She sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at the object in front of her. After all this time, all the obstacles and frustrations, the fears faced, the shame endured… it was finally within her grasp. And now that she had it… Is this what I really want?
It was such a simple thing. Just reach out, pick it up, and… everything she’d been saying she wanted for years. Never be a girl again, her mind repeated the familiar mantra. The old dream, coming true. Is it still really my dream?
It had been so long… you get used to anything, and she had gotten used to this body, even learned to use it to her advantage. Its phenomenal speed gave her an edge, sometimes a better edge than his greater reach and power. The ability to change form was itself an asset, one she would miss. Giving up any potential advantage went against all of Oyaji’s teaching, not to mention everything he’d learned from his own experience. There were things she had done in this form that he could never have accomplished. Defeating Kodachi. Getting his strength back from Happousai. Hinako-sensei. The orochi. It was fun, too, sometimes, manipulating Kunou and Ryouga, not to mention being able to eat parfaits without being embarrassed, and scamming food-vendors out of extras. And yeah, there was a kind of… validation? in being the kind of girl that guys turned around and stared at…
It was so much easier, sometimes, being a girl. Like learning to ice skate… he had felt like such a fool, falling down like some untrained klutz, as though his own body was betraying him… so he had gone into the bathroom and changed because even though he still looked like a total idiot it wasn’t really him so it wouldn’t hurt as much… and then…
Sanzenin. Her fists clenched; her eyes blazed sapphire fury. She’d pegged him for another Kunou at first, and the kami knew she was used enough to Kunou’s glompings and gropings. The idiot didn’t even really bother her much any more, she just knocked him out without breaking stride. But Sanzenin…
He picked her up, and his strength made her feel little and fragile, like something that needed to be protected. His eyes held hers the way a snake holds a bird, with an ardent glow that made something deep inside her almost hurt. And then there had been the gentle, insistent pressure of his lips… and that thing inside her had opened to him the way a flower opens to sunshine… when she first ran away she thought she was going to be sick, but by the time she got to the bathroom anger had taken over and he had let the rage take him, burning away the confusion, the shame… the fear…
All the things he’d vowed never to do. Change voluntarily. Wear women’s clothes. Wear lingerie and make-up. Go on dates. He, she, had done all of them and more, eroding his manhood little by little. And what about the lines he still hadn’t crossed…?
She remembered the koi fishing rod, and believing that she loved Ryouga. She loved him so much she was willing to die, just to make him happy… She remembered the time she had hit her head and believed she was truly a girl, not only a girl but a very feminine one, interested only in clothes and flower arranging and completely revolted by the Art that was his very life…
Could any of that have happened if it wasnt in me to begin with? And if it is… do I want to bring it out any more than it already is?
What if I start likin’ guys? As a girl? What if some day I… don't want to change back?
What if I quit lovin’ Akane?
In a single swift, graceful motion, Ranma Saotome picked up the cask of nannichuan water and upended it over her head.
A couple of years ago I ran into a whole string of what I call “orientation-angst” fics in which Ranma becomes a girl psychologically as well as physically. Personally, I think the idea is OOC… but would he take a cure if it were offered? He says he would, but this is a guy who isn’t exactly known for his self-knowledge – and his girl-body does sometimes give him an edge, and giving up an advantage is equally OOC. So what would make him use a cure?
Ranma seems to have his worst nightmares when some consequence of his curse makes him doubt his own masculinity. I think the reason he goes so ballistic in “The Abduction of P-Chan” is precisely that his girl-body does respond to the kiss. I’ve been kissed by a Sanzenin or two in my day… they’re usually damn good kissers, and the body does have its own responses. So…