Prologue

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

It was nighttime in Moscow.  Outside the window of the hotel room, a 
cold rain pattered heavily against the glass.  Next to an unopened 
letter that rested on the nightstand, a fresh cup of tea, recently 
poured from the pot, gave off light swirls of steam.  On the bed sat a 
young man, a little over sixteen years of age, a thick book opened 
before him.  It was a text on cosmology, lit by the lamp just to his 
right.

His name?  Ranma Saotome.

Closing the book, the young scholar sighed because he just couldn't 
maintain his focus.  His thoughts kept jumping to the letter laying next 
to his tea.  It represented the end of his present chapter of life, and 
the beginning of a new one.  The long white envelope bore the 
distinctive seal of the Imperial Ministry of Education.

Ranma knew what was in it without even opening it.  It was his official 
welcome to join the first-year class at the Imperial Academy of Japan, 
the most prestigious institution of learning in the Empire and quite 
possibly the world.  It also represented the return to his life in 
Japan, a life that he had left behind almost ten years earlier when his 
father, Genma, had begun his educational travels.

Again sighing, Ranma picked up the television remote, intent on 
distracting himself from his thoughts.  He aimed it at the screen and 
pressed the power switch.  The television came on with a flurry of 
colored snow that quickly resolved into the evening news.

"<...the Kaiser's regime in Germany has continued its aggressive posture 
towards the Polish government,>" said the pretty, blonde newscaster in 
Russian.  "<Tsar Alexander has continued to express his support for the 
Polish people and has threatened military action if the Kaiser continues 
this course of action.  In other news...>"

Not really interested in the political games of the balkanized European 
aristocracies, he flipped to the next channel.

"<...are seeing pictures showing the results from the latest Irish 
attack against Her Majesty's forces in Dublin,>" said a buxom redhead in 
English, speaking with a faint Scottish accent.  "<Fighting continues in 
the streets as evening approaches.  The Prime Minister has been seen in 
the recent polls as a failure for this debacle.  The cease-fire ended in 
bloodshed yesterday when...>"

"Oh, great," he complained to no one in particular.  "Just what I want 
to see, more news."  Switching the station again, he settled on the next 
channel in rotation.

"<...make a point to visit the scenic nation of Virginia, a country set 
in one of the most beautiful regions of the American continent,>" 
drawled an attractive brunette in English.  "<We offer some of the 
finest resorts available in the world, and our people will welcome you 
with open arms.  No matter what your desires are, we will do our best to 
fulfill them.  Our new addition to the Richmond Sports Complex is our 
own Arena, one of the few located outside the Empire of Japan...>"

"I hate commercials," he mumbled as he turned the station again.

"<...but I love you, Alexia,>" said a male actor on screen.  "<I don't 
care what my family thinks or what agreements that they have made.  I 
refuse to be engaged against my will, especially to a woman that I don't 
love.>"

Ranma snorted.  Soap operas.  Like real life could ever get that 
complicated.

The screen suddenly changed to a station identification and a deep male 
voice announced, "<You are watching 'Young Nobles' here on Channel 
Eight.  We will be back after a word from our sponsors.>"

"Pass," he said, flipping channels once again.

"...but it is our duty to fight against the Shadow Demons, Ki," said a 
desperate female voice in Japanese.  On the screen an animated drawing 
of a girl in a skintight outfit was pleading with an animated drawing of 
a young man dressed similarly.  "If we don't somehow manage to defeat 
them and their minions, then the Empire will be destroyed by their evil.  
Don't you remember what it means to be a Shadow Hunter?  We swore a 
sacred oath to the Emperor when we gained our powers that we..."

"Anything but anime," he said with a sigh, clicking to the next channel.

"...and when we return, we will be having an interview with the baddest 
of the bad girls fighting in the Imperial Arena, that sexy package of 
violent beauty, the incomparable Mina Li," said a cheerful announcer.  
"So stay tuned to 'Arena Today.'"  Ranma paused on the channel for a 
moment, but grew bored quickly when the commercials began.

Ranma shut the television off and flopped back on the bed, arms spread 
wide on the thick quilt atop it.  He turned his head to eye the 
underside of the table where the letter from Japan was sitting.  One 
hand reached over and fumbled blindly across the table top, nearly 
spilling his tea on himself.  He finally found the envelope and picked 
it up.

Sitting up, Ranma ripped open the envelope along one end.  He held it by 
the edges and blew down the center, splaying it open.  Reaching in, he 
pulled out the letter within, flipping it open one-handed.

The letter read just as he expected.  It started with a rather long-
winded greeting, complimenting him on his decision to attend the 
Imperial Academy and congratulating him on his exam scores.  Ranma 
grinned broadly when he saw the comment in the letter that he had 
achieved a perfect score on the entrance exam, the single highest score 
ever recorded since the Academy was first founded.

The course of study would take three years, and the letter expressed 
hopes that he would consider enlisting for a term of service with the 
Empire once his training at the Academy was up.  Not likely, thought 
Ranma with a wry smile as he continued to read.  Joining the military 
held absolutely no interest for him.  However, he needed to get through 
the Academy in order to win a place in the Ministry of Science.

Joining the Academy would also give him access to materials that would 
enable him to prove his father's theories on parallel worlds, and that 
was paramount to him.  Ranma was so close to solving the design problems 
that he could taste it.  The equipment that he had been working with so 
far had proven to be insufficient for his needs.  He needed some of the 
prototype equipment that he could requisition through the Academy, that 
would help him complete his invention.

The quantum neural resonator, he thought with a smile.  He was rather 
proud of the name for his device.  He looked over at his thick, black 
notebook, bulging with design specifications and needed parts lists.  
Once I get it built, my life is never going to be the same.

He could hardly wait.

From a two year old dream, the idea came almost fully developed, like a 
flash of revelation from the heavens.  In his vision, an enormous, clean 
blackboard sat in front of him, when suddenly symbols of blue fire 
etched themselves onto its surface.  Ranma found himself looking at a 
multitude of circuit diagrams and mathematical formulae crammed together 
haphazardly.  Luckily, his eidetic memory had allowed him to bring all 
of it back to the waking world.

Some of it was blurred and incomplete, like junk data in a computer 
system, but the rest had been some of the most beautiful equations and 
diagrams that Ranma had ever seen.  He spent many hours writing them 
down, even the incomplete material, fearing that they would fade from 
his mind like the dream that they had come from.  Ranma was able to 
recognize most of the basic theorems from his father's own work on 
quantum mechanics.  The rest required almost two years of painstaking 
effort on his part to solve.  The partial circuit diagrams had been 
filled in as well over time.

If he could just get the proper components together, it should work.

Assuming that his mind had been processing his father's work on its own, 
Ranma took the vision as his subconscious's way of proving the senior 
Saotome right.  His father, the acknowledged pioneer in the field of 
quantum mechanics and parallel universe theory, never found a method of 
proving their existence.

Ranma's dream had given him the method.  He only had to build it, and 
build it he would.  It represented quite possibly the single most 
exciting piece of research that he had ever attempted in his young life.  
If, no, when he succeeded, then the potential for learning from other 
timelines would be enormous.

Attending the Academy was a small price to pay for achieving his dream.  
However, the closer the reality came, the more leery of it that he 
became.  What if it didn't work?  What if the Academy wouldn't let him 
build it?  What if it turned out to be dangerous?  These were the 
questions that had plagued him late at night.

Worst of all, how would he handle being around people his own age?  
Ranma would never admit to being frightened, as his personal sense of 
self-confidence was very strong from many years of being praised for his 
intellectual abilities.  He was the best of his generation, and he knew 
it.  However, he could admit to feeling somewhat concerned at dealing 
with his peers.  Having spent his entire life thus far around older men 
and women, studying the combined knowledge of the world, Ranma's social 
skills could, at best, be described as anemic.

His father had lavished enormous amounts of time and effort on training 
Ranma's intellectual abilities, restricting Ranma from forming any form 
of social bonds outside of his teachers.  They had moved around too much 
for that, so Ranma had never had any friends his own age.  He had never 
even gone out on a date, so he wasn't even sure how to relate to girls.  
All of the women that he had ever come in contact with during the course 
of his studies had all been old enough to be his mother, or even older.

All of which made him feel somewhat anxious about his future at the 
Academy.  Ranma suddenly shrugged and finished reading the letter.  I'm 
sure that everything will turn out all right.  It's not like a girl's 
going to hit me for looking at her wrong, right?  He chuckled a little 
at that, his calm restored.

Due to his previous study commitments in Russia, he had already missed 
the Academy welcoming ceremonies and several weeks of the new term.  A 
special exemption for late arrival was mentioned in the letter, and it 
was hoped that he would be able to make up the backlog of work with a 
minimum of difficulty.

The letter was signed by the Dean of the Academy, Kozo Fuyutsuki, who 
included a brief personal note that he would be expecting Ranma for a 
one-on-one interview at his arrival.  Ranma frowned slightly.  Dealing 
with people on a social level was not one of his strong suits.

There was a knock on the door to his room.  Ranma folded the letter up 
and put it back into the envelope before replacing it on the table.

"Come in!" he shouted.  The door opened, and his father, Genma Saotome, 
came walking in.  He waved a pair of plane tickets in one hand.  He was 
wearing a dark blue suit, the latest style from Berlin, and his usual 
wire-rimmed glasses.

"You can congratulate your father on his ingenuity once again, Ranma," 
said Genma with a grin.  "It took a little bit of doing, but I managed 
to get us a couple of first-class tickets for the next supersonic 
transport flight back to Japan.  By this time tomorrow, you'll be able 
to sleep in your old room."  Genma put the tickets away in the front 
coat pocket of his suit.

"It will be nice to see Mother again," said Ranma in a calm tone.  "It's 
been such a long time.  I barely even remember her."  That had always 
troubled him a little, like his life had only truly began when he was 
five years old.  The events before that age were fuzzy and dreamlike in 
comparison, vague images and flashes of memory.  His memories of his 
mother were comforting, but the upcoming reality of seeing her left him 
feeling a little bit nervous.

"She's excited that we are finally returning home," said Genma.  His 
voice took on a wistful tone.  "It's hard to believe that it's been over 
ten years already.  It seems like only yesterday that I started your 
education and took you out to see the world."  A brief silence fell 
across the room during Genma's reverie.

"Do we really have to go back to Japan right now?" asked Ranma, his 
nervousness finally urging him to speak.  "There's still so much that I 
wanted to study here in Moscow.  The Physics Department has just started 
planning the new fusion reactor for the University, and they invited me 
to participate.  I had a few ideas on improving heat exchange efficiency 
that they found intriguing."

Genma looked at his only son for a moment.

"Ranma... Son, it's time to go home," said Genma in a serious tone of 
voice.  "Everything that you could study here in Russia you can learn 
about in Japan.  The Imperial Academy has the finest facilities that a 
boy of your capabilities could need in the world for learning.  It will 
also be good for you to be among people your own age.  You've spent far 
too much time around crusty old men like your father."

"I guess that might be kind of fun," admitted Ranma.  "I read the letter 
from the Academy.  They are holding my spot open, pending my arrival."

"Kozo Fuyutsuki's an old friend of mine," said Genma.  "I knew that we 
wouldn't be able to get back in time for welcoming ceremonies, so I 
asked him to help us out like that.  He was glad to do it, and he's 
expecting you to pay him a call after your arrival."

"I will, Father," said Ranma.  "I promise."

"Good," said Genma with a nod.  "You'd better get to sleep now.  We have 
an early plane to catch in the morning."


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quantum Destinies
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
By Steven Thesken (sthesken@earthlink.net)

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.  This story 
is inspired by her works and the stories from some of my fellow fanfic 
authors.  Among these are D.B. Sommer's "Shampoo 1/2", Jim Bader's "A 
Very Scary Thought -aka- Nabiki 1/2", and John Biles' Elseworlds series.  
All C&C is welcome.

A brief explanation of some of the terminology and pseudo-science used 
in this story will appear in the Appendix, as well as the meaning behind 
the Earth designations.  This section is inspired by the information 
presented in TSR's role-playing publication "Tangents."

Other chapters of this story may be found at this website, or you can 
email the author for them:

The Quantum Destinies Homepage
http://home.earthlink.net/~sthesken/fanfics/qd.html


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 1 - Genesis

         And so it begins.

              -Ambassador Kosh: Babylon 5, First Season

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Nodoka hummed a soft tune as she went through her morning mail.  She 
pulled out a small postcard with a polar bear on the front and turned it 
over.  Seeing a message from Genma, she started smiling.

Honestly, she thought with amusement, that husband of mine can write 
page after page of research papers, but he can't bring himself to do 
more than send a postcard once a month to let me know that he and Ranma 
are still alive.

She read the brief message.

"Nodoka.  Bringing Ranma from Russia.  Genma."

