*** Earth  0.000,0.000  (-3,882.14721 Years)

The ever-present sands began to shift and blow once again as the golden 
light of the brilliant sun rising from the eastern horizon began to 
heat the air, casting its increasing fierceness upon the desiccated 
remains of a body.  The work of scavengers and vermin had further 
ruined the already blasted corpse, and the sun would spend another day 
leeching its few remaining fluids.  The sand had already partially 
consumed it, and the coming storm that could be seen in the distance 
would surely finish the job.

A man stood near the corpse, his body swathed in the common fashion of 
the desert nomads of this region, his robe billowing slightly in the 
gradually rising winds.  His deep-set, gray eyes were blind, his pupils 
a milky white, but those eyes still held a thoughtful gaze as they 
appeared to calmly study the remains, the remainder of his face hidden 
behind the hood of his burnoose.  What little of his skin that could be 
seen had been darkened by the sun to a deep brown, almost an almond 
coloring.

Those few who had encountered him spoke of him in the very quietest of 
whispers.  Most simply called him the Seer, the voice of Fate.  He was 
not the first to perform that task, and he would certainly not be the 
last.  He acted as the guide to that undiscovered country known as the 
future, warning some he spoke to of its perils and enlightening others 
as to its bounties.  He spoke equally to both wise men and fools in his 
many travels, counseled commoners and kings, solemnly moving among them 
all like a thief in the night and vanishing quietly after his words had 
been delivered.  But he himself remained a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

However, a few days past, the Seer had been caught off-guard for the 
first time in the performance of his duties.  The future had gone 
through a sudden disjunction, its path forcefully wrenched into new 
potential courses previously unknown and unseen.  He had never before 
experienced such an occurrence, and trepidation had trickled through 
him.  Time had gone into a sudden turmoil, roiling across his Sight in 
a disturbed muddle of possible outcomes.

In a heroic attempt to gain a better perspective on this event and its 
potential effects, with great effort he had strained himself past his 
normal limits and forcibly expanded the scope of his Sight, allowing 
him to behold the infinite sea of time in nearly its entirety, with the 
multitude of parahistories arrayed beyond his own.

For long moments he had been caught up in rapture, feeling something 
akin to awe at witnessing the spectacle of timelines as they bifurcated 
constantly, each instance giving birth to numerous possibilities that 
then further diverged away from each other.  Few of these offspring 
timelines survived for long, most fading away in some rough equivalent 
of biological natural selection, merging with others and yielding up 
their energies and possibilities to be subsumed by their surviving 
cousins, maintaining a rough sort of semblance of order in this chaotic 
maelstrom of warring possibilities.

It was at that moment, as he strained his abilities to their utmost, 
that he saw what horrors the future had almost held for him.  His own 
personal future was normally a blind spot in his Sight, as it was with 
all Seers.  But this blind spot would allow his once-future aspect to 
be captured by Oblivion, a lesser avatar of that ultimate qliphothic 
entity, the Solipsist, the Anti-Creator, the sum of all negations in 
the multiverse.  That aspect's resistance would eventually be utterly 
crushed after Oblivion slowly and most painfully rendered him down into 
absolute nonexistence and then restored him, inflicting the process 
repeatedly until his mind finally broke.  In the end, he would become a 
willing agent of Oblivion, working behind the scenes to engineer events 
in such a way as to result in the end of that timeline's existence, and 
in turn feeding it into the impatiently waiting maw of the Solipsist.

With difficulty, he had turned his view away from that horror, hoping 
that his successor as Fate's voice in that timeline would find a way to 
frustrate his other self, if she even became aware of him.  For that 
was the one flaw in the Sight's ability.  It became impossible to See 
with any degree of certainty the outcome of events if sentient beings 
actively attempted to be unpredictable.  That was the razor's edge that 
every Seer walked, the roll of the dice whenever someone was made aware 
that the future could be seen and could be changed.  That was why he 
was circumspect in his revelations, working to delicately adjust events 
behind the scenes, choosing his words carefully.

Casting his Sight further towards the future, he was astonished to see 
a vast singularity forming, pulling innumerable timelines into itself.  
Pain surged within his skull as his Sight beheld just the edge of the 
silent darkness within that singularity, as he strained his abilities 
farther than he had ever done before.  The effort had cost him most 
dearly, but he had caught a glimpse of what lurked far in the future, 
waiting to consume worlds without end, a power that could devour whole 
both god and mortal alike.  The multitude of images were confusing, an 
expansive melange of events and individuals that were involved, and 
they cast him back before he could see much.

He had walked, blindly, his mortal sight blasted from his eyes, the 
price he had paid for his hubris, seeing only by the Sight now.  It had 
led him here, to the rupture point, less than two days walk from where 
he had been when the divergence had first occurred.  A morbid sort of 
curiosity had compelled him to come.  But the entity once known as 
Kain, now reborn as the Shogun of the Dark, was long gone, leaving only 
the blasted remains at the Seer's feet.  Fate, as it always did, would 
now struggle with Chance, but the outcome of this contest would be the 
very survival of all that is, and all that ever would be.

A ghost of a smile crossed his face.

Despite the stakes, and the price he had already paid, this promised to 
be interesting.


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)


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.  A brief glimpse of Imperial Earth's distant 
past was shown, and the divergence point separating it off from the 
'Shampoo 1/2' timeline.  Gosunkugi has cast his spell, but the results 
weren't quite what he expected.  Ryoko Masaki told the tale of her 
family in this altered history, and Ryu Kumon began to adjust to his 
new life.  Complicating things further, the Netherworld sent a rather 
familiar agent to investigate just what was going on in Nerima.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 18 - The Dragon's Apprentice

     When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

                              - Ancient Asian Proverb

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


*** Earth  0.000,0.000

For the vast majority of the Empire's citizenry, nighttime was that 
quiet period of rest and relaxation from the day's labors.  However, 
for those select and dedicated individuals toiling on behalf of the 
Mobius Institute, the time between dusk and dawn was their busiest time 
of the day.  And today had been no exception.

Director Kasuga paused and set aside the latest piece of paperwork that 
was marked "For Your Eyes Only" that eternally seemed to flow across 
his desk, when the intercom on his desk buzzed for his attention.  It 
was nearing midnight, and he still had so much to do.  As he rubbed his 
eyes briefly, he wondered if Frost was finally checking in.  She had 
called into the switchboard on her cellphone a few hours ago, leaving a 
terse message that she was investigating the etheric disturbance in the 
Nerima region.  With a sigh, he activated the intercom unit.  "Yes?"

"Sir, Agent Kisaragi is here with her report.  Shall I send her in?"

"At once," grunted Director Kasuga gruffly.  "And I could use some more 
tea myself.  See to it."

"Yes, Sir."

Moments later, a somewhat bruised and bedraggled Ayaka made her way 
into the Director's office.  After bowing once, she quickly slumped 
down into a chair opposite him with an exhausted-sounding sigh.  The 
battle drugs she had taken, seemingly an eternity ago, had left her 
with an aching weariness that felt like it would require a solid week's 
worth of sleep to ever dissipate.  Unfortunately for her, she had to be 
at the Academy in a few hours, so she was looking forward to keeping 
this meeting as brief as possible.  At least her head felt clear right 
now, despite her body's insistent demands for rest.

"You look like hell, Kisaragi," observed the Director with his usual 
acerbic bluntness.  "I assume you delivered the packages?"

"Yes, Sir," answered Ayaka with a broad yawn.  She forced herself to 
sit up straighter in the chair.  "The Class One preternatural entity 
identifying herself as Belldandy, as well as Lieutenant Yusaku Godai, 
were left at Tendo-san's home without any signs of trouble, per your 
instructions."  She paused for a moment.  It had been eerie to be in 
the same room with Belldandy and Tendo's eldest daughter.  The two 
women spoke with identical voices, right down to the same timbres and 
intonations.  It was an extremely odd coincidence, one she felt needful 
of further investigation on her part in the near future.

Director Kasuga nodded once, grunting out a gruff "Good."  He then sat 
back and waited for the rest of her report, watching the woman slowly 
gathering herself back together.  A slight twinkle flickered in his 
eyes, belying the professionally-stern expression he wore.  Despite his 
occasional jibes at how she lived her personal life, he knew her to be 
a good woman, not to mention also being one of his best agents.  He had 
developed a paternal sort of caring for her over their past few years 
of working together, and he kept hoping she would finally break herself 
free of her self-destructive pattern of falling for a parade of playboy 
types, men of handsome exteriors but weak characters, who used her to 
satisfy their egos or their lusts.  She needed to find herself a more 
solid sort of man and finally settle down like other women her age.

Realizing that her boss was studying her with the usual austere look he 
always gave her, she continued on with her report.  But, even as she 
spoke, a modest portion of her thoughts continued to worry at the 
night's earlier events and their aftermath.  In her mind, she examined 
the possible reasons for not bringing the Belldandy entity straight 
into Institute custody or making any efforts at neutralizing it.

Leaving an understandably shaken Godai at the Tendo household she could 
sort of comprehend, as Soun Tendo's name was well-respected throughout 
the various bureaus of Imperial intelligence, and his home did provide 
an admittedly acceptable combination of both normality and security for 
close monitoring of the young lieutenant over the near term.  The man 
had been quite surprisingly kind in agreeing to let Godai stay at his 
house, based on what she had heard about the man's fearsome reputation 
as a stone-cold professional.

As to Godai himself, he had seemed to be remarkably ordinary for having 
attracted the attentions of such an extraordinary being, even if Ayaka 
was still a bit troubled by the nature of his wish.  If she had read 
that entity's power levels correctly, whatever this 'Belldandy' was, 
she was more than capable of leveling the Imperial capital city if she 
but set her mind to it.  The sooner she was removed to a more secure 
facility, like the heavily-warded vaults beneath the Institute, the 
better it would be for everyone.

"How is my grandson, Kisaragi?" the Director interrupted suddenly.

Startled, her recitation of her report faltered for a brief moment.  
"He's fine, Sir.  None of the three children were seriously harmed in 
the incident.  What injuries they did receive were all healed by the 
Belldandy entity."  She paused a moment, considering her next words.  
"Your grandson showed great courage.  He shielded myself and the others 
and gave us time to recover from the initial attack.  I believe he has 
a great future ahead of him at the Institute."

"If he can avoid following certain glory-seeking young fools, you 
mean."  His voice was gruff, but there was a twinkle in his eyes.  "The 
Minami girl, for instance.  Reminds me of another young ghost sweeper I 
once knew, impetuous and foolhardy.  Must be something in the nature of 
redheads, I suppose."

Gritting her teeth slightly, Ayaka mumbled, "I was never foolhardy."

"Be that as it may," said the Director, apparently not having heard 
Ayaka's mutterings.  "This incident shows that young Minami needs a 
little career guidance and some personal attention for the time being.  
The girl obviously needs a mentor.  So I'm entrusting you with that 
task, Kisaragi."

"Now wait a minute!"  Ayaka's exhaustion was forgotten for the moment 
as she quickly absorbed his words.  "I've already got a job to do, 
watching that Saotome kid and the others!  There's definitely something 
funny going on with him and his associates, and I'm busy trying to get 
to the bottom of it.  Hell!  Even your own grandson has started 
associating with that group.  I'm not about to drop that to nursemaid 
along some young hotshot out to make a name for herself!"

The Director raised an eyebrow.  His voice took on a more thoughtful 
tone.  "Oh?  Well, I suppose I could find someone else to do the job.  
I understand that young Sakuranbo-san is free for an assignment now.  
Perhaps I could assign her to the Academy as a nurse or something."

"Sakura Sakuranbo?" Ayaka cried out in disbelief.  Her right eyebrow 
began twitching of its own accord, in almost perfect synchronization 
with a small vein that was now visibly pulsing in her forehead.  Having 
that oh-so-perfect, pompous, know-it-all of a priestess around would 
just be the finishing touch on her life lately!

Director Kasuga folded his hands and watched in quiet fascination as 
the mere mention of the name of the former director's niece could 
elicit such a reaction from the woman in front of him.  After all, not 
too many years past, Ayaka and Sakura had been assigned together as 
partners, one of several such teams that the Institute maintained.  
Despite both of them having rather lackluster scholastic records at the 
Institute's Academy, they had somehow managed to set standards for 
performance and case resolution that still stood to this day.

However, all of their cases seemed to conclude with sometimes quite 
significant collateral damage, earning them the nickname 'The Dirty 
Pair' among their peers in the international community of mystics and 
magic-users.  And despite their many successes, their almost constant 
bickering had eventually compromised the duo's tactical effectiveness, 
and the two had been solo operatives ever since.

"Perhaps you'd like to take a moment and reconsider your position?"  He 
steepled his fingers together and put a bland look on his face.

"This is blackmail," she growled.  Her headache had suddenly returned 
with full force.

"Yes, it is," he agreed mildly.

Ayaka knew she was beaten, but she summoned up what dignity remained to 
her.  "All right.  I'll do it."

"Excellent."  He looked her squarely in the eyes.  "I'll expect regular 
reports on young Minami's progress at controlling her youthful 
impulses, as well as how she and the others are adapting to life amidst 
the normals at the Academy.  And please keep an eye on my grandson.  As 
you said, he has a fine future ahead of him, and I will see it 
fulfilled.  You are dismissed."

"Yes, Sir," Ayaka half-growled as she stood up, angry that she had been 
ensnared so very easily.  Her grumbling as she left Director Kasuga's 
office was interrupted by an involuntary yawn and a wave of weariness.  
Unless she wanted to be dead on her feet in the morning, she had to 
resort to drastic measures.  She had just enough time for at least a 
four-hour session under one of the Institute's sleep inducers, and that 
should restore her to relatively normal functioning for the day.

A sleep inducer was a relatively simple device whose plans had been 
'borrowed' from the Russians a few years ago, consisting of a voltage 
regulator and electrodes that were taped to the eyelids and the nape of 
the neck, passing a rhythmic current between them.  This caused the 
brain to enter into a state resembling deep sleep.  They weren't very 
healthy to use for extended periods of time, but they were excellent 
for situations such as this one.

Tomorrow was going to be another busy day, she could just feel it.

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

"Hah!  Take that, slowpoke!" came the sudden exclamation of a girl's 
voice, coming from within a nearby building.  It was followed up by the 
sounds of two bodies in motion, or, more precisely, fighting.

