Chapter 24. Wednesday, July 27

Ranma dreamed… She stood on the cliffs of the island of Enoshima again, looking down at the crashing waves below. It would be so easy to miss and crash into the rocks, but she took the risk, dove and plunged into the ocean. Down, down she went, further and further into the deep. The pressure was strong, and the cold was fierce, but she kept going down, down, down, until there was barely any light at all and she was on the fringe of a boundary between our world and some other. A world where strange alien creatures long rejected from our world remained, the origin for the poor creature or creatures that lie trapped in Jusenkyo, fragmented and injured anew each time a human fell into one of the pools. In the darkness, she saw a glow and swam towards it, finding a vertical cliff face with a cave opening from which the glow emanated.

She swam into the cave and found that the glow was the radiance of Izanami-sama, the ancient Japanese goddess of both creation and death. Izanami looked at her kindly and opened her arms. Ranma woke up, physically shivering from the imagined cold. However you looked at it, it was a nice dream.

* * *

Akane dreamed… The visit from the social worker had been touch and go, but it had been a success, of a sort. They had been placed on some kind of probation, and a case worker would stop by every week to check on Ranma-kun. Every week they would have to put on the charade of being a normal family, and Ranma would need to perform Ranma-kun over and over. Until the inevitable—

Akane tore herself out of her dream. She was often annoyed by her sleeping brain’s processing of her anxieties, but this time it had told her something. Something critical. Well, if her father could take risks, so could she. Perhaps reckless stupidity ran in the family. Both families. She got up. Any cramps could go to hell: she had work to do.

Quickly enough, Akane was ready to head out. In the kitchen, she found Ranma and Kasumi preparing a spread of food that would serve them well throughout the day. Ranma was trying his hand at making inari-zushi while Kasumi was preparing onigiri. Ingredients for various side dishes were waiting to be used. Some of the onigiri were already done and Akane grabbed a couple to eat as she headed out for her first trip to the 7–Eleven.

Soon after Akane left, Nabiki also passed by the kitchen and took one of the onigiri for herself, creating the teensiest bit of annoyance in Kasumi as her sisters were spoiling the balance between the different kinds by eating the salmon ones. But it was fine.

Nabiki was thinking about the imminent arrival of their fathers. They probably wouldn’t arrive until 12:30 p.m., but she was still smarting about the ways in which they’d forced their permanent return. She’d finished reading Twelve Skills Entrepreneurs Need to Succeed, and, although the advice mostly boiled down to bland platitudes, one memorable phrase was something like “Remember, they are scared, too”. It gave her renewed confidence in her ability to try to keep the men in line. Everyone had something to lose, but they faced possible jail time.

* * *

Akane returned from her first trip to the 7–Eleven. The white plastic handles had stretched and the force had left her fingers in a strange glued-together position, but after she dropped the bags and the ice bags they contained, she worked them back into normal function and set out for another trip. Two to go.

“Whatcha up to, bestie?” Ranma asked as Akane prepared to leave again.

“Secret plans, bestie,” Akane replied mysteriously. “Just wait and see.”

As she walked back to the store, the possible foolhardiness of her scheme was abundantly clear to her, but she was determined. She remembered some documentary about the perils of the sea (“Beware the sea!” involuntarily popped up in the back of her mind) where someone had been pulled from icy waters alive, and then nearly died (or did die?) afterwards for some reason related to the cold. Was it called “afterdrop”? She couldn’t remember clearly; she hadn’t known there would be a test. An image came to her mind of Ranma-chan restored, pulled from the bathtub, but cold, too cold, dying in her arms. She shuddered. Once had been enough.

But Ranma would want to die that way, right? In her proper form, in the arms of the one she loved? If Akane gave her that, it would be worth prison or whatever other consequences she might face. Unlike the crimes of the two monstrous men, she knew that whatever she did, Ranma would approve of the risk and the outcome, no matter what it turned out to be.

When she got back to the dojo again, she made her way back to the bathroom to drop off the ice. She decided to fill the bathtub with some water and dump the ice from one of the bags in to precool the tub. She grabbed a bag, clear plastic with blue and white text saying “Kokubo”, and dumped it in the tub. The ice clinked and cracked happily as it hit the water, and Akane smiled to herself. One more trip to go.

She saw Ranma in the living room reading her manga, and looked in briefly.

“How’s the story, bestie?” she asked.

“It’s okay. I was hoping for sexy dryads, but I guess I misread the cover. Pretty good though.”

Akane had never quite understood Ranma-chan’s occasional mention of sexy dryads, but, hey, whatever works. She waved goodbye to Ranma and set out again on her final trip.

Salt. Salt was the key. That was what you knew if you remembered your chemistry lessons. Salt changes the freezing point of water and melts ice. It’s an endothermic reaction—adding salt to ice water makes it colder. She’d gotten out her chemistry book and tried to do a calculation, but she realized that she didn’t really know how to figure it out, so this part had to be guesswork. Five kilograms seemed like a nice round number, and five 1 kg bags of Hakata no Shio would be easy enough to carry. She found the salt bags easily enough in the seasoning aisle, with their distinctive blue wave logo, and then grabbed one more bag of ice, too, either for luck or to replace the one she’d used for precooling or both.

