DISCLAIMER: Ranma 1/2 is property of Rumiko Takahashi, its use in this 
work of fiction generates no profit and no infringement is intended.  
"Babylon", property of David Gray, and "Shimmer", property of Shawn 
Mullins, have lyrics that are reproduced and used here without 
permission.  No profit is being generated from their use and no 
infringement is intended.
 
ARCHIVE: Phu, Reddeath, and Rakhal have my express permission; everyone 
else, please ask at echonymph@msn.com first.

RATING: PG-13/R
 
SUMMARY: Twelve years after a death at the hands of honor, the spell is 
broken and the curse released - Nerima had never been the same after 
Ranma's arrival, and it hasn't been the same after his death.

^*^*^

FRAGMENTS

- by ling

^*^*^

(From 'The Storm of Souls', an anonymous collection of stories and 
poems)

They'd met in June, 
Under blossoms rare,
While the wind whistled,
Like song in the air.

He who was loved and cherished
He who slept and dreamed
He who was wise and childlike
He who was more than he seemed.

She who reached the heavens,
She who shined with spark,
She who loved and lived and laughed,
She who slew the dark.

Wild and pretty youths were they,
Their family's shining pride,
Their minds were swift; their love was deep,
Belonging side by side.

The engagement made,
And the families proud,
Their children were happy, 
Content and avowed.

But to live is to err,
And one misplaced step,
Sent the girl tumbling,
Into unknown depth.

The boy tried to save her,
Knowing he'd fail,
And he held her gently,
As her face grew pale.

The families were shamed,
Angry and broken,
Cruel fights were exchanged,
And cruel words spoken.

And a hate was borne, 
From the truest of loves,
Like pitch-black ravens,
From floating doves.

^*^*^

The hustle of the street distracted her for just a moment.  And in the 
length of a second, her brown eyes were drawn to the masses of people 
that strolled along the sides of the streets, smiles on their faces, 
their voices loud, and hands rapidly pantomiming or hefting packages.  
She sighed to herself; it had been too long since she had shared in 
their carefree life.

She focused herself on her original purpose.

No one could ever claim that Tendo Nabiki lacked willpower.

No, no one had dared to comment as such for the past twelve years of 
her life.  Ever since she had turned eighteen and headed for college, 
she'd shown her true colors.  Her minor extortion and cruelty-for-cash 
attitude had not changed; it had only escalated to a much grander 
scale.  Which may have accounted for why Tendo Nabiki, at the tender 
age of nineteen was the youngest ever trader ever admitted into the 
prestigious firm of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, or at the very least, 
the youngest ever hired for their Tokyo branch.

She'd been deliriously pleased with herself.

She had everything she had ever wanted in life, wealth, influence, her 
family was well.

All save for ... 

Initially, after the ... incident, Nabiki had to admit that she'd been 
happy, guiltily so, for her little sister.  Akane had always protested 
her engagement to the Saotome boy, and he likewise, it was only a 
matter of time before one of them did something drastic about their 
predicament.  Nabiki had been plotting a way to break up the 
engagement, herself.  

The incident could not have come at a better time.  

Nabiki winced.  'Of course,' she thought, 'death is never something to 
celebrate, but the ends justify the means, baby.  Of course Akane 
mourned, deep down, those two were friends, whether or not they could 
admit it, but it was better for all involved that they never got 
married.'  She was distracted by a whisper of a voice she had nearly 
forgotten in her years, shaking her head, and admonishing herself, she 
murmured aloud, "Nabiki, you're dreaming," and even with this, she 
looked around twice, just to make sure that she was, satisfied, she 
finished, "You're paranoid."  

The sound of the city started to overwhelm her again, and the flashing 
lights of the street and neon glitter of a Tokyo nightscape started to 
blur together to create an altogether unpleasant confusion that had her 
feeling faint.  She placed a hand on the side of a wall, steadying 
herself, trying to breathe.

She inhaled deeply and held it as the world came back into a somewhat 
muddy focus.

It was only then that Nabiki noticed the familiar flash of nearly 
incandescent red that filled her vision.

And after the shock filtered away, Tendo Nabiki, known for her killer 
instinct on the Tokyo trading floor, started to follow a figment of the 
past.

^*^*^

"I'm home!" 

The sound of the lilting greeting echoed through the darkened 
apartment, and the woman who had called out the words frowned deeply.  
She kicked off her stacked heels and shrugged out of her coat, hanging 
the rich, midnight-colored clothing onto a hanger in the hall closet.

She wriggled her toes for a moment, delighted to be freed from her 
self-imposed torture.  She'd never become used to high heels, there was 
just something elegantly wicked about them, every time she saw a pair 
in a store window, her mind automatically switched into, 'what would 
they look like on me' mode, but when she started walking around in them 
during work, her brain shifted back to, 'why on earth did I buy these?'  

The red-headed woman padded softly across the hardwood floors of the 
large apartment, not bothering to turn on any of the lights, she headed 
toward the kitchen.

The light above the breakfast table was turned onto its dimmest 
setting, a used plate, fork, and half-empty can of soda were bathed in 
its yellow glow.  The woman rolled her eyes and gathered up the dishes, 
placing them in the sink, and throwing away the can after emptying it 
herself.

She rinsed her hands off, staring into the expansive darkness that the 
open floor plan allowed her to see.  Frustrated, she headed toward the 
bedroom.  

Opening the door to the cozy chamber softly, she muttered, "That idiot 
better not be late, it's November 14, and he knows what I'll do to him 
if he misses this -" the woman stopped short as she came upon the 
sleeping form of the man in question.  

She released an affectionate sigh as she sat down on the bed next to 
his prone body.  Her blue eyes were soft, and her mouth was pulled into 
a tender smile.

"Happy Anniversary," she whispered to herself, sifting her delicate 
fingers through his thick, soft, black hair.  "What am I to do with 
you, Soichi?"

^*^*^

She had to have been seeing things.

Tendo Nabiki decided that in her old age (after all, she was very 
nearly thirty-one) that she was slowly, but obviously, very steadily 
loosing her mind.

She had to have been seeing things.

Tanakawa Yuki had been blown away more than twelve years ago.  Hence, 
Tanakawa Yuki could not possibly have just brushed by her in the 
street.

Which brought Nabiki back to her original point:

She had to have been seeing things.

But if it was one thing that Nabiki had learned, it was to verify her 
suspicions, regardless of how inane or insane they seemed.  Nerima 
*was* a ward of Tokyo, the craziness quotient could still be suffering 
the aftereffects of the Saotomes and all the weirdness that they had 
brought. 

So Nabiki had watched as the redheaded woman had disappeared into a 
tall glass and steel apartment building.

She made a mental note, and called a cab.

Grimacing to herself as she neared her own home, she thought, 'This 
could get ugly.'

^*^*^

"Kya!" 

There came a loud rumble of shattered concrete and splintered wood, 
falling to the gleaming floors of the dojo with dull thuds and soft, 
sad noises.

"Akane, do you really think that you should be doing that now?" 
Kasumi's soothing voice broke through her distracted haze.

The youngest Tendo girl looked around the partially destroyed dojo and 
saw the frightened expressions of seventeen five and six year old 
beginner martial artists.  She blushed in sudden embarrassment.  A 
quick glance at the clock revealed that it was ten past eight o'clock, 
her students must have trickled into the dojo, and she, in her raging 
state, must not have noticed.

"Sorry, Students," she stuttered.  She took a deep breath, and spoke, 
"Today we'll be learning the most basic aspect of Martial Arts," her 
voice was measured, "how to fall."

She grinned momentarily at the shocked ripple of whispers that went up 
around the room, and several students called out:

"Hey, isn't martial arts about *not* getting hurt and stuff like that?"

"Yeah, since when did martial artists learn how to get hurt anyway?"

"I bet Jackie Chan never did this!"

With a sweep of her hands, Akane silenced them all.  "Children, you 
must understand, learning to fall is a function of *not* being hurt."

'The irony is killing me,' she thought with mild amusement.  She bit 
back the wave of memories that assaulted her and began to teach, as her 
father had always hoped she would.

^*^*^

"Good evening, Kimiko," the soft, masculine voice said.  Kimiko opened 
her blue eyes slowly, adjusting to the dim light of the room, and 
yawning widely.

"Good evening, Soichi," she paused, eyes looking toward the clock on 
the nightstand past Soichi, she moaned softly.  "God, it's 9 o'clock 
already, Soichi, why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

Her eyes finally focused.

Soichi, she had to admit, looked good enough to eat.

The man was nearly thirty, but still possessed the lithe sensuality of 
his youth.  His slate-blue eyes still sparkled with good humor, and his 
mouth was still set in a familiar smirk.  She grinned to herself and 
allowed her fingers to trail along his handsome face, stopping only at 
the thin, barely noticeable scare that ran down along the left side of 
his chin.  She couldn't remember how he had gotten it, and doubted that 
he did, either.

Soichi grinned, murmuring, "You looked beautiful sleeping, Kimiko."  
She flushed softly in reply, and grew quiet, content in the silence.

^*^*^

"Hello, Sanii-san, I need a favor."

"Anything, Tendo-san."

Nabiki bit her lip and grasped the receiver tightly in her right hand, 
eyes turning toward the evening skyline of the city.  

Yuki was out there somewhere. 

That couldn't be good.

That meant there was still danger, which meant that Ranma had met a foe 
that he couldn't defeat.

And that his death had been a waste after all.  

"I need you to run a residential check," she said as calmly as her 
voice would allow.

There was a brief silence on the phone.  "Tendo-san, I respect you and 
everything, you know that, but what's the relevance?  I can only get so 
far before someone catches me hackin', medical records are harder than 
ever to - "

"No, Sanii-san," Nabiki said with quiet exasperation.  "I wouldn't ask 
you to do anything that would get you arrested."

A relieved sigh ran through the phone line.  "Okay, Tendo-san, I don't 
think my parents would be too hyper about breakin' their eighteen year 
old out of jail."

Nabiki allowed herself a chuckle, it was funny really that her best and 
most trusted informant was only two thirds of her age.  "Okay, Sanii-
san, I need you to get a tenants listing of everyone who lives in the 
Sakura Towers apartments, 117 on 45th street.  Got it?" she breathed, 
her fingers tapping busily on the mahogany top of her massive desk.  

"Got it, Tendo-san.  I'm faxing it to you as we speak.  Pretty long 
list, if you ask me."

Nabiki let out a bark of laughter.  "That building's got to be at least 
twenty stories tall, Sanii-san, I would imagine the list would be 
long."

"Actually, Tendo-san, it's twenty-five stories."

"Details details, Sanii-san," Nabiki chided, watching her fax machine 
suddenly come to life.  She pushed the balls of her feet into the lush 
carpet of her floor, and wheeled her chair over to it, grabbing the top 
corner of the paper hastily, hoping that maybe holding onto it would 
hurry the process.

Sanii continued to speak, "I've been to Sakura Towers before, they're 
luxury apartments, only the first five floors are like normal 
apartments, the rest of the building is made up of floor-sized 
apartments.  Like, eleventh floor, the Hino residence, twelfth floor, 
the Sanii Kuzio and Tendo Nabiki residence ... " he let his voice trial 
off hopefully.

Nabiki thought about his words, and replied, "You can dream, Sanii; you 
can always dream."

"That's all I can ever hope for, Tendo-san, all I can ever hope for.  
Goodbye, Tendo-san."

"Thanks, Sanii-san."

^*^*^ 

Soichi awoke alone in bed, his eyes adjusted to the watery light of the 
morning, and stifling a yawn, he rolled out from under the covers.  
Grabbing a pair of clean boxers from the pile of fresh laundry he had 
forgotten to put away, and some jeans and a t-shirt, he lurched into 
bathroom.

He let the water run till it steamed up the entire bathroom, releasing 
a sigh, Soichi stepped under the stinging water of the shower, blinding 
groping around from a bar of soap, and finding only the chamomile and 
lavender body wash that Kimiko always smelled of.  

He grinned to himself, opening the top of the bottle and taking a deep 
breath of the stuff.  The scent of it was intoxicatingly sexy to him, 
all he had to do was get a whiff of it from across a room, and the urge 
to grab her and amoral things to her was nearly insatiable.  He 
suspected that she knew, and that his inability to resist it was the 
only reason she even bothered to shell out the 1000 extra yen for it at 
the Bath and Body store, anyway.

His fingers finally located the bar of soap, lying in its proper place 
in the ceramic soap dish on the side of the shower.  Undoubtedly, 
Kimiko had taken a shower before him, and undoubtedly, she had almost 
slipped and died on the soap again, and undoubtedly, she had muttered 
curses as she put it back where it belonged.

He scrubbed until he was well lathered and let the hot water sluice 
down his body, washing away the last remains of sleep.

Soichi leaned against the side of the shower stall and sighed deeply, 
an unhappy frown creasing his face.  There was a deep and unpleasant 
fear that still lurked in his heart.  It had been twelve years, almost 
thirteen, but someone *must* have noticed something by now.  They 
couldn't have been *that* seamless in their escape.

"Soichi, come on, don't you ever get sick of getting stuck in traffic?" 
cried a lilting female voice.  He saw her curved outline against the 
steamed glass of the shower, and with a grin, he slid open the door.  
With a firm tug, Kimiko, in all her perfectly pressed glory fell 
whooping into his wet, warm arms under the unrelenting water.

"Damn it, Soichi!  I'm going to be late for work!" Kimiko protested 
vainly as he started to unbutton her navy-blue shirt, which was 
currently doing a very good impression of being a second skin as a 
result of being soaked.

"Aw," Soichi teased, "is Kimiko upset that she's going to be tardy?"

"Yes, I am!"

"I can help you with that," he murmured.

"S-S-Soichi, that's not helping ... "

As Kimiko melted into his touch, he grinned, "Yeah, but it's making 
playing hooky seem so much more attractive."

^*^*^

An hour and a half later, Fujikara Soichi bolted into the richly 
decorated offices on the twelfth floor of the Ryo Towers, cursing 
himself softly.

"Good morning, Dr. Fujikara."  Kagome smiled with a knowing expression.  
Dr. Fujikara was one of the most popular people in the building, she 
made it her business to know his comings and goings, and she'd noted 
over the past five years that he came in to work late at least two days 
a week, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with *sleeping* in.

He smiled wryly at her, saying, "Morning, Kagome-san, has anyone called 
this morning?"

Kagome picked up a small pile of notepaper, and said, "Well, first 
three are from patients wanting to reschedule, two are from prospective 
clients who want to meet you, it's on your calendar in your office by 
now, and one from Kimiko thanking you for making the reservations for 
dinner tonight."

Soichi looked up at Kagome, a startled panic on his face.  
"Reservations?"

Kagome grinned impishly.  "Of course.  Just as a note, the reservations 
at Catacarina's; it's an Italian place down by the Tokyo business 
complex, very high-class, she'll love it."  Kagome watched the relief 
spread across her boss' face.  "Should I arrange a hotel room, too?"

Soichi narrowed his eyes at his secretary as he headed toward his inner 
office.  "Very funny, Kagome."

She continued, "And bail for when you two don't make it up there and 
get arrested for public indecency?"

Her only response was the door closing.

^*^*^

"Tendo-san?  I found out something else interesting, of all the tenants 
that live in Sakura Towers, only ten apartments have full VIP 
privileges."

"What do VIP privileges do for someone who lives in Sakura Towers?"

"Hell if I know, but I have a way for you to find out."

"You're too good to me, Sanii-san."

"Only for you, my misguided love."

"Sanii, you're not even legal."

"Age of consent is twelve in Japan, besides, I'm eighteen, think about 
it, Tendo-san."

Nabiki sighed.  "I think about it too much already."

^*^*^

"Akane, Ryoga is back!"

Akane let out a soft groan.

It was only after Ranma's death that she'd discovered Ryoga's apparent 
long-time obsession with her.  At first, it had been nice to have 
someone be there for her 24/7, well except for the times when he would 
mysteriously disappear for months at a time, she had needed a friend 
desperately.  She's turned to him at her darkest hour, after her 
fiancee had died, her friends had abandoned her, and even P-chan had 
gone missing.

Regardless of what she had forced herself to believe before, she cared 
for Ranma, had perhaps even loved him, and his abrupt passing left her 
with a void that needed to be filled by someone, *anyone*.

Which led her to the unfortunate condition she was in now.

She'd been stupid and led Ryoga on.  At first it was nice to feel loved 
and needed again, eventually, she just didn't want to see him hurt.

For the first time in her life, she was starting to understand why 
Ranma had been so wishy-washy with all his fiancees; unfortunately, it 
came after it was too late for her to tell him.

"All right, Kasumi!  I'll be there in a second."

Akane sighed and went out to meet her fiancee.

^*^*^

"Kimiko, come on, we're going to be late!"

"Shut *up*, Soichi!  Do you want your date to be ugly?"

Soichi sighed and tapped his foot impatiently, and pushing his silver 
wire-rim glasses higher on his nose, he said, "Kimiko, you couldn't be 
ugly if you *tried*.  Can we *please* just go?"  His vision had started 
to go bad about a year and a half ago.  He'd protested the glasses 
vehemently in the beginning, but once he realized that Kimiko seemed to 
have a predilection for them, he'd stopped fighting it so viciously.

"FINE!  But if we're not allowed into the restaurant because ... "

Kimiko's voice trailed off as she saw the expression on Soichi's face.

She had stepped out of their bedroom in a sleeveless, strapless black 
silk dress.  It clung to her curves and was patterned all over with 
black, embroidered dragons.  The dress was long, with two matching 
slits up the side that exposed generous expanses of leg.  Her feet were 
strapped into a pair of black, high-heeled sequined sandals, and her 
hair was unbound and hanging freely to her uncovered shoulders.

Kimiko reminded herself to take a deep breath as her eyes took in 
Soichi's appearance.  His handsome features were perfectly complimented 
by his glasses, and his dark-colored suit fit him with a loose grace 
that was uniquely his.  She fought the urge to run her hands through 
his hair; the soft, black tendrils that had been bound into a pigtail 
had been cut short, and were cropped close at the ears.  All in all, 
Fujikara Soichi had maintained his delightfully handsome appearances.  

"Well," she stuttered softly, regaining her composure, "see, I told 
you."

As she turned to go back into the bedroom, Soichi caught her hand.  
"Beautiful," he murmured, kissing her cheeks.  "Sexy," he breathed 
spinning her around before him.

She blushed bright red.  "Liar," she replied.

^*^*^

Nabiki had infiltrated the Sakura towers annual tenants party, and 
found no sign of the redhead there.  She was starting to grow 
frustrated.  Either Yuki (or could it have been ... Ranma?) knew that 
she was being sought out, or had she simply decided not to come?  There 
weren't even solid guarantees that she *lived* in the building.

Nabiki pouted a bit longer, and decided to Sanii's original suggestion 
was probably better; she'd start reviewing security footage first thing 
the next day.

^*^*^

"This place is lovely, Soichi," Kimiko said softly, watching as the 
twilight slowly crept toward their table.  She grinned at him.  "We 
really ought to give Kagome a nice present, after all, she goes to so 
much trouble to make these fabulous reservations for us."

Soichi nearly choked on his tortellini.  He eyed Kimiko for a moment 
before a shy smile spread across his face.

"Why didn't you say something if you knew that I wasn't the one making 
them?"

Kimiko shrugged.  "It didn't really bother me, you have a lot on your 
mind, you work hard," she grasped his hand in her own, "we have each 
other," he smiled at her gently, "I'm not going to sweat the small 
stuff."

Soichi brought up his free hand and cupped her cheek, murmuring, 
"Right, Kimiko, don't sweat the small stuff."

She blushed prettily.  It was amazing, after twelve years, he was still 
able to pull this number on her.  

He was silent for a moment, and although his touch was loving, and his 
expression devout, she knew in her heart that his mind was a million 
miles away.  Allowing herself a secret grin, she wondered what other 
women did when their husbands seemed far away, luckily for her, she 
needed only to ask to pull him back to her side.

"Soichi, what's on your mind?"

He sighed, pulling away from her, he stared out a window, saying, 
"Remember, remember before, Kimiko?"

He watched as a shadow of pain danced across her lovely features.  
"Why?" she asked softly.

"Because," he replied firmly, "because Yomada Naka came in again today, 
and I finally realized something about the boy."  Kimiko looked toward 
him, an expression of curiosity on her face.

"Go on, Soichi," she urged.

"He," Soichi paused, searching for a word, "he's torn.  His family 
wants him to do one thing, he wants to do something else, and everyone 
in the world expects something different from him."  He looked at 
Kimiko for a long, time before speaking again.  "I just don't want to 
see what happened to me happen to anyone else."

Kimiko gave him a wane smile.  "Soichi, with you, I doubt anything bad 
will happen to him."

He laughed softly.  "Thanks, Kimiko, what would I do without you?"

She smirked this time; letting her fingers trace slow circles on his 
thick arm, she said, "Probably die looking for your socks and a 
matching tie."

^*^*^

"Naka, what would you like to talk about today?"  Soichi's soothing 
tones woke the teenager from his dreamlike state.

Yomada Naka was a sixteen year-old freshman at an all-boy's Tokyo high 
school.  His grades were pretty much below average, and his interest in 
them steadily decreasing in a manner that was parallel to his marks.  
His parents originally thought it was because he was too interested in 
girls, and placed him in a boy's school.  His grades had only gotten 
worse.  Soichi had taken him as a patient not out of necessity, but out 
of pure, unadulterated interest, but that had been a year and a half 
ago.  The interest was wearing thin, and his hope for the child was, 
too.

"What, Dr. Fujikara?  I'm sorry, I wasn't really paying attention."  
Soichi observed the youngster carefully, his dark brown hair fell in 
unruly bangs over his face, and his eyes were flashing with some 
unspoken rebellion.

Soichi let out a smile.

It was just like looking into a mirror.

He decided to try something new.  "Naka, do you have a hobby, something 
you like to do more than anything else in the world?"

Naka's eyes lit up, "Martial arts, definitely."

Soichi raised an eyebrow, an amused expression appearing on his face.  
"Really, Naka?  I thought it wasn't cool for kids to spend so much time 
on something so traditional nowadays."  Naka blushed to the tips of his 
ears as he often did during their sessions.  Soichi chuckled, "Sorry, 
Naka, I did not mean to embarrass you.  Do you know, I did a little 
martial arts when I was young?"

Naka looked intrigued.  "Really, what kind?"

"An- Kempo, actually."

Soichi kicked himself for the slip-up.

Naka seemed not to have noticed.  "That's awesome, Dr. Fujikara.  I'd 
love to spar sometime!"

Soichi grinned.  "I would enjoy it, too, however, I have to make a deal 
with you, if you bring home an 'A' before our next session, I'll spar 
with you, if you don't," he shrugged, "I can always go over Jungian 
psychological theory," he grinned wickedly, "in painful detail, just 
like my professor did to me in college."  Naka turned pale and got out 
of his chair, hurrying to the door, Soichi interrupted, "Hey, your 
session's not over for another ten minutes!"

"I know," the teen called back.  "I've got a test Wednesday, and I'd 
rather study than hear about Jungian theory!"

Soichi smiled to himself as he started to gather his notes, whispering, 
"Naka, you have no idea."

^*^*^

"Wow, Kimiko, we're actually on time to work today?"

"Shut up, Ryoko."

"And, amazingly, you don't smell like you just had sex, either!"

"Ryoko, I'm warning you."

"Sorry, sorry, your ten o'clock is waiting for you."

Kimiko grimaced as she saw what name was written on the computer 
screen.  "Do I have to go in?"

Ryoko smiled sympathetically.  "I'm afraid you have to, Kimiko-san.  
You've already had the Asian flu, tuberculosis, been in labor, 
arrested, and violently mauled.  He told me he didn't care if you had 
been freshly dismembered; he wants to see you."

Kimiko groaned aloud, and stepped into her office, a prayer in her 
heart.  Forcing a smile to her face, she said, "Good morning, Tokoya-
san, how may I help you this morning?"

