Discontinued Ranma Stories: Collection Chapter 1

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Cat-Ranma
Ranma the Cursed Child
Ranma the Cursed Girl
Their Peculiar Life
Invasion of the Mind

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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Story: [Cat-Ranma]

Summary: A fractured mind is a dangerous thing. Especially when you begin putting it under pressure.

Genre: Friendship?

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The thing about trauma is that it tends to be a bit more complicated than people would originally assume.

For example, something that might bring the person suffering from trauma comfort, might not do so endlessly.

When dealing with extreme trauma, to the extent where upon activation it actually mutates into a second personality, things get even more complex. Because even if someone could make those two personalities switch back to normal, if something changed between how the personalities interacted or what served to motivate them, then that ability would be just as likely to fail as succeed.

Of course, none of the members of the Tendo household were capable of understanding psychology to a degree that went beyond guilt-tripping and blackmail. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they didn't think it very important when Ranma got a bit too exposed to some cats again.

Only... cat-Ranma apparently didn't want to take a nap in Akane's lap, and was seemingly quite content with staying awake for now.

This was their first clue that something was wrong.

Their second one was when cat-Ranma cheerfully dropped a dead pigeon on Kasumi's doorstep the next morning.

And then wiped the floor with both of the fathers when they protested what they assumed was harassment, rather than stemming from – as any cat-owner could've told them – it being common cat-courtesy to bring an offering to the food-provider.

Which made the residents of the Tendo household realize that not only was cat-Ranma sticking around for a possibly indeterminate time in the future, they couldn't actually force him to do anything he didn't want to, and apparently they'd accidentally adopted a humanoid cat.

So, in an attempt to figure out what bizarre martial arts technique was responsible for locking Ranma into the Nekoken, the girls set off to explain the situation to Cologne.

Unfortunately, Cologne didn't know of any techniques like that, but readily admitted that the Nekoken was forbidden for a reason, and that most of those who'd tried learning had simply gone insane.

"Of course they did." Happosai scoffed at the Amazon. "The Nekoken is designed to fracture the psyche into two parts, and if you mess up the fracturing by any stretch, then what you end up with is useless." He puffed a bit on his pipe. "For example, there needs to be only one fraction, with one human-personality and one cat-personality. But if you make the cat-personality too small it'll be too weak to actually take over, meaning that the Nekoken training will continue since nobody would notice it. And if you make it too big the human-part will never stand a chance. And if you try 'easing' a person into the fracture you're just going to make more fractures and turn one cat-personality into several tiny little cat-personalities who're just as likely to try and kill each other as they are to turn into a pride and work together against the human-part."

The women surrounding him gaped at the shriveled up old man as he explained things that nobody had any actual knowledge of.

"Why do you know so much about it?" Akane demanded.

Happosai frowned slightly. "Because my idiot-pupil exposed the closest thing I have to a proper heir to it." Before smirking evilly at Cologne. "And I travel a lot more than the Amazons."

"That still doesn't explain why he's acting weird now." Nabiki pointed out reasonably, not wanting to get caught up in the middle of a fight between the two elderly and ridiculously strong martial artists.

Happosai shrugged. "Maybe he decided to stop fighting it."

"'Fighting it'? Why would he need to fight it? He's already learned the technique, right?" Akane asked, confused.

"It creates a second personality." Happosai repeated himself. "That means that they're constantly struggling for who gets to walk around in his body, even if only subconsciously, and the cat needs Ranma to be exposed to something traumatic enough that all he can think of is to 'run away', before it's capable of taking over. However, since Ranma hates running away, that can only really happen when he's confronted with cats or something that he's equally terrified of. But... the Saotome ultimate technique is designed with the concept of 'running away', and if he thinks that he needs to use it, but is unable to perform it physically, then he might resort to doing it mentally."

"So... he's still in there? Just letting the cat have free reign since he wants to run away?" Akane looked as if she wasn't sure if she should be working herself up into a rage or not.

Happosai shrugged. "The cat is still Ranma, Ranma is still the cat. It might just be that he realized that they're technically one and the same, and decided to give his other half a bit of time to breathe fresh air of its own."

