Here we are! I had some trouble with this chapter and re-wrote it a few times. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I hope that you like it nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing

Ranma

'Alright here goes.' I think as I begin knocking on Nabiki's door. After a moment of silence I hear her footsteps as she moves towards the door. She opens it stares at me coldly.

"What do you want Saotome?" She asks in a voice that clearly indicates that she has things that she would rather be doing.

"Hey Nabiki, I kinda have a business proposition for you" I say nervously.

"Using big words today are we?" she asks, a snarky grin forming on her face.

"I, uh…" I say intelligently as I mentally kick myself for not reverting to my simplistic speech habits.

"So what is it that you're proposing Saotome?" She asks now slightly curious.

"Well, I was thinking that I should start working off my debt, and I was wondering if you could find a job for me." I say, hoping that she would have something for me to do.

She shoots me a quizzical look, and I can practically see the gears turning in her head.

Nabiki

Ranma asking for help, now this is certainly odd. I should probably give him a chance to pay off his debt. But what could I use him for? I don't have any dealings with people who are likely to hurt me, so I really don't need a bodyguard at the moment.

Let's see what else is Ranma capable of? He's fast, and his preferred way of traveling is by hopping from roof to roof. He'd make a good courier. He's hard to follow and while it will be easy to see where he's bringing the messages, our reputations should certainly be enough to dissuade anybody from investigating too much.

"I suppose I do have something for you to do." I say, "You can have a job as a courier, all you need to do is to bring information and packages to me from my sources."

He smiles somewhat.

"I'll consider how much I'll deduct from your debt after your first assignment. That will depend of course on how well you do your job. Understand?" I ask.

He nods before thanking me profusely and leaving my room.

"I wonder what happened to make him want to pay off his debt." I murmur to myself once he's gone.

Ranma

Step one is finished, so now onto step two. How do I befriend Nabiki? I could just act nice to her, but I get the feeling that she will think that pretty suspicious. I could just flat out tell her that I was curious because I saw her crying, and I could probably pass it off as just a guess that there's more to her than just the Ice Queen, but I'm not quite sure how she'll react. There are two possibilities that I can think of. Option A, she tells me that I'm right and attempts to be my friend, or option B, she denies that there is more to her than the Ice Queen and fires me immediately.

I think that just flat out telling her might be the better option, after all the fake me is very direct and simple, and this is certainly the most simplistic approach I could take, but I still don

The third matter at hand might prove to be more difficult than actually befriending Nabiki. How on earth do I stay on course as a courier when I have multiple fiancés and challengers attacking me all the time? I can probably deal with Ukyo by telling her that it is important that I wipe away my debt, but Shampoo and the others are unlikely to listen to that reason. I find myself pulled away from my thoughts as I bump into Akane.

"Hey Akane." I say, hoping that she won't as too many questions.

"Ranma, what were you doing in my sister's room?" She asks, her voice indicating confusion rather than its usual ire.

"I just wanted to talk to her about paying off my debt." I say, hoping to diffuse the situation by talking about something that Akane (and every other person in the area) had struggled with as well.

"Well how are you paying it off? You never have any money." She says.

"She actually let me have a job so that I can start paying my debt off." I say, hoping that my fiancées and rivals don't hear about this.

"You've got to be kidding me!" She yells, "You're working for Nabiki?"

"Yeah, something wrong with that?" I ask, my tone challenging.

"Yeah, she sells pictures of us to Kuno!" She says, clearly not catching on the steel in my voice.

I walk off in a huff, not wanting to explode at Akane.

Nabiki

I sigh as I hear the conversation right outside my door. I hate hearing what people think of me. It lets me know that my act is successful, but I still can't stand to hear it.

'Let's see here, what job can I give Ranma?' I ask myself. Suddenly it finally dawns on me that I've made an extremely stupid business decision. I've hired the epicenter of chaos in a town full of superhuman martial artists to deliver various important packages.

After a few minutes of panicking I finally compose myself. Everything will be all right. If things go badly I can just fire him after his test assignment. If everything goes without a hitch then I'll keep him. So long as I make the first package something unimportant I can't lose. I release a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

I pause for a moment, just to stop and look at myself. This is it. This is what I've become: someone who is so focused on money that they would fire someone whom I unfairly condemned to debt if they damaged my profits even marginally.

'Stop it.' I think to myself, 'this is for your family.'

'Does that justify it though?' I think.

I sweep the thought aside as I return to the decision of what Ranma's first assignment should entail.

Suddenly a perfect idea strikes me.

'Oh, this is going to work out just fine.' I think to myself as I relax on my bed and resume counting money.

Something has been bothering me since the hearing the conversation outside of my room though. Ranma doesn't think badly of me, and the Ice Queen has never attracted anything but hatred, which begs the question: 'Does he know?'

Ranma

As I jump onto the roof a thought enters my head. 'What if this whole friendship thing doesn't work out? What then?'

It's a thought that I haven't even considered, and though I hate to admit it, I'm scared of what might happen if this goes wrong. I know that I can't keep going like I have. I'll go nuts, and I know it. There've been so many times when I've wanted nothing more than to just break down, to give up and let Ryoga, Mousse, or whoever just kill me.

At the end of the day though, I know I can't do that. It's not that I'm afraid of dying, but I can't let go of the idea that one day I might get out of this mess. That I might get away from my rivals and fiancés.

It's got to happen eventually. Statistically speaking, I should've already been rid of Shampoo by now. I mean honestly, with all the strong martial artists coming to the area I would've thought that some guy would have beaten her by now.

'One day I'll get out of this mess.' I think to myself, 'I don't lose often, and never when it matters.'

All right, short chapter I know, but I couldn't think of anything to add and I felt like it was a nice place to end it. I tried to write the whole story beforehand, but I've decided just to post it and to have slow updates. I hope you guys don't mind. As always, review!