Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This story based on the anime, not the manga.

Chapter 5: After the Rain Has Fallen, Part 2

It had taken him nearly three hours to find the thunderstorm. Beneath him the clouds boiled and raged, lashing the sea with wind and rain. Lightning whistled from cloud to cloud, powerfully enough that at times he not only heard the crash of thunder, he felt the barest hint of a discharge, the slightest static echo across his feathers. It wouldn't have been perceptible if he was in human form (of course, if he had been in human form in his current position he'd have had much bigger things to worry about), but from the very beginning Ranma had known how much more sensitive to weather and the sky in general his new body was.

He flew now at what that form's instincts told him was nearly the lowest possible safe height above the storm. High enough to escape any dangerous winds, and certainly out of reach of the rain, hail, and lightning, but low enough, close enough, that the furor seemed close at hand. The violence of the storm was comforting at this distance, so near, and yet too far away to reach out and break over him.

It made a welcome contrast to the events of the morning. Most of Ranma's first blistering anger was gone by now, leeched away by the impersonal fury of the elements below him, but some still remained. He didn't think that was likely to change anytime soon either, no matter how exhilarating and enjoyable it was to roam the skies. "~Kuno, you idiot. Why the heck did you have to get this stupid idea anyway?~" he demanded of the air. "~And couldn't you have once, just once, listened when somebody showed you you weren't on the right track?!~"

Even as he asked these questions, though, another part of his mind was calling himself seventeen different kinds of an idiot. To think that he'd expected Tatewaki Kuno to give up an idea he'd gotten firmly in his head, no matter how logical or reasonable a counterargument was supplied… especially an idea that would result in Ranma Saotome getting doused with cold water? He sighed as best he could in his current body. "~Talk about ignoring the lessons I should've already learned, from how things have happened before now.~"

He brooded on that for awhile, in the meantime deciding that he'd followed the storm for long enough. Bending one wing and tilting the arc of his body, Ranma swung in a long lazy curve that set him flying back toward the Japanese mainland. The irony did not escape him that he was leaving behind a storm that couldn't touch him, in order to sail back toward troubles that could. Furinkan in general and Tatewaki in particular were certain to become a bigger nuisance after this. Akane would undoubtedly become even more worried and overprotective — not that that one was wholly unpleasant, but still… and Ranma didn't even want to think about how his father might react. Outsmarted by a Kuno… he could almost hear the lamentations now.

"~Maybe I can keep him from finding out…~" Ranma mused dubiously. "~Akane might worry for me, but that don't mean she'd feel like she has to tell my old man about this. And with Pop and Mr. Tendo back in town I'm getting an allowance again, so that oughta help out with Nabiki. Let's just hope nobody says anything before I make it back home…~" With that in mind, he poured on the speed, going from letting the wind do the work to actively exerting himself.

He'd covered roughly a quarter mile of sky before his pace slowed again, slowed even further than it had been before. His thoughts weren't exactly racing either, but they were progressing at a steady, unhindered pace. Ranma thought back over many of the things that had happened in his life, continuing a line of thought that he'd followed for quite a long way six days ago. Back then he'd been thinking about his mother, and how much it sucked that she wasn't yet going to be able to see the family she'd been awaiting for so long. She would have to go on worrying and hoping and praying that her son would be someone she could be proud of, and he had cursed the fact. It had taken several dozen miles of sky, but he had eventually begun thinking about his past and some of the mistakes he'd made, and realized that maybe there were a few more things that he ought to work through before reuniting with Nodoka. After all, it wouldn't do much good to hurry back to her if it was only going to end up causing her more pain.

As he'd told Shampoo, that was something he'd come to terms with. He had made mistakes in the past, he knew he hadn't handled many of the crazy situations as well as he should have. He'd ignored some problems, misunderstood others, and tried to wing his way through yet more of them without anything more than optimism and a shortsighted desire to fight or squirm his way past whatever the latest irritation was. And so many things had gone unresolved because of it!

Ranma couldn't really form a frown of stony determination in his current form, but he tried anyway. Forget begging Akane and bribing Nabiki into silence! Let his father find out what had happened at Furinkan today! If the old man got too obnoxious, Ranma would just take it out of his hide in their next ten sparring sessions, reminding Genma as forcefully as he had to that one Jusenkyo-influenced fluke victory by Kuno didn't make Ranma Saotome any less of a man among men!

He gave out a long, fiery screech and deliberately jumped into another air current, abandoning his previous Nerima-bound course. No need or reason to hurry back home. What would happen, would happen. For now, he was going to stay out here awhile longer, and enjoy to the fullest the best gift anybody had ever given him. Stressful meetings could wait.

"~RANMA, PREPARE TO… die…~"

His body was moving in automatic evasion before the fourth pseudo-syllable had succeeded the third. Not until he'd sideslipped across and down seventy feet of sky did the curious nature of the battlecry dawn on him. It had been Ryoga, that had been immediately apparent even though this was the first time he'd heard his rival's new cursed form's voice. But what was equally clear, through the translation effect of Jusenkyo's magic, was that the Lost Bird's threat had gone from furious to halfhearted to forgotten even before it could be completed.

Confused and wary, Ranma nonetheless flapped his way closer to Ryoga's revealed location, stopping just far enough away that he could still pretend it wasn't obvious Ryoga's cursed form was larger than his. "~Hey, Ryoga. What's with letting the death-threat die out like that? You didn't chicken out, did ya?~"

"~HOW DARE YOU — huh?~" Ryoga's renewed fury was sidetracked as he watched his rival make some bizarre motion with his right wing, utterly destroying the balance of his flight and causing him to spill down through several yards of air.

'Will you get a grip, moron?!' Ranma demanded of himself. 'For crying out loud, I was just thinking about how much of a mistake it is to keep on doing the same stuff over and over again without thinking! And as soon as Ryoga shows up I shoot off the old Saotome Get 'Em Good And Riled technique? With what I owe him?! Nuh-uh, no way, not today.' Resolving that once he was back in human form he'd give himself the smack upside the head that he couldn't quite manage just now, Ranma flapped back to his previous position relative to Ryoga.

"~Uh… sorry, man. Force of habit,~" Ranma explained, trying to find the words to express what he really needed to. "~That ain't what I meant to say.~"

"~Go on,~" Ryoga replied, doing his best to hide reluctance with righteous indignation. Inside, though, he was already regretting this meeting. He had every intention of beating his rival to a pulp, but he couldn't do that in the current circumstances. 'It's too bad Jusenkyo makes us understand each other when we're like this,' he grumbled to himself. 'He wasn't even really saying anything, but I still knew that screech was him as clear as day. And I just HAD to go ahead and let him know I was here, when all I can do right now is either listen to more of his insults or run away.' Ryoga was still trying to decide which of those was the lesser of two evils.

Uncertain as to why Ryoga was holding back like this, but unwilling to push his luck, Ranma quickly said, "~About our fight. You know, when I told you that this new curse would wear off after awhile?~"

"~You mean when you lied through your teeth just so you could try to take me down with you?~"

"~For the record, I figured it would be me winning when you took the worst of the attack, not a double KO,~" Ranma snapped. "~But… yeah. Even if it'd worked out like I thought, it was going too far. I'm sorry.~"

It was more of an apology than Ryoga had ever expected to get. That was not to say that it had gone far enough. "~And?~"

"~And what?~"

"~Is that all you've got to say?~" Ryoga demanded. "~All you've got to apologize for? That was a low blow, Ranma, but at least it was just the same kind of thing you've pulled before. Just trying to win a fight. That's nothing compared to the other stuff you dumped on me!~"

Ranma's eyes narrowed. "~You mean, the stuff I pointed out to you about what you were doing and what it really meant? Exactly what kind of apology are you looking for there?~"

"~Damn you, I told you before!~" Ryoga shouted. "~You didn't even bother to say any of that stuff until it was already too late for me to fix it myself! You just waited until after you and Shampoo had already fixed things up nice and neat between you. Would it have been so hard to let me be the one to make the decision?!~"

"~Kinda seems like the answer there is 'Yes'. Or are you forgetting that Shampoo only dumped the water on you after she offered it and you turned her down?~"

"~What kind of difference is that supposed to make?! She didn't say anything about that. All she said was, 'Now you no have to worry about Akane find out you secret, turn you into bad excuse for sweet and sour pork.' That's a pretty far cry from the stuff you could have said to me, Ranma!~"

"~No, I couldn't have,~" Ranma snapped back. "~You know, it's kind of flattering in a way, you thinking that all along I've seen all this stuff crystal clear. It's also insulting as hell in another, and it's just plain stupid to boot. Since it's obvious I cared about what you were doing with, and to, Akane, if I did understand all that stuff since day one why wouldn't I have said it before now?~"

"~I don't know! Why didn't you?~

"~For crying out loud, will you stop yelling and start thinking?~" Ranma shouted. "~I didn't see it any better than you did. Don't try to hand me any bull, Ryoga — you knew all along that what you were doing as P-chan wasn't right. I know there's times you felt guilty about it. But you didn't see how bad it really was, and neither did I. Not until Shampoo finally put a stop to it. Yeah, I had asked her to offer you the rest of the water, cause I could see at least clearly enough to know the P-chan stuff needed to stop. But that was really as far as I thought about it until afterward. She busted up the old pattern, went farther than I thought I'd meant for her to go, and that was what got me thinking about it. That was when I figured out all the stuff I said to you. I guess it was easier to see once I was looking back on it afterward, rather than having it right up in my face.~"

After finishing the last sentence, Ranma paused for a few seconds, partly to recover his breath, partly to judge his rival's reaction. "~You know, I am both surprised and impressed that you let me finish all that without butting in, Ryoga.~"

Ryoga snorted, although the sound didn't carry across the yards of sky separating him from Ranma. "~Far be it from me to interrupt when Ranma Saotome is admitting he made a mistake.~"

"~You want to return the favor now, P-chan?~" Ranma retorted. "~In case you didn't realize, it wasn't a lot of fun to have you throw all that in my face back then. Like I knew all that stuff from the beginning and just sat on it, not caring about anything except hitting you with it at the worst possible moment. It wasn't like that and you should've known it all along.~"

"~You're right, Ranma. Sorry for overestimating you.~"

"~Oh, hardy har har. Laugh it up, Chuckles, but don't forget I owe you a rematch. You wouldn't want me to ask for it right here and now, would you? It's pretty obvious which one of us has got more flying experience.~" Ryoga's passage through the air wasn't exactly ungainly, but it was clear to Ranma that he had attained much more familiarity with his cursed form than had his rival.

