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 2A: Through the Gathering Dark

"Ranma."

"H-huh?!" It was clear that this request for his attention had caught him by surprise. Ranma froze in his tracks, only just now realizing that Akane had stopped walking as well. "Did you say something, Akane?"

Well might he ask. His fiancée hadn't had much to say to him since Wednesday evening of the previous week. On Thursday and Friday Akane had left very early for school, early enough that he hadn't even seen her until he arrived at Furinkan. She'd spent the afternoons in the dojo, reducing a truly remarkable number of cinderblocks to rubble.

He'd kind of hoped that he'd get a chance during the weekend to tell her what really happened, to get it through her head that it had been Shampoo kissing him, not the other way around. But Akane had disappeared on Saturday morning, going off to spend the day and night with friends from school, and when she got back on Sunday afternoon Nabiki had shooed him away so that she could talk with her younger sister. He didn't know what they'd spent so much time discussing, wasn't even sure he wanted to know, and the long and short of it was he'd still had no chance to talk to Akane and tell her what happened hadn't been his fault.

Which was why the fact that here and now SHE had initiated the conversation was a bit surprising. Akane hadn't left so early this morning, but she hadn't paid Ranma any attention either. They'd walked several blocks in silence, with Akane some fifteen feet ahead of him and not looking back.

Ranma had halted fairly quickly after she did, but there was still about ten feet separating them. With the distance still between them, and with her back still turned to him, Akane spoke up again. "I… had a talk with Nabiki yesterday, Ranma."

After a few moments of silence had stretched out uncomfortably, Ranma said, "Yeah?"

"She…" He heard her take a deep breath, "she said some things… Ranma, I need to know if what she said was true. Will you please just once be really honest with me?"

Ranma allowed himself the luxury of a bitter grimace, glad that her stance meant she wouldn't see it. 'Thanks for making it sound like I lie to you all the time, Akane.' Aloud, he said, "Yeah, okay. Remember this is Nabiki we're talking about, though. IF I know whether what she said was true, I'll tell ya."

"Well, if you don't, nobody does!" Akane returned. "She said that… that you didn't want to go out on that date. That Shampoo tricked you into it."

"Huh?" Ranma boggled for a few seconds, struck off-balance by the fact that Nabiki had apparently helped him out without being asked, or asking anything in return. Recovering his sense of poise, he said, "That's almost right, Akane. I…" He sighed. "You know me an' my big mouth. I said something that hurt Shampoo's feelings, and then I kinda blurted out that I'd do something to make up for it before I really thought about what I was sayin'. It wasn't so much her tricking me; she just took advantage when I left myself open."

"And…" Akane's voice shook, and her hands were balled tightly into fists at her sides, "and what about the kiss? Nabiki said Shampoo grabbed you when you weren't looking. That it wasn't your fault at all."

"How the HECK does she find these things out?!" Ranma asked the heavens. "I mean, I didn't tell her, and I'm sure Shampoo wouldn't'a put it like that, and there wasn't anybody else who saw… except for Mousse… or maybe Kaori…" By the end of the sentence, the bewildered fury had trickled out of his tone, leaving his next words more sheepish than anything else. "Well, maybe it wouldn't have been too hard for her to ask around and put the real story together. Anyway, yeah, Akane, that's what happened. She looked over my shoulder and yelled, like there was somethin' horrible coming up behind me, I turned and looked, and when I turned back around… well, you know…"

"Yes, I know!" Akane said, pain in her voice. She forced herself not to think about those particular details, though, pushing them to the back of her mind to concentrate on something else. Something that hurt as well, but in a different way. "Ranma… I'm sorry."

"You mean… you believe me?" he asked cautiously, taking a few steps toward her, stopping again when he'd covered half the remaining distance.

"You couldn't tell a convincing lie to save your life. Yes, I believe you… it wasn't your fault…" Akane drew a deep breath. "I didn't want to blame you for something that wasn't. I'm sorry."

"Eh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Akane."

She let out a relieved breath, and turned around to face him. "I'm glad. And you know, it really was a little bit your fault too. After all, when you got back and I asked about YOU kissing SHAMPOO, you asked how I knew instead of telling me it was the other way around."

"I'll try and get it right the next time," Ranma grumbled. Like anything he'd said at that point would really have made a difference.

Akane frowned. "There better not BE a next time anytime soon! Honestly, Ranma, you need to stand up for yourself more. Stop letting Shampoo take advantage of you like that!"

"I really wish it was that simple," he muttered under his breath.

"What was that? I didn't hear what you said."

Walking the rest of the way over to her, and raising his voice to normal speaking tones, Ranma replied, "We're gonna be late to class if we don't get moving, Akane. C'mon, let's go."

They walked quite a distance in silence before Ranma spoke up again. The relief he'd felt on making up with Akane hadn't been enough to drive another problem from his mind, another thing he was going to have to face soon. It might even happen that today would be the day. And he had an unhappy suspicion that if he wasn't careful, he could easily end up upsetting Akane again. She had really been angry this last time, and would probably be even more touchy than usual for the next little while. On the other hand, hopefully she would also be more ready to give him the benefit of the doubt if he explained something ahead of time.

"Hey, Akane," he said, after spending some few minutes considering the best way to start things off.

He'd been walking beside her since their earlier conversation, so Akane didn't have to stop and turn around to look at him. "What is it?"

"Just something I needed to tell you, about what happened last week."

Akane sighed. "Listen, Ranma, I'd rather just forget it for now, okay? I don't want to talk about Shampoo or that day any more!"

"Huh? No, it's not that. This happened earlier on. Day before that, actually."

"Oh. You mean when you had your study date with Kaori?" The hairs on the back of Ranma's neck stirred. Akane's tone and expression were darkening. Blast it, this was what he'd been trying to AVOID by bringing this up now!

"Yes and no, Akane." Too late to quit now. Ranma forged on ahead. "We didn't actually get any studying done." Eyeing the facial tic that his fiancée had suddenly developed, and running that last sentence back through his mind, he blurted out, "That ain't what it sounded like! I mean I got caught in the rain on the way to her place and she ran into me in the street just a little later!"

"So what?!" Akane demanded. Then she blinked, as for some strange reason a vision of Kodachi pranced through her head. "Wait a minute… you don't mean you've never told her about your curse?!"

"Nope, not yet." Ranma breathed a quick sigh of relief. "So all she saw then was the girl who took her down in the Martial Arts Takeout race. And she wanted a piece of my hide for payback."

"What did you do?"

"Kaori didn't give me a whole lotta choice, actually." Ranma shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "She attacked me, didn't give me a chance to explain or nothing, did her best to squish me flat on the pavement. Story of my life, really."

The youngest Tendo sniffed. "Just like you're always picking on Ryoga. Sounds like karma to me."

"Yeah, well, I never tried chokin' Ryoga with a stupid noose made outta ramen noodles. Or any other kinda noose." Ranma didn't even bother trying to correct her impression of who was at fault in his battles with the lost boy. By now he was resigned that that was one truth he'd never make her see. "I never hid chopsticks up my sleeves so someone who tried to block my punches got some nasty bruises for their troubles."

Akane bit her lower lip. "Was it really that bad, Ranma?" She was used to Ranma thoroughly outclassing everyone his age. Getting caught between Shampoo and Kaori was one thing, but she wouldn't have thought he'd have that rough a time in a one-on-one battle.

"Well, it ain't like I couldn't handle it or nothing. But it wasn't any fun."

"I'm sorry." A bit belatedly, Akane was remembering the time she had faced Kaori in battle. Even Shampoo had never fought her so ferociously, never given her that kind of pain. "What happened then? Did you win?"

"Yeah, when I got sick of taking it I knocked her out, took her to her apartment, an' left her there." Ranma was looking ahead into the distance, and missed seeing the way Akane's eyes widened and her face paled at this. "Avoided her at school the next day, 'cause I wasn't feeling up to talking to her about all this. And maybe you didn't notice, but she wasn't there Thursday or Friday. So I still need to talk to her, tell her what's going on, and maybe today'll be the day. Just wanted you to know, if you see me going off to talk to Kaori all by myself."

"O-okay, Ranma. Thanks for warning me," Akane said quietly.

He gave her a strange glance, wondering why she'd used that tone. However, she didn't seem angry or hurt, so he let it go. The gates of Furinkan were right up ahead of them, anyway… time to concentrate on other things, he decided.

Seldom had Ranma been more right. Seldom had it done him less good.

Kaori wasn't the only one whose recent absences from Furinkan had been a bit of a relief to the pigtailed boy. The school had seen neither hide nor hair of Tatewaki Kuno for the last two weeks. These days the kendoist ranked relatively low on Ranma's scale of annoyances, and so he hadn't paid too much attention to the matter. It had been good for the occasional moment of mild thankfulness, nothing more.

However, all good things must come to an end, and when Ranma and Akane entered the schoolyard, they found Tatewaki standing there waiting. Ranma sighed and rolled his eyes. Akane frowned, expecting him to rush up for what he called 'celebrating their passion' and she called molestation. It had been two weeks since he'd seen his fierce tigress, after all, and she was sure Kuno was eager to make up for lost time.

Truth be told, however, a small part of her was a little glad to see him. HERE was someone she could pound flat and not feel guilty about it at all! As soon as he moved in to grab her, she was going to send him flying far enough that it'd take him ANOTHER fortnight to get back!

"Akane Tendo… truly you are a sight for sore eyes," Kuno said. Akane blinked, surprised not at the words but rather the tone in which Tatewaki had spoken. It was a strange mixture of harsh intensity and tightly-wound control, with undertones that she couldn't quite identify. Kuno's eyes gave much the same impression; they were bloodshot, and there were dark circles underneath, but a light of force and focus shone through, denying the physical evidences of weariness.

The upperclassman had paused after that first sentence, falling silent to stare at her. The intensity of his regard quickly made Akane extremely uncomfortable, but a few seconds later, just before she could decide on a response, Tatewaki tore his gaze away. "But needs I must ask you to go ahead now into the school building, my goddess. For the task before the Blue Thunder cannot wait even for the love we share."

"And what task is that," Ranma asked in a bored tone of voice. "Oh, wait, lemme guess. Time to challenge the vile sorcerer again to try an' free Akane and the pigtailed girl. Right?"

"Be still before your betters until spoken to, dog," Kuno spat. "I would have words with you, and it is my wish that a challenge would not become necessary."

Ranma frowned. THAT he hadn't expected. Did the kendoist mean what he said? He wasn't above using trickery, but it didn't really seem like him to lie outright. On the other hand, now that Kuno's attention was directed solely toward him, Ranma could plainly see hatred seething in the older boy's expression.

Akane could see it just as plainly. "What did you want to talk to him about, Kuno?"

"It is a matter of my family honor. It is not right to involve you. Please, Akane Tendo, go now."

Ranma glanced to the side, noting the mulish cast of determination that was settling onto Akane's face. "C'mon, Akane, just head on in. You know how stubborn Kuno is. Sooner you go ahead, sooner I can figure out what this bozo wants."

"Well, excuse me for being a little worried! Look at him, Ranma. He really seems angry!"

"Yeah? So?"

Akane threw up her hands in frustration. "Fine! Sorry! Sorry I even thought for a minute that he might decide to attack you anyway!" She turned, intending to stomp off into the school.

"Akane." The tone of Ranma's voice froze her mid-stride. The youngest Tendo turned back, and her fiancé continued. "You said to look at him? Well, I can see he's angry." Kuno's face was pale, frozen in a mask of controlled anger at the way the two teens were speaking about him as if he weren't there to hear. However, he made no sign of acknowledgement, just continued standing still and waiting.

