Faking It: That’s One Tangled Family Tree... [Episode 191865]

Nodoka Saotome — or maybe Nodoka Hibiki —, still unconscious, was resting on the bed in the master bedroom of Ryōga’s family house.

Two nervous teenagers (and a black-and-white dog) were watching her over.  The boy and girl had gotten dressed back, Ranma-chan with her “Yoiko” clothes.  She had nothing else to wear for now, since (s)he’d been in his sleepwear (boxer shorts and muscle-T) when Akane had booted him from the Tendō Dōjō earlier.  Sure, she could have turned back into a guy and borrowed one of Ryōga’s outfits... but Ranma somehow grew into the habit of staying a girl as long as possible just after having sex in this body.  Otherwise, it felt a bit too confusing to change back into a male while still basking in the afterglow.

Ryōga and Ranma were, at the same time, anxious for Nodoka to wake up... and anxious that she’d wake up.  Ranma-chan leaned once again over her mother to look at her face.

“You’re positive that she’s your mom?” she asked.

“For the last time, Ranma, YES!  Do you really think I could confuse my mother with someone else?”

“Well, you never know... I fooled you plenty of times....”

“Don’t be silly!  I always saw through your dumb disguises, I was just playing along....”

“Yeah, right.  Do I look like a dummy?  You really think I’m gonna buy that?”  She taunted by him the evil eye and a blown raspberry.

Gritting his fanged teeth, Ryōga then harrumphed.  “Who else do you think she could be, anyway?  That’s my home, and besides me only my mom and dad have the keys.  And Shirokuro wouldn’t have let a stranger in.”

“Woof!” the dog approved, tail wagging.

“But I swear, she look exactly like my mother!  And she called me Ranma....  Say, didn’t you ever saw my mother when you dropped by at the Tendō Dōjō?”

Ryōga rubbed his chin.  “No... I don’t think so....”

“Not even as P-chan?”

The Lost Boy just shook his head.

“Wait, wait, wait... you MUST have seen her at least once... during that fiasco of a wedding!  She was there when you crashed in....”

“Hu?  Well, maybe... but it was really quite a confusing mess... and I was very much focused on the Nanniichuan at the time....”

“I guess.  Good thing you saved me, by the way... both from the water and the marriage.”

“Yeah... too bad I couldn’t get the Nanniichuan from myself before that old goat Happōsai drank it.”

“Still, didn’t you notice one beautiful woman with your mom’s shade of hair in a bun, and wearing a kimono?”

“Dunno... and anyway, my mom doesn’t usually put her hair in a bun, nor did she wear kimonos often, except at festivals....”

A vein popped on Ranma-chan’s head, and she grinded her knuckles on top of Ryōga’s skull.  “BAKA!  That’s all you would notice, hair and clothes?  I bet she could have stood right next to you at the wedding, and you wouldn’t have recognized your own mother!”

“OW!  Watch out, you minx!” Ryōga warned.

“That’s just what I said, you’re as bad at remembering faces than at finding your own damn way!” Ranma firmly stated.

“That’s not true!” the fanged boy protested, ready to come to blows with the spunky redhead.

“Children... who you please lower your voices and calm down?  No fighting in the house, please.”

Ranma and Ryōga, both in the position of yelling at each other, froze on the spot.  Mouths hanging open, they very slowly turned their heads toward the bed, like stiff automatons.

Nodoka had risen to a demure sitting position.  She was smiling warmly at the teenagers, her gaze uncharacteristically empty, as if she was not yet fully awakened.

But she was prompt to shake off this aftereffect of her earlier fainting.  A blink later, her eyes became very focused, and bulged out in remembrance of the lurid spectacle she witnessed.  A hand on her mouth, she stared at the couple in shock.

“Ryō-chan... Ranma!  Oh my gods, what did you do?!?”

Ryōga sweatdropped; he was completely at a loss on how to respond to a parental unit who just caught him having sex.  Because of his directional curse, he already had too little interaction with his parents for his taste, and thus little experience how to handle a tense situation.  And this was one of the very situations he’d rather have avoided like the plague.