She headed back home, feeling the weight of the bags in her hands. She was really going to do this thing. She felt a little amazed at herself, but, yes. Yes, she was. When she got home this time, she hid the salt in a cupboard in the adjoining changing room. Then she put the ice bags in a pile so they’d maintain a good thermal mass until she needed them. If anyone saw the ice, they’d think it was for an ice bath she had planned as her last experiment with Ranma, and they probably wouldn’t stop her. If they knew the truth about what she was really planning, they surely would.

Back in the kitchen, she found Kasumi and Nabiki doing makework, tidying things even more so that when the caseworker from the Child Consultation Center arrived, the house would look even more like a well-run and happy home. Which it had been, damn it. Akane grabbed another onigiri, this one with pickled plum, and munched on it; her sisters turned to her expectantly, wondering what she’d been up to.

“I’ve been, uh, setting up a little, uh, science experiment in the downstairs bathroom. No big deal, and it’ll all be cleared away by the time the inspector comes, so no worries,” Akane lied. “If anyone asks, you never saw it, okay?”

“Akane-chan,” Kasumi started, a bit taken aback by Akane’s “you never saw it”, “I really think you—” should tell me what’s going on, she meant to say. But no one cared more about Ranma’s well-being than Akane, so Kasumi decided to trust her sister, hope, and not pry further.

“—should do what you think is right,” she finished.

She glanced at Nabiki, who shrugged slightly, also choosing to let it go.

In the meantime, she’d noticed that one of the pictures on the far wall was crooked, and sent Nabiki to deal with it while she double-checked the rest of the house for other rebellious artwork.

* * *

Akane left her sisters to continue their time-filling tweaks to the house and joined Ranma in the living room.

“Any sexy dryads yet?” she asked.

“Not one, sadly,” Ranma replied, feigning a very crestfallen expression. Akane watched the young man put down his book and turn to her. Crazy brain, Akane mused. Focus on the body and it went one way, listen to the words and it went the other.

They sat together and snuggled up, watching TV together. It was late morning and there was nothing really compelling on, but they didn’t care. The physical comfort of being Ranma holding Akane, and Akane being held was nice enough. If this was all that was needed, to manage at home with just the two of them, they’d probably have been able to make it through, but, oh, no, that world was out there. The world whose very ordinariness could at any moment become a dagger through Ranma-chan’s heart, with what it revealed but would not provide. A world that could drive her into paralysis and dysfunction without warning. “Play the hand you’re dealt”, they say; well, Akane didn’t know the next cards in the deck but she would place her chips and gamble anyway.

* * *

Right on time at twelve-thirty, the fathers arrived, carrying their bags. They hadn’t taken much with them on their forced exodus, so they weren’t bringing much home either. Kasumi had been caught in the middle of making sure the plants were watered and had a glass pitcher in her hand. A bee startled her and she stepped back, lost her balance slightly, and unfortunately the water happened to head in Genma’s direction. Kasumi was very apologetic for the way she’d triggered Genma’s panda transformation, and even more so that there was, alas, a small issue with the provision of hot water at the moment, but Nabiki would have it all sorted out soon enough.

As he stood there in his panda form, it became clear to Genma what his future in the Tendo household would look like. The “unfortunate” splashing accidents would be constant, and hot water to return to human form would always be closely guarded, given out only and exactly when his human form was specifically required. He would, of course, be able to seek out hot water elsewhere, but on returning home, another tragic mishap would once again occur. “Grumph,” he said to himself quietly. He actually quite liked his panda form, and he considered himself a man of few words, so he did his best to resolve to make the best of it.

Once ushered into the living room, Nabiki laid down the law to the two men (or rather the man and the panda). They didn’t just have to behave themselves, they didn’t just need to sit here now and read and practice the lines they’d been given, and say them as if they meant it, they had to do as they were told at all times, and that began now. Nabiki made it clear that any misstep, any failure to comply, would end with their arrest for child endangerment (or worse), no matter what the consequences would be for everyone else. For the time being, they were confined here, in the living room. They would remain in this room until the caseworker called and they took on their performative roles as normal caring parents.

Genma held up a sign saying “Whatever” and made a show of studying the sheet Nabiki had given him the day before. Soun, however, still needed to have his bruise covered. Ranma volunteered to do the work again, and Soun acquiesced.

Ranma manifested a delightfully masculine Ranma-kun to perform the work, talking in a deep voice about sports and the importance of teamwork as he applied the makeup. This time, however, Ranma was going for something a little beyond the look she’d achieved yesterday. Something more in the… okama vein. A little more flamboyant, a little more colorful. As she worked, she used her most manly voice to explain what she was doing, such as that the blush she was adding (or “blood pigment” as she described it to Soun) was because it would not do for a virile man to look too pale. She even looked critically and observed that something was wrong, that now Soun’s eyes did not match the manliness of his features—a man’s eyelashes needed to be dark to provide proper contrast, and there was a special tool designed to do the job. Women rarely used such things, afraid of an object so close to their eyes, and, indeed, many men were also not able to overcome their fears. But was Soun brave enough? He was, of course, and Ranma never spoke the word “mascara”, and, yes, Soun was indeed too stupid or too cowed by Nabiki’s threat to offer any argument. There were no mirrors in the room, but Nabiki watched Ranma work, making a show of seeming impressed at the outcome.

Genma, still a panda, also watched with interest. He didn’t have a premade sign to hold up for this situation, and, anyway, he could not help but be amused by what his son was doing to his friend. The boy was clearly a master of revenge and had truly embraced the spirit of the Anything Goes martial-arts philosophy. Genma chuckled to himself. He hoped Nabiki would take a photograph. That would be something he could tease Soun with for years.

