Chapter 5. Buta-hentai

Standing before the front door of the school, Ranma watched Ryoga, smiling, pleased that the lost boy had found his way back. So quickly too. It would be great to have a good, all-out fight against an opponent he wouldn't mind hitting full force, someone he knew could take it. It would feel good to work off some stress. Still, it would be nice to know why they were fighting.

Ranma stepped to the side to clear the doorway for other students who were coming out. He pulled out his pad and wrote something on it, tore off the sheet, folded it into a paper airplane, and flew it to Ryoga.

That angry young man snatched it out of the air while shouting, “What are you playing at, Ranma?!” He yanked the paper airplane open.

It read, “I'm ready to fight you. But can you tell me why?”

Ryoga yelled, “So you refuse to speak to me, Ranma? Is this supposed to be some weird sort of insult?”

Akane had stepped to the side to watch, but she couldn't keep quiet at this. She stepped forward and spoke loudly, in tones which suggested she thought the one she addressed was a bit of a fool, “He's not speaking to you, Hibiki-san, because he can't speak to anyone. He lost his voice.”

Ryoga turned to face her. “Huh?” Then, “Who are you?”

She replied in bored tones, “I'm Akane Tendo. My father is an old friend of Ranma's father and Ranma is staying with us for a while. He lost his voice after a fight a few weeks ago.”

Ryoga turned back and stared at his rival, shocked. Ranma saw the stare and gave a slight nod of his head. It took less than half a minute for the causes of Ryoga's current enmity for the other boy to reassert themselves, and he shook himself free of the unexpected feeling of surprise.

“Ha!” Ryoga shouted. “So the great Ranma Saotome lost his voice. Boo hoo! Because of you, I've seen hell! Defend yourself.” He leaped forward, stabbing out toward Ranma with the sharpened ferrule of his umbrella.

Ranma slid backward, almost moonwalking, so that all of the jabs missed. Ryoga tried throwing the umbrella again, spinning it through the air, but just as the last time Ranma dodged it easily. While Ranma was distracted dodging its return flight, Ryoga took advantage of the pigtailed boy's momentary inattention to tie one of his bandannas around Ranma's wrist, keeping a tight hold on the other end, to prevent Ranma from running away or dodging. Ryoga grabbed the umbrella as it reached himself, and prepared to use it to administer what he saw as a well-deserved beating.

Unfortunately, tying the bandanna around Ranma's wrist proved to be a serious miscalculation, for a crucial reason which had nothing to do with technique. Feeling his wrist constrained and looking down to see something tied there caused the young martial artist to have a flashback to the last time his wrist had been tied. Inhibitions against use of excessive force came crashing down. Ranma slammed a foot into Ryoga with the force of a freight train, causing the other boy to lose hold of the bandanna and sending him flying over the fence at the edge of the field. Ranma leaped after, his thoughts chaotic and full of the desire to tear his opponent apart.

Akane ran and leaped after them. As she cleared the fence, she looked below herself in surprise, thinking, ‹Whoa! I know Ranma's been teaching me aerial maneuvers, but I didn't know I could do that!› The other watching students scurried to run around the end of the fence.

Ryoga crashed into an outdoor water fountain, smashing it, howling at the pain this caused to his back. He bent over, cradling his gut where Ranma had kicked him, the greater of the two pains. He fought to stay conscious. Only a second or two passed after his impact before Ryoga realized what had broken his fall. He bounced away and, with speed born of panic, brought his umbrella around and opened it just before the spray of water could hit him.

‹Note to self,› Ryoga thought, struggling to hold himself upright despite the pain, ‹tying him to me is not a successful strategy.› He looked cautiously around the edge of the umbrella to see Ranma emerging from the spray around the water fountain, except ... he looked different. ‹What happened to his hair? It's ... not as dark? And the way that wet shirt is sticking to his chest ...› Suddenly Ryoga was pinching his nose against incipient blood loss.

This distraction proved dangerous for Ryoga, as Ranma kicked him again and sent him flying once more. He managed to land on his feet this time, but he was gasping, trying to catch his breath against a band of pain wrapped around his chest. In desperation, Ryoga once again threw his umbrella at his opponent, at Ranma, his enemy, no matter what his appearance. He followed it with four hardened and knife-sharp bandannas, spinning through the air.

Ranma almost jumped out of the way, but then realized that Akane was right behind him, in the direct path of the weapons. He jumped backward, circling his arm around her waist to pull her against him. As the umbrella reached him he did not dodge this time, but kicked it instead, making it flip around so that he could grab the handle. He leaped into the air, carrying Akane with him, using the umbrella as a shield to block the bandannas.

The mob of other students arrived in time to see this. Daisuke turned to Hiroshi, his face slack with awe, and said, “Isn't that umbrella incredibly heavy?”

Ranma flipped the umbrella back right-side up to catch the air and slow their descent. He and Akane landed on the roof of a bicycle shed, with Akane clinging to him in delayed reaction to the threat they had just avoided.

Ranma wanted to complain to Akane about her getting in the middle of a fight, forcing him to keep an eye on her in addition to his opponent. Unfortunately, he couldn't say anything, and the way their arms were wrapped around each other, he couldn't write anything either. Akane's mind had gone blank, other than a feeling of safety as Ranma held her. Then she saw the other students running their way, and realized they would see her hugging Ranma, with him in his female form no less. She quickly put some distance between them.

Ranma needed to return to his fight, although the interruption had allowed him to regain some of his mental balance. Since Akane was already looking his way, Ranma pointed first at her, then made a choppy pointing motion at the roof under them. The message was clear, “You stay here!”

Akane felt a burst of temper coming on. Didn't the jerk believe that she could take care of herself?

At that moment, the shed collapsed underneath them. The watching students had seen Ryoga take off his belt and snap it out, so that it was standing as stiff as a rod. He swung this belt and it sliced right through one of the poles supporting the shed roof. The roof fell.

As he felt the support fall out from underneath them, Ranma grabbed Akane around the waist once more. Out of the corner of his eye, Ranma saw Ryoga leaping toward them, and thrust out with the umbrella to block. Ryoga swung the belt, causing it to wrap around the umbrella. As he pulled back, it sliced through the umbrella, ending its usefulness as a weapon.