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Having a humanoid cat in the household took a bit of time to get used to.

Especially considering how the cat in question – like most cats – didn't have a human sense of modesty, and could therefore be spotted in various states of undress by people in various state of undress.

Akane also learned that whilst cat-Ranma wouldn't attack her for hitting him with a mallet, he seemed to consider it a very entertaining game to be played, and she usually collapsed from exhaustion before she ever managed to launch him skywards.

Genma learned that waking a cat up by tossing it into water didn't so much make it enthusiastic for training as it made it determined. He would later lament over his overly-violent son taking out his aggressions on the delicate elderly.

Nabiki sold the images of Genma being most thoroughly trashed to various fiancees and their associated families, who all took great enjoyment from seeing the man – who'd run out on whatever specific agreement they'd had – in such pain.

Otherwise, things went on in a mostly normal way for the Tendo family.

Kasumi cooked, Soun and Genma 'played' – read: 'cheated at' – shogi, Happosai stole panties, Hinako stole chi, Principal Kuno attacked people with pineapple-bombs... Life went on as normal in Nerima, even without the conscious input of what once one of the greatest focal points for its chaos.

Shampoo tried to take advantage of her cat-form in an attempt to get closer to Ranma, only to discover that cat-Ranma saw her as an unusually self-centered kitten that could do well with spending some time sitting in a corner to think about what she'd done.

That Cologne reacted to her granddaughter's indignant predicament by snickering helplessly... well, she excused herself with it being about time for the girl to learn to curb her impulsiveness, though she doubted that a cat would be able to teach what she herself had so far failed at.

All of the fiancees tried at some point to coax Ranma back into his usual self, and all of them failed.

Not that cat-Ranma appeared to dislike them by any stretch of the word, seemingly quite enjoying their company in the cat's usual cheerful way.

Then came the day that Ryoga finally returned from Brazil – and its many blizzards – and found that his greatest rival had lost his mind when he'd been away.

So he laughed.

Then he went on a happy rant about it, but realized halfway through it that he couldn't gloat properly if Ranma wasn't around to hear it in person, and then came to a second realization in that he would never be able to defeat Ranma in combat and reclaim his honor – or as vengeance for causing whatever he blamed Ranma for at that particular moment – and therefore promptly collapsed in panicking despair.

At which point cat-Ranma butted her head into the boy's shoulder, and purred delightedly.

As Ranma was female at the time, and Ryoga was still ridiculously weak to females – even ones who technically weren't – this lead to Ryoga kind of forgetting about his despair for a moment.

And that was how Akane arrived home from school to find cat-Ranma happily playing tag with the closest thing that Ranma had ever had to a best friend.

Ryoga had a conflicted expression on his face, but he seemed just as likely to smile sadly at the cat-person as he was to frown.

So, curious about what might be said in such a peculiar moment for the two of them, Akane took a page out of Nabiki's book and quietly sneaked closer.

And when Ranma happily curled up on Ryoga's lap in a way that made the boy blush helplessly, she listened to Ryoga's mumbling argument with himself as he scratched cat-Ranma behind her ears.

Which was how she learned of 'P-chan', and a promise that Ranma had made and that Ryoga had been too embarrassingly terrified to admit to.

It was lucky that Akane had tried to mallet cat-Ranma on more than one occasion, since her lack of success at hitting the annoyingly skilled martial artist had after several attempts led to her giving up on being able to do it. Because if she hadn't grown used to not being able to solve her immediate problems by applying a mallet to Ranma's head, she might've introduced a mallet to Ryoga's head until it was splattered across most of Nerima.

Still, that kind of explained why P-chan so desperately tried to flee the room whenever she changed. It also explained why he ended up in the closet every time he failed to do so. Ryoga had a tendency to get himself quite lost after all.

So she remained hidden, and she listened to Ryoga silently voicing his problems to what Akane was slowly realizing was quite possibly the closest thing that the lost boy had to a best friend, mind-fracturing phobia and all.

