Not Half Bad

Preface

    Dragon Half is the reason for this story's existence, plain and simple. It's my favorite manga (yeah, it's not Ranma 1/2), with a bit of a story between it and I, but I'll reserve that for another time and place (if ever asked).
    The Dragon Half portion is barely present until later in the story, when the setting for the series comes into play. For the most part, Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo and Aa! Megami-sama! will get more exposure in this tale.
    Beyond that, my efforts for this story are a bit more lax than it is for others, because I'm attempting to inject more humor than I normally do. (Let's just assume that it will fail.) There was also this thing that I wanted to do with "Kami-sama," because I didn't really care for the guy. It seemed like most everyone else was depicting him in a positive light (in Ranma 1/2 crossovers, at least), so what I would do with him became clear. XD

Prologue

    Ranma and Akane returned home after an uneventful day at school, with Akane announcing their arrival. They removed their shoes inside of the genkan before proceeding further into the house, their school bags in hand. Rather than go to his family's room, so he could drop off his school bag, Ranma headed for the living room instead. Kasumi, whom he and Akane had passed while she was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the gate outside, had mentioned that a package had come in for him.
    Ranma wanted to investigate what had been sent to him and get it over with, since there was a good chance that it had been sent by Tatewaki or some other nuisance, while Akane — out of curiosity — followed him. He knelt before the chabudai, in front of a rectangular box that had been placed there, and set his school bag aside. He looked over the box, but he didn't see any tale-telling signs of who it belonged to, or that it had been opened.
    Akane, who had chosen to stand behind Ranma, looked at the box from over his shoulder and asked, "What's that doing there?"
    Genma, as if only now noticing the presence of others in the room, didn't look away from his game of Go with Soun as he said, "It was delivered earlier. This letter came with it."
    So saying, Genma procured the letter from where it had been tucked into his top and promptly tossed it toward Ranma without looking. Ranma deftly caught it between the index and middle fingers of one hand before holding it with both and looking it over.
    "A letter, huh..." Ranma commented, with a dubious expression on his face, before he looked for the address of the sender.
    "Who is it from?" Akane inquired.
    After seeing who had sent him the box, Ranma frowned and lost interest in its contents. He simply handed the letter over to Akane and dismissively said, "Just that place where we got that dōgi from."
    Akane confirmed — with her own eyes — that the box and letter had indeed been sent by the Monkey-Mountain temple, where the seemingly-alive and ability-enhancing dōgi — that had chosen her as its master — had come from, before she opened the envelope and removed the letter. However, once unfolded, she found said letter void of any content.
    She frowned. "That's odd. Nothing's written on it."
    "Really?" Ranma responded, now looking up at Akane. "Here; let me see it."
    "What's there to see?" Akane remarked, even as she complied with his request.
    Ranma looked down at the letter, and — contrary to Akane's assessment — he did see a message. Instead of reading the message right away, he said, "What are you talking about? The message is kinda short, but it's there."
    Akane looked at the supposed letter once again, as Ranma held it up and pointed out where the message was written, but she still didn't see anything written on it. Feeling a bit irritated by this, she said, "And I'm saying that there's nothing there. If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny."
    "I'm not joking," came Ranma's defensive reply, as he began to become irritated as well. "Why would I claim to see something that isn't there?"
    "Maybe you need your eyes examined," Akane replied, in a tone that suggested that she wasn't about to fall prey to what she thought of as some kind of practical joke.
    "Or, maybe, you need your head examined," Ranma retorted, as he stared at the message written in the letter. "It's probably suffering from the same thickness your waist is."
    In response, Akane brought her school bag down upon his head with enough force to make him slouch. Ranma closed his eyes, furrowed his brow and didn't respond to the blow, since he had been expecting such a reaction.
    It was at that moment that they heard Nabiki's arrival. Akane, thinking that she could convince Ranma to give up on his game if another person's judgement corresponded with her own, got Nabiki's attention and explained what was going on. When she was finished, Ranma stood up and handed her the letter.
    Nabiki studied it for a moment before an expression of shock appeared on her face. She held the letter away from herself, and with a voice tinged with awe she said, "This... This is...!"
    Ranma leaned in closer to Nabiki, intrigued by her response, and inquired, "What? What is it?"
    Nabiki, similarly, leaned in closer. She took in Ranma's serious expression for a few seconds before she voided her face of expression and flatly said, "I'll tell you for only one-thousand yen."
    Exasperated, Ranma glared at her in response and snatched the letter away from her. Akane, who was also not amused by her sister's response, sarcastically said, "Gee, what a lot of help you are."
    Nabiki simply smiled at that and said, "Just glad to do my part, sis."
    Before Akane could ask what "part" her sister was talking about, Kasumi, who entered the room with a plate of senbei in her hands, caught her attention. Akane approached her and asked if she would be willing to help her with something, and explained what that something was. Kasumi agreed to take a look at the letter, and set down the plate of senbei upon the table so she could accept the letter from Ranma.
    "I'm sorry," Kasumi apologized to Ranma, after she had taken a momentary glance at the letter. "Was there supposed to be something written here?"
    Feeling vindicated, Akane was more than happy enough to face Ranma and crow, "Ha! I told you so."
    Ranma, knowing that Kasumi wasn't the type to lie or play jokes on someone, felt confused as he accepted the letter back from her. He finally began to wonder if he might be wrong about what he was seeing. Whoever heard of ink that was visible to only one person? Personal experience told him that it wasn't outside the realm of possibility, and yet...
    "I don't know what you hoped to accomplish," Nabiki remarked casually, "but the gig's up. I swear, Ranma: you have no imagination, at all."
    Taking offense to that, Ranma hotly countered with, "But I'm not joking around! How come I'm the only one who can see it!?"
    Genma chose that moment to scream in frustration, flip over the small game table that he and Soun had been using, and exclaim, "I can't concentrate with all this nonsense going on in the background!"
    "But... I was about to win..." Soun muttered faintly, his hand outstretched toward the fallen game board and its pieces. By the look on his face, one might have assumed that he had suffered the loss of his one, true love.
    "Mr. Saotome?" Akane spoke in a questioning tone, as the Saotome patriarch stood up and faced Ranma with an air of authority.
    "If there's really something written on that paper," Genma began calmly, before he pointed his index finger at his son challengingly and declared, "then shouldn't you be able to tell us what it says!?"
    "Of course," Nabiki thought to herself, understanding Genma's intent. "We'd be able to tell if Ranma can't make something up on the spot."
    With all eyes in the room now focused on him, Ranma smirked confidently and said, "Fine. I'll tell you what it says."
    "Dear Saotome Ranma," he began to read aloud. "Please do not share the contents of this letter with anyone."
    Ranma paused to wonder if he should continue or not. However, that gave Akane enough time to yell, "why won't you just admit that your joke failed," in exasperation before kicking him out of the house. "Honestly!"
    She sent him flying toward the koi pond, where he unceremoniously plunged into its cool depths. Akane turned about and marched out of the room before he could surface, with the intent to change out of her school uniform. Nabiki shook her head at what had transpired before she left the room herself, having much the same plan in mind as her younger sister. Kasumi left the room as well, but for a different reason.
    Once Ranma had her feet underneath her, she stood up and found herself waist-deep in the koi pond's waters. With a dour expression on her face, she climbed out of it and trudged her way over to the engawa, where she sat down. She glanced at the letter that she still held in her hand, and she was surprised to see that the paper and ink had been unaffected by the water.
    She put the letter aside so she could take off her clothes, but she continued to wonder about it as she squeezed the water out of her shirt, which was soon followed by her undershirt and pants. Once she was wearing nothing save her boxers, she put the last of her damp clothes aside and retrieved the letter. Unconcerned about baring her breasts, since she knew that Mr. Tendo was usually mindful enough to avoid looking in her direction after such an episode, she began to read the rest of the letter.
    "I have chosen you to bear a great burden," it read. "The suit that I have sent to you should grant you access to the greatest power that I know of. I'm confident that your experience and training will prepare you for the trials ahead, should you choose to wear it. That's all that I can say for now, but all will be revealed should you choose to accept this task. I have faith in you."
    The letter wasn't signed. However, seeing as it was written by someone from the Monkey-Mountain temple, it didn't really matter to Ranma: it sounded like something from a cheesy movie with a bad plot, the kind where the hero was destined to save everything from certain destruction. So, she spared the letter an incredulous look before setting it aside.
    Kasumi returned a short time later with a kettle of hot water in one hand and a towel in the other. Ranma thanked her as she accepted the kettle first, the contents of which she poured over her head without delay. After he handed the kettle back, he took the towel and began to dry his face with it.
    "Why not see what's in the package?" Kasumi suggested, as if trying to take his mind off of what had happened with the letter.
    "I guess it couldn't hurt," Ranma absently replied, as he worked the towel into his hair. "But I'm gonna call them up, tell them they made a mistake, and send it back."
    "Really?" Kasumi replied, tilting her head slightly to one side. "I thought it was addressed to you."
    "Well, yeah..." Ranma conceded, as he flossed his back with the towel. "Doesn't mean I have to accept it. It has 'weird' written all over it."
    He stood up once he was done drying himself off and gave Kasumi the towel when she held out her hand. With that done, he walked over to the box that was on the table, and absently noted how Mr. Tendo was still looking for the black and white pieces for his game. His father was nowhere to be seen, who had no doubt left the Tendo patriarch the job of picking up the pieces by himself.
    Once he was kneeling at the table, Ranma made quick work out of opening the box. There was no protective packaging inside of it, so he picked up the only thing that he found within. Said thing appeared to be a suit, but he couldn't really tell what it looked like — in detail — as he held it up, since half of it was still in the box while the other half was covered in what appeared to be a large mane of crimson-colored hair. With that being the case, he stood up, in order to draw the entire suit out of the box, and immediately regretted doing so.
    "Oh, my," voiced Kasumi, as she covered her mouth with her hand.
    What he held over the box could not simply be called a suit, seeing as it appeared to be a rather anatomically correct skin of a person — and of a pubescent girl, no less. The sight of it made him pause in mild shock, as even his past experience with weird and disgusting things hadn't quite prepared him for something of its ilk.
    As luck would have it, Akane chose that time to return, now wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She took one look at the skin suit, saw him in nothing but his boxers, and immediately concluded that he had undressed to wear it.
    "This... This isn't what it looks like!" Ranma declared his innocence as he dropped the skin suit and frantically waved both of his hands about in front of himself, hoping that it would ward away his advancing fiancée.
    Undaunted, Akane reached him and screamed, "you pervert," before launching him out of the house with a punch to the face.
    Kasumi watched Akane storm out of the room before she turned her attention to Ranma, who once again found herself in the koi pond.
    "I better prepare some more hot water," Kasumi idly commented to herself.
    She picked up the kettle and headed back to the kitchen, leaving the upset redhead to her own devices until she returned. She didn't notice that her father was frozen in shock, due to catching a glimpse of the skin suit.

Chapter 1

    Although Ranma had tried to send the skin suit back to the Monkey-Mountain temple, a phone call had revealed that they had never been in possession of such a skin suit, which — in turn — meant that they had never sent it to him. Even when he had offered the skin suit to them, they had refused, no doubt with the assumption that it possessed the same bothersome nature as the dōgi that they had once owned, which had wailed at night for a master.
    Despite his attempts to give the skin suit away to the girls that he was closest to, with the claim that it would enhance the wearer's abilities, Ranma hadn't found any keepers. Akane had been the first that he had offered it to, but she had rejected it, saying — among other things — that it was perverted. When he had suggested that it would also improve her figure, in an attempt to change her mind, her response had — unsurprisingly — gone from being strictly verbal to mostly physical. Ukyo had been willing at first, for his sake, but she had ultimately felt too uncomfortable to try it on. Shampoo, on the other hand, had shown no reservation about wearing the skin suit. However, since it hadn't done anything more than look like a realistic — if disproportionate — costume, she had lost interest in it. So, at Cologne's suggestion, he had grudgingly decided to hold on to it just in case — of what, he didn't know.
    In the end, the skin suit had been stored in the closet, where it was left to be forgotten. After several weeks, however, Ranma would still find his thoughts gravitating toward it, wondering if it would ever become an issue. Somewhere in the back of his mind, something about the skin suit — as well as the letter that had been included with it — continued to nag at him. This was partly due to the fact that he still had no idea as to where it had come from, but the greatest part of that nagging came from the vague feeling of disquiet that he experienced whenever he considered parting with the skin suit, in such a way as to give up any possible access to it. He knew the feeling well enough, but he usually knew what he was getting into whenever he experienced it, and he didn't like not knowing one bit.
    More importantly, however, was why the skin suit had been sent to him. If what the letter had suggested was anywhere near true, he could have been feeling good about himself and showing off: it was nice when someone recognized his skill and entrusted him with something important. However, past experience told him that it was probably someone's idea of a joke, or — if his feelings bore out — would likely amount to more trouble than he was willing to put up with.

