Chapter Text
Even after a single night, Akane was now her second favourite person ever. At least, if Ranma – Kei – only stuck to who she could remember. Really, it wasn’t even fair to compare her to her favourite, because it just wasn’t right to go around drawing parallels between a normal human and a goddess. Inari might get mad if she started doing that.
And Inari had said she could be a girl and even showed her how, so Kei was pretty sure that would make her the best always, even if she hadn’t also promised that things would work out in the end despite pops’ constant worrying that her girliness would get them killed.
Akane, though, Akane was as good as a human could be! She’d been nice to the strange fox that she found hiding in her house and that was generally a good sign of how nice someone was going to be at all. People who wanted to shoo off the white fox for being where it shouldn’t when she just wanted somewhere small and comfortable and safe – they were the sort of person that didn’t approve of the scruffy martial artist that came begging for food or just for somewhere dry to sleep because their tent was leaking and she didn’t mean to seem shifty it just happened–
No, Akane was nothing like those. She’d smiled, given Kei a bath and a name, and then she’d taken her out to the dojo when pops and her sister just wouldn’t stop and…
She’d listened. If Kei wanted to be a girl, then she could be a girl, and Akane had no problem with that, and she could count on the fingers of one hand how many times that happened. She even wanted to be friends after and had the most beautiful smile when she was doing it! Like looking at the sun or–
No, Kei had already told herself not to make that comparison.
And then they’d talked some more – a little before dinner, but mostly after – and Akane had wanted to know what sort of martial arts she’d picked up on the journey, where she’d learned it…
It was the sort of thing some of the boys at her previous school had asked about. Once. Until she went on too long, or in too much detail because who really cared how two different masters in Fushimi thought exactly how the same throw should be done (aside from pops and Kei, obviously)? Ryo had listened, even if she ended up losing him, but that was it. And now Akane!
But what Akane had over Ryo was the name. It was such a pretty name! It might have been a second attempt but Kei didn’t get things right on the first try most of the time, like faces. The way Akane had called her Kei-chan too… she really liked that, and if they were going to be friends she could hear it a lot more, right?
Though what was keeping her awake was that maybe it needed just a little change? Writing her full name with only four characters looked too imbalanced, and it was possible someone might think she was a guy on name alone.
Keiko? Nobody was going to make the same mistake there, and it kept the relative number of characters between her family and given names the same. Yeah, that sounded good, and she could ask Akane about it tomorrow – pops always forgot she had good hearing, so she knew she’d be going to school again. Plenty of time to ask and even if she didn’t, she could think it over.
“You look a little different this morning,” Akane said, shaking Kei(ko) out of her absent-minded stroll atop the fence.
“Ah, crap, is it the nose or the chin?” She always got those wrong unless she stared at Pops to check, and he was such a grump about it early in the morning.
“What?”
“I try an’ copy Pops a bit more when I look like this, but I don’t always get it right.” She hopped down so Akane could get a better look, turning so she could see all angles.
“I think it’s the chin…” Right, make it a bit more square, a little more rugged, “But I thought you wouldn’t need to think about how you look that much?”
“It depends,” she started fiddling with her braid again as she thought. The easiest way to explain for someone that couldn’t transform freely… she’d tried to tell Ryo before and he just didn’t get it, thought it was an either/or thing. Ah, demonstration! “Like, if I turned into a fox, sure? I do that when I go to sleep anyway.”
Pops always complained about it, said her ma didn’t. Kei(ko) didn’t think that was fair, though? She was still just a kid, even if he insisted she was way too old for dolls or the like.
Damn it, Akane was giving her a weird look, probably thought she was super childish–
So she did the obvious thing and turned into the easy guy form. More than a little on the short side compared to the one Pops liked, less obviously a rugged martial artist. Baby-faced, and her hair a deep red that was almost black. “See, if I just turned into a guy without thinkin’ about it, I’d turn into this. But it’s a bit too girly, right? So I practised and–”
Back to the parentally-approved manly Ranma Saotome! Itchy and uncomfortable, like having to wear a gakuran for a uniform, but it was something she could put up with if she had no choice. Like if she showed up to school and had to look the same all the time.
“So if that’s just what you look like as a guy without thinking, what about as a girl?” Akane kept looking around like someone might be watching, but she was really worrying too much. People didn’t notice something like this unless you did it right in their face.
It was a pretty fun game to see what she could get away with, too.
“Not much different,” It wasn’t even that different: drop another couple of inches so she was shorter than Akane, lighten her hair a few shades… she wasn’t super manly as a guy, so she wasn’t a super girly girl either, “Confused pops a bunch when we were stayin’ in Kyoto, he wasn’t sure which one I was.”
“Remember when Pops was talkin’ about Jusenkyo, though?” well, Akane probably did, it didn’t matter, “I fell into a spring while I was there.”
“But you’re not cursed.”
“I am, though! Cold water makes me want to turn into my cursed form, I can just… not. It’s kinda like holdin’ in a sneeze until it passes. Same for hot water if I was in the right shape.”
“So you turn into a frog or…?”