^*^*^

"Tokoya-san, I apologize, but the layout you were presented with is 
exactly what you asked for," Kimiko said calmly.  She hated Tokoya 
Maskaki, in her opinion; he was an insane, redundant, very, very stupid 
waste of cells in general. 

Unfortunately, he was also the biggest client she had for her firm.

"I understand that you *think* that you've fulfilled the obligations I 
put forth, Yoshida-san, but the truth is that your ads - "

"Which ones?" Kimiko uttered through gritted teeth.  She feared that if 
she gripped the armrests of her chair any tighter, they'd snap off and 
get ground into sawdust.

"All of them," he said matter-of-factly.

'Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe,' Kimiko coached herself.  'He's 
old, he'll die eventually, please, God, let this meeting end.'

"Of course, Tokoya-san," she found herself saying aloud.

He nodded and continued, "Anyways, before I was interrupted, I was 
saying how all the ads you did for my corporation lack a certain - I 
don't know - zing," he gave her a dark look, "I'm actually thinking 
about changing companies."

Kimiko steeled her nerves and said in as calm a voice as she could 
muster, "Tokoya-san, you've said that a thousand times before, but you 
do realize that if you had any problems with the ads before, you could 
have told us, and I'd have gladly reworked all of them."  She crossed 
her arms as she stood up and walked across the room to the enormous 
window that was one side of her executive office.  "Why do you keep 
coming back to us if you hate us so much?"

There was a blank space of silence.

"Do you want to know the truth, Kimiko?"

She whipped back to face him in confusion.  In their six year-long 
business relationship, he'd never so much as acknowledged the fact that 
she had a first name, much less called her by it.  "Yes, Tokoya-san," 
she whispered softly, "I'd like to know."

His face grew suddenly aged in the light of the office.  "Kimiko-san, 
the truth is, I like you.  I like *you* and not your company."

Kimiko blanched visibly.

It was going to be a bad day.

^*^*^

"Moshi moshi," Ryoko chirped into the phone.

"I'd like to speak to Ms. Yoshida Kimiko, please, is she available 
right now?"  The woman's voice on the other line was very businesslike, 
and Ryoko got the impression that she was one of those people who 
hadn't tripped up since they were four.

"I'm sorry, she's in the middle of a meeting, would you like to leave 
her a message?"

"Thank you, but that won't be necessary."

^*^*^

"You know, Soichi, the neighbors are going to start thinking that we're 
weird, we never go to any of the parties they throw," Kimiko murmured 
as she idly stirred the pot of stew.  She watched as he made a face, 
and said, "Come on, Soichi, tell me why you don't like going."

He sighed and muttered, "I always feel out of place there, you know, 
Kimiko?"

"No, I don't, because you won't tell me."

He groaned softly and started, "It's just that they're all talking 
about wine and boats and the stock market.  I don't know anything about 
wine and boats and the stock market.  I feel stupid there, like I don't 
fit in and they don't want me."

Kimiko rolled her eyes.  "Soichi, I don't know anything about wine and 
boats and the stock market either, I don't feel out of place."

He grinned, turning off the oven as the timer trilled, he leered, 
"That's because you're beautiful, and when they talk to you, it's 
usually to your breasts and not your face."

"Soichi!  I'm being serious."

He took out the steaming hot loaf of bread, a pair of matching pink 
oven mitts on his hands.  Furrowing his brow, he said in all 
seriousness, "So am I, Kimiko."  He stopped for a minute, dumping the 
bread out onto the cutting board before he spoke again, "You know, 
about that, I'm starting to get really irritated."

Kimiko raised an eyebrow, turning the range down to a simmer.  
"Irritated at what?"

"Those guys in our building, Kimiko, they spend at least forty minutes 
ogling you every time we spend any time with them," he frowned, 
"haven't they figured out that I may not like that?"

Kimiko shook her head and turned back to the soup.  "No one *ogles* me, 
Soichi."

"Yes, they do!" he insisted angrily.  "And I'm sick of it!"  She was 
startled by the harshness in his voice.  

Kimiko jumped.  This sudden anger was unsettling.

"Soichi," she whispered, "what's wrong?"

He lowered his head wearily.  "I love you," he whispered, looking back 
up at her just in time to see her face sparkle with a beautiful smile.  
"I can't find words half the time to tell you.  You're my best friend, 
the only person who ever really listened to me."  He stopped, forcing 
his next words out of his mouth.  "You gave up everything so I could 
have *something*, *anything*."

Kimiko winced at this, and unconscious reaction to whenever he talked 
about ... it.

"I can't help but think," he went on, "that one day, you're going to 
see through me, and find out that I'm not what you wanted, and then 
you'll be angry because I've led you on."  The words came out in a rush 
of previously unreleased insecurity, and Kimiko walked toward him as he 
spoke.  "And then, soon, you're going to find one of the guys in this 
building that *does* know about boats and wine and the stock market, 
who can make you happy and keep you well, who *didn't* drag you through 
hell ... "

His voice trailed off, and Kimiko couldn't speak as she saw the tears 
rise in his slate blue eyes.

"And I won't have you anymore," he finished, his voice barely audible.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and with her face buried in the 
folds of his old t-shirt, she murmured, "Soichi, you're everything that 
I've ever wanted, everything that I've ever needed, everything that 
I've ever dreamed of having."  She looked back up at him, a blissful 
smile on her face, "How could you ever think that I did anything that I 
didn't want to?  How could you ever think that I'd leave you for 
someone else?"  She cupped his face in both hands.  "I love you, never 
forget that."

He nodded, and embracing her tightly once again, he rocked them back 
and forth in the kitchen, content with her words.

^*^*^

"So what *do* VIP privileges do for one in Sakura Towers, Sanii-san?"

"You're going to be surprised, Tendo."

She grinned wickedly.  "I like surprises."

"Okay, VIP gives you exclusive rights.  Such as you're allowed to *buy* 
the apartment as opposed to renting it; you have twenty-four hour 
maintenance at your beck and call.  Also, cleaners come buy once a week 
and do the entire apartment top to bottom for free."

Nabiki whistled.  "Nice set-up, ain't it, Sanii-san."

He chuckled over the phone.  "I think so, too, Tendo, what have you got 
in mind?"

^*^*^

"Damn it!"

"What?  What happened?"

Ryoga stared around himself hopelessly, somehow, instead of quiet, 
comfortable Nerima, he found himself suddenly in the screaming rush of 
the Tokyo business district.

How did that happen?

Akane looked around her, and gently easing herself from Ryoga's hold, 
she hopped onto the ground, thinking to herself, 'Geez, this is insane, 
I don't mind him carrying me places, God knows I've gotten used to 
that, but this is ridiculous, the fourth time in a  *week* we've gotten 
completely lost!'

Swallowing her annoyance, she smiled at him.  "It's okay, Ryoga," she 
said, giving him a reassuring smile, "I wanted to do some shopping 
anyway."

His grin was like a million light bulbs coming on simultaneously.  She 
could only give him a wane shadow of it in return.

"Okay, Akane."

"Yeah," she murmured wearily, "Ryoga."

^*^*^

"This is illegal, Tendo-san," Sanii Kuzio muttered unhappily, and 
glaring down at his clothing, he added, "and embarrassing."

Nabiki rolled her eyes, sifting her fingers through her hair, she said, 
"Kuzio, I've known you since you were fifteen, give it up and call me 
Nabiki."  She handed him a feather-duster, and went on, saying, 
"Besides, this is at least partially your fault."

Kuzio bristled.  "*My* fault?  How is this my fault?"

Nabiki grinned wickedly, grasping the handles of the cleaning cart, she 
said, "Hey, you mentioned the cleaning privileges."

^*^*^

"Yo, Akane, do you like this one?"

Akane sighed wearily for the thousandth time that day, it seemed that 
nothing could put Ryoga off, not one iota.

He'd never seemed this brash and careless before, he'd always been the 
sensitive one, the one who cared about her feelings and *wanted* to 
hear what she thought.

Ryoga had always been so *nice*. 

Of course, that was before she had been engaged to him.  

Sure, Ryoga was still *nice*, but it had only recently occurred to her 
how *disgustingly* nice he was.  Not only was he worse than Ranma about 
some things (remembering birthdays, getting words out of his mouth), he 
was absolutely dreadful at most everything else.

Akane sighed.

After Ranma's death, the weirdness hadn't stopped, though it did manage 
to slow to a trickle.  Nabiki had Cologne and Shampoo deported.  Ukyo 
left, heartbroken, followed by both Konastu and Tsubasa.  Kodachi had 
been formally institutionalized, and Genma did nothing but stare out 
the windows.  Soun Tendo had stopped crying.

All in all, Nerima had changed quite a bit.

Her senior year had been hellish.  Not only did the male population of 
Furinkan not care that her fiancee had just died, they took the news 
with gusto and celebration.  The morning fights began again with Kuno 
as the leader.

Though she'd rather die than admit it, she'd felt incredible relief 
when the arrival of Ranma had stopped the battles.

She winced, she'd never have admitted it to anyone, but she had loved 
him.  Since his thought had reasserted itself in her mind just a few 
days ago, she'd managed to let herself say it.

"Akane?  WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Of course ... 

Akane was engaged to Ryoga now, and Ranma was dead.

She sighed and trudged over toward the sound of her fiance's voice, 
wishing desperately that she was looking for Ranma instead of Ryoga.

Then again, she was almost thirty; it wasn't time to be choosy.

^*^*^

"Soichi, what did we agree on about those shirts?" Kimiko chided 
softly.

She knew this was a sore subject for him.  They had been forced to 
abandon everything.  Not one thing could have been taken.  Money, 
clothes, and sentimental items inclusive.

She always knew that he missed his shirts.

It seemed like he used to have an endless supply of them, blue, white, 
red, black, and gold-embroidered, in every color of the rainbow.  He'd 
always unbuttoned the top collar-button, had his sleeves loosely rolled 
up, and the loose sides tied haphazardly at his waist.

But she hadn't been able to let him get any of them.  Sure, they had 
cut his hair short, been able to change their names, but some things 
would give them away too easily.

"Please, Kimiko, like you said, it's been twelve years."  He shot her a 
grin that he knew melted her resolve every time.  "What are the 
chances?"

Kimiko sighed softly, "Soichi ... "

"Please?" he whined.

"Fine," she huffed.  "Get it, see if I care."

He grinned a mile wide.  "I love you, Kimiko."  He bolted toward the 
cashier.

"I know," she sighed again, "I know."

^*^*^

"Akane, I'm going to the bathroom, can you wait for me?"  Akane forced 
herself to smile at Ryoga.  This was getting pathetic.  She wasn't 
seventeen anymore, she had hoped that Ryoga would have had some measure 
of maturity, either intellectually or emotionally by the time they were 
both thirty.

This hope would not be realized.

As she sat outside the men's room, waiting, she heard oddly familiar 
voices.

"Kimiko, you look beautiful, are you going to get it?" the male voice 
uttered breathily.

There was a soughing sound and the rustle of cloth before a softer, 
higher female lilt replied, "We're out here just to window-shop.  
Besides, how could I afford to get something like this?"  There was a 
pause.  "It is lovely, though."

"You should get it," the man said earnestly.

"Yeah, and I should also be the Empress of Japan, but neither of those 
things are happening now are they?"

Akane wracked her memory.  Where had she heard that tone before, soft, 
gentle, perhaps a little higher, but the same resonant timbre and sound 
remained.  Where?  The woman's voice was lyrical, round, teasing, 
almost, her memory flittered angrily as she tried to retrieve the hint 
of remembrance.

It was gone.  She couldn't place it.

And then she saw her.  A brilliant red, perhaps a few shades darker 
than it had been in its better days, carefully cut and let loose to 
fall over gracefully curving shoulders.  Shoulder's that led to a 
slender, curved figure.  

Akane bit back a gasp, reached out her hand, and with a firm tug, 
whipped the woman around.

Tendo Akane stared in absolute shock.

It was Ranma.

^*^*^

'SHIT!'

Kimiko's mind whirled in confusion and terror.  'Oh, God, NO!  What if, 
what if, OH NO, WHAT IF SHE SAW SOICHI?'  Kimiko studied Akane's 
shocked face for a minute, 'No, she couldn't have, had she, there'd be 
blood, there'd be tears, no, no, we're okay, we're okay.  God, please 
don't let him come back from the cash register yet.  Please.'

She pressed a cupped hand to her lips and started to back away before 
she realized that Akane still her a firm grip on her arm.

'BACKPEDAL!' a voice screamed in her mind.

"Excuse me, Miss," she started, barely repressing the stuttering fear, 
"is there something wrong?  If you're looking for someone ... " she 
released a nervous chuckle.

"No!" Akane hissed, her eyes as big as dinner plates, and suddenly, the 
(now long-haired) brunette threw herself into Kimiko's arms.  "Oh, 
RANMA!  I thought you were dead!  I, I was so worried!  God, I thought 
you were dead for so long!" she sobbed.

Kimiko's eyes grew wide for just half a beat before a bark of laughter 
escaped her lips.  Ranma?  She had to have been kidding.

Akane suddenly pulled away from her, eyes now flashing with anger, "YOU 
JERK!  WHY DID YOU LET ME THINK YOU WERE DEAD ALL THIS TIME!?"

Kimiko watched in dread as Akane reared her arm back and prepared to 
let loose one of her patented punches.

'Hey,' a voice in her mind consoled, 'it can't get any worse.'

"AKANE!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"  She whipped around to the sound of 
Ryoga's outraged voice.  In her shock, her fingers loosened their grip 
of Kimiko's shirt, and the redhead took off, uncaring of the screaming, 
raving woman she left behind.

^*^*^

Kimiko ran.

She didn't care that the entire mall stared at her as if she was a 
lunatic, she ran toward the store Soichi had disappeared into with a 
desperation that came only with death and war.  Soichi was just 
stepping out toward her as she slammed into his chest.  The speed and 
strength of the impact would have knocked over and out anyone else, but 
it hadn't fazed Soichi a bit, a result of years of training.

But nothing could prepare him for the expression on her face.

"Oh, shit," was all he managed to say.

^*^*^

"Come on, we have enough time to get back to the apartment, and I'll 
break out the stash, we can leave and-"

"No," he replied firmly.

Kimiko was shocked speechless save but one little word.  "What?" she 
demanded softly. 

He sighed wearily.  "I'm sick of running, Kimiko, we've been hiding for 
so long, so afraid of what would happen to us."  He grasped her 
shoulders and pressed his forehead to hers.  "Let's stop."

Her eyes grew wide.  "Soichi, this isn't the place, we can discuss it, 
yes, but now, not now, Soichi, we can't-"

"Stop it, Kimiko, you're tired," he whispered, running a finger along 
the line of her cheek, pausing at her still open lips.  "I hear you cry 
at night.  You're tired." 

Kimiko bit back tears.  "We can't, you'll have to give it all up; I'll 
have to give you up."

"No," he assured her, his voice more confident than he felt.  "We're 
not going to give anything up."

"How can we not?" she whispered.

"We are masters of our fate," he stated confidently, and cupping her 
chin in his hand, he brought her face up to his.  "Masters do not run."

She was hopeful for a moment.

It was enough.

"No more running," she breathed. 

"No," Soichi answered, "no more running."

^*^*^

"Akane!  What do you think you're doing?  Attacking an innocent woman?" 
Ryoga cried angrily, eyes flashing with rage as he stormed up to her.  
Something else Akane had noticed about Ryoga, he had a terrible temper.  
Although Ryoga could never, ever lay a malicious hand on Akane, his 
voice was frightening enough to make her shake.

"Ryoga," she managed, "that, that was Ranma, Ranko, whoever."  She 
stared in the direction the woman had run, "She was *here*."

Ryoga's eyes grew wide.  The four thousand doubts and fears that had 
not emerged since Ranma's death rapidly resurfaced.  Each of them a 
ghostly spectre of his youth; all of them raising memories that he 
preferred not to recall, each more vivid than the last.  All the times 
that he'd seen that look in Akane's eyes when *that boy* had been 
around, all the times he'd heard her whisper his name with ... such 
longing ... 

He spun around crazily, looking frantically for any hint of red hair, 
anywhere.  "WHERE?!"

^*^*^

"WHERE?!"

Kimiko jumped in the air, she whipped around to the direction of the 
anguished voice, just in time to miss the wry smile that made its way 
across Soichi's face.

"What the hell is that?" she said in a hushed tone.

"Good ol' Ryoga," Soichi chuckled bitterly.  "Should have known."

Kimiko turned toward Soichi again, "Are you sure, are you positively 
sure?"

He smiled at her weakly, and tightening his hand around her own, he 
said, "*Nothing* will break me.  Nothing will break *us*."

She nodded, took a deep breath, and grabbed their shopping bags.  "Come 
on, Soichi, just because we're staying put doesn't mean we have to stay 
in here."

Soichi grinned, and stepped toward the city with her.

^*^*^

"Nabiki, I think this is the place."

Tendo Nabiki looked around the apartment.  She had to admit, Yuki had 
certainly done well for herself.  It was elegantly furnished, 
understated, and altogether comfortable.

Nabiki's blood boiled.

After Ranma's disappearance, Tendo Soun had fallen apart entirely, what 
little income he generated teaching a few classes at the dojo 
disappeared.  Nabiki's drastically reduced budget (due to Ranma's 
sudden passing) could barely hold the family above water.  Needless to 
say, they had suffered until she had gotten a real job.

While here, Tanakawa Yuki was living in what could only be called ... 
opulence.  

A cream and amber striped chair and stool were in her immediate vision, 
and with her trained eye, Nabiki instantly priced it at about two 
notches above what she could ever afford.  The floors were pieced 
together with broad pieces of hardwood, smooth and newly-waxed.  Thick 
curtains fluttered in the evening breeze, and the glitter of the city 
shone into the darkened apartment.

Obviously, Tanakawa Yuki, now Yoshida Kimiko, had made a comfortable 
living for herself.

And that was when Sanii heard the door opening.

^*^*^

"Nabiki-san," Sanii stuttered.

She gave him a death glare and hissed, "I dare you to talk, Sanii, I 
dare you."

The two of them tried to ignore their physical closeness in the tight 
confines of the broom closet.

^*^*^

The electric nightscape of Tokyo streaked across her window as Kimiko 
stared to the streets that surrounded her.  She'd grown accustomed to 
the light and sound after years of living in the rush of the city.

She could literally taste the tension that cut through the front of the 
car cabin.  Soichi's hands were tensed on the steering wheel, and his 
eyes stared straight ahead, serene, blue, thoughtlessly driving the car 
toward their home.  

She wondered how he did it.

And while he paid attention to the road, she turned inward and started 
to remember.

^*^*^

Nerima
14 Years Previous

Oddly enough, though it was a well-known universal invariant that 
nothing that could happen in Nerima could happen anywhere else, 
everything that did happen in Nerima happened often, and even more 
commonly, at the exact same time.

This might have explained why two teachers on opposite ends of the 
tenth grade hall both ordered two children out of their sight at the 
exact same time.  This might also explain why instead of standing 
quietly in the hallway, the two teenagers chose instead to make faces 
at the kids inside the classroom.  Of course, this lead to a 
simultaneous condemnation into detention.  At this point, the two were 
silent and wary, who knew what punishment would come next, they might 
even be forced to listen to Kuno's poetry!

The dark-haired boy only rolled his eyes as he waited quietly until 
Miss Hinako was through eating her candy before she banished him to the 
auditorium to clean, as it had happened a least a hundred times before.

The girl however, hung her head in flushed shame.  What type of person 
managed to get themselves detention on their first day at a new school?

It so happened that the first of the two teenagers arrived in the 
auditorium, it's chairs overturned and floors scuffed from a fight that 
had broken out early that morning during an assembly, and with a long-
suffering sigh, the girl put down her things and started to sweep.

She had blue eyes the color of brilliant skies, and her hair was a 
startling red that was known to draw more attention than an actual 
stoplight.  

Just as she had started to sing to herself as she swept, a set of 
silent feet descended upon the floors of the auditorium, and setting 
his bookbag down, the spectator looked and listened, enjoying the song 
as much as he was enjoying the view of the shimmering red hair.  Only 
after the girl had finished two or three songs did he make his presence 
known.

Clapping, Saotome Ranma grinned, "Bravo, Encore, that was very well 
done."

And fast as a whip, he found himself face to face with a mirror image 
of his female form, and Saotome Ranma, for the first time in his life, 
was without words.

His initial reaction was to believe that this was all part of some 
intricate plot Cologne had put together to either humiliate him or to 
marry him off to Shampoo.  But the earnest and confused expression on 
the girl's face told him that this was definitely something different.  
Ranma honestly couldn't think of anyone other than the old Amazon freak 
that had to the capability to pull something like this off.

The girl's surprised expression became sheepish, and then angry.  "Who 
are you to skulk around and peep in on other people anyway, you, you," 
Ranma's temper flared as he prepared for the 'pervert' comment that he 
knew must have been coming, "skulker-arounder!" she finished unhappily.

There was half a beat of silence where the girl and the boy both held 
dearly to their stoic expressions, and then they both broke out into 
gales of laughter, unable to contain themselves. 

"Tanakawa Yuki, at your service."  The redhead smiled holding out her 
hand, and as Ranma grasped it firmly, his heart still fluttering at an 
unhealthy rate, and his mind still screaming from the unpleasant 
insanity of their similarities, he replied:

"Saotome Ranma, likewise."

He looked at her closely for a few seconds more.  Aside from her 
hairstyle, they were exactly the same in physical appearance.  The same 
eyes, the same pale skin, the same red hair.  This was *too* weird, 
even for him.

He wondered for a moment why he hadn't seen her around Furinkan before, 
her hair alone would have pulled droves of men toward her like sailors 
to their deaths, why had Hiroshi, the school's most notorious 
repressed-pervert, not even mentioned her before?

"Um, I don't mean to be rude or nothing, but I've been here for a 
while, and I've never seen you around before - " he started awkwardly, 
a hand on the back of his head.

She nodded, "We just moved to Nerima, it's my first day."

Ranma nodded.

Somehow, when one entered the Nerima city limits, these things just 
happened. 

But she seemed normal enough, and Ranma had no intention of freaking 
out some poor girl who didn't know half of the craziness that followed 
him around, and he endeavored not to act weird around her.  Something 
in which he was certain he would fail miserably. 

They glanced around the auditorium and shared a sigh, Yuki looked up 
toward him and said, "Well, I've got sweeping covered, how about you 
start stacking chairs?"  He nodded and headed toward the chairs, 
pausing every so often from his labor to stare at her oddly.  And when 
she finally grew tired of this treatment, she spoke up.  "What?  What's 
wrong with me, Ranma?"

He looked surprised, and stuttered, "What?"

She sighed and dropped her broom, "You've been giving me these 
frightened, confused expressions ever since you got into this room; it 
must be something about the way I look.  Spill, Ranma."

He groaned, and looking at the clock, he said in a resigned tone of 
voice, "Come on, Yuki, it's four thirty, we can leave, I'll explain it 
while we walk."

^*^*^

Nabiki seethed from her hiding place in the closet.

What were the chances that the *actual* cleaning crew would arrive to 
show up to tidy up the apartment the same day that they decided to?

With any luck, they would leave soon, without anyone else arriving.

She glanced to her left where Sanii was currently fighting a mop for 
more space in the closet, and losing at that.  She allowed herself a 
soft smile, and wondered for just a moment what it would be like if she 
let herself like him, and then, maybe to *love* him.  She was certain 
that her heart was more than ready to shower him with her affections.  

Over their three-year business relationship, their friendship had 
deepened and ebbed, she knew things about him that his parents didn't, 
and he knew things about her that no one did.

There wasn't a soul in the world who could touch her heart or make her 
laugh as quickly as Sanii Kuzio could, and that was precisely why she 
was so afraid.  The age factor wasn't a true issue for her, so what if 
he was younger?  It wasn't as if she was a decrepit old woman seeking 
sexual release in a young, virile thing.  She was genuinely attracted 
and fascinated by him.  

She was afraid that she would end up losing him.  Sanii was only 
eighteen, and at eighteen, hormonal impulse ruled above all; what if 
his affection for her was just a transient thing?  What if all the 
passes that he had made were fueled by nothing more than testosterone?