"Now why don't you look?" Ranma said, gesturing toward the kendoist. "I mean really look. His hair's all mussed up. His eyes are all red and bleary. You can tell he's been wearing that same stupid kendo outfit for days now. He's tired, Akane. This's someone who's getting near the end of his strength, and is just pushing himself along with willpower.

"And on top of that, it's Kuno. Mr. Blue Thunder himself." Ranma's voice took on a sharper edge. "You think I need to be protected from HIM?!"

"Fine, Ranma," Akane said tightly. "Sorry for caring." She turned again, and walked ahead into the school.

"I see you yet hold her in your bonds of foul sorcery, Saotome," Kuno's voice rasped. "That she would think to shield such a one as you from such a one as me."

"Kuno, will you just tell me what you want?" Ranma snapped. "You said you were in a hurry. So talk already."

"Very well." Kuno's eyes narrowed. In a tone of vicious hatred held back by iron control, he said, "You will tell me what you have done with my sister."

Ranma blinked. "What?"

"Do not play GAMES with me!!" Even iron can fracture. "She has disappeared out of our home, vanished these past weeks. Thanks to your dark magics, you are the one and only creature in this world who could demand her obedience and receive it!" Kuno pulled a bokken from the interior of his robes. "She is my SISTER, Saotome! Tell me where you have hidden her, release her from the snares in which you have bound her, and I will allow you to walk free until another day!!"

"I mighta known it would be something this stupid," Ranma muttered. "I had nothing to do with Kodachi disappearing, Kuno. I can tell you where to look for her, though… she got locked up in the psycho ward for tryin' to assassinate some gymnastics rivals or something."

"VICIOUS LIES!!" Kuno roared, flecks of spittle appearing on his lips. "The great and noble House of Kuno would never be tainted by such darkness!" With a great deal of effort, he resumed his façade of control. "I have heard these tales and found them to be groundless rumors, spread by lesser men jealous of my glory. It does not surprise me in the least to find that you, Saotome, are their source." He trembled, seeming for a moment as if straining against some invisible leash. "I warn you for the last time. Though I have searched long and hard and have not yet discovered her, though I humble myself to asking that you release her, do not think that silence can save you now. Wherever you have hidden my sister, I will seek her out and recover her, with or without your aid. The only choice you have today is to yield to my wishes, or die on my blade here and now!"

"You've finally lost it for good, haven't you?" Ranma said quietly. Just this once, as he regarded Tatewaki Kuno there was no annoyance, anger, or disgust on his face. Only pity and discomfort. The sight of someone broken like this was something he'd have been happy to avoid for his entire life. "Kuno, if I knew where Kodachi was," meaning which particular asylum held her, "I'd take you to her." 'So they could put you in a cell near her and try to get you well too.'

"So you hold your silence even now. Very well, Saotome." Kuno moved his bokken into a ready position. "You may be silent for all eternity in the grave!"

Ranma spared the barest fraction of an instant to glance around, confirming that they were the only two present in the schoolyard. By the time he returned his full attention to the fight before him, Tatewaki was already charging, bokken raised high, his face a rictus snarl of hatred. The kendoist closed the distance quickly, bringing the weapon arcing downward. Ranma shifted to one side, allowing the blow to miss him by several inches. Considering the strength with which Tatewaki had made the strike, Ranma was quite impressed when the older boy halted his weapon's descent before it could bury itself in the ground. The Saotome heir danced backward, evading the follow-up sideways strike as well.

"YOU WILL FALL!!" Kuno roared, and suddenly the tempo of his attacks increased dramatically. Ranma's eyes widened as he adjusted his own speed, nearly too late to avoid a strike toward his throat. Tatewaki was NEVER this fast when watermelons weren't involved!

And yet, that wasn't true, Ranma would later remember. There had been one time, after Happosai had trained Kuno to face him, when the kendoist had found reserves of speed that he had never before touched. The ancient lecher had presented him with what he had said was an elixir of super-speed. Tatewaki had accepted this as truth, believing it with a stubbornness that only a Kuno could achieve, and that belief, rather than the true unsavory contents of the 'elixir', had enabled him to move with a speed greater than Ranma himself could match. The fight might have ended badly indeed, except for the true nature of the aid Happosai had given his unsuspecting student. Kuno had great resistance against blows to the head, but his stomach was far weaker, and indigestion had taken him down more painfully than Ranma ever had. And it seemed that here and now, fury, self-deception, and madness were forming an adequate substitute for Happosai's little bit of trickery.

However, through training and through desperate challenges, Ranma had come a long way himself since that other battle. While doing so could not be described as effortless, this time the Saotome heir wove his way through Kuno's furious barrage, usually dodging the bokken, occasionally deflecting it instead with the flat of his hand. Several times he forced an opening, when he could have lashed out and nailed Kuno easily with a counterstrike, but Ranma refrained from taking the opportunities. Considering how much energy his foe was expending, and remembering the signs of weariness that had already been there before their battle began, Ranma expected the older boy would collapse from exhaustion before too much longer.

After a couple of minutes of this, in which near-misses had decimated a tree and several sections of wall, and during which Kuno's fury and power had not lessened in the slightest, Ranma changed his mind. Later, when he had time for more than just split-second decisions, he would remember hearing that truly insane individuals can be capable of truly remarkable feats of strength and stamina.

For now, though, there really wasn't time for reflection. The flow of battle had put him between the school and Kuno, and the air pressure from the kendoist's missed strikes was beginning to crack glass in the windows. In that instant the decision was made; Ranma wasn't about to let any innocent bystanders get hurt because of his inaction. One way or another, Kuno was going down now.

As the next strike blurred toward him, he poured every possible ounce of speed into his left arm, reaching out, bracing his forearm above the bokken, pressing down, altering its path, and forcing the tip into the ground. His right arm came around only the merest fraction of a second later, striking near the hilt of the wooden blade in the instant before Kuno could recover from the failed attack. It was a blow that should have shattered the weapon, especially considering how much stress the bokken had already suffered from attacks that missed their target and tore up the surrounding environment.

Instead of snapping the bokken, however, Ranma's punch finally knocked away the wooden covering that hid the katana underneath.

The steel gave a muted ring as his right fist slammed through the concealing halves of wood and struck the flat of the blade. The impact was painful, to say the least. However, his left arm faired rather worse… the katana was of the straight variety rather than the curved, and it had been hidden upside-down within the bokken. Which, as the remains of the disguise fell away, left Ranma's forearm pressing down against the edge of the blade.

Tatewaki wasn't the only one who could draw on new depths of speed in a crisis situation. All the various onlookers inside the school saw was a blur, ending with Ranma fifteen feet away from the kendoist. With that distance between them, he glanced down at the cut on his arm. The pigtailed boy exhaled a quick breath of relief on realizing the wound was surprisingly shallow, then returned all his attention to the fight before him.

"So much for the so-called honor of the House of Kuno." Ranma's face and voice showed no trace now of his earlier pity. "You make me sick."

"'Twas merely a symbolic gesture, that I thought fitting," Kuno growled back. "As you attempt to hide your treacherous ways and black soul, so did I decide that the blade to end your miserable life should be hidden beneath a less alarming guise."

"Just call it like it is, Kuno. A cheap trick for a guy who doesn't care what it takes to beat me." Ranma matched Tatewaki glare for glare, and brought his hands up. "And I ain't in the mood to humor you anymore. MOKO TAKABISHA!"

The ball of chi shot forward. Kuno didn't even try to dodge. Anything that even remotely resembled retreat was unthinkable at this point. He braced himself to meet the attack, to shrug off the vile sorcerer's spell with the stoic grace of a true samurai.

However, this was AFTER he threw the katana straight toward Ranma's chest… by accident or design at the perfect instant when the glare of Ranma's own forming attack prevented him from seeing this.

The ball of chi sped away from Ranma. Not until it had covered three quarters of the distance to its target could Ranma make out the fact that there was something else gleaming in the air.

Once again, all that the students saw was a blur, resolving into one very unhappy pigtailed martial artist with his arms stretched out before him, palms clasped flat against a blade whose tip rested an inch from breaking his skin. Meanwhile, Tatewaki crashed unconscious to the ground, his body failing him at last, his fury unable to shrug off the chi blast.

Ranma sent a long, cold glare toward the kendoist, then turned his gaze to the sword. It was of high-quality but plain workmanship, obviously not the Kuno honor blade or anything like that.

Perhaps it wouldn't have made any difference if it had been. He was breathing heavily, his face flushed red. This time, Kuno had gone too far, and Ranma was ANGRY.

He braced the katana against the ground, then snapped the blade with a grunt. Ranma cast the pieces away and stood for a long moment, calming down, before half-turning and looking at Furinkan over one shoulder. The late bell had already rung, he knew, and if he headed into class now Miss Hinako would probably drain first and ask questions later.

He regarded the school for only a few seconds before turning and walking away.

"There you are."

Ranma blinked and halted his kata, not having expected to hear that voice anytime soon. He turned around to face the porch. Sure enough, Nabiki was standing there watching him. "Shouldn't you still be in school, Nabiki?"

For the moment, Nabiki chose to ignore the question. "Honestly, Saotome, more martial arts? Didn't you get enough of a workout three hours ago?"

"If you were watching then, you saw a real good example of why I can't afford to slack off practice," Ranma replied. "Besides, didn't you see how slow and smooth that kata I was doing just now was? That's an exercise to build control and promote harmony. Fightin' Kuno was all about speed and power."

Nabiki yawned, subtly indicating just how interested she was in hearing a martial arts lecture.

"Of course, that just goes to show how important those things really are," Ranma continued. "I actually did practice some for that a little while ago. The kata just now was also to help cool down from that."

"Saotome, if you didn't already owe me more money than you'll make in your entire life, I'd charge you for wasting my time with these boring details," the middle Tendo said dryly. Didn't it just figure that the only thing to really move Ranma to eloquence would be martial arts. Nabiki pulled out a piece of paper and started toward Ranma, stepping down from the porch. "Anyway— AAAHHHH!!" Her descending foot had come down squarely on a golf ball.

Before Nabiki could shift more than ten degrees away from the vertical, Ranma crossed the distance and slipped his arm behind her, steadying her. "Like I was gonna say," he grumbled, "most of them went in the koi pond, but there's still a couple of golf balls lyin' around from the speed training. Be careful where you step."

"All right, I'll bite," Nabiki said grumpily. "How exactly do you use golf balls in martial arts speed training?"

"Pop stood in one corner of the yard, and got your dad in another, and they both threw the balls toward me. I had to punch Pop's out of the air, and kick Mr. Tendo's."

"Well, that explains the round mark on your forehead." Nabiki had been wondering where that bruise had come from. "Nice to see even the great Ranma Saotome can miss sometimes."

The pigtailed martial artist shrugged. "Missing in training's no big deal." His tone darkened as he said, "It's the fights with lunatics carrying live blades where you can't afford something like that.

"By the way…" he hesitated, thinking that he might be about to ask a stupid question, but eventually continued, "are you sure Kodachi's really in an asylum?"

Nabiki blinked. "Why do you ask?"

"Didn'tcha hear the stuff Kuno was saying to me before the fight?"

"No, I don't think anyone did. If you recall, the two of you were standing near the entrance to the courtyard. The window in our classroom was open, but I couldn't make out what either of you were saying."

"Oh." Ranma related a condensed version of Tatewaki's accusations. "He really did seem convinced that Kodachi wasn't in a mental hospital or nothin', Nabiki. Said he'd looked into that and it wasn't true. I was just wondering if you knew exactly where she was supposed to be."

