Posting notes: If at first it looks like shit...

Disclaimer: Takahashi Rumiko designed the characters and setting. I hope
she finds it in her heart to forgive me for mutilation them... ^_^'


Ten years ago...

10 years ago...


Saotome Nodoka watched her dejected-looking young son and shamefaced
husband, and wondered at the cause of their expressions. The two of them
had just gotten back from a two-month trip to China, a trip which both
father and son had looked forward to for a good long time.

"Dearest, I've failed in my promise," Genma began, his voice clearly
conveying that tears were not far away. Either Genma had improved
greatly on his acting skills, or there was something seriously amiss,
much worse than usual.

"Which promise?" she asked in puzzlement. There had been a lot of
promises made an broken over the course of their marriage, none of them
serious enough to warrant quite this kind of behavior. Could he have
been unfaithful? But why would Ranma...her train of thought was broken
off as Genma continued.

"I've failed to keep our son safe..." he wailed pitifully.

Nodoka's heart froze in her chest. Surely he couldn't mean...?

"...and now he turns into a daughter!"

And Saotome Nodoka, mother of Ranma and husband of Genma, left the
waking world and knew no more for a good long while.



The End of the Rope


Chapter 1


A vision of cool, clear morning sky greeted Saotome Ranma as he opened
the blinds of his bedroom window. Stretching his limbs, he spent a
moment admiring the view. Not that the bland sea of rooftops was any
different normal, but Ranma seldom had his mornings to himself. Judging
from the amount of light outside, he hadn't woken any earlier than
usual, which had to mean that his father had had much more Sake than was
really good for him last night, otherwise they would have already been
sparring in the courtyard below.

"Ranma dear, it's time to wake up! You don't want to miss your first day
at school!" came his mother's voice from downstairs, breaking Ranma's
reverie amd dampening his nascent good mood some.

"Oh yes, school. Whoop dee do," he muttered, shaking his head.

In Ranma's experience, school was most often a place of torment. His
Jusenkyo curse and martial arts skill had caused him a lot of grief over
the years, the former among his peers and the latter primarily among his
teachers. For the first five years he had had the curse, he had been a
pariah. The fear of 'cooties' had made all his schoolmates drive him
away, causing him to bury himself in the martial arts. He had gotten
very very good - but he would have traded all his belts, trophies and
skills for just one friend he could keep longer than it took to reveal
his dual nature.

"Yeah, Mom! Is the furo free?" Ranma called out.

By age eleven, the differences between boys and girls had begun making
themselves more pronounced, not that it was physically apparent. The
girls in class had slowly gone from 'fear of cooties' to 'suspicion of
perversion', and the boys in turn had grown _very_ interested in the
female body. Too much so for Ranma's taste, especially since he was the
most easily observable example.

"Yes dear. I don't think your father will be out of bed for a little
while longer," came the reply.

Satisfied with the answer, Ranma opened the wardrobe and retrieved the
clothes his mother had selected for him last night. A pair of drawstring
pants and a tee, both black, and a white shirt, the closest
approximation of a school uniform he could manage. 'The nail that sticks
out gets pounded', he thought.

Thirteen had been a bad age to be Ranma. First, he'd freaked out when
he'd had his first period. He'd known it might be coming, true, but up
until then he had always had the hope that the magic would protect him
from some things. Seeing the blood in his underwear had taken the
illusion of safety away.

Entering the furoba, Ranma deposited his change of clothing on an empty
stool and stripped naked. As he splashed the icy cold wash water over
himself, savoring the feeling of it on his, now her, skin. The sensation
of cold, and the change itself, was actually quite pleasant, if you were
prepared for it.

Once, in gym class, one of the boys had taken a wrench to the exposed
hot water valve while Ranma was showering and tried to corner her. The
fallout had not been pretty. If Nodoka hadn't threatened to publically
press charges of attempted rape, Ranma, rather than the other boy, would
have been expelled for the beating she had doled out.

The washing done, Ranma entered the furo, changing back to his male
form. The the hot furo water was a sharp contrast to the earlier
mind-numbing cold, but it too was pleasurable, soothing aching muscles.

Getting the offender expelled hadn't been the end of it, however. Rather
than let Ranma stay in that school and be further humiliated, Nodoka and
Genma had whisked him off on an impromptu trip to Europe, a trip which
wound up lasting a little more than a year. Ranma had learned more
during that trip than he had in seven years of school, including at
least the rudiments of four languages.

