Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. Ah! My Goddess! Belongs to Kosuke
Fujishima. I'm just playing with them for the time being.

This story takes place during the Mushroom of Aging arc in the Ranma
manga, and during the Trials of Morisato arc in the A!MS! manga.
Although I have given enough information in the story, I think, that
knowing these stories isn't necessary, you may want to read them anyway
simply to have a somewhat better idea of what is going on.

Now, on to the fic:

Young at Heart
By Thermopyle
http://thermopyle.anifics.com/

#####

"I... I'm sorry... Those were the last ones," Akane said, her soot-
stained face downcast.

Ranma looked at his now-older fiancee in horror, in shock at the idea of
being stuck as a five year-old. He'd have to go back eleven years of
school, his father would probably take him on a training trip again,
since he was nowhere near old enough for any of his fiancees now... His
thoughts were interrupted when Akane spoke again.

"Please, try to be brave, and start your lives over again," she said,
looking at him and Ryouga.

Be brave? Start over? He studied Akane's face, and all he saw was
pity. There was no real sadness, no despair. Just pity.

She'd just lost her fiancé to youth, and she wasn't even upset about it.


Ranma sat next to Ryouga, both staring forward silently. Ryouga, too,
seemed lost in his gloom. No doubt he was capable of pulling off a Shi
Shi Hokodan of epic proportions right now. Soun was playing the fool,
trying to cheer them up with his idiotic behavior towards the children
they didn't want to be, but neither of them paid him any attention.

When dinnertime came around, he ate quietly, not speaking at all. His
chopsticks moved at a slow, sedate pace. He wasn't hungry, but knew he
needed to eat. A growing boy needs his food.

Later, in the room he was sharing with Ryouga and his father, he had his
eyes closed as he stretched out on his futon, listening. He inhaled and
exhaled slowly, evenly, timing himself deliberately to conceal his alert
state. He continued this for a half hour after the three of them went
to bed, waiting until his roommates' breathing changed, for when they
were asleep.

Finally content that neither was aware, he sat up, careful not to make
any noise, and moved out from under his covers. He slipped into the
Umisenken for the extra security, then went about the room collecting
his things. He grabbed it all, even his normal clothes, which were
currently much too big for him. Putting on the old coveralls he'd
borrowed from Akane earlier, he watched the other two with suspicion,
hoping that fastening the buckles wouldn't wake them.

Seeing no response, he picked up his bag and slipped out the window.


He walked slowly down the street, unsure of his destination but knowing
he couldn't go back. Ranma wasn't going to stay at the Tendous', not as
he was, and even if he did find the Mushroom Forest he wasn't sure if he
would return. Akane obviously didn't want him, and he certainly wasn't
interested in any of the other girls. Whether or not he returned to his
original age he would most likely have to find a new place to live. His
options would be more limited if he stayed this young, though, so he
really wanted to find those mushrooms.

Not having any idea where Ryouga had found the damn things made it
difficult.

His back and legs were already beginning to feel the strain from walking
and he'd only gone across Tokyo. Normally this would have taken only a
couple of hours at the speeds he was used to traveling, but his smaller
size and the pack he carried made that impossible. Before leaving the
Tendous he had snuck into Akane's room and stolen some of her weights,
using the little bit of Mousse's Hidden Weapons technique he knew to
stuff them into his already-full bag. They'd increased its weight
substantially, to a level he could barely support without staggering
about. Ranma figured that if he couldn't find the mushrooms then at
least he would have a head start on training this younger body to be
stronger than his original was. Who knows, maybe one day he'd run into
Ryouga again and this time he'd be both stronger and faster than the
lost-boy, which would infuriate him to no end.

So he trudged down the street, the mid-morning sun making him
uncomfortably warm, and tried to figure out where to go. Should he
explore the area right outside Tokyo, in hopes that the forest was
nearby? The higher population of the city made it seem unlikely that
something so relatively unknown would be located very close, but there
was always that chance.

Trying to decide where to go, he continued on his way, breaths coming
deep and easy as he pushed himself determinately against both the mass
at his back and the sense of inertia that insisted he remain in the
district that had been his home over most of the past year.


Ranma stopped in surprise, staring down at the girl who was collapsed on
the sidewalk in front of him. She had dark, very tanned looking skin,
and her hair was completely white. The odd markings on face gave her a
rather appealing, exotic look that was quite cute at her current age,
which was a couple years older than his own, and would no doubt later be
part of a rather stunning image when she was grown up. If she was older
he would have figured her for a fiancee, she looked like that type.

Bending over and ignoring the ache in his legs, he shook her shoulder
gently. "Hey, you okay?"

She stirred slightly, rubbing her head and limbs along the ground and
getting dirt in her previously pristine hair. "Sake," she whispered,
her eyes cracking open and gazing up at him pleadingly. "I need
sake..."

"Um, aren't ya a little young for that?" he asked nervously, not
entirely comfortable with the way she was looking at him.

"No," she insisted. "I need sake!" her voice rose slightly at this as
she tried to sit up, reaching out to grab his shirt. She gasped,
falling back and clutching her arms to her chest before she could do so,
and began shaking, little pain-wracked sobs consuming her body, her
breath coming in short, quick inhalations, as though she were running in
a race and at the end of her endurance.

Ranma chewed on his lip momentarily in indecision, then nodded.
"Right."

He slipped the pack off his shoulders, grunting at the weight as it fell
towards the ground with his short and weaker-than-expected arms being
yanked painfully as he kept the descent slow enough to not break the
contents. Ignoring the slightly numb feeling in his shoulders and
elbows from the strain he had just put on them, he quickly turned around
and ripped the top of the bag open, digging through its contents as he
searched for the sake. He had stolen some from his father before
leaving, since he couldn't find any extra money but his own and figured
that if necessary he could trade the sake for food somewhere. This girl
seemed to need it more, though.

Finding one of the bottles, he yanked it out and unscrewed the top, then
squatted down next to the girl and offered it to her awkwardly. "Here,"
he said.

She reached out desperately with a shaking arm, grabbing at the bottle.
The sake splashed around, soaking her top as she drew it back to her
mouth to suck greedily at the contents. At first she barely managed a
few tentative swallows, then she seemed to grow more steady, her shaking
coming to a halt. She sat up, still holding the sake, and soon she was
guzzling it down, upending the bottle in an attempt to drink the sake as
quickly as possible.

Ranma stared in disbelief when the bottle was emptied and the girl
continued to hold it upright above her, her tongue extended slightly and
mouth open, begging for a few more drops. Eventually she gave up and
dropped the bottle to the side, making a slight clinking noise as it hit
the sidewalk. She sagged forward, sitting up still but leaning on her
hands. Her breathing began to slow, and he stared curiously at her, now
unable to see her face, which her hair had fallen in front of.

