*** Earth  +0.001,-0.001

Genma grumbled softly in his sleep and rolled over, his arm reaching 
out for the familiar shape whose side he had returned to only a few 
months ago.  When his questing hand only found an empty futon, his 
slumbering mind slowly roused to the fact that there was something 
wrong.  He blinked open sleep-rheumed eyes and fumbled for his glasses, 
putting them on as he sat up in bed.

"Nodoka-chan?"  He spoke in a whisper into the house's darkness and 
quiet.  He waited a moment, but there was no response.  Then he sighed.  
He knew where she was.  It was the same place she had been going to 
ever since Ranko had vanished.

Rising from bed, Genma fumbled briefly to find his house slippers and 
robe.  The late spring air was still chilly at night.  Once he was 
dressed, he shuffled out of the master bedroom and down the hall to 
Ranko's room.

A muffled sobbing drifted into the hall from behind the closed door to 
his daughter's room.  The sound tugged at his heart, an echo of the 
pain and guilt that Nodoka was suffering.  He settled his hand on the 
knob and readied himself for a moment by taking a deep breath and then 
slowly letting it out.  Then he opened the door.

The room beyond was dimly lit by the nearest streetlight, occupied by a 
huddled figure lying on Ranko's bed.  Genma sighed and shook his head 
at the sight of his wife so defeated-looking.  She had been like this 
since they had first received word of Ranko's disappearance, a large 
departure from her usually more stoic nature.  The recent news that she 
was pregnant, and the hormonal changes it was causing to her emotional 
state, went far towards explaining the intensity of her feelings.  She 
needed him to be strong.

"Nodoka-chan."

Crossing the room to her side, Genma settled down next to her and laid 
a gentle hand on her shoulder.  He felt her body trembling slightly.

"I just want my little girl back," Nodoka whispered softly.  She sat up 
and leaned against Genma, sobbing softly into his shoulder.  "Oh Genma, 
I was so horrible to her that day.  So hateful.  I ju- I just want a 
chance to make it up to her."

"I know."  He patted the arm Nodoka had slipped around his waist.  "I'm 
doing everything I can to figure out what happened.  Wherever she is, 
I'm sure she's trying as hard as she can to get back home."

Nodoka began calming down as Genma held her, releasing a soft sigh and 
resting her head against Genma's shoulder.  Sleep soon claimed her as 
he carried her back to bed.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  +3.121,-2.664

Ranko started awake from a sound sleep, uncertain what had woken her 
up.  She reached for a small, handheld device resting on the table next 
to the hotel room bed she had been sleeping on until a few moments ago. 
With a grunt, she glanced briefly at its numeric display as it counted 
down, before she set it back down.

A rumble of thunder sounded outside, and a wet patter of rain began 
sounding against the glass.  Maybe she was just being overly jumpy.  It 
wasn't like her to have a rainstorm wake her.  She laid back down to 
get some more sleep.  She wanted to be fresh for her next transit.  She 
never knew what surprises a new world might have to offer.

Over on the table, a rumpled newspaper sat half-read.  The headline was 
splashed across the front page in red, white and blue: "Japan Becomes 
54th State!"


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)
Earth +0.001,-0.001 - The world of Scholar-Ranko (Baseline cluster) 
Earth +4.612,+4.509 - The world of Shampoo 1/2 (Ranma 1/2 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.  There was the promise of romance trouble to 
come in the Gosunkugi household as a Chinese amazon made her desires 
known.  Nabiki integrated the personality of her counterpart, altering 
her further.  Meanwhile, Ranma integrated his martial artist self, but 
not Ranko.  Ukyo arrived at the Academy for her first day of classes.  
Nabiki and Ranma had a fierce battle against each other, to see who 
would be the student of Jun Fan (Bruce) Lee.  Nabiki won through her 
use of the Amaguriken technique, but things didn't quite work out as 
planned.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 19 - Signal to Noise Ratio

     You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using
     a timing which the enemy does not expect.

                              - Miyamoto Musashi

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


*** Earth +4.612,+4.509

The early morning light awoke Akane to another day.  Her eyes blinked 
open at the rays of sunshine impinging on her eyelids, and she saw her 
breath fogging slightly in the chilly air.  Her body's aches and pains 
had become a familiar sensation under Cologne's tutelage.  But the 
weeks spent out here had been working marked improvements in her 
skills, and at a pace that sometimes left her astonished.

"You're awake," croaked Cologne's ancient voice from the direction of 
the campfire.  The old woman was seated on a log, quietly drinking tea 
from a wooden mug.  She eyed the Tendo girl.  "How are your injuries?"

Akane brushed a hand across the bandages wrapped around her middle.  A 
faint scent of strange herbs rose from it, pungent yet not unpleasant.  
Her bruises from yesterday were almost gone, and the cracked ribs from 
three days ago were finally healed.  Seeing the old woman eyeing her 
inscrutably, she quickly replied, "I'm fine."

Cologne chuckled slightly.  Training the feisty girl had been a bit of 
a challenge due to Akane's innate stubbornness.  The first few days had 
been hardest on the youngest Tendo, and Cologne had been relentless.  
She had torn down the girl's pride and battered her body to the brink, 
but now the ancient matriarch was rebuilding both and discovering a 
much finer weapon than she had anticipated.  Akane would have made a 
fine amazon, Cologne had discovered, and that was very high praise from 
her.

"Then let us continue where we left off, Akane Tendo," she said.  She 
hopped over and tapped a quick series of pressure points on the girl, 
nodding with approval as she saw a savage fire ignite deep within 
Akane's eyes.  A sudden feeling of guilt over what she was doing to the 
girl was just as quickly quashed.  The boy needed to be dealt with in 
order to reclaim her great-granddaughter, and Akane needed to be free 
of the web of emotions he had unknowingly cast over her.  Besides, the 
youngest Tendo was only a tool for Cologne's needs, to be discarded 
without even a backwards glance once Shampoo was safely back in hand.

However, as she solemnly watched the girl running through her morning 
warm-up exercises, the odd feelings of guilt continued to tease at the 
edges of her awareness.  So caught up was she in contending with them 
that she almost failed to notice a ragged figure suddenly emerge from 
the woods.  She blinked in surprise at the sight of the apparition.

"Where the hell am I now?" Ryoga muttered angrily.

The perpetually lost boy paused to adjust the weight of his backpack, 
but the physical discomfort it gave him was nothing compared to the 
anguish within his soul.  The cowardly Ranma had run away from him 
again, weeks ago, leaving nothing but emotional wreckage behind him.  
An example of such wreckage was poor, kind-hearted Ukyo.  She had acted 
so very brave about the whole thing, claiming she wanted to drop the 
matter entirely, but he knew otherwise.  He was doing this for her, and 
when he caught up with the pigtailed boy, he was going to make him pay 
for his crimes, every single one.

"Ranma Saotome!  I will see you in Hell!" Ryoga shouted at the heavens.

An ancient-sounding voice suddenly spoke up behind him.  "Not quite 
what I had in mind, but it sounds like we might have a common enemy.  
Would you care to join forces?"

He spun around and eyed the little, trollish-looking figure before him.  
"Do you know where Ranma Saotome is?" he growled.

"I do," Cologne replied, eyeing him back.  Akane would have had a 
rather difficult time dealing with Ranma and Shampoo on her own.  This 
odd boy looked like he could prove useful.  "What grievance do you have 
against Ranma Saotome?"

Ryoga growled.  "Where do I begin?  He's done nothing but make my life 
miserable ever since I met him.  He lies, cheats, and he's a pervert of 
the worst sort.  Even if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy 
him."  A soft blue glow began coruscating around him as he warmed to 
the subject he was speaking on.  His voice took on a disturbing tone as 
his hand closed into a tight fist.  "Just you wait, Ranma Saotome."

"I think we can help each other then, Boy," said Cologne with a smile.  

Ryoga snorted.  "Oh yeah?  Not to be rude, Granny, but what could you 
possibly do to help me?"

"How about this, for starters?" replied Cologne, as she calmly tapped a 
nearby boulder with the tip of her staff.  She hopped away just as it 
exploded into a hailstorm of tiny pieces.

The lost boy blinked rock dust out of his eyes, absently noting several 
small scratches on his skin from flying shards of stone, each one 
leaking a little blood.  He turned slowly to look at the withered 
figure before him.  "Wh-what was that?"

"The Bakusai Tenketsu," answered Cologne.  "A very special attack that 
finds the weak spot in anything, and destroys it.  Still think I have 
nothing to offer you?  I could teach it to you, if you like."

Ryoga turned back to look at the small crater where a boulder had once 
stood.  A slight smile broke out on his features.  He began to laugh 
maniacally.  Destiny was tapping him on the shoulder, offering him the 
means to finally destroy Ranma, his hated nemesis.  He would be a fool 
to not take it.  His laughter came to a very abrupt halt when the old 
woman whacked him hard across the skull with her staff.

"Enough of this foolishness.  Do you accept my offer?"

He rubbed the top of his head, feeling a lump already rising.  "Yeah, I 
accept.  I'll do anything to defeat Ranma."

"Then come with me," grunted Cologne.  "I'll take you to where my other 
student is now training in the technique.  I believe you might already 
know her."

Ryoga followed Cologne as they approached the campsite.  He saw the 
familiar-looking, short-haired girl tying off a rope, and his eyes 
narrowed.  What was Akane Tendo doing out here?  Was this some sort of 
devious trick by Ranma?

Looking up, the Tendo girl eyed Ryoga with a flat gaze.  She grunted 
once in acknowledgement of his presence and then went back to what she 
had been doing.  She secured one end of the rope around her and stood 
up.  She nodded to Cologne and waited, her eyes glinting with cold 
focus.

"Let's show the boy here what he has to look forward to," commented the 
elderly amazon to the Tendo girl, receiving a nod in reply.

Ryoga watched in amazement as Akane was hoisted upwards into the trees 
by Cologne, ending up suspended across from a large boulder held up by 
thick ropes.  In a series of bounds, the ancient matriarch leaped into 
a tree near the boulder's resting place.  She eyed the youngest Tendo 
for a moment, noting almost dispassionately the fiery look in the 
girl's eyes.  Then she flipped the boulder back with a swipe of her 
staff.

Akane's emotional state was a surprisingly stable combination of heated 
fury and icy calm as she watched the boulder hurtling towards her.  Her 
eyes probed for the weak point, as her finger poised for the strike.  A 
sense of purpose filled her.  She would master this technique to defeat 
Shampoo with it.  And as for Ranma-  Her thoughts flickered in sudden 
uncertainty at the last moment.

The lost boy winced as he watched the boulder slam hard into the girl's 
body with merciless force.  As it swung back away from her, he was 
astonished to see that she was still conscious.

"Again."  Akane shook her head to clear it, ignoring the brief flares 
of pain from her body.  They had been growing less with each session, 
her body toughening from the grueling training.  "I almost had it that 
time."

Cologne glanced downwards at an openly gaping Ryoga.  "Are you afraid 
yet, Boy?  This is not a technique to be attempted by the faint of 
heart, but it will give you an edge over Ranma."

"I'm not afraid, Granny!" he snapped, her taunts bringing him out of 
his daze.  "I can take any training you throw at me, if it will let me 
defeat him!"

Up in her tree, Cologne smiled.  Shampoo was practically hers already.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

The sound of a crackling fire stirred Mara to sudden wakefulness.  By 
opening her eyes to mere slits and attempting to keep her breathing as 
slow and regular as she could, she tried to gauge her surroundings 
while still appearing unconscious.  She swiftly catalogued the various 
sensations assailing her awareness.

Her memory was a blur.  Days had passed for her in a haze of pain and 
rage, as her body slowly mended, her power too diminished for rapid 
recovery from her injuries.  She still felt weak, but better than she 
had after her battle with Belldandy and her human allies.

Sharp pangs of hunger made themselves known from her belly, from days 
spent without food.  The comfortable feeling of her taut leather 
minidress was gone, replaced by that of a much looser-fitting outfit, 
one made of cotton or some similar fabric.  Something slightly cold and 
metallic encircled her neck, a flat band that she could not sense any 
sort of a seam in.  Her feet were bare to the chill morning air, but 
her left foot was a bit warmer from the radiance of the nearby fire, a 
small one.  She could smell the smoke occasionally drifting in her 
direction, and random poppings would sound as small pockets of woodsap 
ignited.  The sky above was lightening into the coming dawn.

Where was she?  What had happened while she was unconscious?

"I know you're awake," a voice suddenly spoke, interrupting her as she 
took stock of her present situation.  "Don't bother faking."

She grunted once in annoyance, and she opened her eyes more fully.  "I 
could use some food."  Her voice held a timbre of irritation.  She 
raised a hand to her neck to grasp the metal band encircling it.

Her as yet unseen companion suddenly spoke once again.  "I wouldn't do 
that, if I were you."

Sneering, Mara continued to run her hand along the thin metal, feeling 
runes of some sort engraved into it.  She tugged at it, seeking for a 
seam or breakpoint.  When that yielded nothing, she tugged harder and 
was abruptly rewarded with waves of pain wracking her body, racing 
through her like white-hot lava.  Her body bucked involuntarily from 
the agony, her spine arching like a strung bow, leaving only her head, 
shoulders, and feet to remain in contact with the ground.  She could 
not even scream, so immense was the pain.  She managed to wrench her 
hand away from its grasp on the band around her neck and the agony 
abruptly subsided.

"I tried to warn you," said that same mellow voice, colored by a faint 
touch of amusement.

Gasping, tears still flowing down her cheeks, she forced her eyes open 
and beheld her captor.  A small, wizened figure sat across the fire 
from her, dressed in the robes of a simple monk.  His bald head gleamed 
in the morning light.

"Hello," said the gnomish old man, casually poking away at the fire 
with the stick he held in one hand, stirring the ashes.  "I am called 
Cherry.  I would suggest that you don't try that again."

Quickly rising to her feet, Mara felt her powers swelling within her as 
they fed off the rage now suffusing her entire being, the sounds of a 
battle incantation beginning rolling off her lips.  How dare this 
pathetic little man mock a demoness of her supreme might and status!  
She would teach this insignificant speck of a mortal to trifle with 
her.

His only response was a slight sigh as he continued to poke at the 
embers in the fire, otherwise apparently unconcerned.

Before the last syllable could emerge from her throat, she suddenly 
felt like her entire head was going to explode.  Waves of pain that 
made her earlier agonies pale in comparison erupted deep inside her 
body, rolling up her spine to crash like tidal waves within her skull.  
She thrashed about like a marionette with tangled strings for several 
moments, before finally collapsing to the ground, clutching her head.

"I wouldn't suggest doing any more of that either."  Cherry continued 
to devote his attention to the fire.  A small teakettle wisped some 
steam near one side of the flames.

Mara growled low in her throat as the pain subsided once again, but she 
decided to play along for now.  She rolled into a seated position near 
the fire and took the opportunity to study her outfit.  She recoiled 
when she realized what she was wearing: the red, hakama-style pants and 
plain white robes of a Shinto shrine priestess.  She fixed him with an 
amused glance, wondering if the old monk had enjoyed undressing her.  
Perhaps she should try to play this a different way.

"So what is this all about?" she asked in more seductive tones, her 
hand casually loosening her top to reveal a bit more cleavage.  No bra 
was present beneath the robe.  She ran her tongue across her upper lip 
for a moment to wet them.  "You seem to have me at a disadvantage."

