Chapter Text
Chapter One
Ranma sputtered as he broke the surface of the water. The spring his father had kicked him into was surprisingly deep, and he’d been underwater for nearly a minute. He gasped air into his lungs desperately, for his father had knocked the wind out of him before he’d taken the plunge and his lungs were on fire.
“That was a cheap shot, old man!” Ranma screamed at the panda bear that his father had, somehow, turned into. The voice that escaped his lips was not his own, and he slapped his hands over his mouth in fear.
It had been a girl’s voice.
“Yep, that’s the girl.” Ranma looked at their guide in disbelief, still treading water. What girl? What is this guy talking about? But if his father had fallen into one of the ponds and turned into a panda…
Ranma looked down and found himself looking at his own bosom. He shrieked in disbelief.
“I’m a fucking girl?” Panic swelled in his chest and he let out a panicked, bloodcurdling scream. There was no way this was happening. He was Ranma Saotome! He was a boy! His shrieks turned to flailing and he slipped beneath the surface of the water, flailing wildly.
He was gonna drown in this stupid, cursed pond, and die in the body of a girl.
The panic attack did not subside quickly, and Ranma treaded water for nearly fifteen minutes, his training with his father completely forgotten. Eventually, mercifully, their guide helped Ranma to dry land with a length of bamboo, and he let himself be dragged out of the pond. His throat burned from screaming and treading water. He’d swallowed a lot of water in panic, and he felt sick.
The large panda bear that had replaced his father stomped up to him awkwardly and flopped to the ground. It looked at him for a long time, and Ranma, shaking from the experience, could not discern just what his dad was thinking.
He looked away and down at his hands. They were so tiny now.
“Is this permanent?” He asked.
“It depends on what you mean by permanent,” their guide said. He walked off and busied himself making a campfire at the edge of the training ground.
Some answer that had been, Ranma thought sullenly. He pulled his knees to his chest, and found that his breasts made it a little more cumbersome than he was used to. He shuddered. He was a girl. He had boobs.
Ranma buried his face in his knees and refused to look up when his father tapped him on the shoulder.
Men did not cry. Men did not show weakness. It was a lesson his father had beaten into him countless times over the fourteen years they had been training. He’d endured more tortures, more beatings, more physical agony than he could ever put to words. But this? This was something else entirely.
He felt tears prick his eyes, unbidden, and he fought to keep them at bay.
Men. Did. Not. Cry.
But… he wasn’t a man now, was he?
“The curses of the springs are, as far as any who are living today are aware, irreversible,” their guide said. “But, the effects can be mitigated. Mr. Saotome, if you would please pour this warm water over your head.”
Ranma sniffled and looked up to see his father pour a pot of steaming water onto his head. A weird rippling passed over the panda, and then his dad was sitting there again. If he’d blinked he would have missed it. It had happened in less than a second.
“Change me back!” Ranma said, desperately, rocketing to his feet.
The guide nodded and set about heating up more water.
Genma, who was looking at his hands contemplatively, said, “Well that was an experience. Still, no harm done, right boy?”
“I guess not,” Ranma said eagerly. He was almost vibrating with his desire to change back into a boy. He was so short like this. His dad towered over him, and Ranma felt weird about it because he’d been taller before he’d been knocked into the water.
The guide returned to Ranma with the pot of almost too hot water, and Ranma dumped it over his head without hesitation.
“Ahh, that’s better!” He exclaimed. But his voice was still too high pitched. He blinked water from his eyes and looked up at his dad, who was still several inches taller than him. With a pit forming in his stomach, he looked down at himself.
He was still a girl.
“What the fuck? I thought you said I would change back, asshole!” Ranma wheeled on their guide, eyes burning with fury.
“Nobody has ever, in all the time I have guided travelers here, stayed in a cursed spring for as long as you did, Ranma.” The guide’s voice was pleading as he held his hands up and backed away. “Every other person who has fallen in, they always change back when doused with warm water.”
Ranma’s eyes went hollow.
He was stuck like this?
Forever?
As quickly as it had come, the fight left him, and he fell to his knees, staring at nothing.
“Oh get up, boy,” Genma said dismissively. “We’ve run into an obstacle and you’ve given up immediately. How pathetically feminine of you.”
Ranma winced. His father had always used emasculating language when Ranma did not live up to his father’s standards; but today, now, it hurt worse than ever.
“Good thing I’m a girl right now, then, huh?” Was all Ranma managed to say. His voice was quiet. He was ashamed, humiliated, and he wanted to be anywhere else.
