The Road Less Travelled

[kurushi]

So I've knocked out a first draft. It's a little over 18k. I'm hoping to get feedback on various levels; plot, spelling, grammar, etc. I write in Australian/British English, so words like "colour" I will intend to keep as is, though ^_~

In a more in-depth intro to readers, I've been warned in the Ideas thread by Mondu that this might come across as an "Author's Tract" (As defined by TV Tropes)... which I think means something along the lines of using a story to further your own paradigms. Though I'm sure my own feelings influenced this, I spent some time during planning stages focusing on trying to tell an interesting story, and not being preachy. So this is partly a warning, and partly a cry for help: If you think I'm falling into bad habits with this, please point them out!

One of my weaknesses is taking a liking to a particular word for one sentence, and then repeating it without noticing for the rest of the story. If you see any irritating repetition, please let me know! I'm trying to stomp that part out!

I hope that if you do read this, that you enjoy some parts (if not all of it). I know it's a little different in tone from a lot of the fics posted here. And thanks in advance for your help! (This fic will be posted in two parts)

The Road Less Travelled

The dirt playing field stretched out around Ranma, empty of all life. There were a few indentations and skidmarks, where he and his most recent opponent had landed during the fight that had only just ended. When the fight had started at the Tendou Dojo, with an upstart student, Ranma had teased the kid along, drawing him out of the more populated centre of the suburb, and towards a more deserted area. A dry-dirt baseball field. It had been dusty. It had been dry, and hot, and blisfully distant from Akane's screeching voice.

It had been Akane that had started the whole thing, really. Egging the kid on, hounding both Ranma and the class he had been teaching, until the kid was at near bursting point. Knowing her, the second that Ranma had dragged the student – Nakabayashi – out into the street, hoping to tire the kid out before he blew a fuse, she would have taken over the class. She'd done it the last few times. Akane had been getting increasingly aggro recently. Grumpy, testy, touchy. She was fit to blow at the slightest upset. And, for the last month, she had started looking for fights. Antagonising people – and hardly ever the right people. Like the kid, who had blocked and punched and sparred with Ranma until he was exhausted. Nakabayashi had wiped the sweat from his forehead, bowed, and mumbled an ashamed apology when he'd become exhausted enough to recognise his own bad behaviour. But the kid wouldn't be back again. Not to the Tendou Dojo, from whence students came home an hour after their class, looking bruised and browbeaten. Not to the home of Akane Tendou and her marvellous wrath.

Especially not this kid, because as he had limped towards the road, it had started to rain. So it wasn't just sticky, hot, and disgusting; it was wet, too. The parents would have a panic attack, and their son would never be allowed to attend Ranma's classes again. They'd lost a lot of students, in the last few months, and...

Ah, hell. It wasn't worth it, worrying about money and Akane and students and work when he was standing like this. Looking for all the world like an anachronistic female transvestite from China. Scraped on his cheek, and feeling more drained from the thought of returning home than he had from the thought of yet another attempt at damage control.

Well, yeah, alright. So there could be other ways to calm the batshit insane students down. Ways that didn't involve rooftop chases and standoffs in dirty... make that muddy, now... parks and fields and schoolgrounds. But he'd never really had the chance to learn that sort of conflict management. There were too many mouths to feed in the Tendou residence. There wasn't time for Ranma to go to university. There was barely enough time for him to fix the walls between the afternoon and evening classes on Tuesdays, let alone enough time to think and study.

Hell, he was letting himself think again. Just standing limply in the dirt field. He left the mud and took some very heavy steps down the road, dirty wet clothes dragging on his limbs. The summer monsoon rain was so thick that he could barely see where he was going. The road began to incline upwards, and the water slid oil-slick past him down the footpath and street, into the gutters.

It took him a while to realise that he didn't recognise any of the buildings around himself. Partly because it was nearly impossible to see anything without wiping one's eyes clean of the muck that was brought down from Tokyo's atmosphere with the rain, and partly because he hadn't cared enough to pay attention. So what if he got lost? All that waited for him at home was a studious Nabiki, a weepy employer, a weasel of a father, and a harpie of a co-worker called Akane Tendou.

What the hell was her problem, anyway? What had he ever done to her? He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and to fling off some of the water that was uncomfortably dripping into his eyes, flinging his wet fringe out. Before it slapped back down onto his forehead, he saw that on his side of the road there was a small break in the houses. In front of a fence was a small tree, half-strangled by the city air. Some grass. Some tiles that led up to drier tiles in a roadside shrine.

Ranma wondered if he should. It seemed a little disrespectful and he had had more than enough occult retribution for one lifetime, thank you very much. But he stood next to no chance of finding his way home in this rain. It was getting darker and wetter every second. He was soaked, he was dirty and he wasn't really looking forward to going home anyway. So there wasn't any decision to be made. He stepped over the wet tiles, and onto the drier rain-splattered ones inside the small shrine.

As the curtain of water cut Ranma off from the downpour, he noticed that it wasn't really much of a shrine. No table or altar or anything special. Just four corner poles, a cheap painted wood roof, and two small carved rock figurines facing to the left and right with their backs to each other. He nodded at them, hoping that that would be enough attention for the moment to appease any divine wrath, and with an eye on the seemingly deserted dark street stripped off his shirt. He let it slap onto the floor of the shelter, and cupped his hands in the rainwater. It was dirty with smoke and everything, sure. But the mud that had got into his clothes had been rasping and rubbing at him and he would ideally be having a shower when he got home anyway. Comfort was the first order of business here.

He rubbed the water that he collected in his hands over his chest and arms. Then he rinsed his top as best he could of the grains of dirt, and repeated the same process for his pants and legs. He had half expected that the rain would stop, leaving his girly butt exposed. Or that a car would drive past, and illuminate his indecent self. But nothing came, and nothing stopped. The world just continued as he wrung out his trousers one last time and pulled them back on. More rain, more silence, more darkness as night fell.

In the half-light Ranma crouched closer to the figurines, to get a better look at them. Up close you could see that though they were similarly carved, one had the distinctive appearance of a woman. It was something in the curves of her kimono, and the way her face had been engraved. He reached out to turn them both to face himself; to meet them face-to-face. But when his hand touched the neck of the small female figurine, he felt a rotten string beneath his fingers. Ranma pulled back in concern – partly for himself, given his track record with curses and ill will – but it was too late. The string broke in the places his fingertips had pressed. It fell, dragged down by the weight of whatever it had been holding up.

Ranma bent closer to investigate. It was a simple half of a yin-yang pendant; the yin. A silver curl with a small gold spot in the middle. Ranma turned it over in his fingers. He felt the coolness of the metal as he looked for – and found – the evidence that there had once been a similar trinket around the neck of the man.

The rain showed no signs of letting up, so Ranma sat down heavily and – more carefully this time – turned the figurines around to face him. He regarded them solemnly.

“You've been here a while, eh?”

No answer from them of course. Still, he might as well enjoy their company while he could. It was nicer than the home he had waiting for him.

“Shame that you lost your one, old fella. But how about I repay your hospitality by getting you,” he turned to face the woman directly, “a better cord or something. So that nobody nicks this one. I'll make sure it'll last.”

They stared back at him in silent unmoving repose. But Ranma reckoned that the gods seemed to agree with him. There was a change in the mood of the place. It felt a little different. Calmer and comfortable. The lack of light wasn't a bad thing so much anymore. It felt safe, even. Ranma sat back and breathed slowly, watching the rain fall slower and softer until the sound of crickets overpowered the sound of the rain against the roof of the shrine.

He stretched, rolled his neck around and waved a hand jauntily at the figurines as he walked out onto the street.

“I'll be seeing you.”

After all the stress of the afternoon the walk home felt blissfully tension free. With the little pendant fisted in his right hand, warm from his skin, he felt grounded and safe. It felt like no time at all before Ranma was recognising his surroundings. Far too soon he left the calm quiet heat of the night and stepped into the pooling light around the Tendou Dojo gate.

From the sound of it, dinner was served. Warmth and light and the sound of voices and crockery leaked into the entrance and hallway. But Ranma just wanted to make a beeline for the shower. He could make his own food in his own time. It was better than getting chewed out for staying out in the rain, and for leaving in the first place. So, used clothes went straight into the washing machine. He took advantage of the Tendou family dinner conversation to escape unnoticed in running naked to the bathroom.

Where, of course, there was no hot water left. Even though they weren't supposed to run the bath anymore – it saved a lot of money when it came to paying the bills – the tub was damp. A little grumpily Ranma sat down on a stool and turned on the hot tap, to discover that there was only cold water left. In a second, all of the exhaustion of the day caught back up with him. The nipples of his cursed breasts were tight with the chill as he grit his teeth and scrubbed the dirt off his body with unheated tapwater.

It was summer. It could have been considerably worse, he knew. But it was still upsetting enough that he wanted nothing more than to dry himself off with a towel and bundle himself up in his bedclothes. Instead, he persevered a few moments longer. Just long enough to grab a dressing gown from his cupboard, hurry back to the laundry, and started a load of washing. He mopped the puddle his wet clothes had left on the floor up with another dirty shirt of his and then ducked back upstairs to his bedroom.

He had a bedroom now. It still had Kasumi's nameplate on the door, sure, but it was his. Not his and his dad's. His. Even if everyone in the house liked to barge in uninvited, it was still his room. He had the right to shut that door in anyone's face. To ask them to leave. He had a western style bed with sheets and a soft duvet. A wardrobe with leftover clothes that Kasumi hadn't taken with her, including the fluffy dressing gown that had kept Ranma blissfully warm in his dash down to the laundry.

He couldn't be bothered with searching in the mixed jumble of the wardrobe for a set of pajamas. He really just wanted to be in bed; warm and asleep. He shed the gown beside his bed and rolled around in the covers until he felt comfortably cocooned in their warmth. Then, as an afterthought, he shoved the yin pendant into his bedside table. He made sure that it was hidden deeply and safely beneath a bundle of crud, so that there was no chance that any nosy girls could come in and snoop around it. There was something about it that was special. Something that made it a little more than it was.

No, that didn't make sense. But very little at all did. Ranma yawned, curled his cursed female legs up towards his chest, and slept.

He dreamt.

He was still in his female cursed form. He was sitting at a table. As the dream clarified he noticed that he was wearing wooden raised sandals. He moved his feet experimentally and they scraped against a packed dirt floor. His legs felt awkward and thick in the traditional kimono he wore. The sound of pedestrian traffic; noises of feet and voices and squawking chicken passed by on the other side of a wood and paper screen wall.

Ranma was for some strange reason dreaming of an old teahouse. A cheap and simple one, with travellers and locals sitting down to eat cheap dumplings and noodles. A Chinese tradition that had become almost ubiquitously Japanese through sheer force of numbers. Tea and snacks sold well. Cheap snacks and free tea sold better, and in this teahouse nobody would be seeing beautiful black lacquerware. It was simple and cheap layman's crockery and cutlery. Sturdy, long-lasting, and humble.

Someone touched Ranma's shoulder, and he started. One of the waitresses smiled mildly down at him, her face vague with the half-reality of a dream. She waited until he had stood from the table, and then indicated that he should follow her through the door at the back of the teahouse. In the way that makes sense in dreams, he followed without question. They slid out of their sandals as they reached the rear half of the room – and with it a raised platform for those wanting a full meal, he assumed – and proceeded through the door. Beyond it was a small courtyard with a few scant plants. They took a sharp left turn and arrived at another room. This room had tatami mats that were clean and sharply fresh-smelling. None of the mildew and age of the mats in the Tendou Dojo. Those ones had deserved replacing a long time ago, but time and money... and the need to keep the classes running...