Ranma blinked and slowly removed his hand from the inner latch of the 
gate to the grounds of the Tendo training hall.  He could not at first 
recall where he was or how he had come to be here as he looked around 
briefly, but he was quickly regaining his bearings.  He saw that it was 
a beautiful spring day, the breeze mildly warm from the sun, with the 
air smelling of a recent rain.  He shaded his eyes and looked briefly 
upwards, seeing clouds moving off and clearing.  As he did so, his 
thoughts seemed to clear even further, and he knew where he was now.

Lowering his gaze, he saw two very familiar figures moving against each 
other, exchanging a rapid series of punches and kicks.  But each strike 
was then blocked or evaded with great skill by the other.  Both were 
dressed very similarly, in black gi pants and a Chinese-style tunic.  
Ranko was in a red tunic, and her opponent was Martial-Ranma, who was 
in a blue one.  Ranma, himself dressed in a red tunic and black gi 
pants, was reminded of the dancing interplay of Yin and Yang, given 
human forms.  He watched the sight for several moments, as Ranko and 
Martial-Ranma dueled.

His doppelganger, who had been focussed on his fierce match with Ranko, 
briefly caught sight of him standing at the gate first, and he was 
distracted, for a moment at most.  But his somewhat smaller opponent 
took quick advantage of that, driving a solid punch across his jaw, 
swiftly following it up with a spin kick that impacted against his 
shoulder, leaving him off-balance and reeling.  And then the fierce 
combination attack was finished off as the girl’s other leg delivered a 
powerful ax kick that dropped down across his shoulder with sufficient 
force to slam him to the dojo floor, where he lay still for several 
moments, stunned.

"Victory!" laughed Ranko with a grin, her hand displaying the symbol 
for same as she turned to face Ranma, still standing at the gate.  She 
then casually hopped over the downed boy at her feet and headed for the 
yard.  Her expression had suddenly become thoughtful.

"Ranko," said Ranma, inclining his head for a moment as he watched her 
approach.

She said nothing, only walking up to him and stopping a single pace 
away, her eyes several centimeters below his as she locked gazes with 
him.  Behind her, Martial-Ranma sat up with a groan and rubbed his 
head, but he watched the two of them with interest.

"Hey there, Ranma," she said in reply.

"I see you're in fine form today."  He grinned at her.

She looked back more seriously and shrugged.  "It's something to do.  I 
think he's starting to go easy on me."

"The tomboy's right," said Martial-Ranma, rising to his feet.

Ranko's nostrils flared slightly for a moment, but she held her angry 
retort within and let him speak.

The other boy shrugged.  "Sorry, Sis."  He wandered away to let them 
talk in private.

While he did so, Ranko turned her gaze back to Ranma and said, "I've 
been noticing changes in you.  I think you're integrating him.  In a 
way, it's a relief, since it means that your brain is still sorting out 
all the new memories it got saddled with, even on a subconscious level, 
and that's a pretty good sign that your psyche is healing.  I'd be a 
bit more worried if your brain wasn't going through some sort of 
integration process."

"Yeah," agreed Ranma, studying his female counterpart.  "It makes sense 
and all, but it's still worrisome.  When all this is over, how much of 
me is going to be left?"

She looked perplexed for a moment and then suddenly began tapping her 
index finger against Ranma's chest, angrily punctuating her statements.  
"How much of you is going to be left?!" she growled.  "What about me?  
You think I like the idea that I'm going to become part of some stupid 
male version of myself?"

"Stupid?" he retorted, irritated at her words.  "Who are you calling 
stupid?"

"I'm calling you stupid, stupid," she snarled.  She took up a combat 
stance, her eyes glittering angrily.  "Come on.  Show me what you've 
got."

Martial-Ranma shook his head, muttered something under his breath about 
tomboys, and then he paused, feeling odd.  He raised his hand up and 
saw that it was fading, first to translucency, then to transparency, 
and then to nothingness.  The effect quickly spread across his body as 
he watched, oddly fascinated by the whole process.  He somehow knew 
what was happening to him, but he wasn't afraid.  After all, showing 
fear just wouldn't have been manly.

He smiled briefly, a Cheshire Cat sort of grin, as the last of his self 
faded away.  And then he was gone.  There was a momentary silence, and 
then a brief breeze whirled through the space where he had just been 
standing, carrying with it a few stray cherry blossoms.

Ranma's attention was still focused on the girl in front of him, and he 
was startled by her challenge.  It still disturbed him somewhat that he 
felt such an eagerness to fight, to test himself in battle against any 
who challenged him, even girls.  But with an effort, he forced himself 
to not respond in kind to her aggressive stance.

"I don't want to fight you, Ranko," he stated flatly.

"Stupid," she muttered.  Her eyes began to fill with tears, and she 
angrily began brushing them away.  "You've been fighting with me since 
I became part of you.  I'm more like you than that idiot analog of 
yours, and you reject me because I'm a girl.  You're afraid of me."  
Her body began to be wracked with sobbing.  "You hate me."

He was stunned by the accusation.  "I-I don't hate you, Ranko."  He 
took a step closer, now near enough to reach out and touch her.  He was 
at a loss about what to do.  How should he respond?

"Your other self hated having to turn into a girl physically," she said 
in accusation.  "You have me inside your head, and you hate that even 
more."  She continued to cry.  "Stupid.  You're so stupid."

Uncertain what else to do, he enfolded her in his arms in a hug.  While 
he had been growing up, his father had never hugged him, so it felt a 
bit odd to hug someone else.  He felt her body stiffen in his embrace 
in response.  Maybe it had been the wrong thing to do here, he mused.  
Then he felt her arms tentatively reach around his body as her sobs 
continued.  She clung to him, hugging him back, and crying into his 
shirt.

"I-I'm sorry, Ranko," he said awkwardly, half expecting her to haul off 
and slug him in the face.  The experiences of his analogs seemed to 
indicate that an upset girl usually prefaced violence, more often than 
not against his counterparts.  But instead of hitting him, she clung to 
him a bit more tightly, and her sobs began to quiet a bit.  He felt 
unsettled at holding a girl in his arms, but it was also pretty nice.  
He was unused to the experience, having never really hugged a girl 
before this, despite the memories taken from his analogs.  The two 
stood there for a long time, neither one speaking.

Her crying finally stopped, but she continued to hug him back.  She 
felt as uneasy as he was with such a display of affection, but it was 
also very pleasant to be held like this.  She had never had a boy hold 
her like this before.  A light blush suddenly rose on her cheeks.

"Ranma?" she said quietly, turning her face to one side.

"Yeah?"  He looked down, the top of her head reaching up to just above 
his chin.

"This feels nice."  Her voice was soft.  She moved back slightly and 
tipped her face upwards, looking him in the eyes.  "Thank you."

"S-sure," he replied, looking down at her.  He swallowed in sudden 
nervousness.  "Uh, I guess you've got every right to be angry."  
Breaking eye contact with her, he then looked quickly aside at the 
ground.  "I-I have been afraid of you."

She felt her heart turn leaden inside her chest.  He still rejected 
her, despite his earlier promise to her to try and be friends.  "I 
see," she said very quietly, a gentle quaver in her voice.

He moved his gaze back to meet hers.  He could see unshed tears 
beginning to well up within her eyes.  "I-"

"Is my being a girl that horrifying for you?" she demanded, afraid to 
hear his answer.  She cursed herself for being so weak.  She was Ranko 
Saotome!  No boy had ever beaten her in a fight, and yet here she was 
like some frightened child, terrified that this male version of herself 
would reject her once and for all, consigning her off to the depths of 
his subconscious, forever locked away in the darkness.

"N-no!" he stated, stammering a little.  He could see tears beginning 
to roll down her cheeks again as she looked up at him, her eyes wide 
open as she waited on his words.  He looked into her eyes, uncertain 
what he was feeling.  Tremors of emotion rolled through him, and his 
throat felt tight.  "I-I'm sorry."

"This is all I have left, Ranma."  She looked at him, feeling a mixture 
of confused emotions inside her.  She could tell that he was feeling 
similar feelings, watching the play of emotions on his features.  Like 
her, he had an open face that displayed emotions easily.  "You and I 
are stuck with each other, and I don't want to fight with you."  Her 
gaze turned softer.  "Don't reject me."

Ranma was surprised when Ranko suddenly lifted up on to her toes and 
kissed him.  It was a tender feeling, just a gentle touching together 
of lips-

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

Ranma snapped awake.

Bolting upright in his futon, he shook his head and quickly blinked his 
eyes, his heart pounding hard in his chest.  His eyes darted about, his 
gaze rapidly taking in the familiar surroundings of his bedroom, dimly 
lit by the silvery moonlight coming in through the window.  He began 
struggling to calm himself, his breath coming in gasps.  His comforter 
was all tangled up around him.

"W-what was that all about?" he asked, his voice unsteady.  Leaning 
forward, he put his face in his hands.  "Relax, Ranma.  It was just a 
dream.  Just a dream."

It had felt so real, like all of his dreams of late.  Ranko had felt so 
real to him, so warm and feminine-

"Stop it," he muttered to himself.  He forced himself to calm, letting 
go of the tension in his shoulders.  He had experienced erotic dreams 
before, like any young man his age would, but nothing like that.  To 
call it incestuous could not even begin to properly describe it, since 
Ranko was really another version of himself, only female.

Even as his breathing quieted, he still found himself wide awake.  He 
looked at the clock, seeing that he had a couple of hours left before 
he needed to get up for school, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to 
get back to sleep again.  His brain was far too keyed up now.  As he 
rose up from his futon, he stretched his arms and slowly rotated his 
shoulders, and he was relieved to feel no pain.  A week's rest, even 
when one had been as short as tonight's was, had restored him back to 
full health, healing the bruises and injuries from his fight with 
Utena.

A glint of moonlight reflected off the silvery CD-ROM sitting on his 
desk, attracting his attention.  Since he wasn't going to be getting 
any more sleep, he decided to make productive use of the time.  He had 
been neglecting this particular mystery for too long.  He also needed 
to finally pick up the files he had managed to obtain from the Security 
Directorate.  They had been shifting from cache to cache around the 
world, mixed in with the normal data traffic.

He sat down at his desk and powered his Navi on, idly watching as the 
screen lit up and began running through its internal diagnostics.  In a 
few moments, the system's desktop was up and running.  He swiftly 
tapped a few keys with his left hand, his right moving the mouse, as he 
hooked up to the Imperial datagrid, cloaking his trace signal with some 
rather special software of his own creation.

"First thing is to get those files before somebody stumbles on them," 
he murmured, routing himself out through a pathway that should enable 
him to slip under the Security Directorate's radar for long enough to 
retrieve his data.  After a brief search, he determined which of his 
caches was the right one and began retrieving the files, humming softly 
as the data began downloading.  As it did so, he noted that each of the 
files on Jusenkyo had originally come from the Mobius Institute, and it 
gave him a secret thrill to have outmaneuvered the spookiest group of 
spooks in the Empire's vaunted intelligence bureaus.

Within a few minutes, it was done.  He blurred out his electronic 
footprints carefully before disconnecting, cleaning up behind himself, 
even unplugging his system from its physical connection to the Imperial 
datagrid.  Then he took out the small slip of paper that had arrived 
with the CD-ROM, its words obviously meant as a challenge to him: "Are 
you smart enough to break the code?"

"I haven't met the datafile yet that I can't crack," he muttered under 
his breath.  After slipping the CD-ROM into his computer and hearing 
the drive spinning up to speed, he began his task by calling up some of 
his code-breaking tools that he had created while in Russia, purely as 
an intellectual exercise.  Some of them he was pretty certain that the 
Security Directorate would be very interested in talking to him about, 
if they knew he had them.  He began humming a German folk tune as he 
set to work.

He tapped away at a few keys, allowing the software to start up.  After 
a few moments, it came back with an analysis of the encryption.

*ENCRYPTION TYPE: UNKNOWN

Ranma sat back and ran his hand across his jaw, thinking.  This was a 
cipher code that he had never worked with before.  He was even more 
intrigued now than ever by whatever was in those files, but he could 
not ignore the nagging possibility in the back of his mind that this 
could be some kind of honeyed trap, one possibly even set for him by 
the Security Directorate.  He even wondered if Soun Tendo could be 
behind this somehow.  The man obviously had some sort of an agenda 
concerning him, but the pigtailed boy was still unable to fathom what 
the man was up to.  But why would anyone bother setting a trap for him?

The encryption lock on the disc appeared to be a bit more challenging 
for him to decrypt than he had initially supposed, but it would not be 
impossible.  And even as that challenge called to him with a siren 
song, he also knew he could not ignore the danger.  Did he want to know 
badly enough to risk prison or worse?  He tapped his finger against his 
jaw as he pondered the matter.

"Argh!" he finally growled.  "I gotta know what's on here!"  Tapping 
some more keys, he called up one more code-breaking tool, one based on 
chaos theory that he had tested but had never actually needed to use 
before.  The algorithms were extremely complex, and he had used some of 
them to hack into and set up his private data caches in a number of 
secured systems around the world.  It had been a game, ghosting in and 
out of supposedly 'impenetrable' computer systems.  With a sigh, he 
unknowingly set it off against the Empire's most secure encryption 
method, an Imperial Edict Code, possibly the most secure cipher on the 
planet.

*WORKING... PLEASE WAIT...

He sat in his chair and waited, imagining the myriad calculations 
whirling through the electronic ether.  He smiled as he pictured a tiny 
ninja with Ukyo's face, working her way past a legion of the Empire's 
best guards to get at the treasure within the castle.  He closed his 
eyes, enjoying his little fantasy.

After a time, he heard a single beep from his computer.  He opened his 
eyes, and they widened at what he saw on the screen.  He had not been 
expecting anything like this.

*PROJECT PHOENIX: IMPERIAL HUMAN ENHANCEMENT EXPERIMENT
*SUBJECT FILE NUMBER 108: SAOTOME, RANMA (NEWTYPE HUMAN - MARK II)

"It's about me?" he wondered in a soft voice.  "Newtype?  Mark Two?"

He began quickly scrolling through the preliminary information about 
Project Phoenix, starting with a brief description of the project's 
ultimate goal: to produce a eugenically-superior breed of human.  He 
read further, carefully studying the description of something called 
the Eucharist, a single-celled lifeform that was first discovered in 
the Imperial nature preserve at Ryugenzawa, originally intended to be 
used as a bioweapon.  Instead, the effort had created the first version 
of the symbiotic lifeform later dubbed the Eucharist.

