The spectating crowd fled the scene in a panic.

The girl stood still for a second before pulling her weapon out of the ground.

Akane reflexively recoiled, taking a defensive stance. She observed the girl for a second. She had a very soft and pleasant face, that much she had to admit, but there was coldness in the expression she bore, like she was wearing a mask. She had deep, sharp blue eyes that would intimidate anybody with a single glance.

Akane felt her cheeks flush and promptly hid them behind her arm.

The girl was dressed in Chinese attire, somewhat reminiscent of Ranma’s usual choice of clothing. She looked around for a second, pausing as she spotted Ranma. Her eyebrows twitched and she stood still for two seconds more before lifting her club in his direction. “Ran… R… Man one, die!”

Ranma scrambled back to his feet, pulling Ryoga with him, their hands still tangled in the ribbons. “Sh-Shampoo! How the hell did ya find me!?”

“You know this girl?” Akane asked.

Shampoo turned her gaze towards Akane and Akane felt her face turn hot again. The girl then spotted the panda at Akane’s feet and the barest hint of a feeling showed up on her face: anger. She leaped into the air and clubbed the animal in the belly, who screamed and flopped out of the ring. Had he only been pretending to be knocked out?

“How dare you attack a noble animal while it is down!” Tatewaki shouted. He grabbed one of the poles on the side of the ring and pulled it out to use it as a makeshift katana before running straight towards Shampoo.

She retaliated by swinging her weapon like a golf club and sending him flying through the roof and twinkling away in the sky.

“BROTHER DEAREST!” Kodachi wailed, jumping off the ring and giving chase in the direction he had been sent.

Shampoo turned her eyes back towards Ranma.

“Listen, I’m real’ sorry, ‘kay? I didn’t mean -- I’d panicked!” Ranma tried to argue. “I ain’t wanna marry you!!”

“Marry!?” Ryoga and Akane asked in unison.

Shampoo’s mouth hung half open for a moment. She let out a long, drawn-out breath, that chilled Akane to the bone. The girl was terrifying.

Ranma tried to turn tail and run, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by Ryoga, who took one moment too long to understand Ranma wasn’t interested in fighting Shampoo. They both avoided her club by a hair’s width and the near-death experience finally kickstarted Ryoga’s reflexes; they fled as quickly as their uncoordinated legs could take them. “You… die!” Shampoo stated, apparently to herself…? She would’ve shouted if she had wanted Ranma to hear her, right? She then gave chase as quickly as she could.

“Wait!” Akane promptly ran after all three of them, worried for Ranma and Ryoga’s safety.

“So what’s the situation with this girl?” Ryoga asked in the middle of their tied jog. He turned his head back and grimaced at noticing Shampoo was still right at their feet, her weapon barely missing them by inches.

Their fleeing led them straight out of the gymnasium. Ranma pointed at the roofs of the nearby buildings, and after a quickly coordinated hop, the two teens managed to get some distance away from Shampoo by escaping by the housetops. “D’ya want the short story or all of it?”

Unfortunately, the Chinese woman gave chase, not too far from them. “I want enough to understand why my buddy’s being chased down by someone that wants to both kill him and marry him.”

Ranma sighed heavily. “So it started not long after we’d left Jusenkyo… A couple months ago, tops.

“We were passin’ thru her village. Not far from the springs, like, we’re talkin’ walkin’ distance. We’d been trainin’ on an empty stomach for a week, couldn’t afford to pay our guide no more, though he stuck around. Betcha it’s in his contract that he has to stick with the people his dang spring curses until they leave China, cuz I can’t figure out why otherwise.

“A week’s far from the longest time we’d spent without food, ya know how Pops is, but we were still starvin’. The guide said we were approachin’ the village of the Chinese Amazon. Turns out when we arrived, they were havin’ a martial arts tournament!

“Lemme tell ya, that Shampoo, she knows how to fight. There was some food left on a table nearby and Pops jumped on it immediately, stuffin’ his face. I’ll be honest, I kinda followed, like, when you’re hungry ya don’t fix that by starin’ down a mountain a’ food, ya get me?

“And for the record, I really thought it was like, a spectator banquet or somethin’, like it was a big town party with a free for all feast!

“But nah, the whole dang table was just the prize for the first place at their tournament, and Shampoo had just won it!” Ranma’s face got lost in reflection for a second. “...Dammit.”

“Dammit what?” Ryoga asked. He took a moment to look behind him. Shampoo was still following them with a deathly gaze as they jumped from roof to roof.

“Forgot to mention something. At this point in the story, I was in my soft mood, you know the one?” Ranma explained, apparently oblivious to the fact he had just slipped into it.

