Disclaimer: "What-ow! I don't want to-oh, ok, I guess." Author turns toward you and says, in a deadpan voice, "I don't own Ryoga, or Ranma 1/2 or anything else that belongs to anyone else in this story. Please don't sue me, it's not worth your time. Really."
"There, are you happy now?"

Now that that's over...

Ryoga: Lost in...Where the heck am I NOW?!
Chapter4: The Plot Thickens...


"What a bunch of weird stuff. He's got a couple sets of cloths, some knives of some kind, a bunch of bandannas, chopsticks, a tent, blankets...I guess he must have been out for days. No radio, no gps. Ah! Here's something," said Rob, "looks like an ID of some kind." Steve grabbed it out of Rob's hands to take a look.

"Ree-ogga," read Steve slowly.

"You dope, gimme that. Ree-ogga? What are you thinking? It's RIE-ogga! Don't you see the 'Y'?" Rob was looking at what appeared to be a high school ID they had taken from the pack found in the woods. The ID had a picture of the kid he'd rescued, so there was no doubt it belonged to him. The problem was, no one in the family could speak Japanese.

"Umm..guys? I'm pretty sure it's Ryoga…" muttered Jenny, Rob's younger sister.

"Ryoga? That can't be it, it don't sound right. It's gotta be Ree-ogga. I'll betcha ten bucks." Steve reached over and tousled his kid sister's hair while a smile tugged at his mouth.

"Yea, alright, it's a deal," said Rob, "I say it's Rie-ogga."

"Don't forget me guys, it really has to be Ryoga."

"OK, you're on!"

Jenny walked away, smirking as she mentally began to decide what to do with the easy twenty she'd be getting from her older brothers in a little while. She'd seen a goofy foreign cartoon once with someone named Ryoga – Jenny's face flushed white for a moment, startled…she quickly shook her head in wry amusement at herself. Nah…Couldn't be. In the background she could hear her mother's voice berating her two brothers. Eager to avoid inclusion in that sort of-ah, fun, she scurried around the corner and out the front door to get back to work training her bay mare.

"Robert Herbert Cottern. What kind of manners have I taught you, boy? What are doing digging around in that poor boy's things? It's rude!" Anne Cottern, Queen of the Cottern ranch had spoken.

"But Ma, we was only looking for some ID, and…" Steve's voice kind of dribbled away under his mother's glare.

"That's right, you WERE. Well you've got it. You have no business digging around in the rest of it. When that boy wakes up, you can ask him. Until then, put it right over there in that corner and you keep your grimy paws off of it." Anne could be heard muttering under her breath as she walked away. "We was…we WAS? Muttermuttermutter…"

"Scary…." Said the two thoroughly cowed young men.


He blinked. Again. Now he was wandering down the road, whistling away. He didn't understand what was happening. He seemed to be jumping from place to place, randomly. Living through different times in his life, revisiting all the many facets of Japan he'd discovered in his travels. He often wondered if he sleepwalked, as it seemed he could be in one place. then a few seeming minutes later somewhere else completely. He blinked. He was in a battle! It was him and Ranma at that boy's school they used to go to, fighting over bread rolls and other pastries. He blinked. He was with a family. They seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place them…He blinked…


It was morning.

Ranma could feel himself slowly awakening, the warm rays of the morning sun warming his body through the window of his room. He luxuriated in the feeling…so much of his life was spent in movement-fighting with fiancés, fighting FOR fiancés, fighting AGAINST fiancés, dodging the old lecher, fighting-ok, humiliating Kuno (that part was kinda fun)…it was awfully nice just to lay in the sun for a few minutes before-

"Wake up, boy! How can you sleep on a day like this?!"

Ranma abruptly changed to a girl as his irritating father dumped a 5 gallon bucket of cold water over him to, ostensibly, wake him up. Ranma braced himself for the grab and throw that would send him out the window to the yard for 'training'. It wasn't that he didn't know it was coming, his idiot father used the same move every morning. It was just simpler to let him do it then start the 'training' outside. It was less destructive on the Tendo home. Ranma shook his head in disgust while flying through the air toward the pond. He landed on the rock in the middle and launched the first salvo in the Anything Goes style.

"Oy, Oyaji! Is that the best you can do? I mean, I knew you were getting old and all but that…well, maybe it's time to retire, eh pops?" Ranma's derogatory tone and insolent manner accomplished their mission.

