Ranma was deep in thought.

It wasn’t exactly unusual for him; anyone who knew him—or thought that they knew him—though, would have given their healthy disagreement to that.

He’d noticed the way that Akane and Ukyou had reacted to each other, and how they’d seemed to want to take all of his attention away from the other. Had Nabiki not shown up when she did, he might have said something about it…although, the more he thought about it, the more fortunate he found himself to be by Nabiki’s interruption; he might have said something to start another argument, and that he didn’t need, if for no other reason than because he needed to concentrate on this fight.

But even as he was going over every possible move he might have to use to counter an attack, part of his mind wouldn’t let go of the image of Akane and Ukyou. Of all his so-called fiancees, the two of them had the greatest chance of being his wife. Even if Shampoo—Xhian Pu, he mentally corrected himself; he’d gotten into the habit of calling her "Shampoo" just like every one else had—had a better body than Akane or Ukyou, there was more to having a wife than just a nice body. There was the little downside of being constantly drugged, duped, tricked, and poisoned by Shampoo and her old hag of a great-grandmother, Cologne. Shampoo had her moments, like last night, when she could be almost a friend. He figured, though, that those moments were designed to, at the least, make her seem more "well-rounded" as a person, rather than one-dimensionally labeled as "Amazon warrior princess", and at the other end of the spectrum, to keep him continually off-balance around her, so that he wouldn’t know which way was up when she and her ghoul of a great-grandmother finally sprung the trap that this was all a part of. Then, of course, there were the equally-constant death threats and assassination attempts by Mousse, for so much as even breathing the same air as his "beloved Shampoo". It might not be so bad if he at least pretended to listen to reason, but when it came to Shampoo, he was pretty much ‘not all there’. If he’d had any interests in Shampoo before Mousse came into the picture, he had none, now. Bottom line: Shampoo had about as much chance of being his wife as a snowball in hell. The only thing that stung him about her was that she, like Ukyou, was trying to "win" him because of honor. Akane’s excuse was only that it was a matter of family honor; he didn’t believe for a moment that she had any real desire for him to be in her life. But, honor dictated the problems that had come into his life, and had done so from the moment he’d stepped into the Tendo home. Honor. And in the end, he could point a finger at one person, who was to blame for all of this. Genma, his father. It was his father’s agreement with Tendo Soun before he’d even been born that had gotten him engaged to Akane, and it was his father’s stomach and lying to Kunoji-san that had gotten him honor-bound to marry Ukyou, and it was his father’s greed that had led to him trying to save the old man’s ungrateful life that had gotten him chased down by the ancient laws of some nearly forgotten tribe of Amazon women. Always, it was his father’s fault that he’d been put where he was.

But what have you done about it? His mind shot back at him. He let out a mental sigh. Nothing, he answered wearily. And it was true. Although his father had put him into the situations he was now a part of, he’d done nothing himself to get out of them. His main concern was in hurting any of the people involved; despite what his father had tried to beat and train out of him, Ranma had a good heart. He didn’t actively try to hurt anyone, physically, or emotionally, if he could help it. And he didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, didn’t want to see the tears welling up in one of his fiancees’ eyes as he crushed her hopes and dreams of a married life with him, didn’t want to have to face the fact that his presence—and his indecisiveness—which held the balance between the problems his father had created for him, and utter chaos, between a life which vaguely resembled normalcy, and a life of solitude. He hadn’t wanted this, not any of it, and—he thought this with a flash of maturity beyond himself—he was too young to have to deal with life at this volume.

But how could he make it all stop? How could he make a choice that wouldn’t end up tearing his already fragile life apart?

Ukyou was also deep in thought.

She was known for thinking, for being one of those people in Nerima who actually thought before they acted, or reacted, as the case might be. So this was quite normal for her. Her thoughts, however, were of a darker bend than Ranma’s thoughts were.

She had been riding the high from last night, having spent it in bed with Ranma, knowing without a doubt that she had gotten closer to him, in a physical sense, than any of the other ‘fiancees’ had. Had she chosen to, she could have maybe been the one to "claim" his virginity, the only thing of himself that he could give just once, to only one person. She wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure that he was still a virgin. She could have even been his wife, by matter of default; being pregnant by him would have been all it would have taken. And, incidently, it would have salvaged her tarnished honor. Or, at least she hoped it would. She desperately hoped that marrying Ranma would give her back her honor.

She’d long ago stopped placing any blame for her loss of honor on Ranma; it was his father who’d made the decision to screw up her life. He’d been the one to take

-steal-

the family yatta cart, leaving her behind, her father fuming, and the entire neighborhood questioning her worth as a future wife. Her family, like many others of the area in which she grew up, were the last of the Traditionalists. This meant a number of things, such as:

her family made and stuck by such traditional practices and promises like arranged marriages. To hear her grandmother talk of it—when her family was talking to her, that was—their family had never failed to follow through on an arranged marriage, unless war or death kept the two intendeds apart.

the female of the house were the property of the male; sons respected their mothers, but could still command them once they’d become men, and their word was law, only overruled by the "ruling" male of the house.

while the family name was passed down through the mother, the father was still the ruler of the family; whatever he said, was. So, if he decided to set her up to marry someone, there was no way she could refuse.

women were largely seen, but little heard, and had nearly no voice when it came to discussing matters of family importance; therefore, neither her mother nor her grandmother could "rescue" her, when her father decided to announce that he no longer had a daughter.

She could remember that night with as much emptiness and heartache as easily as she could the previous night of joy and bliss with Ranma. From the moment her father finished his declaration, no one in the family spoke to her. Not a word. Her father waited until after the evening meal, then took all of her belongings, save a few changes of clothing and a blanket, and set them out in the firepit. She remembered frantically trying to get her father to stop what he was doing; when that failed, she had run to the pile of belongings, and flung herself atop them, daring her father to burn her, too. It hadn’t truly dawned on her, until then, that he was deadly serious in his words, not until she’d felt the mildly burning sensation and acrid fumes of the kerosene as he’d poured it on her, and her things. But, even then, she’d held onto a thread of hope, right up until he come back, baring a chunk of burning wood. He’d hesitated, definitely, but only for the barest of moments. His eyes had held a memory of warmth, of love, and of a desperate wish of things he believed would no longer come true. Then they’d hardened, and he’d swung the chunk of wood, preparing to launch it into the firepit.

That was when Ukyou’s courage had fled her, all hope dashed forever, and she’d sprung up from the fuel-soaked wood just barely in time to keep from catching fire.

That night she spent soaking in the little town’s public washing bath, alone—for her father’s pronouncement had been made well known—trying to wash off all of the kerosene. She’d been allowed to return to the house, but still no words had been spoken. The only communication she received from her father was the next morning, when she’d awaken to find a letter on the pallet next to her.

It was the last time she’d had any words from her father as a girl. She had done all she’d been asked, and when she’d turned sixteen, proclaimed herself a man, and taken up vengeance against the Saotomes. By then, she’d decided to give up on being a woman anymore, and had sought to murder both Saotome men. Kami would only be so cruel as to have her not only be beaten—and so easily—by Ranma, but to fall in love with him. Oh, she’d satisfied her family honor—she’d bled Saotome Genma quite a bit before relenting and deciding not to take his life. She’d written of what she’d done, and had made Genma add his own verification to it, then had it certified with the local government administration, and then sent it to her father. Now, all that remained was to reclaim her personal honor. If she did that, her father would be proud of her, of his daughter, Kunoji Ukyou, once again. And speaking of him; he would have chided her for not taking advantage of Saotome last night. But she was determined to win this battle, fair and square, no matter what her father’s words of "by any means that it shall take" were supposed to mean.

Akane wasn’t left out of the mental gymnastics, either.

A larger part of her thoughts were occupied by the fact of how easily she’d been… ‘controlled’, was the only word she could think of to use. That creep didn’t even have the decency to dodge her attacks, like Ranma did—he just deflected them, like she was nothing more than a child, simply flailing her arms in a temper tantrum! Even when Ranma was being a condescending jerk, he at least treated her like she was a peer. That part of her that was righteously pissed for not only not being able to land a punch, but to be treated as if her efforts didn’t even matter!

