Well, here it is after a month or so of waiting.  It was delayed partially
by a bit of a block, and the fact that I gone for about two weeks out of
the month as well.  A trip to Seattle where I managed to pick up the first
8 volumes of Ranma from Viz (the damned things are nowhere to be found in
the Not-so-frozen-at-the-moment-but-they-will-be-soon wastes of North
Dakota).  Nice city Seattle, lotta rain though, wouldn't be a good place to
have a Jusenkyo curse I don't think. :)

Anyway, all I have left to say before getting to the chapter is that I know
not much has really happened so far, I'm 57 or so pages into the story and
there hasn't been much action, well... All I can say is that I've been
getting the little details worked out before I go on to the big ones.  Or
something to that affect.

More annoyingly boring writers note shall follow at the end of the fic.

Standard disclaimer: The characters and stories of Ranma 1/2 are Copyright
� Rumiko Takahashi, and are used here without permission or license. No
claims to the above copyright are made by the author of this work. This
work is for
non-commercial use ONLY, and is produced for the enjoyment of fans only.
This work is the expression of the author and the depiction of the Ranma 1/2
characters herein are in no way represented to be a part of Ranma 1/2 as
depicted by the original author and copyright holder(s).

Disclaimer disclaimer: The disclaimer you just read was borrowed from a
post to the list a while back, it seemed the most complete that I could see
so I stole it.  This disclaimer is to be used only for non-profit
activities :)

Additional notes:
Words in *X* are in English, Words in <X> are in Chinese and words in any
other type brackets are in some other foreign language that will most
likely be specified within the text of the story.

The suffix -chan denotes the cursed female form of the characters, other
suffixes will most likely be self explanatory.

All the previous parts to this story can be found at:
http://www.geocities.com/~azatlan/Special-Series/lost-and-forgotten.html

I want to thank Azatlan once again for putting it up on the web for anyone
that wanted to get the previous parts.

I also want to thank Octavian and the Reverend Jake for pre-reading this
chapter as well.


