*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Soun Tendo sat at the dining table in his home and lit up another 
cigarette, while he absently stared out at the pre-dawn morning light.  
Next to his right elbow, an ashtray held over a dozen butts already 
within it.  He slowly inhaled a long drag of smoke from his current 
cigarette and contemplated his life, and the changes in it since Kimiko 
had died.  The manner of her death still disturbed him, and also the 
lingering effect it had on their children.  It had been several years, 
but the pain of losing her still sometimes kept him awake nights, as it 
had last night.  Luckily, his high position afforded him the luxury of 
missing a few days of work here and there.

If only I had talked her out of going on that mission, he mused grimly, 
taking another drag on his cigarette.  She might still be alive today.  
But she was a soldier, an officer, and the Empire needed her skills one 
last time.  He closed his eyes and a sigh escaped his lips.  The twin 
burdens of duty and honor are a heavy one at times, but they are worth 
the effort of carrying if our lives are to have any meaning.  He opened 
his eyes and stared out at the fading night.  You taught me that, 
Kimiko-chan.  It is something I have never forgotten, as much pain as 
those words have caused me, but I still miss having you by my side at 
night.  No other woman has ever replaced you in my heart, and no woman 
ever will.  I would sacrifice almost anything to be able to see you one 
more time, my little warrior.  He smiled as he recalled how she had 
blushed and smiled when he had first called her that, and he took 
another puff on his cigarette.

As he sat and contemplated, he heard footsteps on the stairs.  A moment 
later there was a very surprised inhalation from the person who came 
around the corner and saw him sitting there in the dim light of the 
approaching dawn.

"Oh!" exclaimed Kyoko Otonashi, startled by the unexpected, brooding 
presence at the dining area table.  She bowed graciously to him, still a 
little nervous around her unusually solemn, new employer.  She smoothed 
her long, brown skirt and said, "Tendo-san.  I did not realize that you 
were already awake this morning.  I was just going to start breakfast, 
but could I fix you some tea first?"

"Tea would be lovely, Otonashi-san," he said calmly, a wisp of smoke 
accompanying his words as he spoke.  "I apologize for startling you, but 
I could not sleep."

"I understand.  I will get your tea now."  The attractive woman bowed 
once more and retreated to the kitchen.  She busied herself with boiling 
water for tea and preparing the kitchen for cooking breakfast for the 
family.

Soun blew out another long stream of smoke from his nose and returned to 
his thoughts.  It had been several months since his last bout with 
insomnia.  He had arrived home late last night, as he usually did, but 
he was unable to fall asleep.  When midnight had arrived with no sign of 
slumber claiming him, he had gotten up from his bed and gone downstairs, 
to sit and think about the past, the present, and the future.  Brooding 
about might-have-beens was a waste of effort, but it was also comforting 
in a way.

His wife was in his thoughts, as the ghost of her presence seemed to 
abide with him during these times.  The memory of the last time he had 
beheld her alive.  The memory of the last time he had made love to her.  
The memory of the last time she had held her daughters.  Each of them 
had been affected by her death so much.  He himself had come so close to 
breaking, but her last words to him had prevented that.

"Be strong for our children, Soun," she had told him, on that last day 
they had been together.  She had been standing there in her combat 
fatigues in their bedroom, looking so very beautiful, and so very tough, 
at the same time.  "This one is going to be bad, and I'm-  I might not 
return, so I want your word of honor that you will be strong for our 
daughters."  Her eyes had been dry, but he knew that the thought of 
leaving her children without a mother had hurt her deeply.  But she was 
a proud soldier of the Empire, and her devotion to duty left no room for 
acting on personal fears or desires.  He had agreed and given his word, 
to be strong, for her.

Her words had proven to be prophetic.  His wife, Captain Kimiko Tendo 
was reported dead in the line of duty three weeks later, in noble 
service to the Emperor as the telegram had described it, and something 
inside himself had been mortally wounded at that time as well.  She had 
become his world since that day that they first met, overcoming so many 
obstacles in their courtship and marriage, and he had not even had a 
body left to bury at the end.  The explosion that claimed her life and 
the lives of many other soldiers under her command had robbed him of 
that closure.

After that, all Soun felt that he had left was his duty to his children 
and to the Empire, and he did his best by them both to the limits of his 
abilities.  The wound to his heart eventually healed, scarring his soul 
in the process, changing him into the man that he now was, someone he 
occasionally found hard to recognize in the mirror.  At times he felt 
certain he was now a man that Kimiko would have hated.  He knew that he 
hated himself sometimes, for becoming what he now was, but it had been 
necessary for him to be able to continue on.  He had been strong, but 
had it been the right sort of strength?

In many ways, his three daughters had changed even more than he had.  
Thirteen-year old Kasumi found a powerful new enemy to fight, one that 
no skill in martial arts could hope to overcome: death.  She began 
studying medicine as diligently as she applied herself to her martial 
arts training.  Ten-year old Akane withdrew into herself for a time, 
coming to terms with her mother's death.  Within six months, her spirit 
bounced back to its former self.  She redoubled her efforts at training 
her body and improving her skills, intent on forging herself anew into a 
duplicate of the last image that she held of her mother, that of the 
perfect warrior.

Lastly, and most regretfully, there was his middle daughter, Nabiki.  
Seeking an approval and show of love from him that he no longer allowed 
himself, the eleven-year old girl looked to him as her example, not 
knowing how he was losing his soul by hiding his grief from his 
children.  Perhaps because of the connection to her lost mother, she 
allowed her training in the martial arts to trail off.  Though her 
skills deteriorated, her school's physical regimen maintained her body 
in a high state of physical fitness.  She sharpened her intellect to a 
razor-keen edge and, over time, turned herself into what she must have 
thought of as the only remaining option to her for parental approval, to 
be the quintessentially perfect espionage operative: brutally efficient, 
cold, remorseless, and ruthless.  All of these were apt descriptions of 
the new Nabiki Tendo, as they were oftentimes used to describe Soun 
Tendo as well.  She had become his daughter in all ways, and he was 
proud of her in his own fashion.  But, late at night, alone with his 
innermost thoughts, he sometimes worried if he had somehow betrayed 
Kimiko's memory by letting things change as they had.

Things might have continued on like this, until that day almost four 
years ago, when he had finally been able to bring himself to read 
Kimiko's journals.  In them he discovered the secret she had kept from 
him while she was alive.  Reading her words had been like an epiphany of 
sorts, a revelation of what he must do.  It concerned a boy named Ranma 
Saotome, and what Kimiko had done to Akane and Nabiki, involving them in 
something called Project Phoenix without her own husband's knowledge.

Two hundred or so young citizen boys and girls had been selected for a 
genetic experiment.  Among that group had been Ranma, Akane, and Nabiki, 
chosen from among thousands of Imperial children.  Kasumi would have 
also been deemed acceptable, but she was already too old to undergo the 
treatments at the time.  Apparently, it caused extensive and permanent 
genetic damage if done to a child beyond the age of five.  There had 
been exceptions in the previous, non-citizen test subjects, but the risk 
was considered too great for a citizen child to bear.

Project Phoenix had been established with a single purpose: to create a 
new breed of humans, Homo Sapiens Newtype, beings genetically enhanced 
and improved in every aspect of human potential, from the mental to the 
physical.  It was an attempt to create a new and better race of humanity 
from the ashes and dross that made up the majority of modern man.  If 
these Children of the Phoenix (or Newtypes, as they were also called) 
bred true with each other, then enhancement would be made available for 
all pure-bred children of Japanese descent.  Within a generation, these 
new ranks of citizens would take their place in the Empire and lead it 
forward to a glorious tomorrow.

Soun wondered how she had kept it from him, but it didn't really matter 
anymore.  His wife had chosen Ranma to be Nabiki or Akane's husband, his 
genetic profile an almost perfect match for either of them.  As he read 
through her journals, the idea of pairing his middle daughter to Ranma 
seemed to possess him.  The boy would be perfect for Nabiki, and so he 
had begun working behind the scenes to bring about that pairing.

It had been a long, slow process, following Ranma's progress, becoming 
more and more certain that he was right in his plans.  Aside from his 
desire to honor Kimiko's wishes, the boy's sharp mind would be an equal 
for Nabiki's own, and his future opportunities seemed to be limitless.  
If he did not end up in one of the Science Ministry's top laboratory 
facilities, then one of the many zaibatsus, the great industrial and 
financial combinations of the Empire, would surely offer him a great 
deal of money to have his skills and talents working for them.

He had finally told Nabiki about Ranma six months ago, to prepare her 
for his arrival, swearing her to complete secrecy on the matter.  She 
had been understandably startled, but she hid it well.  She seemed to be 
most intrigued by his money-earning potential, and his future chances of 
success in the Empire.  She kept him up-to-date on the boy's weekly 
activities, and at time he thought he detected in her a more than merely 
mercenary interest in him, but he could not say for certain.  His middle 
daughter had become quite difficult even for him to read since she had 
started at the Academy.

Otsu had reported back immediately after her lunchtime meeting with 
Nodoka.  She was evasive at first, until he had pressed her on the 
matter, but she finally told him the whole story, and of her failure to 
obtain a firm decision from the Saotome woman.  He had apparently 
misread Nodoka somewhat, taking her at face value, but it was of no 
matter.  He was still certain of Nabiki's superiority in being able to 
deal with any challenges over the matter of Ranma, even those that he 
himself might have inadvertently set into motion.  She deserved to have 
the best, and he would use every resource he had at his disposal to get 
it for her.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard the gentle clatter of 
a tea service touching down on the table next to him, and he stubbed out 
the remains of his cigarette.  He nodded to Kyoko, and she poured out 
some tea for him and handed him the cup.  He took it with a slight nod 
of his head and then waved her away.  She bowed briefly while kneeling, 
before standing and withdrawing.

Taking a sip of his tea and enjoying its warming feel within him, he 
smiled out at the rising sun and raised his cup slightly in salute.  It 
is good to have such a dutiful child as Nabiki to follow after me in the 
Directorate, he thought proudly.  Her skills at subterfuge are already 
impressive.  I am sure that she will be able to yoke down that boy Ranma 
in no time, just as I will deal with the boy's father.  He and I have so 
much catching up to do, since our own long-past days of youth together 
at the Imperial Academy.  I wonder if he even remembers me?  A cold 
smile crossed his face.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quantum Destinies
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
By Steven Thesken (quantumdestinies@cox.net)

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.  This story 
is inspired by her works and the stories from some of my fellow fanfic 
authors.  Among these are DB Sommer's "Shampoo 1/2", Jim Bader's "A Very 
Scary Thought -aka- Nabiki 1/2", and John Biles' Elseworlds series.  All 
C&C is welcome.

Other chapters of this story may be found at this website, or you can 
email the author for them:

The Quantum Destinies Homepage
http://members.cox.net/quantumdestinies/


The list of worlds reoccurring in this chapter:
Earth  0.000,0.000 - The world of Scholar-Ranma (Baseline cluster)


**LIME WARNING**: Please be advised that there is some sexual content in 
this chapter.


What has gone before in this story (or at least what will help you 
understand what is going on):

On a parallel Earth that diverged from the standard Ranma timeline over 
five hundred years ago, the Empire of Japan rules almost half the world 
and has done so for almost a century.  Theorizing that one could travel 
to alternate timelines by possessing counterparts in them, a young 
scientist named Ranma Saotome, through use of a device of his own 
invention, accidentally obtained the skills and memories of a martial 
artist version of himself.  After viewing some other alternate lives and 
dealing with some unexpected situations, Ranma decided to intensify his 
workouts to bring himself up to the level of his counterpart.  Fuyutsuki 
and Soun took steps that will have an effect on Ranma and several of the 
cast, and Hinako learned something that surprised her about Ranma's 
past.  Meanwhile, Nabiki snuck into Ranma's lab and used his device, not 
knowing what it was, contacting and duplicating the skills from an 
alternate version of herself, one who went on the ten-year training 
journey with Genma instead of Ranma.  Forever changed by the experience, 
Nabiki is now at an equivalent level of skill to Ranma as a martial 
artist.  Akane and Kodachi fought over Ranma in a vicious battle, 
leaving both injured, and Akane is to be transferring to a new school. 
Nabiki learned that she will now be in Ranma's special training class 
and the two challenged each other in an Anything-Goes duel of skill 
which ended in a tie.  However, they each experienced a new attraction 
for the other which surprised them both.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 7 - Variations on a Life

     When we realize that the actual outcome did not have to be,
     that any alteration in any step along the way would have
     unleashed a cascade down a different channel, we grasp the
     causal power of individual events.  Contingency is the
     affirmation of control by immediate events over destiny, the
     kingdom lost for want of a horseshoe nail.

                              - Stephen Jay Gould

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

   
The world seemed to be running in slow motion.  Distorted human figures 
sprang at Nabiki from the shadows, her fists and feet moving to defend 
herself from the onslaught.  The roar of engines sounded, as if from a 
very great distance away, along with the occasional sharp crack of 
gunfire.  She did not know where she was, only that she had to keep 
fighting.  When she spared a glance at herself, she sucked in a breath 
at seeing herself suddenly in her counterpart's male form.

A single figure moved to engage him, and Nabiki-kun grabbed him in a 
martial hold, feeling an odd sense of deja vu, as this all seemed to be 
so very familiar.  He suddenly sensed danger behind himself and turned 
around to see, dragging the struggling figure of the man he held around 
as well, and everything seemed to be moving even slower now.  There were 
more sharp sounds of gunfire, words shouted at him that he could not 
quite make out due to the distortion from the slowing of time.  The body 
held in his arms jerked as he instinctively used it as a living shield 
from the hail of gunfire, the eyes of his enemy widening in surprise as 
he died.

Then all was quiet.  He looked down into sightless, accusing eyes.  
Blood was everywhere, on the ground, on his clothes, and on his hands.  
The body slipped out of his grip, disappearing into the blackness now 
surrounding him.  But the blood clinging to his hands was so brightly 
crimson, and he could only stare at it in horror.  She hardly noticed 
when the warm liquid transformed her back into a girl.  Time seemed to 
stop.

There was so much blood.

So much blood on her hands.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

A scream ripped its way up from the depths of her soul.

                   ******************************

Nabiki rolled over with a gasp and eyed her alarm clock, uncertain where 
she was at first, her heart beating like a trip-hammer.  Her dream 
shredded into oblivion, not even the faintest memory of its actual 
contents remaining, only a fear of something horrible.  She lay on her 
side for several minutes, panting, feeling her breathing gradually 
slowing back to normal.  Not since those first few months after her 
mother died, had she been disturbed by any nightmare.  She had secretly 
learned how to deal with them.