While she was certain of the emotion behind her rather subdued 
responses, she couldn't be sure that Sanii's feelings were genuine.  
And to take advantage of his momentary fixation would be wrong, 
something she'd learned painfully in years passed when a certain 
pigtailed martial artist died.  She didn't get the chance to apologize 
for her crimes.  

"Nabiki!  Nabiki, get this mop away from me!  I can *feel* the dust 
mites on my skin!" Sanii hissed urgently, fear in his dark eyes.

Nabiki sighed, then again ... 

^*^*^

After finally returning home and tipping their cleaning crew as they 
left, Kimiko and Soichi had retreated to their bedroom, tired and 
contemplative.  She was lying on the bed, her eyes closed and her heart 
still pounding.  Kimiko could feel the mattress depress under the 
weight of her husband, and she instinctively knew that his touch was 
coming.
 
"Kimiko," Soichi started softly, brushing a tendril of hair from her 
eyes, "do you ever wish that we hadn't left Nerima?"

She stared at him for a moment before standing up, and then from where 
she walked to her closet.  And as she watched him, images flashed 
through her mind.

 ... Meeting a grinning boy in after-school detention one rainy Friday 
afternoon, and trying to find out what about her appearance shocked him 
so much.  A mystery that she'd been intrigued by, at least until they 
were caught in a sudden shower walking back home.

 ... Dragging Ranma to her house in the snow.

 ... Finding out about their family's blood feud, and being forbidden 
to ever see her friend again.

 ... Being forced to challenge each other.  

 ... Being alone, being so terribly alone and frightened.

 ... Running, running and not stopping, collapsing under Ranma's dead 
weight as she lay gasping on the floor of the forest, praying to God to 
save them both.

 ... Freedom, with each other.

"Kimiko," Soichi said softly again, concerned by her long silence.

She turned her back on him as she walked toward the bathroom, "Never, 
Soichi, never a doubt in my mind."

^*^*^

Nabiki and Sanii slipped out the apartment quickly after the couple 
fell asleep, both their faces flaming from the extended contact.  

^*^*^

"RYOGA, STOP!" Akane cried at the top of her lungs.  It was the only 
way she could get him to listen to her.

He'd been running around downtown Tokyo for nearly three hours, 
trashing every store and ripping through every diner and McDonalds 
looking for his old and most hated foe.  

For two years of his life, Ryoga had been filled with fear, fear of 
discovery, fear of rejection, fear of losing.  And all of his worries 
were rooted in one Saotome Ranma.  The boy who was just a bit more 
handsome, the boy who was just a bit more charming, the boy who was 
just a bit more skilled in the art, the boy who was just a bit more 
than he could ever be.  The boy who had possessed the only woman he 
could ever love.  

And that woman's voice finally permeated the thick cloud of rage that 
surrounded his conscious mind.  He looked around at the damage he had 
left in his wake and felt his face turning bright red from the enraged 
stares of all the shoppers and businesspeople on the block.

"Oh, sorry, I'm, I'm so sorry!" 

Grabbing Akane by the waist, he took one mighty leap and headed back 
toward Nerima.  Well, either that or Hokkaido.  They were pretty close 
together, weren't they?

^*^*^

"I saw him, Kasumi!  I'm serious, I'm not losing my mind, and I 
guarantee you: *he was there*!" Akane cried, tears streaming down her 
face.  Her older sister was glad that she had sent Ryoga out for 
groceries.  It would give them at least a week before he returned, and 
he would be saved from witnessing this, this pre-wedding *delusion*.

"Akane, Ranma *died* twelve years ago, don't you remember?  He died 
defending the Tendo and Saotome families.  You were there."

"I know!" she yelled.  "I know!  I saw the building collapse and I saw 
the fire, and I was there when the rescue workers said there was no 
chance of survival!  But I saw him today, with my own two eyes!"  Akane 
threw herself face-down into her pillow, shoulders shaking from sobs.

"Lots of girls in the world have red hair, and many of them have blue 
eyes.  It's become a fashion trend in Tokyo.  You probably just," 
Kasumi stopped, looking for a careful word, "overreacted to someone who 
looked like Ranma's girl side."

"Are you sure?" Akane breathed.  Her eyes held the same unconditional 
trust in her older sister as they had when she was just sixteen years 
old.  She would believe if Kasumi believed, that was always the way it 
had gone.

Kasumi took a deep breath, but before she could speak, her mind ran 
through the list of the impossible that Ranma had accomplished, and she 
stopped.  The rescue crew had never recovered the bodies of either 
Takankawa Yuki or Saotome Ranma, and mostly it was believed that they 
had become part of the darkened ashes that littered the floors after 
the fire had engulfed Furinkan High School.  There was never any 
conclusive proof that Ranma was dead.  But, anyone with a good sense of 
logic and two brain cells to rub together could come to the conclusion 
that he had bit the dust along with Yuki.  Sure, he was a brilliant 
martial artist and everything, but no one could have survived that 
fire!  As it was, Mousse died and Ryoga had almost followed the Amazon 
to his grave.  There was no way that Ranma could have survived!

But then again, there was no *way* that Ranma could have defeated the 
Seven Lucky Gods, and no way he should have beaten Kirin.  Ranma had 
done lots of things that normal people were incapable of.

And then Kasumi looked once again into the pleading eyes of her 
youngest sister, and felt the desperation there.  "I'm sure, Akane," 
she said softly, kicking herself internally for killing her hopes, it 
was for Akane's own good.

Akane had been engaged to a ghost for far too long, it wouldn't do to 
have her walking into a marriage with the same dark imprint on her 
heart. 

^*^*^

Two Weeks Later

^*^*^

"Yoshida Publicity Incorporated, how may I help you this afternoon?"

"Actually, I want to make an appointment to meet Ms. Yoshida; I like to 
meet people before I hire them."

"Of course.  How about ... is tomorrow afternoon at three okay for you, 
Ms ... ?"

"Oh, Tendo, Nabiki Tendo.  And tomorrow afternoon is fine.  Actually, I 
have a request of you, please, keep this meeting a secret.  See, Kimiko 
and I were friends in high school, I'd like to surprise her."

"I'm sure she'd love that.  No problem, see you tomorrow, I'm sure that 
you'll have a lovely reunion."

"Absolutely lovely."

^*^*^

"Morning," Soichi murmured as he drifted into the breakfast room.  His 
feet slapped against the cool tile of the floor, and the sound of water 
rushing down their building distracted him from the sound of one 
redheaded woman sighing for a moment.  

Turning away from the coffeemaker as he poured himself a mug of 
Kimiko's favorite Jamaican Blue Mountain espresso blend, he nodded 
toward the picture window.  "It's getting pretty heavy, isn't it?"  

It had taken a while and several thousand mishaps, but he'd gotten his 
curse under control, at least enough so that he could get along in life 
without the interesting number of questions.  Their first tactic had 
been simply not to get wet, and then they'd sent away for the Amazon's 
waterproof soap, which worked rather well for a year until they 
realized that people built up a resistance to it after continued use.  
They'd finally settled on just carrying an umbrella at all times, and 
being as careful as possible.  Accidents still happened.  Accidents 
that usually occurred when Kimiko thought it might be fun to break out 
a watergun and chase him around the apartment.  Soichi was fast, but 
sometimes, not fast enough.

But he didn't mind, he still had half a crate of Instant Nannichuan, 
and while he used it sparingly, he timed it well.  Kimiko had had more 
than one interesting surprise last April first.

Still haunted by the sound of water falling, she sighed, and nodded 
dreamily, her eyes captured by the play of light against the opposite 
wall.  Her fingers tapped softly against the heavy, honey-colored wood 
of the table, and strands of her hair fell across her face, covering 
her eyes.

Soichi raised his brows, and ventured once again, "What are the odds 
that I'll make it to work today without a problem?"

She shrugged, and in a soft voice, replied, "Oh, I don't know.  If you 
take the subway," she left off, biting her lower lip.

And suddenly she blinked and heaved a great sigh, stretching her arms 
upward and pointing her toes against the floor, releasing a mewling 
sound she stood and turned toward him.

Soichi couldn't help but smile.  Her morning routine was still a wonder 
to him, even after many years spent together.  She had a series of 
actions: first, she'd roll out of bed, her hair adorably puffy from 
sleep, then, she'd wander around the apartment slamming into walls and 
stubbing her toes like a zombie for ten minutes.  Sometime between the 
moment where she finished brushing her teeth and finding the 
coffeemaker, Soichi would steal a kiss, most times, several.  He loved 
the way she'd respond in that confused, overjoyed manner when he 
embraced her.  There was something deeply touching about how she faced 
their relationship with the same childlike wonder and amazement that 
she had when they had met years ago.  She'd stretch, and come awake.  
And Soichi's fun would be over.

"Morning," she said, and walked over to the coffeemaker and poured 
herself a mug, taking a deep breath of its heady smell before she 
drank.

"Welcome to the world of the living, Kimiko."

"I was thinking."  She walked into the bedroom, and to the background 
sounds of clothing being discarded, Soichi heard: "I've got some time 
between my eight o'clock and my ten fifteen, you want to drop by and 
have brunch?"

Soichi flipped through his mental calendar quickly.  "Sorry, Kimiko, I 
promised Naka that I'd spar with him today."  He grinned at himself, 
"So I was going to ask you about that, too, should I fake ineptitude, 
or should I kick his butt, but good?"

Kimiko stopped for just a second as she was zipping up her skirt, 
remembering how intensely painful it was for her husband to fake 
ineptitude at anything.  There a brief spout of twinkling laughter, and 
Kimiko asked, "Is he seeing you for self-esteem issues, or is it 
something that you wouldn't crush by crushing him physically?"

"He hates his family."

Kimiko appeared, and a wicked grin on her face.  "Kick his ass."

^*^*^

"Akane, you look lovely," Saotome Nodoka murmured, smiling as she tied 
the obi around Akane's waist.  She'd spent years of life waiting to be 
able to prepare her future daughter-in-law, get her ready to walk out 
to her wonderful, manly son and marry and be happy in a way that she 
and Genma had never been able to.  

But instead, she'd settled for preparing a woman for her wedding to a 
former friend of her son's.  She hid a sigh and found a cheerful expression, one that reflected the half-deadened look on her charge's face.  

Akane smiled bravely, praying that it didn't falter.  At the ripe old age of 
twenty-nine, she didn't understand the mysteries of the world, she 
hadn't answered all the questions she asked about herself, even.  But 
she knew one thing to be true: she did not want to marry Hibiki Ryoga.

But she'd said yes five years ago when he'd finally popped the 
question; she'd kissed him back as he tentatively reached toward her 
that night.  And she had responded like any lonely woman 
might as he had nervously unbuttoned her blouse later that 
evening, yearning for someone's loving touch.

"Akane, I want to tell you," Nodoka started, tears welling up in her 
eyes, "I know he never let on that he cared about you, but Ranma did 
love you, a lot."  Akane felt her shoulders sag.  'Anything, anything 
but this conversation,' she thought miserably.  She had been expecting 
it, she had coached herself for it, but nothing could truly prepare her 
for it.  And yet, relentless, Nodoka continued to talk, tears flowing 
freely down her too-pale cheeks.  "I don't want you to go into this 
marriage with any baggage.  I am happy for you, and he would be, too."

"Yes, Auntie, I'm sure he would be."  Wiping away the stray teardrop 
that had made its way down her face, she added, "For all we know, 
Ranma's spirit may be there at the wedding."  Akane cursed herself 
quietly, why had she said that?  'Oh, yeah, because Kasumi said it a 
month ago, and it was very sweet.'  The youngest Tendo girl tried to 
hide a scowl.  Instead of the words being reassuring and gentle, they 
sounded lame even in her own mind.

Nodoka smiled warmly, running her hand across Akane's cheek.  "What a 
lovely thought, I'll be sure to tell him that he's invited when I visit 
him later this week."

Akane hesitated, and said very quietly, "Auntie, if it's okay with you, 
I'd like to come with you, when you go to ... see Ranma."

For the longest time, Akane had found something terribly wrong with 
Nodoka's weekly visits to Ranma's grave.  It wasn't that she still 
longed for her son, that was to be expected and understood; but how the 
woman characterized her pilgrimages to the cemetery ... "I'm going to 
go talk to Ranma now, Akane, would you like to come with me?" and 
"Ranma and I will have a long conversation today."  There had been 
something eerie about it.  The dead did not speak.

But then again, ever since her son's death many years ago, Nodoka had 
always been rather fragile.  Genma watched over her now, in a way that 
he'd never bothered (or needed) to do so while their child was still 
alive.  For the most part, Nodoka was shielded from what problems arose 
in their now much-simplified life.  She was quiet, domestic, and tended 
to visit the dojo often, happier in conversation with Kasumi regarding 
dinner plans and menus than at home in the emptiness.

'Maybe it's time I try,' Akane thought slowly, 'to talk to him, too.'

"Of course, Dear.  I'm sure he'd love to see you."  Nodoka smiled too-
brightly and said, "Excuse me child, I've got to go check on the miso 
soup," and quickly left the room.

She turned to watch the three Akane's in the mirrors mimic her actions 
exactly.  A soft smile spread across her still-lovely face.  "Who's 
uncute now, Ranma," she said softly.  Sliding down to her knees in the 
wedding kimono, and lowering her head, she stared at the woman in the 
mirror.  There was no remnant of the girl from many years ago, the one 
with short hair and bright eyes; the face was still attractive, softly 
so, but now the eyes glittered with experience.

She wondered for just the briefest moment, if, in fact, Ranma had ever 
loved her at all, would he still, if he knew her now.

Akane narrowed her eyes, berating herself silently.  That didn't matter 
anymore!  *Especially* not at the crossroads she stood!

T-minus two weeks until wedding bells rang for Akane and ... Ryoga.

^*^*^

The sound of two people fighting alerted Kimiko's ears, and with a kind 
smile, she crossed her arms and wandered into the far exercise room 
open in the local gym.  It was only a five-minute walk from Soichi's 
office, and she knew that he dropped by occasionally to work out when 
he had the time.  A hunch had told her that if he were to spar with 
someone, it wouldn't have been in his plush and expensive office space.

She turned a corner and saw something that still made her heart 
flutter: Fujikara Soichi in action.  He'd stripped down to a gray t-
shirt and his khaki pants.  Though these clothing items did little to 
disguise the still sleek and muscular physique of her husband of many 
years.

She listened to the sound of strikes being passed from one martial 
artist to the other, and with a practiced eye, she looked at the 
younger man she deduced was 'Naka', and carefully analyzed him.  Tall 
frame, buff but not grotesquely muscular, good flexibility, and 
sufferable ki flow.  With a good Sensei and a little semi-obsessive 
training, the kid had potential.

She decided it was time to stop their fun.  "Hey, Bruce Lee and Jackie 
Chan, gimme a second of your time, will you?" she called out playfully.    
Immediately, both stopped their blurred arms and smiled, one lazily, 
the other shyly.  She walked up to the sweaty men, and extended her 
hand to the younger of the two, watching as a bright red flush appeared 
over his face.  "You must be Naka," she said kindly.

"Yeah," he replied, his eyes drifting upward to see her face clearly 
for the first time.  His face suddenly turned very red and he fell 
unnaturally silent.  Kimiko could only guess at the reasons why (she'd 
never been very good at reading pubescent boys; their hormones seemed 
to jam any empathy-signals their minds were attempting to send) his 
hand started to shake.
 
Kimiko raised her eyebrows and tossed an amused glance toward Soichi, 
who covered his mouth in an attempt not to laugh out loud.  "What is 
it, Naka-kun?" she asked gently.

"Well, it's just that you're," he paused, seemed to choke, and shut up 
again.  There was another long silence before he muttered hoarsely, " 
... very pretty ... "

Kimiko busted out laughing; Naka looked like he wanted to crawl into a 
hole, and set about digging his heel into the ground in an attempt to 
create one on the spot.

Kimiko finally stemmed her laughter and taking Naka's hand softly, she 
said, "It's okay, Naka-kun, I take it as a compliment," seeing the 
boy's spirits lift, she grinned and said, "So, this is the Naka that 
Soichi hasn't stopped talking about.  If it wasn't about how much he 
wanted to spar with you," she shared a chuckle with the boy.  "Then it 
was about how much you reminded him of himself."

Naka blushed liberally and looked down.

Naka looked up to see Soichi grinning like an idiot.

Needless to say, Naka was angry that his therapist was laughing at him.

Working quickly to think of a way to reassert his manhood (especially 
in front of Kimiko...), Naka blurted out the first thing that came to 
mind, "I want a rematch!  Just because you beat me-"

"I *destroyed* you," Soichi corrected.

The boy turned sixteen shades of red.  Kimiko wished silently that she 
had a camera.  These were Kodak moments.  "I want a rematch!"  

Soichi gladly agreed, scheduling it shortly after exams.  "I'll only 
fight you if you pass all your classes, Naka."

The boy was stunned, and in a moment of dumbfounded stupidity, he 
cried, "We're never going to get to spar again!"

Kimiko laughed, and she hesitated as a memory washed over her.

^*^*^

Nerima 
14 Years Previous

"How'd you get detention?" Yuki asked tentatively, her eyes sneaking 
looks at the more quiet than calm boy that walked by her.  She'd been 
surprised when no one offered to make friends with her that day, and 
more than a little disappointed.  Transferring in mid-way through a 
school year during the freshman year of high school was rough, Yuki had 
been praying for companionship.  She repressed the urge to smile 
brightly at Ranma, he had no idea how grateful she was that he'd 
offered to walk with her; Nerima was a pretty confusing place.

He shrugged, fighting an embarrassed flush and muttering, "Oh, you 
know, the usual, sleeping in class, eating in class, not paying 
attention in class, making faces at the class from the hall."

Yuki laughed out loud.  "I thought I was the only person in the world 
to ever get detention for that!"  

With an embarrassed smile, he put his hand behind his head.  "Well, if 
you had Miss Hinako, you'd understand.  The urge to mess with her in 
class is just too strong."

She giggled in return, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she 
replied, "So I've heard.  You know, this explains a lot for me."

Ranma glanced at her from the corner of his eyes.  *Very carefully*, he 
asked, "Explains a lot of what?"

"Well," she started, her tongue resting on the edge of her lip for half 
a beat, "this guy named 'Kuno' attacked me at least three times today, 
declaring his eternal love for me, and calling me his 'Pigtailed 
Maiden', and yelling about how I'd finally been freed from that 
sorcerer 'Saotome's' grasp."  Ranma groaned as Yuki continued, "He 
refused to call me 'Yuki' even though I told him that was my name.  
That guy's as thick as a wall."  She turned toward Ranma, frowning as 
he laughed out loud.  "I'm glad you think it's funny; it was very 
disgusting, you know."

"No," he gasped, "it's not that, it's just, well, it's hard to explain, 
but I'm sure you'll find out eventually."

Yuki eyed him for just a few more seconds, and just as Ranma was ready 
to brace himself for a good, hearty beating, she shrugged and walked 
on.  There was a space of comfortable silence, as they walked past the 
canal, Ranma and took serious study of the girl next to him.  

However, it was at this moment that a certain myopic Amazon warrior 
rushed onto the scene, crying, "SAOTOME!  You shall pay for stealing my 
Darling Shampoo!"  The purpose for the declaration was unknown (as it 
was ninety percent of the time, at least to Ranma).  

Unlike most days, where Ranma just growled and punched the Amazon boy 
away with little more regard than one would have for a passing 
distraction on the other side of a busy street, Ranma was annoyed 
today.  Today, he had a friend with him, a *guest*, a new girl who knew 
nothing of his wretched reputation and didn't seem to want to marry, 
kill, or molest him; Mousse's behavior before Yuki would not be 
tolerated.

Of course, red is a far more alerting color than black, and considering 
that Yuki looked exactly like Ranma in girl form, it wasn't surprising 
that Mousse attacked *her*.  

Releasing a battle cry, he lunged, and Ranma in sudden alarm realized 
that his defensive stance was for naught because he was lunging at 
Yuki.  There was a sudden panicking fear in his heart that an innocent, 
untrained girl would be harmed because of Mousse's blind stupidity and 
their similarities in appearance.  Ranma felt the weight of guilt 
already.

What he saw next drove him insane with curiosity.

Yuki screamed as Mousse grabbed her chest to fling her against 
something painfully blunt.  Unfortunately, it was not to be, because 
with one powerful fist, she slammed him hard against the pavement.  And 
after flipping over the quickly-recovering Mousse, she landed on his 
head and kicked his solar plexus, hard.  It seemed to be a rule that 
regardless of how well-trained or strong a martial artist might have 
been, once within Nerima city limits, and caught in the middle of an 
act of perversion, any girl with a quick enough temper could bring said 
martial artist to his knees.

"YOU PERVERT!" she screamed, stomping on Mousse's prone form with 
righteous female rage.  Finally satisfied, she wiped the dust from her 
hands and patted down her clothing.  Picking up her discarded books, 
she turned back to Ranma.  "HONESTLY!  What is wrong with this place?  
If it isn't a lunatic trying to kiss me, then it's someone trying to 
*kill* me!"

Ranma stared at her for half a beat.  "Um, are you okay?"

"I'll live," she muttered.

He was still stunned, his jaw lay somewhere in the vicinity of the 
ground.  He had watched her motions carefully; her body was well 
trained for battle, lithe, and flexible.  It was like she had practiced 
the art every moment of every single day of her life ... just like he 
had.  "Uh," Ranma managed, "does that happen a lot, you don't seem very 
surprised."

She laughed, glancing at Mousse's bruised carcass.  "If you're 
wondering if I was randomly attacked before, the answer is 'no'," she 
stopped, looking at him thoughtfully, a light dawned in her eyes.  
"Hey!  He yelled 'Saotome', isn't that you?"

Ranma turned bright red with embarrassment.

"Geez," she paused once more, "personally, I don't see the 
resemblance."

"Well, he's very near-sighted," Ranma said, an odd, 'oh, of course' 
tone in his voice.

"Is that so?" Yuki replied, staring at him in bemusement.

After a nervous chuckle, he asked, desperately seeking to change the 
subject, "So you study Kempo?" 

She grinned, "Yeah, but Kempo's boring by itself, it's like Kendo, 
without the bokken.  I study several schools, but family-wise - the 
Tanakawa School of the Rising Phoenix."

Ranma whistled, looking up at the sky warily.  "That's a mouthful, how 
does it compare to Anything Goes?"

Yuki shrugged.  "I don't know, I've never fought anyone who practiced 
Anything Goes before."  She raised an eyebrow at him.  "Let me guess, 
you're one of the few and the proud who study it?"

Ranma grinned, not a trace of arrogance in this truly happy expression, 
"Yup, since I was four years old."

"Then maybe we could spar sometime."  She smiled at him, and it was 
only then that he realized how truly beautiful she was.  They were 
walking home right during the sunset hours, and her delicate features 
and brilliant hair were framed by a background of orange and yellow 
flame in the sky.  And with a soft sigh of appreciation, he wondered, 
'Wow ... my girl side looks like that?'

Giving him a soft smile, she asked, "Whatcha lookin' at?"  The way her 
lips curved up told Ranma that she knew *exactly* what he'd been 
staring at, and the twinkle in her eyes enforced this.

Stuttering from embarrassment at being caught, he muttered, "Nothing 
much.  Just the sun," he paused, "it's nice."

She turned to look, and sighing, she answered, "Yes, it is, isn't it?"  
Turning back toward him, she asked, "Well, are you going to be straight 
with me?  Come on, why were you staring before?"

He stopped and turned bright red from embarrassment, for a moment, Yuki 
had a horrible thought, 'Oh, God, he's not going to confess his eternal 
love for me or something?  Kuno is bad enough!'

"It's actually hard to explain," he started.

Just as he said the words, the heavens rumbled and rain fell hard on 
the two teens, and before Yuki's very eyes, she watched a curse 
activate.

"My God," she murmured, too shocked to continue.

Ranma rolled her eyes, reaching out a tentative hand.  "Hi, my name is 
Saotome Ranma, did I mention that I have a Jusenkyo curse?"

