Subject: [FFML] Re: [fanfic][Ranma]Thyself Known Ch.6: Fetching
From: Zorknot
Date: 8/1/2003, 3:35 AM
To: ffml@anifics.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Defender of the Light" 
To: "Zorknot" 
Cc: 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 9:48 PM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [fanfic][Ranma]Thyself Known Ch.6: Fetching



--- Zorknot wrote:
I haven't had anyone look at this yet. Please let me know of any
problems.

Hope you enjoy,

the fic should follow

Other than your habitual failure to make use of quotation marks,
either single or double, it looks okay. But then, maybe in the face
of that, I simply didn't notice other problems.



Thanks for letting me know! The quotes appear just fine to me and I had no idea anything was wrong. It would have been awful if I had sent chapter after chapter without ever realising the quotes were missing. Oh wait...that's what happened. Oh well^_^;
 
At any rate this just further convinces me that Microsoft is evil. Smartquotes...not too smart if you ask me. 
 
I would like to point out that all the chapters to TK are also available on my geocities website including the latest, and really that's how I would prefer chapters be read anyway. I'm fairly certain the quotes will appear on all computers there and it has all the italics still in it too. It's fairly easy for me to edit chapters on that site so everything new goes there first. 
 
I'm going to attach an updated version of the fic that will hopefully have all the quotes. Sorry for the headaches.
-W.B.R.
 
ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING!...
 


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-- Attached file included as plaintext by Ecartis --
-- File: tk6d.txt
-- Desc: tk6d.txt

Thyself Known
Ch. 6: Fetching
By Zorknot

You can find previous chapters in the following locations:

http://www.geocities.com/zorukonotsu/TK.html
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=377434



Disclaimer: 	
     There once was a boy from Jusenkyo
     Owned by Takahashi Rumiko.
     He changed sex with cold water
     Changed back with hotter
     Y no se si es chica o chico.

What Has Come Before: Nabiki and Ranma have 
fallen for each other after a mind meld saved 
Nabiki�s life. In other news, Shampoo renounced 
her Amazon-hood and enlisted Ukyo�s aid in 
carrying out revenge on Cologne for making her an 
unwilling sex kitten. Meanwhile Akane is coming to 
terms with the idea that she may have acted a 
teensy bit like a psychotic uber-bitch earlier, and is 
wondering if maybe Ranma might not want to be 
her fianc� anymore. She wishes things were 
different, but she can�t think of any way to fix the 
situation. Well, Miss Tendo, say goodbye to the 
status quo...

~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~

"The saris go by me from the embassies.

Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet.
They look back at the leopard like the leopard.

And I...
             This print of mine, that has kept its color
Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null...

		You know what I was,
You see what I am: change me, change me!"

