Chapter 1: The duel of the idiot and the tomboy.
Chapter Text
Saotome Genma.
The Great Thief.
Master of deception, invisibility, and the art of the strategic retreat. Undefeated champion of over thirty martial arts schools at least according to him and one of the few madmen to survive training under the demon Happosai. Today, he wasn’t after gold or secret scrolls. No, today, Genma was about to pull off the greatest heist of his life:
Marrying the princess of the Yumekuroi clan. The perfect wife.
An ancient lineage. Heirs to the mystical shadows that once guarded the Shogunate, infamous for switching sides just before every historic victory.
Of course, they weren’t what they used to be. The clan, aged and shackled by stale traditions, had only one heiress left: Yumekuroi Nodoka. Never trained in the sword, wrapped in the expectations of a "perfect" life.
But Genma wasn’t looking for a garden flower. He wanted the soul of a beast.
To claim her, he had to earn the right to challenge the patriarch the swordsman of reflexes, the clan’s last duelist.
And so, in a barren garden, beneath a dead cherry tree and before an old dōjō, the heir of thieves and the guardian of fading glories bowed in solemn silence.
One wore two swords at his waist: a katana and a jia. The other? Just a bag of impossible tricks and a flawless record of escape.
The duel began.
It looked like a dance. It was war. Genma played the fool, luring the master with false clumsiness. The patriarch struck with centuries-honed precision but an unexpected pivot, a triangular sidestep, and Genma shattered his balance.
The swordsman reacted. The katana grazed Genma’s gi, a whisper of death. Genma retaliated with a Hapkido counter: hip to wrist, arm locked, twisted almost a pin!
But the sheathed jia rose like a silent shadow. Genma dodged. Barely.
---
From a high window in the manor, a pair of eyes watched everything.
The "perfect wife" analyzed him with surgical focus.
She’d assumed he was just another fool, one of those who’d leave missing teeth by her hand. But this man? Different.
Mastery.
Technique.
Absolute self-control.
A bastard unafraid to get dirty, yet never losing composure. A beast dressed as a beggar.
"Tsunoda," she said, eyes still fixed on the duel, "who is the man challenging my father?"
"That poor fool, miss? Just a vagrant… The last heir of the Saotome."
"That ‘poor fool’ is fifteen minutes away from defeating Father."
Tsunoda’s eyes widened as if splashed with ice water. Without another word, he sprinted toward the dōjō. Nodoka didn’t move.
The Moonlit Swordswoman remembered: Saotome a near-forgotten name, once a symbol of warrior women who defied the Emperor in the Meiji era. Longtime allies of the Yumekuroi.
She knew. His blood was as old and stubborn as hers.
She also knew the real prize wasn’t a dowry or a name. It was her.
And that her father would never admit his daughter was the best swordsman in the house.
---
The duel ended.
Her father emerged slowly, defeat carved into his shoulders.
Nodoka already knew.
She’d seen everything.
And she understood even more: her fate had just been handed away without her consent. Again.
She descended the stairs, bathed in golden twilight, moving like a princess from a forgotten era. The Shōwa period had ended, yet she clung to Taishō’s elegance.
Genma saw her for the first time.
His world went silent.
He’d never seen anything like her.
Not just her beauty the steel behind those serene eyes. Something in his gut screamed run.
But he stayed.
"Father," Nodoka said, voice crystalline.
The old Yumekuroi looked at her with pride and sorrow. "My dear daughter, I must honor my name. My legacy now belongs to this young Saotome Genma. The man among men. Your future husband."
Genma stepped forward, bowing with awkward haste. "P-pleased to meet you, miss "
"In other words, this old fool values a stranger over his own daughter."
Nodoka’s thoughts were as precise as a thrust.
But she smiled.
And that smile disarmed Genma more than the duel had.
Not love. Not submission. A warning: This isn’t over.
The Moonlit Swordswoman was just waiting for the sun to set.
"I will obey, Father," she said.
And the curtain fell on introductions.
But for Genma and Nodoka… the story had only just begun.
---
The day before, he’d vanished with some flimsy excuse about "training duties." So the next day, Nodoka decided to investigate where he studied. To her surprise, it was the all-boys school next door a rowdy fortress of teenage testosterone and half-respected rules.
After her own classes ended (and after flawlessly playing the perfect student), she marched straight to their gym. Inside the locker room, she changed clothes without wasting time or dignity. Stripped of the uniform that hid her true self, she moved through the shadows like a veteran ninja.
And there he was.
The stray-dog idiot grinning like he adored his own misery was chatting with an older boy, maybe three or four years his senior, who had a permanently arched eyebrow. The contrast was ridiculous: one looked ripped from a bad romance novel, the other from a poorly translated judo manual.
"I swear, Tendo," Genma gushed, "I thought she was gorgeous from afar. But up close? She’s the most beautiful girl in the world… and my fiancée."
Tendo Soun stared at him like he was a talking insect.
"Saotome, I’ve heard this 135 times. Also, there’s no way you’re engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world."
"Let me guess," Genma shot back, offended, "because you’re the one who "
Soun cut him off, chest puffed theatrically:
"Because I’m the one engaged to the radiant Yokinomura Noriko!"
"If the old master hears you, he’ll exploit it. You know how he feels about the Yokinomura." Genma rambled, veering off-topic but never losing passion. "But the most amazing thing wasn’t her beauty. She had this fire like a martial artist hiding under all that perfection "
Then a voice sharp, venomous, dripping with pride sliced through his fantasy:
"That’s because I am a martial artist, Saotome."
Both boys shrieked like teens caught stealing liquor. No girl at their school carried herself like this: confidence, presence, utter contempt for their stupidity.
"Who are you?!" Tendo demanded, forehead glistening with a drop of fear.
"Apparently, the ‘most beautiful girl in the world,’ with ‘a burning fire inside,’ and Saotome’s fiancée," she replied, smile acidic.
"I knew it! Those eyes were a martial artist’s! Told you, Tendo!" Genma shook his friend so hard a thread on his sleeve snapped audibly.
Nodoka gave no quarter.
"Listen, I’ll be blunt. Either I marry you since you seem reasonably tolerable or Father weds me off to some money-grubbing family. So I came to discuss terms."
"But first… Saotome Genma: I challenge you to a duel!"
Soun gulped. He’d always seen Yumekuroi as a prissy yamato nadeshiko, the type who lectured with a bitter smile. But this version? This Nodoka was no lady. She was a tomboy with steel pride. And she’d just challenged Genma the same Genma he’d only beaten after eight hours of combat and silent prayers.
"Hahaha… sure," Genma laughed, that dumb chuckle that always preceded madness. "If that’s what you want."
"Soun, can we borrow your dōjō?"
Soun sighed. This was unprecedented. Noriko would never do something like this. She helped him refine his archery and spiritual practice. But Genma? His tastes were… unique.
As they walked, Soun noticed Nodoka’s stride trained to be silent, to glide unseen. Yet she chose to be seen.
"I won’t go easy like Father did, Saotome. But I’ll give you one mercy: I’ll use a wooden bokken." The wood cracked against the floor as she took stance.
"Don’t worry, Yumekuroi. I went easy on him."
Nodoka adopted a taunting guard. Genma lunged, confident. Anyone would’ve thought he’d block her effortlessly. But in a blink, her bokken struck his wrists with surgical precision. They went numb instantly. Yet Genma didn’t fall if anyone knew how to move through pain, it was him.
He tried Hapkido. Pencak Silat. Aikido. Useless. Nodoka countered with insulting precision: elbows at impossible angles, double-blocks with the bokken, maneuvers that denied him footing.
When he tried breaking her low guard, she jumped. Not once repeatedly. Then, as if studying him in real time, she began mimicking his moves. Not copying refining them.
Soon, Genma found cracks in her defense.
Soon, Nodoka found his.
Then CRACK. A sound like divine judgment shook the Tendo dōjō. Genma’s head hit the tatami as if the Master himself had struck him down.
"Point: Yumekuroi," Soun declared solemnly.
But it wasn’t over. Rising, Genma pulled out older tricks Shaolin techniques, moves he hadn’t used in years. In a lapse, he broke Nodoka’s guard. She flew.
"Point: Saotome."
Now they were even.
The embers burned. The battle had just begun.
Their exchanges grew faster, wilder two tigers clashing. Soun watched, awestruck.
This was Genma. The same man who’d toppled a sumo wrestler three times his weight. The same man only the Master had ever beaten. And now? A girl with a bokken was pushing him to his limits.
Then the unthinkable.
Genma vanished.
Just like that. His figure dissolved into air.
Nodoka didn’t flinch. She closed her eyes, body relaxing into eerie calm. She, too, had a secret move. Something ancestral.
It happened in a blink.
Soun a master of his family’s Ki couldn’t comprehend it. The fight shattered like glass. No shout, no audible strike just a crimson flash.
A perfect arc, Nodoka’s bokken leaving a red trail like sunset on blood.
Both bodies hit the floor at once. No victors just warriors spent.
"Not bad… for a woman," Genma panted, staring at the ceiling.
"Not bad… for a stupid stray," Nodoka shot back, voice dry but sharp as her blade. "Funny you’d say that, though. Your clan was a lineage of warrior women."
Silence hung thick as sweat evaporated from their brows.
