Disclaimer: the Ranmaverse characters owned by Rumiko Takahashi, and all that obligatory stuff.  This story based on the anime, not the manga.

This chapter takes place concurrently with Chapter 11.

Chapter 12: Two Roads Diverged

'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood…'
—From 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost

Ryoga ducked and spun, in one smooth motion evading both the croquet ball that whizzed overhead and the smoking Erlenmeyer flask that tumbled end over end through the air beside him. He kicked out, smashing the head off the mallet that Shinji had pulled back to swing at Koga. The croquet captain turned on his new assailant, a look of outrage on his face, and Ryoga dashed past him, snatching Koga's retaliatory vial of ether out of midair and waving it under the chemistry club leader's nose. As an afterthought, a backfist sent Shinji into dreamland as well, hot on the heels of his arch-nemesis. Ryoga wondered whether they'd continue their fight there.

He looked around for another target, only to find that all the combatants were down and out. As Ryoga had only taken out about a couple of the fighters before getting to their leaders, this surprised him. It was also a bit disappointing. The fight hadn't lasted much more than a minute, and the former lost boy could frankly have used more of an opportunity to unwind.

Ukyo looked around, her attitude mirroring Ryoga's as she found there were no more idiots to flatten with her spatula. A bit of guilt assailed her as she took in the extremely battered and twisted look of her former opponents. Compared to the students she'd handled, Ryoga's victims looked like they were just enjoying a few minutes of peaceful rest. The chef realized, with some chagrin, that it had been a mistake to imagine Ling-Ling in place of the croquet players and Lung-Lung instead of the chemistry enthusiasts.

"Thank you, Miss Kuonji, Mr. Hibiki. The two of you are excused from tonight's homework assignment," Mr. Takamura said, popping up from his place of refuge behind his desk. The sensei glanced around the classroom, noting that the speed of their reaction had actually prevented any desks or chairs from being destroyed. "Make that this week's worth of homework. And now, if everyone would return to their seats, we can resume the lesson."

One of the students who'd been cowering at the back of the room frowned, and raised his hand. "Shouldn't somebody take the fallen to the nurse's office?"

"No," the teacher said flatly.

Not even the thought that he would have end-of-the-year exams in a month's time was enough to keep Ryoga's mind on his schoolwork that morning. Nearly a week had passed since the encounter with Yokehi, and its fateful conclusion. Nothing important had happened since then; in fact he almost hadn't seen the twins at all, only glimpsing them a couple of times as they were making deliveries. But the calm hadn't settled Ryoga's nerves. Quite the opposite, in fact… each day that slipped by without anything happening seemed to leave him more and more tightly wound.

Nothing significant had passed between him and Ukyo, either. They still walked to school, talking of inconsequential things. Ryoga still joined the chef for lunch, while she cranked out okonomiyaki after okonomiyaki for their fellow students. On the day after Yokehi's defeat, the former lost boy had told Ukyo of the deal the Matriarch had struck with him, concerning his tie to the twins, but since then the closest either had come to discussing the situation was a casual remark, made by Ukyo a few days later, that Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung seemed a lot less interested in spending time with their 'husband' than most newlyweds.

It had actually hurt, a little, when he heard that. Ryoga still wasn't sure whether the pang had come from bruised ego, at thinking the twins could have lost interest so fast once they thought they'd won, or something deeper. Thinking things over, he had concluded that the former would be better… if Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung really HAD just had a crush, which they were now over, he'd much rather deal with a wound to his pride than to his heart.

Still, the former lost boy couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't going to be that easy. He wasn't Ranma, after all, to have everything in his life fall neatly and tidily into place. Ryoga thought gloomily to himself that a much more likely outcome would be the twins losing interest, him trying anyway to fulfill his agreement to spend time with them, and alienating Ukyo that way.

A jab to his arm roused him from these grim meditations. Ryoga looked over, to meet Ukyo's concerned gaze. "You okay, sugar? You look like you just swallowed a green persimmon okonomiyaki," she whispered.

"Green persimmons?" Ryoga muttered back. That was one thing he'd never run across in his travels.

"Yeah, persimmons are really, really bitter before they ripen. You looked like you had a bellyful of something that bad or worse. Are you feeling all right?"

Ryoga didn't say anything back for a few seconds, just looked at her. Then he smiled, and replied, "It wasn't anything important, Ukyo. Just some stress I didn't get to work out in our fight earlier."

Ukyo sniffed. "Yeah, those guys really aren't much of a challenge anymore, are they? Guess we just make too good a team, Ryoga-kun."

He started to say something in response, then caught the teacher's eye. The sensei's message, 'I'll let you and Kuonji get away with a fair amount because you minimize the damage Shinji and Koga do, but don't push it', was received loud and clear. Ukyo turned to see what had caught Ryoga's attention, and received a similarly eloquent stare. The chef returned her attention to scholastic matters.

Ryoga attempted to do so as well, but his unruly mind refused to focus on the properties of non-congruent triangles. His thoughts kept trying to return to his situation. Not wanting to slide back into the angst that Ukyo had dispelled, Ryoga forced himself to concentrate on something else. Something more diverting than mathematical minutia, but not actually connected to his girl troubles.

Specifically, the feeling he'd been having for several days now. At various times, he had gotten the distinct sensation of being watched. He wasn't sure whether it was just his imagination or not. There hadn't yet been anything to confirm or refute his suspicion. Once he'd even gone so far as to duck down a side alley and double back, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone stalking him, but to no avail.

And so Ryoga sat back in his desk, pretending to pay attention to the lecture, and tried to convince himself it was just a trick of his mind. After all, he'd been under a lot of stress lately. He'd been expecting the twins to be all over him now that they had a legitimate excuse, yet the opposite had occurred. That would be enough to make anyone jump at shadows, he told himself. Then he realized, with a flash of irritation, that he was right back where he'd tried to avoid going. Namely, considering the rather complicated situation Yokehi's stupid mind-control spell had left him in.

Once again, Ryoga forced his thoughts away from affairs of the heart, and concentrated on the memories of when he'd felt like he was being stalked. Once again, his mind drifted almost immediately back to the twins and their strange absence. He became more and more irate as that pattern repeated itself.

This went on for quite some time. Eventually, Ryoga was forced to conclude that he just wasn't getting anywhere with this. From training, the former lost boy knew that there were two ways to get past a barrier. Sometimes you had to pound against it for a long time, until little by little you'd worn it away to nothingness.

That approach didn't seem to be working very well just now, and so he tried the other… put the problem out of your mind and wait for a blazing moment of inspiration, a breakthrough that would come all at once. Ryoga deliberately blanked his mind, forcing out all thoughts. It wasn't easy, but he managed it in the end. He'd enjoyed fifteen minutes of much-needed calmness when the lunch bell rang.

Ukyo watched, with some surprise, as Ryoga sat bolt upright, a stunned expression on his face. The chef concluded he must have just lost track of time and was startled to hear the bell. "You awake now, Ryoga?"

He nodded absently, not really paying attention to her. Ukyo continued speaking. "Well, are you just going to sit there, or are you going to come join me for lunch?"

"Um…" With some effort, Ryoga pushed aside the thought that had crashed in on him with the ringing of the bell. "Lunch sounds good."

Several minutes later, Ukyo looked down at her grill in frustration. It stubbornly refused to turn on. "What's wrong with this thing?!" she muttered angrily, then gave a sigh of frustration. It didn't really matter what the specific problem was… she'd already ruled out every possibility that she could have fixed on the spot. Repairs would have to wait until she got it home. Raising her voice, the chef called out, "Sorry, folks, it looks like you're out of luck. My grill's busted." With a collective groan, the crowd of students waiting in line dispersed.

"Guess I won't be able to fix you a shrimp deluxe today, Ryoga-kun," the chef said once they were alone.

"Don't worry about it. What're you gonna do for lunch?" he asked her.

"Well, I'm not too hungry… I guess I could just get a little something from the school lunch lady…" Ukyo said reluctantly. Meanwhile, she was focusing every shred of her willpower into the thought, 'or you could offer to share some of your lunch with me…'

"Is no need. Ryoga give you his lunch and eat ours instead!"

By now, Ukyo had almost gotten used to spinning around to find Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung had popped up out of nowhere. That didn't mean she'd learned to like it. After counting to ten, the chef said, "I've got a better idea. Seeing as how you two aren't students here, why don't you get the heck off school grounds right now?!"

Ling-Ling sniffed, then turned to Ryoga. "We work hard to make new special recipe ramen, Airen. Please join us for lunch?"

"Can leave own lunch with spatula girl so she not go hungry. At least, she not go hungry if she able to eat anything other than okonomiyaki."

Ryoga hesitated for a moment, then concluded going along with that was pretty much his best option. He definitely needed to talk to the Amazons, and joining them for lunch would give him the opportunity. Plus, Ukyo provided food for him all the time; it felt good to get a chance to return the favor. "Well… okay. Here, Ukyo." He handed his lunch to her. "It's a heck of a lot better than anything you can buy at Furinkan."

"Thanks, Ryoga-kun." Ukyo stepped close to him to take it, then didn't back away. She turned to face the twins. "So where did you want to eat lunch anyway? Right here is okay with me, but there's some nicer places down the field a ways."

Lung-Lung gave her a flat stare. "Where spatula girl eat lunch no matter to us. But it not going to be where we eat."

"Is that right?" Ukyo replied softly. "I like how you just proclaim that, without even asking Ryoga for his opinion. But then, that's pretty much how you two work all the time, isn't it?"

Ling-Ling tore her gaze away from Ryoga, and began giving Ukyo the Stare of Death. Since her sister had just taken over for her, Lung-Lung was able to turn back to face Ryoga. She handed him a large metal box. "Here, Airen, is ramen for three. We wait over there," she gestured off to a group of trees, "for you join us. For ONLY you join us." The twins turned on their heels and strode off to the area indicated, seating themselves just out of sight.

This day was turning out much worse than most Mondays, Ryoga thought sourly, looking down at the box in his hands, then back up to the clump of trees. Then he sighed, braced himself, and said, "Listen, Ukyo, I really do need to talk to them. I'll see you back in class, okay?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, just as Ryoga was beginning to fear the worst, he heard Ukyo say brightly, "No problem, Ryoga. Thanks for the lunch. I guess I'll see you later, then."

This surprised him, to say the least. He'd expected at least a little resentment, but Ukyo's tone hadn't sounded angry at all. He turned around, but she was already walking quickly in the opposite direction. The former lost boy stood puzzled for a minute, then decided he ought to be thankful when something actually turned out better than it could have. He turned and hurried off after the twins.

Once she was sure she was out of Ryoga's visual range, Ukyo found a large boulder and demonstrated that if you're mad enough, and you have a big enough spatula, you don't NEED the Bakusai Tenketsu to shatter stone.

