I smiled and tried to look pretty for the camera. The photographer was one of those art-school rejects who never made it in the galleries, and now views commercial photography as their medium of expression. I wouldn't mind, only this particular artiste extraordinare seemed to think it necessary to take hundreds of identical photographs before he had the perfect one. For the last three hours I'd been in a yellow swimsuit with yellow snorkeling gear, acting excited for the camera as I held a can of Vita One, the new sports drink with twelve essential vitamins and minerals, to my face. The photographer paused the shoot, his camera out of film.
"Ranma!" he yelled, "As a spokesmodel, you've got to be more than happy, more than just smiling all the time! You have to possess a certain mystique, something special!"
I listened to what he was saying, even if I didn't fully understand where he was coming from. "What do you mean? What should I be doing?" I asked, still smiling. An intern splashed me with water, to keep me looking like I came straight out of the ocean. Another brushed the sand off my legs.
"Do something out of the ordinary," he insisted. We re-started the shoot. I bugged my eyes out at the camera. I slinked my shoulders playfully. I even assumed a few karate poses. The photographer wasn't taking pictures. "No no no," he insisted. Smiling the whole time, I was trying to think of something he might find interesting. It was frustrating. I suspected, by this point, that nothing would make him happy.
Suddenly, around the corner, a woman approached the set of the shoot. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, and I suddenly gave her a double-take. My mouth opened in a state of shock. I couldn't believe she had returned. I hadn't seen her in nearly ten years...
"Perfect!" yelled the photographer, taking picture after picture. I snapped back to my senses and looked at the photographer, blankly. He had stopped the shoot. "There's no way we're going to beat that. Ranma, great shoot. Let's call it a day." I only briefly thanked him before running off to meet the woman.
"Akane?" I asked. I knew who it was, but didn't know what to think about it. I smiled, out of surprise as much as anything else.
"Ranma, it's been a long time," she replied, evenly. Looking at her, I wondered if she had always looked that good. I quickly decided she hadn't - if she had, I never could have left Nerima. She looked athletic and healthy, and her body looked sexy. The clothes she wore were classy, made her look smart and professional.
"You look good," I couldn't help but state. She smiled, unfazed.
"And you look female," she quipped. I knew I was supposed to be embarrassed.
"I'm their new spokesmodel. It pays the bills." I said it as casually as possible. I suddenly realized I didn't want to talk to her.
She followed me into the changing room, where I dried myself, and quickly got into a sun dress. I started to walk away. Akane followed.
"Your parents always kept tabs on you," she said, "and talked about you every day."
"Really? Funny they never call," I answered, bitterly.
"They were too proud for that," she answered. I thought about that, and how I was too proud to call them, too. I didn't feel guilty. She continued. "Actually, they're why I came to see you."
"What?" I asked.
"They died recently. In a car accident. Your father had been drinking..."
"That's horrible," I said. And it was, too, but somehow it felt remote, like I had heard about some poor guy I didn't know dying, on a news broadcast. I had removed my parents from my life years ago, and hearing about their death meant little to me.
"They left the dojo to Nabiki's Martial Arts School, but most of their will is directed towards you."
"What's it say?" I asked. I stopped walking.
"I don't know, only father and our lawyer read it. But I guess the will asks you to accept it in the Anything-Goes dojo. I came here to extend an invitation, for you to come and hear the reading of the will."
"Why didn't you just look me up, give me a call?"
"I didn't think you would come."
**
The dojo looked like an ideal version of what I remembered. I was immediately struck by how clean everything was, how pristine, making the dojo almost look like a museum piece from the 16th century. The walls of the dojo were no longer a patchwork of boards over holes, but looked strong and permanent. Outside, a freshly painted sign read "Nabiki Tendo - Anything Goes Martial Arts." I walked inside the dojo. Nabiki was leading a group of students through a kata. I was surprised how advanced the kata was for how young the students were. Nabiki noticed me, but didn't turn to me until finishing the kata.
