Son Turned Daughter
A Ranma � fanfict by Tangent
Pre-reading and editing assistance by:
Lord Talon;
Nevrmore;
And some guy named Steve
DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma �' and all characters therein
belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and
Viz Video. This fanfict has been produced for my own
enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters
that come into play in this fanfict may or may not be pulled
from other sources (including other fanficts, RPGs, manga,
anime, literature, or possibly even *GASP* American comic
books!).
A WORD FROM TANGENT: If you've read the previous
chapter, you know that Ranma had explained the curse to
Akane right after their initial sparring match and had
managed to stay friends with her. Also, Ranma, Akane,
and Kasumi had gotten Mr. Tendo to agree to letting Ranma
put off his decision as to which Tendo daughter to marry for
about a year. This doesn't sit well with Mr. Saotome, who is
worried about his past catching up to him if his son isn't
safely married soon.
Genma has a plan.
Needless to say, it's about to backfire...
CHAPTER TWO: Little Miss... Ranma?
Akane jogged through the front gate to the Tendo
estate, returning from her morning run... and almost ran
back out again in shock. She hadn't expected to see
Ranma and his father apparently fighting it out in their
front yard. It only took a moment for her to realize that
the two were actually sparring, and that most of their
match was taking place over the koi pond. This despite
the fact that if either of them fell in, it would trigger their
curses.
"Wow," Akane murmured in awe to herself. "They
really are good!" She was happy that Ranma had agreed
to spar with her the previous evening, despite his justifiable
misgivings (his experience with that amazon who now
wanted to kill him explained that neatly). While Ranma
had stated that he needed to get used to what his girl form
could and couldn't do, he had proven to be very adept in
combat as a girl even so. Not that Akane really minded
being tossed to the floor time and time again, or being hit
by the redhead's lightning quick strikes without being able
to block them effectively. Even as a girl, Ranma knew how
to pull her blows so that they were only painful, rather than
damaging. By the end of her second match yesterday,
Akane felt that she had learned more in one day from her
friend than she had in the whole previous year from her father
(whom she had suspected had been going easy on her).
What Akane saw now was that Ranma did indeed seem
to be a better fighter as a boy than he was as a girl. She
agreed with Ranma's assessment at the end of the previous
day though, in that it was probably only a matter of getting
more experience with the differing strength and proportions
of his cursed form. Akane was good enough to observe how
much faster Ranma's girl form was compared to what she
was watching now.
"Hey!" Akane called out. "Can I join in?"
"Sure!" Ranma responded happily in mid-attack. Akane
had shown him a lot of potential yesterday, and he wanted
to help his friend to realize that potential.
"Ranma!" Genma barked sternly. "You are not training
with a girl! Do you want to become weak?"
"WHAT!?" Akane screeched, fuming as she approached
the two sparring martial artists.
"Akane has a lot of potential, pop," Ranma stated, in part
to placate his friend and in part to correct his idiot father before
he got hurt. "I'm not going to go soft by training with her. She's
stronger than some of the guys I've fought!"
"Boy," Genma lectured, oblivious to the impending doom
that was approaching. "No girl can be as good a fighter as a
man! Why, when I was training under the master... urk!" It
was at that point that Akane had reached him and snatched
him out of the middle of a leap by his gi. After a few moments
of rather intense violence, Genma found himself bruised,
bashed, and mangled into a rather unique shape by an irate
Akane.
Ranma knelt down beside his father afterwards to
determine the extent of his injuries... and to rub salt into
Genma's wounded pride. "Gee, pop," Ranma chided. "For
a 'weak little girl', Akane seems to have worked you over
pretty good. When you have an opinion that makes sense,
maybe I'll listen. Until then, I'm going to help Akane achieve
her potential. She is my friend after all."
Akane beamed at the compliment, happy that her friend
didn't share the opinions of girls that his idiot father did. She
was about to ask if Ranma was ready to spar with her when
Kasumi called everyone in for breakfast.