"The Saotome clan… is dead, Yumekuroi," Genma finally said, words heavy as stone. "I’m the last. Everything burned. Now it’s just an empty lot where developers plan condos."
"Our family library has records on your clan," she said, no dramatics. "If you ever want to read them, they’re there."
From the corner, Soun struggled to process what he’d witnessed. Hours ago, he’d thought Genma was just a talented brawler. Nodoka? A prideful lady. But no they were warriors. True warriors. With hunger. With scars yet to form.
"Maybe someday," Genma muttered, almost vulnerable. "What did you want to talk about?"
Nodoka forced herself up, grabbing a bag no one had noticed.
"I have a document," she declared, pulling it out with gravity. "I will own the family assets. You’ll live with me. My dōjō, my house, my garden all under my name."
"Fine by me," Genma said, no fuss.
"Just like that?" Nodoka frowned, incredulous.
"On one condition," Genma said, suddenly serious. "Tendo and I want to unite our families. If the chance comes… we’ll arrange an engagement."
"And where would the children live? Here or my house?"
Soun, finally snapping back, stepped in.
"Let’s say… both. If you’ll allow it, Yumekuroi."
"Fine. But remember this," Nodoka said, icy elegance intact. "The final choice will be our children’s, not ours."
And so, the trio sealed their pact. The union of families.
---
Months later, Nodoka regularly snuck out to train with her fiancé and Tendo who looked less like a student and more like a fallen noble by the day.
A week after graduation, Nodoka prepared for university (History major). That afternoon, she lounged on her father’s rooftop a space she’d claimed with old cushions and a sun umbrella. She had a thing for rooftops, for high places… maybe because everything looked smaller from up there.
Genma rummaged through his bag nearby.
"Hey, idiot! What are you doing?" she called, not looking up as she filed a nail.
"Looking for something, tomboy," he grumbled, desperation growing. Then "Aha!" he pulled out a strange stone. "See this?"
"Remember old man Happosai?" His grin was mischievous, almost childlike.
A shiver ran down Nodoka’s spine.
"The creep who said, ‘I can’t train a woman… especially one so sexy’? Makes me sick."
"Remember how I told you he’s immortal? Tricks, potions… demon contracts?" Genma’s smile turned dangerous. "We need to get rid of him. Especially if we ever have kids. I won’t raise them near that."
"You’re killing him? Can I help? What’s that stone?"
"Whoa, slow down, babe!"
WHAM! A kick to the head nearly sent him flying off the roof.
"Call me ‘babe’ again, idiot."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry…" He rubbed his temple. "Point is, this stone can seal his demon contract. Noriko made it. This weekend, he’ll be drunk. We’ll trap him in a cave. Greatest criminal in 300 years."
"It won’t work," Nodoka said flatly, inspecting her nails.
"What?" Genma stiffened.
"Let me finish." With surgical precision, she filed her last nail. Then met his eyes, calm as a blade.
"We’re going to the family library."
The Yumekuroi Apartment Building in Nerima was one of those peace treaties disguised as progress. A strategic concession to the Kuno family to avoid greater disputes. Nothing unusual in the absurd dances of Japan’s martial aristocracy.
But the true Yumekuroi residence lay much farther away a place now called "the countryside," though in ancient times, it had been the heart of a region that witnessed empires and wars. A place where the stones still remembered the names of those who tread upon them.
Genma watched as his fiancée morphed from the violent, arrogant, insufferable tomboy into a smiling, polite lady who sweetly greeted the apartment’s neighbors. As if she were the embodiment of civic virtue.
"So, Miss Know-It-All… why the performance?" he sneered as she bowed perfectly to an elderly woman walking a visibly traumatized chihuahua.
Nodoka didn’t answer. She kept greeting nodding slightly, making eye contact with vendors, doormen, high schoolers. Genma got no reply. Not until they were seated in the car.
"I need people to see me, Genma. To see my fiancé. I don’t have high society’s support. The ones who rule that world are like that idiot Kuno. I’m not like that. So I’ll take the people’s support instead. Besides…" Her voice softened. "It reminds me of things I’d forgotten. Sometimes I wonder if having anything matters when most can’t even keep a roof overhead."
Genma looked at her. For a moment, she wasn’t just "the girl he’d marry." She wasn’t just a woman. She was inspiration. A war partner.
"You wanna do something about that?" he murmured, as if afraid the car might hear.
"I don’t know," she admitted, the honesty almost painful. "I’m a coward, Genma. I want to slash housing costs, burst that damned real estate bubble. But I’m eighteen, a woman, and legally dependent on a man be it Father or you. No offense, but you’re my best shot. Not because you’re strong. Because… you don’t get in the way."
"How romantic, tomboy."
"Oh, please. You’re telling me the family fortune had nothing to do with you challenging Father for my hand?"
Genma almost said no. That it was her defiant smile, her blazing eyes, the way she walked like she was spitting in the gods’ faces. But that would’ve wounded Nodoka’s pride. Worse it’d have fed her ego.
"Yeah, obviously," he lied, faux-serious. "But I’d call it ‘secured meals.’ You handle things. I’m not exactly… refined."
"Just don’t tell Father. He still believes there must be ‘a man in charge.’" She laughed, sarcasm and fondness tangled together.
Genma side-eyed her. There was something adorable and dangerously alluring about that smile. Like a maniac plotting world domination.
"Honestly, Nodoka, if we left things to ‘a man like me,’ we’d be bankrupt in a year."
"Oh no! A trophy husband! How… special." Her grin was razor-edged.
Genma turned away, half-annoyed. "Careful, tomboy. The sarcasm’s showing."
"Well, Genma, you’re funny. Most boys aren’t. My friend Sakura’s in a lovely lesbian phase, and I wasn’t born that lucky."
"Tomboy."
"Yes, Genma?"
"You’re the worst."
"I’m a delight."
---
They arrived at the Yumekuroi estate as the sun thickened the sky to amber. The house loomed like a sleeping castle: black wood, green tiles, shadows from another age.
A porcelain-heron of a girl walked the stone path, trailed by a lanky man in dark blue gi a samurai fallen from grace.
The ancestral garden was breathtaking. A mix of Zen order and vegetative chaos. Tiny statues hidden in shrubs, golden koi in crystalline ponds, trees so old their branches creaked like millennial bones.
From the west wing emerged an elderly man, spine straight as a pole, face carved with noble, dangerous wrinkles.
"Greetings, Father," Nodoka said, bowing just enough.
"Greetings, Master Yumekuroi," Genma echoed, head lowered respectfully.
The man studied them, statue-faced. Then nodded.
"Glad you’re getting along. A challenger comes next week. Prepare, Saotome."
"Understood, Master." Genma’s bow was almost swordsman-like.
The old man’s smile was barely there a tired lion’s grimace. Then he left, walking with the cadence of ancients. He’d never approved the engagement. In his mind, his heiress was to marry noble blood, not a boy from a dead lineage. Less than a rōnin. Even if he couldn’t stop the marriage, he could strip Genma of the house. He didn’t deserve it.
Nodoka, emotionless, turned to a uniformed man waiting by the threshold.
"Tsunoda," she said firmly. "We’ll use the library."
---
The hidden basement library was a dream ancient, airlocked, glorious. It smelled of dust, old leather, indelible ink, secrets.
"This, Saotome," Nodoka whispered, reverent, "is my family’s true treasure. People can’t stay long just two hours. This place was built for these scrolls."
"And I love it," she added, eyes sparkling childishly. "Father forgot it existed. I’ve spent my life reading here… while practicing in the upstairs study."
Her face wasn’t the tomboy’s scowl or the noblewoman’s poise. Just a girl enchanted by her favorite toy. A creature of wisdom and dust.
Genma couldn’t help but think: She’s cute like this.
"You really love this place," he murmured.
"Obviously. These lamps? Ki-lamps. No torches flames oxidize the manuscripts. Everything here is calculated. Minimal air contact. Humidity collectors drip water to the greenhouse, which regulates the underground temperature."
"Whoever built this… was a genius."
Nodoka exhaled slowly. "Sorry. I shouldn’t get excited. Oxygen’s limited."
She moved like she was dancing with the books. A lamp illuminated a rotating index black wood carved with kanji that glowed faintly. After careful searching, she pulled scrolls from the darkest shelves and motioned Genma to leave.
Back in the study (half the size of her dōjō, mysteriously lit), she unrolled the scrolls like unsealing a weapon chest.
"Your clan’s records. Our families fought side by side, once."
Genma touched the edge of one, wary of breaking the spell. "I thought you were lying."
"A clan of warrior women. Of course I read your lineage."
Pause. Her gaze dropped, then locked onto his with brutal seriousness.
"Anyway. Here’s a technique for next week’s challenger. Father will force a draw. He’ll use it to take the house and fortune. Maybe even disown me. He never liked a woman who does things."
Genma frowned. "He seems to love you…"
Nodoka’s smile was crooked, bitter, cracked. She lowered the other scrolls with ritual slowness.
"He did. Until I was fifteen. When I dueled him for the heir’s rights."
Nodoka’s smile was crooked, bitter, cracked. She lowered the other scrolls with ritual slowness.
"He did. Until I was fifteen. When I dueled him for the heir’s rights."
"And I won."
