MISTAKEN IDENTITY

A MURMUR THE FALLEN FANFIC

BASED UPON THE CHARACTERS AND SITUATIONS BY

RUMIKO TAKAHASHI

Chapter Five: The rapid progression of actions

Life was really funny. Not Ha-Ha funny, but odd in ways that were never dreamt of by normal men, but that which haunt the truly mad. Well, it could be considered funny, if one were to have a truly bitter and ironic sense of ‘humor’, and a deep need to be punished.

Saotome Yuri’s personality did not have in its makeup those two components, though she certainly felt bitter, and also felt that she was being punished. Karma, she mused, was a real vindictive bitch, that paid back in spades for every single imagined slight. The anthropomorphism of karma, really, was the only way that she could explain the fact that what was happening to her, was indeed happening to her.

Her brother (whom she was quite certain was the cause of all the pain and misery in the world) was holding her (he being a she at the moment. And she being a she also, though, really, the way that her life had been going lately, she didn’t expect it to last) head in her hands, looking in quite a bit of pain. Normally, that would have cheered her up immensely, especially since she herself was the cause of said pain; however, that was not the case now. She had just told her brother (whom she hated more than life itself) what she had been doing with his (now her) name.

"Damn it. I can not believe that you did all that in a few months. How could you do all that in so short a time period?" Ranma asked, incredulous as hell, and twice as angry. "I didn’t think that anyone could get into that much trouble without screwing over all the major crime cartels in the world. My name is going to be all over the place, you realize that?"

"So? What’s the big deal?" asked Yuri, unconcerned. Why should she care? After all, anything that inconveniences him err-her is all for the best.

"Since you don’t seem to have empathy, how about the fact that you’re going to have a lot of people looking for me come around. And not all of them are coming for my vast store of bawdy jokes, or a free drink. And if you think that I’m going to be the one to accept their bullets, you’re nuts!" It was a testament to Ranma’s speaking ability that she gave the impression of yelling at quite high decibels, yet remaining at whispering level.

"What do you mean?" asked Yuri, though getting one of those weird premonitions that she most definitely would not like the coming answer.

"You, my dear sister, are going to be my proxy."

Shock was the first reaction that she had.

Perfectly natural, given the unusual circumstances.

Her following reaction, though, was not.

But, really, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

One of life’s little lessons, really.

* * *

Not like the others were doing, the gossipmongers.

* * *

Sometimes she really felt like just blowing up a country and ranting about the beautiful night.

Ok, calm down, Ranma, she said to herself. Take it one second at a time or you really will end up blowing up a country, or at least a city.

Well, she never really liked Tokyo all that much. Dirty, crowded place with too many ugly buildings.

"Yeah, sure. I want to know. Really," said Yuri, derailing his steam engine of thought, in that infuriatingly glib tone of hers.

And she told her exactly why she should care. If there was one thing that she had learned over the years was, you can’t trust charity, but you can trust enlightened self-interest.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Ah, now there’s the light of reason dawning upon her. Let’s see how she takes the blunt approach.

"You, my dear sister, are going to be my proxy."

Oh, how the look upon her sister’s face just lit up her entire soul with a warm, comforting glow. The look of one who knows that she is utterly and completely screwed, and it was all her own doing.

She had no one to blame but herself, and that just made the whole fiasco almost worthwhile.

Of course Ranma never did expect what happened next.

As she gloated internally, Yuri’s shock turned into utter fury. With her anger fueling her, she quickly grabbed the open Ranma and tossed her out the door with all her strength.

The toss would have taken her through a wall and out the other side, bruising her quite severely (it could be hoped) in the process.

However, what the toss didn’t expect was Mr. Soun ‘momentum dampening’ Tendo to be in the way. Ranma smashed into Mr. Tendo, and sent both of them into the wall, and while making a radiating spiral of cracks, did not break it.

The toss was understandably disappointed.

Yuri was understandably horrified and feeling immensely guilty. Though not about Ranma.

Mr. Tendo was understandably unconscious.

Ranma was understandably furious, or would have been if she also hadn’t been unconscious.

There was a whole of lot understanding in that hallway.

Oddly enough, however, Kasumi was not there.

No, Kasumi was in the living room, going over the daily mail. Another one of the little things she does.

She came across one letter in an envelope that opened along the smaller dimension, rather than the longer one. It was addressed to Saotome Ranma.

"But which one?" asked Kasumi, to no one in particular.

It had no return address.

"I didn’t know that you could mail a letter without a return address. What if it got lost?" Kasumi asked no one once more.

No one replied as it always did: in no way.

"I wonder who I should give this to?"

Kasumi shrugged slightly, and got up. She shook her legs, one after the other, in an attempt to wake her sleeping feet. Then winced, again very slightly, at that unpleasant pins and needles sensation.

She walked to the hallway, where she saw the most recent scene of utter carnage in her house.

Perhaps she should not have played her Walkman so loudly.

What, she wondered silently and to herself (for no one had gone no where), was Yuri (really, she went in her mind on a different train of thought, running parallel to the first, this whole identity situation was very odd) doing on the floor with that large bump on her head?

And why was Ranma (in her girl form, though, she thought, since I have not seen her otherwise, I have only Mr. Saotome’s word that she actually does have one. And I know how reliable that is) unconscious and in a tangle with father?

In a more lecherous mind, the answer would have been swift and dirty.

In Kasumi’s mind, she drew a more accurate conclusion.

"Really, Father," Kasumi said admonishingly to her ‘sleeping’ father, "you should learn to respect other people’s privacy."

No matter that he couldn’t hear it. After all, it was the principle of the matter.

"And, Akane, you must learn to control those impulses." Waggling a finger was probably a bit too much, she thought. But when she acts like a child, she should be treated like one.

"Nabiki," she said to her sister. "I don’t think that father would like it if you blackmailed him with those pictures. You do know how he gets when you try to do that, don’t you?" she asked rhetorically to her felonious sibling, who was shuddering in the memory of her one experience with the dreaded "Demon Head."

Now to soak some compresses.

* * *

Ah, Paris, the city of lights, the city of love. The center of Haute Couture, and a citadel to the memoirs of past culture.

A horrendously expensive vacation spot that rains quite a bit and doesn’t have anything that you couldn’t find in a decent art book or LA.

Well, that was not quite true. An art book would not have the originals on display, under a foot of hermetically sealed plexi-glass.

But what, one must ask, is the difference?

Ah, Paris, tourist trap with attitude.

That was pretty much why Arsene hated being there. Arsene hated old cities, especially European Old Cities. They had a certain air to them that screamed "We have History! We have a Past! We have Really Large Buildings with Gargoyles! With Extra Masonry!"

But Arsene loved money, and in Arsene’s particular field of expertise, Paris was the mother-load.

Oh, what was Arsene’s field of expertise?

Why the grand art of thievery, of course.

For Arsene Lupin the Fourth was a thief, and a good one at that.

One of the best in the world, it could be said with a great deal of certainty.

It was expected of her, really.

What? Arsene Lupin was a girl?

Yep.

Not that very many people knew that little fact.

So, please, try to keep it to yourselves, if you would.

Arsene looked upon that grand old city, and sighed. She hated Paris, and, if a city had a mind, she was sure that Paris hated her right back.

She swiftly shut the heavy curtains, and leaped to her bed, the tired springs creaking loudly, protesting the sudden weight upon it.

It didn’t help that the bed was now carrying two.

"Hey, Nodachi, what do you want to do?" Arsene asked the man next to her in bed, a rather tall, scruffy fellow in his early twenties, with green, spiky hair and tattered black leather jacket and pants, and a T-shirt that screamed PANTERA.

Now, a more lecherous mind would have drawn a very dirty little conclusion by now.

It would be wrong, of course.

Kuno Nodachi stopped in his contemplation of the ceiling to look at his partner in crime, and stuck his tongue out, silently.

"Real mature, No-chan. No, come on, really. What should we do? I’m bored," whined the world-renowned master thief.

"Go away, I’m tired as hell," replied Nodachi, ‘die a slow, painful death’ spread all over his tone.

"Well, fine, if that’s the way you want to be," said Arsene, pouting slightly. She sat up, pivoted her legs so that they hung from the side of the bed, and turned her back to her depressed partner.

Arsene re-opened the curtains, looking at the raining city. While she liked rain, she always found the sight of an old city being rained upon to be depressing. She sighed very dramatically, and closed the curtains, only to re-open them and sigh yet again. She continued to stare, and sigh every few seconds. During which, Nodachi stared glumly at the ceiling, wincing in pain, not guilt, at each breathy, dramatic sigh. Finally, after ten minutes of the Lupin Sighing Torture, he decided that the pain was too great to bear any longer.

"Fine! Fine! You’ve broken my spirit! What the hell do you want to do, now?!" yelled Nodachi, as he went from horizontal to vertical in less than a jiffy.

