RANMA NIBUN NO USUGURAMI
PART I

WARNING: Despite what you may believe, the characters that appear in 
this work are not my own. So no phoning the lawyers. (Besides what can 
they sue me for?)

Chapter 1

"There's no way out of this one. You're trapped."

Genma was glad he was in panda form for his Go matches. He knew that if 
he dared to remain a man he would end up vocalising every one of Tendo's 
mistakes. If he did that, he wouldn't be able to use the mistakes to his 
advantage anymore.

His lifelong friend, and fellow martial artist, was constantly repeating 
one of those mistakes. He had recognised it: While surrounding a small 
group of his stones, Tendo had missed a chance to save a larger group 
from being surrounded.

Uttering an obscure growl, Genma placed his stone, completing the 
barrier.

"Wait just a minute," Tendo said. "Are you sure that's a legal move?"

<<Ah, Tendo. You're being a sore loser again.>>

It didn't matter to him. Lifting up his handy sign, he scrawled YES 
across it in as large a print as possible. Seeing the look spreading 
across Tendo's face, it made up for all the times he had lost trying to 
play shogi against his friend.

Just as his friend was reaching under his dark hair feigning 
concentration, he noticed the door to the dining room open and someone 
stepping out. Becoming fully alert, Tendo whirled his head around to 
meet the person's gaze and gave a call.

"Kasumi. Can you bring out some tea, please?"

Kasumi, the oldest of Tendo's three daughters, had just begun to mop the 
floor when she heard her father's request. "More tea, Father? All 
right."

Leaving the mop and water by the door, she went back to the kitchen to 
start another pot.

Genma was wondering where he had space for it all. In this day alone the 
man had asked for rice crackers, pork buns, fish sausage, and a full pot 
of tea already. How much could one man *stall*?

"Can you add some mint this time? Thank you." The smile that had been 
moving across his face immediately disappeared as met up with the 
panda's gaze. "What? What's wrong, Saotome?"

Trying to make his arms look as crossed as possible in his present form, 
he gave Tendo a you-know-what look. After a sufficient glare he rose 
from his sitting position and walked over to the bucket Kasumi had left 
trying to fill her father's latest order. Testing it first to see if it 
was hot enough, he proceeded to pour the water on his head.

The event of the water's effect of transformation was a familiar, yet 
never quite pleasing, sensation. Even after all this time he was never 
ready for it. He could feel every change.

His ears were descending on his head. His snout was receding. His arms 
were becoming thinner and lengthier as were his legs. His claws were 
growing more joints as they changed back into fingers. He even felt his 
skeleton warping back into that of a human's under his skin. Finally his 
fur diminished to near nothingness leaving his head bald.

With the transformation complete in it's instant, he cursed to himself. 
Although there was never any physical pain associated with his change, 
he always had to push pain on himself. A pain that he had conjured up 
ever since the waters of Jusenkyo had cursed him. The mere thought of 
his body going through such a change triggered the sensation, a 
combination of grief with shame.

Walking back over to the board, he wondered if his son, Ranma, ever had 
similar thoughts. All he ever had to worry about was changing into a 
panda. Ranma's curse was the infinitely more terrifying experience of 
having to change into a girl. Such a curse must bring about innumerable 
humiliating changes. Changes that could even damage the indomitable will 
of his eighteen-year old successor.

He cursed again. How dare he believe that he was better off than his son 
was? Ranma was just as cursed as he and until they could find a 
permanent cure-

Suddenly, he heard a crash.

"What was that?" Tendo asked. Genma was equally as confused, at least, 
until a scream punctuated the event. Tendo slumped down. "Never mind."

Some distance away, Genma could hear a double set of footfalls. One was 
more pronounced than the other. The level of the sound was increasing 
rapidly. He recognised it as two people running. Between that and the 
scream he knew that once again his son and his hopeful daughter-in-law, 
Akane, were fighting again.

