"Hey Ranma, he's at it again," Nabiki called out as she was typing at
the computer.  She had a glint in her eyes as she knew Ranma was 
willing to shell out alot of Yen to stop the progress of this story.

"Damn, He still hasn't gotten the message.  Can you stop him again?"
Ranma asked as he leaned over her shoulder staring at the screen.

"Oh yes, easily," she responded.  She waited a few seconds to let 
Ranma get his hopes up.  "For 10,000 Yen."

Ranma staggered slightly.  He knew it would cost him but she was 
upping the price already.  "Just do, and make sure he doesn't 
try to start up on it again, please?"

Nabiki was shocked by the way he asked.  "Hmmm, he must really be 
nervous about this one.  It is so unlike him to be polite about it."

She got to work on the computer.  She pulled up the window that 
was monitoring his computer.  "Okay, one complete computer lockup...
now!" she giggled as the virus she hid on his system kicked in for 
the third time.  She was beginning to admire the guy's stubborness 
even though it was bound to get him into bigger trouble with 
Ranma.  She looked again at the monitoring window and smiled.  
"He just lost all that work, if he is going to continue it he has 
a lot of work to make up.  So Ranma, are you going to pay me now 
or shall I add it to your tab?"

"Errr...." was all Ranma had to say.

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

"I don't believe it.  Hey, Ranma, you better get in here now.  You 
got a problem."

"What now Nabiki?" Ranma asked as he stuck his head in her door.

"He's at it again.  That is one dense guy.  20,000 Yen to stop 
him," Nabiki replied while not even looking at Ranma as he 
walked up behind her.  She was already getting everything setup 
to crash his system.

"Where am I going to get that kind of cash?  You know I owe you 
more than I can afford," he was stunned.

"So you will owe me some favors then.  Do we have a deal?"

"Only if you make sure he is stopped for good this time."

"You got yourself a deal, Ranma."  Nabiki press Enter to start 
the lockup and was planning how to trash the harddrive too since
that appeared to be the only way to finally end this.  Her 
thoughts were interrupted by a beep from the computer.  "What?"
she asked stunned.  She studied the message and then turned to 
Ranma.  "You have a real problem.  He changed text editors 
on me.  I made that virus program specific.  Since it isn't 
running, I can't lock him up this time."  She turned back to 
her screen, "and he just finished the 4th part.  Looks like 
he didn't get as much as he wanted there but it is complete.  I 
say that you are getting closer."

"Nabiki, you got to do something, anything, whatever it takes.
I just can't go through this story," he said while shivering 
at the thought of the cruel fate that was in store for him 
if it continued.

"Looks like we might have to get dirty on this one.  Real 
dirty and a job like this isn't cheap.  Ranma, since this 
is turning into a challenge though and you already owe me so 
much I will do it for a month's worths of favors," Nabiki 
smiled back at Ranma knowing she had him over a barrel.  She 
could've gotten more out of him but she really did enjoy 
this new developement.  She already had most of a plan laid
out in her mind, but needed to finalize the details if it 
was going to work.  "By the time I am finished with one 
Mr. Doug Torneden, he will wished he never watched or 
read Ranma," she chuckled evilly.  Ranma had a very scaried
look on his face as he thought what some of the more 
unpleasant punishments she might be contemplating.

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

Bonded

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
by Doug "daneel" Torneden
We all know who created the series but thanks and credit still
goes to the goddess Takahashi for creating it.

Chapter 4

Ryouga sat cross-legged staring at the peaceful courtyard of the
temple's grounds.  It was late afternoon and the priests were busy
tending the grounds to keep it looking pleasing to the eye.  It had
struck Ryouga earlier in the day how strange this place really was.  He
had been watching the temple's warriors practicing and honing their
skills that morning.  The grounds had seemed more like a training camp
than a temple with all the sparring going on.  The training left the
grounds a shambles.  When noon came though that all changed when the
warriors went back inside to rest and to be ready to defend the priests
who themselves had just came out to the courtyard.  They began to repair
the damage and by late afternoon Ryouga could not tell there had been
any training ever done in the courtyard.  Everything here seemed to have
two sides.  It was as if this very temple was the balance between two
opposites.  There was something about this that nagged at him about the
cure but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.  The head priest had gone
over the cure several times in talks with him, but they were so boring
that Ryouga found himself envisioning his rightful place in the world. 
This was mainly as the man by Akane's side with a defeated Ranma at his
feet.  Once he started thinking about it everything else the priest had
said was beyond Ryouga.  He shrugged off this feeling of uneasiness.  It
had to be that he was feeling uneasy about having to offer the cure to
Ranma for it to work.  *There was that two parts thing again,* Ryouga
thought to himself.

