Even then, Akane hadn't given up hope immediately.  She'd held out for weeks – after all, Ranma had never failed to come out on top before.  But as the days had become months it had eventually become obvious that he wasn't going to make it back this time and all hope had collapsed.  She'd gone through horror, denial, anger, and grief before she finally settled on resignation. The conclusion that the insanity of Ranma's life had finally overwhelmed him became inescapable, and she'd resolved to go on as best she could, just as she'd survived the loss of her mother.  She'd always miss him, just as she would always miss Mother, but that was life, and she would survive.

And that conviction was usually unshakeable.  Usually…but not today.  Not on Mother's birthday – the one day that her grief could never be denied. 

Akane sighed and gently lifted a framed photograph from her desktop, examining the picture carefully: Kimiko Tendo and her girls, aged 13, 11, and 10, Kasumi already taller than her mother.  Despite her grief, Akane couldn't help smiling through her tears as she remembered all of the wonderful things that her mother had done.  Still, she had to admit that there was something a bit melancholy about mother's expression, almost as if she already suspected when the photo was taken that she wouldn't live out the year.

Akane swallowed, remembering the day that she'd come home from elementary school to find her father crying in the tearoom.  Mother had been killed in a traffic accident, struck from behind as she walked home from the market.  She'd died instantly.  Akane could still recall the mixture of grief, rage, and guilt that she'd felt that day.  Grief, because her mother was gone forever.  Rage, because she couldn't help but feel angry both at the world for taking her mother, and at her mother for abandoning her.  And guilt because of that anger, because she dared to be angry at her own mother for dying.   It had been the ugliest time of her life, worse even than losing Ranma.  Father had never fully recovered.

Fortunately, these dark thoughts were interrupted by Kasumi.  "Akane?...  Nabiki?...  Could you please come downstairs?  There is someone here to see us."

Curious, Akane drifted down the stairs and headed for the family room.  Kasumi and Nabiki were already there, sitting across the table from a nondescript looking man in an immaculate suit.  Kasumi, ever the hostess, had already provided him with a cup of green tea.  "Kasumi?  What's going on?"

"Oh, Akane."  Kasumi's eyes gleamed with an eagerness that Akane hadn't seen in years.  "This is Mr. Morisato.  He's mother's solicitor.  He has a letter for us!   From Mother!"

"But…How is this possible?"  Akane asked, clearly puzzled. 

Mr. Morisato cleared his throat.  "Ummm… Your mother entrusted me with this letter some six years before her death.  The instructions in her will clearly state that I am to read it to you three girls – and to you three only - on the occasion of her 40th birthday."

The three young girls exchanged puzzled glances.  "Are you trying to tell us that mother knew that she was going to die young?" Nabiki asked, stating what they all were thinking.

Mr. Morisato removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  "Miss Tendo," he began tentatively, "frankly, I don't know what to think.  You see, I have already read through letter several times, to ensure that I would read it properly to you.  Her will included specific instructions for me to do that, by the way…" he interjected to forestall the incipient objection apparent in Nabiki's expression, "…and frankly, I do have to wonder if your mother was in her right mind when she wrote this."

Akane's anger, never deeply buried, began to bubble to the surface.  "Are saying our mother was crazy?"

Mr Morisato shook his head sadly.  "Please, Miss Tendo.  Your mother was more than a client: she was also my friend.  I mean no disrespect to her memory.  She instructed me to read this letter to you, here and now, and that is what I will do.  You will have to judge its contents for yourself."

The three girls exchanged another long look.  "If you please, Mr. Morisato."  Kasumi bade him at last.

Morisato raised the letter, took a deep breath, and began to read.

"Beloved daughters: It feels very odd to be writing to you as your future teenaged selves instead of the three little girls sleeping upstairs, but such is life."

The three sisters shared a look: "odd" didn't even begin to cover this.

"How I wish I could be there with you today, though I know that to be impossible.  Hopefully, I will be there in spirit.  Still, I know that you must be suffering a great deal, both from the memory of my death and Ranma's disappearance.  I do know how much you all cared for the boy.  Well, please do not mourn for him any longer, for I know he has gone on to a better place."

Akane started.  How on earth could mother have known about Ranma?  She'd died six years before they'd even met him.

"You are no doubt wondering how I know about these things, and my dear friend Morisato is no doubt questioning my sanity already.  Relax, all of this will be explained in due course.  First, please heed the following entreaties from your mother, addressed in the order of your birth, though not of my affections.