"Even after all this time." he fixed the position of his glasses. "Even 
after all this time they find energy to continue fighting."

Tendo agreed. "If only they would accept their positions, they could use 
that energy in planning for the future."

Their contemplation was broken by the streaking form of Ranma running 
past them. He had only made it as far as the other wall of the dining 
room when he was halted by a very loud "STOP!" Turning around on his 
left foot, Ranma planted his right foot on the deck where the men were 
just playing. Looking over his shoulders, Genma recognised the stance 
Ranma positioned himself in. He had shifted his weight onto his right 
foot making sure that he could bolt to the backyard in case she started 
throwing things.

<<Foolish boy. Always running away.>>

?                    ?

"Ah, c'mon Akane." Ranma knew it was a standard excuse opening but he 
was at a loss for something more eloquent.

That crazy girl was always blaming him for something and half of the 
times, it wasn't even his fault. Ever since that day, two years ago, 
when their fathers engaged them, he had spent most of his time battling: 
if it wasn't someone from his past, it was this dark-haired tomboy.

"Don't even try to weasel your way out of this one Ranma. I want to know 
why your stupid excuse for a body was in my *room!*" He winced as she 
accented the last word of her sentence; that was the only way he could 
tell her whether or not he was paying attention.

He always wondered if her anger shut down her ability to comprehend. So 
far he hadn't seen any evidence against it. "I told you. I was helping 
Nabiki find a book. A damn manga. Nothing else."

"You could run your lips from here to China for all I care. You're not 
getting away with this!" she screamed.

"You can even ask her yourself," he defended. "It's her copy of 
One-Pound Gospel."

Then she gave that look that said she wasn't going to listen to anymore, 
that nothing on earth was going to stop her.

While he readied himself to avoid a lunging attack, Mr. Tendo used the 
last moment of time to block her. <<Okay, almost nothing.>>

Grasping her shoulders, Mr. Tendo pulled her up to a normal standing 
position. Pop followed suit and hung onto Ranma. Bringing their 
respective children together, yet still out of kicking range, they tried 
once again to explain.

"Both of you have to learn to co-operate," Mr. Tendo started. "How does 
either of you expect to carry on the practices of Anything-Goes Martial 
Arts if neither of you is willing to accept the other?"

Of course. The older martial artist *had* to switch from saviour to 
torturer. "It's always the same speech," he said as convinced now as he 
was the last time he heard it: not at all. "It didn't work then and it 
won't work now. Akane's too stubborn for that."

"I'm stubborn?" she seethed. "Have you ever listened to yourself?"

"Then explain why you're standing there, ready to beat the shit out of 
me!" Ranma forced himself out of Pop's grasp.

"Because you were sneaking in my room you pervert!"

"I wasn't sneaking nowhere! I was looking for Nabiki's book! You can go 
and ask her yourself!" he repeated.

"And give you the satisfaction? Never!"

"There! You see? You're hopeless! Absolutely hopeless!"

"At least *I'm* not a bisexual's dream come true!"

Seeing that the argument was never going to be resolved, Ranma was again 
grateful Mr. Tendo had to step in. "That is enough you two. Be quiet. 
Ranma, you will apologise to Akane."

"What?" He couldn't believe this. She was going to win.

"Quiet. Akane, you are going to apologise to Ranma."

"What?" She reeled for a moment. "Wild horses couldn't drag an apology 
out of me."

"Enough," he continued. "Then, after you have done that, you will 
apologise to us for creating such a disturbance. Right Saotome?" Tendo 
turned to look at where Pop was supposed to be, but he wasn't there.

"What? Oh, right Tendo." Ranma glanced over to the new direction his 
father's voice was coming from. He had been rearranging the pieces on 
the game board again.

He snapped back up quickly. "Tendo's right kids. You have to work 
together."

"You didn't hear a single thing I said, did you Saotome?"

Ranma could see flames dancing from Mr. Tendo.

