Careful Destiny: A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction

ShadowSoft Inc. Presents:

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic side-story

Careful Destiny

Part Six
"The Very Long Week of Ranma Saotome"
(With apologies to JMS)


by:
Todd Hill
AKA Shadow Stalker

Inspired by the "Ranma 1/2" Manga and Anime by Rumiko Takahashi

WARNING!  While this story is *NOT* a lemon, it does have some adult situations in it.  Read at your own discretion!


 

Friday, eight-fifteen in the morning:

Footsteps echoed down the length of the corridor, emphasizing the overwhelming *emptiness* of the area.  Bright fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare throughout, and the annoying buzzing of a malfunctioning ballast only made the hallway that much more unwelcoming.  A solitary wooden bench placed adjacent to a doorway was the passageway's only adornment.  Two young men sat in silence, yet their anxiousness was palpable.

A woman in her early thirties wearing a smartly tailored gray outfit appeared from the doorway.  The heels of her shoes clacked authoritatively against the white tiled floor as she emerged and stepped towards them.  Her face was bereft of both makeup and expression and she wore her long hair up in a very tight bun.  The air of cool efficiency that she emitted was unsettling, as it was meant to be.  Glancing at a file that she held in her hand, she stood next to the bench, imposing despite her small frame.  "You're first," she said crisply to one of them as she guided him into her office and closed the door behind her.

"By now you should know why you've been called to my office," she began as she took a seat behind a sterile looking and very informal office desk.  The boy nodded wordlessly as he took his seat in a chair opposite her.

"My name is Ms. Yoshida and I am a student counselor for Furinkan High School.  You should be made aware at this time that I am taping our conversation."  With that a tape recorder appeared from her purse.  She placed it upright on her desk and hit the record button, then started speaking a little louder.  "This is an interview regarding sexual harassment complaint number Four-One-Five-F filed by the school on behalf of the victim.  Would you please state your name?"

"They call me Sato."

Ms. Yoshida quirked an eyebrow at hearing his answer, jotted something down and then continued.  "What is your age?"

"Umm, I'm sixteen years old."

"Okay, Sato.  I want you to please tell me in your own words exactly what happened to cause last night's incident."

"Well, umm...  Where should I start?"

Ms. Yoshida looked at him and then at the tape recorder.  "I suggest that you start at the beginning and go from there.  We need to know everything that is pertinent to what happened on Thursday night, so go as far back as you need."

Sato sighed and looked at the cassette recorder glumly.  "Okay, if that's what you want.  This may take some time, though."

Ms. Yoshida poured a tall glass of water for him and set it down on his side of the desk.  "Take as long as you need.  I have several blank cassettes with me."  She held up five small cassette containers and then placed them soundlessly on the desk.

Sato sighed again and took a long pull from his water glass.  Setting it back down on the nearly barren desk, he reclined in his chair and searched his memory.  "Well, the best that I can tell is that it all started on Monday morning.  I was hanging around outside after having walked to school.  It was too early to be in the classrooms and I was bored..."

<*
 

"You're kidding me, Sato-kun!"

A young boy with dark hair and expressive brown eyes shook his head defiantly.  "No, I'm not kidding you.  It really happened that way!"

"Come on!  You're making stuff up again, aren't you?" retorted the young lady.  She was dressed in the standard Furinkan High School uniform and sported a ponytail that went all the way down to the hemline of her skirt.  Taller than most Japanese schoolgirls, she fairly towered over the boy.  However, despite her height advantage he seemed to be less than intimidated by her.

"Motoko, I *swear* that I'm telling you the truth," Sato retorted defensively.

Motoko shook her head sadly.  "Sato-kun, you and I have been friends for awhile now.  In that time I've known you to tell some pretty big stories."

"But this time it's true!" he spluttered.

"Yeah, right!  A girl with purple hair dressed in a Darth Vader outfit blasted a wall to pieces and threatened your life."

"I never said she wore a Darth Vader outfit," Sato groused.  "I said she was wearing a cloak."

"Oh that's right, a cloak.  Anyway, so this supergal walks through a wall and tries to kill you."

Sato laughed nervously.  "Well, when you put it that way..."

"Uh-huh," Motoko countered slyly.  "This is the biggest load you ever tried to push on me, Sato-kun.  Did she use some kind of move, like maybe a 'Power Makeup' chant or something?"  She giggled at the very notion.

"Hey!  If you're just going to make fun of me you can go away," Sato glowered.

"I'm sorry, Sato-kun," she said earnestly.  "I don't mean to sound like I'm making fun of you.  It's just..."  She shrugged her shoulders.  "It's *VERY* hard to believe!"

Sato sighed wearily.  "I know I've told you a couple of doozies in the past, but I'm on the level here!  The stuff that went on at the Tendo Dojo was..."

"And that's another thing that I can't believe!  How did *you* manage to get invited to *that* place?  Everyone at school knows what happened last Friday with Akane.  Why she'd let anyone visit her after all that is beyond me.  Not to mention the fact that her sister Nabiki wouldn't let you in unless you'd paid some kind of admission fee."

"That's not true," Sato said in a small voice.  "Nabiki isn't like that."

"Ha!  That's a funny one."  Motoko giggled at the supposed joke but lost her humor as she saw that the serious expression on Sato's face never wavered.  "Oh, come on!  You don't really think that, do you?"

Sato shrugged.  "I only know what I experienced this weekend.  Nabiki never treated me like that while I was there."

Motoko's eyes widened.  "You really *were* there, weren't you?"

Sato nodded, and was about to go into greater detail on how he saved Nabiki's life when suddenly he felt a hand clap on his shoulder.  Startled, he whirled his head around and his eyes automatically narrowed in anger.

"And he was just about to be somewhere else, isn't that right?" a gruff voice announced from behind.  The hand squeezed his shoulder painfully, fingernails digging into the hollow of Sato's shoulder through the white fabric of his school uniform shirt.

Sato winced but held his ground defiantly.  "No, I was actually going to stay right here and talk to Motok-  OW!" he yelled as the squeezing pressure on his shoulder intensified.

"Actually, I think you were getting ready to leave for your classroom, weren't you?"  He gestured to his left, indicating several boys who had accompanied him.  "Between you and me, I think that they would be AWFULLY upset if you didn't do as you were told," he said with a sneer.

"You got that right, Yutaka."

"Looks like he's about to pee his pants, Yutaka."

Yutaka looked back into Sato's eyes and seemed mildly surprised at the continued defiance that was there despite the grip he was maintaining on the boy's shoulder.

"Let GO of me!" Sato said, blinking away tears of pain.  The awful feeling that radiated from his shoulder was now cascading down his back and chest, worsening by the moment.

"Or what, you'll cry on me?" Yutaka snickered.

"Yutaka, why do you have to be such an asshole?" Motoko glowered, hands on her hips.  "We were only talking."

"I don't care for a second-class person like Sato talking to something as fine as you, Motoko-chan," Yutaka said, leering at her lissome figure.

She 'hmmphed' her dissatisfaction and turned her back on him.  "You're the only second-class person I see here."

Yutaka's face bent into a mask of rage.  Viciously he tossed Sato aside as if he were little more than a rag-doll, causing the youth to slam hard against the turf with an "oof!" that drew stares from passersby.  Then he marched towards Motoko until he was standing directly behind her, scant inches separating them.  His hot breath blew against her neck as he glared down at her.

Everyone in the area could tell that she'd struck his ego hard.  Keeping her back to him, she continued.  "Did I say something wrong, Yutaka?"

He forced his breath out in a laugh.  "You have it all wrong, Motoko-chan.  I don't have any problem with you," he replied in a voice that was softer than what would be expected given his rage.  "I just think you can do better than him, that's all."

"For your information, Sato's a friend of mine.  He and I aren't-"  She cut off her explanation as she caught a glimpse of her fallen friend getting to his feet.

"Don't bother, Motoko.  This thing doesn't understand sentences that are longer than five words," Sato bit out, the defiant gleam still in his eye.  'What a way to start the morning,' he added to himself.

A crowd was starting to gather around the three as the confrontation threatened to grow.  Motoko looked down at her friend, her expression a mix of surprise and puzzlement.

"What?" Yutaka snarled.

"See what I mean?" Sato asked as he got back on his feet, smirking.

Sato didn't even see it coming.  His cheek blazed with pain and he was quite sure he'd bitten his tongue.  The slap delivered by the bully was blisteringly fast and was sure to have left a mark.  "Watch your mouth, wimp!"  Yutaka raised his hand as if to punch him this time.  "You should show more respect for seniors-"

"And you should just shut up," a voice said from behind.

"OW!" Yutaka yelled as he jerked back suddenly.  A hand grasped his arm at the wrist, completely restricting his movement.  "What the- ?!" he yelled out in shock.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," Sato slurred before spitting out a gobbet of blood.

"Sorry I took so long.  I had to help Ranko walk to school," Ranma said as he wrenched down on Yutaka's arm, shoving the older boy away.  He turned his steely blue eyes towards Sato's aggressor.  "As for you-"

Yutaka surprised them both by merely flexing his arm and snorting at Ranma.  "Oh, it's you, Saotome...  Figures you'd be along to help this loser out.  Geeks stick together, right?"  He laughed, earning a dangerous scowl from Sato's would-be rescuer.  He caught the look and shook his head.  "If you think that you're going to try to beat me the way you beat Kuno then you're crazy."

Ranma snorted.  "You're right about that.  Kuno can at least fight.  If I fight you I'll wind up beating you a lot worse than I did him."

The 'Ooohs' and 'Aaahs' from the crowd bolstered Ranma and Sato, who'd moved to stand next to his friend.  Yutaka again shook his head.  "That's just it, Saotome.  I'm on to your game, so you won't be able to do the same thing to me.  We all know how you beat Kuno."

"Yeah, I kicked his ass," Ranma said confidently, smirking.

"Well no shit, Sherlock," Yutaka said in a superior manner.  "Anyone can get beaten up when they've been so drugged up they can't fight back!"

The crowd erupted in a gale of gasps and whispers as this news descended upon them.  Ranma looked incredulous at the very notion of cheating in that way during a fight.  "You're so full of it!"

"No I'm not!"  Yutaka raised his voice for the benefit of the growing crowd.  "I heard it directly from Kuno, himself!  He went to the hospital to have himself looked at after school on Friday.  While they were treating him, he asked them do a blood test."

"What, was he trying to find out if he was really a girl or somethin'?" Ranma shot back coldly.  That earned more 'Ooohs' and a smattering of laughter from the crowd.

"No, they found traces of chemicals in his blood would've slowed down his reflexes.  *That's* how you beat him.  You drugged him and then you beat up on him!"  Yutaka spit at the ground in front of Ranma's feet then aimed an accusatory finger at him, almost touching the tip of the younger boy's nose.  "Kuno showed me the results of the blood test!  YOU CHEATED!  *That's* how you beat him."  The crowd grew more boisterous at this news.  Some whisperings within earshot of Ranma managed to shock him into silence.

"I heard that too."

"You really think some wimp like Ranma could've beaten a guy as good as Kuno any other way?"

"Geez, that's the most dishonorable thing I've ever heard of!"

Sato absorbed the conversations flowing forth from the crowd as he looked at both Ranma and Yutaka.  His mind was swirling with confusion and for a moment he found himself unsure whom to believe.

"I'd never do something like that," Ranma thundered once he'd gotten past being dumbfounded.

"Oh yeah?  I've heard somewhere that you have a habit of drugging people up to get whatever you want.  You're a disgrace to martial arts, Saotome," Yutaka sneered.

Ranma's gaze flashed white-hot and he crouched into a defensive stance.  "I don't have to take that kind of shit from you!  If you want to know what I'm made of, then take me on!"

At that, the clock chimes rang announcing the beginning of the school day.  The crowd began to disperse and head through the front doors on the way to their classrooms.  Yutaka looked at him with an almost pitying stare.  "Don't bother.  I've got better things to do than waste time proving to a little boy that I'm right."

Before Ranma could say anything Yutaka and his entourage walked away.  "See you soon, Motoko-chan," he added with a rakish smile, his voice dwindling as he made for the entranceway.

As soon as the crowd was out of sight, the remaining three shared confused glances.  Ranma checked his impulse to run after Yutaka and beat the tar out of him when Sato groaned and collapsed to one knee, favoring his injured shoulder.  "Bastard really hurt me this time," he grated in a weakened voice.

"You okay, Sato?" Ranma asked as he knelt down.  Motoko likewise knelt down on the other side, her face full of worry.

He nodded and stood again with the help of his friends, wincing as Motoko placed a hand atop his injured shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Sato-kun.  This was all my fault."  Her lower lip trembled slightly.

He shook his head.  "It's not your fault that he's an asshole who can't think for himself, Motoko."  Smiling, he patted her hand.  "This happens to me all the time, you know that.  So don't worry, I'll be fine.  Go on to class and I'll see you after school, okay?"

Hesitant, she looked him in the eye.  "Are you sure, Sato-kun?"

He nodded.  "I'm sure, Motoko-chan," he said with a smile.

With that she smiled briefly then walked away.  Once she was beyond earshot Ranma spoke.  "Looks like he really did a number on your shoulder, Sato."

"Boy, howdy," Sato agreed.  "If Yutaka had pushed any harder on my shoulder he would've broken the skin."  He winced as he flexed his arm and rotated it.  "Where's your sister, anyway?" he asked as he glanced around the grounds.

Ranma snorted.  "She didn't want people to see her lookin' 'disabled' so she had me sneak her in through a side entrance.  Ranko had to give the nurse a note from Dr. Tofu about her medicines, excusing her from exercise classes and stuff like that.  She's probably in her classroom now."

Sato nodded.  "Hikaru came in early also.  He's been inside for about twenty minutes now."  He looked up at the clock.  "Speaking of class, we'd better hurry or we'll be late."

Ranma nodded and walked with Sato towards the front entrance.  "Hey Sato, why don't you come back to our place after school?" he asked suddenly.

"Umm, sure.  I'll see you here after classes are done."

"Will you be okay?  About Yutaka, I mean."

Sato nodded.  "Yeah.  He's a major-league moron, but even he won't do anything during lunch.  There are too many teachers around, then.  Besides, you know that he gets his rocks off showing off for the girls.  I should be okay."

"Okay, then."

"Oh, and Ranma?" Sato said, pausing inside the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"I don't believe what Yutaka said about you."

"Thanks, Sato.  That idiot will get what's coming to him, don't worry about that.  I don't like insults against my honor."

*>
 

"And then what happened?" Ms. Yoshida pressed even as she was madly scribbling notes on a legal-sized notepad.

"Well, then we had classes like always," Sato shrugged.

"Did either Ranma or Yutaka try to do anything at lunch?"

"No, in fact we didn't see Yutaka again for the rest of the day."

"Did anything else happen that day?"

"Uhh, yeah.  Other stuff did happen," he responded evasively.

"Like what?"  She favored him with a look that plainly said 'I won't take any crap.'

"Well..."

"Don't hold anything back, Sato.  We need to hear all of it, regardless of what you may think.  Information that you may find trivial may actually be of great importance."  She looked at him squarely.  "And it may help you and your friend more than you realize."

He gulped and found his voice.  "Well, something at lunch did happen, but not with Yutaka."

"Go on," she prodded.

"It has to do with a di- ... I mean, a girl we all know."

"This would be Miss Amagi?" Ms. Yoshida supplied.

Sato nodded.  "Yeah, she's the one."

The woman reclined in her chair and favored him with a curious glance.  "I'm listening."

"Does it have to go on the tape?"

She nodded.  "It's the only way I can document these proceedings properly."

"But who else will be listen-?"

Ms. Yoshida dismissively waved a dainty and well-manicured hand.  "For now it's only me, Sato.  Our conversations won't become anyone else's concern unless I feel that there is information within them which directly impacts my investigation."

He slumped slightly in his chair, seeing that he wasn't going to be able to dodge the issue.  "Okay, okay."

<*
 

"Ewwwgh!" Sato cursed as he took a look at his bento.  "Mom's got one hell of a sense of humor.  Either that or she forgot to go to the store again."

"What'cha talkin' about, Sato?" Hikaru asked as he pulled his lunch out of his bookbag.

"Look," he replied, shoving his opened bento under Hikaru Gosunkugi's nose.

"Natto?" his friend asked, wrinkling his nose as he spoke the words.

Sato nodded.  "She knows I can't stand this stuff.  I don't care if it *is* good for me.  I'd rather starve!"  He scooped out the offensive material and slopped it down on the grass next to where he sat.  'So much for enjoying my lunch...  This whole day seems to be just outright bad.'

The afternoon of his discontent was cloudy and breezy, but it wasn't so cool that they couldn't eat outside.  Still, some students had opted to eat indoors which made the quad a bit less crowded.  'I guess it isn't too bad...,' he mused as he surveyed his surroundings.

"Sorry about that, man.  I'd help ya out, but I'm almost done with mine," Hikaru said around a mouthful of rice.

"I can tell," Sato groused as he watched his friend pop a last bit of onigiri into his mouth.  "I guess I can just grab something after school."

"Hey, look at that!" Hikaru said, changing the subject by pointing across the grassy expanse to a growing group of students.  "Looks like your girl is back to her old self, Sato.  You'd almost think this weekend never happened."

Sato whirled his head over to where his friend indicated and squinted.  He could barely make out the figure standing in the center of the press of students, but after a moment's staring he had no doubt that it was Nabiki Tendo.  She was gesturing wildly and talking rather loudly.  He strained to listen as she continued to attract more people.

"... was the most fearsome display of destructive power that *I* have ever seen.  I tell you, this was the work of a mastermind.  If you ever wanted to see what an attack looks like UP CLOSE, then you should have been at my place this weekend.  It was a moment that I would never forget!" Nabiki shouted at the crowd in a classic salesman's pitch.

"Nabiki, did someone in your family cause it to happen?" some curious person in the cluster of people shouted.  Sato abandoned his abysmal lunch and made for the crowd.

"I have no idea!  This was completely out of the blue and the person never said why she was attacking us," she answered.  As Sato grew closer to her he began to notice details that he'd missed from his distant lunch seat.  Her eyes had the dark circles around them that you'd find on people who badly needed some sleep.  Her hair was in complete disarray and while she hadn't worn much makeup at all during the weekend, she was completely devoid of it today.  The best words that Sato could find to describe her condition were 'tired and worn-out.'

Nabiki flashed a knowing smile as gasps and gales from the surprised audience washed over her.  She lowered her head for a moment and let the din of the crowd grow a bit, then held up her hand for silence.  "Yes, this girl was about our age and she was not from around here.  So I can't tell you where she came from or what she wanted, I can only tell you what she did."  Nabiki made the pitch.  "And for only 1000 yen I can *show* you what she did."

What had been a very receptive crowd suddenly saw people peeling off and heading away.  Interest in her story was dropping quickly at the mention of a price.  Sato watched as Nabiki grew frustrated, and it was obvious to him that she needed *some* kind of assistance.  She looked like she was about to cry and that prompted him to act.  "She's telling the truth!" Sato shouted before he even realized that he was going to speak.  As the eyes of most of the student body fell on him, he felt his throat tighten to the point that his voice left him.

Nabiki whirled around to see the person that had spoken behind her.  Judging by the look on her face it was obvious that she wasn't expecting the assistance.  With wide eyes she looked at him hopefully, silently urging him to continue.

"Umm... that is, I... I was there!  I saw it happen," he added, having a hard time controlling his stammering.  He paused to swallow and managed to find his voice.  "Nabiki and I were standing right there at the wall when it was blown apart by that stranger.  It was the scariest moment of my life."

He held his hand out and gestured at one of the photographs Nabiki had held out for display.  Gazing down at it, he saw that it was a shot of the inside face of the wall.  The shower of mortar debris, barrel tile fragments and bits of stone that lay on the ground was visible at the bottom, adding a lot to the drama of the image.  Sato flinched as the photo evoked a sharp memory of what had happened on Saturday.  He felt a shudder of fear run through him as he quickly relived the event.

A cough from someone in the crowd brought him back to the present.  He shook his head to clear it and then continued speaking.  "*This* really happened!" he shouted while pointing at the picture.  "She and I are the only ones besides the perpetrator who saw this happen."

Nabiki found her voice as she saw the crowd had not only returned to its previous level, but had also grown.  "You have seen how just viewing a picture affected him!  This is the real deal!  Now, who wants one?"

Sato and Nabiki reeled as the crowd suddenly pressed in on them, all of them demanding at least one picture of the devastated wall.  As quickly as she could she began exchanging money for pictures, being sure to take someone's cash before she let a picture leave her hand.  Nabiki looked to Sato and offered him a slight smile.  "Thanks," she mouthed while her selling continued unabated.

He nodded and returned the smile.  Sato stepped closer to her and offered to help her with the sales, then stepped back when her face took on a very cold and businesslike manner.  "Thank you, no.  I can handle it from here, 'kay?" she whispered, emphasizing the point by turning her back on him to address the rush of people clamoring behind her.

Frowning, Sato turned and walked back to his place on the campus lawn and sat back down.  He watched Nabiki as she worked the crowd, now selling chunks of the wall for 3000 yen apiece for the small bits, and 5000 yen for the bigger pieces.

"Hey, I toldja so, Sato.  Unless your dick has an image of a 1000 yen bill tattooed on it, she's not going to get anywhere near you," Hikaru quipped.

"At least mine's long enough to have the whole tattoo on it," Sato snapped.

Hikaru snorted.  "Yeah, right.  Keep dreaming."

"She's the only dream I'm having right now," Sato said with a wistful tone, never taking his eyes off of her as she worked the crowd.  "What is it about that school uniform that makes girls look so... sexy?"

"Oh brother!" Hikaru said, rolling his eyes.  "I'm outta here."

"Seeya," Sato said absently.  He ignored his friend as Hikaru gathered his things and left for the school building.  The crowd had dissipated to the point where only five or ten people remained.  His face grew expectant as she made her last sale.

Stuffing leftover pictures and other items into an oversized bag as her last customer walked away, she looked up and saw Sato staring directly at her.  He just did see a deep blush cover her face before she looked down at the ground.  Walking quickly, she passed by him without a word as she made for the entrance to the school building.  Sato's head whipped around as he watched her almost break into a run for the door.

'Aw hell!' he thought in frustration as a whole dictionary's worth of words aching to spring forth instead wound up being stuck uselessly in his mind courtesy of Nabiki's cold dismissal.  He was about to get up and go inside when his eyes landed on another person sitting alone under one of the trees.  He was shocked when he realized who it was.

"Ranma?" he asked as he walked towards his friend.  'Wow, he looks as bad as I feel,' Sato added to himself.

"Uh?" Ranma asked, his eyes holding a faraway look.

"What's up?"

"Oh, nuthin' much, Sato."

"You sure?  You look upset."

Ranma turned and looked at him.  "Yeah, I am.  I've been called a lot of things in my life, but the ones that really piss me off are 'cheater' and 'liar'.  Now I can't even find that punk so I can make him set the story straight.  I looked around and he's nowhere to be found."  He grabbed two fistfuls of grass and pulled them out of the ground, then tossed the abused bits of sod out into the distance.

"Finally found an opponent that you can attack without resorting to alchemy, Saotome?" a condescending voice interrupted from above.  Both Ranma and Sato turned sharply and found Tatewaki Kuno standing over them with a smug grin on his face.

"What?!" Ranma thundered, standing quickly and getting in Kuno's face.

"Step back, boy," Kuno warned as he brandished his bokken.  "We don't need you trying to drug or poison me again."

"I'm not like your sister, underclassman Kuno," Ranma returned, not moving an inch.

Kuno's eyes narrowed dangerously, causing Sato to shrink back and reconsider standing up next to Ranma.  "That's *Upperclassman* you dolt!  And just *what* do you know about my sister?"

Ranma hesitated for a moment.  "I know enough about her, you punk.  What I want to know is how you managed to fake those reports about being drugged.  We BOTH know that I beat you fairly."  He allowed a smug grin.  "You were simply a weaker person, Kuno."

"I'll have you take that back right this moment or you'll be swallowing your teeth, Saotome!" Kuno snarled as he pushed the point of his bokken against Ranma's cheek.

Ranma grabbed the weapon and wrenched it down and away from his face.  "You'd better put that thing away before I shove it up your-"

"HEY!" an adult voice shouted.  Both stopped in mid-lurch and turned to face a teacher that had appeared out of nowhere.  "What's going on here?  There's no fighting on school grounds!"

"We were just..." Kuno began coolly before being interrupted with a swipe of the teacher's hand.

"Never mind!  I don't care what you two were doing or why.  No-one fights at lunch while I work here, understand?"

Ranma nodded wordlessly and stepped back.  Kuno however gave the teacher a withering glare.  The teacher caught it and got in the boy's face.  "I don't care for your attitude."

"My father..."

"I don't give a damn who your father is.  This fight is over, now!  You can go crying to your daddy later."

Ranma and Sato, who was now standing at his friend's side, stifled their snickering as best as they could but the teacher still caught it.  The teacher diverted his attention, his finger somehow pointing at both of them.  "I want both of you to behave.  We'll have no more aggressive behavior today.  Go back to eating your lunch or I'll have you reported to the counselors.  I'm sure none of you want that on your records."

Kuno blanched slightly at the threat to his academic standing.  Saying nothing further, he aimed an angry glare at Ranma and then walked away.  Once he was out of view, the teacher seemed to deflate somewhat.  "Now that he's gone I expect you'll behave, right?"

Ranma and Sato nodded, and then watched as the teacher wandered off.  "Geez, I sure wanted to slap Kuno around for that," he groused once they were alone.  Ranma looked around and noticed that a crowd never formed.  "I wonder where everyone is.  I thought that Kuno would've had an audience with him."

"Sorry to disappoint you, bro," Ranko said as she approached them, her wrapped bento held in her hands.  She tried to smile but wound up wincing instead, the pain from hobbling around on her bad ankle being too much for her to disguise or ignore.  "Everyone's been spewing that crap about you cheating so nobody is going to give you the time of day anymore.  You've become 'uncool' now."  As best as she could, Ranko managed to sit down unassisted next to where her brother was standing.  She absently rubbed the bandage-covered cut on her face then turned her attention to her bento.

Ranma sat down next to his sister and put an arm around her.  Sato followed suit on the other side of Ranko, but kept his arms to himself.  "I don't know what's worse..." Ranma declared.  "Kuno spreading those stupid rumors about me or everyone believing them."

Ranko put down her chopsticks and rested her head against his shoulder.  "I don't believe it, big brother.  I saw what you did to him.  The only drug you fed him was a can of whup-ass."  She smiled up at him.  "Don't forget that I was with you when you helped take out those goons from the Kendo squad.  They definitely know who got smacked around and who did the smacking."

Ranma and Sato both snickered.  "Thanks for believing in me, sis."  He looked down at the ground.  "I just hope that Akane doesn't believe all that crap."

"Have you asked her?" his sister asked before wolfing down a piece of hamachi.

"Well, I-  That is...  No, I haven't.  In fact, I haven't seen her since lunch started.  Have you?"

Ranko shook her head.  "Nope, not at all."

He frowned and looked at Sato.  His friend held up his hands in a shrug.  "Sorry, Ranma.  The only Tendo I've seen so far today was Nabiki and she ... wasn't very interested in talking to me."

Ranma nodded but said nothing, then crossed his arms against his chest.  He stewed in silence, mulling over something that Sato couldn't even guess at.  Several minutes ticked by before Ranko stood up, once again leaning heavily on her brother's shoulder in order to get on her feet.

"Ranma, don't worry about it right now.  We can deal with this after school," Ranko decided.  "Besides, I have to go back to the nurse and take my medicine now that I've had lunch."

Ranma looked up at his sister, then stood.  "Okay, sis.  I guess I'll see you after school."  They hugged, then she walked stiffly back to the school building.  Both watched her until she was inside the building, then Sato glanced down at his watch.  "It's almost time-"

A shrill voice and a whirl of long honey-blonde hair cut him off.  Sato looked in stunned silence as Kinuko Amagi latched herself to Ranma's arm and held herself close to him.  He tried not to look envious as he realized that she wasn't just hugging his friend, she was rubbing her body against his.

Ranma's face was an excellent example of shock and frustration.  He tried to stammer an objection but Kinuko's close-body contact was obviously making it impossible for him to talk.  He looked like he was about to panic and flinched rather violently when she finally spoke.

"I just wanted you to know that I don't believe what that zitface Yutaka has been saying about you, Ranchan."  She ran her hand up and down against his back.  "After all, you certainly managed to conquer *me* with your talents," she purred, holding herself even tighter against him.  "I believe in you!"

Ranma's lower lip trembled and he managed only a minor squeak in response to her rather sensual declaration.  Sato, meanwhile, continued to take in the scene with an odd mixture of fear and awe.

"Well, I'd better get back to class, Ranchan.  See you later, 'kay?" she asked with a wink and a smile.  Not waiting for a response, Kinuko kissed Ranma quickly on the lips.  Catching Sato's eye, she winked again before backing away.  "See you later, Sato!" she said with a cute wave.

Sato groaned mentally and barely suppressed a shudder at the level of cuteness she was displaying.  "Umm, yeah.  Seeya, Kin-chan," he replied, not realizing that he was waving back in a fashion similar to hers.

"Yeah," Ranma said absently, then shook his head as if to snap himself out of his mini-fugue.

Sato looked at his friend for a moment and could almost swear that Ranma looked as if he had seen a ghost.  "Yo, you okay in there, man?  Are you even here?" he asked of his friend, waving a hand in front of Ranma's face.  Meeting with no response, Sato shrugged and turned to watch as Kinuko trotted back towards the school.  "That blonde hair of hers...  I've wonder if all of her is blonde now."

Ranma snorted at that but didn't comment.  Turning to his friend he replied, "Sorry, man.  I've had a lot on my mind."

