An uncertain, impatient hush fell over the sparsely peopled seats of the
auditorium. The main lights dimmed above the audience, drawing their
collective attention to the warm glow of the stage, as finally, the first,
and then the second curtain began to rise. The crowd sat, now completely
silent, as the magic of final moments took hold, mesmerized as the
gossamer folds of mystery parted, swinging aside and retreating to the
rafters, revealing for all those assembled to see... 

... an empty stage. A sigh of disappointment escaped the crowd,
accompanied by more than a few angry exclamations, and some rather
colorful expletives; opening night at the theatre just wasn't what it used
to be. 

Suddenly, with a rather abraded-sounding cry, a tall figure emerged
onstage, stumbling slightly, as though he had been pushed. Regaining his
balance at the center of the stage, the figure, a young man, drew himself
to his full height, facing the venue of his arrival with an indignant
scowl on his handsome, chiseled features. "Heed may I that this thing must
be done, but by what mystery of feminine reason did thy arrive at the
conclusion that it must be _I_ upon whom the onus of performance is
placed?" Straightening his gi and hakama, Kunou Tatewaki crossed his arms
and glared into the wings expectantly. 

An indistinct hiss was his response. Kunou appeared to understand the
frantic whispers of his unseen assailant, for his features passed from
irritation, through surprise, and into anger, before finally settling upon
rather testy resignation. "Fine, fine; cease thy incessant prattle, lest
my cultured ear be further tainted by the foul wind of empty rhetoric that
escapes thine lips. Need that it must be done, so shall it be done; need
that it be done by Kunou Tatewaki, then on this _one_ occasion, the fates
may indeed have smiled upon thy merry troupe of fools and tumblers, but
know that my manager and I shall be having serious words following this
deplorable incident!"

Turning to face the crowd, Kunou took a moment to compose himself,
schooling his features to a somewhat rueful amusement before sketching a
Shakespearean bow to the assembled audience. "Good evening, and I bid you
all well on this night of nights. An opening night, if what I have been
lead to believe is true, and I find precious little to rattle my
suspicions; I've most certainly never heard of such drivel as this
performed at any previous engagement or, at least, nowhere in the circles
of civil discourse...

"Regardless, I find myself in a peculiar predicament."  Posing with a hand
to his chin, Kunou assumed a contemplative stance. "I have been charged
with providing a suitable prelude to the impending travesty, under
significant duress, of course-," he paused to cast an acid glance at the
shadows to his right, "-the circumstances of which, I am unwilling to
discuss. So have I come to this sad state of affairs, shepherding this,
the latest nightmare of our mistress of the much maligned muse, to the
mislaid masses before me, whilst the warden of the beast doth hover in the
wings, capturing my fall from grace for posterity. 

"Unfortunately, the author of my agony is presently waging a futile action
against the ever-rising threat of personal paupacy, and has cruelly left
the thespian to discharge the duty of the fool, but very well." 
Straightening, Kunou turned his defiant sneer to the audience, raising a
hook- fingered hand before him, "Is not the actor no more than the proud
son of a poor player of pratfalls? So shall I, Kunou Tatewaki, persevere
even in this, the most paltry and pitiful of roles.

"For the duty falls to me to introduce this, this...  excrement of a
maddened mind; Hold fast your protests of plagiarism! The, ahem, 'author,'
delusional though she may be, claims not to own the intellectual
properties of its conception. Nor does she hold that the beneficence of
those whom might rightfully claim such dost fall in her favor, so we of
the players must request that thou hold the just lash of retribution from
this small slight upon the senses, for the offender suffers only from a
sickness, and has little to preserve of her estate besides...

"Such having been said, need it be that I explain the object of my purpose
further." Strutting across the stage, Kunou unlimbered his bokken and
began to gesture with it like a barker's cane, punctuating his words. "For
your dubious pleasures, tonight we have a fragmented fancy of prose, a
yarn of the ages; the darker ages, as it were...

"Being that we are not _all_ tragedians within this company, we have had
to somewhat revise the criteria of our discourse." Pacing to the side of
the stage, the kendo master assumed a ready stance. "Tonight, the
Nyaanniichuan Players present for you... a peculiar concoction of
discordant drivel, tailored to the flavor of the times, though I still
wonder what times the author was enduring when she composed this affront
to decency. Tonight we may present for you a tale of Martial Arts," 
performing a sword-drawing strike, Kunou pirouetted into a low crouch,
hiding half of his face with the long sleeve of his gi, "Deception," 
falling backwards into a roll, the bishonen kendoist twisted on the ground
into a coquettish pose, favoring the audience with a sultry glance,
holding his face in his hands and batting his eyelashes, "and Cross-
Dressing."

Before the audience could recover from the shock, Kunou had composed
himself again, standing before them with the slick shine of a used car
salesman. "If thou dost wish, all of these may occur in disturbing
frequency, both concurrently and consecutively; we may even omit one or
two, if tastes turn such, but with a few exceptions." Holding up a
lecturing finger, er, bokken, Kunou began to pace, ticking off points. "We
can give forth Martial Arts and Cross- Dressing without the Deception, and
we can present Deception and Cross-Dressing without Martial Arts, but," 
Stopping his pacing, Kunou once again leveled a smoldering glare at the
audience, the thin veneer of his composure seeming to crack under the heat
of his gaze, "we _cannot_ play out Martial Arts and Deception without the
Cross- Dressing." Grinding his teeth, Kunou attempted to restrain his
already quite evident anger. "A certain amount of cross-dressing is,
apparently, compulsory..."

Gripping his bokken in a one-handed, white-knuckled grip, Kunou waved it
in a wide arc before him, encompassing the whole of the stage, "For
tonight, we have for you a _particularly_ special treat; a twisted and
titillating tale of a tangle of troubled, traveling transvestites- and
lest the curiosity of thine muse begin to tarry overly upon this poor
player's sanity, indeed, this accursed alliteration is part and parcel of
my performance- so hoist the curtains and hang the writers! Darn the
understudies, for the Show Must Go On!" Brandishing his bokken high, the
Blue Thunder of Furinkan High charged into the gallery, bellowing a fierce
battle cry.



"Hark! Collect thyselves and begone from my sphere, lest thy barbarous
bouquet invade my upturned nostril and offend my already hard pressed
sensibilities! Tarry longer than my fancy only to compose thy last, for
swifter than the harried hare's heartbeat, Thou _Shalt_ be struck down!"

The tightly packed crowd of uniformed boys hastily made way for the taller
student, as he strode haughtily towards the lunch counter, his
ever-present bokken gleaming with the ruddy shine of hard use and
meticulous care. As he reached the counter, he took a moment to adjust his
tie, polishing the silver tie pin that denoted his rank as a student of
the second tier, resplendent in his glory as Kunou Tatewaki, age 17, the
Blue Thunder of the Kenzai Academy for Boys. He was already meticulously
groomed, but the salivating crowd of students knew his undue care for what
it was; yet another cruel grind in the back for those unfortunate enough
to be under the heel of the Academy's foremost upperclassman.

Facing the bemused-looking lunch lady, Kunou held up a single finger as he
reached with his other hand for his wallet, leaning his weapon against the
counter. "Today I require two egg sandwiches, a curry-bread, and a meat
bread. With regards to liquid refreshment, I believe a carton of milk and
an orange juice will suffice. I believe this is the sum required?" He
queried, holding out a handful of bills and coins, as the lunch lady
retrieved his items from the side of the counter, moving with agonizing
slowness, at least in the eyes of the assembled mob of boys, huddled
impatiently within the now-stuffy confines of the cafeteria. 

Taking his money, the lunch lady counted it quickly before nodding to the
young kendoist, handing him a white plastic bag carrying his food. "A
pleasure, as always, Kunou-san." She replied sarcastically, noting the
rabid look that was entering the eyes of the slavering horde at Kunou's
back. 

"Indeed..." Turning, the high-school samurai strode away, untouched,
through the crowd; it is indeed good to be the King.



Sitting in the shade of a tree outside of the cafeteria, Kuonji Ukyou
heaved a weary sigh as she noticed the noble figure that swept confidently
through the doors, making a bee-line for her even as the crowd of boys
seemed to flow into the space that his ego had once occupied. Pulling
herself to her feet, Ukyou cast Kunou a rueful gaze as the upperclassman
approached. "I didn't ask you to do that, you know; I never do."

"Know that I realize this, and understand, at least as well as I am able,
how much the appearances of this must matter to one in your situation." 
Kunou replied, tilting his head to the side as he regarded the girl before
him, who happened to currently bear a remarkable resemblance to a very
beautiful boy. "It is simply that, if I permit myself too long to linger
upon the subject, I cannot help but feel the need to ease thy burden; 
matters of honor aside, this must truly be a trial worthy of the heavens
themselves."

Ukyou took a moment to again contemplate her sorry lot in life. It wasn't
precisely the cross-dressing bit; she had long ago become comfortable with
that. Rather, it was the absurdity that Kunou, one of the densest people
she had ever met, had managed to see right through her the first time he
had laid eyes on her, even though everyone else didn't seem to have a
clue. *It's always gotta be the dumb ones, doesn't it...?* At least it was
a _small_ blessing that he had agreed to keep her secret after she had
told him that it was a matter of family honor, but she was really starting
to get sick of his constantly trying to shelter her from the rest of the
boys in the school. "`S not the first boys' school I've attended Kunou; 
some of them I've been to were worse. At least here, they hand you your
food at the counter, instead of throwing it at you... And anyway, I made
my own lunch today." She pointed out, holding a bento box out in front of
her.

Looking slightly put out, Kunou sighed, extracting one of the egg
sandwiches, the curry bread, and the milk from the bag. "Then perhaps one
of your erstwhile companions would eat them; I've noted the presence of
neither of them on this day, least of all in that morass of starved
humanity that we jokingly call an eating establishment. As it is, I cannot
finish this all myself." Offering the bag and its remaining contents to
Ukyou, Kunou favored her with a pleading look. 

Frowning slightly, Ukyou accepted the bag. "I assume I know which one of
my 'companions' you'd prefer this to reach, hmm?"

"Tis only that, as with my concern for your well-being, so must I feel the
need to bear part of her load as well. I _am_ previously spoken for, as
you well know." Kunou hastily assured her, holding up a placating hand.

"Riiiight...," Smirking at his discomfort, Ukyou looked in the bag before
reaching into her pocket and tossing at few coins at Kunou, which the
lanky boy caught easily. "I'll see that the right person gets this. I
assume that you'll have to be going now, right?"

Nodding, Kunou shrugged apologetically, "Indeed, the mysteries of love
reveal themselves to naught but the vigilant of heart. As such, I shall
take my leave of you now." So saying, Kunou turned and began to jog
towards the school gates, efficiently downing his lunch as he ran.

Ukyou just shook her head, watching with a knowing eye the odd spectacle
of an upperclassman running down the main walk, juggling a bokken, a
carton of milk, and a sandwich, all the while reciting bad poetry to
himself. It was well known, even to a relatively new student like her,
that Kunou Tatewaki was hopelessly smitten with a certain younger girl
that attended another local high school. Apparently, he had been trying to
woo this girl for over a year now, visiting her at every opportunity and
even going so far as to schedule his classes so that he could see her at
lunch too. 

>From what Ukyou heard, his efforts had, so far, met with only lukewarm
success. Still, as long as he didn't give up, it seemed that she was
somewhat safe from Kunou's amorous attentions, so she cheered him on
despite the trouble that he caused her. Glancing down at the food he had
bought for her, a small frown of concern crossed her face. *Still, Kunou
did make a good point. He didn't make it for lunch again today... Oh well,
can't be helped, I guess; I'll catch up with him later...*






A light rapping came at the office door, distracting the room's single
occupant from the paper he was reading. Looking up, Ryouga put the test
down and called to the person on the other side of the door. "Please, come
in." 

The door slid open revealing Ukyou, still wearing a boy's uniform,
carrying a white plastic bag and a bottle of juice. "Hey there sugar,
working late again?" Ukyou smiled as she looked over the cluttered desk
that the lost boy was sitting at. 

Ryouga put a hand behind his head and offered an embarrassed little laugh. 
"Um, well... Fujisawa-sensei had to leave early, and he forgot to take
today's exam papers home with him, so I decided to, you know, finish them
before I started back..."

Ukyou smirked at Ryouga. "Oh, so that's it. You're _such_ a dedicated
teacher's assistant, Hibiki-sempai."

"Hey! Now stop that!" Ryouga grumped as he pushed a stack of papers in
front of him away. "I keep telling you not to call me that. It makes me
think of that stuck up moron, Kunou..."

"Aw, c'mon. Lighten up hon." Ukyou sat down on the edge of the desk. 
"Hell, even Kunou is obliged to call you that, and you know how much that
aggravates him." Ukyou grinned widely.

Ryouga joined her in smiling like a Cheshire cat, adjusting the gold pin
that adorned his uniform tie. "Well it's not my fault that I actually
learned some useful things while I was traveling. How was I supposed to
know that the school would let me validate classes with competency tests?" 
Ryouga had, upon enrolling at Kenzai Academy six weeks ago, validated both
sophomore and junior year, putting him a full two years ahead of Ukyou. He
had since been serving as a teacher's aid to one of the History
professors, one Fujisawa Masamichi. "Anyway, from the looks of my
attendance record, I should still be here when you're getting ready to
graduate." 

"Don't be so glum buddy." Ukyou patted Ryouga on the shoulder, an action
that, had it been done by any other girl, would have sent the lost boy
into a state of terminal bliss. But he and Ukyou had been good friends for
a while now, and anyway, she currently looked like a boy. "I mean, if it
weren't for that completely bogus sense of direction of yours, I probably
would never have met you."

Ryouga nodded solemnly, recalling one fateful day, five months and several
thousand miles away. After tracking Ranma for months, he had finally been
starting to think that perhaps he had truly lost track of his arch
rival... 

*****

"Damn it, where the hell am I now?!" growled the be-fanged boy, as he
stood at the mouth of a vast valley filled with natural pools, each pool
with one or more bamboo poles sticking out of the water and reaching
several meters into the air. "There's nothing like this on this stupid
map! Damn French travel agents..." Ryouga grumbled as he tossed aside the
tattered map of Portugal that he had been reading. 

