by Konsaki » Sat Sep 11, 2010 7:24 pm
It didn’t take long before Terra finally halted atop a rather large apartment building only a few blocks away from the school she just left. Turning about, she watched the armored male finish his own leap from the prior rooftop, his boots clapping on the smooth cement surface beneath their feet.
After a few moments of silence between the two, the light breeze blowing his cape and her hair about a bit, Endymion let out a cough into his fist.
“I’m not who you think I am”, Terra flatly stated, averting her eyes while tucking her bright red hair behind an ear.
Seeing the behavioral tick his sister held in the previous life playing out across the redhead before him, Endymion quirked his brow slightly, “We already told you; you’re Terra… What you’re wearing sort of proves the point.”
Giving the Terran prince an irritated look, Terra shot back, “I know that! Akana already gave me an earful about it...”
“Akana already gave you an earful”, Endymion repeated in confusion, “But you ‘are’ Akana… How...”
“It’s complicated”, Terra cut in, waving her hand as if cutting through the words, “but it’s sort’a part of…” Shaking her head, she growled a bit, “We’ll get to that later. Let me get out of this cheerleading getup first!” Closing her eyes, she willed the Senshi transformation away; a quick flash of light covering the transformation back to her civilian form. Opening her eyes once more, she was privy to Endymion’s flushed face and averted gaze. “What’s up?”
Coughing in embarrassment, he motioned towards her with a hand while pointedly keeping his gaze averted, “Um… y-your top…”
Looking down, the redhead found her gi top loosely open, showing a vast amount of cleavage while still keeping her assets mostly covered. “Whatever”, Ranma grumbled while trying the top tighter, though still loose on her smaller female frame. “There, it’s safe now”, she mockingly told the other occupant of the roof with a smirk.
“I’m surprised you’re so… carefree about it”, Endymion dryly commented while he de-transformed as well.
“You get used to it after a while”, she replied with a shrug before shaking her head once more, “We’re getting off track here…”
“How is that”, Mamoru asked, “You’re Akana and Terra… you admit it, so how are you not who I think you are…”
“That’s not the problem... at least not what I’m talking about right now. I’m talking about this”, Ranma stated with a wave of her hand over her body.
Looking over the redhead in the karate-gi, Mamoru quirked his brow in confusion, “I’m not following…”
“I’m not Tendo Ranko, she doesn’t exist! I made her up to trick my mom a couple years ago because…”, Ranma started to explain before stalling out, “Never mind why; she’s fake, made up, nonexistent!”
Looking into her steely blue eyes, Mamoru tried to figure out exactly what his reincarnated sister was pulling… and failed miserably, “What the hell are you talking about?!”
Sighing in exasperation, Ranma tried to focus her thoughts on what she wanted to say next, causing a break for the breeze to whip through the air. “Look, it’s a long complicated story, alright”, she started up, trying to explain the cut down explanation to follow, “but I’m not Ranko, okay. There never was a Tendo Ranko.” Seeing him nod, if not in understanding then in point acceptance if only to hear the rest, Ranma took a breath, “The truth is… I’m Saotome Ranma.”
A moment passed as she let Mamoru have a chance to absorb her words, though the expected rebuttal turned out to be a very confused, “Huh?”
“Yeah, I usually get that”, Ranma nodded in agreement, “but it’s true.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense!”
Throwing her hands up, she cried out, “And reincarnated sisters from long dead empires do?!”
“Yes, they do”, Mamoru loudly responded before thinking about the words actually being said, “Well, at least in this situation it does…” Looking towards the redhead who just crossed her arms under her chest, he ran a hand through his hair. “Fine… so, how exactly do… How is it you’re Ranma, ‘cause I’m pretty sure I’d have noticed ‘those’ on him…”, he stated with a gesture towards her upper torso.
“Yeah, I found them pretty hard to ignore when I first got them, too. You get used to them”, Ranma replied with a shrug. Getting back on track, she brought up, “Okay, how about this. This morning you ran into Ranma… literally.”
“Yeah”, Mamoru hesitantly agreed, wondering where she was going with this and how she knew, “What about it?”
“You asked him… ‘Me’ about Jusenkyo”, she continued, ignoring his own responding question. “Well, instead of meeting up on that rooftop, we’ll talk about it here.” Seeing Mamoru blink a few times, Ranma kept going, “See, Jusenkyo is a cursed training ground… or at least that’s what it is now. Long story short, whoever or whatever falls into one of the pools there turns into whatever drowned in that pool last. Hot water cures the curse while cold water turns the curse back on.”
“So… You’re saying that…”, Mamoru started up, trying to wrap his mind around the prospect.