Shutting off her feelings had been the secret.  Feel nothing, and the 
world could not harm you.  Emotions were a weakness, a frailty, and she 
had locked away the ones that made her feel weakest behind a mask of 
cool indifference.  Compassion, empathy, and love were all forgotten, 
and Nabiki allowed herself to be reborn into her new role as the Iron 
Bitch.  Her father became her role model, and she emulated his ways of 
dealing with people around him: always acting from a solid position of 
strength, never showing weakness, and finding a certain grim enjoyment 
in making someone caught in one of her webs squirm.  The barriers that 
she constructed around her soul had been strong, reinforced by several 
years of denial, until the day that a certain young man had walked into 
her life and made her feel again.

The barriers had cracked, the shields around her emotions exposing an 
intolerable weakness whenever she was around him, her own body betraying 
her by feeling such strong desires for him.  She hated him for making 
her feel so weak, yet she desired him at the same time.  He didn't seem 
to notice or care, which strangely irritated her a great deal.  She had 
tried her best to keep him away from her, maintaining her distance as 
she studied him from afar, knowing that her father wanted them together.  
Her mask of cool disdain for him acted as a refuge for her, and her 
usual sardonic wit acted as a weapon to draw blood whenever she had to 
speak with him.  It had worked, for a time.

Until her experience in Ranma's lab, only a few days ago, when she saw 
another way that things might have been for her, and the many barriers 
so carefully built up around her emotions had been broken.  She was now 
in a slow process of rediscovering herself, finding odd changes taking 
place deep inside, unexpected and sometimes rather disturbing ones.  
They confused her and left her feeling uncertain who she was anymore, 
but one thing was quite clear to her now.  She was a fighter, a warrior 
who never gave up, no matter what the odds were against her, and she 
would win this battle to reforge herself anew.  Her old self may have 
been slowly dying inside, being eaten away by a cancer of the soul that 
she had never acknowledged, but the new one held the promise of great 
things yet to come.

Nabiki looked once more at her radio alarm clock with a little, sleepy 
frown on her face, her hand tapping the button atop it a few minutes 
before it would have gone off on its own.  Now that she was awake, her 
newfound need to begin her morning training was pushing her out of bed 
once more.  She touched her cheek where she had been bruised by his fist 
yesterday and felt no pain, and she grunted contentedly at that.  Today 
she would have another try at testing her skills against him, and even 
perhaps besting him during their training time together.  She was 
confident that she would win today against the pigtailed boy, and she 
was looking forward to seeing his reactions when she did so.

Her thoughts paused as she felt a sudden warmth in her cheeks at the 
thought of him.

Ranma Saotome.

She shook her head with irritation.  She was determined that she would 
not allow herself to be swayed by a copy of feelings for another Ranma 
in that other life, but it was so tempting.  That other Ranma loved that 
other Nabiki, perhaps as much as she loved him, but neither of them had 
ever said the words.  It would have been so easy for her to let herself 
feel the same way for this world's version of him, but she refused to 
live her life as a copy of another.  She was Nabiki Tendo, daughter of 
Soun and Kimiko Tendo, and her life was her own.

Still, Ranma was going to be her husband someday, if her father had any 
say in her life.  Regardless, Nabiki intended to deal with the pigtailed 
boy on her own terms, walking her own path and not simply relying on the 
inherited feelings of some other woman.  She was a warrior, like her 
mother before her, and she was Ranma's better, no matter what he may 
have thought.

She suddenly smiled an impish, little smile.

Like her counterpart, she would teach him that he should follow her lead 
in this life, like his counterpart loyally followed hers in that other 
life.  After yesterday, she knew that her fighting skills were a little 
better than his own.  Perhaps only fractionally better, like her body 
was in marginally better shape, but she was now just enough better than 
he was that she should have a slight edge over him in their conflicts 
with each other.

She even suspected that this would force someone with such a strong 
desire to be the absolute best, like Ranma apparently now was, to work 
even harder to try and surpass her.  She would then have to work equally 
hard to maintain her slight edge, or at least not fall behind him as 
their respective levels of skill went up, a surprisingly attractive 
prospect that should keep both of them motivated to try and outdo the 
other in their training.  She even knew how to encourage him to do so, 
not that she was looking at it from quite that perspective at the 
moment.  She was going rub his nose in the fact that she had the edge on 
him.

Springing out of bed with a graceful movement, Nabiki once again found 
pleasure in the new agility gained from her counterpart.  The lithe 
muscles in her body twinged slightly at such activities so early in the 
morning, but they responded easily, almost fully recovered despite the 
heavy efforts that she had put herself through yesterday.  She softly 
landed on the floor of her room, her arms easily holding her up in a 
brief handstand, the muscles in her body flexing, her posture as poised 
and graceful as that of a gold medal gymnast performing on a balance 
beam.  After a few moments of posing like that, she pushed off with her 
hands and flipped back to land on her bare feet, making only a very 
slight thumping sound when they contacted the floor.  She stood briefly 
in front of the mirror, turning her face to one side to see how much of 
the bruise on her cheek was left.

The contusion was completely gone, to her relief.  She was not a vain 
person, but the idea of a livid bruise on the face was an unappealing 
concept for any girl.  As she posed a bit in front of the mirror, she 
studied her barely shoulder-length hair in back and considered the 
thought of letting it grow out longer and possibly putting it into a 
braid.  It was strangely appealing to her.  Wrinkling her nose a little 
at the unexpected thought, she briefly smirked at her reflection and 
turned away from it to get dressed.

Nabiki opened up her closet door and began rummaging around inside her 
closet for several moments, before finally pulling out one of the sets 
of her newly-bought training clothes to use for her morning activities.  
Today she decided to go with a blue Chinese-style shirt.  Filling up one 
end of the closet, there were now a half-dozen similar silk shirts, all 
in blue, green, or red, each one paired off with an identical pair of 
black gi pants.  She slipped off the plain, silken nightwear that she 
usually wore to sleep, briefly standing naked save for only a pair of 
pink panties.  She pulled a white sports bra out of another drawer and 
slipped it on, adjusting it deftly to support her breasts comfortably.  
The rest of the outfit went on rapidly, and she flashed her reflection a 
victory sign as she headed out into the hallway.

Soun looked up as his middle daughter came bounding down the stairs.  He 
blinked as he took in what she was wearing, the grace that she moved 
with, and the look on her face.  The girl before him wore the face of 
his daughter, but the mannerisms she now had were very unfamiliar to 
him.  Their eyes met, and she smiled at him with the same sort of smile 
that she used to wear as a child.  It jarred him a bit to see it on her 
once again.  She had not smiled like that since before her mother's 
death.

"Good morning, Daddy."  Nabiki snapped a quick and jaunty bow in his 
direction.  "Isn't it a lovely morning?"

"You're up early, Nabiki-chan," observed Soun calmly, his eyes once 
again studying her odd mode of dress.  She looks like one of those Arena 
fighters, he thought with surprise.  "Have you taken up your old morning 
training routine again?"  He briefly remembered when Kimiko was still 
alive, her getting all of the girls up at dawn to train for two hours a 
day before school.

"Oh, I'm back in full training, Daddy," she said casually.  "I'll be 
outside in the training hall if you need me for anything this morning."  
She jogged out, leaving her father to stare after her in further 
surprise.

He reached out and picked up another cigarette from the pack, lighting 
it up with a smooth motion, and contemplated the unexpected change to 
his life.  He did not think it would affect his plans, but he would keep 
a closer eye on his middle daughter until they saw fruition.

As she entered the training hall for the second time in as many days, 
Nabiki paused once again to take in the feel of the place.  Even moreso 
than yesterday, she could feel her mother's lingering presence here, a 
reminder of happier times in the past.  Before the dark times.  Before 
her death.

Shaking her head, she went about setting up the area for her morning 
practice.  When she was done, she flopped down onto the mat and began to 
stretch.  She felt a tightness in the muscles in her back and shoulders, 
from her heavy exertions yesterday, and she slowly worked them out and 
loosened them, feeling the blood warming up her body for her morning 
training.  Despite the heavy workouts she went through yesterday, she 
felt great.  Her mind was clear and razor-sharp, and even the dream from 
this morning was already forgotten.  She had told herself that it must 
have simply been a nightmare, and she was not going to let it ruin her 
day.

When her body was finally limbered up, Nabiki hopped back up to her feet 
and went over to the heavy bag.  She began driving punches into it, 
putting as much power into each strike as she could.  The thick chain 
holding the heavy leather bag suspended in midair jingled as she 
unleashed punch after punch into the bag.  A hundred punches from each 
fist became two hundred, and then three hundred.  Her shoulders and arms 
were burning from her efforts, sweat soaking her frame and dripping down 
her face as she breathed deeply.  Her hands, toughened by her Academy 
training and the training that she had done with her mother as a child, 
were only a little bit reddened from the numerous impacts.

"That felt pretty good," she murmured, rolling her head around on her 
neck, hearing the bones cracking and popping slightly as her vertebrae 
realigned.  She eyed the bag, feeling her strength returning, her lungs 
no longer heaving, and smiled at it.

Her right leg lashed upwards in a kick, putting her hips behind her 
efforts as she proceeded to work the muscle groups in her lower body as 
hard as she had worked the upper ones.  Minutes passed as her feet 
smashed into the heavy bag with incredible force, rocking it back on the 
chain with louder jingles.  Side kicks alternated with spin kicks and 
leaping kicks, her legs demonstrating much more endurance than her arms 
and shoulders had.  When she finished three hundred strikes with each of 
her legs, she felt less winded than she had after her punching workout.

She finished her morning exercises with practicing a kata, feeling her 
body flowing through the motions as she mixed Karate, Kung Fu, Muay 
Thai, Tae Kwon Do, and a multitude of other styles into a graceful 
combination of forms.  Muscles she had not worked with simple punching 
and kicking practice made themselves felt to her, small twinges of 
discomfort as she maneuvered around the mat.  She ignored the minor 
pains, even as she marveled at how much more aware of her body and her 
surroundings she was today, even more so than she had been yesterday.

Finally, she was finished, and she mopped the sweat from her face with a 
clean towel from a small stack by the door.  She quickly cleaned up the 
training hall, and then she went back inside the house to take a quick 
wash and soak before leaving for the Academy.

                   ******************************

Ranma eyed his opponent, half hidden in the darkness.  Sweat dripped 
down his body, droplets silently falling from his face to the soft mulch 
of the forest floor, and his breathing was deep as he waited.  The night 
was quiet around them, not even the cicadas sounding, the only noises 
reaching him were those of his opponent breathing, in soft gasps like 
his own breath now came, a sign of the intense efforts that they had 
made against each other before now.  He had still not seen her face 
clearly.  Even when they had engaged each other from up close, it had 
remained cloaked in shadow, but he knew that he had to overcome her.

The girl sprang at him, one of her hands lashing out at him in a quick 
punching attack.  He blocked the strike and grabbed the arm, using her 
own momentum to lock the hold into place before she could halt herself.  
He pulled her close to him as they struggled intensely, warm bodies 
meshed together into a tight embrace as they tried to get leverage 
against each other, their strength evenly matched.  He felt his 
opponent's lithe muscles moving underneath her soft skin as he held her, 
her body straining against his grip, while he maneuvered his free hand 
to strengthen his hold upon her.  She was strong, almost as strong as he 
was, and that was oddly exciting to him.

They were nearly the same height, he noticed, as he struggled as hard as 
he could to capture her other arm and finally win the battle between 
them.  Their hot sweat mingled together as he felt her body gathering 
itself for an escape.  A scent tickled his nose while he was so close to 
her, redolent of musk and wildflowers.  The elbow of her free arm 
suddenly slammed into his gut, but he did not ease up.  As he quested to 
capture her other limb, his free hand grasped something soft and yet 
firm around her front, somehow warmer than the rest of her body was.  He 
heard a soft gasp of surprise from his opponent, and he felt her body 
suddenly quivering slightly in reaction to his touch, the powerful and 
sleek muscles moving beneath her very womanly curves, like soft velvet 
overlaid on steel.

The next thing that he knew, they were both down on the ground, her body 
pinned securely beneath him, their lips locked together in a passionate, 
openmouthed kiss.  They still struggled, wrestling with each other, but 
each now desired something other than defeat for their opponent.  Her 
tongue probed into his mouth, setting off a firestorm of desires within 
him as he returned the kiss with equal fervor.  He still could not see 
her face clearly, only a hint of a profile, a flash of eyes filled with 
passions to equal his own.  Her hair color and length even seemed to 
shift from moment to moment in a random fashion, from purple to red to 
brown to black and then back through the colors.

The deep kiss finally ended, and his lips moved down to her jaw and then 
to her throat, as he felt the girl gasp and sigh softly and lustily 
underneath him.  Warm breath touched one of his ears as her voice 
whispered gently to him.  The words were familiar, and the voices, but 
they all seemed mixed together to form a single female voice speaking.

"Wo ai ni, Ranma-kun," she passionately whispered.  "Ranma-sama, wo da 
airen.  Ohhhh, Ranchan."  Her lips nibbled at his earlobe.  One of her 
hands was held fast by one of his, their fingers interlaced together, 
her palm warm against his own.  His stroking thumb and littlest finger 
felt the calluses on the edges of her hand, a clear sign of a trained 
martial artist.  His free arm stroked down her side, enjoying the 
athletic feel of her body.  He felt the fingers of her other hand 
running through his hair as her lips kissed his throat.  Her legs were 
loosely wrapped around his hips.

Ranma lifted his head, enjoying the soft feel of the girl's lips on his 
neck, eliciting a groan of pleasure from him.  When he glanced up for a 
moment, he noticed another figure standing nearby, and their eyes met.

"Interesting dreams you have, Ranma," said Ranko dryly.

                   ******************************

Ranma jerked awake.

Wh-what was that all about?  The memory of the martial artist girl held 
in his arms in his dream began to quickly fade, and he wondered why his 
mind had conjured up such an odd amalgam of the girls he knew without 
coming up with an answer.  He could not say for sure, uncertain if he 
wished to explore the meanings behind the odd dream right now.