     -Randall Jarell Fr. "The Woman at the 
Washington Zoo" 

~~~~~*~~~~~

  Tendo Akane walked slowly away from Furinkan 
High. It was a wonderful day. The sky was deep 
blue with wispy clouds that almost weren�t there, 
birds soared majestically over head, and the sun 
sparkled prettily off of the broken glass underneath 
the gaping hole in Hinako-sensei�s English class.

  Akane couldn�t enjoy the view though. As usual, 
she was thinking about Ranma. 

  Was this what love was? Constantly thinking about 
someone all day, every day? Having all emotion 
dedicated to the actions of one solitary human 
being? Wanting to beat that person to a pulp one 
second, and then wanting to be one with him 
forever the next? 

  A light zephyr of fresh air blew through her blue 
school uniform and rustled the sunny tree limbs 
above her. A curled up, brown fist of a leaf that had 
escaped half a year�s worth of raking, Neriman 
weather, and general decay, skittered toward Akane 
on the street, blown by the wind. Akane�s eyes 
riveted themselves to it as she passed, even as 
they misted over. 

  There was a time when Akane was on top of 
everything, when she knew exactly who she was 
and what she was doing. Sure, she had problems, 
but she could handle them, and maybe eventually 
solve them... Then there was Ranma, and then 
there was his mother, and now... Ranma would be 
at Tofu�s clinic. He had after all saved Nabiki�s life. 
Akane would have to apologize...only she wasn�t 
sure she could.

  Akane�s hands tightened around the brown handle 
of her bookbag. She took in a dry, empty breath, 
and continued walking, no longer exactly sure of 
where she was going. 

  And so it was that Akane was nearly run over by 
Ryoga as he ran down the street at a break neck 
speed. He skidded to a halt in front of Akane. A 
nervous smile was already on his face and his hand 
already behind his bandanna clad head when the 
dust cleared. "Akane-san! W...what are you doing in 
Okinawa?"

  The way Ryoga acted was so close to Tofu�s 
reaction to Kasumi it made Akane smile in spite of 
herself. "This is Tokyo, Ryoga," she informed the 
lost boy while wiping the moisture from her eyes.

  "It is? I could have sworn...I mean...I knew that! I 
was just...making a joke! Heh heh." Ryoga looked 
off at nothing as he said this, his face growing 
redder by the second. Now he turned his head back 
toward Akane and lowered his hand. He frowned. 
"You were crying...What did that bastard Ranma do 
to you now? I�ll kill him! I�ll pound him so far into the 
dirt his feet will be kicking in Times Square! Or 
rather... they won�t be... because he�ll be dead!" 

  It was so obvious that Ryoga had a crush on 
Akane. Sometimes she wished she could love 
Ryoga back. It was like the fates were getting her 
back for her crush with Tofu. All she could do was 
do what he had done, and try to be as nice as 
possible without acknowledging the crush. "Thanks, 
Ryoga, but it�s not really his fault this time. It�s mine. 
I just feel so...it�s nothing." Akane sighed and tried 
to smile.

  "It can�t be your fault! Did he say it was your fault? 
He�s wrong! He�s telling you lies, Akane-san! Don�t 
listen to him!" Ryoga shook his fist in anger.

  Akane was afraid of Ryoga. That was the main 
reason she couldn�t like him like he wanted her to. 
Razor sharp belts whizzing through her hair, barely 
missing her neck, attempts at hugs that crushed 
concrete pillars, and his various maniacal 
obsessions just made Akane a little uneasy around 
him. But the main reason she was afraid of Ryoga 
was that, looking into his angry yellow-brown eyes, 
every now and then Akane got the queasy 
sensation that she was looking at a distorted 
reflection of herself.

  "Why do you fight with Ranma so much?" Akane 
asked suddenly.

  Ryoga was taken aback for a moment but soon 
recovered. "Because of him, I�ve seen Hell! He 
keeps running away and tricking me instead of 
fighting like a man! Plus, he mistreats you all the 
time! I will destroy his happiness if it�s the last thing 
I do!"

  "What do you mean you�ve seen Hell? You say 
that all the time, and it seems like something 
important, but you never say what it is..."

  Ryoga�s face was now somber and his eyes lost a 
little of their fire. "You wouldn�t understand, Akane-
san. There�s no way you could know the tortures 
he put me through."

"What tortures? It can�t just be the bread, can it?"

  "IT�S NOT ABOUT THE BREAD! Don�t LISTEN to 
him Akane! You�ve never been to an all boy�s 
school. You can�t know what it�s like. Maybe if you 
were a martial artist..."

  "I AM A MARTIAL ARTIST!" Akane fumed.

  "Um...right! Of course you are! I meant... if you 
were a martial artist GUY. Yeah. If you were a 
martial artist AND a guy you would understand...er 
gotta go, bye!" Ryoga smiled nervously and ran off 
in the direction he came, yelling "Just you wait, 
Ranma! Today you meet your doom!"

  Akane felt sick. She could stop Ryoga, keep him 
from fighting Ranma, but then again she couldn�t. 
Some part of her wanted Ryoga to beat Ranma to 
a pulp. Some part of her wished she could do it 
herself. But she would get just as much pleasure 
from nursing Ranma back to health, mending his 
wounds, feeding him...only she couldn�t do any of 
that. She couldn�t cook, and bandages in general 
were recondite to her.

  What was wrong with her? Why couldn�t she do 
anything? Why was she so clumsy? It shouldn�t be 
so hard to learn how to swim, or sew, or cook, and 
Ranma made it all look so damned easy... 

  Ranma. It all came back to him. 

  Akane kicked a stone idly as she walked. Her eyes 
wandered to her bookbag, wherein a letter rested 
amidst well-worn books and folders. A letter she 
must not let anyone see. The assistant principal 
had something else to say to Akane after she got 
the phone call... Her grades were dropping through 
the floor.

  Before Ranma had come to Nerima, Akane had 
been an honor student. She had never gotten lower 
than a "B" in anything. Now...she was doing okay in 
History, but she was failing everything else. She 
was just too distracted. 

  Was this love? Because if it was, Akane wanted 
out. 
 
  Only she didn�t. 

  It was all so frustrating. Akane needed to get 
home and smash a few bricks with her fists. That 
would make her feel better.

  Only it wouldn�t.

  She came upon an abandoned lot that wasn�t quite 
as abandoned as it usually was. Through the chain 
link fence, Akane could see Shampoo and Ukyo 
sitting in the shade of a cherry tree, talking 
animatedly about something. 

  Akane entertained the brief fantasy that they were 
both declaring their lesbian love for one another 
and would from now on leave Akane to her Ranma 
troubles in peace. Unfortunately, it was far more 
likely that the two were planning something.

  Akane shrugged. She desperately needed a 
distraction from her thoughts, even if the distraction 
was the two prettier and more talented rivals for 
Ranma�s affection. She bound over the fence and 
slipped a bit in the mud as she landed, waving her 
arms around to keep balance. 

  "Damn, Sugar, I�m surprised you cleared the 
fence!" Ukyo quipped. She and Shampoo had just 
been talking about how wrong for Ranma Akane 
was, something they had always been in agreement 
on, when the girl had stumbled into their midst. 

  "Shut up, Ukyo. I have enough problems without 
your insults on top of it all. So why don�t you tell me 
just what you two have planned?"

  Ukyo showed her hands, "It�s kind of Shampoo�s 
business, Sugar. It really doesn�t concern you."

  "DOESN�T CONCERN ME?" Akane yelled, "He�s 
MY fianc� dammit!" Akane winced immediately 
afterwards. She had, for the umpteenth time, 
cancelled the engagement that very morning.

  "This isn�t about Ranchan, Akane. When are you 
going to learn to listen? It�s Shampoo�s business. 
Besides he�s my fianc� too you know..."

  "Ukyo, stop." Shampoo put a hand on Ukyo�s 
shoulder. "Is Akane�s business too."

  "What do you mean?" 

  "Akane affected by Amazon technique. For almost 
year now."

  "What?" Akane said.

  "Sai Fang Heng Gow." Shampoo explained.

  "Oh." Akane nodded. "Huh?"

  "Shampoo� Honey, you�re not making things 
much clearer here," Ukyo noted.

  "Shampoo use Sai Fang Heng Gow on Akane. 
Make Akane forget Ranma," Shampoo said 
motioning toward her temple.

  "You mean that Shiatsu attack! You know I�ve 
been to several salons since then, and I�ve never 
been able to recreate that refreshed feeling." 

  Shampoo smiled proudly "Shampoo give too too 
good brainwashing. No other compare."

  "Wait a minute here," Ukyo held up her hands "you 
mean you can brainwash people?"

  Shampoo nodded, "Is true. Though need special 
shampoo to do."

  "Why aren�t you married to Ranma right now 
then?" Ukyo knew that if SHE could brainwash 
people she�d...she�d what? Manipulate Ranma�s 
mind so that he�d love her? Give Akane and 
Shampoo a lobotomy? Ukyo shook her head. She 
couldn�t do that. Not to Ranma, probably not to 
anybody. But she had thought of it...when had she 
gotten this desperate?

  Shampoo was silent for a while. "Ranma like 
Akane. I know this from when give kiss of marriage. 
Ranma let violent girl hit. Ranma not like it when 
make Akane forget him. Ranma not Ranma if 
change mind. Shampoo hand tied."

  "Quit talking as if I�m not here!" Akane demanded.

  Shampoo turned to Akane with half-lidded eyes. "I 
no like you. You is not warrior, you is small child in 
body of womans what play with Art." She looked 
away, "I forget sometime it not all you fault."

  Akane raised her fist. "Look who�s talking, you 
Chinese bimbo!"

  Ukyo marveled at how thoroughly Akane illustrated 
Shampoo�s point for a moment before returning her 
attention to Shampoo. "Just what are you saying, 
Shampoo?"

  "Sai Fang Heng Gow what erase memory, but 
must have formula 110 shampoo to make last for 
longer than few minute. It freeze brain, keep from 
changing too much." Shampoo took in a breath and 
then let it out. "Keep Akane from learning new skill."

  A wind picked up, waving the wispy yellow-green 
grass of the lot. A leaf tumbled across the ground 
between the three girls. Akane felt a chill.

  Ukyo blinked her eyes in understanding. "So...all 
this time...Akane not being able to learn any new 
techniques, or how to swim, or cook..."

  "I can cook curry pretty well now, thank you very 
much!"

  "...or listen," Ukyo continued, "it�s all from this 
technique you performed on her almost a year 
ago?"

  Shampoo shook her head. "Not from technique, 
from formula 110 shampoo. One dose just enough 
to keep brain frozen until Sai Fang Heng Gow 
become permanent, but Akane receive second 
dose..." 
 
  "Ranma...he washed my hair with the same 
formula of shampoo!" Akane remembered. "He 
tried to cure me but made things even worse! And 
all to satisfy his ego! All because he couldn�t handle 
me not remembering him!"

  "Listen, Jackass, Ranma couldn�t have known it 
would do that to you! Ranma isn�t to blame for 
every thing that happens to you! I would think you 
would have learned that...by...now." Ukyo deflated a 
little. "Oh."

  Shampoo nodded. "Is all Shampoo fault."

  "Well it was your fault too, Sugar. Let�s not forget 
that," Ukyo pointed out.

  "That what I say! Is all Shampoo fault!"

  Ukyo frowned for moment then hit her palm with 
her fist. "You want to say �it�s all MY fault!�"

  "But how could it have been your fault, Ukyo? You 
weren�t even there." Akane asked.

  Ukyo buried her forehead in her palm.

  "Is all...my...fault" Shampoo repeated. "I know 
what shampoo do, and still almost use again on 
Akane before Ranma punch to beat. Akane 
probably get better at curry because is skill she 
know before. Just improve on. But no can learn new 
food she never make before."

  Akane thought back. Just before that day when 
she challenged Shampoo, she had given up on 
Tofu, trained in Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics, 
had been getting A�s in Algebra and Biology, and 
was maybe possibly just starting to think of Ranma 
as more than a strange sort of friend while at the 
same time getting annoyed that he didn�t protest 
Shampoo�s affections more. 

  After Shampoo used her technique...what? Things 
happened. She helped out Ranma a few times, had 
a few battles, but emotionally and ability-wise she 
had been in a holding pattern ever since. She had 
learned no new techniques, her grades in 
everything that required more that rote 
memorization had started to fall, and even after 
Ranma proved himself hundreds of times to 
her...Things between them had gotten worse, not 
better. It was all a vicious circle that she couldn�t 
seem to break out of... "I...I thought it was stress...I 
thought..."

  "Wait a minute here," Ukyo said, "How is it she can 
learn information like this, but not how to do 
anything?"

  "Brain tricky. People what have no memory of self 
still know how talk. Sometime in village, someone 
have brain problem. No can use part of face or 
body but just fine with other parts. Sometime even 
get new ability. 110 formula work on parts what 
make new techniques, but must use Sai Fang Heng 
Gow to change other parts."

  "Why now?" Akane asked, "Why tell me now? All 
this time and you wait till now to gloat! Did Ranma 
sleep with you? Is that it? Did the two of you get 
together after I left and have cat sex or 
something?"

  "What Violent Girl know about it?" Shampoo 
screamed, "She no get anything! She stupid even 
before Shampoo use shampoo! Akane watch and 
do nothing! Akane watch Ranma cat 
almost...almost..."

  "What are you talking about? You two were pawing 
at each other like cats in heat! How is that different 
from what you normally do?"

  Ukyo stepped in front of Shampoo. "Akane, 
Shampoo�s not an Amazon anymore. She 
renounced her marriage to Ranma; that�s why she 
told you all this. The way I figure it, you deserve 
what you got. Now leave, before I decide to 
reconsider my pledge not to beat up the weak."

  "What? But..."

  "Leave, Akane. Maybe it�s not all your fault, but I 
don�t care right now. Just go."

  Akane stood for a moment trying to think of 
something to say, but the look in Ukyo�s eyes told 
her that talking right now wasn�t the smartest of 
ideas. Besides what did she care? These were her 
rivals! Resolved, Akane turned back toward the 
fence. 

  They were also her friends.

  Akane slammed her open palm into on of the 
metal posts of the fence. It bent inward deeply from 
the blow. Letting her frustration move her now, 
Akane threw her bookbag down, grabbed the links 
of the fence with her hands pulling, ripping, and 
tearing them apart with a series of snaps and low 
creaking sounds.

  Her hands bleeding now, Akane picked her bag up 
again, shoved herself through the hole she had 
made in the fence and walked on to Tofu�s clinic as 
the implications of everything she had learned 

percolated in the blast furnace of her mind.

  "Note to self," Ukyo muttered, staring blankly at the 
hole in the fence, "Never, under any circumstances, 
let Akane hit me."

  Shampoo nodded. "Is very good note."

