Chapter Text
In the courtyard of the Tendo dojo, the afternoon was falling softly. Sitting on the wooden porch, swinging her legs with casual defiance, was a girl with bright red hair tied in a braid. She was dressed in a simple, green, Chinese-style pajama set. Holding a teacup between her hands, she sighed with exaggerated exhaustion.
"Oof! What a headache..." "Ranko" complained, taking a sip of the tea. "I swear my mom has superhuman endurance when it comes to talking about the feminine ideal."
The sliding door opened, and Akane Tendo appeared with a towel around her neck, clearly returning from her morning training. Seeing her in that state, Akane put her hands on her hips and gave her a reproachful look.
"Are you still like that, Ranma?" Akane scolded. "You should change and get ready quickly. Remember you agreed to go out with Mrs. Saotome to do the afternoon shopping."
"Ah, don't remind me!" Ranko protested, letting herself fall backward onto the wooden floor. "She spent the whole morning giving me—well, giving Ranko—lectures on how a good wife should behave. She made me practice how to serve tea three times! All so that, according to her, I can learn to be a 'good fiancée for her dear son Ranma.' It's torture!"
Akane couldn't help a small, mocking smile from forming on her face. She sat down beside her, amused by the irony of the situation.
"Well, look on the bright side. At least your mother cares about her 'son's' future. She wants to make sure his fiancée is a proper woman. Too bad she has no idea that the adorable red-haired girl she's training and her muscular male son are exactly the same person."
Ranko jumped up, resting her elbows on her knees and flashing a lopsided smile, with that mischievous glint so characteristic of his personality.
"And what did you expect?" Ranma joked, winking at Akane. "If you think about it, my poor mom is trying way too hard... She has no idea her 'son' turned out to be a lesbian!"
"Idiot!" Akane shouted, her cheeks burning a bright red. Instantly, she delivered a hard blow to his head with a nearby cushion. "Don't say such foolish things! How can you think of saying something so embarrassing?! Go change already before your mother gets here and catches you!"
"Ow, ow, ow! Alright, I'm going, you savage!" the redhead protested, rubbing the bump on his head while rushing toward the bath.
Shortly after, the walk through the Ni-Chrome commercial district was proceeding with apparent normalcy.
Ranma walked with a firm stride, carrying a couple of heavy canvas bags packed with groceries, kitchen utensils, and some special errands for Kasumi. Beside him, Nodoka Saotome walked with her usual elegance, wearing her traditional light-colored kimono and holding her inseparable cloth-wrapped katana under her arm.
"This district has always seemed highly lively to me, Ranko-chan," Nodoka commented, flashing a gentle smile as she looked at the shop windows. "I'm glad you accompanied me today."
Ranma scratched the back of his neck with a nervous smile. Cold sweat threatened to slide down his forehead.
Nodoka stopped for a moment in front of a traditional tableware shop, contemplating a tea set with a nostalgic look before continuing her slow, stately pace.
"A woman—a beautiful and ideal woman, Ranko—is the most sublime and perfect creature of creation," Nodoka commented, interlacing her hands in front of her and sighing with a strangely dreamy glow in her eyes. "She must be like a lily that bends its stem to the breeze, yes, but with a physical grace that captivates anyone. An ideal woman must hypnotize you as she walks, with a soft and firm sway of her hips that prevents you from looking away; her voice when speaking to you must be a constant, melodious lullaby, a warm whisper that makes your skin tingle and sings to your ear with such sweetness until leaving you deeply asleep in her lap..."
Ranko swallowed hard, feeling the collar of his shirt grow extremely tight.
"Furthermore," Nodoka continued, indulging in her own speech with a contemplative sigh, "we women are incredibly soft, sweet, and beautiful beings. There is nothing comparable to feminine delicacy. Aspire to that, dear Ranko... You are already a highly beautiful young woman with lovely features, now you must only strive to be sweeter, more adorable—a woman who inspires the desire to protect and embrace her all the time... wouldn't you like to try being that for your future husband?"
Ranko nodded with a rigid head, feeling his heart going a mile a minute. 'What the hell is wrong with my mom?!' he thought, terrified. 'That didn't sound like a speech about manners at all, it sounded like she was describing her ideal girlfriend!'