Peering at his clock slightly bleary-eyed, he grimaced at the displayed 
time.  Dawn was just occurring, and he was awakening even earlier today 
than he had yesterday.  He stumbled out of bed in the dim light, and the 
only thought on his sleepy mind that he could seem to focus on was that 
he had to get ready to train.  In a mental daze, he dressed himself in a 
T-shirt and a pair of shorts, before he quietly crept downstairs to the 
yard.  The morning air was still.

When Ranma got down to the yard, his thoughts cleared a bit and focused.  
He picked out a large, open area in the yard and sat down to begin 
stretching and warming up, the concrete slab cold against his buttocks 
as he stretched his legs out in front of himself.  The brutally rigorous 
physical training at the Academy had added significant amounts of muscle 
to his frame and given him a solid core of physical excellence.  While 
he had enjoyed physical fitness activities like gymnastics, he had never 
really cared about striving for excellence with his body, until his 
experiences with that other Ranma, so this realization was quite a shift 
for him in his personal paradigm.

His body's limits were an unknown to him, but with each day of training 
he seemed to grow just a little bit faster and stronger.  Testing 
himself against an opponent like Nabiki on a regular basis would propel 
him along even more quickly in his development, with her skills seeming 
to be roughly equal to his own.  He was looking forward to wiping the 
smug smirk from her face when they sparred again.  He was confident that 
he had taken her measure yesterday as a fighter.  Today he was going to 
beat her.

Dwelling within him now was a sort of hunger, a deep-seated desire to 
grow stronger as a fighter, to surpass his current levels of ability, 
and also those of his unexpected, new rival.  Although, when he allowed 
himself to be totally honest, before putting up a fresh wall of denial, 
his surprising, new feelings for Nabiki were not those for someone who 
was only a rival.  She had always been coolly distant to him in the 
past, whenever she was not being sardonic in addressing him, so the new 
Nabiki was somewhat unsettling but also strangely alluring.  Her mental 
abilities were equally intriguing; the spark of mental combat with her 
affected him just as strongly as engaging her physically did.

Still, the thought of a girl matching him in martial arts ability, even 
knocking him out in sparring (though he had also knocked her out as 
well), was a definite spur to improve himself.  He knew that within his 
body were the burgeoning seeds of the fighting skills from that other 
Ranma, through a quirk of fate imprinted deeply within his own brain, 
nerves, and reflexes, and he now knew that she had also received the 
same sort of 'download' from her own counterpart.  They kept clamoring 
at him to be allowed to awaken, to bring those skills to full bloom 
within himself, so he intended to do just that.

After several minutes of rigorous stretching, feeling the warming blood 
beginning to flow into his limbs as he loosened up, he felt himself 
waking up more and more.  He rolled over on the ground and began doing 
pushups, taking it slow for maximum muscle tension and strain.  He felt 
the muscles in his shoulders and arms complaining slightly, but he kept 
at it, forcing himself to perform.  Sweat began to drip from his face as 
he pushed himself.

When he was done with that, he shifted to other calisthenics, his mind 
focusing on each muscle group that he could work without weights.  As he 
diligently exercised his body, his thoughts drifted to some of his more 
intellectual pursuits, ones he had begun neglecting as he explored his 
newfound physical skills.  The power surge problem in the resonator was 
a concern, but he was planning on testing the circuitry to see if he 
could figure out where the power spike was coming from.  If he could not 
track it down, then he might have to consider running the risk of 
another one occurring.  He rested for a moment as he weighed his options 
on the matter.

Standing back up, Ranma brought to mind a long and difficult kata that 
he wanted to perform, one that should help him begin shoring up some of 
the weaknesses in his defenses that he had noticed in himself during his 
sparring against Nabiki.  He slowly stood up and stretched himself from 
side to side, much more aware of the state of his muscles and physical 
conditioning than he had been even as recently as a week ago.

I'm not going to be second best to a girl, ever, he decided firmly, as 
his fists and feet began weaving their way through a pattern that was 
already ancient when a carpenter's son from Galilee had walked the 
Earth.  I just have to work harder, discipline my body better, embrace 
the warrior skills now within me, and I can become the best.  No girl 
can be better than I am.  After all, I'm Ranma Saotome, heir to the 
Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts.  He smiled at that thought, his 
arms still varying between attack and defense patterns, feeling a little 
bit more confidence and speed in his movements.  However, his face did 
grow slightly troubled as the memories of Ranko and his Jusenkyo-cursed 
analog's female form briefly demanded his attention.

When Nodoka came downstairs a little while later to fix breakfast for 
the household, as well as planning what she would pack her husband and 
son for their lunches, she heard strange sounds coming from the 
backyard.  Curious, she looked out the kitchen window and saw her son 
doing the most amazing performance in the backyard.  She watched in 
surprise as he did flips and tumbles like an acrobat, as his body flowed 
through what she recognized as a complex kata of some sort, one that 
brought back a number of memories for her of some of her own martial 
arts training as a young girl.  His movements had an almost unconscious 
grace to them, but there was also the occasional brief hesitation, like 
he was practicing skills that had grown rusty.

What did Genma teach Ranma while they were gone?  Her hands absently 
began working at filling and pouring cups of water into the household 
rice cooker.  She studied her son's style and noted it appeared to be a 
form of Kempo of some sort, and it looked very effective.  He moves 
well, but, as far as I know, Genma hasn't practiced since he was a young 
man.  Did he teach Ranma how to move like that?  I would say that my son 
has been in training for years to have such a level of skill.  She had 
never taught another person, still considering herself to be a student 
of the martial arts, but she could discern one of great skill when she 
saw it.  She continued her usual routines for cooking breakfast, but her 
eyes were never far from watching him.  She kept wondering why he was 
putting himself through such a level of effort.

Genma came into the kitchen area a little earlier than was his wont, 
coming up behind his wife.  He saw that she was engrossed in watching 
something in the back yard.  Genma gently cleared his throat behind her.  
"What are you looking at, dear?" he asked curiously.

"Oh, Genma dearest, come and look at our son," she replied, her eyes 
bright, entranced by Ranma's demonstrated abilities.  "He looks so 
manly."

"Eh?"  I wonder what Ranma is up to now?  Genma moved up next to her and 
stared out the window, blinking in surprise at what he saw, as Ranma put 
his body through its paces.  He's quite good, he noted, watching the 
movements of fist and foot that his son was doing.  I guess that the 
Academy must have changed their training since I attended there as a 
young man.  He certainly never had time to pick up anything like that 
when we were travelling.  Seeing his son practicing fighting movements 
with such obvious skill ignited a measure of paternal pride in Genma, 
but it was tinged with worry as well.

"Isn't he skillful?"  Nodoka smiled, turning back to look at her 
husband.  "Our little boy has the makings of a great martial artist."  
She reached out and squeezed his hand gently.  "Dearest, why ever did 
you keep such a thing secret from me?  I didn't know that you let Ranma 
learn how to fight."

"But I didn't," said Genma, almost sounding defensive.  "I never even 
knew he was interested in learning."  He watched his son some more, a 
smile appearing on his face.  The boy honors his ancestors with his 
fighting skills, he thought, feeling proud.  But the nagging memories of 
his own days of violent youth, and the enemies that his own martial arts 
skills had earned him, troubled him.  They were part of the reason why 
he had turned his back on fighting as a way of life so many years ago.  
I hope that Ranma can avoid the mistakes that I did not.  The last thing 
that he needs in his life is to have a bunch of silly adolescents who 
can only think with their fists fighting with him all the time.  He was 
going to have a better life than that.

"Well, he obviously picked it up somewhere."  Nodoka's eyes glimmered 
slightly with tears of pride.  Dearest raised him well, she thought as 
she looked back at Genma.  On impulse, she kissed him on the lips.

"What was that for?"

"For raising our son so well," she replied.  "He is a scholar and a 
warrior.  His prospective wives will love him."  She hugged him for a 
moment and then went back to her cooking efforts and watching her son 
bound around the back yard.

Genma looked at Nodoka's rapt attention on Ranma's activities and smiled 
again.  He was puzzled by his son's sudden show of skill, but pleased as 
well.  And it was nice to see his wife so happy, looking at her warmly.  
I guess I'll just have a talk with the boy and find out how he knows 
what he knows.  It looks like Kempo, but I'm not sure.  His style is 
strange.

Meanwhile, the pigtailed boy finished his morning training and slumped 
to the ground into a seated position, his lungs gasping for air after 
the heavy exertions that he had just put himself through for the last 
hour.  What felt like rivers of sweat were now running down his face and 
neck.  That's enough for this morning, he thought, panting.  I don't 
want to wipe myself out before this afternoon's sparring with Nabiki.  
He stood up and wandered over to the garden hose, pulling it free and 
quickly turning on the faucet.  A stream of cold water spewed forth from 
the end of the hose, causing a brief shiver of fear to wash over him, 
which he quickly shrugged off.  He held the end of the hose to his mouth 
and drank until his thirst was finally satisfied before turning the 
water off.

"Son?" asked a voice behind him, as Ranma replaced the hose.  "What are 
you doing?"  He turned around to see his father standing behind him, a 
puzzled expression on his face.

"Hey, Pop."  Ranma waved a hand at his father in greeting.  "I was just 
practicing."

Genma nodded, as if that explained it.  "I thought that you and I needed 
to have a talk."  He sat down on a chair on the back porch and tossed 
Ranma a towel.  "You haven't been yourself lately.  I am curious as to 
why."

Ranma blinked as he caught the towel, but he had been expecting such a 
question for some time now.

"I guess I have been acting rather strange the last few days, Pop," he 
said quietly, as he quickly dried his face and laid the towel across the 
back of his neck.  He saw his father watching him with a thoughtful 
expression, before briefly gesturing at him to join him in the chair 
next to him.

"The sudden change in your manner of speech is one of the things that 
has your mother concerned," observed Genma pointedly, before turning his 
gaze to watch a flock of birds that suddenly flew overhead.  "I confess 
that it concerns me too.  I raised you better than that."

"My speech?"  Ranma paused as he went over what he had just said.  "Oh," 
he murmured quietly.  He sat down in the chair and rubbed the towel 
against the back of his neck.  "There's actually a very good explanation 
for that, as well as the other changes."  He looked at his father.

"Go on."  He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses absently with a 
small handkerchief.  "I'm listening."

"I want to start off by telling you the good news, Father," Ranma said 
with a grin.  As Genma replaced his glasses, the boy's grin got even 
bigger.  "I did it."

"Did what?"  He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his 
index finger until their position suited him and frowned in confusion.

"I've proven your theory of parallel worlds," said the pigtailed boy 
excitedly.  "I've seen them!  Pop, you were right."

Genma looked very surprised.  Whatever he had expected to hear, it was 
not that.

"Slow down, Ranma," he said calmly, startled at the way that his usually 
thoughtful son was acting.  "Do you mean that resonator device you were 
working on?  You finished it?  You tested it?"  Genma sat back in his 
seat and wondered.  He had always prided himself on his ability to know 
people.  The mannerisms of the boy before him kept shifting back and 
forth from the son that he knew to someone that he did not.

"Yes."  Ranma nodded happily.  "I was finally able to work out the last 
bugs in the system a week ago, but it's still pretty crude.  I'm not 
sure how deeply across the parallel timelines that I can reach, or how 
long I can sustain a synchronization lock, but it worked.  I saw other 
worlds, Pop.  Other timelines."  He smiled broadly.  "I'm not sure, but 
I think I can only tune into the most probable worlds out of all the 
potential worlds that exist."  Genma sat there in stunned silence as 
Ranma chuckled.  "Don't you see, Pop?  I proved you right.  The parallel 
worlds do exist."

"You're telling the truth," said Genma in an amazed tone.  He began to 
chuckle softly as he got up and gathered the boy into a hug.  "My son. 
Your father is proud of you."  He felt a tear at the corner of each eye 
as he hugged him.  "Your father is so proud."

"But there were some unexpected, uh, side effects," said Ranma in a 
muffled voice, his face buried in his father's robe.  Genma did not hear 
him at first.  The elder Saotome's mind was filled with visions of the 
honors that he and his son would earn in the Ministry of Science for 
this accomplishment.  Ranma began struggling, and Genma let him go with 
a smile.

"Pop!" shouted Ranma, irritated at the older man.  "I said that there 
were some unexpected side effects."  He backed up a couple of steps as 
Genma blinked.  Geez!  The old man never listens to me!

"Side effects?  What sort of side effects, Son?"  His voice was filled 
with concern.

"I was a little overconfident in my first full-power experiment," said 
Ranma more quietly.  "There was some kind of a power surge during the 
retrieval sequence.  It left me changed."

"In what way, Ranma?"  Genma sat back down.  His expression spoke only 
of worry for the boy.

"I gained some of his personality, and I also absorbed most, if not all, 
of his skills in the martial arts," Ranma replied, and then he began 
doing a kata to demonstrate.  Genma sat stunned as the boy went through 
the complex sequences of motions flawlessly.  Ranma's body was tired, 
but the movements were almost second nature to him.

"So you got into a fight the other day to test your new abilities?" 
asked Genma quietly.  His eyes studied the ground.  I hope that he isn't 
following in that phase of my life, he thought, remembering all the 
troubles he had fallen into then.  It was a part of his life that he was 
not proud of, remembering the aggressive fighter he had once been, the 
boy he was when he first encountered Nodoka.  They had both changed so 
much since those days, and she prided herself on being a true lady now, 
wanting to put that violent, troubled part of her life behind her, just 
as he had long ago ceased being a brawling young punk.  Still, there 
were a few moments when it was not so bad of a life.  The images of 
several girls that he had known at the time crossed his mind.

Ranma blinked, and stopped what he was doing.  "No, Pop, it wasn't like 
that at all."  He waved his hands in the air in front of him.  "The 
fight was sort of an accident.  I was doing better at sparring in 
physical education, and Ak- one of my fellow classmates decided to 
challenge me after school."

"I see," said Genma, nodding.  And so it begins, he thought with an 
internal sigh.  "That would also explain the changes in your speech 
patterns, your manners at meals that your mother has told me about, and 
even the way that you're standing now."  He kept nodding as his brain 
processed the possibilities.  His son had become a martial artist, and 
he imagined that he could sense trouble looming on the horizon because 
of this.  Fighters attract other fighters, he thought contemplatively as 
he sat there, with another gentle, mental sigh.  Still, I can offer the 
boy the benefit of my hard-won wisdom before matters get too far out of 
hand.  He paused and remembered some of his friends and enemies from 
that time in his life.  So many memories.