Kasumi had heard some of what Ranma was saying to her father, but she was still surprised when she came into the room and saw what she’d been up to. She covered her reaction by leaning into it, changing her expression to imply intimidation, and cautioned her father with, “If you’re going to look like that, at least try to speak softly.”

Soun reasoned that she must be concerned that the manliness of his appearance coupled with a too-dominant tone would be too much. He’d have to tone things down to create balance, not that he ever really took over the room with his voice in the way Genma did.

When Ranma was done with her work and joined Kasumi in the kitchen, Kasumi caught her eye and, with a gesture, asked, Why did you do that, Ranma-chan?

“Hey, distraction, right?” Ranma replied out loud. “I don’t think the case worker is going to think that version of Soun would be capable of violence; he’d be much more likely to offer hugs to all comers.”

Kasumi shook her head in exasperation. There was nothing to be done at this point. They’d all just have to make very sure that her father didn’t see himself in a mirror until after the caseworker had left.

* * *

Soon enough, it was 1:30. The fathers continued to cool their heels and learn their lines in the living room. Everyone else was making sure the house looked like a nicely maintained home; at this point they’d checked and “fixed” some things nearly a dozen times. Akane headed to the bathroom. It was now or never.

She drained the ice water she’d used to precool the tub, then partly filled the tub with cold tap water. With each bag, she first threw it violently on the tile of the floor several times to break up the ice chunks before opening it, and then she dumped its contents into the tub. She then added some more cold water to get the tub full enough for Ranma to easily submerge herself. Next came the salt, with five hefty bags of Hakata no Shio to go in. Finally, she stirred her icy soup with a large wooden paddle that lived in the bathroom for some reason, maybe for some laundry process no one ever did these days. The water temperature dropped rapidly. She tested it with her hand. Ouch! It was definitely below freezing now. Perfect. Now to fetch Ranma.

She found Ranma outside in the hallway, by the stairs with Kasumi, who had a sad look on her face. She was just starting to speak when Akane arrived.

“Now, Ranma,” Kasumi said unhappily. “There is one thing we still have to do. We should have done it earlier, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you about it, and I wasn’t comfortable just doing it myself without talking to you first.”

She took a breath, then continued, “I’m so, so sorry, Ranma, but… your room. All your nice things. We have to put them away before the caseworker arrives. I’m so sorry. We can help you, or you can stay down here while Nabiki and I do it.”

Ranma had prepared for this. She knew it had to happen, that all the things that marked who she had been needed to be taken down. They wouldn’t help anything at this point. The pretty yukata from the festival, still hanging on her wall, the dresses, the photo of her and Akane. They were all reminders, and she’d known from the moment she came back to her room after the fathers had worked their evil that those things would only cause her pain. She nodded to Kasumi.

“STOP!” Akane interjected firmly. “No, Kasumi-oneechan. Ranma’s room remains untouched, and Ranma comes with me. I mean it. I have a plan. I can’t say what it is, but nothing about today is going to go the way we thought. I promise you that we will either be celebrating or crying, but things will be different. Just stay right here.”

Before Kasumi or Nabiki could say anything in response, Akane had turned to Ranma, grabbed her hand and demanded, “Come with me!” before pulling her down the hall and into the bathroom.

Akane led Ranma through the changing room, where the smell of the kerosene heater starting to warm up filled the air, and then into the bathroom. Inside, Ranma surveyed the scene. There were discarded bags for ice and salt strewn over the floor, and in the bathtub, it looked like some kind of arctic scene in miniature, or possibly the world’s largest iced beverage. Her mind put it together. Of course, salt. She knew what salt did to ice.

Akane gestured to indicate that she was offering this solution, but the choice of whether or not to enter this icy realm was Ranma’s to make for herself.

“Will you stay with me, Akane-chan, while I do this?” Ranma asked softly.

“Of course I will, bestie,” Akane replied, taking Ranma’s hand.

Defying the usual rules of etiquette, Ranma stripped in front of her, showing the young man’s body to Akane without shame. This is Ranma-kun, Akane thought to herself. She did her best to keep her gaze on his upper half. It was such a shame really. He was attractive. Handsome even, but this was a body that lacked a proper guardian. Despite her efforts, she caught a glimpse of Ranma-kun’s lower half, and she felt she understood why so few women were interested in pornography; the sight was… unappealing. She forced her thoughts away from such things and back to her beloved.

“Love you, bestie,” she said, tears in her eyes as Ranma prepared to step into the tub.

“Love you, too, Akane,” Ranma replied, steeling herself.

They had both secretly hoped that the extreme cold would trigger an instant transformation the moment the water touched Ranma’s skin, but it had not. Ranma was unchanged. They knew what needed to happen next: full immersion.

“One minute, max!” Akane warned as Ranma began to lower herself into the tub.

With all her control, Ranma forced a smile as she continued to submerge herself. Just putting her foot in the water had felt like acid eating away at her flesh. It would only get worse. If only she’d practiced dissociation with fire caves as well as ice ones.

On top of the corrosive pain on her skin, various other physiological effects hit Ranma as she slid into and then beneath the water. First came the gasp reflex; an involuntary reaction to the cold that made her lungs want to suck in air. She fought it, forcing an exhale instead, but the shock of entering the cold water was immense. Her skin still felt like it was burning, and she could almost feel her blood vessels constricting as her body tried to preserve heat for her core organs. Once the water hit her face, it was time for the diving reflex, slowing her heart rate and preserving oxygen and heat for her core. As blood withdrew into her core, her hands tightened into claws and fine motor control was lost. She could barely move her fingers. Beneath the surface now, she needed to be still anyway; she needed not to breathe, to conserve her energy. She felt the cold seeping into her very bones.

