Ranma Satome: Transgender Warrior

Chapter 6

Ranma and Akane argued with one another as they walked home after another eventful day at Furinkan High School. "I don't know how many more battles the school will be able to take. You've got to stop fighting so much," said Akane.

"Kuno started things by attacking Ryoga, and I just got caught in the middle."

"Well, did you stop to think why they were fighting?"

"It was because of that big stupid statue Ryoga brought for…" Ramna caught herself before telling Akane the statue had been for her; Kuno got wind of the gift, and that's why he'd attacked. "…for a souvenir or something, I guess."

"That's your problem: you just jump in without knowing what's going on and expect a fight to solve everything. If you tried talking for a change, we might have some peace around here"

"Believe me, Akane," said Ranma as she opened the door to the Tendo household, "I'd do anything to get a little peace..." She trailed off as she saw Kasumi having tea with two guests in the living room.

"Greetings, future son-in-law," said Cologne as she put down her cup.

"Nihao, Ranma!" said Shampoo as she ran to glomp onto her flabbergasted fiancé.

"But... but..." sputtered Ranma, "it's only been a week! How did you get to Joketsuzoku and back so fast?"

"Shampoo stay in Japan and send letter to great-grandmother. She say Ranma is boy since Ranma has boy part!"

"I caught a flight here to make sure you drop all this nonsense about being a girl and marry my great-granddaughter," said Cologne.

"Ranma, what's going on here?" asked Soun as he came into the room with Genma. "The only person you're marrying is Akane."

Akane had been amused by Ranma's predicament, but the reminder that they were still engaged made her shift into attack mode. "There's no way I'm marrying a jerk who goes around China picking up girls!"

"Come on, Akane, you know I'm not like that," pleaded Ranma as her last ally in the room deserted her. "I got engaged to Shampoo by accident."

"Indeed you did," added Genma. "We're in Japan now, so these crazy women have no power..." Genma gulped as Cologne shot him and icy stare, and he shut up.

The phone rang at that moment, and Kasumi got up to answer it. Everyone else focused on Cologne as she spoke: "In our village, Ranma will have no choice but to become a man. Here in Japan, you clearly haven't been able to set him on the right path." She opened her hand to reveal Ranma's bottle of hormone pills.

"Hey! Where did you get those?" Ranma remembered she'd showed them to Shampoo, and the Amazon girl looked contrite.

"Shampoo sorry, Ranma."

"Yeah, sure. Give those back!" yelled Ranma as she pushed away from Shampoo and lunged at Cologne, but the Matriarch deftly withdrew the pills from her.

"Ranma, you've shamed our family again by betraying your manhood," said Genma gravely.

"Uh... I was holding those for a friend of mine," said Ranma lamely as she frantically tried to get the pills from Cologne.

Kasumi returned to the room holding the phone receiver. "There's a boy named Mousse asking for you, Ranma, and he won't say if he wants to kill you."

Ranma sighed. "Put him on speakerphone so we can all hear what he wants." Kasumi did so, and Ranma said, "Hi, Mousse, what's up?"

"Ranma you need to meet me right away! Cologne is coming to Japan to make you marry Shampoo!"

"Err... she's in the room listening right now."

"Shampoo love Ranma!" said the Amazon as she stood up ready to smash the phone.

"Calm down, great-granddaughter," said Cologne, "You rejected Mousse years ago, and by Amazon law he is rejected forever."

"Will someone please tell me what's going on here?" said Soun as tears flowed from his eyes.

"I refuse to give up! Ranma, we need craft a secret plan to beat Cologne!"

"That'll be pretty tough when she can hear you as well as I can."

"Oh right... come alone to the Nerima fairgrounds tomorrow afternoon, and I'll find you. Don't look for me because I'll be in disguise!"

"Foolish boy, he can't help you," said Cologne as the line went dead. She hopped aside as Ranma made another fruitless dive at her hormone pills. "Come with me if you want to earn these back." They left Genma to fill the Tendos in on what was going on.