He had been sitting in the same spot thinking all day since a priest
showed him where he could sit and meditate.  He did a lot of thinking
during the day since he didn't want to get up from this spot and get
lost without getting the cure he so desperately needed.  Most of his
thoughts were on what he would do when he was cured.  The first thing
was to tell Akane of his feelings about her.  He would have no more fear
of Ranma using his P-chan secret to strike a low blow at Ryouga.  P-chan
would be gone forever, a thing of the past.  He knew Akane would be sad
over the lost of her pet but he was certain that he could give her such
happiness that she would never think of P-chan or even Ranma again.  He
would have to prove himself to her by defeating Ranma and not having to
worry about his curse being discovered by Akane he was certain to
finally defeat Ranma.

Ryouga looked up from his thoughts to the sky to see what time it was. 
The sun was beginning to approach the horizon so soon night would fall. 
He wondered when Ranma would show up.  He knew Ranma would show; he
would do anything for a cure.  Ryouga wasn't sure if he would be here
today or tomorrow but he would show as fast as he could get here. 
Ryouga looked to the sun again and noticed it was dropping lower.  The
longer he waited for Ranma to get here the more his anticipation rose. 
He was beginning to feel irritated that he had to wait so long for Ranma
to arrive that he began to wonder if Ranma was stalling to make him
wait.  *It would be like Ranma to try to get in one last low blow.  He
doesn't deserve someone like Akane and I will show her that too when I'm
cured,* he assured himself.  Every minute that ticked by found Ryouga
getting more anxious and upset with Ranma's dirty trick of making him
wait for Ranma's grand appearance.

Ryouga tried to calm himself by watching the sunset.  It was another
marvelous sight.  The sun was half way down now and was casting a
glorious orange light on the treetops and the roof of the temple.  He
marveled at the quietness that descended on this place as if nature
herself was stopping to stare in awe at the sun's magnificence.  The few
clouds that were in the sky looked like fluffy cotton soaking in a rich
orange dye.  As the minutes past the more orange there was in the color
of the clouds.

Minutes ticked by and Ryouga shifted a little in his sitting position to
keep his legs from getting too stiff.  He learned to always expect a
fight and there was no way he could fight if his legs were sore and
stiff.  Anxiously he returned his attention to the sky yet again.  The
sun was dropping lower still and there was now a purple cast growing in
the edges of the higher orange clouds.  As the minutes past the more
purple there was in the color of the clouds.

Minutes ticked by.  Ryouga looked down at his hands to find they were
clenched into fists.  He was having trouble keeping his thoughts from
making him run off to find Ranma and beat some sense into him for this
cruel joke.  He was afraid though that he would not find his way back
here.  The priests had told him that only the cursed could find this
place and then only with tremendous effort or incredible luck.  Ryouga
never thought of himself as a lucky person.  With his curse how could he
be lucky?  With an enemy like Ranma how could he be lucky?  With Ranma
engaged to Akane how could he be lucky?  He felt depression sweep over
him at the thought of Ranma marrying Akane.  All his hope for the cure
just drained out of him along with any joy he had felt that day.  He
knew this feeling well.  As much time as he spent alone traveling the
emptiness was always there.  It left a hollowness to any joy he felt.

Minutes ticked by.  A priest was coming over to the boy sitting in the
corner of the courtyard to ask him if he wanted to come inside and have
dinner with the temple's priests and servants.  He stopped dead in his
tracks though when he saw the look on his face.  It was of such sadness
and despair that he could feel the depression swirling in the air around
him like a cold north wind blowing in his face.  The priest panicked
then afraid of what disturbing this young man might cause him to do.  He
quickly turned around and almost broke into a run in an effort to get
back to the pleasant warmth and safety of the temple.  He decided to
talk to the head priest about this young man again.  He had seemed so
ecstatic yesterday when he was told of the cure-curse ceremony by the
priest, now he had seemed so depressed like he carried the weight of the
world's combined troubles on his shoulders alone.  At this thought the
priest stopped and decided that the change in him was the workings of
the temple grounds and that there was nothing to worry about.  He would
just keep his distance for now from the wandering youth.