"~Shut up! This is just my second long flight, and I wouldn't even be doing it if my pack hadn't disappeared between the sprinkler hitting me and when I finally got out of my shirt!~"

Ranma stared at the other transformed teen for several moments, then swept his gaze to the ocean below, to the clouds beyond, and to the landmass of Japan still a half hour's flight away. "~You're up here because you're trying to find your way back to your backpack?~"

"~Laugh and die,~" Ryoga grated. Then, qualifying the statement, he said, "~Once we're back to our normal selves, at least.~"

Forcefully swallowing a remark about Ryoga, 'normal', and paradox, Ranma said, "~Okay. So… this is your second real flight. Are you starting to see how much better this is than your old curse, even aside from the whole Akane issue?~"

"~Better?~" Ryoga echoed incredulously. "~How's it supposed to be better?! Okay, maybe nobody's going to put me on their lunch menu anymore, but it's not like this curse didn't come with its own huge problem!~"

"~Huge problem?~" It was Ranma's turn to repeat something in clear disbelief. "~What're you talking about?~"

"~Are you out of your tiny little mind?! You know how hard it is for me to find my way anywhere, Ranma. Do you have any idea how much worse it is when you've got the whole sky to get lost in?!~"

"~You mean…~" Ranma almost couldn't believe he was saying this, "~you don't like to fly?~"

This time, Ryoga's snort was loud enough that both transformed teens heard it. "~What's there to like?! Do you have any idea how much of my life I've spent on the road, wandering around with no idea where I am? Do you know what it feels like not to have any idea where I can find anybody I know? Let me tell you, Ranma, it's a lot worse than any of the wimpy little problems you complain about!~"

With serious effort, the Saotome heir kept his response to that within the silence of his own thoughts. Ryoga blowing off Ranma's problems was irritating and unjustified, but it didn't diminish the other's own complaint.

Meanwhile, the Lost Boy was still speaking. "~This is like somebody took a good long look at my life, figured out what the worst parts of it were… at least, the parts that weren't my own fault…~" he mumbled the amendment, then his voice returned to normal volume, "and deliberately extended them and made them worse!~" Ryoga still remembered the incredible naiveté with which he had thought of flying quickly to Jusenkyo in order to keep his old curse from ever returning. At the time of that half-formed, half-baked plan, he had not yet experienced just what flight was like for a Hibiki. "~The last time this happened, it took me three days to find my way back to my campsite. And there's no reason to think it won't be that bad or worse each time. Days spent all alone, not even human, trying to find my way back to somewhere I can recognize. Without even being able to stop and get bad directions from somebody! Damn it all, Ranma, I'm tired of being so alone!~"

"~I… Ryoga, I'm sorry… I, I never thought this new curse could be as bad as your old one. Not in a different way anyway,~" Ranma amended.

"~It… it's not. Not quite as bad,~" Ryoga said, the words sounding as if he'd had to extract them with heavy machinery. "~This way hurts me. The other way, I was hurting someone else.~" As if to hurry past that thought, he quickly said, "~And of course I always had to worry about that nutcase klepto skater stumbling across 'Charlotte' again, or getting cooked for somebody's dinner…~"

"~You know, Shampoo actually did that once, and you lived through it just fine,~" Ranma pointed out.

"~Do you think I want to be reminded of that?!~" Ryoga raged, completely trampling his rival's follow-up sentence. "~If you're trying to make me feel better about having this curse instead of the pig, that's not the way to do it!~"

Although within the privacy of his own mind Ranma wondered why the heck not, what he said was, "~Actually, I was trying to lead up to something better.~"

"~Better, huh? This isn't another stupid joke, is it?~" Ryoga asked dubiously.

"~No. What I meant was, you could probably say Shampoo owes you for that time, and I guess she and I together owe you something too now. Even if it was because of something that was mostly your fault.~" Ranma quickly continued speaking, before Ryoga's growl could transform into outright abuse. Based on what Shampoo had told him, about how the Jusenkyo laws used to be and how they had changed, his idea shouldn't be a problem now. "~I'll get with her and ask her to have someone at home mail some Nannichuan out here for you.~"

Ryoga's entire body shuddered to frozen immobility, which of course sent him dropping like a stone. Ranma zipped down after him, glad to see that the shock of the fall quickly restored his rival to motion. In fact, once he recovered Ryoga was flying noticeably more smoothly than before, and Ranma deduced that the other was now operating on pure instinct. 'Lord knows it's not that hard to overload his mind,' the Saotome heir thought cynically.

"~A-are you serious?!~" Ryoga eventually gasped.

"~Yep.~" In fact, he could have her order enough water to also remove his father's Panda curse, and even have some left over if Ranma himself ever had drastic need to get rid of his own. The water's magic wouldn't last forever, of course, but for Genma and Ryoga it wouldn't have to.

"~You'd do that? She'd do that?!~"

"~For you, no, probably she wouldn't. I'm sure I can get her to agree, though,~" Ranma assured, trying not to picture the number of dates he was surely going to have to agree on. For a request of this magnitude, it wouldn't just be Shampoo he was asking, he'd have to go through Cologne as well. For that matter, since this would be eliminating Shampoo's potential winter break trip to China with him, the lavender-haired girl herself would certainly take more convincing than normal.

But it was the right thing to do. And although she could never hear about it, Ranma believed it was something that his mother would be proud of — at least, as long as one didn't factor in the earlier, less-than-optimal actions that had led to this moment of decision.

"~I… I don't know what to say…~"

"~That's easy enough,~" Ranma retorted. "~Say that after this we're both free and clear of anything and everything related to you going to Jusenkyo. No more 'Ranma, because of you I've seen hell!', no more blamin' me for that stuff or dragging it back out as a reason to attack me. You and I both got better reasons to challenge each other than that, and I want it to finally lie down in the past and die.~"

Ryoga paused for a moment, thinking of all the other ways his rival had managed to irritate the crap out of him in times past. Even without this one, there would definitely be no shortage of reasons to give Ranma a good thrashing. "~Yeah, okay. When and if you get Shampoo to do that for me, I accept.~"

"~Sounds good to me.~" They flew in silence for awhile, before Ranma oh-so-innocently asked, "~You sure you don't want to have just one challenge match like this? I bet I can kick your tail feathers all the way to the Arctic Circle.~"

"~No way.~"

"~Come on, you big chicken. Don't be such a scaredy-bat. Are you a man or a grouse?~"

"~Forget it, Ranma! Akane asked me to promise that I wouldn't do anything that could get either of us hurt in our cursed forms, and I'm going to keep my word no matter how many stupid insults you try! And those were pretty darn stupid, let me tell you.~"

Ranma blinked, not really even hearing the slur against his combat incitement technique. "~Because Akane asked you to be careful, you're not going to attack me?~"

"~That's right.~"

"Is that why you pulled back from the whole 'Ranma, prepare to die' thing earlier? That's why you've listened to everything I've said?~"

"~You got it.~"

"~Hot damn, the tomboy finally got overprotective at exactly the right time,~" Ranma marveled.

"~Ranma, you jerk! I might not be able to fight you, and I might be willing to swallow insults against me, but I won't listen to you talk bad about Akane!~" And with that, Ryoga made a sharp right turn into a dive, quickly picking up airspeed and disappearing inside a cloud.

"~Wait, you moron!~" Ranma squawked, following quickly in Ryoga's wake. "~Don't ya want me to lead you back to the dojo? You didn't even let me tell you about the soap I've got for you! Ryoga!! Where are you?!~"

He spent the next hour searching the skies for the other boy, achieving exactly nothing.

Kasumi paused on the threshold of the dojo, her hand outstretched to the frame but not yet sliding the door open. She listened, hearing the sound of her sister's kiais and the crunch of shattered brick. Akane's mood was plain to tell even from this distance.

The eldest Tendo daughter waited, listening as her little sister worked her way through more stacks of bricks. Each new batch of materials destroyed took just a little more of the edge off Akane's anger. By the time she'd heard ten more stacks bite the dust, Kasumi judged that she ought not to wait any longer. By no means had Akane recovered her good spirits, but at least she ought to be calm enough to listen to what Kasumi had to say.

Taking a deep breath to fortify herself, and pushing away thoughts of the last time she'd confronted Akane about something that happened in the dojo, Kasumi slid the door open and entered. "Akane, are you in here?" she called, not as a serious question but rather to announce her presence.

"What is it, Kasumi? HIII-YA!" Another stack of bricks went to that great construction site in the sky.

"I need to talk with you about what happened today," Kasumi answered.