"Now, Tendo. We're...we're trying to help the kids. Re-remember?" Pop 
was beginning to sweat.

<<My father.>> Ranma rolled his eyes. <<The grinning idiot.>> "See ya' 
Akane."

"Hey. Where do you think you're going?" she shot out with mock 
consideration.

"Anywhere you're not." He felt he had enough for the day. Already 
planning what to do for the rest of the day, he started toward the back 
wall subconsciously calculating the force he would have to exert in 
order to jump it.

Akane could be so damned pigheaded at times. Not that he was any better 
at admitting to his mistakes, but she's supposed to act like a girl. 
Girls do not run around with a mallet like some kind of demented 
samurai. He wondered exactly how he could find the strength to stay in 
this house.

"Because I have to make up for what happened last year," he said to the 
fish jumping in the backyard pond.

As he calmly strode past the pond, keeping his gaze locked on the single 
fish flipping its tail, he thought again about the power water had over 
him. It was such a simple substance. Before the day Fate had stacked the 
chips against him, he thought of water as something to drink when you 
were thirsty, something to wash yourself when you were dirty. During the 
first few switches he had despised water and what it did to him. Now, he 
was almost back to indifference; he learned that it was no use trying to 
control something that is uncontrollable.

He wondered if the situation with Akane was any different. He had met 
her when he was only sixteen. At sixteen, he didn't want to meet 
anybody. He had just come back from a two-year training mission and--the 
Jusenkyo incident notwithstanding--it was the most exhilarating 
experience he ever had. Two years with just him against nature, using 
all his martial arts experience just to survive. It was the only way to 
truly live, Pop had told him his entire life. And then he comes to the 
dojo and he's supposed to forget all that? Be forced to marry someone he 
had never seen before?

For six months he told himself that it was a mistake to stay, that he 
should have up and left at the first possible chance. But staying with 
Akane was the best mistake he ever made. It was difficult at first--all 
right, it was a nightmare--but for some unseen reason it worked out and 
they had been happier together than ever before...

He felt tears threaten to well up and suppressed them. They had been so 
happy together and then he had fucked it up, royally. Now, it was worse 
than before. The fights were becoming so trivial and it hurt him every 
time he got into another one. But what other option was there? He 
couldn't leave; the thought of leaving was more painful than staying. 
And every hurt just drove the knife deeper into his heart, destroying a 
tiny piece of him in the process.

Taking one final look over his left shoulder at the pond as he passed 
it, he wondered whether it was better to accept his condition and get on 
with the rest of his life or consider himself a dead man. Out of the 
corner of his eye he saw something that was bent on convincing him of 
the latter.

A mop struck him on the back of his head and he gave a shrieking cry. 
The force of the blow caused him to spin once and double over. The mop 
flew over and landed in front of him. He performed a lazy somersault and 
his feet landed on the wet mop. Through the pain and disorientation, he 
shifted his weight to the left. His feet, however, slipped in the other 
direction and he fell into the fishpond.

?                    ?

Ranma managed to flicker into consciousness for a while. She knew that 
she was pulled out of the pond by Pop, though she couldn't make out a 
word that he was saying. She only recognised that he was making noise. 
Cursing Akane for trying to kill her, she found it more difficult to 
keep her vision from clouding.

She tried to hold on as long as she could, but blacked out anyway.


Chapter 2

"Please. You have to help him!"

Tofu was not usually accustomed to having people barge into his clinic 
without an appointment (unless it was Kasumi). He was about to voice his 
opinion when he saw that Ranma--albeit a female Ranma--was being brought 
in and changed his attitude immediately.

"What happened?" He placed Ranma on the bed. Tofu could already tell 
what was wrong by seeing the lesion on Ranma's head. Of course he always 
knew to ask anyway; it helped vent the parent's frustration.

"He was struck from behind," Genma said. "Then he collapsed." 

"It's just a simple trauma," he said, silently cursing the 
pretentiousness of medical terminology.