"Um... are ya okay?"

She twitched, as if suddenly remembering he was there, then gave out one
last, relieved breath and sat back up, using her hands to brush her hair
back. She smiled at him, her face a bit red and her eyes slightly
unfocused. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm just fine," she slurred, then hiccoughed
slightly.

"Right," he said doubtfully, not liking the slightly vacant expression
on her face but deciding to trust her word. "Well, I'll be goin' now."

He stood back up from where he had been sitting and watching her
earlier, then started to tie the top of the bag closed again, keeping a
careful eye on the girl.

She looked at him for a minute, then tried to stand up. She wasn't
successful and fell back down, almost hitting her face on the concrete
before he caught her.

"What the hell are you doin'?" he demanded, trying to get a grip around
her waist and shoulders since she was no longer even attempting to stand
on her own. His hand kept getting tangled in her hair, which was strewn
about her shoulders, and she grimaced slightly in pain as he
accidentally tugged on it.

"I. . . need to go home," she managed to get out.

He sighed, having managed to support her fairly steadily. He wasn't at
all comfortable with the way he was holding her, standing with her body
leaning against his, one of his shoulders up against hers and his arm
stretched across her back and curled around under her arm pit, but she
didn't seem to be objecting or trying to hit him, so it would do for
now. Her head resting limply on her shoulder and her hair being right
in his face was really distracting, though. "Okay, where do ya live?"

Receiving no response, her shook her lightly. "Hey!"

She started snoring lightly, and he swore. What was he supposed to do
now?

Looking around for some way to deal with the situation, he noticed that
he was right next to a pretty large park, with lots of trees and a small
lake. There were benches scattered about, mostly along the path that
went winding around the edge of the water.

It would do.

He set her down gently on the sidewalk, careful not to hit her head on
the concrete, then finished closing his pack. He slipped it over his
shoulders, wincing slightly at the weight and knowing it was about to
get worse. He stepped back over to the girl then squatted down next to
her and snaked one arm under her shoulders, grabbing the far side of her
body and pulling it towards him. His other arm went below her knees and
he pinned them close together, making them easier to deal with. Then he
took a deep breath and stood up.

A minute later he was still standing there, looking with great annoyance
at the distance between him and the park. His legs were shaking
slightly, his lower back was demanding to be put out of its misery, and
the girl was starting to squirm slightly in her sleep, making it more
difficult to hold on to her.

Gathering his resolve, he started taking one painful, strenuous step at
a time towards the park, looking for a good place to wait.


Urd woke slowly, and stretched lazily even as her senses started to kick
in. The first thing she felt was that oddly full-body taste of
deliciousness that sometimes followed a great nap. The second thing she
noticed was that her chest was slightly chilled, making her shiver
slightly despite the warmth of the sun shining down upon her. The third
was that she smelled like sake, good sake, in fact. A pleasant smell,
but one she didn't really like to have clinging to herself.

Reasonably awake now, she sat up and looked herself over. Her jacket
was damp, obviously the source of the smell, and was why her
depressingly undeveloped nipples were cold. She frowned in annoyance,
realizing that she couldn't simply use her powers to dry herself, and
tugged it off, happy that she'd worn a regular shirt underneath it, the
lighter material of which would dry faster. At least the jacket had
absorbed most of the moisture, if her shirt had gotten completely soaked
it would have turned transparent and she certainly wouldn't have liked
that. Even Skuld's chest was bigger than hers right now, which was not
something she was in a good mood about.

After tying the jacket around her waist she used her hands to brush her
hair back, grimacing at the tangles and snarls she encountered in doing
so. Sleeping on the ground certainly wasn't good beauty treatment.
What was she doing lying on the grass, anyway?

Where was she?

Glancing about she saw that she was in a small grove surrounded mostly
by trees, and that there was a lake not far from her. There weren't any
people about, but there was a massive pack, the type used for camping,
near the edge of the lake. She was pretty sure it was what that boy had
been carrying around, but wasn't he a bit small for something that
heavy-looking?

Shrugging it off, she managed to get to her feet, happy that her balance
was just a touch off and that she still had a slight buzz. She wasn't
affected by booze nearly as much as most people since it was her
secondary power source, so the fact that she felt anything at all meant
there was quite a bit of alcohol in her system and getting a recharge of
it wouldn't be necessary for a few more hours. Which was definitely a
good thing, since if that boy hadn't come along when he had and given
her some sake there was no telling what would have happened. She'd been
about to go into convulsions from the effort of not regressing, putting
everything she had into it since she didn't have any way of telling just
how far back she would age. She might have turned into a little baby
with no way to return to the temple, and with Belldandy and Skuld both
at the bare minimum of power levels as well they would have been unable
to locate her with magic.

Walking over to the camping bag she wondered where the boy had gone.
Surely he wouldn't have just left his stuff here? The top was open, so
she looked inside. There was a number of Chinese outfits, a few bottles
of very nice sake, two scrolls, and some pictures. There was also a
sleeping bag tied to the outside, a rather typical arrangement. She
took the pictures out and looked at them. All of them featured either a
pigtailed boy around sixteen years old or a girl with the same hairstyle
and similar facial features. There were also others in the pictures,
the most common being a pretty girl with short black hair who seemed to
wear lots of frumpy looking dresses.

Urd frowned at the pictures, then looked back in the bag at the Chinese
clothes contained within, puzzled. She put the pictures down on the
ground then took a set of pants out of the pack, just to make sure she
wasn't imagining things. When she unfolded them she saw that she had
been right, that the clothes were for somebody older, presumably the two
people wearing them in the pictures, and that they were far too big for
the boy whose pack this was to be wearing. So why did he have them?

"You aren't a thief, are ya?" said a voice from directly behind her,
causing Urd to jump slightly and twirl about, the pants in her grasp
swinging in a wide arc as she did so. They would have hit the boy
behind her if he hadn't leaned backwards just enough for them to miss by
a few short inches. He glared at her, visibly annoyed, then looked over
to his pack.

"Um, no... I was just wondering where you were," she said, embarrassed
both at being surprised and at being caught. She held the pants out to
him, looking him over for the first time. Her eyes widened slightly at
the somewhat girlish clothes he wore, not girlish as in something she
would wear, certainly not, but girlish as in fairly gender-neutral with
color-coding normally reserved for the less fashion conscious of
females. He was wearing, of all things, a set of yellow overalls and a
pink shirt. They looked really hideous.

The weights he held in each hand, somewhere around fifty pounds each,
completed the rather odd appearance he presented.

Glancing down at the pants she held extended, which were of a rather
nice quality silk in a stylish Chinese design, she asked, doubtfully,
"Are these yours?"