During the initial infection stage, the Eucharist organism gave off an 
elaborate enzyme that caused a resequencing of a human being's entire 
genetic code, by going through each cell and comparing each pair of 
chromosomes in the DNA strands to each other.  The enzyme purged any 
genes that had no match, essentially editing away any imperfections it 
found, such as remnants of viral code or mutated genes.  In a sense, 
the host was refined on an essential level, and innate traits became 
more clearly defined.  A person became more of what they already were.

However, it would only do that if it first found a pair of specific 
genes on the seventh and ninth chromosomes, ones that caused a certain 
protein to be produced in the cells.  If it infected anyone who did not 
have those particular genes present, the organism was fatal, causing a 
quick death from total anaphylactic shock.  Assuming the host survived, 
once the organism was done with its initial editing, it then quietly 
settled in, adding an extra pair of chromosomes to each cell to ensure 
that it was carried forward to any future generations of hosts.  

Once that initial stage was complete, the symbiote began spreading very 
quickly throughout the host in a delicate, fibrous mass, forming a sort 
of web within the host's body, but it stopped growing when it reached a 
bit over a kilogram.  The host's newly-recoded DNA was then locked in 
as the basal pattern, and the symbiote would begin to aggressively hunt 
down and consume anything that did not match that pattern, such as any 
cancerous cells or infectious agents.  It basically acted like a model 
tenant, one who kept its residence in absolutely perfect working order.

He skimmed through the rest of the overview information, fascinated but 
also disturbed by what he was reading.  Among the improvements was at 
least a thirty percent increase in speed, strength, stamina, and even 
cognitive ability, although the Mark-I subjects apparently did not have 
that last enhancement to the same degree as the Mark-II subjects did.  
Increased intelligence had been the result of later refinements done to 
the Eucharist organism.

Coming across the first mention of the boost, he began reading it more 
carefully.  As part of its labors, the symbiote created a series of 
special glands throughout the host's body, which in most subjects were 
dormant for some reason.  These glands produced a complex biochemical 
serum that would combine with adrenaline and endorphin output to cause 
the body to enter into a sort of fugue state, supercharging strength 
and speed to the uppermost edge of human capability.  The serum even 
affected the brain, suppressing all fear and doubt, unleashing the 
beast that lies buried within the oldest cells of the human hindbrain, 
and turning that person into a pure fighting machine.

However, the boost did not come without great cost.  The supercharging 
burned up reserves at a prodigious rate, and a human that was pushed 
past his limits for too long would die.  Ranma shivered for a moment as 
he continued to read some of the Project's early case studies that were 
referenced in the file.  In order to prevent this, a 'limiter' had been 
subliminally programmed into the brains of the Mark-II subjects, but it 
could be overridden by another subliminal command if needed.

One side effect of the symbiote's presence caught his attention as he 
read, an attraction factor it caused with those of the opposite gender 
who also had a symbiote.  Apparently, the organism's presence caused a 
slight modification in the pheromones given off by the host's body, 
igniting a favorable response in those of the opposite gender, and an 
unfavorable one in those of the same gender.  That revelation gave him 
a very cold feeling.  That could explain the odd sensations he had been 
experiencing when he was around Akane, Kodachi, Nabiki, Ukyo, and even 
Utena.

His analogs had not experienced such feelings, and he couldn't recall 
responding in such a way when he had been around other women.  That 
could mean that he wasn't really falling for any of the girls, that his 
body was merely reacting to certain biochemical cues they were giving 
off, like some kind of love potion at work.  In a sense, his DNA was 
calling out to theirs, and vice-versa.  That knowledge was a bit of a 
relief, but it also left him even more in doubt of his own feelings.

After the overview, he came across the results of a physical exam given 
to him at age five.  An exhaustive battery of tests was listed, both 
physical and mental, including a full genetic analysis.  No physical 
abnormalities or defects had been found.  He had been deemed to be 
somewhat above-average, both physiologically and neurologically, but 
otherwise a basically normal and healthy boy, suitable for induction 
into Project Phoenix.  His own father had even approved his admittance, 
as well as his mother.

"Damn you, Pop," he whispered hollowly.  "Why didn't you ever tell me 
about any of this?"

His emotions even more in turmoil now, Ranma absently hit a few keys, 
saving the decrypted information.  He couldn't bring himself to read 
any more of the file right now.  But a number of things were starting 
to make sense now, like Soun's interest in him, not to mention Lord 
Kuno's.  Both fathers must see him as some kind of breeding stud.  Did 
the girls know?  Who could he trust now?

While fretting about all this new information, he sat and stared out 
the window quietly as the darkness began fading with the coming dawn.  
He stayed like that for a long time.

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

Frost awoke suddenly, uncertain for several moments where she was as 
cool night air lightly moved across one side of her face.  Her body 
felt comfortably warm on one side, but it ached a bit when she moved 
one hand.  Her fingers brushed against cloth and skin that was slightly 
cool to the touch.  The odd sensations brought her to full wakefulness 
and caused her to suddenly remember what had happened before she lost 
consciousness.

She had been in a battle.

She had lost.

The pale-haired sorceress lifted her head from where it lay, blinking 
her eyes several times as her usual calm quickly restored itself.  She 
began taking stock of her situation.  She found herself half-sprawled 
across the unconscious form of Gosunkugi, her head resting on his 
chest.  The window was open behind her, letting in a faint breeze.  A 
few objects and books lay scattered across the floor, mute testimony to 
the conclusion of her arcane struggle with him.

A quiet sigh escaped her lips as she began to gently clamber off of her 
slumbering companion.  She knelt quietly next to him, thinking.  In the 
dim light coming in from off the street, she appeared as an almost 
ethereal figure.  Her lips formed a slight frown, and there was a faint 
blush upon her cheeks.

Although it had been almost ten years since she had last set foot in 
her native village, she still considered herself to be a Joketsuzoku
amazon, and that carried with it certain codes of conduct.  Among those 
were the rules regarding outsiders, among those that if a male defeated 
an amazon in combat, then she must make him her husband.

Frost had spent many long years suppressing her feelings, cultivating 
within herself an emotionless detachment.  Lacking such distractions, 
her arcane skills had grown mighty.  Until today, none of her peers had 
matched her abilities in arcane combat, let alone a mere male.  But now 
she had been defeated, by a male no less, so she must take this one as 
her husband.  It was a curious state she found herself in, suddenly 
realizing how very lonely she had been from holding herself apart from 
others for so long.  The blush on her pale cheeks darkened slightly as 
long dormant emotions began trickling through her.

Her expression suddenly firmed.  Her course was now very clear to her.  
Leaning forward, Frost lightly pressed her lips against Gosunkugi's.  
It was her very first kiss, and she found a certain savor in it, even 
though her companion remained unconscious and unresponsive during it.  
It was an odd sort of sensation she felt, not unpleasant, but it left 
her with a seed of curiosity as to what it would be like to kiss her 
new husband when he was awake and could respond to her in kind.  Such a 
thought left the pale sorceress feeling unsettled and a bit uncertain 
of herself.  This was an area that she had no knowledge or experience 
in.  She decided to check some of the myriad texts in the library at 
the Institute to try and learn more.

Sitting back upright, in her native tongue she softly intoned words she 
had never before imagined herself ever speaking.  "Wo ai ni."

For a time, the girl simply knelt and gazed in solemn wonder at her new 
husband, pondering what it would be like to have him in her life.  A 
rare smile crossed her lips as she felt an odd contentment whispering 
through her.  She gracefully gathered herself to her feet as she 
gestured briefly and murmured words of power.  An invisible force 
formed beneath Gosunkugi and lifted his still unconscious form into the 
air, from where she guided it to carry him to his bed and deposit him 
there gently.  He looked a bit uncomfortable sleeping in his clothing, 
so she began to undress him in a matter-of-fact manner, until he was 
down to just his underwear.

She could see that he was thin, somewhat pale and wan, with rather 
plain facial features, but that description could be used for many of 
her peers at the Institute, both male and female.  She noted the box of 
take-out noodles on his desk, wrinkling her nose slightly at the sight, 
and she decided that her new husband deserved much better fare than 
that.  She decided to start cooking his meals as often as her duties 
allowed her, thus ensuring that he had proper nutrition.  As she turned 
back to gaze further at his face, she idly noted that it held a certain 
sort of gentleness in repose.  Another fragile smile appeared on her 
face, and she could not remember the last time she had ever felt like 
this.  Was this what it was to be happy?

Frost herself, an albino as pale as her namesake, possessed a natural 
sort of beauty and had a willowy, yet quite clearly feminine, build to 
her that she had never made any efforts at enhancing with makeup, 
revealing clothing, or any of the many other such fripperies that so 
many of her female peers devoted a great deal of time and energy to.  
Frankly, she had never seen the point.

A soft sigh escaped her lips.  She was tempted to remain and awaken her 
new husband as to his new status when the morning arrived, but her 
sense of duty compelled her to return to the Institute at once.  She 
decided to keep this encounter to herself for now, until she had a 
chance to speak with her new husband.  Her powers felt quite drained 
from their battle, but she took the time to cast a spell of healing on 
both herself and him, and then she pulled his comforter over him.  
Though still a bit unused to having such expressions on it, another 
faint ghost of a smile crossed her lips as she gently brushed back his 
unruly hair from his face, and she kissed him once more.

Before leaving, she tidied the room, giving her an opportunity to calm 
herself a bit from these uncertain feelings she was experiencing and 
restore herself to a semblance of her usual cool equanimity.  She 
carefully placed her new husband's removed clothing over the back of 
his desk chair, and then she stepped to the window.

Her staff rose to her hand at her gesture, trailing clods of earth as 
it ripped itself free from the spot where it had impaled itself.  With 
a single backwards glance at her new husband, she muttered a spell of 
flight and soared up from the window.  A gesture backwards closed the 
window behind her, and then she flew off towards the Institute.

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

"It won't be long now."

Nabiki turned her head, seeing her other self standing there at the 
edge of the dojo mat.  It came to her suddenly that this was another 
dream, one of the strange ones she had been having of late since using 
Ranma's device.

"What won't be long?" she asked, rising to her feet.  Both of them were 
dressed in Chinese-style shirts and black gi pants, tied at the ankles.  
Her own shirt was blue, and the other girl's was in green.

Martial-Nabiki smiled at her mysteriously.  "When you awaken, you'll 
challenge Ranchan.  With the Amaguriken technique, you'll defeat him."  
There was an absolute certainty in her voice.

"Yeah," Nabiki agreed with her twin.  She smiled back.  "I'll prove to 
Ranma-kun that I'm a better fighter than he is."

Her analog turned to look at the sunlight warming the yard.  She could 
see the breeze flowing across the grass, the trees moving gently in 
their places.  She heard soft footsteps as her other self joined her.

"The heir to the Anything-Goes School should be its strongest fighter," 
said Martial-Nabiki thoughtfully.  "I've given you the tools to be that 
now.  What you do from this point on is up to you."

Her twin turned to look at her.  She smiled once again.  "You'll beat 
Ranchan and show him who the true heir to the Anything-Goes School is.  
I have total faith in you."  Then she paused, feeling the last bits of 
herself slipping away.

"All that I was, all that I knew, is now yours," she said softly.  
"Remember this moment."  And then she stepped forward into her twin and 
abruptly vanished, and Nabiki felt herself falling backwards-

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

Nabiki woke up abruptly when her body hit the floor of her room, her 
limbs all tangled up in her blankets and sheets.  Grumbling, she began 
unwrapping herself.  That fat oaf Genma should have gotten her up for 
their morning sparring already.  Why had he let her sleep in like this?  
Her eyes suddenly went wide as she quickly blinked some more sleep from 
them.

"Oh," she murmured sheepishly, feeling very silly all of a sudden.  She 
hadn't felt this confused about her surroundings since that very first 
morning after her experience with Ranma's resonator.  She chuckled 
softly as she rubbed her head, still feeling somewhat out of sorts.  
Finally getting free of her sheets, she absently scratched at an itch 
on her side as she adjusted her T-shirt.

Doing some light stretching exercises to wake herself up some more, she 
kept her legs straight as she bent forward to grasp her ankles and then 
leaning back as far as she could, hearing her spine popping as it 
aligned back into proper place.  She then rolled forward into a quick 
handstand, scissoring her legs until they were parallel to the floor, 
first forward and back, and then to each side, feeling the tendons 
protesting a bit.  She finished her brief stretching routine by pushing 
off and doing an agile flip to land back on her feet.

She smiled wolfishly as she headed for the bathroom to prepare for her 
day, knowing she had to hustle.  Business had been falling off, and 
none of her cronies could explain it.  So today she was going to school 
early and start making some more pointed interrogations.  Somebody was 
moving in on her territory.  She could feel it.  But they were messing 
with the wrong girl.  She was going to show them that, for she was her 
father's daughter.

As for Ranma-kun, today she would defeat him and finally prove that she 
was the superior martial artist, for all the Academy to see.

Life was good.

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

Nodoka smiled lovingly as she watched her husband and son eating their 
breakfast, serving herself some rice now that she had served them their 
first helpings.  Ranma and his father had demonstrated much greater 
appetites lately, likely due to them both training as hard as they had 
been doing.  It pleased her to see them enjoying her cooking so much.  
This was how a family should be, now that she had instilled some proper 
table manners into them both, that is.

Genma had gotten so funny over the past several weeks, too.  When she 
had made an offhand comment about her concerns over Ranma's manliness, 
he had cringed so realistically that it made her smile.  The poor dear 
had seemed absolutely terrified of her remarks, as if she was going to 
take the family sword down and make him commit seppuku over their son's 
lack of success with girls.  But she had no worries on that front now.

There were several nice girls in the boy's life now, and that eased her 
mind about her son's prospects for marriage, not to mention producing a 
number of grandchildren.  In addition to the ones she had found for 
him, he had brought home that nice Tenjou girl to meet her.  Surely 
with so many options available to him, he would be able to pick one to 
take as his bride, or maybe even two or three of them.  No, that would 
be too much to hope for.

She felt a slight queasiness in her stomach, and she swallowed some 
more of the herbal tea she was drinking to settle it.  After a week of 
healing, the bruises from Kenseiko's strike had mostly faded by now, 
but she knew that she had been very lucky that they had hit so high on 
her midsection.  Lower down, such a hard blow could have caused her to 
miscarry, which was why she was going over to the Kunos to speak with 
her old rival and ask for a temporary truce, before something happened 
that endangered her baby.