"Class, class," she yelled. She was introducing me. I stood there, embarrassed. "This is Ranma Saotome, the greatest Anything Goes Martial Artist in the World. She was once going to be the sensei of the dojo, instead of me. Now," she paused, and mugged holding a can while looking to the side, "she's the Vita One spokesmodel." Nabiki smiled, but the children looked genuinely impressed. Vita One was making my snorkel photos the center of a huge ad campaign, and they had probably seen the ads all across town.
Then without a warning, Nabiki punched at my face. As a reflex, I blocked the punch with my forearm, and countered with a left. She blocked it, but I managed to spring off her blocking arm and flipped myself over her. Still surprised, I jabbed her twice like a boxer, then punched a straight right at her chest. She fell to the ground, rolled out of it, and smiled. The class applauded. "You won't learn those moves until much later," she said. "For now, I want you to repeat that last kata ten times."
When she was done addressing the class, she walked over to me and gave me a hug. "My god, I didn't think I would see you again. How've you been keeping yourself?"
"It was rough for a while, but things are really starting to look up. I'm settled in Tokyo again, and I'm living with Ukyou..." I paused, not wanting to get into the subject. "So to tell the truth, I'm a little surprised to see you running the dojo. I always thought it would be Akane." Nabiki laughed.
"I thought so too, it just worked out this way. I was running the operations, and I was getting into the exercise, and it fell into my hands." Nabiki looked at the door. "My class is almost done. I'm sure the rest of the family is waiting outside, ready to read the will. They're pretty apprehensive about it."
"Not half so much as I am," I replied, trying to make light of things. Truth be told, I just wanted to get over with the mess. Nabiki seemed genuinely nice, but this was a part of my life I wanted to keep closed.
"It might not be so fun, Ranma. I was a space cadet back then, and didn't get involved in the whole ruckus. And I love owning this dojo. But believe me, the rest of the family never got over your leaving." She had to attend to something, bowing with the students to close the practice. As soon as they exited the building the rest of the family entered. Soun, Nabiki, Kasumi, and Akane. For not having seen them in almost ten years, they didn't look much different. Soun walked in first, his hair gray. He bowed his head slightly to me, and kneeled down in the corner of the dojo, next to a shrine. Kasumi followed him. She had put on weight, and was clearly trying to ignore my presence. She looked angry just that she had to be in the same room as me. Akane walked in casually, without seeming to notice me. She was as attractive as before. Nabiki saw me look at her and smiled, walking with me to join them. We kneeled down, and I looked back at Soun, who was taking out the will. He started reading it in a flat voice.
"The last will and testimony of Genma and Nodoka Saotome: We, as loving parents, wanted only the best for our son. To this end we dedicated our lives to making him the best martial artist he could be. Instead, at the age of seventeen, he chose to ignore his filial obligations, and ran off to a foreign country, abandoning his fiancee. We feel nothing but shame that..."
**
I was walking the way back to Ukyou and my place, for the exercise. The old family sword was hanging in my hand, the only heirloom or valuable left me in the will. It was supposedly a momento from when our family was still samurai, althouh I didn't remember seeing it as a kid. Akane was walking alongside me. I didn't like that.
"You had it rough in there," she offered.
"After the first few pages of insults I stopped listening."
Akane paused. "You know, if you hadn't been the one to run away, it would have been me."
I didn't look at her. "Don't kid yourself. You would have gone through with the marriage. You told me you loved me every time I got knocked out."
"Believe that if you want. But there was no way I was going to marry you."
"Well, whatever, it doesn't matter now." I could tell she was trying to push my buttons, and I didn't want to play the game.
"You were too much of a freak. All you did was fight people and turn into a woman."
That was mean. "What the hell do you think I was running away from! My family was making me a freak, some kung-fu fantasy!" I caught myself yelling and deliberately counted to ten. I hate to lose my temper. I continued, slowly. "And it wasn't me. I didn't want that to be me. I had to run away. I'd like to think I'm more normal now."
