Chapter Text
Akane Tendou was six years old when she went missing in broad daylight, during a family trip to Ryugenzawa. It had been a week when the rest of the family had to leave, unable to stay due to her mother's worsening medical conditions.
None of them had seen Akane run off. None of them knew what direction she went. An endless stretch of cursed forest had taken the youngest Tendou, a disappearance that would haunt them for a decade.
They took a trip back there every year, just in case they managed to find her, knowing they probably wouldn't.
○○○○○
Ranma Saotome was barely thirteen when he and his dad landed in China, far from the little stability he had found in his first year of middle school. Far from people they knew, far from a language they spoke, father and son pushed onwards.
It was the father's fault, though, that Ranma had a strange affliction. A fear response that could only be calmed by a kind woman he trusted, far away in Tokyo. However, the likelihood that said affliction would cause a problem was minimal in Genma Saotome's thoughts.
Ranma wanted to curse his dad out as the world went black, the feline horror taking over on day one.
○○○○○
Akane was a survivor. She knew this. She knew she was strong, that she could live, that she could keep going.
She knew she was Akane. It's what she told the one human she was when she was smaller. It's what he kept calling her, even though he forgot so much else.
Akane was a weird species to be. She had a lot of things like the human, but not. The human was shaped differently than Akane. He had brown head fur while she had blue. He didn't have talons for hunting. He didn't smell like her. He didn't walk like her. He didn't have a tail, gifted by the magic of the forest, like her.
Akane wasn't like the one thing shaped like her. She was alone, a singular, scared animal trying to survive in the wilderness.
There was a clearing the human showed Akane once. He never went past it, so Akane didn't either, but it was a nice space to look for the smaller things to take down. She didn't want to be hungry at night, after all. Perching on a singular large rock, Akane scouted the land for her prey, or at least potential predators, and…
A human. A different one. One with long brown head fur, kneeling and talking to herself. Her guard was down, maybe she could have been hurt. Anything wanting to attack her would be easily able to.
So, Akane ran. Akane ran, bare feet and hands tearing through the grass and dirt, causing the human to look as Akane skidded in front of her. The human was familiar, almost, and a sound, a vocal call, itched in Akane's head without making it out in one piece. M… M…
“... Excuse me, are you… Okay?” The human spoke, looking over Akane's body, over all the exposed skin, scratches and bruises, dirt and sweat and blood.
“O- Okay. Okay!” Akane remembered that vocal call, and she was okay! The wild beast gestured at the human vaguely. “... Okay?”
“Oh, um, yes,” The human spoke softly, the meaning to her words coming through slowly but surely, “... My little sister went missing here, ten years ago. I can't help but think if I pray here, I may… I may just…”
The human took yet another look at Akane, and this examination felt far more personal. Looking Akane right in the eyes, staring deep into the essence that made the feral creature, the human let out a little gasp for air as her eyes began to water.
“... Akane?” The human asked.
“Akane! Am Akane!” Akane was very surprised the human knew what she was! She could feel the wolf-like tail Ryugenzawa granted her begin to wag happily.
“Oh… Oh my…” Kasumi Tendou, age 19, stood shocked before she reached out a hand for the creature before her, “Akane, it's… I finally found you…”
○○○○○
When Ranma came to, the first instinct pulsing through every neuron was not to breathe in. Water surrounded every last millimetre of flesh, so Ranma had to claw and pull the whole body out of the pool.
“That one is the Spring of Drowned Girl, an even more tragic tale of a girl who drowned there one thousand and five hundred years ago!” Shouted a strange voice, “Now, whoever falls in is cursed to turn into a girl!”
A… A girl? Ranma was a girl? Looking down, Ranma looked like a girl, although small and underdeveloped overall. Did girls have claws? Ranma had claws. Ranma had been called a girl sometimes by… Someone… Somewhere…
“I am a girl?” Ranma asked, and the human stranger nodded, “Huh… I am a girl.”
There was a… Um… A bear? PANDA, panda was the word! There was a panda, absolutely confused by the sight of Ranma pulling herself out of the water. It made some growls at her, but she wasn't sure what it was trying to say.
“It's strange, though,” The human stranger mused, “It doesn't normally make girls that look like you. They're usually more normal.”
“Mrrp?” Ranma asked, before using the pool of water as a mirror. She… She didn't remember her hair/fur/hair being red, but… What was she remembering? Her tongue ran along the sharp feline teeth in her mouth as she tried to gather her thoughts, her tuft of a tail barely sticking out past her clothes, making eye contact with her own catlike eyes in the reflection…
“... Hair is longer,” Ranma realised, “That is wrong.”