Ranma touched down lightly on the ruins of the roof, which was lying among the damaged bicycles. He put Akane down immediately and turned back to Ryoga. Ranma was beginning to feel quite irritated about the way the other boy kept endangering other people in a fight which should only have involved the two of them. He quickly closed the distance between them. Akane raced after, determined not to let Ranma face this Ryoga by himself.

Ryoga snapped his belt out into a stiff rod once more and swung it, aiming at Ranma. Ranma ducked the swing and kicked Ryoga's arm. The belt went flying. Akane gave an “eep” as she saw it spinning toward her and dove for the ground, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn't feel it slice her anywhere along her back. She grimaced when she stood, feeling a twinge of pain from her ankle. Something slid off of her back and past her eyes, to fall on the ground.

Ranma was trading blows with Ryoga when he heard a gasp of dismay from behind him. He kicked Ryoga, making him stagger, then spun around looking to see what had occurred. Akane stood there in a state of shock, gazing down at a long lock of hair lying on the ground. It was tied at one end with a blue ribbon. Her own hair seemed to be much shorter, fluttering around her eyes and cheeks.

Ranma put two and two together, and realized that was Akane's hair lying on the ground. He breathed a sigh of relief that she had suffered no worse injury. Why had she insisted on getting mixed up in his fight? He went back and put his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the face, seeing no reaction. There didn't seem to be anything else wrong with her, so he couldn't figure out why she was suddenly standing so still.

Ryoga had walked up close. “Feh! She isn't injured, is she?”

Ranma looked at him, and shook his head.

Yuka exclaimed. “What are you talking about? This is much worse than an injury! Caught out in public with a haircut like that? She's lucky she didn't die!”

Ranma regarded Yuka through narrowed eyes. Ryoga suggested, “Er, are you sure you're not exaggerating just a little?”

Akane suddenly looked up, eyes blazing. She slapped Ranma, then spun around and slapped Ryoga. She turned on her heels and marched off. The boys in the crowd mostly turned to watch her walk off, but the girls gathered around Ranma, demanding to know what he was going to do to make this up to Akane, as if he could answer them.

Ryoga lifted a hand to his cheek, and gave a groan of pain. ‹Man, that chick is strong!› He then looked around, failing to spot his enemy, not seeing him in the midst of the crowd of girls. “Ranma! You've run off again? Damn you! Come back here!” He started running, and was soon out of sight.

Ranma was looking down at the hair, trying to understand, ignoring the gathered girls who were berating him. This hair obviously meant a lot more to Akane than he had realized. Of course, it would take years to grow it that long, which meant it would take a long time to grow back. Still, she had seemed more greatly bothered than that would account for. He lifted a hand to his own cheek, unconsciously mimicking Ryoga.

He stooped down and lifted the hair in his hand, examining it, as if it might contain clues to explain Akane's reaction. Ranma lifted troubled eyes and looked down the road, in the direction Akane had left. He jumped over the heads of the students surrounding him, and took off after Akane.

Ranma was still some distance down the road as he saw Akane turn into the gate at the Tendo house. He followed and caught up with her as she entered the kitchen. Kasumi was there, bent over the stove, frying something that smelled good.

“H-Hello, Kasumi,” Akane called out in a hesitant voice.

“Oh, hello Akane,” Kasumi replied, “how was your ...” Her voice chopped off as she finished turning her head and caught sight of her younger sister. Her hand jerked convulsively, sending the skillet flying. Ranma dove forward to catch it, miraculously not spilling any of the food onto the floor. “Akane, y-y-your hair ...!” her voice ended in what was nearly a wail.

Akane bit her lip, trying not to cry. “I ... felt like a change. Could you fix it up for me?”

Reading in her expression something of what the younger girl was feeling, Kasumi nodded, her lips pressed tightly closed to prevent unwelcome questions from spilling out. She vanished for a moment, returning with a towel and scissors. Kasumi had Akane sit down in a chair, placed the towel around her shoulders, then began carefully trimming the ragged ends left by Ryoga's belt blade. Ranma squatted nearby and watched the proceedings in silence, conscious the entire time of the tail of hair he had placed inside his shirt.

When Kasumi finished, Ranma was startled at the great difference such a small change made in his friend's appearance. It was still Akane, yet it was a different Akane. She looked more ... energetic, more alive, more, well, more like a martial artist. At least, that's how he expressed it to himself. He groped for words to describe it in a way he could understand. Before, she had looked more like a girl. Now ... no, that wasn't right. Somehow, she appeared even more female now, but a very different sort of female. Female in a way that he felt he could better understand. Except that didn't seem to make any sense to him.

Akane stood up. “I'd like to see what it ... ow!” She winced in pain, and lifted her foot. She looked down and said, “I must have twisted it earlier.”

Kasumi said, “Perhaps you should have Doctor Tofu look at it.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Akane responded. Then Ranma was in front of her, looking concerned. He motioned for her to sit again, and she did so. Taking her foot in his hand, he began massaging the ankle, applying pressure at certain points. When he motioned her to stand, she did so, applying weight to the foot gingerly. It still hurt, but the pain was considerably less.

“Thanks, Ranma. That helped.” She smiled at him, and Ranma reflected that she sounded sincere. He began to wonder if she even remembered slapping him.

“I'm going to go have a look in the mirror, then I'll head over to the clinic,” Akane stated.

Ranma pulled out his pad and wrote, “I'll go with you. Shouldn't put too much weight on your foot until the Doctor looks at it.”

Akane nodded. “Okay. I'll just be a minute.”

When she left the room, Ranma hurried upstairs to the guest room, where he kept his belongings. He pulled the lock of hair out, removing it from where it had nestled between his shirt and T-shirt and looked at it once more. He regarded it as he might a talisman that he didn't quite understand. This was something which had meant a lot to Akane. He rooted among his belongings and pulled out an old T-shirt, in which he wrapped the hair. He laid this bundle carefully in a drawer, then hurried back downstairs.

Ranma got some hot water from the kitchen and finally changed back to a boy. He met Akane at the front door, and persuaded her to lean on his arm, taking some of the weight off her ankle as they made their way back down the road to Tofu's clinic. Akane didn't seem inclined to talk, and Ranma of course couldn't. With his arm supporting Akane, he couldn't even pull out his pad to write anything.

