A fuzzy, static-filled image appeared next to Sakura, and the image slowly cleared to reveal Ranma standing in front of a scarred landscape covered in craters and smoke-filled trenches. Manning the trenches behind him, instead of actual soldiers, were animate, chibi-sized plushie versions of Space Marines and Stormtroopers firing off-screen.
Sakura grimaced. "It looks pretty bad out there, Saotome. Is there any end in sight?"
Ranma shrugged. "For all I can tell, both sides still command endless waves of reinforcements, and it doesn't look like this battle is going to end until the corpses and stuffing pile up high enough that neither side can fire at each other. But even that will be a temporary peace, I'm afraid. For both armies, there is only one acceptable outcome: a complete and crushing victory."
Ranma gestured out to the trenches. "But this is just the rear lines. At the front the fighting has reached a point of massacre as Final Fantasy Tactics units are roasted alive by the dozen from Black Dragon's special unit plushies, ranging in form from Lina Inverse to Iori Yagami, to a dozen different magic-wielding versions of me from a variety of dead fanfics."
Sakura was about to ask another question, when Ataru suddenly leaned over toward the picture.
"Whoa, wait! Aren't the FFT units part of Stratagemini's army? One of the Spammaster Generals of the Brotherhood? That's on the same side as the plushie army of the Lord of Chaos?" Ataru asked, causing Sakura to look thoughtful.
"Well... yeah." Ranma admitted. "Funny story, actually. You see, everybody on Josh's side is either already dead, refuses to fight, or are such dirty God-moders that they're no fun to battle with. The actual war lasted about six minutes, including coffee breaks." Ranma scratched the back of his head. "And, well, the armies didn't want their budget to get cut next year, so they've started killing each other now."
Sakura sweatdropped. "I see. Thank you, Ranma. Stay safe out there."

The box disappeared, and a smaller one appeared in its place, portraying a small tropical island with a volcano in the middle. Sakura cleared her throat.
"Overlord and Brotherhood General Black Dragon, Lord of Chaos continues to reside in his deserted island laboratory fortress, occasionally overseeing the war, but mostly playing Phantom Brave and drinking soda pop. To aid him in his quest for cyberspacial domination he has trained the island's indigenous giant sand crabs to heed his commands as his loyal slaves. Also in preparation of the war, Black Dragon is said to have constructed a complex network of orbital ion cannon satellites, which has been summarily rendered useless by the unforeseen complications of getting giant crabs to effectively use complicated electronics for aiming such weapons."
There was a slight rumbling sound in the background, and Ataru and Sakura blinked as everything shook slightly.
Ataru suddenly pressed a hand to his ear and concentrated. "I have just been informed that Wyoming has been completely destroyed by a series of devastating energy beams from space!"
Ataru once again stopped, his hand still pressed against his ear. "This just in! The Bush Administration has organized for a public poll to determine whether the President should take credit for the orbital assault or blame it on Bill Clinton!"
Once again, Ataru stopped and concentrated, his hand not having moved. "Breaking news! I have just been informed that there is no transmitter in my ear!"
"MOVING ON," Sakura said firmly, "we've managed to send our own reporter, Lum, to interview one of the Brotherhood generals behind this pointless slaughter that they have initiated. She's managed to get this exclusive interview with Jester "Himitsu" Xellos, which we're now broadcasting live."

Yet another box opened up on the screen, showing Lum with her back to the camera, wearing a tiger-striped business suit. Sitting across from her was a Xellos avatar with the standard costume fare, plus a large sword at his hip. He was also eating a soft-serve ice cream cone, which looked horribly out of place among the piles of sand, dark machinery, and the occasional giant crustacean guard.
"So what are you doing to bring a swift end to the war, Mr. Himitsu? Surely as one of the senior Brotherhood commanders you must have a plan."
The mazoku looked at Lum as if she was crazy.
"Why would I want to bring an end to the war? It's just getting interesting!"
Lum frowned. "Aren't you concerned about mounting Brotherhood casualties in the face of little to no tangible gain?"
"Nah."
Lum sweatdropped.
Himitsu rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Half the army is composed of dolls. What do we care if they're torn apart by the hundreds?"
"What about the other half?" Lum asked.
"Those guys demand wages. We WANT them dead."
Lum sighed. "At least tell me you have a plan for winning the war eventually."
"Of course I have a plan," Himitsu said condescendingly, before going back to eating his ice cream.
".................. Well?!" Lum finally shouted impatiently, not getting any answer from the mysterious priest.
"Well what?" Himitsu said in confusion.
"What's your plan?!" She said through clenched teeth.
"You want to know the details of my plan?"
"YES, PLEASE," Lum said, only slightly calmer than she was a moment ago.
Himitsu leaned forward closer to the Oni reporter. "My plan is..."
Lum leaned forward as well.
"A secret!" Himitsu said as he grinned, surprising absolutely no one.
Lum sweatdropped. "How can you run a war when you won't tell anyone your plans?"
"Practice!" The annoying mazoku said, wagging his finger at her as he finished off his ice scream. Then he stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to cut this short. It's my turn to stop Stratagemini from casting Ice 9 and freezing the entire universe."

Ataru turned away from the display as it disappeared. "And there you have it! Next up: President Bush claims to have destroyed Wyoming for the good of the nation; approval rating nearing 100%! We'll be right back after a few words from our sponsor!"

Takahashi Soup
by Black Dragon

Holy legal ramifications, Batman! Ranma 1/2 AND Urusei Yatsura are both owned by Rumiko Takahashi!

Chapter 6
Smoke and Mirrors
**********************************************************************************

Kurama grumbled irritably as she alighted on the roof of the Tendo Dojo, her body poorly protected from the night chill by a long, dark purple terry cloth bathrobe.
While she despised her current situation, she held her peace with the crow men around her; her servants that were assisting her with this mission. However uncomfortable and demeaning her current situation was, she wasn't so lost in her pride that she missed the desperation of her scenario.
'But still! The thought of ME, Princess Kurama, sneaking into a man's room at night to seduce him! I would have struck any who might have suggested such a thing to me before!'
Kurama reigned in her anger. This was for a greater purpose. A matter of supreme importance, upon which the future of her race rested.
She had to get Ranma Saotome to knock her up, before she got desperate enough to go to his vile slimeball of a brother.
It had taken some time for research, but she had learned that the people of Earth treated reproductive acts very differently than her own people, which had gone a long way toward explaining her current difficulties.
It still confused her, of course. Some people insisted that copulation was an act of intimate bonding between two individuals who wished to spend a lifetime together. Others viewed it as a recreational activity, with successful reproduction being treated as an unfortunate consequence. And a relatively small portion preferred mates of the same sex, despite the obvious limitations in producing offspring.
She knew where Ataru fit on that scale, but her target, his rather disgruntled fraternal twin, was more of a mystery in this area. Did he believe he had to marry her in order to share her bed? Or did he fear that she would get pregnant, just as she was trying to do? Or did he prefer an entirely different kind of mate?
She pushed such thoughts to the back of her mind as her minions returned. 'His preferences are irrelevant! He can't resist me for long! Men are men, after all, no matter what the exact species.'
"That's his room, all right," the first alien said as he wiped some sweat off of his brow.
"We got the window open for you. Do you need anything else? You know, rope, toys, magazines, 'instructional' videos-"
"I will be needing nothing of the sort," Kurama said sharply. "You two remain out here and keep watch for intruders until I return! Under no circumstances are you to enter the window, or allow anyone else to!"
The two crow men saluted to their princess and turned around to begin patrolling the roof...
*Thonk!*
And immediately ran into each other. Each one fell back onto his rear, stunned.
"Hopefully, any intruders will have the courtesy to knock first," Kurama muttered, sweatdropping.