"So... why did you run away?" Ryoga finally asked the cat purring in his lap, having grown used enough to the presence that he could actively ignore the way that some parts of Ranma's female anatomy pressed into him in very interesting ways. "Was it the fiancees? Or the manly-thing?" He continued, hoping for an answer but obviously not expecting one. So he shook his head, and began to speak of the horrors of being lost amidst Canada's endless sand dunes, and how the northern light looked beautiful from the merciless glaciers of Spain.

Akane listened, and the more she listened the more she wondered at how it was highly likely that Ryoga was just as insane as cat-Ranma, because nobody could actually get that lost, could they?

Still, it was weird, seeing the two boys – even if Ranma was in his girl-form – getting along so amiably when they would usually try so gleefully to bring down nearby houses on each other's heads.

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Story: [Ranma the Cursed Child]

Summary: Ranma falls into two springs, and isn't happy about the result. But then again, children are supposed to be socially awkward.

Genre: Humor

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Ranma broke the surface, spluttering.

His dad had turned into a panda, and then the bastard had kicked him into another pool!

Staggering to his feet, Ranma blinked at the realization that he'd gotten shorter. But he seemed to have all of his appendages and wasn't covered in fur, so that was kind of good, except he liked being tall!

Turning around to try and find his father, Ranma realized too late what his lack of height implied about his current choice in clothing. Namely, the fact that extremely durable wet silk was suddenly clinging to his under-sized body in a way that made movement a lot more complicated than he'd anticipated.

He had enough time to scream, and then he hit the water again. The water of a different pool.

When he broke the surface, spluttering, this time around, he was very careful about crawling back out of the pool.

Thankfully, he still had all of his limbs – even if they were still far too small and fragile-looking for his peace of mind – and he wasn't covered in fur – though his hair seemed to have turned red this time – and everything was still-...

Ranma's eyes grew wide as he groped after something that he had been in possession of mere moments ago, something that was rather important to him as a person. Or rather, something that very much classified him as male.

Ranma's horrified whimpering was interrupted by the Guide who'd finally recovered from his exclamation of it being 'very bad' to fall into two springs with 'terribly tragic story', and finally pointed out which springs that Ranma had fallen into.

Spring of Drowned Young Boy, and Spring of Drowned Girl.

And he also mentioned something about there being a 'temporary cure' but that two springs made everything 'complicated'.

Ranma would in the next few days come to absolutely loathe that particular phrase.

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"Look, can you help or not?" Ranma glared at the old hag whom they'd been pointed towards upon entering the village.

The ancient-looking woman seemed to consider the question for a moment before answering. "Jusenkyo chooses its victims, and the pools are rarely the type to let go." She leveled serious eyes at the child in front of her. "Perhaps if you'd fallen into one or the other, something could've been done. But this?" She motioned to the child who'd just recently been doused in hot water and still remained the same age. "In thousands of years of Amazon history, I've never heard of this."

"So, that's a 'no'." Ranma guessed with exasperated bitterness. "Anything else you wanna say?"

The woman tilted her head in thought. "There's a way to see at least some of the extent the mixed curses are clinging to you." She finally relented. "It might give you an answer to if and how you will age from here on out."

Ranma paused, having not quite thought of that possibility just yet. "You're saying... I could end up stuck as a kid forever?"

The old woman shrugged. "Magic is unpredictable at the best of times." She eyed his diminutive form. "And Jusenkyo tends to be more unpredictable than most."

Hurriedly swallowing the insult that was dying to crawl out of his throat and launch itself with a wet splat at the old hag's wrinkled face, Ranma considered the offer silently.

"What do you get out of it?" He finally asked.

The woman smirked at him. "We rarely get the opportunity to study Jusenkyo's curses. Nobody wishes to draw the pools' ire to themselves, and the few who does are... 'reluctant' to participate in the process."

Ranma blinked, then snorted a laugh. "It hurts like hell, doesn't it?"

"The histories say that the screams could echo for days." The old hag confirmed with an unrepentant grin.

Had it been any other situation, Ranma would've told the woman to go stuff herself somewhere, but this procedure would at least tell him if the curse would keep him stuck in a child's body for the rest of his life, or if he'd simply be forced into a second childhood of sorts.

