The Cost of Silence Prologue written by Mike Koos -------------------- Hotaru silently made her way through the corridors of Infinity Academy. She knew she had a destination; she imagined she could almost feel her feet come in contact with the drab, cold tile floor, even though those feet were hidden now within dark stockings and polished dress shoes. This was her life, now. Attending school as a five year-old girl named Tomoe Hotaru, when nearly three months ago she had been a sixteen year-old boy named Saotome Ranma. Her father, in his desire to turn Ranma into the greatest martial artist the boy could possibly become, had taken Ranma to a hidden training ground in China... where a pool of cursed water instead changed him into a young girl. Their guide had assured her that the transformation was permanent. Anyone... any person, or animal that entered the cursed pools of Jhusenkyou was forced to live what remained of their lives in whatever form the pools gave them. Her father had paled upon hearing the guide's claim that there was no known cure for this change. Ranma had ceased to be his son and become his daughter. He refused to admit that Ranma might be permanently trapped as a girl, however. The man had let slip that a lot of things were dependant upon Ranma being a boy, though he wouldn't tell her anything beyond that. After leaving Jhusenkyou, they'd cut their training voyage short in the interest of returning to Japan as soon as possible. The elder Saotome had a plan; he certainly couldn't follow through on his original plans while Ranma remained his daughter, but if the two of them went into hiding under different identities, Genma could - hopefully, with help - work on somehow finding or inventing a cure for Ranma. Genma sought out an old friend from his university days, Nobuo, who now taught classes as a professor at the prestigious Infinity Academy in Juuban. Nobuo helped Genma establish new identities for himself and his daughter. Ranma was 'reborn' as Tomoe Hotaru, and her father, a widower named Souichi, signed onto the Academy staff as a professor who'd elected to start a research partnership with Nobuo. The thought brought a smile to Hotaru's face each time she recalled it. Who would have thought the old man had enough knowledge and experience to pass himself off as a professor? Or that he'd actually attended a university in the first place? Obviously, her father had abandoned quite a bit in favor of the martial arts. She completely ignored everyone else in the hall as she continued walking to class. As the daughter of someone who was a member of the Academy's faculty, Hotaru was expected to attend school at the Academy, her tuition waived for those same reasons. Nobuo and her father had warned her in advance about applying what she'd learned in Ranma's sixteen years to *Hotaru's* school life - best to avoid making herself stand out as much as possible, though she doubted what little time she'd actually spent in school would truly make a difference. If she had remained in school for most of those sixteen years like everyone else, perhaps... She had also become accustomed to wearing girls' clothing in the past few months, much as she despised the need to do so. Wasn't she supposed to be a *boy*? But here she was, little Tomoe Hotaru, dressed in a version of the Academy uniform for girls. Other schools reportedly were not as strict with their uniform codes for children her age, while the Academy strictly enforced their policies. Hotaru had never liked wearing dress uniforms for school... uniforms tended to restrict her during a fight, and she would never hear the end of it when the expensive clothes were inevitably dirtied or torn in those fights. Well, the boys' uniforms were rather restrictive, anyway. She hadn't had a chance to put her new uniform to the test. Hotaru continued to train with a passion; the change in bodies had thrown all of her conditioning out, and left her with a different center of balance, reach, speed and power for which to compensate. She felt rather conscious of each part of the uniform she wore. A crimson, long-sleeve button-up shirt, accented by a green striped hem and a navy-blue collar. A large sky-blue ribbon with pinstripes of a darker blue that ran parallel along its length, tied into a bow that rested upon her chest. Green dress with checkered blue stripes worn over stockings the same color as her collar, and the underwear concealed by both. Black dress shoes completed the uniform. Mrs. Matsui - the wife of her father's friend - had even cut her hair short, claiming the shorter hair suited Hotaru better than the ponytail she'd worn as a boy. The young girl had surprised herself by agreeing with her. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that she had come to like dark clothing, such as her Academy uniform. Hotaru liked to believe it expressed the frustration and whatever else she wasn't supposed to let others see. Dad had taught her that - a *man* did not cry, or show any kind of emotion that could be considered a weakness or flaw within him. She was a boy who had been transformed into a girl roughly a third of his age, with no way of returning to his true form. Her father's arrangements allowed them both to hide behind different identities while he and an old friend searched for a possible, scientific means of 'curing' her. Hotaru held little faith that their search would succeed - after all, hadn't she been changed by magic? - yet she remained silent. The two men made a vow to keep 'magic' out of their efforts as much as possible; it had the potential to make their work difficult to control and predict. "Hotaru-chan?" She glanced up, setting her meandering thoughts to one side and keeping her face as emotionless as possible. Only Mrs. Matsui, along with most of the faculty and their families, knew her as 'Hotaru' - she'd been introduced to the teachers at a party for the staff nearly a month beforehand. The voice that had called her name was an adult's voice, which meant it likely belonged to one of the teachers... Mrs. Minagawa, who taught the class she was about to join, weaved through the students in the hall to fall in beside her. "Minagawa-sensei..." Inwardly, Hotaru sighed. Her sensei was potentially as tall as the boy she had been, and was now perhaps two or three feet taller than her as a girl. "There you are, Hotaru-chan. I was worried that you might be lost." Minagawa smiled. "But that's a silly thought, I suppose. Are you worried about your first day of school?" Hotaru shook her head. "No." "Good. Now, let's get to class. Everyone is waiting for us," Minagawa said, taking Hotaru by the hand and leading her toward the classroom. As they stepped through the door, Hotaru took in the sight of her classroom - and her classmates, each of them watching her. "Class, I want you to say hello to Tomoe Hotaru. Hotaru-chan will be joining us this morning." ------------ Special thanks to the RanMoon discussion list and Tom Williams for comments and prereading. This story is a part of the RanMoon project. Visit the project's homepage at: ********** * Mike ('Kino Makoto') Koos: makoto@cal.net * http://www.fanfic.net/~makoto * * "I can do nothing to stop you. Your background music is too strong * for me." - Sam Johnson, Whose Line is it Anyway?