Reincarnations
Book 1 : Antipodes
---
" " are speaking
' ' are quotes
{ } are thoughts
[ ] are panda sign
* * are sounds
---
Chapter 1
First day at school
---
The sleep was disrupted. The dreams were hunted by visions from the
past. Everything was turning. Lost. Totally lost in this ocean of
memories. Bit by bit, all was disappearing to be replaced by a void...
but a void that was fated to be filled.
So this spirit was flooded, more by concepts than by pictures this
time...
Hot Cold
Fire Water
Light Darkness
Good Evil
Life Death
Yin Yang
A tissue of simple but opposite concepts,... All these forms and ideas
were assembling with each other, moving, turning in an infinite
whirlwind.
Again and again, seeming to fail to ever stop, the tissue whirled,
whirled, whirled...
"Ha!" Her disturbed mind finished to wake up from this strange sleep,
but the dream didn't fade... "What the hell was that?" She asked to
herself, while looking where she was.
Near her, illuminated by the feeble light from the rising sun were
sleeping a young man and another much older.
{Ranma!} she thought, recognizing the boy. The events from the day
before immediately came back to her. {Good. I know at least where I
am. No new change then. Hmm...} She thought for a little while.
{Well, the memory still doesn't want to return... and the sun'll soon
be up. Too late to go back to sleep. I might as well go train a
little...} she decided while she dressed.
Once the clothes on, a red chinese shirt and a black trouser, she
silently exited the room, then the house and went to dojo.
Followed then a few series of complex katas. For any other martial
artist, to perfect them would be a dream come true, but for someone
like her, it was more like a warm up.
While she went through the katas, she saw the dream again, sorting the
pictures and analyzing them. It was only when her mental work was
successful that she allowed herself to stop the katas. When she
finally opened her eyes, she noticed her twin at the dojo entrance,
looking at her with interest.
"You seemed a little preoccupied with something while working out."
Ranma said her.
"Yup. I had a very strange dream, it waked me up." Ranko answered him.
"Let me guess... a big whirlwind?" he asked her.
"Correct, I see that it waked you up too. I was thinking about it
while training."
"I did some thinking too, after I saw that you were already up. Didn't
get anything useful though."
"I got no great result myself, but I know one thing for sure. The
opposite concepts separated themselves on two groups before they
started to whirl one around the other." She told him.
"That's all? I had a vague feeling that each of the two 'groups', like
you said, were each linked to one of us."
"hmm... if that's the case, what could be the first group, before all
the concepts separated themselves on these two groups?" Ranko asked.
"I dunno. We don't even know how you got on my girl body."
"Our two bodies were one and the same before the curse... like the two
concept groups! Is it possible that the curse had separated the
concepts in two groups and rejected the unwanted group in the cursed
body?"
"It would explain the separation, but where you spirit could come
from?" asked Ranma.
"The girl body was the one rejected. What if my spirit came from the
same method. If the concepts that stayed behind are yours, then maybe
my mind was made by the rejected concepts, with your own mind as a
model."
"It'd mean that without this accident yesterday, you'd never even
existed?"
"the more I think about it and the more it seems to be the truth. If
it's really the case, then, I'm just a reflection of your mind."
"It doesn't seem to move you that much." Ranma retorted.
"As long as we don't know for sure, I prefer to act like nothing
happened. It could explain how I got all your memories and no one from
myself, though. I'm really your twin sister, eh, eh, eh!"
"Stop that, it's not funny."
"I never said it was. We don't even know if my group was male or
female..." she noticed absently.
"If you are my reflect, you must be a girl inside too." Ranma said
her.
"You seem pretty sure of yourself, bro. And if it was you that had a
girl spirit inside?"
"Impossible. I'm a guy!"
"Maybe I'm one too, in a girl body... In any case, even if you are a
cute guy, I'm not the least aroused by you." She teased him.
"Pff... if we are really twin, we can't be attracted by each other."
Ranma rationalized.
"You don't think I'm cute? I sure thought I were. If we were two
girls, I'd have asked you on a date." She teased him.
The twin's chatting was interrupted by the soft voice of Kasumi.
"Oh, it's you. You were training? The bath is ready... go take it
while I'm cooking breakfast."