Being a martial artist was part and parcel of who Akane defined herself to be. And, up until about two years ago—minus a few months, of course—she’d been the best in the whole of the Nerima prefecture. There had been no one who could challenge her—and there had been many who had tried. From the day that Kuno Tatewaki, in the third level at the time, had made his incredibly idiotic proclamation, she’d had to put her skills to use, every morning. By the time Ranma had shown up, she had of course by then proclaimed to hate boys, and she did, too—because they were so childish!—but she’d also gotten to the point where she almost looked forward to the morning fights. If nothing else, it was a challenge to her, during a time when she’d become the best of Nerima, and challenges had become few and far in between.

But then Ranma had come, and so had Ryoga, Shampoo, and all the rest, and suddenly she was back at the bottom of the pecking order. That had been what had infuriated her most of all, that first night that she and Ranma had truly met each other, in the bathroom. It was learning that the girl she’d thought would be her friend, would be her confidant, who would finally be the world-rounded challenge that she desperately wanted, was in all truth a BOY, with all the condescension and prejudice and immaturity that she knew boys to be capable of. How could she even contemplate a friendship with a BOY, who didn’t have the experiences that she had, who didn’t have the knowledges she had as a young woman, who didn’t have the maturity she had, who didn’t know anything about what it was to be a girl? How could she have a BOY as a friend, when all boys did, in her limited experiences, was to try to force a girl to like them? And it hadn’t helped that both Saotome-san and her father were in on it, too, trying to force her—just like a boy!!—to like this boy named Ranma.

But it was deeper than that. Ever since her mother had died, she’d felt so alone. She’d had nothing to grab hold of, like Kasumi had had with cooking and taking care of the household, or like Nabiki had with managing the family finances. She was too young to learn how to help cook with Kasumi, and she didn’t have the innate ability to grasp complex numbers like Nabiki; she’d felt so useless. But, then she’d watched Father one day, dive across the kitchen to catch a teacup that had accidently slipped from Kasumi’s fingers, catch the cup, tuck and roll, and spring back up to his feet, all in one smooth motion. She knew that, at sometime in the future, Father would be gone, he would leave, just like Mother had, and she wanted to be able to be the person that Kasumi and Nabiki depended on, like Father, to fix things, to save them, to be their hero. And so, her training had begun, contrary to her Father’s belief, from the moment she’d uttered the words at him:

"Show me how to do that"

It had taken her the better part of a year before he relented and began teaching her. And it had become her lifeline, both to her Father, and to her self-believed destiny. She would have her Father with her for as long as she could, and when he wasn’t around anymore, then she would take up his mantle. It had been what she’d come to believe was what kept her whole, in a world where people and circumstances threatened everyday to drive her mad.

And then Ranma had come.

It was the further realization, with Ranma’s arrival, and her father’s wish to marry her to him, that he was going to turn her world upside down. No longer would she be by her father’s side; Ranma would take her away from him. No longer would she be able to be her family’s savior; Ranma, even if he weren’t more skilled in the Art than she, by virtue of being a man, would take up that role. No longer would she be called the best in the Art, for he was so much better at it than she was that her skills compared to his were like those of a raw beginner to her own. Ranma was going to take her, and make her into nothing.

It was that final understanding that put Ranma into the category in her mind that he was in.

But that was just another piece of the larger puzzle. Because now, after almost two years, she knew that she could no longer force him into that place in her mind now. Because, he’d begun settling into her heart. And she couldn’t drive him out; even worse, she had no wish to. She wanted him, more than she would ever say to him, more than she would ever admit to herself. And that scared her. It scared her for too many reasons, but the top three reasons it scared her were because one, if he could come and replace her father in her heart as the most important man

-boy-

in her life, then what would happen when another came along and did the same? Could she trust in her feelings, feelings she had been denying for years? Two, if Ranma’s arrival was what she feared it to be, then who would she be, then? Just the wife of Saotome Ranma, world’s greatest marial artist, and nothing more, with no identity to herself? And finally, the darkest reason: the most important person in the world to her, before her father, had been snatched away from her when she’d needed that person the most; would the same thing happen to Ranma, if she let him come to mean that much to her?

It was the fuel that drove her to such lengths, to insult him when the little voice in her head told her not to, to blame him for everything that happened to her, to pound upon him when she was angry, to make him seem so much less in her eyes than he truly was. For if she could make him less than he was, then maybe she could loose the grip he had on her heart. And maybe she could stop fearing for her identity. And maybe she could stop praying that her love for him meant that he would die, and leave her alone. Again.

Nabiki was in a world of her own. Her thoughts were unlike those of Akane or Ukyou, were about as far away from Ranma as could be... which was to say, not far at all.

Of course, she was concerned about the coming fight between Ranma and Yokara. From a strictly business sense, she wasn’t going to be making much money; the phone call that had reached her just before she’d gone out the door had been from one of her more trusted associates, one of whom usually could give a reasonable prediction of the way things would go, odds-wise, without even having to see the fight. And he’d told her that he had a feeling that just about everyone, not having known what they knew about the new guy, would bet overwhelmingly on Ranma. Normally, that would be good news to her, that the bet would go her way, but in this case, ‘the people’, as she sometimes thought of them, didn’t have an underdog to root for. It was how she made her money, mostly; in a fight between Ranma and Mousse, of course the winner would be Ranma, but he was a serious challenge to Ranma, and therefore, there would be those, sometimes just for the sheer folly of it, who would bet on Mousse for some of the more unpredictable aspects of the fight. In this case, ‘the people’ didn’t know about Yokara, and so, they wouldn’t bet much on him. Oh, she’d clear some money, but not much, and that was part of what had her mind so occupied.

There was another part of her mind, however, that wasn’t so concerned about the money she would or wouldn’t make on this fight. That part of her mind, having been given an unaccostumed amount of free reign, was running wild and rampant now in its freedom. And, it had seized upon the subject of the combatants of the upcoming match, both of them, for the most part, but specifically speaking, her mind was more focused on Yokara, than Ranma.

Certainly, her mind was playing at the fringes of speculation regarding Ranma. Just what was it about him that made her feel the way that she did sometimes? And, why did she have the unnerving suspicion that something of the same sort was going to happen with her in regards to Yokara? Mogadishu-san, she mentally corrected herself; she was already thinking of the man on a first-name basis, almost intimately speaking, even. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, not at all, but in light of the unguarded nature of her thoughts, the truth was making itself self-evident.

There had been a moment, during their... meal—she had no other word to use to think of what she’d partaken of with him—when his hand had, by accident, just barely brushed against her own. And in that moment, she’d felt some of the same frission that she often felt when Ranma touched her in some way. She’d also felt the a sense of deja vu, although Yokara was about as different from Ranma as two people could be. Additionally, she also felt that same vague but well-known pull in her lower regions for a moment or two after he’d touched her, the same feeling she had in the mornings after dreaming about Ranma. She’d been far more disturbed by these feelings and sensations that she would want to ever have to admit to anyone, and she’d been just a little bit glad that Akane and Ranma had happened by when they had; any longer, and she believed that Yokara—an unusually observant person, in her experience with the people of Nerima—would have known something was wrong with her.

The interruption had given her time to recompose herself, and face Yokara with something approaching calm when he’d suddenly come back to her, and asked her if she’d tell Ranma about the fight. Thinking about it some more, she realized, she’d had the same reaction all over again, even then, even when he wasn’t touching her; was it something about him because he was a martial artist? Or was it just something about him, that made her feel like she did? She wasn’t sure, and she was glad when he’d turned around and left the three of them to get ready for his match. She was also glad for the fact that neither Akane nor Ranma was observant enough to know that she hadn’t been completely "all there" when they’d begun walking home.