Ranma was distracted from his thoughts as the paper screen door slid open with a quiet sound. The sort that can only be barely made if you've spent years practicing how to open doors elegantly. Something that only the rich, traditional, and female really worried about. It opened onto a more traditional and refined tea room; one that looked out over the small courtyard garden. It had clean tatami, a brazier, and soft elegantly embroidered cushions. As Ranma was ushered inside politely by the waitress, he noticed the alcove boasted very eloquent calligraphy and a clean and sparse flower arrangement.

The banner seemed to proclaim that it was currently summer, but Ranma didn't care to squint enough to make out the character. Traditional calligraphy seemed to rely a lot on wild movements and shapes that often left a lot of the true words to the viewer's imagination. It wasn't an art he'd ever really learnt to appreciate.

There was someone else in the room. Taller than Ranma, and softer and darker. She wore layers of robes, layers of belts. They were coordinated into a series of patterns and shades that one could have spent hours appreciating, if you cared for that sort of thing. Her face was plucked and made up carefully, and her hair was long and straight, tied towards the end with a silk ribbon. But despite the grandeur of her dress, the utter opulence and nobility in it, the woman's face and demeanor held a softer look. She looked like a mother should look, Ranma thought to himself, or a middle-aged wife. The sort of woman who would love and accept her children, any way they turned out. A wife that possessed a thoughtfulness and grace that even Kasumi could never hope to aspire to.

An ideal. She turned her head to smile at Ranma, movements hampered by the sheer weight and bulk of her dress, made slower and eloquent in a traditional sense. She inclined her head, and waved a hand silently, indicating that he should sit. Uncomfortable though it was, he smoothed the fabric of his own kimono down from his knees, and sat in seiza on one of the cushions provided.

“I'm sorry that I'm late.” He found himself saying. Because of course they'd had a meeting arranged. He'd said as much earlier in the day, when he'd met her at the shrine.

It made sense, in the way that only dreams can. Though it did feel oddly real. The woman simply smiled benignly at him, rose onto her heels, and moved across the room to the brazier.

“That's quite alright,” She replied, pouring water into the pot on the brazier and going through calm ritual motions of cleaning and preparing the tea implements, “but let's have some tea before we talk. The ceremony helps to ground me.”

Ranma nodded, and watched the strange awkwardness of the movements. Sharp and then smooth. Restricted by the weight of her sleeves, and the purpose of the actions. The woman cleaned the bowl, washed the whisk and spoon. Wiped a soft cloth over the lacquerware tea container, and carefully restored all the items to the black lacquer tray they had originally sat on.

The kettle boiled. With a thoughtful determination, the woman tucked the cleaning cloth into her outermost belt, and – as the kettle began to whine with heat – padded two scoopfuls of powder down into the bottom of the warmed tea-bowl. She wrote something with the flat underside of the scoop into the tea powder; something much more complex than the usual motions that Ranma had seen Kasumi practice. She noticed his interest, and reminded him of his duty as a guest.

“You should eat a sweet, to offset the bitterness of the tea. It will improve the taste.”

He nodded, noticing suddenly the small tray before him. It held a small sweet made from rice-flour paste. He chewed on the sweet gummy flavour of it, while she finished her work in the tea-bowl and scooped more, hotter, water from the kettle into the tea-bowl itself. She stood on less ceremony than Kasumi usually did at this point, not using any intermediary vessels for the water. But there was something that felt almost sacred in her motions.

As Ranma felt his saliva dissolve the remnants of the sweet in his mouth, the woman began whisking the tea with a quick and powerful gesture. When it was completely frothy, she turned the bowl in her hand and set it down before Ranma on the mat.

“You bow, dear, then examine the bowl and drink in three sips.” She reminded him with a smile in her voice. Ranma complied readily, feeling incredibly conspicuous in the otherwise quiet room. Then, remembering what he'd learnt from Kasumi, Ranma pressed his fingers flat against the floor and leaned forwards to examine the bowl again. With a questioning look at the woman, he turned the bowl back to face her, and bowed once more.

“Good. I hope it tasted nice. Now let's get down to business.” The woman retrieved the bowl and wiped it clean; she began brewing herself a cup in a much less cautious and ritual manner, drinking it quickly and then piling the equipment and bowl onto the tray without cleaning them. She slid the tray behind herself, and shifted in her seat. Her eyes were amused but earnest as they regarded Ranma.

“It was very good of you to pick up the pendant, to accept my request.” As the woman spoke, Ranma felt the pendant that he had brought home from the shrine heavy and warm between his cursed breasts. A thin cord rested against the back of his neck, though the weight of the kimono he wore made it almost unnoticeable.

The woman shifted again and cleared her throat to command his attention. “But I was hoping that you would arrive much sooner. We are years behind, you see, and we're going to have to work very hard to undo what my husband has done.”

Ranma was a little confused. “Your husband? Oh, the other figure at the shrine? What has he done, then?”

The woman sighed. “You've seen his handiwork yourself, I'll wager. He is – we are- Chimato-no-Kami. God and goddess of crossroads and pathways. He's been using someone in your household to upset the balance between us. To try and tip things his own way; to usurp power that he shouldn't really have access to...”

Ranma twigged to what she was referring to. “You mean... Akane?”

The woman – the goddess, rather – nodded solemnly. “I'm afraid that several years ago now he exposed her to his talisman. She has been carrying it on herself nearly constantly, and it has slowly affected her. Upset the balance within her.”

Realisation slowly dawned on Ranma. 'The yang pendant. She's been carrying a yan, and it's been changing her. No wonder she's been such a snappish grumpy bitch.” He winced at his own language, and shrugged in apology.

The woman smiled a little tightly, but let the dirty language go. She seemed to care far more about pressing matters than manners. “That is correct.”

Ranma frowned down at the tatami mats. “So... how do we fix it? Do I have to steal the yang pendant from her? Unite the two and return them to you and your husband?”

The woman shook her head. She had a devious little smile in one corner of her mouth that Ranma did not like one bit. Not at all. “No,” she said, “your friend has already absorbed the talisman. The pendant is only its avatar in your world. She has taken the talisman of yang – and my husband – into her very soul.”

Ranma pulled his yin pendant out of his kimono and fiddled with it between his fingers. “I'm not sure that I'm going to like where this seems to be headed, lady, but I agree. It's gotta be done.”

The woman nodded serenely. “I'm glad that you understand the weight of this situation. You have a very noble heart.”

The woman reached out a long, elegant finger and touched it to the pendant. It began to glow with a strange light. Dark, but shining. She nudged it with her finger until Ranma followed the motion with his own hands, bringing the pendant back towards himself.

“Your mind chakra. You already wear the body of a woman; you need to take it into your thoughts.”

Dutifully, feeling deep down inside that something was about to go horribly wrong, Ranma pressed the small pendant into his forehead. It felt very strange. It sunk and dissolved into his skin, until there was nothing left but a fingertip.

Feeling very silly, Ranma lowered her arm and licked her lips. She turned to the woman to see if it had worked. “What happens next?”

The woman inclined her head politely. Her smile was warmer and more genuine now. “Well, dear. Your friend has been upsetting the balance by giving way to the masculine within her life. It stands to reason that you need to embrace the feminine.”

Ranma opened her mouth to ask how, exactly, she was supposed to achieve that, then shut it abruptly. She was already starting to think of herself as female. It wouldn't be that hard to experiment. It wasn't as if she hadn't dressed up as a girl before, after all.

“I'll do my best.” She promised the goddess.

As if that had been enough, Ranma found herself waking up slowly in her own bed. The Friday morning light shone through Kasumi's old flowered curtains, and the only sound in the house was that of the front door closing. Nabiki – who had saved up enough money through blackmail and ingenuity – was the only one who could afford to attend university. She paid for her ambition and diligence by being the only person in the house that had to be up early on a Friday.

There were no classes. Saturday and Sunday were full of kids classes and self-defence classes. Weekends were the busy days, with all the commuters and wives and schoolkids ready and willing to show up. To pay. Weekends kept the the household afloat. Ranma knew beyond a doubt that everyone in the house would be lazy and lie in, which meant that with her early bedtime the night before she effectively had the house to herself. Everyone that knew Ranma would be expecting her to be at home all day. Or out at the local shops getting groceries. It was a perfect day for her mission to begin.

Though, she thought as she got out of bed and retrieved the yin pendant from her drawer, it was a bit mad. A bit stupid. Trusting in a phantasm of a goddess in a dream. In the light of day it all seemed a load of nonsense; the stuff about balancing and power conflicts especially. But if there was a chance in hell that it was within Ranma's power to calm Akane's violent tendencies, he'd jump at it. Especially if all it involved was playing a little dress-up and cooking food. Even though Nodoka was a little resistant to Ranma's female form – and Ranma's practicing of any female skills like cooking or sewing – she wouldn't say no to any help. Since Kasumi's absence the woman had had to do most of the organising and cooking for the entire household. Most afternoons that included at least a few of the after-school kids classes. No, she wouldn't stop Ranma from cooking at all.

That part was easy. It would be the dresses and other girly things that would risk setting Nodoka's temper off. Ranma was working on that problem. First though, she should take advantage of her day off and escape before any of the women left in the house woke up and decided to rope Ranma into more handiwork in the Dojo. There really never was an end to the repairs that needed to be done. With a light and hopefully unnoticed step forwards Ranma left the Tendou residence and headed off on a walk.


It was boring. Too boring. And irritating. Ranma understood that girls liked doing this sort of thing – that Akane liked doing this sort of thing – but it was insidious and stupid and pointless! She'd wandered aimlessly throughout the shopping centre for half an hour or so. Her head hurt from the fluorescent lights. Her feet hurt from standing and shuffling and standing still again. The small plastic pink toys that sat in plastic tubs before her were boring and stupid. How did girls stand it?

It was strange. Maybe Ranma wasn't trying hard enough. Maybe she wasn't getting the point. Maybe not having any money at all to spend made a difference to the experience; a lot of the girls seemed to be squealing over getting similar-but-different small dangling charms for their phones. A lot of girls with boys attached to their arms lingered in the more expensive department stores. It all seemed shallow, material and pointless. Surely there was more to women than this? Some of these girls made even Nabiki look frugal.

She persisted for another hour, until her headache got the better of her. She slumped, exhausted, towards a Mister Donuts outlet until she remembered that seats were reserved for customers. Paying customers. She settled instead for a short walk to one of the benches outside the complex. The smell of the cars and trains and life that come hand-in-hand with living in a large city were a godsend compared to the reek of the shops. She'd known that Akane liked a particular perfume. What she hadn't known was that women prowled shops and tested ridiculously overpriced bottles of them by the litre! And if a place didn't stink of flowers and aerated alcohol, it burnt out your eyes with pink plastic cuteness. She never wanted to look at a strawberry again. That all went without mentioning the unmentionable, of course; the cats.

Everywhere, cats! What was wrong with these people?! At least in China it had been old statues and good fortune cats. Cats for money and cats for luck, those she could comprehend. But cats for the sake of pink. Cats for toothbrushes and pocket mirrors and clothing... that was beyond her. Because they weren't really cats for toothbrushes or anything like that at all. They weren't even cats for the sake of cats; they were cats for the sake of cute.

She sighed heavily and rested her head in her hands. This whole thinking as a girl, talking as a girl, it was exhausting. She wasn't sure that she could keep it up for the rest of the afternoon; it absolutely wasn't the walk in the park that she'd thought it would be when she'd left home. She wasn't even sure if things were real or not yet. Even if the yin pendant was still in her pocket. What had earlier seemed well worth a try now seemed like an idiot's gamble doomed to failure.

She pulled the yin out of her skirt pocket and turned it over in her fingers, receiving nothing useful at all from the action. She wouldn't get any inspiration or information from a chunk of metal. Still, she fiddled with it and rested for a few minutes. She didn't have to hurry home. There was probably an old saying written down somewhere, about it being bad luck to use public transport while suffering a complete lack of hope for the future.