On the other side of the trees, Ryoga found the twins had spread out a blanket on the ground, and had arranged on it a vase of flowers, a large pot of tea, three glasses, and three empty bowls. They were already sitting down. He noticed that the things on the blanket were so placed that the only spot left for him was directly between the two of them.

Both girls favored him with big smiles as he sat down in the only place he could. Lung-Lung took the ramen back from him and ladled it into the bowls, while Ling-Ling poured the tea.

Some time later, Ryoga pushed back his empty bowl. The food had been good enough to temporarily take his mind off his primary concern. "That was great. You said it was a new recipe?"

"That right. Well, sort of. Is same basic recipe, but with new ingredient." Lung-Lung gave him a sultry smile. "We add Passion Spice to ramen. Secret Amazon aph… aphro… aphrodisiac." The green-haired girl was mildly proud she managed to remember the word. "Give much strength and stamina. Enough for many hour of fun."

Ryoga turned pale and began to sweat as Ling-Ling traced a finger seductively up his arm. "Can feel it working, Airen?"

"A-a-antidote! Give me the antidote!!" he choked, trembling like Ranma in the presence of a cat.

Both twins burst into a fit of giggles. "We just joking, Ryoga! There no such thing as Passion Spice!"

Ryoga desperately struggled for control. "This isn't funny! Did you or didn't you put something weird in there?!"

"No. Only way this ramen affect you feelings is make you happy eat something so delicious."

He forced himself to calmness. Ryoga carefully and thoroughly examined his own emotions, eventually concluding that no, he wasn't currently being swept up in a raging river of hormone-drenched desire to have his wedding night right then and there. He wiped the sweat from his brow. "Okay, that was some stress I didn't need."

Ling-Ling frowned, and looked down. "Airen, you should have know we not really do that to you," she said quietly.

Guilt assailed him. Ryoga tried to maintain his air of righteous indignation, but Ling-Ling's hurt pose killed it. He sighed. "I'm sorry. I guess you're right."

"That right. We not do that out here where anybody maybe walk by." The cherry-haired girl looked up, and grinned at him. "Better be careful what you eat at Nekohanten, though."

Lung-Lung giggled, then patted the suddenly-sweating-again Ryoga on the shoulder. "No worry, we say truth when say there no such thing as Passion Spice. Ling-Ling just teasing you."

He just closed his eyes and took deep, calming breaths for almost a minute. At the end of that time, Ryoga had recovered at least a measure of poise, and had also remembered there was something he needed to talk to them about. He decided to ease into it. "So it really was a different recipe. Have you been practicing it for the last week? Is that why I almost haven't seen you at all since… that night?"

"Not really. Sure, learn new recipe take time, and it not like we have much free time anyway, but that not why we no can come around like want to."

Ryoga paused, inserting the missing words and working out what Ling-Ling had just said. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, you wanted to but you couldn't? There wasn't anything to keep you from visiting me. Heck, you've got a better excuse now than you ever did before!"

Lung-Lung sighed. "Great-Grandmother say no, we need let Ryoga make next move. She say you need time get used to changes in life, and maybe get mad if you think we push you too hard."

"We want come spend time with you, but she stop us. Today first chance we get to be with you, since Great-Grandmother off training Sailor Moon girl." Ling-Ling gave him a nervous smile. "By the way, Airen, you not let slip to her we meet you for lunch today, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever." The revelation of Cologne's edict had only strengthened his suspicions. "You wanted to be near me, but the Matriarch said you had to stay away so I wouldn't feel crowded. Did she maybe say it was okay to use the Dance of the Hidden Chameleon to have the first part without the second?"

The twins blinked synchronously. "What you talking, Ryoga?"

"For the last several days, I've been getting the feeling that there's somebody stalking me, sneaking around and watching me. But I haven't been able to see anyone doing anything like that." Ryoga gave the twins his best approximation of a steely-eyed stare of challenge. "It's almost like there was somebody invisible following me around."

Puzzlement changed to dawning comprehension as they realized just what he was asking. Lung-Lung put on a thoughtful expression. "When is last time you feel like somebody watching you?"

"Yesterday on my way home from school."

"You not get feeling while you take bath at night?"

"Um, no…"

"Then this not us you sensing."

Ryoga put his head in his hands. "Listen, this is serious. I am asking you, point blank, have you been using the Dance of the Hidden Chameleon to follow me around?!"

"We serious too," Ling-Ling shot back. "Well, mostly. Not serious when hint we watch you in bathroom, but when we say we not one what you feel, we tell truth. Only use Dance of Hidden Chameleon once in past five days. Was last night, and not take us anywhere near you."

'Oh, that's real good, sis,' her twin thought exasperatedly. 'What if he asks what we used it for? I don't want to admit we sabotaged the spatula girl's grill so we could fix lunch for him today!'

"Really?" Ryoga wasn't completely convinced yet, but he was getting there. "What did…"

"Why you not believe us, Airen?" Lung-Lung cut in quickly, before he could get the question out. She put on her best expression of hurt innocence determined to redeem itself. "We prove we not ones you sense."

"How are you going to do that?"

'That's what I'd like to know,' Ling-Ling thought. She kept quiet, resolving to follow her sister's lead.

"We teach you see through Dance of Hidden Chameleon. That way Ryoga know we not use to spy on you."

"Really? I can learn not to be affected by it?"

Lung-Lung shrugged. "Not know till try, but Lung-Lung think so. Part of training make us not be controlled by music even if somebody else play. Also, ones what have no talent for instrument music and is very, very stubborn usually not be affected either. So should no be impossible for you to learn. Just maybe take time."

"So how we do this?" Ling-Ling queried.

"Have Ryoga focus on thought that we is here, try to see us while we use Dance." That would keep him occupied for the rest of the lunch hour, and prevent any awkward questions about their activities of the night before. "Airen, we going to move around while playing, because that make harder to keep disguise. Try to find us. But no fair put hands over ears."

Ryoga tried mightily, but not once in the remainder of the lunch break was he able to catch so much as a glimpse of either twin… not even when Ling-Ling sneaked his wallet away from him, rifled through it and removed a certain item, and slid the slightly lighter billfold back into his pocket.

Even though he never managed to see through their illusions, by the time lunch was over Ryoga was pretty much convinced it wasn't the twins he'd been sensing. If it had been, surely they wouldn't have been so eager to train him to see through their trick, or to remind him that he could just close his ears and not be affected.

That, of course, led him back to the question he'd been considering before remembering the twins' stealth technique… had there really been anything at all, or was it just his imagination, brought on by expecting his Amazon admirers to be all over him? Ryoga spent the rest of the school day going back over his memories, trying to work it out, but never did reach a satisfactory conclusion. The only thing he managed to accomplish via his preoccupation was to overlook the fact that Ukyo seemed rather annoyed.

The former lost boy wasn't the only one ignoring the afternoon's lessons. Ukyo paid them not the slightest heed, as she was too busy thinking back over recent events. After Ryoga had told her of the 'bargain' the Matriarch had made with him concerning the Kisses of Marriage he'd received, Ukyo had grumpily resigned herself to a year of the twins showing up more often and making even more of a nuisance of themselves. Having Ryoga be forced to turn away from her to spend time with them instead had NOT factored into her expectations of what the future was going to hold.

At least, not after the morning when he'd told her just what had passed between Cologne and himself. The chef generally didn't like to think back on the hours just after Yokehi's defeat, when she had thought Ryoga actually was going to be forced into marrying Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung. The pain she'd felt then was nothing she wanted to remember. Plus, whenever those thoughts did cross her mind, it quickly became a struggle not to track down the duo and squash them flat for trying to take advantage of poor Ryoga-kun.

Just like they had today. Ukyo was actually a bit proud of her restraint. The temptation to play a round of twinball, using her spatula as the bat, had been nearly overwhelming. She'd worked out most of her anger by finding a huge rock and reducing it to rubble, but she was still quite miffed. 'Blast those little witches anyway', the chef grumbled to herself. 'I might've known they'd twist poor Ryoga-kun's sense of honor and obligation like that. Ooohh, just you wait. I'll get my revenge with him tonight.'

With that, Ukyo paused, and ran the last thought back through her mind. Her frustration was subsumed by embarrassment as she realized just what that had sounded like. She spent an entire class period blushing and fiddling nervously with a throwing spatula.

The school day ended, eventually, and Ukyo and Ryoga left the building together. The chef had spent the last hour of the day thinking about what she was going to ask him. Or more accurately, she'd spent a few seconds thinking about asking, and the rest of the time daydreaming about how things would go once he'd said yes. And now, as five attempts to get the words out resulted in false starts that ended in false coughs, Ukyo was coming to realize that she should have spent just a little more time on the 'psyche herself up' stage.

The chef looked away to try to collect herself. She gulped, then thought furiously, 'Just say it, you jackass!' Ukyo screwed all her courage to the sticking place, then quickly turned back to face Ryoga before it could desert her. She opened her mouth

"Here you go, Ukyo." While his companion was looking the other way, Ryoga had been fumbling in his backpack. Having found what he sought, he turned back just in time to meet her gaze. The former lost boy handed her a throat drop. "That's a pretty nasty cough you have there."

Ukyo sighed as she felt her courage trickle away. "Thanks, sugar," she said, and popped the lozenge into her mouth. 'Okay, maybe I just need to ease my way into this instead of trying to bust out all at once.'

A few seconds of thought provided her with an approach that might work. "So, how'd things go at lunch? I hope the kids didn't get too out-of-hand."

Ryoga laughed nervously. "No, not too bad, I didn't even see them for the last half of the break," he replied quickly. Something told him it might be better not to mention 'Passion Spice'.

"Come again?" Ukyo said quizzically. "You mean they left early?"

"No, they were trying to train me to see through the invisibility technique they use."

Even as Ryoga spoke those words, some sense of a thing forgotten or overlooked was nagging at him. As Ukyo's expression changed to alarm, and she choked, "I- invisibility technique?! Those little menaces can pull off something like that?!", the former lost boy realized it was. It had been in dubious taste at best to reveal something like that to the twins' chief rival.

He put his head in his hands. "Um, do you think you could forget I said that? Please?"

She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Excuse me?! Forget those two could be standing four feet behind me right now with a trident pointed at my unprotected back?!"

"Actually, your spatula is covering most of your back," Ryoga pointed out.

"Oh, that makes it a lot better," the chef returned sarcastically. "Just great. Now I'm never going to feel safe again until those little witches give up and go back to China."

"Ukyo, I really don't think they're as bad as you're making them out to be," he protested. "Heck, when you first fought them, you were back in school the next day but Ling-Ling was flat on her back for several days while her ankle healed. I know you guys don't like each other much, but they've never really hurt you, have they?"

She gave him an incredulous stare. "Sugar, do you honestly expect me to believe they 'aren't that bad'?!" With an effort, Ukyo reminded herself that he hadn't been there to see Lung-Lung's trident against her throat.