Sato dismissed it with a wave of his hand.  "Don't worry about it, we can talk later on at your place.  Besides it looks like everyone is getting back to class, so we should get going."

"Yeah, I guess so.  The sooner this day is over, the better," Ranma groused as he led the way back to the school building.

*>
 

Sato's embarrassment was obvious as he halted his story.  He watched as the counselor wrote more notes on her pad then looked up at him.

"I don't see why you were so upset about telling me that, Sato."

"Well, Akane doesn't know about that last part.  I know Ranma has been trying to get together with her, so her hearing about what happened on Monday between him and Kinuko wouldn't help things any."

Ms. Yoshida nodded.  "Ahh, and you're afraid that Ranma's apparent love interest may find out about it from this tape and take offense?"

Sato nodded.  "Ranma's got enough trouble this week.  I don't think that I need to be adding anything else to his list of problems."

Ms. Yoshida quirked her left eyebrow but refrained from pressing Sato for details on what he felt was on Ranma's trouble list.  "I don't see any reason for apprising Miss Tendo of that bit of information.  Not at the present time, anyway."

"Thanks."

Ms. Yoshida circled something on her pad.  "What is all of this about an attack?  Sounds a bit melodramatic to me."

"You wouldn't think so if you saw what that person did to the boundary wall of the Tendo's home," Sato replied.  "It was very fast and very scary.  I wouldn't call it anything *but* an attack."

"Why did it happen?"

"Well, I don't know *why* it happened, I'm afraid.  I only know the events because I was there.  No-one knows why she hit that place last Saturday, nor do we know where she went."  Sato shrugged, trying to push the incident from his mind.  "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about it."

Ms. Yoshida raised her eyebrow in mild surprise.  She was about to press him for more details despite his reluctance to talk about it, but the earnest fear she saw in his eyes caused her to reconsider.  She changed the direction of the conversation to get things back on track.  "So what else happened on Monday?"

"That's about it."

"Really?"  She eyed him critically.

"Yeah...  well, that's all that happened at school."

She sighed and clasped her hands together in front of her chest as if trying to politely restrain something.  "I'll need to hear about things outside of school as well if they pertain in any way to last night's events."

Sato shrugged his shoulders.  "I don't know how much this information will help, but I did spend some time over at Ranma's place that evening."

"Ah, you had mentioned an invitation from him earlier," Ms. Yoshida commented, underlining something on her notepad as she spoke.  At his nod she urged him to continue.

"Well..."

<*
 

"Ah, welcome to my domain, Sato!" Genma said with a warm smile as Ranma and Ranko escorted the hapless youth into the training hall.  "I'm glad that you decided to take me up on my offer."

Sato blushed and studied the mats intently.  "Umm, yes sir."

Genma looked at him sternly.  "Remember the first thing we talked about on Saturday?"

Sato's eyes widened.  "Oh, sorry Sensei!"

"Sensei?" Ranko repeated, confused.  "What's going on here?  I thought Sato was just coming over to hang out."

"Actually, sweetie, after seeing what Sato did to protect Nabiki I felt that he'd earned the right to be trained in the family art."

"Oh, is that so?"  She eyed Sato critically, her hand to her chin.  "I guess that I don't see anything wrong with that," Ranko said with a playful smile.  "Welcome to the family, Sato."

"Heh, thanks," Sato said with a nervous smile.

"You're being awfully quiet, son.  What's going on with you?" Genma asked as his eyes studied Ranma.

"It's. . . nothing, pop," Ranma said dismissively.

"Nothing, my eye!  I can tell there's something wrong with you.  What happened at school today?"  Genma eyed his son critically.  "Nothing's gone wrong with the Tendos, has it?"

"Hey, bro!  What's going on with you?" Ranko hissed.  "Why dontcha just tell him?"

"I can take care of myself, sis," Ranma retorted hotly, cheeks coloring.  "And no, it doesn't have anything to do with Akane or her family.  I'm telling you, this is really nothing to worry about."

"But-" Sato began then stopped when he saw the look in his friend's eyes.

"What do you have to take care of, Ranma?" Genma pressed.

"I said it's nothin', pop.  I can deal with it," Ranma replied matter-of-factly.

"Are you sure?" his father demanded.

"Yeah, don't worry about me.  You know what I'm capable of now, so just trust me."  Ranma held his father's gaze and didn't back down.

Genma relented.  "Okay, son.  I'll let you deal with it.  However if you need anything, you let me know."  He turned back to Sato.  "Now, let's get to work, shall we?"  He surveyed the boy with a critical eye.  "Okay, first thing's first.  You need to dress properly for these workouts.  Your pants will be okay for this evening, but I'm afraid you're going to have to take your shirt off so that your arms can move freely."

Sato blushed profusely.  "T..take my shirt off now?!"  He gulped as he regarded the three Saotomes warily, particularly Ranko.

"Oh, come on!  We're all men here," Genma said confidently.

"HEY!" Ranko shouted indignantly.

Her father winced.  "Sorry, sweetie.  I didn't mean it that way."

"I dunno," Sato replied uncertainly, his body language broadcasting self-consciousness.

"Oh, I can leave if you want me to, Sato," Ranko suggested, her feet already pointed towards the door.

"No, you don't have to leave, Ranko," Sato replied quickly, reminding himself that she wasn't like most of the petty girls he'd known at the school.  "I'll do it."  He steeled himself and unbuttoned his long-sleeved school uniform shirt slowly.  Tugging up at the bottom of it, he pulled the tails out from his trousers then slipped the shirt off his arms.  He busied himself with folding the shirt before putting it away, using the time to get used to being 'exposed' in front of a girl.

"I don't see what you were so worried about.  You look just fine to me," Ranko said, the playful glint in her eyes returning.

Sato blushed severely, his pale white arms and chest turning a deep crimson hue along with his face, eliciting a giggle from the youngest Saotome.

"Sis!  Quit teasing him," Ranma said, speaking up for his friend.

"I was being honest, Ranma.  He looks fine to me."

"Ahem!" Genma interrupted, clearing his throat and getting everyone's attention in the process.  "If the visual inspection is over with I think we should get some work done while we still have enough time.  I don't want to be in here all night."

Using Ranko and Ranma as assistants, Genma guided Sato through the basics of blocking and had him go through repetitive drills.

After about twenty minutes of watching Sato do the moves Ranma was demonstrating, Genma interrupted.  "Okay, let's take a moment."  He looked his new pupil over.  "Your form is actually quite good for a beginner.  However while you are doing the motions correctly you're not quite doing the moves correctly."

"I don't understand, Sensei," Sato replied.  "I'm doing it right but I'm doing it wrong?"

"He's talking about passion, Sato," Ranko clarified.

"Pop's right," Ranma agreed.  "You need to do it with more force."  Seeing that he still wasn't quite getting it, Ranma stood next to Sato.  "Watch me closely."

Sato watched as Ranma demonstrated the basic arm-block technique with a slow, fluid motion.  "This is how you're doing it."

Sato nodded.  "Right.  I was doing it just like you showed me."

Ranma shook his head.  "You were following the motions of the defense, but you left out the key ingredient."  He stood in a passive stance, then suddenly he moved his arms with a lightning-quick *SNAP!*, performing the block again but with a lot more force.  "YAH!" he yelled as he performed the maneuver.

"Wow!" Sato said, his eyes wide.

"You see the difference now?" Genma asked.  Sato nodded as he watched Ranma return to a passive stance and then step back.  "Now you try it again."

Sato coughed, then swallowed nervously.  "I'm not sure if I can do that."

"Oh, sure you can!" Ranko retorted.

"You won't know until you try, man," Ranma offered.

"I guess you're right."  Sato mimicked his friend's passive stance.  "Aah!" he shouted as the new Anything Goes student tried to move his arms with the same amount of force that Ranma had used.  Lacking the coordination, Sato wound up throwing his arm out too far and barely missed tagging Genma in the gut.  "Oh, I'm sorry, Sensei!" he said quickly while he straightened himself.

Genma chuckled.  "Don't worry about it, Sato.  You're getting there, which is a good thing.  We just need to work on your form a little more.  Practice is the only thing that'll help with that.  Also, you need to work on your confidence.  Anyone who has to protect himself or others has to do so with confidence, otherwise you're going to get whipped every time."

Sato nodded.  "I've had enough of getting whipped, that's for sure.  Especially today."

"Oh?  You have something going on at school as well, Sato?" Genma asked.

"Yeah, it's a thug at school who likes to use me for punching practice whenever he gets near me."

Genma's demeanor changed instantly from passive interest to concern.  "How often does this happen to you?"

"At least once a week, Sensei."

Genma looked at his new pupil askance.  "Every week?!  And just how long has this been going on?"

"About four or five years now," Sato admitted.

Genma shook his head in disbelief.  "Sato, I've known you for the better part of your life and this is the first time you've told me about any of this.  Why have you let it go on for so long?" he asked of his student, unable to hide a shocked look.  Getting no response from his pupil, Genma kept up the questioning.  "Have you at least tried to fight back?"

"Not effectively because I usually get beaten worse whenever I resist.  I got hurt today because I held my ground against him."

"Well, it's admirable that you at least stand up to him," Genma conceded, though his face still plainly showed his concern.  "But I don't agree with you allowing him to keep on hitting you."

"But it's not like-" Sato protested, but stopped when Genma held up a hand.

"I realize that you'd fight him back if you knew how.  That's what we're going to correct with these lessons."  Genma smiled.  "It's a good thing I did follow my hunch.  You keep up this training and soon you will be able to defend yourself effectively."

Sato smiled and bowed.  "Thank you, Sensei."

"That's the spirit!" Ranko enthused.  "I'd love to watch you be able to kick his butt sometime, Sato."

"Well, let's teach him how to crawl, first.  Then he can start learning how to walk.  Okay sis?" Ranma said with a wink.

"True enough, son," Genma agreed.  "With that in mind, let's get back to work."  The Saotomes then worked together to show Sato more of the fundamentals of defense.  Using words of encouragement, Ranko and Ranma pushed Sato through a series of drills that grew in intensity over the course of the evening.

Over an hour and a half later Ranma and Genma busied themselves with cleaning up the place while Sato caught his breath.  His body was sore all over but despite that he felt invigorated and he relished the empowering feeling that the workout had given him.  Ranko grabbed Sato's left arm to get his attention, then handed him a towel.  "Looks like you could use this," she said as gazed at his sweat-covered torso.

"Whew!  Thanks Ranko.  I sure could!"  He toweled himself off, no longer caring that she was looking at his bare chest.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" she asked.

"The towel?" he asked, confused.  "Yeah, I guess so."

"No, the afterglow, silly!" she teased.

He showed her a confused look and tried not to seem like he was being deliberately stupid in front of her.

"I'm referring to the feeling you get after a good workout."

"Oh!  Yeah.  Well, it hurts but it also feels good if you know what I mean."

"Yep, that's the afterglow alright."  She looked down at herself.  "I won't know what that feels like for a little while," she groused.

"Don't worry, sis.  If I know you, it won't be long before you're working out again," Ranma commented as he approached them.  "Just be sure you don't overdo it."  He stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.  Sato watched with a touch of envy as Ranko put one of her hands atop her brother's and squeezed it affectionately.

"Well, that does it for the first night, Sato.  You did well," Genma praised.  "You're a lot better than the spoiled brats I'm teaching downtown.  I expect good things from you."

Sato blushed at the praise.  "Thank you, Sensei."

"So I want you back here right after school every day for the rest of this week."

Sato's eyes almost fell out of their sockets.  "Every day?"  'Ouch!  I'm not going to make it through the rest of the week if every night is like this one,' he kept to himself.

Genma nodded.  "We need to improve your stamina and get your body familiar with using its muscles in ways that you likely haven't ever used them before."  He pounded the boy on the back.  Sato coughed, but otherwise managed not to show he'd been affected by the friendly smite.  "I won't lie to you, though.  It'll hurt in the beginning, but if you keep at it you will benefit greatly from this training."

"I understand," Sato replied, nodding solemnly.  He picked up his shirt and put it on.  "I'm sorry, but I'd better get home now.  My mom doesn't like it if I'm out too late on a school night."

"I understand.  Have a good night, Sato." Genma said before walking out of the training hall.

"You'd better spend some time soaking in the bath before you go to sleep tonight," Ranma advised his friend.  "Trust me, you'll appreciate it."

"Yeah, and take an aspirin or something, too.  You pushed yourself good and hard tonight," Ranko added.  "You'll definitely feel it in the morning."

Okay, thanks you two," Sato said with a smile.  "Good night!"  He turned and walked out the door, sparing a wave for Ranko before his steps took him beyond her view.

*>
 

"So did you?"

"Pardon me?" Sato asked, doing a double take at the change in focus.

"Did you do what they suggested and soak in the bath for awhile?"

"Oh, that!  Yeah.  I did soak when I got home.  Also took Ranko's advice and popped a couple of aspirin before I went to bed."

"Did it help?"

"Not much," Sato said, wincing.  "I was still sore on my arms and legs.  It made the other workouts-"

"What bothered you about being shirtless in front of a group of people?" Ms. Yoshida interrupted.  "It's natural for boys your age to dress that way when they're doing physical labor or working out."

"Umm.  It's just that. . .  I'm not used to showing off like that in front of strangers."

"I thought they were your friends."

"Oh, they are!  But I mean ..."  Flummoxed, Sato searched for the right thing to say.  "Ranko..."

"You think that girls shouldn't see you like that?"

"Well, it's not only girls.  I don't let anyone see me like that.  I think it's rude to be undressed in public."

"I see.  So have you always been so shy around girls, Sato?"

"What?!" Sato blurted out, feeling the question as if it were a punch to the gut.

"Have you always been shy around girls?" she clarified.

"Now see here, Ms. Yoshida!" he protested before being cut off by a very intense glare from his inquisitor.

"Don't take that attitude with me, young man," she scolded.  "I can ask anything that I like, and I feel that this is important to my investigation.  I'll ask you one last time: Have you always been shy around girls?"

He hesitated for a moment then slumped in his chair.  "Yeah," he responded in a small voice.  "Girls don't like me.  Except for a few like Ranko and Motoko who are my friends, girls usually tease me.  They only talk to me as a last resort."

She fixed him with an intense gaze.  "Do you hate them because of that?"

Sato bounded out of his chair.  "No, of course I don't!" he fairly shouted.  Ms. Yoshida quirked an eyebrow at him again and he quickly resumed his seat.  "I mean, I don't hate them for hating me."

She nodded and wrote down something else in her notepad.  "Do you think that everyone hates you?"

"I'm not paranoid, Ms. Yoshida," Sato countered.  He leveled a gaze of his own at her.  "Why are you doing this to me?  I thought you wanted information on everything that happened this week."

"I do," she replied simply.

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"Everything."

"I-"

"Okay, Sato.  Let's get back to it.  Tell me what happened on Tuesday."

****
 

"So how's it going?" Ranko asked as she headed down the hallway towards her brother.

Ranma acknowledged his sister's approach with a halfhearted wave of his hand and a grim look on his face.

"Oh, that good?" she quipped, looking down at her brother as she stood near him.

"I've not been interviewed yet.  She's had Sato in there for over an hour and a half now.  I have no idea what they're saying-"

"But you at least know what they're talking about."

Ranma nodded.  "I hope Sato holds up in there.  He doesn't deserve to have all of this lumped on his shoulders.  Not when-"

"Hey, don't sweat it.  I think he's capable of taking care of himself, bro."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, sis.  Besides, it 's not like I don't already have enough things to worry about."

"Geez, you're Mister Depression right now aren't you, Ranma?" his sister said with a scowl.

"Well excuse me!  It's not like I don't have a reason to be upset or nothin'."  Ranma stared at his feet.  "This hasn't been a great week, Ranko."

Ranko softened her look and let her irritation at her brother's glum disposition ebb.  "You're right, bro; I'm sorry."  She sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.  "This should make you feel a little better, though.  I've been working on finding out the truth about Kinuko."

"And?" he asked urgently.

"I've still got one more lead to follow, but so far most of the people that I've talked to have said that she's usually full of it."

Ranma visibly relaxed, his shoulders touching the back of the bench for the first time since he sat down.  "Yeah. she's full of somethin' alright," he quipped with a growing smirk.

****
 

"Sato?"

"Umm, yes Ms. Yoshida?" he said, lifting his weary eyes to look at her.

"Why don't we take a break?  I've got to make a phone call, so why don't you go outside and sit with Ranma until I'm done."

Sato nodded numbly, grateful for the chance to stop talking about the not-too-good week that he had.  He was mentally fatigued from the almost ninety minutes of grilling that he'd endured under the unrelenting gaze of the formidable Ms. Yoshida.  Standing from his seat, he barely managed to avoid stumbling over the corner of the chair as he made his way for the door.  With his hand on the doorknob, he turned back to look at her.  "I'll be outside," he announced as he turned the knob and slowly pulled the door open.

Her only response was a nod as she turned her attention to the telephone.  "Hello, Nerima Prefectural hospital?  This is Ms. Kumiko Yoshida..." was all he heard as he stepped out of the room and into the hallway.  As he stepped around the door, he saw that Ranma was sitting on the bench with his sister.

Ranko kissed her brother gently on the cheek.  "I'll probably be able to fill in all the holes after lunch today.  This person will likely know more than any of the others, so I'll get down to the bottom of the whole-"

The door to Ms. Yoshida's office closed, catching their attention and silencing Ranko.  Sato slowly stepped out into the hallway, favoring the Saotomes with a weary expression.  "Hi, you two."

"Heya, Sato.  You doing okay in there, man?" Ranma asked, concerned.

"That lady's a tough woman, that's for sure," Sato admitted.  "Still, she's not accused me of anything.  Yet..." he added glumly.

"Hey!  You don't have any reason to be worried, Sato-kun," Ranko admonished, standing up from the bench and looking him in the eyes.

"Thanks.  By the way, you're looking great today," Sato said as he gave Ranko the once-over.

Ranko blushed, her hand automatically going to her cheek.  "I'm glad that I was finally able to take that bandage off of my face.  I was starting to feel like the Battousai walking around Kyoto for awhile there."

"You can barely see the scar at all," Ranma added, smiling at her.

"Yeah, and the doctor said that by the end of next week it should disappear completely."  Ranko looked at Sato.  "Speaking of doctors, how are you doing, Rambo?"

Sato blushed.  "Heh, I know that I've been training hard and your dad likes my progress, but I doubt that I've earned that title."

Ranko snickered, her big blue eyes sparkling as she looked up at him.  "Okay, we'll debate your official title some other time.  I was wondering how you were feeling after everything that went down last night."

Sato shrugged.  "My eye looks a lot worse than it feels.  My ribs aren't as sore as they were last night.  Things could've been worse I guess."

Ranko nodded.  "You see?  You're not as sore or injured as you should be given what you went through.  Just goes to show that you're already putting your training into action, Sato.  In fact-"  She put a hand on his waist and reached the other around the back of his head, then kissed him soundly on the lips.  "I'm proud of ya," she said after their lips had parted.  She mussed his hair, giggling at the stunned expression on Sato's face.  "Way to go, tiger!" she purred, throwing in a wink for good measure before walking down the hall.

"Umm, yeah.  Thanks," Sato replied, blushing severely.  He touched his fingers to his lips and found that they still tingled from the unexpected liplock Ranma's sister had thrown on him.  His insides churned and he fought hard to control a primal urge that Ranko's affection had triggered.  "Wow.  I was NOT expecting that."

Ranma tried hard not to snicker at his friend's predicament, but couldn't contain it.  Sato looked at him with a smirk of his own, then joined in the laughter.  "That's my sister, for ya," Ranma commented.  "She's awfully direct, isn't she?"

"Yeah.  It's one of the things I've always liked about her."

"Me too," Ranma admitted.  "I like it that she doesn't hold back.  Makes for a great sparring partner."

Sato's smile turned into a grimace and he rubbed his ribs.  "I'll say!  She does a FANTASTIC job of not holding back in that regard."

Both turned their heads towards the door as the clacking sound of the lock caught their attention.  Standing next to the bench was Ms. Yoshida, eyeing both of them critically.

"Mr. Saotome, you and I have an appointment in my office."

Ranma swallowed hard and stood to follow her inside.  He gave Sato one last look before he disappeared behind the door, the latch clacking behind him with a sound of finality.

Sato stared at the closed door for a moment and then groaned.  "Good luck in there, my friend.  The way she treated me in there...  You're gonna need it," he said in a low voice.

****
 

"Please have a seat," Ms. Yoshida directed, pointing to the chair that had recently been occupied by his friend.  Ranma nodded and sat down, never taking his eyes off of the woman standing across the desk from him.  She took note of his intensity, but didn't comment.

After a few minutes of silence, Ranma began to fidget in his seat.  He watched as Ms. Yoshida labeled a cassette tape and placed it into the recorder that was sitting on the desk.  Next she slowly and deliberately flipped a page on her legal notepad, smoothing out the ruled yellow paper with her petite hand before taking her pen and writing Ranma's name at the top.  He started slightly when she finally spoke.

"I'm going to dispense with the usual starter questions.  I have your record in front of me."  She indicated a manila folder with his name and birth date written on a colored label across the top.  "I want you to be absolutely up-front with me about everything that I'm going to ask you.  Do not hold anything back, and do not assume that I don't need to know something."

"Okay," Ranma nodded, watching as she flipped through the rather voluminous stack of papers contained in his student folder.

"Well well, we've had a busy week, haven't we Mr. Saotome?" she commented as she searched through the sheaf of papers.  "In the last four days you have managed to rack up two complaints of attempted assault against you from Tatewaki Kuno, one complaint of harassment from Kinuko Amagi against Akane Tendo in which you were listed as a potential accomplice, and finally a teacher's report naming you in an incidence of assault and battery against Yutaka Hanashin on school grounds."  She leveled a curious look at him as she continued.  "Not to mention nine unconfirmed reports of threats you've made verbal or otherwise against members of the Kendo team."  She pressed the record button on here tape recorder and eyed him critically.  "Perhaps you're not getting enough attention in class, Ranma?" she quipped.

Ranma sat stone-faced while she read off the litany of charges and accusations.  Once she had finished, he looked her straight in the eye.  "Just nine in a week?  I coulda sworn that I'd done that many in a single day against those goons."  He showed the beginnings of a smug grin but it didn't last long.  He found himself swallowing nervously and shrinking back in his seat a bit as he met with the full force of a glare from Ms. Yoshida that was redoubtable enough to rival Akane at her worst.  The original Akane, that is.

As soon as he was silent, she favored him with a smug grin of her own.  "Now that we have the pecking order established, let's drop the smart aleck comments and stick to the facts, shall we?"  She hefted a much larger stack of folders and placed them on an empty spot on her desk with a loud *thunk.*  "These are the complaints that I just mentioned to you.  As you can see, you're in a great deal of trouble young man."  She eyed him critically.  "Given the sheer volume of them, I am surprised to see you acting so cocky.  Care to explain yourself, Ranma?"

He shrugged and sat back in his chair.  "Well, there's not too much to explain, really."

"Oh?  How's that?"

"Well, for a long time people thought that I was as a nobody.  Then one day I beat up Kuno and showed everybody that I can defend myself.  When you come right down to it, I think it's all just a lot of jealousy."

Ms. Yoshida quirked her eyebrow once again.  "Oh?  And?"

"And?  And, what?  That's it."

"Oh, don't stop now, Ranma.  You're spinning quite an amusing tale, here."  She struck a pose worthy of a Hollywood starlet.  "It's not my fault that I'm so wonderful!  Everyone just has to stop being jealous of me," Ms. Yoshida declared in a dramatic tone, mocking him.  She then became serious once again.  "That about the size of it?"

"No," he spat, looking at the floor to avoid her critical gaze.  "I'm just answerin' your questions.  You asked me why I've been in so much trouble this week and I answered you truthfully."

"Oh, you answered me alright, but not to my satisfaction."  She leaned forward on the desk.  "Why have you been getting into so many fights?"

"I *told* you why.  There are guys here that don't like me, an' I used to let them push me around.  I got tired of it and started defending myself.  Now that those cowards know they can't beat me up, they sic people like *you* on me instead."  He leveled his own gaze at her.  "I guess you'd be happier if I were beaten up and kicked around and just accepted it."

"I'd be happier if you just answered my question," she snapped, meeting his stare head-on instead of looking away.

"How many injuries do you think I would need before it would be okay to fight back, anyway?" Ranma continued, ignoring her.  "Maybe if I was paralyzed from the legs down or somethin'?  Would you be happier then?"  He sat forward in his chair, daring her to respond.  She didn't disappoint him.

"That's *quite enough* of that!" Ms. Yoshida yelled, slapping her hand on the desk.  The two glared at each other for a moment before she regained her composure.  "You can play the guilt card all you like, Ranma.  It won't change the fact that we have two people in the hospital.  How many times have your foes put *you* in the hospital, young man?"

Ranma paused to consider that point, then sat back in his chair.  "Whatever. . ."

"Fine, let's start again, shall we?"  She flipped a page on her legal pad and tapped her pen against the blank piece of paper.  "I think we'll take this on an incident-by-incident basis.  Let's start with Tatewaki Kuno.  As you said you 'beat him up' last Friday.  He acknowledges the conflict took place, however he has provided me with documentation that proves that he was drugged and hence wasn't fighting at his normal level."  She pulled out the affidavit and the attached doctor's statement and laid them on the table.  "This is a pretty serious charge, Ranma.  If I were you, I would be more concerned."

"Why should I be?  He's obviously lyin', Ms. Yoshida," Ranma returned.  "I walked to school that day with my sister.  He arrived at the school in his limo and we fought just as soon as he got out of the car.  If I did drug that loser, when did I manage to do it?"

She nodded and wrote a couple of things down on her notepad.  "Several people, including Sato, have confirmed your accounting of these events.  I asked Tatewaki Kuno about the timing of the events last Friday morning and he conceded that you did not personally drug him."

"See?" Ranma said with a smug grin.  "He's lying, and that's that."  Satisfied that he'd proven his point, he reclined in his chair, crossed his legs and put his hands behind his head.

She continued, ignoring his statement and his arrogant posture.  "However, he maintains that he was drugged before the fight and the doctor's note is irrefutable on that point.  This means that someone else administered the sedative."

Ranma's eyes flew open in shock, as he understood where she was going with this.  "You can't be serious!"

Ms. Yoshida nodded.  "Tatewaki Kuno was loathe to admit it during our interview earlier this morning, but the only logical conclusion is that Akane Tendo drugged him while they were together in the car."

"NO!" Ranma thundered.  "You *can't* believe that Akane would have done anything like that!"

"Look at the facts, Ranma."  She ticked points off on her fingers.  "You are obviously interested in this girl.  You admit that your fight with Kuno was a milestone and that prior to that day you would not have been able to defeat him.  Also, there has been some unsubstantiated rumor going around that you have resorted to drugging people in the past.  Most importantly, keep in mind that she was next to him in that car all the way to the school, giving her ample opportunity to drug him.  Furthermore, a fight was the only honorable way that Akane Tendo's engagement to Tatewaki Kuno would have been broken."  Ms. Yoshida paused to place her hand on the desk, then continued.  "It is not too hard to imagine that Akane would've conspired with you to drug Tatewaki Kuno to help ensure that you would defeat him and cause her engagement to disappear."

"Listen!  You're making assumptions without knowin' all the facts.  You also seem to be believin' everything that jerk Kuno has to say without challenging any of it."

"He's not the one who is in trouble, Ranma.  You are."

"Maybe he *should* be the one who's in trouble!" Ranma fumed.  His anger swelled almost to the bursting point.  He tried to calm himself but couldn't get past the sheer audacity of the accusations.  He glared at Ms. Yoshida, his gaze boring right through her head.  "I know for a fact that I knocked that son of a bitch on his ass with my bare hands and drugs had NOTHING to do with it!"  He balled his hands into fists.  The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.  "You know, he's so full of it!  He can't beat me so he has to go and find some lame-ass excuse.  What a crock of shit!"  He slammed his fist down on the desk in frustration.

Ms. Yoshida regarded him warily and debated the wisdom of pressing a button near her leg to summon school security.  She paused, however, once she realized that Ranma wasn't directing his ire at her.  She kept her finger over the button but didn't quite press it as he continued with his rant.

"I can almost bet you that his doctor's statement is wrong!  And you know what else?  It was probably bought, too!  The Kuno family is supposed to be rich, after all."

"You're just making that up," Ms. Yoshida challenged.

"The hell I am!  I know what I did and did not do, and I know for a *fact* that wimp Kuno was not drugged."  He began ticking off points on his fingers, mimicking what Ms. Yoshida had done to him.  "Akane and I didn't even talk to each other until *after* the fight was over, so there was no way she could have 'conspired' with me to do anything.  Also, I did not tell Akane that I was going to challenge Kuno to break his engagement to her.  I never would have put her through that.  And even if Kuno *was* drugged, what about that psycho sister of his?  I heard she knows her way around a few chemicals and drugs.  Heck, what about the limo driver?  Didn't *he* have the same amount of time as Akane to drug Kuno?  AND where'n'the hell would someone like Akane have gotten those drugs in the first place?"  He put his hands down on the desk.  "For an investigator, you seem to be ignorin' a whole buncha stuff."  He leaned forward.  "Tell me something; have you even talked to Akane?"

Ms. Yoshida was writing furiously.  "Let me catch up, Ranma."  The scribbling persisted for another twenty seconds before she laid her pen down on the notepad and massaged her writing hand.  "That's quite a bit information you just gave me."  She showed him a tolerant smile.  "I'm not here to prosecute you for the drugging accusation.  I'm here to get to the bottom of what happened last night."

Ranma's jaw hit the desk.  "Then why are you doin' this to me?" he demanded.

"Researching prior bad acts to establish a pattern of behavior," she said matter-of-factly.