Well, he still certainly knows how to make a woman happy, thought Nodoka 
with a larger smile.  It will be so good to see them again, especially 
Ranma.  How he must have grown.  I wonder if I'll be able to recognize 
him?

She went back into the house and began to prepare for the arrival of the 
two men in her life.

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

In the center of Tokyo lay one of the most austerely impressive 
buildings in modern Japan, the Imperial Security Directorate.  It was 
responsible for dealing with all threats to the well-being of the 
Empire, both internal and external.  Established almost three centuries 
ago, it provided a means for the Empire to maintain control of every 
inch of territory that had come into its possession.

Its ranks were composed of the cream of the Empire, men and women who 
had dedicated their lives, and sometimes their deaths, to insuring its 
continued safety.  Each had taken an oath of obedience to the Emperor.  
It was almost a tradition in some families to choose to serve here.

One such family was the Tendo household.

Soun Tendo sat behind his desk in the Security Directorate and looked 
through the thick stack of paperwork that had managed to accumulate on 
his desk since he had gone home the night before.  As was his usual 
policy, he arrived early, and he was planning to work late.  As the 
Assistant Director for the Commercial Security Bureau, the segment of 
the Directorate under his direct control, he was responsible for 
monitoring the huge amounts of money and resources that traveled about 
the Empire and powered the Imperial economy, monitoring that always 
seemed to generate enormous amounts of paperwork.

Those under him handled the routine matters, investigating frauds, 
illicit trade, counterfeiting, and piracy.  They also monitored data 
traffic and telephone communications, keeping under surveillance those 
who might impede the flow of trade carried on under the control of the 
various zaibatsu (the great industrial or financial combinations of the 
Empire).  At his level, and that of his immediate subordinates, Soun 
dealt with the higher profile people, those that the Empire had tagged 
during their lives for much more intensive monitoring.  One of the files 
that he had been watching for many years had finally crossed his desk 
again, a dossier that was not normally one he would have concerned 
himself with.

Soun smiled slightly when he spotted the file, and the brief note that 
sat atop it.  How I've waited for this day, he thought with a brief but 
unexpected moment of happiness.  Ranma Saotome was finally coming home.  
Soon his plans for his family would finally be coming true.

Soun reached out and pulled the file in front of him, flipping it open 
as he pulled out and lit up a cigarette. He perused the information on 
Ranma's recent activities, but they were rather sketchy.  It had grown 
more difficult to operate in Russia for the past few years, ever since 
Tsar Alexander had initiated a purging and intensive cleanup of Russia's 
Komiter Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (Committee of State Security, or 
KGB as it was more commonly known) shortly after his ascension to the 
throne.

Before, KGB agents had been little more than a joke, and Directorate 
agents had been able to cross into and out of Russia with almost 
complete impunity.  Now, that was no longer true.  The sole operative 
that Soun had been able to keep near Ranma had to be careful to avoid 
being discovered, so the information on the boy's activities was less 
detailed than Soun cared for.

Soun leaned back in his chair and blew a puff of smoke from his lips, 
watching the stream dissipate in the air above his head when he heard 
the door to his office open.

"Those things are going to kill you someday, you know," said a pleasant 
female voice from the doorway.  Soun glanced down, surprised that it was 
not his secretary.  He briefly cursed in his mind before allowing a 
smile to rest on his face.

A rather stunning beauty of a woman stood in his doorway, smiling mildly 
at him.  She was Hinako Ninomiya, the Assistant Director overseeing the 
Special Investigations Bureau.  Even when wearing the standard gray, 
female Security uniform, she always seemed to radiate sexuality.  She 
was rather tall, and a trifle top-heavy for Soun's personal tastes, but 
otherwise an impressive figure of a woman.

She was also the bane of Soun's existence.

He had been forced to deal with her for the last two years, ever since 
her assignment to her present level of authority.  Soun suspected that 
her meteoric rise in the Security Directorate had been due to her 
sleeping her way upwards in rank.  However, he knew that she also had a 
sharp mind and an uncanny way of ferreting out secrets.  It was also 
possible that she had been judiciously using that ability for blackmail 
purposes to obtain her present rank.

Either way, her mere presence set all of Soun's internal alarms off, 
making him feel extremely cautious and nervous around her.  They 
maintained an uneasy truce with each other, occasionally exchanging 
barbed comments.  It was an interesting sort of intellectual exercise to 
keep a woman that capable off balance, and Soun always found himself 
actually relishing the challenge.  He suspected that she felt the same, 
so they had continued the game with each other over the past couple of 
years.

"What can I do for you, Ninomiya-san?" asked Soun brusquely.  The sooner 
that he dealt with her and got her out of his office, the better.  He 
stubbed out the final embers on his cigarette and pulled out a new one, 
lighting it up with a practiced move.  She walked towards his desk, 
every move seemed to be designed to entice a man to desire her.

"You can start by putting that nasty thing out while I'm trying to talk 
to you," she said, reaching across his desk to pluck the cigarette out 
from between his lips.  She ground it out next to the remains of the 
other one, before taking a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

"Please, have a seat..." murmured Soun under his breath.  He watched her 
as she sat down gracefully and crossed her legs demurely.  "What brings 
you to my office this day?" he said more loudly, trying to keep the 
sarcasm out of his voice.

"Do I really need a reason to visit with a colleague that I have known 
and respected for a couple of years now?" Hinako asked, her usual 
seductive smile back on her face.  Soun stared at her coolly, waiting 
for her to get on with it.

"Fine," she snapped, before regaining her composure.  "We'll be totally 
business-like about it."  She uncrossed her legs and quickly recrossed 
them the opposite way.  "I understand that you've been utilizing a fair 
amount of Directorate resources over the last several years towards 
monitoring a particular citizen, due to arrive back in Japan within the 
day.  Is this some sort of pet project for you?"

"Who is it that you are referring to, Ninomiya-san?" asked Soun calmly.  
"I have many files that cross my desk during the course of a day.  I'm 
afraid that you'll have to be more specific."  Soun smiled pleasantly 
and rested his hands on his desk, interlacing his fingers together.

"I don't know what sort of game that you think that you're playing with 
me, Soun Tendo," said Hinako coolly.  "Don't play coy with me.  I know 
for a fact that a young citizen by the name of Ranma Saotome has been 
receiving a fair amount of attention from your Bureau over the last 
several years alone.  I want to know why."

"It is none of your concern, Ninomiya-san," said Soun brusquely.  "My 
concerns about individual citizens and monitoring of their activities 
for possible impact upon the Empire's economy are part of my Bureau's 
responsibilities.  It is not your place to question or investigate the 
comings and goings of other departments."  Soun didn't like where this 
conversation was going.  He noticed her eyes lock onto Ranma's file.

"Ranma Saotome," Hinako stated more warmly.  "He has grown into such a 
promising young man, and one worthy of great interest, judging by the 
size of the dossier right in front of you.  So what is your interest in 
him?"  Soun sighed slightly.

"What do you know of young Saotome?" asked Soun, retaining his calm.

"Not much," said Hinako pleasantly.  "I know that Professor Kozo 
Fuyutsuki, over at the Ministry of Science, was a colleague of the boy's 
father on some top-secret project several years ago.  In addition, it 
was the eminent Professor Fuyutsuki's respect for Genma Saotome that 
paved the way to allow him to take Ranma on an around the world tour of 
high-level academic learning, all at the Ministry of Science's expense.  
I personally find that curious."

"It sounds like you've done your homework," acknowledged Soun.  "I still 
don't see what interest that you could have in my supposed interest in 
Ranma Saotome.  He's part of my assigned workload, and that's all."

Hinako thought, he isn't seriously expecting me to buy that, is he?  Her 
face retained its smile, but she sighed mentally.  It was time to play 
her remaining card and see what sort of reaction it prompted from Soun.  
She wished that he didn't have to always be so difficult to deal with, 
but it always made the game much more satisfying whenever she outsmarted 
him.

"How do you explain the reports that I discovered on matchmakers being 
investigated by the Directorate then?" asked Hinako absently.  Her keen 
ability at reading people noticed a slight spike in Soun's anxiety level 
from the subtle movements that his body made.  He had very good control 
of himself.  It was one of the things that Hinako truly did admire about 
him, and it always made their games more challenging.  "I noticed that 
two of your daughters have been placed with some of the companies being 
investigated.  Your eldest daughter was placed with a different service 
entirely."

Soun twitched an eye slightly.  He desperately wanted a cigarette to 
calm his nerves.  If she wasn't so highly placed, I could simply have 
the witch eliminated, he thought.  I'll have to try finesse instead.

"Indeed?" asked Soun, raising one eyebrow.  "Did any of these supposed 
investigation requests come from my office, or those of any of my 
subordinates?"

"No," acknowledged Hinako with a slight frown.  "They came from an 
unassigned workstation in another part of the building.  Ranma's file 
has received an inordinate amount of attention over the years from your 
office though, so I assumed that the two were related.  You wouldn't 
happen to be trying to play matchmaker, Soun Tendo, would you?"

"Of course not," lied Soun in a totally believable tone of voice.  He 
leaned back comfortably in his chair, confident that he had regained 
control of the conversation.  "My only concern is the future safety and 
well-being of the Empire.  It would be a violation of my duty to allow 
any personal concerns to come into play."

"I see," said Hinako as she stood back up, the cloth of her skirt 
falling back down to its usual length on her legs.  "I thank you for 
clearing that up for me."  She walked towards the door to his office.  
When she reached it, she paused and said in a mildly sultry tone of 
voice, "Perhaps I might be allowed to make up for my suspicions about 
you with an offer of dinner in the near future?  As a peace offering?"

Soun almost snapped the fountain pen that he had just picked up in half.  
Spending any more time than necessary with Hinako Ninomiya was not a 
wise course of action in his eyes.  He looked up into her eyes and his 
own expression of reluctance caused a hardening of the lines of her jaw.  
Before he could say anything, even one of his usual parting remarks to 
her, she swept out the door and slammed it shut behind her.

Soun shrugged and went back to his paperwork, thoughts about his fellow 
Assistant Director already fading from his mind.

Damn that man!  Who does Soun Tendo think he is?  Hinako thoughts were 
boiling as she stormed by the desks leading into her own section of the 
building.  A few of the agents under her command briefly looked up from 
their work but immediately dropped their eyes again at the sight of her 
glowering face.  She was not a woman used to having men showing 
reluctance to be in her presence; it did not make her happy at all.

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

The morning sun was bright as Akane Tendo and her older sister Nabiki 
walked to classes at the Academy.  Both of them had on the standard gray 
uniforms with black piping that designated a female Security cadet.  
They were of the new designs, a bit more feminine with the substitution 
of a skirt, replacing the previous design with pants.  The only real 
difference that they showed was a double hashmark on Nabiki's right 
sleeve, compared to Akane's single one, denoting her as a second-year 
cadet.  Akane thought the skirt flattered her figure rather nicely.  
Nabiki had far preferred the practical feel of pants to the draftiness 
of wearing a skirt to classes.

As the pair walked along, Akane wore her usual unhappy frown, and Nabiki 
had her standard thoughtful look on her face as she walked with the 
unconscious stride of a professional.  The sisters were an interesting 
contrast.  The older one was a master at covering her emotions behind a 
wall of cool detachment, while the younger one wore every emotion on her 
surface and was as changeable as quicksilver.

Sighing softly, Nabiki remembered her father's denial of the modest 
increase in her allowance she needed.  The refusal forced her, once 
again, to find other, more creative means to afford the new outfits and 
presents that she deserved.  It just isn't fair, Nabiki thought a bit 
grumpily.  Look what Daddy has forced me to do since he won't give me 
more allowance.

Lately, Nabiki had hit upon the idea of starting up betting pools on 
Akane's daily fights, and they were proving to be more profitable than 
she had expected.  Having a little more money available, she had also 
soon discovered the value of loaning it out to her fellow cadets at 
rather high interest rates.  It was even sort of fun, in a way, to hold 
power like that over her peers.

However, blackmail money proved to be her most valuable source of 
income.  Nabiki considered it to be good training for her future career 
in the Security Directorate to be able to discover secrets that her 
fellow cadets wished to remain hidden.  If the targeted cadet proved 
difficult to deal with, or actually threatened her back, then Nabiki 
would turn the matter over to Akane.

Akane took a disquieting pleasure, to Nabiki's eyes, in inflicting pain 
upon others.  She had proven very useful though, since she had started 
attending the Academy with Nabiki.  For the last several weeks she had 
been Nabiki's personal enforcer and received a cut of the profits for 
her efforts.  It gave an outlet for Akane's aggressive tendencies and 
benefited Nabiki's financial needs at the same time.  Still, it bothered 
Nabiki a little bit that her sister was the way she was, it wasn't the 
way for a future Security officer to behave.