The boy looked down to his hands, which were full, then stepped over to
his pack and placed the weights inside somehow, even though there
shouldn't have been room for them. Then he turned back to her and took
the pants, folding them up and putting them away as well. "Yeah,
they're mine," he said, looking through the bag and visibly tallying the
contents, which annoyed her to no end.

"They look a bit big," she said abruptly, deliberately matching his
rudeness. She was grateful for his help, but he was certainly being a
jerk about it! To her surprised he paused at that, his shoulders
dropping slightly.

"You're right. They are a bit big," he replied quietly.

Confused now, she watched as he silently tied the top of the bag down.
Sure, the clothes were the wrong size for him, but what was upsetting
about that? What an odd kid.

The pack ready, he turned towards her again, his face neutral. "You
okay now?" he asked.

She stared at him for a moment before replying, "Yeah, thanks."

He nodded, then picked up his bag, which even with the fifty-pound
weights seemed to give him more trouble than it should have, from the
easy way he had been handling them earlier. "Goodbye," he said, and
walked away, taking the path that led around the lake.

Urd stood there for a few minutes, trying to figure out what had just
happened, then decided she could puzzle it out later and left the park,
heading home.


Checking the sun's position as he walked, Ranma guessed it was a little
after one in the afternoon. That girl had only been asleep for two or
three hours, somewhat surprising after the amount of sake she had drank.
He scowled, looking down at the clothes he wore and remembering the way
she had done the same. Akane had really bad taste when she was younger.
Thinking of the pity and lack of anything else on her face the day
before, he amended that thought; she still had bad taste.

He'd spent the time waiting in practice. His backpack was too heavy to
do kata in, it weighed probably three hundred pounds, and he didn't have
anything else he could wear for a full-body workout. That had left
holding a couple of weights for upper-body and arm strengthening as his
only real option. They also put strain on his abdomen and back muscles,
depending on the position he was in, as he used them to keep himself
balanced. Sure, he could have just done without, but he was trying to
train himself to be stronger and normal kata didn't help for that at his
level. His body weight was just too low to take any real effort and
only after hours of practice would his endurance start to flag, which
meant the return on his labor would be really miniscule without some
added difficulty. Even with the weights he had barely gotten a decent
workout, which was why he hadn't been noticeably short of breath when
the girl had woken up.

Still, there had been something odd about her, and not just her looks,
either, but also a weird aura that he couldn't identify. It wasn't
anything dangerous but it was strange nonetheless. The closest thing
he'd experienced to it was Ashura's aura, but the girl hadn't had four
arms or three heads so it seemed unlikely that they were related in some
way. The feel of her presence had still felt similar, however.

One thing he was sure of was that she got some kind of power from sake.
When he'd first found her, the strange feeling of power she exuded had
been extremely weak and he'd barely noticed it. As she drank it had
grown stronger, much more so, and by the time the bottle was empty he
wouldn't have been surprised if a normal, unskilled person would have
been able to sense that there was something weird about her. But why
would sake cause such a difference?

Something else that seemed odd was that she wasn't at school, and she
should have been. So far he'd been lucky to not be seen by any cops or
truancy officers, and if he was spotted he could just use the Umisenken
to slip away, but the girl wouldn't have any such ability. Why was she
out in the middle of the day, lying on the sidewalk and begging for
sake? She seemed to young to be an alcoholic, and even if she was her
reaction to it had been too quick for her to have been in some kind of
weird withdrawal.

Another thing that bothered him was that although she hadn't hesitated
to start looking through his stuff, quite without permission, she hadn't
intended to steal any of it. She was just curious. The way she had
acted when he pretended to think she was a thief made that pretty clear,
although while he had been watching her root through his bad he had
noticed that she lingered a bit long on the sake contained within. Now
that he was away from her he regretted doing it somewhat since he
wouldn't have minded the company, but he was also glad that she wasn't
around to keep asking him questions, too. Some of them could have
gotten a bit awkward, especially if she'd noticed the 'remarkable'
resemblance between him and the boy in the photographs. It would be one
thing if they looked similar, but it was quite clear that he was a
younger version, not just a sibling, which would have definitely caught
her interest.

Curious, an odd aura, a strange reaction to sake. . . definitely a weird
girl. The fact that she wasn't immediately violent made her even more
abnormal. No doubt about it, though, if she was older she would have
been a fiancee.

Noticing that his thoughts had gone astray, he dismissed her from his
mind for the time being.

What was he going to do? He still hadn't decided where to go. Did he
really want to find those aging mushrooms? Being as young as he would
did limit his options somewhat as far as where he could live, since
while a sixteen year-old could find work without too much difficulty, a
five year-old certainly didn't have the same ability. He no longer had
a real identity, 'Ranma Saotome' was sixteen years old and there was no
way that he could pass himself off as such. So there were some very
large problems with his current situation.

Turning back to his real age did have its own issues, however, mainly
the extra fiancees. Ukyou had hunted him for ten years and wouldn't
give up unless marriage seemed completely impossible. His sudden onset
of youth was one of the very few ways he could get out of that
engagement. The same was true for Shampoo, who had managed to track him
across China and into Japan with very little difficulty and if she had
even the slightest clue that he had returned to being her age she
wouldn't hesitate to do it down again.

He certainly wasn't going to marry Akane, either. Her feelings on the
matter were quite clear. Pity wasn't what you felt when you found out
you wouldn't be able to spend the rest of your life with someone you
love, and he certainly wasn't going to force himself on her if the only
reason she was going along with the engagement was out of honor. It
certainly didn't upset him that Ryouga was too young to carry out his
own courtship, however. If it had just been him who was trapped as a
child he would have made sure to reveal the pervert's curse before
leaving, bushido or no.

Ryouga, if he were smart, would realize that the chances of keeping his
curse from being revealed were substantially lower now that he would no
longer have somebody to help him keep it hidden. Being in as young a
body as he currently was, having Akane find out about her precious 'P-
chan' might very well be a fatal experience for the lost boy. Hopefully
the idiot would realize this and split while he still had the chance.
They might have been rivals but he still didn't want Ryouga to get
killed for his foolishness.

Fortunately he wasn't really pressed for time. The money he had would
last a few days before he would no longer be able to buy himself food
and water, plus he still had a couple of bottles of sake to sell after
that if he needed to. None of his fiancees were likely to hunt him down
so quickly, if they bothered to at all. They didn't have any pictures
of him at his current age, which would certainly make things more
difficult for them. The idea of them trying to put a picture of his
older self on a milk carton was amusing, however. He wouldn't put it
past his father to try something so stupid.