Without wasting further time on her incompetent escorts, Kurama grabbed the edge of the roof and swung herself down onto the windowsill, alighting upon the narrow perch with the grace and agility of one who shared an avian lineage.
She peered into the room as she quietly entered, her keen vision still sharply limited in the pitch black of night. The first thing she noticed was that there was some manner of large, furry beast sleeping near the window. She could make out patches of white fur in the darkness, but overall couldn't imagine what kind of animal of that size a human household would keep as a pet. She also wondered why they let such a rotund, hefty beast sleep indoors, and even use a futon and blanket.
Kurama quickly discarded her questions; some pet sleeping nearby was of no concern to her, ultimately, and she had no time for idle curiosities in such a serious and delicate situation. She resumed scanning the room for her destined lover.
The second thing she noticed was that there was a humanoid shape already poised above the only other futon in the room. A shape she recognized. Kurama grit her teeth.
"You!" She hissed, "Get away from him, you barbarian!"
Shampoo immediately darted backward away from her prey, her heart leaping up into her throat. She was quite unused to being taken by surprise, and the only reason she had missed the crow princess's entrance was because she had been nervously concentrating on her current mission.
Kurama could guess easily enough what the Amazon's mission was, as the girl was unarmed and in fact completely naked, her purple floral-pattern Chinese dress laying on the floor near the window.
"You crow woman from before! What you want?" Shampoo said quietly, her eyes narrowing. It was extremely unfortunate for the woman to show up now, when she had just pushed herself to go through with her plan. Not that Shampoo was unfamiliar or uncomfortable with showing physical affection, but by her tribe's laws, she was a married woman, and seducing another man was strictly forbidden for one already under the oath of the Kiss of Marriage (even if it hadn't technically been given yet).
"Nevermind me! What do you think you're doing? Begone, you tramp! Away!"
The Amazon's eyes narrowed. Kurama was wearing what looked like a bath robe on the outside, but at some point during the alien's entry the belt had come undone, revealing an erotic set of black, lacy lingerie that barely managed to look any more indecent than her normal skimpy attire.
"What you talking? You here take Ranma for self, same as Shampoo!"
"I am here to secure the future of my race, not indulge in petty lust!" Kurama said haughtily. "Now I will demand that you remove yourself and leave once more before I punish your insolence!"
Shampoo glared at the alien princess, and stood up before falling back into a fighting stance, her breasts bouncing freely with the sharp movements. "You want fight? You regret challenge Amazon warrior!"
"I'll beat you so senseless you won't retain the clarity of mind to have regrets!" Kurama growled, somehow producing her giant leaf weapon from behind her back.
*Groan*
Both women stopped and blinked as the figure in the futon they had been fighting over began to move, and they sweatdropped as a the figure's head slowly rose from underneath the blanket.
"Wha's all da noise 'bout?" Ataru mumbled, not used to waking up to such minor disturbances as people talking too loudly (usually he was forced awake by an attack upon his person, or a fight happening over him, or a bomb going off nearby, or a fire, etc.).
His eyes immediately snapped open and his mind snapped to attention as he took in the sight of one shapely naked girl squaring off against an exotic scantily-clad girl. "Whoa. This is WAY better than the last dream."
Shampoo and Kurama twitched, and small beads of sweat began to collect on their foreheads.
On a whim, Ataru sat up and pinched himself on the arm.
"Ow! That hurt!" Clutching his arm, the lecher took a moment to organize his thoughts.
'Gorgeous women in bedroom + pain = dream come true, not dream.'
Both Shampoo and Kurama felt chills run down their spines as Ataru spontaneously clapped his hands together and looked up reverently toward the ceiling. "Thank you, God!"
Without further ceremony, Ataru lunged.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Kasumi hummed to herself as she labored over breakfast, occasionally letting loose a light, feminine yawn that told of her lack of sleep the previous night. Not that it had affected her that much, as the chaos had been very brief, and Kasumi was getting used to loud, violent disturbances in the dead of night. Besides that, she didn't have many things to do today, and could easily find time to take a nap.
Nabiki was not so blessed, nor was she so tolerant to disruptions in the middle of the night. She sat down at the dining room table a bitter and largely disheveled mess, with her hair sloppily combed and her eyelids drooping.
Genma and Soun, predictably, were fine. Not because they were more collected or hardier than everyone else, of course, but because their difficult wilderness training had enabled them to sleep through ANYTHING that wasn't a direct threat to their lives.
Akane was angry, as usual.
Lum was present, but as she had spent the night in her flying saucer as usual, didn't know why Nabiki was so out of sorts (she didn't really bother trying to figure out why Akane was upset).
Ranma was nowhere to be found, a fact idly noted by Ataru as he skipped happily down the stairs toward breakfast.
"Morning!" He said cheerfully, dropping down in-between his alien fiancee and his irritated human fiancee.
Everyone stared. Ataru looked like he was at his most cheerful, but he had multiple red handprints on his face, a black eye, and tissue crammed in his nose that was halfway red with absorbed blood.
Before anybody could ask any questions, two more guests came downstairs. Shampoo, looking ashamed and downtrodden in a rumpled, tight-fitting Chinese dress, and Kurama, looking furious and bitter, wearing a bathrobe that had been tied closed VERY tightly.
"Good morning! I didn't realize we had guests!" Kasumi said brightly, setting out the first serving plate and the tea. She was almost bowled over as Genma, who was still in panda form, suddenly leapt through the doorway and made a mad sprint for the front door, leaving behind a very confused Soun and Nabiki.
Lum twitched as she recognized the two newcomers. "What are you doing here?!" She growled, flexing her fingers sharply as she prepared to let loose lightning. If past circumstances were any indication, those two had beaten her beloved, and even if he probably deserved it, she wasn't one to start off her day tolerant and merciful.
Shampoo snorted and looked away, though the way her eyes moved and lingered on certain spots would have told a careful observer that she was looking for something, rather than just avoiding eye contact with the space demon.
No one needed to be a careful observer to figure out Kurama's intentions. "Where is he? Where is Ranma?" The crow princess demanded, crossing her arms under her breasts.
"How about telling us who you are before asking questions?" Nabiki said sourly. She didn't recognize either of these women, and she hated being out of the loop as much as she hated being startled awake at three o'clock in the morning.
"The purple-haired girl is Shampoo, some Amazon floozy from China. She's supposed to marry Ataru and wants Ranma to help her get out of it," Akane said off-handedly, pausing to take a bite of her eggs. "The girl with the wings on her head is Kurama, some alien princess who's supposed to sleep with Ataru, but wants Ranma instead."
Akane lowered her chopsticks again to take another bite of her omelete, then frowned as she realized that it had disappeared. 'Huh? I know I didn't eat the whole thing...'
"ATARU!!" Sound suddenly roared, slamming his hands down onto the table. "So now you show your true colors! Cavorting around with other women when you have obligations here!"
Everyone else at the table sweatdropped, including Ataru himself.
"'Now' he shows his true colors?" Nabiki said dryly. "Daddy, you're crossing the finish line after the race is long over."
"I care not of the affairs of this one," Kurama spat, gesturing dismissively toward Ataru.
"That's not what you said laaaaaast niiiiiiight!" Ataru sang brightly.
"Yes. It was more to the effect of 'Get your hands off me' and 'I'll kill you'." Nabiki muttered. Then she frowned as she realized her miso soup was missing.
"Tell me where Ranma is!" Kurama demanded again.
Ataru shrugged. "Who knows? When he doesn't wanna be found, you don't find him."
"Why he not in room?" Shampoo asked, looking at the lecher suspiciously. "That where Ranma sleep most time, yes?"
Ataru just grinned. "C'mon Sham-chan! Forget about him! Can't you tell he's just not interested?"
"Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black," Lum said bitterly, reaching for her tea... only to find that it wasn't where she left it.
"This isn't over!" Kurama swore, "I won't give up so easily!" She turned and stalked toward the door in a huff.
"Hmph. Shampoo die before give self to Ataru! Shampoo be back!" Ignoring a blown kiss from Ataru, she turned and stalked out behind Kurama.

"Well, than why don't you do us all a favor and do just that?" Lum said after Shampoo was out of earshot, sticking her tongue out toward the door where her sort-of rivals had left.
"Showing some restraint are we, waiting until they'd already left?" Nabiki asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lum frowned. "As long as they're not trying to steal darling from me, I don't have to fight them. Not that they really deserve to get off easy, since they were stupid enough to get engaged to him." She wasn't about to admit to anyone that she wasn't completely confident in her ability to beat the young Amazon.
"What was the term you used?" Ataru said conversationally, unable to resist the opportunity, "'Pot to kettle', or something like that?"
*Zak!* *Zak!* *Zak!*

Kasumi entered a moment later, carrying more plates of food. "Oh, they've left already? I'd just made some extra helpings!"
"It's all right, Kasumi," Soun said distractedly, scratching his head as he looked around the table. "I'll have it. I seem to have misplaced my own food, somehow."
"Me-Ooh!-too!" Ataru said weakly, raising a charred hand from where he was laying face-down on the table.
Unnoticed by everyone else, Genma poked his furry head back into the room, took some time to look about, and then slowly crept back to his now-empty breakfast plate at the table.
"We don't have time for more food," Akane said regretfully, brushing herself off as she stood up, "we have to go or we'll be late for school."
"Another meal lost to the cruel institution of learning," Ataru said, sighing dramatically as he stood up to follow Akane out the door.
"Wait darling! Let me come with you!" Ataru stopped and shuddered as a chill ran through his body.
"Not a chance!" The lecher shouted.

Behind the group of teenagers preparing to leave, Genma and Soun blinked as Ranma suddenly rolled out from under the dining room table, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"But you spend all your time there, and I'm always bored when you're not around!" Lum complained, earning sympathy from absolutely nobody.

Ranma stood up and stretched, wincing slightly at the popping of joints. Then he calmly walked up behind Lum.

"I don't care if you're bored!" Ataru said irritably. "Even if we WERE married, it wouldn't mean that I have to spend every waking - oh, hi Ranma."
*Whp-whp-whp!* *Knch* Lum blinked in surprise as she suddenly felt lengths of rope tighten around her, and shouted as she tried to jump away, only to trip and fall over her bound legs.
"HEY!! STOP DOING THAT!!" The demon princess demanded, falling flat on her face.
Ranma yawned and picked up his backpack from the corner of the room. "I'll stop tying you up when you stop being such a nuisance," he mumbled, stepping out the door with Ataru in tow.
"Bye Pop! Bye Lum! See ya later!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ataru sat on his desk as he scarfed down his lunch, facing his brother, who was laying back with his legs resting over the top of his own desk.
"So it's not that I'm *Chomp!* ungrateful, 'cause I do *Gulp!* appreciate it, but why ARE you passing up Sham-chan and Kura-chan, anyway? *Chomp!* I mean, *Crunch!* hell, Kura aint even asking you to marry her, *Gulp!* you just have to spend one night with her, and never see 'er again!"
Several girls who had nothing better to do than listen in on conversations that didn't concern them stopped paying attention in order to quickly agree on how disgusting a person Ataru was.
Ranma just rolled his eyes, mildly irritated that Ataru was bugging him when he was trying to sleep. "I don't expect YOU to understand, but those of us who don't always think with what's between our legs aren't looking for an easy girl with a great body for a girlfriend."
Staunch mutterings of approval and praise came from the peanut gallery behind the two brothers.
"Besides, if you can manage to look PAST their breasts, you might notice that the two of them are pure trouble," Ranma continued condescendingly, "a guy like me wouldn't have anything to do with the weirdos you're always attracting."

"Yahoo!" "What a body!" "Sa-weet-oh!" The chorus of cheers and wolf whistles came from the corner of the classroom, where one teenage boy with glasses was showing off a large binder full of pictures. Ranma could just make out Lum's image on the picture he could glance.
"Oh, Lum! You're a goddess! A GODDESS!!"
"I pledge my everlasting love to you!"
"We love you, Lum!"

Ranma's left eyebrow twitched. "We're an increasingly rare breed," he mumbled as an afterthought.
"Another fine specimen lost in the undercurrents of civilization," Ataru said dramatically, wiping a fake tear from his eye. Then he brightened. "Hey, do you ever wonder how come we're so different when we're brothers?"
Ranma twitched again. "Every. Freaking. Day."
"All right class, take your seats please," the old, withered woman who taught their history class mumbled as she shambled behind the main desk in front.
Ataru slid back into his seat and took out his notebook, eager to begin the task of pretending to take notes while writing a letter to Shinobu asking for a date that evening. A priority, he reminded himself, which may have to be set back if he ran into Shampoo or Kurama (dating priority was directly determined by cup size, in descending order of course).
"Oh, I almost forgot," the history teacher said, pushing her glasses up higher on her nose. "Mr. Ataru Saotome, you're to head to the nurse's office immediately."
Ataru blinked as he was suddenly subjected to several questioning gazes. "Huh? Me? But I'm fine! Why do they want to see me?"
The history teacher shrugged. "They didn't say, but they did mention it was urgent. Please hurry."
Still confused, but not one to refuse an opportunity to get out of class early, Ataru scooted out of his seat and left the classroom.
Ranma frowned as he tapped his pen on the edge of his desk. Why had Ataru been called into the nurse's office when there was nothing apparently wrong with him? Heck, by the time he had gotten to school the burns Lum had caused had healed to nothing, and Ataru had managed to stay quiet enough that he hadn't incurred any additional beatings before class started.
'Could it be a family problem?' Ranma thought worriedly, scratching his cheek. 'But if it was, why was Ataru called and not me?' Besides the fact that Ranma had just as much right to know such things as his brother, he was also the more likely to actually care.
Really, the most likely scenario seemed to be that Ataru had managed to get himself into the latest of the long series of huge messes that made up his life.
'In which case I should still be there to cover his lazy butt,' Ranma thought, sighing. 'I hate my life.'
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ataru hummed to himself as he strolled through the hall, noting that it was empty of the usual loiterers and deadbeats that made up a significant part of Furinkan's student body. Usually there were small crowds of boys in sports gear dragging their battered bodies to the office, or smaller groups of boys and girls who were ditching class and discussing what they should do with their free time.
Were he more observant or sensitive to danger, the difference would have set him on edge. Despite having roughly 30% of the entire nation's martial artist population, Nerima wasn't a place well-known for discipline, and among the ramshackle neighborhoods rife with disorder and fighting, Furinkan was still one of the worst schools in terms of disorder and fighting. This was evident by the fact that several of the students got away with not wearing the school uniform, cutting classes for duels, constant violent disruptions, the destruction of school property through the use of other people's heads, and the occasional demolition of every single building on the campus. Even the vice principle, before he had resigned, only took any kind of action when the student's misbehavior affected him directly, as he had deemed the school reputation a lost cause long ago.
That being said, whatever had scared off the numerous delinquents had to be a frightful, terrible thing indeed. Not that Ataru cared, or thought to care, at least.

