------------------------------ cut here

 ``Ranma, Why don't we call you Mother and Father like all of the
 other kids?''  Miyuki asked as she shed her shoes in the genkan.

"Ranma, why... 

 ``Would you like the long version or the short one?''

 ``The short one, please.''

 ``When your elder sister was really small we decided it would look
funny.''

 ``Tell me the long version.''

 ``OK.  You know about the training trip we were on when Rei was
 born, right?''

 ``Un, I've heard the story about how when Akane annouced that she
 was in labor Ryouga fainted into a stream and Auntie Akari had to pull
him out before he drowned.''

 ``And then Akane started giggling at the thought of what would have
happened if she hadn't already known about his curse.''

 ``Ouch.''

 ``Lucky him that she knew.  As you know Rei's birth was very easy,
 by the time we got back to Tokyo and the dojo she was a couple weeks
old and looked like a human baby instead of a pink monkey...''

:)

 ``Hey!  That's rude!''

 ``It's true.  When you were first born you looked like a pink
 monkey too.  A very cute pink monkey, quite worth the effort of carrying
for nine and a half months, but still a pink monkey.

 ``Your grandmother just sort of fainted as we walked in, Akane was

Why? Did she know something Akane and the gang didn't? (I presume by 
'grandmother' you are referring to Nadoka)

holding Rei and promising to feed her as soon as she found a spot to
sit down. When she came to Akane had Rei to her breast, Rei was
quite happily ignoring everything else, and Akane and the rest of us
were wondering what was wrong.  She all but dragged the two of them
to the hospital to get checked. They were fine, but the doctors took
some of Akane's blood, she wouldn't let them have any of Rei's, and
said to call back in a week.

She seems to be upset that Akane delivered at home, but this isn't 
totally clear...

 ``We called back and they asked us what my blood type was, and when
 I said that it was $1 they said that we needed to come in.  When whe
got there they said that Akane had antibodies for $1 type blood in
her system, and the doctors were concerned, or, more accurately,
certain, that we would not be able to have more children together.''

 ``Why?  Antibodies just protect against germs that have been
encountered before . . . Oh!  Both Rei's and my blood type are the
same as yours.''

True enough, and a common enough problem among couples.

 ``Pin pon.  So we plotted as we came home, thinking about what we
could do about it, whether we wanted any more children, that sort of
thing. Akane came up with the idea we eventually used.  `You always
brag about how you look so much better as a girl than I do, you
carry the next one.'  I think she meant it as a joke, but after we
thought about it we decided to ask for second and third oppinions. 
Kodachi and Ukyou thought it was a decent idea, so long as we could
set things up so that I wouldn't end up the topic of someone's
research.  Tofu pointed out that we would need to keep me from
changing, and trying to avoid hot water just would not do.''

 ``Understatement.  Whenever you try to stay one gender or another
 you always end up soaking wet.  Remember that parent-teacher conference
last year?''

Nice change of topic, saves you from having to explain HOW they managed 
that.

 ``How could I forget it?  `Could you please have your father come
 to the meeting?' `Sure.' `Who's this?' `My father.' poke poke.''  Ranma
scowls at the memory.

 ``Hey! it was funny.'' Miyuki giggles.

 ``You obviously think it still is.''

 ``Of course it is.  That is why we don't call you tou-chan, ne?  I
admit it would have been rather hillarious to have Rei calling you
tou-chan while I was nursing.''

 ``It's not quite as funny as how you called me `Tittie' no matter
 what form I was in until you were four.''  Ranma pokes back.

 ``I did what?!''

 ``What, you didn't know?  I copied the habit off of Akane, I don't
know where she picked it up, who knows, maybe she just thought it up
on her own, of asking you if you wanted some tittie whenever you
looked hungry or I felt you needed to be fed.''

 ``Felt I needed to be fed?''