Akane heaved a bitter, disgusted sigh. She would rather not have had to remember those events just now. However, though she would have thrown Ranma out in a heartbeat if he were the one asking, she wouldn't blow off either of her sisters — and besides, as sweet and gentle as Kasumi was, maybe talking about this with her would help Akane feel a little better. Surely she could at least count on sympathy. "Okay," she said, heading over to the wall and sitting down with her back against it.

Kasumi joined her there, kneeling down and looking her sister in the eye. "What happened after you left the house?" She didn't think it would make any difference in what she'd come here to say, but it would be better to hear Akane out first.

"I went to make sure Shampoo wasn't chasing after Ranma," Akane said with a scowl. "He's already had a bad enough time today, he didn't need that to make it worse."

"She wasn't, was she?" It was a guess on Kasumi's part. Certainly Akane had met up with someone and the encounter had progressed poorly, but Kasumi didn't know just who. She could picture Akane's actions and attitude resulting from a confrontation with either Shampoo or Cologne, albeit for different reasons. Shampoo seemed more likely, though; Cologne might have had a few things to say that little sister wouldn't want to hear, but the old woman didn't usually push anyone as far as this.

"No, she was just getting back from a delivery. Too late to bug Ranma, but she was just in time to dump on me and treat me like I'm nothing next to her," Akane seethed. "Maybe I can't beat her now, but that's not how it's going to be forever!"

So her suspicions were correct — it had been Shampoo. "Are you sure you're all right, little sister?" She well remembered the mood Akane had been in when she left for the Cat Café. Kasumi wasn't optimistic enough to think that it hadn't come down to a fight with Ranma's Amazon friend. Akane didn't seem physically hurt, but… "She didn't use any other trick like that special shampoo, did she?"

"No, she didn't. I'm fine, Kasumi. Please just leave it," Akane said tightly, attempting through sheer force of will to block the recent memories. She'd given it her all, striking at Shampoo with all the speed and skill and strength she could muster, and the Amazon just danced around her like a ghost, blocking and dodging with no apparent effort, Shampoo's own blows striking her at will. That the Amazon had just brushed the heel of her hand against Akane had only made it worse, the feather-light mocking touch stinging worse than an actual punch would have. "It wasn't even a real fight anyway." That last sentence cost her quite a bit to utter, and only in the hope of relieving the concern on Kasumi's face did Akane make the sacrifice.

"Is fighting her for real so important to you?" Kasumi asked sadly.

"Of course it is!" Akane yelled. "There's no way I'm going to take this anymore!"

"And so you came back home and waited for Father and Mr. Saotome to return. And once they did you went straight to Mr. Saotome and asked him to train you." Kasumi gave her sister the most sorrowful gaze she could muster. "Akane, do you realize what you've done?"

Akane gave her sister the most confused gaze she muster. "Um, yes. Ranma is good enough to beat Shampoo easily, and I'm asking the sensei who trained him to do the same thing for me."

"And what about your own father?" Kasumi hinted.

For one moment longer the confusion remained on Akane's face, and then it began to drain away. Kasumi watched, suppressing a sigh as the previous emotion transformed into a look of stubbornness mixed with the barest tinge of worry. She continued, speaking gently but firmly, "I know it's been a while since he trained you—"

"A while?! Try over a year!"

"But that doesn't change what's important here. You are Akane Tendo, the heir to the Tendo School of Anything Goes, and Father is still the school's head. How can you just turn away to study under someone else? Don't you think that's why Mr. Saotome didn't want to agree to this?"

"He didn't say he wouldn't train me, Kasumi, and he didn't say he didn't want to. He just said he needed some time to think about it. Considering that he and Dad had just gotten back from the bar and you had to put Dad to bed to sleep it off, I don't think that's any big deal." Although in all honesty, part of Akane's anger did stem from the fact that Genma hadn't given immediate assent and started working right away on teaching her a technique powerful enough to take down Shampoo. Still, she could give him the rest of the day to recover from his carousing. "He just needs some time to think about what he's going to teach me."

"Or perhaps he's giving you time to think this over, to see for yourself that it isn't as simple as you first thought. Little sister, think about what you're doing. You haven't even talked to Father about this, haven't spoken with him at all about learning from someone else. What would it say about the school, your family, and your place in both of them?"

"What does it say that Dad quit training me right after the Saotomes got here?" Akane countered. "You're looking at things that aren't really in the picture, Kasumi. I need to get better. That's all there is to say."

"No, it isn't! Akane, this is wrong. Are you even stopping to think about how this might hurt Father?"

"How about how Shampoo could hurt me any time she wants?!" Akane said, biting the words off. "What about what Dad did?! Does he think I'm good enough already? Because I'm not! Does it mean there's nothing left for him to teach me? Then I need to go to someone who can! You know how the Saotomes did it, big sister. Mr. Saotome took Ranma on the road, hitting a lot of different places. That wasn't just training grounds, Ranma studied under different sensei, a bunch of them. It didn't make him any less of a student of Saotome Anything Goes, it just meant he was pulling in new bits and pieces to work into the style! That's what Anything Goes is supposed to be about. Adaptability and growth and learning new things." Although she couldn't remember her father ever saying it outright like that, both Genma and Happosai had in the past. Always to Ranma, though, never directly to her… Akane paused, taking several deep breaths, then continued, "Maybe I haven't done so good at that, maybe…" her fists clenched tightly in her lap, "maybe you could even say I stank at it before now. I've tried to learn new stuff when I practice on my own, but that's obviously not good enough. I'm not good enough. And I'm not putting up with it any longer!"

"Akane, you keep talking about yourself, and only focusing on the martial arts side of this. I'm talking about honor and respect, not just for a sensei, but for your father!"

"If this isn't about martial arts, why are we even talking right now?!" Akane retorted. "Kasumi, not only are you not a martial artist, you're too nice to think about fighting someone. You even treat Shampoo like she's a perfectly nice, reasonable person who there's no reason for anyone not to want around! This really isn't something you can understand, big sister." Akane's expression softened, and she quickly dipped her head in a bow. "Please don't take offense."

"I'm certainly not going to get offended by any of that," Kasumi said quietly. "And you're right, I don't see this the same way you do. But since we see different things here, don't you think maybe you should consider what I've said? Are you so sure you aren't missing or misunderstanding anything here?"

"I'm sure I have to do this." Akane's tone informed her older sister in no uncertain terms that, though the conversation might continue, the debate was over. "If Dad has a problem with it, then let him come to me and tell me why I shouldn't do it. But I'm not backing down anymore. Not for him, not for Ranma, not for anyone."

"A warrior's path:
To rise to all challenges.
Furinkan awaits."

Soun Tendo stood in the light of morning, staring off into the distance. There were far too many buildings in the way for him to actually see the high school from here, but he pictured it in his mind's eye. Pictured too the challenges that might be there, the battles and the trials that would likely be the result of what had happened yesterday. He had heard the news late last evening, how the end of the school day had shown Ranma's new curse to all of Furinkan. "Hardly surprising the boy was none too enthusiastic about returning there today," Soun muttered sagely. He wondered whether Ranma would have left in a better mood if Soun had been able to finish the haiku and share it before his daughter and son-in-law-to-be had left. "But this too is a martial artist's duty."

"Indeed it is, Tendo," Genma said solemnly, appearing unannounced behind him.

"It stirs the soul, doesn't it? Brings the mind back to our own younger days, and the challenges we faced. It does the heart good in a way," Soun mused. "To know that the new generation has picked up where the old left off, fighting their own battles and walking the path of martial righteousness with their own feet."

"Mm-hm. I'm sure Ranma won't much like some of what will happen at Furinkan, now that everybody knows about his new curse. But it should lead to many new chances for the boy to learn new skills and grow as a fighter." Genma paused, searching for just the right words to lead the conversation away from Ranma to another member of the new generation of Anything Goes martial artists.

"After all, what does not kill us makes us stronger. Right, Saotome?"

"Yes, that's true. If we let it, anyway."

"Well, I think we both know there's no need to worry about that!" Soun let out a long, hearty laugh. "That's one lesson you taught Ranma very well indeed."

Sighing and bracing himself, Genma replied, "True. But I wasn't talking about my boy there, Tendo. I was more concerned about Akane."

"Akane? What do you mean?"

"Did you know she had a fight with Shampoo yesterday?" Before Soun could do more than blanch at this news, Genma's hand shot out and clenched reassuringly on the Tendo patriarch's shoulder. "Remember, you saw her for yourself this morning, and she's fine. Shampoo didn't even hit her once, from the little bit of description I was able to get out of her." He had received the strong impression he'd be better off pulling teeth from a crocodile than trying to pry more details of the fight out of Akane.

Soun heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. Did she win then? Perhaps by triggering Shampoo's curse?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Not considering the mood she was in when we got back yesterday," Genma said. "She was as angry as I've ever seen her, Tendo. And she was hating the fact that she couldn't fight Shampoo on her own level and win."

"On her own level?!" the Tendo patriarch repeated indignantly. "That Amazon comes from a culture where getting in a fight could mean your life whether you win or lose! If you're an outsider, anyway. I'll have to talk to Akane and remind her about that. My precious little girl needs to know she's already better than Shampoo where it really counts."

"Tell her that if you want, but I don't think it's going to make any difference this time. There's only one thing she wants to hear from us, and it isn't 'Give Shampoo one look of disgust and then just walk away.' She made that very clear in the dojo yesterday."

"In the dojo?" Soun echoed. A fuzzy memory swam up from the depths of his mind. "You mean, that was where she dragged you off to when we got home yesterday?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And that's when you heard about this fight and Akane being in a bad mood? She was quiet at breakfast this morning, but she didn't seem particularly unhappy." It should be stated here that Soun's eyes had been on his newspaper at the moment when Akane had sent a fierce, don't-think-I'm-going-to-wait-much-longer look Genma's way. "Come now, Saotome, you're being too much of a worrywart over this. It's not like you to take such a dark outlook, especially over something you can't really remember anyway. You were just as pickled as I was yesterday afternoon."