"No, I never heard anything that specific. But really, Ranma, I can't believe you're taking this seriously. A looonnnng time ago, Kuno-baby's ego grew too big for him to ever admit to having any flaws of his own." Nabiki shrugged. "Now it must have swelled too much for him to allow for the same thing in close family."

"Guess you're right," Ranma said, remembering that in the past, the kendoist had at least been lucid enough to realize that it was Kodachi chasing him of her own free will. But this morning Kuno had also accused him of using magic to snare Kodachi. Tatewaki must just not be willing to face any unpleasant truths anymore, whether they were his own flaws or the truth behind his sister's disappearance.

"Of course I am. Now, if we could get back to important things…" Nabiki handed him the aforementioned piece of paper. "Sign here."

"What is it?" he asked, taking the document but eyeing it warily, as if some sub-clause might involve the disposition of his first-born child.

"Honestly, Saotome, I thought even you knew how to read," Nabiki said, rolling her eyes. "It's a statement about the fight, acknowledging that Kuno attacked an unarmed opponent, specifically you, wielding a katana with apparent intent to kill. It also states that Tatewaki didn't seem rational or in his right mind at the time."

"How'd you know that?" Ranma asked. "Yeah, you're right, you already heard it from me just now how he was rantin' and raving. But how'd you know earlier?"

"Are you kidding? I might not have been able to hear what you two were saying, but I could see his face just fine." Nabiki shook her head. "Not a pretty sight, as I'm sure you noticed too. Now… your signature, please?"

Ranma wasn't ready to comply just yet. "What's this about, anyway?"

Nabiki didn't answer at first, just stared silently at him. Then she sighed, and her flippant mask seemed to crumble. "It's obvious Kuno needs help. Right?"

"Right."

"Well, if he goes in front of a judge on an attempted murder charge, and assuming nobody buys his way free, what he'll probably get is jail. And what he needs is psychiatric care. That's what I'm going to be working toward, Saotome." Nabiki's gaze sharpened, until it seemed to Ranma as if it might rival the edge of Kuno's late unlamented blade. "This statement is hopefully all I'll need from you. Like I already said, it plays up the 'mental stability or lack thereof' issue rather than the attempted murder. That's the important thing here. I hope you agree."

For the life of him, Ranma couldn't think why Nabiki had said that last sentence threateningly. "Well, duh, Nabiki. Of course the reason he tried to kill me was he was crazy. Why wouldn't I agree with that?" He frowned. "You don't really think I'm that stupid, do you?"

"No, Saotome, all kidding aside, of course I don't. But there's something that might not have occurred to you yet, and I wanted you to think about how important this was." Nabiki paused for emphasis, then said, "For someone who really didn't like Tatewaki, this would be a great chance for some revenge. Emphasize the attempted murder, play down the irrational behavior, try and get Kuno sent to jail instead of to the help he needs. Heck, with his attitude and without a bokken to defend himself with, he might even end up getting his neck broken by a pissed-off cellmate.

"That's a worst-case scenario, obviously." Nabiki's gaze sharpened again. "One I intend to avoid. I know you are too honorable to do something like that," 'plus there's no way in hell you'd have thought of it by yourself', "but there are plenty of people at Furinkan who've got grudges against Kuno. Some of them might even be smart enough to work this out.

"But not with your evidence. You were there, you saw everything better than anyone else. So that's why I want your signature, Ranma. Plus it will hopefully keep you from having to testify personally. And you'd rather not waste your time like that, right?"

"Right," he agreed. He gave the paper a quick once-over, satisfying himself that there really wasn't anything on this that put him any further in debt to Nabiki, then signed it. Nabiki smiled, wearily rather than triumphantly, and reached for the paper.

However, Ranma still had a question or two. "I would rather not waste any time on this. What about you? Why're you going to this much trouble? I can't imagine there's gonna be any yen in it for you. In fact," he frowned, "if you're serious about not lettin' Kuno get off scot-free, you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're gonna be losing your biggest source of income."

"That's it, Saotome, rub it in," Nabiki snarled. "So what SHOULD I do? Nothing? And what if that winds up with Kuno killing someone?! I might not lose any sleep over YOU, but since he's apparently finally gone off the deep end, it could be some totally innocent person."

"Okay, okay, I can see that much. But why go to the trouble of keepin' him out of jail? Don't want to risk him getting out still messed up?"

Nabiki shook her head, not looking at him now. "I don't particularly want to talk about this, Ranma. I'll stretch a point though, seeing as how earlier today you caught a sword an inch from spilling your guts on the ground.

"You do know that most of the money I make goes right back into this household, right? There's a reason I don't have a new stereo, why my computer is surplus from Furinkan, why most of the clothes in my closet are borrowed from Akane. Without me, we'd never have been able to keep our home.

"I've gotten good enough nowadays not to need to leech off the Kuno coffers. But there've been times in the past when there would have been nothing on the table without me milking Tatewaki for all he was worth. I did it. I don't feel guilty about it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But here and now I guess I owe him this much, Ranma." Nabiki sighed, still looking down. Then she turned back to face him, gaze fiercer than ever. "Don't you ever breathe a word of this either. Not to anyone else, and definitely not to me. I don't think I'm going to want to be reminded of it."

"Don't worry, Nabiki." Ranma grinned and slapped her on the back. "Just sell me out to Shampoo or Kaori or somebody when you get the chance, an' I'll forget all about any good deeds you might've done."

Nabiki grabbed his hand and shook it. "It's a deal."

"There you are."

Ranma blinked and looked up from his slice of watermelon. "Hey, Akane. Back already?" Only an hour had passed since his talk with Nabiki; the school day wasn't yet two-thirds over. If Akane was going to cut out early to check up on him, Ranma would have expected her to do it long before this.

He frowned slightly as he got a good look at her. It wasn't a sight he had expected to see — his fiancée was pale and drawn, her eyes resembling Gosunkugi's sunken stare, her hair hanging limp and lifeless. She was holding onto the doorframe to steady herself. "Are you okay?!"

"I thought I was supposed to ask you that," she said tiredly. The youngest Tendo walked over and collapsed next to him at the table, then took a long glance at his left arm. The bandage didn't seem elaborate enough to be covering any serious wound. "I went by Dr. Tofu's clinic, but he said you hadn't stopped by. Is your arm all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, this was nothing to bother the doc about. I've been hurt plenty worse than this in training. Just got Kasumi to slap a bandage on it — it prob'ly won't even leave a scar." Waving aside the trivial matter of his own injury, Ranma returned to what he considered more important. "What happened to you?!"

"Miss Hinako. She drained me when I tried to leave and go check on you."

Ranma snorted. "She doesn't like you skipping out of class for a little bit, so she hits you with an attack that'll keep you flat on your back in the nurse's office for three hours. Real good policy."

A faint spark kindled momentarily in Akane's eyes, and she managed to say the next sentence with a hint of her usual vehemence. "It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't sent me in when Kuno told me to go. Guess that's what I get for listening to the likes of you AND him."

"Hey!" Ranma didn't much care for being lumped together with Tatewaki like that. "I didn't make ya actually go all the way to your classroom. You coulda just stood in the hall or something, and that way you'd've been out of the way when Kuno went nuts, and you still could've seen what was going on. You might've had a better view, too. Probably wouldn't have worried about me at all if you could've gotten a good look at this measly little paper cut."

"Ranma…" Akane groaned. "He tried to kill you! He came at you with a real katana! He actually did cut you! Doesn't it matter to you at all? Don't you even care?!"

He shrugged. "It's no big deal, Akane. Heck, I'd take this morning over him grabbin' at my girl form any day of the week."

For a moment, the fire flickered back into Akane's eyes, more strongly than before. She wanted to yell at him! She wanted to demand that he take this seriously, that he should notice just how worried she had been and acknowledge that she'd had reason to be! Watching him blur through Tatewaki's offensive, through a barrage of strikes that were all intended to kill, had left her stomach churning and her breath catching in her chest. She'd really been worried, Akane wanted to shout. What right did he have to just shrug this off?! What right did he have to survive something like that, to pass such a test of his martial arts skills, and treat it like it was nothing?! She'd seen him dodge through an offensive that Akane knew would have broken her. What right did he have not to realize how worried for him she had been?!

She wanted to yell all this, and maybe more, maybe even hit him for just blowing this off. But she was nowhere near fully recovered from the earlier chi drain, and weariness swallowed the fire before it could really take hold. "Fine, Ranma," she said with a sigh. "I'm just glad you're okay."

"Yeah, me too." Ranma returned his attention to his watermelon, just long enough to finish the last couple of bites, then said, "Want me to go ask Kasumi for a slice for you?"

Akane shook her head. "No. I think I'll just go to my room and rest some more."

"You'd get better faster if you had something to eat," Ranma pointed out. When she shook her head again, he sighed. "Okay. But before you go, I did want to say thanks."

"For what?"

"Well… I mean, it was pretty obvious you didn't want to go in an' leave Kuno to me like that. But you did it anyway. Thanks for not sticking around an' getting caught up in the fight, that's all. It wasn't really any big deal the way it turned out, but if Kuno had hurt you or something, I… well, you know… that'd be a whole lot worse than what did happen."

"Honestly, Ranma. He wouldn't have attacked ME."

Ranma frowned. "Maybe not on purpose. But if you'd gotten in his way, it would've happened just the same. He went berserk there, Akane, wasn't caring about anything except taking me down. You saw how, at the end, he threw his sword at me. You ever know Kuno to let go of a weapon like that?"

"Okay, maybe you've got a point." Akane was feeling better now. At least Ranma had realized that he'd asked her to do something hard, and had thanked her for it. "But you would've protected me, right?"

Ranma's face settled into the most serious expression he'd worn yet today. "I'd've done the best I could, Akane. That's what I always do." He reached over with his right hand, gently rubbing his curled fingers against the bandage on his left arm, and cast his mind more than a year into the past, to the moment when Ryoga's belt-blade had given her the haircut she still wore. "And it's pretty darn good. But I'd really hate for it to be not quite good enough."

The night sky was thick with clouds, soft puffs above and beside and below him. Only the occasional fragmentary gap allowed vision of the deeper sky behind. There was no moon, and barely a double handful of stars could be seen through the occasional breaks in the clouds. Yet it seemed that either there was light enough, starlight filtering through the canopy perhaps, or an unusual sort of darkness that didn't really obscure everything.

Such curious things may be found in dreams, after all.

Ranma recognized this, in the dim awareness that one sometimes gets in such circumstances, even managed to vaguely remember having such a dream before. He felt again the sense of carefree comfort, the freedom of being here, now, away from the usual strife and petty problems of the world below. Just the one instant to remember all this, to experience the muted gleam of recognition and turn to anticipation, and then Ranma relaxed, deliberately relinquishing thought to exist just in the moment.

After an uncertain length of time, though, he became aware that something was… off. There was some triflingly discordant note, like the faintest of itches at the back of his mind. Easy enough to ignore at first; Ranma did so for quite awhile longer. But inevitably, that one irritation began to grow, pushing forward through the sleepy haze of his contentment. Ranma made a wordless noise of protest, resenting this intrusion on the joy of the moment, and reached out to push whatever it was back to the depths of unconsciousness.

His mental grasp touched… sorrow… pain… fear…

Up until now the sky had been calm, and though Ranma's pigtail had streamed and fluttered behind him and his shirt had rippled and snapped, this was an artificial wind caused by the disturbance of his flight. The night air around him had been still and warm. In an instant, however, the wind rose with a howl. A cold gust swirled around him, battering him, lifting him, and Ranma felt his speed increase dramatically. His thoughts seemed to speed up a bit as well, shedding a little of their previous somnolent sluggishness.