Outside, the Amazon matriarch casually knocked down a dead tree branch with her staff, chopped it into kindling with her bare hands, and started a fire by rubbing two sticks together at blinding speed. "Once you marry Shampoo, I will personally teach you the secret training techniques of our tribe. This is but a small sampling of our heritage." She tossed some nuts into the fire and said, "Behold, Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken: The Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire Fist!" Her hands blurred as she darted them into the flames and returned clutching the chestnuts. "Practice this and you might be fast enough to get these pills." The old woman cackled and tossed a bag of uncooked chestnuts at Ranma's feet. "Let's go, Shampoo."

The old woman left, but Shampoo lagged behind. "Shampoo very sorry, Ranma. Shampoo not know great-grandmother take Ranma's pills."

"Well maybe you should have thought about that before you told her," grumbled Ranma. "I can't afford to get more because our fight at the mall cost me all the money I had, and Pop won't give me an allowance now that he knows what I'll spend it on."

"Ranma no need pills. Ranma be man and marry Shampoo."

"Are you as deaf as Mousse?" yelled Ranma. That seemed to really upset Shampoo, but Ranma didn't stop: "I don't want to be a man, and I don't want to marry you!"

Shampoo left, and Ranma turned her attention to the fire. She'd do this stupid training and get her pills back from that old ghoul! Reducing her problems to a martial arts challenge made Ranma feel comfortable, and she started to practice grabbing chestnuts. She was quick enough to grab one or two, but she wasn't fast enough to get a whole handful like Cologne had before her hands hurt too much. Once her hands were burnt too badly to go on, she stuck them in the koi pond to cool off and decided this was enough practice for today. She had to admit it was a good training technique, and she was pretty sure she'd eventually master it. The problem was that she knew it would be harder to concentrate every day she went without taking hormones.

She went back inside where the excitement caused by the Amazons had finally died down. Soun and Genma were sitting at the table and gave Ranma a stern look as she entered. "Ranma my boy," began Genma, "I had hoped the chance to marry one of Soun's fine daughters would cure you of your inexplicable desire to become a girl. It seems that more extreme methods are needed."

"Indeed," said Soun as he nodded. "I hoped that sending you to school with Akane would make the two of you bond, but you'll never grow to love each other until you become more of a man."

"So now we're sending you to St. Brutus' School for Boys," continued Genma. "There you will endure torture beyond your wildest dreams from your fellow classmates if your mind, body, and soul are not 100 percent masculine."

Ranma's jaw dropped. An all boy's middle school had been hard enough to survive, but high school after she'd already been on hormones... what if they didn't have private showers for gym? "No Pop, please, anything but that! I'll be a man! Oh you just watch what a manly man I can be!" She dropped her voice and walked with exaggerated machismo. "Ha ha ha! I think I'll go drink a six pack of beer, start a fight for the fun of it, and kiss every pretty babe I see 'cuz I'm a man, and that's what a man does!"

"You aren't fooling anyone, Ranma" deadpanned Soun. "You start at St. Brutus after winter break."

Ranma dropped the act, trudged upstairs, and collapsed on her bedroll. Life was so unfair! She did her best to be an honorable martial artist and got nothing but grief. Why had she been so stupid to tell everything to Shampoo? Now she was going to be in even worse shape at an all boy's school with a body that's half girl. Maybe she should just forget about taking hormones and let her body get more masculine; it probably wouldn't take too long since she was still going through puberty. What little she had for curves would melt away, and she'd start growing hair all over her body... Just thinking about it was too much; Ranma choked up and tried to hold back the tears, but she couldn't stop them from coming.

It was the first time Ranma had let a few tears slip out since she was a little kid, and the pain she'd buried in all those years started to bubble up to the surface. It had hurt every time she saw a girl her age looking pretty and having fun. It had hurt every time her father called her "boy" and talked about how she had to be a "man among men." It had hurt to get rejected by Ryoga and see him fall in love with someone else. It had hurt to be pulled away from Ucchan so much that she couldn't even let herself think about her oldest friend anymore. As all this started breaking through the floodgates, Ranma panicked; if she let it all out now, it might overwhelm her. That would be suicide with all the trouble ahead, so she pushed it all back down yet again.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Ranma quickly composed herself. "It's me," said Akane. "Can I come in?"

