[Note: I did not write this; this is a fic by a friend of mine, Matt Posner
<mposner@herald.infi.net> He expects to be joining the FFML soon, but in the
meantime all comments posted on this should be CC:'d to his address. Enjoy!
--GK]



Cousin Kuno
A Ranma 1 / 2  Fan Fiction
by Matt Posner

Thanks to Gary Kleppe for agreeing to post this for me. Please don’t
confuse his work with mine; he’s a physicist, so he makes a lot more
sense.
[Forwarder's note: Yeah right. We all know better, don't we... :-P]
All characters you recognize in this fanfic copyright R. Takahashi or
(in case of cameos) whoever else owns them. Everything is used without
permission or license. Keiichi Kuno and "martial arts poetry" are
created by me; please check with me before writing them into your own
fanfics (except to summarize what happens here). Permission to copy this
document is granted to those who wish to keep personal copies or share
it with others; the text should be transmitted only in its entirety. 
"Cousin Kuno" is not for sale by anyone; it is free to everyone. 
Comments are welcome; email me at mposner@herald.infi.net.
General info: Since I am primarily a fan of the anime, the material
herein is based on the anime storylines I happen to know and the way the
characters behave and interact in the anime. The only exception is that
the Gosunkugi referred to (who doesn’t appear as a character) is more
like the manga Gosunkugi.

Chapter One

	"You cannot know," said Tatewaki Kuno, "how love consumes me. My soul
is ablaze! Lo! The winds play a brutal, brittle melody on the strings of
my heart! My eyes are blinded with blazing reflection upon the fair
forms of my two beloved! All too often I cannot see where I am going; 
oh! My loves! I follow wheresoever you lead me,  and---"
	His eyes cleared long enough for him to see that he was talking to a
train conductor, a middle aged man in a dark blue uniform, with a blue
cap, white whiskers, and a bent back.
	"I’m married," said the conductor as he edged away. "You crazy kid!"
	I must have help, Tatewaki said to himself. I must have help, or my
love shall destroy me! The images of Akane Tendo and the Pig-tailed Girl
did their usual dance before his eyes. Before they had removed all their
clothing, however, a loud crash nearby him just barely dissolved their
image and captured his attention. Blinking, he saw on the concrete floor
of the railway platform before him a slender wavy-haired boy, nearly his
height, and dressed in an identical gi, except that, in place of a
bokken, the boy carried a rolled-up scroll at his belt. Despite the
rapidly fading bruises on the boy’s face, Tatewaki could recognize the
rugged good looks that marked the boy as a Kuno---as his cousin, Keiichi.
Behind Keiichi stood two large dark suitcases.
	"You are hurt, cousin," said Tatewaki. "Show me the miscreant who has
injured you so, and I shall be revenged upon him."
	"Nay," replied Keiichi, springing to his feet. "Do not be troubled,
cousin Tatewaki, for still I am well. I have merely tripped over a
concealed ninja; but this is no great hardship, and I forgive the stout
fellow. It is good to see you, wise cousin!" They shook hands.
	"Sasuke!" Tatewaki shouted.  His personal ninja, probably the culprit,
was nowhere in sight---not that Tatewaki would want any ninja of his to be
so unskilled as to be visible in public. "Take my cousin’s bags to the
carriage!"
	After some violent squeaking and grunting, the rabbit-faced Sasuke
melted out of the pavement beneath the smaller of the two bags, lifted
the bag, and staggered forward, only to fall abruptly into an open
manhole. "Sorry, master!" he shrieked as he fell.
	"Gladly came I, cousin," said Keiichi Kuno, "abandoning my solitary
reflections upon the distant hills of  Hokkaido, when I received word of
your distress!" He took up the other suitcase and started forward.
Tatewaki followed. "For indeed is family the very staff of life, the..."
	His voice trailed away. Tatewaki heard a shriek of pain from underfoot.
He looked down and saw Sasuke pancaked beneath his toes in a mass of
dark water. He looked up and saw a narrow opening and sunlight.
	"What is this place?" said Tatewaki. "Ah! I know. I have fallen into
the pit of my own longing and despair! No wonder all is dark!"
	"Master!" Sasuke groaned. "We’re in the sewer. Ohhh, ohh, the pain, the
pain."
	"Cousin!" Keiichi shouted from above. Tatewaki saw his face framed in
the dim circle of sunlight overhead. "Are you well? For even as I spoke,
you seemed to vanish as does a mist cut away by the sunlight."
	A short while later, Tatewaki and his cousin were riding for home in
the Kuno family carriage. Aside from the ninjas, they would be alone for
a while, long enough for Tatewaki to open his heart to his cousin.
Principal Kuno was in Hawaii, and Kodachi had taken advantage of her
father’s absence to take a vacation of her own..
	The two cousins spoke little until they had arrived at Tatewaki’s
walled-in home and lay soaking in the house hot springs. Tatewaki rid
himself of the smell of the sewer, and Keiichi of the odor of train oil
and sweat. Already Keiichi’s bruises, incurred during his fall, were
entirely gone. Tatewaki thought such quick healing uncanny; his cousin
indeed had gained mystical powers from his profession.
	"I can no longer bear it," Tatewaki said. His cousin nodded. "I must
have them both!" He explained further. He sent a ninja to bring a few of
his life-sized posters of both his loves. Staring at the photographs, he
forgot for a time where he was as his eyes caressed every drop of
glistening sweat on the sleeping face of the pig-tailed girl as she
curled upon on her mat, every tight cord of muscle in Akane Tendo’s
wrist as she stood poised to smash a cinder block. He remembered where
he was only when Keiichi rapped sharply on his head.
	"Cousin," said Keiichi, "I will reply to you as best I can, but if you
listen not, you will become indeed so lost as you now wrongly suppose
yourself to be. Allow me to help you, good cousin. With my assistance,
you will woo both these women. For am I not ... Keiichi Kuno, master of
all poets? What words I wing, to her ears will sing; and I also do
parties."
 
Chapter Two

	Soun Tendo sat cross-legged on the dojo mat, looking sadly at the faces
of a half-dozen bright-eyed teenage boys in matching gis. Most of these
boys were slightly underweight or overweight, but it was too early for
this to be a problem. They were only beginning their training. He felt
tears well up in his eyes. To be teaching again! He had not had students
since… since… He burst out crying. "Thank you!" he said to his students
as tears rained from his eyes. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
	One of the students, a thin boy missing a few teeth, stood. "Er..." he
said. "Sorry to bother you, sir, but is the sensei coming?"
	"I’m the sensei!" Soun shouted. He looked around quickly to be sure
Happosai wasn’t nearby to argue with him. But no, that was impossible.
There was a women’s undergarments convention in Yokohama. Steady, Soun,
he told himself. Gradually he cleared his head of tears, and slowly he
came to his feet, trying to show a martial artist’s grace. He kept his
face calm. Sounds of loud crashing and shouting in the back yard
threatened to distract him; he forced the noises out of his
consciousness, closed his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking to
the students.
	When he opened his eyes, they were all gone. Trying still to breathe
slowly, he walked out of the dojo into the yard. The students were
huddled together watching a fight. Soun heard "Wow!" and "Look at that!"
	Ranma---in girl form---was chasing her father in panda form back and
forth across the yard. Seeing Soun, Genma lumbered past him into the
dojo, holding a sign that said "What did I do?" Soun realized this was
not one of their ordinary training fights; his services as a peacemaker
were needed. He stepped into Ranma-Chan’s path, holding out his hand,
and said, "Stop!"
	A moment later he was on his back. The crashing sounds were now coming
from the dojo. His students were standing around him looking wide-eyed
at him.
	"Is that a footprint there on your face, sensei?" asked a student.
	"Hey, are you okay?"
	"We will hold our first training session outside," Soun said. He edged
over to the dojo and shut the door on the carnage inside.
	"What’s going on?" the students said to themselves. One of them said,
"I thought Akane Tendo lived here."
	Soun took the students through some stretching, breathing, and
introductory katas, ignoring the rumbling, shouting, and flying wood
coming from the dojo. Then, finally, the door came open, and Ranma-Chan
burst out. "That’ll teach you!" she shouted through the open door. There
was no reply.
	"For heaven’s sake," Soun said, "what did he do?"
	"I hate that smacking noise he makes when he chews!" Ranma-Chan
shrieked. "You wanna make something of it?" She stormed inside.
	"Thank the gods Akane isn’t home," Soun said. Somehow he got  his
students’ attention and completed the lesson. As they filed out through
the front gate, Nabiki was waiting to collect the pay. Soun walked
through the dining room, stepping over the broken furniture and
crockery. Kasumi was sweeping up more such wreckage in the hall.
	"What’s the matter with Ranma?" Soun asked his daughter.
	"I don’t know, father," Kasumi said, "but our hot water heater is
broken again, and they won’t let Ranma into the public baths since the
last time he went there with Happosai. So he’s been stuck in girl form
all day."
	"But he’s used to that," Soun said to himself. Anyway, there were still
plenty of tea kettles around. He went to the bathroom to wash his face;
the door was locked.
	"Go away!" Ranma-Chan shouted from inside.
	Soun went out to the front gate to see Nabiki. "Do you know what’s
bothering Ranma?" he asked.
	"She’s been in the bathroom all day, except for breakfast," Nabiki
said. "She’s shouting at everyone about the smallest things. Figure it
out, dad. Remember when Akane did that?"
	"Er," said Soun, "on which occasion? There’ve been so many, I...."
	"When she was eleven, dad. Remember, she hit the meter reader with a
table because she said he was listening to her breathe?"
	"But that was the day she... she..."
	"The day she became a woman, dad," Nabiki said. "Ranma’s having her
period. She must have gotten stuck in girl form on the wrong day, and
probably for the first time. Naturally she’s not too happy about it."
	Soun felt the shock of dirt and grass striking his face as the
startling news deprived him of his sense of balance. He realized,
fuzzily at first, that Ranma couldn’t risk changing back to a boy if
this was happening:  who know what would happen to his insides?  But on
the other hand, who knew what violent acts he would commit until it was
safe for him to change back---and who knew what would happen if he met the
most violent person he knew? "We’ve got to keep Ranma and Akane apart!"
Soun mumbled.

 Chapter Three

	"Why must we hide?" Tatewaki demanded of his cousin. They were crouched
behind a bush. "I would speak openly to Akane of my love!" Akane and two
school friends were sitting at a park picnic bench across the street,
laughing together.
	"Nay, Tatewaki," said Keiichi. "The time for this is not yet nigh.
First, we must study her, to learn how best to approach her. Though
greatly you admire her physical form, and her fighting spirit, as much
you have told me in these last hours, you must divine also her spirit in
repose. Know her habits, that you may turn such knowledge to your
advantage. Ah! Who is that fellow who now approaches her? Methinks we
may learn from his efforts."
	Tatewaki peered through the brush at the tall, handsome young man who
was moving toward the picnic table. He seemed to be moving directly, yet
with a deceptive casualness.
	"Scoundrel!" Tatewaki snarled. "Cad! It is Mikado Sanzenin, the pair
skater from Kolkhoz High! Quickly, Keiichi, I must strike against him,
before he…"
	"Observe," hissed Keiichi, seizing Tatewaki’s arm. "Your lady is not
imperiled. This fellow has chosen his moment poorly. Observe."
	As Tatewaki watched, Mikado Sanzenin leaned over Akane’s shoulder and
whispered in her ear. She scowled. Less than a second later, his head
jerked back. His pupils had changed into X marks. He slumped to the
ground. Akane lowered her fist and turned back to her friends.
	"What do you learn from this?" asked Keiichi.
	"How mighty is her fighting spirit! What strength! With what courage
does she fend off her brutish attacker! How..."
	"No, no," said Keiichi. He rapped Tatewaki on the head. "You learn that
Akane Tendo dislikes interruptions and surprises. Had you burst upon
her, cousin, as did the unfortunate ice skater, much ill might have
befallen you."
	"But the touch of Akane Tendo’s hand, however it may be offered, is to
me warm and tender as summer rain, and..."
	"No."
	"But, " said Tatewaki, shifting restlessly in the bush, "if she strike
me, surely it is in anger that her love for me swells greatest! It doth
prove she would date with me! Yes! Yes, I must proclaim my love to her!
I must...ugh." He tilted his head, and a cinder-block slid to the ground.
He looked up at Keiichi’s open hand. "That hurt, you know."
	"Come to your senses, good cousin," said Keiichi. "I see at once your
trouble--- you have a poet’s soul, but not a poet’s skill. If you begin
too swiftly, you will finish prematurely." He shook his head. "No, no,
what have I said? I shall try again. A poem is a feeling, shaped by a
plan. You have not the plan. Listen closely. I shall tell you how you
may capture the attention of Akane Tendo, here and now." He picked up
the cinder block and weighed it in his hand. "You will listen, will you
not, cousin?" he asked softly.
	Tatewaki nodded.
	"Stand where she may see you, and wait," said Keiichi. "Say nothing,
till she come to you. Even then, do not reply with words of love, but
say only, that the air is pleasant, and it is good to see her, and
perhaps you will see her again soon. Then take your leave, and meet me
at the Nekohanten on the next street. Will you do this?"
	Tatewaki nodded again. The lump on his head was throbbing, but he
gathered calm within himself. "Are you sure?" he said. "I wish to trust
you, cousin, but how can I prove my love by pretending indifference?"
	"You are not pretending indifference," said Keiichi. "You are showing
self-mastery. If you will be guided by me, cousin, you can do no wrong.
As I say, now."
	Tatewaki rubbed his throbbing head and slowly rose from the bushes. He
adjusted his bokken on his hip, and tossed his hair till it assumed its
familiar wave, and watched the sky, glancing only occasionally at Akane
Tendo. As he stood waiting, he heard his cousin creep out of the bushes
and into the adjoining alley.
	He had a while to wait, but in time Akane Tendo rose and crossed the
street. She came across all in a rush. So! said Tatewaki to himself, her
passion is great indeed, that she hurries to me. He looked down,
however, upon a baleful glare.
	"All right, Kuno, what do you want this time?" she growled at him.
	"Nothing at all," said Tatewaki, "but to bid you hello. It is a fine
day, and I am breathing in the fine air. It is good to see that you
enjoy the outdoors, as do I. Perhaps we may meet again someday."
	"What are you talking about?" Akane shouted. "Are you sick? We’ll meet
again on Monday when you chase me around through the school halls
shouting ‘I would date with you.’ Anyway, what fine air? You’re standing
right next to the sewer opening!"
	"It is a pleasant day," said Tatewaki. "Perhaps we may meet again
someday. I must go."
	"Leave me alone!" Akane shouted. "There’s something wrong with you!"
She turned and fled.
	"Magnificent," Tatewaki said quietly. It was all he could do to
restrain the rampant excesses of love within him, at hearing her
pronounce his name. "Kuno," he said. "Tatewaki Kuno. Akane Kuno. It
would not sound ill, I think. I shall..."
	Abruptly he was swallowed in darkness. "It seems," he said, "that I
have again fallen into the sewer. What an ill fortune!" There was
something wet and slick beneath his feet.  He considered what to do, and
concluded at last to seek assistance. "Sasuke!" he shouted.

 Chapter Four

	As for what Ranma was thinking while self-exiled to the toilet, much of
it was unprintable. Notwithstanding evidence to the contrary in many
excellent fanfics of recent vintage, he was not comfortable thinking too
long or too hard. As a triumphant martial artist, Ranma specialized in
quick decisions and rapid action. In a fight, he acted more quickly than
most of his opponents, and in a fight, his instincts were usually right.
Therefore, in a fight, he never usually stopped to contemplate at all,
unless his opponent was kicking the tar out of him. Now, however, he had
a problem he couldn’t solve by fighting. His first impulses were
exhausted:  he had already beaten up his father. The enemy now was his
own cursed body, and of course time was the enemy too.
	It wasn’t the physical discomfort that was bothering him. Ranma could
withstand incredible amounts of pain. In fact, though he would be
reluctant to admit it, he could stand more as Ranma-Chan than he could
as a guy. In this case there was very little pain. Mostly he was
frustrated because he was embarrassed and he was trapped. Primary in his
mind was that *NO ONE MUST KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING*. Over time, he had
come to accept many of the particular embarrassments of his girl-form,
like wearing dresses, and had been able to use some of them to his
advantage. But this one---menstruating---was absolutely the most unmanly
thing he could ever conceive of. If word of it got out, the teasing
would be constant and painful.
	"Hey, Ranma! How’s the old womb treating you?"
	"Hey, Ranma! Lose any unfertilized eggs lately?"
	"Hey, Ranma! Ready for the martial arts douche competition?"
	"Hey, Ranma! Belted or unbelted tampons?"
	No! No! He couldn’t bear it.
Ranma was afraid that, if he changed back to a guy, the internal
bleeding might somehow continue. After all, other injuries like bruises
and broken bones didn’t go away when he changed sex. This fear meant
there was no way he was going to risk changing. The one advantage of his
girl-form was that it was hard to change out of it by accident; he could
safely stay Ranma-Chan all day.
Being trapped in the bathroom was unbearable, though. The bleeding
stopped and started; no sooner would he leave the bathroom than it would
start up again. Ranma knew there was a way women dealt with this
problem, but, like all *REAL* guys, he had no idea how to do it. Even if
he would consent to wearing a tampon---and the thought of it made him cold
and sick, like someone was walking on his grave---he’d have to get one
from somewhere, and someone female would have to tell him what to do
with it. Who could he ask?  He did briefly consider asking Kasumi for
help, since Kasumi was the kindest, nicest person he knew; but he had
the nagging feeling that it wasn’t right to talk about things that
private with any girl except his own fiancee. And that was the real
problem. How could he allow Akane to see him this way? How could he let
Akane see or know anything that would make him look so unmasculine?
He sat, lost in these thoughts, which came slowly and sluggishly, and
only mixed up with many curses, until he heard a rapping at the door,
and Nabiki’s voice:  "Hey, 
Ranma, you going to be in there all day?"
"Go away!" Ranma shouted.
"Just like Akane," Nabiki said in a lower voice, and walked away.