As he took in his surroundings, he noted the climate, the altitude, and
the various flora and fauna that he could see. *Hmm... looks like I may be
back in China. Maybe I can find that Amazon village again and learn how to
do that Amaguriken thing...*

Since the beginning of his journey of vengeance, Ryouga had actually
clashed with Ranma on several occasions, though he had yet to truly defeat
his arch rival; each time they met, one or the other had usually learned
or discovered some new technique to use. Actually, Ryouga was almost
beginning to look upon this trip as a sort of training voyage, as it had
certainly improved his skills immensely.

Among other things, he had learned the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics
style, which he had used to counter the Martial Arts Table Tennis style
that Ranma had used against him in a previous fight. Then Ryouga had
stumbled into a Chinese Amazon village, where he had worked as a
stonemason for a while, and learned the Bakusai Tenketsu technique. He had
caught Ranma by surprise with it the first time, and had nearly had him. 
But the next time they met, Ranma had somehow learned a speed punching
technique that he had seen the Amazon warriors using, and had used it to
defeat him. 

And so it went, back and forth between them, until Ryouga actually started
to miss the bouts as they became less and less frequent. This was how he
had determined that he had lost the Saotomes. It was actually rather
surprising that he had been able to track them even for this long, given
his horrid sense of direction. Silently, he thanked his mother for the
impeccable sense of smell that he had inherited from her, without which he
never would have been able to pick up the Saotomes' trail. Even so, he
still hadn't been able to find the strange kingdom of her birth, which she
had told him stories about when he was very young. *But if I'm in China
again, then there's a chance I still might be able to catch up! I'd better
check the guidebook to see what sorts of training areas there are around
here.*

Ryouga pulled out a tattered, dog-eared guidebook that had the words
"Training Grounds of the Ancient Arts of the Orient." written in Chinese
on the front, and opened it to the section on China. "Hmm... Pools of
Sorrow? That sounds interesting. Let's see... This majestic training
ground, nestled in the heart of the Qan Jeung mountain range at first
appears to be nothing more than a narrow valley filled with hundreds of
natural springs..."

As Ryouga read through the description in the book, it became immediately
evident that he had just found out where he was. He flipped quickly back
to the small map of China in the book, and found the arrow marked
'Jusenkyou.' It was directly adjacent to the arrow marked 'Joketsuzoku
Amazon Village.' On the other side of Jusenkyou was a training location
who's name was obscured by a food stain, but Ryouga paid it no mind.

*Alright! That village is right around here. Maybe if I wait for a bit,
someone from the village will come down here to train. Perhaps I should
check exactly what sort of training is done here...* Ryouga flipped back
to the section on Jusenkyou and continued reading. "... the Pools of
Sorrow are no longer used by any but the most foolhardy or dedicated
artists, as the price of failure is far too great. For it is said that
every single pool in the valley of Jusenkyou bears a terrible curse-
Curse?" Ryouga blinked, and made sure that he was reading the passage
correctly. "-a terrible curse that shall befall any who touch the water of
the spring. Jeez, why the hell would anyone want to train in a place like
this?"

Ryouga had seen many, many strange things on his travels, and had heard
more bizarre tales from his parents than he could remember, so he took the
warning of a curse very seriously. And he certainly didn't want to hang
around to find out exactly what the curse was, as the guidebook didn't
really say. He sighed regretfully. *Well, so much for waiting for an
Amazon to stroll by. Maybe if I climb around to the other side of one of
those cliffs, I might be able to see the Village in the distance.* The
lost boy mused as he surveyed the various spires and precipices that
surrounded the valley. Experience had taught him that line of sight was
definitely a good thing.

As he looked at the various overhangs however, he caught a hint of
movement. Pulling a pair of binoculars out of his pack, he focused them on
one particular rock outcropping. There, holding a map and looking puzzled,
much like Ryouga had been earlier, was a young man with long brown hair, a
large traveling pack, and what looked like a metal traffic sign strapped
to his back. *Hmm, maybe if I tell him where we are, he might lead me to
the Amazon Village.*

Ryouga lowered his binoculars and put them back in his pack. Then he
looked down to the ground below the cliff where the man stood: It was
clustered heavily with the dreaded cursed springs, and Ryouga was loath to
cross that area lightly. *Maybe if I get a little closer, I can get his
attention.* Ryouga slowly began weaving his way towards the man, being
especially careful about the springs as he kept his target in sight.

When he was about halfway there however, disaster struck.  As he watched,
a huge black and white blur burst out of the forest and bumped into the
man, knocking him off balance before leaping to another stone outcropping. 
The blurred form resolved itself into a panda as it landed, and the man,
still slightly off balance, turned to face the animal. Which is why he
didn't see the short red-haired girl that exploded from the forest in
pursuit of the panda until it was too late. The girl rebounded off of the
man's head, bouncing in the direction of the panda and sending her
springboard spiraling down off of the cliff and towards the springs below.

"Oh shit, he's gonna fall into one of those pools and get cursed. Damn it,
I gotta do something!" Ryouga dashed forward, leaping from one section of
dry ground to another and, after a moment of hesitation, from pole to
pole. He intercepted the man in mid fall, grabbing hold of the flailing
body and somewhat unsteadily landing on a pole near the edge of the
valley. Ryouga took a few moments to adjust his precarious balance on the
end of the pole, compensating for his still moving cargo, before finally
heaving a sigh of relief. Then, with a horrible snapping noise, the pole
broke.

*****

"You know, that had to be the single weirdest series of events in my
entire life." Ukyou commented as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Not half as weird for you as it was for me, I think."  Ryouga replied,
crossing his arms and putting on a mock- serious look. "After all, you
were none the worse for wear afterward." 

"I was half drowned Ryouga, but I can see your point."  Ukyou conceded. 

*****

Ryouga's entire body seemed to burn as he sank deeper into the water. 
Frantically, he began stroking upward towards the surface, trying to get
out of the cursed spring as quickly as possible, as if perhaps the damage
hadn't already been done. But as he broke the surface, gasping for air, he
immediately remembered that he had not fallen into the spring alone, yet
there was no sign of his unlucky companion. Ryouga ignored a certain
strange sense of wrongness that had suddenly overtaken his body and ducked
his head under the water again. 

What he saw was not encouraging. The body of the other man was quickly
sinking to the bottom of the pool, weighted down by his large pack. 
Quickly, Ryouga came up for one final, deep breath, then stopped treading
water and plunged down towards the drowning man. He reached the bottom
quickly, as a good deal of his equipment was inordinately heavy, and
wrapped his arms around the other man. Then, holding the dead weight close
to his body, he pushed off of the bottom of the pool with incredible
force. 

A column of water geysered from the spring as Ryouga flew into the air,
flipped twice, and landed on the ground on the edge of the spring. As he
had shifted the body of the man onto his shoulders in mid air, the hard
landing roughly forced the man to expel the water from his stomach and
lungs. Ryouga quickly doffed his and the man's pack and placed him on the
ground, checking for a pulse. Not finding one, Ryouga immediately began to
administer CPR, forcing the unconscious man to breathe until eventually he
hacked up a little more water and began to breathe on his own.

Sighing in relief, Ryouga flopped back onto his back, staring up at the
darkening sky and breathing raggedly. As his breathing returned to normal,
the general feeling of wrongness returned in force. Something, Ryouga
decided, was definitely amiss. He remembered the curse, and suddenly
bolted upright. Wordlessly, Ryouga began to run his hands over his body,
trying to find out what was wrong.  "Something is definitely weird
here..." Muttered Ryouga absently, frowning in worry.

As he ran his hands over his chest, he suddenly realized what was wrong. 
Sometime in the past few minutes, he had somehow grown breasts. "No, it
can't be." Ryouga ripped his shirt open, only to find that indeed it
_could_ be. He stared down at his chest for a long time, too shocked even
to have a nosebleed. Fortunately, the progressive shutdown of his
cognitive facilities was rudely interrupted by coughing of his still
unconscious companion.

Ryouga looked over to the other man, and realized that he was indeed
looking at a man. "Wataminit- waitwaitwaitwaitwait!! How come he's still a
guy?!" Ryouga screamed as he dashed forward and straddled the unconscious
man's waist, tearing the man's gray shirt open to reveal a long bandage
wrapped tightly around his chest several times. "Wait..." something
definitely looked wrong about the bandage, and about the man's torso and
upper abdomen in general. Ryouga carefully used his fingernail to slice
the bandage upward along the middle, freeing an ample pair of breasts that
must have been painfully compressed under the binding. In evidence of
this, the man- no, woman now, began to breathe easier. 

Leaning back and facing the sky, Ryouga started to chuckle quietly,
muttering to herself. "Ehehe...curse huh? So this is the curse? 
Ahahah...oh god...AHAHAHA!!!" Ryouga broke into bellowing half laugh, half
cry, as hot tears streamed down her face to fall on the chest of the other
girl. Ryouga continued to laugh and cry insanely at fate's cruel joke for
a long, long time, until she finally collapsed into unconsciousness on top
of the girl she had just "rescued."

*****

"I still think you just cut my binding off so you could look at my chest." 
Ukyou needled suspiciously, poking Ryouga in the arm.

"I swear, I just wanted to check if you were a girl. I still thought you
were originally a guy at the time, remember?" Ryouga blushed furiously as
he held his hands out in front of his body in an innocent posture.

"Humph, whether you though I was a guy originally or not, you were still
trying to get a look at a female chest."

"Hey, if I really wanted to see that, my shirt was open at the time as
well."

"How do I know that? I only have your word to go on after all..." 

"Whatever..." 

*****

It was well after dark and bitterly cold when Ryouga came to again. The
first thing she noticed was the biting wind that was blowing across the
still damp shirt and pants she was wearing. The second thing she noticed
was that her face and torso were lying on something strangely warm and
soft. *Hmm...what's this? Feels sorta nice...* Ryouga opened her eyes, but
didn't see anything for several moments as they tried to focus in the pale
moonlight. 

When she was able to see, however, she was quite surprised to realize that
her face was just centimeters from some girl's breast. In fact, she
realized that the soft thing that her head was resting on was probably the
other half of the set. This thought percolated through her sleep and shock
clouded mind for several moments before the significance of this situation
truly registered in her mind.

*Breast. Girl. I'm lying on top of a naked girl. A naked girl?!*

Ryouga "EEP!" ed in shock, and fairly flew off of the thankfully only
half-naked unconscious girl, blood gushing from her nose. Luckily, the
surrealness of the situation and the bad lighting was enough to keep her
from passing out again on the spot, but it was a near thing. Ryouga was
hyperventilating badly, looking away from the girl, holding her nose with
one hand and her heart with the other.

This, of course, drew Ryouga's attention back to the reason that she had
fainted in the first place. "ACK! OhnoohnoohnoitcantbeImustbedreamingyeah
thatsitjustadreajust adreammaybeIshouldpinchmyself." Ryouga pinched
herself on the arm. "Thatdidnthurtbutthenagainitneverdoesmaybesomething
else."  Ryouga took her left breast in her hand and pinched the nipple
between her thumb and forefinger _hard_. She then proceeded to jump nearly
two meters straight up, crying out and letting go of her breast as though
it were on fire. 

"They- they're real..." Ryouga collapsed to her knees, an expression of
numbed shock and horror on her face. Then, as she ran through her mind the
action that led her to this realization, she flushed crimson and her nose
began to bleed again at full force.

Clasping her face in both hands and screwing her eyes tightly shut, Ryouga
tried to shut out the thoughts of what she would see if she opened them
again. It didn't help that her left nipple was still tingling a bit. *Oh
god...it was real. I really am a girl. What am I gonna do...?*

A sudden gust of wind caused her to shiver slightly, reminding her that
she was still wearing the same thoroughly soaked clothes that she had
fallen into the cursed spring wearing. _HE_ had fallen into the cursed
spring wearing. *Must remember that. I am a man. It's just a curse, so
there must be a cure. That's right. I am a _man_.* Another chill gust of
wind, blowing across the springs, caressed Ryouga's new chest in a way
that offered a serious challenge to that frame of mind. *But right now I
am a woman, and my breasts are getting cold.*

Ryouga cursed quietly to herself as she clumsily closed her shirt while
still keeping her eyes firmly shut. She managed to avoid touching her
breasts too much, but the shirt was quite wet and was probably doing more
damage than good.  Survival instincts, honed over a lifetime of travel and
roughing it, kicked in and forced Ryouga into action. "I have to get out
of these wet clothes or I'm going to get sick." She then remembered her
unconscious charge. "In fact, I've spent my life hardening my body against
the elements, so I'm probably not suffering nearly as much as I might. 
She- he- uh...He. *That's right, he's a guy like you. Nothing to be
embarrassed about, right? Right.* He probably isn't that lucky, and he
almost drowned too! I've gotta get him warm and dry _now_!"

Galvanized into action, Ryouga grabbed the straps of both their packs in
her right hand, then carefully hoisted the stranger over her left
shoulder, pointedly averting her eyes the entire time. She walked until
she believed that she was probably a safe distance from the springs, then
set the stranger and the packs down in a small clearing in the forest. She
dumped the contents of both packs into separate piles, nodding in
appreciation as she noted that the stranger packed all of his damageable
goods in sealed, water proof plastic bags, just like she did. 

Ryouga removed a pair of large emergency blankets from a tied garbage bag
in her pile, thankfully still dry, and set them down on the ground. Now
came the hard part. Gulping to herself, the blood running from her nose
now narrowed down to a small trickle, Ryouga began to turn towards the
stranger, who's ripped shirt had fallen off sometime while she had been
carrying him to the camp site. Ryouga snapped her head back away from the
stranger. *No matter how hard I try to think of him as a _he_, I keep
seeing a _she_.*
 
*But she's going to get really sick if I don't do something to keep her
warm, damn it!* Ryouga mentally kicked herself for being so weak. "I
didn't save him from drowning just to watch him die of pneumonia, and I
didn't risk my life and get this _curse_ just to let him _die_, god damn
it!" With a growl, directed partly at fate but mostly at herself, Ryouga
spun on her heel and quickly stripped the strangers remaining clothes off
of her body, trying to keep her mind completely focused on her purpose,
using her anger at herself, at her body, and at the world to drive her
into a state of mental tunnel vision. 