“Well, your father here said he was chasing you for two years, so-”
“Huh?” The pointed ears on the creature turned with curiosity, “Pops? Two years?”
“... You are talking more than before,” The human pointed out, “Come, I will get the kettle running.”
Ranma didn't say a word as she followed, crouching down so she could better move around on all fours when needed. She felt a little scrambled and out of place, but this felt kind of correct. Girls were smaller, so she was suited to hunting like she did better.
… Did Ranma hunt things? The feelings of the past two years were too cluttered, too shuffled in with the rest of her mind, that she couldn't tell. She was a lost animal, so maybe that's why the panda was there? She should've been in Japan. She didn't want to be here. Ranmas were not native to China as a species, she thought.
○○○○○
Shelter was always good. Except if the shelter was called a hospital. Everything smelled weird, and the humans called ‘doctors’ made Akane have all these things covering her scratches, and they stuck pointy things in her that they said would make her feel better but they just hurt and made her feel dizzy.
They had cut her claws. They poked at her tail in curiosity. They had her stuck in this ‘room’, the only good thing being how comfy the ‘bed’ was. And she couldn't even put the bed on the floor, she wasn't allowed to!
“How's my baby girl!?” The human who got called ‘Dad’ wasn't good either, he kept on getting super close and touchy.
“Akane is okay…” She huffed, only because humans liked that answer.
“SO RESILIENT!” Dad started crying again, and he got all ‘huggy’ and uncomfortable, “I promise, you'll be perfectly normal again in no time!”
“Dad, she has a tail,” ‘Nabiki’ the human said flatly, “She's not going to be normal.”
Dad ignored Nabiki, continuing to cuddle Akane despite her growls in protest. At least the wolves Akane had known not to cuddle into a growling Akane. This dad human didn't get it at all, and she was very close to trying to claw his face as a final warning.
… Except Kasumi wouldn't like that. Kasumi was the nice gentle human who found Akane. She smelled like good food and warmth and good, not pushy hugs. She reminded Akane so much of someone she hadn't seen in a long time, someone she might have cried for at night when small. Akane trusted Kasumi.
“I like your haircut, Akane,” Kasumi smiled, “It really suits you.”
Akane's head fur… Hair. It was being called hair. Over the long time Akane had been alone, it had grown really long. It was super tangled and uncomfortable, and had lots of stuff stuck in it. Now, it was soft and fluffy and short! Akane liked that, although she wished it didn't smell like the other fake smells she was stuck around.
Tail wagging from underneath the baggy ‘shirt’ they put her in, Akane smiled in return to Kasumi. She was getting words done really well, probably thanks to still having seen the human around the forest, but words were also really stupid sometimes.
“I can't believe I basically have a dog for a sister… Does she even count as Akane anymore?” Nabiki asked, “I mean, ten years made me different, and I wasn't living in the wild, for fuck's sake!”
“Nabiki, you can't just say that!” Kasumi sounded upset, “She responded so clearly when I asked her, she's clearly still our sister regardless!”
Akane felt a little bit sad they were saying she wasn't Akane, but there was something more important on her mind. They said she should ask about any words she doesn't know, so she can get better at speaking like a human.
“... Fuck?” Akane asked innocently. Nabiki seemed amused, while Dad and Kasumi looked at her with slight horror.
○○○○○
“Boy!” Pops yelled out.
“Girl!” Ranma playfully yelled back.
She liked this game! Ranma could remember that boy was the opposite of girl, and she was a girl! So she got to yell it at Pops, because Pops yelled the wrong thing at her so she yelled the wrong thing back! It was a very fun game.
“Ugh, now you listen here!” Pops got all serious, “This is the last town before we can swim back to Japan, so you better not make it seem like we're two weirdos, got it?”
Ranma liked the idea of going back to Japan! There were friendly humans there, like… Uh… They were there, at least! She knew it! And even if she was so used to the Chinese wilderness after two years, she still craved going back to her natural habitat!
Walking through the town, no, the city, bright lights and loud noises were all that Ranma could take in. If she was in her favourite form that felt right, she'd scamper really low to the ground to check around every corner. But no, Pops had to be evil and hold her by the scruff, forcing her upright.
Ranma couldn't speak anything the humans besides Pops were saying. Human communication was so weird. But the cats of the town were loud and clear! Food, water, all the best places and how to get there, being meowed, chirped, and trilled across the bustling streets.
Something shiny across the street caught Ranma's eye, sparkling as it moved. Ranma tried to leap towards it, only to be pulled back forcefully by the neck, then again by her hair. “WHAT DID I SAY, BOY!?”
“Girl!” Ranma joined in again with the game, only to get pulled backwards by the hair again, “SORRY SORRY SORRY!”