 Chapter Five

	Soun was sure that if Akane and Ranma met while Ranma was this crabby,
they would have a fight so bad they would never forgive each other.
Somehow he had to keep Akane away from home until Ranma cooled off. But
how? How? Someone would have to find her, wherever she was, and keep her
busy and distracted so she wouldn’t try to come home.
	"We’ve got to keep Akane away from home, Saotome," he said to Genma.
Genma was still a panda—the bruises didn’t hurt him as much in that
form—and they were playing speed-shogi while they waited for Kasumi to
bring a kettle. Soun was losing.
	Genma made some panda grunting sounds and moved a piece. Kasumi brought
the kettle and poured it over Genma’s head.
	"Why don’t you just explain the situation to Akane when she comes
home?" Kasumi asked.
	"That’s right, Tendo," said Genma, adjusting the handkerchief on his
bruised head. "You are her father, after all. Be firm with her."
	"No," Soun said, "Akane will never listen to me. If she walks in that
front door, it’s the beginning of the end of her engagement to Ranma."
	The birds chirped in the yard. Fish splashed in the pond. Soun lost the
shogi game. "Damn," he said. "We’ve got to do something. Someone has got
to go and find her. Kasumi! Can you..."
	"I have to cook dinner, father," Kasumi said.
	"We wouldn’t want dinner to be late, now, would we, Tendo?" Genma
laughed.
	Nabiki was passing through the hall, carrying a box of adding machine
rolls.
	"Nabiki," Soun said. "Will you..."
	"I have to study," Nabiki said.
	"Then it’s up to you, Saotome," Soun said to his friend. "I’ll stay
here and try my best to stop Akane at the door. You go out and find her.
Tell her I want her to run an errand for me. Make up something,
anything."
	Genma nodded soberly. "I won’t fail you, Tendo," he said. He rose,
slowly, stretched, and headed for the front door. Out in the street, he
strode stiffly and purposefully along the pavement, his finely-tuned
martial artist’s senses focused for any sign or sound of his son’s
fiancee. He did not notice the telltale rattle of a garden sprinkler on
a neighbor’s lawn.
	Soun paced the house, sobbing. Saotome had to succeed! He had to!
	To his horror, Soun heard a rustling noise as he passed the bedroom
door with the duck sign that read *Akane.*  "Who’s there?" he said at
the door.
	A squeal answered him. He threw the door open.
	The little black pig, P-Chan, was curled up on Akane’s bed. Soun had
the vague feeling he knew something about this pig that made P-Chan an
unsuitable bedfellow for his daughter; but he couldn’t remember what it
was. The pig looked very nervous; its eyes and snout were turned up
toward him, as if it expected to be scolded.
	"I only hope Akane doesn’t come home today," Soun said to the pig. He
didn’t know why he was talking to the pig, except that the pig seemed to
expect him to, and for some reason he wanted to put the pig at ease. "If
she comes home today, it will be the end of everything."
	The pig gave an anguished squeal. A moment later, Soun was on his back
in the hall, with a pig footprint on his face.

Chapter Six

	Akane felt guilty that Ranma wasn’t there. It was a feeling she
couldn’t explain.  Without Ranma there, there was almost no chance of
her getting really angry. She hadn’t smiled and laughed so much in
months as she was doing now, here with her friends. It was wonderful to
hear gossip that wasn’t about her or anyone who lived with her.
	"And she said there was some kind of an invisible space woman, and only
she could see her," said Yuka. "And she was being chased by some kind of
slimy aliens."
	Akane and the others laughed. Yuka, a short, round-faced girl with a
big smile, had met a lot of strange people at the science and technical
school where she went before transferring to Furinkan.
	"She kept saying she was supposed to pilot some kind of giant robot and
fight some other kind of giant robot," Yuka explained. "I think they,
like, put her in a mental hospital or something."
	"Poor Nagisa," Sayuri said. Sayuri was tall and thin with long straight
hair; she was on Furinkan’s track team.
	Akane found herself thinking, "I wish Ranma were here to hear this.
He’s been in a bad mood, it might cheer him up." She shook her head,
trying to get Ranma out of it. If he were here, he’d find some way to
use the story about the girl from Yuka’s old school to insult her,
Akane. No, she was better off without him.
	Kuno had been very strange earlier---almost calm and distant. She’d
never seen him that way before. Strangely enough, it brought back memories of 
how he used to be when they were younger. The problem with Kuno these
last few years had been his personality, not his appearance. Years ago,
before he had fallen for her, he had been the suave, smooth older boy
that all the girls wanted a date with---except Akane, of course, who’d
hated all boys. He was rich, he was tall, he was handsome---OK, he wasn’t
very smart, but when you were twelve or thirteen or maybe even fourteen,
you didn’t care much about that—he knew poetry, he brought flowers, he
was a star athlete. It was only the last year or two that his hormones
and the hereditary Kuno family madness had made him unappealing to girls
at Furinkan. Kuno would probably be dating lots of girls if he weren’t
obsessed with two he couldn’t have. If not for his obsession, he’d be
better off a lot of ways---doing better in school, competing in kendo
(which he’d almost given up), probably even making money by investing
some of his family fortune in something other than Nabiki’s photographs.
She wondered what had happened to him to make him calm down so suddenly.
It was probably just part of some kind of plot, of course, but if he
were really calm---if he were really over his obsessions---he’d become a lot
harder to get rid of. He’d become the deadly enemy he was when Ranma
first fought him, rather than the simpering annoyance he’d become since
then. "I need to warn Ranma," Akane thought, but then she forced that
thought away. "I need to have a good time like I came here to do," she
told herself. "Why can’t I have fun without Ranma? I *will!* I *will*
have fun without him here."
	"What is an ‘Iczer-One’ anyway?" Sayuri asked. "Sounds like something
you’d eat with ramen!"
	Akane tried to laugh. Giggling, Yuka suggested they go to the
Nekohanten, the ramen restaurant on the next street over, and ask.
Caught up in her friends’ enthusiasm, Akane agreed to come along. It
would be interesting to go into the Nekohanten some time when Ranma
wasn’t there and no one’s life or curse was on the line. Shampoo was
even occasionally pleasant these days, and she had helped out Ranma and
the Tendos a few times.
	As they were approaching the front entrance, someone came hurtling out,
back of the head first. At first Akane thought it was Kuno---the same
outfit, about the same build—but when the boy crashed into a row of
garbage cans across the street, she saw it was someone she hadn’t met
before. Whoever he was, he wasn’t too badly hurt---he was sitting up and
rubbing his head. Nothing to worry about.
	"Shampoo no need date with you, stupid boy!"
	Akane and her friends stopped short of the entrance, not sure if
Shampoo was coming out. A moment later, Kuno rushed out. He caught sight
of Akane and her friends, and his face went green, and his jaw dropped.
	"I... I... I..." he said. "I... I must go! Yes, that’s it! I must go!
Perhaps, er, we shall meet again someday."
	Akane was surprised to discover that she found his embarrassment funny
rather than irritating. It put her in a good mood. She decided to be
nice to him. "See you in school on Monday, Kuno," she said, and smiled
at him, and followed her friends inside.
	Shampoo was just inside by the door. "Silly boy," she said to Akane.
"He talk a lot, but he not say anything. He touch Shampoo without
permission."
	While Akane and her friends were in the Nekohanten, Tatewaki was across
the street, trying to revive his cousin. "She spoke to me!" he shouted
in Keiichi’s ear. "She spoke to me! You were right, cousin! Your master
strategy has worked! Oh, by the gods, I would date with her! How the
wind from the stars shines heavenly upon her mighty smile, and gleams
like rain-touched flower petals in the downy softness of her hair! And
how, in all the fullness of her womanhood, doth she wake the passion in
her chaste bosom at the thought of my yearning touch! Ah! How..." His next
words were jolted away by the impact of a cinder block against the top
of his head.
	"Methinks you are premature," said Keiichi. Despite the fading imprint
of female knuckles on his cheek, Keiichi’s face as he sat amid the
dented trash cans was grim and serious. "You fight but one skirmish for
unconquered territory, and already you are sowing your seed therein. Or
have you forgotten that you have another woman whom also you must win?
It is now nigh time that Akane Tendo be left to contemplate the virtues
you have shown her. It is also nigh time that I withdraw me from this
place, since my own strategies have, for the nonce, gone awry. Hm. I
must make a further study of Amazon poetics."
	Tatewaki removed the cinder block from his head and gently set it in
the street. "The pig-tailed girl," he said. "She is bewitched, you know.
That fiend Ranma Saotome now commands her, and has even forced her to
take his name. He is my worst enemy, a foe I have never truly beaten. To
pursue her, we must overcome him. Can poetry do this where kendo has
failed?"
	"You shall see," said Keiichi. He laughed; it was the maniacal laugh
that marked every member of the Kuno family, and Tatewaki found it oddly
comforting. "You shall see!"

 Chapter Seven

	Ryoga was especially unfit for the task of finding anyone, since he
could only ever reach any destination by accident. He had come to
believe in fate. It was fate that put Ryoga Hibiki a hundred miles from
where he wanted to be most of the time, and then put him in the path of
his friends and enemies precisely when he was trying to avoid them.
Sometimes he tried to deceive fate by telling himself he was not trying
to get somewhere he actually was trying to get to, hoping fate might
take the wrong cue and deliver him to his objective. This never worked.
	Of course, sometimes fate was on his side, and delivered him where he
wanted or needed to be. Or, sometimes it delivered him a helper.
	This time around it was Ukyo Kuonji, headed down the street on an
okonomiyaki delivery. "Oh, look," she said. "It’s Akane’s little pig.
You lost, little fella?"
	Ryoga squealed an affirmative.
	"Okay, I’ll take you back to my restaurant." She picked him up.
"Tonight after I close, when it’s dark and romantic in the restaurant,
I’ll call Ran-chan to come pick you up."
	Ryoga made a happy squeak. Anything that got Ranma closer to Ukyo and
further from Akane was OK with him; but anyway there would be hot water
at Ucchan’s, and once he changed to human form he could get more help.
	Back at the restaurant, he turned on the hot water tap in the bathroom
sink and changed back. Somehow he managed to retrieve the spare clothes
and weapons he had hidden in the back alley of the restaurant and
dressed himself. (Ryoga kept spare outfits hidden everywhere he
frequently wound up by accident:  every place frequented by Akane and
Ranma.) By keeping his hands on the wall of the restaurant, he managed
to circle around to the front entrance without getting lost. Ukyo smiled
hello.
	"Ukyo, we have to talk," Ryoga said. He looked around. The only
customer was an old woman. Ryoga recognized her as a woman who in the
past had accidentally thrown water on him by accident while watering her
lawn. He shuddered.
	Ukyo slapped his favorite okonomiyaki on a plate and served him at the
front counter. "Sure. What’s up?"
	"We have to keep Akane away from Ranma."
	"Well, duh." Ukyo was still smiling, but suspicious. Their previous
attempts to work together toward this goal hadn’t been successful, and
Ryoga knew that was more his fault than hers.
	"No," he said, "I mean today especially. I heard... uh, Soun Tendo told
me if we don’t keep them apart, it will be the end of everything."
	"End of everything how?"
	Ryoga was busy chewing. Every time he ate one of these okonomiyakis, he
thought it was the best food he’d ever eaten. It sure beat the herbs and
berries he ate when he was on the road training. "I don’t know," he said
through a mouthful. "But I don’t want Akane to get hurt. I’ve got to
find her and keep her from going home today."
	Ukyo thought about this. "Suppose you keep her away from home, and I go
and keep Ranma company?"
	"Okay, except you know and I know I’ll never find Akane in less than a
week on my own."
	Ukyo thought about this, too. "How’d you find me, then?"
	Ryoga was used to lying to cover for his curse.  "I followed the great
smell of your cooking," he said.
	A few minutes later Ucchan’s was closed for the day and they were
walking together in the streets of Nerima. Ryoga put up his umbrella; no
use making it too easy to get splashed. He told Ukyo that Akane had gone
out with some school friends; he knew this because he’d been in her lap
as P-chan when she made the plans the day before at school, but luckily
Ukyo didn’t ask how he’d found out. She said their best plan was to try
every place Akane might go for fun. Ryoga could suggest a lot of
places—because, again, she’d taken him to those places while he was a
pig---but he didn’t know where any of them were. After a few minutes of
planning, Ukyo figured out an entire itinerary for them.
	"You’re really well-organized," Ryoga said.
	"You have to be to run a restaurant," Ukyo said.
	"You know," Ryoga said, trying to be nice, "I really do think you and
Ranma would be good together. Maybe under your influence he could stop
being such a swaggering, arrogant loudmouth."
	Ukyo’s reply was silence.
	"Uh..." Ryoga said. "Aren’t you going to tell me why Akane and I would
be good together?"
	"That’s a tough one." Ukyo sounded annoyed. "Well, I never saw her hit
you. Maybe that’s a good sign."
	They tried several movie theaters and ice cream parlors. They checked
the cookbook sections of four different bookstores. They went to three
different parks. At the third park they found Mikado Sanzenin
unconscious on the ground by a picnic table.
	"Akane’s been here," Ryoga said. "I know her smell." He looked at Ukyo.
"Uh... what I meant was...."
	"No way," Ukyo said. "I’m not touching that one. Who is this guy,
anyway?"
	Ryoga nudged Mikado with his foot. "He’s an ice skater. Grr, I hate
him." He remembered being the prisoner of Sanzenin’s skating partner,
Azusa, and had nightmares in which the name "Charlotte" was tattooed on
his genitals. He remembered teaming with Ranma-Chan against that "Golden
Pair" and falling victim to the "Couple Cleaver."
	Ukyo knelt and studied the bruise on his forehead. "Those look like
Akane’s knuckle-prints. I recognize them from seeing them on Ran-Chan’s
face all the time. Let’s wake him up and ask."
	She went to a nearby fountain, got some cold water, and splashed it on
Mikado. Ryoga couldn’t help wincing even when this happened to someone
else. "Wake up," she said in the skater’s ear.
	Mikado blinked a few times,  then fixed his eyes on Ukyo’s face.
"Another of my legion of admirers," he said. "I will bestow upon you the
favor of a kiss."
	"Sounds like Kuno," Ukyo said. "Look, skip it, buddy. We just want to
know if Akane Tendo was here."
	"Fear not," Mikado said. "I will not speak of other women now, since
even to seen to turn my attention to another must certainly wound your
fragile self-esteem. Gladly do I bestow this kiss upon you." He reached
and puckered.
	Ukyo looked at Ryoga. "Go ahead and deck him."
	Mikado lost his confidence. "No, no!" he shouted. "I will tell you what
you ask! I did see Akane Tendo here. She was with two friends. I spoke
warmly to her, and she struck me!"
	"And then?" Ukyo hissed.
	"And then I knew no more." He rose, nodded, brushed himself off, and
fled.
	"Let’s search the neighborhood," Ukyo said.