"good morning Kasumi." Ranma greeted her.
"You are getting up pretty early... you are working hard." Ranko said
to Kasumi, smiling.
"Yes." Kasumi answer, returning the smile before going back to the
kitchen.
"Ranma, shall we go? We are not giving Pop a good reason to steal our
breakfast, aren't we?" Ranko asked her twin.
"Yup, he is taking enough advantages like that without... Hey! How
that 'shall we go' ?"
"You afraid that I bite you, bro?" Ranko teased her twin again, while
dragging him to the bathroom.
---
Later, following the canal side. Akane and the twins were going to
school.
"We will never get married! You know that?" Akane asked Ranma.
"Sure!" Ranma answered back, following Ranko on the fence.
"So, at school, you keep your distances!" Akane continued to verbally
assault the male martial artist.
"Be relieved! I hate chauvinist girl in your..." Ranma started to
retort her when...
*toom, toom, toom, KA-POW*
"Pop ?! Wh...?" Ranma asked his father after being clobbered on the
head.
"You're not in situation to choose your wife! Listen Ranma! I'm gonna
tell you something!" Genma announced, but...
*doink* Ranma tackled him so that the fat martial artist fall in the
canal.
"It was meant to be." Ranko lamented herself.
"Yes? You wanted to tell me something?" Ranma asked his panda-turned-
father as the animal jumped back on the fence to start a fight.
Ranma dodged the first blow with a fancy somersault, landing perfectly
in the middle of the street, smiling.
"Eh, eh, eh!"
*splash*
...just before being splashed by an old lady with a ladle.
"Fortunately, you aren't cursed anymore, bro, or else you'd have
changed. On the other hand, you seem to as much a cold water magnet as
you were." Ranko tell her twin.
The panda sighed before walking back to the Tendo house, unable to
share his knowledge, while depressed about the strange, miraculous
cure of his son.
{At least is he twice the martial artist he were!} thought the panda
in order to convince himself that the situation had a positive effect,
to offset the fact that he didn't get cured too.
"Let's hurry or we'll be late." Akane said, starting to run.
Having no objection to give, the twins chased after her, Ranko jumping
down to join her brother on the road. The more the three of them were
coming close to the school, the more Akane seemed to mutter something.
"Akane, you got a problem?" Ranko asked her.
"I hate BOYS!" Akane screamed just when the trio reached the grids of
the school. Akane was immediately rushed by a horde of boys, all
dressed in several sport uniforms.
The Saotome twins, choosing wisely to not interfere without knowing
what it was all about, jumped on the wall circling the school.
The boy brigade was trying to fight Akane, but they were quickly
beaten in unconsciousness by a fury-like Akane.
"Akane, go out with me!"
"No, I love you more than him!"
Finally, winner of the fray, Akane was standing in the middle of the
unconscious bodies of her would-be suitors, lying on the floor.
"Every day, it's the same thing. It's becoming tiresome." Akane was
bemoaning while catching her breath.
"You can say that again." A new voice stopped her, a kendoist this
time. "Forcefully, if one of them were to beat you, you'd be bound to
date him." He finished while posing.
Ranma, willing to understand what all that was about, jumped down to
Akane. It got him to be defied by Kuno, the said kendoist, the fool
presenting himself like he was nothing less than a God's gift to
women.
The storm was now starting to rumble while the two men where facing
each other. Ranma dodged easily the first bokken thrust, which sliced
in the outer wall of the school. Then he dodged in the same manner the
second hit, which cut the tree where Ranma had landed after his first
dodge.
Ranma then entered in the weak defense of his opponent, in order to
explain himself. But his words, quite insulting toward Akane, didn't
do much that get the fight to go on.
A new bokken slash was dodged with a jump, placing Ranma above Kuno,
two fingers ready to strike. The two fighters meet when the first drop
of rain fall on the mud, Ranma hitting Kuno on the forehead while the
kendoist brushed only Ranma's neck.
Ranma, used to his short-lived curse and the change linked to cold
water, was greatly surprised to not change this time and he sort of
stopped all movement. Ranko, watching the fight with great interest,
saw it immediately and jumped in action.