"I don’t know, what do you want to do?" she asked childishly, as she again stared at the oddly hypnotic sight of gutter water pouring down onto the cobbled street.

Nodachi looked at his partner. She was a very pretty girl, at about average height with full chestnut colored hair that reached to her shoulders. Silhouetted as she was by the storm filtered light, only her profile showing, Nodachi quickly came up and just as quickly discarded the first three of his ‘suggestions’. "How about we steal something?"

"No, really?" Arsene said sarcastically, her eyes wide with false shock.

"Why don’t you come up with something then, genius?" Nodachi said scornfully.

"Why the hell do you think I was asking you? I’m tapped out, god damn it!" she yelled, as she flounced back onto the bed. She took a small booklet from the small table next to the bed, and flipped through its glossy pages at random. She stopped at a picture of the glass pyramid entrance of the Louvre. She looked up at her partner and said, with a devilish grin, "Say, I’ve got an idea . . ."

"Well, don’t just trail off like that!"

"God, you try to be a bit dramatic-."

"A bit. Uh-huh."

"What?"

* * *

If you had looked at him, you would probably have guessed that the old man was in his late sixties, perhaps a very robust man in his seventies.

You would be quite wrong, of course.

But you knew that, didn’t you?

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The woman that sat across from him also sipped at the green tea. She never took her eyes off the man at her side, though. She stared at him, not with love in her eyes, but with deep suspicion and not a little anger. In any other couple, that would have meant love, but not in those two.

The woman looked quite young, perhaps still in her teens, though she gave off a sense of maturity that seemed far older than her apparent age. Her most striking feature (other than her regal, elegant, swarthy beauty) was her glossy green hair, rich, full, and elegant, though in a matronly bun that contrasted wildly with her apparent age, and matched exactly with her aura of maturity.

You would think, what a dowdy looking young gir . . . err, woman.

You’d be wrong again, but you knew that as well.

What you don’t know is that the sense that you were wrong about the old man is not the sense that you were wrong about the young woman.

Weird, huh?

It’ll be addressed later, if at all.

Because, really, it is a minor point at best, and a distraction to the main plot at worst.

Tick-tock.

The man at the woman’s side looked to be in his late twenties, or early thirties. He wore black slacks and a black blouse, along with a black tie. His coat, which hung on a coat-rack in the corner of the room, was also black. Black, black, black, a common motif for the man: from hair, to eyes, to socks, though not in skin pigmentation. Not a man to have a funeral catch him unawares.

"So," said the old man, the word echoing uncomfortably in the small room.

Tick-tock.

"So," repeated the man, grinning slightly at the two others in an odd way.

The young woman remained silent. The two others stared at her intently, waiting. Her eyes had a set look to them, indicating to the two men that she was not going to be as silly as they were. The two men sighed slightly.

"So," said the old man, yet again, and wincing at the sudden glare from the young woman, "what was it like being dead?"

"Not something that I would want to do again any time soon," replied the young woman in an ironic manner. "Though I don’t think that I have a choice in the matter."

"Heh," went the man, grinning slightly in his mug of ‘yogurt’.

Tick-tock.

"Do you have something you wish to say?" asked the young woman frostily.

"Who, me?" replied the man, as innocently as he could.

"So, why did you ask that we meet?" said the young woman of the old man, ignoring the man in black.

"Hmm?" hummed the old man, also as innocently as he could.

"Don’t play games," said the young woman.

"Isn’t simply wanting to be in the company of old friends enough?"

"No, it isn’t," said the young woman, again lowering the temperature with her tone.

"Well, all right, you’ve dragged it out of me." The old man sounded extremely smug, his grin wrinkling his face. "One of my boys has the Book."

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"What book?" asked the man.

"You know, the Black Book," said the old man, his grin threatening to crack his jaw.

Silence met his words.

Tick.

"Well? Shouldn’t the two of you be gasping in surprise and mounting horror?" asked the old man petulantly.

"Should we?" the man asked of the young woman.

Tock.

"I do not see why I should, though you may indulge yourself in pointless drama, as is your wont," declared the young woman.

"Oh yes, and it wasn’t you that I saw making a particularly verbose little speech high atop a perch, one fine moonlight night?" asked the man in a mocking way. The young woman blushed slightly in response, and looked away.

"Ah Hem!" went the old man.

"What? Oh, yes, the Black Book," said the distracted young woman. She looked at the old man, and said, "So, someone finally managed to find it. When will we get to see it?"

"Oh, soon, soon," said the old man as reassuringly as possible.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"You know, this is highly portentous," observed the man, as he waggled a finger in the two other’s direction. "The return of the Warriors, the presence of the Scattered, the battles with the darkness, and now this. Interesting times, and getting far more interesting as of late."

"Hmm, yes. Events are occurring too rapidly for me to divine with any degree of certainty," said the young woman, as she sipped from her cup of tea.

He reached for the door handle, and just as he was about to slide the door open, the old man said to him in an off-hand manner, "Oh, by the by, I’ve had a stern talking to with Harold."

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"Ah, drat," muttered the man, as he stepped out, sliding close the door behind him.

"Heh. It’s not often I get one over on him," said the old man, gleefully chortling.

"Oh, please. Don’t think that just because you found one, you’ve found all." The young woman then got up, and went for her own jacket. She looked at the old man, and said, rather fondly, "Take care of yourself, alright? And don’t involve yourself too much in the coming . . . events, whatever they may be."

"Right, right. As always, I defer to your never ending wisdom," said the old man, smiling.

"Huh."

The young woman walked out the door.

The old man finished the last of the tea in the kettle as he looked absently at the closed door. His gaze was turned inward, rather than outward.

"I wonder what I should do about that boy. And I wonder why I keep getting such conflicting reports?" The old man also got up, and sighed loudly at the crackling sensations that accompanied the action. "Ah, well. Hey, baseball should be starting any time now."

The old man left the room, all thoughts of old times, old friends, and old enemies buried under the prospect of a good game of baseball.

Tick . . . tock.

* * *

Outside, the flickering streetlights cast very eerie shadows upon the cool concrete ground. The young looking man drew his coat closer, in an effort to warm himself, his breath clouding in front of him. He looked around very dramatically, as if he were in a very old and very bad spy picture, and whispered to the shadows that covered the brick walls that surrounded him, "I think that you know what to do."

A voice from the shadows, an androgynous voice that could have been attributed to either sex, answered in an overly polite manner, "But of course. I, your humble servant, do nothing but serve your will, and this instance is no exception."

"Oh, stop that. I do the over the top dramatics around here," answered the man.

"Of course you do," said the young woman as she looked down from the flickering lamppost. She jumped down from the great height, somehow making it appear dainty and ladylike, and smiled slightly.

"Ah, for the love of- does everyone have to steal my act?" complained the man, as he looked towards the faint stars, and lifted his arms high in mock exasperation.

"Yes," replied the voice from the shadows and the young woman simultaneously.

"Whatever," muttered the man in black. He turned towards the shadows and said, "Well, go on, don’t hang around here all night. Go on, you’ve got an international conspiracy to run in my place."

The person in the shadows did not reply. A faint rustle sounded the exit. The two people left behind did not even look at each other as they started down the street in unison.

"I . . . have a need of your . . . assistance," stated the young woman hesitantly, as they walked side by side along the dark suburban lanes.

"Oh. So the aloof one decides that she needs to get down into the trenches?" said the man mockingly. "You were mighty lazy in your old age, and now you’re desperately trying to play catch up to the rest of us. I think that I like that."

"Whatever opinions you may hold, I hope that you are mature enough to accede to my request."

"Well, as you may have guessed, I’m taking a little vacation."

"I thought that you were ‘busy, busy, busy.’"

"Well, you know how much effort you have to put in to have a vacation."

"No, I wouldn’t."

"Oh."

* * *

Ranma’s dreams were always framed in pretty much the same manner. There was an observer Ranma, and a Ranma that interacted with the others in the dream. And it was always, always horrible . . . in retrospect. But sometimes, what was so horrible about it was that it didn’t feel all that horrible, but he felt that it should. The horrors of a rusty morality, he would call it.

That was why Ranma avoided psychologists like the plague. Well, that and his mother issue.

Ranma was alone, something that happened very rarely indeed in his dreams. There was a book, but only by default. It was nothingness; not black but an absence of light. The only thing that defined it as a book were the silver clasps and silver designs upon the covers. The clasp opened, and the book flipped open, the song became louder, and underneath it all, Ranma was sure that he was gibbering mentally. He hated gibbering. And he hated the Beatles.

The scene changed in a flash of blinding white light.

A city street, a laughing, loving couple, a quick death; fun, fun, doodle-dumb, that’s the way Ranma’s mind works. Happiness was not something he liked seeing in others. It just really pissed him off. Pissy, pissy, pissy, that’s him all right. Though the bullets were getting a bit annoying, the pinging against his shield just screwed up his rhythm. Now how was he supposed to tear out people’s thoraxes, or for that matter, where is the thorax? He didn’t laugh, he didn’t need to, nor did he feel the slightest inclination to laugh, diabolically, insanely or otherwise. Well, maybe just a little bit . . .

