crack of her skull against the
rock edge of the pool were seemed quite loud in the quiet of the
night. 

'Ranma!'

                *                *                *

Doctor Tofu had left, and a subdued Akane sat on her folded legs
next to the still unconscious Ranma as Kasumi replaced the moist
folded cloth on Ranma's forehead. Doctor Tofu had said that the
concussion didn't appear life threatening, but that Ranma should
definitely take it easy for the next week, and that if he
experienced any dizzyness or lose of balance the next day, he should
come into the clinic. 

Akane sat silently watching the softly breathing Ranma and tried to
sort her thoughts, but they insisted on repeating again and again
the moment when she saw Ranma trip backwards and knew that Ranma was
going to crack her head on the rocks, again. What utterly shamed her
was the momentary flash that had shot through her head in that
instant hoping that the fall would kill Ranma, only then followed by
the horrified realization that it might *actually* kill her.  She
couldn't help wondering if she could have caught Ranma if that
vengeful thought hadn't been there.

                *                *                *

'Nnngg...' Ranma stirred, and then blinked her eyes to clear her
vision against the morning light. Where??? On her futon, in her
room. She touched the back of her head. 'Owwww!!!'. She had tripped
and then...and then...she didn't remember after that until she woke
up. She must have hit her head or something again. She touched her
head again. Definitely hit it. She propped herself up on an elbow
and looked at the form of Akane, asleep, slouched over while still
sitting next to Ranma's futon. Oh. 

'She stayed up all night watching you, you know.' floated an even
male voice from behind Ranma. Ryouga. Of course. He didn't look like
he had gotten any sleep, either. Ranma pulled herself into a sitting
position, being careful to keep herself covered. 'I thought so,' she
said quietly. 

'How do you feel?'

>From the look in Ryouga's eye, Ranma knew that the question didn't 
apply just to the bruise on the back of her head: 
'Beatup, tired....female.'

Just then, Akane murmured something in her sleep. Ryouga motioned to
Ranma to come outside the room. Ranma hesitated, and then wrapped
the blanket around Akane's shoulders before leaving. She closed the
door gently behind her before turning and facing Ryouga.

'You know. That's why you spend so much time as P-chan.'

Not a question. 

Ryouga nodded. 

'You never spent much time in your cursed form. Its not going away.
I didn't tell you because I hoped it wouldn't happen to you. Maybe
you would be lucky. Maybe I was just unlucky.'

Softly, 'So what do I do?'

'I don't know. It was different for me. People _eat_ pigs...so I
didn't have much of a choice: It was either life as human shaped pig
or lunch as a pig shaped human.' Ryouga grimaced, the latter had
nearly come true too many times. He still remembered the time Shampoo
tried to serve him up for lunch to Ranma. 

Ranma understood the source of Ryouga's phenomenal depression now -
and why he had never told anyone why. Having the conviction to your
soul that your proper form was a pig while actually being *and
knowing* you were human would be enough to drive almost anyone into
a world class depression. It was a miracle the internal conflict 
hadn't actually driven Ryouga insane.

In its own way, Ranma's situation was both better and worse than
Ryouga's. Better in that she actually _could_ live as a girl and
maybe even be accepted. Worse for the same reason - she didn't have
the compelling anchor to her original form that kept Ryouga from
losing himself to his cursed form. 

The tall dark haired boy with the yellow bandana looked with bleak
eyes at at the short redheaded girl. 

'Welcome to Hell.'

                *                *                *

It had been two weeks now, and Akane was in a white rage. She
couldn't take it out on Ranma. For starters it would be like kicking
a puppy, and second off she couldn't lay a finger on her anyway.
Ranma's speed advantage as a girl was insurmountable: Ranma didn't
want to fight, and was fast enough to make sure she didn't have to. 

'Hiiyaaa!' <crash>

<plonk>

'Hiiyaaa!' <crash>

<plonk>

The sound of cinderblock after cinderblock being reduced to gravel
went on until Akane ran out of cinderblocks. She had gotten so good
at demolishing the blocks that Ranma had begun to wonder if she had
mastered Ryouga's breaking point technique somehow: When she was done,
what had to be accomplished for clean up was better accomplished
with a broom than by picking up the individual pieces. 

Akane came inside, her gi plastered to her from the sweat of her 
workout, her hair...well...limp. Ranma peeked at her from around 
the corner at the top of the staircase, deciding if she would have to 
run or not.

'Come _down_ from there, Ranma!', snapped Akane. 'I'm not going to
attack you. I've calmed down.'

Ranma slowly came down the stairs, but looked ready to bolt at the
first hint of trouble. Akane might have come down from the
absolute rage she had been in, but she was scarcely completely calm. 

'What did you think you were doing?!', Akane fumed.

'I *can't* go to the *boy's* gym class! It would be perverted!'
Ranma's damnable beaten puppydog eyes trembled as she answered 
Akane's question.