His eyes narrowed.  "You just like pressing my buttons."

"I just like getting to the truth."

"Yeah, well the truth is that I'm not the kind of person who likes to cheat to win.  I did kick Kuno's ass that day and if he wants me to prove it I'll be glad to repeat it for him whenever he likes."

Ms. Yoshida sighed and flipped over her now-filled page to expose another blank one.  "Do you always get this angry?"

"Hey!" he protested defensively.  "If you knew the full story you wouldn't be treatin' me like this.  I don't deserve any of this crap, you know."

"Oh, trust me.  By the end of the day I *will* know the full story.  Also, what you deserve is yet to be determined," she said with a bit of a gleam in her eye.  "Now that you've proven my point about anger and violence in your present life, let's take a quick look at your past.  The school record shows that you were a stellar student until almost a month ago.  You used to participate in the school band.  You got really good grades and excepting for some behavioral quirks that border on Anime overload you were a very normal kid."  She gestured at the pile of complaints against Ranma.  "Not the kind of person who would do all of this, wouldn't you say?"

"What's past is past," Ranma replied simply, not able or willing to discuss the past of his 'other' self.

"What's past is prologue," Ms. Yoshida countered with a quirk of her right eyebrow.

"Whatever.  People can change, you know."

"I realize this, and part of what I've been trying to figure out since I first received this case is just *what* made you change so dramatically from what you were before."

Ranma pondered the best way to answer her question.  He certainly wasn't going to mention the curse or the wish, but he had to say something quickly.  'Last thing I need is to get her even more suspicious and have her start nosin' around in my life.'  When he did answer her, he spoke carefully.  "I had to change in order to make my life better.  I just couldn't accept things the way they were anymore.  I got tired of it, you know?"

"Well, one of your friends has a different opinion about it."  Ms. Yoshida picked up a manila folder and withdrew an official-looking document.  She began to read it, then summarized its contents for Ranma after she was done.  "Kinuko Amagi has suggested in her deposition from yesterday that the breakup between you and she, something she characterizes as temporary, caused you to change.  She claims that the two of you were madly in love and that the breakup was a horrible burden on your soul.  You took the news so badly that you, and I quote, 'resorted to violence in order to cope with the loss of his dearest love.'  I must admit that the timing is rather interesting.  Care to comment on that, Ranma?"

Ranma snorted derisively.  "That nutbar has an awfully high opinion of herself.  I don't care about her anymore, that's for certain.  Only someone as crazy as her would say something as stupid as that, anyways."  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.  "She's not the cause for any of my successes or failures, period."

"But you *did* endure martial arts training after the breakup, didn't you?" Ms. Yoshida countered as she flipped through her smaller stack of papers on the opposite side of the desk.  "Several people that were interviewed by the school after last Friday's events have all stated that you and violence went together like oil and water.  The sudden change in your nature ties in with your breakup with Miss Amagi.  Perhaps she does have some credence to her words after all?"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I embraced martial arts a long time ago because it is a family tradition.  It isn't some kind of sudden fad or whatever, and Kinuko has *nothin'* to do with me learning the arts."  He paused for a moment.  "But I guess you could say that I intensified my training recently to help me forget that I ever dated her."  He smirked at that and didn't care that it was a little white lie.  It sounded good to him, after all.  "What's this thing with Kinuko, anyway?  What exactly does she think me and Akane were doing to her?"

Ms. Yoshida ignored the question and parried with one of her own.  "So is this anger of yours something that will stay with you for the rest of your life or do you think that it'll go away as you grow up?"

Ranma blinked at the question, but didn't hesitate for long.  "It depends on what you mean by 'angry.'  If you're wondering if I'm gonna be a more aggressive person than I was in the past, then the answer is yes.  If people think that I'm angry because I don't roll over and play dead anymore, then that's their problem.  I will never walk away from a fight, and I won't let anyone get the best of me.  No one walks over Ranma Saotome.  Not anymore," he said defiantly.

"Well, that's a consistent answer, at least."  She paused and looked down at her lengthy sheet of notes.  "You know, we've been dancing around this point since we started talking.  I admit that defending yourself against attacks from other students is good, but the charges that you're facing today seem to point to an overly aggressive behavior on your part.  In fact, it's one more suited to being a bully than being the victim of one."

"Yutaka is the one who should be called a bully," Ranma retorted hotly.

Ms. Yoshida smiled and pulled yet another manila folder off of the pile then placed it in front of her on the desk.  "Speaking of Yutaka, you and he have had quite a week together, haven't you?"  She poked at the folder that she'd just placed in front of her.  "This incident on Wednesday between the two of you that almost sparked a riot in the quad is rather noteworthy."

"Well, it was somethin' that he started!  All week he's been yelling at me from far away and givin' me crap about that drugging thing.  At lunch on Wednesday he got in my face for the first time."  Ranma's look hardened as he recalled the event.

<*
 

"How do you feel, Sato?  You're lookin' a little sore," Ranma commented as his friend stretched and groaned before sitting down on the grass beside him.

"Ugh... I think we're going to have to talk to your sister about her footwork," Sato groused.  "She just got the use of her ankle back and she's already wiping the floor with me.  She does remember that I'm a novice, doesn't she?"

Ranma snickered at that.  "Yeah, she does.  She just expects you to do well is all.  I think that you handled yourself pretty well last night.  After two days lessons you're already blocking like a first year student would after two *months* of lessons."

"If I hadn't been blocking her at all my head wouldn't be attached to my shoulders anymore!" Sato retorted.  He tried to look serious as he said it, but his composure broke and both boys wound up laughing.

"See?" Ranma asked through his laughter.  "That's the best way for you to learn.  You have to understand that the secret to being a success in martial arts is not dying."

"Yeah, right," Sato commented.  "I kinda figured that one out."

Ranma snorted and began to unpack his bento.  As he took his chopsticks in hand, a gentle breeze shifted the leaves overhead causing soft dappled sunlight to play across his arms.  He paused and looked up at the canopy of the tree and admired how the sun's rays played through the branches.  Ranma couldn't help but smile as he absorbed what he could of the peaceful moment.

"Well, look who's here!  It's Furinkan's own drug dealer and his trusty sidekick, WimpMaster!" a voice taunted from behind them.  "Didja cheat in any fights today, Ranma?"

Ranma's eyes narrowed at the taunt.  He carefully placed his chopsticks on his bento and sat it on the ground next to him.  He turned his head in the direction of the voice just in time to see the sneering face of Yutaka as he stepped around from the other side of the tree.

Ranma smiled nastily.  "Hey, Sato, look!  The Garbage man is already here."  His smile grew as watched Yutaka's smug grin vanish.  He stood up and continued his taunt, adopting the voice a kindergarten teacher would to a stubborn child.  "I'm sorry Garbage man, but you'll have to come back.  I'm not done eating yet."

"What?" Yutaka snarled.

"Uhh...  Ranma, I don't think taunting him is such a good idea.  Remember that you almost got into trouble on Monday when Kuno started in on you," Sato whispered cautiously.  He eyed Yutaka nervously as the bully glared down at the two of them.

"Hey, don't worry.  He's nothin'," Ranma replied loud enough for Yutaka to hear.  He then looked directly at Yutaka.  "Listen, Garbage man.  If you're that hungry for trash, you can go shovel some shit out of the sewage pipes or somethin'.  I'm sure that your ancestors did that for a living so the practice should come naturally to you."  Ranma made a shooing gesture.  "Now run along, Garbage man.  I'm done with you."

The older bully's face was a picture-perfect representation of someone on the verge of exploding in rage.  Ranma bet that if it were possible, the oaf would spontaneously combust in front of their eyes.  But instead of saying anything else, Yutaka made a throat-clearing noise and spat a big wad of sputum into Ranma's bento.

"Oops, did I just ruin your lunch?" he asked, his smug grin returning.

Ranma sighed.  It was his favorite lunch, too.  The uneaten bento contained six pieces of Nigiri-Saba with fresh pickled seaweed on top and a couple of good slices of Bluefin Toro to boot.  Ranma bent down, picked up the bento and looked at it.  "You spit in my lunch."

"Yeah, I think I did.  What're you gonna do about it, WIMP?" Yutaka asked, guffawing at the sour expression on Ranma's face.

"Well, if you wanted a taste of it so badly, you should've ASKED!" Ranma yelled as he turned the bento sideways, front facing out, and slammed it into Yutaka's face.  The contents of his lunchbox sprayed all over the thug, showering him with pieces of pickled mackerel, tuna and specks of rice.

"Oh shit!" Sato yelled as the violence erupted suddenly.  He stood and backed away a couple of steps from the center of the battle.

Yutaka yelled in pain as the hard ridges of the plastic container met with his face, bending his nose until it threatened to break.  He then landed on the grass on his rump; the force of Ranma's smite more than the bigger boy could withstand.  He yelled again as Ranma threw the emptied bento at him.  The box dinged off of the top of Yutaka's head and landed some distance away in the grass.

"You know, that rice suits you," Ranma commented.  He pointed at the coating of fish and rice that covered Yutaka's head and shoulders and laughed.

"You'll pay for that, you asshole!" Yutaka bellowed.  He made a move to get up, but paused when he saw the look in Ranma's eyes.

"If you want to keep your arms from being broken you'll keep your ugly ass on the turf, Garbage man!" Ranma warned.  He brought his fists up in a defensive stance.

"I don't think so, wimp."  Yutaka snickered at Ranma's stunned expression.

"What makes you think I won't?" he challenged, wondering what had the bully so bold all of a sudden.

"Uhh, Ranma?" Sato said softly off to his friend's side.

"Yeah, what is it, Sato?" Ranma asked, never taking his eyes off of Yutaka.

"I think... you'd better stop," he said in a strained voice.

The change in Sato's voice gave him pause.  Ranma turned to look at his friend and was shocked at what he saw.  One of Yutaka's thugs had appeared out of nowhere.  He had Sato in his grasp with a knife blade held against his throat.

"I think WimpMaster is right," Yutaka said in a mocking tone.  Ranma turned back to him and watched as he stood up and dusted his pants off.  The bully nodded at something behind Ranma, causing him to turn around.

The Anything Goes student's eyes narrowed as he counted ten boys standing behind him.  All of them wielded items that were capable of inflicting rather nasty amounts of damage, including several that were outright banned from the campus.  Ranma put his arms down at his sides, realizing that he wouldn't be able to defend against all of them *and* keep Sato from being hurt or worse.

Yutaka nodded.  "So you're not completely stupid."  He walked over to Ranma got in his face.  "Now about the mess on my shirt.  I think someone's gonna have to clean it off for me."

Ranma sneered.  "Like hell, you loser!  I'll..."

"Ah-ah-ah!  Be nice," the boy holding Sato chastised.  The thug made his point literally by pressing the tip of the blade into the skin of Sato's throat.  Ranma's friend winced in pain but didn't cry out, and sighed slightly in relief when the pressure relented.  "You get the idea?  Now try it again, wimp."

Ranma flushed with rage but held his ground.  He was also somewhat relieved that Sato wasn't bleeding.  "Okay!  What do you want?"

"What I want is a piece of yer ass!" Yutaka snarled, backhanding Ranma's face as hard as he could.

Ranma felt the blow connect and experienced it from two points of view.  On one side he felt the sharp *snap* of skin and bone colliding most painfully.  He tasted blood in his mouth and temporarily lost sensation on the right side of his face.  His 'other' perspective let him conclude that Yutaka had never taken any martial arts training.  His method was pure street brawling, which suited Ranma just fine.  He looked up and smirked at the puzzled expression on the older boy's face.  Despite the fact that the blow was powerful enough to knock someone on the ground, Ranma remained on his feet.  He crossed his arms in front of his chest and regarded Yutaka with a disappointed expression.  "Is that it?"

Yutaka's jaw was slack.  He stared at the shorter youth in silence for a moment as if he were reassessing Ranma.  "You got lucky, wimp," he said finally, flexing his arms.

"Naah, that's not why," Ranma countered, wiping the back of his hand against his lip.  It came away bloody, which only made him angrier.  "The problem is that you hit like a pussy."

"WHAT?!  I'm going to-" he didn't even finish his sentence as he leapt at Ranma.  The agile youth avoided Yutaka's clumsy lunge and easily parried the follow-up haymaker that would've taken his head off had he truly been a novice at fighting.  Ranma realized that Yutaka's goons were starting to close in on him and he was quickly running out of space to maneuver.  He prepared for the next swing to be delivered when everything came to a screeching halt.

"HEY!  WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" an adult voice shouted from a distance, causing Yutaka's crew to quickly pocket their weapons.  The one with his knife to Sato's throat pulled the weapon away and shoved the boy to the ground before concealing the blade and stepping back.  They all turned to walk away from Ranma in different directions before the teacher could get to them.

"You got lucky, Saotome," Yutaka sneered as he walked away.  "Next time you'll get hurt a lot worse."

Ranma stood his ground as the bully walked away.  He looked over to Sato, who was rubbing his throat and glaring at the departing crowd.  "You okay, man?" he asked of his friend.

Sato nodded, still glowering at the person who'd been holding the knife.  "Yeah, that asshole didn't cut me or anything.  Still, I could've done without having live steel pushing against my neck."  He rubbed the violated skin again.  "What is UP with that guy, anyways?  You know he's never acted like this before.  Not around us, anyway."

"I have no idea, Sato."  Ranma looked at the departing form of Yutaka.  "But if he does it again, he won't know what hit him."

"What is it with you, Saotome?" the teacher huffed as he approached the two.  "This is the third time this week that I've had to intervene in a fight involving you and someone from a higher grade."

"I-" Sato began, but stopped as the teacher interrupted him.

"And you're always here with him when these scuffles break out!  Are the two of you initiating fights just because you love physical punishment?"

"But Yutaka started it!" Ranma shot back.  "We didn't say anything to him."

"It doesn't matter.  I've had it with you causing violence on the quad during lunch."  He held up his hand to forestall any further protest from Ranma.  "If you do it again, I'm writing you up."  He pointed at Sato.  "BOTH of you!"  He stormed off, muttering something about 'overactive brats.'

*>
 

Ms. Yoshida tapped the manila folder again with a well-manicured fingernail.  "It appears that you didn't take his advice, Ranma."  She pulled a triplicate form out of the folder and placed it out for his inspection.  "This is a write up of you and Sato yesterday after your fourth straight incidence of violence on campus."

"Well, it was a little different that time.  It was Kuno's little harem of sword swingers instead of Yutaka.  They just wouldn't let up," Ranma replied with a shrug of his shoulders.  "Besides, those kendo goofs *needed* another lesson in pain management," he added with a smug grin.

"Why don't you just walk away from someone whenever he or she starts in on you?"

"It's not that simple.  It's a matter of protecting my honor.  Those bastards were stepping on it."  He allowed a small grin.  "So I had to step back harder."

"Is your honor more important than your academic standing?"

"In this case, yes it is.  People respect you if you stand up for yourself and defend your honor.  I'm probably going to teach martial arts when I grow up.  How can I do that if I don't have my students' respect?"

Ms. Yoshida nodded at that and wrote a paragraph of notes on her pad.  "And you think that your future students would not respect you for understanding when to fight and when not to fight?"

Ranma's eyes widened slightly at that.  "Hey!  I ...  I *do* know when to fight and when not to fight, you know," he said weakly.

"Um hmmm," Ms Yoshida responded distractedly.  His interrogator paused for a second as she perused her notes before asking him another question.  "You and Sato have both mentioned a student with a knife during the fight on Wednesday.  Do you remember who that person was?"

Ranma shook his head.  "I don't know his name, but I do know that he was in Yutaka's little gang.  I always saw him walking around with that fool.  If you had a picture of them I'd be able to tell you which one it was."

Ms. Yoshida scribbled something down on her pad, then looked up at him again.  "You two are the only ones who have ever seen someone brandishing a knife on school grounds.  I'm afraid that I can't quite believe that accusation without a third person verifying it."

"But it's true!" Ranma spluttered.

"So you say," Ms. Yoshida countered.  "You and your best friend.  Not exactly a pair of unbiased witnesses.  This all could be part of a smokescreen to hide the fact that when the pressure was on, you couldn't handle it during a fight."

Ranma recognized fighting words when he heard them.  "Hey!  What is it with you and your grudge against my skills?  I'm not makin' any of this stuff up.  Why're you givin' me such a hard time, anyways?"

"Frankly, Ranma, it's because the security here at the school is pretty reliable, meaning that weaponry would have to be smuggled in through rather elaborate means.  Furthermore, it's the lack of unbiased witnesses."  She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  "In any event, it just means that if you want to prove to me that this person pulled a knife and threatened Sato's life, you're going to have to find someone more credible than yourself to come up and let the school know."

"Fine!  I know I'm right and that's what matters most," Ranma spat.  He crossed his arms and glared at his shoes.

"So what happened after Yutaka left?" Ms. Yoshida asked after another slight pause, hoping to get the investigation back on track.

Ranma calmed down and picked up where he'd left off.  "After the teacher walked away, I told Sato that I had to go get something to eat.  Since my lunch was ruined and I was starved, I went looking for a snack.  I got something out of the vending machine and..."  He stopped his train of thought, as he suddenly grew very uncomfortable.  He occupied his time by staring at the desktop.

"And?" Ms. Yoshida prodded.

"And I saw Akane down the hallway," Ranma finished unwillingly.

"Oh?  Was she alone?"

Ranma sighed, realizing that he couldn't avoid it.  "No, she was talking to Kinuko."

"Ah!  I was wondering when you would get to this," Ms. Yoshida exclaimed as she fished about for another manila folder.  A few seconds later she found the right folder and then pulled out a small stack of paper.  On the top of the stack was that official-looking form that she had examined earlier.  Ranma craned his neck and squinted to get a better look at it.  "Furinkan High School Disciplinary Action Form.  Complainant(s): Amagi Kinuko.  Defendant(s): Tendo Akane, Saotome Ranma."  She placed the empty folder to the side and started scanning through the rest of the attached paperwork.  "This is what you had asked me about earlier, Ranma."

"Oh, well I've never seen that before today," he said with a shrug.

"I'm a little surprised, Ranma.  It has your name on it, after all.  Everyone listed on the front of this form should have at least been notified that it was being filed for or against him or her."  She wrote something down on her pad and then referred back to the form.  "Well, I'll read some of this to you to see if it jogs your memory."

"Umm, okay.  Dunno what good that'll do," Ranma commented, trying to sound disinterested.

<*
 

"I know, Ami-chan.  I'll be right there," Kinuko Amagi said, smiling brightly.  She gave her head a toss, her gorgeous blonde hair cascading down her head and perfectly framing her beautiful face.

"You're so cool, Kinuko," a nearby girl enthused, eyeing her enviously.

"Why thank you.  I don't know why I always get such praise, though."  She fanned her face with a hand.  "I'm just a simple girl that happened to be born beautiful."

"I was wondering how you got your hair- Hey, look! There's Akane!" the girl said before wandering off in Akane Tendo's direction.

'Oh!  That girl is always bothering me.  Why doesn't she just learn to leave me alone?' Kinuko despaired as she glanced in her rival's direction.  Tears began forming along her eyes, threatening to spill over and smudge her expertly placed makeup; especially the wild apricot silk blush that usually costs three thousand yen that she bought last weekend for a STEAL.  'Maybe if I go over there and talk to her, she will understand just how much she hurts me whenever she plays with my emotions,' Kinuko rationalized as she collected herself and dabbed daintily at her watery eyes with a tissue.

She walked over to where Akane was standing and hesitantly tapped the girl on her left shoulder.  "Pardon me, Akane.  May I talk to you for a moment?" Kinuko asked meekly.

"What do you want, you ugly troll?" Akane snapped, her left eye twitching violently.  She glared at Kinuko relentlessly and crossed her arms over her flat chest while tapping her foot impatiently.

"Well, I was wondering if...  that is, why you are chasing after my poor Ranma.  Surely you know the strain that my beloved has been under."  Kinuko nervously adjusted the straps on her school uniform and made sure that her immaculate pleats were properly aligned.

"Since you broke up with him, you mean?" the gorilla spat.

"Well, yes.  Since that time we have reconciled and are once again the happy couple that we were always destined to be."  Kinuko smiled at joyful notion of her life with her beloved Ranma.  "Because he and I are indeed back together, I would appreciate it if you would stop your pursuit of him.  I'm asking you nicely, since that is the only way I could possibly act."

"Ha!  You lost your chance with him you whore!  I may not have your fabulous looks, great fashion sense or high intelligence, but I will still take him from you!"  Akane sneered, her plain face made to look even angrier by all the zits that covered both her cheeks.  "I have always lost to you in the past, Kinuko, but not this time!  Your beloved Ranma will soon be mine!"  Akane laughed maniacally, her stringy long hair falling flat against her scalp and looking like it had not been washed in over a *week*!

"We may have had our differences in the past, but I implore you Akane; cease your destructive actions before my dearest Ranchan gets hurt."  She sniffled, the tears from earlier threatening to resurface.  "Can't you see that I love him with all my heart, and he loves me?  He has even said so!"

*>
 

"I have NOT!" Ranma spluttered.  "What kind of fantasy world is that dingbat living in?"  He shuddered in revulsion.

"You deny having a past with Kinuko?" Ms. Yoshida queried.

"No, I don't deny that.  She and I have dated before.  But do I love her?  Absolutely NOT!"  Ranma shook his head rather violently and crossed his arms against his chest.

"Well, we'll get back to that in a moment.  As I was just saying. . ."

<*
 

Akane raised her brutish arm and aimed it at the defenseless Kinuko.  "If you don't turn around and walk away now I will slap your face and rip your shirt open," she snarled.

Kinuko looked down at the ground to avoid Akane's glare.  She distracted herself by admiring the brand new Akira Fubuki black leather big sole shoes she bought yesterday, which were on sale for half price at Miss Paradise Shoe Market.  "Please!  I do not wish to start a fight with you, Akane.  I do not resort to violence, nor to I like to make a scene.  I am merely a peace-loving girl who is trying to do the right thing for her man.  Surely you can understand that, can't you?"

"How can I understand that?  If I understood that, I never would have left the side of the remarkable Tatewaki Kuno!  I lost my opportunity with that fabulous man, so now I'm going to hurt you once again by taking your precious Ran-chan away from you!"  She laughed maniacally again, something that came naturally to her.

"No, please!  I could not bear to have my heart broken by such an evil woman.  You should look at yourself, Akane.  Look into the mirror and see the darkness that surrounds your soul.  The only way for you to make yourself happy is to hurt others.  Well, I won't allow you to hurt Ranma just to make yourself feel better."  Kinuko balled her hands into fists, something she rarely did.  "Just because you feel inadequate to me does not mean that I am to blame.  I am only being myself and I never have asked you to compare yourself to me!  You should just accept who you are and get on with your life.  Quit torturing me and my Ranma!"

Akane made a move to slap Kinuko, but stopped as her beady little eyes caught sight of something in the distance.  She lowered her arm to her side and smiled evilly.  "Well, there's Mr. Handsome over there.  Let's just see who he really wants," she growled as she headed in poor Ranma's direction.  "Hey Stud!  Wanna feel a real woman?" Akane crowed, grabbing her crotch lewdly through the green fabric of her uniform which had food stains *all over* it!

"Oh, hello Akane," Ranma said with obvious disinterest.  He looked at her the same way he would a big ugly beetle crawling through trash on the ground at the park.

Kinuko had to walk briskly to keep up with the brutish girl, who obviously worked out with weights and used steroids.  She barely managed to get to Ranma without wrinkling her outfit.  She stopped, smiling shyly at him.  "Hi, Ranma."

"Well hello there, you beautiful lady!"  Ranma clasped his hands to his chest, a forlorn look on his face.  "My heart has ached since our parting.  For so long I have wanted to see your smiling face again.  Now that you are here I can profess my undying love for you and settle once and for all this unkind contest between you and that dreadful Akane."

*>
 

"I NEVER SAID THAT!" Ranma protested loudly.  Wide-eyed, he shot out of his seat and with a shaking hand pointing at the papers in Ms. Yoshida's grasp.

"Shh!  I'm almost done," Ms. Yoshida replied, barely containing her mirth.

"But I never said that!" Ranma growled, resuming his seat reluctantly.  "She's out of her mind!  I don't even sound like that!"

"Anyway..."

<*
 

Akane put her fists on her stick-figure hips and glared at Kinuko.  Then she put her books down on the ground between her bowed legs and reached up to adjust her training bra since it was probably pinching the folds of fat under her armpits.  She picked her nose and then looked at Ranma with her nasty brown bloodshot eyes.  "So which of us do you want?"

"I " Ranma began, but stopped.  He attempted to stammer something, but was obviously overwhelmed by Akane's brutish manliness.  "I-  That is-"

"What?" an obviously dejected Akane replied.  "You can't prefer that girl over me, Ranma.  Sure, I have buck teeth, thick armpit hair, knobby knees and bad breath, but still I *have* to be a better choice for you, right?"

Kinuko looked sadly at Akane yet said nothing.  'I hate for her to see the truth in this fashion, but that girl must face reality,' she thought as the flabby has-been kept trying unsuccessfully to win Ranma's favor.  Kinuko, however, was satisfied that she was the one he wanted.  His silence was all of the vindication that she needed.

*>
 

"Oh, come ON!" Ranma said disgustedly.

"What's the matter, Ranma?"

"What's the matter, Ranma?" he mocked.  He gave her a sour look.  "You've *got* to be kidding me!"

"So you dispute this account?"

"Duh!"

"What is wrong with it?"

"Everything's wrong with it!" he snapped.  "She's got it all backwards.  I never even greeted Kinuko like that.  I don't talk like that and I *surely* don't like her."

"Well, I do have to admit that the story seems to have a certain... slant to it," Ms. Yoshida conceded, barely concealing a smirk.  "But it is interesting that you say that Kinuko has it all backwards."

Ranma swallowed hard at the look he was getting from her.  "Wha- What do you mean?"

"I simply mean that here you are saying that Kinuko was wrong when she said that you chose her over Akane."

"Well...  I just-" he began, but paused when the proper words failed him.

"Love her?" Ms. Yoshida completed.

Ranma backpedaled.  "Huh?!  Whattaya mean?  I'm just sayin' that I didn't choose Kinuko."

"Which means that you chose Akane, right?  Isn't that what you're trying to say?" Ms. Yoshida pushed.

"No-no-no!"  He shook his head violently.  "I didn't choose anything!"

"Ah," Ms. Yoshida replied, writing yet again on her legal pad.  "So you're still up in the air about it."

Ranma stifled a scream and resisted the urge to pull out his hair in frustration.  "What are you doing to me?" he demanded.

"Oh, come on now!  Despite all of your protestations, you do seem awfully intent on Akane.  Are you *sure* you don't love that girl, Ranma?"

Ranma growled.  "Why is it important for you to know how I feel about her?  What does it have to do with you? Are you jealous or something?"

Ms. Yoshida laughed heartily.  "Sorry about this, Ranma, but you're just too young for me.  Not to mention a bit too rough and tumble.  I like my men with a bit more panache."  She smiled at him.  "To answer your question, I'm trying to learn more about what happened last night and understanding you is a key part of that."

"So what is it to you if I do like Akane?" Ranma ventured.

"Well, it would force me to narrow the way that I evaluate your behavior over the entire week.  For example, I would have to say that everything that has happened this week was simply an attempt to win Akane's heart.  I admit that such manly gestures would be an attention-getter.  Specifically, your pursuit of martial arts would be a great way to enhance your chances with a girl like her, who was only recently betrothed to the most popular kendoist on campus."

Ranma showed her a hurt look.  "Do you hate martial arts, Ms. Yoshida?  I'd say so 'cos right now you are doin' a pretty good job of insulting it and me with that crap you're spewing.  If you're doin' martial arts to get a girl's attention, you're doin' it for the wrong reason.  *True* martial artists don't train for years just to win a girl's heart.  They do it because it's a part of their life and they love doing it.  Doin' martial arts makes me what I am."

She quirked an eyebrow and underlined something on her notepad.  "What about this particular case, then?  Just why exactly did you fight Kuno?"

"It was a matter of honor," Ranma said simply.  "Whenever he'd say in public about ending his engagement to her if someone beat him in a fight, he shamed Akane.  In other words he treated her like trash.  I was offended by that so I decided to do something about it."

"Why do you care so much about Akane's honor?  Also, how do you know so much about her situation, anyway?" Ms. Yoshida parried.

Ranma snorted and shook his head, growing tired of all the verbal sparring he was enduring.  He ignored the first question and concentrated on the second.  "Oh, it wasn't a secret, Ms. Yoshida.  Everybody knew about that lame-ass challenge he made to all the guys at the school."

"And in that challenge you didn't even consider the possibility of going after Akane yourself-"

"Yes, okay!  I admit that I was interested in Akane.  She's different from all the other girls out there and I think she's cool because of it."  Ranma exhaled loudly.  "Well, except for my sis.  Ranko and Akane are kinda similar, but I'm not gonna go out and date my sister."

"I wouldn't think so," Ms. Yoshida interjected.

Ranma continued.  "But even though I was interested in Akane, I wasn't gonna just go fight Kuno and ask her out in the next instant or anything.  At that time I was more concerned with defeating him than dating her."

"More concerned with defeating him?"  She sighed and placed her pen down on her pad.  "Once again you're placing a higher value on fighting than you do on anything else.  You seem to be focusing primarily on combat, and it's making me wonder about how that has affected your temper and your tolerance of others.  In the short time that we have spoken you have flown off the handle quite a bit.  Your temper rages frequently and these complaints are a direct result of that."

"I already toldja, I'm not gonna let anyone push me around anymore!  If they have to learn that the hard way, then oh well."  Ranma ran his fingers through his hair, then rested his hands on his legs.  "They don't have to keep coming after me, ya know?"