Just what was it about him that had her reacting this way? Nabiki didn’t like mysteries, especially if they were about her. She’d never liked that, not even when she’d been a child, and especially after her mother had died. Her mother and father had kept her mother’s illness a secret from Nabiki and her sisters until nearly her mother’s death; Father had only told them of how sick she was when she’d had to go to the hospital, and by then, there wasn’t anything that the doctors could do for Mother. Once she’d learned of Mother’s sickness, she’d been furious that no one had thought to tell her about it. And she’d become even more furious when she found her questions being patiently diverted from the answers she sought. Especially from the doctors, who she knew knew more than they were telling her; they seemed to believe that as a child, that she should be kept in the dark about such things. Even Father refused to tell her anything, at least in the beginning, and with Kasumi trying to take Mother’s place, and Akane needing someone to mother her, and with Father’s increasing withdrawal from everyone, there was no one there for Nabiki. And when Mother finally passed away, Father stopped coming down to dinner, and Akane needed Kasumi to be her mother, and so Nabiki had no one. And she’d felt alone, and discarded. These two things combined to bring out a side of Nabiki that no one had seen before, a more mercenary side of her that hadn’t existed-- or at least, not existed in a true, formal, and lasting sense-- before, but one that would with frightening speed replace the normally alert, good-natured and happy side of her that had been before Mother’s illness.

It was this side of herself that she used when Mother passed away, and Kasumi was, on a daily basis, becoming more and more worried about the household finances. She badgered Kasumi to tell her what was wrong, until she finally broke and mentioned her worries about the money. Nabiki didn’t bat an eyelash; she simply sat down, and looked over the figures, almost teaching herself how to budget, until it began to make sense. And when it did, she knew what had to be done. And from that time on, Nabiki knew what had to be done, in order to keep the financial foundation of the house stable. She knew that she would do whatever was necessary in order to keep everyone safe, especially with Father suddenly not taking new students to pass the Art on to. She was determined that there would be no more hiding of anything from her, especially if it concerned her family. She would not lose another person without finding out everything she could know, without exhausting every method she could afford; she would not go through the feelings she had with Mother’s death, again. Because it was Mother, it was something she could deal with. But she would let no one would get to her like that, no one would have that power over her like that, not ever again.

It was how she had come to be the person she was, today. Nabiki kind of liked that she seemed to be more or less cold and unfeeling towards anyone; it kept them from trying too hard to get to know her, to find out about her, to make the effort to get into her heart. It kept her from having to try not to care, from having to pretend that she didn’t still feel alone and unwanted, from feeling sometimes that she’d be better off dead. And she could pretend that she was above the petty emotional games of every one else, that she actually didn’t have a heart to feel unwhole with, that she didn’t sometimes cry herself to sleep at night feeling like she’d never have what she was too afraid to admit that she wanted. She could bottle up all of those dreadful things called "emotions" and lock them away, not for safekeeping, but to keep them out of anyone else’s hands. What she’d learned about herself that long ago day, when she’d transformed herself into the person she was now, had given her the ability to make herself into whomever she wanted to be. It had given her control of the one thing she could control with absolute ruthlessness: herself. To lose control, would be to lose herself.

It wasn’t like her to react this way to someone, especially someone she didn’t know all that well. For her to react like this, she knew, meant that somehow, he had managed to slip right past her usual safeguards; she didn’t let anyone into her thoughts and feelings like that, and it had even taken more than a year for Ranma to get into that same place she only held for her father and sisters. It was enough that she really didn’t like that Ranma had managed to work his way into her heart-- she’d stopped using him so much in her money-making schemes, because she was beginning to care about how he felt about it-- she really didn’t need to have yet another person squirming their way into her feelings, too. And she’d have to do something about that. And, she thought about it as they walked into the park, I think I know just how to begin.

Mogadishu Yokara, surprisingly, wasn’t doing a lot of thinking.

Instead, he was concentrating more on the upcoming fight, than anything else. He’d backed himself up into this corner, and now he had to figure out a way to work this to his advantage. His mind was working furiously as he donned his fighting gear.

It hadn’t been his plan to have to fight Saotome Ranma, but it seemed as if that were now an inevitability. What he had to figure out, most importantly, was whether or not Ranma was any good—despite what he’d heard about the boy—and if he was, how to hold back enough to keep from hurting him. Not long ago, it wouldn’t have been anything to worry about; his martial arts skills had really only been a little better than those of a raw beginner. But his time in China, at those cursed springs, that had been the turning point in his life for a lot of things.

The guardian of those springs had told him about Saotome Ranma, pointed him in the direction of the Chinese Amazons, and asked him if he would need a guide. At the time—and rather foolishly, he had later thought—he’d declined, thinking that it might be more to his advantage to appear to be wandering and lost, rather than purposefully looking for them. Even without the guide’s warning, he’d heard about who and what Amazons were supposed to be. If the Chinese version was anything like the kind he’d read about in his history books, then he already knew he’d have to be careful.

By the time he’d finally reached the trail leading to the Amazons, he’d been fortunate enough to have obtained something that he could use to get their attention. But then again, he had already had their attention by the time he’d reached the guarded passage into the village. And he’d known, even before they knew of him, that they were there, the warrior women who seemed to be guarding the trail. But, they didn’t attack him. The woman at the "guard post", however, stalked up to him, and demanded, in Chinese, that he turn around and go back the way he had come, or he would be killed. Before the springs, other than English he’d only known some decent amounts of Japanese, and about a smattering of Chinese. But, again, the springs were a turning point, and by now, he understood every word she’d said. On the spot, he decided to act in deferrence to her, and said:

"Warrior woman, I am but a single traveler, a male, who intends no harm. I have only a wish to ask your elders a few questions, and then continue on my journey." To complete his "act", he even bowed his head. For a few moments, it was very quiet…quiet enough for Yokara to hear the slight groaning of the wood and minute twang of a bow and string being tested; someone- at least one of them, was nocking an arrow to fire at him.

"If you think I am a danger to your village, then deal with me face to face, warriors," he said, his head still bowed, "or, should I call you girls?"

If he’d been looking for a reaction, he got one. He sprung straight up four meters, looking down and watching, almost as if in slow motion, as four arrows drove into the ground where he’d stood a moment before. He came back to his feet only an instant after all five women had rushed out into the open, looking at him with a combination of rage and wonder. He took advantage of the surprise they showed.

"I mean no disrespect," he said, "but a true warrior faces her opponent." This got him five angry women, all of whom suddenly shifted into martial arts stances. "I do not wish to fight," he continued, making himself sound hasty to the women, so that they might hold off just a moment more, "I only wish to speak with an elder, then I will be gone. Is that too much to ask?"

"Yes," replied one of the women, "You are nothing but a male, and an outsider male at that. What right do you have to ask to speak with the Elders?"

"I have something they might find useful enough to answer a question for me."

"What is it that you have?" asked another woman.

"A scroll," he said, taking it out of his pack, and showing it to them, "but only an Elder may open it, so I was told."

"Give it to me, and I will give it to an Elder," said a third woman.

"But what of my question?" Yokara asked.

"You are an outsider male," the guard spoke, "you will do as we say, or we will kill you."

Yokara opened his mouth to comment, but decided to be silent.

"What have you to say?" asked the second woman, defiantly, as if challenging him.

"What would I have to do to be able to speak with an Elder?" he asked.

"You are an outsider male; there is nothing you can do," she replied. Yokara dubbed her the "leader" of the bunch, probably the oldest and most experienced.

"So how would I become an ‘insider’?"

"You would have to defeat one of us," she said, almost smugly.

Yokara smiled, and then decided to say what was on his mind this time. "Oh, is that all?"

Inwardly, he was laughing; outwardly, he kept his calm. As one, the women started at his question, then glowered at him.

"You should not be so cocky," the ‘leader’ said, "we are highly skilled in martial arts, and no male has ever beaten any of us."

"There’s a first time for everything," Yokara said.