They kept walking down a side alley, a less crowded shortcut that connected the shopping area to the main avenue. It was a narrow alley, flanked by small establishments that were barely beginning to prepare for the nightlife.
Halfway down the alley, a venue with pink and purple neon lights was opening its doors. The sign, adorned with stylized female silhouettes and colored feathers, made it very clear that it was an exclusively lesbian club or bar. A tall woman with hair shaved on the sides was sweeping the entrance.
Just as Ranma and Nodoka passed in front of the establishment, the woman with the broom stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened completely upon recognizing that face perfectly.
With a huge, mischievous grin, the woman waved her hand in the air and shouted with casual familiarity:
"Hey, REDHEAD! Did you get another one? Wow, you don't waste any time, gorgeous! And this one has class!"
The world seemed to freeze for the Saotomes.
Ranma stood petrified on the spot, with one foot suspended in the air. His eyes popped out like saucers and the color drained completely from his face. The woman from the lesbian bar had recognized him despite being transformed into a man, calling him "redhead" and shamelessly suggesting that Nodoka, his own mother, was his new romantic conquest!
"R-redhead...? Another one...?" Nodoka whispered. Her voice trembled slightly, a rising alarm.
Ranma felt his heart skip a beat. Absolute panic took hold of him. If his mother connected the dots between the "redhead" the woman was talking about and "Ranko," and on top of that added the misunderstanding that they were out on lesbian dates, the seppuku vow would be fulfilled that very day.
Forcing the most fake, distorted, and sweaty smile of his entire life, Ranma let out a loud, nervous laugh, waving his arms wildly.
"Ha... ha... ha! Boy, what strange things happen in the city!" Ranma exclaimed, his voice completely cracking from the nerves. "They... they must have cracked open a bad batch! Yes, that's it. They definitely got the wrong person! Those people from those nightclubs have probably been awake since yesterday and can't see a thing. I'm super sure she confused me with some tough girl who looks like her!"
"Yes! Yes, of course!" Nodoka exclaimed, pressing her katana against her chest in an attempt to regain her composure. "It must have been that... A most common confusion in these modern neighborhoods. The people from these... extravagant venues tend to have very confusing behaviors. Yes, it has definitely been a misunderstanding. There is no other logical explanation!"
"Exactly, Mom! Let's get out of here fast before they keep confusing us with people from around here!" Ranma added, giving his mother a gentle but extremely hurried push to force her to march away at a brisk pace.
As they moved away at a military march pace, Ranma glanced back over his shoulder, throwing a look of absolute terror and fury at the bewildered woman from the bar, who only shrugged and continued sweeping, muttering something about how tough girls nowadays took jokes way too seriously.
Sitting on the windowsill of her room at the Tendo dojo, Ranma watched as the Nerima sky dyed itself a deep nocturnal blue. She held a glass of ice-cold water in her hands. With a sigh that mixed exhaustion and profound determination, she poured the water over her head. A familiar shiver ran through her as her body shrank and her features softened. Her dark hair gave way to that bright red braid that she now considered, without a doubt, her true identity.
She looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing tight black pants and a loose silk shirt that fit her beautifully. She smiled. Feeling comfortable in her own skin had been a long, chaotic road, one that had begun to clear up right after the smoke of the final battle cleared.
The terrible fight in Jusenkyo against Saffron,, had almost cost everyone their lives. After defeating him and saving the springs, the bumpy return to Japan brought with it the inevitable forced wedding attempt by their parents. But seeing the altar, the suits, and the massive family pressure made something "click" inside Ranma. She couldn't keep living a lie. The wedding was canceled amidst the usual chaos of punches, chases, and furious suitors, but that very night marked a before and after.
A few days after the failed wedding, Ranma gathered the necessary courage to come out as a trans girl to her friends and ex-fiancées.
The revelation had its bumps, as was to be expected with their group. Shampoo was indignant at first because her "future husband" no longer existed as such, though Mousse was secretly delighted that Ranma was out of the male competition. Ukyo, after processing the news and sharing a couple of cups of sake with her, understood that what she had always looked for in Ranma was the idea of a "manly husband" to rescue her from her past—something Ranma simply couldn't offer. In the end, both ex-fiancées stepped aside, transforming their obsession into an armed truce and, surprisingly, into a pair of good allies.