Deciding that he was done bathing, Ranma rinsed himself off again with
cold water. Sometimes, he still yearned for a western-style shower
booth - it would have let him freshen up for the day without changing
back and forth three or four times. After a quick splash of hot water
from the tap, Ranma dried off and got dressed. However comfortable he
may have been with being in either form, the birth certificate said
'male', and it wouldn't do to start off on the wrong foot.

Ranma had gotten back to Japan in time to start in a new school -
Kolhotz high. The bigwigs had recommended he keep the curse a secret, as
a solution to the previous social problems. That had lasted all of three
days, before someone tripped, launching a glass of cold water into
Ranma's face. Thus, the circus had started over again. Ranma had had
quite enough of boys asking for dates or worse, thinking they were safe.
Still, it had been a little better than he was used to, up until the day
the school lecher had foregone the asking, and stole a kiss. His 837th,
according to himself. Ranma had simply decked him. Unfortunately, this
had caused the school to miss out on a large sporting event, since the
vain victim had refused to compete while sporting a black eye, and that
had, at length, led to the school 'reconsidering his enrolment' - in
short, they'd kicked him out. That was two weeks ago.

His preparations for the day finished, Ranma headed down the stairs to
the kitchen, knowing that breakfast would be ready. It seemed the smell
of food had reached all corners of the house, since Ranma found his
father at the table, looking the worse for wear.

"Good morning, Pop! Rough night?" Ranma greeted, his spirits raised some
by his father's well-earned discomfort.

Genma winced, grunted something that might have meant anything, and
winced again. Evidenly, even his own grunt was too loud for him.

Seeing an opportunity to pay his father back for some of the last two
weeks' indignities, Ranma grinned evilly.

"It looks like it's going to be a nice day out, today," Ranma opined, as
he helped himself to some of the food his mother had set out. "The sun's
shining, and there's not a cloud to be seen."

Spying his mother behind Genma's back, Ranma went for the kill.

"A perfect day to clean out the Koi pond, wouldn't you say, Mom?" Ranma
suggested, his voice raised just a tad. The combination earned him a
very satifying expression of horror on his father's face, and a
reproachful look from his mother.

"It's not nice to torment your father that way," Nodoka replied sternly.
Her heart wasn't in it though, as she continued. "That, is my job. I was
thinking of sending him to the market."

Ranma thought that over as he chewed and swallowed a morsel of food.
That had possibilities. The market itself was usually quite loud enough,
but today they were going to start laying new telephone cables in that
area, and _that_ meant there would be heavy machinery. That Genma too
had made the connection was evinced by the sheer mindless terror he was
displaying.

"You win," Ranma offered.

"A Saotome never loses," Nodoka replied with a warm smile. "Are you
ready for school, dear? Do you know the way?"

Ranma made as if thinking it over and scarfed down the last of his
breakfast before replying.

"Ready as I'll ever be. I swung by yesterday just to make sure I'd find
it. Looks kind of nice," Ranma said as he put away the dishes and
grabbed his rucksack, thermos and bento. "Gotta go now. See you later,
Mom, Pop."

"Good luck!" Nodoka and Genma chorused.

With that, Ranma left for his first day at Furinkan.

***

Ranma swore softly to herself as the she tightened the drawstings around
her ankles and waist. This was the third time this morning that she'd
shifted to her girl form, not counting when she had washed up, and she
was almost out of hot water.

The cause of her ire had nothing to do with being female, per se. Ten
years of shifting back and forth had desensitized her quite thoroughly.
No, Ranma quite simply abhorred being wet, as that usually meant she had
changed in public, with the potential result of exposing her curse and
losing what friends she had. Not that it would really matter, any more.
Today would be different.

"'A martial artist's life is fraught with peril', he says. What would
_he_ know about it?" Ranma muttered as she continued on her way.

Two blocks from the gates, Ranma fell in behind a pair of girls in the
Furinkan uniform. From the look of things, they seemed to be having some
kind of argument, but that was none of her business.

Suddenly, one of the pair gave off an angry yell, and charged through
the gates to the school. Ranma was too far away to see what happened
next clearly, but she could hear the sounds of battle. By the time she
got to the gates herself, it was mostly over. All over the courtyard
boys lay in twitching, groaning heaps. At the main doors, the girl that
had run off was having a spirited 'discussion' with a tall guy in a blue
gi and hakama, which ended when the girl decking the kendoka with an
uppercut to the chin.

"Nice form," Ranma muttered to herself. "I wonder what that was all
about."

Momentarily, Ranma reached the stairs and reched down to wake the
sleeping kendoka.

"Hey there," she said, as his eyes focused. "Could you direct me to the
principal's office?

When it became evident that the only answer she'd get was drooling,
Ranma sighed deeply and dropped the slobbering fool.