 Chapter Eight

	Ranma-Chan felt like she was being watched. She had left the bathroom
for a while and was trying to work off some excess frustration doing
katas in her bedroom. She could hear Kasumi cleaning downstairs, and
Soun sobbing in his own bedroom, and Nabiki talking to her broker on the
phone in her room, but otherwise the place was pretty empty. Good thing
they were staying out of the way.
	She gave the room a once-over for Nabiki’s bugs, but didn’t find any.
Happosai might be there, turned invisible, but Ranma didn’t think so
because when he was Ranma-Chan, Happosai could never go so long without
starting to grope. No, Ranma-Chan was being watched from outside. She
went to the window and scanned the surrounding buildings and bushes for
any combination of Akane, Nabiki, her father, Cologne, Shampoo, Mousse,
Ukyo, Gosunkugi, the Kuno siblings, ninjas serving the Kuno siblings, 
Tsubasa, mysterious women in veils carrying  take-out food, princes from
far-off, hidden kingdoms and their servitors, Jusenkyo revenge
committees, and miscellaneous ghosts, spirits, and demons from Japanese
mythology. She ruled out only Ryoga, who would get lost trying to find a
good place to hide. After a brief surveillance, she spotted two tall
boys in gis hiding in some bushes. One of them was Kuno, no doubt about
it, but she didn’t recognize the other.
	This was so ordinary for Ranma, in either gender, that normally he just
ignored it; but Ranma-Chan was in a bad mood. Still, rushing out to beat
up Kuno wasn’t a good idea; during the fight, she might begin to
menstruate again and get embarrassed or distracted.  There had to be
some other way to get revenge...
	"Akane’s cookies!" she said.
	Last night Akane had baked a batch of peanut butter, shrimp, and
horseradish oat bran cookies that had left the rest of the Tendos and
Saotomes desperately digging a bomb shelter under the dojo. The merest
taste of one of the cookies---which Soun had forced upon Ranma by wringing
his hand and sobbing---had knocked him unconscious. At first, Ranma-Chan
had even thought the cookie was the cause of the morning’s abdominal
discomfort, before the worse truth of it became clear to her. The
remaining cookies were in a ceramic jar on the kitchen counter, with a
sign taped to it that said "Ranma no baka." Ranma would never survive
eating another one, yet as long as they remained in the jar, Akane would
be carrying a mallet around, and Soun would pile on the guilt.
	Ranma-Chan crept down to the kitchen. Kasumi, sweeping in the hall, was
sharp-eared, but not enough so to catch Ranma-Chan sneaking. Ranma-Chan
discarded the sign and carried the jar back upstairs, removing the
stopper slowly so the emerging fumes would not overcome her.
	"Time to get ‘em all worked up," Ranma-Chan said. She still didn’t feel
good, but malice provided the energy for her to practice a few seductive
moves in front of the bathroom mirror before retreating to her room,
where a dank fog from the jar had permeated the air. Watching the bushes
from the corner of an eye, Ranma-Chan began to bop and jiggle in front
of the window. The bushes rustled, and Kuno almost burst out, but
something held him back. Ranma-Chan overheard something about "Wanton
passion." She gave her best smile and wink, balancing a cookie in one
hand below the level of the window, and began to ease her shirt from one
shoulder.
	There was another dramatic rustling in the bushes:  just good enough to
take aim.
	"Akane’s cooking away!" she shouted as she hurled the cookie at the
bush. It bounced off Kuno’s head, and she followed with another, and
another, until she was throwing at chestnuts-roasting speed. Kuno and
his compatriot burst out, choking and gagging, and retreated down the
street. Ranma-Chan nodded with satisfaction and took the empty jar back
to the kitchen.
	For Tatewaki, the spying had been a dizzying alternation of tedium and
pleasure. For long minutes no one was in sight; then the blessed
pig-tailed girl appeared in the window, exercising in full and luscious
view; then she was gone, and his heart fell; then she returned, more
lovely than ever, and then her modesty required her, though unwilling,
to drive him away by hurling small pellets of what appeared to be
congealed nerve gas.
	For Keiichi, however, the spying was far more fruitful. Even just to
study the Tendo home without its occupants was useful; and when the
pig-tailed girl appeared, he began rapidly to understand her.
	Her face---studied through his opera glasses---betrayed a mixture of
discomfort and discipline. She was conquering something through her
katas. The extremely masculine movements, which Kuno attributed to
fighting spirit, indicated unease about her body, perhaps even lack of
confidence. She was trying to conquer her femininity, perhaps because
she had been startled to see it emerge in her and feared its power over
others. Of course she would reject his cousin’s love---she did not know
how to handle the love of a man who saw her as a woman. In her
exercises, she was striving to be male, like... like a male sensei! Yes,
exactly! She wanted a man who would be her wise teacher and master, who
would tell her what to do and how to do it! By coming on to her as a
sensuous admirer, Tatewaki had approached her in entirely the wrong way!
He ought to have insisted upon her respect!
	This was not contradicted by the barrage of flinty cow flops which the
pig-tailed girl shortly rained upon them. It was an entirely reasonable
response for a woman who felt inadequate and embarrassed by the
enraptured scrutiny of others. By the time he was forced to retreat,
Keiichi Kuno had already divined what strategy would be necessary to woo
the pig-tailed girl.
	The only problem was that only he could execute it.
	The two Kunos fled openly until they had turned a corner, and then
Keiichi seized the back of his cousin’s gi. Tatewaki stood, his foot
unwarily poised above an open sewer grate.
	"Well?" Tatewaki shouted. "What have you discovered, cousin? How, how,
how am I to win her love?? Did you now see, how she teased and enticed
me, only to test my love with a most coquettish though admittedly quite
exceedingly violent assault? O! Glorious pigtailed one, my heart yearns
for thee!"
	Keiichi lowered a cinder block onto Tatewaki’s head and left it
balanced there. A skilled martial artist, Tatewaki had adapted to his
cousin’s cues. He no longer needed the actual blow to be struck; merely
seeing the cinder block caused him to shut up..
	"It is hopeless, cousin," Keiichi said. "You must believe me. Having
once lost this girl’s respect, you will never again gain it."
	"No! No! No!" Tatewaki threw his head and arms back---the cinder block
fell to the ground---and roared at the sky. Lightning flashed from the
clouds behind him. "The Blue Thunder of Furinkan High will not be
denied!  Yea, the very trumpets of heaven proclaim my passion unto the
ravening winds beneath the burnished skies of eternity! How my passion
scales the turbulent volcanoes of perpetuity with the intoxicating broth
of Hyperion’s passage! How..."
	"Unless!" Keiichi said. He leaned over and picked up the cinder block,
patting it gently.
	Tatewaki’s head dropped, and his voice fell to a whisper. "Unless?" he
repeated.
	"Unless," said Keiichi, "you allow me to seduce her first."
	Lightning blazed through the sky. "Only I may touch the immortal,
immensurable, and immanent pulchritude of the pig-tailed goddess! You
overstep your bounds, cousin! for it is I, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan
High..."
	"...who shall be her mentor, and shall rescue her from the cruelty of a
seducer who has put her aside." Keiichi smiled as Tatewaki faltered in
mid-vaunt. Rubbing his hands together behind his back, he tried to
*will* Tatewaki to be stupid enough to forget that there already was a
cruel seducer, this Ranma Saotome fellow, in the pig-tailed girl’s life.
	"Perhaps," Tatewaki said, closing his eyes and tilting his head with
feigned wry wisdom, "there is something to what you say."

 Chapter Nine

Commercial
(Enter Farmer Goro, a stout Japanese man wearing overalls and a straw
hat, carrying a pitchfork, with a gap in his teeth, a sweaty bald head,
and a stalk of hay hanging from the corner of his mouth.)
Farmer Goro (Southern Accent):   Howdy! Farmer Goro here, down at Hibiki
Farms. Here at Hibiki Farms, we’re all working hard to provide you with
fine quality pork products! Like our brown-and-serve pork cutlets, our
farm-fresh pork ramen-in-a-cup, and our extra-low-fat microwaveable
bacon!
(Enter Ryoga Hibiki, looking nervous, adjusting his collar.)
Ryoga:  And, uh, er... Well, I, uh, er...  Hi, I’m Hibiki Ryoga. Since I
inherited this farm from my great-great-granduncle, I’ve, um... er... Oh
yeah. I’ve been dedicated to providing fine products for  our customers,
and, uh... er... (voice trails off) Damn it.  Forgot my lines.
Farmer Goro: (Aside to Ryoga) Least you found where we were filming the
commercial in less than three days. (To the camera)  Yes sir, we raise
us some fine hogs here at Hibiki Farms. They’re so friendly and tasty,
you’ll feel like you’re eating part of the family!
Ryoga:  You got that right.
Channel change: to Nerima News
Newscaster:   A spokesman for pigs said he was glad no pigs were
involved. Now here’s the news for gibbons.
Channel change:
Commercial
(Enter Farmer Goro, wearing a gray business suit and an English driving
cap. He still has a stalk of hay hanging from the corner of his mouth.)
Farmer Goro:  Howdy folks! I came here today to tell you all about a
service so totally wonderful, so absolutely awesome it actually got me
off the farm! That’s right, it’s Tsubasa Kuranai’s Fiancé Referral
Service. Here are some customers right here, eagerly anticipating the
results of Mr. Kuranai’s exhaustive data base search.
(Enter two school girls.)
Goro:  Howdy, girls. I understand Tsubasa here has found a fiancé for
each of you.
(Enter Tsubasa, in blue checked dress and braids.)
Goro:  What’s your name, young lady?
Girl:  Nei.
Goro:  And who’s her fiancee going to be, Mr. Kuranai?
Tsubasa:  Me!
Goro:  And how about this young lady? What’s your name?
Girl:  Yoko.
Goro: (to Tsubasa)  And her fiancé will be…
Tsubasa:  Me!!
Nei:  Hey, no fair! Nei First!
Yoko:  Oh No!!
Goro: (to the audience) Oh, well. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Channel Change
Nerima News
Newscaster:  ...no Gojiras were involved. Now here’s the news for Gameras.
Channel Change

 Chapter Ten

	"Oh, yes," Akane said. "Father is taking students now."
	"Really?" Mousse’s eyes widened. Akane heard the sound of clockwork
grinding inside his head. "If I could find a new sensei, I could learn
the techniques I would need to beat R... er, my enemies. Wait here, Akane!
I’ll be right back."
	Akane and her friends were finishing their tea at the Nekohanten. Like
any weekend afternoon, it was full of middle-class Nerima families and
groups of students. The low buzz of conversation filled the air; the
frenetic sounds of Cologne’s martial arts ramen cooking could be heard
from the kitchen.
	"He’s kind of cute," Sayuri said, talking about Mousse. "I like his
long hair. But his glasses are so thick."
	"One time he was trying to kidnap me, and he didn’t have his glasses
on," Akane explained, "and he stole this stuffed animal I had just
bought instead of taking me."
	The girls laughed. Akane was so used to suffering through gossip about
Ranma’s perversions that she had forgotten how much fun it was to talk
about other people, especially other boys besides her own fiancé. She
was finally starting to have a good time and forget all her problems.
	Shampoo came and stood by the table. "You want more tea?"
	"No, I’m full," Yuka said. The others agreed.
	After crashing into a few tables and readjusting his glasses, Mousse
came rushing back and stood beside Akane. He didn’t notice Shampoo. He
was holding a ceramic jar in the shape of Mickey Mouse.  "Here it is!"
he said. "All the money I’ve saved since I started working here at the
restaurant! It’s not much, but... but I would give all of it to learn some
new martial arts techniques that will help me triumph over my enemies.
Oh, please, tell me, Akane, would it be enough for your father to
consider training me to...huh?"
	Shampoo had taken the jar from him. "Thank you, Mousse. You so kind,
give Shampoo money to buy present for Ranma!" She danced away, laughing,
to the kitchen.
	"Sh... Shampoo..." Mousse groaned.
	"Oh, come on," Sayuri said to Akane. "There’s got to be some way to
help him, Akane."
	"I bet Uncle Saotome would train you for food," Akane told Mousse.
"He’ll do anything for the chance to stuff his face."
	"Yes..." Mousse said. "Yes! That’s it! Thank you, Akane! I’ve got to go
find him right away!" He started for the door. "Uh… where exactly would
I find him?"
	Shampoo came out of the kitchen again, carrying several bowls of ramen
which she delivered to another table. She noticed Mousse halfway to the
door, crept up behind him, and took his glasses away. "Oops! Mousse
wearing wrong glasses. Try these instead." She dropped a set of black
sunglasses over his eyes.
	"Oh, thank you, Shampoo," Mousse said as he walked into a wall.
	Akane’s friends giggled and whispered to each other. Finally Sayuri
said, "You need a guide?"
	Sayuri went off leading Mousse by the arm.
	"That turn out better," Shampoo said. "Akane friend keep him busy.
Shampoo no want Mousse get better at fighting. Oh, look. Is Lost Boy."
	Ryoga had just stumbled through the doorway, followed by Ukyo. When
Ukyo and Shampoo saw each other, their eyes locked, and smoke began
leaking from their ears.
	"You in wrong restaurant," Shampoo said. "Good food served here."
	"At least mine doesn’t have drugs in it," Ukyo replied.
	Ryoga stood nervously by the table. "Uh... Hi, Akane. Mind if I sit?
Uh... who’s your friend?"
	"I’m Yuka Serizawa."
	Akane introduced them further.
	"Oh, wow." Ryoga seemed genuinely impressed when he heard more about
his new acquaintance. "So your great-grandfather invented the oxygen
destroyer."
	Akane was happy to see him loosen up. He was usually so nervous when
she saw him; probably because Ranma was always picking on him. She found
herself hoping he’d hit it off with Yuka. Yuka was always saying she
wanted to meet a martial artist; and Ryoga was one of the best ones
Akane knew. He kept looking back at Akane, though, like he wanted her
approval.
	"Something bothering you, Ryo-kun?" she asked him.
	Ryoga made a gulping sound like he was swallowing his tongue. "No, no,
I...Uh... I mean, er, it’s such a nice day outside."
	Akane couldn’t help smiling. Now she understood. Ryoga wanted her to
split and leave him and Yuka alone together. "Listen," she said, "I just
remembered I have some homework to do. Why don’t you guys go down to the
lake and rent a boat? My treat. What do you say?" She had to wait a
moment for Ryoga to remove his face from the floor. "Don’t be shy," she
added. "You guys seem to have enough to talk about, and I really do need
to go home and work on my chemistry." She started to get up. She wasn’t
really ready to go home yet, but seeing both her friends paired off with
guys they seemed to like made her feel so good it didn’t matter.
	Ryoga sputtered, "No! Uh... No, I mean, why don’t we all go?"
	"Yeah, you don’t have to go home yet, Akane, it’s early," Yuka said.
	Meanwhile the confrontation between Ukyo and Shampoo had settled down,
and Shampoo had returned to the kitchen to pick up more orders.
	"You guys all go to the lake," Ukyo suggested, leaning over the table,
"and get a good workout doing some martial arts rowing. Then come by
Ucchan’s for dinner for an okonomiyaki supreme."
	"Yeah," Ryoga said. "Uh... yeah, that sounds great. Thanks, Ukyo."
	Akane nodded. "Sure." But she immediately started making plans to slip
away and leave her friends alone. There would have to be an opportunity...
	As they all stood, Yuka took Ryoga’s arm. "Lead the way, Hibiki-san,"
she said with a grin.
	"Oh yeah," Ryoga said. "You bet."

Chapter Eleven

	Genma Saotome emerged from the public baths fresh and full of energy.
An unexpected encounter with a sprinkler had left him in his panda form,
which sometimes made him sleepy. Now he was back to human again, and he
felt great! But he had the feeling there was something he had to do. Was
it...  time to go to work at Dr. Tofu’s? 
	"No, no, that’s not it," he said. "If I had to go to work, I’d be
dreading it... er, I’d have been thinking about it all day. Hmm. It was
something Tendo wanted me to do..." His stomach rumbled.
	"Pick up some take-out!" he said. "Yes, that’s it! I need a snack to
whet my appetite for Kasumi’s incredible dinners!" He stood in the
street, stomach still rumbling, trying to decide which of the girls who
was in love with Ranma to mooch from.
	Meanwhile, Ukyo was on the way to the Tendo house with two of Ranma’s
favorite okonomiyakis. Akane would be out of the way a little while
longer, so she, Ukyo, could spend some time alone with her fiancé.
	When she got to the front of the house, however, there was already
someone there pressing the bell.  Absently, she noticed that the Tendos
had installed a Western-style swinging door, instead of their usual
sliding paper door. Maybe they thought this door might last longer when
people were thrown against it. As for the stranger, it was a tall,
wavy-haired boy in a blue gi, carrying a scroll at his belt and a stack
of books in one hand. He turned as she approached and smiled widely.
Perfect white teeth.
	"A delivery?" he said. "Yea, this family shall thank you heartily for
your promptness. I shall gladly assume the debt, and carry in the food
myself. What do I owe you?"
	"No thanks," Ukyo said. "I’ll deliver it myself." She reached past him
and rang the bell.
	"Indeed," the tall boy said, "were I not here on other business, I
would gladly join you, fair one, at your rounds. How often have I
imagined the lonely perambulations of the sad yet tautly muscled
delivery girl, and how often has my heart traveled after her on her
routes! For always does she stand at the threshold of a home, but so
rarely does she enter it, to feel its warmth upon her skin, a skin so
often chapped by wind and rain! Indeed, had I not other business here,
cheerily would I companion your loveliness by shouldering the burden of
your comestible goods, and..."
	He suddenly vanished as the door popped open. Ukyo noticed his hand
sticking out from the space between the door and the house wall. Good
thing, too, because she was about to deck him. Soun Tendo stood in the
doorway.
	"Please Akane forgive us for locking you out please please you must not
come in oh boo hoo hoo hoo..."
	Kasumi came up behind him. "It’s not Akane, father. She has a key,
remember? Oh, hello, Ukyo. I’m sorry I didn’t come to the door. I
couldn’t hear the bell over the sound of the blender."
	Ukyo entered and left the jerk behind the door to deal with his own
problems. Soun slammed the door behind her. "Please, Ukyo," he said.
"You must help us! We have to keep Akane from coming home!" He led her
to the dining room, where she set down her delivery box on the table.
	"What’s wrong with Akane?" Ukyo asked. "I just saw her. She was in a
good mood."
	"You saw Akane?" Soun shouted. "Where? Where? We must find her and keep
her away. Oh, promise me, Ukyo! Promise me!"
	Ukyo was getting very VERY curious to hear an explanation, but Soun
ignored her quizzical look. Instead, he continued begging and saying
"Please please!" She waved a hand in front of his face. No change.
	"Ukyo, I’ll do anything to repay you! Please please please..."
	Ukyo leaned close in to his ear and shouted "WHAT’S WRONG WITH AKANE?"
	"Nothing," Kasumi said as she brought out plates for the okonomiyakis.
"It’s just that Ranma is having her period and isn’t in a very good
mood, so father wants to keep them apart."
	Ukyo thought about this for a moment. She felt her corners of her mouth
curling up. *Don’t,* she told herself. *Don’t. Ran-chan will never
understand.* But she burst out laughing.
	"It’s no laughing matter!" Soun shouted. He absently picked up an
okonomiyaki and stuffed it in his mouth. "Dey could have a te’ible fi’...
murph." He chewed and swallowed. "Ranma’s really very unreasonable
today."
	"No, I don’t get it, Mr. Tendo," Ukyo said. "What’s the big deal? It’s
just a period. At least half the people in the world deal with it all
the time."
	"But they aren’t Ranma," Soun said, rubbing tears from his eyes. In the
front of the house, the doorbell rang. Kasumi went off to answer it.
"His foolish pride... he..."  Soun sobbed and grabbed the other okonomiyaki.
He bit off two-thirds of it and chewed. "Don’ y’see, he’v gesso angry if
she laughed, an’." He looked down at the remaining shards of okonomiyaki
in his hand, and at the way Ukyo’s eyes were narrowing as she noticed it
also. "Er... didn’t we order this?"
	 "It was for Ranma!" Ukyo felt her fist moving toward him.

