The Journey is the Destination Chapter 25 By poetheather Hot Springs, confessions and smooches. All in a fun days work.

Ranma had naturally been the first of them to reach the onsen, with Akane reaching there right behind her. Ukyo and Konatsu were bringing up the rear, with Ukyo barely managing to stay ahead of the kunoichi. Akane’s last minute sprint managed to get her far enough ahead of Ukyo that she was able to win fairly easily. Ranma grinned at her fiancé. “Good effort there Tomboy.”

“Thanks Baka.” huffed Akane, working on catching her breath.

Ukyo shook her head, in mock disgust with the two girls who were just grinning at each other like idiots. “You are both Baka.”

Both Akane and Ranma pulled one eye down and stuck out their tongues at the chef. Ukyo laughed at them, glad to be a part of the teasing. Konatsu chuckled as well, finding the whole situation pretty funny as well. It was a much better thing to see the two playing together rather than fighting all the time.

Akane turned as she remembered something and asked worriedly, “So Ranma, did you remember the spot?”

“Yeah, I did and I hope it works, as a good long soak in the hot spring sounds so good right now.”

The group of them headed inside, still wearing their backpacks and Ranma found the owner, an older gentleman dressed in an older style, and asked him, “May we have two rooms?”

“I am sorry, we only have one room left, but I am sure the four of you ladies can share it.” He smiled politely and bowed in slight apology.

Ranma shared a look with the others, silently conferring on the subject. Looks were passed and everyone just shrugged as they came to a consensus. Ranma looked back at the owner and answered, “One room will be just fine.”

The older man nodded and led them down a hallway, pointing out the hot springs, dining area, bathroom, and the like. He gave them some tea as well, as a welcome gesture. The girls grinned when they passed the hot springs area, knowing that Konatsu would be the one scrubbing their backs for them when they finally got in there. Even though the ninja was a boy, he came across as a girl in every other manner, so that they were not bothered by that one fact. He was girlier than all of them after all.

Once they were safely in their room, Ranma took off her blouse and asked Akane, “Could you press right here, really hard, count to ten and then do a quarter turn clockwise.”

Akane nodded and did as Ranma asked, doing her best to follow the directions exactly. Ranma sighed and smiled weakly when Akane pulled back, “Well time to find out if that worked.”

She stuck a finger into her cup of tea and grinned happily when the tea felt hot but not burning. She had remembered the spot correctly. That or the strike by Happosai had not effected her as much as she had thought. Regardless of the reason why this was working, Ranma was pleased. “Yes!”

Akane hugged Ranma and kissed her on the cheek, happy for the girl. “That’s great. Let’s get going. I really want a nice long soak.”

Soon the four of them were relaxing in the hot water, with Konatsu wearing a towel around his body for modesty sake and as a great disguise from the other female guests. They all sighed contentedly, letting the heat seep into their muscles and Ranma for one closed her eyes. Akane snickered and asked, “So, what do you think the Amazons are up to?”

“I have no idea actually. I am just afraid that the Old Ghoul is going is going to do something to you and that worries me. I figured that training was better safe than sorry.” Ranma frowned some.

Akane leaned over and hugged Ranma, to try to cheer the shorter girl up. “Don’t worry so much Ranma. With your help, I can fight a lot better then before and I might even be able to hold my own against Shampoo. With Ukyo’s help, I should even be able to hold off Mousse.”

Ranma smiled faintly, still worried about the possibilities. “I know you can, but I worry.”

Ukyo chuckled, “That’s what I love about you Ranchan, always so worried about everybody else.”

Ranma blushed and looked down at the steaming water. The others chuckled at the girl’s reaction, knowing that Ranma had a huge heart and hated for any of her friends to get hurt. When the laughter died down and relaxation took over again, the group of them just lay there and sighed, feeling the tense and sore muscles relaxing. This hot spring was much hotter than the one at the camp and was far better at getting them to loosen. Several minutes later, Ranma broke the silence, speaking softly, almost as if she were afraid to say what she was going to say. “Guys?”

“Yes Ranma?” asked Akane a bit dreamily, as she had been floating away in pleasure. The warm mineral water was making all the little aches and pains she had gotten during the training fade away.

“I… I have something I… uh… wanted to talk to you guys about.” The hesitancy in her voice got the others to open their eyes and look over. There was something different in Ranma’s voice and this sent up warnings to the others.

Ranma had kind of curled up, hugging her knees, and resting her chin on them, curling in on herself protectively. Akane scooted over and put an arm over the girl’s shoulders comfortingly, asking her fiancé, “What is it?”

Ranma blushed, getting redder than she had been earlier as she worked to manage to speak. “I… well… you know… uh…”

“Ranchan, just spit it out.” commented Ukyo, wondering what was bothering her ‘brother’ and wanting to find out what this was, in case she had to do something to fix the problem.

“Well, you guys know… since this whole… thing has started, I have been thinking about my life and ways to make it better and everything and I think… I think I kind of sort of want to, you know, maybe, stay a girl.” The short redhead then flinched, as if she was expecting some sort of violent response from the others. The response she got from them was not what she expected.

Ukyo and Akane simply shared a glance and then looked back at Ranma as if confused. Konatsu simply smiled, as if he had been expecting this result all along. Akane shook her head and then pulled Ranma closer to herself, saying softly, “If that is what you want Ranma than that’s okay. But, you know… can you occasionally be a guy for me?”

Ranma looked up at her a bit confused, wondering about this particular condition, “Why?”