Soun beamed from where he sat at the table. From his
perspective, Ranma and Akane seemed to be hitting it off
rather well. The boy certainly seemed to be the only one
Akane's age that his youngest daughter had shown any
interest in. And what he had seen of their second sparring
session yesterday evening had rekindled a spark that Soun
had thought long extinguished. Perhaps he had been wrong
to go so easy on his daughter over the years, but after his
wife's untimely death from that horrible cancer, he just
couldn't bear the thought of hurting one of his little girls.
Yes, waiting a year was a better idea after all. Soun was
glad that his daughters and future son-in-law had asked for
the extended time in order to get to know one another without
being forced into anything. Genma would just have to learn to
accept it.
Genma, for his part, mused over the fact that his plans to
convince Ranma to choose one of the Tendo daughters by the
end of the day conveniently had the added benefit of being a
suitable revenge for a disrespectful son as well...
* * *
"What do you mean, I've got to go to school!?" Ranma
demanded. He knew it was true, but his previous experiences
in the various schools that Genma had enrolled him in over
the years were generally bad. It was hard fitting in, when you
had to spend so much time making up for the fact that you
missed so much school. Ranma was generally furious at his
father every time he had to take placement tests because he
had failed to complete a grade due to lack of attendance
(because his father kept dragging him off on training trips for
days and weeks at a time). It was also humiliating to have
to admit to his peers that he had never actually completed
even a single grade without having to take make up tests
and placement exams in order to make the next grade. That
he had managed to stay in the same grade as other boys in
his age group was nothing short of miraculous, even if he was
usually at the bottom of the class.
"Well, we are going to be staying a while," Genma
placated. He didn't really understand his son's aggravation,
as Ranma seemed to be equally irritated whenever Genma
took him out of school. If he had any idea about how
difficult he had already made his son's social life over the
years, he might have had second thoughts about his current
course of actions. Probably not, but it was a possibility...
"It's the same school Akane and I go to!" Nabiki put in
as she walked by. "We'll see you there!"
Akane jogged up quickly, pausing only to put her shoes
on in the genkan. "Nabiki, Wait! I'll go with you!" She then
noticed Ranma, who was irritably snatching a school
carry-case from his father. "Do you want to walk with us?"
she asked hopefully.
"Umm... Okay," Ranma responded, trying to put his
aggravation behind him. Unfortunately, said aggravation
wasn't through with him yet. He felt a splash of water hit
him, turning him into a girl. Spinning around to see her
father toying with an empty cup, the now redheaded girl
shouted, "WHAT'D YOU DO THAT FOR!"
"Well," Genma explained as he set the cup down,
enjoying Ranma's discomfort. "You can't very well attend
Furinkan as a boy after all."
"And *why* not!?" Ranma-chan demanded.
"Because I registered my daughter into that school!"
Genma replied, really getting into it now.
"WHAT!?" Ranma-chan was alternating between shock
and fury, actually frozen in place due to the intensity of her
outrage.
"Now if you would just quit waffling and make a decision,
I could see my way to... urk!" For the second time that day,
Genma found himself aggressively interrupted, this time by his
so-called 'daughter'. In retrospect afterwards, he marveled at
how quickly Ranma picked up new techniques. His son had
only watched Akane mangle him before, and now (as a girl)
had perfectly duplicated the various maneuvers against Genma.
At the moment, however, he was in a lot of pain, and
wondering when his friend, Soun, would wander by, so he
could ask to be taken to a clinic...
* * *
Ranma-chan was fuming as she, Akane, and Nabiki
made their way to school. "Baka-Oyaji! What's the big idea,
registering me as a girl in school anyway? We already
decided to hold off my choice for a year. Even Mr. Tendo
agreed! What is his problem?!"