"It figures I'd ask the school pervert for directions," she thought. "I
guess I'd better try and find it myself."

Finding the map of school proved easy. Making sense of it proved
harder - until Ranma realized that someone had been having fun moving
the "You are here" marker around. Groaning softly, but filing away the
joke for future reference, she traced a route to the second floor
office, fixing it in her head.

The inside of the building reflected the outside - it had a typical
school interior, with painted walls in soft colors, and freshly waxed
floors. She'd been to worse places. Presently she found herself knocking
on the door to the vice-principal's office.

***

The discussion with the acting principal, Takeda Naoko, had been a
pleasant surprise. Nothing seemed to faze the woman, not the curse, the
phys ed waivers or the martial arts skills. They'd had a very brief
argument over whether to explain the curse to his classmates
immediately, or waiting and making an announcement tomorrow. To Ranma it
had seemed mostly perfunctory. The whole thing had ended with a
demonstration of the curse, using the last of the hot water Ranma had
brought, and then he had been sent on his way.

"Today, class, we have a new student, transferred from Kolhotz High. Say
hello to Saotome Ranma!" With more nervousness than he'd ever admit to,
Ranma surveyed the classroom. There in the corner was the girl he'd seen
outside, Tendo Akane. She looked slightly suspicious - well, she had
that right, since the only empty desk was next to hers. Drawing a deep
breath, Ranma took out his freshly refilled thermos and water bottle,
and started his explanation.

"Hello, I'm Saotome Ranma, and I've got some things to tell you before
class continues. You see, ten years ago, when me and my Pop were in
China, I got a curse..."

Five minutes, four changes, and a tersely worded explanation of the
circumstances surrounding the curse later, the classroom was quiet.
The Tendo girl had a strange expression, like she had to concentrate
very hard to keep her scowl, and the rest of the class was busy hoisting
up their fallen jaws from the bottomless pits at their feet. And then
the questions started.

"What's it feel like? Does it hurt?" So far so good, these he could
handle. But...

"Are you a virgin?" someone shouted, followed by a loud guffaw.

Ranma winced. He should have known there would be a pervert in the
class. And the questions got worse. After several more minutes of
increasingly embarrasing questions which neither he nor the teacher
could manage to stop, Ranma's patience was running out. The last straw
was when that same kid asked what it was like to masturbate as a girl.

"Silence!" Ranma roared, unconciously triggering his battle aura. "Who
asked that? Raise your hand!"

The offender failed to comply, but his flinch damned him. Walking over,
Ranma grabbed the boy by the collar, hoisting him out of his chair, and
held him at arm's length with his feet dangling.

"Would you like to find out?" Ranma asked in an icily calm voice.
"I can turn you into a girl right here and now, free of charge.
All you have to do is ask. I must warn you, though, the process
is quite painful, messy, and very very permanent." The boy shook
his head violently.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you." Ranma's other hand started
moving towards the offender's crotch. The deathly frightened boy
croaked out something that might, with a bit of imagination, be
translated into a 'no', and Ranma pulled back the hand.

"I've had this curse for ten damned years. I never liked it, but
if I have to be a girl some times, then a girl is what I'll be.
But I won't tolerate perverts. I won't be _asking_ the next one
if he wants a change of sex. Consider this your final warning."
With that, Ranma dropped both boy and aura.

The silence was deafening. It lasted for almost a minute,
disturbed only by the quiet wimpering of the suitably punished
pervert. And then someone started to clap. Ranma whipped his head
towards the source, which turned out to be the Tendo girl.

Slowly, the clapping picked up around the room, as the girls
expressed their approval. After a bit, a few of the boys joined
in, and the now exhausted and embarrased Ranma did the only thing
he could think of under the circumstances - he made a grand bow
and collapsed into his chair. Smiling warmly, his deskmate
reached out with her hand.

"That was some show you pulled. I'm Tendo Akane. Welcome to
Furinkan nuthouse." Taking her hand in his own and giving it a
light shake, Ranma managed a tired smile.

"I know. The vice-principal told me about you. Damn, that felt
good." Ranma yawned widely, his body venting to recover from
exhaustion.

"That aura thingy you pulled must take a lot of energy," Akane
ventured. Ranma gave her a puzzled look, and mouthed 'aura?' -
but then his expression brightened considerably.

"Yatta!" he exclaimed softly. Seeing Akane's own look of
puzzlement, he explained, leaning towards his desk. "Pop's been
trying to teach me to project an aura for _ages_, but I never got
it right. Turns out I needed some motiv..." The rest was lost as
Ranma fell asleep with his head on the desk.