"Kasumi, my eldest: Lovely child, the first time I held you may have been the most significant moment of my life, for in that moment I became a mother.  I am very proud of you.  You have far exceeded my own abilities as caretaker of hearth and home…"  Kasumi looked up, startled.  "…for I never had to keep the family on an even keel in the face of gods, demons, oni, and oddball martial artists.  However, you have lived for others long enough, and it is time, and past time, for you to think of yourself.  Your sisters are grown enough to take care of themselves, and your father too, has the means to survive.  Please find yourself a nice young man, though it probably shouldn't be Dr. Tofu.  I know he's sweet, but the way he loses control around you – I'm afraid he might hurt you, if only by accident.  Still, you are my daughter, so I expect you can take care of yourself, so don't consider this my veto.  Please go your own way, and remember that my love goes with you always.

"Nabiki, my brightest:  middle child, do you sometimes feel overlooked?  I try so hard not to do that.  I worry about you.  Of all my girls, I think you took my death the hardest, even though you show it the least.  Do you even realize how much it's changed you?"  Nabiki started, wide eyed.  "I find it hard to believe that the sweet little girl who drew a bunny for me in preschool today could become hardened enough to do the things you've done your sisters and your sister's fiancé.  Still, you've always teased your sisters, and I trust that you were motivated more by your sense of humor than any malice, though I do think the lingerie pictures were going too far." Nabiki winced.  "Anyway, I expect great things from you, even as I fear for your honor.  With your head for figures and business sense, you should go far.  I just pray that you won't go too far.  Every time you stand on the edge of that abyss, please remember that I love you, and hopefully your mother's love will keep you on the right path.

"Akane, my baby:  passionate child, please forgive me for leaving you, and you'll be able to forgive yourself.   You alone inherited the full measure of your father's temper, though I must admit that you got your tomboy genes from me.  I know you feel like you'll never measure up to your sisters, but that's wrong.  Who cares if you don't excel in any of the "womanly arts", like cooking or sewing?  I'll tell you a secret:  I wasn't any better at those things at your age then you are now.  You'll note that I did learn them by the time you were old enough to notice, so there's hope for you yet.  Please sweetheart, let go of your anger and your impatience, and those things will come to you in time.  Please accept that you will never be as good at some things as your sisters, just as they will never be as good as you at the things that you do best.  And I'll tell you one final secret:  Ranma loved you, and knew that you loved him, even though he never said it.  Please forgive him for his inability to express his feelings.  His love will go with you always, just as mine.  Don't stop living your life for him. Find another to love – he wants you to go on, as do I.

"I'm sure you're all very confused.  I know what you're thinking:  How could mother know these things, when she's been dead these past few years? And how can she know so much about Ranma, who she never met?  Well I'll tell you a story.  I know you are all well aware of the manner in which your father and I met: how he pulled my broken body from the wreckage of my parent's house after the gas explosion that killed my family, and how he visited me in the hospital as the doctors treated my traumatic amnesia and rebuilt my face. If the end result didn't exactly match the face I'd been born with it didn't matter; it was pretty enough, and there were no surviving relatives or photographs to say or show otherwise.  Besides, it was the face your father fell in love with."

"It was a very long and difficult convalescence.  I never did recover fully; enough to keep house, but not enough to practice the art again seriously."  The girls exchanged a glance.  Mother always had been a little stiff, especially on rainy days.  "But when it was over, I had nowhere to go.  Fortunately, your father took me in, for which I will forever be grateful.  Poor Soun, he was so solemn in those days, cast too soon into adult responsibilities by the premature death of his own parents.  And when he asked me to marry him, I did.  I must admit that I didn't marry him for love, not at first; it's just so hard to be alone in this world with no memories of who you really are.  But he was so caring, and so gentle, and so loving, that I soon found it impossible not to love him in return, especially after we had you three girls to share.

"However, there was one blemish on my happiness.  Shortly before you were born, Kasumi, I started getting some of my memories back.  But they were terrifying, horrible flashes of anger, fear and desperation.  Without your father's love and support I am certain that I would have gone mad.  Still, when you were born, I knew that I must name you Kasumi, for that was the name that my fragmented memories held out to me.

"Thankfully, my tormented mind left me at peace until I became pregnant again and the hormonal mood swings of pregnancy once again unlocked my past.  Fortunately, this time, along with the frightening and terrifying things I'd dreamt before, there were also images of love, and caring and sharing.  My memories still disturbed me, but at least they no longer terrified me.  And again, the flashbacks continued until I bore you, Nabiki, and once again I knew peace, though that peace was fated to last a less than a year, because only four months after your birth I became pregnant again.

