Author's note. I'm going away for Christmas on the twenty second. I know I often have two week long, or longer, update gaps with no explanation, but I figured I should tell you that if nothing's updated by then it probably won't be until after the first, at least.

Also, this chapter's dedicated to James Axelrad. I'm not getting him anything else for Christmas, so he'd better like it!

Chapter 7, visiting under duress.

"You all right?" Kimiko asked, as she looked at the man sitting across the table from her in the Nerima PD's staff room.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He grunted, picking up his coffee mug and draining it in about eight seconds flat. Kimiko personally wondered how he didn't burn his mouth half-way down his throat, but he'd been doing it for the past three days and hadn't complained yet.

He was Daisuke Aida, and he'd looked better. Granted, Kimiko hadn't known him long but his eyes had deep circles under them, and his cheeks were pale. He looked a lot like she had the first time she'd seen a murder. "So, where's Sato?" He asked, noting her lack of partner.

Kimiko shrugged. "Apparently the train line broke down and she has to take a bus." She grinned slightly, trying to cheer the man up. "Personally I think she overslept and didn't want to admit it."

"I heard that!" Came an annoyed voice from the entrance of the room.

Turning, Kimiko laughed nervously. "Gotta go, Daisuke-san." She said, standing up and heading out. He just nodded and waved slightly.

HR.

Ranko groaned to herself as she and Kimiko pulled into the police station. This afternoon had been rather interesting, to say the least. "Did you really have to do that?" She demanded, looking over at her partner.

The other woman looked at her, rather similarly to a dog that had done something bad and wanted to suck up to its owner. "I only hit him in the gut a few times." She said, meekly.

"For accidentally slipping and bumping into you." The redhead said, levelly. "This is the fourth time this year. I mean, if he was actually trying to grope you rather than falling on his face I'd help you beat the crap out of him, but…" She was cut off, as the car pulled around to the rear of the station.

Seeing a chance to get Ranko's heat off of her, Kimiko smiled. "Looks like our little friend is back." She said, pointing at the young girl who was sitting and waiting patiently by the entrance to the garage.

"How the heck did she get here?" Ranko asked, as she contemplated whether she should drive past the girl.

Kimiko shrugged, but frowned when her partner looked like she wasn't going to stop. "Aren't you going to help her?" She asked, as the girl turned pleading eyes to the car's window. Ranko grunted in annoyance, but had to admit that the idea of driving past the girl hadn't really stayed in her mind for too long.

Pulling the car to a stop, she rolled down her drivers side window and poked her head out. "You lost again, kid?" She asked, trying to sound kind even if she was still a little bit annoyed at her partner.

The girl nodded sadly, holding up a small device with a low battery message flashing on it. "Yes, Ranko-san." She said, mournfully. "I saw the police station sign and decided to ask for directions, but ended up out here."

Ranko turned to her partner. "Kimiko, you've got some paperwork to do here. I'll take her back home." She said.

The other officer fidgeted nervously, but eventually nodded and opened her door, trading spots with the little girl.

As Ranko drove off, she sighed deeply. "Here comes another citation, I know it." She grumbled, before walking down the stairs and into the building.

HR.

As she entered the police station, Kimiko noticed that there was someone standing in the front office. She had dark auburn hair with a few streaks of grey running through it, and she thought that she'd seen her before recently. The woman was talking animatedly to the desk clerk.

As Kimiko approached the desk, she started hearing the conversation. "I'm sorry ma'am, but all of our people are on the street at the moment and you require an escort."

"Why do I need an escort? I am not going to do anything." The woman said, sounding offended.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but Mr. Saotome is being held in the martial artist cell block. You are required to have an escort to go there." The receptionist said again, as if she'd done this several times before and the woman just hadn't gotten the point.

"I can take her down." Ranko's partner butted in, wanting to stave off the paperwork she was going to have to write for as long as possible. Both the receptionist and the woman turned to her with grateful expressions, the receptionist's carrying the additional implication that she'd buy her a coffee at some point for this.

"You'll help me see my husband?" The woman asked, smiling and bowing slightly.

"Sure, Saotome-san." Kimiko said, shrugging. A big part of why she was doing this was so that she could get extra information about Ranko, to tell the truth, but it also seemed unfair that the woman wouldn't be allowed to see her husband.