Opening the door to the nurse's office, Ataru was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful woman in a white mini-skirt sitting in a chair at the opposite end of the room. She had a curvy, well-endowed figure, and long, raven-black hair that flowed down behind her shoulders wildly, as if unwilling to be tamed by comb or brush.
The young lecher was already salivating as he stood at attention and gave the woman a mock salute. "Ataru Moroboshi reporting, Ma'am!" 'Oh God, I hope she wants to do a complete physical...' Erotic ideas about various 'examinations' she could do danced through his head.
Sakura looked at the grinning teenager distastefully, but straightened and stood up, which she noticed elicited an even more obvious reaction as her breasts jumped slightly from the movement.
She often wondered what had possessed her to take a job treating adolescent boys when she generated such difficulties with teenage hormones, and didn't have the patience to tolerate it. Perhaps some subconscious desire to see the younger generations through to their graduation, strong and healthy?
Sakura snorted, which at least managed to bring Ataru's attention back to her face. More likely she was being punished for offenses in a past life.
"I take it you don't know why you're here?" The nurse asked, pacing back and forth in front of him across the width of the office.
"Not really, but I can guess!" Ataru said, leering at her.
"You're here to be exorcised!" Sakura announced, stopping in the middle of the room and stamping her foot down.
"I guessed wrong," the lecher murmured. "Wait... exorcised? Of what?"
"Of the dark spirit that tortures you, boy!" A grating old voice said, causing Ataru to jump over seven feet across the room and wrap himself bodily around Sakura.
"GWAAAH!! CHERRY?!" Ataru shouted, ignoring Sakura as she shouted and tried to pry him off.
The diminutive monk nodded from where he was sitting cross-legged on the supply cabinet. "Every action influenced by the dark rage of lust inside this one. Most unfortunate. Maybe two ceremonies are warranted."
"I'm afraid we have to charge for a second exorcism," a third voice said, walking through one of the curtains cordoning off a small bed. "Only the first one is free."
Ataru's eyes bugged out. Standing below Cherry was a person, probably a woman from the sound of her voice, who looked exactly like Cherry in every way, save that she had a mass of curly black hair atop her head.
"Surely you can do such a wretched soul a favor?" Cherry asked the old woman. "The boy obviously doesn't have Yen to spare on decent clothes, never mind your exorbitant rates."
The old woman clicked her tongue. "I don't think so! We're not a charity, you know!"
Cherry sweatdropped. "But... you run a Shinto temple..."
"Wh-Wh-What is all this?!" Ataru shouted, still clinging to Sakura, who had started simply bashing him again and again on the head to try and get him off.
"Oof! Would. You. Get. OFF ME?!" Sakura shouted through clenched teeth.
"Who the hell is she?!" Ataru shouted, pointing a shaking finger at the Cherry clone.
"That's my - urgh! - mother! And the ugly old man is my uncle!" Sakura growled, trying to wedge her elbow in-between Ataru's head and her chest.
Cherry look reasonably miffed at the casual insult, but didn't get a chance to express his displeasure before Ataru shouted "WHAT?! You're related to that senile old pest?! Get away from me!"
Sakura sweatdropped and glared at the boy. "I've been TRYING to do just that, idiot!"
"Hmmm... point taken," Ataru muttered, still clinging to her body. On the one hand, he was scared spitless about the possibility of Cherry taking an active role in trying to help him; no doubt the irritating old freak and his sister were what had scared away the regular slackers that hung around the nurse's office. On the other hand, he had already managed a barnacle-like grip on a hot babe's torso. That wasn't the kind of thing he gave up easily.
"Anyway," Cherry began, hopping down from the cabinet, "we should leave immediately for the temple. The sooner we finish this, the sooner I can take a lunch break."
"NO!!" Ataru shouted, surprising everyone else in the room. "Forget it! I'm not going with you so you can screw with my soul with your crazy rituals! Count me out!"
"You're delirious!" Cherry said sadly, shaking his head. "The evil spirit within you cries out for survival! How can you not want to be rid of it?"
"I've never seen you do ANYTHING that hasn't made things worse!" Ataru shouted angrily. "Whatever it is you wanna exorcise, I'll gladly live with it rather than go with you!"
"Hmph! A stubborn one, eh?" The strange little Cherry-like person stalked forward, her arms crossed over her chest. "With those features, I doubt you'll survive long otherwise! No, it's an exorcism for you, young man! This is for your own good!"
"NO!! NEVER!!" Ataru shouted defiantly. "You'll never take me alive!"
Sakura twitched. "We will if you don't let go of me."
Ataru frowned as Cherry and the Cherry look-alike advanced. "Another good point... HELP!! HELP ME!! SOMEBO-OW!! Ah! Argh! Stop! Ouch! Not in the face! Not in the face!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"I just think you're overreacting a little bit, Ranma," Shinobu said gently, trying to reassure the obviously agitated young man. "Ataru can last an hour on his own without needing to be rescued or anything. It's at two hours that we should start to worry."
Ranma nodded reluctantly as Shinobu followed him through the halls. "You're right, but... I just can't help feeling that there's something wrong. And I'm pretty good with my instincts."
"When it comes to finding food," Akane said snidely, following Shinobu. "Shinobu's right. And even if she's not, who cares?"
Ranma and Shinobu glared at her momentarily.
"Why do you always have to pick on him?" Shinobu said sternly. "Ataru may be a pervert, but he's a guy! They're all a little perverted!" She stopped momentarily to turn her head toward Ranma. "Present company excluded, of course."
"Of course," the pigtailed boy mumbled, rolling his eyes.
"Anyway, you can't condemn everyone for not being perfect! It's not fair!" Shinobu finished hotly, her arms crossed over her chest.
Neither Ranma nor Akane decided to point out the various flaws and failings that made Ataru a significantly worse person, and indeed, human being in general, than the average lecherous teenage boy. Ranma, because he was on Shinobu's side and didn't want to undermine her point, and Akane, because her study period only lasted an hour and a half.
"Whatever. I have more important things to do than worry about that idiot. Later," Akane turned around and left her classmates in the hall, ignorant or unmindful of the glares that were attempting to burn holes into her back.

Shinobu decided to forget about Akane for now. "Come on, Ranma, let's just go to math class. Ataru will be fine."
Ranma shook his head again, causing his companion to sigh in exasperation. "No. There's something wrong. I just... I just have... this FEELING."
Shinobu frowned. "Not this again... Ranma, we can't be late for class AGAIN because you have 'this feeling'."
"Waugh!" As soon as Shinobu had finished the sentence, a classmate tripped while walking past Ranma, almost falling flat on his face.
So sudden and surprising was the young man's tumble, that he didn't notice that a fifty-yen coin had dropped out of his pocket at Ranma's feet before he picked himself and quickly moved along to try and preserve his dignity.
Ranma looked down at the coin, picked it up, and put it in his own pocket. "Good enough?"
Shinobu looked tense as she weighed her options. She really didn't want to be late for her math class again, as it was already her worst subject, but she couldn't stand by and do nothing when all signs pointed toward Ataru being in danger AGAIN. If only there was some way to be sure he was in trouble...
Ranma coughed into his fist to get her attention. "He was sent to the nurse's office, you know. Personally, I've never been there, but I hear the nurse is a real babe. So much that a lot of the guys injure themselves intentionally to get to see her."
"Let's go," the schoolgirl said dangerously, an aura already burning around her.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"You know, I really would like to know what it's like to go a full week without being subjected to some kind of stupid magic," Ataru complained, sitting in the middle of the shrine room while tied up in special rope with wards hanging off of it.
"I doubt you'd know what to do with the free time," Cherry commented, sitting off to the side.
Ataru glared at the ugly old man. "Why can't you just leave me alone?! Can't you see you're just making things worse?!"
"Nonsense," Cherry said, putting his hands together and bowing before the large Buddha statue off to the side, "While my assistance hasn't been unable to completely stave off the disaster you are fated to bear-"
"'Completely'? Feh."
Cherry ignored the jibe. "-My faith demands that I continue to lend you my aid in whatever way that I might be able to help."
"Well, you could start by UNTYING THESE ROPES AND LETTING ME OUT OF HERE!!" Ataru screamed, not even making the old monk flinch.
"You'll thank us when it's all over," Cherry said confidently, his head still bowed in prayer.

