Author's Preword: Before I get started, I want to thank my pre-readers.  Sorry
that I haven't gotten to you before now, and you know who you are, even if I
don't (sorry, my memory for names is absolutely horrid.  I'm not even sure
what my parents names are).

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.'