"Then why are you going around as a woman all the time?"
If I wasn't watching myself, I would have gotten angry. Instead, I took Akane by the hand and led her to the onsen that was just ahead of us. I tossed the lady more than enough money to cover hot baths for Akane and I. Taking the towel, I tore my clothes off, put them in the locker, and quickly washed myself off with cold water. I turned to look at Akane, who was hurrying to catch up with me, even as she protested.
"You don't have to turn into a man now, to prove something to me..." she said. Even so, she followed me into the bath room, where a few mid-day bathers and tourists were relaxing. With wide eyes she watched as I entered the pool of hot water.
Nothing happened.
"You're...you're stuck?" she asked. She got into the bath next to me. "What happened?" she asked. I looked down at the water.
"A few years ago, I noticed that my water heater wasn't enough. That I couldn't transform without the water near boiling. I would almost scald myself, and even then, after a while, it took a few seconds for anything to happen."
"So you can't transform at all anymore?"
"It depends. Right now, there's no way I could. But then there's some days I can change back just fine, like I used to. Or almost like I used to. It doesn't take much to change me back into a woman, only a few drops. Or maybe I'm a couple feet from a glass of water, and I transform. Sometimes just thinking about water is enough to change me back."
"What are you doing about it?" she asked.
"I don't know." I paused. "Learning to live with it, I guess." I looked over at her, and her nakedness suddenly hit me. I flinched, and she noticed me. She smiled, but pretended as if she hadn't caught it. We talked small talk for the remainder of the bath, catching up on each other's lives, and I was startled by how changed she was. I was perfectly prepared to hate her and never talk to her again, but her personality, while it hadn't quite mellowed, but had made itself smoother and more likeable. She could still latch on to something, though, and show the passion I had remembered from so long ago. It was a pleasure talking to her. As we departed from the onsen, I found myself still conversing.
"We have to meet up with each other, later," she finally said. She had to leave at the moment, to make an appointment.
"Akane, I'm living with Ukyou..." She smiled.
"Just to have coffee or something. Maybe we can meet at her restaurant. And Ranma?"
"Yeah?"
"I was lying, by the way. I never would have run away from you, back then." She leaned forward and, taking me by surprise, gave me a light kiss on the lips. She laughed. "I didn't want to go my whole life without kissing you once," she said. "I'll call you some time next week." She ran away, almost giddy.
**
The problem with my fights with Ukyou is that we could never hide anything from each other, we could never hurt each other, and we both know it. It quickly turns into us listing the same complaints we've complained before.
"You shouldn't meet up with her again, Ranma," she said, looking at me behind her glasses and chef's hat. "She's obviously after you. Besides, I don't need to remind you how hard you've worked to put that part of your life past you. I really don't understand why you even want to meet her again."
"You're jealous because she kissed me."
"Yeah, I am jealous. Wouldn't you be? We've been living together for five years now. We're something exclusive."
"Yeah, and this exclusiveness is locking me in to getting nothing half the time," I complained. In reality, I was stuck female nine days out of ten.
"I'm not a lesbian, Ranma. I'm not getting married to a woman. I'm not kissing a woman, neither, no more than you would kiss a man. You know I love you, but it's weird enough that..." It was stupid. I was glad that the phone rang, interrupting our argument.
"Hello?" I asked.
"Ranma, meet me by Hachikou's statue as soon as possible. It's about your curse." I didn't have to ask who it was, I recognized Akane's voice. She continued.
"I think I've found a cure."
**
I saw Akane by the statue, ignoring some guy who was hitting on her. With her looks, and the way she was dressed, I would've been surprised if she wasn't being hit on. She walked up when she saw me.
"Ranma, I'm so glad you came."
"Of course I'm going to come, you give me a message like that." I was genuinely enthusiastic, and was grinning like an idiot. She smiled, too.