"Fool boy! I guess I need to teach you some manners!" Genma's enraged form leapt from the upstairs window towards Ranma in a flying kick. Ranma smirked as he leapt to meet Genma. Ducking the kick, Ranma tapped his father on the head, re-directing Genma's momentum towards the pond. Ranma landed on the porch on one foot, facing a dripping Panda stepping out of the pond.

"Growf!" cried the panda as it charged Ranma. What followed was a half hour of aerial acrobatics between Ranma and his erstwhile father that ended in predictable fashion.

"Ranma-kun, Genma-san, breakfast is ready," called Kasumi from the door. Ranma quickly knocked Genma-panda back into the pond and headed into the kitchen for the hot water that Kasumi kindly kept on the stove for him. A minute later a larger, more masculine Ranma walked out of the kitchen just as Genma-panda stepped into the house and growfed, holding a sign up that said "Where's the respect?!" A few minutes later all the residents of Tendo-ke were sitting at the table, enjoying the typical five-star repast that Kasumi had prepared.

After breakfast, Ranma excused himself from the table and headed back out to the toolshed again. Unbeknownst to him, Akane, still angry about P-chan, followed.

"What are you doing, Ranma? Come to erase evidence of whatever you did to P-chan?" Taunted Akane.

"Akane, what are you doing here?" asked Ranma.

"Umm...I live here, baka. The question is, what are YOU doing here, at the toolshed?"

Ranma was worried. If he told her the truth he'd have to break his word of honor. He couldn't do that, but he didn't want to lie either...

"Akane, look, I, uh..." Suddenly, inspiration struck!

"Maybe you can help me, Akane. I'm worried about Ryoga," said a suddenly confident Ranma.

"Ryoga?" questioned Akane, "what about him? Does this have anything to do with P-chan?"

Ranma started slightly in surprise, then realized Akane's choice of words were just a coincidence.

"Well yea, sort of, maybe anyway. Yesterday morning I saw Ryoga come in the back gate looking for you. Feh ..he must have gotten lost again. I saw him open the toolshed and walk in like it was the front door of the house. I'm pretty sure that P-chan went in there with him." It wasn't a lie, exactly. "I laughed at him and went back to what I was doing, but after you sent me to Jubaan yesterday I began to wonder and checked out the toolshed. You're right, no-one's in there, but...it doesn't look like anyone came out, either."


If this was a movie or an anime, this is where you'd hear a carefully selected piece of suspenseful music. Perhaps something from the Phantom of the Opera...you know, violins, horns and such; to set the mood. It wouldn't last long, but you'd feel the emotional tension begin to build at the short intro and then possibly a piece of the chorus would be played loudly for a moment then faded away to sit quietly in the background for half a minute or so while the story action resumed. You'd be prepared for a dramatic moment; an unveiling, perhaps, of a key fact or clue. Somehow, that moment would foreshadow things to come. You'd know something was happening very soon... It would fit, after all...but since this is a written story, well-
Tough luck. :-)


"What are you playing me for, Ranma? Is this a joke? Ok, ha ha. Now where's P-chan," demanded an angry Akane.

"I told you, Akane, I don't know. Come look at this with me."

Akane's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she agreed to play along, for the moment. Ranma led Akane over to the door of the shed and opened it. He brought her inside, scuffing the area inside the door with his feet to hide the fact there were no pig tracks. "Look at this, Akane. Here are your tracks and mine, and here are Ryoga's footprints." Ranma pointed to various smudges and tracks in the dust of the toolshed. Akane nodded her head. "Now look at this. Ryoga walks up to the wall, and..nothing. Here's his left footprint and that's it. He doesn't turn around, he just...disappears." Akane's eyes went wide as she suddenly realized Ranma wasn't messing with her, that he was completely serious.

"Ranma...you're right. What could have happened to him? And come to think of it, I don't see P-chan's tracks here so Ryoga must have picked him up or something." Unseen, Ranma breathed a deep sigh of relief at Akane's leap of logic. He hoped this conversation wouldn't come back to bite him later. He had not, after all, told an untruth. Wherever pig-boy went, P-chan was there. It WAS true…in a sense…

"I don't know, Akane, but I'm going to find out."


