Long Time, No See

by O.T.Hill

Hibiki Ryouga, after staying away for years, runs into an old acquaintance and gets a surprising update on happenings in Nerima. Saotome Ranma defeated?

oOo Disclaimer oOo

What really happens to Ranma and his friends is up to Takahashi Rumiko and her assignees to decide. This is just what might have happened if they'd gone through some of the twisty passages all different down in the dungeons of my mind. And I certainly don't expect to get any money out of their unfortunate detour.

oOo Author's notes oOo

This is the primary standalone story in this continuation of the Ranma universe. Over 95 percent of the crucial events took place years ago and are revealed in a series of conversations. If you hate this kind of story, you will hate this one, so do yourself a favor and exit now to find a story you will actually like.

A series of side stories to be submitted later, under a separate entry, will explore certain facets of this universe portrayed from points of view other than those of the characters in the main story, who are not in possession of all of the facts, are not necessarily disposed to reveal all of what they do know, and are likely to put their own slants on certain details. The side stories will generally use formats other than the "past revealed through conversation" format used in the main story, as well.

The events leading up to the plot of the main story took place in the manga continuity (that is, the manga storyline is not changed; any story-specific events start after the failed wedding at the end of the last book).

There will be some additional author's notes at the end of the main story.

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oOoOo

Long Time, No See

oOoOo

It was a fine morning. The sky was stereotypically blue with only a slight scattering of small puffy white clouds off to one side. The typically sparse early morning drizzle had let up some time before, but the usual overcast conditions for this time of year had taken a short, though welcome, break, hinting of the upcoming spring.

The sun shone down on a street lined with small shops, cafés and restaurants. A wide assortment of people walked along, peering at the displays in the shop windows, checking out the advertisements and menus posted in front of the cafés and restaurants, or just passing through on their way to business or pleasure elsewhere. Automobile traffic was constant, but light. There were enough of them both, pedestrians and cars, to imply prosperity, but too few to imply overcrowding or congestion. Into this pleasant and comfortable scene, with its background noises of car engines, dishes clattering and people conversing calmly, came a sudden heartfelt cry in Japanese.

"Where in the world am I?"

Heads turned, and those nearest to the source of the query saw a young man of medium height and athletic build with Asiatic features. An untidy shock of hair was kept from his eyes by a yellow bandanna with dark spots. He wore a mustard-colored baggy shirt, dark pants with cross-lacings partway up the legs, and an enormous backpack topped with a stubby red bamboo umbrella. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk, his arms wide and his face to the sky, apparently trying to perceive the answer to his question in its placid blue expanse.

A man standing nearby, in front of a restaurant labelled 'Sushi Ito' in both Kanji and Roman letters, called out "San Isidro", while simultaneously another, sweeping in front of a doorway about twenty meters further down the street shouted "Lima!". The young man seemed puzzled and, lowering his gaze to human level again, asked tentatively "Nerima?".

The first man clarified, "No, no, just 'Lima', not 'Nerima'. The San Isidro district of Lima, Peru, to be exact."

The young bandanna-clad man's face relaxed as he muttered, "No wonder most of the signs are in Spanish." Then, pitching his voice for conversation again, he asked "How come you speak Japanese, then, and why do so many of these stores have signs in Japanese along with the Spanish ones?"

The man in front of 'Sushi Ito' responded, "There are lots of people of Japanese descent in Peru, and many of these shops and restaurants cater to them, along with the tourists we get from Japan." He added, in a somewhat condescending tone, "I assume you're a tourist, or else you'd have known about that." The second man who had answered rolled his eyes in agreement with this sentiment and walked off to continue his sweeping further along the storefront.

The young man seemed to be trying to think of something, anything, to say in response to this piece of helpful information which would not make him look like a total fool, when another voice, female and familiar, came from behind him, "Why, Ryouga, I haven't seen you in ages!"

Ryouga spun around quickly, and almost gracefully, as his jaw dropped upon seeing a pretty Japanese woman of about his age, with medium-length hair, dark with bluish highlights. She was dressed in a simple peach-colored sundress. A light knit sweater, unneeded as long as the clouds were not blocking the tropical sun, was draped over the handle of the baby stroller she was pushing towards him. Both of the compartments of the stroller were occupied. The first stroller seat contained a small female representative of the toddler population, sleeping, with long hair the same color as the hair atop the woman who had greeted him. The second contained a sleeping baby of indeterminate gender, about five or six months of age, with thin, wispy hair of a somewhat more brownish hue than the others'.

He suppressed his instinctive reaction to seeing that lovely face, as he took in the entire situation: the clothes, the stroller, and the fact that he was somehow now in Peru, among other things. "Akane?" he finally managed to blurt out.

"Yes, Ryouga. You look like you've seen a ghost or something," Akane smiled at her old friend.

"Why are you in Peru?" seemed like the obvious conversation opener to Ryouga.

"I live here. We've lived here for almost three years now... yes, the day after tomorrow is my third anniversary, so it'll be three years here some time next week. Would you like to have some tea with me? There's a nice little café just down the street where I sometimes take a break when I'm out shopping with the kids. We can catch up a bit. Have you been in Nerima or seen any of the old gang lately?"

Akane glowed with an inner happiness as she invited him to converse with her, Ryouga noted. He also noted the lack of death threats, and relaxed slightly, realizing something very pertinent to his continued well-being. 'She still doesn't know about P-chan!' With that out of the way, he started processing what she had just said. 'Anniversary? Three years? Kids? "We've" lived here' he thought, and a tendril of jealous anger crept up into his mind unbidden. He suppressed it. He thought he'd gotten over that long ago, and was not about to make himself miserable again over unalterable facts; not if he could help it. "Sure, some tea sounds good, and I'd really like to talk. You're the only one I've seen since leaving Nerima a few weeks after that wedding disaster of yours. I must say, you're looking really good, Akane."

Akane reddened slightly and returned the compliment. "So are you, Ryouga. You seem different, somehow, though. Hmmm. Calmer? Maybe that's it. You used to get so revved up all the time. I never quite understood why that was. You seem a lot happier now." She started walking along the street, and Ryouga followed, at least after she grabbed his sleeve and kept him from taking a turn into the next side street. "Oh, I forgot to introduce you to my children! The one in front is Ami. She turned two in July. Behind her is her brother Shinji. He'll be six months old in a few days. When they've woken up, you'll see that they're not always this angelic," she joked in a tone dripping with maternal pride and love.

"Heh, heh. I bet, if they take after their parents any..." Ryouga said. He puzzled to himself as to how the little girl looked so much like Akane, while the baby seemed not to resemble her very much, but was even less reminiscent of Ranma. Yet, he seemed familiar somehow. Was his memory starting to fade that much after only three years? Well, it was hard to tell with babies; they all looked somewhat alike, more like little Buddha statues than like real people.

"Oh, Ami has a temper all right, just like me, and is getting into the whole 'terrible twos' phase as if it was designed specially for her," Akane responded with a small grimace. "Shinji is still too little to tell for sure, but he's got a really pleasant manner about him, just like his Daddy. If he can keep it up, he won't be any trouble for anyone."

Now that last part got Ryouga really confused. 'Ranma? Pleasant manner... well, maybe, sometimes, but no trouble for anyone? No way!' He was starting to think he should be checking for the zipper on this pod person's Akane suit when she steered him into a small courtyard containing a selection of small tables under awnings and large parasols.

A kindly looking middle-aged woman of obvious Asian ancestry greeted them warmly, "Ah, Ono-san, it is so nice to see you and the little ones again! And who is this nice gentleman with you?"

As Akane made a brief introduction of Hibiki Ryouga, a good friend of hers and her husband's from years ago, to Hikawa Fumiko, the proprietor of this fine establishment and a good friend of more recent standing, various sections of Ryouga's brain frantically tried to keep him from falling over while the usual higher-level thought processes dealt with 'Ono-san', a third anniversary and a baby with brown hair and a 'pleasant manner' who wouldn't 'be any trouble for anyone'.

After a few moments of looking completely blank, he realized that both women were smiling at him and apparently waiting for him to say something. The small region of his brain in charge of politeness and social interaction with civilized females, though strongly indoctrinated a dozen or more years ago, had been underutilized for the most part until recently. It took advantage of the confusion around it and directed his breathing and vocal cords to squeak out "I am pleased to meet you, Hikawa-san" and then had his back execute an unaccustomed formal shallow bow in the older woman's direction.

The social niceties having been observed, the café owner led them to a table and swept utensils, napkins, and other dining paraphernalia into position with a practiced grace. Akane ordered a particular blend of tea for both of them, assuring Ryouga that he'd like it when she took his blank look to mean he was dubious of her choice, and some pastries she knew were Hikawa-san's special pride. As the café was not very busy at the moment, the owner had barely disappeared into the kitchen when an elderly waitress emerged with the requested items, giving Akane only enough time to comment on the pleasantness of the weather for this time of year and the hope that Ryouga would be able to stay and visit for a while. For his part, Ryouga was still trying to come up with a polite way to say "What the hell happened to Ranma?"

The best he could manage, once the mid-morning snack had been laid out before them, and the quality of the baked goods had been commented on, was "You married Tofu-sensei? I thought he'd left Nerima." If Akane had married Tofu Ono within a month or so after Ryouga had last been there, then something must have happened between her and Ranma. Probably something bad. It might be a sensitive topic, so best to lead into the story from a safer direction.

"Oh, he had," Akane said. "One of his former mentors was offering advanced training, and Tofu was having some trouble with his practice in Nerima anyway. He thought he'd take a break from the everyday stress and gain some new skills, so he closed the clinic and went to Sapporo for a few months. While he was there, he got an offer to take over a clinic here in Lima, so he spent another few months brushing up on his Spanish while finishing up the advanced medical training. He was only back in Nerima to say goodbye on his way to Peru when the weird evening happened, and the next day we were married and soon were flying off to Lima. We've been here ever since." She sighed contentedly.

The way Akane had said "the weird evening" made Ryouga think of it as some special phrase, almost like a brand name, something of particular significance not even counting the apparent connection to Akane's marriage to Ono Tofu. The linguistic skills sector of his brain commented that if it was in Spanish, or English, it would have been capitalized or offset by quotation marks, but in Japanese in his mind, it just lit up and flashed in rapidly changing colors and pulsing variable font faces. This must be one of the keys to the mystery. "'When the weird evening happened'? What weird evening was that? What happened?" he asked.