^*^*^

"Hey, Kimiko-san, your three o'clock is here."

Kimiko glanced at her calendar, and frowned when she realized that she 
didn't see any three o'clock written down, but she sighed and made a 
mental note to hit Ryoko next time she had a chance.  

"Send them on in, Ryoko-san."

She grabbed the stack of files on her desk and turned her chair toward 
the row of low, squattish, black file cabinets behind her desk.  Using 
the rollers on her chair, she moved over to the left six inches and 
started to put the files in their rightful places.

She heard the sound of a door opening, and said with her back still 
turned, "Morning!  I'm sorry; I'll be right with you, okay?

"Oh, take your time," there was a pause in the sound of a cultured 
voice, "Yuki-san."

And the world froze for Yoshida Kimiko.  Her hands shook as the files 
fell from her fingertips, and the unstoppable fear that gushed from the 
dark place inside her refused to ebb or slow.  This was her doom.  This 
was her end.  She could taste the loss on her tongue, and she could 
very nearly feel the loneliness in her bones.

She slowly turned the chair to come face to face with one Tendo Nabiki.  
She didn't speak for a long time, and was able to force her mouth open 
only when the silence became more oppressive than the situation.

"Hello, Nabiki-san, it's been a while, hasn't it?" she managed 
breathily, still desperately trying to steady the rhythm of her heart.  
She remembered Soichi's words.  No one could drag them back to Nerima; 
no one could force them away from the lives they had built.  They were 
masters, and masters did not run.

Nabiki sat down the luxurious leather chair reserved for clients.  
Glancing about the office, she nodded in appreciation.  "Beautiful 
decorating, Yuki; my boss' office looks a little like this."  Crossing 
her legs at the knee, she said matter-of-factly, "I must commend you, 
Yuki-san, you did a masterful job hiding.  More than a decade, and I 
thought you were dead the whole time."  She smiled in a fashion that 
was not at all cheerful.  "Kind of sad, though, proves that Ranma's 
death was a waste after all."

Something clicked in Kimiko/Yuki's mind.  

Nabiki didn't know.  Nabiki only knew about *her*.  Nabiki had no clue 
that Ranma wasn't dead at all - Nabiki only knew a half-truth.  

And for a second, her heart sang hopefully as her mind started 
formulating a battle plan.

She chuckled softly, newly collected after the shock of a lifetime, she 
said, her voice only slightly shaky, "I hope I'm not being presumptuous 
if I ask you to please address me as Yoshida-san, or if you please, 
Kimiko.  The name 'Yuki' and the life she had were all left behind ages 
ago."  She looked at Nabiki hard, tapping her fingertips on her desk.  
"Why are you here, Nabiki-san?  You never waste time or words; there 
must be a purpose."

Nabiki shrugged.  "Actually, Yu-" Nabiki stopped abruptly, frowning as 
she tried to reconcile the redheaded image before her with the new 
title, "...Kimiko-san, it's half curiosity."  

"Curiosity?" Kimiko repeated, her tone low.

Nabiki nodded, cocking her head to the side.  "Are you him?" she asked 
very seriously.  "Are you him or are you, are you the other one?"

Kimiko stared at the woman before her for a moment, trying to decipher 
her cryptic inquiries, fumbling with the unspecific pronouns, wondering 
what Nabiki might have meant, and what she'd be giving away if she 
answered unwisely.  She narrowed her eyes in concentration, watching at 
the tension in Nabiki's stance seemed to build exponentially with every 
passing moment.  

"Oh!" she finally cried in understanding.  "*Oh*!  You mean if..."

Nabiki grew impatient.  "Yes!  I mean *that*!"

Kimiko felt massively insulted.  "I'm 'the other one'," she said 
coldly, her feminine hackles weeping somewhere deep inside, wondering 
if she'd started to lose what wiles she'd managed to collect in her 
lifespan.  She breathed hard.  "Ranma is dead," she whispered.

Nabiki's eyes grew hard.  "You killed Saotome Ranma, Kimiko-san, 
changing your name and running away does not change that.  You never 
paid for the cruelty you dealt my family."

Kimiko raised her eyebrows, keeping her cool exterior intact and 
folding her hands carefully over her lap, she asked, "What damage?  To 
my recollection, Saotome Ranma was in no way officially affiliated with 
your family when he died.  Why the personal vendetta?"  

"He was Akane's fiance, and regardless of what she refuses to admit, 
she cared for him.  Our family cared for him, when he died, we suffered 
a terrible loss," Nabiki said, parroting what she'd muttered at the 
martial artist's funeral many years past.

Kimiko's eyes grew dark.  "Really?  A loss?  The Tendos treated Ranma 
with nothing short of utter and complete disrespect." 

Nabiki flinched, taking the words as a verbal slap.

"I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did under those conditions.  
Besides," Kimiko added in a cool tone, "it was a matter of family 
honor, his death was an accident with no connection to me."  Saying 
these words, she almost believed herself.  Kimiko snarled at Nabiki.  
"You have nothing to complain about.  And I would appreciate it if you 
left my new life alone."

Nabiki scowled, "No such luck, Kimiko-san, you may have moved on, but I 
haven't.  I have my ways.  Do not be unprepared, there may well be 
retaliation."

Kimiko smiled serenely.  "Go ahead, Nabiki-san, I'd love to see you 
try."

^*^*^

Stepping out of the air-conditioned interior of the business complex, 
Nabiki pulled cell phone from her jacket pocket roughly.  Hitting speed 
dial 2, she waited for the ring.

"Yo, Nabiki, what's up?"

For half a second, she was stunned.  "How did you know it was me, 
Kuzio-kun?"

"You're the only one who ever calls me on this line, what's up?  
Calling to ask me on a date?"

Nabiki sighed in half disgust and half amusement.  "You're never going 
to let that drop, are you?"

"Never, the will of the heart is not stilled, Nabiki."

"Look," she said hurriedly, flagging down a cab and rushing toward the 
curb as she spoke, "something *big* just happened.  I need all the 
information you can possibly get on one 'Yoshida Kimiko'; she owns an 
advertising company.  I need *everything*.  I don't care how personal, 
or how embarrassing."

There was a space of silence.  "Nabiki, what are you planning?"  There 
was a worried tone in Kuzio's voice as he asked, "What are you going to 
do to her?"

Frustrated, Nabiki slid into the backseat of the cab, and in an overly-
harsh tone of voice, yelled, "Why do you care?  I'm paying you aren't 
I?  Just do it!"  She hung up her cell phone abruptly.

She'd been right.  It *was* Yuki.  There had been initial doubts, maybe 
just a similarity of appearances, maybe it was even Ranma!  But Nabiki 
had been skeptical; the Ranma she had known would have rather been 
caught dead than female in public, besides, the redhead had possessed 
'the walk'.  That graceful tilt of the body that was deeply feminine in 
nature, something ingrained at birth or in the genes, something that 
could not be imitated, something not even Ranma could learn.

"Take me to Nerima, *now*."

And as men usually do when a woman uses *that* tone of voice, the 
driver complied.

^*^*^

"So, was that Mrs. Fujikara back there, or was she just a friend?" Naka 
ventured.  Soichi raised an eyebrow and turned toward him in amusement, 
wondering briefly at the obliviousness of young men.  He had half a 
mind just to sigh and ask the if fact that his doctor wore a wedding 
ring had ever registered.  

"She prefers to be called Ms. Yoshida, if you don't mind."  He 
repressed a grin, and pushing his glasses a little higher on his nose.  
"Why do you ask?" he pressed onward.  "Interested?"

Naka grew flustered once again, and put his hand shyly to the back of 
his head like one nervous, confused youngster had in days gone by, he 
said, "Aw, Fujikara-sensei, you know I was just curious."

Soichi chuckled.  "Yes, Naka, she is my wife, we got married about ten 
years ago.  Why do you ask?"

Naka frowned, his eyes clouded for a moment, "Well, you two seem so 
happy together.  More like teenagers than an old married couple."  He 
scowled.  "My parents are *never* like that."

Soichi looked at his patient thoughtfully.  He'd once believed that 
Naka's lack of interest in school was entirely rooted in the fact that 
the boy had no real motivation to do well in his studies.  He had no 
plans for college, and his goal in life was to own and teach at a dojo.  
His actions in high school were helping him well on his way to doing 
so, but his grades were seriously suffering.  Despite logical arguments 
that owning a dojo was more than martial arts, the boy had refused to 
listen.  

"How long have your parents been like that, Naka?" he asked softly.

"Oh, I don't know, since I was born, maybe?"  He chuckled and went on, 
"Ever since I can remember, they've been like that, always arguing and 
carrying on.  Most of it's because my mom works, and my dad thinks that 
they don't spend enough time together."  He blinked, hard.  "I'm sorry, 
Fujikara-Sensei, can we talk about something else?"

"Of course, Naka, whatever you feel comfortable with."  Soichi decided 
that he and Naka's parents needed to make an appointment.  He would not 
press the boy any further that day.

"Well, then I'm going to have to pick *your* brain."  His patient 
grinned wickedly, and Soichi felt a little tremor in his stomach.  
Ambitious youths were always more dangerous than their elders.

"By all means, try, we've only got five minutes left, anyway."  

Naka's expression brightened.  "Will you be honest?"

Soichi laughed.  "Sure."

"Fantastic!" Naka cried.  Soichi couldn't help but to smile.  Naka was 
a mirror image of his younger self, with a little more tact and a few 
extra opportunities.  Soichi hoped sincerely that Naka's life wouldn't 
come to the nearly disastrous climax that his had.

"Alright," Naka started, squinting his eyes and thinking hard, "when 
did you start practicing martial arts?"

"When I was four years old.  Next."

"Wow.  Oh, okay, next, right.  Um, When did you lose your virginity?"

Soichi rolled his eyes.  "That's *hardly* an appropriate question."

"Come on, you promised that you'd be honest."

'Damn,' Soichi thought.  'And I can't even lie; that would be 
hypocritical, and I'm supposed to be a model of integrity and mental 
health.  Damn.'  "Alright," he sighed, "I was seventeen and a half."

"Details," Naka said eagerly, wondering if the girl in question had 
been some fly-by-night, an ex-flame, or Kimiko.  "Gosh, Kimiko-san," 
he'd say to her next time they met, "*I* sure didn't know that 
Fujikara-sensei had done *that* sort of thing with a girl before *you* 
married him!"  He got a devilish grin on his face, payback indeed.

Soichi frowned but complied.  "I was seventeen and a half, no alcohol 
involved, and it was cold outside the dojo.  Happy?"

Naka raised his eyebrows.  "You lost your virginity in a dojo?"

Soichi shrugged and laughed softly.  "Only place we could get any 
privacy, yeah."

"How long had you known each other before?"

"Oh, a while, by my memory," he replied softly, and before Naka's very 
eyes, Soichi drifted through the years the beginnings toward a still-
questioning end.

^*^*^

Nerima 
14 years previous

"SHIT!" Yuki cried, stepping back quickly and falling into a seasoned 
defensive stance.  One Ranma recognized immediately from years of 
battle.  "Where'd Ranma go?  What did you do to him?  And above all, 
*why the hell do you look like me*?"

Ranma almost laughed, it was hard to repress the nearly girlish giggles 
that threatened to rise in her throat, but somehow, she was able to 
silence them in the absurdity of the moment.  "That's touching, Yuki.  
But Ranma didn't go anywhere, I *am* Saotome Ranma."  

"RANMA IS A BOY!  AND YOU LOOK LIKE ME, NOT LIKE RANMA AT ALL!" Yuki 
screeched at the top of her, feeling the panic welling up inside.

"I noticed, and I noticed that, too.  Believe me, no one knows that 
better than I do, but trust me for just a second, from one martial 
artist to another."  Ranma took Yuki's hands softly and placed them on 
her own cheeks.  "I am Saotome Ranma."

"But," Yuki stuttered, her eyes wide in disbelief, "how is that even 
possible?"  She lifted a hand to Ranma's braid, and gently pulling her 
toward herself, she pressed her hair next to her own.  "It's the exact 
same color!  No hair-dye company can even recreate this color, my 
friends have tried!"  She turned Ranma around, looking at the shape of 
her hips and the way her features were set, blinking hard in the rain, 
wondering if maybe there was LSD in the water.

"We're, we're," she paused, breathing in hard, "we're duplicates!"

"Do you see why I was staring now?" Ranma replied softly, embarrassment 
evident on her features.   

The rain still fell thickly around them, and Yuki's soaked hair was 
plastered to her face as the two teenagers stared at one another in 
wonder and confusion in the rain.

"Weren't," Yuki said in a hushed voice, "you a boy just a second ago?"

"It's a curse," Ranma explained.  "Follow me, there's a restaurant near 
here where we can sit for a while.  And, I think there's someone there 
who can explain this to us."   She grabbed Yuki's hand, and with a soft 
tug, the girl was shaken out of her stunned state and followed, 
mystified still, the carbon-copy of her own image toward a small cafe 
near the end of the street.

"SHAMPOO!" Ranma yelled, seating the still-awed Yuki in a chair softly.  
"SHAMPOO!  We have a problem, and it's HUGE!"

Shampoo grinned cheerfully, and fluffing her thick, lavender hair, she 
bounced into the dining room, "Airen come to date with Shampoo!  I so 
happy- [WHO THE HELL IS THAT??]"  Shampoo had been making a brave 
attempt to speak more grammatically correct Japanese, but sometimes, 
the informal, soft language was not enough to convey emotion.  And for 
this, she lapsed back into her mother tongue.

Ranma stared. Shampoo stared.  Yuki stared.

All in all, there was much staring.

"Uh," Ranma started, "did you say 'what the hell water?'"

Shampoo stared at her Airen for a beat, and then back at her Airen's 
(apparent) twin.  There were two Ranma's sitting in the dining room of 
the Nekohanten, and she was more concerned with learning Chinese than 
explaining this entire situation?

After a great deal of yelling, some screaming, and a pinch of 
bellowing, Cologne finally arrived on the scene, turned Mousse into a 
duck, locked him in a cage so he'd stop throwing himself at Yuki to be 
stomped on, and restored some semblance of order.

It was a curious thing, she concluded, staring at Yuki pointedly, her 
old eyes squinting as she read the girl's ki lines.  There certainly 
was more than one surprise under the feminine appearance of the girl 
before her.  "Tell me, Yuki-san, have you ever studied martial arts?" 
Cologne asked, her voice slow and careful.

Yuki frowned, what was the relevance between her studies and why she 
looked *exactly* like Saotome Ranma?  She answered in as polite a voice 
as she could, "Yes, I've studied both Kempo and the Rising Phoenix 
School of Martial Arts since I was a child."

Cologne narrowed her eyes, and murmured, "Yuki-san, is it?  Have you 
ever heard of 'ki' before?"

The girl before her looked terribly insulted, "Of course I have!  What 
kind of person calls themselves a martial artist if they don't know 
ki?"  Yuki scowled, and added, "Besides, what does that have to do with 
why *I* look like his cursed form, anyway?" she pointed at Ranma to 
emphasize her point.

Ranma had been forced to demonstrate his curse at least twelve times 
before Yuki had seen enough proof to persuade her not to run screaming 
from the Nekohanten.

"That," Cologne murmured, "I do not know, though I do have a theory."  
Balancing on her staff, she hopped over to a cabinet and retrieved an   
ancient-looking book, it's pages yellowed and leather cover stained.  
"It's an odd thing, Child," she started, touching Yuki's cheek softly, 
"I've never heard of a Jusenkyo curse *mimicking* someone before, nor 
do I believe that anyone else has ever heard of it."  She paused, 
hoping to find a trace of reincarnated spirit in Yuki.  Certainly, the 
soul in the girl was old as light, but the appearance, the character, 
the personality and flair were all new of this life.  The ancient 
Amazon sighed in frustration.

Yuki had closed her eyes and started breathing in and out rapidly, 
calmed only by (the now restored male) Ranma's smiles.  Ranma, between 
offering helpful grins of encouragement, was starting to dig through 
his endless memory for a whisper of something that he knew was terribly 
relevant to the situation.  'What was it that the Jusenkyo tourguide 
said about the Springs of the drowned girl and boy?' he wracked his 
brain for remembrance until he was hit rudely upside the head.

"OW!  Stupid old mummy!  What did you do that for?" he yelled, rubbing 
his newly developing bump.

Cologne looked irate.  "Son-in-law, I said for you to take her home, 
this will take more time and research than I can do right now; I will 
contact you once I know more."

Yuki looked around the room.  At the boy who turned into a duck and who 
was locked in a cage, at the shapely, lavender-tressed Amazon who'd 
been barely restraining herself from both speaking and molesting Ranma, 
at the shriveled old woman who hopped about on a staff, and at the boy, 
who, in a way, looked exactly like her.

"Man," she said softly, "this should be interesting."

^*^*^

"Sensei?  Come on, you were going to tell me more about her!" Naka 
complained, shaking Soichi with his voice and pleading expression.  
"Come on!  How am I going to know how to make a move on a girl?" he 
asked desperately.  'I need dirt on you!  Keep talking!' he mind 
yelled.

Soichi glanced at his watch in a distracted manner.  "Oh, I'm sure 
you'll manage until Wednesday, Naka.  I'll see you two days, okay?"

Naka sighed, and grabbing his bookbag, he started back out of Soichi's 
office.  "Sensei," he said nervously, "I'm really glad that I've been 
coming to see you."

Soichi smiled.  "Same here, Naka, same here."

^*^*^

Kasumi frowned angrily at the middle Tendo daughter.  "They don't need 
this, Nabiki," she said warningly.

She had been pleasantly surprised when Nabiki had arrived at the dojo, 
out of breath and tired, but happy to see her younger sister none the 
less.  After having engaged in polite conversation with Tofu, Nabiki 
had asked quietly, "Sorry, brother-in-law, but can I steal your wife 
for a moment?"  Tofu had planted a soft kiss on Kasumi's cheek and said 
jokingly, "Sure, just remember to bring her back unharmed."

And Kasumi had been happy to have the time to talk to her sister, but 
then things took a turn for the worst.

"I don't know how it happened, Kasumi, but I was walking down the 
street and I saw Yuki!  But she's not Yuki anymore!  She's changed her 
name, runs her own company.  She's moved on completely," Nabiki huffed, 
looking down at her hands.  "Even after everything that she did to us, 
she moved on!  I can't believe her!"

"*Nabiki*!" Kasumi interrupted, her voice more harsh than usual, and it 
caught Nabiki's attention.  "Akane is getting married in two weeks, 
Father was *just* released from the hospital, and his heart's still 
weak from the surgery.  Saotome-san is *still* heartbroken from years 
ago!  They do not need this!"  

Nabiki stared at her older sister in admiration.  There weren't that 
many people who could force her to shut up.

"If you must pursue this," Kasumi added, "please, do it discreetly, and 
don't let on about what you are doing, okay?"

Nabiki stared at her older sister for a little while, and in a 
hesitant, slightly confused voice, she murmured, "Sure, Kasumi, if you 
think it's for the best."

^*^*^

Soichi rolled over from his side of the bed and through squinted eyes; 
he looked at the clock on the nightstand.  'Geeez,' he thought, 'It's 
three in the morning!  What the heck is Kimiko doing?'  He rolled 
around again toward the piercing brightness of the bathroom light and 
saw his wife bent over the sink, shoulders slightly shaking.  'Shaking?  
Kimiko doesn't shake!'

And in one broad leap, he jumped out of bed and toward the bathroom.  
He crouched down next to her still trembling figure and stroked her 
back gently, murmuring, "Kimiko?  Are you okay?  Do you feel sick or 
something?"

"I-I-Oh, shit!"

She bent her head over the sink again and threw up (for, what Soichi 
would later discover, was the sixth time that day).  She coughed, 
running the tap, wiping the sick from her face; she turned toward her 
husband weakly.  "I'm fine," she said, breathing softly, "I probably 
just caught the flu or something."  Stepping carefully, she started 
toward the bed again, but only made minimal progress before her legs 
gave out and she almost ended up sitting on the floor.

"Aw, man," Soichi said softly, "you really *are* sick."  Picking her up 
carefully, he carried her to the bed, and tucking her under the covers, 
he said, "This is probably stress related.  It *has* been a messed up 
couple of days."  He frowned.  "Though, this degree of negative 
reaction is weird, for you anyway."

Kimiko frowned from where she was snuggled deep in her pale blue down 
comforter, feeling more comfortable already.  "And what is that 
supposed to mean?"

Soichi shrugged, and sitting Indian style next to her on the mattress, 
he answered, "Nothing really, just that you usually handle stress 
pretty well."  He paused.  "Is there something going on that you're not 
telling me about?"  He asked this question just out of psychiatric 
habit, it was how he ended most sessions; she'd never kept anything 
from him after that ... first time, and he doubted she had reason to 
conceal information from him, anyway.

Kimiko looked deep into his eyes and evaluated her options.  She could 
tell him about Nabiki's unwelcome exploration of her life, she could 
warn him that the most volatile of the Tendos was on the warpath and 
would probably find some way to prove conclusively that Saotome Ranma 
and Tanakawa Yuki had not died.  Theoretically, she could mention that 
she was still scared witless about what would happen if the Tendos or 
the rest of the Saotome's discovered them.

But seeing that underlying peace in his eyes, the deep, unquestioning 
happiness and calm, she couldn't bear to break it.

And breathing in deeply, she replied, "I've got a confession, Soichi," 
the words were said softly, and Soichi started to worry, "I-I-I'm 
having an affair with the Miroku, you know, the priest from that anime, 
Inu-Yasha?  I know, I know, I always say that you're the only person 
for me, but, he's just so delish." 

And she waited for a reaction.

Which she got.

There was much carrying on and threat of death before the last couple 
of words in that sentence sunk into Ranma's mind, and after a few 
sheepish, "You are evil"s and "I hate you"s, Ranma discovered there was 
something very wrong with how pale his wife's face was.

^*^*^

Tokyo General Hospital was deathly quiet at nearly four a.m. that 
morning, and save for the yelling voices of one terrified male and one 
irate woman, everything else was calm.

"SOMEONE!  Someone help!  Please!"

"Goddammit!  I was probably just dehydrated or something!"

"SOMEONE, PLEASE!"

"Oh, God, if you embarrass me any more, I swear - "

^*^*^

As it happened, the calm was broken by two events that night.  

Approximately two hours after Kimiko and her nearly spastic husband 
were carted into the hospital, an ambulance screamed down the circle 
and the doors were thrown open.

"SHIT!  What the hell happened?" Sato Hiroshi had been an emergency 
room surgeon for nearly six months, and he had seen all sorts of 
tragedy, but he'd never seen this much blood so liberally draped all 
over a person before.

"Auto vs. bus.  Three people in the car, two were pronounced on the 
spot.  This one's got extensive lacerations and probably a couple of 
broken ribs.  Collapsed lung.  We tubed him on the spot," the EMT 
yelled, still holding a pressure bandage on the boy's leg.  "He's 
holding pretty steady."

The other EMT ran alongside the stretcher as they hoisted it up the 
ramp and into the hospital, "Yeah, betcha he's going to wish he was on 
the road to terminal though - both parents are dead, pretty shitty 
reality to wake up to."

Hiroshi bit his tongue and tried not to hate Takano, the EMT who 
wouldn't know tact if it crawled down his pants and bit him on the 
butt.  He was a bastard, a heartless, insensitive, weenie-dicked 
bastard, but he was also the best EMT in all of Japan.  

Hiroshi was determined not to say a word.

But then Takano came up with, "Damn, looks like one hell of a recovery, 
that's a fucker, from the build, bet he plays some kind of sport, gonna 
have to shit that away, too."

"Fuck you anyway, Takano, just because you don't get any doesn't mean 
you have to be a piss to everyone else who isn't dead," Hiroshi 
seethed.  "We'll take it from here."

The two EMTs stood stunned behind a set of swinging doors.

Hiroshi looked down at the unconscious boy on the gurney, and almost as 
an afterthought, he looked up toward the medics still outside, and 
called, "What's his name?"