As she walked next to Nabiki, Akane wrestled with her own thoughts.  
Another day of the same thing, she mused.  I'm almost completely through 
with my challenges against the toughest boys going to the Academy.  She 
recalled the last fight that she had yesterday.  She was either getting 
better or her opponents were getting worse.  She had managed to get a 
solid knee strike up into the boy's groin fairly early in the conflict.  
It had been over all too quickly after that; she had not had much of a 
challenge to her skills.

Akane had come to the sad conclusion that boys were all weak.  She now 
suspected that there was never going to be anyone to ever really 
challenge her.  However, it was her goal to fight with each and every 
male student at the Academy until she found someone who did.  Maybe if 
she bullied enough people, she would discover the fighter that she felt 
that she was born to meet.

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

The plane touched down at Tokyo Airport with a hard bump, lurching Ranma 
awake from his pleasant dream.  He had been having a picnic lunch with a 
pretty girl whose face had remained hidden somewhat in shadow, so he had 
been unable to see her face clearly.  He stretched his arms up over his 
head.

"Welcome back to Japan, my son," said Genma as Ranma turned to look out 
the window at the bustling airport.  He looked over at his son and set 
down the pad of paper that he had been writing upon, containing many 
notes on one of the many research papers that he was currently working 
on.

"The air looks cleaner than I remember it being," commented Ranma.  
Genma chuckled behind him.

"Most of the heavy industry has been moved off of the home islands over 
the last few years," said Genma as he looked out the window, trying to 
see around Ranma's head.  "The majority of it is located in the Korean 
prefectures now.  However, about half of the original factory buildings 
and facilities still remain here, maintained against possible need, but 
they are inactive.  I'm sure that the air will smell as sweet as it did 
when I was a boy."

They debarked from the plane and retrieved their luggage.  They passed 
through Customs quickly, Genma flashing his identification from the 
Ministry of Science to speed things up.  Ranma struggled with the two 
large suitcases that contained everything that he owned as he managed to 
keep up.  He had never really been in the habit of collecting much in 
the way of things, other than a few texts on various subjects and his 
clothes.  He carried his two bags out to the curb as he followed his 
father.

When they reached the front curb, Ranma set his suitcases down with a 
sense of relief.  He sat down on one and ran a hand down the back of his 
head.  He touched his short pigtail and then paused.  He had worn it for 
so long that he had forgotten about it.  He shrugged his shoulders.  If 
it was a problem, he was sure that Dean Fuyutsuki would mention it to 
him.  Until then, he was going to leave his hair as he was accustomed 
to.

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

Nodoka put the finishing touches on dinner.  Genma had called from the 
airport in Moscow to let her know when they would be arriving.  She had 
busied herself for the day getting her already spotless house even 
cleaner, determined to present herself as the perfect mother when Ranma 
walked in the door.  After she had greeted her only son, then Genma 
would receive his own greeting.

She sniffed the aroma coming off of the pot of miso soup that she was 
making.  Satisfied with it, she moved on through the other courses that 
she had prepared.  She was determined to have everything be perfect for 
the arrival of her husband and her only child.  If she had anything to 
say about it, this meal was going to be the best that they had ever 
tasted.

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

Ranma walked through the gate in the wall surrounding the Saotome family 
property.  He set down his bags while he heard his father settling up 
with the cab driver behind him.  This place was the one memory that was 
clear to him from his earliest days.  He smiled at the large cherry tree 
in the yard and the small koi pond that rested below it.  A sense of 
peace filled him.

The front door of the house opened, and a woman appeared in the doorway.  
Mother, Ranma thought with a smile.  He watched Nodoka walk quickly 
towards him, maintaining her propriety, but with a large smile on her 
face that matched his own.  She caught him up in an embrace and all of 
his worries disappeared.  He was home.

The word had never meant so much to him as it did in that moment.

"Welcome home, my son," said Nodoka with tears in her eyes.  She looked 
at him for a long moment and then hugged him to her again, even more 
tightly than before.  Ranma quickly found that he wasn't able to do 
something he considered quite essential.

"C-can't... breathe," he managed to mutter out before the world went 
dark around him.

Nodoka let go of Ranma, so proud that her only son had returned to her 
looking so handsome and manly.  Ranma's face was slack and his eyes were 
closed.  Nodoka was surprised, to say the least.  He couldn't be sick, 
could he?

She spotted Genma carrying in his bags.

"Genma!" shouted Nodoka.  "Ranma's fainted!"

Genma looked up from picking up Ranma's discarded suitcases and dropped 
them.  He trotted over to his wife and son.  "What happened?"

"I-I don't know," said Nodoka through fresh tears.  "I was so happy to 
see him that I just kept hugging him.  When I let him go, he was like 
this.  Did he catch something in one of those strange foreign places 
that you took him to?"

Genma chuckled softly.  He had forgotten how air-headed Nodoka could be 
at times.  However, she was his wife, and he loved her dearly.  He took 
Ranma from her arms and carried the boy inside.  Nodoka trailed along 
behind him, still crying slightly.

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

Akane set down her chopsticks with a satisfied sigh.  Dinner had been 
good tonight.  It looked like the new housekeeper that her father had 
hired was going to work out just fine.  She was an attractive young 
widow named Kyoko Otonashi, and she had been hired to cook and take care 
of the house a few weeks ago.  Akane found her to be nice enough, but 
there was an air of melancholy about her.

Nabiki finished her own meal and set her bowl and chopsticks down.  Not 
being much of a hand at cooking herself, let alone housework, she had 
encouraged her father to hire on a new housekeeper to replace the old 
one, who had moved north to be with her family.  Kyoko had been a prime 
find, as far as Nabiki was concerned, and she hoped that the woman would 
remain with them for a long time.

Nabiki glanced at the clock as Akane went into the main room to watch 
television.  Their father hadn't come home yet, which wasn't an uncommon 
occurrence, but it made the house seem that much more empty now that 
Kasumi was gone.  Nabiki smiled at the thought of her quiet older sister 
finally settling down to be a housewife.  Nabiki had thought that Kasumi 
had found her true calling studying medicine, so it was a bit of a 
surprise when she decided to marry.

It was perhaps inevitable that Kasumi would marry a doctor, and Nabiki 
was a little envious of the man that the matchmaker had found for her 
sister.  Doctor Tofu Ono was a brilliant young physician, with the 
degrees and awards to show for it.  Their father had agreed to the 
marriage quickly, and Kasumi seemed content with it.  A rare smile came 
to Nabiki's face at her sister's good fortune.

Nabiki stretched her arms out in front of her and wandered upstairs to 
work on her homework.  She passed Akane on her way to the stairs and saw 
that her sister was watching the fights at the Arena again.  Shaking her 
head, Nabiki walked upstairs.

Behind her, Akane cheered for one of her favorite Arena fighters as the 
girl unleashed a devastating combination of strikes on her hapless male 
opponent.  Man, that Shampoo is the best, thought Akane with a smile, 
mimicking some of the hand strikes that her idol had just done.  Akane 
chuckled as she watched the Amazon on the screen.  She's so much better 
than any of those other bimbos that they have fighting.

The fight was soon over, to Akane's disappointment.  I could beat those 
wimps that they keep sending against her, she thought with a confident 
look.  If I ever got a chance to be in the Arena....  Akane indulged 
herself in a brief fantasy, a smile on her face, as the scene changed to 
two male warriors slugging it out on screen.

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

Ranma woke up on an unfamiliar couch and looking up at an unfamiliar 
ceiling.  He blinked his eyes and saw his father sitting there in a 
chair near him, reading a book.  That familiar sight was extremely 
comforting.  He sat up slowly.  According to the clock on the wall it 
had only been a few minutes that he had been unconscious.

"Feeling better, Son?" asked Genma as he put his book down.  "I forgot 
to warn you that your mother can be a little emotional at times.  She's 
in the kitchen making you a fresh pot of tea.  Shall we join her?"

Ranma nodded and stood up.  He felt rather foolish for passing out like 
that.  He also hadn't been expecting his mother to be so strong.  He 
knew that she studied kenjutsu, the samurai art of swordsmanship, but 
her arm and shoulder strength had been quite impressive.

When they entered the kitchen, a plethora of wonderful smells filled 
Ranma's nose.  He inhaled deeply and smiled.  The aromas brought forth 
memories from his young childhood, all pleasant ones.  His mother bowed 
to him.

"I apologize for choking you like that, my son," said Nodoka as she kept 
her head down.  "I forgot myself.  I was just so happy to see my little 
boy again."

"It's all right, Mother, really," said Ranma as he put his hands on her 
shoulders and gently pushed her back upright.  "I'm fine.  However, I'm 
also feeling a little bit hungry.  They didn't feed us much on the 
plane."  The words were hardly out of his mouth before he found himself 
seated at the dining table, a bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in 
the other.

Nodoka bustled in and out of the kitchen bringing more food than Ranma 
had ever seen at one meal.  His eyes goggled a bit at the sight.  She 
doesn't expect me to eat all that, does she?  By the time she was done, 
Ranma imagined that he could hear the table groaning under the load.

"Ah, it does a man's heart good to see such food," said Genma with a 
broad smile.  "I've missed your cooking while we were away, Nodoka-chan.  
Russian cuisine, for example, leaves much to be desired, and don't get 
me started on Spanish food."  Genma began eating quickly, and Ranma 
duplicated him.

Nodoka looked on in horror.  Genma had taken Ranma out to acquire the 
knowledge of the world, but he still ate like he had when she had 
married him.  Now Ranma was doing the same.  She slapped her hand down 
on the table.  "Genma!  Ranma!  What do you think you're doing?!"

Ranma paused, a mouthful of rice preventing him from speaking, except to 
give a muffled "Whmifit?"  He looked over at his father, and saw Genma 
suddenly look abashed.

"Sorry, Nodoka-chan," said Genma.  "I'm afraid that my son picked up my 
table manners.  All that eating on the run, only so many hours in a day 
for learning, and all that."  He smiled at her in an attempt to deal 
with what he feared was coming.

Nodoka didn't lessen the wrathful look on her face one iota, causing 
Genma to visibly wilt under her stern expression.  Ranma chose that 
moment to try and swallow his mouthful of rice.  Her gaze suddenly met 
his in mid-swallow, and he almost didn't get it down.

"Now that my son is home, I see that I will have to make sure that he is 
educated in proper manners," said Nodoka in serious tones.  "You could 
use a refresher course as well, Genma dear."  She picked up her bowl of 
rice and began to eat.  Ranma quickly mirrored her motions and it seemed 
to appease her.  Genma quickly did the same.

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

Ranma set down his two suitcases and eyed the prepared futon with a 
neutral look.  After ten years of sleeping on Western-style beds in good 
hotels and apartments, it was going to take some adjusting.  He began to 
unpack his suitcases and put everything away in the large dresser.  In a 
few minutes, he was done.

Ranma went over to the closet and slid open the door.  Several brand-new 
Imperial Academy uniforms greeted his eyes, done up in dark blue with 
light gray piping, the sign of a Science cadet.  Ranma figured that his 
father had sent his sizes to his mother so that she could pick them up.  
He pulled one out and eyed it with distaste.  I suppose that I could 
learn to like it, he decided after a while.

He slipped out of his old clothes and decided to try on one of the 
uniforms.  It fit almost perfectly, but it was a little large on him.  
Perhaps his mother expected it to shrink with washing or something.  He 
buttoned up the collar and eyed his appearance in the mirror.  Not bad, 
he finally decided.

Nodoka chose that time to come walking in through the open door.  Ranma 
looked over at her and saw her eyes shining with tears again.  "Oh, my 
son, you look so handsome!" she said with a broad smile.

"Thanks," Ranma replied.  He was nearly blinded when a small flashbulb 
suddenly went off, almost in his face.  Ranma blinked, seeing large red 
dots in his vision.  He hadn't even seen a camera in her hands a moment 
ago.  Now he wasn't seeing much of anything at all.

"Just a few more," said Nodoka.  "I want to remember this moment with 
pictures."  There were more bright flashes.  Ranma smiled and hoped that 
his eyesight returned quickly.  Nodoka shot off the whole roll of film, 
quickly hugged him once more, and then departed.

I hope she calms down soon, Ranma thought with a smile.  He bumped his 
head into the wall, almost knocking himself unconscious, as he tried to 
move around before his eyes had fully recovered.  He sat down on his 
futon and hoped his body adjusted to the six hours of jetlag quickly.  
Getting up six hours earlier than he was used to wasn't going to be fun.

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

Genma watched Nodoka enter the bedroom with a smile.  The camera that 
she was carrying was left on the dresser.  She turned to face him and 
returned his smile, walking over to where he was seated on his futon bed 
and knelt down.  They turned to face each other.

"I have missed you, husband," said Nodoka with a soft smile.  "It is 
good to have you home once more."

"It was certainly a homecoming that Ranma will never forget, Nodoka-
chan," said Genma with a smile.  "It is good to be back.  I have missed 
having you sleep by my side."

Nodoka smiled, briefly got up to turn off the light, then returned to 
her position next to Genma.  They embraced, kissed, and then explored a 
long-delayed reunion of their love.