 Chapter Twelve

	Ranma-Chan smelled the okonomiyaki downstairs, but couldn’t face Ukyo.
She went and sat on the bathroom floor in the lotus position, trying to
calm down. It was no good. Some other idiot was ringing the doorbell,
and the sound was jangling through her head like a school bell. She went
to the window and peered out. It was that jerk who had been with Kuno
before. He was neatening himself, as if he’d just been running or been
in a fight. He had a stack of books in his hand. He really did look
awfully like Kuno. They could be brothers, Ranma-Chan thought. What a
terrible thing that would be---another Kuno.
	The door smashed open, and Ukyo rushed out, an empty delivery carton
dangling from her hand. "Now I have to go make two more okonomiyaki!"
she shouted, "and I’ll get even less time with Ranma before Akane comes
home!" She jumped to a rooftop and was soon out of sight. Ranma-Chan
sighed in relief---she didn’t want to insult Ukyo by hiding any more, but
didn’t want to see her either while she was feeling so bad---and watched
as Kasumi came to the door and looked around. "I wonder who was ringing
the bell," she said. "There doesn’t seem to be anyone here. Oh, my." She
shut the door again.
	The Kuno lookalike slid off the wall. He groaned, and his eyes were
crossed. As Ranma-Chan watched, however, the bruises faded from his
face, and he sat up with new energy and resolution in his movements.
	"Quick healer," Ranma-Chan thought. "Almost as fast as me."
	"I must find some other means of entering this household!" he said in
ringing tones. He leapt up, putting one hand on his chest and flinging
the other out expressively. "Never for so long have I been kept from my
purpose! Never so thoroughly have I been discomfited by fickle fate and
spirited portals! But my purpose holds to sail upon the seas of love,
and I shall not be denied! I shall take arms against a sea of troubles,
and..."
	The door crashed against the wall, again carrying him along with it.
Kasumi leaned out the door and again looked left and right. "I could
have sworn I heard someone out here. Oh, my."
	Ranma-Chan knew she would never calm down as long as this bozo was
making noise outside the front door. There was only one way to get rid
of the guy, and that was to boot him into the sky. As Kasumi shut the
door, Ranma slid the window open and jumped down to where the orator was
again peeling himself from the now-cracked facade of the Tendo home.
	"What’s your problem, pal?" Ranma-Chan said, trying to be casual. "You
owe Nabiki money, or something?"
	The tall boy seemed to pull himself together quickly. "Indeed no!" he
cried. "I have come to see you, pig-tailed one! I have come---"he touched
the tattered scroll at his waist, and gestured at the mangled stack of
books---"to be your teacher, and to free you once and for all from the
groping clutch of your worst enemy!"
	"Happosai?" Ranma-Chan guessed.
	"Nay, O naïve yet lovely one!" the boy proclaimed. "I shall save you
from the vile and ichor-snuffling oppressor who so enchains you!"
	"You sure you don’t mean Happosai?"
	"Nay! I mean the domineering sorcerer Ranma Saotome! You must be free
of his grip upon your lambent spirit!"
	A moment later, the boy was headed for a cloud. Over the low whistling
sound of the Kuno-clone’s passage through the air, Ranma-Chan shouted,
"Well, that’s not going to happen, so just butt out!"
	"Indeed curious," Keiichi said as he saw the Nerima zoo rapidly
approaching him from below. "So dramatically has this Saotome ensnared
her, that she fears to accept help and instead lashes out against those
who would be her allies." He crashed into a pond and slowly sat up. A
penguin came and put its head on his shoulder.
	"Away, amorous fowl!" he shouted. "My mission continues unabated!" He
started to rise. "Perhaps, however, I ought to contemplate a while
longer, as I do not currently have feeling in my legs."
	Meanwhile, Ranma looked at the stack of books. Martial Arts of Love.
Zen of Pitching Woo. Sweet Valley High. What a lot of...
	Through the hard wood of the door, Ranma-Chan could hear Soun Tendo
calling his name. "Ranma! Where are you, son? Oh, no! Kasumi, we must
find him!"
	"I’m right here!" Ranma-Chan shouted.
	Off in the sky, the sun was starting to drop.
	"Oh, man," Ranma-Chan said from her prison between the door and the
wall. "Give me an Orochi over this any time."
 Chapter Thirteen

	Ukyo was halfway back to Ucchan’s when she stopped and cursed. "I
should have stayed there to cheer up Ran-chan! That’s what a fiancee is
supposed to do! Damn it! I let that glutton Soun Tendo get to me!" She
started to turn back, then thought:  I could bring Ranma-Chan an even
better okonomiyaki, one with some stuff in it that will relax him. "Why
not?" she said aloud. "I’m the world’s fastest okonomiyaki cook! If
Ryoga does his job right, Akane won’t be home for a long time." She
turned again and started back for Ucchan’s, then stopped again. "What am
I saying? Ryoga never does his job right!" She jumped a few more
rooftops until her restaurant was in sight. Genma Saotome in his panda
form was sitting on the front stoop holding a sign that said, "Please
feed the animals!"
	Damn it! This was going to take all night.
	While Ukyo was pouring the batter, Sasuke led his master back to the
park, where Akane Tendo and her companions were standing in line to rent
a rowboat. Tatewaki smiled and nodded. Keiichi had instructed him to
hide and observe her behavior with her friends, so that he could imitate
how her friends behaved.
	"Ah ha," Tatewaki said, "but I was raised by ninjas, and any ninja will
tell you that the best way to spy is not to be seen, yes, Sasuke?"
	"Yes, master," Sasuke said.
	"And the best way not to be seen is to hide?"
	"Yes, master."
	"And the best place to hide is in plain sight, is that not so, faithful
one?"
	"Yes, master." Sasuke wasn’t even listening at this point. It was
usually best to agree with Master Kuno.
	"Then I shall hide by approaching Akane Tendo openly!" Tatewaki
concluded. He burst from his hiding place and strode out onto the
lakeside dock. Just as he was about to charge to Akane and proclaim his
love, however, he visualized a cinder block descending upon his head.
Perhaps a bit more calm would be better. "Sasuke," he said, "if I
proclaim my love to Akane Tendo today, strike me on the head with a
cinder block."
	"Yes, master," Sasuke replied from his hiding place in a nearby
rosebush. Then, "What?"
	"Do it, Sasuke. Oh, and I should ask:  why are you hiding in such a
thorny place?"
	"Huh?" Sasuke suddenly screamed and leapt out of the bush. "Aah, aah!"
	Tatewaki slowed his feet as he stepped onto the dock. He pretended not
to look directly at Akane Tendo as he said loudly, "Ah, well, I believe
I shall rent a boat and do some rowing." He then turned as casually as
he could. "Ah, Akane Tendo. Imagine that we meet ag..." But he was staring
at the point of an umbrella.
	"What do you want with Akane?" Ryoga Hibiki demanded. His voice was low
and steady.
	"Put away your weapon," Tatewaki answered, easing the umbrella away
from its perch on his nose. "I came here with no purpose save to do a
bit of rowing to improve my conditioning. Since I see that your party is
only three, however, and these quaint punts are best suited to four,
perhaps you and I may alternate rowing, while the ladies enjoy the lake
unburdened by the need to exercise."
	"I don’t trust you, Kuno," was Hibiki’s reply.
	"You question my honor?" Tatewaki reached for his bokken.
	Akane stepped between them. "There’s no reason to fight."
	"I don’t want him to make you uncomfortable, Akane," Ryoga said.
	"Do not accuse me of such disreputable deeds," Tatewaki replied,
freeing his bokken from its perch at his hip. "When have I  mistreated a
woman so?"
	"Every time I ever saw you!" Ryoga shouted. He leveled the umbrella
again, not noticing that it was resting on Akane’s head.
	"We’re here to have a good time, so both of you STOP IT!" Akane
shrieked. Both boys lowered their weapons.
	"Blessed are the peacemakers," Tatewaki said. "Come, Ryoga Hibiki. Let
us put our backs into this manly labor."
	As Kuno and Ryoga were securing the boat, Akane struggled to think of
some way to escape. She could think of all sorts of disreputable things
Ranma might do—like pretending to fall overboard---but she couldn’t
think of any way to get out of this except being honest about not
wanting to go. If she did that, though, Yuka and Ryoga would be stuck
with Kuno. He was still being reasonable---reasonable for him,
anyway---but she was sure he could turn back into a drooling maniac at
any time. As it was, what they were doing was way too much like a date
between her and Kuno. After all, that was what she was trying to set up
for the other two. She couldn’t fool herself about what Kuno was
thinking, even if he was being polite.
	What would Ranma say when he found out about this? Surely he wouldn’t
be enough of an idiot to be jealous---not of Kuno! He’d have to
understand that she was only doing it to help her friends. But no, Akane
shook her head. Did she ever believe Ranma when he told her that kind of
thing? But Ranma would believe her. He would be more understanding than,
in the same situation, she would be.
	"I like Ranma a lot more when he isn’t around," she said quietly.
	When they were out in the lake, and Yuka was asking Ryoga questions
about his travels---he’d been all over Japan and China, after all, even
if he couldn’t put names to the places he’d seen---Akane looked at Kuno.
She had her back to the prow of the boat, and he was in a seat facing
her,  rowing and gazing at her with great concentration through lowered
eyelids.
	"This isn’t a date, Kuno," she said.
	"Tatewaki," he whispered.
	"Look, whatever. This isn’t a date."
	"Naturally not. It is exercise. The air is pleasant today. Perhaps we
shall meet again." He shook his head. "No, no, the Blue Thunder must not
repeat old and worn out phrases. Variety is the spice of life. Yes."
	"Even if it was a date," Akane went on, "it wouldn’t matter. I don’t
think people fall in love on dates."
	Kuno tilted his head curiously. "How, then?"
	"I mean, I wouldn’t know from experience," Akane said, "but I think
people fall in love when they do everyday things together, when they get
used to each other. It’s like my sister Kasumi and Dr. Tofu. They fell
in love without ever going out on a date. Kasumi used to take me to see
him when I was a little girl, and now she takes him over soup once in a
while and he lends her books. When you see them together and Dr. Tofu
isn’t completely crazy, you can tell they just trust each other. Did you
ever think about that…uh, Tatewaki? About loving people you trust,
instead of loving them because you think they’d make you happy?"
	"That will not work for me, Akane Tendo," Tatewaki replied. "I trust
only honorable men, and I have never met one except myself."
	"Hey!" Ryoga shouted.
	"I cannot say to an honorable man that I love him, but I must say it
only to a woman. To what sort of woman must I say it? Why, clearly, to a
woman whose spirit is similar to my own. Being like in spirit, we shall
please each other. Thus do I prefer women who are skilled in battle.
Each of us will understand the other’s fighting heart."
	"But what happens if you find a woman who fights you all the time?
Fighting’s not enough, is it?"
	Kuno shook his head. "That can never happen. I must continue in the
belief that the quality of my love for a woman will be so great as to
cause her to wish to fight beside me, rather than against me, once our
first skirmishes are done. I must say, Akane Tendo, it is strange to
talk thus with you. I feel as though we have never talked. It is always,
that I proclaim how I love you, and then..."
	A large cinder block crashed against the side of Kuno’s head.
	"Pardon me a moment," he said. He shouted at a clump of bushes on the
shore. "WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT?"
	"What happened?" Akane asked.
	"I did not intend to speak of love during this voyage," Kuno said. "My
ninjas have instructions to strike me with a cinder block if I speak to
you of love."
	Another cinder block crashed into his head. Calmly he dropped it over
the side of the rowboat. "My ninjas have apparent taken the instructions
far too literally. Certainly I can speak figuratively, using words such
as, ‘I love you, Akane Tendo,’ that are for the time only theoretically
meant…"
	A cinder block bounced off his head and fell with a plunk into the
lake.
	"Certainly," Kuno continued, "there must be some occasion upon which I
might use the words, ‘I love you, Akane Tendo,’ with innocent intent."
He raised his hand to deflect the next cinder block. It came from the
other direction and struck him in the head.
	"Could I not, perchance, speak to you, Akane Tendo, with brotherly
intent? ‘Ah, you are as a sister to me, Akane Tendo, and thus do I love
you.’"
	A cinder block fell from the sky and struck him on the head.
	"My ninjas are zealous indeed in their compliance," he said, raising a
pardoning hand, as consciousness left him.
 
Chapter Fourteen

	Ranma-Chan finally retreated to her bedroom. The discomfort of being
crushed by a door had temporarily outweighed the discomfort of knowing
she was menstruating. Again she assumed the lotus position and began
deep-breathing exercises to calm dawn. "I am master of my body," she
told herself. "I am master of my body. Yeah right."
	Ranma remembered a fight with his father by the canal, in which Genma
claimed, "My transformation works for me now." Subsequently, Ranma had
learned that, even as Genma used the panda form to help him in certain
situations, he could use his own female form to advantage. The
Ranma-Chan body was swifter and more agile than his normal male body,
and he had used that knowledge to win some fights; also, Ranma-Chan was
great for subterfuge. But how could he use THIS aspect of the female
body to advantage? Develop a martial arts technique to go with it maybe?
But no, if there were a martial arts technique for being crabby, Akane
would be better at it that he would. He could imagine her jumping at him
shouting, "Anything Goes Martial Arts Special Attack:  Menstruation
Strike!"
	"I wonder where Akane is," Ranma-Chan said aloud.
	The door burst open and Soun Tendo rushed in. "Believe me, son, you
don’t want to know! Please please please don’t ask where Akane is.
Please please please..."
	Ranma-Chan dispatched Soun back through the doorway with a fist. "Quit
spying on me!" She slammed the door.
	As she looked at the sun going down outside the window, Ranma-Chan
realized she’d gone almost twelve hours without having a fight with
Akane. Something felt wrong about that. She had a strange and
unaccountable thought:  Akane might be the only person she knew whom she
didn’t want to beat the hell out of right now. "I wish she’d come home,"
Ranma-Chan admitted to herself.
	The door burst open. Soun shouted, "No you don’t! Please please
please..."
	Ranma-Chan got rid of Soun with another blow. Over the sound of Mr.
Tendo sobbing outside the door, she heard Kasumi putting the dinner
things on the table, and then Nabiki’s light footsteps in the hall as
she headed downstairs. "Oh, get over it, daddy," she whispered to her
father, and led him away.
	Ranma-Chan sat for a while longer in a quiet disturbed only by the
faint sounds of the kitchen. It was strange that Akane hadn’t come back
yet. The low rumbling of Genma-panda in the backyard told her her father
was back, and she heard another voice:  Ukyo.
	"Please stay for dinner," Kasumi told her.
	"Could I go up to see Ran-chan?"
	"Certainly. He’s---uh, she’s in his, uh, her room."
	Ranma-Chan shook her head with frustration and climbed out the window
and up onto the roof, pushing the window shut with her foot. She sat,
with her chin on her fist, thinking, as the sun faded from orange to
black. She didn’t pay attention to Ukyo searching the room for her, or
Soun panicking when he heard Ranma was gone. What was Mr. Tendo’s
problem, anyway?
	"I must speak to you, pig-tailed one," said a voice in Ranma-Chan’s
ear.
	"Yikes!" Ranma-Chan leapt ten feet in the air and landed on one foot in
a martial arts pose. There, kneeling on the roof, was that Kuno-clone
she’d belted earlier. "How did you sneak up on me like that?"
	"I am a poet," was the reply, "and can move as silently as a beating
heart. Come, girl, will you not speak to me for the nonce? Prematurely
have you lashed out at me---a noble gesture of self-protection, I admit.
But nay, sit. I have not come to attack you, but only in sympathy, to
advise you. You need advice, do you not?"
	"Sure," Ranma-Chan replied, relaxing a little, "but not yours. What do
you mean bringing all those crummy books here anyway?"
	"I purpose only to help you," he said. "I am told that you have been
cruelly enslaved by a false and brutal love. I hoped the contents of
those books might awaken you to some truths about love that would prove
a pill first bitter, but then in the end, intensely sweet."
	"Love," Ranma-Chan said. "I never met anyone who could explain that to
me. But what false and brutal love are you talking about, anyway? What’s
Kuno been telling you?"
	"I am told," answered the poet, "that a martial artist named Ranma
Saotome has imprisoned your mind and your spirit."
	"No," Ranma-Chan replied. "Kuno doesn’t get it. *I’m* Ranma Saotome."
	"You have taken the oppressor’s name, and buried your own identity.
Come, tell me the name you were born to. It shall be the first step in
the healing of your battered heart."
	"Look, get out of here, okay? I don’t need your help. My battered heart
doesn’t need healing---not that kind anyway."
	Down below, the front door burst open, and Ukyo and Genma-panda rushed
out into the street. "You must find him!" Soun Tendo roared. "Find
Ranma!"
	"I’ll hold dinner as long as I can," Kasumi called.
	The two ran off in different directions.
	"What ails you, pig-tailed one?" the poet pressed as he watched the
others vanish into the dusk.
	"Everyone’s in love with me," Ranma-Chan admitted, "and I wish most of
them would leave me alone. Then I have this fiancee who I can’t stand,
but I miss her whenever I don’t see her."
	"Your... fiancee is a woman?" the poet gasped. "But... you are a woman!
A coupling I can understand, but a formal engagement? I mean... is it legal
in Japan?"
	"I’m not a woman. I’m Ranma Saotome, get it?"
	"No," the poet said, scratching his head. "This news disturbs me
deeply. Very much do you require a friend, pig-tailed one. Indeed,
perhaps your friend ought to be a mental-health professional. Yet, being
a poet, I do know much of the human heart. Perhaps through my influence
you might come again to appreciate the merits of men..."
	Ranma-Chan booted him into the sky. "If you want to help, get me a
plane ticket to China, jerk!"
	Keiichi looked below him to see that he was about to land in a small
lake. He relaxed--a mere dunking would not  harm him. "Interesting," he
said. "I did not suppose my cousin knew that this pig-tailed girl is a
Sapphist. Ought I to tell him? Nay. I shall clear her mind of this
foolishness by the power of my poetry, and..."
	He crashed into something more solid than water. "Ah. I failed to
notice the footbridge," he said, and closed his eyes.

