"Do you want anything Ranma?" Kasumi asked as they walked into the house. Ranma muttered under her breath for a moment, she was still very tired.
"I'm kinda thirsty," she said finally. "Can you grab me a soda or something?" She sat down holding Midori carefully.
"I'll be right back," Kasumi said simply nodding.
"So why did you name her Midori?" Akane asked.
"Uhhh, I asked Nabiki," Ranma said pointing to the other girl who was sitting down in her normal spot at the table.
"Dollars, green, Midori," Nabiki said shrugging. "Not to mention emeralds. The shipcheon won bill, etc..." Akane glanced at her questioningly. "I wasn't exactly thinking straight when he asked for an idea. They had me on some sort of pain killer..."
"I think it's a wonderful name," Nodoka said sighing as she looked into her grandchild's sleeping face.
"I named my kid after money," Ranma muttered, rolling her eyes. Kasumi came back in with an opened can of one of soda. "Oh thanks, Kasumi."
"Hey that's mine," Nabiki protested as Ranma gulped it down.
"Wow," Ranma said brightly. "I feel a lot better, can I have another one of those?"
"Sure," Kasumi said, "Let me just bring you a few."
"I save those for waking up in the morning you know," Nabiki said.
"Huh?" Ranma asked.
"There's enough caffeine in that stuff to jump start a semi," Nabiki explained.
"Now, somebody explain to us just how this happened," Genma demanded. "And why are you still a girl, boy?"
"All right, all right," Ranma said.
She willed the change and was suddenly a guy again. His parents and Soun stared in shock, Kasumi walked in at this point and merely wondered how Ranma had gotten some hot water.
"How did you do that boy?" Genma demanded desparately.
"I think it's parta what that cure of Nabiki's did," Ranma said grimmly. Midori yawned in his arms and shifted.
"What," Genma turned to Nabiki. "Where did you get this cure?!"
"Do you really think it would work on you?" Nabiki asked, indicating Ranma. "Really, it wasn't meant to have anything to do with Jusenkyo. From what I can tell it was probably meant as some sort of super fertility drug. Except..."
"Except what?" Akane asked.
Kasumi noticed the blue triangles that now adorned Nabiki's and Ranma's faces under their eyes and were mirrored in Midori's face. All three had a third mark in their forehead, but this was unique to each of them.
In Ranma's case the symbol seemed to be a version of the yin-yang with blurred, indistinct lines, in varying shades of blue. Nabiki had a blue circle that vaguely resembled a ten-yen coin. In Midori's case it was a stretched diamond shape like an arrowhead pointing up from her nose.
"You drank it as well," Kasumi reasoned. Nabiki nodded.
"But it didn't really do anything to me," she said. "Except for these things on my face. I think the Jusenkyo curse might be part of why it worked differently on Ranma." She frowned. "Then again, I might find myself in a similar situation the first time I do anything in the sack as it were..."
Akane leveled a glare at Ranma as her sister talked about the possibilities.
What did I do? Ranma wondered bitterly.
"And what do you plan to do about this when all these other girl's learn?" Akane asked.
"I've got that worked out," Nabiki said. "Midori is Ranma's child by someone he met in China before coming to the Tendo dojo, she died and so now the child is Ranma's responsibility."
It wasn't even a lie as far as Nabiki was concerned. No need to mention that the child's mother was about one thousand, five hundred years did. The little girl with the shock of dark violet, sort of a mix of Ranma's female hair color and a number of black and other colored hairs spaced so that the illusion of violet hair was produced.
This child was partially her responsibility, and she would provide for her as well as she could. She sighed, that would mean cutting back her mangas quite a bit. Time to go back to reading fanfic, thank god for free entertainment.
Her gaze turned to Ranma and Akane and frowned.
"You bet it's Ranma's responsibility," Akane said.
Oh great, Nabiki sighed. Now she's going to be jealous that Ranma's a mother first too.
She loved her sister, and once she grew up a little Akane would be wonderful person. Still, Akane did sometimes worry Nabiki. She kept going for easy routes of strength for one thing, she wanted to be as good as Ranma without working for it simple for the purposes of sheer pride and envy. As long as she and Ranma kept their prides, they weren't going anywhere.
"Akane," Nodoka lectured. "You should be willing to help my son in this time."
"Among other things," Nabiki said. "We might need to make sure Midori isn't hurt when this news gets out, if it isn't already." Ranma snapped his head up.
"Oh shit," he said. "I should go work out a little to see if I can get the kinks outta my system for that, uh Ak..." He stopped when as Akane turned her head away and put her nose in the air. He glanced to Nabiki, who was willing, but still had a broken arm and thus, to Ranma's mind, out.
"I'll watch her for you Ranma," Kasumi said.
"Thanks, Kasumi," Ranma said, handing the sleeping baby over. "I'll be in earshot..." He stood up shakily and downed another soda, Nabiki counted five cans now. Then he walked out toward the dojo.
"I should go do some financial planning," Nabiki said, standing up and heading for her room. "And tomorrow we need to go shopping for necessities. Oh and tell me when Ranma crashes from that caffeine."