Of course Ryoga knew of that quirk. He’d known of it since their time together at Matsuribi Buta’s middle school; Ranma was his best buddy, he couldn’t have missed something that big. “Unusual of you to refer to it like that. It’s just how you are, you know? You change your mind fast is all.”

Ranma took a moment to mull over his friend’s words. “…You’re probably right. I’ve been overthinking it lately. Anyways, surprisingly, Shampoo wasn’t too mad we’d eaten her food? Well, more precisely, she wasn’t mad I did, but my dad still took a beating. The guide translated that she was happy to, erm…” Ranma started mumbling, suddenly much less sure about what he was about to say. “ …share her food with a cute girl.”

Ryoga felt a pang at his heart. How unbearably lucky Ranma was that everybody mistook him for a girl. Ryoga felt his fist clench and swing at Ranma’s face.

Ranma avoided the strike on reflexes alone. He pouted. “What was that for, you meanie!?”

“...No reason. Don’t fall behind now,” Ryoga said, turning his attention back to their path and speeding up.

“If you’re not interested in listening to my story, just say so!” Ranma complained.

Akane really hadn’t woke up this morning expecting to jog through the streets in a leotard chasing after three idiots running on rooftops, but then again, her life had been anything but predictable ever since Ranma came around.

Ranma and Ryoga seemed to be talking about something but she couldn’t catch it from there. There was some movement she couldn’t quite read, then the two of them sped up, leaving Shampoo in the dust.

That was odd. The girl was definitely running faster earlier. Why didn’t she give chase?

The two boys took a sharp turn to the right and Shampoo continued straight forward. Akane frowned and followed the Chinese girl, then sped up to get ahead of her and look at her face.

She still bore the same deathly glare as usual, as far as Akane could tell.

Then Shampoo collided with a satellite dish and tumbled off the roof.

Akane nearly stumbled as she slowed down, then approached the spot where the girl had fallen down. Now seemed like the right time to get the answer to some questions.

Shampoo popped out of the side alley looking all red in the face and apparently unfazed by it. She paused, and patted away the dirt on her clothes.

Akane wasn’t sure how to start the interrogation.

Shampoo noticed her and gave her another instance of her icy death glare.

Akane’s face heated up and she was much more sure she had no idea how to start the interrogation.

Shampoo lifted a finger and pointed at Akane. She opened her mouth and kept it agape for a few seconds before exhaling. Akane stood her ground, feeling dangerous vibes coming from Shampoo. “Ah… you were with Ran… Man one, yes?”

Akane grit her teeth and refocused herself. “Where do you know him from!?” she snarled.

“I…” Shampoo’s finger was still held in the air, ominously directed at Akane. “Shampoo looks… for Ranko. Other one. Not… man one.”

Did she mean the curse? Did she think Ranma’s two bodies were separate people, or…? No, that didn’t make sense. She’d found Ranma in girl form earlier and still called him the ‘man one’. But then… did Shampoo know of the two sides of Ranma? Akane tentatively, slowly lowered her guard. Shampoo let her pointing hand fall to her side. “What exactly do you know about, uh… the two of them?”

Shampoo started fiddling with her club, twirling its handle in her hand. “Ranko is cute nice girl. Well mannered. Ranma is evil spirit in Ranko’s mind. Violent boy. I kill, so I can have Ranko always.”

That was the longest cohesive string of words Akane had heard Shampoo say since meeting her. “Do you mean the evil spirit part literally?” It was worth asking; after Jusenkyo, who knew what other kind of magic was possible.

“Literally?” Shampoo asked.

Akane tilted her head ever so slightly. “Are you thinking he is an actual evil spirit or are you just saying he’s mean?”

“I… Shampoo means…” Her voice took on a droning quality to it, like she was quoting someone. “I apologize, I have trouble speaking and I do not always get double meanings. Please be understanding.”

Akane blinked twice. “…What?”

“I apologize, I have trouble speaking and I do not always get double meanings,” Shampoo repeated.

The two boys winded down as they reached the park they had fought in recently. Ranma took a moment to catch his breath while Ryoga focused on untangling the ribbons on their arms. 

Ryoga rubbed his wrist as it finally got free. “You said this girl comes from a village of Amazons, or something?”

Ranma stretched, then sat against a nearby tree. He hoped to get out of this leotard soon. “That’s how the guide called it, at least. Everybody there was a woman — Wait, no, almost everybody. A few guys running around, I guess.” He looked around for a second. Huh, the tree they had uprooted was still in the lake.

“Are they all lesbians, then, or just Shampoo?” Ryoga asked.

Ranma rolled his eyes. He thought it was Tatewaki that saw lesbians everywhere, not Ryoga. “She’s not a lesbian. First off, she’s head over heels for me.” 

Ryoga sat down next to him. “Yeah, but she thinks you’re a girl, right?”

