Akane flopped down onto her butt, utterly exhausted, and grabbed a water bottle from the pack they had brought in the corner. The competition was in two days. Her own progress was relatively steady - she couldn’t say the same of Ranma, who still didn’t understand the difference between a ribbon and a whip, and in consequence received most of Ryoga’s assistance.

Ryoga effortlessly caught another of Ranma’s strikes with his hand. “You need to put more grace into it, Ranma,” he said. “The ribbon needs to come at me curved, not straight ahead. You shouldn’t be flicking your wrist, but accompanying the ribbon with it.”

“Aye, I know, I know! You’ve kept on repeatin’ that for the better part of an hour!” Ranma replied loudly. “It ain’t my fault if I’m trained for actual combat, not this pansy farce! Try rewritin’ your body’s reflexes for a spin!”

It was blatantly obvious Ranma was frustrated and tired, and Akane had no clue why he kept forcing himself like this. It was like he was trying to ram down a wall using nothing but his own head. Was that how his dad had taught him all these years? Maybe that worked for more brutish things, but it was utterly ineffective here. Still, if the problem was that he was too used to his body working a specific way… She stood up, snuck up on him and emptied the bottle over his head.

“Gaaah!” Ranma shook his head, sending drops of water flying everywhere. Ryoga quickly protected his face with his shirt. “Seriously, Akane!? What was that for!?” he growled, shooting daggers at her with his eyes.

“How about you try again, now?” Akane asked.

His gaze softened, raising an eyebrow. He looked at the ribbon in his hand, tentatively turning his wrist in circles. He turned back towards Ryoga and attacked. The fabric curved and wrapped itself onto Ryoga’s wrist, immobilizing his arm.

“Huh!? What’s happening!?” the bandana boy asked, surprised. He certainly seemed to space out without fail every time Ranma switched to his girl body, Akane had noticed.

“I… I did it!!” Ranma exclaimed, smiling widely.

Ryoga looked at his wrist and brought it up to his eye level. He barely had to shake it a bit for the ribbon to come loose, and it fell on the ground. “That was better than your previous attempts, but that’s still not what I’d call a success.”

While Ranma launched into a string of expletives, stomping around, Akane brought her hand to her chin in thought. At least this confirmed Ranma’s girl body worked different. Maybe its reflexes were separate from his guy form, or maybe it was Ranma’s own prejudices at play? Nevertheless, they only had two days left, and the last thing Akane wanted was to have Ranma waste them in frustration. Maybe it was time to ask for help from ‘Ranko’?

Akane felt closer to putting the pieces together. After the way Nabiki had addressed both Ranma and ‘Ranko’, and all the odd reactions (or rather lack thereof) soft-Ranma had to that second name, she had come to give Ranko as a nickname to that version of Ranma, for the time being. She couldn’t just keep thinking of them as jerk-Ranma and soft-Ranma anyways, so Ranma and Ranko it was.

 

Ranma felt Akane put her hand on his shoulder. In truth… he was so angry he felt on the verge of crying, and that angered him even further. He hoped she didn’t notice. “What now?” he snapped.

“Could you do a few of your breathing exercises, please? You seem at your limit. Maybe it could help you calm yourself down?” she asked, tilting her head slightly with a concerned smile.

“Yeah, I’m gonna agree with your girlfriend here,” Ryoga said from the other side of the room.

“She ain’t my girlfriend! We’re forced fiancés! Fi-an-cés! We ain’t had a say in it!” Ranma stomped his foot on the ground, shaking the tatamis. “Urgh, whatever, sure. I need a break ‘nyways.” He sat against the wall and crossed his legs, trying to breathe his anger out. Closing his eyes, he focused his senses on his own breathing. He counted to four, breathed in, counted to two, breathed out. He let himself fall into a rhythm. The pace slowed down as his thoughts mellowed out; the more anger left him, the more his perception of time stretched. When he opened his eyes again, everything went back to its usual speed - and he felt much calmer than before.

 

“Feeling better now, Ranma?” Akane asked.

“I think I do. Thank you, Akane.” Ranma stood back up on his own two feet with a wobble and stretched his arms. “Maybe I should take a break for the evening, I feel exhausted.”