~~~~~*~~~~~

  She stood naked in front of the full-length mirror in 
Tomo Hoko�s bedroom, fondling herself. 

  The person in the mirror was a normal looking 
teenage girl. Not a bombshell by any means; she 
had average dimensions and long hair with bangs 
that partially hid a face that was just pretty enough 
to be unnoticeable in a crowd, which suited her just 
fine. But it wasn�t her. Or was it? 

  She caressed her anatomy, tickling nerves on 
each patch of skin that told her that she was the 
same as this girl in the mirror. Is this me? Is this 
my body? Are these my breasts? Are these my 
thighs? Is this my... She bit her lower lip, barely 
stifling an involuntary squeal of pleasure. They say 
beauty is only skin deep...but isn�t the skin the 
largest organ in the body?

  Tears passed down her cheeks even as shudders 
of pleasure passed through her. She cried now 
even more than earlier, in the bathroom, when she 
had been slicing her arms with a razor. Not to kill. 
She didn�t want to die, not yet anyway. No, she 
needed pain, she needed pleasure, she needed 
this body that she saw reflected back at her to 
convince her that she belonged here, that she 
could stop looking, that here in front of her, was her 
true self.

  But she knew that wasn�t true. 

  She woke that morning in Tomo Hoko�s bed, to 
the sound of Hoko�s mother knocking on the door. 
If she had gotten up then or even remained silent, 
she would right now be following Nabiki around or 
participating in some grand scheme of hers. 
Instead, she had taken a perverse pleasure in 
telling the woman to fuck off. 

  Naturally, Hoko�s mother was concerned and 
came through the door, and naturally, upon seeing 
the girl she thought to be her daughter openly 
masturbating she had become even more worried. 
The last straw though, she reflected, had been 
when she asked Hoko�s mother if she wanted to 
help.

  That was stupid. 

  Now, she was essentially under house arrest, with 
her ad hoc mother concerned about how "ill" she 
was. Ill indeed. She wondered idly now, as the 
intense feelings she had generated washed out of 
her in a sigh of ecstasy, how concerned Hoko�s 
mother would be if she knew that the real Tomo 
Hoko was stone dead, cut into pieces and laying 
strewn about the city dump.

  Perhaps the poor woman would have a heart 
attack and save her from having to kill the bitch 
herself.

  Focusing on her image in the mirror and blurring 
out the marks on her arms with her mind, she 
brought out her demon cloth from null space and 
passed it over herself. When she looked in the 
mirror again, the marks were gone. It wouldn�t do to 
have herself thrown into a mental institution for her 
little weakness this morning. If she didn�t already 
have a goal in mind, going to a mental institution 
might actually be fun, but she had to remain 
focused as much as possible.

  She smirked to herself. One of the perks of 
owning the cursed demon cloth was that she never 
had to shave, or cut her hair, or clip her toenails, or 
even bathe if she didn�t want to. She was a little 
slow in catching on to this hidden benefit, but now 
she took it for granted. Sometimes...like today...she 
missed all that though. 

  The Migration never ends

  The Migration. The fucking Ijuu. Someone else 
had joined it, she could feel it like a static charge in 
her brain. There was no doubt in her mind that it 
was Ranma. The bastard would probably get 
through the initial stages smelling like roses. He 
had people that cared about him, after all, even if 
he was an arrogant prick. She�d like to see what 
he�d do if he had to grow up in a orphanage, spent 
all his time moving from place to place without any 
ties to anyone, without a single constant save 
himself. She�d like to see what he�d do if even that 
last refuge eroded away, leaving nothing but a 
shadow...a desperate, hungry shadow...

  But she�d settle for a gruesome death in a pinch.

  She took a breath and calmed herself. She had to 
convince Hoko�s mother that she was alright and 
that it was just especially painful cramps or 
something. She had to be ready for Nabiki�s 
scrutiny, and while she could do this with enough 
concentration, she had to be mellow.

  First things first, she had to get dressed. She went 
to the dresser and opened the top drawer. The 
panties. She picked up a pair and smelled them, 
but they just weren�t as fulfilling laundered. 
Tomorrow at school she�d be in the girls� locker 
room and she�d get all the panty action she wanted 
there. If she hadn�t blown it this morning...

  But no matter. She put on the panties and a bra 
she found, taking time to leer at herself in the mirror 
a bit, and then went to the closet for some outer 
wear. 

  She decided she liked being a girl. It was like she 
was her own prostitute, and she didn�t have to pay. 
Even the masturbation was wonderful, once she got 
the hang of it. 

  Hoko�s mother was a pain. She wished she could 
just kill her, but of course if she did, then she�d have 
to kill Hoko�s father as well, and then the people at 
Mr. Tomo�s business firm would wonder where he�d 
run off to, and things would lead to more 
complicated things. It just wasn�t worth it.

  She decided to go with a short skirt and dark 
colored top with a jeans jacket. She put on long 
black socks that went past the knee and black 
sneakers. She looked in the mirror again. It 
seemed okay, but as far as she knew she could be 
breaking several major fashion rules. She blinked. 
The girl in the mirror blinked. She liked how she 
looked right now. 

  There was a pang as she realized she had lost 
another part of herself.

  "I am Copycat Ken." She asserted to her 
reflection... but it felt wrong, alien now. She was not 
Ken anymore. Ken would have just copied whatever 
Hoko had worn before she died. Now after several 
months of stalking people, of killing them, stealing 
their lives and making them her own for days, even 
weeks on end, she could no longer say with any 
certainty whether she was male or female. "I was 
Copycat Ken" she said sadly, "Now, I�m just 
Copycat"

  Ever since that last battle with Ranma, she had 
been unable to find her true form, the body she had 
been born with. Ever since then, she could only be 
other people, never herself. She tried to remember 
what she looked like, but she had no pictures of 
herself, and instead of getting closer to finding her 
original form, she found it slipping further and 
further away. 

  Copycat left the room, whereupon she was quickly 
intercepted by Hoko�s mother. "Just where do you 
think you�re going, young lady?"

  Copycat smiled, "I feel much better now, Mom. I 
was just...I had a weird...personal dream...and I 
didn�t expect you there..."

  Hoko�s mother nodded. "I know you�re growing up, 
but that�s really no excuse for...Hoko, dear, that just 
didn�t seem like you at all. I was almost sure you 
were possessed or something like in that American 
movie...Are you sure you�re alright?"

  "I�m fine, Mom! I�m going to go to Tofu�s anyway 
to get a note for class tomorrow. I�m sure if there�s 
anything wrong he�ll find it."

  "Do you mind if I go with you? You really had me 
worried."

  "Oh okay. How do I look?" 

  "You look...very fetching."

  Copycat laughed.

  "What�s funny, dear?"
 
  "Nothing," she waved it off sobering, "just a private 
joke."

   "I�ll just get my purse and then we can go, okay?"

  "Sure" Copycat agreed. She crossed her arms 
and leaned up against the wall as she waited for 
Hoko�s mother. She allowed herself to think 
optimistically for a few moments. Four months of 
careful planning, stalking, observing and she was 
now almost ready to make her move on Saotome. 
First, though, she had to take out his most effective 
defense against her...Nabiki. The Ijuu...it would 
complicate things, but no matter what, the end 
result would be the same. 