The ‘leader’ glared at him, although he did notice that one or two of them seemed to be highly interested in his claims. After a moment, one of them shot a hand up into the air.

"I will challenge him!" she said. The ‘leader’ turned to look at her.

"Is she the best of you?" Yokara taunted. The volunteer looked at him in warning.

"No, but she should be more than enough for you," the ‘leader’ said.

Yokara was silent for a moment. "Well, I only wish to challenge the best," he said.

Again, for a moment, all was quiet. The ‘leader’ then spoke.

"Hiara Bruz, go tell everyone that we have a challenger. Xra Chi, you go with her; watch her back. Ba Reht, Xiora Cap, you two will witness this outsider male’s death." She finished her words by dropping into a modified back stance.

"And what is your name, warrior woman?" Yokara asked.

"I am called Baora Saop. And you, who will soon to be wishing for death?"

"You may call me Yokara-sama," he said, now smiling brightly.

Enraged by his final taunt, Baora Saop attacked.

In the end, after more than twenty minutes of dodging and deflecting her attacks, Baora Saop fell one final time to the ground, exhausted, and could not get back up. Yokara had not acted offensively once.

Yokara walked over to where she lay, and offered her a hand up. Even if she couldn’t move very well under her own power, she glared at him, and tried to slap his hand away.

"Suit yourself," Yokara said, and turned around to find himself facing what seemed to be the greater population of the village. He was genuinely surprised; he’d been concentrating on the fight to the extent that he hadn’t noticed everyone else appearing behind he and Baora Saop. Many of the villagers were upset; mainly, this was the male contingent of the town. Some of the women were likewise upset, but not in the same way that the men were. He heard more than one piece of conversation in which the word "husband" came up; he was hoping that her husband wouldn’t decide to try to "defend her virtue" or anything like that.

Suddenly, the crowd became quiet. They parted, and through them walked a older woman, wizened in appearance, though her eyes seemed quite sharp. She walked out of the crowd, seemingly with the aid of a staff taller than she, and came to within feet of the still surprised Yokara.

"So, outsider," she began, her voice low, but strong, "by what name do you go by?"

"I am called Mogadishu Yokara, elder one," he replied, giving her what he thought to be a respectable bow.

"So I am an Elder, huh?" she smiled with her tone of voice.

"I cannot say," Yokara replied, "but I know when I meet someone who is older and wiser than I am; to me, that person is an Elder."

"Well, you have guessed correctly, Yo-kun," she replied. Yokara flinched at the casual shortening and youthful application of his name. "Oh, so you don’t like my pet name for you, child?" she said, the barest hint of a smile on her face, "Well, deal with it. While you may have earned the right to marry one of our tribe members—"

"Marry?!?" Yokara interrupted, and was immediately bopped upon the head. "Ow!" He looked at her crossly.

The Elder seemed not to notice. "As I was saying, you may have earned the right to marry one of our tribe members, but you will have to earn respect. I can see that you will need a lot of training on how to properly behave towards women."

"May I interrupt you for a moment, honored Elder?" Yokara asked, warily watching her movements with her staff.

"Speak, child," she said, giving him permission.

"Honored Elder, I have no wish to marry at this time—"

"What you wish isn’t important, child. You have defeated one of our champion warriors; by our laws, you are to be her husband." One woman, who Yokara identified as Ba Reht, who had been the one to volunteer to fight with him in the first place, sprinted over to the Elder, and whispered something in her ear. "No??" said the Elder in some surprise. Ba Reht shook her head.

"Well," she said, turning back to Yokara, "it is but a technicality; when she is able to stand, she’ll kiss you, and you will be her husband."

Yokara was quiet for a moment, absorbing this information.

"But not until then?" he asked.

"No," the Elder said, "but as I said, it is but a technicality."

Again, Yokara paused to gather his thoughts. "Honored Elder, I think what I can offer you would be worth more to you than my marriage to Baora Saop."

"Offer me?" she asked, almost seeming to be flirting with him.

"Honored Elder, what I have come to seek your audience is to trade, a scroll for a small bit of information." And before anything else could happen, he withdrew the scroll.

The Elder gazed lazily at the scroll for a moment or two; then surprise lit up her face, a gasp escaped her lips, and before Yokara could blink, she’d snatched the scroll from his hand.

"Come with me, Yokara-san," she said, causing the majority of everyone present to gasp, "You and I may speak with the other Elders. Baora Saop, you must find another to marry. This one cannot be yours, because he is not……he is not what he seems."

"But honored Elder—" Baora Saop began, still trying to get up from the ground; the Elder silenced her with a look.

"Baora Saop, Yokara-san is not of our people. There are reasons for why this is. I will not tell you more until I believe that you are ready. Until then, be silent, and know that you must find another to seek in marriage."

From that point on, Yokara was treated with a healthy dose of wariness by the villagers, combining of both respect and some small measure of fear, mostly resulting from mistrust and a lack of information; the Elders had spoken to no one else of why Yokara should be treated with respect, save Baora Saop, who then was ordered to treat Yokara as an equal—not as an outsider male, or even a village male, but an equal. She bristled at that for a while, unfamiliar with treating any male as an equal, but doing so—and discovering that he was not all that she’d been taught to believe all males, especially outsider males, were limited to.

From the Elders, Yokara had found out that Ranma had indeed been there, although it had been about a year since then. They remembered him, however, because of his great skill in the martial arts; one Elder compared Yokara to him, stating that it was a shame that he—Yokara—could not join their tribe, that such wonderful warrior stock could be gotten from his seed. Yokara had the temerity to be embarrassed by her words. He also had occasion to explain to the Elders about his visit to the springs, and they tested him, learning of his special… gift, that the waters had bestowed upon him. The Elder who had first spoken to him, Lo Xian, had found it ironic, and quite poetic, and altogether perfectly right, that he seek out Saotome Ranma to discuss this matter with.

Yokara had stayed in the village for three days, and then, supplied with foodstuffs from the village, he headed on his way to Japan.

And, unknown to Yokara, a month later, he was followed…. by Baora Saop.

In the here and now, however, Yokara finished dressing, pushed his thoughts away from the past, and trotted off to the park to meet with destiny.

Yokara’s reunion with Baora Saop won’t happen for a little while longer yet, anyway.

It only took Nabiki a few moments to gather up the three associates she knew would be attending the fight, and only a moment more to pass on her thoughts. Inside of two minutes from her arrival, everyone placing or who had already placed a bet knew that it had been decreed that, in the event of a draw, or any event in which there was no conclusive winner, for this match, and in the future, all bets would be treated as a loss-loss, and all monies would stay with the house, unless some special dispensation was given to the bettor. Nabiki made sure that all the "special" bettors—Mousse, Shampoo, Ukyou, and others—were given their special dispensations, which translated to a 50% loss, instead of a total loss.

For Nabiki, it was the best of a bad betting situation. If Yokara won, then she would take home the majority of the money- only Mousse and two others were willing to bet on the underdog. And if Yokara and Ranma drew out, then she’d take all of the money. It was the best way for her to hedge her own betting, since the odds favorite to win was Ranma, and if that happened, it was possible that she wouldn’t get anything out of the commissions. And with the beginning of summer bearing down upon Japan, with school out she would lose more than a third of the money that she usually made during the school year. Granted, classes were only out for eight weeks, but between the Saotome stomachs and the endless property damage, both of which were even greater problems when there was no class—more food eaten up, since they weren’t in school; more fights, for the same reason—that was cause to worry, big time. She hadn’t yet had to dip into her personal savings, but many times she’d had to break into what she’d been trying to set aside as the family savings; they had been nearly wiped out when the Saotomes had arrived, with Nabiki keeping the family in the black only by hope and determination. The first week after they’d moved in, Nabiki had found the family savings in the red by more than 200,000 yen from the monthly budget, and had stayed in the red, until Nabiki began selling pictures of Ranma, both his male and female sides, and began taking bets on his fights. Every now and again—and usually, she was noticing, mostly when classes were out, or they were away from class—the monthly bills went over the montly budget, and she’d have to dip into what she’d been trying to save for the family. At the moment, she knew that there was only about 800,000 yen in savings, and she was sure that if things held the way they usually did, that she’d have to used nearly every yen of the savings.