“You're lucky I don't just chop all this off!” Pops growled. It wasn't that he hadn't tried, but more that Ranma got really dangerous when there were sharp objects put near her.
Whimpering, Ranma backed down, shaking as she let herself be guided past the onlookers. If one of them was asking if she needed help, she certainly didn't understand it. It might as well have only been the wild creature and her forceful handler, the man trying to domesticate her.
… Pops said Ranma was supposed to be a boy, but she wasn't according to everything else. He said he tried to make her super strong, but she didn't remember doing strength training. She wasn't, in either form, the big grown man human she was asked to be. The only difference was that Pops could play pretend that one of the forms was.
Ranma liked playing. Playing pretend like this wasn't one of the good kinds of play.
A sudden splash of water came from the sky. Looking up revealed a person had just tipped a bucket off the balcony, but Ranma didn't care. She was small, she was catlike, she was free! And pandas happened to be good at losing their grip on feral creature hair!
“Which way? Which way?” She asked Pops, pointing all over the place as she jumped around, “This way? Mrrp? This way? This way!”
Ranma ran off in her direction of choice, a speed fiend on all fours, leaving the panda in the dust. He'd catch her eventually, but she didn't care. She could run and take in the sights and sounds and smells of this disorienting city at least once if she was going to be forcefully dragged through it anyway.
○○○○○
Akane decided she really didn't like ‘cars’. They were super cramped, loud like a growling predatory animal, and she couldn't even run outside in all the weird places she was seeing. Besides, the seat wasn't at all comfortable for her tail…
“How are you holding up back there, my beautiful girl?” Dad asked while he made the car turn, “We're almost home!”
“Not okay. Akane needs out.” She tried tapping at the door again to no avail.
“Shh, it's going to be okay,” Kasumi was next to Akane in the car, gently petting Akane on the head to try and soothe the creature, “There's a lot of space at home, outside and inside. I wonder if you'll remember any of it from before…”
“Doubt it,” Nabiki said from the other front chair, “And I'm not gonna be the one to show her around everywhere.”
“Ha! I'll up your allowance if you do.” Dad whispered that last part.
“... Fine.”
Akane had learnt that Dad was super clingy and very protective, but too much. He looked at Akane and thought she could be human. But being human and being Akane were two different things, Akane wasn't a human like all of the ones she'd been taken by.
And Nabiki was distant. She saw Akane different compared to the others, as a stranger and not a human girl she knew. And that was almost nice. Akane liked Nabiki more than Dad. Nabiki wouldn't hug Akane and try to soften her survival instincts.
The shelter the car stopped at was surrounded by a big obstacle that Akane hoped to climb over. Instead, after being freed from the car, Dad just had the big door open so the group could take Akane in.
“Let me show you around, Akane,” Kasumi spoke softly, noticing Akane was a little overwhelmed, “First, we take our shoes off here.”
Akane immediately decided this was her favourite room, tearing the stupid ‘sandals' Dad made her wear off immediately. It wasn't the only bit of uncomfortable clothing she had, but she felt better barefoot the most.
There was a room that everyone sat in, and a room that smelled like really good yummy thing, and a room like the ‘bathroom' at the hospital but bigger and more lived in. There was Dad's room, which smelled like human man sweat, and Nabiki’s room, that smelled like that metal smell on her fingers, and Kasumi's room, that smelled like Kasumi!
Kasumi opened up one more door. “And this, Akane, is your room!”
It was a big space, with a bed thingy, and a ‘desk’, and another thing with a door on it, amd things holding other things, and… Well, not everything made sense to Akane, but she was expected to learn them like a human knew them.
At least she knew what to do with a bed. Even though it was high off the ground, she let herself climb onto it. It was softer and comfier than the hospital bed. This was a privilege, a luxury. Laying flat, face down, Akane's tail started wagging happily.
“I'm so glad you like it, Akane,” Kasumi said, “Now, we haven't filled your wardrobe yet, but that's better to do with you. You should have clothes you actually enjoy, after all.”
That put a small dampener on Akane's mood. Only the really big shirt she got to wear in hospital was comfy so far, especially with all the bandages on. Everything Dad had brought her to try was icky and too tight and painfully bright colours…
“Now, would you like to go outside?” The gentle human asked, knowing fully well what Akane's reaction would probably be.
It would take two hours two calm the creature down from her zoomies, and another hour trying to get up from the grass patch she was laying in, before they could actually get Akane inside and in her room again.
Akane immediately pulled the comfy part of the bed onto the floor that night. The ‘blankets’ and ‘pillows’ made a really comfy nest when she put them in the right places. It was soft, luxurious, and safe on the ground. Akane was going to make this new territory her home, like she was told…