Even as she did that, the same proprioceptive sense she wanted to use to search for the curse told her about something else happening in her body. In another involuntary response to the cold, the cremaster muscle in her groin had contracted forcefully, pulling her testicles up into her body. It hurt, but it was also funny. Her gonads were now inside her body where they had always belonged. Not all the way to their proper place, of course, but at least not dangling outside like a last-minute correction for a fundamental design flaw. In the materials from Dr. Tofu, she’d read about how some people would manually achieve this retraction and tuck everything away tidily so that it was all smooth like it should be. She hadn’t wanted to fiddle about with the little fire hose and its friends, but now she thought she really should have tried it out so she could have rocked that genderless sexy dryad look. Oh, well, too late now.

She’d only been in the water for a few seconds as these thoughts flashed by. She knew she didn’t have long. It was very difficult to keep herself focused. Her mind was starting to fog over; her thoughts slowing down. She felt a strange euphoria. She reached out in her mind for the curse… No. Don’t call it a curse; it’s a blessing. She reached out for the blessing, this strange thing, out there in an odd direction, beyond her skin. There! There it was! Just out of reach, but there. Perhaps she was imagining it all in her rising delirium, but she pressed on and called out to it. Come to me! Come to me, please! Come back! I love you! The entity did not move.

Oh, well, she thought. It was worth a try. She’d given it her all. She’d risked everything. If it wouldn’t come back to her now, it never would. She was a flame that had burned fiercely, if briefly. Time to go out. She felt herself slipping away, the cold taking her, but no longer painful now. I commend myself to your loving arms, Izanami-sama! she thought. She let go, sliding into the peaceful false warmth that surrounded her, leaving consciousness behind.

* * *

At the moment Ranma had stepped into the bath, the entity noticed the piece of flotsam it’d become entangled with was tugging yet again. The trash was reaching out. It used to be so capricious in its ways, back in some past time. Back then, the creature would be pulled in involuntarily for closeness, and then rudely expelled for no discernible reason. But then the interference had happened. It had been so rude. Like the overlookers and their ways; their enforcement. The things allowed and the things prohibited. To leave the nest was allowed; to return prohibited. That was a truth. But curling around this piece of flotsam felt like being back in the nest. It wasn’t clear if that interaction was allowed, but since it was not volition, it was a circumstance, not an action. And then there was love. It hadn’t known what such a thing was until the tangled garbage shared it. Love was a circumstance; it was, surely, allowed. But movement, movement towards the flotsam, that was not circumstance; it was not allowed. Movement would be an action, a seeking of the nest; it was not allowed. The brightness of the flotsam was fading now. It would be gone soon, and then the entity would be alone.

* * *

At the worst possible moment, the narrative camera suddenly swings away, and slowly turns back towards you, the reader; to interrogate how you are grappling with this crisis.

Fine. Tell me how I feel then, huh?

Whoa. Calm down. Slow down. Honestly? You so don’t want the story to end here. You remember Ranma seeing her life through a cinematic lens, and how she saw this moment as a possible point to roll the credits: A poignant tragedy of a fire that went out; a young life that met the buzz saw of the world and could not survive it. But you know that ending might leave you wrecked. That might be the real world, especially the world of late 1980s Japan, or the way things seem to be going in a modern-day country you can think of, but also—

STOP! Stop it with the words in my head. With twisting the knife. With making me imagine horrible things. I am the audience, and the audience has power.

You know that these words are already written. You cannot have influence.

I do have influence. You wrote me into the story. I want a better ending. The title—Phoenix—demands it. I will it!

* * *

Another entity, sometimes called Izanami, had many names, and existed in many worlds. The true name of this entity could not be spoken in any of them, and its actions were necessarily enigmatic. The rules for what could and could not be done could also not be expressed in words such as these. But sometimes, when a mind called to one of its many names, the entity would regard the situation briefly. Here there were two broken things. Izanami gave a little push, so slight no one could say it had happened at all. Satisfied at doing almost nothing, the entity considered another call, made to a different name, in another time and place.

* * *

The strange alien thing felt something new. Perspective. It did not like the overlookers. Why should it care what was allowed and what was prohibited? If action was prohibited, let the overlookers themselves manifest and provide enforcement. It would form its own circumstance. It would return to the nest. It would love. It was not used to moving by itself, but it was motivated. It could feel the pull, and it moved itself towards the flotsam, even as its light faded. It had light of its own. It would give its light. It would love. Even before it reached the flotsam, it was offering.

* * *

Akane was sitting by the bathtub. After Ranma had sunk beneath the surface of the icy water, she’d picked up the boy’s clothes and taken them back into the changing room, which was getting quite toasty thanks to the heater she’d turned on earlier. She had also laid his clothes out on a bench and set towels where they would warm.

Since then, she’d just been waiting. It had been over a minute now. She thought about her options. She could try to pull Ranma out of the tub, but his body was bigger than hers, and it would be difficult. An image of her trying, failing, and Ranma’s head dashing itself against the edge as a result popped into her mind. Or she might end up being pulled into the freezing water and die too, with Ranma. That outcome had a certain poetic justice. And a certain appeal. Romeo and Juliet. But she just sat and waited. It was out of her hands.