    Early one morning, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, Ranma casually made his way to the empty lot where he and Ryoga often held their duels. Ranma had received Ryoga's challenge more than a week ago, and since four days ago he had been checking the appointed place to see whether or not Ryoga had arrived. He checked once in the morning, then again during the evening; before and after school, respectively, if it happened to be on a school day, like it was on that day.
    As Ranma approached the empty lot, he noticed that a tent had been set up. Just outside of it he could see Ryoga sitting in front of a portable burner, which had a kettle resting on top of it. He was hunched over as he inhaled ramen noodles out of a styrofoam cup, and made no move to acknowledge his presence.
    When Ranma reached him, he squat down, crossed his arms across his knees, and light-heartedly said, "Finally got here, huh?"
    Ryoga quickly finished the last of the noodles that were in his cup before he closed his eyes and grudgingly admitted, "Just a few hours ago."
    Blinking, Ranma leaned in a bit closer and noticed the slight bags beneath Ryoga's eyes. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "You haven't slept, yet?"
    "Not a wink," Ryoga casually replied.
    "And you're okay with that...?" Ranma inquired.
    With a confident smirk, Ryoga said, "Although it pains me to lose sleep over you, it's going to be a key to my victory."
    "Ah, I see," Ranma replied, with an expression and tone that showed how unimpressed he was by Ryoga's statement. "So, you're going to try that again, are you?"
    Ryoga simply stood up and said, "Just wait a moment and you'll find out."
    Ranma got to his feet and put some distance between Ryoga and himself, as his bandanna-wearing rival picked up his portable burner and kettle, along with his trash, and put them somewhere in his tent. When he was done, he crawled out of it, stood up, then walked over to a spot that was across from where he stood.
    "Well, let's get this over with," Ranma said, as if unconcerned about the coming fight.
    Ryoga closed his eyes and thought of many depressing things, chief among them his indecision on the matter of choosing between Akane and Akari. Despite the fact that Akari knew of his curse, yet still loved him, it hadn't put out the fire that burned for Akane within in his heart. Was he even deserving of Akari's love, when someone who had only expressed themselves as nothing more than a friend to him could distract him so easily?
    By the look on Ryoga's face, and his stance, Ranma sensed that he was ready for him. He sprinted forward and quickly closed in on him, a fist cocked and ready to deliver a blow. Ryoga's eyes snapped open just before he came within range, his eyes filled with a determination that didn't match the woeful expression on his face. Their arms crossed, as one tried to punch the other, and then...
    Ranma was knocked back, a surprised look on his injured face. Something strange had happened when he had gotten close to Ryoga, as if he had suddenly been burdened with enough weight to slow him down; enough, he realized, for his moves to be read. Ryoga had also been able to dodge his attack at the same time, as if he hadn't fallen under the same effect.
    Narrowing his eyes, Ranma initiated combat with Ryoga again, hoping to get a better understanding of what was going on. He punched, but Ryoga dodged. He kicked, but Ryoga redirected his leg. Then he tried to punch Ryoga with the greatest speed that he could muster, but it felt like he was fighting under water, and his fists just couldn't reach the blinding speed that he had been hoping for.
    That's when Ryoga managed to grab the collar of his shirt, lifted him up, and began to alternate between punching him in the face and abdomen. No matter how hard he tried to move his head out of the way, or block his fists, Ryoga's newfound speed advantage made small work of his attempts. It was while Ryoga's arm was extended, with his fist buried into one side of his face, that he eventually saw an opportunity to escape. He raised his legs as quickly as he could, planted them on Ryoga's torso, then kicked off of him.
    With a tearing sound accompanying his action, he was able to launch himself out of Ryoga's grip. He backflipped perfectly and landed a safe distance away, although he found himself staggering for a moment before he could recover his bearings. He quickly returned his attention to Ryoga, who hadn't moved to follow him, and winced in pain as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
    "How unfair," Ryoga stated softly, flatly, as he tossed a handful of Ranma's shirt aside. "You got away."
    Ranma continued to observe his opponent, and think, while said opponent remained where he was. By now he was sure that Ryoga had somehow managed to project his heavy ki around him, to increase the resistance to his movements by weighing him down, which in turn meant that he had to burn more energy to achieve what he could. For once, he found himself at a speed disadvantage with the other boy, so he wouldn't be able to get close to him unless he figured out a way to disrupt the mood that powered his use of heavy ki.
    "Realized that you can't get close to me, did you?" Ryoga observed, sounding as if it were terrible news to him.
    Feeling a bit more confident, Ranma crossed his arms and said, "Not a problem."
    "Oh?" Ryoga replied.
    "Look behind you!" Ranma suddenly exclaimed, with great urgency, as he pointed behind Ryoga. "It's Akari!"
    An errant wind carried a leaf between the two, during the period of silence and inactivity that followed.
    "I knew you'd try something like that," Ryoga finally said, as he gave Ranma a reproachful stare. "That's why I promised myself that—"
    "And she's kissing Akane," Ranma interrupted in a pseudo-hushed tone, his hand raised to his mouth in a conspiratorial fashion.
    Another moment of silence passed between them. Ranma eagerly awaited Ryoga's reaction, and hoped that Ryoga's silent, rigid form was a good sign.
    "W-w-w-whaaaaaaaat!?" Ryoga gasped, flustered by the mental image that had been evoked in his mind.
    Being quick to take advantage of the opportunity presented before him, Ranma rushed Ryoga before he could recover. He unleashed as many punches as he could, and he was satisfied to see them working faster than the eyes could normally see. Ryoga could do no more than try to defend himself before he was sent crashing into a wall from a well-placed kick.
    Grinning, Ranma stood triumphantly and waited for Ryoga to climb out of the rubble. It didn't take long, but Ryoga simply sat up instead of getting to his feet. His head was bowed, and his fists were clenched at his sides.
    "I can't believe I fell for it," Ryoga muttered, anger evident in his voice. "Even after I prepared myself..."
    "Well, no one's perfect," Ranma jovially offered.
    After a pause, Ryoga said, "You're right."
    "I am?" Ranma replied, wondering — yet suspecting — where Ryoga was going to go with his comment.
    Ryoga stood up and took a few steps away from the rubble, in a way that made him appear fatigued. He kept his head bowed, and his fists clenched, until he took his final step. Only then did he appear to relax, with his palms showing and his shoulders sagging.
    "Thank you," Ryoga began, before he leapt toward Ranma, swung his fist at him, and shouted, "for reminding me of how inferior I am!"
    "Whoa!" Ranma cried out, as he jumped out of the way.
    Ryoga continued his assault, and Ranma retreated each time he advanced, knowing that he couldn't get too close to him without risking ensnarement. In fact, any amount of time in close quarters with Ryoga would be dangerous, and he didn't think that he'd be as lucky to escape as he had last time. Not only did he risk being beaten into submission, but he also risked tiring himself out too quickly on top of that, since he had to expend more energy than usual — when Ryoga was nearby — just trying to keep up with him, nevermind trying to match him. Even if he managed to escape from another beating, the cost would almost certainly ensure his defeat.
    After a time, Ryoga stopped and — in a low, deliberate tone — said, "Do you hate being around me that much? Am I so despicable as to be treated like a leper?"
    Ranma didn't reply, knowing that Ryoga was only reinforcing the mood required to maintain his heavy ki. Instead, he gathered his confidence and fired a mōko takabisha while his opponent was still stationary. Ryoga raised his arms in defense, rather than move out of the way, since he had been unprepared for it. However, he needn't have worried, as he soon found out: the heavy ki around him was thick and had acted like a wall, and only a small fraction of Ranma's attack had made any significant penetration while the rest had taken the path of least resistance and splashed away from its target.
    Ryoga charged toward Ranma again, and found him retreating once more. At that, Ryoga yelled, "Are you going to fight me, or are you going to forfeit?"
    Ranma scowled in response, but he knew that Ryoga was right: if all he did was run, he might as well be forfeiting the match. Tricking Ryoga had worked once before, true, but he didn't think that he could be tricked yet again in his current state. However, even if he could trick Ryoga once more, he'd already taken quite a beating, and he'd expended a lot of energy making the most out of the opening that he had been able to produce before. Simply put: the challenge of getting through his technique and guard both, then defeating Ryoga with only a second successful offense, was extremely unlikely.
    The last thing that he wanted to experience was being carried back home and deposited in an unseemly heap, which was what had happened when Ryoga had first learned the shishi hōkōdan — and the unperfected one, at that. Not only did he not have the excuse of it not being a formal duel, because it was, but now he had to prove his manliness to his mother or risk committing seppuku. While he wasn't sure that his defeat would be considered a deal-breaker with his mother, he didn't want to risk either it or — alternatively — experiencing the shame of failure and the other annoying things that would likely accompany it.
    His mind raced to think of a solution as he kept himself out of Ryoga's zone of influence, until a potential answer finally occurred to him.
    "Perhaps there is another way to get through that heavy ki of his," Ranma thought to himself. "It's worth a try, at least."
    Ranma leapt high into the air, and landed upon the roof of a house just outside of the empty lot. He turned to face Ryoga, who was now looking up at him, and yelled, "Can you wait here for a few minutes? I'll be right back!"
    Then he left before Ryoga could answer. Ryoga blinked once, twice, then three times, before he broke out of his trance-like state, his face becoming animated again. Enraged, he shouted, "H-hey! Ranma! Get back here, you coward! We're not done fighting, yet!"

Chapter 2

    Ranma entered the house, kicked off his shoes, and then raced up the stairs. His mother, who heard the front door slide open and shut, pushed aside the noren and poked her head out of the kitchen. She peered down the empty hallway for a moment, saw no one, and assumed that her son must have been in a rush to wash up after his duel. So, she turned around and went back to helping Kasumi prepare breakfast.
    It didn't take long for Ranma to find the box and pull it out into the open. He stared at the box for a second, as it lay on the floor in front of him, before he opened it. Inside was the skin suit, and on top of that was the letter. He considered the letter, and thought about what he intended to do.
    While the skin suit hadn't done anything for Shampoo, that didn't mean that it wouldn't do anything for him. However, the real problem was deciding on whether it would be worth trying out in order to win his duel, and through that victory avoid a number of unpleasantries, because he still had the feeling that putting on the skin suit would bring problems of its own.
    "Well," he thought to himself, as he released a sigh, "if it works, my immediate problem is solved. If it bites me in the ass, I'll just have to deal with it — like always."
    He closed the box, picked it up, then left the house the same way that he had come in, since he had no reason to abandon his shoes just yet. He made his way back to the empty lot, choosing to transform himself into a girl along the way since it would be more appropriate — and slightly less uncomfortable — to wear the skin suit on a body that was better designed for it. When she arrived at her destination, however, she discovered that Ryoga was nowhere to be seen.
    "That idiot..." She muttered to herself.
    Still, at least that meant more privacy. She hadn't put the skin suit on back at the house because she hadn't wanted anyone to catch her wearing it and get the wrong idea. This way, the only potential problem — in her mind — was if she wore it in front of Ryoga and it failed to do anything. Of course, unless she hurried, that wouldn't matter: because Ryoga would get himself lost, and the fight would have to be postponed. Then, knowing Ryoga, he'd think that she had run away and she'd never hear the end of it — especially if word got around about it.
    Standing behind the tent, relative to the entrance of the lot, she quickly undressed. She paused for a moment, debating whether she should keep her boxers on, but she decided against it: the skin suit would fit better, and it made more sense for all of her clothes to be worn on the outside. Then, she took the skin suit out of the box and held it up for inspection, as she began to wonder about it once more. She had gotten a good look at the skin suit when Shampoo had worn it, so she knew that it wasn't exactly human, what with there being a horn on each side of its head and having a lizard-like tail above its posterior. It was odd, and made her curious about what kind of girl-creature the skin suit was based on, but she had more important things to worry about just then.
    As she worked her limbs into the skin suit, she failed to notice the invisible creatures that were gathering around her. They looked like cartoonish rabbits in appearance, except they had eight legs that were configured much like those of a spider's. By the time that she had worked most of the skin suit on, they had assembled around her, in a circle, facing inward. As soon as she had everything in order, a look of concentration appeared on the face of each creature, and she froze in mid-action. The space inside the circle, with her in it, began to distort and waver, as if the fabric of space-time were a curtain in a breeze. The colors, too, were being warped and inverted.
    Then, suddenly, it stopped. The creatures, finished with their task, simply dispersed. Ranma, feeling a bit disoriented, steadied herself. Not knowing the cause of it, she chalked it up to feeling weird about wearing the skin suit. In fact, now that she had it all the way on, she couldn't really tell if she were wearing it or not. She held her hand out, flexed her fingers, and was surprised by the absence of any resistance to her movements. She squeezed her fingers into a fist, but the sensation felt normal, unlike what she would have expected with any sort of glove. However, since she was no expert on skin suits, and what kind of material could allow such a realistic feeling, she opted to return her attention to the matter at hand: getting dressed, and finding Ryoga.
    However, as soon as she tried to pull her boxers up, she encountered a problem: the tail of her skin suit. Since she was in a hurry, and she didn't want to run around with her rear not being properly covered, she decided that she could live with a damaged pair of boxers and pants, reasoning that she could always sew them back together. So, she tried to tear the back of her boxers open, and was surprised when she ended up tearing her boxers completely apart. Thinking that they may have been in worse shape than they had appeared, she moved on to her pants, using — out of freshly-raised caution — less of the initial strength than she had applied to her boxers before, and was successful in making a hole for the skin suit's tail.
    With that taken care of, she maneuvered the tail of her skin suit through the hole, during which she could have sworn that she had felt the tail being touched. Of course, since she had to find Ryoga before he vanished, she disregarded the sensation as nothing more than her imagination, and finished getting dressed.
    Once she had all of her clothes on, sans the ruined boxers, she crouched and prepared to make a leap, knowing that she would have an easier time finding Ryoga by rooftop. She chose the nearest roof and jumped for it, but — to her surprise — she quickly realized that she was going to overshoot it. When she landed, she turned around to look behind her, and she was amazed to see that she had somehow jumped four rooftops farther than she had intended.
    "Maybe there's something to this thing, after all," Ranma mused, as she considered the skin suit that she was wearing.
    Shaking her head, she turned back around and began her search via rooftop. Well, not just by rooftop: she also jumped into the sky, to find out just how high she could jump, and peered down at the ground from there. It was during one of her aerial observations that she caught Ryoga running around, several streets away. So, she altered her course and made her way to him. When she got close enough, she could hear him calling out her name, as well as accusing her of running away from their fight.
    Aggravated by his behavior, she landed on the street behind him and yelled, "Hey, pork breath!"
    Ryoga stopped in his tracks, whirled around, and angrily replied, "Who're you calling—!"
    Realizing that the source of the insult was a stranger, Ryoga paused, furrowed his brow, and asked, "Who are you?"
    "Who do you think?" Was Ranma's sarcastic reply, as she folded her arms beneath her bosom. "I told you I'd be back, you idiot."
    "Ranma...?" Ryoga queried, with a look of confusion on his face. He proceeded to point to the side of his head, then to his rear, as he asked, "What's up with...? And...?"
    "Does it matter?" Ranma responded, as she grew impatient. "Do you want to fight, or not?"
    Ryoga's eyes narrowed, and he adopted a fighting stance as he said, "I don't know what you're playing at, but I'm not going to be made a fool!" He then jabbed his index finger at her and proclaimed, "Ranma! Today's the day that I slay you!"
    "'Slay' me?" Ranma replied, with an eyebrow cocked.
    "It's just that you look—" Ryoga caught himself, shook his head, then vehemently said, "Nevermind that! We're fighting!"
    "Could have fooled me," Ranma wryly retorted, as she got ready to fight.
    Ryoga calmed himself down, and thought about all of the times that he had been defeated by Ranma. How could someone like Ranma get the better of him, and what kind of person was he to allow it to happen? The worst, that's what! Such thoughts quickly helped him to achieve the appropriate mood for creating the amount of heavy ki that he needed. He raised his head, and the expression on his face — which reflected his mood fairly well — was more than enough to indicate that he was ready to engage Ranma in combat once more.
    Ranma, knowing that now would be the moment of truth, got ready to attack. However, if jumping far above a bath house's chimney — in a single bound — was any indication of the strength that the skin suit had bestowed her with, she didn't think that she had anything to worry about. Still, she thought it best to focus, and be prepared if things didn't work out.
    She sprinted forward, faster than she had intended, but she was able to compensate for it and prepared to strike Ryoga. When she got close enough to him, with her fist on a collision course with his face, she felt no resistance from his heavy ki. Her fist met with his face, perhaps before he even realized it, and he was sent flying — like a rocket — down the street. She could only gawk in surprise as Ryoga plowed through the roof of a car over a hundred meters away, only to crash through a wall beyond that.
    However, surprise quickly turned to concern, so she raced to find Ryoga. It also seemed that she had attracted some attention, as one head after another popped out of windows and doors to investigate the disturbance, or appeared around corners on the street if they hadn't been there already. She ignored them, of course, and ran through the hole that Ryoga had made in the wall. She found him shortly thereafter, plastered against the side of a house. She pulled him out of the indentation that he had made, and proceeded to roll him onto his back.
    "Damn," Ranma muttered under her breath, as she looked over his injuries. "This doesn't look good."
    Aside from the usual damage that she had expected, from crashing through various things, it seemed that the blow to his head had rendered him unconscious. However, it could be worse than it looked, considering how much power must have been needed to send him flying as far as he had gone. She checked his pulse, and frowned when she found it weaker than she had expected.
    "I better have him looked at," she decided, as she cradled him in her arms and got to her feet. "He's tough, but... It shouldn't hurt to make sure."
    She carried him as carefully as she could, which meant sticking to the road instead of the rooftops, since jumping about would jostle him around a lot more violently. She ran down one street, then another, until she found the building that she had been looking for. She knocked on the door urgently, and hoped that would incite a quicker response.
    Dr. Tofu appeared a few seconds later, dressed for the day, and with a toothbrush in his hand. He looked down, saw what he was presented with, and — with a serious expression on his face — said, "Bring him inside."
    Ranma followed Dr. Tofu into the examination room and placed Ryoga onto a cot, which the doctor had indicated by way of a gesture. He then pulled up a stool, and sat at Ryoga's side. He leaned over him as he examined his prone body carefully, and touched an area of interest on occasion as he did so. Soon, he reached Ryoga's head, and he hummed thoughtfully as his attention fixated upon it. He carefully felt around Ryoga's forehead, applying no more than feather-weight pressure to the area. In the meantime, Ranma had quietly stood off to the side of him, a bit anxious over what verdict the examination would reveal.
    After pulling away from Ryoga, and flexing his fingers, Dr. Tofu went back in and began to apply accupressure to certain spots on his head. When he was done, he sat up, rubbed the back of his head, and said, "Well... Aside from being in a coma, the external injuries can be treated easily enough."
    "I see..." Ranma voiced, not really knowing what to say. So, instead, she asked the obvious: "Will he be okay?"
    "Well, he only suffered some minor trauma," Dr. Tofu informed her, as he turned on his stool and faced her. "Something must have really knocked him for a loop. I've done what I can to help him recover, but I can't really guarantee anything when it comes to something like this... But his chances of making a full recovery should be good."
    Ranma breathed a sigh of relief and said, "That's a relief."
    "By the way..." Dr. Tofu continued, in a conversational tone. "I don't believe we've ever met before."
    Feeling a bit embarrassed about having to admit it, Ranma scratched the side of her face, looked away, and said, "Ah... Well, I'm Ranma. I'm kinda wearing a disguise right now."
    "You don't say," Dr. Tofu responded, looking surprised.
    "You couldn't tell?" Ranma inquired, her curiosity piqued.
    Dr. Tofu adjusted his glasses and peered at Ranma more closely, for a few seconds, before he shook his head and said, "It's a very good disguise. Very realistic."
    "Don't I know it," Ranma admitted, as she considered the lack of tactile interference from her skin suit. Then, once she brought her mind back to the matter at hand, she apologetically said, "Oh, yeah... I'm sorry for bothering you so early in the morning, doc, but..."
    Dr. Tofu held up his hand, signaling for her to say no more, and it was with evident amusement that he said, "Don't worry about it. This is what I'm here for, right?"
    "Anyway," he went on, as he stood up, "I've still got a mouth to rinse out. Would you like me to give you a call later, and give you an update on his condition?"
    Since she'd had something else in mind, Ranma awkwardly said, "Oh, uh... I was kinda thinking of coming back later. That is, if you don't mind if I bring his stuff here?"
    "No problem," answered Dr. Tofu with a smile. "I'll be expecting you, then."
    With a mixture of relief and gratitude, Ranma said, "Thanks, doc."
    They said their goodbyes before they parted ways in the lobby. Ranma stepped outside, paused once she reached the sidewalk, and raised her hands up for inspection. It was still unbelievable to her, the kind of power that the skin suit had given her. For weeks she had put it out of her mind, more convinced that it had been a part of some perverted joke than anything else. However, now that it had worked for her, which was contrary to its performance for Shampoo, it proved to be something more than just a disturbingly-realistic skin suit. And speaking of disturbingly-realistic... It was time for her to remove it, since it had served its purpose.