Her melancholy was interrupted by the sound of a young man clearing his throat. She looked up from beneath her bangs, to see a very harried looking Ryouga Hibiki. He was carrying a Mister Donuts bag, and two drinks in plastic cups. Ranma shrugged, and shifted across on the bench a little. She wasn't about to turn away an acquaintance who seemed to be attempting to shout her a drink and a snack. She accepted the drink without saying a word, and drank it thankfully. It was an iced coffee or something; cool, bitter, and wet. She could almost feel the moisture absorbing into her body; her headache soothed a little and her mind felt sharper.

“What gives?” she asked finally, gesturing with her cup at the unopened bag of donuts.

Ryouga shuddered a little, and his shoulders sagged. “I... stopped by your place just now. Akane, she... she... and then I saw you turn away and come out here. I figured that you didn't have any cash, and that, well... Akane.” He shook his head and took a long sip from his own drink. “She was so offensive, so spiteful! I might have a thing for her, Ranma, but I sure as hell can recognise a bad day when I see one. Pity that your disguises don't work that well here in Nerima these days. You've used that form so much that people recognise you even as a woman...”

Ryouga sighed, and then opened the paper bag, helping himself to a donut. Ranma coughed awkwardly. “Ah, Ryouga? We're in Asakusa, not Nerima. In fact, we're a while away from there. But thanks for the food. And the drink. I wanted to come out here, to get a chain for this or something, but... yeah. Money was the least of my worries this morning.”

Well, that wasn't a complete lie. And letting Ryouga think that Ranma had suffered the wrath of Akane wasn't too far off the truth. She'd been too preoccupied with escaping everyone's notice to remember to bring some cash. Truth be told, it was a good thing that she hadn't brought any. If Akane found out that she'd been spending the family's money she'd be in for all hell. Even if Ranma didn't get any wages. Even if Akane got away with clothes shopping and an occasional coffee out. It was an argument Ranma would win in the end, but not without a lot of pain and bloodshed.

Ryouga sighed in sympathy. “I can help with that I guess,” he offered, “if you help me find my way back home afterwards. Or at least to somewhere I can stay the night. You'll probably be better off staying away from there until Akane calms down. She's bad today, I mean, really bad.”

“She's been like that for a few weeks now.” Ranma shrugged off Ryouga's apologetic sounding words. For a second, it had almost sounded like he pitied Ranma.

Ryouga sucked a breath in through his teeth and shook his head mutely. They finished their food and drink and headed back into the mall. Ranma did his best not to wince; he led them in a direct route towards a 100-yen store, hoping that they could find a cheap cord or chain. Ranma didn't want to be in Ryouga's debt at all if she could help it. But once Ryouga caught sight of the store Ranma was steering them towards, he stopped walking to protest..

“Not there. I mean, honestly? I still owe Nabiki the monthly, you know, so if you pick something that's about one thousand, then it'll save me the walk there.”

And the potential encounter with a furiously mad Akane, Ranma thought to herself. But she shrugged. Owing Nabiki money wasn't an unheard of thing for Ranma. She'd become used to all of her work – and most of the cash she did end up handling – belonging to the Tendou family. One thousand more yen wouldn't make a difference to her life at all.

“All right, then. I'd say 'lead on, sir!' - but I think we both know better than to do that.”

Ryouga opened his mouth to protest, a little angry, but then seemed to realise that Ranma had agreed to spare him the risk of a trip back to the Tendou's house. He fell into step beside Ranma as they headed towards one of the more reasonably priced department stores. They browsed through the price tags on some plain gold and silver looking chains – not real gold and silver, probably plated or faked some other way – that looked more than suitable for the job.

Something was bothering Ranma about the whole thing, though. Why on earth would Ryouga have monthly payments to make to Nabiki? Oh. Well, that was a bit obvious now, wasn't it. If Ranma had had the foresight – and the social engineering skills to pull it off – she'd have been blackmailing Ryouga herself. Thinking about Nabiki, money, and curses just brought that uncomfortable feeling right back to the front of her mind. The donuts she'd eaten felt leaden in her stomach, and her head was beginning to ache again. She grabbed at the chain closest to her, made sure it was close enough to the right price, and thrust it out at Ryouga.

“Come on, P-chan. Let's get out and get you installed somewhere safely. The longer I take with this, the more pissed she's going to be when I get back.”

Ryouga nodded solemnly, and paid for the chain without a word. Ranma didn't wait for Ryouga, she just strode as quickly out of the damnable place as she could, only stopping when the automatic doors had closed behind her. She only had a minute or so to wait until Ryouga came out. He handed her the chain, and Ranma opened the plastic packet before she did anything else. She carefully threaded the chain through a loop on the end of the pendant, and then closed the clasp around the back of her neck

It settled between her breasts as warm and solid as it had felt in the dream. A soft tingle in her forehead distracted her from her headache a little. She took in some deep breaths, then feeling slightly better turned to Ryouga.

“Sorry,” she apologised, “but this year even bloody Ghibli's in on the talking cat party. Hell.”

Ryouga nodded, and Ranma hoped that he remembered how stressful she found cats. They both stood around a bit lamely after that, until Ranma nudged Ryouga with the toe of her shoe. “So, you wanted me to usher you somewhere, or what?”

He blinked, and shrugged. “I don't really have anywhere to stay at the moment,” he explained.

Ranma thought for a moment, then cracked her neck before making a suggestion. “Well, we know two small restaurant owners. I'm sure if you offered to work the till for the evening shift, or even just wash dishes, they'd find somewhere to put you up. But that's the best I can do. Take your pick.”

Ryouga answered without thinking. “Ukyo. That old hag gives me nightmares. Has to be Ukyo's.”

Which was easy enough. Keeping a hand clenched in Ryouga's belt, it was easy enough to drag the guy onto a train and then down the few streets from the station into Ukyo's place. Ranma left him at the door – she didn't want to get waylaid – and set off for home at a steady pace. It was almost lunch now, and if she was lucky, she'd get into the kitchen in time to take over the work from Nodoka. If Akane spent the day reading and training like she had last week, Ranma might never run into her.

She left her shoes outside the door to the laundry and tiptoed in through the back way to the kitchen. Nodoka was only just walking in; she let out a small gasp of astonishment when she saw Ranma. Ranma had the presence of mind to look a little abashed.

“I don't want Akane to see me,” she explained to her mother, “because she's been snappish since last night. That's why I bugged out early. Can I make it up to you by making lunch?”

Nodoka regarded Ranma dubiously for a moment. “You know I don't mind your cursed form provided that you act like a man. As a matter of fact, using your curse to get out of situations is a sign that you've inherited at least some traits from your father. Dishonourable traits, but at least they show some form of masculine inheritance. I'm not sure that cooking is such a good idea, though...”

Ranma braced her feet on the floor against her mother's obsession with masculinity and bravado. She'd been saving one good argument up for a few hours now; it had come to her on the way to the shops like divine inspiration. “Look, you want me to be manly to inherit your family legacy, right? That's why you don't give a rat's arse about the old man. I can understand that. So think about this: if I don't learn how to make your future grandson's lunch, then Akane will be the woman behind the stove.”

Nodoka fluttered a hand slightly. She brought it to her mouth. Ranma could almost swear that the woman was hiding a smile. She inclined her head towards Ranma, saying “Well, I have been teaching her the basics. She can make instant noodles quite well, you know.”

Even having said that, Nodoka retrieved a recipe book from one of the cupboards and turned it to a page that directed the production of agedashi tofu. It wasn't an incredibly complex dish, but it was certainly one that required a bit of practice to get down properly. It needed stock, and a coating for the tofu. Oil to fry things in. Paper for draining, and timing to get the stuff out onto the table at the right time.

“It was one of your grandfather's favourites. Practice it for my grandchildren, will you? And if you're dead set on building up your repetoire, you'd better do the dishes and get started on some tamagoyaki for dinner.”

Ranma stared at Nodoka, wide-eyed. Nobody could make the thin-layered omelette of tamagoyaki without practice. Lots of it. Sushi chefs spent years perfecting theirs; the success or failure of tamagoyaki was sometimes what marked a chef. The thinness of the layers, the fine control of the pan...

“You've gotta be kidding me.”

Nodoka smiled, and winked at Ranma. “Yes. I wouldn't expect someone at your level to be capable of that. But you will have to put in an effort. You're obviously trying to get out of doing something else, and though I'll enjoy the evening off, I can't have you using my kitchen as an escape route all the time. It has to be hard enough to at least equal the trauma you're escaping...”

Nodoka thumbed through the recipe book as she thought. Ranma began to wonder if she didn't get half of her slyness from his mother's side. She'd always thought he'd inherited it from her lying weasel of a father. Perhaps there was more of her mother in her than she'd ever known. When Ranma saw the sign of triumph in her mother's eyes, and the recipe book had been thrust in front of her, she knew that some of her glee in perversely annoying some of the people in her life had most certainly come from Nodoka.

Chawanmushi. Not a hard dish, unless you were a perfectionist in the kitchen. Nodoka had probably noticed that about Ranma. For someone who worried about taste, shape, and consistency in their dishes, something that was covered and steamed for a considerable amount of the cooking time was sheer torture. She'd never made it before, and it would be pure psychological torture the whole time.

“Fine.”

Once Nodoka had finished gloating - albeit in a refined and well-mannered way, but still gloating – the afternoon in the kitchen wasn't that bad. It was definitely better than being in the Dojo or walking around town in the sticky summer heat. There was always some pre-prepared dashi stock in the fridge, so lunch was just a matter of mixing that with soy sauce. Coating the cubed tofu in rice flour and then deep frying it took time, but it was time that Ranma was more than happy to spend.

She wasn't sure if agedashi tofu and chawanmushi were summer dishes as such, but she'd never been one to pay too much attention to the finicky aspects of cooking. They tasted alright, and that was what counted. They were a chore, and that was what counted to Nodoka.

Ranma made sure to stay secluded in the kitchen while the others ate. She'd already served herself and finished; to make sure that it tasted right. She didn't want to risk upsetting Nodoka. It was also in two parts Akane's fault. Half because it avoided a direct confrontation, and half because Ranma still had a small hope left in her heart that playing a traditional woman's role for the day would help somehow. She just couldn't let go of the hope that Akane's petty competetive aggression was the fault of a yan imbalance. That could be dealt with, and fixed. Then they could see – all enchantments stripped clean away – what they felt about each other.

Once the family had eaten and left the living room Ranma tidied the bowls away and began the painstaking task of slicing the narutomaki. Nodoka had been devious; Ranma wanted each to turn out perfect, and so would have to spend painstaking effort to ensure that every slice of the narutomaki and chicken was suitable. That the egg was mixed properly. That the leaves were the right size and shape.

The late afternoon was a headache that took forever and no time at all, absorbed as she was in the preparation. When she sat back to time the bowls as they steamed over a pot, the tension that had built up in her shoulders sent aches through her body from her head to her toes. She felt exhausted deep down to her bones. When the time finally came to retrieve the covered bowls from the steamer and serve them, she didn't even exult in how well they'd turned out. She simply ate, scrubbed dishes and stumbled down the hall into the bathroom. As soon as the sweat of the day had rinsed down the drain, he ascended the stairs as a man and flopped down into bed.

As an afterthought, he dipped his hand into the cup of water on his bedside table and dribbled some across his forehead. There was still the chance – small, but a chance – that the goddess would show up in a dream to say that everything was going fine. That soon Akane would be sane again.

When her eyes closed, she fell into a heavy sleep that weighed her mind down beneath the reach of any dreams. It felt like a long and restful amount of time passed before the sounds of a busy, cheap teahouse began to filter in. She kept her eyes shut for a few moments to simply listen to the clinking sound of the cups and plates that bumped up against each other as tables were cleared. The lulls in conversation as waitresses approached and set out dishes. The sound and presence of the people in the room felt almost like a collective ki; something that buffeted around Ranma's body and bounced against the walls and roof.