"His pride shattered. He swore I’d never be free. Never accept a female heir."
Genma looked at her no longer a fiancée, but a warrior who’d survived a battlefield called family.
"Every martial artist I know is like that now…"
Nodoka watched him, almost hopeful. "What about you, Genma? Would a female heir bother you?"
He scratched his head, uncomfortable. "I was like that, I guess…"
Her face flickered with disappointment. He rushed on:
"But then I met a know-it-all tomboy… who made me see differently."
She smirked. That arrogant look that drove him wild samurai, maiden, and mischievous demon fused into one.
"Progress, Genma. I guess." Feigned indifference as she turned back to the scrolls. Then, grave again:
"Now. These scrolls. Happosai’s demon contracts."
The air froze. Even the lamp flickered.
"Wait, demon?" Genma barely got the word out.
"Happosai is a demon. Not just a person who made contracts. He was human, yes... at some distant point. But from what we know... he ate a Yasha. Absorbed it. Corrupted it. Made it his core. That gave him access to power... and knowledge he didn't obtain through practice or meditation, but through shortcuts. Through aberration."
Genma read it over and over. The characters were ancient, with thick, twisted strokes like millennial tree roots. Listed there were some of Happosai's most infamous tricks and segments of his history scattered across continental Asia: China, Mongolia, something in the Tibetan mountains, even rumors of voluntary exile among Burmese monks.
"If you knew this... why did you ask him to be your teacher?" Genma asked without taking his eyes off the scroll.
"Hey, pervert aside, he's a powerful creature with many achievements," Nodoka replied, lowering her gaze. "Receiving knowledge like that... is something worth your soul."
As she said this, for the first time, Genma saw her blush. Her expression wavered between shame and the obstinacy of someone who knows they made a dangerous pact... but a fascinating one.
The boy sighed, resting the scroll on his knees.
"You're dangerous, tomboy. More to yourself than the world, I think... but I'm not sure the world is safe."
"Don't worry, idiot. I'm a good girl. Noble and demure," she said with theatrical solemnity, making them both burst into laughter.
"Well then, noble girl... how do we get rid of the demon gremlin?"
"I... don't entirely know. But I know we need a spiritual expert to finish this spiritual process."
The girl kept thinking, stroking the edge of the table. Genma looked at her like someone holding an ace up his sleeve. A slow, treacherous smile appeared.
"Stop looking at me like that and tell me what's on your mind, Genma."
"Noriko," the man replied.
Nodoka squinted at him with a "I could have figured that out myself" look. Genma, delighted with himself, returned her gaze with a mocking "sure, whatever you say" expression.
"For once I feel smarter than the know-it-all. Let me enjoy it. You know, for being so smart, when it comes to people you're very—"
"Shut up, idiot!" she interrupted, hitting him lightly on the arm. "Let's hide the scrolls and go to Soun's house.”
---
When they arrived at Tendō Soun's house, exactly what was expected to happen, happened. The two young men greeted each other through tears, embracing with the theatricality of those who believe time or death had separated them. The girls watched them with "idiots" written all over their faces.
Nodoka's contained annoyance was more evident in her expression, while Noriko maintained an almost Zen-like calm face, as if she were above such nonsense. But her eyes told a different story.
Noriko discreetly called her to the attic room. Nodoka already knew what she would see. Because Noriko was the perfect girl to everyone, the pure priestess, the exemplary fiancée... but behind that door...
"Look at my new secret dōjinshi treasure, Nodoka," Noriko said with shining eyes. She lifted the sleeve of her kimono as if revealing a war wound. "This is my favorite. It was written by an underground mangaka, and best of all... it's explicit. The two boys are sooooo cute."
Her eyes literally had hearts in them. Or at least, Nodoka could have sworn they did for a moment.
"Isn't the main character just like Soun?" Nodoka asked, squinting suspiciously.
"I'll keep those comments to myself, No-chan," Noriko said with a blush so fierce it seemed the very soul of the manga was leaping from her chest.
Nodoka offered a dry smile, needing no words. Here, in this secret space, they could both be themselves - where perfection was a mask left hanging at the door. Away from expectations, Nodoka was happy to listen to her friend. It was the kind of complicity that isn't written in books... but that sustains life.
---
When they finally finished catching up, the boys and girls gathered in the living room, seated as if part of a war council.
"So, Saotome-san," Noriko began with razor-sharp courtesy, "you mentioned you're not here just for simple entertainment and socializing."
Genma shifted uncomfortably. He never knew how to speak in front of Noriko. There were only a few months left until her wedding with Soun, and she already moved through the house like a Mrs. Tendō without the official papers.
Meanwhile, Soun seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Watching his brash friend freeze up before his fiancée's elegance was comedy gold.
"Yes... I... Yoshimura-san. Hmmjun..." Genma looked at Nodoka like a wet dog begging for help. She, meanwhile, was silently dying of laughter, covering her mouth with her kimono.
Genma shot her a theatrical glare of hatred, as if ready to curse her family line. He took a deep breath.
"We have a problem. The stone won't work."
He pulled out the Happōsai scrolls Nodoka had shown him. The ancient paper seemed to emit a faint whisper, as if protesting being handled outside the library.
Soun paled. "This is real, Nodoka?"
"As far as I know, yes. That’s why we need her. Noriko’s the only one who can craft a capture matrix."
Noriko sighed.
"Yes, I imagined as much. Thank you for the information, Nodoka. I must do it soon. If we don't succeed this weekend, we'll have to wait ten years. And I don't want that creature near my future children."
The words fell upon the room like a physical weight. The danger was no longer just parchment legend - it had become a looming shadow.
"Thank you, Noriko. We leave it in your hands," said Nodoka with a polite bow.
Genma stood up, preparing to accompany her to the train station. Outside, the subtle honk of her chauffeur was already audible.
—
Genma trained with Nodoka. It still felt strange to wield a weapon that wasn’t blunt. He was used to fists, staffs, chains anything that could break bones without ceremony. But now, he held a tantō, small and lethal, forced to integrate it into his movements like an extension of his body. He felt clumsy. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Yet that discomfort wasn’t what unsettled him most.
Nodoka.
She wasn’t holding back. Not anymore. In their early sessions, he’d noticed the courtesy in her strikes, the softness in her footwork a polished elegance now gone.
Now, she moved like a young, starving tiger. Her eyes never blinked. Her feet glided as if barely touching the ground, her arms carving clean, bloodthirsty arcs.
Genma could barely keep up.
"Drive your right foot harder, Genma!" she snarled, deflecting his strike with a brutal wrist twist. "And remember: air isn’t your friend against this kind of fighter."
"I’m trying, tomboy! Can you relax?!"
"No, Genma, I can’t!" Her guard didn’t waver. "My shitty father dumped my future in your hands. And your opponent… won’t fight clean like me. Or honor-bound like you. He’ll kill you if he has to."
The words landed like a knife in wood.
"You’re good," she continued. "Better than most. But he’s not ‘most.’ And you can’t just be good."
"You have to be perfect."
Then, without warning, Genma slid under her guard and swept her legs. She fell back but rebounded mid-air, barely grazing the ground. Seamlessly, he shifted styles Muay Thai. Elbows, sweeps, rising knees. Nodoka barely dodged, but in a spin, her katana flew from her grip.
Genma grinned. He was about to yell "I win!"
Until he felt the icy edge of a dagger against his stomach.
"Told you they won’t play fair, Genma," Nodoka whispered, breath steady, pulse unwavering.
He blinked. Nodded. Ready to go again.
His gaze locked onto hers with a intensity he usually reserved for battle.
"Fine. For your dōjō… and your library!"
---
The Weekend Arrived Happōsai was out cold a feat unto itself. It’d taken three sake barrels, a fake festival, and a promise of schoolgirl panties to manage it. They bound the old man like a mythological beast and carried him, laughing nervously, to the sealed cave.
Nodoka watched, vigilant, her breaths light and controlled. Noriko wore the neutral mask of a priestess, but the tremble in her hands betrayed the energy required.
The capture matrix painted in red pigments glowed faintly on the ground, a perfect, breathing circle. Noriko began the ritual, her hands weaving rapid mudras. Nodoka followed, channeling her ki into the seal’s core. The ground shook. The matrix burned.
Then it happened.
A furnace’s worth of heat engulfed all four, as if an ancient bonfire had ignited inside their organs.
Happōsai burned from within. No outer flames. No visible fire. His body convulsed, skin glowing an unnatural red.
"Did it work?" Soun asked, tears in his eyes half joy, half childlike terror.
"Dunno. Wanna go check?" Nodoka deadpanned.
"Oh, No-chan, your humor is… dangerous," Noriko sighed. "I’d appreciate it if you didn’t put my fiancé in bodily peril."
"Thank you, my love!" Soun gasped, relieved.
Then came the killer blow:
"At least wait until we have an heir," Noriko murmured, eyes elsewhere.
Laughter erupted. Briefly.
Until another flare rocked the cave.
"Welp," Genma wiped his brow. "Needs more stewing. Ten years, maybe."
---
Days Later Genma stood in the northern dōjō, light slicing through cracks in the walls. His body was bruised, but his spirit unshaken.
He didn’t want the Yumekuroi library.
Not the title.
Not the house or the dōjō.
He wanted Nodoka happy.
