Chapter 1. Saturday, July 2

Ranma Saotome turned off the hot water, pleased to be back in his male form. He wasn’t entirely sure who had splashed him with cold water, but he was pretty sure it had been Akane Tendo.

As if he didn’t have enough problems already! The top item on this week’s list was Shampoo’s bathtub ambush, which was so not his fault. It ought to be obvious to anyone that she’d initiated the whole thing in some misguided attempt to win his affections. Everyone wanted a piece of Ranma Saotome, and even when they got one, they still weren’t satisfied.

Before that, the drama was caused by him apparently kissing Akane while in his “Cat Fist” mode (a fugue state he only entered when he became so overwhelmed by his fear of cats that his mind snapped, causing him to behave like the thing he feared most). He had no control over any of that; he couldn’t even remember anything at all about what happened in that state.

He still didn’t know whether Akane was mad at him for kissing her while in his cat-like state or mad that he didn’t remember doing it. And she wouldn’t say. So what was he supposed to do about it?

Oh, yeah—before the Cat Fist thing, there was the combined battle with Kuno-senpai and Ryoga-kun, which had left him bruised and battered. And of course, their grudges were about things that weren’t in any way his fault either! Gah! Why do I attract all these people? he fumed as he toweled off and put on his martial-arts gi.

In the dojo, Ranma put all his frustration into his training. He moved faster and faster and with more and more power, until he finally overdid it and broke a wooden training dummy in half with a single punch. He stood there, breathing heavily, glaring at the broken pieces on the floor.

“Damn it!” he shouted, kicking one of the pieces across the room. What bugged him most was the way Akane blamed him for all these things that he had no control over, and his explanations often just made her madder. But he was going to have to try again, because, well, taking responsibility was the manly thing to do, right?

He found Akane in the kitchen, making tea. She looked up as he entered.

“Look, Akane,” he began, trying to sound firm but not too aggressive. “I need you to know…I, uh, don’t have anything going on with Shampoo. It was an accident, okay?”

“Oh it’s all fine,” Akane replied sweetly, not looking up from her work. “You just go ahead and get together with anyone you like. I know you can barely control who you kiss, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find you in a compromising position with Shampoo.”

“Well, if you’re not bothered, then I guess it is fine, and I guess I don’t need to explain anything,” Ranma said angrily and stormed out of the house. Gah! That’s not how I wanted this to go! he thought as he slammed the sliding door behind him, turning to find himself face-to-face with Cologne, Shampoo’s great-grandmother.

“Greetings, son-in-law,” she said with a grin.

“Wha— What?” Ranma stammered, confused.

“I’m here to discuss your marriage to my great-granddaughter Shampoo,” Cologne continued. “You can’t keep avoiding it forever, you know.”

“Look, old lady,” Ranma said, trying to keep his cool, “I don’t want to marry Shampoo. I’m already engaged to Akane.” Not that I had much say in that. “So just leave me alone, okay?”

Ranma pushed the old crone aside to walk past her, but she was surprisingly spry for her age, and she leapt back, landing gracefully and twirling her tall walking stick. “Oh, no. You will marry Shampoo, or else!”

Ranma sighed. This was going to be a long day. “Look, if you want me to marry Shampoo, then you’ll have to catch me first!” he said, and took off running down the street.

To Ranma’s shock, Cologne was able to keep up with him easily. She was small, but she was fast and agile, and she had a surprising amount of strength for her size. They ran through the streets of Nerima, dodging pedestrians and cars, until Ranma finally skidded to a halt in front of a shrine gate.

“Look—I ain’t never gonna be Shampoo’s husband,” he said, panting. “So just give it up!”

“Maybe you won’t be anyone’s husband soon enough,” Cologne replied with a sly smile, and tapped him on the chest with the end of her stick, before bounding away atop it in a way that made Ranma wonder whether it had some kind of spring mechanism inside.

From the distance, he heard her cackling laughter, and what might have been something about seeing him again soon.

His chest felt odd, like there was a knot of tension there. He rubbed the spot where she’d tapped him, but it didn’t help. Still, he had so many other bruises already—what was one more?

He stretched, trying to shake the knot loose, but froze when he heard an unfamiliar voice behind him.

“So you are Ranma Saotome,” the voice said. Ranma turned to see a tall young man with long hair, thick glasses, and a confident smirk.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Ranma replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “And who might you be?” he asked, eyeing the stranger warily.

“I am Mousse, a warrior of the Chinese Amazon tribe,” the young man replied, striking a pose. “I have come to challenge you to a duel, for the honor of my tribe and that of my beloved Shampoo, whom you besmirch with your unworthy affections!”

“Hey, you’re welcome to her affections,” Ranma replied, appraising his opponent. With his thick glasses, it seemed like he could barely see, and Ranma was confident that he could take him easily. “But if you want to fight me, I’m game.”

Mousse nodded solemnly. “Tomorrow then, at the park at 2 p.m. Prepare yourself for a fight, man to man!” He spun around, his robe swirling dramatically around him, and strode away briskly. The effect was rendered rather less impressive when he walked directly into a telephone pole, knocking himself out cold.

Why do I attract these people? Ranma thought, shaking his head. At least he’s not very bright. This should be easy.

* * *

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, if awkwardly. When he got back to the dojo, Akane was still mad at him but pretending she wasn’t, so dinner was tense, with neither of them speaking much. Ranma was looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath to help heal his battered body and prepare it for his duel with Mousse tomorrow.