"That's right!" Akane looked a little startled at herself. "If you haven't seen any of the old Nerima folks since you left that long ago, you don't know all the things that happened that night! Well, it's a long story, but I'll try to keep to the basics. Since I was sort of swept up in the middle of it myself, I only found out about some of it afterwards, in letters and phone calls. Now let me think of how I should tell it."

Ryouga sipped tea and ate a crunchy confection while admiring the cute crinkle of Akane's forehead as she gathered her thoughts for her explanation. He reflected to himself that he was a lucky man indeed these days, and that Ono Tofu was, too.

"Okay," Akane began, "the 'weird evening' occurred three years ago tomorrow, to be precise. It all started with Kuno Kodachi and Shampoo deciding to get at Ranma by means of drugged food again, and everything ... got out of hand. But just about everyone ended up pretty happy about how it all turned out, so I suppose I can't really get too upset, even with those two. The really odd thing about it all was that Ranma ended up almost the only one not affected. Hmmm. I suppose that was my fault." Akane looked a little sad and perplexed, and then collected herself again.

"Well, the real start of it all was that Kasumi announced that she would be gone for most of the afternoon and evening to attend a series of free public lectures down at one of the university's lecture halls downtown. I wasn't around right then, and by the time I got back, it had been arranged that the family would order some food from neighborhood restaurants to be delivered. I mean, I would have cooked up something for them, but it was all decided. I was feeling good about a great save I'd made at my softball practice earlier that day, and some good news I'd heard at the drama club meeting, so I just went off to the furo to clean up without arguing about it. Ummm, at least not too much." Ryouga hid a little grin behind his tea cup at this admission.

"I guess Kodachi had been spying on the house, so she made arrangements to try out one of her new love drugs. Tofu said afterwards that it acted a little like those eggs the Phoenix people used on Shampoo and Genma. It caused a kind of imprinting, setting up a bond between two people and transferring any existing affections over to the new person."

'Whoa,' Ryouga thought, 'that could be interesting. I see why they called it "the weird evening."'

"Of course, I didn't have any existing affections like that," Akane continued, as Ryouga thought, 'Yeah, right. You never could admit to it -- except for sometimes to P-chan.' "Tofu, though, still had strong feelings for Kasumi. Not after that evening though. Since then, he's been all mine!" Akane stated proudly, and poured out some more tea for both of them. Ryouga pondered briefly as to how Kasumi might have felt about this change in affections, but decided that Akane would not be the best one to ask about it, in any case. And any mention of 'Ranma' and 'feelings' in the same sentence would probably not get much further than an insult of some kind. Akane had apparently had three years of real requited love, out in the open, to even more thoroughly bury whatever she might once have felt for the pig-tailed youth in her life, not even counting whatever Kodachi's drug might have done.

"Anyway, Kodachi managed to distract the guy delivering our yakisoba order and squirted some of her drugged powder into the delivery boxes when he wasn't looking. Then, she somehow did the same thing with Ukyo and our okonomiyaki order. Boy, was Ukyo ever ashamed after that came out! She hadn't even noticed. Kodachi was really not very picky about what happened with her drug as long as Ranma got a dose. She stopped by just after the food arrived and took off again to look for Ranma when we told her he wasn't there. She didn't try to warn us or anything."

Ryouga cocked his head and asked, "Food was being delivered, and Ranma wasn't even there? I'd have thought he'd be first in line!"

Akane blushed slightly and answered, "Well, as I said before, that was my fault, mostly. Let me fill in some more of the background for you so it will make more sense in the long run. Earlier in the afternoon, Pantyhose Taro came by to harass Happousai a bit, and since the old pervert wasn't at home right then, he and Ranma went over to the park to spar for a while. I think Taro for once was just doing it for the fun of it. He seemed friendlier than usual. I guess he'd finally realized that Ranma didn't have any more influence over Happousai than he did. After the whole Rouge affair, when Ranma helped him out even while he was being unfriendly himself, his opinion of Ranma seemed to have softened. Well, he still called him names like 'fem-boy' and 'cross-dresser', but I think they both saw that as part of the fun. And you hadn't been around for some time, so Ranma was looking for a good friendly workout." Ryouga was mildly surprised at this admission, albeit secondhand, that Ranma considered him as "friendly", even after all that he had done to destroy the pig-tailed young man's happiness.

"After we'd ordered the food, Nabiki and I took Tofu to look for them. We thought they might need some patching up in case things got out of hand - or hoof or tentacle, in Taro's case," Akane smiled at this. Ryouga noted that she had so far tended to speak of Pantyhose Taro in more positive terms than he would have expected from Taro's former kidnap victim. It was a promising thought. He wondered if there was more to it than that, but decided that the story wasn't over yet, and he didn't interrupt.

"It wasn't too hard to find them, with the explosions and yeti roars and all," Akane continued. "We told them about the food order and Ranma asked if Taro could join us for supper. We said he could. Then, Taro just had to come back with some insult about how Ranma had to ask the "other girls'" permission and Ranma couldn't just leave it alone, so he came back with some insult that seemed at the time to be rude not only to Taro, but to Nabiki and me, too, and I got mad and malleted him off towards downtown Tokyo. I can't even remember just what it was he said, now." Akane sighed. "Tofu's been a big help to me since then in controlling my temper and in hearing other people out and not taking everything anyone says in the worst possible light, and in a lot of other ways. Somehow, Ranma especially always got to me. I'm sure we're better off now we're apart for good. I know I don't get upset like that anywhere near as much."

"So, Ranma didn't get back till after supper?" Ryouga asked, hoping to steer Akane back to the story, rather than into potentially rocky emotional waters.

"Not only that, he didn't get back till about suppertime the following day," Akane responded. "I guess the mallet got him just right, and he didn't make a very good landing and he hurt his head on touchdown. Then, he tried to get up and slipped, banging his head again, and was out for the rest of the night and most of the next day. It's a good thing he heals up so quickly. Tofu saw him afterwards and says he had gotten hairline fractures of the skull in two places, but they had resealed by the time he got back. Ranma sure was grumpy, though. His head must really have been bothering him. When we told him about our having already gotten married and our leaving for Peru the next day, he just looked like I'd malleted him again and went to his room 'because his head hurt.' He wouldn't even come with us to see us off at the airport, the rude jerk."

Ryouga had a momentary impulse to jump to his friend's defense at this. He decided it wouldn't help any, and would only slow down the rest of the story, so he fought down the impulse and tried to retain a neutral expression on his face. He wasn't as happy as he thought he might have been to learn of his rival's defeat on the battlefield of love.

"Well, the rest of us went back to the house and got there just as the first of the food was arriving. Even without Ranma there, we were pretty crowded, with Taro and Tofu and Nodoka already there. Then, Daddy told Ukyo that she was welcome to stay and eat with us. I think he might have had something in mind about making sure that her okonomiyaki wouldn't explode as long as she was with us. Remember that it hadn't been that long since the destroyed wedding. We spread out into a couple of different rooms and Taro went out into the garden, in case he got splashed with cold water and wouldn't fit indoors any more. Nabiki took some food out to him and stayed with him. It turned out that the food had something to do with that, but we didn't know it at the time." Akane paused to think about the course of her narrative.

"So now we're back to the arrival of the food, and then Kodachi's dropping in and leaving again right away. We never connected the two. Some of us were already showing some signs of behavior changes, apparently, when Shampoo showed up next with several delivery boxes of 'too too good ramen.' Later, it turned out that she had spiked one of the boxes with some Amazon love drug. Of course, she had intended to give that one to Ranma, but when she found out that Ranma hadn't returned yet for supper, she was about to take it back with her, leaving the other boxes for the rest of us. I wasn't in that room at the time, so I don't know the details, but something tipped her off that weird things were going on, and she remembered seeing Kodachi leaving as she came up the street with her delivery. She found out that Kodachi was out looking for Ranma, and dashed off to do the same, forgetting her 'special' ramen for him. Somebody in our house got the bright idea to mix together all the ramen into one big pot, so just about everyone who ate the ramen at all got some dose of Shampoo's drug. Tofu found out later from Cologne that its effect was mainly to secure and strengthen the bonds of love. He thinks that, ordinarily, Kodachi's drug would probably have worn off in a couple of days at most, but Shampoo's drug, even diluted, may have been what made the effects permanent."

"Permanent?" Ryouga asked. "Obviously, you and Tofu are here, together, after three years, but were other people affected, too?"

"Oh, yes!" Akane said, with a sort of gleeful smirk. "One way or another, almost everyone we know ended up attached to someone that evening, either because of the drugs directly, or because of Kodachi and Shampoo's search for Ranma."

"Almost everyone?" Ryouga's mind boggled a bit.

"Well, Kasumi didn't get back till just about all the food had been eaten, so she wasn't affected. I've already mentioned Ranma, out like a light till the following afternoon, so he was out of it all, too. Hmmm. The only other one of our friends I can think of who didn't get hooked up with someone or other that evening or shortly afterwards was Konatsu." Akane stopped to think a second or two and went on, "I suppose that Shiratori Azusa's collecting Gosunkugi Hikaru the next week was totally unrelated to any of the drugged food, though."

"Azusa got Gosunkugi?" Ryouga marvelled.

"I guess she thought the dark circles under his eyes were cute," Akane said. "According to Kasumi's letters, Azusa calls him 'Marc-Henri' and dresses him in what Kasumi calls 'Ruritanian operetta' costumes, whatever those are. They seem to be very happy together. Ukyo jokes that having regular sex does act to cheer people up, and it seems to have worked for Azusa and Gosunkugi. She doesn't swipe other people's possessions as often anymore, either, and he seems to have given up the candles around his head and his voodoo dolls. Sanzenin Mikado got so fed up with her behavior he took an alpine sports trip to Austria where he - oh, I'm getting ahead in the story. I'm sorry. Where was I?"

"Who else was affected by the drugged food?" Ryouga prompted, attempting not to appear too impatient.

"Oh. Right. Well, I've already hinted about Pantyhose Taro and Nabiki. Well, they're together. Nabiki seems to be having a lot of fun with him, and I think he must really be in love with her, too." Akane's face and voice showed the fondness she felt for her sister and Taro. "I know he likes the fact that she almost never calls anyone by name in the first place; she has always liked to make up cutesy nicknames for non-family members she likes, like 'Kuno-baby.' I don't think you could get Nabiki to call Pantyhose Taro by his real full name unless you paid her, and he knows it. I've heard that even if you do pay her to, she's got some sort of arrangement with him to kick back some of the proceeds to him, and he gets a thrill out of that, too. She usually calls him names like 'Taro dude' and 'bully boy', and Kasumi says he just sits there and smiles."