She could fight her own battles. No one should deny her that. Yet the world did her father, other martial artists, even him, once. But after days of sparring, wordless nights, he’d fallen for her fire.
That’s why he was here. Facing him.
"You’re joking, Master," sneered a young man with untempered steel in his gaze. "This vagrant beat you?"
He turned to Genma.
"I don’t need your name. I’m Kurokawa Tanaka. Remember it, stray."
Genma didn’t answer. No need.
He waited for the first strike a tsuki straight for his throat. Precise. Fast.
He blocked with his forearm, sliding the tantō so precisely it grazed Tanaka’s neck without cutting. A warning.
What followed wasn’t a duel.
It was war.
Tanaka fought dirty. Feints, cheap shots, soul-rattling blows. Genma countered with a savage dance: Jūjutsu, Kempo, sweeps, elbow counters, fleeting pins.
"Oh," Tanaka panted. "You’re tough. No wonder the Master lost…"
Then Genma saw it.
The ki shifts how it pooled in Tanaka’s muscles before each attack. Genma faked weakness. Faked clumsiness.
Then struck back.
His whole body in one motion.
Tanaka flew, crashing into the dōjō wall, his promises scattering like dead leaves.
Genma exhaled.
"If this were Nodoka… she’d have used it against him."
He smiled.
Because now, he could fight with her.
Not for her.
Just when Genma had considered him defeated, the opponent rise.
It wasn't an elegant or heroic recovery. It was clumsy, staggering, furious. The young man spat blood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while his eyes - reddened by wounded pride - drilled into Genma. This was undoubtedly bloodlust. Not the kind that seeks justice. The kind that seeks revenge.
"Oh, you're strong, vagrant. I suppose I must acknowledge that. But you're still ignorant," he roared between gasps, his tense muscles launching forward like broken springs.
The attack had no form or logic. It followed no school or pattern. It was pure impulse, a tempest of steel and hatred. The nobleman had lost all composure. He wanted to kill, not win. He wanted to make him pay for the audacity of being better.
From her room, Nodoka didn't miss a single movement. Her chamber, decorated with delicacy and control, had transformed into a sort of observation tower from which she judged the world with cold, attentive eyes.
"Was her father truly more willing to hand over his legacy to a dirty, cheating noble like that than to his own daughter?"
The question burned inside her.
Fortunately, Genma seemed to be holding his own. His body moved with the fluidity of someone who learned to fight before learning to write. And this began to unsettle old Yumekuroi.
From his privileged seat, the patriarch couldn't ignore what he saw: the vagrant wasn't just resisting. He was dominating him.
Reducing him.
The noble had been trained by the best. By Yumekuroi himself.
But this man - this Saotome who belonged to no one and everyone - seemed better.
"My Saotome clan was destroyed by people like you, Tanaka," Genma said, driving the words in like strikes. "I don't know the full history, but I know it was a lineage of noble women, women who cared for the fields and the people who worked them. While people like you, you and yours, enjoyed yourselves in your palaces."
Tanaka could barely respond. He was too busy trying not to die.
"This is for all those who can't fight because it was forbidden to them."
"This is all I have, Nodoka. Thanks to you," he thought.
And then, hell broke loose.
Everything unraveled as if the threads of choreography had snapped.
A spin. A trap.
Tanaka's weapon went flying and embedded itself in the wall, trembling like a needle pointing to destiny.
Then came the strikes.
They weren't seen.
They were felt.
They appeared all over the boy's body as if sprouting from the air: one to the back, another to the chest, the ribs, the neck, the thigh.
The daggers clattered to the floor.
"First technique of the thief style... Yamasen Ken," Genma declared in a grave voice. The name carried weight.
Tanaka fell to his knees, panting like a dog. But he didn't surrender.
He picked up his weapons with trembling hands, his gaze unhinged, and charged straight for his enemy's heart.
Like a suicidal bull.
Genma didn't need much.
He redirected the momentum, pivoted, and sent him crashing back into the wall. The same one where the blade still quivered.
Tanaka hit it full force, with an impact that made faces wince throughout the garden.
And fell. This time, not getting up.
Patriarch Yumekuroi, still seated, didn't move.
But his eyes said everything.
His best student. The chosen one. The symbol of his legacy. Had been defeated.
Not the vagrant. The Saotome... had won.
From her privileged vantage, Nodoka saw it all. Every movement, every drop of blood.
And she felt ecstatic.
"You, Genma... filthy rat," she whispered. Her face contorted with emotion, a sickly euphoric grimace.
She licked her lips like someone savoring delicious poison. "You're still hiding tricks from me."
---
Tsunoda had been assigned to watch Lady Nodoka since she was of courting age. He was meant to protect her. By now, he doubted she needed protecting.
She was the perfect lady in public. But in private? The most unnerving woman he’d ever met. Not for what she did. For what she kept silent. For what she thought.
And meeting Saotome Genma hadn’t made her reasonable.
It’d made her dangerous.
He’d watched her study the boy’s movements a dirty, hybrid, unpredictable style. Street-brawler one moment, refined the next.
Today, he’d seen her smile differently.
A smile in love.
But not sweet. Demonic.
A passion like a promise of ruin.
When she noticed him staring, her face reset instantly porcelain, serene, as if nothing happened.
And he understood what he’d long suspected:
The Master must never know his daughter’s true nature.
---
Days with Genma became weeks. Weeks became months.
They insulted each other like children, trained like soldiers, and provoked each other like lovers too stubborn to confess. A dynamic only they understood.
Then came Soun’s wedding.
The air was thick with incense and tradition until the photos ended. Then two idiots (sorry, an adorable couple) started brawling for fun.
"Greetings, Mrs. Tendō," Nodoka slurred, dragging Noriko along, her grace slightly sake-impaired.
"Noriko’s fine. Tell me is your drunk personality the same as your public one?" Noriko laughed.
"Rude, Noriko. Drunk me is more coherent," Nodoka smirked. "Lovely wedding… but I don’t want this."
"What does Her Majesty Nodoka want?"
"Fire and swords," she said, eyes glittering.
Noriko laughed, unsure if it was a joke or a threat.
"And him?"
"Ugh, I really don't want to talk about boys" Nodoka deflected, but her nervous tone betrayed her.
Noriko raised a brow. She could’ve pressed. But her friend was right.
"You should bring people to the dōjō now that you’re at university."
"Only if they take me seriously. Martial arts students are all bastards."
"Nodoka! Language!"
"Sorry, Genma’s fault. Guess we’re together too much. Like a parasite you learn to love."
Noriko rolled her eyes.
"Says the girl who ‘didn’t want to talk about boys.’"
Nodoka looked at her friend with weary resignation, as if the thought burned inside her.
"Fine, I’ll confess," she said flatly. "Maybe the idiot does attract me a little. But it’s not just that. My head’s too full too many historical periods to study, too many words that feel hollow now. With Genma, it’s… fun, I guess. Though I don’t have much ‘fun’ to compare it to. Father hates that I’m at university. Lately, my life feels like it’s missing something a fire that ignites more than just my mind. Listening to the idiot’s training stories at least sounds… entertaining. Maybe I’ll take a gap year after graduation."
"Do it," her friend replied, voice equal parts tender and stern. "Don’t get me wrong, I love Soun. But sometimes I just want to be a manga artist. To create something that’s mine, to draw from here " She tapped her chest. "Without carrying the shadow of being someone’s wife. So go. Grab what’s left of that fool’s hair, yank hard, and drag him on a trip that’ll give you back your soul."
"Excellent advice," Nodoka deadpanned, taking a swig from her bottle. The weight of her thoughts and the alcohol pressed her mood deeper into the ground.
---
Months stretched into two years. Nodoka neared graduation. Noriko bore her first child. Life marched forward while someone faded silently away: Nodoka’s father.
The man had withered at a desperate pace for a year. The causes tangled in his clouded mind: alcohol’s slow devouring, yes, but also the bitter conviction that he had no true heir, that his legacy would vanish. His health collapsed after a minor accident one where he saw his daughter training with her fiancé.
She shone with a feral vitality, a strength he hadn’t witnessed in years a mirror of his younger self. At last, he recognized it: she was the heir he’d unknowingly sought. But when she’d defeated him, something broke. He’d failed not just as a man, but as a martial artist, as a warrior. The wound that truly festered? He’d failed as a father. He’d denied her birthright entirely, bound by blind tradition: a woman couldn’t inherit.
He’d destroyed it all with his own hands.
Guilt ate his days like poison. His daughter no longer felt real just a distant figure, an elegant history student who vanished into that forgotten basement, hiding secret spars with her fiancé. To him, she’d become mythological: a warrior from legends… who happened to be a woman. The thought twisted his chest.
The boy, too, was an enigma. He vanished for mercenary work, returned without kisses or embraces just insults, camaraderie, and a strange erotic tension the old man couldn’t comprehend. Perhaps this was modern love. By then, duty and tradition no longer mattered to him.
A year later, the patriarch lay bedridden, waiting for something even he couldn’t name. His daughter arrived late, fresh from her museum internship. Her fiancé accompanied her out of courtesy, as Genma had put it. Now, the old man understood that courtesy.
The last Yumekuroi heir entered the house that had ceased to be his home. Tsunoda guided her to the bed where he lay frail, eroded.