-----------
Chapter 11- New Students

	Ryoga and Jude surveyed the palm trees and beach around them.  They were
supposed to be in the main office of Furinkan High but it seemed that they
had become lost once more.
	They were about to wander off in search of, well, someplace other then
where they were, when they heard a voice, "Furinkan High, how may I help you?"
	They turned to see what appeared to be a receptionist behind a desk that
was nestled in between two palm trees.  She was talking on a phone and idly
filing her nails as she did.
	"No sir," she said, "I can't tell you your son's grades over the phone,
you have to come down in person to receive those."
	The two travelers, who had thought themselves lost once more, were
relieved yet puzzled that they still appeared to be in the high school no
matter what their surroundings told them.
	Jude walked over to the desk followed by Ryoga, "Excuse me," he said, "But
where are we?"
	The receptionist, whose name was Yuri, though neither Jude nor Ryoga knew
that, looked up at the rather tall person who addressed her and replied in
a confused tone, "You're in the main office of Furinkan High, where did you
think you were?"
	"The main office?" Jude asked, "Not Hawaii or some other place really far
away from here?"
	"Yes, last time I checked this was still the main office, why did you
think you would be anywhere else?"
	"Uh," Jude paused, "It's a long story, but, why does the office look like
this?"
	"Oh, you mean the beach and palm trees and everything?" Yuri replied.
Seeing Jude nod she continued, "Well, the principal had the office
redecorated when he decided to use this one as his main office, if you'll
look closely you'll see that most of the beach is merely painted, although
he did get real trees, how, I don't know."
	Jude and Ryoga breathed a collective sigh of relief when they heard that.
They were actually where they were supposed to be.
	"Well, we're here to see about enrolling in classes, what should we do to
get that worked out?" Jude asked.
	"Well, you'll have to talk to the principal, he's right through that
door," Yuri replied.  She pointed toward a space between two more trees and
the two often lost martial artists could see that there was indeed a door
there.  It was painted to match the backgrounds of a tropical beach, but it
was still there.
	"Is he busy right now?" Ryoga asked.  He was impatient to get this over
with.  The sooner he finished with this the sooner he could see Akane once
more.
	His mind drifted into a happy day dream as the receptionist told them to
go right in.  Seeing what passed for a principal in Furinkan High soon
snapped him out of it though.
	"ALOOOOOOOOOHA dere keikis, what you be wantin' with this here head master
of de Furinkan High School?!" the man in the loud Hawaiian shirt asked them
as they entered the office.
	Ryoga blinked in astonishment, this was one odd man.
	Jude, whose memory was almost entirely of odd things, took this a bit more
in stride, "Aloha there head master, we be wanting to enroll in this here
very high school." he said in a tone that was somewhat quieter then the one
the principal had used.
	"You wouldn't be bein' smart wit de head master now you keiki? �Cause dat
wouldn't be very nice to be doin' that now you hear?" the principal replied.
	"Not at all, I just... liked the way you talked so I thought I'd try it
out, that's all," Jude replied.  He made a mental note to only make fun of
people's forms of speech when he didn't need their help.
	"Okay, dat's better keiki, so you say you be wantin' to join Furinkan High
now?"
	"Yes, that's right," Jude said.  Ryoga nodded his agreement as well after
getting over the fact that the principal was insane.
	The head master of Furinkan High looked down at his desk and picked up
some folders.  "You two keikis wouldn't happen to be bein' Ryoga Hibiki and
a Jude Smith now would you?"
	"Yeah, that's us," Jude said.
	"How'd you know our names?" Ryoga asked.
	Principal Kuno shook his head, "Dat be a very odd story to be tellin' now
keiki, you see dis here kahuna by de name of Guffin be comin' in this very
mornin' and droppin' off your records.  He be sayin' �Dese two are gonna be
joinin' dis here school now, here be dere records and everything.'  So I be
lookin over your records and you two keikis are all ready to be attending
classes in dis here school now ya hear?"
	They both gave a start at hearing MacDonald Guffin's name once more.
Somehow he had known that they would be enrolling in school here and
dropped off all the appropriate papers and forms for them to do so.
Although it was surprising to hear, when they thought about it, it made
some small bit of sense.  If he had had the power to give them the rings
needed to break the language barrier, why not know when they were going to
be in school and decide to help them with that too?
	Jude decided to not look too closely into the mouth of this particular
gift horse, especially since he had had no school records, or any records
at all to even prove he legally existed until now.  He had been worried
about just what he might have had to go through to get them but now he
found them handed to him right when they were needed most.
	They were told that they needed to take some extra entrance exams later in
the week but as it was they could start classes today.  They thanked their
new principal and departed for the classroom they were told to show up at.

				***

	Miss Hinako stood tall before the class, well, as tall as she could when
she was in her younger form.  "We've got two new students today class, this
is Ryoga Hibiki and this is Jude Smith.  Ryoga has transferred here from
another school and Jude is with the Student Exchange program.  Would you
two like to tell the class a little about yourselves?"
	"Well," Jude said, his mind was still trying to figure out a way to
explain why he had a ten-year-old for a teacher but he continued talking
anyway, "I can't really think of anything at the moment, except for
something corny like �I hope to have a good year and get to know everyone'
or something like that.  As to talking about myself, well, I've never been
one to really go on about myself so I'll just skip that part as well.  How
about you Ryoga?  Do you have anything to say?"  He looked over to his
friend the lost boy and waited for him to say something.
	Ryoga said, "Uh, I can't think of much to say either, where should we sit?"
	Miss Hinako looked over the room until she saw two seats, "It looks like
there are some empty seats near Miss Tendo and Miss Kuonji, why don't you
two take those."
	They both nodded and managed to make their way to the nearby seats with
surprisingly little misdirection.  Ryoga took the seat near Akane, much to
Ranma's annoyance, and Jude sat down by Ukyo.
	Seeing her new students seated Miss Hinako began to teach her first lesson
for the day.