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

The next day dawned far too early for Ranma's tastes.  By his estimate, 
he had received something less than four hours sleep when his mother 
came into his room to wake him.  She knelt by the side of his futon and 
shook him awake.

"Wake up, Ranma," said Nodoka pleasantly.  "You have to get up and get 
ready for your first day at the Academy."

Ranma murmured something unintelligible and promptly went back to sleep.  
Nodoka shook him awake again.  Her command to wake up was less pleasant 
in tone the second time around.

Ranma stumbled into the bathroom and almost fell into the tub in his 
dazed condition.  He removed his clothes and filled a bucket with cold 
water to wake himself up.  Dumping it over his head produced the desired 
reaction in himself and his sleepiness vanished like morning fog.  After 
cleaning up, he dressed in one of his new uniforms.  It chafed a little 
at his neck, something he hadn't noticed when he had tried it on the day 
before.

He had memorized a detailed map of the area and made mental note of the 
best route that he could take to reach the Academy.  After eating a 
surprisingly large breakfast, Ranma headed out the door, carrying the 
new bookbag that his mother had purchased for him.  It was filled with 
his lunch and necessary school supplies.  He would pick up his texts at 
the Academy.  He waved at Nodoka as he left.

"Have a good day at school today, Ranma," said Nodoka as she watched him 
head out the front door.  I hope he makes some friends, she thought with 
a smile.

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

At the Academy, Nabiki was already conducting her morning business with 
one of her slower paying loan recipients, a second-year cadet wearing a 
blue uniform.  They were over at Nabiki's usual place to conduct private 
negotiations, around the side of the main building.  Akane stood behind 
Nabiki, slowly popping the knuckles in each hand and smiling evilly at 
the boy.

"Im not eager to have Akane here have to hurt you, Jun-kun," said 
Nabiki in a falsely sympathetic tone of voice.  "However, you didn't 
make your payment yesterday.  I would assume that it had simply slipped 
your mind, but you also tried to hide from me.  That made me think that 
you might have been trying to avoid me."

"Honestly, Nabiki, it wasn't like that," said the boy, alternating his 
gaze between the Tendo sisters.  "I can give you the money today.  Right 
now, in fact!"  He held up a small, folded stack of currency notes.  "I 
didn't have the money yesterday, but I knew that I would have it today.  
Please... take it."

Nabiki reached out and plucked the money from the cadet's hand.  She 
quickly counted it and then smiled coldly.  "You're short," she said 
mildly.

"What?" asked Jun in confusion.  "It's all there, all six thousand yen."

"That covers you through yesterday," said Nabiki pleasantly.  "But it 
doesn't cover the penalty charges for making me have to ambush you like 
this, as well as another day's worth of interest.  You owe me another 
five hundred yen."

"B-but that's all the money that I have left for this week," said Jun in 
stuttered protest.

"That's not my problem," said Nabiki in cooler tones.  "You can either 
pay me the rest, or I let Akane have you."  Akane smiled another wolfish 
smile behind her sister; she enjoyed this part of her agreement with 
Nabiki.

"H-here it is," said Jun weakly, as he pulled the remaining note from 
his pocket.  Nabiki pulled it from his unresisting fingers and stepped 
back.

"Go on now," said Nabiki mildly.  "We're through here, unless you'd like 
a loan to pay for lunch this week?"  She smiled.  Jun bolted away, 
running for the front of the Academy.  Nabiki didn't care; he always 
came back to her.  He was typical of the type of weaklings that kept her 
supplied with nice things, aided by the substantial threat of Akane.

"That was fun," said Akane with a smile.  "He never seems to learn, does 
he?"  She took the money that Nabiki held out to her and pocketed her 
share.  "Do we have any more business this morning?"

"Well, we can see if we can catch a look at this new student that is 
coming today that I've been hearing about," said Nabiki as she pocketed 
the remaining yen notes.  "He's supposed to be brilliant.  He's been 
studying in Russia until recently."

"What's his name?" asked Akane with interest.  A new student meant a 
possible new challenge for her skills.  "Have you heard if he can 
fight?"

"His name's Ranma Saotome," said Nabiki as she started walking towards 
the front of the Academy grounds.  "Daddy's mentioned the name once or 
twice that I can remember, but it doesn't sound like he's the fighter 
that you've been looking for.  From what I hear, Ranma Saotome isn't any 
kind of fighter at all."

"Darn," said Akane as she kicked a loose stone from her path.

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

Ranma walked along the quiet streets of the Nerima region of Greater 
Tokyo, enjoying the early morning sunshine as best he could on as little 
sleep as he had had.  A few other cadets were seen heading in the same 
direction as himself, dressed in either science blue or security gray 
uniforms.  He got a few curious looks from a few of them.

Finally, he reached the outer wall that surrounded the grounds of the 
Imperial Senior Academy.  It reminded him unpleasantly of some kind of 
prison complex, several imposing looking buildings filling the middle 
and visible over the tall wall.  Built almost ninety years ago, it was a 
very stolid but very dreary-looking structure.  The Emperor of that time 
had wanted to construct a site for serious learning, along the lines of 
the finest schools of far-off lands such as Germany or Russia.  The 
architecture was to mirror the seriousness of the purpose it was built 
for, but Ranma just found it oppressive.  When he reached the gate, 
small groups of cadets were standing in the front courtyard region and 
chatting with each other.

Ranma walked in through the gate, ignoring the whispered conversations 
and furtive looks cast in his direction.  He paused inside the gate 
area.  His first order of business was to locate Dean Fuyutsuki's 
office.  Spotting a small group of male cadets wearing blue like 
himself, he approached them.

"Hello there," said Ranma, offering a polite bow of greeting.  "I was 
wondering if someone could tell me how to find Dean Fuyutsuki's office?"

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

Akane and Nabiki stood with a small group of Nabiki's other informants 
and operatives.  In essence, Nabiki ran her own little fief on the 
Academy grounds, composed of first and second-year Security cadets.  
Some did it for the money that Nabiki paid them for useful information 
or assisting her with expanding her other business interests.  Others 
did it out of a desire to attach themselves to someone with as promising 
a future career as Nabiki already had laid out.

"That's him," said one of the second-year cadets, a tall girl named 
Yohko Mano.  As the 109th-generation Devil Hunter of her line, she was 
expected to follow in her family's traditions, but her abilities had 
earned her a slot at the Imperial Academy, nominally as a Security 
cadet.  Yohko shared Akane's passion for the martial arts, and they 
sometimes sparred.  Before Akane arrived, she had been Nabiki's primary 
enforcer, but Yohko far preferred gathering information to making people 
bleed.

Akane looked Ranma Saotome over and wasn't very impressed.  Dressed in 
uniform, he looked much like any other male Science cadet on campus, 
except for his short pigtail.  From the way that Ranma moved, Akane 
could tell that he had no combat training at all.  Disappointment filled 
her, even as she felt a sudden warmth on her cheeks that surprised her, 
when he passed nearby.  Akane noticed Nabiki looking at her and felt 
angry at herself.  The heat faded quickly from her face, so she hoped 
that none of her fellow cadets had noticed.

Nabiki was curious to see the cadet who had somehow surpassed her on the 
entrance exams.  According to her source in the administration offices, 
Ranma had received a perfect score, the first ever in the history of the 
Academy.  He looked ordinary enough to her, and she glanced over at 
Akane to see what sort of impression that the boy in question had made 
on her sister.

Nabiki was surprised to see Akane actually blushing.  Her sister's face 
then got an angry look on it, and Nabiki filed those two events away for 
future reference.  Nabiki could admit to herself that she felt a subtle 
attraction to Ranma herself when he passed nearby, almost as if she had 
recognized him from someplace.  It was strange, Nabiki had always 
considered herself to be above such matters like romantic impulses.

If I know Akane, there's a simple way to ensure that she doesn't come 
between me and Ranma until I can determine my own level of interest in 
him.  With that analysis out of the way, Nabiki began to plan out her 
strategy.

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

Ranma stood outside Dean Fuyutsuki's office and knocked on the door.

"Come in," said a voice from within.  Ranma opened the door and stepped 
inside the office, closing the door behind himself.  The office was 
rather spartan in design, a few books on the shelves, three paintings on 
the wall, a computer terminal in the corner, and a single plant in the 
window.  The paintings were all Western works, Renaissance era, if Ranma 
was correct in his guess.  He couldn't identify the painters, but art 
had always been a weak region of his scholarly studies.

"Dean Fuyutsuki?" said Ranma with a slight nervousness in his voice.  
"I'm Ranma Saotome."

The older man behind the desk looked up and smiled at him, in a rather 
grandfatherly sort of way.  How you've grown, Ranma, thought the Dean 
approvingly.  Genma has done very well with his assigned part in the 
Project, raising you on his own out in the world, without a mother's 
influence to corrupt male socialization.  Now that you're here, I'll 
have to see if we can train your physical abilities to their full 
potentials.  From his reports, I can see that Genma somewhat neglected 
that area of your development.

"Have a seat, Cadet Saotome," said Dean Fuyutsuki.  "Let me be one of 
the first to welcome you to the Imperial Academy.  I just know that this 
is the beginning of a very bright future for you."

"Thank you, Dean Fuyutsuki."  Ranma sat down as Dean Fuyutsuki reached 
behind himself and pulled a pair of teacups out, setting one in front of 
Ranma.  The Dean retrieved a small teapot and poured some in each cup.

"So tell me a little about yourself, Cadet Saotome," said the Dean with 
a smile.  "After we're done here, I'll have my secretary hand you your 
class itinerary, and then I'll escort you to your first class."

"That sounds fine, sir," said Ranma in respectful tones.  "I was 
wondering if I could make a special request though, while I'm here?"

"Go right ahead, Cadet Saotome," replied the Dean.  He folded his hands 
and leaned forward to listen with interest.

"I've been working on a personal research project for quite some time, 
and I was hoping that you might have some private lab space that I could 
use, as well as helping me obtain some equipment.  I have lists prepared 
of what I would need.  Would that be possible?"

"Of course, Cadet Saotome," said the Dean with a smile.  "Your father 
has told me of this secret work that you've been up to.  Something that 
will change the face of modern quantum physics, I believe Genma said.  
You leave the lists with my secretary, and she will see to it that you 
get everything on it."

"Thank you, sir," said Ranma with a smile.  "You don't know how much 
this means to me."

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

The overhead fluorescent lights clicked on in the empty storeroom in one 
of the sub-basements of the Academy.  Ranma looked at the small piles of 
junk that occupied the corners, as well as the thick layer of dust on 
the floor, with a wry look.  This wasn't quite what I had in mind, he 
thought slightly sullenly.  Behind him stood Dean Fuyutsuki.

"This is the only unused space that we have available right now that you 
could use for a lab, Cadet Saotome," said the Dean.  "However, it's 
yours for the asking.  The door is solid steel and quite strong, and the 
electrical system should be adequate for your power needs.  There's a 
sink in the corner for water, and you can tell by the dust on the floor 
that it's dry.  Once you clean out the junk in here and sweep it out, 
you'll have a nice place to work."

"It looks like it will be fine, Dean Fuyutsuki," said Ranma agreeably.  
"I know that I'll be able to do big things with it.  A month from now, 
you won't even recognize the place.  I plan to turn it into a first-rate 
lab."

"Excellent, dear boy," said the Dean pleasantly.  "Now I'll take you to 
your first class, and you can start getting to know some of your fellow 
cadets."

"All right, sir," said Ranma as he shut off the lights and closed the 
door, pocketing the key that the Dean had given him.

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

"Class, I'd like to introduce a new student to you; his name is Ranma 
Saotome," said the instructor.  "He is recently joining us after 
completing studies in Russia and Europe."

Ranma quickly bowed a greeting to the class.  He had been assigned to 
Room 3-A for his first-year term.  Apparently, first-year cadets were on 
the top floor, second-year on the middle floor, and the third-year ones 
were on the ground floor.  The administration and other offices shared 
space on the ground floor with the senior cadets.  Ranma resigned 
himself to climbing a lot of stairs.

Ranma looked out at those who were going to be his classmates for the 
next three years.  About thirty adolescent boys and girls stared back at 
him, in a roughly even mix of blue and gray uniforms.  He realized that 
he should probably say something rather than stand there like a mute.

"Hello," said Ranma.  "I am honored to be here."

The instructor directed him to an empty seat near one of the windows and 
continued the interrupted class.  It was on mathematics.

Ranma was bored in less than five minutes.  He pretended to listen to 
the instructor as he made a few notes on some of his equations and 
schematics.

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

Akane was running late to her next class, the one that she enjoyed most 
during the day.  One of Nabiki's junior assistants had needed to get 
some notes from her on what had been covered in history class yesterday, 
so she was now late.  She burst into the locker room area at a running 
pace, came to a fast stop at her locker, and immediately began to strip 
off her clothes.

