Excerpt:- 

Akane sat up in her bath. Ranma? Had she heard a
scream or a yell or something? She sat quietly for a
moment, water dripping from her sleek body, her head
tilted to catch any sound. 

But there was only the sound of drops plopping back
into the water.

*******************************************************

Splash!

Ranma balanced easily on the slim bamboo stick and
watched his foster father fall into one of the pools
dotting the ground below them.

He stared in amazement as a huge panda came hurtling
out of the pool and, in his surprise, he could not
avoid being knocked off the perch. He fell into water.

No way! Did I see a�?

He kicked and surfaced, water streaming through his
hair and blurring his vision. He looked around for the
panda. He felt something dragging at his chest, looked
down and seeing that he had suddenly gained breasts,
screamed in horror.

I�m a girl!!!??!! Is this some nightmare? Am I
dreaming?

The monk of the pools came running in terror, just in
time to see a red haired girl and a panda staring at
each other.

�Oh, no! Your Majesty! Your Royal Highness! You have
fallen in the pools of Drowned Panda and Drowned
Girl.� The monk stopped because his knees were shaking
with terror.

The oasis of Jusenkyou had a reputation as a cursed
place. No camel train or merchant caravan, however
thirsty their animals, would ever stop at the many
springs of water that gushed from the ground. 

They might stop briefly at the monastery that guarded
the springs. The monks had their own tiny spring, the
source of all their water.

And now King Genma, the Tyrant of Jiya, had come to
train with his only son, and they had been cursed. It
was impossible for even the King to kill a monk
without repercussion, but Genma was not the Tyrant of
Jiya for nothing.

The monk saw visions of whips and chains in his near
future.

�Don�t worry,� he stammered. �Hot water will turn you
back.� They didn�t ask, he reasoned, about cold water.


They could find that out for themselves. By that time,
he and his fellow monks would have fled across the
desert to Jin.

Ranma listened dazedly through the monk�s
explanations. She turned to see the panda growling
deep in its throat and she turned back to the monk.

�Boil us some hot water.�

She watched monk fiddle with a kettle for a moment
before her tenous self- control splintered.

�This is all your fault!� she screamed at the panda.
�How could you bring us to this cursed place?� The
panda gave her a powerful swat that sent her flying to
the ground.

�Why, you..!� Filled with fury, Ranma attacked Genma
viciously. Cursed to be a girl! For even these brief
moments, to be a girl, for one�s body to be soft and
yielding, as Ranma never would allow herself, no,
HIMSELF, to be.

Unexpectedly, Ranma thought of Akane. He still
remembered the soft touch of her lips against his.

He�d thought of her when he was 10 and had stapled
Jso�s hands to the wall with his own too-long,
too-pretty daggers. 

Jso had coughed blood in the end. His crushed throat
had prevented him from begging for his life, but that
hadn�t stopped him from trying, the prince remembered
with bitter amusement.

At the last, Ranma had grown sick of the sight of his
face and slashed his throat. Genma had watched
smirking all the while, his arms folded and his legs
apart in his stance of warrior pride.

The monk fled as soon as the water began to boil.
Ranma snatched up the kettle and upended it over
himself. He felt the change, felt himself growing. He
was a man again. But Akane lingered in his mind.

He tossed the empty kettle to the ground and walked
off, leaving Genma in a fury, trying to collect water
for himself.

Stalking through the city, Ranma's thoughts returned
to the war. Genma had often led his armies in the
place of his general. At such times, Ranma was chained
to the wall in his old room in the dungeons, and not
released on pain of death till Genma returned.

And the demon always returned.

"Nothing can kill that one!" swore a soldier once in
Ranma's hearing. "I saw him cleave through a warhorse
once, simply to unseat his opponent!"

"I heard he chained our army together in the last
battle, so that the soldiers would not be able to lose
courage and run."

"Yes, it truly was 'kill or be killed',"noted an old
spearman. "They had no choice at all but to stand and
fight or be cut down where they stood."

Back in the palace, Ranma stared at himself in his
full length mirror, imported at great cost from
Cantos, where such things were made.

�You look worried, brother,� said a calm voice behind
him. He turned around to see Nabiki, his second eldest
foster-sister, leaning against the doorway.

The two true-blood daughters of Genma had grown up
into self-controlled young women. They never gave
their emotions away. 

Kasumi smiled through blessings and beatings equally,
and she had discovered a talent for cookery at a young
age. She had enjoyed it and the assistant cook down in
the kitchens had been happy to teach her, until Genma
found out. 

�Cooking? A princess COOKING in the KITCHENS?� he�d
yelled in one of his rages. He had the assistant-cook
carved up in front of Kasumi with his own knife.

Kasumi had smiled through that, too, Ranma had heard.

Nabiki, on the other hand, always wore a stoic,
sometimes calculating expression. Genma�s second
daughter had somehow learned early that having
leverage over others made her stay at the palace more
bearable. 