The old monk looked distressed.  "Uh, I'm afraid that you're laboring 
under somewhat of a misunderstanding, Demoness."

"What's to misunderstand?" she cooed, leaning forward and exposing a 
bit more of her bosom beneath the robes.  "We're alone, you're a man, 
and I'm dressed up as some kind of shrine priestess.  It's not the most 
original bit of play-acting I've ever done with one of your kind, but I 
think I can get into the role.  After all, I've yet to meet a priestess 
that wasn't secretly simmering with suppressed desires and yearnings, 
her body aching for what only a man's touch can give her.  So let's get 
a bit more comfortable, little monk, and I'll- Ouch!"  Her speech was 
cut short by the sudden, sharp sound of wood cracking hard against her 
skull.  Rubbing the rising lump on the crown of her head, she quickly 
whirled around to see who had struck her from behind.  "Who dares?"

Standing right behind Mara was a tall, Japanese woman of very striking 
beauty, dressed as the demoness was in the red hakama-style pants and 
white robes of a Shinto priestess.  A short rod of wood, decorated with 
several trails of folded white paper, rested in one hand.  Carried in 
the crook of her free arm were several branches of firewood.

"I dare, you," the woman intoned coldly in clipped tones, her eyes 
blazing with anger.  "I am Sakura Sakuranbo, a priestess of the sacred 
spirits, and it would do you well to keep a much more civil tongue in 
your head when speaking of the affairs of priestesses."  She paused for 
a moment, blanching ever so slightly as she suddenly realized how her 
words could be taken and then hastened to speak again.  "Those happen 
to be a spare set of my own clothes you are wearing.  I was the one who 
changed your garb, not my uncle."

Still rubbing at the lump forming on the top of her head, Mara eyed 
Sakura evilly even as the priestess glared back coolly.  The staring 
contest would have continued for quite some time longer, but Cherry 
interrupted them by clearing his throat.

"Yes, Uncle?"  Sakura kept a corner of her gaze on the demoness as she 
turned to face him.

"So what do you want with me, Priest?"  Mara pointedly ignored the 
woman.  "And what's this thing around my neck?"

Cherry sat up straighter and looked the demoness squarely in her eyes.  
"I want some information, and you're going to give it to me."  He then 
pointed at Mara with the tip of the stick that he had been stirring the 
embers with.  "As to that, it's to insure your good behavior, a spirit 
binding of my own creation.  You can't remove it or use your powers to 
harm anyone while wearing it."

"So what's to keep me from getting physical with you, little monk?" 
sneered the demoness as she stood up.  "Anything to prevent me from 
doing that?"

The old man looked briefly at his niece and nodded once.

Mara glanced behind her to where the priestess had been standing, but 
she only caught a brief glimpse of something red and white moving 
quickly.  The breath was abruptly knocked from her lungs by a solid 
punch just to the left of her spine.  It was quickly followed up by a 
hand grasping her hair and slamming her face into the hard-packed 
ground.  One of her arms was quickly caught and wrenched painfully 
behind her back, and she felt a foot come down firmly on her neck.  As 
she briefly struggled to catch her breath, Cherry approached her and 
knelt down nearby.

"I would suggest that you be a bit more cooperative, Demoness," the 
bald, little monk said mildly.  "Sakura has been well-trained in both 
her physical and spiritual abilities, and she could make things most 
unpleasant for you."  He lowered his voice and leaned a little closer, 
even as his niece levered the demoness' arm a couple of notches higher, 
forcing tears of pain from her eyes.  "She doesn't like your kind very 
much, so she's not as forgiving as I am."

"Wh-what do you want to know?" mumbled Mara, finding it difficult to 
speak with the woman's foot planted solidly on her neck.

"We'll try some easy ones first," he said pleasantly.  "Who are you?  
What is your rank?"

Mara growled out an imprecation, too softly for the two with her to 
hear.  The damn priestess was twisting her arm right out of its socket!

Sakura pressed a bit harder with her foot on Mara's neck, hoping to 
persuade the demoness to be a bit more forthcoming to her uncle's quiet 
questioning.  She was rewarded with a gasp of pain from her pinned 
captive.

"I-I'm M-Mara," she whimpered, trying to focus past the pain of her 
straining ligaments.  "D-demoness First C-class."  She gasped again, 
this time in relief, when Sakura eased up a bit on twisting her arm.

"Very good."  Cherry spoke soothingly now.  "Your name is Mara.  Why 
are you here, Mara?  Why did you attack that boarding house?  Where 
have you been hiding since then?"

"G-go to hell, Priest."  Mara sucked in a breath when the priestess 
twisted her arm up even higher than it had been at before.  She swore 
she could feel ligaments tearing as she cried out in pain.

"Leave her alone with me for a little while, Uncle," said Sakura very 
calmly.  "I'll get her talking soon enough."  She eased up on her hold 
a little, just to keep the demoness from passing out from the pain.

"You see?"  Cherry shrugged his shoulders a bit, still kneeling next to 
the pinned demoness.  "If you don't cooperate with me, I won't have any 
choice but to leave you two alone to chat.  And I don't think you'd 
want that."

"D-damn you, Priest.  Get this psycho priestess off of me, and I'll 
tell you what you want to know, I swear."  Tears leaked from her eyes.

He flicked his gaze upwards to meet Sakura's.  "Release her, if you 
would, my dear.  I think she's a bit more willing to cooperate now."  
He turned his gaze back down to meet Mara's.  "Aren't you?"

The demoness nodded her head as best she could in her current position.  
She gasped aloud in relief when her arm was suddenly released and the 
priestess removed her foot from the back of her neck.  She slowly sat 
up, working her shoulder to make sure the priestess hadn't permanently 
damaged it.

Cherry returned to his place by the fire and waited expectantly.  He 
picked up his cup of tea and drank from it while he waited for Mara to 
collect herself back together.

Sakura took up a position right behind Mara, ready to defend herself or 
her uncle if the demoness dared to try anything.  She crossed her arms 
and waited, a grim figure of restrained wrath.

"I was sent here to kill a goddess, one who showed up at that boarding 
house, nothing more."  Mara frowned and grumbled to make her lie look 
more convincing.  "It was just business, you know.  Nothing for you 
mortals to be concerned over."

Cherry frowned.  "So why did she appear there?"

"Granting a wish, I guess."  Mara shrugged.

"Why would a goddess grant someone a wish?"

Mara smirked.  "It's all part of the propaganda machine they've got 
running up there, with their Goddess Relief Office.  Every now and then 
one of you mortals gets singled out for having a good nature or other 
such lame excuse and is given a wish.  It's a bone for playing the good 
dog."

"And demons don't grant wishes?" Cherry asked sarcastically.

She leaned forward and smiled seductively at the monk.  "With us, it's 
more of a business transaction.  You give us something we want, and we 
give you something you want."  She gently parted the front of her robe 
a little bit and fanned herself, gazing at him warmly.  "What about 
you, little monk?  I can offer you a free sample, just to show you what 
you're missing.  I can- urk!"  Mara thrashed a bit as her windpipe was 
suddenly choked off by an arm wrapping around her throat.  As lithely 
feminine as the priestess looked, she carried a surprising amount of 
toned muscle in her frame.

"You try and tempt him one more time, and I swear to all the kami that 
I will twist your head right off your neck, you oni bitch," whispered 
Sakura's voice into Mara's ear in low and dangerous tones.  "Don't test 
me on that, or you'll regret it."  She tightened her grip a little more 
to show that she meant business, causing stars to briefly swim across 
Mara's vision, before quickly releasing the demoness.

She massaged her throat as best she could with the spirit binding in 
place around her neck.  She cast a baleful gaze at Sakura.  She added 
the priestess to her personal 'hurt with extreme prejudice' list.

"Now then," said Cherry.  "Is that all you were up to?"

Shifting her gaze from Sakura to Cherry, Mara nodded.  She stood up a 
moment later.  "After I got hurt, I don't remember where I've been, 
until now.  Well, I've told you what you wanted to know, so now I think 
you should let me go."

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple," he said.  "I have many more 
questions, but your answers so far will do for now.  Sakura?"

Mara began to turn around, and then the world went dark.

As the pair stood over the fallen demoness, Sakura absently rubbed the 
knuckles of her right hand with the palm of her left.  She kicked Mara 
hard a couple of times for good measure, still smarting from the sexual 
innuendoes at her expense.  They awakened unpleasant memories of her 
life with her ex-partner, Ayaka Kisaragi.  Her eyebrow twitched at the 
mere thought of the woman and her self-destructive lifestyle, and all 
the times the other woman had called her a prude to her face.

She sniffed disdainfully.  She was certain she was not a prude.  She 
knew perfectly well how to enjoy life, but she preferred to treat her 
body like a temple, not like the redhead.  That woman treated hers like 
an amusement park, the drunken slut.  Yes, getting away from Ayaka and 
her hedonistic ways had been exactly what she needed, even if she 
wasn't as successful as a solo agent.  Not that the other woman had 
done any better on her own, she quickly amended, having kept quiet tabs 
on her old partner, hoping for a chance to gloat when Ayaka's life 
finally crashed down into flames as it inevitably would.  She was 
looking forward to saying "I told you so," and it was astonishing to 
her that her ex-partner hadn't managed to get herself cashiered yet.

"I understand you have a new assignment," Cherry ventured.

She nodded, her mind briefly breaking out of her musings to focus on 
Cherry.  "Yes, Uncle.  I will be the resident shrine priestess for the 
temple where the Institute has been housing the Belldandy entity until 
her business is concluded.  I'm going to be working with a local priest 
and his apprentice, a Katsuhito Masaki and his young grandson, Tenchi, 
who have been watching her until now.  They're even going to assign me 
an apprentice shrine maiden to train while I'm there.  Her name is Rei 
Hino.  I'm looking forward to being a teacher to the girl and passing 
on a bit of my accumulated wisdom.  It should keep me quite busy."

Sakura felt smug that the Mobius Institute had entrusted her with field 
training an apprentice.  It had been a slap in her face when Ayaka of 
all people had been the one given such a plum assignment as being the 
advisor to the Empire's Miko Task Force.  Impressionable young girls 
should never have been exposed to a woman of such loose morals.  But 
the last that she had heard, her ex-partner had been removed from that 
posting and given some sort of an undercover assignment.

It was a shame really.  It would have been quite pleasant to show off 
her new apprentice to the other woman and brag a bit, since she could 
not imagine the Institute ever trusting that karaoke otaku with one 
again, especially one with as much potential as Rei Hino had shown in 
her file.  And even if they ever did give Ayaka a trainee, the girl was 
probably some loose cannon reject that no other senior agent would ever 
want to be paired with anyway.

Cherry glanced over at her and inwardly sighed.  Maybe it was time for 
his niece to retire from field service and get married.  She wasn't 
getting any younger, after all.  Perhaps he should start looking into a 
matchmaking service for her, since he could not recall when Sakura had 
last had anything even remotely resembling a date.

While the two were involved in their respective musings, several men 
and women in plain gray Security Directorate uniforms quietly emerged 
from the nearby trees.  A single patch was visible on their right 
shoulders, that of the Mobius Institute.  One of the men stopped right 
in front of Cherry and saluted in a textbook perfect motion, and the 
monk quickly acknowledged it with a nod.

"You may take the Mara entity into custody now, Lieutenant," stated 
Cherry in a mild tone.  "Please see to it that she is placed in one of 
the maximum security cells in the vaults, and I recommend that you 
activate the teleport wards.  We don't want this one getting away from 
us just yet."

"Yes, Sir."  The man saluted again and then went to assist his squad 
with securing their prisoner.  After several moments spent locking 
Mara's ankles and wrists into solid orichalcum cuffs, they carried the 
unconscious demoness away to a parked van.  Another few moments passed, 
and then the van drove off towards the Institute.

Sakura glanced at him as he watched the van driving off, slightly 
concerned to see the thoughtful expression on his face.  "What is it, 
Uncle?"

"A confluence is forming in the Pattern, Sakura," he replied very 
solemnly.  "And I find it troubling that two entities of such a level 
of power have so suddenly appeared in Tokyo, so soon before a crux 
point emerges.  However, I suspect I know the source.  Or perhaps I 
should more correctly say sources."

"Who?"  She looked closely at him.

Cherry smiled.  "Two young people I've met recently: a teenaged boy and 
girl.  The weight of destiny is unusually heavy upon them both, but 
there is also a disturbing dissonance occurring between them, almost as 
if two mutually opposing fates were now locked in savage conflict, 
struggling for ultimate dominance over the other."  He suddenly 
frowned.  "I simply can't explain it.  Never before have I encountered 
anything like what I can sense happening between them, but this 
unprecedented clash between two such strongly discordant destinies has 
begun awakening new possibilities, potential futures that were never 
there before."

The young priestess gazed at the elderly Cherry, concern filling her 
dark eyes.  He was one of the most pious, holy men that she knew, and 
she loved him dearly for it.  But he had been like this for several 
years now, a gnomish enigma in brown robes, ever since he had made the 
unexpected announcement of his retirement from the Institute to take up 
the life of a wandering monk.  He had never explained to anyone the 
real reason that had to be behind it, not even to the Emperor, but 
Sakura knew that he must have had a good one for his sudden decision to 
leave public service.

Cherry, lost in thought once again, appeared to be unaware of her 
worried regard.  He stirred the hot ashes in the fire for several long 
moments before speaking again.  "Ranma Saotome and Nabiki Tendo.  Two 
young people possessed of great martial arts skill, wielding techniques 
from a school they could not possibly have studied, and at a level of 
ability that very few have ever possessed in the entire history of the 
Empire."  His voice grew quieter.  "Perhaps it is fate working its 
will, and one of them will fulfill a prophecy I was once told."

"Prophecy?"  She stepped closer and was startled to see that he had 
been writing in the ashes.  She could make out several characters in 
kanji that glowed in the embers: Happosai.

Cherry looked up at Sakura standing near and abruptly wiped away the 
kanji symbol.

"Uncle, who is Happosai?  What is this prophecy you speak of?"

He sighed, and he suddenly looked much older.  "Happosai is a name that 
few even remember anymore, a name that no longer has any meaning."  He 
looked up briefly at her, his gaze inscrutable.  "He was a thief, a 
wastrel, a scoundrel, and a notorious pervert."  He smiled, a bit 
wistfully.  "You would have hated him."  He looked down again, the 
smile swiftly vanishing.  "He's gone now.  He's been gone for a long 
time."  Cherry paused for a long moment, his gaze turning even more 
somber as he looked back at the flames.  His voice fell to a whisper. 
"Such a very long time...."

Slowly standing up, the elderly monk's knees cracked slightly, and he 
looked more deeply into the flames for several moments before speaking 
once again.  "As to the prophecy I spoke of, you must never repeat a 
word of it, not to anyone, ever."  He grunted once in acknowledgment of 
Sakura's quick nod.  "It concerns Seven Thunders, great warriors who 
will come together in the Empire's darkest hours, and of the one who 
will lead them, the one who will reclaim the Anything-Goes School of 
Martial Arts from those who have usurped it and carry it to a place of 
honor in the Empire."

"The Anything-Goes School?  I've never heard of it."

Cherry gazed solemnly at his niece.  "Few know of it, and still fewer 
dare even speak of it.  It has changed much from what it once was, its 
techniques now taught to only a select few in each generation.  For 
almost a century it has been used, time and again, to destroy other 
schools of martial arts in the world, assimilating their most powerful 
techniques unto itself.  Since it began following this path, many of 
the more unique and powerful schools of martial arts in the world have 
been lost, their practitioners killed off to the last."