Ranma suddenly seemed to realize that his posture was one of relaxed 
readiness.  He put his hands behind his head and laced the fingers 
together while he chuckled nervously.  "Sorry, Father," he said, 
slightly distressed to discover that it was actually taking a minor 
amount of effort to control his speech.  "I wasn't anticipating anything 
like this happening.  I was caught unprepared."

"That was foolish, Ranma.  You should have set up safeguards for that.  
I thought I taught you better than to make such mistakes."  Genma stood 
up and began to pace a bit.

"I was prepared for a power failure, but the surge came from within the 
system itself," said Ranma quietly.  "I don't know what might have gone 
wrong.  The surge itself was minor, but it's the only thing that I could 
think of to explain the results."  He stared miserably at the ground.  
His father had always been a careful man, and Ranma could feel his 
sire's disappointment.  I don't think I'll tell him about Nabiki just 
yet, he thought.  One disappointment in a day is enough.  I think I 
should just deal with her myself anyway.

"Well," said Genma slowly after he thought about things for several 
moments.  "The damage doesn't appear to be as serious as I thought, and 
I think you might have even come out ahead in the deal.  I want to look 
over your equipment for myself.  That is, unless you think your old man 
can't offer you any pointers anymore?"  He smiled as his son looked up 
in surprise.

"Sure, Pop!  I'd love your help!"

"Does your counterpart have a Genma Saotome for a father?" he asked, 
feeling a sudden curiosity.

"Yes," replied the boy, his expression shifting into a grin.  "I think 
you might find him to be, uh, interesting."  Ranma eyed his father.  At 
least you haven't caused me any trouble in my life like that fat bastard 
did to my counterpart, he thought with relief.

"Hmm, I think I will have to see what you've accomplished for myself," 
said Genma with a paternal smile.  "Perhaps my experience will be able 
to offer you a new view on how to proceed from here."

"Well, I still need to check over the circuitry.  I want to try and find 
the bug before it gets used again."

"Tomorrow is Sunday."  Genma nodded in thought.  "I will have the whole 
day free to assist you."  He got up and walked with his son into the 
house.  "I confess that you've awakened an unexpected curiosity in me, 
Son."  He clapped the boy on the shoulder proudly as they walked.  A 
chance to see how my life could have been if circumstances had been 
different, thought Genma with a smile.  I wonder if I'm a good father in 
this other world that Ranma received his new skills from?

                   ******************************

Akane felt the bright light of the morning sun slide across her face 
through her window.  She twitched her nose, grumbled for a moment, and 
then woke up with a dainty yawn.  She had been having a pleasant dream 
about Ranma, one that brought a faint blush to her cheeks as she thought 
about it.  The yawn turned into a full-body stretch that brought mild 
twinges from a few areas on her torso, but they were only the feelings 
of a slight stiffness in her muscles rather than pain.  She yawned a 
third time, not used to sleeping in like this, and she pushed back the 
covers on her bed.

Rolling into a sitting position, she smiled at the morning sun and 
stretched her arms back, letting the cloth of her cotton pajama top pull 
tight to her breasts.  Her stomach rumbled gently with hunger as she 
gathered a change of underwear from her dresser and headed for the 
bathroom.

"Mornin', sis," muttered Nabiki rather lazily when Akane entered the 
bathroom.  The middle Tendo sister rested in the furo, faint wisps of 
steam curling around her as she let her muscles relax.  The hot water 
felt heavenly after her intense morning workout.

"Morning, Nabiki," chirped Akane as she made her way to the sink.  She 
slipped off her pajamas and tossed them into the hamper.  She eyed the 
fading remnants of the bruises on her body with a critical eye.  She 
could tell that she wasn't going to be back into full fighting shape 
until Monday.  She curled a hand into a tight fist.  Damn that rich 
bitch, she thought sullenly as she looked herself over.

"Nice bruises, Akane," said her older sister in a mildly sarcastic tone.  
"It looks like Kuno-hime worked you over pretty good."

"Hmph," grunted Akane dismissively.  "She just got lucky against me.  
I'll take her apart for sure the next time.  She's just a pampered 
debutante after all."

"If you say so, Akane."  Nabiki stood up reluctantly from the hot water 
and stepped up and out of the tub, picking up a towel to dry herself and 
rubbing it briskly over her body.  "I think you may have met your 
match."

The youngest Tendo made another dismissive sound at the thought of the 
other girl being her equal in a fight.

"Remember to take it easy today," said Nabiki.  "No working out in the 
training hall."  She headed for the door, the towel wrapped around her 
body.  "I'll see you downstairs at breakfast."

"Okay.  I'll be down shortly."  Akane sat down on the bathing stool, 
filled the bucket sitting next to it with water from the tap, and then 
dumped it over her head with a faint shiver.  Nabiki just watched her 
younger sister with a slight smile.

A little later, the three members of the Tendo family in residence sat 
around the dining table eating breakfast.

"What happened to you, Akane-chan?" asked Soun, looking at her as she 
ate her breakfast hungrily.  She grimaced a little for a moment before 
answering, and her sister spoke first.

"Oh, Akane got into a fight at school yesterday with another girl, a new 
cadet at the Academy, Daddy," said Nabiki.  "She's going to be staying 
home for a day or so to let herself heal up.  Isn't that right, Akane?"

"Yeah."  Akane looked disgruntled.

"I see," said Soun, pulling out a pack of cigarettes.  He shook one 
loose and slowly pulled it free from the pack with his lips, his other 
hand reaching into his shirt pocket for his lighter.  He stuffed the 
pack back into a coat pocket and pulled the cigarette from between his 
lips with one hand.  He quickly lit his cigarette and then took a puff 
from it.  Nabiki moved a little bit out of the line of drifting smoke 
and kept eating.  He studied the beaten up condition of his youngest 
daughter.  "Akane-chan, are you sure that you're all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Daddy," said Akane, waving her hand negligently in the 
air for a moment.  She moved with a certain amount of care in her 
actions, apparently favoring her ribs.  "I just got into a scuffle with 
a new cadet at the Academy, an annoying b- girl named Kodachi Kuno."

"Kodachi Kuno, you say?"  Soun took another puff on his cigarette and 
blew it out through his nose.  Nabiki could tell that he was surprised 
from the subtle changes in his posture.

"Yeah, she lost though," said Akane very proudly, her battered and 
bruised face beaming with pride.  "She was trying to take my Ranma away 
from me."  Their father blinked again, suddenly wishing that he had been 
coming home more nights before this.

"Your Ranma?"  Soun was unable to keep the surprise out of his voice at 
this latest revelation.  "Is this the same Ranma Saotome I've been 
hearing about you beating up for the last month or so?"

"Oh, Ranma isn't a wimp anymore, Daddy," said Akane, her face glowing a 
little with passion.  "A few days ago he finally gave me a taste of what 
he's really capable of, and I want more."  She broke out into a rather 
disturbing smile, desire igniting within her eyes, and licked her lips 
briefly.  "He's stronger than any boy I've ever met.  Very strong."

"I see," said Soun, even though he did not, puffing on his cigarette in 
thought for several long moments.  This is quite a surprising change, he 
thought, looking over at Nabiki briefly and considering the change in 
his middle daughter this morning.  Was that because of Ranma somehow as 
well?  Could I have been wrong about the boy?  He then shook his head 
almost imperceptibly.  It doesn't matter.  He is still going to wed my 
little girl, Nabiki.  I will see to that.  This new development in him 
changes nothing.

"Well, I'm sure that he was just lucky against you, Akane-chan," he said 
with a smile.  "Your father knows how strong a fighter that you are.  
You do your mother proud."  Akane beamed with another smile, and Nabiki 
looked briefly amused.

"Ranma is a capable opponent, Daddy," said Nabiki casually, her eyes 
looking to her father's face.  "He gave me this, didn't he?"  She 
gestured at the almost unnoticeable bruise on her face, causing Akane to 
suddenly look at her sister in surprise.

"W-what?" cried the youngest Tendo, a deep frown appearing on her face, 
and a surge of anger suddenly filling her.  "When did you fight with 
Ranma, Nabiki?"

"Yesterday afternoon," said the other girl casually.  "He and I are now 
taking a special training class together.  We did some sparring."

"Huh?" exclaimed Akane, blinking in surprise.  She looked at her sister 
suspiciously, but could not detect anything through Nabiki's sudden 
poker face.  "So, why wasn't I put in this class?"

"Oh, that's probably because I put through a transfer to a new school 
for you yesterday," said Soun absently, gesturing at her with his lit 
cigarette, perhaps hoping to defuse through his words the quickly 
growing tension between his two youngest daughters.  It did take Akane's 
building wrath away from Nabiki, but it only transferred it to himself 
instead.

"WHAT?!" screamed Akane at her father, apparently startling Kyoko in the 
kitchen, as there was a brief clatter of falling dishes.  "How could you 
do this to me, Daddy?!  A transfer?  Where are you sending me to?"

"I managed to get you a position at Furinkan Military Academy," replied 
Soun calmly, but within he was annoyed at being screamed at in his own 
home.  "As soon as you are able to attend, then that shall be your new 
school from now on."

Akane abruptly deflated in surprise.  "Furinkan," she said softly, as if 
tasting the word.  "That was where Mother went to school, right?"  She 
looked at her father, and he simply nodded once, taking another puff of 
his cigarette.  She very rapidly calmed down as she considered the 
matter, her brief explosion of temper dissipating as quickly as it had 
erupted.  On the one hand, she felt a flicker of excitement at the 
thought of walking the same halls that her mother had walked when she 
was her age.

However, it would also mean leaving Ranma alone with the debutante, an 
unpleasant prospect.  She knew that young men were all driven by their 
lusts and hormones, and the sleazy Kuno girl looked like the type to try 
and seduce him away from his destined place by Akane's side with her 
feminine wiles, no doubt just waiting for a chance to wrap her long legs 
around the pigtailed boy and consummate her foul lusts with him.  She 
had heard many sordid stories about how casually hedonistic the nobility 
were, all of them pursuing casual pleasures with whoever fell into their 
debauched clutches.  But there was also the opportunity to attend a 
school filled practically to the rafters with some of the toughest young 
warriors in the Empire for her to fight with.  Akane looked up to see 
her father watching her with a distant sort of expression on his face.

"It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you, Akane," said Nabiki 
with a supportive smile, genuinely pleased at this surprising turn of 
events, knowing how much her younger sister loved fighting.  This action 
would neatly separate the girl from Ranma.  Her father was a step or two 
ahead of her again, it seemed, since she had been planning to talk with 
him soon about this very subject.  "Just think of all of those strong 
male opponents for you to challenge.  After all, Furinkan's cadet 
population is easily well over eighty percent male.  Perhaps even closer 
to ninety."

Akane blinked and looked at her sister as a very familiar light slowly 
appeared in her eyes, an anticipation of battles to come.

"O-over eighty percent?" she asked, her lower lip briefly pulled up 
between her teeth as she considered the matter.  Under the table, her 
right hand tightened into a fist as she felt an almost pleasurable sense 
of anticipation at the thought of facing each and every one of those 
strong, young, warriors-in-training in turn.  But then her thoughts 
popped back to remembering her wonderful new feelings from when she had 
fought with Ranma, and the intense excitement that she felt when facing 
off against him.

"The best warrior-trainees in the Empire attend Furinkan," said Nabiki 
softly, her voice almost coaxing now.  "Each of them fast, strong, and 
tough.  All well-trained in combat and the martial arts."  Most of them 
aren't too bright, but then neither is Akane at times, thought Nabiki 
with an internal chuckle.  This is for the best, Little Sister.  Ranma's 
potentials would just be wasted on you, I'm afraid.  He is so much more 
than a mere brawling jock.  She felt a little bad at tricking the girl 
like this, but she mollified her unexpected appearance of conscience 
with the thought that it truly was for the best.  Sensing her sister's 
resistance weakening, she went for the kill and said, "Not to mention 
the fact that you would be following in Mother's footsteps."

Akane felt caught on the horns of a dilemma.  Choose to stay with Ranma, 
or take a chance on finding an even better fighter at Furinkan Academy.  
She weighed the choices in her mind, an image of Ranma in a fighting 
stance on one side of a scale, and a small army of tough, young men 
offering new challenges to her on the other.  She blinked.  When she 
considered it in those terms, it was an easy choice.  Plus she would be 
training to become an officer in one of the armed forces of the Empire.  
She would then be able to fight the Empire's enemies directly, not 
scurry around in the dark like her sister Nabiki liked to.

Besides, I know that Nabiki isn't interested in him, remembering her 
sister's long-standing, cool disdain for the pigtailed boy.  So I could 
have her keep an eye on him for me, until I can see for myself if there 
are any decent fighters at Furinkan.  I'm sure that she wouldn't mind 
keeping that sleazy debutante bitch away from him for me, if I asked her 
for help.

"Well, Akane?" asked Soun, blowing a long stream of smoke up into the 
air from his mouth.  "The transfer paperwork has already gone through.  
Will you do this for your family honor?"

"I'll do it on one condition," said Akane, turning to look at Nabiki.  
"Big Sister, would you keep an eye on Ranma for me?  I don't trust that 
little debutante, to be left unwatched around him."  She put a pleading 
look onto her face.  "I just need you to do it until I can see if there 
are any decent fighters at my new school."

"Of course Nabiki-chan will do such a thing," said Soun quickly.  Akane 
had just given him a wonderful idea.  He turned to a mildly surprised 
Nabiki.  "Daughter, please do as Akane asks and stay close to Ranma."

"Uh, sure thing, Daddy," said Nabiki slowly, feeling a little weirded 
out by this particular change of fortune.  Akane came around the table 
and gave her a hug.

"Thanks, Nabiki!" said Akane loudly.  However, more softly she whispered 
into Nabiki's ear, "Don't let that sleazy, pampered bitch near my Ranma, 
okay?  I don't trust her at all, but I'm glad that I can count on you to 
watch out for my interests with him.  Will you be all right without 
having me around as your enforcer?"  She let go of her sister and knelt 
next to her with a smile.

"I'll manage," said Nabiki with a sardonic smile.  She flexed one hand 
and considered what it would be like to act as her own enforcer for a 
while.  The thought didn't hold quite as much appeal as it once would 
have, but there was a potential for more money to be made with her new 
abilities.

"Excellent.  Then it's all settled," said Soun calmly, grateful to his 
clever daughter Nabiki.  He gave his two younger daughters a brief 
smile, and then called Kyoko to bring them the rest of breakfast.