Chapter Fifteen

	As she leapt rooftop to rooftop, keeping her eyes peeled for a
red-haired girl in a Chinese shirt, Ukyo was determined to find Ranma to
comfort him. She really didn’t care what form Ranma was in--after all,
she’d spent years as a boy, and had dealt with the problems boys have,
socially at least--so she understood what it was like to face
difficulties your sex wasn’t supposed to worry about at all. She really
hadn’t meant to laugh at Ranma’s problem--really she thought it was sad,
because he was so insecure about something that was no big deal at all.
Now he was hiding because of embarrassment about it. With a little
kindness and explanation, he’d probably feel better. Fiancees were
supposed to help each other feel better, right?
	Meanwhile, Genma-panda trotted through the Nerima streets hoping he
wouldn’t find Ranma so he could eat Ranma’s share of Kasumi’s dinner.
	Also meanwhile, having hauled Tatewaki Kuno all the way to Dr. Tofu’s,
Ryoga planted the unconscious kendo star firmly on the examining table.
Yuka had gone home. He was glad. He had been polite to her, but she was
distracting him from his mission of keeping Akane busy. To make Akane
happy, he had even hauled this lout all the way from the lake. (Kuno was
too tall for Akane to get a carrying grip on.) Akane was in the other
room calling Kuno’s house to tell Principal Kuno where he was.
	"Well, now, what happened to him?" Dr. Tofu said. He examined the lumps
on Tatewaki’s head. "It looks like he’s been hit in the head multiple
times with thrown cinder blocks, is that it?"
	"Pretty much," Ryoga said.
	Dr. Tofu touched Kuno’s head gently, looking for evidence of cranial
fracture. "Nope, he’s got a pretty hard skull," he said. "These are just
normal cinder-block bruises. Let me apply some oils to reduce the
swelling."
	Akane came into the examining room. "They’re crazy over there," she
reported. "The guy who answered the phone said he wasn’t a ninja because
ninjas don’t exist, and he said no one was home including himself."
	Ryoga tried to laugh.
	"Well," Akane continued, "I told the guy who wasn’t there that Kuno IS
here, so since home’s just down the street, I guess I’d better get back
for dinner. Will he be okay, Dr. Tofu?"
	"I’ll take care of him," Dr. Tofu said. "Tatewaki has good medical
insurance."
	Ryoga felt himself freezing up. This was his big moment. Somehow, he
had to keep Akane from going home. But how could he do that without
sounding like he was asking her out? It had been a terrible day. Akane
was in a good mood, which meant she was especially cute and friendly. He
couldn’t stand it. It was so hard to confess his love, and so hard not
to, both at the same time, whenever she was like this!
	"You want to come for dinner, Ryo-kun?" she asked him.
	"Er... uh..." Ryoga said. "Sure, Akane, but... weren’t we supposed to go
get an okonomiyaki at Ucchan’s?"
	"It’s closed," Akane said. "I noticed on the way over here. Anyway,
Kasumi’s Saturday dinners are always the best. You must be hungry after
all that rowing. I wish Yuka had stayed. You guys were getting along so
well."
	The phone rang. Dr. Tofu answered, and immediately his eyes crossed.
"H--h--hi Kasumi. What’s that? Akane’s here. Here, Akane." He handed the
receiver to his skeleton, then began rubbing oil into Ryoga’s head.
	"Hey, cut that out!" Ryoga shouted.
Akane took the phone out of Betty’s hand. "Hello? Oh, hi, Kasumi. No,
I’m not hurt. Ryoga and I brought Kuno here. No, I didn’t, his ninjas
did. No, I haven’t seen Ranma. Where did he...?  He’s what?" She smiled
and laughed. "What an idiot! So what’s the big deal? Okay, Ryoga and I
will try to find him. Hold dinner for us. ‘Bye."
	Ryoga had wrestled Dr. Tofu down and now held him pinned on top of
Kuno. Kuno had begun to stir and groan.
	"Dr. Tofu," Akane asked, "have you seen Ranma today?"
	"Who’s Ranma?"
	"Never mind. I have to go look for him, Ryoga. You can go on to the
house if you want."
	"I’ll stay with you, Akane," Ryoga said. "It’s dangerous in Nerima at
night."
	Akane patted him on the arm. "It’s so nice of you to worry about me,
Ryo-kun. But I’ll be okay, really."
	Ryoga was having trouble thinking while he struggled with the lunatic
doctor. "Coffee grounds are good food," Dr. Tofu said. "Quick, Betty! To
the bat-dojo! Hey, did anyone get the number of that shih-tzu?"
	"I’d rather stay with you," Ryoga managed. He felt a sudden wave of
boldness rise in his chest. "I’d feel better about it."
	His priorities had changed. If Ranma had left home, Ryoga’s new job was
to keep Akane and Ranma from meeting. He still didn’t know why, but it
didn’t matter; he’d keep them apart or die. Maybe by going with Akane,
he’d have some chance of spotting Ranma first and beating him up before
Akane saw him.
	He released Tofu--who immediately jumped up to the ceiling and dug his
fingers in, clinging and laughing maniacally--and followed Akane out of
the office.
	"Dr. Tofu will feel better when we’re gone," Akane said. They  reached
the street and picked a direction. "Listen, I want to ask you something.
Why do you think Kuno was so nice today?"
	That was easy for Ryoga to answer. "Part of a plot, probably."
	"Yeah, well, that’s what I thought at first, too. But I kind of wonder
what he would be like if he weren’t crazy."
	Ryoga shrugged. "That’s like wondering what Emperor Akihito would be
like if he wasn’t Japanese."
	"I guess so. Let’s try the Nekohanten. The baka may be hiding out
there." They were Akane’s usual words, but much softer than usual. Akane
wasn’t really angry with Ranma. She hadn’t been angry all day.
	"Do you like Yuka?" Akane asked after they’d walked a while.
	"She’s nice," Ryoga said. He added in his head, But I love you! The two
of us walking quietly together is heaven! This is what I always wanted
for Akane and me—but she’s still trying to set me up with her friend!
	"Yuka is always telling me she thinks martial artists are cute," Akane
said. "I told her you were Ranma’s best friend and a good martial
artist. I bet I can fix you guys up again if you want."
	No, Akane! Ryoga thought, I want to be with *YOU*! But he just blushed
and looked away.
	"She’s going to be an inventor, like her great-grandfather. She’s
smart. Do you think she’s cute?"
	Ryoga thought, Someone help me! He would never insult Akane by turning
down her friend, but he couldn’t imagine being with anyone but the woman
he loved, who was right beside him. Akane! he thought. You are
everything to me! If I don’t hold you in my arms someday, I’ll... "Huh?"
he said aloud. She’d jabbed him with her elbow.
	"It’s okay, Ryo-kun. I know you’re kind of shy. But you’re so serious
all the time. You need to lighten up. I just thought a girlfriend would
help."
	In the distant sky, the moon was beginning to show brightly. There were
no clouds, no rain. Ryoga knew he was about to cry.

 Chapter Sixteen

	Ranma-Chan, still on the roof of the Tendo home, had calmed down and
was considering going back in for dinner when she heard footsteps coming
across the rooftops toward her. She looked and saw Shampoo leap two
rooftops at once in her enthusiasm.
	"Aiya!" she shouted. "Ranma! Shampoo bring..."
	Ranma-Chan put her finger on her lips.
	Shampoo landed on the roof beside her.
	"Ssh!" Ranma-Chan hissed. "I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. Look,
Shampoo, I just want to be alone tonight."
	"But Shampoo bring husband gift!" She smiled widely.
	"No more drugged food, okay, Shampoo?"
	"No, no, Shampoo do that some other time. This real gift. Ranma open."
She handed over a small wrapped package.
	Ranma-Chan tore it open.
	"It waterproof watch, like divers wear. Ranma always in water, maybe
can use, yes?"
	"Gee, Shampoo, that’s..." Ranma-Chan tried on the watch--the adjustable
band would fit either gender. "That’s really nice of you. But what’s the
catch?"
	"Shampoo want we go hot bath in spring under Nekohanten. You change out
of nasty girl-type, become big strong husband. We have good time."
	"No way!" Ranma-Chan shouted, then looked around frantically to see if
anyone had heard. She lowered her voice. "I mean, no way. I couldn’t
change back right now even if I wanted to."
	"Why Ranma no change? If too hot, Shampoo have extra phoenix pill."
	"Look, I don’t want to change back right now, Shampoo. I mean, thanks
for the watch and all, but I can’t do it."
	"Shampoo no can take cold bath with nasty girl Ranma. I know what we
do. You come Nekohanten, Shampoo make you extra special ramen. You watch
cooking, you see. No poison."
	"No thanks, Shampoo. Here, you can have the watch back if you want."
	They stared at each other. "Wo ai ni," she said. "You keep." Suddenly
her head turned. "Oh no, is Mousse with Akane friend. What they want
here?"
	Ranma-Chan looked in the street and saw Mousse, completely blind in a
pair of dark sunglasses, holding the arm of Akane’s friend Sayuri as
they approached the dojo. They walked up to the porch, and Sayuri rang
the bell.
	Shampoo jumped down; Ranma-Chan lay flat, hiding.
	"What you do here, Mousse?" Shampoo said.
	"Uh... nothing, Shampoo," he replied, staggering in the direction of her
voice with his arms held out. Sayuri stepped out of the way.
	The door burst open.
	"Akane!" Soun Tendo sobbed. "Is that you?" He looked frantically in all
directions. "Oh, hello, Sayuri. Hello, Shampoo."
	"Akane has a key, father," Kasumi called from the hallway.
	"Akane’s not home?" Sayuri asked. "Maybe she went to the movies.
Listen, Mr. Tendo, is Mr. Saotome home?"
	"No, he lives with me."
	"I mean, is he here? I brought someone to see him. Mousse? Oh, where’s
Mousse?"
	"Behind door," Shampoo said.
	They retrieved Mousse from his prison. The black sunglasses were
crushed; they fell limply from his face. "Hello, Mr. Tendo," he said,
bowing to a bush.
	Up on the roof, Ranma-Chan was deeply puzzled. What could Mousse want
with her father? And why were Sayuri and Mousse together? "I feel like I
came in to the middle of a movie," she thought. "No, what am I talking
about? My life is always like this."
	"Lazy Mousse," Shampoo said. "He just try to get out of working at
restaurant. Why you so nice to him, Akane friend?"
	"I like him," Sayuri replied. "You should see him smile someday." She
turned to Mousse. "I need to go home for dinner now, but I’ll see you
for lunch tomorrow, Mousse."
	Mousse said goodbye to a lamppost as Sayuri headed for her house just
down the street.
	"Have you seen Akane?" Soun asked.
	"Oh, yes," Shampoo said. "She go to lake with Lost Boy."
	"With Ryoga?!" Already lying flat on the roof, Ranma-Chan had no room
to fall on her face. Her face hit the shingles at least. Akane was on a
date with Ryoga? No, that couldn’t be. Shampoo was making it up to make
Ranma angry.
	"What was that?" Soun said, his ears peeled. "I thought I heard a
voice."
	"Sound like wind," Shampoo said. "Come on, Mousse. Shampoo lead you
back to Nekohanten."
	"No," Mousse said. "Wait, Shampoo. I want to ask Mr. Tendo something."
	"Well, what is it, son?" Soun said. "Be quick, now. I’m worried about
Akane."
	"Mr. Tendo," Mousse stammered, "will you... er. Will you..."
	"Yes? Yes?"
	Mousse looked toward Shampoo, though he certainly couldn’t make her out
in the darkness.
	"Er... will you bring your family to the Nekohanten tomorrow night to
try our new Shrimp Ramen Surprise? Your first serving is on me."
	On the roof, Ranma-Chan rolled her eyes.
	Shampoo led Mousse away, her grip on his arm unusually firm. "Silly
Mousse," she said. "You no get new sensei. Shampoo like you better the
way you are."
	"Gosh, Shampoo, do you really mean that?"
	"Yes. You much easier to control."
	As they vanished into the darkness, Ranma-Chan decided she was tired of
hiding on the roof. The menstruation seemed to have stopped. Shampoo was
probably lying about Akane and Ryoga going to the lake, but there was no
way Ranma was going to leave a rival alone with Akane! It was time for
Ranma-Chan to go find out for herself.

Chapter Seventeen

	Commercials
(Enter Farmer Goro, in blue and white striped overalls and an
old-fashioned train engineer’s hat. He’s wearing a whistle on a cord
around his neck and has a stalk of hay sticking out of his mouth.)
Goro:  Howdy folks! Mr. Conductor Goro here to tell you about the
greatest pleasure ride in Nerima today! That’s right, it’s Kodachi
Kuno’s Mr. Turtle Rides!
(Zoom to dark green pool of water over Farmer Goro’s shoulder, where a
large crocodile suddenly emerges, jaws flashing, and then dives below
the surface again.)
(Pan back to:)
Goro:  Come one, come all! It’s great for large families... especially
families that are a little too large at the moment. And remember, this
ride has the approval of the Nerima Tourist Commission.
(Zoom to another brief glimpse of  gleaming crocodile teeth. Pan back
to:)
Goro:  Well, actually, Kodachi did send them some black roses filled
with hypnotic gas. But it is a fun ride, y’all. Hey!
(Enter Ranma-Chan, looking crabby)
Ranma-Chan:  Is Akane here?
Goro:  Huh? Who the hell are you?
Ranma-Chan:  I’m actually part of the real storyline, not this stupid
commercial!
Goro (uncomfortable):  Uh, want a bag of Famous Kodachi Ginger Snaps?
(They don’t notice Mr. Turtle in the background, creeping out of the
pond toward them.)
Ranma-Chan:  What about Ryoga, is Ryoga here?
Goro:  Uh, no, isn’t he back at Hibiki Farms?
Ranma-Chan:  What? Where? (Notices Mr. Turtle. Cynical expression.) By
the way, are you a martial artist?
Goro:  No, why?
(Ranma-Chan leaps away.)
Goro (now seeing Mr. Turtle right behind him):  Aaah!
(Fade to black)
Next:  Hikaru Gosunkugi Portrait Studios.

Dr. Tofu had regained his composure by the time Tatewaki was fully
awake. He was leaning over his patient, smiling, drinking a cup of
ginseng tea.
	"Well," said Dr. Tofu, "I thought you were capable of a full recovery."
Tatewaki did not laugh. "Where is Akane Tendo?"
"She went out with Ryoga, I think," Tofu replied. "They were looking for
Ranma. I’m not sure why."
	"Ranma?" Tatewaki said. "Which? The repellent blowhard, or the
exquisite pig-tailed girl?"
	Before Dr. Tofu could explain, Keiichi’s voice was heard in the
anteroom. "Cousin! I received a message that you were here."
	"I was injured by my ninjas," Tatewaki said. "They were instructed to
strike me with cinder blocks if I spoke the words, ‘I love you, Akane
Tendo.’"
	With lightning speed, Dr. Tofu intercepted a cinder block that came
through the open window. "This might be a good doorstop," he said. "By
the way, did I hear you say ‘cousin?’"
	After introductions were made, Tatewaki and Keiichi sat over tea in the
front room of the doctor’s office. Tatewaki described his experience
with Akane Tendo.
	"I did not intend you to approach her again today," Keiichi said. "Yet
it seems my strategy has performed beyond even my own expectations. She
spoke to you of love?"
	"Yes, and instructed me in how she might be won--not by courting, but by
daily companionship. It is not enough that I offer her passion; she must
come to trust me. I am now resolved; from now on I shall be only honest
and faithful. But tell me, cousin, how did you fare? Is the pig-tailed
goddess yet ready for me to rescue her from your cruel seduction?"
	"Nay, cousin," Keiichi replied. "I braced her upon a rooftop, and I
learned that… Alas! I hesitate to speak the frightful words. She is... a
lover of other women."
	Tatewaki was slow to lift his cheek from the waiting-room floor. His
skull ached from the violent percussion of the facefault. "Of course,"
he said slowly. "How else could she so long resist my entreaties? And no
wonder she spoke once of dating with my sister Kodachi. No!" He sprang
up, brandishing his bokken. Lightning flashed above him. "I must win the
pig-tailed one back to the love of men! For I am the Blue Thunder of..."
The lightning flashes stopped. Dr. Tofu had turned off the fluorescent
light on the ceiling and was coming in with a ladder.
	"Meant to change that," he said. "It’s been flickering all day."
	"You will never win the pig-tailed girl," Keiichi said. "You must
forget her, cousin. Pursue your suit--cautiously!--with the other girl."
And he added in his thoughts, I will win the pig-tailed girl for myself.
	Tatewaki lowered his bokken. "I cannot bear your words, cousin. But I
shall think on them. What am I to do next?"
	"Let us go home," Keiichi replied.
	"But wait," Tatewaki said. "Akane Tendo is now in the company of that
stammering vagabond Hibiki! Should I not act to separate them at once?"
	"Rest, cousin. The power of poetry shall win her at last."