"Then how could these two children have come by such knowledge of it?"

"I do not know," the old man replied after a moment.  "But I'm watching 
them.  It is merely a matter of time before one of them comes to the 
attention of the current Master of the Anything-Goes School.  And then 
things will most certainly become interesting."

She frowned.  "You're playing a dangerous game with their lives, 
Uncle."

"Perhaps," Cherry acknowledged.  "But I'm not the only one with an 
interest in them.  The Institute has had them both on a watch list for 
some time, for reasons other than mine, but I think I bought them some 
breathing space.  Kasuga-san can be a fairly reasonable man if he's 
approached correctly."

"But if they're so important, Uncle," she protested.  "Then the 
Institute should guide them for the good of the Empire.  Surely you 
can't mean to trust our fate in some children that you barely know."  
She saw the small monk shake his head and became a bit exasperated.  
"Why?"

He sighed.  "I can't explain, but I feel that these two should be 
allowed to freely experience whatever the future holds for them on 
their own, without any second guessing or any other sorts of 'helpful' 
guidance.  They need to be free to choose their own paths, no matter 
what happens."  His voice then softened but also took on an ominous 
timbre.  "It is Fate."

                   ******************************

"I want you to know that what happened last night changes absolutely 
nothing between us.  I still despise you utterly."

Mikado smirked slightly as he paused in kissing the girl's shoulder and 
neck and lifted his eyes to study Asuka's face.  The two of them were 
naked in her bed, cuddled together.  Both of their bodies were bruised, 
mute testament to the days they had spent so far together, training 
under the mystery man, Nanashi.  Despite the dull pains in his body 
from sparring with the girl, her closeness was raising an almost erotic 
tingling within him, exciting him on a level that only a few women had 
ever matched, like that delectably well-built Nabiki Tendo, and the 
sweet and innocent Kodachi Kuno.  He waited until he saw her open her 
eyes, a puzzled frown on her face.

"That wasn't what you said last night," he said in mild amusement, one 
of his hands moving down her body, gently caressing her skin as he 
carefully avoided her worst bruises.

Asuka's nostrils flared slightly, and her brow furrowed angrily.  She 
sat up, lifting the sheet to cover her nakedness in a pose of feminine 
modesty, ignoring the pleasant tingling feeling he awoke in her even 
now, even after a night spent together in carnal rapture.  "Whatever I 
may have said in the passions of the moment last night should not go to 
your head, Mikado-kun.  You were simply convenient, merely a way to 
work off some tensions raised by our training.  Nothing more."

"As you were for me," he mused, lifting his hand to gently touch her 
face.  He grunted once as her fist hit him in the ribs.  He growled and 
quickly captured her wrist, his genteel look quickly transforming into 
something more wrathful.  "That hurt, you know."

"OHHOHOHOHOHO!"  Asuka's laughter was almost demented.  "But you let 
your guard down, Mikado-kun.  Nanashi-sensei has told us to take every 
advantage against others, after all."  She smiled as he captured her 
other wrist in his grip and forced her back down to the bed against her 
token resistance.  Her eyes flashed with passion, and she raised one 
leg to half-wrap it around his hip.  "I imagine you wish that your 
precious Kodachi was more like me."

"Kodachi isn't anything like you, Asuka-chan," he replied coolly, as he 
immediately regretted finally giving in last night to the desires that 
had been building up within him for days.  What had he been doing, 
bedding a spoiled, selfish brat like the White Lily?  He felt her leg 
still caressing him, and he glared down at her.  "You're vicious, 
vindictive, and wicked to the core."

She smirked, half-closing her eyes, feeling her heart rate speeding up 
from his nearness.  She reveled in the excitement even as she cursed 
her body for betraying her like this by responding so strongly to a 
lothario like Mikado.  She decided to twist her knife in him a bit to 
get him back.

"Don't ever forget that your precious, innocent princess wants nothing 
whatsoever to do with a womanizer like yourself, Mikado-kun."  She 
paused in thought as her calf continued to caress up and down his 
flank.  "You and I are really very much alike, no matter how much we 
both would wish otherwise.  And as for my being wicked, are you feeling 
up for some more wickedness with me this morning?"

"Curse you, woman," he growled, feeling his body already responding to 
hers against his rapidly-weakening resistance.  Both her legs held him 
now, loosely wrapped around his hips.  Still keeping her wrists pinned 
down tightly against the pillows, he bent down to kiss her fiercely, a 
kiss she responded to with such passion and eagerness that it thrilled 
and disgusted him at the same time.

No, this cold-hearted bitch was nothing like the lovely and innocent 
Kodachi he treasured, but the White Lily would do for now to satisfy 
the inexplicably powerful urges he felt for her.  Until he had his 
revenge on that damnable Ranma Saotome and bedded the lovely Nabiki 
Tendo, he would keep her around.  Revenge, like politics, often made 
for strange bedfellows.  But he could cast the girl aside in an 
instant, when the way finally became clear for him to claim his goal, 
to make Kodachi Kuno his, no matter how strong his desires were for the 
vicious Asuka.  He was certain he could.

Asuka sighed deep in her throat as her back arched a bit, accepting her 
bedmate's kiss and dueling his tongue with her own.  She laughed inside 
as she felt him responding to her, looking forward to the day when she 
destroyed any hope of his ever being with his precious Kodachi, the 
damnable little mouse that had challenged her rightful dominance over 
Blackhall.  Above all other insults he had done her, she hated him most 
of all for placing the Kuno girl on a high pedestal, like some goddess 
worthy of worship.  Kodachi was nothing special, and certainly far 
beneath her, the White Lily!

Her duels with the other girl had shown Asuka one thing.  Her enemy 
somehow held the same darkness locked within herself that she had long 
ago embraced and used to reforge herself as the White Lily, even if the 
Kuno girl kept it hidden under that mask of insipid innocence she wore.  
She longed to rip that mask away and expose Kodachi's true self for the 
world to see.  Then let her adversary see if her dear brother or that 
new boy she was spending time with, that rather handsome Ranma Saotome, 
truly cared for her.  After all, nobody really cared about anyone else 
in this miserable world, a truth Asuka had learned a long time ago when 
she had stood at her mother's grave.  She planned to enjoy it to the 
fullest when she finally broke that mouse for daring to stand up to 
her.  She would savor it like a rare vintage.

As for the Sanzenin boy, why did it hurt her so much deep inside to 
have him feel anything for her enemy, to hear him speak her name with 
such reverence?  After all, numerous handsome young men constantly vied 
for the White Lily's attention, a prize she doled out very carefully, 
playing them off against each other for her own amusement.  Many had 
even shared her bed from time to time; he had simply been the first, 
when he had stolen the last shred of her trust from her over a year 
ago.  Some friend he was to her one-time suitor, Kuno, she sneered in 
her thoughts. But the White Lily knew better.  Honor, like love, was 
only for the weak.

That one was another she yearned to avenge herself against, as well as 
his new target of desire, Nabiki Tendo.  How dare that pompous Kuno 
toss her aside, claiming the charms of some miserable peasant were 
superior to hers?  She was the most beautiful!  She was the one men 
vied for, not some peasant strumpet.  After Kodachi, the Tendo girl was 
her most hated nemesis for that, for taking something that belonged to 
her.  How dare she steal Kuno's heart from her!

Yet her body betrayed her by its strong yearnings for Mikado, even more 
than she could admit feeling for the Kuno heir.  Because of that, she 
would keep him nearby for now, carefully wrapping him up tightly in her 
web of seduction, enjoying the power she had carefully honed, using 
every male's weakness for a beautiful female, while she prepared for 
her revenge.  The handsome boy was simply useful as a temporary ally, 
in case the Kuno girl's new associate, Ranma, tried to assist her.  But 
she was certain she could cast him aside when she finally attained her 
goal and utterly defeated her hated nemesis, thereby proving to herself 
that she didn't need anyone in her life, least of all Mikado Sanzenin.

However, that was in the future.  She chuckled wickedly as she turned 
her attentions back to the task at hand, enjoying the soft kisses and 
caresses she was being given and responding in kind, allowing her hands 
to roam.  It seemed that the two of them would not be going to classes 
today, a thought that filled her with an almost guilty pleasure.

                   ******************************

Akane opened up her schoolbag and started placing her textbooks within, 
an early breakfast filling her belly.  She could hear Kasumi and Kyoko 
working in the kitchen, getting the morning meal ready for their new 
guests.  She could hear one of them, Godai-sensei, her new history 
instructor at Furinkan Military Academy, upstairs in the bathroom.  It 
was going to be very weird having a strange man in the house, but she 
would get used to it.  Her father had told her Godai-sensei would be 
staying with them for a while, so that had been the end of it as far as 
Akane was concerned.

Their other guest was even stranger.  Her name was Belldandy, a foreign 
woman, with pale skin, light-colored eyes, wearing strange clothing and 
having odd markings on her face.  She was currently sitting at the main 
table drinking tea, watching the birds fluttering and chirping just 
outside the window.  She was a weird one, but her father had said that 
she would not be staying long.  The Mobius Institute had arranged other 
quarters for her for the longer term, but Akane found that she liked 
her.  Belldandy reminded her a lot of Kasumi, the pair even having very 
similar voices.  If she closed her eyes, she was hard-pressed to tell 
the difference.  So it had been pretty funny to hear them speak, like 
she was hearing one person speaking two different roles.  

The past few days had been starting to inundate Akane a bit with the 
coursework that she had to catch up on at Furinkan.  Sakura had been 
helping her, earning more of Akane's friendship in the process.  While 
much of it was similar to her coursework at the Imperial Academy, not 
all of it was.  So it had been a grueling pace each night, sitting up 
with her textbooks and burning up pen after pen writing out assignments 
she had missed.  Fortunately, she had an almost photographic memory.

Akane muttered a curse when that reminded her of something.  She had 
broken her one remaining pen late last night, and she wasn't going to 
have time to get any more this morning.  She had a training session 
scheduled with Sakura, to ready herself for her next challenge match.  
She only needed one more win to join the Combat Club, and Sakura had 
promised her another match if she won her next challenge and obtained a 
spot in the club.

Her father usually had some extra pens in his desk, and he wouldn't be 
likely to miss one.  She slipped inside his den, letting her eyesight 
adjust to the dim light before going over to his desk and tugging on 
the main drawer.  It slid open with a slight scrape, and she was very 
grateful that it wasn't locked.  As she picked up one of the pens from 
the tray, her gaze was caught by an envelope sitting in the drawer.

Picking it up, she saw Ranma's name on it and a folded document inside.  
Nibbling on her lower lip briefly, her curiosity getting the better of 
her, she pulled it out and began reading it.  She was startled when she 
realized it to be a marriage contract, and her heart leapt with joy in 
her chest.  Her father must be planning to contact the Saotome family 
and arrange a marriage between her and Ranma.  Happily, she skimmed the 
text of the document, eagerly looking for her name as that of the 
arranged bride.

When she saw the name written there, Akane's jaw fell.

"It can't be," she whispered hollowly, her heart feeling like lead.  
She must have misread it before.  She was the one who had fallen in 
love with Ranma.  She was the one who wanted him.  Her name had to be 
the one mentioned in the contract.  Taking a deep breath to try and 
relax herself, she read the name one more time.

Nabiki Tendo.

Akane wanted to scream, to cry, to fling the contract across the room 
and deny its existence.  Nabiki knew how she felt about Ranma.  Nabiki 
wouldn't have betrayed her like this.  She couldn't have!  Akane slowly 
sank to her knees, tears welling up deeply in her eyes as the contract 
slipped unnoticed from her grasp.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

She loved Ranma.  She loved him so much.

He should be hers.  He was meant to be hers.

"Oh, Ranma," she whispered, her voice ragged, letting the tears roll 
down her cheeks as she buried her face in her hands.  A wretched sob 
wracked free from her throat.  She hurt so much inside now, more than 
she could ever remember feeling, more even than when her mother had 
died.  How could Nabiki have done such a thing?  Why had her own sister 
betrayed her like this?

After what seemed like an eternity spent sobbing, feeling like her very 
heart had been ripped bleeding from her chest by her sister's malicious 
treachery, Akane slowly lifted her eyes, now puffed and reddened from 
tears.  She wiped them slowly, her sadness gradually being replaced by 
fury.  Her breath came in slow pants as she realized how easily and how 
completely she had been tricked.

"Nabiki," she whispered, her voice raspy with emotion.  Her hand closed 
solidly into a fist as she angrily wiped some more tears from her eyes 
with the sleeve of her blouse.  Her mother had raised her daughters to 
be true warriors, and a true warrior shed no tears.  A true warrior 
shed the lifeblood of her enemies, and crushed their shattered remains 
utterly beneath her heel.  Dropping her hand to her side, Akane's face 
was now a mask of raw determination.

"I'm going to take Ranma back from you, Nabiki, dear sister," she vowed 
grimly.  "I'll show you that I'm stronger than you and more worthy of 
being with him.  I swear it!"

After finally regaining control of her seething emotions, Akane very 
carefully gathered up the marriage contract and replaced it into the 
envelope and then put the envelope back into her father's desk.  She 
left the room, retaining just enough presence of mind to remove any 
obvious signs of her presence.  Gathering up her umbrella, schoolbag, 
and uniform jacket quietly, she slipped her shoes on and hurried out 
the door.  She had to train hard if she was going to defeat her sister, 
to prove to her treacherous sibling that she was the one who deserved 
him, and she needed Sakura to help her.

Akane looked forward to avenging her pain, to have her 'beloved' sister 
remember for a very long time the price she was going to pay for her 
treachery, for having deceived her sister's trust like this.  With any 
luck, Akane mused with grim mirth, Nabiki would have plenty of time in 
the hospital to reflect on her mistake, while her soon to be broken 
bones healed.  Gritting her teeth to hold in her rage, the youngest 
Tendo ran hard for Furinkan Academy, as storm clouds began gathering 
overhead.

                   ******************************

"More rice, Godai-san?" Kasumi asked her father's new guest.  She gave 
the young lieutenant a warm smile when he looked up at her.

Swallowing nervously, Yusaku Godai nodded at the eldest Tendo daughter 
and handed her his bowl.  The house was fairly quiet now.  Akane and 
Nabiki had both left for school early, and Soun had left shortly after 
sunrise this morning, leaving him alone in the house with three women.  
It had been a very nerve-wracking experience for him.

On his right, Belldandy quietly ate her breakfast as Kasumi served him 
another bowl of rice.  In the kitchen, Kyoko Otonashi, the housekeeper, 
could be heard bustling about cleaning up.  He smiled and murmured his 
thanks to Kasumi when she handed him back his bowl.

Kasumi settled back down to finish her own breakfast, but she kept a 
watchful eye on Yusaku to make sure that he lacked for nothing during 
his meal.  She poured him more orange juice when his glass was looking 
empty, and she made sure that he had plenty to eat for a good start to 
his day.  Being around him gave her a nice feeling inside, one she had 
seemed to feel so rarely in her life now.  She had been feeling like 
this ever since last night, when she had opened the door and first 
greeted the young lieutenant.