"Forgive me, Akane, but I must tell you that your pregnancy was the worst.  Not because of anything you might have done, innocent child, but because this time the demons in my mind had been unleashed for real.  My sleeping hours became a torrid hell of confused and roiling sensations, and I soon lost count of the nights I cried myself to sleep in your father's arms.  And that continued until I entered my third trimester, and woke up in the middle of the night remembering everything.  Oh the horror I felt in that moment! My whole life was a lie!   I'm ashamed to say that I shrank from your father, horrified that I actually loved him, disgusted by what he had done to me.  I can't tell you how long I lay there, unable to reconcile who I had been with who, and what, I'd become.

"But then Nabiki started fussing, and I rushed to comfort her.  And after I was finished putting her back down to sleep I suddenly knew who I was, indeed, who I had to be.  I was your mother:  Your mother, Nabiki, and your mother, Kasumi, and the mother of a child yet unborn who I suddenly knew without doubt was going to be another girl.  And I returned to the solace of your father's love and your father's arms, safe in the knowledge that this pregnancy, however difficult, was destined to turn out all right.  And I prayed that the spirit of the real Kimiko Masaki, wherever she may be, would not begrudge me the use of her name and her identity in this world.

"Strong as that conviction was, Akane, it nearly collapsed in the face of reality, for my labor with you was very hard.  You presented breach, my daughter, and I'm sure that the doctors and your father despaired of losing us both.  But you were a strong little fighter, and your heartbeat never wavered until I finally delivered you.  And when they handed you to me I couldn't help laughing through my tears, because you were so red from your struggle that I just knew you were fated to bear the name Akane.  And as I drifted off to sleep with you in my arms I knew that it had been worth giving up my old life, my future, my very gender, just to have you three girls.  And I resolved to make the most of the short life that I had left.

"By now I'm sure that you must suspect who I was, as well as understand why I can't just come out and say it.  The fireball that consumed the Masaki house may have killed them, but it did not destroy my family.  Instead, it heralded my arrival in this place and time where I could create a family of my own:  you three.  And if all this sounds too fantastic to believe, ask your father one simple question:  Just how did the vacant lot where Ranma fought his last battle become vacant in the first place?

"That's why I have the knowledge that allows me to write to you as you will be, even as I cherish you as you are now:  because for the nine glorious months that I lived among you as a teenager,  I got to know you all quite well.  You make me very proud.  Please do not mourn me overmuch:  It isn't every mother who gets the privilege of meeting her children for the first time years after her own death, and seeing with her own eyes what fine young woman they turned out to be.

"Thank God none of you ever told me the time and manner of my death.  I have resolved to live each day as if it were my last, because I know that sometime soon it will be. 

"Please say nothing of this to your Father; He wouldn't understand, and I couldn't bear to have his memory of our love corrupted by any doubt.  I also couldn't bear to have my death break him a second time.  He will receive a different letter."

"And one final thing:  Akane, your friend Ryoga has a curse.  Ranma knocked him into one of the Jusenkyo springs, and you should be able to figure out which one without too much thought.  Ranma vowed on his honor to never to tell anyone, because he felt guilty, but as your mother I feel free of such strictures.  However, please don't think too harshly of him, as he is clearly devoted to you in both of his forms.

"Remember, my love goes with you always,

"Your mother, Kimiko Tendo – the woman once known as Ranma Saotome"

******

"I'm home!"

Akane kicked off her street shoes and headed for the family room, lost in thought.  Yesterday's shocking revelations had opened a lot of old wounds, stirred up a lot of old feelings, and even overturned her very conception of what it meant to be herself, and she'd cried herself to sleep last night.  Judging from the noises from her sister's bedrooms, she wasn't the only one either.  Still, in the end, she found comfort in two things:  Mother and Ranma had both loved her, each in their own way.  Ah well, maybe a bath would relax her, so she headed for the furo.  She happened to glance in the door as she passed her father's bedroom, and noticed him kneeling impassively before her mother's shrine.  She continued on for a few strides, then returned and knelt beside him in companionable silence

It was minutes before he finally spoke:  "I miss her, Akane." He said at last.  He spoke quietly, without tears, wailing, or histrionics.  A simple expression of the grief that six years had only begun to soften.

"I know, Dad.  We all do."  She replied quietly, giving him a quick hug before rising to go.

"Akane…"  She turned back from the doorway.  "I'm so sorry about Ranma, too.  I know how much you wanted to join the schools."

She smiled at him sadly.  "It's all right, Dad.  I know now that this is the way it has to be."  Besides, she thought as she turned once more towards the bath.  The schools are already joined, aren't they?  She looked at her hands - short, powerful fingers, so much like her mother's…

...The schools are joined in me.