"No, I wasn't." Genma had hoped not to have to reveal this. He didn't want to spoil this wonderful new stratagem before it could win him at least one afternoon's worth of shogi. Thinking frantically for a few seconds, he was rewarded with an inspiration. "I only pretended to be as far gone as you. That way, Ranma would have underestimated me when I asked him for a sparring match."

Soun blinked. "Then why didn't you let me in on the scheme?"

"Um… um… in order to fool your enemies, er, your opponents, you must first fool your friends. Or something like that."

"Well, all right then."

"In any case, that's not important. What is important is that my judgment was perfectly unimpaired when Akane stood there and asked me to train her to defeat Shampoo."

"She… you… what… that's…" Soun gaped for a few moments, then recovered. "And since your judgment was, as you say, unimpaired, you told her that you couldn't do such a thing. Correct, Saotome?"

Noting the flickering hints of chi in the angles and lines of Soun's face, and recognizing all too easily the traces of a Demon Head ready to form at a moment's notice, Genma chose his words with care. "Considering how peeved she was, I didn't think it was a good idea to tell her anything outright. I told her I'd need some time to think about it."

"Even better," Soun conceded. The chi faded back to invisibility. "Give her some time to cool down and realize that competing with Shampoo like that is a terrible idea."

"Mmmm." Genma packed as much skepticism into the monosyllable as he could. Soun didn't seem to notice. Deciding that subtlety just wasn't going to cut it here, he continued, "You do know how Shampoo and Akane got into the fight yesterday, don't you? Akane went to Shampoo. Not the other way around."

"And once we make it clear how bad an idea that is, she'll—"

"Tendo, will you please listen to me?!" Silently Genma cursed Akane for forcing him into a position like this, Shampoo for the recent changes that had his son's real fiancée in such turmoil, and Ranma for not giving the Amazons the heave-ho long ago. For that matter, the Jusenkyo Guide really ought to have known better than to guide two hungry, unfortunate strangers to such a perilous place as the Amazon village. Perhaps he ought to send a scathing letter to the Jusenkyo society… postage due, if they allowed that sort of thing on international mail.

"Listen to what?" Soun's voice broke into Genma's mental ramblings of just who was really at fault here.

"Akane isn't going to take 'no' for an answer. Not this time," he said quietly. "Now, I agree with you that it would be better for her not to fight Shampoo. But she isn't going to let go of the idea anytime soon. I think the best thing to do is go along with what she asked."

"Excuse me?" Soun said sharply, in a tone Genma hadn't heard since the one time the Tendo patriarch had thrown him out as well as his son. The traces of chi were back, more pronounced than before. "Did you just say you want to encourage my daughter in this? To seriously fight a girl who's trained to kill?!"

"No, it's not like that!" 'Actually, it's exactly like that.' But Genma knew better than to say that out loud. This was no time to try to convince Soun that, win or lose, Akane could fight Shampoo safely. He himself didn't much care for the idea, but since he wasn't an overprotective paranoiac of a parent, he could see clearly enough that Akane going against Shampoo for real wouldn't have such terrible repercussions. Soun, on the other hand… let him have time to get used to the idea of Akane training seriously before Genma tried to convince him that just because Shampoo could put Akane down for good, didn't mean she would make such a stupid blunder. In fact, if the girls only fought one another in formal challenge matches with plenty of witnesses, that would probably be safer than the way things were now.

He still would have been happier if Akane had never made her request, but Genma was going to do the best he could with the hand he had been dealt plus whatever cards he might find up his sleeve. "Think about it this way, Tendo. Akane came to me to learn how to get better than Shampoo. That means I get to set the pace, pick the training. She'll be waiting for me to tell her she's good enough before she tries to take her enemy down!"

"Hmmm… so we're really just buying time for her to get over the worst of her temper…" Soun mused. "Well, that's good, as far as it goes. But this business with Shampoo isn't the only thing I'm concerned about here."

"It's not? What else is there?"

"What happens after you've spent a few weeks teaching her some new tricks? She'll be proud of what she's learned, plus Ranma probably won't miss the chance to tease her about how far behind him she still is. She'll want to prove herself, and that means she might go out looking for trouble! Maybe not Shampoo, maybe she will wait for you to tell her she's ready for that fight. But what if my precious little girl decides she's learned enough to go up against Kodachi Kuno?!" Soun still woke up in a cold sweat some nights, remembering the vicious tricks the youngest Kuno had unleashed against Ranma-chan so long ago. What if Akane hadn't twisted her ankle the night before that match? What if she thought she still had something to prove there, and a few weeks of Genma's proposed training prompted her to go after it?! It had been hard enough to watch Akane battle it out with Natsume and Kurumi. Only the knowledge that his true daughter's life wasn't on the line, combined with the certainty that Ranma would keep coming back until victory was his, had allowed Soun to handle that crisis as well as he had. "I thought we were agreed that Ranma would handle the serious challenges around here!"

"Maybe I could teach her something that wouldn't have that kind of effect," Genma mused. He had spent a good bit of time yesterday thinking about Akane's request, and pondering how it might impact the bigger picture of his life. There was one last real card he had to play in the game of that bigger picture, a trump he'd held back for a long time now. By no means had he made up his mind on the subject yet, but if he took that route it should be easy to prevent the situation that had Soun so worried. If he handled it right, it might go much further than that. "I need some more time to think about this, old friend. For now, how about this: I'll agree to train Akane, but I'll tell her I need a few days to consider what we'll be working on, where to start and what exercises to use, that sort of thing. That'll give you and me both time to think and talk about what I'll really be showing to her."

"…I guess that's good enough for now," Soun conceded. "But remember, Saotome. If it looks like this is actually going to put Akane in more danger instead of getting her out of it, I'll put a stop to it right away."

"Believe me, that's just the way I want it. I'm not about to let this threaten our promise to unite the schools," Genma reassured him. "In fact, maybe it'll even help out with that." It was by no means a fully-fledged idea yet, but the elder Saotome thought he could sense the beginnings of inspiration fluttering at the edges of his consciousness. If he really did teach that to Akane, surely there was a way to use it to bring her and her fiancé closer together….

"Really? How?"

"Give me more time to think it through," Genma repeated. "Neither one of us wants to think about it, but we both know the Amazons came up with a great plan this time and carried it through perfectly. We need a real counterattack, something better than just putting an engagement ring in a box for Ranma to give to Akane." Curse Shampoo and Cologne anyway for posing this much of a threat, and making him work so hard on something that should have been in the bag long ago. Genma didn't mind putting forth whatever effort he needed to help his son grow to mastery of the Art, but with all the dues he'd paid before now in his life, that ought to be the only real concern left to him. Unfortunately, someone seemed not to have delivered that memo to the universe at large.

The breeze whistled through Ranma's hair as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop. The streets below weren't particularly crowded, were certainly less bustling than they would be in another forty-five minutes, but he didn't feel like limiting himself to them just now.

Part of him was still a little on edge, expecting trouble to jump out and hit him when he least expected it. The feeling had been with him all day at Furinkan, and had only heightened as each class passed without the anticipated furor rearing its head. He'd fully expected to spend the entire day answering questions and dodging water from disbelieving students. Instead most people had kept their distance, though he had gotten plenty of stares.

Hiroshi and Daisuke had been the two biggest exceptions, cornering him at lunch, dragging him away before he could even think about eating with Akane or Ukyo, pulling him off to a secluded area and demanding to know the whole story. Ranma still couldn't make up his mind whether he was ticked off about that conversation or not. The part where they'd lambasted him for willingly giving up something that — according to them — most guys would kill to have… that hadn't left too pleasant a taste in his mouth. On the other hand, despite their initial vehemence the duo had actually listened to his counterargument, and even conceded that having Tatewaki Kuno chase after your "better half" might be too high a price for a self-respecting guy to pay after all.

He'd also learned from them that Nabiki was selling all the details of this latest change in his life, raking in wads of yen that Ranma knew he'd never see. That was irritating, if not much of a surprise. On the other hand, he'd been surprised and pleased to hear why Kuno hadn't yet put in an appearance today — apparently, Akane had injured him enough to keep him away from class for a day or two. Considering the kind of abuse the kendoist regularly shrugged off, Ranma decided that this unexpected bonus more than outweighed Nabiki's usual profiteering.

Once he'd learned of said profiteering, the general lack of questions had made more sense. Everyone was still buying what Nabiki had to sell. Sooner or later that would wind down, and then he fully expected he'd be receiving more direct attention and interrogation. In fact, it probably would have happened by the end of the day today.

Ranma paused as he landed from his latest jump, and sent one smug glance back over his shoulder. Furinkan was just visible in the distance. Everyone else was still cooped up inside, but he had cut his last class period entirely. Avoiding the paparazzi populace of his school was nice, although Ranma realized he was only delaying the inevitable. Respite for today just meant tomorrow would see him playing catch-up. But since it had to be faced sooner or later, and since there was a very good unrelated reason to skip out early, he might as well enjoy the freedom he had right now.

'Nope, I don't think Akane would be too happy if I told her I was gonna head to the Amazons' place and talk to Shampoo.' At the very least she'd undoubtedly insist on coming along with him, and for what he had to say that was absolutely not acceptable. 'Yeah, that'd be just great. I can see it now — me trying to convince Shampoo to get some Nannichuan shipped here for Ryoga, Akane standing there listening to it all.' Once again Ranma found himself grateful that he no longer shared his final class of the day with the youngest Tendo.