So he gritted his teeth, and he accepted.

Cologne was more than happy to help, because his case was an interesting one, and the opportunity to study Jusenkyo curses in this manner hadn't been seen since they'd been war with the Musk, and managed to capture a cursed individual – some sixteen-hundred years ago. Basically, even if the child didn't give her anything but the opportunity to implement the procedure, that would serve more than enough to pay his way into the Amazon's good graces.

It was really a shame that he was so young – and touched by Jusenkyo to boot – because he seemed at least moderately talented for a martial artist, and the village was always happy to receive new blood.

Shampoo in particular had been rather desperate to ensnare a husband who wasn't Mousse, but it looked like she'd have to continue searching.

Such a shame.

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The Tendo family stared at the redheaded child that had been brought into their house by a panda.

"Right, could we get some hot water?" The child asked, sounding fairly miserable.

Which perhaps was fairly understandable considering that a panda had carried the redhead into their house, not to mention that they both looked like they'd been caught out in the rain.

Kasumi certainly seemed to think that such a request made perfect sense, as she soon presented the child with a kettle of hot water.

At which point the panda tipped the kettle over its head, and turned into a man.

Nabiki felt her eye start to twitch at the impossibility in front of her, Kasumi seemed surprised but otherwise took it in stride, Akane let out a startled squeak, and their father greeted the man with warm cheerfulness.

Nabiki briefly considered what it meant for her father, that he could handle pandas turning into old friends, without being overly distressed or surprised on the matter. Perhaps he'd lived through a very interesting youth, or maybe he'd just slipped so deeply into grief at the death of their mother that he'd gone completely insane.

The child finally managed to acquire some hot water for themselves – it really was too young to bet any money on what gender it belonged to – and tipped it over its own head, making its red hair turn black.

Nabiki listened to her father and the panda-man talk for a while, slowly beginning to realize that this child was in fact the 'Ranma' that their father had arranged for them to marry.

Turning to the child, she asked the first question that came to mind. "So, what kind of 'curse' did you get?"

The child glared up at her with surprising venom. "It's complicated." It spat out with distaste.

"How so?" Kasumi wondered curiously.

The child turned to the eldest Tendo, and seemed to have its temper falter despite itself. "I'm sixteen. And a guy. Except... I ended up with two curses... and they kind of mixed. So now it's just complicated." The boy's eye twitched as he spat out that last word once again.

Nabiki kind of got the feeling that she should avoid using any and all variations of the word 'complicate' in the boy's presence. He didn't look like he'd appreciate it.

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Needless to say, the engagement was called off, simply due to what seemed to have become a permanent and severe age-gap.

Neither of the fathers seemed happy about it, but then it wasn't like they could force a marriage on a nine-year-old anyway, no matter what the kid's birth-certificate said.

Ranma would be forced to relive puberty.

Even Akane managed to spare a pitying look for the boy once that had been explained to them.

Still, it wasn't like he'd actually learn anything if they put him with kids his own age, and his father had arranged his schooling before his de-aging accident, so – until someone complained about it – they just set him off to Furinkan with Akane and silently prayed that the four of them would get started on producing a second generation already so that the 'school's could be joined' at least in the generation after the anticipated one.

Nabiki really hoped that the two of them wouldn't have ideas and try and set her up with someone. Since they were both clearly unaware of what she was looking for in a man. That, and she was growing ever more certain that they were both completely nuts.

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When Ranma Saotome finally made his way back to the Tendo Dojo for the day, he was on the verge of convincing himself that murdering Tatewaki Kuno in his sleep was not only fully legal, it was something that would be encouraged by the populace – because pests needed to be exterminated, after all.

When Akane arrived, mere moments afterwards, she would've been happy to point him towards any place that sold pesticide in the neighborhood. Even if said 'pesticide' was technically classified as 'arsenic'. Heck, if she'd known the way, she would've happily volunteered to help him navigate all the way to the nearest hire-able assassins.

The reason for this eery synchronization in their thoughts, stemmed from the fact that Ranma had turned into a girl at some point. And Kuno had decided that she was precious and adorable and that he was going to take her back home with him.

