[Ranma][Fanfic] Parting Gifts - Part Three.

  This tale grew in the telling, as Dr. Tolkien wrote famously in
the foreword to "Lord Of The Rings". I started off to write a
short, and it got bigger before my eyes. Enjoy.

  What has gone before: Ranma's engagement to Shampoo has been
dissolved, and Cologne has promised to teach Ranma and Akane some
things they need to know; Akane is to learn to control her temper
and Ranma is to come to terms with his feminine side.

  Aroogahh! Lime warning. Shampoo gets nekkid, hubba hubba, plus
some naming of the parts.

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Parting Gifts: Part Three.  by Robert Sneddon
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  "Baka! Baka!! BAKA!!!" Akane swung a high roundhouse kick at
the grinning figure of Ranma standing before her, catching him
directly under the chin. Repeated abuse finally caused
catastrophic failure and his head went flying off into the
corner. Akane finished her move and spun back into position to
see the damage she had caused.

  "Oops." She put her hands over her face for a second before
turning to Cologne whose face registered her disapproval. She
bowed in apology. "Sorree."

  "It's Ranma you should be saying sorry to, girl." She pointed
to the headless figure standing, arms crossed before the gi-clad
girl.

  "Uncute tomboy! You putting on weight? I've seen skinnier..."
Cologne snapped off the taperecorder in mid-insult and Ranma's
voice ceased. Akane started a little at the sudden silence.

  "It's not working, is it?" she asked sadly. "I can't keep my
temper when he starts in with the insults. I'm..."

  "You're doing better than when you started, girl." Cologne's
staff pointed to the wall against which were leaning a series of
battered and half-destroyed dummies, some wearing Ranma-kun's
signature drawstring black pants and red silk Chinese shirt. The
one at the far end was blackened and scorched with fire damage
resulting from a powerful ki attack. The one next to it had a
fist-sized hole punched through the chest. The next one had been
split almost in half vertically from the crotch upwards, courtesy
of a rising kick delivered with much force and exactly on target.
The dummy beside that one had its detached arms and legs stacked
neatly beside the remnant of the torso.. The next... Akane drew
her eyes away and shuddered. Luckily for Ranma he was tougher
than simple wood and fabric.

  Cologne glanced at the head in the corner. She had had Mousse
build the latest dummy from inch-diameter steel rods and solid
teak slabs in a desperate attempt to make it last a little
longer, but to no avail. Akane went over and picked up the head
which was wearing a full-face Ranma mask and a black-haired wig
tied back in a braided ponytail. She cradled it in her arms
looking down at it wistfully. A tear began to track its way down
her face.

  "I'm sorry, Ranma-chan. Really sorry..." she whispered.

  *We're going to need a tougher dummy* thought Cologne. She
looked at the head in Akane's arms. *Hmmm, we've got the mask and
the wig* Her eyes fell on the dummy dressed in a cast-off outfit
Kasumi had rescued from the rag basket. *And the outfit too. Now
all we need is the dummy...* She turned to the door and raised
her voice.

  "Mu Tse? Come in here boy. I want you to do something for
me..."

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  "So whatcha got for me today, sensei?" Ranma-chan looked around
the bare storeroom. No weird-shit training apparatus, no hose, no
trick mirrors. The old ghou... Sensei was up to something.

  "A biology lesson." said Cologne. She rapped on the door with
her staff. Shampoo stepped into the storeroom, absolutely
bare-ass totally birthday-suit buck stone without-a-stitch-on
nakedly nude.

  "She, she, she's..." Ranma-chan's testosterone-soaked brain
screeched to a halt in a cloud of burning neurons as her eyeballs
locked solid.

  "Naked, yes." said Cologne with a touch of asperity.

  "Nuh, nuh, nuh..."

  "Naked. Correct." Her voice grew more abrupt.

  "Nuh, nuh, nuh..."

  "Naked." Ice formed on her lips.

  "Nuh, nuh..." *BANG*. Cologne pulled back her staff as
Ranma-chan turned to her, rubbing her head. "Whycha do that, you
old..." *BANG*. "Owww."

  "Ranma like?" said Shampoo seductively, posing
unselfconsciously under the overhead light. "Ranma could have
had..." she stopped as Cologne rapped her staff on the table to
get her attention.