'Ohhh!!! YOU!!!' 

Akane moderated her voice somewhat as she saw Ranma prepare to run. 
It had taken a week of periodically yelling at recently vacated air
and a conversation with Kasumi before she had learned to clamp down
on her volume when talking to Ranma now. 

'You're *NOT* a girl! You're a *GUY*!'

'But...'

This now daily argument wound to its inevitable conclusion of Akane 
storming to her bedroom and slamming the door behind her. 

Ranma sat on the bottom step of the stairs, looking depressed. The
arguments with Akane were the worst of all. She always felt
physically ill for hours afterwards. She didn't *want* to upset
Akane, it was just that Akane couldn't understand that Ranma's
change of perspective wasn't something she *chose*. It just...was
the way it was. 

Father, Shampoo and Mousse would be spared this, at least. When Ranma
and Ryouga had talked with Cologne, she had quickly figured out a
formula would prevent that part of the curse from taking effect. 
Unfortunately, it had to be used _before_ it activated. It was of no
use to either Ryouga or Ranma. Cologne was of the opinion that it was
irreversable once it took full effect and they were inclined to
believe her:  She might be a wrinkled little monster, but she had 300
years of experience to draw on. And with the tight reign she had on
Shampoo, that problem had really ended before it started.

Sitting on the stairs thinking about that, she didn't hear her father
approach. 

'Boy.' 

'Boy.'

'BOY!'

Ranma jumped at the shout. She hadn't heard the first two calls, but
she would have had to be more than deaf to miss the third. 

'You're breaking your father's heart!'

Oh no. Time for speech number five. She really didn't want to hear it,
but it would be disrespectful to refuse to listen. 

'How can you do this? Don't you care that this means the end of the 
Anything Goes School of Martial Arts?' The speech wound through how 
his father had spent his whole life preparing Ranma to take over 
the school, and so on...and so on....and so on.....

She finally escaped by telling him she had to help Kasumi prepare
dinner. He really was a slave to his stomach, and Ranma really was a
good cook. The combination stalled Genma long enough for her to 
vanish into the kitchen.

She had been spending more and more time helping Kasumi, not just
because she really liked cooking and other homemaking things (which
she did, actually), but because it provided a space where no one
tried to convince her to 'change her mind'. Kasumi never did that -
perhaps instinctively understanding that while people could do as
they wished, they couldn't always wish as they wished. Whatever the
reason, Ranma was grateful to her for her support.


                *                *                *

Akane was openly contemptuous of Ranma's "squeemishness" about blood.
When Ranma had gotten her first period, Akane had been absolutely no
help. It had been Kasumi who had calmed the panicked Ranma down and
explained what was happening to her. She had never stayed in her
female form long enough for it to happen to her before. 

The same went for Ranma's new found pacificism, her enthusiasm towards
doing housework, and above all her reaction to guy's underclothes while
doing laundry. 

But the thing that ultimately led to disaster was the hair. 

'I can't believe you!'

Sitting with both legs folded neatly beneath her, Ranma kept her eyes 
on the low table as Akane stormed, but didn't respond.

'And you!'

Rounding on Kasumi now, Akane continued, 'You actually helped Ranma 
do it!'

Kasumi responded very mildly, 'Now Akane, it _is_ her hair.'

'Ranma isn't a she at all! He's just a stupid _PERVERT_!!!!'

Akane glared at Ranma, daring her to dispute the statement.

The hair in question was neatly trimmed into a midback tail, quite
full, and very feminine over the flower print kimono Ranma was
wearing. Nothing unusual, unless you consider that up until about
thirty minutes earlier it had been a thin eight inch braided ponytail,
tied with a dragon's whisker. The whisker was still present, but now
hidden in a scarf that acted as a gather for the end of the flowing
hair. 

To achieve that remarkable transformation, Ranma had removed the
dragon's whisker and suffered being changed into a male long enough
for explosive hair growth to change the short braid into a long mane.
The growth itself was the result of one of those accidents that seemed
to always plague Saotome Ranma: When still a boy, he had inadvertantly
eaten a dragon's whisker - a side effect of which was wild hair
growth. Growing the whole length to below midback had taken less than
twenty seconds.  The whisker stopped the growth, and the out of
control growth effect didn't carry over to her female form. 

After Ranma changed (with relief) back into her female form, Kasumi
had trimmed the red hair into an attractive tail and showed her how to
brush and maintain it. Akane's outrage had boiled over when she had
walked into Kasumi's room after dinner and found her sister arranging
the scarf that tied the end of Ranma's new mane of hair. 

'Its bad enough that pervert is doing this, but you're helping him!'

Attracted by the yelling, the other members of the Tendo household
began drifting into Kasumi's room from their various post-dinner
activities. Nabiki's reaction on seeing the new look of Ranma's hair
was delight: Kuno-baby would pay a _fortune_ for the pictures. She
would be able to raise the price at least 10,000 yen per shot... 