She spent all her time eavesdropping and collecting
information the way ants stored up food for the
winter. She had pages and some younger servants in her
employ, Ranma knew. She had blackmailed him, too, when
she felt the need.

But he never held it against her. They all survived
here as they knew best.

He looked back at the mirror.

A sixteen year old boy stared back at him. Slim and
muscular, his shining black hair tied back in a braid
that bisected his shoulder blades, his glance skimmed
the cobalt blue eyes and rested on the reassuringly
large fists with their callused knuckles and fingers.

Yes, he was most definitely male. He had nothing to
fear.

�Nothing, Nabiki. I was simply admiring the mirror,
that�s all.�

He turned and went to his washing basin, and splashed
some cold water on his face. He came back to the
mirror and stared at himself. At the edge of his
vision, a blurred image of Nabiki�s shocked white face
wavered.

An ominous silence rang through the palace.

*******************************************************

The City of Jin

Akane sat up in her bath. Ranma? Had she heard a
scream or a yell or something? She sat quietly for a
moment, water dripping from her sleek body, her head
tilted to catch any sound. 

But there was only the sound of drops plopping back
into the water.

She sighed and rose from the tub, wrapping a large,
woven towel about herself. What had suddenly made her
start thinking about Ranma? She had only seen him that
one time, nine years ago, and she suspected she had
suppressed some of those memories.

Of course, there was a lot of reason to think about
him now, she chided herself.

In three weeks, on the day after her sixteenth
birthday, she would have to travel again to Jiya to
formalize her betrothal to Ranma. Then she would stay
with him for the space of a year. To live in that
awful place�

�Hello, Akane.�

Akane swung around with a shriek. �Ryouga!� Her cousin
grinned unrepentantly at her, a bunch of wildflowers
clutched in his large fist.

�Ryouga! I�m not dressed! Why didn�t you knock?�

�These are for you, Akane.� He held out the flowers.
She smiled and took them. It was hard to be mad at
Ryouga. Her cousin was so harmless. He really was a
sweet boy. She knew Soun looked to him as his
successor.

�Thank you, my dear,� She took the flowers and slid
the stems into a glass vase on her vanity. �Now, you
must leave. I have to get dressed.�

�Very well. I�ll meet you downstairs for dinner,� he
said. Akane took a second to look outside her room.
Yes, her cousin�s navigator was with him. He probably
would get Ryouga to dinner on time.

Back in her room, Akane dressed in a soft, white,
cotton tunic with embroidery on the neck and sleeves,
an embroidered vest and loose pants that she tucked
into her knee high boots.

She continued to think about Jiya. Her sisters. Kasumi
and Nabiki. When she�d last seen them, they had been
little more than shadows, hiding behind curtains and
bustling servants. She wondered what they were like,
now.

And Ranma. She�d made a promise to him. She planned to
fulfill it this time.

*******************************************************

Nearly 4 Weeks Later, On the Streets of Jiya

Akane lifted the curtain of her palanquin to peek
outside. The avenue they were traveling was filled
with people throwing flowers and maize at her
procession. The citizens of Jiya. She could see that
the more prosperous citizens stood at the front of the
crowds, but on the whole, these people did not seem
nearly as happy or well-fed as her own. Akane snorted
and sat back.

At the palace steps, the Jinian procession paused, and
Akane waited tensely, though she remained serene on
the outside. She dared not look through the curtains.
Everyone�s eyes were no doubt on the palanquin
already. She watched as a callused hand drew the
curtain back.

Akane and Ranma met face to face again after nine
years. They stared at each other. Everyone waited.

�Is her beauty so great, boy, that you are struck
dumb?� Genma strode forward and peered into the
palanquin, his eyes skimming Akane�s form from head to
toe.

�By the beard of Gulzar!� he exclaimed. �Let�s see her
in the daylight, boy!� He reached to pull her out, but
Ranma blocked him.

�I have her,� he said quietly. He clasped Akane�s hand
and led her out to stand on the palace steps. The
crowds stared at them in awe.

�After all, Nodoka�s mother was one of the great
beauties of Jiya,� a courtier�s wife whispered to
another. �It�s really not a surprise.�

�I have heard she is known as the Flower of Jin.�

�They grow them well there, don�t they?�

Tofu heard the whispers around him, and his clasped
hands tightened. She was beautiful. And what black
thing it was that resided in the heart of Genma would
destroy anything of beauty.

The councilor glanced at his colleagues. Kalamari, the
wisest of all of them, wore a strained look, as though
he were thinking of something. His nose began to
twitch.

And that was how Akane came again to Jiya.

*******************************************************
Notes: I think I changed the numbering on these a bit,
though with the number of comments(much appreciated) I
got with the first post, not too many people will be
confused! ^_^



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