~Things change. Sometimes we can't control it.~

The clouds around him shredded, like cotton candy in a sudden stream of water. In the formless way that knowledge does arrive in dreams, Ranma sensed that there was some meaning to this, that this had been the goal, the reason for the wind's sudden fury.

However, that knowledge didn't receive more than the barest fraction of his dreaming attention. All that remained was caught up in a sudden rush of joy, a sense of freedom much greater than before. He rode the wild wind, casting his eyes up to the now-uncovered stars and laughing out loud in delight. They glittered faintly, like tiny flecks of diamond set against a backdrop of deep, rich, unimaginably glorious darkness.

The pain and fear he'd touched before were still with him, closer than ever now. But somehow, they melted into the rush of freedom as he blazed through the darkened sky; Ranma was conscious of them, but didn't really feel them anymore.

~Where did they come from, Ranma? For what did you grieve?~

"Tatewaki," he whispered, pulling a small fraction of his consciousness back from the joy of flight. "Seein' him break like that… I don't like the guy, but I'd never have wanted that for him."

~Why did you hurt?~

"Because he attacked me, because he hates me, and I don't deserve to be hated."

~What caused you fear?~

In the daylight, in wakefulness, Ranma would probably not even have gotten past the first two questions. Certainly he would have pulled away, denied the third. But here, in the darkness and in the dream, those barriers were forgotten. "He tried his best to kill me," Ranma answered, "and he nearly did hurt me bad."

As he spoke, the knot of remembered pain and fear loosened. He took a deep breath of the cold, bracing air, letting the dark emotions drain away as he flew through the night.

It was another two days before Kaori returned to Furinkan.

Even then, she didn't show up for class. The final bell of the day had rung; the rooms were mostly empty and the hallways not far from it. Ranma and Akane had nearly crossed the courtyard when Kaori appeared through the gate before them. The three teens stopped, Ranma and Kaori eyeing one another with varying degrees of surprise and trepidation, Akane not actually scowling as she stared at the Martial Arts Takeout girl, but neither really hiding her reaction of distaste.

Kaori recovered most quickly. She gave her fiancé a quick bow. "Ranma, I'm very sorry about not showing up for our last study meeting. I need to talk to you about that… do you have some time free this afternoon?"

"Yeah, Kaori, actually I needed to talk to you too," Ranma replied, attempting to nerve himself to the ordeal. With her absence this morning, he had assumed he didn't have to think about this problem for another day. Ranma didn't quite pay enough attention to his own words to realize it, but the sudden dashing of those hopes lent an extremely unenthusiastic tone to his response.

Neither Kaori nor Akane missed that note, however. The youngest Tendo gave her antagonist a quick, hard smile, then turned and said, "Okay, Ranma, I'll see you later on, at home. Don't take too long, all right?" She walked away, feeling satisfaction mixed with hope. It was about time someone threw Kaori's own behavior in her face, and maybe it would make the girl give up and go away. At the very least it should keep her from causing so much trouble. Akane didn't want Ranma coming home too stressed and bruised and weary to explain important things to her.

Kaori had been meaning to ask Ranma to meet with her later, and then proceed into the school to meet with her teachers about her missed homework. Those plans died a quick death. She knew what her priorities were, after all, and if the thought of spending time with her had suddenly become unappealing to Ranma, then the first item on the agenda was talking through the problem. "I would invite you over to my place for this, Ranma, but it's just too far away. Where do you want to go?"

Ranma shrugged. "I dunno. Chuushinteki Park's pretty close. You wanna head there?"

She hesitated, remembering the park's location and estimating how long a walk would be required to reach it, then nodded her assent.

Under other circumstances, Ranma might have wondered just why Kaori was walking so slowly. However, since here and now it gave him more time to think about what he was going to say, his only reaction was a sort of vague thankfulness.

On reaching the park, they sat down on a bench near an ornamental fountain. "Do you mind if I go first?" Kaori asked. On the one hand, she was a bit nervous as to what Ranma planned to say, and didn't really enjoy stretching the anticipation of same any further. However, if he really was intending to say something she didn't want to hear, hopefully her explanation would change that.

As if Ranma was going to refuse that request. "Sure, go ahead."

"Thanks." Kaori sighed. "Like I said, I'm really sorry about missing the study meeting. I ran into somebody on the street. Somebody I didn't expect to."

Ranma glanced over at the fountain. This would be an excellent moment for the wind to carry just enough of the spray over to him.

However, this time it seemed as if the elements weren't conspiring against him. Kaori continued speaking uninterrupted by any Jusenkyo surprises. "A while ago, you told me you had seen more of the Takeout race than I thought. Do you know how it ended?"

"Yeah, I kinda saw."

Kaori frowned, looking down at the ground. "Then you realize I would have won, except some girl — I guess it must have been one of Akane's friends — got involved. She blindsided me when I had Akane on the ropes," she snorted, and said the next sentence rather bitterly, "and nearly killed her own friend too. Then when I was in the home stretch, she—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!! TIME OUT!!" It had taken a few seconds for that previous clause to register, but when it did, there was no way Ranma was going to hold back from interrupting. "Whaddaya mean about nearly killin' Akane?!"

"You saw what happened, right?" Kaori turned and stared Ranma unabashedly in the eye as she said the next sentence. "I had a Ramen Round-up Noodle Noose around her throat, and I was choking her. Remember?"

"Yeah," Ranma growled in a warning tone.

"I know it's asking a lot, to remember something that happened so long ago, but please try. Think back to after the race was over. Can you remember?" Kaori's eyes held no hint of a willingness to back down. "Did she have any bruises on her throat at all?"

Ranma's ire dissolved into confusion as he thought back, not to what had happened about a year ago, but rather to a battle that had taken place only the previous week. "N-no. I didn't… didn't see any, I mean."

"It takes a great deal of skill to pull off that attack without actually harming your opponent. Not to mention concentration. THAT'S what I'm talking about. When that redheaded wench hit me and disrupted my attack, she could easily have wound up crushing her friend's windpipe."

"Damn," Ranma muttered, looking down and fighting off a shudder.

"Right, well, I'm sure you can understand that I'm not too happy about having a near miss with first-degree murder. And of course let's not forget how she held me down and let Akane hit the finish line an inch ahead of me. Maybe there weren't any rules to the race, but common decency should say that each competitor runs on her own skill. That she doesn't have friends help her to a victory she isn't good enough to win on her own."

"Sounds like you really don't like that girl," Ranma said, his tone suddenly a bit lighter. It had never happened before, but maybe when he revealed his curse it would get this fiancée off his back for good. "Can't say I blame ya."

Kaori grimaced. "And it doesn't help that she kicked my butt last Tuesday, either."

'Nah, it was a closer fight than that,' Ranma thought generously.

After waiting a moment to see if he would say anything in response to her revelation, Kaori continued. "That's why I never showed up. I ran into her when I was hurrying back to my apartment, and I couldn't help myself — I fought her. What can I say, I wanted some payback." She grimaced bitterly. "What I got was some pavement.

"And you know what's really scary? She knocked me out, and several hours later I woke up on the couch in my apartment. The front door was locked. All the keys to it were still there. And nobody was home but me." Kaori brooded darkly for a bit. "I don't know what happened, but as soon as I see that girl again I'm going to find out."

She sighed suddenly, then qualified that last sentence. "But I hope I don't run into her for at least another couple of days. I'm in no shape for a rematch."

"Huh?" Belatedly, Ranma noticed how gingerly Kaori was seated on the bench, and remembered the slow pace she'd set to this park. Come to think of it, when she'd walked through the gate at Furinkan, there had been a taxi pulling away in the street outside the school. "You hurt or something, Kaori?"

"Well, not so much now. But last week…" the brunette winced at the memory. "I'm sure you saw Shampoo's little love tap when I suggested the one to take you to a doctor should be me. Instead of the girl who'd ground you into the dirt."

"Yeah, I remember. But it couldn't'a been that bad," Ranma protested. "I mean, if she'd hit you really hard you would've gone flying or something."

Just for a moment, Kaori gave him a sad look. "Is that really the kind of abuse you're used to, Ranma?" she asked quietly. Without waiting for a response, she said, "I'm not that durable. But that injury by itself would've just kept me out of school for one day. Which it did; I was gone on Thursday, like I guess you were too."

"Um, no, I was there."

Kaori stared blankly at him for several moments, before giving herself a little shake and resuming speaking. "Anyway, that night I received a challenge and had a match with one of your other fiancées. That unattractive Hayashibara girl."

"Oh." Now Ranma could understand why she might have had to spend a few extra days out of commission. "She give you a hard battle?"

"Yes and no. I made a stupid mistake early on, and let her close to me. If you saw the Martial Arts Takeout Race, you know I'm good at hand-to-hand." The brunette grimaced. "She's better. She surprised me, pulled out a pair of tonfa and beat me black and blue. It still hurts if I take a deep breath.

"But I was able to get in a kick that threw her backward. Once I had some good distance between us, I tangled her up with the Noodle Noose, disabled her with thrown chopsticks, then moved in and gave her a taste of her own medicine." It had taken nearly the last of her strength, too. Kaori sighed. "My own stupid fault for closing with her in the first place.

"Anyway, that's why I haven't been around sooner. I wanted to tell you why it looked like I skipped out on our study date. I didn't mean to, and I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you're gonna be," Ranma muttered under his breath. He got to his feet and walked on over to the fountain. "Okay, now it's my turn to tell you what I got ta say."

Kaori braced herself. Why had he suddenly, deliberately put that distance between them? "G-go on."

Ranma was a little proud of the strategy he'd managed to form on the walk over here. "Kaori… if someone's got something really, REALLY weird to tell you, do you want them to try to ease into it, or just lay it on ya all at once?" This time at least he wouldn't have to guess at the best way to reveal things!

The Martial Arts Takeout girl blinked. Not 'bad', 'weird'? "Um… I suppose just tell me straight out."

"Gotcha." Ranma plunged his arm into the water. "You ever hear about Jusenkyo?"

After splashing water on Kaori as well, in order to rouse her from her faint, giving the detailed explanation, telling her how she had been returned to her apartment after the fight, and fetching hot water from a nearby vendor to reveal the flipside of the transformation, Ranma fell silent. He stood there feeling a little frustrated at Kaori… why the heck did she tell him to just come out with the whole shock all at once if she was gonna faint after it?!

He was also more than a bit uncomfortable. Kaori hadn't said anything for a good five minutes now. The brunette was just sitting on the bench staring up at him, with such a mixture of emotions in her gaze that Ranma couldn't really identify any one of them. The intensity was plain to see, however.

Eventually, Kaori's frozen façade cracked. "I don't know how to handle this, Ranma."

The Saotome heir didn't really know how to respond to that. In any case, Kaori didn't pause long before speaking again. "Losing that race and leaving you here was bad enough. But… this?! It was my own fiancé who stabbed me in the back!"

"What the heck was I supposed to do?!" Ranma demanded. "Nothin'?! It looked like you were killin' Akane!"

"In broad daylight?! In front of a hundred witnesses?!" Kaori rose to her feet, the better to look him in the eye.

"Well, maybe I didn't stop an' take my time so I could think about that!!" Ranma yelled.

"I'll say you didn't!!" his companion shouted right back.

A tense silence fell. Both teens' faces were flushed, their breathing coming heavily. However, the pain this caused Kaori quickly distracted her, and her temper sank back down almost as rapidly as it had risen.

