-------------------	
CHAPTER TWO

	Ranma was running as fast as he could with Akane right beside him as they
raced against time to beat the school bell once more.
	"When are you going to tell her anything, Ranma? She's your mother. I think
she'll understand about your special problem so long as you explain it to
her. It pains me to see her so sad whenever she can't find you." Akane
managed to ask between breaths.
	Ranma jumped from the steel fence and landed right beside Akane. "Do you
think  that hadn't crossed my mind since the day one I first found out she
was my mother. The only thing that's stopping me is that sword she's got
strapped to her back. Not to mention the deal dad made  with her. If I tell
her, I might end up committing seppuku. I do not cherish dying young you know."
	Eyes half-lidded, "Oh?" she said as if not believing it since he
practically courted Death every time. "And here I thought your tendency to
spout those words at women as nothing more than signs of suicidal inclinations."
	"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha." was all Ranma could say. 
Surprisingly, he did not say anything else that would have proven harmful to
his continued health.
	"Do you think she'll force you to commit ritual suicide even after telling
her  it wasn't your fault you could turn into a girl and getting chased by a
lot of admirers. Male and Female."
	Ranma resisted the impulse of telling her she was uncute. After all these
time of saying that in front of her face, it was becoming just too darn
monotonous. Besides, he did not relish another set of bruises on top of the
ones she laid on him yesterday. Hey! His body could only take so much!
	 "No!" he said inwardly, with a slight hint of fear in his guts. He could
not possibly be falling in love with an uncute, sexless tomboy whose body
was a far cry from his own well-proportioned female form.
	"R_A_N_M_A !!!" An enraged Akane said in a tightly controlled voice. "DIE!!"
	Once more, Akane summons her trusty mallet to the fore.
	"Uh-oh." Was all he could say as his mind had alerted him too late that he
was musing a little too loud for his own health.
	<Kerrrrr.........C_R_U_S_H_E_D !!!!>
* * * * * 
	

The clock chimed its usual soft toned peal; heralding the imminent start of
classes.
	Ranma and Akane reach school territory just in time. Ranma was looking
rather worse from wear and sporting a huge circular mallet-looking imprint
on his cheek. 
He was still mumbling --- this time, to himself  and well out of hearing
range --- insult upon insult on Akane when something caught Ranma's eye just
as he was about to enter the school grounds.  A young girl barely seven
years of age lay on the ground, half-hidden by a thick hedge.
	Ranma stopped dead in his tracks.
	Realizing that Ranma was missing, Akane hit the brakes and turned around to
see him lifting a still form from the thicket. It was a young girl wearing a
school uniform unfamiliar  to Akane.
	"Ranma. What the heck happened to her?" asked Akane in a shocked tone. A
cursory inspection yielded  wounds on her arms and legs. Though not serious
but in definite need of some attention. "We'd better get her to the school
nurse and have her examine this child." she advised.
	"Whoever did this to her was not playing around, Akane." Ranma suddenly
spoke up in a hushed voice. "This kids had it real rough. I think I'd better
keep a close watch on her. You go to class and I'll bring her to the nurse."
	Akane nodded and ran off to class. He looked once more at the sleeping form
of the child in his arms. Rage filled him. Doing this to a mere child was
criminal!
	The child stirred briefly. "Mother... please...... don't......."

* * * * * 


	"What! Do you mean to have failed in locating the body of the girl?" asked
a woman whose features was shrouded in darkness.
	"Yes. Somehow, she managed to avoid our trap. However, her protectors have
all been disposed of in the resulting explosion back at the Crystal Palace.
If she is even alive, she will be easy meat to any of our warriors. Without
her protectors to safeguard her, she is as good as dead, your majesty."
assured the woman who stood at the bottom of the pedestal.
	"Very well. Just make sure she doesn't get others to help her again. Those
last bunch proved a lot tougher than we had expected. Do not fail me in
finding her. If she cannot be made to serve the ShadowMoon, then she must be
eliminated at all cost. Is that understood?"
	"Yes, my queen." the woman replied.
* * * * * 