"Well I hope this will help you. It has to do with your father's will."
"You mean what I heard last weekend?"
"No. There was more to it than that. Something that was private, for my father and Nabiki."
"They told you about it?" I asked.
"It was lying in my father's room, and I was curious, so..." she paused.
"What did it say?"
"Your father had a cure."
"He did?" I asked. I was startled. I hadn't heard anything like that before.
"I guess so. Enough for one person, but he never used it. From the will, I got the idea Shampoo must have sent it to you. She didn't know you were gone, though, and had it sent to the training hall."
"So what happened to the cure?" I asked.
"I don't know. Nabiki has it, and we don't get along so hot." Akane paused. We were next to a vending machine, and she put in the money for a can. She took out the can, and put in enough money for a second one, which she gave to me. It was Vita One. The picture of me snorkeling, in the swimsuit, was on each can.
"So you're lucky you got in with Vita One. This stuff is really good, it's going to get popular."
"I don't know," I said. "I'm not one for sports drinks. When I exercise, I'd rather have water than something sweet."
"You've never had it, and you're the spokesmodel?" she asked, kiddingly. "Try it, you'll be surprised."
I opened the can and took a gulp. It was more refreshing than you'd think possible, and I wasn't even that thirsty. There was an aftertaste, too, the faint flavor of berries and wheat.
"That's really good," I said, genuinely impressed. "I mean, I'm not one for sports drinks, but I could drink this. This is really good."
"And it has twelve essential vitamins and minerals," she added, teasingly.
"Yeah, I even feel a bit of a kick, a bit of energy." I had finished the can. I almost felt like getting another.
"So you're glad to be their spokemodel?" she asked.
"A job's a job, and I don't care much about the product I'm modelling for," I answered. I was telling the truth, but what she said did explain some things. The company was talking about an exclusive modeling deal, and another photo shoot was set for just next week. I could see why they were pushing their advertisements so hard. This stuff was going to be bigger than Coke. Akane interrupted my thoughts.
"It's going to have to stop when you get the cure. They don't want a guy in that yellow swimsuit."
I didn't miss a beat. "That doesn't mean anything to me, if I can get this curse off."
"You'll have to talk to Nabiki to get it," she said, returning to the subject.
"Huh?"
"Nabiki's in charge of the dojo, and the dojo was willed the cure."
"Can't you get it for me?"
"You know I can't. It would be too suspicious...after all, I'm not the one who needs the cure. You'll have to get it from her yourself."
"That should be no problem. She seems to like me fine."
Akane paused. "I don't think it's that easy. It's part of the dojo now. And you aren't."
"You mean I might have to convince her, or something?"
"Maybe. And you might have to take it from her."
I looked at Akane, suspiciously. "And why are you telling me this? To take something from your own sister, from your own family?"
Akane turned her head, slowly, to look at me. She was so beautiful, her long hair tied back with a white ribbon. "Because I wouldn't want to get married to a woman," she said. I realized what she meant, but before I could say anything, she was kissing me. I was kissing her back.
**
I lay in bed, thinking about what happened with Akane. It hadn't gone any farther. It could have. Sometimes when you're talking to a woman, you know you can get on her if you talk smooth, don't act stupid, and that's how I had felt with Akane. But we were barely hooking up before I realized I didn't want to betray what I had with Ukyou.
Ukyou was lying in bed next to me. I was in my male form. We like to spend some private time together when I'm not stuck female. One of her employees was downstairs, tending to the restaurant.
"Ukyou?"
"What?"
"It's about Akane."
"What about her?" she asked.
I paused. I didn't want to keep secrets from her, and I hadn't ever lied to her before, but I couldn't say it.
"Oh, nothing," I said, giving her a slight squeeze. She smiled. I felt guilty. I knew she would get mad if I told her everything, but nothing tragic. She would get really mad, though, if I didn't agree to stop seeing Akane. And I hated to admit it, but I wanted to see her again. I decided to tell Ukyou about something else.