"Do you even understand the implications of all of these write ups being in your folder, Ranma?" Ms. Yoshida asked as she waved her hand over the stack.  "And besides that, do you understand that in this reckless quest for glory you're dragging Sato down along with you?"  She shot him an accusatory glare.

"Hey!  What do you mean?"

"As always, I'm talking about what happened last night."

"My family training Sato had NOTHING to do with what happened last night."  Ranma glared at her, thoroughly insulted.

"I'm not talking about the training that he's receiving from your father.  I'm talking about the fact that every time he's been in trouble, it's been when he's around you.  You're destroying his good name and his academic standing and you don't seem to give a damn about him."  She steepled her fingers in front of her face as she looked into his eyes.  "And last night was the icing on the cake for -" Ms. Yoshida started to say before the strident ringing of the telephone interrupted her.  "Excuse me, Ranma," she said as she picked up the receiver.  After answering the phone she covered the mouthpiece with her hand.  "Ranma, would you wait outside on the bench with Sato?  This is an important call."

"Umm, sure," he said unsurely as he stood up and headed for the door.

****
 

"Everything go okay in there, dude?" Sato asked as Ranma emerged from the room.

Ranma sighed tiredly.  "Well...  I guess so."

"I heard a lot of yelling in there.  I was worried that she was beating up on you or something."  Sato looked down at the floor guiltily.

"Heh, don't worry about it.  She can't hurt me," Ranma said confidently.  "She doesn't give up, though.  I was gettin' tired in there."

Sato nodded.  "She does seem like the relentless type.  It really bugs me how she keeps pressing a point."

"Ain't it the truth?  I don't really understand why she asked me some of the questions she did."

"Same here!" Sato exclaimed, raising his head.  "She asked me about some really embarrassing things.  It was like she was more interested in finding dirt on me than trying to find out what happened last night.  Made me wonder what she was going to use the information for."

Ranma nodded.  "So you answered all of her questions?"  At his friend's nod, he continued.  "I fought her where I could, so I didn't answer everything she asked me.  It was different for me than it was for you, I think, because she kept trying to make me angry instead of digging for dirt."

"It sounded like she succeeded a few times," Sato commented, snorting.

"Yeah.  You would've thought she had a grudge against me or somethin'.  The other thing was that she's *really* curious about my interest in Akane."

Sato's good humor evaporated and was replaced with a hangdog look.  "I'm sorry about all of this, Ranma.  You don't deserve to be getting any grief from her.  *I* should-"

"No, you shouldn't be getting *any* crap because of what happened last night," Ranma said defiantly.

"I was there last night, Ranma.  I know what had happened, so I expect her to be getting all over me.  You weren't there, though.  So it bugs me that she's giving you more grief about last night than she is me."  Sato looked over at him.  "You're my friend, man.  I don't want you taking heat for something that you didn't do just to protect me."

"Okay, *neither* of us deserve to be grilled for this, Sato," Ranma admitted.  "I know what my pop would be saying about this right now."

"Oh, what's that?" Sato asked.

"The same thing he said last night," Ranma said with a laugh.  His voice deepened slightly.  "I would've done the same thing, son.  I just would've taken longer to do it."

Sato laughed.  "That's reassuring.  I-"

The door opened, halting their conversation.  'That was quick,' Ranma thought to himself as he espied Ms. Yoshida emerging from the doorway.  She stepped up to the bench and stood next to Ranma.  He moved to stand up when she spoke.

"Sato, I need to speak with you again," she began, a slightly more urgent tone to her voice than either of them had heard before.

Sato's eyes widened slightly, yet he didn't hesitate to get up and follow her into the office.  He looked down at Ranma and noted that his friend had his fists clenched in a show of strength.  He also saw the same resolve reflected in Ranma's blue eyes.  Sato nodded, then stepped through the doorway.

"I've just gotten an update from the hospital," Ms. Yoshida said as soon as the door was closed.

Sato could feel her eyes on him as he took his seat.  "What's her condition?"

"Still unchanged.  She's unconscious and not responding to anyone."

"Oh," he managed to say, trying not to look as guilty as he felt.

"The other patient, however, is starting to awaken.  I just got off the phone with the doctor and he relayed some additional information to me, so some new questions have cropped up.  Now we're going to have to speed up the timetable a little bit, Sato.  The more information that I can gather by the end of the day, the better for all concerned."

Sato nodded.  "Where should I pick up?"

Ms. Yoshida consulted a sheaf of papers at her left that weren't there when he'd been testifying previously, then loaded another tape into her microcassette player and pressed the record button.  "Let's get straight to Thursday afternoon, shall we?"

He looked as if he was about to protest, but relented.  Running his fingers through his hair, Sato sagged in his chair and resumed his tale.

<*
 

"Man, I can't believe I have to practice again this evening!" Sato groused to himself, rubbing ribs that were sore courtesy of a full-power punch delivered from Ranko the night before.  "I don't know if I can take much more pounding this week."  He stretched then regretted it immediately as a dull ache intensified along his right flank.  "Owww...  "  He stopped and his eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of her standing near the entry gates to the campus just a few paces ahead of him.  He couldn't help but take a long look at her.  Confident and sure of herself, Ranko looked particularly fetching today in her school uniform with her long black hair unbraided and flowing freely down her back almost to her knees.  "I swear, the way she hits, if she wasn't such a pretty girl I'd think she was a guy."  Grateful that she didn't seem to hear his grumbling, he breathed a sigh of relief.  He was surprised to see that she was talking to Motoko.

"Are you absolutely sure?" Ranko demanded with an intensity to her gaze that gave him pause.  Motoko hesitated for a moment, her eyes glued to the sidewalk.  "Motoko-chan, this is very important to me!  I need to know if this is true or not," Ranko pressed.  She reached out and put her hands on the taller girl's shoulders.  "Please?"

Putting her hands on top of Ranko's, she looked up and nodded.

Ranko smiled and squeezed Motoko's shoulders reassuringly.  "That settles it.  I'm going to go talk to her right now" Ranma's sister said as she pulled her hands away.  Her long hair was a whirl behind her as she turned towards the gate.

As Ranko started walking away, Motoko became more animated and called after her.  "Don't tell her that I told you that!  She'd never forgive me!" she said with a slightly worried look on her face.

"Hey, Motoko-chan.  What's going on?"  Sato asked as he approached her.  He looked up into her brown eyes and could tell she was worried about something.

"Sorry, Sato-kun.  It's one of those things that only girls talk about," Motoko replied, looking down at her feet.

"Are you sure that's all?  You don't seem too happy right now," he pressed.  He put his hand on her arm and was shocked when she flinched visibly at his contact.  Sato took his hand away and put it in his pants pocket, then laughed uncomfortably.  "Sorry about that, Motoko-chan."

Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly, as if the words were right at the edge of her mouth.  After a few moments of silence, she shrugged her shoulders.  Before he could ask anything else she turned her gaze towards the gate.  "I'd better get home, Sato.  I've got a lot of homework to do."

"I, umm...  Okay.  Take care, Motoko-chan."

"Thanks, Sato-kun," she replied in a low voice.

Sato watched as she walked away, then turned back to the school to look at the clock.  'Wow, look at the time!  I should be heading out too.'  He was about to head out when he caught sight of Ranma.  "Hey, man!  I thought you'd already started for home."

Ranma smiled at his friend and quickened his pace.  "Heya, Sato.  I had to stay late because of everything that happened at lunch today."

"Oh, that's right," Sato replied, snapping his fingers.  "I'd been trying to forget about that.  Getting written up sucks, you know."

"Hey, don't sweat it.  It's no big deal, man."

"Not for you, maybe.  My mom's gonna kill me when she finds out, though.  My school record has been spotless until now."

Ranma winced.  "Ouch!  Sorry, I hadn't thought about that."

"Yeah, so if it's okay with you I think I'm going to go straight to your place for practice instead of stopping by my place to change clothes."  Sato frowned.  "If mom's home when I get there she'll probably ground me for the rest of the month."

Ranma clapped his friend on the back.  "It's not a problem, Sato.  You're welcome over at my place anytime."  He quickly scanned the campus.  "You haven't seen Ranko walkin' around here, have you?  I was expecting to go home with her."

"Yeah, I saw her just a few minutes ago.  She was talking to Motoko, then wandered off before I could catch up to her."

"Oh well.  I guess she's already heading home, then," Ranma concluded as he walked towards the gate.

"I guess so.  She seemed pretty excited about something."

"Probably excited about spending more time in the training hall," Ranma quipped.

Sato winced and grabbed his ribs automatically.  "Owww.  Yeah, that could be it.  I hope she's worked out her excitement by the time we get there."

"Well, since you're arriving early, Ranko and I will train you until Pop gets home."  Ranma looked over at his friend.  "And I know you're still healing, so I'll have her take it easier on your ribs today."  With that, both boys laughed as they left the campus.

*>
 

"Was Ranko there when you arrived?" Ms. Yoshida interrupted, as she took another page worth of notes.

"What?"

"Was she there when you got to Ranma's house?"

"Umm, no.  She didn't get home until almost an hour after we did."

"Did she say why she took so long to get home, even though she left earlier?"

"She said she had to take care of something and apologized for not letting us know before she left the school."

"Did it have anything to do with what she said to Motoko?" Ms. Yoshida asked as she scribbled on her notepad.

"I don't know," Sato said with a shrug.

"Who was the person that Ranko wanted to talk to after school yesterday?"

"What do you mean?" Sato asked, his nervousness increasing slightly.  'Dammit, I don't need her getting in trouble over this also,' he thought desperately.

"You just told me that she talked to Motoko, and just as you got near the girls you heard Ranko say that she was going to talk to 'her right now.'  Did I hear you incorrectly?"

Sato blushed.  "No, that's what I said," he replied reluctantly.

"Then who was the 'her' that Ranko was going to meet?"

"I- I don't know.  She was a little frustrated when she got home.  I'm guessing that Ranko never met the person."

"Are you sure that's why she was frustrated?"

"I don't know.  The entire time I was there I never found out what happened.  I can only guess."  Again he shrugged his shoulders, hoping she would accept the answer without further question.

Ms. Yoshida quirked her eyebrow.  "Oh?  Didn't you ask her about it?"

"No, I didn't ask!" Sato snapped, now irritated with her persistence.  "That would've been pushy and rude.  I'm not a nosy person by nature, and I don't appreciate it when others are nosy.  Surely you can understand that."

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, Sato," Ms. Yoshida said with a touch of impatience.

"Well, I'm just being honest."

"Okay, so you won't mind answering this question, Sato."  She leaned forward and stared him down.  "Are you sure that Ranma was with you for all of last night?"

Sato looked shocked at the question.  "Well... Yeah, he was.  Like I said earlier, Ranma and I went over to his place and practiced just like we had every other day this week."

"What about when you were done practicing?"

"I was going to get to that part before you interrupted me, Ms. Yoshida.  Anyway, I was getting ready to leave Ranma's place after doing another coupla hours of training..."

<*
 

"Whoop!  Hey, almost got me," Sato laughed, sticking his tongue out at Ranko as he barely avoided having his face tagged by a punch.

"Genma!  Kids!  It's time for you to come in and eat," Nodoka called out as she walked from the house and headed towards the training hall.

"If I'd had another minute I *would've* had you," Ranko retorted, winking at him.  She brought her fists down at the sound of her mother's voice.

Both youths relaxed their stances and breathed heavily due to their exertion.  Sato quickly grabbed his shirt and put it on before Mrs. Saotome walked in.  Unwilling to completely take his eyes off of Ranko, he smiled warmly at her as their eyes met.  She smiled back at him and stretched her arms in his direction, playfully wagging her index fingers at him.  Sato's attention was then diverted as Ranma walked up and handed each of them a towel.

"That was a fantastic block you did against me earlier," Ranma commented, clapping his friend on the back.

"Well, desperation can make a guy rather inventive," Sato admitted, laughing.  "After all, I would've looked awful funny walking around hunched over for the next week."

The Saotome siblings laughed at that.  "You weren't gonna hit him *there*, were you?" Ranko asked of her brother, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Well, that *is* a sensitive target area, you know.  Best if he learns to protect that area as quickly as possible."

Ranko nodded, then quickly whipped her fist out at her brother's crotch.  "Like this?" she asked as she struck out.

"Hey!" Ranma shouted, quickly reaching down and grabbing her by the wrist before she made contact.  "Not fair!"  He growled at her as she giggled, then retaliated by rushing behind her and tickling her ribs mercilessly.  She fell to the floor, laughing, as her brother tormented her.

"I was just *laugh* trying to *gasp* see if you... *hahaha* you had mastered that tech- *heee* technique too."

"I guess you know now, huh?" Ranma said with a smile in his voice, his fingers dancing around her ribcage.

Sato watched the two with a slight tinge of envy as they clowned around.  'They have so much affection for each other.'  He felt that he was bearing witness to something only a very few people would be allowed to see.  'Everyone should get along as well as they do.'

Ranko slapped the mats with the palms of her hands.  "I give!  I GIVE!" she said through gales of laughter.

Ranma smiled and stood up.  He avoided a lazy swipe aimed at his legs although Ranko appeared too winded to give him a good fight anyway.  She then found a towel covering her face courtesy of her brother.  "Thanks," she said as she grabbed hold of it and dried her face off.

All heads turned at the sound of a throat clearing.  "If you two are done," their father began.  "I'd like to get inside and eat now."

"Okay," they chorused as Ranma helped his sister up.  The two started tidying up the training hall while Sato rested.

Genma walked over to him, smiling.  "You did a fine job today, Sato.  I'm glad to see you're taking this training seriously."

"Well, after what happened yesterday, I have to.  I don't want to get into that kind of position again if I can help it."  Sato smiled half-heartedly.

Genma nodded.  "I agree, although under the circumstances I don't think that you did the wrong thing yesterday afternoon.  If you don't know how to fight back against an armed man, sometimes it's best not to push it.  This is especially true if you know that you have someone there to back you up."

"I'm not sure I understand, sensei."

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't fight back against an aggressor.  What I am saying is that fighting back recklessly can actually put you in worse danger than not fighting back directly, especially if your opponent is an experienced fighter."

"How can you tell when to fight?"

"I'm afraid it all comes down to experience, Sato.  There's no clearly defined pattern that you can depend on for all situations.  You have to judge each situation separately.  Right now you're at a fairly dangerous point in your training.  You're starting to gain confidence in yourself and your ability, which is a good thing."

"But?" Sato ventured, guessing that a 'but' was next.

"But at the moment your confidence is greater than your experience.  Many a martial artist has been hurt when he or she has fought someone simply because they felt they were a better fighter than their opponent, despite the fact that the opponent clearly outclassed him or her.  Once that person realizes the truth about their own skills, it's often too late."  Genma looked at his pupil soberly.  "There are two things that you should keep in mind to avoid this situation.  You should never be ashamed to call out for help if you need it.  Especially now, given that you've only had a small amount of training."

"What if you don't have someone else with you to help?" Sato interrupted.

"That's the other one.  Never be afraid to run away."

"But won't I be a coward if I run away from a fight?" Sato asked uncertainly.

Genma snorted.  "There is something to the old saying of 'being alive to fight another day,' Sato."

Nodoka stepped up to them, surprising them both.  "He's right, Sato.  You may not feel good about running away, but sometimes it's necessary.  After all, not too many people respect a foolish man who stayed to fight to the death against impossible odds simply because he didn't want to look bad in front of his friends."  She smiled at him.  "You see what I'm talking about?"

Sato nodded.  "I guess I understand, Mrs. Saotome."

"Don't worry, Sato," Genma said jovially.  "As you continue to practice you'll begin to understand what we're talking about.  I have faith in you."

Sato looked at his watch and grimaced.  "Oh boy, I'm really late!  I've got to get home now."  'And I have to deliver some bad news to my mom, also.  She's really gonna give it to me *this* time.'  He looked up to Ranma's parents, unable to fully hide the concerned look on his face.  "I'd better go before I get into worse trouble."

The expressions on their faces changed from smiles to frowns.  "What do you-?" Nodoka began before being interrupted by Sato.

"I'm sorry, I can't stay.  I've really got to go," Sato said urgently as he headed towards the door.  "I'll see you in the morning, Ranma," he called out, also sparing a nod for Ranko as he exited.

*>
 

"That was an abrupt ending to your session," Ms. Yoshida commented.

Sato gazed down at his feet.  "Yeah, well I didn't mean for it to be as rude as it was, but I *was* in a hurry.  My mother's a very strict person, after all."

"I see," Ms. Yoshida said, scribbling on her notepad.  "Well I think that's all I will need-" she began before Sato cut her off.

"Waitaminute!  That's all you're going to ask me?" Sato asked incredulously.

Ms. Yoshida put her pen down, unsure of what to think about his question.  "Yes, Sato.  I had nothing else listed here in my notes that I needed to question you about."  She steepled her fingers in front of her face pensively; her index fingers barely touching her lips.  "Is there something else I should be asking you?"

"But... it wasn't the end of the evening."  Sato sighed and felt his stomach muscles tighten nervously.  'Now's the time to take responsibility for what I did last night,' he thought gravely.  "There's something... something else that I have to tell you about-."  He sighed again.  "About what happened to me after I left the training hall."

Ms. Yoshida raised her eyebrow in an honest expression of surprise.  "Oh?  What else happened to you, Sato?"

Sato showed her a sour expression.  "Where do you think all of this came from?" he asked as he pointed out his bruises and his split lip.

"I thought it came from your week of training with Ranma's family.  Am I right?"

"Ranma and Ranko aren't like that.  Not one bit," Sato said flatly.  "Even *I* can tell that they pull their punches when they do strike me.  They want me to learn, not suffer.  So the answer is no, they didn't do this to me."

Ms. Yoshida cleared her throat to hide her shock.  "So, Sato, if you didn't get those injuries at training, what happened to you?"

"Well..."

<*
 

The night was warm, which only made Sato's sweating worse.  'Man, I'm hot,' he thought as he wiped the perspiration from his brow.  He walked about tiredly, his feet shuffling along the pavement.  He looked again at his watch and decided to cut through the local park to make some time.  'If I don't get home soon, mom may just cut my head off and be done with it,' Sato thought sourly.  He was just inside the park when a yell caught his attention.

"Get your hands OFF of me!" a female voice shrieked.

Sato stopped in his tracks.  'That voice sounds familiar!' he thought in alarm as he tried to track the origin of the shouting.

"No!  STOP IT!" the female voice yelled again.

"Shuddup, bitch," a male voice growled.

He broke into a run, heading in the direction of the voices.  His worst fears were confirmed as he rounded a corner and approached a dimly lit section of the park.  "Oh, God.  No!" Sato said to himself in a whisper as he saw who the girl was.  "It's Motoko-chan!"

Her whole body thrashed around in defiance of the person trying to dominate her.  "Someone help me!" she screamed desperately.

Sato couldn't believe what he was seeing.  Motoko was bent down at the waist with the attacker's hand holding her by the back of her neck.  Her assailant used his free hand to hike her skirt up and was currently trying to tug down on her panties.  She writhed about and kicked uselessly, trying to throw him off to no avail.  Sato gasped when he saw who her attacker was.  'Yutaka,' he thought venomously, his shock over the spectacle turning into outright rage.  'I don't have time to call for a cop,' he thought as he reviewed his options.

Spying a trashcan nearby, he rummaged through it and was rewarded with a nice, stout nigori sake bottle.  Hefting the improvised weapon in his right hand, Sato crept towards the two.  'I know Saotome-sensei warned me about fighting someone out of my league, but this isn't the same situation,' he thought to himself, trying to keep his courage from leaving him.  'Motoko needs help now!'  This point was punctuated by the sound of her yelling at the bully to stop.

Sato's alarm increased as he drew closer to them.  Her clothes were ripped to the point where her shirt was in tatters and what was left of her bra was draped loosely around her arms.  Her head sported a nasty cut causing her to bleed slightly at the left temple.  He quickened his pace, stepping quietly in the damp evening grass.

"Let go of me you fucking asshole!" Motoko bit out defiantly.

"Watch what you call me you WHORE!" Yutaka snarled, moving his hand from her panties to her lengthy ponytail.  He yanked on it brutally, causing her to scream in pain.  "Shut up!  I'm doing the talking here, not you!  I've waited a long time for this, so shut your mouth and quit interrupting me."  He went back to fumbling with her panties; a job that was hindered both by the fact that he was doing it one-handed and that she was clenching her legs together tightly.

'Shit!' Sato thought in frustration.  As he grew closer to them, he took grim satisfaction in seeing a nasty row of scratches on his neck.  'Good, at least she hurt the bastard!'

"NO, NO!" she yelled as her panties fell to his assault.  "Get your hands off of me!" she screamed once again.

"Ooooh, nice!" Yutaka said as he ogled her exposed privates, ignoring her protestations.  "You been saving this for me, Motoko-chan?" he asked as he touched her down there.

"Noooo," she said through sobs.  "Stop it, please!"

Sato heard the note of defeat in her voice and that galvanized him.  Steeling his resolve, he gripped the neck of the sake bottle tightly in his hands.  'Now or never,' he thought grimly, glad that he'd not been noticed as he stepped behind Yutaka.  Sato raised his right hand up over his head and readied himself.  "Get your hands off of her right now, you motherfucker!" he bellowed, surprised by the sound of his own enraged voice.

Sato didn't even have time to react as Yutaka moved with lightning quickness.  He threw Motoko to the ground forcefully, then whirled around and tackled Sato in the gut.  The boy grunted as the rapist brought him to the ground, his breath being lost in a big 'woosh.'

'Oh shit!' Sato thought as he also lost his grip on his weapon.  The bottle hit the soft grass and rolled away from him to sit just out of his reach.  Sato turned to look at Motoko and was shocked to see her lying still on the grass.  He attempted to call out to her, but refocused his attention on his attacker as he came face-to-face with the crazed, bloodshot eyes of Yutaka.  The bully had straddled him and was sitting on him with his face scant inches from Sato's own.  "Get off of me you goddamned loser!" Sato yelled angrily.

"I'm going to fuck your world, WimpMaster," Yutaka snarled, his spittle raining against Sato's face.

"Ow, shit!" Sato yelled as a punch from the bully landed against his skull, knocking the back of his head against the ground.  He saw stars and could feel his left eye starting to swell shut from where he'd been struck.  He struggled to get free but Yutaka was sitting in such a way that Sato couldn't move his legs effectively.  He saw his foe rearing back to punch him again and reacted as swiftly as he could.  With all the strength he could muster he balled both of his hands into fists and swung his arms up.  He smiled inwardly as both fists connected with either side of Yutaka's face, despite the resultant pain that shot through his own arms.

"Arrg!" Yutaka yelled as he fell on his side, cradling his abused cheeks in his hands.  Sato wasted no time in standing up and getting some distance from the bully.  Seeing that Yutaka was down, he quickly spared Motoko a glance and didn't like what he saw.  She hadn't moved an inch.

"Motoko-chan!  Are you okay?" he yelled, hoping to get a response from her.  Before he could ask again, his cheek blazed in pain as a wild punch thrown by Yutaka connected with his head.  'Dammit!  I didn't even see him get up!' Sato thought as he tried to get his bearings.  He didn't have time to throw his arms up in a basic blocking technique before Yutaka unleashed a flurry of punches.  Two more hits connected with his face causing him to wobble on his feet.  A follow up hit against the back of Sato's head brought him to his knees.

"I'm going to kill you, you little freak!" Yutaka spat as he leveled a kick at the small of Sato's back.  The youth collapsed on the ground, his face buried in the grass.  He yelled in pain as the bully connected with his right foot against Sato's ribs, the force of the kick enough to flip him over and onto his back.  Sato's arms flew out to try to keep him from flipping over again as another kick landed against his pelvis, bruising his left hip.

Sato kept himself from yelling out as the kicks continued, but knew he couldn't take much more.  Desperation fueling his moves, he caught Yutaka's foot as it sailed towards his ribs and held onto it.  Using the foot as a brace, Sato spun himself on the wet grass.  Momentum did the rest as his legs connected with the bully and knocked the bigger boy to the ground.  As Sato attempted to get up, his left hand grabbed hold of something that gave him hope.  Hearing the bully moving beside him, Sato scrambled to his feet prizing the sake bottle in his hands once again.  Just as Yutaka sat up, Sato struck.

"This is for Motoko, you asshole!" Sato snarled as he swung the sake bottle against Yutaka's right temple.  The lower half of the bottle shattered, leaving Sato holding the neck of it in his hand.  The bully went down again with a terrible scream.

"My eye!" Yutaka bellowed, holding his head in his hands.  He screamed in pain and rolled around on the ground.

Sato looked down at what he now held in his hand.  What was left of the bottle was a jagged, multi-toothed glass weapon that could inflict deadly amounts of damage against its aggressor.  Resisting the temptation to do just that to the bully, Sato instead tossed the item into some faraway bushes.  "This one is for me, dipshit!" the enraged youth yelled as he put all of his effort into a vicious kick.  His right foot connected soundly with Yutaka's sternum, causing the boy to double over in pain.  The bully crashed onto the grass and curled into a fetal position.  He groaned weakly and stopped moving.

Sato turned his attention to Motoko, who was still lying in that same position on the ground.  He ran to her and knelt down beside her.  He averted his eyes as soon as he caught sight of her exposed crotch.  He reached out and quickly pulled her skirt down to cover it.  Her shirt was ruined as well as the bra, leaving her bruised torso and breasts exposed.  He took some relief in seeing that she was still alive and breathing.  Sato quickly took his own shirt off and draped it over her.

"Motoko-chan, can you hear me?" he asked urgently as he cradled her head in his lap.  "Please answer me!"  Now that he had a chance to examine her closely, he despaired at what he saw.  In addition to the cut on her forehead, she had a shiner at her right eye as well as a swollen upper lip.  Her face was scratched and puffy; in short she looked like hell.  As gingerly as he could Sato caressed her left cheek, but got no response.

His attention was caught by the increasing amount of movement to his left.  'He's going to get up soon.  I have to get her out of here before he can attack us again,' Sato thought desperately.  "Dammit, Motoko!  Wake up!"  He shook her lightly.  "Motoko!"  His heart jumped when she finally moved.

"What?  Is that you, Sato-kun?" she asked weakly, shaking from head to toe in fear.  "Owww," she said, pressing a trembling hand to her head.  She shuddered so much that she dislodged Sato's shirt, uncovering her chest again.  Sato wanted to calm her down yet he was too rattled from the fight to be much help.

"Can you walk, Motoko?" he asked.

"I don't think... so," she said drunkenly.

'Damn!'  Sato mentally cursed.  He pushed Motoko up into a seated position then opened up his shirt.  Trying not to look at her breasts, he guided her arms through the sleeves and pulled the shirt closed around her.  He was fumbling with the last couple of buttons when he heard Yutaka groan.  Forgetting about the remaining buttons, Sato leaned forward and positioned his arms underneath her legs and around her back.  He groaned loudly as he stood up, managing to lift Motoko up in his arms.  "Come on, we're outta here," he said with a strained voice.  Motoko moaned, yet managed to put her arms around his neck.

"No!  Don't you dare leave, you little shit!" Yutaka growled in a voice tinged with pain.  "I haven't finished with her yet!"  He started to get up, yet collapsed on the ground again with a loud groan.

'Dammit!  I gotta get out of here before he gets up,' Sato thought desperately as he turned away from the bully, favoring his left leg as he started away.  With all the effort he could muster, Sato shambled away from Yutaka.

*>
 

Ms. Yoshida had to put her pen down and pause for a minute to collect her thoughts.  "*You* were there?" she asked finally.

"Yeah, I was definitely there," Sato replied soberly.  "I don't think I could ever forget what happened last night, either."

"But..." she paused again, confused by the sudden turn of events.  "So you got her away from her assailant?" she managed to ask.

"Yeah, I barely managed to get out of there, too.  I have no idea how we managed to get away from Yutaka so easily, but we did."  Sato sighed heavily.  "I'm just sorry that it took me as long as it did to stop him."

'So easily?' Ms. Yoshida thought with a touch of incredulity.  "What did you do after you got out of the park?"

"I got to the hospital's emergency room and signed her in."

"How did you manage to carry her all that way?"

"I don't know.  I guess it was adrenaline or something.  I just knew I had to get Motoko out of there and make sure she was safe.  She's been a friend of mine for a long time and I wanted to protect her."

Ms. Yoshida nodded.  "It sounds like you did a pretty good job, too."

"Depends on your point of view.  She's still in the hospital in pretty bad shape, after all."  Sato looked down at his feet again.  "I would've done more if I could have."

"Did you talk to the police after you signed Motoko in?"

Sato shook his head.  "No, I didn't."
"You *didn't*?" Ms. Yoshida fairly yelled.

Sato shrank back a little in his chair.  "Well, I had to get home before my mother killed me.  I told Motoko-chan's nurse what I'd seen and what happened to her.  They gave me some hospital shirt to wear because Motoko was wearing mine.  After that I figured they were done with me, so I just left."

"Have you talked to the police since?"

"Yeah, I called them late last night after I got home."

Ms. Yoshida nodded, somewhat mollified by his answer.  "What did happen to you when you got home?"

"My mom freaked," Sato said simply.

"Over the write up?" she ventured.

"No, over my injuries.  She thought the same thing you did; that Ranma and Ranko had done this to me.  I told her everything that had happened and after she calmed down she realized I was telling the truth.  The hospital shirt kinda backed up my story."  Sato sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, wincing in the process.  "I told mom about the write up but she didn't really care about it at that point.  She was more interested in how Motoko and me were doing.  In fact, mom was the one who called the police for me."

"That's good at least."

"Yeah, so somehow I managed to avoid getting grounded for the write up, I guess."  Sato fell silent, thinking about how much he and Motoko went through.  "I would've rather been grounded."

"Well, Sato...  What else can I say?  You've given me a lot of information."  Ms. Yoshida stood up.  "Thank you for your testimony.  I hope you heal quickly."

