Chapter 3: Chiyo Messing Up.

Sakaki Kuonji held a cup of steaming water over her head, gazing steadily into the mirror over the sink as she slowly tilted it, sending water cascading downward. It was startling, to see red washed away by black as if her hair had been covered in rapidly dissolving paint. That wasn't the only change, however, as the sink shot lower by almost a foot in half a second. She stumbled forward for a moment, her center of gravity rapidly repositioning, and caught herself with her hands on the sink.

"Is too, too confusing, no?" A voice came from behind her, and the teenager noticed the purple framed face in the mirror, watching from just over her shoulder. "Is worse to be cat, trust Shampoo."

"To be a cat," Sakaki thought, and then sighed wistfully. "I wonder if they'd bite me then?"

"Shampoo no bite," the Amazon said firmly, missing what Sakaki had meant.

"Th... that's not what I meant," the younger girl returned, and her face was suffused with a blush as she recalled all the times that she'd played with the lavender cat when she was a child, somehow not connecting it in her mind with her aunt, even though they both technically had the same missing right forearm and hand.

"Sakaki-chan give too too good ear scratchings," the purple haired woman continued, teasingly. Seeing Sakaki fidgeting nervously with one of her uniform sleeves, she finally relented. "Your order is ready outside, sister is waiting."

Sakaki nodded, looking down at the sink and considering splashing herself again, but deciding against it before turning and heading for the door into the rest of the Neko-Hanten.

HR.

"All right Ol' Ghoul, talk," was the first thing Sakaki heard, as she approached the table where her mother sat with several bowls of ramen, as well as what looked like a monkey on a stick. She knew better, of course, but she'd gotten quite a few blows to the head when younger for making said comparison. From what she remembered, both her mother and Uncle Mousse were whacked even harder each of those times.

"Ah, Honored Matriarch, so terse today," Cologne returned, getting a twitching eyebrow from Ranma. "To tell the truth, I have no idea why such a rare event has happened twice in one month, but I would naturally put it down to you being involved."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Ranma griped, recalling Ryoga's comment a week earlier. "Even when you don't hate my guts you're blaming me for things."

Sakaki didn't' say anything, settling in to watch the inevitable verbal boxing match between her mother and her old sensei. It seemed that the red haired woman lost a good thirty years of maturity when confronting Elder Cologne, but both seemed to enjoy it, and it was always entertaining. It was often better than watching television.

Cologne sighed, then shook her head. "Well, you have to admit that even after everything died down in Nerima, your life has not been anything near normal."

"Hey, it wasn't that bad!" Ranma objected.

"The singing?" Cologne started, and when Ranma was about to speak, she continued, "The new-years prayers every year, Ryu Kumen, the Gh..."

"Okay, I get the point!" Ranma proclaimed, cutting off Cologne's last example. There were some things that should never be mentioned, even less so around her daughter.

"Why, but that one was the most fun!" Cologne cackled, deftly deflecting one of Ranma's chopsticks as it was launched at her face. Regaining some composure, she continued, "I am truly sorry, Ranma. We had no way of telling that it would happen, or I would have warned you of this ahead of time. It's only ever happened six times in our tribe's entire history, and some of the records of the events were lost."

The younger martial artist sighed. "And let me guess, there's no cure?" She asked, not noticing Sakaki's nervous look from across the table, where she was now half-way through quietly eating her food at a pace most would consider normal.

Cologne shook her head. "The springs would take it as a drowned girl curse, so bathing in that water again would do nothing," Sakaki sighed in relief, though only Cologne noticed, "and any other curse we could give her would be worse," she explained, and then continued, "Plus, you do remember that at least half the valley is still flooded from your battle with Saffron."

"Oh yeah, have you heard anything from him since the last death threat?" Ranma asked, and ignored the sound of Sakaki choking on a clump of noodles.

"Kiima is still keeping him from leaving until his ascension in five years," Cologne returned, nodding. "She does keep sending us holiday cards, though, so I'm not sure how serious he is about it."

"Damn, that means I have to send them one this year again, right?" Ranma grumbled, and then shook herself. "As for Sakaki, can we get some more waterproof soap, or something?"

Cologne nodded. "I'll put in an order to the village later tonight," she confirmed. "I'm going to need your seal as Matriarch for authorization, though."

"Damn it, I'm ruling over two people." Ranma returned, heatedly.

"No, you leader of village of six, remember?" Shampoo chipped in, grinning evilly.

"Yeah, right." Ranma responded, irritably. "I'll go get the hanko from the car."

After she left, Cologne looked at Sakaki, a speculative expression crossing her weathered face. "I heard that sigh earlier," she said, kindly. "It sounded almost as if you were relieved when I informed your mother that there was no cure to your curse."