At least this way he could speak frankly with Shampoo, discussing the issue of Ryoga and curses without any need for deception or guarding his words. All Akane needed to know was stuff she could hear after the fact: that he'd arranged for Shampoo to wash away what she had done to the Lost Boy. She would certainly be happy to hear that, Ranma knew. Hopefully she'd be happy enough to let slide whatever he'd be promising Shampoo within the next half hour. Ranma knew this wasn't going to come cheap. He hoped she wouldn't hold out for something exorbitant like ten dates. He knew he'd pay even that price if he had to, in order to do this one last thing for Ryoga, but he didn't want to think about the kind of suffering it would entail. 'Akane might be willing to cut me some slack, but all the slack in the world wouldn't let her swallow something like that. I'd just as soon avoid getting flattened like an okonomiyaki.'

*Ding Ding!* *Wham!*

"Please tell me this ain't the same roof as last time," he mumbled into the shingles.

"Shampoo eighteen, Ranma nothing." By contrast to Ranma's barely-audible complaint, Shampoo's comment fairly glowed with satisfaction, cheerfulness, and good-natured mischief. Wide-eyed innocence was nowhere to be seen. "I make up for this by let you have all you can eat at restaurant whenever you come by this week." Touching down with one leg, she shifted her bike from Ranma to the roof. "You know, Airen, there one other part of this training I not mention last time."

"Which is?" Ranma inquired as he got to his feet and dusted himself off, wondering whether this impact really had hurt less than the last. Maybe he was just imagining it, but it did kind of seem that way.

"To be aware of incoming attack." Shampoo's expression shifted toward pensiveness. "Ranma make good progress on endurance part, but not seem so good on this one. Not in this training, not in other times when girl is attacking you. Is blind spot, maybe?"

Poor social skills notwithstanding, Ranma knew better than to discuss the concept of guys holding back against girls with an Amazon. 'Okay, change the subject, change the subject quick…' "Actually I'm glad I ran into you now, Shampoo. Or is it the other way around?" he asked wryly. "I was on my way to your place to talk to you about something."

Shampoo blinked. "Really?" A smile lit up her face like a sunrise, and with ruthless abandon she pushed away all thoughts of the customers waiting for their delivery orders.

"Yep." Ranma paused, taking a look around the general surroundings. This wasn't the highest rooftop in the general vicinity, but it seemed secure enough. He sat down, Shampoo following suit a moment later. "It's about Ryoga. I was hoping you could do something about his curse."

Shampoo blinked again. "We not already have this talking?"

"Not the pig curse. Believe it or not, he found me yesterday when both of us were flying, and we talked for a while. And when I say 'believe it or not'…" Ranma shook his head, still marveling at what he was about to say. "He doesn't like his new curse. He actually doesn't like it, not even a little bit."

The Amazon shrugged. "Ranma expect something else? I did not. Knew all along he would hate this change. You think he just going to shrug and forget about not be able to play as Akane's pet no more?"

"No, it's not that. And it took a lot to pound it through his thick skull, but Ryoga finally agreed that what he'd been doing as P-chan was wrong."

Shampoo gave him one heck of a skeptical stare. She'd seen her beloved do some amazing things, but none quite on the order of the claim he'd just made.

"This isn't about losin' the old curse," Ranma continued. "It's about the new one, and how well it fits him and his life. Or doesn't, I mean. He… I guess I can kinda understand it, the way he explained it, but Shampoo… he really doesn't like to fly. At all."

The Amazon mulled that thought over. It was surprising, though she didn't feel nearly as much shock as Ranma had. Then again, this was primarily because Ranma had fully expected Ryoga to get over his initial fury once he found out what his new form allowed him to do, whereas Shampoo hadn't bothered to give it that much thought. She'd saved her musings for how this action would make things better for Ranma.

Still, it was strange to hear that Ryoga really hadn't found any sort of satisfaction in his new ability. "Why not?" she asked.

"From what he said, it's kind of like it makes his bad sense of direction go into overdrive. Put Ryoga in the sky and give him freedom to go anywhere he chooses, and that's the last time he'll see anybody or anyplace he recognizes for who knows how long." Ranma spoke quietly, still feeling a curious sense of discontinuity. On the one hand, he did feel sorry for Ryoga, especially considering the pain with which the Lost Boy had spoken. On the other, it was still hard to attach such negative concepts to something that was so beneficial in his life. "He told me he's tired of being so alone."

Shampoo considered this in silence for awhile. "Maybe Shampoo understand. Is strange to hear, though," she said. "For what flying like for you and me, strange to think it so bad for Ryoga."

"Yeah, well, you know ol' Bacon Breath. He kinda gets a lot of things backwards," Ranma said. "Guess this is just another one of those."

"Maybe…" Shampoo said. "Now that Ranma say it like that, though, it make me wonder…."

"Huh? Wonder what?"

"Wonder how many other people would think like that, if they got Falcon curse too. Even without stupid Ryoga problem with getting lost in sky. Maybe many people would not like at all, maybe even most would not see it as such good thing," Shampoo mused. It was kind of a nice thought, to consider that she and Ranma might have even more in common through their reaction to this curse, tempting to believe that it was even stronger proof of how right they were for each other. Then, remembering something Cologne had mentioned, she amended, "No, wait. That not right. Great-Grandmother say that now Jusenkyo open to Amazons to use, many of them also learning to fly."

"I kinda suspect it's just Ryoga who'd have a problem with it," Ranma said. "Well, maybe Akane too. Stubborn as she is and as ticked as she's been about all this stuff, I don't think she could admit a Falcon curse was a good thing even if having one saved her life."

"Hmmph. Shampoo not so sure about that," the Amazon grumbled. "Akane would probably jump for chance to take own curse. That way she could follow after Ranma whenever you go to fly, stay right beside you and make sure you not doing anything she not like."

"Do not go there," Ranma commanded, fighting off a brief chill.

"You not like the idea, right?"

"Gee, let me think," he said, with sarcasm thick enough to spread on toast. "What's the best part of flying? It's being up there where nobody's gonna dump any of that stuff on me, nobody's gonna try and tell me what I gotta do and what I can't. It's making my own way and my own choices, without Akane or Pop or anybody tryin' to cut them down to just the ones they're happy with. It's the best time to myself I ever get."

"Is kind of the same for me," Shampoo replied quietly. "Japan is so different from home village, so full of people, choked full it seem. Sometimes feel like Shampoo is choking too. But to get up there, alone, away from all that… is freedom and recovery. Medicine even better than anything Great-Grandmother keep in her cabinet."

A moment of wistful silence stretched between both teens. Shampoo eventually broke it. "Ranma?"

Somewhat concerned by the tentative way she'd spoken, he replied, "Yeah?"

"Shampoo hear what you just say about how is good to get time to own self while you fly. Was going to ask if we do that together again soon, but if it really not any good for you… should Shampoo just forget it?" It cost her a good bit to say that, but the last thing she wanted to do was cut down on the advantage giving him this gift had gained her. There would be plenty of time for togetherness in the future, Shampoo reminded herself once again. It was the thought that allowed her to stomach the fact that Ranma had to stay at the Tendos' place for the present, and it would let her accept it if he didn't want to share more flights with her anytime soon.

"I don't mind the company once in a while," Ranma said. Then, with a grin, he added, "Better you than Ryoga." Shampoo giggled, breaking out in a big smile. Ranma held his grin for a moment, then sobered. "But gettin' back to him. I know this is kind of a pain, Shampoo, but I wanted to finally settle things there once and for all. I figured giving him a Falcon curse would actually be handin' him a huge blessing, but it really didn't work out that way after all. So I was hoping you could maybe have some of the Amazons at home mail a cask of Nannichuan out here."

Shampoo regarded him with a hooded stare. "Was you also hoping to use leftover on Genma, instead of having to wait for winter and take trip to Jusenkyo?"

'Dang, I knew she'd catch it right off the bat.' So much for the faint hope Shampoo would agree and set the price for her aid before realizing that she'd be losing that trip with him. "Now that you mention it…."

"Not sure if I can do this at all," the Amazon replied shortly. "Will have to talk to Great-Grandmother, about what new rules is for use Jusenkyo on someone else."

"I'd be really grateful if you could do it, Shampoo…" That was as subtle as he felt capable of being. It still felt better than going the 'blatantly obvious' route; Ranma didn't want to come right out and say, 'I'll throw in a few dates to sweeten the deal.'

"Is good, because something like this not come cheap." Shampoo stated this as firmly as she could, desperately hoping that Ranma wouldn't pick this moment to think back over all the things she'd done for him in the past and realize that if he just stretched his arms around her and gave her a real kiss, she'd be helpless to resist agreeing to just about anything.

"Um. Yeah, I kinda figured that. What exactly would you like from me?" 'Please don't say ten dates… please don't say ten dates….'

'<I wonder if I could get as many as ten dates….>' As tempting as that thought was, though, there was another that was very appealing too. '<Should I ask him to train with me instead? It might be a good idea to go ahead and fix that up now, instead of waiting.>' She had always intended to get him to join her in the lessons Cologne was now teaching her, but the previous plan had been 'wait until I've learned enough, then kick Airen's butt as motivation to get him to accept the offer.' But considering what had happened at Furinkan recently, it might be better to have him start learning these techniques right away.

On the other hand, she already had a good plan for getting him to train with her, and it would be awfully nice to get a bunch of honest-to-goodness dates with him on top of that…

"Shampoo not know," the Amazon eventually answered. "Need time to think about it. And anyway need to talk to Great-Grandmother and see if can even do what Ranma ask."