“B-But the competition--” Ryoga exclaimed, getting interrupted.

“If Ranma says he needs a break then he needs a break, and you can train me in the meantime,” Akane said with a wave of the hand. “You’ve spent the past five days on him, I want your advice too!”

Ryoga nodded in silence, defeated.

Akane gave Ranma a smile that said she had his back, which he returned before opening the dojo’s door and leaving.

“So what should I be focusing on? The ribbon, the clubs, the hoops?” She raised her balled up fists to her chest with a wide smile. Ryoga was so good at this, she couldn’t wait for his advice!

“Well, you… uh… there’s…” Ryoga struggled to look her in the eyes, and he trailed off every time he tried to reply.

An awkward silence set into place.

Akane blanked, tilting her head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m -- I’m fine,” Ryoga muttered, sitting down and clutching his legs. “It’s just that without Ranma, I...”

She approached him slowly, worry growing in her mind. Maybe Ryoga and Ranma were cut from the same cloth, and the pig boy buried his feelings just like her fiancé did. She couldn’t help but feel like she had to help somehow. “Hey, everything’s alright, you can talk to me. What’s the issue, Ryoga?”

Ryoga finally let up and looked at her. Tears snaked down his cheeks and he jumped towards Akane, hugging her tight enough to knock the wind out of her. “I missed getting to be with him…! I don’t want to lose him again…!!”

Akane jerked, startled, before tentatively returning the hug. She didn’t really know how to feel about a relative stranger clinging onto her like this, but Ryoga seemed as if he really needed this. She guessed he was more of a hugger than she’d thought, if it extended beyond giving them only to Ranma.

“My life before meeting him, before… Before my best buddy… I don’t remember any time I was happy, I don’t remember most of anything, and then he came along and I--” He sniffled. ”I actually started living, and, and now he’s back in my life and I don’t want to lose him again…! But I know it’s only a matter of time before I scare him away by being a wretched friend, foul and demanding and horrible--”

Akane swept him off his feet, lifting under his knees and his shoulder blades. The act cut his rant short immediately. “Well, at least I don’t think you’re any of that.”

“But… But my body, and my curse…!”

“I already told you, didn’t I?” she huffed, raising her head. “The pig thing is cute on you.”

“Maybe you think so, but… When I look in the mirror, all I can see is this unsightly snout, these mismatching ears… Even when they’re not there, it’s all I can see, it all feels… wrong.” He tried to wiggle out of her grasp, only to find her holding on tighter. “At least Ranma got a cute curse, and… And it’s his fault I got mine!”

“But you don’t hate him, do you?” Akane asked. She still didn’t know what the whole ‘Die, Ranma’ business had been about if they were the best of friends.

“Of course I do! The bastard left me behind!” Ryoga clenched his fist in front of his head, grinding his teeth. “We were supposed to stay together forever, and he disappeared without telling me! And now because of him, I am forever defaced!” Akane tried to get a word in, only to have him ramble on. ”But he didn’t choose to leave! His dad did! And he’s my best friend, and… And he doesn’t know how lucky he has it… A power like this, and a girlfriend like you, and getting to live with the people he cares about… Who knows how many days until I get myself lost and don’t find my way back here?”

Akane did her best to process the tangled emotions Ryoga had just expressed. “Hey, Ryoga… If you ever find yourself bottling emotions, come talk to me. I want to help you.”

Ryoga stayed silent for a bit, his mouth slightly agape. “...You mean it?”

“Of course! I want to be your friend.” She dropped him back onto his feet, before giving him a hug. “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand you the way Ranma does, but I can try.”

“...Thanks,” Ryoga said.

Akane let go and smiled. “No problem, P-chan.”

“P-chan?” he asked.

“I thought it would be a cute nickname? The P is for pig. You’re like my little protégé that way!” Akane added, clapping her hands once.

Ryoga chuckled, looking away. “I’m not sure I qualify as little… Built like I am…”

This last sentence made Akane’s instincts tingle. Was that a twinge of melancholy she’d heard in his tone? She mentally filed it somewhere in her brain, then picked up a discarded club. “So about those gymnastic martial arts techniques?”

“Right!” Ryoga said with renewed vigor, picking up a club of his own.