Akane was the only occupant of the room, the rest of her class having 
already changed clothes and gone on ahead.  She hurriedly removed her 
jacket and skirt and hung them up as neatly as she could, as she kicked 
off her shoes at the same time.  Akane unbuttoned her blouse and removed 
it quickly.  Her hands went to remove her bra next, her thoughts already 
on class.

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

Ranma stuffed his new textbooks in his assigned locker on the way to his 
class in physical education.  He felt quite confident that he could 
perform to the instructor's satisfaction.  While on the plane, he had 
read the Academy manual on the required performance levels and did not 
think that they would be difficult to attain.  He had been running over 
ten kilometers a day, as well as doing moderate calisthenics and some 
weightlifting for the last couple of years, to stay in shape and keep 
from getting to look like his overweight father.

This class won't be any trouble at all, he thought confidently.

He was wrong, but not for any reason he would ever expect.

Most of the other members of his class were already outside and ready 
when Ranma finally arrived at the locker rooms.  He stopped to take a 
quick glance at the symbols on the doors to determine which one was the 
men's side.  A moment later, he opened and ran through the door on the 
left side.

After the door closed, Nabiki calmly walked by and switched the signs 
back to their proper placement, a wicked grin on her face.  This was 
going to be one of her best gags on her little sister yet, and it would 
have the added benefit of souring any possible interest that Akane could 
have in Ranma.  She checked with her lookout and received a nod that 
nobody had seen anything.  Smiling, Nabiki walked to her next class.

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

Akane was clad only in her panties when Ranma suddenly came to a halt 
right in front of her and froze.  They stared at each other for several 
agonizingly long moments.  A small trickle of blood appeared below 
Ranma's nose, and Akane felt a surge of warmth flood across her face.  
The calm did not last.

"Uh," Ranma started to say, and that snapped Akane out of her reverie.

"HOW DARE YOU?!" shouted Akane in rage.  She felt so angry and 
embarrassed by the unexpected intrusion that she reverted to her easiest 
reaction option, violence.  "YOU PERVERT!!"

Ranma barely even saw her move when Akane's fist struck him across his 
jaw.  His head snapped around, and he saw an entire galaxy of stars 
explode across his vision.  He impacted against the lockers, struggling 
to remain standing upright.  Akane quickly followed up and slammed a 
knee strike up into Ranma's stomach when he didn't do the sensible thing 
and immediately collapse where he stood.  His mind was still trying to 
figure out what was happening while Akane kept attacking him.

Akane punched Ranma in the face a second time, and her hand came away 
with some of his blood on it.  He faltered and finally collapsed to his 
knees, and Akane finished him off with an axe kick down on his shoulder.  
Luckily for Ranma, Akane didn't put her full power into it, or his left 
shoulder would have been dislocated from the impact.

A comforting darkness embraced Ranma as his thoughts faded away into 
unconsciousness.

Akane stared down at the fallen boy and slowly regained control of 
herself.  The red haze that had seemed to fall across her vision faded 
away as she absently wiped Ranma's blood off of her knuckles.  What a 
pathetic weakling, she thought with mild disgust.  A few hits and he 
folds.  I guess Nabiki was right after all, saying Ranma Saotome wasn't 
a fighter.

One of the assistant instructors came in as Akane finished dressing for 
class.  Akane had checked Ranma to make sure he wasn't going to die on 
her, but had otherwise left his body where it had fallen.  The worst of 
his injuries was a bloody nose, the source of the blood that had smeared 
her knuckles earlier.  She looked up at the instructor.

"What happened here?" asked the woman in confusion.  She knelt down and 
examined Ranma.

"This pervert came in while I was changing, and I beat him up for it," 
said Akane calmly.  She really wanted to get going to class now.  
Thoughts of Ranma made her feel uncomfortable, so she did her best to 
ignore him laying there.

The instructor told Akane to stay where she was while she went for help 
for Ranma.  Akane sighed and did as she was told, nudging Ranma with a 
foot and blaming him in her thoughts for what had happened.  I won't 
ever forget this, Ranma Saotome.  You made the biggest mistake of your 
life when you tried to peep on me.

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

Later, while standing in front of a glowering Dean Fuyutsuki, Akane 
actually felt a little worried.  She had been called into his office a 
few times before for fighting with other cadets, but she had always 
gotten off with a simple reprimand.

Not this time.

She received a week's worth of detention for harming Ranma.  The Dean 
hadn't bothered to listen to her excuse, that Ranma had walked in on her 
while she was almost naked.  Oh no, thought Akane sullenly, recalling 
her impression of the Dean's words.  Ranma must have made a simple 
mistake and walked into the wrong side.  Yeah, right.

"Damn you, Ranma Saotome," muttered Akane under her breath, as she 
walked to her last class of the day.  "I'll make you pay for getting me 
into trouble like this.  I swear it!"

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

Ranma woke up in the nurse's office, an ice pack resting against his 
jaw.  He felt awful.  An attempt to sit up made his stomach muscles 
protest, so he decided that laying where he was for a few more minutes 
wouldn't hurt.  He lightly rubbed his nose and felt a dull ache instead 
of a sharp pain, so it was apparently unbroken.  Thank Heaven for that, 
he thought with a grateful sigh.

He looked over at the clock on the wall and saw that it was after four, 
his classes were over for the day.  Tomorrow had to be better than this 
day was.

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

Nabiki walked home after classes were over by herself, having learned 
that Akane had gotten detention for attacking Ranma.  Little sister is 
so easy to manipulate sometimes, she thought with a smile.  Playing 
little mind games and pranks on Akane was good practice for Nabiki's own 
future career in the Security Directorate, or at least she thought so.  
She was a little disappointed that Ranma had been so easy to fool with 
her little trick.  Nabiki had expected more of him than to fall for 
something as simple as reversing signs.

Oh well, thought Nabiki.  I can have some fun with those two while I 
make my decision about Ranma.  She walked home with a happy spring in 
her stride, pondering Ranma's possibilities as a potential prospect for 
a suitor.

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

Later that afternoon, Nodoka stared at her battered son in mild shock.  
"What happened to you, Son?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it," replied Ranma.  "It looks worse 
than it is."  He sipped at his tea, wrinkling his nose slightly under 
the strip of medical tape covering it.  According to the nurse, his 
injuries were simple bumps and bruises.

"Yes, but it looks like you were in a fight," insisted Nodoka.  "Were 
you?"

"I can honestly say that I wasn't fighting, Mother," replied Ranma 
sincerely.  Yeah, I just got beat up by some nearly-naked girl named 
Akane Tendo.  "I just had an accident at the Academy.  That's all.  I'll 
be more careful next time."

"Leave the boy be, Nodoka," said Genma, finally chiming in.  "If he says 
that he's fine, then he's fine."

"Yes, but Genma..." said Nodoka in a worried tone.

"I said, leave it be," Genma said a little more strongly.  Nodoka 
glanced at him with a mildly angry expression, and he sighed mentally.  
I'm going to be paying for that one for a day or two, he realized very 
quickly.  Nodoka doesn't like to be ordered around like that.  Genma 
briefly wondered if he would have been happier with a more compliant 
woman for a wife.

Probably not, he decided with a wry smile, as he sipped his tea.

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

The next morning, Ranma overslept again.  Nodoka hoped that it was only 
the jetlag still bothering him, since Genma hadn't quite readjusted yet 
either.  Like the dutiful mother she knew herself to be, she shook Ranma 
awake and hustled him into the bathroom to get ready.

Honestly, she thought with a smile, I hope that this isn't going to be 
some sort of regular occurrence.  I'm his mother, not an alarm clock.  
At least he healed up all right since yesterday.  He doesn't even have 
any bruises left.

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

Ranma arrived at the Academy and made his way into the building.  He 
managed to make it to class with less than a minute to spare, and he 
spent the time in his morning classes working on his equations.  Ranma 
listened every now and then to make sure that he wasn't missing anything 
that could be important, but so far it had all been material that he was 
very familiar with.

When it came time for physical education, he carefully made sure that he 
walked in the right door for the locker rooms.  He was a bit irritated 
with himself for making such a stupid blunder yesterday, but 'The Thug' 
(a nickname that he had chosen to dub Akane with) could have waited for 
him to explain his presence before attacking him.

Coach Harumasa Takami made it clear what he thought of Ranma on that 
first day of class.  The instructor was a retired military man, a 
twenty-year veteran, and he treated his students like recruits.  Ranma, 
arriving late in the term for his class, apparently warranted 'special' 
attention from the man.

"So you expect to pass this class, boy?" barked Coach Takami into 
Ranma's face as he stood at his place in line.  Ranma blinked in 
surprise.

"Yes, sir," answered Ranma in a clear voice.  He was uncertain why the 
instructor would think otherwise.

"What was that?!" barked Coach Takami, a little louder.  "I can't hear 
you!"

"YES, SIR!" Ranma blasted back.  He focused his eyes on a point in the 
distance and didn't let his attention waver from it.  It seemed to be 
the most sensible thing to do at the time.

Coach Takami walked around Ranma's slender form and muttered darkly to 
himself, apparently very disappointed with the state of its physical 
condition.  Ranma didn't catch too many of the words, but he resented 
being referred to as a weakling as well as all of the alternative 
phrases that Coach Takami used that meant the same thing.

At her place in the girl's line, Akane felt smug.  She was one of Coach 
Takami's favorite students and the most skilled athlete in the class.  
Akane was going to enjoy showing Ranma up in class this term.  She still 
felt a faint, simmering anger at his actions in the locker room the 
previous day, smothering any other feelings that she might have had 
earlier.  She also felt disappointment that he had been so weak.

After an unexpectedly grueling hour for Ranma of doing very intensive 
calisthenics and several kilometers of running at a faster pace than he 
was used to, the instructor had thrown up his hands and declared Ranma 
to be a sad waste of an Imperial citizen.  Ranma was given two hours of 
extra training time after normal classes each day until his condition 
reached 'acceptable' levels, acceptable to Coach Takami that is.  Ranma 
still had enough strength in his body to groan at what was to come.

Ranma practically dragged himself to the locker rooms, one of the last 
ones in.  He noticed Akane Tendo, already showered and changed, standing 
next to the locker room doors.  She put an arm across his path when he 
tried to walk past her.  He sighed and waited for her to speak.

"Let's get something straight between us, Saotome," said Akane coldly.  
"I don't want you to say one word about whatever you might have seen of 
me yesterday, okay?  If I hear you bragging about peeping on me, I'll 
come down on you harder than an entire division of Imperial marines."

"Believe me, Tendo-san, when I say this," said Ranma tiredly.  "I just 
want to forget about yesterday.  Nobody is going to hear anything about 
you from me, so can I go shower now?"

"They'd better not," said Akane as she waved a fist under his nose.  "I 
have a lot more of what I gave you yesterday, if I even hear a hint of 
you bragging about seeing me naked."

Like I would ever brag about seeing your naked form, Tendo-san, thought 
Ranma sullenly.  Wisely, he said nothing of his thoughts, but nodded 
woodenly instead.  "They won't hear a thing from me."

Akane walked off with a harrumph sound, and Ranma tiredly went in to get 
a nice hot shower.  If he had been thinking clearer, Ranma would have 
seen that she seemed almost disappointed that he hadn't stood up to her.

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

Ranma finally reached his last class period of the day, before he had to 
report back to Coach Takami for his extra exercise classes.  He quickly 
unlocked the door to the basement storage room that was now going to be 
his lab space.  He reached around the corner and flicked on the lights.  
They snapped on with a slight hum.  Ranma eyed the boxes of junk strewn 
about the room and sighed, thinking, this isn't going to get itself 
cleaned up, so I'd better get started.

Almost an hour later, Ranma dragged the last of the boxes out of the 
room and dumped them into the trash incinerator.  He had checked each 
box to see if anything interesting was in them, but they all seemed to 
contain useless trash: moldy old textbooks and discarded newspapers.  It 
had taken him less time than he had thought it would to remove them all.  
That left sweeping to do, and then he could start bringing in all of the 
equipment that he would need and beginning work.

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

Akane stared out the window of the detention hall, as the sun lowered in 
the sky.  One of the junior instructors had given her a paper to write 
on the benefits of controlling anger, but she had finished it quickly.  
Now all she had left to do was watch out the window as the remainder of 
her hour ticked away.  The only bright spot to her was where the window 
looked out on.

Outside, Akane could see Ranma puffing his way around the track while 
Coach Takami shouted at him through a bullhorn.

"COME ON, SAOTOME!" shouted Coach Takami through his bullhorn.  "PICK UP 
THE PACE!  I'M GETTING OLD AND GRAY WAITING FOR YOU TO FINISH YOUR TEN 
KILOMETERS!  DON'T FORGET THAT YOU STILL HAVE TO DO WEIGHT TRAINING TO 
BUILD UP THAT LAUGHABLE EXCUSE FOR A BODY YOU HAVE!"