And the one who wasn't an asshole replied, "Yomada Naka!" 

Hiroshi looked down to his patient, and with a more-confident-than-he-
really-was smile, they ran through another set of doors.

"You're going to be just fine, Naka-kun."

^*^*^

Kimiko sat silently on the exam room bed, her shapely legs swinging 
slowly to and fro from the edge.  Her arms were bare, and gooseflesh 
raised all along her back, paper hospital gowns weren't the warmest 
things in the world, but this degree of sensitivity to cold was not 
characteristic of a trained martial artist.  Her eyes were downcast and 
her face was pale.

"Ms. Yoshida?  Are you all right?"  Sato Aiko looked at the woman 
before her in deep concern.  In her years, no one had ever quite 
reacted that way to the news she had just shared.  There were tears of 
joy, tears of horror, shouts, yells, happiness, and shame.  But never 
just plain silence.

"I'm fine," Kimiko murmured, her legs still swinging.  "Just confused."

"Confused?" Aiko asked softly.  

"I," she started softly, "I was told that I could not conceive years 
ago.  It's, it's kind of a shock."

Aiko smiled.  "Had you and your husband wanted children?"

Kimiko shied away, and turned to face a wall, painted rosy pink in an 
effort to be cheery in the gloomy surroundings of a hospital.  "We, we 
always wanted children, desperately, but we knew we couldn't have any," 
she stopped, "and even if we had been able to conceive," her voice 
trailed off, "we had a delicate family situation."  Kimiko looked up, 
her expression much happier now.  "I'm sure that my husband will be 
thrilled."  She coughed.  "Is, is the pregnancy why I blacked out?"

Aiko sighed and clasped her hands together.  "Actually, Ms. Yoshida, 
the reason you passed out is from the extremely low sugar content in 
your blood."  She eyed the other woman for a second.  "Had you skipped 
a couple of meals, ma'am?"

Kimiko blushed.  "I had a lot on my mind."

Aiko raised her eyebrow.  "I'm sure you did.  Be sure you don't do that 
again.  The little one might not be too happy about it."

"Right," Kimiko said, a pretty blush coloring her face as she looked 
down once again, and finally glancing back up at Aiko, she asked, "Can 
I get dressed?  I know that Soichi would be worried out of his mind by 
now."

"Sure, let me write out some prescriptions for prenatal vitamins while 
you're doing that, okay?"

^*^*^

"What's wrong with her?  Please, God, just tell me, I can handle it, 
really," Soichi demanded, begged, really, whimpered, more honestly.  He 
was ready to get down on his knees to get the doctor to tell him what 
Kimiko had come down with.  And for half a second, he shuddered at the 
thought that if he threw a few tears into the equation, he would have 
been exactly like Tendo Soun.

Dr. Sato Aiko only shook her head at the man before her, his eyes 
watery, his hair wild, and his face pallid in terror that something 
might have been off with his lovely, wonderful wife.  "Nothing is wrong 
with your wife, Fujikara-san, in fact, according to what she's told me, 
it seems that everything is right for the first time in a long while."  
Aiko smiled.  "Have you two ever thought about having children?"

Soichi looked confused for half a beat.  "Well, yes, a long time ago, 
but we couldn't get pregnant."  

"Well," Aiko commented mildly, "it seems that you've finally succeeded, 
congratulations, Fujikara-san, you're going to be a father!"

He stared at her for a solid minute before his eyes rolled back into 
his head and he tipped over, falling with a solid 'thud' to the floor.

"Fujikara-san?  Fujikara-san?  Oh, God, can someone get me some 
smelling salts, please?"

^*^*^

Kimiko was in line at the hospital pharmacy, her coat and prescription 
slip clutched tightly in her hands.

She couldn't believe it.  

She and Soichi had wanted children so badly when they had gotten 
married.  They had tried everything, from special fertility clinics to 
Shinto Priestesses.  After hundreds of sleepless nights, endless hours 
of crying into pillows so Soichi couldn't hear her as she wept, she'd 
finally surrendered to the reality that they'd never have a child.  

But now they had another chance!  They were going to have a baby!

She almost laughed out loud from the sheer joy of it, and she wondered 
how Soichi would react.  Would he yell?  Would he cry?  Would he simply 
smile at her before taking her into his embrace, so gently and so warm, 
because they would finally be complete?

"SHIT!  HE'S CRASHING!" someone cried. 

The panicked sound of surgeons and the wheels of a hospital gurney 
being rolled quickly along a tile floor interrupted Kimiko's joyful 
wanderings.

Sound is second only to smell for bringing back the most vivid of 
memories, it's no wonder that Kimiko was suddenly pulled through her 
years back to another place, where there was the heavy, distant sound 
of wheels far away, acting as a backdrop to a very important 
conversation.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 9 months previous

"Conics," Yuki sighed in disgust, "stupid, useless, hateful conics.  
Whoever came up with these ought to be shot."  She kicked a rock 
viciously along the sidewalk and glared at the sky, glowing a fiery red 
that was doing a fair job of copying the color of her hair.  "God take 
me now," she added, a fatalistic tone in her voice.

"Come on, Yuki, it's not that bad," Ranma muttered, balancing 
carelessly atop the fence.

She scowled at him.  "Maybe not for you, Ranma, but the teacher likes 
you, and for some forsaken reason, you can zip through math like a 
whiz."

"Well," he started arrogantly, "some of us are gifted, and others just 
aren't."

"And some of us are passing English," Ranma glared down at her as she 
spoke, "and some of us aren't," Yuki finished smugly, crossing her arms 
more tightly across her chest, warding off the cooling winds.  "Hey," 
she said, bemusement in her voice, "why are you walking with me today?  
Don't you and Akane usually go home together?"

All she got in response was a jumbled mesh of various obscenities.

Yuki raised her brows, "Never mind."

Ranma's eyes stared toward something far away, but his mind was further 
still.

Things were not going well at the Tendo Dojo.

It wasn't that he wasn't accustomed to being blamed for any and 
everything that happened to go awry during the day; it was that he 
wholly disliked the oppressive feeling of guilt.  Especially since his 
logical mind knew he had nothing to feel guilty about.

It had all started out with Akane's curry nearly three months ago, 
about two days after he had first met Yuki.  His fiancee had decided to 
try out a new recipe, one that sounded fantastic in the magazine and 
looked great in the photo, but turned out to resemble something more 
like nuclear waste.  So naturally when he'd declined to consume it 
("IDIOT!  Uncute tomboy!  Who in their right mind would eat that 
steaming pile of garbage?"), Akane had gotten upset ("RANMA YOU JERK!  
I can't believe you!  I spent all afternoon making this for you!  Can't 
you at least *try* it?), so Ranma had decided to give her a reasonable 
excuse ("HELL NO!  Besides, Yuki and I went to Ucchan's and ate 
already, okay?  Feed it to P-chan or something!"), to which, there was 
a rather unpleasant reaction on Akane's part ("YUKI?  WHO IS YUKI?  DID 
YOU GET *ANOTHER* FIANCEE YOU JACKASS?").

He didn't understand.  Was there something terribly wrong about having 
lunch with a friend?  Was it a capital crime to enjoy someone's 
conversation?  God knew it had been too long since he'd been able to 
sit down and talk to someone.

And after that, it had just been downhill all the way.  He didn't even 
bother to talk to Akane anymore.  Just straight to his room after 
school, and straight to bed after homework.  There was no explaining 
things.  "But Akane!  She's my friend!  We've got a lot in common!  
There's nothing wrong with having a girl for a friend!" he'd protest.  
"I knew it!  Shampoo, Ukyo, Kodachi, and me aren't enough, you had to 
go and get another girlfriend!  PERVERT!" she'd accuse, seemingly deaf 
to his reasoning.  "SINCE WHEN DID I SAY SHE WAS A FREAKIN' 
GIRLFRIEND?" he'd finally yell.  "YOU DON'T NEED TO SAY IT, I CAN 
ALREADY TELL!" was her answer on every such occasion.

He frowned to himself.  When did it become this way?  He remembered the 
first time he had ever met Tendo Akane, a funny, smiling creature with 
bright eyes and a forgiving heart, quick to welcome and friendly.  Then 
she'd realized that he was in fact a 'he'.  

But even then, there were moments of tentative romance, the fumbling 
motions of two people forced into intimacy at an age where they didn't 
know what to do.  Times where they had almost kissed, times when she'd 
say something, or do something that just screamed of her devotion, or 
her love.  And he had been so sure, so terribly certain that he loved 
her back that he was willing to lay down his life for her.  

There had been times when he had wanted her so badly, wanted to kiss 
her and embrace her as one lover holds another, and to whisper quiet 
words in her ear...

But those moments had grown fewer and further in between.

There was an undeniable chill in the air wrought by the onset of 
winter, and he shivered lightly, clenching his teeth.  

"Hey, are you okay?"

An all-too-familiar voice broke him out of his deathly calm.  Ranma 
looked down from his place on the fence to Yuki's concerned face, her 
eyes narrowed and her brow wrinkled.

He shrugged, and kept on walking.  "I'm fine, Yuki, don't worry about 
it."  He could feel the smirk on her face.  

"Of course not, Ranma, because Mr. Super-kick-ass-Martial-Artist isn't 
vulnerable to emotion."

He did his best to frown at her.  And she just grinned back up at him.

It was a well-known throughout Nerima by then that Tanakawa Yuki did 
not know how to be unpleasant.  In reality, that was not the case, but 
it was true however, that it physically pained her to be angry with 
anyone for a long time, she was naturally bubbly, happy, and 
reconciliatory.  "Aw, come on, Ranma, just tell me what's up, please?" 
she flashed him a cute expression that Ranko-chan had used on more than 
one occasion to get free food.  "Aren't I your friend anymore?"

Ranma growled and shook his head, hopping off the fence and landing 
gracefully next to her on the sidewalk.  Falling into step, he 
muttered, "That's not fair, Yuki."  He closed his eyes for a beat and 
said, "I'm worried about me and Akane."

Yuki drew to a quick stop, grinding her heel into the ground as she 
spun back to face him, "Oh, Ranma, why didn't you say so earlier?"  She 
grabbed his hand.  "Come on, I'll take you out for noodles, we'll talk 
over food!"  Her eyes were bright and she was nearly breathless with 
excitement over *something* that Ranma didn't quite understand.  "Oh, 
maybe Cologne will have found something about why we look alike, too!"

She started running, dragging Ranma behind her at a steady pace.

It was at this moment that he realized something that would hold deeply 
important in his soul for the rest of his life.  With all the women who 
chased him, out of all the girls that flocked toward him, he'd always 
in a roundabout way reached toward them for love, for understanding.  
Of course, Ucchan had always reached toward him, seeking to give him 
haven from the world, as did Shampoo.  Yet both of them wanted 
something of him, wanted him to change in one way or another.  Ucchan 
wanted nothing more than for him to quit Nerima altogether, to live 
their lives of okonomiyaki away from memories of a less-pleasant past.  
Shampoo wanted to take him back to the Amazon village, where he'd be 
treated like human chattel and used as breeding stock.

Yuki was the only one who asked for nothing but *him*.

"Ooo!  I remember now!  I heard they're introducing a new noodle dish, 
fried spicy beef strips and veggies tossed over cold ramen!  I can't 
wait!" Yuki giggled, still running toward the Nekohanten.

He rolled his eyes as he was tugged along by the small, redheaded girl, 
'Man,' he thought, 'a woman after my own heart.'  
 
^*^*^

Kimiko was almost broadsided by a nurse running after the gurney, and 
she frowned until it passed by her, finally allowing her to see the 
poor soul lying atop it.

Her breath caught in her throat.

"Naka-kun," she whispered, and reached out a trembling hand after the 
doctors and nurses had disappeared behind the doors of the surgical 
ward.

Her heart fluttered in her chest the way a contained butterfly flapped 
its colorful wings against the sides of a jar - painfully.

She knew what Naka meant to Soichi.  She could see his personality and 
his self-confidence bloom under his watchful eye, and over the period 
of nearly two years, from a confused, unhappy boy sprung a smiling, 
pleasant man.  He still had his fallacies, but Naka had changed a great 
deal from the sullen child who had accidentally knocked her over the 
first time he'd ever visited Dr. Fujikara, not even muttering a 'sorry' 
as he bolted from the office.  But he had grown, and she had grown to 
love him.  Though she'd only heard stories about his actions and antics 
till very recently, she'd started thinking of Naka as a little brother.

"Oh, God," she murmured, "please, watch over him for me.  For Soichi."

Numbly, she slid the thin prescription slip to the pharmacist, and with 
a wavering hand, she received the white, waxy bag the bottles on 
bottles of vitamins were in.

Kimiko walked unsteadily toward a plush chair near the doorway of the 
surgical ward, and laid her head against the back of the seat.  She 
waited, a deep, trembling fear filling it heart like water from a 
broken dam.

She had lost many people in her short lifetime, and she would wait to 
see if she would lose yet another.

^*^*^

"Hello, Ranma, the weather is lovely, isn't it?"  Saotome Nodoka spread 
a soft blue blanket over the bright green grass before the grave, and 
motioned Akane next to her as she sat down.  "I've a surprise for you 
today, Son!  I brought Akane!"  Nodoka cast a sidelong stare at Akane, 
an encouraging look in her eyes.  "Go ahead, he can hear you."

Akane stood before the headstone, perhaps three feet from where Nodoka 
sat, her eyes trained on the epitaph:

"Saotome Ranma (1980-1998)

"He who was loved and cherished
He who slept and dreamed
He who was wise and childlike
He who was more than he seemed."

She remembered the verse from somewhere.

And her memory suddenly clutched it, that whisper of something that 
wrenched her from the present and flung her toward her past.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 8 months previous

"Akane!" a voice cried, "Akane!  Hold up, wait for me, please!"  The 
dark-haired girl furrowed her brow, this voice was familiar, 
irritatingly so, but the words and their tone were not.  Usually, when 
she heard that lyrical voice, the words that tumbled in its sound were 
rough and very much grammatically incorrect.  If not that, at least 
they were rude.

She turned toward the source and saw a redheaded girl sprinting toward 
her, a shy smile on her face her bookbag flying by its straps behind 
her.  She waited for the girl to catch her breath.

"Thanks, Akane-san!  For a moment there, I didn't think you were going 
to wait for me!" the redhead smiled brightly, and closing her eyes for 
a brief moment, she inhaled deeply; cold weather cleared the air, and 
it tasted deliciously crisp that day.

Akane scowled, kicking a rock as she started to walk at a brisk pace, 
feeling a hint of anger as the redhead fell into step without so much 
as a moment of hesitation.  She'd been expecting Ranma to show up for a 
while now; they'd had a flaming row that day before third period (one 
which, despite the wildly inaccurate opinions of many witnesses, was in 
no part her fault), and she felt that an apology was in order.

"What do you want today, you pervert?" she muttered.  "And why the hell 
are you dressed up like a girl, anyway?"

The blue-eyed girl was wearing a sky-blue Furinkan High School uniform, 
a dress jacket over it, indicative of the cold weather.  Her hair was 
pulled into a loose ponytail and bound with a sky colored ribbon.  The 
whole ensemble was topped off by white tennis shoes and lacey ankle 
socks.  

'Yes, indeedy,' Akane surmised grumpily, 'there is definitely something 
wrong with Ranma today.  Maybe he accidentally ate something that 
Kodachi gave him.'

Instead of a snide remark or inelegant stuttering as he tried to 
explain why what he had done this time *wasn't* wrong, Akane got 
instead: "Who're you calling a pervert?  And for your information, I 
*always* dress like a girl because that's what I am," the blue eyes 
sparked with anger, "And I'll have you know that it's *not* polite to 
verbally accost someone you've never met before!"

Akane stared at the redhead and blinked.  'Yep,' she thought to 
herself, 'Kodachi's back to using the hallucinogens.' 

"Ranma," she started cautiously, touching the redhead's forehead, 
forgetting her earlier anger as her concern grew, "are you feeling 
okay?  You didn't eat anything Kodachi gave you, did you?"

The girl sighed in frustration and her shoulders slumped.  "Geez, 
Akane, that's what I'm trying to tell you.  My name is Tanakawa Yuki."

Akane raised and eyebrow.  "Yeah, that's it, Ranma, come on, I'll take 
you to Tofu-Sensei's, he's gotten pretty good at dealing with stuff 
like this by now - "

"Akane, listen!  I AM A REAL GIRL!  A real girl named Tanakawa Yuki, I 
just *look* like Ranma's girl-side!"

It would take several rather embarrassing pop-quizzes regarding 
biological cycles only women were privy to (Akane knew for a fact that 
Ranma had never stayed female long enough to deal with her period) 
before the Tendo girl would believe it.  

Akane felt confused, who was this girl, where had she come from, was 
she who Nabiki had been yelling about for the past month?  Kuno's 
pigtailed girl, the one who had finally escaped the grasp of the 'foul 
Saotome'?  The new martial artist in town?

"Yeah, Tanakawa-san, I'm very sorry, it's just that - " she was 
interrupted by her new acquaintance.

Yuki waved a dainty hand in the air between them, "Eh, it's all right, 
happens, it *is* sort of odd situation, right?" she paused for breath 
and continued at the still-stunned expression on Akane's features.  
"Oh, you're wondering about the look."  

"Well," Akane murmured, "it is ... unusual."

Yuki grinned, saying, "Cologne thinks it's something about reincarnated 
souls or something like that, but she's not sure yet, so Ranma and I 
are just waiting it out."

Akane smiled thinly.  So, Ranma had been out cavorting with some girl 
while she was alone at home, cooking dinner for him.  That bastard.  
And then, the little voice in the back of her mind finally broke 
through the wall of resentment she'd built up around it.  'Idiot!' it 
cried, 'Ranma was *not* out cavorting!  He probably met Yuki by 
accident, they look *exactly* alike, hell, if it were you, you'd be 
freaking out, too, they're just trying to figure things out!'  

Yuki grinned, nearly exuding friendliness, and Akane was shocked by the 
warm sensation that built up inside her.  'No wonder Ranma spends so 
much time with her nowadays,' she thought morosely, 'she's pretty and 
nice *and* the friendliest person alive.'  Akane looked at Yuki, who 
was still smiling her thousand-watt smile and sighed to herself, 
fighting the instinctive urge to plot the redhead's death in an attempt 
to protect her own territory.

"Akane, I think we need to talk, badly.  It's important, okay?" Yuki 
whispered, glancing around her.  "How about the bridge?  Ranma showed 
me a great spot down there."

Akane turned red.

"Hey!" Yuki cried out in surprise, "Cool!  Your face matches my hair, 
how do you do that?"

^*^*^

And in that familiar explosion of anger that had ended the peaceful 
afternoon, so, too, did it end her memory.

Akane lowered her head slightly and whispered, "Hi, Ranma," her voice 
shook like a child's.

Graveyards were not pleasant places; she did not like them.  Her first 
memory of them was shortly after her fifth birthday, a year after her 
mother had died.  All she recalled was the soft green grasses below her 
feet, the unhappy, looming headstones, and the pretty flowers that had 
been laid on the ground.  She had not understood that it was the 
resting place of the dead.  She had not understood that it was where 
her mother was buried.  "Mother is here, Akane," Kasumi had explained 
tearfully, eight-years-old and bravely holding her younger sister's 
hand.  "Mother is under all this lovely grass you're standing on, her 
life is feeding the beauty of this place, do you feel her, Akane?"

The five-year-old Akane had then finally realized something truly 
horrifying: they had put her Mother under the *dirt*.  They had covered 
up her shining eyes and her smiling face and laid her under all that 
earth and mud.

She'd dropped onto her knees before her Mother's grave marker, and with 
her chubby hands wet with tears running down her flushed-red face, she 
had started dig through the soil, yelling all the while, "Mommy!  I'm 
sorry!  I'm sorry!  I'll get you out of the mud, Mommy!"

And then it had started to rain.

"Akane," Nodoka interrupted softly, "Akane, please, feel free, talk, he 
can hear you; I promise."

Her eyes focused and the memory cleared.

This was not the cemetery where her mother had been buried; they had 
closed the doors to that one long ago, having filled the ground with 
the souls of the dead.  This was a relatively old place, one that was 
quiet and catered the to the likes of ancient titles, with wide, 
expansive plots reserved for each family.

Ranma had once joked about the place:

"Hey," he had laughed as Ryoga missed him by a mile, "P-chan, if you 
ever get the best of me, just promise that you'll bury me at the old 
Garden Cemetery," he had ducked just in time for Ryoga's kick to miss 
decapitating him, "on second thought, never mind, the place is huge, 
you'd never find my headstone!"

He probably liked it there.

"Sorry, Ranma.  My mind wanders," she started.  Slowly lowering herself 
to her knees before the headstone, and she began to speak, to tell him 
of things she'd denied herself, and to unlock the secrets of many years 
passed.  

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?"  She paused.  "I apologize for not 
coming to visit you more often, but I'm told that Ryoga drops by every 
once in a while," she smirked, "turns out that he doesn't hate you so 
much after all."

Nodoka felt anger rising in her chest.  All that time Akane and her son 
had been engaged, all that time her boy had been alive, the affection 
and kindness in the Tendo girl's voice at that moment had never 
appeared.  She couldn't help but to think that maybe if Akane had been 
a little nicer, maybe she and Ranma would have married.  Maybe that 
would have changed everything.  Ranma wouldn't have ever met that 
Tanakawa girl.  She stifled whatever careless words might have wanted 
to slip from her lips and chose to leave, never noticing that Akane 
didn't even bother to look as she stumbled from the cemetery.

Akane glanced up toward the sky, a slate-blue shade that evening, a sad 
imitation of the color of Ranma's eyes, eyes that had danced with humor 
and filled with determination.  Eyes that had entrapped her and bound 
her to his side, eyes that told her things his lips could never say.

"Did your mom mention it?" she asked softly, letting her fingers trace 
the inscription on the headstone.  "We're getting married, Ryoga and 
I."  

She stopped, hearing the footsteps of a ghost behind her.

Her dark head whipped around to see a familiar face, one frozen forever 
in her memory as an eighteen year old man, with a teasing grin and a 
deadly touch, when he wanted it.  His hair was still bound in a braid, 
and his arms were crossed over his chest, his blue-cotton Chinese shirt 
doing nothing to hide his musculature.

And she could see straight through him across the street.

There was a low, sad whistle as the wind threaded through the brush, 
and the rustle of dried, dead leaves fluttering in the early winter 
cold.  The sounds of life in Nerima did not stop.  The car horns still 
honked, children still cried, and the sound of bicycle tires and bells 
didn't mute.

They faded ever so little.

Ever so little.

And then they were gone.

And so was the outside world.

She was frozen in place of fine slate-blue, headstones, and wandering, 
a place were the dead could rise and smile, where the living could 
disappear from existence.

'Or,' she reasoned to herself, still staring at the ghost before her, 
'I've just lost all perspective on reality.'

"Aw, Akane," the ghost said, his voice echoing in the dead silence of 
the graveyard, "cheating on me with pig-boy?"

"You're dead," she murmured, her hand still on the cold surface of his 
headstone, grasping it as a tether to the Earth.

The ghost shrugged.  "Of course I am, Akane."  He was quiet for a 
moment.  "You're really marrying Pig-Boy aren't you?"

"Yes," she said clearly, firmly.  "Why do you call him that?"

The ghost stared at her for a moment.  "You still don't know?"

"Know what?" she replied, breathless, mindless, without conscious 
thought or logic.  She didn't believe in ghosts, she'd never seen one, 
she'd never spoken to one or touched one, and she'd given up on the 
concept of blind faith years ago.  She knew he was dead, she knew he 
could not be speaking to her.

But in her years with him, she had seen too much to write this off.

The ghost rolled his eyes and cocked his head to one side.  "Never 
mind, Akane," pausing, it added, "You miss me, don't you?"

"Yes," she answered, too quickly perhaps.  "Yes, I do, every day, every 
hour.  I guess I'm just making up for lost time."

"Well, you did spend an awful lot of time hitting me, you know," the 
ghost smirked.  "I hope you feel really shitty about it."