Ranma shook his hands with an uneasy smile. “I tried to clear up the misunderstanding, I swear!”

“Okay, but she’s still a girl pining after another ‘girl’,” Ryoga explained. “She’s a lesbian.”

Ranma froze, eyes stuck on his friend’s face. He tried to protest; that didn’t make sense, did it? He opened his mouth, trying to think of any counterpoint. She was running after him, and he was a man! So therefore… But she thought he was a girl. And despite that she was still going for him. 

His cheeks gradually heated up until they felt like they were on fire. “...Oh my god, she’s a lesbian.”

Ryoga tried to stand up and slipped, face faulting. “You hadn’t realized!?” 

Shampoo is a lesbian. She’s into girls. She’s after me while being convinced I’m a woman. She wants to love me as if I was a girl. Two thin columns of steam started rising out of Ranko’s ears.

Ryoga settled back in his last position and crossed his arms. “Must be nice to be desired by a gay girl. How much more woman could you get if you reached that point?”

Ranko — (he really had to stop himself from using that name anymore, it was worrying how often he slipped up) Ranma chuckled. “I know, right? It’s like they have double the reasons to know what a woman is, and you pass both tests.”

They glanced at one another with an amused smirk on each of their faces, then shared a sigh, once again reminded of the fact they weren’t women, which is a sigh that people that are men definitely regularly make.

“So how does that lead into her wanting to kill you?” Ryoga asked.

“She kissed me. She kissed me and I panicked, changed my mind, got angry, kicked her in the chest and ran.” Ranma grimaced, but at getting no reaction from his friend, continued on. “That’s when the troubles started. She tracked us all throughout the rest of our trip in China. Somehow, she had noticed my tendency for mood changes and started to think I was two different people. Makes no sense, right? But that’s why she wants to kill me, I guess. Get rid of the ‘other’ me so she can be with me.”

Ryoga blinked thrice. His grip on his arms got tighter… and he chuckled, apparently very amused. “And now she’s tracked you all the way to Japan!”

Ranma huffed and balled his fists. “It ain’t took her four years at least, unlike you!”

Ryoga froze, a single tear pearling at the corner of his eye. “Argh… touché…”

Ranma shook his head and got up. It had been long enough that it was pretty obvious they’d lost her for good. “Let’s just go to the Tendos. Ain’t no chance Shampoo’s gonna find us there if she don’t know of the place, and I really wanna get outta this thing.” He paused. “And I should probably turn back so she don’t recognize me. Ya think Dr. Tofu would have spare clothes that’d fit me?”

“Lead the way…” Ryoga replied while getting up, self-consciousness written all over his face.

“More tea, Shampoo-chan?” Kasumi asked, holding up a teapot boiling, for once, actual leaves. Oftentimes the kettle was filled with plain water lately.

The Chinese girl was busy staring down the top of her cup. Akane could swear she’d manage to turn the steaming liquid into ice if she kept that up. “...Bitter,” Shampoo replied before pushing the cup away.

Kasumi’s eyelid twitched. She stood up and inched forward, hands held against her apron. “How about I fetch some snacks, then? Would that be alright, Shampoo-chan?”

Shampoo perked up. For just a moment, her eyes lost their usual edge. “I like sugar.”

“Sweets it is, then.” Kasumi left the room and headed to the kitchen.

Akane rested her head on the back of her hands and turned back towards Shampoo. Shampoo noticed her and stared right back at her, her cold look coming back. By now though, it had lost most of its effect on Akane, a fact she was thankful for. “So… Ranma, huh? Out of all people, he’s the one that caught your eye?”

Shampoo took a moment to process the question. “Mama told Shampoo that love is first sight.”

Akane was starting to have no idea if Shampoo was enigmatic or just very straightforward.

A pair of recognizable voices approached from the garden side of the living room while in the middle of a conversation. “I think you could’ve done worse for someone hellbent on killing you,” the heavier of the two said.

“Like you, ya mean?” the other, snappy yet still masculine, replied. Ranma opened the door, eyes quickly turning from Ryoga behind him to the inside of the room. “I dunno if ya realize, but—” He stopped immediately upon spotting Shampoo and slowly slid to the ground in shock, hand still holding the door.

Kasumi came back, opening up the packaging of store bought choco anpan cookies. “Say hi to our guest, Ran… ma-chan, Akane brought her here.”

He crawled on the ground towards Akane. “What the hell are ya thinkin’, ya dumb tomboy!?”

“Shampoo here is actually pleasant company once you get to know her,” Akane replied. Unlike you, she thought.

“How much did she tell you?” he asked.

Shampoo grabbed his head, having apparently approached silently. She observed him from multiple angles before moving on to touching his torso, staying silent all throughout.