  Ranma was going to die.

~~~~~*~~~~~

  "PREPARE TO DIE, RANMA!" Hibiki Ryoga ran 
along the street away from Akane. She had gotten 
angry at him! Angry. At him! It had to be Ranma�s 
fault. All those awful insults he threw at Akane every 
day...it must have been rubbing off on him! 

  How could he say that Akane wasn�t a martial 
artist! She was a wonderful martial artist! Not 
compared to himself or Ranma or Mousse or even 
Kuno in a real no-holds-barred fight, but still better 
than most. Maybe he could convince Akane to go 
on a training trip with him! That way she could feel 
better about her martial arts and he could have all 
that time alone with her! 

  But...if she refused...

  Akane in a yellow sun dress and white hat looks 
up at Ryoga with tears in her eyes and shakes 
her head. "No, Ryoga, I�m afraid I cannot go with 
you on a training trip," Akane lifts the back of her 
hand to her brow and looks away in anguish, "for, 
alas, my heart belongs to Ranma, and I cannot 
bear to be apart from him..."

  Ryoga shook his head violently. No! His fragile 
heart of glass could not withstand it!

  Ryoga thought he heard Ranma just then. 
Ranma...calling him a coward.

  "NO! I am no coward, Ranma! Just you wait! 
Today you meet your doom!" Ryoga ran on. He had 
to keep moving. Keep his goal in mind...otherwise 
he�d lose track and start to think of other things.

  Why DID he fight Ranma so much?

  It was a question that Ryoga himself asked from 
time to time in the dark chill of night beside a dying 
fire. But he already knew the answer, and thinking 
about it just drove him further into the dark depths 
of his insurmountable depression.

  So Ryoga kept running, and concentrated solely 
on that, and on his goal. He paid no heed to stray 
thoughts or to the passing scenery. Nothing could 
distract him from his revenge. "RANMA! PREPARE 
TO..."

  "...shake vigorously and pour the liquid down the 
throat." Dr. Tofu looked up and smiled at the young 
man who had just made a rather large hole in the 
wall of the examination room. "Good to see you, 
Ryoga, but you know you really shouldn�t disturb me 
when I�m with another patient."

  "Oh we don�t mind, doctor. It�s nice knowing that 
my husband and I aren�t THAT strange." Yamashita 
Niburi adjusted the position of her arm underneath 
her husband�s small body with a smile. "Isn�t that 
right, my little sweetums?" she tickled her 
husband�s nose with her finger.

  "Thtop that! Woman, I thweal..."

  "Um...is Ranma here? I�m trying to kill him." Ryoga 
said eying the Yamashitas. If he didn�t know any 
better he�d swear that the baby had just talked. 

  "He�s in the waiting room," Tofu pointed to the 
door, "Just take it outside if you could and...make 
sure Ranma is wearing his earrings."

  Ryoga headed for the door.

  "Ryoga..."Tofu called after him.

  "What!" Ryoga snapped back.

  "That�s the closet."

  "What�s Ranma doing in the closet? I thought you 
said he was in the waiting room."

  "I did. The waiting room is over there," Tofu 
pointed again, "that door leads to the closet."

  "So where�s Ranma?"

  "In the waiting room!"

  "But you just said..."

  The baby spoke up, "Ith that...the Lyoga? Hibiki 
Lyoga...the famouth lotht tlavelel?"

  "Huh?" Ryoga asked...the baby DID talk!

  "They tell thtolies about you in Thikoku! Evely 
week ol tho you letuln to The Town of the Boal with 
giftth flom dithtant landth! That�th how I came aclotht 
the map to the Fountain of Youth!"

  "Ryoga, have you been to the Fountain of Youth?" 
Tofu asked, grabbing Ryoga by the shoulders.

  "Y...yeah." His eyes widened, "So that�s why that 
baby can talk!"

  "Do you know of any cure?" Tofu asked.

  "Er...have you tried hot water?"

  "Hot water?"

  "You know...like Jusenkyo?"

  Dr. Tofu pushed his glasses up on his nose. He 
turned on the hot water in the sink. When it was just 
short of scalding he filled a glass and poured it on 
the baby. In that instant, all of Yamashita Ichiro�s 
eighty-five kilos returned to him and he fell to the 
ground with nothing but a bit of blanket to cover his 
special purpose.

  "Looking for portents in the stars, we must remain 
mindful of our feet." Tofu said over the stunned 
man on the floor.

  "You mean all this time...ALL this time I spent as 
helpless baby...and THAT�S the cure?" Ichiro stood 
up shakily, barely remembering to cover himself. 

  "It wasn�t that obvious, I mean, who would think of 
throwing water that hot on an infant?" Niburi argued.

  "It�s not a cure...You�ll be a baby again with a 
splash of cold water," Ryoga noted.
 
  "How do you know that exactly, Ryoga?" Tofu 
asked chuckling. "If I didn�t know any better, I�d say 
you fell in yourself!"

  Ryoga laughed nervously and his hand found itself 
on the back of his head. "Umm...where was Ranma 
again?" 

  Niburi put a hand on Ryoga�s shoulder. "I�ll lead 
you to her. It�s the least I can do."

  "Oh, so you�re going off with other men, now, is 
that it?" Ichiro quipped.

  Niburi turned back. "Is my little Ichikins worried I 
might leave him? I swear I�ll be right back and we 
can play a nice little game of peek-a-boo." Niburi 
laughed. "You�re such a baby!"

  As they went through the doorway to the waiting 
room, Ryoga heard Ichiro remark, "I�m never going 
to live this down, am I?"

  It made him smile for a moment. 

  Then of course he saw Ranma-chan sitting 
suspiciously close to Nabiki while they played some 
sort of card game with Kasumi. Genma and Soun 
played shogi in the opposite corner. Ranma, that 
bastard! Having fun with other women while 
Akane suffers...

  "You�re going to have to tell her some time you 
know. It�s just going to get worse if you don�t," 
Niburi said softly.

  Ryoga nodded. "I know, I�ve been wanting to, but 
things get so complicated...Wait a minute!" Ryoga 
turned toward Niburi, "How did you know about 
Akane?"

  "Hmm?" Niburi looked up slightly, showing her 
mature, delicate complexion with its slight smile, 
"Akane? So sorry, I was talking about Ranma!" She 
indicated the red-head with a raised open hand.

  Ryoga was silent.

  "Oh, it�s obvious! Well, if Ranma hadn�t told me 
she was really a girl all along I might not have made 
the connection I suppose but..."

  "Ranma said that? No. Ranma�s a guy. He would 
never say something like that. That�d be like giving 
up. And even if he were a girl I would never..."

  "Right. You would never. So you just find any 
excuse to be with her."

  "Listen, lady, you got your signals crossed or 
something. Ranma�s my worst nightmare. Nothing 
would make me happier than to see her...him 
dead."

  Niburi sighed. "Fine, fine. Just trying to give some 
advice. If you don�t mind then, I�ll just leave you to 
your homicide." She smiled impishly "It�s been a 
while since I�ve seen my husband all grow�d up."   

  Ryoga stood unmoving for a moment after Niburi 
went back into the office, looking at the girls and 
Ranma. He couldn�t just threaten to kill Ranma 
again, not after what Niburi said. It�d be like proving 
her right...

  Ranma-chan laughed, and damned if it didn�t 
happen in slow motion... with sparkles.

  Ryoga squeezed his eyes shut against the image, 
but even as he did so, he wasn�t sure if he was 
trying to keep it out, or tying to keep it in. Ryoga 
could feel it sure as anything...he was about to 
spend a long time on the road. 

  When he opened his eyes, though, he had to say 
something..."Ranma, how dare you go out with 
Nabiki behind Akane�s back!"

  Ranma turned her head slowly in Ryoga�s 
direction. "Howdy, Oinkster! Good of you to join us! 
Say, you�re a guy right?"  Ranma picked up a card 
that Kasumi had just shown her and Nabiki and 
asked, "Tell me, what does this look like to you?"

  "A Rorschach inkblot," Ryoga answered in spite of 
himself.

  "Yeah, I know that. Why do you think we�re 
messing with them? So... what do you see?"  

  Ryoga found himself studying the mirror image on 
the card. It was random and splotchy, of course, 
but there was something about it.  Thin on either 
end, wide closer the center and then thin again 
where the fold would be, it looked disturbingly like... 
"A mask. Like a one of those cheap plastic 
Halloween things."

  "Oh come on! It�s a bra! Look there are the 
straps..."

  Ryoga�s eyes shifted to Nabiki�s amused and 
smug expression and then back to Ranma. 

  "Okay...maybe I�m a little worried about Mom 
coming, okay? I could have told you that."

  "Ranma-chan�s right, Nabiki. That could be what it 
is. The inkblots are not precise. The things you see 
in them are like the symbols in a dream. 
Sometimes their meaning is quite literal, as would 
be the case if Ranma is only worried about having 
to wear a bra. Other times though, they can be 
much larger. Nabiki, how would you feel if Ranma 
was never a man again?"

  "It really wouldn�t bother me," Nabiki replied 
seriously. "I always kind of liked Ranma as a girl 
anyway." Nabiki turned to Ranma now, "I know, I 
know, but I have to say it. You seem freer somehow. 
More yourself. Except when your mother�s around 
of course."

  "Well, I guess I am pretty well built..." Ranma said 
pushing out her breasts.

  "And that right there proves you�ll always be a man 
inside," Nabiki smirked. "Hey, Kasumi, is it just me 
or is Ranma bigger?"

  "Oh my, Ranma-chan�s growing up!"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Let me check..." Nabiki grabbed Ranma�s breast.

  "HEY!"

  "Yep, definitely bigger than last time." Nabiki 
nodded officially.

  "Let�s see how big YOU are..." Ranma-chan 
threatened and grabbed a hand full of Nabiki.

  Ryoga couldn�t take it anymore. "Ranma! What do 
you think you�re doing?"

  Ranma, out of reflex, immediately brought her 
hand back to her side. "What are ya talking about?"

  "Akane�s your fianc�e!"

  "Actually, I�m his fianc�e now," Nabiki informed.

  "What do you mean?"

  Ranma turned to Ryoga. "Look, Pigface, Akane 
broke it off again this morning, and a lot of things 
happened since then, alright? It�s not the first time 
it�s happened; let�s just hope it�s the last. I would 
think you�d be happy anyway."

  "What about your honor, Ranma?"

  "Hey, Nabiki�s a Tendo too, you know, and 
Shampoo and Ukyo both have valid claims to boot. 
Why are you getting so worked up over this?"

  "But Akane�s the one true fianc�e! She�s the one 
you love! The one you�ll always be with!"

  "Ryoga, that�s sweet, but you�ve got the wrong 
Tendo. Maybe I do love Akane, but right now, I 
don�t even want to think about her, and I don�t think I 
could stand living with her for the rest of my life. 
She�s free, no strings attached. Get her while she�s 
hot."
 
  Ryoga felt the depression building. The 
depression that would never go away, that was 
always there, waiting for him, whenever he dared 
think clearly. If Akane wasn�t Ranma�s fianc�e, then 
he wouldn�t have an excuse to...to... "I won�t allow it. 
I can�t! I..."

  A splash of cold water shocked Ryoga and turned 
him into a piglet. He watched with surprise as 
Kasumi gently placed the empty fire bucket to her 
side. "Forgive me, Ryoga-kun," she bowed, "but 
you were disturbing our harmony."

  "Hey I just thought of something..." Ranma said, 
"If my female side is growing, how come Ryoga�s 
pig form hasn�t gotten bigger or anything?"

  "Maybe his curse is special... or maybe he fell in a 
different spring and the curses mixed?" Nabiki 
shrugged.


  "Yeah...I�ll have to ask him when I get the chance."

 Ryoga in pig form turned and clicked away from 
Ranma and the others. It was so easy for Ranma. 
Always so easy. In junior high, it had taken months 
for Ryoga to establish himself as the top martial 
artist. It had taken Ranma a day to take it away, 
making Ryoga once again just a "stupid lost boy." 
Ryoga challenged Ranma again and again, but 
each time Ranma would win. Ryoga became a joke. 
He lost all of the friends he had made. He got lost 
more and more often. Everyday Ryoga would see 
Ranma laughing with friends that were once his, 
succeeding in all the areas where he had failed. It 
was Hell. Pure and simple. And Ranma was an 
undefeatable guardian of paradise...of the bread, of 
the respect, of Akane...Everything that Ryoga 
wanted, Ranma would already have. But now Akane 
was free. Now Ryoga could see her without 
guilt...and he didn�t want her. 

  Ryoga hated himself for it, but he realized now 
Akane was just a spoil of war to him. He didn�t love 
her, only what he could do to Ranma through her. 
Defeating Ranma was all he cared about. Ranma 
was all he cared about...

 It was time for Ryoga to get lost.
 