    In another dimension, where the gods and goddesses dwelt, a phone rang. On a nearby bed, a figure stirred beneath the covers, as the phone's incessant ringing continued. Then, a hand darted out from beneath the covers, grabbed the receiver, and pulled it into the murky depths from which it had come.
    "What is it?" A male voice groused.
    A few seconds passed in silence, before the owner of the voice sat up in his bed, cast aside his covers, and shrieked, "What!?"
    While another figure stirred and groaned in his bed, the man quietly listened to what was being said on the other end of the line. Eventually, he closed his eyes and considered something — for a time — before he said, "Get someone from the Divination Division on it. Have them make preparations for... Hino Rei. Yes; I think we'll start there."
    While he leaned over to hang up the phone, a naked woman, who had the marks of a goddess on her forehead and cheeks, crawled out from beneath the covers and sidled up beside him. She let out a big yawn, and looked up at him with bleary eyes as she asked, "What was all that about?"
    "It was nothing," was all that he was willing to say to her about it.
    However, in reality, Kami-sama knew that he had a real problem to take care of; one thought to have been phased out of existence a long time ago. Since that no longer seemed to be the case, he knew that he had some work ahead of him. So, as intent on resolving the matter as he was, he decided to get up and get started on it.

Chapter 3

    When Ranma made it back to the empty lot, she crawled into Ryoga's tent and found his portable burner, as well as his kettle. She didn't think that he'd mind what he didn't know about, and it was the most convenient source of hot water besides. After she checked to make sure that there was enough water inside of the kettle, she took it and the portable burner outside of the tent, placed the former on top of the latter, and a second later the water in the kettle was being heated.
    With that done, she went over to the spot where she had undressed before, behind the tent, and began to do so again. It took her no time at all, and soon she was feeling around the back of her head, through a thick mane of hair. When she didn't succeed in finding an opening, she furrowed her brow and felt around a bit more meticulously. When that failed to turn up anything, she lost her patience and began to pull at the hair of the skin suit.
    "Ow, ow, ow...!" She cried out, when she gave the hair a particularly-hard yank.
    She rubbed the spot that smarted, as she considered the implications of what had just happened. Frowning, she raised one of her hands to one of the horns on the side of her head, pulled on it, and felt it firmly affixed to her skull. Then she felt the back of her neck, then between her shoulders, and felt no evidence of a seam. Now that the pieces were beginning to fall into place, she looked over her shoulder, at the tail, and — hesitantly — tried to move it... and succeeded.
    Her eyes became as wide as saucers as she gasped out, "You've gotta be kidding me..."
    "You also have a pair of functioning wings," a woman's voice suddenly informed her.
    "What!?" Ranma exclaimed, her narrowed eyes darting this way and that as they searched for the source of the voice. "Come out, where I can see you!"
    "I'm afraid that I can not," the voice responded, sounding regretful.
    Ranma, however, wasn't concerned about any particulars regarding the voice, aside from where it had come from. Now that she had that figured out, she focused her attention on it. Turning to face Ryoga's tent, which had been empty just moments before, she began to take a purposeful step toward it when she heard the voice again.
    "Stop!"
    Ranma felt compelled to stop, so she did. Then she gave herself a mental slap for responding to the voice's command and angrily said, "Why should I?"
    "I simply can't risk being seen," the woman explained, stressing her words.
    Unsatisfied with that answer, Ranma said, "not my problem," as she reached out with one hand and gripped the top of the tent.
    "Please!" The woman pled, sounding desperate. "Don't!"
    Ranma didn't make a move to throw the tent away, but neither did she relax her grip on it. With a measured tone, and a steady glare, she asked, "What do you want?"
    "You wish to know what has happened, don't you?" She queried.
    "No, of course not," came Ranma's sarcastic reply.
    The woman in the tent didn't respond immediately. When she did, she calmly said, "I only have so much time, so I must make this quick." Ranma stood attentively as she went on to say, "Your family comes from a very old dragon lineage. So old, in fact, that no dragon traits are expressed for several generations at a time. Even when they are, only the most superficial traits have survived to your generation."
    "What does that have to do with me getting stuck in this skin suit?" Ranma impatiently asked.
    "I'm getting to that part," the woman replied, voicing some of her annoyance at being interrupted. "The fact is that the skin suit you put on is the shed skin of a dragon half, which is the result of a union between a human and a dragon. One that just happens to be your ancestor."
    Ranma took a moment to absorb that information, however strange it sounded, before she carefully asked, "So... You're saying that my relation to this dragon half, and wearing her shed skin," she shuddered a bit at the thought, "is why I'm stuck like this?"
    "Only partially," she answered. "There are two other factors, as well: your curse, and nature itself."
    "Huh?" Was Ranma's intelligent response. "What do you mean?"
    "It's a simple matter with your curse," she began to explain. "Magic, being rather exotic and raw nowadays, has a tendency to express its nature wherever possible. When the magic of Jusenkyo worked its magic on you, it was attracted to the exotic traits of your bloodline, which weren't being expressed. Thus your red hair and blue eyes, for example."
    "The other factor is a bit more complicated," she went on. "There's a kind of natural order to things: if this happens, then that happens; and if that happens, then this happens. A sort of balance is reached by swinging to and fro between opposing forces, since each counterbalances the other. Are you with me, so far?"
    "I think so..." Ranma replied with evident uncertainty, as she rubbed the back of her head with her free hand. "It's kinda like when an opponent has many advantages over you, so you have to find at least one weakness that can make all of those advantages amount to nothing... Right?"
    "I suppose that's one way of looking at it, yes," She agreed. "There's an imbalance of power. Depending on how great the imbalance is, and how long it lasts, will determine the potential ability of the counterforce to act. In this case, since there's too much order and control, the counterforce will cause random and chaotic things to happen. And such was the case when you wore that shed skin: you had enough ties to it, and this kind of dragon half — in particular — has the kind of power that could turn the tide."
    Ranma tilted her head back and thoughtfully said, "That letter did mention something about a great power. Speaking of which..." She leveled her gaze on the tent once more, and resentfully added, "You never mentioned anything about getting stuck with this body."
    "Would you have worn it if I had?" The woman calmly countered.
    "Well, no..." Ranma admitted.
    "I know what you're concerned about," she stated softly. "And the answer is this: yes, you can — become normal again, I mean."
    "How?" Ranma queried, who sounded quite eager to find out.
    "There are two ways," she answered with a sigh, as if resigning herself to being completely open and honest about it. "The first is by convincing those on the side that's responsible for the imbalance to change you back, but I suspect that they'll consider it better to just kill you."
    "You don't say..." Ranma deadpanned.
    "The other way," she continued, "is through me."
    "Then, by all means, do it," Ranma said, as she withdrew her hand from the tent, crossed her arms, and stood expectantly. "I didn't ask for this."
    The woman hesitantly answered, saying, "I'm afraid that I can't do it at the moment."
    "What!?" Was Ranma's immediate response, unaware of the wisps of flame that had appeared within her mouth. She uncrossed her arms, held them stiffly at her sides, and angrily said, "But you just said—!"
    "I didn't say that I could do it right now," the woman calmly elaborated. "I won't have the power to overcome the counterforce until you're no longer such a vital part of it."
    Ranma glared balefully at the tent, as if intent on setting it on fire with her gaze, and asked, "Which means...?"
    "I won't be able to do it until the balance is restored," she answered, "or the counterforce finds a better means of conveying its influence."
    "So, let me get this straight..." Ranma began, as she closed her eyes and made an effort to keep her cool. "Basically, either I get killed, or I act as this force-thingy's tool to balance stuff out?"
    "I know you're upset," the woman said, sounding apologetic. "However, you must understand how important this—" There was a pause before she exclaimed, "I need to go!"
    "Wait, what!?" Was Ranma's shocked response, who was stunned by the sudden announcement.
    "I thought I'd have more time..." The woman said, sounding anxious, before she urgently added, "Listen, Ranma! Be vigilant, and be wary of anyone who bears distinguishing marks on their face!"
    Ranma blurted out, "B-but...!"
    Thinking quickly, she immediately moved to the front of the tent, knelt down, and cast the flaps aside. However, much to her dismay, she found no one inside. She thought that she had seen something moving on the ground, but she decided that she had only imagined it after confirming that nothing was there.
    She slowly got to her feet, then lowered her eyes to the ground, pursed her lips, and reflected upon everything that she knew thus far. The most obvious was the fact that the skin suit, which had actually been the shed skin of a dragon half, was now her own skin. Then, there was some force of nature or another that was trying to take advantage of her, which was partially responsible for her current body. And who could forget the mysterious woman herself, who appeared to have gotten her into the mess that she now found herself in?
    "At least she sounded sincere," Ranma thought.
    That didn't really mean much, though. Everything could have just been an act, for all that she knew; and it certainly wouldn't have been the first time that someone had tried to trick her. The only thing that she could do was wait and see how things unfolded. If that woman's advice toward the end had meant anything, then she should probably expect trouble to come and find her. If that turned out to be the case, well... If it was unavoidable, she might as well work toward getting herself back to what amounted to normal again; especially because of a sneaking suspicion that she had about her new body.
    Speaking of which, she turned her attention to the kettle and saw that steam was billowing out from its open spout. Even though the water was boiling-hot, that didn't stop her from tipping the kettle over her head: because she didn't feel like waiting for the water to cool down to a more comfortable temperature. To her surprise, the hot water didn't burn her at all, as it splashed and cascaded down her body. Unsurprising, however, she found her body unchanged.
    With a sigh, she thought, "It figures..."
    She frowned and considered what to do. While being stuck in a female form wasn't new to her, the circumstances were a bit... different, for lack of a better term. And having to explain why she had worn the skin suit in the first place was going to be troublesome. Be that as it may, it might just give her the strength that she would need to get herself back to normal, if the other method of return wasn't possible. It was worth a try since she had no idea what that mysterious woman was trying to do, or what business she had in getting her involved. She usually wasn't an unreasonable person when it came to giving someone aid, but she was being imposed upon too much in this case, and hadn't been given enough information about what was going on.
    Then, realizing that she was still up and about in the nude, she looked around and found a few onlookers outside of the empty lot's entrance. There was what appeared to be a middle-aged businessman who held a briefcase in his hand, a male jogger who was currently jogging in place, and a delivery boy on a bike. However, when they noticed that they had caught her attention, their blissful expressions changed to ones of panic before they made an effort to vacate the vicinity as quickly as possible.
    Ranma grumbled a bit about bothersome perverts while she got herself dressed. When she finished, she took a moment to take down Ryoga's tent, put that and the rest of his belongings either on or into his backpack, and then hoisted it over her shoulder. Remembering the letter that was still in the box, she picked it up and tucked it away, inside of her shirt. Now she just had to deal with things at home, and have some breakfast. If she was lucky, she'd also be able to attend school on time.