“That I fell into the ‘spring of drowned girl’”, Ranma finished up for him, though she shook her head soon after. “It’s a little more complicated than that though…”
“I’d say it was already complicated”, Mamoru groused with a snort, “What you’re saying is pretty hard to believe already.” Seeing the annoyed look growing on the girl’s face, he forestalled her with a raised hand, “Reincarnation is pretty easy to believe since I’ve experienced it along with the other Senshi… I’ve yet to come across anything like what you’re saying, but I’m not calling you a liar… just that it’s hard to believe.”
Grimacing a little at the situation, Ranma took a full breath before nodding in favor of a decision, “Fine.” Grabbing one of his hands, she tugged him towards the stairway attached to the roof while grumbling to herself, “Should have done this from the start.”
“Wait, where are we going”, Mamoru confusedly asked to the leading redhead, not really putting up any resistance since they would have gone down to the street eventually anyways.
Not turning her head, Ranma continued to pull him down the stairs while responding, “I’m going to show you the damn curse so you can quit saying ‘It’s hard to believe’.” Snorting, she added, “Really wondering how you can deal with reincarnation, magic and monsters while having trouble believing in a gender curse…”
Not really having a valid response to that, Mamoru kept his mouth shut as they finished making their way down to the street. Once they reached the stairwell entrance, though, he asked, “Where to now?”
Looking up and down the street quickly, Ranma pointed off to the right before pulling him along, “This way.”
Looking in that direction, he saw an arcade a couple buildings down, though he wondered exactly why an arcade would ‘show’ a curse. He did feel a little embarrassed at all the looks he and Ranma got as she pulled him along. ‘Probably looks like we’re on a date or something’, the thought ran through his head, just adding to the mixed feelings flowing through him.
His confusion grew even as the gi clad girl passed by all the games filling the ground floor and headed to the back, coming to a stop and activating the elevator. Looking at her with a raised brow, she just rolled her eyes as the elevator doors finally opened and she pulled him in. It was a quick ride up to the third floor of the establishment, where he finally figured out where she was taking him…
“Uh… Ranko… are you sure about this”, he asked nervously even as she pulled him ever closer in a straight line towards her intended destination.
“Just shut up”, Ranma ordered back even as she pushed open the door to the small men’s restroom. “You! Scram”, she ordered once more, only this time it was towards the surprised twenty something male washing his hands. Moving out of the retreating man’s way so he could leave, she pulled Mamoru in and made sure to keep hold of his hand. “Okay, again… Hot water removes curse, cold brings it back”, she repeated.
Mamoru’s eyes shot wide as Ranma put actions to word, twisting the knobs on the sink and running the same hand through the different temperature streams. The hand his held changed with the switching bodies of its owner, even as Mamoru’s jaw worked its muscles without a clear word coming out. Finally, he shook his head violently and cried out, “How?! That’s…”
“Magic”, a now very male Saotome Ranma responded dryly, “I know.” Slipping his hand out of the still taller male’s, he asked, “So, believe me now?”
“Yeah…”, Mamoru nodded, still shocked with the situation, “Kind of hard not to…”
“Alright, at least that’s done with”, Ranma stated with a nod; pushing around Mamoru to leave the restroom.
Shaking himself out of his stupor, Mamoru quickly followed the now black haired male to the elevator before asking in a hushed but agitated tone, “What do you mean ‘done with’? I’m more confused now than when we started!”
“I’m talking about the curse and how you wouldn’t believe me”, Ranma responded while entering the elevator and pressing the ground floor button.
“So you’re not leaving it at this”, Mamoru questioned with a raised brow.
Giving the taller man a dry look, the martial artist quipped, “Sure, why not. I mean, I’ve only got like a thousand more… No! I’m not leaving it at this!” Exiting the now opened elevator doors, he took a breath before added, “I just don’t know what to ask now…”
Nodding in understanding, Mamoru followed him out of the arcade and back to the street. Once outside, he asked, “So… how long have you had it? You know; the curse…”
“I got it back around when I turned sixteen”, the pigtailed fighter answered before chuckling, “Normally, I’d tell you it was my old man’s fault for not knowing a lick of Chinese but now… Now, I’m not so sure… probably would have happened no matter what caused it.”
“How so?”
“Something Akana said…”, he responded with a dismissing gesture.
Looking at the martial artist with confusion, Mamoru spoke out, “You said something about that before… why do you keep talking like Akana’s another person…”
Letting out a quick sigh, Ranma just responded with, “It all comes back to Jusenkyo…” Knowing this would take a bit to explain, he jerked his head towards an alley they were passing and moved into it, Mamoru following along. “It’s kinda hard to explain, since she… I… we don’t know exactly what happened for sure, but we’ve got a good guess.”