~~~~~*~~~~~

  Two and a half centimeters. That was all. 

  No divine hand. No chivalrous knight. No moat 
teaming with fantastic and terrible monsters. Just 
two and a half centimeters. That was all that 
protected Tendo Akane from Ranma�s words as 
they stabbed unerringly into her heart.

  Then again if the door had been a little thicker, 
maybe Akane would have gone inside. Maybe she 
would have seen first hand what she had heard. 
That would have been worse.

  There were a lot of ifs. If she had helped Ranma 
out of the Nekoken, if she had kept him away from 
Shampoo, if she hadn�t been so cruel to him that 
morning, if his mother hadn�t shown up when she 
did, if Shampoo hadn�t used her shampoo to begin 
with...if, if, if, if. It made no difference.

  Nabiki was fine, even if she was in danger of dying. 
As long as Nabiki didn�t come near her, Akane 
wouldn�t kill her. Akane felt her mallet hand itching, 
and it took everything she had not to go through the 
door and swing away at Ranma. She knew he 
wasn�t hers anymore, maybe never was, but she 
just couldn�t grasp the meaning of that. It was 
another unknown variable in the indecipherable 
math equation that was her life.

  Then there was Ryoga. P-chan. Try as she might, 
she could not think of the two entities as being the 
same person, even with this direct evidence. And 
how many times had Ranma tried to tell her, even 
before Shampoo�s formula 110? She was right. 
She had been stupid even before. Or maybe she 
just needed P-chan, just needed someone to talk to, 
someone she could trust. Even now, if P-chan 
came to her, she would hold him and cry and tell 
him everything just like before, even knowing what 
she knew, because she could not think of hurting 
the poor creature. She wished he would come out. 
She was so lost...

  If she went inside, she would do something she 
would regret. Whether it was hurt someone she 
loved, or simply break down. So Akane gathered up 
her distended emotions and turned away slowly 
from the door of the clinic. 

  Just then, she saw Nabiki�s friend Hoko walking 
with her mother toward the clinic. Caught between 
not wanting to seem rude and walk away and not 
wanting to talk to anyone, Akane wavered at the 
door until Hoko was there. "Good afternoon, Hoko-
senpai," Akane greeted in a subdued tone with a 
small bow. "Tomo-san" Akane bowed deeper to 
Hoko�s mother.

  "Hey, Akane-chan! What are you doing here?" 
Hoko asked.

  "I...um...I was just leaving. It�s been a bad day...I�d 
rather not talk about it." Akane bowed again, trying 
to smile and only managing a grimace. She moved 
to go, but then Hoko grabbed her forcibly by the 
shoulder, surprising her.

  She found herself looking into the older girl�s dark 
brown eyes. They were fierce, 
challenging...compassionate. Hoko smiled. "It�s 
going to be okay, Akane-chan. It�s all going to be 
okay."

  Akane nodded hesitantly. When Hoko released 
her shoulder, she left without any other words. She 
walked briskly from the clinic, needing to get away. 