With a mighty mid air kick to Kuno that put some distance between
Ranma and the bokken, she gripped Ranma's forearm and made another
jump, taking her brother with her in a safer, and dryer, place.
---
A little later, Class 1-F.
"Miss and mister Saotome, it appears that you are just coming right
from China. Anyway, it doesn't change the fact that you two and miss
Tendo were... late. Take the door." Ordered the teacher.
Out of the class, the teens now had a bucket full of water in each
hand. Akane then explained to the Saotome twins about the morning
fights, not without blaming Ranma for her being late.
"So, you fight Kuno each morning ?" Ranma asked her.
"No, I beat him each morning!" she answered cockily.
But the twins knew better after seeing her fight with the boys. This
Kuno boy was slightly better than her.
"Bah... against a girl, he can't go full out..." started Ranma.
"Don't underestimate me." The offended Tendo warned him. "You want to
try me ?"
"Already done... yesterday's evening. You didn't even come close to
hit us." Ranko countered, intending to get Akane's feet back on earth.
"You may be the best of this school, but there is always someone
stronger... in your case : us."
Ranma then barely dodge a splash of water.
"Ranma Saotome, I won't allow it! I'll never accept... your engagement
to Akane Tendo !" shouted bokken-for-brain Kuno, causing the
classmates to swarm at the windows.
The young and unwilling couple started to find excuse like "it's not
our ideas" or "it was our fathers' ideas", but Kuno in his furry
(lunacy?) started to attack Ranma and then ran after him in the
corridors.
"It's not a pace to fight, come on!" asked Ranma to the kendoist.
"That I may!" returned Kuno.
With but a single look exchanged, Akane and Ranko went after them too
to see the fight. Ranma seeing an open window used it to jump outside,
mimicked by Kuno.
"Hey! That's the third floor!" someone shouted.
"Hu..?" Kuno seemed to have moved faster than his brain could follow.
"So what?" asked Ranma, his training allowing him to land from such a
fall without problem.
Fortunately for Kuno, and to some extend to Ranma too, there was a
pool just below them to catch their fall. Seeing this, Ranko made up
her mind and jumped after the fighters.
Ranma quickly got out of the pool, but Kuno was a little stunned and
when the shock was gone from his system, the one he saw in front of
him was the other Saotome. He caught her, grabbing a breast
unknowingly, thinking she was Ranma.
This was not the thing to do, so Ranko, angered by the grabbing,
caught Kuno head behind her and with all the strength she could use,
thrown him on the pool's edge, using it to extract herself from the
water and land a few feet apart her brother.
"Why did you followed us, Ranko? It's my fight!" Ranma asked her.
"To have a seat in front line to see the fight. Your opponent is
waiting for ya. Beat him into a pulp, or I'll do it for ya. That
bastard dared to grab my breasts." She explained while Kuno was moving
closer to us.
"Saotome! How dare you to ask a girl to fight at your place? Coward!"
shouted Kuno.
"Ranma and me are the same person. Body and soul. So we do as we wish
to do, okay? A pervert like you has nothing to say." Ranko warned him.
With these words, a small volcano seemed to erupt directly from the
insane kendoist's head. "Body and soul!? Tyrant!" Kuno started to
attack Ranma, more violently this time.
"You didn't understand it." Said Ranma.
"Shut up! I see it all... Enslaver!" Kuno slashed the tree Ranma was
in front of only seconds before.
"Go get your head examined!" yelled Ranma.
"I'll crush you and free her from her chains!" Kuno continued his
speech while vainly trying to hit Ranma, but Ranma caught the bokken
while airborne and use it as leverage to double kick Kuno savagely.
"If you lose, you forgot about the whole affair, okay?" Ranma asked.
But his sole answer was...
"Playing is over!" said Kuno as he prepared his attack. "Strike!
Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!" he yelled punctuating each
yell with a bokken thrust.
"wh..." Ranma, surprised by the attack, managed anyway to wave between
the bokken strikes, but the concrete wall behind him had not that
chance, and didn't resist the air pressure of the attack.
"Ahhh!" yelled Akane, hiding behind the cracking wall, having since
then joined Ranko in watching the fight.
"Stand back, idiot!" Ranma warned her.
"Focus on the fight, I got her!" Ranko assured her bro.