Oh, right, Kei(ko) hadn’t said what spring she fell into, whoops. All of this must seem like it came out of nowhere and–
“Nah, I fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl,” and then she was in her new preferred form. Well, without the cute ears or tail – she might be fine with changing size, shape, and even apparent gender while walking to school but the fluff always got attention. Not always good attention, there were so many creeps around… “I asked the guide, an’ this would be what I’d have looked like if I was born a girl. An’ ‘cause the curse is there, it’s always right!”
Not that she didn’t want it cured. The weird tingle from hot water would make taking a bath like this really annoying. Maybe if she could find a proper shrine with a priest – it wouldn’t be hard, but maybe if there was one in Nerima? The Guide had said that there was no cure (for Pops) except the currently-dry Spring of Drowned Man, but he wasn’t a shapeshifter or dedicated to a goddess.
Kei(ko) kept going a few more steps before realising that Akane had stopped.
“Ranma–”
“Kei. Or maybe Keiko? I’ve been tryin’ to decide but I got distracted with showin’ off and–”
“We’re nearly at school,” Akane pointed out, and sure enough there was the sight of a few other students filtering into an all-too uninspiring building, “You ought to change back.”
Oh, right. That was… true, Pops was expecting he would go to school properly. It was something that past-Ranma had always done, even more than when he was just practising martial arts or hanging out with Ryo – there were locker rooms and changing and who knew what evil the minds of teenage boys would devise (well, probably not much, she did try to ask as many questions as possible so she could get it right before she had permission to not) so it had always been safer.
But looking at Akane and some other girls, Kei(ko) realised there was a difference.
This was a co-ed school! Sure, whatever she showed up as she’d have to stay as, even if she really liked this it would still be nice to play around with figures and hair and height, but that meant she could show up as a girl. And then even if Pops found out there was nothing he could do!
Well, he could make her change back and reveal to the entire school that she was a fox but when she let that slip in elementary they’d been chased out by exorcists panicking about the impending return of Tamamo-no-Mae. She was only nine and the rock sealing her was still there! They’d gone and checked!
“Um, but what if I… don’t? I can just show up as a girl.”
It didn’t seem like it should take Akane nearly so long to think about this one as it took her, the blue-haired girl giving the school a thoughtful look, “If you don’t, you’ll have to shower and change with the boys…”
“Yeah?” She’d done it before. For years. She didn’t like it but it wasn’t because they were guys specifically, she just didn’t fit in – and being the best at sports only got you so far.
“And if boys ever found out you were a girl they’d…”
Kei(ko) didn’t think they’d do much of anything. Ryo had always been perfectly nice when she got the courage to explain and she didn’t think the average high school boy could actually do anything to her if she didn’t want it.
“I think you should do it,” the other girl decided, giving her another one of those amazing smiles, “Especially after you see what the boys are like every. Morning.”
Oh, Nabiki had hinted at something like that before running off, hadn’t she? It had entirely slipped Kei(ko)’s mind as she was too busy trying to decide on her name and then – well, it had been one of the most enjoyable walks to school she’d ever had. Except maybe that time where she’d convinced Ryo to take the day off instead, but that probably didn’t count as a walk to school at that point.
She followed behind as Akane lead the way into the school grounds, breaking into an outright charge through–
What was going on? Oh, sure, it was a fight – and she made sure to catalogue each and every movement that the other girl was making; Akane’s awareness and ability to deal with being surrounded were amazing but her defence relied so heavily on offence and she was overcommitting much too often for Kei(ko)’s comfort.
But why was it happening!? She couldn’t imagine what you could possibly do to get what felt like half the school assembled to form an all-out battle every morning! If there was something, she was sure Pops would have tried to make her do it at least once, and he didn’t even need to worry about staying at the same school long term.
The battle soon came to its inevitable conclusion, Akane standing triumphant and untouched amidst piles of dazed and potentially unconscious boys, the detritus of destroyed sports equipment littering the ground all around them.
“Are the boys in this school just weird or…” Was it something about high school that made them like this? Or co-ed? Maybe they behaved better when there weren’t (apparent) girls around?
“What a horde of boorish men,” it seemed that at least one boy had escaped the violence. Or had been standing back for whatever reason, despite actually dressing as a martial artist… and unlike the flattened lot, he actually had some of the bearing to back it up. He also wasn’t jumping immediately to attack Akane, so that was a plus in Kei(ko)’s books.
He turned to face her, “Ah, you must be new here, miss? To not understand the purpose behind these fights.”
“Yeah, I just–”
“Then I should introduce myself first! I am Kuno Tatewaki of Class 2-E, undefeated captain of the kendo club and the newest rising star of the kendo world, otherwise known as…” the boy took a dramatic step back, as if expecting the environment would back him up. Unfortunately, it was and remained a perfectly sunny morning as he finished, “The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!”
But now she had to introduce herself, think it wasn’t that hard–
“Um, I’m Saotome Keiko, senpai,” the recently-decided-Keiko replied, “But the fights?”
“Oh, those are quite simple: they believe that by besting the beauteous Tendo Akane in a fight they might earn the honour of requesting a date.”
