--- " " are speaking ' ' are quotes < > are thoughts [ ] are panda sign * * are sounds --- Reincarnations Book 1 : --- Chapter 1 First day at school --- The sleep was disrupted. The dreams were hunted by visions from the past. All was turning. Lost. Totally lost in this ocean of memories. Bit by but, all was disappearing to be replaced by a void... but the void was fated to be filled. So this spirit was flooded, more by concepts than by pictures this time... Hot Cold Fire Water Light Darkness Good Evil Life Death Yin Yang A tissue of simple concepts, but opposite... All these forms and ideas were assembling with each other, moving, turning in an infinite whirlwind. Again and again, seeming to fail to ever stop, the tissue whirled, whirled, whirled... "Ha!" Her disturbed mind finished to wake up from this strange sleep, but the dream didn't fade... "What the hell was that?" She asked herself, while looking where she was. Near her, illuminated by the feeble light from the rising sun, were sleeping a young man and another much older. she thought, recognizing the boy. The events from the day before immediately came back to her. She thought for a little while. she decided while she dressed. Once the clothes on, a red chinese shirt and a black trouser, she silently exited the room, then the house and went to dojo. Follow then a few series of complex katas. For any other martial artist, to perfect them would be a dream come true, but for someone like her, it was more like a warm up. While she went through the katas, she saw the dream again, sorting the pictures and analysing them. It was only when her mental work was successful that she allowed herself to stop the katas. When she finally opened her eyes, she noticed her twin at the dojo entrance, looking at her with interest. "You seemed a little preoccupied with something while working out." Ranma said her. "Yup. I had a very strange dream, it waked me up." Ranko answered him. "Let me guess... a big whirlwind?" he asked her. "Correct, I see that it waked you up too. I was thinking about it while training." "I did some thinking too, after I saw that you were already up. Didn't get anything useful though." "I've no great result myself, but I know one thing for sure. The opposite concepts separated themselves on two groups before they started to whirl one around the other." She told him. "That's all? I had a vague feeling that each of the two 'groups', like you said, were each linked to one of us." "hmm... if that's the case, what could be the first group, when all the concepts " "hmm... if that's the case, what could be the first group, before all the concepts separated themselves on these two groups?" Ranko asked. "I dunno. We don't even know how you got on my girl body." "Our two bodies were one and the same before the curse... like the two concept groups! Is it possible that the curse had separated the concepts in two groups and rejected the unwanted group in the cursed body?" "It would explain the separation, but where you spirit could come from?" asked Ranma. "The girl body was the one rejected. What if my spirit came from the same method. If the concepts that stayed behind are yours, then maybe my mind was made by the rejected concepts, with your own mind as a model." "It'd mean that without this accident yesterday, you'd never even existed?" "the more I think about it and the more it seems to be the truth. If it's really the case, then, I'm just a reflection of your mind." "It doesn't seem to move you that much." Ranma retorted. "As long as we don't know for sure, I prefer to act like nothing happened. It could explain how I got all your memories and no one from myself, though. I'm really your twin sister, eh, eh, eh!" "Stop that, it's not funny." "I never said it was. We don't even know if my group was male or female..." she noticed absently. "If you are my reflect, you must be a girl inside too." Ranma said her. "You seem pretty sure of yourself, bro. And if it was you that had a girl spirit inside?" "Impossible. I'm a guy!" "Maybe I'm one too, in a girl body... In any case, even if you are a cute guy, I'm not the least aroused by you." She teased him. "Pff... if we are really twin, we can't be attracted by each other." "You don't think I'm cute? I sure thought I were. If we were two girls, I'd have asked you on a date." The twin's chatting was interrupted by the soft voice of Kasumi. "Oh, it's you. You were training? The bath is ready... go take it while I'm cooking breakfast." "good morning Kasumi." Ranma greeted her. "You are getting up pretty early... you are working hard." Ranko said to Kasumi, smiling. "Yes." Kasumi answer, returning the smile before going back to the kitchen. "Ranma, shall we go? We are not giving Pop a good reason