When she opened her eyes finally she was looking directly into the face of a harried looking waitress. The girl seemed torn between whatever she had been about to say to Ranma and dealing with the loud middle-aged man that was tugging on her sleeve.

Ramna smiled, feeling very magnanimous now that the power of this goddess – and the yin pendant – seemed valid and real once again. There was hope for Ranma's future. For Akane. And she'd spent the whole day nearly in female form. The entire day had been dedicated to supporting the yin energy within her. Perhaps this dream meeting would reveal more about how to triumph over the yang influence on Akane.

“I remember the way.” Ranma said to the girl. She stood and left the commercial tearoom; made her way along the walkway and stopped at the door to the private room she had met the goddess in the last time. Barefoot, she knelt outside the closed screen door and paused for a second.

Was there an etiquette to these things? Was there a phrase or manner of behaviour that was important? Should she announce herself politely, or enter silently and humbly? Ranma often had very little idea as to what was appropriate in a modern formal situation, let alone historically. Let alone for girls.

She was on the verge of making a very impulsive decision, one that would involve a raised voice and a casual attitude to cover her awkwardness, when a clear and deep female voice rang out from behind the screen. The voice of the goddess herself.

“Do stop dithering and enter, dear. We both know you're out there.”

Well, that sorted the problem out. Ranma slid the door open and did her best to cross the room to the cushions gracefully. It was easier said than done, when one was wearing a restrictive kimono and toed socks. Hardly any grip whatsoever. She was immensely glad when she had settled herself on the cushion. She had absolutely no intentions at all of moving about again if she could help it. She looked upwards a little to the goddesses face – the woman was quite tall, perhaps even more so than last time. But goddesses had never to Ranma's knowledge had a reputation for consistency of behaviour. If one could manipulate dreams then she certainly could make herself appear taller.

But why on earth would she want to? Ah, it didn't matter. Now Ranma was just wasting time. She met the goddesses eyes and opened her mouth to tell her about her day, but stopped before any words came out. The goddess' smile had cracked a little, and she had raised her hand to her mouth to hold back what sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

“Oh dear, I'm sorry. Just a moment. But you were unbelievably amusing today. All that running about and worrying over things like plastic animals and skirts and makeup. Oh, goodness!”

The goddess burst into a peal of laughter. She was slow to regain her breath. Ranma sat completely still on her cushion, feeling as if she was at the brunt of a joke. Ranma had spent all day going through commercialistic pink plastic hell, all to fix a problem this woman's husband had created, and she had the gall to laugh?!

The goddess calmed down and focused until her face was once again calm and fixed on Ranma's. Though there was still a smile sneaking up at the corners of her mouth, when she spoke it was in all seriousness.

“I am afraid that I did not prepare you enough for your attempts at balancing out the yan. You seem to be operating under the assumption that clothing, cosmetics and physical location have something to do with your gender identity.”

Ranma blinked and took a few moments to proccess that. Then, she protested. “But chicks love that stuff! They're always buying new clothes, and there were heaps of girls and women in the mall.”

The goddess shook a finger at Ranma. The smile on the woman's face was kind and indulgent. She spoke like a parent to a child. “A lot of boys fish. A lot of men wear shorts in some countries, and kilts in others. Those actions are more cultural and local than anything. Of course some people feel that these things are integral to their masculinity or femininity. But that's an individual thing. You very obviously didn't enjoy your time. You did, in fact, shut down and close yourself off more. By entering a situation where you felt uncomfortable, you subconsciously began to resist your yin. Even though you were speaking using a more feminine grammar.”

Ranma sighed and furrowed her brow. “What the hell was I supposed to do, then?”

The goddess nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should have given you better guidance. Yes. I will do my best to make up for that. Your concept of male and female has to do with gender identity; with what you've seen and heard and absorbed from society as you have grown. But the popular culture you have been exposed to isn't all there is to femininity. Surely you've met some girls or women in your life that don't conform to what you've grown to believe is female. You seem to think it's mainly a superficial difference; appearance, makeup, words, the accessories you buy for your life.”

She paused to let Ranma consider that. Images of Nabiki, Kasumi, Akane, Shampoo, Ukyo, Nodoka... every woman she had ever known, whirled through her mind. She felt a bit embarrassed now that she realised that the information had always been there in her own memories. There was no way that Ukyo, or Kodachi, or Nabiki would ever buy a cat-themed toothbrush. If Ranma ever brought home a pink lucky charm for her mother, Nodoka would slit her throat as soon as look at the thing.

“Good.” The goddess' voice was warm and kind, not lingering on Ranma's failures at all. It was quite unusual. “So now you have to learn exactly what femininity is for you. It's different for everyone, and it comes in various levels of perspective. First, there's the commonalities between the females that you know. The ones that you can see the influence of yin in. Then there's the way that others see you in your female and male form; the way that they percieve the feminine in you. Finally, there's the hardest of all to discover: who you are as a female.

“That one will be very tricky. It's wholistic. Not just clothes or behaviour. It's more about feeling. What arouses you? What appeals to you? What aspects of yourself do you see as feminine? It's going to be very hard for you, because much of your life has been dedicated towards upholding and aspiring to a caricature of masculinity.”

She paused a while to let Ranma absorb all of that. It seemed daunting, all that she was asking. But the words carried an ache of truth. Ranma's life had been all about saving face and faking bravado.

“It's as much about identifying my own yang as it is the yin, right?” Ranma asked eventually. “It's not just about Akane, and her yang issues. It's about my entire life being skewiff.”

All the goddess did was smile. She began to fade into darkness, and Ranma felt the weight of sleep dragging her mind down again. All turned black.

When she finally did wake up, her eyelids felt heavy and were crusted dry with sleep. She blearily tried to remember what the goddess had directed her to do. First was... was... was to think about all the women Ranma knew. Well, fuck. She wasn't sure if that was a psychologically sound idea. What were the distinguishing qualities of the women that she knew?

Well, first and foremost was near homicidal fury. Even if Akane's rage was fuelled by a yan pendant, nearly all the other women in Ranma's life were violent, aggressive, or murderous. Like Kiyohime, or Izanami, even; the vengance and cruel fury of the women in Ranma's life was often at epic legendary levels. Kodachi Kuno was more believable as a goddess of death than as a schoolgirl. Nodoka's fury towards her deserter husband would probably have ended in bloodshed if Ranma hadn't cared about the old man. So vengance was a female constant. Ryouga, Mousse, all the men he had fought against as a kid had mellowed with age. But the day that Kodachi gave up on trying to kill Ranma's cursed female boy would be the day that the sky turned green with purple spots.

Darkness of purpose, then. Like yin; the female meant water and darkness and death. It had meant that literally to Ranma at one point, until Nodoka had accepted that . At times when that look crossed Akane's face Ranma wondered if there still wasn't a woman out for a kill.

In fact, now that she thought about it she'd always thought that men were more physically active. Stronger. But even Kasumi had learned the basics of the Tendou school. All the girls that Ranma had spent a considerable amount of time with or near were tough and athletic. Whether it was ice-skating, gymnastics, or food preparation style martial arts – they were all fitter and stronger and more passionate about their chosen disciplines than most of the boys that Ranma had gone to school with. In fact, with smaller bodies the girls had a harder battle to fight against stronger opponents. Kuno and Mousse and Ryouga should have had an easier time of it than they did. For Shampoo to take on Mousse - on a basic physical level - she would have to have trained much harder. Developed a much stronger ki than Mousse had. And that would just bring her to an even chance. To trounce him as often and easily as she did, she'd have to have committed a lot more of herself to the fight. To training and fighting.

Ranma hadn't really thought about it before. But now she knew it: women were tougher. Because they had to fight harder. Because they were more vulnerable they learnt right from the start to push themselves harder and with more spirit. Though she had been taught arrogance and technique from men, and had benefited from their musculature and stamina for most of her life, she could recognise in her own determination much more of her mother's stubbornness than her father's cowardice.

[kurushi]

That was a little scary. Ranma had always thought that strength and resilience had been male traits. It put the women of the household in a much different light at breakfast. She watched them out of the corner of her eye as they chattered amongst themselves. What Ranma had once taken to be the stoic silence of old fighters seemed now to be the scared trembling fear of two boys that knew the girls would have their balls if they acted up.

Nodoka smiled sweetly at Ranma and asked in a voice that was poised just this side of pissy criticism, “You're a girl again today, Ranma?”

Gathering her own strength, Ranma didn't contradict her mother. Instead she did her best to redirect the complaint. “I have to patch the roof, right?”

She would have mentioned that it was the rainy season, and that rain set off the curse just as much as anything else, but the weather was on Ranma's side. It stuttered into a heavy downpour as if to punctuate Ranma's sentence. Everyone at the kotatsu watched the ripples of scungy pond water as the rain beat down.

“I guess I'll take the morning class, then.” Akane grumbled. But she couldn't pull off true grumpiness; Ranma knew she loved teaching the kids in the mornings. Akane seemed to enjoy teaching classes in general. Maybe it was that control thing. Women liked to be in control. Men like Soun and Genma, they didn't have any fantasies that they might ever be in charge of their own lives.

It was a bit scary in all truth. What if Ranma and Akane did ever marry? Would Ranma find himself as a husband cowed and sitting in a corner, talking about fighting and manliness while really being nothing more than worn-out and bled dry by a family of women?

Gross. No fricking way. Wearing a female form, thinking in female pronouns, she felt insulated a little from that awful possibility. She was not going to let herself turn into a husband. The devious cowardice of masculinity seemed far less desirable than the duplicitous manipulations of femininity. Ranma would chose to be a scheming girl over a shivering boy any day of the week!

She finished breakfast and rinsed her dishes in the sink quickly, eager to get up on the roof before Akane's brain woke up enough to invent a reason to be pissed at her. She found the bright plastic tarpaulin that had been stretched over the damaged area, and pulled it back to measure the damage. In the last few months so many students had gone apeshit mad – so many scuffles had started and ended on the roof – that they'd simply bought up a lot of spare tiles. Bulk deals were cheaper. They just weighted down plastic sheets over the damage and once a week Ranma climbed up and replaced the missing tiles. Then checked the whole roof over for any cracks or slightly dislodged ones.

The chore made Ranma appreciate what Kasumi had done to keep the house together a great deal more. She had been a lot more resourceful than Ranma had realised. She had had to be, of course. Perhaps it was that burning necessity of things that made women so strong, so stubborn. Ranma had never really thought about the whys and wherefores of it before. Even women as sweet and soft as Kasumi seemed to have these endless springs of bloody minded, bitter, spiteful direction to draw on

It was going on close to seven when the kids started showing up for the morning class. She watched them walk around the entrance and along the path to the dojo itself. She made sure to take a mental note of the ones that paused to glance up towards the roof. They wouldn't be able to get a clear view of anyone on the roof from that angle, so they either had a good sense of hearing, or were talented enough to sense Ranma's presence. Some of them might be due for a more advanced level of training. As the last of them shut the door behind themselves, the rain began to thin until it was barely a light patter on Ranma's back.

Half an hour later the kids were off to the school. They had longer sessions on the weekend; the morning sessions were really just a bit of fun for everyone involved, and the parents loved the thought of getting blood pumping through their brains in time for an invigorating day of kanji memorisation and basic sums. The day was warming up. With all the rain over the last week, the sky had cleared up from its usual grey muck. Sunlight warmed Ranma's arms and the tiles reflected a drier heat than they had the Friday before. Working in the warmth was a nice change. Ranma shifted to the other side of the roof, moving tiles and gloves and the folded plastic sheets with her. On her second trip across with the last of the sheets, she saw the shadow before she saw Nabiki herself. Waiting near the gear, the conniving young woman seemed to have the morning off of classes. She also seemed to have something in mind for Ranma. You could tell from the genuine way she smiled. Nabiki only smiled like that when she was about to foreclose on your soul.