Akane scowled.  "Jackass, you're dead and you're still being a 
jackass."

'I'm insane,' she decided, 'I've become a total fucking lunatic; I'm 
nervous about marrying Ryoga, and I've turned inward toward some mad 
psychological manifestation to satisfy some deep guilt-complex that I 
haven't yet dealt with.'  She sighed silently.  'Dammit.'

The ghost didn't look guilty; he just looked translucent, as all 
stereotypical ghosts tend to do some time or another.  "The sad truth 
of the matter is, Akane, you still love me, don't you?"

"You aren't him, he can't even say the word love without stuttering, 
and no, I don't," she replied angrily, her fists clenched.

"I am Ranma, and you do love me," the ghost insisted.  "I've grown up, 
I've changed; no one ever stays the same.  I mean, look at you and 
Ryoga, he used to have a nosebleed every time he saw you less than 
fully dressed..." the ghost trailed off, and in a much softer voice, 
asked, "Do you really love him?"

Akane opened her mouth to say 'yes'.  And closed it because she knew it 
would be a lie.  "I'm fond of him," she finally decided.  "We get along 
well together; we'll have a nice marriage."

The ghost shook his head.  "That's not enough though, is it, Akane?"

"No," she whispered, her eyes intent on the ghost's face, "No, it's not 
enough, because - because I still - "

"STOP, Akane," The ghost commanded harshly.  "You can't have me, and it 
isn't because I'm dead, either."

She hesitated, studying the stony expression on his face.  "What do you 
mean?"

So consumed was she in her conversation with a dead man, she did not 
hear the rumble of thunder, but she did see the rain.  As the water 
fell and drifted through the ghost, it reshaped and resized, growing 
thicker and thinner and curvier until the man became a woman with 
faint, damp, red hair, pale blue eyes, and a hinting expression.

"You always doubted, and therefore, you always knew," the ghost 
whispered before disappearing.

By some unseen force, a dripping wet Tendo Akane pushed herself from 
the soggy ground, and brushing her bangs from her face, she followed 
the line of her heart toward another cemetery plot not so far away.

Toward a gravestone set underneath a large, shady tree.  Toward a 
secret that desperately wanted to be revealed.

^*^*^

"AKANE!" 

Her sister had gone to the cemetery with Auntie Nodoka hours ago.  
While Nodoka had turned up at the dojo a few hours later, tired but no 
worse for wear, Akane could not be found anywhere.

Very few people in the history of time had ever seen Tendo Kasumi in a 
panic, but those brave souls who ventured out into the storm were in 
for a surprise.

Kasumi had grabbed an umbrella, now useless because the winds had blown 
it inside out.  She 'hrmmph'ed in frustration and threw it to the 
ground, and looking around the Garden Cemetery, she ran toward the 
Saotome's private burial area, where Akane should have been.  She found 
only a bouquet of wilted daisies, a muddy picnic blanket, and a shred a 
blue cloth.  The color was hauntingly familiar, yet the origin of the 
memory escaped her, dancing just out of her grasp.  Growling quietly, 
Kasumi rebuked herself for wasting time.  There were more important 
things to consider.

Her sister was nowhere in sight.

"AKANE!  AKANE!"

Still the rain poured down, and still it drowned her cries.

Desperate, she circled around, her dress sticking to her body and her 
hair plastered to her face, the rushing sound of water filling her ears 
and hurting her head, the pressure of it falling stinging her skin.

Where was Akane?

The wind screamed, and the heavens roared.  Nerima was not a stranger 
to storms, but this was a gale the likes of which none had ever seen.  
It was not unnatural; it had not magic woven into its thick, red venom.  
It was the simple function of hate, of shame, and of a human concept 
called 'feud'.  

Kasumi heard a whisper, and then a scream.

^*^*^

It was dark where Akane was crouched, her legs splayed rudely beneath 
her, squelching quietly in the mud and grass mixture at the roots of 
the ancient tree.  She was covered in a thin film of dust and water, 
not quite mud, and not quite nothing.  Her eyes were empty, her mouth 
was open.

Kasumi bent down to shake her little sister, sobbing and screaming for 
her to wake, slapping her cheeks and pinching her arms.  She tried 
everything in her power to break the trance, until she saw the grave 
that Akane had collapsed before, until she read the poem.

It was, in comparison to the other stones in the cemetery, rather new, 
and would probably remain that way, being afforded the protection of 
the willow tree's branches and leaves.  The rhyme was familiar, 
childlike in its innocent cadence, friendly in its words:

"She who reached the heavens,
She who shined with spark,
She who loved and lived and laughed,
She who slew the dark."

Kasumi's hands gripped Akane like steel as she finished reading the 
inscription.

"Here lies Tanakawa Yuki, beloved daughter and master of the Tanakawa 
School of the Rising Phoenix.  Proud as she was strong.  (1981-1998)"

So the two sisters sat there on the sodden earth as the rain washed 
them clean of their lies and inhibitions, staring at the words carved 
onto the stone, an eternal shrine to something neither of them had 
quite understood at the time.

"Kasumi," Akane finally asked, her voice quiet in the sound of the 
rain, "why did she kill him?  Why did she kill him?"

And Kasumi stared still at the rock, letting her fingers trace the 
names, her mind finally remembering where she had seen that blue 
before, many, many times.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 8 months previous

"Akane, I'll have some tea out in just a se- Oh!  Pardon me, I see 
you've brought a friend!"  She bowed politely at the redheaded girl.  
"And what's your name?"

Yuki looked impressed, so far, this was the only human being who came 
in contact with Ranma to recognize that she was biologically female.  
"Oh, hi, my name is Tanakawa Yuki, pleased to meet you."  

She looked exactly like him, Kasumi observed.  The exact same blue 
eyes, the same perfectly satin skin, the same startling red hair.  'The 
dress, though,' Kasumi thought with a smile, 'Ranma has never been able 
to pull of that school dress with any measure of feminine grace.'

But Yuki seemed far more complex than she let on.  Beneath that 
exterior of glowing smiles and perfect, polite friendliness, there was 
a quicksilver glimmer of something pained.  While Ranma shared the same 
darkness inside of himself, he reacted differently, with anger, with 
words, and instead of hiding it underneath a proper showing, he took it 
out in his martial arts.  'Two such similar people,' Kasumi thought 
softly to herself, 'two such sad people.'

"My name is Tendo Kasumi," she said politely, smiling again.  "Please, 
come in, I'll have tea and cookies out in just a second."

Akane led the girl into the house, saying, "I'm sorry we couldn't talk 
under the bridge, the rain was coming down pretty heavily."

Yuki shrugged and sat down.  Setting her elbow on the table and leaning 
her cheek against it, she started, "Alright, this is serious."  Her 
tone of voice promised Akane that it was.  "You and Ranma have been 
engaged for a year now, right?  And with between fighting with each 
other, and being stolen away by mystical princes and whatnot, you two 
ought to be pretty close, right?"

Akane narrowed her eyes.  Ranma had told this girl *everything*?

"Maybe.  Why?" she asked suspiciously.  If Yuki was trying to find a 
way to weasel into Ranma's heart, that little hussy had another thing 
coming.  The *last* thing Akane needed was yet *another* fiancee 
bursting into the dojo at all hours.

Yuki reached out her hands, clasping Akane's tightly.  There was a 
serious, sober expression on her pretty face as she said, "Do you care 
about him at all?  Even the tiniest bit?"  

Akane stared, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.  
Yuki's expression was completely earnest, lacking self-interest (at 
least, none that *Akane* could detect).  'What on Earth is Yuki trying 
to do?' Akane thought frantically.  'Embarrass me to death?!'  

Kasumi, from where she stood near the open doorway of the kitchen, 
hearing every word being spoken, was fairly certain that Akane would 
have answered honestly in her own time.  After the shock wore away, her 
sister could be quite assertive.

But as it always happened in Nerima, there was a momentary distraction 
that ruined the moment.  

"DAMN IT!  DAMN RAIN!"

Akane felt a growl rising in her throat and Yuki only rolled her eyes.  

There was much stomping, and a hiss of hot water.  Then, a male voice 
cried out. "Akane?  Are you here?  Hinako-sensei found your notebook, 
do you want it back now?"

Yuki sighed and leaned back on her haunches, frustrated that she hadn't 
gotten an answer.  Running toward the entry-way, Akane yelled, "Yes!  
Of course I want it back!  You didn't read it, did you?"  The last part 
was asked in an almost nervous tone.

As the Tendo girl disappeared from vision, Yuki heard Ranma reply, 
"Why?  Writin' love letter to Ryoga in it?"  She grimaced, thinking, 
'Ranma, you have a death wish.'

"Give it back!" Akane yelled.

"Nope, you have to tell me what's in it first, come on, Akane, it can't 
be *that* bad, you haven't been keeping a diary, have you?"

"RANMA!  GIVE IT BACK NOW!"

"Dear Diary, today, I saw Ryoga, oh, he's just *so* dreamy!  I can't 
wait to marry him and have tons of little porker children!"

Yuki closed her eyes and counted to three.

There was a boom, and then a low thud. 

" ... ow ... "

"Serves you right, stupid jerk!"

There were rapid footfalls, and a red-faced Akane returned to the calm 
of the family room.  Upon seeing the blank expression on Yuki's face, 
she grew slightly sheepish.  "I'm very sorry," she murmured, lowering 
her head and clutching the notebook she'd just liberated in her hands.

"Oh," Yuki said slowly, "it's okay, he was asking for that one."  There 
was a pause.  "But still, Akane, answer my question."

Only Kasumi and Akane would ever understand her answer the way it was 
meant to be said.

"That idiot?  He could dry up and die for all I care!"

^*^*^

That blue, that haunting blue color.  The same cerulean hue as Ranma's 
shirt had been that afternoon, the same texture of the soft cloth, the 
same feel of it against her fingers as she hung up the laundry.

"Kasumi?" Akane ventured again, eyes still trained on the headstone.  
"Kasumi?"

The older woman started to speak.

"It's odd, isn't it, Akane?  She seemed so lovely, so terribly nice."  
Her voice died in her throat for just a moment.  "She loved him; did 
you know that, Akane?"  The wind grew louder and the rain fell faster.  
"Did you know?"  Kasumi continued, "I know you were too busy hating him 
for spending time with her; I know you were too jealous to see it.  But 
underneath all that, she loved him."

"No," Akane whispered, her hands curled into fists, her knuckles white 
from anger, "she killed him, why would anyone hurt the person they 
loved?"

"Why did you hit Ranma?" Kasumi murmured, remembering Yuki.  

Remembering her friend.  

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 8 months previous

"Yuki-san?" Kasumi murmured, wandering into the family room.  "Akane 
said that she had to go 'talk to Ranma'."  Yuki winced at the mere 
thought, but Kasumi just smiled.  "Would you mind a little company?"

Yuki grinned shyly.  "Of-of course not, Kasumi-san."  As she looked 
around the room, she murmured, "Your mother does a wonderful job of 
keeping house."

The oldest Tendo's face darkened for just a fraction of a second, and 
her hands clutched her apron just a little too tightly.  "Our mother 
died when we were very small, Yuki-san."

Yuki lowered her eyes.  "I'm sorry, Kasumi-san, I didn't know."

Kasumi resumed smiling.  "Oh, it's all right, you didn't know."  
Pausing, she continued, "You're Ranma's new friend?"

"Yes, we met in detention, and then," Yuki giggled, "I found out about 
his curse.  Pretty rough for a guy like him, huh?"  Yuki looked solemn, 
and her palms rested facedown on the tabletop, her tea forgotten.

Kasumi raised an eyebrow. "'A guy like him'?"

"Well," the other girl started carefully, "you can tell that he tries 
to be macho."  Kasumi nodded eagerly.  "And you can see that he tries 
to be emotionless, it's hard enough for him already without," her voice 
softened, "without his stupid curse."

Kasumi stared at the girl before her.  "Yuki-san, do you know *why* you 
and Ranma's girl side look exactly alike?"

Yuki looked uncomfortable.  "I have a theory."

Kasumi raised an eyebrow.  "Does Ranma know about this theory?"

Yuki smiled.  "Of course he does, but he doesn't think it's true, he 
says it's two convenient; that nothing goes according to Occam's Razor 
in Nerima."

Kasumi blinked.  Ranma used the phrase 'Occam's Razor'?

Yuki looked confused.  "Yeah, he did, why?  Is that weird?"  It was 
only when Yuki answered that Kasumi realized she had said the words 
aloud.  She flushed in embarrassment, and looked for a way to answer 
that question.

"Well," she started slowly.  "It just doesn't seem like Ranma to say 
something ... like that," she finished awkwardly.  

Yuki's face hardened.  "You mean 'Ranma's too stupid to know what 
Occam's razor is'."

Kasumi turned an even brighter shade of red.  "I-I didn't mean that, 
Yuki-san," she whispered, looking down at her hands.

There was a sigh, and Yuki's voice was soft and apologetic as she spoke 
again, "Sorry, Kasumi-san, it's just that - " she stopped short, eyes 
searching the room.  "Since I've gotten to Nerima, all I've ever heard 
was how terrible Ranma is."  She sighed.  "He's been nothing but nice 
to me."  She shrugged, saying, "It's not that odd to believe that Ranma 
has a deep interest in theories regarding chaos."

Kasumi released a short, embarrassed chuckle.  "Ranma is far from 
stupid.  It just happens that he spends more of his time practicing 
martial arts than studying for tests."

Yuki raised an eyebrow.  "Don't we all?"

Kasumi cleared her throat and asked, "So, what was this theory of 
yours?"

"Oh," Yuki breathed, "that.  It's pretty simple.  My thought was that 
one of my ancestors was the girl that drowned in the spring that he 
fell in."  She rolled her eyes.  "Ranma claims that nothing that easy 
ever happens in Nerima.  By his thinking, it involves death, a feud, 
some great battle he's going to have to fight, and an incredible new 
technique he's going to be forced to learn."

The two girls shared a soft laugh to a backdrop of loud, painful noises 
as Akane continued to bash Ranma over some body part with some large, 
blunt object.

Kasumi could tell that she would grow to like Yuki, perhaps even become 
friends with her.

It had been ages since she'd had a true friend.

Yuki smiled at her, and Kasumi found herself smiling back, not the 
vapid, empty smile she used for everyone and everything, a genuine 
grin.

^*^*^

The rain droned on.

And the past snapped cruelly to present.  Where Kasumi's truest friend 
was laid to rest in the mud; where Ranma was dead.  Where her youngest 
sister was being deceived for her own good.

"She fought Ranma for family honor, because she had no other choice."  
Kasumi said gravely, her voice breaking, not seeing the expression on 
her little sister's face; it was just as well, because if she had, she 
was certain to feel guilt raining down harder than water.  "Did you 
ever see the way she used to laugh when he was near her?  The way her 
eyes shined and the way her face lit up like fireworks on New Years?"  
Kasumi turned to Akane.  "His death hurt her more than anyone Akane, 
that's why she followed him to her grave."

A knife of some dark, fierce emotion slipped through Kasumi's eyes. 

"I won't let you blame her, Akane."

And there was silence save for the sound of the rain.

^*^*^

The surgical ward was quiet.

And so was Kimiko.

And so was Soichi.

It was an odd thing.  

They'd wanted a child for years, yearned to hold the product of their 
flesh for ages.  And now, they had it, they had created, there was a 
child between them, a string of genetic data that bound them like no 
marriage certificate or vow of words could.  It was a union of blood.

But instead of celebration, instead of laughter and kissing and 
dancing, they sat still, they sat quiet, holding each other's hands 
tightly, awaiting word on a child that wasn't their own.

It had been hours, an entire night, actually.  There had been 
complications during surgery; what should have been a two-hour process 
to patch up some bone and flesh became an all-nighter of touch-and-go 
flatlining.  Technically, Naka had died three times.

Kimiko stared at the doors, feeling a keening cry build up inside her 
stomach.  "Why," she whispered, her voice hoarse from disuse.  "why 
would this happen to poor Naka?" 

"I don't know," Soichi murmured, tightening his hold her fingertips.  
'It was a car accident,' he wanted to say to her, 'you know, one of 
those flimsy metal things that you love to drive too fast in?'  He 
wanted to shake her.  'Don't ever step into a car again!  What if I 
lose you?  What if you turn out like Naka's parents?  We're not immune, 
Kimiko!'  But he didn't say anything like that.  

He instead turned inward and started to think.  They drove around in 
their little four-door sedan every day like there wasn't the slightest 
harm to it.  Speeding sometimes so they could get where they were going 
three minutes earlier, changing lanes, forgetting to turn on their 
blinker, and laughing all of it off later from the safety of their 
beds.  It hurt to think about what he could have lost.  

And the two of them sat, half filled with joy, and have filled with 
sorrow, because the cup wasn't half-empty, it was full with brightly-
painted grief.

^*^*^

"Tendo here, go," Nabiki barked into the receiver.  To the casual 
listener, it would have seemed that Nabiki was just unhappy about being 
at the office so early in the morning (it was, after all, barely six 
A.M.), but to someone who knew her, her voice sounded harried, 
panicked.  

And by all means, Nabiki had a right to be.  Though Yuki was not as 
crafty as Nabiki in any right, she was intelligent, and she was clever, 
and she was nothing if not very, very thorough.  'Damn,' Nabiki had 
thought in wonder, 'she put more than a lot of energy into this, this 
charade!'

In the entire world, there is only one type of personal file that you 
cannot access through regular, legal means if you are not normally 
allowed.  Usually, there are ways to get around it, medical 
transcripts, for example, would be thrown out, and sorting through 
garbage, though disgusting, was still moderately legal.  You can get 
your hands on just about anything if you know the right people.

Except for adoption records.

Which proved to be Nabiki's downfall because Sanii was unreachable for 
hacking purposes, the paper files had 'mysteriously' disappeared from 
the registrar's office, and the past history of one Yoshida Kimiko was 
sealed by the state.

Nabiki, therefore, was very unhappy.  

Luckily, however, the person on the other end of the phone conversation 
knew Nabiki well enough to watch what he said.  "Nabiki," came the 
soft, solemn voice.

Raising her eyebrows, the mercenary Tendo leaned back in her office 
chair.  "Ryoga, what a pleasant surprise.  Why the phone call?"

There was a growl over the line.  "Cut the crap, Nabiki, something's up 
and if you don't know about it, no one does."

"Aw," she teased, her mood improving rapidly, "brother-in-law, you give 
me too much credit, why would little ol' me know something that little 
ol' you *didn't*."  She could see it in her mind, Ryoga, turning 
seventeen different shades of red.  She wished that she were there to 
witness it. 

"I'm not kidding, Nabiki," Ryoga said, a thick unhappiness in his 
voice.  "I tried to believe that Akane was just seeing things, but she 
was spooked, and now, so am I."  He was silent for just a second.  "She 
thinks she saw Ranma, alive, in Tokyo."

Nabiki raised her eyebrow.  "When?"

'So,' she thought slowly, 'Akane thinks she saw Ranma?  Good thing she 
didn't know it was Yuki, there would have been a homicide.'

Ryoga was a little bit surprised.  He expected something more shocked 
than a simple 'when'.  But then again, it *was* Nabiki.

"Just a couple of days ago.  Nabiki, do you think you could - "

"I've got it covered, Ryoga-kun, just keep my little sister sane and 
happy, and I've got it covered."

"Good, I'll pay you next time I'm in town."

Nabiki smirked, cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder.  
"Hm, in town?  Too unreliable.  Tell you what, Hibiki, this one is on 
the house, just remember the favor, it may come back around."

There was a soft groan over the phone line, "Why do I always feel sick 
when you say things like that?"

^*^*^

As it would happen, Ryoga had good cause for feeling sick when Nabiki 
said things like that, because a mere four hours later, the Dojo phone 
rang.  All that was said was this:

"Sakura Towers, twenty-second floor.  Not Ranma - Yuki.
Watch your step, she hasn't got Ranma's sense of mercy, and you two 
have nothing but blood in your backstory.  Twelve years may not have 
dulled her senses enough to get you out of this unharmed."

^*^*^

"Caffeine isn't good for pregnant women, Kimiko."

"Yeah, and I'm sure that getting kicked in the groin isn't good for men 
in general," she growled savagely.  "So, if you ever want to enjoy the 
pleasures of flesh again, hand over that cup!"

Soichi had to admit that his wife in a rage was a very scary scene.  
The way her eyes glowed an iridescent blue, and how the air around her 
seemed to spark with electricity were all indicative of severe pain in 
his near future.  

But this was Soichi, the former heir to the Saotome School of Anything 
Goes Martial Arts.  And although the name had been abandoned, and the 
cause denied, the mule-headed stubbornness remained, much to Kimiko's 
distress.

"No," he stated plainly, holding the coffee cup high over her head, 
"you're not getting any of this, if you want something to drink, have 
some orange juice.  A, it'll power you up, B, it's got vitamin C, which 
is good for the baby anyway, and C, it has no caffeine."

Kimiko stared at him for a good long minute before she replied, which 
was probably a good thing because it gave the people in Tokyo General's 
cafeteria time to cover their ears.

"YOU ARE SUCH A PAIN!"

Three seconds later, Kimiko was sipping a mug of decaf coffee, and 
Soichi was sitting very sullenly across from her, rubbing the growing 
bruise on his shin.

Ten minutes passed before he ventured to speak again, "Hey, do you 
think he's out of surgery yet?" Soichi's voice was soft, worried.

Kimiko set down her cup, leaning her cheek against her palm.  She 
murmured, "I hope so."  Her eyes grew sad.  "What is he going to do 
when he wakes up?  He's going to be devastated."

Soichi frowned.  "I'm here for that."

Kimiko shot him a skeptical expression, "You're not working for free 
you know, without parents, who's going to pay for his sessions?"  She 
paused.  "Besides, he's not eighteen yet, he's going to become a ward 
of the state; they've got their own staff psychiatrists."

There was a pensive silence.

"Kimiko," he whispered, a touch of hope in his heart, "I think I have 
an idea."

^*^*^

Akane had awoken in her bed, somehow having gotten back to the house 
following her afternoon encounter.  While the events of the day seemed 
to have slipped from her mind like water from a sieve, Kasumi's words 
would not leave her.

Had Yuki really loved Ranma?  

She stared at her ceiling, and then she slept.

^*^*^

Somewhere in the far valleys of China, where rolling hills protected 
the last Amazon tribe from the government, and shielded Jusenkyo from 
prying eyes, an old woman awoke to the sound of ki whispering through 
the air.  It sounded crimson, tainted with the blood and anguish of too 
many years on too young a person, she blinked, and she tasted the fear 
and panic.

'HELP!' it cried soundlessly, wordlessly, aimlessly.  'HELP ME!'

It had been over a decade, but Cologne recognized that ki, she 
recognized that color, she could recognize the soul that screamed it.

'It has to be something big,' Cologne marveled, 'something enormous if 
the it is coming in this strong, even after death,' she paused, 
frowning, even more wrinkles appearing on her face.  The lingering 
energies of those who had passed still made the occasional call for 
help, desperately wishing for someone with magic to rescue their former 
vehicles from their biological ends, but those were always faint, sad 
cries.  'No, it couldn't be, death weakens a ki scream tenfold, at 
least, regardless how strong she is, was, it couldn't be this powerful 
unless - '

Cologne's eyes opened wide in shock.  'Unless she's still living.'

She focused, searching for that line of ki energy again, reaching out 
to taste that panicking cry.

And when she touched it, she gasped, it was not pure crimson, instead, 
she found it to be deftly colored by patches of gold.  A tone of gold 
she had only ever seen on one other human being.

"[Tamade!(1)  Ranma and Yuki...]"

She started laughing slowly, softly, and as it grew louder, so too did 
the memories that came with those names.

^*^*^

(1) The Chinese equivalent of SOB

^*^*^

Nerima 
Thirteen years 7 months previous

It had taken Cologne five months of research, study that had consumed 
her days and nights, fueled by a dread curiosity that rose from the 
depths of her, but she'd found it, she knew why.  She didn't like the 
answer, and she knew that the Tendos would not be too happy about it 
either.