                   ******************************

At Kuno Manor, Kodachi sleepily opened her eyes and smiled, a soft 
languor fading as her body woke, a feeling almost like decadence washing 
over her for having slept in like this.  The sheer silk nightgown that 
she wore moved across her skin feather-light as she sat up and slowly 
stretched.  Her muscles were still a little tender in places from the 
fight yesterday, but she felt satisfied at the outcome.

Ranma had walked her home.  He had chosen to spend time with her, and 
that made her feel happy.  Even the lingering stiffness and remnants of 
pain in her body were a small price to pay for that shining time.  She 
hugged herself, the treasured memory of his all-too-brief time with her 
making her feel joyous.  She would face a thousand fights with the 
brutish Tendo girl to have more time with him, to have him walk home 
with her again.

After getting out of bed and padding over to the window, she opened it 
to feel the morning breeze wafting in.  She inhaled deeply, smelling the 
sweet scent of her mother's special strain of black roses coming from 
the garden two stories below.  It was strangely appropriate for her 
mood.  I am like a newly-budded rose, she thought, inhaling the fragrant 
scent of the flowers once again.  I have awakened to a new life, and it 
is a wonderful one, filled with endless possibilities.

As she leaned on the windowsill, Kodachi heard the family car departing 
from the front of the house, taking her brother to classes.  She briefly 
looked at the clock on the wall of her room and wondered why he was 
leaving so early.  Perhaps my brother has a morning meeting with the 
members of that silly Duelists Club of his, she thought with a smile. 
She felt a little guilty for having the day to herself to relax like 
this, but it would allow her time to plan her strategy for next week.

"Now, whatever shall I wear today?" she asked to the air, opening the 
door to her walk-in closet, itself the size of a typical Tokyo studio 
apartment.  She hummed lightly to herself as she considered some of her 
more casual clothing.  Her gaze passed by several silk and lace outfits 
in one area, and she blushed lightly at the thought of modeling such 
things for Ranma, astonished at herself for thinking such brazen things 
about him.  She felt rather naughty but also happy to imagine the look 
on his face to see her dressed in such nightwear, her only desire to 
please him.

She finally pulled out a soft kimono to wear, her thoughts now filling 
with thoughts of the pigtailed boy, and a brief fantasy of the heinous 
beating that she fully intended to bestow upon the brutish Tendo wench 
when next they met.  Both were a source of contentment to her.

                   ******************************

Kuno stood outside the walls of the Imperial Academy, dressed in the 
traditional style of his warrior ancestors instead of his uniform from 
Whitehall Academy.  Resting comfortably in his hand was the haft of a 
wooden sword, though he was now of an age where he could carry steel if 
he chose, and his father had gifted him with a well-crafted set of 
daisho (katana and wakizashi) for his sixteenth birthday.  The truth of 
the matter was that he was not actually seeking to kill Ranma, only 
defeat him utterly (perhaps breaking a few bones in his declared enemy's 
body in the process), and then he would display the battered remains to 
his beloved sister.

Ah, Dachi-chan, my sister, he thought.  Such a fragile and delicate 
flower art thou.  The duty of defending thy honor thus falls to me, as 
thy elder brother, to smite the ignoble cur who would seek thy hand so 
unworthily.  The wretched Ranma Saotome shall know both humility and 
pain when I am done with him.  It is inconceivable that it should be 
otherwise.

At his side, dressed in his Whitehall uniform, a silken scarf of the 
snowiest white added for effect, stood Mikado.  Held in one of his hands 
were his own weapons, twin jo sticks, as he stood within easy talking 
distance of his best friend.  As his bokken-wielding companion had 
fallen into a thoughtful mode, he amused himself by eyeing a few of the 
young lovelies entering the grounds of the Academy.  He was actually 
rather impressed with the selection available and was making note of 
some faces that he desired to know the names and phone numbers of later.  
As most of them were only lowly commoners, they would not help him reach 
his goal, but they could be pleasant for an evening's romp of pleasure.  
Unfortunately, since he was acting as Kuno's second, he was forced to 
remain by his friend's side.  Seducing women could wait until a more 
appropriate time, but he was sure that the sight of two young lords of 
the Empire was making an impression upon their passionate hearts.

Kuno spied Nabiki walking down the street and hailed her with a wave of 
his hand, his eagerness to see if she had any photos of her sister 
overcoming his usual stoicism.  "Tendo-san," he greeted her formally.  
"I do not see your lovely sister with you this fine day.  I trust that 
she is well and hale?"

"Kuno-dono," the girl answered, bowing politely to him, a touch of 
amusement in her voice.  "My sister is well, but she has other concerns 
occupying her today."  She eyed Mikado with a neutral sort of look, 
brief memories of his counterpart filling her mind's eye, and her own 
thoughts of him were quite the opposite of the ones that she was the 
subject of from the aristocrat in question.  She decided to have a 
little fun at Mikado's expense and gave a polite bow in his direction.  
"Sanzenin-san, I presume?"

"Sanzenin-sama," corrected Mikado gently, and her opinion of him dropped 
several points, not that it had started all that highly placed to begin 
with.  He was amazed that the beautiful girl before him already knew his 
name, but he reasoned that she was doubtless an admirer of his, perhaps 
having seen his photograph in one of the newspapers or tabloids that 
reported on the doings of the nobility.  "You are indeed a lovely 
creature, Tendo-san."  He took hold of her hand, an act that caused her 
to blink at the breach in social protocol, and he smiled warmly at her, 
with a hint of seductiveness rising in his tones.  "Perhaps after my 
companion and I are finished with our business, you might do me the 
honor of giving me your phone number, so that I might call upon you for 
a date?"

What a pompous ass, decided Nabiki, her thoughts about the young 
nobleman darkening.  His arrogant attitude rendered his touch mildly 
revolting to her, as well as his lecherous appraisal she had noticed him 
giving her.  She firmly withdrew her hand from his grasp, casually 
tapping one of the pressure points on his wrist with her other hand when 
he refused to let go at first, causing his hand to spasm open with a 
rather painful muscle cramp.  "I'm afraid that will not be possible, 
Sanzenin-san," she said coolly.  "My social calendar is quite full."

"A pity," said Mikado through gritted teeth at the sudden pain in his 
hand, rubbing it casually to ease the intense cramp in it, not realizing 
that the girl's innocent-looking caress from her other hand had caused 
it.  He could not seem to get his hand to close for several moments as a 
few more waves of spasms went through it before finally subsiding away.  
The pain also distracted him enough that he had not noticed her refusal 
to use the '-sama' honorific with his name.  "It would have been very," 
he paused for a moment as he searched for just the appropriate word, 
"gratifying to allow my humble self the great honor of showing you the 
many great pleasures that I have to offer."  He allowed his gaze to 
pointedly linger on her chest before bringing it reluctantly back upon 
her face.  With an ingratiating smile, he finished, "Many great 
pleasures indeed."

Ick! thought Nabiki with disgust, suddenly feeling an intense urge to 
flatten the lecherous nobleman on general principles.  If Ranma-kun 
doesn't kick your ass, then I will.

"Have you had a chance to obtain any of the small tokens of my lady love 
for me that I requested of you yet, Tendo-san?" asked Kuno, interrupting 
Mikado's ill-fated attempt at seduction.

She turned to face him, in her mind calculating just how many different 
ways that she could put Mikado down using only one major muscle group 
area to attack with.  She only came up with twelve.  That number just 
wasn't high enough to suit her, so she expanded her search to include 
two areas and was more gratified at the result.

"I have managed to obtain a few photos of my little sister to tide you 
over for now, Kuno-dono," she said with a sardonic grin.  She held them 
up in her hand casually, five photos from her scrapbook, of Akane 
training.  "I have not yet been able to get you a lock of her hair 
though.  That may take awhile."

Kuno actually began to tremble a bit at the sight of the photos of the 
youngest Tendo.  His expression spoke volumes for the depths of his 
desires.

"I think two thousand yen each will be sufficient for my expenses on the 
matter," said Nabiki smoothly.  She felt a little odd for doing this, 
even though it was the exact same sort of act that she would normally 
have given little reaction to only a few days before.  It was somewhat 
distracting to her, and also more than a little annoying.  The pictures 
in her hand weren't even very risqué.  She had several female cadets she 
knew certain things about, things that they did not want known publicly, 
and she had traded on that information to get them to pose for pictures 
in lingerie, hiding their faces with masks to ensure that they would 
continue to cooperate in this.  The pictures of just one or two of the 
five cadets in question made up the bulk of that little side business 
for her.  Nabiki spied Mikado eyeing her with another speculative look, 
and she was reasonably certain where his thoughts might now be going as 
to what else he thought she might do for money.  I hope you bust this 
jerk up really bad, Ranma-kun, she quickly amended to her earlier 
thoughts about the aristocrat.

"The gods themselves would weep at such a price, but I shall pay it," 
said Kuno loftily, his eyes fixated on the small photos of Akane in 
various poses.  He pulled out his wallet from his robes and quickly 
counted out ten thousand-yen notes into her outstretched palm.  He took 
the photos from her and gazed at them with adoration.  Ah, my beautiful 
tigress, he thought with a smile.  How I love you so.

"I will see what I can have for you next week, Milord," said Nabiki, 
pocketing the money with another quiver of conscience.  "You might also 
be interested in learning that my sister will be getting transferred to 
a new school on Monday."

Kuno's head snapped up.  "She will finally be away from that vile cur, 
Saotome?"  A gleam filled his eyes.  "Truly the gods have answered my 
prayers then!  Hah!"  He struck a majestic pose.  "Then all that remains 
is to smite the fiend and rescue my sister from his lustful predation."

At that moment, Ranma came walking around the corner and spotted the 
waiting Kuno and company.  Oh, damn, thought the pigtailed boy, noting 
that the aristocrat was armed and dressed in the same sort of archaic 
outfit that his counterpart usually wore.  He also saw the Sanzenin boy 
standing with Kuno and was mildly puzzled at that.  Finally, he saw 
Nabiki with them, but she had apparently just concluded some business 
with Kuno as she was standing to one side.  Shrugging his shoulders at 
what he felt was inevitable somehow, he continued walking towards them.

Kuno's eyes looked down from gazing upwards at the sky in a pose that he 
thought made him look virtuous, when he caught sight of his enemy.  He 
felt a savage hatred possess him.  Now I shall finally smite the 
villainous Saotome and show him to be the lowly and unworthy peon that 
he truly is, he thought, beginning to smile nastily.  The point of his 
weapon moved slightly.

Mikado reluctantly tore his eyes away from his admiration of Nabiki's 
not inconsiderable charms to see what his friend was now looking at.  
This feeble peasant is the man who stole Kodachi-chan's heart from me?   
A grin crossed his face.  Kuno-kun will take him apart in seconds.  He 
stepped back a pace to give his friend some fighting room, certain that 
this would all be over quickly.

Nabiki spotted Ranma and gave an inward smile.  She headed over to her 
usual area for doing business and rounded up her assistants.  The setup 
for a betting pool began, and she set the odds to encourage bets against 
the pigtailed boy, who was becoming seen as the local champion to many 
of the cadets.

"Ranma Saotome," intoned Kuno solemnly, feeling the desire to smite the 
pigtailed scholar growing as the other boy walked towards him.  "Allow 
me to introduce myself.  I am Tatewaki Kuno, of the most noble House of 
Kuno, undefeated champion of Whitehall Academy, and I am here this day 
to forcibly prevent you from taking advantage of my naive, little 
sister, as well as stopping thy lecherous advances against the beauteous 
Akane Tendo."  He raised his weapon to point it at his target.

"I see," Ranma replied, again feeling an odd sort of inevitability about 
the whole encounter.  He set down his bag very casually, not taking his 
eyes off of Kuno, and then stood up straight and looked him squarely in 
the eyes.  "I am Ranma Saotome, heir to the Anything-Goes School of 
Martial Arts."  His eyes flickered to Nabiki while keeping Kuno on the 
edge of his vision, as she watched the spectacle taking place while she 
accepted bets, and he pitched his voice loudly enough for her to hear.  
"And I accept your challenge."

Nabiki briefly locked stares with the pigtailed boy across the short 
distance separating them.  Oh, you really think so, do you, Ranma-kun? 
she thought, looking at him with a flat gaze.  You and I have something 
to discuss, it sounds like.  She broke the duel of stares after a few 
moments and went back to accepting bets on the outcome.

After sniffing disdainfully, Kuno attacked, and Ranma leaped over his 
head, lashing out with a kick to the aristocrat's skull.  He hoped to 
end this quickly, but the other boy took the strike better than he had 
expected him to.  They went into a blur of motion for several seconds, 
engaging each other at a speed that only Nabiki and Mikado could really 
follow with clarity.  Ranma found himself slightly hindered by the 
uniform, cutting into his skill and agility advantage a bit, but he was 
still more than Kuno could deal with.  He heard a faint rip from one of 
the seams of his jacket as he fought, but he did not let it distract him 
from dealing with the young nobleman.

Within moments, it was over.  The young nobleman took the full brunt 
from one of Ranma's kicks, hitting him squarely across his jaw and 
slamming him back into the wall behind him.  Kuno actually left a series 
of faint cracks in the stonework from the impact of his body against it.  
When he didn't do the sensible thing and collapse unconscious right 
away, Ranma punched him across the face a few times until he did, taking 
care not to leave any serious damage.  When Kuno finally slumped to the 
ground unconscious, he turned his eyes to the other young aristocrat.

"Ready to try your luck, Mikado?" he asked with a glimmer of humor in 
his eyes.

"You will address me as Sanzenin-sama, you peasant," the other boy said 
coldly.  He had been more surprised than the rest to see Kuno taken down 
so easily by Ranma, knowing how skilled his fellow aristocrat was with a 
weapon, but he was not afraid to face the pigtailed boy.  "I challenge 
your claim to Kodachi Kuno."

"Kodachi's just a friend," Ranma replied, pausing a moment to study the 
other boy.  "I've got no real interest in her beyond that, so there's no 
need for violence."

"Liar!" accused Mikado, glaring at his enemy.  "How could any man resist 
such a woman?  The sight of her eyes gazing with love at you.  The feel 
of her soft lips parted in a passionate kiss.  The thought of those 
silken-skinned, long legs and athletic body wrapped around you.  How 
could any man resist the thought of that?!"

"Well, when you put it that way," murmured the pigtailed boy, pitched 
low enough that only the Sanzenin youth could hear it.  His attempt at 
humor seemed to drive the other boy into an almost frothing rage. 