So she needed this battle to work out to her advantage.

Akane was looking out over the crowd, awed. Nabiki had outdone herself this time; somehow, she’d managed to gather together some vendors, who were selling popcorn, ice cream, an american treat called a ‘hot dog’, drinks, and cotton candy, and the gathering crowd, who hadn’t had anything like this before—and most of whom were hungry, not having eaten breakfast over the excitement of another Ranma fight—was literally eating it all up.

She knew that her sister was very financial and business savvy, but she believed that her sister had to have pulled some favors in order to get these businessmen to be here. However, she knew enough about her sister’s savvy to know that, if this all worked out, that the vendors would be practically begging for the exclusive rights to sell at her future matches. Nabiki was young, but word of mouth from her peers to their parents made her well-known for her acumen in business. What little bit of gossip she’d heard about Nabiki was favorable; many of her friends whose parents dealt in the financial aspects of business, who’d seen evidence of her abilities, were making polite mention of taking Nabiki under their wing throughout college, and hiring her afterwards, assuming Nabiki wanted what they had to offer. She hadn’t asked her sister about it, figuring among other things that it wasn’t her business to get into Nabiki’s personal life.

And besides, she had other things on her mind. Not that she would ever admit it to anyone, but she was concerned for Ranma. Sure, he’d faced down many tough adversaries in his time, courting death again and again; what would happen, though, when his luck finally ran out? What would happen to him

-to her?!?-

when he found himself facing an opponent he couldn’t goad into a senseless rage, who he couldn’t hold back against, who was able to match all of his skill, and who wanted not just to defeat Ranma, but to murder him? She didn’t know for a fact, but she believed that it was possible with Mogadishu. It was said that the eyes were the windows to one’s soul, but she hadn’t looked into his eyes. Rather, she was taking her feelings from what she knew of his actions from that morning, and from the night before. Each time that she’d seen him, he’d carried himself with impeccable decorum, but she’d seen no evidence of emotion, especially as it concerned the fight. Most of Ranma’s challengers were edgy, full of restless energy, spouting statements of amazing victories for themselves and an agonizing defeat for Ranma. Mogadishu was approaching this like a dirty task that needed doing, as though this were something to get out of his way, to move on to something else. She didn’t know anyone who thought like that, except Nabiki, but her ruthlessness was financial. That quality in a fighter, Akane believed, only existed in a murderer.

Ukyou didn’t know anything of what Akane or Nabiki knew, and so she wasn’t concerned. She just knew her Ranchan would win, and pound this person, whoever he was, into the dirt. There wasn’t a man alive who could beat Ranchan in a fair martial arts competition. Ranma was simply the best in the world. And Ukyou continued to think that, right until she got a good look at him.

Whoa, she thought, get a look at this guy. If somehow Ryoga and Kuno had a baby, he would be it. Her mind took that thought to another level, and Ukyou shuddered, violently pushing the disgusting hentai thought back into the pits from where it had crept. She’d seen Ranma fight tougher looking men, but there was something about this guy that made her pause and rethink. There was something about this guy, something-tissue? was that his name? that made her reevaluate him as Ranma’s challenger.

The first thing she noticed about him was that he wasn’t moving around. The excitement that seemed to literally leap within every other challenger that Ranma had had didn’t seem to be in this guy. In fact, the only way she could tell that he was anything other than a bystander at all was by the lack of tension in him. He simply stood out in the middle of the field, the only evidence of his intentions being his clenched fists. And even as she was making note of them, he released them, to hang limply at his sides.

The next thing she noticed was his face, and the lack of expression he had. Was this a fight to him? Was it a matter of honor? What drove this man to want to challenge Ranma? There wasn’t anything she could see in his face that gave her any idea of his motivations; no anger, no sense of determination, no regret; not a thing showed on his face that she could read.

It wasn’t until he moved that she noticed the final thing. It was the sudden wave of silence that washed over the crowd, the unspoken yet undeniable signal that, it seemed, the fight was about to begin. She shook her head as if clearing her thoughts; something else about him- for some strange reason, she was mesmerized by the look of him, and if he hadn’t moved, she might have continued to look at him until she passed out from exhaustion, such was her fascination, she belatedly realized. But, in noticing him move, she also noticed the way he moved. It was with a fluid grace, almost feline, cunning yet economical; it was very similar to the way Ranma moved when he was ready for battle, she thought, and didn’t like it. To her, the similarities were too loud to be ignored; she was realizing now, that Ranma was going to have a fight on his hands, and one that would probably be one of his toughest yet.

Ranma was also noticing his opponent.

The set of his shoulders, and the build that was evident even through his clothing, spoke of great strength. Ranma knew that strength could be a devastating component of a fight, but if not used well, could be more of a fault than a help. It was one of the key reasons that Akane was only as good as she was; she had, in the latter days of her training—from what Ranma had been able to surmise—focused mostly on strength training in her martial arts, instead of balancing between strength, speed, power, and balance. It was almost instinctive that Ranma knew this, and yet when it came time to try and tell Akane this, he always ended up saying something that was meant to be instructive and specifically critical, to get Akane to think, but ended up sounding insulting, and causing Akane to react. His opponent had strength, probably an easy match to himself or Ryoga, and it was apparent that he had concentrated on martial arts as a whole, as well. He noticed the way that the man held himself—very loose, but also very alert, a hard combination, as well Ranma knew, to get perfectly balanced. And it seemed as though his opponent had it down as well as he did himself. This told Ranma that this man was quite dangerous if underestimated, as Shampoo had done the night before. He stood, almost fully flat on his feet; the very slight bend to his knees, something that Ranma noticed only because he’d just settled into the position himself, let him know that his opponent was—for the moment, anyway, as the man resettled himself on his feet fully—testing the ground beneath him, and preparing for any surprise attacks. He knew that the man could move at least as fast as Akane herself could—but, that wasn’t saying much since Akane, while she was no slouch as far as speed was concerned, she wasn’t anywhere near as fast as any of the other ‘elite’ martial artists of Nerima either—and probably faster, since he’d handled her quite easily.

In short, this was a man who could be, very likely, the closest Ranma had ever had to an equal that he’d ever known, someone who seemed to have a lot of strengths, and no noticeable weaknesses; someone with strength, speed, power, and balance, all in as much proportion, or very nearly so, as he did himself. Ranma knew that this would be a fight like no other he’d had yet.

Yokara had arrived mere moments before Ranma and the others. Finally, he was able to get a good look at his opponent. A quick glance told him many things: Ranma was strong, of that there was no doubt, but he was stronger; the grace the boy moved with said that he was comfortable in his own body, that he’d achieved a measure of control over what he commanded it to do, and also told that he was well used to combat and moved with an economy much like his own. That grace and conditioning further told Yokara that this was a young man who was a fighter, and a very good one, not yet a warrior, but becoming one; there were things he would have to learn to be a true warrior. The speed the young man possessed, Yokara couldn’t know, for the moment; that was something he would only find out when the fight began. But, if Ranma was the best in Nerima, and even the Amazons had compared him to Ranma, then he would be formidable indeed. He just hoped that he wouldn’t have to hurt Ranma; that wasn’t a part of the plan.

Yokara didn’t quite know what to make of the crowd. He could feel the charged energy of them in the air, the anticipation they gave off; it was the feeling of a crowd right before kickoff of an american football game. The fact that there were vendors here, selling their goods, made this into even more of a spectacle.

There wasn’t going to be any easy way out of this, he decided; he and Ranma would have to fight, to put on a show for the crowd. It was apparent that they were here to see this, and it was likely that Ranma’s fights were a show that the people attended regularly. Even now, there was a sudden impromptu gaggle of girls, gently chanting—cheering?—Ranma’s name. It just made it all the more apparent that he would have to hold back; he didn’t want to hurt the boy, and he definitely didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his peers.