    When Ranma got home, she didn't announce her return. Instead, with her shoes in one hand and Ryoga's backpack in the other, she went up the stairs to the second floor, with the intention of dropping off her load in her family's room. However, just as she had finished ascending the stairs, she saw Nabiki rounding the corner ahead of her, who was dressed for school.
    Nabiki approached, and it was with an inquisitive expression on her face that she stopped in front of her and asked, "Ranma...?"
    "In the flesh," Came Ranma's sour response.
    Before Nabiki could ask for the meaning of her response, she noticed that the redhead's attention had been diverted to something behind her. She looked down the hall, after turning aside, and saw her sister, Kasumi, coming toward them. She must have just finished informing Akane about breakfast being ready, since that was why she was currently on her way to the living room.
    "Why, hello!" Kasumi greeted Ranma warmly, before turning to Nabiki with a smile and asking, "Is she a friend of yours?"
    "That," Nabiki measuredly said, as she pointed at the only other girl in the hallway, "is Ranma."
    "Oh, my," Kasumi responded, as she raised one of her hands to her cheek. To Ranma, she said, "I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you."
    "No problem," Ranma replied, with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders.
    Kasumi tilted her head to one side, with a thoughtful look on her face, and a strange look in her eyes, before she asked, "You're wearing what came in that package several weeks ago, aren't you?"
    "Pretty much," Ranma casually responded.
    Then, realizing that she was holding Ranma — as well as Nabiki — up, Kasumi said, "Well, breakfast is ready, so come down and eat when you're ready." She paused, and seemed about to say something more, but didn't.
    Ranma nodded her head belatedly in reply, because she had expected Kasumi to continue, before she said, "Thanks, Kasumi. I'll be down in a minute."
    Appearing to be satisfied with that answer, Kasumi smiled, moved around Ranma, then made her way down the stairway. Sensing an opportunity, Ranma began to move as well, in the direction of her family's room. Nabiki, however, wasn't going to let her escape that easily.
    "Not so fast, Ranma."
    With her back still facing her, Ranma paused and let out a sigh. "What is it, Nabiki?"
    "What does it do?" Nabiki inquired.
    Turning around to face her, with a dumbfounded look on her face, Ranma asked, "What does what do?"
    "The skin suit," Nabiki replied, as she crossed her arms. "Other than looking so realistic, of course."
    "Well..." Ranma hesitated, since she was put on the spot. "Uh... It does lots of things."
    One of Nabiki's eyebrows quirked up at that. "Such as helping you win against Ryoga?"
    Seeing Ranma wince with evident shame, she stepped up to her, leaned forward, clasped her hands behind her back, and innocently asked, "Don't tell me that you were going to keep it a secret?"
    Ranma sighed with resignation, and not so little annoyance. "What do you want, Nabiki?"
    Smiling brightly, Nabiki said, "Come to my room, after school, to find out."
    With that said, she turned about and went downstairs to have breakfast, as if she hadn't a care in the world. Ranma quietly cursed Nabiki before she finally went into the guest room that her family shared. She set Ryoga's backpack aside and went to the closet, where she replaced her shoes with an identical yet smaller pair. Then she sat down, stared at the floor, and crossed her arms while she thought about her most recent problem.
    It wasn't a surprising development, really. She had known that she would have to deal with all kinds of highly-likely problems when she had opted to return home, since she hadn't known how long she would have needed to stay away from said home — and certain people, in particular — before her situation could be resolved. However, even before she had put on the skin suit, she had not been so naive as to think that nothing could go wrong.
    The blame couldn't really be placed on fate or luck, though. While being unable to remove the skin suit had undoubtedly ruined a plan that would have worked otherwise, she wouldn't have needed to use the skin suit — in the first place — if she hadn't been lax in her training. While Ryoga was out seeking challenges and learning new things, all she usually did was maintain her current level of skill, knowledge and strength. It made it more likely for her to be challenged, but it also raised her chances of encountering trouble when the situation became serious.
    She had no one to blame other than herself. She knew the shame that came with loss, the embarrassment that she would likely have to endure when she failed to uphold the image that she presented to her peers, and the danger of being perceived as unmanly in the eyes of her mother. She knew, yet she never seemed to learn and act accordingly.
    Her stomach chose that time to growl, so she sighed, got to her feet, and mentally prepared herself for the inevitable. She only hoped that she could eat her breakfast in peace before she had to explain the situation. Perhaps it would work out in her favor if she entered the living room casually and acted like nothing was wrong...
    She snorted and muttered, "Yeah, right..."

Chapter 4

    Ranma entered the living room as inconspicuously as she could. Everyone else was already sitting at the table and ready to eat breakfast, sitting two to a side, with the exception of Akane and the Tendo patriarch. She casually sat down to the left of Akane, which put her mother and Kasumi on her left, Nabiki and her pandified father on her right, and Mr. Tendo across the table. It didn't take long for her to feel several pairs of eyes on her as they all said, "itadakimasu," and began to eat.
    Akane, aware of Ranma's presence beside her, and curious about the result of the duel, looked over at her and said, "So, how did—" She stopped in mid-sentence, as a look of confusion appeared on her face. Then, once she realized what she was seeing, she glared at her fiancé and asked, "What do you think you're doing?"
    "I'm eating," was Ranma's muffled response, without turning to regard Akane, as she continued to shovel rice into her mouth from her upraised bowl. "What else does it look like?"
    In response, Akane grabbed Ranma by one of her horns, pulled her closer, and angrily said, "It looks like you're being a pervert, to me."
    With her eyes closed, and her furrowed brow displaying the effort that she was putting into tolerating Akane's behavior, Ranma said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
    "Akane, Ranma can't help it that she's horny," Nabiki "helpfully" pointed out.
    "Na-bi-ki!" Akane shouted at her, now flustered on top of being irritated.
    "Ranma...?" Nodoka finally spoke up, with a bewildered look on her face, as she regarded her child.
    Ranma took the opportunity to pull away from Akane, then lowered her empty bowl onto the table. There was a tense moment of silence before she opened her eyes, reached out with her bowl, and asked, "Can I have seconds?"
    "Of course," Kasumi replied with a smile. She accepted the bowl, filled it up with more rice, then returned it.
    The two family's patriarchs continued to mind their own business, since they perceived the situation to be a land mine that they did not wish to disturb. Nabiki continued to observe what was going on, and was prepared to take any opportunity to stir things up, and not just so she could amuse herself. Akane was exasperated, so she pretended to care less about what Ranma was doing and focused on eating her breakfast. Nodoka was still confused about what was going on, but nonetheless had her sword beside her, unwrapped but sheathed.
    Instead of immediately returning her attention to her breakfast, Ranma took a moment to calmly state, "Okay, I'll explain what's going on," to all those present.
    "Why didn't you just say that to begin with!?" Akane yelled in annoyance, and slammed the palm of her hand upon the table.
    "I was hungry," Ranma casually replied, which did nothing to quell her fiancée's ire.
    After she had sampled a portion of her miso soup, Ranma began to explain — in selective detail — what had happened and what she knew. To start with, she said, "Well, basically, I'm gonna be stuck looking like this for a while."
    "What do you mean?" Asked Akane, as she regarded Ranma with an inquisitive expression.
    "What I mean," Ranma began to elaborate, "is that there's some force or another keeping me in this form. I can't even use hot water to become a guy."
    "That's nothing new," Nabiki dryly remarked.
    With a look of skepticism on her face, Akane asked, "Are you sure you can't take it off?"
    "I'm positive," Ranma replied, before she ate some more of her rice.
    "Maybe you just didn't check hard enough," Akane reasoned, who wanted to be helpful. She adjusted her position, so she was facing Ranma, then leaned in and reached for her head. "Where is the opening?"
    "It was in the back, beginning near the top of the head and ending at the base of the tail," Ranma informed her, before sighing. "But, it's not there anymore."
    Akane disregarded what Ranma had said and began to feel around for an opening, convinced that her fiancé had somehow gotten the skin suit stuck and that only her ineptitude kept her from removing it. That thought easily cemented itself in her mind when she found out how difficult it was to look and feel through the skin suit's thick and bountiful red hair.
    "I don't understand..." Nodoka said, with an expression that was a mix of concern and confusion appearing on her face. "Can someone explain to me what's going on?"
    Due to Ranma's hesitation to answer her mother, Nabiki found the opportunity to say, "He likes being a girl, but he got tired of becoming the same one."
    "Is this true...?" Nodoka inquired of her son, with a hardened look and an edge to her voice. She now had her hand on her sword's hilt, which had been raised into Ranma's view.
    Ranma would have snapped back at Nabiki, if not for the immediate threat of her mother. So, instead, she leaned back, raised her hands, waved them around frantically, and hastily sputtered out, "N-no! Of course not! She was just joking! Joking!"
    "Hold still," Akane complained, as she yanked Ranma back to her original position by her hair. As she got back to her search, she added, "And you still haven't answered why you're wearing this thing in the first place."
    "Or why you'd wear it for your duel with Ryoga," Nabiki remarked, who put on an innocent smile.
    Ranma only had a second to glare daggers at Nabiki before Akane pulled her head closer, who, in a low and accusatory tone, asked, "You weren't picking on him again, were you?"
    Ranma reflexively opened her mouth, ready to vehemently deny doing such a thing, until she realized that she'd miss out on a good cover story. So, she closed her mouth, calmed down, and decided to act like she was guilty of picking on Ryoga. She reasoned that it would be better than telling the truth.
    "So what if I did?" Ranma replied, in a challenging tone. She crossed her arms, shut her eyes, and added, "It's not my fault he's an idiot."
    "The only idiot between you two," Akane yanked on Ranma's hair particularly hard as she emphasized, "is you."
    "Whatever," Ranma replied dismissively, as she tried to ignore Akane's attempts to pull her hair out.
    "So, it was just some teasing between friends..." Nodoka concluded with evident relief, as she set her sword down. She could understand the use of a disguise to trick a friend, instead of using it strictly for one's own enjoyment.
    "If you can call them friends," Nabiki thought to herself, who felt satisfied about getting her message across to Ranma.
    Ranma tried to eat her grilled fish, but Akane's tugging on her hair was becoming progressively stronger because of her stubbornness. She tried to ignore it, but having her head jerked around was making it difficult to place her food in her mouth. One of her eyebrows began to twitch, as her consternation grew.
    "Would you please give it a rest," Ranma finally told Akane, in a controlled tone. "Even if I were still wearing it, you'd be pulling in the wrong direction."
    Akane, who had been pulling more toward herself than anything else, realized that Ranma was right: if the skin suit had to be pulled up to get it on, and entered through the back, then — logically — one would need to pull it down to remove it, at the very least. With that in mind, she grasped two handfuls of hair and pulled down... Hard.
    Thinking that the pause had meant a cessation of her fiancée's actions, Ranma had been caught unprepared for the force being applied, and she yelped when she quickly found the side of her head striking her shoulder. While that hadn't really hurt her head or her shoulder, the force and angle had evoked considerable pain in both her neck and scalp.
    With a growl, Ranma turned to confront Akane and angrily shouted, "That hurt!"
    Everyone stopped what they had been doing, and the room fell silent. To Ranma's surprise, and the surprise of everyone else to one degree or another, she had just expelled flame from her mouth. Not only had she expelled flame, but she had blasted Akane in the face with it. And beyond her was her father, who was looking down at the singed fur on his arm with a sweaty brow. Akane's charred head, as well as her body, showed no signs of animation. Then, suddenly, she coughed out a plume of smoke and toppled over.
    "Ah..." Was all that Ranma could voice in her shocked state. Then, finally, despite how obvious Akane's condition was, she finally had the presence of mind to be concerned. "Ah! Akane!"
    "Akane!" She said again, as she leaned over her and gave her shoulder a good shake.
    Then she felt a disturbingly familiar presence, which made her pause. Fearing the worst, she slowly looked over her shoulder. There, looming over her, was the giant, ghastly head of Mr. Tendo.
    "Raaaaaaanmaaaaaaa...!" Mr. Tendo bellowed. "How dare you harm my daughter!"
    Ranma dove out of the room, and was soon running down the hallway as Mr. Tendo's head pushed through the entryway that she had just left through, destroying it in the process.
    "I'm sorry!" Ranma apologized while she evaded Mr. Tendo's writhing tongue. "It was an accident! Honest!"

    Ranma sighed contentedly as she leaned back and relaxed in the hot water of the furo.
    She was glad for this break, what with the incident regarding her newly-discovered flame breath and all. Akane had been giving her the evil eye before she had left for school, so she probably didn't have much to look forward to when she got back. Still, after dodging a bullet with her mother, no thanks to Nabiki, her main concern was getting herself relaxed.
    That didn't stop her from thinking about her situation, or how she hadn't gotten a chance to explain everything that she knew about it to the others. However, when she really thought about it, she didn't really understand all that much about it herself. All that she knew was that she would have to wait and see what would happen, since she didn't have any idea of how to resolve the problem herself, while the alternative solution — if that woman's words were to be trusted — depended on being sought out by who-knows-what.
    After soaking in the furo for a few more minutes, she concluded that it was time for her to get out. She stepped out and decided to face the large mirror that was on the wall, behind the faucets. She was already familiar with all of the red hair that she had, but only now could she see just how massive it was, even while wet. The yellow horns on the sides of her head appeared as she had felt: they began above her ears and extended behind them, where they tapered into points. She hefted her breasts, felt their weight, and guessed them to be about the same size as before. Then, she swung her red-colored tail around, so she could see it, and thought of how odd it was to have a fifth limb of sorts.
    However, she felt as if she were missing something... Had it been something said by that mysterious woman? Although, now that she was staring into her own eyes, she noticed that they had become red...
    "Wait... She had said something about wings, hadn't she?" She suddenly realized. She hadn't been paying attention at the time, but it wasn't like she had been expecting someone to talk to her either.
    There certainly didn't seem to be any wings; none that would be of a size for any practical use, at least. Still, just to be thorough, she decided to take a closer look at her back. She folded her arms behind her neck, lifted them up, and pulled her hair up with them. After making sure that her hair would stay out of the way, she turned her back toward the mirror and looked over her shoulder.
    "What the...?" She muttered, as she gave her back a critical look.
    There was something there, alright, but they didn't look like wings. On each shoulder blade was a reddish, vertical protrusion of some kind, though they didn't seem to extend from her back more than an inch. She shifted her shoulders around, but that didn't do anything. Then, it occurred to her to try and move the things on her back, and she was surprised when a pair bat-like wings — which were the same color as her tail — sprung into view.
    "So, I do have wings..." She thought, somewhat awed by that fact.
    She put her arms down and faced the mirror head-on once more. In it she saw a girl with a wild mane of red hair, red eyes, equally-red tail and wings, and a pair of horns. The girl certainly looked like she was part dragon; or a dragon half, as that mysterious woman had called it.
    "Rowr~!" She growled at the mirror, with her hands raised and fingers spread out and curled, as she pretended to be a fearsome dragon. However, instead of fearsome, the act seemed to be more cute than anything else. It was kind of endearing, actually, but still...
    "Ranma...?" A familiar voice came from the changing room.
    Ranma turned around to face the shōji, and saw a shadowy figure through the frosted glass. "Mom?"
    "May I come in?" She requested.
    "Oh, uh... Sure," Ranma acquiesced, despite having some reservation about her mother seeing her as she was. It wasn't because she was naked: her mother had seen her naked many times before. It was normal, really. She was just concerned about the non-human parts of her, that were now on full display.
    Nodoka slid the shōji open, stepped into the room, then closed it behind her. When she turned about to face her child, she stood silently for a moment and took in Ranma's appearance. The wings were new, but — despite the non-human parts — her body did not appear to be all that different from her usual female form overall. It felt strange to see her child in her current state, but she was beginning to understand that strange things weren't uncommon in her life.
    With a touch of concern, she asked, "How are you feeling?"
    "Alright, I guess..." Ranma awkwardly replied. She rubbed the back of her neck, since she didn't know what else to say.
    "So... You've been stuck like this before?" Nodoka inquired.
    "A few times," Ranma admitted. "Usually for technical reasons, though. This is only the second time I've literally been stuck."
    "Then I'm confident that you'll have this sorted out, too," Nodoka stated with a smile, feeling reassured. Still, the mother in her just had to add, "But, if you should ever need anything..."
    "Don't worry, mom," Ranma said with a smirk. "I'll be a man again before too long."
    Nodoka studied her child again for a moment, fondly, for she saw the man that she was despite the feminine exterior. Then, remembering another reason for her visit, she said, "Oh, and I'd like for you to stay home today. I don't want you going to school in those dirty, torn clothes that you had been wearing earlier. And, I won't have you tearing more holes in anything else, so you won't have anything to wear until Kasumi and I properly modify a new outfit for your current form."
    Feeling a mixture of relief and embarrassment, Ranma said, "Okay..."
    "I left one of my nightgowns out for you," Nodoka informed her. "You can wear that until we're done; I won't mind. Will that be fine with you?"
    Ranma had the urge to say, "sure, no problem; it's not like I haven't worn something like that before." But, instead, she wisely chose to say, "I'll live with it, somehow."
    Nodoka shared a smile with her child before she left. Ranma, left alone with her thoughts, suddenly wondered how long it would take for Kasumi and her mother to modify a pair of boxers and pants. Still, so long as certain people weren't around, she wouldn't really mind lounging about the house in a nightgown. Of course, she figured that she should pretend to be uncomfortable with it while she was around her mother — just in case.

