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With thanks as usual to Pepper for instant feedback, Trismegistus Shandy for editing, and everybody else that contributed to keeping me motivated to write, including but not limited to my partners Katie and Jojo, Saffron, Samantha, kind comments left by readers, and many others.

As Akane understood it, and according to this pretty Ranma lady she was now walking behind on the way to Doctor Tofu’s — she was somehow sixteen. Well, her body looked the part at least; it had her signature short hair she would never let grow long for the world, but that didn’t match who she knew she was. She was still in junior school, she had two amazing big sisters, and two loving parents.

“Ya sure ya don’t remember nothin’...?” the lady asked again. Akane had tired of answering this question by now and preferred not to reply. The lady readjusted the man she had slung over her back and turned her head back to the street ahead.

She looked sad. Which was a shame, because she was pretty. “Are you often told you’re very pretty?” Akane blurted out. “And I don’t mean by boys, I know they say that all the time. I mean people say it and mean it. Because I mean it!”

The lady’s cheeks became all red. She let out a laugh that didn’t go all the way and kind of faded at the end.

 

Ranma pressed the doorbell to Dr. Tofu’s clinic and entered the waiting room. No one seemed to be there, thankfully, so he moved onwards to the office and laid Ryoga down onto a bed. “Stay strong, buddy, we’ll figure out what’s goin’ on…”

“It feels all wrong…“ Ryoga muttered. Ranma just wished he knew what was happening to him. Maybe it was related to his pig nose, but Ranma preferred not to use scalding water on Ryoga while he was already having a bad time.

“Well, hello, Ranma, Akane,” Dr. Tofu said, announcing their presence. Ranma turned around. “What leads you here today?”

“Hi, Dr. Tofu!” Akane chipped, a grin on her face.

“I ain’t sure… these two were battlin’ Shampoo, and I guess she must’a done somethin’, cuz by the time I got here, they were like…” Ranma gestured to Akane and Ryoga. “this.”

“Shampoo?” Dr. Tofu asked.

“A martial artist from China. Long story.”

“Let me see what I can gather, then.” They pointed to a chair next to Ryoga’s bed. “Akane, would you take a seat over there?”

“Sure!” She hopped a few times to reach the chair, apparently amazed at how much distance she covered in each step.

Already, Dr. Tofu looked as if they had an idea of what was going on. “That’s a good girl.”

Akane beamed again.

 

Ranma worried as he looked over Dr. Tofu’s shoulder, trying to see their hands scrutinizing Akane’s scalp.

“I don’t see any injuries…” the good doctor muttered, looking at Akane’s scalp, before moving on to Ryoga, who had been set on the bed and was still whimpering away. Last, they took a look at the empty bottle of shampoo Ranma had brought, and slowly read the Chinese label one character at a time. They flipped it over to look at its back, finding a simple number - 111. “If this is right, I know what happened...” Their glasses shone with an air of expertise as they spoke clearly. “An Amazon technique that weaponises shiatsu into a tool to lock away memories!”

“Shiatsu?” Ranma asked, not sure what the word meant.

“Yes!” Tofu had mistaken his implied question for incredulity. They approached their model skeleton and lifted it up, then started to press their fingers on different spots on its skull. “Using a combination of a shampoo made of specific Chinese herbs, as well as a precise massaging of the skull, this technique can manipulate memories in many ways, from locking away specific ones, to entire years of it at a time! If I had to guess, Akane believes she is a child because Shampoo locked everything as far back as her childhood.”

Akane’s eyes switched back and forth between Dr. Tofu and Ranma, listening carefully.

“D’ya know any way to revert it!?” Ranma asked.

Dr. Tofu nodded, holding the shampoo bottle forward to show it to him. “See this number on the back of the bottle? 111. The shampoos 110 through 118 manipulate memory in various ways, while 119 reverts their effects. I should be able to create a 119 from scratch, should I find the recipe, but maybe the person that did this to them carried one on their person?”

Ranma sighed in relief, content to know none of this was at risk of being permanent. Still, the sooner it’d be resolved, the better he would feel. It looked like he would need to hunt down Shampoo as fast as he could. “I’ll be right on it!”

Dr. Tofu smiled, moving a chair next to Ryoga’s bed and sitting down. “Good luck, Ranma. Please, do bring Akane home first. I will take care of your friend Ryoga, they do look a bit… catatonic. I couldn’t let them in good conscience leave my office without a full checkup, plus I need to make sure they are under the same condition as Akane.”