"You mean we're done here?" Sato asked, surprised.  It was only one in the afternoon, after all.  He stood up as well, watching Ms. Yoshida closely.

"You and I are done, yes.  I still need to speak to Ranma," she answered.  "You can go back to class now.  Please tell Mr. Saotome that I need to speak to him again."

"O- Okay, Ms. Yoshida."

"Oh, and Sato?" she began as his hand rested on the doorknob.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You'll hear from me by the end of the day regarding my findings."

Sato nodded and opened the door.  As soon as the door closed, Ms. Yoshida rubbed her temples with her fingers, then changed the tape in her recorder.  'This changes a few things,' she thought to herself as she consulted the last two pages of notes.  'Still, there's one point...' she began, but halted her thoughts as the door opened again.  Ranma's head poked tentatively through the opened door.

"You wanted to see me again?"

"Yes, Ranma.  Please come in and sit down," Ms. Yoshida directed as she pressed the record button.

Ranma sat down and faced her, fully expecting to continue the fighting from where they left off.  She surprised him by doing the exact opposite.

"You know what happened last night, correct?"

Ranma nodded solemnly.  "About Motoko?  Yes, I know."

"Sato has given me an accounting of everything that happened.  It was quite an enlightening conversation, Ranma."

"You don't think he had anything to do with her condition, do you?" Ranma demanded.

"Not really," she admitted.  "Too much of what he told me matches the evidence.  I'm convinced that he didn't hurt Motoko.  Furthermore, other admissions that Sato made about his fight are supported by the wounds Yutaka sustained."

"Okay, so why do you need to talk to me if you know the truth about last night?" Ranma challenged.

"Because not *everything* that Sato told me explains what happened last night.  I still have a few unanswered questions, Ranma."

"And you think I can answer them?"

"Let's cut the crap, Ranma.  Yutaka's injuries are far worse than what Sato claimed to have done to him.  I want you to tell me what you did to him."

Ranma looked at her askance.  "I don't-"

"Don't even try it with me!" Ms. Yoshida said levelly, her gaze once again boring through him.  "That call I got earlier before I sent you out of the office was from the hospital.  The doctor was calling to inform me that Yutaka had regained consciousness.  While he was on the phone with me he told me the extent of the injuries that Yutaka had sustained last night."  She crossed her arms.  "Outside of losing one of his eyes, there's no way Sato did *all* of that to him."

"Okay," Ranma replied softly.  "I'll tell you what you need to know."

"So, just where do you enter this mess?"

"Well, it all started late yesterday.  Sato was acting kinda weird right after he left our training hall..."

<*
 

"What just happened?" Ranko asked, a puzzled look on her face.

"I don't know, Sis," Ranma replied, his face mirroring her confusion.

"Did I offend him with what I just said?" Nodoka queried.

"I doubt it, dear."  Genma walked over to the doorway of the training hall.  "We know that he has a pretty strict mother and I think that's why he left so abruptly."

"Oh, why didn't I think of this earlier?"  Ranma smacked his head, ignoring the echo that resonated between his ears.  "We both got written up today because of what the Kendo team did to us during lunch.  I got so caught up in our training this evening that I'd forgotten about it."

"It wasn't your fault that you two got written up, bro."  Ranko made a sour face.  "Those wimps started it.  All you two did was defend yourselves."

"That poor boy.  He shouldn't be included in these sorts of things, anyway," Nodoka commented.

"Mom!  I didn't drag him there and say 'hey you, we're gonna fight right now!' or nothin' like that," Ranma retorted defensively.

"Sweetheart, I didn't mean it that way," Nodoka replied.  "I'm just saying that he seems to be getting a lot of unwanted attention from those bullies.  He's a good boy, so I can't figure out why this is happening to him."

"I don't know why he gets that kind of attention either, mom.  I do know that it's gotten worse since he started fighting back."  Ranko shrugged.  "Maybe they don't like the fact that he's standing up for himself."

"Ranko, you aren't blaming his training for his problems, are you?"  Genma had a slightly guilty look on his face as he asked the question.

Her eyes widened at the suggestion.  "No, pop!  I think that he needs to fight back, and he won't learn how to defend himself unless we teach him.  It's just that since he's getting better with his defense, things have gotten tougher for him.  So when he fights back he pisses those guys off."

"You're right, sis.  Anyway, I'd better go check on him and see how he's doing," Ranma suggested.  "If he's really worried about his mom's reaction, it might be better if I was there to explain what happened.  It isn't his fault, so he shouldn't be getting punished for it."

"That's a good idea, son," Genma replied, nodding at Ranma.

"How long will you be out, dear?" Nodoka asked.

"I don't know, mom.  I'll get back as soon as I can, but you might wanna try to save some dinner for me if ya can," Ranma said, sparing a wink for his father.

Genma harrumphed and flipped his son the bird.  "Get back soon, boy.  Otherwise you might have to settle for kake udon minus the hon dashi," he said with a smirk.

Ranko winked at her brother conspiratorially.  "Yeah, right pop," she said as Ranma headed out the door.

'Where did he go?' Ranma wondered as he sprinted away from his home and headed down the street.  He searched around his neighborhood but couldn't find Sato anywhere.  'Where the *hell* did he go so quickly?' he groused, stopping near Dr. Tofu's office to take a slow look around.  The streets and alleyways were barren of foot traffic, leaving him all alone in the night.  'He couldn't have gotten *too* far this quickly.'

Ranma doubled back, moving slower in order to make sure he hadn't missed anything.  He stopped in his tracks when he got to the edge of the park.  "Maybe he cut through here or somethin'," he told himself as he hightailed it through the precious expanse of grassy land the city had set aside for peaceful recreation.  He only ran for a short time when his ears picked up the sounds of people shouting.

"Get off of me you goddamned loser!"

"I'm gonna fuck your world, WimpMaster!"

'Oh man!  I recognize one of those voices!  It's Sato!' Ranma thought in alarm.  He ran as fast as he could in the direction of the shouting.  He stopped himself as soon as he espied three youths lying on the ground.  One of them appeared unconscious while two others were brawling on the grass.  Ranma quickly assessed the situation and realized that Sato was getting the business end of some guy's fists!  He resisted his impulse to run and assist his friend when he saw Sato knock the shit out of his attacker with both fists in a desperate, yet successful attack.

'Yes!' Ranma mentally cheered, keeping his place out of sight of the others.  He gasped when he saw the face of his friend's attacker.  'It's Yutaka!  That bastard must've jumped Sato or somethin' while he was walking through here.'  He didn't hear his friend call out for help or anything, which decided Ranma's next move.  'I think I'd better let Sato handle things on his own.  For now, anyways,' he thought, despite his desire to do massive harm to the bully.

"I'm gonna kill you, you little freak!" the other guy yelled down at Sato before nailing him with a series of vicious kicks.

Ranma winced as Sato absorbed the full force of several kicks.  'That tears it!  I gotta help him-'  Before he could even complete his thought Sato suddenly stood up, pulled a bottle out of nowhere and clobbered Yutaka's head with it.  'Way to go, man!' he thought, wanting badly to shout the words instead of think them.  He watched with a satisfied smile as the bully screamed in pain and favored his injured eye.  He felt a bit of pride when he saw his friend jettison a perfectly good weapon and instead employ his legs to finish off his opponent.  'Yes!!  That's showin' him!'

Ranma watched as Sato knelt down and took the other fallen person into his arms.  His eyes flew open in shock when he heard his friend speak.  'That's Motoko?!  What the hell happened to her?' he asked himself as he watched Sato carry the injured girl off.  He squinted to try to get a better look at her, but couldn't see much more than her bruised arms and legs.  A full minute after Sato had disappeared into the distance, Ranma considered stepping out of hiding but hesitated when someone else ran towards the felled bully and knelt beside him.

"Yutaka, what the hell happened to you?" the newcomer asked.

"What the FUCK do you think happened?" Yutaka screamed, pointing to his bloody face.  His right eye was squeezed shut and it was still bleeding heavily.  "I was starting to do my thing with Motoko when I got ambushed!"

"Hey!  You started on her without waiting for me?  You said we were gonna share that little slut, you asshole!"

"I was just getting her clothes off, numbnuts!  I wasn't gonna start messin' with her until you'd arrived."  Yutaka cut off further debate with an angry swipe of his hand.  "It doesn't matter anymore!  That little twerp Sato has her now and he's taking her out of the park!"

"*Sato* did this to you?"  The other guy's eyes narrowed dangerously.  "Which way did he go?" he asked as he brandished a long knife.

"He went that way," Yutaka shouted, pointing in the direction that his assailant had gone.

"I should'a cut that punk's throat when I had the chance," the knife-wielder growled.

"No kiddin'.  Now that you understand, GO GET THAT LITTLE SHIT AND BRING BOTH OF THEM BACK HERE NOW!" Yutaka bellowed, stamping his feet angrily.

"You got it, man.  I'm goin' ta make that little fucker scream when I find him," he promised, gripping the knife handle tightly.

Ranma choked back a gasp.  Things had suddenly gone from being a learning experience to some deadly serious shit.  Seeing that the knife-wielding guy from last Wednesday was about to head off after Sato, Ranma stepped out of hiding and walked into view.  "I think that would be a very bad idea," he shouted at them.

The knife-wielder's head whipped around to face Ranma.  "Where the fuck did you come from, Saotome?" he shouted.

"It doesn't matter!" Yutaka shouted.  "That punk's nothin!  Just hurry up and get Sato before he gets away.  I can handle this piece of trash by myself."

"Right.  I'm gonna kill that piece of shit geek when I find him!"  Yutaka's partner in crime turned to run away but stopped when Ranma sprinted in his direction and jumped *over* him.

"I don't think so, pal!" Ranma said with a gleam in his eye as he landed in front of the thug.  They were face to face now and the Anything Goes student could tell that his opponent wasn't sure of what to do.  "Drop the knife.  Turn around.  Go home.  Now," Ranma ordered.

"What the-?" the criminal began to snarl.

"Drop the knife.  Turn around.  Go home.  Now," Ranma repeated, interrupting him.  He emphasized his point by sliding back a half step into a fighting stance.

"Don't just stand there, you idiot!  Finish him or we'll lose Motoko!" Yutaka screamed, keeping his distance from the two.  "If she gets to the cops we're BOTH gonna get it!  Understand?"

The punk nodded and pushed the knife closer towards his foe.

"Wrong move, asshole!" Ranma said as he quickly lashed out with a punch, nailing the guy directly in the nose.  The hit dazed his foe, causing the knife to fall from his opponent's grasp and land blade-first in the grass.  The criminal yelped in pain a moment later as Ranma followed up with a spin kick that cut across his face.  Unable to block Ranma's kick, he spun wildly around on his feet and landed face-first on the grass.

"How'n the hell is he *doing* that?" the would-be aggressor demanded through clenched teeth.  He got back on his feet and dabbed gently at his injured nose with his fingers.  "You broke my nose you bastard!"

"You deserved it."

"WHAT?"

"You threatened Sato on Wednesday, then ran away before I could make you pay for what you did."  Ranma smirked.  "Now you're *beginning* to get what you deserved."

"Hey!  I didn't run away!" the former knife bearer bellowed.  "I didn't want to get written up, that's all."

"You're wasting your time, man!" Yutaka shouted.  "Hurry up and get this over with before Sato gets away!"

"Alright!  Quit ridin' my back!" he bit back.  The boy bent down to retrieve his knife, but only made it halfway down before Ranma cleared his throat.

"Leave it there."

"Fuck you!" he shouted as he again bent down to get his knife.

Ranma reached down and grabbed the boy by his shoulder, then yanked him back up.  "I *said* leave it *there!*"

The boy pushed back uselessly against Ranma, but try as he might he couldn't break the grip that the 'geek' had on his shoulder.  "Let go of me!" he thundered.

"Fine," Ranma said as he released his foe.  He stood back and crossed his arms, then looked down at the thug.  The boy rubbed his shoulder where Ranma had restrained him, then with a snarl on his face he lashed out with his fists.

With minimal effort Ranma blocked the flurry of punches coming from his foe.  He smirked as the onslaught continued to no avail.  "You wanna try something different?  This is getting boring," he commented with a yawn.

"WHAT?" the thug shouted with an infuriated look on his face.  He stopped throwing punches since they weren't having an effect on Ranma and changed his stance.  "Now yer gonna get hurt!" he shouted as he lunged forward.

Ranma avoided the attempted throat grab contemptuously and delivered a roundhouse punch that connected solidly with the boy's face.  The thug hit the ground with a grunt and was still.  Ranma surveyed his handiwork with a satisfied grin.

Yutaka's jaw went slack as he saw his partner go down.  "You got lucky, punk," he shouted, putting up his fists.  "But I'm gonna finish ya."

"You keep saying that but you haven't really done anything to me this week but run your mouth."  Ranma smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.  "Speaking for myself, I think it was skill that did it this time.  In just a few hits, even," he said calmly.

"Don't forget that I whipped your ass once this week, little boy.  You must be too stupid to understand that you aren't good enough to hang with *real* men."  Yutaka took a step forward.  "So I guess I'm gonna have to show you who the real boss is around here," he declared, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

Ranma gestured towards his first opponent with a nod of his head.  "Not good enough, huh?  Your friend here seemed to think I was," he commented, toeing the unconscious boy with his left foot.  "He wasn't injured, and he *definitely* wasn't drugged.  The only thing you can say for sure is that he just wasn't good enough."  Ranma looked at Yutaka coldly.  "And neither are you."

"SHUT UP!  Just *shut up*!" Yutaka screamed.  "I-"

"No, YOU SHUT UP!" Ranma bellowed, the volume of his words enough to silence the bully.  "For the past week I've had to stand by and listen as you shoveled shit out of your mouth.  All the lies about me drugging Kuno, all the taunts at lunch, all the threats you made against me and my friends.  It all ends now."

"You're a loser, Saotome.  You and your whore of a sister are both losers.  In fact, your whole family is nothin' but a bunch of inbred LOSERS!"  Yutaka smirked, the dried blood on his face and closed eye making the whole spectacle rather gory.  "And you know what?  As soon as I get through with you I'm going to have a go at your sister, just like I did with Motoko!  That perky little slut of yours is finally gonna know what it's like to be had by a *real* man.  Whattaya think about that?"

Ranma's blood boiled at what Yutaka was threatening to do to Ranko.  He wanted to yell back at him *so* badly, but his expression never changed.  He just couldn't give the bully the satisfaction of having his composure slip.  "Okay, I think that the gloves are off now," he declared simply, his face almost emotionless in its appearance.

"Huh?" Yutaka replied in apparent confusion.

"I mean that before I was just going to slap you around awhile for hurting Sato," Ranma said in an eerie monotone as he advanced on his quarry, every single footfall sure and unwavering.  "Now that I understand just what kind of 'real man' you were gonna be for Motoko, I'm going to break you instead."  He stared coldly at Yutaka.  "I'm going to break you into as many pieces as I can.  And you know what?"  Ranma smiled dangerously at his foe.  "I'm going to enjoy every single moment of it."

"What?  Wait!" Yutaka backpedaled, fear creeping into his expression.  "You can't do that!  Kuno said that he was drugged when you fought him.  You're too weak to really fight someone!"

"He lied."

"No way!  You can't do shit to me!" Yutaka shrieked.  The two boys stood just inches apart from each other.  Ranma stared stonily at his enemy while Yutaka poured with sweat.

"I've been looking forward to this all week," Ranma said calmly as he reared back and landed a lightning fast punch, breaking Yutaka's nose and knocking him on the ground.

"OW!" the bully yelled as he scrambled to get up.  Ranma watched as his opponent stood and prepared himself for his next attack.  He ducked a moment later as Yutaka threw a handful of grass blades and dead leaves at him, some of it getting into his eyes.  Ranma raised his hands to his face defensively and stepped back as his vision suddenly failed him.  He was blinking furiously in an attempt to clear bits of the debris from his eyes when a right-cross nailed him on his left cheek.

"How's *that* you little fag!" Yutaka yelled.  He had a victorious sneer on his face and his hands were raised to deliver another blow.

Ranma blinked a couple more times then smiled at his enemy.  "I was right!  You *do* hit like a pussy," he declared triumphantly.  His smile grew as Yutaka's expression changed from one of smug self-righteousness to white-hot rage.  "Oh, and thanks for tapping me like that.  Cleared up my vision real good."  Ranma laughed, knowing just how much effect the goading was having on his foe.

"Shut up!" Yutaka yelled.  "I'll hit you harder this time and make you wish you'd kept that smart mouth of yours shut!"

Ranma's eyebrows arched.  "Oh really?"

"Yeah, and for every time you hit me I'm gonna make things worse for your sister and your friends.  You'll regret you ever touched me."

Ranma's eyes narrowed dangerously at the threat.  "Then I guess I'd better make sure you're too damaged to hurt anyone else."  He concentrated on his target, ignoring any more of the buffoon's posturing and yelling.

"Ya hear me, Saotome?  You just signed their death wa- AGH!!!" Yutaka screamed as Ranma charged him suddenly.  Colliding with the bully at top speed, he forced his elbow into Yutaka's sternum, then followed up with a fist to the groin.  The bully went down on his knees and favored his violated crotch with both hands.

"Get up."

"Go to hell!" Yutaka half-yelled, half-whimpered, his breathing ragged from the hit to his chest.

"You first."

Yutaka screamed incoherently, his face purpling with rage.  Despite the injuries he'd sustained thus far, the bully shot up to his feet and charged at Ranma with surprising speed.

Caught off guard by the sheer force his opponent brought to bear against him, Ranma was knocked down by the tackle.  He hit the grass with bone-rattling force and found himself too dazed to get up.  Ranma grunted loudly a moment later as Yutaka stomped on his chest and forced his breath out painfully.  The Anything Goes student lay on the ground, his mind clouded by a fog of agonizing breathlessness.

"Looks like I get to break *you* now, you little twerp!" Yutaka taunted.  "Who's the better person now, huh?"  He stomped on Ranma's left hand, grinding the heel of his shoe into it.  "I own you, Saotome!"

Ranma concentrated on trying to catch his breath.  He looked up at his enemy, squinting to bring things into better focus.  'At least there are only two of him now,' he thought dryly.  He grit his teeth and tried to bear the pain of having his hand mauled by the bully.  "No-one owns me!" Ranma swore defiantly as he aimed his right fist once again at Yutaka's privates.

Yutaka made a bleat of surprise and jumped out of the way to avoid getting hit.  "You little shit!" he spat angrily.

Ranma scrambled to his feet and assessed his situation.  They were both injured and tired.  It also seemed that Yutaka had a much better constitution than Ranma had originally thought.  'This fight's going to go on for awhile if I don't drop him soon,' he thought desperately.  'I'm gonna have to use one of the special techniques on him.'  Ranma's left hand throbbed in pain when he tried to close it into a fist.  The injury was going to make his special moves more difficult to perform.  He winced despite his attempts to keep his reactions muted and his enemy caught the slip.

"Feeling the pain, little boy?" Yutaka sneered.  "I gotta lot more where that came from."

'I have to end this now,' Ranma thought wearily.  He had been fighting these goons for a good ten minutes after Sato had left with Motoko in his arms and he didn't have the job finished yet.  A quick idea came to mind and he chanced doing it, despite his injuries.  Ranma charged Yutaka again with his fists up.  Yutaka likewise charged Ranma, yelling like a banshee and raising his arms to meet the challenge.

"Tenshin Amaguriken!" Ranma shouted as he leveled almost forty solid punches against his foe.  The punches found their mark and did an intense amount of damage to Yutaka's ribcage, yet the bully did not go down.  Meanwhile Ranma rubbed his left hand, which was now hurting a *hell* of a lot worse than it had before.

The two kept their place and breathed raggedly, the toll of battle almost too much for either of them.  Yutaka found the strength to move first, although he was clutching his ribs tightly and was obviously in a great deal of pain.  He turned around and found Ranma watching him warily.  "I'm still standing, wimp," Yutaka bit out.  He then stood back and spat on the Anything Goes student, the spittle landing on his shirt.  The bully looked as if he was about to make another stupid comment when the young martial artist suddenly dropped down on his good hand and lashed out with the full force of his legs.  The would-be rapist screamed in pain as the heels of both of Ranma's feet struck the midpoint of Yutaka's tibia and fibula on his left leg.  The bones shattered under the power of the directed force imparted upon them.

Ranma rolled out of the way as the thug dropped like a felled tree.  The Anything Goes student breathed heavily and collected himself while his foe lay helpless on the ground screaming in pain and holding onto his injured leg with both hands.

Realizing that he was no longer in danger, Ranma got up slowly.  He hissed as he applied weight to his injured hand.  'Damn!  I shoulda' been paying more attention,' he thought before standing up.  'Still, it looks like Sato's gonna be okay now,' Ranma concluded as he looked at the two thugs.  The knife wielder was still out for the count and Yutaka was laying on the grass in agony.  Neither was capable of hurting anyone for a while.  Taking his time, Ranma left the park and headed for home, knowing that he had a lot of explaining to do once he got there.

*>
 

Ms. Yoshida reached out and grabbed her water glass and took a long pull from it.  "Well...  that was quite... violent," she managed after setting her glass down on the desk.

Ranma snorted.  "Yeah, it was."

"That's it?  'Yeah, it was' is your only comment?  You do realize that you've just admitted to viciously assaulting one of your fellow classmates, don't you?"  Ms. Yoshida pointed at her tape recorder.  "What you say now may save you down the road, Ranma.  If I were you I'd take this more seriously and choose my words with a bit more caution."

"Well, what else *can* I say?  The situation called for someone to help and that's exactly what I did."

"It didn't occur to you to get some help from passersby?  *Preferably* a responsible adult?"

"There was no one else around.  I already toldja that!"

"What about calling someone like the police or a fireman or something?" Ms. Yoshida persisted.

"There wasn't enough time," Ranma shot back.  "If you've been listenin' to me, then you know how bad things were goin' over there.  I haven't lied to you about that.  Something had to be done *then* and I since knew how to defend myself against others I did what I was trained to do."

"It sounds like you did too much, given Yutaka's current condition," Ms. Yoshida said with a small amount of venom in her tone.  "But, as you said, you took great pleasure in torturing Yutaka.  So, in a way it seems that you managed to benefit from all of this."

"TORTURE?  I am NOT some kind of freak!  Who the hell's side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of justice, as are all level one and level two school counselors.  Nothing more, nothing less."  Ms. Yoshida tapped her fingers on the desk.

"Well, you can be hysterical and call it torture if you want to, but that's not what I'd call it.  Somethin' else you should think about, Ms. Yoshida.  If Yutaka hadn't tried to rape Motoko then there's a good chance that he and his buddy would both be a hellvua lot healthier right now."  Ranma glowered at the tape recorder.  "I probably coulda done more damage to him if I had really let myself go.  Filthy rapists like him deserve it, but for some reason I held back a little."  Ranma paused for a moment.  "You know, I don't see why I should get into any trouble over this unless the people who listen to this tape actually *like* boys that beat up girls and force 'em to have sex."

Ms. Yoshida sighed disdainfully.  "Well, we'll consider the motives for your actions in just a moment.  Let's get back to the events of last night.  I want to know what happened after you walked out of the park."

"I headed home.  Got there about twenty minutes later.  After that I had a lot of explaining to do."

"Did you stop anywhere along the way or seek medical attention?"

"No, I went straight home."

"Why did it take you so long to get home?  It didn't take you that long to find Sato," Ms. Yoshida challenged.

"I walked back slowly," Ranma replied simply.  "I was sore from the fight and didn't think I needed to run all that way."

"Did you call the police and notify them about what you saw and did?"

"No, I figured that Sato would let the cops know what had happened to Motoko and they'd take things from there."

Ms. Yoshida raised an eyebrow at that and pulled a blue folder out from her purse.  "This is the official police report from last night," she said, holding the folder up for his inspection.  She then opened the folder and pulled out the report, then read from it.

"Police arrived at the park around 9:30 pm after receiving a phone tip.  One youth was observed lying on the ground, unconscious.  An ambulance was summoned to the site while officers cordoned off the area and began gathering evidence.  Glass fragments were found near the point where the victim was found.  Additional searching turned up the neck of a broken glass bottle.  The boy was revived once paramedics arrived and was questioned by officers.  The boy claims he was walking alone in the park and was ambushed by someone.  He was hit in the face with a bottle and then kicked several times.  Victim was unable to identify his assailant and subsequently passed out before more questions could be asked."

Ms. Yoshida put the form down on the desk atop the blue folder.  "I had been studying this report before I got here today and wasn't sure about the validity of it.  Still, I did attempt to make a few simple guesses about what happened last night.  However, given Sato's earlier testimony as well as your own, I have had to make a few changes to my list of questions."

"I don't know why," Ranma commented idly.  "You should have heard everything by now.  I told you all I know, and I'm pretty sure that Sato did too."  He looked down at the blue folder.  "All that report tells me is that Yutaka was outta his mind when I walked away from him."

Ms. Yoshida raised her left eyebrow at the remark.  "You're ignoring something that the report mentioned."

"What's that?"

"The police only found one person at the scene when they arrived.  Your 'phantom knifer' was never found.  As far as the police were able to ascertain, there was only one beating victim at the scene.  If there had been any suspicion of a second victim they would have definitely mentioned it."

"Phantom knifer?  He was real!  I should know; I beat the shit out of him last night!  He probably woke up and ran away before the cops arrived, that's all!"

"Yet this supposed friend of Yutaka's that you keep mentioning was never seen last night by anyone else but you.  Sato certainly hasn't mentioned him.  Neither has Yutaka."

"Sato had already left before that idiot arrived!" Ranma snapped defensively.  "And Yutaka's not gonna tell on his little punk friend.  Assholes like that stick together."

Ms. Yoshida shook her head dismissively.  "It sounds more like an imaginary friend, or in this case, an imaginary foe.  In essence, someone you invented just to help bolster your flagging image and make yourself look less like a villain and more like a saint."  She leaned in close to him.  "Let's face it, Ranma.  You created this guy just to make Yutaka look worse than he is and to help conceal your own criminal actions."

"I am NOT a criminal!" Ranma bellowed.  "I did what I did to protect my friends!  You make it sound like I targeted that loser or somethin'!"

"It does seem that way, Ranma," Ms. Yoshida concluded.  "It's obvious from the way you told your story that you have nothing but contempt for Yutaka.  Furthermore, the confrontations that occurred between the two of you over the course of this week show a pattern of harassment-"

"Yeah it does!  He was bugging the hell out of me!" Ranma insisted.

"But the official school reports don't say that.  They only document that fights and squabbles took place.  Nothing in them says that Yutaka was harassing you or that he had initiated any of the confrontations with you and Sato."  Ms. Yoshida rubbed the bridge of her nose.  "It could just as easily be concluded that you were harassing him."

"Oh, that's bullshit!" Ranma fumed.

"Is it?  This is what I think happened between the two of you over the course of this week.  I think that you couldn't stand the fact that Yutaka had let the cat out of the bag regarding you cheating against Kuno during that fight last week.  You decided that you were going to punish him for it, so you started pestering him-"

"WRONG!"

"- and heckling him every chance you could until things came to a head last night.  You somehow knew that he was going to the park and decided that it was time for you to end your little game with him.  Only you hadn't counted on Motoko walking that way also.  He apparently snapped when he saw a close friend of Sato's walking past him and in an uncontrolled rage he attacked her.  Sato wasn't far behind her and managed to disable Yutaka long enough to get her away.  The difference so far is that he did what he had to do without causing deliberate or severe injury to Yutaka."

"You, on the other hand, came along and noticed that Yutaka was already injured, so you decided to take advantage of the situation and hurt him some more.  A lot more, in fact."  She slapped her hands on the desk angrily.  "Did you know the hospital determined that Yutaka won't be released until sometime next Wednesday at the earliest?"

"You've got it all twisted!" Ranma protested loudly.  "I was the one getting the abuse from Yutaka, not the other way around!  I'm nothing like that sick bastard!"

"Oh come off it, Ranma!  This desperate ploy of yours to get sympathy by inventing a second assailant just won't work!  Face facts!  You pushed Yutaka to the limit and Motoko has suffered as a result.  Your ambition has cost a person one of his eyes and also caused a girl to lose her fragile innocence."  Ms. Yoshida stood up and stared Ranma down.  "Isn't that right?"

"No, it's absolute crap is what it is!"  Ranma stood up and met her gaze head-on.  "Yutaka did what he did because he wanted to, not because he was pushed over the edge or nothin'.  He's had it in for Sato for YEARS and since I beat the crap out of Kuno he's had it in for me too.  Yutaka is the cause of his own problems, not anyone else.  And that asshole is just the kind of creep who would try to rape a girl, so don't try blamin' me for that either!"

"So you say," Ms. Yoshida sniffed.  "I think you're running out of space to dodge your accusations and you're also running out of time before justice finds you.  Your denials don't ring true and since you don't have any evidence to support your allegations outside of the testimony of Sato and your own say-so, I find it difficult to-"

"No evidence?  Fine!" Ranma snapped.  "Everything happened exactly the way I said it did, and I *can* prove it!"  He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew an old rolled-up brown paper bag.  He dropped the medium-sized package on the desk where it landed with a heavy *thunk!*  "I've had that damned thing in my pocket all day long.  Pay attention, Ms. Yoshida!  This is *all* the proof you'll need."

"What are you up to now?"  Ms. Yoshida asked disdainfully as she put her hand on the bag.  She hesitated to pick it up, however, when Ranma put his hand atop hers.  She looked at him sternly.  "Let go of me right now, Ranma!"

"I don't think you should open that bag or touch what's inside, Ms. Yoshida," Ranma admonished lightly.  "It's evidence."

Her eyes widened and she snatched her hand away from his, releasing the bag in the process.  "What is it?"