Ranma was really trying hard to be reasonable about all of this, but 
nobody seemed to want to listen to him.  He moved closer to Mikado, and 
immediately had to dodge a blurring strike from one of the jo sticks in 
the other boy's hand.  There had not even been a blink or a flickering 
of the eyes to warn him that an attack was coming, so it would have come 
very close to breaking a rib if he had not dodged it.

Dodging and ducking under and around Mikado's two wooden weapons, he was 
taken by surprise when the taller boy's foot also lashed out and caught 
him in the thigh in a glancing blow.  That's what you get for being 
cocky, Ranma scolded himself.  He studied his foe's movements with the 
eyes of a scientist.  He's using Escrima, both armed and unarmed styles.  
Moderately interesting, but this won't even be a challenge.  The 
pigtailed boy leaped up into the air and lashed out with three quick 
kicks that Mikado was unable to block or dodge, each one whipping his 
face into the next strike that came in.  He landed back on his feet and 
noted that the other boy wasn't moving, only standing there with a blank 
look on his face.

"You awake in there?" he asked, waving his hand in front of Mikado's 
sightless eyes.  He calmly tapped his finger against the other boy's 
forehead, and the aristocrat fell like an uprooted tree.  "I thought 
not."  Ranma went over and picked up his bag and quickly dusted it off, 
before walking past the entire student body and into the main building.

Nabiki smiled after he passed her.  Nicely done, Ranma-kun, she thought, 
sparing the fallen Mikado a cold look.  Hardly anyone had bet on him 
with the odds she had given, so she had just cleared quite a lot of 
money.  It made her feel a bit more charitable towards the pigtailed 
boy, even though she also felt that she was obviously the better choice 
to lay claim to being the rightful heir to the Anything-Goes School 
between the two of them.

                   ******************************

Upstairs, in his office, Fuyutsuki studied the commotion that had just 
occurred down at the main gate with interest.  After learning that 
Kodachi Kuno would now be attending the Imperial Academy, he had taken a 
little time to refamiliarize himself with her file and that of her 
brother.  He suspected that it was most likely the girl's brother who 
had just accosted Ranma, based on what he had seen of the aristocrat's 
most recent psychological profile, but the distance was too great for 
him to be sure.  He had been unable to see most of the fight due to the 
wall blocking his view, but Ranma had emerged unscathed utterly from the 
altercation.  That pleased him.  The boy is proving to be a fascinating 
case study, he thought with a faint smile, sitting back down behind his 
desk and folding his hands in thought.

                   ******************************

Ranma gently touched another spot on the circuitboard with the voltage 
meter, noting the level of power running through the wiring.  He checked 
it against his notes, finding it to match his specifications exactly.  
Moving to the last connection, he found another match to his notes, and 
he then set the meter down.  That's it, he thought, a little puzzled at 
finding nothing.  All of the components were working at their stated 
specs, so there was no way for the power surge to have even reached the 
coil, unless it had somehow been generated from within the coil itself.  
But that made no sense.

Leaning back, he stretched out his arms and legs, feeling them loosen 
from the cramped position he had been in for the last several hours.  It 
was getting to be late in the afternoon, and he still wanted to test the 
system with a couple of runs now that he had checked out all of the 
components.  There is no way that the surge could have occurred in the 
coil, but it did, he thought with a frown, hating having a mystery like 
that.  He had checked every circuit pathway three times to be sure of 
that, and none of them were the source of the mysterious surge.  The 
energy to do so would have had to come in from along the signal pulse 
somehow, and the probability of such an occurrence happening was so low 
as to be beyond imagining.  Yet it had happened three times in only a 
few days.  It left him puzzled.

A fluke event, he finally decided.  He had checked every other one of 
the possibilities that he could think of and eliminated them, leaving 
only two remaining.  One, it was a feedback problem of some sort, 
perhaps caused by his linking with certain quantum frequencies and 
resulting in an energy surge pulled from the quantum foam itself, the 
vast energy field where the different timelines were suspended like 
stations on a radio dial.  However, the problem with that one was that 
no such surge had taken place when he visited the same timeline Nabiki 
had.  The other choice was that it was an act of God, which he could not 
bring himself to believe.  Either way, he was left with a single choice, 
to abandon the research or continue to use the device.

Ranma wasn't sure what to do.

He had come so far, devoted so much time and effort to this experiment, 
that he could not bring himself to simply stop.  He sat and stared at 
the device.  The resonator was his life's great work.

I'll just run a few more tests, he finally decided, picking up the 
headset and flipping the power on.  I'll try a few of the coordinates 
that I've already recorded.  He took a few minutes and hacked the 
software code to compensate faster for signal strength variances on the 
upload and download sequences.  It was a change of dubious value, but he 
felt confident it should provide him with a greater modicum of safety 
for his remaining tests.

He tapped away at the keyboard, taking his time as he set up for the 
next test run.  He checked the clock on his wall and noted that he still 
had a couple of hours until his training class.  He pulled up one of the 
remaining files and waited for it to load.

*QUANTUM COORDINATE FILE #0000004 LOADING INTO ACTIVE MATRIX...

*PLEASE STAND BY...

*MATRIX LOADED: FILE #0000004.  DETAILS?  YES

*FILE #0000004 - QUANTUM DIVERGENCE POINT OCCURRED:
    758 YEARS
      3 MONTHS
      0 DAYS
      5 HOURS
     57 MINUTES
     59 SECONDS AGO.

The last recorded, yet still unexplored, world I have, he mused, looking 
at the breakdown of the file.  But this one seems to be close to my 
world, at least.  He felt sweat on his palms and rubbed them against the 
cloth of his pants.  He settled back onto the couch and put the headset 
on, listening to the computer speak softly in the background.

"Initiating upload cycle."

                   ******************************

*** Earth  +3.002,-3.002

Ranma was staring up at the ceiling of his room, lying on his futon.  
This familiar thing surprised him due to the time of day.  It was only 
the middle of the afternoon, and he was laying in bed, but he did not 
feel sick at all.  In fact, his body seemed to have a lethargic feeling 
of satisfaction running through it.  He blinked his eyes and waited for 
his mind to awaken and clear a bit, since he had apparently entered his 
counterpart while he was just waking up from a nap or something, so his 
thoughts felt a little fuzzy.  What's going on?

That was about when he noticed that there was an arm lying across his 
chest, and a warm body cuddled comfortably against his side, completely 
hidden beneath the covers.  To say that he was surprised by this would 
be putting it mildly, but he blamed it on the sleepy state he had found 
himself in.  This body was in such a relaxed and comfortable state that 
it took a little motion from the person lying next to him to call his 
attention to it.  Not even the top of her head was visible, so all he 
had to go on for identification purposes was that: a) the body was quite 
obviously female, and b) she had an athletic build.  A warm gust of 
breath wafted against his shoulder.  A female voice mumbled softly 
against his side, but the words spoken were totally unintelligible.

His eyes darted around the room, and he was uncertain what to do.  
Posters of several martial arts action movies were tacked up on a few 
locations around the walls, a severe contrast to his own rather bare 
walls at home.  He blinked when he noticed that three of them even had 
himself pictured prominently on them, with action movie titles such as: 
"Young Master: The Legend Begins"; "Young Master II: Warrior of the 
Empire"; and (this title was the one that was most amusing to him, 
apparently a comedy of some sort) "Big Trouble In Nekonron, China."

He stared at them, feeling a chuckle threatening to bubble up from 
inside him, distracting him briefly from trying to figure out who it was 
lying next to him.  He focused his mind on this more important matter. 
Who is lying next to me?  Who is lying next to me?  He repeated this 
mental question like a mantra, hoping to stir up his fragmented memories 
to make themselves available quicker.  He blinked his eyes again as the 
name finally came to him, along with a brief rush of memories.

Shampoo?  He gently lifted up the covers with his free hand and took a 
quick look downwards, seeing her head of long, tousled, violet hair 
confirming it.  He moved a little bit to one side, trying to ease away 
from her in order to get out of bed.  The Chinese Amazon firmly held on 
to his arm in her sleep, a pleased smile curling her lips.  She muttered 
something softly in Mandarin, then sighed as she tightened her hold on 
his arm.  He decided to just lie back and see if any new memories would 
unfold.

As expected, the kaleidoscope of memories filled his mind, scenes from 
an alternate life.  He was Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome School of 
Anything-Goes Martial Arts, the only school of martial arts descended 
from the Founding School, and for the last three years he had been one 
of the biggest box office hits in the martial arts action movie genre.  
The "Young Master" series alone had already made him wealthy by the time 
he was fifteen, and his latest film, the comedy that he was looking at 
the poster of, was even now earning yen by the truckload across the 
Empire.  It was a surprising life to find himself living, but the 
surprises did not end there.

The other unexpected (but not unwelcome) change was the girl at his 
side, his wife.  Apparently, right around the time of his sixteenth 
birthday, to prove his detractors wrong, those who called his fighting 
scenes faked, he had gone to China to participate in the 'Tournament of 
the Amazons' and had been given the unexpected opportunity to go up 
against Shampoo, recently acclaimed the Village Champion, by a series of 
amusing circumstances.  The purple-haired Amazon had been obviously 
unimpressed by the sight of him, at first, which had irritated the young 
star, used to having girls flocking to him.  The two young warriors had 
fought hard for the better part of an hour before he finally managed to 
overcome her skills and knock her out.  He did not even really remember 
their wedding night though, and he suspected it was due to some sort of 
special alcoholic drink he had been given at the victory celebration.

When he had awoken the next morning, Shampoo was sleeping at his side, 
murmuring words of love in her sleep in Mandarin.  She had not left his 
side for a single night since then, and his nose had a drop of blood 
emerge from it at the memories of what had gone on every night, almost 
always multiple times, since his marriage to her.  I had no idea that 
Shampoo was so, er, eager in bed, he thought with some amazement, or 
that she was so flexible and experimental.  A second drop of blood then 
joined the first, and he backed away from looking at more such memories 
to examine what this version of himself knew of the history of this 
timeline.

For someone who had always before expressed great disdain about the 
importance of history, he was now getting quite a first-hand education 
on the significance of changes to it.  In this timeline, like in his 
own, the final conquering of China by the Japanese Sixth Imperial Army 
led to the interesting discovery of a small tribe of very special 
people, the Joketsuzoku Amazons of China.  He could not remember how 
things had happened in China in his own timeline, but he knew that it 
had not gone quite as it had here.

In this timeline, the Amazons had tried their best to fight against the 
invaders, but it was ultimately in vain.  Their special martial arts 
techniques that they had used in combat must have seemed like sorcery to 
the first troops, but the iron determination of the Emperor to allow for 
no defiance of his divine rule refused to admit surrender.  It was even 
thought that only by completely exterminating the Amazons would victory 
be attained, but a chance meeting had changed that destiny.

A young soldier was on a solo reconnaissance mission near the regions of 
Joketsuzoku.  He surprised a young warrior maiden of the Amazons, also 
on solo reconnaissance for her people, and they had fought.  It was said 
that they struggled through half the night against each other, using 
only naked fist and steel, by the light of a full moon.  In the end, he 
had emerged as the victor.  The young Amazon pledged herself to him as 
his wife, per her own people's laws.  He was an honorable warrior from a 
proud samurai family, and the girl was comely, so he had agreed to the 
marriage.

The Emperor of that time, upon hearing the report of this young warrior 
conquering an Amazon as an individual, came up with a very radical plan.  
Armies were proving to be impractical against such a remote enemy, and 
there were always hot-blooded sons of the many samurai families looking 
for challenges.  The Emperor sent a long letter to the Chief Matriarch 
of the Amazons, Ko Lon.  In it was a challenge, as well as a treaty.  
The Amazons would not be destroyed, but they must withdraw from the 
defense of China.  In exchange for this, the Emperor made a pledge to 
send ten of his very finest young warriors to challenge ten young 
Amazons to single combat.  He also stated that all would be unmarried 
men of good health.

The specific terms of the challenge were still considered a state 
secret, but over time it became commonly known as the Tournament of the 
Amazons.  The Emperor sent his emissaries throughout the islands of 
Japan to find warriors of superior martial arts ability, and the ten 
finest warriors that were found took up the challenge eagerly.  Out of 
this original group, six of the ten young men emerged from the 
tournament victorious and claimed their Amazon brides.  The Emperor 
honored his pledge, the Joketsuzoku were left alone, and they in turn 
left China to its eventual fate.

Since that day, over a century and a half ago, it had become a sign of 
skill to attend the Tournament of the Amazons.  Any man winning an 
Amazon bride was able to remain there in the village, or he could return 
to Japan with her.  Ranma had been the first of his family to attend it, 
held once every ten years since that initial treaty was signed.  The 
result of his trip, and a mark of great honor for the Saotome family, 
was the lovely girl who was sleeping beside him.  She had been his wife 
for less than three months.

Shampoo shifted her position and casually draped one long leg across his 
body as she snuggled happily against him.  He felt a cold sweat break 
out on his forehead and swallowed nervously.  I'm just going to lie here 
and pretend to be still asleep, he decided, fervently trying to ignore 
the odd sensations awakening in his body from the feel of her leg gently 
moving sensuously against his body.  It just wouldn't be right to take 
advantage of this, uh, situation.  The softness of her skin, and the 
delicate play of her athletic musculature running beneath it, was not 
helping his concentration at all.  He tried to remember how much time he 
had left before the retrieval cycle was supposed to kick in.  Thirty 
minutes?  Twenty?

He heard the Amazon's breathing suddenly change as she woke up and 
peeked her head up above the covers.  She moved her free arm and gave 
him a hug, as he tried very hard to not look at her full breasts, 
currently naked to his gaze as she slid up his body.  He attempted to 
draw his mind away from staring at the tempting sight by reciting the 
periodic table of the elements, but he lost count somewhere around Argon 
three times.  The feel of her body against his was awakening the most 
intriguing sensations.

"Good afternoon, Husband," said Shampoo in her singsong way of speaking 
Japanese.  She sat up and smiled warmly at him, her eyes bright with 
affection, and then her tone of voice became a little bit husky with her 
passions.  "Shampoo so happy with beloved husband.  Ranma make Shampoo 
feel so good this morning.  Ranma ready try again?  Shampoo ready."  
That last declared with certainty, she pulled herself up for an 
openmouthed kiss, and nibbled at his lower lip very gently.