Chapter Eighteen

	After jumping around the neighborhood twice, Ranma-Chan gave up
searching for Akane. She went to the spot by the canal where she liked
to sit and think sometimes. This was where her father had claimed, "My
transformation works for me instead of against me!" A passing jet-ski,
however, had put that claim to the test. Well, this time the
transformation sure wasn’t working to Ranma’s advantage. Ranma-Chan had
spent the whole day sulking while Akane was out enjoying herself.
Normally it was almost impossible for the two to get along, but now, at
the tail end of a terrible mood, Akane was the only person Ranma could
stand to see, and maybe she was off with Ryoga. On the surface, nothing
was wrong with Ryoga--not that Akane could know about. She didn’t know
that as P-chan, he had more intimate knowledge of her body than anyone
besides herself. She thought he was polite, considerate, and bashful.
She never thought anything so nice about Ranma. No wonder she stayed out
with Ryoga. They probably hadn’t had a single fight all day.
	Of course, it was possible that Akane wasn’t with Ryoga, and that while
Ranma-Chan was out searching, she’d come home alone and was eating
dinner.
	Ranma-Chan was almost---almost---startled by Genma-panda’s attack on
her from above.  She just leaped out of the way. He charged with a
series of claw swipes and kicks, which Ranma-Chan dodged. But she was
still feeling a little stiff and cranky. She mistimed a leap, and Genma
caught her in midair with a sweep and dropped her on her back in the
mud.
	Genma clapped his paws together to celebrate, then held up a sign that
read, "Revenge is a dish best served cold."
	"Cut it out, pop! I’m not in the mood!" Ranma sat up, rubbing her head.
	Genma went up the side of the bank and came back with a teakettle of
warm water. He poured it over himself, but Ranma-Chan dodged when he
tried to douse her too.
	"What’s the matter, son?" Genma asked, adjusting the glasses on his
now-human head. "You’ve been a girl all day, haven’t you?"
	"Just butt out! I’ll get over it on my own. How’d you find me, anyway?"
	Genma handed Ranma a strip of paper. It said on the top "Ranma’s Hiding
Places." It was in Nabiki’s handwriting.
	"Preparing with research for a task is just as important as preparing
for an opponent, Ranma m’boy. In this case, I was careful to get the
inside track by paying extra to make certain no one else bought this
list from Nabiki."
	"There you are!" came Ukyo’s voice from the bridge above and behind
them. "Ran-chan!" She leapt down. She was holding another copy of the
list. "This was only number three, too," she said as she folded it and
put it away.
	"Geez," Ranma-Chan said.
	"Hey, Ran-chan!" Ukyo said cheerfully. "I’ve been looking for you all
day. Listen, I want to tell you it’s OK, that it’s no big deal if
you’re…" She stopped talking, noticing the list in Genma’s hand. "Hey!"
she shouted. "I’m supposed to have the only copy of that!" She grabbed
it and tugged. He tugged back. In a moment they were hidden by a cloud
of dust and crashing sounds and shouts of "Give me that!" and "It’s
mine!" Ranma-Chan got up and walked to the bridge.
	"There he is!" came Akane’s voice. She and Ryoga came running up. Akane
was holding a copy of the list. Ryoga had a really sad expression on his
face. He shook his head and started to walk away.
	"Hey, Ryoga," Akane said. "You don’t have to leave. We’ll be going home
soon for dinner."
	"Thanks, Akane, but I’m not hungry. Have a good night." He melted into
the shadows.
	"Let him go," Ranma-Chan said. "I need to talk to you."
	Leaving the sounds of fighting in the distance, they went to the hiding
place the list gave as #4:  the top of a tree in a small park near the
dojo.
	"I can’t believe this," Ranma-Chan said. "I woke up this morning, and I
was, like... you know."
	"Know what?"
	It was terrible. She was smiling. It scared Ranma. If she’d been angry,
he would have known what to expect.
	"I was... like, y’know... That thing that girls do and guys don’t."
	"Thinking?"
	"No."
	"Studying?"
	"No!"
	"Brushing your hair before you go out?"
	"NO!"
	Akane laughed. "What was it, Ranma?"
	"I was... you know. God, this is so embarrassing. Having a period."
	She laughed again. "Oh, I knew that."
	"*WHAT?* How’d you know?"
	"Oh, Ryoga told me."
	If it is difficult to fall on your face while lying flat on a rooftop,
it is even harder to fall on your face while sitting on a tree limb and
not fall out of the tree. Ranma-Chan managed. "Ryoga? But how could he..."
	"I’m just kidding," Akane said. "You’re so serious. Kasumi told me, but
I’d already figured it out anyway. It’s no big deal, Ranma."
	"No big deal? But..." How could Ranma express to Akane how terrible the
embarrassment was? "But... I spent the whole day hiding in the bathroom. I
didn’t tell anyone. How did you know?"
	"I grew up with two sisters," Akane said. "We learned to tell when we
were having our periods, so we could be extra understanding. It’s just
the same with you."
	"But I’ve never had a period before. It’s so humiliating! Anyway, what
do you mean, it’s just the same with me?"
	"I guess I mean... I guess I mean you’re family now, Ranma."
	Ranma-Chan sat up and blinked.  She thought, Akane, do you really mean
that?
	"Anyway," Akane said, "why’d you stay in the bathroom all day? Why
didn’t you just put in a tampon?"
	"I don’t know how," Ranma-Chan said.
	"Well, come on home. I’ll show you."
	"You’d really do that?"
	"Just like my sister showed me."
	They climbed down out of the tree and headed for the dojo. Akane took
Ranma-Chan’s hand to lead her; they didn’t let go.

 Chapter Nineteen

	While she was on her way home, covered with mud from her triumphant
tussle with Genma, Ukyo spotted Ryoga sitting in a tree talking to
himself.
	"Hey, Ryoga!" she called.
	He jumped, screamed, and fell headfirst at her feet. She helped him up.
	"It’s getting late. You weren’t going to sleep in that tree, were you?"
	"I... I don’t know," Ryoga said. "Maybe. I’m used to worse. I sleep
outdoors all the time on training missions."
	"Well, come on back with me. I have an extra mat in the storeroom of
the restaurant. You can pay me back by sweeping up in the morning."
	Ryoga nodded, and followed her through the dim Nerima streets.
	"I’m sorry I let you down," he said. "I couldn’t keep Akane busy long
enough."
	"Yeah, well... I didn’t do so well, either. I never even got to say one
word to Ran-chan. The fathers kept getting in my way, but... I know it was
really my fault. I just kept losing my temper. That’s not what martial
arts training is supposed to be about."
	Ryoga nodded again. "You know, I keep losing my temper, too."
	Ukyo unlocked the front door of the restaurant. They went in, and she
fixed some tea for the two of them. Ryoga shrugged off his backpack, and
they sat at an empty table, sipping tea.
	"Come to think of it," Ukyo said, "everyone around here loses his
temper all the time."
	"That’s right," Ryoga said. "I never met a bunch of martial artists
with so little self-control in my life." He scratched his head. "Then
again, I’ve never met another bunch of martial artists."
	"If it were a physical challenge," Ukyo said after a while, "it would
be easy. But you can’t use martial arts to fight being in love."
	"You sure can’t," Ryoga said.
	Ryoga stared at Ukyo. Ukyo stared at Ryoga. Through the partly
curtained window, Tsubasa, disguised as a tree stump, stared at Ukyo.
And in the sky outside, the moon rose, and the foul air and noise from
more distant Tokyo streets fell away. A breeze came up that smelled not
of factory smoke and truck exhaust, but of flower petals. And for the
length of that night, as the quiet grew and evening prayers were spoken
and windchimes clinked on back porches and sleeping mats were unrolled
and the stars glistened like tears, no anger was voiced, no blows were
dealt,  and those who loved,  smiling in recollection of a companion’s
face or choking off sobs at their empty arms, at last knew what it was,
for a while, to be at rest.

 Chapter Twenty

	The next morning at breakfast Ranma had regained his appetite. He
scarfed down Kasumi’s food like a steamshovel digging in soft soil.
	Sometime during the night, Akane had come in and poured warm water on
him and changed him back. He knew it because he smelled her perfume on
the teakettle beside the bed. "Thanks, Akane," he said, touching her on
the shoulder for a moment in the hall. Her only reply was her cute
crinkle-eyed smile.
	After breakfast, Ranma sparred with his father and dumped him in the
fish pond. About the time the fight ended, Mr. Tendo’s students started
arriving. Ranma felt well enough to come into the dojo with Soun and
help out with the teaching. This meant getting thrown by clumsy
students, over and over again, but he didn’t mind. He was part of the
family, after all.
	"Thank you, Ranma," Soun said as Nabiki collected payment from the
boys. "You’re very gentlemanly today."
	"No problem, Mr. Tendo." Ranma then made a circuit of the house, found
two boys looking in the ground floor windows and three others trying to
climb up to Akane’s window, and calmly walked them off the premises
without shouting or hitting or throwing any of them.
	He then went upstairs to take a sponge bath and change clothes. Akane
and Nabiki were studying in their rooms; or, actually, Nabiki was on the
phone with someone talking about "net profit after tax." Ranma smiled.
This was all comforting to him. He really was part of the family.
	He stripped, carefully and slowly washed himself so he wouldn’t change
into a girl, and walked back to his bedroom wrapped in a towel.
	There, perched like a vulture on the windowsill, was Tatewaki Kuno. The
sight of Kuno’s perfect coif spoiled his mood.
	"Aaah! Get out of here, Kuno!"
	"Gladly," Kuno replied. "My presence in the bedchamber of such a hated
rival is as odious to me as to be confined in the malodorous storeroom
of a meat-packing factory. But before I go, I must have the name of your
second." He tossed a scroll to Ranma.
	"Oh, c’mon, Kuno. You’re not challenging me again?" Ranma pulled on his
shorts and t-shirt.
	"Not I. Read on, miscreant."
	Ranma tore the scroll open. It read:
	"Ranma Saotome, I, Keiichi Kuno, challenge you to a martial arts poetry
match. I mean to win from you the freedom of the one known only as the
pig-tailed girl." At the bottom, in small print, was the meeting-place,
the yard behind Dr. Tofu’s clinic.
	"What?" Ranma shouted. "This is crazy! Who is this guy anyway? Is this
that guy I belted off the roof yesterday?"
	"I do not know what you mean," Tatewaki replied. "But difficult indeed
is it to call crazy the intricate workings of the heart, or the
well-balanced emotions of the poet. Such a man is my cousin--the man they
call the Sun Sonneteer--Keiichi Kuno. I shall second him. Choose your
second; for you and my cousin must surely duel at dusk."
	"I’ll pick... uh... uh... What the hell is martial arts poetry anyway?"
Instinct told him to dodge an attack from behind; Akane charged in and
still nearly crashed into him. "What’s all this shouting about? I’m
trying to *study!*" She saw Kuno in the window and stopped, staring in
disbelief. Her voice fell. "Uh... Tatewaki. What are you doing here?"
	"Hey!" Ranma said. "Since when are you on a first-name basis with him?
He has life-size pictures of you hanging in the kendo clubhouse!"
	"What is this about?" Akane returned to a shriek. "Why can’t you both
shut up and let me do my *chemistry?*"  Ranma felt the fist coming, and
as usual didn’t dodge. A moment later his face had made its imprint
against the wall. "Read the scroll," he said through the new swelling
and loose teeth in his cheek.
	"What’s this?" Akane took the scroll from Ranma’s outstretched hand.
"Challenge?" She turned on Tatewaki. "What’s this about, Kuno? I thought
you were finally starting to be reasonable!"
	"This scheme is not of my making," Tatewaki answered. "I but deliver
the challenge. Ranma Saotome has only to select his second, and I will
retire from my perch. It is somewhat painful for my back, since I am too
tall and powerfully built to be crouched in this way."
	"I’ll be his second," Akane roared. "Maybe that will get you people to
finally leave us *alone!* Come on, Ranma."
	She peeled Ranma off the wall and dragged him out of the room by his
shirt collar.
	"Hey, what did I do?" Ranma protested. "This wasn’t my idea!"
	A few seconds later, he saw Akane’s window retreating behind him and
landed in the fish pond.
	"Akane is so uncute," Ranma-Chan said automatically.  But she couldn’t
mean it. She wasn’t angry; she just felt a little sick.
	Down in the street, Tatewaki strode vigorously back toward his home.
His cousin’s newest ploy seemed mysterious to him; but only one day of
his cousin’s help had already improved his relations with Akane Tendo.
Hope was burgeoning within him. Notwithstanding the soreness of his
skull, and some stiffness from sleeping poorly, he felt strong, and
vigorous, ready to face new challenges. With Akane Tendo by his side, he
would soon...
	The afternoon sunlight dropped away. He felt a flow of cold liquid
around his feet. He looked up at a small round circle of sky.
	"I have come full circle," he said. "At this place did the new
adventure begin; now, as fate’s wheel turns, I have again descended to
the daunting nadir of my prospects. Yet I shall not let this omen
dissuade me. The game is still afoot, n’est ce pas?"
	He looked about for a moment in the gloom. Then:  "Sasuke!"

 Chapter Twenty-One

	"What is martial arts poetry, anyway?" Ranma asked Dr. Tofu. "I never
heard of it."
	"Well," Dr. Tofu said. "I was at school when I first met people who
were into it. It’s partly about balance, but mostly about how keen your
senses are. It’s an observation test. Of course, you have to put your
observations into the best words you can."
	"Well, balance is no problem," Ranma said.
	Akane snorted.
	"Oh, c’mon Akane. You could be a little more encouraging, you know."
	"How many times have I knocked you off the fence, Ranma?" she argued.
"And you can’t keep your balance on ice skates at all."
	"Well, what do you expect me to do? Back down from the challenge?"
	They glared at each other, nose to nose.
	Dr. Tofu smiled, putting his hands between them. "Now, hold on. There’s
no reason for you two to fight. It just so happens that I did a little
martial arts poetry in my day."
	"Great!" Ranma said. "So you can train me."
	Tofu shook his head. "Well, no, actually."
	"Well, then, you can be my second, instead of Akane."
	Akane snarled.  Ranma realized he’d misspoken and gave Akane his most
winning smile. "Just kidding, Akane. We’re family, so we got to stick
together, right?"
	Akane kept scowling, but unclenched her fists at least.
	"I’m afraid I can’t be your second anyway," Tofu said. "Actually, I
agreed to be the judge."
	Ranma and Akane fell over backwards in their chairs, each with one foot
in the air.
	"Well, my malpractice insurance payment is due this month, and Kasumi
is making me lunch tomorrow," Tofu admitted.	"I needed a little cash."
	"Well, then, at least explain the rules," Ranma said, "and we’ll figure
out the rest."
	Tofu nodded. "I can do that, since it *is* part of the judge’s job
description. First rule:  the two competitors have to stand in some
uncomfortable and precarious position, like balanced on their heads or
on one finger, or on one foot on a bed of nails, for the whole
competition. If you fall, you automatically lose. The competition is
fought by noticing things in the environment around you."
	"No big deal," Ranma said.
	"…and comparing them to other things," Dr. Tofu finished. "You can’t
just say, ‘The sky is blue.’ You have to say ‘The sky is clear and open
as that crocus petal over there.’"
	Ranma nodded. "Okay. I can do that, too."
	"…and, you have to say it in beautiful language."
	"That ain’t so tough," Ranma said.
	"Yeah, right," Akane sneered.
	"Actually, it’s very difficult," Dr. Tofu said. "To compete
successfully at martial arts poetry, you have to be very much in touch
with and very comfortable with your feelings. It’s very hard to say
beautiful things. Most men find it embarrassing. I’ll give you an
example. You’re just sitting here in my waiting room right now; you’re
not balanced on anything. I want you to say something nice about Akane,
in as beautiful language as you can."
	"Uh..."
Ranma looked at Akane. The scowl fell from her face. She looked at him
innocently, expectantly. "Go ahead, Ranma," she whispered.
	"Uh... Uh..."
	"Hurry up, Ranma!" she shouted. "Say something nice about me already!"
	"Uh...  You’re stronger than most girls I know, except Shampoo, of
course.  Uh... you keep your room pretty clean."
	"Those aren’t poetic," Tofu said quickly. "Keep trying, Ranma."
	"Uh...  You usually get your homework done on time.  Uh... you never
beat up your sisters. Uh..."
	"Come on, Ranma!" Tofu leaned closer. "She’s right in front of you!
This is your fiancee! You’ve spent more time with her than anyone else
in the last year! Say what’s really inside you, Ranma! Say how you
really feel about her!"
	"Uh... you don’t order the most expensive thing on the menu at a
restaurant.  You... uh, you don’t feed your cooking to animals. You... "
	Ranma knew, then, that Akane was about to hit him, and that he deserved
it. He saw her fingers bunch up, her arm drew back, and remembered, all
in a flash, how that hand had felt last night in his, gently leading
him, squeezing just a little to say it was okay. Why couldn’t he say
that? Why couldn’t he...
	"Uh... Your hand can be hard as a rock or gentle as a… as a… as a warm
blanket on a cold night! Yeah, yeah, that’s it! Please don’t hit me,
Akane!"
	Akane relaxed. "It took you long enough," she said, folding her arms in
disgust.
	"That’s it!" Tofu cried, excited. "Now you’re getting the hang of it.
But now you see how hard it is. Think about how well you know Akane, and
how you feel about her--how you *really* feel about her--and how long it
took you to find the words. Now imagine doing the same thing for objects
you’re just looking at for the first time." He sat back, relaxing,
sipping his tea.
	"So how do you like my chances against this Kuno guy now, huh, Akane?"
Ranma asked, sitting back also.
	Akane rolled her eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Y’all wanna learn a new dance?
Are you qualified to learn one?"
--- The Time

	Poetic qualifier #1
	Akane Tendo, 6, on a picnic:
	She is in a sundress yellow with orange flowers, and she has a big
yellow hat over her eyes and black shoes with gold buckles and white
ankle socks. She lies back on a hillside. Everyone else is down at the
bottom on a blanket. Mama-san will unpack the basket soon. The sun is
highest but Akane isn’t hot. The sun’s hand is on her and even under her
and it rubs gently against her bare arms, legs, face. Grass wrinkles
beneath her, and the crisp, wet smell of the blades is there as she runs
her hands along them. Dandelion wisps cling to the hair on the back of
her neck. Her eyes are closed, but she can feel and see the bright spots
the sun sneaks onto them, and she imagines herself in the center of the
top of that hill and the hill is forever, spotted with huge yellow
flowers and dandelions bright and even and the sun touches them all, and
as she lies there she is no longer on the ground, but is rising,
spinning, towards the sun, slowly corkscrewing into the pale sky, and as
she lies flat there in the grass the space above dizzies her until she
falls into it. It’s just me, she thinks, just me just me and everything
and I love everything so much how do I say it? The hillside is gone and
Akane is just there floating in everything and all flows through her,
and leaves scatter past her ear, calling her back without words, to
where the grass is silky on her skin and a breeze is tickling her with
the edges of her dress and papa-san is coming up the hill to carry her
down to where love is waiting

	Poetic qualifier #2
	Ryoga Hibiki, 8, in downtown Tokyo:
	Those Mega Robot World dolls looked great in the shop window:  Mega
Robot Man came in burnished gold and dusky silver, and inside his helmet
was a blinking green light you could turn on and off, and his arch-enemy
Mind Destroyer was in black armor and you could remove his helmet and
see his skull. Then there were the three Mega Robot Man monsters, Fly
Face, Bone Eater, and Crushing Beetle. They looked so cool, Fly Face
with shiny blue compound eyes and Bone Eater with the big ridged teeth
in a mouth that grinned just a little and Crushing Beetle with saw-edged
jaws and a button in the back that you could push to make him bearhug
Mega Robot Man. Ryoga didn’t like Mitosis Robot Guy, the little
black-and-white one with the red flashing light in his helmet, who
should have been Mega Robot Man’s friend but was always trying to beat
up Mega Robot Man so *he* could be the number one hero serving Space
Command. Ryoga never wanted to be like Mitosis Robot Guy. But he stood
there looking in the window of Ultra Scary Toy Shop thinking how great
it would be to have the others, while mama-san and papa-san were
browsing at the news stand behind him. Maybe he could get them to buy
just one of them for him--after all, they said they were proud of him for
taking second place at that martial arts tournament--but he was afraid
they’d pick Mitosis Robot Guy. He didn’t want to get stuck with Mitosis
Robot guy. But then he turned around to ask, and they weren’t there. And
there was no newsstand. Behind him there was nothing but pushing people
in dark raincoats, with their black and red umbrellas tilted slightly
forward against the rain. Ryoga couldn’t see the street past the crowd,
but he could hear it, the groan and puffing of delivery trucks and the
creaking of car brakes and the distorted shouting from an advertising
speaker. "Have you considered the future of your uninsured automobile?
Have you considered the future of your uninsured automobile?"
	"Mama-san!" Ryoga shouted. But she couldn’t hear him. There was so much
noise he couldn’t hear himself. His parents were at a newsstand, he knew
that, a newsstand right on the street, but where was it? He stepped into
the crowd, maybe to get to the curb, got pushed left, right, forward,
back, shouted "Mama-san!" again, got spun around three times, walked a
little way with the crowd, was pushed again, came out against another
shop window. He could see inside, dark, narrow aisles lit by blue neon
lights, and boxes rising almost to the roof. Even Ultra Scary Toy Shop
was gone now.
Ryoga was lost again.