“So it is her first time meeting the male you, huh?” Ryoga muttered, popping from the screen door he’d hid behind.

“...Male you?” she repeated, her hands still holding Ranma’s head. 

“Wait, she understands Japanese?” Ryoga asked, incredulous.

“Chinese: A, mathematics: A, physics: A, chemistry: A, biology: A, history: A, English: A, Japanese: A, Setswana: A, geography: A, sports: A,” Shampoo recited. “Aussie: A.” 

Akane and Ryoga shared a glance.

She patted her hand on the table looking for her cup of tea, and when she found it, she lifted it and threw its contents on Ranma’s face. She tilted her head slightly to the side when boy Ranma still stood in front of her.

Akane grimaced. It seems Shampoo did know of Jusenkyo… It was just luck that she thought Ranma’s curse went the other direction.

Shampoo’s head snapped around when she heard Kasumi deposit the cookies on a plate on the table, and she went to munch on them, completely defocusing from Ranma.

Ranma stood shell-shocked.

“…Would you like anything else?” Kasumi asked to put a stop to the uneasy silence.

Shampoo thought for a moment, still gobbling down the chocolate sweets. “Paper and ink.”

Ranma shook his head to rid his hair of the tea and stood up. “I’mma go change.” He couldn’t hand this shirt back to Dr. Tofu without washing it, now. He stomped out and up to the second floor. His last two shirts were respectively in the wash and back at the gymnasium, and the ‘China’ overalls were obviously off limits while he couldn’t be a girl, so he supposed he would have to borrow some of his Pops’ clothes.

As he headed for his room, he felt an uneasy aura coming from Nabiki’s. Oh, right, with the tournament ending prematurely… Looks like he’d have to wait for her to be in a better mood if he wanted that hint she’d promised him.

Once changed, he came back down to the living room. Shampoo was busy scribing away something while the rest of the group bunched up around her, looking at her handiwork.

Finally, she lifted the paper in front of her, a big smile on her face.

Akane furrowed her eyes as she tried to read it. “…That’s Chinese.”

“Oops,” Shampoo said. She settled the paper back down, flipped it and started over, in Japanese this time. After a few minutes she had finished once again and she handed it to Akane. “You give to Ranko, yes?”

Akane’s eyes frantically scanned the paper, confusion growing on her face the further she read. She then gave it to Ryoga, who laughed, who handed it to Kasumi, who let out a gasp and finally gave it to Ranma.

It read ‘My beloved, I want to rid you of the evil within you that keeps getting in the way of our love. Would you be available tomorrow? I will bring my heaviest chuí .

Shampoo’

Ryoga finally stopped laughing. “Well that’s one way to write a challenge letter.”

“You do know you can’t exactly kill Ranma in a way that wouldn’t also kill Ranko, right?” Akane asked Shampoo.

Shampoo looked right back at her. Akane grew uneasy as she realized Shampoo was genuinely processing her words. “...Oh.”

Ranma tripped onto the ground before immediately recovering, arms tense against his body. “Do ya ever consider anythin’ thru, ya two-speeds thinker!?”

As the evening winded down and it became obvious Shampoo had no place to stay, she was offered the Saotomes’ broken room to sleep in, since it was better than nothing and Akane categorically refused to let her sleep in the dojo with Ryoga and Ranma.

Akane was left with so much to muse on as she practiced her strikes under the waning sun.

There was now a gay girl living under her roof, and she was nothing like Akane thought lesbians were. Weren’t they supposed to all be, you know, tomboys? And, sure, Shampoo knew how to fight, and she had a certain uniqueness, but… she still came off as feminine.  So, maybe… the two things were unrelated?

Another thing she was much less willing to think about was the twinge of jealousy at the idea of Shampoo whisking Ranko away. Erm, Ranma away.

Ranma, meanwhile, was taking care of the laundry. It gave a small break to Kasumi, plus he had to make sure Dr. Tofu’s borrowed clothes would be in the next wash.

With Shampoo’s reappearance in his life, he’d started thinking of her misunderstanding again, about the idea that he was two, and put it together with the more recent thoughts along that line.

Eventually, he shook his head. Like something like that could even happen, he thought in unison with the other voice in his mind.

As for Shampoo, she was busy thinking up another plan to get rid of Ranma. She suddenly remembered she had left her bag of tricks on the roof of the gymnasium, and she could go fetch it tonight… But the gaping hole in the room kept bugging her and interrupting her train of thought. She would need to fix that first.

PrincessFelicie

If you're interested in my original works, or just more transfeminine fiction in general, I've got a discord you're still cordially invited to check out! We're a plural positive, pro inclusivity space with plenty of kindly people to meet. http://discord.gg/VDVMVrc