After the stranger was stripped, Ryouga used one of the blankets to wipe
the remaining moisture from the brown-haired girl's body, before reversing
the blanket and wrapping it tightly around the unconscious form in her
arms, leaning her limply against a nearby rock. That done, Ryouga stood
with her body in front of the stranger and faced the ground at the center
of the campsite. 

"Bakusai Tenketsu!" 

Ryouga stabbed her finger into the ground, causing a small explosion that
threw rubble around the campsite and created a small crater in the rocky
soil. She then gathered up the rubble and arranged it in a circle around
her new fire pit. Finding fuel was more difficult, but there was enough
dry wood and bamboo on the ground around the clearing to make a passable
fire. This relieved Ryouga to no end, as she seriously doubted she would
be able to find her way back if she went out to search for more.

After she had gotten the fire going, Ryouga realized that it was now her
turn to strip and dry off. Unfortunately, the anger that had driven her
resolve before had long since fizzled to little more than mild irritation. 
Thusly, she was having a terrible time summoning the courage to even look
at her new body; touching her new body was a definite no- no.

*But it has to be done, if only to make sure that the clothes dry
properly.* The voice of Ryouga's survival instinct chastised. *Plus, who
knows what might happen if you leave that cursed water touching your body
for too long?* That line of thought seized Ryouga's attention immediately,
and she hastily grabbed the other blanket from the ground and draped it
from her shoulders. Then, using the blanket to block her view, Ryouga
stripped, kicking the soaked clothes out from under her makeshift cloak.

"Hmm...still gonna need something to wear later..." Ryouga looked over at
the piles of wet clothing that their packs had yielded. Nearly everything
would need to be wrung out before they could be hung to dry. *Well, it's
something to do...* Thinking for a moment, Ryouga grabbed a length of
nylon climbing cord from her pile, and proceeded to tie it around her body
in a manner that would ensure that she could move her arms without fear of
the blanket falling off. The general visual and tactile effect that this
produced was exactly the opposite of what Ryouga would have desired, but
she blocked that out by focusing on the task of wringing out the wet
clothes and constructing a number of bamboo racks to hang them on.

When that task was done, and all of the clothes were drying in the cool
night air, Ryouga unwound the cord and collapsed into a heap, across the
fire from her still sleeping companion, exhausted both physically and
mentally.  Sleeping the fitful sleep of the deeply troubled, Ryouga would
later not wish to recall the dreams that she had that night. 

*****

"I still think what you did that first morning was funny."  Ukyou giggled
in a very un-manly fashion. "I've never met anyone who is as good at being
totally clueless as you are, Ryouga-chan."

"Are you _ever_ going to let me forget that?" 

"I'll think about it..." 

"C'mon, gimmie a break." Ryouga looked at Ukyou pleadingly.  "I was
confused at the time, okay? I don't get to talk to people much, so I'm not
very good at it."

*****

Ukyou's mind swam in what felt like a sea of sludge, sloshing about
haphazardly, oozing and bubbling, various random thoughts rising to the
surface, while the greater whole still wallowed in the depths. Slowly
though, the turgid swill surrounding her consciousness began to clear, and
Ukyou again began to think and feel. 

One of the first things that registered in her still fuzzy synapses was
discomfort. Every part of her body seemed to decry some sort of
mistreatment, and it was making it damn hard to stay unconscious,
comfortably oblivious to the pressing concerns of the outside world. 
Hmmm... Pressing concerns. Indeed, there was certainly one particular
'pressing concern' that she was going to have to attend to in the near
future, a certain bodily function that would brook no unnecessary delays.

But in order to attend to that urgent need, Ukyou would have to wake up. 
Well, technically, she didn't _have_ to wake up, but the unconscious mind
correctly ascertained that Ukyou's conscious mind would not look favorably
upon the 'naturalistic' point of view. And so, in order not to further
damage the conscious mind's already fragile self image, the unconscious
mind poked and prodded at the sensory input that it was receiving,
tweaking and amplifying the pain sensation, prodding the internal pressure
sensors until Ukyou at last awoke, groaning and sore, and with her bladder
screaming bloody murder at her.

"Ohhh...uughk." Ukyou coughed a bit, her throat feeling strangely raw. 
Without opening her eyes, Ukyou unconsciously began to catalog the various
aches and pains that she was becoming aware of. *Ribs are a bit sore,
doesn't feel more than bruised though; Feeling sorta weak, and breathing
is a bit uncomfortable.* She also had an absolutely horrible taste in her
mouth, and thought that her butt might have fallen asleep, but those could
be ignored for the time being. "Wha..what happened?" 

Ukyou slowly opened her eyes, blinking a few times to adjust to the
sunlight. When she could see clearly, she noticed that she was in some
sort of campsite. There was a fire pit dug into the ground in front of
her, with a few small, dying wisps of smoke still rising from the ash. 
Also, there were several bamboo stalks driven into the ground with lengths
of string hung between them, serving as makeshift clotheslines. Ukyou
could pick out a lot of her own clothes drying on the lines, in addition
to someone else's.

*Wait a minute...* Ukyou looked down, to see a blanket draped over her
body. A quick glance under the blanket was enough to confirm that all of
her clothes were, in fact, up on the lines, drying. *But why are all of my
clothes wet?* Ukyou thought back to the previous day.

She remembered waking up, and trudging through the trackless wilderness of
central China for most of the morning. She had finally caught up to the
Saotomes, she was sure of it. She had found the remains of several broken
campsites over the last few days, and every time she picked it up the
trail was fresher. By midday, she had arrived at a narrow valley, the
bottom of which was covered by hundreds of small pools of water with
bamboo poles sticking out of them.

>From her study of the Saotomes' habits, she surmised that this was where
they had been heading, as it was obviously some sort of martial arts
training ground. It didn't strike her as a particularly challenging
training ground, but who could judge the motivations of such honorless
curs as the Saotomes had proven themselves to be.

Regardless, she had wandered up and down the cliffs surrounding the valley
for the better part of the afternoon, and had yet to see any signs of her
prey. Ukyou had been starting to get frustrated, and was beginning to
think that perhaps they had moved on. Grumbling in frustration, Ukyou had
pulled out her map of China had begun trying to figure out exactly where
she was, so that she might possibly predict where the Saotomes would go
next.

It was difficult to tell exactly however, as the map wasn't the best and
she had previously been far too focused on following the Saotome's trail
to pay clost attention to her surroundings. Ukyou had tried vainly to
remember any notable towns or landmarks that she had encountered, and thus
became so thoroughly engrossed in thought that she failed to notice the
rustling and shouting emanating from the forest until the source of the
sounds was upon her.

With a crash, a huge black and white form had burst from the forest
directly to her right. Stunned, Ukyou didn't have time to get out of the
way before it slammed roughly into her and bounded to another stone
outcropping a little bit down the valley edge. For a second or two, it was
all Ukyou could do to maintain her balance and keep from falling off the
cliff and into the valley below.

As she regained her footing, now a bit closer to the cliff edge, she
turned to face her assailant; which, to her surprise, turned out to be a
large panda. Eyeing the animal warily, Ukyou just barely noticed the sound
of running feet behind her in time to turn around, before something flew
through the air and struck her in the face, hard. She vaguely remembered
seeing the bottom of somebody's foot, and a flash of red, and then she was
falling.

Twisting in midair to reorient herself, Ukyou looked down to see that she
was falling towards one of the many springs that covered the valley floor. 
For a few moments during her fall, she had thought this to be at least a
small bit of good fortune. And then something about her size, but with an
incredible amount of momentum, slammed into her and latched on, carrying
her along with it through the air.

The sensation of arms wrapping around her waist came to mind, and so she
realized that the thing that hit her must have been a person. At the time
though, she hadn't had time to think about it because the third fast
moving object to hit her so far that day had hit Ukyou with enough force
to completely knock the wind out of her lungs. That, coupled with the
g-forces that she had pulled when they changed directions, was causing
gray spots to dance across her field of vision, and was making Ukyou feel
very dizzy and disoriented.

*And then there was this noise, like something breaking, and... and...*
Though Ukyou racked her mind, she couldn't remember anything that happened
after that point, except for the unpleasant sensation of her lungs being
on fire. *Well, by the looks of those clothes, I'd guess that I-, _we_
fell into a spring. And since I don't remember falling into a spring, I
was probably unconscious at the time. So whomever knocked me into the
spring probably kept me from drowning, or else I probably wouldn't be here
in this camp thinking about it.* But that still didn't excuse smashing
into her and knocking her out in the first place. Ukyou resolved that
there were certainly going to be some harsh words when she found out who
had done that.

A low murmuring across the campsite suddenly drew Ukyou's attention to the
fact that she wasn't alone. There, on the other side of the fire pit,
Ukyou saw what appeared to be a tangled heap of cloth and limbs, sprawled
unceremoniously on the ground. After a few moments of observation, Ukyou
determined her company to be another girl about her age but slightly
taller than she was. The girl had rust colored hair, which was worn in a
thick, tousled mane that didn't quite reach halfway to her shoulders, and
was held out of her face by a yellow and black bandanna.

Aside from the bandanna, the girl appeared to be every bit as naked as
Ukyou herself was, though she was presently rather tightly enmeshed in her
blanket, and looked as though she had had a restless night. Even now, she
was whimpering quietly in her sleep, a fearful expression on her
attractive face.

*Well, we'll just have to wake her up then, won't we?* Ukyou thought to
herself as she began to stand up. This was obviously the person that had
grabbed her, and Ukyou felt that at the very least an explanation was in
order, even if Ukyou had to drag it out by force. Especially if she had to
drag it out by force. As she got to her feet, however, she was suddenly
reminded of the reason she had woken up in the first place.

*Perhaps I'll let her sleep just a little bit longer,* Ukyou thought
hastily, as she grabbed a shirt and a pair of boxers off one of the lines
and rushed off into the forest before she was forced to have a rather
embarrassing accident in front the cause of her present foul mood.

After she had relieved herself and covered up slightly better, Ukyou
walked back into camp to discover that the girl had woken in her absence,
and was blearily wandering around the clearing with a worried expression
on her face, the blanket she had slept in clutched tightly over her body. 
She spun around when Ukyou approached. 

"Oh! It's you! Thank the gods you're back." The girl gushed in relief as
Ukyou walked up. "How are you, um... feeling?" At this remark, the girl's
expression went from relief to deep concern and worry. 

"I've been better, no thanks to you!" Ukyou snapped irritably, though she
felt a little bad about it. Something about the girl's dejected posture
and seemingly genuine concern over her well being made Ukyou feel almost
like she was kicking a puppy. "What the hell were you thinking, slamming
into me like that?"

"I... I was trying to keep you from falling into one of the springs,
but..." The girl's voice, which had weak and apologetic before, finally
faltered. Instead, she just looked down at the ground dejectedly, sorrow
and regret fairly oozing from her pitifully slumped form.

This disturbing display of emotion finally got to Ukyou, who really was a
kind and supportive person at heart, and was having immense trouble
staying angry in the face of such pain as this girl was feeling. Quickly
softening her expression, Ukyou held up her hands in a placating way and
started walking slowly towards the girl.

"Hey now sugar, it's okay. I know you meant well, and no real harm was
done. C'mon, cheer up." Ukyou tried to smile reassuringly.

The girl however, was looking at her like Ukyou had grown horns and a
tail. And a second head. A rhinoceros head. She just stood there, opening
and closing her mouth as no words came out, trembling slightly and
clutching the blanket even tighter to her body. Eventually, she seemed to
find her voice again. 

"No- no real harm? but... but you- and me- and, but..." The girl gestured
with her right hand at Ukyou and then back at herself, opening the blanket
a bit and looking down at herself once, a thin trickle of blood leaking
from her nose. "I mean- but..."

"What's wrong hon? Are you okay?" Ukyou was starting to get really worried
about the strange girl. The girl seemed to be deeply disturbed by
something, but for the life of her, Ukyou couldn't fathom what it could
possibly be. "Help me here kid. What's got you so worked up?"

"You... you don't see? You- I'm- we're-" The girl gestured vaguely at
herself, nearly dropping the blanket. "the spring, I mean- changed, the
curse..."

"Curse? Huh?" Ukyou blinked as the girl progressively got less coherent. 
*Damn it, why the hell is she falling all to pieces like this?* Grabbing
the girl by the shoulders, Ukyou shook her roughly, causing her to drop
her blanket. "What's wrong?! Spit it out!" 

"WE'RE GIRLS! That's what's wrong!" The girl cried, shaking loose from
Ukyou's grasp and gesturing down at her body. "Look at yourself! You were
a guy, and now you're a girl!"

*DAMNDAMNDAMNDAMNDAMN* Ukyou cursed to herself as some of the pieces
finally fell into place. *I forgot that I looked like a guy when I fell
into the spring, and now I look like a girl.* Over the years, Ukyou had
seen her fair share of bad reactions when people she knew found out her
true gender. But that still didn't explain away this girl's incredible
overreaction to it. As far as Ukyou could remember, she'd never met the
girl before in her life. "Alright, so I'm a girl, so what? So are you."

The girl looked even more confused. "But we were guys before-" 

"No, I've always been a girl. I just dress like a guy."  Ukyou tried to
explain, but then something the girl had said caught her attention. "Wait,
you said 'we' were guys before, didn't you?" Ukyou looked up at the
clotheslines and saw that, indeed it was all men's clothing hanging out to
dry; even the things that weren't hers. Several pairs of boxer shorts,
pants and shirts; not a single bra, panty, or skirt among them.

While she did this, the girl looked to be digesting some vital piece of
information, as if some stray piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into
place. Looking up at Ukyou, she asked in a tremulous voice,
"You've...you've always been a girl?" At Ukyou's nod, she continued. 
"Then, that bandage on your chest was to-"

"To make me look like a guy." Ukyou said shortly, hoping that she wouldn't
have to explain any more. "But back to my question; you said 'we' before. 
What did you mean by that?"