Young, Kasumi thought with amusement as she ate.  He was actually a 
little over two years older than she was, or so she had learned while 
talking with her father's new guest last night.  Perhaps it was due to 
a boyish sort of charm he possessed, a quiet innocence that Kasumi had 
been surprised to see in a career military man.  And what had been even 
more surprising was what Yusaku Godai had awoken within her, a gentle 
sort of passion.  She knew that he needed someone around him to take 
care of him, to see that he was fed right, to see that his house was 
kept orderly, and to see to it that his clothes were clean and pressed.

A blush appeared on Kasumi's cheeks.  She was being silly.  She was a 
married woman with a husband who lov- who provided well for her.  She 
went back to eating her own breakfast, trying hard to keep her gaze 
from drifting back to rest on Lt. Godai.  What she was doing wasn't 
right.  What she was feeling wasn't right.  It dishonored her husband 
and her marriage vows.  But she couldn't seem to help herself.  There 
was something within her now, something that had come into her life 
last night when she had answered the front door, like a brilliant light 
suddenly illuminating a darkened room.  What was she going to do?

In the kitchen, Kyoko was scrubbing a pot with vigor, feeling a muted 
anger at how easily the eldest Tendo daughter had seemed to take charge 
of their new guest.  A married woman shouldn't be acting like she had 
seen Kasumi acting.  The younger sisters hadn't seemed to notice how 
their sister had been behaving, but Kyoko had.  A woman should honor 
her husband and remain loyal to him, no matter what.  She herself was a 
widow, so that was different, she quickly amended.  But the way Kasumi 
had been practically fawning over Lt. Godai ever since last night was 
simply shameful.

Kyoko paused and sighed when she remembered her first sight of him, 
standing there in his battered uniform, yet still looking so handsome 
and fit.  She blushed at the memory.  She had always had a weakness for 
men in uniform, especially older men.  But there was something about 
young Lt. Godai that had captured her attention and stubbornly refused 
to release it.  She could tell that he had been through some sort of 
horrific ordeal last night, but he had emerged from it only a little 
bent, not broken.  That spoke well of the strength of his character.

Resuming her scrubbing, Kyoko made a silent vow that she would do her 
best to make his stay here a pleasant one.  It was the least she could 
do for him while he was staying under this roof.

Belldandy quietly sipped her tea and finished eating her breakfast as 
the others in the house remained caught up in their individual internal 
quandaries.  She had a few of her own, marring her usual calm.  The 
Mobius Institute was being very kind to her, even going so far as to 
procure living quarters for her in an abandoned temple nearby, for as 
long as she might require it.  So she would be staying there while 
Yusaku would be remaining here.  That was quite all right, but she was 
concerned about Mara returning and possibly harming someone.  There was 
also the matter of Yusaku's wish.  The Ultimate Force had been set into 
motion last night, and it would bring him together with the one who 
would fulfill his wish, no matter what obstacles might lay in his path.

There was no doubt in her mind that Kasumi was the one the Ultimate 
Force had chosen for Yusaku.  Coming here had been the beginnings of 
its power manifesting.  Belldandy could sense such a level of 
similarity between herself and the mortal woman that it was 
astonishing, almost like Kasumi was her mortal avatar or karmic twin.

The problem was that she was already married, and that complicated 
things immensely, not that the Ultimate Force would care.  Belldandy 
sighed slightly.  This was an area where Urd might be better suited 
than herself.  Perhaps once she was settled at the temple, she should 
give her older sister a call and ask for some advice on this case.

                   ******************************

The clash of steel sounded in the chamber atop the Rose Tower of Ohtori 
Academy.  The morning sun was hidden by storm clouds, but the grayish 
light that made it through brought out many intriguing patterns in the 
carved roses, patterns that changed as the light changed throughout the 
day, a clever trick of carving and placement that provided an ephemeral 
sort of backdrop as two duelists moved.  One young fighter, dressed in 
a white Ohtori uniform jacket and tailored pants, the redness of her 
shoulder-length hair like a beacon of well-coifed flame on her head, 
struggled with her opponent.  That one was a pink-haired girl dressed 
in a dark Ohtori boys' uniform jacket and short pants, revealing 
coltish legs.  Grim smiles lit both girls' faces as they clashed with 
each other.

"Juri seems off her form today," remarked Toga Kiryu calmly, leaning 
against one wall.

"This match has only gone on for fifty-two seconds, and you can tell 
that already?" asked Miki Karou, briefly glancing at his pocketwatch.

"Her movements appear slightly less fluid than normal," he said with a 
clinical voice, watching as Utena and Juri clashed blades.  "I heard a 
rumor that her parents are trying to arrange another match."

Juri cursed as Utena's blade managed to score a slight rip through her 
sleeve as the two girls passed in front of Toga, steel ringing hard 
against steel, and she took a moment to snarl once at Toga.  She then 
rallied, putting Utena on the defensive and pressing her hard.  But 
Utena held firm, her own blade meeting Juri's in a dazzling display of 
parry and riposte, weaving a net of steel around herself that not even 
all of Juri's skill and might could get through.

"I appear to have touched a nerve, Miki," Toga remarked in a casual 
aside to his companion.

Juri missed a block, and she grimaced when the red rose in her jacket 
was suddenly cut free by a deft swipe of Utena's blade.  She backed off 
and raised her own blade in salute, acknowledging her defeat with a 
grudging grace.  She received one back from Utena in reply, and she 
lowered her blade again, before turning to walk towards the chair where 
she had left a towel.  She picked it up and began dabbing lightly at 
some perspiration on her face.

"Is that true, Juri?" asked Utena, placing her sword in the rack on the 
wall.  She preferred wooden blades for matches, but Juri had insisted 
on having this duel with live steel.  Losing to Ranma had given Utena 
an appearance of possible weakness, and Juri had been the first to step 
forward and test that.

"It's true enough."  Juri settled her slightly heavier blade in its 
place on the wall.  "The meeting is in a couple of days, with the Kuno 
family."

Toga frowned slightly and said, "Tatewaki Kuno, eh?"

"You know him?" asked Juri, raising one eyebrow.

"We've met," Toga said enigmatically.  "He's a skilled duelist."

Utena hmm'd briefly.  Other than Ranma, she had not fought with anyone 
outside of Ohtori's student body.  When she turned around, Juri was 
walking away, her back straight, her shoulders firm.

"Juri's rejected several marriage agreements," said Miki, coming up 
behind Utena softly.  "Her family is pressuring her to finally accept 
one."

Utena was glad that she was not of the nobility.  An arranged marriage 
sounded so archaic.  But then she had not had much interest in boys, 
preferring to spend her time honing her skills, until meeting Ranma 
that is.

Ranma.  A faint sigh escaped her lips at the thought of him.  She hoped 
that he would call her soon.  Ohtori Academy had a formal dance coming 
up, and she could use an escort.  Besides, she sort of owed him for his 
kindness in letting her stay at his house overnight.

"She's thinking about that Ranma Saotome fellow again, I would hazard 
to guess," commented Toga in another aside as he and Miki leaned upon 
the Rose Tower's outer balcony, allowing them to look over the entire 
school.  Lightning flashed in the distance, and the clouds promised 
rain.

"Ranma Saotome," murmured Miki, his hands clenching slightly on the 
railing.  "I don't like him."  The memory of how Kodachi had demeaned 
herself so over the other boy burned like a flame within him.

"He caught the fancy of your attractive little friend Kodachi, I could 
see," remarked Toga casually.

Miki replied quickly, if a bit acidly, "Not to mention that Nabiki 
Tendo girl you were being friendly with."

"Yes.  It appears we may have a common cause in dealing with him."

"You have something in mind?"  Miki looked at Toga, the breeze playing 
with his hair.

Toga smiled.  "Ohtori's spring formal is coming up.  I was thinking of 
causing a slight scandal by inviting Nabiki Tendo to attend it with me.  
I believe I heard somewhere that you have already invited Kodachi Kuno 
as your date?"

"Yes," replied Miki, a wistful smile appearing on his visage at the 
thought of dancing with Kodachi.  "I've been practicing my dance steps 
with my sister."

"I'm sure you have.  All we need to do is show the ladies a good time 
amidst a society affair, and they shall be putty in our hands."  Toga 
casually stroked back some of his reddish locks of hair, a confident 
look on his face.  "I intend to show Nabiki Tendo a very good time, if 
you understand my meaning, one that will make her forget all about that 
Ranma Saotome fellow."

Miki blushed.  Toga was always so sure of himself around the ladies, 
unlike himself.  He always felt uncertain around girls, except for a 
few, like Utena or Kodachi.  Even Anthy made him a little nervous, and 
he had felt a crush for her ever since she had arrived on the campus.  
But now Kodachi had come back into his life again after all these many 
years since they had played together as children, and his desires for 
her were growing stronger every day.

"Do you think Utena will ask Ranma to the dance?"  Miki looked over at 
the pink-haired girl.

"My dear Miki, I'm counting on it."  Toga smiled charmingly.  "It will 
be a perfect chance to deal with this particular thorn in our sides, 
don't you think?  The ladies will see him there with Utena, and the two 
of us will be there to console their wounded hearts.  Whatever sort of 
inexplicable spell he has cast over them will be broken.  I then fully 
intend to enjoy my time with the charming Nabiki to the utmost, and I 
suggest you do the same with Kodachi."  His smile turned lascivious.

"I see."  Miki thought about the plan.  It seemed simple enough, and 
any chance he was given to spend more time with Kodachi was wonderful.  
He nodded his agreement with the scheme.  "I'm in."

"Excellent, I shall telephone Nabiki Tendo this week and invite her."  
He bowed to Miki, smiling at his new ally.

"Here's to victory," said Miki, bowing back in response.

Standing up, Toga smiled even more brightly.  He loved the sound of 
that word.  "Yes, to victory."

                   ******************************

On the outskirts of Tokyo, two travel-worn figures seemed to emerge 
from the light of the sun rising behind them.  Both of them carried 
heavy travelling packs, and they appeared like people who had been on 
the road for some time.  One was an attractive girl with blue-green 
hair, somewhat taller than average and with a somewhat insouciant 
manner about her, and the other was a teenaged boy with a bandanna 
wrapped around his head to hold his unruly hair out of his eyes.

"Well, we made it," said Ryoko, turning to flash a brief grin at Ryoga.

"Yeah," he replied, feeling his heart lift a bit from the deep pit of 
despair it normally sat in.  Soon he would have his revenge.  It would 
feel so good to finally unleash his righteous rage on the one who had 
earned it: Ukyo Kuonji.

A few days spent travelling on the road together with him had given 
Ryoko an oddly maternal kind of protectiveness towards Ryoga.  They had 
spent a fair amount of their time travelling by talking to each other, 
but his core reason for hating Ukyo was still vague.  He didn't seem to 
much like talking about it, only that the other boy had wronged him 
somehow, and he wanted to have his revenge.  As they had gotten closer 
to Tokyo, his thoughts seemed to focus more intently on that revenge, 
with a single-mindedness that was almost inspiring to Ryoko in an odd 
sort of way.  She had actually come to enjoy travelling with him, even 
as gruff and surly as he could be occasionally, and she was a little 
saddened that their journey together was coming to an end.

"So where do we find this Ukyo guy you're looking for?  Do you have an 
address where he'll be in town?"  As she spoke, Ryoko walked along with 
an easy manner, occasionally eyeing some of the many window displays, 
but she never took her eyes off of Ryoga for very long.

"Uh, no," Ryoga replied slowly.  "I don't know an address, only that 
Ukyo was going to be in Tokyo."

Ryoko paused in her walking, and she looked at Ryoga in amusement, one 
eyebrow raised.  She casually leaned against a wall and studied him, 
folding her arms across her chest.

"Let me get this straight," she said with a grin suddenly appearing on 
her face.  "You just spent a couple of weeks trekking across Japan to 
get to Tokyo, a city with about twelve million people in it, looking 
for this Ukyo guy.  And you don't even have an address?  Just how dumb 
are you, Hibiki?"  She raised her arms up, turning around.  "This is a 
big city.  Did you give any thought for how you'd find _one_ person in 
the midst of it?"

"I- uh-"  Ryoga looked ahead at the sprawling metroplex stretched out 
for innumerable miles before him, a concrete monument of steel, glass, 
and stone.  He scratched the back of his head, suddenly realizing how 
enormous his task was going to be.  It wasn't like the villages back 
home where he and Ukyo had grown up.  He had simply thought he would 
march into town, find Ukyo within a few hours of looking, unleash his 
revenge upon the miserable wretch for awakening feelings of attraction 
in him, and then he could go back home.

"Come on," said Ryoko, suddenly grabbing him by the arm.  Knowing that 
he would be totally lost in this city without her, she had spent the 
last couple of mornings trying to figure out a good way to ask him to 
come home with her.  It seemed that his lack of planning had given her 
the perfect excuse.  "You're coming home with me.  My folks live in the 
Nerima area.  You can stay with us for a couple of days while I help 
you track down this Ukyo fellow."

"H-home with you?" said Ryoga, his heart suddenly pounding as he let 
her drag him towards the nearest subway station.  He came very close to 
fainting when he had finally noticed her hand on his arm.  A nervous 
twitch came across his features.  A beautiful girl was walking arm in 
arm with him.  This was wonderful and utterly terrifying all at once.

"Yeah, my folks won't mind," she replied, still grinning.  She noticed 
that Ryoga had zoned out with a goofy look on his features.  She began 
casually slapping him hard across the face a few times to snap him out 
of it.  It was something she had gotten used to doing during their trip 
together.  "I'm sure my mom will likely be thrilled to see you," she 
said half-jokingly, after he came back to himself.

As they walked down the stairs to the subways, Ryoga became lost in his 
own thoughts again.  He had made it to Tokyo.  Soon he would have his 
righteous revenge on the cause of his misery.

"Ukyo Kuonji!  I will see you in Hell!" Ryoga shouted at the heavens.

A pair of peaceforcers eyed the couple, and Ryoko smiled innocently at 
them, quickly elbowing Ryoga hard in the lower ribs to quiet him.

"He's practicing for a school play."  She then hurriedly got them on to 
the next train, leaving a couple of puzzled peaceforcers behind them.

                   ******************************

Sakura could tell that something was wrong when she saw Akane's face.  
The girl looked like she wanted to kill somebody.  Breaking off from 
her conversation with one of her squadmates, she headed over to Akane.

"Hey, Akane," said Sakura with a smile.  She stepped back a pace at the 
sheer fury in the gaze that the Tendo girl gave her in reply, falling 
into a defensive stance by reflex.  She relaxed when Akane seemed to 
recognize her finally, the Tendo girl's savage look crumbling a bit.

"Sakura," Akane said a bit forlornly.  "I want you to help me train."

"Train?  Are you worried about your next challenge match?"  She paused 
when she saw Akane abruptly shake her head.  Sakura put her arm around 
her friend, trying to console her.  "What is it, Akane?  What's wrong?"

"My sister is trying to steal Ranma from me," Akane said with an edge 
of sobbing in her voice.  She leaned her head on Sakura's shoulder.  "I 
can't let her get away with it.  I need you to teach me that technique 
you used to beat me."

"The Cherry Blossom Fist?"  Sakura was surprised at the request.  "I 
dunno, Akane.  It's a pretty advanced technique.  It took me weeks to 
get it down right."

Akane looked up and met Sakura's gaze steadily.  "I need it to beat 
Nabiki, Sakura.  She's got this new technique she's been training to 
master.  I need something to match it."  Akane gripped Sakura by the 
shoulders.  "Help me.  You're the only one I can turn to."

"All right, Akane."  Sakura smiled and nodded.  "I'll help you, if it 
means that much to you.  What are friends for?"

