Falling to Earth

A Ranma ½ Fanfiction
by
Sinom Bre

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Chapter Five

Chakudan
(Impact)

Part Three

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"You smell good, Ranma-kun. Much better than before," a young woman said, hugging the arm of the aforementioned Ranma.

"Well, uh... Thanks for suggesting a stop at the sentou, Tendou-san. I guess it woulda been bad to show up all stinky and stuff." Ranma walked down the sidewalk with his escort, back straight, although his posture frequently relaxed only to straighten again at some movement, gesture, or look from his companion.

Tendou Nabiki touched the nicer cloth of the long-sleeved blue Chinese tang Ranma wore with her right hand and ran her finger down to the broad, white cuff at the end of the sleeve. Her left arm was looped through his right, and she hugged his arm tightly once more and flicked her eyes up to his face, feeling his posture stiffen again.

"Women really are a complete mystery to you, aren't they?" she mused.

Saotome Ranma's face contorted slightly in discomfort. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Don't be. It makes you very trainable."

He looked down at her with wide eyes, one of which twitched. Nabiki laughed.

"I'm pretty sure I don't like the sound of that," he declared.

"It's the way of things, Ranma-kun. Best not to fight it. It's much more enjoyable for men to just agree and pick their fights elsewhere. And I think most men who know would say that the rewards of compliance are... excellent."

Ranma's eye twitched again, but he said nothing. The tension in his arm was palpable, and Nabiki smirked. "However, I am still a little peeved at you about the sentou."

Sighing, Ranma rolled his eyes. "I'm a guy, damn it. I weren't gonna waltz into the girls side and.. and..."

"Look at all that naked female real estate?"

A blush roared onto his face. "Uh... yeah."

Nabiki sighed dramatically. "And there I was... Hoping to wash a cute little redhead's back. Oh, woe is me!"

"Tendou-san!—Urk!"

A petite, thin-fingered hand had caught his jaw and forced his head down and to the right, so the he could see her scowling up at him, although the scowl looked as though it wanted to slide into yet another smirk. "Ne, Ranma-kun... What happened to 'Nabiki-chan'?"

He pulled his head back slightly, and she slowly released his jaw, her fingers sliding softly over the skin of his face. "I dunno..." he said, voice quiet and pensive. "Still don't know what ya want with me. I don't understand why you're here. I don't understand why ya didn't go home and just stay home. Don't make any sense ta me... Is that more of me not understandin' women?"

They walked at least half of a block before Nabiki answered. "No, Ranma-kun, it's a fair question... much as it pains me to admit that for free." They continued in silence a few more steps. "To be honest, I'm not sure myself, which believe me when I tell you is not typical for me. I usually know exactly what I want, when, and how."

Ranma forced them to widely skirt an old woman ladling water onto the concrete sidewalk. The woman eyed them beadily and with a mischievous grin on her face flung a ladle full of the cursed liquid at him. Ranma hopped straight up to avoid the water and threw a glare at the elder resident, who responded with an unrepentant cackle.

"I swear," Ranma growled, "the water kami have it out for me. Even nice old ladies turn inta sidewalk oni."

Chuckling, Nabiki patted him on the arm.

"Anyway," Ranma said, "you were sayin'?"

"Oh, didn't forget, did you? Rats..."

"Ten—Nabiki-chan..."

She gave him a quicksilver smile. "That's better, Ranchan." Another, smaller blush heated his face. "Even better," she teased.

"Ahem! You were sayin'?" he repeated more strongly.

"Spoilsport." She pointedly stepped on his foot, but he acted as if he hadn't noticed. "Note to self: cannot easily annoy manly martial artists by stepping on foot."

Ranma grunted in annoyance.

"Note to self: scratch previous note."

"Nabiki-chan!"

"Right, right. You know, you can be a real killjoy when you're in the mood..."

"And you dodge questions like I do hits." His face lit up.

"Proud of that one, Ranma-kun? You occasionally show command of language."

"Any-way," he ground out, exasperated, but at her lack of response, he risked a glance at her only to see the slightly-lidded eyes and secret smile she'd given him at that park entrance. His steps faltered, and her smile widened; she'd scored her victory where it counted and could afford to be magnanimous.