				***

	Shampoo paged through the guidebook of Amazon law in search of some
loophole that might relieve her of her unwanted engagemant.  She was glad
that her tribe's laws had brought Ranma into her life, but she wanted only
Ranma, not some stranger that showed up yesterday and accidentally, she
still fumed about that, knocked her out.
	She stopped when she saw a passage that might help her.  She skimmed over
the Amazonian legalese once and then read closer to be sure that this was
indeed what she was looking for.	She was so caught up in studying the book
and deciphering its convoluted way of stating itself that when Mousse
asked, "Why are you reading that old thing Shampoo?" she told the truth.
	"Shampoo looking for way to break engagemant with boy who show up
yesterday named Jude Smith," she said.
	It took Mousse's astonished cry of "WHAT?!" to bring her fully back to
reality.  She realized a few things at that moment.  One, that Mousse had
remained in the dark about what had happened yesterday until just now.
Two, that she should have payed more attention to what she was saying.  And
three, Mousse was about to do something stupid.
	"I'LL KILL HIM!" he cried as he turned and ran away from where Shampoo was
sitting.
	His cause was just, in his own mind at least, he fought for love and
justice.  "I can't let this go on!  Yet another person coming between
Shampoo and I is just plain wrong and it's not very nice either!  In the
name of Mousse," he thought, a side thought told him he had been listening
to Shampoo's broken Japanese too often but he continued with his thought
anyway, "I will punish this Jude Smith person wherever he may be!"
	With that Mousse sprinted toward where he thought the door was.  He
realized his error when he instead ran head on into a wall.  His
consciousness left him just as his feet left the floor and he fell into a
heap on the ground with a resounding crash.
	Hearing the noise Cologne hopped out from the kitchen and looked down at
the now unconscious Mousse upon the floor.  She looked over to Shampoo and
said, "So now this one knows about the second engagement, eh Shampoo?  What
are you going to do now?"
	Shampoo thought for a bit and then said, "This your idea
great-grandmother, what you think I should do?"  She was interested to see
just what the elder would have to say about this strange position that she
had been put in.
	"Well granddaughter, I think you should see what happens when Mousse does
finally catch up to your new fiance, perhaps it will show just what he's
made of, don't you think?"
	Shampoo nodded, perhaps her great-grandmother was right.  She would have
to wait and see, in the meantime, she had to study the amazon lawbook in
greater detail to make sure the rule she had found actually applied to her.

				***

	"Ah, surely tis great fortune that my noontime repast is to be taken in
the presence of such beauteous maidens as this, indeed it can be naught but
the very light of the heavens themselves shining down upon me that hath
gifted one such as I in this manner."
	Akane, Ukyo, Ranma, and to some degree Ryoga, were quite astonished to
hear this statement.  Their disbelief came not from the statement itself,
although it was a rather strange turn of phrase in and of itself.  No, they
were surprised because it had not been the illustrious Blue Thunder of
Furinkan High speaking.  The person who had just got done speaking was Jude.
	Jude looked from one face to another and was met three odd looks from
Ranma., Akane, and Ukyo, and an exasperate one from Ryoga.  He then looked
around him at the lunchtime atmosphere of the Furinkan High school ground.
He noticed nothing amiss anywhere else so he figured that perhaps they may
be looking oddly at him.  "What?  All I said was that I was lucky to be
eating with two cute girls, is that so strange?" Jude asked, puzzled at the
looks he was receiving.
	Hearing a normal sentence from him seemed to snap them out of their frozen
state.  Ranma spoke first saying, "Jude, please don't talk like that, we
get enough of it from Kuno without you adding to it."
	Akane and Ukyo blushed at the compliment and said some quick thanks before
Ranma spoke once more, "I can see what you mean about Ucchan, but how can
you call a flat-chested tomboy like Akane cute anyway?"
	Ranma seemed to have no idea that his foot had once again found his mouth
and started to eat.  Akane, who had been in a good mood up to a moment ago,
decided to ignore what Ranma had just said and fight with him later, she
too started to eat, steadfastly ignoring Ranma.
	Ryoga glared at Ranma for insulting Akane like that but exercised some of
his self-control, "Besides," he thought, "Akane asked me not to fight him
so often, it's the least I can do for her."  He paused for a moment and
then added to himself, "I'll just beat him up a bit more when we practice
next."
	Ukyo breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that things would remain
relatively normal, for a while at least.  She turned to Jude and said,
"What made you decide to talk like that anyway?  It's hardly something a
person does everyday."
	"Well," Jude answered, "It seemed like a good idea at the time, I think I
had heard that Kuno guy jabbering like that this morning so maybe it stuck
in there until just now, I don't know really."
	Ryoga shook his head, "At least you stopped this time, last time you kept
on going like that for almost a week."
	Jude frowned, "Well, that wasn't my fault, _someone_ dropped his umbrella
on my head while I was reading Macbeth and I couldn't stop talking like
that until I smacked my head against a tree in the dark."
	"I told you that was an accident," Ryoga replied, "Besides, I think I more
then paid my dues by listening to you thee and thou non-stop for that week."
	"Yeah, I know," Jude acknowledged, "You'll recall that I was apologizing
for most of the day afterward, it annoyed me too ya know, took at least
twice as long to say anything, and it got funny looks everywhere as well."
	Ukyo blinked, "You've talked like that for a week straight before?" she
asked.
	"Yes," Jude replied.
	"Just because you got hit on the head reading Shakespeare?"
	Jude looked somewhat worried at where this conversation was going but he
answered anyway, "That about sums it up, I guess, why?"
	To give Ukyo credit she did try to hold in the laughter building up inside
her, but the situation just seemed so absurd that she couldn't keep a
straight face for long.  She began to giggle.
	Jude looked somewhat sheepish and said, "Hey, its not my fault that my
brains are easily addled, it just happens."
	"I'm sorry," she said, "It's just that, it calls up such a funny image,
that's all."
	Jude grinned at that, he could see her point.  "Well, it's not like I got
hit on the head and thought I was a girl or anything."
	At this Akane, who had been listening in as well, started to laugh, "Yeah,
you'd have to ask Ranma about that."
	"Hey!" Ranma cried, "Don't talk about that!"
	His protests were over-ruled as Akane told everyone about the time that
Ranma had had that very thing happen to him.  He eventually got into the
spirit of things when the food they had all planned on eating came out and
they spent the rest of the lunch period talking about some of the odder
things to occur in Nerima while they had been there.