The girl went wide-eyed at the question, as if just now realizing what
Ukyou was asking her. "I, ah...ACK!" the girl then seemed to notice that
she was naked, and ducked down to retrieve her blanket with a pretty
decent nosebleed starting up on her embarrassed face. She ripped a
bandanna off of her forehead and used it to staunch the flow, while Ukyou
looked on in mild confusion at the second bandanna that seemed to have
been hidden under that one. "I- before I fell into the spring, I was a... 
a guy..."

Ukyou cast the girl a dumbfounded expression as the girl trailed off,
pressing the bandanna tightly against her bleeding nose. "HUH?" she
inquired intelligently.

"I was a guy, okay?!" The girl suddenly became defensive, a bit of anger
creeping into her voice. "And I still would be, if it wasn't for this
stupid curse!"

*Curse? Huh?* Ukyou blinked twice, a look of utter confusion spreading
across her face. *She thinks she used to be a guy? Wow, and people think
I'm bad... I may have forsaken my womanhood, but this chick has got to be
loopier than a loon.* Ukyou shook her head to clear it, then faced the
(possibly) insane girl wearily. "Um...perhaps you'd like to explain? I'm
not sure I quite understand..." 

Clenching her teeth in exasperation, in the process displaying a set of
long, sharp looking fangs, the girl turned and stomped over to a pile of
stuff that was sitting off to one side of the camp. Kneeling down, she
rooted through the pile until she found a clear plastic zip-lock bag that
seemed to be filled with an assortment of pamphlets, guidebooks, and
travel brochures written in at least a dozen different languages. Opening
the bag and selecting one soft-cover volume in particular, she stomped
back over to Ukyou and began flipping through the book.

Ukyou looked on in bewilderment as the girl flipped through the travel
guide, until finally she seemed to find what she was looking for. "Here! 
The 'Accursed Springs of Jusenkyou.' Read it for yourself!" with that, she
shoved the book into Ukyou's hands.

Taking the book, Ukyou saw that it was opened to a page with a large,
color illustration of the valley that they had been in yesterday. On the
page opposite the illustration was, Ukyou assumed, a description of the
valley and its history. But she couldn't be sure, for one rather
significant reason. "Um... I can't read Chinese, you know."

The girl blinked once or twice, having the good grace to look mildly
embarrassed. "Oh. Well," she accepted the guidebook back from Ukyou and
turned to look at it herself. "It says here that 'every single pool in the
valley of Jusenkyou bears a terrible curse that shall befall any who touch
the water of the spring.' That's why I was trying to keep you from falling
in!" She gestured at Ukyou with the book.

Ukyou just stared back at her. *Yup, she's a nutcase alright.* Peering
intently at the book, Ukyou cast the girl a skeptical look. "Does it
_really_ say that? I mean, curses?"

The girl just nodded back emphatically, seemingly oblivious to Ukyou's
obvious disbelief. "It doesn't say exactly what the curses do, but I think
I have a pretty good idea now." At that, she seemed to remember something,
and her spirits deflated considerably. "They... _change_ you..." She
looked down at herself. "I used to be a guy. But then, when we fell into
that spring, I changed into a girl. It must not have affected you because
you were already a girl..." 

*Is this girl for real?* Ukyou thought to herself as the girl's previous
depression returned in full force. *I mean, to actually believe in stuff
like magic and curses? How flipped out can you get?* Still, the girl did
seem genuinely devastated and, crazy or not, Ukyou was feeling bad for
her. "Um... okay. Assuming you're under some sort of curse, doesn't that
mean that there might be a cure somewhere?" She asked, trying to sound
encouraging.

The girl looked up at her, her face still ashen with regret, and nodded
slowly. "Yes, I suppose. I mean, if I was changed into a girl, there
shouldn't be any reason why I can't be changed back..."

"Well then, why don't I help you find it?" Ukyou asked cheerily, patting
the girl on the back. "I mean, if what you're saying is true, then you
risked yourself to save me. Who knows what I might have turned into if I
had fallen into one of the other springs?" *Gods, I hope I'm not doing
something that I'm gonna to regret later...*

The girl, meanwhile, had gone through a mood swing that would have done
most people with bipolar disorder proud. She was beaming joyously at
Ukyou, tears streaming down her face. "Really? You'd really do that for
me? You're not just saying that, are you? Are you?!" she leaned forward
and gazed pleadingly at Ukyou.

*I think I may have made a mistake...* Ukyou thought as she leaned back a
bit to get some breathing room. "Uhh... yeah, sure I mean it. Eheh..." 
*Think fast girl, before she goes psycho on you.* "Hey, you know, now that
I think about it:  If there's a spring that turns you into a girl,
couldn't there also be one that turns you into a boy?" *Nice save!* Ukyou
mentally patted herself on the back.

"Whoa, I hadn't thought of that!" The girl blinked, realization dawning on
her. "That's a great idea! If you're right, then I could be back to normal
in no time!" The girl grinned hopefully at Ukyou.

*Whatever normal is for you...* "Um, yeah. Anyway, my name is Kuonji
Ukyou, and if the clothes are all dry then we can break camp now and be
back at this 'Jusenkyou" place before noon." Ukyou suggested.

"Pleased to meet you Kuonji-san. My name is Hibiki Ryouga."  Ryouga
grinned again, showing those fangs of hers. As Ukyou suppressed a shudder
at that strangely disturbing sight, Ryouga's smile drooped to a small
frown, and she began to fidget nervously. "Um... actually, before we go,
there's something that I've _really_ needed to take care of for a while
now, and I don't think I can hold on for much longer..." 

Ukyou glanced at Ryouga warily, preparing for the next surprise. "Oh yeah,
what's that?" 

"Ah...well..." Ryouga was by now blushing rather badly and scratching the
back of her head in embarrassment. "Um...that is." She began to sweat, and
started to squirm a bit under Ukyou's scrutiny, her legs crossed tightly
as she shifted from side to side. "I have to... you know, uh..."  she
looked down, turning away from Ukyou's puzzled gaze.

As Ukyou watched the way Ryouga was squirming uncomfortably, she suddenly
remembered her own 'pressing business' that she had to take care of that
morning. "Oh... OH! Well why didn't you say so?" Ukyou smirked. "Hey, why
don't you just go take care of that while I start packing our stuff,
okay?"

"Kuonji-san... er... there is, that is... I do have one small problem." At
this admission, Ryouga seemed to become even redder, a feat that Ukyou
would previously have thought impossible.

"What problem is that Ryouga-san?" Ukyou asked as she began to remove the
dry clothing from the lines.

"I... I..." Ryouga then mumbled something that Ukyou couldn't make out. 

"What was that you said sugar? I couldn't hear you." 

"I... don't know how..." Ryouga said in a whisper, her face turned down in
shame and crushing embarrassment.

Ukyou dropped the pair of boxer shorts that she was holding as she
proceeded to gape open-mouthed at Ryouga, and Ryouga could almost hear the
little gears in Ukyou's brain grinding to a screeching halt.

*****

"I... I don't know how!!" Ukyou wheezed a bit as she broke into another
gale of laughter, almost falling off of her perch on Ryouga's desk in her
unrestrained mirth. "I've... never, ever heard anything so funny in my
entire life..." Ukyou wiped the tears from her eyes as she gasped, trying
to catch her breath.

"Ukyou, don't be so cruel!" Ryouga frowned at her across the desk, an
embarrassed blush creeping anew across his face and neck. "I'd never done
it as a girl before, okay.  It's not funny!" 

"Yes it is!" Ukyou slapped the desk, trying to regain her composure. 
"Eheh... sorry Ryouga. It's just, it's so simple... I mean, how could you
not be able to figure it out?"

"I'd never even looked... d-down there on a girl before." A small
nosebleed accompanied the killer blush that Ryouga was exhibiting. "I
didn't know what I had to work with..."

"Heh, I know Ryouga. But remember, I still thought that you were just some
whacked out crazy girl at the time. I didn't expect to have to... to
h-help you... figure out how to- to-" Ukyou couldn't stand it any longer,
and rolled off of Ryouga's desk and onto the floor, clutching her stomach
as she roared with uncontrollable laughter.

"Oh shut up..." 

*****

After certain initial... difficulties were resolved, Ryouga and Ukyou had
set out to find Ryouga's cure. Unfortunately, as Ryouga _had_ been the one
to set their original camp site, and Ukyou didn't catch on immediately to
Ryouga's other little 'condition,' the intrepid duo never did successfully
re-locate the valley of Jusenkyou. In all actuality, they were halfway to
Beirut before Ukyou finally figured out that Ryouga couldn't navigate her
way out of a revolving door, and they had only been traveling for one day. 
At the close of their third day of travel, during the entirety of which
Ryouga had not changed back once(as they weren't yet aware of the
conditions of the curse), Ryouga felt that the embarrassment from the
first... assistance that she had received from Ukyou had worn off enough
for her to ask one more small favor of her companion.

"Umm... Kuonji-san, I was wondering..." Ryouga began tentatively, looking
at Ukyou nervously over the rim of her steaming mug of tea.

"Hmm? About what?" Ukyou looked up as she stirred the chicken soup in the
large kettle that was hung over their campfire.

"Well, over the last few days, you know, that we've been traveling
together, I've noticed that you always dress and act as a boy, even when
we're alone." Ryouga peered intently at Ukyou as a large, bubbling geyser
erupted into the air off in the distance. "Why is that?"

Ukyou had been dreading this question for quite a while, and was rather
surprised that it hadn't come up sooner. *Then again, she's one to talk,
actually believing that she used to be a guy, so maybe it's not so weird
after all.* Ukyou looked away from Ryouga, turning her attention to the
kettle she was tending. Deciding that the soup was done, she used a wad of
Ryouga's bandannas *where on earth does she get all these things?* to grab
the kettle's handle and lift it off of the fire. As she set it down, some
of the soup in the kettle sloshed out, just missing Ryouga's left foot.

As she sensed Ukyou's pensive mood, Ryouga quickly started to back down. 
"Hey, It's okay if you don't want to tell me, I understand. I was just,
you know, wondering..."

Ukyou looked over to her strange traveling companion, and tried to
remember the last time she had told her story to anyone. She couldn't; if
she had ever willfully revealed the measure of her pain and humiliation to
another living soul, the memories were as lost to her as the dowry that
they had stolen, the innocence that they had crushed. 

And here was one who knew her secret, had known for days, and had never
before asked the all important question of "why?" *Ryouga, Ryouga,
Ryouga... what am I going to do with you?* Despite the fact that Ukyou was
by now firmly convinced that Ryouga was mad as a hatter, she truly liked
the girl. Ryouga was a good friend, ferociously loyal and always
sympathetic. She did tend to overreact to every little thing, and she
could also be quite dense at times, but it was never hard to see that she
cared. Ukyou knew that if she told Ryouga that she didn't want to talk
about it, Ryouga would respect her wishes and never mention it again.

"When I was a little girl, my father owned an okonomiyaki yattai..." 









"...And so, on that day, I vowed that I would never again love any man. My
femininity forsaken, on that day Kuonji Ukyou the little girl died, and
Kuonji Ukyou the Man, avenger of my family's honor, was born. Since that
day, I have dressed, acted, and lived as a man in every way possible." 
*or, at least, every way palatable.* Ukyou amended mentally as she stood
in a defiant stance, her fist raised in challenge to the starry night's
sky. 

Looking across the fire to her companion, Ukyou saw runnels of tears
streaming down the lost girl's face, and she was gazing back towards Ukyou
with a sort of profound understanding in her watery, shining eyes. 
"Abandoned at age five... and mercilessly ridiculed by all of your friends
because of it..." Ryouga sniffled a bit, and wiped her eyes with the
sleeve of her shirt. "Ukyou-san... I- I had no idea. I can sort of
understand how that might have felt...I mean, I..."

Ryouga paused, struggling to regain her composure, and looked away from
Ukyou, off into the dark forest, before continuing. "Ever since I was very
young, for as long as I can remember, I've had... problems, finding my way
around." Ryouga frowned, pursing her lips as if she were tasting something
bitter. "Lots of problems. Everyone in my family is like this. Lost..." 
She stared into to the fire and began to poke it with a stick. "I can
hardly ever find my way home, and when I do, no-one is ever there. I
haven't seen my mother in eight years, and my father in ten. They leave
little notes for me and each other at the house, but..."

Ryouga trailed off, leaving Ukyou staring at her wearing an utterly
stunned expression on her face. *Man, no wonder the girl is so messed up. 
Actually, I'm surprised she's not worse than she is, all things
considered.* Ukyou moved around the fire to sit down next to Ryouga. 
"Ryouga..."

"Heh..." Ryouga turned to Ukyou, tears still glistening in her eyes, and
smirked a bit. "The kids at school, when I could get to school, used to
make fun of me too. A couple visits to the nurse's office, and they didn't
do that anymore." She raised the charred stick out of the fire and shook
it a bit, for emphasis.

Ukyou snickered at Ryouga, remembering what she had done to the children
that had made fun of her when Ranma had left her. They certainly hadn't
done it again either. *No wonder you're such a tomboy Ryouga, taking care
of yourself all this time. You were probably a little terror as a kid...*
Aloud, Ukyou said in a mock chastising voice, "Now, that wasn't very nice
of you Ryouga-san."

"Maybe," she replied, her spirits lightening a bit as she slapped a fist
into her palm, "but I'm still gonna give that rotten little jerk that left
you behind a piece of my mind, and his father too. After you're done with
them, of course." She grinned maliciously at Ukyou.

Ukyou grinned back, then sighed. "Thanks sugar, but it may be a while
before I find them again. I thought that I had finally caught up to them
at that Jusenkyou place, but they never showed."

"Um, yeah, that reminds me..." Ryouga suddenly became very nervous again,
like she had been when she had first started the conversation. "There is
something that wanted to ask you, about how you dress and stuff. Ahh... 
could you, that is..."

Ukyou peered quizzically at the nervous girl, cocking her head slightly to
the side. *So, am I finally going to find out why you waited so long to
ask that question?* She put her hand on Ryouga's shoulder and gripped it
in a friendly way. "Spit it out sugar." 

Ryouga took a deep breath, then forced it out in a rush. "WellIwasjust
wonderingifyouknowyoucouldshowmehowtodothat."  when she received nothing
more than a blank look from Ukyou, she tried again. "I mean- well, we
haven't found Jusenkyou yet, and it's been three days, and we've passed by
some towns and stuff. I was wondering if you could teach me to... to do
what you do. Pretend to be a guy, I mean..." 