Sakaki didn't respond, though she did look away slightly, staring into the kitchen, and incidentally the gleaming white lenses of Mousse's glasses, which were perched atop his head.

"Ah, so that is how it is, hmm?" The Elder cackled. "Unlike your mother, I don't really have the right to poke in to your business, but I suppose I could send the letter by slow post, and maybe indicate that the matter isn't terribly urgent." She knew that, if she did that, the Elders would be pushing the waterproof soap order back for at least half a year, and would send it back in the same fashion.

"Thank you," the tall girl said, looking down at her lap and fidgeting with her hands nervously.

"No problem, child. Spoiling great great grandchildren is the best part of retirement, after all." Cologne proclaimed, grinning widely.

HR.

Tomo was rubbing her arm, which had a nice red mark from where Yomi had gripped it on their mad dash to arrive early. Apparently, she wanted to talk to Sakaki about how she managed her melting trick, to find out how to lose weight that quickly.

Tomo herself didn't really care, as long as she didn't have to go to that demon in the principal's office again, though she'd gone around to a couple of shrines the night before and picked up some insurance, just in case. Peaking into her desk, she noted the stack of wards, all slightly different, put together with a paperclip.

The others around her were discussing what had happened the day before, not all that quietly. Apparently, it was too unusual for them to readily accept, and all of the theories they had come up with yesterday had been shot down. The current leading theory was that Sakaki was really Mystique and was trying to recruit Chiyo-chan into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. If this were the case, Tomo was sure she'd be getting a visit soon enough.

She had been sitting patiently, with the exception of when she'd gotten up to draw a group of playing squirrels on the blackboard, for the last five minutes, when the door slid open once more, allowing the subject of conversation to enter the room. Instantly the room fell silent as no one wanted to draw attention to the fact that they had all been discussing her. Sakaki quietly made her way across to her seat, where she sat, looking out the window, determining how to best kill the rest of her class."

"Stop doing ridiculous narration like that!" Yomi yelled, hitting her 'friend' over the head with a book. Walking over to the latest arrival, Yomi asked, "Can I talk to you about yesterday?" When Sakaki turned to acknowledge her presence she continued, "I was wondering, how did you lose so much weight so fast?"

Sakaki looked at the other girl incredulously for a moment, though she quickly concealed the expression so as not to offend her. "Actually," She started, deciding not to confront the absurdity head-on, "That form's musculature's a lot more dense than mine, so I only weighed a little less."

"Um..." Yomi said, blinking slowly at such a verbose response from the normally quiet student, before she managed to translate what she'd just been told out of 'biology class' and into clear Japanese. "Oh..."

"Hey, looks like another diet fell through, huh Yomi?" Tomo, who had walked up behind the two in the time since the conversation started, said with a slap to the brown haired girl's back. "But anyways, what did you do? I kept asking you yesterday, but you wouldn't say anything, so spill!"

"Yeah, what happened?" the class president said.

"Did it hurt?" Chiyo asked, concerned, jumping up to get a quick peek over Tomo's shoulder.

Sakaki sighed, as the bombardment continued, and pulled open her school bag, digging around in it for a moment before extracting a small, white pamphlet, the words "A quick guide to Jusenkyo Springs: Supplemental material to the Manga "Ryu One Half" scrawled across the top in neat handwriting. At the bottom, in small black font, was written "Written, edited and published by Nabiki Tendo, Tendo Publishing, a subsidiary of Nyacorp."

Sakaki handed the pamphlet off to Yomi, saying, "Here." Yomi was the obvious choice, as she was right next to her and not likely to do something stupid with it.

"Hey!" the class representative, Masaaki Ooyama, shouted. "Isn't that for the manga that came out a few months ago?"

"You're right. I wonder why they have a supplement already," Midori Tachikawa, one of the member's of the school's Anime club, said. "There's only three people with curses, after all."

"Weird," Ooyama agreed. Turning back to Sakaki, he asked, "So, what does it say? What's in it?"

Yomi opened the pamphlet, which folded out into a large map on one side and a large amount of information on the other. Turning to the text based side, she gave it a quick look over and said, "There's definitely more than three curses here."

"Spoilers?" Midori almost squealed. "Can I see?"

Ooyama, on the other hand, backed off and said, "Don't tell me about them. I don't want to spoil the manga."

The class split between those that didn't like spoilers and those who either did or didn't care. Once those who did not want to hear had distanced themselves, Yomi began to read.

"As you read the plot refresher at the top of the page, you heard the name "Springs of Death" thrown around quite a lot. This location, though fictional, is based off of a real location known as the Springs of Sorrow." This location has been declared, by the United Nations, a Bio-hazard site, and only specific people are allowed in, but it contains all of the properties of the Mongolian Springs of Death, and I personally know several victims. The curse is triggered by cold water, and reversed through hot. Enclosed is a map of the springs, cobbled together from what information I could gather, though due to events beyond my control, I cannot say that it is still accurate today." Yomi lowered the paper, her eyes wide in surprise. "You mean, you somehow got a curse from the Springs of Death?"