She returned to her seat on the bench, and when next she spoke, it was in a morose tone not far from a whisper. "Ranma… am I just wasting my time?"

He didn't have the slightest idea how to answer that one. After a minute of silence had stretched between them, Kaori reclaimed the floor. "I'm trying to help you. Are you even going to let me?" A harsh note of pain crept into her voice. "You should have told me this from the very beginning. And I mean the very beginning — all the way back a year ago, when I first showed up."

"You didn't exactly make yourself real approachable then," Ranma protested, glad at least to find one point he could argue.

Kaori hung her head and sighed. "I guess not. But you definitely should have told me this time around.

"This hurts, Ranma. I'm trying to be your friend, and you keep something like this from me? I'm trying to offer you something better than…" she waved a hand, indicating all of Nerima in one vague gesture, "this, and you're just blowing me off! Damn it, do you WANT to stick around here until that psychopathic girl caves your head in?!"

"All right, that's it! Listen, Kaori, I wanna know just why you've got it in so bad for Akane. You ain't even BEEN around to see ANYTHING of what's happened with me!"

"No. I haven't," Kaori allowed. "But my friend's cousin recently transferred out of Furinkan. And Noriko passed some stories she heard from her on to me. Stories about how one Akane Tendo treated her fiancé, who Noriko realized one day had a name she'd heard before. As the fiancé I had left behind.

"So after that, I did some poking around, confirmed a few things… and I knew I had to come back."

Ranma just shook his head sadly. This sounded an awful lot like something he'd heard from Nabiki once. "Kaori… Akane's a real popular girl at school. And because of that, there's some girls who're real jealous of her. They don't show it to her face, cause she's a martial artist and they don't want to get ground into the dirt or nothin'. But I bet they wouldn't have any problems spreadin' bad rumors around behind her back."

Kaori stared at him as if he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. At last, she said faintly, "That's supposed to make me think better of her? Did you even listen to what you just said?!"

"Huh?" He'd said it, of course he knew what he'd said. Why would Kaori have asked a question like that?

At Ranma's obvious confusion, his fiancée closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Eventually, when she felt ready, she said, "Ranma… I'm going to ask you two questions. I want you to answer them as honestly as you can."

"Um… what's this about?" he asked warily, scenting danger on the breeze.

"You'll understand sooner or later," Kaori said evenly, though there was a hint of sadness in her tone. "Question number one. Is it true that Akane once gave you a head injury that caused temporary amnesia?"

"Well, it was kinda—"

"YES OR NO?!" Kaori demanded.

Ranma clenched his teeth, unhappy in the first place to be reminded of his brief declaration of womanhood. He'd have been happier if those memories had never eventually surfaced in his mind, he'd prefer to forget them again if at all possible, and he really didn't like being pushed this hard concerning the matter. "Yes," he gritted out.

"Question number two." The note of sadness had been joined by trepidation. She was going out on a limb here; if her guess was wrong, she might lose quite a bit of ground in this battle. "When was the last time she knocked you unconscious?"

Ranma stared, his jaw dropping. "What the heck kinda question is that?!"

"If it's been so long ago that you can't remember, just tell me so."

"That ain't what I meant!" Ranma bristled. "Look, this's none of your business!"

"Isn't it?" His lack of answer had been answer enough. Kaori was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt now — he needed the help she was trying to give him. This time, she wasn't about to bow out. She got up and took a few steps away, then stopped.

Over her shoulder she called back, "I'll see you in class tomorrow, Ranma. Until then… please think about what I've said."

The afternoon sun was sinking low, the fiery disk seeming to rest only twice its diameter above the outer wall of the Tendo compound, when Ranma returned. On hearing his call of "I'm home!", Akane left the living room and met him in the hallway.

"That sure took a long time." She did her best to keep her tone free from accusation, and mainly succeeded. "What did you and Kaori have to say that took two hours?"

"Huh? Oh, nothin' much, Akane. I didn't spend all this time talking to her. Went for a walk afterward. That's what took so long."

"Oh. I see." Akane held back a glare. "You know, there was a REASON I asked you not to take too long talking to Kaori."

"Yeah, I know that," Ranma said. "You wanted to tick her off." If there was one aspect of communication that he was good at, it was insults, and from Akane's tone and Kaori's involuntary grimace he had recognized that one quite clearly.

"Besides that!" Akane snapped. "I want to hear what she said! Is she going to give up and go away now, and stop causing trouble?"

"Nah. I mean, she's not givin' up or going away. But she won't be attacking my girl side any more. That's one bright spot, at least."

"FOOLISH BOY!!" No need to ask who that was. As soon as Ranma had come in, Genma had turned his attention from his current game of shogi, pricking up his ears to follow the subsequent conversation. He'd ignored the glimpses of motion from his peripheral vision as Soun quickly rearranged the contents of the board. And when he heard Ranma's response to the last question, he knew it was about time to give his son a refresher course in the fine points of duty, honor, and responsibility.

Genma hurried over and joined the two teens. "Come here, Ranma, I need to talk to you." Pausing only to grab a firm hold on his son's ear, he turned and strode toward the dojo, ignoring Ranma's various cries of "OW! HEY! YAAHH! LEGGO, YOU OLD FOOL! THAT HURTS! CUT IT OUT!!"

When they were inside the building, Genma released his hold, took several steps away, and assumed a pose of dignified authority: back ramrod straight, arms behind him, expression of stern righteousness, head tilted at just the right angle to cause the light to gleam off his glasses. "Ranma, listen to me. Don't you see what you're doing here? AKANE is your rightful fiancée. You hurt her when you run around, spending time with all these interloper girls. It's time for you to grow up, and settle down, and take your responsibilities seriously!"

Genma paused, surprised and encouraged at Ranma's response to this. The boy hadn't interrupted yet, hadn't even put on that stubborn frown he usually wore when his father tried to get through to him about ending this fiancée mess. Instead, he seemed to be listening attentively. Not wanting to waste a golden opportunity like this, Genma quit thinking and resumed speaking. "I understand that it's tough sometimes to do what needs to be done, Ranma. But death is lighter than a feather, and duty is heavier than a mountain. It's your duty to wed Akane and uphold the Anything Goes School.

"Putting it off only makes things worse! You and Akane should have been married by now. That way, none of these girls would still be here, running around, interfering, making things go wrong between the two of you. Everything would be perfect by now if you would just go ahead and settle things!"

Another pause to study Ranma's reaction. The younger Saotome still wasn't frowning, still seemed to be listening thoughtfully, which was a better response than Genma had thought possible. Thus encouraged, he said, "We can have a priest here as early as tomorrow afternoon, boy. Once you stop the old stubborn foolishness and go along with it, then between you, me, and Tendo, Akane won't be able to fight the matter either. And anyway I'm sure she'd be overjoyed to hear you were finally ready to tell everyone just who you really loved. So what do you say?"

"Huh?" Ranma blinked with an exaggerated expression of surprise. "You say something, Pop? Sorry, I couldn't hear ya. Some fat old fool nearly tore my ear off a few minutes ago and I'm just now getting feeling back in it."

"RAANNNMMMAAA!" Genma shifted from a pose of stern authority to outraged indignity. "Show some respect for your father!"

"That'd be a good trick! Show something I don't have?!" Ranma snorted. "Guess I'll have to borrow some from… uh… well… hey, Pop, just who does have enough respect for you that they could lend me some?"

There were times that Genma really wished Ranma wasn't so much better than him at insults. He had to settle for a trite "YOU WANT TO TAKE THIS OUTSIDE, BOY?!"

They stood at opposite ends of the koi pond, glaring at one another. In the background, Nabiki nibbled idly on a snack cracker and watched the scene. She had her camera ready — hopefully Ranma would pull off some particularly spectacular moves. Any of those caught on film would sell well to Shampoo. And it was about time she began sounding out Kaori and Kaede as well on such matters.

Genma broke the silence, leaping high into the air with a growl. "It's high time you took your responsibilities seriously, boy!" he snapped as he started his descent, his foot outstretched in a flying kick.

"And what responsibilities are those?!" Ranma retorted, jumping toward his father. He whipped his own leg around, and Genma found himself unable to respond quickly enough to his son's new speed; Ranma locked his ankle around Genma's and used the leverage to pivot himself around, launching a punch toward Genma's back.

The older Saotome curled as tightly as he could, and his son's blow glanced off. Meanwhile, Genma's elbow found purchase in Ranma's side, a quick strike meant more to put some distance between them than to actually cause damage. "To clear up all this trouble!" The dueling duo exchanged a quick series of punches that pushed them farther apart. "All these girls have no business interfering in your engagement to Akane." They landed again, each where the other had started out. "But it's going to keep happening as long as YOU keep wimping out and dodging the issue!"

"Dodge THIS!" Ranma shouted, crouching and whipping his leg at near-supersonic speed above the pond. The wind from his kick raised a large wave and sent it crashing toward Genma, who barely did manage to dodge. The elder martial artist dived and rolled, clearing the edge of the spray by mere inches. "How the heck is this MY responsibility, Pop?!" Ranma darted toward him, lashing out with a kick as Genma got back to his knees. His father caught it on crossed forearms. "In case ya forgot, YOU were the one who ARRANGED all these fiancées!"

"That's in the past," Genma snapped, heaving and flipping Ranma backward. The maneuver bought him time enough to get to his feet. "What kind of a martial artist spends all his time looking backward over his shoulder?!" As if to emphasize his point, he closed and grappled with Ranma, trying for a shoulder throw. "It's YOU the girls are all chasing after, boy. That makes YOU the one who has to deal with it!"

"You sure got THAT right!" Ranma dropped to one knee and rotated his torso, which threw Genma just enough off-balance that the younger Saotome was able to perform a modified shoulder throw of his own. "I'm the one who ALWAYS has to deal with crap from stuff you've pulled!" Genma struck the ground, landing on his back with a *whuff*. "So don't go tellin' me just what I've got to do."

"I'm only trying to help you, boy! You AND Akane!" Genma charged again, but changed his angle at the last moment, sacrificing speed and power in order to launch an awkward attack that caught Ranma completely by surprise. The punch jarred his lower ribs, but didn't have much more of an effect. "The one you're going to marry is the only one you should be paying attention to!"

"Give it a REST about the stupid marriage thing, already!" Ranma spun back to face Genma and launched a straight punch. Genma blocked and retaliated with one of his own. "I ain't interested in marryin' NOBODY just yet!" The tempo of the punches increased, each Saotome striving to force a hole in the other's defense while keeping his own intact. "And I sure ain't gonna just blow everything off and let you tell me what to do!"

"You're going to marry her sooner or later, boy. Listen to me for once!" Genma twisted, bringing his hands inside Ranma's guard. He shot his arms to either side, forcing Ranma's arms wide open and knocking his son off-balance. "Just go ahead and get it over with." The older martial artist pivoted, dropping in a controlled fall that brought one leg up and around. He grasped the side of Ranma's shirt with his toes and sent his son flying. "Trust me… you'll feel a lot better afterward!" he called as his son splashed down into the koi pond.

Nabiki permitted herself a slight wince of sympathy as she watched Genma stand up and begin to gloat over getting in the first decisive attack. She wasn't a martial artist, but somehow, an attack that made your opponent really, really mad and didn't actually hamper their ability to fight didn't look to her like a particularly good strategy. She fully expected that any second now, Genma's son-turned-daughter was going to blaze out of the pond and lay a world of hurt on him for this.