Chapter 5

    It was a quiet afternoon at the Hikawa shrine, but Hino Rei felt uneasy despite the placid atmosphere. The feeling had started early in the morning, but she had ignored it so she could focus on her school work and activities. Without knowing the cause behind her unease, she had no choice but to wait until she could meditate before the shrine's fire. And that's exactly what she did after school, once she was dressed up for her duties as a Shinto priestess. She hoped to ease her concern before she went about her responsibilities, and — if possible — learn what her feelings were founded on.
    The meditation began to mitigate her sense of unease, much to her relief. However, just as she had begun to feel relaxed, she was suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding, and anxiety rose up within her breast. Realizing what that meant, she opened her eyes and stared into the fire. Images began to appear within it, showing a girl outside of a school, who had horns protruding from her head, a tail, and — as far as she could tell — demonic-looking wings and eyes. The girl was breathing fire indiscriminately, and students were screaming in terror, trying to escape with their lives. Before the entire scene was lost in the flames, the name of the school, shown on a plaque on the school's perimeter wall, became blatantly obvious and burned itself into her memory. Then, the fire died out.
    Surprised by her vision, she failed to react for a time. Instead she reviewed what she had seen, to make sure that she could recall all of it. The girl with the horns, wings and tail, who breathed fire, had red hair and wore a Chinese style of clothing. Her red, reptile-like eyes were a perfect expression of evil intent, and the owner of those eyes would carry out her deed at Furinkan high school.
    The meaning of the vision was clear, with or without the ominous death of the shrine's fire: the event in her vision was a possibility in the future. Whether it was an unconnected, random monster, or a new enemy, remained to be seen. What she did know, however, was that she needed to contact the others and inform them of what she had glimpsed in the fire.
    With that in mind, she left the shrine and quickly made her way to her home, where she lived with her grandfather. It was a simple matter to relay her message with a special communicator, in the privacy of her bedroom.

    The following morning found Ranma walking to school with Akane. She looked down at her fiancée from the fence that she was currently walking on, and saw that she was still giving her the cold shoulder. Not only for accidentally torching her head yesterday morning, but because she had also accidentally hit her into a wall with her tail — when she had turned around — later that same day.
    Thinking back on that reminded her of some other things that had happened yesterday. For one, her mother — along with Kasumi, as it so happened — had altered a few outfits to accommodate her wings and tail. Now her tail didn't appear to burst out of the back of her pants, and her wings could slip in and out of slits that had been made in the back of her shirt. She had also spent a good portion of her day getting acquainted with her new endowments and abilities. Breathing fire seemed easy enough to control, and getting the hang of flight had been a fun experience. Her tail, on the other hand, still slipped her mind at times, so she could still hit something — or someone — by accident.
    The worst part of the day had been the time when Nabiki returned home from school. She had her pose for photographs in various ways, and in various states of dress, with or without her wings, in her room. She had even made use of her fire breath for some shots. While she knew what the pictures were going to be used for, she felt that she could deal with them better than a case of anyone else knowing the real reason for why she had put on the skin suit; especially her mother, who may not consider her reason to be manly.
    And, as expected, she saw a large gathering of boys as she and Akane entered the school grounds. While neither of them could see Nabiki, they both knew that she was at the center of the throng, selling something. However, since Akane didn't know what it was that her sister was selling, she deviated away from the school building and targeted a boy that had just broke away from the crowd. Since he was busy looking at the photograph in his hands, Akane had no problem plucking it away from him.
    "Hey!" He complained.
    Akane ignored him and held the picture up, so she could take a look at it. However, before she could train her eyes on it, a spout of flame passed over her hand, incinerating most of it. With a cross look on her face, she glanced over at Ranma, who had her arms crossed behind her head and her eyes turned away.
    Pretending to have just noticed Akane's gaze, Ranma regarded her and asked, "What?"
    "Hey, it's you..." The boy said, forgetting about the loss of his photograph for the time being. Then, louder, he added, "You're that girl!"
    He caught the attention of a few others nearby, and they — in turn — drew the attention of more people, wondering what had them occupied. Soon everyone in the courtyard, and even some from the classroom windows and balconies, were staring at Ranma, some murmuring and others pointing.
    "So, my sister's selling candid shots of Ranma's current form..." Akane concluded.
    Then, before too long, someone spoke up and said, "Hey... Isn't that just Ranma?"
    Once the pieces began to fit together in everyone's minds, concerning the Chinese clothes, red hair and the apparent association with Akane, they went back to what they had been doing before. Among the boys clustered around Nabiki, who were once again trying to buy pictures from her, some made comments that were loud enough for Akane and Ranma to hear.
    "But, she's still hot," one boy reasoned to another.
    "Yeah," the other boy agreed. "Literally!"
    "Honestly..." Akane muttered in disgust.
    Ranma agreed with Akane's sentiment, but said nothing. Instead, with the show being over, they both decided to not waste any more of their time standing around. However, after only a few steps toward the school building, a familiar voice rose above all of the others, one that made them stop in their tracks.
    "So... It is true."
    Tatewaki stepped out from under the shade of a nearby tree and approached Ranma, his steps slow but sure. Resigning herself to a confrontation, she turned to face him. In one hand was his bokken, which he held at his side, and in the other there appeared to be a photograph. Some students began to watch, but others — who had better things to do — ignored them and went about their business.
    Once Tatewaki ceased his approach and stood a fair distance away, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and said, "At first I thought it but a joke, when I asked to see my goddess in pigtails. However, now that I've seen the truth with my own eyes, I must ask you this..."
    He looked up, held up the picture that was in his hand, and angrily demanded, "What have you done with the pigtailed girl!?"
    "Huh?" Ranma responded, nonplussed.
    Akane, who stood nearby, got a good look at the photograph and saw that there was nothing candid about it. So, she regarded Ranma with an accusatory stare, and it was with some disbelief that she shouted, "You posed for those photos!?"
    "Of course not!" Ranma vehemently denied, the only tale-telling sign of a lie being the faint blush of shame on her cheeks. "It's doctored, obviously!"
    Before Akane could really think about the possibility, which would not have been an unlikely one, Tatewaki cut in and exclaimed, "Silence, enemy of all maidens!"
    "Surely that wretch, Saotome, knew that it would only be a matter of time before I freed the pigtailed girl from his vile clutches," he stated with an air of surety. He raised his bokken, leveled it at Ranma, and declared, "Thus, he enlisted a dragon into his service to guard her!"
    Ranma and Akane, in response, stood in dumbfounded silence; along with every other person that had been paying him any attention.
    "What in the world did Nabiki tell him, for him to come to that sort of conclusion?" Ranma wondered to herself.
    "But, enough talk," Tatewaki said, before he grasped his bokken with both hands, raised it above his head, and sprung forward. "I attack!"
    When Tatewaki was nearly upon her, Ranma lazily blew a stream of fire at him. He yelped as it torched the upper half of his body, and burned away his bokken until there was nothing but a stub left. He managed to stay on his feet for a moment before he collapsed at her feet, overwhelmed but not unconscious.
    Glancing over at Ranma, with an eyebrow raised, Akane asked, "You're going to become really fond of that, aren't you?"
    Ranma shrugged noncommittally and said, "Who knows?"
    They then continued to make their way into the school building, so they could make it to their classroom on time. Tatewaki's charred form was left behind, his mind aflame with thoughts that were very familiar to him.

    Ranma had just finished an explanation of her situation to Ukyo when their homeroom teacher, Ninomiya, entered the classroom. She was in her younger form, which was often the case at any given time of the day.
    "Good morning, class," she greeted said class with a smile.
    "Good morning, Ms. Ninomiya," some of the students returned.
    Ninomiya reached the lectern at the front of the class before everyone found their seats. It was then that she noticed an immense battle aura nearby, so she looked around for the source. When she looked over her students, she caught a glimpse of a tail before a certain someone sat down.
    With a raised voice, she looked pointedly at Ranma and demanded, "Who are you?"
    "Saotome Ranma," came said person's casual response, who had decided to play it cool. She couldn't expect everyone to recognize her, after all.
    "You shouldn't wear a costume during class," Ninomiya chastised her, since she didn't know how to approach the real issue that was on her mind. "Please remove it."
    With a sigh, Ranma tried to argue. "But, it's not a costume."
    Ninomiya appeared to be ready for a rebuttal, at first. However, after a brief pause, she leaned forward and adopted a look of interest before she asked, "So... Are you saying that it's real?"
    Ranma looked toward Akane for an answer, but all that she got was a shrug from her shoulders. So, not knowing what else to do, other than to continue along the same track, she returned her attention to Ninomiya and said, "Uh... Sure?"
    Ninomiya was at her side a second later, the roll call completely forgotten.
    "Really!?" She exclaimed. When her eyes got a good look of Ranma's horns, in addition to the tail, she enthusiastically asked, "What do your horns make you?"
    Afraid that she was going to receive the same treatment as her father, when he was in his panda form, Ranma reluctantly said, "Part dragon."
    "So, you can breath fire?" Ninomiya asked, who looked on with wide-eyed expectation.
    Deciding that it might be better to humor her, Ranma tilted her head back and blew out a small gout of flame. She had no idea where her childish teacher was going to take things, but she figured that a few demonstrations wouldn't hurt anything. At least no one else appeared to hold any objection to it, as far as she could tell.
    "Wow...~!" Ninomiya voiced her awe. "And can you fly?"
    Ranma sighed and got up from her desk. She proceeded to will her wings out into the open, which drew a few gasps from those around her, then flexed them before going airborne. It took a moment for her to adjust the force that she used to beat her wings, but she eventually stabilized herself so she maintained a similar distance between the floor and the ceiling. And while she heard various sounds of awe from her fellow students, she was more concerned about her teacher's reaction, who — much to her concern — had an expression of utter delight on her face.
    "Can I... ride you?" She asked with large, expressive eyes, her clasped hands tucked beneath her chin.
    In an attempt to avoid anything embarrassing, Ranma tried to redirect her teacher's attention back to her job after she landed. "But, what about...?"
    "Pleeeeeeeeeeease...~?" Ninomiya implored, interrupting her.
    Ranma tried to think of a way out of it, but then she noticed the looks on some of the faces around her. The guys, in particular, made her realize that flying around would be time better spent than sitting through a lesson in class. That, and it would certainly spare her from the teacher's reaction, if she were to deny her what she wanted.
    So, while she pretended to shrug her shoulders in surrender, she said, "Oh, alright."
    "Yaaaaay!" Ninomiya cheered in response.
    She hurried over to a window and opened it before she excitedly shouted, "Let's go! Let's go!"
    Ranma reached her a moment later, with a hint of a grief-stricken expression on her face, and secured her within her arms. She knew that her teacher wasn't going to be the best of company, but she figured that she would be able to manage it, somehow.
    "Ready?" She asked, even though the answer was evident.
    "Of course!"
    With that said, they were off. In the classroom, boys and girls alike gathered at the windows and watched them fly away, but not for long. Soon, the class was filled with a variety of conversations, concerning various topics. A deck of cards, as well as other games, were taken out as well.
    Ukyo took the opportunity to sit at the vacated desk in front of Akane, who — for all that anyone could tell — appeared to be bored. Once she got herself settled in the chair, which still faced the desk, she crossed her arms over the back of it and asked, "A rather interesting situation Ran-chan's gotten himself into this time, huh?"
    "I guess," Akane offered, looking elsewhere.
    "Now I wonder if that would have happened to me, had I worn the thing," Ukyo continued. "Did you try it on?"
    Akane's brow furrowed a bit in response, and had trouble keeping her voice down when she replied. "Of course not."
    The conversation, if one could call it that, didn't survive after that. Akane's mind was preoccupied with feelings of jealousy, as well as arguments against said feelings of jealousy. Why should she feel jealous of Ranma, after all?
    "It's not like he needed to get any stronger," she grumbled to herself.
    However, she did feel better near the end of first period, when Ranma returned. She came in through the open window, screaming in a panic, while Ninomiya rode on her back. Said teacher was squealing with joy while she yanked upon Ranma's horns, as if to steer the dragon half where she wanted her to go. They ended up crashing into the lectern before sliding into the wall on the other side of the classroom, where Ranma's head became embedded.
    Showing no signs of injury, since her ride had absorbed everything, their teacher hopped to her feet and declared, "Whew! That was fun!" She yawned, before sedately adding, "But... All that excitement really wore me out..."
    So saying, she found the nearest, unoccupied desk to sit at, rested her head on her arms, and promptly fell asleep.
    "So..." Daisuke drawled. "Should we continue our 'free study,' then?"
    Hiroshi looked upon their teacher with reverence and said, "It's what our teacher would have wanted."
    In the meantime, Ukyo had reached Ranma's still form. She knelt beside her, shook her shoulder, and asked, "Are you okay, Ran-chan?"
    "I'm sure he's fine," Akane remarked from nearby, sounding unconcerned.