  "Nosebleed stains are not easy to clean up, girl." Glare.
"Especially in cat-form." Glare. "Using your tongue." Shampoo
stood up straighter and nodded, suitably chastened. "Yes
Grandmother."

  "As for you, Ranma, this is nothing you haven't seen in a
public baths or a furo, eh?"

  "Or mirror." muttered Shampoo just under her breath. This
earned her glares from the other two females present.

  "Or a mirror." Cologne conceded. Shampoo turned in place when
her grandmother gestured.

  "Behold the female of the species, Ranma. Fifty percent of the
population is like this all the time." There was a muttered
"hah!" from Shampoo who had a high (and well-deserved) opinion of
her exceptional body. Cologne ignored her grand-daughter's
comment and continued.

  "You, Saotome Ranma, on the other hand are like this fifty
percent of the time." Cologne stared as Ranma-chan muttered
something. "Yes, I know you don't become a female if you can help
it. However, you can't help it. right?" Mutter, mutter. "And for
some strange reason cold water enters your life at the most
awkward times, yes?" Mutter, mutter, mutter.

  Cologne sighed as she matched stares with her pupil. "It's a
curse. Yes?" Nod. "You don't like it, yes?" Nod. "Is it going to
go away?" Ranma-chan thought back to Cologne's tale of the man
cursed to become an eagle and shook her head. "So, what are you
going to do about it?"

  "Look for a cure, natch." Cologne forcibly restrained herself
from once more rapping the readhead on the skull and sighed.
Again.

  "If you can find a cure, good and well. Do so and I will add
the tale of the vanquishing of your curse to the lore of the
Amazons, but until then you are stuck with it. Yes?" Nod.

  "So until you find that cure," *and if ever* "you must come to
terms with it. Part of that is understanding what you've got to
work with when you're female."

  "Aw, I already know *that*, sensei." Cologne's disbelieving
stare made Ranma-chan uncomfortable for a moment, but she
thundered on regardless. "I'm about ten kilos lighter and my arms
and legs are shorter, so my centre is lower and my reach is more
limited but my hipjoints are more limber so I can kick better.
I'm faster but less powerful so I've got to shift my balance from
power to speed. I can't take hits quite as well as I can as a
man, especially with these things sticking out in front and
getting in the way, so I'm more defensive. My ki's different as
well, so..." *BANG*. "Owwwww. What'd I do wrong this time?"

  Cologne could feel a stress migraine coming on. Maybe this had
been a mistake. Still, she had made a deal with Ranma, and Ranma
had kept up his end of the bargain as best he could. She pressed
on.

  "I am not talking about martial arts, fool child." Ranma wilted
at Cologne's tone. "I am talking about all the other times you
are female and *not* fighting." She paused as Ranma muttered
again. "What was that?"

  "I said, that's about five minutes a week." Ranma-chan rubbed
the sore spot on her head. Somehow the old ghou... sensei Cologne
managed to hit the exact same spot *every* time.

  Yes, definitely a migraine. Cologne mentally inventoried her
collection of Amazonian herbs and medicines and decided that
after tonight's lesson was over she was going to lie down in a
darkened room with a couple of the strongest over-the-counter
pain meds the local druggist sold. There was work to do right now
though.

  "I assume, young woman, that you have done some exploring of
your female body." Ranma turned red and, speechless, shook her
hands at Cologne in denial. "I also assume you are lying when you
try to deny it." Shampoo sniggered behind her hand at Ranma's
discomfiture. Cologne caught this and smiled. Just you wait,
Granddaughter...

  It took one of Cologne's especially hard stares for Ranma to
finally admit to *some* very limited and tentative and definitely
non-hentai investigations of her female form, honest. Nothing
perverted, of course, not him err, her, err Saotome Ranma, manly
man among men. Nope. Not much, really. A bit, perhaps. Just
curious, you see. Ummm...

  "So tell me what you know of female biology and I'll tell you
where you're wrong." Cologne hopped down to the floor beside her
granddaughter and gestured with her staff the same way a teacher
in school would use a pointer at the blackboard. "For example,
what is *this* for?"

  "Wuh Grandmother. That *tickles*." Shampoo smirked as
Ranma-chan's face grew as red as her hair. Cologne ignored her
granddaughter's outburst and stared at the redhead, waiting for
an answer.