Ranma shook his head. He hated the plays, the little dramas that went on in his dreams. He hated them almost as much as the things, if only because the things weren’t quite as cheesy. Well, wasn’t he filled with bravado, laughing in the face of his obvious insanity, ha ho he who hey. Stop. He hated the aftermath of the plays as well. It always left a foul patina of melodrama on his muddled thoughts.

Whoops, here he goes again.

A kitchen, pretty modern actually. A microwave, a large two door refrigerator, a self-cleaning washing machine, the every-girl being kicked at on the linoleum floor, all the conveniences of a whacked out psychotic dream. Of course, since it was his dream, it was him that was kicking the every-girl. The every-girl showed up at least once every two months. Basically, it was pretty much every girl he could possibly imagine or have seen at some point in his life. The features were a bit blurry, most due to the fact that she constantly shape-shifted. But there was one constant about her, she was always being hurt by him. When awake, Ranma would shy away from whatever the hell that meant. And so, this time it was ‘Ranma beating up every-girl in a mild domestic setting.’ Better than ‘Ranma torturing every-girl in the humid, stygian depths of Tartarus.’ That’s good, try to keep your sense of humor about you, he told himself as he continued to kick at her. It was especially trying when she configured her face into HER on no less than five occasions. If every-girl had ribs at that point, they would have been pulverized.

Pulling himself out of a play was one of the harder things he had to do. He hated the every-girl plays. Hate, hate, hate; oh well, at least the things haven’t shown up in a while. And "Hey, Jude" isn’t all that bad after an eternity. Ah, spoke too soon.

Now, the things show up in a fairly predictable manner, usually. A golden tiara with an ellipse on it appeared, gigantic to his point of view. The ellipse showed a hairline line upon it; and the gold slid away to reveal an eye. The eye shined for a brief moment, then the first thing blotted out the light.

He really didn’t know what the things were. Suppressed darker emotions running wild in the mind? Bits of his personality that have gone mad from the dreams? But no, the things were there with the first dream, so no go with that. Something to ponder as they destroyed him in the dream.

Then, just as it seemed like he couldn’t go on, it stopped. And he woke up. He hated that too.

* * *

The light stabbed him, his eyes burning in his sockets, and all he could see was the blood red color.

"Ow, by the bright lady, that stings like the devil," Ranma swore, squinting.

"That’s odd, florescent lights shouldn’t hurt," Kasumi commented idly.

"That’s good to know." Ranma sat up and looked around. He was on a bed, feminine in its pastel sheets and blanket. The room was the same, though the walls were oddly bare, stark in its lack of decoration. "Hey, thanks."

"Not a problem." He stared at her, and shuddered a bit at the sheer content that she radiated. How could someone be so happy? His eyes narrowed for a split second, then returned to normal. It didn’t matter.

Ranma fell down onto the futon with a sigh, a long drawn out one. He felt so tired. He looked at Kasumi, who had been absently fretting at a fluffy pink bunny on her dresser. "Oh, man, what a long, long day this has been."

"Hasn’t it though?" she replied. She paused slightly, then went on. "You have a wonderful singing voice."

"What?" Ranma said.

"I said that you have a wonderful singing voice. While you were asleep, I heard you singing a song."

"Sleep singing. There’s a new one," he mumbled. Ranma looked at Kasumi, suspicion rising once more. "What song did I sing?"

"Oh, one of those old ones. Something by the Beatles, I think."

"Ah." Nothing for it, really, he thought. He tried to be nonchalant about it, but inside it worried him that the dreams were starting to affect him. The thought that the dreams have always affected him didn’t really run through his mind except on a very unconscious level. The funny thing about unconscious thoughts is that they soon become very conscious. But, on the surface, Ranma shrugged it off for the most part.

"I really should be angry at her, and at him, you know?" he said, looking at the ceiling, at the bright light, enjoying, after a fashion, the dull ache in his eyes.

"I suppose, but really, you shouldn’t be. Not at Yuri-chan, at least. She’s a very sweet girl," said Kasumi, not looking at him.

"Che, whatever. But I’m too tired to be angry right now, you know?"

"Yes, that is interesting, isn’t it? How anger can tire you so much that you can’t feel anything any longer, numb to emotions. A self defeating emotion, anger is," Kasumi said, still not looking at Ranma. "No, no. This is horribly wrong."

"Uh, what is?" Ranma asked, disorientated by the sudden change in topic.

"Hmm? Oh, this arrangement of stuffed animals." Kasumi stepped aside and gestured to her dresser top, which held nothing but stuffed animals.

"It . . . looks alright."

"Oh, no. It looks just awful."

" . . . Yeah, I can see what you mean . . ." Humor her . . . don’t set her off . . . you don’t what will happen . . . you don’t want to end up like that couple in Hong Kong, do you?

"Oh, I’ve upset you. Oh, dear, I do apologize," Kasumi said, bowing very slightly, still looking the same.

"No, no, quite alright, I assure you," Ranma replied hurriedly, waving his hands. He then sat up, and looked at himself. "Hey, I’m a man again. Thanks."

"Also not a problem."

Ranma stood, shook himself slightly, and yawned mightily. "Oh, man. I need shut eye, bad."

"Well, I’m sure that you can use the room downstairs. I’ll get it ready," Kasumi said, walking towards the door.

"No, no, don’t trouble yourself. I’ve got a room in town."

"Well . . . just for tonight . . . but really, I feel that I should insist that you stay here tomorrow, or at least come here in the morning for breakfast."

"I . . . that would be nice, thank you."

"But not tonight."

"No. I don’t think that I can . . . deal with my . . . family tonight. I suppose that I need to . . . detach myself a bit in order to get a clearer picture," Ranma stated, haltingly, trying to find the right words.

"Well . . . all right," Kasumi acceded.

"Thanks." Ranma went to the door, and just as he was about to leave the room, turned back and said to Kasumi, "Don’t bother seeing me out, I’ll find my own way. And thank you for talking with me. It’s been a while since I had a conversation."

Ranma walked out.

"What an interesting young man, don’t you agree, Mr. Snuggly?" Kasumi asked of her stuffed bunny. "Now . . . I wonder when Yuri is going to wake up?" She asked once more, looking at the still sealed letter. "Hmm? Oh, yes, I suppose that I could have given him the letter . . . but really, the poor fellow has been through so much so . . . Oh, don’t be silly, Mr. Snuggly, I wouldn’t do a thing like that."

* * *

Tip-toeing all the way, he thanked whoever that he didn’t bring anything with him. Now, if he could just make it to the door.

"And where do you think that you’re going?" asked a female voice behind him.

Ranma turned around slowly, and with an easy smile said, "I think that I’m going to my hotel, Ms. Tendo."

Akane stared at him, a bit disconcerted. He looked so much like . . . Yuri, yet acted so differently than . . . her. "I just wanted to say that I don’t like what you’re doing to Yuri."

"And what am I doing to her?" he asked.

" . . . You know what you’re doing," she said, floundering slightly.

"Of course I do. But you don’t, and I doubt that Yuri will tell you, so you’re in the dark, I’m afraid," Ranma said neutrally.

"I don’t think that I like you, Ranma," Akane said angrily.

"That’s Saotome-san to you." Ranma walked into the dark winding alleys of Nerima, shrilly whistling a very upbeat pop song.

"I really don’t like you!" Akane yelled after him.

* * *

"No."

" . . . Please," she pleaded softly.

"No."

"Fine." Yuri sank back down into the covers and pulled the blanket over her head. "Good night."

"Oh no you don’t," Akane said sternly, pushing the blanket off of Yuri.

"What do you want?" Yuri asked plaintively. "I’m tired. I need to sleep, ok?"

"We need to talk, Yuri," said Akane, saying ‘Yuri’ in that same uncertain tone as she had been.

"No, we don’t," Yuri replied, pulling the blanket over her once more.

"Yes, we do." Tug.

"No, we don’t." Tug.

"Yes, we do." Tug.

"No, we don’t." Tug.

"YES, WE DO!" TUG.

" . . . Ok."

Akane sighed, and tried to regain control. It was just so frustrating, getting Yuri to talk to her. "Listen, I think that you need to talk about Ranma. I’ve never seen you so angry and so . . . scared."

"I’m not afraid of him!" Yuri yelled loudly.

"Uh huh. And that’s why you were running away from him so much, and saying that he was ‘evil incarnate’. I didn’t think that you even knew what ‘incarnate’ meant."

"Oh, lord . . ." Yuri groaned, while rolling her eyes.

"No, really, he scared you, admit it," Akane said, pushing.

" . . . No, he didn’t."

"Yes, he did."

"No, he . . . look, I don’t want to play this game anymore," Yuri said. "Nice try, though."