Ranma-chan, on the other hand, “eeped”.  She brought her fists under her chin, her large and watery eyes trembling, her lips shivering, and burgeoning flowers twirling in the background. Overall, she was seriously overacting the cute-and-innocent-little-girl-face.

“Y-you’re mistaken, Mrs. Saotome.” she stuttered.  “I am not Ranma... I am Hibiki Yoiko, Ryōga-oniichan’s little sister.”

The sole result of this demonstration of “girly-ness”, however, was to upset Nodoka further.  “Don’t give me that silliness, Ranma-chan.  I certainly know that Ryō-chan has no younger sister!”

Ranma gave up on the masquerade and frowned.  “Oh really?  And how would you know that... MOM!?”

Ryōga bristled.  “Of course she would know that!  She’s MY mother, you baka!”

“That’s what you say...” Ranma retorted, crossing arms.  “Care to explain what’s going on, Nodoka-san?” she asked her again.

The mature woman blushed, quite evidently embarrassed by the inquiry.  “Don’t try to change the subject, Ranma!  What you were doing with Ryōga was plain—”

“Wrong?  I don’t see how that would be changing the subject, mom.” Ranma interrupted.  “If we did something so wrong, then maybe you should tell us how it could have happened?”  She pointed an insistent finger toward Ryōga.  “Is that dumbass your son too, or not?”

Ryōga looked miffed, but he was also curious and expectantly looked at the woman he knew as his mother.

Nodoka hesitated, nervously fidgeting... before whispering a reluctant “Yes, he is.”

Ryōga wasn’t surprised by the answer, but Ranma was intent on clearing things up.  “Are you Saotome Nodoka, or Hibiki Nodoka, then?  Is one of us adopted?  Whom have you married, in the end?  Time to fess up, mom!”

Ryōga was abashed by the way Ranma was talking to his (her? their?) mother, but the older woman caved in before he could voice his objection.

“Actually... I’m both.”  Nodoka sighed.  “It’s a long story”.

The Lost Boy blinked in confusion, looking back and forth between the two redheads.

“We gotta nothing better to do today, mom....” Ranma flatly said.

Nodoka let out another weary sigh.  Taking a deep breath, she began her tale.

“Everything started some eighteen years ago, when I was a young woman.  My family is of samurai descent and as such rather... conservative-minded.  I knew from an early age that they were supposed to choose my husband for me, and that I had little says about it.  At first, I believed I would be respectful of the traditions... I truly wanted to please my mother and father.  But then it happened... I fell in love with a man... whom I knew my parents would never approve off.”

Ranma-chan raised an eyebrow.  Ryōga frowned.  She couldn’t mean....

“This man was Hibiki Ichiro... your father, Ryō-chan.”

“What?!” Ryōga gasped.  “Waitasec... why would my grandparents disapprove of dad?  He’s a great guy and—”

“But he was a mere businessman.  This would never be considered honorable enough a profession to marry into minor nobility.”

Ranma almost burst out laughing.  “And a lazy, glutton, thief of a martial artist with a pervert for master is honorable enough??” she asked.

“Let’s not be so hasty, Ranma-chan, please.  I’ll get to it.  Anyway... because I knew there was no way I could convince my family, I married Ryōga’s father in secret.  I hoped I could put my parents before the fait accompli, even if that meant they’d disinherit me....”

“It sucks....” Ranma commented.

“Yeah.  Big time....” Ryōga added.

Ignoring the interruptions, Nodoka pursued.  “But then... when they announced to me that they’d organized an omiai... I lost my nerves.  I couldn’t tell them... I couldn’t disappoint my next of kin, when they obviously put such high expectations on me....”

“Don’t tell me...” Ryōga began.

“... that you married Genma just because of this?!” Ranma ended.

Nodoka nodded in shame.  “Yes.  I never planned for anything like this to happen, but... I just got caught into the flow... and before I knew it, I was bigamous.”

“Mom, how could you!” Ryōga exploded.  “Cheating on dad with that... fat slob!”

“RYŌGA!  Watch your language.” his mother scolded.  “And there was no cheating... I was legally married to both!”