“I did not raise a girl! I raised a warrior. A man. Now stop acting like a pansy and get up. We’ll drown you in hot water if we have to.” Genma’s bravado and machismo did nothing to lift Ranma’s spirit.
Ranma winced as the fourth pot of nearly boiling water was poured over his head. It hurt. His skin was red and angry, and he could feel it blistering his scalp, face, and shoulders as it cascaded down him.
He did not cry out in pain. He did not cry. He was a man. Men did not cry.
But for all that he forced himself to sit there and endure the torture, he was still in the body of a girl.
“Okay…” Ranma said weakly. “No more. Not tonight. I’m gonna pass out.” He tried, in vain, to crawl away from the fire, to get away from his dad and the never ending deluge of hot water, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He was in so much pain.
Genma scoffed. “Giving up already, boy? No son of mine is going to sleep soundly while looking like a little girl.” He filled the pot with water again and set it to boil over the campfire.
Ranma winced at the insult.
He’s just trying to help, Ranma told himself.
“Dad, seriously. It’s gonna kill me if you dump anymore of that boiling water on my head tonight. And besides, it clearly isn’t working.” Ranma’s skin felt like it was on fire, and even moving enough to talk was excruciating.
Genma didn’t listen, or didn’t care, or both, because Ranma found another wave of boiling water being thrown at him a few minutes later. He shrieked in agony, and the world went black.
When he came to, he was in a hospital bed. His entire body was on fire, and he couldn’t move.
Everything was agony.
Ranma tried to move, but found that attempting to do so made everything hurt worse, and that his entire body was wrapped in thick bandages. He’d not been this banged up in ages, and even then, it hadn’t been his father torturing him with boiling water that had sent him to the hospital.
He couldn’t tell if he was still a girl, or if that had all been some horrific nightmare.
He was left alone with his thoughts for only a few minutes, because someone, bless them, noticed he was awake.
A tall man with a stethoscope draped around his neck came up to his bedside and smiled down at him. He said something in Chinese that Ranma didn’t understand. Neither he nor his father had bothered to learn the language.
“Learning the local language is a waste of training time, Ranma. We will make our way through martial prowess alone!” Genma had said.
Ranma wanted to scoff. Stupid old man. Look what it had gotten them into.
The tall man repeated himself, or at least Ranma thought he did. The sounds were similar enough to have been the same question, or statement, or whatever.
“I don’t…” He tried to say, but moving his lips made his whole body seize up in agony.
The man, doctor, presumably, nodded and tried changing tactics. “Japanese?” He asked tentatively. “Don't move, blink if you understand.”
Ranma blinked.
“Not from here. Okay.” The doctor pulled the stethoscope over his head and put the listening end into his ears. The other, he pressed lightly against Ranma’s chest. “Try to take a deep breath for me.”
Ranma did, but found he couldn’t get much air in his lungs before he started coughing, which caused his whole body to flair up in agony.
“There’s some fluid in your lungs we’ll need to get out, but you should recover fully. Not even the burns will be permanent if we’re lucky.” The doctor returned the stethoscope to his neck. “You’re being a very brave girl.” He gave her a cheery smile. “Try to get some more rest, and I’ll check on you later.
Ranma wanted to scream.
He was still a fucking girl?
He was going to kill his shit-for-brains father over this.
The last thought he had before oblivion took him again, was that he really, really wanted to be anywhere else.
When Ranma next awoke, the burning pain was more of a dull ache and the morning sun was spilling in through the window. He tried to move, but everything still hurt. He hissed in pain.
“Oh good, you're up.”
Ranma’s eyes snapped to the chair in the corner of the room, where his father was writing something on a piece of paper.
“Ungh,” Ranma managed to say. What he’d meant to say was: I fucking hate you. Just so you know.
“We’re going back to Japan. Today. Get up.” Genma slapped the paper down on Ranma’s bedside table and stood. “What are you waiting for, boy? We need to get moving.”
Ranma glared at his father. Did the old man not see the state he was in? He couldn’t even sit up, let alone walk— or swim back to Japan. Just what the hell did his dad think he was up to. “No,” Ranma said quietly.
Genma returned the glare. “No?” He grabbed Ranma by the front of his hospital gown and pulled him into a sitting position. “No? Boy, when I tell you we’re leaving, we’re leaving.”
Ranma cried out in pain as his world exploded once more into agony, he tried to claw at his father’s grip on his gown, but even that was too much. But by some miracle, Genma’s attack and Ranma’s subsequent cry of pain, had alerted the hospital staff, and several nurses came into the room, shouting angrily in Chinese.