"Well," I continued, "I don't know if it's silly or not, but she tells me my father had a cure to my curse. That he never used it, but willed it on to the dojo, and I could get it from Nabiki."
"And you believed her?" asked Ukyou. She paused. I knew she hated to sound so negative. "We've looked so many other places, Ranma, and none of them have worked. I think Akane is just using this as some kind of ploy. She admits she never got over you."
"Then why this ploy? Akane doesn't say that she's got the cure. I'm talking to Nabiki, and Akane doesn't get along with her anymore."
Ukyou shook her head. "It's your call, but you've spent so long running away from your past. I don't understand why you're so eager to get involved with the Tendos again, for the slightest rumor of a cure."
I turned to Ukyou and looked at her in the eyes. "You know how much the cure would mean to me. You know how much you mean to me, Ukyou." I rolled on top of her, kissing her the whole time.
**
Nabiki was alone in the dojo, training. I looked. She was pretty good. Maybe not as good at Anything-Goes as I had once been, but certainly a lot better than I was now.
"You must practice all the time," I encouraged.
"Yeah," she said. "It seems like every waking moment I'm either teaching the students or practicing."
I laughed. "You used to be so into business."
She laughed back. "I guess I still do some of that. I've got the dojo running an 80% annual profit margin. You still practicing, Ranma?"
"Me? Not really. Not Anything-Goes, anyway. Boxing, some. For the workout."
"Boxing?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Yeah, like Mike Tyson or something."
"They don't do kicks, or move around. They just stand there and throw punches. It's a handicap, like if you tied one of your arms behind your back."
I smiled. "That's what I used to think, but I've changed my mind. You ought to try it sometime."
"Maybe," she said. "If you like it so much. Anyway, what brings you here?"
"Nothing much..." I paused. I didn't want to mention Akane, so I had already thought through a little of what I was going to say. "It's about something Shampoo told me, right before I left. She told me there was a cure for the curse, and she might send it over here."
"She said that?" asked Nabiki, looking over at the corner of the room. In reality Shampoo just ran away without saying anything, but Nabiki had no way of knowing that.
"Yeah, that's what she told me. Now I know you would have given me any cure, or I would have heard of it somehow." She nodded, and looked in the corner of the room. "But I was wondering if she sent anything? Did she ever come by again? Did she ever at least send word about whether or not the cure worked?"
Nabiki looked nervous. "I don't know anything about that. We would have told you if there was anything."
"I just wanted to make sure. You know, we weren't getting along so well, me and the family, and if it was just something like `never mind' I figured the family wouldn't tell me anything. But I'd like to hear it now."
"Well..." she paused, and looked in the corner. "Not that I know of. I can ask father..."
I hated to do it, but I knocked Nabiki upside the head. No harder than I had to, just enough to make sure she went out fast. She slumped to the floor, and I went to have a look at the corner she kept staring at.
It looked the same as anywhere else in the dojo. I tapped the walls a few times, listening for a strange sound, as if I knew what I was doing. Nothing. Frustrated, I punched a hole through a board, breaking off a piece. Forcing my finger through the hole, I pulled at the board, opening the frame behind. I only did this to a few boards before I came to what I figured was the pay dirt: a crystal, black, that seemed to luminate a faint turquoise. I put it in my pocket and ran off.
**
The shop was empty, except for Ukyou and I. We were waiting for Akane. She said she'd tell us how the crystal worked. It hadn't come with an instruction sheet, and of course I couldn't ask Nabiki. New- Agers seem to make necklaces out of crystal, but we tried that, and it didn't seem to do anything. Ukyou had heard of grinding the crystal into some kind of powder, then eating it, but we weren't about to crush it. We had tried everything you can think of, but what are you supposed to do with a crystal?
Ukyou was eyeing it over. "It looks like some elaborate kind of jewelry or something," she said, unremarkably. "When do you figure Akane's going to be here, anyway?" We had already been waiting more than an hour; Akane hadn't really been definite in her plans. Of course, Akane entered the room precisely at that moment.