 ``Un, When you're breastfeeding you produce enough milk to feed
whoever you're feeding.  If you wait too long the milk accumulates
and is rather obnoxious.''

 ``From your tone you are understating again, birth-mother.''

 ``I'm not sure that's the right word.''

 ``Understatement?  Or birth-mother.''

 ``The second.  It doesn't sound right.''

 ``Oh well.  Find me the proper one and I'll call you by it.'' (I
admit the last bit of dialog loses something in translation.  :/ )

 ``Don't bother.  Enough chatter, you are not going to get out of
today's practice session.  Your elder sister is off learning from
obaba, so you get do do a bit of one on one practice today.''

 ``Hai, hai.  Iku ze!'' Miyuki shifts tone from absolute boredom to
enthusiastic yell in an instant, slamming her right heel into the
side of Ranma's face, flinging him into the pond.  *Worked.  That
aerial spin kick shouldn't have, though.*  >Thump!<  *That was
stupid* Miyuki reasured herself as she countered the rest of the
attack.

 In the end the score was about even, old age, skill and treachery
 only slightly overpowering youth, skill, and treachery.

Maybe 'underhandedness' would work better, althouth that's a clumsy 
word, as Ranma was never treacherous. He lied (badly), stole, and 
cheated when he had to, but he never bretrayed anyone.

 ``If we want to wash off before Akane gets here we should go in
 now.'' Ranma states, heading into the house, only dripping slightly from
her last dip in the pond.

 ``You're washing my back.'' she continued, stripping off her shirt
 and dropping it on the floor.

 ``Don't I end up doing that most of the time anyway, kaa-chan?''
Miyuki asks, adding her own clothing to the untidy pile that Ranma
would have to wash later.

 ``Kyaa! Tsumette!''

 ``If you didn't insist on using ice water you wouldn't scream so
loud.''

This trasition (from clothing removal to wash bucket application) 
would have worked better if I understood Japanese. Maybe "Aieee! 
Tsumette!" would work better, as it's more universally worded.

 ``Then what fun is there in it?  And I've still washed your back
 far more times than you've washed mine.''

 ``I must admit that I'm not sure.  And that is only becouse you
 have twenty years on me.''  Miyuki replies as she soaps Ranma's back. 
She finishes in silence and Ranma scrubs her back before entering
the tub.

 ``I still have to cook dinner.  Fugh.  You did a number on my face
with that kick earlier.  I'm going to have a nice purple bruise to
explain to my students tomorrow.''

 ``Just one?  I can see a good five from here.''

 ``Hey!  Don't look!''  Ranma pulls himself into a tighter ball,
 eyes closed to better enjoy the hot bath.

 ``I meant ones that would show up when you have clothes on!  Che,
 you are so etchi.''

 ``I am not, I just think about the kind of person I was at 11 and
 act accordingly.''

 ``See!  Etchi!''

 ``What, are you saying you aren't?''

 ``Why would I say that.  You've seen some of the things I read.''

 ``Tadaima!''

Again, Akane calling out would have worked better if it was in 
english, or if there was some other indication that the voice was 
coming from off screen.

 ``Okaerinasai!'' The two in the bathtub call.

 ``I suppose you are going to make me cook dinner tonight, even
 though it isn't my turn, right?''

The offscreen voice is still not to easy to place, although once you 
grasp whats going on, it falls into place a bit better. 

 ``No, I'll be getting out in a moment to cook it.  If you want one
 of us could wash your back for you.''

 ``OK!  I'll be up in a moment.''  The sounds of groceries getting
 put away waft up from the kitchen.

 ``Yet another question, why do you two always argue about who is
 going to cook?''

 ``Akane couldn't cook until she was almost twenty five.  It was the
contest that finally convinced her to learn.  She'd been trying
before, but she never made the leap that seperates awful from
decent.''

 ``Contest?''