"Mother?" asked Ranma, intruding on her thoughts.  "Are you all right?"

"Just some morning sickness, I'm afraid," she said with a rueful smile, 
forgetting that she had not yet told him about her condition.

Ranma stared at his mother in shock, his chopsticks now held frozen in 
mid-motion.  He then set his rice bowl and chopsticks down, gave Genma 
an unreadable look briefly.  "H-how long have you been pregnant?"

"Oh, only six weeks or so," she said pleasantly.  "Although your father 
has been quite busy ever since you two came home."

Ranma gave Genma another unreadable look, and then he smiled at her.  
"I see.  That's great news, Mother.  Congratulations."

"Thank you," she replied with a smile.  "Think of it, Son.  You're 
going to have a little brother or sister before too long."

"Yeah."  He smiled back, but his mind was stunned by the news.  Picking 
up his bowl, he busied himself with his food, consuming the last of it.  
Setting it back down, he said, "I've gotta get to school."

He got up from his place at the table, lightly kissed his mother on the 
cheek, and gave Genma a deadly look when her back was turned as she got 
up to get him his lunch.  He held the look steady as the man swallowed 
nervously.  He had let himself be distracted for too long.  He had to 
get rid of this idiot who had taken his father's place, and send him 
back where he belonged.

"Have a nice day at school, Ranma," Nodoka said with a smile, turning 
around and handing him a boxed lunch.  She watched him leave, wondering 
why he didn't seem as happy as he sounded.  She shrugged her shoulders.  
He had just been surprised.  That was all there was to it.

"More breakfast, Dearest?"  There was a pause.  "Why are you sweating?"

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

Hitomi Gosunkugi was a devoted mother.

The slender woman bustled about the small kitchen preparing breakfast 
with a skill born of years of practice.  The scent of fried eggs, rice 
and cooked vegetables permeated the room.  She briefly glanced towards 
the hallway, listening for the sounds of her son moving around.  She 
frowned slightly when she heard nothing.  Her beloved little boy had 
been staying up very late for many nights now, leaving him a little 
slow to arise in the mornings.

As she waited for signs of life from her son's small bedroom, the front 
doorbell rang, startling her.  She lowered the heat on the stove and 
hurried to answer the door, absently wiping her hands on the front of 
her apron.  She heard the sounds of paper crinkling in one of the front 
pockets, suddenly remembering that was where she had placed the glossy 
pamphlet she had been perusing earlier.  She would look at it again 
later, after her son had gone to school.  She smoothed down her hair 
with one hand before opening the door.

"Good morning," she said warmly, but her bright smile suddenly turned 
plastic when she recognized who the figure standing out in the hallway 
was.  Her rigid smile remained forced-looking as she bowed slightly in 
greeting.

"Good morning, Gosunkugi-san," said Minami, somewhat more brusquely 
than was considered proper for a girl her age to address one of her 
elders.  She locked gazes for a few moments with the older woman, her 
greeting smile turning forced when she saw it wasn't Gosunkugi-kun 
answering the door.

Hitomi gritted her teeth behind her façade as she struggled to maintain 
it, betraying only a slight hint of her irritation with the young ghost 
sweeper.  Minami was an arrogant, swaggering loudmouth of a girl, and 
the older woman was perplexed as to why the redhead kept hanging around 
her dear, sweet son.  He was such a gentle boy, quiet, thoughtful, and 
introspective, much like his dearly departed father had been before his 
untimely loss.

Eyeing the girl's trim figure, Hitomi commented dryly, "You've lost a 
bit of weight it seems, Minami-chan.  Finally keeping to one of your 
diets?"

"It was simply a matter of willpower," the girl replied with a laugh 
that set the older woman's teeth even further on edge.  "Nothing for a 
ghost sweeper of my matchless abilities to do once I set my mind to 
it."  She peeked around Hitomi.  "Is Hikaru-kun ready to go yet?  I 
thought I'd give him the immeasurable privilege this morning of walking 
with me to the Academy."

"He's still getting ready," began Hitomi, stopping abruptly when the 
girl suddenly breezed by her and headed in the direction of her son's 
room.  With a sigh, she closed the door and went back to the kitchen, 
knowing that she had lost another round with the young ghost sweeper.

"That idiot is going to make us late," Minami muttered under her breath 
as she stomped towards her goal.  "And after I went to the trouble of 
going out of my way to give him the singular honor of walking with me."

In the kitchen, Hitomi's hand felt the rumpled pamphlet in her pocket, 
and she pulled it out.  Genom's logo was proudly displayed in large 
print across the front, as well as their corporate motto: "More Human 
Than Human."

A sigh escaped her lips as she contemplated what she was about to do. 
It was fairly obvious that most of her son's difficulties with that 
redheaded annoyance to her life stemmed from a basic lack of manly 
self-confidence and experience with girls.  Well, there was a simple 
way to fix that, one that offered many other tangible benefits as well.  
Giving her son his own lilith would be like picking out a bride for 
him, but one who would never treat him badly or be unfaithful.  The 
only problem was that she wasn't certain she could afford one, and she 
hoped they had financing options.  But no matter the expense, a lilith 
was certainly a much better prospect than having her beloved son marry 
some bullying little shrew like Manami Minami.

She smiled more genuinely as she imagined her beloved son's reaction to 
receiving his own personal lilith.  She pocketed the pamphlet again as 
she busied herself finishing up breakfast.  The day was looking much 
brighter.

Her little boy would be so grateful that he had such a devoted mother.

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

Gosunkugi laughed triumphantly as Ranma fell before him, even as he 
unleashed another barrage of lightning from his fingertips for good 
measure.  The still-smoking corpse of Kodachi rested just behind the 
other boy, her eyes wide open and unseeing, and her limbs all askew.  
Off to one side, both Akane and Minami watched him with adoration 
sparkling in their eyes, bearing loving witness to his inevitable 
victory.  Both girls were dressed in silky wisps of outfits that left 
very little to the imagination.

The pigtailed boy convulsed and screamed as the energies ripped through 
his body, coughing up some blood.  But he managed to lift one arm in a 
pleading gesture when the barrage finally ended.  "G-Gosunkugi-sama, 
please-"

Gosunkugi cut him off as he sneered, "Mercy?  You seek mercy?  After 
your pet noblewoman brutalized my precious Akane-chan?"  He half-turned 
from his foe to gaze upon his beloved.  And Minami.  "Shall I give him 
mercy, my love?"

The Tendo girl's look was cold as she gazed upon Ranma in his weakness.  
It was obvious that Gosunkugi was the stronger.  "Just kill him," she 
purred.  "He sickens me."

"Yes, Hikaru-kun," agreed the ghost sweeper breathily, bobbing her head 
up and down in an adoring nod as she thrust out her bosom in quite an 
appealing manner.  "You're so masterful," she sighed out loud.

"As you wish."  He felt the energies gathering once more within him, 
more power than he had ever dreamed possible.  "How I pity you, Ranma 
Saotome.  Only at the last moments of your life do you see that it was 
I who was always the better man."  With that, he unleashed more of his 
lightning into the other boy once again, enjoying the final, lingering 
screams.  When it was done, the other boy's twitching corpse collapsed 
to the ground, still smoking slightly.

Both girls rushed for Gosunkugi, even as he blew some lingering vapors 
from his fingertips.  This was how it should be, he mused, feeling both 
girls hugging him, pressing their nubile bodies against his own slender 
frame.  But in the back of his mind, he wondered why Minami was there.  
His true love was his warrior goddess, Akane.  And to prove it, he drew 
her in for a deep kiss-

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

Minami had been leaning over Gosunkugi's slumbering form, preparing to 
slug him on his shoulder with her fist and yell into his ear to wake 
him up, when he suddenly sat up and she found herself grabbed into a 
hug.  Before she could respond, he drew her close and kissed her quite 
deeply.  Her eyes went wide, and she felt her strength seem to abandon 
her for a moment.  It wasn't her first kiss with a boy, but it still 
caused the world to take on a hazy, pleasant sort of quality, and she 
quickly found herself leaning into the embrace.

"I love you, Akane Tendo," he murmured when his lips finally released 
hers.

Her awareness snapped back into sudden focus.  Akane Tendo?  Who the 
hell was Akane Tendo?  A jealous fury surged up within her, and her 
arcane powers swelled to immense proportions within her, fed by the 
sudden rush of emotions, unleashing an explosive blast of raw magic.  
Fortunately for the boy's continuing health, the energy was released in 
an unfocused surge throughout his room, most of it blowing out his 
windows in a multihued blast of power.  Even so, he was still lifted up 
and hurled away from his bed and into the wall, landing with a hard 
thump and sliding down to the floor.

His clothing still smoldering slightly, he looked confusedly at the 
ghost sweeper.  What she was doing in his room?  Why did she look so 
angry?
 
"W-what did you think you were doing, Hikaru-kun?" snapped Minami in 
decidedly angry tones, her face blushing very brightly.  He had kissed 
her!  He had kissed her, thinking she was another girl!  "H-how dare 
you-?"  She left off, suddenly unable to continue with her tirade.

No longer possessed of the calm arrogance of his dream self, he was 
left gaping at the sight of the blushing, stammering girl.  Unsure what 
to do, he stood up, babbling protestations of innocence-

-and his clothing disintegrated from the last lingering traces of the 
raw magic they had been hit with.

Her eyes widened, and she blinked several times in rapid succession.  
The fading blush on her cheeks surged back up with full force during 
those few seconds.

"I-I'm sorry!" he stammered as he quickly grabbed a sheet to cover his 
nakedness.  "It was an accident!"

"Pervert!"  Although she had been trained to calmly deal with all kinds 
of demons (and could admit to herself that she had an odd fascination 
for those of the naughty tentacle variety), this was another matter 
entirely.  This was her Hikaru-kun, the boy she had known since they 
were both eight years old.  She unleashed another bolt of raw magical 
force at him and fled from the room, tears flooding from her eyes.

Regaining his feet after her parting shot, Gosunkugi surveyed the 
blasted wreckage of his room.  The day had only begun, and it was 
already looking bad.  Somehow, this was all Saotome's fault.

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

The ghost sweeper's blind run finally came to a halt some ways away 
from Gosunkugi's apartment building.  Storm clouds blew by overhead, 
reflecting her mood.  Tears still rolled down her face, and she angrily 
wiped them away.  She felt like such a fool.

"H-how could he t-treat me like that?" she growled, trying to hold back 
the tears with anger as she started to head towards the Academy.  Her 
heart sank further in her chest as her memory kept repeating what had 
just happened, the kiss, and then his pronouncement of love for someone 
else.  Fresh tears began rolling down her cheeks, and she stopped, a 
mournful sob escaping her as she leaned heavily against a light pole.  
How could he want someone else?  How could he love someone else?

She felt empty inside.  The boy she lov- liked a lot, and he wanted 
someone else.  He wanted this Akane Tendo girl, not her.

Anger began building up inside her again, and her tears began to stop.  
She was not going to give up.  She had worked too hard to give up now.  
Hikaru-kun was hers!  Whoever this little tramp was, she was not going 
to have him!

Minami wiped her eyes, feeling better now that she had decided on a 
course of action.  First thing, she had to find out who this girl was.  
And she had gone to the Imperial Academy long enough to know that the 
best source for information was Nabiki Ten-

Wait.  Nabiki Tendo?  Akane Tendo?  The ghost sweeper blinked, and then 
her eyes narrowed.  She had heard Akane's name before, from her new 
friend Yohko, that the girl was a violent sort by nature.  She had also 
heard from the young devil hunter that this Akane person had fairly 
recently developed a fixation on the other new annoyance in Minami's 
life, Ranma Saotome.  Because of that jerk, she huffed, her perfect 
debut at the Imperial Academy had been ruined.

An evil smile lit her face.  It was all so very clear to her now.  Her 
initial notion of frying the bimbo down to bone and gristle, while a 
pleasant one, was set aside.  Instead, she was going to become Akane's 
good friend, and she would help the little thug win Ranma.  That should 
eliminate her rival for Hikaru-kun's heart, and be a very wonderful 
form of revenge on that creep, Saotome.

After laughing in a chilling fashion for a moment, she continued her 
journey to school.

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

Hinako padded softly into her den, her hair still slightly dampened 
from her morning shower, dressed in a snug, light green robe that was 
decorated with a golden phoenix that wrapped around her torso.  She 
carried a cup of gently-steaming tea in her hands as she strolled 
across the length of the room, where not a single book or paper could 
be seen out of place.  She was an orderly and careful person, and it 
showed in how she kept her home, especially here, her private sanctum.

Sitting down at her desk, she tapped a key and the computer screen woke 
from sleep mode.  She could see a symbol blinking away in the bottom 
right-hand corner of the screen.  She smiled.  The datatap she had 
ordered placed within Ranma's computer had something to report.  One of 
her men had installed it several days ago when the house had been 
empty.

Moving the cursor over the icon, she tapped the mouse once, bringing up 
a duplicate desktop of whatever the boy had been working on.  Her eyes 
widened a bit at what she saw, and her smile deepened.  He had done the 
impossible and hacked through the Empire's most secure data encryption 
method in less than thirty minutes.

"Oh, Ranma-kun," she murmured in sultry tones.  "No wonder Soun is so 
interested in you.  What a find you are."  She read through the file a 
bit more intently, her interest in the boy growing, a smile appearing 
on her lips.

"Soun was wise to keep an eye on you, Ranma."  She paused and thought 
for a moment.  "But you would be wasted under his guidance, so I think 
I'll make you mine instead.  After all, you and I could do many great 
things in the Empire.  I'm so looking forward to talking with you.  
With you at my side, I'm sure we'll go very far in the Empire 
together."  Her smile grew more lustful.  "And I can teach you a great 
many wonderful, pleasurable things.  Things that a handsome, virile 
young man like yourself would find very interesting."

Swiveling her chair around to face the window, she sipped at her tea.  
Her recent investigations into the boy's life had come up with three 
marriage contracts filed with the Ministry of Information, and one of 
them had been to Nabiki Tendo.  It was yet another surprising thing to 
learn about the boy.  She chuckled softly.

It would be a modest challenge to break the boy away from his arranged 
marriage to the Tendo girl, and it would be a quite delightful slap in 
the face of her arch-nemesis, Soun.  As to the other girls, if any of 
them dared object to her claiming the Saotome boy, she would simply 
squash them like troublesome insects.  That gave her a notion.