"Sure, no problem," Ranma said as confidently as she could. "What's up?"

"Ranma, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong... well, Pop's sending me to an all boy's school, but I can deal with that."

"You don't have to act so macho about it."

"What do you mean? I'm just confident, that's all. Girls can be confident too."

"You're hiding your emotions because you think they'll make you look weak. I know that's something guys do because dad did it when my mom died. He didn't cry at all back then, and losing mom just made him act even more stoic. He might have thought it helped us for him to be strong, but he showed so little emotion I thought he was angry about something. It seems silly now, but I thought he was angry at me. Kasumi figured out what was wrong after a year and had daddy explain things to me. He was never a better father to me than when he let me see him cry that day, and he's never held back since –although he does go a little overboard sometimes."

Akane smiled as she cried a little herself from the memory. "Bad stuff happens to everyone, Ranma, so stop acting like a stupid boy and tell me why you were crying."

"Just... everything. I can't put it all into words. It's been really hard wanting to be a girl my whole life, and now that I'm close to getting there I might end up going backwards. I feel stupid for even hoping I could do it; now everything's going to get wrecked, and I'll be even more miserable because I got a taste of what I'm missing."

"That sounds awful."

"Yeah... so now what? Thanks for trying to help, but I don't still feel bad."

"Well then let more of it out."

"You couldn't understand what it's like, so what's the point?"

"You haven't had your mother die, so how could you understand what that's like? All the same, I felt a little better telling you about it."

"Somebody having their mom die is a normal kind of thing to feel sad about; when people hear about it they all tell you they're sorry. The stuff I've been through isn't normal; if people heard about it they'd think I'm a freak."

"I promise I won't."

"You can't promise that; nobody knows how they'll feel about something before they hear it. Besides, you've already called me a pervert before."

"I'm sorry about that, Ranma. I really am."

"Well... thanks, but maybe we could talk some other time."

Ranma reached out to shake hands, and Akane noticed the burns for the first time. "Ranma, what happened?"

"Oh, I just burned them a little with a special training technique."

"Let me get some ointment."

"Come on, you don't have to make a big deal out of it," said Ranma, but she gave in without too much protest. Akane helped make Ranma's hands feel better, and by the time she was done Ranma realized she wasn't feeling too bad on the inside either. She went to bed and managed to get a good night's rest.

Sparring with Pop the next morning, Ranma let her father score a few hits as she chatted with him, "Wow, Pop! You're really fighting great today! Say, how about if I manage to beat you I don't have to go to St. Brutus? If you win... I'll do your laundry for a month!"

"No deal, Ranma. I need my son back, and I learned the hard way you should never gamble more than you can stand to lose."

"Hey Pop, I'm right here! Your son isn't going anywhere."

Genma gave her a hard look. "I wish I could believe that, but I can't."

That took the wind out of Ranma's sails; she went through the rest of the morning feeling guilty and angry at the same time. Going to Furinkan, the school never looked better. She was morose thinking of all the little things she'd miss about the place. After school let out, she wandered over to the Nerima fairgrounds. She didn't really have much hope Mousse could help solve anything, but at least meeting him might make her forget about her troubles. On the way there, she thought back to when she'd met him last year.

Ranma and Shampoo skipped along the treetops of the vast bamboo forest surrounding Joketsuzoku. The Amazons let Ranma roam outside the village since because they knew he'd never leave without his father, and they kept Genma on a much tighter leash. Still, the breathtaking mountain vista made it impossible for Ranma to think of himself as a captive. Shampoo lead him to the cliff that overlooked the entire valley, and Ranma could just barely make out the village miles below.

After barely a moment to take in the view, Ranma was surprised as an Amazon boy in a white robe leaped up and hugged him close. "Shampoo! My love!"

"Ummm... Shampoo's over there," Ranma said awkwardly.

The boy put on a thick pair of glasses, reappraised Ranma, and knocked him away with blow that caught Ranma completely off guard. "You're the man who wants to take Shampoo away from me!"