Ranma thought dark thoughts and kept running, his anger keeping him 
going at the pace that Coach Takami had set.  He was not about to give 
the old man the satisfaction of seeing him break, so he kept going.  
Ranma's lungs were burning in his chest like fire, his legs were aching 
from the strain of his pace, but he was not about to quit.

The kids got guts, thought Takami with a grudging amount of respect.  He 
could see that Ranma was actually in fairly good shape for the average 
citizen, but he couldn't let Ranma know that.  He would have instituted 
a somewhat lighter regimen for Ranma, but Fuyutsuki had given him his 
orders.

"Take Saotome to his limits, and then push him a little harder," 
Fuyutsuki had told him.

That was what Takami was doing.  If the Dean wanted to give Ranma a test 
of his physical abilities, then Coach Takami was determined to take the 
boy to the ragged limits of whatever he was capable of.  He would treat 
Ranma to as rigorous a training regimen as he could think of.  Besides, 
the overtime pay would be nice.

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

Two weeks passed, and Ranma slowly settled into a routine.

He finished cleaning out his new lab space and even went so far as to 
repaint the walls and floors with a fresh coat of white paint.  All of 
Ranma's equipment requests began arriving in small lots, and he started 
to assemble the bare bones of his invention.  A small but well-equipped 
electronics workbench took shape in the center of the room through his 
efforts, and he found a long couch in another one of the storage rooms 
that was perfect for his needs.

One of the most vital, key components that he had needed was one of the 
prototype superconducting neural interlink headsets.  It was almost 
beyond state of the art, a bleeding-edge piece of hardware, designed and 
built by 'the' name in computers and high-end electronic components in 
the Empire, Shinohara Electronics.  In recent months they had begun 
doing some experiments with various methods of linking man and machine 
electronically.  The headset linked with the cerebral cortex by means of 
electromagnetic induction, and it would allow Ranma the much-needed 
interface with his device.

Ranma sat with his notebook on the table in front of him, occasionally 
glancing at it as he worked on the circuit board in front of him.  It 
was going to take many more days of careful work to test and align all 
of the components before he was ready to begin work on the heart of the 
system, the quantum flux coil.  He still didn't have all of the 
materials to begin creating it.

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

Ranma puffed around the track as fast as he could manage while Coach 
Takami kept yelling some impressive threats at him.  After only a couple 
of weeks, he was already beginning to notice a marked difference in his 
physique.  His mother had commented on his increase in appetite, but it 
was necessary to keep up with his new energy needs.  He could admit to 
himself that he was eating twice as much as he had needed before and was 
still often hungry.

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

Another month passed.

Ranma was now not only able to keep up with the manual's stated physical 
performance requirements, but he had surpassed them.  However, Coach 
Takami didn't let up on him, to Ranma's surprise.  If anything, the 
workouts became even more grueling.  The highly intensive program of 
weightlifting and calisthenics began to add a surprising amount of 
muscle and definition to his frame for so short a time.  When Ranma had 
thought to complain about the unnecessary added work that was still 
being given to him, Dean Fuyutsuki calmly informed him that the Academy 
was individually designed to train its cadets to their best possible 
levels.  If Ranma was able to do more, then he would be trained harder.

It made a certain amount of sense, even if it did feel sadistic, and the 
exercise had produced the very surprising effect of sharpening his mind 
and focus even more than he was capable of before.  Ranma continued to 
excel at all of his classes, he was getting near to finishing the 
quantum flux coil, and he was getting stronger with each passing day.

Ranma kept one arm behind his back as he did pushups with the other.  
His posture was rigid, his legs straight and spread apart.  The muscles 
on his arms and shoulders had filled out from exercises such as this.  
Sweat slowly dripped from his face onto the pavement from his efforts.  
Ninety-seven... ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred, he mentally 
counted off as he finished a set.  Ranma quickly switched arms and began 
all over again.

Off to one side, Coach Takami smiled.  This boy is just incredible, he 
thought as he checked over the charts detailing Ranma's development once 
more, still unable to believe how rapidly Ranma was improving.  His 
physical abilities were increasing at a rate that was at least three 
times what a normal human should be able to improve at, even with the 
extra training that he was undergoing.  Every time that Takami thought 
that he had found the boy's limits, Ranma would exceed it.

The only slow portion of Ranma's improvement had been in his combat 
skills.  Akane Tendo seemed to take great pleasure in proving that to 
him every chance that she could.

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

Ranma slammed down onto the mat and laid there, stunned for a moment.  A 
sympathetic, muted groan came from his fellow male cadets, most of them 
grateful that they were not out there working with Akane Tendo as their 
practice partner.  Ranma wished once again that he knew why Coach Takami 
hated him so much as to keep pairing him with 'The Thug.'

"Saotome," said Coach Takami, while shaking his head.  "That was truly 
pathetic.  Now get up and try it again."

Above him, a cheerful Akane waited for him to try getting up once more.  
They were practicing barehanded combat while wearing white dogis.  She 
smiled down at Ranma.  "Yeah, Ranma, that _was_ pathetic.  Are you going 
to let me keep throwing you around like this?  Not that it isn't a lot 
of fun."

If there is true justice in the universe, then someday I'll find a way 
to wipe that smug look from your face, Akane Tendo, thought Ranma as he 
got up to his knees and stood up once more.

A few seconds later, Ranma crashed to the mat once again.  He decided to 
lay there for a while, at least until the room stopped spinning.

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

Ranma was finally ready to test the new quantum flux coil to see if he 
had it right yet.  Weeks of effort, and several previous attempts, had 
yielded nothing more than a slight headache and a faint sort of buzzing 
sensation in his skull.  He kept adjusting the tolerances minutely and 
knew that he was getting closer.  This was his third try, and he hoped 
that it was the charmed one.

Ranma booted up the stripped-down software algorithm that he had written 
to operate the hardware for these initial tests.  The full linkup 
package was disengaged since he was just working on establishing a 
signature phase lock, instead of full immersion, with an alternate 
reality.  The software finished its self-test and Ranma found himself 
crossing his fingers.

Seated, with the neural interlink headset on his head, Ranma let the 
system slowly run through its calculations as it scanned his brain's 
electromagnetic pattern.  He already had several ideas on speeding up 
the scanning process that had occurred to him, but he had yet to attempt 
to implement any of them.  Ranma wanted to get the core of the software 
debugged before he began adding modifications and enhancements.

"Okay," Ranma softly muttered to himself.  "Scan is complete.  The 
quantum pulse is activated.  Let's see if I can make contact."  He 
tapped a couple of keys, and the screen cleared.

*STAGE ONE INTERLINK SOFTWARE RUNNING.... STAND BY....

Ranma suddenly experienced a brief flash of... something.  He hurriedly 
began tapping keys, watching a mathematical representation of two sine 
waves slowly moving into synchronization.  The software slowly began 
adjusting itself.

"Come on..." Ranma muttered.  "Synchronize!"

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

*** Earth  +0.001,-0.004

Ranma blinked as a migraine headache suddenly hit him.  He set down the 
book of classical Chinese poetry that he had been reading and closed his 
eyes.  That seemed to lessen the pain in his head as he took a few deep 
breaths to calm his nerves.  He felt a hand on his arm.

"Ranma?" asked Nodoka's voice.  "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine, Mother," Ranma replied.  "I just seem to have developed a 
slight headache right now.  Perhaps some tea might help."

"You're probably working too hard, just like your father," said Nodoka 
as she headed for the kitchen.

The pain suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had began.

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

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Ranma stared at the two sine waves as they moved apart once more.  He 
still didn't have the paraequipotential phase variance aspect in his 
equations quite correct, and he had been so sure.  He cut the power to 
the quantum flux coil and let it cool off as he went back to work on 
adjusting the algorithm.

I was so close, thought Ranma.  I almost managed to achieve full 
synchronization.

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

The next day Ranma made the mistake of taking his lunch break near where 
Akane and Nabiki conducted their daily business dealings.  He had his 
back against a tree when he heard footsteps and faint conversation a 
short distance away from his position.  He peeked around the edge of the 
tree to see Akane and Nabiki confronting a male cadet.

Akane held the blue uniformed first-year cadet up against the wall as 
Nabiki spoke with a calm voice behind her.  Akane kept one fist cocked 
back in striking position.

"Now, Hideo-kun," said Nabiki calmly.  "Despite my previous attempts to 
resolve the matter of your loan peaceably, you continue to avoid paying 
me what you owe me.  Your debt has grown to a rather sizable amount, 
almost fifteen thousand yen according to my records."

The boy began to protest when Akane's hand squeezed down on his throat, 
stifling his voice to a gurgle.  He thrashed a bit and tried to pull 
Akane's hand away from his windpipe.  She buried her fist into his 
stomach, ending his efforts to free himself as he sagged down weakly.

Ranma moved closer and noticed that none of the other cadets appeared to 
see what was going on.  The nearest ones all seemed to be wearing gray 
uniforms, and they seemed to be acting as lookouts.  Ranma finally 
managed to get within hearing range of what was going on.

"That was very stupid, Hideo-kun," purred Nabiki as she leaned in 
towards the boy.  "It's hard enough for me to control Akane's temper 
without you trying to resist."

Hideo started to whimper a little.

"Now that isn't going to help matters at all," said Nabiki calmly.  She 
reached her hand under Hideo's chin and lifted his face upwards.  "This 
is very simple.  Where's my money?"

Hideo reached a trembling hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a 
billfold.  Nabiki's eyes took on a happy glow as she saw the object of 
her desires.  She snatched it out of his hands and began counting off 
notes.  She suddenly frowned as she realized something.

"There's more than enough here to pay off your loan, Hideo-kun," said 
Nabiki softly.  "We could have avoided all of this unpleasantness if you 
had simply spoken up more quickly."  Nabiki pulled fifteen yen notes 
from out of the stack and tossed the billfold back to Hideo, as Akane 
released her grip on his neck.

"Sorry, Nabiki," said the boy quietly as he stooped to pick up his 
money.  "You won't have to worry about me doing anything like that 
again."  He placed the billfold back in his pants pocket.

Akane noticed a gleam of steel appear in his hand suddenly and shoved 
her sister out of the way as Hideo made a wild slash with a long knife.  
Akane cursed under her breath as she realized that she should have taken 
the time to search him, a mistake that she swore to herself that she 
would never again make in the future.  She ducked under his next swing.

Ranma found himself frozen into the spot he was in for a moment as he 
watched the deadly duel take place.  As much as he disliked Akane for 
her actions towards him, he wasn't really happy with the thought of her 
getting stabbed.  He started to rise up slowly, unsure what he should 
do, when Akane took matters into her own hands.

Akane ducked under Hideo's weapon arm and shoved it aside as her other 
hand came up underneath the boy's jaw in a palm strike.  There was a 
loud, crunching noise as her palm impacted with his jaw.  She quickly 
followed up by capturing his outstretched arm with her blocking hand and 
driving his wrist towards her uprising knee.

Hideo gave out a cry of pain as his wrist gave off a popping sound, 
possibly broken or at least sprained, and his knife sailed off a few 
feet away.  Akane left him there, cradling his wrist and moaning softly, 
as blood appeared at the corners of his mouth.  She backed up warily and 
retrieved the knife, before handing it to Nabiki.

Nabiki stared at the blade in her hand, surprised that such a thing had 
taken place.  She debated having Akane hurt Hideo further, as an object 
lesson to anyone else seeking to harm her, but finally decided against 
it.  It was going to be hard enough to explain how he had gotten injured 
to the Academy administration without causing a black mark on anyone's 
record.  Despite the rather ruthless reputation that she had carefully 
cultivated, Nabiki didn't enjoy seeing anyone in pain.  It struck her as 
wasteful effort.

"Look at me, Hideo," said Nabiki calmly.  The injured boy raised his 
eyes up slowly.  "We were finished.  You didn't have to attack me.  So, 
why?"

"I-I was tired of being afraid, Nabiki," said Hideo in a trembling tone 
of voice.  "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."  Hideo burst into tears and 
slumped down even lower than he had been, the picture of misery.

Ranma moved away as silently as he could.  He retrieved his book and 
snuck away, grateful that he hadn't been seen.

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

A week later, Ranma made his breakthrough.  He tapped in the last of the 
program changes and waited for it to compile.  Now I've got it, he 
thought in triumph.  He settled the neural interlink headset on his 
skull and waited for the scanning cycle to finish.  He had managed to 
cut the time down to less than a minute.

"We have quantum pulse..." he murmured with a smile.  "Let's do it."  He 
tapped a couple of keys, and the screen cleared.

*STAGE ONE INTERLINK SOFTWARE RUNNING.... STAND BY....

Ranma felt that familiar brief flash of... non-existence, for lack of a 
better term.  The screen showed the two sine waves slowly moving closer 
together as he made the last few adjustments in the program manually, 
operating almost by feel alone.  As Ranma watched, the two sine waves 
kept moving into synchronization as the software finished its last 
adjustments and began to stabilize.