But as he filled the bath, it became clear that something must be wrong with the water heater. The water was scalding, far hotter than he liked—hotter than anyone would want it to be. He mixed in a lot more cold water, but it still seemed unreasonably hot. After a moment of consideration, he reminded himself that he was Ranma Saotome, and he’d been in many a hot spring, so an overly hot bath wasn’t going to stop him.

Everyone in the house heard Ranma’s scream of pain as he leapt out of the bath. He’d barely gotten his foot into the water before the heat became unbearable and he’d had to jump out. He grabbed a bucket of cold water to cool his scalded skin, but of course the splash of cold water transformed him into his female form.

Kasumi, the oldest Tendo sister, was first on the scene. “Ranma? Are you okay?” she asked, concerned, offering a towel to the naked young woman.

“Why is your water so damn hot?” Ranma yelled, trying to keep his voice steady despite the pain. “I can’t even touch it!”

Nabiki, the middle sister, had arrived by then as well, and put her finger into the bathwater. “It’s barely even warm,” she said, confused. “Maybe you’re just being a wimp.”

“Oh, he’s not being very manly at all,” said a voice, and everyone turned to see Cologne at the bathroom window, grinning at Ranma.

“What did you do to me?” Ranma demanded, still in pain.

Cologne chuckled. “Just a little something to make you more amenable to marrying Shampoo. I activated the Full-Body Cat’s Tongue pressure point. You won’t be able to stand hot water until I release it.”

After pausing for a moment to let that news sink in, she continued, “So, what do you say? Will you marry my great-granddaughter now?”

Ranma glared at her. “No way! I don’t want to marry Shampoo. I’ll find my own cure for this!”

Cologne shrugged. “You’ll change your mind soon enough with your manhood at stake. You cannot win this battle, and the quicker you concede, the sooner it ends. Until then, no more hot baths for you! But perhaps a long cold shower will wake you up to the reality of your situation! Ha-ha-ha!” And with that, she bounced away on her stick, leaving Ranma to contemplate his predicament.

Ranma looked at his foot. It was now his girl-form foot, all dainty and small, but still angrily red from the scalding water. But if scalding hot water was what was needed to change back into his boy form, well, he was no wimp. He took a deep breath and tried to plunge his foot back into the bath. His body seemed to resist the idea and his foot just hovered above the water, but then, using all his mental focus, he forced his foot down towards the water. His toe had barely touched the surface when a jolt of pain shot up his leg; feeling as if his flesh were being burned away. He leapt away from the bath again, screaming in pain and landing on the bucket of cold water he’d used earlier, sending it splashing everywhere, including, of course, all over himself. Any transformation into his boy form had been abruptly canceled.

He wanted to try again, but his survival instincts would no longer allow him to even get close to the water. He sighed. It was going to be a long few days until he could find a way to reverse the pressure point’s effect.

Leg still throbbing, and with an audience, he decided to minimize the problem. “It’s no big deal,” he announced to everyone looking at him (now including Akane, in the hallway; who at least didn’t seem to be angry with him any longer). “Maybe I’ll wow everyone with my feminine charm!” he said, trying to sound confident.

Akane glared at him and muttered, “Idiot.”

Ranma heard her, and shot back, “Well, I won’t be asking you for help being girly, obviously. You’re such a tomboy.”

Akane now looked hurt and she stormed off. What’s her problem now? I was just trying to say she didn’t have to help me if she didn’t want to!

Ranma spent the rest of the evening mixing schoolwork with trying to figure out how to reverse the pressure point’s effect. Cologne said she had a cure, but since the price for it was marrying Shampoo, that definitely wasn’t an option. He’d have to find another way. He tried to cheer himself up, thinking that if there was one thing Ranma Saotome was good at, it was finding his way out of a tight spot.

Bedtime was strange. Unless there was some massive drama unfolding, like running away from yet another person or group his father had angered, he spent as little time in his girl form as possible. Most of the times he changed were the result of accidents or in the course of a fight, and he would seek out hot water to change back as soon as he could. Sometimes, as part of a broader plan to defeat an opponent, he might deliberately transform himself, but again, he’d switch back at the first opportunity.

As much as possible, he wanted to keep his Jusenkyo curse secret, and, by some small miracle, surprisingly few people had seen the transformation occur up close, but many more had witnessed its obvious consequences (like a boy fighting one moment and a girl fighting the next). His schoolmates had come up with several theories about what was really going on (mostly well outside Ranma’s earshot), but he had definitely heard some of his (male) schoolmates declare that if they could transform into a girl, they’d spend plenty of time exploring their body, often with lewd comments about what they might do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. But Ranma wasn’t like that. He might be happy to flaunt his female form in public if it served a purpose, but to exploit it for his own pleasure or curiosity was not something he was comfortable with. He was still Ranma Saotome, after all. This girl’s body was like a costume he wore when needed, and at the end of the day, it was time to hang it up and get back to normal.

Given the craziness of his life, it wasn’t like he’d never woken up in his girl form, usually after someone threw water on him while he was sleeping, but he’d never gone to bed that way. Well, okay, with all the chaos in his life, he probably had, but that was different, with some hot-water–free drama unfolding or a situation that made it necessary to keep the girl disguise going. But tonight it was just him, alone in his room, in the wrong body, and with nothing to occupy his mind but the predicament he was in. It was a strange sensation, lying there in the dark—just finding a way to get settled on the hard futon turned out to be a challenge as some of his usual sleeping positions were now awkward or uncomfortable. Eventually, after some wriggling around, he got comfortable enough to drift off to sleep.