"You're mine!" shout Kuno victoriously while striking a last time on
Ranma's back.
*vwoosh*
Ranma counter attacked Kuno in a quarter of a second, hitting him with
a shower of kicks, despite his delicate airborne position. Kuno
managed a smile before collapsing, face down.
Akane walked toward Kuno and returned him on his back, showing for all
to see a dozen foot prints.
"My god... you spared none of his sensitive points." Said Akane,
amazed.
"The 'Blue Thunder'... he didn't last long." Ranma praised himself.
"You got him good, but you were soft with him compared to what I would
have done myself. With all the crap he said on me." Said Ranko.
"Ranko? What do you mean?" Akane asked to the redhead.
"First, he grabs my breast. Then, he insults Ranma, thinking he wanted
me to replace him for the fight, in fear of losing. And finally, he
thoughts I was Ranma's sex slave or something like that. If he ever,
EVER, dares to touch me again... I can't promise he'll walk away from
it."
The three returned to class, waiting for the day to be.
---
***
And thus the school day came to an end. The teens returned home,
stopping by Doctor's Tofu office for the twins' appointment.
"Hello Doctor!" called Akane while entering the office.
"My, Akane... I didn't see you lately, no new injury?" enquired Tofu.
"No, I don't exercise lately." She answered him.
"And who are your friends? I never saw them in the neighborhood." Tofu
asked, looking at the twins. Being a martial arts master himself, he
knew then were good just by seeing the way the moved.
"They are guests, our fathers are friend." Akane told him.
"Hi Doc! I'm Ranma Saotome, nice to meet'cha."
"And I'm Ranko, his twin sister. Well, sort of..." Ranko added. "In
fact, that's why we are here."
"Hmm, what can I do for you?" asked the good doctor while scratching
his neck, not understanding what was the problem.
"Well, to be blunt : do you believe in magic?" asked Ranma.
"Well, that's a rather strange question here..." Tofu answered.
"Doctor, believe them, I was there and I saw it all. I still don't
believe it, but I can swear that they are telling you the truth."
Akane explained to the Tofu.
"Very well then, what is the problem?" He asked to the twins.
"Up until yesterday, we were one. I got this curse at the cursed
springs of Jusenkyo..." started Ranma.
"Excuse me, did you said Jusenkyo?" interrupted Tofu.
"Yep, ya already heard of it?"
"Just some legends I read here and there. But you saying you went
there is making me think about it twice, since it proves that it
exists." Tofu informed them.
"Well, I wish I never heard of it. But to go on with the story, I got
cursed there. You see, there are all these springs with bamboo poles
stuck in them, the site is named like that for a reason after all. And
of course, each spring is cursed. If you fall in a spring, you take
the shape of the last thing that drowned in it. In my case, it was the
Nyannichuan or spring of drowned girl." Ranma said.
"But all that changed yesterday. The cursed form split from Ranma. Up
'til yesterday, Ranma was an only child. SO the question we have is :
if I'm just a curse, where did my spirit came from. I got all of
Ranma's memories, but I know they are not mines, so I'm not just a
copy of Ranma." Ranko explained.
"That's... different. I don't know what to say. What do you need me
for, if I may ask?" enquired the doctor.
"Well, my sisters thought you might be able to help them to at least
understand what happened yesterday." Akane told Tofu.
"Hmm... I don't know what to say. A minute ago, I didn't even think
this sort of magic existed... I can at least see if you are fit
physically. We can't know for sure what this split did to your body.
You two seem fine but it's best to check it to be sure." The good
doctor informed them.
"yeah, it's good and all, but even if there is damage, the problem is
of magic nature. What can you do against something like that?" Ranko
asked him.
"More than you think, I studied chinese pressure points and I can feel
one's chi. So I think I can manage to detect any damage done to your
auras." Tofu told the amazed teens.
"Wow... very impressive." Noted Ranma.
"You bet! Ok then, since the curse, aka me, was extracted from Ranma's
body, you might as well start with him for the checkup." said Ranko.
"Ranma, if you may lay down here." The doctor instructed the pigtailed
martial artist.
The doc skillfully examined Ranma's body, pressing precise points here
and there, pausing each time like he watched something only he could
see. After a while, the doctor was done and told Ranma he could get
up.