Tofu took one look at Akane limping into his clinic and knew that she had injured her ankle. In short order she was sitting on an examination table, and the doctor had her foot in his hands. “It seems to only be a light sprain,” he told her cheerfully. “I'll have it feeling better in just a moment.” He began to massage her foot, putting pressure on many of the same spots which Ranma had, though with a more expert touch.

As he did so, he looked up at Akane's face, smiling. “So, you decided to cut your hair short again.”

Ranma, watching the proceedings from where he sat on a nearby stool, asked himself, ‹Again? She used to wear it short?›

Akane reached up a hand to brush her fingers against the shorn locks. “Mm-hmm,” she answered. Shyly, she asked, “Do you like it?”

Tofu replied, “Yes, it's very cute. Short hair always did suit you better.” He looked down as he put the finishing touches on her ankle. He looked back up at a sniffling sound, to see tears in Akane's eyes. “I'm sorry. Did that hurt?” he inquired with his best bedside manner.

Akane brushed irritably at her eyes. “Oh no, it's not that!” she protested. Then she stopped, not knowing what else to say. How could she tell Doctor Tofu that she had grown her hair long for him? That she had felt devastated to find it cut off? That he had robbed her effort of so much meaning in so few words?

She looked at him through her tears, at his smile, his gentle eyes behind the glasses, and she knew he was seeing her only as a patient. A patient he cared about, true, but there was no love there. Not the love of a man for a woman. He was crazy about Kasumi, not her. She had loved him for so long, how could he not see that and feel the same way? And why didn't that thought hurt a lot more than it did?

To hide her thoughts while she tried to get back some control of her emotions, Akane looked around the room. Her eye fell on Ranma sitting quietly nearby, watching her with concern writ plain on his face. Ranma, whom she had called a friend. Ranma, who trained with her daily, dance and play and deadly earnest. Ranma, who held her close at night as often as she held the red-haired girl, who needed her and who helped her. Akane looked back and forth between Ranma and Doctor Tofu, not understanding what she felt.

The tears wouldn't stop flowing. Tofu was starting to rise, and instinctively Akane knew he was going to try to comfort her, the kindly doctor concerned for his distraught patient. She looked at Ranma once more, and realized that his comfort would mean more to her right now than Tofu's, the concern of a friend rather than a doctor. Akane stood suddenly and said, “We ... We've got to be going. Come on, Ranma.” She was careful to walk out of the room slowly, to convince the others, if not herself, that she wasn't fleeing.

Ranma walked beside Akane, feeling worried, wondering what was wrong. He saw with surprise that they were not heading home, but instead entered a nearby park, where they sat on the edge of a fountain. Akane scooped some water up in her palm, turned tear-filled eyes to Ranma and said, “Please?”

Ranma sighed, but gave her a weak smile. Instead of taking the proffered water, which was already draining out between Akane's fingers, Ranma turned around and quickly dunked his head in the water. He turned back around as a female. Akane smiled her thanks, then gripped the front of his shirt and buried her face in his shoulder. She was weeping quietly, not heavily, and Ranma put an arm around her shoulders in an attempt at comfort.

It wasn't long before Akane's tears slowed, and the sniffles came to an end soon after. She remained in that position for a while longer, but finally sat back, her eyes looking puffy. She smiled at Ranma and said weakly, “Thanks. Sometimes it helps to have a good cry.”

Ranma finally had the chance to dig out his pad. “Want to talk about it?”

Akane shrugged. “I ... It doesn't really matter. Not anymore. I ... At one time, I had, sort of, a crush on Doctor Tofu. But I know he loves Kasumi, and ... I'm over him now.

“But I grew my hair long for him. I wanted him to see me as a girl, not just a tomboy martial artist. It ... It made me feel prettier, more like a woman. Losing my hair like that ... I was afraid for a bit that I'd lost part of what makes me female. Silly, I know.”

Ranma put his pen to his pad, then hesitated. He didn't know what to write. He knew he wasn't a poet, or any good at showing sympathy. He was a lot better at insulting people. Slowly he wrote, “I think you're still pretty. Your hair looks good like this. It makes you look more like you.”

Akane cocked her head to the side, regarding him. “Do you really mean that? Or are you just saying it to try to cheer me up? Because if so, you don't need to.”

Ranma wrote, “Of course I mean it. Don't know how to say it. Long hair made you look too much like a girl, but that sounds wrong.”

Akane hmmphed on reading that, giving him a small glare.

Ranma tried again. “Your hair suits you better like this. More active. More martial artist. More like what you are inside.”

Akane smiled, raising a hand to his soft cheek. “Thank you. Perhaps you'd better stop there, while it sounds nice.” She looked more closely where her fingertips rested on Ranma's face. “What happened to you here?”

Ranma wrote, “You slapped me. Don't you remember?” He stuck his tongue out as Akane read the words.

Akane blushed. “I-I'm sorry. I know it wasn't your fault. I was just, sort of upset, at that moment.”

The pen scratched out the words, “Don't worry about it.” Then Ranma frowned, and he wrote, “You shouldn't have interfered. It was my fight.”

Akane quickly retorted, “But ...” then paused. She had only been trying to help, right? Except, would she have welcomed such help? In a way, she almost regretted her sessions with Mitaka-sensei. In the past she would have let herself become angry at Ranma's accusation. Instead, she was able to see it from his point of view, and could acknowledge to herself that he was keeping his temper better than she would if their roles had been reversed.

Without looking at him, Akane ground out, “Okay. I guess you're right. Sorry.” The words might not have sounded very apologetic, but Ranma understood the feelings behind them and accepted it as it was meant. He decided it might be best to drop it for now, rather than risk an argument. He'd wait to see what happened next time. After all, it seemed likely that Ryoga would be back.

That evening, Ranma prepared for bed while Akane was still in her bath. He had already changed to his cursed form, and had stripped down to boxers and T-shirt. Before leaving the guest room, he pulled open the drawer and withdrew the long bundle of Akane's hair to examine once more.

At some inner prompting, Ranma carried the hair with him and walked down the hall to Akane's room. He stood there and looked around, trying to really see the room, to feel the impression that Akane had left on it. On one wall was a poster showing various kenpo stances. Next to it was a set of shelves, on which he could see, among many other things, some eye shadow and lip gloss. He tried to remember if he had noticed her wearing such cosmetics. Not at school, but he recollected a light shading to her eyes when they went to see Mitaka-sensei.