"Yes," Ranma muttered.  "Synchronize, damn you.  Come on, synchronize!"

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

*** Earth  -0.003,-0.002

Ranma paused in his playing, and the sounds of the piano stilled.  He 
looked out at the skyline of Paris as a faint buzzing sensation seemed 
to appear inside his skull.  It was like a handful of bees had been 
released inside his brain.  The buzzing steadily grew louder.

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

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Ranma let out a cheer when the two sine waves coalesced into a single 
waveform.  He waited for the final waveform to stabilize, and a line of 
text suddenly scrolled across the screen.

*SIGNATURE LOCK ESTABLISHED: 100% SIGNAL STABILITY

"I did it!" he whooped to the ceiling.  "I DID IT!"

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

*** Earth  -0.003,-0.002

Ranma suddenly felt the buzzing sensation cease.  He shook his head, and 
his thoughts felt fuzzy, like he was drunk.  He continued to stare at 
the early morning sky over Paris.

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

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

When he was certain that the signal was stable, Ranma activated the 
shutdown procedure.  There were still some minor bugs in the core 
software, but he would iron those out as he finished up his preliminary 
tests.  He removed the headset and cheered once more.

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

*** Earth  -0.003,-0.002

Ranma immediately felt like a veil had been lifted from his mind.  He 
shrugged, deciding that it probably wasn't anything important, and then 
returned to his playing.  The sounds of one of Beethoven's most famous 
piano concertos began to fill the room once more.

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

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Ranma leaned back and closed his eyes.  After two years, his work was 
finally showing results.  He sighed happily and settled back down before 
the computer screen.  After pulling the keyboard close, he began typing, 
cross-linking other components that he had coded separately into his 
main software to construct the final version.  He stopped right after he 
installed the remaining modules and ran a few more tests, studying the 
alignment of the paraequipotential flux.  His equipment could compensate 
for a certain amount of phase differential, but it still had a limit to 
what it could deal with.

When Ranma loaded in his new scanning module to the software, he tested 
it and was pleased to learn that he had cut the scan time down to less 
than fifteen seconds.  He was almost done with his final version of the 
software when he looked up at the clock to see that it was now nearly 
four in the afternoon.  He had to get to his extra training class.

Ranma shut down power to his equipment, pleased that he was finally 
about to enter into the final stage of testing, full immersion into an 
alternate life.  He pulled the main circuit board and made mental notes 
of where he needed to replace the wire-wrapping with solder before he 
began his first full-power test run.  A broad smile was on his face 
throughout, and he knew that tomorrow was going to be the day that he 
changed the world.

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

The morning quiet was interrupted by a loud ringing sound.  A hand 
emerged from beneath a light blanket, slowly reaching and fumbling 
around for the source of the noise.  A muted grumbling was heard from 
beneath the blanket as the hand took several long moments to track the 
sound to its source on the table.  A brief struggle was won, and silence 
reigned over the bedroom once more.

A few minutes later, the door opened with a loud bang.  A pair of pink 
slippered feet made their way into the room and stopped next to the 
futon.  A rather angry female voice suddenly made itself known.

"Ranma!  You are _not_ going to be late for your classes again if I have 
anything to say about it!"  The figure waited to see what reaction 
occurred, slowly tapping one slippered foot.

More grumbling was heard from beneath the blanket, then a little bit of 
motion.  The motion became more and more frantic over the next several 
seconds, accompanied by more grumbling.  Ranma emerged from beneath the 
covers.

"I'm up, Mother," said Ranma sullenly, as his pleasant dream promptly 
evaporated into nothing.

Satisfied that her son was now awake and would not be late for his 
classes, Nodoka swept out of the room to finish making breakfast.  

Ranma sat on the edge of his futon, and wished for the thousandth time 
that his parents weren't such traditionalists that he could have had a 
bed.  His mother would be scandalized at the thought, and his father 
would simply agree with his mother.

Ranma got up off the floor and walked over to his small closet.  When he 
reached it, he slid open the door.  He pulled his Academy uniform out of 
his closet with a hint of distaste.  Even though it was tailored to fit 
quite well, he still disliked wearing it on general principles.  He put 
on a clean shirt and socks from the drawer.  He eyed the hated uniform 
for a moment before struggling into it.

Now I look like a proper student for the Imperial Academy, he mused, 
looking at his reflection in the mirror.  His mind was full of sincere 
hopes that he wouldn't run into any trouble today.  Today was going to 
be his first full-power test.  The last thing that he needed was trouble 
distracting him from that.

Breakfast was the usual quiet affair.  Genma kept his nose buried in the 
newspaper, occasionally turning pages or grumbling at one of the new 
developments in the world.  Nodoka busied herself with delivering the 
usual delicious meal to the table before she herself sat down to eat.

The family ate in relative silence.  Ranma gobbled down his food as fast 
as he could while under his mothers watchful eye, trying to avoid her 
usual morning lecture on his table manners.  Genma occasionally gulped 
down some food, briefly emerging from behind the barrier of his 
newspaper.  All in all, it was another typical morning in the Saotome 
household.

Upon finishing with his breakfast, Ranma picked up his bookbag and 
stuffed his personal notebook deep down inside.  Inside it was all of 
his work so far on his experiments, complete with all of his revisions 
for his calculations.  He slung his bookbag up onto his shoulder, put on 
his shoes, and headed out the door.  His parents watched him as he 
headed down the street.

"I swear I don't know what is with that boy lately," grumbled Nodoka.  
"All he cares about is that project of his."

Genma grunted noncommittally.  Nodoka turned to look at him, and her 
look was one that Genma had come to see lately all too often.

"He wants to prove your theories correct.  Do you think he can?"

"Ranma will succeed," replied Genma with certainty.  "He will prove 
himself to be the greatest mind that the Empire has ever seen."  Pride 
filled his voice.

"If you say so, Dearest."  She smiled slightly.

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

Ranma walked along at a leisurely pace.  Classes at the Academy were not 
what he really looked forward to anymore, not that he did poorly at 
them.  On the contrary, they were too easy for him.  After following his 
father all over the world for so many years, having learned at the feet 
of every scholar and scientist that Genma could coerce into teaching 
him, attending normal classes had been a relief.  Boredom had quickly 
set in though, and his lack of social skills hadn't helped with his 
classmates.

Ranma almost collided with one of the annoyances in his life when he 
turned the next corner.  He stumbled, dropping his bag, as a deft 
footsweep caused him to lose his balance.  The day was still new, and it 
was already looking bad.

"Watch out, you clumsy weakling!" shouted an angry female voice.  Ranma 
looked up and grimaced inwardly.  Standing before him, in her usual gray 
cadet uniform, was Akane Tendo.  Her older sister Nabiki stood next to 
Akane with a smirk on her face.

"Ranma-kun," purred Nabiki, "you should make more of an effort to be 
aware of your surroundings."  She flashed a cool smile that chilled him 
to the bone.  Ranma was sure that Nabiki Tendo already had a promising 
future mapped out for her in the Security Directorate.

This is all I need today, thought Ranma, keeping his expression composed 
as he got back to his feet.  'The Thug,' as he referred to Akane in the 
privacy of his own thoughts, watched him stand up with a frown on her 
face.  Nabiki watched him with her usual cool look of detached interest.  
He bowed his head after regaining his feet.

"My sincerest apologies, ladies," said Ranma, hoping that the faint hint 
of mockery that he felt was not present in his voice.  He kept his head 
down as Akane looked at him for a long moment, before she turned with an 
angry sniff and stomped away.  Nabiki gave him another cool smile, and 
her hand reached out to caress his face.  Her hand felt warm, but his 
skin crawled at her touch.

"Be more careful in the future, Ranma-kun," said Nabiki.  "We both know 
that Akane is one to bear grudges for the smallest of slights."  Nabiki 
then turned with proper military form, and hurried only slightly to 
catch up with her sister.  

Ranma watched them both walking off before taking a slightly different 
route to the Academy.

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

"You should learn to take it easy when it comes to Saotome, little 
sister," said Nabiki pleasantly.  She walked at her younger sister's 
side with an unconscious precision to her stride, her appearance was 
that of a proper Imperial officer.  "All that anger can't be good for 
you."

"I still haven't forgiven him for what he did," Akane said with a slight 
growl to her voice.  She kicked a stone through the fence and out into 
the drainage stream as she stomped along in a foul mood.  Damn you, 
Ranma Saotome.  I wish you weren't always such a weakling.

"As I recall it, that incident was just an accident," said Nabiki with a 
smile, recalling Akane's mood that day after Ranma had walked into the 
girl's locker room.  It had been one of her better pranks on her little 
sister, and it had also served Nabiki's purposes by keeping a distance 
between Akane and Ranma.  The few of Nabiki's associates who knew of her 
involvement would never tell; Nabiki chose her allies carefully.

"I still think it was just an excuse that Ranma made up in order to 
peep."  Akane felt her insides begin to seethe from the memory.

"You also got detention for a week for harming the star intellect of the 
Academy," observed Nabiki with a smirk, as Akane blushed with very 
obvious annoyance.  Despite their closeness as sisters, baiting her 
little sister had long been a favorite game for Nabiki, and it served to 
prove a realization that she had made about Akane a long time ago.  The 
Tendo family had served with distinction in the Security Directorate for 
almost two centuries, but Nabiki just could not see Akane rising very 
far in rank due to her aggressive nature.

Akane grumbled softly to herself the rest of the way to the Academy, 
annoyed at her confused feelings for Ranma.  They showed no signs of 
ever being resolved anytime soon.

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

Ranma finally arrived at the gate in the wall surrounding the Imperial 
Senior Academy and walked into the courtyard.  He nodded to a few of his 
fellow Science cadets, receiving respectful nods in return as he headed 
into the main building.  He did not really have any friends on campus, 
as his work kept him too busy for much socializing.  Thinking about his 
upcoming experiment, he failed to notice appraising looks given to him 
from a number of the female cadets.

His morning classes were dull, as usual, even in the accelerated program 
that Ranma was in.  Falling asleep was a constant danger, but he had no 
desire to end up holding buckets for an hour if he did.  To compensate 
for the dullness, Ranma composed mathematical proofs and wrote research 
papers in his head.

For example, in his Imperial History class, he listened half-heartedly 
as the instructor droned on about some of the lesser-known aspects of 
Earth's history.  Who really cared about some failed revolution in 
Britain's old North American colonies?  Most of the western region of 
North America had been colonized by the Empire for over a century, after 
a long war with Spain.  Would the shape of the world really have changed 
that much?

There had been peace in the world for the last several decades, since it 
was divided up among the three remaining superpowers after the Global 
War: Japan, Germany, and Russia.  England had only recently managed to 
recover in the last few years from the three nuclear weapons that had 
been dropped on it during that conflict, almost two decades ago.  France 
was still a going concern only due to its preeminence in space, but the 
Empire was not far behind.  Amaterasu Station, the jewel in the Empire's 
space efforts, heralded the beginning of the colonization of the solar 
system by Japan.

Finally, having received written permission from the instructor of his 
mathematics class, Ranma headed down to his small lab located in the 
basement levels.  Today was going to be the day when he finally achieved 
his dream and saw another world.

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

Almost got it, thought Ranma, carefully adjusting the small soldering 
iron, as he placed the last chip back into its place on the circuit 
board.  It snapped into place, held solidly by a few small daubs of 
solder.  He pushed the board back into position and ran the system 
through final checkout.  The monitor brightened into life next to him, 
as he sat with the keyboard in his lap.  Ranma tapped a few keys when he 
was prompted for a user entry.

*SELF-CHECK COMPLETE

*ALL LOGIC COMPONENTS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*QUANTUM FLUX COIL IS FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*NEURAL INDUCTION SENSORS ARE FUNCTIONING WITHIN DESIGNATED PARAMETERS

*SYSTEM HAS 4 QUANTUM COORDINATES STORED IN STABLE MEMORY

*SCAN FOR NEW COORDINATES:  YES

*SELECT QUANTUM REGION FOR SCAN:  RANDOM

*SET CYCLE INTO ACTIVE MODE:  YES

*SET TIME DURATION FOR TEST:  60.00 MINUTES

*WAITING FOR SIGNAL FROM NEURAL INTERLINK HEADSET

Ranma sat back and contemplated the machine assembled in front of him in 
his private lab.  He was hardly able to believe that it was finally 
finished.  Two years of working with the equations and schematics from 
that strange dream, about a month of carefully assembling a mishmash of 
prototype components, and it was now done.  The quantum neural resonator 
was finally finished, and now he was finally going to prove that his 
father was right.

Ranma picked up the neural induction headset.  All of his numerous 
calculations told him it should work, and every piece of the device had 
been checked and re-checked.  If he was going to do it, it might as well 
be now.  The random search module was active but would not engage until 
he put the headset on.  That would give the system a comparison model to 
use as it began searching for a likely quantum signature match.