Akane looked over at her friend. While she didn't really
mind Ranma-chan's cursed form, she knew that her friend
wasn't completely comfortable with the fact that she had a
different body part of the time. "Well, we could stop at
Dr. Tofu's for a kettle of hot water to change you back..." she
offered. She was rewarded with a grateful expression from
Ranma-chan.
"And what about when the teachers take attendance,
Akane?" Nabiki asked dryly. She saw an opportunity here
to both help and annoy the redhead in the same move. "You
know the teachers are going to ask why a boy is attending
class when they were expecting a girl."
"Oh," Akane realized. "That's right! And some of the
teachers will ask that right in front of the rest of the class
too! You'd be humiliated in front of the whole class!"
"That is probably what the old fool is after," Nabiki
pointed out. "A way to humiliate you into speeding up your
decision."
Ranma-chan groused for a moment longer before it hit
her. Nabiki was right! Her father probably expected her to
change back into a boy before she got to school. As much
as being a girl bothered her, it was mostly because it wasn't
really who she was. She figured that she would be just about
as upset if she turned into another guy instead. Possibly
more so, if said curse provided a weak male body incapable
of combat. At least this body could fight. "If that's the way he
want's to play it, fine! I'll show him! He want's a daughter in
school, he's going to get a daughter in school!"
"Are you sure, Ranma?" Akane had to ask.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Ranma-chan responded. "Nabiki has
a point. Pop wants to embarrass me into forcing the issue,
and that's not fair to me or you and your sisters. If I show
up at school as a guy, I don't know how long I could take it
before I lost my temper from the humiliation."
"Besides," Nabiki observed. "What would happen if you
attended school as a boy? Swimming is a required course
at Furinkan. As soon as your class hits the water, your
curse would've been exposed to the whole school." Nabiki
noticed her sister's brief shudder, but Ranma-chan missed
it as she thought about what Nabiki said.
"You're right, Nabiki," Ranma-chan acknowledged.
"Thanks for putting things in perspective."
"Not a problem," Nabiki replied. [There,] she thought.
[Now I've helped you out without having to apologize or
admit I was being a jerk yesterday! I even received gratitude
for it as well, which is a plus in my book] She hummed
quietly to herself as the three continued on to school...
* * *
The three made pretty good time on their way to the
Furinken High School. Ranma-chan didn't even bother to
mention it when she got her legs splashed by an old lady
casting water in a ritual cleansing to keep evil spirits away.
The way the neo-girl saw it, it didn't hurt, and she may
actually need all the help she could get (as she was already
touched by magic, and was therefore almost guaranteed to
attract at least a little attention from such things). Either that,
or it was just another example of how she had turned into a
kind of water magnet...
As the three approached the front gates to the
schoolyard, they noticed a crowd of twenty to thirty boys
gathering. "Ah! Don't they ever get tired of this!" Akane
snarled as she started stomping rather than walking.
"What's wrong?" asked Ranma-chan, although she
could already guess that it had something to do with the
mob of boys ahead of them. They seemed to be from
various sports clubs as far as she could tell, but there were
a few that she couldn't easily place (one example of such
being a boy in the ordinary Furinken boys' uniform carrying
a portable stereo of some sort).
"These boys are trying to gain the right to date Akane
by defeating her in combat," Nabiki explained casually.
"What? Like she's some sort of tengu?" Ranma-chan
asked, perplexed. "Did you set the challenge or consent to
it?" she then asked Akane.
"No, I did not!" Akane snapped.
"Then it doesn't count," Ranma-chan stated firmly. "Do
you want a hand?"
Akane smiled at her new friend. "No, I can take care of
them myself. Thanks for asking though." [Why can't more
boys be like you, Ranma?] she thought to herself. Sure, her
friend was a bit rough around the edges, but she (or rather he)
had a good heart that offset what would otherwise be an
overbearing macho attitude. And Akane hadn't thought that
she would like any boy with a macho attitude. [I guess it's
all in how... and when... it's used].