Ranma nodded, grabbing Akane’s hand. The girl let herself be pulled away, and they were quickly out of Tofu’s office and running through the street.

 

Tofu took one last glance at the bottle in their hand, a bit of worry in their mind they quickly shook off. “Surely nobody would be reckless enough to carry memory shampoos without antidote.”

 

Akane had so many questions. She had stayed silent at the clinic, preferring to let the adults talk, but now her brain was on overdrive.

“So I’m sixteen?” she asked, walking up next to the Ranma lady.

Ranma took a few seconds to process the question. “That is correct, yes.”

That was so cool! It was like she was in the future or something! She continued with another enquiry. “How did we meet?”

“I’m the…“ Ranma looked down at herself and sighed. “…child of a friend of your dad. We live with you at the dojo, for now.”

That was weird; she was missing the accent she had in Tofu’s office. “Why do you talk different sometimes?” 

Ranma raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

Ranma had said she was her fiancée, right? “So you’re grown up me’s girlfriend?”

Ranma’s face went as red as her hair. “W-WHAT!?”

So many interesting questions to ask about the future, they continued to flow out of Akane’s mind! “Did I win a martial arts medal yet?”

“Wait a second, could you back up a bit—”

“Did Kasumi and Tofu get married?”

“They’re together?” Ranma muttered, taken aback.

“Is Nabiki an evil scientist now?”

“...What?”

“That’s what she says she wants to be in the future,” Akane stated. 

 

Ranma raised an eyebrow and promptly lowered it back. It checked out, actually. He was somewhat relieved to see Akane was so full of life as a child, though that left him taken aback on how to handle her. And, of course, there had been the girlfriend question — he reddened a bit again just thinking about it. “Why would I be your girlfriend? Wouldn’t you prefer to date a boy?”

Akane frowned, sticking her tongue out. “Boys are dumb and mean and they don’t know how to take care of themselves. When I grow up, I’m gonna marry a girl.” She turned her head to Ranma. “And didn’t I do that, since we’re fiancées?”

“…It’s complicated.” When did his life ever get so messy? Thinking about it a bit more, he recalled Tofu’s words from a few weeks ago, about feelings Akane had told them about as a child. 

And, at this point, this conversation would be as direct confirmation as he would ever get. Of the waterfall of stupidity constantly flowing out of Tatewaki’s mouth, it had to be that one out of all of them he got right? Akane was undoubtedly bisexual, Ranma confirmed to himself. She had just spoken up about wanting to date a woman, and she seemed interested enough in him too, so that obviously covered the man part.

Akane couldn’t resist the urge to run a few steps ahead. “Is everybody home? I wanna see how everybody’s like in the future! Nabiki, Kasumi, Daddy, Mommy...”

Ranma stopped breathing for a moment. “Oh no.”

 

Akane’s smile faded slightly as they arrived at the Tendo’s. Something just looked a little bit more sad about it compared to her memories. Maybe it was the weather? It did just rain after all.

She grabbed Ranma’s hand, feeling a bit intimidated.

“Hmm?” Ranma looked at her hand, then at Akane. “Ya scared or somethin’?”

The accent had come back, Akane noted. She puffed her cheeks and walked to the front door. “Am not!”

She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t the entrance looking exactly as it had before, however many years ago her most recent memories were from (she didn’t know for certain, for some reason). 

There was a pleasant smell coming from the kitchen. Hmm… Mom was probably cooking up something good.

“I’m hooome!” Akane screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping to catch her attention. “Guess what happened today!”

“Akane?” a voice that wasn’t Mom’s replied. A lady came out of the kitchen, a pan in her hand. She had a soft ponytail falling over her shoulder, and was wearing Mom’s apron. She walked back in the kitchen, came out without the pan and approached them. “Ranma too? Aren’t you two supposed to be at school right now?”

“Yeah, ‘bout that…” Ranma scratched the back of her head. “Akane kinda got attacked by Shampoo, ‘n’ like, now she’s a kid again or somethin’…”

“What?” the lady asked, turning to Akane.

Akane beamed as she finally recognized who this was! “Big sis Kasumi! You’re so pretty now!”

Kasumi held her hand to her mouth. “Oh my…”

Ranma started looking around, raising his head to look in the corridor. “Doc Tofu thinks Shampoo might have the cure, did ya see her around here?”