"It's the knife that the other guy dropped," Ranma answered.  "You know, the 'phantom knifer'?  The whole knife is flat metal, so his fingerprints are probably on it somewhere."  He pointed at the bundle.  "I got that bag out of a park trashcan and used it to pick the knife up.  I rolled it up and tucked it away so that the fingerprints would stay there."  He regarded her with a serious expression.  "It also has some of his blood on it from where I hit him in the nose.  If I remember right, he bled all over the place before he dropped his knife."

Ms. Yoshida frowned.  "Why didn't you hand this over to the police when you had the chance?"

"Had the chance?  I was at home all last night tryin' to calm my family down and ever since school started this mornin' I've been in here with you.  When would I have had time between then and now to give this to 'em?"  Ranma nudged the bag in her direction.  "Here!  You can carry it to the cops since you'll probably be leavin' this place before I will today."

'He's got me there,' Yoshida thought wryly as she took the old paper bag and stuffed it in her purse.  "Assuming that this is really evidence and not something you're planting to help take blame away from yourself."

Ranma looked at her angrily.  "It sounds like you've already made *your* mind up, Ms. Yoshida.  When the cops see that knife they'll force you to change your mind."

"No, Ranma.  I haven't made my mind up yet.  The regulations set forth by my employers prohibit me from making conclusions before all the evidence is presented, and I have yet to talk directly with either Yutaka OR Motoko."  She started packing most of her paperwork in her briefcase.  "For now, I think you should get back to class since I still have a few things left to do."

"So does this mean that you're done butchering the truth about what happened to me?" Ranma lashed out.

Ms. Yoshida's expression soured and she quickly reached down and hit the 'stop' button on her recorder.  "I'm done fighting with you, Ranma.  I have everything I need now, so there's no need for you to hang around.  Go back to class before your attitude affects my judgment," she warned ominously.  "You'll learn of my findings by the end of the day," she said as she ejected the tape and stuffed the recorder and her tapes into her briefcase.

"But-" Ranma tried to interject, hoping to plead his case further.  'Dammit!  She thinks I'm to blame!' he thought incredulously.  'This is insane!'

"I'll try to get my work done before the end of the school day-"

She was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing.  Ranma held his ground and watched as a hushed conversation ensued.  Quickly slamming the phone down, Ms. Yoshida stood up and grabbed her coat.  "That was the hospital again.  Now that Motoko's awake, I'm going to see her and get her side of the story."  With that, she was a whirlwind as she donned her coat and purse, then dashed off with her briefcase in hand.

'Now what?' Ranma pondered as he glanced back at the office.  The only things that remained of their interrogation were the phone, the pitcher of water and three drinking glasses.  Other than that the room was barren.

****
 

"So is she done with you?" Ranma heard someone ask as he rounded the corner and headed towards the front door of the school.

Ranma looked up at his friend with a smile as Sato stepped away from the spot where he'd been hanging around.  "Hey!  You waited on me?"

Sato nodded.  "I wanted to make sure that everything was resolved and that you weren't blamed for anything."

"Well, I don't know about that," Ranma replied hesitantly.  "Let's go outside, Sato.  I don't want to go to class right now."

"Me neither," Sato replied.  The two headed out to the quad and parked themselves underneath their customary tree.  "So what happened in there?"

Ranma started to recount the two conversations with Ms. Yoshida and was interrupted shortly after he began his story.

"You were there last night?!" Sato shouted, incredulous.  "I don't believe it!  I never even *saw* you!"

Ranma shot him a hurt look.  "Sato, it's not like I was followin' you or nothin'."  He stared down at the ground and continued his recounting of the events without further interruption from his friend.  Once he was done he turned to Sato.  "Well, what do you think?"

"It sounds like she has it out for you."  Sato's brow furrowed.  "You think we were even talking to the same woman?  The person you're describing sounds a whole lot different from the one that I talked to."

"Business suit, hair done up in a bun and a glare like a sharpened sword?" Ranma joked.

Sato nodded.  "Yeah, that's her.  Guess you can't really tell much about 'em just by looking at 'em."

"Anyway, I didn't tell you before now about bein' there because I didn't want you to try to take the blame for all of it to keep me from gettin' into trouble."  He smiled at the guilty look that crossed Sato's face.  "You're a good friend, Sato.  I know that's what you woulda done if you knew about everything."

Sato laughed nervously.  "Well, you're right about that.  You don't deserve to take any flak for what happened to me.  And, you're a pretty okay friend too, Ranma."  He looked down at the grass.  "But if you were there, why didn't you jump into the fight?"

"You were handling yourself pretty well in there, man.  I didn't think you needed any help."

Sato pointed at his face.  "Yeah, I won.  But I didn't really want to get my face redecorated by that oaf," he replied sullenly.

"Think of it this way, Sato.  You're just startin' out with martial arts and last night was the first time you ever got to try your moves out on an enemy.  If I had helped you when it was just one-on-one, then you would never have been able to really find out what kind of stuff you were made of.  That, and you probably woulda always expected help whenever you were in a fight."  Ranma looked at him seriously.  "There's a lotta times where you fight alone when you're in combat."

Sato nodded, understanding what his friend was trying to tell him.  "I get what you're saying, Ranma.  Still, it's a painful way to learn."

Both boys broke out laughing.  "Not much worse than a full-out training session with me and my sister, huh?" Ranma quipped.

Sato's laughing intensified until he was forced to cradle his sore ribs with his arms.  "Not too much!  Can't *heh* laugh too hard, Ranma.  My ribs..."

Ranma grimaced as he remembered the salvo of kicks his friend had sustained during his part of the fight.  "Sorry.  I forgot about that."

Sato calmed down and waved a hand at his friend dismissively.  "It's okay, I'll be fine."  He looked out over the expansive campus and was rather happy to see that there was no other student around.  Actually made things rather tranquil.  "So I guess all we do now is wait for her to call us.  Personally speaking, I think you're in the clear.  Don't know why, it's just a feeling I have."  Sato shrugged.  "Anyway, I'm not going to worry about this week anymore."

Ranma nodded.  "Yup.  Now that she has all the evidence, I expect that we won't be charged with nothin'.  So you know what?"

"What's that, man?"

"I'm gonna stretch out right here and take a nap.  After everything I just went through today, not to mention this *whole* week, I think I deserve to relax.  It's not even two o'clock yet, so I figure I can get a good nap in before school lets out."

Sato smiled at the idea of blowing off the rest of the school day for a nap in the springtime air.  "Damn right.  And since our main pains in the butt aren't here, we should be able to kick back with no problem.  Right, Ranma?"  He looked over to his friend.  "Ranma?"

Ranma answered him with a soft snore.  "Well, whattaya know.  He's out just like that," Sato commented as he watched his friend sleep.  "Don't see why I shouldn't follow his lead," he muttered to himself.  'I wonder if Motoko is okay...' he pondered as he crossed his arms and legs and nodded off beneath the large shade tree.

****
 

A short-haired girl darted out of the hallway and into the nearest girl's bathroom.  She quickly ran into one of the stalls and hid herself.  She heard her trembling breath echoing throughout the confines of the stall and tried to calm down.  She'd almost succeeded when the door to the bathroom slammed open.  She jumped and almost squealed at the noise, yet somehow maintained her precarious position in the stall.

"Ami, are you in here?" a breathless voice queried in the distance.

Ami Nakato almost responded.  'Stupid!  That's just what she's wanting.  Gotta remain quiet!' she thought urgently

"Ami, you have to be in here somewhere.  You're not fast enough to have gotten away from me."

The young girl knew that her pursuer had a one-in-three chance of finding her since there were only three stalls in the bathroom.  Sure enough, the doors opened one at a time, her dread increasing exponentially as the first two doors popped open.

"So, let's see what's behind door number three," the voice proclaimed in an almost playful tone.

Ami cowered in the stall as the door flew open and bathed her with light.

"Gotcha!" her pursuer said with a snicker.

"What do you want with me, Ranko?" Ami Nakato demanded uncertainly, her emerald-green eyes darting back and forth as if searching for an avenue of escape.  She stood on the floor and arranged her uniform skirt primly.

"What's with the paranoia, Ami?  I just needed to ask you a couple of questions is all."  Ranko put her hands on her hips and examined the slight girl critically.

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" the slight girl shot back.  "You have been following me around since lunch, and now you've cornered me in the girls' bathroom."

"That's because the school day is practically over and I had to speak to you before the end of the day.  This is important.  I need you."

Ami blushed and looked down at her feet.  "Whatever you might think, I'm not that kind of girl."

Ranko turned scarlet and made loud gagging noises.  "Hey!  I'm not *that* kind of girl either, Ami!  Ewww!"  The smaller girl relaxed visibly, the sight of which caused Ranko to break out into giggles.  "You thought I was after your body?"  Her laughter increased at the sheer silliness of the notion.

Ami couldn't resist and found she was joining in the laughter.  "I'm sorry, Ranko.  There's not much else a little girl like me could worry about when a she gets cornered by a strong butch girl like you in the bathroom."  Her laughter increased the more she thought of it.

Ranko's laughter evaporated.  'Butch girl!?'  "Hey!  I'm not butch!  I've got more up here than most girls *wish* they had," the Saotome girl declared as she pointed at her expansive chest.  "Not to mention my-  Never mind..."

Ami ceased laughing and gulped nervously.  "Sorry Ranko.  I-"

"Oh, don't worry about it.  As long as guys don't think I'm butch, then I don't mind it.  Well, not too much, anyways.  Their interest is what's important to me, after all."

Ami regarded the younger girl warily, unsure of what Ranko was up to.  "What did you want with me, Ranko?"

Ranko sighed and put a hand to her head to forestall a headache.  "I need to talk to you about Kinuko Amagi and the breakup she had with my brother."

Ami's nervousness suddenly returned.  'Did she find out about...  Oh boy!'  "Umm, what do you mean?  Everyone knows that they broke up over a month ago."

"Yeah, but I am more interested in *how* they broke up, Ami.  You get my drift?" Ranko challenged.

Ami nodded slowly.  "I guess so.  I don't know if I can help you or not, though," she hedged.

"Oh, come off it, Ami!  Everybody knows you're her best friend," Ranko spat.  "In fact, you're probably her *only* friend at the school."

"That's not fair!  She knows lots of people."

"Yeah, but she only talks to you, right?"

"Well..."  Ami sighed in defeat, knowing she wouldn't be able to get away from the bigger girl.  "What do you need to know?"

"There are some unanswered questions about what she told my big brother, and I want to set the record straight."

Ami's brow furrowed as she wondered what Ranko was getting at.  "Really?  I thought she was pretty straightforward about it."

"I'm talking about the preg-"  Ranko paused as she heard someone walk by the door.  As the footsteps dwindled in the distance, she stepped into the stall and put her lips to the smaller girl's ear.  "The pregnancy thing," Ranko whispered, then moved back a step.

Ami sighed in relief.  "Oh, is that all?" she whispered in return.

"Is that all?" Ranko shot back in a strangled voice.  "This thing has been driving my brother absolutely nuts.  He believes that she's pregnant!"

Ami couldn't help herself.  She started laughing and couldn't stop.  Seeing the dangerous look in Ranko's eyes she did her best to compose herself, yet the occasional snicker would still work its way loose.  "I'm sorry, Ranko.  I didn't know that he still believed that after all this time."  She didn't dare tell her the real reason she was laughing.  "I'd actually forgotten about it."

"Still believed that?  So you're telling me that she's not pregnant," Ranko pressed.

"Oh, she's absolutely not pregnant," Ami declared, punctuating her words with a shake of her head.  "If that girl is pregnant then I'm a Cherokee Indian."

"Are you sure?" Ranko eyed the girl closely, searching for any sign of deception.

Oh, I'm absolutely sure!  We have our cycles at about the same time and she usually borrows pads from me when she runs out.  Two weeks ago she borrowed one from me."

Ranko wrinkled her nose and stepped back from Ami, her voice returning to normal levels.  "Okay, that was something I didn't really need to know, but it definitely answers my question."

"So that's all you needed from me?" Ami asked hopefully.

"Yeah, that's all.  Sorry I scared ya, Ami."  Ranko backed further away from the stall and let the girl emerge.

As she turned to walk out of the bathroom, Ranko put a hand on her shoulder.  "One other thing.  Why does she do it?"

Ami turned around and looked at Ranko.  "What do you mean?"

"Why does she lie about being pregnant like that?"

Ami's eyes narrowed.  "You ever know a boy our age who is overjoyed at the idea of being a father?" she deadpanned.

"Good point," Ranko admitted.  "Still, it seems like a rather nasty way to get rid of an unwanted guy or boyfriend."

Ami groaned.  "I won't argue with you about that one.  I think it's wrong for her to do it, also.  Still, despite my complaints, she won't stop.  She's dumped at least three other guys that way and every single time they have run away from her.  They never looked back, and they never bothered her again."  She clasped her hands in front of her and looked Ranko in the eye.  "She doesn't consider what it does to the boys; she's only concerned with how effective it is for her."

"And it's very effective at getting rid of boys, no questions asked.  No pining hearts and no weepy love letters," Ranko completed for her while the smaller girl nodded in agreement.  Disgusted, she walked around Ami and headed for the door.  "If only she could've seen what she did to my big brother.  I thought she loved him, Ami.  Some kind of love *that* is."

"So did I," Ami replied.  "I can't really say why she does what she does, Ranko."  She put her hand out and hesitantly laid it on Ranko's shoulder.  "But you can tell Ranma that I'm *truly* sorry that he worried over nothing.  If I knew he'd taken it so seriously, I would've told him the truth myself."

"Thanks Ami.  I'll tell him," Ranko said with a wan smile.

Ami watched as Ranma's sister left the bathroom and headed back to her last class of the day.  'And chances are that Ranma will be receiving a personal apology from K-chan soon.  Very soon,' Ami thought, somewhat regretfully.

****
 

A young woman in a nurse's uniform poked her head through the hospital room door.  "I'm really sorry, Ms. Yoshida, but little Motoko needs her sleep now.  As you know, she has been through quite an ordeal.  I will keep an eye on her and inform you of any change in her condition."

Ms. Yoshida nodded to the nurse and began to collect her things.  "I understand."  She turned to the patient.  "Thank you for taking the time to talk to me about this.  I know that it had to have been difficult for you to recount all of that information so soon after it had happened.  You will be okay, Motoko."

The young girl showed obvious concern, despite the fact that her face was almost completely black and blue with bruises and one of her eyes was still partly swollen due to the events of the night before.  She raised her head and turned it in Ms. Yoshida's direction.  "Are you sure I'll be okay?  I'm afraid that it's gonna happen again and he might do..."

Ms. Yoshida reached out and put her hand atop one of the girl's trembling hands.  "It's alright now, Motoko.  Just remain calm and trust in me.  Part of my job is to investigate what happened last night.  The other part, the more important part, is to help counsel you through this and get you back on your feet as quickly as possible.  While I'm here, you will have nothing to worry about."  Ms. Yoshida smiled to her, hoping that the pity she felt for the girl wasn't tainting the positive attitude she was trying to maintain.  "I am done asking you questions for now.  If you need me for any reason, you let the nurse know and she will come get me.  I will be across the hallway in one of the offices."

Motoko nodded and rested her head again on the pillow.  "Umm, one thing?"

"Yes?"

"Have you seen Sato?  I never got the chance to talk to him or thank him since... you know."

The counselor nodded.  "I have seen him today, and I will let him know that you are asking for him."

"Thank you, Ms. Yoshida," Motoko replied with a brittle smile.  She closed her eyes and was soon asleep, courtesy of the high doses of tranquilizer that the nurse had administered only a short time before.

As quietly as she could, Furinkan High's Level Two counselor stood from her chair and exited the room.  Finding her temporary office, she quickly unpacked everything and started arranging items on the desk.  Plugging an earphone into the tape deck, she pulled out an official blue notepad and a black ink pen and began to jot down notes from all of the taped sessions between both her and Ranma and her and Sato.  She frowned as she listened to some of the bitter exchanges between herself and Ranma.  She pressed the stop button and looked over at the small desk clock sitting to her left.  'Almost half-past three in the afternoon,' she thought wearily, stifling a yawn.

Ms. Yoshida pulled the earphone out of her ear and laid it down on the desk, then bent backwards in her chair and stretched.  'What a day!' she thought with a tired sigh.  She stared down at the pile of papers, notepads and her tapes and glowered at it.  'This wouldn't be so difficult if it weren't for the unsolicited offer I got this morning.'  She sat forward in her chair and propped her elbows on the desktop, then put her hands together with her fingers interlocked.  Resting her chin on her fingers, she thought back to how her day had begun.

<*
 

A knock at the door took Kumiko's attention away from her morning newspaper.  Standing from the breakfast table, she walked quickly towards the door in her house shoes.  She looked through the peephole and saw a rather distinguished looking young man in a crisp business suit.  'I wonder who he is,' she pondered as she turned the knob and opened the door as far as the chain would allow.

"May I help you?" she asked politely.

"Good Morning, Kumiko Yoshida-san," the man said in a deferential tone, bowing slightly.  "May I speak to you for a moment?"

Kumiko's eyes widened.  'How did he know who I was?' she wondered with mild trepidation.  "I'm sorry, but I will be leaving for work soon-" she began to say as she pushed the door closed.

Calmly, the stranger put his hand on the door to keep her from closing it.  "I know you will, and that is the reason for my visit."  He smiled to her and pulled his hand away, clasping it with its sibling at his waist.  "I assure you that I will not take much of your time."

'What does this man want from me?' she pondered as she eyed him critically, looking for signs of a prank or worse, an auditor from TCS.  "Very well," she said after realizing that she had been silent for too long.  "Just for a few moments."

"Thank you," he replied, bowing politely and never losing the smile on his face.  Kumiko watched him as he stepped into the tiny foyer and then closed the door as soon as he was clear.  Keeping his place near the door, he skipped any preamble and went straight to the matter.

"I will get directly to the point, Ms. Yoshida.  I have come to visit you regarding a case that you were assigned late last evening.  I speak on behalf of the boy who now lies broken and battered at Nerima Prefectural Hospital.  The Hanashin family, as well as our own people, have been most stunned by this unfortunate turn of events.  The acts perpetrated against young Yutaka were most brutal and uncalled for, despite what some people have alleged in the past about his behavior.  His family beseeches you to find justice for their beloved son and brother, and so do I."

Ms. Yoshida's eyes widened.  "How did you know that I had been assigned this case?"

"We have our sources, Ms. Yoshida.  The well being of our family and friends is foremost in our minds, so we do not hesitate to do all that we can to see that they are being cared for properly."  He looked past her to her diminutive dining table where a pile of paperwork sat in disarray.  "We have a vested interest in seeing justice done in this case.  I am curious to know how your investigation has progressed thus far."

Ms. Yoshida shook her head in disbelief.  "You do realize that by coming here you are tainting my investigation and making things worse for him, don't you?"  She didn't wait for an answer.  "I haven't even finished looking at my files yet, so it's too early for me to draw any firm conclusions regarding either the actions of his aggressor nor Yutaka's own actions."

The smile slipped a bit on the face of her visitor.  "I realize that this case contains certain ... unfortunate extenuating circumstances regarding Yutaka's behavior on the prior evening.  Nevertheless, the damages sustained by him are inhumane and inexcusable.  The boy who inflicted them deserves to be found guilty of the highest charges that can be levied.  You have the power to do this, Ms. Yoshida.  We expect you to do nothing more than to carry out your duties with unerring direction and the utmost speed.  Furthermore, I implore you to not let your emotions about that girl's circumstances cloud your judgment against the boy that Yutaka has named as his sole assailant."

Kumiko's eyes narrowed at the implication that she couldn't be impartial.  "I will be doing my utmost to see that the *whole* truth comes out regarding this incident; of that you will have no worry.  So while I appreciate the concern that you have for Yutaka's welfare, I do have a problem with having my skills and my dedication questioned so openly."  She leveled her patented 'I take no crap' gaze at him and was rewarded with a renewed smile from her visitor.

"Ahem, yes.  I apologize if I made an improper conclusion regarding your abilities.  My intention was quite the contrary to that, in fact.  I have only come here to let you know that we will do what we can for Yutaka to ensure that he no longer behaves wrongly towards females, and would hope that you would take that fact into consideration during your deliberations.  As for his assailant, you know that we want him to be brought to justice."

Kumiko tried not to look indignant but failed to hide her consternation.  "If that boy has done anything illegal, I will find it.  Yutaka's assailant won't be given a free ride, regardless of what he may have done prior to being assaulted.  I will do everything I can, within the bounds of the law," she stated firmly.

The man nodded, pleased with her statement.  "Do what you can, Ms. Yoshida.  We will do what we can as well.  That boy has already earned the wrath of our families.  However, more than that you do not need to know."  He bowed to her again and put his hand on the doorknob.

"What?" Kumiko began, but was too stunned to complete the question.  'Who *is* this guy and who does he work for?'

He smiled and opened the door for himself, forestalling any further comment from her.  "You will be *very* well compensated for completing this task, and our families will owe you a great personal debt.  We look forward to learning the results of your findings."  He produced a small envelope from his jacket pocket and deposited it on a nearby credenza.  "Have a good day, Ms. Yoshida," he said as he closed the door behind himself.

*>
 

'And the guy never told me who he was,' she thought as she scrutinized the pile of evidence on the desk.  'I didn't bother to open the envelope, although I could tell just by looking that it had quite a lot of cash in it.'  She paused to reflect on the man's veiled request.  'Whoever that was wanted me to bend the rules a *lot.*  However, based on everything that I've learned today, I can't see that there would be any trouble proving that Mr. Saotome hurt Yutaka deliberately.  The same goes for showing that Ranma affected Yutaka's state of mind to the point where he acted... irresponsibly.'

She reached into her purse to get a mint.  'Still-'  Her thoughts came to a crashing halt as her hand came upon the bag that Ranma had given her just before the end of their last session.  She gasped audibly as her fingers curled around the object.  Reluctantly, she lifted the item from her purse and placed it in front of her on the desk.

'If this thing is for real then it changes the whole tone of Ranma's testimony about last night, as well as his and Sato's separate testimonies regarding noon Wednesday.'  Ms. Yoshida pondered the options, including tossing the item in the garbage.  'It would technically be within my power to do so, since the source of the evidence is one of the accused and is possibly a red herring.  Not having it put into consideration would simplify this case immensely.'  Smiling to herself, she took the item in hand and put it in the bottom of the small wastebasket that sat next to her desk, making sure to cover the bag with various wads of paper that had been discarded earlier from her notebooks.  'Problem solved,' she thought triumphantly.

She returned to her notes and was ten minutes into outlining her final conclusions when she heard a tentative tapping at the door to her temporary office.  Wearily she put her pen down and stood, reaching for the doorknob.  "Yes, how may I help you?" she asked as she opened the door.

A tall, slender woman stood before her with a polite smile on her face.  She was dressed in a dark skirt with matching jacket that sported a business-logo pin on the left lapel.  "Ms. Kumiko Yoshida?" the young woman inquired.

"Yes?" she replied warily as she thought again about the impromptu meeting she'd had this morning with another stranger.

"My name is Sumie Morita and I am here on behalf of the CEO of Tamayama Specialty Industries."

Yoshida's eyes flew open in shock and she barely squelched her impulse to stand at attention.  "Tamayama Specialties?  You mean the parent company of Tamagawa Contract Staffing?"  'The company I work for!' she almost said aloud.

"Yes, Ms. Yoshida, the one and the same.  I have been instructed to make contact with you regarding your current case.  As you may well know, a crime of this nature, with its high level of violence involving such young participants is completely unprecedented in the history of our organization as well as the history of Furinkan High School.  This being the case, it is a very high profile situation and has garnered the attention not only of the school administrators but of the police commissioner as well.  Furthermore, the CEO as well as several of our board members have taken an interest in the progression of this case and will be monitoring it from here on out."

"Yes...  Umm," Ms. Yoshida stammered.  She quickly cleared her throat.  "I understand and will make sure that I represent the company honorably."  She just did stop herself from bowing in front of the messenger.

"I'm sure that you will," Sumie replied with a smile on her face.  "Your record of service speaks for itself and we are honored to have someone of your caliber heading this investigation.  We feel certain that you will follow all regulations and not leave any stone unturned or any lead unchecked in your pursuit of justice.  Rest assured, Ms. Yoshida, that we are all looking forward to your final report."

She laughed nervously as she glanced down first at the report on her desk, then at the wastebasket that contained the discarded blade.  "I have already started on a rough draft, but given that not all of the ... evidence has been examined by the police, I feel that my final report may be ... delayed until I have had a chance to fully evaluate everything.  I want to make sure that my investigation is thorough and my recommendations are ... balanced."

"We understand that and agree that pursuing this case too swiftly is not in the best interests of the concerned parties.  The public as well as your immediate superiors will understand if you take a slower, more methodical approach to your investigation."

"Indeed, Ms. Morita.  I will submit my report once it is complete, which will likely be on Saturday morning."  She barely kept her voice from trembling as she prattled on.  "Will that be satisfactory?"

"Yes it will.  You have the thanks of the CEO and the senior staff."  Ms. Morita smiled and stepped away from the door.

"No!  Thank You!" she gushed as she watched the messenger turn and walk down the hallway.  Closing the door, she leaned against it heavily, putting a hand to her heart.  'I can't believe this!  Just what's going on in this investigation anyway?'  She was so intent on her unspoken questions that she jumped when she heard another knock at the opened door.  Frazzled, she yanked the door open and just did keep from glaring at the old man that stood across from her in the hallway.

"Pardon me.  May I take your trash?" the janitor inquired as he pushed a large wheeled trash can towards her doorway.

Ms. Yoshida nodded quickly and hung up the phone.  Moving out of the way, she watched as the janitor bent down and picked up the trashcan.  'The EVIDENCE!' she thought in alarm as she quickly reached out and took hold of the other end of the wastebasket.  "Wait a moment!" she nearly shouted, succeeding in startling the old man.  "I think I threw away something that I needed to keep," she explained, offering him an apologetic smile.  She made a show of rummaging around for a moment before fishing out the rolled-up bundle.  Showing him the package, she released the wastebasket and sighed in relief.

The janitor bowed politely and emptied the remaining contents into his trash container, then placed the empty wastebasket on the floor.  "Good day to you," he muttered as he wheeled away from her office.

"Thank you," she replied absently as she placed the bundle on her desk again.  'I'd better contact the police about this now,' she thought urgently as she picked up the receiver again.  She quickly dialed the number for the police station and had them dispatch five officers to the hospital.  Two to watch Motoko's room, two to watch Yutaka's room and the last one to courier the new evidence to the station for processing.  As soon as she was off of the phone, she wrote a quick synopsis regarding the origin of the evidence.

Ms. Yoshida picked up the bundle and unrolled it, then stapled the informational page to the outside of the rumpled paper bag.  Her heart sunk as she peeked inside and saw a fairly long single edged knife with a metallic handle.  The blade was open and the handle had a multitude of small dark specks on it.  Guessing that the police were going to use this weapon to verify Ranma's account of things, she quickly revised her conclusions about the evening's events and opted for authoring a very concise report.

'The gentleman caller from this morning won't be very happy with me.  Still, I think I'll do what I can to appease all sides,' she thought with a sneaky grin.  She flipped a page on her notepad and began crafting what she expected to be her final report on the incident.

Ten minutes later the police arrived and took the weapon into their possession.  After she gave the bag to the officer and explained how she got it, the policeman nodded to her.  "We will let you know what we find, Ms. Yoshida," he said before departing.

She smiled at the officer, then sat down again and reached for the phone.  'Now to give Sato and Ranma the not-so-bad news,' she thought as she dialed the principal's office.  'Must be nice to have friends in higher places than your enemies are, Mr. Saotome.'

****
 

"Man, am *I* glad that this week is over!" Sato said as he caught up to Ranma outside the front doors of the school following their meeting in the assistant principal's office.

"No kidding, Sato."  Ranma looked at all the students who were eagerly filing out of the building and was happy to be among them.  "If I never have another week like this again, I'll be glad."

"I agree.  At least Ms. Yoshida cleared us both of most of the wrongdoing."

"Yeah, if she'd blamed any of that rape stuff on me I would've been really upset.  Still..."

"What?"

"Thirty six hours of community service and a two day suspended sentence for each of us for beating the tar out of Yutaka?" Ranma groused.

"Ranma, I think she said that it was only a recommendation.  The cops will look at all the evidence and make their own decision.  Even she said that the police might not press charges against us at all given everything that happened."

"That's true," Ranma admitted.  "I guess that is something to be thankful for."

"Well, if *I* got into even more trouble than I was already, my mom would've killed me.  Twice," he declared, emphasizing the point by holding up two fingers.  Both of them laughed at that.  "I'm very happy that-  Hey, look!  There's Nabiki."

Ranma looked over to where Sato was staring.  "Yeah, that's her.  She doesn't look too good right now, though."

"It's probably just all the stress she's been through this week," Sato concluded, calling on some hidden knowledge about Nabiki's welfare that Ranma could only guess at.  "You know, my luck's been on an upswing for the past half hour.  I think I'll go take a chance and talk to her.  She looks like she could use a friend."

Ranma reached his hand out to stop Sato, but his friend moved too fast for him.  'I don't think that's a very good idea, man,' he thought to himself.  'She does NOT look like she wants company right now.'

"Heya, Nabiki," Sato said as he approached her.  She flinched, then turned her head to look at him, but never stopped walking.  Not ready to give up, he persisted.  "How- How're you doing?" he stammered, following alongside her.

Nabiki stopped and threw him an irritated glare.  "How do you *think* I'm doing, Sato?"

"I don't know.  That- That's why I was umm... asking ya.  I was concerned."

"I don't need anyone's concern, I just need to go home!  I've got a lot on my mind right now."