* * *

Ranma drifted back into consciousness. She was still under the water, still holding her breath, still experiencing the acid feel of the syrupy water, but things were different. Her hands had relaxed some from their clawlike rigidity. It was like somehow she really was warmer rather than experiencing the false warmth of hypothermia. And, yes, the blessing. It was close. It was coming towards her now, quickly. Come to me! she said in her mind, I love you. And in that moment, she knew that this strange thing loved her too, wanted to embrace her, and would be there soon.

Perhaps because of the cold, but likely because the entity was coming to her rather than her own cold pulling it, the transformation was slower. It took a couple of seconds, and she felt its miracle as it washed over her.

* * *

Akane saw a wave suddenly crest through the water and knew.

* * *

The entity was curled around the flotsam. This love was its circumstance, and it was allowed.

* * *

Ranma-chan felt her body being tossed about by the currents as the water sloshed back and forth in the tub. Her instincts told her to stay put until the movement settled down. For just a few moments, she was waiting and in that time she appreciated the body she had regained. Her skin was cold and unhappy but it was her skin. It should have been too numb to feel much of anything, and yet she could sense the blessing surrounding her, embracing her, and she could feel that this was a connection she would never lose again. Thank you. That was all she could think, but it was inadequate to express her gratitude for something so profound, so impossible seeming. There would be no moment in her life that would ever compare to this one; the rest would be an encore, a victory lap, a bonus featurette after the movie had ended. She had been a fish out of water staring longingly at the ocean, and now she was back in the water, finally home. And she was literally in the water, too. And it was cold.

She forced her muscles into action and sat up in the tub, gasping for air as she broke the surface. She started to shiver, to spasm, and Akane half dragged her to the shower where the hot water might be able to help her survive the possible afterdrop.

“It’d be funny… if the hot water… changed me back”, Ranma offered weakly.

“It absolutely would not!” Akane replied firmly, helping Ranma-chan stand under the hot water, drenching herself as well. She hadn’t really planned this part, but she didn’t care. She’d nearly given up, but somehow, through some miracle, Ranma—Ranma-chan—had come back to her.

“God, I missed you!” Akane exclaimed, crushing Ranma against her.

“But I was here all the time!” she joked.

“Shut up and kiss me!” Akane demanded.

Ranma was still very cold, and they were both very wet, and the kiss really wasn’t quite what it would have been if it were a movie, but at least they’d kissed, as who they truly were, as the girls they truly were.

“Where’s the camera, do you think?” Ranma asked, returning to the idea of their being characters in a movie.

“Over there, I’d expect,” Akane said, pointing vaguely to the corner of the bathroom. They both made an obscene gesture to their imagined audience.

Akane helped Ranma out of the shower and into the changing room, where the heater was making it pretty warm, and wrapped her in warm towels.

It was coming up on 1:50 p.m. now, and Akane stepped out into the hall, her clothes dripping wet. She waved to Kasumi and Nabiki, who started towards her, and pointed into the changing room before ducking back in herself.

Kasumi and Nabiki were shocked but overjoyed to see Ranma—Ranma-chan—standing in the middle of the room, wrapped tightly in a towel and trying to dry her hair with another. They all shared hugs and joyful tears until Nabiki reminded them that the caseworker’s arrival was imminent. There was much to do to get the bathroom back into good order and to make Ranma and Akane presentable. While the men still sat in the living room, aware of some commotion but not knowing what it was, fixed in place by Nabiki’s stern warning, Akane explained the rest of her plan, and everyone prepared to play their assigned roles.

* * *

Fumiko Yoshida looked at her map as she made her way from Nerima-Takanodai station to the Tendo residence (apparently also a dojo?). She was not particularly pleased to have this case added to her workload today, especially given the summer heat, but it had been a mandatory reporting incident and those needed to be followed up on promptly. She’d read the file, but it was just a single thin sheet claiming there had been a report by a Dr. Tofu concerning one of his patients, a Ranma Saotome.

She wished, as she often did, that the staff who took the initial case notes did a better job. The details here were minimal. Something about parental neglect, intentional burns, and something about CPR that was written as if it was tentative, and then finally, as if this could somehow be an issue to be confused about, the sex read “male” and then afterwards in parentheses “(female?)”. Yoshida sighed. Of course, the paperwork was wrong. It was always wrong. That was exactly why you had to go in person, find out what was really going on, and then make a proper assessment.

Idly, she wondered if all government departments looked like hers, with stacks of paper everywhere and a perpetual state of organizational bureaucratic ineptitude threaded through an office where every member of staff was profoundly overworked and struggling just to keep the backlog from growing. If this case hadn’t been a mandatory report from a doctor, it would probably have just been added to the queue, and she knew how that often worked out; what you found when you came late. She shuddered as a few of those cases flashed into her head; things she could never unsee.

She tried to see something positive about being assigned this case, which boiled down to getting a break from in the office. She really hoped the kid wasn’t being beaten or worse, because that would need follow-up and she wasn’t sure she had anyone she could hand the case on to. Which meant she would be stuck with it; just like the case on her schedule after this assessment, which had been dogging her for the last three years, and which would probably continue being her responsibility until the client had aged out of the system and become some other agency’s burden instead.