Flipping Ranma over onto his stomach, he peered at the damage.

Base of the skull. Judging by the acuteness of the actual bruise on the 
swelled region, it looked like something with a lot of force compared 
with its surface area. And blunt too. It looked like a stick or wooden 
pole struck him.

He knew Genma wouldn't tell the whole story. But he also knew he 
wouldn't dare to ask about the whole story, afraid he already knew that 
most of the details also concerned Akane.

"Even with the apparent severity of the bruise, there should no brain 
damage or paralysis. The worst I can see is a pounding headache. I mean, 
this is Ranma were talking about.

"Oh, thank God." Genma said, relieved.

Tofu continued, "I can wake him up now if you'd like. I'll go get an 
herbal stimulant."

"Thank you. Thank you."

After administering the drug, its effects were rapid. Ranma was cogent 
within a few minutes. Plus, as he had predicted, she was also sitting 
up.

"*Ohh,*" she moaned, the pain throbbing back to life with her. She sat 
up on the bed allowing the covers to collect around her waist. One hand 
was covering her eyes. Tofu reached over her and turned the dial on the 
rheostat to reduce the glare from the overhead fixture.

Pulling back into his seat, he looked her over once again to see if any 
further flinches or reactions would show him any other areas of pain. He 
was extremely adept at passive diagnosis, having received the best 
education he could and also having six years of intensive GP experience.

Even at his young age, Tofu Ono was good enough to have become a surgeon 
if he wanted, but he preferred talking to his patients, being a natural 
conversationalist. Sleeping people don't reveal what's wrong with them 
and he preferred not to look at charts.

Whenever he worked, he wore a blue-grey robe and pulled his hair back in 
a less-than-clinical ponytail. But that was the feeling he wanted to 
promote. The clinic was to be felt as if it were an extension of a home, 
not a sterile building devoid of humanity. And his patients were happy 
for the pleasantry.

He reached behind him towards the bookshelf and plucked down a text on 
head trauma. He didn't need to look to confirm the book's location, 
Ranma was in here enough times to make him wonder if he should just 
leave his books on his desk to protect himself from Carpal-Tunnel's 
Syndrome.

Ranma moved her hand from her eyes to the pain on her head as if her 
touch would make it disappear. She asked, "What happened? I feel like 
the Tokyo Tower fell on my head."

"Ranma," Tofu stood up from his chair. Putting down the book on his 
desk, he stepped over the bed. "You suffered a blow to the head. If you 
don't mind, I'd like to perform a few co-ordination tests. To see if 
you're still responsive."

She looked at him with confusion. "Well who gave you that authority?"

He was taken aback by the boy-turned-girl's statement. He wasn't 
expecting that kind of comment. "Your father did if that's what you're 
wondering. He was the one who brought you here."

Ranma shifted over in the bed to keep her distance. "And another thing. 
Who *are* you?"

"Ranma," Tofu said perplexed. "You...don't remember me? I don't look 
familiar to you?"

She became pensive. "Up until you told me, I couldn't remember my own 
name. What makes you think I'd remember you?"

He blinked again. He had been in good keeping with the Tendo family for 
a long time. When Ranma was introduced to him, he never got any 
opposition the likes of which he saw now. And the claim of amnesia was 
only adding to the disturbance.

A look of dismay coupled with innate understanding fashioned Tofu's face 
in an expression reminiscent of an Edvard Munch painting.

"What's wrong?" Genma questioned when he saw the doctor's reaction.

Tofu straightened. "Mr. Saotome," he asked as if ignorant. "What exactly 
struck Ranma?"

"Why do you ask?" Genma asked trying to side step.

"Because what I'm seeing is almost a complete loss of memory. 
Considering the bruise on his head, the cause, to me, is as 
unexplainable as the result. Do you know what was he struck with?"

"Uh, well...I don't know," was all that the parent would volunteer.