Feeling his legs begin to ache again, the short time he'd been walking
with the pack on his shoulders beginning to take it's toll again, he
decided that this park was quite the nice camping ground, assuming no
police managed to run into him. He wasn't far from stores, he'd noticed
one right outside where he had entered, and there was plenty of room for
him to practice as much as he wanted. He'd stay here a couple of days
while he tried to figure out what to do.

Now, to find a good, fairly secluded spot to set up at...


Urd stepped through the front entrance of the temple and frowned at the
argument she heard coming from the living room. They still hadn't
figured out what was wrong with the artificial moon rock? What was
taking so long?

"I've triple-checked and I'm sure the composition is right," said
Keiichi as Urd moved to watch their discussion.

"Why don't you just make two more of them?" asked Skuld, who, she noted
with no small amount of annoyance, was still bigger than her. At least
she was flat for her age, even if she was still bigger than Urd
currently was. That was a small victory, at any rate.

She noticed Belldandy was standing on the table the other two were
sitting at, quietly watching them talk. Apparently she was content to
let them figure out how to solve this situation.

"Well," said Keiichi, "I don't know if we should use these anymore. If
they aren't working right they could have some kind of side-effects."

"Side-effects?" yelled Skuld, standing up and leaning on the table to
get right in Keiichi's face. "What have you done to me?!?"

Keiichi pulled back and noticed Urd standing in the doorway. "Oh, hi,"
he said, turning towards her in an obvious attempt to derail Skuld's
wrath. "Sorry, but we still haven't figured out what the problem is."

She rolled her eyes slightly then glanced at her youngest sister.
"Yeah, so I gathered." She smirked when she saw Skuld blush in
embarrassment, then left to go wash off and change her clothes.

Looking through the outfits she had in her room, she wondered where
Belldandy had gotten clothes small enough to fit her without raiding
Skuld's closet. Not that she would have worn Skuld's clothes, the
tasteless things. They clearly weren't designed to emphasize the beauty
of a body such as hers, even pre-adolescent as she currently was.

Grabbing a pair of white shorts, stockings, and a shirt of the same
color, she walked to the furo to take her bath.

After spending an indecently long time soaking in the hot water, she
slipped the clean clothes on and left the furo, glancing at the clock in
the hallway when she did so. It was two in the afternoon and the
alcohol was still in her system. The effects had faded somewhat but
they were still mostly present, which meant that she still had a pretty
good amount of time left before she'd have to guzzle down another
bottle. Unfortunately the stuff she had on hand wasn't quite as good as
what that boy had given her earlier, which was somewhat annoying. That
had been good sake, if she'd been in less of a hurry she would have
stretched it out a bit longer instead of chugging it all down right
away.

Casting the thought aside, she wandered back over to the living room to
see if they'd discovered what the problem was yet. She quickly found
out otherwise. Hearing Keiichi and Skuld yelling at each other except
when Belldandy managed to calm the two down briefly just didn't seem as
funny as it usually did. There was just something disconcerting about
seeing your little sister suddenly turn a substantial amount bigger than
you were. She'd been looking down on the brat for years, having the
opposite happen didn't seem right at all. The situation just felt
horribly wrong.

Deciding to go find herself some better sake, she put on a pair of white
shoes and again left the temple. She had seen a few places to get
liquor at while walking around earlier so it shouldn't be too hard to
manage in the couple of hours she had left.


Ranma looked at his surroundings with complete satisfaction. It was
perfect. A circular group of trees set a small distance from the lake,
with enough cover between the leaves and bushes to keep the small grove
in the center from being easily noticed. It was probably used for
lovers' trysts; the grass was mowed just like the rest of the park so
somebody had to know about the place yet still allow it to remain closed
in. Regardless, it was perfect for his purposes. Secluded and blocked
off enough from view that nobody would bother him, while still being
large enough to practice in without having to limit his movements.

Slipping the pack off his shoulders and wincing again at the strain, he
set it down in the middle of the grove. Then he opened up and dug
through the bag, looking for the small amount of money he'd hidden in it
earlier. Once he found the money he tied the bag closed again and
lugged the heavy thing over to the edge of the bushes, shoving it under
one of the larger ones and using the hidden weapons technique to make it
undetectable. He definitely didn't want to have his things stolen, then
he'd really be in trouble.

He stuffed the money into one of his pockets, shuddering in horror as he
was once again forced to see what he was wearing. Too bad he didn't
have enough cash to buy some new clothes, anything would be better than
this. Well, almost anything. Being stuck having to wear 'Hello Kitty'
stuff would have been pure hell, and not just because of the neko-ken,
either.

Trying to ignore his appearance for the moment and instead concentrating
on the void in his stomach, he headed for the nearest park exit. He'd
seen a grocery store over in that direction earlier, and he really
needed something to eat. Sure, he'd had dinner last night, but since
then he'd been walking constantly and he'd missed both breakfast and
lunch so far today. Another skipped meal would probably be the death of
him.

Leaving the park, he turned up the street and walked to the store.
After arriving he discovered a rather embarrassing problem; being alone
in a grocery store at his age and pushing around a cart about the same
size as he was attracted attention. It wasn't too bad, but having old
women come up to him and talk about what a darling boy he was to fetch
groceries for his parents, or even worse ask where his parents were, got
annoying real fast. Thankfully he didn't have much to pick up since he
was limited both in how much he could spend and in what kind of food he
could buy. While it would probably be okay to hide out in the park for
a few days, trying to use a cooking fire in the meantime would really be
pushing things and was a sure way to gain unwanted interest.

He ended up picking up a few different kinds of fruit, stuff he judged
to be as filling as possible for the lowest cost. He needed water as
well, but wasn't sure what kind to get and ended up grabbing a few
bottles of some stuff that came from some springs on Mount Fuji, since
it would probably be pretty good. He remembered that the water there
was pretty cold when he visited, anyway, if not what it tasted like.

Calculating how much it would cost for what he had in his basket, Ranma
decided it was time to leave and began to move back towards the front of
the store so he could pay. As he did so, he started hearing upraised
voices arguing loudly. He frowned when he got close enough to see what
the problem was. It was that girl again.


Urd wandered about the liquor section trying to decide what to get.
She'd been in too much of a hurry earlier to notice what kind of sake
that boy had, which was a shame since it tasted so good. She'd never
had to go get her own sake before, all she'd needed to do was tell
Keiichi to go pick some up or grab what she wanted when there was a
party with his Motor Club friends. Because of that she wasn't really
sure what was good and what wasn't; she'd never paid enough attention
before to figure out what the difference was besides taste.

She ended up taking two bottles of a kind of sake she remembered as
being good from one of the parties. She would have gotten more but that
was all she could easily carry. It'd be enough to last her for the rest
of the day, however, so she could always come back tomorrow or drink the
stuff that was already at the temple, even if it didn't taste as good.
Maybe before that was necessary Keiichi or Skuld would have figured out
what was wrong with the moon rock. She doubted it, though.