Ranma frowned as he practiced his kata, his ki wasn't there. Now that he was somewhat less distracted, he was beginning to notice all sorts of differences.
His senses were sharper for one thing. The sun was setting, and twilight was draping over the land, but he could see as easily as if it were midday still. He could hear Akane complaining about him in her room upstairs, as if it was his choice to do women things first too. He could smell the wood and sweat in the dojo, faded and almost gone under a barrage of Kasumi's cleaning methods. Methods which did not use, as Ranma was surprised to learn, any sort of smelly substance that did more to hide a mess than get rid of it.
That wasn't the scary thing though. The scary thing was that his ki was...non-existant. This was an impossibility. No mortal could live without ki. There was Saffron, of course, but he wasn't mortal. The question of how he was alive without his ki did not worry him over much just yet. What did was that he couldn't access his enhanced physical abilities or attacks without ki. He was exceptionally vulnerable.
Ranma slipped into a chi mending kata and searched inward looking for that spark of life force that he always been able to find easily before. He virtually stumbled on it. A life force, one not of chi, but of something else.
Let's see if I can use this stuff, Ranma muttered.
What followed was a long stretch of time of trying to channel his new life forces to achieve the feats he was familiar with.
He stayed with basic stuff, leaps, acrobatics, speed, strength and stuff. He realized, eventually, that on a basic level it was merely a question of finding new pathways for the energy to travel. He'd have to find ways to reinvent his high level techniques, or make new ones.
On the plus side, certain techniques would no longer work on him. Like the Hiryu Shoten Ha, Strength-Sapping Moxibustion, Happo-Go-En-Satsu, most pressure points, and everything else that depended on a human ki.
At all times he kept an ear out for any sign of trouble from Midori, but Kasumi apparently had everything well in hand.

Nabiki frowned as she continued to work, something was off, and she couldn't put her finger on it. Still she continued to go on planning, enjoying the charge she got from handling money. For some reason it seemed to be more pronounced than usual.
Nabiki was distracted from her work when she heard a baby crying. The sound of Kasumi taking care of the situation came then, and she relaxed. Until Midori started crying about ten minutes later. She stood up and stretched before hurrying out of her room to find Kasumi trying to feed Midori.
"Oh, Nabiki," Kasumi said relieved. "I can't figure out what's wrong, I fed her the formula, but she still seems to be hungry."
Nabiki frowned but thought she could guess what the problem was. She would have been curious about just how she so easily figured it out, but at the moment there were other things to consider.
"I think I know what she needs," Nabiki said. "Just let me get Ranma." Kasumi nodded.
Nabiki headed for the dojo, knowing somehow that only Genma was in the room she had passed on the way downstairs. Neither she nor Kasumi had yet noticed that her arm was no longer broken.
"Ranma," Nabiki called out as she entered the dojo.
She frowned and shook her head as she found Ranma flat on his face, unconscious. She moved forward and kneeled next to him to check for a pulse. She was relieved to find one.
"He must have exhausted himself practicing," Nabiki muttered. She considered the situation for a moment and then quickly returned to the living room where Kasumi and a crying Midori was.
"It's four o'clock in the morning," Akane's voice called out wearily. "Can't you get her quiet?"
"This isn't time for that," Nabiki snapped. Akane grumbled and her door closed upstairs. "Kasumi, do I have any more sodas left? Or anything with caffeine in it?"
"No I'm afraid Ranma already drank it all," Kasumi said. Nabiki grumbled. "Why?"
"Ranma's out like a light," Nabiki said. "And I kinda got this feeling maybe some caffeine would wake him up."
Nabiki frowned, now it would take a trip for the store, and she didn't want to make Midori wait that long. That same instinct that had been giving her answers all night gave her another one that didn't seem quite possible to her logical mind.
"Damn," Nabiki said finally. "I'll have to do it."
"Do what?" Kasumi asked. "Nabiki, when did you take your arm out of the sling?"
"Huh..." Nabiki looked at her arm in curiousity. "That is weird...but later...okay. Here, I'll take Midori for now and can you go to that convienence store downt the street and get all the caffeinated stuff you can, okay?"
"What will you do?" Kasumi asked again as she handed Midori to Nabiki.
"Doesn't matter," Nabiki said, fighting down a blush. "I got this handled." Kasumi nodded and headed out into the night for the requested beverages.
As Kasumi headed into night, Nabiki looked around nervously to see if there was anybody to watch her.