  "Uhhh..."

  The next hour was, for Ranma-chan, the most enlightening,
frightening and exciting educational experience in her entire
life.

  "Tam-pon." She squinted at the plastic tube in her hand,
turning it this way and that in puzzlement. "What do you do with
it?"...

  "What, *every* month? Eeeeuw!"...

  "Eggs? You mean like a chicken?"...

  "Ovaries and tubes and a uterus and... Who the hell designed
this thing? A committee?"...

  "Lactation? That's something to do with cows, yes?"...

  "Can you get pregnant in your female form?" said Cologne after
she finished explaining the feminine facts of life to a horrified
Ranma. "I honestly don't know. Do you want to find out?"
Ranma-chan snorted. "I'll take that expression on your face as a
'No'. In that case I recommend you start carrying a couple of
these around with you then." She tossed a small cardboard box to
the redheaded girl who just barely managed to catch it.

  "C..condoms?" she blurted.

  "Somehow boys never seem to have any to hand, so to speak, when
the girl needs them the most."

  "I don't... I'll never..." He went to throw the box back but
Cologne held up her hand.

  "Do you know the technical term we use for girls who say 'I
don't' and 'I'll never', Ranma?"

  Ranma-chan shook her head.

  "Mothers."

  Ranma looked down at the box clenched in her small fist for a
long ten seconds before finally letting out the breath she had
been unconsciously holding. She slipped the box into her pocket
safely out of sight, but it seemed to weigh a ton.

  "Remember and use them properly when the time comes, girl. They
aren't a magic charm. I recommend you get hold of a cucumber or
something similar at home and practice with one or two just to be
on the safe side. Kasumi will help you out, I'm sure."

  Ranma's mind was whirling. "Uh, won't the boy know how to...?"

  "Do you know how to put one on yourself?" Silence. Cologne
nodded. "If the boy is as clueless as you are you might have to
put it on him yourself." The expression of Ranma-chan's face had
now descended *waaaay* beyond disgust. Cologne's advice was
conjuring images in Ranma-chan's mind that were making her brain
lock up. "Remember it'll be you who'll have to face the
consequences otherwise."

  "But I'll..." she protested again, trying to deny Cologne's
words.

  "How are you at changing diapers Ranma? Singing lullabies?"
Ranma's face froze. "Breastfeeding?" This last shot was the final
straw and Ranma-chan fainted backwards.

  "Grandmother!" said Shampoo annoyedly.

  Cologne sighed. "Don't worry Shampoo. I'll clean up the blood.
It wasn't your fault. Go fetch some cotton, dear." She glanced at
the unconscious figure on the floor. "And you can put your robe
on. I think the biology lesson is finished for today."

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  It was the last day. Sensei Cologne had found a buyer for the
Nekohanten willing to pay her steep asking price, and the three
Amazons would be leaving for China next week. Akane turned to the
stairs as she heard Ranma coming down from upstairs, and stared.

  Ranma-chan was wearing... well, not her usual Chinese-shirt-and
baggy-pants outfit. Her face fell as she caught Akane's
expression.

  "Ah, I screwed up, didn't I Akane?" She looked down. "What'd I
do wrong?"

  Akane snapped out of her freeze. Now that she came to look more
carefully...

  "Nothing. It's just..."

  "Yeah, I know. The old... Sensei told me to wear something like
this today. Something I felt OK in, she said. Comfortable." She
held out her arms. "This is the best I could come up with."

  "From my wardrobe, I notice." said Akane darkly. Ranma flushed.

  "Well, it's not like I could afford to get something new
myself, and anyways I've had enough of being dragged around
ladies dress-shops by Mother as Ranko. I sorta figured you
wouldn't mind..." she said in a hopeful-but-I'm-gonna-get-
malletted-anyway tone of voice.

  Akane suddenly found herself seeing... herself overlaying the
image of Ranma-chan. She was surprised to discover she wasn't
blood-curdlingly furious with Ranma. There was a reason Ranma was
wearing one of her best outfits, a good reason, so why get angry?
She couldn't let it go quite so easily, though.

  "You've got some really kawaii outfits yourself, remember?"

  Ranma-chan scratched the back of her neck and let out a little
laugh which was *that* close to being a girlish giggle. Akane
tried to ignore it. Really hard.