"Don't worry about it, Ranma," Nabiki put in. "She does
this every morning, and she hasn't lost yet."
"Besides," Akane added, glaring at the boys. "I want to
try some of the new moves you showed me yesterday..."
"Well, all right," Ranma-chan consented warily. "I won't
butt in. Just don't hurt them too badly. And if you're going to
use what I showed you, I'm going to critique you after the fight."
Akane started at this, but then realized the sense of it.
If Ranma was going to get the dojo as part of the dowry of
whichever girl she eventually married, she was going to be a
sensei someday. Apparently, she already had some training
as such, although Akane guessed that she had merely picked
it up from other martial arts masters that she and her father had
met during their travels, rather than from her father (she was
absolutely correct in this assumption).
Putting such introspection aside, Akane charged forward,
prompting a mass counter charge from the mob of boys.
With easy, circular sweeps and spinning strikes, Akane
moved through the crowd with a touch more than her usual
finesse. Ranma-chan observed the fight critically, noting
where her friend could improve and occasionally spotting a
move that she personally didn't know and would therefore
ask about later. All in all, Akane was more of a ground-based
fighter than the Saotomes were, but then again, so were most
fighters.
Nabiki's own observation was that the fight was a bit
shorter than usual. As her younger sister had improved
noticeably as a fighter over the course of only two sparring
sessions with their young guest, Nabiki decided that they
both merited further observation. Kuno was just playing
around now, thinking he was allowing Akane to show the
'token' resistance that would prevent her from being labeled
as an 'easy' girl. Also, he had no desire to actually hurt
Akane, so took care not to push too hard in a fight with her.
The way things were shaping up though, proved to Nabiki
that her little sister may soon have nothing to worry about
even if Kuno began to fight her in earnest.
As Akane laid low the last of her massed opponents,
she spotted a small projectile out of the corner of her eye
and deftly caught it. It turned out to be a red rose. [Bleh!
Kuno!] she thought to herself contemptuously.
Kuno began his glorious introductory speech, only to be
quickly interrupted by an unfamiliar spunky redheaded girl in
Chinese apparel. "So, who's the loser who waited until after
the fight was over to join in?" Ranma-chan asked Nabiki with
exaggerated casualness. Her tone made it clear that she was
definitely not impressed with the handsome boy wielding a
boken in what was supposed to be a jaunty manner.
"That," Nabiki answered in dry humor, "is my classmate,
Kuno, who set the terms for dating Akane."
"You mean the ones she didn't consent to, right?"
Ranma-chan asked in an off-handed manner, glaring at the
fallen boys as well as at Kuno.
Nabiki nodded in confirmation. "That would be him, yes."
Akane just looked at her friend, and then at the flustered
Kuno as the redhead walked up to him.
"Kuno-sempai," Ranma-chan began sweetly. "What you
are doing to my friend, Akane, isn't right, and provoking
others to fight her in false hopes of dating her isn't honorable.
I'm going to have to beat you up later, but right now I don't
want to be late for class. See you after school." With that
she bowed politely and turned to enter the school.
Akane and Nabiki gaped at that little act for a moment
before rushing to catch up. As soon as they had, Ranma-chan
started her critique of her friend's fight as they continued on
into the building.
Kuno was flabbergasted for a while longer, only to turn
and head into the school himself moments before first bell.
[Who is she?] he wondered.
* * *
"Class," Mr. Heiwaijigun began, "We have a new
student today. Her name is Ranma Saotome, and she has
recently returned from a training journey in China, so lets all give
a 'Nihau' welcome for your new classmate!" After a pause,
during which the class greeted the new girl, the teacher continued.
"Would you care to tell us a little about yourself?"
"Hai, sensei," Ranma-chan responded nervously.
She was really irritated with her father right now, but tried to
put a pleasant face on for her classmates, as it was hardly
their fault that they thought she was a real girl. The overall
effect of her mixed expression was that of being shy, which
wasn't far from the truth either, but was the farthest thing on
her mind.