"You... want to learn how to be a... cross-dresser?" Ukyou favored Ryouga
with an incredulous look.  "Why? You already wear only men's clothes
anyway, after all." 

"Yeah, but, well... Even then, it's easy to tell that I'm- that I'm a
g-girl..." She looked down at herself, hopelessness again creeping into
her voice. "It's starting to look like we'll be getting further from the
cure before we get closer, and the towns and cities are getting more and
more common. That means that we'll be seeing more people, and I dunno..." 
Ryouga looked into Ukyou's eyes, her expression sad and uncertain. "I
dunno if I could stand being treated like... like a girl for too long." 

Ukyou peered appraisingly at her friend. She knew that any assistance she
offered would probably only reinforce Ryouga's unhealthy delusions of her
former manhood. But at the same time, she could see the genuine worry and
self- doubt that Ryouga was feeling, and remembered how many times she had
experienced those same feelings. *Can I really be helping by encouraging
this? But then, is it really that different from what I'm doing to
myself?* Ukyou quashed the urge to re-evaluate the nature of her own
lifestyle, instead concentrating on her friend's problem.  After some soul
searching, Ukyou stared back into Ryouga's eyes with a serious look.

"It's not as easy as it looks Ryouga, and you're a very attractive girl
too. You probably wouldn't be able to fool anyone for a while. Do you
really want to do this?" She spoke in grave tones, hoping to perhaps sway
Ryouga just a little in her intent.

Ryouga just nodded solemnly, letting out a breath that she had been
holding while Ukyou had been deciding. "Yes. Thank you Ukyou-san, for
everything. I'll do my best." she said carefully, but Ukyou could see that
Ryouga's uncertainty was already evaporating a little under the tide of
relief. "And anyway, you're a really cute girl when you're not dressed as
a guy, so you must be doing something right if you can fool everyone so
well. If you can look like a guy, then so can I." she grinned a bit at
Ukyou, trying to lighten the mood.

Ukyou blinked once or twice and stared at Ryouga. She then began to shake
her head, a small, self-depreciating smile flickering briefly across her
face. *Damn it Ryouga, what kind of girl are you anyway, calling me cute
like that?* She gazed at her new student thoughtfully. "You are so
clueless, you know that?"

"Huh?" Ryouga got an utterly confused look on her face, demonstrating
Ukyou's point nicely.

"Never mind." Ukyou smirked. "Just get a good night's sleep, kid. You've
got a lot of work ahead of you, come tomorrow morning." Ukyou's smirk
spread into a full-blown evil grin, causing Ryouga to shudder a bit and
back away warily. *Heh... you're going to have to get _real_ well
acquainted with a girl's body before you can even think of impersonating a
guy, my little Ryouga-chan. And considering how shy you are about yours,
this ought to prove to be very... amusing.* Perhaps, Ukyou thought, if she
could get Ryouga to see how much went into pretending to be a guy, she
might be able to hook the girl into really believing that she was 'just
pretending' to be a guy. *Wishful thinking perhaps, but hey, it could
happen.* "Pleasant dreams, Ryouga-chan." Ukyou smiled sweetly.

"Hey! Don't call me that!" Ryouga snapped defensively. 

"Get used to it, hon. You're _mine_ now, and I'll be calling you what I
like until you can show me you really _can_ be a man." She poked Ryouga in
the chest for emphasis. "Now it's getting late, so it's time for little
girls to get to get their sleep, hmm?" Ukyou's tone of voice clearly said
that this statement did not apply to herself.

Ryouga gaped at Ukyou in disbelief for a few moments, not being able to
think of anything intelligent to say to that. Then, finally, she turned
away from Ukyou and began preparing her sleeping bag, all the while
grumbling quietly about such irritants as how bossy Ukyou could be, and
why Ukyou just _had_ to poke her there. Ukyou watched Ryouga preparations
in unveiled amusement as she started sharpening one of her throwing
spatulas. *Ohh yes...  tomorrow is certainly going to be something
else...*

*****

"I always thought that you made my training overly embarrassing on
purpose." Ryouga glared over at Ukyou irritably. "You are _such_ a pervert
Ukyou."

Ukyou beamed innocently back at him. "Who, me?" She shrugged dismissively. 
"Hey, you really did need to get better acquainted with your body Ryouga,
and it was definitely necessary if you were going to learn how to move
right." She leaned across the desk and peered into Ryouga's eyes. "Tell me
I'm wrong." 

Ryouga simply snorted and looked away. It _had_ been hard, relearning how
to move and talk. Being male was one thing, but being a transvestite
impersonating a male was truly another beast altogether. "I _still_ don't
see the point of half of the humiliating things that you put me through!" 
He peered at Ukyou out of the corner of his eye accusingly. "I mean,
making me walk through the forest for an entire day blindfolded and
_naked_? And that wasn't the worst of it either..." 

"The blindfold was your idea Ryouga-chan. Something about loosing too much
blood without it, I think?" Ukyou poked Ryouga in the nose playfully. "Shy
girl needed to loosen up a bit." She glanced mischievously over at a glass
of ice water on Ryouga's desk. Ryouga caught the look, but Ukyou had the
glass and was upending it over Ryouga's head before the lost boy could
react. "Still needs to, I think." Ukyou giggled as she set the glass back
down.

Ryouga sputtered indignantly as she wiped her now wet bangs out of her
eyes. "That was very immature, you know that?" She muttered as she stood
up and began to undo her shirt, revealing a long bandage looped loosely
around her waist under her shirt. Ryouga winced a bit as she cinched the
bandage tightly over her breasts, wondering idly whether or not it was
actually harder to breathe since the last time she had done this. *Gods,
please don't tell me I'm growing again.* After a few other minor
appearance changes, Ryouga crossed her arms crossly and glared at Ukyou. 
"You know, sometimes I think that you actually prefer me like this."

"Of course I prefer you like that, Ryouga. What do you expect?" 

Ryouga's jaw dropped open as she starred unabashedly at Ukyou as though
the naturally inclined girl had just proclaimed that she was going to
shave her head and start handing out flowers in the airport. "WHAAAT?"

Ukyou threw her hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey, It's not what
you're thinking!! Lemmie explain." Ukyou stood up and looked Ryouga
directly in the eyes from across the desk. "You know that for the first
month and a half that I knew you, I was absolutely convinced that you were
a girl, right?"

Ryouga nodded back at her cautiously. "Go on." 

"Well," Ukyou continued, "even after I found out that your curse was real,
and that you we're really a guy, every time I looked at you, I still saw
the shy, friendly, clueless girl that I had met a month and a half
before." Ukyou smiled disarmingly at Ryouga, causing the lost girl's
expression to soften a bit. "Hell, I was surprised beyond belief when that
waiter spilled that tea on you, and suddenly the girl that I had traveled
six weeks and hundreds of miles with was replaced by some strange man
wearing her clothes."

"You think you were surprised? My heart nearly stopped when I felt the
change happen." Ryouga got a distant look as she remembered. "After that,
I was so ecstatic about being a guy again that I didn't notice that
everyone was staring at me, until they threw us out of the restaurant. 
Into the rain." Ryouga grimaced as she recalled the disappointment that
had followed.

"Yeah, you freaked out everyone pretty good that time, including me." 
Ukyou smirked as she crossed her arms in a mocking imitation of Ryouga's
irritated posture. "But even after we figured it out, and you had finally
proven to me that curses exist, I still couldn't stop thinking of you as
'that crazy girl that I met at Jusenkyou.' I suppose maybe it was just for
my own mental comfort, but it's true." She then looked soberly at Ryouga,
her voice becoming soft and uncertain. "I suppose I still think of you
that way Ryouga, but please don't think of it as an insult of something. 
It's just that when I think of the shy, lonely, loyal, kind, and strong
person that I befriended all those months back, I think of a girl named
Ryouga. First impressions are hard to change, but I think that in the long
run, it's probably part of the reason why we get along so well. I mean,
tell me honestly that you're not more comfortable around me when I'm
dressed like a guy."

Ryouga looked defiantly at Ukyou for a moment longer before her
indignation melted away completely, replaced by a look of mild
embarrassment. "Yeah, I suppose you're right." She scratched the back of
her head, looking down at her feet. "I mean, I've known that you were a
girl almost from the beginning, but the way you dress and act..." Ryouga
looked up and she smiled sheepishly at Ukyou. "You really are good at
being a guy Ukyou. Better than me, probably." 

"Alright then," Ukyou nodded to herself, "If we're agreed that I make the
better guy, and you make the better girl, then the next time you work the
crowd at my yattai, that's how we'll go!" She rubbed her hands together in
anticipation. "With you attracting the guys, we'll make a killing."

"Hey, I never said I thought I made a better girl! Ukyou!" 

"Just kidding, Ryouga-chan!" Ukyou held her hands up as she backed away
from the fuming lost girl. "Oops, I'm sorry, _Hibiki-sempai_!" Ukyou began
to laugh out loud as Ryouga leapt over the desk and began to chase her
around the room, waving her arms wildly and bellowing in mock rage.







"SAY UNCLE!" 

"NEVER!!" 

"SAY IT!!" 

Had if, by some perverse fluke of chance, some random layperson happened
to wander into room 234 of the Kenzai Academy for Boys at approximately
5:37 p.m. on this particular day, they would probably have been in for a
rather sizeable shock. The reason for this reaction would likely be the
rather unexpected sight of one rather disheveled looking transvestite girl
with short, rust colored hair, being pressed prone on the floor in a
painful looking submission hold, currently being applied by another rather
disheveled looking transvestite girl, this one with long, dark brown hair
and a giant spatula strapped to her back.

Had this not been a rather unexpected sight by said layperson's point of
view, then perhaps said layperson should have to seek professional
assistance. But regardless of such conjecture, said layperson would have
found the transvestite girls to be quite oblivious to the intrusion, both
of them being far too occupied with their current activities.

"RYOUGA, SAY UNCLE!" 

"OKAY, UNCLE! UNCLE!!" 

"NOW SAY 'I LIKE TO WEAR FRILLY UNDERTHINGS!'" 

"AAARGH!!" 

With a grunt of exertion, and a muffled ripping noise, Ryouga finally
broke free of Ukyou's hold. Panting and sweating, Ryouga scooted across
the floor a few feet away from Ukyou. "Puh- pervert." she gasped. Then,
noticing that the dull, constricting pain that she usually felt when she
took deep breaths was conspicuously absent, Ryouga looked down. "Aw jeez,
Ukyou, look what you made me do. Damn it, my binding ripped, and I forgot
to bring another one today." Ryouga glared accusingly at the other girl.

Ukyou ran her fingers through her tousled hair and grinned at Ryouga. 
"Hey, don't look at me sugar. I didn't make you break free like that. And
I don't have another one on me either. After all, I don't usually have to
replace mine." She smiled roguishly at the irate girl. "You always did
have a bigger chest than me."

Ryouga's flush of exertion deepened with embarrassment until her face was
almost purple. "H-Hey!! I only have to replace mine once in a while, when
I accidentally change back into a guy while I'm wearing it! This-" She
gestured down at her chest, which was partially revealed as the top few
buttons had come undone while she was struggling with Ukyou.

"Is a very nice view, to be sure," Ukyou interrupted, "but I wouldn't go
wandering around like that if I were you. Who knows what people might
think?" Ukyou cast Ryouga a wolfish grin, eyeing her suggestively.

Ryouga went white as a sheet and scooted even further away, then went
crimson again when Ukyou broke out in gales of laughter. "Pervert." Ryouga
muttered to herself as she re- buttoned her shirt. This, of course, caused
Ukyou to laugh even harder, wincing in pain and clutching her chest every
once in a while.

"Haha- ouch! Hah, don't do stuff like that, Ryouga. You trying to kill me
or something?" Ukyou asked as she tried to take shallow, even breaths. 

"You'd deserve it, you pervert. I'll bet you wanna go at it again now,
just so you can grope me." Ryouga crossed her arms under her breasts and
sat cross-legged, facing Ukyou with a stern expression on her face.

"AAHAHAHAHAH- gasp- HAHA. GR-GROPE YOU?! HAHAHA- Owww, damn it! Ha-" Ukyou
alternately laughed, wheezed, and grimaced in pain as she rolled around on
the floor, hands reaching around inside the back of her shirt trying to
undo the knot that was holding her binding tight. Finally, after much
painful struggle, Ukyou pulled the length of cloth out of her shirt,
gasping in relief, and still laughing. "Aheheh...okay, I suppose you
_have_ lightened up just a little, Ryouga-chan. hehe..." She gave Ryouga a
sultry look. "But if you _really_ want to, I can show you that hold again. 
I promise I won't touch you anywhere you don't ask me to, honest." she
leaned forward, giving Ryouga a good look down the front of her shirt.

This, finally, was too much for Ryouga, and she broke into a nosebleed and
looked away. "Ack! Okay, you win. Just shut up." Ryouga pleaded, blushing
furiously and pressing a bandanna to her nose. "Sheesh Ukyou, don't you
have any shame?"

"It's not like it's anything you haven't seen before."  Ukyou admonished,
buttoning her shirt. "And anyway, you should know by now that I don't feel
that way about other girls. I'm just teasing you Ryouga. You're my best
friend, after all. I gotta do _something_ to get you to cut loose a bit." 
She finished fixing her uniform, now sans binder, and looked back at the
still blushing Ryouga. "I'm sorry, alright. I didn't mean to scare ya."

Still holding the bandanna to her nose, Ryouga sighed and waved
dismissively at Ukyou. "Don't worry about it. It's not like you haven't
done worse before- _Not_ that that makes this alright, mind you! But I'm
fine, and no more embarrassed now than if I had accidentally come to
school wearing my underwear on the outside of my pants or something." She
peered warily back at her friend. "But you'll excuse me if I say that I
still think you have a perverse sense of humor. And I'm not a girl."

"Fair enough." Ukyou conceded. "Ryouga-neechan." Ukyou snickered as Ryouga
just shook her head and groaned. "Okay, I'll stop now." Ukyou picked
herself up off the floor and offered Ryouga a hand up.