Dum dum dum……


When evening came, dinner was predictable: Kasumi created a stunning smorgasbord. Ranma and his father fought over bits on each others' plates all night. Nabiki ate like a bird and retired early to arrange tomorrows bets. Akane fumed at Ranma for imagined slights and Tendo was lost in his own dreamworld imagining Akane and Ranma happily married. Ranma had chosen not to bring up Ryoga's mysterious disappearance until he had more information and by some stroke of luck Akane hadn't mentioned it either. After dinner, Akane went upstairs to study for Monday's math test and Ranma headed up to the roof to think. He'd spent the day painstakingly going over all of the Tendo property, looking for evidence of previous disappearances. It had been a while since Ryoga had stopped by, so it didn't surprise him when he didn't find any other tracks anywhere. Failing at finding any physical evidence, maybe he could find something in his memories. The Anything Goes school, in general (that being his father, Soun and Hoppy), wasn't big on meditation, but Ranma had learned from the Master at an old monastery they'd stayed at for a few months when he was younger. He didn't usually go through the whole shebang, just using the relaxation steps to help him think. Tonight however, he really needed to focus to catch any details he might have missed before. He sat in lotus and started the breathing exercises. Pretty soon, all the little night sounds of birds, crickets and the snores of his father drifted away and he found himself focused within. He began to explore memories of encounters with Ryoga. There was the time he chased P-chan out of Akane's room into the furo, where Ryoga transformed into himself and ran off into the linen closet. Akane had woken up and was berating Ranma, so he thought he must have missed Ryoga coming out and running off. There was another time when he was leading Ryoga to his house. They were walking down the main road, side by side. Ranma had gotten distracted by a Takoyaki stand and when he turned around, Ryoga was gone. Then there was the time at Furinken-and the time at the mall-and when he followed Akane and Ryoga on that date- and-

Several hours had passed when Ranma's breathing sped up to normal and his eyes fluttered open, but if someone were to look into his eyes right at that moment, they'd have seen confusion-and worry. Without a word, Ranma sprang from his pretzel-like position and began leaping away from Tendo-ke over the roofs at high speed.


…Ryoga knew he still must be dreaming. He was in a village filled with dark skinned people who spoke a strange language. There were wild elephants…his thought process derailed for a moment-there were elephants wild in Japan? Where? He blinked. In Nerima, he relived his date with Akane again. Just about the time Ranma showed up in disguise, Ryoga blinked again and found himself in China, at Jusenkyo, looking over the many springs from a nearby hillside. In the distance he caught sight of Ranma and heard himself yelling.

"Ranma! I've finally found you!" He took off at a fast run. He was nearly there when he found himself flying in midair, launched there by an impatient kick from the 'strange girl.' Horrified, he tried to change his trajectory, but, proving this to be some kind of dream or vision, he couldn't alter what had already happened. As he felt his body touch the water, he blinked and the scene changed again. Once again, he was standing in the dark, staring within the whirlwind. He could feel the winds pulling at his body, his feet dragging across the metal floor, just before he slipped…


"He's awake! Doctor, come quick, it looks like he's waking up!" cried the night nurse. The doctor came at a run while the nurse monitored various equipment, verifying his heart-rate, blood pressure and a myriad of other indicators were functional and in normal ranges. She watched his eyes flutter open then quickly close in pain as the light intruded upon eyes darkened for several days. They slowly opened again and began to move around slowly, taking in the ICU room he was in. The nurse could see a look of puzzlement when the young man slowly and painfully turned his head toward her.

"Ano…ittaizentai? D-dochirasama? Nande-dokodes?" Ryoga sounded very confused.

The nurse heard the boy's halting speech but couldn't understand what he was saying. She looked over at the night doctor.

"Doctor, can you understand what he's saying?"

"No, maybe it's Japanese? We'll simply try to comfort him tonight and find someone who can translate in the morning I suppose, we've never had anything like this happen here before." The doctor came over to the bed and smiled down at the confused young man.

"I'm sorry about this, son, we don't understand what you're saying. I'm Doctor Jones and this is Pam, your night nurse." Doc Jones pointed to himself and Pam as he did introductions. "What is your name?" he asked. When he didn't get a response, he pointed at himself and said Dr. Jones, then pointed at the nurse and said Pam, then pointed his finger at the young man and looked inquisitively at him.

Ryoga could sort of understand what they were saying. His brain felt-fuzzy, like it was stuffed full of gauze. He could tell that they wanted to know his name so he croaked out "Ryoga…H-Hibiki" and his head fell back onto the pillow, the effort of moving and speaking having worn him out already. The nurse and doctor quickly looked to the monitors, but his vital signs didn't show him slipping back into a coma, he was just tired and had fallen asleep. Quietly, they checked his saline drip then turned the lights out and left the room.