I suppose I could use this time as a, uh, learning experience, he 
reasoned, feeling his thoughts becoming more confused as his desires for 
her awoke further.  When her left hand drifted down his body to grasp 
gently at a certain location, her fingers beginning to insistently 
fondle what she found there, his resistance to her advances crumbled 
away quickly.  It's like my dream.  He pulled her closer to him and felt 
a warmth and closeness for the Amazon that he had never felt before for 
any girl, the emotions of his counterpart coloring and mixing with his 
thoughts as he tasted her lips against his own.

"Oh, Ranma," murmured the Amazon, enjoying the feel of his lips against 
her jawline after the long kiss finally broke.  "Shampoo love Ranma so, 
so much," she cooed softly.

He felt her supple muscles moving under her skin, the body of the Amazon 
warrior reacting to his touch as if it had been a musical instrument 
made to be played by him alone.  His hands rested on her sides as they 
kissed once again, and that was when he absently noticed that he was 
naked beneath the covers, a startling realization that brought a third 
little drop of blood from his nose, especially while feeling what she 
was still doing down lower on him with her hand.

The purple-haired Amazon looked him lovingly in the eyes and softly 
said, "Shampoo take Ranma up to Clouds and Rain as dutiful wife should.  
Ranma relax and let Shampoo do everything."

He blinked as she disappeared beneath the covers, and his thoughts 
briefly cleared as his alternate's memories informed him of what was 
about to happen next.  He could not seem to summon up the will to 
protest her actions, and a distant thought sounded in his head, a hope 
that he had enough time left.  His ears picked up the faint sounds of 
Shampoo softly giggling as she shifted her position, her lips kissing 
down to his waist area.  He was now fully aroused, and it was an effort 
to relax as he felt his breathing quickening like he was about to enter 
into combat.

To call what happened next a completely new experience for him would 
have been putting it extremely mildly.  The Amazon apparently took her 
'duties' as a wife very seriously, and she was putting every possible 
effort into giving him maximum pleasure.  He heard more faint giggles 
emerging from underneath the covers as she began her ministrations upon 
him, and an occasional cooing sound as well.  A pleasurable tension 
slowly began building within him from her efforts, and he noticed out of 
the corner of his awareness that he was gripping the sheets to either 
side of him as he slowly ascended up to the Clouds and the Rain.

I can't believe that this is happening, he thought, his head rearing 
back as the feelings of pleasure continued building in intensity.  It 
felt so good.  His eyes fell to being half-closed as he let himself 
surrender to the many sensations assailing him, and brief images of the 
women from his own life rose up in his mind unbidden as the feelings 
grew closer and closer to peaking.

Then the pleasurable tension finally reached the point of no return, and 
his body and mind were both overcome by the waves of orgasmic sensations 
now flooding through him.  A name forced its way through his lips as he 
yielded himself up to the pleasure, lost in the bliss of the moment, 
and, an unknown number of moments later, the gray void of nothingness 
claimed him, and the world faded away.

                   ******************************

Ranma became aware of himself as his body shuddered powerfully with the 
last vestiges of orgasm, his beautiful wife working her usual magic upon 
him.  He guessed she had decided to awaken him in this most pleasant of 
ways, thinking he had just been asleep until now.  When it was finally 
done, he let out a soft sigh of contentment.  He felt her pause in what 
she was doing.  Shampoo's head emerged from beneath the covers, a very 
deep frown on her face that puzzled him even as she glared at him.  A 
light blue aura seemed to surround her.

"Ranma say other woman's name!" she accused him.  "Shampoo no could hear 
name clearly, but know it not Shampoo's!"

"Huh?"  He was confused by what was going on.  "No, I didn't."

"Yes, Ranma did!"

"No, I did not!"

"Did!"

"Did not!"

"Did!" yelled the Amazon one final time.  To punctuate her argument, her 
fist then lashed out and impacted into his face, propelling him from the 
bed on a ballistic course to slam into the wall, leaving quite a deep 
impression in it as he rested partially embedded into it.  "Now Ranma 
learn why it not nice to play with loving Amazon wife's tender 
feelings."

"Help," he murmured, as the naked Amazon loomed up behind him and 
cracked her knuckles, her eyes narrowed in that most feared of looks by 
men: righteous female fury.

Sounds of carnage began to ensue.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

"Retrieval cycle complete."

Ranma opened his eyes and sighed as the hum of the headset faded into 
the background.  "Wow!" he muttered, feeling quite pleased with himself.  
"I never realized I could be such a stud with the ladies."  He stretched 
his arms up over his head and grinned happily.  "I must try and remember 
that file in particular."  He found himself very tempted to link back to 
that reality immediately.

"No," he finally decided, sitting up to examine the data from the test 
run.  A lingering feeling of well-being filled him as he watched the 
graphs of the power levels.  The coil's power levels had come close to 
his assigned limit, but had not surpassed it.  He looked at the clock on 
the wall.  "It looks like I have time for one more test run before I 
need to quit for the day."

He pulled the keyboard down to his lap and started typing.  The system 
hummed as it initiated its scanning mode.  Ranma adjusted the headset to 
rest comfortably on his skull, relaxed back onto the couch, and closed 
his eyes.

"Quantum signature match found.  Initiating upload cycle.

                   ******************************
   
*** Earth  +3.184,-3.223

Ranma stumbled for a moment before quickly regaining his balance as he 
walked along with his father.  He adjusted the sunglasses that he found 
himself wearing, blinking his eyes at the afternoon sunlight.  He had 
noticed a tendency for his eyes to dilate for a few moments after he 
possessed an alternate version of himself, rendering him sensitive to 
bright light.  This time was no exception and the bright sunlight was 
exacerbating the problem as he felt his eyes water for a moment.  He 
took a guess that he was somewhere in the central market district of 
Tokyo as he looked around.

"Are you all right, Ranma?" asked Genma, pausing for a moment to look 
back at his son.  He looked impatient at the delay, apparently with a 
strong desire to get to the place he seemed to be heading to.  "We need 
to hurry up, or we're going to be late for the auction."

"I just tripped, Father," he replied, deciding that a little bit more 
formality was easier to fake.  Auction?  Are we going to buy a car or 
something?  He let himself trail along behind his father, and they soon 
arrived at an area filled with people who all seemed to be waiting for 
something to happen.

Genma turned to him with a smile.  He was wearing a fine silk suit in 
charcoal gray, and looked quite prosperous.  Ranma had noticed that he 
was also wearing fairly fine clothes himself, instead of a school 
uniform of some sort.  I guess I don't need to go to school here, or 
it's some sort of holiday, he decided.

"Are you excited, Son?"  Genma looked at him expectantly.

"Uh, yeah," Ranma replied, trying to look eager, seeing his father smile 
back at him in reply.

"That's the spirit, m'boy!" said the older man exultantly, clapping him 
on the back as they walked over to one side of the crowd.  They pushed 
their way to the front of the crowd, Ranma trailing along a little bit 
behind Genma like a satellite.  "I hear that they even have several 
samples of the legendary Chinese Amazons in the latest batch," he said 
as they reached a point near the stage.
 
Chinese Amazons?  Ranma suddenly realized where he was, and what they 
were here to buy.  Oh no.  No.  At that very moment, the memories of his 
counterpart washed over him.  He let them settle into place, ignoring 
them as he listened to the older man speaking.

"It's a proud day in a young man's life when he buys his first female 
slave," Genma said jovially, looking at his son with a paternal smile. 
"The Empire knows how to take care of its citizens.  Why, I remember 
when I was a boy, the day I was able to purchase my first, Rina.  She 
was fresh from the newly conquered territories in Russia, those the 
Empire first acquired during the Unification War, you know.  She was a 
beauty."

Ranma tuned out Genma's words, focusing his thoughts on piecing together 
his life in this timeline, one where the Empire now controlled the 
entire globe in an iron fist.  The Unification War was the name for the 
final efforts by the Western European powers twenty-five years ago to 
hold back the Empire from claiming them by right of conquest, but they 
failed.  The entire population of the planet was now divided up under 
the control of the various Prefectural Governors, each of them under the 
direct control of the Emperor.  To be an Imperial citizen, especially to 
be a noble, was to be a prince of the Earth, but to be anything else was 
to be some degree of slave.

The Saotomes were considered poor by most standards of the nobility to 
which they belonged, but his father ran a very successful dojo that 
earned him some respect and an adequate income for his family.  The 
Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts was alive and well on this 
world, and Ranma was the designated heir.  However, they were not the 
only School that claimed descent from the Founding School under Master 
Happosai (dead for over fifteen years now from some sort of training 
accident).

Ranma rubbed at the spot on his face where a bruise had been only 
yesterday, a phantom pain, a reminder of his counterpart's less than 
excellent performance in one of his frequent disagreements with the 
youngest of the three daughters of the Master of the Tendo School, 
Akane, on the relative strengths of their competing schools.  As usual, 
their disagreement had become very heated, and this analog had ended up 
receiving her fist into his face, distracted at a critical moment by one 
of her seductive smiles, preventing him from dodging.  She hadn't 
pressed her advantage, instead standing back and lowering her fists, a 
smirk on her face and a gleam in her eyes as she watched him picking 
himself up off the ground.  She had patted him on the cheek and calmly 
sauntered off.  Luckily no one else had been around to see his dismal 
performance.

Against a male opponent he still remained undefeated, even with the 
likes of Tatewaki Kuno and Ryoga Hibiki attacking him all the time, each 
accusing him of trying to steal their girlfriends.  Ranma blinked at the 
reoccurrence of the same people being involved in this life, but he was 
amused at this analog's problems.  In this world, each of the three 
Tendo sisters was very well-versed in the fighting skills of the Tendo 
School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts.  Both schools were famed across 
the Empire for the capabilities of its few students, but the training 
was more rigorous than most would-be martial artists were willing to put 
up with.

Of them all, this Ranma preferred to fight with Kasumi.  She was the 
heir to her family's school, as he was to his, but she was also the only 
one that would fight him fairly and not use any sort of feminine wiles 
to distract him during a fight, his one weakness, like Akane and Nabiki 
would do with glee.  Kasumi had recently returned from an exhibition 
tour around the Empire, demonstrating her family's style in the various 
Arenas around the globe.  She had even added a few new tricks to her 
arsenal since last time.  Her increased skills were a fun challenge for 
him, and he was working up counters for her new techniques.

Nabiki was the ultimate seductress in a fight, using her innate beauty 
to distract him before unleashing her considerable skills at fighting to 
pummel him unconscious.  She had even once worn a breakaway shirt to one 
of their duels, which he discovered when it came off in his hands as 
they were grappling with each other.  He had been totally mesmerized by 
the unexpected sight of her bare breasts bouncing before his eyes, 
surprised that she had not worn a bra, a moment before she had kicked 
him unconscious.  His father had not been pleased to hear that he had 
fallen for such a cheap shot.

Lastly, there was Akane, and she was the worst, at least in the eyes of 
this Ranma.  Very strong for a girl, her frame well-muscled on top of a 
solid skeletal structure, she was also nicely padded in all of the right 
places.  While she was not as fast as her two older sisters, she made up 
for it with enormous power in her strikes, sufficient to shatter bone if 
her fist made solid contact.  Akane was not as well-built as Kasumi or 
Nabiki, but she had a compact beauty all her own.  She just had to smile 
at him with a certain look in her eyes, and his reactions would hesitate 
just enough for her to unload upon him with powerful strikes from her 
fists and feet.

Genma and Soun had once been the best of friends, back when they were 
training with the revered Master Happosai, who in this timeline was one 
of the most well-respected martial arts masters that had ever been seen 
in the Empire, but there had been some sort of a severe falling out 
towards the end of their training.  Each of them had desired to be the 
one to officially carry on the Anything-Goes School under their name, 
and only under their name, the beginnings of a rivalry that continued to 
this day.  Each of them had passed on that rivalry to their children, 
and this Ranma was outnumbered three to one.

The three Tendo girls never attacked him all at once, but each of them 
seemed to fight with him at least once a week.  And his skills had shown 
marked improvement from having regular sparring partners for the last 
two years, ever since he and his parents had returned from wandering the 
globe.  Kasumi he could fight to a standstill, and she seemed to enjoy 
their encounters as a chance to polish her skills with an equal-level 
opponent.  Nabiki and Akane he generally lost to, only due to their 
preying upon his weakness.  They alternated in their challenges against 
him, and each seemed to enjoy the duels with him much more than he did 
with either of them.

That brought events to their current place in time.  Genma had finally 
had enough of this weakness in his son and had decided to do something 
about it, so they were here to purchase a girl who would be his sparring 
partner as well as a bedroom playmate, in order to get him more used to 
fighting a girl.  Inside his counterpart's mind, Ranma mentally blinked 
at the notion.

The curtain opened and he beheld a dozen young girls near his age, each 
of them strikingly beautiful.  Only two girls had hair that differed 
from brown or black in color, and one of those framed a very familiar 
face, with long, violet locks of hair that he had last seen in a very 
different life: Shampoo.  To her right was the other girl, a pink-haired 
beauty who occasionally glanced at Shampoo with hate-filled glares, and 
her features rivaled the other Amazon's.  Both of them appeared to be 
martial artists, muscular and graceful in appearance, even weighted down 
by the chains holding them.

Ranma only had eyes for Shampoo.  He saw her standing tall and proud, 
her posture unbowed by the chains and manacles on her wrists and ankles, 
as she looked out at the crowd of men.  Like the other girls with her, 
she was dressed in a simple, white silk outfit composed of a long 
sleeveless tunic with a short skirt that barely reached to her thighs 
and was cut low in front, exposing her cleavage to easy viewing by 
prospective buyers.

The pink-haired girl near Shampoo caught sight of him in the front of 
the crowd, the only person less than forty years of age, and she smiled 
at him sexily.  He shifted his gaze to look at her in surprise, and she 
adjusted her posture to thrust out her nicely-endowed chest in his 
direction.  There was a promise contained in those eyes that was quite 
captivating, and her athletic figure was very tempting to him.  She 
licked her lips as she looked at him, and frowned murderously at Shampoo 
when his eyes went back to look at her and stayed there.

He was grateful for this chance to offer the Amazon a good home.  He 
could see in the mind of his counterpart that this Ranma was a very 
honorable sort, and he would never mistreat her.  He tugged on Genma's 
sleeve and whispered the identity of his selection to him.  He felt a 
fatherly slap on his shoulders, and saw the man nodding in agreement 
with his choice.

"An excellent choice, boy.  She looks to have a good amount of fighting 
spirit in her, and that body looks built for being made love to by the 
right man.  Consider her yours."

"Thank you, Father," said Ranma with genuine sincerity.