Entering a secure elevator near the back of the station's lobby, the brown haired woman withdrew a small ring of keys from her pocket and rummaged around on it. At Mrs. Saotome's expectant look, she glanced up sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm new to this station." She explained, before finding the key she was looking for and turning it in a lock that granted access to the floor below the lobby.

After the elevator stopped and the doors opened, the two women stepped out and started walking down a stone corridor. Kimiko looked around almost as avidly as Nodoka, since she'd actually never been down to this particular section of the station. Most of the people she'd brought in were put in temporary holding on the first floor before being transferred somewhere else, and a small station like Nerima's having actual jail cells was rather unusual.

Within a few seconds, they had come to a checkpoint manned by a single rather sleepy looking officer. He looked Kimiko's uniform up and down a few times before his mind seemed to click. "Oh, hello Kimiko-san." Daisuke said, sleepily.

"Daisuke?" Kimiko asked, surprised. "Why are you down here?"

"Hiroshi didn't show up this morning so I'm guarding this area for the day." Daisuke answered, before gesturing to a low counter in front of his station. "You've got to check your weapon here, standard procedure." Shrugging, Kimiko removed her sidearm from her holster, ejected the clip and the bullet in the chamber, and placed them on the counter.

Nodoka's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the firearm since they were so rare in Japan, but she quickly began to follow the female officer as she walked out of the checkpoint and down another hall marked "Martial Artist Holding Cells."

A few moments later, Nodoka finally decided to speak. "You… you are Ran.. ko's partner, correct?" She asked, seeming to stop for a moment on the redhead's name.

Kimiko looked at her oddly before nodding.

The Saotome woman took a few moments, struggling with herself. She apparently wanted to ask a question, but some part of her, a pretty strong part, was holding it back. "Is, is Ranko happy?" She finally asked, looking at Kimiko almost pleadingly for an answer for just a second before her expression hardened again.

Kimiko blinked. That question had come so far out of left field that she wasn't sure how to answer it. She thought for several seconds, and was about to answer as the two turned a corner. Unfortunately, her thought out answer was derailed by what she saw. "What the hell?" She demanded, moving in front of Mrs. Saotome and taking up a guarding stance that every officer knew.

HR.

Ranko quickly shifted the car into first gear, engaged the parking break and turned off the key as they pulled up in front of the Tendo compound. "All right, here we are." She said, popping the passenger side door lock. Umiko just sat there, gazing back at her levelly. "What is it?" She demanded, uncertainly.

"Aren't you coming in?" The little girl asked, smiling cutely.

Ranko contemplated this for a moment. There were no pressing matters at the station, and she had ditched both Kasumi and Nabiki last time. Sighing, she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the vehicle. "All right, C'mon." She said, heading for the gate.

"Yay!" Umiko cheered, hopping out of her side of the vehicle and chasing after the policewoman. Shrugging, Ranko walked up to the door and knocked.

A few seconds later, footsteps could be heard on the other side of the door and then it opened to reveal Kasumi. "Oh, Hello Ranko-san." She said, smiling.

"Hey, Kasumi. Bringin the lost girl back home." Ranko explained, gesturing at Umiko.

"Oh my, you got lost again Umiko-chan?" Kasumi asked, bringing a hand to her mouth.

"Sorry, Aunt Kasumi." Umiko said, lowering her head.

"Well you will come in and stay for a cup of tea and some dinner this time, right Ranko-san?" The oldest Tendo daughter asked, though the expression on her face actually seemed to fade a little from her usual smile. Apparently Ranko had been wrong about her not minding them not staying the last time.

"Yeah, sure Kasumi." The redhead mumbled, following the two inside and kicking off her shoes.

As she walked into the living room, she saw that Nabiki was sitting on the couch with her laptop, the same as she had been the last time she'd visited. Before she could stop herself, she spoke. "Hey, Nabs. You not workin or somethin?"

Nabiki just smirked, not at all offended. "I work from home." She explained, before moving from a laying position on the couch to a sitting position. "Good to see you again so soon, Sato."

"Thanks." Ranko responded, slightly surprised that she hadn't been pinned to the wall with a barbed retort from the middle Tendo. "Umiko sorta insisted."

"Oh, why?" Nabiki asked, curious.

"Her GPS system ran out of batteries again, apparently." Ranko said. "I figure she should probably carry spares or something."

Nabiki frowned, noticing Umiko peering into the room from the door to the hallway. Raising her voice, she spoke. "Well, she DID take a fully charged pack this morning. I'd sure like to know how it got discharged so fast!"