"Nabiki seems upset, Ranma," said Akane, casually, not even greeting me. "She's not saying anything about it, of course, but I can tell."
"I hated to do that. I hope she wasn't hurt."
"No. At least she wasn't wearing any bandages." Akane walked my direction. She was holding her hands behind her back, resting on her belt.
"So can you tell me what to do with this crystal?" I asked. "How is it supposed to help me?"
"Let me see it, I'll show you," said Akane. I motioned for Ukyou to give her the crystal. Ukyou didn't move.
"Just tell us," said Ukyou. "You don't need to hold on to it." Her eyes were narrowed, and she didn't look happy to be seeing Akane.
"I need to show you," repeated Akane. "It's not so simple."
Ukyou wasn't going for it. She held on to the crystal, and just glared at Akane. I was surprised at Ukyou, but not nearly as surprised as with what happened next. From behind her belt, Akane pulled out a gun. It was the first gun I had ever seen, and it was pointed at Ukyou!
"Give me the crystal," she said, in a flat tone of voice.
"Have you gone crazy or something?" I asked Akane. I didn't know what to say.
She walked back to open the door a crack. A small pig walked in. I recognized him immediately. Ryouga.
**
I was mad as hell, there was nothing I could do about it, and I only had myself to blame. How could I have been so stupid, to trust Akane through all of this? I almost wish Ukyou had nagged me, reminded me that she had always told me Akane was up to no good. At least I could yell at her to be quiet. Instead, I'm sore as hell, no one to take it out on, and I have to be smiling for some photo shoot.
"Smile, Ranma. Big smile." The photographer was yelling directions at me. "You're playing badminton, having a good time. You're not mad about this." I tried smiling, but it was obviously fake. I lost it, and snarled at the camera.
"I don't see a good reason to keep shooting badminton," said the photographer. "Make a costume change...you said you did boxing?"
I nodded, and changed into some blue spandex thing I couldn't imagine boxing in. I put on the red gloves and went through a routine.
"Look angry! Look angry!" the artiste yelled. I didn't need much encouragement. I repeated jab after jab, started following them with a cross, then with a hook. I knew it was more then they needed for the shoot, but I started pulling out my bigger hits, five and seven hit combos. Nothing cute; there was a lot of force behind my punches. If there had been anybody in the way they wouldn't be standing.
"Yes! Yes!" the photographer screamed. He was only a few feet away, and was taking close ups of my face as I sweated away, swinging at the air. He pulled back to take a few more pictures. I repeated the performance with aikido, karate, baseball, football, and even a few joke shots of sumo, and by the end of the day it hadn't been just a great photo shoot, but a hell of a workout. I even felt a little better about things. I was thirsty, so on the way downstairs, I bought myself a Vita One. For a sports drink, it was really good.
**
The next day, Ukyou wasn't quite as rambunctious as she usually is when I'm not stuck female. "Ranma, I can't," she said, sadly.
"Why not?" I asked. "Is it because of yesterday, Akane breaking in? Ukyou, I won't let that happen again."
"No, it's not that..." Ukyou paused. "OK, maybe it is. Ranma, the curse just gets worse and worse for you. First you were getting stuck sometimes, and that wasn't so bad, but now you're getting stuck almost all the time. And I don't think there's going to be a cure."
"I'm not stuck now!" I protested. I could see where this was going. She continued, oblivious.
"I'm not content having a boyfriend for a day every other week, and the rest of the time living with the Vita One spokesmodel!" she yelled, surprising me. "I just turned twenty seven, Ranma, and I want something more serious than a live-in friend!"
"What am I supposed to do, though?" I complained.
"Don't ask me that! I know, I know there's nothing you can do. I wish there was. Which is why I've been hanging around this long."
"You make it sound like an act of mercy," I yelled. "Like you're feeling sorry for me!"