"Mousse just childhood friend want marry Shampoo," explained the Amazon girl.

"I've loved you my entire life!" declared Mousse.

"Stupid Mousse always embarrass Shampoo, so Ranma better husband. Shampoo love Ranma."

"What are you doing here?" Ranma asked Mousse angrily.

"I've followed you to this peak far from where Cologne can protect you. Here I'll win Shampoo's hand in marriage by proving I'm stronger than this outsider!" shouted Mousse, and a storm of edged weapons flew from his sleeves toward Ranma.

Ranma was ready this time, and Mousse's weapons only cut bamboo trees. A seemingly endless barrage of projectiles flew at Ranma, and he knew he couldn't keep dodging forever; it seemed like Mousse was already reading Ranma's moves to come even closer to scoring a deadly hit with each throw. To make matters worse, the Amazon boy was clearly more experienced fighting in this terrain, and the tall trees made it easy to stay out of close combat.

Ranma tried to go on the offensive by grabbing a small bamboo tree sliced to a sharp point and hurling it at Mousse. His opponent just sliced the tree lengthwise with a knife and said, "You'll have to do better than that to defeat my Hidden Weapon Technique!" He produced an iron ball on a chain and spun it around to shatter dozens of trees. Ranma couldn't escape all the shards of wood sent flying by the attack, and his body was covered in scrapes.

"Shampoo no love Mousse even if Mousse win!" said the girl as she moved away from the carnage to protect herself.

Mousse's cool demeanor vanished. "But... you always hated me because I was a loser. How could you love him even if he lost?"

Ranma took advantage of the distraction to grab two staff-length tree trunks. He charged at Mousse spinning his makeshift weapons to deflect projectiles as Mousse renewed his attacks. Once Ranma reached Mousse, the Amazon withdrew his hands into his sleeves, and he shouted, "Fist of the White Swan!" as he produced a new weapon. Ranma gambled at meeting this attack head on, and he punched through the swan-shaped child's training potty Mousse was holding to smash his fist right into Mousse's glasses.

"That's your Fist of the White Swan?" said Ranma as he looked at the shattered ceramic. "I think I did you a favor by getting rid of it."

"Mock me at your own peril, Ranma!" yelled Mousse as he savagely attacked a shrub.

"I'm over here, Mousse."

The boy adjusted his glasses, but one lens was completely gone and the other was cracked. "Our duel has only just begun!" He whipped out some bombs and started throwing them wildly. The blasts shook the unstable terrain, and the top of the cliff they stood on broke off to plunge into the valley thousands of feet bellow. Ranma grabbed one of Mousse's roped hooks and the boy himself. He leapt and threw the hook to catch one of the few bamboo trees left standing, and they swung to the cliff face.

"You saved me," said a shell-shocked Mousse.

"Don't make me regret it," grunted Ranma. The tree they were relying on gave way, and they tumbled down the slope to a narrow ledge. "Okay, maybe we better catch our breath for a second here."

Mousse was still working through what had happened. "I owe you my life, so how can I kill you and marry Shampoo?"

"She doesn't seem to like you; why are you so hung up on her?"

"We are two twin souls destined to be together. I was always an outcast because I wasn't like all the other boys in our village; I wanted to be a warrior, but they just wanted a strong wife to take care of them. Shampoo was more popular because she was Cologne's only heir, but she loved to be pretty; that made her just as different from the rest as I."

"Wait a minute, you're both just a normal guy and a normal girl; it's the rest of those burly women and wimpy guys back in the village that are weird."

Mousse gave Ranma an odd look through his broken glasses. "I guess it's a matter of perspective. If all the women in Japan are pretty, then why don't you go marry one of them and leave me Shampoo?"

"Well, I can't leave because Cologne won't let me, but if I could..." Ranma trailed of and imagined himself marrying a Japanese girl, having kids, and eventually becoming an old man; it horrified him. Ranma shock off the feeling and saw Mousse was just as troubled. "Look, I don't think things are going to work out with me and Shampoo, so if we break up I hope you two can get together."