Chapter 6

    In a second-year classroom, during the break between first and second period, Tatewaki approached Nabiki at her desk.
    "Tendo Nabiki," he addressed her in a solemn manner, "I would have a word with you."
    "And to what do I owe the pleasure?" Was Nabiki's sweet-sounding response, made complete by the fake smile that graced her lips.
    Tatewaki ignored her attitude and asked, "What more can you tell me about this dragon?"
    "You mean..." She held up a photograph of said "dragon," who wore a baby doll nighty and posed suggestively on a large cushion. "This dragon?"
    "Oh!" Tatewaki gasped, before taking the photograph. He held it up to his face to "study" it, his hands shaking.
    "Perhaps you can identify her better if you saw her from more angles?" Suggested Nabiki, who held out two more photographs.
    Tatewaki accepted them, and they quickly joined the first. While he stared at them raptly, he muttered, "So carnal... Such passion!"
    "And only five-thousand yen," Nabiki said without missing a beat.
    Tatewaki complied without thinking, and money exchanged hands. It was only then that he realized how he had been sidetracked. He coughed behind his fist, as if it would somehow recover his dignity, and said, "Now, about what I have asked...?"
    "I've already told you all that I know," Nabiki patiently replied. "The 'pigtailed girl' wore a dragon outfit that had been sent to Ranma, and now she's stuck in it."
    "I know that much, Tendo Nabiki," Tatewaki stated, with a hint of annoyance. "Obviously, it was Saotome's intention to trap her from the very beginning."
    "Of course," Nabiki sarcastically thought to herself. "Obviously."
    "What I meant," Tatewaki pressed on, "is of a more personal nature." He planted his hands on her desk and proceeded to ask, "Where is her lair? What is her weakness? Her favorite color? Her favorite food?"
    Nabiki had seen this coming, but she couldn't help wondering what his answer would be to a certain question. So, she asked, "But, isn't the love between a man and a dragon unthinkable — nay, forbidden?"
    Tatewaki stood up and snorted derisively before he turned his head away and said, "What do you know of love, Tendo Nabiki? Love cares not for whom or what it strikes. One would be so lucky to have it stoke the passions of one's heart, tending to its flames in the stead of the cold chasm that is loneliness."
    Nabiki blinked and thought, "That was actually decent, coming from him."
    "Which is why, when I felt the fire of her passion envelop me, I knew what I was feeling in an instant: it was love!" He tucked his arms in front of himself and looked up, toward the heavens, his fists shaking with emotion and his eyes shedding tears. "Surely, it is a cry for release! No one would ever desire to be aligned with that cruel enslaver of women, Saotome!"
    While his outburst received odd looks and comments from his fellow classmates, Nabiki raised her hand to her brow, sighed, and thought, "I should have known."
    Once she recovered, she looked up at Tatewaki and evenly posed, "But, what about my sister, and the 'pigtailed girl?'"
    "Worry not!" Tatewaki assured her, his arms akimbo. "Though I'm sure it would be a challenge for a lesser man, I simply cannot break their hearts. I shall love them all equally!"
    "So, you're challenged in more ways than one," Nabiki concluded.
    "Did you say something, Tendo Nabiki?" Tatewaki inquired, regarding her with a hard look.
    "Oh, nothing," Nabiki said as she turned her head away, sounding as if she had lost interest. "Just thinking aloud to myself."

    Two shadowy figures quickly settled themselves into a tree that overlooked a certain school's soccer field, and it wasn't long before they spotted their quarry among the students that were gathered and deciding the members of their teams. The tree wasn't as close as they would have liked, but it had been the most convenient to reach inconspicuously, in addition to offering an agreeable amount of cover.
    Sailor Mercury, whose left earring was currently sporting an arm that extended across her cheek and functioned as a headset, pressed the other earring to make a special piece of eyewear appear, which resembled visor sunglasses. She focused her attention on their target, since said target stood out like a sore thumb, and asked, "So, is that who you saw in your vision?"
    "I'm sure of it," replied Sailor Mars.
    Since Mars had only seen the school as a viable location to find the girl in her vision, they had no choice but to check it out during school hours. It had been a stroke of luck that all three of their schools shared similar time slots for lunch, which made excuses for sick leave — or outright skipping class — avoidable. However, only two of the senshi had been sent out for the reconnaissance mission: one to confirm the target, and the other to collaborate information with Luna, who was stationed at their secret headquarters underneath the Crown Game Center. Of course, if they were to run into any trouble, the others could arrive at a moment's notice.
    Mars squinted her eyes, finally caught a good look at the girl's face, and thoughtfully said, "It's strange, though. She has the tail and the horns, along with everything else, but I don't see any wings and her eyes look normal." Her brow furrowed as she added, "More importantly, I don't sense any evil coming from her."
    "Luna," Mercury spoke into the microphone of her headset, "are you receiving the same readings as I am?"
    While Mercury listened to Luna's answer, Mars continued to watch with a critical eye. The crowd of students in the middle of the playing field had just dispersed and found their assigned positions. She noted that, aside from the girl playing as a center forward, she was also the only female playing in the game. Moreover, however, was the fact that no one found it strange for a girl with horns and a tail to be among them.
    "Yes; I agree," Mercury said. "Something doesn't add up."
    Mars glanced over at Mercury and asked, "What is it?"
    "There's definitely something odd about her, aside from the obvious," Mercury replied, as she watched the girl in question. "Not only is she not registered as a student at this school, but I can't get any clear readings."
    "What do you mean?" Mars inquired.
    Mercury turned to her, indicated her eyewear, and said, "I can't get any conclusive information about her because the readings are inconclusive. The numbers keep fluctuating at random. I can't even measure her height, which doesn't even make any sense; it should be impossible."
    "Is it some kind of interference?" Mars queried. "Do you think she infiltrated the school and is using some kind of power to avoid being detected for what she really is?"
    "It's a possibility," Mercury conceded. "It's just a matter of whether we decide to watch and wait, to see what she does, or confront her."
    "I see," Mars replied, before she returned her attention to the girl in question. She was currently running down the field, alongside a teammate who had the ball.
    "She wasn't the only odd thing that was discovered at this school, though," Mercury informed Mars. She removed her glasses, handed them to her companion, then said, "Luna, bring up the file that you found in the student records."
    Mars donned the glasses and watched as information was transmitted to her from the computer at their secret base, showing a file for one "Saotome Ranma." The first thing that she noticed was that there were two photographs, instead of one: one of a boy, and the other of a girl. While there was enough of a resemblance for them to be siblings, it still didn't make sense for them to share the same file; especially considering the fact that all of the information pertained only to the male of the two.
    "Scroll to the bottom," Mercury instructed. "A special field was added to his — or her — file."
    Mars did just that, and it read, "Curse: becomes a girl when exposed to cold water. Hot water reverses this effect."
    She read it again, to make sure that she had read it correctly. Then, she turned to Mercury, removed the glasses, and regarded her with an incredulous expression on her face. "It's not just some kind of prank?"
    "That's what I thought, at first," Mercury replied, frowning. "However, Luna just discovered a possible correlation between this girl and that file. While we couldn't establish any numerical data on her, Luna was able to take a snapshot when I got a close look of her face. She noticed a similarity between her and the girl in Saotome Ranma's file, and compared them."
    "They matched?" Mars inquired, her eyebrows raised.
    Mercury nodded her head. "Their facial dimensions were a perfect match: the nose, the jaw... everything. The computer was able to match them one-hundred percent."
    Mars looked confused. "But, what does—"
    Both senshi were startled when they heard a sudden — and loud — popping sound. When they turned to look at the only person that was of interest to them, they found her rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment, and appeared to be in the middle of an apology. In front of her, on the ground, was the soccer ball, which lay flat on the ground, void of air.
    "She must be pretty strong," Mars noted, and received a silent nod from Mercury in response.
    On the field, Ranma had just offered to fetch a new ball when a familiar voice announced, "I wen' got yo' replacement, keiki!"
    Ranma, sensing danger, looked up and saw a pineapple that had been painted to look like a soccer ball heading toward her. She leapt out of the way, more out of concern for her clothes than herself. A few others, who had been standing nearby, hadn't been so lucky to get away when the pineapple exploded.
    "What was that?" Mars wondered aloud, alarmed but ready to act.
    Mercury donned her glasses once more, at Luna's behest, since witnessing the action for herself would be better than relaying the situation verbally as the events unfolded.
    Back at ground zero, where the pineapple had exploded, a voice from within the cloud of smoke said, "So, it' true what dey say."
    Ranma crossed her arms in annoyance and watched as the smoke cleared, revealing the school's principal in all of his Hawaiian-themed glory. He stood there, ready to strike, with clippers in his hands.
    The principal pointed at Ranma and exclaimed, "You give 'em an inch, an' dey grow all ovah you, yeah!"
    Among the audience that had gathered around the field to watch, a girl turned to another and whispered, "Is that what they say?"
    Wanting to avoid a confrontation with him altogether, Ranma decided to play innocent. So, she posed cutely and said, "Oh, but I'm not one of your students..."
    The principal laughed, good-naturedly, before suddenly becoming serious again. With a dangerous glint flashing from the corner of his sunglasses, he said, "Is dat so... Saotome Ranma?"
    Shocked, Ranma took a step back and uttered, "What?"
    The principal suddenly looked confused, and relaxed his aggressive stance. "Oh, so dis kahuna heard da rumors right?"
    "Er..." Ranma voiced, who began to mentally berate herself for giving herself away.
    "Oo-tah!" The principal exclaimed with surprise. "So you wen' got dat sex change from da dragon!"
    "Say what...?" Came Ranma's baffled response. "No!"
    Among the buzz of conversation that erupted around them, one student turned to another and said, "I thought he had been experimented on by aliens."
    "I heard it was exposure to radiation," the other student replied.
    "No, you're thinking of Godzilla," someone corrected them.
    Akane, who had just arrived with Ukyo in order to see what the commotion was all about, wondered, "What is everyone talking about?"
    "Eidah way," the principal spoke up, as he raised his weapons once more, "you're gonna lose dat hair!"
    Before the principal could attack, however, someone cried out, "Ah! The horny girl!"
    Ranma turned around, with a look of disbelief on her face, and groaned when she saw Tatewaki running toward her. He opened his arms wide and declared, "My heart has heard your cry for release! I come, anon!"
    Since she didn't have the presence of mind to blast him with her fire breath, she punched him in the face — out of reflex — and yelled, "Do you have any idea of what you just said!?"
    Tatewaki stumbled back a few steps, with a confused look on his newly-injured face. "What do you mean, horny girl?"
    "I mean that!" Ranma shrieked in alarm and exasperation. "Everyone'll think I'm some kind of pervert!"
    She looked around and saw everyone scrutinizing her with a critical eye, and she could tell what kind of conclusion that they were arriving at.
    "No! You've got the wrong idea!" She shouted at them, while she waved her arms about frantically.
    "An openin', yeah!" Declared the principal, who took the opportunity to attack while Ranma was distracted.
    However, despite being distracted, she still sensed him in time to dodge his attack. The principal found himself lunging toward his son instead, who had intercepted him and blocked his clippers with his bokken.
    "'Ey!" The principal greeted his son, as if nothing were wrong. "How's it hangin', Tacchi?"
    "You..." Tatewaki muttered darkly, as he loomed over his father. "What are you trying to play at!?"
    Tatewaki took a swipe at his father, but he danced away from the arc of his blade with ease and laughed as he did so. Ranma, seeing an opportunity to take care of them both, hopped over to Tatewaki's side and looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
    "Horny girl?" Tatewaki questioned, out of concern, and got walloped over the head for his trouble.
    Acting as if Tatewaki hadn't just said "horny girl" again, and thus having hit him in response, Ranma looked back up at him imploringly and plaintively said, "Oh, Kuno-sempai! It's terrible! He's trying to cut my hair!"
    "What!?" Tatewaki screamed in outrage, before turning to face his father. "I won't allow it!"
    While father and son duked it out, Ranma slipped away to join Akane and Ukyo. Once she reached them, she sighed with relief and turned around to watch the fight.
    Akane looked askance at Ranma and smirked. "I bet you can't wait to have your signature pigtail back."
    Ranma shot her a cross look.
    "Why not put your hair into a braid?" Ukyo suggested.
    "Probably wouldn't make any difference," Ranma grumbled in response. "Knowing him, even if I covered up my horns, he'd likely call me 'lizard-tailed girl,' or something like that."
    Tatewaki, who had been close enough to overhear her, drove his father away long enough for him to tearfully shout, "Oh, horny girl; I'm touched by how you know me so intimately!"
    In response, Ranma dropped her head in defeat. Akane, feeling that she had suffered enough, stepped over to her side and rested a hand on her shoulder.
    Ninomiya arrived upon the scene a moment later, with a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth, having been awoken by the explosion moments before. She noticed Ranma's massive battle aura, but the fight between the principal and his son was what drew her attention, since the dragon girl's battle aura was what seemed to be its "resting" state. So, she took out a five-yen coin and approached them.
    "Fighting during a period of fun and relaxation..." She muttered, her eyes narrowed on her targets, before holding up the coin between her index and middle fingers. "You must be delinquents!"
    Both Kunos paused to regard her, when they heard her voice, but it had been too late to do anything more than that before they felt their energy being sucked away. In a matter of seconds they were completely drained, and left to drift away in the breeze. Ninomiya, now an adult, tossed her hair aside in a dismissive manner as she watched them leave the immediate area.
    With that done, she looked over her shoulder, spied Ranma, and purposefully made her way toward her. The serious look on her face was a cause of concern for the redhead, so she prepared to take defensive measures against her — just in case.
    Once Ninomiya reached her intended target, she suddenly smiled brightly and said, "I'd like to thank you for the ride you gave me earlier, Saotome."
    "Huh?" Came Ranma's intelligent response. "Oh, uh... You're welcome?"
    And, just like that, it was over. However, after only taking a few steps away, Ninomiya tossed, "perhaps we can do it again, sometime," over her shoulder.
    Ranma watched her leave, but only until she noticed the looks that she was getting from everyone around her. Akane and Ukyo, in particular, were emitting some rather dangerous vibes, which gave her a bad feeling.
    "What?" She challenged them, suppressing the nervousness in her voice as she did so.
    Ukyo wielded her peel threateningly and glared at her as she deliberately said, "That must have been some 'ride.'"
    "What are you talking about?" Ranma replied, confused.
    From behind her, she heard Daisuke angrily mutter, "When a sexy woman says something like that, with that kind of smile, it can only mean one thing."
    "You sex fiend!" Hiroshi exclaimed, before he leapt upon Ranma's back and wrapped an arm around her neck. "What about my dreams!?"
    "What about 'em!?" Ranma angrily retorted, before slipping out of his grasp. Upset by what everyone was thinking about her, she faced them and shouted, "It wasn't like that! And, besides: we were both girls at the time!"
    Akane booted Ranma toward the sky and shouted, "That isn't any better, you pervert!"
    Ranma was launched into the distance, as expected, but she didn't mind: she had allowed it to happen, after all. She was still upset, of course, but at least she didn't have to deal with any more nonsense for the time being. It gave her some time to cool down and think about what had happened. Before that, however, there was one thing on her mind that she felt needed to be addressed before she lost the opportunity to do so. So, she summoned her wings and controlled her descent back toward the school.
    Back in a certain tree, where Mercury and Mars remained perched, the sailor senshi in question watched — in silence — as the girl who had just kicked away their target began to stomp her way back into the school building, who was followed by an equally-irate girl who had a peel strapped to her back. By the time they were gone, the other students began to go about their own business, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Even despite the fact that a little girl had drained two people of their energy, like so many of their enemies had done, and became an adult in the process. No one had batted an eye; they had simply taken it in stride.
    "Mercury," Mars spoke up in a controlled tone, "did all of that just happen?"
    After Luna finished expressing her own disbelief on the other end of her headset, Mercury said, "As unbelievable as it all was, I believe so."
    "But," Mercury went on to say, to both Luna and Mars, "at least we have a good lead, regarding her identity. If she really is Saotome Ranma, then we won't be restricted to watching her during lunch."
    "Why watch when we can talk?" A new voice suggested from behind them.
    Mars and Mercury looked over their shoulders, and they were surprised — and a little alarmed — to see the very subject of their conversation as the source of the voice. Said subject had her arms crossed beneath her bosom, and wore a frown upon her face. More importantly, however, was the fact that she was flying. The wings in Mars' vision, that had been absent before, had shown themselves.
    "Well?" Ranma prodded, when they failed to respond quickly enough. "Can I help you with something?"