"Gee, thanks," Akane said sarcastically. "Look, we have to talk about this."

"I don’t want to."

"If you don’t talk about it, you’re going to explode, you know," Akane admonished.

"You’re the one that’s gonna explode, Akane."

"Fine then, do it for me," Akane said, her eyes glowing slightly with unshed tears in the dim light. With her voice quavering slightly, she said to Yuri, "After all . . . don’t I deserve that?"

"Aw, geeze," said Yuri sounding helpless under the intense guilt trip she was on. "Aw, come on, stop that."

Akane didn’t stop. In fact, her eyes glowed even more, as her lower lip trembled.

"Alright, fine!" Yuri yelled, defeated. She sighed and, in a defeated tone, said, "When did you learn to be so crooked?"

"Learned from the worst," Akane said smugly, none of the traces of her supposed sadness remaining on her now brightly cheerful face.

"So . . . what do you want me to say?" asked Yuri, trying to get it over with.

"Whatever you want to."

"‘Whatever I want’ . . . I don’t WANT to talk!" yelled Yuri, frustrated beyond belief. "Argh!"

"Don’t yell at me," Akane scolded.

"I have nothing to say about Ranma, absolutely nothing. Can’t you understand that?" Yuri said pleadingly to Akane. She then said under her breath, "Chicks. I don’t know what they’re oww!"

Yuri rubbed her head slightly, trying to rid herself of the bump with friction. "What did you do that for?"

"You’re a ‘chick’ too, you know," Akane said sardonically.

"Me, a chick? I ain’t no . . ."

"You’re a girl, Yuri. I don’t know why you said that you were a boy and were so . . . adamant about it, but you’re a girl. Now start acting like one," Akane lectured in a pious way.

"Act like what? Like some sort of simpering, passive little mindless twit that only worries about how much the meat is going to cost at the butcher? That has had all the life sucked out of them by a husband that isn't even there and a kid that you don’t even know? You think that I want to be a housewife? You think that I want to end up like that?" Yuri said in a tirade, her voice rising higher and higher with every moment passing. When she was done, she calmed down, and breathed deeply before going on. "Look, I thought that you of all people would understand why I don’t act ‘feminine’."

"Look, just because I don’t know how to cook -shut up, Ran-Yuri- and all those other things that a good little Japanese girl should know, that doesn’t mean that I’m ashamed of being a girl. And you shouldn’t be either," Akane said consolingly.

"I’m not ashamed. I just . . . look, I don’t know how I feel, ok?" Yuri asked desperately, her voice faltering while trying to find the right words. "I’m tired, and even when I’m not tired my feelings are really mixed up on this, ok? So even if we spend the rest of the night talking about this, I’m not going to feel better, and you’re just going to feel worse. So . . . let’s save this for a better time, ok?" she pleaded.

"Ok. But only for a while." Akane moved to get up, feeling the best she had for a long time. While her feelings towards Yuri may be very mixed, for the first time, she felt a sort of connection to someone that she lacked with even her sisters and closest friends. It felt nice having a companion that was traveling the same path down life’s bumpy five-lane highway, though they may swerve around that highway like a drunken groundhog.

Akane looked down at Yuri and smiled. She walked over to the light and placed her palm upon the light switch. "Good night."

"Good night, Akane," mumbled Yuri underneath her covers.

When Akane was just about to turn off the light, Kasumi showed up in the doorway.

"Oh, I do hope that I haven’t woken you up, dear," Kasumi said. "Here, Yuri, this letter came for you today." She handed over the simple letter and was about to leave when Yuri interrupted her.

"Hey, this was addressed to Ranma," she said with some distaste.

"I assumed it was for you, dear," Kasumi said as she left.

"What is it?" asked Akane, leaning down.

"It’s a letter," Yuri replied dryly.

"I know that, stupid. Well, open it up."

"Ok, ok, hold your horses." Yuri ripped off the shorter end of the envelope and took out the letter. "‘To Saotome Ranma . . .’"

"Well, don’t just trail off like that, what does it say?"

"AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!"

* * *

"I think it was my daughter, Tendo," replied Genma, his eyes also never leaving the board.

"Why don’t you go check, Saotome?"

"She can take care of herself."

"Mmm."

"Mmm."

"You do realize that, what with Ranma coming here, that Grandfather is probably going to contact us, don’t you?" asked Soun neutrally.

"Yes, I do," replied Genma, just as neutrally as his friend did.

"I feel like I could cry."

"So do I."

* * *

"ARRRRGH!!" Yuri replied.

"Will you stop that?"

"ARRRRGH!!"

"Shut UP, Ranma!" screamed Akane, taking out her mallet.

"Ok, ok, I’m fine now. Well, not really, but the urge to scream has stopped," Yuri huffed, trying to get some air into her lungs without hyperventilating.

"What was that all about?" asked Akane, anger and curiosity mixing oddly in her tone.

"Here, read this." Yuri handed over the letter that upset her so, and waited inside her blanket.

And Akane read the short terse letter, and frowned.

To Saotome Ranma

By the time that you receive this letter, I shall be arriving the next day to regain my family’s honor and to see your family’s name dishonored. Be prepared, for I am.

Yours truly, Yamazaki Ken

"Oh my," said Akane, softly.

"You said it. Only tomorrow it’s going to be mine," groaned Yuri in despair.

* * *

"Can’t handle what?" asked the bartender, a cute blonde girl in her early twenties inside a tight dress shirt and pants. And that girl was working in a rather nice bar, dimly light and clean. No sounds could be heard but the sounds of a room full of men trying desperately to get very, very drunk.

"My family," replied Ranma, still not taking a drink.

"Well, families are hard to deal with," stated the bartender in that sage manner that all bartenders can.

"Yeah, well . . . I think that I could handle my family if I knew them. But . . . it’s like I’m dealing with a bunch of strangers that really annoy me, and I can’t . . . deal with them the way I want to," Ranma said, his voice droning and monotone.

"And in what way do you want to deal with them?" she asked while cleaning a glass.

"I don’t know. And that’s another thing that annoys me." Ranma sighed, and opened his mouth, pouring the drink down his throat with one quick gulp. "Haaaa," he gasped.

"Say, I should have asked this earlier, but are you legal?" asked the bartender, not particularly worried.

"And if I said no?"

"Charge you more, I suppose," replied the bartender.

"Ha!" barked Ranma. His face then returned to the blank expression he had on before. "I . . . found that . . . funny, for a bit. I’m almost tempted to tip you."

"Now that’s funny. So, what do you think you’re going to do about them?"

"Give me another shot," ordered Ranma, ignoring the question. He then downed it in exactly the same manner as the one before.

"Another." The bartender handed Ranma another shot.

"Another." This went on for quite a while, the talking having stopped completely except for the constant repetition of ‘another’.

"Hey, maybe you should stop," said the bartender, concerned.

"This is what I’ve decided to do," said Ranma drunkenly but in that same toneless manner.

"And what’s that?"

"Pass out, and hope that it seems clearer in the morning."

"Good plan," the bartender said sarcastically.

"Say, you’re a pretty lady. How’s about we go back to my room and do stuff?"

"No can do. Say, feel like passing out yet?"

"Right about now," said Ranma, just before he slumped on the counter, unconscious.

And the dreams came back to haunt his drunken mind.

* * *

"So . . . you still have a yen for that sheep buggering narcoleptic?" the man asked casually.

"I really wish you would stop calling him that," muttered the woman, blushing slightly. "He really hated that, especially when everyone else started doing it."

"Well, do you?" asked the man again.

"You are pushing it," warned the woman.

"It’s a gift. And you haven’t answered the question."

"I don’t see where any of that is your business," the woman said primly.

"Still not answering," he said in a singsong.

"I haven’t given a straight answer to a question in over half a century, and I don’t think that I should start now and with you."

"Ah, it won’t hurt your reputation any. Just you, me, and the empty road."

"Get that look out of your eye."

"What look?" he asked much too innocently.

"You know what look, you loon."

"I am not a . . . Listen, are you going to answer the question or not?"

"No."

"Ok then."

They ceased speaking for a moment.

"So, will you accede to my request?" the woman asked of the man at last.

"Contact my second and he’ll help you," answered the man.

"Very well."

"We should do this more often," the man said, sounding quite fond.

"You know we won’t," she said.

"Yeah. That’s too bad," he said.

"Too much bad blood, as the cliché goes."

"Yeah. I . . . can’t say that I’m sorry . . . but I wish that I was."

"That is, by far, the oddest statement that you could have possibly have made."

"Ah, screw it. Hey, look at that," he said, pointing to the horizon. "No matter how many times I see that, I don’t think that I’ll get used to it."

"Please stop. I don’t think that I can handle anymore of your brand of drama."

"Right, like that skirt isn’t the slightest bit exhibitionistic."

"Oh, go *((@__@))* yourself."

"Such language."

* * *

She sat up, got dressed, and had a flashback.