"Are they married?" Ryouga asked, and suddenly flushed and cringed, in case the answer turned out to be the embarrassing one.

"Yes. I suppose it may not be technically legal in Japan, but they took off for his village in China the day after Tofu and I left for Lima and got married there. It made his mother very pleased to see them so happy together, Nabiki told me on the phone one time. They didn't stay there too long, though. I guess they still look down on him there due to his name, and the general opinion of Nabiki was that she must be crazy if she didn't mind his name either. Even Taro has been doubtful about her attitude towards his name," Akane explained.

"Nabiki wrote to me once that Pantyhose Taro was hard to convince that she wasn't even offended by his real name in any emotionally-binding way. After his earlier experiences with women who were either truly scandalized by his name or else just used his name as an excuse to dump him, he found it hard to believe anyone would find his name simply amusing, but no more than that, and be willing to look to the person underneath. As for the person underneath, Nabiki claims he's really just a softy under his gruff exterior. She said something about him being similar to Ranma in that way, but I can't quite see what she meant by that." Akane sighed. "Oh, well, it just doesn't matter any more anyway. Nabiki lines up work for Taro in lots of different ways. Modelling and martial arts demonstrations in his human form. Demolitions work in his cursed form. The occasional rich kid's birthday party for both forms. And then she invests most of the proceeds beyond simple living expenses in stocks, real estate and the futures markets, and she seems to be pretty happy about the results. She says she always wanted money for the freedom it offered, but never thought she'd have a life where the freedom came first and the money was just a bonus."

"Wow, that's kind of hard to imagine," Ryouga intoned, "but I am glad she's found someone who makes her happy." He didn't add any of his further thoughts about how maybe then she wouldn't have to make herself happy by making those around her miserable. He had learned to at least try to let bygones be bygones, and this seemed to be one case where it would be easy to do so. Nabiki, surprisingly, had usually left him more-or-less alone. He never understood why she hadn't blackmailed him over the P-chan situation. Maybe she had inherited the same blind spot Akane had, but he hadn't dared to risk upsetting the status quo by asking her about it. "So, who else got hooked up that night?"

"This is a little embarrassing, but Daddy and Ukyo fell for each other that evening. They went with Tofu and me to City Hall the next day and got married at the same time we did. Daddy then moved in with her at Uc-chan's and has been there ever since. There are now two more Tendo daughters, Sachiko and Tomoko, and another baby on the way." Akane paused, and Ryouga gulped audibly, then reached for his teacup and downed it. Akane took a sip from her own cup and proceeded once more.

"I'm really happy for Daddy. It still takes some getting used to. Now that he isn't overwhelmed by his grief over Mother's death, he's really been more of a normal guy, I guess. I mean, he still misses Mother. He just doesn't obsess about it and let the grief control him the way it used to. About the only concession to it he makes is that he won't go into their old bedroom at all, which is why he lives with Ukyo instead of the other way around. I haven't seen him in person since we moved here, but from what Nabiki and Kasumi have said, he's a lot more like the Daddy they remember from when Mother was still alive," Akane's eyes glistened as she spoke. "He's been teaching classes again at the dojo and he's an instructor at the police training facility, too. Ranma helps him out in the dojo when his schedules at the restaurant and the University give him a chance to. Ukyo says he is learning from Daddy how to teach martial arts in a manner more suited for normal students than the way Genma taught him. Oh, and Ukyo and Ranma's girl form teach a Women's Self-defense course on Friday evenings."

"I'd love to see that!" Ryouga couldn't resist chortling out.

Akane gave him a bit of a sideways look and muttered something that might have been "pervert" before continuing. "Kasumi has even taken up martial arts training, too. Not at the expert level yet, but she thinks it will help her with her medical studies to understand the proper functioning of the human body, or something like that, according to what she says on the phone and in her letters. Daddy says she'll be ready to start teaching beginner's classes pretty soon. She says she wants to set up some classes for pre-schoolers, to get them interested in physical activity before they get a chance to get hooked on TV and video games."

Ryouga considered this to be right in line with the kind, caring Kasumi he remembered, but refrained from saying anything just then, for fear of another "pervert" growl from Akane if another of his compliments came out wrong again. He did venture to ask Akane if she still continued her own martial arts studies.

"Oh, just enough to keep from getting rusty. I still jog a few times a week to stay in shape, and go through my katas daily to stay flexible." Akane looked pleased as Ryouga did a rather obvious visual once-over of her still comely form and came back to her face smiling. "I have to admit now that I was never a match for Ranma, and don't really want to be any more. Don't ever tell him that I said so. All that expertise only seemed to cause him more trouble than it was worth most of the time."

Ryouga reflected that on several occasions, it was Ranma's expertise that had saved Akane's life, whether she realized it or not. It wasn't the time to remind her, though, as she went on with the tale of the 'weird evening'. "Another effect of the drugged food was bringing Genma and Nodoka close together again. They started acting like teenagers in love almost right off. The effects of the drug were not really sexual in nature, but you'd never know it from the way those two acted. Hardly an hour went by after the food was eaten, and they were heading to the Saotome house, and the family has hardly seen them since then. A couple of days later, they took off on an extended 'training trip', and aside from the occasional postcard from places in the middle of nowhere, and phone calls on birthdays or holidays, they might as well not exist any more. Well, the latest set of postcards says they'll be back to settle down in Nerima again this winter, with a new Saotome due in January or February." Akane beamed a wide smile at this and remarked, "I guess after all that training, they got something right!" Ryouga groaned a bit, but the effect was thrown off somewhat by the grin he couldn't keep off his face.

"Kasumi wrote to me saying that Ranma is developing plans to kidnap his new brother or sister if his parents start talking about either contracts or training trips. The next time we spoke on the phone, I brought up the subject and laughed at her joke about it," Akane said, assuming a tense, somewhat puzzled expression, "but she insisted it wasn't a joke! Ranma is quite serious about it!"

Ryouga asked in a low, serious, voice of his own, "Can you really blame him?"

Akane relaxed, smiled, and answered, "I suppose not."

Ryouga tried looking a bit more positive and said, "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that. I'm sure Ranma will have help from the rest of the family in keeping an eye out for the danger signs. So, is that it for the effects of the food that night?"

"Not quite," answered Akane. "In a way, the weirdest pairing, or re-pairing, I guess you might call it, came almost at the end when the food was running out. Happousai had been out all afternoon and evening, apparently scouting out targets, and when darkness fell, he executed one of his panty raids. Cologne had closed down the Cat Café a little early since both Shampoo and Mousse had gone missing. She was on her way to our place to see if either of the other Amazons had ended up there, or at least been seen since the ramen delivery a couple of hours earlier, when she met up with Happousai on the way back from his raid with his new bundle of 'silky darlings'. He had the gall to grope her, and she decided not to put up with it and chased him right into the house. He tossed his bundle into his room and rushed into the dining area with Cologne hot on his tail. Happousai grabbed one of the boxes which still had half an okonomiyaki in it and gobbled down the food while throwing the box at Cologne. She dodged and hit it with her staff, but when it blew up into shreds, she must have gotten some of Kodachi's powder on her face. She licked a bit off her lip, and if I hadn't been there and seen it for myself, I would never have believed it. She started making eyes at Happousai and calling him cutesy names. He rushed right up to her, called her his 'beloved' and they started making out right there in the living room! One of us said 'get a room' and they left for the kitchen, where apparently they downed the ramen that nobody else had eaten yet and the rest of the yakisoba, too. Seeing how they were acting when they went into the kitchen, they probably fed it to each other while making googly eyes and snuggling together."

Ryouga looked at her curiously, and she blushed and half hid her face. "Well, I shouldn't make it sound like such a bad thing, since I have to admit that Tofu and I fed each other ramen and yakisoba while making googly eyes and snuggling together, too. That's the main reason we told Happousai and Cologne to get out of the living room."

She went on, "The effect of the two drugs was really quite something. As I said before, it wasn't really sexual, at least not directly. But it was very stimulating to the emotions, and that had some, ummm, physical side-effects. Tofu and I were able to stay up and speak with each other all night long, getting him caught up with everything that had happened here while he had been gone, and he filled me in on a lot of the training he had undergone during that time. Kasumi came in for a while after she got back from her lecture series, but she could see, I guess, what had happened, and went off to bed at her usual time. When morning arrived, Tofu and I were still talking, hardly tired at all. We had a sort of glowing feeling."

Akane sighed and continued with a dreamy expression on her face. "It was almost as if just plain ordinary talking was a kind of physical stroking that could go on forever and not leave us feeling unfulfilled. After we got officially married in a civil ceremony and got my emigration paperwork all taken care of the next day, we finally were able to get away in private. After all the talking the night before and during the course of the day, it felt like we'd had almost twenty-four hours straight of foreplay. The actual sex was so-o-o hot!" Akane stopped abruptly, put a hand over her mouth, and turned beet red as she realized what she had just said.

She looked over, half expecting to see Ryouga passed out and bleeding profusely from the nose, as he probably would have been if he'd heard this three years before. Over three years of experience beyond his Neriman adventures had toughened Ryouga's resistance to simple sensual references, however, so he had not fainted. He was alternating, though, between extreme paleness and thoroughly abashed redness, and he had pinched his nose shut, successfully avoiding a sanguinary outburst, at least so far. Akane then apologized for getting a little too detailed and personal in her recounting of the events of three years past.

Just then, Ami woke up and Akane decided it was time to get back home with the groceries she had picked up at the market that morning. She invited Ryouga to accompany them, saying that there was still more to tell of the events of the "weird evening", but that playing with the kids and making lunch for everyone had to come first. Ryouga accepted the invitation and was soon engrossed in a conversation with Ami about bunnies and llamas, as they walked from the charming little café to the Ono residence.

Akane smiled and complimented Ryouga on how well he took to children, and he muttered some thanks and continued his discourse with Ami, glad for the excuse not to go into just why this seemed so natural to him. At least not yet. He looked over to where Akane walked, cradling a now-conscious Shinji in her arms as they walked along.

Ryouga considered himself to be a lucky man now, but this was, after all, Akane, and there were certain matters, such as his former status as her pet piglet 'P-chan' and some aspects of his current status, which it would be a definite strain on his karmic balance to bring up voluntarily with her. Maybe someday. Maybe through the mail. Maybe through some mail with someone else like Ono Tofu or Tendo Kasumi, who were good at avoiding people's, even Akane's, wrath. Maybe through a mention in his will. Oh, well. Definitely not right here and right now.