*Shoop*
Ataru's head jerked around as Sakura entered the room, clad in ceremonial robes typical of a shrine priestess.
"Ah, good. Everything is ready then?" The priestess said as she pulled back the sleeves to her robes.
Her mother grinned. "I told you those ropes would hold! But it won't be easy; that's a mighty powerful aura possessing him!"
"Would you people give it a rest?! Let me go!" Ataru shouted, to no avail.
Sakura snorted and put on a headband that had two candles on each side. Then she lit the candles. "To this day, there has never been an evil spirit that I have been unable to exorcise. This will take but a moment."
The shrine priestess picked up her Shinto wand, and then cleared her throat. Cherry and her mother immediately moved away, and squatted down on the side of the room to watch.
"Just for the record, this is not going to go well," Ataru said decisively. He was, naturally, ignored.
Clasping her hands together tightly, Sakura began to speak softly up toward the ceiling while her eyes were squeezed shut, as if beseeching some presence beyond the room.
"Great spirits, dwelling within the deepest corners of the human soul, purify! Cleanse! Purge!"
She then waved her wand about in the shape of a pentagram, ending by thrusting the wand through the middle, directly at Ataru.
There was a pregnant pause as nothing happened.
Sakura let her hand fall, then scratched her head.
Finally, she looked up and squeezed her eyes shut once again. "Please?"
*Shee-OOM!* A bright light suddenly engulfed Ataru, who swallowed nervously as tendrils of spiritual power writhed upward past his body and slowly coalesced into a coherent shape directly above his head.
"YES!! Success!" Sakura shouted, pointing her wand at the light, which slowly gathered to form a sphere, then darkened significantly as its coloring became apparent.
Sakura blinked as a shiny black bowling ball suddenly manifested in the air before her.
*Wham!!* Then she winced as the ball fell victim to the cruel whim of gravity, which brought it crashing down on Ataru's head.
"Huh." Sakura chewed on her lip as she tapped the wand idly against her side. "Odd. That's never happened before. Ataru, are you all right?"
"Skull... cracked... brains... leaking out... Michael Moore... is my friend... his movies... film masterpieces..."
Cherry clicked his tongue. "Looks like you'll still have work to do even after you exorcise him."
"Why do I have to take care of him after this?" Sakura demanded indignantly. "After all, I'm cleansing his soul for free!"
Her mother wagged a finger at her. "Now dear, you're a registered nurse. And it's a shrine priestess's duty to repair any ill effect caused by her mystical powers."
Sakura grumbled irritably, but didn't attempt to make further protest. She certainly didn't want to spend any more time in the presence of the (literally) damned pervert, but it was her responsibility. "Still, such an odd response... the evil spirit within him must be rallying its strength to resist the exorcism!"
"Then... why isn't it... attacking YOU?" Ataru said weakly, having gained back some marginal amount of sense to get his thoughts in order.
Sakura smirked. "The spirit has no power over me, and were it to emerge to defend itself, it must know it would be struck down with ease."
Cherry nodded. "Of course. So it has little recourse but to punish its host, hoping to dredge up sympathy from the exorcist, or force the host to flee in fear of further retribution."
Sakura smiled, and Ataru felt his blood run cold, which was a significant difference from his expected reaction when dealing with such beauty.
"You have nothing to worry about. We're professionals; we won't cave in so easily. You're not leaving until that evil spirit is good and gone!"
Ataru immediately felt the feeling of impending doom within him grow many times stronger. "Mommy..."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"I don't get it..." Ranma mumbled softly, attracting Shinobu's attention. "Why're the halls so empty? It's almost lunch time, and the rules have been more lax than ever since the vice principal quit. There should be lots of people out here cutting class."
Shinobu didn't quite like the way most people spoke so flippantly and casually about Furinkan's atrocious discipline and academic reputation, as she considered herself a straight student, but she had to admit that Ranma was right.
She and Ranma had just come from the nurse's office, to the find the door locked and the room abandoned (after Ranma had forcibly broken in and conducted a thorough search), and had begun to scour the halls in search of witnesses to help them find Ataru's whereabouts. The search had met with no success thus far.
"Maybe Cherry came by again. That always gets the delinquents back to class," Shinobu muttered.
Ranma jerked to a stop. "Cherry? Coming by? AGAIN?"
Shinobu nodded, coming to a stop herself. "Yes. The school nurse is Cherry's niece, so sometimes he comes by to see her during her work hours, although she's always angry about him doing so. Whenever he's here any of the students who are out in the halls gambling or eating always have to deal with him taking their food or jumping into their game. Or worse, they might get a lecture, and then Cherry might decide to follow them around all day preaching."
Ranma's left eye twitched. He had no trouble visualizing all the different ways Cherry could antagonize random people who just happened to be in the way. "Okay, so Cherry might have come by. But that doesn't really mean anything, except that he probably followed Ataru to wherever HE is."
"Alas, you seek the lecherous one?"
Ranma and Shinobu turned on their heels as Kuno approached them, his bokken resting easily on his shoulder.
"Kuno? What do you want?" Ranma said irritably. The kendoist had been more trouble than ever since the incident in which Ranma had been forced to put him down while fighting Ryoga, Shampoo, and Lum. Besides the fact that Kuno claimed he had been defeated through the cowardly expedient of dark magic, he also demanded information about Shampoo, who he had seen alongside Lum, as Nabiki didn't know anything about her (the information about Lum had already been purchased and processed, along with the appropriate posters).
"Saotome, your command of civility is as limited as ever. Were your parent Neanderthals, or simple beasts?" Kuno said arrogantly, running a hand through his hair.
Ranma cracked his knuckles, and was about to step forward when Shinobu placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Whoa! Easy, boy!" Shinobu pulled Ranma back by his shirt, ignoring the young man's indignant look about being addressed in such a way. "Kuno, do you know where Ataru is?"
"But of course," the older boy said, sighing. "When I had arrived but ten minutes ago to seek the care of the angel Sakura, for reason of correcting a wound inflicted by Miss Akane Tendo when I permissed her to date with me earlier in the morn, I saw her, her uncle, and the most unsightly female premonition I have ever beheld leaving the grounds. The lecher was with them, bound in rope, and clearly an unwilling captive."
Ranma and Shinobu blinked.
"Cherry and his niece kidnapped Ataru?" Ranma mumbled in confusion. "Why?"
"Ransom?" Shinobu ventured.
"Who'd pay for him?"
"Interrogation?" Was the schoolgirl's second guess.
"Ataru doesn't know anything. Unless they want some girl's measurements or something like that."
"Revenge?" She guessed, running out of ideas.
"It's more plausible," Ranma admitted, "but who'd go to the trouble? It's just so much easier to trap him in one place and pulverize him there."
*Ahem!* Ranma and Shinobu stopped in the middle of their hypothesizing as Kuno cleared his throat loudly.
"As it so happens, I myself inquired as to why I could not be taken into Miss Sakura's most divine care."
Shinobu blinked. "Oh! Well then, why did they take Ataru?"
Kuno shook his head. "Seeing as this information holds some value to you, I would be willing to spend my time in explanation in exchange for other information pertaining the lovely Chinese valkyrie who the other day-"
At this point in his rambling, Shinobu decided that they didn't really have the time for this, and relinquished her hold on Ranma's shirt so that he could "accelerate their progress".
*Thwack!* *Whomp!*
Kuno fell to his knees as Ranma slugged him solidly in the stomach, and then cried out in surprise as he found his weapon arm wrenched around behind him.
"You wanna make a deal, Kuno? You tell us what we want to know, and you get to keep full use of your arm. That's a fine offer if I've ever heard one."
"Gack!" Kuno grit his teeth as sweat collected on his brow. "Once again... Saotome, your imbecilic attempts... at coercion through simple brute-GWA!! YIEE!! AN EXORCISM!!"
"What was that?" Shinobu demanded, inching closer to Ranma's victim.
"An... ow! An exorcism! She claims some foul presence blights Ataru's soul, and hast gone about it's removal! Now unhand me!"
"Not just yet," Ranma said evenly. "Where would Sakura take Ataru for an exorcism?"
"She's a shrine priestess as well as a healer!" Kuno said bitterly. "No doubt she resides on the ground of a temple suitable for the purpose!"
"Give us an address, Kuno!" Shinobu demanded.
"You think I know where she lives?!" Kuno said angrily. "Do you think me some vile stalker?!"
"Hmmm... did the catapult... did the electric flagpole... did the battery acid... did the sandpaper drag..."
Both Shinobu and his victim frowned as they listened to the pigtailed boy.
"Ranma, what are you talking about?" Shinobu asked.
Ranma smirked. "I'm going through the types of torture I've already used on the Vice Principal. I like to use different methods as much as possible. Keeps my skills sharp."
"3680 Nagina Avenue!" Kuno shouted desperately. "The Oak Hill Temple! Turn left on the main intersection and it's the third building on the right! You can't miss it!"
"Just as well," Ranma mumbled to himself, "fire is more Ataru's thing anyway." He then released Kuno's arm and shoved the older boy away with his foot. "Thanks for the info, dimwit."
"HAVE AT THEE!!" The kendoist roared, turning immediately and lashing out with his wooden weapon.
*Crack!*

Ignoring Kuno's crumpled form as he fell to the floor unconscious, Shinobu scratched her chin. "Taken for an exorcism? But that isn't a bad thing, right?"
Ranma snorted as he dusted his hands off. "I've never seen Cherry do anything that wasn't a bad thing. It doesn't matter how good the twit's intentions are; if the danger was obvious enough that Ataru wasn't willing to leave with a beautiful woman, he's in trouble."
Shinobu sighed in annoyance as she followed her boyfriend's brother out the front door of the school. Whatever was going on, Ranma was dead-set against it.

Ranma went through his mental map of the greater Nerima area as he jogged through the school courtyard, Shinobu struggling to catch up.
He had just about figured his path of travel for getting to the temple, adjusting for the extra weight he'd have to deal with carrying Shinobu, when his danger sense warned him of an incoming threat.
Unfortunately, his response was dampened significantly by the high-pitched squeal of joy accompanying the "attack".
"Aiyah! Ranma! Shampoo found you!"
Thus it was, that after the barest hesitation on Ranma's part, he was subjected to a classic Amazonian flying glomp, and hit the ground hard with one-hundred and thirty pounds of cuddly, curvaceous woman attached to him.
Shinobu jumped back, startled, and then groaned as she realized what was happening.
"Ah! Shampoo finally find you, Ranma! We go on exciting date now, yes?" Shampoo capitalized on the apparent surprise of her appearance, and let her hands fall downward to grasp the more sensitive parts of Ranma's "personal" anatomy.
"GAH!! Shampoo?! What're you doing here?!" Ranma growled as he quickly pried her arms off, very nearly tossing the Amazon away with the force he used with which to free himself.
"Hey, you're that crazy girl with the sword!" Shinobu shouted, overcoming her surprise at seeing Ranma suddenly tackled and groped.
"Who you call crazy?" Shampoo said irritably, feeling rather hurt (emotionally and, to a smaller extent, physically) that Ranma had rejected her so harshly. "Shampoo here take Ranma out; show Ranma that Shampoo make too, too good wife!"
"Buzz off! I'm busy!" Ranma snapped, taking Shinobu's arm and continuing in their intended direction.
Shampoo frowned as she watched the two students exit through the main gate. "Why Ataru girlfriend hold hands with Ranma?"
Shinobu balked, and quickly snatched her arm out of Ranma's grasp. "We're not 'holding hands'! He was just pulling me along, that's all!"
The Amazon clearly wasn't buying it, and her eyes narrowed as she stalked up to Shinobu. "Shampoo wonder..."
"We don't have time for this, idiot!" Ranma shouted, suddenly picking up Shinobu entirely and holding her to be carried. "We have to go find Ataru! You can pester me later!"

Ignoring Shampoo's indignant shouting and Shinobu's brief, surprised scream, Ranma bound into the air, jumping off a nearby tree branch and landing on a building roof on the opposite side of the main street.
"R-Ranma! Stop! What are you doing?!"
"Getting us to the temple by the express route," the martial artist said calmly, heedless of his passenger's squirming. "It'll take too long going at your best running speed, and I couldn't possibly lose Shampoo that way, anyway."
Shinobu frowned, but finally managed to settle down even as she was subjected to the stomach-lurching sensation of a 60 mph dashing leap off of a McDonalds. "You could've warned me first!"
"I was gonna, but Shampoo tackled me first. Hold on."
Shinobu winced as Ranma jumped onto a metal roof, leaving a sizeable dent in the surface where he landed, and jarring her badly. Then he was off again, dashing across the rooftops.
She was momentarily distracted as she noticed a small crow hovering in the air as they sped past. Crows weren't exactly rare in this section of the country, and normally such a thing wouldn't have attracted her attention. This crow, however, was wearing clothes. Specifically, a white, neatly ironed, crow-sized approximation of the standard shrine attendant's uniform, along with a pair of raised-sole sandals. In Ranma's arms it was but a fleeting moment that she was able to get a glance at the creature, but she immediately recognized it as the strange crow aliens that had appeared during the school camping trip. And while the sight of the alien was, as mentioned, quite brief, she could have sworn that the creature was actually gesturing toward them...
*FWOOSH!* "Gwaah!" Ranma shouted in surprise as he was suddenly grasped by a fierce gust of wind, and then swallowed by a sort of focused vortex, helplessly pulled through the air by a carefully directed cyclonic tunnel.
"What's g-going on?!" Shinobu screamed, blushing as she suddenly felt Ranma's grip on her body tighten significantly.
Ranma grit his teeth and tried to get a good sense of where he was going to land; not an easy thing when he was being chaotically turned about by the seemingly random currents of the wind tunnel. "Hold on! The landing might be a little rough!"
He only managed to get a quick glance at the apparent origin of the wind tunnel, but it was a good enough look to confirm that Kurama was standing at the exit, right next to a strange-looking, full-length mirror. He had a sinking feeling that his current trajectory was going to take him right into the mirror's surface, and if his recent experience with alien technology was any indication, it wasn't going to simply shatter like a normal mirror would.
At his current speed, he could manage to deflect himself away, but with Shinobu still in his arms, the tumble he'd end up taking could seriously injure her. If he pushed her away right before he reached the mirror, then Shinobu would get off with a much lighter impact and would probably land at the base rather than getting sucked right into the surface. But the angle and timing required that he himself wouldn't be able to escape.
Ranma sighed. It wasn't really a choice at all.
"Aah!" Shinobu screamed in surprise as Ranma shoved her away at the last moment, and found herself landing roughly onto the ground at Kurama's feet, her short descent cushioned considerably as she broke through the wall of the wind tunnel.
Ranma, meanwhile, let out a final curse as he slipped straight into the surface of the mirror with no regard for spatial physics. 'I hate being right all the time...'