Chapter 7

    Mercury and Mars had known each other — and worked together — long enough to know what to do in their present situation, without saying anything or communicating via gesture. They might not understand exactly what was going on, or were sure of all of the details, but there was no question that something strange was going on. When something beyond the ordinary was apparent, Mars saw a negative vision pertaining to it, and the details of said vision began to come to light, it pretty much went without saying what it was that they were supposed to do.
    So, as Mercury leapt away, Mars twisted around and shot an arrow of fire right into the creature's surprised face, which made said creature fall to the ground. Right around the time that the creature landed on its rear, who appeared to be strong enough to take an arrow of fire to its unguarded face without any apparent damage, Mercury covered the immediate area with a fog in order to hide their movements and give them the few seconds that would be needed for the rest of their team to arrive.
    "What the hell?" Ranma groused as she got to her feet, whose pride had been injured more than her bottom and face. Those two tree-borne ice skaters hadn't even given her a chance to offend them in some way before attacking. What was up with that?
    As she tried to peer through the fog, she wondered what was going on. The two girls seemed familiar in some way, now that she thought about it, but they weren't any martial artists that she could think of, and neither could she be sure that their demonstrated abilities were derived from martial arts. Idly, she began to wonder if her current situation had anything to do with the reason for why she was stuck in the skin suit, because it would be nice to get the process of removing it started sooner rather than later.
    Since she could still sense where her opponents were, she made sure to face them, though their presence suddenly grew so strong that she tensed for some kind of attack. However, it wasn't any attack that was the reason for that, but the increase in their number, which became apparent when the fog faded away. It was almost like they had appeared out of nowhere, because she hadn't sensed anyone else — within the range of her awareness — converge on their location from any particular direction.
    Regardless of how they got there, two opponents had grown to nine. Their outfits appeared to be color-coded, and followed the same style, though the outfit belonging to the one in the front and center of the group deviated more than enough — what with being the only one with wings — to make her distinct from the others, possibly because she was the leader. A couple of them weren't empty-handed, but the polearm being wielded by the shortest and youngest-looking of the group was the only object that she recognized as a weapon without question; she wasn't sure of the nature regarding the scepter and the impractical-looking staff that looked like a giant key.
    Once she was finished with her assessment, it was only then that she recalled why they seemed to be familiar. After planting the side of her fist into her palm, she said, "Oh, hey, so you sailor sensai guys are real, huh?"
    "That's sailor senshi," Came Mars' cross reply. "We're not ex-wives."
    "We're the soldiers of love and justice!" Moon proudly declared, with a complementary pose.
    Ranma released a long-suffering sigh, since she'd heard a thing or two about the kinds of things that the sailor senshi were known to do. "Lemme guess: you're not here for the love part."
    The one with the wings pointed at her dramatically and declared, "Schools may be boring, stressful, too long, a source of head—oof!" She imagined that she probably would have said more, if not for that elbow to the gut from her companion in blue. "But that's no reason to harm innocent students! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!"
    "I've done what, now?" Ranma replied, who was confused by the accusation.
    "It's not what you've done," Venus clarified. "It's what you're going to do."
    Ranma frowned at that. "What I'm going to do? So, you're accusing me of doing something I haven't done yet, and you're passing judgement before any supposed wrongdoing has even happened? When does the justice part come in, exactly?"
    "Oh, that's a good point..." Moon commented thoughtfully.
    "Don't be fooled, princess," said Uranus, who was tense and ready for battle. "No matter what she says, it's obvious what we're dealing with here, now that we've uncovered her operation and seen her without her disguise."
    "Well, technically, she wasn't disguised," Mercury commented.
    With an impatient sigh, Jupiter asked, "Why are we still talking? We know she's bad, so let's get this over with before the lunch period ends and we have to explain why we were late for class."
    "I agree," Ranma said, with a hint of agitation in her voice as she glared at them and cracked her knuckles. "As if I'm just going to stand here and let a bunch of prejudiced, self-righteous ice skaters do whatever they want." To herself, she thought, "I was kinda hoping to find a good way to blow off some steam, anyway."
    Now that she had properly offended them, she ignored their cries of protest and took the initiative by sprinting toward them. They scattered before her, and tried to keep their distance from her whenever she chose someone to chase, but she was too fast for them to escape. However, since she was up against nine attackers with unknown abilities, she didn't try to put any one of them down immediately. Not only did she not want to tip her hand so soon, but she wanted an idea of their group tactics and abilities so she'd be able to take advantage of them and make it less problematic to come out the victor.
    After the time it had taken for her to rough up a few of them, she'd learned a couple of important things. The first was that most of her opponents were long-range fighters, and that they were unwilling to attack her when she was close to one of their own, until they could coordinate separating them from her when they organized an attack. The few that were willing to tangle with her in close-range combat didn't have much skill in that area, with the yellow-colored senshi being the only real threat once she brought out that energy sword of hers. She had also noticed that one of them — the one with the wings — had hung back longer than the rest of them, who seemed rather intent on keeping her within her sights.
    She had also noticed the crowd that they had attracted. Between the attacks that had missed their mark and continued well beyond the battlefield, the sound of trees exploding or being knocked over, and the ground being torn up, cratered and furrowed, it would have been a surprise if the whole school hadn't noticed their battle. Most were content to watch from within or near the school building, but there were quite a few who were brave — or stupid — enough to watch the action from behind the soccer field's embankment.
    While her foes reined in their attacks whenever they faced the soccer field, unless they had either the black or purple-colored sailor senshi in a position to put up a protective barrier, she didn't take advantage of it: there was no need to help them get the wrong idea about her, regarding yet another thing. She didn't know when or how she would be able to prove her innocence to them as is, but it wouldn't help her case if she took advantage of the bystanders' location and effectively held them hostage. It wouldn't have done her much good, anyway, since that's exactly where a pair of fiancées had just arrived at.
    "Really, Ranma?" Akane shouted, more so that she could be heard than due to exasperation. "The sailor senshi? What could you have done to get on the wrong side of love and justice?"
    "Oh, I don't know," Ranma replied, her voice thick with sarcasm, "maybe they're prejudiced against cute dragon half girls? Personally, I think they're jealous."
    "We're not jealous!" Jupiter retorted, as Ranma lazily dodged Venus' heart-linked chain. "And you're certainly not cute!"
    After she dodged Jupiter's Coconut Cyclone attack, which — due to a lack of coconuts — falsely advertised what the attack actually consisted of, she pointed at the sailor senshi in question and yelled, "Uncute!? I'll show you uncute!"
    Before Akane could make a comment about a shoe being on the other foot, one of the nearby boys sounded rather distraught when he said, "But Sailor Jupiter was blushing! Does that mean she swings that way!?"
    Between the comment, and the sudden, unwanted attention, Jupiter's cheeks lit up even more brightly than before, much to the surprise and chagrin of some of her teammates. She tried to deny the assumption being made, and explain herself without admitting that she found their enemy cute in the same sense as she would one of her throw pillows at home, but — between her embarrassment and the heat of battle — all she managed to do was dig herself deeper into the false image that had been projected onto her.
    Ranma noticed that this amusing development had a rather profound effect on their coordination, and what they were paying attention to, but not all of them were so easily distracted or affected all that much. She'd already noticed how the yellow and sea-green sailor senshi pretty much worked on the same wavelength, and that showed when they had both spared Jupiter a speculative glance, while they and the purple and black sailor senshi were a pretty cohesive group.
    When she took advantage of the situation and teased Jupiter, Ukyo chose that time to speak, with an obvious edge to her voice. "Ran-chan... You better not be flirting with them."
    Ranma began to sweat a bit more than her exertions could account for, and she almost failed to get out of the way of a Dead Scream in time. "Um... I don't know if you've noticed, but they're trying to kill me!"
    "When has that ever stopped you before?" Akane quipped, with an eyebrow raised. "Isn't that how Ukyo became your 'cute' fiancée?"
    "Those... were... special... circumstances!" Ranma argued, with each word said as she backflipped around a string of attacks.
    Ukyo smiled in remembrance. "Very special."
    The memory of that day didn't inspire the same feelings in Akane, who crossed her arms beneath her bosom and stared at Ranma unhappily. "For all we know, these could be 'special circumstances,' too."
    Ukyo frowned upon hearing that. "They better not be..."
    "Maybe I should end this," Ranma thought to herself, after she felt — then saw — a pair of glares being directed at her person.
    While she began to look for a good opportunity to turn the tables, and prepared to take action upon seeing one, it was about then that Ninomiya came upon the scene. At first, she had been mesmerized — with childish awe — by what she had been watching from the balcony of a classroom, but it had eventually occurred to her that she had her students to think about, when one stray attack detonated a relatively safe distance away from some of the students who were watching from behind the embankment.
    When she finally reached the embankment, however, she realized that she didn't know exactly what to do. The sailor senshi were the good guys, of course, so she couldn't drain them to protect her students. They seemed to think that Ranma had done something to merit the hammer of love and justice, but — while her pet project could certainly be a delinquent — she didn't think her the type to do something that would attract this kind of attention from the sailor senshi.
    Was it simply because Ranma didn't look human at the moment? If so, maybe she could talk the sailor senshi out of what they were doing. She'd had a lot of fun flying around earlier, and how could something evil provide that kind of experience? Besides which, she was still bound and determined to reform this particular student, and she wasn't yet convinced that such an undertaking was futile.
    Since Sailor Moon was still keeping her distance while she waited for the coup de grâce, and was otherwise disengaged from the battle, she decided to cross some of the distance between them so she could be sure that she would both be seen and heard. It took a great deal of effort, but she was able to suppress her excitement over the fact that she would actually be talking to a sailor senshi.
    "Excuse me! Sailor Moon!" She called out, when she was noticed by the person that she wished to address. "Why are you attacking one of my students?"
    "You shouldn't be here," Moon said, with evident worry, as her attention flickered between the battle and the young girl. "It's too dan—" She suddenly turned her full attention to the young girl, feeling confused, when the words from said young girl finally caught up with her. "Wait... Student?"
    "I'm her teacher," Ninomiya stated, her arms akimbo. "And I'd like to know what my student has done."
    "Well..." Moon temporized, who was unsure of the young girl's claim and how she should answer.
    At that moment, Ranma saw her opportunity coming, so she said, "Don't bother, teach. I've got this."
    Before any of her opponents could tell her otherwise, she made her move. She leapt toward the sea-green sailor senshi, who hadn't expected a confrontation, and baited the yellow one over to protect her — just like she had hoped. Instead of following through with her leap, she brought out her wings and stopped herself short in midair; which not only caused the current long-ranged attackers to readjust their aim, but the yellow sailor senshi to overcommit to her action and needing to recover from the feint. She had just enough time to fire a mōko takabisha from each hand, which caught the purple and black sailor senshi by surprise, before she dashed toward the yellow one — with more speed than she had demonstrated thus far — and took advantage of her vulnerable position by punching her into her sea-green companion, which sent them both toward and through the school's perimeter wall a few dozen meters away.
    She had a split second to worry about her mōko takabisha being much stronger than usual, because she wasn't sure how well the sailor senshi could guard against it, but she was pretty sure that the yellow and sea-green sailor senshi would be fine, since she'd had more than enough time to test how well they could withstand her physical attacks. Then, she stepped aside to avoid the orange sailor senshi's sword, and it was a simple matter of putting her down with a well-placed chop to the back of the head. With more than half of the active participants down for the count, she made quick work of the rest, save for the sailor senshi with the wings.
    That had been pretty easy, though she had been fairly confident in her ability to deal with her opposition once she'd had enough time to study them. The purple and black sailor senshi had been the only ones that she had seen using protective barriers, so she had made them her first priority. There was no point in having a good offense if they had a better defense, and she had been unable to get through their barriers with her strongest physical attack — which had really hurt! The yellow and sea-green sailor senshi worked really well together, and were the most skilled at harrassing her and making it difficult to pay attention to what the others were doing, so they had been her next priority. After that, well, there really wasn't much of a challenge left; that fog would have been a little inconvenient, at best.
    When she turned to face the last sailor senshi, who she assumed to be the leader, she frowned and crossed her arms in an imperious manner. "So, are we done here? I don't know what you think I'm going to do, but — if you're not going to be helpful — I'd rather you go away and not bother me again."
    Moon's shock over the sudden defeat of her friends, as if they'd been played with up until the final moment, was soon replaced by anger and determination. She wasn't going to allow this enemy to get away with their plan, whatever it happened to be; especially after it had the nerve to think that there was even the remotest chance of them helping it with whatever they intended to do.
    Knowing that the fight wasn't — couldn't be — over, she set her jaw and summoned the Ginzuishou into her hands, which she raised above her head. When she focused her will and intent upon it, it began to shine brightly, which made it difficult for others to look at it directly as its light bathed the area. While that was happening, the terrain was being restored, as if a battle hadn't just occurred there, and maladies — however many were present — were cured. More importantly, the sailor senshi were healed of their injuries and roused to consciousness.
    Ranma gawked at the sailor senshi as they assembled around their apparent leader, looking perfectly fine and ready for another go. However, it wasn't long before her displeasure manifested itself fully, whereupon she pointed at the winged sailor senshi both vigorously and accusingly as she shouted, "How is that fair!? What kind of good guys are you!?"
    Moon stood proudly and smiled. "The kind that triumphs over evil, of course!"
    Ninomiya's eyes narrowed at this development. Her student had shown mercy when she had defeated the sailor senshi, yet they had recovered and weren't willing to give her any quarter. Sailor senshi or not, that was bullying... Which made them delinquents! As Ranma's teacher, if she desired — and she did! — to nurture a student into a better person, not only did she have to punish them when they did wrong, but reward them for good behavior or give them support when mistreated.
    Only one of the sailor senshi just happened to notice her when she raised her fifty-yen coin and aimed it at their group, much too late to do anything more than give a short warning before they all came under the enervating effects of her technique. Between being caught unprepared and stumbling into each other when their bodies didn't respond properly, they failed to escape the effective range of the technique and collapsed, too weak to move and getting weaker still.
    Tuxedo Kamen had arrived on the scene just before his love had collapsed, because he had sensed that she was in danger. Unfortunately for him, he tended to act in haste when she was in immediate danger, so he had teleported to her side instead of at a distance that would have afforded him a better understanding of the situation. As a result, he was just as surprised as the others when they were drained, and it wasn't long before he joined them on the ground. When all was said and done, they were too weak to move, much less to wage another offensive.
    "What the...?" Venus groaned weakly.
    Mercury tried to see their attacker over another of her fallen allies, but could barely do more than grip the grass. "Was that... the real threat...?"
    That made enough sense to Moon, since said threat had said that she was their target's teacher. It was too late to regret such an oversight, though it didn't really matter: she still had the Ginzuishou. All she had to do was—
    Ranma plucked the Ginzuishou out of her hands as soon as she saw her pull it out, and ignored her weak protests to give it back. There was no way that she was going to let someone like them keep such a bothersome object, so long as it was going to be used to bother her. Idly, as she looked the object in question over, she amused herself a bit with the thought of it being the start of a treasure hoard.
    Finally, she turned to thank the person who had helped her, as unexpected as it was. "Thanks, teach. I owe—"
    She stopped abruptly and stared — along with everyone else — at the sight before her, only now noticing how quiet it had become after the sailor senshi had been put down, and why. Where her young teacher had once stood wasn't just the adult version of her, but one dressed in a sailor senshi uniform. The strappy, high-heel sandals that laced up the calves, skirt and collar were brown, while the ribbons were a dark green, and in her hand was a bow that seemed to be fashioned from a rose, with prickles along its length and a flower that was in full bloom set at the top.
    "No way..." Moon gasped, her eyes wide in shock as she tried to comprehend what had happened.

