Chapter Two

Nabiki couldn’t shake the feeling that something really strange had happened that day.

Well, it wasn’t as if her feelings were unfounded; when one has no memory of the first half of the day, typically something weird had gone on. It didn’t help that Ranma, Ryouga, Akane, and Miss Hinako also had no memory of that time period, although the lengths of their missing memories were different. She’d written down the order of longest loss, but it didn’t help much; herself, Akane, and Ranma all couldn’t remember any of the day, while Ryouga and Hinako’s cut off early in the morning. Not much of a difference, really, just about an hour or so. Seemed to be separated more by /where/ they were as opposed to who they were.

The entire period was only a few hours, though. But it was still strange… and it didn’t help that there was a lingering echo in her mind of… something. As if she could almost remember something… but not.

The others seemed almost ridiculously uncaring of it, as if they were trying to ignore any possibility of remembering. Ranma had decided that he had been challenged by someone, while Ryouga and Akane both just blamed it on Ranma, as usual…

Hinako hadn’t been in her adult form since the beginning of the day and seemed not to care in the slightest as a child, but she did give all three students detention. Actually, she had given Ryouga detention too, nevermind that he wasn’t actually a student, but the lost boy had wandered into a broom closet in an attempt to leave and had yet to emerge. Nabiki figured he had just burst through the back of the closet and walked out anyway.

Nabiki glared at her two fellow detentionees in their seats across the room. They were sitting next to each other, yet both pointedly avoided looking at the other. The beeping sound of a game Hinako had confiscated from one of the students was the only noise in the room. She kept alternating between it and a manga she had acquired in the same way, seemingly bored with them both.

It was driving Nabiki nuts. She was very rarely given detention, and even more rarely had to serve it. She didn’t even know why she had been given it this time, other than Hinako’s assumption that she was skipping class. According to her class she had just stood and left without a word; that hadn’t helped.

It wasn’t the what the Nabiki cared about, it was the why.

She could get most of what happened from second-hand reports, although she didn’t tell the others that. Unfortunately, that just made it more confusing.

Why, for instance, had Ranma and Hinako ganged up on Ryouga for no apparent reason?

Before that, how had Hinako been able to drain chi from thin air? That whole class was confused about that one.

She also had reports that Hinako’s child-body had acquired a personality of it’s own, although that one was sketchy at best and she had decided to ignore it, since it didn’t seem to be true enough unless she was a damned good actor. Nabiki kept an eye on her, just in case, but she seemed normal.

The rest of it didn’t even make any sense at all. People talking to nothing, Akane attacking Ranma with a water gun – but Hinako actually being the one to actually shoot him with it – and then fighting with him, until he transformed, then suddenly stopping.

After that, her informant couldn’t tell her any more. She was almost glad, because even what there was gave her a headache, and her lingering feeling told her that the resolution of whatever had happened wouldn’t clear it up at all. She didn’t expect anything to come of her pondering, actually, but it did work to pass the time. She glanced at the clock. Only fifteen minutes to go.

She toyed with the idea that one of them was lying about having lost their memory. But who? She couldn’t really see a reason for it. Unless, of course, something had happened during that time that would change what she thought… but, again, the question came up: Who? Maybe Hinako’s child form’s new personality had been an invasion by someone or something that wanted to use her ability to drain chi. But then why had Ranma apparently allied with her?

Or perhaps there’d been a reason that Ranma and Hinako had gone after Ryouga; maybe it was the lost boy, up to something. Nabiki could see that… but not really, when she thought about it. If he had, he was a better actor than Nabiki would ever have given him credit for.

That was the problem with just about all of them, actually. She knew her sister too well to believe that she had done anything. She knew that she was a good enough judge of people to be able to discount the other three, as well; unless they had all been faking their entire personalities for a long time now, at least. Ranma lacked the deviousness, or the desire for it. If it had been Ryouga, it had probably been an accident; he didn’t have the ability to pull of anything long and complicated without getting lost in the middle of it. And from what she knew of him, he didn’t have the cunning either.

Hinako was a possibility, but she doubted that as well. Her only real goal outside of her job would be to fix her metabolism, lock her in her adult form permanently. If she had tried that yesterday, she had obviously failed; but why had she erased their memories? How, for that matter? She’d never tried to hide anything before.

That left herself as the person involved to could have done it. But not only could she not ascribe a motive to herself, she also couldn’t think of a way she could’ve erased their memory. She was sure that with enough time to think she could figure out a way, but her memories of the past few days were normal. Just to be sure she’d even checked them with her friends’. Nothing unusual at all. And this was too precise to have been spur of the moment.

So if it had been one of them, the memory loss had been an accident, and a precise accident at that. That didn’t really help much, because then they’d never know.

It could have been someone else, of course. She’d already checked on the usual suspects, however.

Shampoo and Cologne hadn’t left the Nekohanten all day, she’d found out from her classmates who snuck there during lunch. Ukyou was accounted for by the others in her class. Kuno and Kodachi also hadn’t left their schools. She hadn’t been able to speak with her father or Ranma’s for very long, but their only goal would be to push Ranma and Akane together; and if they had done that erasing their memory would be entirely counterproductive, not to mention that it obviously hadn’t worked. So again, the only thing she could do was attribute it to an accident, if it had been them, or anyone in fact.

It was hopeless. She needed to know more… unfortunately, the only people who might know more couldn’t remember a thing. She knew that asking them to try to remember was pointless. The others had only been barely aware that there was time missing; they’d shrugged it off as nothing, an attitude that irritated and confounded Nabiki. Why didn’t they care? God knew that she couldn’t get her mind off of it. It was as if she had known the answer and forced herself to forget it. But the others… nothing. Absolutely nothing. As if they’d been told not to remember, and either agreed with or been forced to agree with the command. And if that was the case, Nabiki really didn’t want to think about the sheer power of the person – or being – that had been responsible. Someone powerful enough to defeat all of them without them even knowing it – and someone who cared about that defeat so little that they left no trace of it in the mind of the loser.

It was almost enough to send Nabiki Tendo into fits of paranoia. Not quite enough, but closer than she’d ever been before. Paranoia rarely led to solutions, not that an hour’s worth of pondering did much better, in this case.

Then the hour was over; thinking had been as good an occupation as any, although she hadn’t actually come to any conclusions.

She took her own way home, not wanting to get involved in the bickering that broke out between Ranma and Akane as soon as they stepped out of the classroom, if not sooner.

The last thing she expecting was something to fall on her head and knock her unconscious before she had even turned the first corner to get home.

Ryouga stumbled on her (literally) a little while later, a luckier break than even he realized at the time. He wondered, at first, why there were two of her but then the second one faded out and he decided to ignore that slight abnormality. He picked her up carefully and started for the Tendo home. Luckily she woke up before they left Tokyo, and managed to drag him back to the dojo before sunset.

When she got there, the situation changed a bit.

***

~Mordain

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