			
	"I wonder if she's okay?" worried Akane.
	Ranma looks up from his seat. "Well, the nurse said she'll be fine. Most of
those wounds were superficial. The only problem is that there is no way she
could be identified. She carried no ID and basically has no memory of who
she is."
	"Amnesia? But how did you managed to find that out. Did the nurse....."
	Ranma moved his head to acquiesce. "She woke up just as I  reached here.
The nurse was trying to ask her what her name was. She just stared at  her
and me as if we was supposed to know it. When the nurse asked her again, she
turns to me and asked_ ME _if I knew her name."
	A sound attracted their attention back to the sleeping child.
	"No... Please...... don't do it..... I beg you....... PLEASE!!!" Those last
words came out as a plea. Her cry filled with tremendous anguish. Ranma
knelt beside the bed and calmed the child back to sleep. Akane stood back
and marveled at this side of Ranma. She'd rarely seen him in such a mood.
But when he was, she could almost feel love for the guy.
	Akane smiled.
	"Hello there, Akane." one of her girlfriends greeted cheerfully. "We heard
that someone was taken in the infirmary today. Is that her?" she inquired,
looking at the sleeping form of the child who slept deliriously.
	"Well, yes. Ranma found this young girl unconscious near the school. We
still don't know who she is and Ranma says that the girl might be suffering
from memory loss."
	"Amnesia?" she asked.
	Akane nodded in affirmation. "I just hope she's okay. Who could have done
such a thing to a poor innocent girl like that?"
	"Who knows, Akane. Things like this is a daily occurrence in the world
today. One more child suffering from abuse won't matter much to anyone."
commented her friend.
	"Well, who cares." replied Akane heatedly. "If I had----"
	" ---Well, Ms. Tendo, so good of you to volunteer your aid in taking care
of this child." interrupted a guy in cool shades and a Hawaiian polo.
	Akane's doing one of those funny poses with her hands. 'Pri.. principal Kunou.
	How ---" Akane stammered. "Hawaii ----"
	"HaHaHaHaHaHaHa." laughed the principal a bit less maniacally than Kodachi
does. "Do you think that any events transpiring in my school  would be
overlooked by me? Still, it is good of you to volunteer. The nurse said that
she'd be fine and will be discharged tomorrow."
	"By the way, Miss Tendo, I just arrived." he added as if reading her thoughts.
	Not knowing how to get out of her predicament, Akane did the only thing her
honor bound her to do. She gave him  her consent.
	"Good. Drop by tomorrow and get her."
	Akane just sighed wondering just what trouble lay ahead of them. Being
around Ranma tended to do just that.

* * * * * 


	"Dinner everyone!" Kasumi called out from the living room.
	"Ranma!" Akane raged, holding her new titanium-reinforced mallet
threateningly over him. A bluish aura surrounded her form. Her eyes had that
peculiar wideness in them.
	"Die!!!!"
	Ranma went flying through the roof of the Tendo house. Nabiki sighed.
Kasumi just mumbled something about having to call the repairman again. The
panda sitting beside Mr. Tendo contends himself by gobbling Ranma's share of
dinner.
	Akane enters the living room, trying to calm her raging temper.
	"Sis," said Nabiki finally. "Calm down already!" scolded an irritated
Nabiki.  Even after so many years, they were still at it. Some things never
seemed  to change around here for some reason. "How can you continue on with
this for so long and not grow sick of the  monotony of it all." 
Akane may have caused some harm to  Ranma with that new mallet she had
bought. Nabiki wished it didn't have to happen under the family house.
Already, her father owed her more money than anyone in the district. She
wasn't actually complaining about her father's debt. The only thing that
bothered her about it was that she wasn't seeing a single darn yen of what
he owed her. 
	"Why don't you ease up on him. I mean it really won't hurt if you just
didn't overdo it. Just punching his lights out or using this heavy dinning
table, for instance, would have sufficed. We really don't need you to teach
Ranma how to fly you know."
	"What did you say, Nabiki? Your not the one whose saddled by such a grossly
hentai guy who half the time acts too much like a girl!"
	"Yeah. Too much like a girl that you can't stand it?" countered Nabiki,
savagely.
	"Grrrrr.. I'm going up."
	"But your dinner---" Kasumi protested. 
	" --I lost my appetite." replied Akane, cutting Kasumi off.
	Kasumi looked sadly at her sister. Nabiki was right to scold Akane. She
needed it. How she wished that Akane would stop beating Ranma for his
mistakes. Whatever Akane thought of him, Ranma was just at the wrong place
at the wrong time. Too many times she had noticed that. Unfortunately, Akane
had that bad habit of letting her emotions get the better of her. She prayed
to their dear departed mother for strength and luck. They were going to need
it if they were to make those two finally get together and happily married
before the Tendo roof collapsed altogether from all those damage it had seen
of late.
	"By the way, Nabiki, when are you visiting us again?"
	"That depends, Kasumi. My workload has increased steadily and well......."
	"Oh....I see." Kasumi said quietly. "Another wounded soul." she said to
herself.