Seeing that his efforts were being wasted--trust from a long time 
martial artist was obviously a rare commodity--Tofu turned his attention 
back to his patient. "Ranma, can you tell me what year this is?"

"Nineteen-ninety-eight," she replied immediately.

"Mm-hm. Can you tell me where you are as specifically as possible?" Tofu 
asked while checking Ranma's reflexes.

"Japan?"

"Any place in particular?" Tofu moved on to healing the bruise to keep 
the discoloration from spreading.

"Nerima, Tokyo."

"Okay. Do you know who the Emperor is?"

"Emperor Akihito." Ranma was becoming restless.

He checked her eyes for a sign of concussion. Fortunately, her pupils 
were dilating properly, but it only helped to add to the mystery 
surrounding this loss of self. Her personality was gone and he wasn't 
sure how it was lost.

"Okay. Just one more question. Do you know who he is?" Tofu indicated to 
Genma.

"You said he was my father," she stated.

"Yes," the doctor agreed. Straightening his glasses, he hunched down in 
front of her. "But can you tell me his first name?"

Ranma heightened her gaze and for the first time really looked at the 
burly, bald figure, carefully moving from the scarf tied around his head 
down his white robe to his bare feet and up again. Looking off, she hung 
her head and replied a defeated, "No."

"By all rights, this should not happen." Tofu got up and turned to 
Genma. "I have never seen a case like this. The only term I can think of 
is 'circumscribed memory loss.' Though that diagnosis is far from 
scientific; I'm afraid I don't have that much knowledge of psychology."

"Circumscribed memory loss?" Genma asked, bewildered.

"Knowledge, the set of memories learned, and personality, the set of 
memories imprinted, are usually linked. His general knowledge is intact, 
yet there is no imprinted memory of himself or either of us. I suspect 
that will also extend to any other personal acquaintance."

"Wait a minute," Ranma started, interrupting his explanation. "What do 
you mean 'he?' I don't know what kind of doctor you are but at least I'm 
able to tell the difference between Boy and Girl." To emphasise her 
point, she made a cupping motion under her breasts.

Tofu swore to himself for not having noticed that earlier. The absence 
of self-identity put her in a position of trying to learn everything 
over. It should follow that she be convinced she was a girl.

Whirling around, he met her with a plastic smile. "Oh. I guess it was 
the clothes. They do a wonderful job of concealment." Tofu broke off 
into a string of laughter.

"Ranma, could you wait for me outside?" Genma asked.

She walked out into the waiting room fidgeting with her pigtail and 
muttering to herself. "How can they be concealed? They're so huge..."

Looking to see that Ranma was out of earshot, Genma turned back to Tofu. 
"Is there anything I can do to help him?" he asked

Tofu broke his laughing streak and became more serious. "All I can 
suggest is that you take him home. Time heals all wounds. Keep him in 
familiar surroundings. Try to reintroduce familiar things to him. The 
only thing I have to hazard is that you don't reveal his curse."

"What? Why not?"

"He's lost all his personal memories, so he'll have to draw on what he 
knows. If your knowledge told you it was the norm for people to remain 
the way they are because you couldn't remember *that* training trip, how 
would you feel if you saw another unfamiliar face stare back at you in a 
mirror? No. He's already trying to come to grips with the possibility of 
rebuilding his--her--*his* entire life. It would be very detrimental to 
reintroduce it so quickly. Try to reveal it to him if he shows memories 
of China. Until then, keep it discreet."

Genma stood for another few seconds trying to take in everything the 
doctor said. Then he turned to the waiting room. "Okay. Thank you, 
Doctor." He walked to the front door. "Come, Ranma."

"Coming," she said softly.

Tofu watched as they walked down the street and wondered if he made the 
best decision for the sake of Ranma's health.

"Oh well," he said, clutching his belt and walking inside. "Time will 
reveal when it wants." The only problem was he had no idea how long she 
would have to wait.

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