Chapter Text
Somewhere in the Bayanhar Mountains of Qinghai, China…
“Pops, what the hell are we doing going to a place that’s called ‘The Legendary Training Ground of Cursed Springs’ in the fine print?”
Ranma looked up from his father’s novelty guide of martial arts tourist sites with a furrowed brow and turned his gaze to the back of his old man’s head in front of him. The place they were soon to visit sat at the end of a long list of monasteries, dojos, and other eclectic locations across Asia at which one could learn the art, but to call this one the most unusual would be an understatement. Dozens upon dozens of pools sat along the floodplain cutting through the valley they had been traveling through for days now, with long staves of bamboo sticking out between each of them. It looked more like an oversized Enchi than a training ground.
“Complaining already, boy?” said the old man, peering back at his son over his shoulder. “Besides, can you even read Mandarin? I told you that this journey would break you down and forge you into something better, stronger, a Man Amongst Men! Don’t go all soft on me over a couple pools!” Ranma grit his teeth, hunched his shoulders and grumbled in frustration. It wasn’t that Ranma was intimidated, Jusenkyo was nothing he couldn’t handle. He’d balanced in more precarious locations than a few bamboo stalks with a splash hazard. More importantly, he was not going soft! He’d just asked what he felt was a reasonable question!
“I ain’t going soft, Pops…” he replied, grumbling to himself more than anything.
“We have officially arrived!” cried out their guide, cutting short a potential argument between father and son that Ranma likely didn’t have the energy for anyways. “Welcome to zhòuquánxiāng, Jusenkyo! The Legendary Training Ground of Cursed Springs!”
Ranma once again glowered at his father, and a single bead of sweat broke from his father’s brow in response.
“These grounds have been used by local inhabitants for thousands of years, but beware! Each spring holds a curse as cruel and tragic as one could imagine! You could fall into the spring of drowned panda! Or the spring of drowned piglet! Or the spring of drowned Yeti-Riding-Bull-Holdi–”
“I think I’ve heard enough,” said Genma, cutting off the guide. He tightened his belt on his gi and adjusted his glasses.
For half a second, a hopeful part of Ranma thought his father would back out of training in a land of literal curses. Hopeful, but wrong.
“Come along, boy!” shouted Genma, grabbing the collar of Ranma’s gi and hoisting him into the air.
Genma leapt into the air after him, striking out with a kick. The boy blocked and let the force of the kick push him backwards.
Ranma effortlessly oriented himself in the air, rotating his feet beneath him, and landed atop one of the stands of bamboo. The stave bent at the transfer of momentum, creaking audibly under the tension, before shakily returning to true. His knuckles went white as they gripped at the pole—these things were more slippery than they looked. He looked back up at his father and scowled from his crouched position. The old man had now assumed a crane pose.
“Hey, watch it old man! I wasn’t ready!” Ranma called out, muscles coiled like a spring as he sat, preparing for his fathers next attack.
“A warrior should always be ready, boy!” Genma replied. He launched himself into the air before arcing down towards Ranma with a heel kick.
Ranma, knowing that in the spirit of Saotome Style Anything Goes, the best defense is a good offense, leapt up to meet him. The two collided, an unmoving clash of fists and kicks suspended in mid-air. Neither of them could land a blow on the other — every strike was blocked or parried, each artist knew each other's moves with startling familiarity. A smirk began to curl up Ranma’s lips when he noticed a gap in his father’s defenses. He quickly rotated himself in the air, delivering a round kick to his father’s shoulders and sending him careening downwards towards one of the springs. Ranma watched his father. Just before pancaking onto the surface of the water, he grabbed onto a wayward stalk of bamboo with his feet, grunting at the exertion of holding his entire sprawling weight between two toes.
“Oh thank goodness, you almost fell into the Spring of Drowned Panda! Home of a truly tragic tale! It is said that 2,000 years ago, a panda fell and drowned in that very spring! Had you fallen in, you would have been cursed to transform into a panda yourself!” the guide shouted from the lakeshore, the back of his hand pressed to his forehead in an exaggerated expression of grief and woe.
Ranma chuckled as he landed comfortably on one of the vertical poles of bamboo and smirked down at his struggling father.
“I don’t know if that would be such a bad thing for you, huh Pops? At least then you’d have some hair!” Ranma called down, eyes closed and laughing fully at his father’s precarious position.
As such, Ranma did not see the scowl on his father’s face rise to meet his grin as he launched himself upwards with near supernatural speed. Ranma only opened his eyes just in time to see the back of his father’s hand smacking his face, sending him flying backwards, off of his pole and reeling towards a pond. As he fell, he could hear the guide shouting out towards him.