“Did you have fun on your date with P-chan, Ranko dear?” Nabiki asked in a lilting and teasing voice. Ranma froze, and did a quick headcheck for Akane. When there wasn't any immediate pain, she turned back to Nabiki and regarded her. Then, Ranma pointed behind Nabiki at the pile of tiles, and then to the tarpaulin that covered the largest hole on that side of the roof.

“I'm happy to talk, but this one's above your bedroom. So you'll pass the tiles when I need them, and we'll talk.”

Nabiki rolled her eyes, but once Ranma had folded up the plastic and shoved a broken tile out into the air beside her head, Nabiki took it from her and deposited it into the bag the rest had been dumped into. “So...” She began.

Ranma tugged at another fragment of tile, and shrugged. “So I was caught in the rain at the shops, and Ryouga was there. He bought me something I wanted, and now I owe you his thousand yen.” She paused, and offered a handful of pottery shards to Nabiki.

“Oh now, you don't expect me to believe that. You got all dressed up. I bet you even picked up Kasumi's old lip gloss when you took that pendant out of your drawer that morning. Lip gloss doesn't happen to Ranma Saotome by accident.”

Ranma disloged the last two tiles, which were far less damaged than the others, and gave them to Nabiki before replying. They were falling into a regular rhythm now that a process had been established.

“It's not as if I've never used makeup and skirts to get what I want. It's also not as if I haven't done it to go out for free ice cream before. It's summer, Nabiki, and I'm completely broke.”

Nabiki frowned. She opened her mouth to speak, but Ranma held a hand up. She waved at the pile of new tiles, and Nabiki rolled her eyes before handing one over, speaking as she moved. “You're too calm for that. You should be yelling and protesting, and here you are, calm as anything. I don't buy it.”

Ranma cracked her neck and held her hand out for another tile. “Well, you're not the boss of me.” She shrugged, grinning at Nabiki. Though Nabiki was obviously upset that she hadn't got an answer, she laughed in a sharp exhalation.

“I guess you've got me there, kiddo.”

They finished the job together, which surprised Ranma. Nabiki seemed too caught up in her own thoughts to realise that she was being helpful and kind. They packed up the gear and headed to the ladder that Nabiki had set up for herself. They reached it and Nabiki had one hand on the top rung to stabilise it, before she spoke.

“Look, it's like this...” Ranma looked away and down at the Dojo across the garden below. “Something's up with Akane. I thought it might be a... well, a girl thing...” Ranma didn't want to get caught lying outright to Nabiki, so she let her voice trail off.

Luckily, that seemed to do the trick. Nabiki sniggered and shook her head. “You two are a pair. Honestly!”

She was obviously finding something very funny, beyond what Ranma had said, but wasn't planning on sharing the joke. Ranma held the ladder steady for her, and watched her smile fade from view as she descended. She knew that the goddess – if she was more than a figment of Ranma's imagination – was able to follow her throughout the day. She guessed that Akane experienced something similar with the god. She supposed given that that it wouldn't be a good idea to let on to Akane that Ranma was involved as an agent working against her. There was something niggling at Ranma, though.

Some gut instinct that insisted a talk with Akane was vital to sorting the whole mess out. That Ranma usually never approached Akane without being pressured into it or recruited into a touchy-feely conversation almost cinched the deal: as a man she would avoid confronting an emotional and threatening situation like that. But girls usually wanted to talk more. Perhaps not Akane specifically – not recently – but certainly the Akane of high school would. Despite assurances to everyone that she thought Ranma was a pervert and an idiot, in that final year before graduation Akane would have approached Ranma and discussed her concerns openly. Had whenever something had been weird or awful.

So Ranma's gut feeling, and her commitment to seeing this yin thing out to its conclusion only made Nabiki's strange amusement seem like a very convincing argument for Ranma to get all chatty and social with Akane. Nabiki had heard something from Akane, Ranma was sure of it. She would much rather trust Akane – yang influence and fury or not – than try to wheedle something true and affordable out of Nabiki.

As she'd been lost in thought, Nabiki had reached the ground and walked off somewhere. Ranma shook her head and dropped the lighter gear to the ground. She begun to ferry the excess new tiles back down, and found herself swept up into the rhythm of the other chores of the day.


After half an hour of wandering around the house and dojo looking for Akane, Ranma gave up in exasperation. It was a traditional house, but not a huge one; to not see someone for a whole day or two in a row seemed supernaturally strange. It only fueled Ranma's suspicions that something else was going on. Giving up for the moment, she tapped absently at the pendant and swung her legs as she sat on the veranda outside the living room.

Maybe she was going about everything backwards. First, she'd barreled into crossdressing and been taken down a peg by the goddess for her thoughtlessness. Of course when you were dealing with yin and yang a lot of it was going to be personal, spiritual, conceptual. She'd run into Taoist theology a few times during her training trips, and she was hardly unfamiliar with yin and yang as concepts. She felt small and stupid and clumsy, for not having thought of that at all.

Partly, Ranma thought hopefully, she'd been occupied with the weight of working and managing the dojo; with Akane's argumentative nature. There hadn't really been any time at all to sit and think. Always something to do, like mending the roof or polishing floors or airing mattresses. Always someone around, like Nabiki or Genma or Soun or Nodoka, wanting to talk. Or Akane wanting to argue. It was no wonder that Ranma hadn't been able to cope with the basic intuive connection of past knowledge with current problems.

Oh, her head hurt. She leant forwards and stared down at the garden beneath her feet. She should have known better than to go looking for Akane. Ranma always seemed to meet people only when it was going to be inconvenient for her. If she wanted a moment alone with Akane, suddenly everyone would need to interrupt. If Ranma wanted a moment alone to think, Akane would be there, upset that Ranma wasn't being attentive. It was a strange contrariness of purpose and reality that Ranma had never been able to shake.

She was far more likely to see Akane in the evening, when they were both exhausted and grumpy from the evening classes, than she was to succeed in finding her now.

The phrase “You're never around when I need you” wasn't the best way to explain it, but it was the first that came to mind.

Ranma sighed, and then stretched her toes out. Flexed them up and down, and rolled her feet around on her ankles. The clicking cartilage reminded her that she'd put her joints through a lot of punishment in her lifetime. It made her think of punches, and the way that she had been first taught kanji: straight lines and curves. Stopped lines and lines with a flick of the wrist; the sort that sent ink flying in calligraphy if you had overloaded the brush. Ranma had always known that the straight lines were red, and the curved lines were more black. Straight was male, and curved was more female. Maybe that was how yin and yang had first been classified. White meant male, and semen, and life. Black meant women and blood and death. White was dry like the sun, and black was wet like the depths of the ocean.

Ranma began to let her mind wander. If femininity was just a word that could be applied to frilly dresses just as easily as more complex ideas, then so was yin. Sure, it was something that everyone agreed upon, in a way. But it really was just a word that had attached meaning that helped act as a filter to the world. Ranma had known. Not just thought, but known during childhood that men were red lines and women were black curves. Maybe the key to everything wasn't to adopt someone else's ideologies, but to find one's own. Ranma had already started to think about the nature of women in her life.

She agreed with the yin theory one one level at the very least; Nodoka with her katana was birth and death all rolled up into one grumpy obi. She would have taken the time to think more about it, but there was a sudden soft tacky padding of bare feet on the wood behind her.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Akane's voice was clearer and gentler than Ranma had become used to over the last month. She didn't answer until Akane had moved to sit beside her, both looking out at the pond. Wind stirred in the trees, creating an unusally placid and natural atmosphere. For a moment that was almost like an inhalation, the sounds of street traffic and people living in the neighborhood fell away. The sound of air and lightness overcame it all, and the clear sky shone with brighter sunlight than it had mere seconds ago.

Then, a car drove past. The wind slowed, and a child had an argument with a parent in the street out the front. The air felt a little damp and clouds began to shoulder their way across the sky. Unsure of how to begin now that Akane was where Ranma wanted her to be – sitting beside her and apparently ready to listen calmly – she tapped again at her pendant and exhaled sharply.

“Do you ever wear jewelery when you train, Akane? Like necklaces or anything? I mean, er, I was wondering if they ever got in the way, or anything...”

Akane giggled. That was one aspect of the female that Ranma had never understood. Laughter was laughter. Who the hell had invented giggling?

“Honestly, Ranma. I wear a bra or a singlet under my Gi, right? So I just tuck it in there. I wouldn't wear anything too short to do that, because it'd be close around my neck and it'd restrict my movement.”

Ranma would have mentioned that anchoring a necklace in a bra would restrict her movement just as much, but Akane had reached beneath her neckline and tugged on a chain that looked far stronger and more expensive than Ranma's. The pendant looked just like Ranma's, but was gold looking with a small spot of silver. Ranma pinched her own pendant between two fingers, and fidgeted with it for a moment before she tugged the whole thing over her head and reached out to align it with Akane's.

They looked very well made and harmonious resting against Akane's shirt. Balanced. Ranma cleared her throat awkwardly. The goddess hadn't said outright that she couldn't talk to Akane, right?

“How long have you had yours?”

Akane frowned, and gestured that Ranma should take hers away from Akane's breasts. Since she didn't seem about to hit Ranma, the redhead complied.

“A few days. Probably four or so.” Akane said.

“Oh. Wait, what?!”

Ranma had suspected that something was up with the goddess' behaviour. But the bitch had told a bald-faced lie! She'd deliberately misled Ranma into thinking that following her weird promptings would help Akane.

“How long have you had yours, Ranma?”

Akane's voice cut into Ranma's thoughts. “Coupla days.” She replied flatly.

“Oh. I see.” Akane's voice was cold and dangerous. Her hands were clenched in fists at her sides. Ranma didn't need to be a genius to guess that the god of pathways had told her something that was complete bull as well.

They didn't say anything for a while, just stared out at the garden. Ranma didn't think that either of them knew what to say. If Akane's experience mirrored her own enough, then quite possibly she was feeling as stupid as Ranma was. Ranma had always blamed Akane on a deep level for being so aggressively defensive. For using violence as a way to withdraw from emotional situations, or to defuse frustration. But Ranma had seen it; at least half the blame lay on her for not trying to help Akane feel safe enough to deal with her own issues. She had chosen instead to goad Akane on. To avoid her and villify her. It was easy to resign yourself to someone else's life's dream – the dojo that their fathers always wanted to pass on – if you had a scapegoat for your anger.

Akane was, in fact, possibly not so much a rabid testosterone flinging avatar of a god as she was someone using the exact same method of coping. Using Ranma's disregard and thoughtlessness as an excuse to be mad, to rage, to fight against something.

Because when you spent your whole life being taught independence, and you grew up to be a person who was completely subservient to the will of all those around... you had to have someone you could beat up.

It didn't feel very much like a revalation. But then Ranma was pretty certain that they had both been aware on some level of what they'd been doing. They'd needed that conflict to feel safe and in control of themselves; if Ranma had let herself think too much about it at all, she'd have felt this rising turgid depression in her throat. It was coming on strong, now. Aching as if every cell in her body was too full of water or blood or something.

She felt childish, petty, and pointless. A quick glance up at Akane's eyes revealed that they were both on the edge of tears. Ranma bit her lip and clenched her own fists. She imagined they looked like little kokeshi dolls from behind. Short, with heads facing straight forwards and arms stiff against their sides.

“We're completely fucked, aren't we?” Ranma asked shakily.

Akane laughed a little and shook her head, then nodded. “I guess so. I mean, we've always been a little stuck, committed to the dojo and agreeing to observe our engagement. But now, with... them... we've really lost control.”

Ranma sighed heavily. “But what the hell do they want? She told me that he was in a power struggle with her, but there's no way that wasn't a lie.”

Akane frowned thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, we're being toyed with here. I'm pretty sure that he could be watching us right now.”