Akane's eyes filled with tears, and she hugged Sakura tightly.  "Oh, 
thank you, Sakura!  Thank you!"

Sakura ruffled Akane's hair and smiled a bit distantly.  Helping Akane 
out with her problems would help get her mind off her own troubles, 
like her worries over her poor Ryu-senpai, and her plans for maiming a 
certain Chinese amazon if she ever got the chance.

                   ******************************

Soun Tendo paused in front of the glass and steel tower of the Ministry 
of Science and checked his wristwatch.  Genma Saotome had called him up 
out of the blue and invited him out to lunch, a curious thing.  Still, 
if the man wanted to be more friendly to a future in-law, that was all 
right with Soun.  Luckily, it had been a quiet morning, so his schedule 
had allowed him the luxury of accepting Genma's impromptu invitation.

"Shall I wait here for you, Sir?" asked the driver, standing stiffly at 
attention next to the car in his uniform.

Soun turned and thought about it.  While there were several excellent 
restaurants within walking distance, storm clouds brewed overhead, and 
it had been raining off and on all morning.  It was a pity.  A walk 
would have been nice.  He had been spending too much time sitting.  The 
lack of exercise was giving him a severe case of swivel chair spread.

"Yes, I think that might be wise," he said.  "I'll be back shortly.  
Wait here."

The driver executed a crisp salute.  "Yes, Sir."

Soun grunted once in acknowledgement of the salute and saluted back.  
He then turned and trudged up the wet concrete steps to the glass front 
doors of the Science Ministry.  Two guards stood at the entrance, each 
one dressed in Security gray and armed with a semi-automatic rifle 
currently slung over their shoulder.  They both snapped to attention at 
his approach, one of them turning to look at him and bowing slightly.

"Your ID, Sir?" the guard said respectfully.

Soun flipped open his Security Directorate badge and ID, letting the 
guard get a good look at it.  Seeing his name and rank, the young man 
snapped to an even greater level of attention and saluted.  The other 
guard opened the door for Soun after saluting, holding it as he stood 
at attention.  Seeing that their performance was at an acceptable 
level, Soun returned their salutes curtly and strode into the main 
lobby.

The guard at the main desk stood up and saluted.  Four other guards, 
stationed around the room and also armed with semi-automatic rifles, 
snapped a bit straighter, sensing an officer's presence with the keen 
senses of a career soldier.  "Welcome to the Science Ministry, Sir."

"I'm here to see Professor Genma Saotome."

"Of course, Sir.  Professor Saotome has his private lab and office up 
on the thirteenth floor."  He quickly snatched up the telephone from 
its cradle.  "Shall I announce that you're coming up, Sir?"

Soun waved his hand in negation.  "No, no.  He's expecting me.  And 
this isn't any sort of an official matter.  Professor Saotome and I 
have a luncheon appointment."

"Yes, Sir."  The guard put the telephone down and pointed at the back 
wall.  "The elevators are back there, Sir.  Professor Saotome's lab is 
the third one on the left as you exit from the elevators.  Is there 
anything else I could do to be of further assistance?"

"No, thank you."  Soun strolled past the desk towards the elevators.  
He was pleased to see that security here was sharp.  It wasn't often 
that he had a chance to visit the other ministries, but it was good to 
see such professionalism from these representatives of the Empire's 
Security Directorate.

The ride up the elevator was blessedly brief, some piece of classical 
music that he could not identify playing in the background.  There was 
a ding when the car reached the thirteenth floor, and the doors parted, 
allowing him to step out.  A rather plain hallway greeted his eyes.

Soun turned and walked down the hallway to the proper door and knocked.

After a moment, Genma opened the door to his lab.  He smiled brightly 
and nodded.  "Tendo-kun, nice to see you.  Please, come in."

Soun decided to let the overly-familiar honorific go by.  He nodded 
curtly, stepping into the room.  He allowed his gaze to sweep the space 
briefly, noting a number of computers and a fairly significant amount 
of electronic gear set up.  "It seems you're keeping busy, Saotome-san.  
What is it that you're working on?"

"Allow me to show you," said Genma, shutting the door.  When Soun took 
his eyes off him for a moment, he raised a small needle gun he had kept 
hidden in his pocket and fired a slim dart into Soun's back.  Within a 
moment, a fast-acting sedative hit his system.

Soun started to turn to face Genma, his mouth open in surprise, but 
then his eyes suddenly rolled up in their sockets.  He fell forward 
into Genma's waiting arms, causing the heavy-set man to grunt at the 
weight.

Genma hurried to carry his slumbering guest across the lab and settled 
him into a waiting chair, opening one of the drawers nearby and pulling 
out some package binding strips.  He lashed Soun's arms and legs down 
with them, tying him securely to the chair's armrests and legs.  He 
also bound a thick strip of cloth around Soun's head and between his 
jaws, gagging him to keep him from making too much noise.

While he waited for the sedative to wear off, Genma leaned against one 
of the lab's tables.  Things were getting desperate, forcing his to do 
something like this.  He was growing uncertain how much longer he could 
handle the boy on his own, especially now that Nodoka had dropped her 
bombshell.  To make matters worse, a representative of the government 
had informed him that the Empire was exercising eminent domain on the 
temple he had planned to purchase, frustrating his plans to establish 
the first dojo of many he had planned for the Anything-Goes School.  He 
realized he needed help, and so he had undertaken a new scheme that he 
was certain would work.

After a time, Soun came to.  His senses were blurred, and he shook his 
head to clear his eyes.  What he saw was Genma Saotome standing there, 
a grin on his face.  Soun's expression quickly changed from bafflement 
to fury.  Had the man gone insane?  Once he was free of this, nobody 
would ever find that fat fool's body!  Soun struggled against his bonds 
and struggled to speak.  "Mmf!  MMMF!"

"Sorry about this, Tendo-kun," said Genma with some sincerity, leaning 
down and looking his furious companion on the eyes.  "It's just that 
I've been doing some thinking for the past few weeks, and I realized 
something.  I've got a great life here."

"Mmf?"  Soun thought quickly, wondering where this was going.  This 
whole situation didn't make any sense.

Genma straightened back up and looked down at his prisoner.  "Yeah, 
it's a great life, but there's also something missing.  What's missing 
is my best friend in the whole world, Soun Tendo."

"Mmf Mmf?"  Best friend?  They were never friends.  Whatever was Genma 
babbling about?

"So a while ago, I had an idea."  Genma reached over and flipped on the 
main switch of a power bar on the nearby lab table.  A computer screen 
lit up and began scrolling text.  Soun saw Genma type now and then, and 
he watched in helpless curiosity.

*SELF-CHECK COMPLETE

*ALL LOGIC COMPONENTS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*QUANTUM FLUX COIL IS FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*NEURAL INDUCTION SENSORS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*SYSTEM HAS 8 QUANTUM COORDINATES STORED IN STABLE MEMORY

*SCAN FOR NEW COORDINATES:  NO

*PLEASE INPUT QUANTUM COORDINATE FILE DESIRED:  8

The screen briefly cleared as Soun watched.  Then new text suddenly 
appeared and began scrolling upwards.

*QUANTUM COORDINATE FILE #0000008 LOADING INTO ACTIVE MATRIX...

*PLEASE STAND BY...

*MATRIX LOADED: FILE #0000008.  DETAILS?  YES

*FILE #0000008 - QUANTUM DIVERGENCE POINT OCCURRED:
    3,852 YEARS
        9 MONTHS
       06 DAYS
       11 HOURS
       22 MINUTES
       14 SECONDS AGO.

*SET CYCLE INTO ACTIVE MODE:  YES

*SET TIME DURATION FOR TEST:  10.00 MINUTES

*WAITING FOR SIGNAL FROM NEURAL INTERLINK HEADSET

Genma pointed at the information on the screen as he fumbled with and 
eventually managed to unlimber a headset on a long wire.  "You see that 
information?  That's another world, another version of Earth, and I 
came from there."  He smirked.  "Well, not physically."  He tapped his 
temple with a forefinger.  "Whatever it was that made up Genma Saotome 
on that world came here, through this."  He waggled the headset he held 
in one hand.  "It was the boy, you see.  He did it.  His father and I 
accidentally swapped during an experiment, so it's been an interesting 
adjustment.  But the boy's difficult to manage on my own, so I thought 
about getting an ally.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to 
duplicate the boy's device, even with his detailed notes to work from."

Creating the quantum flux coil had been the hardest part, Genma mused, 
and making only one that matched the specifications in the boy's notes 
had used up everything he could possibly steal from the budgets of 
other projects.  So this gamble had to work.  But at least while he had 
been working on it, the dreams had finally stopped.  Having that other 
Genma nagging at him each night while he slept had been annoying, but 
that specter of conscience had finally gone blessedly quiet a couple of 
days ago.  He shook his head as he stopped next to where Soun was held 
captive.

Genma was insane, Soun realized with a small trickle of terror finally 
breaking down his iron control over his emotions, staring at the man as 
he drew closer.  Other Earths?  That was an utterly ridiculous notion.  
There was only one world, one Earth, not this psychotic science fiction 
of alternate histories that Genma apparently believed.

"Anyway," said Genma, placing the headset on Soun's head and securing 
it down firmly with a strap under Soun's chin.  "I've found a world 
without that lecherous old pervert in it, and it would be selfish of me 
to not want to share it with my best friend.  Right?"

"Mmf?"  Soun eyed the device, uncertain what was about to happen.

The computer suddenly spoke, "Initiating upload cycle."

                   ******************************

*** Earth +4.612,+4.509

"<Sir, I'm detecting a resonator signal of unknown origins.>"

All movement ceased on the bridge of the Dragon Claw, currently sitting 
parked at the LaGrange point just outside the moon's orbit, as all eyes 
turned to the figure sitting at the center of the bridge.  Slowly, the 
command chair swiveled around to the front, revealing the face of a 
white-haired young man of muscular build, his handsome face marred only 
by a single deep and ragged scar across one cheek.  Like all the others 
present, he was immaculately dressed in a tailored, dark-green uniform 
jacket with blue piping, black pants, and calf length, gloss black 
leather boots.  In addition, he also wore a white beret at a slight 
angle on his head, marking his status as the ship's captain and a line 
officer of the Musk Dynasty.

"<Finally,>" intoned Herb in the same guttural language as the young 
officer who had addressed him, before standing up and gazing around at 
his crew.  He tugged his jacket down a bit and smiled.  The ship had 
been waiting here for many days now in this backwater, since first 
detecting the tail end of a resonator signal transmitting into this 
tangent's paratemporal coordinates.  "<Centurion, begin tracking back 
to the signal's source.>"

"<Aye, Sir.>"

Herb sat back down in his command chair as the technician turned back 
to his task quickly.  His patience had finally paid off.  Somewhere out 
there across the infinity of alternate timeline tangents was the goal 
he had been seeking for so long, and the fates had finally thrown him a 
solid lead.

                   ******************************

There was a moment of non-existence, and then Soun was suddenly aware 
of the distinctive smell of sake when he took a breath.  He blinked 
rheumy eyes open, feeling them scratching at his eyeballs.  He could 
not remember closing them, only this odd sort of flash while he had 
been helpless in that chair, before waking up here.  Now he was laying 
in bed with the shades of the room drawn.  What had happened?  Where 
was he?  How did he get here from Genma's lab?

Soun sat up, hearing a bottle rolling to one side as his motion moved 
the blanket that had been on top of him, causing him to cringe slightly 
from the pain caused by the sound.  He felt awful, and his head was 
starting to pound mercilessly.

A sudden kaleidoscope of memories assailed him, causing the room to  
spin.  With a belch, he felt the contents of his stomach about to come 
up, and he barely managed to grab a trashcan before heaving.  He was 
too caught up in his physical miseries to be aware of much else for a 
time.

When the heaving finally stopped, Soun took stock of his surroundings.  
He got up and staggered to the window, carefully drawing aside the 
shade covering it.  He was home, and he saw the familiar walls of the 
dojo outside.  Then he paused, looking at the building, realizing with 
a start that it was bigger than before.  Why had he accepted what he 
saw before him as normal so easily?  He clutched his head, feeling a 
fresh assault of images, memories that were not his own.  What was 
happening to him?

                   ******************************

Ensign Shan Pu discovered with some slight embarrassment that she had 
been holding her breath as the Artemis-Class Solnoid Matriarchy vessel 
Huntress phased into existence.  She ran her fingers along the touch 
panel beneath her hands, adjusting ship's attitude when the stars had 
finished their brief shimmering and re-engaging the vessel's cloak.  
The ship was quickly engulfed by a thin film of energy that bent the 
entire spectrum of light around it, effectively rendering it invisible 
to all types of sensory equipment.  She hoped the captain had not 
noticed her hesitation.  It was her first time at the helm during a 
transition, where a thousand things could go wrong when phasing from 
one alternate timeline into another, and she was feeling a little bit 
apprehensive.

The teal blue uniform she wore was rather devoid of insignia, a plain 
sort of jumpsuit which hugged her trim figure.  Ankle-length gray boots 
completed the ensemble, as well as a single golden pin resting on her 
collar.  It was in the shape of a figure eight resting on its side, the 
classical symbol for infinity.  In jarring contrast to the uniform, a 
yellow sash was tied around her waist.

"<Captain, we have completed our trans-temporal shift,>" she said in 
slightly accented Solnoid, the common language used by the Matriarchy.  
"<The cloak is engaged, and our position is stable.>"

"<Well done, Ensign Shan,>" replied Captain Chow with a smile.  Her 
uniform was identical to the young ensign's, except that her sash was 
black.  "<A very smooth transition.  My compliments->"

"<Captain!  I'm detecting a Musk vessel twenty-six thousand li from our 
present location.  They are in a stationary orbit on the far side of 
the moon.>"

"<Confirmed, Captain,>" said Shan Pu after a moment, staring into her 
tactical display.  "<It appears to be a Spatha-Class vessel.  But why 
would they be all the way out here, so far from the border?>"

"<Who can fathom the minds of feral males?>" Captain Chow replied, 
leaning forward in her chair and lacing her fingers together, before 
resting her chin there.  What were the Muskys doing out here?  This was 
a long ways from the front lines, deep in Solnoid-controlled territory, 
where the Huntress was assigned to scout out new potential supply bases 
for the current campaign.

Captain Chow glanced at Lt. Ming, currently manning the main tactical 
station.  "<Any sign that they detected us?>"

"<No, Captain,>" Lt. Ming replied, after a moment spent staring at her 
displays.  "<There's no record that any active radar sweeps pinged us 
before the cloak was engaged.>"

Captain Chow glanced over at Shan Pu.  "<It seems that you're in luck, 
Ensign Shan.>"

"<Captain?>"  Shan Pu turned for a moment to look at the older woman.

"<The ink on your commission is barely dry, and you're about to taste 
blood in battle already.>"  A wolfish smile crossed Captain Chow's 
face.  She turned to Lt. Ming.  "<Load all fore and aft torpedo tubes 
and sound battle stations.>"  As the klaxons began sounding, she turned 
back to Shan Pu.  "<Take us in closer, Ensign Shan.  We have some feral 
males to exterminate.>"

"<Affirmative, Ma'am,>" replied Shan Pu crisply.
 
                   ******************************

Soun took several deep breaths as his head finally stopped spinning, 
and he managed to make some sense of what was happening.  There had 
been some advanced work on generating virtual realities being done in 
the Empire, but nothing he knew of would be this realistic.  And then 
there were the memories to contend with, memories of another life, one 
lived by another Soun Tendo.