Luckily for him, Shampoo was one of the very first girls placed up on 
auction, so he had time to watch.  She went up for sale right behind the 
pink-haired girl named Perfume, who turned out to be another Amazon.  
The violet-haired girl earned a fair amount of bidding, but her cool, 
defiant look limited the height that it climbed to from most of the 
potential buyers.  Finally, it came down to Ranma and a representative 
from one of the zaibatsus, apparently recruiting for the Arena.  The 
Amazon, Perfume, was one of his purchases, and it looked close for a 
time when it came to being able to buy Shampoo.  However, he finally 
dropped out, and she became his property for the sum of a little over 
five million yen, a full million yen over what the other Amazon had gone 
for in price.

When the gray void of recall finally pulled him away, he wished the 
Ranma of this life good luck with his new slave.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

"Retrieval cycle complete."

Ranma blinked up at the ceiling of his lab and smiled.  He felt that he 
had just done a little bit of good on one world, and it made him feel 
pretty happy.  Shampoo, he thought with a smile.  In so many different 
lives she was part of it, like they were destined to be together.  A 
brief fantasy about the purple-haired Amazon filled his mind as he 
relaxed on the couch, but he shook his head free of it a minute or so 
later.  He took a quick look at the statistics for that world.

*FILE #0000007 - QUANTUM DIVERGENCE POINT OCCURRED:
    421 YEARS
      9 MONTHS
     29 DAYS
     14 HOURS
     32 MINUTES
     17 SECONDS AGO.

He reached over and pulled the keyboard into his lap, his fingers 
beginning to tap away, calling up the diagnostic software.  He eyed the 
clock on the table, seeing that he only had a few minutes left until his 
training class was to begin.  How time flies, he thought with a smile.  
In one day he had managed to: deal with the annoyance of Kuno and Mikado 
without taking a scratch; determine that his device design seemed safe 
for his father's use tomorrow; meet Shampoo in one counterpart's life 
who was his wife; and purchase another one as a slave for yet another 
analog.

All in all, it seemed to have been a pretty full day so far.  Now he 
just had to finish up in his lab, and then he could go out and show 
Nabiki that he was the better martial artist.  No ties for him today.  
He was certain that he was going to win.

                   ******************************

A short time later, he found himself facing off against Nabiki, both of 
them seated across from each other while they finished stretching.  He 
noticed that she seemed quite angry with him, and he imagined that he 
could feel it rolling off her like waves of heat.  It was more than a 
little disconcerting.

Unlike yesterday, he was now wearing the standard Academy uniform for 
physical education: a pair of blue shorts and a gray T-shirt emblazoned 
with the words, "Property of the Imperial Academy Athletics Department."  
He was wearing the black slipper shoes that Nabiki had gifted him with, 
as they just felt more comfortable for this sort of training.  He made a 
mental note to obtain a few more outfits like the first one to expand 
his wardrobe.  It felt vaguely 'wrong' to dress as he was now clothed to 
train in martial arts.

Across from him, Nabiki was dressed in the same sort of outfit that she 
had on yesterday, only with a red Chinese-style shirt on.  She saw Ranma 
looking at her appraisingly with a slight smile on his face, and she 
continued to glare at him but said nothing.  I'll show you who the heir 
to the Anything-Goes School is, Ranma-kun, she thought with amusement, 
her expression becoming one of her usual cool smirks.  Just you wait.

Finally, it was time for their daily sparring match.  Only the two 
coaches were present this time, and Coach Fujinami acted as their 
referee once again.

As before, neither of them held anything back from this match, even 
though it was nominally sparring.  Things proceeded much as they had 
yesterday, each of them weaving in and out of the defenses of the other, 
and both proving themselves to be equally as adept fighting on the 
ground as in the air.  However, today there was something subtly 
different, an air of much greater intensity in the efforts that Nabiki 
was putting forward, and the upper hand began to fall away from Ranma to 
her, to his great surprise.

Almost desperately, he struggled to regain the initiative, but he became 
more and more pressed into a defensive posture.  As minutes passed, he 
briefly managed to regain the upper hand for short periods of time, but 
they were not to last.  Her slight edge in skill and her marginally 
superior levels of conditioning were both acting to force the upper hand 
away from him each time that he thought it was finally his.  Finally, he 
was forced into a defensive posture one last time, and then it was over, 
almost a half hour after they had begun.  He stared up at her in shock, 
his inner thoughts matching his outer expression.

He had lost.

"Looks like I win, Ranma-kun," she purred teasingly.  "Perhaps I should 
be the one to call myself heir, hmm?"  She smiled at him in an almost 
seductive fashion.

His reply was interrupted by the coach yelling at them.  He did not have 
an opportunity to talk with her for the remainder of class, so he 
occupied his thoughts with reviewing the fight in his memories as his 
body went through the usual training regimen.  Over the day off from 
classes, he planned on doubling his training efforts.  He was now 
determined to best her.  He was confident that it was only a matter of 
time.

                   ******************************

In one of the upper windows of the Academy, Fuyutsuki was smiling 
downwards at the practice field.  It had been a close contest, so very 
close indeed, in his eyes.  He nodded to himself as he watched one of 
the coaches spur them out to the field to begin running.  Even at this 
distance, the pigtailed boy looked shell-shocked.

Now their real exertions against each other will begin, he thought with 
a smile.  Ranma will have to learn to treat Nabiki with some respect, it 
seems.

                   ******************************

Ranma collapsed back onto his futon and stared at the ceiling.  He felt 
drained.  The loss today against Nabiki rankled a bit, and he had 
resolved himself to training harder to defeat her.  He felt twitchy 
about the loss, as if part of him did not even want to admit that it 
happened, but he knew that he would win in the end.  This was not a 
loss, just a setback.  He always won in the end, and he would keep 
trying until he did.  To add further misery to his day, all throughout 
dinner he was forced to listen to his mother chattering on about the 
good qualities of each of the girls that he was going to meet next week, 
including a certain Nabiki Tendo.  Each of the glowing descriptions and 
subtle demands about marrying a proper girl just made him feel more and 
more anxious, as if the walls were starting to close in.  How quickly 
life can change, he thought as he laid his arm across his eyes.

For several minutes he just lay there, his mind processing the events of 
the day.  He still had some nagging questions to deal with from his 
jaunts to the other Earths that he had been to, ones that he had put off 
getting the answers to long enough.  He rolled to a sitting position and 
eyed the Navi that sat on his desk.  Now is as good a time as any to 
start looking for some answers, he decided with a firm nod of the head.

He powered on his Navi and waited as it booted up.  He settled himself 
comfortably in his chair and began typing, calling up a number of 
programs that he had specially written for such information searches in 
the past, those that he did not care to have traced.  Just in case he 
ran into any problems with Security Directorate monitoring, he started 
by logging into the data relays at Tokyo University through a secure and 
secret backdoor that a friend had once told him about.  He then began 
bouncing his communications signal around the planet by means of several 
non-Imperial nodes first before he re-entered into the Imperial datanet 
by means of one of the Science Ministry hookups.

With all of the high-security protocols set up to prevent such a thing 
from happening, it was a little bit of a challenge even for his 
abilities, but Ranma had cut his teeth on computers many years ago and 
had only kept perfecting his skills ever since.  His fingers danced 
across the keys as he navigated around the dangerous areas of the 
Datanet.  Over the past several years such efforts as this had been one 
of his hobbies, a way of thumbing his nose at the system.  Finally, 
after he finished setting it up so that he could not be traced without 
at least his awareness, he hacked into the first Datanet server he 
encountered and began punching in his first information request.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  CHINESE AMAZONS, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The Amazons of Joketsuzoku, China were first discovered by the Fourth 
*Imperial Army in the year 1841 (see entries for Mount Phoenix, and Musk 
*Dynasty).  The Supreme Matriarch of the Amazons willingly entered into 
*a treaty with the Emperor in the year 1849, recognizing his divine 
*sovereignty over all people.  A primitive, agrarian people following a 
*simple matriarchal-based system of local government, they have been 
*consistently labeled by the Security Directorate as a low-risk group 
*for rebellion.  END FILE.

"That's it?" he asked, expecting to see reams of data, instead of a 
single paragraph.  "That's not much."  He wasn't sure if a search for 
Shampoo or any other specific names would even turn up anything, what 
with the information on the Amazons being as sketchy as it was.  If the 
Empire followed its usual patterns for how they maintained the census on 
the conquered peoples under its control, then Shampoo would only be 
identified by a serial number, not her name.  He decided to investigate 
some of the other groups mentioned to see if he could learn more from a 
different angle.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  MUSK DYNASTY, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The Musk Dynasty was first discovered by the Fourth Imperial Army in 
*the year 1841 (see entries for Joketsuzoku Amazons, and Mount Phoenix).  
*This group was determined by the Security Directorate to be a clear and 
*present danger to stable Imperial rule of the region, and a pogrom was 
*declared against them by special order of Director Shikei Kashuoh in 
*1845.  Extermination measures were carried out under the direction of 
*Colonel Hisato Tendo in 1846 with the final elimination of last members 
*of the Musk Dynasty confirmed in 1848.  END FILE.

Hmm, what could a group of primitives in the backwoods of China have 
done to warrant an extermination order?  He frowned.  Local ethnic 
groups had resisted the Empire before without such a level of reprisals, 
let alone genocide.  That seemed to be a surprisingly harsh reaction by 
the Security Directorate.  I wonder what it was that frightened them so 
much about the Musk Dynasty?  The Amazons were left alone, and they have 
some powerful abilities at their disposal.  I wonder why the Musk were 
not?  A very interesting puzzle.

He sat back in his chair and thought about this, idly tapping his 
fingertips together as he rested his elbows on the arms of his chair.  I 
don't seem to have any memories from that other Ranma about any past 
encounters with them, so I suppose they might not exist in his timeline 
as well, he mused.  Still, if there are any members of the Musk Dynasty 
somehow still managing to survive, then they aren't going to be too 
happy with any of the existing descendants of Colonel Hisato Tendo.  I 
wonder if Nabiki even knows what her illustrious ancestor did?  Perhaps 
not.

He eyed the indicators for his countermeasures software, all of them 
running in the background.  None of them had been triggered yet, so he 
was still safe.  He moved onto his next data search.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  MOUNT PHOENIX, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The inhabitants of the region known as Mount Phoenix in southern China 
*were determined to be only a rumor by the Security Directorate in the
*year 1842 (see entries for Joketsuzoku Amazons, and Musk Dynasty).
*END FILE.

That's the shortest one yet, he mused with a smile.  If they haven't 
been spotted by anyone since then, then they must be a myth.  Ah well, 
now for the big one.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  JUSENKYO, ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION

The system seemed to hiccup and paused for several long moments while 
the system conducted a search for any files related to his request.  
Ranma nervously eyed his countermeasure indicators, but they had not yet 
been tripped.  After a time, the screen cleared and came back with:

*ALL INFORMATION ON JUSENKYO IS CLASSIFIED BY IMPERIAL EDICT.

Hmm, now that's interesting.  He sensed a genuine challenge to his 
abilities now, and he cracked his knuckles and grinned.  However, it's 
not about to stop me.  He began to call up some of his best hacking 
algorithms, ones that not even his father or any of his other teachers 
even knew that he had.  He had crafted them all on his own, testing 
their effectiveness and refining them further during his travels with 
his father, even once going so far as to penetrate into the Security 
Directorate's payroll files for fun.  A few moments after he activated 
them, he was rewarded with success.

*STAND BY FOR FILE TRANSFER FROM SECURE SERVER.

Ha!  The Anything-Goes School of Data Hacking strikes!  He grinned at 
the screen as the files involved began a complex sequence of transfers 
around the globe, hidden among the regular data traffic by one of his 
algorithms.  He was a little astonished at the amount of data available.  
His grin faded as he studied the historical summary on Jusenkyo.

*Jusenkyo Valley and its many springs were first discovered by the 
*Fourth Imperial Army in the year 1841 (see entries on Joketsuzoku 
*Amazons, Mount Phoenix, and Musk Dynasty).  The local tales of the 
*springs' reported magical ability to transform living creatures into 
*duplicates of the first creature drowned in a particular spring was 
*initially thought to be a myth.  Preliminary gathering of evidence was 
*delayed due to several pacification efforts needed in nearby regions.  
*Confirmation of springs' magical ability to transform living creatures 
*obtained through direct experimentation in 1847.  The Mobius Institute 
*(see entry) has classified Jusenkyo Valley as an Alpha Class mystical 
*nexus and maintains a representative to monitor the site.
 
*The Musk Dynasty was discovered to use the so-called 'Spring of Drowned 
*Girl' in order to breed with local animal life in 1845.  The Security 
*Directorate determined that members of the Musk Dynasty were thus to be
*re-classified as a sub-human species, and were to be considered as a
*clear and present danger to the future security of the Empire.  The
*necessary purification efforts were carried out under the direction of
*Colonel Hisato Tendo in 1846.  The final pogrom was completed in 1848,
*save for ten subjects reserved for use in experimentation (see current
*entries for Human Enhancement Projects).  Current status of Jusenkyo
*Valley: Maximum Security Biological Research Facility.  END FILE.

Ranma's countermeasures software picked up a trace attempt at that time, 
and he immediately aborted the remaining file transfers, routing those 
now in transit to several previously-established secure sites he could 
retrieve from more safely later.  The link died quickly, the attempted 
trace frustrated by the numerous cutouts and blind alleys that he had 
set up in advance.  He breathed a quick sigh of relief, and then he 
saved what he had managed to retrieve of his captured data.  He would 
examine it all in more detail at a later time.

So that's the real story, he thought, considering what he had just seen, 
amazed at the implications and tantalized by the references that were 
given.  He had answered some questions, only to raise even more in the 
process.  No wonder it was classified, but at least the Amazons still 
exist.  Since the Empire has practiced a relatively light approach with 
them, they may even be much as they are in that other Ranma's timeline.  
He wandered back to his futon, undressed quickly, and stretched out.  
Despite the earliness of the hour, he was exhausted.

I wonder if Shampoo even exists in this timeline?  Is she back at her 
village, the Champion of her people?  Is she married to some guy?  She's 
the only one I haven't been able to find.  Not that I've really tried to 
find her  He laid his arm over his eyes.  I wonder where she is now.  
His thoughts faded off to sleep.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Thanks to my pre-readers for all of their help and advice:

Michael Allen
Jim Bader
Donny Cheng
David Eddy
Doug_W
ShortYes
DB Sommer
T.H. Tiger