"You… were always the true heir," he rasped, eyes wet. "I’m sorry. I stole what was rightfully yours."
Her face didn’t flicker. Her gaze pierced him sadness and steel fused.
"I wish you’d said so earlier, Father." A pause. "I’ve already taken it back."
Seeing the truth in her eyes the truth he’d denied for decades the man wept. Tears bridged him to oblivion. He fell asleep.
He never woke.
His body lingered just long enough for his daughter to graduate, a silent reminder of broken chains, of mistakes heavier than death itself.
Then, one spring day, his breath snuffed out.
---
The farewell was a solemn ritual. A crowd of "friends" came to mourn and to measure the new heir, to note the old family’s death.
Two months post-funeral, they married.
The Yumekuroi name died.
The dōjō’s sign changed.
The mailbox no longer bore the old surname.
It simply read: "Saotome."
---
A man crossed the dōjō threshold like treading sacred ground barefoot. Years had passed, yet the floorboards remembered his weight, his silence, his guilt.
There she was. His wife.
She drilled katas with surgical precision, each motion a denial of pain. Of all the styles she knew, she practiced only one: Yumekuroi-ryū.
The style of mourning. The style that bore no name she wished to remember.
He sat with a sigh so quiet it seemed to ask the air’s permission to intrude.
"Today, Mrs. Saotome," he said, voice steadier than expected, "I’ll tell you a story."
"Not all of us failed at bursting the real estate bubble just to rent cheaply to a few. Some of us had… simpler dreams."
She didn’t acknowledge him. But her grip tightened mid-strike.
"Once, there was a boy "
The memory split like a wound that never healed.
A beautiful field. Not just in sight in smell: young rice, pungent wasabi, morning embers. Black earth promising life, and keeping that promise. There, the boy lived with his mother. No father. None needed. She was fortress and refuge.
She told him their family had worked that land since before the occupation. Not as glory as a legacy to defend with hands, teeth, and spine.
At night, between bites of steaming rice, she’d recount tales of heroines calloused warriors who fought silk-clad villains. The boy listened wide-eyed, vowing to fight like that too: with courage, honor, purpose.
Until they met one of those villains.
Not like in stories. No swords or scars. Just a man in a suit. Polished shoes. Velvet voice. Smiling like an apology in advance.
He said the land wasn’t theirs. That they had deeds. That the world had changed.
The boy felt fear. But didn’t understand why.
His mother who’d taught him martial arts since he could walk held firm at first. But the man returned. Again. And again. Each time, something in her shrank.
No trips to town for medicine. No doctor. The phone, disconnected. No truck.
No help.
Just them. And the man in the suit.
The boy watched the woman who’d carried eight rice sacks now tremble holding a basin. Watched her strikes become tired echoes. Watched her thunderous voice shrink to fevered whispers.
Every time the man smiled, something in her died.
Until one day, she stopped breathing. No fight. No screams. Like a leaf falling without wind.
Then came the machines.
They razed the field. Leveled the house. The chicken coop died first. Plants buried without ceremony.
The boy didn’t cry. Couldn’t. He just acted.
He took two things: two books. On their mud-stained covers: Saotome Secret Techniques.
He didn’t recall his surname. Maybe he’d lost it. That day, he invented one. Wore it like armor.
Saotome Genma.
Born from his mother’s dead earth.
He lived in the woods. Ate mushrooms, roots whatever didn’t kill him immediately. Slept little. Dreamed much.
Practiced the book’s techniques with feverish discipline. As if mastering them could bring her back. Or punish him for failing to save her.
One day, he met an old man. Kind. Hard. Taught him things. Sometimes fed him. Always repeated:
"Strength exists to protect what’s yours."
The boy carved it into his bones. But the words broke him too.
Because if that was true… then his mother hadn’t been strong enough.
And if she wasn’t… was it because she was a woman?
He hated himself for the thought. But thought it anyway. Because believing in weakness hurt less than believing in injustice.
The old man died of a heart attack months later. Alone. Like all things.
Genma didn’t even bury him. He just kept training. Kept punishing himself.
Then, on that self-destructive path, he met a teen. A fallen noble.
With his master. Named Soun.
"...But Soun’s story," the balding man said, voice softening as he returned to the dōjō, "is for another day."
From his bag, he pulled the books. Dust. Stains. Cracks. Time. All that remained of an unmarked grave.
He held them out to his wife.
"For your library."
She approached.
Took them.
Studied them.
Then looked at him.
And screamed.
Not a normal scream. A howl torn from a throat that had spoken only through the body for months.
"WHY DIDN’T HE SAY SO SOONER, DAMN IT?!"
It multiplied.
"I MISS HIM, GODDAMN IT, I MISS HIM! HOW COULD HE BE SO STUPID?! HOW CAN I BE SO STUPID TO MISS HIM?! AAAAAH!"
The dōjō shook. Trees silenced. The sky held its breath.
For the first time in months, there were tears. Not soap-opera tears. Real ones.
The kind that cracks teeth.
The kind that makes you vomit your guts.
The kind born when you realize your pain isn’t unique… and that makes it more real.
Tsunoda knew.
This was the end of an era.
Time to say goodbye to the young mistress.
---
Another month passed. Just the two of them in the old house.
"I have a friend," Nodoka said one day, mid-crimson strike to Genma’s chest. "She’ll care for the house."
"Why?" He dodged, countering.
"Let’s travel. A long trip. For training."
"Sure?"
"Yes. I don’t want to see this house for a year."
"Sounds good."
And so they left.
The journey was what it needed to be. All the good. All the bad.
Not their last.
But the first they took without carrying the dead.
A year later, under a sunset that promised eternity, she told him:
"I’m pregnant."
He smiled.
"Oh… how beautiful. My little Ranma."
"Already decided the name? What if it’s a boy?"
"I’m keeping my decision!"
Chapter 2: A Family curse
Summary:
A training journey through China takes an unexpected turn for the Saotome family when they encounter ancient waters rumored to hold strange magic. In a single moment, the destinies of Genma, Nodoka, and their young son Ranma are irrevocably altered. As they seek refuge in a remote tribe, they must confront a new reality where identity is as fluid as water, and the greatest lessons in martial arts have nothing to do with combat.
Chapter Text
The couple was on a boat bound for China. The four-year-old boy, with tangled hair and a smile missing its front teeth, leaned over the railing with utter fascination. He watched the waves like someone listening to a secret. He clapped when they broke into foam against the hull, and laughed when he noticed the blue of the sea turning red, golden, then black as the sun fell and the sky ignited in colors that seemed impossible.
"Look, Mom," he said, pointing. "It's turning purple!"
She looked at him tenderly, and Genma, leaning on the railing on the other side, sighed.
The parents shared a quiet emotion. It was the look of those who know something new is beginning, though they don't know what. Nodoka held a notebook full of scribbles ranging from philosophical notes to drawings of chickens in combat. Genma held a thermos and the most ambiguous map of China ever printed.
"Hey, dear," he said in a playful tone. "What would have happened if I had tied that duel?"
Nodoka glanced at him sideways, then looked down at their son, who was beginning to nod off after his maritime dance.
"Well, to be honest," she replied while stroking the boy's hair, "I would have gone insane and abandoned who I am. I might have asked you to make Ranma a 'man among men' or something like that."
Genma paled a little and fell silent for a few seconds, with that awkward pause of someone facing a truth that hits too close to home.
"That sounds terrible," he said at last. "Fulfilling your father's obsession is terrifying. Do you really think I would have agreed to something like that?"
"Genma, dear," she said, her voice sweet but dangerous, "neither you nor I are entirely right in the head, and we must accept that. Knowing you back then, you most likely would have been the one to suggest it."
"Don't insult me, woman, your..." he was going to continue, but then the evening light reflected in the closed eyes of their drowsy son, and on his wife's face, whose smile was serene... and yes, a little evil.
Genma chuckled softly.
"Maybe you're right.”
They spent several months traveling across mainland China, like a pair of curious crows: taking notes, learning styles, absorbing what they could from every corner. They traveled with a map that seemed more made of intuition than cartography. Genma pursued techniques with a kinetic obsession; he imitated them, broke them down to their bones. Nodoka, with her crooked glasses and her ever-thickening notebook, was interested in the communities, their legends, their customs, the motives behind each martial stance.
They weren't tourists, but they weren't mere martial artists either. They were something closer to archaeologists of the spirit.
They made an effort to respect every village, every elder, every dialect. But that didn't stop them from occasionally being chased off by a territorial master or expelled for some accidental (or deliberate) breach of etiquette.
There were also moments when the roles were reversed. Nodoka, with her near-feverish obsession to perfect her weapon mastery, dragged Genma to forgotten temples where he had to read ancient inscriptions or meditate with monks who spoke more with gestures than words. He grumbled, but he learned.
And in all that whirlwind of life, they never neglected their little one. Ranma learned with them: to cook over improvised campfires, to strike with an open palm, to hold chopsticks and throw a kick at the same time, to say "thank you" in more than five languages. The world was his dojo.
The day everything changed, they were looking for a place known as Nyuchiehzu.
"This place looks... interesting," murmured Genma, observing a valley dotted with thin bamboo poles sticking out of puddles and ponds, like green bones sprouting from the water.