Akane giggled and blushed, finding it a bit difficult to look into her favorite pair of blue eyes. “Well, that way I can get married to you and we can start a family.”

Ranma’s eyes grew large in surprise and she seemed a bit stunned by what Akane had said, as if that was completely out of the blue. “You… you really mean that?”

Akane leaned down and kissed Ranma gently on the lips, a kiss with more love in it than passion. “Of course I mean it Baka. If you staying as a girl makes you feel better, so long as you can be a man for me every once in a while, things will be good. I can live with this.”

Ranma turned and pulled Akane into her arms, tears threatening to spill over. “Thank you Tomboy.”

Ukyo and Konatsu shared a smile and then Ukyo remarked, “Feel better now Ranma?”

Ranma just nodded, clutching Akane to her as if afraid that the Tomboy would disappear into the steam.

Konatsu chuckled at the whole situation, which drew stares from the other three, breaking the lovey dovey moment. The male kunoichi looked at them and in a voice filled with merriment, asked, “What?”

“That was what I was going to ask sugar.” replied Ukyo, with some consternation in her voice.

“Oh. I was just thinking about what Ranma was like before this, how macho he had been and how that is very different from how she is now. That macho… uhm… jerk? Would have never asked anything like that.”

While Ukyo and Akane shared a laugh over that, Ranma blushed. Sure that was true, but it really was rude to point it out like that. Ranma did the only thing she could think of to retain her dignity and stuck her tongue out.

* * * * *

Ranma lay on her back on her futon and grinned up at the ceiling, pleased with life. In so many many ways she was happier than she had ever been before she had put this plan in motion. That made her so glad that she had actually followed through with this crazy idea instead of chickening out like she probably would have done if Akane had actually made a fuss about this situation. So much of this plan had gone against everything she had been raised to believe in and that in turn had only made her feel better about things now. In a way, this only served to prove what an utter idiot her father was. She was really excited about this new idea, about this idea of living as a woman. Her father had to be going crazy already and staying this way would only make that worse. That greatly appealed to her.

Her whole life she had been pretty well beaten and abused by her father under the pretense of training. She had barely been able to make friends with Ukyo and Ryoga and her father had ruined both of those friendships because of his stupidity. Ryoga still had issues with her and it had taken a hell of a lot of fancy footwork in order to fix things with Ukyo. If her mother had not agreed to the adoption, there was no other idea that Ranma had that might work. Ranma was just so tired of her whole life being one giant fucked up mess thanks to her father and the simple fact that one little change and pretending like it was her real life made such a huge difference was staggering. She had been so afraid of this whole girl thing before, of even doing anything that might even be remotely connected to femininity and now… now it was making her life bearable in a way she had never would have believed possible. In addition, what was even better was that it did not require her to be all into frills and stuff.

Ranma sighed contentedly and realized that she was still very much awake. She turned her head and looked over at Akane, who was in the futon next to her. She rolled closer and said, “Pssst… Akane.”

“Wha? Ranma?” asked the shorthaired girl in a bit of a daze.

“Want to come outside with me?” asked Ranma, hope clearly in her voice.

Akane blinked a few times, as if she were trying to figure out what she was being asked, since she was not really awake yet. “Outside?”

The redhead nodded her head, grinning at the youngest Tendo excitedly. Akane smiled faintly and crawled out of her futon, thinking that the idea had some merit. Hand in hand, the two of them walked out the sliding door to the gardens outside. They wandered through the Gardens for a little bit in silence, occasionally smiling at each other. Once the short walk was over, Ranma and Akane leapt to the roof. They lay back on the sun warmed tile and looked up at the stars. Ranma reached out and took one of Akane’s hands with one of her own, their fingers intertwining. They both shared a shy smile before looking away.

The silence was there a while longer before Akane rolled onto her side and looked at her fiancé. “Did you want to talk or something?”

Ranma smiled slyly at her and said, “Or something.”

She rolled over, on top of Akane and began to kiss her, passionately. Akane started in surprise from the move but then sighed, relaxing into the kissing, wrapping her arms around her. They kissed for a while before Ranma pulled back, smiling lovingly at Akane, eyes bright, “Thank you.”

“What for? I haven’t really done anything that deserves any kind of thanks?” Akane was clearly a bit confused by what the redhead was saying and she cocked her head.

“The fact that you can accept me for this, for me deciding to stay this way is amazing. That just blows my mind that you can do that and I am so thankful that you care for me.” said Ranma softly, her voice thick with love.

Akane blushed lightly at that and replied, “I love you Ranma… why wouldn’t I accept you?”

Ranma shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed. “I just figure that this decision of mine has to be weird.”

Akane turned away and spoke softly, but still loud enough for Ranma to hear, “I have liked you since I first met you. I know I freaked out when I saw you after you transformed in the bath. I… I just wasn’t able to deal with you then, as I had been getting all that grief from Kuno. But I have gotten over that and I am sorry for my getting mad at you.”

With a very slight tug, Ranma pulled Akane into her arms, turning her so that they faced each other. “It’s okay Tomboy, I know what you had to go through before I got here. I did not then but I know now. We love each other and are together now so that’s all that matters.”

They resumed kissing, until Akane had to break off for a yawn. Ranma giggled at Akane’s jaw almost unhinging and asked, “Tired?”

“Baka, you woke me up to make out with you. Yes I am tired.” stated Akane with some heat.

Ranma snickered at that and asked, “Sorry I woke you?”

“Not on your life. Kiss me some more and then we can go back to bed.” replied Akane, almost more of a command.

Ranma happily obliged.