"As to your question... I'm flying a little blind here, too, Ranma-kun, but unlike all the times before, it's... exciting me. There's a lot I could say about all this, but it's not the right time. Let's just say that you... interest me and that I'd like to get to know you better and leave it at that. Anything more is... Well... We'll see what tomorrow brings, ne?"

"Hmmm..."

"Try not to think about it too much. It'll just get in my way."

Ranma hung his head, but Nabiki hugged his arm again, and he resigned himself to ignorance. They turned a corner, and Nabiki glanced at the street sign and the number on the first house to their right. "102 Arisugawa. Eighteen houses to go..."

She could feel the rising tension in the arm of her... friend, acquaintance, budding boyfriend? Nabiki risked another quick glance up at his face, and the creases in his forehead and around his eyes matched with the clenching jaw demonstrated his apprehension. "You need to relax if you want this to go well. And don't worry about trying to impress her or anything. She's your mother. She's going to love you if you're three-foot tall and five-foot wide with blue skin and a head like a pork bun."

Finally getting a laugh out of him, Nabiki and he bantered the rest of the walk, trying to outdo the other with weirder and weirder ways he could've turned out. They were both laughing softly as they stopped at the gate of number 138 only to notice what they hadn't before because of the fence and the shrubbery. A woman bent over with a spray hose, misting some plantings on her side of the shrubbery.

Ranma had tensed up again, his back straight as a pine plank. Although instead of panic, his eyes seemed blank, and his mouth had opened slightly. Forgotten, his pack slid off of his shoulder and hit the concrete sidewalk with an audible thump. The woman, who hadn't straightened because of their laughter, did so now at the cessation of it and the noise of the pack. Her back was to them at a three-quarter turn, and she looked over her shoulder. Both Ranma and Nabiki were stunned—the woman was a dead ringer for an older version of Ranma's girl form.

"Oh, hello, dears. Can I help you with something?" she asked.

Ranma's mouth worked a couple of times, and Nabiki elbowed him. "M-M-M-M-M—" Another elbow. "M-Mom?!"

Now it was the woman's turn to work her mouth silently in shock. Her eyes took in every detail of his face, and then a broad smile seemed to light up the world. "Ranma? ... RANMA!"

Unfortunately, she turned to almost run towards the gate and brought the hose spray to bear, completely forgetting it was in her hand. It was interesting, Nabiki thought, that although the spray drenched her companion, she barely got a drop on her.

Ranma's mother had screeched to a halt when her son turned into a very obvious female—shorter, busty, and a younger version of what she saw in the mirror every morning—right in front of her bulging eyes.

Rubbing the back of her head, Ranma grinned weakly with one eye closed. "Uh... Sorry 'bout this, Mom."

'Mom' crumpled to the lawn in a dead faint.

While Ranma just stared, Nabiki rubbed her forehead. "Well, that could've gone better," she quipped dryly.

The strange and uncustomary sounds of people moving about her home and low conversation first impinged on Saotome Nodoka's awareness. Taking stock, she lay on what felt like her thread-bare couch, and after opening her eyes, the edge of a damp white cloth cut off the upper half of her vision. She felt a squeeze of her hand and turned and saw her younger self sitting in a chair and smiling weakly at her.

Nodoka sat up abruptly, yanking her hand out of the girl's, and scooted to the far end of the couch, leaning out over the arm, away from the apparition that had decided to visit her. The girl stared at her for a few seconds, pain and sadness in her fallen face and dull eyes, and she ran from the room. The front door opened and slammed shut.

Another girl walked in from the kitchen with a tea tray, looking at the empty chair, Nodoka's position on the couch, and then at the front door. She slumped a little but carried the tea tray in and set it on the coffee table. The girl claimed the empty chair and pour three cups, placing one on a saucer and setting both on the corner of the table nearest Nodoka.

"Who are you?" Nodoka asked.

"Tendou Nabiki." Nabiki bowed from her chair and missed Nodoka's start at the Tendou name. After straightening, Nabiki eyed the woman sharply. "And you are Saotome Nodoka, I gather, especially as you look almost identical to your son... when he's a she, that is."

"I... That... Who..." She finally sat up from leaning out over the couch arm, although she didn't take the tea. "What? Please make sense... Tendou-san."

Nabiki's eyebrows drooped and her facial features fell slightly in resignation. She picked up her tea and sipped, giving herself time to think of what to say. "I probably wouldn't have believed it either," she said, after a moment, "if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. If 'he' hadn't been carrying me and became a 'she' when it started to rain."