With a bottle under each arm she headed towards the exit. For some
reason as she did so a few people gave her funny looks, but she put it
down as them just not having seen her before since she couldn't think of
any other cause for it. When she neared the door she noticed that there
were several people in lines for some reason but shrugged it off and
just passed on by. She glanced backwards just before walking out,
wondering what the whole line business was, and then ran right into
somebody.

Completely surprised, she was knocked back and fell down, one of the
bottles slipping out of her grip in the process. It hit the ground
right when she did and shattered, splashing sake all over her nice,
clean white clothes. Urd just sat there for a minute in a puddle of
sake, staring down at herself in disbelief and growing anger. Twice in
one day?

"Hey, kid, are you okay?"

Urd looked up to see who had spoken, and saw a slightly fat middle-aged
man standing in front of her. Slapping away his outstretched hand, she
jumped to her feet and snapped, "No, I'm not 'Okay!' I'm soaked in
sake, old man!" Adjusting her grip on the remaining bottle, she turned
around and stomped back towards the liquor section, her white shoes
making little splashes as they impacted with the floor. "Now I've got
to go get another bottle, too!"

"Wait."

She spun back around to face the man again, startled at the harshness in
his voice now. "What?"

"Who sold you sake?" he asked, his voice and eyes hard now.

Um, sold? Glancing nervously towards the lines of people that were all
looking at her now, who she now identified as customers waiting to pay
for their groceries, she remembered that odd mortal tradition. She
wasn't sure what happened when you tried to leave with stuff without
giving them money in return, but she doubted it was good.

She noticed for the first time that there were a number of people
wearing the same outfit, most of them standing behind counters. She
guessed that they worked here. She also saw that the guy she'd run
into, who was currently glaring at her, also had the same clothes on.

She smiled at the man brightly, exuding every bit of cuteness her
current body possessed. "That guy sold it to me," she said, pointing to
a random worker.

As the man turned, the employee already protesting his innocence, she
took off as fast as she could towards the nearby door, an arm
outstretched to shove it open as quickly as possible.

The door failed to open, and she again found herself falling on her rear
after the impact. She also dropped the second bottle of sake, which
broke when it hit the floor and left her lying on her back in a pool of
the stuff.

The door, sensitive to pressure upon the mat placed in front of it,
whisked to the side to make exiting conveniently easy.

Hearing footsteps and then feeling something splash against her hair,
she tilted her head back and looked up to see the man glaring down at
her.

"Oops?"


Ranma watched with growing interest as the girl confronted the store
manager, noting the expression of confusion on her face when the man
asked who sold her the sake she had dropped. She obviously didn't have
a clue what he was talking about, and he recognized the 'I'm so sneaky'
look that came over her face when she turned to point to one of the
employees; he'd seen it enough from his old man, after all.

He scowled when she ran into the door and managed to get herself caught,
then looked around to see everybody else's reaction. Nobody seemed
pleased to see the would-be thief, and some of the old women who had
been bothering him earlier were making disapproving noises and muttering
about kids these days and what a horrible place the world was becoming.

He had no doubt that the girl, whose weird aura was substantially
reduced even from what it had been two hours before, would have a lot of
trouble getting somebody to let her guzzle down another bottle of sake,
which he was pretty sure she would need soon to keep her from going into
those odd convulsions again.

So, as the manager dragged the girl by one arm, ignoring the curses she
threw at him as well as the feeble kicks she used, he got ready to move.
When they went by him, probably heading for the manager's office at the
back to call the police, he stepped forward and punched the man on the
inside of his wrist, right at the base, with a calculated amount of
force.

The man let loose a loud yell of pain and his was hand ripped away from
the girl's as his forearm was yanked away from the previously stationary
hand, spraining it badly as the ligaments were stretched almost to the
breaking point. He clutched at his wrist, pulling it to his stomach
protectively, the girl forgotten for the moment.

In that moment, Ranma slipped one arm around the completely surprised
girl's waist, the other going around her knees and lifting, causing her
to be picked up easily by the young martial artist. Without hesitation
he ran towards the exit, flashing a smile at the annoying old women as
he did so.

A few clerks tried to get in his way, to grab a hold of him so that he
couldn't escape, but they were unprepared for his speed and weren't fast
enough. He arrived at the doorway and paused briefly to allow it to
open, and one jumped forward in a last attempt to stop him, but he
ducked under the man's outstretched arms and kicked him in the side,
knocking him into the glass wall that was the front of the store. It
bowed out slightly under the pressure, but didn't break, and by the time
the man recovered Ranma was already slipping out the door, which had
whisked open in the meantime, and was running away with the girl still
held in his arms.


Urd stared with wide eyes at her pigtailed savior as he hurtled over a
row of hedges the grew at the edge of the park, landing easily and not
even causing her to bounce around in his arms. He quickly sped up now
that there were no obstacles, running over to the path at the edge of
the lake and then turning in one direction to circle around the water.
Who was this kid? He wasn't even breathing hard!

"So," he said conversationally, as though he wasn't going at a pace that
would give full-grown Olympic runners an asthma attack, "where are you
from?"

"Um, Valhalla," she said, staring at him. "Why?"

"I'm just wondering why you weren't familiar with the concept of buying
things, that's all. Where's Valhalla?"

"It's up north." She was getting a bit nervous now. Sure, he'd saved
her again, but why, and where was he taking her? "Would you mind
putting me down?"

"Do you think you could outrun the police? I'm sure somebody saw us
enter the park, and young or not, that guy is probably mad enough to
call the cops and try to get us arrested for theft and assault."

Police? Remembering his earlier comment, she decided to keep the
question to herself, not wanting to reveal further ignorance. "Okay,
then where are you taking me?" she asked, cranking her head to the side
to look down at the lines of the sidewalk as they blurred past.

"Right here," he said, turning away from the path and running towards a
nearby group of trees and bushes. He slowed down almost to a stop as
they approached, then carefully turned her to the side and slipped
between a couple of the flowery hedges. Beyond was a small clearing,
other plants making a circle around it.

He took a few steps further towards the center, then bent to put her
down, surprising her so that he had to grab her arm to keep her from
falling over before she regained her balance. After a moment, when
she'd reoriented herself, he let go, then walked over to one of the
bushes as she watched in confusion. She blinked when he pushed a few
branches aside to reveal the pack he'd been carrying earlier, which was
far too big for her to not have seen it before--in fact, the branches
should have been shoved aside by it, unable to be in their normal
position which the bag currently occupied! So how had he hidden it
there?