Shinobu coughed as she stumbled to her feet, severely disoriented by the whole ordeal and by now quite angry about being repeatedly carried, pulled, and otherwise forcibly propelled without her consent.
"Kurama! What are you DOING?!" She demanded, still trying to rid herself of the dizziness that plagued her.
The crow princess frowned. "Odd. I didn't expect you to be with him. No matter."
"NO MATTER?!" Shinobu screamed, causing Kurama and her avian wards to flinch back from her intimidating visage. "YOU ALMOST KILLED US!!"
"Hmph. I do believe Ranma is capable of surviving such a fall," Kurama reasoned, though she didn't look quite as condescending as before. "As for you, I didn't know he was carrying a bystander."
Shinobu growled and crossed her arms over her chest. "Never mind that! What did you do with him?" The raven-haired girl demanded, pointing irately at the mirror that was standing in the middle of the open lot Kurama had set up in.
"This is a fourth-dimensional mirror," Kurama explained, gesturing to the device with the giant leaf she carried with her for defense and various utilities. "Within it is an illusionary plane of reality, a dream-world, if you will, that acts as a spiritual gymnasium by drawing on the memories and thoughts of the one inside it."
Shinobu sweatdropped. "Oh-kay... so, again, what are you doing?"
The crow princess snorted at the human girl's impatience. "This mirror acts as a spiritual gymnasium, feeding from the subject to simulate certain conditions and alter one's base personality. Their soul, their mind, and their senses will emerge from the mirror, altered by the experiences and trials they underwent within." She noted with no small measure of annoyance that the school girl before her was looking at her wristwatch and tapping her foot.
"YES. And you're trying to accomplish... what?" Shinobu asked in exasperation, eager to get back to Ataru's rescue. She didn't know her way to the temple normally, and what with having been carried straight-line toward it, and then yanked off-course, she didn't even know where she was, much less how to get where she was going.
"Using this mirror I will free him from the needless inhibitions that keep him from accepting his rightful position as my mate!" Kurama said proudly, smirking.
Shinobu frowned. "So... you don't like Ataru... but you like Ranma... and you're going to solve your problem by... making Ranma like Ataru?"
Kurama sweatdropped, as did many of the crow aliens.
"Wow. It sounds kinda stupid when you put it like that," one of the crow men said. He was promptly swatted out of the air by his princess.
"It doesn't matter what you think of it!" Kurama said angrily. "With the power of technology, I will free his trapped desires, and he will be mine!" She began to chuckle to herself, quite pleased with the turn of events.
Naturally, that was the point when circumstances fell down to the next level of Hell.
"Ranma not be yours if Shampoo can help it!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Why do these things happen to me?" Ranma said, sighing as he pushed himself up off the ground.
Well, "ground" was a relative term here, given a short look around. Really, every direction around him stretched off into an infinite void, and he had no idea why there seemed to be firm ground beneath him.
Ranma quickly desensitized himself to the sprawling weirdness that had spontaneously engulfed him and stood up. He started to dust himself off, but thought the better of it, seeing as his clothes had not been dirtied in any way, nor had they shifted into disarray from the notably soft impact of his arrival in the strange dream world.
*Sniffle* *Sob!*
Ranma turned as he heard a soft, feminine sob coming from behind him, and he frowned as the infinite, swirling nothingness faded into pasty gray walls, forming a corridor that led to a shadowed figure.
Throwing caution to the wind, Ranma walked down the corridor toward the source of the sobbing.
"Yow!" He jerked back as lights suddenly illuminated the figure, revealing a crying girl curled up in a fetal position whose image tugged at a fond memory buried deep beneath years and years of the turmoil and constant conflict that plagued his life. She was short, bespectacled, and top-heavy enough that Ataru would have been reduced to a drooling wreck.
She was also completely naked.
The pigtailed boy turned and prepared to run for it, heedless of her sobbing; as he wasn't involved with whatever had reduced her to such a state, he wasn't obliged to help or stick around, and thus he wasn't about to risk the multitude of bad things that could happen in public (if, in fact, this was any sort of public place) with a nude woman.
"P-Please, *Sob!* don't g-go!"
Ranma jerked to a stop, and his left eye twitched as he realized his escape plan had been foiled. "Uh... what is it?"
*Glomp* "Hold me," she whispered into his ear, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"Gwah!" Ranma's arms flailed about as he felt her breasts press against his back. "Hey! Leggo! I don't even know you!"
He stopped struggling, however, when she let out a strangled whimper.
*Sniffle* "You really... you don't remember me?"
Ranma grimaced, unsure of what to do. Staving off aggressive advances was something he was quite familiar with, but usually the girl wasn't crying while she tried to seduce him, and it was throwing him off significantly.
A small window appeared in the gray wall of the corridor, and Ranma blinked as he saw an image of himself at seven years old helping a tiny, crying bespectacled girl who had tripped in the mud.
The naked girl dried her tears, and she smiled softly as she whispered in Ranma's ear. "It didn't really matter who it was. If they were in trouble you were there to help. You were such a kind and noble person... and you still are, but life has been hard for you, hasn't it?"
"Yeah, speaking of that, this really isn't helping," the pigtailed boy mumbled, gently trying to pull the girl's arms off of his waist. She had a tighter grip than Shampoo!
"It doesn't always have to be hard, Ranma," she gently kissed his ear, causing an electric tingle to surge down his body, and straight into his pants. "I've grown up, Ranma... I'm an adult now... I can teach you about being adult, too..."

Mustering every bit of resistance he could, Ranma jumped straight up out of the girl's arms, very nearly nailing her in the jaw with his shoulder.
Managing to clamber up a perfectly flat wall, it wasn't long before he had moved out of sight of the nude vixen that had been coming onto him.
His thoughts slowly simmered down as his libido eventually lost its slippery hold on his greater mental functions, and Ranma began to seriously think about where he was and where he would end up.
That is, he was thinking until he reached the top of the wall.
Climbing over the edge of the gray cliff, he was astounded to find a small grassy field bathed in warm sunlight and surrounded by tropical plants. In the middle of the field was a petite black-haired girl in a one-piece bathing suit sunning herself on a blanket.
The girl immediately jogged his memory, and another patch of space revealed a five year-old Ranma eating Chinese noodles while a little girl of the same age ate with him in a playground, the both of them laughing.
"You were so much fun back then, Ranma," the girl said suddenly, smiling at him and beckoning him over with a finger. "What happened to you? Now you're always miserable and serious. Do you refuse to enjoy yourself because you're afraid you'll become like your brother? Or do you think that having good, honest fun will make you weak? Do you really think you're above deserving happiness?"
Ranma gulped. "Wait. No. No way. This is all some sort of sick dream, isn't it?"
The girl giggled. "So what if it is? So what if it isn't? This isn't real, right? So enjoy yourself! Let go! Be free!" As if to punctuate the last sentence, the shoulder straps of her bathing suit suddenly fell apart, and Ranma's eyes bugged out as her bare breasts danced freely in the thrall of some unknown force.
Ranma immediately turned and jumped off the cliff.

*Whump!* Ranma jerked his head up after he impacted something soft, and was horribly relieved to realize that it was a simple bed, and that it was empty except for him.
Heaving a sigh, he fell down into the warped and messy comforter, waiting for his heartbeat to slow to some kind of reasonable speed.
"Okay... so it seems that this place if full of naked chicks from my memories who all want me. I can deal with this. I'm not about to fall apart because of some perverted, porno reject dream land!" Ranma sat up in the bed, his resolve firming. All he had to do was brutally reject any other women he ran into! Easy, right?
"Ranma, breakfast is ready! Let me take it to you in bed!" Kasumi called out cheerfully, emerging from the shadows carrying a large tray of scrambled eggs, soup, and rice.
And wearing only a small, white cooking apron.
Ranma nearly choked on the spot, and his body began to tremble as Kasumi approached him with a morning feast. Then she leaned over to place it down on the foot of the bed, giving him a perfect view down her cleavage.
"Oh no..." Ranma let out a strangled whimper, and Kasumi blinked.
"Ranma, is everything all right? You look all sweaty!"
"E-Everything's j-just fine! Peachy! Wonderful! F-F-Frickin' perfect!" Ranma said desperately, feeling his body begin to betray him again.
Heedless of his protests, Kasumi walked around the bed and then leaned over toward Ranma to feel his forehead, once again giving him a good view of what little the kitchen apron hid. "Oh dear, you're burning up!"
'Okay big guy, this is it! Time to tell her off! Just say: back off, woman! Just like that!' Ranma gulped. "You know Kasumi, I love your cooking!"
The eldest Tendo daughter blushed and smiled radiantly at him. "Why thank you, Ranma! Would you like a massage?"
'Keep your hands off me, whore!' "Actually, I am feeling a little tense. Thank you!"
Still smiling innocently, Kasumi slipped behind Ranma and began to gently knead his shoulders. Ranma, meanwhile, shakily picked up the cup of tea laid on the edge of the bed, his trembling hand spilling the majority of it all over the bed sheets before the cup reached his lips.
"How does this feel, Ranma?"
'I have better things to do than waste my time hanging around with you!' "It feels great Kasumi. You're really good at this." 'God, am I even trying anymore?'
Suddenly, Kasumi pushed roughly on one of Ranma's shoulders, and the stunned martial artist shouted in surprise as the remaining tea in his cup splashed out onto his pants.
"Oh my! I'm so sorry!" Kasumi's horrified gasp quickly curbed his surprise, and Ranma quickly began thinking of ways to console her. After all, the tea wasn't even that hot, and it's not like it would stain black clothing.
"Here, let me help you out of those pants!"
And that was about as much as Ranma could take. With a tortured scream, the pigtailed boy hurtled himself away from the bed and broke into a flat sprint, attempting to purge the lewd thoughts surrounding the Tendo homemaker from his mind.