It was quite short, objectively, but it was also quite long, subjectively; much like many other things.

"A letter, huh?" said Yuri, taking it from Kasumi’s hand. He looked at it, and grinned slightly. "It’s probably another love letter from my adoring admirers. And why shouldn’t they love me? After all, I am the greatest thing to hit this planet since sukiyaki." He grinned his trademarked rakish grin, and shook his head, ruefully. "It’s a curse."

"Do you think that the girls would ‘love’ this curse?" asked Akane acidly, splashing Yuri with a glass of water.

Yuri coughed loudly, and when she cleared her throat, said in a wheezing voice, "Stop doing that!"

"Not until you stop being such a complete idiot!"

"Me an idiot? Look who’s talking, Miss Oblivious!"

"Jerk!"

"Tomboy!"

"Idiot!"

"Clumsy!"

They continued to bicker for quite a while, frequently repeating the same insults over and over again, until finally it degenerated into a repetition of jerk and tomboy.

"Oh my stars and garters," muttered Nabiki, shaking her head in disgust. She took the letter, forlorn and forgotten off from the ground and opened it.

"What a surprise," she said dryly, after reading it.

"Huh?" said Yuri, leaving Akane in the lurch.

"I said, the contents of this letter is a surprise in a sarcastic manner," answered Nabiki, smiling slightly.

"Oh."

"What’s in it?" asked Akane, glaring slightly at Yuri.

"A letter. Duh," Nabiki said, smiling a small smirk with a twinkle in her eye.

"Hey!"

"Anyway, it’s not a love letter, surprise, surprise." Nabiki handed the letter to Yuri, who read it. His eyes enlarged to ridiculous proportions, and his jaw dropped to his . . . well, it didn’t drop to his knees, but the concept is most likely understood, correct? His features then went in the opposite direction, with the eyes narrowed and the mouth a thin line. A visible, angry aura started to manifest in the air around him.

"What? What?" asked Akane, looking from Yuri to Nabiki.

"Damn him. Damn him straight to the worst hell," hissed Yuri, almost too angry to talk. Her hand clenched convulsively around the letter, crumpling it. "I’LL KILL HIM!!"

* * *

"You mean the pounding drum beat in my head that is going to make it explode?" replied Genma, trying to find the big band that was playing and kill them in a horrible fashion.

"No . . . sounded more like your son . . . err . . . daughter . . . err," said Soun, sounding more incoherent by the moment.

"Oh."

"Have you seen my head, Miss?" asked Soun of the pretty young female bartender in the tight suit.

"Say, Tendo, want to stay here some more?"

"What? But . . . but I’ve got classes . . . and my daughters are expecting me," mumbled Soun, still peering around the bar drunkenly.

"I’ll buy," offered Genma in a very pained voice.

"Alright then. Miss, another round to everyone who’s still awake, on my friend," said Soun quite loudly. He was answered by the other still conscious patrons by either cheers or a thrown bottle for the headache he caused. "And an extra drink of his choice for the person who finds my head!"

"Oh, god," mumbled Genma, his head in his shaking hands.

"Your head is on your neck, Tendo-san," said the bartender, pointing at his still attached head.

"Oh. Thank you. Want a drink?"

"It’s ok."

"Then I’ll have it," said Genma, in great despair.

* * *

"Ack . . . whoa, whoa, whoa, S-S-S-STOP!" yelled Yuri, his head vibrating at a rapid pace.

"TELL ME!"

"Cool it, I think that you’re going to shake his head off," Nabiki said, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder. It was quite a trying job to be the sole voice of reason in this mad house.

"It’s not as if he’s using it!"

"I think that that I’m going sick up," gurgled Yuri wetly.

"Not on the floor, not on the floor!" yelled Kasumi, popping out of . . . somewhere, waving her arms frantically.

"AAA!" they yelled in complete unison, their hands making the sign of the fox. They then dropped into more normal, though extremely perplexed, stances when Kasumi disappeared as mysteriously as she appeared.

"Hey," said Yuri, looking around. "Where’d she go?"

"I . . . I don’t know,"

"Weird," they all said in unison once more. The quiet of the aftermath of yet another example of Kasumi-Weirdness did not last as Akane remembered what had transpired before, dragging the other two out of their slightly dazed state kicking and screaming, figuratively speaking.

"So, are you going to tell me or not?" asked Akane in a mildly hostile manner.

"Look, if you had just stayed quiet and listened for a few seconds, I would have told you anyway, you know," replied Yuri hotly. "I don’t know what your problem is, but maybe you should see someone."

"Oh. Is that all?"

"IS THAT . . . yes, that’s all," said Yuri. He was very puzzled by Akane’s odd attitude. Is this what he had to look forward to? A lifetime of being a complete and utter bitch? Well, no, he was being unfair . . . maybe it was just that time of the . . . no, that’s . . . you’re not a guy, remember that. You’re Saotome Yuri, and you’re a girl. Just because you have a boy’s body, and you’re not what people would call feminine doesn’t make you a boy. You’re Yuri . . . you’re . . .

"Ranma?" asked Akane, waving her hand in front of Yuri’s face, sounding quite worried. "You all right?"

"No . . . it’s this damn challenge," replied Yuri, trying to sound hale and hearty but failing quite miserably at it. "I mean, sure, it would be a nice change to beat on someone other than Kuno . . . but this just carries with it so much baggage. And you can imagine whose baggage this is."

"Your dad," said Nabiki, acting once more in her self-appointed job as "stater of the obvious", though she left out her own father’s culpability in this. If Ranma didn’t want to mention it, why should she? It was a rare moment of connection between the two.

"Gee, you think?" asked Yuri sarcastically. Nabiki scowled at him for a brief instant, that moment of connection broken, before composing herself. Oh he’ll pay for that little remark. Maybe some trouble with the pipes . . . or some really embarrassing photos that’ll just happen to be on the school bulletin board. Or maybe just selling some dates for him. Make some money and get Akane to hit him. Yes . . .

"Can I see that letter?" asked Akane, holding out her hand.

"Huh?" Yuri said absently. He then focused on Akane and, while handing her the letter, said, "Sure." He answered, not even realizing the Pandora’s box he had just handed. Nabiki laughed silently at him.

"Thanks." Akane straightened out the wrinkles on the paper and started to read.

To the students of Anything-Goes Martial Arts,

For a generation, the hatred between our two schools has festered. Finally, the heads of Clan Yamazaki have decided that now was the time for the Naraku No Ma Ryu to take its vengeance for the crimes that your school has done to us. Prepare yourself, for, by the time you receive this letter, a scion of Clan Yamazaki, one Yamazaki Ken, shall come to destroy your school, your memory, and your honor.

Yours truly, Clan Yamazaki.

"You know . . . they didn’t challenge you personally. They challenged our entire school," Akane said slowly.

"Uh, yeah. But, you know, I don’t think that it would take two of us to beat him," Yuri said, sounding quite nervous as he understood the direction that Akane was taking the conversation.

"You’re right," Akane said simply. She dropped the letter onto the table, and started walking out of the living room.

"I am?" Yuri said incredulously.

"Uh-huh. That’s why I’m going to be the one to beat him," she replied, as she walked up the stairs towards her room.

"You’re going to what?" Yuri yelled, shocked.

"I’m the one that’s going to answer the challenge for both our schools," Akane said, with a very quiet and dignified confidence.

"I don’t believe this," Yuri muttered.

"Oh, Saotome, you are so stupid that I want to hit you," Nabiki said. She turned on the television, and started to vegetate. "Now, children, work it amongst yourselves."

* * *

"This is as much my battle as yours, Ranma," she told him, her voice as firm as steel, but also as soft as velvet. Show him where you stand, but don’t rile. Nabiki makes it look so easy. "I . . ." Don’t whine, don’t show weakness. "I have as much a stake in this as you do. Anything-Goes is my school, too."

"I know that," Yuri said, his voice trailing off. He sounded uncertain, unused to her using reason and talk to get her way. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing for his impression of her to be that of one that uses violence first and always.

Advantage: Akane, she thought to herself. But Ranma can still go to the Fathers (not that he would, his fool pride, but he might if he loses and knows it), so that is something that must be dealt with. Later, though. After convincing him that her answering the challenge is the right thing.

"But listen, you know that I’m the better fighter. And besides, you’re just a girl," he said, his tone at once conciliatory and condescending, though his face had on a very odd expression indeed.

Don’t get angry, Akane. Don’t. That’s just what he wants of you. Get angry and lose the focus that you have right now. Disregard the fact that he is acting like a complete sexist MORON!

"You’re right, Ranma," she said, her tone sweetness and honey, a great effort, since she was trying not to grind her teeth into powder. "You are the . . . better fighter. But how can I improve myself if I don’t fight, really fight, with someone?" Logic, would that work? No, probably not. But perhaps the preening peacock would be distracted enough by the . . . compliment that he agrees to this.