In one corner was a box containing weights, which he had seen her working out with on more than once occasion. On her desk was a stuffed lamb. The closet door was standing open, and inside Ranma could see a gi and clothes she wore jogging hanging side by side with sundresses, skirts and blouses. All over the room were signs of a martial artist sharing equal space with illustrations of Akane's femininity.

Ranma blinked as certain memories suddenly recalled themselves to him. Akane at dinner, looking over toward Kasumi, then shifting her hold on her teacup. Walking down the street with the two sisters and noticing the similarity in their stride, a touch awkward on Akane's part. In a store, where Akane was working through a rack of blouses selecting a few to try on, the examination of each blouse accompanied by a glance toward her oldest sister. Were these signs that some part of Akane wanted to be like her sister Kasumi? Not the whole, by any means, but the part of her that wanted people to remember she was a girl?

Ranma looked down once more at the hair hanging from his hand. This had been another symbol, at least to her, of the fact that she was a girl, someone that a man like Tofu could regard romantically. It was a sign that she was feminine and not just, as she had put it, a ‘tomboy martial artist.’ He grimaced at the thought that he had played a part in her loss, even if she had been largely to blame for getting in the middle of the fight.

And yet ... he had not been lying when he told her that the short hair suited her better. She still looked completely feminine, and as he had said, it was a much better match to her fighting spirit. He lay down on the bed, smelling the faint scent of her on the pillow, staring at the hair flowing over his hands. He wanted, somehow, to convince her that she was no less feminine now, that she had in fact lost nothing, and perhaps had even gained.

A short time later Akane walked into the room, wearing pajamas and with a towel wrapped around her hair. She stopped, feeling befuddled, at the sight which lay before her. Ranma was lying on the bed in his female form, already asleep, snoring softly. But what captured her entire attention was that he was clutching her hair to his chest, the long portion which had been cut off earlier, still tied by the blue ribbon.

‹He ... He kept it?› she thought to herself. ‹Why? Why is he holding it like that? What was he thinking?› She felt frozen in place, struggling to comprehend, as if she were faced with a puzzle she needed to solve before she could move.

Obviously it had meant something to him, but she wasn't going to wake him to ask what, and she doubted that she would have dared to ask even if he were awake. ‹Maybe it only means that he was sorry it got cut off,› she thought, but felt wholly unconvinced.

Not knowing what else to do, still worrying at the puzzle with which he had unknowingly presented her, Akane crawled into bed beside him. Ranma stirred sleepily, but did not awake. Lying there in the dark, Akane's thoughts kept returning to Ranma lying beside her, holding to her hair as one might hold a stuffed animal or a security blanket. Thinking of the hair eventually led her to the memory of the fight earlier that day, and the feel of Ranma holding her close, his arm around her waist. Akane fell asleep to the image of the pair of them floating down through the air, with Ranma's arm encircling her, making her feel safe.

Ranma woke up Friday morning to hear Akane moving around the room. He rolled over sleepily, to see Akane gathering her jogging clothes. Sitting up, he realized that he still had Akane's hair in his hand, and blushed furiously. ‹Oh God? Did she see me holding this? Dummy, of course she did, how could she have missed it? What am I gonna tell her?›

Akane's voice called out. “Come on, Ranma. You'd better get up now, or I'm going to go jogging without you.”

Ranma made a fervent wish that the earth would open up and swallow him. Since that didn't happen, and given that he had no idea how to explain why he was holding her chopped off hair, he climbed out of the bed nervously while clutching it in embarrassment against his side, trying to hide it. The red-haired girl quickly scurried out of the room.

Akane pretended not to notice anything odd as he made his escape. In a way, it was a relief. Ever since getting out of bed herself, her eyes had been drawn to him, and the hair he was holding, as if by a magnet. She'd been trying to figure out what she should feel about the situation, how she should react, and now she didn't have to.

When Ranma came out of the guest room dressed for jogging, he left the hair lying in the drawer. Neither of them brought up the subject, either during their jog, or at breakfast, or on the way to school, or at school itself. Both of them, however, were planning to discuss it with Mitaka that afternoon, and in both cases this was in hope of gaining some insight into the other. Ranma wanted to better understand what its loss had meant to Akane, and Akane wanted to try to understand why it seemed to hold some meaning to Ranma.

On the walk to Mitaka-sensei's office, Ranma noticed the faint color of the eye shadow Akane was wearing. He blushed, while wondering why he was blushing. Akane noticed and asked him what was up, but he just shook his head, refusing to explain.

In their attempts to get help understanding the other's feelings in regard to the hair, both of the teenagers were disappointed. Although she gave them a few clues to chew on, Mitaka basically told them they needed to try to work it out for themselves. Instead, she had a surprise topic of her own.

In her separate conversations with each of her patients, Mitaka raised the subject of their sleeping arrangement. She suggested that perhaps it was time Ranma started to spend some nights sleeping by himself. She explained that she wanted to make sure that he didn't become emotionally dependent on Akane, and that it would be inappropriate for them to continue sleeping together beyond the point where he needed it. She wanted to wean him away from it, sleeping by himself every third night at first, and gradually increasing the frequency. The decision was reached that his first night in his own bed would be Sunday.

Neither of the teenagers was quite sure how they felt about this plan. On the one hand they were both pleased with it as a sign that Ranma was continuing to get better. On the other hand, the prospect made them a little sad ... and it was around this point in their thoughts that each of them independently decided not to examine the “other hand” too closely. They also both wondered how the other person felt about it, but neither was willing to come right out and ask.

The night of this announcement, Ranma had another nightmare. Akane woke him up, and they spent some time discussing it. This had been a suggestion of their therapist, that they should talk openly and clinically about the details of these nightmares, in order to bleed them of some of the emotion and terror. That it embarrassed them both to do so, she had explained, was just too bad. At least the nightmares had been growing less frequent, and they both concluded that this one might be due in part to the stress from anticipation of sleeping alone on Sunday.

As Ranma walked to the sign language class the next day with Kasumi and Akane, he watched the two sisters carefully. Now that he was paying attention, it wasn't hard to notice certain gestures and motions made by Akane which seemed to mimic those of her older sister. He wondered if the younger girl was even aware of what she was doing. Ranma frowned as it occurred to him that Akane wasn't achieving quite the same grace in her movements as Kasumi. Was it lack of practice, or something else? He decided to meditate on it when he had time later that afternoon.