He sighed. Like it or not, he would have to do this.

It was time.

The crowd watched as the dark-skinned man stepped forward, walking until he was less than five meters from where Ranma stood.

"Saotome Ranma-san," he began, "My name is Mogadishu Yokara-san, and I have issued a formal challenge to you, a challenge of combat. Do you accept my challenge?"

Ranma was quiet, thinking. He’d had the usual reply ready, but the challenge wasn’t the usual challenge. Ordinarily, a fighter would come up to Ranma, say something like, "I challenge you to a fight to the death!" or something else dramatic like that, and his response would be a "Yeah, whatever." Depending on the person, he might even throw a taunt or two in the mix; a formal challenge, though, had to be answered at least as formally. And so, Ranma thought for a moment about what he would say. That wasn’t any doubt in his mind what his response was; it was in how he would give it.

Finally, he was ready to speak.

"Mogadishu Yokara-san, I acknowledge your formal challenge, and I accept it." Ranma could feel the tension of the crowd; this wasn’t the usual fight, and they were at a loss as to what to expect next. He himself was a little bit on shaky ground; despite what everyone believed of him, he was well-read as it concerned the martial arts and the history of combat, but he’d never had to try to conform his thoughts to the formal rituals that existed in eras past. He might have to change his approach to this fight.

"Very well, Saotome Ranma. I offer my challenge in the form of physical combat, a test of fighting skill. Do you accept the form of my challenge?" Mogadishu asked.

"I accept your offer," Ranma replied, "so long as this challenge is issued between us alone." He threw in the last on a whim; there wasn’t a reason he had, no thing in his mind to tell him, to not trust that this Mogadishu person wouldn’t act as honorably as he was being right now, but he was too aware of the fact that previous fights had often involved other people. He didn’t want that, this time, and hoped that he could somehow persuade this man to abide by it. But, when had anyone ever listened to what he’d wanted?

"Very well," said Mogadishu, "but I would like to offer one stipulation."

"What’s that?" he asked.

"That we both live. The fight will end when only one of us is left standing, but not at the risk of dying. If we see that it will not end without death, then we stop."

Inwardly, Ranma relaxed a little. So this wasn’t a death match, or even a grudge match, really. This was an honest-to-goodness challenge. He hadn’t had any of those since before he’d hit puberty, and he liked the idea of a good, clean fight.

"Agreed," said Ranma, letting loose his trademark cocky smile.

Mogadishu nodded, then turned toward the crowd. "Tendo Nabiki," he called out, startling her, and silencing the crowd even more than they had been, "will you call start for us?"

All eyes were on her.

She looked left and right, surprise etched on her face—a pity no one had the thought to take her picture then; it would have been worth a lot to have a memory of her moment of surprise—but stepped forward, nonetheless. She nodded her consent.

"Very well," Mogadishu said, then turned to Ranma, "Let me know when you’re ready."

"Ready when you are," he replied.

To the crowd, each man stood almost as if bored; neither adopted a martial arts stance, nor did they look particularly combat ready. From Ranma, they expected it; from the other man, though? It was food for thought, but only until Nabiki stepped forward again and raised her hand. The crowd went dead quiet as the final moments of the end of the beginning neared.

Then, with a quick snap of her wrist, Nabiki dropped her arm.

"Fight!"

For a long moment, neither combatant moved. Silence reigned over the park, as the crowd waited for something to happen.

They didn’t have long to wait.

Anyone who knew Ranma, knew that patience was not one of the virtues he had in abundance. And, as usual, his patience was quickly running out. As a result, he made the first move.

It was nothing more than a simple flying kick, aimed at his opponent’s chest; his attack was slow enough that even Akane, on a sick day, could have avoided it without too much effort. So it was no surprise to him that Mogadishu wasn’t there to meet his foot when it reached the spot where Mogadishu was supposed to be. It did surprise him, however, to find Mogadishu standing almost at his elbow the moment he landed from the kick. He’d made the assumption that Mogadishu might be as fast as Kodachi, maybe even Shampoo; instead, he’d just proven what Ranma was realizing he should have known, should have been paying attention to, from the start: never underestimate your opponent. Just because he’d only seen him against Akane shouldn’t have meant that he should have treated him like he would someone of her calibre. He’d just learned that Mogadishu was nearly as fast as he was, probably as fast as Ryoga; he’d have to be paying better attention, or he just might lose this fight.

Despite the fact that he was considered—and considered himself to be—the best martial artist in Japan, and most likely the world, he knew, deep down, that one day, someone would come along, who would be better than he was, and take that ‘title’ away from him. He knew he was good, and that few others could consider themselves in his league. True, it was only a matter of time before he’d come across an opponent that he simply could not beat; contrary to everyone’s beliefs, he knew he wasn’t a god, that he could make mistakes just like everyone else, and that one day, someone would actually capitalize on one of those mistakes. He’d expected that it might happen a few decades from now, when he was older than his Pop, in the decline of his years, so to speak. He knew that in order to remain the best, he had to be the best, in his actions and in his attitude. He had to think it, in order to make it a reality. Ranma wasn’t a brilliant person, at least not in the same way as Nabiki, or sometimes even Akane, but he knew enough about being a fighter to know what he needed to know about being a fighter. He knew the psychology of fighting, on a subconscious and instinctual level, which allowed him to understand and manipulate his fights and his opponents in order to win. In his mind, it wasn’t cheating; true, it did skirt the edge of honor, but then again, anyone who called himself a fighter, who wanted to fight against Ranma, should—at least in his opinion—know enough about fighting, and the mindset of fighting, to be able to resist what he was doing, or maybe even turn it back around on him. That no one had the understanding to be able to fight with him on the many levels on which he fought was not his fault.

All of this flashed through the background of Ranma’s adrenaline-boosted conscious, which was automatically compartmentalizing everything about the fight, as his feet touched down on the ground, and as he was even now noticing the shape of his opponent out of the corner of his eye. But, even as this was happening, he was preparing for an attack, and running through his options to counterattack, knowing that while his senses could be fooled, and knowing that he should not to trust them without question, that looking to see what was going to happen was the quickest way to know what to counter against.

It was when he was fully able to face Mogadishu that his opponent lashed out with his counterattack. A straight punch—which Ranma dodged—a follow-up backfist strike—again dodged—and, continuing the motion, a spinning leg sweep, for which he jumped straight up into the air.

His opponent followed, and at the apex of his jump, lashed out with a reverse roundhouse kick. Ranma waited until the last second, caught the kick in his hands, and using his opponent as an anchor, pushed away—and pushing him away, too—to end up landing about a dozen meters apart.

Ranma immediately went on the offensive, springing forward to meet his opponent.

Ranma and Mogadishu traded blows back and forth over the course of the next five minutes, with neither making contact or taking a hit. As he subconsciously analyzed the fight in his mind, Ranma was mildly startled to conclude that Mogadishu was holding back his fighting skill, which in a small way upset him; but, he realized, he’d been holding back, himself, so he couldn’t get too mad. It just meant that he would have to raise the bar, or they would still be fighting tomorrow morning.

"You’re holding back," Ranma half-shouted, after springing back from another round of throwing and dodging punches and kicks that never connected. In a way, he was enjoying this match; not having to worry that someone meant to kill him, or worry about collateral damage to the crowds who watched, leant him the freedom to simply fight for the sake of the activity, and it had been far too long since he’d been able to fight just for fun.

"So are you," said Mogadishu, which did and did not surprise Ranma; if he could sense that his opponent was holding back, why couldn’t it be possible that his opponent would sense the same in him? It hadn’t happened before, but then again, this was a fight of a type that hadn’t happened before.