Following behind his thoughts of avoiding Akane's wrath by avoiding releasing certain pieces of his personal information was another sudden thought. Akane had mentioned "making lunch". Did she mean that literally? Had she improved any in the kitchen in the past three years? Surely she would not endanger her small children? Would she? Or had they begun to build up a tolerance?

Ryouga started to worry a little bit, but didn't let it interrupt his dialogue with his new toddler acquaintance. Said new acquaintance's wide-ranging conversation topics shortly impinged on the data which he was thinking of seeking, saying, "Mama make me peanut butter sandwich. Real good."

Well, Ryouga could imagine that even Akane could master peanut butter spread across a slice of bread after three years, so he gained some confidence that he was not about to be poisoned as he responded that it sounded real good to him, too, and maybe Ami could get her Mama to make him one, as well.

Ami apparently already had some ideas on gender-based division of labor and retorted that he looked like a big enough boy to make his own sandwich. She was going to be big enough to do so when she was "this many", holding up three fingers. He assented to her diagnosis of his sandwich-making capability, but suggested that maybe she shouldn't handle knives until she was maybe five fingers or more. Ami looked at him with a certain disdain, said "plastic knife spread peanut butter okay", and followed up with a short "hmph".

Ryouga relented and allowed that maybe three year olds could use plastic knives if a parent was supervising. He didn't point out that it would be almost a year again before Ami turned three. There were enough limitations in a toddler's life as it was without pointing them all out. Ami's dreams for her future were no less valid just because they had drawbacks from an adult's point of view. Maybe she wasn't in such a hurry; knowing she should be able to do what she wanted to do when she did finally get to be three might be enough. He and Ami smiled warmly at one another as Akane led them through a gate onto the veranda around a house of moderate size and good quality workmanship.

Lunch went well, from Ryouga's point of view, in that it did not involve any unrecognizable alleged foodstuffs. It was fairly simple fare, but entirely edible. Ryouga was amused as Akane went on at length at how Tofu had shown her a whole new world of pre-prepared food readily available at supermarkets like Wong's, just a couple of neighborhoods away. Such remarkable foods had only to be put into the microwave oven; a few buttons, based on detailed notes written down for her by Tofu, would be pushed in a certain order, and, amazingly, they came out all ready to eat!

As Akane mused that Peru was so much better off than Japan for having such wonderful innovations, Ryouga forced himself to avoid making any sort of response in defense of his homeland, regardless of how appropriate such a defense might be. The fact that he had seen for himself the wide variety of such items available in Japan - even in Nerima itself - was not going to do him any good in this situation. If ever Akane went back to visit, she might find out for herself about its availability, but would most likely consider it wise of her countrymen to have finally accepted the prudent and resourceful path of the Peruvians. He simply smiled at Ami and played peek-a-boo with Shinji and let Akane rattle on.

Another advantage to their current home, Akane went on, was that a wide variety of fruits and vegetables could be found in Peru which could be eaten as they were, with at most some peeling or slicing needed to get at their interiors. Again, Ryouga could have pointed out that the same was true of Japan, but again he refrained from doing so. He had really enjoyed the grapes and mango slices Akane had served with lunch, so no doubt Peru was a good place for produce. Staying uninjured while eating it would be a good thing.

With Tofu's notes by the microwave oven, Akane could even boil water reliably now, and make tea that usually came out okay, now that she had learned to calm down in the kitchen and avoid either the blind panic or the blind fervor she used to work herself into, either of which was sure to lead to misfortune. Ryouga said a silent prayer to whatever kami watched over kitchens, giving thanks for their assistance, and hoped their patience had not been too taxed over the years.

After lunch and cleanup from lunch, a young girl of about twelve or thirteen came from a neighbor's house to watch after the children for a while during Akane's martial arts practice. Akane invited Ryouga to join in, if he wished. He agreed, and as Akane went through her basic Tendo Anything Goes limbering-up exercises and katas in a covered section of the yard, he chose to work on some of the centering exercises he had developed for himself to enhance his positive ki flow. He had some time ago decided to wean himself from relying on the Shi Shi Hokoudan as his primary ki attack. Really, he had been finding it much harder of late to maintain the levels of depression and despair needed to produce a really good burst of heavy ki, and he knew that it had never done him much good to use the method so often. After a fair fraction of an hour, he moved on to do some basic katas for flexibility and muscle toning. Feeling refreshed, he settled down to a simple set of repeated strikes and parries for cooling down, and watched Akane going through her katas.

Ryouga realized that she had gained a lot of smoothness and grace since the last time he had seen her do these exercises. She still tended to emphasize the "brute strength" aspects of some of the moves, but they were blended together much more deftly than before. She then surprised him by going into a sequence that he recognized from one of Ranma's dance-like katas. He realized that she was watching him while doing this series of moves, and blushed a bit for staring at her like that. There was one transition into a flying vertical sweep kick with which she seemed consistently to have trouble, landing awkwardly every time after performing the kick. It was not a dangerous or major error, but it did stand out in comparison to the fluid ease of the rest of the moves.

Ryouga went over and started to go through the kata alongside her, calling upon his recollection of Ranma's moves years before to supplement the visualization of the routine as he had just seen Akane perform it. As he reached the point where Akane's difficulty was occurring, he repeated the moves immediately before, during and after the troublesome kick several times. By the time he was finished, he was no longer duplicating Akane's awkward landing, and while perhaps not quite so serenely elegant as Ranma would have been, was definitely successful in its execution.

He then went through it at reduced speed, drawing Akane's attention to the precise positioning of a foot, the angle of a shoulder, and a slight twist of a hip in the lead-in to the move, relative to the way she had been doing it.

When she had seen this "footnoted" version a few times, she went into a series of repetitions herself, to see if she could get her body to relearn the sequence using some of the subtleties of positioning he had illustrated. Ryouga critiqued her form at times, as she was able to gradually achieve the modified approach stance, which then led to a more adroit execution of the kick and a more balanced landing afterward. After a particularly smooth example of the sequence, Ryouga started applauding and praising Akane, who finished up the kata, glowing with accomplishment, along with a fairly good layer of perspiration from the effort she had put in to get the moves just right.

"I can't help asking, Akane, but why this kata of Ranma's?" Ryouga asked the beaming young woman. She paused and with a definitely sneaky glint in her eye, she motioned for him to come nearer, as if she wished to whisper the answer to his question in confidence. A little puzzled at the apparent secrecy Akane wanted to preserve about her choice of exercises, he had come within arms' distance of her when she suddenly went into a very good rendition of her father's demon-head technique, getting the tone of voice just right as she bellowed, "The schools MUST be joined!"

Akane immediately burst out laughing heartily as she helped the cringing Ryouga back to his feet. "I'm so sorry! I just couldn't resist!" she had a hard time getting out between the guffaws.

Ryouga gave her a smidgeon of a pout, but couldn't maintain it in the face of the laughter bubbling up from the depths of his being. After they had gotten some of it out of their systems, Akane settled down a bit and continued, "Well, I ended up not getting the dojo, and not having to deal with the families' honor debts or the 'joining of the schools', or any of that garbage. And I am really happy to be well out of it all. But there were a lot of good times during all that chaos, too, and Ranma's kata helps me with remembering them. I guess doing it just makes me happy. Except for that one damned kick, and now you've helped me see where I was a little off in remembering how Ranma did it. Of course, he always did it perfectly and really fast, so the details would just whiz by, and he never had the patience to really teach me what I was doing wrong."

Akane assumed a more thoughtful expression and after a brief pause went on, "Or, maybe, I guess, he was afraid I would get mad at him for pointing out I was doing something wrong." Ryouga's eyebrows went up at hearing this admission. "As I mentioned earlier," she explained, "Tofu has helped me a lot in understanding myself and my feelings... and some of my bad habits. I think Ranma and I did have a real relationship going, maybe even... love... whether we wanted to admit it or not, but we weren't really ready for it yet. It just led to fear and confusion, at least on my part, and from what other people have told me in the years since then, that must have been true of Ranma, too. And all the pressures from all around us were no help in sorting the feelings out, either."

The two of them sat quietly, reflecting on past times, good and bad. Ryouga felt a wave of warmth and realized that while this sort of exposition of Akane's true feelings was not unfamiliar to him, it was one of the rare times he could remember not being a piglet while on the receiving end. He then felt a touch of discomfort as he realized that his past self's next move would almost certainly have been to try to find a way to use such inside information against his rival, Saotome Ranma. The discomfort stemmed both from the guilt he felt over his past behavior and from the knowledge he had gained just today that Akane's innermost feelings were no longer relevant to either Ranma or himself. She was already taken, someone else's happy wife and mother, and not his or Ranma's concern any more. This was going to take some getting used to.

The door to the house then opened, and out rushed Ami in her own practice gi. The babysitter followed with Shinji, who was coming up on feeding time. Akane told Ryouga that after Shinji had been taken care of, she planned to wash up; if Ryouga wanted to do so as well, he had only to ask Maria to lead him to the guest room, which had its own shower. Akane then took Shinji with her back into the house. The young teen nanny sat down at a respectful distance from the adult visitor whom Ami was anxious to impress with her martial arts skills.

"The Art!" Ami exclaimed excitedly and went into a stance clearly based on careful observation of her mother. She proceeded through a series of stretches and limbering up exercises which led into a set of punching, dodging, and kicking repetitions, followed by a lot of flopping on the ground accompanied by giggles and arm flailing. After this had gone on for more than thirty seconds, a puzzled Ryouga realized that this was Ami's method of training her body how to transfer energy from a fall. She was at some disadvantage, in that there was relatively little energy to transfer at her sub-meter height, but he reflected that it was never too early to begin with the basics. As Ami grew, she would already be familiar with the concepts mentally, and her body would be used to the physical feelings, and when her capabilities increased, she would be ready for more sophisticated techniques. Besides, it looked like great fun.

When Ami finished up "falling" practice, she ran twice around the yard on her little legs and then did a final couple of stretches and dropped down to a meditative posture for twenty seconds or so. Then she dashed over to Ryouga, smiling broadly, asking "I OK?"

Ryouga returned her smile and gave her a brief round of applause. "It was very good. I am very impressed, Ami!" And he was, really. Ami had displayed a level of control and understanding of her body's capabilities truly beyond what he would expect of any ordinary two-year-old.