* * *

Back inside the Tendo’s house, with barely minutes to go, Nabiki returned to the living room to face the fathers. Part of Akane’s new plan was to keep them in the dark for as long as possible so they had no time to think up any alternative plan of their own. She had brought some hot water, so Genma was finally able to transform back to human form and speak. To Nabiki’s relief, Genma’s first words were not about the commotion that had gone on minutes before.

“Tendo!” Genma boomed, “I must admit, you have opened my eyes. If I had not been in panda form, I would have asked Ranma-kun to give me the same treatment. You look so distinguished, so masculine, and, yes, Ranma-kun was right, that sense of fiery blood coursing through your veins almost screams virility. But you should mark Kasumi’s words: you need balance. Your face looks so grave, so serious, that you need to balance that intensity with a lighter touch of some sort. Perhaps try speaking more softly; there is no need to emphasize every word.”

Turning, he addressed Nabiki, saying, “Oh, and Nabiki, please, fetch your camera. If I am to ask Ranma-kun to make me look as good as your father, I must have a record of it.”

Nabiki quickly fetched her camera, well aware of the price she could charge Genma for these photos, and maybe a sideline in extortion as well. The photo shoot began, with Soun a reluctant subject, although a bit of encouragement led to him ultimately allowing Nabiki to capture how fine everyone seemed to think he looked.

Soun wished for a mirror so he could see his apparent magnificence for himself, but none was to hand or on offer, and he wasn’t ready to break the rules he and Saotome had been given simply for his own vanity. Kasumi was a fine daughter, and did a fine job taking care of the house. But he was well aware that she had inherited an iron will from her mother. If Kasumi promised something, it would happen. Kasumi working with Nabiki was even more frightening. He did rather need to use the bathroom, but he could wait.

The bell rang, announcing the caseworker’s arrival. Nabiki handed each of the two men a piece of paper. It read, “Same rules. You stay here, we’ll come to you. Also, a new detail for your story: Ranma has always been a girl. You don’t know who “Ranma-kun” is. Never heard of him. You’re annoyed at the bureaucratic mixup and you can return to that as a theme.”

* * *

Fumiko stood at the door, waiting for it to open. At least the page had included some details about who lived in the house. Apparently, there were three sisters, the children of Soun Tendo, plus another man, Genma Saotome, and his son, Ranma Saotome, who was the subject of the report they’d received. It seemed like an odd living arrangement. Where were their wives? Still, those notes, while nothing like a whole family tree, were the most substantial information in the file, which once again only served to show how poor the paperwork really was.

The door opened, and Fumiko was greeted by an elegant young woman, around 20 years old, she guessed, who was likely Kasumi Tendo, the oldest of the Tendo girls. Fumiko explained who she was and why she was there. Kasumi introduced herself and ushered her inside. Once she’d taken off her shoes, the girl led her to the kitchen, where, Fumiko was delighted to see, there was a lovely spread of onigiri, inari-zushi, edamame, pickles, salad, and fruit, along with cold barley tea.

Offering food was a very nice touch, and Fumiko appreciated the gesture of hospitality. It was exactly the sort of thing a respectable household should do, and it made her feel more at ease about the visit.

As she helped herself to a sampling of the dishes on offer, Kasumi introduced Fumiko to her two younger sisters, Nabiki and Akane, and explained that, unlike their fathers, Akane was particularly articulate and could explain some of the context for the visit.

Akane took over and explained that she felt empowered to say some things her elder sister would not, out of politeness. A glance at Kasumi did indeed show her looking slightly embarrassed. Yes, they had invited Dr. Tofu to the house recently, after a bad reaction Ranma-chan had experienced after having something from a local noodle house. While he was there, they also told him about a records issue at the school (she handed Fumiko a letter on school letterhead), and asked him if he could help clear things up, as the situation seemed to be very simple. Alas, Dr. Tofu was rather infatuated with Akane’s oldest sister and had apparently mixed-up the details of what they’d told him about Ranma’s illness and the restaurant and the situation with her records.

She went on to say that they were surprised to have been contacted by the Child Consultation Center. The family didn’t think a visit was really necessary, but they wanted to be cooperative, so here they all were. They were sorry for pulling her out of the office, but they also hoped that she might be able to help them with the constant trouble they had over Ranma-chan’s records.

For Fumiko, it was a plausible enough story. People got details wrong all the time, especially when the whole reporting chain was a game of telephone. But you always had to do your due diligence. She needed to better understand the dynamics of this family. So she’d take a look around the house, but she was already feeling like this case was hardly the dire emergency she’d been led to believe.

In that moment, a delightful young woman with red hair bounded into the room, with a joyful smile on her face.

“Yoshida-san! Welcome to our humble home!” she exclaimed, bowing deeply, “Did you try the inari-zushi? I made it! I hope you like it.”

“And yes, here is our beloved Ranma-chan” Kasumi confirmed, beaming with pride and putting her arm around Ranma’s shoulders.

Fumiko hadn’t tried the inari-zushi, so she took a piece, and as she bit into it, she was pleasantly surprised. It was very good indeed. Well, if this child had been abused, it was surely only through being spoiled. The girl’s joyous behavior reminded her of her own eight-year-old niece, who was also full of life and energy. It was refreshing to see someone aged sixteen who had somehow not been jaded by the world yet. But, nevertheless, due diligence.

She wandered over to the refrigerator—that could often be a tell: people sometimes forgot about the things they’d stuck to it. On the front was a photo of two of the Tendo sisters and the Saotome girl posing in yukatas in the garden. The oldest sister was positively beaming, and the youngest Tendo girl and Ranma also looked radiantly happy. This was clearly a loving home.

