“Akane, you’re scaring me.”

The elder girl of the couple nodded quietly. “I know, Ranko. Just sit.” Akane took the far corner of the living room couch, letting Ranko slide onto it to her left, still in her school uniform. If Ranko was afraid before, the fact that Akane did not reassure her that nothing was wrong certainly did not help.

“I, um… I don’t know how to start with this.” Akane swallowed hard, fidgeting with her promise ring.

Ranko offered her hand across the couch to her lover. “Did I do something wrong? If I did, I’m sorry. Just please tell me what it is, so I can fix it? I promise I won’t be mad.”

Akane bit her lip, but took Ranko’s hand with a gentle squeeze. “No, princess, you didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing at all.” But I have to break your heart anyway. “I, um… I got a call from my dad.”

Ranko smiled a bit, trying to remain hopeful. “Yeah? What’s he up to? We could have him and your sisters over for dinner this weekend if you want. I’ll make whatever you ask for.”

“Ranko…” Akane swallowed hard. She knew what the next words to come out of her mouth would do to the woman she loved, and it broke her heart to have to be the one to do it. “Your mother is in town.”

The redhead scoffed. “Of course she is! She’s at the bar six days a week, silly girl. I don’t think she’s had a vacation since the sixties! Is that really what you’re freaking me out about right now?” She started to shake her head in exasperation.

“No, Ranko. Your other mother.”

Ranko froze immediately, turning her eyes upward at her fiancee. Akane watched in helpless horror as every scintilla of life and spirit drained out of them, replaced with an unending ocean of despair. She said nothing, but the redhead’s face read as if she’d just been hit with a board. And the board had been haunted.

Akane squeezed Ranko’s hand, trying to fill the silence with reassurance as best she could. She’d only heard Ranko tell stories about why her biological mother scared her so much, but she understood how badly it did. “Tell me what I can do to help. What are you thinking right now, sweetheart?”

If she’s coming, he’ll come. And if he comes, forget whatever she does. It won’t matter if she kills me, because my life will already be over. Ranko looked down at her engagement ring, which minutes before had been a source of light and joy in an otherwise dark day. Now, it symbolized everything she had to lose. All she’d have to somehow find a way to protect.

“They’re going to…” Ranko’s eyes darted around the room, as if she expected every poster on the wall, every piece of furniture, every item on the coffee table and every cooking implement in the kitchen to either start blinking out of existence or attacking her.

Please, gods. I’m begging you. I’m finally happy. I don’t want to run again. I can’t. I’ve worked too hard. Why won’t you leave me alone?

Ranko was snapped back into the present by Akane rubbing the back of her hand. “Talk to me, baby. We’re gonna get through this together.”

“I… I mean,” Ranko said, licking her suddenly dry lips, “there’s only one reason I can think of why she would be showing up now. I’m almost twenty. About to officially come of age, and all that. And I’m sure she wants to inspect her man among men. And when she doesn’t find one…”

Ranko sighed quietly, thinking back to when the Phoenix Pill was first destroyed. How she begged Genma to take her home and introduce her to her mother. She couldn’t explain her need at the time, but now, after so long in Hana’s care, she understood what it meant to have a woman put her arms around her and see and support her as a daughter. Of course, that had been when her father told her the truth about the real reason they’d hidden from her for so long: a crazy oath he’d made Nodoka to turn her into some paragon of masculine prowess on pain of both of their lives for failure. At least back then, she could have made the case that she was a girl against her will. But now, as she was making preparations to be a bride?

Akane suspired sadly with a quiet nod. “Maybe it’s not that. Maybe she’s heard your music and just wants to meet her celebrity daughter.”

Rolling her eyes with a shake of her head, Ranko looked down at her hands. “How would she even know it was me? No, this has got to be it.”

“Why not just go back for a day, change back for a day, meet her and get it over with,” Akane puzzled. “I mean, it would suck, with the Cat’s Tongue and all, but wouldn’t that solve your problem?”

Ranko bit her bottom lip, her pigtails almost dangling into Akane’s hand with how low she hung her head. Her voice was empty and distant. “You don’t understand, Akane.”

“Uh-huh. We’ve talked about this, Ranko. This is the part where you make me understand by explaining things. Come on. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in.”

“It’s not that it hurts, Akane,” Ranko said in barely a whisper. “It’s that I’m scared.”

Still holding Ranko’s hand with her right hand, Akane gently stroked her partner’s cheek with the back of her left. “Scared of what, princess?”