"They're just bamboo poles in a puddle, Genma," Nodoka replied with academic skepticism.
Genma didn't answer. Instead, he was already leaping from pole to pole, challenging his balance as if the air belonged to him. Aerial combat: his specialty. Nodoka's Achilles' heel.
"Are you having that much fun?" she sighed. Then she looked at their son, who was shaking the mud off from a morning fall.
"Ranma dear, can you stay put for a moment while I kick your father's ass?"
The boy nodded solemnly. He pulled out a small towel and a cloth, which he always carried with him since learning to clean himself, and calmly walked to the edge of the path where mud was still dripping down his legs. He saw the water was clear, with a faint shimmer, and unknowingly, he dipped his towel in it, wiping his face with gentle motions. He wet his hands and ran them over the back of his neck and his forehead, where a thin crust of dust was already beginning to itch. The boy didn't know that, right in that very spot, a girl had drowned centuries ago.
Meanwhile, the couple launched into an impromptu spar. Nodoka had the advantage of control, but Genma was an unpredictable mass of strength and cunning. However, in a move that seemed like luck or perhaps pure accumulated experience, Nodoka managed to land a direct hit that sent him flying into the water.
It was then that something that looked like a dog—or what Genma had become—emerged, losing its balance and crashing into Nodoka, who also fell into another spring. A second later, a guttural, animalistic cry rang out. A scream mixed with a howl.
A man came running, desperate.
"Khyed-rang-tso su yin? 'Di-la ga-re byed-kyi yod?" (Who are you? What are you doing here?)
Ranma, his face still wet and his towel hanging like an improvised cape, watched him with wide eyes.
"Duìbuqǐ… wǒmen… bú huì bié de… ojisan" (Sorry... we... don't know other... mister)
The man observed the boy with the towel, completely calm, and sighed. Then he pointed towards the ponds.
"Are those your parents?"
Ranma nodded. "Haiiiii," he said without even looking. The guide ran towards the dog and the"man" who was struggling to speak with a voice that was no longer his own.
"Who are you?" asked Nodoka, her voice—a higher pitch she was forcing—sounding strange, resonating within a foreign body.
"I will help you, just come with me," the man sighed with resignation.
Upon returning, they saw Ranma packing things into the backpack as if all this were a physical education class. The guide took his hand gently. The boy followed, glancing sideways at his mother-dog's clothes.
"These are the magical springs of Jusenkio," he explained as they walked. "They are places that take on the quality of the being that drowned in them. You fell into the spring of the drowned man, and you into the spring of the drowned dog."
The dog—or Genma—growled at the guide.
"You're not supposed to enter here without permission," he added without much energy.
"I..." said Nodoka, her deep, hollow voice shaking her from the inside, "...we were going to Nyuchiehzu. I want to learn and train with your tribe."
The discomfort was evident. Her body itched from the inside. She felt a visceral disgust. As if her skin were speaking to her in another language.
"There is a momentary cure," said the guide as he poured hot water over the dog, revealing a completely naked Genma who ran off like a madman. Nodoka splashed water on herself with a quick hand motion and, feeling her body return to its usual state, exhaled on the verge of vomiting.
Neither of them noticed the trail of water still dripping down little Ranma's neck, nor how his towel, now drying in the sun, carried with it the invisible weight of a girl who no longer existed.
The guide was torn between running after the naked man who had just turned from an animal back into a human, or staying and explaining with some calm to the woman who, though somewhat shaky, was straightening her clothes with the same elegance she had before sporting a medium-length beard.
He decided to stay. He was about to open his mouth when someone entered: it was Genma. But he wasn't the same.
His steps were clumsy, his eyes somewhat more dilated. He looked more hunched over than usual. His gait had acquired a strange cadence, as if his legs knew something his brain hadn't yet grasped.
"What in the world...?" murmured Nodoka, seeing what was dangling behind him.
He had ears... wolf ears. And a furry tail that he dragged with indifference. Genma hadn't noticed. The boy, who was at that moment drinking water from his bowl, almost spat it out, but instead swallowed so poorly he coughed and then burst into laughter.
"Papa is a dog-man! Hahahahahahahaha!"
"What?!" Genma turned to his son with a furrowed brow, but as he moved his head he felt something strange sway. Then he looked down and saw the shadow cast on the wall: pointed ears, an extra silhouette that didn't belong to a human.
"Oh no!" The guide brought his hands to his face. "You must not enter another spring! It only combines them! There is no permanent cure for that..."
Genma touched his head, then his back. He scratched out of reflex. The tail moved.
"From now on you must be careful," the guide continued. "Cold water turns you into your cursed form, hot water returns you to your original state. It's simple... but exhausting. Rest for today. You've earned it.”
The couple looked at each other. Not with anger or horror. It was an adult look, a tired one, laden with a tacit understanding: life was not going to give them a break. The chaos didn't come from outside. They carried it within. Nodoka sighed. Genma nodded with a dog-like grunt.
They heated water and took turns helping Genma. In those regions, it was hard to find an inn with hot water or even plumbing. They stayed. The guide was generous, or perhaps just resigned.
They all bathed, one by one, sharing what little there was. Then it was little Ranma's turn. As was their custom, one parent waited outside, giving him some privacy. At that age, they were trying to teach him bodily dignity and autonomy, though he preferred to splash around with the seriousness of a general.
Ranma got into the improvised tub. He touched the water, hot, steaming. But just before getting in… he saw himself. Or rather: he didn't.
Something was missing.
For a moment, he thought it was an illusion, a shadow. He didn't fully understand what he was supposed to be seeing… but it wasn't there. His reflection, or something that had always been there, had changed. The boy got scared. But then he completely submerged himself in the water… and it returned.
Everything went back to normal. At least, enough for his childish mind to let go of the tension. He didn't give it another thought. He relaxed. Silence.
That night, they all slept together in a large wooden bed lent to them by the guide. The blankets smelled of ancient smoke and damp earth. Ranma slept in the middle, his body warm and still smelling of soap. The adults didn't speak. But they didn't sleep well either. In the darkness, you could hear Genma's steady breathing, the slight movement of his tail that still stuck out from under the covers, and Nodoka's stifled sigh, her eyes squeezed shut as if that could stop her from thinking.
The day broke with shouting, as was customary in the family.
Nodoka trained with her husband at the entrance of the cabin. Little Ranma, already awake, was doing his morning stretches, focused on his Katas like a disciplined little monk. His face tensed with each posture, his breathing was almost perfect. He looked like a miniature warrior.
Genma, for his part, was trying to continue his training, though he still had a kerchief tied around his waist to hold down the damned tail. He was uncomfortable.
"Darling?" he attempted in a soft voice.
Nodoka didn't even look at him. Her tone was dry, sharp.
"Don't say anything right now. We'll pretend it doesn't exist. It was a mistake. By both of us. It wasn't your fault."
It was a tone Genma knew well. The tone of "you will not make me talk about this." The tone she reserved for serious things: like when her father told her about her mother's death. Or when Nodoka had confessed, years ago, that she had considered an abortion.
The man lowered his head and kept training. His muscles still ached, but not as much as the weight pressing on his back. Ranma finished his Kata and, without a word, went to lie on the ground in the sun. He curled up like a cat. Genma picked him up tenderly, as if holding him was the only thing still keeping him human.
Later, Nodoka, now more formal, with her glasses properly placed and her notebook in hand, was preparing for the journey. It was then that the guide approached them.
"I will take you," he said. "I have to file a report."
"Oh, of course," replied Genma, though he didn't seem to fully understand what he meant.
"How did someone from the Republic end up working with native zones?" Nodoka asked as they walked. "Most of the groups we've seen don't trust officials. The Republic doesn't treat them well. They are pariahs in their own land."
"Ma'am," the guide replied without looking back, "I didn't know you were versed in internal politics. But you are not mistaken. Here, the peoples don't just have cultural value. They have strategic value. The springs... well, they are beginning to be of interest as potential weapons. But believe me… the springs aren't the most magical thing in this area."
Nodoka wrote everything down. Her notes were precise, but in her mind she was already weaving more dangerous ideas: the political use of folklore, cultural appropriation by the military, the potential militarization of curses. There was much to write. Much to keep silent.
"And is the food good?" Genma asked suddenly, breaking the rhythm.
Nodoka looked at him. The guide did too. The silence was awkward.
"Dear," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Could you think of something other than your stomach?"
"But I'm hungry too, Mom," interjected Ranma in his honest little voice.
"Ha! The boy agrees with me! Point for me!" Genma smirked, regaining for a moment his usual levity.
"Yes, an excellent point, dear. Then let me give Ranma one of your peanut bars," Nodoka retorted, tossing the wrapper into the air like a verbal shuriken.
"Nooooooo!”
The path was longer than they expected. The guide led them along trails that twisted through the mountains like old serpents. They arrived at nightfall. Torches were lit. The place seemed a cross between the ancestral and the militarized. Women in uniform patrolled with short weapons visible, but they also wore ritual necklaces, and some had their faces painted with symbols.
Nodoka presented herself before one of the matriarchs. Her bearing was dignified, her voice controlled.
"You say you wish to be our apprentice?"
"Only if you allow it," Nodoka replied with respect.
The woman looked at her. Then she looked at her husband. And then beyond, as if she could see their auras.