It also came to him that if Genma could see him now, his old man would be livid. Ranma's sparring partner was a girl, a girl whom he was training in martial arts no less. He spent his nights as a female, drawing comfort from the nearby presence of that same girl. He almost never insulted anyone, since by the time he got around to transferring his thoughts to paper, there didn't seem to be any point. He was attending school, and starting to catch up to the class. He was seeing a shrink, of all things.

In fact, aside from his curse and his continuing silence, Ranma realized that his life felt more normal than it ever had at any point in memory. At this thought, a fierce longing blazed up in him to keep it that way.

The first class in Japanese Sign Language, or JSL, was interesting but only covered the basics, fingerspelling and some simple words. It would be a while yet before he would be capable of holding conversations using it. Still, he had begun to get a feel for how it worked. His slight tendency toward self pity over his current handicap was also shaken, as he met several people in the class who were deaf as well as mute. Some of whom were much younger than himself.

On the way home from the class, Kasumi suggested that they take a different route. Having no reason to object, Akane and Ranma consented, and they were soon walking through a shopping district. Kasumi was humming happily to herself when she paused in her step, causing the two younger teenagers to stop as well. She turned to them with a smile and asked them to wait for her, then entered the store in front of which they were standing.

Puzzled, Akane and Ranma looked in the window and saw that this was a store specializing in infant and toddler needs. Akane's mind went blank for a moment, then struggled to recover. ‹What ... what could Kasumi oneechan possibly need in there?› She shook her head, trying to banish the pictures her imagination was conjuring up. ‹She ... she couldn't be ... She wouldn't! Who ...? How ...? Oh! Its impossible! It, it can't be!›

Reaching back blindly, Akane grabbed Ranma's hand and dragged him into the store, nearly pulling his arm from its socket. The pigtailed boy's thoughts were still at the point of wondering what Kasumi could need in such a store, and had not yet caught up to Akane's speeding suspicions. They found the older sister in one of the aisles, lifting down a box.

“Oh! Akane. Ranma. I thought you two were going to wait outside.” They looked at the box in her hands, at the words on it which identified the contents as a baby monitor. Smiling, Kasumi told them, “I thought we could get something like this and leave the transmitter in Ranma's room on the nights he sleeps by himself, with the receiver in your room, Akane. That way you might hear if Ranma-kun is caught in a nightmare, and then you'll be able to go help.”

It took several long seconds for Akane to think to close her mouth. She cast her eyes down, feeling her face redden as she remembered what she had been thinking about. Beside her, Ranma was fuming. He pulled out his pad.

“I'm not a baby!” the young man wrote.

“No one is saying that you are,” Kasumi replied gently. “But don't you think something like this might help? Just in case?”

Ranma looked into the older girl's bright, cheerful eyes, then turned around, clenching his fists. He released a long, heavy sigh. Intellectually, he could see her point. That didn't mean he had to like it. ‹A baby monitor,› he thought in disgust. Reaching his mind out to communicate with Fate, or the universe, or something, Ranma complained, ‹Ain't I had to put up with enough ... indignity, by now?› Wearily, he turned back around.

“Are you all right, Ranma-kun?” Kasumi asked in concern.

Ranma managed a pseudo-smile for her sake. He nodded, and gestured toward the checkout counter. The three of them walked over as a group, to make the purchase.

Ranma disappeared for a time before dinner, heading up to the roof to think over some things. Particularly what he had noticed while walking to the sign language class with Akane and Kasumi. After dinner, while training, Ranma had Akane working on a kata which emphasized aerial moves. He watched carefully, pleased with her progress in mastering it. He found even more pleasure in the grace she exhibited, a grace she had been demonstrating increasingly as her training progressed. This observation only reinforced the decision Ranma had arrived at earlier.

As the session wound down to a close, he knew it was time to carry through on that decision, to broach the subject upon which he had been meditating before dinner. Ranma felt more than a little nervous about bringing it up, but wasn't going to back down now.

He motioned for Akane to join him on one of the benches along the wall. Curious, she picked up her towel and sat down beside him, watching as Ranma pulled out his pad and began writing. When he showed it to her, Akane read, “You're getting a lot better. In the dojo, your motions are less studied, a lot more graceful.”

Akane's cheeks grew rosy, and she looked down at the floor as she replied, “Thank you, Ranma.”

He then wrote, “Outside the dojo, you're not as graceful.”

“Huh? Why you ...” Akane snapped, becoming angry.

Ranma tried to motion for her to slow down, then began writing again. “Outside the dojo, you're more studied. I've been watching you, you and Kasumi. You copy a lot of her motions. Kasumi is very graceful.”

The next sheet read, “But you're not Kasumi. Her way of moving doesn't suit you. You need to move like Akane, not like Kasumi.”

Akane read this, and tried not to let tears form in her eyes. “But I want ... I want people to look at me ... and see ...” She didn't know how to describe what she wanted to this boy, without thoroughly embarrassing herself.

Ranma wrote, “You want them to see a girl, and not just a tomboy martial artist. That's what you said, isn't it?”

Akane nodded, biting her lip.

Ranma thought about the way she looked, the way she moved in the dojo. “Trust me, they'll see a girl. The way you move in the dojo, you look more natural. What you try to be elsewhere, it looks like an act. Pretend. It's not you.”

“But how can I be sure?” Akane asked quietly.

Ranma frowned, then wrote. “I'm a boy, remember? And I'm not blind. You can believe what I'm telling you.”

Akane turned to gaze at him, eyes wide. “You ... like looking at me?”

Ranma snorted. He took a deep breath, preparing to step over a precipice, then laboriously wrote, “Yeah. You're definitely worth looking at. First time I saw you, I thought you looked like an angel.”

He handed that to her, and continued writing. “People will see a girl when they look at you. You don't need long hair, or to act like anyone else. I think you're great just like you are.”

“Oh,” Akane exclaimed softly, after reading these sheets. She feared that she might be blushing deeply, given how hot her ears felt. “I ... I'll think about it.” She got to her feet, backing away. “What you wrote about being myself, I mean.”

Ranma nodded soberly in response. Akane bowed to conclude their session. Without even waiting for his return bow, she turned and slowly fled the dojo. Her mind was in turmoil, and she had no idea what to say to Ranma at the moment.