With an effort, Ryoga held back a reminder that the only time the twins had seriously threatened her had been under extreme provocation, and Lung-Lung had proved then that she was just putting up a fierce front. "Well, I have spent more time around them than you have… I think they just bluff a lot. They might've nearly given me a heart attack at lunch, but that's as close as I think they'd come to seriously hurting somebody."

"What did they do to nearly give you a heart attack?"

If Ryoga had known the Cat’s Got Your Tongue shiatsu point, he probably would have applied it to himself right then and there. As it was, he sighed, braced himself, and gave a sketchy outline of the Passion Spice incident.

"And these are the girls you think I'm being too hard on?" Ukyo muttered incredulously. Once again, the chef was conscious of a strong desire to head to the Nekohanten and use her spatula on something other than a boulder.

She choked it back. Better to put that anger to a more constructive use. "Ryoga-kun, you've had a pretty rough day so far, haven't you?"

He blinked, not having expected the change of subject. "I've definitely had better ones," he admitted.

"Well, then," Ukyo responded briskly. "What you and I need is something to take our minds off the stress we've had today. And I saw yesterday that there's an amusement park that's having a special 'Midnight Madness' deal this week. You want to go tonight?"

He considered that. "Well… okay. What time?"

"Meet me at my place at two in the morning."

Ryoga's jaw dropped, and dangled like a broken window shade. "T- two in the morning?! I thought you said it was Midnight Madness!"

Ukyo shrugged. "Yeah, but it doesn't open until two. I guess they're operating on a different time zone or something. C'mon, sugar, it'll be fun. Splitting your sleep like that shouldn't be a big deal for a martial artist as good as you."

"I guess not." They had just reached the point where his walk home diverged from hers. "Okay, I'll see you at two A.M."

"Great!" Ukyo's anger at the twins had given her enough focus to ask him without wimping out, or even seeming like it was a big deal, but now that anger had been forgotten. Accordingly, her attempt to say, "It's a date!" emerged as a strangled cough as her vocal chords froze up.

Ryoga turned back to face her, and tossed her another lozenge. "Give me a call if your cough gets worse. I don't want you to get sick or anything."

Many hours later, a scratching at the door of her restaurant drew Ukyo's attention. She opened it to reveal a small black piglet with a fierce scowl on its face. She shook her head. "Jusenkyo strikes again, huh, sugar?" Ukyo carried him to the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap, then left to go hunt down Ryoga's clothes.

Once the change had been triggered, Ryoga turned off the water and sat back with a morose sigh. "Stupid curse," he muttered, wondering just what the odds were of a fire hydrant randomly shooting out one blast like that. The night didn't seem to be starting out very well. 'But that was just Jusenkyo junk. It doesn't mean anything. It's not some kind of omen, like I shouldn't be doing this,' he thought, trying to convince himself.

After all, he'd never promised the Matriarch that he wouldn't do anything with any girls other than Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung. 'Besides, she said herself she didn't want me to feel like I was being pushed into something against my will. And from what they said at lunch, it's obvious she meant it. So stop feeling guilty already!' Ryoga said to himself. 'Nobody even said this was a date. Just a fun time when two friends get together to let off some stress.'

'Stress? So why is Ukyo stressed at the twins going after you, if she and you are just friends?' a rebellious little voice responded.

'Shut up! I don't need any backtalk from myself!'

'Oh, that's a real good argument. You know I'm right. You're breaking your word if you do this.'

'The heck I am! I said I'd give Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung a CHANCE, not ignore every other girl in the world! I've got every right to do this!'

'Traitor. Is this how you keep your promises?'

The argument continued for several more minutes before Ryoga finally stamped down on the nagging whisper. 'This is stupid. Everything's going to be fine. Ukyo and I'll just go, hang out, and have a good time. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing to worry about.' And speaking of Ukyo, what the heck was taking her so long anyway?

As if triggered by the thought, there came a knock at the door. "Hey, Ryoga-kun?" Ukyo called from the other side. "Where'd you leave your clothes anyway? I can't find a trace of them."

He blinked. "What do you mean, you can't find them? They were just down the street from your front door. You should've seen them as soon as you went outside!"

"Well, something must've happened to them. Cause there's a big wet spot there, but that's all."

Ryoga sat blankly for a minute or two. 'If Lung-Lung shows up wearing my pants tomorrow, there's gonna be hell to pay,' he eventually thought to himself. 'But I doubt it was them. They wouldn't want to leave me naked in Ukyo's home.' That last thought shredded his composure like a Ginsu knife through cabbage. The situation wasn't quite appropriate for a nosebleed, but he did feel suddenly lightheaded.

"Ryoga?" Ukyo was starting to get a little concerned. He should have answered by now. "You okay in there?"

"FINE!" he forced out, his voice cracking. "I'm fine, except I'm stuck here with no clothes." He laughed nervously. "What the heck are we gonna do?!"

The door cracked open, just enough for Ukyo's arm to reach in. She was holding a Furinkan boy's uniform. "See if this fits."

Ryoga stared at the uniform. To his relieved eyes, it seemed to be limned in a golden light, with faint strains of heavenly music playing in the background. Then, collecting his wits, he took it and dressed quickly. It wasn't too bad a fit. The top was almost a perfect match, since it had been sized for an Ukyo who wore a chest binding. The pants were a bit tight, but Ryoga was too thankful to complain.

He left the bathroom, to find Ukyo waiting in the hall. "Thanks, Ukyo. Lucky thing you had this."

"Y- yeah," the chef managed.

Ryoga gave her a concerned look. "Are you sure you're okay? You were coughing a lot this afternoon, and you look kinda feverish now. And your voice just sounded a bit raspy too."

Ukyo laughed nervously. She gulped a few times, managing to work some moisture back into her throat, then said, "It's nothing, sugar. My throat was a little dry, that's all." 'Oh, MAN, those pants are just tight enough…'

"Anyway, thanks for the uniform. This'll keep me decent long enough to get back to the Kuno place and get some of my own clothes."

"NO!" Ukyo exclaimed. Ryoga started at the vehemence of her protest. She calmed herself, and said, "I mean, that'll take too long, don't you think? We're already a bit late."

"But what am I going to do about shoes? I don't need them for a trip back home, but I can't just go barefoot to the amusement park!"

"Don't worry, I've got some sandals that're big enough for you," Ukyo responded. "C'mon, let's go already!"

"Oh, all right." Ryoga grimaced. "I hope I don't get too many people staring at me."

Ukyo slung her spatula into place at her back as she and her companion made for the door. "Tell you what, sugar, if anybody does, I'll flatten them." 'Especially if it's a girl.'

The amusement park in question was far enough away that they had to take the train. On the way to the station, Ryoga felt the by-now-familiar sensation of being watched. It passed quickly, though, and he put it out of his mind. Really, the idea was absurd anyway, he thought. No reasonable person would be up this late for such a stupid purpose.

Once they were inside the park, Ukyo paused and took a long, leisurely look around. A fair number of people had come out to enjoy the night. Not enough to make the park seem crowded, but not few enough that it felt deserted either. The colorful lights of the stands and rides cast interesting shadows against the cloudy night sky. The festive music of the carnival lent a bright and energetic air, though it was played somewhat softly out of respect to the hour. The overall effect, to Ukyo at least, was of a romantic mixture of peace, magic, and mystery.

She sighed. "Isn't this great, Ryoga-kun?"

"Mmph?"

The chef turned, to see Ryoga hastily swallow a mouthful of cotton candy. She rolled her eyes. "Jeez, typical guy. Go right for the food and ignore the atmosphere completely."

"So you don't want this?" Ryoga asked, holding up the second coneful of spun sugar he'd purchased for her.

Ukyo punched him lightly on the arm, then took the offering. "I didn't say that."

The two walked along, silent for the next few minutes as they finished their treats. At length, Ryoga asked, "What would you like to do first?"

Ukyo shrugged. "I don't know. Let's just walk for a while, and see what there is to see."

This proved to be a good suggestion, as the next corner they turned put them in the area that housed the various sideshow exhibits. The two spent an entertaining quarter-hour walking along and pointing out the outrageous claims posted on the signs of the booths. They didn't actually go into any of them… seeing a ridiculously faked spectacle would have taken some of the fun out of it. As Ryoga put it, "A girl who turns into a tiger? Yeah, right. Only if they've been to Jusenkyo lately."

Within the tent, Miao Yin paced back and forth in her most dramatic stalk. She listened with only half an ear to the barker's spiel. As he reached the appropriate point, she spun on her heel, turning so that her back was to the audience. In the same motion, she doffed the cloak that was her only garment, spinning it so that the hidden interior pockets sent a fine spray of cold water shooting forth over her before the onlookers could catch more than a glimpse of her unclothed form.

"Oh, and what about that one? A girl who can 'spin the spirits of air and fire into beautiful visions of wonder', whatever that's supposed to mean." Ukyo frowned. "Come to think of it, most of these booths are about girls in one way or another, aren't they?" The realization took a good bit of her enjoyment away.

"You're right," Ryoga said, puzzled. "I wonder why that is?"

His companion gave him a searching sidelong glance, then smiled. "Probably because most guys aren't too honorable to pay a few yen and watch a pretty girl strut her stuff." Ukyo still didn't like the thought, but her spirits had quickly picked back up. It felt pretty good to be here with a guy who was an exception to that rule.

Ryoga stared. "You don't really think that's it, do you?" he asked, almost plaintively.

"'Fraid so, sugar." Ukyo turned to look back at the booth she'd pointed out. "That one probably means they've got some kinda incense burning to fill the place with smoke and dim light, and the girl does a striptease."

Inside the booth in question, Sakura let her awareness of the world around her fall partially away. She reached deeply into herself. Engaging her talent, she wove illusionary worlds in the darkness of the tent, taking an extra bit of pleasure in the squeals of delight from one little girl when a tiny, brilliantly glowing dragon landed on her hand.

Ryoga sighed. "C'mon, let's go somewhere else." They made their way out of the sideshow area, to find themselves in the section that housed the games of skill and chance. "This is more like it," he said. "Let's try to win some stuff, Ukyo."

"Fine by me, but we shouldn't waste too much money. I hear these games are rigged like the sails of a trireme."

He shrugged. "I've heard that too. But I bet our skills are enough to make up for it. It's worth a shot at least, right?" Without waiting for an answer, Ryoga strode over to what is perhaps the archetypal carnival game, the 'test of strength' in which the player swings a hammer as hard as he can and hits a lever on a fulcrum, sending a weight up a pole to (hopefully) ring the bell at the top.

Ryoga glanced at the sign. 500 yen for a set of three swings, with the quality of the prize you won depending on how many times you rung the bell. He set a five hundred yen coin down and began to focus his chi.

"You from Nerima, kid?" the barker asked him. Ryoga's concentration dissolved into surprise.

"Er, yes, I am," he answered. "Why?"