"I see you and your husband carry curses," she said in a neutral, yet firm tone.
"Yes. I fell into the spring of the drowned man. My husband into the spring of the drowned dog. Although… he accidentally combined curses. Why do you ask?"
"Because the water doesn't just take the body. It takes the destiny," the matriarch answered. "I believe your path will be changeable. What you learn here will change with you. What do you offer our tribe?"
Nodoka swallowed. This wasn't a casual question. Not here.
And she still didn't know if she could give a true answer. Nodoka thought about it. She truly thought. Not like one thinks of a strategy, but like one remembers something lost. She could offer one of those techniques that touched upon magic—yes, she knew many. Hybrid techniques, developed during long treks, nights without shelter, and fights on rural roads alongside her husband. She could even offer the Yumekuroi techniques, the ones no longer taught, the ones buried in whispers, the ones that made great martial artists look like mere children playing with broomsticks. Techniques that spoke to the bones of the earth.
But no. That wasn't enough.
Because if she wanted something real, she had to offer something that couldn't be found elsewhere. Something of her own. Something unique, personal, with the just price of surrender. She took a deep breath. She took a step back.
She moved her sword.
The blade cut through the air and left a crimson trail. Steam rose like a veil. The aura stirred. For a few seconds, the temperature dropped. The air smelled of sacred metal.
"I offer this master technique," she said without trembling.
The matriarch observed her with an expression only those who have seen things that shouldn't exist can have. Her eyes narrowed with a mixture of judgment and awe.
"For an outsider, you are well-versed in the paths of energy. If you teach that technique to two of our swordswomen, I will teach you myself, girl," she said. And when she said "girl," there was no scorn. Only the acknowledgment that life always makes you an apprentice again.
The elder walked away with her cane, which barely touched the ground. She almost floated. As if she had learned to rest from the weight of the body.
Nodoka stood alone, exhaling slowly. The air still vibrated. She had to tell her husband. And her son. Perhaps they would spend weeks there. Maybe months.
To her surprise, she found them both at what seemed to be a small community celebration. Genma, wearing an apron, was serving plates with excessive enthusiasm and eating with even more enthusiasm still. He had stains on his shirt and the smile of someone who has found a gastronomic paradise.
"Hello, dear," said Nodoka.
"Hello, darling! You have to try this yak meat. It's aromatic, tender… this must be illegal. It's delicious!"
She observed him with a raised eyebrow but accepted the plate he offered. She began to eat with her usual caution but soon surrendered to the flavor. She chewed in silence, looking at the carved wooden table, the simple tableware, the warmth of the surroundings. A corner of the world, frozen in time.
"They accepted me," she said finally, putting down her utensils. "But I have to stay for a while. What do you think?"
Genma shrugged and took a sip of fermented tea.
"It's fine. I guess I'll just have to enjoy more of this yak meat. Oh, and send letters to old man Tendo, right?"
She smiled with controlled irony.
"You wouldn't have to send letters if you bought the cell phone I recommended a year ago."
"Bah, those things are too complicated. I prefer the traditional way," Genma retorted, just as a native teenager walked past them, talking to someone on her cell phone the size of a brick.
Nodoka shot him a look that said: See?
Genma raised his hands in surrender.
"Alright, alright. I'll do it when I can. I suppose one day I'll go with the boy to Shanghai."
A month later, Nodoka already had three students. It wasn't many, but they were passionate, intelligent, and sensitive to the flow of energy. The Yumekuroi technique wasn't easy to learn, and even harder to understand. It required inner silence, an understanding of the world's rhythm, and a certain inherited pain.
The girls learned. Nodoka did too.
Meanwhile, Ranma faced his own challenge: fitting in.
It wasn't easy. Though energetic, charming, and agile, he didn't quite connect with the other village children. They didn't enjoy getting dirty like he did. Or rather: he didn't enjoy getting dirty like they did. Ranma was meticulous; muddy feet, sticky hands, and sweaty clothes bothered him.
One day, after playing near the river, the boy came back frustrated.
“Any problems, kid?” asked Genma.
“Why are the others so dirty?”
Genma couldn't help but smile. The boy was the spitting image of his mother in that regard. He wiped the boy's forehead with a handkerchief and crouched to his level.
“I don't think they're any dirtier than other kids. Maybe you're just the cleaner one. And that's not a bad thing. But sometimes, son, to understand others, you have to get a little dirty with them. Not out of obligation, but out of empathy. So they'll want to understand you, too. But,” he added, raising a finger, “never do anything that goes against your honor. Or what you feel for those you love. Understood?”
“Yes, Papa.”
The boy ran off. This time, he went straight to a little girl who had smiled at him days before. They played at throwing flower petals at each other as if they were shurikens. He laughed.
The days passed quietly. Ranma learned new words. Nodoka trained. Genma integrated himself with the village cooks and occasionally taught some youths defensive styles he’d learned in his youth. He even organized an impromptu tournament. The community was beginning to accept this strange family as part of the scenery.
Some time later, Genma and Ranma set off on a short trip. The goal was twofold: to buy a cell phone and to contact their old friend Tendo. The road was long, but peaceful.
When Ranma said goodbye to his little friend, he shouted from the path:
“Bye, jiejie!”
And the girl replied without hesitation:
“Bye, meimei!”
Genma raised an eyebrow.
“You get along well with her?”
“Yeah,” the boy replied with an innocent smile. “She said when we grow up we’ll be Kashiya and Miwan.”
Genma looked at him, perplexed.
“I have no idea what that is,” he said, scratching the back of his neck and laughing.
“Like you and Mom.”
Childhood is cruelly precise.
“Well, I hope so,” Genma muttered, still smiling. “Seems you have a promising future.”
He looked around. No one was watching.
“What do you say we practice those jumps? No one's looking.”
“Yesssss!”
Ranma jumped. It wasn't just high. It was majestic. His body floated in the air for a few seconds, as if gravity were a mere suggestion. He spun around, then landed on his feet in front of his father, wearing the proudest smile in the world.
Genma sighed. It was going to be a long journey. And a beautiful one.
Meanwhile, a woman watched from the crest of a hill, wrapped in an ash-gray tunic, her eyes fixed on the boy leaping with an unnatural lightness. The child jumped with a grace and power that didn't quite correspond to his stature or his age. It wasn't just physical strength. It was as if his center of gravity existed on another plane. Every leap seemed a denial of the world's laws.
The woman sighed deeply, like one trying to release an unconfessed desire. She was supposed to have stopped experimenting with identities and desires. She was no longer the voracious researcher she once was. She had renounced that thirst to alter the weave of what was already woven. But that creature… that creature was tempting in a way that disturbed her. Not for its power.Not for its rarity. But for what it evoked: possibility.
To interfere in its destiny would be an aberration. A violation of the most basic code of the spiritual world. But not to…not to do so would be like letting a part of herself die. Like amputating her own curiosity. Like committing an act of hatred against her own soul.
“So thou sayest the child’s form shifts with the water’s touch, little blossom?”
“Yes, Grandmother,” little XiangPu replied with utter naturalness. “He is delicate and quiet like a boy, but strong and strategic like a girl. And also… when he was bathing, I saw by accident.”
The elder said nothing for a few seconds. She only blinked. Very slowly. The weight of what she was hearing began to settle in her chest like a stone.
Within her, however, the whirlwind had already begun: Why were there no signs of a curse? Where was the twisted aura,the stagnant energy Jusenkio left in its victims? And what,in truth, was the curse of Jusenkio?
That place was a mystery older than any empire, deeper than any tomb. And yet, it had been vulgarized into a mere attraction for martial tourists and desperate artists. What was happening with that child, with that body that crossed genders with such naturalness, did not fit the known. It was not in her books. And that, that was dangerous.
“My gratitude, XiangPu,” she said at last, stroking her great-granddaughter’s head. “Continue thy play with thy little friend upon their return.”
The woman walked to the landline telephone in her residence. One of those ancient devices, with a dial tone that still echoed in traditional homes. She dialed quickly.
“Hark, Gyatso? I require the Jusenkio records. All thou hast. Especially concerning infants and human transformations. A piece doth not fit… and I must discern the pattern of its absence.”
A few days later, Genma and Ranma returned. There was something about the boy, a subtle air, almost invisible, that Genma couldn't quite identify. It wasn't physical. It wasn't his behavior. It was something perceived in the silences, in the way he turned his head or bent a knee. A different vibration in his way of being in the world.
But he couldn't pinpoint it during the trip. And the boy behaved as always: energetic, curious, obedient. So he let it go.
"Hello, darling," Genma greeted with a tired smile. His beard was overgrown, dark circles under his eyes from trains and roads, but he was happy.
Nodoka was lying face down on the bed. Her muscles were shot, her arms still trembling from training, but her eyes were alive.
"How was the trip?"
"I called Soun. And I brought back a medal from Shanghai, though it was for a martial art I don't fully understand yet. Listen… I have a question. Have you noticed anything different about Ranma?"
Nodoka barely lifted her head.
"Well… he's still adorable and energetic. Though sometimes he moves… differently. Now that you mention it, yes. Since we arrived here, there's something I can't describe."
"No. I think it was before. Since…"
And then they looked at each other. And they paled.