There was only one inescapable conclusion.  This was no illusion, no 
false reality.  This was another world, as real as his own, and the man 
he had thought was the Genma Saotome he knew had consigned him to it, 
to switch him for the Soun Tendo of this other world, an emotionally 
crippled man.  A man that he was having difficulty accepting that he 
could have ever become.

Soun felt detached as he began examining those memories, reliving them 
in a sense but also holding their emotional content distant from him.  
What he saw troubled him greatly, like looking at his own life through 
a shattered mirror.

Kimiko was dead here, taken by the same illness that Imperial medicine 
had saved her from, her vitality and strength stilled forever, years 
before her death in Antarctica.  He had been luckier than this other 
Soun, having been allowed to enjoy more time with his wife.  That event 
had broken his other self, and he felt tears beginning to form in his 
eyes, his own dormant feelings for Kimiko responding to these painful 
new memories.  With more difficulty than he was used to, he mastered 
his emotions and held them firmly at bay.  After a time, the sadness 
receded to manageable levels.  He took a deep breath when the crisis 
had passed, and then he heard a gentle knock at the door.

"Father?" came Kasumi's voice, sounding worried.  "I made some lunch.  
Do you feel well enough to eat today?"

Soun felt shame as Kasumi's voice awoke new memories within him from 
his other self's life.  After falling apart like the man had, it had 
required his daughters to pull together and salvage the household, a 
heroic effort, especially from Kasumi.  Fortunately for this family, 
she had been more than equal to the task, but the effort had taken its 
toll.  The eldest Tendo daughter had been forced to remain here and act 
as 'mother' when she had every right to be off beginning her own life.

He cleared his throat.  "Lunch sounds like an excellent idea, Kasumi.  
Let me get cleaned up first, and I'll join you at the table."

"Of course, Father," Kasumi replied through the door, sounding a little 
surprised.  A timbre of happiness had entered her voice.  "I'll have it 
all ready for you."

Soun began pulling clean clothes from the drawers and closet.  Maybe he 
was trapped here for now, but there was no need for him to continue as 
his other self had done, wallowing in drunken misery like a child.  He 
felt sincere sympathy for Professor Saotome at that moment, recalling 
his departure with his son and the Chinese girl, Shampoo.

That name was oddly familiar, and it took him a moment to recall where 
he had heard it before.  When it came to him, he almost smiled at the 
irony.  His Akane practically worshipped the amazon, and she even had a 
life-sized poster of Shampoo hanging up in her room.  Here, things were 
different.  So many things were different.

An idea occurred to him while he was gathering clothes.  Professor 
Saotome was apparently also trapped here.  Perhaps together, he and 
Saotome-kun could find a way back home.  Who knew what catastrophes 
could happen while he and Saotome-kun were both trapped here, and those 
two fools were free to run rampant in their places?

Soun paused.  Saotome-kun?  That was how someone addressed a friend, 
and he had never been the friend of Professor Genma Saotome.  Then he 
paused again, as flashes of the friendship between this world's Soun 
Tendo and Genma Saotome came to mind.  A slight smile lit his face for 
a moment.  Maybe they could be friends as well as allies.  That might 
be nice.  He had been so involved in his work for so many years that he 
didn't really have anyone he could call a friend anymore.

Besides, it had been a while since he had enjoyed a good shogi match.

                   ******************************

"<Sir, I have completed my analysis of the signal,>" said the young 
centurion, turning to face an impatiently waiting Herb.

"<Go on.>"  Herb stopped drumming his fingers on the armrest of his 
command chair.

The centurion looked excited.  "<It comes from a region far beyond our 
scanning capacity.  I've never heard of a signal that could reach this 
far across tangents on its own, without requiring repeater stations.  
Not even our phase drives have the range to shift us to its source in a 
single translation, even using the carrier wave as a beacon, my lord.>"

"<I thought as much,>" said Herb, sounding pleased.  "<This is what 
I've been looking for.>"  He stood up.  "<Centurion, you have the 
bridge.  Inform my personal guards to meet me in the signal room.>"

"<Sir?>"

Herb smiled coldly.  "<Since we can't follow it in this vessel, I'm 
going to piggyback a transmission on its carrier wave while it's still 
available.  With any luck, there will be an analog of mine that I can 
use on that tangent, allowing me to track down the source of that 
signal and use it to transmit that world's location to the Dynasty 
homeworld.  I sincerely doubt they'll put up much of a fight when a few 
of our dreadnoughts phase into orbit over their heads.  It should make 
an excellent staging area for a surprise assault on the backside of 
those Solnoid bitches, once we finish with pacifying it.  Wouldn't you 
say so?>"

The centurion saluted.  "<A brilliant plan, Sir!>"

"<I thought so, too,>" Herb replied with a nasty smile.  "<Soon enough, 
we'll teach those women their proper place in the universe, as servants 
and concubines to their betters, once we have properly broken them to 
the yoke of servitude.  After all, it is inevitable that the Musk will 
eventually rule all, for we are the one true master race.>"  He paused 
briefly at the door to the lift.  "<This will be a day long remembered, 
Centurion, as the beginning of the end for the Solnoids' perverted 
philosophies of female supremacy.>"

The young centurion saluted Herb as the lift door closed, pride evident 
on his young face.

                   ******************************

Shan Pu slowed the Huntress to a halt at eight thousand li from the 
Musk vessel, listening to the lively babble of electronic traffic all 
around her as various sections of the ship reported in to the bridge.  
A fifty-kiloton thermonuclear warhead now rested in each of the four 
forward tubes as well as the two aft ones, their fuses primed.  It 
wouldn't be long now before the Musk vessel was turned into debris.

"<Captain, the Musk vessel is still showing no signs of awareness,>" 
said Lt. Ming, finally managing to free up her board as the last ship 
sections reported readiness.  "<We are at full readiness to begin our 
attack run.>"

"<Monitor their communications traffic,>" ordered Captain Chow.  "<I 
don't want to be caught by surprise if a Musky battle group is about to 
join them.>"

"<One moment.>"  Lt. Ming studied her console.  "<Odd.  I'm picking up 
an incoming resonator transmission here, from a very long range.  Wait.  
Three signal pulses just went out.>"  She looked up.  "<The source of 
the original transmission is somehow beyond our detection range.>"

"<That's impossible,>" Shan Pu broke in.  "<There has to be some sort 
of a repeater station within range.  There's no way for a resonator 
signal to reach this far on its own, without some kind of a boost.>"

"<The ensign's right, Captain.  What I'm reading is way beyond what's 
supposed to be possible for resonator technology.>"

"<Can you piggyback a standard scanning pulse back along this mystery 
signal's carrier wave?>"  Captain Chow looked over at Lt. Ming.

"<Easily enough done, but there's a good chance that the Muskys over 
there will detect it.  Why do you ask?>"

"<I don't think that's a Musk signal, and I'll be damned if I'll let a 
bunch of feral males get a hold of technology like this.  So I'll take 
that risk.  Ensign, close to five thousand li.  Lieutenant Yim, charge 
up the particle mounts and prepare to launch torpedoes on my mark.>"

"<Affirmative, Captain.>"  Lt. Yim, a short, thin woman, held her thumb 
poised over the launch button, ready to unleash thermonuclear death at 
her captain's command.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Herb took a deep breath and smelled the freshness in the air, relishing 
that unmistakable scent that no shipboard air could ever duplicate, no 
matter what sort of advances in atmospheric scrubbers were made.  There 
was nothing quite like air made by nature.  Herb inhaled deeply again 
and detected something odd with this breath, an unexpected weight on 
his chest.  He opened his eyes and looked down.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

This was impossible!  He was now a female, a lowly brood mare!  Someone 
was going to suffer dearly for this!

                   ******************************

Genma was growing nervous.  A handful of minutes had gone by.  It was 
almost time for him to reverse the signal polarity, before the recall 
cycle began.  This had to work.  He needed help to deal with the boy, 
one so much smarter and stronger than the Ranma he was used to dealing 
with.

It was all for the good of the Anything-Goes School and its future 
success, after all.

                   ******************************

*** Earth +4.612,+4.509

"<I've completed my analysis, Captain.  The results are interesting.>"

"<How so?>"

"<It seems that out of our entire crew compliment of eighty-two, there 
is only one among us with an analog on the tangent that this mystery 
signal comes from.>"

Captain Chow blinked.  That was lower than she was expecting.  "<Who?>"

"<Ensign Shan was the only engramatic template among the crew database 
that was able to generate a positive response from my test pulse.  This 
isn't too surprising, since there are one hundred and two different 
versions of the ensign out of the one hundred and eight member worlds 
of the Matriarchy.  Individuals like her are extremely rare, as you can 
well imagine, Captain.  I suppose it's even possible that the ensign 
here might even be fairly ubiquitous across all tangents, but that's 
only a theory.  Regardless, it appears that she's the only option we 
have at present, and we have no idea how long that signal will continue 
to transmit into the tangent.  This may be our only opportunity.>"

Ensign Shan turned from her console for a moment.  She had not expected 
to be the only possibility among the crew, but she had known that she 
had a large number of analogs.  She had even met a few of the other 
versions of herself at various diplomatic functions she had been 
required to attend with her mother, and she had been amazed at the 
great variety among them.

"<I'm reluctant to order you to do something like this, Ensign,>" said 
Captain Chow thoughtfully.  "<So I hope you are willing to volunteer to 
see what is on the other end of that signal.>"

Ensign Shan double-checked that her station was secure, and then she 
took a breath and stood up, facing her captain.  She saluted, her right 
fist tight against her left breast.  "<For the Matriarchy.>"

Captain Chow stood up and returned the salute proudly in response to 
the young girl's bravery in the face of the unknown.  Who knew what the 
other end of that signal held for her?  "<For the Matriarchy, Ensign 
Shan Pu.>"

                   ******************************

"<Report status, Centurion,>" said Herb when he returned to the bridge.  
His thoughts felt a little fuzzy, an unfortunate side-effect of the 
engram recording.  Ever since waking up from the procedure, something 
had felt wrong, a tickle at the back of his neck.

"<Nothing to report, Sir.  All systems nominal.>"

The centurion's words did not soothe Herb.  The nagging worry did not 
abate, feeling like a splinter in his mind.

                   ******************************

"<Now just relax, Ensign,>" said Doctor Gao, who had been brought in to 
monitor the procedure.  "<The recording will only take a few moments.>"

Shan Pu was certain she was not scared, such a feeling was unworthy of 
a soldier of the Solnoid Matriarchy, but there was a tremor of disquiet 
in her midsection, like butterflies bumping around inside her.  Her 
thoughts turned to memories of home as the headset was fitted to her 
head, and her final night of shore leave.

It was just after graduation, and her classmates had wanted to blow off 
some steam and celebrate.  So they had all gone down to the red light 
district near the port.  Peh Fum had been the instigator, and Shan Pu 
smiled at the memory of her best friend and fellow officer-trainee.

Shan Pu had been selecting a 'comfort male' to celebrate the evening 
with, in one of the port's many pleasure houses.  A grinning Peh Fum 
had been helping a blushing Shan Pu choose.  She had never been to such 
a place before, and the pink-haired girl had been assuring her on what 
she could expect from the experience, describing the pleasures in great 
detail.  Several of their cadre mates had sworn that the comfort males 
there were the most handsome and athletic in the port, with many that 
were near their own age.

While the group had been boisterously deciding, Shan Pu had noticed a 
strangely dressed girl stealing food from the table, where a feast of 
celebration had been laid out.  She would not soon forget that face.  
She had chased the girl into a nearby alley, furious at the thief's 
brazenness to steal from Solnoid soldiers like that.  There she had 
been astonished to see that the strange girl had opened a quantum 
tunnel, and Shan Pu had leaped at her, engaging her in a furious 
unarmed melee to prevent her from escaping.  After a brief but fierce 
struggle, the girl had managed to knock her out with a powerful kick 
that slammed her into a wall.

A short time later, Peh Fum had found her in the alley and brought her 
back to the pleasure house, where her friend had picked out a handsome 
young man for her, and the evening had ended on a more enjoyable note.  
It had been Shan Pu's first time with a man, and he had been both a 
wonderful lover and pleasant company talking with afterwards.  All in 
all, her last night of shore leave had been memorable, before she had 
to leave for her first assignment as a newly-commissioned officer.

What had been his name?

Oh, yes.  Ranma.

She smiled at the memory of his name.  Maybe she would look him up 
again the next time they returned home.  After all, unlike some of the 
more radical extremist elements in the Matriarchy, which had grown more 
vocal as the war with the Musk had dragged on, Shan Pu had nothing at 
all against males in general, so long as they minded their place among 
those of the superior gender.

Before reporting in to the Huntress the next morning, she had consulted 
with one of the Sibylline Oracles about that strange girl, wondering if 
she would have a chance at revenge.  The white-robed figure had closed 
her eyes as she held Shan Pu's hands, opening her inner vision to the 
future.  She muttered a few words in Old Solnoid, then told her that 
she would meet that girl again.  Though she didn't much believe in any 
of the Sibylline Order's reputed powers of divination, it was still a 
bit comforting to hear that.  She was looking forward to having a 
rematch with that little thief.

"<That's it, Ensign,>" said Doctor Gao, interrupting Shan Pu's musings 
as she removed the headset.  "<We've got a clean recording.  Wait a few 
moments to get your bearings back, and then you can head back to the 
bridge.>"

Shan Pu watched as the fist-sized data cartridge was carried from the 
room.  Such a small thing to hold memories of a life, she mused.  She 
felt a sudden curiosity about the life that the copy of her engrams 
would be able to experience, when that recording was imprinted in her 
analog.  What would she be like?  What would she dream about?

                   ******************************

"<Beginning transmission, Captain,>" said Lt. Ming as Shan Pu emerged 
from the lift.

Shan Pu paused, feeling an eerie sensation come over her.  She stood at 
attention, waiting for the captain to acknowledge her.

"<Transmission complete.  No irregularities detected in the carrier 
wave.  It was a remarkably clean transmission.>"

                   ******************************

"<Sir!  Picking up a fluctuation in the carrier wave.  There's another 
transmission piggybacking on to it from this end!>"

Herb felt the tickling at the back of his neck intensify.  "<Raise 
shields!>" he barked.  "<Arm positron cannons!>"

                   ******************************

"<They're raising shields, Captain.>"

"<Fire!>"  Captain Chow then quickly whirled to face Lt. Ming.  "<Raise 
the shields!>"  She then turned to face Lt. Aoi.  "<Bring the engines 
up to full and give them everything we've got as we pass over their 
heads, where their shields are weaker.  Begin evasive maneuvers and 
reposition us for another pass as soon as possible!>"

Several decks below, the torpedo tubes belched forth fire as four very 
fast-moving streaks emerged and lanced away.

                   ******************************

"<Incoming torpedoes!  Brace for impact!>"

Despite that warning, Herb was nearly thrown from his seat when all 
four Solnoid torpedoes hit his vessel, ripping into the protective 
gravitic shielding before they could come up to full power.  Alarm 
klaxons began going off loudly.  He gnashed his teeth in rage.