With that thought, came another: if Mogadishu could sense that he was holding back, and respond in kind, could it be that Mogadishu was capable of understanding the concepts of combat and fighting in the same way that he did? Could it be that Mogadishu could fight him at his level? That thought excited him, in the same way that this fight excited him; because he had little to actually worry about, it left him many things to think about, and much to enjoy about this fight. He’d never an opponent who could truly test him; Ryoga was close, but the greater majority of his skill lay in his great strength, and Ranma had in the course of a year grown better than he at the Art by a number of degrees enough that he had to hold back, just a little, from Ryoga. He hadn’t had someone who made him work for a victory since Cologne, and before her, his father; in a way, he was starving for someone who could challenge him, and without trying to gain something from him in return.

"Well then," Ranma said, his moment of introspection over, "let’s turn it up."

Again the combatants flew at one another; as the crowd watched, they began increasing the speed of their attacks. Neither was yet making contact with the other, but their movements were increasingly becoming a blur to those watching them. After a little while, it appeared as though they’d reached some sort of temporary stalemate; neither had yet to land a punch or kick, but now instead of ducking and dodging, they were deflecting and blocking, and trying to hold ground, instead of taking to flashy moves.

The more experienced members of the audience knew two things: one, that when Ranma and his opponent stopped trying to jump around, it meant that they were seriously engaged in their battle, unable to stop parrying for even the time it would take to jump away; and two, that things were about to get even more interesting.

Ranma had been increasing the speed of his attacks, and to his joy, Mogadishu had been able to keep up every step of the way. It was telling, though, that each time Ranma increased his speed, Mogadishu had had a very slight, but increasingly so, "stumble"—so to speak—in keeping up with him; only he would have noticed it, since they were trading punches and kicks at a speed now that even Ryoga would have trouble keeping up with.

Ranma had reached his current limit, and while Mogadishu was keeping up with him now, he didn’t think that his opponent would last long if he started using his ki to speed up his attacks; Mogadishu seemed to be at his limits, now, too.

He smiled; it would be interesting to see just how good this man was.

"Kashuu Tenshin Amaguriken!" he shouted, pulling in his ki energy, and using it to throw punches at lightning speed. And at first, Mogadishu actually kept up! Ranma’s smile grew, as he knew now that no matter that he might actually win, if this guy stayed in town, he would have a new sparring partner when Ryoga wasn’t around.

Ranma’s barrage of punches, however, couldn’t be blocked forever; one got through, then another, then another. Ranma counted six punches connecting before Mogadishu changed up on him. He pulled back, just enough that Ranma had to lean forward just the littlest bit to stay with him, and even then, he found that he was at the max of his extension in his punches, and only just hitting his opponent. Then Mogadishu began blocking his punches again, in a complex windshield-wiper like motion, which made no sense to Ranma, until he went to throw another punch and suddenly found his arms twisted up against one another.

Chikusho! Ranma thought—even though he was smiling inside—as Mogadishu took advantage of his predicament and slipped into a crouch.

"Shoryuken!" Mogadishu shouted, springing back up almost immediately, faster than Ranma could currently react, and throwing a rising uppercut into his jaw.

Or, it would have been into his jaw, had not Mogadishu looked him in the eye, made an almost invisible adjustment to his aim, and purposefully pulled his punch!!

The punch still grazed his shoulder, and would have been dislocating for a lesser person than he; luckily for Ranma, it hurt, but not half as much as he believed it could have, and not half as much as a punch like that from Ryoga would have. The hit still sent him spinning off his feet, but in the process, he managed to untangle his hands, and ended up landing on his palms, to spring backward just a bit and land on his feet.

"So, you can use ki, huh?" said Mogadishu, who was actually beginning to breath heavily, "Well, try and give me your best." He adopted a crouching martial arts stance.

Ranma grinned. "Alright, then," he said, charging up his ki. "Mokou Takabishi!" he cried, firing a smallish ball of ki energy at Mogadishu. With his senses hyper-tuned, he watched as the ball of ki slowly raced towards his opponent, who made no effort to get out of its way, or appeared to be ready to block it, either.

In the background of his conscious, though, he was thinking rapidly, trying to sort out what his mind was now pointing out to him to have been a very obvious pattern to his opponent’s attacks. He could see now that Mogadishu had stopped, for just a split second, each time he was on the offensive, before he moved to attack. He also noted that Mogadishu almost always mis-aimed his attacks to take away their lethality, also looked him in the eye each time, and he never attacked when Ranma had his back to him, or couldn’t see him completely. And now that he could see it, he wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. Why was Mogadishu holding back? Why did it seem as though he didn’t want to hit him, didn’t want to fight? Just who was Mogadishu, and why was he acting this way?

These thoughts flashed through Ranma’s mind in less than a second, as he watched the ki energy bear down on Mogadishu. Then the unexpected happened.

Yokara was in the same state of hyper-sensitivity as Ranma; he was busy assessing the boy, while he watched the sphere of ki bearing down on him.

Saotome was good, damned good, better than anyone who didn’t have his own abilities should be. Even if for some reason the boy had been training day and night since kindergarten, he shouldn’t be this good. Wearing a belt in martial arts, definitely, but able to manipulate ki to the degree he could? No. No normal human should be able to do what he could do, at the age he was. He would definitely have to find out more about this boy. But, he would need to find a way to make Saotome come to him. And in an instant, he knew just how to do it.

He brought his attention back to the ki energy zooming in on him, and thought of three choices he could make in order to do something about. He made a choice.

Ranma watched as his opponent finally brought his left arm up in front of him, looking as though to brace himself for the impact of the energy, but at the very last second, brought his arm back out, swinging out in an arc-

-and deflected the ball of ki away from him!

He could hear, in the background, the sudden alarmed gasp of the crowd, as it registered to them that Mogadishu had just batted away a ball of energy as easily as the American Sammy Sosa would hit a baseball with his bat.

The ki blast exploded, harmlessly, high in the sky about five seconds later.

He didn’t have much time to wonder at this, or of how his opponent had deflected his ki blast, as Mogadishu let his momentum spin him around, and as he came back around to face him, Ranma could see his hands, both seeming to rest on his right hip, and they were glowing.

"Shotoka Hadoken!" Mogadishu growled, bringing his hands up and firing his own ki at Ranma. Without exactly knowing how, he knew that his opponent’s ki sphere had more energy in it that his had, and was therefore more powerful. What that said about his opponent’s ki, and what he could do with it, he couldn’t say, but he knew that the amount of ki rushing towards him would probably knock him out, and maybe even singe his clothes as an afterthought, and that, if he were lucky. With those thoughts in mind, he dove to the ground, the ki energy passing harmlessly over head.

He immediately sprang back up to his feet.

‘Danger!’ his senses rang suddenly, and spun around just in time to feel Mogadishu pounding into him, five, six, seven ti—

-pounding??-

‘No! Pressure points!!’ Ranma realized, and brought his arms up to defend. He was analyzing this latest information in the back of his mind, and for that reason noticed that Mogadishu appeared to be trying to hit him, but didn’t have much in the way of force behind his attack, or much enthusiasm in it.

He already did what he’d set out to do; but what was it he’d wanted to do? What did he do to me? He lashed out with another ki blast in his anger. It was the last thing he did.

Yokara watched, waiting for the moment his could put his…spell, into effect.

He didn’t have to wait long.

"Mokou Takabishi!" Saotome cried again, and this time, instead of deflecting the ki energy, he absorbed it, and affected his spell. It had the same effect as Hinako-sensei’s five yen coin, draining Saotome of his ki energy. But, instead of absorbing this energy, he simply let it grow into a huge ball of ki, and added his own to it, as much as he could gather from the surrounding park. And once he’d drained Ranma of his ki to the point of just-barely-consciousness, he loosed it out in an arc of energy, blasting everyone in the park.

It looked like one of Ranma’s ki blasts, except that it was too big, and it was getting bigger; it was headed straight for all of them, and there was no time to react, no time to duck, no time to—

Nabiki awoke with a start.