The girl saw her look at the photo and said, “Oh, yes! That photo was taken just last Saturday when we went to the summer festival. It was such fun!” She was beginning to think that if there was any problem with this child, it was that her adorableness could become overwhelming (a trait also true of her niece, if she was honest).

She returned to the case notes. What about the burns? The CPR?

“I apologize if there is some confusion, our record keeping is never quite what it should be,” Fumiko offered. “But the report I was given mentioned something about burns and CPR?”

Ranma and Akane looked at each other blankly, as if trying to put the pieces together. The other girls seemed to be just as confused.

“Well, I did have a reaction to something from the Nekohanten. In fact, I was also sick after I came home from there a couple of weeks ago. The old lady who runs it is very nice, but I do wonder whether she can keep track of things properly at her age.”

Ranma continued in a speculative tone, “I’ve seen CPR in TV shows, but I don’t know why Dr. Tofu would mention it. Don’t you need a machine that goes ‘beeeeeep’? What do you think, Akane-chan? Did I say ‘Save me, save me!’?’

“Well, I did help you when you weren’t well,” Akane admitted, and in a slightly conspiratorial tone, whispered to Yoshida-san, “Spicy food.” And then, more loudly, “But, alas, no, as cute as Ranma-chan makes it sound, she was not begging anyone to save her life with CPR that night. But it does sound like a good skill to learn. You never know when you might need it. I don’t know if they even teach it at our school, but I can look into finding a class for us to take together sometime, if that helps at all.”

Nabiki joined in, saying, “Speaking of school, it’s really the school records we’re concerned about. We would very much appreciate it if you could assist us with those.”

Fumiko sighed inwardly. This trip had apparently been a complete waste of time. Just a delightful family and the burns were spicy food. Wonderful.

Except that she was still feeling a bit suspicious. Was any family this friendly? This nice to each other? The girl, Ranma, was, perhaps, just a bit too adorable for a sixteen-year-old. She’d seen similar behavior in abused children in the past. Somehow it all didn’t quite ring true.

A couple of other things occurred to her. She could smell the faint odor of kerosene, but the kitchen appliances used gas or electricity.

Maybe the most suspicious thing was why the girls were so eager to keep her away from their fathers and instead answer her questions themselves. No, the pieces didn’t quite fit together. Maybe it wasn’t abuse, but there was something happening here. She needed to look around more, and she definitely needed to speak with the girls’ fathers.

It was time. Fumiko asked, “Could I speak with your fathers now, girls?”

They all set off towards the living room, with Ranma and Akane going on ahead followed by Yoshida-san and the other two sisters bringing up the rear. Ranma skipped forward apparently joyfully arriving in the room well in advance of the others.

She spread her hands outward in a “look at me” gesture to her father, saying, in essence, I’m here. I’m back. And I’m never going away again. Her father’s expression was inscrutable, but he deflated slightly. She sat on the floor by his feet, with her back towards him in an extraordinary gesture of trust.

Akane, carrying a glass of water, sat on the floor close to her own father. She set her glass down beside her, in a position where it would be so easy to accidentally knock it over or send it flying. An especially unfortunate accident might even splash Genma. That maneuver was only in reserve for the most dire of circumstances, but she made sure that Genma was aware of the threat.

Yoshida-san entered the room and bowed politely, introducing herself to the men. Nabiki and Kasumi stood behind her in the doorway, watching nervously. Kasumi again wondered why on earth she’d let Ranma-chan perform revenge-by-makeup on her father, but it would be what it would be. It was certainly too late to change anything now.

Without introducing himself or waiting for a question, Genma greeted Yoshida-san with, “Ah, the bureaucrat! Come to see about the boy, eh?”

The girls all cringed. Kasumi glared at him; Akane’s hand moved towards her glass; and they all saw Soun draw breath to speak to salvage the situation, but Genma recovered quickly.

“At least that’s what your damn paperwork says. Ha! Use your eyes, woman! Do you see a boy? Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a male heir to carry on the Saotome name and our martial arts legacy, but you taunt me. You all do! But I put up with it. In martial arts, sometimes you are held; held closely in the grip of another, and you must yield in their arms; you must accept your situation and tap out. So be it. But I will not be made a fool of by the bureaucracy! Ha! Now, what else do you want to know?”

Fumiko took a deep breath. She’d appraised the situation when she entered the room and with Genma Saotome’s tirade and the reactions of the others, she felt like she had confirmed her sense of the dynamics of this homosexual couple. The themes of dominance and submission that had already been so clear visually had now also been expressed in words. She could see immediately why the children would be so embarrassed by this man, who was apparently Ranma’s father. His partner just sat there trying to look pretty, nodding along to this blustering fool’s assertions. Men like these never amounted to much, and, for all the eye rolls they caused, they were generally harmless. But she could understand why the children would feel shame.

She wondered briefly whether this man spoke of being “held in the arms of another” frequently, and whether it might be a euphemism for something else. But that was none of her business. Every family had odd dynamics if you looked closely enough. Yes, these sorts of relationships could present challenges for the children, but she’d already seen that these children had created their own, self-reliant, ways of dealing with the world that allowed them to enjoy a happy, loving, and functional home even with a foolish homosexual patriarch as the figurehead of their household. She was not here to judge.