The barker gestured toward another sign, partially hidden by stuffed animals. It read, 'Absolutely NO martial artists from Nerima allowed to compete. ~The management'

Ryoga's jaw dropped. He pulled himself together with an effort, and turned back to face the game operator. "You have GOT to be kidding."

The man shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, kid, but I don't make the rules. Tell you what, though." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I'll let you have a go for free. You won't win anything, but you will get a chance to impress that cutie you're with." He winked at Ryoga. "And that's the real important thing here, right?"

This left Ryoga a little too flustered to focus properly, and his first swing failed to send the weight very high at all. That annoyed him enough that the next two rang the bell loud and clear.

A few minutes of looking around quickly confirmed that all the games that required skill rather than luck carried the same 'No martial artists from Nerima' sign. Ukyo briefly considered telling one of the operators that she was an okonomiyaki chef from Kyoto, and then cleaning him out, but decided against it. "So, what do you want to do now, Ryoga-kun?"

"Well, we've already eaten, and I've seen enough of the sideshow exhibits, and the games are a total bust…" Ryoga grimaced at that last statement. "That pretty much just leaves the rides, I guess."

"Sounds good to me." They began making their way over to that section of the park. "You have any preference for our first ride?" Ukyo asked as they came within sight of the nearest ones.

"No, not really. You pick."

"You don't have to ask me twice!" she said excitedly. "I've heard of one here that's supposed to give a real thrill. Come on, let's go!" She headed purposefully toward the ride in question, Ryoga following close behind.

The duo reached their goal. Ukyo smiled. "Great, the line isn't too long." She moved to join it, realizing a moment later that Ryoga hadn't come with her. She turned back with a puzzled expression on her face. "Yo, sugar, you coming?"

Ryoga looked sourly over Ukyo's shoulder, watching as a log-shaped carriage full of screaming teens shot down a flume. Their speed was broken by a huge wave that shot over the log, drenching them to the bone. "Gee, Ukyo, what could be more fun that me getting splashed with cold water in front of a whole bunch of people."

Ukyo blinked, then turned back to look at the ride as if seeing it for the first time. Sheepishly, the chef moved out of line and walked back to his side. "Heh heh. Sorry about that. I guess I wasn't really thinking."

'Stupid curse,' Ryoga mentally growled. Forcing his mind away from gloomy thoughts, he suggested, "There are some roller coasters over there."

"Let's check them out, then," Ukyo said cheerfully. Despite her carefree tone, the chef was feeling a little annoyed. The sequence of one problem after another was beginning to grate on her nerves. 'Is it too much to ask that one part of this date go off smoothly?' she growled to herself. 'With my luck, the coaster will probably break down and leave me and Ryoga stuck at the top of the highest loop.' She blinked. 'Hey, wait a minute, that wouldn't be so bad…'

Ryoga glanced at Ukyo, once again wondering whether she was feeling all right. Her eyes were glazed and her cheeks were flushed. 'I hope Ukyo isn't getting sick. I'd hate to find out she was and I kept her out running around when she should've been in bed.'

Sometimes, letting yourself get distracted is the worst mistake you can make. It leaves you open to attacks that otherwise would never have touched you. It snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

Other times, it doesn't matter at all. Like now. If Ryoga had been paying attention, he'd have seen a girl walking stiffly toward him, an angry scowl on her face. He might have dodged the slap she leveled at him, instead of being caught totally off-guard. But even if he had, the eventual outcome of the confrontation wouldn't have changed at all.

Ukyo was jarred from her fantasy (involving a roller coaster carriage that was both rather roomier than normal and, inexplicably, only occupied by the two of them) by the strident sound of flesh on flesh. She blinked, and turned to see a rather bizarre sight.

A girl in a pretty dress, with long, curly black hair, blue eyes partially obscured by glasses, and slightly dusky skin, was standing in front of Ryoga. She was glaring fiercely at him, and her hand was still in the post-follow-through position. An angry red welt on Ryoga's face made it clear that the former lost boy had just received the slap of a lifetime.

Ryoga just stared in shock. "What was that for?" he asked blankly.

"How can you ask me that, you womanizing jerk!" she snarled back. "So it's true. Everything my friends heard about you is true. You really DO sneak around and date a bunch of girls all at the same time. You… you miserable…" The nameless girl's anger crumpled suddenly, and she sank down to her knees and began to cry.

"Y-you were the f-f-first boy to tell me… tell me I w-was cute. I… I thought y-you really c-c-cared for me." She put her face in her hands and sobbed for a full minute.

Fighting a sense of unreality, Ryoga finally spoke again. "Um, miss? I think you've mistaken me for someone else. I've never seen you before in my— "

"DON'T YOU DARE!!" the girl screamed, seeming to find new anger. "Don't you DARE pull this 'I don't know you' thing, Ryoga Hibiki! You may have fooled me, but I won't let you hurt this girl too!" The girl turned to Ukyo. "Please, y-you have to believe me. H-He's just using you…" the last of her rage was swamped again by rising despair, "… like he used me…" She said the last in a shamed whisper, and began to cry again.

Ryoga was beyond responding at this point, too shell-shocked to do more than stand and gape in disbelief. Ukyo was nearly as bad, but she managed to scrape together enough composure to start forward, intending to lay a hand on the girl's shoulder. Whether it would have been a comforting gesture or a clenching grip of iron followed by a demand for more information, not even she could have said.

However, as Ukyo took her first step, the girl shot back to her feet. With a cry of despair, she turned and raced off into the night.

By the time the chef recovered enough to follow, it was far too late. She turned back to stare at Ryoga. A long moment of silence passed. Off in the distance, an owl hooted.

Eventually, Ukyo spoke. "Well, Ryoga? I'm waiting to hear your side of the story," she said grimly.

Ryoga blinked, seeming to come out of a daze. "M-My side? What story?! I've got no idea what just happened here! I've never seen that girl before in my life!"

"You've never seen that girl… who knew your name. Not just your first name, but your family name too." The thought had crossed Ukyo's mind that this was some sort of carnival scam, and that the girl had learned Ryoga's name by following them and listening, but since she'd never spoken his full name that idea hadn't lasted very long.

"That's right. I don't have a clue who she is." Ryoga swallowed hard. "You've got to believe me!"

Ukyo just stared at him in silence for a long moment. At last, she sighed, and said flatly, "I don't know what to believe." On that note, she turned and walked away.

Six thirty A.M.
Ukyo's Okonomiyaki.

The proprietor's bedroom.

Ukyo had been there for nearly two and a half hours. Sleep wouldn't come, driven away by the struggle with her turbulent emotions. The conflict had been exhausting, even as it drove her further and further from slumber. But now, finally, she had managed to attain a measure of peace. Ukyo now stood (or reclined, since she was in her bed at the moment) firm again, believing in Ryoga. Something about the encounter had increasingly rubbed her the wrong way, as she'd forced herself to think back over it, and the chef was convinced by now that the girl had been lying or mistaken.

How 'mistaken' might be the case was something she was still working on. Ukyo was tempted just to let it go and assume the girl had been deliberately trying to deceive her, out of some mysterious wish to hurt Ryoga. However, remembering ten years spent in bitter but misplaced anger toward Ranma, she choked back the impulse and did her level best to give the girl the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, that required there to be some doubt in the first place. Ukyo was still looking, but so far she hadn't found any. 'Okay, let's just think this through,' the chef thought to herself. Had the mystery girl lied, or did she make a mistake?

'What kind of mistake would explain something like this? She knew who Ryoga was, which rules out mistaken identity. Maybe they used to go to the same school, and he randomly complimented her once and she built some huge fantasy about the two of them as a couple after that? Some off-hand remark he doesn't even remember? That would explain how Ryoga can think he never met her.' Ukyo pondered that thought for a little while, then discarded it. Nobody would take one measly little remark and shape their whole life around it like that.

And besides, the girl had clearly accused Ryoga of 'using' her. There was just no way that fit with the idea of a secret crush which the girl had thought of as something more. Ukyo attempted to picture Ryoga, the guy who had wondered why the sideshow attractions had mostly featured girls, doing something like that. She failed utterly.

'Okay, I guess that pretty much rules out a mistake. The little witch had some kind of grudge against Ryoga, or she was working with somebody who does, and did all that just to hurt him,' she thought. Now that that was settled, Ukyo felt quite a relief. She'd done her best to be open-minded and fair, and not condemn somebody without evidence, but there really wasn't any other possibility, was there? That girl HAD to have been lying through her teeth.

'Tomorrow I'll get with Ryoga-kun and tell him what I figured out,' the chef thought, ignoring the fact that 'today' was the word she should have used. 'And I'll do something extra nice for him too, to make up for leaving him in the lurch like that.' She felt quite a bit of guilt well up in her at the reminder. 'Dang, I wish I hadn't done that. It just… didn't help when that girl said her bit about Ryoga being the first guy to call her cute. Made it sound like he'd just used her and moved on to me, to do the same thing. But I should've known better.'

Ukyo yawned, finally beginning to feel a bit sleepy. 'Wonder what her reason was for wanting to attack Ryoga-kun. Was it was her grudge or somebody else's?' she mused. 'And was she trying specifically to break us up, or just generally hurt him? Kinda seemed like the first one, but what for? It's not like she could want him for herself… she'd have no chance at all after doing something like that…'

With that, Ukyo sat bolt-upright in bed. "Could it be…" her teeth ground together for a while, before she at last gritted out, "…I think I'm gonna have to have a chat with a couple of Amazon little girls tomorrow."

After silently fuming for a bit more, Ukyo yawned again. "But I'll worry about that later," she mumbled. 'Man, I need to get some sleep. What time is it anyway?'

She glanced over at her clock… just in time for the alarm to go off. Ukyo stared in shock at the display, then slammed her palm down on the unfortunate device, muttered, "Furinkan can kiss my spatula," and pulled the covers over her head.

Eight fifteen A.M.
Ukyo's Okonomiyaki.

Well, technically, the lane outside, rather than the restaurant itself.

Ryoga stood before the door of Ukyo's place, not sure he should be here. He didn't know whether the chef would even want to see him this morning, let alone walk with him to school. Ryoga had seriously considered avoiding the issue, but in the end he'd decided not to run away. And so he gathered his courage, and knocked at the door.

There was no answer. He waited a few minutes, then knocked again. Still nothing. Ryoga's shoulders slumped a little, and he turned and began walking away.

He'd reached the area of the sidewalk where he'd been splashed the previous night, not really noticing that the fire hydrant that had done so was no longer present, when he heard a door open. "Hey, Ryoga!" Ukyo called from behind him.

He stopped, gulped a few times, then turned. Ukyo was smiling at him. The chef's hair was mussed up, and her eyes were bloodshot, with dark bags under them, but the expression on her face more than made up for that as far as he was concerned. He hurried back.

Taking a deep breath, Ryoga prepared to stammer words of apology and innocence. However, Ukyo beat him to the punch. "Listen, sugar, I'm really sorry about going off last night. It was late, and I was kinda tired, and I just don't think I was thinking straight. I thought about it some more last night, after I got home, and I'm pretty sure that girl was lying. I bet she was just trying to make some trouble for you, that's all."