"Think baseball! Drag racing! Sumo wrestling! CHERRY!! Anything! Just get it out! Get it out of my head!" The martial artist cried, running down what seemed to be a path of pure light sitting atop the infinite void of space.
Seeing a door at the end of the path, and not stopping to think about the likely inhabitants of every destination in the twisted dream realm, Ranma lunged for the knob and threw the door open, ready to rush into whatever sanctuary lay beyond.
Dozens of girls that he recognized from school turned to stare at him, apparently interrupted from whatever conversations they were holding as they lounged about the sauna. Not surprisingly none of them seemed displeased to see him, and not a one had a towel wrapped around their bodies, in violation of steam room customs.
Yuka grinned. "Ranma! Hi! Did you come to join us?"
Ranma slowly fell to his knees, his left eye twitching badly. 'Most guys would probably consider this pretty darn lucky... I wonder how Ataru's doing right now?'
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Super-cali-fragi-listic-excor-cism-docious!" Sakura shouted, sweat rolling down her forehead as she thrust her Shinto wand forward yet again.
*Shooooom!* Once again, wisps of energy seeped off of Ataru's body and rose above his head.
The energy gathered into a single point, then expanded to take on the form of the VHS edition of the fourth season of Inu-Yasha, which promptly fell and clocked Ataru on the skull again.
He didn't really notice, as the multiple concussions had driven all sense from his consciousness. The top of his head was entirely wrapped in bandages, one of his eyes were swollen shut, and the rest of his face had band-aids all over it. His body was mostly free from injury, if only because the ropes binding him had cushioned those parts and kept them mostly out of the way of falling objects.
Those very objects now littered the floor at Ataru's feet, among them being various anime collections, Lego kits, fluorescent lights, old first-generation Apple computers, a wide variety of sports gear, a miniature church, roughly eight dozen Beanie Babies, and R2-D2.
There had also been a basket of dinner rolls, but Cherry had seized the moment, and was even now devouring the rolls as he watched Sakura stew in frustration.
"I don't understand it!" The shrine priestess shouted, grinding her teeth. "Fifty-three different incantations! Exorcism rites of every level from nine different faiths! This is ridiculous!"
"And I'm not sure the young man can survive many more attempts," her mother added, sweatdropping.
Growling fiercely, Sakura placed her palms together. "By the power vested in me by the precinct of Nerima, and the greater Tokyo suburban area... SPIRITS BEGONE!!"
Once again, energy seeped up off of Ataru's form and coalesced in the air, though this time it formed a much larger figure as it solidified.
*Whump!* *Clack!* "Ow!" The cry of pain did not come from the nearly-unconscious Ataru, but rather from the full-grown man who had fallen on top of him, summoned by the infernal energies battling Sakura's magic.
The man stood up and dusted himself off, and then looked down at his feet. Finding the cellular phone he had dropped upon arrival, he picked it up and held it up to his ear.
{"Can you hear me now?"} He asked in English, {"Good!"}
Without further explanation or fanfare, he walked out of the shrine, the cell phone still held to his ear.

"Argh! This is so frustrating!" Sakura shouted, gripping her hands into fists.
"The boy *Chomp!* would probably agree with you, *Gulp!* but he seems to be suffering some side effects *Crunch!* from those concussions," Cherry needlessly pointed out as he finished off the mystical bread rolls.
"Why?" Ataru suddenly cried out, his eyes goggling wildly into space. "Why are you leaving me, Tony? Am I not pretty enough?"
R2-D2 beeped several times.
Sakura ignored both outbursts, glaring at her patient as she considered her few remaining options.
Finally, she turned around and walked right out the shrine. Her mother and uncle, not comprehending where she'd be going at a time like this, turned to look at each other, then shrugged and patiently waited for her return.
After a few minutes, Sakura came back carrying a wooden bucket filled with water that had the classic Shinto wards tied onto the outside of it.
Sakura hauled the bucket over next to Ataru, then cleared her throat as she hefted it up.
"THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!" She screamed, hurling the bucket's contents at her patient.
This exorcism rite had the dual effect of A) Waking Ataru up out of his daze, and B) turning him into a girl. As far as the evil spirit was concerned, though, it had failed to even provoke the normal response of summoning something to bludgeon Ataru on the head.
"I did it!" Sakura shouted in excitement, seeing that Ataru had been replaced by a tall, busty blue-haired girl. "I... I don't really know what I did, but a dramatic physical change is definite progress!"
"Like FUN it is!" Ataru growled, shaking her head wildly to try and rid herself of the excess water.
"I'm afraid the boy has a separate curse that's activated with water; it's not actually a possession," Cherry informed Sakura, who immediately darkened.
"Hmph. I suppose it makes sense that such a miserable man would possess many curses..." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps I can work on this curse first? It may be strengthening the possession."
"Impossible," Cherry said immediately. "It's Chinese magic." At Ataru's questioning glance, Cherry elaborated. "Very cheap and reliable. Shinto magic just can't compete."
"Oh, shut up," Sakura groused. "Well, then that's it! I'm out of options! Nothing's worked!"
"Oh, by the way? I told ya so," Ataru said bitterly.
"Damn it!" Sakura cursed, causing her shriveled relatives to wince, "Come out of there and face me like a man, vile spirit!"
Cherry was about to bring up the very real possibility that the spirit wasn't male in nature, when vile black smoke suddenly poured from the floor around Ataru, seeping up through the cracks in the various boxes and plushie toys.
The black smoke slithered about in the air, coming together to form a long, sinewy cloud that hung in the air, with its bottom portion thinning down to a whip-like protrusion that clung to the tip of Ataru's head.
Two slitted, blood-red eyes took form near the top of the apparition, and it glared in annoyance at Sakura.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" The evil spirit snapped.
Sakura stared for a long moment, then jumped up in a cheer. "Ah ha! I did it! My holy powers truly are unmatched!"
The others sweatdropped.
"What 'holy powers'? You taunted him and he came out to face you!" Ataru shouted.
"It doesn't matter," Sakura said, rolling back her sleeves. "Now that the spirit has revealed itself to me, it's only option is banishment to the afterlife." Seeing the apparition simply float in front of her, Sakura thrust her wand at it.
"Beasts of the netherworld who taint men's souls-"
She didn't get to finish her chant, as a long, snake-like protrusion slithered out of the spirit's body and tapped the Shinto wand.
*Fwoosh!* The entire wand spontaneously combusted, bursting into flames and turning to ash so quickly that Sakura didn't even have time to shout in pain before her tool of exorcism was gone.
Another protrusion came from just below the eyes, and let out a puff of air that blew out the two nearly burnt-out candles strapped to Sakura's head.
Shaking her burnt hand, Sakura frowned. "Hmmm... that wasn't supposed to happen..."
"Noooo, really?" Ataru snapped, "And here the exorcism was going SO WELL, too!"
"TELL ME WHY YOU HAVE DISTURBED ME," the apparition demanded, glaring down at the shrine priestess. "AND THEN EXPLAIN YOUR CONTINUED TORTURE OF MY HOST."
"I'm not torturing your host!" Sakura protested, "You are!"
"If you had said that an hour ago, I would've believed you," Ataru muttered, "but right now, I'd rather stick with the ancient spirit, thanks."
"Silence, you ingrate!" Sakura shouted, already flustered over the turn of events.
"INGRATE?!" Ataru screamed, "NAME ONE DAMN THING YOU'VE DONE THAT I SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR!!"
"Would you just give me a chance?!" Sakura shouted back.
"I did give you a chance, you quack! Not that I had much choice in the matter!"
The evil spirit hovering above Ataru sweatdropped as it watched the fighting escalate. "HEY. YO. SERIOUSLY. CALM DOWN, YOU TWO."
Seeing how Ataru and Sakura were still glaring at each other, Cherry stepped forward. "Oh spirit, tell us why you haunt this man... er, woman? Whatever he is."
*Fwoosh!* Hellfire burned the air next to the spirit, leaving a floating piece of paper behind. "IT'S IN THE CONTRACT, PAL. A SPIRIT'S GOTTA DO WHAT A SPIRIT'S GOTTA DO, YA KNOW?"
Cherry plucked the piece of paper out of the air, and then started scanning it. "Oh dear. This is troubling."
Ataru and Sakura stopped arguing and turned to look at Cherry.
Cherry didn't explain himself, however, and turned toward his sister. "I'm afraid this is slightly outside the abilities of a monk or shrine priestess. Sister, could you get a lawyer here, please?"
"There's that Feeling of Doom again," Ataru said, sighing. "This sucks."
*Blip!* *Beep!* R2-D2 agreed.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"This sucks!" Ranma shouted, running across the barren landscape as the tremor of dozens of feet followed him, occasionally punctuated by the screaming of his name or the proclamation of love.
A number of girls happily ran after him, many of them scantily clad and some of them topless. The characters ranged from girls he had noticed in passing while walking down the street, classmates who had occasionally hit on him, to the more familiar faces of Shinobu, Nabiki, Akane, Kurama, and Shampoo. The rest were childhood friends from his training trip who he had mostly forgotten about, but still held a special place deep in his cold iron heart as being his most compassionate and appreciated companions during that ten-year hell.
Of course, due to the insubstantial nature of the blasted terrain, he couldn't outrun the horde, either. Whenever he put on the speed, it seemed that the surface he was walking on would break apart into sand, or melt into tar, or some other damnable obstacle that slowed him enough for the girls to keep pace. Worse yet, whatever strange laws that governed this realm of reality didn't see fit to grant him unlimited stamina like his pursuers apparently had, so he was pushing himself to the limit as it was, and would have to slow down soon.
A sudden light show attracted his attention ahead, and Ranma groaned as he saw five more childhood friends, identified as such by the appropriately brief flashback bubbles that he was zipping past, point at him as they posed in multi-colored miniskirts.
"A woman's virginity is not something that is lightly offered!"
"A maiden's heart is sensitive and pure!"
"For you to so callously refuse our affections is unacceptable!"
"Don't you see that love is the answer? Emotional, physical, does it matter? Is it too much to ask for?"
"In the name of the moon, we will jump your bones!"
Ranma growled, and his aura flared, turning a shimmering black as it tightly coiled itself around his body. "Yeah? You gotta catch me first!"
Ranma's form suddenly split into two black, willowy shapes that each slid off to the side in complete defiance of the common laws regulating momentum and inertia.
In seconds, two Ranma-shaped shadows faded back into being behind the line of miniskirted defenders, sliding back into a single form before taking off at exactly the same speed as before. Ranma smirked; at least his techniques still worked unhindered.
"Ninja trickery!" the brown-haired girl in the green skirt said.
"Uh oh..." the blue-haired girl said, whimpering as the stampede bore down on them.

