“It’s crooked, Ojisan!”

Soun Tendou raised one hand to the back of his head and gave an embarrassed laugh as he peered down at the younger man. “Really, Ranma-kun?”

“Looks like it’s gonna come down. Here. Lemme fix it.”

Ranma sprang to the entry roof, and from there to the roof of the main house. “Howcome ya didn’t wait for me anyway?”

“You were practicing, and well… this is something I always wanted to do.”

“Put a flagpole up on your roof?”

“Put up a konoibori for my son. It wasn’t Children’s Day back then, it was Boys’ Day, and since we only had girls…”

“Feh, you prob’ly coulda put one up for Akane anyway,” Ranma grinned. “Bet she was good as a boy.”

“I can’t find it, Otousan!” Akane stuck her head out the attic window.

“Akane, I told you. Your mother and I never had a koinobori.”

She frowned. “But I saw it when I was little! Remember, right after Okaasan died when I told you I’d be your boy?”

“I don’t remember a koinobori…”

“I was sure I saw one up here…” Somewhere in the house, a baby started to cry. “Mou, can’t you stay asleep for ten more minutes?” she exclaimed in exasperation. “Hold on, I’m coming, I’m coming…”

The baby stopped crying. Akane reappeared several minutes later, dressed to go out, baby Ryuuma strapped to her back. “I guess I’m going to have to go buy a koinobori!” she called. “Hope someone has a nice one left!”

“Just stay away from weird old street vendors, okay?” Ranma replied.

“Hai!” she laughed.

Ranma watched his wife and son until they disappeared around the corner. It never failed to amaze him, how his violent tomboy Akane could have changed into a housewife and mother, and still kept the fiery spirit that had won his heart.

“I hope somebody has one,” Akane grumbled. “I don’t have time to go clear into Shinjuku on a shopping trip. This is… huh? When did that open?”

The storefront was one of those hard-luck places that never seems to keep a commercial tenant. Last winter a hopeful young man had opened a shop selling cheap jewelry and toys; it hadn’t made enough money over the winter holidays and had closed a month ago. Before that it had been a used bookstore, and in her high school days an old woman had sold candy and snacks. Now the grimy window had been carefully washed, and a display of traditional musha-ningyo seemed to beckon her inside.

“Irasshaimase, Mrs. Customer!” the elderly proprietor greeted her in a singsong accent that suggested he had grown up speaking a rural dialect of Chinese. “You want to buy musha-ningyo? I got Kintaro, Momotaro, all kinds of heroes. Got yoroi too.”

Akane tore her eyes away from a tiny, delicate Yoshitsune whose gold-ornamented sword peeped from the elaborate robes of a temple page. The little figure was so perfect she could almost hear the notes of his flute. “No musha-ningyo,” she said with regret. Even Nabiki might blink at the cost of a set of such marvels. “I’m looking for a nice koinobori, though.”

“Oh, got very nice koinobori. Is first Children’s Day? For son?”

“Mm! So I want something special. But not too expensive, okay?”

“This is very special koinobori. Only 5000 yen.” He spread a length of shimmering silk on the counter.

Akane gasped. It looked as though each scale had been carefully hand painted and picked out with gold embroidery. When hung up, it would seem like a living fish swimming in the sky – more than a fish, like the legendary carp at the very instant it transformed into a dragon! “Ohh…” she breathed. “There has to be some mistake… I can’t afford this, it’s much too fine!”

“Five thousand yen too much, Mrs. Customer? I give you for three thousand!”

Akane hesitated. Even the higher price was ridiculous… she’d seen enough of Nabiki’s lovely things to know the koinobori was worth at least ten times what the old man was asking. But it was so very beautiful… “Can you hold it for me?” she asked. “I’d like to think about it for a while and do the rest of my shopping.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Customer. You come back here, I have for you.”