It was one thing for the perverted bastard to try and beat her up so that she would date him – she was after all perfectly capable of defending herself. But to go after a child... well... even the ones most easily swayed by Kuno's speeches, had shied away from him as if he was a leper, once they'd figured out that that's what he wanted to do.

From Ranma's point of view, it was less with regards to her apparent age at the time, and more to do with it being the first time anyone actually did anything resembling flirting with her in female form.

Kuno was in fact the first person in Ranma's life, other than a couple of old ladies, who'd ever commented on his 'attractiveness'. And those ladies had always just labeled him 'cute', regardless of which gender he'd been.

There was something deeply disturbing about having some madman – that was disgustingly enough nearly three times her size – lunging for her whilst seemingly implying things that – thankfully for Ranma's continued innocence on the subject – kept flying over her head. But even if she wasn't entirely sure what the hell the guy had been talking about, it was clear that he was treating her like a girl, which was kind of disgusting all on its own. Because yuck, girls. Eww.

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Story: [Ranma the Cursed Girl]

Summary: Ranma is born as a girl, but the Saotome have always been a stubborn lot. Much to her annoyance.

Genre: Humor, Crack

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Onlookers turned to stare at the young man fighting a panda through the streets of Nerima.

Partly because one of the fighters was a panda, but also in no small part because both fighters seemed uncaring for that pesky law of gravity as they bounced across rooftops and off of walls.

"Dammit pops! I need to get back there! I don't have time to visit some friend of yours! I need to fix this damn thing!" The pigtailed boy yelled at the panda, who seemed disinclined to listen.

In fact, it seemed to be herding the boy towards some unknown destination in the midst of their violence. But that was absurd, because even if someone could imagine pandas learning martial arts and fighting across rooftops in defiance of gravity, having a panda know how to be sneaky was just stretching the imagination.

They were gigantic bears who ate leaves. Probably because the pandas' ancestor had realized one day that trying to sneak up on anything more capable of fleeing than leaves attached to plants was an exercise in futility.

Apparently, the boy didn't agree with the idea of a sneaky panda being laughable, because he seemed to notice the trend of being herded, and promptly darted in the opposite direction of where the panda wanted him to go. Just out of spite.

The panda proved to be rather unforgiving about this sudden attitude, and smacked the boy over the head with a street sign when he had his back turned.

As the watchers stared in disbelieving awe, the panda then pulled the boy over a shoulder and began making its way in the same direction to which it'd been herding the now-unconscious boy.

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The Tendo family stared with a mixture of disbelieving horror and terrified confusion at the panda who calmly walked into their house, carrying a struggling boy over its shoulder.

"Put me down, you idiot! I ain't marrying nobody, and that's final!" The boy argued loudly as he tried to kick the panda in the face.

Then he was put down, right in front of the father and his three daughters.

"So... this is Ranma Saotome?" Nabiki guessed, vaguely interested in the cute boy, but slightly hesitant about both his obvious reluctance to the situation and the fact that there was still a panda in the room.

The boy blinked, fidgeting uncomfortably on the spot as his eyes sought out all the escape routes he could find, only to recognize the panda behind him readying itself to intercept each and every one of them.

"Yeah... sorry 'bout this." He finally admitted in a resigned tone.

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Kasumi wasted no time to pass the engagement on towards her younger sisters, not really interested in males who were so much younger than her, but felt a little bit guilty at forcing her sisters to deal with the problem instead.

Nabiki appeared to consider it for a long moment, before – after a glance towards her seething younger sister who was looking just about ready to rip someone's throat out – deciding that perhaps the fallout would be more manageable if she dealt with the engagement on her own. At the very least, it would keep Kasumi from being forced to clean the blood off the walls.

"Fine. I'll do it." She finally relented, making her little sister torn between relief and obvious distaste to her older sister's perversions.

Nabiki had been waiting for the day when her little sister would recognize boys as something interesting, rather than something with cooties, for several years now. So far, she was beginning to consider taking bets on when she'd finally come out of her closet instead of what kind of man she'd end up with.