Accepting the offered hand, Ryouga stood up and dusted herself off before
walking back over to her desk. She frowned in disgust at all the test
papers she still had to grade, and muttered something depreciatory about a
certain alcoholic faculty member. "Well, back to work." she sighed as she
sat back down, searching for the point where she had left off.

"Lemmie guess, Fujisawa-sensei left you behind again?"  Ukyou observed as
she returned to her perch on the edge of Ryouga's desk. She "tsk" ed
disapprovingly as Ryouga nodded once, and looked down at the papers that
Ryouga was grading. "He can be so irresponsible sometimes. He wasn't
drinking again, was he?"

"You say 'again' as if he had ever stopped." Ryouga said sarcastically. 

"Hey, he's been getting better about it since he figured out that you
can't find your way back to the dorms after class without his help. I'll
bet he's down to, uh..." Ukyou considered carefully, "...one bottle of
sake every two days?" she finished sheepishly. Ryouga just snorted,
displaying her approval of that estimate.

"Maybe I should walk home with him when he's drunk one day, and land us in
Lebanon or something. That oughta make my point pretty well." She waved
broadly at the piles of paper on the desk. "I mean, look at this. Today,
it's like he just up and left right at the bell. He forgot all of his
work, his briefcase, his _house keys_," Ryouga jingled said objects before
Ukyou. "-not to mention _me_. Sometimes I wonder just what the hell the
man is thinking..."

*****

Peering intensely at the ticket in his hands, Fujisawa Masamichi nodded
once to himself. *Yes, it's definitely time to get out of town for a
little bit. Maybe I'll try that cliff face I've heard of outside of
Senbu...*

Earlier that afternoon, while he was collecting his papers, Fujisawa's
computer had yodeled at him, indicating that he had new mail. Smirking to
himself, he had opened the mail program, expecting something mundane; a
student looking for tutoring, another request from the PTA for his
presence, so as to discuss his "habits," etc. He hadn't, however, been
expecting _this_. The message bore the royal seal of Roshtaria, and the
sender address field was occupied by the rather foreboding
"Makoto@eyeofgod.net." 

The last time Fujisawa had been to El-Hazard, Makoto had been working on a
way to communicate between that world and Earth without actually resorting
to physical transport; D- Mail, the teacher though that his former pupil
had called it. It seemed that the boy had succeeded. Fujisawa had felt a
momentary surge of pride at his student's accomplishment, but his elation
quickly dissipated as he read further down the message.

It seemed that his unofficial fiance, Miz Mishtal, High Priestess of
Muldoon, was coming for another visit. This in itself was not unusual; Miz
took every opportunity to visit him that her duties as a priestess would
permit her, which given the fact that very few pilgrims were making the
trek to Mt. Muldoon in recent months, meant that she actually spent quite
a considerable amount of time visiting him on Earth. It wouldn't cause him
too much concern, normally; this time was _different_, however. This time,
her parents were coming with her...

"Yes, definitely time to try that cliff at Senbu!" Nodding again,
forcefully, Fujisawa strode through the busy train station, looking for
his gate. *Hmmm... maybe I should have brought that Hibiki boy with me. If
the rumors are even partially true, he probably would have been rather
useful about now...*

*****
 
"Still, it's not like Fujisawa-sensei is the _Most_ irresponsible man that
we've ever met, you have to give him that." Ukyou pointed out.

"True, too true. Saotome Genma definitely takes the first prize in that
contest." Ryouga agreed, grimacing in distaste. "Engaging his kid to a
girl, only to grab the dowry and run. Absolutely disgraceful."

Ukyou nodded in agreement, having actually been subject to such treatment,
then turned to Ryouga and chuckled. "You know, the way you reacted when
you first saw him, I almost thought that he had done the same thing to
you."

"Huh?" Ryouga blinked and peered at Ukyou in confusion.  "Why would you
think that Ukyou?"

"Well, I still thought that you were a girl at the time, and you still
hadn't told me what you were doing in China. I mean, up to that point, I
had always assumed that you were just lost or something." Ukyou smiled
wistfully. "And you got sooo angry when you found out..." 

*****

"-Damn it, what the hell is with this stupid weather?!"  Ukyou complained
loudly as she scrambled to get under Ryouga's umbrella. "One minute it's
sunny; the next minute, instant flood. Doesn't it strike you as just the
least bit odd, Ryouga?" 

Ryouga just frowned stoically and stared out into the flash monsoon as it
raged around them, inclining her head slightly towards Ukyou. "I've seen
stranger." She replied simply, scanning the rapidly emptying street for a
place to take shelter. 

Gale force winds rattled the windows of various closed shops around them,
picking up and tossing about any stray bits of refuse that happened to be
around. The few other people that they shared the beaten earth road with
struggled vainly to maintain control of the upturned umbrellas or
billowing parkas that they held in token defense against the storm.

All the while though, Ryouga's simple bamboo umbrella, which was held at a
slight angle to keep the side sweeping rain from their faces, stood calm
and still in Ryouga's hand. "Let's get out of this quick Ryouga. I don't
feel safe standing under that... thing that you call an umbrella." When
Ryouga peered at her oddly, Ukyou elaborated. "Even if you _can_ handle it
as though it were as light as a feather, I don't want to be standing under
it if you lose your grip because of the rain or something." 

Ryouga sighed and once again peered down the street through the driving
rain, searching for an open door or perhaps a narrow alley. Then a glimmer
of light caught her eye, somewhere far down at the other end of the
street. "I think I see an open store or something down that way." Ryouga
used her free hand to point towards the light.

Squinting at the faint light, Ukyou nodded and took Ryouga's hand,
dragging the lost girl forward. Occasionally, Ryouga would begin to
meander off in the wrong direction, but on the mud-slicked dirt roads she
just ended up sliding along behind Ukyou as the chef trudged relentlessly
forward.

As they approached the light, Ukyou's vision resolved the oblong haze of
illumination into the shuttered window of some sort of restaurant or shop. 
The light, which filtered through the cracks in the shutters, flickered
intermittently, indicating to Ukyou that there were probably people inside
and moving around. As this was a good sigh, Ukyou began to search for the
door, which she found after a couple moments of effort. "C'mon umbrella
girl, I think we might be in luck." she commented as she dragged Ryouga up
to the door and tried the handle.

The door was unlocked, and swung inward when Ukyou turned the handle,
pushed by the howling wind. After she and Ryouga scrambled inside, Ukyou
hastily shut the door again and scanned the room. The establishment that
they had stumbled upon was apparently a bar, and a rather seedy looking
one at that. But it was dry shelter, which made the various travelers and
locals that had been caught in the storm flock to it like moths to a
flame. 

The bar ran nearly the entire right wall of the long, narrow room, and
drinking patrons were packed tightly along its length. The scattered
tables were similarly occupied, not to mention much of the floor in
between. Ukyou spotted an empty space in the far corner of the room, and
began to lead their little party towards it. Their passage elicited not a
few interested looks from the other refugees from the storm, as the wind
swept rain had completely drenched both of them, plastering their clothing
to their bodies in a way that thoroughly disabused any doubts that anyone
might have had about the pair's gender. Still, the weather thankfully
dampened most of the men's spirits enough to prevent any catcalls.

When they reached the corner, both girls promptly doffed their packs and
weapons. Ryouga's pack hit the ground with a muffled splintering sound as
the worn wooden floor gave a little bit under its weight. Several of the
closer patrons stared at Ryouga for a couple seconds at this, before
quickly averting their gazes and discreetly shuffling a bit farther away.

Leaning her umbrella in the corner to dry, Ryouga slid down the wall to
the floor and sighed wearily. After a moment Ukyou joined her, sliding
down the other wall and sitting cross-legged across the corner from her
companion. That done, she began to wring out her ponytail onto the already
damp floor, verbally taking stock of their situation.

"Well, I think we're in China again, at least." Ukyou commented dryly. 

Ryouga hung her head in shame. "I'm sorry I booked our boat passage to
Thailand instead of Tai Pei. The map he showed me was Russian, and I don't
read Cyrillic very well."

"Don't sweat it sugar. I should have done something when I saw him show
you the map, even if I couldn't understand what you two were saying." 
Ukyou quickly reassured her directionally challenged friend. At that
moment, Ryouga bore an uncanny resemblance to an utterly miserable,
waterlogged rat, and Ukyou had learned in the past four weeks that she had
been traveling with the girl that it just wasn't safe to let Ryouga to get
too depressed. "Hey, wanna get something to eat?"

"Huh, eat? Uh, sure, I guess..." Ryouga looked over at the bar. "I wonder
if they actually serve food here. It looks like everyone else is just
drinking."

"I think I saw some sort of menu on the wall behind the bar on the way in,
but I couldn't understand what was written on it." Ukyou replied, scanning
the wall that the bar ran along. "I think it was over there, near the
middle." 

Peering carefully where Ukyou indicated, Ryouga saw what Ukyou was talking
about. Unfortunately, it was just a drink list, and Ryouga was about to
tell Ukyou this when something else, seen fleetingly out of the corner of
her eye, caught her attention. *Wait, off near the end of the bar, close
to the door...there!* The back of a bandanna- clad head bobbed up again
from a bar. Ryouga couldn't see the face, as the other patrons at the bar
were packed so closely together, but the bandanna was right, as were the
broad shoulders and hefty build that was attached to it.

Then the man leaned back and shouted down the bar for the bartender, and
the Ryouga caught a glimpse of the unmistakable profile of Saotome Genma,
father to her arch nemesis, Saotome Ranma. *No way... there's no way I can
be that lucky.* But Ryouga couldn't deny what she had seen. At long last,
by some fluke of incredible chance, she had finally caught up with them. 
"Heh...ahahah. Gotcha! Thought you could get away from me, did you? We'll
see about that Saotome..."

"Huh, Ryouga? What are you talking abo- wait a minute! What did you just
say?!" Ukyou grabbed Ryouga roughly by the shoulders and turned the
distracted lost girl to face her. "Did you just say 'Saotome?!' How do you
know that name?!!"

Startled by Ukyou's intensity, Ryouga nodded over towards the bar. 
"Saotome Genma is sitting over there."

A glance over her shoulder confirmed Ryouga's words, and Ukyou's heart
nearly burst in exultation as she realized that at last, the hour of her
vengeance was at hand. But quickly she reined herself in, one or two small
things nagging at her mind. The first, and more pressing of the two was
that Ranma was nowhere to be seen. Thus, she had time to deal with the
second. "What is the name Saotome to you?"

Ryouga cracked her knuckles in response, and grinned in grim
determination. "I have some... unfinished business with Saotome-san and
his son. What about you?"

"It's _them_..." Ukyou replied, her curt reply somehow containing more
venom than the fanged girl had previously thought possible. Ukyou didn't
elaborate further, but it didn't appear that she needed to, as a look of
shock and realization suddenly spread across Ryouga's face. 

"_Them_? You mean-" Blinking in confusion Ryouga gestured over at Genma's
back. "Them- the Saotomes are the ones that, that-..."

Ukyou just nodded in response, cracking her knuckles as Ryouga had,
moments earlier. 

Turning back to stare at Saotome Genma, Ryouga stood stock- still, frozen
in place. * I can't believe it. All this time, and we were chasing after
the same people; I should've known! But how could I have known Ranma was
like that even back then?!* Unnoticed, Ryouga's hands clenched into tight
fists. *How could they have been so cruel?! Leaving a young girl behind
after stealing her dowry! That's even lower that stealing bread from a
starving man! Lower than running off to China to escape a duel!* An angry
growl began to rumble up from the lost girl's throat as she glared at the
back of Saotome Genma, her already grim countenance becoming mottled with
rage. *They led us both here; led us to China, led us to Jusenkyou! It's
_their_ fault that I'm a _Girl_! It's _their_ fault that Ukyou has to be a
_Boy_! It's ALL THEIR FAULT!!*

Ukyou was snapped out of a rather gristly fantasy about the painful
revenge that she was about to inflict upon the authors of her eternal
misery when she felt a peculiar charge suddenly fill the air around her. 
Looking left and right, she noticed that several of the bar's patrons were
backing away from her, the terrified expressions on their faces
highlighted by a strange green glow. 

Confused, Ukyou faced forward again, and was greeted with the sight of a
_very_ pissed looking Hibiki Ryouga. A livid emerald aura seemed to course
across the entirety of the lost girl's body, ruffling her hair into a
wild, living mane as she glared balefully at Saotome Genma, her eyes pair
of smoldering green pits of hatred. As the people around her scrambled
away, Ryouga's entire body began to tense, as if preparing to strike. Her
lips curled into a feral snarl, her fangs, which Ukyou normally considered
cute, now seeming anything but. 

"Eep!" Unconsciously, Ukyou recoiled slightly from her traveling
companion, remembering those first few, tense moments when they had first
met; when Ukyou had thought that Ryouga just might hurt her if she had
said or done the wrong thing. But, after having trekked for roughly a
month with the girl, Ukyou had learned that, at the very least, Ryouga
wouldn't become violent without some sort of reason, thought she _did_
tend to over-react to just about every little thing that upset her. Coming
back to herself quickly, Ukyou began to assess her situation.

While Ryouga certainly appeared to be incredibly angry, it didn't appear
that she lacked a focus for her aggression; on the contrary, the lost girl
seemed to be giving Saotome Genma her undivided attention. This puzzled
Ukyou somewhat, as Ryouga hadn't seemed _that_ angry when she had first
noticed Saotome-san; in fact, she seemed sort of anxious.  It wasn't until
Ukyou had told her that the Saotomes were the ones that had...

*Unless... no, no way they could have done that. I can hardly believe that
anyone would be so low as to try that horrible trick once, much less
twice. But then, why would Ryouga react so strongly? She couldn't be
_that_ angry about something that happened to me, could she? There's gotta
be something else...* Ukyou's speculations were cut short when the
dangerously unstable girl in question began to stalk forward, muttering to
herself in a low, angry growl. Actually when she listened closely, Ukyou
could almost make out something resembling words among the less articulate
sounds emerging from the taller girl's throat.

"Grrrr... all your fault... always running away... all your fault..." 