"My mother did, actually, and passed it down." Sakaki said, and then turned away, determined to get her normal allotment of window gazing time in before she needed to start reading or working on assignments.

"Well, that's really interesting and hearing it means I really should have had a drink this morning, but we all have to start class now!" Miss Yukari, who had entered during Yomi's reading of the pamphlet, somehow unnoticed in spite of her usual loud entrance, exclaimed, tapping one foot against the floor furiously.

HR.

In the school's principal's office, a form slumped over the desk, head cradled in arms as long, flowing brown hair hid the whole mess from sight. Inches away from the immobile lump, a loud buzzing sound rang from an intercom. "Damn it," it swore, moving to reveal the fifteen-year-old face of Hinako Ninomiya, her cheeks pale and drawn below heavily bloodshot eyes. Reaching out, she punched the button on the intercom by her arm. "Yes?" she growled, sounding a lot like a panda of her acquaintance.

"Someone is here to see you, she claims to be Ranma Kuonji, one of the students' parents." Hinako shot bolt upright at this, but quickly regretted it, as her head spun violently.

"Urp, send him in," she ordered, bracing her hands against the table to steady herself again. She had been planning to have words with the delinquent Saotome for feeding her that... whatever the hell that thing was the day before, but she really didn't feel up to it right now.

Admittedly, her secretary had said the person's last name was Kuonji, but how many Ranmas could there be in the world? As the door opened, and a woman in her mid-30s walked in looking about as annoyed as she felt, Hinako let her head down slowly until it rested against the table. "There's two of you?" she moaned, piteously.

"Nice to see you too, Hinako-sensei." Ranma said, coldly, but as she looked over the other's condition, her face softened a little. "What happened to you?"

"I... ate something that disagreed with me," Hinako said, flatly.

"So that's why I saw you skipping around and drawing on doors yesterday?" Ranma realized, and Hinako shot up to glare at her.

"I... I honestly can't remember most of what happened," she admitted. "But why were you here?"

Ranma's earlier frown returned, and this time in force. "You drained my daughter," she said, dangerously. "I got the details from her, and it was pretty unprovoked given what you used to let slide at Furinkan."

"Your..." Hinako said, then blinked.

"Sakaki Kuonji." Ranma clarified, and the principal considered turning around to rummage through her files, but then thought better of it when her first attempt to stand caused her to wobble dangerously before she sank back into her chair.

"Look," She said, pathetically. "If I say I'm sorry, will you leave me alone?"

Ranma's eyebrow twitched. 'And I thought this school was normal?' She thought, but as she looked at the pathetically sick face of the young girl before her, she sighed. "Remember, I'm not a student anymore, and I don't even look like that. If this happens again, I'm calling in favors."

Hinako straightened, not used to Ranma making threats. Even when he'd been trying to seal off her pressure points, he'd always been more action oriented, but seeing the deadly look in the redhead's eyes, she had to gulp, then nod frantically. On any other day she would have made an issue of it, but she was just too tired.

"Thanks," Ranma said. "Believe it or not, you were one of my more tolerable teachers back in school."

"Really?" Hinako asked, her blood shot eyes suddenly sparkling, which created a rather disconcerting effect. Most of her students had described her as the disciplinarian from hell.

"Yeah, at least you kept me awake." Ranma smirked, before turning and leaving the room. She charitably ignored the sound of a head hitting a desk as she opened the door.

HR.

Lunch had come and a good amount of the class had left to forage for sustenance. Such is the way of the wild student. Some of the students were staying in the classroom, eating from their bento, and generally having a longer time to eat. Finally, there were those who were forgoing lunch in order to fawn over Sakaki's pamphlet. This last group had an appointment with Darwin somewhere down the line.

Chiyo was one of the students in the second group, though she had yet to touch her carefully prepared meal. She was trying to work up the courage to approach Sakaki. Finally, she walked up to the other's desk and asked, "Um, Sakaki-san, can I talk with you for a moment?"

"Hm?" Sakaki murmured, looking over to her. After how many people had bugged her so far today, the dark haired girl considered just ignoring anyone who asked her anything by this point, but being ten years old, and therefore cute, bought Chiyo a little leeway. "I guess."

Settling herself into the next desk over, Chiyo opened her lunch and broke apart her chopsticks before asking, "You know the author of that Manga?"

"No, not really," Sakaki answered softly. "One of my parents gave it to me."

"Oh," Chiyo said, her pigtails drooping slightly, before they sprang back up. "But they know the author, right? I don't think that supplement's been released yet."

Sakaki nodded. "One of aunt Akane's sisters gave it to her, I think." She offered, trying to be helpful.