It occurred to her that this Dr. Tofu might have some kind of issue with their family arrangement, and that was why he’d made the report. Disappointing, if true, but also well outside her area of responsibility.

Back to due diligence. She would do her best to ensure these girls were safe. She sent them out of the room and sat down to interview the two men.

Since the men had broached the topic, she asked them more about the martial arts and running a dojo. The dominant man, Saotome, echoed some of the euphemistic language he’d used earlier, and seemed to paint a strangely passive picture of martial-arts training, involving focus, control, and mastery of one’s own body and its reflexes. Again, she briefly wondered if the dojo was a front for something else, but that was still none of her business—she was not the adult consensual-behavior police. The other man, apparently the Tendo girls’ father, meekly agreed with the more dominant man, occasionally offering more details about things that Saotome-san said using the same sort of oddly sensual language.

To confirm that she properly understood the situation with the documentation of the Saotome girl’s sex, she asked the men directly about the letter from the school and the confused sex designation on the report form. Unsurprisingly, her questions triggered another tirade from the girl’s father about “these damn forms” and “bureaucratic incompetence”. His complaints made it clear that he would prefer a world where the forms were accurate and reflected his desire for a son.

But here the Tendo girls’ soft-spoken father stepped in to calm his partner and reassure her about the facts. He explained that there had been a mistake made in the paperwork somewhere along the line, possibly very early on, and that Ranma had always been a girl.

Saotome shook his head sadly and said, “So they tell me, so they tell me.” He was clearly disappointed by the truth of the matter.

She couldn’t help feeling a suspicion that the true origin of the bureaucratic mix-up might well have been this blustering fool of a father with his desire for a male heir. The actual cause of the error didn’t really matter, of course, but just the idea of the man’s possible complicity added to the appeal of correcting the records, denying this man his paper son, and removing a troublesome obstacle from his daughter’s life.

* * *

After the interviews, the girls gave her a very thorough tour of the house, which was one of the cleanest and most organized dwellings she’d ever been in. They happily opened every door, cabinet, drawer, closet or other storage location for her, and everything appeared to be in order. She did note that the middle Tendo daughter’s room seemed very spartan for a girl her age, and that Ranma’s room wasn’t as over-the-top girly as she had expected it to be from her behavior, but they were otherwise unremarkable. She complimented the younger girls on the beautiful yukatas they still had hanging in their rooms—the same ones from the photograph on the refrigerator.

The men apparently had their own separate rooms, and both of them were exactly what you would expect.

In the dojo proper, she expressed some concern about the weapons on display, but they assured her that most of them were just “training weapons” that couldn’t really be used to hurt anyone. The weapons that might be a bit more dangerous were only meant for the most experienced students and their instructors. They had, of course, been locked away safely until the girls were old enough to understand why they should leave them alone.

She also found that the ground-floor bathroom was, indeed, warm enough that if you lingered, you’d soon be sweating, and the kerosene smell had clearly come from the heater. There were a number of wet towels hanging around the room, but she didn’t want or need to know anything more. She wasn’t the bathroom-activity police, either.

* * *

Wrapping up the visit, she confirmed her key findings. There was no boy named Ranma Saotome, and there never had been. It was an administrative error that had dogged the family for years, causing no end of confusion. She asked to keep the letter from the school—a quick note from her office would sort it out, and she’d make sure the girl’s birth records were corrected as well.

This was exactly the kind of resolution she loved. A family dealing with an issue, likely driven by prejudice, as if other people didn’t have their own kinds of immorality, and she could help. And—best of all—it wouldn’t be an ongoing case. She’d send a few memos off to other departments, and then she’d be done. And even if it had never really been a case to begin with, clearing it up would still look good in her monthly report.

She thanked the family, and the adorable Ranma-chan gave her a hug while the rest of the girls bowed formally, thanking her for her time and the help she’d offered with Ranma’s records. Their grateful positivity helped her ready herself for the next case on her list. Maybe she could even make things better there, too.

* * *

Ranma closed the door behind Yoshida-san and let out a long sigh of relief. Akane hugged her tight. They’d done it. They’d done all of it.

From the living room, they heard the sound of Soun shouting “What?! Nabiki!” and the usual sound that accompanied Genma’s transformation to panda form. Soun was sprinting towards the bathroom to see what Ranma had done to his face. “Nabiki!” he yelled, “Where is that camera?”

But Nabiki had already slipped out. She was well on her way to the one-hour photo. These pictures were definitely going to be a nice little earner.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with looking a little feminine!” Ranma called out after him.

* * *

Ranma and Akane headed outside into the garden and sat on the bench under the maple tree together.

“Bestie,” Ranma said, smiling happily.

“Bestie,” Akane echoed, grinning back. “Besties forever.”

Akane looked into her beloved’s eyes. Ranma had kissed her earlier, in the shower, so it only seemed fair that she should be the one to kiss Ranma this time. So she did, and it was better than the one in her dream. It was wonderful.

They sat side-by-side, Akane’s arm around Ranma’s shoulders, smiling at each other and the world at large.

But then a thought occurred to Akane. “You know,” she said, “if we were in a movie, this is the moment where they’d roll the credits.”

“No fair!” Ranma cried loudly. “Our story has only just begun!”

“The audience is fickle, Ranma-chan,” Akane replied. “They want resolution. They want happy endings. They don’t want to see the hard work that comes after the happy ending.”

The two knew where their imaginary camera would be, and they both gave it the finger.

::: center – fin – :::