Ryouga looked over to where the babysitter sat keeping a watchful eye on Ami and the visitor. "Maria?" he asked. She nodded and rose from where she was sitting. He asked in careful Spanish if she could lead him to the guest room so he could get cleaned up from his exercise.

Ami burst out, also in Spanish, "I lead you!" and as a concession, more quietly, "Maria can come, too."

Ryouga looked a bit surprised and asked Ami, in Japanese, "You speak both Japanese and Spanish?"

She looked at him as if he was utterly stupid, rolled her eyes, and commanded, returning to Japanese, "You follow me!" as she headed towards the house.

Maria gave a meek smile, lifted her eyebrows and told Ryouga in Japanese, "Many of us do, here. We should follow now, or Ami's temper will kick in." Her tone of voice implied that this would be a real problem if it were to happen, so Ryouga obeyed.

He grabbed his backpack and was led to a nice plain well-lit room with a bed, a desk, a wardrobe and its own small bathroom. As Maria took Ami away for her own after-exercise cleansing, Ryouga kept his eyes on the open bathroom door lest he lose his bearings on his way there, closed the guest room door behind him, and went to take a refreshing shower, carefully checking the water temperature before entering it. There was no sense in taking chances.

After the shower, he located where he had settled his backpack next to the bathroom door and donned a nearly identical, but clean, copy of his usual outfit. He sat on the bed, reflecting on the day's revelations while waiting for someone to come and get him. He didn't feel like risking getting completely lost again before hearing the end of the story of the "weird evening" that seemed to have changed so many lives; surprisingly enough, so far, most of the changes appeared to have made people happy.

Ryouga also realized that Lima was a large modern city, and might provide what he had been away from home looking for in the first place. He'd have to ask Akane.

He didn't have to wait long. There was a knock at the door, and he followed the sound and opened it, revealing a smiling Akane in a green blouse and brown skirt. She led him to the living room, informing him that she had arranged for Maria's cousin Narumi to come over and prepare supper for the family. Narumi was a student at a local chef's college and worked part-time as assistant chef at one of the resort hotels on the coast, and the Onos were one of several families in the area which employed her for special occasions.
Fortunately, she was not engaged this evening and was happy to help out.

"Akane?" Ryouga asked, "You wouldn't happen to know where around here I might buy a Global Positioning System unit, would you?"

Akane looked slightly blank for a second or two, and then answered, "Oh, those little computers or radios or whatever that talk to the satellites and tell you where you are, right?" Ryouga nodded and she went on, "I read an article on them a couple of months ago. I can understand that you might find one useful, but I never thought to go shopping for one myself, so I'm not sure whether any place around here carries them. Hmmm... I know! There is a store that sells stereos and TVs and electronic things like that just a couple of blocks from the clinic. If they don't have what you're looking for, one of their technical staff would be sure to know if any other store does."

They gathered up Ami and Shinji into the stroller along with all the various wipes, towels, spare clothes, diapers, lotions, toys, books, snacks, and other necessities of a modern expedition with small children and set out down the street. Ami would yell at Ryouga, to Akane's amusement, whenever he veered away from them up neighbors' driveways or into alleys or cross streets not on the actual route. She was definitely not one to keep her opinions to herself. She was, however, recently exercised and fed, so she dozed off before reaching their destination. Shinji remained conscious, but was content to curiously examine the scenery as they went by and kept any comments to himself.

Ryouga's own curiosity was itching to be satisfied, so he asked Akane to continue the story of the "weird evening". After a brief review of what parts she had already gone over, she started in again with the search for Ranma by the two drug-wielding fiancées. Nobody besides those involved really knew the details of just where they looked and in what order or how it all really happened, but at least parts of the story had come out. Akane summarized it.

The main event was that somehow Shampoo and Kodachi had encountered Kuno Tatewaki, and somehow he ended up in a fight against Shampoo. Mousse had been looking for Shampoo and, coming upon the scene of the fight, managed to interfere with Kuno's usual fast-but-predictable bokken attack, throwing the attack pattern into chaos momentarily, catching Shampoo, distracted by Mousse, by surprise and knocking her out briefly. When she came to, she realized that she had been defeated by another outsider male, and dutifully administered the Kiss of Marriage to Kuno. Somehow, right after this, they both ended up unconscious in the middle of the street. Mousse kept his lips sealed about how this had occurred, and Kodachi, when asked, would just not stop laughing, which was an effective deterrent against anyone asking her about it a second time.

Then, with Kuno and Shampoo portraying living speed bumps, along came Unryuu Akari riding Katsunishiki at full speed down the same street. Mousse had to knock the gargantuan pig out to keep it from trampling the bodies. Akane felt that there was probably interference in here from Kodachi and her love drug, but nobody had ever really come forward with any details. The end result was that Mousse went off to Akari's farm with her and they were married by the end of that week, by which time Shampoo had returned to China with an apparently happy Kuno Tatewaki in tow. Drugged or not, spouting love drivel at someone who seemed to return his affection was a welcome change for him, and having a husband who enjoyed her come-ons instead of avoiding them at all costs was a pleasant surprise for Shampoo.

At this point, they reached the store, and soon found out that Ryouga could purchase a GPS unit similar to what he wanted there. He got one of the technical personnel to run through its functions with him, to make sure he knew what it could and could not do. On the way back to the Onos' house, he monitored their progress on the unit's screen, amazed to see how clearly it showed him where he was. Once he actually saw it in action, he was very pleased by his new gadget. It was no cure for his directional deficiencies, but it certainly would help in many cases. He could set a course on it, given the coordinates of his destination, and then use its real-time location display to monitor whether or not he was following the set course.

He showed it off to Akane, who was a bit technology-shy, but willing to humor him, and to Ami, who was not shy in the least, just lacking in knowledge and happy to make up for the lack by soaking in the explanations like a sponge. She seemed to grasp the idea of the line on the screen being the path their footsteps should follow quite well, and identified the sharp bend in the displayed line with the turn onto the street where she lived.

They had arrived back at the house by the time Ryouga realized that he had not really heard an ending to the story of what had happened in Nerima three years before, so after putting his new GPS unit carefully back in its case and establishing Ami with a batch of her toys and Shinji in his playpen, he asked Akane if she could continue where she'd left off.

Akane thought again of what she'd already told him and elaborated on a few points. "Mousse still lives out at the pig farm with Akari. Oh, I am sorry, Ryouga, I know you were sort of sweet on her at one time. They have a baby daughter now, about a year old. We've heard from Cologne that Shampoo and Kuno are pretty happy living at the Amazon village, and are now expecting a child again. They lost one before, unfortunately, due to some side effect of Shampoo's curse that nobody has gone into detail about. Tofu may know more about that. I know that Shampoo and I were often at odds, but I believe that nobody should have to go through the loss of a child like that."

After a moment of quiet reflection, Ryouga and Akane agreed that they both hoped everything would work out for the Amazon and her samurai-oid mate this time. If Shampoo and Kuno were happy together, they weren't bothering anyone else, and as intense as each could be at times, they really were basically friendly people. Now that they had apparently learned when to quit denying reality, the two of them deserved to live happily ever after as much as anyone did. Their living happily ever after in a remote part of China, well away from Japan or Peru, would be a plus, Akane had to admit, and Ryouga privately agreed.

Akane continued, "Both of the Kunos were finally convinced that night of the reality of Jusenkyo curses, since Shampoo's curse was so obvious that even a Kuno couldn't ignore it. Tatewaki probably still doesn't make the connection between the two Ranmas - his being thousands of kilometers away in central China kind of makes the point moot - but Kodachi certainly figured it out. She made it known in no uncertain terms that she was no longer interested in Ranma due to his gender-changing curse." Akane then did a passable imitation of Kuno Kodachi, unfortunately including the laugh, exclaiming "Ranma darling, that curse of yours really CREEPS me out! Oh-ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho!".

Akane added that Kodachi had gone to Europe during a school term break later in the year and coincidentally ran into Sanzenin Mikado, there to add to his collection of kisses after Shiratori Azusa had stopped paying attention to him in favor of her new boy-toy, Gosunkugi Hikaru. Kodachi and Mikado had been seen together regularly ever since, though they were not yet married, as far as Akane knew.

"I also suspect," said Akane, "that Kodachi had a part to play in her father's sudden engagement to Ninomiya Hinako a month or so afterward. At least one good side effect came of it: somehow - I don't know, maybe with her ki-sapping technique or something - Hinako-sensei managed to get Principal Kuno to see and accept help from competent mental health professionals! Everyone back home says he has toned down his extravagant behavior a lot. Everything is still Hawaiian-themed, but it's all well within the range of normality. And he's off the haircut kick completely! Not a set of scissors or hair clippers in sight. Hinako-sensei herself seems to have found some help with her own health problems, and her younger self has matured to the point of looking to be about our age. They got married during the school's spring break last year."

Ryouga brought up a point that had occurred to him earlier in the story, "You said that 'you had heard from Cologne' something about Shampoo and Kuno's expecting a child. Is she back at the Joketsuzoku village with them?"

Akane chuckled. "Oh, no. She's still in Nerima, running the Nekohanten. She says that, as an Amazon elder, she can do pretty much whatever she wants to as long as they're not at war, and they have no plans for war any time in the foreseeable future."

She didn't notice Ryouga's sudden sharp look as she continued, "I really think she just wants to be with Happousai again, but she has no intention of letting him anywhere near either the other Amazons or the village and the Amazon treasures there. Not in this lifetime. She seems to keep him busy enough, ahem, and satisfied enough, ahem, that he's cut back on his panty raids and random gropings quite a bit." Akane had a hard time getting that last sentence out, Ryouga noticed, and then, his subconscious having digested what it was she'd said, a mental image hit him which had him clearing his own throat, too, even though he had not even been the one speaking.

After a brief pause, Akane carried on with the explanation, "Since Shampoo and Mousse are both gone, and Happousai is not very dependable, Cologne's had to hire some extra help. Konatsu works there primarily and stays in Mousse's old room. He'd felt a little uncomfortable staying at Ukyo's after she got married to my father. Ranma puts in a few shifts per week waitressing at the Nekohanten, too. They both take a couple of shifts a week at Ukyo's as well. Even Kasumi puts in a few shifts a month at both places. Kasumi and Ranma do it to earn some money for textbooks and pocket money now that they are going to college."