Tendo Soun and Saotome Genma's reactions were considerably less 
favorable.

'Saotome, I think this has gone far enough.'

Genma nodded solemnly in agreement, and they simultaneously grabbed
for the seated girl, a pair of scissors materializing in Genma's hand
from Kasumi's dresser top. The chase that ensued did quite a bit of
damage to all eight major surfaces of room, but Ranma was too fast to
be caught that way. When they had finally pressed her too hard, she
had escaped out of Kasumi's window, leaving Genma and Soun behind,
panting and empty handed. 

After a long time looking out the window, Genma spoke without turning 
around.

'Tendo.'

'Yes.'

'I've got a plan.'

                *                *                *

Genma looked ridicuously satisfied with himself as he talked to
Ranma's back as she sat on the edge of the dojo entrance next to
Akane. 

'If you won't be a man and carry on the Saotome School of Anything
Goes Martial Arts, I will have no choice but to disown you and tell
your mother that you died while training.'

The words from her father froze Ranma in shock. The hope of someday
being re-united with her mother as parent and child had always been
Ranma's most cherished dream. Every visit by 'Auntie Saotome' was always 
an internal battle to fight the urge to reveal who 'Ranko' really was. 

Genma was saying that he was going to take that dream away from her,
and more, was going to disown Ranma, leaving her with no family at
all. In order to fight it, she would have to reveal her secret to her
mother - which would result in her and her father's death at Nodoka's
hands, making good on that incredibly stupid promise her father had
made when they had left home so long ago. 

The alternative was to deny _everything_ that she was now, marry Akane,
and live a violent life as a man and martial artist for the rest of her
life. It was the kind of slimy plan only Saotome Genma would have come up
with. He was undoubtedly sure that Ranma would cave in and do as he
wished. What it didn't account for was that Ranma's pacificism and
identity as a girl went down to her core now. She _couldn't_ live that
way. It would kill her as surely as Nodoka's sword. 

As the full scope of the trap her father had put her in became apparent
to her, the blood drained from her cheeks, leaving them a pale white 
against the dusk. 

Only Akane really saw Ranma's face before she lept into the twilight
outside the dojo: What she had seen there had caused her to race after
Ranma, leaving Genma and her father standing in the doorway, mystified by
the two girls reactions. 

                *                *                *

It wasn't like the times Ranma had run from fights at the dojo before.
Ranma had just been avoiding violence then. Not this time. There had been
hopeless despair in Ranma's eyes when she leaped into the night - the look
of someone who had nothing to keep on living for. Even Ryouga at his worst
never had looked quite like that. This had scared Akane. 

Akane had never followed Ranma before when she fled fights at the 
dojo before. She had just assumed that Ranma would return eventually. She 
wasn't sure that would happen this time - Ranma's face had been...had been...

When she had finally caught up with the fleeing girl, they were at a foot
bridge crossing the river. Ranma hadn't noticed Akane's arrival, too
caught up in her pain. The tears visible on Ranma's cheeks had rocked
Akane to her heels. Ranma? Crying? 

She had never seen Ranma cry before. Oh, a few tears had been squeezed out
of his eyes by sheer pain once or twice when he had really been hurt
during a fight, but that wasn't crying: _This_ was the weeping of a soul
beyond hope.

In the months since Ranma had hit her skull in the fishpond, Akane had
been relentless in her harassment of what she privately thought of as
"Ranma's Girl Act". For the first time in that entire time, she
seriously thought about the possibility that it wasn't an act, and
that it wasn't going to change. It was very hard for her to even
consider it since if it wasn't an act, Akane had committed two
incredibly horrible crimes against the person in front of her. 

>From one perspective, it could be argued that she had killed
her fiance (even if she hadn't meant to), and done her best to make
life a hell for an innocent girl ever since.  That was a bitter pill
to swallow.  But from that point of view, she owed the girl in front
of her in ways she might never be able to repay. 

It was indeed a bitter pill - Akane's own cheeks were damp by the time
she finished swallowing it. This was nothing on the grief that would
come later when she paid her private respects to her ex-fiance, but for now 
it was enough to determine her actions. She would settle things with her 
father later. Whatever else happened, Ranma was _NOT_ going to be 
without a family.

The words were almost the first ones she had ever said to Ranma,
before she had found out that the 'girl' she had just met was a boy
cursed to take the body of a girl. She had written them in her journal
in sarcastic anger that day, and read them many times since when she
was angry at Ranma. This time, they meant much more than they had when
she had originally spoken them, and carried no sarcastic intent.
Perhaps it would give Ranma a small new reason to continue to live.

She opened her mouth, and in the dark night beneath a Tokyo bridge,
said the words that closed the chapter of her life when she had been
engaged to a boy named Ranma: 

"I'm Akane."

"Would you like to be friends?"