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, an 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