"I do! I feel sorry the whole curse ever happened, that you ever got caught up in it! I feel sorry that we can't be together! But I have to live with a man, and you have to, I don't know, find a lesbian or something!" She stopped. She was crying, and embraced me. I didn't know what to do. The door slammed open.
"Curse you, Ranma Saotome!" said a familiar voice. I looked over and saw Ryouga, staring at me. He must have used the cure, and was in his human form. "It's bad enough that you hit Akane's sister. Now making Ukyou cry? You're still the scum amongst men I've always reviled. Now, give me your sword!"
"Wha?" I asked. I didn't know what he meant when he mentioned the sword. I only then remembered that my parent's will had left me that katana, some old samurai sword. I hadn't gotten around to deciding whether to sell it or throw it away, yet, but even so, I certainly wasn't giving it to Ryouga without a fight.
"Take the sword if you think you can get it," I answered.
I have to be thankful for two things. The first is that I was male when Ryouga walked into the apartment. Ryouga is strong. From his first kick, from his first punch, I could tell he was better than when I had last fought him, so long ago. I needed every ounce of strength in me just to stand a chance.
The second thing I had to be thankful for is that I was no longer doing Anything-Goes. Anything-Goes Martial Arts has its place, and back when I spent the whole day practicing, I could beat Ryouga without trying too hard. But now, the complexities of the patterns would have been too much for me. Anything Goes, like most Martial Arts, is centered on your kick. Of course, to kick you need your legs, and your legs are also needed to balance. So to avoid this conflict, a whole series of jumps, turns, twists, and counter-moves is necessary, and bog down the martial art almost to a game. My favorite example is capoiera, which flat out admits all the moves are pointless, and the martial art isn't much more than an exotic form of dance.
Nobody would confuse boxing with a game. The beauty is in the simplicity: your feet are for balance, and your hands are for hitting. Why waste time and energy jumping around, when a single combination can knock a guy out for the count? Instead of practicing your double back flip, your hand stand, your somersault, you can work on your hand speed. The punch gets there before even the best trained Martial Artist can block it.
At least that's true with most fighters. At one time it would have been true with Ryouga. But the guy had gotten good, had trained himself into a kind of a machine, and I knew it was going to take a little more work. A little.
"Prepare to die!" he kept on yelling. Trying to intimidate me, I guess, but there's no figuring Ryouga. He jumped forward and hit me with a pair of quick kicks to the chest. I took them, paused a step, and returned with a quick jab. It knocked him back. He lunged back at me with a punch, which I saw coming a mile away and sidestepped, at the last second crouching down to return a hard right to his kidneys.
When most people fight, it's impossible to tell who's going to win beforehand. Whoever has the most heart into it, maybe, or whoever ate right the night before. When you get more experienced, though, nothing comes as a surprise. The best fighter will beat the second best fighter every time. It's more a matter of patterns, of strategies, seeing how one fighter's rhythm stacks up against the other. And I liked the rhythm this fight was taking. I was moving, all right, back and forth, to avoid his big attacks. But Ryouga was literally bouncing off the walls. He was wasting energy as I just stood there, waiting for him to come to me. I'd sidestep, block, sometimes even take the punch, and return with hits that I knew were hurting him.
He couldn't take the abuse much longer, and I could feel it. In any fight, there's a time when you know you've got in enough body hits to slow your opponent down. It's time to finish things off, to go in for the kill. Ryouga was tired, and when he came next to me, I didn't wait for him to throw the first punch. I threw in a quick left jab, just to get him off guard, then followed it up with my right hook, a powerful punch. I intentionally let my right shoulder throw forward. Usually in boxing your left is kept forward for the quick, if less powerful, jab. But I wanted to follow up my right with a left cross, and I needed my left shoulder back if I was going to get any real momentum. I nailed him with it, right in the chin, and I could tell Ryouga was something less than conscious. I gave myself an extra second, pulled back, and let fly the hardest uppercut I've ever thrown in my life. Ryouga was lifted from the ground, flew across the room, and landed in the kitchen, breaking a table with him. Water spilled on him, and he turned back into a pig. I looked at him, curiously.
