The Tendous awoke to a horrified scream from Akane that morning.

The family, plus Genma, filed out into the dojo. Nabiki almost immediately
lost her lunch. Soun paled. Kasumi's eyes widened in horror.

Akane kept screaming.

He was slumped over on a blanket spread out over the wooden floor. The
blanket was soaked in blood. In his hands, floating in a congealed pool of
blood, were the entrails that had slipped out through the wound made by the
tanto.

His head was on the floor a few feet away.

"My son..." Genma whispered, a tear working its way free from one eye.

"Why...?" Akane sobbed as she sank to her knees, hoarse from screaming.

Kasumi noticed an envelope laid carefully several feet from the body, well
away from the blood that had spilled. Trembling, she bent down and picked it
up, opened it, and read it aloud, her voice wavering.

"It...it didn't work. I'm s-sorry, everyone. I can't l-live l-like
this...g...goodbye. Signed, R...Ranma."

"What does he mean, it didn't work?" Soun asked.

"The cure," a voice rasped from the rear entrance. Everyone looked up to see
a haggard-looking Ryouga leaning there. His tunic and pants, as well as his
hands, were stained with blood.

"Cure?" Genma asked. "Wh...what cure?"

"There is no cure," Ryouga said miserably. He slumped to the ground
bonelessly, his hollow gaze focusing on Ranma's headless corpse as he spoke.
"We...we got hold of some Nanniichuan water. The last of it. There was
enough...enough for two. He went first..." The lost boy swallowed. "At
first...we thought there'd been a mistake. That it was just normal water
after all, or Nyanniichuan. He was still a girl.

"Then...then he looked in his pants." Ryouga's eyes dropped. "He...he..."

"What? What happened, Ryouga?"

The lost boy averted his gaze from the body in the middle of the room. "It
*was* Nanniichuan. It...made him...both."

It took  a while for comprehension to sink in among those present. "Oh
no..." Akane gasped in horror.

"He...he said...he could've lived with the girl. But...he couldn't live
with...couldn't live with *that*." Ryouga shuddered. "He didn't want to go
through life as some kind of freak. So he...he asked me to be his second.
He...didn't want anyone else to know until it was too late." Ryouga bowed
his head.


                                   *      *      *      *      *


Apologies to any hermaphrodites or friends/family of hermaphrodites who may
have been offended by this.

-------------------------------------------

Studio ELL: Back in Crack!
http://www.lurkerdrome.com
The Eternal Lost Lurker
lurker@lurkerdrome.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/lurkerdrome



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