"Yeah, I am the best, aren’t I. It’s good to see that you finally admit that, Akane," he said, smiling that infuriating smirk of his, and raking his hair. How that gesture maddened her. But calm is what was needed to guide him, manipulate him. "Still don’t mean that I want you to fight, though."

"Oh? That’s . . . very . . ." Sexist, macho, pig-headed, stupid, annoying, condescending . . . "Sweet of you, Ranma."

"Besides, your dad will kill me if I let someone ‘Hurt his precious girl,’" He said, his voice lyrically mocking. The kind of voice that one swings one’s arms about while spinning in a circle. A tone to annoy and nothing but.

"I see. So you’re worried about my safety, Ranma?" Can you swallow your pride enough to do it, she asked herself. And . . . what if you like doing it too much? No, ridiculous. It has to be done. It’s the only way . . .

"You know, Ranma. Since you’re such a great martial artist, maybe you should train me for this fight," she said, all the while wrapping her arms around him, pressing herself against him. Thank god that they were alone in her room. If anyone saw, especially his or her parent . . . not a pleasant thought. "Not spar, really. But train."

"Uh . . ." Yuri said, sounding very uncomfortable. He was starting to sweat quite a bit, as his face turned beet-reed.

He was quite embarrassed. Not the reaction that she was hoping for (really. Perhaps he wasn’t such a pervert after all) but it would do even better. She leaned her face, her mouth, much closer to Yuri’s than is decently done. "That sounds good, doesn’t it? Us, together . . ." The final touch, the coupe de grace, as it were. "Training," she said softly, enunciating very carefully, the words that were carried by her hot breath wafting onto Yuri’s lips.

"AAA!" Yuri yelled, leaping out of Akane’s arms. He ran to the door in the space of his very fast heartbeat and when there, said in a very anxious and quite frightened voice, said, "L-listen, I got to . . . uh, do stuff. Away, far away from here. For a long time. And stuff. Ok? Bye."

"Oh, Ranma?" Akane said, her voice low and with a touch of huskiness. "About that challenge?"

"What? Oh, yeah, that. Sure, Akane. Anything you wa- err, sure, you do that, ok?" Yuri rushed out of Akane’s room faster than you can say, "Dogs of Hell."

"Ok," she said after him. She walked carefully to the doorframe and looked outside. Nope, he was nowhere to be seen. She carefully closed the door, went to her bed, pressed her face against the pillow, and laughed herself silly.

* * *

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" he yelled at the top of his lungs, horrified, as he stood up straight as an arrow in the bath, splashing quite a bit out onto the tiled floor. He then felt a massive cramp all over, and sat back down into the bath. He had just experienced the unpleasant sensation of going from loose muscles to muscles as tense as very high tension cord things all in the space of a millisecond. "Ow," he whimpered, tears of pain springing out of his eyes.

He shook his head from side to side, in a desperate attempt to dispel the kinks in his neck. After a few tries, he stopped, sighing yet again. While running his thumbs over the wrinkled tips of his fingers, he meditated on the Akane situation a bit more calmly.

Obviously, Akane has a crush on me . . . Ranma, he thought. And, naturally, who wouldn’t be attracted to Ranma? I’m just surprised that it took so long. He looked down at the water surface and saw his reflection. For a brief instant the image of his other self, his true face, the face that he had been born with before this . . . really stupid curse, appeared, only to disappear with the subtle waves of the bath water.

You are one gorgeous piece of manly manhood, Ranma, Yuri thought, lost in pure egotism, forgetting the whole girl attracted to girl that looks like a boy problem for a much too brief moment. He then remembered the ‘original’ Ranma, and felt slightly sick.

Yuri dunked his head under the water, shut his eyes tight, and, with deeply held breath, pondered.

Obviously Akane was in love with him. Though she would probably never admit it, she has a major case of Yuri. Not that any sane girl wouldn’t . . . but it felt weird to have someone that said that they hated him so much, and so often finally admit that she was a human being too, with an obvious case of infatuation.

And, normally, having a girl fall in love with him wouldn’t bother him too much (he had gotten over that weird feeling quite a while ago, once the letters and the hot looks from the fairer half of the campus got boring), if it weren’t for the fact that they lived together. In fact, he rather enjoyed the compliment. However they were, technically, affianced and what with the two idiotic old men hounding them into making it go from a technicality to a reality, took the situation away from the realm of flattery and into the weird land of commitment.

Well, there would have been a commitment, if it weren’t for the fact that Yuri was a girl and he didn’t (to the best of his knowledge, but really, he thought to himself in some of his desperate moments of sheer hopelessness, perhaps the reason that he got such a kick out of seeing girls throw themselves at him was because he did go that way and just didn’t know it.) go that way. No to mention the fact that he had lied to Akane. Despite all the insults that fly between them regularly, and the fact that Akane seemed to view him as an acceptable whipping boy for the entire male half of humanity, Yuri truly did have some sort of positive feelings towards Akane, and was occasionally depressed that Akane didn’t reciprocate his feelings of . . . friendship . . . affection in a totally non-sexual manner . . . the positive and completely platonic feelings that he had towards her. Whatever it was.

Yuri got out of the water, and breathed in the wet, hot air with a deep sigh, releasing any of the remaining tension that he may have had. Really, in the final analysis, it wasn’t as if it mattered any. Sure Akane had a crush on him (and what sane girl wouldn’t?), and sure they were only one step away from . . . wife and . . . wife, but it wasn’t as if it were serious in any manner. And it was probably a passing phase for Akane, like that whole Tofu thing.

Besides, his father had hired a few people (what kind of people and how they could find him, he really didn’t want to think about) to find Ranma and drag him into this engagement. And while he may like the Tendo sisters, it wasn’t as if he wanted to marry any of them. Though he would pity Ranma if he ended up with Akane, though it was more than he deserved the bastard.

So, all in all, no worries at all.

Well, except for one . . .

"AKANE’S GOING TO DO WHAT?" he yelled, finally remembering the last bit.

* * *

"That’s nice," moaned Genma. He was quite certain that his liver would never be the same after tonight. "And no, I didn’t."

"Sounded like your daughter . . . yelling about . . ." Soun trailed off, his buzz gone as he tried to figure out the words. It was important, he knew. It was . . . they were on the tip of his brain . . . what did that girl yell out? Something about . . . "AKANE!" Soun yelled, leaping to his feet, stone cold sober.

"Shut up! Some of us here are trying to die, you know!" complained another patron, who immediately went back to sleep.

"What is it, Tendo?" asked Genma, staring at his friend muzzily.

"Akane’s in trouble! Akane’s in trouble!" gibbered Soun, a bit hysterically. "Well, not for long."

"What the . . . hey!" yelled Genma surprise, as his friend grabbed his arm and started to sprint out of the bar towards the dojo with a speed that would have put an Olympiad to shame.

"Got to get home, got to get home," muttered Soun under his breath. He was running so fast that Genma was lifted into the air, the only things that kept him from going into low earth orbit being Soun’s intensely strong grip on his arm, and gravity. And gravity didn’t have too much to do with it, much to its chagrin.

"Oh, my, I’m going to sick up," muttered Genma, looking green and pale all at the same time.

"AKANE!" yelled Soun, as he jumped over the wall and into his house. "Akane! Don’t worry, Daddy’s here!" He screeched to a halt, and stood in the doorway, yelling his daughter’s name and trying to sound consoling but actually sounding quite mad.

"Oh, my, father, why are you yelling so?" asked Kasumi as she stuck her head out of the kitchen.

"AKA-Oh, hello, Kasumi," Soun said, going from hysterical to calm in a very scary small amount of time. "Why was I yelling? No reason."

"That’s . . . sigh, well, no matter. Just stop doing that, all right, Father? We’ve had calls." Kasumi then went back into the kitchen, and hoped that the aspirin would start kicking in. Sometimes sanity just didn’t seem to be worth it.

"Now, where was I?" pondered Soun.

"I’m too drunk to deal with this. Good night," muttered Genma, just before he fell down in a heap, fast asleep and dead to the world.

"Ah, that’s right," said Soun, remembering, as he slammed a fist into his open palm in the universal gesture of understanding. "AKANE!"

"FATHER!" yelled Kasumi from the kitchen, sounding, for once, quite vexed.

"TETSUO!"

"KANEDA!"

"TETSUO!"

"KANEDA!"

"TETSUO!"

"This is fun, but it’s starting to hurt something awful," commented Nabiki, as she rubbed her irritated throat.

"My, who knew that scream therapy worked so well?" asked Akane, rhetorically, smiling as she did. She turned to her slack-jawed father, and said, "What did you want, Dad?"

"Uh . . . I just had an odd feeling, is all," he replied, looking quite embarrassed. It would take too long to explain, and there was the fact that he was quite drunk when he made the decision to come screaming in here, even if the execution was done with complete sobriety.