Keiko stared. Even to her, that didn’t sound normal at all. “Why!?”
“Well, because I told them that anyone who could not do such was unworthy of dating her, of course.”
So much for seeming nicer than all of the boys, if he was the one behind all of this. Akane was nice and there was no reason to make her fight all these people every morning just because you didn’t want people to ask her out! Or wanted people to ask her out? Or did Kuno want to ask her out? She wasn’t really sure…
Keiko would have to get back at him. In the name of training, of course.
“Now, if you will excuse me, I need to issue my own challenge–”
“Akane already went inside…”
“Tomorrow, then.”
Standing at the front of the class to be introduced was regrettably familiar; Pops was never any good at moving them around between school years, so she had always found herself the odd one out. The weight of everyone staring at her, wondering who the odd stranger that wasn’t staying perfectly still was.
But this time was better! She was a girl.
But it had already gone a bit… wrong, the teacher giving her a very confused look when she wrote her name properly on the blackboard. “I thought we were expecting a Saotome Ranma?”
“I, um, changed my name…”
“You can’t just do that, Miss Saotome.”
“Well, you were expecting a boy Saotome, weren’t you? And I’m not! So I can’t have a name that doesn’t fit!” And everyone was watching more maybe this was wrong – but then she’d have come as a boy and that would be even worse even if Pops would be happy and–
“Yes, that is quite confusing,” the man adjusted his glasses, “It seems there’s been quite the error…”
He shrugged and turned back to the written notes, saying she’d just moved here from China – which wasn’t really fair, they’d only been travelling there a few months, not really staying anywhere – and generic platitudes about treating her well.
Then the lessons began. Or, rather, periods devoted to making Keiko feel as inadequate as possible started. She was so far behind; all the introductory high school stuff had been covered and the teacher might as well have been talking in code. And she was new, and her hair made her stand out and they kept picking her to ask the questions – but she didn’t have the first clue about any of it.
She hated feeling so useless – it was one reason she pushed through Pops’ training no matter how ridiculous it was; she’d rather be sore and tired and beaten up than having to deal with failing to learn something she should have been able to do – and it was worse because she couldn’t do anything about it! She couldn’t ask someone (Akane) for help to catch up while they were in lessons, she couldn’t get away from the attention, she could just look at the notes that didn’t tell her anything and hope it started making sense…
Or where the notes should have been. Because of course it was hard to take notes when nothing made sense; she kept finding herself looking out the window, or just fiddling with her pencil and tapping out a neat little rhythm–
Then they were between classes and could she please go back? Please? Yes, she was the new girl and that was very interesting but really there wasn’t that much to say – yes she was definitely a girl what sort of question was that!? Question after question and she was almost literally snapping at the dumb ones; this was why she almost never made friends in new schools…
The questions stopped and the next lesson started. The cycle started again, but she wanted less and less to do with it – by the time lunch was rolling around, Keiko wasn’t even trying to feign paying attention, leg bouncing in anticipation. As soon as the whatever-it-was lesson was over she could get out and get away and she could get her lunch off Akane later and have it after school. Anything was better than nearly another hour of questions and everyone would know she’s a fox before the end of lunch by sure if that happened–
Akane was even faster on the draw, wrapping one hand around Keiko’s wrist before she was half out of her seat and this time intercepting the other students. Something about having promised to show her around, and she was a little shy…
Keiko wouldn’t say she was really shy, it was just – there were a lot of questions and martial arts weren’t always the answer! Everyone wanted so much and the school day was so long but she’d have been happy to talk to them at some other time just not all at once. Somehow, though, from Akane these words were like magic even over her mumbled objections and they were able to pull out of the classroom with only a few pitying looks.
She didn’t know where they stopped – not a classroom, probably a club room, but blissfully empty – and didn’t really pay any attention again until Akane put a bento down in front of her. Exactly like hers, all the same delicious home-cooked food carefully placed into a single box.
Nothing with a particularly strong flavour, nothing that might get ignored if your new guest was a picky eater. Just… not separated properly.
…
She wasn’t hungry enough for this, and Pops wasn’t here to steal it if she didn’t force herself anyway.
Nobody aside from Akane was around.
Keiko did exactly what came naturally when there was too much everything: turn into a fox. She was still her, still just as smart and not really an animal – she couldn’t fit in with actual foxes either, even if they could sort-of-communicate she was far, far too human – but she didn’t have to talk. Plus the world had a lot more fox-sized corners to hide in, like between that bookshelf and the window.
She didn’t even make it halfway by going over the table instead of under, her would-be friend snagging her by the belly and instead placing her on her lap. She almost wanted to protest – to turn back and explain even if it didn’t make sense please just let her hide away for the rest of lunch. But she’d let Akane carry her around last night, and bracketed by her body and the table proper it was…
It was warm, and soft, and felt safe. Akane had just been… so nice to her, despite all the problems.
And she was so good with her free hand, too, knowing exactly where to scratch so that it felt good not just awkward…
“Feeling better, Kei-chan?”
She replied with a little yip.
Akane was definitely her favourite human.