“I ain’t no lawyer, but I think that make both marriages illegal....” Ranma retorted, arms crossed behind her head.  “Though I always wondered how my worthless old man could have landed a high-class lady like you... now that explain things....”

“Ranma-chan!  Your father was from a long and honorable line of martial artists....”

“While having no honor whatsoever himself.” Ranma huffed.  Then she blinked and glanced at Ryōga.  “Hey, mom... with that mess you were in, how sure can you be about whose father is whom...?”

“Wha...?” Ryōga started, trying to make head or tail of what Ranma just said. Then he stiffened suddenly.  “MOM!  You don’t mean... I’m not...?”

“Oh no, don’t worry, Ryō-chan, I am positively sure you are Ichiro’s son.” Nodoka reassured him.

Ranma hopefully pointed a thumb toward herself, but before she could talk, Nodoka crushed her hopes.  “And you are definitely Genma’s dau... I mean, son.” she concluded, upset at her own slip of the tongue.  It was getting hard to not forget that the pretty redhead before her was a boy.

“Drat.” Ranma-chan pouted.  “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I checked carefully each time.  In fact, I wasn’t yet married to Genma when already pregnant with Ryōga.  And Ichiro had gotten lost... had been on a long trip when you were conceived, Ranma-chan.”

“I see....” Ranma conceded.  But their was still some loose threads to tie.  “Still... how did you manage to went through two pregnancies without both your husbands knowing... I mean, one of them each time?”

“Well, I never thought I could pull it off at first... but as you know, Genma was quite often going on training trips... and Ichiro on business trips....”

“You mean he was getting lost....”

“Shut up, Ranma.” Ryōga growled.  “Hey... wait, mom.  I know I got my direction sense from you and dad....”

Nodoka shook her head, before lowering it in shame.  “Actually no, Ryō-chan.  It’s a hereditary trait, true, but it comes only from your father.  I... just pretended to have as bad a direction sense as him... so that I could disappear from times to times and see my other family.”

Ryōga almost cried, feeling an acute sense of betrayal.  How could his own mother lie to him?

“Actually, that’s quite clever.” Ranma admitted.  “Hu... but you said you had Ryōga first, right, mom?  Wouldn’t this mean that he’s older?”

“Of course I am, you nitwit.” Ryōga piped in.  “I’m seventeen!”

“Hey, how would I know?  We were in the same class in junior high!”

“You were?” Nodoka wondered in amazement.  She didn’t know that.  What were the odds?

“Try not being held back one year when you’re getting lost all the time....” Ryōga defensively explained.

“Hey, calm down.  I just wanted to make things clear.” she said, shrugging.  Then, she smirked, looking at him impishly.  “It means... that you’re REALLY my big brother, then.”

“I guess so....” Ryōga absentmindedly answered.  Then his eyes crossed in realization.  “Urk!”

Images began scrolling very fast in Ryōga’s head... images of him screwing, fucking, porking, shafting, humping, riding, sodomizing... either Yoiko-chan, Ranko-chan, Ran-chan, Ranma-chan or many of her other incarnations... in every ways or positions known to man, including a few they’d invented...

... and every time... not just when role-playing “Hibiki Yoiko”... she’d been his little sister.

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Ryōga yelled, hands clutching his head, as he started to get frantic.  To make things worse, he was feeling one hell of an erection inspired by all these arousing visions... as if the knowledge it was incest all along only excited him further.

“Yes, you understand now, Ryō-chan.  You and Ranma-chan are half-siblings, which meant you can’t do these kinds of things any more!  In fact, you should never have started, especially since....”  Nodoka stopped, as something suddenly occurred to her.  “Do Ryōga even know about your curse, Ranma?”

The pigtailed girl, who had looked utterly bored during the lecture, just shrugged.  “Of course he knows, mom.  He has known since the beginning.  I never tricked him into anything.”

“Then that’s even worse!  What had taken you, Ranma?  I thought you were a man among men, and now I found you....”

Ranma scowled.  Here we go again.  “That doesn’t count, mom.  It was all a game.”

“A game?”