Ranma woke up to the sensation of something slamming down his throat. He sputtered into awareness and blinked around finally catching sight of Nabiki holding a can of soda.
"Okay, Saotome," Nabiki said. "We've got to set some sort of system here."
"Huh, what?" Ranma blinked, he noted Nabiki's arm, especially since she was toying with a coin in that hand. "How long have I been out?"
"About three hours I think," Nabiki said. "I didn't look at the clock when I stopped hearing you down here. Anyway, Ranma, there's a problem about Midori."
"What?" Ranma gasped, standing up. The girl was HIS daughter even if her arrival had been unexpected, and unasked for.
"Nothing to worry about right now," Nabiki said. She handed him another soda, he downed it. "I took care of it, and she's fast asleep, okay?" Ranma relaxed and nodded.
"So what was the problem," Ranma asked insistantly.
"The problem is, I don't think formula is going to feed your little girl," Nabiki said. "She needs breast milk. And what's more, I think it has to come from one of us." She pointed to the marks on her head.
"Oh just great," Ranma said, he sat down and sighed. "Well, I'd better just get...wait a minute, how did you know that you could..."
"I said I took care of it," Nabiki said, blushing.
"Oh my..."
"Don't even think about telling anybody about that," Nabiki said. "I barely got my shirt back on when Kasumi got back from the store!"
"Right, right," Ranma said. "I won't let that happen again, sorry Nabs."
"Don't make promises you can't keep Ranma," Nabiki said. "You might be unconscious again or gone somewhere it would be a bad place to take a little baby, and I'd have to fill again. What's more, she might get hungry when we're BOTH out of action and then what?"
Ranma looked frightened at that thought. Nabiki hadn't bothered to mention that biologically she shouldn't have been able to produce milk so easily, having not had the baby herself. It SHOULD have taken a lot to get her body to react that way. However, she found herself quite easily providing what was needed.
"So, when we go shopping today," Nabiki said. "You and I have to make sure to get a breast pump, okay?"
"A what?" Ranma asked. Nabiki frowned.
"It's a little machine that you put here," she cupped her breast. "And pumps out milk for use later. And what we do with that is save it for those aforementioned emergencies when neither of us is capable."
"Oh," Ranma said, looking a little queasy. "I see."
"By the way," Nabiki said. "I'm not sure why, but I think you should keep some of these around, too." She held up a can of soda, Ranma took it and drank it, almost reflexively. She continued dryly. "Or anything else with caffeine."
"Oh, sorry," Ranma said, embarrassed.
"No problem," Nabiki said smirking. "They seem to do a better job of waking you up than they do me."
On the other hand, she had been up non-stop this entire time without really feeling tired, it was beginning to make her curious.
"I don't really wanna get dependent on caffeine," Ranma said. Nabiki shrugged.
"And Ranma," Nabiki said, glancing over her shoulder. "I have no problem with feeding your daughter again."
"You sure?" Ranma asked, hesitantly.
"It just felt...right," Nabiki said softly, shrugging. Her hard face came back. "Don't ever tell anybody what I'm doing though, got it?"
"Got it, got it!" Ranma said.
Ranma, still somewhat tired, failed to notice the sound of somebody slipping away from the dojo in the night.

A picture of Nabiki Tendo appeared in mid air, a slim holograph by all appearances. Next to it was a picture of Ranma Saotome, in both forms, and beside that was a violet haired teen that appeared to be half-chinese and half-japanese.

A readout sat next to each picture.

Name: Nabiki
Class: Class 3, Category 1, probationary license
Domain: Provision/Providing
Secondary Domain: Mischief
Energy Source: Handling Money
Transportation: Telephones

Name: Ranma
Class: Class 3, Category 1, probationary license
Domain: Change
Secondary Domain: Motion and Energy
Energy Source: Caffeine
Transportation: Water

Name: Midori
Class: Class 3, Category 1, probationary license
Domain: Rebirth
Secondary Domain: Health
Energy Source: Singing
Transportation: Music

"Shouldn't we tell tell them, milord?" a tall man asked. "They'll be going through some hard times on their own."
"If there are any major problems then we can inform the Norns," a voice said.
It wasn't particularly certain what the nature of the voice was, male or female, human or otherwise, though mostly it seemed to share the traits of the man's voice to whom it was speaking at the moment.
"They will need time to get accustomed to this," the voice said. "And I will give them that time."
"The young god's mortal rivals are already learning of the new situation," the tall man said. "By tomorrow it the situation may be too heated for the safety of the child. New blood will not revitalize heaven if it is spilled across midgard."
"And they will handle it," the voice said. "Really, Lycanus, you'd think you'd be more proud that this little gambit of yours has born fruit."
"To tell the truth," he said, not even surprised to know that his part in these events was known. "I was thinking that the people who eventually discovered and used that elixir would know more or less what was happening."
The Gabriel, the archangel of death, frowned and considered his behavior. He was acting like most people did when he showed up, impatient, unreasonable. He supposed that was just the way one acted when faced with something that knew so much more than oneself.
"All will be well," the voice said. It seemed to be smiling fondly, if a voice could smile, as a parent to a child.