"Wonderful!" Her father cheered happily, clearly ecstatic about the news that at least one of his daughters hadn't tried to slip away from the agreement he'd reached with his old friend.

The boy didn't look happy though, seemingly more torn between hesitant horror and guilt.

"But what's up with the panda?" Nabiki continued, narrowing her eyes at the endangered species.

"It's a curse." The boy groaned. "Pops thought that Jusenkyo was a training ground, and fell into the Spring of Drowned Panda, now he turns into a panda with cold water." He shook his head. "It reverses when applied with hot water."

"Oh my, that's quite unusual." Kasumi noted from her spot.

"That's what he gets for not learning the damn language." Ranma growled, sending a glare towards what was apparently his father.

Nabiki couldn't quite suppress the sudden amused twitch of her lips at the boy's obvious annoyance. It sounded like he had a personal grudge about the incident. Possibly he'd nearly fallen into one of the springs himself.

"Did anything else happen?" She asked curiously, always happy to have more information to work with.

"He kicked me into another spring." Ranma muttered, his eyes taking on a vaguely demonic sheen to them as he glared at his father.

Slightly taken aback by just how scary those pretty blue eyes could seem when the boy who possessed them was mad, Nabiki had to reluctantly admit to understanding why he wouldn't be happy to be cursed to turn into something just because the idiot who dragged him there kicked him into a spring of his own.

Then she realized something.

"Wait... but it's raining outside?" Nabiki glanced outside, and sure enough, it was still raining.

"Spring of Drowned Boy." The boy spat out with unholy vehemence and shot another glare at his father, before again turning to the Tendos, bowing politely. "My parents are both idiots, but I'm a girl. Sorry 'bout this."

Soun fainted on the spot.

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"So... let me get this straight." Nabiki started after her father had regained consciousness. "Your parents were hoping for a boy, and so when they had a girl, they decided that 'she' was a 'he' and refused to believe otherwise no matter what?"

Ranma nodded, cheeks turning a bit red. "I'm just glad I figured out that they were wrong before they sent me to an all-boys school."

"You nearly went to an all-boys school?" Nabiki had to suppress the urge to smile at the other girl's misfortune.

The girl – Kasumi had supplied her with some hot water whilst they waited for their father to return to consciousness – in front of her shrugged. "Actually, I went to an all-boys school. For a year. Then pops dragged me off on a training trip to China."

"Wha-?" Akane looked horrified. "But those are for boys!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't have a say in it, okay?" Ranma frowned. "I dunno why nobody there figured out that I was girl though. Because..." She glanced down at her surprisingly well-developed chest. "Well, these aren't that new."

Nabiki stared at her for a moment, admitting that the boys at her school must've been insane to miss such obvious signs of femininity, before asking a question. "Did you like it there?"

Ranma blinked, startled, before turning to the middle sister. "Umm... well... it wasn't horrible... I guess."

Nabiki continued to stare at her, a predatory smile creeping over her lips. "Were any of the boys cute?"

Ranma's face exploded into red. "N-No!" She, if possible, managed to turn even redder at her own outburst, before she coughed and schooled her features. "I didn't have time for noticing that kind of thing." She stated, but tellingly refused to meet anyone's eyes.

"Oh, but did you at least make any friends?" Nabiki pretended as if she'd believed the obvious girl as she steered the subject towards something that might give an explanation.

Still looking a little bit awkward, Ranma's cheeks once again took on a slight shade of pink as she remembered her school life. "Ah... well, there was Ryoga." She admitted, a small happy smile sneaking onto her face.

Gotcha. Was the thought that was so loud that it seemed to echo between the walls of the living room. Or maybe that was just because Nabiki's family had gotten used to reading the middle sister's expressions.

"Oh? What was he like?" Nabiki began to fish for information, careful not to activate any of the surprisingly shy girl's defenses.

Ranma's happy smile turned into something akin to exasperatedly amused as she tried to think of how to describe him. "He could get lost anywhere. I swear, I'm not entirely sure he knew the direction that was 'forward'." A giggle escaped her as she shook her head at some memory. "We usually went to school together, and this one time, he'd somehow gotten himself lost inside of his own closet, so I had to lead him out of there before leading him to school."