“Yeah.  Ryōga never fucked ‘Saotome Ranma’.  I was always someone else.  Like the family maid... or his cute fiancée... or his enamored kohai...or....”  Ranma giggled, glancing at a distraught Ryōga.  “His favorite, though... it’s certainly ‘Hibiki Yoiko’.  Ryōga no imōtochan.  You have no idea how many times he asked me to play the naughty little sister to his ‘bad big brother’....”

“WHA— Mom, that’s not true!” Ryōga denied, waving his arms in panic.  Then he faced Ranma, pointing an accusing finger at her.  “It’s you!  It’s you who came up with the ‘Yoiko’ character all by yourself!”

“Maybe... but then you sure latched onto it, Oniichan.”  Ranma turned back toward her mother with a shit-eating grin.  “You wouldn’t believe how much your Ryō-chan has a biiiiiig incest fetish, mom.  In fact, I wonder how you could have stayed safe until now....”

Startled by the revelation, Nodoka couldn’t help but stare at Ryōga while instinctively leaning away.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Don’t listen to her, mom!  I’m not like that!  It’s a lie, a lie!!” Ryōga pleaded.

“Ryō-chan.... I’m glad you are manly and all,” Nodoka stated, “as it is healthy for a boy your age.  Yet, you shouldn’t project your fantasies over family members....”

“Didn’t you listen to what I said, mom...?” Ryōga wailed.  “Ranma!  This is all your fault!”

“Oh, great.  How original.  Where did I hear that already...?” Ranma mocked.

“You shouldn’t be taking this so casually, Ranma!” Nodoka insisted.  “Even if you didn’t know that Ryōga was your half-brother, how could you renounce you manhood so casually?”

“Hey!  Who said I renounced my manhood!?” Ranma-chan bristled.

“It is pointless lying to me, Ranma-chan.  I saw you.  It was quite obvious you were enjoying yourself.  No ‘manly man’ would ever—”

“Of course I did enjoy it!” Ranma cut off her mother.  “But I certainly wasn’t a man at the time!  I was Yoiko!”

“Oh please, Ranma-chan!  Stop clinging to this ridiculous ‘games’ rationalization of yours.”

“But it’s the truth!”

“This is shameful, Ranma!  That you would use such a dishonorable ploy to escape the seppuku pledge....”

“Seppuku?” Ryōga piped in, surprised.  “What seppuku pledge?”

Ranma glared at her mother.  “Don’t tell me... you AREN’T going to try enforce this stupid pledge now, mom?  Not after what we found out...?”

“And why wouldn’t I?  It was a promise made on your martial artist’s honor....” Nodoka defensively reminded.

“Except I was a KID when my stupid father made me pledge this!  And worst, now I learn you weren’t even his legal wife at the time... which make the whole thing moot!”

“Ranma!” an outraged Nodoka exclaimed.  “You’re not thinking of using this to escape your duty, are you?”

“And why not?”

“Excuse me,” Ryōga interjected, “but what the HELL are you talking about?!”

“Oh, yeah....”  Ranma sighed.  “You don’t know about it yet, bro... let me explain.”

Thus, Ranma gave a quick summary of the Saotome seppuku pledge, telling in a few words how Genma had promised to make his son into a “man among men” in exchange for Nodoka letting them go on an extended training trip... and that they would both commit ritual suicide in case of failure.

Ryōga was dreadfully appalled by the whole story.  Even though he would have a hard time admitting it, the mere idea of losing Ranma, either as a rival, sister, or lover, was quite distressing to him.  “Mom... you can’t... you can’t be serious?  You won’t force Ranma into seppuku just because of an old promise by that fat fool of a worthless, wife-stealing—”

“RYŌGA!  I already told you to watch your language about my second husband.”  She turned toward Ranma.  “This is a matter of honor, Ranma-chan.  I won’t let you shame the family further by—”

“Further than you’ve already done?” Ranma coldly interrupted.  This shocked Nodoka into silence, and the pigtailed girl used this to her advantage.  “Face it, mom, you’re in a bad position to be giving lessons.  If it was ever known that you married two men, I think you’d be the one in a tight spot as far as bringing shame to the family....”