But Ranma, well, she wasn't certain how Ranma would respond to such a 
discovery.  For a boy at the nubile age of sixteen, he'd grown rather 
accustomed to the insanity that plagued his life, having fiancee after 
fiancee forced upon his person.  Cologne was sure he'd handle this as 
he would any other situation of the like: with an infamous knack for 
shoving his foot as far into his big mouth as his pipes would allow.

She'd finally pinpointed the origins of the Spring of the Drowned Girl, 
and the tourguide was right, there *was* a terribly tragic story behind 
it, though, the version he told was so vague that it was, essentially, 
true.  In ancient lore, it had been called the Lake of the Drowned 
Lovers.  

A boy and a girl who had been engaged to marry had been training on the 
grounds, having stuck the sandy bottom of the lake full of sturdy 
bamboo rods, they were hopping from rod to rod, tagging each other 
gently and generally enjoying their lives.  The details were sketchy 
from there on out (she'd gotten the entire account from some partial 
diary of an old, schizophrenic woman who'd off and on rant about 
chickens worshipping the devil), but she knew for certain that the girl 
had lost her footing, and had drowned in the lake below before the boy 
caught her and dragged her to shore.  It was then that the girl's 
family, a proud, Chinese clan had discovered the lovers there, one dead 
and the other sobbing.

It was said that the boy had cried so hard and so long that the lake 
had overflowed to fill the entire valley, creating spring after spring 
from his endless grief.

Cologne smirked.  His passion had not touched the girl's family, 
though, and they'd pulled him away from his dead fiancee and had 
drowned him in the same waters from which his lover had perished.

Needless to say, the boy's family had not been pleased, and hence, the 
blood feud had been started between the Yamato Clan and the Fujiwara 
Clan, both too proud and too heartbroken from the loss of their 
children to realize the damage that they would deal because of it.

Of course, Cologne knew that the crying boy was not the origin of 
Jusenkyo, but the other things, the enchanted lake that was there 
originally, and events that led to their deaths, they were all 
plausible, honest.

Over years, people had forgotten the true purpose and cause of that 
spring.  

Cologne was beyond certain now that if a woman fell into the spring, a 
phenomenon would occur, she'd become a man.

Since most often, it was only men that were taken on training trips and 
that fell into the Lake of the Drowned Lovers, turning into women, 
people had roundabout come to the conclusion that it was the 'Spring of 
the Drowned Girl'.  Cologne knew better.  

The Spring of the Drowned Lovers was not vicious in nature, not cruel 
or laughing as the other pools were.  It held the spirit of longing, 
the soul of love forever bound to those deceptively gentle waters.  
Falling into the Spring of the Drowned Lovers did not turn you into a 
man or a woman at random, it showed you the face of someone you were 
destined to love: a soulmate.

Yuki didn't look like *Ranko*; Ranko looked like *Yuki*.

Cologne turned around quickly at the sounds of the door to the 
Nekohanten being opened.  

"Nihao, Cologne," Yuki cried out cheerfully, dropping her bookbag on a 
table.  She sat down across from where Cologne balanced on her staff.

"Yo, Cologne," Ranma said, his voice placid, but curious.  The Amazon 
had to bite her tongue to keep from exclaiming in surprise, in the 
months that she'd known Ranma; the boy had never greeted her with 
anything but disrespectful epithets.

"Nihao, Yuki, Son-in-Law," she started, watching the irritation grow on 
Ranma's face.  "I think you're going to be surprised when I tell you 
what I've found."

She was right.  They were surprised.

Which was odd because Cologne lied through her eyeteeth, her false 
words spilling from her lips even as her aged fingers covered a passage 
written in worn Chinese characters, a prophecy the old woman had 
declared somewhere between detailing how to exorcise poultry.

[The waters will part, and the heavens will weep, because in due time, 
the families will once again find their blood against blood.]

'Blood against blood,' Cologne mused, staring at the two teenagers 
before her, entirely focused on words, believing her, having faith that 
her explanation was true.  In the back of her mind, she was spinning 
lies, something about the pool being polluted with ki from Yuki's 
ancestors.  

[But in that feud from times far future, the line will have dulled, and 
two who start as friends will end as lovers, dying as they were borne, 
cursed by their existence, and blessed by their passage.]

"Told ya!  Told ya!" Yuki cried triumphantly, poking Ranma in the 
stomach, giggling as he poked her back, a peevish expression on his 
face, muttering:

"I tell yah, you old Mummy, it's too damn weird to be a stupid 
coincidence."

Cologne hit him over his head with her staff hard, yelling, "Do not 
doubt me, foolish boy, it'll be a hundred years before you have earned 
that right!"

'Friends,' she wondered silently, watching the two of them tease smiles 
out of each other, carelessly enjoying the other's company, 'they are 
friends, and something simmers below the surface on that boy.'  She 
watched them carefully, 'Trust, belief, safety ... perhaps even the 
first embers of love...'

[Both will have a warriors spirit, both will be strong and sound of 
mind and body.  But one will be two, and the other a half.  Flame red 
and midnight black, two bodies, one blue.]

"Admit it, Ranma, you were just being paranoid!"

"Oh, shut up already, Yuki, I get it, I get it, alright?  No new 
technique, no fighting, I lose, you're right, okay?  SHEESH!"  While 
Ranma's face was almost always twisted into an expression of supreme 
pain when admitting error to anyone, especially a woman, he didn't seem 
to mind being wrong, at least, not when it came to being wrong against 
Yuki.

'Warriors spirit,' Cologne could see the sparks materialize in the air.  

'One will be two,' Ranma's curse.

'And the other half,' Yuki's heart, broken by something that happened 
long ago, something she'd never tell anyone about, leaving only a dark 
red patch over her chest where her ki faded painfully.

'Flame red,' Yuki's hair, Onna-Ranma's hair.

'And midnight black,' Son-in-law's hair.

'Two bodies, one blue,' and then Cologne realized with a terrible 
shudder the color of Ranma's eyes, so uniquely blue, gray like stormy 
skies, but tempered with a good natured azure that seemed to radiate 
simple happiness.  A color, had she not know better, she would have 
sworn could not have been reproduced in any other human being.

She did not dare look into Yuki's smiling eyes, but the knowledge was 
there already; Cologne knew that their irises would mirror each other.

[The waves will roar and the thunder will strike, burning down pretense 
to reveal the truth in its broken ashes.  And the world will mourn the 
passing of two skilled as they are kind, two bound by their blood, two 
ultimately killed by distant pasts.]

Cologne waved weakly toward Yuki as the two left her restaurant.

'I've denied them perfection,' she realized with a start.  'I know, I 
could have told them, could have given *two human beings* perfect 
happiness ... and I denied them.'

She excused herself to her room for the afternoon, trying to reconcile 
her conscience with what she'd just done.
   
^*^*^

Cologne steeled her nerves and hopped from the bed, pulling things from 
her drawers and throwing them to the floor.

A sword, an amulet, three feathers.

'Where is it?' she thought frantically.  'Where is it?'

Finally, she came upon those tattered sheets of paper where she'd 
tossed them in the bottom of a chest.  She sat down on the sawed board 
floor of her house, surrounded by clothes and ancient artifacts strewn 
carelessly about her.  She flipped through the pages and came upon that 
weary passage again.  Her aged eyes scanned passed those words she'd 
read before, and came upon those final lines that she hadn't understood 
so many years ago:

[But the fight in the two will force them to survive, they will 
outlive, they will outlast.  But the feuding families will end in the 
deaths of their heirs, and the birth of a new line, one with no history 
but one all their own.]

"[Unbelievable]," Cologne murmured, slipping carelessly into her native 
tongue.  "[Still alive after all this time.]"

She started to cackle, and murmured, "Good," this time, she spoke in 
Japanese, the words old and familiar, "It will be nice to see Nerima 
again."

^*^*^

"Mom," he whispered, his throat scratchy and hoarse; it hurt to 
breathe, "Mom, where are you?"

There came a soft voice, and an even gentler touch, the sensation of 
someone's palm against his forehead, warm and weighty on his skin.

"Sleep, Naka-kun, sleep."

It was not his mother, but his mind did not bother to realize this, and 
he followed the directions, flittering back off into his fevered 
dreams.

^*^*^

Soichi sat quietly in the hospital room, feet tapping soundlessly 
against the cold, tile floors.  Her hair was cropped short and she 
played with a lock of it out of nervous habit, wondering what she 
looked like as a girl with such an obviously male haircut.

She was certain that Kimiko had meant for her presence to be a comfort 
to Naka if he woke.  Soichi found herself smirking, 'Man, I bet the 
kiddo is more likely to scream and faint over what 'she' did to her 
hair than feel reassured.'

Kimiko had been sent home, protesting and pouting the whole way, but 
she'd been gone nonetheless, Soichi would not have her be anywhere 
else.  She'd been awake for almost two straight days, and after finally 
falling asleep in the waiting room, she'd awoken gasping in terror.  
He'd looked at her in deep concern at the moment, but it was only later 
that he realized that the aura of ki that she carried with her wherever 
she walked had grown thinner, lighter, weaker, as if she'd just been in 
a massive battle, and had lost.

Once he'd stumbled upon this discovery, he'd done as any normal Father-
to-be would have, ordered her straight to bed where she belonged, and 
then proceeded to fall apart in worry.

She'd called once she'd reached the apartment, and yawning lazily, she 
had whispered, "You were right, Soichi, I think I'll take a nap."

All was right in his world.

Well ... almost all. 

He smiled sadly at the child who slept fitfully, unaware of the horrors 
of life that awaited him.

^*^*^

"Go home, Kimiko," she muttered under her breath mockingly.  "You need 
your sleep, Kimiko," she added, "but don't take the car, you might get 
hurt, Kimiko."  Kimiko stripped off her t-shirt unhappily.

She'd heeded his advice, but not without a great deal of glaring.  And 
finally, she'd poured a glass of cold water of his head, saying, "Stay 
with Naka-kun, he'll want to see a woman's face when he wakes up."

It didn't bother her that he was concerned for her well being, it *had* 
been nearly forty-eight hours since she had slept.  It did bother her 
that he felt like he could order her around, and she really resented 
that he was right.

Grunting, she slipped out of her sweatpants.

She wandered in front of her bedroom vanity mirror, dressed in nothing 
but her black panties and bra.  She stared for a moment at the gentle 
lines of her waist.  She'd never been skinny, she always knew that.  
But she was physically fit, with a trim midsection from years on years 
of training endlessly.  She traced her belly and stared at its 
flatness, a former sign of her infertility.

But now...  

She grinned.  Soon, very soon, the angles would be replaced by 
fullness, she'd be able to feel their baby kick inside her.  Giggling, 
she twirled around happily, falling gracelessly on the bed; she closed 
her eyes and sighed, content in her existence.

But even in her bubbling happiness, her mind dredged up a dark memory, 
a sad thing that she'd kept from many years ago.

^*^*^

Nerima 
13 years 5 months previous

Yuki cried.

It was rare that she did such a thing, seeing as she had spent much of 
her short life mastering the art of calm and deadly precision, this 
loose, bubbling psychosis was altogether new and wholly unlikable.  

But nevertheless, Yuki cried.

It wasn't that it was Kuno, per se; his presence had never really 
bothered her overmuch, and aside from the occasional scraped knuckle 
she received from punching him when he decided to wear some sort of 
padding under his robes, she remained unscathed.  Irritated by his 
commentary?  Yes, massively irritated, but never afraid, never 
panicked.

But today was different, today was... 

Today was bad.

He'd jumped her on a bad day, when she had too much of a headache to 
really pay attention to anything other than the pounding agony that 
seemed endless between her ears.  

If he had hit her, fine, she could take it.

If he had read poetry, she'd cover her ears and walk away, trying to 
ignore him.

If he had tried to, God forbid, kiss her, she'd hand him a knuckle 
sandwich, special-made, and he'd be out of her hair for the afternoon.

But... 

But Kuno had pinned her.

His thick fingers wrapped around her wrists, and holding them up high 
against the heavy brick walls that surrounded Furinkan High School, 
where greenery kept them from view.  He was pressed against her, and 
she, in turn, was forced to the hard, cold surface behind her.  She 
could feel his face get closer and closer to her own.  And there was an 
unmistakable arousal that rose in Kuno, manifesting itself in the 
action of forcing one knee between Yuki's paralyzed legs, whispering 
passionately, "Ah, yea, my sweet, virginal flower.  The foul sorcerer 
Saotome hath released you, and you sought to be near me, the Great and 
Masterful Kuno Tatewaki."  He practically growled in ecstasy.  "Oh, 
Yuki-sama, please, let me educate you in the ways of love!"

In some distant part of her terrified mind, a small voice pointed out, 
'Well, at least he's figured out that you have a name ... '

This was drowned out by a screaming nine-year-old girl deep inside of 
her, her school uniform dirty, her shoes missing, and her legs streaked 
with dried blood.  A nine-year-old that kicked and bellowed and stamped 
her feet, shaking her fists and crying, "LET GO!  NO!  NOT AGAIN!"

She was dizzy, her vision started to swim, and her legs grew weak, 
unintentionally giving him the invitation that he was looking for, she 
slumped down into his unwanted embrace.

Kuno's tears flowed impressively as he whispered, pressing his face 
into her bosom.  "OH!  YUKI-SAMA!  I knew that you would eventually 
succumb to the charms of the Great Kuno Tatewaki, no woman can resist!"

"No," she whispered softly.  She couldn't move, she couldn't move a 
muscle, her fingers were frozen, her legs were immobile, and her heart 
tore at her ribcage in horrified, sporadic bursts.  

And all of it came tumbling back to her, rushing her like waves on a 
rocking, stormy ocean, black and cold, bitter and salty, choking her 
with their intensity:

Confusion, the cold stone wall behind her, Hiyomata-sensei, the nice 
teacher, the sweet teacher who told funny jokes during history class.  
The only one who had said that her red hair was beautiful, that *she* 
was beautiful.  Hiyomata-sensei, mean, rough, calloused hands, pushing 
her to the back of the school, a weird look in his eyes, a funny 
expression on his lips.  "Won't hurt," he'd said.  The sound of a 
zipper.  Cold stone as her head was slammed back against it.

What, what was he doing?

Wait, wait, stop!  I'm just a little girl, what are you going to do?

Pain, God, endless pain.  Thrusting, pushing, tearing, she was 
shattering, but she couldn't call for help, someone's heavy hands 
covered her small mouth, and her nine-year-old legs were once again 
frozen from the searing pain between them.

Dirty, used, broken.

The doctor's office, frowning, tears, shame.

"So sorry, Yuki-san, so sorry."  Why was the doctor sorry?  "No babies, 
Yuki-san, you'll never have babies."  What?  No babies?  But - but she 
was going to grow up!  She was going to get married and have three of 
them!  Yuri, Nerri, and Kaneda, they had names!  They already had 
names!  "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Sorry wasn't enough.

And it never would be.

The memories screamed through her mind as she started to cry softly, 
the useless numbness still racing through her body, all as she 
whimpered that same one word.  "No," she pleaded, quietly, infinitely 
desperately, "no."

But Kuno was too wrapped up in burying his tear-soaked, overjoyed face 
into her flesh, his clumsy fingers now working on the tie at the back 
of her school uniform, muttering all the while.  "Oh, you won't regret 
this, Yuki-sama, I'll make sure you never regret this!"

It was over, she knew it, she couldn't move, too frightened and too 
useless to force herself to defend herself, too sharp in memory to 
gloss over it until she could panic in quiet at her own home.

She was lost.

Now, now, Kuno ... 

She'd be twice-used garbage, the type of thing you found at rummage 
sale and tossed aside, thinking, "How disgusting, how can anyone try to 
sell that, do you know how many people went through that before?"

Her tears flowed as she felt his hand crawl harshly up her leg, finding 
the lace edge of her panties, she heard him groan, and he pressed 
himself yet closer to her.

'God,' she thought, 'please.'

And then she was free.

Her body fell away from the cold wall, suddenly released from the 
confines of Kuno's embrace and his lecherous touch.  Her head still 
spun, and she landed gracelessly on her hands and knees, legs wobbling, 
face still marred by tear tracks, both dried and newly made.

But she could hear quite well.

The sound of early spring birds chittering in the background, their 
voices appropriately lowered as if they were attending a funeral, the 
whistle of the still-chilly wind, the rustle of new leaves.

"YOU JACKASS!  PERVERT!  RAPIST!"

'Ranma...' she found herself smiling dreamily, eyes still confused, she 
could hear his voice, so familiar and so soothing.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!  I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

"You don't understand, Saotome!  Yuki-sama agreed, the tears were 
merely of joy - "

"I'LL KILL YOU!  I'LL KILL SO SLOWLY YOU'LL PRAY FOR DEATH!"

"Ack!  Saotome," the sound of a bone-shattering punch, "please, calm 
thyself," kicking sounds, "you misunderstand!"

And Yuki blinked away the tears and memory long enough to see something 
she would not soon forget.

Saotome Ranma glowed and eerie red color, not his battle aura at all, 
it tasted purely of rage, of endless malice that promised eternal and 
inextinguishable pain.  His hands were wrapped tightly about Kuno's 
throat, so tightly that the upperclassman's face was turning an 
unnatural shade of pale, and the only sounds he could make were 
gurgling, choking noises.  Ranma's eyes were wild, not the comforting 
blue she usually sought from her seat across the field during 
lunchtime, and not the happy, excited sky-color she glimpsed while they 
sparred, a dark, turbulent fury had tainted them with a purple-black 
ultramarine.  His muscles were tense, bulging, ready to put that last 
burst of energy to good use and crush Kuno's windpipe like his fingers 
so desperately wanted to.  The small pebbles that littered the ground 
were floating at least two inches in the air, and the larger ones were 
starting to levitate, too, so powerful was Ranma's anger.  

While most of Nerima didn't bother to take him too seriously, Yuki knew 
better, he was more than well-prepared to dish it out, and the day he 
lost control was the day that the heavens would weep for the first 
person who he disliked and with whom he crossed paths.

"Now," Ranma hissed, pulling Kuno's terrified face toward his own, "you 
die."

It was a promise, and Ranma never broke promises.

Somewhere, she found it in her broken self to say something, the one 
word that could diffuse the situation, save a life, give an answer and 
pose a question.  The one word that hadn't worked the first time 
around.

"NO!" she screamed as loudly as she could.

It was barely heard above the quiet.

Ranma turned toward where she lay sprawled out on the grass, his fury 
suddenly evaporating like mist, dropping Kuno bodily.  His eyes cleared 
as he ran toward her, gently pulling her off the ground and cradling 
her in his arms.  "Yuki," he said softly, his voice hoarse, "Yuki, are 
you okay?"

She nodded her head and bit back the nausea as the world lurched.  "I-
I'm fine, Ranma, don't," she added painfully, "don't kill him, Ranma, 
don't kill him," she gasped weakly, pressing her palms against the 
ground, trying to steady the rumblings of her earth. 

His face grew hard again, and throwing a repulsed glare toward where 
Kuno lay gasping for breath a few meters away.  He muttered, "Why not, 
he deserves to ... he was ... he was going to - " he stopped abruptly, 
unwilling to say the word.

"Don't," Yuki said, eyes closed tightly, as if to deny Kuno his end 
caused her physical pain, Ranma suspected that it did.  "Just don't."  
There was a pause where the only things that existed in the universe 
were the wind, her, and Ranma, all in their own plane where they were 
immune from life.

"Take me home, please," she said quietly, desperately, clinging to him 
with a need he'd never seen in her before.

And soon, as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop, a contemplative look on 
his handsome face, Ranma glanced down toward Yuki, asleep and yet, 
still-weary in his arms.

Once again, it was just the wind, him, and her.

If only for one blink of never.

^*^*^ 

Ryoga cursed, it had been hell enough getting to downtown Tokyo and 
past Sakura Tower's rather large and angry doorman, but now, he had to 
break and enter?

He picked out the handy-dandy lock pick he'd discovered in Genma's 
things a while back and kneeled down to the handle.

He grinned as a satisfying click came to his ears.  With that sound, 
came also a memory, long-buried and guilty, but recalled like the first 
time you he saw beauty and felt it.

Ryoga shook his head in horror; he'd forced himself to forget years 
ago, when he'd awakened in the bright, blinding, white hospital room, 
wrapped in gauze and unable to speak.

But it came, and it simmered, filtering into his thoughts like a black-
winged butterfly, deceptively beautiful, unendingly dark.

^*^*^

Nerima
13 years 5 months previous

Hibiki Ryoga had been the world over, most of it by accident, and had 
managed to learn a few useful phrases in various different languages.

"Where is Japan?"

"Say again?"

"YOU JACKASS!  DIIIIEEE!"

"Would you like the nymphomaniac squid-monkey to greet you in a sexual 
manner?"

All of these and more were written deep into his mind in at least a 
dozen different languages.  While "Where is Japan?" and "Say again?" 
make perfect sense when we take into account Ryoga's fabulous sense of 
direction, and the rude phrase can be understood, no one quite knows 
where he learned the last one.  All we *do* know about it was that he 
picked it up shortly after bumping into a Chinese exchange student on 
the commons of a New England University, pity Ryoga never bothered to 
verify whether or not what the student told him actually meant "Which 
way is the bus station?"

But that wasn't the point.

The point was that Saotome Ranma was leaping across the roofs of Nerima 
with a woman in his arms, undoubtedly, Akane once again, hurt and 
disoriented because of his villainous actions.

For the moment, Ryoga chose to stick to English, and the second to last 
of his most commonly used phrases, because after all, if you're going 
to scream profanity at someone, it sounds and feels so much better to 
do it in the lingo of a culture that celebrates the dirty-minded.

"RANMA!  [YOU JACKASS!]"

This time, he had decided to forego the 'Die', what with his throat 
being rather sore after all the [Where is Japan?]s that he'd been 
tossing around much of Eastern Europe, having 'toured' the Balkans for 
several weeks.  

He reared his arm backwards and poured all his energy into it, grinning 
to himself as he realized what an incredible strike this would be, how 
fantastically quick Ranma would have to move to avoid it.  

It was only then that Ryoga noticed that the girl in Ranma's arms had 
red hair, long, gleaming locks of it.  And that she was sobbing, 
clinging to Ranma as if her very life depended on his being there, 
being there for her.

But it was too late to stop his fist.

Ranma turned around just in time to see Ryoga's fist fly toward him, 
and made a quick decision.

He was atop the Yamaguchi family's one story house, and they had a 
pool, a lovely one with glittering turquoise water and a pretty tile 
design along the bottom that looked like waves from high above.  From 
where he was, he wagered that it was about ten feet deep on the far 
right end.  Making two calculations in his head, he reached a verdict.

Just as Ryoga's fist made impact, Ranma threw Yuki from his arms, 
vaguely hearing her screams as she fell through the air.  He fell hard, 
his head smashing hard against the rooftiles, and the world blurring in 
front of him before he lapsed into blessed darkness.

Yuki, the sudden shock knocking some semblance of conscious thought 
into her mind, curled her body into a ball, preparing to hit the water 
with a splash.

On the roof, Ryoga waited for Ranma to get up, to glare at him and 
curse at him and call him stupid names.  Ryoga waited for Ranma to hit 
him back.

But he didn't.  Instead, he just lay face down on the roof tiles, his 
pale cheek pressed against them.  His fingers did not move, and his 
hair moved a little in the afternoon breeze.  A thin trickle of blood 
started at his lip and ended in a growing pool of it beneath his face, 
drying quickly against the intense heat of those clay tiles, baked hot 
in the afternoon sun and shattered from Ranma's impact.

Ryoga wasn't sure how long he stood there, staring at Ranma's still 
form, waiting, just waiting for a reaction, waiting for him to recover 
from the blow.

It wasn't until he heard it, a scream that tore his line of sight from 
the motionless body on the ground to the horrified blue eyes of a 
redheaded girl that he realized that any time at all had passed.  Her 
face was white, paler than fresh-fallen snow, and her lips had become a 
strange, unhappy purple color; chlorinated water was gathering in a 
puddle underneath her dripping clothes.