What happened next was a flurry of chaos. Genma was forcibly removed from the room, Ranma was given painkillers and water, and then he was being asked a series of yes or no questions by a kind Chinese woman in a police uniform.
“Is that your father?”
Blink once for yes.
“Are you on vacation with him here in China?”
Blink twice for no.
“Did he do this to you?”
Blink once for yes.
“Has he hurt you before?”
Blink once for yes.
“Have you been sexually abused?”
Blink twice for no.
Sexual abuse? Why would— oh, right. He was a girl in the police officer’s eyes. He looked away from the woman, shame and embarrassment bubbling in his chest. Before the police officer could ask any more questions, a nurse entered the room and ended the interrogation.
“I think you should rest now, sweetheart. Those painkillers will knock you out in a few minutes. I’m sure you could use the rest.” The nurse gently squeezed Ranma’s hand. “That man can’t hurt you anymore, okay?”
Blink once for yes.
Ranma’s eyes fluttered shut and he fell asleep once more.
Three days later, the sedatives and painkillers had mostly run their course, and Ranma was sitting awkwardly in his bed. The bandages were supposedly coming off today, and Ranma was under strict orders not to itch at his skin at all for at least a week.
His father, may he rot in peace, had been arrested by the local police while Ranma had been unconscious, and for the first time in his life, Ranma hadn’t been belittled throughout his days. Sure, he’d been bedridden and in agony, but it was strangely pleasant.
It was one of those awkward times when Ranma was left alone to his own devices, and staring out the window had grown boring. The trees were beautiful, that was true, but he’d seen a lot of them over the past few days, and from his position in the bed, he couldn’t see much else through the window.
Casting his gaze around the room, Ranma looked for anything to occupy his time.
There wasn’t anything in the room except a postcard on the bedside table. When had that gotten there? He picked it up, and examined the art of the panda bear on the back for a minute before turning it over.
No time for pleasantries, I’m bringing Ranma back. We’re coming from China.
Lots of Love,
Genma
Ranma blinked at the note in surprise. Lots of love? Not something he’d expect his father to have written down. Ever. But there was an address: The Tendo Dojo, Nerima Ward, Tokyo. It was as good a place as any to go, he supposed. Not that he had any way to get there. But it was something. He fiddled idly with the postcard until a nurse came in with a tray of food.
“Time for lunch, sweetie. Try to eat up so you can get your strength back.” She put the tray down on Ranma’s bedside table and gave Ranma a gentle squeeze on the hand. “Dr. Lee will be coming in to take off your bandages later this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” Ranma muttered awkwardly in Chinese. At least he was pretty sure he said thank you. The nurse beamed at him. When she departed, Ranma turned to his lunch and ate what he could. Hospital food wasn’t exactly award winning fare, but it was better than starving.
Eating was slow going, as it still hurt to chew, but Ranma dutifully got through as much as he could before the discomfort overtook the hunger as his primary motivator. He pushed the rest of the tray away from himself and leaned back on the pillows of his hospital bed with a defeated sigh.
How the hell was he going to fix this?
The doctor arrived sometime before the end of the day with the nurse who spoke Japanese in tow.
When his bandages did come off, a hand-mirror was left on his bedside, and he stubbornly refused to look at his own reflection. He was going to hate what he saw. For the duration of his stay, Ranma never once picked up the mirror. He was ashamed, embarrassed, afraid. He couldn’t do it.
“Do you have family that can come and pick you up?” The police officer asked him the following morning.
Ranma shook his head. “No, but I have some family friends in Tokyo that will look after me.” He held the postcard up and waved it idly. “I just don’t have any way to get there.”
He had no idea if it was true. He had no idea who those people were, or what Genma wanted to accomplish by bringing him there. What he did know was that going back to Japan was a lot more appealing than staying in a Chinese hospital forever.
“And you’re sure they’ll be able to take you in and get you settled now that your father is out of the picture?” The police officer seemed worried, but Ranma thought that was stupid. He was more than capable of taking care of himself.
“They sure will!” he lied with a smile.
“Then we will arrange your trip back home.”
Two hours later, Ranma stepped out of the hospital with his clothes and now comically oversized backpack, the postcard with the Nerima address clutched firmly in his small hand. They’d given him a bus ticket that would take him to a port, and a ferry ticket that would take him back to Japan. They’d also been kind enough to stuff a few extra meals into his pack for the trip. Not that it would take a painfully long time, but it was still nice to be fed without having to fight anyone.
“Bus doesn’t leave for a while yet,” Ranma said to himself. He’d have to walk to the bus station, which was… in a direction.
He should have asked for directions.
A man does not ask for help, he reminded himself.
He set off in search of the bus station.