"Huh?" This possibility hadn't occurred to Ryoga. He'd been too busy struggling with another one. "You think so? But Ukyo, I seriously never have seen her before! Why would she want to hurt me? And how could she know my name?"

Ukyo shrugged. "Could be something you did to somebody else. Maybe you beat her brother in a fight. Or it could be somebody completely unrelated to her has a grudge against you, and just got her to help out."

"Maybe," Ryoga said. "I hope it is that."

Even through the haze of weariness, Ukyo noted his expression and tone of voice seemed rather odd. "Why don't you come inside, anyway? This is getting a little silly, just talking in the doorway like this." When they were both seated at a table in the restaurant, she spoke again. "So what else could it be? Why would you hope that's what it is?"

Ryoga looked down at his hands, which had clenched into fists. "It's just… she really seemed angry at me. And what she said… I'd done… I'd never treat a girl like that. " He stared at Ukyo, with desperation evident in his eyes. "But… my Oni side wouldn't even have thought twice about it. And I don't know how long it ran around free before it kidnapped Akane." He'd always assumed that the dream he'd had, of returning to Jusenkyo, had happened simultaneously with the Oni doing so and being reborn, but last night Ryoga had been forced to realize that there was no proof whatsoever that it had happened like that.

Ukyo let out a long, low whistle. "Oh, no. I hope that isn't it." Apparently there WAS at least one way the girl could have been mistaken instead of lying. Then she frowned. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say, when you guys fought the Oni it had fangs and claws and stuff?"

"Yeah, but it could also create illusions," Ryoga said, thinking back to the image of Ranma-chan in a frilly little sundress. "Nothing to say it couldn't have disguised itself as human."

His companion placed a hand on his shoulder. "I hope not, sugar. I hope not."

They sat in silence for a while, before Ryoga gave a long sigh. "Thanks for believing me, Ukyo. I need to get going— class will be starting soon." Judging by the fact that Ukyo was still in a houserobe, he was fairly confident in guessing, "You're not going to Furinkan today, are you?"

"Nope. I'm too tired. But I'll see you this afternoon, okay?"

"Yeah, I'll come by." For a moment, Ryoga was seriously tempted just to head back to the Kuno place and crash, but since he'd skipped several days of school not long back, he manfully resisted the urge. "See you then." He slipped out of the door, just a little too tired to realize his lunch was still sitting on the floor of the restaurant where he'd set it down.

As Ryoga made his way toward Furinkan, he was feeling a good bit better. Ukyo wasn't angry with him, and it was possible that this had nothing to do with his dark side. One piece of certain good news, and one reason to hope.

Still, the former lost boy was conscious of a deep pit of angst in the center of his gut. Hopefully Ukyo's theory was correct, and the girl had been lying through her teeth about being used by a Ryoga Hibiki, but the fact still remained that she might have been telling only the truth. The thought left a very bitter taste in Ryoga's mouth.

"I hope not, though," he muttered as he neared the school. "Bad enough all the crap that Oni put me through when it was part of me. It's not fair that it could have hurt even more people." He thought back again to the evening before, doing his best to remember the encounter dispassionately. Ryoga tried to decide whether there had been anything in the mystery girl's demeanor that might have betrayed dishonesty. Unfortunately, he had just been too off-balance then to remember subtle details now. "Heck," Ryoga muttered gloomily as he neared the school, walking past a number of slower students, "I'm not even sure I'd recognize her if I walked past her on the street in broad daylight."

A hard tap on his shoulder drew him from his thoughts. Ryoga blinked, then turned around to find himself face-to-face with the girl who'd been filling his thoughts.

"Jeez, Hibiki, when I go to the trouble of waiting for you here, the least you could do is not walk past me without noticing," she sneered at him.

"S-sorry," Ryoga replied automatically. "What did you want?"

She turned and walked away, motioning for Ryoga to follow. He did so, and some minutes later the two had moved out of sight of both Furinkan and the students straggling into the school. Once they were alone, the girl stopped, and fixed Ryoga with a stare of disdain.

"I was serious when I said I'd never seen you before in my life," Ryoga began nervously.

The girl cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Save it. Like I'd have gone out with a jerk like you anyway." She stepped forward, scowling and pushing her forefinger into Ryoga's chest. He stepped back reflexively; she moved forward into his personal space again. "I… want you… to leave my Ukyo alone." Each pause corresponded to a jab from her finger. "You got it, Hibiki? Ukyo deserves someone a lot better than a butt-ugly guy like you."

'This is a dream. That's it, a dream. I must've finally fallen asleep and now I'm dreaming this. Or maybe I haven't even woken up yet to go to the fair with Ukyo,' Ryoga thought. 'Man, I hope this isn't an omen of how our evening is going to go.' He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind. It was just easier than dealing with the unreality of this situation.

The girl was saying something, but Ryoga didn't bother to listen. Her words blew past him, somehow triggering another girl's voice, rising up from the depths of his memories… "She comes on to me just like Mousse came on to Shampoo— without any encouragement, and ignoring the times I've flattened her with my spatula…"

Ryoga's eyes snapped open, to fix the girl in front of him with a deceptively mild gaze. Under the clear light of morning, her curly black hair was obviously a wig. And now he knew whom the disguise had been for. "I'm sorry, Tsubasa. I missed that last part. Could you repeat it?"

"I said, if you know what's good for you, you'll give Ukyo the 'just friends' speech and leave her to someone that can… appreciate…" Tsubasa's voice trailed off into a quiver at the sight of Ryoga's rising battle aura.

Ryoga waited until he was sure he could control himself before responding. "I could make excuses for you if you'd just been fooled by Ukyo's cross-dressing. When I first heard about you, I thought that was all it was, a girl with a crush on a 'guy' that she didn't know well enough. I even felt SORRY for you!" he snarled, making it sound like he'd agonized over poor Tsubasa's hypothetical misunderstanding for hours. This would be a major exaggeration, but it was true that he'd felt a moment's pang of sympathy before the ongoing confrontation between the twins and Ukyo had swept unimportant thoughts aside.

"You lied last night, trying to make me look like some kind of monster. You ruined our evening, and all because you're too STUPID to see Ukyo doesn't want you!" Ryoga's fists clenched tightly. "If you weren't a girl, I'd be giving you the beating of your life right now. You're lucky I don't hit girls, no matter what. But you better believe Ukyo is gonna hear who that REALLY was last night!"

With that ultimatum, Tsubasa seemed to find some reserves of backbone. "I'm warning you. Stay away from my Ukyo. Or I'll shred your rep to the whole school, not just her."

Ryoga laughed cynically. "Oh, yeah? All Ukyo has to do is tell everybody about you, and they'll know better than to believe any lies you come up with."

That statement made it painfully obvious that Ryoga didn't really understand how gossip and rumor worked. Tsubasa could have enlightened him, but it wasn't necessary. "So who said anything about lies?"

The former lost boy blinked, wondering just what that was supposed to mean. Before he could ask, a cascade of water poured down from an open window above him, drenching him while missing his antagonist completely.

Tsubasa stared in surprise. "Well, this is where I was going to pull out my water pistol, but I guess I don't need to now." She seemed to pull herself together. "Either you stay away from Ukyo, or the whole school gets to meet the REAL Ryoga Hibiki. Your choice, bacon boy." She gave Ryoga-piglet a very unpleasant smile. "I'll let you have an hour to think it over."

Ryoga sat on a bench in the classic 'thinker' pose, this once not taking any solace at all from the trees and grass around him. He'd come to the park to ponder the latest turn of events. But he might just as well have gone to a construction site for all the good his surroundings were doing him. Some types of turmoil are just too deep to be alleviated by a little natural beauty.

Three-quarters of his hour had passed by now. After a lot of long and hard thought, Ryoga had made his decision. It hurt, and it didn't seem honorable, but he was just going to have to go and have a talk with Ukyo. He wasn't looking forward to it at all. Sometimes, though, you simply have to bite the bullet and do something you'd rather not.

"I never thought I'd sink so low," Ryoga mumbled, trying to summon the will to get up and get moving toward Ukyo's. "I can't believe I'm going wimp out, and ask Ukyo to do this." But there wasn't really an alternative, was there? He HAD to get Ukyo to fight Tsubasa. He couldn't bring himself to beat up a girl, even one as malicious as this one, but Ukyo clearly had no problem with doing so. "I just hope she'll be able to get Tsubasa to back off."

Ryoga glanced at his watch, realizing that Tsubasa's deadline was swiftly drawing near. He needed to talk to Ukyo before that happened. With a sigh, he got to his feet.

"Hey! Ryoga!"

The lost boy blinked. That had sounded like… "Ukyo?" he asked, startled to see the chef appear out of the brush. "What're you doing here?"

Ukyo gave him a half-exasperated look. She held up his lunch. "You left this at my place. I went to drop it off at Furinkan, but they said you weren't there. I figured you decided to give school a miss and went back to the Kuno place. So I was headed for there. Just got lucky that I decided to take a shortcut through this park."

Ryoga gave her a strange look. "You thought I went back to the Kuno mansion, so you were going there to give me my lunch?"

"Well, yeah, I didn't want you to… go hungry…" Ukyo's voice trailed off. She unholstered her mega-spatula and smacked herself in the face with it. "This is what happens when you try to function on too little sleep, idiot," she muttered to herself through a faceful of steel.

The former lost boy glanced back at his watch. "Listen, Ukyo, I need to talk to you. I ran into that girl again this morning. That's why I'm not at school." Ryoga paused, remembering that he'd just as soon not admit to having overheard the conversation in which Ukyo had spoken of Tsubasa to the twins. "Last night wasn't about me," he said carefully. "She told me to stay away from you. She even acted like SHE wanted to be the one going out with you." Ukyo wasn't the only one functioning on too little sleep; Ryoga didn't even realize what he'd just admitted. But then again, the significance also slipped by his companion. "Does the name Tsubasa mean anything to you?"

"Ts-Tsubasa… Kurenai?!" There was an audible clicking sound as everything fell into place for Ukyo. The click had actually been caused by her teeth snapping together, but it was still a nice bit of synchronicity. "It… that was Tsubasa?!"

"Yeah," Ryoga said sourly, "and she somehow found out about my curse, too." If he hadn't been so tired, he might have made the connection between that and the recurrent feeling of being watched over the past week. Or maybe not, since he still didn't know about Tsubasa's penchant for disguises. "And she said if I don't keep away from you, she'll tell the whole school about it."

"That… miserable… little… pervert…" Ukyo ground out. She was standing ramrod straight, her fists clenched at her side, her battle aura visible nearly six inches away from her body.