Seeing a ‘go on’ gesture, the martial artist sighed once more while leaning against a wall, “You remember the end of the kingdom?”
“Bits and pieces…”
“Remember me… Akana heading out with that prince from Saturn… Kanma?”
Looking up in thought, Mamoru drew out, “I think so… something about the Phoenix?”
“Yeah, I… Akana was escorting him to see Saffron to check up on something...”, Ranma explained, omitting the weapons as a nonissue, “Well… Jusenkyo isn’t too far from where the Phoenix hang out and as luck would have it, Kanma n’ me… Akana… whatever, both of them were chased there when the nimrod ‘generals’ decided to defect to Beryl’s side and tried to kill us.” Shaking his head sadly, Ranma amended his last statement, “Well, not tried, since I know at least I died.”
“You’re… that can’t…”, Mamoru tried to defend the royal bodyguards even knowing their actions in this life.
Giving off a nod, the martial artist agreed, “Yeah, that’s pretty much the thoughts I had at the time, too. Barely put up any defense even as they tried to slice and blast us both to bits.” Growling, Ranma unconsciously placed a hand were the sword pierced his flesh in the prior life, “Drew it out up until Zoisite managed to skewer me with his damn sword. Then… Well, then, Akana fell into the damn spring and died. That’s where things get complicated.”
“That’s a lot to take in”, Mamoru stated, running a hand through his hair while letting out a breath.
“You’re telling me”, Ranma chuckled slightly, “I’m the one living the damn experience.” Shaking his head, he continued on the explanation, “Anyways, from what I can figure out, whatever caused the reincarnation didn’t work correctly since Jusenkyo was messing around with it. Akana thinks only half our… soul, I guess, got reincarnated and that was me.”
“And once you fell into the spring, you gained the other half”, Mamoru ventured.
“Pretty much”, Ranma agreed, though with a shake of his head, “course, nothing about Akana, Senshi or reincarnation came up until you tricked me into…”
“Sorry about that”, Mamoru said out of reflex.
Ranma just waved it off, “Don’t worry about it, would have probably happened one way or another anyways.”
After a moment of silence between the two, Mamoru started up a question, not sure as to how to say it, “So… Akana’s in your head? I mean…”
“No… No, she’s not ‘stuck’ in my head or some separate person”, Ranma answered.
Confused once more, the taller male questioned, “But earlier you were talking like she was…”
“It’s complicated”, Ranma responded, though Mamoru chimed in sync with the second word. “Yeah, yeah”, the martial artist said with a dismissing wave, “Well, when you’ve got sixteen years of life as a guy and then get part of your soul added back into ya due to a crazy cursed pool, it ain’t simple.” Shrugging, he continued, “So, instead of going crazy, my mind created a… buffer, I guess, and used Akana’s personality for it until my brain can take it all in.”
“I’m guessing that’s a work in progress…”
“You can say that again…”, Ranma agreed with a roll of his eyes.
“So… she’s not… well, trapped in your head… and you’re really Akana… my sister”, Mamoru hesitantly asked out.
“And here we come to another fun topic”, Ranma quipped under his breath before raising his voice to a normal level, “Look, I’ve… accepted that I’m going to turn into a girl for the rest of my life… and since I’m Akana reincarnated, it sorta makes me your sister, but I’m not a girl in this life…” Gesturing towards his male body, he stated, “Sixteen years as a guy, can’t and won’t throw that away; especially since I’m married with a wife.”
“That said…”, Ranma continued with a grin, “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve wondered what it would be like to have a brother and I’m thinking it ain’t too late now…”
Blinking a moment as he absorbed all that, Mamoru’s lips pulled up into his own grin, “Well, I guess I can handle a little brother who happens to be my little sister sometimes…”
Hearing the absurdity in the conversation, even knowing full well the topic made sense, both of the reincarnated siblings shared a good chuckle. When they settled down some, Ranma looked out onto the street and noticed a clock hanging in a window across the way, “Damn… I need to get back to see what’s going on at the school…”
“Yeah, I’ve got to go too…”, Mamoru agreed solemnly as he moved towards the alley entrance.
“One last thing”, Ranma spoke out, stalling the taller male, “Keep all of this to yourself.”
Locking eyes with the martial artist, Mamoru scrunched his brow, “But the girls need to know.”
“No, they don’t”, the shorter teen stated flatly, crossing his arms, “I’ve already told them that I’m not joining them and they don’t need to know all this. If we happen to cross paths… Well, I’m going to do my own thing…”
“If that’s what you want, I guess”, Mamoru replied, though looking a little forlorn. A slight smirk grew on his face, though, as he gave a quick wave before heading out, “I’ll see you around… little brother.”
--
End of Chapter 11