But the most difficult, and at the same time the most liberating conversation, was with Akane.
The two of them sat in the empty dojo one rainy night. Ranma, in her female form, confessed to her with tears in her eyes that Jusenkyo was no longer a curse to her; that she felt infinitely happier, freer, and more at peace being a woman, and that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life pretending to be the male son everyone expected. Akane listened to her in silence. They tried—they really tried—to see if their mutual affection could transform into a romantic relationship. Akane exerted herself to see if there was room for romantic attraction, but reality imposed itself naturally: Akane was completely heterosexual. Girls simply weren't her thing (even if no one believed her). Furthermore, after so many years of fights, mutual rescues, and shared secrets, the bond between the two had transformed into something else. Ranma was no longer her fiancé; she was, for all intents and purposes, another sister in the Tendo house. Her best friend.
The only gigantic problem was the weight of their parents.
Genma Saotome and Soun Tendo still dreamed of the martial arts schools' merger and the birth of a male heir. And worse yet, Nodoka Saotome was still hovering around with her regulation katana under her arm, ready to demand the seppuku ritual if she discovered her son wasn't the epitome of samurai masculinity. Telling them the truth all at once would have caused a family tragedy of biblical proportions. Because of this, Akane and Ranma devised their perfect façade: in front of their parents, they remained the same engaged couple as always, pretending to argue and yell at each other through the hallways to maintain the illusion of normalcy.
To escape that suffocating farce, Ranma had found her own sanctuary: a small alley in the Ni-Chrome district.
At first, going to the underground lesbian bar in her red-haired girl form was just a way to breathe fresh air. There, nobody knew her as "the Saotome heir," nor did they try to challenge her to a death duel for her hand. In the safety of those pink and purple neon lights, Ranma learned to let loose. With her usual mischievous charisma and her martial artist confidence, it didn't take her long to catch the attention of the clientelle. She loved to flirt subtly, buy drinks, listen to the laughter of beautiful girls, and let herself be loved in an environment where she finally fit in.
Over time, her presence became so constant that the bar owner offered her a part-time job as a barwoman and hostess on weekends. Ranma gladly accepted. The job not only gave her some money of her own (far from the control of her stingy father), but it also allowed her to spend hours on end surrounded by the feminine energy she so adored.
"Well... time to earn my keep," Ranma murmured to herself in front of the mirror, adjusting her red braid with a lopsided smile. "If I'm lucky, Mom will be fast asleep and I won't have to invent another excuse to sneak out the window."
She finished fixing her shirt, made sure the hot water was ready in her travel thermos just in case she needed to change back to a guy quickly, and agilely leaped out the window toward the rooftops of Nerima, heading for her beloved nightlife in Ni-Chrome.
The clinking of crystal glasses being rhythmically polished served as the background to the smooth jazz melody floating through the bar's air. Behind the counter, wearing an elegant, fitted black vest over a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, and with her characteristic red braid falling over her shoulder, Ranko finished arranging the liquors with agile, perfectly rehearsed movements.
She had been working at that Ni-Chrome establishment for barely a month. At first, due to it being only a part-time job and the constant suspicion back at the Tendo dojo, she would only sneak out on weekends, from Friday to Sunday. But recently, thanks to the complicity of Akane—who covered for her absences by inventing highly creative "intensive nightly training sessions" or "girls' nights out"—she had managed to switch her schedule to Tuesday through Thursday.
Working on weekdays had a completely different charm.
"Who would’ve thought..." Ranko murmured to herself, resting her elbows on the bar while scanning the tables illuminated by the dim pink light. "Wednesday nights are way more interesting than Saturdays."
The weekday clientele was distinct. Instead of the loud, young girls who packed the place on weekends looking to dance, on weekdays the bar filled up with women who were notably older and more refined than usual. Ranko attributed it to a very simple logic: those married women, high-society ladies, or simply those trapped in suffocating routines, found it much easier to invent a credible excuse to slip out on a random Wednesday night without raising the suspicions of their traditional families or husbands, unlike a weekend when family surveillance was absolute.