Ami jogged over then and insisted on being taken to see 'Tia Narumi' in the kitchen, and Akane excused herself to go with her, to check on the progress of the professionally prepared supper she had contracted for. Ryouga stayed put, the playpen in plain sight containing a drowsy Shinji, teething calmly on the ear of a stuffed jaguar.

Suddenly, Shinji looked up, over Ryouga's right shoulder, released the jungle cat's ear, along with a fair quantity of drool, and exclaimed "o-o" happily. Smiling, he went back to gnawing on the ear, as a chill ran up and down Ryouga's spine in time with a quiet, but commanding, voice from behind him, saying "Hibiki-san, I would like to have a word with you. About my wife."

The last two words were laced with enough ki to make a tolerable Moko Takabisha attack, and reverberated through Ryouga's frame as if he were sitting right in front of a speaker at a rock concert.

Ryouga's mind was awhirl with thoughts in the instant it took to stand and turn around to face a stone-faced Ono Tofu.

His martial arts center desperately wanted to know how Tofu-sensei had produced the ki-enhanced sound effects, while simultaneously noting that there had been no echoing from walls or furnishings as might be expected from mere amplified sound waves.

His memory center promptly pulled up the annotation on his recollection of Tofu-sensei referring to the fact that even though nobody he knew had actually seen the doctor in a martial arts battle of any kind, Ranma had told Ryouga that he had a great deal of respect for the older man's abilities.

His analytical center collided midbrain with his conscience, both freaking out to the tune of "He knows! Oh, crap! He knows! Akane will kill me! HE will kill me!"

For the second time that day, Ryouga's politeness center found itself left in control of his body by default. It had his body execute a slight bow, while instructing his vocal center to murmur respectfully, "By all means, Ono-sensei." Under the circumstances, using the doctor's personal name seemed to the politeness center to be somewhat presumptuous.

Ono Tofu led Ryouga calmly out onto the veranda and across the courtyard to the general area where Akane had practiced her martial arts earlier. As they drew to a stop well away from the house and its occupants, Tofu-sensei turned and looked back at it. As Ryouga followed the other's gaze, he suddenly felt several quick jabs in various locations along his spine and ribcage. "Damn." was about all his brain was capable of thinking just then, as it realized that he, an experienced martial artist and trained warrior, had just allowed himself to become immobilized by someone he already knew to be a potential threat. "If I survive this, I don't think I'll mention it back home," piped up his humor center before being slapped silly by the rest of his brain.

Tofu-sensei then spoke, getting straight to the point. "First, I wish to know if you are still enamored of my wife. Second, P-chan will not make an appearance if you can at all avoid it, and if you cannot, you will come to me before letting Akane see you. She is not to know your secrets, either of them. If you can continue to keep quiet about your curse and your infatuation, you are welcome here." The doctor's face relaxed minutely, even giving a hint of a smile.

Ryouga's jaw dropped. He was apparently not going to die, at least not immediately. And he didn't even have to lie about anything. His relief spread across his face, and, seeing this, Tofu-sensei's expression further eased. Ryouga recovered his voice, saying, "Then we have no problems. I got over my crush on Akane long ago. I even married someone else last year, though I would rather not mention that to Akane for reasons I'll let you know later. And P-chan is no more. I went back to Jusenkyo -"

"You're cured?" Tofu broke in, excitedly. "Ranma will be happy to hear that it can be done!"

Ryouga shook his head. He would have raised his hand in emphasis of his denial, but found that it was not following his brain's commands just then, a tribute to the good doctor's accuracy in pressure point manipulation. "No, not cured. At least, not in a way Ranma would find of any use. You will have to warn him. Pantyhose Taro was not entirely a fluke. The curses don't cancel out, at least not most of them. They add, or merge."

Tofu-sensei's face fell in response to Ryouga's somber expression. Ryouga's trademark depression and despair flared weakly. Then, he collected himself and continued. "I found myself at Jusenkyo about two months after leaving Nerima. The springs had all reformed by then, and I was really tired of being a candidate for lunch, so I just had to try to get a cure. I first tried the 'Spring of Drowned Man'. I ended up a four foot tall half-pig half-man. I was so shocked and depressed, I started to wander off to lose myself for good. The Jusenkyo Guide then shouted something at me and as I turned to get back closer to him so I could hear what he was saying, I tripped and fell into another spring, the 'Spring of Drowned Phoenix Warrior'. Well, that merged with my other curses, too. It increased the fraction of human being in the mix, thankfully. Now, cold water turns me part bird and part pig, but mostly human. I don't know what would happen if Ranma tried the same thing. Maybe some curses act in a different way from mine and Taro's. But I don't think Ranma'd really like being a part woman, part man any better than being what he is now. Do you?"

"No. I rather think not. I'll have to let him know the next time we call Nerima."

"Good. I will try to avoid transforming while I'm here, but I think there's enough of a difference now that I could just explain it to Akane as a set of curses I got after leaving Nerima the last time. She doesn't need to know what order I got the curses in, or just when I got them, right?" Ryouga looked at the other man hopefully.

"Right. You know that it's a Tendo family rule now that Akane never be told about you and P-chan, if it can be at all avoided?" Tofu asked with a grin.

"Huh? Why?" was Ryouga's surprised response.

"Well, I found out about your little secret from Soun on my wedding day. He wanted to let me in on it, in case you showed up in either of your forms, so I could decide how to deal with you." Tofu-sensei looked at Ryouga, sternly. "When I asked Ranma about it, he explained his part in keeping your secret for you. Since I'd already found out from someone else, he wasn't breaking his vow to you in discussing it."

Tofu-sensei looked off into the distance as he went on. "He then asked me to continue to keep the secret from Akane. As various family members have become aware of it, he has asked them all to do so, as well. He says it's because he can't imagine Akane being happy about knowing what you did to her." He sent a severe look Ryouga's way to cut off any protest at this characterization, but Ryouga had some time ago come to a similar conclusion about the lack of honor he had displayed in his earlier behavior, so made no attempt to rebut Ranma's words. He had to admit that he could not imagine Akane happy to know about it, either. Tofu added, "Ranma finally decided to trust that you had not really taken advantage of Akane in any concrete way, nor were you likely to do so in the future, even if you did come back. He wouldn't be too happy about a return of P-chan, but he wouldn't interfere, either. The family has all agreed to abide by his wishes in the matter. That's why I wanted to warn you not to let it come out, either by accident, or by getting all noble and confessing to it. You should also bear in mind that I'm a little less trusting than Ranma is."

At this, he reached over and jabbed a second pattern of pressure points on Ryouga's torso. Ryouga found himself in complete control of his body once more, and Tofu-sensei led him back into the house, arriving just in time for Akane and Ami to return from the kitchen bearing the word that dinner would be ready in ten minutes, so everyone should get cleaned up and settled in for it. Ami took over guest escort duty from her father, and Ryouga had a quick tour of her room and toys on the way to the washroom, where he was again careful to come into contact only with well-heated water during his preparations for dinner.

He heard many things about the chef, Narumi, from his young guide, who was apparently very impressed by her "aunt's" culinary skills. Of course, many of these complimentary remarks had to be translated from a toddler's frame of reference, but fortunately, he had had practice at that recently. His wife often made jokes about this ability's reflecting his true mental age, but in fact, it was more related to Ryouga's general linguistic skill level, which had often come in handy as a counterbalance to his directionlessness and travelling curses.

Ami dropped him off at the dining room and continued to the kitchen, where she herself would be eating with Maria and watching the show the chef would put on as she prepared the dishes for the adults. Shinji had already eaten and was napping for the time being.

Dinner proved to be as excellent as predicted, combining traditional Japanese foods and Peruvian specialties such as ceviche, which Ryouga found to be a very pleasant dish. Table conversation roamed over numerous subjects such as Tofu's activities at the clinic, life in general in Lima, a trip they'd made to Cusco a while back, and all the myriad anecdotes about their children which new parents are apt to bring out for company.

In response to polite queries, Ryouga admitted to having lived for most of the time he'd been gone in a remote part of China, assisting with some local mining activities using his Bakusai Tenketsu technique, and joining local security patrols on occasion, as all the inhabitants took turns doing so. He was deliberately vague on several points, but made up for it with some very specific humorous anecdotes of village life, not naming any names, of course (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Ryouga had a feeling that Tofu was filling in the gaps in his narrative all too accurately, and hoped Akane's husband would remember the request he'd made earlier about keeping certain facts from Akane for the time being. For her part, Akane didn't seem to notice any gaps in the first place, and was pleased to hear that Ryouga was apparently having a good and happy life. She said so quite often - often enough that Ryouga started to get a little bit tense and embarrassed. Tofu tried to cut through the tension with a joke about how Akane seemed to be implying that Ryouga's days in Nerima must have been just misery piled upon misery for any happiness to be such a surprising outcome. Unfortunately, this proved to be even more embarrassing to the directionally challenged young man, as he thought back on all the times he allowed his petty problems to sway his emotions so uncontrollably. He quickly realized, however, that he had put all that in the past, and started laughing at the absurdity of it all, puncturing the awkward silence which had fallen when Tofu's joke had fallen flat.

Then, their esteemed chef, Narumi, entered, bearing a tray with pastries and small cups of sweet wine for dessert. Seeing her in person for the first time, after hearing about her from Ami, Ryouga noted that she was a lithe, athletic young woman, dressed in jeans and a baseball shirt with an apron over them, with a pleasant smile, and hair dyed in purple and blue streaks. As he returned her smile, he did a slight double-take, and glanced over at Akane, who put her finger to her lips, signalling that he should probably not say anything just now. Tofu made the introductions, and upon finding out that Ryouga was an old friend of the Onos from Nerima, Narumi's smile morphed into a wry grin and asked if he, too, was going to tell her she looked just like someone he used to know.

Ryouga hemmed and hawed a little, and finally replied, "Well, I was going to, but Akane didn't seem to want me to." Everyone laughed, and Ryouga went on, "The resemblance is quite striking, you know. Even with different clothes, and hair style and color and makeup, you could be our friend Konatsu's identical twin. Ummm, well not quite identical, since you're really female and he just, well..." He trailed off, trying to come up with some way to put his thought without seeming to insult either Konatsu or Narumi somehow.

Narumi had obviously heard all about her doppelgänger, and went back to her original cheery smile, "Yes, so I've heard. Repeatedly. That's OK. He seems to be a pretty nice guy from what the Onos have told me."

"And he's been taking 'man lessons' lately," added Akane, "or so we've heard from back home. Of course, with teachers like Ukyo, Ranma and Happousai, I'm not sure how well that's going to work out."

