Chapter Text
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The thing about trauma is that it tends to be a bit more complicated than people would originally assume.
For example, something that might bring the person suffering from trauma comfort, might not do so endlessly.
When dealing with extreme trauma, to the extent where upon activation it actually mutates into a second personality, things get even more complex. Because even if someone could make those two personalities switch back to normal, if something changed between how the personalities interacted or what served to motivate them, then that ability would be just as likely to fail as succeed.
Of course, none of the members of the Tendo household were capable of understanding psychology to a degree that went beyond guilt-tripping and blackmail. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they didn't think it very important when Ranma got a bit too exposed to some cats again.
Only... cat-Ranma apparently didn't want to take a nap in Akane's lap, and was seemingly quite content with staying awake for now.
This was their first clue that something was wrong.
Their second one was when cat-Ranma cheerfully dropped a dead pigeon on Kasumi's doorstep the next morning.
And then wiped the floor with both of the fathers when they protested what they assumed was harassment, rather than stemming from – as any cat-owner could've told them – it being common cat-courtesy to bring an offering to the food-provider.
Which made the residents of the Tendo household realize that not only was cat-Ranma sticking around for a possibly indeterminate time in the future, they couldn't actually force him to do anything he didn't want to, and apparently they'd accidentally adopted a humanoid cat.
So, in an attempt to figure out what bizarre martial arts technique was responsible for locking Ranma into the Nekoken, the girls set off to explain the situation to Cologne.
Unfortunately, Cologne didn't know of any techniques like that, but readily admitted that the Nekoken was forbidden for a reason, and that most of those who'd tried learning had simply gone insane.
“Of course they did.” Happosai scoffed at the Amazon. “The Nekoken is designed to fracture the psyche into two parts, and if you mess up the fracturing by any stretch, then what you end up with is useless.” He puffed a bit on his pipe. “For example, there needs to be only one fraction, with one human-personality and one cat-personality. But if you make the cat-personality too small it'll be too weak to actually take over, meaning that the Nekoken training will continue since nobody would notice it. And if you make it too big the human-part will never stand a chance. And if you try 'easing' a person into the fracture you're just going to make more fractures and turn one cat-personality into several tiny little cat-personalities who're just as likely to try and kill each other as they are to turn into a pride and work together against the human-part.”
The women surrounding him gaped at the shriveled up old man as he explained things that nobody had any actual knowledge of.
“Why do you know so much about it?” Akane demanded.
Happosai frowned slightly. “Because my idiot-pupil exposed the closest thing I have to a proper heir to it.” Before smirking evilly at Cologne. “And I travel a lot more than the Amazons.”
“That still doesn't explain why he's acting weird now.” Nabiki pointed out reasonably, not wanting to get caught up in the middle of a fight between the two elderly and ridiculously strong martial artists.
Happosai shrugged. “Maybe he decided to stop fighting it.”
“'Fighting it'? Why would he need to fight it? He's already learned the technique, right?” Akane asked, confused.
“It creates a second personality.” Happosai repeated himself. “That means that they're constantly struggling for who gets to walk around in his body, even if only subconsciously, and the cat needs Ranma to be exposed to something traumatic enough that all he can think of is to 'run away', before it's capable of taking over. However, since Ranma hates running away, that can only really happen when he's confronted with cats or something that he's equally terrified of. But... the Saotome ultimate technique is designed with the concept of 'running away', and if he thinks that he needs to use it, but is unable to perform it physically, then he might resort to doing it mentally.”
“So... he's still in there? Just letting the cat have free reign since he wants to run away?” Akane looked as if she wasn't sure if she should be working herself up into a rage or not.
Happosai shrugged. “The cat is still Ranma, Ranma is still the cat. It might just be that he realized that they're technically one and the same, and decided to give his other half a bit of time to breathe fresh air of its own.”
XXX
Having a humanoid cat in the household took a bit of time to get used to.
Especially considering how the cat in question – like most cats – didn't have a human sense of modesty, and could therefore be spotted in various states of undress by people in various state of undress.
Akane also learned that whilst cat-Ranma wouldn't attack her for hitting him with a mallet, he seemed to consider it a very entertaining game to be played, and she usually collapsed from exhaustion before she ever managed to launch him skywards.
