Chapter Text
I pivot on my left heel, snapping a side kick into the empty air of the Tendo Dojo. Sweating pours down my neck as I pivot into a reverse elbow strike, driving my weight forward, imagining the heavy chest of an opponent flying back toward the sliding paper doors.
Clumsy.
The voice isn't a thought, it's an intrusive, cool judgment echoing inside my skull.
Before I can curse out loud, my own jaw locks tight. Lady takes over.
Without my consent, my knees flex half an inch deeper. My center of gravity sinks into the polished pine floorboards. My left foot turns inward five degrees. Suddenly my left leg snaps out a whip-fast axe kick that cuts through the quiet air with an audible thwack. The speed and economy of motion are staggering. It feels as if I’ve spent my whole life moving underwater, and Lady just pulled me into the open air.
She relinquishes control as abruptly as she took it. I stumble forward, catching my balance on the tatami mats, my face burning red.
“I didn't ask for a demonstration, Lady!” I hiss under my breath, my hands clenching into fists.
“If you don’t fix your footing, any martial artist with half a brain will counter your opening jab before your hip even rotates,” Lady replies calmly in my mind. She speaks with the quiet authority of someone who survived daily near-fatal chaos and came out on top. “You’re fighting with anger, Akane. Not focus.”
“Do we really need to keep doing this?” Tomboy groans, her voice hot-headed and impatient, echoing from somewhere behind my left eye. “It’s not like the idiot will ever notice or respect our efforts anyway.”
The idiot.
Ranma Saotome. The boy whose name has hung over my life like an impending storm for the past few days. In less than a month, he and his father will arrive at our doorstep, and according to all three of the Akanes in my head, Ranma is supposed to become my fiancé to secure the legacy of the Tendo dojo.
“My Ranma respects me,” Future Girl pipes up, forcing my head to tilt with a sickeningly sweet sigh that makes my stomach churn. “He’s actually very sweet when he isn't being a completely insufferable ass. But this isn't about him, Akane, Akane, Akane. It's about who we are.”
“If we can establish control and skill early, it changes the entire dynamic,” Lady interjects, her subtext sharp. “Unless, of course, Akane prefers endless bickering and near-miss weddings.”
“Hey! Who says I want to marry that pervert?” Tomboy snaps, my right eyebrows twitching violently as she tried to force a defensive gesture. “Who wants to get married at sixteen!?”
“I married him at seventeen,” Lady mentions coolly. “Though we nearly tied the knot at least three times before that.”
“Was one of those times when Ranma thought we became a duck?” Tomboy asks, and Lady’s silence is damning.
“Wait, sixteen?” Future Girl interrupts, making my brow furrow in genuine confusion. “Hold on. I didn't even meet Ranma until I was eighteen! How were you guys getting engaged at sixteen? Sixteen-year-olds can't legally get married!”
“Maybe not in 2011,” Lady dryly retorts. “Which is precisely why we need to pool our knowledge. Our timelines clearly are not the same.”
“Enough!” I bark aloud, forcing my vocal cords back under my own control. Sweat stings my eyes as I wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my gi. “I don’t care about your timelines or whatever, and I don’t care about Ranma Saotome!”
Silence falls across the three inner voices for a fraction of a second. I feel a pang in my heart, as all three morons become distraught at the idea of not caring for some boy I never met.
“My goal isn't to figure out how to be a good little fiancée,” I say, my voice dropping into a harsh, steady resolve. “My goal is to prove to Daddy that I don’t need a husband to run this dojo. I am going to inherit it on my own strength.”
A heavy beat passes.
“You go, girl!” Future Girl suddenly cheers, forcing my hands to clap together in an embarrassing display of cheerleading. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Lady makes me click my tongue in disapproval. “Dad won't hand over the dojo to a sixteen-year-old, Akane. Not without a fight, and not without a male heir in his eyes.”