The little girl came out of hiding, looking as if someone had caught her taking cookies from the jar. Reluctantly, and at the older woman's gesture, she passed Nabiki her GPS and a second battery that she'd pulled out of a pocket that had been stitched onto the front of her school dress.

Smirking, the middle Tendo held down a small button on the side of the second battery, revealing four lit LED lights on its side. "She's a lot like her aunt." She commented, slipping the battery into the device and handing it to the girl. "Now go on out to the dojo. I want to talk to Ranko-san."

Umiko nodded, seemingly relieved that she hadn't gotten punished. After she ran out of the room, Ranko frowned. "Why did she do that?"

Nabiki shrugged. "She thought you were interesting and wanted to see you again, I'd guess." She explained. Suddenly worried, she frowned. "She didn't cause any actual trouble, did she?"

Ranko lifted an eyebrow. "You're worried about somethin, Nabiki?"

The brown haired woman shrugged. "Well, I don't want to have my niece accused of interfering with a police officer." She explained.

"To answer your question, she didn't cause any problem, though I am kinda confused as to why she'd do that." Ranko answered.

Nabiki frowned again, this time deeper. If Ranko didn't know better, she would have sworn that the middle Tendo was actually sad. "Well, you know about the whole Hibiki family direction problem, right?" At Ranko's nod, she continued. "Each generation, it gets a little better. Ryoga could find places where people he cared about were, sometimes, and Akane's got about the same level of direction sense now that she married him."

Nabiki stopped for a moment, as if realizing what she'd just said, but continued when it looked like Ranko was still all right. "Umiko is better still. She can follow directions given to her, especially with that little GPS we bought her a couple of years ago, but she doesn't see her parents very often." She shrugged. "She tends to latch onto people she likes."

Ranko nodded sympathetically as Kasumi entered the room with a kettle of tea and the three began small talk.

HR.

"Now, I don't believe I deserve that reaction." The tiny old woman sniffed, as she turned away from the work she was doing on a re-enforced stone cell door.

"I… I'm sorry, you just scared me for a second." Kimiko said, wanting to smack herself.

"Quite all right, child." The woman said, turning back to the door and inspecting her work. Nodding, she looked back at Kimiko and Mrs. Saotome. "I know you, Nodoka-san, but who is your companion?"

"I'm Najisa Kimiko." Kimiko said, bowing slightly to the old woman. She had to keep herself from gawking. She honestly didn't think that people could get that small and wrinkled, but unlike her partner, she wouldn't comment on it.

"Glad to meet you. My name is Elder Cologne." The old woman said.

"Elder." Nodoka started, having clearly met the woman before. "Is Genma in that cell?"

Cologne nodded. "Just a warning, the fool talked too much so I threw a bucket of water on him." She said, casually.

Nodoka sighed in resignation as she stepped to the bars and looked through. Kimiko followed, seeing that there was a giant panda inside the cell. "What?" She mumbled, blinking several times. "Is… Is that a…"

"A Panda." Cologne said, looking at the younger woman strangely. "You mean that you have been assigned to Nerima and you do not know about the curses?"

Kimiko looked between the two older women, who seemed to find it perfectly acceptable that there was a Panda in the jail cell. Then, to top things off, the beast drew out a sign when it saw Mrs. Saotome. It said "Hi, Nodoka-chan!"

"Cute trick." She muttered, glairing around at them both. "Now where's Genma Saotome?"

Cologne and Nodoka looked back and forth, then shrugged. "You were not told about Jusenkyo?" The elder asked, looking at the police officer.

Kimiko started to shake her head, and then remembered something. Hiroshi and Daisuke had talked about Jusenkyo when she'd questioned them about 'Ranma,' claiming that it was a place in China that caused people to change shape with water. "You're kidding, right?" She demanded, starting to get seriously annoyed.

Cologne sighed, deciding that shocking the girl a bit would probably be easier than trying to convince her of the existence of magic the old fashioned way. Reaching down into her robe, she pulled a large thermos out from… somewhere, uncapping the top. As Kimiko watched uneasily, she tossed a large quantity of steaming water into the cell.

"Youch! That's HOT!" Genma yelled, angrily.

After staring for a few seconds at the sudden appearance of the overweight martial artist where the panda had been, Kimiko abruptly fainted from weirdness overload.

END.