Ranma could have used one of the alternate timeline coordinates that he 
had already obtained during his earlier limited tests, but he decided 
that the first full-powered test should be to a new parallel scanned 
from scratch.  That way would test the complete system, from initial 
scan to final recall.

Ranma took the precaution of locking the lab door, and the recall mode 
for the resonator had already been set for an hour.  That should give me 
sufficient time to look around, he mused.

Ranma settled back onto the couch in his lab.  The headset rested easily 
onto his head, the background hum of the resonator feeling like a faint 
tickle along the inside of his skull.  Like bees humming in my head, he 
thought.  He tried to relax and make himself comfortable.

This is it, thought Ranma, feeling a little nervous.  This was going to 
be his first attempt at total immersion.  I wonder what it will feel 
like?

In the background, the computer spoke in gentle tones, its artificial 
voice repeating over and over for several seconds as it scanned through 
the alternate timelines, "Searching...searching...searching...."

Suddenly, it spoke the words that he had been waiting for, "Quantum 
signature match found.  Initiating upload cycle."

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

*** Earth  +1.614,+1.502

There was a brief and mildly disturbing moment of dislocation, of a sort 
of non-existence, and then Ranma found himself in another place, another 
life.  After a few moments of adjustment, as he blinked his eyes, an 
unexpected rush of memories from that other life filled his awareness.  
It was distracting and even more disorienting, leaving him confused a 
moment by his surroundings, so he didn't immediately realize that 
someone had been addressing him.

"Saotome!" shouted an angry male voice.  "Have you fallen asleep in my 
class again?  What is the answer to the question?"

Ranma looked up in surprise at the annoyed-looking instructor who was 
shouting at him and blinked again, before glancing around himself 
quickly.  A classroom full of students looked back at him, and the 
uniforms even looked similar to the ones that he was used to, only the 
colors were different.  Ranma patted at his clothes and realized that he 
wasn't wearing a uniform.  How strange, he thought.

To add to his surprise, Akane Tendo was sitting behind him and glaring 
at him.  She was even wearing her hair the same way that he remembered 
from his home timeline.  Ranma looked puzzled, and Akane pointed at her 
text with a final glare.  He turned around, glanced down at a similar 
book in front of him, and flipped to the same page.  Luckily for him, it 
was apparently a mathematics class.  A rather easy mathematics class, in 
fact.

"The answer to the problem is the cube root of seventeen, sir," Ranma 
answered absently.

The instructor looked more than somewhat surprised, to say the least.  
"Th-that's right," he said, in a slightly stunned tone.  "You are 
correct, Saotome."  He started to ask another student about a different 
problem, still looking surprised.

"So you _did_ manage to study last night after all," a female voice 
stage-whispered behind him.  "I thought you were too busy training 
nowadays for Ryoga's challenge.  Did you decide that school has value 
after all?"

"I, uh, found the time later," Ranma whispered back.  Who the heck is 
Ryoga, and what is this about a challenge that this Ranma is so busy 
training for?

The answers to his questions refused to come to him, and the very 
randomness of the memories that were becoming available to him was 
almost maddening.  It was like trying to read all of the books in a 
library by pulling stray pages from each book and reading them all mixed 
up.  However, as moments went by, the memories were slowly beginning to 
sort themselves out.

Ranma sat at his desk and found himself somewhat overwhelmed by the 
memories of a life that he had never lived, but he found himself rather 
intrigued by them too.  This Ranma had traveled for over ten years with 
his father to learn martial arts, a curious parallel, and his life was a 
rather confusing kaleidoscope of random memories.  Short flashes of 
events seen, people met, and various fighting techniques learned filled 
his mind.

For a brief moment, a strong image of a valley of pools of water filled 
his mind, but it was quickly gone before he could clearly focus on it.  
Jusenkyo?  Another strong image appeared in his thoughts, this time of a 
redheaded girl, somehow associated with the name of that place.  He felt 
that he should know this person, this girl that he was thinking of.

A new wave of memories flooded across his mind, of all the women that 
this Ranma was involved with.  Ties of honor bound him to most of them, 
often the results of actions by the Genma of this world.  This Ranma was 
engaged by his father to marry Akane Tendo, but several other girls also 
claimed him.  Many of their claims seemed equally valid.

Engaged to marry Akane Tendo?  The very thought made Ranma feel slightly 
ill.  From this Ranma's memories, he could tell that Akane Tendo was 
perhaps as much of a thug here as the one that he knew from his own 
timeline.  Ranma found himself feeling sorry for the poor fool, but he 
felt even more surprised when he sensed strong feelings of love and 
affection for Akane associated with the memories.  However, they were 
somewhat deeply buried beneath thick layers of denial.

Ranma Saotome loves Akane Tendo?  As he thought about that, Ranma stared 
out the window.  Ranma Saotome is in love with a brutish, angry girl who 
constantly beats him up?  This Ranma needs some serious mental help, he 
concluded.

Ranma continued looking out the window as he mused on the very strange 
life of his quantum counterpart.

The bell rang while Ranma was still pondering these things.

Lunchtime, Ranma realized with a start, and his stomach suddenly rumbled 
softly.  He looked at the clock on the wall.  I have about fifty minutes 
before recall occurs, he observed.

Ranma sat at his other self's desk for a minute before the smell of food 
from his bookbag finally got the better of him.  He pulled out his 
lunch, and set it on his desk as his mind wandered.  Whatever it was, it 
smelled fantastic.  He felt his mouth salivate.

Even though the snowstorm of memories was finally settling down, it was 
not too surprising to him that most of the memories of this Ranma's life 
were rather incomplete.  Apparently immersion into another life did not 
immediately provide complete access to all of the memories from that 
life.

Perhaps I'll have to set the timer for longer next time, thought Ranma 
with a faint smile.  That should let me get a better feel for the life 
of one of my quantum doppelgangers.

Ranma felt a tap on the back of his skull.

"Are you just going to sit there and ignore me through all of lunch?" 
asked Akane from behind him.  The sound of her annoyed voice disturbed 
his upcoming enjoyment of what smelled like a delicious lunch.

Ranma sighed softly, and turned around.

"Sorry about that," said Ranma pleasantly, which seemed to catch Akane 
off-guard.  "I was just thinking about some things and got distracted.  
I hope that you will accept my apology."  He thought that if he managed 
to sound meek enough, it would act to defuse the infamous Akane Tendo 
wrath.

Akane softened her gaze at Ranma's apology, which surprised him a lot.  
His own Akane had never looked at him with even the slightest amount of 
softness or warmth, occasionally with amusement when she was tossing him 
around or hitting him.  She apparently just saw him as some sort of a 
weakling, since he hadn't spent his life learning how to break bricks 
with his fists like she had done.  However, based on the differences 
that he was seeing in his own quantum duplicate's life, it should have 
been no surprise that the Akane Tendo of another timeline could be 
vastly changed as well.

This Akane did feel different, and Ranma had to revise his opinion of 
her a little and try not to think of her as being like his own Akane.  
In this world, Akane Tendo was a fairly ordinary girl, for the most 
part.  She wasn't training to be a member of the Imperial Security 
Directorate, and she had been on a few minor adventures with the Ranma 
of this world.

Maybe if I don't do or say anything that this Ranma normally did to make 
her mad, she might even smile at me, he mused.  A puzzled look suddenly 
crossed his features briefly.

Where the hell did _that_ thought come from?  He blinked a moment in 
sudden confusion.

"Are you okay, Ranma?" asked Akane, looking at him in mild concern.

"I'm fine, Akane," he replied.  He even risked a smile, and she smiled 
in return.

"Nihao, Ranma!" suddenly spoke up a perky female voice behind his head.  
The pleasant look on Akane's face darkened into a scowl, and she turned 
her head aside with a slight huffing sound.

Ranma turned around to see a bouncy female body to match the perky 
voice.  She was sitting perched in the window, holding a delivery box.  
Shampoo, his new memories prompted, proud Chinese Amazon warrior girl.  
He smiled at her, and she smiled in return.

"Ranma happy to see Shampoo?"  The girl leaped at him in a single bound 
and hugged him without dropping her delivery box.  Ranma had never been 
greeted by a beautiful girl like this before, it was more than a little 
pleasant.  He started to return the hug, but a quivering at the back of 
his skull made him glance behind him.  Akane was glaring at him again.

"Ranma," slowly said a furious Akane, "what do you think that you're 
doing?"

"I was about to give Shampoo a hug."  The words seemed to just slip out 
before he could think about the possible repercussions.  "What do you 
think about that?"

"DIE, RANMA!" Akane screamed.  She picked up and threw a random desk at 
the couple for further emphasis of her point.  She sure changes her 
moods quickly, Ranma thought in amazement.

The pigtailed boy reacted without thinking, grabbing Shampoo and jumping 
over the hurtling desk, which promptly sailed out the window.  It 
managed to do so, amazingly enough, without even touching any of the 
edges of the open window.  A loud crash was heard from below a few 
moments later.

"Ranma save Shampoo from violent girl!" exulted the Chinese girl in his 
arms, and promptly began snuggling in his arms happily.  Many romantic 
visions of Ranma's heroism danced in her head, and she began to make 
purring sounds as she snuggled against him.  Ranma felt like he had died 
and gone to Heaven.

"Ranchan?" asked a new female voice, edged with anger, one that his 
fragmentary memories didn't recall immediately.  "What do you think 
you're doing?"  A large metal object attempted to pry Shampoo out of his 
grip, and another girl was on the end of it.

Ukyo Kuonji, Ranma's new memories flashed up, only recently-arrived as a 
new transfer student.  She was an okonomiyaki chef and also engaged to 
Ranma.  He quickly let go of Shampoo, and Ukyo pried the Amazon off of 
him.  She then immediately moved between himself and Shampoo.

"You stay away from Ranma, you Chinese bimbo!" Ukyo snarled out.  She 
took up an aggressive stance, her combat spatula at the ready.  Ranma 
thought he saw a blue glow swirl around her body for a moment, but he 
decided that it had to have been a trick of the light.

"Ranma is husband of Shampoo, stupid spatula girl!" Shampoo yelled back.  
She took up a combat stance of her own, looking ready for anything, and 
Ranma saw that same blue light effect for a moment.  He rubbed his eyes, 
and it was gone.

Perhaps it's some sort of visual illusion caused by some sort of mild 
phase imbalance, Ranma thought.  One that was too subtle to be able to 
be compensated for by his equipment.

The two girls continued to glare at each other, apparently waiting to 
see who made the first move.  I've never had women wanting to fight over 
me before, Ranma thought with mild envy, as he marveled at the novelty 
of the experience.  Both girls looked pretty determined to fight over 
him, and Akane just stood to one side and glowered at all three of them.

"Please don't fight," said Ranma, rather louder than he had intended.  
All three girls looked at him in surprise, and Akane was so surprised 
that she forgot to glare at him for a moment.  "I just wanted to eat my 
lunch in peace today."

"Shampoo brought you delicious lunch," declared the Amazon, as if daring 
anyone to question the fact.  She grabbed her delivery box off of a 
nearby desk and pulled out a bowl of something.  Shampoo whipped it 
under his nose, a steaming bowl of ramen noodles, and then smirked at 
Ukyo.

"I've got your lunch right here, Ranchan," Ukyo said quickly.  A small 
grill suddenly appeared as if from nowhere, and a blur of cooking took 
place.  Faster than Ranma would have imagined possible, Ukyo presented 
him with a plateful of okonomiyaki while she stuck her tongue out at 
Shampoo.

Ranma felt that he was rapidly reaching the limits of his ability to 
deal with the female of the species.  The whole situation was simply 
bizarre to him, despite its earlier appeal.  The two women nearest him 
alternated adoring looks in his direction with murderous gazes at each 
other.  Akane just looked upset at all three of them equally.

"Uh, that's fine," said Ranma mildly.  "Just put it on my desk, and I'll 
try to eat it all."  He sat down and started to eat the original lunch 
that he had brought out, and two more full lunches were immediately set 
down next to it by the two girls.  Both of them sat down at two of the 
recently-vacated desks next to him and sighed as they watched him eat.  
Akane just kept glaring in the trio's direction.

I think I could get used to this, thought Ranma, as he ate with a smile.  
Akane moved off to eat with some of the other girls in class, still 
glaring at the pigtailed boy.

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

Ranma suddenly shook his head to clear it.  The clock on the wall read 
an hour later than he last remembered it.  Did I fall asleep sitting up?  
He frowned, then a worse thought occurred to him.  He missed lunch!  Yet 
he didn't feel hungry, which was odd.  Ranma decided that he would have 
to ask Akane if he had missed anything important.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of my readers for their comments and 
suggestions.  A special thanks goes out to D.B. Sommer for his welcome 
assistance with my clumsy writing, and also to Michael Allen for his 
help with the pseudo-science and several plot points.