"You really mean that? Wow! Then I wouldn't have to feel guilty for killing a man who saved my life!"

"Umm... great," said Ranma. "You got any climbing gear in there?" Mousse rummaged around in his robe and eventually pulled out ropes, spring-loaded cams, nuts, and a few quickdraws. The pair didn't have any trouble getting back to the summit where Shampoo was waiting.

Ranma meandered through the crowd at the Nerima fairgrounds. Most of the people here were families with kids, and she felt out of place. Off in the distance, she heard someone say, "Hi Ranma!" over and over again at irregular intervals. She followed the noise and encountered a sight so ridiculous she couldn't help smiling. The source of the commotion was someone wearing a duck costume with spectacles perched on the bill that kept tumbling off. The duck kept going up to a random passer by, saying "Hi Ranma!" and getting a confused response as the fairgoer hurried away.

Ranma did her best not to giggle. "Hey Mousse, I'm over here."

The duck adjusted his glasses and approached cautiously. "How did you know it was me?"

That was too much, and Ranma burst out laughing as the duck watched in puzzlement. Once she got back under control, she replied, "It was just a lucky guess. So, what's your master plan to beat Cologne?"

"Well, if we work together I'm sure we'll figure something out."

"I dunno," said Ranma as they strolled through the fair. "Right now I'm focused on getting my pills back from her."

"Pills?"

"They're sex hormone pills; I've been taking them to turn into a girl, and Cologne stole them. She says I've got to practice the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken to be fast enough to get it back."

The duck stopped walking. "Did you just say you were turning into a girl?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, wow." The duck looked around and whispered, "You shouldn't talk about stuff like that in broad daylight. People will think we're a pair of weirdoes."

Ranma suppressed another giggle. "Sorry about that."

"Well, I don't hold it against you, but a lot of other people might. Hey wait a minute, this means you can't marry Shampoo!"

"I'm only halfway to being a girl right now, and if I don't get those pills back I'll start turning back into a guy."

"Okay, but even if we get them back it wouldn't be a permanent solution since Cologne could steal them again, or drag you back to China, or something. Hey wait a sec, does she do that thing where she taunts you by holding them her palm like masters do in martial arts movies?"

"Yeah."

"Then we can get your pills back and beat her at the same time!" Ranma listened to Mousse's plan, and she had to admit the guy could be pretty smart when he wasn't being outrageously stupid.

That evening, the Amazon boy lead Ranma and Akane to the Nekoken cafe Cologne had just opened. "What's she doing here?" asked Mousse referring to Akane.

"I'm here because Ranma's wearing my kimono, and I want to make sure it doesn't get ruined."

"It may be YOUR kimono, but this is MY plan and..."

"Cool it, Mousse, everything will be fine," said Ranma with more confidence than she felt. It was hard enough to psyche herself up for this fight without her allies turning against each other. She'd practiced the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken again, but she still was a little too slow to get a full handful of chestnuts. She didn't want to go another day without hormones, so she had to be fast enough to get her pills back tonight!

The trio stepped into the Nekoken Cafe ready for battle. There were only a few customers still here this late, and the martial artists slowly advanced towards the kitchen where there were sounds of activity. Ranma got a nod from each of her comrades, assumed a combat stance, and slowly moved to push aside the curtain. Suddenly, Shampoo emerged and glomped onto Ranma. "Ranma come visit Shampoo at new waitress job! Take seat here." Ranma was too surprised to react as Shampoo lead her to a table.

"Specialty of Nekoken Cafe is ramen. Great-Grandmother cook all type of ramen: chicken ramen, pork ramen, beef ramen, tofu ramen, vegetable ramen..."

"Shampoo, we didn't come here to eat," began Ranma.

"Shampoo know. Ranma just come to say 'hi' and wish Shampoo good luck at new job. Shampoo very happy and give Ranma sample of ramen for free!"

"We're here to fight Cologne," announced Mousse. Shampoo looked offended, and Mousse rushed to add, "Of course, we also really hope you do great as a waitress and everything..."