Any second now…

As the roiling waters quieted, with no sign of a redheaded avatar of wrath emerging from the depths, Genma began to feel just the slightest twinge of anxiety. What if Ranma had hit his head as he went into the pond? Perhaps he should walk over and check. On the other hand, if (as was far likelier) this was a trick of the boy's, that would be playing right into his… er, her, hands.

Genma settled for taking several steps backward, then leaping straight up. At the height of his jump, he looked down into the pond. It was a little difficult to tell, with the light of the sinking sun gleaming off the water, but he was nearly certain he caught a glimpse of Ranma-chan moving about purposefully under the water.

Nor was he in error. Even as Genma landed from his jump, the water blasted skyward in a pillar of froth and spray. Ranma-chan had leaped with all her strength, blasting off the bottom of the pond and soaring nearly two stories into the air despite the weight of the water that had been above her. Genma scrambled backward, out of range of the water, but missed the true threat. At the height of her jump, Ranma-chan began to throw the golf balls she'd gathered from the bottom of the pond, sending a fusillade that caught Genma completely unaware.

Nabiki giggled and snapped a few photos as the hapless man tried to shield himself from the attack. He made much too large a target to do so effectively, of course. The middle Tendo noted idly that after striking Genma, nearly all the golf balls bounced and rolled in such a way as to land right back in the water.

One of the few exceptions was directly behind Genma, though, and as he staggered back his foot came down on it. The ball, and his foot, shot out from under him; the former bounced off the fence and rolled into the pond, and the latter arced into the air while the rest of him came crashing down.

Right about then was when Ranma-chan landed, touching down on the far side of the koi pond. She repeated a move from earlier in the fight, kicking up a huge wall of water that tumbled straight toward Genma. This time, though, she dove forward through it, catching Genma's heel, spinning, lifting him high overhead, then, as the water caught up and triggered his transformation, smashing him down flat on his suddenly-furry belly.

Nabiki shook her head, then snapped a picture of the scene of triumph and tragedy. The redhead baring her teeth in a grin of triumph contrasted nicely with the battered, waterlogged bear, she thought. And the sign reading "ouch…" added just the right note of comic pathos. Yes, this would be one for the scrapbook.

"Heh. I do feel better," Ranma-chan said. The chance to let off some steam had done her more good than a thousand of her father's one-track lectures. She walked over and gave the prostrate panda a hard slap on the back. "Thanks for the talk, Pop. Let's do this again some time."

Ranma dreamed again, that night.

As before, his first sensation was the awareness of motion. He soared through the night sky, his attention gradually sharpening, until he was once again aware enough to recognize the dream. It was a little different from the last half of the previous interlude; the night was mild and quiet around him, with no roaring wind to buffet him and carry him along. Yet somehow the heightened sense of freedom was still with him.

As he flew along, now gliding, now gaining furious altitude, now diving and breaking into a barrel-roll, he eventually became aware of another difference. Around him, the air held a curiously smoky quality. Instead of a mass of clouds or stars, the sky above him seemed featureless and empty, hanging flat like a smudged canvas of ochre and charcoal.

Moved by some instinct, he glanced down. From that perspective, the dim haze in the air was more apparent. It hovered like a shield below him, screening him from what lay on the land beneath. Through the dimness, Ranma saw light, distant, glowing, as if fires gleamed below him under a blanket of near-solid smoke.

Whatever it was, it was quite far below him. The sight roused faint, inexplicable emotions of distaste in Ranma, but stronger than these was curiosity. He angled his flight lower, spiraling downward to determine the source of the phenomenon. As he did so the shrouding darkness thickened, so that even as the fires grew nearer they seemed to cast less light. Curiously, though, the effect of this was to allow Ranma to see more clearly, rather than less.

~Do you really want to go down there?~ The words came as softly as ever, but were suffused with a hint of disapproval and disappointment.

Ranma was already pulling back, gaining altitude again. Like the instant when a random collection of dots, blotches, and lines suddenly coalesces into a coherent picture, the gleaming brightness and curves and angles below him had suddenly become recognizable as the Tokyo skyline, seen from the unusual perspective of directly above. That which he had taken for fire had been the glow of electric lights.

It had only been curiosity that sent him downward. With that assuaged, Ranma climbed again, quickly.

~I didn't think so. It's not time yet.~

Now he understood the flat, dull nature of the sky above him. The stars were still there, but light pollution from the city beneath hid them. One corner of his mind noted vaguely that the effect seemed rather harsher in this dream than in his usual waking life. When reclining on the Tendo rooftop, he could usually make out at least the brighter of the celestial lights.

~Would you like to see the stars, Ranma?~

"Yeah, I would," he whispered to himself. "I'd like to get away from all that."

~We'll need to leave the city well behind. Follow me.~

Obediently, Ranma adjusted the angle of his flight, and increased his speed to… match…

A sudden realization jolted him, as if his eyes had been closed all this time and had only just now opened. "Wait…" it started out spoken aloud to himself, "there's… somebody else… here?" Raising his voice, he called "Where are you?!"

With a gasp, Ranma sat bolt upright. The abrupt transition from the dreaming freedom of flight to the dullness of reality left him panting, trembling, feeling as if someone had just replaced his heart with a sack full of sand. His head was spinning, as if his equilibrium were still soaring through the air while the rest of him remained unpleasantly earthbound.

It took a long time to recover his sense of balance. Once he did so, bitter disappointment replaced his disorientation. He wasn't, couldn't be, sure how long the previous two dreams had lasted, but they had felt longer than this. He couldn't remember endings for either of them, which unnoticed absence had been much better than this wrenching discontinuity.

A quick glance at the clock informed him that half the night still remained. With a frown, Ranma curled up on his futon and resolutely shut his eyes, hoping to recapture the dream.

It was a long time, though, before he was able to fall asleep again, and if he dreamed, it was of nothing particularly pleasurable or memorable.

The remainder of the week passed quietly, for which Ranma was grateful. On Friday Nabiki informed him that her efforts to see that Kuno got the treatment he needed were going along well, and she was almost sure she wouldn't need Ranma to do anything more than he already had. Kaori kept her distance at school, though this was mainly due to the need to catch up on the work she'd missed. The most contact he had with her was on Friday afternoon, when she set the date for their next study session.

The next morning found him sprawled out in the living room, eyes on the television. A casual observer would have thought him unconcerned, carefree, relaxing lazily without anything on his mind. However, in truth Ranma's attention was quite tightly focused. The television was more or less an unnoticed blur as he concentrated on another sense.

Happy humming from the kitchen… Kasumi's presence was accounted for. A cry of "Look! A three-headed monkey!" indicated that his father and Mr. Tendo were at the shogi board, as usual. Nabiki wasn't here to begin with, nor would she be returning for some hours. Akane was upstairs in her bedroom, and had just dumped the school books out of her book bag. When he heard her shut the door, he acted. Rolling quickly to his feet, Ranma turned and moved noiselessly to leave while the coast was clear.

"Oh my, Ranma. Are you going somewhere?"

The Saotome heir jumped and spun around. How had she done that?! "Uh, no, I mean, nowhere special, Kasumi. Just out for a walk."

For a moment, Kasumi hesitated, as if considering whether to say anything further or just wish him a good time. Making her decision, she said gravely, "Is that what I should tell Akane if she comes down and asks where you've gone? Just out for a walk?"

"Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm going to be doing, Kasumi. You don't think I'd want ya to lie to your sister or nothing, do you?"

"And what should I say when Akane suspects you're going to be meeting someone else on this walk?" Kasumi asked gently. "Should I tell her how nervous you were when you left?"

Ranma shook his head vigorously. For the life of her, Kasumi couldn't tell why he seemed startled at her words. "It's not like THAT!" he protested. Then, calming down, he said "Come to think of it, though, that prob'ly IS what she'd think…"

The thought actually seemed to cheer him up, which only deepened Kasumi's confusion. "Do you want her to, Ranma?" She frowned, ever so slightly. "That won't make my little sister very happy."

"I know, so when she starts gettin' all mad and stuff, that's when you go ahead and tell her what I was REALLY up to," Ranma said with a grin.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm gonna go use my girl form to get some free ice cream or octopus puffs or something," he explained. "Akane usually throws a hissy fit when I do that, or at least insults me for a while. But if she thinks I was out cheating on her and then she finds out I was only scammin' free food, she'll just be relieved."

"Oh. You're probably right," Kasumi allowed, thinking of a couple of times in the past when something similar had happened. Akane had been suspecting the worst, only to catch Ranma in a relatively minor transgression and let the whole thing slide. Apparently he had learned from those occasions.

Not that he couldn't stand to pick up a few more lessons, though. "But wouldn't you rather have an even better excuse?"

"Like what?" Ranma asked.

Kasumi smiled sweetly, wrote out a shopping list, and handed him several thousand yen. "Ranma, could you please go to the market and pick up some things for me?"

"Oh! Sure thing, Kasumi." He grinned back at her. "It's okay if I take my time, right?"

"Just don't spoil your appetite for lunch…" The eldest Tendo daughter blinked, as if realizing who she was talking to. "I mean, don't put any poor vendors out of business."

Just before the final dollop of ice cream could finish working its way through the bottom of the cone and begin dripping, Ranma-chan finished it off. 'Paid for a one-scoop cone and got two other scoops for free. Not bad if I do say so myself,' she thought smugly. It fell a little short of her personal best record, which was a two-scoop cone for no charge at all, but Ranma-chan was certainly not complaining.

She paused outside the door to a café, debating whether to go in and change out of her cursed form, but decided against it. Snack food vendors weren't the only ones who would give better prices to a cute little girl, after all. Kasumi would surely appreciate getting more of her money back than she'd expected, and it was the least Ranma-chan could do to repay her favor.

"Ranma? Is that you?" The call came from some twenty feet behind her.

The redhead froze, her cheerful smile dimming a little, then turned around. "Yo, Kaede." She waved to the other girl, who walked over toward her. As far as Ranma-chan could tell from her movements, she seemed to be fully recovered from any injuries she'd sustained in her fight with Kaori. "How's it going?" she asked once Kaede reached her side.

"Not so good," Kaede replied uncomfortably, before changing the subject. "Why're you… like that? You know, in your cursed form."

Ranma-chan opted not to admit that she was planning to use her feminine wiles to score better prices at the market. "Oh… you know…" she shrugged and made a disgusted face. "Part of the curse is I get splashed a lot. Water just kinda seems attracted to me."

A look of sudden enlightenment spread across Kaede's face. "Oh. That explains it." She gave a quick sigh of relief. "You could've told me that back when you were first explaining the thing, you know."

"I guess, but what's the big deal?"

Kaede snorted. " 'What's the big deal', she says. Remember our fight, Saotome? When I touched your Unconsciousness Point? You were staggering and stumbling like an extra from Drunken Monkey Fu."

"Yeah, so what?"

"So then you manage to fire off a chi blast, and target it onto a fire hydrant, AND you even hit the thing just precisely enough that when it blows, it shoots its water straight toward you." Kaede grimaced. "Talk about making me feel inadequate, once I really started thinking about it. But I guess it wasn't quite as much of a big deal as I thought."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. My actual PLAN was to splash myself with some of the water. NOT have it slam into me like that," Ranma-chan grumbled.

Kaede blinked. "Hey… that does sound like a better idea."

"So what're you up to this morning?" Ranma-chan asked, moving the conversation away from talk of curses.

"I was actually on my way over to the Tendo place," the other girl admitted. "Needed to talk to you about something. I'm actually kind of glad you were…" she made a vague gesture, indicating Ranma-chan's current curvaceous form, "like that. I probably wouldn't have noticed you if it weren't for the red hair."