"Here is your plum liqueur, gorgeous," Ranko said with a mischievous smile and a knowing wink, sliding a glass in front of an elegant, middle-aged woman sitting at a nearby table.
"Oh, thank you so much, Ranko-chan. You are such a charming girl," the woman replied, blushing slightly at the attention and leaving a generous tip on the wooden tray.
Ranko flashed a lopsided smile, deftly scooping up the coins. She absolutely loved flirting subtly around the place. She didn't just do it because the tips improved considerably when she deployed her undeniable charisma, but because—why deny it?—she was madly in love with being the center of attention. Feeling desired, praised, and admired by beautiful women fed her ego in a way she had never experienced before.
"You look very cheerful today, little redhead," a delightfully melodious voice commented behind her.
Ranko turned around immediately and felt the breath escape her lungs just a bit. It was her boss.
Even after seeing her for a whole month, gazing at the owner of the establishment always filled her with deep respect and an inevitable fascination. She was a woman of innate, overwhelming elegance; her stride was so fluid and graceful she seemed to float over the wooden floor, hypnotizing anyone who crossed her path. Her long, straight, pitch-black hair fell like a waterfall of silk down her back, exquisitely adorned with a silver hairpin from which hung a delicate piece of green jade that contrasted beautifully with the darkness of her hair. She possessed a voice so melodious and magnetic that...
Ranko was certain that thousands of men would crawl at her feet for a single word from her... and countless women would do exactly the same.
'Geez...' Ranko thought, looking her up and down with a slight blush on her cheeks. 'If this lady weren't at an age where she could easily be my mother, I swear I’d be deeply in love with her... or who knows. She is an incredible woman.'
"Just securing the night's tips, Boss," Ranko replied, recovering her usual confident tone and crossing her arms with a smile. "Though I must admit the clientelle today has been especially generous."
The Boss smiled, making the jade accessory in her hair jingle softly, and leaned gracefully against the bar.
"I'm glad to hear that. But save a bit of that energy, Ranko," the elegant woman said, fixing her deep, dark eyes on the establishment's entrance. "Hopefully my favorite customer arrives soon. She is a very special woman, and you know well that I like to attend to her personally."
Ranko arched an eyebrow, curiosity pricking her immediately. She had heard rumors about this mysterious visitor who came sporadically on weekdays, but she had never crossed paths with her during her shift.
"Your favorite customer?" Ranko asked, resting her chin on her hand. "Is she really that special?"
The Boss sighed, a soft sigh that contained a mix of longing and melancholy that brought Ranko back to the harsh reality of how complicated a secret life could be.
"Much more than you imagine," the owner explained, her gaze lost in the blinking neon lights. "She doesn't come often, but whenever she crosses that door she seems like the happiest woman in the world... though, at the same time, she always leaves with a look full of regret."
The Boss paused, delicately tracing the rim of an empty glass.
"She is a woman trapped in the past, Ranko. She carries tradition burned into her forehead. She flat out refuses to accept her taste for women, you know? When she comes here, she sometimes tells me in a whisper that she enters this bar to 'sin,' as if all of us were poor souls in pain condemned to eternal suffering. But deep down... deep down I know she comes here because this is the only corner in all of Japan where she can breathe. Where she can be truly free, even if it's only for a couple of hours. I wish... I wish one day she manages to understand and accept who she really is."
Ranko listened to the tale with her heart sinking a bit. That sounded terribly familiar. She knew all too well what it was like to live under the weight of traditional family expectations and the constant fear of rejection from those you love.
With a mischievous but empathetic smile, Ranko leaned a bit closer over the bar and subtly elbowed her boss.
"Hey, Boss..." she whispered knowingly. "Hearing you talk like that... Do you happen to like her? Or do you guys like each other?"
The venue's owner remained silent for a couple of seconds. Then, she looked toward the entrance door with a smile so tender, soft, and full of hope that Ranko didn't need any further confirmation.
"Yes, Ranko. We like each other very much," the Boss confessed in a melodious whisper. "That's why... I hope with all my might that the day comes when she finally leaves her fears behind and is brave enough to formally ask me out. In the meantime, I'm content with preparing her favorite cocktail and offering her a safe haven while I sing to her ear."
