Chapter Text
“Are you ready, Ranma?”
“Bring it on, old man!”
“Sirs, please, you need to come down from there! It would be awful if you fell!”
The two itinerant martial artists ignored the cries of the training ground guide, leaping through the air at each other with incredible speed. Having trained under his father for his entire life, Ranma knew what opening patterns his father favored, and quickly moved to parry each strike.
A powerful kick from Genma threw Ranma back, and he hopped from bamboo pole to bamboo pole, trying to slow himself down enough to regain full balance, before making use of the flexible plant to reverse momentum and charge for his father again with terrifying speed.
WHAM
SPLASH
Ranma’s aerial kick caught Genma off guard, and the elder Saotome was struck down into the spring below. Ignoring the wail of terror from the Guide, he landed on a pole to celebrate his victory, eyeing the dark shape in the water below in case his father went for a sneak attack.
“Ha! Had enough yet, Pops?”
The dark shape below responded by jumping out of the water onto the pole next to Ranma, assuming a fighting stance once more, and also being a panda.
“W-What?! A panda?”
“I tried to warn you, sir!” the Guide shouted at the two, though it appeared Genma was still ignoring him. “He has fallen into the Spring of Drowned Panda! A tragic legend tells of a panda that drowned there two-thousand years ago, now anyone who falls in takes the form of a panda!”
“What the hell?!”
“Almost every spring at Jusenkyo has a tragic legend! Lots of people and animals have drowned here!”
The panda made use of Ranma’s distraction to punch him off his pole, and into another spring.
Shit! he thought as the water flowed around him. Shit shit shit shit! Please be human please be human I don’t care what! Shit!
Ranma surfaced quickly. He held his hands in front of his face - still ten fingers. He felt his face - still human. Still human! He breathed a sigh of relief as the Guide ran up to him.
“Noooo! You fell in the Spring of Drowned Girl! A girl drowned there fifteen hundred years ago and now anyone who falls in takes the form of a girl!”
Ranma could hear a slight ringing in his ears. Taking a deep breath, he pulled open the top of his gi to reveal his chest.
His typical flat chest.
He felt his face again, recognizing the few hairs his chin had begun to sprout. A quick check below the waist confirmed no changes there either.
Huh.
Ranma glared at the Guide as he pulled himself out of the water. “Hey, what’s the big idea, why would you scare me like that?”
The Guide frowned. “I don’t understand, I thought this was the Spring of Drowned Girl! There was someone who fell in a couple months ago shouting about how they were a girl now, and when I asked what spring they fell in, she pointed this one out to me!”
“What kind of guide are you if you don’t know what cursed springs are what?!”
“You want me to mess with the magic transformation springs more than I have to? No thanks, it’s scary enough living near them without throwing things in and messing with the balance of nature! I already fell in one before!”
“What one did you fall in?”
“The Spring of Drowned Jusenkyo Guide.”
“No, seriously, which one?”
“Seriously! I was visiting and fell in and the previous Guide told me that was the one he fell into as well, he’s retired now and it’s my responsibility to-”
“Growrf!”
The pair looked up at the panda who had wandered over, sitting next to them with a forlorn expression on his face. Ranma couldn’t tell if it was intentional or just how pandas typically looked.
He groaned. “Well, I guess I got lucky and this one didn’t affect me? Sucks for you, Pops, sorry you’re stuck like that. Serves you right for taking us to a cursed training ground .” Ranma began pulling off his gi top to wring out the water, but a wave of self-consciousness struck him and he settled for what he could twist out of the sleeves with it still being worn.
“Browrowr.”
The Guide smiled. “Oh, do not worry sir! You aren’t locked in this form forever. The curse activates when you are doused with cold water, but hot water will return you to normal. Please, follow me to my cabin, I will put on a bath for you.”
“Brworf.”
The Guide and the panda began trudging back to the cabin as Ranma collected their gear and packs. As he jogged to catch back up with the two adults, he gave a look back at the cursed springs.
Pops is so damn lucky the curse can be reversed. I’d probably try to kill him if I’d actually been turned into a girl.
…I wonder what that would have been like.
He shook his head to rid himself of the weird thoughts, dashing to catch up with his father.
“Farewell, customers! Please, travel safely!”
The Guide waved at the martial artists as they left the training ground the next morning. The father had spent much of the previous night being transformed into his cursed panda form by various mishaps - a rusty pipe had broken and sprayed him, he had bumped a table and spilled the pitcher of water set on it, and when he had stepped outside to use the outhouse halfway through the night, a freak rainstorm had popped up without warning. The Guide had often heard complaints about how water seemed attracted to the cursed ones, but in Genma’s case, it seemed especially bad. Even as he watched the two fade into the distance, he could see the son taking a swig from a canteen, trip on a branch, and the other figure burst two feet taller and grow black and white fur.
The son…The Guide had never seen a case like this before, of someone not being transformed by a cursed spring. Oddly, Ranma seemed to be attracting water as well, getting soaked while fixing the rusty pipe and having run through the rain to help his panda-shaped father be untransformed so he could fit through the outhouse door. The Guide supposed it was simply a result of him being helpful to his father.
Admittedly, he didn’t know every single spring - how could he, there were over a thousand and many had never cursed anyone to his knowledge - but he was certain the purple-haired child from the nearby tribe who came by a few months prior had pointed that spring out as the one she fell into and turned her into a girl.
*What kind of guide are you if you don’t know what cursed springs are what?!*
Well, he did have a point.
He strode with purpose back to his cabin for a bucket and a kettle of hot water. After a quick stop by the Spring of Drowned Jusenkyo Guide, where he filled a bucket with the magic water so he could transform back to his professional persona later, he made his way back to the mystery spring where the boy had fallen the previous day. With a deep breath, the Guide jumped in himself.
Like with Ranma, there were no physical changes. He certainly wasn’t a woman physically, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t one mentally either - springs that changed personality were some of the scariest in all of Jusenkyo, to the point that the local tribes had laws prohibiting their use on pain of death, so if this had been one of those he would have had to register it with the tribes immediately.
In fact, he couldn’t tell exactly what was different about this spring compared to a normal pool of water. Was this an uncursed spring? But how did that explain the girl?
He pulled himself out of the water and sat on the bank, thinking hard. Uncursed springs weren’t uncommon, but he thought he knew all of them! Most of them were clustered in the western portion of the training grounds - there was a set of seventeen springs where the only cursed one was…
Was the Spring of Drowned Jusenkyo Guide?
He stared at the bucket of Guide water next to him, coming to a chilling realization. He picked it up with trembling hands, lifted it over his head, and drenched himself with the water.
Nothing changed. And for the Guide, everything changed.
And suddenly, he knew what the mystery Spring was.
“Oh. Oh dear…That poor child…”