Nabiki felt her eyebrows climbing to the hairline. Okay, so Furinkan was not a place for sane and stable individuals – cough Kuno cough – but she'd never heard of anyone having a sense of direction that was that bad. The fact that Ranma seemed quite fond of the boy in spite of being directionally challenged was also a bit strange to her – but that was perhaps mostly because insanity at Furinkan was usually related to the Kuno family, and nobody could think of those people fondly.

It was perhaps for the best that Nabiki was unable to fish for any more information, as it seemed that Genma had finally returned from being ignored and hastily injected his opinion on the matter.

"Stupid boy! Men don't giggle!" He yelled, suddenly appearing behind the girl and punting her into the pond.

When Ranma – as a boy – emerged from the cold waters, he was not amused. "Dammit pops! I ain't a man! I'm a girl!"

The fight that immediately broke out proved beyond any hesitation or doubt that though his father must've been completely insane to believe his daughter to be a male, Genma Saotome knew a lot on how to teach someone martial arts.

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Story: [Their Peculiar Life]

Summary: They were born to four different parents, they were the youngest and the only child, and they were one person in two bodies.

Genre: Spiritual, Family?

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Souls are interesting things. Nobody truly knows if a soul exists, or if it does, then how it's assigned to a body, or what happens when that body dies.

These are questions that mankind has asked itself many times in the past, and will continue to ask itself many times in the future, perhaps to never touch upon what a soul actually is.

They were a special case, however. Not because they understood, but because the situation that they found themselves in was unique.

The big ones had named them Ranma, the big ones had named them Akane. They thought that the big ones should really get their act together and settle on one name. They were partial to 'the Best', though unsure if that technically classified as a name.

Either way, they continued on with their life, being called both Akane and Ranma by their four parents and their two elder sisters.

Then one of their fathers took them away on a training trip to become the Best, whilst they were allowed to remain with their sisters and mother and father, leaving their second mother alone.

Then, in the middle of training, of fighting for every last parcel of food in order to actually be fed, their mother died, leaving their second father as a heartbroken wreck of a man, and forcing their sisters to adopt new roles in their lives.

They didn't understand why they couldn't just call for their second mother so that she could comfort their second father, but before they could truly formulate that line of thought, they were exposed to the Nekoken.

Those who called them Akane worried themselves sick over when they fell ill and couldn't move and whimpered silently in their sleep, whilst the father who called them Ranma continued to toss them into the Pit.

They didn't remember much of the time before once they woke back up, but they knew that only the body that was called Ranma had been truly scarred by the cats, and that only that body's mind had been shattered in the Pit. The body that was called Akane was merely left with a blurry memory of being trapped and of something else stealing away a part of them.

It'd been this that had finally convinced them that skills learned by one of themselves wasn't learned by both of them. That perhaps there was a reason that 'Akane' was never allowed in the kitchen, despite how talented 'Ranma' was as a rather decent chef.

Still, they continued on with their life. Going to school, rejecting Kuno, fighting with Ryoga on the way to school so that he wouldn't get lost, fighting with the 'morning brigade', watching their sister get ever more cutthroat in her business deals, winning the bread in their lunch-spars, watching their eldest sister abandon her dreams for the sake of their family, watching the handsome doctor falling over himself around their beautiful sister, swimming across the ocean to China, falling into a Spring, getting involved with the Amazons, and then being dragged all the way back to Japan.

And then they were introduced to themselves for the first time in their life, and told that they were going to be marrying themselves.

Obviously, their fathers demand was met with a mixture of disgust and amusement. But they didn't argue to change it, because they didn't want their fathers to try and marry them to either of their sisters. That would've been purely disgusting.

Unfortunately, they were still in need of an excuse to be able to avoid that marriage for as long as possible, so they tried to remember everything they knew, and came to the conclusion that 'Akane' could call 'Ranma' a pervert, and thereby smack 'him' across town whenever they needed to get themselves separated.

It was a perfect plan.

And so began the first stage of the Nerima Chaos that followed in the engagement's wake.