"<Return fire with all available batteries!>" Herb shouted, furious 
that he had been taken off-guard like this.  "<Load port and starboard 
torpedo tubes!>"

"<Unable to calculate targeting solution,>" said the weapon's officer, 
ignoring a gash on his chin from when his face had hit the console in 
front of him only a moment before.  "<Firing in a sweep pattern.>"

                   ******************************

Now it was the Huntress's turn to be rocked by enemy weapon's fire, 
even as she flew past the Musk vessel while blazing away with her heavy 
particle cannons.  A loud klaxon went off as fires broke out from 
systems shorting out.  One of the positron streams had managed to hit 
near one of the main power conduits, a lucky shot that disabled the 
cloak as it burned its way through various systems.  Without it, her 
lighter shielding would not be able to resist a full fusillade of the 
Dragon Claw's firepower.

"<Damage control reporting in, Captain,>" said Lt. Ming calmly.  "<We 
managed to get the shields up before they nailed us, but they've taken 
down our cloak.  Fore and aft torpedo rooms report fully operational.  
Fire control reports fully operational.  External communication are now 
down.  Engine room reports some damage to the main drive.  We can fight 
and still outmaneuver them, but we can't outrun the Muskys.>"

"<Then reload all tubes and fire all weapons!>" Captain Chow shouted, a 
dribble of blood rolling down her chin.  She had bitten her tongue when 
the ship had been hit by the Dragon Claw's assault.  She was dismayed 
to see that Lt. Aoi was reeling in her seat, her face a bloody mess 
from a section of bulkhead slamming into her.  She saw that Shan Pu had 
returned to the bridge.  "<Ensign Shan!  Take the helm!>"

Shan Pu hurried to obey, helping her injured crewmate from the chair 
and sliding into her place even as a medic emerged from the lift.  Her 
nervousness was gone now as her training took over, and she wheeled the 
Huntress past the Dragon Claw, noting with deep satisfaction that the 
enemy ship was belching flames from several rents in its hull as it 
leaked superheated atmosphere.  She felt a surge as the rear tubes and 
particle mounts unloaded into the more lumbering bulk of the Dragon 
Claw.

                     ******************************

This time, Herb was unable to avoid being thrown from his seat as his 
vessel was struck once more, the hull scored deeply as several of the 
Huntress's particle beams found their mark through the chinks in his 
depleted shielding.  He howled his rage at the smaller, more nimble 
vessel as it turned to make another run on him.

"<Port tubes one through three are damaged, Sir.>" one centurion began 
to quickly rattle off a damage report.  "<Communications are down.  We 
have hull breaches on decks three, seven, and eight.  Engineering 
reports that we are losing magnetic containment on the primary fusion 
bottle.>"

"<Fire all weapons!  Let those treacherous bitches die with us then!>"

                   ******************************

"<Tubes emptied, Captain,>" said Shan Pu, having taken weapon's control 
after Lt. Yim was killed by a shard of deck plating exploding upwards 
into her.  Lt. Ming had been killed on a prior pass.  <Recharging the 
capacitors on forward mounts one and four.  No response from two and 
three.>  The acrid smell of burning plastics and the sound of shorting 
components were all that greeted her in reply.  Damage reports had been 
coming in less and less often as the life and death struggle had raged 
on between the two ships, and had finally stopped coming in altogether.

"<Captain?>"  Shan Pu turned to see why Captain Chow had not responded, 
then turned her head away from the sight that greeted her gaze.  Tears 
filled her eyes, and she blinked them away.  The smell of death was in 
the air, and she knew now that she was going to die soon.

So be it, she thought, her expression hardening.  The enemy would not 
win this battle.  She was Shan Pu, a Solnoid warrior, and it was a good 
day to die.  Her only regret was that the Oracle's prediction would not 
come true.

"<Tube one reloaded,>" she muttered to herself, uncertain if anyone was 
still alive down there, or if it had only been the automatic systems 
doing it.  There was no response from any of the other tubes, fore or 
aft.  "<Maneuvering to fire.>"

                   ******************************

Herb could no longer see out of one of his eyes, and his arm was now in 
a makeshift sling.  His bridge crew were all dead, as well as most of 
his other crew, and the ship was barely operating on its secondary 
fusion bottle now, which was failing.  A single blinking light was on 
the helm control in front of him.  He had enough charge built up for 
one more shot from his main positron cannon as he saw the Solnoid ship 
begin its next attack run, the enemy vessel looking as fatally damaged 
as his own.  Their struggle to the death was coming to its conclusion.  
A line from an old story he had once come across on some conquered 
tangent came to his mind.

"<From Hell's heart I stab at thee,>" Herb muttered, coughing up some 
blood.

Smacking the firing button with his palm, he imagined he could hear the 
capacitors in the bowels of the ship discharging one last time across 
the vacuum of space.  No one would ever know of his glory here this 
day, he mused in annoyance.  There had not been a chance to transmit 
their findings, so he could only hope that his distant analog could 
find a way to notify the homeworld.

Herb smiled wolfishly as he saw the beam rip through the other vessel's 
hull, his face a mask of blood as he muttered, "<For hate's sake I spit 
my last breath at thee.>"  He howled his defiance as he saw the Solnoid 
vessel's torpedo heading right at him.

                   ******************************

Shan Pu felt the Huntress rock around her as the Musk vessel's main 
cannon coughed up one last blast to ravage her with.  Luckily, she had 
already fired her remaining functional tube before the connection was 
severed by the energy tearing though the ship's superstructure, and the 
torpedo was streaking eagerly away at her prey.  She tasted blood in 
her mouth, feeling regret that none of her sisters would ever sing of 
her glory.

She had a momentary satisfaction at seeing the Musk vessel suddenly 
explode into a ball of expanding debris and plasma flame, and then the 
Huntress's main fusion bottle finally lost its own containment.

For a brief moment, the dark side of the moon was lit by two actinic 
flares of light that swiftly faded into nothingness.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Shan Pu blinked as her eyes suddenly came back into focus, and she 
swayed slightly on her feet before quickly regaining her balance.  She 
glanced down and found herself to be dressed in a sweat-dampened, dark 
blue T-shirt over a sports bra, the shirt tucked into the waistband of 
her light purple silk pants.  Each of her hands was wrapped with tape, 
and her feet were bare.  A heavy leather bag was in front of her, one 
that her analog had apparently been punching and kicking for some time, 
judging by the feel of her shoulders and thighs.

"Hey, why'd you stop?" asked Running Deer, peeking around the bag she 
had been bracing against the amazon's furious assault.  Shampoo was 
normally good for another twenty minutes before she needed to take a 
breather like this.

Shan Pu felt a sudden rush of memories assail her, from a life that she 
had never lived.  Her other self was from a small village in China.  A 
village of amazons, actually, who followed ancient laws and customs 
that went back thousands of years, almost like a miniature version of 
the Solnoid Matriarchy in operation.  One of the tribal laws caught her 
attention, one that promoted a rather simple but practical eugenics 
program on one hand, and a harsh response to defeat by an outsider 
female on the other.

A blur of more images flashed across her awareness, and she struggled 
to absorb them.  She only managed to glean bits and pieces for now.  
The rest would come later, over time.

Cocking her head slightly to one side, she was astonished at the sudden 
wealth of new experiences becoming available to her.  Her analog here 
was a powerful fighter, a martial artist of great skill that had left 
her village months ago to win glory for her people among their Japanese 
conquerors.  She had remained undefeated ever since, battling her way 
up through the rankings to wind up here, the Imperial Arena in Tokyo. 
Shan Pu set that aside for the moment and began launching punches and 
kicks into the bag, quickly getting into a smooth rhythm as she dealt 
out powerful blows, testing herself.

Her body responded to her with a level of fluid grace and strength that 
left her feeling a bit breathless and filled with wonder.  A grin grew 
on her face as she pummeled the heavy bag more and more furiously, her 
fists driving into it relentlessly.  After a long time, feeling sweat 
dripping down her body, she finally stopped and took a brief breather, 
rotating her right arm and then her left in their shoulder sockets 
slowly to cool down, already feeling her endurance beginning to rebuild 
itself.

Running Deer watched Shampoo curiously.  The amazon seemed a little out 
of it today for some reason, although it hadn't diminished her power 
any.  She briefly noted a thin stream of sand pouring from the seams of 
the bag and whistled a single note softly.

Ignoring Running Deer for the moment, Shan Pu walked over to study 
herself more closely in the full-length mirrors on the walls, taking 
stock as her breathing gradually slowed.  She was a little startled to 
realize that she seemed both a little taller and better built here.  
She studied herself more intently, noting with pleasure the solid 
definition of her muscular yet shapely figure.  A much more detailed 
inventory could wait until later, in private, but she would stack her 
new physique against that of anyone back home in the Matriarchy, in 
beauty or physical might.  Her analog here had worked hard to build 
this body to an amazing level of fitness and combat readiness.

Shan Pu turned to face the familiar girl she now recalled was named 
Running Deer, her best friend here, as well as a fellow fighter in the 
Imperial Arena.  She smiled brightly.

"Shampoo fine.  Shampoo feel great."  She then suddenly felt odd as she 
realized she was speaking Japanese, and not very well.  Her name also 
felt a little odd to say mispronounced like that, but she could adapt 
to that.

It was not encouraging to her as she recalled that she had always been 
slow at picking up new languages.  Why couldn't the dominant language 
on this world have been Solnoid, the main language used across the many 
worlds of the Matriarchy; Mandarin, which was her native tongue; or 
even English, her one language elective that she had taken during her 
training?  If it had been any one of those, then she could speak more 
normally.  But since it was Japanese, it looked like she was going to 
be speaking this pidgin version of the language for a long, long while.

"That's good," said Running Deer with a grin, tossing Shampoo a towel.  
"Could you spot me?  I still need to do a few sets with the weights."

"Sure."  Shampoo wiped the sweat from her face.  She wondered how long 
it would take before she felt at home.  She could only recall a few 
things from her classes on resonator technology.  Over a period of time 
the two sets of memories would eventually merge, even on an emotional 
and subconscious level.  In a sense, they evolved into a new individual 
that was more or less a mixture of the two, with the more dominant of 
the personalities absorbing elements of the other.

Shampoo wasn't concerned about that.  The merger had already begun for 
her, and it wasn't as if she was going to forget anything from either 
life.  She would lose nothing, and her two selves offered each other a 
richness of experience that made them both more complete.  In a certain 
sense, she was already Shampoo, the Chinese amazon, but she was also 
still Ensign Shan Pu, a trained soldier of the Solnoid Matriarchy that 
had been sent here on a mission.  She caught herself briefly wondering 
what her original self was doing now, then decided that such thoughts 
would only make her feel homesick.  Besides, she had a job to do here, 
and the Matriarchy would be watching for her signal, once Captain Chow 
reported their findings.

What did concern her was finding the source of that resonator signal on 
this world before the Muskys did.  She was little more than a glorified 
prizefighter here, on a world ruled by feral males.  She was going to 
have to give some thought to the matter and work out some kind of a 
strategy.  For the time being, she would simply act as her other self 
would normally act and try to learn more about her new home until an 
idea presented itself.

Her fervent hope was that the Muskys were even more disadvantaged by 
the status of their analogs on this world than she had been.

                   ******************************

Herb sat heavily on the cot, vaguely realizing that she was in a cell 
of some sort, but that wasn't very important right now.  This analog 
was female!  How could such a thing have happened?  The white-haired 
girl's attention seemed to be focussed on her breasts, having ripped 
open her top to stare down at them in shame and disgust.

"<I was a prince of the Musk Dynasty, a warrior of the master race,>" 
Herb muttered scornfully to herself.  "<Now look at me, trapped in the 
body of a lowly female.>"  Somewhere, she was certain that the gods 
were laughing, and rage filled her soul, a dark, seething fury at her 
other self, probably now enjoying a glass of wine in his comfortable 
cabin on the Dragon Claw and writing up his report.  Meanwhile, a copy 
of his memories was implanted in this body, a form that would be held 
utterly valueless among the Musk for anything other than breeding stock 
or pleasuring a male.

Herb began to laugh, a low, melodious sound, filled with as much venom 
as mirth.  Someone was going to pay for this, and pay dearly in blood 
and pain.  She would see to it.

                   ******************************

Genma tapped away at the keyboard in front of him, even as he kept one 
eye on his apparently slumbering companion.  Time was almost up, and he 
could not wait any longer to commit his deed.  He pressed the enter key 
and watched the screen.

*REVERSING COIL POLARITY

The timer ticked away its last moments, and then the computer's voice 
spoke once again.  "Retrieval cycle complete."

Genma watched expectantly as Soun opened his eyes.

Soun felt odd.  The last thing he remembered was drinking heavily and 
dreaming of how he would take his revenge on Genma Saotome for breaking 
a promise between men.  There was also the matter of that little punk 
Genma called a son, breaking his daughter's heart and running off with 
that Chinese girl.

Blinking his eyes open, Soun felt remarkably refreshed, without a trace 
of a hangover.  Then he saw Genma Saotome standing there before him, 
and his eyes narrowed.  He started to say something before he quickly 
realized that he was gagged, not to mention tied to a chair.

Genma could not tell for sure which version of Soun he had, so he felt 
a test was in order.  He grinned and spoke one word.

"Happosai."

Soun's eyes seemed to double in size, and he glanced quickly from one 
side to the other, frantically searching for the Master.  Had Genma 
finally gone insane?  He craned his neck around.

"Welcome to your new life, Tendo-kun," said Genma with a grin, undoing 
the bonds that held Soun tied to the chair.  "You and I have a lot to 
talk ab- urk!"

Soun surged up from the chair, his hands tightly wrapped around Genma's 
throat.  They grappled, Genma struggling to free himself enough to get 
a breath even as Soun, with manic strength, slammed him back against 
the lab table.  Genma heard a crash behind him as the resonator fell to 
shatter its innards on the concrete floor.

"C-can't... b-breathe," Genma managed to get out, his back feeling like 
it was breaking as Soun seemed to be doing his level best to kill him.  
Had the resonator driven his friend insane?  Was it still that other 
Soun?

"Mmf! MMMFFF!!!" was the only sound that Soun made, as all his pent up 
rage seemed to explode out of him at once.  His visage began to inflate 
and grow horrifying as he manifested his infamous Demon Head attack.

Genma, in desperation, drove a knee into Soun's stomach, repeating it a 
second time when the first didn't seem to yield much of a result.  That 
managed to weaken Soun's grip enough that he could take a breath and 
get back some leverage.  The two began trading body blows like a pair 
of punch drunken prizefighters, Soun too far gone in his anger to fight 
very effectively, and Genma already too winded from nearly being choked 
to death.

Soun's head snapped to one side from one of Genma's punches, staggering 
him a bit.  His body felt like it was weighted down with cement.  Had 
he fallen so far out of shape so quickly?  He backed off a bit from 
Genma, hearing a thundering in his ears.  Seeing that Genma was not 
going to press him, he took a moment to reach up and removed the gag in 
his mouth.  It came out bloody.

"What is the matter with you, Tendo-kun?" Genma demanded, seeing that 
the madness seemed to be fading from his friend's eyes.

"How dare you ask me what the matter is, Genma Saotome?" Soun growled 
out, momentarily imitating Ryoga.  "Because of you, I've seen Hell!"

"What are you babbling about, Tendo-kun?"  Genma was bewildered now.  
Had he missed and gotten the wrong world?  But he had double and even 
triple-checked his figures against the boy's notes.

"You broke the engagement between Ranma and Akane!"

Genma was startled.  What had happened there since he had found himself 
here?  And why would his other self break the engagement?  There was 
nowhere else for them to go, since going back to Nodoka on that world 
was utterly impossible, not while the boy's body was cursed like that.