"Oh. Is this why you’ve been waking up the dead with your yelling? Because of a feeling?" she said, trying, quite successfully too, to resist the urge to heap piles of contempt into the load of skepticism that was her tone.

"Uh . . . yes."

"Oh, for the love of god," Akane muttered. "Hey, Nabiki, maybe you can deal with Dad."

"No way, no how, am I going to be saddled with him. If he’s acting like this at his age, can you imagine what he’ll be like when he’s older?" Nabiki said, as she walked back upstairs, followed by her sister.

"It won’t be my problem," Akane stated firmly.

"Oh? Well, if you’re thinking of saddling me with him, you can think again, sister."

"Kasumi?" Akane asked.

"Kasumi." Nabiki agreed.

"Like hell!" yelled Kasumi from the kitchen. Please, she thought, let the madness end. Perhaps if she spent some time in her room, shut away from the world, rearranging her stuff rabbits. The sheer inconsequence of it just relaxed her utterly. (On a parallel thought track, she pondered about her rabbit. Sometimes it was almost like it talked to her.) (On a track skewing from the last, she wondered, quite briefly, about her own sanity if she thought stuffed rabbits talked. It then bent and twisted into a pondering on the apparently negligent affect magic had on the world at large.)

"My . . . girls," Soun said, tears running down his face like a mighty river, his heart quite broken, if only for a little while.

And Genma continued to snore loudly on the floor.

* * *

It was the next morning, quite early in fact. The false dawn had barely lit the sky before Akane had dragged Yuri out of his bed.

"Come on, Ranma, attack me," urged Akane, making ‘come at me’ type of gestures.

Yuri didn’t even try to stifle his yawn. He stretched his limbs and back, and enjoyed that painful/pleasant sensation of his joints crackling. He then stared balefully at Akane. "I ain’t about to attack anybody this early in the day. So screw you, and your goddamned politics."

"Huh?"

"Oh . . . sorry, I had a really weird dream." Yes, it was quite weird. Though the details have already mostly faded away that one phrase stuck in his mind. ‘So screw you, and your goddamned politics.’ Who had said that, and why? But more importantly, where was breakfast? "Where’s breakfast?"

"If you’re that worried about food," Akane said in an exasperated tone, as she came out of her defense stance. "As soon as we’re finished sparring, I’ll make you some breakfast."

"Yeah, like that’s a good incentive," he muttered. Yuri stared at Akane, suddenly feeling quite awkward. He wasn’t quite sure how to bring up Akane’s behavior last night. While he was trying to figure out how to bring up the subject with some tact (i.e. not act like an insensitive jerk). Akane, finally fed up with just standing there, decided to take the initiative by upper-cutting Yuri on the jaw. "Oh, look at the pretty birdies," Yuri muttered, pointing at the sky.

"Tweet, tweet goes the little birdies. See how they gracefully float on the glistening virgin rays of the dawn sun?" Yuri was in Tex Avery land, which, coincidentally enough, was also filled with a painful amount of mallets and crazed women. "Oh, Wolfy; oh, Wolfy . . ."

"Get up!" She decided that simple yelling was not enough. Because of her Confucian upbringing (among others), she went to look for a cup of water.

"Ah! Cold!" Yuri yelled as she sat straight up. She glared balefully at Akane. "Do you have to do that all the time?"

"I wouldn't do it if you would just pay some attention, you big jerk. Now get up and attack." Akane hauled Yuri to her feet. "I need the practice."

"Geeze, Akane. You know that I don't attack girls," she said in a slightly whiney voice. While Yuri would attack a girl with little to no impunity, she thought, the Ranma that she made herself into wouldn't. She wondered briefly what the real Ranma's views on sexual equality were.

"Well . . . don't think of it as 'attacking'. Think of it as . . . mmm . . . sparring. You can spar with me, right?" she said once again trying reason. It probably wouldn't work, but still . . . "After all, you probably have enough self-control-" Ppht, right. "-to not go all out just sparring, right?"

"You have seen me spar with Pop, right?" asked Yuri, looking askance at Akane.

"Well, that's because you don't like him all that much. But you like me, don't you, Ranma?" She again flittered her eyes, while making gagging noises in her mind. Damn that sexist jerk for making her do this.

"Uh." Whoops, back into the land of confusion and that odd feeling of not knowing which side of the road one drove on for Yuri. "Sure, I . . . l-l-l-l-l-like you. You're a good enough gal."

"How . . . sweet of you to say, Ranma." If she wasn't trying to be intensely saccharine, she would have punted Yuri into the ionosphere, but as it was, she merely twitched her cheeks slightly. She looked at the blushing and distracted Yuri, and decided that now was the time. "Ok, here I come!"

"Huh?" While her mind registered what Akane said, the other possible contextual meanings floated through her mind, distracting her further. Meaning, of course, that Akane got in a very easy hit. Yuri wasn't hit into the ionosphere, but it was a close thing.

"Oh, god," muttered Akane. "Get up, Ranma!" she yelled at the prone sex-changer, who was looking pole-axed with her splayed limbs and her rotating eyes. "Where did I leave that cup of water."

* * *

"Ah, geeze, Akane, I haven't been this beaten up since I was nine," whined the now male Yuri. He was covered in bandages, and walked with a slight limp. A few children who had seen him either ran away screaming at the 'mummy', or had pointed and laughed. Little brats.

"If you had just attacked me, instead of just dodging and being hit, you wouldn't be so beat up, you idiot," grumped Akane. "And since when did you get so distracted that you would get hit so much?"

"Ah." What to say? That I'm not the real Ranma, and am just play acting, and the fact that that is a trait that I mostly associated with the real Ranma, whom I hate, and I'm really a girl. Right. "Oh, I'm just sort of . . . worried that you'll get your fool head kicked in during the fight."

"Who was kicking whose head this morning?" she asked archly.

"Right, right, point," he conceded grudgingly. "This is what I get for actually caring. Hell, if the guy did try to kick your rock-hard head, he'd probably break his foot." Yuri started chuckling, in that manner that he had; which was to close his eyes, put his hands that were laced together onto the back of his neck and chuckle loudly.

"JERK!" Akane yelled, as she kicked Yuri in the direction of the school.

"TOMBOY!" replied Yuri, the Doppler effect lengthening his voice.

* * *

"Come on, Ranma. I want to get this homework finished so that we can spend some more time practicing," said Akane, as they walked out of the school building, dragging Yuri behind her.

"We didn't get any practice done today," said Yuri sulkily. "All you did was sucker-punch me."

"That's right, I sucker punched you, sucker," replied Akane with a malicious twist. "And now I want to really practice."

"Aw, come on, Akane, how likely is it that the guy is going to show up today?" asked Yuri plaintively.

Thunder rolled ominously from the clear blue sky. Everyone ignored it, for in Nerima they were all used to odd weather. What they didn't ignore was the boy that suddenly appeared at the school gates.

He was about their age, sixteen or a little older. He had a well-defined body, muscular without being too heavy, and a gracefully way of moving, as if gravity was not a problem. He wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans, with some red Converse canvas shoes and a simple red cap that he wore backwards and tilted, along with a short sword of the sort that was favored by the Roman Legionnaires. His hair was long in the bangs, but the back and sides were short-ish. As for his features . . . well, it seemed that Yuri had a competitor for 'most devastatingly cute bishounen guy', with large expressive brown eyes, a Roman nose, and full lips. Girls were fainting as if from overexposure, which was appropriate in more ways than one.

"I am Yamazaki Ken, and I challenge those who practice the Anything-goes style of martial arts," he said in a low-toned voice, though it carried very well. It carried so well that even more girls were fainting. "Come and answer my challenge."

"Not likely, huh?" Akane said sarcastically. She looked at Ken and thought briefly, yow, what a babe.

"What were the odds?" Yuri asked hypothetically.

"Actually," said Nabiki, as she popped up between them suddenly. "I set it at two to one for him showing up. You know, Ranma-kun, you really should notice . . . yow!" Nabiki finally really looked at Ken, and was instantly in lust. "Hey, Sweetie! Would like some pictures of you and me in embarrassing situations?"

Yuri watched Ken as Ken watched the crowd. Ken spotted Yuri watching. Briefly, sparks of ki flew between them as they probed one another. Not half bad, they each thought. Almost as good as I am. Almost, but not quite.

This guy is way too tough for Akane to take on, thought Yuri. He then thought rather smugly, guess I’ll have to take this guy out for her.

Oh no you don’t, Ranma, thought Akane, knowing what he was thinking.

That fellow over there, thought Ken, needs looking after. But is he a practitioner of Anything-Goes? I wonder . . .

Yow, what a babe, thought the few still conscious girls. They looked from Ken to Yuri and back again, and drooled slightly in a mindless lust filled stupor. Though not thinking, in a visceral sense, they knew that the two boys would eventually fight, their hair flying, their muscles tensing, their bodies locked in combat. Drool, drool, went the girls.

"I-" began Yuri, before Akane elbowed him in the gut. "Oof."