“I run my dojo!” Future Girl counters proudly. “Granted… my strength was a bit too uncontrollable and all the students ended up quitting or in the hospital, but I do run it!” My face falls. “Or rather, I used to run it. Now I’m… whatever this is.”
I look down at my hands, feeling the phantom weight of three distinct lives intertwine with mine. Less than a week ago, I thought I had lost my mind. But their muscle memory, their techniques, and their scars are too real to deny.
Lady possesses a mastery of martial arts that rivals any master I’ve ever seen, a grace that somehow bridges the gap between my crude tomboyish strength and Kasumi’s effortless feminine elegance. She’s a true lady.
Tomboy is pure, unadulterated strength. When she gets angry, I can feel a surge of burning red energy crackling under my skin, a reservoir of raw power I still haven't figured out how to harness safely.
And Future Girl… she carries a bittersweet weight. She actually lived through the family pressure, trained in Kendo, and took up the mantle of the dojo’s sensei. But she carried a quiet resentment toward our father for never believing a woman could stand alone, a resentment that mirrors the growing knot in my own chest. Daddy stopped training me seriously years ago. I used to think it was because looking at me hurt him because of Mom. Now, I can't help but wonder if he just decided I was the wrong gender for the job.
A low rumble of thunder shakes the wooden rafters of the dojo.
Outside, the afternoon sky has turned the color of bruised iron. The wind picks up, rattling the wooden shutters.
“Great,” Future Girl groans, making my shoulders slump. “Rain.”
My skin pricks with instinctive dread.
Of all the surreal weirdness my alternate selves brought with them, Future Girl’s was the absolute worst. Underneath the girls' locker room at Furinkan High, a mystical spring was hidden, a secret to everybody!
The spring caused her to become cursed. As in, cold water turns her into a guy, hot water turns her back into a girl. She says this brought her closer to her Ranma who has the reverse curse.
Lady apparently also has a similar curse, but it’s lamer. When she’s splashed with cold water, she becomes a younger version of herself. A sixteen year old version of herself. And she’s seventeen. Not really easy to tell the difference, but she swears it’s there.
The problem, my problem, is that I have inherited Future Girl’s curse. I may also have Lady’s curse, but it wouldn’t affect me at all because I am already a sixteen year old Akane.
Oh, and the spring under the girl’s locker room? Yes, it’s there, but unlike Future Girl’s version, mine is dry. So, my supposed future fiancé won’t get a free cure to his curse as soon as he shows up.
“I hate rain,” Tomboy mumbles softly, a rare note of genuine vulnerability creeping into her tone. “I never realized how much Ranma suffers with his curse…”
There she goes again. For someone who claims not to care about her Ranma, she’s always bringing him up. And Lady and Future Girl enjoy the girl talk, comparing their boyfriends, even though they’re all technically the same guy.
“Oh, please,” Lady snickers. “You said you spent half your time dumping buckets of ice water on him just to spite him.”
“I did not! Well, only when he called me an uncute tomboy!”
“Wasn’t that something that happened every five minutes?” Future Girl comments, Tomboy pretends she didn’t hear her.
I feel left out, so I decide to keep practicing the kata Lady has been trying to hammer into my head.
“Okay, I guess you may be ready for Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū’s secret technique,” Future Girl suddenly says as I finish the kata for the seventeenth time.
“What?” Lady says. “What are you talking about, Akane?”
“Mōko Takabisha, Akane.” Future Girl replies, clearly confused. “You two must know it!”
“I know of it,” Lady says, clearly annoyed that Future Girl has something she doesn’t. “Your Ranma taught you how to do it?”
“Whut?” Future girl says. “Daddy taught it to me when I was sixteen! At least two years before I met my Ranma!”
“That sounds ridiculous.” Tomboy says in a huff.
“Can we focus?” I interrupt, clearing my throat to drown out their noise. I step back into my stance, centering my breath. “Future… what is this technique?”