Silence fell like a thunderclap. They rushed out, almost running, their breath quickening. They searched for their son among the training courtyards, the stone corridors, the gardens, until they saw him. There was Ranma, playing with his friend XiangPu and a new boy, small, with glasses too big for his face. They laughed. They ran. A happy scene. But Ranma's body… that body did not match the boy they had left with on their trip.
Then a figure approached them. Cane in hand. Severe eyes, centuries of wisdom in her voice.
"It seems you have seen it too, have you not?"
"KuLun Namarya?" asked Nodoka, recognizing her teacher.
"The curses of Jusenkio always leave that aftertaste of dirty energy, that echo of tragedy," said the old woman. "So I did not believe what my great-granddaughter told me. But now I see it with my own eyes. The way he walks, the manner in which the wind moves his clothes. That," she said with solemnity, "is a girl."
Nodoka's heart skipped a beat. Genma was left breathless. Even a crow perched on a nearby tree flapped its wings as if it had understood too.
"Ranma, dear, can you come here for a moment?"
The child —child?— ran to her mother.
"Mommyyyy! I missed you so much."
The hug was soft, but full. There were no masks in it. Just an infant with his emotions laid bare.
"I missed you too, sweetheart. I have a question. When we passed by the springs a few months ago, where I… change, and your father became half-dog, did you…" —her voice trembled— "did you fall into a spring?"
"No. I just took a bath," he said with childish pride. "I bathed with a towel like Mommy taught me!"
"Can I go with XiangPu, Mom?"
"Yes, honey, go…"
Nodoka felt something break in her chest. Her eyes burned.
"Oh, gods, Genma! We are terrible parents!"
She fell against him, crying uncontrollably, with the tears of one who realizes things too late. Genma tried to hold her.
"I should never have climbed those bamboos. It was stupid, a whim. I'm sorry, Nodoka…"
But a raspy, firm voice cut through like the dry crack of a cane on stone.
"Are you, truly?"
They both looked at her. The elder.
"I see that Ranma is still playing and enjoying it. I heard the advice you gave him, boy, and I see him getting along better," she said, looking at Genma. "And I know that, despite your exhaustion, you sing to him and tell him stories of your lineage," she looked at Nodoka. "You are more parents than many."
She paused. Looked at the horizon.
"Yes. It will be different. But you will have to learn to live with it. You will both have to teach him how to see the world. You," she looked at Genma, "will have to learn what it means to be a man in order to teach it to him. And you," she said to Nodoka, "will have to discover what it is to be a woman beyond what you were taught. Perhaps it will be more than that. Perhaps neither one nor the other. But you studied history, girl. You know things were not always the same. That there are other ways of being. Travel. Learn. And be whoever you need to be to make that infant a good person."
The woman withdrew like an old ghost; they would have to learn more than martial arts and the history of defense in their travels.
Genma swallowed.
"So…?"
"We will try," said Nodoka. Her voice still trembled, but it was firm. "Perhaps she is just a boring old woman… but she knows what she's talking about.”
Thus, for a time, they grew accustomed to the routine. A strange, almost idyllic routine for a family of wandering martial artists. Nodoka had finished her training and that day was only looking after Ranma. The sun filtered through the mountain trees as if nature itself were giving the family a respite. Genma returned from a Wushu tournament in Shandong, tired but satisfied.
“How did you fare in the tournament, Genma?” asked Nodoka while wiping her son’s sweaty face with a damp towel; he wouldn't stop moving.
Around the woman, a child of inexhaustible energy jumped with excitement, attacked from all sides, spun, kicked, threw punches that didn't follow a defined form but already contained the intent of combat. The mother did her best to repel him without losing her elegance, with economical and calm movements, as if there were no hurry at all. As if she knew that each of those attempted attacks were lessons wrapped in games.
At one point, the boy took a wooden sword, brandished it with clumsy strength, and began to attack as well, which increased the difficulty of the domestic duel.
“Well,” said Genma, pulling off his travel boots with a satisfied grunt, “I think when you say so, we'll go to India. We have two medals, a certificate-medal, and the scrolls from Tibet.”
“Ranma, control in your legs and remember to balance with your abdomen,” his mother instructed without losing her smile. In a small, almost invisible movement, she unseated him. Ranma barely managed to get his hands down before touching the ground, but his body remained suspended in the air.
Before he could fall completely, his mother made him float, not with brute force, but with precision, with a controlled flow of ki that seemed like magic.
“See? All muscles are important, not just your arms and legs,” she added with a firm sweetness.
“I still say you're too gentle with his training,” said Genma, crossing his arms with that typical look of someone who thinks they know better but has already lost the argument.
“A gem is polished with care and precision, dear. If you just hit it, you'll only have another, smaller, raw gem. Delicacy is part of strength. You yourself say control is everything. It is also true in raising a child.”
Ranma wasn't listening to his parents' conversation. He was absorbed in his own sensation: that of floating. After being told to use all his muscles, he surrendered to this new way of moving as if he could truly fly. His feet barely touched the ground. His imagination did the rest.
“I'm a hawk!” he shouted with a laugh like fresh wind.
His excitement prompted his mother to move him in that position, as if his arms were invisible wings.
“Oh, really?” His mother lifted him up to her eye level, looking at him tenderly. “I've never seen such a mischievous hawk.”
His large, blue eyes, open wide like mirrors, brimmed with a childish emotion so powerful it hurt to look at directly.
“I'm a baby hawk!”
“But baby hawks can't fly, dear.”
“That's why my mom helps me!” Ranma said with an innocent, firm pride, almost as if that detail were the most important thing in his entire world.
“Yes, that's right,” the woman lowered Ranma with a soft sigh. “Go on, go play a little. We'll be traveling again soon. Go play and say your goodbyes.”
The child looked down sadly. His eyes suddenly glistened with a moisture that didn't transform into tears, but made it clear he understood more than he let on.
“Yes, Mom…”
The child ran off to his friend. He ran as if he could stretch time. As if all the goodbyes in the world could fit inside that game.
Ranma arrived. When they arrived at the tribe, the children didn't know if they were a boy or a girl. And the truth was, it didn't seem to matter much to them either, except for the discomfort caused by one single thing: Ranma hated getting dirty. They hated grime with an almost aristocratic passion, which was absurd.
Their family was supposed to be vagabonds, nomads, travelers without a fixed roof.
“How could they hate getting dirty?” XiangPu thought, both amused and perplexed.
She was the one who took it upon herself to teach them her language. Ranma, in turn, taught them theirs. They learned fast. Sometimes they seemed too clever. Two years younger than XiangPu, but there was something in their way of moving, in their silences, that made them seem older. Or more ancient. As if they carried several lifetimes on their back.
The girl was sure Ranma was stronger than many grown men in the tribe. She had seen them knock one over by accident. Sometimes Ranma's presence unsettled her. At first, when they approached her, XiangPu was terrified. Not because Ranma was cruel. But because there was a contained strength in their body, a silent tension, like a rope about to snap.
They didn't seem to trust interacting with others much.
But one day, XiangPu saw them bathing in the river.
That was how she finally knew they were a girl. Or at least, that's what she believed.
From then on, she treated them like one of the other girls in the tribe. Just another one. As if nothing had changed.
And they became her best friend. A friend different from all the others. They were too quiet for a five-year-old. They moved like someone in no hurry to be liked, yet managed it anyway. Ranma spoke of beautiful landscapes, of mountains with lost temples, of hard training, of sleeping among bugs, and of how their parents wanted them to write and draw about their travels.
Their drawings weren't the best in the world. The proportions were weird, the colors sometimes didn't match. But their stories... their stories were. They were like journeys within journeys. XiangPu paid attention with her whole soul. She listened as if Ranma were a teller of ancient legends. As if every word could stay floating in the air.
But the surprise happened one day. They had been playing with mud. Ranma got dirty and XiangPu took them to her house to clean up.
Upon entering the hot water, their body changed.
It stopped having what girls had. And it grew what boys had.
XiangPu was left speechless. She felt she had seen something she shouldn't have, that it was part of a sacred secret. She didn't understand if it was magic, illness, a curse. She only knew it wasn't normal.
She went to tell her grandmother that same day. She expected her grandmother to ask questions, get angry, give an order. But no. The old woman just looked at her kindly and said:
“Keep treating her like a girl. She already carries enough weight in her soul.”
After that, everything continued as before. Ranma returned from a trip with more stories, more clumsy drawings, more strange words. And they kept playing. The days were long, and with them, the days became short. They fought, they laughed. Ranma definitely enjoyed their company. As if finally, for once, they could simply be a girl among others.
When Ranma said they had to leave, XiangPu thought it was one of those trips where their father would leave and come back with a medal, a trophy, a new map. Something brief. Something normal.
But it wasn't like that.
The girl ran to ask her grandmother. She looked at her with sadness.
“They must continue their journey.”
The answer was as simple as it was painful. XiangPu ran to the place where Ranma's mother usually instructed her students. There was no one. The footprints had been erased. The place was painfully empty. The wind blew through the curtains with no body to stop it.
That was how XiangPu stopped seeing her best friend.
Every now and then they would talk on the phone. With the mountain's bad signal, with the interruptions and the interference, Ranma would tell her about the places they visited. About a sister. About a strange martial engagement, like something out of an old story.
But that...
That is another story.