"Thanks, Shampoo. So… you know, last time we flew together I wasn't in good enough shape to show ya how much I really like this curse. You wanna meet up on top of the Tokyo Tower in about an hour and see just who can fly rings around who?" That ought to help her get over any disappointment over losing out on the China trip.

'<Subtle he isn't.>' But that was just the way Shampoo liked it. She gave him her best predatory grin, and said, "Is a date."

"Been a while since we did something like this, Pop." Ranma spared only the barest minimum of attention necessary to form the sentence. The rest of his mind was focused squarely on the familiar figure sharing the Tendo back yard with him, standing roughly ten feet away. Both father and son were keeping their distance at the moment, but that didn't mean either was motionless. They were slowly circling each other like a pair of tomcats (though at least one of them would have violently denied the comparison), each waiting for the other's guard to slip.

"I hope you're not backing down, boy." At that very moment, Genma's maneuvering brought him into the perfect position for the early morning sunlight to gleam menacingly off his glasses. "A student of Anything Goes must be ready to rise to any and all challenges."

"Yeah, I'd say that's words to live by," Ranma retorted with a smirk. "Especially the challenge of kicking his lazy old man's tired butt."

"Bah, I may have taught you all you know, but I haven't taught you all I know, Ranma."

While he would have been able to shrug off any insult, this particular verbal gambit of Genma's caught him off-guard. "You— what?!" Ranma stumbled ever so slightly, unable to suppress the instinctive gape at Genma's claim to having taught all his son knew.

In an instant Genma abandoned the circling for position, blasting forward to strike in the moment of his son's weakness. With a mental curse, Ranma gave a tremendous leap backward, thankful that his current position relative to the nearest structure gave him plenty of space and time to recover in midair. Genma was following an instant later, but age and guile and experience couldn't match the sheer physical advantage Ranma's youth and — let's face it — superior physique allowed. Genma's own leap would have been equally impressive to almost any spectator, but it was just enough slower than Ranma's that the younger Saotome had enough time to prepare himself, land on the top of the Tendo boundary wall, and bounce away again toward the roof.

By contrast, Genma stopped on the wall, turning to face his son but not following. "You know, the whole point of this exercise is to brush up on skills you don't use that often," he rebuked.

"So what? You're saying you wanted me to smack these into your head as I passed over ya?" Ranma shot back, gesturing with the nunchaku he held in either hand. His father was similarly armed. Both kept their weapons spinning at a constant, steady hum, necessitating them to speak their verbal banter a little louder than normal. "Sure thing, Pop!" He had the advantage of the high ground now, and had no intention of letting the fight continue as it had begun. It was annoying enough to be the first to be forced into retreat. Time to settle the score. With a fierce kiai, Ranma pushed away from the roof, zooming toward his father with the power and ferocity of his cursed form diving toward its next meal.

"Next time don't announce it like that!" Genma shouted, declining to be reduced to a grease smear. Slower than his son he might be, but Ranma's pause and taunt had given him enough time to prepare. Even as Ranma left the roof and the first word left Genma's mouth his legs were tensing for his own jump, and a split second later the older Saotome was airborne in a high forward flip.

Ranma adjusted his own plan on the fly, paying no heed to what Genma was saying, realizing that his father's maneuver would bring the old man just high enough above him that Genma could bounce a nunchaku off his son's back. It took every ounce of skill he had, but he twisted himself through an incredibly fast one-eighty degree turn, ending with his back facing toward the ground and both his weapons coming up to block Genma's descending attack. The older Saotome had only struck with one of his own nunchaku, and the one in his left hand at that. The right was held off to the side in what wasn't even a decent guarding position. Ranma didn't exactly have the time to verbalize the complete thought, 'If he thinks he's gonna hold back on me like that and not get pounded to a pulp he's got another think coming,' but that was more or less the concept that flashed across his mind.

In the next instant, as Genma somehow managed to first tangle both Ranma's nunchaku with his left, then spin the one in his right hand so fiercely as to alter both Saotomes' midair flight, Ranma was forced to abandon it. Instead of less than a second's remaining air time until impact with the boundary wall, the two were now describing a long, high, lazy arc toward the Tendo rooftop. The kick that the younger Saotome was already bending around to deliver missed entirely, due to the unexpected shift. Genma himself managed to land a blow squarely, bouncing his right nunchaku off his son's head. The blow lacked any significant force, due to the awkwardness of shifting his focus so quickly, but both Saotomes knew well that it was the thought that counted.

Ranma bit off a curse, and kicked into a higher gear than he usually used when sparring with his father. Releasing one nunchaku entirely, and trusting in the tangled state of the weapons combined with his remaining grip to avoid complete disarmament, he struck toward Genma's left hand with Amaguriken speed. Excessive force was neither needed nor desired; the unexpected high-speed pokes to his knuckles had Genma's hand spasming open and releasing his hold on the three tangled pairs of chained sticks.

Pulling back hard with both hands bought Ranma enough rotational velocity to transform his flight from "parallel with Genma's" to "angled toward the ground". The move forcefully untangled the nunchaku, sending the two not currently clenched in someone's grip flying in different directions. Landing only for an instant, he bounced back into the air, catching the nearest weapon, noting with some disgust that the other was flying toward a spot only four feet away from his father's landing zone. The old man wouldn't have had to exert himself to catch it even if he'd been in panda form, for cryin' out loud!

Ranma's latest flight touched down on top of the dojo. "Not bad so far, Pop," he said with his best taunting smirk. "When do you want me stop holding back so much?"

"Bah, I'm the one going easy on you for your sake," Genma shot back. "Now get off there, I don't want you disturbing Akane."

The smirk disappeared, replaced by a grimace. Ranma would just as soon not have been reminded that the tomboy was in there right now, and had been since before his father woke him up this morning. "Jeez, you think you didn't already make that clear?" he asked, suppressing the impulse to charge in for another attack. He could wait a few seconds in the interest of ignoring Genma's command. "What's this big, important, mysterious training you got going on with Akane, that I can't help out with or even watch?" The smirk was back now. "It ain't like she's ever gonna manage something like this!" And now he leapt, jumping not toward Genma but rather directly into the empty air above the koi pond. A second later, however, he had twisted around to face his father, his body angled like a torpedo, his arms bent slightly down and the nunchaku spinning for all they were worth. It was considerably harder than he'd expected it to be, but Ranma managed to alter his flight path as radically as his father had just a handful of moments ago, curving around to zoom straight toward Genma.

The elder Saotome gave three quick skips backward, traversing from one end of the roof to the other. "That's not what I'm teaching her, Ranma, but you of all people ought to respect someone trying to learn new skills!"

"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said as he landed at the spot his father had abandoned, unable to come up with a snappy comeback for a remark he recognized as basically true. It might have more of an impact if Akane had ever once tried to learn any of the advanced skills she'd watched him or Ryoga training in, though. Not bothering to say that, he drove forward on the attack again, this time staying grounded on the roof. Genma charged forward to meet him "All I'm saying," he jinked his head to one side as Genma's attack forced his own left weapon's course dangerously close, "is that Akane ain't never," he forced a tiny opening in Genma's guard, and bounced a glancing blow off his father's ribs, "trained anything like seriously." A furious exchange between father and son took all the concentration he could spare for the next several moments, leaving nothing for speech.

Once the storm of spinning sticks quieted a bit, both Saotomes jumped back and away to recuperate. Genma had received more hits, but none of them had been at full power and the elder Saotome's natural padding absorbed much of the impact. By contrast Ranma had taken only one blow directly, but it had landed right on his crazy bone and he was more than happy to get some time to recover.

"Well, maybe she wants to change that," Genma pronounced. "I know you don't think much of your fiancée's skills, boy, but at least you ought to be able to respect and help her once she gets serious about improving them."

"That'd cut a lot more ice if she really was trying to improve for her own sake," Ranma snapped back. "Instead of just wanting to take Shampoo down."

"That's funny," Genma challenged. "It seems to me that each major technique you've learned here, you learned because you needed to beat someone. Did that somehow slip your mind, boy?"

Ranma gave his father a flat stare. "What exactly is your point? Those are the only times I've had the opportunity. Unless you're sayin' I shoulda gone to the old freak and asked him really, really nicely if he'd maybe teach me one of those things he's unloaded every so often. You really want me to drop a Happo Fire Bomb on your head during one of these matches, Pop?"

Genma shuddered at the thought, not only of that but at what the Master would probably have asked of his son before teaching any really powerful secrets. He'd never have been able to see Nodoka again, that was for sure… either Ranma would be disqualified forever from passing her standard of manliness, or he'd have learned something that would put him a little too far over the finish line. Even Nodoka would consider it too much of a good thing if her son ended up seducing the female half of Furinkan.

"And what about it anyway?" Ranma continued. "Special techniques are great and all, but for where I am in the Art right now they ain't the most important thing. The basics are still where I need to make sure I'm always growing. Speed, accuracy, balance, strength, control, stamina, endurance…." he paused for a moment, zoning out while picturing himself flattened under an Amazon and her bicycle. Genma decided not to blast forward and take advantage of the opening, since this discussion was ultimately more important than the sparring itself. It was a very close thing, though.

"And I've been working on all those things all this time," his son continued. "You think Akane can say the same thing? Not a chance in the world, old man. The best you could say for her is she's got a lot of strength, and she's kept on building it a little higher." Kind of sad that Shampoo was still much stronger by his estimation, but that was what being born in a culture that had bred for stuff like that for three thousand years would do for you. Not exactly fair, but neither was the world in general.