“Oh! Right!” Future Girl brightens immediately. “Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū’s secret technique, the Mōko Takabisha, is a powerful ki attack. With it, you can defeat enemies that are leagues above your weight class.”
Lady pauses. “It’s not a Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū secret technique!”
“It totally is! Every master of Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū can do it,” Future Girl states matter-of-factly. “How can you be ignorant of it? Daddy, Uncle Genma, Dr. Tofu, Ranma, and I all can use it just fine.”
“…What?” Tomboy stops dead in her tracks. “Dr. Tofu doesn't know Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū! And he certainly can’t throw ki blasts around!”
“And Ranma invented the Mōko Takabisha!” Lady adds, her tone sharp with annoyance. “It’s a technique born to counter Shishi Hōkōdan. It isn't a traditional Musabetsu Kakutō technique!”
“Well, in my timeline, Dr. Tofu was Daddy’s top student before he became the school nurse,” Future Girl insists. “And it’s definitely a core technique! Your timelines are just weird!”
“Yours is weird!” Tomboy replies. “Why is a doctor the school nurse!?”
“Ask Dr. Tofu about his martial arts next time you see him, Akane,” Lady advises intriguingly. “Maybe he knows more than Akane and I previously believed.”
My face instantly heats up. “I— I am not asking Dr. Tofu about martial arts secrets!”
“What do you mean?” Future Girl is clearly confused. “You totally can!”
“Drop that silly childhood crush while you’re at it!” Tomboy blurts out, driving a spike of embarrassment through my chest. “He’s in love with Kasumi! Trust me, keeping a torch lit for him only leads to awkward humiliation!”
“Hey, leave her alone,” Future Girl giggles. “Let her figure it out.”
“I’m just trying to save us the headache!” Tomboy huffs.
“I don’t care about Dr. Tofu right now!” I yell internally, my hands clenching into fists as sweat beads on my forehead. “Future, can you teach me this technique or not?”
“Sure! It’s all about gathering your fighting spirit and channeling your confidence outward. Here, let me show you!”
Future Girl takes command of my nervous system in a split second.
My feet slam into the tatami mats, cracking the wood underneath. My arms thrust forward, forming twin fists.
“Wait— STOP!” Lady screams inside my head.
“YOU’RE GOING TO BLOW UP THE DOJO, YOU MORON!” Tomboy shrieks simultaneously.
A blinding sphere of blue-white ki erupts between my fists, humming with terrifying pressure. The air in the room instantly turns hot and ozone-heavy. Panic surges through me, but Future Girl is already roaring the invocation:
“MŌKO TAKA—!”
Lady and Tomboy both dive for the controls at the exact same instant.
Lady tries to force my elbows downward to suppress the discharge. Tomboy yanks my left shoulder back to throw off the aim. My muscles violently spasm under the conflicting orders of three different mindsets pulling my body in three different directions.
My hands snap upward toward the ceiling.
“—BISHA!”
BOOM!
A column of raw energy shoots from my fists like a cannon shell. The blast tears through the heavy wooden beams of the dojo ceiling, shattering tiles, wood, and plaster into a cloud of dust and splinters. The shockwave rattles the entire Tendo estate, sending paper screens flying out of their tracks.
I stand frozen in the center of the smoking wreckage, my fists raised to the sky, breathing heavily.
A single raindrop falls through the newly created gaping hole in the roof.
Then another.
Then a frigid downpour.
The icy rain strikes my bare face and shoulders. An agonizing, familiar heat instantly surges through my chest as my spine cracks and stretches. My muscles thicken, my hips narrow, and my vocal cords drop an octave in a matter of seconds.
CRACK!
The seam of my third training gi this week splits completely down the back as my body transforms into that of a broad-shouldered boy.
I wipe the cold rainwater from my eyes, staring up at the gray sky through the ruined roof of my family's dojo.
Inside my head, absolute silence falls. I picture the three Akanes running in circles like the morons they are.
I let out a long, deep, masculine sigh.
“I hate all of you.”