“What’s with the ruckus?” Another lady interrupted the conversation, coming down the stairs holding a bag of ice against her head. Despite the casually well dressed clothes, she looked a bit sick.

“Nabiki?” Akane asked.

“Yeah?” she replied.

Akane turned to Kasumi. “Is she like this all the time?”

“No, she’s just sick today.”

Relieved, Akane climbed up the stairs jumping two steps at once and went to hug her big sister. “Nabiki!” She let her go and compared their heights. “We’re so tall now!”

Nabiki threw a glance at Kasumi and Ranma, before descending the rest of the way and passing by them. “You know what, I don’t even wanna know. I’m just gonna get a glass of water and go back to bed.”

Akane didn’t argue, refocusing her attention on her big sis Kasumi. “Where’s Daddy?”

Kasumi inched towards Ranma, keeping her body turned towards Akane. There was a bit of unease readable on her face, annoying Akane somewhat. “He’s at work, as usual…”

“I see.” Ranma grimaced in advance as Akane asked her next question. “Where’s Mommy then?”

Kasumi completely froze. They heard Nabiki drop a glass in the kitchen, coughing and sputtering.

“Nabiki…?” Akane called out.

“I’M FINE! I’m fine!” Nabiki replied at the same volume, walking back to the entrance. Looking at Akane, she crossed her arms, scowling. “Mom’s not…” Her tone softened and she turned her head away. “Mom’s not here.”

Kasumi pulled her by the sleeve, and after an exchange of nods, they excused themselves and both went back to the kitchen.

“Awkward…” Akane muttered, head resting on the railing and her ankle bouncing up and down.

 

The interaction left Ranma scratching his neck, hand on his hip. It was rare to see Nabiki, of all people, be on the defensive. Looking back at the stairs, he almost missed Akane leaving him behind and he scrambled to keep up with her. “Where ya goin’?”

“I wanna see my room!” Akane explained, arriving at the landing. It took her a moment to find the right door, indicated by a swan-shaped plate with her name, and she turned the handle without wasting a beat.

Ranma was about to start deliberating whether to start looking for Shampoo or to stay with Akane, but seeing her dejected face made the decision easy. “What’s wrong?”

Akane took a few careful steps into the room, looking around at the walls and furniture. There was her bed in the corner, her work table under the window, her wardrobe by the door, a wall dedicated to sports equipment, and a few plush toys strewn about. “Something’s missing…”

Fearing the worst, Ranma looked around for anything that was out of place. Had Akane lost something? What had she been expecting that was so important as to distress her like this?

Akane raised her voice. “Where are the boy bands posters?” Ranma tripped on the carpet, facefaulting immediately. “No teenager room is complete without boy bands posters!”

Ranma quickly got back on his feet. “Where d’ya even get that idea from!?”

“Movies,” Akane replied, tilting her head. “Thinking about it, I guess I wouldn’t be into boy bands.”

Ranma stared blankly at Akane, then heard something crash from the room next to them — his room. Quickly evaluating that Akane was safe, he left her to explore her own room and headed for his. Sliding the door open, he immediately spotted Shampoo, crouched in front of a bag as big as hers and rummaging through it. And, of course, a new hole where a wall used to be. He approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Shampoo!”

“Beloved!” she chirped, turning around and giving him a big smile that faded away quickly. “Oh. Brain demon.” She went back to looking for something in her bag. “You stay here. I kill you soon.”

Ranma took a deep breath. “Shampoo, this stops now! Undo whatever ya did to Akane and Ryoga!”

She glacially stared off into the distance for a moment. “Shampoo forgot she did that. No more 111.” She let go of her bag and stood up. “How to remove brain demon now?”

Urgh, she would never listen to him like that. She wanted to talk to Ranko? Sure, he could do Ranko. How does he talk when he’s in a Ranko mood again…? He tried his best imitation he could muster. “Now, uh… waitaminit here, Shampoo, I understand that ya wanna get rid of the, err… ‘other’ me, but right now what’s more important is fixin’ that thing you did to Akane and Ryoga!”

She looked him straight in the eyes and the sheer intensity of her gaze paralysed him.

Let me try,” he heard at the back of his head.

Wha—? Who said that?

He closed his eyes and breathed in and out, slowly, until his shoulders relaxed and his pent up energy flowed out with the air leaving his lungs.

When he opened his eyes again, Shampoo was staring right into them with a smile. “Beloved!” She jumped at his neck and hugged tight.