A martial arts duel over the boy had a certain dramatic appeal, but 
only the Kuonji girl had any notable fighting skills.  It was a pity 
that Soun's daughter had let her combat abilities decay since her 
mother's untimely death.  Beating Nabiki to a bloody mess in single 
combat would have been enjoyable, and also quite legal under the 
Empire's dueling laws.  And if any of the other girls were unwise 
enough to choose to make an issue of the boy, Hinako would gladly knock 
out a few of their teeth, purely as an object lesson, perhaps even 
breaking a major bone or two if they gave her much of a challenge.  Not 
that any of them could, she mused with a smile.

Yes, a duel would make things so much tidier.  Once defeated, the girls 
would be honor bound to release their claims on Ranma.  Then that only 
left the matter of dealing with the boy's parents, potentially a more 
challenging issue.  As for Ranma himself?  Seducing him around to her 
way of thinking would be mere child's play to one of her experience.  
Despite his intellectual gifts, he was still a hormonally-challenged 
teenaged boy of very limited experience with the opposite sex.

Hinako sensuously crossed her long legs as she sipped some more of her 
tea, and she began laughing seductively.

The pigtailed boy's handsome body and his brilliant mind would be hers 
to play with and use as she saw fit.

It was only a matter of time.

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

Nanami Jinnai stood chatting casually with Ami Mizuno as she eyed the 
crowd with a portion of her awareness, noting with satisfaction the 
membership of the Ranma Saotome Fan Club strewn throughout the crowd, 
waiting for the object of their desires, nearly two dozen girls in all.  
Word had spread through the campus like wildfire last week about his 
comeback victory over Utena Tenjou, the 'Prince of Ohtori'.  She had 
made a tidy profit, selling more pictures of him, pictures taken by a 
confederate of hers at Ohtori.

"She's watching us again," commented Ami, pretending to write something 
down that Nanami had said in her notebook as she mentally prepared 
herself for Ranma's arrival on campus.  It would not be long now.  A 
member of the club had reported him less than a block away as she 
passed them by, not making eye contact with either of them as she had 
taken up a spot near the outer wall to wait with the others.

Nanami smiled.  "Let her watch.  She hasn't seen anything yet."

Ami glanced around, noting the looks of determination on the faces of 
the girls from the club.  Due to his injuries received during the match 
against Utena, a vote had been taken, narrowly approving delaying their 
first assault upon him.  But today they would show Ranma the depths of 
their feelings for him.  They would show him their strength and their 
worthiness of him.
 
                   ******************************

"What are you looking at, Yohko?"

Nabiki paused in her questioning of Hiroshi, glancing over to where her 
best friend was standing guard, watching out for any instructors coming 
by.  Her fist was bunched into the front of the boy's jacket, holding 
him firmly.  Her inquiries had been coming up dry all morning, and she 
was starting to think she was simply being paranoid.  But someone had 
been moving in on her organization, and someone had trapped Ranma in 
the locker room with the Wolf Pack a few weeks ago.

The devil hunter looked back and shrugged.  "There's some kind of odd 
tension in a number of the girls over by the main gate.  They're trying 
to be pretty casual about it, but they look like they're waiting for 
something.  And that leader-wannabe, Jinnai, looks like she's up to 
something, with Ami Mizuno of all people."

"S-senpai," said Hiroshi, feeling a sharp trickling of fear at her 
rough treatment.  While she hadn't yet hurt him in any way, he could 
sense her frustration.  "I really don't know what you're talking about.  
I'm loyal to you.  I always have been."

"Shut up for a moment, Hiroshi-kun," Nabiki commanded, tightening her 
grip in his jacket a little more.  This was something that she normally 
had Akane or Yohko take care of, but there was something to be said for 
the personal touch.  "Waiting?" she asked Yohko, her brow furrowing a 
bit.  It was likely to congratulate Ranma on his victory, she mused.  
Cadets had been doing that all last week.  Everyone loved a winner.  
But soon enough that would be her, and Ranma would be yesterday's news.

She turned her attentions back to her captive, adding her other hand to 
her grip on his collar and lifting him off his feet a couple of inches.  
Her training had been improving her strength quite a bit, and she made 
use of it now to make an impression upon the boy.  She brought him back 
down and leaned in close.

"Hiroshi-kun," she said pleasantly, pulling him nose to nose with her.  
"If I find that you've lied to me, you won't like the results.  Are you 
absolutely certain that there isn't anything that you'd like to tell 
me, your senpai?"

"N-nothing," he stammered.  His nervousness grew when he saw her gaze 
darkening.  He looked away.  "I don't know anything."

Nabiki smiled.  "You're lying, Hiroshi-kun," she purred, her grip on 
his jacket tightening.  "I think you do know something.  Something that 
you'd like to tell me."

"Nabiki!" hissed Yohko suddenly.

"I-I can't," the boy whimpered.

He was getting close to spilling something.  The Tendo girl could tell.  
She smiled coldly.  At last she was getting somewhere.  At last she 
would have a lead on this mystery challenger to her dominion.

"Nabiki!" Yohko hissed again.  A moment later, she said in a pleasant 
tone of voice, "Why hello, Sensei.  Looks like rain today, doesn't it?"

Nabiki quickly released her hold on Hiroshi and let him go.  She could 
always find him again later.  She walked around the corner to join 
Yohko, greeting the instructor who had walked by, all innocent smiles 
and pleasant tones.  Where was Ranma?  He should be here already.

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

Ranma paused for a moment as he felt another sneeze suddenly come over 
him.  He had sneezed several times this morning, and he wondered if he 
was coming down with something.  He had never been sick before, which 
he now knew was due to the presence of his symbiote, but maybe there 
was a first time for everything.  He stood at the gates of the Academy 
as he rubbed his nose for a brief moment, dressed in his blue uniform, 
his other clothes in his bookbag.  He looked at the sky.  It looked 
like the storm was about to break.

His battle with Utena came to mind.  He smiled briefly at the memory of 
the pink-haired girl a week ago.  She was certainly easier to get along 
with than Nabiki often was, and sometimes even Kodachi was.  She was 
quite a bit like Ukyo in personality, someone that he could enjoy a 
comfortable friendship with.  Maybe more.  Ukyo had certainly been fun 
to be with on their one date so far, but the Ohtori cadet had been 
quite enjoyable to talk with too.

As he stood there, lost in his thoughts, male and female cadets in blue 
and gray uniforms passed by him, a number of them giving him pleasant 
smiles or friendly nods.  His uncharacteristic actions of late had been 
raising his favor among his fellow cadets, but he felt embarrassed by 
the attention.  He had gotten used to being ignored by everyone.

"There he is!" came a cry from a female voice.  Hearing a deep rumbling 
sound moving up quickly behind him, he turned around and gaped at what 
he saw.  A number of girls were now converging on him from several 
directions, running hard.

"Ranma Saotome!" cried the first to reach him, a trim girl in a gray 
uniform.  "Feel the strength of my passion!"  And she tried to hit him.

"What the heck?" he blurted out, evading the strike with a quick shift 
of his weight to the right.  Several more girls had reached him by that 
time, all of them in an offensive posture.  Why were they all attacking 
him?

"I love you, Saotome-san!"  A shorter girl in a blue uniform lunged at 
him with a flying kick aimed at his head, her unexpected statement 
nearly giving her the drop on him.

"What the hell is going on over there?" snapped Nabiki, echoing Ranma's 
own question, seeing him suddenly being assaulted by a large number of 
female cadets.  Nearly two dozen girls were involved.  Some of them 
were even armed, wielding bo sticks, nunchuks, and even one with a pair 
of sais.

Ranma had his hands full for several moments, as he quickly began to 
deal with the sheer number of opponents now piling onto him.  He evaded 
and blocked their strikes, throwing punches and kicks around him in 
reply.  While he was pulling his blows, unwilling to hurt any of the 
girls, it was proving to be somewhat of a challenge to his abilities.  
Unlike the worlds of his counterparts, several of these students had a 
fair amount of martial arts training, mainly the ones in gray uniforms.

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

"So that's him?  One of the students you wish me to train?"

"Yes," said Fuyutsuki with a brief nod, watching the boy's impromptu 
fight with interest.  He glanced once at the Chinese man standing next 
to him at the window, a handsome gentleman with gray salted throughout 
his straight hair, dressed in a white silk shirt and dark blue pants.  
"He has good potential, wouldn't you say?"  He received only a grunt 
from the other in return.

"I haven't said I agreed to anything yet," said the man, turning away 
from the window and presenting a face known Empire-wide for his many 
film exploits and from his days spent fighting in the Arena, Jun Fan 
Lee.  His grim look faded into a slight smile.  "He does seem to fight 
well enough, but I think a more severe test is in order before I make 
up my mind.  And I would also like to see the other one you mentioned 
in action."

"I'm sure that something could be arranged."  Fuyutsuki steepled his 
fingers together as he sat back in his chair.

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

"Please tell me that you're getting all this, Mizuno-san," whispered 
Nanami in an urgent aside to the other girl.

"Yes."  Ami quickly checked the images she was receiving from the tiny 
cameras she and Nanami had concealed early this morning.  She flipped 
viewing angles, and she nodded in satisfaction.  "I'm getting some 
really good footage.  It's wonderful."  Her voice was becoming a little 
breathless as she gazed raptly at Ranma in motion.

Ami's brief reverie was interrupted as Nanami snapped her fingers a few 
times before her eyes.  "Is it enough for analysis?"

"Oh, yes," the science cadet replied.  "I should be able to give you a 
preliminary tactical analysis of Saotome-san's fighting abilities by 
lunchtime."  She winced as she watched the pigtailed boy side-step two 
girls coming in from either side of him, one girl ending up kneeing the 
other in the face.  "I should be able to let you know of any weak 
points in his technique by then, if he has any."

"Excellent."  Nanami rubbed her hands together gleefully.  Selling that 
information to the other members of the club would be a very profitable 
endeavor.

Ami went back to her study of Ranma.  Such a brilliant mind, combined 
with such stirring athletic ability in action.  Watching him fight with 
such supreme grace and skill left her feeling surprisingly weak in the 
knees, and she desperately wished that she too had the courage to talk 
to him, to declare her feelings for him like so many other girls were 
doing.  But she knew she wasn't a fighter, and her own analysis was 
conclusive in her eyes that he was attracted to stronger girls than she 
would ever be.  It would take a miracle for her to ever be able to 
fight that well.  Resigning herself to her fate, she quietly continued 
filming him, her heart aching within her chest.

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

Standing with his trio of catgirls by the main building, Kinnosuke 
Kashuoh calmly eyed the fierce battle taking place, his gaze alight 
with interest.  He closely watched the other boy's technique, seeking 
for any weaknesses that he could exploit.  He kept watching as girl 
after girl attacked and was skillfully taken down, but he was a bit 
puzzled as to their goal.  They weren't trying to seriously hurt him, 
just subdue him.  What was going on?

Tiger, like the other two catgirls with Kinnosuke, stood in a state of 
relaxed readiness, like a soldier at ease.  She too watched Ranma's 
battle with interest, watching his body twisting and moving with grace 
and speed as he dealt with his attackers.  She licked her lips, her 
mouth suddenly feeling a little dry, a headache coming over her as she 
thought about him.  Why was Ranma able to draw her attention away from 
her beloved Kinnosuke-sama?  There was something on the edge of her 
memory, but it evaded her more deftly the harder she tried to reach for 
it.

"Tiger," Kinnosuke said firmly.  He looked at her, noting her attention 
lingering on the pigtailed boy for a moment longer than he cared to see 
before snapping to meet his.  It was oddly irritating, almost as if he 
was jealous.  But that was impossible.  The lilith was simply a tool 
for him to use and eventually to be discarded when her usefulness was 
at an end, nothing more than that.

"Yes, Kinnosuke-sama?"  Her breathing was slightly elevated.  She saw 
that her beloved master was looking at her with a slight frown.

"How soon until we are ready to strike?"

"Within a day, maybe two, Kinnosuke-sama," said Tiger firmly.  "We have 
gathered quite a number of stray cats and have them penned in the old, 
abandoned dormitory's basement, but we still aren't up to the number 
you required."

"Very well."  He took her chin gently in his hand, tipping her head up 
slightly, his gaze boring into her eyes.  "I want this mission to go 
off without flaw, Tiger.  I wish my debut to Nabiki Tendo and Ranma 
Saotome to be done with proper drama."  His gaze briefly dipped down 
her front, and he felt lust stirring within him.  It would be difficult 
now to concentrate on his studies today.  He reluctantly brought his 
gaze back up to her face.

"I look forward to crushing him when he is sniveling with fear before 
me from his pathetic little phobia."  Then he smiled.  "I've also given 
the matter some thought and I have decided to give you a gift, Tiger."  
He looked over at Lynx and Panther.  "For all three of you, actually."

"A gift?"  Their ears perked up happily.  They loved getting presents.

"While I deal with Saotome, the three of you are to keep the Tendo girl 
occupied, as well as anyone else who may try to interfere with my 
private business with him."  His grip tightened painfully on the 
catgirl's jaw, and he dropped his gaze to look into her eyes again.  
"But there is to be no serious damage done to Nabiki, Tiger.  I want 
her to fall by my hand and by mine alone, once I'm done with breaking 
Saotome.  She's mine.  Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

"Yes, Kinnosuke-sama," she replied softly.  "It shall be done as you 
command."  The other two nodded.

"Excellent, you three."  He nodded and released her.  "Excellent."  He 
looked at them.  "Now go!" he snapped.  "Gather more felines."

"Yes, Kinnosuke-sama!" they cried out as one and ran off.

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

Less than a minute later, it was over.  Girls lay strewn around Ranma 
in various states of disarray, groaning as they tried to catch their 
breath.  Some even had broken weapons still clutched in their hands.  
Hearing a car approaching, he kept his guard up as he turned around and 
saw the Kuno family limousine pulling up to the curb outside the gates, 
and then Kodachi gracefully emerged from within.

"Would you get a load of that?" remarked Yohko with a note of amusement 
in her voice as she stood with her best friend, the pair having watched 
his battle with the girls from a distance.  Nabiki had been standing 
rather rigidly during the entire fight, her body almost seeming to 
quiver with a desire to involve herself in it, but she had demurred.  
Yohko lightly elbowed the Tendo girl to attract her attention.  "Her 
royal highness has arrived."