  For some reason, what Hoko said gave her the 
creeps.

~~~~~*~~~~~

  Copycat was surprised to find the clinic so 
crowded. When she saw Ranma she stopped 
stock still. It took all she had not to pull out a tanto 
from null-space and slay the bastard then and there. 
But that would be too fair. Ranma would win in a fair 
fight. 

  "Hoko-chan?" Hoko�s mother asked, "Is 
something wrong?"

  "Nothing, Mom, just had a strange thought..."

  "It wasn�t...personal...was it?"

  "Mom!" Copycat laughed. It was easy to pretend 
to be Tomo�s child. She had plenty of practice 
pretending to be other people�s children after all. 
First in foster families, then with the families of the 
people she killed. Every time trying to make it work, 
but knowing that it wouldn�t. In a way, she did love 
Tomo. In the end, it didn�t matter. She�d still have to 
leave her eventually...if she didn�t kill her.  

  Nabiki got up from her seat. "Hoko! You�re 
alright?"

  Copycat nodded, "That�s what I keep telling Mom, 
but she won�t believe me."

  Nabiki frowned and seemed a little distracted as 
she said "Well...you know how parents can be..."

  A thirty-ish woman, attractive, yet dressed so 
conservatively she seemed older at first glance, left 
Tofu�s office, her arm around that of a well-built 
man in a brown gi (probably Tofu�s) with short burnt 
umber hair that spiked and curled wildly about the 
top of his head. Copycat got the impression that 
they had gotten together primarily because she 
liked to clean messes and he liked to make them. 
The two either had trouble finding time together, or 
one of them was impotent, because the woman 
didn�t have the look of a mother, rather she had the 
slightly weary, hopeful look of someone worried 
she might never become one. Copycat was quite 
familiar with the type.

  The woman introduced the man to Nabiki and 
Nabiki bowed and thanked her. Apparently the 
couple was Yamashita Niburi and Ichiro, and 
apparently the woman, Niburi, had somehow helped 
save Nabiki�s life. Then Nabiki introduced Copycat 
as Tomo Hoko and she greeted and thanked them. 
Copycat was genuinely thankful that Niburi had 
saved the life of her "best friend," If she hadn�t, 
Copycat would not be able to kill her.

  Nabiki�s powers of perception were perhaps even 
greater than Copycat�s, even without the 
surveillance equipment with which the girl had a 
near symbiotic relationship. Copycat had chosen 
her first victim, Buntaro, based on the idea that no 
one knew who he was, that no one cared about him. 
After the second day at school, Nabiki approached 
Copycat and wanted to know what was going on, 
why Buntaro was acting so differently. Copycat said 
that it was trouble at home, the same excuse she 
had offered case workers years before she had 
joined the Ijuu and an oni offered her the demon 
cloth and the camera that could allow her to copy 
any ability. 

  Nabiki offered Buntaro a job. 

  When they found Buntaro�s body, as Copycat 
hadn�t yet hit upon the idea that merely burying a 
corpse was not enough, Copycat had to find 
someone else. It must have seemed strange to the 
police that the body was a week dead, while 
Buntaro was last seen the day before, but there 
was nothing in the paper about it. By chance 
Copycat had been using another form at the time, 
that of a male cop she observed earlier asleep on 
some sort of stake out, to do some spying on 
Ranma, otherwise she might have been found out. 
Aside from Buntaro�s destitute mother, Nabiki was 
the only one at the funeral. Copycat had shown up 
as Generic Overworked Cop and asked Nabiki what 
her relationship was to the deceased. 

  "Potential friend," Nabiki had said simply.

  Potential friend.  

  It was then that Copycat knew that she�d have to 
kill Nabiki before she�d be able to get near Ranma. 

  Copycat smiled and said, "I guess I might as well 
get this check up over with." Tofu had since come 
out of the office and he and Hoko�s mother 
exchanged some mindless pleasantries, before 
Tofu invited her and Copycat into his office, 
apologizing for the state of the room.

  Copycat wasn�t worried about being found out. 
The demon cloth made Copycat a perfect copy of 
Hoko�s body, including basic ki flow patterns. After 
a period of time, Copycat�s own distinct ki pattern 
would start to become more visible, but by that time 
it would be attributed to changes in lifestyle. 

  Hoko�s mother explained how she was worried her 
daughter might have been possessed by 
something, but she was sure it was nothing now 
and was sorry to take up Dr. Tofu�s time. 

  Tofu simply nodded and examined Copycat, 
prodding certain spots and seeming to gaze 
through her.

  The problem with simply walking up to Ranma and 
slitting his throat when he least suspected it was 
that Ranma seemed to suspect it all the time. 
Ranma could detect things, dodge things, and 
anticipate things to the point where it was uncanny. 
Copycat had once, in the form of Ryoga, tried to kill 
Ranma in his sleep, only to have every attempt 
thwarted by a dodge. Copycat was almost certain 
Ranma had some kind of latent precognitive ability. 

  Ranma had his weaknesses, but he also had an 
annoying tendency to let everyone know what he 
was doing. Even if he could be goaded into a trap, 
it wouldn�t matter because he�d say "Uh oh! Looks 
like I�m walking into a trap!" and his allies would 
eventually find out and rescue him. 

  Copycat had no allies. 

  In order to defeat Ranma, she had to rectify that 
situation. It was a long, arduous task to make new 
associations, she knew this from experience. Nabiki 
already had allies, it would be far easier to just steal 
hers.

  Tofu said that he could see nothing abnormal in 
the ki flow patterns and started with the physical 
check up. He asked Copycat to turn her head and 
cough. She did.

  Copycat�s next victim had been a Japanese 
Language teacher. A single, middle-aged woman 
named Tanaka Kimiko. This time, Copycat was 
extra careful to get the personality down. She found 
the camera that stole abilities worked for 
personalities as well and it was fairly easy to fool 
the woman�s students. It was considerably harder 
to stab the woman repeatedly with a tanto, stuff her 
in the trunk of her own car, drive some three hours 
into the countryside where no one was around, saw 
her up into segments and throw them into separate 
dumpsters as she traveled back to Tokyo.

  Copycat used her position as one of Nabiki�s 
teachers to try to get some information on the girl. 
The thing was, Nabiki really didn�t have any 
enemies. Many people did not particularly like her, 
but almost everyone Copycat overheard in the halls 
regarded her with a respect that bordered on 
worship. Once, while Copycat sat in the school 
office, Nabiki came in to see the assistant principal. 
Copycat listened in. Nabiki was saying that there 
ought to be a school wide martial arts tournament to 

raise money for the repairs to the gym that Ranma 
had damaged in his fight with Hinako-sensei.

  The tournament was held two weeks later.

  Nabiki was not infallible. She hadn�t suspected 
anything of Copycat as she taught in the guise of 
Tanaka Kimiko, and while she got impeccable 
grades, Nabiki still made mistakes. She still mistook 
one complex kanji for another or turned papers in 
late same as anybody else. There was the 
occasional student who claimed to have won a 
heap of money off Nabiki in the betting pool. And 
the tournament had of course been a complete 
disaster. But the girl knew things. She got things 
done. And she was fair.

  The only possible chinks in her armor were her 
two closest friends, Inamura Yuki and Tomo Hoko. 
Yuki was extremely popular. She was friends with 
Nabiki in a large part because Nabiki kept Kuno 
from realizing that fact. Yuki had many friends aside 
from Nabiki and furthermore, her father was a 
police detective; so she wouldn�t work for 
Copycat�s purposes. 

  Hoko, on the other hand, was a loner. A 
nondescript wall flower who worked for the school 
newspaper and wrote ho hum articles about things 
people already knew with pictures that everyone 
had already seen. She wasn�t an outcast or 
anything; she just kept to herself and didn�t make 
any waves. She was perfect. But if Copycat was 
going to get so close to Nabiki, she had to make 
sure she had Hoko down perfectly. Luckily, there 
was one pathetic kid who no one really liked and 
who had almost every class with the girl. 

  So Copycat made as if she were retiring from 
teaching and moving to far away lands, and then set 
about killing Gosunkugi Hikari.

  "I don�t see anything wrong, Tomo-san. Your 
daughter is just a perfectly normal, healthy, teenage 
girl."

  Copycat got up off the examination table as Tofu 
had Hoko�s mother sign some papers so he could 
get paid from the insurance company. Then he 
walked her and Copycat out of the office, 
whereupon he and Hoko�s mother exchanged a few 
more mindless pleasantries, which Copycat tuned 
out, until Tofu turned to her smiling and saying 
"...and you, young lady. You make sure not to kill 
your mother in her sleep okay?"

  "Um...right..." Copycat replied. She glanced at 
Tomo�s pained expression and was grateful that 
she hadn�t been the only one who thought Tofu�s 
comment unfunny. She wondered just how much 
Tofu was hiding. He had the stink of Ijuu, but he 
behaved so innocuously... Maybe his remark was 
just an attempt at humor, but if it was, then perhaps 
Ranma wasn�t the only one with latent precognitive 
abilities.

  Just then Ukyo and Shampoo came in hesitantly 
from outside. From their body language, Copycat 
figured they had somehow put aside differences 
and were now friends. Ukyo seemed almost 
protective of Shampoo, so Copycat guessed 
something had happened to the Amazon and Ukyo 
had consoled her. Shampoo�s hair was cut as if by 
a knife, which meant she had either left the 
Amazons, or she had an unfortunate run in with 
Ryoga. 

  Copycat�s eyebrow went up with interest at this 
turn of events.

  When Ranma turned to see Shampoo she turned 
into a he and jumped...no... pounced on top of her, 
making a horrible rowrling...

  "Ranchan! What the HELL?" Ukyo screamed

  Shampoo screamed too but it wasn�t quite a 
scream or even human sound.

  Nabiki got up out of her seat on the couch, her jaw 
open eyes blinking.

  Genma jumped up and flattened himself against 
the wall while Soun just sat stunned.

  Kasumi ran to Tofu�s side and looked worriedly up 
at him, but all he could manage in response to the 
situation was a visible gulp.

  Ranma tore through Shampoo�s cheongsam with 
invisible claws. One breast and upper thigh of the 
Chinese girl now showed. It was making Copycat 
excited and she started breathing exercises so she 
could enjoy the view without revealing herself.

  Shampoo whirled around and faced Ranma on all 
fours. She hissed and it was a cat sound only larger, 
louder. That same sound that made a small furry 
creature a source of fear now made this buxom girl 
from China positively terrifying.

  Ranma was not dissuaded. He attempted to circle 
around Shampoo, but the girl shuffled to face him. 
Nabiki moved closer to Ranma holding a hand out 
hesitantly. "Ranma...she...she doesn�t want to mate 
with you."

  Ranma whipped around. "What would you know of 
it, HUMAN?"  Ranma turned back toward Shampoo 
but she was gone through the door, which she 
ripped apart in her escape. Without a second 
thought, Ranma bounded after her followed by 
Ukyo... and Nabiki.  

  Copycat wanted to applaud. Instead, she looked 
up at Hoko�s mother and lied, "Mom, is it all right if 
you go home without me? I�m going to see if I can 
help Nabiki." Not waiting for the Tomo woman to 
respond, Copycat ran out and, when she was sure 
no one could see her, jumped onto the roof of a 
nearby building and continued after the three girls 
and Ranma. 

  She considered the possibility of being seen. 
Most people didn�t know Hoko, but if Nabiki found 
out, she would have questions. On the other hand, 
Nabiki seemed rather preoccupied and was unlikely 
to be looking above her. The alternative was to use 
the demon cloth to change forms, but the only form 
that would make sense would be Mousse and he 
was probably at the Nekohanten, which might cause 
some question-raising if there were reports of him 
being in two places at once. Also, in order to 
change back to Hoko, she would have to study a 
photo of her, as she had only changed into her 
once. Finally, if worse came to worse Copycat 
could always invent secret martial arts training for 
Hoko. So Hoko she would remain. She bounded 
over a gap between roofs. She was catching up to 
Nabiki and Ukyo but the "cats" were still far ahead. 

  She brought her camera out of null space and put 
her head through the strap, still holding on to it with 
her right hand as she ran to keep it from banging all 
over the place. She would get to Ranma eventually. 
The Nekoken was one of Ranma�s most powerful 
techniques and soon, it would be hers. 