He pulled the bag out into the grass and, pulling the top open, reached
in to grab something. His hand came out holding another bottle of sake.
He opened the bottle, took a swig of it, then looked over at her with an
odd look in his eyes, catching her staring at it. He moved back towards
her then sat down, cross-legged, a couple of feet away, facing her. He
gestured for her to sit, and she did so with a bit of trepidation, but
once she had, he held the bottle out towards her.

She took it nervously, wondering why he was offering it to her, then
noted her current power level and quickly upended the bottle, gulping
down a third of its contents. When she finished, she wiped her mouth on
her sleeve and realized for the first time since she'd gotten wet that
she was still soaked in sake, some of her hair sticking messily to her
face, and her clothes clinging and smelling of alcohol. She frowned,
but held the bottle out to the boy, who was accepted it but just
continued to stare at her.

The way he was looking at her was. . . intent. It was very strange, and
she found herself looking at the bottle suddenly, then around at the
trees that encircled them. The boy looked to be about five years old-
-that was too young, right? If he was older, it would be reasonable to
suspect something, a guy going out of his way to help a girl out, then
taking her someplace secluded and giving her booze, but at five years
old? She suddenly wondered if he'd done anything to her while she was
passed out earlier, but that time they'd been in a slightly more open
location, so if he had, he probably would have gotten caught

"Why," she licked her lips in apprehension, testing the taste of the
sake for anything other than alcohol, "why are you looking at me like
that?"

He frowned, and she tensed, ready to jump to her feet, hoping she
wouldn't have to use the miniscule amount of power that she currently
possessed, when he spoke.

"How do you do that?" he asked. "I tried the sake before giving it to
you, and it was completely normal, yet you're somehow using it to gain
power. It doesn't even seem to be a conscious decision on your part, it
just happens without your paying attention. Oh, and you can relax, I'm
not going to hurt you," the boy added, smirking now, but still staring
at her.

Urd stared back. "So you're not trying to get me drunk so that you can
have your way with me?"

The pigtailed boy's head drew back in surprise, and his cheeks colored
to the most alarming shade of red. "Of course not!" he sputtered, with
the most ridiculous look of embarrassment she'd ever seen written all
over his face.

The contrast to his previous calm state was so great that she couldn't
help laughing, both at him and at herself for thinking somebody as young
as him would try it.

As soon as she did, though, he recovered and said, angrily, "Sorry,
girl, you're a bit too young for me."

She stopped laughing. "I'm older than you are, little boy!" she
retorted, having noticed earlier that she was a couple of years older
and about a foot taller than he was. His gaze was angry now, but she
glared right back at the brat, daring him to go further. When he said
nothing, she reached out and snagged the sake, which still sat on the
ground between them, and downed another third of the bottle while
staring him right in the eyes. While she did so, his eyes kinda lost
focus, although they remained fixed in her direction. When she put the
bottle down again, he spoke, frustration evident in his voice.

"How do you DO that?" he demanded, staring at the bottle for a minute
before gulping down a few mouthfuls of it himself.

She smirked at the annoyed expression on his face when he stopped,
finding herself incredibly amused by the situation. A mortal, trying to
duplicate her ability to use sake as a secondary power source?

"You'll never get it," she said, and the only thing that kept her from
grinning as he glared at her and tried swallowing some more of the stuff
was that she noticed the dropping levels of liquid in the bottle.

As soon as he put it back down, she snatched the bottle up and guzzled
the remainder before tossing the bottle aside. Urd could feel her smile
taking up her whole face as the boy stared at her in consternation.

"Are you gonna get another bottle?" she asked.


Ranma stared at the girl before him, who was obviously fairly affected
by the alcohol at this point. Not as much as she probably should be,
though. Somebody her size should be passed out after drinking as much
as she had, but instead she was just speaking a little slower and her
eyes seemed to have trouble focusing.

That weird aura of hers was, by this point, really strong and making his
skin feel kinda tingly because of the way he was opening himself up to
it, trying to get a sense of it so he could figure out how it was
powered by sake. He was pretty sure that if he managed that, he could
duplicate the trick, which could be a pretty helpful martial arts
technique since it seemed to negate the effects of the booze as well as
being a good alternative ki source. If he could do the same thing she
was doing, he could be utterly exhausted yet still be able to replenish
himself easily with the small side-effect of a slower response time. He
could probably even reduce or eliminate the drawbacks if he were to
improve upon the technique.

But for now, he was no closer to discovering the trick than he had been
when he started trying to do so. All he'd found out was that her power,
when she wasn't drinking, seemed to be diminishing slowly. She was also
getting stronger at a regular rate, a certain amount of sake would cause
a corresponding increase in her aura, and as far as he could tell, if
she had a limit, she wasn't showing the slightest signs of being close
to it. Was the drain on her ki somehow related to the way she got its
levels so high? Maybe she was like Ms. Hinako was when she was younger,
sickly and almost-dying, with the sake technique being the only thing
keeping her alive?

"Hey, kid," she repeated, "are you going to get another bottle?"

He frowned at her comment, and she just smiled back, her earlier
nervousness completely gone. "No," he decided, and she looked somewhat
disappointed.

"Okay, then I'm going home," she said, and stood up. Before turning to
leave, she looked down at him, and said, "Thanks for the help, little
boy." Giving one last, victorious smile, she pushed her way through the
bushes and walked away.

As soon as she was out of sight, his own scowl turned into a grin. Did
she really think he was going to give up that easily? The hole in his
stomach had by now been replaced by a warm feeling, even though he
hadn't drunk all that much, and his physical and mental tiredness was
easily ignored. There was a technique to be learned, and that girl had
it.

He jumped to his feet and went over to his pack, tying the top back down
before he slipped it onto his shoulders. Once it was secure and he was
ready to go, he slipped back into the Umisenken and headed off after the
girl, determined to figure out her sake absorbing ability.

He found her a few minutes later, and followed her silently as she
walked through the park. Eventually the exited and headed down one of
the roads that ran alongside it, until after about a half hour when the
ground sloped up into a hill. Despite the way the girl was having a bit
of difficulty making her way up it, she still had that annoying smile on
her face, which was made worse by the trouble he was having himself.
Walking up a steep hill with a few hundred pounds of weights strapped to
his back wasn't at all fun, and he was having to bend forward an obscene
amount simply to keep his balance and not fall backwards.

When they finally made it to the top, he saw some kind of temple, and,
to his surprise, the girl entered it without the slightest hesitation.
Still cloaked in the Umisenken, he crept up to the front door and
listened for a moment to make sure nobody was present, then slid it open
and stepped inside, closing it quickly behind him. He saw the shoes
arranged just inside the door and winced, feeling slightly guilty that
he was about to walk around the house without taking his own off first,
but simply leaving them at the door would cause problems, so he
repressed the feeling for the time being.