Minutes ticked by.  Ryouga was fighting himself trying to regain his
hope.  Ranma was laughing at him from the bushes somewhere enjoying
Ryouga's despair.  Ranma had to pay for this and he had to pay for the
many other terrible deeds he committed against Ryouga.  Ryouga swore
once again to himself and to the heavens that Ranma would suffer as much
at his hands as he had at Ranma's.  Picturing Ranma's final defeat began
to lighten his mood some.  Trying to restore his previous calm he
pictured Akane looking at him.  Her eyes were filling with wonder,
amazement, longing, and yes, love for Ryouga.  Her face was of such
beauty that he began to lose some of the details of it.  See was
standing before Ryouga with her hands clasped.  "Oh Ryouga, how could I
not of seen how wonderful and perfect you are.  I would be honored to be
your wife forever."  A silly grin crept over Ryouga's face as he was
lost in this dream world.

Minutes tick by.  Shaking himself up from his thoughts he glances once
more to the horizon where the sun is only a sliver of light shining
upwards.  The clouds are all a dark gray now having lost the color of
the sunset.  Ryouga looks over to see young priests lighting laterns
outside the temple.  His frustration with Ranma reaches the limit.  He
jumped to his feet with his hands clenched tightly shouting to the world
to hear, "Ranma, where are you?!?!"

"Jeez Ryouga, I got here as soon as I could," a voice from the path that
lead to the temple said.

Ryouga spun around to see Ranma, Akane, Shampoo, and Ukyou walking up to
him.  He felt a spark of joy rising in him at the sight of Akane, he
would... Akane?  He was furious at the nerve of Ranma, dragging Akane
along to force Ryouga to tell her about his curse or forget about the
cure.  "Ranma, I thought you were going to come ALONE!"

"Yeah, I know but Akane wouldn't take no for an answer and since she
knows about my curse I didn't see any reason that she couldn't come. 
That is unless you had a reason for her not to come, hmm Ryouga?"  Ranma
grinned as he watched Ryouga squirming.

"A reason... eh... no... uh why would I have a reason to keep Akane from
coming?  Uh, actually it's nice to see you Akane. Haha, haha," Ryouga
nervously laughed.  "But Ranma why did you bring the others with you? 
Do you have to parade around how many women you have?"

Hearing this Akane frowned as she remembered the others with them. 
*That jerk Ranma,* she automatically thought to herself.  It wasn't bad
enough that she had to twist his arm to let her come while claiming it
was in Ryouga's letter, but he had to bring along his "other" fiancees.

"Shampoo come to make sure Husband no go on date without Shampoo,"
Shampoo stepped forward grabbing onto one of the arms of Ranma and
holding it with an iron grip.

"Sugar, if anyone is going to go anywhere alone with Ran-chan, it's
going to be me," Ukyou stepped to Ranma's other arm and held it in an
equally tight grip.

With his arms immobilized Ranma had no chance of removing either girl
from his arm.  Looking up quickly he saw the anger smoldering in Akane's
eyes.  True to their agreement though she refrained from punishing Ranma
for his blatant display in front of her.  She would have plenty of time
when they got home to thoroughly punish him.  She turned to Ryouga and
grabbed his arm.  "Well, we might as well go cure Ranma," she said as
she led a starry eyed Ryouga who was currently not existing on this
plane of existence into the temple.

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

end of chapter 4

in the next part this time the cure is revealed to Ranma's horror.

Author's notes:  This took a lot longer than I had planned or wanted.  I
don't know if Ranma & co is really trying to stop me or not but I had
some of the strangest troubles I have had with my computer in a long
time.  Three separate times I sat down and started typing this part and
each time around the end of the first page my computer completely locked
up on me.  All the work I was doing was lost.  Yeah, I know backup,
backup, backup, but I was using Wordpad simply because it was easy and
there was no auto-backup like in my word processor so I kept forgetting
to save the file.  It was strange how it would always happen around the
same point.  With the limited time I had during the holidays I would
just get frustrated and set the story to the side til I had time to
write again.  After this happened three times I almost said enough's
enough and gave up, but I'm if nothing else stubborn so I stuck with it. 
However this meant that this Ryouga part changed and changed again
subtlely and grew in length from what was suppose to be a page to a page
and a half to cover this whole part without really getting to the
ceremony itself which I had wanted to.  So the ceremony has shifted to
the next part and there was a lot of writing done on Ryouga's thoughts
while waiting for Ranma.  I feel like this part really needs another
re-working since it is rather dry and what is Ranma without humor but it
has taken so long to get to this point that I decided to put it out
there for now and do some touch-up later so I can continue with part 5
which is still in my head ready to come tumbling out.  Any C&C, general
comments or even flames are welcomed.  I need to see what others think
this part needs that I might not


-- 
Doug "daneel" Torneden
daneel@flash.net
"see honey, I'm writing as fast as I can. <BAP> lkjadfojopiajdf;ljk.  
<Oooowwwww>"