An hour later Akane was tired, discouraged, and empty-handed. There wasn’t a decent koinobori to be had in all of Furinkan-cho. The few that were in stock at all were cheap, tawdry things, small and badly made, their printing smeared and stitching uneven. They seemed even worse next to the old shopkeeper’s gorgeous wares – and what was worse, the cheapest one she saw was 7500 yen!

She trudged back to the little shop. “I’ll take it,” she told the shopkeeper.

“Excellent, Mrs. Customer!” the old man beamed. “Is special sale now, 2500 yen. Special koinobori for special son, right?” He grinned at the baby. “Grow strong, like carp turn into dragon.”

Akane handed over the money. It was late, she was tired, and the baby was beginning to fuss. So she headed home, only stopping to buy a big bunch of irises at the florist’s.

When she got home, Ranma and Genma were sparring in the garden, and she heard Nodoka singing in the kitchen. “Tadaima!” she called.

“Okaeri nasai!” Nodoka replied. “Did you find a koinobori?”

“Mm! Just let me get Ryuuma changed, and I’ll show it to everybody!”

“So, did you find a nice one?” Ranma asked. He had obviously been practicing; he was wearing his gi and the back was damp with perspiration.

“Mm!” Akane set Ryuuma on the tatami and spread out the lovely banner. “Ta-daa!”

“Ooh!” Everyone gasped to see how lovely the koinobori was.

“Oh, Akane-chan, where did you find such a lovely thing?” asked Nodoka.

“At a new shop, just opened – remember where the snack store used to be?” she replied. “They have really nice things – cheap, too.” Akane felt very proud of herself.

“Akane, you’re getting to be such a good little manager, just like your dear mother,” Soun wept.

“Oh! Look at Ryuu-chan!” cried Nodoka.

Ryuuma, who had barely learned to roll from his tummy onto his back, was crawling! He moved straight toward the open mouth of the koinobori and crawled inside.

“That’s amazing!” exclaimed Genma.

“Look at my grandson!” wept Soun.

“Ryuu-chan!” Akane cried. Something was wrong; the bulge in the koinobori was too small to be a baby! And it moved strangely, wriggling and flopping.

“I got a bad feelin’bout this,” Ranma muttered, just as a big golden carp wriggled out of the koinobori’s tail and flopped, gasping, on the tatami.

Nodoka screamed.

Ranma moved first. Swiftly he scooped up the baby-turned-fish and raced into the garden to plunge him into the koi pond. Koi-Ryuuma responded by leaping high into the air, trailing drops that sparkled silver in the afternoon sun, and dropping back into the water with a splash that left his father soaked and female.

“I put some water on to heat, Ranma,” Nodoka offered. “We’ll have our Ryuu-chan back in just a minute.”

“But it’s not…” Akane began.

“Hold on a sec, Ofukuro!” Ranma exclaimed. “This ain’t Jusenkyou! Nobody poured water on Ryuu – and you ain’t gonna boil him!”

“But it’s…”

“This is some other kinda weird stuff! Where’d you say that shop was, Akane?”

“Where the snack place used to be… wait, Ranma, I’m coming with you!”

“Kuso!” Ranma slammed his hand into the side of the building, leaving a dent in the masonry. The shop was vacant. Musha-ningyo, yoroi, koinobori, shopkeeper – there was no sign any of them had even existed. “Akane, are you sure this was the place?”

She nodded. “Oh, Ranma, I’m so sorry!”

He clasped her shoulders. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get him back.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” she went on in bitter self-reproach. “I should have known there was something terrible. It’s just like the phoenix egg or the sakura mochi…”

Ranma shook his head. “It ain’t no good tryin’ to duck that stuff. If it wants ya it’s gonna find ya.”

“But how can we get Ryuuma back now?” she wailed.

“We’ll think of something. We’ll ask Toufuu first – and if he don’t know we’ll hunt up Jijii. If nothin’ else – well, even if it means goin’ to China, between Herb, Kiima and the old ghoul, somebody’s gotta know somethin’!”