to steal our breakfast, aren't we?" Ranko asked her twin. "Yup, he is taking enough advantages like that without... Hey! How that 'shall we go' ?" "You afraid I bite you, bro?" Ranko tease her twin again, while dragging him to the bathroom. --- Later, following the canal side. Akane and the twins were going to school. "We will never get married! You know that?" Akane asked Ranma. "Sure!" Ranma answered back, following Ranko on the fence. "So, at school, you keep your distances!" Akane continued to verbally assault the male martial artist. "Be relieved! I hate chauvinist girl in your..." Ranma started to retort her when... *toom, toom, toom, KA-POW* "Pop ?! Wh...?" Ranma asked his father after being clobbered on the head. "You're not in situation to choose your wife! Listen Ranma! I'm gonna tell you something!" Genma announced, but... *doink* Ranma tackled him so that the fat martial artist fall in the canal. "It was meant to be." Ranko lamented herself. "Yes? You wanted to tell me something?" Ranma asked his panda-turned-father as the animal jumped back on the fence to start a fight. Ranma dodged the first blow with a fancy somersault, landing perfectly in the middle of the street, smiling. "Eh, eh, eh!" *splash* ...just before being splashed by an old lady with a ladle. "Fortunately, you aren't cursed anymore, bro, or else you'd have changed. On the other hand, you seem to as much a cold water magnet as you were." Ranko tell her twin. The panda sighed before walking back to the Tendo house, unable to share his knowledge, while depressed about the strange, miraculous cure of his son. thought the panda in order to convince himself that the situation had a positive effect, to offset the fact that he didn't get cured too. "Let's hurry or we'll be late." Akane said, starting to run. Having no objection to give, the twins chased after her, Ranko jumping down to join her brother on the road. The more the three of them were coming close to the school, the more Akane seemed to mutter something. "Akane, you got a problem?" Ranko asked her. "I hate BOYS!" Akane screamed just when the trio reached the grids of the school. Akane was immediately rushed by a horde of boys, all dressed in several sport uniforms. The Saotome twins, choosing wisely to not interfere without knowing what it was all about, jumped on the wall circling the school. The boy brigade was trying to fight Akane, but they were quickly beaten in unconsciousness by a fury-like Akane. "Akane, go out with me!" "No, I love you more than him!" Finally, winner of the fray, Akane was standing in the middle of the unconscious bodies of her would-be suitors, lying on the floor. "Every day, it's the same thing. It's becoming tiresome." Akane was bemoaning while catching her breath. "You can say that again." A new voice stopped her, a kendoist this time. "Forcefully, if one of them were to beat you, you'd be bound to date him." He finished while posing. Ranma, willing to understand what all that was about, jumped down to Akane. It got him to be defied by Kuno, the said kendoist, the fool presenting himself like he was nothing less than a gift of the gods. The storm was now starting to rumble while the two men where facing each other. Ranma dodged easily the first bokken thrust, which sliced in the outer wall of the school. Then he dodged in the same manner the second hit, which cut the tree where Ranma had landed after his first dodge. Ranma then entered in the feeble defence of his opponent in order to explain himself. But his words, quite insulting toward Akane, didn't do much that get the fight to go on. A new bokken slash was dodged with a jump, placing Ranma above Kuno, two fingers ready to strike. The two fighters meet when the first drop of rain fall on the mud, Ranma hitting Kuno on the forehead while the kendoist brushed only Ranma's neck. Ranma, used to his curse and the change linked to cold water, was greatly surprised to not change this time and he sort of stopped all movement. Ranko, watching the fight with great interest, saw it immediately and jumped in action. With a mighty mid air kick that put some distance between Ranma and the bokken, she gripped Ranma's forearm and made another jump, taking her brother with her in a safer, and dryer, place. --- A little later, Class 1-F. "Miss and mister Saotome, it appears that you are just coming right from China. Anyway, it's doesn't change the fact that you two and miss Tendo were... late. Take the door." Ordered the teacher. Out of the class, the teens now had a bucket full of water in each hand. Akane then explained to the Saotome twins about the morning fights, not without blaming Ranma for her being late. "So, you fight Kuno each morning ?" Ranma asked her. "No, I beat him each morning!" she