While struggling out of her grasp with one arm, he was staring at the hand on his other one. What had he just done? What had just happened? One moment he was exasperated at himself, and he just kind of… pushed in. To… to try to do what? He certainly felt Rankoey at the moment, if that somehow made sense.

Ranko? He was Ranko? She? …That could be figured out later. But if Shampoo wanted Ranko, then she could be Ranko for now. She pulled Shampoo off of her and put her hands on Shampoo’s shoulders. “This is serious. Please, can you just think for a minute about what you did?”

Shampoo blinked a few times, processing the demand. “Shampoo can’t… kill man one without killing beloved. Shampoo… remove brain demon… remove memories that created it. But jealous girl attack, so… Shampoo used 111.”

“No, I meant, like… That is what you literally did, but… Urgh.” Ranko tried to find the right words to explain to Shampoo what should’ve been common ethical sense, but they refused to coalesce into something that would be convincing. Maybe if she just showed Shampoo the consequences of her actions…? If she brought Shampoo to Ryoga?

…Well, that was as good a plan as she had. She grabbed Shampoo’s bag, pulled her by the hand and headed outside, finding Kasumi and Nabiki staring at Akane’s door, Kasumi’s knuckle hovering a few centimeters away from it.

“…Is everything alright?” Ranko asked.

The two sisters turned their heads. Kasumi smiled a bit sadly. “Ranko-chan…”

Nabiki leaned against the wall, holding the bag of ice against her head. “When Akane was a kid, and Mom died… Well, with Dad already shaken, we kind of shielded Akane from that realization. In hindsight it wasn’t our smartest idea.”

Kasumi finished the thought. “If the current situation might as well be used for something, it is as an opportunity to set right a wrong, shouldn’t it?”

Ranko looked at them in worry when a sudden bout of pain flared up underneath her forehead. Something felt… angry in her mind. If Shampoo was not gonna listen to her in her usual mood, then she had to make the most out of her current energy while she still had it. She stopped wasting time and pulled Shampoo downstairs and into the street, heading to Dr. Tofu’s office as quickly as possible.

 

Akane was flipping through her math textbook and its complicated material when the door to her room opened behind her. She turned around to find her two big sis bearing serious expressions. “Kasumi? Nabiki?”

Nabiki sat down in the nearest chair, placing the bag of ice on her head again. “Do the talking, Kasumi. I’m just here for emotional support.”

“Right, right… Akane-chan? It’s about Mom. It’s bad news.”

“Oh.” Akane sat down on her bed. “Is she not gonna be home today?”

Kasumi opened her mouth a few times, before taking a deep breath, her hands clasped tight. “She died when you were six.”

Akane’s heart stopped for a second. Her head recoiled at the thought, then she frowned. “How did it happen?”

“We were at school when it happened. Dad told us that he and Mom were training in the dojo when she suddenly started coughing up blood… and then it happened very fast. The ambulance couldn’t have come quickly enough.”

Akane lifted up her knees to hug her legs. Well, death was just something that happened sometimes, she knew that. Everybody knew that. It bothered her that it was Mommy, but… But as soon as she thought this, she felt her eyes tear up quickly. This wasn’t fair. She wasn’t okay.

Kasumi came in to hug her, gently caressing her behind her head. “It’s okay… Let it all out… We’re here…”

Akane started sobbing in Kasumi’s shoulder. It wasn’t fair! Mommy was so strong, she would never die like that! There’s always a risk when exerting your body, but… Just go from healthy to dead? 

“When it first happened,” Nabiki spoke up, “we were scared telling you would make you renounce martial arts, or worse. We were scared you wouldn’t understand it, or that it’d traumatize you for life.” She lowered her head. “It probably did more harm than good. You didn’t get to grieve. It wasn’t okay.”

A memory flashed in Akane’s mind. She was asking where Mommy was, and Daddy just stared off into the distance. Kasumi butted in and said Mommy would be back soon. When was that?

“Just let it all out… It’s okay…” Kasumi whispered into her ear, still holding her tight.

Another memory. Someone at school bullying her… no, pitying her. She hadn’t liked that. People were looking at her differently, treating her differently. She didn’t understand why; they didn’t have a problem with how she acted before. But desperate to fit in, she started to act more femininely, more normally… As much as she could, at least. She didn’t want to stand out anymore. Boys were still annoying, but hanging out with girls felt weird… And she had to not be weird. Saying that girls were pretty was weird too, that also had to go. Akane was normal, not weird, not… not like the other tomboys. Not like she was before she stopped being weird. Of course, at some point, she had figured out that Mom had died, but… nobody in the family ever talked about it, so she didn’t either. And then that’s how it was. That’s how it was as she continued through school, as middle school came and went, as she started high school… Until Ranma came into the picture.

And that idiot… that idiot had dug so many feelings back up, with constant weirdness and teasing.

Akane was slowly breathing into Kasumi’s shoulder. She tried to pull her head away before being hit by a second wave of sorrow and crying loudly again.

It was okay. She had a lot to let out.

 

Ranko rang the doorbell again and headed straight for Dr. Tofu’s office, Shampoo still in tow. She put the Chinese girl’s backpack down near the entrance. “Is Ryoga feeling any better?” she asked Dr. Tofu, who was sitting at their desk.

“Well, I have determined he is also under the effect of shampoo 111, if that is what you’re asking.” They looked at Shampoo. “Is this the girl that did this?”

Ranko nodded.

Nihao,” Shampoo said monotonically, looking at the shape shaking on the bed. “Oh, is pig boy.”

Ranko cut to the chase. “Shampoo, you did this.”

“What?” Shampoo said. “But… Shampoo only go back to childhood. Why is pig boy this way?”

Ranko turned to Shampoo and started shouting. “Not everyone’s childhood is happy, Shampoo! Who knows what nightmare you sent him back to!?” She paused, shocked at her own words. Where had that come from? 

Shampoo was visibly spooked, emotions readable on her face for a change.

Ranko turned back to Ryoga. He did look like… like what she had blurted out was correct, even if she didn’t know how she had guessed like that, nor how she could just recognize it. She leaned towards him, shaking him by the shoulder. “Ryoga?”

The boy shuddered. “I’m so alone…”

“Let’s give them a few minutes of privacy,” Tofu said, pulling Shampoo aside and into the lobby.

After watching them leave, Ranko turned back to Ryoga, lifted him under his arms, and into a hug. Her head was starting to ache; she had to talk while she still could. “I can’t say I know what you went through before we met. I don’t know what’s put you in that state, but… I’m here, okay? Sure, it doesn’t feel great right now, but it’ll feel better eventually. It gets better. Things can and do change. In the future, well, future for you, you find me. Even when we got separated, you went to the ends of the world to find me again, and you succeeded. So… whatever it is that’s putting you in that state… it won’t be forever.”

“Ranma…” Ryoga muttered in between sobs, now the one crushing Ranko into a hug.

Well, not exactly,” Ranko thought. She smiled softly. If he could remember her name, then her work was done.

Dr. Tofu poked their head in, then smiled, seeing that Ryoga seemed to look much better. 

Shampoo slipped in and reached for her bag, rummaging inside for a few moments before pulling out a bottle of 119.

Ranko’s eye twitched. “…Wait a minute, you had one all along?”

Shampoo shook her head. "Would be reckless to carry memory shampoo without antidote. Nobody do that."

The pain in Ranma’s forehead suddenly flared and he felt hot anger overtake him. He was so mad, so utterly livid. He wanted to shout and scream at Shampoo for doing something so wicked without thinking about the consequences first. He just wanted to let it all out, all his frustration that had built up for the past hour after feeling like he hadn’t even been himself. But the anger grew colder the longer he stared Shampoo down. As much as he felt she deserved it, it wouldn’t be the man amongst men thing to do. Instead, he didn’t even want to deal with her. He was boiling up inside, but it would stay inside. “Ryoga, we’re leavin’.” He snatched the bottle out of Shampoo’s hands, headed for the door without skipping a beat, and Ryoga scrambled to follow.

 

Akane let go of her sister and wiped the tears on her cheeks. That had been a lot of memories she didn’t remember suddenly coming back to the surface. “Thank you, Kasumi. I needed that.”

Some time during the past hour, Nabiki had gone from her chair to standing next to Kasumi and Akane. “So, are you back with us?” she asked.

“Yeah. That was… an experience,” Akane admitted.

Kasumi smiled. “What day isn’t with Ranko-chan around…” The situation defused, she suddenly frowned. “I’m not sure I’ll have the time to finish tonight’s dinner, now…”

Akane bounced up from her bed and pulled back her sleeves. “That’s fine, let me help!”