A couple of minutes later, the teacher finally had control of her
class back. She hid a grin as she looked at the sleeping hero
next to Akane and decided against disturbing him. He deserved a
rest after dealing with that lot - she knew they weren't the most
tactful of people, but some of those questions would have had any
woman, part time or not, crying out for blood. Even the Tendo
girl - Tendo _Akane_, the pervert basher! - had a strange
expression on her face when she looked at the newcomer. Yes, let
him rest.

***

[The above part is mosty finished, I hope.

Twenty minutes later, Akane noticed Ranma waking from his nap and
refocusing his attention on the blackboard. Within minutes he was
in full study mode, asking and answering questions.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Akane whispered when she had
the chance. A few moments later, she continued. "You're good at this!
Some jock you turned out to be." Ranma flashed her a quick grin.

"Never was much for stereotypes. What answer did you get for exercise
1905?" he whispered in reply, citing one of the harder problems the
teacher had assigned, a multiple fraction addition.

"2 347/360. You?" Ranma's answer differed slightly, and together they
went over the numbers again. What was left of Math class cont�nued in
the same vein - the two of them bantering and trying to reduce as far as
possible the amount of work they'd have to take home.

A fifteen minute break separated the Math and English classes, and Ranma
and Akane went off to the restrooms. After conducting her business,
Akane found Ranma waiting outside, looking nervous.

"Uhh, Akane?" he began, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Yes?" Akane had no idea why Ranma would look so nervous. Him?

"It's about next week...and the restrooms..." Akane looked nonplussed.
Thus far, Ranma wasn't making any sense.

"What's the matter?" Ranma drew in sharply, and let it all out in one
go.

"Myperiodstartsontuesdaycanyoutellthegirlssotheywon'tkillmeplease?"
Akane stared. She couldn't possibly have gotten that right.

"Come again?"

Looking relieved that Akane hadn't killed him yet, Ranma started
over.

"My period starts on tuesday, could you keep the girls from killing me
when I go to the restroom?"

Blinking twice, slowly, Akane digested the information.

"That...shouldn't be a problem," she managed. "Provided you're telling
the truth. You have *periods*? Why don't you stay a guy? I'd do anything
to avoid mine."

Ranma sighed.

"I tried that once, after my first. Can you imagine what happens when
your body tries to initiate something that most of the parts for are
missing? I'f I'm a girl at the time, I bleed a little and get a bit
moody. If I'm a guy, I'm totally out of it for about a week, or wishing
I was. That *hurt*! Either way, once it starts the curse locks up until
it's over."

Akane was still incredoulous, but the explanation was satisfactory.

"I'll try convincing them. I take it you'll need to take girls' gym
too?" Ranma nodded.

"The classes have been taken care of. To tell the truth, I'd rather use
your locker room permanently - don't look at me like that, you know what
most boys are like - but I couldn't swing it with the principal's
office." Akane continued the stare she'd initiated upon hearing he'd
rather use the girls' rooms.

"I'll give you five seconds to explain yourself. Five," she growled.

"In sixth grade, the main hot water valve was in the locker room proper,
not inside the showers. It got so bad that Mom pulled me out for a whole
year - I wouldn't go back. My folks and I wound up spending that year in
Europe on some wild goose chase my Pop dreamed up." Ranma looked at
Akane with readily apparent apprehension. After a few moments, the
tension eased.

"That was more than five seconds, but it's OK, I forgive you. A year in
Europe? Sounds expensive. And how'd you catch up on school afterwards?"
Akane's voice had lost all of the edge it'd had previously. This was
pure curiosity.

"Mom's family is well off, and Mom herself is a college prof. What she
couldn't teach me herself, she found tutors for. The really fun part was
that she'd insist on them using their own languages - I took History in
German and French, Social studies in Spanish, and the rest in either
English or Japanese, depending on whatever mood my mother was in when
the time came. Very educational."

Akane's eyes were bugging out.

"Now I know you're boasting," she exclaimed. Ranma winked at her.

"Are you sure about that?" he rejoined in perfect English. "Come on,
break's over, time for class."

***

Author's notes: I rewrote most of this froms scratch last night, after
reading Donald Granberry's comments. I've put a timeframe reference on
the teaser, and inserted some backstory in the narrative of the first
half. Hopefully I've managed to do this without making even worse
errors...

The final part feels a little redundant. This is where the backstory was
originally, as Ranma explains things to Akane. Hopefully I haven't
created an impression of "uber-Ranma". The scholastic prowess he
displays have come at the expense of his training, particularly his ki
skills.

Enough rambling, though. I'm interested in seeing what you make of the
new version. Next time: Lunches, Kuno, and Nabiki!

Sebastian



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