"Now, Akane," Tofu chided, "you know his main instructor is your father. And Konatsu may have a unique mentality, but he is not stupid. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know," Akane said. "In a way, Ukyo's experience acting as a boy for all those years may make her the best teacher anyway. And Ranma usually acts like a guy even when he's a girl, so if you could see past his ego, he'd be a reasonable rôle model for male behavior. Happousai, though - it's hard to imagine how he can help."

"Maybe as a counter-example?" Ryouga suggested. "Or to demonstrate how some masculine behaviors can be taken too far?"

This brought another round of laughs, and the diners then complimented the chef extravagantly, as she deserved, and she thanked them for hiring her and allowing her to use them as guinea pigs, which got another laugh. Narumi then mentioned she had to hurry to finish the kitchen clean up, as she had to leave shortly to go on a date with her boyfriend. As she reached the door, she whirled around with her hand up in a 'stop' motion, as if she had seen through eyes in the back of her head Akane's starting to make a comment. "And, no he does NOT look like your step-mother, Ono-san. At least not that much. I've seen pictures of her, you know." With that, she finished leaving the room.

Akane blushed at this, but recovered quickly and whispered to Ryouga, "Yes, he does!" Ryouga glanced at Tofu, who put on an innocent look, but whispered, "Strange, but true." They all sat quietly for a minute, suppressing laughter, almost successfully, then focused on eating their desserts.

When they had finished, they all stood and took the dessert dishes into the kitchen, where Tofu put them into an automatic dishwasher with a practiced grace and Akane thanked Maria for looking after Ami for them. Narumi had already left for her date, the kitchen nearly spotless in her wake.

Tofu walked Maria home and returned six or seven minutes later, as Akane and Ryouga played with Ami in the family room. Tofu and Ryouga built a castle from a set of blocks, the walls of which Ami gleefully smashed down using one of her larger dolls, Godzilla-like in its disrespect for good architecture. Akane, channeling motherly advice through one of Ami's other dolls, pointed out the devastated remains of one of the walls as a sad situation for the castle's inhabitants and received as response the destruction of one of the other walls and an outbuilding.

After a couple more iterations of rebuilding and redestroying, Ami's bedtime approached. She boldly demanded that Ryouga read to her a story, and hauled him off to her room with her. He remained there as Akane and Ami went to the bathroom to prepare Ami for bed. When they returned, he was presented with a children's book and ordered to read it by his young new friend. He raised an eyebrow at Akane as he read its title, "My First Purchase". She explained that it was a gift from Ami's Aunt Nabiki, who had enjoyed the book as a child. "Ami really likes it, too. It's actually pretty good." After reading the picture book to Ami, Ryouga could see why the independent-minded toddler found it inspirational reading, as it dealt with the adventures of a similarly independent-minded little girl out in the neighborhood on her own for the first time. He surprised Akane by tucking Ami into her bed quite professionally, and following up with a couple of soft lullabies, one in Japanese and the second in Chinese, by the end of which Ami had fallen asleep. Akane thanked Ryouga quietly, and led him back into the living room, making one last check on the still-sleeping Shinji along the way.

"I've been telling Ryouga all about what went on in Nerima after he left," Akane told her husband as she and Ryouga seated themselves near him. "So, do you have any questions? Did I leave anything out?" she asked Ryouga.

"Well, you're with Tofu-sensei here, Kuonji Ukyo is married to your father, Shampoo is back at the Amazon village with Kuno Tatewaki, and Kuno Kodachi has renounced any ties with him, so how did Ranma like going from four fiancées to none so quickly?"

"Oh, he didn't make it quite down to 'none'," Akane corrected. "Though he did try, sort of. After a few days, my father realized that his and Uncle Saotome's agreement could still be fulfilled by marrying Ranma to Kasumi. They were the only ones left at the old house anyway, what with everyone else moving out, even Happousai. Ranma resisted at first, claiming that it wasn't fair to Kasumi -- not wanting to make her feel like a consolation prize, or something like that. He gave in after a few days. I think Kasumi convinced him somehow that she'd make sure it wouldn't go beyond being engaged. And that seems to be the way it's played out. With nobody but the two of them living there most of the time, nobody has been pressuring them to get married, but they both just let people think they are engaged, and leave it at that. It seems to be enough to keep my father and Ranma's parents happy, at least. Ukyo says they really do live like an old married couple, except for sleeping in separate rooms. They're polite and even a little affectionate with each other, she says. I don't know, though. I still feel nervous with Ranma living so close to my big sister without anybody else around to keep the pervert in line."

Ryouga noticed Tofu, sitting just past Akane, rolling his eyes behind her back, and had to wonder himself how a grown and married woman such as Akane could persist in believing Saotome Ranma to be a "pervert", to the point of suspecting him of plotting some unnamed perversion under the guise of three years of polite affection and apparent abstinence. Now that he had had three years of time and thousands of kilometers of distance to reflect on the matter, he would as soon suspect dear sweet Kasumi of such a plan as Ranma.

"With just the two of them living there, though, there was a lot less housework for Kasumi to do," Tofu mentioned.

Akane took up this thought, "And without all the fiancées and rivals around, the chaos seemed to die down a lot, too, leaving much less repair work as well."

"Kasumi started to help Ranma with his schoolwork, since Akane wasn't there to study with," Tofu continued, "and after a few months, he was doing so well that she was able to convince him he should set his sights on a college degree instead of settling for just high school. After that, he turned the tables and managed to cajole her into taking the university entrance exams with him the next year. She went to a cram school for a few months, and between that and going through Ranma's high school assignments with him, she was back up to speed by the time of the exams. They both passed them with high scores and are now in their second year at one of the nearby universities. Kasumi is studying to be a doctor. Ranma is taking some business classes so he can manage the dojo financially after Soun-san really does retire, but he's also taking some medical courses. He'd like to be an EMT or a firefighter, and put his knowledge and training to work helping people in trouble, as well as teaching martial arts classes at the dojo."

"It sounds like some of Kasumi's attitude has rubbed off on Ranma," Ryouga commented.

"The rubbing off better not have been too literal," Akane retorted with a slight growl. "Pervert."

"It's just an expression!" countered Ryouga. "He seems to have settled into a happy life, too, like the people who got Kodachi's drugs that night."

"Of course he has. How could anyone be unhappy with my big sister Kasumi giving him all of her attention?" Akane smiled, not noticing her husband again looking slightly incredulous behind her shoulder. "Well, I've got to get to bed, so I can get up for Shinji's 3:00 feeding. My dear Tofu handles the midnight feeding using pumped breast milk we've stored in bottles, but I've got to get up around 3:00 for a little while more. It looks like he'll be sleeping the night through pretty soon, though. That'll be nice."

After receiving goodnight wishes from her husband and her guest, she padded off to the other wing of the house, leaving the other two alone, looking after her, both in thought for a couple of minutes.

Ryouga broke the silence. "So, how did Ranma really take it?"

Tofu closed his eyes and winced slightly. "As you'd expect. He was crushed. Completely crushed. He was beaten, and the worst part of it all was that it wasn't by some bad guy he could fight against. Everyone else but Kasumi was deliriously happy because of the drugs. How can anyone stand up to an opponent like total happiness? It's not as if flying over to Peru to claim Akane back from me was a reasonable course of action, either. And then that damned bitch, Kodachi..."

Ryouga's jaw dropped. Tofu-sensei was so generally soft-spoken and kind. This sudden snarl coming from his lips came as quite a surprise. Tofu realized the source of his guest's dismay and quickly apologized for his strong words, but then continued, explaining the cause of his feelings. "Akane probably told you about Kuno Kodachi's claiming that Ranma's curse 'creeped her out', right?"

Ryouga nodded, looking a little bit pained. Tofu diagnosed, "Ah, she did the imitation and the laugh, too, right?" Ryouga nodded again, smiling broadly this time.

"Well, there's a part of the story that Akane doesn't know," Tofu went on. "It's not really a big secret, but Kasumi and I agreed that the shorter version of Kodachi's rejection of Ranma would suffice for general consumption. On the day after everyone ate the drugged food, Akane and I had just gotten back from getting all the emigration paperwork taken care of when Ranma managed to get home somehow. He was in pretty bad shape, I could tell from his aura, but as usual he didn't want to admit that anything could really harm the great Saotome Ranma. Akane excitedly filled him in on the wedding and gave him the news that we were flying off to Peru the next day. I think Ranma right then must have thought he was having a nightmare and just wanted to go somewhere to sleep so he could wake up to a 'normal' life again. He said that his head hurt and went upstairs to his room. After a minute or two, I went up after him. I did a quick check-up on him and found he had a bad concussion arising from a pair of hairline skull fractures which had already reknitted. I didn't even bother calling for him to get X-rays; his aura showed the healing plain enough. If only everyone had that guy's recuperative powers, we'd need only half the number of hospitals and clinics we've got now. I suppose you're probably the same way, eh?"

Ryouga shrugged apologetically, and Tofu continued his story. "I called downstairs for someone to get some tea for him, so I could put a few herbs in it to help ease the remaining pain and help Ranma recover in a little more comfort. Since it was clear that he was recovering on his own pretty well, he might as well not ache quite so much while doing it. Just as Kasumi was bringing the tea into his room through the door, Kodachi vaulted in through his window, carrying two large jugs of water, one hot and one cold. She immediately started complaining about having heard a 'horrible, nasty, vicious lie' and had to check something for herself to disprove it. Of course, she ended up proving that 'Ranma-sama' and her brother's 'pig-tailed girl' were one and the same. I had to stop her from putting Ranma through the whole transformation more than the one time, for fear that it might cause problems with his recovering from his head wounds. If I'd been a bit less surprised by her sudden arrival, I would have stopped her from doing it the first time. Anyway, once she was convinced that Ranma did change, she started in on how only an ignorant peasant like Tendo Akane could have such low self-esteem as to even like a half-man like him, much less love one, and that it would take some kind of a pervert or social reject to want to... ahem... physically couple... with someone who was both a male and a female. Then came the part about his curse 'really creeping her out,' and she gave her horrid laugh and departed through the window one last time. Akane just heard that last bit, and Kasumi and I later decided that was enough for people to know. From the look on his face, I think Ranma took the rest of her ranting to heart, as well."