The redhead blinked, a note of wariness entering her expression. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah. But it can wait, if you're busy now. I could meet you this afternoon or something."

Ranma-chan considered that for all of one second. "Nope," she said firmly, "if this was important enough for ya to walk all the way over to see me, let's talk about it now." 'While I've still got a good excuse for not being home.'

"Thanks, Ranma," Kaede said hesitantly. "I appreciate it."

The aforementioned café was just a few steps back. Kaede led Ranma-chan there, then blinked in surprise as the redhead started toward a table. "Um, Ranma?"

"Huh? Something wrong?"

"This isn't the right place for what I need to talk about." Kaede gave her companion a strange look. "I just thought you'd want to get some hot water and change back to normal."

"Yeah, whatever." Not a good sign, Ranma-chan thought apprehensively. She'd been hoping whatever kind of talk Kaede had in mind would be the kind that could go on between two girls just as easily as a girl and her fiancé. Apparently not, though… on the other hand, Kaede had also said that this wasn't the kind of place she wanted to go, and while Ranma-chan might be inexperienced she knew enough to realize that this type of spot was fairly popular for couples on dates. With no better option, she went into the restroom, returned to his birth form, and left with Kaede.

Conversation flagged between the two of them as they walked along. Any relief Ranma had been feeling at Kaede's statement that the café wasn't the right spot for their talk quickly evaporated, once he realized that she was leading him toward a nearby park. The passage of a few minutes found them there, in a secluded corner surrounded by trees. Ranma stood a little ways off to Kaede's side, leaning against a large rock. Kaede sat on the ground, knees drawn up to her chest and arms clasped around her legs, looking forward with her eyes unfocused.

The expression on her face made Ranma's stomach clench. He tried to convince himself that the hurt in her expression might be just a fading remnant of injuries from her fight with Kaori. But though he would have liked to believe this, it sure didn't look like that kind of pain to him.

Abruptly, Kaede broke the silence. "Kaori told me she's in your class at school. Did you know I challenged her, last Thursday?"

"That's what she told me," Ranma confirmed.

"And I guess you know who won, huh?"

"Yeah. I heard it was a pretty rough fight, too," he said. "I didn't see Kaori again until Wednesday afternoon, an' she was still hurting plenty then."

"Well, that's SOME consolation," Kaede muttered bitterly, still not looking at him.

"Are you okay?" Ranma asked, starting now to get really concerned. "It's been more than a week already. You didn't get hurt bad or nothing, did you?"

For a long moment, Kaede didn't respond. Then she shuddered, and in a voice of tight control, she asked, "Ranma? What do YOU think?! I've spent my life traveling and learning new styles. Facing down different challenges. I didn't even come looking for you until I beat the top students of ten dojos in a row."

'Whoa… she was a dojo destroyer?!' Ranma thought, his attention temporarily diverted by an extremely incongruous mental picture of Kaede's slight form standing next to the massive freak who'd challenged the Tendo dojo so long ago.

He tuned back in to hear "… bad enough, but I could handle losing to one of the legendary Chinese Amazons. But…" abruptly, Kaede clenched one hand into a fist, then punched down into the earth beside her, "… this is too much. It's just TOO DAMN MUCH!" She rose to her feet with the suddenness of an uncoiling spring, turning to stare him directly in the eyes. The desperation in her gaze would have knocked Ranma back a pace, had his back not been against a ton of solid stone. "What if it was you, Saotome?! How do you think YOU'D feel, if after all your hard work and sacrifices YOU lost to some loser with a pathetic style like Martial Arts Takeout?!"

"Hah. That's easy," Ranma said, glad for a question he could answer without even thinking about it. "I'd get ticked off, figure out a counter to whatever cheap trick caught me off-guard, train for the rematch, then kick my opponent's butt."

Kaede blinked, distinctly conscious of a feeling of having the wind taken out of her sails. 'Like father, like son,' she thought vaguely. Pulling herself together a bit, she said, "That's easy to SAY, Ranma. I think it might bother you just a little more than that."

"Nope. No big deal," Ranma said, shaking his head. "Been there, done that, know what I'm talking about."

"Really?" Kaede asked skeptically. "You've had this same kind of thing happen?"

"Oh yeah. First time was…" Ranma cast his memory back. He generally preferred not to stir up these recollections, but in the interests of making a girl feel better, this was a much smaller sacrifice than was usually required. "I think I was about thirteen. Got challenged to a match by the heir of Martial Arts Defenestration."

"Martial Arts… Defenestration? What the heck is that?!"

Ranma snorted. "I shoulda asked that same question. But bein' the cocky kid that I was, I didn't even bother. I figured Anything Goes would be enough to blow him away, whatever it was.

"Course, ya probably already guessed it didn't work out like that. I show up for the fight, and that's when they spring it on me that you have to win according to their rules. Which they didn't explain, I might add."

Kaede frowned. "Didn't explain?! If someone tried to pull a stunt like that on me, I'd just walk out on him."

Her fiancé shrugged. "Yeah, well, with age comes wisdom or something like that. Anyway, I thought I'd still be able to win by figuring out what he was trying to do and then doing it back to him, only better. Course, as soon as he threw me out the window, which is what 'defenestration' means, the match was over."

Almost against her will, Kaede snickered. "Sucker."

"Watch it, Kaede, or I'll challenge YOU to a match of Martial Arts Deinhibitionalization," Ranma warned.

Inwardly resolving to find a dictionary later on, Kaede said, "Okay, okay, I get your point. You lost because you got caught off-guard. And I guess I could say the same thing." She sighed, her mood darkening again just a little. "It still sucks, though. I guess I can see a couple of ways to deal with her tricks." Long pants made of thick cloth ought to block the chopstick shiatsu attacks, and carrying a real sai should let her defeat that bizarre noodle attack. "But even without them, she was a lot better than I expected."

"Get used to it," Ranma advised. "You're gonna see plenty of opponents if ya stay around Nerima for long, Kaede. Some of 'em will be really good fighters, and some of 'em will have stranger styles than you ever imagined."

"Just my bad luck to run right into someone who combines both those things, I guess," Kaede said.

"Pretty much," Ranma agreed. "Anyway, you WILL lose the early match sometimes. It's no big deal. The important thing is who wins in the end."

"…I understand." Kaede gave a quick, decisive nod. "Thanks, Ranma."

"No problem." Now that her issue had been resolved, he had a question of his own. "Hey, Kaede?"

"What is it?"

He gestured, indicating the surrounding foliage. "Why'd ya want to go all the way out here to talk about this?"

Kaede snorted. "You think I was going to spill my guts about this kind of stuff where a bunch of lame-brained normal kids could listen to me? How many people you know who would really understand why this mattered so much to me?"

'Let's see… Ryoga… Shampoo…' Ranma stopped counting at that point as he realized something. "Actually, pretty much everybody I know, except maybe Nabiki and Kasumi."

"Well, maybe I should've come to Nerima a long time ago then," she said, giving his statement the benefit of the doubt. "Only times I've met people my own age I have much in common with, it's because Dad and I are visiting their dojo for a new challenge. I've done my share of time in school, but I never really met anybody who understood me. Or who I understood, if it comes to that."

"Traveling the path of a true martial artist is lonely sometimes," Ranma said. It irked him slightly that the only thing he could think to say that really fit the conversation was a quote from Genma.

"And someone to walk it with you is something worth a lot," Kaede said softly, not looking at Ranma. "Worth fighting for, that's for sure."

Now there was NOTHING Ranma could think of to interject into the conversation. As he cast frantically about for a decent way to change the subject, Kaede turned to face him. The look in her eyes froze him completely. It was as if the last of a series of masks, shed one after another during the previous conversation, had finally come off. She was scared, and hopeful, and so very, very vulnerable. "I'd… I'd like to get to know…" Kaede cut herself off, mentally cursing herself for a coward. She took a deep breath, then said, "I've never been on a date in my life, Ranma. There's a festival coming up next week, and I'd really like to go there with my fiancé."

"Here ya go, Kasumi."

The eldest Tendo daughter blinked in mild alarm. Knowing Ranma's real reason for going out, she hadn't looked for him to return quickly. Nor had he, but he had also taken significantly longer to come back than she had expected. And now, when she finally heard him come in and met him in the living room, she found him in a much less pleasant mood than when he'd left.

"Thank you, Ranma." She took the bag full of vegetables that he'd purchased for her, and accepted her change with a quick grateful smile. "Is everything all right? You don't look happy."

"I'm not," Ranma said frankly.

After waiting a few seconds for him to continue, she prompted, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, but…" Ranma heaved a sigh. "But I'd probably better." His expression brightened by just the faintest of glimmers. "Maybe you can help me out, Kasumi."

"Oh my, Ranma," she said, taken aback. Visions of the kind of challenges her pigtailed houseguest usually faced danced through her head. "I don't know what I could do."

"Well, what I was hopin' was that you could figure out a way for me to tell Akane I've got a date with Kaede next week."

Akane froze, her foot a scant inch from touching the topmost stair, her descent arrested before it could really begin. She had left her room and entered the hallway in time to hear her sister ask Ranma whether he wanted to talk about something. And now… 'Did… did he say…' Mechanically her leg retracted, joining the other again, leaving her standing frozen at the top of the stairs.

His words replayed themselves in her mind. As they did, as they sunk in, her stomach clenched. Her pulse rang behind her ears like the ocean's roar. Her first impulse was to storm downstairs and demand details from Ranma. He'd let Shampoo trick him into a date just the other day! Didn't he learn anything at all?!

With teeth gritted, determination burning in her eyes, anger churning in her gut, Akane moved again. And again, her foot halted before it could touch down on the stair's surface. The anger was still there, driving her to hurry downstairs and confront Ranma… but another emotion was suddenly rising, pushing the more comfortable and familiar one aside. A sudden surge of cold fear, that also, just for a moment, thinned the veils she kept over some deeply-buried emotions.

'He told me he didn't want to go out with Shampoo. He told me she tricked him into it,' Akane thought, trying to shake off the unwelcome flood of doubt. 'But… did he… then why…'

She couldn't really put words to the thoughts that were filling her head now. They didn't even need words; the concepts shouldered their way directly from her unconscious fears to her forebrain without bothering to filter through the screen of language, coming as a dark swarm that passed through her in an instant.

Ranma had said he didn't want to go out with Shampoo… but she couldn't really trust him, could she? Not really. Not in something like this. He'd probably jumped at the chance. And that wasn't enough for him, was it? Oh, no, it wasn't enough to have Shampoo hanging all over him. It wasn't enough to sneak around behind Akane's back with the girl who did EVERYTHING that mattered better than her. It wasn't enough to have other girls chasing him too, other girls against whom she didn't dare compare herself.

It was NEVER enough for him! Now he was even chasing Kaede, too! Ranma might call her uncute all the time, but Akane felt sure she had Kaede, at least, beaten in that arena. But that didn't matter to Ranma Saotome, apparently… it didn't matter how cute Kaede wasn't… it didn't matter how Kaede or Kaori or ANYBODY treated her, even though Ranma had said she was his friend… it didn't matter who he already had who wanted him…

All these thoughts passed through her mind in a fraction of an instant, leaving her trembling and with a queasy feeling of sickness in her stomach. The anger was still there, though muted now… the outrage at this latest development hadn't been completely choked by a fear she didn't dare examine closely. Instinctively, Akane reached out to the anger again, knowing the familiar emotion would shield her, wanting only to displace the thoughts she couldn't even bring herself to face head-on.