"I'm heir to the Saotome Ryu of the Anything Goes
School of Martial Arts, which is related to the Tendo Ryu
that my friend, Akane, is heir to. My father took me away
from home when I was six in order to concentrate on my
training, and raised me to be a 'man among men' if you could
believe it." She gestured at herself briefly at that point,
emphasizing her obviously feminine features. "While I've
been in and out of various schools over the years, this is the
first time he sent me to school registered as a girl."
Ranma-chan watched the amazed expressions of her
classmates and the somewhat amused expression on Akane's
face (her friend knew that she was telling the truth... just not
all of it).
"For a while, I think he really believed that I was a boy,"
Ranma-chan quipped. "He even had me believing it!" This
comment hit a little too close to home for her tastes, so she
ended her speech with a pained expression. With that, she
went to the seat indicated by the teacher, which was right
by Akane.
Mr. Heiwaijigun didn't know quite what to make of what
he had just heard. It sounded plausible, if improbable, and
Ranma used predominantly masculine or neutral inflections
and gestures. In fact, the few feminine mannerisms the new
girl evidenced seemed to be forced, as if she wasn't used to
acting that way. She practically screamed 'social misfit',
which may lead to some problems among her peers for her
later, but he hoped not.
Overall, Mr. Heiwaijigun found her to be remarkably open,
given her self-stated situation. Whether she was telling the
truth or making it up on the spot, Ranma's speech and body
language gave all indications of a desperate cry for help. He
would have to look into her situation himself in order to find
out what kind of help she needed though.
* * *
"Did you hear about the new girl, Megumi?" asked
Yasushi, a girl in another classroom.
"Saw her confront Kuno right out there," Megumi replied,
gesturing out the window. "Real idiot if you ask me,
challenging Kuno like that."
"Maybe she's a really good fighter?" another of Megumi's
cohorts, Ayane, pondered. "She was hanging out with Akane..."
"You mean, maybe she's a really bad fighter," Megumi
sneered. "Akane's the only one in that group who can fight
worth a damn."
"I suppose you're right..." Ayane conceded.
"Pretentious bitch, challenging Kuno just because Akane's
there to back her up if he takes it seriously," Megumi muttered
darkly. Why wouldn't Kuno look at her the way he looked at
Akane? It wasn't fair, and now this new bit of fluff had wandered
into the game.
"Did you hear how she challenged him?" Yasushi asked,
grinning at the trouble that the new girl was getting into with
her boss. There was going to be some fun later, if she knew
anything about Megumi.
"Oh, I heard all right," Megumi all but growled. "Akane's
one thing... She obviously doesn't like Kuno."
"Not that Lover-boy seems to be able to notice," muttered
Ayane in turn.
"Coming onto him like that," Megumi snapped. "Just who
does she think she is?"
"If she's in the same class as Akane, she'll be in gym
with the rest of us," Ayane pointed out.
"Do you want to beat her up then?" Yasushi wondered,
"or are we going to do something else?"
"Oh, I have something in mind..." Megumi replied, grinning
evilly...
* * *
Ranma's first day of classes at Furinkan was relatively
uneventful. She, of course, struggled to keep up with most
of the lessons; generally feeling frustrated during the classes.
Between classes, and during the study period, she was
surprised at the number of people willing to help her out and
bring her up to speed. Since she didn't feel the need to project
the overbearing self-reliance that her father insisted that all
true men should have, Ranma was discovering that people
could actually be quite friendly if you let them.
That didn't mean that she let any of her new friends do her
work for her, as that would be wrong. Besides the fact that it
would be unfair to her new friends if she took advantage of
them in this manner, she wouldn't really catch up in her
education if she did that. So she had them show her how to
do similar problems instead, until she got the process down.
ATTACH CHAPTER TWO, PART TWO HERE: