If there was one thing Akane was good at, it was sports. Before Tatewaki had convinced the boys of the school to run after her, it wasn’t unusual for her to be invited as a replacement onto any sports team that was down a member for a match or another. The exceptions like gymnastics were few and far between, and were usually due to her skillset being skewed towards brute force more than grace — not that she was lacking in either. The point is she knew the basics in most things, and that’s why she thought, after the crazy, and more importantly, emotionally exhausting past month since Ranma first came to Nerima (had it only been so little time?), that a Sunday at the municipal sports center’s ice rink was the perfect way to cool off for her, Ranma and Ryoga.

Of course, what she hadn’t expected was for Ranma on ice skates to have all the grace of a knocked-over flan.

“What’s that, Ranma? Can’t even stand on your own two feet?” Ryoga taunted as he passed him by, arms smugly crossed across his torso, while momentum was carrying him backwards on a direct collision course with one of the rink’s edges.

Ryoga wasn’t any better, in fact.

Akane rolled her eyes, skating by to assess the damage. Ranma was desperately trying to stand back up on his own two feet but was only managing as far as raising his butt up high before falling back down. 

He looked up at her like a lost kitten and raised his hand, begging for her to grab it. “Akane…” he muttered.

“Good grief…“ With another sigh, she pulled him up in half a second. He stayed stable for about as long before his legs started to wobble and he ended up having to catch himself on her waist to avoid falling again. “Look, it’s not that hard. You’ve learned how to walk on a tightrope for gymnastics, right? It’s about the same thing, except instead of walking it’s gliding, and you get two tightropes, one for each foot.” She resumed moving forward, pulling him along with her.

His legs wobbled some more, and he whimpered a bit. “It’s just not the same with these shoes…” 

While Ranma was somewhat handled, Akane threw a glance at Ryoga just to make sure he was safe as well. He seemed to have found himself a teacher in the form of a young girl in a pink leotard with a matching ribbon in her hair. 

The grip of Ranma’s hands tightened on Akane’s shirt. She looked back at him. He was glancing around at the other people on the rink, his sight jumping from one to the next with worry upon his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I… don’t know. It’s like they’re all looking at me… It’s embarrassing…”

Akane scanned the rink and found out they, in fact, weren’t. Not that that seemed to help Ranma’s state. Was he feeling self-conscious, perhaps? That wasn’t usual for him… Akane quickly corrected herself. That wasn’t usual for him half the time. So this was probably… well.

Since Ranma’s big show of declaring he was the only one in his head, he had growled and snapped at anybody who even entertained the possibility he was wrong; and his softer mood’s appearances had been very rare and short. But, truthfully, that didn’t stop Akane from thinking this other mood was more than just that, as she had already started to believe before Shampoo came into the picture. There was something there, even if Ranma was incapable of admitting it to himself. There was a Ranko.

Ranko’s hands slipped and she fell to the ground once more. Is it appropriate to think of Ranma’s other half as a girl even in guy form? Akane idly mused, while Ranko’s expression of fear was replaced by annoyance and she quickly pulled off her skates in a very agitated fashion, signaling the usual jerk was back, before sprinting out of the rink and into the nearest corridor. Akane didn’t even have the time to ask what he was doing.

When he next came back, water was still dripping out of his red hair.

Genma and Soun solemnly locked eyes with one another. If it weren’t for the sound of the cicadas and the smell of Kasumi’s baking, they almost would’ve believed themselves in another world — just them, facing each other, a shogi table between them.

So was their ritual on lazy days. The scores were one hundred and five to one hundred and three, in Soun’s favor of course.

Most games were spent in near silence, though most didn’t mean all. Still relatively often, as was the case for this one, they would be talking out the affairs of the family’s life.

Soun preferred to keep his strategy to himself, starting with the flexible bishop’s opening. As his opponent stared at the board, carefully considering his response, Soun spoke gravely. “I wonder if we have been too harsh on the kids lately.”

Genma replied with a symmetrical move, and grumbled. “Bah! Ranma is used to tough love, he’s been raised on the thing. I am merely doing what it takes to teach the kid to be a real man.”

Soun nodded, stacking his spy under his captain. “Was this really for the best, though? Shouldn’t you have let Ranma decide who to become on his own?”

Genma stroked his chin. “You might be right… but you know just as well as I that there were circumstances. I did what I needed to protect him. That is all.” He picked up a lotus tile from his pile and placed it in the center of the board.

Soun frowned, unsure how to dig himself out of this masterstroke move. Suddenly, he saw the play, and moved his knight to c3, before considering his friend’s words. “You mean… With Happo—”

“No.” Genma clenched his fists. “That monster is long gone, and is not coming back. I’m talking about the boy’s mother.” Genma played a yellow +2 card. 

Soun drew from the card stack, then rolled a 7 and landed on the last orange property. Buying it and therefore completing his triple, he proceeded to build two houses on each. He locked eyes with Genma once more.

The two men stayed silent, appraising one another, wondering who would speak first.

“The author has no idea how shogi is played, do they?” Soun asked.

Once more, Genma solemnly crossed his arms and nodded.

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitslowdownwaitwaitpleaseaaaa—”

Akane slowed from a snail’s pace to one befitting bureaucracy and rolled her eyes. Ranma was still hanging onto her for dear life, with little difference from how he’d acted before swapping to his other form. “If it was embarrassing before, I don’t see how it is any less now.”

Ranma shook his head a bit. “Guys look like fools when they can’t skate…! It just ain’t the same for girls, they end up lookin’ cute instead!”

“Ah, yes, female helplessness, perfect for gaining sympathy,” Akane replied in a monotone. She grabbed Ranma’s hands and detached herself from their grasp.

“AKANEEEE!” Ranma wailed, arms swinging wildly as he tried to keep his balance as best he could, while Akane simply skated away towards Ryoga and his new friend.

The girl was gently leading Ryoga along, holding him by both hands. “That’s it… That’s it… You’re doing great, Charlotte!” Ryoga had a surprisingly blissful expression on his face, not something Akane was used to seeing on him.

“Charlotte?” Akane stopped herself next to them, getting their attention.

Ryoga snapped out of it and grew beet red. “Oh, uh, Akane, uh… Akane, this is Azusa.”

The girl lifted a hand way up and waved with a smile. “Hi! I’m Azusa Shiratori!! Are you a friend of Charlotte?”

The nickname didn’t seem to bother Ryoga, so Akane shrugged it off. “Hmm! I hope he isn’t bothering you.”

“Oh no no no, it’s a pleasure of mine to be helping such a cute thing. My partner hasn’t arrived yet, anyways.” She glanced at the entrance of the rink and pouted, muttering to herself. “Sheesh, Mikado, what a way to keep a lady waiting…”

Another “‘KANEEE!” shriek pierced the air.

“…I’ll leave you two to it, then; have fun,” Akane said with a sigh before heading back to her fiancé. She caught him and dragged him away from his slow collision course with the wall.

Ranma growled under his breath. “Took ya long enough, ya uncute tomboy.”

Akane ignored the jeer. To be fair, she did deserve it a bit. She turned her head back to P-chan and his new friend, then mused aloud. “Does Ryoga seem less… depressed to you lately?”

“Hmm?” Ranma struggled to snach his gaze away from his shaky feet and towards Ryoga. He observed him for a moment before going back to focusing on his skates. “I must’a got thru to him the other day, I guess.”

Akane kept her grimace to herself. Ranma already hadn’t been prone to self reflection when they first met, but now that he had dug his heels in, getting his thoughts on anything often led to the equivalent of a grunt and going back to what he’d been doing, just like he had done just now.

As Ranma’s knees shook in unison and he was not getting any closer to steadying himself, Akane readjusted her grip by holding him by the shoulders, hoping to stabilize him. The task was easier said than done; Ranma and gravity seemed to make an attractive couple today, and if Akane were to be honest, she was struggling to stay focused herself. First it was an observation of the height difference between Ranma’s male and female forms, which morphed into a hard-to-define feeling over realising that he had to look up at her face while a woman, then those thoughts drifted further and made Akane wonder whether she would get other opportunities to carry him like that time going back home from Tofu’s office.

“Woah!” Ranma’s skates slipped, and Akane’s distracted thoughts scrambled to get back to the present. She barely managed to spin him around and catch him by the waist, narrowly avoiding a fall at the cost of locking eyes in a precarious position. Both teens caught their breath for a split moment before letting them out in sync. Ranma’s cheeks gradually turned scarlet, and he softly grabbed Akane’s shoulders to steady himself. “Thank you…”

“Any time, Ranko…” Akane muttered, effortlessly using the right name without even noticing, her thoughts stuck in a loop about how cute the shorter redhead looked when she dropped the invulnerable facade.

Her whole misadventure with the 111 shampoo had opened the floodgates for many feelings Akane was now woefully underprepared for.

Putting a name on them would be but a formality at this point, but one she had every intention to drag her feet over.

Disrespectful.

That was, in one word, how Kasumi would describe Shampoo’s short stay at the Tendos’ — especially her refusal to engage with the snacks the host, that is, Kasumi herself, had offered her.

This basic refusal to engage with house etiquette infuriated Kasumi. It was the most evilest, most awfulest thing in the world. Not respecting etiquette! She fanned herself at the thought. The last thing she would ever let happen was having her reputation as a house host be sullied.

And thus, today she would be focusing on figuring out the sugary treats the Chinese girl seemed to love so. Fueled by her pride, Kasumi would make sure to be more than prepared for when Shampoo would come by again.

She would rise to the challenge with a smile! In fact, she was already planning to go further beyond than ever. From the highest shelf of the most out of the way cupboard of the kitchen, she had pulled out a very dusty book of recipes, one left untouched since her mother’s departure. Her mom’s pastry diary, detailing all the sweets she had planned to make the family over the years.

That book had been overwhelming to Kasumi when she was younger. But now she knew herself to be up for the challenge, both in terms of her cooking skills, and emotionally.

Once the food for tonight was ready to be put on a slow boil, she pulled out the eggs, milk, butter, sugar and other assorted things, checked on the adults in the living room — they were using their shogi table for ping pong — tightened her lucky apron and got herself ready to follow some recipes.

After some time of teaching Ranko how to skate without falling over, the student in question barely more receptive than the other half known as Ranma, an alarm had rung asking all skaters to vacate the rink for a few minutes. Apparently Ryoga’s new teacher had turned out to be a martial artist herself, and once her partner had arrived, they had requested the rink for their daily training, which apparently consisted of beating up a hundred fully-geared hockey players, for some reason. Neriman martial artists… At least, the timing had been perfect to allow for the ice cream break that had sold Ranma on the trip in the first place, the shop neatly located right against the ice court.

The individual in question was nearly ripping his skates off his feet, clearly eager to be done with them. “Ice skatin’ sucks!” Ranma complained.

“Of course an uncultured swine like you would dislike such a distinguished thing,” Ryoga retorted with all the confidence of somebody that wouldn’t have agreed a couple hours ago, his arms crossed. Clearly Azusa had turned his opinion around.

“Yer more of a swine than I, pig boy.” Ranma stuck his tongue out and, his feet now free, headed straight for the cashier to make his order for the chocolate double fruity banana-strawberry parfait he had eyed on the menu.

“Ordering anything, P-chan?” Akane said.

Ryoga shook his head, his attention on Azusa and her friend’s training. “I’m good.”

“Same here.” Akane stretched for a moment, turned her head to catch a glance at the piling mess of defeated grunts, and heard a sigh coming from Ryoga. He tried not to show it, but he had a little smile at the corners of his mouth. “So what’s the story for her calling you Charlotte?”

Ryoga snapped out of it, looking bashful. “I don’t know? She said I was adorable and just started calling me that… Not that I don’t know better, I couldn’t possibly actually be. Something must’ve caught me off guard.”

Akane looked back at the girl with her frilly sportswear and impeccably styled wavy hair… She had an innocent air to her that was certainly attractive… to a crowd of people that would be attracted to women. Which someone relevant at this table (Ryoga, stupid brain, it’s Ryoga) was a part of. “Maybe you have a crush on her?”

The question gave Ryoga pause. He straightened himself, slamming his palms on the table. “That’s ridiculous. It’s impossible to have a crush on multiple people at once.”

Akane did a double take, unsure if she had heard that correctly at first. “What do you mean?”

Ryoga spoke with confidence. “Well, there are some people that do, otherwise love triangles wouldn’t exist in romance novels. But sadly, as awesome as it is, I couldn’t be one of them. Having just one girlfriend would be too much to keep up with as is, I would never have the energy to spare.”

Akane smiled. “You read romance novels?”

“Mh?” Ryoga froze. “Please forget anything I just said.”

Her smile turned into a grin. “What happened to your ‘Everything is for everyone’ attitude from the gymnastics tournament, P-chan?”

Ranma slammed a glass the size of his head and filled with ice cream down on the table. “I’m back! What were ya talkin’ about?”

“NOTHING!” Ryoga growled, making Akane giggle.

Kodachi opened the door to room nine. A sterile atmosphere greeted her, white walls and the rest of the room matching it, with a pale sky blue crayon-like brushstroke pattern as the only speck of color allowed on the linoleum flooring. Three beds were set at a reasonable distance from one another, with her brother placed in the furthest one by the window. The poor man was adorned with a full body cast, and a machine stuck on his wrist, beeping along with his pulse.

As she made her approach and Tatewaki spotted her, he took on a grave expression and spoke up. “Why are you here, sister of mine? Have you come to torment me?”

“Oh, brother dearest…” Kodachi stopped by his side, clutching her purse. “As much as we do not always see eye to eye, you do know I care about you, don’t you? I merely came to see how you were doing.”

Tatewaki’s face relaxed, and he went back to staring at the ceiling. “So it is… I am afraid I will not be getting out of this room anytime soon.”

“How long have the doctors inferred it will take you to heal?” Kodachi took a nearby chair, moving it to sit down by his bed.

“A month, they said, at least, and if I were to be a lucky man! They ruled that only a superhuman could hope to heal as many broken bones as I have in as little as two weeks.”

Kodachi shook her head low. “A shame, brother dearest. A shame.”

“How is the residence by yourself? I can only imagine such a gigantic manor must feel quite empty… Not to mention groundskeeping.”

“Worry not, brother dearest. Sasuke as always keeps me company, and makes sure your usual rooms are kept clean and primed for your return.”

“Company? I cannot imagine this ninja being a good one.”

“Oh ho ho ho ho ho! You would be surprised.” Kodachi suddenly felt a jolt pass through her, and all her senses came to full attention. Her neck straightened, and she scanned for the source of the disturbance she’d just felt.

“Could it be…?” Tatewaki muttered, eyes equally at the ready.

“It must be…!” Kodachi raised her hand to her mouth, leaping to a standing position. 

Their voices resonated in unison. “An old granny needs help crossing the street!” Tatewaki jumped up straight and puffed out his torso, shattering his cast in a million pieces. Called by the duty of good deeds, the Kuno siblings rushed outside as one.

Ranma couldn’t exactly deny he’d had a couple rough days last week. Between Shampoo and the shampoo, his nerves had been stretched thin. Not that he exactly disliked the Chinese girl, how unchivalrous would that be, but he definitely hoped she would stay away for good. He had enough on his plate with school, living at the Tendos, martial arts, and yearning to be a true man amongst men.

The parfait had helped, of course it had, he’d always had a weakness for it, but even that hadn’t exactly managed to keep his mind off the elephant in the room.

See, while he might love ice cream, it was also great at calming his temper. That might sound like a good thing, in theory. 

In practice, he had never felt less like himself than when he wasn’t angry, lately. That was the entire issue. When he let himself go with the flow… It was as if he stopped being himself anymore. And that was terrifying. Between that, his intermittent affection for the name Ranko, and the girl from his dreams…

He feared he was dying. That someone else was trying to take over — permanently.

But a true Saotome, a true man amongst men, never backs down from a challenge. He might’ve had no idea what was causing this, but he was determined all the same to destroy this thing before it destroyed him.

“...Right, Ranma?” Akane’s voice suddenly tore him out of his thoughts and back into the present. They had been walking home for a dozen minutes and were steadily approaching the Tendo residence, his hand holding Ryoga’s tight to make sure he wouldn’t get lost.

He blinked a few times. “What were we talkin’ about?”

“You had fun at the skating rink too, right?” Akane repeated, grumbling at him to watch his words while nudging her head towards a content Ryoga.

Ranma wasn’t in the mood to humor her. “I’d rather I’d stayed home!”

Akane huffed. “Well if that’s so, maybe we’ll just go Ryoga and I next time, and call it a date!”

“EEEEH! Akane, ya can’t be serious!? You’re my fiancée! You’d date Ryoga just to spite me!?” Ranma balled his fists. “Ryoga, tell ‘er off! ...Ryoga?”

At the lack of response, Ranma turned his head to glance at what the heck had Ryoga so entranced. He was pointing at the two warships in the backyard of the Tendos firing at each other.

“Come on in,” Dr. Tofu said as they heard a knock at the door of their office. As the door slid and the Tendo middle sister popped from the other side, they gave her a smile. “Nabiki, what a pleasure it is to see you. What brings you here?”

“Yo, Tofu. I thought you might wanna look at this.” She approached and handed them a brown mail package that had yet to be unwrapped. “Read it at the library the other day, and thought you might want to have a copy of your own on hand. Consider it a thanks for handling the translation work of my little side business.”

Untying the little string and unwrapping the contents, they found inside a psychology book titled ‘Plurality, Multiplicity and Dissociative Identity Disorder: an Introduction.’ Stricken with a feeling this might be related to Ranma, they placed it down on their table. “I cannot say psychology is my field of expertise, but this is appreciated. I’ll read it as quickly as I can. Anything else?”

Nabiki rested her back against the doorframe. “As a matter of fact, have you received any news of my order?”

“You’re in luck! There was a letter this morning.” Dr. Tofu opened a drawer and pulled out a colorful rainbow postcard that seemed to come from the Jusenkyo springs’ gift shop, if the logo in the corner was any indication. “They’re handling the logistics of getting it shipped overseas. There was apparently a minor incident involving the Maonīchuan, but they didn’t detail it further. It should be here soon.” They handed Nabiki the card, and she flipped it in her hands a couple times, looking at the illustrations.

Slowly, a grin made its way on her face. “Dr. Tofu, I cannot stress enough how rich this is all about to make me.”

PrincessFelicie

Writing this story wouldn't be possible without the financial support of Eirenliel, Florence, Amelia, Elysia, Zicklepop, Winowa, and many others! Special shoutout to everybody that helped with the editing as well, including but not limited to Trismegistus Shandy, Saffron, Katie, and the members of the queer Ranma fandom discord.
http://discord.gg/VDVMVrc