The glowing girl seemed to be repeating some sort of mantra to herself as
she advanced upon the apparently unsuspecting Saotome Genma. For a moment,
Ukyou entertained the thought of trying to stop her, or at least stall her
until Ranma showed up. She discarded the idea quickly; while Ryouga
wouldn't _knowingly_ attack her without a reason, the eternally lost girl
seemed to have a definite problem with self-control, especially when she
got angry. Excessive property damage and bystander injuries weren't
uncommon when then the be-fanged girl got into one of her 'moods.' Ukyou
didn't even want to _think_ about what had happened a couple weeks ago,
when she'd had to explain to Ryouga about that 'special' time of the
month.

Instead, she resolved not to be left out of the impending carnage. With
Ryouga beating the absolute crap out of Genma, Ukyou could easily split
her attention between watching for Ranma and helping. It wouldn't be
_quite_ as satisfying as maiming him with her own bare hands, but after
seeing what the lost girl was capable of when she was upset, Ukyou was
confident that Genma would be getting what he deserved.

It was approximately at this point that Saotome Genma finally took the
opportunity to look up and see what the commotion was. What he saw wasn't
encouraging in the least, as the directionally-challenged girl had somehow
managed to make it all the way across the room without wandering off once,
and was now looming over his seated form, glaring at him. His facial
expression went quickly from surprise to false good cheer, as he held his
hands placatingly in front of the girl, trying his best to look innocent. 

"Uhh... hello there. Can I help you with something miss?"  He ventured,
favoring her with a shaky, insincere smile.

"SAOTOME!! THIS IS ALL _YOUR_ FAULT! DIEE!!" With this irate cry, the girl
proceeded to put her fist through the barstool, and the floor, where Genma
had previously been seated. Customers scrambled away frantically as the
floor began to collapse beneath their feet, while Ryouga turned around,
winding up for another punch.

Genma, who had flipped over the girl's head just in time to avoid mortal
peril, hastily backed away, dancing along the crumbling floorboards as he
searched for his pack. Suddenly, sensing danger from the rear, Genma
halted his retreat, ducking to the side to avoid the flat side of a very,
_very_ large, and sharp-looking spatula, which came crashing down beside
him. A teenaged girl with long brown hair and an evil gleam in her eye
looked up from where her strike had missed, a toothy grin splitting her
face. "Hey there, Saotome-san; long time no see..."

At that moment, Saotome Genma looked as though the bottom had just fallen
out of his stomach. "Wait! You're not-" 

The rest of his utterance was cut off as a haymaker, delivered by the
glowing girl that he had unwisely forgotten about, sent him flying through
the side wall and into the store next-door. 

This store happened to be a traditional Chinese Pharmacy.  While Ukyou and
Ryouga didn't pay this little detail much notice, other than perhaps to
smile grimly as a rack full of heavy-looking crockery collapsed on Genma's
head, this fact asserted itself quite forcefully upon the elder Saotome,
and not just because the crockery _was_ in fact rather heavy.

Rather, as the pair of irate transvestites began to advance upon his prone
form, Saotome Genma was otherwise occupied by the fact that he had been
introduced, face first, to a rack of some of the more... exotic
pharmaceuticals that the proprietor of the shop carried. 

For the cowardly martial artist, the world had suddenly become a much more
interesting place; everything was so much more vivid, more alive than it
had been just moments ago. For what seemed like an eternity, he was lost
in the incredible mystery that was the army of cracks spreading away from
the hole in the wall that he had just made. Had he made that hole? He
couldn't remember, but that was okay;  everything was fine, everything was
happy, everything was groooovy... And if he wasn't mistaken, he was
developing a rash, but that was groovy too. 

A violent change in his orientation alerted Genma to the fact that he was,
again, flying through the air. It was truly an incredible experience,
though he would have enjoyed it more of those gray splotches in front of
his eyes would go away. Oops, there goes another set of shelves; too
bad...

Roaring in exhilaration, Ukyou leapt over the pile of debris that occupied
most of the middle of the store and brought her spatula squarely down upon
Genma's head, just as the man was, miraculously, beginning to stand up
from the second blow that Ryouga had landed on him. Meanwhile, the
bandanna-clad girl was examining the solid-hardwood pharmacy counter with
a critical eye, the eerie glow surrounding her seeming to flow along the
ground in response to the shift in her attention. 

Ukyou decided to take advantage of this moment of distraction, and roughly
hoisted the dazed Genma to his feet, holding him at eye-level by the front
of his gi. "It seems you get to live a little longer, Saotome-san. You're
a lucky man." These words were delivered with a sweet, innocent smile,
even as Ukyou, with a grunt of effort, heaved the confused man straight
up, bouncing him off the ceiling before swatting him across the room with
her spatula, sending him flying back through the hole he had made earlier.

Slamming into the far wall with a meaty thud, Genma slid to the ground
behind the bar, a shelf of glasses following him down. By this point, most
of the occupants of the bar had been clustered around the hole in the
wall, watching the fight. Now, several of them lay sprawled on the floor,
while many others began to flee out into the storm. As Ukyou stomped back
into the room to survey her handiwork, Genma took the opportunity to pull
himself to his feet, using the bar for support, which caused the angry
okonomiyaki chef to frown in confusion. He was bruised, battered, and cut
in many places, but somehow Saotome Genma was still conscious. He didn't
even look concerned, as she stalked towards him with murder in her eyes; 
instead, he was trying, and failing, to snap his fingers, humming to
himself, as if he were trying to remember the words to a popular song. 

"Aha!" Startling the chef with his sudden exclamation, Genma pointed at
her, an elated smile spreading across is already badly swollen face. 
"Ukyou! You're Ukyou! I remember you!" Genma slammed his open palm down on
the counter, causing an audible snap to ring out through the room. Ukyou
just stared, but several other bystanders looked away with expressions of
discomfort as Genma's arm suddenly went limp at his side. Genma just
looked down in facination at the large split he had just made in the solid
hardwood countertop "Cool..."

Shaking off the shock, Ukyou quickly regained her bearings, favoring the
puzzled-looking man with a murderous glare. "If you remember who I am,
then I guess I don't need to tell you why I'm doing this, hmm?" She spat,
hefting her spatula once again, intent on causing the large man some
serious pain, even if it killed her.

"Actually, no," Genma replied, staring in awe at the shiny, reflective
surface of Ukyou's spatula, "I have no idea why you might want to kill me. 
Say, that's a neat spatula; did your fa-," a brief application of the
aforementioned spatula to Saotome's head prevented further comment.

"YOU LEFT ME BEHIND!" Just in case he didn't hear her scream the first
time, Ukyou jumped over the bar and repeated herself, this time
punctuating each word with an attack. "_YOU_" A punch to the gut and Genma
hunched over, gasping for air. "_LEFT_" The follow-up right cross to the
temple sent the solidly built man tumbling backwards. "_ME_" Hands snaking
out with frightening speed, Ukyou grabbed Genma by the gi before he could
fall, and promptly kneed him in the groin. "_BEHIND_!!" Hunched over
again, Genma caught the rising spatula full in the chin, and bounced off
of the ceiling once more before landing in a heap on the other side of the
bar.

Panting and flushed from exertion and rage, Ukyou turned to regard the
sprawled form of Saotome Genma. "Remember now?!" she snarled, leaning over
the bar to glare at him. 

"...oh-oooh, yeeaha..." Genma mumbled around a possibly broken jaw, as his
eyes rolled back to stare at the far wall. Then he blinked once, staring
at the green glow that was pouring through the hole in the wall. "Ugh-oh,
thissis gonna hurt..." 

Heeding the all-powerful cosmic law that governs statements like that,
Ukyou looked up from Genma's mauled form just in time to see the entire
rear half of the side wall rip free, along with much of the floor beneath
it, revealing a still glowing, and still very angry-looking Ryouga. The
lost girl was currently holding the entire pharmacist's counter above her
head, still attached to the wall and floor that it had been mounted
against, though the bits of stoneware and masonry that were raining down
around her didn't seem to concern Ryouga in the least. Then, with an
inarticulate battle cry that might just have been "DIE, SAOTOME," if
Ryouga were in a more coherent mood, the improbable chunk of millwork was
airborne, and flying straight for Ukyou and Genma.

"AAAH! RYOUGA, DON'T KILL _ME_ TOO!!" Ukyou screamed, ducking under the
bar for cover. There was a sickening crunch, and the floor underneath her
shuddered as the counter suddenly lurched towards the wall. Thankfully,
however, Ukyou was saved from being crushed by the same incredible
workmanship that had allowed Ryouga to remove the entire wall in one
piece; apparently, the same carpenter had done the bar's counter as well. 
Opening her eyes tentatively, Ukyou found herself staring up at the
ceiling of the store on the other side of the bar, though she couldn't
tell what sort of store this was, as the entire wall had moved with her.

For a several moments the only sounds to be heard were the settling of
rubble and the storm continuing, uninterrupted, outside. Then, a plaintive
voice rang out, breaking the unnatural calm. "Oh no! Ukyou! Are you okay?! 
UKYOU!"

Releasing a breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding, Ukyou
sighed, coughing a bit in the dust that floated down from the ceiling. 
"I'm fine you jackass!" She shouted. Dusting herself off, she grabbed the
edge of the bar and struggled to her feet.

Turning, Ukyou was greeted by the sight of a completely gutted building. 
twisted wreckage stood in scattered piles around the room, with a
particularly large pile resting at the foot of the counter she stood
behind. Miraculously, the facade of the building was still standing, and
the roof didn't seem to have sprung any leaks, but the entire structure
was beginning to creak ominously. And there, standing in the midst of it
all, was a rather worried- looking Ryouga.

Spinning, the lost girl turned to face in the direction of Ukyou's voice,
relief spreading over her features. "Ukyou! Thank the gods you're okay!"

"No thanks to you!" Ukyou paused in her rant to cough up some more dust. 
"If you're gonna keep trying to kill me, could you at least start giving
me a bit of advance warning, so that I can beat you severely?"

"Sorry..." Looking down at her feet, Ryouga's shoulders slumped, "I don't
mean to..."

Peering at her companion, Ukyou just shook her head, and began to climb
over the rubble. "I know you don't buddy. It's just that you get carried
away like this so often; you really need to-," As she was crossing over
the pile, Ukyou put her weight on a particularly large chunk of the
countertop, and was rewarded by a strangled cry. "Uh..."

Both of them looking down at the pile in open-eyed shock, Ukyou pressed
down on the piece of wood again, and was answered by more sounds of agony. 
"No way..." 

Mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, Ukyou stared down between her
feet, as if, by doing so, she might be able to see through the debris she
was standing on. "Th- there's no way he could have survived that..."

"I could've..." 

Glancing up, Ukyou noticed that the lost girl was looking slightly green
around the gills. Catching Ukyou's stare, she continued. "I could've
survived that, no problem; it wouldn't even leave a bruise. But... but, I
don't think Saotome-san is quite that tough... and... and..."

"What's wrong, Ryouga?" Peering speculatively at the fanged girl, Ukyou
began to prepare for the worst; Ryouga was usually got really upset when
she came to her senses after this sort of rampage. 

"Um... I think," Looking even more nauseated than before, Ryouga backed up
a bit, crossing her legs and covering her crotch with her hands. "I think
I dropped the counter on... on his... you know..."

Ryouga stopped talking, but Ukyou kept staring at her, blinking a few
times in the silence. Then, carefully backing away from the rather noisome
chunk of debris, Ukyou suddenly sprang forward again, jumping up and down
on the broken countertop with unbridled enthusiasm. The frantic cries
resumed, but only Ukyou noticed, as Ryouga had taken the opportunity to
faint dead away.

By the time Ukyou began to wind down with her... delicate ministrations,
Ryouga had started to revive. Then, after nervously managing to talk down
the over-enthusiastic okonomiyaki chef, all the while keeping her distance
and remaining white as a sheet, Ryouga had begun the laborious task of
extricating the mangled remains of Saotome Genma from beneath the rubble. 
Or, at least it would have been laborious, if Ryouga didn't subscribe to
the philosophy that "The quicker you do it, the less it hurts." So, after
rapidly hurling the larger chunks across the room with brutal efficiency,
Ryouga and Ukyou quickly arrived at the bottom of the pile, where a
bruised, broken, and rather pitiful looking Saotome Genma lay, nearly
catatonic, but still very much alive.

"Amazing..." Ukyou breathed, almost in awe, as she rolled him on his back
with her foot, trying to get Genma to uncurl from the fetal position. 
"He's like a cockroach; nothing kills him."

Still looking rather uncomfortable, Ryouga glanced between Ukyou and
Genma; Saotome had deserved it, definitely, but Ryouga couldn't repress a
shudder at the enjoyment that Ukyou seemed to derive from torturing the
man. "Uh... yeah, though it's usually a lot harder to keep him there long
enough to really let him have it." Staring down at Genma, Ryouga crossed
her arms, trying to put out of her mind the image of Ukyou gleefully
jumping up and down on... Ryouga gulped nervously, a hint of green
returning to her pale features. "If there's anything the Saotomes are good
at, it's running away..."

"Speaking of which..." Leaning down with a determined look in her eye,
Ukyou searched for a place where Genma's injuries looked particularly
painful. Deciding that he just looked to be in a lot of pain, in general,
she kicked him in the side, eliciting a particularly aggrieved sounding
groan. "Hey, Saotome, you can't die on me just yet! Tell me where Ranma
is, or you get _his_ share too!" She barked into the beaten man's face.

"R... Ranma?" The promise of renewed pain seemed to snap Genma out of his
stupor. Cringing away from his tormentor, the elder Saotome tried to crawl
away, until he noticed that he was crawling towards a less familiar, but
no less terrifying young woman. "Ah, ah... R-Ranma! That's it; it's Ranma
you want! Leave me alone!"

"What are you babbling about now, you big fake?" Ryouga growled, dropping
to one knee so that she could stare Genma in the eye. Genma didn't seem to
like what he saw there. 

"I-it was his decision! Ranma decided to leave you behind;  we were poor! 
I couldn't afford to support two children, but I gave him a choice!" 
Seeing no mercy in the fanged girl's green eyes, Genma turned his pleading
look toward Ukyou, but the chef's smoky gray gaze held only contempt.