~~~~~*~~~~~

  Ukyo should have done something...but it all 
happened so fast. She hadn�t even considered the 
possibility that Ranma was at the clinic. She just 
thought Tofu could help Shampoo somehow. That 
maybe there was a pressure point that diminished 
sexuality or something. And when it 
happened...Ukyo had believed Shampoo, but it 
hadn�t been real to her until it was right in front of 
her. Her friendship to Shampoo was so new, and 
already Ukyo felt like she had betrayed it. And so 
she ran after her and Ranma. But they were so 
much faster. Both of them. 

  Ukyo heard the sound of shoes behind her, and 
she glanced back. Nabiki was running too! Even in 
her short glance though, she could tell Nabiki wasn�t 
fit enough to run even the distance she already had. 

  Ukyo fell back, allowing Nabiki to catch up. "Why 
are you running?"

  "Ranma...might kill...if...I...don�t... stop him...Go 
back to Tofu�s...get help."

  "Sugar, you aren�t going to make another ten feet, 
there�s no way you�ll catch up to them."
 
  "I�ll...catch up...you...go."

  Ukyo just ran beside Nabiki. To her surprise the 
Tendo girl started picking up speed. "Nabiki, how-
?"

  "GO!" Nabiki waved her hand at Ukyo to go 
back....or at least that was what Ukyo thought she 
was doing until she felt a sharp burning pain. The 
chef slowed to a stop as she examined the four 
parallel tears in the arm of her boy�s school uniform. 
She looked up at Nabiki who had already gained an 
uncanny amount of ground. She was bounding on 
all fours, catlike.

  "This is fast becoming an epidemic," Ukyo 
remarked to herself. The statement didn�t begin to 
cover the strangeness of seeing the Ice Queen run 
off like that though. 

  "Hey you!"

  Ukyo turned to see a rather unkempt and rotund 
man with curly black hair and a moustache standing 
outside the door of the Hot Dog and Coffee. "Me?"

  "Yeah. You wanna buy a hot dog?"

  "No thanks, sugar," Ukyo said, "I�m trying to quit." 
In Ukyo�s opinion, the worst thing a person could do 
with a piece of meat was turn it into a hot dog.

  "Heh heh. Fine suit yourself. I just know that after I 
see three teenagers run past me on all fours after 
each other, a nice, normal hot dog sure sounds 
good."

  Ukyo had to admit she was tempted, but she had 
somewhere she had to be. "Maybe some other 
time. You�ve got an effective sales strategy there."

  The man shrugged. "Hey, this is Nerima."

  "That it is," Ukyo agreed with a sigh. "Take care." 
And with that she ran back toward Tofu�s.

~~~~~*~~~~~

  Nabiki wasn�t sure at first why she followed Ranma 
out the torn down door of the Tofu clinic. It wasn�t 
something she would normally do. Normally she�d 
acknowledge that Ukyo was the most qualified to 
defuse the situation and make sure she was 
prepared for every foreseeable eventuality.  But 
something told her Ukyo wouldn�t be able to fix this. 
That only she could. 

  She hadn�t done much aerobic exercise in the 
decade or so since she stopped practicing the Art, 
and she felt it as she pounded the ground with her 
feet after the others. In her mind though, she kept 
seeing Genma at the mercy of invisible claws... 
Over and over like a sports broadcast that was too 
enthused about its instant replay feature she saw 
the image. And she remembered the power, the 
freedom...By the time Ukyo fell back to talk to her, 
Nabiki was half-crazed from exhaustion, and almost 
the rest of the way crazed by something inside her 
telling her she could be faster, she could be 
stronger... 

  Nabiki struggled desperately against this. She 
recognized the voice inside her, felt it as the cool 
weight of a pistol in her palm...it wasn�t any different 
than that. But unlike a pistol she couldn�t throw this 
away, she could not renounce it like a bad habit and 
be done. It was as much a part of her now as it had 
ever been for Ranma.

  It wasn�t until she involuntarily scratched Ukyo�s 
arm though, that Nabiki understood. She had power, 
whether she liked it or not. The only thing she had 

any influence on was how she used it. She had to 
find some way to control it but there was really only 
one way to learn. Nabiki stopped resisting. 

  Immediately the world became a wash of sounds, 
smells, sensations... the bloody sweet sweat tang 
of Shampoo�s menses attacked her nostrils 
immediately. As she concentrated she could 
discern Ranma�s pleasant musk. She heard Ukyo 
talk with somebody far behind her but the words 
held no real meaning any more. She knew she was 
now running on all fours, but found it so natural she 
wondered why she didn�t run that way all the time. 

  Then she wondered why she was running in the 
first place when, even now, she was so close to 
utter exhaustion. So Ranma wished to mate with the 
other female. What was the problem? It was her 
time, was it not? Ranma could mate with Nabiki 
when it was her own time. It was natural for the 
female to fight off the male at first. If she reached 
them she�d only be interfering in what might be a 
happy copulation. But then she had a thought...

  Human pregnancies take a period of nine 
months. Human kittens take at least twelve years 
of care to mature and usually require an 
additional eight before they can survive on their 
own. The male is expected to help support the 
family during this period. Ranma, Shampoo and I 
have human bodies. 

  Nabiki increased her speed, trying not to notice 
her ugly, pink, hairless hands as they pushed away 
the concrete underneath her...tried not to get 
frustrated at not being able to direct her hearing 
with her atrophied stumps of ears. If she let Ranma 
mate with Shampoo, she could lose him for two 
decades. Nabiki would not let that happen. 

  Ranma was hers.

~~~~~*~~~~~

  Kawagami Hiro knew he should have known better. 
The girl was still in High School, and she was a 
reckless driver on top of it. But he had fallen for her. 

  The way she moved on that bike, it was like she 
was one with it! He helped save her life, and while 
at the time he was too worried she might die to pay 
much attention, now he could not quite get the 
feeling of her lips on his to go away, even as he 
sipped black java at the Hot Dog and Coffee, 
remembering the image of her and that punk kid 
making out on the couch of Tofu�s waiting room. 
The Hot Dog and Coffee was a favorite hang out 
for cops, first because of the coffee, and secondly 
because you could see all the girls coming out of 
the Sanjuuichi ice cream shop across the street.

  "Why so glum, chum?" asked Inamura Kentaro as 
he sat down across the table from Hiro. He had an 
extremely well-kept goatee that, combined with his 
oriental features, made one think simultaneously of 
Don Quixote and Kublai Khan. He tended to have 
more Quixote than Khan in him most times. People 
often wondered at how such an ebullient man could 
be a homicide detective, but he was, and he had 
definite limits to his pleasantness. 

  "It�s this girl I gave a ticket to. Saved her life. She 
didn�t even thank me and she was banging this 
punk..."

   "Hiro, Hiro, Hiro...you�re like one of the women in 
the self defense class! You keep trying to save 
these girls, trying to change them but you can�t. You 
can�t ask a tiger to be a lamb."

  "This girl was different. She was intelligent, I could 
tell...and there was something else..." 

  "There all different. They�re like snowflakes, but 
Hiro," Kentaro winked and glanced out at the 
Sanjuuichi meaningfully "They all taste the same on 
the tongue."

  "Yeah, I know. I just thought going back to being a 
traffic cop would keep me from having to deal with... 
women. And this one hit me harder than the others." 
Hiro sighed, "So you have any gruesome murders 
to lift my spirits?"

  "Heh. As a matter of fact... I was about to ask you 
to do me a favor." 

  Hiro had a good idea what it was, "You know, 
contrary to popular belief, Kentaro, I don�t actually 
like giving people bad news."

  "But you�re so good at it!" Kentaro batted Hiro 
lightly on the side of the head.

  Hiro was caught in a disturbing niche of being one 
of the few cops that didn�t absolutely dread telling 
people their friends or family members were dead. 
He wasn�t an especially morbid guy, far from it. It 
was just that he�d rather someone hear it from him 
than a pimple-faced rookie or a callous veteran of 
the force. He wouldn�t want cheery bright-eyed 
Kentaro to do it; that was for sure. Hiro sighed, 
"Okay, so who is it?"