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“That. That right there.” Ranko sighed. “Akane, I don’t know if you know this, but I haven’t changed back even one time since I left your dad’s. Not even for a second. I’ve been so careful. And even then, it took months before I stopped seeing… that other face… every night in my dreams. Over time, I accepted that the boy part of my life is over, and once I did, it made it easier to find happiness like this. But fuck, it’s been hard. After a year and a half of not seeing his face in the mirror, I can walk out of the house in a girls’ school uniform and matching pigtails and come home to do the laundry and smile and blush while you call me princess, and not feel like a total pervert and fraud who’s embarrassed with myself every minute of the day. And I’m afraid that if I ever let it happen again, even for a second, I’m gonna see his eyes in the mirror again and they’re gonna judge the hell out of me for what I’ve become. I don’t know if it’d be because of emotions or hormones or whatever, but I’m worried it’ll make me hate everything about myself I’ve worked so hard to change. Like resetting everything, starting over, only worse. I don’t even want to imagine the possibility. I don’t want to think about any other life than the one where I cook you a nice dinner before I go sing in that bar with my friends and laugh with my sisters, and you buy me flowers and carry me into the bedroom and tell me how pretty I am as you make love to me. That’s the only version of me I am willing to allow to exist.”

Akane nodded slowly. “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from there, but I’d be here to remind you how amazing my wife-to-be is. And I mean, it’s only for a day, right? It couldn’t be that bad, could it?”

The songstress groaned. “Only for a day. Sure. And what happens if it goes well? What happens if she wants to come over for dinner every Thursday? What happens if she wants to come to a show? What happens if she wants to come to the wedding?! And every time she decides to drop in, I’ve gotta shove my career, my marriage, my family, my whole life in a box and hide it under the bed like it’s a dirty magazine I have to be ashamed of. I don’t want it, Akane! I’m…” She looked back down at her hands. “I’m so fucking tired of living ashamed. I’m a singer, I’m a cheerleader, I’m a sister, I’m a daughter, and I’m gonna be your wife, and damn it, I’m proud of all of it and I don’t want to waste a minute pretending I’m not.”

The redhead looked up, a new worry in her eyes. “And that’s just if it goes perfectly, because the first time I screw it up, the first time I answer the door in a dress, that’s it. Out comes the katana and it’s curtains.”

“Do you really believe all that crap your dad fed you, Ranko? Do you really think she’d hurt you like that, just because you’re a girl now? I find it hard to believe any mother would.” Akane cringed to herself as she felt how much Ranko’s hand was beginning to quake in hers.

“You’d be surprised, Akane. For some of these people, honor and tradition and all that stuff runs deep. We’re talking, bring-a-sword-to-the-grocery-store stuff here. She ain’t right in the head. She couldn’t have been, considering she married Pop.”

The black-haired girl nodded. “Well, you didn’t agree to that stupid deal, your father did. It’s not like she’s just gonna fight you. She wouldn’t stand a chance if she did, especially against both of us. So, what are we afraid of?” Akane squeezed her beloved’s hand hopefully.

“It’s not her I’m afraid of. It’s him.” The last word could not have come out of the songstress’ mouth with more bile if she had vomited while she said it. “She knows where he is now. She’ll never stop coming until she sees me. The old me.” She couldn’t bear to call herself a boy. “He’ll have no choice but to chase me until I give him what he wants, and he’ll destroy everything he touches.” The younger girl’s voice was hollow, devoid of all emotion, as if her heart had been torn out and her body had yet to realize it.

Akane shook her head. “We’ve been prepared for the possibility he would show up ever since we told my family. We’re ready for it. We’ve got this, babe.”

Ranko stomped to her feet in her ire. “You don’t get it, Akane! This is different! Before, he had no reason to really mess with me. Sure, he could have showed up, made things awkward, but he had nothing to gain from it. As long as your dad let him stay at the house, as long as I’m not in anybody’s way, ignoring me was the smart move for him. But now? Now he has to act.” She walked to the kitchen counter, leaning on it from the living room side with her back to Akane. “The only way he can save his life is to destroy mine.”

Akane stood, walking behind her partner and hugging her gently from behind. “Hey. Come on. What’s the worst he could do? Come at you with a kettle? Yeah, it’d suck, and I mean, I hear you about worrying how it would feel to change back, but we can fix it just as fast as he does it. That’s hardly your life being ruined.” While it broke her heart to see Ranko so dejected, at least she had returned to showing any feeling at all.

“Yeah?!” Ranko turned, frustration building to near-aggression even as she remained in Akane’s arms. “And what happens if he does that in front of my family? While I’m on stage? If he tells them what I used to be? If he tells the label? Hell, if he tells a reporter?! I’ve worked my ass off for almost two years to put the past behind me, and he can ruin it all before I can blink!”

Akane squeezed her tight, rubbing her back vigorously in encouragement. “No, he can’t. We’re not going to let him. You’re not fighting this alone anymore, baby. You’ve got me, and your family, and my family, too. We’ll tell the girls what to look for to make sure he doesn’t get into the Phoenix, for starters.”

Ranko swallowed hard, burying her face in Akane’s shoulder. “I’m gonna be the freak again.”

She bit her lip hard, trying not to let herself start a flow of tears she knew she’d be unable to stop. She knew nearly immediately that it would be a losing battle. “He’s going to tear it all down, Akane. Everything I made. Everything we made.”

Moving her arms up to brace the back of Ranko’s head against her shoulder, Akane rocked her fiancee gently in her arms. ”No, he won’t. I won’t allow it.” She placed a soft kiss on Ranko’s temple, still enveloping the smaller girl in her embrace. “Just let him try to fuck with my wife.”