"What do you mean it was his choice?" The words were calm, but Genma
didn't trust that at all. His eyes began to dart around the room,
searching for an avenue of escape. 

"Uh... Th-the night before we left, I asked him if he preferred you, or
okonomiyaki; he said he preferred okonomiyaki, so we took the yattai and
left you..."  Noticing that the tension in Ukyou's body seemed to increase
as he continued talking, Genma began to talk faster. "S-so you see,
really, it was _his_ decision. If he had chosen you, I would have taken
you along, honest!"

"Was it his decision to come to China as well?" 

Turning to face the other voice, Genma was momentarily torn. He couldn't
decide which teenager was scaring him more; Ukyou, with whom he was
relatively certain where he stood, or this other girl, who was currently a
complete mystery. For some reason, she looked very familiar, but he
couldn't quite put a name or an identity to her. Nevertheless, he now
remembered that she was by far the angrier of the two, earlier, and it
looked like that sentiment was beginning to return, in force.

"Well..." 

"WAS IT?!" 

"No! But-" 

"AND WHO'S DECISION WAS IT TO GO TO JUSENKYOU?!" Screaming now, Ryouga
voice was becoming hoarse with emotion. Ryouga wasn't really interested in
Genma's answers anymore; she was just now beginning to remember what had
sent her over the edge more than an hour earlier, and she was starting to
think that maybe Ukyou had been a bit too gentle in her treatment of the
pile of human refuse that lay before them.

Ukyou seemed to notice this as well, and grabbed the crown of Genma's
head, twisting him around to face her, while Ryouga continued to fume
behind his back. "Where is Ranma?" The words were uttered quietly, but the
cold anger in her voice made them ring loud and clear in the wounded
martial artist's ears.

"He's gone!" Not bothering to contain his fear any longer, Genma sobbed
openly. "He left a week ago! I don't know where he is!"

"NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" 

Wrenching himself from Ukyou's grasp, Genma spun his head to see that the
taller girl had picked up one of the larger pieces of the ruined counter,
and was holding it over her head again; he already knew what happened
next, and flinched away, trying to get his less damaged arm in front of
his face

Sadly, it seems that the gods really _do_ watch over fools and madmen, for
at that moment, the ceiling, which was now missing two rather substantial
supports, and which had been holding back a monsoon for the last hour and
a half, finally decided to give way. 

*****

Sighing regretfully to herself, Ryouga laid her red pen back down on the
desk and leaned back in her chair. "We never did get the full story out
that bastard..."

"Yeah," Nodding, Ukyou absently began to trace little designs in the
circle of water that had gathered where Ryouga's glass had been sitting. 
"Though I still wonder how he managed to escape, considering how badly
injured he was."

"Who knows?" Shrugging, Ryouga stared up at the ceiling.  "If only that
panda hadn't fallen through the roof, maybe we would've gotten some real
answers. Hell, like you said, he couldn't have gotten far."

"Hmph, well, that's really more of those stupid animal control people's
fault; like we were supposed to be able to explain how a panda had gotten
on top of the building just before it collapsed. I can't believe they made
us pay for the thing's veterinary expenses... They should really do
something about those pandas; endangered or not, they're a menace." 
Smirking, Ukyou poked Ryouga in the shoulder playfully. "At least the
police didn't believe the bartender, when he told them that you ripped the
walls out with your bare hands." 

"Of course not; he was just seeing things because of all those weird herbs
from the pharmacy next door," The lost girl replied, grinning back at her.

"Yeah, that must be it." Wiping her hands on her pants, Ukyou hopped off
of the desk. "C'mon, let's get out of here." 

"But I'm not done grading these papers yet, and besides, I can't just
leave all of Fujisawa-sensei's things here." Ryouga replied, waving at the
open briefcase that sat beside the desk.

"So don't." Leaning down, Ukyou picked up the mostly-empty briefcase and
summarily swept the entire contents of the desktop into it, minus the
empty glass of ice water, which Ryouga managed to grab at the last moment. 
Snapping the briefcase shut, she handed it to the rather bemused-looking
girl before her. "You can finish the papers back in our room, if you
really want to, or you could just leave them for Fujisawa-sensei to finish
when he gets back."

"You in a hurry to get back for some reason?" Ryouga queried, unbuttoning
her shirt and removing the two halves of the bandage that she used to bind
her breasts. Tying a small knot at the severed ends, she began to wrap it
around her chest again, this time wincing a bit, as she had to pull it a
little bit tighter.

"Nah, I just don't wanna catch Kunou on the way back, that's all." The
other transvestite replied, re-securing her own binding and straightening
out her clothes. Ryouga blushed a bit, remembering Ukyou's teasing
earlier, but she had gotten at least _somewhat_ used to seeing Ukyou
naked, over the last several months; she usually didn't pass out or get a
nosebleed anymore, at least. Unfortunately, it still didn't help her when
it came to other girls, but thankfully, they wouldn't have to worry about
_that_ little problem, here at this boys' school. 

Not that Ryouga would even have considered attending a girls' school, but
Ukyou had tried forcing her to go to public baths a few times, before she
had found out about Ryouga's curse. The results had been predictable, and
embarrassing; she'd never even made it out of the dressing room. Ukyou had
once even tricked Ryouga into going to a mixed onsen, after she found out
about the curse; the lost boy had not been amused.

"Something wrong, sugar? You look upset." 

Shaken from her thoughts, Ryouga turned to favor Ukyou with a laconic
gaze. "Oh, nothing. Just thinking about how much of a pervert you are,
flashing me like that."

"I don't know what you're talking about Ryouga." Ukyou replied tersely,
giving a dismissive shrug. "Nobody but us guys here, right? There's
nothing wrong with one guy seeing another guy's chest, right?"

Shaking her head, Ryouga couldn't help but share in her friend's easy
smile. "Riiigh. I don't know what I was thinking..."

*****

Strolling along the main campus walk, Ukyou and Ryouga were lost in their
own thoughts, as they made their way back to the dorm room that they
shared. It hadn't been easy, arranging for an upperclassman to share a
room with a first-year student, but after finding out about Ryouga's
"special needs," with regards to navigation, the principal had agreed that
it would be best if he was roomed with someone he already knew well.

Of course, the fact that Ryouga and Ukyou spent so much time together, and
had refused to room with anybody but each other, had spawned some
particularly interesting rumors about the pair. It didn't help that Kunou
also seemed to be rather fond of Ukyou, despite the kendoist's avid
pursuit of that Tendou girl over at Furinkan. But such rumors were nothing
new to Ukyou; she thought they were rather amusing, actually. Ryouga
didn't like people talking about him behind his back, but he didn't hear
about them very often, because while Ryouga could be called many
interesting things, social wasn't one of them.

Still, every little bit helped, which was why both of them walked
carefully, keeping an eye out for a certain overly amorous kendoist, who
seemed to have an uncanny ability for spotting transvestites.

"Ukyou-kun! Yuu-kun! Hold on a second!!" 

Turning, Ukyou and Ryouga caught sight of a second year student that they
both knew in passing; Masaki Tenchi, Kunou's roommate. He and Kunou shared
a room in the dorm across the way, and they had met the boy a few times,
but didn't really know him that well, as they didn't share any classes. 
About all they knew was that he seemed to have some serious girl-troubles,
but Tenchi always refused to talk about it, and Kunou professed ignorance.

At the moment, however, these were secondary concerns, as Tenchi seemed to
be rather badly beaten up. He was hobbling along, his clothes torn and
dirty, and he held half of a broken bokken in his right hand. "Thank
goodness I found you two! You've got to try and talk some sense into him!"

"What's going on Tenchi-kun? You look like you got hit by a truck." Ukyou
replied, leading the older boy over to a nearby bench. 

"Kunou's on a rampage! After coming back from Furinkan, he just snapped; 
he's chasing everybody around the halls with his sword, screaming about
somebody stealing his girl, or something." Turning a pleading look to
Ukyou, then to Ryouga, Tenchi continued. "I know it's a lot to ask, but he
likes you guys; maybe he'll listen to you." 

While it was well known that Kunou seemed to hold some sort of strange
favor for Ukyou, even despite only having met "him" a little over a month
ago, it was somewhat less well known that there was also another boy for
whom Kunou seemed to have some special affection. This young man was known
as "Hibiki Yuu," and was rumored to be Ryouga's younger brother. It was
difficult to confirm this rumor, as Yuu, despite often appearing on the
campus wearing a similar uniform, did not apparently attend school at
Kenzai Academy.

*****

"I know, we'll call you 'Yuu!'" 

"Huh?" Glancing up from her pack, Ryouga stared across their new dorm room
at Ukyou. "Why would you need to call me anything? It's not like I plan to
attend classes like this..." she replied, resuming her search for a dry
shirt. 

Raising a lecturing finger, Ukyou explained. "Yes, but you know very well
that you aren't going to be able to avoid cold water forever, so it would
be best if we had some sort of cover already prepared, so we don't have to
think of something on the fly."

"It wouldn't hold up for very long." Ryouga protested, her words muffled
as she pulled the wet shirt she was wearing over her head. "They have
uniforms here; if I show up like this, wearing a uniform, they'd assume
that I was a student here, but it wouldn't be too hard to find out that
I'm _not_ a student here, which could get me in trouble." 

"Not a problem," Smirking mischievously, Ukyou held up the blue blazer
that comprised half of her new school uniform.  "See, they aren't
monogrammed; saves some money, I guess. The only school identifier on this
uniform is your class signet pin." Picking up her own bronze tie-pin,
Ukyou tossed it in the air, catching it on the way down. "Just take it off
when you're a girl, and nobody could accuse you of trying to impersonate a
student, or whatever."

A thoughtful look crossed Ryouga's face, as she buttoned up her new
dress-shirt. "Yeah, I suppose that makes sense.  But why 'Yuu?'" 

"Well, you _do_ still change into a girl whenever we have to spend the
night in the same tent, or something, despite the fact that you know I
don't care about that..."

"Well, its the principle of the thing, y'know." Ryouga interrupted,
looking slightly embarrassed.

"Whatever," Waving to stave off any further protests, Ukyou continued. 
"Anyway, we could call you 'Yuu,' for 'Night.'" Pausing, Ukyou favored her
roommate with a rather disapproving glance. "I have to admit though, I
never thought that you'd be the type to become a 'woman of the night...'"

"Ukyou!" 

*****

As well, cornering the elder Hibiki simply resulted in further confusion,
as Ryouga apparently didn't know whether he had any siblings or not (This
was, in fact, true, which meant that Ryouga could say it with a straight
face, despite being a terrible liar.) That this "Yuu" character was
apparently a good friend of Ukyou as well prompted many to wonder how it
could be that the two of them had never met before, but given the
directional difficulties exhibited by both Ryouga and Yuu, it was perhaps
not _so_ farfetched.

But in Tenchi's mind, at least, it was quite fortunate that he had managed
to stumble upon this Hibiki, rather than the other. "Yuu" probably would
have disagreed, but didn't get the chance, as Ukyou continued speaking.

"Okay, Tenchi-kun, we'll see what we can do," the cross- dressing
okonomiyaki chef assured him, as she lowered him to the bench. "But first,
I want you to tell me exactly what happened. It's hard enough trying to
figure out what goes on in Kunou's head without having to worry about
missing details."

"Alright," Relaxing a bit, Tenchi set down the remains of his bokken. 
"About fifteen minutes ago, I was in the dorm lobby, talking on the phone,
when Kunou showed up at the door. He was looking kinda... I dunno, like he
was holding something in-"

"Constipated?" This came from "Yuu" who was leaning on the back of the
bench, watching the dorm that Tenchi had emerged from. 

Laughing, Tenchi scratched the back of his head, at the same time checking
to see if his ponytail was still there. "Yeah, something like that. 
Anyway, I ask him what's wrong, and he just explodes; he starts shouting
about how he will never permit Tendou-san to be engaged to some common
ruffian. Apparently, that girl that he's been after got hooked into an
arranged marriage."

Shaking her head, Ukyou sighed. "As far as I know, nothing good ever comes
out of those things."

Catching the edge of melancholy in Ukyou's voice, Ryouga continued to prod
Tenchi. "So, what happened after that?"

"Well, I tried to calm him down, but somebody else down there made some
sort of smart remark about Tendou-san 'finally finding a way to get rid of
him.' Kunou didn't take that too well..."

"Uh huh? And that's when he started swinging the sword around, right?" 

"Well, first he screamed at the top of his lungs about how we were all
foul betrayers, and in league with his enemies. _Then_ he started swinging
the sword around." Glancing down at his bokken, Tenchi winced. "I used to
think I was pretty good with a sword, but he cut through the frigging
telephone with a regular old piece of wood; that's just nuts! I'm just
glad I'm not in this 'Saotome's' shoes..."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"  "SAOTOME?!" 

"Huh?" 


"Teeennnchiiii...." 

"Uh-oh." Bounding to his feet, the newest prince of Jurai glanced around
fearfully, scanning the wings like a frightened animal. "Sorry folks,
gotta go!" So saying, Tenchi exited, stage left, just as a rather peculiar
shadow began to fall across the overhead stage lights. 

"How DARE you interrupt Tenchi-sama's performance?!" One of the members of
the audience cried, rising to her feet and waving a clenched fist at the
rafters.

"Aw, c'mon princess. I thought this was dinner theater, and I was just on
my way to get my dessert..." The sound of smacking lips accompanied the
slightly husky voice that drifted down from the catwalks. 

"OOooh, that's _it_!" Jumping out of her seat, the rather regally dressed
audience member dashed down the aisle and climbed onto the stage. This
action took her a few moments, as the robes she was wearing weren't
apparently designed for climbing, but she succeeded in the end, with
minimal loss of dignity.

"Come down here and take your punishment like a civilized person, you
monster woman!" 

"Make me!" 

"Um... girls?" Peeking from around the corner, Tenchi watched the
escalating conflict with a tired expression. "Huh?" Turning, Tenchi
listened for a moment to some unseen party, before nodding. "Okay."

Tenchi disappeared once more, again ducking into he wings.  A moment
later, there was a grunt of exertion from somewhere off-stage, and both
curtains fell closed on the now rather... "heated" argument, with a very
final-sounding "thud."