				***

	"What's wrong Jude?" Ryoga asked.  He had noticed his friend seemed
somewhat distracted and out of sorts.
	"Well... No... It's nothing," Jude replied.
	"No, I don't think it's nothing, I know you better then that Jude, now
come on, what is it?"  A small part of his mind told him that this was a
bit of a role reversal, usually he was the one that had been troubled or
depressed, not Jude.
	"Well," Jude said, "You know how they were talking about when Ranma got
hit on the head and thought he was a girl?"
	Ryoga nodded, "What about it?"
	"Well, that would mean that Ranma _forgot_ he was a guy, wouldn't it?"
	"I suppose you could say that," Ryoga replied, then he saw where Jude was
leading, "You're worried it might happen to you?"
	"A little, I mean, my brains don't really seem to run normally at times,
what if I got one knock on the noggin to many and began to think I was a
girl too?"
	"Didn't you always say that worrying about �What if?' never did any good
Jude?  Besides, Ranma is normal now, for him at least, you don't have
anything to worry about, really."
	Jude nodded and seemed to brighten up a bit, he looked straight at Ryoga
and said, "Thanks, but if it does happen, make sure I don't do anything
I'll regret okay?"
	"I'll try Jude, I'll make sure you don't end up another fiancee to Ranma
or anything, _if_ it happens that is."
	Jude shuddered theatrically, "Ye gads!  Now _that's_ a scary thought."  He
grinned and shook the rest of the worrying thoughts out of his head.  "Come
friend," he said in a grandiose manner, "Let us venture forth unto that
school and take heed of the lessons taught within, shall we not?"
	Ryoga managed a grin, glad that his friend had cheered up, "Lead the way
Jude, lead the way."

---

Hi, it's me again.  Well, as always, tell me what you think, any C&C from
"I like it" to "This part wasn't that good" is appreciated, my email is in
my sig at the bottom of this and in the from section in the email message,
either one will work.  Tell me if you think I went OOC anywhere, anythign
else like odd plots, bad sentances, whatever.

Up for the next chapter is a meeting with Kuno, and probably a bit of
homicidal tendancies by a certain blind person toward a not-so-blind
person.  Maybe. :)

I have no idea when the heck it'll be out though, could be next week, could
be next month, I seem to be rather erratic in speed sometimes, so bear with
me.

Thanks for managing to read this far, and good night,

Jeremy


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