He felt for the girl's aura and was shocked when he felt two others
quite similar, in a different area of the house from where the first
was. Did they know that technique, too? That'd make it easier to
learn, if he could observe several people using it. It would also
explain why that girl was wandering around outside looking for sake;
they must have run through all that they had here, if there were three
people drinking as much as she did.

He went down the hallway towards the two people he sensed, since he
could feel that the girl was past them, and came to a kitchen, where he
was again surprised. There was a man around twenty years old, a bit on
the short side, making dinner. He looked perfectly normal, but he was
also acting quite calmly about the midget woman sitting on the counter
nearby, instructing him on what to do as he prepared the food.

Seated at a table in the next room, which he could see because there
wasn't a divider between the kitchen and dining room, was another girl.
This one was around twelve years old and he could see marks on her
forehead, just as the midget and the white-haired girl had. Were they
related?

She was mumbling to herself and writing on a piece of paper, something
about moon rocks, which he didn't really understand. Who cared about
moon rocks?

Ranma looked over at the midget, who was still talking to the guy making
dinner, and studied the marks on her face as well. The three who had
weird auras all had those odd tattoos, so he guessed that they were
connected in some way, but he couldn't see how drawing on your forehead
would make a difference in what sake did to you. Maybe it was
hereditary, like with Herb's dragon blood and increased ki abilities?
All three girls had different markings, though, which made it seem less
likely.

"Oh!"

Distracted from his thoughts by the startled sound, he noticed that the
midget was the one that had made it and that she was staring right at
him. The guy was starting to turn to see what she was looking at, too.

Shit!

He pulled back around the corner and into the hallway, focusing on
making himself invisible, since he must have slipped and let the
Umisenken go on accident. He quickly made his way to the door and
exited, then jumped silently onto the roof in case anybody tried looking
for him, which he was sure they would. Even an outcry of intruders from
a midget would be looked into by anybody halfway sensible.

Sure enough, he could hear somebody running around underneath him, and
after a couple of minutes the door slid open and somebody walked
outside. Still holding the Umisenken, he crawled over to the edge of
the roof and looked down to see the raven-haired girl scanning the area
for trespassers. Now the midget was on her shoulder.

"Big sister," said the girl, "I think I'm going to build a defense
system for the house. I don't want that nasty Mara getting in here
without us noticing."

"Oh, that's alright, Skuld. I don't see anybody out here, so it must
have been my imagination. Lets go back inside, Keiichi is waiting and
doesn't know how to fix dinner," replied the miniature human.

"Okay, Belldandy," Skuld said dubiously, "but I'm still going to build
something just to be on the safe side. Actually, I know just what to
make," she added, her voice filled with excitement now as they went back
in and shut the door.

Ranma listened silently as the two of them headed back towards the
kitchen. Well, now he knew what their names were, if not the name of
the white-haired girl. He could also tell now that he'd had a bit more
time to study them that their energies were different from the other
girl's, although he couldn't say how so. Both Skuld and Belldandy
seemed to have more power than Urd did, only he couldn't tell how much.
All three had that weird drain on their aura.

Checking for their auras again, he found that they were back in the
kitchen, and that the other girl still hadn't moved. He stood up and
soundlessly crept across the roof, then peeked over the edge when he was
above her. There was a small window just under the ledge, obviously
designed just for letting light in and not for viewing through, and
inside he could see the girl soaking in the furo.

He pulled himself back up quickly.

"Heh... peeking on a little girl, that's just pathetic," he muttered.

Slipping his pack off and lying down beside it, he wondered what to do
next. Looking up at the clouds, he suddenly noticed something. His
clothes stank of sake from where they had been in contact with that girl
as he'd carried her earlier.

"Dammit. This sucks."


Urd stared at the ceiling, enjoying the sensation of being enveloped by
the comforting warmth that was the hot furo. Everything below the water
felt absolutely dreamy, from her shoulders all the way down to the tip
of her painted toes.

Above the water, however, was a different matter. She'd finally washed
away all the stickiness caused by the sake she had fallen in earlier,
but the smell lingered stubbornly.

Who was that boy? Now that she'd had a bit of time to relax and think
about the situation, she realized that even a gifted human his age
shouldn't be as physically adept as he appeared to be, let alone able to
read auras well enough to sense her continuously dwindling mana. The
fact that he could even sense her godhood was amazing in itself,
considering how low her power level was with the current crises, but to
be capable of sensing the minute changes in it as he did was beyond
belief.

How could somebody so young do such a thing, which she would only expect
of a god-trained warrior, yet not realize her divine origins? It just
didn't make any sense. If Yggdrasill wasn't down, and she'd thought to
ask the kid's name, she could have looked him up to find out how he did
it, but if not for Yggdrasill being down, she probably would never have
run into him anyway. Being a goddess could be such a harsh position to
hold.

Oh well. No need to worry about it, since she doubted she'd ever see
him again.

Sighing, she dipped her head underwater once more, holding herself there
as long as she could stand not breathing, the feeling of sleepy
weightlessness improving her state of mind immeasurably. When she could
no longer continue, she rose up, standing, and stepped out of the tub
and proceeded to dry herself, then wrapped a normal-sized towel that was
disproportionately large around her nakedness.

She'd wasted no time picking clean clothes up when arriving home, and
had gone immediately towards the furo to get rid of her reeking clothes.
Unfortunately that path had taken her directly past her 'younger'
sister, who'd made sure to comment upon her state of appearance and
smell. Usually when such things happened Skuld knew better than to push
her luck, but the little brat had gone too far today and would be
punished in full for her transgressions.

Now if only she could figure out a proper method of punishment that she
could enforce while being utterly powerless in terms of magical ability.

Thinking on the matter, she slid the door to the hallway open and exited
the furo, heading towards her room to get dressed. This time Skuld said
nothing as she passed through the kitchen, instead, she was absorbed in
drawing schematics for some kinda weird robot. Probably something that
made defective moon rocks in masse. Crazy kid.

As she walked out of the kitchen, she heard Belldandy call, "Dinner will
be ready in five minutes, Urd!"

"Okay, I'll be right there," she replied.

Once in her room she started sorting through her closet, which Belldandy
had somehow managed to stuff with clothes that fit her current form,
although she had no idea who that had been managed, nor how Belldandy
had managed to pick out clothes that were actually somewhat tasteful
rather than those bland housedresses she always wore. Disgusting
things, not fit to adorn a body as beautiful as hers.

After a few minutes of hunting down the perfect outfit she headed back
to the dining room. The table was set now and Keiichi was bringing in
the last of the food, Belldandy perched comfortably on one shoulder as
he did so, while Skuld was still scribbling in her notebook.