"I am Tendo Akane," she announced, as she stepped in front of the crowd and got into a ready position. "Of the Tendo school of Anything-Goes martial arts."

"I greet you, Tendo Akane," said Ken. "I really hope that you don’t hold any illusions about winning."

"Shut up and AAHH!" screamed Akane, seeing that Ken had disappeared and reappeared right in front of her.

Without a word, without a battle cry of any sort, he began. Ken crouched deeply and, with a powerful thrust of his legs, gave Akane a puissant uppercut to the jaw. Akane’s feet did not touch the ground for a moment, so strong was the blow. Dazed from the punch, she landed in a heap on the ground, but she soon recovered, getting back on her feet with a dusty scramble. She got into a ready position once more, spitting out blood from the cut lip and probing her teeth. He was so fast, and good, and . . . All thoughts vanished as Ken disappeared once more. Akane automatically looked beneath her, but, soon realizing her mistake, jumped to the side. Ken landed where she was last and quickly went after her.

Her defenses were rusty, very rusty. She was more used to being in the offensive and having to block hits was not something she was used to. More hits to the head, glancing blows thankfully, but enough to continue to daze her. Already her vision was going blurry, but she knew that if nothing else her endurance would be her winning factor, for surely this boy couldn’t keep going at the pace he was . . . And if all else fails then surely he would come and . . . No, she would not run to him and like a weak mewling little ineffective ‘chick’ and let the big man handle all her problems. With renewed determination, Akane went on the offensive for the first time in the fight. Too bad that it didn’t do her any good.

Ken with a hard sweep of his legs caught Akane’s own legs and caused her to fall on her side. But instead of landing on the ground, Ken caught her with his other leg and tossed her in the air, and punched her in the solar plexus. She landed on the ground with a loud breath of air, and stayed there trying, in small gasps, to get air into her tortured lungs. The entire fight had taken, overall, a total of half a minute. Ken walked over to her and looked down.

"Do you admit defeat, Tendo Akane?" he asked quietly, taking off his cap and affixing it right side front.

"Ngh –huuh, huuh, huuh- nghhlee," gasped Akane, blood dribbling out of her mouth.

"I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then, shall I?" he asked, his eyebrow arched slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching briefly before his features resumed his neutral expression. "Very well, I shall . . . honor your courage by not condescending to you and resume the attack then."

Ken reached down to Akane’s arm and was just about to grasp it when his hand was knocked away from it, and his own belly kicked. He too went down. After a few brief moments (too brief) of intense gasping, Ken looked up at his assailant. It was Yuri. "Ah, the fellow. My mistake for taking my eyes off you."

"That’s right, buddy," Yuri responded with a cocksure grin to hide his small kernel of fear. "Me."

"And who might you be exactly, fellow?"

"Exactly?" Well, now there’s a loaded question. And an equally loaded answer. "Saotome Ranma of the Saotome school of Anything-Goes martial arts, and I answer your challenge."

"Ah. Good." Ken looked down at Akane while he got up from the ground and dusted himself off. "Tell me, you don’t seem the type to send cannon fodder after an opponent to ‘soften’ them up, so why did you allow her to come after me."

Yuri tried not to wince. He then shrugged, and trying desperately to sound nonchalant said, "It was her own fool decision to do it."

"Very well. Shall we?"

"Sure."

And they began to fight.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in real-time (i.e. not the time that was running through the mind of Yuri), Lupin was being driven through the Louvre.

"NYAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! This is great!" yelled her driver, Larry Cheyenne, the youngest get-away car driver in the world at twelve years of age, as he revved up the little beige, incredibly souped up car. "Man! What a thrill! Hey, let’s put clothing from the Gap on the statues! Nyahahahaha!"

"Oh, lord," groaned Nodachi into his hands. He glared over at Arsene. "Weren’t you supposed to get all of his pot?"

"I thought I did!" she yelled. "Hey, Larry! What have I told you about being high!"

"That ‘it’s a lot of fun and I should try it sometime’?"

"No! Bad, Larry, bad! No soup for you!"

"Don’t need soup. Got some grade-A hash."

"AAAAHHH!!! Watch out!" yelled Nodachi.

They swerved around the Venus De Milo.

"This car could have taken it," muttered Larry.

"SHUT UP, LARRY!" they yelled in unison.

"You know," said Nodachi as he looked back. "You’d think that they’d have given up by now."

The ‘they’ he was referring to were of course the Parisian police. Somehow they had gotten permission to drive their own cars through the Louvre chasing after them and, of all things, shooting guns.

"I pity the fool who gets left holding the bag of manure," said Arsene.

"NYAHAHAHAHAA!"

"Right then, I’ll just pop the tire of the first car, and watch the explosions," declared Nodachi. He took out a long throwing dagger, pulled half his body out of the car via the sunroof and aimed. POW, went the tire of the first police car. The driver swerved around, trying to bring the car under control. Finally, he was able to stop the car, just in time to be crashed into by the other ten cars following behind it. Fortunately, other than nasty case of whiplash, all of the officers were pretty much ok. That could not be said of their cars, however.

"Have you ever had so much fun?" yelled Larry.

"No," replied Nodachi, deadpan. "You’re insane and I hope that you die of a painful and embarrassing venereal disease, you evil wench you," he said to Arsene.

"Well, despite the fact that he’s stoned out of his little twelve year old gourd, he’s right, you know. Enjoy it, we’re committing the crime of the century of the week!" enthused Arsene.

"Insanity."

"Hey, stop!" yelled Arsene. Larry stopped the car, and she stepped out. "Well, gentlemen, here it is, the object of our impossible mission: the famous Mona Lisa!"

"You realize that we’re never going to be able to sell it, don’t you?"

"Of course we can’t. That’s why we’re going to ransom it! Victory!" Arsene did a little jig in front of the painting.

"Right. How do we get it out of the casing?" asked Nodachi, referring to the very thick plexi-glass covering the painting.

"No problem, we take part of the wall with it!" She then grabbed the painting and hauled it out of the wall.

"Jesus, I forget how strong you are," muttered Nodachi. He got out the very thick, very large black bag, put the painting (plus casing, plus bits of wall) inside it, and put the whole affair into the trunk in the front of the car. "Now, let’s get the hell out of Dodge."

"And stop hogging all the chips, Larry."

And they drove off into the sunset, chased after by a whole heap of police.

Laughing all the way, tee-dum, tee-dee.

Possible End Theme Song

STOMP BOX

They Might be Giants

John Henry

Stomp Box speak my thought/ Vent these voices from the dark/ Shout Shout Shout Shout/ Scream it out/ Blast your missive/ Tell the wordless message/ Little Stomp Box/ Tear it from my heart/ Stomp Box, voice of fear/ pour the poison in my ear/ Kill Kill Kill Kill/ Kill me now/ Free the demon Hear the ceaseless screaming/ Little Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart

Stomp Box speak my thought/ Vent these voices from the dark/ Shout Shout Shout Shout/ Scream it out/ Blast your missive/ Tell the wordless message/ Little Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart

Kill Kill Kill Kill/ kill me now/ Free the demon Hear the ceaseless screaming/ Little Stomp Box/ tear it from my heart

Heart

NEXT CHAPTER: Three, three, three fights in one! As Yuri is about to confront her foe, Yamazaki Ken, she flashes back to her two previous fights with him. And then, another shadowy person makes an interlude! It’s an action filled chapter that may come out some time before the end of the world! Yay!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Well, this chapter took me from about September to, well, now to finish. And it has taken me a year to do only about two hundred-KB. That’s . . . pretty sad, actually. Now, many of my pre-readers have three main complaints about this chapter: One, that it is damned confusing, especially in the pronoun department; two, that it has meaningless interludes that detracted from the story; and three, that it has the characters acting so out of character. I’m not saying that they’re wrong . . . but blame this poor, inexperienced writer if you wish. I hope that I’m getting better, however. And I will say that the characters introduced do have a purpose, but one that will not become apparent anytime soon. In a future chapter that I am already calling "Hashing it out" (though that may change), I will have an origin story, the point where this Ranma diverged from the ‘real’ Ranma. As to this chapters more extreme dark nature . . . I don’t really see it. This story isn’t supposed to be DARK, it’s not even supposed to be all that realistic (I.E. full of nitt and grit). It’s just supposed to be a romp.

Oh, ah, if no one ever reads this, that’s . . . all right by me (hurts, though). I started this as a way of fighting against my pet peeve in fanfics: the Perfect Ranma. Oh, sure, a few writers have done an admirable job of this. I loved their alternate realities; a whole heap of fun. It’s just that the ones that did a horrible job make my teeth hurt. But I didn’t want to make a psychotic Ranma either (ala "Ill met by Starlight). So I went the middle path: a Ranma that is a grade-B jerk.

Well, that’s my psychotic ramblings. I am now going to work on the project that I have been promising myself for about a year now: the anime/comic fusion.