 

Ranma skipped about in the Tendo’s house, stifling a yawn. Maybe he should switch back to male before taking a nap, but he just didn’t feel like doing that for some reason. Well, as long as nobody saw him do it, right? One way or the other, he needed some food in his belly first.

Heading to the kitchen, he spotted Kasumi and Nabiki discussing in the living room. Nabiki waved at him as he arrived. She squinted a bit, apparently trying to read something onto him.

“Um… Hi,” Ranma said, feeling scrutinized.

“Oh, it’s Ranko!” Nabiki snickered. “How are you doing tonight?”

“Ranko-chan!” Kasumi added with a smile.

Well, now Ranko felt put on the spot, like she had to join in on the conversation. “I’m doing okay… Training is hard.”

“Come on, a smart girl like you, you’ll figure it out, won’t you?” Nabiki gave her a dark smile. “Plus, that wall won’t pay itself, remember?”

“Nabiki-chan, that’s enough,” Kasumi sternly stated. “Is there anything we can do to help you relax, Ranko-chan?”

The memory of her last interaction with the two sisters came to her mind, when they had forced her into Akane’s clothes. She kind of wanted to try to pick an outfit herself this time. ...Wait. No? She was a… boy, right? A man amongst men, he was Ranma...

 

Nabiki bumped Kasumi’s shoulder and muttered to her. “She’s slipping out.”

Wait, that was part of what her little sister had prepped her on, right? Kasumi didn’t fully understand yet, but Nabiki had explained that that meant Ranko required a bit of affirmation. “Ranko-chan, it’s okay! You don’t need to be anybody but Ranko with us.”

“...Dad won’t find out any of this, will he?” Ranko asked, worry apparent in her voice.

“Not a single word,” Kasumi replied. Nabiki mimed zipping her lips closed.

 

This time, the closet getting rummaged was Kasumi’s, and a few safety pins had been prepared for on-the-spot adjustments to Ranko’s small stature.

Ranko couldn’t believe she was doing this of her own free will. Protests came strongly from the back of her mind, but she paid them no attention, drowning them out by humming a song she had heard on the radio recently. “I’m a lonely girl~...” she half-muttered the lyrics while looking at Kasumi’s variety of dresses. Not a single pair of pants in sight, she noticed. “Hey, Nabiki, is it alright if I drop out of the competition?” If she had to be honest, her interest in it had waned a bit after she had realized the ratio of martial arts to gymnastics was skewed in the other direction than the one she had thought.

“I don’t think your friend Ryoga would appreciate that. He seems pretty invested in it. I mean, you can still do that if you want, I have a contingency plan.“ Nabiki fell back on her big sister’s bed, looking at the ceiling. “I always have contingency plans.”

“Are you not enjoying it, Ranko-chan?” Kasumi asked, her hands gently placed on her lap.

Ranko pulled out what she thought was a white dress, only to find an apron that must’ve been misplaced from the kitchen to Kasumi’s laundry, from how often she was the one wearing it. “I’m not good at it…”

“Ranma isn’t good at it at all, yeah. But we’re talking Ranko here! I’ve heard all about Ranma’s frustration, but I’ve yet to pass by the dojo and hear Ranko training.” Nabiki poked around on her sister’s bed and grabbed a book with a bookmark in it. Just as she was about to open it, Kasumi snatched it out of her hands, her cheeks red.

“I don’t think I follow...” Ranko’s eyes drifted down to a cardboard box at the bottom of Kasumi’s dresser. The lady in question being too busy keeping the book an arm’s length away from her sister, she didn’t notice as Ranko opened it, finding soft plastic mounds of different sizes meant to… imitate breasts? She blushed and shoved it back in before closing the box and promptly forgetting she ever saw that.

Nabiki lost interest in the book and sat cross-legged, crossing her arms as well. “Fifty thousand yen and I’ll stop beating around the bush.”

“I don’t have that kind of money!” Ranko pouted.

Nabiki let out her signature, evil grin. “And now you have a motivation for the competition, don’t you? That’d cover about half of that, wouldn’t it?”

Ranko turned to Nabiki, still pouting.

Nabiki’s smile instantly shattered. She jumped backwards, hitting her back against the wall. “Aah! Alright, alright, if you win I’ll tell you!”