  "It�s a murder. A grisly one at that. Not one of 
those nice induced heart attacks no siree." 
Kentaro�s voice had taken a slightly manic tone. 
This case had upset Kentaro more than usual. He 
was venting.  "This one all we got is a maggot 
infested arm that fell out of a dumpster about five 
o�clock this morning. We got the torso an hour or so 
later, so we ruled out self-amputation. We ran the 
prints...they belong to an eighteen-year-old girl. 
Maybe one of your waifs?..."

  Hiro tried not to think of Nabiki hacked into pieces. 
It was common knowledge troubled teens tended 
to have a short shelf life. But Hiro had been a 
troubled teen not all that long ago and Kentaro�s 
humor hit a little too close to home. 

  The older cop continued, "She came by just three 
days ago to get her motorcycle license renewal 
signed by a notary public." Kentaro�s face suddenly 
lost its brightness. 

  Hiro knew he was thinking about the murderer, 
about catching the bastard, about how fucked the 
judicial system was that let maniacs like that loose 
even after they were caught, about how it could 
have been his own daughter that had been killed. 

  "Tomo Hoko, that�s the name of the victim." 
Kentaro took in a breath leaning back to gaze into 
the fluorescent light over head, "Alas, poor Hoko," 
he said and lowered his head to look at Hiro with 
smile as natural as a skeleton�s and about as 
cheerful, "I knew her, Horatio."

  "Give me the address, and I�ll take care of it." Hiro 
said solemnly.

  Kentaro handed him a copy of Hoko�s file. He got 
up to leave and turned back, "I knew her." He left 
then, and Hiro knew that the man would be 
relentless in tracking the murderer down. Kentaro 
was in full Kublai Khan mode now, and for him, the 
divine wind was on his side.

  Hiro looked at the address on the file and shot to 
his feet. Tomo Hoko was Nabiki�s next door 
neighbor! He ran to see if he could catch Kentaro, 
but he was distracted by someone turning up the 
volume on a TV in the caf�. "Hey check it out!" the 
fat, curly-haired man said.

  A four way intersection blocked by a naked couple 
having sex. They seemed to be making high 
pitched cat sounds. Hiro didn�t really think when he 
saw the image. He just went out of the room, out of 
the building and onto his bike. 

~~~~~*~~~~~

  When Akane entered the building dressed in her 
yellow gi and carrying a backpack on her back, a 
man in long, white robes embraced her. 

  "SHAMPOO, MY LOVE!"

  The Nekohanten, Akane thought sardonically, 
they may not know your name, but they�re always 
glad you came. Akane pried Mousse�s arms from 
her torso as best she could, explaining, "I�m not 
Shampoo, Mousse. Honestly!"

  Just then, Akane noticed the TV mounted on the 
wall...

  "...Amazingly, instead of running over them, the 
first cars were blown back by some form of 
energy. Police officers are having difficulty getting 
to the scene owing to the sheer magnitude of the 
traffic jam the two love birds have caused. This 
just in! The names of the exhibitionists are 
Saotome Ranma and...CRASHsizzlepop"

  Akane extricated her mallet from the television 
only a little self conscious.

  "Hey! We were watching that!" one of the 
Nekohanten customers exclaimed.

  Ignoring them, Akane turned to Mousse. "Is 
Cologne here?"

  Mousse put his glasses back onto his nose from 
the top of his head. "I�ll take you to her." Mousse 
led her to the back of the restaurant, where 
Cologne was standing on the counter, hovering 
over a large pot of ramen. "Old ha...I mean 
Honored Elder?" Mousse bowed, "You have a 
visitor."

  She turned and saw Akane. "Ah yes, Tendo 
Akane!" She picked up her staff and hopped to the 
floor and then on to the top of the staff balancing on 
its tip. "You�ve been through a lot today, child. Feel 
free to let go of your pack and sit. May I ask where 
it is you�re going?"

  Akane set her pack down and sat on it. Her eyes 
were now level with the Amazon elder�s. "I�m going 
to a friend�s house for the weekend. I 
need...distance."

  Cologne nodded, "You did leave a note, right? 
You mustn�t let your family worry."

  "Yes, I left a note telling them where I�ll be and I 
plan on calling as soon as I get there."

  "Good. You�ll need as few distractions as possible 
the next few days or so."

  "You have what I called about?"

  Cologne brought a bottle of formula 119 shampoo 
"Yes, I have your cure, and I appreciate you telling 
me about Shampoo."

  "Forgive me, Cologne-sama, but I thought you�d 
be more upset about that."

  "Phah, I was the same as her back in my day. The 
truth is the Amazon culture can be a little stifling. If 
you don�t rebel every now and then, you wither up 
and die. Shampoo�s biggest fault was that she was 
too willing to follow orders. If she had just stayed in 
Japan to begin with, she�d be married to Ranma 
right now."

  Akane couldn�t suppress a twitch in her eyebrow 
but managed to stay calm. "So you think she�ll 
come back to you?"

  "I know she�ll come back, child. Whether she 
wants to or not. It�s her destiny."

  "Destiny? It can�t be changed?"

  "Some things cannot be changed, child. We all 
grow old, we all die, the day inevitably darkens into 
night. Other things...they are as mercurial as a 
flame in the wind. This thing with Nabiki for instance. 
You know I wasn�t expecting it at all? And now it 
seems like it should have been obvious. But to say 
that was destiny is an anthropomorphic fallacy. We 
try to make reality more human, because we can 
deal with people; we know how they operate. If this 
didn�t happen, if that didn�t happen...we start to 
wonder how it is that all these things were set up. 
We start to think of it as the fates playing with us. 
But the very nature of the word "if" should clue us in 
that there isn�t a plan. You could just as easily be 
married to Ranma right now. So could Shampoo or 
Ukyo or nearly anybody. A billion random events 
conspired against you. A butterfly flapped its 
wings."

  "So I still don�t have any control." Akane said 
bitterly.

  "Of course you have control! You are yourself part 
of the world you live in! You can affect it just as 
surely as it can affect you. You already do in fact, 
you just don�t realize it because you don�t observe. 
Do you know what the most awesome power in all 
of the universe is?"

  "What?"

  "The power of thyself known. If you know 
absolutely everything there is to know about 
yourself, then you can do almost anything given 
enough time. Case in point, if you knew that you 
had been affected by the formula 110 shampoo 
earlier, you would have gone to me or Tofu earlier 
and perhaps none of this mess would have 
happened. But instead of being in control, you were 
controlled, and so in a way, it�s all your fault."

  "I don�t see how I could have known..."

  "But you did know. You knew the first day that 
something was wrong, but you dismissed it. Phah, if 
everyone in the world would stop dismissing things, 
the world would be a lot more interesting."

  "I suppose you�re right," Akane sighed.

  "Of course I am." Cologne crossed her arms, 
"Have you made a decision?"

  Akane nodded.

  "So, would you like to be an Amazon?"


  "Yes. Yes, I would, Honored Elder." 

  Cologne smiled. "I�m pleased. Your training starts 
Monday. And don�t think you�re going to get out of 
paying for that television. Tomorrow I will go with 
you to your school so you can get a work permit. I 
imagine your grades have suffered a bit."

  "But, Honored Elder?"

  "Yes?"

  "The cure?" 

  "I�ve already administered it. You�ll be back to full 
capacity in just under three hours."

  Akane blinked. She hadn�t even seen the old 
woman move! "Will I ever learn to be that fast?" 
she wondered out loud.

  "You will learn many things. Your mind is free now, 
and the chains it has worn have served to 
strengthen it. Just be sure not to squander this 
opportunity."

  Akane nodded, smiling. She could feel it now, like 
a fog slowly lifting from her mind. Like static she 
hadn�t even realized was there fading into a clear 
picture. She didn�t need Ranma. If he and Nabiki 
wanted to screw in a city street then that was their 
business. Akane was finally through for real. 
Besides, Ranma didn�t deserve her. She was 
Tendo Akane. 

  She was Amazon.

~~~~~[END]~~~~~

AN: In case you�re wondering about the title and/or 
about Copycat�s inside joke, it all revolves around 
knowing that "fetch" is another name for a 
doppelganger, or a creature that mimics people 
and then kills them. I always planned on having 
Copycat Ken in this fic. I wasn�t satisfied with the 
ending of the episode in cannon, and really there�s 
no character in cannon that I know of with more of 
an identity crisis. Seeing as he was able to turn 
himself into a perfect copy of Happosai, someone 
much smaller than his normal form, I figure the 
blanket he uses is more than just illusion. 

Slowly but surely the fic is approaching the main arc. 
Believe it or not, it actually centers on Nodoka, and 
she should finally make an appearance in the next 
chapter. Unless my idea monster rears its 
complicated head again of course.

Feedback greatly appreciated.

It gets weirder.





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