“Yeah, I'm completely sure she is.”

“Well, screw it. If they wanted something that we'd agree to, they wouldn't have had to lie to us. She got to me, where it hurt. She led me to thinking that all the problems between us weren't a joint effort, but just a yang overbalance in you. That it had gone on for years. She picked me apart before she even talked to me, and singled out my weakest, most arrogant, vulnerable part of myself.”

Ranma scratched her head and looked up at the cloudy sky. “Fuck, I just... I can't believe that I was so stupid. So selfish. So ready to accept that bullshit.”

Akane was glaring at Ranma, but instead of the expected furious punch, all she gave was a sharp nod. “I'll have to sort that out later with you then. But really, I didn't do any better at all. He told me that your female form was overbalancing your yin... that that was why no cures ever worked for you, and why there was always chaos and disruption around you. He said that I could... fix you...”

Akane's face paled, and she bit her lip for a moment. She seemed to be struggling with something internal. “And I bought it. If I could just harness the power of yang he gave me, maybe I could help you. Save you. And if we could cure your curse, then... everything would be fixed. I wouldn't get angry with you, if you weren't a girl half the time. You wouldn't have all that mess around you and your life...”

Ranma sighed heavily. She felt a little ill at the thought of how easily the god and goddess had tricked them both. Akane had been just as vulnerable to their game as Ranma herself had been; they both had been more than willing to blame their problems on a supernatural force and each other than admit any personal responsibility.

It was a little less harrowing, to know that Akane was in the same boat as she was. But it didn't make for a comfortable moment between them. Ranma cleared her throat, and then held her breath for a moment before trying again

“How about I make some tea, and we sit down at the kotatsu?”

Akane gave her a very wary glance, looking very unsteady. She nodded without a word.

The time that it took to boil the water and spoon leaves out into the teapot gave Ranma some blank space to relax a little in. Not think about anything, or reflect upon the situation. Just be. Before she knew it she had begin breathing in a rhythm and centreing her ki. Drawing herself back into a strong core. By the time she carried the tray through to Akane she felt as if she was on solid safe ground again.

One look at Akane's face showed that she had also taken the time to compose herself. Akane spoke up as Ranma was pouring the tea into their cups. “I have no idea what to do now. We can't really run around doing the same thing we were this morning. I'm sick of trying to be all steadfast and reliable and a complete pushover.”

Ranma couldn't hold back a laugh. The situation was so tense that half of it was just pressure, forcing a strange hilarity out. “That's what yang is to you? A pushover?”

Akane bristled at that. “Hey, I have my dad for a role-model, alright?”

Ranma shrugged. “Yeah. I'd say that men are more cowards than pushovers, but I see your point.”

Akane smiled slightly at that. “I guess you had yours for a role-model yourself. It's no wonder you think that fear is a masculine trait.”

That had defused the situation a little. The fell almost into a civil conversation.

“What about women? I'm curious about what you did for your end of it. I just sat around moping, and trying to keep the dojo running for the most part. I upped some of my training to get more physical strength, too. What are women to you, Ranma?”

Ranma nodded, and took a moment to think before she answered. “I actually thought about it a lot. I dressed up and stuff, y'know, but then the Goddess said that pretending to be a pretty pretty princess wasn't the same as strengthening my yin. I got to thinking about the women I knew. You, of course, and then Nabiki; Kasumi; my mother...”

Akane made a face. “So... what did you end up with?”

Ranma put her cup down on the table and lifted up a hand. She counted off on her fingers as she went. “Firstly, my mother; murder and violent death. That seemed the most important one. Then manipulation, suppression, secrets, and... er...” Ranma blushed a little and ducked her head. “Cooking. It's more me than anything else, I guess. Mum and Kasumi are great at it, and I have a good time doing that. When I was pretending to be 'Ranko', Mum said I'd make a really good bride one day. I figured it was going to be the easiest part of my yin to explore, in the end.”

Akane nodded thoughtfully. “And in Taoism yin is death and decay, after all.” She allowed. “It's weird how much sense that all makes. Not about femininity in general, but about you.”

She took a slow sip of tea, then met Ranma's eyes a little warily. “I suppose it's only fair that I take my turn at that, then. I didn't think much about my yin at all, but I guess for me a lot of it is about my mother. Warm and comforting, and absent. I'd say that darkness and absence are the closest I can get to it.”

Ranma took a second to absorb that. “Essentially, we're both really fucked up.”

They shared a smile, but it wasn't a very hopeful one. Akane finished her tea and stretched. “Well, we have no idea how to deal with something that we can't punch or eat. That much is obvious. But before we think any harder about this, we've got to wash the loaner uniforms for the kids classes and check the practice target pads for any loose stitches. Let's just agree that something has to be done, and worry about it later.”

Ranma certainly wasn't going to argue with that. “I'll check the targets, then.”

Akane pinched her by the ear and shook her head a little. “Like hell you will! We're both going to wash that basket of smelly clothing and nobody will do the easy, non-reeking job until everything's in the machine or on the line outside.”

They didn't talk about it at all while they took care of the things that were necessary to keep the dojo running smoothly and free of the stink of damp and humid humans wrapped in cotton. Instead they fell into old patterns of work. Akane fed the clothes into the machine and folded them into a basket. Ranma ferried backwards and forwards, hanging them up to dry in the sun that had once again emerged from between the clouds in the sky. By the time they'd finished setting the laundry to rights, they had just enough time to check over the targets before the after school class. It was mainly for kids in the wider area whose schools didn't have any martial arts clubs. It was a little more lenient regarding start times, partly because all the kids involved more or less knew how to take care of their own warmups and kata practicing.

It was one of their favourite classes, truth be told, because all the students were truly passionate about training and improving. Everyone had fun and there were occasionally interesting discussions about technique. For Ranma and Akane most of the joy lay in seeing the kids – all at different levels – spar together and improve each other. Ranma's favourite moments where when the new and uncomfortable kids asked obvious questions that one of the more advanced students had never considered. Then the whole class got into a pow-wow over the issue. Ranma was never sure whether she wanted to burst out laughing or start taking notes. They sometimes showed a great amount of insight for a bunch of kids.

Then again, the adults in Ranma's extended family all showed a great lack of commonsense for parents. Ranma and Akane were both very glad that their parents had left them to more or less organise the classes as they saw fit. It meant that these afternoon sessions were rewarding and worth the tedium of the later adult classes of the evening. Ranma turned to Akane, opening her mouth to speak, but Akane got there first.

“You take today's class.”

“No, you should take it. You won't be able to reach where I've put the washing anyway.”

<A/N: Do I need more of a transition scene here before the evening?>

That night in her dream, Ranma was suspicious of everything in the goddess' teahouse. The whole place seemed more deliberate and decietful than Ranma had noticed on her previous visits. The goddess seemed to have skimped on the fine details this time: there was very little sound and no other customers. No waitresses. The sound of Ranma's feet on the floor and the opening of the door were quieter than before; they felt like an afterthought. Something in excess of requiremments. Ranma had been planning on seeing if she could push the boundaries and explore the rest of this weird dreamscape. But the changes to it worried her. It felt in her bones like the endgame. She didn't linger on the walkway, striding forwards and opening the screen door with the full force of her strength. It shook and juddered, and the goddess was revealed looking a little shocked but also highly amused.

“Good evening.”

Ranma walked in. She planted her feet firmly on the tatami mats and stared directly at the Goddess. The amused and patient expression on the Goddess' face made fury rise within Ranma's throat like hot bile. But she didn't offer tea, or rise from her seat. Something was off. The light was dimmer, and in some places the tatami looked as if it might soon succumb to the dampness and mold that real mats did. A low murmur of cloth and a groan of an aging wooden floor drew Ranma's attention to the wall opposite the door she had entered through. She'd just assumed that the room had only had the one door, but now drawn by the soft noises of another person – or god – Ranma thought to look. The “wall” was another sliding door. The tracks were obvious now that she looked.

A voice began to murmur softly beyond the paper screens, a very familiar voice to Ranma, but her attention was distracted by the Goddess.

“Have you been making any progress, since we redirected your efforts?”

Ranma felt a surge of encouragement as she heard the tension lurking beneath her words. She squared her shoulders and felt in that moment more at home with herself than she had in years. “Yeah, you could say that. I've figured out exactly to fix this situation. It's very simple, actually. There never was a fucking problem, so there's nothing to damn well fix.”

Ranma had felt her confidence building with each word, but the light smile that played on the Goddess' face once she had finished speaking undid all that. The taller woman – larger than life now – leant forwards and loomed over Ranma's standing form. “I see. Hmm. But that didn't answer my question, dear. How much have you achieved? Just an angry thought or two isn't really progress. I need to hear something more... demonstrative.”

Ranma grit her teeth. She shifted her weight and bent her knees, ready for a fight without even thinking about it. “You want a demonstration, hey? Come on, then! Give me that sword, and I'll show you what my mother taught me.”

The Goddess raised a hand to her mouth, and furrowed her eyebrows in a deliberate show. Her smile grew a little wider. “Oh, my.”

Ranma wanted to wipe that smirk right off the bitch's face. She'd had about enough of being bullied around by anyone, and the Goddess seemed much more open about how she was playing with Ranma. As if she was an amusing toy.

Then a realisation hit her cold in the chest. There were no more noises coming from the room beside them. The voices had stopped. Something felt very very wrong. Ranma couldn't do anything but face down the Goddess though, feeling futile and as if she was about to get her arse handed to her.

How do you fight a cruel Goddess and survive?
“Ranma?!”

She braced her feet against the tatami mats and took a deep breath in and out. She sprung forwards, eyes bright and teeth bared. She was ready to face whatever had to happen next.

“RANMA!”

Instead of forwards, Ranma found herself moving very quickly upwards. Arms tangled around her tightly, but they weren't constricting or anywhere near as powerful as she'd expected the Goddess' defense to be.

She looked around herself blearily, buzzed with adrenaline. Her vision was mainly obscured by Akane's hair. Akane was shaking her and calling out her name in concern. Ranma raised a hand to touch Akane gently; to let her know she was awake.

“Are you alright?” Akane's voice was louder than it needed to be in the quiet of the night. “I heard bashing about and shouting, and the Goddess laughing. I thought you had to be in trouble, but the God wouldn't let me go. I had to force myself to wake up before I could even try and help you!”

Ranma let the barrage of her words sift through her mind as her heartbeat slowed down. “I... yes. And the noises were all just my getting angry.” She admitted sheepishly.

Akane laughed shortly. “I should've known. Shows me for trying to be a big hero.”

Ranma shook her head. “No, you did something even better. You woke up. I've never done that before! You just... left. I bet they're pissed!”

Akane tilted her head curiously. She seemed to want to share the excitement that bubbled up inside Ranma at the thought of being able to have that level of control.

“Yeah, I guess.” She smiled back, and shrugged as if she was still a little unused to the idea of it all.

Ranma moved back from Akane, fully awake now, and stretched her shoulders a little. “Well, even if you can, I don't think I could. So I'm not going to go to sleep.”

Akane nodded. “So what should we do, then?”

There wasn't really a question between the both of them anymore about whether or not they were going to try and take on two divine beings. Ranma had wondered at times if training in sparring made everything look like a showdown fight, in the same way that there was that saying about nails and hammers. But it didn't really matter now. They had to put up some sort of resistance, and to do that, they needed to figure out what on earth it was that was wanted from them.

“I mean, why us?”

Ranma frowned at Akane's question. “Well maybe that's a good question. I mean, did they target us, or were we simply convenient?”

Neither of them had any great ideas about that one. They sat in the dark and thought. It was Akane who shook her head slowly and said aloud what Ranma had been afraid of.

“We just don't know enough about them or what they can do. We need help.”

Talking to someone about a threatening god and goddess pair meant talking to somebody who would know enough to help. That basically narrowed it down to Happousai and Cologne, assuming that Ranma and Akane didn't want to spend a few months socially networking with the divine and supernaturaly educated.