"I'm sorry."  He turned away for a second, then turned back and looked straight at her.  "I was just thinking-"

"Thinking?  Thinking what?  You think that maybe I want to go out with you or something?" Nabiki snapped, her voice rising.  At his silent nod, she snorted.  "Oh, right!  Like that'll ever happen!  You have been following me and pestering me all week long like some little lost puppy and it's irritating the hell out of me!  You know what else?  It's PATHETIC!  You don't know anything about me, and I'm tired of you acting like I owe you a date or something.  I don't CARE if you saved my life or not, I WILL NEVER *EVER* GO OUT WITH YOU!  Do you understand me you sniveling little child?"  She stared at him, her brown eyes bloodshot and rimmed with tears.

"You know, you're just too STUPID to realize how much of a LOSER you really are!  So you know what?  I'm telling you to your face right now so you don't walk around clueless for the rest of your life!  You're never going to get anywhere with me, understand?  Accept that as a given.  And here's another clue for the clueless!  Girls HATE creepy little 'nice guys' like you who have no backbone and always amount to nothing.  Quit trying to get a date with me.  In fact, you should give up on dating completely!  You'll never get a girl in your life.  Now LEAVE ME ALONE!  I HATE YOUR GUTS!" she shrieked.

A large crowd had gathered around them as Nabiki's rant progressed.  She looked around at all of the people staring at her but didn't react until her eyes fell on those of her sister, Akane.

"Sis...  How could you?" Akane asked in a near-whisper.  She stared at her sister in abject shock, unable to believe what Nabiki had just done to Sato.

Nabiki couldn't meet her sister's gaze, her large brown eyes finding the sidewalk instead.  "I-" she began, her voice thick with sorrow.  Clenching her fists, she *willed* herself to be calm before speaking again.  "I'm heading home, Akane.  I'll talk to you later."  With that she picked up her oversized bag and *ran* away from the school.

"Sato... Ranma...  I'm sorry.  I-"  Akane felt her heart tear at seeing the expression on Sato's face.  'He looks heartbroken!' she lamented.  "Sato, I don't know what she's going through... or why."  Akane put her hand to his shoulder, hoping to give him some comfort.

"She was awfully mean to me, Akane," Sato said hollowly.  "She didn't have to be that-  that-  She could've just-"  His lower lip trembled and he suddenly became aware of the crowd of people surrounding them.  The majority of the people were just as shocked as Akane was, but there were a few that were pointing and laughing at him.

Akane let go of him and turned to Ranma.  "Ranma-kun, I'm going to go check on my sister.  I think it's time Kasumi and I had a long talk with her," she said angrily.

Talking for the first time since the outburst, Ranma nodded at her.  "Yeah, Akane, I understand.  Umm, why don't you call me sometime later this weekend?  Ranko and I have the place to ourselves until Wednesday.  Maybe we can take some time to figure all of this stuff out together."  She nodded and spared him a small smile before she took off in the direction of her older sister.

Ranma's ears picked up the sound of muffled laughter coming from the crowd.  Angrily he turned and started scanning faces to find the source of the snickering.  The crowd immediately went quiet at seeing the expression on his face and, given what the rumor mill had been saying about Ranma today, they quickly began to disperse.  "Let's go, Sato.  Ranko will probably be waiting on us."  With a little bit of prodding, Ranma managed to get his friend moving and together they left the school grounds.  "This will probably go down as the worst week in our lives, Sato," Ranma commented once they were a short distance away from the campus.

"No kidding, Ranma," his friend replied, looking straight ahead and choking back tears.  "I'm ready to do some damage!"  He balled his hands into fists, his sorrow slowly changing itself into anger.  "I have dibs on the punching bag as soon as we get to the training hall."

Ranma smiled at his friend.  "You got it, man.  You got it."

****
 

"Hey!  What's up?" Ranko asked brightly as she walked into the house.

"Where have you been, sis?  I've been worried about you," Ranma said as he muted the television and stood up from his place on the den floor.  "It's almost eight o'clock, Ranko."  Ranma pulled his sister into his arms and gave her a hug.  "You missed the training session tonight."

Ranko wrinkled her nose and pulled away slightly from his embrace.  "Whew!  God, I can tell, bro!"

Ranma colored at that and stood away from her a bit.  "Here, I'll give you some breathing room," he said with a playful smirk on his face.  "Where did you go?" he asked again.

"After I heard the news about you and Sato not getting into trouble because of last night, I decided to go to the hospital and see how Motoko was doing."  She sat down on the couch and looked up at him.  "I left just as school let out and went straight to the hospital.  I figured that you and Sato would want to get some time to celebrate the good news, so that's why I didn't talk to you before I left.  Anyway, the security at her room was pretty tight.  They weren't letting anyone in to see her except her immediate family.  I had to get special permission from Motoko before I could even enter the room."  Ranko rolled her eyes.  "Like I'm gonna attack her or anything.  Sheesh!  At any rate, just getting into the room took me an hour of waiting and yelling."

"So how's she doing?" Ranma asked as he sat down in front of her on the opposite couch.

"She's pretty banged up, bro.  Based on what you told us last night, I don't think that you got a close-up view of her injuries.  I was shocked when I saw her.  Also, her mind is a little out there."  Ranko's expression soured.  "Every time someone in the room touched her, she'd squeak or gasp.  That asshole Yutaka's made her afraid of everybody."  Her large blue eyes were wet with the beginnings of tears as she looked up at her brother.  "The nurse says that it'll take a long while before she will be even close to normal again.

Ranma showed his sister a hangdog look.  "I'm sorry I wasn't able to do more for her, Ranko.  I'm also sorry that I wasn't able to go with you and see her.  I wanted to, but was kinda worried about visiting her since Ms. Yoshida was probably still at the hospital.  I didn't want to push my luck."

"You did enough, bro.  That son of a bitch has paid nicely for what he did to her."  She showed him a bittersweet smile.  "I heard about all of his injuries.  You and Sato really worked him over good."  Ranko reached over the table and put her hand on his shoulder.  " You know, you can go visit her sometime this weekend, Ranma.  Right now you should just kick back, relax and enjoy yourself.  Also, you and Sato should be proud of what you did for Motoko-san."

He showed his sister a troubled look.  "Well, I'm sure Sato would like to hear that after what happened today."

Ranko's eyes widened as she sat back on her couch.  "Oh no. . .  What's happened to him now, bro?  You'd think last night would've been it for Sato on the bad-stuff quota."

Ranma gave her a quick recap of the dressing-down that Nabiki gave Sato in the quad.  "She wasn't herself, sis.  You of all people know that I've been around Nabiki for a long time.  I've never *ever* seen her act like that in front of someone before."  Ranma shrugged.  "Even though it's not the exact same Nabiki that I knew, it's still something I never expected her to do.  Maybe the attack by Shampoo messed with her mind more than we thought it did."

Ranko nodded, but couldn't help but feel angry.  "Granted, she went through a lot of stuff last weekend, but so did Sato!  He's obviously gotten over it, so what's her deal?  Everything that she said to him was just ... wrong!  Sato's a good guy!"

"I agree, sis.  She went too far today."  Ranma frowned.  "The poor guy didn't take it well at all."

She crossed her arms and fumed.  "He goes through all that shit with Yutaka this week and just as soon as he's out of that mess she rips his heart out and stomps on it in front of the whole school."  Her eyes narrowed dangerously.  "If you want to know what I think, that bitch deserves to be slapped around.  Repeatedly."

"Whoa, sis!  Calm down!  Akane said that she and Kasumi was going to have a 'long talk' with Nabiki this weekend," Ranma quickly said, sitting up on the couch in case he had to physically restrain her.

"I'm sorry, bro.  It's just that she didn't simply reject him.  She deliberately humiliated him in public and that's absolutely wrong!" Ranko insisted.

"I think that Akane agrees with you.  She was upset when she left the school today, so I think that Nabiki's gonna be told just how wrong she was.  Akane's pretty good at being intimidating," Ranma said with a knowing smile.

Ranko's anger lost a lot of its intensity, but she couldn't quite get over the sheer *audacity* of what had happened.  "Well, if you say so.  But I still don't like what happened."

"You know, you're cute when you're angry," Ranma said with a wink, hoping to diminish his sister's ire.

"Stop that!" Ranko retorted, sticking her tongue out.  "I'm cute all the time and you know it!"  She threw him a sly wink of her own.

Her brother snorted at that.  "By the way, I offered to let Akane come over this weekend and talk things out.  That is, if it's okay with you, sis," he added quickly.

Ranko smirked.  "I was going to ask you if you'd invited Akane over to hang out this weekend.  I don't mind if she's here.  She's a smart cookie and I happen to like her.  I think that she and I could be really good friends as long as she doesn't act like her sister."

"I don't think you'd have to worry about that, Ranko."

Ranko reclined and put her feet on the table in a mock show of defiance to her absent parents.  "What do you want to do this weekend, anyways?  Since we have control of the place, I figured we'd enjoy the freedom and let 'er rip."

"Remember what mom said.  No parties while they're away," Ranma admonished.

"You're no fun!" Ranko pouted then showed him a playful smile the next instant.  "But that doesn't mean that we can't invite our friends over, as you've already proven."

"I was thinking more of what you see in the movies recently," Ranma said wryly.  "I'd hate to get the place messed up and have mom get angry."  He looked over his shoulder towards the kitchen and examined a calendar that was hanging on the wall.  "How long are they going to be gone again?"

"Mom said that the cruise would last until Tuesday evening and that they'd be back home Wednesday afternoon."  Ranko sighed.  "This is the first time that they've done something like this on their anniversary.  It's gonna be weird to be home alone all that time."

"Huh?  I figured this was something that they did every year.  I wonder why they waited until now," Ranma pondered.  "I mean, they get along pretty well.  A whole lot better than they did where I came from, anyways."

Ranko thought to ask him about that, but decided that it could wait for a while.  Instead she stood up and bent over the coffee table, kissing her brother gently on the cheek.  "I think it has something to do with the fact that they can trust us to get along now and not kill each other.  Especially since we're both in high school."  She caressed his cheek and smiled at him.

Ranma nodded at his sister and smiled back.  "That's a good point, sis."  He stood up and hugged her again, then remembered his current body odor status.  "Oops!  Sorry about that.  I should probably get cleaned up!" he said with a laugh.  He stood back from her to let her catch her breath.

Ranko coughed slightly and waved her hand in front of her nose.  "Oh man!  You practiced full-out today, didn't you?"

"Oh yeah, you could say that."  Ranma winced as he rotated his left arm and made a fist, his injured hand still bothering him.  "Sato let me have it today.  I could tell that he was putting a lot of his hurt and anger into his punches.  I felt every hit through the padding."  He pulled open his shirt and showed her a bruise on his torso near his left bicep.  "He kicked the shit out of me here.  I was surprised at getting hit like that."  He showed her a reluctant smile.  "But I'm not mad at him since he apologized for doing it."

"Wow, he really musta been pissed about it."  Ranko's eyes bulged slightly at the sight of her brother's bare chest, causing her to avert her eyes quickly before her staring became obvious.  "A- Anyway, what are we going to do for dinner?"

Ranma mulled that one over as he buttoned up his shirt.  "Good question, sis."  He walked to the kitchen, with her following right behind him.  "I guess I could cook something if you wanted.  I'm pretty good at that, you know," he bragged.

Ranko shook her head and produced a wad of yen from a kitchen drawer.  Ranma's eyes widened at the amount of cash.  It was enough to feed everyone at the 'original' Dojo for a week, including that old lech Happosai!

"Mom's got us covered.  I say we get takeout and eat while watching movies."  She winked conspiratorially at him.  "Whattaya say, Ranma?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," he agreed, smiling at the idea of an effortless weekend.  "I'd better get cleaned up while you order dinner," he said quickly as he darted around her and headed for the bathroom.

"Hey!" she shouted as he darted up the stairs.  "Why do I have to do the ordering?"

"Just call Inakaya and get me some Beef Yakisoba, and some Yakitori and maybe some pork Gyoza with their special hot dipping sauce," Ranma shouted down to her from the top of the staircase.

"Oh, is *that* all?" Ranko grumbled as she searched for the take-out menu.  "Why don't you just get the whole menu and be done with it?"

"I heard that!" Ranma shouted.

"HEY!" Ranko yelled back a moment later as Ranma's pants sailed down the staircase and nailed her on the head.  She could hear his steady laughter in the distance as she clawed the garment off of her abused cranium.  She tossed them on the floor and stomped on the crotch, although he wasn't around to see her do that.  "Cut it out bro or I'll order you some Ika Shiokara instead!"  She tried to put the full weight of her anger into her voice, but the smile on her face belied her true feelings.

"Squid Ink?  Ewwww!" Ranma's distant voice replied, complete with gagging noises.  "That's naaasty!"

She laughed evilly at that, then found the menu and called in their orders.  "Thirty minutes?  Thanks!" she said cheerfully into the phone after giving the delivery person their address.  'Now I think I'm going to change into something more comfy and get started on setting up the attic,' Ranko thought as she picked up Ranma's pants and darted up the stairs.

****
 

"Man did I need that!" Ranma commented to himself as he stepped out of the bath.  Toweling off, he looked at his reflection in the mirror.  'Geez!  Sato really *was* pissed off,' he thought with a mix of awe and concern as he looked at his bruised torso and thighs.  'Everywhere that I had pads he'd just hit harder.'  He looked straight down and was glad to note that he had no bruises in that area.  Satisfied that he hadn't missed anything, Ranma dressed himself in some sweatpants and a sleeveless t-shirt.  Parking his dirty clothes in the laundry, he trotted downstairs and headed for the kitchen.  "Ranko?  Where didja go?" he called out when he couldn't find his sister.

"Ranma, did you call me?" Ranko's voice shouted from upstairs.

He walked to the bottom of the staircase.  "Yeah, I was just lookin' for ya.  Did you get dinner ordered?"

"Yup.  I got what you asked for," Ranko shouted.  "They should be here in a few minutes.  I left enough money on the counter to pay the bill."

Ranma nodded and found three thousand yen on the counter.  He went to sit down on the couch and barely had the remote in his hand when the doorbell rang.  "Coming!" he shouted as he jumped up and dashed for the door.  "Keep the change," he said to the delivery boy a moment later as he closed the door with bags in hand.  "Hey sis, the food's here!  Are we eating at the table or what?"

He could hear her footsteps upstairs as she approached the stairs.  "Bring it up to the attic, Ranma.  I wanna watch movies on the wall tonight, okay?" she shouted down to him.

"Okay!" he replied as he took the three bags of food and a six-pack of drinks upstairs and into the attic.  As he crested the stairs and got his first glimpse of the room, he stopped in his tracks.  "Wow!  What happened to this place?" he asked as he gave his surroundings a slow pan, taking in the whole scene.

Ranko snickered at his reaction.  "I thought we should have a more relaxing environment while we're eating dinner and watching DVDs."  She stood next to him.  "We call it 'configuration B.'  You like?"

"Yeah...  I like it," he said absently, still absorbing the changes to the room.  While he was in the bath his sister had gone to the trouble of moving the two sofas against one of the sidewalls of the attic room and stowing the old coffee table against the opposite sidewall.  The result was a huge amount of empty carpeted space in the middle.  Well, not entirely empty.  Stacked in that space were fifteen medium-sized beanbags.

"I'm hungry!" Ranko declared as she snatched one of the food bags out of his hands and eased herself onto the floor in front of the beanbag pile.  "Come on, bro!"  She opened her bag and fished out two sets of chopsticks and some small tubs of soy sauce.

Ranma's stomach chimed in with a growl as he caught a whiff of the food.  Quickly he sat down next to his sister and unpacked the other two bags.  Soon the Saotome siblings had their meals spread out before them, the various morsels making their mouths water.  They ate quickly as their ravening hunger drove them to wolf down their food.

A few moments later Ranma's eating slowed to a crawl.  He turned to look at Ranko as she shoveled down her meal.  Today the scar on her face was barely visible, especially in the low lighting of the attic.  Still, it stood out rather starkly against the otherwise perfect skin of her youthful countenance.  "Hey, sis," he said after putting down his utensils.  "Whatever happened to that guy, Kenji?  I didn't see him at all this week.  Not even on Thursday when Sato and I were jumped by the Kendo squad."

Ranko slurped down the noodles currently held prisoner in her chopsticks, then looked up at her brother.  "You mean Baldie?"  She snickered at the name.

Ranma snorted at the name.  "Yeah, him.  Was he even at school this week?"

"Yeah, he was there, but he kept out of sight.  He was the one walking around school all week wearing a rising-sun head cover."

"Oh yeah!  I saw him once!  Did he give you any grief about what you did to him last Friday?"

"Nope," Ranko proclaimed with a proud smile.  "He looked at me real angry and stuff, but most of the time that's all he did.  Whenever he acted like he was gonna get closer to me or yell, I just stared at him."  She chortled at the memory.  "That jerk never had a chance against me.  Now he knows it."

"That's good.  I'd been so busy with all the stuff that I went through that I forgot about your problems," Ranma admitted.  "I'm glad he's not buggin' you anymore."

"So am I," she said with a smile before she plopped her chopsticks back into the udon bowl and fished out some more helpless noodles.

Ranma watched in awe as she consumed most of the contents of the full bowl in record time.  She put the bowl down on the floor and snagged the last of his yakitori before he could stop her.  She grinned at him like a Cheshire Cat, the bamboo skewer protruding from her mouth like an elongated toothpick.  "You accused *me* of eating too much?" Ranma quipped as he glared at her, his hand indicating the myriad empty Styrofoam dishes that littered the floor.

Ranko 'hmmph'ed at her brother and removed the empty stick from her mouth, then quickly slurped down the last of her udon.  "I didn't order much for myself because of how much food you got," she replied after chewing and swallowing the last of her food.

"Well, next time I'm going to ask for a larger order of gyoza," Ranma groused while his sister giggled beside him.  "I only got one of them."

"Hey, I'm still growing!" she argued.  Ranko patted her chest and belched loudly, not bothering to stifle it.  "By the way, I put in a movie already," she said, changing the subject before he could make a comment.  She crawled over to the beanbag mountain while her brother collected all the garbage and stuffed it into a nearby trashcan.  He headed towards the beanbags as she pushed the button on the remote to turn the lights out.

Ranma sat down between her legs, with the back of his head resting against her belly and his arms curled underneath her legs.  He clasped his hands together behind her back with his fingers interlocked.  "Now *this* is comfortable," he said in a teasing voice as he stared at the illuminated wall.

Ranko stuck her tongue out at him even though she knew he couldn't see it.  "I dunno.  I think I ate too much."

"I toldja, sis!" Ranma said somewhat sternly.  "Just warn me if you're gonna barf.  I don't need a food shower."

"I didn't eat *that* much, Ranma!" she retorted.  "I just feel full."

Ranma snickered.  "Okay, okay.  Go ahead and hit play, Ranko.  I'm ready when you are."

She aimed the remote at the component rack and pressed play.  "After all the action you had yesterday, I figured you'd wanna see something fast and funny," she said before the logo for 'Rumble in the Bronx' flashed up on the screen.

"Jackie Chan!  Cool!" Ranma said as he immersed himself in the show.

Ranko smiled at his enthusiastic approval and put the remote on her shoulder.  'I thought you'd like it,' she thought with satisfaction.  She looked down at her brother and felt quite content with their current positions.  'I could get used to this,' Ranko thought as she reached down and absently ran her fingers through his hair.  She smiled at his appreciative moan and focused on watching the movie with him.

Ranma knew that this was the first time since last Sunday that he had actually felt *good.*  He was enjoying both the movie and the companionship with his sister immensely.  The lazy caress she was giving his head was quite soothing and he found himself fighting off the urge to fall asleep.  Given her tender ministrations, he found that quite a difficult chore.

Suddenly her demeanor changed as she clenched his head with her hand, locks of his hair getting tangled between her fingers as she made a fist.  He could feel her stomach muscles tense and knew that something was wrong.  He hissed in pain as she started tugging hard on his hair.

"OW!" Ranko shouted in a pained voice, her hand releasing his hair and quickly pressing against the small of her back.

Ranma sat up in alarm.  "You okay, sis?" he asked as he looked at her.  She was wincing in pain and had a hard time sitting up.

"My back just went nuts!"  She reached for the remote, which had tumbled into her lap after Ranma had sat up.  Pausing the movie, she turned the lights on and squinted in the sudden glow of the overhead lights.  "It feels like my back muscles are spasming or something!" she hissed, putting her other hand to her back.  "It hurts like a mother!"  Her torso arched oddly as she tried to work the area of muscles that was giving her such pain.  However she wasn't having any luck ridding herself of the tightness or the constant ache.

"I bet!  You probably overdid it when you moved those couches by yourself," he chided softly.  Acting quickly, Ranma grabbed her by her thighs and pulled on her until she dropped from the beanbags, landing on her rump on the carpeted floor.

"Ouch!" Ranko shouted as a sharp ache jabbed at her back courtesy of the rough landing.  "That didn't help any, bro," she growled.

"That part wasn't meant to.  I needed to get you off of those beanbags," he explained as he stepped around her and sat behind her.  "You need some firmer support, otherwise your back muscles will keep cramping."  He spread his legs and pulled her towards him, close enough that their thighs touched.  "Alright, bend forward."

She leaned forward, her long hair cascading down her left shoulder.  "It hurts!" she yelled.  "This isn't helping me any!" Ranko repeated angrily.  She was beginning to wonder if some of her 'former' brother's bullying was starting to manifest when suddenly she felt his fingers worm their way underneath her shirt.  Then wonderful soothing heat was felt as both of her brother's hands rested against the small of her back.

"How about now?" Ranma asked softly as he began kneading the tortured muscles, first with his thumbs, then with the heels of his palms.

"Ooooooh!  Much better!" she sighed.  "Actually, if you just lay your hands right there for a moment and don't move them...  There!  That's perfect!"  Ranko smiled.  "The heat from your hands helps a lot."  He left his hands on that spot for another minute or two until she urged him to resume the rubdown.  "Damn, why did that have to happen?" she groused.  "That hurt like hell!"

"It sure looked that way," Ranma admitted.  "Don't worry, a few more minutes of this should help your back muscles settle down.  Then we can finish the movie."  He slid his hands up further, encountering more knotted muscles along her spinal column.  As he attempted to rub near her shoulder blades, he found that the material from her shirt was restricting his hands.

"Here, let me help," Ranko suggested as she quickly reached down and tugged up at the bottom of her shirt.  A split second later it lay on the floor next to her.  Ranma sat speechless, his hands frozen at her flanks near her shoulder blades, as he was suddenly confronted with her completely bare back.  She growled at his hesitation.  "Come on, Ranma!  Don't stop now!  It was just starting to feel better."

Ranma gulped nervously as his hands resumed their motion.  'She isn't wearing a bra!' he thought urgently.  His heart pounded as his fingers rubbed across her flawless skin, kneading her back muscles slowly and purposefully.  'Geez, I shouldn't be reacting like this,' he chastised himself.  "How does it feel?" he asked, trying to talk with her to avoid thinking about the fact that he was touching her naked back.

"Heavenly," she replied with a sigh.  She stretched her arms out and gripped her legs, then gently pulled herself forward.  "Eeeeeesh," she said with a slow exhale.  "That still hurts a little bit, but not as bad as it did five minutes ago."

Ranma snorted, her comments helping him to distance himself a bit from what he was doing.  "You sure do like to push yourself to the edge, don't you?"

"I didn't think it was that big a deal, bro.  All I did was move a couple of couches and a dinky coffee table."  Ranko 'hmmphed' indignantly.  "I've done worse in the past."

"Yeah, 'just' a couple of couches.  You seem to be forgetting that you've also been recovering from your injuries *and* you've been training Sato nearly all week long.  Since when have you given yourself an entire day to rest?" he challenged.  "You need to take a break, Ranko."

"Yeah, yeah. . .  I get the picture," she relented.  "I'll try to take it easy this weekend, okay?"

"Good," he said with a satisfied smirk.  He intensified his rubdown of her back to the appreciative 'ohs' and 'ahs' of his sister.  "Like I said, with everything that you've been through, I'm not surprised that it happened.  Stress can really mess you up good, you know?"

"Yeah, it can," Ranko said absently, in absolute bliss as her brother massaged away her tense muscles.  But something in the back of her mind was nagging her about what he'd just said and she couldn't quite put her finger on the cause.  'What was it?  I know that there was something-  Oh hell!  How could I have forgotten about *that*?' she asked herself incredulously.  "Ranma!" she nearly shouted, startling her brother such that he yanked his hands off of her back.  She sat up quickly and turned to look over her shoulder.

Ranma looked at her wide-eyed and wondered what he'd done to her.  "Hey, whatever I did, I didn't mean it," he said with a nervous laugh.  "Umm, what did I do?"

Ranko giggled at his expression, causing his nervousness to dissipate.  The shocked look on his face vanished and was replaced by an irritated frown.  "Hey, don't get mad, bro.  You just looked... cute with your eyes all bulged out and your face all red like that."  Her giggling returned with gusto as his face flushed again.

"Sis, you can cut that out now."  He tried to keep the ire in his voice to cover for the fact due to her current position he was catching occasional glimpses of her left breast and its prominent red nipple.  He gulped nervously and focused again on her face.

"Okay, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to startle you, Ranma.  It's just that I remembered something really important and wanted to tell you before it slipped my mind again."  She looked directly at him, her blue eyes staring directly into his.  "I got the lowdown on Kinuko."

"Really?" Ranma asked, an expectant look on his face.

"Yeah, bro."  She smiled broadly at him.  "She's not pregnant.  Never was.  It was definitely a lie that she told you just to get rid of you."

"Are you for real, sis?" he asked with a growing smile.

"Yeah, I'm sure.  Several people told me that she had her period over a week ago.  That kinda cinched things for me.  Her best friend confirmed it, too."  Ranko's smile slipped a little.  "I'm sorry I didn't tell you as soon as I got home, it's just that I was so-"

She broke off as she felt his hands slide across her flanks to meet at her belly.  She was speechless as his hands pulled her towards him.  He hugged himself to her, his face buried in her hair.  "Thank you," he said softly, his breath hot against the back of her neck.  "Oh God, thank you!"  He hugged her closer to him, his hands moving apart to hold her as tightly as he could without hurting her.

Ranko reached her arms up and curled them around the back of his head in an improvised return-embrace.  "You're welcome, Ranma.  I was glad to do it for ya," she said with a smile on her face, trying to choke back her tears.  She was damned happy for him and was delighted to be there to share his joy with him.

"Thank you *so* much, sis," Ranma repeated.  He exhaled loudly in a shuddering breath as the overwhelming rush of *relief* hit him.  He kissed his sister gently on the back of her neck and rubbed his hands against her tenderly.  They held each other in blissful silence for a few moments before Ranko broke the spell by clearing her throat.  "Umm, Ranma," she began, her voice a little deeper than normal.  "Not that I mind this at all, but do you realize that your hands are rubbing my boobs?"

Ranma's hands squeezed ever so gently to verify what she'd just said.  The appreciative moan from Ranko proved it, and with great speed he uncupped his sister's breasts.  'Damn!  Of all the times to do something that ... stupid!' he berated himself, although he could hear her sigh in disappointment as his trembling hands rested loosely against her thighs.  The shock of what he'd done, along with the realization of just how intimate their contact had been, sent his heart into high gear.  His adrenal glands answered the call and very quickly Ranma's whole body was enervated and trembling.  Furthermore, he felt himself stirring down below and was pretty sure she could feel his increasing prominence as well.  "Ranko, I- I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to do that, I swear!  I wouldn't take advantage of you like..." he said in a genuinely mortified voice.  His apology trailed off, however as she tightened her embrace of her brother then turned to look over her shoulder at him.

"Ranma, I know we've discussed this recently, but... right now, *especially now*... "  She broke off, swallowing nervously.  Ranko almost lost her nerve, but somehow found the will to push ahead.  "You could've done that to me *all night long* and I *never* would've complained.  The reason I stopped you was that I wanted to make sure that you knew where your hands were."  She smiled at him.  "You see; I didn't want you to think that I was taking advantage of the situation either."

"I-  I-  ," he began, unable to do more than stammer.  He coughed anxiously and found his voice again.  "I'm glad that you told me that, Ranko.  You can ...  Oh boy!"  Ranma paused again, the situation threatening to overwhelm him.  "You can probably tell how I feel about what I was doing to you."  She nodded silently, indicating that she could feel the pressure against her back.

"You aren't mad at me?" Ranma chanced, looking deep into her eyes.

Ranko met his gaze, then shook her head.  "Not even a little bit, big brother," she replied earnestly.

Ranma flushed nervously and continued.  "But ... but even though we both liked it, we... we can't have sex.  You know that, sis," he reminded her softly.

"I know we can't, Ranma," Ranko agreed, although a part of her wasn't so sure.  "Still, holding me like that felt *really* good.  Not just in a sexy way, I mean."  She laughed nervously, then reached down and took his wrists in her hands.  Pulling on his arms, he provided her little resistance as she placed his hands atop her breasts again.  He gasped as his palms met with her erect nipples then bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from groaning loudly.  His crotch ached for release and it took all of his will to keep himself from succumbing to his primal desires.

Ignoring what she was sensing from him and what her mind was absolutely *screaming* at her to do, she calmed herself and explained to her brother what she meant.  "If you rub them without playing with the nipples it'll keep me from getting excited," Ranko explained as she guided his hands around the whole of her breast, then to her intercostals between and above her breasts and all the way out to her shoulders, then straight down to her ribs and abdomen.  "If you play with my nipples, I'll go off like a roman candle," she confessed with a blush.  "But if you just rub and massage around them, it's actually very soothing."

"So you weren't getting too... umm, you know?" he asked, wondering if she was as overheated as he was.