Nodoka was aghast.  “Ranma... you are not thinking... you are not talking... about telling Ichiro or Genma, are you?”  She was flabbergasted that her child could actually threaten her like that.

“Why not?” Ranma-chan asked, casually crossing her arms behind her head.

“I don’t like it either, mom,” Ryōga added, “but I like even less the idea that you lied to my father.  And whatever the case, I’ll NEVER let you kill Ranma!”

“But... but... that’s blackmail!” Nodoka protested.

“So what?” Ranma dismissed.  The, she grinned... with Nabiki around, she certainly learned a lot about using blackmail.  “Heck, giving up that stupid seppuku pledge certainly ain’t that big a price... compared to all the much WORSE things we could actually blackmail you into... if you really don’t want your secret to be known....”

Ryōga blinked.  What was Ranma talking about?

Nodoka didn’t give in so easily, though.  “But what about your martial artist honor, Ranma?  Don’t tell me you value it so little that you’d break a formal oath...?”

Ranma huffed.  “Yeah, right.  One thing I learned long ago, mom... it that ‘honor’ is essentially a pretext that other people use to make you do things against your will.  My father had used often enough his ‘duty of a martial artist’ speech to trick me into stealing, lying and generally acting like scum.  What’s the honor in that?”

“Ranma, just because your father is a poor example doesn’t mean you should follow his steps....” Nodoka pointed out.

“Example?  EXAMPLE?  He never quite cared about setting the example, mom!  Nor, for that fact, many of the martial artists I’ve met.  Happōsai, M. Tendō... it was always, all about themselves... they never cared a bit about the feelings of others.  The only remotely honorable guy I’ve ever met is Ryōga, and he did plenty screwed-up things too....”

“Thanks... I guess.” her brother mumbled.

“Honestly, mom, by trying to act ‘honorable’ all the time, you can easily lose sight of what is ‘right’.  And if given the choice between the right thing and the honorable thing... well, I’d choose the right thing any day.”

“But....”

“No ‘but’, mom.  Tell me, wasn’t that what you did when you married Ryōga’s dad?  You knew it wasn’t the honorable thing... yet you did it, because you felt it was right!”

“That’s not the same thing, Ranma....”

“Not the same thing my ASS, mom!  That was exactly the same thing.  That is always the same thing... in fact... because, whatever is the ‘honorable’ thing to do, it ain’t up to you to decide... no, it’s always others who decide... you have no say into it.  And it’s entirely subjective, too.  Like your whole ‘man among men’ mantra, mom.  Who else but you can decide what it meant to be a ‘man among men’?  So, if you decided that I fall short of the description, whatever I could do, I’d be screwed!”

“Ranma!  How can you think that?” Nodoka protested.  “I would never willfully set the bar so high that you could never reach it!  But with what you did with Ryō-chan....”

“Okay, let’s talk about it.  What did I do that was so wrong?”

Nodoka was stunned, so it was Ryōga who tentatively said something.  “Besides incest?”

“Besides incest.  And we didn’t know, so it doesn’t count.  What I’m asking is: how did it make me suddenly so ‘unmanly’, mom?  What does it matter if I’m unmanly as a girl, as long as I’m manly as guy?”

“Ranma, how can you be so stubborn?” Nodoka retorted.  “I understand you have a hard time admitting that you are gay, but—”

“Hey, hey, hey!  Stop!  Time out!  Why are you thinking I could be GAY?!”

Nodoka blinked at Ranma’s vehement denial.

Ryōga, too, was a bit puzzled.  “Hu... maybe because she just found out having sex with me, as a girl....”

“Oh please, get serious.  That doesn’t mean anything....”  Since both Ryōga and Nodoka were staring at her with worried looks, Ranma reluctantly elaborated.  “What I’m saying is that whenever I had sex with a guy, it was in my girl’s body.  I would never do anything like that in my male body... except with girls, of course.  Heck, I’ve never even done the lesbian thing as a girl.  That mean I never did anything remotely gay in my life.”