He was right, of course. It wasn’t as if ancient magic hadn’t touched their lives before. Ranma could beat this. He wouldn’t stop until Ryuuma was a little boy again instead of a fish.

“Oh my.” Kasumi peered at the koinobori. “It turned Ryuu-chan into a koi?”

Toufuu studied the shimmering silk, opening the mouth to peer inside. Light flashed across his glasses.

“Well?” asked Ranma. “Do you know how to cure Ryuu?”

Toufuu raised his hand to the back of his head. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

Everyone facefaulted.

Kasumi picked up the koinobori. She also looked into the mouth opening, then peered into the tail. “I wonder…” she murmured, and crossed the yard to kneel by the koi pond. “Come on, Ryuu-chan,” she called, dipping her hands into the water. The baby-turned-koi swam toward her, stopping just out of reach. “I know you’re having fun, but it’s time to come back now,” she said in a firm tone. “Everyone’s worried about you.”

With a flip of his tail, Ryuuma swam into her hands. She carried him back to the koinobori and slipped him into the opening in the tail. “Go on now,” she told him.

The bulge that was Ryuu-koi began to wriggle toward the mouth of the koinobori. As Ranma and Akane watched, the bulge grew bigger, and began to move less like a fish and more like a small animal… more like a baby.

“Ryuu…?” Akane whispered.

“Masaka,” Ranma muttered. “It’s that simple?”

A fuzzy dark head emerged from the mouth of the embroidered banner. Ryuuma wriggled out a little farther, rolled over onto his back, and gurgled up at his amazed parents.

Akane rushed forward and snatched up her baby.

“But how…?” Ranma sputtered.

Kasumi blinked. “It just made sense,” she said. “If he turned into a koi going one way, he ought to turn back into a baby going the other.” She picked up the koinobori and handed it to her father. “I don’t think it’s dangerous any more, but maybe you and Saotome-ojisan ought to hang it up?”

Moments later, the carp banner appeared flying over the Tendou house. Immediately it caught a breeze and filled, seeming to leap through the sky. Unnoticed, an old man watched and nodded to himself.

A cloud formed under the old man’s feet and rose into the air. He allowed himself one last look into the Tendou garden. Everyone had gone into the house except Ranma, who was pouring a kettle of hot water over his head. He stared at the cloud as if he could sense the old sage’s presence.

As Ranma stared, the small cloud dipped briefly as if acknowledging his attention, and then flew off – toward the west, against the wind.

NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.

I found the story about a baby who turned into a carp on a website called Uki Uki True? Lies! Journal. It had such a Takahashi-esque quality that I just had to turn it into a Ranma story for Boys’ Day.

Children’s Day, May 5, used to be known as Boys’ Day (girls had their own day on March 3) and is celebrated with special foods and displays that symbolize strength and endurance. The sword-shaped leaves of irises are put into a boy’s bath water, and boys stage mock sword-fights using iris leaves. Armor, helmets, and musha-ningyo (warrior dolls commemorating legendary heroes) are displayed in houses with young sons. In some regions, boys fly kites decorated with pictures of warriors. Probably the best-known symbol of Boys’ Day is the koinobori or carp banner. This symbolizes the fighting spirit of the carp which, like the American salmon, fights its way upstream and even leaps up waterfalls. A Chinese legend states that the carp that reaches the top of a certain waterfall will turn into a dragon.

Speaking of dragons, Ryuuma sounds like it ought to be written dragon-horse, but Ryuu is actually written with a kanji that means raindrops or running water – joining the Tendou practice of giving weather-related names to the Saotome custom of ending masculine names with -ma. I’ve seen a lot of fannish attempts to come up with a name for Ranma’s son, but haven’t liked any of them.

I have no idea who the old sage is supposed to be, he’s just a generic immortal I made up. I looked and looked and looked for someone who would fit, but either I wasn’t framing my searches right or there wasn’t anybody. And as for why an immortal would take such an interest in Ranma’s child, well, why not? With his heredity, he’s probably going to be another trouble-magnet and needs all the blessings he can get.