“NO!” the two older sisters blurted out in unison.

“I mean,” Nabiki continued, “you should still rest, right? Let me do it.”

Akane pouted. “Well, shouldn’t you too then?”

“Takeout it is, then…” Kasumi headed out. “Probably not Japanese cuisine, since I don’t think any of the nearby restaurants that do delivery beat my cooking?”

 

Ranma rushed back home, eager to use the 119 on Akane. He didn’t expect to find the Tendo sisters all sat around the living room table and seemingly having a moment he was catching the tail end of.

Akane let out a long laugh. “Did you even remember you wanted to be an ‘evil scientist’?”

Nabiki seemed unfazed, her elbow on the table and her head resting on top of her hand. “Look, schemes pay well, don’t they?” Spotting Ranma and Ryoga coming in behind him, she took a slightly more pensive expression. “Hmm…”

“Ranko-chan! Ryoga-kun!” Kasumi exclaimed. “We’ll be having pizzas tonight, if you could take a look at the menu and find something you’d enj—”

Ranma threw the bottle of 119 on the ground so hard it broke apart. “I AIN’T RANKO! THERE IS NO RANKO! I AM RANMA SAOTOME!”

Silence.

“...Beloved?” Shampoo’s voice came from behind him. So she had followed them after all.

And his patience had worn thin. He was tired of the constant game of who knew what, who believed what. He was tired of Shampoo going after him. And after this afternoon, he found it much easier to shake her off. “Kasumi. Gonna need hot water.”

 

It was well into the evening at this point. Soun had come back home to find the family standing outside, near the koi pond, Ranma holding a teapot in his hand.

“I ain’t gonna do that twice. Watch closely, Shampoo.” Ranma lifted the teapot above his head and solemnly dumped its contents on his head, his red hair turning black, followed quickly by his body turning back to normal.

Shampoo stared at him, processing what she had just saw. “Jusenkyo. Shampoo thought…”

Ranma stared back. “Yeah. Ya thought it was goin’ in the other direction when ya checked. But truth is I ain’t a gal. My name’s Ranma. Not Ranko. There ain’t no brain demon, there ain’t no other me. There’s just me. And I’m a guy.”

Shampoo struggled to keep her emotions off her face. She grit her teeth, tears pearling at the corner of her eyes. “…Man one lies.” She reflexively positioned her hands like she was holding her chuí. “Ranko exists… She does…“

Ranma continued to stare her down, until she broke into tears and ran off. A pang of guilt took him, but it was better that way. It had to be done. 

 

The family (including Genma, who came out of his hiding spot the moment Shampoo left) moved back to the living room to start on eating dinner. The ambiance was grim and tense, Akane herself barely touching her food. She looked up from her plate. “Dad?”

“Yes?” Soun answered.

“Could we move Mom’s butsudan to the entrance?”

He stared off into space, contemplating, before nodding.

Satisfied, Akane turned back to her food, before catching a sneering smile on Ranma’s face from the corner of her eye that quickly made her frown. “What?”

“Nothin’, I was just thinkin’ about the boy band posters thing…” He said.

Akane growled. “Boohoo, unlike you, I’ve actually learned things since I was a kid.”

Ranma slammed his hands on the table, standing up. “What’s that supposed to mean!?”

Akane put her slice of pizza back down. “Just last week you were wondering what crêpes were called in French!”

“Ryoga finds his way to Paris all the time! Sorry for bein’ curious!”

“Don’t drag me into this…” the pig boy muttered, hiding his face behind his pizza box.

Nabiki picked up hers and left the room.

Akane stuck out her tongue at Ranma, who stuck his out right back.

“Uncute tomboy!”

“Bipolar disaster!”

“Of course it couldn’t last…” Kasumi muttered, holding her hand against her cheek, a slightly amused smile on her face.

 

“Of course it couldn’t last,” Nabiki stated, eating her last slice of pizza and leaving the box on the kitchen counter to be discarded with the recyclables. An evil scientist, eh? Quite the childhood dream there. Though, in a roundabout way, it did give her a few ideas… She went back to her room to find a Chinese dictionary, some paper and a few pens. If she had to guess, Shampoo had forgotten her bag at Tofu’s office, considering she didn’t have it with her when she came back. If Nabiki was quick, she could probably catch Shampoo before she left for good… And that would be perfect for the most ambitious scheme Nabiki had ever come up with.

 

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

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