* * * * * 
	

Akane fumed all the way to her room. She held the mallet tightly in her
fist. How she felt like hurting something right now.
	"Akane!" a voice call out from her window.
	 Akane deftly threw her large iron barbell out the window. The sound of
heavy iron hitting flesh seemed to somewhat curb her need to do more
violence. She sighed. Once more she had let her feeling for Ranma get the
better of her. True, she loved him ever since the first time she saw him.
But something made her ill at ease with him. She snorted. That something
just happened to be his female half. She collapsed on her bed and proceeded
on trying how she could make him love her. Just for once, she wished that
he'd call her cute or something like that.
	Tears moistened her eyes. She remembered how he had called Ukyou cute.
Cute. How it rankled her that he'd call almost every other girl cute while
never bothering to say the same for her. She dried her tears with her hands
but fresh tears replaced the ones she had dried. Finally, she lost control
over the emotions she felt building inside of her. She cried and cried and
cried again before succumbing into a troubled sleep.
	"Ran-ma........" she whispered as she dreamed of him.

	Ranma meanwhile crash-landed in front of Ukyou's okonomiyaki restaurant.
Feeling the bruise that was forming on his right cheek, he entered the
restaurant. He was surprised to see no customers considering just how early
it still was. Ranma found Ukyou lounging in a corner reading some magazine
with English writings in it.
	Hearing the door open, Ukyou jumped to her feet as the unknown intruder
stepped  into her shop. She gasped as to who it turned out to be. 
	With practiced ease, she jumped out of her chair and landed behind the counter.
	"Ran-chan. Nice to see you. Did Akane force feed you with her cooking
again?" she asked without any hint of a smile on her face. Ranma nodded
glumly while he sought to check on his acquired bruise. 
"Boy, Ran-chan, why do you stay with her. I mean I'm here and I'm sure I can
feed you without killing you with my cooking. So, why stay at the Tendos.
Akane never liked you anyway and here I am,  lonely as a woman can be
without her man......."
 	Ranma held up his hands to try and push her away. He didn't mind her
flirting. He was used to her attempts and that was because she was an old
friend.   
*Man!* Ranma sighed, speaking to himself. *U-chan wanting me to---* He shook
his head once more and took a seat in front of the counter as he waited for
his food.
	"Why me?" he wondered in despair.
	Ukyou smiled but said nothing.
	"Wanna come with me on Sunday, Ranma." she asked.
	Ranma looked up from where he sat. "Huh?"
	"Well, I was sort of wondering if you're up to a date with me."
	Ranma coughed, choking on the okonomiyaki he was scarfing up. "Uh... Sure."
He agreed rather carefully. He'd learned the hard way that agreeing too
quickly to a woman brought trouble all on its own. A proof of this were his
previous dealings with Kunou's twisted sister and most of all, Nabiki.
	"Great. There's a circus setting up near the park. We can go there and see
if its any good. If it's not; well, the park's handy enough to please me."

* * * * * 

	
	"Found her yet, Delz?" asks the woman who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
	"Nay. Still no scent of her."
	Her eyes narrowed. Fire enveloped the man-beast in front of her. It's
shrieks of pain found pleasure in her ears. She laughed and released the
thing from the fires that bound him. It drops to the floor, semi-unconscious
and smoking.
	"Find her or I will make shoes off whatever will be left of your sorry hide
after I'm done with you. Find her, quickly. The queen is short-tempered as
it is for the failures my sisters and I have done in the past. We must
acquire the princess as soon as possible."
	She took one last look at the servant who lay on the ground then left in a
burst of dark flames.
	Find her fast or else….
	
* * * * *

	A figure dressed in Chinese clothes entered the restaurant. His face dirty
from hard travel. The old woman holding onto a stick looked up from her
cooking. A purple-haired  young Chinese female stared at the man with
contempt and anger.
	"Mousse. Where you went? Been while when you around. Come help Shampoo with
customers."
	The man sighed. Since childhood, he has tried numerous times to woo the
fair Shampoo. Obviously, it seemed no matter how much he tried, she did not
take notice of it. Perhaps if he beat that accursed Ranma Saotome tomorrow,
she would begin to notice him.
	"Ranma Saotome, Tomorrow, Shampoo will be mine." he swore to himself. A
grin showed on his face. "Hahahaha!!!" he laughed maniacally. Everyone in
the restaurant was staring at him. "Shampoo will be mine!!!" shouted Mousse
out loud. He was still laughing like a lunatic when the Chinese girl bashed
the man's head with a bucket.
	"Oomph!"
	Splash!
	"Quack?! Quack!"
	Shampoo picked up the duck as the surprised customers stared wide-eyed at
her -- and the duck. Stepping into the kitchen, she threw the duck  into a
cauldron of steaming hot water and jammed the lid on.
	"Shampoo..." cautioned the grizzled and shrunken old woman sitting atop the
tall walking stick.
	"Yes, great-grandmother?" asked Shampoo, a smile on her face.
	The old woman sighed and continued with her cooking.
	"Hey!" called out a customer. "More beef noodles here!"
	"Coming!"
	A scream emanated from within the kitchen.
	"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! HOT!"

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