"I'll call the high school in the morning, maybe they've got a Japanese language class or something. Why don't you ask around the staff in the morning if there's anyone here who can speak to him." The nurse nodded, accepting the doctors suggestion then went off to check on her next patient.

"Huh...Japanese. In the mountains of Idaho. Where did this boy come from?" The doctor headed off to his office to take care of some paperwork, puzzling over the mystery in room 13.


It had been a late night at the Cat Café. They'd had a party of businessmen from Tokyo reserve the entire restaurant. Shampoo had served noodles and drinks to the men until late. They were celebrating the launch of a new business venture, and money flowed freely, so Cologne was happy to close the doors to the public and allow the private party to stay much later than the café's normal hours. By the time Shampoo and Moose were done cleaning the place and she had taken stock and planned tomorrow's order to replace the food and drink used up during the party, it was well past 2 AM. Shampoo and Moose had nearly fallen asleep standing by the time they were done, and were now asleep in their rooms. Cologne was still up studying an old tome when she heard the smallest of noises. For a moment, she looked up and considered sending one of the children to check it out. The local thieves had learned their lessons many times over already so she was sure it wasn't one of them. Since Shampoo and Moose had both only just gone to bed and would have to wake up in just a few hours, she decided to find out for herself what it was. Quietly, Cologne crept down the short hall to the head of the stairs. From the stairs, she had a clear view of the kitchen and could see nothing of interest. She closed her eyes, carefully sensing the area around her for anything unusual, then a smile flitted across her face before resuming it's usual sour expression.

"Son-in-law, it's a bit late to be visiting Shampoo, is it not?" she asked.

Ranma turned quickly from the window he was closing softly, startled.

"Hey, Cologne, just who I was looking for," said Ranma.

"Why, Son-in-law, I'm flattered," Cologne cackled quietly, "but I'm sure you'd prefer a much younger, much more-ah-fuller woman." She couldn't resist the chance to tease her future son-in-law.

"Hey! It's not like that, ah…" stuttered a suddenly embarrassed Ranma.

"Oh I know that," chuckled the old ghoul with a smile. The she hit him on the head with her stick and her usual sour expression fell back in place. "Now tell me, Son-in-law, what brings you to sneak into our home at such a time? What is so important that you must rush over here at 3AM? And why come through the window?"

"3A-?!" exclaimed Ranma. "What the-? I only was meditating for a few minutes-at least it seemed like a few minutes-" Ranma was shocked at the time, it was like he was missing several hours. Since he didn't meditate very often, he'd forgotten that deep meditation could do that to a person. "I didn't want to run into Sha-uh, wake up the whole house. I just needed to talk to you."

"It's alright, son-in-law, keep your voice down and let the others sleep. Now tell me, what brings you here? You look concerned about something."

"Uh, yea, well, it's about Ryoga. Something's happened to him. I don't know what, but, it's like he just disappeared."

"Son-in-law, is this not normal for the lost boy?"

"Yea, I mean, no, well, not like this. It's like he was there then -poof- he was gone."

"Have you observed this personally?" asked the old Amazon.

"Well, sort of. Today, Akane accused me of…." Ranma began to relate the whole story to her, of Akane thinking he'd hidden P-chan, of him watching Ryoga go into the shed, how he later found the footprints end at the wall and what he'd found when meditating. "..so when I couldn't find any other evidence, I decided to meditate to see if I could find any clues in my memories of previoud incidents. As I began to remember, I came across time after time where I'd look away or something and when I turned back, Ryoga was gone. I've always attributed it to his legendary lack of direction, but now I'm not so sure."

"Ok, son-in-law, stop by here after school tomorrow and I'll come with you to check out this shed. Perhaps I can find something you missed. This is a very unusual problem that could be caused by many things, some innocent, some quite a bit more…sinister. Good night, son-in-law."

"Thanks, Cologne, good night."

Ranma left, using the front door this time, and headed over the roofs for home.

"Ryoga," mumbled Cologne to herself, "what have you gotten yourself into?"

Author's Note: I don't speak Japanese and used an online translation program to get the little bit Ryoga says in the hospital. If any of you can do better, I'm all ears...