Ryoga gulped, suddenly wondering whether things might not be about to get out of control. He made a mental note never to get Ukyo that angry with him. "Um, yeah, well, anyway, I was kinda wondering whether you could maybe keep her from doing that…"

Ukyo took several deep breaths. Her hands unclenched, and her battle aura diminished somewhat. "I'd love to, but Tsubasa never does seem to get a clue when I'm the one doing the beating. Why don't you?"

"I can't hit a girl for real!" Ryoga protested. "I'd LIKE to make an exception, but I just can't! Not even for someone like that!"

Ukyo's lips curled into a grim smile that sent shivers up and down Ryoga's spine. "I think you may change your mind when I tell you the truth about Tsubasa," she purred. Then, over Ryoga's shoulder, she caught a glimpse of an approaching figure. "Well, speak of the devil and he arrives. Ryoga honey, just wait for my signal. You'll know what to do."

"Wh-what?! Hey, get back here!" Too late. Ukyo had vanished into the brush. Before Ryoga could follow, Tsubasa had entered the clearing and was striding over toward him.

" 'Wait for my signal'? 'You'll know what to do'? What the heck was Ukyo talking about?" Ryoga muttered under his breath as he turned to face the newcomer. He noticed she was openly carrying a water pistol this time.

Tsubasa stopped a few feet away, weapon at the ready. "Well? Are you gonna leave Ukyo aloUlp!"

Three mini-spatulas had suddenly flown out from Ukyo's position of concealment. The first cleaved through Tsubasa's water pistol. The second and third slashed the front and back of the dress she was wearing.

There was a long moment of silence as the material fell away from Tsubasa's chest, leaving it bare to the world. The sight of the smooth, decidedly MALE expanse hit Ryoga like a proverbial ton of bricks. He and his antagonist both stood there, in shock.

Tsubasa was the first to recover. He ‘eeped’, gathered up the torn material, and raced away, in the process losing both the black wig and the glasses he'd been wearing. Ryoga blinked, but didn't otherwise react.

The bushes rustled, then Ukyo stood beside him. The chef had a frankly disappointed look in her eyes. "Sugar, are you just going to let him get away like that?" No response. Ukyo waved a hand in front of Ryoga's face, noting that his eyes only vaguely tracked the motion. She sighed. "Oh well, I guess there's nothing to stop Tsubasa from heading to Furinkan and spilling his guts about your secret."

The last word had scarcely left her mouth before Ryoga was gone. Ukyo winced at the sight of the tree he'd knocked down, then glanced at her arm in surprise. "Dang," she muttered, "I've never seen a battle aura that big. It actually burned off all the hairs."

Nabiki and Tsubasa had very, very little in common, but they did share one trait: although neither was a martial artist, both kept themselves in good shape. Of course, in Nabiki's case this was done by actual, intentional exercises, Yoga and the like, whereas it was more or less an accident for Tsubasa. Many of the disguises he used required flexibility that would have made Dhalsim envious. Not to mention that moving around with all that extra weight necessarily built up his muscle tone.

In fact, Tsubasa was probably in the best shape of any non-martial-artist currently in Nerima. He was even fitter than a few of the martial artists themselves (especially the practitioners of Martial Arts Hypochondria). This, combined with the fact that he'd gotten a good bit more sleep than Ryoga the previous night, was why he was still in one piece.

The chase had lasted for thirty minutes now. Tsubasa didn't bother to check back over his shoulder to see whether Ryoga was still after him; the incoherent cries of rage made it all too clear that he hadn't yet managed to lose his pursuer. Tsubasa once again mentally cursed himself for an idiot. Just because Ryoga hadn't immediately pursued him out of the park had been no good reason to stop and try to effect repairs on his dress. If he'd just kept going, he could have had an insurmountable lead.

As it was, he'd managed to keep only about half a block ahead of disaster. And now, Tsubasa's reserves were beginning to run low. 'It's not fair!' he thought, angling his flight through an outdoor dining area shared by a number of cafés. 'Everybody hates me because I'm beautiful!' He jumped over a table without breaking stride, and a few seconds later heard a resounding crash as Ryoga plowed straight through it.

That sparked an idea. Over the last week, as Tsubasa had followed Ryoga around in disguise, taking the measure of his competition (after chancing to overhear a couple of Ryoga's classmates talking about how cute a couple he and Ukyo made), the transvestite had had ample opportunity to see how often water seemed to seek Ryoga out. So now, if he were to jump a table with drinks resting on it, and Ryoga were to crash through the obstacle, said liquid would inevitably trigger the boy's bizarre transformation and remove his threat potential. Tsubasa smiled, proud of how brains and beauty were about to triumph over brawn and butt-ugliness. Only then did he realize that he and Ryoga had already left the café area far behind.

The two were now running along a residential street, with no convenient sources of water anywhere in sight. The transvestite felt a stitch forming in his side, and realized that he was quickly nearing the end of his strength. He didn't know that Ryoga was pretty much in the same boat (though the fact that the former lost boy now lacked the breath to yell as he ran should have clued the cross-dresser in). Tsubasa began to panic. He needed something— anything— that could help him get away.

Ukyo's unwanted admirer had a number of negative qualities, but he wasn't really that bad a guy. Only under extreme duress (such as now) would he stoop to the tactic he now used. Up ahead, he caught sight of a couple of delivery girls walking away from a house, and ran directly at them. With the last of his strength, Tsubasa jumped over the startled duo, put on a new burst of speed, tried not to feel guilty as he heard a crash and thud behind him, and raced down a side alley. Halfway down its length, he collapsed, and spent the next half hour recovering from his brush with death.

Ryoga had been focused on his quarry to the exclusion of all else. He didn't catch sight of the girls in his path until Tsubasa jumped over them. Desperately, he tried to swerve to one side. But he was tired, and his reactions were much slower than usual, and anyway Ling-Ling had dived left while her sister dashed to the right. The twins' maneuver would have completely avoided collision had Ryoga just held to his original course. But as it was, he slammed into Ling-Ling, knocking the both of them to the ground. He barely managed to twist and take the brunt of the fall himself. The impact, coming on top of too little sleep, too much stress, and way too much recent exertion, knocked all the wind out of Ryoga. He lay there, stunned, with Ling-Ling on top of him.

Lung-Lung sighed slightly. If Ryoga had dodged the other way, that would be her instead of her sister. Oh well, there'd be other opportunities.

Ryoga tried desperately to recover his senses. In the split second in which impact had become unavoidable, he'd known he was going to hit the pavement pretty hard. But he hadn't expected the world to go dark, or to suddenly have trouble breathing.

"Airen? Is you okay?" The former lost boy dimly recognized Ling-Ling's voice. The words had seemed to come from far away, as if the cherry-haired girl were speaking to him across some sort of veil. At that thought, a surge of fear briefly lent him new strength, and Ryoga sat bolt upright. His head spun. He was finding it a bit easier to breathe, but everything remained dark. He fought down an urge to cry "Where on earth am I now?!"

Ling-Ling sat up from the pavement, where she'd landed after Ryoga's movement had catapulted her from him. Maybe lying across her husband's chest hadn't been such a good idea after all. She reached over and pulled her ramen delivery box off his head, over which it had landed in their fall.

Ryoga blinked as the darkness was replaced by sunlight. His eyes focused on Ling-Ling, rubbing her shoulder and eyeing him somewhat crossly. "Airen too strong for my own good."

"Are you okay?"

Ling-Ling did a couple of tentative stretching exercises. "Ling-Ling think so." She got to her feet.

Ryoga followed suit. His head didn't seem to be spinning anymore, though he was feeling like he might keel over from exhaustion at any moment. "Thank goodness. I'm really sorry about running you down like that."

A hurt-sounding sniff from behind him drew his attention to Lung-Lung. She was sitting on the ground, clutching her ankle. "You no worry about me, Airen?" she asked pitifully.

"Huh?! B-But I didn't run into you!"

"No, but sister's delivery box go flying. Hit me, make me fall down and hurt ankle, then bounce back and land on your head," Lung-Lung said, sweating slightly. That story had sounded a lot more believable in her head than it did coming out of her mouth.

Ryoga was way too tired to notice. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize. Can you walk?"

Lung-Lung carefully put some weight on her ankle, then winced. "Not hurt too bad, probably be okay by tomorrow, but no want try to walk on it now." She gave Ryoga her best pleading puppy-dog eyes expression. "Airen maybe carry Lung-Lung back to Nekohanten?"

"<Do you think you could shovel it on just a LITTLE more thickly, sis?>" Ling-Ling asked sourly. SHE was the one who really HAD been knocked down, after all.

"Carry you?" This was a bit too much even for Ryoga, generally clueless about women and currently too tired to think straight. "Are you sure you just hurt one ankle? Not both? And maybe you wrenched a knee or two?"

Lung-Lung sighed, sweating more than ever but determined to salvage something. "Just ankle. Okay, Lung-Lung admit she no need be carry, but Airen no can blame me for trying. If just give me shoulder to lean on, that would be enough."

That was much more reasonable, Ryoga thought. "Okay, here." He took her hand, hoisted her up, and angled her so she could divide her weight between her 'good' leg and him.

And he promptly fell over, carrying the green-haired girl with him to the ground. Slight as the Amazon was, her extra weight was just too much for him to support in his current state of exhaustion.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Lung-Lung whimpered, clutching an ankle that actually WAS slightly twisted now. The poetic justice of the situation utterly failed to impress itself on her.

For a moment, Cologne wasn't sure she believed her eyes. Ling-Ling, Lung-Lung, and Ryoga had just limped through the back door of the Nekohanten in a truly unlikely procession. Ling-Ling had Ryoga's arm slung across her shoulders. Ryoga in turn was supporting Lung-Lung. Lung-Lung was using one of her sister's staves as a makeshift cane. Ryoga was shuffling along with his knees bent in order to bring his shoulders low enough to line up with the young Amazons' lesser height. Ling-Ling was obviously straining her strength to the very limit in order to help support her Airen.

Cologne watched as the three disentangled themselves and sat down, somehow without having anyone fall on his or her face. She absently flicked her wrist, sending her staff whirling out of the kitchen and soaring across the dining room to strike the sign on the front window, switching it from 'Open' to 'Closed'. The staff angled away to knock the phone off its hook, thus putting an end to any further delivery orders that might have been placed, then returned to her hand.

It was still early, so there weren't many people in the restaurant yet. Consequently, the applause from the dining room, though energetic, wasn't too loud to talk over. "Ryoga. A pleasure to see you again. May I ask what happened?"

Ryoga scowled tiredly as he finally remembered Tsubasa. "I was chasing after somebody. He dodged around the twins, and I ran into them. Ling-Ling's all right, but Lung-Lung hurt her ankle. So I helped her get back here."

"It looked to me like it was more a case of the three of you managing to stay upright only because you couldn't agree on which direction to fall," the Matriarch responded dryly. "What about you, boy? Are YOU injured?"

"No, I'm fine. Just exhausted."