Akane thought about everything Ranma had said for a long time while she soaked in the furo. Kasumi had been not only a mother figure to her for as long as she could remember, but a model of the perfect Japanese female. She knew that she studied her older sister, deliberately so, wanting to be just like her. That was why she had grown her hair long, because Kasumi had long hair.

Yet she could understand what Ranma was saying to her. Akane had seen it in other girls, trying to gain acceptance by acting like the ones who were popular, the ones they envied. It never worked because their behavior came across as unnatural. She had long since decided that she would never act that way just to make people like her, that she would rather just be herself. Somehow it had never occurred to her to extrapolate this to the way she had tried to model herself on Kasumi.

Very tentatively, Akane pulled out the notion that Ranma liked to look at her. She was startled to realize that this thought didn't make her uncomfortable. Or rather, yes it did, highly uncomfortable even, but in a very different way from how it made her uncomfortable to have other boys looking at her. Akane thought about this difference, trying to understand, unconsciously prompted by the way Mitaka-sensei made her explore her feelings during their sessions. She concluded that it was because she trusted Ranma. She knew he wouldn't treat her like the other boys did.

Akane found herself wondering if she might like the idea that Ranma liked to look at her. As soon as she felt this trend in her thoughts, she resolutely turned away from the idea. She just wasn't ready to contemplate such notions. She was friends with Ranma, that was all. She told herself this very firmly.

That night in bed, Akane imagined herself back in the dojo again, with Ranma. He was looking at her, and smiling. Just looking and smiling, because he enjoyed looking at her.

Sunday was a quiet day. It started raining heavily in the morning, curtailing their jog, and kept up all day. Akane and Ranma had their workouts in the dojo of course, and spent time doing homework as well. They also spent a little time practicing with Kasumi on the things they had learned in the sign language course the day before.

Ranma tried playing a game of shogi with Soun Tendo, and discovered that the older man was a pretty sharp player. What surprised him, though, was learning that Soun cheated just as much as his own father at the game. On reflection he decided that this shouldn't surprise him. After all, both Akane's father and his own had admitted to having been friends in their youth.

Ranma went to bed that night in the guest room, feeling unaccountably nervous. Or so he saw it. It would be the first time he had slept by himself in weeks. He saw the baby monitor on the side table and scowled at it, but left it alone. His desire not to be stuck in one of his nightmares was greater than the humiliation of having a “baby” monitor keeping an eye on him. Irritably he stripped off his clothes and climbed into his bed.

Alone in her room, Akane slowly changed into her pajamas, while looking at her bed. It would be the first time she had slept alone in that bed in weeks, and she was of surprisingly mixed feelings about that. It wasn't that she wanted a boy in her bed, oh no! But ... Ranma had become a companion, ‘safe’ in his female form. He had needed her, and he had become a familiar presence that she realized she would miss tonight. She looked over at the receiver, hearing rustling sounds transmitted from the guest room as Ranma prepared for bed. With a sigh, Akane crawled under her covers.

Hours crept by, and all inside the house slept soundly. However, outside in the darkness, Ryoga Hibiki stood in a puddle and read the sign by the gate, “Tendo Dojo.” The umbrella above his head kept all of the rain off of him. His thoughts were grim. ‹Tonight, Ranma, you meet your end.›

The boy jumped over the wall, rather than opening the gate with its attached bell. Moving stealthily, he crept up to the house and slid one of the doors to the side. His pack on his back and still carrying his umbrella, Ryoga moved quietly through the darkness. Figuring that the bedrooms would be on the second floor, he made his way up the stairs.

The very first door he opened showed a pigtailed figure lying on a futon, and Ryoga grinned in victory. He crept over to it and in a fierce whisper said, “Wake up, Ranma. It's me, Ryoga.”

In a bedroom down the hall, a pair of eyes snapped open. Akane looked at the monitor. She was sure she had heard someone speak, although she hadn't awakened quickly enough to catch the words. Ranma couldn't talk, so whose voice had that been? Her hand slowly reached out for the shinai leaning against the wall.

Akane then heard the words, “Fight me! Hey! Ranma! Would you wake up?!” There was the sound of a soft impact.

Akane jumped out of bed, and ran down the hall carrying the shinai.

In the guest room, Ryoga had tried to hit Ranma to wake him up, but the sleeping boy had rolled to the side at the last moment. Thus Ryoga's fist had smashed through the pillow, causing the soft impact Akane had heard. Feeling frustrated, Ryoga grabbed Ranma's shoulders, shook him, and shouted, “Wake up, dammit!”

It was, quite possibly, the worst thing he could have done. Ranma awoke to find a male figure over him, shouting angrily, holding him pinned by his shoulders. His sleep filled mind reached a conclusion which bore no resemblance to Ryoga's intentions, aside from violence, and adrenalin flooded into Ranma's bloodstream.

The bloodcurdling scream of ‹Noooo!› which echoed through Ranma's head was heard only by himself. Akane yanked the door open just in time to see someone fly up through the air and crash into the ceiling. Ranma leaped to his feet, looking almost as if he had been yanked upward by his fist which had caused Ryoga's flight into the ceiling. As Ryoga bounced back down, Ranma was already spinning. Ryoga screamed in pain as the kick connected, then went flying through the air to shatter the window and continue his flight into the air outside.

Akane flipped on the light switch to see Ranma standing there, breathing hard, eyes looking wild. She approached slowly, speaking softly, “Ranma? Ranma, are you all right?”

Ranma took a deep, shaky breath, then nodded. He walked over toward the broken window and picked an umbrella up off the floor, holding it out for Akane's inspection.

“Ryoga?” she asked rhetorically. “The nerve! Attacking you in your sleep like that.”

Kasumi peeked in through the doorway. “What's going on?” she wanted to know. “Is it a burglar?”

Akane replied, “No. It was that boy Ryoga Hibiki. The one who keeps attacking Ranma. He must have sneaked into the house. Ranma kicked him out through the window.”

“Oh,” Kasumi said thoughtfully. She looked at the clock. Quarter after two. She had to be up in less than three hours. “Do you think it's safe to go back to bed?”

“Go ahead, oneechan,” Akane told her. “We'll take care of it.”

Ranma nodded and Kasumi departed. The young man pulled on a pair of pants and some slippers, picked up the umbrella without bothering to open it, then jumped out through the window. The rain immediately changed him into a girl. Akane ran down the hall to grab her robe and her own slippers, then went down the stairs to emerge from the side door that Ryoga had left open.