Ranko smiled with sympathy, feeling a huge warmth in her chest.
"Wow... well, I hope that lady wakes up soon. Not just anyone is lucky enough to have a woman like you waiting for her," Ranko said with total sincerity.
"Thank you, little one. Now, get back to work, I see a table in the back that needs you to attend to it," the Boss indicated in a playful tone, giving her a gentle tap on the shoulder.
"Right away, Boss!" Ranko replied with a comical military salute, taking a tray and heading toward the tables with a cheerful stride, having absolutely no idea of the tremendous surprise fate had in store for her that very night.
A couple of hours later, when the night was at its quietest point, the soft, characteristic chiming of the main entrance bell announced a new arrival.
Ranko, who was wiping down one of the wooden tables in the back section, looked up out of habit. Against the light of the alley, she saw the silhouette of a woman of a highly aristocratic bearing. She wore an elegant, dark hooded cloak that covered her face, with a traditional silk kimono peeking out from underneath. The woman didn't stop at the main bar; with quick, silent, and perfectly measured steps—as if she knew the routine and layout of the place by heart—she headed straight toward the wooden staircase that led to the exclusive private lounge on the second floor.
Upon seeing her pass, the Boss's face lit up instantly with a radiant smile. She immediately left what she was doing and walked toward the stairs. Ranko, straining her ears from afar on the ground floor, could clearly hear her boss's voice echoing from the upper landing with infinite tenderness:
"Little flower... you've returned. Sit where you always do, I already reserved your exclusive spot. Let me go bring something beautiful I want to show you, which I got while thinking of you... In the meantime, I can ask the new girl, who is very charismatic, to bring you a drink... And how about today's appetizers?"
From the dim light of the second floor, a soft, melodious voice—but with a familiar tone that made the hairs on the back of Ranko's neck stand on end—replied timidly:
"—Yes... please. I would appreciate that very much."
The Boss floated back down the stairs, practically radiating joy, her dark eyes sparkling. She hurried behind the counter, painstakingly mixing her distinguished visitor’s favorite cocktail and arranging a plate of delicate seasonal appetizers on a polished silver tray. Then, she looked at Ranko and beckoned her over.
"Ranko, dear, please," the Boss asked in a soft, conspiratorial whisper, handing her the tray. "Take this up to the VIP lounge. Be on your absolute best behavior and be sweet to her. She is a very private woman and incredibly special to me."
"Don't you worry, Boss, I'll treat her like royalty," Ranko replied confidently, adjusting her black vest and taking the heavy tray with a professional smile. After all, flirting and securing great tips were her absolute specialties!
She stepped rhythmically up the wooden stairs, enjoying the intimate ambiance and the dim pink neon lights bathing the second-floor hallway. Stopping in front of the sliding shoji paper door of the VIP lounge, she took a deep breath to channel her most charming posture and gently pushed the door open.
"Good evening, beautiful lady, I have your—"
Ranko’s sentence died in her throat. Her eyes widened so much they threatened to pop out of their sockets. The silver tray trembled violently in her hands, causing the crystal glasses to clink together with a dull, rattling noise.
Sitting elegantly in the lounge, having pulled back her hood to reveal a flawless face of dignified expression—her hair pinned up in absolute traditional perfection, and a cloth-wrapped katana resting right beside her on the tatami mat—was Nodoka Saotome.
Her mother.
The very same woman of unyielding honor who spent her mornings giving her lectures on samurai ethics and threatening seppuku. Her boss’s "little flower." The VIP customer who came to "sin" and be free on Wednesday nights.
Hearing the door open, Nodoka looked up timidly, expecting to see the charismatic new employee she had been told about. The moment her eyes locked onto the red-haired girl with the braid holding the tray, Mrs. Saotome's face instantly flashed from shyness to absolute, unadulterated horror. Her lips trembled, and her entire traditional composure crumbled in a single second.
"R-Ran...ma...?" Nodoka whispered, petrified, her voice choking in pure panic.
Ranko stood completely frozen, her jaw dropped, with one single, catastrophic realization hammering inside her brain: 'MY MOM IS THE TRADITIONAL LESBIAN MY BOSS WAS TALKING ABOUT!'