  "Yeah, well, those are disguises, sorta. Besides, Sensei said
comfortable." She indicated the slacks and blouse she was
wearing. "This I'm OK with. Dresses and such, ummm..." she
shrugged. "I can wear them but they make me itch, if you know
what I mean."

  "But that's not something that could be mistaken for a boy's
outfit." Akane pointed out. Was Ranma wearing a *bra*? She tried
not to stare while staring.

  "I know. Blame Sensei." Ranma-chan hitched a shoulder. "She
told me whatever I wore had to be 'unambiguous', as she put it."

  *She was wearing a bra!* Akane's temper started to rise,
despite her best efforts. *That damn pervert has been rummaging
through my lingerie drawers and he's wearing one of my bras! He's
turning into another Happousai!*

  Ranma twisted a shoulder again, then dived a hand into her
blouse. "Kami knows how you girls can wear these damn things,
Akane. They keep moving and getting snarled up." Ranma failed to
notice Akane's battle aura as he struggled with the errant strap.
"I shoulda listened to Mom more when she was buying me this
stuff."

  Akane's battle aura collapsed just as suddenly as it had
flared. *Idiot. She's wearing Ranko's lingerie, not mine.
Cretin.*

  "Have you got the straps adjusted properly?" She moved forward
as Ranma-chan looked up. "Straps? Adjusted?" Akane shook her
head. Ranma still had a lot to learn...

  "Yes, you idiot, there are little buckles you can slide up and
down on the shoulder straps to make everything fit properly." She
undid the blouse's top buttons and slipped it down Ranma's
shoulders, failing to notice the bright red colour on Ranma's
cheeks as she did this.

  "Hold still and I'll sort them for you." Ranma-chan's flesh
seemed uncomfortably warm for some reason as she tugged the thin
straps into some semblance of a proper tension. Ranma's Mother
was quite conservative in her tastes when it came to choosing
Ranko's lingerie, she thought. With Ranma-chan's red hair and
skin tone, there were better colours than plain white. Some lace
would be nice too, she mused as she stood back.

  "How's that?" She finally caught sight of Ranma's face. "Oh."

  They stood staring at each other for a few more seconds before
looking away with simultaneous nervous laughs.

  Nabiki ducked back around the corner of the door before the two
distracted girls could catch sight of her. She held her camera
gleefully. Yataaa! Kuno would pay big-time for *these* pictures,
oh yes...

  Ranma-chan started doing up the blouse buttons again. "That
feels much better, Akane. Thanks."

  "Leave a few buttons open at the top, Ranma." she suggested.

  "Why?" She glanced down. "Oh." Her fingers froze for a moment.
"Uh, how many buttons, Akane?"

  "Oh, three should do it." said Akane, trying to keep a laugh
from leaping up her throat.

  "Three?" squeaked Ranma-chan, still looking down. "Howsabout
one. Yeah, one..."

  "Did I say three? Oh dear, I meant four. How silly of me."
Ranma looked at her smile and quailed. She could see the word
"five" hovering on Akane's lips and forced his recalcitrant
fingers back into motion. "Four, uh four it is Akane."

  "That's very nice, Ranma. Don't hunch over though. Lift up your
chin, that's right, and pull your shoulders back. Good posture is
*so* important in presenting yourself well, isn't it?"

  Presenting herself wasn't really what she had planned to do,
but she took Akane's advice/obeyed Akane's orders anyway. The bra
made its presence felt but at least it didn't shift or pinch any
more.

  "Anything else?" She asked resignedly.

  "Well, you might put on some makeup..." Akane suggested, but
stopped when she saw Ranma's over-my-dead-body expression.

  "Okay. Sensei said you should feel comfortable. We can leave
makeup for a later day." Ranma-chan wisely chose to fight that
particular battle when the later day came rather than pushing it
now and losing immediately. Akane opened the door.

  "Ready?"

  "No. Let's go anyway." Akane shook her head as Ranma bulled her
way out the door in her usual unladylike manner. *You've still
got a lot to learn, Ranma darling.*

  At the Nekohanten, Shampoo directed them to the now-familiar
back room where Cologne was waiting for them. Unfortunately for
the two young people, some other guests were also waiting.

  [End of Part Three].

  Next part -- Pop quiz! How will Ranma and Akane do in Cologne's
surprise test?