Genma learned that waking a cat up by tossing it into water didn't so much make it enthusiastic for training as it made it determined. He would later lament over his overly-violent son taking out his aggressions on the delicate elderly.
Nabiki sold the images of Genma being most thoroughly trashed to various fiancees and their associated families, who all took great enjoyment from seeing the man – who'd run out on whatever specific agreement they'd had – in such pain.
Otherwise, things went on in a mostly normal way for the Tendo family.
Kasumi cooked, Soun and Genma 'played' – read: 'cheated at' – shogi, Happosai stole panties, Hinako stole chi, Principal Kuno attacked people with pineapple-bombs... Life went on as normal in Nerima, even without the conscious input of what once one of the greatest focal points for its chaos.
Shampoo tried to take advantage of her cat-form in an attempt to get closer to Ranma, only to discover that cat-Ranma saw her as an unusually self-centered kitten that could do well with spending some time sitting in a corner to think about what she'd done.
That Cologne reacted to her granddaughter's indignant predicament by snickering helplessly... well, she excused herself with it being about time for the girl to learn to curb her impulsiveness, though she doubted that a cat would be able to teach what she herself had so far failed at.
All of the fiancees tried at some point to coax Ranma back into his usual self, and all of them failed.
Not that cat-Ranma appeared to dislike them by any stretch of the word, seemingly quite enjoying their company in the cat's usual cheerful way.
Then came the day that Ryoga finally returned from Brazil – and its many blizzards – and found that his greatest rival had lost his mind when he'd been away.
So he laughed.
Then he went on a happy rant about it, but realized halfway through it that he couldn't gloat properly if Ranma wasn't around to hear it in person, and then came to a second realization in that he would never be able to defeat Ranma in combat and reclaim his honor – or as vengeance for causing whatever he blamed Ranma for at that particular moment – and therefore promptly collapsed in panicking despair.
At which point cat-Ranma butted her head into the boy's shoulder, and purred delightedly.
As Ranma was female at the time, and Ryoga was still ridiculously weak to females – even ones who technically weren't – this lead to Ryoga kind of forgetting about his despair for a moment.
And that was how Akane arrived home from school to find cat-Ranma happily playing tag with the closest thing that Ranma had ever had to a best friend.
Ryoga had a conflicted expression on his face, but he seemed just as likely to smile sadly at the cat-person as he was to frown.
So, curious about what might be said in such a peculiar moment for the two of them, Akane took a page out of Nabiki's book and quietly sneaked closer.
And when Ranma happily curled up on Ryoga's lap in a way that made the boy blush helplessly, she listened to Ryoga's mumbling argument with himself as he scratched cat-Ranma behind her ears.
Which was how she learned of 'P-chan', and a promise that Ranma had made and that Ryoga had been too embarrassingly terrified to admit to.
It was lucky that Akane had tried to mallet cat-Ranma on more than one occasion, since her lack of success at hitting the annoyingly skilled martial artist had after several attempts led to her giving up on being able to do it. Because if she hadn't grown used to not being able to solve her immediate problems by applying a mallet to Ranma's head, she might've introduced a mallet to Ryoga's head until it was splattered across most of Nerima.
Still, that kind of explained why P-chan so desperately tried to flee the room whenever she changed. It also explained why he ended up in the closet every time he failed to do so. Ryoga had a tendency to get himself quite lost after all.
So she remained hidden, and she listened to Ryoga silently voicing his problems to what Akane was slowly realizing was quite possibly the closest thing that the lost boy had to a best friend, mind-fracturing phobia and all.
“So... why did you run away?” Ryoga finally asked the cat purring in his lap, having grown used enough to the presence that he could actively ignore the way that some parts of Ranma's female anatomy pressed into him in very interesting ways. “Was it the fiancees? Or the manly-thing?” He continued, hoping for an answer but obviously not expecting one. So he shook his head, and began to speak of the horrors of being lost amidst Canada's endless sand dunes, and how the northern light looked beautiful from the merciless glaciers of Spain.
Akane listened, and the more she listened the more she wondered at how it was highly likely that Ryoga was just as insane as cat-Ranma, because nobody could actually get that lost, could they?
Still, it was weird, seeing the two boys – even if Ranma was in his girl-form – getting along so amiably when they would usually try so gleefully to bring down nearby houses on each other's heads.
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