"Silence fool," ordered Cologne; she'd come out of the kitchen while the rest of them were talking with Shampoo. "Ranma, you've come for this, haven't you?" She opened her palm to reveal the pill bottle. "Take it back if you can!"

Ranma leapt from her seat, and her hands blurred as she grabbed for the pills again and again. "Pretty fast boy, but I can tell you still haven't mastered the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!"

"I'm not a boy!" shouted Ranma, but Cologne just cackled and hopped onto a table. Ranma followed, and they leapfrogged around the restaurant as the patrons looked on in disbelief. They knocked over a few bowls of ramen, but Akane ran behind catching the bowls and making sure none of the food got on her kimono.

Meanwhile, Mousse's attempts to calm down Shampoo only made her angrier. "Mousse go back to China! Shampoo no marry Mousse!" She bashed Mousse with a serving tray and continued to attack as he ran around the restaurant to escape.

Ranma ignored all of this and focused on her technique. She knew she could do this; just a little faster and she'd have the pills. Cologne didn't seem worried. "You're a boy, Ranma, because you can still be a father. That's all that men are good for, and if you're foolish enough to cast aside that asset you still won't be a woman; you'll be nothing."

"Shut up, old ghoul, you don't get to make the rules."

"They're the laws of nature."

"No they aren't!" Faster. "It's just stuff people like you say because you're afraid of people like me!" Faster. "You've got a system that says women deserve to be in charge, and that doesn't make any sense if guy can become girls." Faster. "That's a stupid way of doing stuff, and it'll die off once old fossils like you aren't here to shove it down our throats!" Faster! "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!"

The whole room was silent and still. Ranma breathed heavily as she glared at Cologne. The old woman blinked, looked down at her hand, and smiled. "Not fast enough, future-son-in-law."

"Guess again, old ghoul." Ranma produced the bottle of pills from the kimono sleeve for Cologne to see, and the Amazon Matriarch saw she was holding a small gas canister the same size and color as the bottle. It went off just before she could react, and she was enveloped in smoke. Once it cleared, the whole room saw her knocked out with her face in a bowel of ramen.

"My bomb worked perfectly! The Hidden Weapons Technique triumphs!" said Mousse, and he ran over to bind up Cologne with a vast array of restraints.

"Ranma beat great-grandmother..." said Shampoo in shock. "Now, great-grandmother must marry Ranma!"

"Only if she still thinks I'm a guy," said Ranma cheerily as Cologne came around. "What's it going to be?"

Cologne groaned. "Very well, I declare that you never have been a man. In the eyes of our tribe you are not yet a woman either, so there is no obligation to give you the kiss of death. Satisfied?"

"No. Shampoo can marry Mousse if she wants despite rejecting him."

Cologne cackled. "Fine. There's no way my great-granddaughter would ever marry that blind idiot."

"We'll just see about that, old ghoul." said Mousse as he freed Cologne. "I think I've proven today that you've completely underestimated..." Mousse crumpled from a whack on the head by Cologne's staff.

"Uh, you aren't going to kill him or anything, are you?" asked Akane.

"No, but he'll wish he were dead once I put him to work here."

Ranma shrugged. "There's no place he'd rather be as long as Shampoo works here. Let's go."

"Wait," said Shampoo. She gave Ranma a gentle hug and said, "Ranma change law, but Ranma no change Shampoo's heart."

"I'm sorry about that. Maybe... I could talk with you about it sometime if you think that would help."

Shampoo nodded and wiped a tear from her eye. She waved goodbye as Ranma left with Akane. The pair was silent most of the way home, but Akane finally said, "I don't wanna say 'I told you so,' but..."

"I know, I know," said Ranma, "Talking can help sometimes, I guess." She sighed as they reached the Tendo household and saw Pop and Genma playing shogi. "It just doesn't work for people who won't listen to you."

Author's Note:

I got the name "St. Brutus" from Harry Potter; it's the school for "incurably criminal boys" his uncle threatens him with. In case you were wondering, this boarding school is in Japan, and I'm not going to have a Harry Potter crossover!