Nodoka stared, mute.

"I don't have all the details, but I gather that he and his father visited some weird training ground in China the kami know where, and they both fell into springs with different curses. His father turns into a panda when he gets wet, and Ranma turns into a girl. Apparently, hot water will turn them back." She paused. "And that's really all I know, but I have spent time with him in both forms, and they are, without a doubt, the same person." She pulled her eyes off of Nodoka and turned them down into her teacup as she sipped again.

For her part, Nodoka still could not wrap her mind around a bit of this. Her brain just could not accept it, be it true or false, but it did latch on to one thing. "His father? Genma? Where is Genma?"

"Ah. That... It's not my place to speak of such matters. You will have to ask your son."

"But it's fine for you to speak of curses?!" Nodoka warbled, miffed at being deflected.

Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "Well, of course it is. You saw it with your own eyes at the front gate, did you not?"

"I... That didn't..."

"It happened. Don't fall into deluding yourself otherwise. Your eyes didn't lie to you. I was standing right there holding onto his arm when he, ah... We really need to come up with a good term for this. Gender-flipped? Gender-shifted? Sex-changed? Gad. No. I'll have to think about a good term." Another sip of tea.

"You are terribly blasé about this... impossibility."

Nabiki smiled but dropped it. "That's not important right now. What is important is that your son, who is currently a girl, is outside somewhere thinking her... his mother either hates him or is afraid of him and doesn't want him. For someone who just found out yesterday that you were even still alive, well... He could bolt and we'd never see him again."

The mother made no move to seek out her child, and Nabiki frowned and set down her teacup. "I apologize for coming into your home uninvited, Saotome-san." She rose from her seat and bowed. "I will collect Ranma-kun, and we'll be on our way. Have a good life..." Nabiki looked around, feeling uncharitable in a way new to her. "...in this empty old house." She sketched another bow and walked to the front door, stopping to drag Ranma's pack out of the front door—it was entirely too heavy for her to lift and it abraded the wood flooring. Nabiki didn't bother to even wince at the damage.

She found him, or rather her, sitting against the house, arms around her knees and her head resting sideways on them. She poked Ranma in the head with a finger, Ranma looked up, and Nabiki grabbed one of her hands, hauling her to her feet.

"We're leaving," she said, flatly.

Ranma blinked at her and then hung her head, and Nabiki turned and led her to the pack, which Ranma picked up and slung onto one shoulder without effort. Taking the smaller girl's free hand, she pulled her through the gate but stopped abruptly and didn't move for several seconds.

"Nabiki-chan?" Ranma finally croaked.

Nabiki said, "Stay here a moment," and walked back through the gate and into the house without knocking. Nodoka still sat where she'd left her, looking lost in a fugue state. "If on the off chance you decide that you would like to know your only child, Ranma is currently camped out in the park in Furinkan-cho. I don't know where in the park exactly, but it isn't that big." Receiving nothing more than another stare, Nabiki huffed and left the house.

On the short train ride back to Furinkan-cho from Oizumi-machi on the Nerima line, Ranma kept a close eye on Nabiki, despite her own troubles. Nabiki had walked faster and faster from Ranma's mother's house to the train station, and once on the train, she stood staring out of the window. It wasn't hard for the martial artist in Ranma to feel the anger radiating off of the girl, and every couple of minutes it would spike strongly enough to make Ranma wince.

"Nabiki-chan," she finally and quite tentatively asked, "why're ya mad?"

The taller girl's jaw clenched painfully. "No talk!" She shook her head and gave Ranma a fleeting look of apology. "Can't talk about it right now."

Ranma didn't push the matter—with no regard to her size and gender, she felt very small right now. She did notice a hand reach out of the crowd and attempt to cup Nabiki's bottom. Ranma reached around without much thought, caught the wrist of the molester, and squeezed hard enough to give the radius and ulna clean breaks and fracture several of the small wrist bones. Neither Ranma nor Nabiki, who hadn't realized she had been about to be groped, reacted to the howling that erupted behind them, and the train cop at the other end of the car merely yawned. The train quickly slowed, stopped, and Ranma followed a stomping Nabiki out of the car and the station long before the train cop ambled over to see what all the commotion had been about.