“I vote for Cologne.” Akane said. “She's less offensive.”

Ranma frowned at that. “I actually vote for the old lech.”

When Akane looked confused, Ranma explained it for her; “He's more likely to piss them off, at least the Goddess. Probably he'll beat the shit out of the God, and then fondle the Goddess before they've had a chance to gather their divine chi into their toes, let alone their whole bodies.”

Ranma hadn't thought that it had been a very clear explanation, let alone a convincing one, but Akane seemed happy enough with it. She didn't seem too happy with the thought, but she nodded decisively. “Alright then, let's go and see if he's been in his room at all this week. I'm guessing not, since he hasn't shown up to molest you or anything like that.”

Now that Akane mentioned it, the absence of Happousai seemed very strange. Though since it was summer, perhaps he had just run off to somewhere sunnier to ogle bikinis with girls in them. Ranma let a small shudder wash the thought from her mind. With a heavy reluctant sigh she waved a hand at Akane and the two of them headed downstairs to check out the large room that was kept reserved for the head of the Anything Goes school of Martial Arts.

It was empty, the futon rolled up into the cupboard. The musty smell of disuse hung around, even though they cleaned the whole house once every two weeks. There was no sign of life at all, and no notes that accounted for his whereabouts. It had never seemed that important to care about where Happousai went in the past; they'd been glad of being rid of him. Now that they needed him, it was a different story entirely.

Akane raised her hands as if she was on the verge of doing – or saying – something, but then let them flop down at her sides.

Ranma rolled her head around on her neck and bit her lip. “I guess it was a stupid idea of mine anyway. Cologne's had experience with two-faced magic before, we might as well just wait till daylight and go visit her.”

“Yeah.”

They both knew that they didn't want to risk sleeping until they'd at least tried to resolve their problems. There was a chance that they might not end up dragged back to that strange teahouse, but neither were game to take that risk.

“Hey, let's just talk in here. Better than going down the hall or upstairs and waking anybody else.”

Akane seemed to think that Ranma's suggestion was completely fine. She sat cross-legged on the fusty tatami. Ranma joined her, slouching back comfortably against a support beam in the wall.

“What I hate most? Is that they aren't the first to totally bulldoze over everything I want to think or feel.” Ranma found herself confessing, “From Dad and that training trip, right onwards. All the engagements and fighting. I hardly got a say in anything! Even now I'm graduated and officially an adult. Now I'm doing more work than Dad ever did... and I'm still following everyone's orders. I just... hell, I don't know.”

She looked down at her hands helplessly. She was surprised to hear Akane's hum of sympathy.

“Me too,” Akane explained when Ranma met her eyes curiously, “Since Mum died, I've always had to be strong. Less dependant. Resilient. I learnt Anything Goes because I wanted to, but also because someone had to. I didn't want Kasumi to spend her entire life chained to Dad, so I decided that I'd do my best to inherit all that responsibility. Let her grow up and escape and go be happy somewhere. When you came along, I never really truly protested the engagement. I know if I pressed it, I'd have been able to break it. But then there was the chance that Kasumi would cave and shoulder all the burdens, and...”

Ranma could see what she mean, though it seemed that words were failing Akane. “Even if you think you could have chosen, you couldn't really. You love your sisters too much, and you know them too well. We were both trapped.”

“Exactly! I don't mind the hard work of running this place, or the classes – I love teaching this stuff. But it's all under their thumbs, their names, their rules. It pisses me off that they have control of this place, when we make all the hard choices. We should get the benefit of our own work, we deserve to have an income from our work, and a chance to just... well... live!”

“Yeah. I'm sick of living in the shadow of their idiot choices.”

It was then that the idea began to grow within Ranma. As Akane sat there and pounded her fists down on the tatami and vented her frustrations with a life full of duties and obligations Ranma let here own thoughts move around inside her head. As a very good plan began to sort itself out, she found herself amazed at how when it was all blurted out like this in words and gestures, the deep aches of Akane's heart seemed oddly familiar to Ranma's own. Something warm and deeper than her usual feelings for Akane flopped around in her gut. She was half tempted to just grab Akane's hand and run out into the street. Away from their parents' failed best intentions, out of Nerima and Tokyo and who cared where, but just running together.

She wouldn't mind it, if all she had left in the world was Akane. It was that realisation that clicked everything into place. It didn't seem the right time to launch into an explanation of it all, so instead Ranma just reached out to grab Akane's hand. She held it tightly for a moment until Akane's fingers squirmed within her own. Ranma loosened her grip to let Akane's hand escape, and was very pleasantly surprised when Akane flashed her a soft smile and interlaced their fingers.

They must have talked a bit more, Ranma thought; they must have felt safe and secure as they fell asleep very much later that morning. But she was so tired that she didn't remember it very well at all. The sunlight was coming in through the window in Happousai's room, and the tatami felt like it had been baked in an oven. Ranma's mouth was sticky dry, and her hand was cramping where it was, clasped tightly by Akane.

A very wide grin greeted her when she opened her eyes, and a laugh that sounded like lechery rubbed raw on sandpaper echoed in her aching dehydrated head. Frowning, Ranma sat up and left Happousai to get himself out of the way of her rising skull.

“What have we here, then, Ladies?”

Ranma scowled at him. “None of your business, you mouth-breather.”

“Wha? Ranma, is that...?”

“Yeah, it's him. And we didn't dream anything either, so we've got a bit more time to spare, at the very least.”

That seemed to intrigue Happousai. He sat down beside them, regarding them with a raised eyebrow that was thin with old age. While Akane got her bearings, Ranma pulled her pendant out of her shirt. Wishing she'd done it sooner, though doubting it would have affected the Goddess' ability to affect her, Ranma opened the chain and let it fall into her palm. She handed it over to the old man, who regarded it thoughtfully.

“And young Akane here has her own, too?”

Akane nodded and mimicked Ranma's actions, handing her nicer chain and same-but-different pendant over to him. Happousai made a thoughtful grunt of a noise and then turned them over in his palm until the two halved fit together.

“We... I mean I at least... found mine at a roadside shrine. It had two stone figurines...”

Happousai didn't make any comments, and for himself was being very thoughtful. He hadn't made a grab for Ranma, or any dirty jokes so far. He eyed Ranma carefully. “Describe them.”

“Well, a man and a woman, or at least that's what they seemed like. Facing out away from each other, to the left and the right of the shrine.”

Happousai nodded. “And what was the road like? Where was the shrine on it?”

Ranma frowned, thinking back. It was Akane that answered, in the end. “A T intersection.”

Happousai chortled then, and rocked back on his heels. “Oho! Chimato-no-kami!”

“I'm not sure I like the sound of that...” Ramna began. Before she could start to explain any further, Happousai did the job for her.

“Gods of pathways. Don't worry your sweet little heads – or other assets – too much my dears. Most gods aren't that powerful anyway, but these guys are little more than a basic annoying headache. They're in charge of showing the right way, or an alternate way. Opening eyes to alternative choices, that sorta thing. All they'll do is annoy the hell out of you until they get bored. Not worth worrying about.”

“Oh, what the fuck?!”

“You mean, that this whole time, we've been...!”

Ranma and Akane's outbursts tangled into each other and made Happousai laugh gleefully. “Oh, you took it seriously, didn't you?”

Ranma glared at the old man and crossed her arms stubbornly. “Of course not.” She shot Akane a quick glance to make sure she didn't give Happousai any clues. On the off chance that the old man just didn't know how caught up in it they'd been, because when Ranma said what she was about to say, she wanted to be on strong footing. Not embarassed and looking stupid.

“But we were thinking of something else, as it happens.”

Akane blinked. “We were? Ah, of course we were, right...”

“Right.” Ranma settled herself so that she was sitting formally and gave all of her attention to Happousai. “So this engagement business... not all of them, just between Akane and me... that's supposed to perpetuate the Anything Goes school. Hand on the knowledge to a next generation. Akane and I have never been against that.”

Ranma hoped that Akane wasn't looking indignant or anything that might ruin their chances of success. She pushed on, keeping as much of Happousai's attention as she could. “We've only been against marrying to suit our parents, who are all jerks. You with me? So I have a proposition for you.”

Here was where things got a little dicey. Ranma hoped that the man's lechery and low-brow humour, and perverse sense of cruelty to his students would stand Ranma in good stead. “Akane and I honour our engagement for the sake of the Anything Goes school, but in our own way. I don't want to be a husband, and Akane sure as hell doesn't want to be a wife. So Akane will mainly run the school, and I'll do the cooking and stuff. I actually don't mind housework. You'll win, because you can drop in and watch two hot lesbians living in domestic bliss. We'll win because you'll sign a document naming us as the sole heirs to the Anything Goes technique. Bypass the stupid geezers, and all that.”

Happousai's eyes had lit up at the lesbian comment, but he still eyed them suspiciously. “What about if you get kicked out of this place, eh?”

Ranma shrugged. “We get a loan, rent a small one-room apartment and start teaching at a local gym or a community centre or something. We'll get by until we can save up enough money for a place of our own. We wouldn't be about to risk the school on the whims of those two. I mean, hell. We'll leave even if we don't get kicked out. Study something more popular, like Aikido or Kendo, and make way more money. We don't need to teach Anything Goes.”

Well, that was a bit of a lie. Ranma had far too much fun both practicing and teaching Anything Goes to possibly walk away from it. But she had to hope that Happousai didn't call her bluff.

He frowned thoughtfully, and stared off into space for all of ten seconds before nodding in slow agreement. They shook on it.

“Just get the one that wears black and lacies to draw up the papers, then.” He said cheerfullly. Ranma and Akane shared a look, and Akane shrugged.

“I'll go get Nabiki, then. She should be up by now.”

When Akane had left the room, Happousai winked at Ranma. It was either lecherous or cheeky, but Ranma doubted that it made much of a difference with him. “You know what's great about all of this? Soun borrowed the money from me! He never earnt enough from teaching to pay me back, especially since he never ran any classes himself. So it's not really his house to kick you out of.”

Ranma couldn't help but feel that she'd been the brunt of a long and particularly cruel joke. But all of a sudden, with complete control of the business in sight, and an actual chance to rise above the restrictions of their parents' bad choices, none of it really seemed to matter that much.

It was several months before they decided what to do with the pendants. They didn't really want to return them to the roadside shrine anymore, and they didn't really want to wear them either. They were a little too busy with paperwork, teaching, and moving themselves into the master bedroom downstairs to think about it. Then they were occupied with the stresses associated with overhauling two years' worth of routines. Though Soun and Genma had never done much, there were simple choices and decisions that were now daily reminders of who was in control of the household.

And then there was Ranma's experiences in the kitchen. He chafed a little under Nodoka's directions; one of them being that he had to assume female physical form to perform even the basic prep like rinsing and chopping. But he figured that he'd save that battle for later, maybe when she was more used to Ranma having a hand in the daily meals. He felt free enough, with his future in his own hands, that small things like frilly aprons seemed to matter far less.

It was Akane that had the idea. She was sitting on the verandah outside their bedroom, watching clouds sail past the garden wall, when it came to her. She waited until they took a day's break from teaching. It had been easy enough to get some time alone together in the garden. Akane smiled with an openness that she had never shown before. Ranma imagined that part of it was just the absence of pressure on both of their backs, though some of it had come from their realisation that they shared far more than they had ever recognised before.

Akane put the two pendants down on one of the blocks they used for strength and ki focus training. She made sure that the faces that showed the differences between yin and yang were facing in towards each other. In a move that they'd practiced one or two times already, they set their palms rigid beside each other and raised them above the block.

“I've never done this to join something together before, only to break them apart, you know.” Akane warned.

Ranma laughed, and turned to face her for a moment. Their eyes met. “Well even if it's not perfect, I reckon it'll end up just fine.”