"You mean he's not cured?" I wondered, aloud.
"Don't act so surprised," said a voice that needed no identifying. Akane. She continued. "You know he didn't have the sword." I looked at her. She was holding the gun, from before, only this time it was pointed at me. "Now, tell me where the sword is."
"In my bedroom," I said, without hesitating. I looked at Akane. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because the whole time you've been complaining about being stuck as a woman, he's been stuck too - only as a pig." She paused, and went on. "We wanted to get married, before he started getting stuck. Today's the first day he could transform since last month!"
I gulped. I not only hated to have her yelling while pointing a gun at me, but if Ryouga was getting stuck, too...maybe there really was no help. I walked over to the bedroom, keeping my arms by my side. I wanted to make clear to Akane that I wasn't doing anything sneaky.
"It's under the bed," I answered.
"Under the bed?" she asked, curiously. "The key to your cure, and you keep it under the bed?" I didn't know what she was talking about.
"Yeah, well I figured, who would look there?" I placed the sword on the bed and walked away. Keeping the gun pointed at me, she picked up the sword. Unsheathing it, she briefly admired the inlays, and then located a notch with her finger. She placed the gem in the notch, and walked over to Ryouga, looking groggily at the proceedings.
"With this gem in place," she explained, dramatically, "Ryouga's life as a pig is killed, and his life as a human re-begins!" Ryouga lay there, motionless. Akane jabbed the sword down on his small pig belly and made ripping motions to the sides. Nothing happened. Eventually, a trail of blood was noticeable. Akane dropped the sword and ran from the building, crying.
**
So what can I say? Since then, I haven't seen any of the Tendos, have never even heard about them, and I can't say I'm sorry. I told Ukyou everything that happened with Akane, but she couldn't have been too mad, because we still got married just a few months later. A small wedding, but a big honeymoon, just about the way I like it.
I never could figure out what Akane was thinking when she stabbed Ryouga. I knew it hadn't been intentional. Ukyou figured, and it sounded good to me, that it had been part of the will, part of what I didn't read, some claim that the crystal and the sword together would kill the cursed self, make you your real self forever. My parents had made the bogus claim, made the whole plot, in the hopes that I would take the will at its word and commit seppuku. I don't think I would have ever fallen for a scheme like that, but I could see somebody going for it if they were desperate enough. And Akane was in love - that crazy plot of my parent's was the only hope she could grab onto, that her love wouldn't spend the rest of his life stuck as a pig.
As for me, things aren't so bad. Getting married isn't all that much different than living with a person for five years, but it formalizes things, makes things a little more stable. That doesn't mean I don't get some intense joy, every day, when I see Ukyou after she's been away. Maybe we were made for each other. My modeling career is taking off without my doing anything. I signed a contract to be an exclusive spokesmodel, and consequently I'm being paid to stop doing photo shoots - something I'm happy with.
I guess this whole story revolved around finding a cure, and it's funny. Just a week or so after the whole mess, I walked into the kitchen one night. The light in our bedroom was on, and it was hard to tell, but it almost seemed like the little crystal was glowing at me. I looked at it, and right next to the crystal was a can of Vita One. I drank it, without thinking. The next day, I wasn't stuck as a woman. I took a can the next night, too, and I woke up in the morning still a man. I just smiled and bought as many cases of Vita One as I could fit into the pantry. It wasn't a full cure, and I still have to avoid swimming pools and cold showers, but its made my life and my marriage possible. And for a sports drink, it tastes really good.
FIN
**
I haven't written a fanfic in a long time, and I hope this one turned out OK. Thank you for reading! It was an attempt to imitate old pulp fictions, and for the first section or two was vaguely imitative of Charles William's _Flight to Nowhere_.
McKinley