"Yeah," Nabiki replied, a bit absently.  Her intense gaze had been 
tightly locked on to Ranma during the entire fight, and that same gaze 
narrowed ever more dangerously when she saw him walk over and greet the 
other girl in a friendly manner.  Her right hand briefly clenched into 
a fist at her side.  "I can see that."

"Good morning, Kodachi," Ranma said in greeting, relaxing a bit.

"Good morning, Saotome-kun."  She paused before him and bowed.  She 
looked past him and saw what seemed to be the remnants of a war zone.  
"My goodness.  What happened here?"

"I honestly don't know," he confessed, shaking his head.  "They all, 
well, just came up and attacked me."

Kodachi blinked and studied the girls gathering themselves back up from 
the ground.  It reminded her of scenes from Sukeban-Kodachi's life at 
Furinkan Reformatory School.  Getting attacked by the many gang girls 
there had been a common start to her day.  She turned back to look at 
him, her eyes wide.  "All of them?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, putting his hand behind his head and looking a bit 
embarrassed.

"You poor dear."  She sidled closer to him, stepping over some of the 
fallen girls.  Her voice briefly lowered in clear disapproval as she 
looked at the girls.  "Such brutish hoodlums."  When she was near him, 
she brightened.  "I would be pleased if you could escort me away from 
this dreadful scene and walk me to class, Saotome-kun."

"Sure, I guess," he replied, nodding.  Ranma began walking her to the 
main building.  He didn't notice her trodding on the occasional hand or 
limb as she walked just behind him.  He was more focused on keeping an 
eye out for Nabiki, but he hadn't seen her yet.

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

Ukyo's feet landed noiselessly on the roof of one of the buildings next 
to the Academy.  The journey had only taken her several minutes of 
quick roof-hopping, not even enough to dull the edge from the nervous 
energy that seemed to fill her this morning as she bathed and changed 
into her uniform a short while ago.  Just the mere thought of seeing 
the pigtailed boy again filled her with joy.

The ninja girl smiled as she hunted for her target from her vantage 
point, her gaze scanning through the knots of cadets moving through the 
main gate and around outside the main building.  A single bound brought 
her across the length of the narrow street to land with a light thump 
in a crouching position on the high wall surrounding the grounds.  She 
continued scanning the many cadets moving around, her eyes questing for 
one face in particular.

With a grin, she suddenly spied him among a group of cadets, walking 
towards the main building.  But her grin turned to a frown when she saw 
who he was talking and walking with: Kodachi Kuno.  The noblewoman was 
standing just a little too close to her Ranchan for her tastes.  The 
ninja girl felt quite irritated at the sight.  She leaped high into the 
air, unsheathing her battle spatula for balance and hoping to spook her 
rival for the pigtailed boy's attention a bit.

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

Standing a short distance away, Nabiki continued glaring at Ranma and 
Kodachi walking together, even as she remained partially hidden behind 
a tree with Yohko, observing her fiancé.  Suddenly, she caught a rapid 
flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye, and she glanced upwards 
to see a figure come hurtling down upon the pigtailed boy from above.  
She lost sight of his assailant in the glare of the morning sun, but 
she was certain she had seen a weapon raised to strike.  Reacting from 
instinct, she charged out from beneath the tree and took to the air in 
a high, leaping kick.

Ukyo was only moments away from landing behind Ranma, and her knees 
were half-bent to absorb the shock of her landing.  She grinned broadly 
as she imagined the shock that the Kuno girl would have at her sudden 
appearance.  But as she began her descent, out of the corner of her eye 
she saw someone suddenly appear out of nowhere and come leaping upwards 
at her in an obvious attack.

"Whoa!" she yelped, barely evading the savage attack of her unexpected 
opponent.  She flipped herself around in midair, re-angling her landing 
spot with great acrobatic skill.  However, by doing so, she dropped 
down a bit too close to Ranma, more so than she had originally 
intended.

Nabiki finally saw who her foe was as they had flashed by each other, 
recognizing Ukyo, dressed in the gray uniform of a male Security cadet.  
She was surprised when she missed the other girl cleanly, something 
that indicated she faced a much more highly-skilled fighter than she 
had calculated.  She flipped over in midair and descended gracefully, 
curious to see what the other girl intended.

As she walked demurely alongside her fiancé, Kodachi's thoughts had 
drifted off into one of her many fantasies, starting with the two of 
them alone together, and then quickly growing more salacious.  If only 
the pigtailed boy could be more like Kaoru-kun was, she mused, her 
thoughts floating off in a very unintended direction.  Memories from 
her other self, of the Black Rose of Furinkan Reformatory High School, 
and of her boyfriend, another version of the Ohtori cadet, came over 
her.  She slowed her pace slightly as she enjoyed the erotic fantasy.

Hearing a yell behind him, Ranma managed to half-turn around to see a 
figure come hurtling in his direction, feet first.  Reacting from sheer 
instinct, he swiftly dove to one side, forgetting at the last moment 
that the Kuno girl had been standing with him, now lost in thought.  As 
fast as he could, he leaped back towards her.

"Saotome-kun?" asked Kodachi as she opened her eyes, suddenly aware of 
his motion away from her.  She took a step in her confusion and ended 
up occupying almost the same space he had just vacated.  The young 
noblewoman glanced around her, startled to see the look on his face 
when she saw him.  She could see need in his eyes, and her heart leapt 
within her chest.  She closed her eyes and waited for what she was sure 
would be a passionate embrace and kiss from her beloved.

Ukyo, finding herself unable to violate the laws of physics any further 
than she had already done, touched down, her feet landing squarely atop 
Kodachi's skull.  The male-uniformed ninja girl bounced off and upwards 
a moment later, flipping her body agilely and finally ending up landing 
next to the pigtailed boy, but she had unintentionally transferred a 
significant amount of kinetic energy down into the unsuspecting young 
noblewoman.

Kodachi slammed hard into the soft grass, nose first, her head planted 
into the sod deeply enough to cover her face up to her ears.  Her body 
came to rest fully prone, her limbs sprawled all around her.  She 
rested like that for several moments, almost motionless, her only sign 
of life a slight twitching, quite obviously stunned.

Oh damn, Ranma thought with a sinking feeling in his gut.  He stood 
where he was and stared at the girl's fallen form, and he quickly knelt 
to make sure that she wasn't seriously hurt.  He briefly imagined that 
he heard fading echoes of laughter in the back of his mind.  First that 
gang of girls attacking him and now this.  Similar events from other 
worlds flashed across his mind.

"Uh, good morning, Ranchan," Ukyo said with a little smile, quickly 
resheathing her large battle spatula, her use of the nickname intended 
to be a teasing joke.  Standing near him like she was, she felt a blush 
surge up into her face, reddening her cheeks.  She suddenly could not 
seem to figure out what to do with her hands, now currently fidgeting 
with one of her small throwing spatulas.

Her thoughts began wandering off into odd directions, and she could not 
seem to bring herself to move to stand as far away from him as her 
mother had once told her that propriety required between a boy and a 
girl.  In one small corner of her suddenly chaotic thoughts, she also 
felt a little guilty at her actions, but she knew that they weren't 
really her fault.  Nabiki had tried to attack her, so it was actually 
the Tendo girl's fault.  She glanced around to find her foe.

The crowd began to whisper theories about what was going on, seeing a 
very male-looking Ukyo talking in a friendly and rather affectionate 
manner to Ranma, Nabiki apparently having just attacked the strange, 
new boy for unknown reasons, and Kodachi now lying face-down in the 
grass.  Some of the theories quickly being traded around were pretty 
wild.  In addition, several young women suddenly sighed dreamily at 
their first clear look at the attractive stranger.

All in all, it was a most embarrassing and uncomfortable moment, most 
especially for Ranma.  He sighed and looked glum.  Why was this stuff 
happening to him?

Nabiki and Ukyo caught sight of each other at roughly the same moment.  
The expressions on their faces were ones of uncertainty verging on a 
possible outbreak of further violence.  The latter possibility seemed 
to be the more likely outcome as moments passed.

Terrific, thought the Tendo girl wryly.  The cross-dressing weirdo has 
shown up, and in full costume for her part.  Flashes of memories from 
her counterpart's life filled her mind's eye for a moment.  She eyed 
the ninja with a most unfriendly gaze.  It figures that she'd be a 
student here, she realized.  But she'd better not be Ranma-kun's 
fiancée in this world, or he and I are going to have words, harsh 
words.  She flexed her hands unconsciously, briefly closing them into 
fists.

What's her problem? wondered Ukyo, meeting the cool-eyed glare she was 
getting from the other girl with one of her own.  This was the second 
time she had run into Nabiki, and the second-term girl clearly intended 
to be trouble, but she was sure it wouldn't be anything she couldn't 
handle.  Bring it on, girl, she mused.  I could use a light workout as 
I feed you your own teeth.  The ninja then turned her eyes towards 
Ranma, finding him to be a much more pleasant sight to look at.

Kodachi, after taking a few moments recovering from the shock of what 
had just happened, slowly levered herself up.  A few random clods of 
dirt fell free of her face and hair.  She felt the sting of scratches 
all over her face.  Fury filled her.

"I'm sorry about your friend, Ranchan," said Ukyo mildly, although she 
wasn't really too sorry about the face-planting done to the noblewoman.  
After all, a weak girl like that should stay away from her fiancé, she 
thought.  In the back of her mind, she knew she could definitely get 
used to the feelings the pigtailed boy was giving her, similar to the 
charge she always felt near Ryoga over the last few years.  But unlike 
her long-time sparring partner and rival, the pigtailed boy always 
acted much more friendly and nice to her, and the combination was kind 
of intoxicating to her.  She twiddled her fingers together nervously.

"Uh."  Ranma looked uncertain how to respond.  He glanced from one girl 
to the next, at a loss as to what to do.  This was totally unlike the 
first meetings that his counterparts were around to experience on their 
own respective worlds.  He saw Ukyo gazing at him with a soft look on 
her face.  He saw Kodachi glaring evilly at the Kuonji girl.  Looking 
over to one side, he saw Nabiki studying the situation with a slight 
frown on her face too, her attention mainly on the ninja.  This did not 
bode well.

"YOU!" suddenly roared Kodachi, breaking the momentary peace.  "How 
dare you do such a thing to a lady of quality, you brute!  I demand an 
apology from you immediately!"  She had seen that smirking face before.  
It was that cross-dressing peasant that she had run into a few weeks 
back at Ohtori Academy.  She stalked over to the okonomiyaki chef, 
feeling her fury rising with each step.

The male-uniformed ninja was annoyed.  The stupid girl coming towards 
her had been too slow to get out of the way, and Ukyo's change of 
direction during her leap hadn't even been her fault in the first 
place.  She smirked a bit more at the several scratches on the other 
girl's face, fearing little threat from someone who could be taken down 
so easily by such an unintentional sort of attack.  Even a lumbering 
buffoon like Ryoga could have gotten out of the way, she felt certain.

"Friend of yours, Ranchan?" she asked pleasantly, as if she had never 
met Kodachi before, a wicked glint in her eye as she glanced over at 
the noblewoman taking up station next to his other shoulder.

"Uh, sort of," Ranma mumbled.  "This is Kodachi Kuno, a classmate of 
mine here at the Academy."  He paused.  "And a close friend."

"Hey there, Kuno-san," said Ukyo casually, waving once.

"I'm still waiting for an apology, you," growled Kodachi from Ranma's 
right.  Noting him glancing at her, she quickly smoothed her face as 
best she could and calmed her voice for his benefit.  It would not do 
at all to let him think she was anything less than a lady of the very 
highest quality.  But she could still not resist letting at least one 
more barb fly.  "What is your name, you barbarian?"

"Ukyo Kuonji," said the ninja girl, starting to lose some of her cool.  
"What's it to you?"  She started groused in her thoughts.  Who does 
this piece of fluff think she's talking to, acting so tough?  She knows 
exactly who I am already!  The two had met briefly in Utena's room at 
Ohtori Academy, but they had been interrupted before coming to blows.  
The Kuonji girl was quite willing to correct that oversight now.

"I am Kodachi Kuno," said the noblewoman grandly, with a lazy wave of 
her hand.  "Not that someone with your obvious background would ever 
recognize my name."

Ukyo's features darkened.  She glared at the other girl.  "And what's 
THAT supposed to mean?"

Nabiki watched the little exchange going on over by Ranma with a frown.  
It looks like I get to save you from your growing fan club, Ranma-baka, 
she thought, irritated at his passiveness.  Admittedly, the sight of 
the two girls arguing over the pigtailed boy had set off an urge to 
protect him from any trouble, but it was an urge she was containing for 
now.  After what he had done the other day, being far too friendly with 
that Utena tramp, she decided to let him stew a bit longer before she 
finally came to his rescue.  Then he would see that he needed her help 
and guidance to avoid such problems in the future.

Please don't fight, Ranma kept repeating in his thoughts, his mouth too 
dry to speak from his current nervousness.  The urge to run for cover 
was growing within him.  He felt trapped in a nightmare, fearing that 
violence was just moments away.

"Anyway," said Ukyo more pleasantly, after glancing at him.  "I just 
became a cadet here, so I was hoping that Ranchan would show me around.  
I'll also be cooking his lunch for him," she then added as a sudden 
afterthought.  Twirling one of her throwing spatulas in her hand, she 
smiled in challenge.  "Okonomiyaki, the best in the Empire, of course."

Kodachi glared at the ninja through narrowed eyes, her back teeth 
grinding, the urge to brutally beat the girl in male garb totally black 
and blue almost overpowering her control.  This PEASANT dared to refuse 
her an apology?  She quickly regained control of her emotions again 
before speaking, a feminine chuckle now coloring her voice.  "I'm sure 
such a pedestrian repast would be acceptable under other circumstances, 
but Saotome-kun shall be dining with me this afternoon on much finer 
foods than such common peasant fare, as we do every day."  She took a 
deceptively firm hold of the pigtailed boy's arm and smiled sweetly at 
Ukyo.

The Kuonji girl was not one to back down from a challenge.  Ever.  
After quickly re-sheathing her small spatula, she grabbed Ranma's other 
arm tightly and said with the same level of sweetness in her voice, 
"I'm sure that my Ranchan would really prefer to eat something I made 
him, rather than something obviously put together by servants for some 
rich little snob who probably can't even boil water."