Tofu looked towards the hall leading to his home's sleeping quarters. "It unfortunately fit in all too well with some of the insults that Akane used to taunt him with." He shook his head, as if to clear it. "I haven't seen Ranma since that day. With his concussion, among other things, he didn't feel up to the trip to Narita Airport the next day to see Akane and me off to Lima. From what I've heard, though, from the others, Ranma spent several months in a state of borderline depression. He'd laugh it off if someone brought up the subject, but I think even Ukyo came to realize that Ranma's heart was broken, and it wasn't over losing her. It was Akane. Only Akane." Ryouga nodded his understanding solemnly.

"I can hardly blame him for loving her," Tofu said, smiling ruefully, "or you, for that matter. I love her deeply, myself, and it's not just the drugs doing it, not after all this time. I'm just glad that Kasumi is such a patient sort. Ukyo and Cologne are both certain that she has gone long past the sisterly love stage and truly wants Ranma as her own. She just refuses to apply any pressure on him whatsoever. For over two years now, he's seemed a lot better, not so depressed, even happy sometimes. The last few calls home, though, have brought word that he's been acting more like he did in the first few months after we left."

Tofu's expression went from sad concern to clinical curiosity as he continued, "I'm afraid the love drugs wiped out my only point of reference, so I'll ask you. How long does it take a broken heart to heal? How long was it before you could let go of Akane to consider loving someone else?"

Ryouga pondered a moment and replied, "Ah. Well. There were some extenuating circumstances with me and my wife, so I don't know if I'm a good gauge. There was also the matter of Akari confusing my heart. But I'd say that the sharpness of pain I felt about Akane was dulled enough after five or six months to seriously consider someone else taking her place as number one in my heart. It was probably another year, though, before there was no real pain at all, when I could accept the thought of someone else having her instead of me." Ryouga grinned sheepishly and went on, "Of course, it might have been sooner if the image of that 'someone else' in my mind had not been Saotome Ranma. It took me longer to accept that Ranma was not some sort of evil force delighting in torturing me personally than it did to accept the fact that I'd lost any chance of being together with Tendo Akane. Now, though, I really feel sorry for the poor guy. He's strong, though. He's a survivor. He'll eventually get over Akane."

"I'm not so sure that's his real problem right now, but I have to admit you're right about his strength and survival instincts. I just wish there was some way to help him that he'd accept. He's resilient and strong, but also stubborn and way too self-sufficient. Remember how he'd take pride in the fact that 'Saotome Ranma never loses'? Well, he hasn't been heard to say that since Akane left him." Tofu paused and after a moment of reflection, lit up with a new idea almost visibly flashing across his glasses. "Oh, and speaking of survival instincts, that reminds me. You said you'd tell me the reason later why you didn't want me to mention to Akane that you had gotten married. I am pretty sure that I know why, so you don't have to go into it now. Between your description of your new cursed form and an odd rumor we heard second-hand from the Amazon village and your mention just now of 'extenuating circumstances' regarding your wife and your former infatuation with Akane, I think I can put one and one and one together to get three... and then to keep quiet about the whole matter."

"Thank you very much, Tofu-sensei," Ryouga bowed slightly as he rose from his seated position. "Could I impose upon you to guide me to my room, please? I plan to get an early start tomorrow, as I have already been gone from home now for over a week, and I haven't mentioned it yet, but I have some little ones of my own to try to get back to as soon as possible, in addition to my beloved wife and stepson. I've been hoping that the GPS unit I went to buy would help keep me closer to home in the long run, so I chanced leaving the mountain for it. Now that I have one, I'd like to get home again. The twins are a little younger than Shinji, and I feel guilty about leaving my wife to do all the work."

"I understand," was Tofu's response as he led Ryouga down the hallway. "I don't like having to spend just my days at the clinic apart from Ami and Shinji. I can't imagine not knowing when I'd be able to see them again. I hope you do find that the GPS unit helps."

At that, they arrived at the guest room, and Ryouga entered. He turned and thanked Tofu again, and added, "You don't have to keep my family a secret for long. I give you permission to tell Akane about it tomorrow after I leave. I just didn't want to risk spoiling her fun at having an old friend stop by." Tofu raised his eyebrows a bit, and Ryouga conceded, "And, of course, I did want to stay alive, too. But don't you think beating me severely would spoil Akane's fun? Well, maybe not. Anyway, you can tell her about my new cursed form, not mentioning just when which curse went into effect, of course, and you can tell her about my marriage. She seems to have forgiven Pantyhose Taro. Do you think she might..."

"...forgive your wife and stepson? I don't really know. If she's upset after I tell her, I'll work on her till she comes around. Okay?" Tofu offered.

"That sounds like it's about as good a chance as I am likely to get," Ryouga assented. "You may tell the others, too. Especially Cologne; a confused Amazon can be a dangerous Amazon. Have her tell Shampoo to drop by some time for a chat with an old friend. Give me a couple of weeks to get back home first, though, so I can explain the situation to the border patrols."

"I'll do that," Tofu replied. "Good night."

With that, they went their separate ways, Ryouga to the attached bathroom, and Tofu back into the living area of the house. Ryouga quickly washed up and went to bed and had the best sleep he'd had since leaving home over a week before, dreaming of his lovely wife and family.

Early the next morning, Ryouga got up, dressed, and packed his backpack up, not forgetting his new GPS unit. He then very cautiously ventured out into the hallway. There seemed to be only two possible directions to go, though that of course had not always been a guarantee that he'd end up going in either of those two specific directions. He listened carefully and concluded that he heard more signs of activity in one direction than in the other, and with a care which a casual observer, had there been one, might have found comical in its exaggeratedness, advanced in that direction until there came a splitting of hallways. Here, he repeated his careful listening pose and was just turning down what he thought was the most likely corridor when he was startled by Tofu-sensei's voice immediately behind him, "Left here, Hibiki-san, not right."

"Ah. Okay. Please just call me Ryouga." Ryouga put his hand behind his neck shyly and followed Tofu towards the kitchen, where the two of them shared a breakfast of fresh fruit and cereal. Akane was feeding Shinji, according to Tofu, and when she was done, she'd get Ami up to wish Ryouga a good journey and see him off. He said that he'd told his wife that Ryouga wanted to get back home for something important, but that he had not been specific. He'd fill in more of the details after Ryouga had already gone.

It was not too long before Ami raced into the kitchen, followed by her mother and little brother. More fruit and cereal was consumed and then they all went outside to the street. Ryouga got out his new GPS unit and confirmed that it did indeed still claim he was in Lima, Peru. He thanked his hosts once more for their hospitality, and told Ami to keep up her practice in "The Art". She responded by motioning to him to come down to her level. She then queried, imperiously, "What your little girl name?"

Akane gasped at her daughter's forwardness. "He doesn't have a little girl, Ami! Why do you ask that?"

Ryouga got a devilish glint in his eye as he looked at Akane while still facing Ami. "No, your mother is right, Ami. I don't have A little girl. I have TWO. Their names are Kikumi and Ryoko and they're almost as old as your little brother, Shinji." Seeing the surprise on Akane's face, he added, "And they have a big brother, too. We call him Safu-chan. He's this many now," Ryouga held up three fingers, and said, "Maybe someday you'll meet and become friends." Ami smiled happily at the prospect, and possibly because she had shown her mother up a little bit. "I have to go now, so I can see them all as soon as I can. I've already been gone too long, and I miss them a whole lot."

Ami stepped back then, saying, "Go now. Bye-bye." Akane stood there with her mouth hanging open, temporarily unable to speak. Tofu-sensei wished Ryouga a safe and quick journey home "however it is you do that." Ryouga walked off down the street, turned a corner, possibly intentionally, and was soon out of sight of the Ono house.

After an hour or so of turning city street corners, he noticed an apparent large increase in the lushness of vegetation around him, and checked his new GPS unit. "Where in the world is 'San José, Costa Rica'?" he muttered, as he began rummaging in his backpack for his well-worn world atlas.

oOoOo

At the same time, 13200 km to the northwest, on an otherwise clean table in a comfortable dining room with subdued lighting, the cool late evening breeze coming in through the open shouji panels fluttered a single piece of paper, upon which was written a note in a delicate hand.

"Ranma-kun: I know that because of today's date, you would prefer to have some time to yourself. I have prepared supper for you and left it here on the table. You do not have to clean up afterwards if you want to go and practice instead. There are no classes scheduled this evening, so the dojo is all yours. I will be over with Father and Ukyo and the girls until about 10:30 pm, so you do not have to worry about having other people around until then. Yours always, Kasumi"

Down the hallway and across the yard, light sounds emerged from a well-kept dojo; the sounds of a skilled practitioner of the martial arts going through a gravity-defying sequence of moves and feigned attacks, barely touching the floor for more than an instant before gaining the air again, flowing across all six surfaces of the large room as if there were no difference between them at a speed which made him appear to be more of a blur than a discrete entity. The clock on the wall read 10:15 pm as the wild yet controlled flurry of motions suddenly stopped, and the blur resolved itself into a tall young man sitting seiza before the shrine mounted on the opposite wall, his hair in a long braided ponytail hanging down his back. His bangs drooped down over his face, concealing it from view. He sat motionless for several minutes, a stark contrast to his earlier ultrakinetic activity. The only sounds in the dojo then were not loud enough to escape it: soft, quiet controlled breathing, and the occasional faint 'plip' as a droplet of salty water hit the mat below the young man's face.

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oOo More Author's Notes oOo

The side stories I have planned out, at least partially, so far include:

1. A run-through of the "weird evening" from Kodachi's point of view, as she really was behind most of it (including a few things Akane and Tofu are not aware of), even if events did not end up going as she had originally planned.

2. The past three years from Kasumi's point of view. This actually looks like it will turn out to be funnier than one might expect. It will be hard to avoid Ranma's emotional problems completely. It's just that Kasumi can't help but be optimistic about how everything will turn out, and her attitude is one of her own 'Anything Goes' techniques. While the chaos may have subsided somewhat with the withdrawal of the four classic fiancées and the usual rivals, it has not died out entirely.

3. The story of how Ryouga dealt with his new cursed form - as might be expected, rashly and stupidly - and how that series of events ended with his acquiring an 'Akane' for his very own, and learning to accept that Saotome Ranma was not the central mover of his existence.

4. A night on the town with Konatsu, as he tries to implement some of his 'man lessons' while avoiding total destruction at the hands of the female populace.

I don't know which will actually get written out properly first (as opposed to having a shadow existence in my notes), or how long it will be before they are ready to be released on a now-suspecting world. They are also competing for my limited time with three other entirely separate Ranma stories (two of which look now like they'll be of considerable length).