A little uncertain himself whether he'd been talking about the pendants or about something much bigger and unfathomable, he readied himself for the blow. In perfect coordination their arms flew downwards and their fingertips hit the pendants. They focused kinetic energy and their souls' force downwards, through the metal. It got a little warm against their skin. Then the block cracked and split, the pendants fell through the mess of chalky dust to the ground, and their descending bodies came to rest in twin crouches.

When the small little scraps of debris had been blown away by the cooler early breeze of autumn, they could see the melted and wobbly outline. They had fused together well, and the gold and silver had swirled and curled together around the edges from the force of the impact. It would be impossible to pull them apart again, Ranma thought with satisfaction. Yin and yang no longer separate or distinct. He doubted that they'd even be able to fit a chain through the warped loops that squinted at them from both ends.

Akane grinned, scooped it up into her palm, and tweaked painfully at a hair on Ranma's head. “Hey, race you round the block. Loser has to vacuum next week.”

Though he didn't actually care that much about losing, Ranma laughed and smiled right back. “You're on!”

He leapt up over the garden wall and felt a warmth blossom inside his heart as he heard Akane's furious complaints following close behind him.

Alright, if you've made it this far, thanks very much for staying with me to the end! I want to make my final draft much stronger before I post it, and I'm planning on taking my time if I need to, so I'm more than willing to hear things like "This entire 1000 word block sucks!" or "I think it would work better with character X involved." I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts

[Nekomata-sensei]

Interesting story so far. I like some elements of it. I'm also curious about where Kasumi went, hope we find that out in the next chapter. The themes are a bit heady and ephemeral, which translates somewhat poorly from the slapstick comedy that is central to Ranma, and the main reason it works as well as it does is because Ranma him/herself is such a complex character and the curse.

[kurushi]

Ah, Nekotama? I didn't intend for this to be a long, chaptered fic: I want this to be a one-shot, so what you see here is what you get. Though if you're wanting a continuation, perhaps there is scope for more. I actually like writing stories that don't answer every question, so I never intended to focus on Kasumi that much.

I'm glad that you seemed to like how I handled the difference in theme and tone. Thanks so much for reading it all, and commenting. I didn't expect to get any responses this quickly, so I'm quite chuffed to hear from you. I'm not sure I'm up to making this a chaptered work, either, but it's certainly food for thought, and I'm very grateful for your comments

[frice2000]

Beginning of the story is confusing in regards to what gender Ranma is. I know you were attempting to make the whole thinks of himself as a male so use masculine pronouns until his encounter with the goddess but still I was wondering throughout if he somehow changed back or something. Just really needs clarification there somehow. Maybe state the color of his hair when he flips it back or something or describe a feminine body part like you did in one paragraph and it'll all be much clearer.

Next, I don't buy how easy it was to convince Ranma to embrace his femininity here. You need to expound on this some. Sure, Akane being manipulated would give him a lot of motivation but you're seemingly wanting to play it like he's doing it to prevent the god from taking 'power that he really shouldn't have'. I have no idea what this means or is referring to. Ok so he's been corrupting and agitating Akane. Good motivation makes sense. But he's trying to gain power...Um in what way? Why is it bad? What could it do to the world? As you have it written I see no need for any line about him gaining power because I have no emotional investment or even vague understanding in what that means and as such it adds nothing but confusion, even though you later seem to indicate that is a lie. Now maybe it's just me but I kept on thinking of that line throughout the rest of the reading and what it could mean. Seeing that it's really not true aggravates me.

Another thing that's out of place is the cursing. You've got really nicely written lines and then all of a sudden the characters just say 'fuck'. While cursing doesn't bother me it just feels out of place with what you've got written in the rest of lots of these sentences. It felt immature in what was a rather mature conversation. Also your use of 'mum' slightly irks me. I find myself giving them a bit of a British accent every time a fic uses that. It's not something you really need to change it just places you the author culturally and does slightly take me out of the story. But again a bit issue that I'm sure 99 percent of readers don't give a damn about.

<A/N: Do I need more of a transition scene here before the evening?>

Yes you do. Scene just peters out...I think it would be telling to see at least a snippet of how the class goes considering you want to be introspective and show them trying to change. Teaching ANYTHING is an excellent example of a persons character. You really should enhance that it's a missed opportunity if you don't. Hell a more masculine or feminine approach to teaching in general fits in with the themes of this fic rather well. Also Ranma's teaching method considering his father's approach is a very often quickly mentioned as often entirely different in other fics but never expounded on. With your focus on gender identity and such in this story it could be a very interesting topic indeed.

“Me too,” Akane explained when Ranma met her eyes curiously, “Since Mum died, I've always had to be strong. Less dependant. Resilient. I learnt Anything Goes because I wanted to, but also because someone had to. I didn't want Kasumi to spend her entire life chained to Dad, so I decided that I'd do my best to inherit all that responsibility. Let her grow up and escape and go be happy somewhere. When you came along, I never really truly protested the engagement. I know if I pressed it, I'd have been able to break it. But then there was the chance that Kasumi would cave and shoulder all the burdens, and...”

Weird little paragraph. It doesn't feel right to me. I more agree with the characterization that Akane took it over because the other girls took upon the money making/nurturing roles and Akane took the future martial arts role. I don't think she was really forced into it more that the other girls were forced into their roles. Not that Nabiki I think particularly dislikes her role canonically I just think you've simplified that a little. But then maybe you're just stating Akane's perceptions and not facts and if so I can see that as being in character for her.

Lesbian discussion at the end with Happosai...yeah make this more clear that Ranma is manipulating him else...seems odd to end the fic on that note. I'm also curious as to how the other fiancees respond to these events. You've got nothing about them at all. You need to include their reaction at least briefly. Honestly thought this was going to end up being a three chapter fic as you had it written to the point with Happosai. The ending felt sort of rushed really.

All in all I thought it was a rather nicely done fic. There are a couple areas you really should expand on though and it'll be a much much better and more enjoyable piece of fiction. As it is though it's very good but I think you can make it excellent by adding onto it about four or five thousand more words.

[kurushi]

Thanks very much, frice2000! Your comments are spot-on and I'm going to have to take some time to absorb them. I'm absolutely going to take some more time to write the ending. I've had a lot of practice starting stories, less so finishing them well, so your comments are going to help me make this into a much stronger final draft.

On the note of "mum"... as an Australian who has studied Japanese and ONLY read the Manga with my poor reading skills in Japanese, I find that "Mom" and other American localisations ALWAYS spoil the mood for me when I'm reading fics. I know there are far more American readers than British or Australian, but I just like to think that someone out there is as frustrated as I am with twinkies, freshmen, Moms, and jocks; someone who will be grateful that for once they aren't being jarred out of the fic by the author's voice. As a bibliophile, I also hate how a lot of non-US novels are cut to ribbons and have "localisations" edited into them (We don't do it to your literature when we port it over here, after all!). So I like to retain my own vernacular. Sorry if that makes the fic less readable for you.

Oh dear, I got a bit vocal there, excuse me. I'm really delighted that you read it so carefully and pointed out places that I can really improve a lot. I'm going to let the prose sit for a while, so that I can return to it with fresh eyes, but when I do edit and add in more your comments are going to be a huge help. I'm glad that you thought it was good despite my dialect, and thank you so much again for your help!

[frice2000]

Oh I hate it when a fic has twinkies or other pure American cultural vernacular too with the characters just not acting Asian. I prefer a lack of slang to slang so 'Mom' or even 'Mother' feels right to me as a translation considering we're supposed to be looking at Japanese people. Again, it just takes me out of it a tad it's not a big deal. I too when I read about other purely American slang translated into Japanese manga/anime shake my head too so I can sympathize. Still you're contributing to the problem by adding your own slang. You should be ashamed !

[Spokavriel]

I think the Gods are outed and the whole thing resolved a bit too early. I mean there are some really good things the Goddess had given Ranma to work out. And well I think it might be nice to see another day or two going over those things. I don't think Ranma even considered Miss Hinako, Cologne, The Ladle lady, Or any other less main female character. Heck I'd even expect some questions about Konatsu always seeming so feminine.

It was just too short an exploration. And well there ended up being no strong conflict. This whole thing is good for growth but it didn't have much in the way of trials or problems.

Edit: About the Mum Ka-san Mom issue. I tend to always see Ranma more as one to use Ma and Akane to use Mama because she was so young, when they aren't using the more formal Mother.

[Ran]

Oh I hate it when a fic has twinkies or other pure American cultural vernacular too with the characters just not acting Asian. I prefer a lack of slang to slang so 'Mom' or even 'Mother' feels right to me as a translation considering we're supposed to be looking at Japanese people. Again, it just takes me out of it a tad it's not a big deal. I too when I read about other purely American slang translated into Japanese manga/anime shake my head too so I can sympathize. Still you're contributing to the problem by adding your own slang. You should be ashamed !

Ah but from that statement you seem to think that Mom isn't slang. Mom and Mum are just as much informal terms as each other. One is just less familiar to you. Since they would be speaking japanese either any place Mom would be a valid word choice, Mum would be just as valid. More so if you are also spelling colour, honour, etc the (correct) british way.

I admit I didn't really like where the story was going at the start so I haven't read the whole thing. I do prefer when AU spelling and words are used myself, since I am also Australian.

[Tovath]

This is fairly well written. I like how you made the two gods end up being weak. I won't repete what others have said, but I have one minor point to bring up why did Ranma take Ryouga to Ukyo's instead of Ryouga's house, he does have one you know.

[Spokavriel]

Good point. And consider that Ranma is just about the only person who knows for a fact that it is Ryouga's family home. The only reason I didn't comment on that earlier is because I thought that there would be a high likelihood of Ryouga ending up there alone again if that was the chosen destination.

[DCG]

Damn impressive read here. Just some points that stick out to me.

The god/goddess thing did seem over to fast. They had a couple good points that ranma and akane should work on.

You did a rather good job of making the reader feel for em, more so when ranma's list of male and female roll models comes up so short, and depressing.

Works good for a long one shot.

[kurushi]

Eep! Sorry I took so long to reply to everyone! I got a short paying job that I had to dedicate a lot of time to, and I injured my foot, so I've been occupied with working hard and feeling sorry for myself recently; I didn't think it was a very good mood to look at concrit in

Spokavriel: I never really considered the fic becoming as long as it did in the first place, and now that I've committed to writing more, I'm going to spend some time researching those women you mentioned in more depth. I did struggle a lot with the conflict, but hopefully as I work harder I'll overcome that somehow. Thank you for your comments, they'll be very useful to me!

Ran: Thanks for giving it a go, even though it wasn't your cup of tea. I'm feeling pretty special that you spoke up regarding the "Mom/mum" slang issue, and I am always excited to run into other AU spelling users online ^_^ Thanks for replying!

Tovath: Ah! For some reason, I always remember Ryouga's family home as being more distant and hard to reach than it really is. That's a very good point of yours; I should think about whether I want to explain why Ryouga isn't headed home, or simply rewrite the dialogue to send him to his family home. I feel a bit canon illiterate and dim for having forgotten. >.< Thanks for reading, commenting, and pointing that out for me!

DCG: "Damn impressive read here." makes me feel all kinds of special inside, especially coming from you! I'm glad that you think it works, and I hope that once I've put a lot of hard work into it I'll be able to show you some better sections focusing on the god and goddess, their nature, and Ranma and Akane's explorations of self. It might take me a while, but I'm going to nail this!

Thanks so much to everyone again. I'll have a hugely better final draft thanks to your input, and the insight some of you had has really inspired me to try harder. I probably owe a concrit karmic debt now!

[Spokavriel]

Nah if anyone is having Karmic debt over stories its me. I look to provide and offer help allot but never get any stories written. No matter how much I like my idea I just can't get it out into scenes.

Looking forward to the next edition.