She got up on her knees and turned around to look at him directly.  "Not really," she lied.  Her sexual coals had been somewhat cool until his palms had started rubbing up and down on her sensitive nubs.  After that, all bets had been off and she'd spent the next five minutes in a confusing but wonderful haze of lust and longing before she'd had the presence of mind to interrupt him.  Given how upset he'd gotten about touching her, she wasn't about to tell him how close she had been to orgasm.  That would have only made him feel guiltier than he already did.  "It just felt really warm and soft," she continued.  "I also felt really safe when I was in your arms."  Ranko had no problems admitting that last part, knowing that it was absolutely true.

He looked down at her full breasts now that they were on display for him.  Their conversation had helped to dampen his lust, so he didn't feel as much of a sexual rush now as he had when he was holding her.  He was grateful for the hormonal respite as he studied her torso in a more analytical way, examining her breasts as they jutted out sharply from her ribcage in a way that completely defied gravity.  He took particular notice of the bruise that still showed on one of them.  The relatively large blemish had gone from being a dark, angry splotch on her proud mammary to a sickly-yellow stain.  "I see that bruise is going away, Ranko," he commented.

She looked down at her chest and squeezed her breasts together gently.  "Yeah, doesn't hurt me a bit to do this now."  Ranko looked up at him with a challenging gleam in her eyes.  "You know, I don't blame you a bit if you wanted to stop massaging me, Ranma.  However, I would *really* like to have you continue giving me a rubdown.  I am still sore, after all."

"I *think* I can handle it now that we've talked about it," he replied, not missing the 'I dare you' smirk on her face.  "I think it's a good enough way to thank you for giving me such great news."  Ranma's smile grew as he reminded himself of the albatross he no longer carried upon his young shoulders.  In a flash the welcome news distanced him from the biological faux pas he'd just committed with his sister.  His spirits rose dramatically as the significance of it all sank in anew.

"You won't get any argument from me, bro," she said as she gave him a hug.  "I was glad I was able to find out the truth for you."  'It makes up for the way I treated you in the past when I withheld the truth from you weeks before,' she thought with a touch of regret.

"I'm a free man now!" Ranma exulted.  "It's one less thing to worry about now.  One BIG thing!"  Without thinking twice about it he whipped off his t-shirt.  She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.  "Don't worry," he assured her.  "I figured that it'd only be fair if I was topless too."

Ranko was suddenly lost to uncontrollable laughter courtesy of her brother's observation, teetering between exhilaration from her mirth and pain due to the way she was bent over as she cackled.  The mood between the two lightened as the sexual steam that had permeated both of them diminished significantly.  He sat back on the beanbag and beckoned her to join him.  She smiled at him, grabbed the remote, and sat beside him.  "Let's get back to the movie.  Whattaya say, Ranma?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," he agreed as his sister cut the lights off and resumed play on the DVD.  Sitting the remote on Ranma's bare stomach, she put an arm behind his back then rested her head against his chest.  She sighed contentedly as he hooked one of his arms around her waist while the other one resumed its gentle caress of every inch of her torso.  'Correction...  *THIS* is something I could get used to,' Ranko thought happily as her brother's soothing touch worked its magic on her sore body.

****
 

Almost three hours and another movie later, Ranma trudged wearily towards his bedroom.  'I'm lucky I got Ranko to her room without waking her,' he thought with a smirk.  'If I'd bumped her against a wall or something while I was carrying her then it only would've gotten her upset.  Since it's just the two of us, I don't need her staying mad at me all weekend,' he thought with a wry grin on his face.

He was rather relieved when the sexual nature of her rubdown had diminished.  Once it became a matter of massaging her torso it no longer resembled a naughty thrill but instead felt a lot more like a chore.  It was a nice chore to be sure, but still a chore.

"Man, I could sure use some sleep," he groaned as he stretched his arms wide, yawning.  He scratched his bare chest, having given Ranko his t-shirt to wear to bed since hers was lost somewhere in the beanbag pile, and opened the door to his room.  Stepping in, he quietly closed the door behind him and took off his pants.  Ranma clambered into his bed and pulled the covers tightly over him.  Getting comfortable, he turned on his side and hugged a pillow close to his body.

"Mmmmmm," he heard the pillow say a minute later as he felt himself begin to drift off to sleep.

His head stirred, but remembering that he was alone in the room, Ranma closed his eyes again and fell to sleep.  He pressed the pillow against his face and smiled as he detected a hint of a sweet fragrance coming from it.  'Hmm, mom musta changed my bed this morning,' he concluded in his sleep-drunk state.  His smile grew as the warmth from his pillow radiated across him in a most pleasing fashion.  As he drifted further away, he could feel a very strong dream taking shape in his mind.

"This is the best way I could find to apologize to you, Ranma," an anonymous female voice said from the distance.

"No!  It's okay," Ranma mumbled aloud as he interacted physically with the dream.  "I already told you it was my fault."

"But I want to, Ranma," the voice persisted.  He didn't get a chance to protest further as ghostly arms wrapped themselves around his waist.  A wonderful feeling like warm silk brushed against him, the tantalizing sensation spreading across his chest, then down to his belly.  He moaned happily as the caress continued down to the juncture of his legs.

"This is my gift to you.  I love you, and I'm sorry for everything I've done.  I want to make things right with you now," the phantom woman's pleaded in a sultry voice.

"I love you too," he mumbled in a slow, slurred voice, pretty sure of whom he was talking to in his dream.  "But we could get into trouble if we have sex, remember?  We've talked about that."

"Yes, I know.  But after thinking about it, I realized that I was wrong.  I am willing to risk this, no matter the cost.  I give myself to you willingly," she replied in a husky whisper.  "Please don't deny me this."  Indeed he did not resist as invisible fingers tugged down on his boxers, freeing him from the last remnants of his clothes.  From his distant perspective, Ranma's mind registered the feeling of the underwear brushing against his feet.  Then he moaned as he felt a hand take hold of him and rub tenderly.

'I love having realistic dreams like this,' he thought in his trancelike state.  With a deep sense of satisfaction he hugged his pillow tighter to his face.  The smell of sweet perfume intensified as his face buried itself deeper in the soft cushion, making the dream seem all the more real.  The extremely soft headrest surrounded his face like a swath of warm silk, making him feel secure and almost blissful in his lethargic state.

The hand that caressed him was now pulling him more intently towards an inevitable conclusion.  When that moment arrived he grunted loudly, his voice thunderous in his ears as all of the built-up tension and anxiety from the past week released in a single moment of pure light.  The event was so intense that it shook him from head to toe.  His body trembled as his heart pounded loudly in his ears.

"Oh man," he mumbled somewhat-coherently into his pillow, the ecstasy of the moment still with him.  He was more awake now and understood that he had been acting out his part of the short but intense dream.  Thus it came as a surprise to him when his pillow moved to lie atop him.  Gently pinioning his arms at his sides, it suddenly gave him the most passionate kiss he had ever experienced in his life.  Not caring that fragments of the dream still apparently held sway over his mind, he returned the kiss with enthusiasm.

The phantom woman moaned into his mouth, and the dance of tongues wound up lasting for a very long while.  "Oooo, niiice.  You're up again already?" she whispered into his ear once their lips had parted.

"I can't help it," Ranma said to the air, still addressing his unknown phantom lover.  "It all feels so great right now and it seems so *real*!"

"It's real, alright," she assured him.  A moment later the weight that pressed down on him lightened, then something else touched his lips.  Ranma was tempted to open his eyes, but feared the dream would evaporate if he did.  Allowing himself a moment of naughty self-indulgence, he closed his lips against the object.  'This is a dream alright.  This tastes just like milk chocolate,' he thought, laughing mentally as his tongue roamed the tasty treat.

"Oh, Ranchan.  That feels so *fucking* good," the phantom voice growled wantonly.  "You have such a *wicked* tongue!"

'Ranchan!!' Ranma thought urgently.  The use of that nickname set off alarms that had his mind ushering consciousness back to him desperately.  His eyes flew open and he saw a very real woman's breast dangling over his head with his mouth firmly latched to it.  Gazing down afforded him a partial view of his torso as well as the silhouette of his exposed crotch.  He could also clearly see the unmistakable outline of a naked girl straddling his legs.  Panic warring mightily with his lust; he forced himself to let go of her erect nipple.

"Ranko?  Dear God, is that you?" Ranma asked in a panicked voice as soon as his mouth was empty.  His eyes searched the girl's face, but couldn't see well enough in the darkness to be sure who it was.

"Eww, Ranko?  I would hope not!" the girl replied.  The voice sounded familiar, but Ranma was still too sleepy to place it.  He saw her head move to look down and blushed as he realized what she was staring at.  "Aww, it's going down!  I was just about to hop on it too, Ranma."

Ranma squinted in the light, trying once more in vain to make out the face of the girl talking to him.  "Who the-?" he began to ask when she suddenly knelt down and kissed him again.  She rained kisses along the center of his torso, starting at his sternum and heading down to his crotch.  Ranma's eyes bulged as he understood *exactly* what was going to happen next.  "Wait!" he shouted as he felt her lips brush against it.

"Aww," the girl pouted again.  She propped herself up, using his belly for support.  Her hand was like fire against his bare and enervated skin and it only served to make him more aroused.  He squinted at the girl's silhouette, having a hard time seeing with the pitiful ambient light coming from his bedroom window.  Despite the poor lighting, however, he could still make out her shape as she sat in profile to him.  Her body outline was absolutely gorgeous and his hormones were trumpeting their joy at the situation.  The primitive part of his mind had reasoned that by all rights he should ignore his concerns and pounce her right then and there since she definitely wasn't Ranko and besides, it *was* his bedroom after all.  But the rest of him thought otherwise and a chill begin to work its way through him once a sickening realization dawned.

"I- is that you, Kinuko?" Ranma chanced asking, his heart already sinking as he anticipated her answer.

"Well, who else would it be, Ranchan?"  She replied tartly, putting her hands to her hips and giving her breasts a haughty jiggle.  "We've been planning this night ever since we found out that your parents were going to be traveling for their anniversary, you know.  I wasn't about to miss an opportunity this good, my sweet Ranchan!  Besides, you and I both know that we've *never* had a bad time together."  She giggled, causing her attributes to bob and sway once again.  "Right, dear?"

Ranma was too stunned to say anything.  How the *hell* had she gotten into the house unnoticed?  How did she get past all the locked doors?  How long had she been hiding in the house?  Had she been there long enough to watch while Ranma gave his sister that rubdown in the attic?  Just how much of that realistic dream was only a dream?  What if Akane found out about all of this?  Panic built in him with each unanswered question.  Desperately he reached over and found the light switch for his bedside lamp.  With a small click the room was suddenly bathed in light.

Squinting, he looked down at himself and his worst fears were confirmed.  He was covered completely with sweat and other fluids, but his clothes were missing.  He was lying down on his back with the sheets bunched up at the foot of his bed.  The lack of coverage allowed his privates to be fully exposed and there was a virtual stranger sitting on his bed ogling him.  Ranma made a move to reach down and cover himself but froze in place as he finally got his first real glimpse of Kinuko's body.

Her long tresses were no more; instead her hair was short and close-cropped against her head.  Also her body was completely unclothed and was on full display for him, but that wasn't the reason for his immobility.  He was stunned by the fact that she was covered head to toe in vibrant body paint.

"You like it, Ranchan?" she asked, her eyes searching his face for approval as she posed for him on the bed.  "The black paint tastes like chocolate, white tastes like cake icing and the orange paint tastes like orange, of course!"  She giggled, the simple movement again making her breasts bounce quite seductively.  "I figured that this would really blow your mind, sweetie.  Am I right?" she asked teasingly as she gave him a sly wink and blew him a kiss.

Ranma couldn't respond.  Try as he might to clamp down on it, her mere presence in the room was bringing back that old fear of his, and it was coming back *strong!*  'This can't be happening!' he thought urgently, although he knew better.  Her body heat alone was a strong enough indicator of just how real the situation was.  'I *just* find out that she's not pregnant and now she's in my bedroom wanting to ... to... get pregnant!'

His slack-jawed reaction confused her greatly.  "What's wrong, Ranchan?" Kinuko asked, tilting her head to the right in puzzlement.  "Didn't I do it correctly?" she asked as she peeked down at her paint-covered body.  She put her hands up to her head and 'tsk'ed in annoyance.  "Stupid me!  I forgot about the most important part!" Kinuko chastised herself.

Bending over the side of the bed, she reached down and grabbed something.  Ranma tried hard not to look at her as she bent over the side of the bed, her legs parting to show him her shaven and painted privates.  Putting the item on her head, Kinuko sat back up on the bed and got on her hands and knees.  "What do you think now, Ranchan?" she asked with a distinctive purr in her voice.

He looked her over once again, both mortified and transfixed by her.  The body paint had been applied to her hair, her breasts, her back, her ass and even her feet.  The lines of orange, white and black that covered her were placed in an unmistakably and frighteningly realistic depiction of an African Tiger.  She wiggled her nose, manipulating six black lines painted on her cheeks that were meant to resemble cat whiskers.  The ears that she placed atop her head added further to the realism of her portrayal of a wildcat.

Ranma's panic quickly reached epidemic levels and he could feel his control fleeing.  "S-  Stay back!" he warned her.  "I'm not sure I can ... contr... control-"

Kinuko's prowling became more sensuous, her hips swaying invitingly with each small movement.  "Ooooo.  No control?  Sounds rrrreally good to me, Rrrrranchannn."  She licked her lips seductively and spread her arms wide to let him have a full view of her swaying, painted breasts.  Arching her back obscenely, she looked right into his eyes.  "Mount me, you big tiger.  Your little pussy's waiting for youuuu," she mewed, her face scant inches from his.  Looking into her eyes, he noticed for the first time that her green irises were shaped like a feline's instead of a human girl's.  At that moment his mind lost complete control and in desperation it retreated to the one thing that would help him cope.

He meowed.

****
 

A bloodcurdling scream snapped Ranko from her slumber.  "What the HELL just happened?" she shouted to no one in particular as she whipped her head about in an attempt to locate the source of the noise.  Jumping out of bed, she shambled towards her bedroom door.  Ranko paused as she heard something puzzling.  'That sounds like a cornered cat growling and hissing!' she thought in a rush, although she couldn't believe it.  'Since when did we have a cat?' she asked herself.  Grumbling and shaking her head, Ranko opened her door and stepped into the hallway.

"Now now.  Nice kitty!  Stay!  Stay!  No no, don't get up!" a desperate female voice commanded in the distance.

'Either Ranma's watching something weird in his room or he's not alone in there,' Ranko concluded, irritated now instead of alarmed.  'He'd better have a good reason for scaring the piss out of me like that,' she grumbled to herself as she headed for his room.

"Yaah!" a terrified female voice shrieked, causing Ranko to start and break into a trot towards the end of the hallway.  When she opened the door to her brother's bedroom, her eyes flew open in shock.

Kinuko Amagi was in her brother's room!  The ditz's body was covered in tiger-stripe body paint, although most of it along her shoulders and breasts looked like it had been smeared.  She currently sat cowering at the foot of Ranma's bed while he perched upon it hissing and growling like an angry cat.  Her brother bent down and sniffed at Kinuko tentatively, his nose wiggling in an exaggeration of a feline's movement.  Not liking what he smelled, he arched his back like a tomcat in full defensive posture and swatted at her angrily, smearing more of her body paint on her back and exposing the pale skin that lay underneath.

Ranko's jaw dropped as she paid closer attention to her brother.  Besides the fact that he was wigging out and acting like a pissed off kitty, he was completely naked.  Her cheeks colored furiously as she saw him in all his glory and she did her best to avert her eyes from his exposed midsection.

Kinuko shrank back a little, her eyes wide with fear.  Ranko groaned as she could just see from her vantage point that the Technicolor ditz was wearing cats-eye contacts.  The amount of work that Kinuko had put into her makeup made Ranko more unsure about what was going on between the two would-be felines.  'Is this some kind of kinky sex play or something?' she asked herself.  An odd curiosity took hold of her, keeping her from interfering with the two and instead riveting her to her spot at the outside of his doorway.  'Why did he even let her into the house in the first place?  I thought he was finished with that bitch!'  Ranko, unable to figure it out, watched on in hopes that she would make sense of it all soon.

"You're taking this too literally, aren't you Ranchan?" Kinuko asked in a trembling voice.  "I mean, I know that you were upset with me because we broke up and all, but that's changed now.  We're together again, right?  So why don't you drop the angry kitty routine for me, kay?  I just want to make love to you is all, sweetie."

Ranma growled at her, his hair seeming to stand on end.  He stared her down from his vantage point on the bed and never answered her.  His menacing glare only added to her trepidation.  "M- Maybe you'd like a little treat, huh kitty?" Kinuko suggested with a weak laugh.  "I should've carried some Meow Mix with me or something."

Ranma hissed at her and jumped down on the floor, crouching low like a cat about to pounce on its prey.  Both Ranko and Kinuko realized at that point that he wasn't playing a game.

'Okay, that's it.  My brother's flipped out!' Ranko concluded.  "What's going on in here?" she finally asked in a low voice, speaking for the first time since she opened his door.

Both heads whipped around in Ranko's direction at the sound of her voice and Kinuko took opportunity of the distraction to leap up and run out of the room.  Ranma, in his Cat-fu state, gave chase to the fleeing tigress by yeowling loudly and running on all fours.

"Get that maniac away from me!" Kinuko shrieked as she ran down the stairs with Ranma hot on her painted tail.

Ranko ran after them as best as she could and once she was downstairs she watched in dismay as Kinuko fumbled with the lock, a look of sheer terror on the poor girl's face.  Ranma prowled on the floor on all fours, stalking his prey cautiously.  Kinuko's lower lip trembled as she fought with the deadbolt, too scared to pay attention to what she was doing.

"Ranma, what the hell are you doing with Kinuko?" Ranko shouted angrily, her hands on her hips.

Ranma paused his stalking of the erstwhile tigress and turned to look at his sister.  His head whipped back around an instant later as Kinuko made a bleat of joy.  The lock had had finally been disengaged and she wasted no time in yanking open the heavy mahogany door and sprinting through it, running for her life.  "Help meeee!" she shrieked as she ran into the distance.  Ranma charged after her at full speed and was about to continue the chase outside when Ranko called to him again.

"Ranma, don't do it!  You don't need to get into trouble again by chasing after her like that!" she shouted.  "Stop it right now, bro!  STOP!"

At her bellowed command his ears perked up.  He stopped in his tracks at the threshold of the door and hissed at the departing form of Kinuko.  Once she was out of sight he turned and leapt at his sister.

"NO!" she shouted, putting an arm up to try to block the unexpected attack.  He tackled her effortlessly, pinning her down by her arms and legs.  Looking into her eyes, he lowered his head slowly to her throat.  'What the hell do I do now?' Ranko asked warily.

Ranma moved his mouth closer to her left cheek, and then after a couple of sniffs he started licking her face playfully.  Despite the craziness of the night, Ranko did the only thing she could.  "Stop, Stop!  That tickles!" she giggled as she patted her brother on the head.

"Meow!" he cried triumphantly, purring loudly as his sister reached up and scratched him behind the ear.  She sat up and looked him over as he perched on the floor next to her, standing on his hands and knees.  Sure that he wasn't going to jump after Kinuko again, she got up and closed the front door to the house and locked it tight.  Flopping down on one of the couches in the den, she put her hand to her head and regarded her brother as he sat there cleaning himself.

"What the hell just happened to you, bro?" she wondered aloud, watching as he lazily walked on all fours on the carpet and leapt up onto the couch.  Ranma curled himself into her lap as best as he could, then laid his head down on her belly.  Dumbfounded, she sat speechless on the couch while her naked brother slept.

****

Author's Notes:

(1/15/03)
 

This is the first part that I had written following "the great pause" in the issuance of Careful Destiny.  I am frankly surprised that people other than myself continue to read this stuff, but I appreciate the following nonetheless.

In any event, this part is four months behind schedule because I took some time to finish off my first story "Urusei Yatsura: The Prince and the Lecher."  After almost eight years I managed to wrap it up and now I can honestly say that I have completed a fanfic.

Having achieved that milestone, I was able return to this story without any other considerations nagging me the way TPATL had the whole time I was working on CD.  New parts should start coming out a bit more quickly, although I won't guarantee a huge increase in speed.  These sections don't always come out of me effortlessly.  Indeed, the majority of part five and all of part six were dragged out of me kicking and screaming.  :p
 

In any event, there are a few things that should be noted:
 

1)  Richard Beaubien (the person who wrote the fanfic that this one is based on) asked me if I would remove his credit from all future versions of Careful Destiny.  Given how different the stories are at this point, I guess I understood why he requested the removal and did as he wished (heh).  For those who had been paying close attention to the title pages and noted his absence, you now know why.

2)  This story surprised some of my pre-readers with the intensity of it when compared to previous parts of the story.  What can I say?  He ain't in Kansas anymore. (so to speak)

3)  Lots of people had wondered about the origin of Ranma and Sato's inquisitor.  The character of Ms. Yoshida is taken from a couple of TV characters as well as two Japanese teachers that I'd had in my life. (The combination of Ms. Fukuyama and Ms. Wyand gave me the basis for the attitude and the appearance of the fictional Ms. Yoshida).

The interrogations of our hero and his friend are intense, as they were meant to be.  While I agree that such serious intensity is not an aspect of the canon Takahashi Ranmaverse, it is typical for where Ranma is now.

Also, everything that happened in this part has a purpose and a function (and I *do* mean everything!).  I'm not one for gratuitous violence or using angst and anger as a plot filler, although it may seem that way now.

(4/26/03)
 

First off I'd like to say thanks to everyone that read this part.  The praise was welcome, especially in light of everything that happened to me just before this story transitioned from beta status to complete.  I appreciate the kind words and the continued support from everyone.

One editorial note:  The last couple of scenes were redone a bit to make the storyline a bit less clunky while trying to maintain the level of humor and oddness that it originally possessed.  Furthermore, an email from one of my readers (the bulk of which will be addressed below) rightly pointed out that the types of communications Ms. Yoshida received regarding her 'choice in the matter' were quite non-Japanese.  Given that sometimes I'm the most ignorant gajin on the block (at least here, anyway), I figured that a rewrite of the final hospital scene was appropriate.  This bit of retooling should be all of the modification that part six will receive.

I hope. . . ^_^;

And now to the correspondence that I've been getting since part six went live.  Boy howdy, did I get some questions about this one!  ^^;  Some of the emails were simply of the "Oh geez, what now?" variety, but there were a few deeper questions that I thought should be addressed so I'm adding them to the revised edition of this story.

From Harold Ancell (always an awesome pre-reader):

Q)  The framing method you used is certainly legit, but it has the effect of our seeing most of the story in the context of or from the viewpoint of an utterly corrupt witch.  This is certainly realistic, and fits into Ranma's new universe, but I have to ask if you are going to satisfy your audience's expectations of the story with this style.

A)  I tell you what...  That framing method was a pain in the ass.  Telling stories from a sequence of flashbacks based on the perspective of the person that witnessed each of the events is far more tedious than I ever expected.  I'm sure I still slipped up in various places by not omitting thoughts and internalized emotional reactions from others during some of the scenes.  I.e.  A scene being told from Sato's perspective where a line like ['I'd really like to slap Yutaka,' Ranma thought as he glared at the bully.] sneaks through the filters.  Nonetheless, the story came together as I intended it so maybe the effort was worth it after all.

Also, Ms. Yoshida was indeed a ruthless and driven woman, as I had intended her to be.  Her corruption was fairly recent, however as she had a stellar record before this case dropped into her lap (a record that was hinted at by Sumie during their face-to-face at the hospital).  I was going for a realistic interrogation scene for both Sato and Ranma and it's possible that I may have pushed Kumiko's aggressive behavior beyond the norm.  Still, it had the intended effect of overwhelming Ranma and making him feel persecuted despite his good intentions.


Also from Harold:

Q)  With the caveat of having only skimmed it, I don't [think] her choice is credible.  The choice she took preserves her job and income.  The choice she spurned is by probable thugs, and she is likely to have "an accident" or be a victim of "random street violence" (maimed, etc., not necessarily fatal), or "to suicide".  It sure doesn't sound like it's healthy to cross these families ... either way she's screwed, but betraying Ranma at least keeps her healthy and whole.

A)  This is a valid point.  As a result I reworked some of the scenes that deal with the conflicting offers she received, and some of the outcomes had been tempered to make things less awful for Ms. Yoshida regarding the decisions she ultimately reached.  The fact that she was only in an advisory position where the police were concerned helps to mitigate some backlash that she would've received because she wasn't able to directly ruin Ranma's life.

One thing that I didn't do was communicate the fact that she didn't prosecute the case on behalf of the school but merely collected information and passed it on to both the school and the local authorities.  When I originally wrote the scenes involving her, it was something that I'd known in the back of my mind but had failed to communicate in the story.

So understanding her function as a school counselor (Level Two) does diminish her impact on Ranma's and Sato's lives somewhat as far as the reader is concerned, but since they're unaware of her relative unimportance it still gives the two boys plenty to worry about as she grills them mercilessly.


Also, some things that other readers had mentioned:

Q)  What the hell happened with Nabiki on Friday?

A)  She snapped, pure and simple.  The hows and whys will be investigated over the next part, but it wasn't just some random act of girl-on-guy hatred.  It was bound to happen to Sato at some point based on the non-stop smothering attention that he was giving to her.  It just so happened to be that he caught the brunt of her ire in front of the entire student body.


Q)  Why did Ami betray her best friend so easily when she talked to Ranko?

A)  Well, Ami had thought several times in the past how absolutely disgusted she was with the false-pregnancy breakups that her friend employed to get rid of clingy former-boyfriends.  So when Ami heard that Ranma had been agonizing over the whole thing, she did the right thing and ended his suffering.  She even said as such to Ranko.

Ami is one of those girls that can feel compassion for all people.  She felt sympathy for Ranma's plight and she likewise constantly feels sympathy (and something else) for Kinuko because of the girl's fragile ego.  Ami's intent in staying around Kinuko is that she wants to see her friend be happy and successful.  Sometimes that desire leads her to do some pretty harebrained things (like helping to paint Kinuko's body).

But even though she is the only 'loyal' friend that Kinuko has, Ami does have a mind of her own and she seldom hesitates to act when she sees someone suffering.


Q)  Where was Akane in this part?

A)  She was definitely there, but since the story was being told from Ranma's and Sato's points of view, her involvement in the recounting was almost nil.  Both of them made the choice to exclude or at least minimize the impact of their acts (as they saw it) on the people that they cared about.  Shades of chivalry still exist as far as I'm concerned.  ^_^


Q)  Is Kinuko on drugs or something?  That's girl's crazy!

A)  She's currently on a very heavy dose of estrogen (and no pills are involved, either).  Something I've noticed in this age of the 'liberated' woman is that a female's sex drive dwarfs a man's, regardless of age.  Women can exhibit an extreme level of candor about their sexuality, and my ex-girlfriends were definitely not an exception to this rule.  This being the case, Kinuko is meant to be a reflection of the enlightened and increasingly expressive generation of sexually aware females (girls that are anywhere from fifteen to twenty five at the time of this writing).  I should note that the fact that Kinuko's not always there in the brains department is just something that defines this particular character and is not meant to be a slight against young women in general.  ^_^;;

When you consider that Kinuko's got a great body (and she knows it), a constantly horny attitude and a throng of guys willing to explore her every nook and cranny... Well, it's just hard for her to not be how she is.  Then you take all of that and toss in the one guy on campus that no longer wants anything to do with her and you have an instant obsession.  Nothing's quite as scary (or crazy) as Kinuko when she's either on a mission or spurned.


Q)  Why didn't Roarke intervene and stop things from happening on Thursday night?

A)  Good question!  As we heard (but Ranma didn't) in a previous part, Roarke is no longer doing anything with Ranma's life short of taking care of wish number two whenever that one is invoked.  This being the case, Ranma is now fully (and solely) responsible for his actions in this life.  The intervention that Barlow was allowed to attempt in part four was in essence a warning to Roarke from the higher-ups that he was overstepping his bounds regarding his involvement in Ranma's life.

So with the power players thus restricted, there are no more easy fixes for our erstwhile hero.


And one last item from Harold that I couldn't resist putting in:

-  I nominate Ms. Yoshida for membership in the "Axis of Weasels"...

"SO MOTE IT BE!"  ^_^


Acknowledgments:
 

Bert Van Vliet.  You're the one who gave me the writing bug <bzzzzz...  *smack*>.  Prior to picking up my first BubbleGum Zone printout, I was clueless as to the ways of writing fanfic.  You're a good friend, and I thank you for the support.  Hail SkyKnight!  ^_^
 

Sean Hayden, AKA Maxwell_E.  My best friend and a good fanfic writer in his own right; he and I have collaborated on a couple of items, and will probably resume one (or both) of those projects in the near future.  The one project I'm really interested in continuing is "Die Hard 2031" which is a BGC, Die Hard crossover (and a damned good one if I do say so myself).
 

John, Julie and Rebecca for helping me to fully understand the meanings of betrayal, human weakness and the art of manipulation (respectively).  As more parts of this story are released, their influence will continue to be seen.
 

Katie for showing me that there are people out there that don't always judge someone strictly on the basis of his appearance.  Thanks for returning balance to my life and restoring confidence in myself and in my ability to please a woman both mentally as well as physically and emotionally.  I'd almost forgotten what being in a relationship was like until you came along, and I'll always cherish you and the months we spent together.
 

Thank You <yes you, the one staring at the monitor> for tolerating my delays with this part.  Real life has a way of screwing up the best intentions of mice, men, and me.

-and check for the latest versions of this and other stories I've done at:
http://www.nabiki.com/sstalker/rancar.htm  ^_^

Also check out "Tendo Nabiki Enterprises, Incorporated" at their website.

http://www.nabiki.com