"A... Akane?" Chiyo asked, her eyes widening. "That's my aunt's name! What's your mother's name?"

"My... mother?" Sakaki asked, kind of confused as to how to answer the question. Then again, the one she called 'Mother' would have to do, she supposed. "Her given name is Ranma."

"Hmm," Chiyo said, and then her arm shot up. "Oh yeah, the one who ran off when Daddy came home!" Unfortunately for Chiyo, the room had gone silent moments before her exclamation, as Yukari had just come in.

"What did she say?" One girl asked, whispering slightly too loudly.

"That sounds a lot like someone's been fooling around," someone else returned.

"But... Mom works very hard!" Chiyo objected, wanting to stick up for her maternal parental unit.

HR.

Ryoga looked around the green field he found himself standing in, wondering precisely where he had ended up this time. He'd taken off so quickly, mostly because Ino had been talking about water and the vet, that he'd forgotten to take Katsunishiki with him, as he normally rode the giant pig everywhere in order to keep his family curse from rearing its ugly head.

Now, he was paying for his rush, as he hadn't even seen this place before. He could see a sign on a nearby building identifying it as a high school of some sort, and fortunately it was in Japanese, but that was about all he could glean from his surroundings.

Sighing and tugging on the straps to his backpack, the lost boy decided to continue using his old method of path finding, and spun in place for a moment before starting out in a random direction.

"Um, excuse me, but do you need help?" a voice came from in front of him, and the large man looked down to notice a teenaged girl. She had long black hair, and brown eyes that seemed to look through him rather than at him.

"I'm just a little lost, don't worry," Ryoga said, feeling a little disconcerted by the girl's vague stare.

"Well where ya tryin to get to?" She asked, in a friendly tone. "I can help."

"I'm looking for Tokyo," he said, deciding that he could get more specific if he was already there.

"Oh really? You wanna go to Tokyo too? I'm gunna be transferring there in a few weeks!" The girl said, happily. "We're in Osaka right now, though, so you're an awful long way off course."

"O... Osaka?" Ryoga stuttered, surprised. He hadn't been this lost in a good long time.

"Yup," the girl said, nodding a couple of times.

"Then which way's Tokyo?" Ryoga asked, sighing in defeat.

"Hmm..." the girl said, raising her hand to her chin for a moment. "The sun rises in the east... I think, and it's..." She looked down at her wrist, where there was no watch. "Past lunch time, so it'd be that way!"

"Thank you," Ryoga said, bowing, before lining himself up with the girl's pointing hand and marching off. As she watched him slowly curve off-course, Ayumu Kasuga blinked, slowly.

"I wonder what his problem is," she muttered, and turned back to the school.

HR.

Later that afternoon, Yukari skipped into the teacher's lounge, a big grin on her face. "Hey, Nyamo, guess what I just found out!" she squealed, sounding much like one of her own students.

"I don't have time for this right now, Yukari." the black haired woman replied, hunching over a set of papers. "I've got to mark these and prepare a lesson plan for the person they replace me with."

"Huh?" Yukari asked, forgetting about what she'd just been about to say. "You're leaving?"

"Mmhmm," Nyamo returned, despondently. "I even saw Ninomiya-san giving me the evil eye at lunch."

"You were probably just imagining it!" Yukari returned. "Relax, all right? No one else would ever take your job, so they have to keep you!"

"Gee, thanks," Nyamo deadpanned, "but I didn't imagine it. Her eyes were red."

"Yeah, she did seem kind of out of it today, didn't she?" Yukari returned. "I wonder what's wrong?"

"She got food poisoning." Both women jumped a full foot into the air at the intruding male voice. This was quite an accomplishment on Nyamo's part, as she brought her desk with her.

"Don't do that!" Yukari yelled, turning on Mr. Kimura, who had been leaning in between them.

"No, wait. What did you say, Kimura?" Nyamo asked, knowing, somehow, that it was important.

"Oh, Ninomiya-san, she told me during lunch. She ate something that she shouldn't have yesterday. Maybe it was a hallucinogenic mushroom or something, with all the jumping around she did." The man grinned, recalling said jumping around and what it had done to certain portions of the very youthful looking woman's anatomy. "Anyways, she says that she can't even remember half of what she did yesterday."

Abruptly, Nyamo was up and on her feet, grinning widely. "Really?" she asked, and the rather creepy looking man nodded rapidly. "Kimura, if you weren't so creepy, I'd kiss you!"

The man stopped dead, his hands convulsing into claws and his mouth dropping wide open, before he turned slightly to the side, and yelled "She would kiss me!" The two female teachers watched him for a moment, before he seemed to recover himself, bow, and leave the room.

"God, he's weird," Yukari mumbled, and got an affirmative nod from Nyamo.

END.