“Oh no! He is headed straight for the Spring of Drowned Girl! That tale is even more tragic than that of the panda! It is said that 1,500 years ago, a girl drowned in that very spring, and whoever falls in is cursed to turn into a young girl themself!”
Ranma hit the water.
Oh no. Oh no no no. Ranma could handle a curse that made him a bear or a pig or whatever that third one was that the guide had said earlier. But a chick? Girls were pretty, and soft, and everything he was not supposed to be. Ranma Saotome, Man Amongst Men, sole heir of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial arts, could not, would not, become a girl.
The water was cold, dark, and deep — far deeper than it looked at the surface. He could feel himself slowing, no longer sinking deeper into the water from the force of his father’s strike. He was reaching a point of neutral buoyancy. He could hardly see the light of the sun at the surface, much less himself in the murky water. His mind began to race, wondering what could be happening to him. Was the curse changing him? Would he come out shorter? Would his face be softer? Would his hair look the same? He hoped the color wouldn’t change, he was quite fond of his raven hair. Hopefully she’d at least be cute; she worked out enough that even as a girl her figure would be–
Would be nothing.
What the hell was he thinking?!?!?
It wouldn’t matter if he was a cute chick! Because he would not be one in the first place! He was Ranma Saotome, and Ranma Saotome was not a girl! Snapping to his senses, Ranma pushed against the biting cold of the springs, kicked with all his strength, and propelled himself towards the surface. He hoped that the numbing sensation on his skin was due to the temperature of the water and not something more… sinister happening to him.
Then, he broke the surface.
Air rushed into his lungs. His eyes no longer strained to see as he looked around and found the guide and his father standing by the spring’s edge. Treading water, he started to move towards them, but as he kicked, he found rocks immediately beneath his feet. Looking down, he saw that the spring was not that deep. In fact it wasn’t even as deep as he was tall. Weird.
Realizing he was standing, Ranma quickly patted himself down, taking a hurried inventory of his body. His shoulders still felt broad and powerful. His hips were narrow and solid. His hands remained calloused from his decade of training in the art with his father. Nervously, he grabbed at the collar of his gi, pulled it apart quickly, and sighed deeply with relief to find no mounds of soft flesh on his chest, just the toned, smooth muscle he had always known. This relief, however, slowly gave way to a growling rage in the boy’s (flat) chest.
“What the hell was all that curse talk about?!” Ranma roared at the guide. “Is this how you get your sick kicks, pal? Tricking guys like me into gettin’ scared over nothing? Telling em they’re gonna turn into some… some chick?!”
The guide’s face was red with shock and confusion. He furiously palmed at his breast pocket and pulled out his guidebook, pawing through it frantically.
“Well, it has been a long time since someone had last fell into the springs, but I assure you these are still—”
“That’s it, Pops, I’m done! No more! If we’re training in a bunch of fake little magic pools, then we’re really hitting the bottom of the barrel,” Ranma said to his father, cutting off the tour guide as he trudged out of the water and shoved past the guide with his shoulders.
Genma sighed, pushing up his glasses on his nose. He looked to his son contemplatively, inspecting him, convincing himself fully that his son wasn’t changed, wasn’t made weaker by the supposedly cursed spring. After a few cursory glances, he was satisfied. Genma pulled his backpack up to his shoulders and pushed Ranma’s bag into his hands.
“I fear you may be right, Ranma. Perhaps it's time to reach out to an old friend of mine…” Genma replied, holding his chin in deep thought for a moment. “Come along boy, we’re headed back to Japan.”
“Right behind you old man, let's get outta here,” Ranma replied, hoisting his bag onto his shoulders and following his father. Any semblance of excitement at returning to his home was greatly outweighed by his anger at the situation at hand.
“Wait! The curse may just be different! It may be that you are still cursed to change! Perhaps it just has yet to occur! We should find the local villagers, perhaps they could…" The guide’s voice trailed off as the two men walked off, cresting over the first of many hills in the floodplains of this idyllic mountain valley.
Ranma grumbled to himself as they walked, wringing out the sleeves and legs of his gi and freeing them from the water of the “cursed” spring. Damned good-for-nothing guide, damned good-for-nothing spring. The only real curse in that damned pool was how scrambled it left his head. Of course curses weren’t real. Of course it couldn’t change him. Of course he wasn’t going to turn into a… girl…
“We will need to visit a post office in the next town,” Genma said. His voice shook his son free of his wandering thoughts. “I need to send a letter back to Tokyo…”