And suddenly she turned to him, blue eyes burning a hole into his soul, 
and she whispered something that sounded like a cry, reminding Ryoga of 
a time long ago when he heard a funeral procession.  There was 
something foreign in this woman's eyes, a broken sort of light that 
never shone from Ranma's, at least not before.  But that wasn't what 
surprised him.  It was the way her tears started spilling from her eyes 
so softly, how her lips trembled and how she shimmered grief.  So 
saddened for a man who didn't deserve her tears, didn't deserve her 
concern - it was just Ranma - why did she need to cry?

"Ranma?" she whispered, her voice trembling like a leaf.  Kneeling down 
at his side, she whispered again, "Ranma?"  With the softest touch, she 
brushed his hair from his face, grasping his deadened fingers tightly; 
she moved his head to lay on her lap, stroking his cheek so gently, as 
if she feared he would shatter from the contact.

Ryoga's throat was dry, constricted, and a horrible screaming guilt 
raged in his mind as he stuttered, "Yuki-san, I'm so sorry, I didn't 
mean to - "

Ignoring him and stroking Ranma's hair gently, as a mother to a wounded 
child, she whispered, "Don't worry, Ranma, you're going to be just 
fine, don't worry."

"Yuki-san," Ryoga started, stepping toward her.  He never finished 
because the girl in question looked up to him once again, those 
soulless eyes vacant and cold as ice, saying only:

"Call the hospital, Ryoga-san," her voice was disconnected, far away 
from this hot afternoon where the air smelled of blood and pool water.  

Ryoga did not protest, and he did not speak.

Ryoga hopped to the ground, and pounding on the Yamaguchi's front door 
with nearly primal desperation, a thousand guilty thoughts screamed 
through his mind.  He'd killed Ranma, he'd killed the one boy who had 
helped him and he'd killed Akane's fiance who she loved and oh God he 
was going to burn in hell.  He'd never killed anyone, and for all the 
times he'd wished death upon Ranma, he'd never truly had what it took 
to kill a person.  But now, now there was a very real possibility that 
he had taken someone's life.  

It was only after the ambulance was pulling away from the sidewalk, 
only after he saw Yuki's profile lined in the fragile gold of the 
sunset that he saw the bloodstains still blooming on her clothes, and 
the pale still on her face.

"Yuki-san," he started slowly, wringing his hands together, "I'm so 
sorry, I didn't know that he was holding onto you, it was an accident, 
I swear," he paused, an insane, odd little thought fluttering into his 
mind.  Strange how he should be explaining this to the girl who was 
just the freakish mirror image of Ranma's curse, instead of the 
pigtailed boy's fiancee.

Yuki turned toward him, an expression on her face that told him that 
she was tired, exhausted, spent.  "It's all right, Ryoga-san," she 
murmured quietly, walking toward him, eyes averted toward the ground, 
"I'm sure Ranma will forgive you."

Ryoga found sudden relief bubbling up through himself, and nervously 
putting his hand against the back of his head, he babbled, "Oh, that's 
great, Yuki-san, I was so afraid that you'd be angry at me!  I mean, I 
know that you're too logical not to know it was an accident, could have 
happened to anyone - "

A delicate fist shot out toward his nose, filed nails pressed so hard 
into pale flesh that he could, briefly, see bright red blood seeping 
from the broken skin.

Then all he could see were sunbursts of pain, and all he could feel was 
his nose shattering into a thousand pieces and how the blood gushed 
down his face.  A sudden 'whoosh' of air as the fist was reared again 
and struck more certainly this time, with a resounding thud against the 
side of his head, and Ryoga swore his brain ruptured right there an 
then.  His legs were kicked out from underneath him, each having been 
dealt a vicious spike to the knee, and he found himself laying a 
bloodied pile on the ground, surprised and in pain.

There came a soft voice, somewhere above him, a floating mass of red 
shimmer visible through the involuntary tears that had filled his eyes.  
"I'm certain that Ranma will forgive you, Ryoga-san, he's an awfully 
nice person."  Yuki, Ryoga realized, was the owner of that lyrical 
voice, and she was the one causing the pain, too.  He received a 
vicious kick in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and making 
him feel like the entire world was fading out of view, and in the 
background, Yuki kept speaking, "In fact, I'm *positive* that he'll 
forgive you, he's very kind."  She kicked him again, harder and aimed 
at his kidney, left unguarded and upturned, a dark hiss came into her 
voice, "But I never said that I would."

The blows rained down, and Ryoga started to realize that perhaps Ranma 
had not been joking about what he'd conferred to him months ago.  
"Watch yourself around Yuki, Ryoga, I know you mess up and attack her a 
lot because she looks like me, but we're very different people," he had 
paused, "I still have friendly memories about you, Ryoga, to her, 
you're just a stranger, someone to be dealt with and put out of her 
way, don't start anything you can't finish."

And Ryoga was wishing fervently that he hadn't started this.  

Yuki's hand grabbed him up by the collar, and shaking his body out 
straight, sending another scream of pain through him, she yelled, "Do 
you know what could have happened to me if he hadn't been there today?  
Don't you get that he's your friend?" 

Tears started to run down her face.  The Tanakawas bred strong women, 
but everyone has a breaking point.  Everyone has a flaw.  It was too 
much, the anger and shame of a summer afternoon shattered by memory's 
trauma, and then the sudden terror of a friend in pain.

Still holding him by the collar, she slammed him bodily against the 
brick wall surrounding the Yamaguchi's backyard.  'One, two, oh, yeah, 
three," Ryoga thought slowly.  'Three broken ribs, pretty good for a 
chick.'  She slammed him into the wall again, this time harder than 
before.  'Five,' Ryoga added weakly.  'Definitely five.'

"Why?" she started slowly, her voice drowned in tears and her face red 
with anger and hurt.  "Why would you do that to him?"  Her arm started 
to tremble, fingers loosening their hold on the cloth of his shirt.  
Ryoga found himself slowly sliding to the ground, lazily watching her 
back away from him, hair clinging to her tearstained face as she 
whispered, "He's just a boy, Ryoga," she paused, turning around for 
just a moment before glancing back.  "A boy with too many problems and 
no one to talk to, why would you hate him so much?"  

Suddenly, Ryoga felt inclined to talk, and she felt inclined to stop 
and listen.  "You're an idiot," he gasped, grasping his chest tightly, 
trying to breathe without sending more pain coursing through his body.  
"Why do you always protect him?"

She turned back around, flame in her eyes, like two candles that had 
been dropped into a bonfire, intense, unmerciful, furious.

"Because I love him," she whispered, voice hoarse.  "I love him in a 
way that you'd never understand."  She stopped herself, expression 
aghast at having revealed her secret, at having given part of herself 
away to a stranger who didn't deserve to know her.  She ran, an air of 
desperation surrounding her, and Ryoga lay there in the puddle of his 
own blood and wondered painfully of her words.

It was hours later when he was lying in the quiet hum of the hospital 
when he realized the error in her thought:

He was the only person who could ever understand.

^*^*^

Ryoga shuddered at the memory.

He didn't fear it because of the brutality of her assault, though it 
had shocked him.  The wounds inflicted were too cruel, too savage, too 
harsh to have been dealt by a *girl*.  Much less the smiling redheaded 
child who had always forgiven his mistakes, or, at the very least, 
treated him politely.  

Maybe it was that she loved him, loved Ranma in the same way that Ryoga 
had loved Akane, touched but never held, but Ryoga had kept her secret.  
All those times thereafter that he had wandered into Nerima, seeing her 
on the street walking next to Ranma, laughing or yelling or humming a 
tune, he'd never uttered a word.  

But that wasn't why he bit back a groan every time he remembered the 
incident, it wasn't the humiliation or defeat or the yawning pain of a 
long recovery that tormented him.

It was what he had done to her in retaliation.

Something that could not be forgiven, and would never be forgotten.  

Kicking himself for wasting time, Ryoga gave the door a firm push, 
listening to it creaking inward.

"Watch out, Yuki," he whispered, "you'll never know what hit you."

^*^*^

It had been years since Kimiko had been on high alert for danger of any 
kind, and as such, it took her a little over ten seconds to realize 
that there was an intruder in her home.  It was a sad comparison to her 
instantaneous danger sense from years gone by.

Silently rolling off of the bed and falling to the ground in a catlike 
crouch, she walked toward her living room.  Hiding in the shadows of 
her bedroom door, she narrowed her eyes and spied a male figure lurking 
about her house.  

The scent was unfamiliar, musty, tired.  And his ki vibrations were 
much too full of turmoil to be Soichi's.  

But as a musician who has long since stopped playing picks up an 
instrument and feels the tingle of notes and melody through their soul, 
the profile of the lurker struck a chord in her.

Her eyes snapped, and she covered her mouth to hide the gasp of 
surprise.  

Of all the people in the world, it just had to be Hibiki Ryoga, didn't 
it?

^*^*^

He felt a soft twinge of something, but dismissed it, turning back to 
his work.

He wandered toward the mantel, fascinated by a shining photograph that 
stood there.  He brushed his finger along the stainless-steel frame, 
biting his lip as he stared at it in the dim evening light.

Imprinted on that thick paper were two people, happily oblivious in the 
comfort of each other.  The woman's dark red hair was pulled into two 
loose braids that framed her pretty, peach-shaped face.  Her eyes were 
hidden by a pair of sunglasses, but her smile and the 'victory' sign 
she made with her fingers was enough to let Ryoga know that this was a 
pleasant memory.  The man was grinning, though much more softly, a kind 
of a gentle, awed look on his face.  His eyes were covered by 
sunglasses, too, but his dark hair was cut so the bangs hung rakishly 
across his forehead and covered the tops of his ears.  His left arm was 
wound tightly about the woman's waist, and his right mimicked the 
woman's action, the first and second fingers making a 'v' at the 
camera.

Ryoga held that frame tightly, staring at the image.  

There was something so terribly familiar... 

The woman was Yuki, he could tell immediately, the way she smiled and 
the light she exuded, Ryoga could feel her life pulsing even through 
that photograph.  

But the man, he was a mystery.  He looked vaguely familiar, same dark 
hair and cocky expression that Ranma used to carry around like a badge 
of honor - but there was a much more tempered look to this person.  
Something more tired, almost weary, learned, and wise.  Ranma would 
never look like that, not in a million years.

Could it be that she had just forgotten about Ranma?  Forgotten that 
she'd killed a man that she'd loved?  Had she been able to move on, to 
find another?

Had Yuki been able to... 

'Damn it all,' Ryoga thought angrily, 'doesn't matter at all if she 
decided to whore around; he's dead, isn't he?  She ran away, I guess 
she isn't anyone's property anymore.'  But there was still a dark 
betrayal in his heart, knowing that the woman his best friend had loved 
so desperately had just decided that she'd mourned long enough, and 
that she was ready to give her heart to someone else.  Ryoga shook his 
head harshly in the blackness of the apartment.  'Stupid harlot,' he 
thought hotly.  'So what if Ranma died - it was at your hands, and as 
if that wasn't bad enough already - you have to disrespect his memory?'  
He growled quietly, 'You're going to pay for this, Yuki.'

The sudden sound of a refrigerator humming caught his attention, and he 
drifted toward the kitchen, drawn to its windows, each filled with a 
million pinpoints of brilliant light.  Standing before the counter, his 
fingers sifted through the letters and newspapers scattered there.  And 
he stared next to the cookie jars, lovingly inscribed in someone's 
handwriting.  On the table set near another large, welcoming window 
there were scattered letters, photographs, forgotten plates, some 
chopsticks, and a pair of coffee cups.

The cups were not the pretty, slender type with the stylized handles 
that they sold in the Starbucks down the street with the four-dollar 
java.  These were the stout, sound ceramic mugs with the thick bottoms 
and liberal coffee stains ingrained into the inside walls.  One was a 
dark mahogany red, the words 'Yoshida Inc.' across it in small, neat, 
white letters, a hair-thin crack breaking the solid color with a 
lighter pink.  The other was dark blue-gray, a kitten playing with a 
ball of thread decorated it, and there was a medium-sized chip on the 
handle.

They were comfortable, familiar, completely at ease sitting there alone 
in that house, giving it a cozy, lived-in feel.  They fended off the 
stark emptiness of a place without people.

Ryoga stared, reaching out a tentative hand to touch the cool surface 
of them, but pulling back as if someone had shocked him, a horrified 
expression on his face.  He could not have felt guiltier if he'd 
accidentally set a shrine on fire. 

There was something sacred about those cups, so comfortably set about 
each other, knowing, expectant.  They belonged there, side by side.

Ryoga slid into a seat at the table, eyes still trained on the two 
mugs.

He'd been engaged to Akane for near five years, they lived in the same 
house, ate the same food, and they even shared a bed, much to the 
consternation of Tendo Soun.  But when he was with her it didn't feel 
right, like a pair of brand new shoes, still uncomfortable after years 
of wear.  The awkward discomfort of not being able to have good 
conversation, being too distracted by his shyness or her temper, the 
nearly foreign way that she treated him when her family was around, 
almost as if they were back on old terms, friends instead of lovers.

So Ryoga sat in that kitchen, distracted, enchanted, jealous of ... 

Of two coffee cups that sat next to each other, casting two shadows 
that became one on the surface of the wood.

He and Akane weren't even as close as those two coffee mugs.  

Throughout their courtship and engagement, there had always been an odd 
uneasiness surrounding the two, an inexplicable awkwardness that should 
have worn off weeks after their first meeting, and instead, it hung in 
the air and stained their relationship dark gray.  There were no rich 
tones of love beneath their friendship, in fact... 

Ryoga sighed.  It was starting to become apparent that beneath their 
friendship, there wasn't any love to begin with, at least not the kind 
that he wanted, the kind that he deserved.

He wasn't a masochist, his parents had never abused him as a child; in 
fact, he'd grown up in a practically perfect way.  This mother and 
father had been supportive and loving, trying to help him cope with his 
horrible sense of direction in practical ways, buying him maps, hiring 
people to lead him places when it was absolutely necessary.  He knew 
what love was, and he knew that he, being the good and decent human 
being he was on the whole, was deserving of it.

So why was he engaged to Akane?

Because she was beautiful, that was why, because in his eyes, she was 
perfect in every way, flawless and delightful to the soul.  Because she 
stirred feelings in him that he couldn't bear to resist, and because he 
needed her like a plant needed the sun or the rain, because his 
existence depended on her approval.  'Is that even love, though?' his 
mind questioned softly.  'Isn't that more like obsession?'  Ryoga 
grunted darkly, leaning forward enough to see a note on the 
refrigerator more clearly:

"Four, you were late, weren't you?"   It was written in loopy, graceful 
hand, though hasty and a little bit smudged, it was easy to see that a 
woman had penned the note.

"Eight, I wasn't, remember, two to one odds."  This next line was 
scrawled messily, and Ryoga smirked as he realized that some gender 
stereotypes did remain true to form even after years of being 
politically correct.

"Four, I called your office, don't lie to me, you'll go without for 
longer than you could possibly imagine."  Loopy again.

"Candy's in the jewelry box.  New rule: threatening me with the lack of 
sex is an unfair advantage and therefore barred."  Ryoga grinned, it 
didn't take handwriting analysis to figure out exactly which gender 
wrote *that*.

For a brief moment, he wished he was anyone else in the entire world.  
Anyone else who had love and knew they possessed it.  He would have 
even rather been that man in the picture holding Yuki, because at least 
he seemed to be able to touch love, instead of just yearning for it.

He wanted to be anyone except for Hibiki Ryoga, the lost boy who was 
engaged to Tendo Akane, the lost soul

^*^*^

Kimiko hid in the doorway of the kitchen now, staring curiously at the 
man at her kitchen table.  He'd wandered into the room, read a few 
notes on the refrigerator, and then started staring rapturously at her 
coffee mugs, as if they held the secrets to life.

She rolled her eyes.  This was getting twisted.

'Damn it' she thought angrily, 'our cover's been blown to hell anyway; 
Nabiki came to my office for crying out loud!  Can't they just call and 
ask what the hell is going on instead of breaking in?'

She took a deep breath and decided that enough was enough.  Ryoga had 
to be dealt with; everyone had to be dealt with.  Kimiko was raring for 
a good fight.  It had been weeks since she'd had a good sparring 
session, and she'd felt antsy for quite a while.  Usually, if Soichi 
had time, they'd meet down at the local gym and work out for hours at a 
time, forgetting everything and just focusing on the liquid beauty of 
the art.

In her current state, Soichi would sooner impale himself against sharp 
rocks than lay a hand on her.

She was feeling a little bit bloodthirsty, and Ryoga was the perfect 
candidate: a violent, utterly dense blockhead who would not think twice 
about striking at full-force.  So in a moment of excitement, she 
stepped out and walked toward Ryoga.  Putting her hands at her waist, 
she stood with her legs slightly apart, set in a firm offensive stance.

Ryoga looked up at the sound, and saw skin, lots of pale, cream-colored 
skin, broken occasionally by the rise of a bust covered by black lace 
and a triangle of the same material in between the legs.

There was blood, and there was fainting.

Yuki looked down at herself, noticing she still only wore her 
underwear.  Narrowing her eyes in disgust, she dropped her stance and 
glared at Ryoga's twitching form, muttering, "Damn."

^*^*^

"Kimiko-san?" he whispered weakly, his voice still hoarse from disuse, 
and his eyes were blurred from sleep.  Naka recognized that hair, 
though, the brilliant red color that sometimes clouded his thoughts 
when he didn't mean for it to, and a peaceful smile that made him 
blush.

The redheaded woman on the chair next to his bed opened one eye 
quickly, focusing on Naka, awake and aware in bed.  She broke out into 
a bright smile and leaned forward, whispering, "Naka-kun!  You're up, 
boy!  Knew you were more resilient than that!"

Two things occurred to Naka at that point.

The first was that sometime between when he'd fallen asleep/passed 
out/went unconscious/whatever the hell happened to him, Kimiko-san had 
butchered her beautiful red locks into something that would make a 
hairdresser weep.

And the second was that she was speaking roughly, like a man.

He didn't like either of these things, so he reacted as anyone who had 
just gotten out of a coma would typically do, and slipped promptly back 
into unconsciousness.  Once again blissfully safe from the horror of 
his new reality.

^*^*^

"Hello?"

"Hey, how are you doing?  I didn't wake you, did I?" Soichi said, 
keeping his voice low and avoiding the venomous glances that he'd been 
fielding from the nursing staff for the past half an hour.  

"Nah, I've been up for a while, how's Naka?" Kimiko asked, her voice 
oddly distant, as if her mind was a million miles away, on the other 
end of the phone.

"He was sort of conscious a few minutes ago, but I think he saw 'your' 
hair and then decided to pass out again.  Can I change back to a guy 
now?  I'm pretty certain if the kid sees that you butchered your 'do 
again he'll die on the spot."  He fought the grin that wanted 
desperately to surface.  It was certainly mean to find enjoyment in the 
frightened, flabbergasted expression that had emerged on Naka's face 
upon seeing 'Kimiko's' hair - but he couldn't help it.

"Fine," Kimiko replied, slightly annoyed.  

"Oh, yeah," he said quickly, changing the subject, "I talked to a 
social worker this afternoon, one that works closely with my office, 
she said we have a good chance."

"Are we talking about adoption here?" she asked, her voice hopefully 
bright.

"You of all people should know that it's not that easy, Kimiko.  We've 
only got temporary guardianship, but it's better than nothing, besides, 
they visit us every few months, if we're doing a good job, we can opt 
to sign permanent papers."  

There was a sad pout heard over the line.  "I suppose that's better 
than nothing.  Poor Naka, I wonder how he's going to handle this."

Soichi sighed.  "The same way all of us do, Kimiko, slowly, but he's 
got us, and that's more than we ever had."

Kimiko cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder.  She decided 
that tying a good, sturdy knot with just one hand would be too 
challenging, what with Ryoga struggling against the rope like his very 
existence depended on it.  Good thing she'd gagged him, God knew what 
type of horrible thing he'd be screaming if his mouth was uncorked.

She pushed her foot up against Ryoga's thigh and tugged hard on the 
cord, determined to tighten the knot as much as possible.  It wouldn't 
do to have him wandering around her apartment - again.

"Right," she said. 

Through the phone line, Soichi could hear the sound of impatient 
struggles in the background, the rough sound of woven ... something, 
and Kimiko's occasional grunt of exertion.

"Um, Kimiko," Soichi started nervously, "what are you doing?"

She paused her labor for a moment, thinking about what she should tell 
him, and finally concluded that it was absolutely, positively vital 
that she lie.  "Nothing much."

"You sure?  You sound sort of busy on that end."

"Yes, I'm sure." she said, keeping her tone light.  She pushed her foot 
against Ryoga's stomach, and used the hold to lever her weight as she 
pulled the ropes harder around his midsection, all the while ignoring 
his deadly expression and attempts to speak around the gag.

Ryoga stared at this strange woman in contempt, and glared at the phone 
in her hands.  Mentally, he kicked himself.  'Dammit, Hibiki, didn't 
Nabiki tell you that Yuki was dangerous?  You didn't even bother to 
check the premises before you busted on in!'

"All right, whatever.  Don't hurt yourself."

"Oh, I won't.  Bye, Soichi."

^*^*^

Soichi stood mystified in the hallway of the hospital, and slowly, he 
took the cellphone away from his ear, pressing the 'end' button.

There was something very wrong with that conversation.  She'd been up 
to something; her voice had sounded guilty.

It wasn't that he didn't trust her.  He trusted her more than anyone 
else in the world, and it just hurt him to think that she'd been 
keeping problems to herself.  He could have helped her; he could have 
helped her think things through, figure out a plan.

But he supposed that she had a reason for doing what she did, Kimiko 
always did, even when they were younger, and more rash, she'd always 
had a plan, always knew exactly what she was getting herself into.
 
But there *was* something going on.

He'd started to suspect the night when he had Kimiko had discovered she 
was pregnant.  Sure, she was under a lot of stress recently from her 
job, what with her biggest client leaving and all, but there was some 
sort of deep panic in her eyes he had not enjoyed seeing.

Shaking his head, he wandered back into Naka's hospital room, there 
would be plenty of time for questions later.

^*^*^

Ryoga knew now without a doubt that he was in a very bad place.

Had it been anyone else in the world, he would not have bothered to 
stay tightly controlled in the weak bonds of those ropes.  He would 
have broken out of them in a second and beaten the daylights out of 
whomever had tied him up in the first place.  Unfortunately, this was 
Tanakawa Yuki he was faced with, a girl who had her fair share of 
experience with lethal techniques, incredible speed, and an utterly 
merciless gleam in her eyes.

None of this made Ryoga any happier to be gagged and tied, bonded and 
stuck on the cold tile floor of her kitchen.  Especially since she was 
sitting casually on her countertop, a ruthless expression on her pretty 
face.

It bothered him even more that she was currently caressing the blade of 
a long, painful-looking knife.  It really worried him when she started 
to grin.

"Ryoga-san," she purred, pressing the point of the blade to his throat, 
hard enough so it drew blood, but not enough to cause any real damage, 
"it's so nice to see you again."  She idly twirled the knife handle, 
twisting the point that dug into his neck and making Ryoga wince from 
the stinging sensation of flesh being broken.  She raised an eyebrow at 
the sight of a single droplet of blood sliding down his neck.  "It's 
been, why, near twelve years now, right, Ryoga-san?" she giggled 
softly, and hopping from her perch, she flipped the knife expertly, the 
handle landing in her hand again, but the long blade was now snuggled 
tightly against Ryoga's quivering throat.  "But that doesn't really 
matter does it?" she asked innocently.  "Because I'm certain I still 
know exactly what you think of me."

Her eyes darkened. 

Ryoga's eyes flooded with a black, ink-colored hatred, tainted with 
undeniable fear.  The tone in her voice alone was enough to make him 
remember what he'd done to her, done to the woman that stood before him 
with a knife at her throat.

His memory was enough to remind him that she had no reason to spare him 
an ounce of mercy.

^*^*^

END PART ONE 

^*^*^

Author's Notes at END PART THREE