“Yaaay!” Ranko smiled earnestly before digging back into Kasumi’s closet.

“...That girl’s pout is a weapon of mass persuasion,” Nabiki muttered.

Kasumi nodded a bit incredulously.

“Oh! Oh oh oh!” Ranko pulled out a dusty Furinkan school uniform from the back of the closet.

“My goodness, I didn’t know that was still in there!” Kasumi exclaimed, bringing her hand to her lips. “It probably won’t even need to be touched up, I was much closer to your height back in high school.”

Ranko hugged the fabric tight against her chest. It did have the faintest smell of Kasumi on it. She was okay with that; Kasumi was nice.

“Well, are you gonna wear it or what?” Nabiki asked.

Ranko pulled off her clothes and quickly slid the dress over her boxers. She felt incredibly giddy, like her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. She approached Kasumi’s vanity to look at herself in the mirror. She looked just like any of her schoolmates! She twirled around, the dress spinning up to her knees before settling back down.

Kasumi and Nabiki exchanged a smile.

“You look very cute, Ranko-chan,” Kasumi affirmed.

“Yep! Maybe you should show off to Akane like this.” Nabiki smirked.

Ranko’s smile faltered a bit.

“Oh, and if you’re gonna compete as a girl, you’ll need to wear panties under your leotard, right?” Nabiki continued. “You should probably buy your own pack, though. It’s my treat if you do.”

The music in her head stopped. The voice she had kept from creeping up suddenly jumped at her and shouted in anger. This wasn’t right! He was Ranma, he was a man, the most man, the man amongst men! A tremor caught over and he buckled on his knees, holding his shoulders tightly. “Get me out. Get me out of this now. I can’t -- remove this.”

Kasumi jumped out of her seat and to the rescue, carefully lifting the uniform off of his arms. “I’m so sorry, Ranko-chan!”

“It’s… It’s fine,” he said. “Dad cannot see me like this. Nobody can. This is staying a secret.”

Nabiki had a frown on her face. “Sure, uh...” She squinted. “Ran...ma? Ranko? Wait, which is it right now?”

“My name is Ran-- …My name is Ran-- Ran…” Their head jerked forward with each attempt at finishing their name. They were Ranma, they knew that. That was the name their dad gave them, so it was the one they had to go by. But it was like something was holding them back not from calling themselves Ranma, but from confirming no Ranko existed. “Ran, Ran, Ran, Ran…!” They wobbled back onto their feet and grabbed the uniform out of Kasumi’s hands. “Ours.”

“Sure, you can have it…” Kasumi said, wearing her emotions on her sleeve as she appeared totally stunned.

They left without saying one word more, clutching the clothes tight.

 

“Well, that was strange…” Kasumi stated, dropping back into her chair.

“I… genuinely do not know which of the two that was just now. It didn’t sound like a third one of them, though,” Nabiki said, scratching her head. “Heh. These two are already enough, imagine the chaos if there was a third one?”

“You mean… a third personality?” Kasumi asked. “That’s what you’d called them, right? Personalities?”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah, even if it isn’t perfectly accurate. I think I’ll need to go back to the library and check out that book again…” Nabiki lifted herself out of her sister’s bed. “Say, you’re not too mad about the uniform I hope?”

“Why would I be? I was never going to wear it again. But maybe Ranko-chan will!” Kasumi smiled.

Nabiki shook her head. “Not any time soon, at least.”

“What kind of trauma did her father give her I wonder…” Kasumi pondered. “Speaking of, I haven’t seen Saotome-san all day?”

“As I said, contingency plan.” Nabiki replied, placing her hands on her hips.

 

Akane finally left the dojo, drooping her arms in front of her like they were jello. Ryoga sighed at the welcome solitude. 

Well, this was not going swimmingly. His buddy Ranma was still stuck in a rut as far as he was aware, and Akane, while full of proper spirit, had to fight against her instincts at every turn to approximate grace.

Even with his (miserable, overblown, pitiful) talent, they would never win the tournament at this rate.

He opened his bag and pulled out his alarm clock to look at the time. It wasn’t that late in the evening, barely ten-thirty… Surely he could wait for Ranma to fall asleep and push himself to practice until four, right?