	Poetic Qualifier #3
	Xian Pu, 5, in a field outside Joketsuzoku:
The fire is lit, and a gray smoke curls upward to the edge of the
firelight. Great-grandmother has promised to tell the girls a story
after today’s training exercises. All the girls are a little sleepy now,
and their arms and legs and backs are hurting a little, but Xian Pu sits
up straighter than all the others, so Great-grandmother can see that
she’s not tired, that she’s ready to do whatever Great-grandmother
wants.
Great-grandmother has built this fire and is blowing on it. Mu Tsu and
some other boys gathered the firewood and now are kneeling in a little
crowd just outside the firelight, waiting, like the girls are, for the
story. The orange light of the blaze plays along Great-grandmother’s
face, making her eyes, her silver hair shine as shadows flicker across
her wrinkled cheeks.
Xian Pu hears the soft panting of the other girls near her. There is
even someone giggling on the other side of the fire. But Xian Pu holds
her head steady, her back straight, and keeps her breathing even. Her
knees are bent and her hands are folded in her lap. She knows she will
be the strongest Amazon warrior out of all these girls and out of many
girls to come. Great-grandmother will be proud of her.
Great-grandmother sits back now, her hands invisible in her hanging
sleeves as they wrap around the end of her tall and knotted staff. Xian
Pu hopes she will tell an Ancestor story, about how a great Amazon
warrior killed a warlord or a monster to protect the village.
The burning wood snaps and pops. Xian Pu watches Great-grandmother’s
face change slightly, tilting left, right, forward, back as she thinks: 
her lips tighten, her eyes narrow and then suddenly widen, her invisible
hands shift on the staff as she swallows, and the story begins.

Poetic Qualifier #4
	Ukyo Kuonji, 6
	Ukyo loved the smell of freshly-cut wood and the feel of sawdust in her
hand. The wooden floor of what would be Father’s new okonomiyaki shop
felt good, almost soft, as she sat at the center, looking at the
incomplete tangle of beams and corners overhead. No one was working here
now; Father had left her to play. She had a wooden toy griddle and
spatula. She made piles of sawdust on the griddle, pretended they were
okonomiyaki, used wood chips for chopped vegetables. There! Almost good
enough to eat. If only she had someone to play with, to pretend eating
it the way she pretended to make it! But Ranma was gone. She’d cried;
Father said, "He’s a mean little boy. My Ukyo can do better. There
there."
	I want to be a mean little boy, Ukyo told herself. No little boy will
ever be mean to me again.  She scooped the sawdust okonomiyaki, watched
it fall away from the spatula, and started again. She pretended the
batter was sizzling, carefully placed each bit of vegetable until they
formed the katakana for "Ucchan." She imagined father coming up and
ordering an okonomiyaki, and smiling and holding his belly and laughing
at how good it was. And then she saw another customer, and another, and
another, licking their lips and rubbing their hands together with greedy
hunger, and all of them would want her and need her, and she would never
be alone again. Finally even Ranma would come back, would come back to
laugh at her, and then she’d take her spatula and hit him between the
eyes.

 Chapter Twenty-Three

	"So, Ranma Saotome! We meet at last!"
	There he was, across Dr. Tofu’s yard from Ranma--the same scroll-toting
buffoon as the previous day. He now had a katana-length scroll at his
belt, and was in ceremonial dueling clothes. This was Keiichi Kuno--the
Sun Sonneteer, or whatever. His cousin Tatewaki stood behind him, arms
folded, blathering.
	"How sweet the solemn rose at the first snow; how it shivers, how it..."
	"Hey, cut it out!" Ranma shouted. "It’s not bad enough I have to listen
to this guy’s poetry without yours, too!"
	Akane was inside talking to Dr. Tofu. This was Ranma’s only moment to
put an end to this thing. "Look, Kuno," he said to Keiichi, "why don’t
you and me talk about this thing for a minute, you know, privately,
before we start."
	"Ah," said Keiichi. "A confession? Or a guilty conscience? But it shall
be as you say. I fear to exchange words with no man, even a lecherous,
overbearing cad such as you."
	"I shall step within, and inquire after the health of Akane," Tatewaki
said.
	When Ranma and his opponent were alone in the yard, Ranma said, "Look,
I tried to tell you yesterday. You can’t make me give up the pig-tailed
girl because she and I are the same person."
	"Fiend," Keiichi replied quietly. "You are so brazenly confident of
your hold upon her, that she speak as if you are soul mates."
	"Listen, jerk," Ranma shouted. "I gave up trying to tell your cousin a
long time ago, but I’m gonna give you one more shot before I beat you
up. Okay, pal? Now listen! This is the real me, but sometimes I turn
into that girl. You got it?"
	"A cross-dresser?"
	"NO! A curse!"
	"Ah. Multiple personality disorder."
	Ranma wasn’t quite sure what this meant. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Have
it your way. If I could get rid of the girl body, I would, but right now
I can’t, okay?"
	Keiichi’s eyes narrowed. "You hold her body in thrall?"
	"NO!! God, are you stupid! I thought poets were supposed to be smart!"
	Keiichi shook his head. "How little you understand. Intelligence
establishes fences upon perception. These fences are not useful in
poetic endeavor. A fool can easily be a poet. I am no fool, yet when I
prepare to compete, I make myself one. Poetry is not a matter of reason,
but of intuition."
	"Look," Ranma said, "what I’m trying to tell you is that you challenged
me for nothing. This is your only chance to surrender, or you’re gonna
get hurt. I’m gonna do anything I have to do to beat you."
	"Ha! It is you who shall be humiliated, Ranma Saotome! There is no
tactic you may try for which I am not prepared!" Keiichi walked back
across the yard, laughing hysterically. "’Thou hadst better been born a
dog,’" he quoted, "’than answer my wak’d wrath.’"
	Well, so much for that, Ranma thought. He had never once been able to
talk himself out of a fight with anyone named Kuno. But at least he’d
tried; now it was time for some indiscriminate grappling. He stood up a
bit straighter, took some deep breaths to gather in energy.
	Meanwhile, inside, Dr. Tofu was in the kitchen preparing some tea
before the duel started. This left Akane and Tatewaki alone in the
waiting room.
	"I am sorry this challenge has caused you distress, Akane Tendo,"
Tatewaki told her. "By delivering the challenge in the manner I did, I
hoped you would not be involved. I wish you to trust me." He spoke in a
soft voice, like when he was reciting poetry, and he had his hands
folded and his head slightly bowed.
	"Well, if you want me to trust you," Akane answered, "maybe you should
tell me what this is all about."
	Tatewaki closed his eyes and shook his head a few times. Then he opened
his eyes again. "So be it. I shall be truthful with you, Akane Tendo. My
cousin Keiichi wishes to seduce the pig-tailed girl. It is his intention
to seduce her, and then cruelly to spurn her, so that I may come to her
rescue, to be a wise mentor and thereby win her affection."
	Akane grabbed the edge of a table to keep her face from hitting the
floor. She stood blinking at Kuno. She felt something rumbling within
her. It was...  laughter.
	"Ah hahahahahahahahaha! That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard, Kuno!"
	Kuno looked shocked. "Well, I admit to having certain misgivings about
the strategy, but all the same..."
	"Ah hahahahahahahaha! It will never work! Not in a million years!"
	"Well, perhaps not, but..."
	"Ah hahahahahahahaha!  You actually agreed to this plan? Are you sure
you’re getting the right vitamins and minerals in your diet? Ah
hahahahahahahaha!"
	Kuno stamped on the floor. "You must take me seriously, Akane Tendo! I
am an upperclassman!"
	Akane stopped laughing. "I’m sorry, Kuno, but it’s such a stupid plan.
Your cousin will never seduce Ranma! What other lamebrained schemes has
he come up with?"
	"My cousin is very wise indeed," Kuno replied. "I know his strategies
can help me with the pig-tailed girl, since they have already helped me
with..." He stopped, slapped a hand over his mouth.
	Akane felt her muscles tensing and her eyes narrowing. "Helped you with
what, Kuno? Helped you with what?"
	"Trust, and honesty," Kuno said to himself. "Alas, I am all undone.
Out, damned spot! My cousin’s advice has helped me with you, Akane
Tendo. You have spoken your thoughts to me, and I to you. Perhaps had we
continued thus, for a time, you might have come to desire the affection
which I have already made plain to you."
	"So that’s it!" Akane shouted. "That’s why you were being so
reasonable! It’s all a trick!"
	"’Doubt thou the stars are fire,’" Kuno quoted, "’and doubt that the
sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.’"
	"Two girls at once?" She let her fist go. "You never told the truth for
a minute!"
	Tatewaki crashed out onto the roof and slid down the shingles to land,
headfirst, in the yard. He slumped. Akane burst out the door.
	"That hurt, you know," Tatewaki said to her, and became unconscious.
	Dr. Tofu followed Akane out into the yard, holding a cup of tea. He
looked up at the hole in the roof.
	"I’m sorry, Dr. Tofu," Akane said.
	"Not at all," Tofu replied. "I’ll just tell the insurance company it
happened while Kasumi was here. I pay extra premiums for that, you know.
But I’m afraid in dueling terms that would have to be considered a foul,
Akane. Seconds kind of aren’t supposed to hit each other."
	"Nay, I waive the right to disqualify this girl," Keiichi said. "So
secure am I in my martially poetic skills, that I will accept the
handicap of a dormant second."
	"Well, okay." Dr. Tofu arranged Tatewaki into a slumped sitting
position against the wall. The kendo star’s eyes were wide open, but
glassy; he saw and heard nothing. The doctor sipped his tea. "Are we
ready? Keiichi?"
	"Yes, sensei," Keiichi replied.
	"Ranma?"
	"Bring it on!"
	Dr. Tofu finished his tea and set the cup down on the grass. Ranma
looked at Akane. "Go make that call," he whispered at her. Akane nodded
and withdrew into the clinic.
	Dr. Tofu started to settle down on the grass; then he jumped up, crept
over to some bushes, and thrust his hand deep inside. He came out
holding a struggling little man in a ninja costume.
	"Please don’t hurt me!" Sasuke shouted.
	"Oh, I won’t," Dr. Tofu said. "But first I’ll have to relieve you of a
few things." He upended Sasuke and shook him. Two nets, a blowgun, three
garottes, two shuriken, six pepper bombs, two tear gas grenades, a small
jar marked "coral snake venom," a sealed flask of hydrochloric acid, a
cinder block, an unopened box of latex condoms, an autographed photo of
Mickey Rourke, a stuffed bunny, and two issues of Tokyo Bride fell out
of his gi.
	"Heh heh," said Sasuke. "Wherever could those magazines have come
from?"
	Dr. Tofu resumed his place on the grass. Akane emerged from the clinic
and sat down beside him. Sasuke jumped up onto the garden wall.
	"To your places," Dr. Tofu said. He gestured at a pair of wooden
stakes, each pounded into the ground about ten yards from the other.
"Balance on a stake upside-down using only your head or your left hand.
Remember the rules:  combat is with words alone. You may not strike each
other. The first one to lose his balance loses. If no one falls, the
winner is the first to ten points, or above ten and two above his
opponent."
	Keiichi braced his hand on the stake nearest him and, with a small
leap, was soon suspended upside-down. With a twist of his wrist, he spun
around on the stake, examining the yard. Quickly, Ranma imitated him.
The edge of the stake cut his hand as he spun around. "Ow!" he shouted.
"Splinters!"
	"Weakling," Keiichi sneered. "Let us begin."