Ranma swallowed down a suddenly drier throat, glancing over at Nabiki 
and hoping for some assistance.  Seeing the frown remaining on the 
older girl's face, he sighed.  No help there.  He resolved to get 
himself out of this by just being up front and direct with the two 
girls currently glaring at each other and clutching his arms ever 
tighter.  After all, in a few moments the blood flow was certain to be 
cut off to his hands if he didn't do something.

"Wh-why don't I eat lunch with both of you?" he ventured hopefully.  
"I'm sure I'll be really hungry."  He smiled at them as warmly as his 
nervousness would allow.

"Well," Kodachi said slowly, feeling her heart suddenly racing a bit at 
the look on his face.  She really didn't want to make him feel 
uncomfortable, so she decided to be magnanimous about it this time, as 
she was sure a true lady would.  "That sounds fair, Saotome-kun."  She 
turned a less than genuine smile in Ukyo's direction.  "Perhaps a brief 
truce, Kuonji-san?  For now?"

"I'm game, Sugar," Ukyo replied with false cheer.  So Ranchan liked 
this prissy bimbo chasing after him, eh?   She considered the potential 
challenge that the Kuno girl represented and promptly dismissed her as 
a threat.  A ninja of her skills was not about to lose to someone like 
that.  And pounding her pretty face into so much mush was going to be 
the very least that she planned to do to the other girl, if she didn't 
back off on Ranma.  The same went for the Tendo girl, and she owed that 
one a few hard punches (and maybe a kick) into her face anyway.

She smiled cutely at the pigtailed boy and said, "You can decide whose 
food you like better.  Right, Ranchan?"  And it better be mine, you 
jackass, she growled in her thoughts.  I worked damn hard for the past 
few weeks to improve my cooking skills with Aunt Yumi's recipes, and I 
refuse to lose to some snobby bitch who probably can't find her way 
around a kitchen without a compass and a map.

Hmph, look at him, growled Nabiki in her thoughts.  He has himself a 
regular little harem going on over there.  All he needs now is to have 
that Utena tramp around to complete his set.

Looking like a man heading to the gallows, Ranma was escorted into the 
main building with both girls still firmly holding onto his arms.

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

Morning classes began with homeroom.  Ukyo stood at the front of the 
room as Ayaka gathered her class notes, still feeling a bit fragile.  
She smiled at the new addition to the class, and she wasn't the only 
one.  As she straightened papers, many of the female cadets gazed 
happily at the ninja, some even sighing.

Minami sat in her seat and looked up at the handsome boy in front of 
the class, at first simply trying to find something else to look at 
while she was pointedly ignoring Gosunkugi.  Her breath was taken away 
as she gazed at the handsome figure in gray.  What a gorgeous boy, she 
thought, feeling a blush warming her cheeks and a silly smile appearing 
on her lips.  She leaned forward on her desk and sighed for a long 
moment, resting her chin in her cupped hands, Gosunkugi forgotten for 
the moment.

"Class, this is Ukyo Kuonji, who will be joining us as a new cadet this 
term," announced Ayaka solemnly, still feeling a little fragile this 
morning.

"Hello."  Ukyo smiled and bowed to the class.  "It's an honor to be 
here."

Ranma was struck by the differences and similarities in this version of 
events from how they had happened in the worlds of his analogs.  The 
Kuonji girl was dressed as a boy and was his fiancée, but everything 
else was quite different.  But she hadn't shown up wanting to beat him 
up.  That was a definite plus.

"Kisaragi-sensei," said Minami, suddenly standing up.

"Yes, Minami-san?"  Ayaka looked at the girl, making a mental note that 
she still needed to have a chat with her, but that would have to wait 
until she felt better.  The girl's perkiness was a little unnerving 
right now, especially in her current condition.

"Kuonji-san can sit here next to me," the ghost sweeper said, gesturing 
at the seat next to her, on the other side from where Gosunkugi sat.  
She smiled brightly.  "Right here."

"Uh, that's fine, Minami-san."  Ayaka took a quick glance around the 
room, but she wasn't seeing any other available seats that were in any 
better position.  She pointed at the seat that the girl suggested.  
"Take your seat please, Kuonji-san."

"Yes, Ma'am."  Ukyo gracefully strolled the length of the classroom, 
followed by the eyes of numerous girls, before finally taking her ease 
in the seat next to Minami.  She nodded pleasantly to the ghost sweeper 
and said, "Hello."

"I'm a new student here as well, so I hope we can get to be friends," 
Minami said, leaning forward and smiling.  The swell of her bosom was 
emphasized by the position.

"Uh, yeah."  Ukyo nodded, thinking she may have made a mistake sitting 
here.  The other girl's friendliness was a little overdone.

Quietly sitting on the other side of the ghost sweeper, Gosunkugi 
glared sullenly at the new addition to the class and brooded grimly.  
His mood had grown progressively darker since waking up from his 
pleasant dream to the hell of his real life.  His great spell of 
revenge, intended to punish the wretch Saotome, had failed, and even 
the tome he had used to cast it from had vanished.  Now Minami was not 
only ignoring him, she was gazing at the new prettyboy in their class 
like a hungry cat sizing up a canary.  And why did he even care that 
she had an interest in some guy?

Life wasn't fair.  All he had wanted to do was to make Saotome and his 
pet noblewoman thug suffer.  Was that so much to ask?  The object of 
his hate was athletic, intelligent, and good-looking, all the things 
that he wasn't, and he hated the other boy for that almost as much as 
for what he had done to Akane.  So intent was he on glaring at the 
pigtailed boy, that he didn't realize that his lips were forming the 
words of a spell.

Ranma felt a sudden drowsiness coming over him, and his thoughts began 
to riffle.  Brief images of Ranko floated up, and he shook his head a 
bit to clear it.  Then his mind drifted to memories of Jusenkyo from 
his other selves, the fall into a pool, and the horrifying results.  
The sudden rush of fear snapped him back awake, and he looked around 
while Kisaragi-sensei was finishing up with checking attendance.

Gosunkugi's lips suddenly quirked into a cold smile.  He wasn't sure 
how, but he had received a clear image suddenly appearing in his mind 
of how he would finally attain his revenge on Ranma Saotome: Jusenkyo.  
It was perfect.  Why hadn't he thought of it before?

He wasn't sure how he knew of such a place as Jusenkyo, but it had a 
familiar ring to it.  And didn't the Institute have several storage 
areas of mystical artifacts around Tokyo?  Again, for some odd reason, 
he was quite sure they did.  But how he knew didn't matter, he quickly 
resolved.  He would find a way to douse his nemesis with some type of 
Jusenkyo water, and then the Institute could come and take the other 
boy away for study, like a human lab rat.  Yes, that would be a fitting 
retribution.

Ayaka whirled at the sound of manic laughter erupting from the back of 
the classroom, the shrill tones aggravating her headache.  She quickly
launched the chalk-filled eraser she had in her hand.  Gosunkugi's loud 
peal of laughter was cut off sharply when it smacked him squarely in 
the face.

"Gosunkugi!  Go stand in the hall!"  She winced at the sound of her own 
voice.

Shocked back to his senses for the moment, Gosunkugi walked past 
Minami, ignoring her muttered "Idiot" comment.  He kept his face calm 
as he opened the door, and he only turned once to glance briefly at the 
pigtailed boy.  He then walked out into the hallway and closed the door 
behind him.

Ranma was puzzled.  What had that been all about?  Then he considered 
it.  It was just Gosunkugi.  The guy wasn't any real threat to him, in 
any world.  He went back to half-listening to the instructor's lecture 
as she resumed speaking, another very forgettable lesson on the natural 
superiority of Imperial Japan and its way of life when compared to the 
lot of the rest of the world.

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

After homeroom was over, Minami was surprised to see Kisaragi-sensei 
approach her while she was chatting with the new boy.  While she was 
partly doing it out of a desire to punish Gosunkugi, and hoping to make 
him a bit jealous by her flirting, she could also admit that she found 
the new boy to be quite handsome.  He had the most beautiful facial 
features that she had ever seen on a guy, with an almost feminine cast 
to them, but Ukyo was definitely masculine from his mannerisms.  He was 
also very much a gentleman, not letting his gaze linger lecherously on 
her bosom like most boys would, even though she was giving him numerous 
opportunities to study her figure.  It was both charming to find a boy 
that self-controlled, and also a bit vexing.

"Minami-san,  I'd like to see you in my office right now," said Ayaka 
calmly.  "Please come with me."

"Yes, Kisaragi-sensei."  She got up from her desk and bowed briefly to 
Ukyo.  "See you later, Kuonji-kun."

"Uh, yeah," the ninja replied with a casual wave of her hand.  "Later."  
She sighed briefly when the ghost sweeper was safely out of sight.  It 
wasn't the very first time that a girl had expressed such interest in 
her, thinking she was really a boy, but it was always disconcerting.  
Ukyo was a girl, and while she wasn't particularly attracted to other 
girls, she had been out on dates with a few as part of her pretense at 
being a boy.

She considered herself lucky at having had a close friend at her old 
school that was willing to pretend to be her girlfriend, something that 
would have scandalized her mother.  While it had been useful at fending 
off the unwanted attentions of any other girls, she had to endure the 
boys bragging about their sexual conquests around her and asking about 
her own exploits in that area, having a steady girlfriend.  She had 
always just shrugged and refused to comment, which had given her a 
reputation for being a cool guy.

Ukyo glanced over at Ranma's empty desk, a wistful grin appearing on 
her face.  He had smiled and waved goodbye to her as he headed for some 
special martial arts training class he was in.  She wished that she 
could have gone with him.  She wasn't relishing playing catch-up in her 
other classes.  Maybe he could help tutor her or something.

Even though they had not yet spent a lot of time together, she felt 
that there was something special about him, like they had this kind of 
connection with each other.  He knew the true self that lay beneath her 
male disguise, and it didn't seem to bother him that she dressed like a 
boy.  They were comfortable with each other when they were together, 
able to talk and laugh together like the best of friends, and he seemed 
to know her quite well for so short a time they had known each other.  
It had been a lot of fun going out on a date with him, and she was 
grateful to discover that she could be his friend as well as his 
fiancée.  Their budding friendship enhanced the physical attraction she 
felt for him.

In her pursuit of Ranma, the only difficulty she could see was the 
interference of those other girls.  Physically dominating them and 
driving them away from her fiancé was the simplest course of action.  
As the best fighter by far at her old school, she was quite sure of her 
abilities, despite her aunt's warnings against overconfidence.  While 
her encounter with them this morning had shown that the Kuno girl's 
threat level was laughable, Nabiki's seemed much more formidable.  It 
was a welcome challenge.

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

"So what did you want to talk to me about, Kisaragi-sensei?" Minami 
asked as she closed the door to the office.  She saw the older woman 
half-seated against the edge of her desk.

Ayaka looked at her new charge steadily and said, "What was that stunt 
you pulled last night?  You could have gotten Kasuga-kun killed, not to 
mention yourself.  You only have a trainee's license.  You had no right 
to try and take on something that powerful.  Director Kasuga was not 
pleased to hear that you dragged his grandson into that mess.  The 
words 'glory-seeking young fool' were even used."

Gulping, Minami's usual bravado temporarily deserting her.  "I-"

Ayaka abruptly held up one hand.  "Save it.  Because of that little 
stunt of yours, I've been given instructions to mentor you and offer 
you the benefit of my experience as a ghost sweeper."

"I see."  Minami looked down at the floor, trying her very best to look 
humble.

Ayaka sighed.  "Director Kasuga thinks you're salvageable, but right 
now I have my doubts.  You've caused me a lot of trouble, Minami-san."  
She paused.  "I wonder.  Do you have what it really takes to earn your 
license and be a fully-fledged ghost sweeper?  I'm warning you now that 
I won't make it easy on you.  My boss has given me carte blanche in 
overseeing you."  She felt bothered that the man may have been right, 
that the girl was just like she herself had been like at that age, a 
young hotshot.

"I can take any training you care to throw at me," Minami shot back, 
raising her eyes to meet the other woman's.  Her usual bravado was 
resurfacing.  "I'm not afraid."

Ayaka leaned forward suddenly.  "You will be."  Her gaze became much 
more fearsome as her voice lowered.  "You will be."

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

Nabiki eyed the storm clouds moving by overhead as she stepped out of 
the door leading to the girls locker room.  She was dressed in one of 
her light-green Chinese-style shirts and a pair of black gi pants, tied 
tightly at the waist and ankles.  She lifted her arms up high over her 
head, lacing her fingers together as she stretched, feeling the muscles 
in her upper back and shoulders loosening a bit.

With a confident swagger in her step, she calmly strolled across the 
pavement to the training mat.  She nodded to the coach, noting absently 
that he had a thoughtful expression on his face for some reason.  She 
sat down and began warming up with some stretching exercises, leaning 
forward and grabbing her left foot for several seconds, and then her 
right, her body bending almost double as she felt the muscles loosening 
up.  It felt good to be moving around like this, preparing her body for 
some serious training, getting her blood flowing.

Kodachi emerged from the locker room, glancing around for the pigtailed 
boy as was her usual habit each day.  She didn't see him, catching 
sight of Nabiki instead.  She frowned.  Her dear brother was honoring 
his vow to the Tendo girl after his loss at her hands, but without him 
around to provide a distraction, she was proving to be most annoying.  
At least that cross-dressing savage wasn't joining their class.

Taking her place a suitable distance from the vexing presence of the 
middle Tendo daughter, she began performing her own set of warm-up 
exercises.  Her mother had been working her hard in their private 
training sessions, and she was hopeful that today would finally be the 
day when she would crush her nemesis, and show the pigtailed boy that 
she was truly the most worthy of him.  After a brief, rather disdainful 
glance at the other girl, she started into some serious stretching.

Stepping out from the boys locker area, Ranma was dressed in one of his 
red Chinese-style shirts and a pair of black gi pants, tied at the 
ankles and waist.  Storm clouds rolled lazily across the skies, heavy 
and black with moisture.  He walked over to sit between Nabiki and 
Kodachi, taking his usual position between them.

"Hey, Ranma-kun," the Tendo girl drawled to him in greeting, leaning 
forward, her legs together as she bent almost double, giving him a 
rather nice view of the swell of her breasts within her Chinese-style 
shirt as she moved.  A measuring look was in her eyes as she gazed at 
him, as well as a slight smirk on her lips.  She then went back to 
focusing on her exercises.

"Hello, Saotome-kun," said Kodachi with her usual, slightly shy smile.  
She changed her position to work on one leg some more, unintentionally 
giving him a rather nice view of her derriere as she leaned forward and 
stretched.  She did not hear his sudden gulp as he gazed at the sight.