As she stepped out onto the engawa, Ranma walked back from the yard carrying a backpack and some clothing. His face was puzzled. Motioning her back inside, he made the sign they had learned for ‘pen.’ Akane stepped over to a cabinet, and came back with pen and paper.

Ranma wrote, “Found these outside. It's Ryoga's pack and clothing.”

Akane looked disgusted. “Why would he take off his clothes to run away? What sort of pervert is he?”

Ranma thought about it, and his eyes suddenly widened. He wrote, “Jusenkyo,” then went back and underlined it. “Baka must have followed me there. After he missed the duel. The rain transformed him. Something small, since his clothes aren't ripped.”

“Oh!” Akane exclaimed in a tone of enlightenment. “That's why he's so angry with you! He must blame you for being cursed.” She thought about that. “Which is pretty stupid. It's his fault that he followed you there.”

Ranma shrugged his shoulders, as if to point out that he wasn't privy to the inner workings of Ryoga Hibiki's mind.

Akane peered out into the rain and darkness. “Do you think ... Do you think we ought to go out and look for him? I mean, he's wandering out there somewhere, as some sort of animal. Even if he does keep attacking you, it just seems ...”

Ranma blew a breath out, then wrote, “What can we do? Checked the yard while I was out there. No sign. With his sense of direction — no telling where he might have gone. If he's a bird, he may already be passing the south edge of Tokyo.” He glanced at the clock. Two thirty already.

“That's a bit of an exaggeration,” Akane pointed out. “Still, you're right. We wouldn't know where to begin looking, or what kind of animal he is. I suppose there's nothing we can do. Let's leave his pack and clothes out on the engawa, they'll stay relatively dry there.”

Ranma dumped the pack, clothing and umbrella, then came back in, shutting the door behind him. As they turned to head back upstairs, Akane asked hesitantly, “Do you ... want to spend the rest of the night with me? I mean, even if you're not still upset from the attack, the window in your room is broken and there's glass on the floor. You're already a girl. So ...?”

Ranma thought about it. On the one hand, he wanted to prove he was strong enough to sleep by himself. On the other hand, she had a valid point. He wanted to get back to sleep, not worry about cleaning his room tonight before he could do so. He could always sleep in the guest room by himself Monday night.

He nodded, then wrote, “Going to get a towel. Meet you in your room.”

Akane smiled and headed up the stairs, while Ranma went down the hall to the furoba. As soon as she entered her room, Akane paused, her senses warning her. Some slight sound she had heard, perhaps. A sudden movement to her side, and she swung around in a kick. A black blur bounced off of the wall, letting out an agonized, “Bweee!”

Akane knelt down on the floor, seeing a small, black piglet. “Where'd you come from, little fellow?” she asked it. “Come here, little piggy. Don't be afraid.” She picked the pig up, cradling it against her chest. It gave a squeal, and she held it back out again. “Oh, you're hurt, you poor thing. And you're sopping wet, too.”

Ranma chose that moment to enter the bedroom. He had taken the time to change his clothes, and was drying his hair. He paused in considerable astonishment, then picked up his pad from the desk and wrote, “What's that?”

“It's a pig, Ranma,” Akane told him.

Ranma rolled his eyes upward. He wrote, “I meant what's it doing here? Where's it from?” He frowned as the little pig started squealing and snorting in his direction.

“I don't know,” Akane answered. “He was in the room when I came up here. He must have wandered into the house to get out of the rain. He seems to be hurt, but I don't think we can do much about that tonight. Can you give me your towel so I can dry him off?”

Ranma gave her a long-suffering look, while thinking, ‹Girls and pets. Sheesh!› He handed over the towel though, and watched as she dried the animal then held it close. The little pig snuggled happily against her bosom.

‹Hentai pig,› Ranma thought, though without any animosity. He climbed into the bed, facing the wall. He failed to see the pig's eyes widen as he did so.

Akane looked down at the cute creature in her arms. “Come on, little piggy. Let's go to sleep.” She slid into bed beside Ranma, with her back to him, snuggling the pig up close to her. With Akane lying between the two of them, the pig settled down, pressing itself up close to her soft curves. Akane reached up and turned off the lamp on her desk.

Several minutes passed as eyes gently closed, sleep creeping back over them. Suddenly the red-haired girl's eyes shot open. ‹No. He wouldn't.› Ranma told himself. He rolled over, and levered himself up on one elbow, looking at the small pig leaning against Akane's chest.

He studied the animal in the dim light, and his eyes narrowed as they focused on the cloth around its neck. ‹The neckerchief. Damn if it isn't the same ... Ryoga!› The little pig opened its eyes and saw Ranma over Akane's shoulder, staring at it. It gave a soft snort. A calculating look came into the pig's eyes, then, seeing that it had Ranma's full attention, it gave him a smug grin and deliberately nuzzled into Akane's cleavage.

To be fair, Ryoga wasn't thinking at all about what he was doing to Akane, other than how nice it felt to be cuddled by her. In fact, if he had stopped to consider what he was doing, he would probably have suffered a massive nosebleed. As it was, his attention was all on pissing Ranma off. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded.

From Ranma's point of view, what he saw was Ryoga Hibiki, using his curse to purposefully molest Akane. Akane, who had rescued him, cared for him, comforted him through nights and nightmares. He felt the neko-ken begin to rise up under the swell of his fury, but fought it back down.

Ryoga saw the change in Ranma's eyes, but did not recognize the danger quickly enough. A hand shot out faster than the eye could follow, yanking the pig up by its neckerchief. It squealed, and Akane muzzily complained, “Ranma ...? What ...?”

Ranma climbed over Akane, still holding the pig out from his body, while its legs kicked futilely. Akane sat up and turned on the lamp. She gasped as she saw Ranma's face. It was dark with rage. “Ranma, what's going on? What are you doing to the little pig?”

Ranma motioned with his free hand for Akane to follow, then marched out of the room. Extremely confused, Akane climbed out of her bed and went after him. Ranma led the way downstairs and back to the furoba. He turned on the hot water, allowing the furo to fill. The pig looked down at the water gathering below it and started squealing even harder.

Akane watched these antics, trying to decide whether Ranma had gone insane. Then between one moment and the next, relays finally closed in her brain, and a hand shot up to cover her mouth. “No! Oh no! It can't be! He wouldn't!”