Ignoring the indignant cries and the screams of anguish from the trampled souls, Ranma reached a downward slope in his path. Seeing that the terrain was unusually soft, he hopped up and then held his legs up against his chest, sliding down the slope on his rear to gain speed and conserve energy (as he had used up quite a bit to perform the teleport illusion).
To his surprise, the ground remained soft and smooth as he slid down the curve, although he could see that the dip in his path curved upward again later on.
Taking great satisfaction in the brief break he got from running, Ranma hopped back up onto his feet and swiftly scrambled up the relatively shallow slope.
Then he stopped in his tracks. At the top of the "hill" laid a huge, thick strip of fur that ran across the ground. It was mostly an orangish yellow color, but had several large black stripes running through it.
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me."
Looking back behind him confirmed his fears as he saw an enormous Lum waving coyly at him as he stood atop her hip.
"GIVE ME A BREAK!! AAARGH!!"
__________________________________________________________________________________

Shampoo dodged to the right to evade yet another blast of wind, and clicked her tongue as she saw how worn out her opponent seemed to be.
These aliens made for interesting, if not ultimately unworthy opponents. They all obviously lacked any formal or rudimentary instruction in intense combat and strategy, and instead relied upon whatever strange powers were unique to their race. Which made them a threat, certainly, but not really a challenge.
A mere thirty seconds into the battle, Shampoo had Kurama's attack patterns down, and was barely winded from her dodging. Kurama was able to muster neither the speed nor power of Lum's lightning attacks, and seemed to be even less competent defensively, to boot. No challenge at all.
The crow princess growled as she faced down the annoying Terran, angry at the uselessness of her crow servants. The woman hadn't even needed to use her weapons, merely swatting them aside like flies!
Before she could ready another attack however, Shampoo was on top of her, and she accidentally released a gust of wind off to the side as the Amazon kicked her shoulder in order to disarm her. The giant leaf fell to the ground, but the blast of wind roared through the air and blasted into the side of the fourth-dimensional mirror, knocking it onto its side.
"Ack! You fool! What have you done?!" Kurama shouted, honestly not sure about what effects this would have on Ranma's trials within the other dimension, but remembering quite clearly that it was important for the gateway to remain undisturbed.
"The mirror!" Shinobu shouted, running up to it and checking it over for damage (though she admitted to herself that she didn't really know what to look for).
Shampoo ignored the schoolgirl, favoring the alien princess. "Hmph. Shampoo have no time for weakling. All alien do is throw big shot around and hope hit. Is disgrace to warrior womans!"
"How dare you!" Kurama said indignantly.
Then she frowned. "Uhm... what are you talking about, again?"
Shampoo just snorted and turned away. "You say you have Ranma. Where?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"This is SO not funny!" Ranma shouted angrily, flailing about as the back of his shirt was clasped between the Lum-monster's thumb and forefinger.
Giggling, the gigantic alien brought Ranma up close in front of her face, and then smiled mischievously before slowly lowering him down.
Ranma looked confused for a moment, wondering if she was just going to put him on the ground to deal with the other girls. After all, it wasn't like she could "do" anything with him while she was super-sized.
Then he looked down, and realized just where he was going.
"NO!! NO!! NO!! Stop it! Stop it! Oh, sweet mother, WHY?!" His tormented screams only made the behemoth alien giggle in delight as she let go of him, allowing the pigtailed boy to plummet downward straight into the exposed cleft of the giant's breasts.
*Goosh*
Ranma sputtered indignantly as he started to slide into Lum's massive cleavage. "NOT... FUNNY!!"

The giant Lum just kept giggling as the tiny man's struggling tickled her, when suddenly there was a great creaking noise, causing her to pause.
Then, quite literally, the world turned upside-down.
*WHAAAAM!!!* A great tremor shook the ground as the monstrous Lum-thing fell face-first on the non-floor, apparently stunned.
One of her breasts wiggled slightly, and then Ranma popped out from under it, leaping free from the oversized mammary and falling flat onto the ground, gasping for air.
"Oh geez *Huff* I can't believe *Huff* that just happened to me *Huff*." Of all the ways to almost die that he had suffered, that had been both the most humiliating, and the least likely to generate admiration or sympathy from an audience. He decided then and there that if anyone ever asked him about the trials of this particular incident, he was going to lie.
"Gotta get away... gotta get away..." the giant Lum seemed to fade into shadows as Ranma crawled forward on his stomach, lurching through snow drifts as white flakes fell in torrents around him.
"Snow? Well that's just swell," the martial artist groused as he found himself subjected to yet another random scenery change.
"Why do you fight it?"
Ranma blinked, and looked around to try and find the source of the voice.
"Your body aches from retreat, your mind is drowned in desire, yet still you resist. To what end? Is giving in for a bare moment so bad? Is showing a woman who wants nothing but to please you a moment of weakness, truly so horrible? Is it worth such hardship and struggle?"
Ranma looked up at a growing snow mound, and suddenly saw a shapely woman with pale skin and shining, white-blue hair in a ponytail sitting atop a throne of ice, looking down at him. Oyuki, the ice princess of Neptune shook her head and smiled pleasantly, wearing clothes that resembles a one-piece swimsuit as aliens were wont to do.
"Oh, stuff it!" The pigtailed boy said suddenly, jumping up to his feet. "I don't care about what you say! I'm not going to break down and just rationalize it until it all works out!" He pounded his chest with his fist. "It's my body, damn it! And it doesn't matter to me if you have big boobs, or have long legs, or if you only weigh twenty pounds! I'm better than that! I deserve better than that! And if a girl's only concern is getting into my pants, well then I say BACK OFF!!"
Oyuki looked startled at the outburst, and shrunk back as Ranma pointed at her.
"And what are you doing in my memories, anyway?! You haven't even appeared yet!" Ranma accused, causing the alien princess to sweatdrop.
And then, once again, the world turned upside-down.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Shinobu wiped her brow as she finished standing the fourth-dimensional mirror upright once again. This thing was heavier than it looked!
Glaring over at the two women who SHOULD have been helping out of loving concern for the victim of their affections, she noticed that Kurama was talking calmly while gesturing to the mirror, and that Shampoo was listening with a level of concentration and thoughtfulness that Shinobu would not have otherwise associated with the warrior Amazon.

"So mirror change Ranma, make... 'receptive'?" Shampoo managed to grasp some minor understanding of the word, but Kurama's speech patterns were exactly the type of over-educated mix of technical terms that she had the most trouble with. Why did all aliens speak Japanese, anyway? Weren't there any Chinese-speaking aliens out there?
"Indeed," Kurama said, smirking. "Within that plane of reality, all of his repressed desire and lust will bubble to the surface as he's relentlessly assaulted with temptation. The end result should make him a bit easier to... 'handle'."
"Well, get him out!" Shinobu demanded, causing both women to turn toward her in surprise.
Kurama looked puzzled. "Why would I do that? This is the best chance to alter him for my purposes."
"I can't believe you just said that!" Shinobu shouted, backpedaling. "That's horrible! Ranma's not just a tool for you to use, you know! If you have to screw up his mind in order to get him to help, maybe you should find somebody else to use!"
Kurama raised an eyebrow, surprised that the little Terran was putting up a fight for a man who she ostensibly had no real relationship with. "In theory, you're right, but my people's overly complex and seemingly pointless laws forbid it. As it is, I will have significant trouble dealing with the elders back on my planet for not mating with the 'chosen one' who kissed me," Kurama spat the title in disgust.
Shinobu turned angrily toward Shampoo. "What about you?! Don't you want to spend the rest of your life with Ranma?! Are you just going to let her get away with that?"
Shampoo shrugged. "If make Ranma horny, Shampoo all for."
Shinobu groaned. She had thought the aliens were bad, but Shampoo honestly seemed to care for Ranma! How could she do this?
"Don't you see? Letting her do this and then taking advantage of it is wrong!" Shinobu protested.
Shampoo actually stopped to consider this, frowning deeply. "Shampoo see. Strange girl right."
Shinobu twitched. So it was 'strange girl' now?
Then the Amazon shrugged. "But Shampoo desperate, so look other way this time. Ranma still good fighter, so not really care."
*Thud!* Shinobu fell flat on her face, and then slowly pushed herself up.
"All right... fine. If you won't help him... then I guess it's up to me!"
Kurama's eyes widened as Shinobu grasped the top edge of the mirror and started shaking it back and forth. "Hey! Stop that! That's not the correct way to eject someone from the mirror!"
"Then tell me what the correct way is!" The frustrated schoolgirl shouted.
"B-But... the ritual is not yet complete! There's no way to ensure the procedure was successful!" Kurama protested.
Shinobu grit her teeth. "That's the POINT, you featherbrained loon! Augh! Forget it!" The now-angry schoolgirl walked up behind the mirror, and, to Kurama's complete mortification, gave the construct a good, solid kick.
One thing to be understood about Shinobu is that she was a relatively even-tempered girl when compared to many of her peers. She wasn't prone to bouts of hysterical violence, delusional paranoia, or needless, irrational fits of rage.
However, when she did get mad, the ground shook and men trembled.
*WHANG!!* The ring of impacted metal filled the air as the fourth-dimensional mirror, constructed out of the most durable alien super-heavy alloys, flew off into the air, spinning on the axis where it had been bent to a 120 degree angle from the point of Shinobu's attack.
The schoolgirl momentarily wondered if perhaps that had not been a good idea. Considering Kurama's horrified expression, the concept definitely bore some looking into.
All hesitations and doubts, however, fled her mind when she saw the surface of the mirror glow a bright golden color.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma slowly crawled on his hands and knees down the path, having dug himself out of the snow drift, and finding himself extremely low on energy.
Were he a weaker man he would have been reduced to a miserable, sobbing wreck. He was physically exhausted, hungry, cold, frostbitten, nervous, and his head was absolutely swimming with three years' worth of repressed hormones being forcibly squeezed from his carefully blocked libido.
Ranma knew that he couldn't last much longer. But he also knew that he wouldn't be spending much more time in the dream-prison. How he knew, he couldn't really say, but whether it was the sense of his torment finally coming to a head, or the approaching end of his consciousness, which was vital to the function of the mirror, what mattered to Ranma was that he got out. Besides distancing himself from this nightmare, he also felt a heavy load of guilt for allowing himself to be trapped when Ataru probably needed his help.
He was suddenly distracted from his thoughts by a strange scent in the air, and realized with some trepidation that he was in an open field surrounded by tall grass and flowers.
Ranma sniffed the air, and his trepidation turned to dread. He knew that smell. He knew what was coming.
Grasping his head, the pigtailed boy curled up into a ball as he heard the sound of grass parting before a body approaching him.
'Why?' He implored whatever forces drove the diabolical device he was in, 'Why her? Anyone but her!'
The shuffling came closer, and the smell became stronger; the intoxicating smell of strawberries.
Ranma shuddered as he felt the last of his will crumble already. He had lost, and he knew it. Before the last round had already begun, before he even had a chance to mount another defense, they had torn him down with their final, perfect finishing blow.
The figure stopped and stood over Ranma, the shade from her straw hat blocking the midday sun that had materialized at some point in these vile escapades.
"Are you okay? Can I help you up?" The soft voice was like a lullaby to him, the words caressing him and warming him. The chill that had plagued him fled entirely, and he was suddenly seized with desire.
Love and lust became one and the same as she reached down and touched him, and Ranma began to look up, preparing himself for the inevitable bout of passion that was sure to follow...
And then he was jarred backward violently, the dreamscape exploding into a million tiny shards.
__________________________________________________________________________________