answered cockily. But the twins knew better after seeing her fight with the boys. This Kuno boy was slightly better than her. "Bah... against a girl, he can't go full out..." started Ranma. "Don't underestimate me." The offended Tendo warned him. "You want to try me ?" "Already done... yesterday's evening. You didn't even come close to hit us." Ranko countered, intending to get Akane's back on earth. "You may be the best of this school, but there is always someone stronger... in your case : us." Ranma then barely dodge a splash of water. "Ranma Saotome, I won't allow it! I'll never accept... your engagement to Akane Tendo !" shouted bokken-for-brain Kuno, causing the classmates to swarm at the windows. The young and unwilling couple started to find excuse like "it's not our ideas" or "it was our fathers' ideas", but Kuno in his furry (lunacy?) started to attack Ranma and then ran after him in the corridors. "It's not a pace to fight, come on!" asked Ranma to the kendoist. "That I may!" returned Kuno. With but a single look exchanged, Akane and Ranko went after them too to see the fight. Ranma seeing an open window used it to jump outside, mimicked by Kuno. "Hey! That's the third floor!" someone shouted. "Hu..?" Kuno seemed to have moved faster than his brain could follow. "So what?" asked Ranma, his training allowing him to land from such a fall without problem. Fortunately for Kuno, and to some extend to Ranma too, there is a pool just below them to catch their fall. Seeing this, Ranko made up her mind and jumped after the fighters. Ranma quickly got out of the pool, but Kuno was a little stunned and when the shock was gone from his system, the one he saw in front of him was the other Saotome. He caught her, grabbing a breast unknowingly, thinking she was Ranma. This was not the thing to do, so Ranko, angered by the grabbing, caught Kuno head behind her and with all the strength she could use, thrown him on the pool's edge, using it to extract herself from the water and land a few feet apart her brother. "Why did you followed us, Ranko?" Ranma asked her. "To see the fight from nearer. Your opponent is waiting for ya. Beat him into a pulp or I'll do it for ya. That bastard dared to grab my breast." She explained while Kuno was moving closer to us. "Saotome! How dare you to ask a girl to fight at your place? Coward!" shouted Kuno. "Ranma and me are the same person. Body and soul. So we do as we wish to do, okay? A pervert like you has nothing to say." Ranko warned him. With these words, a small volcano seemed to erupt directly from the insane kendoist's head. "Body and soul!? Tyrant!" Kuno started to attack Ranma, but more violently this time. "You must have not understood it all." Said Ranma. "Shut up! I see it all... Enslaver!" Kuno slash the tree Ranma was in front of only seconds before. "Go get your head examined!" yelled Ranma. "I'll crush you and free her from her chains!" Kuno continued his speech while vainly trying to hit Ranma, but Ranma caught the bokken while airborne and use it as leverage to double kick Kuno savagely. "If you lose, you forgot about the whole affair, okay?" Ranma asked. But his sole answer was... "Playing is over!" said Kuno as he prepared his attack. "Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!" he yelled punctuating each yell with a bokken thrust. "wh..." Ranma, surprised by the attack, managed anyway to wave between the bokken strikes, but the concrete wall behind him had not that chance, and didn't resist the air pressure of the attack. "Ahhh!" yelled Akane, hiding behind the cracking wall, having since then joined Ranko in watching the fight. "Stand back, idiot!" Ranma warned her. "Focus on the fight, I got her!" Ranko assured her bro. "You're mine!" shout Kuno victoriously while striking a last time on Ranma's back. *vwoosh* Ranma counter attacked Kuno in a quarter of a second, hitting him with a shower of kicks despite his delicate position. Kuno managed a smile before collapsing face down. Akane walk toward Kuno and return him on his back, showing for all to see a dozen foot prints. "My god... you spared none of his sensitive points." Said Akane, amazed. "The 'Blue Thunder'... he didn't last long." Ranma praised himself. "You got him good, but you were soft with him compared to what I would have done myself. With all the crap he said on me." Said Ranko. "Ranko? What do you mean?" Akane asked the redhead. "First, he grab my breast. Then, he insults Ranma, thinking he wanted me to replace him for the fight, in fear of losing. And finally, he thought I was Ranma's sex slave or something like that. If he ever, EVER, dare to touch me again... I can't promise he'll walk away from it." The three returned to class, waiting for the day to be. ---