Sufficient water had filled the tub. Ranma threw the pig down, hard. Hot water splashed, and a naked Ryoga was sitting in the furo in front of the two girls, hands diving between his legs to hide his private parts. Akane backed away, shaking her head. This boy had been in her bed, groping her. Her thoughts were chaotic, having no patience for logic. Had he been planning to change back at some point during the night? Had he planned to attack her in her sleep?

Ryoga was looking only at Ranma, whom he had already recognized earlier in his female form from the previous day at the bicycle shed. Both boys' faces wore expressions of anger, and Ryoga lunged forward, only to fall short wincing in pain from a rib which had been fractured by the kick earlier that night. “Damn you Ranma!” he grunted. “You are dead!”

Ryoga grabbed for Ranma again, pressing one arm tight against his chest. However, Ranma was enraged and in no mood to cut him any slack. He spun and kicked backward, slamming Ryoga over to the side. Akane saw the boy coming at her, the boy who had groped her. Ryoga was still looking back toward Ranma, and never saw Akane's fist shoot out like a battering ram. He found out, though, when it connected. With another cry of pain, Ryoga flew across the furo and crashed into the opposite wall.

Akane marched around the furo to where Ryoga was trying to scrabble to his feet, arm pressed even harder to his chest. The boy's face was a mask of pain. She shoved him back down, none too gently. Grabbing a nearby stool, she threw it over his lower region to spare herself the sight, not caring about his additional wince of pain at the impact.

“You dared!” she hissed. “You dared to sneak into my bed, to press yourself up against me!”

“What are you talking about?” Ryoga complained through a haze of pain. “Ranma was in your bed before I was.”

“I invited Ranma into my bed,” Akane told him menacingly. “And I already knew about his curse when I did so,” she added, not getting into complications about the first night. “And he has never tried to grope me, or take advantage in any other way!”

“But ... but ... he put me through hell!” Ryoga protested. “It's because of him that I have this curse! It's because of him that I was almost eaten the very first day that I had this curse!”

Akane snarled, “And just what, by all that's holy, does that have to do with you sneaking into my bed and groping me, you pervert!”

Ryoga blushed, and looked down. “It's all Ranma's fault,” he muttered.

Akane snorted like an enraged bull, matched by a quieter expulsion of breath from Ranma's direction. “If you want to challenge Ranma because of your stupidity in following him to Jusenkyo, then that's your business, but do it elsewhere! And I'll stand by and cheer Ranma on while he rips you apart. But I swear, if I ever find you within these four walls again, or even within spitting distance of my house, I will see to it that no woman ever has a use for you! Do you understand me?!”

Ryoga gulped; her threat had echoed with chilling promise. He bobbed his head up and down rapidly.

“Good!” Akane pointed. “Your clothes and pack are out on the engawa where you came in. Get them and get out of here!”

Ryoga bounced up and ran off, one hand in front and the other behind. By some miracle, or maybe clarity brought on by sheer terror, he headed straight for the door and made no wrong turns on his way out. Akane crossed her arms and growled as she stared after his retreating form.

“I do not believe he did that,” Akane grumbled deeply. She looked over at Ranma, who was watching her with a light dancing in his eyes. She found herself smiling in response despite her present mood. “Oh, come on. Let's get back to bed. It must be past three by now!”

On Monday morning at breakfast, Kasumi asked about the disturbance during the night, so Akane explained about Ryoga's attack on Ranma. She felt too mortified to tell anyone about the pig sleeping in her bed. Instead she bent the truth and described Ranma finding the pig outside and thereby discovering Ryoga's Jusenkyo curse. Akane also drew the connection from this to why Ryoga kept attacking Ranma, because he blamed Ranma for the curse.

After breakfast, Ranma followed Akane up to her room. As they reached her door, she turned to him to ask, “Where do you think you're going?”

Ranma smiled, then stepped around her. He walked to Akane's closet and pulled out her school uniform and a sweat suit. He pointed to her uniform, then to her schoolbag. He pointed to the sweat suit, then at her. Next he pulled out his pad and wrote, “You start walking walls today. You don't want people to see up your dress.”

Akane's cheeks grew rosy. “Okay, but I don't have room in my schoolbag. I think I've got a small backpack in my closet. I'll carry the uniform in that.”

Ranma nodded and left the room so she could change, going down the hall to put on his own uniform. He looked at it with a sigh, but pulled it on with a resigned expression. He and Akane met in the hall, and found Nabiki waiting for them at the front door.

“I want to see how little sister does at this,” she told them.

They soon reached the first wall. Ranma pulled out his pad and wrote, “After you're up there, walk steadily. Try to look forward, not at your feet. I'll be behind you. You've jumped a lot higher, so remember how to land if you fall.”

Ranma then motioned her to jump up and Akane did so. She did very well on the first wall, but then it was quite thick, at least thirty centimeters. The next one was brick and only about eight centimeters. A short distance along it, Akane teetered to the side, lost her balance completely, and fell. She got her feet under her and landed lightly, immediately bouncing off the ground and atop the wall once more.

“That's one,” Nabiki called out. Akane shot her a glower, then started walking forward once more. She had to jump back down to the sidewalk when that wall ended, and continue down there for several blocks, before walking one more short stretch of wall without incident. As she jumped down for the last time, Ranma landed beside her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and gave her a congratulatory nod. Akane felt pleased at the unspoken compliment as they went together into the school.

Akane changed back into her sweat suit at the end of the school day. She slipped off the wall once more on the way home, when a dog's bark startled her. This was accompanied by Nabiki's call of, “That's two.” Akane fumed a little at this, but stoically continued her walk.

That night, Ranma managed to sleep by himself in the guest room without any nightmares or anyone attacking him. On the other hand, the lack of nightmares may have had something to do with the fact that he spent a very restless night, never sleeping for more than an hour at a stretch without waking up again and only slowly falling to sleep once more. As a result, he was a little cranky the next morning.

Akane didn't fall off the walls a single time on Tuesday morning. That afternoon as they were walking home, she suddenly paused, looking down into a courtyard separated by her current wall from the street. A young woman with long black hair, wearing a brown school uniform, was standing there. Facing her were three opponents, holding clubs, their faces entirely hidden by bandages.

“What the hell is going on here?” Akane wondered aloud, speaking quietly in an aside to Ranma.