"Ranko, your turn please." Said Tofu gently.
Again, the doctor hands pressed various points on the redheaded girl's
body, and a paused each time, nodding a few times. When he was done,
Ranko got up and waited for the doctor to tell them what he found.
"For starter, you two have same chi frequencies. This is unseen even
in the case of twins, which confirm the split story. I believed you
when you told me but I got proof you were right. Now, even if you have
the same frequencies, your chi auras are quite different, nearly
opposite in fact. Even if your auras are still balanced somehow, you
got a nearly 'all-or-nothing' imbalance in your yin-yang proportions."
The doctor paused a little to let the teens integrate what he was
telling them. Then he pursued to tell them his discoveries.
"Ranma got only Yang while Ranko got all the Yin. Maybe that what
caused the split, since Yang is a more manly chi while Yin is more
womanly. Your auras have a cold and hot feeling respectively too. I
cannot tell if there was some damage done by the split, you two seem
fine, physically at least, but these differences in your auras are not
healthy and we need to watch it. We don't know what it can cause. No
normal human body can live without both yin and yang, but again this
was done by a powerful magic so... I think that's it." Tofu finished
with a serious face.
"..." the three teens stayed silent a while, collecting their thoughts
about what the doc just told them.
"Ranma...?" Ranko asked her twin.
"Yeah?" He aswered softly.
"You think that the dream we had this morning have somehow a link with
this aura thingy?" She wondered, looking at the floor.
"Could be... you know what that mean for ya, don't ya?" He whispered
while walking toward her.
"What dream are you two talking about?" Akane enquiered.
Ranko's head shot up to look at Akane, she then aswered the youngest
Tendo.
"That was one hell of a strange dream... I got my head filed with
ideas, notions, concepts... it twirled for a while before splitting
into two groups... Ranma and me thought this morning that maybe the
two groups could reprensent us, with what happened yesterday."
"If what you are telling me is effectively related to the curse
splitting, then maybe the curse used Ranma's mind to make up a new
mind for the new body..." Tofu explained from what he knew.
"Yup... If that's true, then I'm just some flesh construction... I
didn't have a life before this splitting. I don't need to wait for
previous memories to come back... I don't even know if my mind was
made to be male or female..." Ranko said, eyes shimmering with unsheed
tears.
"Ranko, don't see it like that. You're alive and well. This splitting
gave you the chance to live..." Akane told her strange redheaded
friend.
"Hey, I'm not gonna kill myself over something like that, I'm just
relieved to know where I come from. I just need to find out if I'm
male or female in my mind... Then, I'll just have to live and see by
myself who I am and what is my place on this world... I'm truely
Ranma's sister now." Ranko told to Akane, smiling sadly.
"Ranko, for what's it's worth, I'm sorry it had to come to this for me
to get cured if this curse. Even more so if you find out you're a boy
too." Ranma said to his twin.
"Don't worry, I'm happy you are cured, I got all your memories and I
know what a pain it was for you. And you don't have to be sorry about
me being alive, it's a great chance I got and I intend to live it
fully!" Ranko beamed.
"I suggest you two sleep on it, the day must have been hard on you and
you'll need all the rest you can get." The doctor told them. "If you
have any problem at all, or if you just need to talk, I'll be here for
you. Don't hesitate, I'll be happy to help you."
"Thank you so much, Doctor Tofu. Well, I think it's time we got
home..." Akane said, starting to walk toward the exit of the room.
"Yeah, thanks doc, you were a great help to understand all this..."
Ranma added, following his fiancee.
"Bye, doc, see ya next time." Ranko finished, closing the walk toward
the exit.
"It has been a pleasure. Have a safe walk home." Tofu said while
walking with them to the door.
---
Reincarnation Chapter 1 - End
---
Author's notes : well, that was one hell of a writer block... And I finally beat it down !!
I got past the writer block I got for chapter 2 and the 1st part is already done...
It'll be way shorter than the prologue or chapter 1... but it'll do a little "fast forward"...
that'll get the story to the point where things will REALLY start to change
(ya didn't think a little Ranma-boy/Ranma-girl split was the only thing original, did ya? >) )
see ya soon I hope ;)
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