 ``Yeah, Kodachi challenged her to a contest to see which of them
 could poison the most people.  Non-fatally.  Kodachi got something like
the entire male population of Fuurinkan High and a few of the female
students as well. Akane poured twelve grams of LSD into the Nerima
water supply.''

Again, you've drifted, and not finished the end of the story arc you 
had going before Akane interrupted.

 ``Twelve grams!?!?''

 ``Yep.  The really scary part was that it took the athorities in
 other parts over a week to realize that there was anything wrong.  Most of
Nerima still doesn't trust the water supply.  Kodachi was at Ukyou's
when they both started tripping.  Ukyou had enough presence of mind
to tell everyone to go home and lock the doors, but assumed that
when Kodachi didn't leave she was just one of the hallucinations. 
Kodachi has said that she originally was going to sit out the trip
somewhere quiet and go home, for she thought that someone at her
house had spiked something she ate or drank.  By the time she
realized that Ukyou was losing it she tripping pretty badly, and so
appointed herself to keep Ukyou from damaging herself during her bad
trip.  By the time the LSD was flushed from the water supply and the
after affects had begun to wear off. . .'' Ranma's story was
interupted by Akane's entrance, a quick janken to determine who got

Janken?

to wash her back (which made Akane break out laughing) and the
loser, Miyuki, washing Akane's back before they both got into the
tub.  ``Ukyou and Kodachi were a set.  LSD makes you really open to
suggestion for a few days after you do it, and they had spent almost
two weeks tripping, and they recovered together.  They went from
being just shy of mortal enemies to freinds to lovers over the
course of the month and a half that it took to deal with the LSD in
the water supply.''

 ``How?''

 ``If you spend a lot of time talking with someone, each of you
 letting out secrets that you wouldn't tell others that you don't trust
implicitly, holding each other when things get really bad, dropping
the facades that you keep up when others are around, you first begin
to trust, then it can go further, especially if there is no one
around who wants to stop it. Kodachi wasn't totally sane before that
happened.  She had no one she could trust, no one she could count on
to take care of her or help her take care of herself, no one that
she didn't feel the need to pretend around.  Ukyou was trying to
deal with the fact that Akane and I had finally stopped fighting and
were together.  They both needed someone really badly, and they
volunteered each other.  I admit it was a shock when I first saw
them walk in together, Ukyou's arm about Kodachi's waist, and her
head on Ukyou's shoulder.  Neither of them had parents, so they felt
pretty safe about being open with the fact that they were more than
just `romantic freinds.'  Even so there were a couple attempts made
by official types to split them up.''

 ``What?  Why would they do that?''

 ``It was almost fifteen years ago.  Before they got over most of
 that gender discrimination crap, dear.'' Akane answered, ``They did that
to anyone who was involved in an openly physical lesbian
relationship.  They make the parents move one of the girls and the
parents forbid contact between them. Mean, huh?''

Maybe 'garbage' would be better than 'crap'. I can see Akane using 
the word, but not in front of her daughter.

 ``Yep.  Very.  I'll go cook dinner since I lost today, and you look
tired Akane.''

 ``Just so long as it isn't avacado and mozerella on microwaved
 french bread anything is OK.'' Akane tells her daughter as she dries off,
before dunking her own face in the bathwater.

 ``Aw.  That is my favorite kind of sandwich.  I'll make something
interesting, then.''  Miyuki replies in an agreived, then
threatening tone.

 ``At least your `interesting' isn't as bad as what Akane used to
 cook. Ite!  Hey! Your cooking is a lot better than it used to be!  Really!
 I even look forward to eating it!'' Miyuki heard the sounds of
Ranma being dunked into the tub by main force, shook her head, and
went to the kitchen to find things to add the the avacado.

Overall, very good, BUT one question remains.

Who knocked Onna-Ranma up?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Stodden <eos@ghost.cc.cmu.edu>
'Life is a harsh mistress, Fate an insatiable lover, 
                                               Death an old friend.'
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