Chapter Twenty-Four

	"First object," said Dr. Tofu. "The stake under your hand."
	"Edged smooth as a blade of grass," Keiichi intoned, "stolid as
tree-bark, sprung from the fecund soil and shaped with care by the
innate wisdom of a man’s hand."
	"Uh," Ranma said. "Hard as wood, I guess. Uh... splinters like... uh...
like the ones over there in Kuno’s hair."
	"Point to Keiichi," Dr. Tofu said. "Second object. Roof with hole."
	"The gap in these once-sturdy planks makes manifest the union ‘twixt
earth and sky," Keiichi said, "‘twixt the within and the without. It is
like the fierce eyes of the girl, whose outer peace and inner passion
exchange over splintery shards of time." He smiled mockingly at Ranma.
"You are doomed, Saotome. See how easily I parry your attempts,
repeating your words, but with more skill? It is called the rebound--one
of the classic manuevers of martial arts poetics!"
	"Shut up!" Ranma shouted. He felt blood trickling along his fingers,
twisted to study the roof. There was something wrong with Keiichi’s
answer, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He studied the uneven
edges of the hole. Got it! "Okay... uh... The broken planks of the hole in
the roof are as uneven as the... uh, the unmowed grass right under me.
Yeah, that’s it."
	"You’re a quick study, Saotome, but you lack eloquence," Keiichi
taunted.
	"I got it!" Ranma shouted. "Dr. Tofu said ‘roof with hole,’ not ‘hole
in roof.’ You were talking about the hole, and you were supposed to be
talking about the roof!"
	"A rhetorical device," Keiichi replied.
	"A point each," said Dr. Tofu. "You score for catching that error,
Ranma. Third object. Ranma’s right foot."
	"Got it!" Ranma shouted. "My foot is like you, Dr. Tofu. It kicks you
into shape, and you always get treated like you deserve."
	"Inspecific," Keiichi sneered. "It is the right foot, Saotome, not
either foot. The foot is thrust into the air, slightly bent, wet with
strain, as the chestnut tree I see beyond my foe is worn down over years
by bitter rain."
	"Point to Keiichi," Dr. Tofu said. "Three to one. Fourth object.
Keiichi’s left foot."
	Ranma scanned the yard for something that looked similar to Keiichi’s
big, flat left foot. Damn it! The only thing he saw was Tatewaki’s left
foot. Neither one of them was poetic at all. Big and flat, what else was
big and flat?
	"The ant in the grass treads light but strong along his path, but shall
pause to taste the air," Keiichi recited. "So then my left foot hangs
suspended, testing, probing, and ready at once to bear me again whither
my duty lies."
	Ranma couldn’t think of anything. "Next object," he said. The blood
from his hand was running down the stake now. Soon, strong as he was,
the stake would become too slippery for him to keep his grip! He began
thinking about other ways to balance, but he had only his head, and the
pointed stake would surely hurt even more that way.
	"Point to Keiichi. Four to one. Next object. Tatewaki’s sword."
	Ranma knew he had to get this one. It was easy! He knew that bokken as
well as anyone alive, he’d dodged it so often. He scanned the yard. Tree
limbs--same shape, same material. Too easy. How about that rebound thing?
What did Keiichi say last time? Ants, grass--grass.
	"Got it!" Ranma shouted. "The sword is like the grass, because grass is
straight and grows toward the sky, and when he practices with the sword,
Kuno grows stronger."
	"The sword is as the length of the doctor’s arm," Keiichi intoned,
"whereby a feeling touch is dealt. It is wand of the art."
	Dr. Tofu thought about this for a minute. "Point to Ranma. No buttering
up the judges. Four to two. Next object. A slat in my garden wall."
	Another long, straight object! The doctor was making it extra hard to
come up with new things to compare to. Ranma spun around on the stake
again, feeling the terrible strain in his wrist.
	"A slat builds a  boundary," Keiichi said, "yet is only a part that not
alone may stand. So then Sasuke, member of an ancient clan of servants
and protectors, who are little alone but together stronger than the sum
of their numbers."
	Ranma looked around again. His entire forearm was getting numb! Soon he
wouldn’t be able to feel if he was losing his grip.
	"Akane’s finger," he said, seeing her fist clenched with—with what,
worry? "The finger is as strong as wood, and lines up next to the other
fingers to make her stronger."
	There was a pause. "Tough call," Tofu said. "Eloquence to Keiichi, but
Ranma’s is physically closer. Hmm. No points. Next object."
	"No points?" Akane shouted. "What do you mean, no points?"
	"No advantage--no score. Next object. Akane’s voice."
	Ranma heard himself say, "Oh no!"  Dr. Tofu knew he wasn’t good at
saying nice things about Akane. This was the toughest thing the doctor
could have picked!
	"It is the voice of a bird that shrilly cries out against foes in
defense of its nest." Keiichi smiled.
	"What are you comparing to?" Ranma protested. "There’s no bird
calling!"
	"Hark," said Keiichi. He picked up a stone with his right hand and
flung it at the chestnut tree. A bird squawked amid the leaves.
	"No fair!"
	"We cannot strike each other," Keiichi replied, "but we may strike
others. Observe." He slung another stone at Sasuke; Sasuke jumped away,
shrieked, and fell out of sight on the other side of the wall.
	Now Ranma had to think of something for Akane’s voice. But what sound
could he compare it to? There was silence in the yard, except for Sasuke
thrashing out of sight in the brush, and the distant hum of...
	"Traffic!" Ranma shouted. "It’s like traffic. It’s, like, loud and
blaring..." he saw Akane’s eyes narrowing, "but...uh, it’s an important
reminder that life is strong and always goes on."
	"Existing sound beats created sound," Tofu said. "Point to Ranma. Four
to three."
	Four to three! This competition was supposed to go to ten points. Ranma
knew he could never hold on so long. He was holding his own on points,
but each point was harder than the last one. In the long run, Keiichi
was just faster and sharper than he was. Ranma was only scoring on
technicalities. There had to be some other way to win.
	"Next object. Sound of Sasuke climbing wall."
	Ranma listened. He couldn’t hear Sasuke climbing the wall. Even if he
was a bad ninja, Sasuke was still a ninja; he didn’t make noise when
climbing. This was a trick. He had to find a technicality to win this
point on--but he didn’t know the rules well enough.
The closest he could come would be to use the Saotome Anything Goes
School tactic--let the opponent attack, and then analyze the attack for a
weakness.
	Keiichi attacked with a rebound. "The sound of the ninja climbing is as
the blare of an automobile horn, that proclaims such urgency with its
silent skill as the horn proclaims with noisy violence."
	How could Ranma counterattack that? He could try to rebound too, but
could he double-rebound, and turn Keiichi’s answer against him? "No, the
sound of the ninja climbing is like a car horn because..." He was ahead of
himself, didn’t know how to finish the comparison. "Oh, forget it."
	"Point to Keiichi. Five to three. Next object. Ranma’s frustration."
	Akane argued, "But that’s not an object at all, Dr. Tofu."
	"No matter," Keiichi interrupted. "Dr. Tofu is a challenging sensei."
He blinked, looked around him. "Go on, Saotome. I will not allow you to
double-rebound me."
	"I give up," Ranma said. This was getting too crazy for him.
	"Saotome’s frustration is as the hole in the roof--a solid-seeming
exterior gapped with emotional failing."
	"Six to three. Comparison was a little clumsy, but nice recursion. Next
object. Akane’s right foot."
	Again with the feet, and again with Akane, too. Ranma groaned. He
couldn’t feel his hand at all, kept balance now mostly with his feet. He
was sliding downward and falling behind in score; there was no way he
could win this on points. If only the call Akane had made would pay off!
	"Wake up, Ranma!" Akane bellowed at him. "It’s your turn, you know!"
She was standing far enough away that she wouldn’t cause him to lose his
balance, but he was startled, and wobbled a little.
	Ranma had lost his concentration; Keiichi had answered, and he hadn’t
heard it. He had nothing to work with, nothing to reply to. At least he
could be pretty sure he wouldn’t say the same thing. He looked down at
Akane’s foot in the grass. As with her fist, he was used to seeing it
headed for his face. But it was time to say something nice. It came to
him. He gritted his teeth. He groaned. Tears ran along the edges of his
eyes. "Akane’s foot is like the singing bird," he burst out. "Because...
argh! Because it’s lighter than air as it moves, and... uh... fights proudly
in defense of its home." He looked at Dr. Tofu and blinked. He felt his
hand slip a little down the stake.
	"Point to Ranma. Nice recursion. Six to four."
	Ranma scanned the garden. Akane had one of her troubled
‘do-you-really-mean-that-Ranma’ looks on her face. Sasuke was back to
his perch again, while Tatewaki, splayed against the back wall of the
clinic, was beginning to stir.
	"Next object... huh?"
	"Dr. Tofu?" came a soft voice from inside the clinic. The call had paid
off! It was Kasumi. Akane had called her and asked her to stop by before
dinner. "Dr. Tofu, are you all right?"
	Dr. Tofu’s eyes rolled up into his head. He jumped in the air and
landed headfirst.
	"What matter is this?" Keiichi said.
	Kasumi appeared in the back door. Dr. Tofu came to his feet and rushed
face-first  into the wall.
	"Don’t hurt yourself," Kasumi said. "What’s going on? Oh, Ranma!
Practicing acrobatics?"
	"Next object. My sweet Betty."
	"What has happened to Tofu-sensei?" Keiichi hissed. "He seems deprived
of reason."
	"Ha ha!" Ranma laughed, trying to ignore the throbbing in his wrist. "I
told you I’d do anything to win, pal!"
	"Good answers," Dr. Tofu said as he walked into the wall. "Twenty
points each!"
	"Hey, does that count?" Akane asked.
	From the corner of his eye, Ranma watched Sasuke dropping off the wall,
moving toward the paraphernalia lying in the grass by his former hiding
place. Tatewaki was now mumbling to himself as Dr. Tofu walked back and
forth stepping on his head.
	"Let it count!" Keiichi cried. "Then I only need one point to beat you,
Saotome!"
	Tatewaki caught Dr. Tofu’s foot and dumped him forward. Dr. Tofu did a
graceful roll, sprang into the air, and crashed facefirst into the
garden wall.
	"Don’t hurt yourself," Kasumi said.
	"I feel great," said Dr. Tofu. "Next object. Kasumi. Heh." He slid down
the wall, dazed.
	"Get her inside," Ranma mouthed to Akane. She scowled at him, but
nodded.
	"Let’s go inside and make some tea, Kasumi."
	Soon the sisters were out of sight. Ranma sighed. It was now down to
only a few points—that was better. But he couldn’t afford to lose a
single one. His grip had now slid halfway down the stake, and the point
was cutting into the middle of his forearm. His head was throbbing. He…
	He was staring directly into the rabbity, hooded face of the ninja
Sasuke, who was brandishing several of his weapons.
	"Ha ha! Now I’ve got you, Saotome! While the judge is unconscious, I’ll
strike you with a blow so covert and yet so powerful that you will fall
from your perch and be disqualified! Ha ha! I, Sasuke, shall triumph
over you at last, and..."
	With his free hand, Ranma belted Sasuke into the horizon. "We are
allowed to hit other people, you know!" Then he saw a pair of legs in a
dark gi approaching him. Tatewaki.
	"’The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe,’" he quoted.
"Tis my slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit
them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.’ You have
cheated, Saotome; or so I would say, had you not struck so openly at the
judge’s weak spot. But you are so severely outmatched, that I can scarce
blame you. I am honorable, and shall not strike you. Yet while you are
perched there, I must ask. Why cling you so tenaciously to the heart of
the pig-tailed girl, when you must needs be aware that she prefers the
companionship of other women?"
	Convulsing with laughter, Ranma felt himself falling off the stake.
Desperately, he tilted his head and gripped the head of the stake in his
mouth. It hurt! It was almost as bad as Akane’s cooking.
	"Wretch! You cannot answer me, thus balanced! Lift your head from the
stake."
	Ranma aimed a kick at Tatewaki, but missed. His left hand was
completely without feeling, and slick with blood; it dangled on the
ground like limp ramen.
	"What are you talking about, Kuno?" he mouthed through the stake.
	Dr. Tofu was finally stirring, moaning Kasumi’s name.
	"Soon the sensei will awake," Keiichi taunted. "Then he will see how
fickle is your perch, Saotome. If you cannot speak, I surely shall take
a point by default, and the contest shall end in my favor!"
	"Shut up!" Ranma mouthed through the stake.
	Dr. Tofu rose, rubbing his head. "I have a terrible headache," he said.
"Well, let’s see what’s going on? Oh, dear. Tatewaki! You’re awake. What
was the score?"
	"Twenty-six to twenty-four," Keiichi said. "A point shall give me the
victory."
	Ranma cursed him through the stake.
	Akane came back out into the garden. "Dr. Tofu? Are you all right?"
	"My head hurts a little," Dr. Tofu said, "but I’ll be all right in a
moment. What’s happened to Ranma?"
	Ranma was feeling a little guilty. He hadn’t actually meant to tamper
with the score by distracting Dr. Tofu; he’d only intended to buy some
extra time to study his opponent for weaknesses. Winning by attacking an
official was dishonorable. But then, on the other hand, he wasn’t about
to win. He was about to lose. Since he couldn’t speak, there was no way
he could reply to the next object. He tried to make his left hand move.
It was still limp. He couldn’t feel anything from the wrist down except
the sticky wetness of blood.
	"Ranma?" Dr. Tofu asked. "Are you sure you want to compete from that
position?"
	Finally his left hand moved a little. He gathered his ki and willed it
to flow though his arm, to strengthen it. As he did this, he looked over
at Keiichi. Keiichi showed no sign of weakening--but then, Keiichi’s hand
wasn’t bleeding, either.
	With his still-strong right hand, Ranma waved at Akane and traced in
the air the kanji for "cold water." Akane stared, puzzled, then nodded
and said, "Are you sure, Ranma?"
	"Hurry up!" Ranma mouthed past the stake.
	Akane turned and ran inside the clinic. Tatewaki pursued, saying,
"Whither Akane Tendo? I beg you forgive me for…"
	There was a crashing sound inside, followed by Kuno groaning and
sliding along the inside wall.
	"Oh well," Dr. Tofu said ruefully. "I guess those two can’t get along
today. Well, Ranma, I’ll have to invoke the three-second rule. Indicate
your readiness to continue within three seconds, or forfeit a point.
That would be the match."
	Hurry up, Akane, Ranma thought.
	Akane rushed out with a cup of cold water. "Are you sure, Ranma?"
	"One," said Dr. Tofu.
	Ranma had finally managed to get his left hand gripped around the
stake, though it still wasn’t able to hold his weight. With his right
hand, he gave Akane an OK gesture. 
	"Two," said Dr. Tofu.
Akane threw the water. Ranma felt his weight melt away and his curves
appear. Ranma-Chan’s grip firmed up on the stake. This wasn’t too much
weight to hold up!
"Three."
"Ready!" Ranma-Chan shouted, lifting her head above the stake.
"Whoop... wha...?"  Keiichi wobbled, nearly losing his balance. For a moment
he teetered, shifting his hips as he drew his eyes back closer to their
sockets. "Where is my opponent?"
"Right here, pal," Ranma-Chan shouted. "Come on, let’s go. I’m ready for
ya! What’s the matter, you afraid?"
"I don’t understand," Keiichi said.
"I tried to explain to you before," Dr. Tofu said. "There is only one
Ranma. He just has two bodies, that’s all."
"This cannot be!" Keiichi sputtered. "I cannot accept this."
"Well, I’m ready to go on," Ranma-Chan shouted. "Come on!"
"No!" Keiichi shouted. "No. No. No."
Dr. Tofu turned to Keiichi. "Three second rule. One."
"No. No. No."
"Two."
"No. No. No. I have had a failure of vision."
"Three."
"How could I have been so blind?"
"Point to Ranma. Twenty-six to twenty-five."
"I cannot fight this opponent," Keiichi said.
	Dr. Tofu scratched his chin. "Why not? Martial arts poetry is one
martial art in which men and women can always compete on an equal
footing."
	"Nay," said Keiichi. "I must default." He spun round the stake and
landed in a sitting position with his katana-length scroll unrolled in
his lap. In a split second, his inkwell and plume were in hand, and he
was writing.
	Grateful, Ranma-Chan dropped to her feet. The sudden readjustment of
blood made her dizzy; she staggered, and Akane caught her.
	Keiichi looked up from his scroll, wild-eyed. "How can this be?" he
shrieked.
	"Dr. Tofu!" Kasumi called from inside. "Your tea is ready. Be careful
coming in; don’t trip over Tatewaki."
	Dr. Tofu entered the clinic, followed by some thumping and crashing
noises. Ranma-Chan leaned heavily on Akane while she explained the
Jusenkyo curse to Keiichi.
	"Of course," Keiichi said when he’d heard it all. "Naturally, I could
never have beaten you, Saotome. One who has occupied both genders, like
Tiresias of Greek myth, must have great powers of sight and poetry
locked up within him. You have no outward skill, but you have a great
toughness of spirit, and a native perception. Indeed, such is the
tragedy of my own poetic heart, that I might still love the girl before
me, even knowing that the soul of a brash youth is within. Is this not,
in a way, what you must endure, Akane Tendo?"
	Akane humphed and turned away. Ranma-Chan slid to the ground.
	"Indeed," Keiichi continued, "I must ask for your permission to write a
poem of your life and your ways, as best I can conceive them. I will use
no names--my poetry is not without discretion."
	"No way!" Ranma-Chan shouted. "No, no, wait a minute. I’ll agree to it
on one condition. Can you get the ‘True Blunder’ to leave Akane and me
alone?"
	"Mayhap you speak of my cousin," Keiichi answered. "I am not unwilling
to perform such a task, but I must confess it outside my ability. Like
you, I am young, and thus I am a poet of love; not for many years shall
I be a poet of loss. I may refine Tatewaki’s skill as a lover; but I may
not put love from him. He is too pure and noble of spirit, and will not
yield to entreaties. In fact, I fear that I have had to restrain him too
much already. It is perhaps true that he will be less controlled now
than ever before. Yea, I weep for him. This business has already made a
ruin of his dignity."
	Like this guy would know, Ranma-Chan thought. But she said, "I don’t
get it, Kuno. Why are you wasting time with this poetry stuff, anyway?
Why don’t you learn how to fight, or make money, or something?"
	Keiichi rose, neatly compacting his scroll and sliding it into his
sheath. The last red rays of sun touched his cheeks, and he turned his
head slightly aside, staring off into the horizon. "Poetry is nearer to
life than any of these things; it is a luminous mind, like sun within
the clear sky. Not fighting nor money will bring me nearer to living the
truth of the world. It lies somewhere unmeasured by the mortal eye. Only
a scrap of truth can I glimpse, for though my poetry is superior to that
of others, it is severely flawed when matched against the divine
standard. It is flawed, because ever do matters unfitting concern me,
for a time, as this sequence of subterfuges has done. Yet the scrap of
truth I can see, tells me that the love within you is indomitable, and
this I verily do envy. I shall strive to perfect the love that is within
me; and when this is accomplished, I shall return, Ranma Saotome, and
consume your luminosity within myself, as the pelican swallows the fish,
as the air burns the meteorite mid-plummet into dust. Now bid me
farewell, for I must claim my cousin and see to his wounds, both of body
and of spirit."
	He strode past Ranma-Chan and Akane and into the clinic. Some further
sounds of impact followed, and then a dead silence.
	"That was weird," Ranma-Chan said, climbing to her feet. Moonlight was
beginning to fall across the garden. "He had me beat for sure, and then
all of a sudden he gave up."
	"Did he, Ranma?" Akane said, looking away. "What he did kind of reminds
me of the Anything Goes Final Attack—run away, figure out how to win,
and come back. Right?"
	Ranma-Chan had no answer to that. She took Akane’s hand and walked with
her into the clinic, where a kettle had to be waiting.
 Notes After the Story

’Thou hadst better been born a dog, than answer my wak’d wrath.’  --
Othello 3,3, 368-9

’Doubt thou the stars are fire, and doubt that the sun doth move; doubt
truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.’   -- Hamlet, 2, 2

’The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe. Tis my
slowness that I do not; for I know you lack not folly to commit them and
have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.’  --  All’s Well That
Ends Well  1,3, 8-11

Other comments, in the order I think of them:
1.  Does Soun normally teach?  Opinions about this seem to vary among
the fics I’ve read. I’ve chosen to interpret the situation to be that he
stopped teaching when his wife died, due to his grief, and has only been
training Akane. The presence of students at the dojo--in this story,
mostly the same Furinkan boys who used to attack Akane in the
morning--might be worth some interesting complications in other fictions
to come.
2.  Yuka and Sayuri.  To my knowledge, there is no background about
these girls, so they’re open for development. I originally invented two
other names for Akane’s friends, then, on advice, switched to the
established ones.
3.  Kuno has almost given up kendo.  When does he ever practice or
compete? He seems to spend all his time drooling over photos and hashing
plots rather than training, so I invented this detail about him, which
underscores his need for Keiichi’s help.
4.  Mousse’s search for a new sensei.  This will probably be developed
in another fanfic of mine later.
5.  Keiichi vs. Keiichi.  No reference to any manga character named
Keiichi is intended. The name was chosen for alliterative value.
6.  Keiichi in general. I tried to make this character in the T-sama
tradition of Ranma’s challengers, each of whom stretches his abilities
and forces him to view his relationship with Akane in a new way. I
didn’t want to give Ranma a clean win over Keiichi because I think in
the anime, some characters (like Mousse) kind of lose their juice when
Ranma beats them in the very first fight. When this happens, Ranma
doesn’t grow as much from fighting them as he does from fighting a
persistent enemy (like Cologne, Happosai, or even Ryoga). If anyone
expresses an interest, I will use Keiichi again in another fanfic down
the line.
7.  Martial arts poetry. I didn’t write down all the rules and
variations of this style of verbal fencing. If there’s interest, I will
work them out and post them for your perusal. The idea for martial arts
poetry derived from my experience in two graduate degrees’ worth of
writing workshops, where plenty of indirect verbal sparring took place.
Matt Groening points out, I think in School is Hell,  that the easiest
way to annoy a poet is to be another poet. I thought I’d explore the
possibility it’s true by making the verbal sparring more overt. The
three manuevers used by Keiichi and Ranma are:  1) rebound. You use an
object your opponent used last round in a new way;  2) double-rebound.
You use an object your opponent has just used during the same round,
likewise in a new way; and 3) Recursion. You use an object the judge
gave you during a previous round, of course in a new way.
8.  Japanese usages. In The Languages of the World by Kenneth Katzner,
it indicates that children’s primers in Japan typically use the katakana
characters. This is why I thought six-year old Ukyo in Ch. 22 would be
likely to use them. I’m prepared to be corrected on this subject.
9.  Comments and criticisms.  I am interested in comments that will
correct my facts or language usages or Ranma-lore, or in suggestions for
added humor or situations that will enhance the story. I am not
interested in hearing about why my story sucks. If you don’t like it,
don’t read it. That’s what I did if I didn’t like yours.