Her sister's gentle voice drifting up the stairs distracted her, though. For a second, Akane hung motionless… balanced between emotional states even as her body hung poised, one leg still in the air, unsure whether to descend or retreat. And then, with a great effort of will, she pushed all the churning emotions into the back of her mind, burying them as deeply as she could. The youngest Tendo pulled back, just a little, her foot once again returning to rest beside the other. She waited, in a sort of frozen calm, listening carefully to hear what her errant fiancé was saying. Surely not even Ranma, untrustworthy jerk and all-around pervert that he was, could lie to Kasumi.

She hoped she was ready for whatever answers she was about to get.

Kasumi blinked. "You have a date with Kaede? Did you run into her when you went out this morning?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm late. She wanted to talk." Ranma sighed. "So we did, an' then she ends it by getting me to take her to the festival next week."

His companion waited for a few seconds, but wasn't really surprised that no more detail was forthcoming. "Ranma, I need you to tell me more than that, if I'm going to break this gently to Akane," she said.

"Like what?"

"The most important thing… Ranma, do you want to go on a date with her?"

The Saotome heir boggled. "Huh? No!" Only at the last minute did he manage to modulate the volume of his reply, speaking in an emphatic undertone rather than a shout. The LAST thing he wanted was to attract Akane's attention and have her wander downstairs!

"Then why did you agree to take her on one?" Kasumi asked, reasonably enough.

"Whaddaya mean?" he asked, squirming helplessly.

"I've seen you turn down Shampoo," the eldest Tendo daughter pointed out. "If you can do that, why not Kaede?"

"That's different!" he protested. "Shampoo's tough, it's not like I'm gonna hurt her feelings or nothin'. She asks, I say no, no big deal — she'll probably just ask again next time she sees me."

"But you think Kaede wouldn't take it like that?"

Ranma shook his head wordlessly. "You weren't there, Kasumi. She was… she…" he shrugged helplessly. "Sorry. I'm not good at talking about this kind of stuff."

'You and everyone else in this household,' a tiny voice in the very back of Kasumi's head muttered. She didn't really listen to it, though, just asked, "What did you two talk about at first? Did that have anything to do with it?"

"Yeah, kinda." This had to do with martial arts, so it was significantly easier to discuss. "She had a challenge match with Kaori last week, Kasumi, and she lost. I get the feeling that that hasn't happened to her too much. Because she was really bummed about it."

"Oh dear. Well, I'm certainly glad she had you to talk to, to tell her how to handle that experience," Kasumi said. "So she was hurting, and then you made her feel better, and then she asked you for a date?"

"Yeah, that's about how it happened."

"Well, I can see why you wouldn't want to make her feel bad again after that," Kasumi replied. "I'll speak to Akane."

"Thanks," he said awkwardly, then fell silent.

The eldest Tendo daughter waited. He might not be saying anything, but his posture indicated that there was something else trying to come out.

Abruptly, Ranma spoke up again. "I hate this, Kasumi. All this… all this crap that's piling up on me. It's all his fault, and I'm the one who has to deal with it."

"All whose fault, Ranma?" It was more a prompt to keep him talking than a serious request for information.

"You haveta ask?" The Saotome heir snorted. "My old man, that's who. He's made all these stupid deals, didn't care a thing about honor or keeping promises or nothin'. Didn't even worry about hurtin' other people as long as he could get something for himself. He did all this and now he just leaves me to take the flak for it. It's just… it's not right…"

He took a deep breath, re-establishing the control that had wavered there for a bit. "I don't wanna be like that, Kasumi. Can't be like that. I gotta do better than my old man. But it's hard… it's hard when I don't even know what to do…"

"I'm not sure what to tell you," Kasumi admitted. She had hoped that getting this off his chest would make him feel better. But if the talk had soothed any of his stress, the Tendo daughter couldn't see a sign of it. What else could she say or do, to help relieve poor Ranma's pent-up feelings?

She glanced around as if searching for inspiration. Absently she noted that the floor in this room needed to be swept soon… a noticeable (to her, at least) amount of panda hair had accumulated in the corners…

Kasumi smiled sweetly. "Perhaps you should go spar with your father, Ranma. Doing something you enjoy might make you feel better."

For a long moment, Akane remained at the top of the stairs, struggling with indecision. She couldn't decide whether to go down and tell Ranma that she'd heard, that she wasn't mad, that everything would be okay, or just to play it cool and surprise him by not getting upset when Kasumi broke the news of his next forced date to her.

When she heard Ranma's challenge to his father, Akane realized that inertia had made the decision for her. She retreated to her room, closed the door behind her, and sat down on the bed. "I hate this," she muttered, wishing P-chan were around. Speaking her thoughts and feelings out loud helped settle them, but talking to herself felt more than a little awkward. "I wish they'd all just leave. Ranma shouldn't have to put up with this… I shouldn't have to put up with this…"

She sighed. "At least Kodachi's gone. And Ukyo finally gave up… maybe…" Her voice lowered nearly to a whisper. If you really, really want something, you shouldn't speak the wish too loud. "Maybe Shampoo will soon, too. I think if she just quit and left, I could put up with the rest of them a lot easier. Not to mention how much better off Ranma would be.

"I just wish we could get a break. Lately everything seems to be happening so fast." Akane picked up her pillow, held it behind her, and scooted back until she was braced against the wall. She pulled her knees up to her chest and curved her arms around them, unknowingly imitating the posture Kaede had used earlier, when sharing her own pain with Ranma.

The hours passed, and Nabiki returned home. Akane's door wasn't closed, so the middle Tendo didn't bother to knock, just walked into the room. Her younger sister was sitting at her desk, staring half-heartedly at the pages of a textbook. "Kasumi said you wanted to see me?"

"Oh, hi, Nabiki. Yes, I did." Akane fell silent, trying to decide how to lead into her request.

After waiting a few seconds, Nabiki said, "She didn't actually tell me what you wanted, Akane. You're going to have to do that yourself."

"I know… it's just…" Akane took a deep breath, deciding to just spit it out. "This morning Kaede got Ranma to agree to a date with her."

Nabiki blinked in surprise. "So soon after that business with Shampoo? I would have thought he'd lie low for at least a little while longer."

Akane frowned. "You don't think it was his idea, do you? It's all her fault!"

Nabiki picked herself up from her facefault and stared at Akane. "Ohhhhkay. So what exactly did you want from me?"

"I want you…" Another deep breath. "I want you to tell Shampoo about the date."

"Ah. So, in other words, you don't want this date to happen." Nabiki regarded her sister thoughtfully, and with an utter lack of surprise. "There might be better ways than trying to use Shampoo as a cat's-paw."

"Forget it," Akane said, surprising her sister with her vehemence. "Just do what I asked, okay Nabiki?"

Nabiki shrugged. "Sure, fine, whatever. I'd like to know why you wanted it done like this, though."

"I just think she ought to know what she's getting herself into with Ranma, that's all," Akane said bitterly. "Let her know what it feels like, to always have other girls getting in the way and messing things up."

There were quite a number of things Nabiki could have said in response to this. She could have reminded Akane that Kaede had already taken one beating from Shampoo without it shaking her resolve. She could have offered to send Kaede to talk to Ukyo. At the very least, she could have seized the opening for some teasing. But one glance at her sister's expression was enough to clue her in that there was only one thing Akane was willing to hear right now.

"All right, little sister. I'll make sure Shampoo finds out."

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

That plaintive sense of discontentment was the first thing he felt. Ranma didn't know what was wrong, but something was definitely amiss. As he had done before, he tried to focus, tried to get a feeling for what was happening around him.

The blank mists of dreamless sleep receded, his act of concentration pushing them back more quickly than before. The increasing clarity brought one fundamental realization… once again, he was dreaming. There wasn't evidence to support this — he wasn't aware of anything surrounding him, just a dark void — but the knowledge was there anyway.

He mulled over that thought for a bit. As his awareness continued to increase, he eventually decided it wasn't that surprising. He could even vaguely remember going to bed with the hope of a night of good dreams, to help balance out the stress of the day.

And in some fundamental (if as-yet-unrecognizable) way, this dream did remind him of some of the best ones he'd had recently. The ones where he soared through the night, unfettered and unencumbered. Where he left the strife and turmoil and complications of his real life behind, if only for a little while.

Ranma thought wistfully of those previous dreams. What was it about this one that felt similar to them? Then he had flown through the darkened sky, and his single greatest emotion had been the sense of freedom. Here, he was standing solidly on the ground. There were buildings close around him, although they were barely visible through the thick smoky haze of darkness. They loomed above him, seeming to bend as they rose; Ranma had the distant impression that their tops would have touched, forming a cage above him, except that they vanished into the enveloping shadow before this could happen.

He blinked, suddenly aware that his surroundings had changed… either that or he'd just become aware of them. Well, that might be a hopeful sign. Maybe he'd just wandered into his dream before it was fully assembled or something. Maybe it would turn into one of those good ones in another minute. Or maybe… hmmm, he couldn't really remember how any of the others had started. Possibly they all began like this. Perhaps he just needed to give it a little boost. Experimentally, Ranma jumped, hoping not to come down.

It was quite a remarkably coherent feat of deduction, considering he was dreaming and had less than twenty percent of his cognitive functions on-line. It was also, unfortunately, quite wrong.

He had leaped as hard as he could, an act that would have sent him hurtling several stories into the air in the waking world. Here, he didn't even clear a meter. He dropped back to the ground, as shocked as he could be through the clouding fog of the dream. It thinned a little further, and suddenly Ranma realized something else about his surroundings. It had been there all along; it was the source of the feeling of fundamental wrongness that had been his first sensation, but only now did he actually become aware enough to recognize it.

He could feel the earth beneath him, looming so close, so harsh, so confining. Its pull was like all the chains in the world combined, dragging him down, binding him, immobilizing him. He'd seen an anime episode once where, to build their strength and stamina, martial artists trained in a room with radically increased gravity. The Saotome heir had thought it was a cool idea at the time, but going into something like that willingly was a far cry from being subjected to it with no regard to his desires.

'Man, I can't even get a break from my own subconscious mind,' Ranma groused.

He jumped again, focusing his will and trying to break free of the grasping pull. No luck; if anything he caught less air than in his previous attempt. In frustration, he then tried to snap himself awake. That would be better than this sorry disappointing excuse for a dream. Again, no luck.

~This way, Ranma.~

Automatically, he complied. Each step took a great deal of effort, yet paradoxically required little of his attention. His mind stayed mainly focused on thinking annoyed thoughts about whatever uncooperative facet of his subconscious was subjecting him to this. Not until he'd walked two blocks did he realize what was happening.

With each step, the pull of the earth beneath him lessened, just a little. It was such a small change that it shouldn't have been perceptible, but dreams ignore such rules as often as not. So he could just walk this stupid condition off? The thought cheered Ranma quite a bit. Experimentally he tried another jump. The results were disconcerting, to say the least.

He managed to reach a height of two meters… but on landing, the pull of the earth was suddenly every bit as strong as it originally had been. Ranma swore under his breath, and started walking again, hoping whatever rules this stupid dream played by would become apparent before too much longer. As if to mock him, though, this time each step he took increased the weight of the invisible chains.

~You're going the wrong way.~

Instinctively he reoriented to the communication. And now it was better, now it was as it had been before. His first step removed all the burden that had accumulated over his last few actions, returning conditions to how they had been before his last experimental jump. Subsequent ones continued to lighten the load.

That development sparked his curiosity. Cautiously he took another jump, making sure that this time the direction of his leap didn't take him away from the path he'd been walking. A bit more than two meters… and when he landed, the earth beneath him had no more attraction than it had at his last step.