Ryōga scratched his head, trying to follow his half-sister’s roundabout logic.  He knew the comment about lesbian sex was an outright lie — though Ranma maybe somehow believed it from her weird point of view.  But he didn’t mention it; that was Ranma’s head at stake here, after all.

Nodoka finally recovered the power of speech.  “Ranma, that must be the silliest rationalization I’ve ever—”

“It ain’t silly at all, mom!  Have you even considered the fact that having sex as girl could make me actually MORE manly as a man?”

Now, Nodoka was completely lost.  “What?”

“Think about, it, mom: by doing it as a girl, I’ve gotten more insight about sex that any boy my age could dream off!  I know exactly what feel good for a girl... what is the better way to touch, to caress, to stimulate a woman into orgasm.  Something that big, brutish guys like this one...”  (She pointed at Ryōga, who swung at her head with his fist, but she ducked.)  “... would never figure out.  Just ask my girlfriends, mom.  I sure make them very happy when I’m one-hundred-percent male.”

Nodoka frowned.  “You’re pretending to have girlfriends....”

“Yeah, mom.  It ain’t like my dumb brother here is around often, with him getting always lost...”  (Ryōga swung again at Ranma-chan, who ducked in the opposite direction.)  “... so I have plenty of time to affirm my ‘manliness’ with some of the girls at Fūrinkan.  That should make you proud, no?”

“And what about your fiancée?” Nodoka inquired.

Ranma’s expression darkened.  “My fiancéeS, you mean, mom?  They don’t count!  They’re a bunch of lesbians anyway.  Akane, Ukyō, Shampoo... all three are using the ‘engagements’ as cover-up for their own hanky-panky fun....”

“Not only are you trying to hide your nature by boasting about girlfriends, but now you’re putting the blame on your fiancées too?  Honestly, Ranma, you could come up with a more believable story!  Any man among men with three lovely young women as them at his beck and call would already have proven his manliness....”

“Mom, I told you, they’re lesbians!” Ranma protested.

“Well, not Shampoo....” Ryōga couldn’t help to point out.

“Shut up, you!” Ranma barked.  Then she turned back to her mother.  “And they’re not at my beck and call!  They’re just using me, I tell you....”

Nodoka was still skeptical.  “And what about those girlfriends of yours?  Are you going to bring them to me so that they testify of your manly prowess?”

“Err....” Ranma suddenly hesitated.  Although she thought of them merely as “sex friends”, she had little illusion that if they were to be introduced to her mother, they could take it entirely the wrong way.  And Ranma had enough “engagements” to deal with already.  “Hu... I don’t think that would be a good idea, mom....”

“I see.  You really think I would fall for it, Ranma-chan?  It is shameful.  Why don’t you just admit you have sworn off your manhood to become Ryōga’s little sex-toy?”

Ranma gritted her teeth and clenched her fists.  It was obvious her mother wasn’t going to believe her.

“Mom!” Ryōga spoke firmly.  “I told you already: I won’t let you hurt Ranma!”

“But he has dragged the Saotome family’s honor in the mud!”

“I don’t care about the Saotome’s honor!” the Hibiki boy exclaimed.

Shirokuro, who had been listening to the whole altercation with her ears down, finally retreated out of the room as they started to get loud.  She couldn’t stand to see her beloved family arguing like that.  They were so nice to each other, usually!

“Don’t bother, Ryōga,” Ranma said to her brother, “she won’t give up on the seppuku pledge until I have proved to her that I’m still manly... much manlier as a man that I’ll ever be womanly as a girl.  Right, mom?”

Nodoka thought about it for a while.  Truth to tell, she still loved her female son dearly, and would have greatly preferred to spare her from the dire fate of seppuku.  But family honor — whatever was left of it — needed to be preserved.  So, she reluctantly agreed.

“Well... yes.  But after what I’ve witnessed, I don’t see how you could prove yourself to be more of a man than a woman....”

“Oh, I think I know of a way....” Ranma answered in a mysterious tone.  “Just wait here, mom.  I’ll be back.”

“What?” Ryōga wondered, before following Ranma-chan as she exited the room.  “What do you have in mind, Ranma?”