They liked Ucchan, a lot. They liked Doctor Tofu, at least a little bit. Ryoga was kind of cute, sometimes. They didn't like Shampoo much at all. And they hated the Kuno-family's guts.

Life continued, and they worked to become as strong as absolutely possible, all the while playing out their scheme to avoid marriage for as long as possible, still unsure about what kind of life they could imagine having.

If they married Ucchan, they'd end up being part of the restaurant, forced to remain reasonably stationary and possibly work as a waitress, surrounded all day by okonomiyaki.

It wasn't necessarily a pleasant image of the rest of their life, but they liked Ucchan, so maybe that would make it okay? And since everyone treated them as different people, why wouldn't 'Akane' also be allowed to marry someone? But then who could they possibly pick that would not be scared off by Kuno or be too intimidated by 'Ranma' to make a move?

The answer was rather obviously to choose Ryoga, and to have his wild escapades across the globe to compensate for their boring life living together with their beloved Ucchan.

Unfortunately... they weren't entirely sure if that was a good idea, because the more Ryoga refused to admit his Curse to 'Akane', the more they worried that he was not the kind of boy that they should choose for themselves, no matter how cute he could be.

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Story: [Invasion of the Mind]

Summary: Ranma has his mind attacked by a perfect version of himself.

Genre: Humor, Crack

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Ranma stared at the shape in front of him for a long moment.

"What? Have you been rendered mute?" The man asked, sounding amused. "I suppose that such a reaction is to be expected when a mere imitation is faced with the true version of themselves."

Ranma continued to stare.

A brief flash of annoyance crossed the man's face, but his condescending smirk quickly reappeared. "I'd been hoping that I would at least be able to torture you a bit, before you succumbed to your inevitable defeat. But, I suppose that I overestimated you."

Just as the man was getting ready to attack him, in order to erase him forever, Ranma finally opened his mouth.

"If you're me, then where's your cat?" He asked curiously.

The man nearly stumbled, turning incredulous eyes at the martial artist. "My what?"

"Well, I mean... That one's mine." He absently pointed behind the man. "So where's yours?"

The man in question – still reeling somewhat from the original question – began turning to see what Ranma was pointing at, despite how it had to be some kind of distraction.

And found himself staring straight into a thousand sharp teeth. Teeth the size of swords. So many many endless teeth. With fur that was caked with mud and grit, and eyes that shone like the fires of hell. In comparison to that, he barely even noticed the impossibly countless amount of claws at the end of each of the thing's legs, or the tail that cracked through the air like a whip with every lazy swing.

The thing was a monster. The thing was something only a complete madman could imagine.

It was a cat.

Obviously.

It was a cat, in the way that Ranma Saotome would always view cats. It was the perfect image of what Ranma believed that a cat should be. And of course he knew that he had a cat inside of him. He'd always known that, always known that that horrible creature lurked just outside of view, just waiting to break loose to wreck havoc on all things that were good and righteous in the world.

Unfortunately, Ranma Saotome's 'perfect self' could by his very definition never have been infected with the monstrous horrors that were the Nekoken. His 'perfect self' was purely Ranma, because to have him be infected by something as twisted as the Nekoken would've made him imperfect.

Which meant that the actual Ranma, who was only nearly as skilled as his 'perfect self', also just so happened to have a pet-monster on his side.

The man realized this in a brief instant, wondering wistfully what it might've been like to have been the 'perfect self' of some other sap than the crazy martial artist who'd endured this nightmarish taint on his mind.

As thousands of teeth – and impossibly countless claws – descended on him with a ruthlessness that could only be found in the heart of a creature with the blackest of souls imaginable, he imagined that it would've been a lot less painful.

Staring at the horrifyingly gory scene of slaughter and mayhem – a testament to the unforgiving and absolute evil of all cats – Ranma tried to shake the water out of his ear.

It was highly disturbing, sure. But the other guy was kind of a dick, and for some reason the cat didn't seem as scary now that it was fully exposed, rather than wearing one of those disgustingly cute disguises that seemed to fool everyone around them.

Making an annoyed face, Ranma resorted to hitting himself on the side of his head. Stupid curse, always getting his ears waterlogged.

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