Ranma quickly shut his eyes to the sight, half afraid that Akane was 
going to suddenly appear and accuse him of being a pervert.  Then he 
paused, feeling silly.  He sat down and began stretching and warming 
himself up for practice.  What was he thinking?  But he kept his eyes 
shut anyway.

The Tendo girl was the first of them to notice a stranger approaching, 
accompanied by Fuyutsuki.  As the man got closer, her eyes widened.  
She could not quite believe who she was seeing coming towards them.

It was Bruce Lee.

Memories from her other self suddenly burst across her mind's eye, of 
breaks from training sometimes spent in grungy movie houses, watching 
the film exploits of a man who had been dead for years on that other 
world.  She had never had much interest in the man's movies in her own 
life, where his career had spanned for years longer, so it was a double 
shock to see him, here and now, an older man, walking up to her with a 
casual stride.

"Stand and bow, cadets!" snapped Coach Fujinami like a drill sergeant.  
"We have guests."

All three teenagers snapped to their feet.  Ranma reacted to the sight 
of the man walking towards them with a similar level of surprise to how 
Nabiki had felt.  And Kodachi felt a thrill as well when she realized 
who was approaching.  All three of them hastened to bow with respect to 
the man now standing before them.

"Good morning, cadets," said Fuyutsuki calmly.  "It is my great honor 
to present Master Jun Fan Lee to you, who has most graciously accepted 
an invitation extended by the Imperial Academy to consider instructing 
one or more of you as his students.  I trust you will do your best to 
prove yourself worthy of consideration for that."

"Hello," said Lee calmly, studying the trio now before him.  He briefly 
inclined his head, a slightly amused look on his face.

Kodachi was the first to find her voice.  "It would be an honor to be 
able to study with Lee-sensei, of course."

"Yeah, like you'd be his first choice for a student, Kuno-hime," Nabiki 
drawled in an aside to the young noblewoman.  "It's pretty obvious who 
among us would be the best choice."

The Kuno girl felt a vein begin pulsing on her forehead, and she barely 
restrained herself from attempting to pummel her nemesis right then and 
there.  Instead, she shot a deadly glance at the other girl.  It was 
infuriating to her to be spoken to with such disrespect, especially by 
one of her rivals for Ranma, but she chose to endure it stoically, as a 
true lady would.

Ranma decided to keep his mouth shut for the moment, waiting to hear 
what the man had to say.  He didn't care very much for Nabiki's tone of 
voice though.  He spared a brief glance at the two girls on his right, 
then returned his gaze to the front.  

"Allow me to introduce your prospective students, Lee-sensei," said 
Fuyutsuki, with a measure of pride in his voice as he pointed at each 
one in turn.  "This young man is Ranma Saotome.  The girl next to him 
is Nabiki Tendo.  And next to her is Lady Kodachi Kuno.  They have been 
training together for the past few weeks."

"Lee-sensei," Ranma said, bowing respectfully once again, an act that 
was mirrored by Kodachi and Nabiki.

After studying them again for a few moments, Lee said, "So which of you 
is the best fighter?"

"I am," Nabiki and Ranma abruptly said, in almost perfect stereo.  They 
both quickly frowned and eyed each other.

"It seems there is a difference of opinion between the two of you."

"Yeah, it appears so," said the pigtailed boy, looking towards Nabiki 
again.  There was an odd sense of inevitability to the scene now taking 
place, he realized.  That now-familiar competitive fire began to burn 
within him once again.

"Then perhaps you could demonstrate your fighting skills, to see who I 
choose to take as my student."

Nabiki showed her teeth in a mirthless smile as she returned her 
fiancé's look steadily, and she said, almost tenderly, "It looks like 
it's time to put it to the test, Ranma-kun."

"It looks like it," he replied in a similar tone, his gaze now firmly 
locked with hers.

Both of them licked suddenly dry lips briefly, as they continued to 
hold each other's gaze, an unspoken understanding passing between them.  
Their hearts began speeding up, their breathing deepened, and there was 
an increase in the tension in the air between them, like lightning on a 
summer night.  It was almost, but not quite, a sexual attraction at 
that moment.  They felt, deep down inside, the struggle for dominance 
existing between them, more important to them than life itself, and 
both of them could feel it slowly taking over, becoming inescapable.

"Saotome-kun," Kodachi whispered, suddenly fearing.  She could not help 
but notice the intense, passionate gaze he was sharing with the Tendo 
girl, and she started to move between them when a hand fell on her 
shoulder.  She saw Fuyutsuki standing there, and he gently pulled her 
back out of possible danger.

Cocking his head, Lee smiled slightly as he noticed the postures of the 
two young warriors changing.  He gestured towards Coach Fujinami and 
the two men moved back as well, moving to stand beneath the awning on 
the building with Fuyutsuki and Kodachi.  None of them had a place in 
what was about to take place.  It was now solely in the hands of the 
boy and girl in front of them.

Nabiki found herself eager to begin.  She felt a tingling in the back 
of her brain, like a foretaste of a buzzing, her mind entering into a 
state of supreme focus, one that she could only recall feeling a few 
times before in her young life.  She licked her lips again briefly, her 
eyes never leaving Ranma's even as his eyes never left hers.

The familiar buzzing appeared in the very back of the pigtailed boy's 
hindbrain, like a coiled dragon, young and eager to fight, simply 
waiting to be unleashed.  He held it back for now, knowing what the 
boost was now, and its dangers.  Besides, he was confident he would 
beat Nabiki without it.  He'd beaten her before without using it, and 
he'd do so again.

A single drop of rain hit the ground with a wet splat, momentarily 
breaking the tension.

Nabiki suddenly surged forward, taking the initiative with a vengeance 
and launching into a quick volley of punches and kicks, testing her 
adversary's defenses.  She held back on her new speed a small amount, 
planning to save it for a surprise.  She didn't want a quick end to 
this.  She wanted to beat Ranma only after he recognized the true 
superiority of her skills.

A bolt of lightning arced in the distance and a crack of thunder rolled 
across the skies as the pigtailed boy blocked and evaded her attacks.  
This was no sparring match.  Both of them were now fighting in sincere 
earnest, each determined to take the other down.  She had gotten better 
since their last encounter, and he struggled with her to hold on to the 
initiative, which quickly fluctuated back and forth between them in 
roughly equal measure.

Nabiki slipped her head a fraction of an inch to one side, allowing his 
fist to blur by her head, narrowly missing her jaw.  A grim smile lit 
her face when Ranma took the initiative back from her once again.  She 
experienced once again a fierce joy that her counterpart would probably 
never know, to face him like this, to be challenged by him like this.  
Like before, there was a raw intensity to her struggle with him, an 
excitement coursing through her that no other opponent had ever given 
to her or to her counterpart.

Cocking his head slightly to one side, Lee watched the two young 
fighters engage each other.  Neither of them had managed to hit with 
any serious force into the other yet, stymied for the moment by their 
roughly equal level of skill.  But that wasn't the most amazing thing 
about their battle.  No, what amazed him the most was the core style 
they were using, buried under maneuvers gleaned from many dozens of 
other styles: the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts.

Ranma rocked Nabiki back with a punch to her ribs, the first solid blow 
he had managed to get in this fight.  Her defenses were beginning to 
show minute holes, and he battered against them, struggling to pry them 
open farther.  But his own defenses were beginning to tatter as well.  
He managed to land a kick into her thigh, a punch into her face, and 
then a drenching rain began to fall, cold on his skin as it soaked into 
his clothing within moments.  Unconsciously anticipating the change, he 
was left momentarily off-balance when it didn't occur.

The rain had plastered Nabiki's clothing to her body, chilling her, but 
she was a fraction of a second faster than her foe to realize that the 
change wasn't going to happen.  She tasted blood in her mouth, felt the 
ache of the deep bruise in her ribs, and knew it was time to unleash 
her surprise on him.

"KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!"

The pigtailed boy was taken completely off-guard as a blinding flurry 
of punches ripped into his body and face by her fists, tearing through 
his already tattering defenses.  While the first hundred or so blows 
from Nabiki's fists impacted into him, he regretted withholding the 
boost, and now it was too late.  Sometime before the rest were driven 
into him, he lost consciousness.

Kodachi let out a muffled gasp as Ranma's body was lifted free of the 
ground by the sheer volume of punches that his opponent ravaged him 
with, as the brutal attack swiftly pummeled him unconscious.  Seemingly 
in slow motion, his form arced back, a burst of crimson escaping his 
lips as he rose and fell, landing on his back on the mat.  In a surge, 
the young noblewoman broke free of Fuyutsuki and quickly rushed to her 
fiancé's side, calling his name, heedless of the rain now drenching her 
body.

Nearly exhausted by her efforts, the Tendo girl half-collapsed to her 
knees, panting, her lungs scavenging every trace of oxygen they could.  
She had won.  A wolfish grin lit her face as she at that thought, but 
it quickly turned to a frown as she watched the Kuno girl take charge 
of Ranma, the young noblewoman glancing back at her once with a grim 
look before returning her full attention to the fallen boy.

The brief, intense rain had stopped, the storm clouds moving by slowly 
overhead as a hand fell on her shoulder.  She looked up to see Lee 
looking down at her with an inscrutable expression.  She blinked and 
looked up at him, a question in her eyes.  Did this mean that she was 
going to be his apprentice?

"You fought well," Lee said calmly.  He looked over at Ranma's fallen 
form.  "Both of you did."  With a nod at Fuyutsuki, he stepped away 
from the Tendo girl and said, "I will teach the boy."

Nabiki felt her ego seem to shatter within her from surprise.  What had 
he just said?

"But, I won," she said, feeling a little bewildered, standing up.  "I 
proved that I'm the strongest fighter, stronger than he is."

Lee looked mildly at Nabiki.  "You are also arrogant, and I did not 
necessarily say that I would instruct the victor."  He gazed at the 
boy, who was still unconscious and being tended to by Kodachi.  "In 
time, perhaps I will take you on as my student as well.  But for now, 
Saotome-san will be the one that I teach.  He shows great promise."

"Thank you, Lee-sensei," said Fuyutsuki with a smile, stepping forward 
quickly.  "I'm sure that Saotome-san will make you a fine student.  And 
consider the resources of this institution to be at your disposal for 
as long as you are here."

Lee nodded to Fuyutsuki.  "When the boy wakes up, tell him that I will 
begin his training tomorrow."  He bowed once, and then he walked off.

Kodachi gazed down at Ranma's bruised face resting in her lap, feeling 
pride filling her as she gently wiped the blood from his face with her 
handkerchief.  She felt warm inside at his nearness as she tended him, 
a background mutter in her thoughts as her other selves whispered to 
each other.  Scholar-Kodachi was especially pleased.  Her Saotome-kun 
was going to become an apprentice of the great Jun Fan Lee, the Dragon.  
They were all so happy for him within her, looking forward to having 
him as her husband.  Even the Black Rose was intrigued.  And with such 
a great master training him, he was certain to surpass that hateful 
cow, Nabiki Tendo.

Standing alone, watching the Kuno girl caring for the pigtailed boy, 
Nabiki closed one hand into a fist at her side.  So what if she had 
been rejected in favor of Ranma-kun?  There were other teachers.  She 
would find one to teach her and show both of them how strong she was, 
especially the pigtailed boy.

Why did the thought that he might surpass her hurt so much inside?  She 
wanted him to be strong, didn't she?  But if he became stronger than 
she was, he wouldn't need her, she realized.  That was what hurt. Her 
other self liked being needed, liked being the one people looked at to 
deal with any problems that came up.  But here, if he took that spot, 
he wouldn't need her, not like that other Ranma needed her other self.  
So she couldn't let him do that.  She had to maintain her edge over him 
somehow.

"Why don't you two girls head to the locker room, change clothes, and 
dry off?" suggested Fuyutsuki.  "I'll have the coach take Saotome to 
the infirmary, and we'll continue your training inside."

"Yes, Sir," both girls replied, interrupting their respective musings.

Kodachi helped the coach pick up Ranma, and then she followed Nabiki 
back to the locker room.  Maybe now that the pigtailed boy had weakened 
the other girl, she could take advantage and deal her nemesis some 
vengeance for Saotome-kun's sake.  She almost purred as she looked 
forward to it.

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

Sometime later, Ranma awoke on a bed in the infirmary.  He was startled 
to see Genma sitting on a chair, reading the newspaper.  He sat up, and 
the older man frowned.

"Beaten up by a girl, or so I heard," Genma said grimly.

"Shut up, Pop," Ranma grumbled back.

Genma tossed Ranma his uniform jacket, smacking him in the face with 
it.

"Get dressed," Genma commanded.  "We don't want to be late for dinner."

Ranma slipped out of bed and put on his jacket and shoes.  He heard 
Genma grumbling behind him.  He turned to face the older man.

Genma frowned, obviously displeased.  "You're a poor excuse for the son 
I knew, even if he was half-girl, but at least you did something right 
today.  You got lucky, you little punk."

"Huh?  What do you mean?"

"It seems that Lee took pity on you and decided to take you on as his 
student, instead of Nabiki."  Genma suddenly exploded, "How could you 
let yourself be beaten by some slip of a girl?  You're a disgrace!"

"Don't push me, old man," Ranma growled.  "I still haven't forgiven you 
for this morning."  Then he blinked.  Waitasec.  He was Lee's student?  
That was unexpectedly good news.

Genma smirked.  "Deal with it, Boy.  I'm your father now, and you can't 
do a thing about it.  I've seen to that."

Ranma frowned, but he said nothing.  We'll see, old man.  We'll see.

As they walked out of the main building of the Academy, Genma glanced 
over at Ranma.  "By the way, tomorrow night, you've got a date with 
Tendo-kun's daughter, Nabiki.  I arranged it with Soun, so I don't want 
you screwing it up.  Got me?"

Ranma's mood darkened even more.  It sounded like the fake was getting 
along quite well with the other fathers.

"I'm not going out on any date with Nabiki," Ranma declared, mentally 
digging in his heels.

Genma smirked.  "Afraid she'll beat you up again, if you two are left 
alone together?"

The pigtailed boy grumbled, but he said nothing more.  Fine.  He'd take 
her on a stupid date.

And so the two men headed out the gates of the Academy, a pair that was 
not quite father and son, each one lost in their own thoughts.


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

Jed Hagen
Michael Chase