"Bah. That was then and this is now," Genma grumbled. "Though I will say that it's good to see you so focused on what Akane needs for optimal improvement. When the two of you are married, it will be you helping her to grow as best she needs to."

"Give me a break," Ranma snapped. "Or better yet, just give me a straight answer." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "You and I both know why she's doing this. She wants to be better than Shampoo, wants to be able to beat the girl — the Amazon who'd just won her village championship tournament on the day we met her. And you and I also both know that it would take years of serious work before Akane could even get to where Shampoo is now, and Shampoo herself ain't exactly gonna stop trainin' and growin' during that time. Kinda hard to do that when you're living under the rooftop of the leader of the entire tribe, you know? So it ain't like Akane's gonna get an advantage cause of her getting better and Shampoo slacking off. You know this just as well as I do. So tell me, Pop… have you spelled this out for her?" Realizing that might be a bit much to ask, especially considering that his father hadn't suffered any severe beat-downs lately, he amended, "Or at least, have ya kept quiet on any stupid promises? All I really want to hear from you is that ya haven't told Akane she'll be able to beat Shampoo with whatever mysterious training this is you've got her doing."

"Those are fair enough questions," Genma allowed. Unfortunately, there was no way he was ready to answer them truthfully, not now, not to Ranma at least. "The fact of the matter is, son — AN OPENING!!" And with that, the elder Saotome drove forward, initiating a renewal of hostilities with all the ferocity and power he could muster.

Several chaotic minutes later, an aching, battered, panting, bruised Ranma stood in the middle of the back yard, with one foot poised triumphantly atop his father's flattened form. Several dozen shingles were missing from the roof, a fact which would certainly not reduce Nabiki's recent animosity, but Ranma was cheerfully oblivious to both these truths. "Yeah, that's what you get, Pop. Now, getting back to our discussion…?"

It was a seriously painful method of gaining victory, Genma conceded in the privacy of his own thoughts, but Anything Goes stressed that if that was the only kind you could get, you took it and were thankful for it. His voice was more of a groan than speech, his body was as limp as a filleted slab of swordfish, and his face was flat against the ground with his eyes closed. As such, it was impossible for Ranma to pick up on any sign of dishonesty as he answered, "Of course I haven't told her she'll be able to defeat Shampoo. She might or might not think it, but I haven't ever told her anything that would let her believe that. I'm just trying to help her improve her skills. And please don't butt in yet, boy. You know how it makes her get all edgy and defensive when she has to face how much better you are."

"Yeah, whatever," Ranma answered. Truth be told, it didn't feel all that great to get excluded from these mysterious meetings Genma was having with Akane in the dojo, but today's sparring session had worked wonders for letting out the worst of that irritation. The unusual nature of today's training had been the best challenge his father had provided in months, and he'd even learned something new. Despite the aches and bruises in his body, his spirit was feeling more than generous enough to agree. "I'll let you walk her through whatever baby steps you've got her on. But, Pop…" Here he bent down, grasped his father's shoulder, and lifted the older man up enough to look him in the eye. He wasn't quite generous enough not to get one last bit of smack-talking in, as well as a reminder of just who had won today's little match. "If I see ya digging a pit and gettin' Kasumi to round up a bunch of strays, I'm gonna make you think this morning was a nice relaxin' massage."

"I'd like to think I learned my lesson about that particular technique," Genma protested. "At least, after the sixth time going back only made things worse for you."

Ranma's eyes gleamed, and his lips curved into an involuntary snarl. "Don't remind me," he growled, rather unfairly considering just who had brought the topic up. "If you weren't already flattened like a smashed slug, I'd give you a few good licks right now!"

"Ranma! Mr. Saotome! Breakfast!" Kasumi called from the porch.

There was a blur, a whoosh, and a wind which whipped the eldest Tendo daughter's hair in a cascade of brown. Once it was no longer blocking her vision, she turned and saw both Saotomes perched eagerly at the table. "Mmm, smells great, Kasumi," Genma pronounced, salivating with anticipation.

Akane slid the door shut behind her and tossed her bookbag onto her bed without a second thought. She had homework to do, but it would wait. She headed to her closet, and proceeded to exchange her schoolday clothing for a crisp, freshly-laundered gi. She tied the belt around her waist, pulling the knot as tight as her facial expression.

Today was Tuesday, the sixth day of her training under Genma. It hadn't taken long for him to establish her routine; each morning, she would train for two hours, partly supervised by Genma, partly on her own when he went to spar with Ranma. The morning session meant she couldn't get in weekday jogging any longer, but when she'd pointed that out to Genma he had stated flatly that for where she was now, that kind of exercise was worse than nothing at all. Akane didn't know how that was supposed to work, but since she was the one asking for favors here, she hadn't been willing to push too hard.

The morning session was the lighter portion of her workload. Her sensei expected her to come straight home after school and proceed directly to the dojo, where she would spend the next four hours under his full-time supervision.

It was hard.

It was harder by far than any training she'd done in her life.

And she'd be damned if she went to this much trouble without getting what she wanted. What Genma had promised he would give her.

"One more chance," Akane muttered grimly as she headed down the stairs. "He was the one who trained Ranma, after all." She passed through the back door and headed toward the dojo. "He knows what he's doing a lot better than I do." But while Akane knew that was true, it wasn't necessarily true in a good way.

She opened the dojo door and entered the building. As expected, Genma was already there waiting for her, positioned in his best "wise old sensei" stance. Also as expected, there was a large crate resting against the wall, a short distance away from the Saotome master. "Hello, Akane," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Saotome," she returned. In their very first session she had offered the full formality due to a sensei. Genma had snorted louder and more obnoxiously than she could even remember from his son, and replied in no uncertain terms that they weren't going to be wasting their time with those kinds of frills and obsolete old traditions. She was Akane and he was Mr. Saotome — unless, he'd added, she wanted to call him Father-in-law.

Since it was their first session, she had still been riding the emotional high from imagining herself overtaking Shampoo and finally giving the Amazon what she deserved. As a result, Akane had only replied with a thin-lipped, vaguely tolerant smile.

Neither said anything more for the moment, as Akane began her warm-up stretches. Genma watched, and Akane kept one eye on him in turn. Two days ago, the old panda had proved he wasn't above launching an attack even in this preliminary period. This time, however, Genma just waited patiently for her to conclude.

"All right, I'm ready," she pronounced when she was confident that she'd put in enough preparation.

"Very well. Come over here." Genma closed the distance to the crate, with Akane following right behind him. He opened the lid to reveal the largest quantity of marbles Akane had seen in her entire life. "This afternoon's exercise will be—"

"Stop. Right. There." Akane gritted the words out with some difficulty, as most of her focus was taken up in keeping her temper. Genma complied, shifting his posture away from the crate to face her directly with a mild, inquisitive look on his face. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but Akane was in no mood to take note of the gleam that the Saotome master couldn't quite suppress.

"Right now, it's marbles," she said, the words starting slowly but picking up steam. "This morning you made me practice ten different katas with the ceiling rigged to randomly shoot me with Super Soakers. Yesterday afternoon you had me blindfolded and my hands tied behind my back while I tried to stop you smacking me with pillows. Yesterday morning it was golf balls dropping out of the ceiling and I had to catch them and throw them at a training dummy with my hands covered in grease! The afternoon before that, you—"

"Is this going somewhere?" Genma asked mildly. "If you want a few more minutes before the training starts," he took his first casual step backward as Akane began walking toward him, her eye twitching and her fingers clenching and unclenching, "just go back to stretching."

"Every day, no, every stupid time we meet for you to train me it's something different!" Akane yelled. "Twelve sessions now, and each one was something totally different! I kept quiet at first, because after I thought about each one I could see something it could teach me. But I haven't learned them yet! I haven't mastered any of these things yet, and you just keep jumping on to the next one! You're supposed to be helping me learn to do better, not just keep dreaming that I'm okay the way I am! Are you even going to try teaching me, or do you just want to humor me until I give up and quit bothering you?!"

She paused for a moment, struggling for breath and composure, then said, "So help me, if you don't start taking this seriously, taking me seriously, I'll… I'll…" She knew there was one place she could hit him where it hurt, and though it wouldn't feel very good to her either, Akane Tendo was more than ready to make some sacrifices in the name of what she'd committed to. "I'll tell Kasumi not to cook you anything anymore. I'll be the one fixing all your meals, and for you I won't even try to make them good ones."

Genma just snorted, unfazed by the threat. "Only six days and you already know what I need to do to train you better than I do myself. Congratulations, Akane," he said, sarcasm dripping off the words. "If Ranma had learned that quickly, by now I'd have him taking on the Master and the Amazon Matriarch at the same time and winning." Akane's fists clenched tighter, and an even more murderous expression settled on her face. "Or maybe you just need an explanation? Better yet, how about a demonstration. Pick out one of those marbles to throw at me, if you would be so kind."

The box's size and position against the wall made it just a little too difficult to simply hurl all its contents at him at once. Akane did as requested, jamming her hand into the mass of marbles and rummaging around before pulling out a large, steel shooter. "Okay. Are you ready now, oh wise and gracious teacher?" she growled, trying and nearly succeeding to match Genma's level of sarcasm.

"One moment." Saying this, Genma took one step to the side and turned so that he was facing her straight on. He then took one slow step backward, leaving a gap of about three feet between the two of them. From some of the things they had done in their previous sessions, Akane was bitterly aware that he undoubtedly knew some trick or technique for dodging even with such a slight distance between them. So far it was looking like the same pattern she'd seen before: she would throw and he would dodge or otherwise negate the attack, she would be impressed at his performance or at least acknowledge that she couldn't manage it, he would have her spend the rest of their time trying to match his feat, she would make some progress by the end of the session but by no means would she have learned everything she could, and next time he would jump to something else.