For a second or two, she puzzled over why she was staring up at the clear blue sky, rather than up at the ceiling of her bedroom. Then someone groaned beneath her

-I’m laying on someone!, she thought-

and she slowly got back to her feet. She wasn’t the first person awake, she noticed; as she looked around, her mind rapidly slapped together the pieces of what had happened

-Akane!!-

She ran over to her sister, looking her over, first, to see if she were injured in any way she could tell. She herself was just a bit fuzzy around the edges, but it was fading even now, and she had to tend to Akane, first. Not seeing anything on her sister in the way of injury, she knelt down, and felt for a pulse. She got it almost immediately; it was strong and steady. In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that she, Akane, and everyone else had just been knocked unconscious by a blast of ki energy, she would swear that her sister was simply sleeping. But what of Ranma?

She walked over to where he lay, noting along the way that Yokara was also out like a light. She didn’t bother running to check on Ranma—it wouldn’t have made much of a difference, anyway; either he was simply unconscious, and there was no need to rush to wake him, or he was very badly hurt, possibly dead, and there was little she might be able to change in rushing to get to him, considering she had no medical training. She walked, also because in looking at him, the closer she got, the more sure she was that he was like the others, simply unconscious. She’d almost reached him, when she heard two voices, almost in unison, break the relative silence of the park.

"Ranma!!"

"Ranchan!"

Without looking, Nabiki waved them back, knowing that it was a useless gesture, but making it anyway. Both Akane and Ukyou were practically on her back as she reached Ranma, and bent down to check on him.

"Oh, poor Ranchan!"

"Nabiki! Is he okay?"

"Will you two shut up?" Nabiki shot at them over her shoulder, "I can’t find out anything with you two making more noise than a freight train in the middle of the night." That comment got her the silence she wanted, and she used the momentary reprieve to check Ranma. Like Akane, his pulse was strong and steady, and she couldn’t see that he was injured in any way.

She reached a hand back, and slapped him on the cheek.

"Nabiki!!" she heard from behind her, in stereo.

"Oh, lover boy here is all right; I’m just waking him up."

Meanwhile, Ranma groaned, then sat up, straight.

"Huh?" he said at first, then feeling the sting of his cheek, and seeing Nabiki kneeling closest to him, said, "What you do that for??"

"Rise and shine, dear brother-in-law. The battle is over, and you have to go to school." She was quiet for a moment, then added, "Oh, yeah, you owe me 2,000 yen."

"What for?" protested Ranma, watching as Nabiki rose again to her feet.

"For waking you up, that’s why, otherwise, you’d be late for class." She turned, and walked back over to the crowd.

"I am declaring this match to be a draw!" Nabiki said loudly, to make sure everyone heard her, "And, as you all know, and agreed to, the house keeps all bets on all events that end in a draw. I hope you understand this, and understand that this is business, not personal, and that you’ll still have continued opportunities to place bets on future events." Nearly everyone in the crowd groaned; they’d all lost their money, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant walking away from the fight with nothing to show for it, financially speaking.

Ukyou sighed. She was thankful that she’d only bet about 100,000 yen- it wouldn’t set her back any, but gaining the additional 200,000 yen she’d thought she’d get from Ranma winning the match would have allowed her to get ahead on a couple of bills, so that she could add money to her savings. Well, she sighed, it could have been worse. She’d been planning to bet more, but had a sudden case of the guilts from the night before, and not only nearly didn’t bet, but almost didn’t come to watch. She was glad she had, since it had been one of the most entertaining matches of his she’d ever seen, and considering that most of them were with opponents who wanted Ranma dead, that was saying something. But, she knew that, once she got back to the restaurant—after classes, of course—she would be thinking back on what could have been, if she’d only had the guts to say ‘screw it’ to everything else in her life for just a moment. That thought saddened her, enough that she decided on the spot to skip classes for today; she just wasn’t feeling up to them.

Nabiki, on the other hand, was ecstatic; she’d broken one of her major rules for this match, but it had paid off dearly for her. She’d allowed the crowd to continue to bet, as the fight had gone on, and the odds made for a more even match, and a greater possibility of there being a good fight, with a clear winner, existed. She had been hoping for something like this, since allowing the betting went against her rules; if there had been a winner, she would have lost, big time. Fortunately, she hadn’t—and she wouldn’t be breaking that rule again!—and she’d cleared nearly 2 million yen, with just about half of that coming from the Kunos, each of them betting against the other. She’d be able to pay the weekly destruction bill, make sure that some money went into the house savings, and still give Kasumi money to be able to buy the things that the household needed. For her, today was starting out to be a good day.

Akane was also in good spirits, or at least in a better frame of mind than she’d been in before the fight. She’d been convinced that, somehow, for some reason, Mogadishu would be a danger to Ranma, that he possibly might have been able to do what everyone else so far had not: take Ranma away from her, in a permanent, final way. Not that she would ever admit to needing him, to loving him; she had too much pride for that, and besides, even if she for some unknown reason did want to have Ranma be a closer part of her life than he was, it was obvious that he didn’t want the same. He insulted her constantly, made fun of her, laughed at her; sometimes, she was just trying to be nice to him, calling him a baka. Couldn’t he hear her humor in the tone of her voice? Couldn’t he see in her face, in her eyes, that she would never truly hurt him? that her words were meant in affection? No, of course not; he couldn’t see in her what he didn’t feel in himself. She wrapped her care back up, closed the lid on the box, sealed it back in the safe, and dropped it down into the ocean.

"I’m glad you aren’t dead, Ranma," she said, "or else we’d have all your other fiancees dropping by the house, all crying their eyes out for you."

Ranma, up until that point, had been doing some ‘psychic’ probing. Since Nabiki had slapped him awake, he’d been trying to ‘feel’ what Mogadishu had done by hitting him in his pressure points; he’d felt the hits, known that they were hits to his pressure points, but couldn’t even begin to figure out just where he’d been hit. So far, he hadn’t been able to sense anything wrong with him; he’d just have to wait and see.

"Hmph. It’s not like he could have killed me or anything. I’m just too good for that, ya know. I’m Nerima’s best; he wouldn’t have stood a chance after a few more moments." He watched Akane roll her eyes at him, not showing the least bit of concern for his health. But, then again, when did she ever care about him? Had her hatred of boys deadened her to any concerns about how he felt? Sometimes Ranma wondered how she could fail to see how he cared about her, but then, with a well-reasoned argument, he could see; she not only didn’t feel as he did, she didn’t care about how he felt. She never listened when he tried to apologize for saying something to upset her—hell, she never listened to him, period; he tried to compliment her, trying not to be too sappy or letting her know just how much he wanted her, and all she did was get angry; she insulted him constantly, especially when he was trying to be honest with her about how he felt about something; nothing worked, because she still blamed him for every little thing that went wrong in her life, even during the times when it wasn’t his fault.

He was deep in thought when his danger sense went off again. He immediately knew what kind of "danger" it was, this time, and was completely unable to avoid it, given the fact that he was still sitting on the ground.

*Splash!*

"Oh, geez, man, I’m so sorry," said a voice. Ranma looked up into the face of Hiroshi, who had been coming over to congratulate him, when he’d tripped and sent the cup of soda flying in his direction.

and boy was it cold!!

"Are you okay, man?" Hiroshi continued to babble. He knew how Ranma felt about getting wet, and he wasn’t eager to be on the receiving end of Ranma’s irritation, despite the fact that he knew Ranma wouldn’t hurt him.

"Grrrrrrr……*sigh* it’s okay, ‘Roshi," he said, giving in to the fact that he would have to probably go back to the Tendos, or to Doctor Tofu’s clinic, in order to get some hot water to change back to his normal, male self.

A sharp gasp made him look up. Akane was staring down at him, slightly pale, in deep surprise.

"What? What is it?" he asked; a tiny alarm started to go off in his head, but he was more concerned about Akane to listen to it just now.

"Um…. Ranma…… you….. you’re not….. I mean…….." she couldn’t get the words out, and simply pointed.

Ranma took a look at himself—since that was where Akane had been pointing—and it took him a few seconds to realize that

he

was

still

male…………..