"I see," the Matriarch responded. Well, if he was that tired, his guard should be down. Time to find out if a certain suspicion of hers was correct. "Would you like something to eat? Perhaps a bowl of ramen like the twins brought you yesterday?"

"Yeah, that'd be good," Ryoga answered absently. He felt Ling-Ling stiffen beside him, and realized what he'd just said. "Wait! Yesterday? What're you talking about? What makes you think they came by and had lunch with me at school yesterday?!"

Lung-Lung shook her head. "<That's his idea of a convincing denial?>" she muttered.

"Call it a hunch," the Matriarch answered him, her gaze flickering away from Ryoga to rest on each twin in turn. Both visibly wilted.

To Ryoga, already mentally kicking himself for letting that slip, the sight was more than he could stand. "Listen…" He paused, realizing he either didn't know or couldn't remember how to address Cologne by whatever her proper title was. "Hey, Ling-Ling, what do I call the old fossil if I want to be polite?" he whispered. Cologne, whose hearing was a good bit sharper than Ryoga realized, successfully held back a chuckle.

"Say, 'honored elder'," Ling-Ling whispered back.

"Right. Thanks." Raising his voice, Ryoga started again. "Listen, honored elder, they told me you said not to come visit me until I made the next move, because you didn't want me to feel crowded. I appreciate the thought and all, and I know you might be unhappy that they disobeyed the first chance they got," Ling-Ling punched him in the side as subtly as she could, "but I don't want you to yell at them or punish them for coming to see me."

"And why should I not?" Cologne hopped onto her staff, which enabled her to look down at Ryoga. A glance at Ling-Ling sent her scurrying from his side to Lung-Lung's. "They ignored my express judgment. My instructions were given for your benefit, young man, and they disregarded them to do what they wanted to do. What would you say in their defense?"

Watching the twins flinch more and more painfully with each sentence didn't feel particularly good. In fact, it hurt quite a bit more than he was prepared for. Ryoga pushed those thoughts aside. "Listen, you told them to wait for me to make the next move. But I thought THEY would be the ones doing that, and I was waiting too. So as far as I'm concerned, it was YOUR mistake. I didn't know you were expecting me to do anything different."

Cologne gave him a long, inscrutable look. 'Clearly I underestimated the effect of the boy's background,' she thought to herself at last. 'The meaning of our agreement should have been perfectly clear. Even Ranma couldn't possibly have misunderstood, had it been him in Ryoga's place.' Which just goes to show, even in a universe where the two have no quarrel, there will come a point when Cologne underestimates Ranma "Very well, son-in-law," she said at last. "I'll say no more to Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung on this matter. And now it seems we should work out just what is expected of you, per your agreement."

It was Friday and lunch had arrived, meaning the weekend was nearly at hand. Furthermore, summer break was now only three weeks away. This should have been enough to brighten any student's (or teacher's) spirits. And indeed, there was a general air of excitement among the various inmates of Furinkan.

However, it was taking all of Ukyo Kuonji's restraint to keep the fake, sugary smile on her face.

' 'When business at the restaurant isn't too rushed and they have time, the Matriarch will let them come eat lunch with me' he says,' Ukyo thought, remembering what Ryoga had told her of the additional details Cologne had hammered out with him concerning his tie to the twins. 'And then they show up EVERY SINGLE DAY since then! Who do those Amazons think they're fooling anyway?! The only one of them worth anything is Shampoo.' She silently fumed as Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung approached, bearing a picnic lunch for three. 'Is it too much to ask to eat lunch with Ryoga once this week?!'

"Nihao, Airen," Ling-Ling said cheerfully. "You ready for too, too delicious lunch?"

Ryoga held back a sigh. Who did Ukyo think she was fooling with that smile? He could feel the heat from her battle aura from where he was standing. At least Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung weren't rubbing her nose in their recent gains… in fact, they were ignoring the chef completely. That that might be its own form of taunting didn't occur to him. "Yeah, okay."

"We go to usual spot, then?" Without really waiting for an answer, Lung-Lung led the way off toward the trees.

They reached their destination, and Ryoga watched as Ling-Ling spread out the blanket and set down the various picnic elements. He was becoming conscious of a disturbing trend… for the last three days, the twins had brought more and more dishes with them. Today it was dim sum and potstickers, in several different flavors. Each of which came in its own basket. It was nice to have a variety to choose from, but the downside was there was less room than ever on the blanket. 'Man, if they keep bringing more things like this, they're gonna end up sitting in my lap as we eat,' he thought to himself. 'Not that it would bother them any.'

He was getting better. But he hadn't realized that, as far as the twins were concerned, that was the POINT, rather than a not-unwelcome side effect. Ryoga still had quite a ways to go.

Lung-Lung frowned slightly as she sneaked another glance at her husband's face. He was eating mechanically, without any real evidence of enjoyment. He'd been gloomy when they first showed up, but she had hoped that lunch would raise his spirits. Evidently not, though. "Airen, what is wrong?"

The former lost boy hesitated before responding. This wasn't a question that he was prepared to answer fully. Somehow, he just couldn't see anything good coming from an admission that seeing Ukyo become increasingly more unhappy with each passing lunch was making him feel like a heel. Fortunately (in a manner of speaking, at least), something else had gone wrong today, something which he could safely tell the twins.

Ryoga heaved a deep sigh. "I lost something really important to me. Just noticed this morning it wasn't in my wallet. I don't know where I lost it, or how long it's been missing."

"What you lose?" Ling-Ling asked.

"A photo. The only one I've got with me and both my parents in it." Ryoga's fist clenched. "It's been so long since I got to see either of them, let alone both at the same time. And now I can't find the only reminder I have. The very LAST thing I would have wanted to lose, and it's gone."

Ling-Ling laughed nervously, causing Ryoga to shoot a hurt frown in her direction. She'd been meaning to suggest it was probably just lying around somewhere at home and make a joke about how typically messy a teenage guy's bedroom was, but her airen's expression froze the words before they could leave her lips. She hung her head, fished around in a pocket, and withdrew a small golden object. The young Amazon held it out to him.

In a sort of frozen calm, Ryoga took the offering. It was the photograph in question, sealed inside a heart-shaped picture frame. "And where did you get this?" he asked.

"Take from wallet on Monday lunch, when use Dance of Hidden Chameleon." Ling-Ling paused, trying to find the right words of apology. She didn't want to blurt out anything that would ruin Ryoga's upcoming surprise, after all.

The hesitation proved to be a mistake. Ryoga carefully opened the frame, carefully returned the photo to its place in his wallet, then spoke. "Ukyo was absolutely right about you, wasn't she? You don't care one bit about how I feel, or how anybody else feels. You just do whatever you want, and think that's okay."

"That not true!" Lung-Lung burst out angrily. It was unfortunate that the mention of Ukyo roused her temper that strongly, because Ryoga, unfamiliar though he was with some emotions, was no stranger to anger. And that was what he saw now, an angry girl with no trace of guilt or remorse to be seen.

"Isn't it?!" he countered. "How can you sit there and say that? Maybe you've forgotten what you're using right now to hold your bangs back, Lung-Lung? You two take whatever you feel like. My bandana, my shirt, my right to make my own choices, and now this. Well, you went too far this time!"

The lime-haired girl flinched at his tone, her anger dying back down. "Airen, we just want something to have when you not around," she said miserably. She was referring to the bandana, not the photograph, but there wasn't any way for him to deduce that. Ryoga's expression didn't soften even slightly.

Ling-Ling gulped for breath. She didn't care about spoiling the surprise anymore. Let him find out now… she just couldn't bear to see that look of coldness in her Airen's eyes. She opened her mouth, and tried to speak, but a sob rose up instead. With the last of her self-control, she forced it back, shot to her feet, and raced away.

Lung-Lung felt the remaining traces of her composure beginning to fracture as well. With the departure of her sister, she knew she didn't have the strength to hold back her emotions either. She wrenched the bandana off her forehead, dropped it at Ryoga's feet, and fled after Ling-Ling.

It was a long time before he could muster the energy to pick it up. "Damn it all anyway," Ryoga eventually muttered bitterly. The twins hadn't been fast enough to keep him from seeing the tears in their eyes. "I didn't mean for you to take it like that."

Sunset found Ryoga on top of the Kuno mansion. He'd gone to a few parks, but hadn't found even the slightest comfort there. He hadn't really expected Ranma's habit to bring solace either, and so far his expectations had been confirmed. The former lost boy held an object in each hand, automatically shifting his gaze from one to the other every so often, but not really seeing either the photograph frame or the long-lost bandana.

"Is this how you keep your promises, Ryoga?"

The question lashed out at him like a whip. He flinched, and spun around to find Cologne standing behind him, staff in hand. Her aura was tightly banked, but still present. It was plain to see that she was very, very unhappy.

Which made two of them, Ryoga thought. Though his emotions were different from those of the Matriarch, they were no less dark. "No," he said. "This is how I screw up. This is how, even without a damned Oni soul tied to me, I manage to hurt people I don't want to."

"Don't WANT to?!" Cologne snapped. "Nobody forced you to treat Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung so harshly."

"No. Nobody did." Ryoga didn't try to meet her gaze. "Just my own stupidity. I didn't want to hurt them like that. I sure as hell didn't want to send them off in tears. And if I could do it over again, you better believe I'd handle things differently.

"But elder," here he did manage to find a bit of backbone, "they get some of the blame, too. Heck, all they had to do was ASK, and I'd have had copies made of that photograph for them. I know I overreacted. But they're the ones who took my most precious possession without even asking. Something needed to be said." He sighed bitterly. "I wanted them to admit they were wrong, and apologize. That's all I was trying to say. I just wish I hadn't blown it like I did."

Incredibly, Cologne's gaze hardened further. "There was a very good reason they did not ask before they took the photograph," the Matriarch returned. "Would it have cost you so much to give them the chance to explain?"

With that, Ryoga remembered a basic truth of reality. It's always possible for things to get worse. "W-What?! Why couldn't they ask?"

Cologne reached into her robe, and removed a three-inch oval of tiger's eye. "Do you remember this, boy?"

"Yeah, Shampoo used it to find Akane."

"In order to use the magic of this stone, you cannot simply think of a person's identity. You must have a reasonably clear mental picture of them as well. If Shampoo had never met Akane, the only way she could have located her would be if she had a photograph to aid her."

After a few seconds of non-comprehension, her meaning hit him like the kick of a mule to his gut. "My… my parents…"

"That is correct." The Matriarch eased up a fraction on the severity of her manner. She was still unhappy with him, but it didn't look like Ryoga could take much more harshness. "Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung asked me to seek out your parents, to see if it might be practical to go to them rather than waiting for them to come to us. They wanted it to be a surprise for you, boy."

Ryoga didn't respond verbally. He just closed his eyes and hung his head. Cologne regarded him closely, and began to reconsider the approach she'd been taking. From what the twins had told her, she'd been expecting to find Ryoga still angry and cold toward them. But he hadn't been like that at all, really, now that she thought back over the past few minutes. And though she'd known her revelation would have an impact on him, she hadn't been prepared for this level of sorrow and self-disgust.