'Well, not this time,' she thought bitterly, feeling the comfortably solid weight of the second, hidden shooter she had palmed while retrieving the obvious first one. 'If he can't try something new, I will.'

"All right, Akane. Try to hit me with the marble."

Akane swung her hand back then brought it sharply forward, releasing the marble to fly straight and true to Genma's forehead. She had to sacrifice most of the power she could have put into the throw, due to the second marble still hiding in her hand. She would hit him with that one at full force while he was focused on whatever he was planning to do about the first one.

She hadn't expected him to stand there and take the hit directly. She certainly hadn't expected the marble to strike and sink completely beneath his skin.

She barely had time to gasp, drop the other marble, and begin to stumble feebly forward before the image of Genma vanished. The marble dropped to the ground with a thunk of steel on wood, echoing a second after the impact from the one she hadn't thrown. Genma himself was revealed as his decoy disappeared; the elder Saotome was standing four feet behind his previous apparent position. "M… Mr. Saotome… how?" Akane managed.

"You've seen this before, Akane. Not the same application," Genma admitted, "but the same principle. Think about it."

"The same thing? Seen it before?" Akane blinked several times, all other emotions now buried under a slew of befuddlement. "I don't remember ever seeing anything like that from Grandmaster Happosai."

A rather louder thunk resounded through the dojo now, as Genma's face collided with the floor. "Not him, me!" he bellowed as he picked himself up. "And DON'T SAY HIS NAME!"

"You?" Akane said dubiously. A second later, her mind cleared enough to realize that doubt wasn't really an appropriate response here, since they were talking about something Genma had just clearly demonstrated he was capable of doing. And there was one time she could think of that the old panda had pulled off something even more impressive than this… and one time when he almost had… "Is this something to do with that trick to make a big illusion of yourself?" she asked.

"Illusion, my hairy panda butt," Genma snapped, still disgruntled at her response. "Just because it's not a flesh and blood body doesn't make it any less real. Your aura is as important a part of you as your skin is… at least, that's true for a real martial artist."

"And you're going to teach me how to use that?" Akane asked, excitement at the sheer possibilities overriding the response she might otherwise have made to his last little comment.

"Yes, I am," Genma affirmed. "Now do you see the point of all the exercises I've had you doing?"

"No. I haven't got a clue," she admitted.

He gave a satisfied smile. "I'm glad to hear you admit it, Akane. Stubborn pride can be a terrible hindrance in your quest for the Art." Of course, if she'd had Ranma's sheer talent, then stubborn pride could become an asset. During his and Ranma's long years on the road, there had been more times than Genma could remember when Ranma had refused to admit difficulty or ask for help with a task Genma had set him. Usually this led to the boy pushing forward with everything he had and learning whatever lesson was being taught solely on his own resources. Genma believed this was one of the key factors in his son's superb ability to solve problems, at least within the realm of the Art, not to mention the levels of confidence it took to fire off a Moko Takabisha.

On the other hand, it had been a long, long time since Ranma had looked at him with the expression Akane was wearing now.

Hopefully that wouldn't be true much longer.

"The reason each exercise is different is because you're not trying to learn any physical lessons from them," the Saotome master explained in his best "wise old sensei" voice. "You're performing unfamiliar tasks, striving to overcome your limits, fighting your body's awkwardness and the frustration that would choke your mind. The only constants are struggle and change. That, Akane, is Anything Goes in its heart and soul!"

Akane's eyes were wide now. It might have taken longer to get here than she would have liked, and the road might have been rockier, but it felt very good to be hearing this. To be treated like this. To receive the respect she'd wanted for so long, and no one had given her. "You haven't even taught Ranma these lessons, have you?" She couldn't believe that show-off could have something like this in his bag of tricks without ever using it.

"No, I haven't," Genma replied. "And that's part of the reason I'm not letting him watch you train. I want him to stay ignorant of what I'm working on with you until you've reached a decent level of mastery in the technique. Once you've done that, once you can show it to him and impress him as much as he needs to be impressed, I'll let him in on the training as well. You can help him get up to speed while I oversee the both of you." It was a good plan, Genma thought. It would mean more time that Ranma was spending with his real fiancée, growing to respect her more even as she became better able to understand him.

It would also show a certain boy that his father was more than what he seemed to think, wasn't just a washed-up old panda with nothing real left to teach. Genma still remembered the cold hurt and fear he'd felt so long ago, that day in the Tendo backyard when his son-turned-daughter had been struggling to learn the Amaguriken, struggling even to maintain her fighting spirit, and had looked to him for help. Genma had winged it as best he could, focusing his chi to boost his speed. He'd failed, completely and utterly, and riding hard on the heels of his failure had come the Beast from China, Matriarch Cologne herself, dropping in to effortlessly demonstrate the move to everyone. The Tendos had ooh'd and ahh'd. Ranma-chan had found new reserves of determination. And Genma-panda had turned away and closed his eyes, his slumping posture leaving everything but his upper head hidden in the waters of the pond.

The very next day he'd begun working on exercises similar to the ones he was now giving Akane — similar in their goal, at least.

"But I need to warn you, Akane. Don't expect a quick and easy road to mastery," Genma cautioned. "I suppose you've already seen enough not to think it would be easy, but it's also true that there's no quick way to do this. It will take you a long time. It will take Ranma a long time." It would take him a very long time to get back the whole of what he'd once had while training under Happosai, what he hadn't bothered to maintain during his years on the road with Ranma. He hadn't realized until far too late that letting this particular set of abilities atrophy would be such a mistake. Getting his son established in the Art had been Genma's greatest priority by far during that time, and it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable exchange to make, to trade his own power for the time, energy, and focus he needed to mold Ranma into someone who would one day surpass him.

And now his son had, and Genma wasn't sure how to handle it. There was pride, certainly, but there were other, far less pleasant feelings involved when he tried to help his boy in a trial, only to have Ranma barely acknowledge his attempts and proceed to solve the problem on his own . Just as bad or worse were the times when someone else stepped in and put his own attempts to shame. He and Ranma had had plenty of troubles on the road, but none of those kinds of circumstances. Where had all the days and years gone?

"How long?" Akane asked, breaking through his fugue. Judging by the look on her face, the first bloom of elation at what she was going to learn had now passed. "How long until I've learned enough to defeat Shampoo?"

Genma gave her a long, cold stare. "That depends on you." It also depended on her answer to his next question. "Are you planning to just stop once you manage to accomplish that goal?"

"No, I'm not that stupid," Akane snapped back. "It's not like she won't go running to her great-grandmother and ask for a technique of her own. And even if she didn't I'm tired of depending on Ranma to rescue me. You can count on it, Mr. Saotome — I'll keep on training and learning too."

"Good. Because this particular path is one you should never stop walking down."

"I just said I understood that," Akane pointed out.

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm not talking about martial arts in general," he clarified. "I mean the things we're working on now. These exercises I'm giving you are designed for one specific goal, which is to build your chi reserves as quickly and powerfully as possible."

"My reserves…?" she echoed, thinking back to what she'd seen that one night at the carnival when demons had escaped from scribble drawings. Happosai, Genma, and even her father had formed huge chi-projections to fight them off. And then she thought back further, to a day many months before that one, when Genma had tried to use that same technique to face down Happosai. He had only been able to hold it for a few seconds then, as tired and weary as he was. "I guess it would take a lot to make a huge copy of yourself like that," she mused.

"Don't expect to be pulling that one off before your next birthday has come and gone," Genma stated flatly. There was no way he could put her through the same level of training the Master had used on him. Genma estimated that it would take at least twice as long for Akane to build up that level of power as it originally had for Soun and himself, and that wasn't even considering the time it would take for her to learn how to use the techniques. "At least not if you want it to be solid enough to do anything."

"So what else can I do with this technique?"

"The heart of what I'll be teaching you is to project and control your aura. It becomes stronger in two ways: as you learn to control it better, and as your reserves grow wider and deeper. As for what you can do with it…" Genma gave his best "wise old sensei" shrug. "You were there when the Master and the old woman went at it with dueling battle auras. That's one application you've seen for yourself — projecting energy that hits harder than a chi blast like Ranma's or Ryoga's, and is far more controllable. And of course," he gave a smirk that could have come straight from Ranma, except that it didn't make any portion of Akane's heart beat faster, "you can project a separate image of yourself to take a hit for you, and even hide behind it if it's directly between you and your opponent. It took me a long time to work out how, but I developed that trick from seeing the Splitting Cat Hairs.

"You can also keep the energy insubstantial, rather than making it solid or semisolid. There are at least as many possible uses for that approach, and maybe more." Genma frowned thoughtfully. "I think the Master's Now You See Me, Now You Don't is an aura trick of some kind. To be able to actually turn invisible in the middle of a fight… even if you can't attack like that, it would be an amazing advantage. I still haven't worked that one out, but maybe one day Ranma will. Or perhaps you'll beat him to it, Akane." He smiled jovially, masking his certainty that the only way that would happen was if no one ever gave Ranma the idea to try.

"So what can the energy do by itself? That you know for sure and can teach me, I mean?"

"Well, the more images you project the easier it is to confuse whoever you're fighting. If you don't make them solid enough to hit, they don't take as much power and you can pull it off easier." That wasn't what Cologne had done; Genma had watched closely enough to be sure that it hadn't always been the same copy of the old woman bonking his son over the head. "But you don't even have to make it something as organized as that. You can let your aura flood out from you and fill the area around you. When