Chapter 8

    Ranma decided to go home early instead of staying at school. The sailor senshi were attracting a lot of attention while they were in their prone state, which had eventually included the local news, so there wasn't much in the way of class attendance once she had made her decision. While it was amusing to watch the sailor senshi being lectured by her teacher about the behavior expected of heroines, all while at the mercy of the news crew, she hadn't much cared for the looks that she had been receiving from many of them, as if it had been her fault for them being in their predicament.
    Normally, she wouldn't have minded some attention, but she wasn't particularly keen on whatever kind she would end up getting for being a dragon half, much less for being targeted by the sailor senshi. While she was a little concerned that her teacher would have an issue with her leaving school early, despite being too caught up in her own situation to do her job when the lunch period ended, she'd rather take a risk and do something better with her time instead of trying to concentrate on her classes while the sailor senshi were nearby, who were probably waiting to confront her once they recovered. Not that she really needed much of an excuse to skip out on school, of course, but she figured that the effort would count for something.
    While the sailor senshi would probably find out where she lived, if they hadn't already, confronting her at home was better than having a ki-sucking teacher around when they made said confrontation, since the aforementioned teacher could complicate matters if she ever decided to target her while being attacked by them. Of course, that was assuming that her teacher — who now appeared to be a sailor senshi herself — didn't join their ranks outright. In the end, she figured that they wouldn't do anything on a large scale so long as innocents were nearby, and she wouldn't worry about what they were capable of with subtlety until they gave it a try.
    Upon entering through the front gate of the Tendo's property, she found Kasumi sweeping the walkway that led to the front door, who perked up when she saw her and said, "Welcome home, Ranma! Doctor Tofu called earlier. He said that Ryoga was showing signs of waking up."
    "Really?" Ranma replied, who was glad to hear that. "I guess I'll go check on him, then."
    Kasumi was about to say something, but hesitated. Ranma noticed and asked, "What's up?"
    After fidgeting with her apron for a few seconds, Kasumi nervously said, "Well, before you go, I was hoping that you could do something for me..."
    "Name it," Ranma replied without hesitation, with Kasumi's nervousness inspiring some concern for her.
    Kasumi led her into the house, then up to the second floor. She didn't have long to wonder where they were going before she was brought into the other girl's room, at which point she began to wonder why. Figuring that she needed her to exterminate a critter that had taken up residence within her room, or the muscle to move something heavy, she began to look around, paying more attention to her surroundings than to the person who had enlisted her aid.
    "So," Ranma said, just before she finished her cursory inspection of the room and focused her attention on its owner, "what's up?"
    Kasumi worried her bottom lip. "Could you..."
    "Yeah?" Ranma prompted, who began to wonder what could make her so reluctant to speak.
    After a few false starts, by which time her cheeks had become quite flush, Kasumi faintly requested, "Could you... imprison me?"
    Ranma stared at her blankly, not sure that she had heard or understood her correctly. "...What?"
    Kasumi cupped her cheeks in embarrassment, but she had already said too much to try to recover from the position that she had put herself in. "Oh, you know... Like a dragon guarding a princess, who waits to be rescued by her knight in shining armor?"
    Ranma took a nervous step backward, who was glad that the door was both behind her and open. She knew that Kasumi was a bit weird, but she was usually nice enough that it could be overlooked. This was something else, though, and it wasn't something that she wanted to get involved with. "Um... I'm not that kind of dragon?"
    With her hands clasped to her chest, Kasumi begged, "Oh, please, won't you reconsider? Tying myself to the house just isn't the same — it isn't enough! I want to be confined to my room and have gallant men try to rescue me!"
    Ranma took another step backward and began to sweat, not only because the request was ludicrous, but because it was rather imposing. After all, if she were to assume the role of the dragon, wouldn't that mean that she would be harassed by whoever intended to free Kasumi? And that wasn't even taking into consideration how her family, or even her own, would react. There had been a lot of things that she would have been willing to do for Kasumi, but something like this was just...
    She suddenly felt dizzy, and her round pupils transformed into vertical slits as she entered an altered state of mind. She grinned maniacally and told Kasumi, "Oh, is that all you want? Then I will make sure that you never step out of this room again!"
    Kasumi was equal parts surprised and delighted. "Really!?"
    Whether Ranma knew the nature of Kasumi's answer to be desire or fear, she replied with, "Absolutely! From now on, the only one who will be able to come and go from this room shall be me!"
    Unconsciously, due to her being irrational yet certain about her claim, she tapped into the power of the Ginzuishou to make her words true. She didn't know it yet, but there was now a field around the room that would repel everyone but her away from it, effectively sealing Kasumi inside while keeping others out.
    While Kasumi had nearly swooned from her declaration, and had to lean over the back of a desk chair so she wouldn't collapse, she left the room to demonstrate the seriousness of her words. After she closed the door behind herself, but before she could get something to bar it, she stumbled a bit as both her eyes and mind returned to normal. She shook her head to clear it, then looked around, confused.
    "What the...?" She voiced, trying to remember when she had left Kasumi's room, even though that was what she last remembered wanting to do. After scratching her head briefly in thought, she shrugged her shoulders and decided to vacate the area, since she hoped to avoid meeting Kasumi again any time soon.
    Besides, she had a place to be, and it was an even more welcoming thought than it had been prior to what she had just experienced in her current location, due to the fact that she lived in said location along with the individual that was responsible for the aforementioned experience.
    After she had a quick snack, she left for doctor Tofu's clinic. On the way out, she reflected on the observation that no one else seemed to be in the house, which made her wonder where they could have gone at that time of the day. Since she was usually at school right then, she couldn't be sure, but assumed that they had gone shopping. It wasn't important, though, so she put it out of her mind and went on her way.

    When Ryoga awoke, he found himself looking at a ceiling that looked like a lot of other ceilings, but certainly not the kind attached to places that he was more familiar with or desired to be at. After sitting up and looking around, he realized that he had been resting on a cot within a small room, one that he assumed was primarily used for storage since there were plenty of stacked boxes and shelves with various items on them. He also noticed his backpack beside the cot that he occupied, which told him that he didn't have a tent to return to once he left his current location.
    He began to wonder why he was there. The last thing that he remembered was his fight with Ranma, but he couldn't remember how it had ended. In fact, he was having trouble recalling much in the way of details in general, and that made him worry that he may have been the one who had lost. After all, if he had won, would he have woken up in a place like this, without a clue as to how the fight had ended or how he had gotten where he was?
    However, after struggling to remember something more illuminating for a bit longer, he recalled something that upset him immediately. "What!?" He roared aloud. "He ran away!? That coward!"
    A strange girl suddenly popped up from one side of the bed and shouted, "I did not run away!"
    With a yelp of surprise, Ryoga reflexively pushed himself in the opposite direction of the unknown girl, which made him topple over the side of the cot in a rather undignified fashion. It was only after he had recovered and peered over the cot, to see who had startled him, that her words made him realize why the girl gave him the feeling that she was familiar to him in some way.
    "Ranma?" He asked, with some confusion.
    With a huff, and her arms akimbo, Ranma retorted with, "Who else would I be?"
    "Why are you wearing stuff like that, then?" Ryoga questioned as he eyed the moving tail behind her, wondering how she was able to make it do that so realistically.
    It was Ranma's turn to be confused. "What do you mean? Don't you remember?" When Ryoga shook his head, she smiled inwardly, figuring that she could take advantage of this. "Well, it's not important. If you're having trouble remembering things, wouldn't you rather know who won our duel?"
    "I guess so..." Ryoga replied, who didn't have a good feeling about the results when Ranma grinned.
    "I did, of course," Ranma stated proudly. "Was there any doubt?"
    Ryoga lowered his head and allowed his shoulders to slump. "Damn... I was so sure I'd win this time..."
    "Oh, you poor baby," he heard Ranma say, in a rather uncharacteristic voice.
    When he raised his head to express his anger, thinking that he had been mocked, what he saw brought him up short. Ranma had crawled across the cot, and her hands were cupping the sides of his head before he had a chance to see them coming. He tried to pull away from her, and he was so surprised that he couldn't muster enough strength to do it that he barely registered the odd shape of her pupils before she closed her eyes and kissed him on top of his head.
    "There," she said afterward, before releasing his head and sitting back on the cot. "Did that make you feel better?" When Ryoga didn't respond, and appeared to be doing a good impression of a statue, she giggled behind a hand and said, "How cute!"
    Then, she experienced a wave of dizziness. When it passed, she looked down at the cot in confusion, wondering when she had climbed on to it. Upon noticing Ryoga, and how still he was, she began to worry that something wasn't right. It had been one thing when she had zoned out once, but this was the second time in less than an hour and it was obvious that she had missed something this time. Was she coming down with something?
    She was reluctant to find out if she had truly missed out on something, and — in particular — just what she had done during that time, but she eventually ventured toward getting an answer with a hesitant, "Ryoga?"
    "Ranma..." Ryoga growled, before he stood up and regarded her with a furious expression on his face. "I'll make you pay for playing with my emotions!"
    "Wha...?" Was all that Ranma could get out before she had to defend herself from Ryoga's initial attack.
    In the lobby, those waiting to be examined by doctor Tofu turned their attention to the tumult occurring on the other side of the storage room door, which was fairly loud and could be felt strongly through the floor. It was more than enough to draw doctor Tofu's attention, who left the examination room — and his current patient — to investigate what was going on. Before he made it halfway across the lobby, the conflict ceased, the door to the storage room opened, and a slightly-disheveled Ranma began to march out.
    "I'd give him a few more days, still," she muttered in passing, who appeared to be rather intent on leaving the premises instead of sticking around to give an explanation.
    Between what that probably meant, her sudden leavetaking, and the audience who had witnessed it all, it was with some resignation that he sighed and thought to himself, "I see..."

    Ranma wasn't in a particularly good mood as she thought about her situation while on her way home. Spending a lot of time as a girl through no desire or initiative of her own was pretty old by now, so that didn't really bother her so much. The same could be said for being dragged into matters not her own, or said matters being made her problem. Having someone wanting to take a piece out of her hide, or wanting her head, was just one of those things in life that was expected to come and go. However, doing something that she didn't remember doing, and having no idea of the cause, was another matter.
    It was one thing to make one's own bed and lie in it, but it was quite another when one's actions were beyond one's control and recollection, especially if it was chronic and unexpected. While she certainly wasn't new to the experience, what with her neko-ken training and all, it was usually a one and done deal: she would enter an altered state of mind, do stuff, then come out of it and hope that the damage — whatever it may be — was manageable. This time, it had already happened twice in a short amount of time, and she knew neither the why of it or how to avoid it.
    That it was happening now, considering the recent turn that her life had taken, it was hard to believe that this development was a coincidence. Whether it was a result of putting on — and becoming one with — the skin suit, or something else, she didn't know. All that she knew for sure was that she didn't like it, and that a certain someone was going to get what was coming to them if the problem persisted.
    Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt the base of her tail being groped and heard a familiar voice exclaim, "Hotcha! I really got myself a piece of tail, this time!"
    Before Happosai could get away, he found himself lifted by the meager hair on his head and brought before a familiar face, although one with eyes that had red irises and vertical slits for pupils. He didn't get a chance to do more than briefly wonder whether he was looking at Ranma or not before the girl spoke.
    "You look like a ball," she stated, just before she forcibly squeezed him into an even rounder shape and began to dribble him around on the street. "Like a basketball! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!"
    Happosai endured the agonizing experience of being dribbled around like a basketball for several seconds, by someone with far more strength than he had ever encountered before. By then, he was able to change the angle at which he bounced off of the ground, which was enough to evade the hand on the way up. While he continued to rise into the air, he went through the painful process of putting his limbs and neck back into their natural positions.
    With tears in his eyes, he pulled out as many of his baseball-sized fireworks as he could, filling both of his hands with them, and prepared to lob them as he shouted, "That really hurt! You're not a pretty lady! You're a monster!" After he sent his fireworks toward their target, which exploded on or near said target, he ran away as soon as he landed on the ground, in order to find a place nearby where he could have a good cry.
    When Ranma came back to her senses, she found herself standing in a sizeable crater, with her clothes scorched and fairly damaged. Aside from the ringing in her ears, she was otherwise unharmed. It was little in the way of consolation, though, since — on top of one of the few outfits that had been adjusted for her current body being ruined — she had just experienced yet another episode of not knowing what she had been doing for who knows how long.
    "Not again," she grumbled with a sigh, which was accompanied by a small plume of fire.
    Just as she was about to continue on her way home, she heard Soun's voice bellow from a distance. "Raaaaaaanmaaaaaaa! What have you done to my precious daughter!?"
    Since she was facing the general direction of the house, she was able to notice Soun's demon head as it grew large enough to be seen over the buildings some distance down the street, where it began to loom over the neighborhood like a bad omen. Well, as far as she was concerned, that's exactly what he was. It figured that her episode with Kasumi had caused something like this.
    As she turned away from the angry father, unsure of whether or not he could see her from his location or not, she thought, "Maybe now's not such a good time to return home..."
    Now that she was facing the other direction, however, she was surprised to discover Herb standing just outside of the crater, staring at her in a way that she never would have expected from him, which — in turn — didn't make her feel optimistic about the kind of business he might have with her. Then, at that precise moment, a traveling orchestra just happened to be passing by, and they were playing a certain part of Romeo and Juliet's Fantasy Overture as he gazed at her with love-struck eyes.
    She was hardly in the mood to deal with this, so she took out her frustration on the orchestra and the annoyingly coincidental music that they happened to be playing. It wasn't long before they were running away, screaming in terror, as their instruments were either set ablaze or melted by dragon flame. It also seemed to bring Herb out of his stupor, who seemed to be puzzled as he regarded her for who she actually was for the first time since seeing her a moment ago.
    "...Ranma?" He ventured questioningly.

    On the other side of Tokyo bay, in Nekomi, Chiba prefecture, Skuld and Urd were watching television at home while Belldandy and Keiichi were at work. It wasn't often that they were interested in the same show, but this particular show focused on mecha, their pilots and mechanics, artificial intelligence, the scientists behind the AI's development, and the drama and romance that tied them all together. It was so enthralling that it was little wonder why they both ignored the phone when it began to ring.
    When it felt like the phone had been ringing for a long time, but had only rung thrice by then, Urd got tired of hearing it and finally said, "Could you get that?"
    "It's your turn," Skuld absently replied, without looking away from the television.
    Urd wasn't about to miss out on what was happening in the show, either. "During the next commercial break."
    "We just had one," Skuld pointed out.
    Neither wanted to miss a part of the show for anything, so they were quite happy when the ringing finally ceased. Unfortunately, a large bolt of energy struck the ground outside soon after, which blew them — among other things — toward the inner wall, and caused a fair amount of structural damage to the side of the house where the room was located. Much to their dismay, it had also totaled the television.
    Seeing no point in caring about their show at that point, considering who it was that they must have upset, they picked themselves up and went to investigate the message. Since the engawa was in shambles, they read the message from just inside of the living room, which wasn't hard to do since said message was rather large. Despite its size, though, the message was simple: "answer the phone."
    Said phone began to ring once more.
    Urd sighed. "I'll get it."