A golden light flared about the surface of the alien mirror portal, and the surface suddenly spat Ranma out violently, sending the pigtailed boy hurtling toward the ground as the mirror surface shattered behind him.
*Wham!* Grimacing, Ranma rolled as he hit the ground, his martial arts reflexes taking over with his return to the material universe.
Once he had stopped rolling, he took stock of his situation. The physical fatigue that had plagued him in the strange dream world was gone, as he might have expected, but his head was still swimming as he remembered the events within with crystal clarity, and the fading scent of strawberry perfume taunted him with distant memories both precious and abhorrent to him.
"I'm so confused..." Ranma whimpered, feeling the recent stress swelling against his considerable tolerance for hardship and suffering.
It didn't help one bit when three faces that he clearly remembered leering lecherously at him filled his vision.
"Ranma! You okay?!"
"Forgive me, please! That barbarian Terran woman kicked the mirror!"
"SHE'S the barbarian Terran woman, not me! Ranma, can you stand? We need to hurry and save Ataru!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Ranma screamed, causing all three girls to get blown back from the unexpected response.
"GET AWAY!! GET AWAY!! GET AWAY FROM ME!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" The martial artist stumbled to his feet, and then blasted away at a sprint that kicked up a huge dust cloud in its wake. In a bare moment, he was gone, though Shinobu thought she saw him heading in the direction that they had been taking to get to Nurse Sakura's temple.
Kurama blinked, and scratched her head. "Strange... the manual didn't mention anything like this..."
The crow princess's speculations were cut short as Shampoo suddenly grabbed her in a headlock.
"OW!! What are you doing?! Unhand me at once!"
"Shampoo trust you stupid mirror make Ranma like Shampoo! Now stupid crow woman make Ranma scared of Shampoo!" The Amazon growled, now regretting not listening to the schoolgirl earlier.
"I'm sure it-*Gack!*-it's just a-*Urgh!*-temporary side-effect!"
Shinobu sweatdropped at the sight of the two women fighting, and then turned to look at the shallow trench that Ranma had created with the speed and power of his retreat. Then she looked at her watch.
"You know what? The heck with this. I'm going home."
__________________________________________________________________________________

"I see. So you're effectively bound by clause C, line 17 of the contract, correct?" The bound lawyer asked the apparition above Ataru's head as he read the yellowed piece of paper before him.
"THAT'S RIGHT. THE OLD CRONE THAT LANDED THIS CURSE HAPPENS TO BE A MAJOR PLAYER AMONG US NETHERWORLD TYPES, SO THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO TO GET OUT OF IT." The ancient spirit said apologetically, sipping a cup of tea as a sinewy tendril of shadow held the cup up to a vaguely mouth-like protrusion.
"Ah, yes. I remember her. A very skilled witch. Very tough and stubborn, too. And her handiwork is flawless, as usual," Cherry mumbled.
"Isn't there some alternate pact we can make?" Sakura offered. "No contract is unbreakable, correct?"
Ataru, who was mostly being ignored in the proceedings, twitched in irritation. "Hey! What are you people doing, anyway?!"
"We're opening up negotiations. Now hush," Sakura demanded.
"Negotiations?! What happened to exorcism?!"
The shrine priestess looked embarrassed, but answered honestly. "I'm afraid none of us anticipated that you were the vessel of such a powerful and influential spirit. These situations require a more delicate approach."
"The contract appears valid in every respect. Moreover, it cannot be dishonored from this end without significant damages to the contract breaker," the lawyer sighed and put down the contract. "Can I go now?"
Cherry sweatdropped. "Sister, when I asked you to find a lawyer, I meant for you to hire one, not find one on the street and capture him."
His sister snorted. "Please, have you seen what these slimeballs charge these days? And to negotiate an exorcism that we're doing for free? Ha!" Then she tugged hard on the rope that was wrapped around the man's torso. "You're not leaving until this is over, so you'd best make yourself comfortable."
"LOOK," the evil spirit said, sighing as it put down its tea, "IT ISN'T THAT I DON'T WANT TO RELEASE THE POOR SAP. HONESTLY, AS MUCH AS I LIKE THE TORTURE AND SUFFERING OF CURSED SOULS, THE THINGS THIS KID AND HIS BROTHER HAVE TO GO THROUGH SOMETIMES IS JUST PLAIN AWFUL, YOU KNOW?" He glared at Sakura. "I MEAN, SERIOUSLY, YOU JUST START PUMPING POSITIVE KI INTO THIS GUY, BAD THINGS HAPPEN, AND YOU JUST KEEP GOING? THAT'S MESSED UP, LADY."
"You know what, Mr. Spirit?" Ataru said sullenly, "You're really not half bad."
The apparition chuckled. "CALL ME BILL."
"Wait, why were my exorcisms ineffective?" Sakura asked, curious. Even if the ancient spirit was technically beyond her power, her efforts should have had a much greater effect than simply bombarding Ataru again and again with commodities.
"Line G. Exorcism insurance," the attorney said, leaning over to look at the contract. "Injections of positive chi for the purposes of drawing out evil are instead diverted through the matrix of space-time, and converted into negative energy which manifests into a solid form and strikes the victim, unless he or she makes a saving throw vs. evil magic at -2."
"THE KID'S UNLUCKY LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE," the spirit noted, "I'VE NEVER SEEN A d20 ROLL FIFTY-FIVE CONSECUTIVE ONES BEFORE. AND THAT WASN'T MY INFLUENCE, EITHER!"
"But you're essentially willing to release Ataru from the curse?" Cherry asked, looking up at the spirit.
"IT 'AINT THAT SIMPLE, GRAMPS," the apparition sighed, "THE SAOTOME CLAN IS CURSED FOR AN ETERNITY, YOU KNOW. ETERNITY MEANS 'TIL THE END OF TIME, NOT 'OH, I THINK THAT'S LONG ENOUGH'! BESIDES, IF BREAK A PACT WITH AN ALLY OF THE DARK BECAUSE I'M FEELING SORRY FOR SOME MORTAL, WHAT WOULD MY FRIENDS THINK? THEY'D BE ALL LIKE, 'BILL'S SUCH A SISSY,' AND 'CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT WUSS BILL?' AND 'BILL'S A MORTAL LOVER! BILL'S A MORTAL LOVER! HEY BILL, IF YOU LOVE MORTALS SO MUCH, WHY DON'T YOU MARRY ONE?'" The spirit seemed genuinely upset at the prospect, and the other inhabitants of the shrine sweatdropped.

Sakura was about to say something else, when the wall behind her suddenly exploded inward, throwing splinters and debris all over the floor. Her mother and the captured lawyer were both bowled over as a stray table fell towards them, and Cherry barely managed to dodge out of the way as a large antique pot sailed toward him, shattering all over the floor.
"What the hell?!" Sakura jumped away from that side of the shrine, sliding as she crossed the floor and landing in a crouch next to a wall of Beanie Babies that she could use for cover, if need be.
Ranma stood in the middle of the shattered wall, his chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath.
"RANMA!! Oh, thank God!" Ataru shouted, suddenly jerking her body forward to try and cross the distance between them. "It's horrible! Just horrible! They tied me up and took me here and she kept trying to drive out evil spirits but instead she just conjured heavy stuff that fell on my head and she turned me into a girl and then the spirit came out but she can't banish it and they still won't let me go home and I hafta go to the bathroom but the 'Can you hear me now' guy from those American commercials has been in there for like twenty minutes and I WANNA GO HOME!!"
Ranma sweatdropped. "Uh... yeah. I thought you were in trouble. I got here as fast as I could, but there were... obstacles."
"What the hell are you DOING?!" Sakura finally shouted, snapping out of her daze from listening to Ataru's tirade. "How dare you just smash through the wall like that! This is a holy, sacred place!"
"Although now it's a bit holier," Cherry mumbled, staring at the gaping wound in the wall.
*Punt!* *Crash!* Cherry went sailing through the roof of the shrine as Ranma kicked him away in retaliation for the pun.
The pigtailed boy then turned toward the shrine priestess, feeling a shudder go through his back at the sight of a beautiful woman. Still, he had never seen her before, and so she had not been a feature of the strange mirror-land he had been trapped in, and that helped significantly in allowing him to stay calm.
"It's a common rule of abduction. The kidnappers are responsible for any damage caused during a rescue," Ranma insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You could've just used the door!"
Ranma shrugged. "Not nearly dramatic enough." Then he turned back to Ataru, and then frowned at the black cloud floating above his head. "Now as for you..."
Ranma trailed off, then blinked, and then he stepped closer for a better look.
"Bill? Is that you?"
*Thud!* Sakura and Ataru fell face-first onto the floor.
The spirit chuckled, and a tentacle of shadow waved at the martial artist. "HEY RANMA. S'UP?"
Ranma scratched his head. "So YOU'RE the evil spirit possessing us and giving us so much trouble?"
The apparition nodded. "'FRAID SO, PAL. CAN'T BE HELPED. IT'S SORT OF MY JOB."
"Wait a minute!" Sakura shouted, "how do you know this spirit?"
Ranma scratched the back of his head. "Sometimes Bill appears in my dreams. We chat about stuff, and sometimes we play badminton, or poker."
"All this time I thought the stress of your life was getting to you," Ataru muttered. "I guess there really were voices in your head."
"Nah, just the one." Ranma walked up to Ataru, and picked the boy-turned-girl up and slung her over his shoulder.
Then he turned toward Sakura. "Normally I'd be obligated to beat up whoever kidnapped my brother... but I'm tired, and I already destroyed part of your shrine, so I'm just gonna leave."
He looked up. "C'mon Bill. Let's get outta here." Then he walked out of the hole he made in the wall without further fanfare, a grateful-looking Ataru-chan slung over his shoulder.
"COMING!" The ghostly creature said, following the boys out.
Then, at the last moment, it turned around to face Sakura. "BY THE WAY, THAT ELEVENTH INCANTATION YOU TRIED? IT'S STEP, STEP, TURN, AND THEN SWING. AND THE MICHAEL JACKSON MOONWALK ISN'T PART OF IT AT ALL."
The shrine priestess frowned. "I thought something felt off... oh well. Perhaps I can attempt to banish you to the netherworld another time."
"ANYTIME, SWEETS," the evil spirit said, waving to her as he finally floated out the hole in the wall toward Ataru, whom he was still attached to.

Sakura sighed and fell down onto her rear, rubbing her head. "My first failure as a shrine priestess... I can't believe it."
"Oof! Take heart, Sakura," her mother said, finally shoving the table off of herself, "there are some things in this world that us mere mortals are simply not meant to challenge. Foes that even us spiritual titans cannot break." She dusted herself off. "Besides, it's not like he was anyone important."
"Can I go home, now?" the bound lawyer asked miserably, quite fed up with the situation he had been dragged into.
"Not yet," the old crone said, yanking on the rope and dragging the attorney toward the door. "That young man just burst through our wall and destroyed a priceless antique vase. We have work to do."
Sakura sweatdropped. "Mother, sometimes you can be so petty."
*Bleep!* *Braap!* *Blip!* *Bleep!* R2-D2 agreed.

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End Chapter 6