After a few minutes of silence, the Matriarch spoke again. "Ryoga." She said his name calmly, even sympathetically. He didn't look up. She repeated herself, and received the same lack of response. Cologne was sorely tempted to swat him with her staff, but refrained, holding her peace for another few minutes.

Eventually Ryoga did open his eyes, and meet her gaze again. Cologne blinked in alarm. It had become painfully obvious he was taking this harder than she'd expected, but she still hadn't thought to see hopelessness like that. "What am I going to do?" he asked her.

"I would have thought that an apology was called for," she answered dryly. "Did you really need my help to figure that out?"

"An apology? That's not enough!" Ryoga protested bitterly. "That doesn't even begin to make up for this!"

Once again, Cologne thought back to Ryoga's background, and how much of his life had been spent alone, a stranger to aspects of social interaction that most people take for granted. She sighed, mentally chastising herself for coming down on him so harshly. Once again, she reminded herself of how badly she had failed with Tatewaki. "Boy, listen to me. Mistakes happen. That's just part of life.

"Are you thinking that Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung will never forgive you for this? That's nonsense. All they really want is for you to go to them and tell them you're not angry with them. That's what had them in tears, the thought that you might never forgive them, or give them another chance."

This didn't seem to make him feel any better. "Forgive them?! Another chance?! What're you talking about, granny? This isn't their fault at all! It's all mine!"

"Really?" Cologne returned. "Tell me, Ryoga, this afternoon… did you tell Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung to leave, that you never wanted to see them again?"

"O-of course not!"

"So in fact, they overreacted when they ran off instead of explaining themselves you. Do you see, boy… you weren't the only one guilty of a misunderstanding today, were you?"

Ryoga just stared at her for a minute. "Didn't we start this conversation with you furious at me for what I did? And now you're saying it's okay?!"

"I'm not saying you reacted properly," the Matriarch snapped back. "Just that not all the blame falls on you. Did they even try to explain themselves?"

"No. All Lung-Lung said was they wanted something to remember me by when I wasn't around."

"She said that, did she?" Cologne was less than amused. "So not only did they NOT try to explain, they actually lied about their motivations." She sighed. "They were trying to preserve the surprise for you, but that was their mistake. They should have just told you the truth. And besides," she reached out and picked up the empty frame, where it lay beside him on the rooftop, "they should have sneaked the photograph back into your possession before you missed it. Then this whole situation would have been avoided."

"Yeah, I wish they'd done that," Ryoga said. He got to his feet. "Thanks, granny. Guess I better go talk to them, huh?"

It had been a rhetorical question, but Cologne answered anyway. "No. Sit down, boy, I'm not through talking to you."

Reluctantly, Ryoga did as he was told. "Could you make this quick? I'd like to get going!"

Cologne gave him an intimidating stare. "I need to speak with them before you do. And I want you to wait until tomorrow before you apologize to them."

"What?! Can't I just do it tonight after you see them?"

"No, Ryoga." The Matriarch cranked up the intensity of her gaze. "Now, why don't I see if I can guess what's going through your mind right now?

"Despite what I've said, you still feel that most of the blame falls on you. You're disgusted with yourself at how insensitive you were toward Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung. You plan to go to them, tell them how sorry you are and beg for them to forgive you. And if they ask some ridiculous act from you as compensation, you'll agree to it in a heartbeat. At least as long as it doesn't go against your honor. Am I right?" Cologne poked him with her stick, but gently. And not on a shiatsu point. "If they asked you to purchase every orchid in a two-mile radius around the Nekohanten for them, would you do it?"

Ryoga winced. "You don't really think they'll go that far, do you? The Kunos give me a nice allowance, which is really generous considering I'm just a guest in their home, but that would leave me flat broke for the next two weeks!"

Cologne sighed. "It was just a hypothetical situation, boy, but you'd do it if they asked. Wouldn't you?"

He reluctantly nodded, then frowned. "Hey, is that why you wanted to talk to them before I did? So you could give them ideas? Ow!" This last was said as Cologne swatted him with her staff, not particularly gently this time.

"No, sonny boy, I want to help them understand your perspective, just as I've done with you for theirs." Cologne paused, considering what to say next. "And there's more that needs to be said about that.

"Even if you had been totally in the wrong here, it would be a mistake to crawl back to them on your belly and plead for forgiveness. That isn't what they want, Ryoga." It might be what they thought they wanted— Cologne wasn't sure— but if so she didn't intend to allow the twins to continue in that delusion. "Why did they first fall for you, anyway?"

Ryoga waited long enough to be sure the Matriarch wasn't going to answer her own question, then replied, "I got into a fight with them, and I was winning."

"They were first impressed with the way you leaped to their defense against the boys you thought were threatening them, but you're mostly correct. You stood up to them, and showed them the measure of your strength, and skill, and spirit. Do you see where I'm going with this, boy?"

"Haven't got a clue," Ryoga admitted.

Cologne's fingers tightened slightly around her staff, but that was all the frustration she allowed herself to show. "Let me put this another way. As Amazons, what do you think Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung expect of their husband?"

The former lost boy frowned hard as he thought about that, taking into account how he'd seen Shampoo act toward Ranma. "I don't really know," he admitted helplessly at last. "I mean, I understand some things, like they want to spend time with me, and they enjoy doing stuff for me, like bringing lunch and…" he winced, "and trying to find my parents. But I don't know what you're trying to get at, elder."

The Matriarch sighed. "Let me be a little more blunt. Do they expect you to become subservient to them? Is that what you think the role of an Amazon husband is?"

Ryoga gave her a blank stare of surprise. "No. Why would I?"

"You'd be amazed at how many outsiders do think exactly that," Cologne said darkly. "As soon as you mention the word 'Amazon', they picture some ridiculous scenario of weak-willed, broken men with no fighting spirit whatsoever."

"But that doesn't make any sense at all. Why would you marry men who beat you in combat if you wanted husbands without any will of their own?"

"I'm glad it seems so clear to you, Ryoga," the Matriarch purred. "Now, when you go to Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung tomorrow, are you still planning to abase yourself and beg their forgiveness?"

It was almost a full minute before Ryoga could respond. Somehow, he just hadn't been able to make the connection when it was HIS situation he was considering. At last he said, "No. I won't do it like that. But I was wrong, elder, and I AM going to own up to it."

Cologne grinned. "Glad to hear it, sonny boy. Just don't let them get off scot-free, either. Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung want a husband they can respect, not a human doormat."

The first, faint notes became audible as Ryoga neared the treeline. He stopped just on the other side, remembering back to the first time he'd been in this position. The music he was hearing now had only one thing in common with the first piece he'd heard Ling-Ling and Lung-Lung play, and that was the power it held to touch the listener's heart.

That morning, the twins' melodies had been lively and energetic, enchanting and uplifting all at once. Here and now, just the opposite was true. The strains whispered of loneliness and sorrow. Ryoga listened for a moment, then, his resolve strengthened further than ever, pushed his way through the trees. He hadn't meant to hurt them in the first place, and there was no way he was going to let them keep feeling the emotions that music evoked in him.

The young Amazons let the last notes of their melody fade away as Ryoga walked up to them. Lung-Lung set down her flute. "Nihao, Ryoga," she said quietly.

"Hey," he responded awkwardly, then wasn't sure what to say next. The annoyance he'd been feeling all morning toward Cologne spiked briefly. It would be a heck of a lot easier just to get down on his knees and beg for their forgiveness!

"Airen." Ling-Ling's voice shook Ryoga back to awareness, to find the twins had prostrated themselves before him. "We very, very sorry for what we do. You please forgive us?"

"What?! No! … I mean, yes! … I mean… Arggh!" Ryoga smacked himself on the forehead, then got down on his knees in front of them and placed a hand on each twin's shoulder. "Please, get up," he said. "I came here to apologize to you. You don't owe me anything."

"That not true," Ling-Ling said quietly. The girls sat up, but their faces were still cast toward the ground. "Meant to get photo back to you soon after take, but keep forgetting. Then no tell Airen why we take in first place. We make big mistake. We sorry."

"Yeah?" Ryoga countered bitterly. "Well, at least you didn't lose your temper and yell at somebody for doing the nicest thing that anyone's done for you in months. Please, Ling-Ling, Lung-Lung, forgive me. I'm sorry too."

Lung-Lung took a deep breath, then looked up with a hesitant smile. "Then if Ryoga accept our apology, we accept yours," she said. "Now come best part of argument time."

"What's that?" he asked, puzzled.

Lung-Lung's smile shifted from timid to sultry. "Part where make up afterward." She began to lean toward him

"That's right, I almost forgot!" Ryoga smacked himself on the forehead again, then reached up and removed the bandana. He held it out to Lung-Lung. "Here." He laughed nervously. "After all this time, it doesn't feel natural to wear it anymore, anyway."

The Amazon took the bandana and tied it back into her own hair. Her hands trembled a little during the task. "Thank you, Airen," she said in a curiously choked voice.

Fortunately, before Ryoga could notice the tears in her eyes, get the wrong idea, and start feeling like a heel for making her cry again, Ling-Ling spoke up. "You do something make me feel better too?"

"Like what?" he asked. Really, he should have known better.

The cherry-haired girl's eyes widened and grew incredibly sparkly. "Ling-Ling always dream of get flowers from man she love. You maybe buy all orchids in two mile radius around Nekohanten for me?"

Ryoga's facefault narrowly missed hitting Lung-Lung.

Both twins erupted into giggles. Ling-Ling patted the prostrate teen on his shoulder. "Just kidding, Airen. Great-Grandmother told us ask you that if we want see you react funny."

He picked himself up and spat out a few blades of grass. "Hah, hah, hah. That old ghoul is just one laugh after another," Ryoga growled, thinking back to when he'd woken up, with the first sight he'd seen being the message that said where to meet the twins this morning. Where the heck had Cologne managed to find a papier-mâché horse's head anyway?

Ling-Ling continued speaking. "She also say we can have afternoon off, to go with you and see movie. If you want."

Ryoga didn't have to consider long before answering. "Sure. What movie?" he asked, bracing himself for some romantic chick flick. Sitting through something like that wouldn't be much fun, but at least it would get rid of the residual guilt he was still feeling.

Lung-Lung grinned. "Is new John Woo action movie open few days ago. We really looking forward to watch it. Even better if can go with you."

"So much for getting rid of the rest of my guilt," Ryoga muttered under his breath. Louder, he said, "You sure you wouldn't rather catch some kind of romance film?"

"No, that more big sister Shampoo's idea of date," Lung-Lung said. "We rather see something where it not matter if we not understand all the dialogue."

Ling-Ling took in the angle of the sun with a disappointed pout. "Need to get back to Nekohanten for morning shift, Airen," she said. "But we see you at two o'clock, okay?"

"Oka