After she and Keiichi had sat at the table, and Belldandy had been set
down before regaining her regular, more energy consuming form, the three
of them waited for Skuld to quit working. After a minute of waiting Urd
was about to reach and knock some sense into her little sister, when
Belldandy spoke quietly.

"Skuld," she said, "it's time to eat."

Skuld looked up in surprise, and, when she saw everybody staring at her,
blushed heavily. "Ah, sorry big sister, everyone." Quickly setting her
pencil and paper aside, she announced, "Itadakimasu!"

Urd repeated it along with the other two, then they began to eat. After
complimenting Keiichi on his cooking, she asked, between bites, "So,
Skuld, what were you working on? Some kind of robot to fix our
problem?"

Skuld stopped, a blank expression on her face, chopsticks halfway to her
mouth. "Problem?"

"You weren't trying to figure out what was wrong with the moon rocks?"
Keiichi blurted out in obvious surprise.

Skuld colored again, her mouth working its way into a soundless "Oh."

"I can't believe you," Urd exclaimed, setting her food down. "Here I
am, unable to cast magic or even use my real body, and you're playing
around with one of your stupid toys?"

"It's... It's not stupid!" Skuld stammered, then shot back, "besides,
you weren't doing anything to help, either!"

"I CAN'T do anything to help, remember?! You and Belldandy already used
up the moon rock's power! I have to keep myself all boozed up or I'll
get too young to do anything. You should have let me use the rock,
instead, since your age can change a lot more than mine can before it
really becomes a problem. Because you didn't, I'm stuck like this, and
it's your responsibility to fix it!"

"Urd," Belldandy's voice distracted both of them, and they turned to
look at her before she continued, "Skuld was trying to build something
to keep us safe from intruders during this crisis. What do you think
would happen if Mara were to show up, and none of us could use our
powers? You know that Yggdrasil's being down won't effect her in any
way, like it does us."

Urd frowned in thought. "Okay, I can see that, I guess... although I
still think the time would be better spent trying to get our powers back
rather than working on some robot that either wouldn't work right, or,
if it did, would be easily overpowered by somebody of Mara's abilities.
A first-class demon isn't going to have any trouble with one of Skuld's
toys, no matter how good a job she does on it."

"Then neither would a second-class, limited goddess!" Skuld protested
loudly.

"That's different! I'm way better than some stupid robot, brat!"

Belldandy interrupted again, saying, "Actually, I didn't intend for it
to fight Mara. There was somebody else here earlier, in the house while
you were bathing. He looked like a mortal boy, but he was...
shimmering, like some kind of mirage or as if he was putting off heat
waves. I was hoping that whatever Skuld built would be able to detect
him, if he came back."

"I thought you said that he left," said Keiichi.

"He seems to have... but why was he here in the first place? He didn't
look confused, like he was lost, and he definitely wasn't normal in
appearance." She frowned, then muttered, "What an odd little boy...."

Urd scowled at Skuld, mad that the little brat had stuck her tongue out
right when Belldandy started talking, she asked, "Okay, who's this kid
you're talking about, and why didn't you tell me about him?"

"Well," began Belldandy, as Keiichi and Skuld used the opportunity to
eat some of their food, "he was about five years old, had black hair
done in a pigtail, and he was wearing the cutest little girl clothes."

Urd stared at her younger sister, then cursed herself for not paying
more attention. What kind of idiot would follow somebody around, trying
to learn the secrets of alcohol empowerment? Just to make sure, she
asked, "Was he wearing a really big backpack? Brown, looked like it
weighed a lot?"

The brightening look on Belldandy's face, and the way Skuld and Keiichi
both seemed suspicious, confirmed her guess.

Urd sighed, then picked at some of her food for a moment as the others
looked on expectantly. Skuld was opening her mouth to speak when she
cut the younger girl off, deliberately, as revenge for the whole tongue
nonsense.

"Okay, I know who it is. He's some weird mortal that was bothering me
earlier today. Somehow he can sense auras, and, since I collapsed right
in front of him and got him to give me a bottle of sake, he was able to
figure out that it was my secondary power source. So now he wants to
know how to gain power from drinking sake."

She frowned at Keiichi, who had just started laughing for some reason,
then looked back at Belldandy. "I didn't think he'd follow me here, but
he must have. He looked normal when I met him, except for the clothes,
but he's really strong and fast for a mortal."

Belldandy stared down at her food for a minute, then brought her eyes
back up to look at Urd. "Does he know you're a goddess? If he can see
auras, he should be able to figure it out. If he was here, he could
probably sense the same thing about Skuld and I."

She noticed that Keiichi seemed nervous at the idea of somebody finding
out about their true identities, so she said, "No, I don't think he
does. Otherwise he wouldn't figure he could learn how to use my
secondary power source himself. He'd know it was just part of being a
goddess and something a mortal couldn't duplicate."

Belldandy nodded, then turned to their little sister. "Skuld, do you
think you could make your robot detect humans? If it'd take very long,
though, you should work on figuring out how to fix the moon rocks
instead, since that's more important."

Skuld seemed to think about it for a minute before replying. "Yeah, I
can just make it so that it detects mortal life energy within a certain
distance, then sounds an alarm if it does. It could have a radar
attached, too, so that we can find him easily," she added happily.

"Um, won't it just keep going off because of me?" asked Keiichi, causing
Belldandy to look concerned, and Urd smirked. They were so cute!

"Well you could just go to your sister's or something, until we catch
this guy," Skuld said with a smile.

Little brat.

"No," Belldandy said firmly, "if that's the only option, then we just
won't worry about this boy. He'll probably go give up pretty quickly,
if he hasn't already, and if not, he's unlikely to be able to cause any
trouble."

"Yeah, he's a bit of a jerk, but he doesn't seem that bad," Urd said.
"Mara is the real problem and there isn't anything we can do about her
short of getting this aging thing figured out and our powers stabilized
as soon as we can." She looked at Skuld, who was scowling at Keiichi.
"Unless, of course, you can make something that would work despite
Keiichi's presence, and do it quickly?"

Skuld sighed. "I guess. I can make a little handheld scanner, then
just attach it or work it into the robot's systems when I get that done.
It shouldn't be too hard to make it so that it doesn't respond to
Keiichi's life energies, but still sets off an alarm if other humans get
too close."

Urd nodded, happy that the situation had been figured out and Skuld put
in her place, then turned back to her food and sake, which were both
starting to get closer to room temperature than she would have liked.

After they finished eating, Urd went to watch TV as Skuld grabbed some
ice cream and headed to her room to work on her radar-thingy, and
Keiichi cleaned the kitchen with the once-again miniature Belldandy
somehow managing to take a nap on his shoulder. She wasn't aging like
Urd and Skuld were, but her power was still low enough that spending
dinner in her normal form was very draining and required that she
recuperate afterwards.

#####

stop for now.