Soun suddenly held his head, his rage having held back the flood of new 
memories now engulfing him.  They surged over him like a tsunami.  He 
was lost among them for several moments, remembering a life that was 
not his own, but one that he suddenly was intimately aware of.  He 
glanced up at Genma when they briefly receded, confusion in his gaze.

"Tendo-kun," Genma said gently.  "It's okay.  Let the memories settle.  
Take your time."

Soun started remembering things vividly, in a fractured, random way.  
He remembered when he was promoted to Assistant Director.  He saw the 
day Nabiki was accepted by the Imperial Academy.  He recalled the first 
time he kissed his wife.  All these moments and more washed over him.

"Saotome-kun, what-?  What is all this?"

"It's a new start, Tendo-kun."  Genma gave Soun a hug, then clapped him 
on the back.  "Welcome to a world without Happosai, for starters."

After calming Soun back down from his brief fright at the mere mention 
of their old master, the two began to talk.  While they were talking, 
and as Soun became ever more amazed at all that he was hearing and was 
remembering, his cellphone rang.  He pulled it out and flipped it open.

"Tendo here," he said reflexively.

"Sir, it's been nearly forty minutes," came the voice of his driver.  I 
was getting concerned."

"We'll be down shortly."  He then shut the cellphone without waiting to 
hear the other man's response.  He flashed a grin at Genma.

"It's a damn shame that only the boy knows the Anything-Goes School," 
said Genma with a shake of his head.  "It would have been perfect if 
one of your daughters had managed to pick them up like the boy did.  I 
suppose we could have run one of them through the device, if you hadn't 
broken it trying to kill me."

Soun suddenly flashed on an unexpected memory, seeing Nabiki doing her 
morning training, her movements showing knowledge of the Anything-Goes 
School.  That had been a few weeks ago.  He started to chuckle.

"Saotome-kun, there's something I need to tell you."  And Soun began to 
describe the techniques he could recall Nabiki using, as both men began 
to grin widely.  When it was over, they clasped hands.

"Nothing can stop us from uniting the schools together now!" they both 
shouted, and then they embraced, laughing jovially together.

                   ******************************

*** Earth +4.612,+4.509

Soun felt odd, sitting here eating the meal that Kasumi prepared, as if 
nothing was out of the ordinary.  The two of them were alone, since 
Nabiki was still off at school, and Akane was off on a training trip of 
some sort.  Soun was a little vague on the details, but he did feel a 
sense of anticipation for when Akane was finished.

"How are you feeling, Father?" Kasumi ventured, somewhat shyly.

Soun glanced at Kasumi and replied in a gentle tone, "I'm fine, Kasumi.  
Thank you for asking."  He set his rice bowl down, feeling his stomach 
gurgling slightly as it adjusted to having some solid food within it 
once again.  The meal had been excellent.  But now that his belly was 
full, he felt an intense craving for a cigarette.  He held it off.

"Kasumi."  He noticed the girl jump slightly when he said her name 
suddenly.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's all right, Father," she replied with a smile, one that reminded 
him so much of his own Kasumi.  "I've just been a little bit on edge of 
late, I guess."  She started to stand.  "If you're finished, I can get 
the table cleaned off."

Soun wasn't sure how to respond other than with a nod, watching the 
girl get up and begin clearing dishes.  He was a stranger in a strange 
land here, and it was paradoxically made even stranger by the fact that 
it all seemed so ordinary to him on a certain level.  Everything around 
him had changed, and even the Emperor he had sworn to serve did not sit 
on the throne here, on this altered world.  For a man who had devoted 
his life to his Imperial Majesty's secret service, that realization was 
disconcerting.

He had been giving some thought to how he would approach Genma, and a 
straightforward approach was looking like his least complicated option.  
Standing up, he went into the kitchen, seeing Kasumi washing dishes.  
She turned to look at him.

"I'm going out for awhile, Kasumi."

"How long will you be gone, Father?"  She turned off the water and 
picked up a towel, beginning to wipe her hands.

"I might be late.  Don't worry about holding dinner for me."  He turned 
and walked out.

Kasumi was troubled.  It was good to see him up and about like this, 
but there was something off about how he was acting.  She couldn't 
quite put her finger on it.  After a few moments, she shrugged.  With 
him out of the house, it would give her a chance to clean his room.

Turning to the sink again, she turned the water back on and began to 
wash dishes.  There was a hidden hope within her that things might be 
finally getting better.  She hadn't liked the mood in the house over 
the last several days.  It all felt wrong to her, but she wondered how 
much of her disquiet had been caused by Shampoo's leaving.

Kasumi turned the water off, surprised at the direction her thoughts 
had gone.  She shook her head.  She was being silly.  Shampoo had left 
with Ranma and his father, and he wasn't-  She wasn't coming back, she 
quickly amended, feeling strange again.  Shampoo was a girl, despite 
her curse, so it was a little confusing for Kasumi to realize that she 
also missed the presence of that male aspect of her friend.

The dirty dishes still in the sink weren't going to clean themselves, 
she noticed after a moment.  She began washing them, her thoughts going 
back to more comfortable territory as she consulted her mental list of 
chores that needed to be done.  That made her feel better.

                   ******************************

Genma sat and stared at the tea leaves in his cup, enjoying a quiet 
moment before he headed home for the evening, half listening to the 
television news report of a strange light flare from the dark side of 
the moon that had been seen, and speculations on what might have caused 
it.  Things were slowly getting better with rebuilding this Ranma's 
trust in his father, but it was emotionally draining to keep holding 
the truth back from those around him.  He held hope that his son would 
be contacting him soon, and he could soon leave this place.

Someone slid into the seat next to his, and he froze when the man spoke 
to him suddenly.

"<Hello, Professor Saotome,>" Soun said in somewhat accented German, 
knowing from the man's file that he spoke it passably well.  If he was 
wrong about this, he wasn't sure what he would do.

Genma blinked, turning to stare at the man seated next to him, wearing 
a slightly ill-fitting suit and tie, both a few years out of fashion.  
"Uh, what?"  He glanced around, wondering what was going on.  Why was 
Soun Tendo here?  Was he after some kind of revenge for the broken 
engagement?  Then the words finally sank in.

German.  Soun Tendo had just addressed him in German.  Even more oddly, 
he had called him 'Professor Saotome.'

"<I said hello, Professor,>" said Soun.  "<Do you understand me?>"  He 
was starting to get a sinking feeling.  Maybe he had been wrong.  Maybe 
that other Genma had lied to him after all.

Genma wasn't sure what to do.  Alarm bells were going off in his mind.  
He swallowed some of his tea before speaking.  "<I understand you.>"  
He paused as Soun relaxed a little, deciding to play a hunch.  "<It 
looks like both of us are a long way from home... Assistant Director 
Tendo.>"

Soun let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in.  He gave 
Genma a relieved look.  "<It appears so, Professor.  If you have some 
time, you and I should talk.>."

"<Yes,>" Genma said with growing concern.  "<Is this about my son?  Has 
something happened to Ranma?>"  He paused and lowered his voice.  "<Is 
that why you're here?>"

Soun picked up his fedora and tugged it down slightly on to his head.  
He got up from his seat.  He felt nervous talking in such a public 
place.  Ranma's device had caused him to wonder who else might not be 
who they appeared to be.  The potential for espionage was incalculable.

"<Come with me, Professor.  Your boy is fine, as far as I know.>"

Genma followed Soun out into the street.  They merged into the late 
afternoon crowd on the sidewalk, walking together.  They walked side by 
side for a time, both of them lost in thought.  Soun was the first to 
break the silence.

"We have a common problem, Professor," said Soun, shifting back to 
Japanese.  "You and I are both stuck here."  He waved his hand a bit at 
the street scene surrounding them.

"What?  How?"

"Your... counterpart," said Soun, pausing for a moment to find a proper  
word.  "He knocked me out, strapped me into a chair, and then he hooked 
me up to some kind of device he had in his lab at the Science Ministry.  
He told me who he was, and then the next thing I knew, I was here."

Genma felt sick for a moment, and he leaned against a lamppost.  "I'm 
so sorry, Tendo-kun.  Uh, I mean, Tendo-san."

"We need to contact your son, Professor," said Soun, looking squarely 
at Genma.  "Without his help, you and I will probably be here for the 
rest of our lives, and I don't relish that thought."  He held out his 
hand.  "I know you have very little reason to trust me, to trust either 
version of me, but I'd like to work together with you and your son to 
get our real lives back.  Are you with me?"

After a moment of hesitation, Genma took Soun's hand and shook it 
firmly.  "I'm with you, Tendo-san."

On a nearby rooftop, Ranma studied the scene in confusion.  What was 
Mr. Tendo doing down there with his father?  Something was up, and it 
left him feeling confused and more than a little betrayed.  What was 
going on?

"Damn you, Pop," Ranma muttered.  "Just when I was starting to trust 
you again, old man."

Feeling hurt and angry, Ranma turned from the scene and left quickly.  
He had to think about this.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Genma was feeling pleasantly mellow.  He grinned at Soun, the two of 
them having eventually ended up in a small restaurant near their homes, 
quietly discussing their plans for the future.  Soun's initial doubts 
over leaving his family behind had been mollified by Genma reminding 
him that his other self would take care of them, and that his daughters 
were still around him in a sense.

"Here's to the future, Saotome-kun," said Soun contentedly, raising his 
glass of beer and clinking it with Genma's.  He drank lightly, wanting 
to keep his wits about him.  His gaze had occasionally been drawn to 
the proprietress of the establishment, a handsome figure of a woman, 
and he didn't want to make a fool of himself.  She seemed to be taking 
an interest in their conversation for some reason, but then he decided 
that he was just being paranoid.  What possible interest would the 
woman have in listening to two men discussing plans for uniting their 
families?

Yumi poured some batter on the griddle as she glanced over at the two 
men in the corner booth.  She had heard the bald one mention the name 
Ranma loudly, piquing her interest, and so she had been watching them 
off and on while they talked together for the past hour.  Ukyo would be 
home from school soon, and she was curious to hear how her niece's day 
went.  Today had been rather dull, so spying on the two men was giving 
her something interesting to do, as well as being good practice for her 
lip-reading skills.

Letting his gaze drift back to the woman serving okonomiyaki behind the 
counter, Soun took another sip of his beer.  The food had been some of 
the best he had ever tasted, and there was something about the woman 
that kept drawing his eye.  Maybe it was how she carried herself, he 
mused, noting the easy grace in her movements that marked a skilled 
fighter.  It reminded him a bit of how Kimiko had been in this world.  
His mouth went dry when she unexpectedly gave him a smile as his gaze 
met hers.  He hurriedly went back to drinking his beer.

"Anything more I can get you gentlemen?" Yumi asked, walking over to 
their table after serving the beef okonomiyaki she had just prepared 
for a customer at the counter.  She smiled at them both, with a touch 
more warmth directed Soun's way.  It was gratifying to her ego to see 
the interest in the man's eyes, even if he was trying hard not to show 
it.

"Uh, nothing for me," Soun replied, taking another quick sip of his 
beer.  "The food was excellent."

"The best in town, Sugar."  Yumi smiled in a friendly way at Soun, and 
then moved her gaze over to Genma, her tone cooling a tiny bit.  "How 
about you?"

"I'm fine," Genma replied, glancing up at Yumi and then back down to 
his plate again.  There was something nagging at his brain about this 
place, but it refused to come to him.  "The beer's really good."

Yumi felt her temper flare up a little bit at that comment, her pride 
stung at the man's offhanded comment on her cooking.  She turned and 
gave Soun another smile.  "You let me know if I can do anything else 
for you, Sugar."  Turning, she strolled back to her usual spot behind 
the counter, putting a bit of a sashay into her stride for Soun's 
benefit.

"That's quite a woman, eh, Saotome-kun?"  Soun reluctantly pulled his 
gaze away from watching Yumi when she was back behind the counter and 
her attention was now busy with a knot of customers that had come in.

"Eh?"  Genma glanced over at Yumi, as if just noticing her for the 
first time.  "Too mannish in her build for my tastes."  He took a drink 
of his beer, neither of them noticing the sudden glance his direction 
that Yumi cast him, her gaze frosty.

Yumi watched the pair finish their late lunch and leave, giving Soun 
another smile as he passed by her.  "Thank you.  Come again, Sugar."  
Genma received a more neutral look.

Reviewing their conversation in her mind as she went on to serve more 
customers, Yumi decided that she must have been imagining things.  The 
family name Saotome was fairly common in Tokyo, so it probably didn't 
have anything to do with Ranma.  It was also pretty hard to believe 
that a nice kid like her niece's fianc� could have a jerk like that 
Genma guy as his father.

Still, for Ukyo's sake, she decided to investigate Ranma's family a 
bit, maybe say hi to the boy's mother.  They were going to be family 
soon enough after all.

                   ******************************

"I'm home!"

Ryoko slipped off her shoes and set down her backpack, leaning it 
against the wall.  Behind her, Ryoga kicked off his own shoes and also 
slid his own backpack off his shoulders.  He held it with one hand, a 
bit reluctant to let go of it.

"Welcome back, Ryoko-chan," said Achika, just before she stepped out of 
the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.  She looked at Ryoga, not 
quite sure what to make of his presence.  She turned her gaze back to 
Achika.  "Uh, you're just in time to help me prepare dinner."  She 
looked at Ryoga again.  "Who might you be?"

"Oh, this is Ryoga, Mom," Ryoko said quickly.  "Ryoga Hibiki.  He and I 
met on the road while I was off training."

Achika felt a little faint.  Her wayward daughter had been travelling 
alone with a boy?  She dried her hands a bit more, uncertain what to do 
with them.  All kinds of scenarios flashed through her mind, none of 
them very pleasant to her.

"Is it all right if Ryoga stays here for a few days, Mom?"  Ryoko eyed 
her mother, uncertain what to make of the looks that she was giving to 
Ryoga.  "Uh, I told him it would be okay.  He's looking for someone 
here in Tokyo, then he'll be on his way."

"I-I suppose so," said Achika, having sudden visions of her daughter 
and this vagabond she had brought home with her.  She had obviously 
been too lenient with Ryoko, but she couldn't find it within herself to 
toss the boy out on the street, as tempting as that was.

"Great!  Thanks, Mom!"  Ryoko almost skipped past her mother, her pack 
slung over one shoulder as she headed for her room.  She turned back to 
face Ryoga, a grin on her face.  "Come on, Hibiki.  I'll show you where 
everything is."

Achika watched the pair head upstairs and thought.  Now that Ryoko was 
back home, a talk with Nodoka seemed like a very good idea.  The girl 
had been alone with this Ryoga boy for days, maybe even weeks.  Who 
knows what could have happened between them out on the road?  As she 
headed back into the kitchen, Achika decided to talk with Nodoka as 
soon as possible.  Perhaps Ranma would be just the stabilizing sort of 
influence that Ryoko needed.

The more she thought of it, the better that idea sounded.  Luckily, the 
boy wasn't officially engaged to anyone yet, or Nodoka would have told 
her.  So she still had time to arrange something with her oldest and 
best friend.  That eased her mind a little, since she was fairly well 
certain Nodoka would be amenable to the idea.

Besides, Ryoko Saotome had a nice sound to it.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


After such a long time away from writing this story, I hope to continue 
at a much better pace now.

Stay tuned for the next chapter: "Of Cats and Women"