"Ranma Saotome."

The five syllables seemed to suck the sunshine and oxygen from the air they floated in, replacing it with desolation and deep fury. They somehow contrived to be cold and hot at the same time, dark and dense, a cry of pain and a challenge.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Hello to you too, Ryoga."

He narrowed his eyes, only partly because the other was posing against the sun, apparently as to appear even more dark and ominous. He was still confused, and not in the mood for a confrontation with Ryoga, especially as he was pretty sure what the confrontation would be about. He decided to give in to malice instead. "Just out of curiosity, where do you think you're going this time?"

Ryoga was not to be confused so easily. "To find you, dishonourable cur that you are."

"Well, it's 11 a.m., so I should say I'd be at school," Ranma offered helpfully. "It's – that way." He pointed in the direction the school actually resided, although he was aware it was purely inconsequential what direction you chose to give Ryoga. He might as well point to the sky, for all the help it would give his rival. "It's a nice brisk walk. You should get there in a month or so, easy."

"Do not mock me." The red parasol skimmed towards Ranma's face so quickly that it almost evaded sight and with crushing force, but he was already behind the other boy before it had time to return to Ryoga's hand.

"C'mon, Ryoga, at least tell me why you're so mad with me," he pleaded. Playing dumb would sometimes do the trickwhen nothing else would. With both Ryoga and Akane around blaming him every time a dead leaf fell from a tree, Ranma was getting good at evasion.

He was also a pro at another kind of evasion, which was lucky under the circumstances. His rival threw off a skull-crushing punch, but Ranma flipped away before it could land.

"Can you ask?" Ryoga was trembling with outrage, even as he flung himself into the next attack. "You used false pretences to creep into the bed of the girl I love, and dishonour her purity."

Ranma was stung into retaliation. "Well, you can talk, Charlotte."

Ryoga, characteristically, ignored him. His foot kicked out, hard, but it was already no good. Ranma had him pinned to the ground, balanced carefully on the back of his neck.

"Now, I've had a really hard day, and it's not even lunch time yet, so would you just – cool – down!" He did not actually mention the bucket of floor cleaner his father had left on the steps of the doctor's office, but a jerk of Ryoga's head between his ankles made sure the other boy registered his intentions.

The other boy remained defiant. After all, if nothing else, P-chan still had very sharp teeth. "Akane comes to no harm by me, neither in reputation nor spirit. You – you made her cry." His tone made it clear as the crime Ranma himself knew in his heart it was.

Ranma'sshoulders sagged. "I still don't know why she gotall thatupset. She makes no sense sometimes." The eternal lament… He should have it carved on his forehead.

"You must have done something to her!" Ryoga took advantage of his own rage and Ranma's distraction to throw him off. Ranma flew through the air and, his fate holding true, landed head first in the bucket of water. She came back up to her feet, spluttering.

"I swear I don't know what I did wrong!" she wailed. "One moment we were kissing, and the next she's screaming at me to get out."

"You forced your kisses on Akane? It's farworse than I imagined!" Ryoga seemed, for the moment, too appalled to actually move forward and kill her.

Ranma knew his petrifaction would not last. She hastened to distract him by chatter. It was not that she couldn't still defeat Ryoga easily in this form, but she really wasn't in the mood for a fight. The most frustrating thing about Ryoga was that he was so often in the right, which turned victories against him a little sour. "She was kissing me back, you idiot! And then all of a sudden, she's throwing things at me. I don't know why," she whined, clasping her hands and doing her best to look pathetically feminine and unhittable.

"You claim you don't know why? Ha!" Ryoga began, then suddenly hesitated. Some of his righteous fury faded. "But Ranma, I saw you when you entered and left the room. You were like… this." The red parasol gestured at Ranma's curves.

Ranma shrugged. "Sure. You know I can't get through a day without getting soaked," she added sulkily. "As if it wasn't embarrassing enough that I thought I was a cat, it had to be a girl-kitty." No wonder Akane despises me, she thought resentfully. What a misbegotten idiot I must have seemed. But that still doesn't explain why she kissed me back.

"She kissed you while you were a girl? But then…" Darkness fell over Ryoga's face. "She must truly love you, to not reject you in that form. Unworthy as you are."

Ranma shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Either that, or she's a dyke," she said.

"You are saying she would not have kissed you if you were in your true form?" Ryoga asked carefully.

"I guess so." Lightning struck. "Hey, that's pretty insulting!" She drew her brows together fiercely. "I'm cute as my real self too, aren't I?" she demanded of Ryoga.

He flushed. "You're still the same conceited, dishonourablejerk whether you're a boy or a girl," he muttered, avoiding the question.

Ranma tried not to look too smug at Ryoga's obvious embarrassment, and failed miserably. "Boy or girl, I'm gorgeous," she declared confidently. "So Akane would still have kissed me if I was a boy… Right?" She looked somewhat anxiously at Ryoga. "Right?"

Ryoga, his blushes fading a little, looked uncomfortable. "Akane has the courage and virtue of a lion," he said at last, leaving aside the question of whether lions really were paragons of virtue. "But she is also innocent. Perhaps with you in your female form, she felt safe… and did not realise until too late what a threat to her purity you truly are!" he finished in a rush, his anger obviously building again.

Ranma stared at him wide-eyed, considering his words. It was not an explanation which would have occurred to her; after all, Akane had liked her far better when she thought she was really a girl, before things had started to go wrong with them, so long ago.She had to admit thatRyoga's explanation did make sense, in a way. Although…

"I'm not a threat to Akane!" she protested. "I've never even made a pass at the unsexy tomboy."

Ryoga's battle-aura was slowly increasing in intensity. "Until last night."

"Yeah, until –" Ranma sighed and flipped out of the way of the parasol. It was looking increasingly unlikely that she was going to get back to school in time for lunch.

Nabiki Tendosat at her desk, the model of a well-behaved and studious schoolgirl. Inserted neatly into her text book were several freshly developed photographs, which she was shiftingintently through, careful not to catch her teacher's attention. It took all of her acting skill not to let a cat-like smile play over her innocent features. She contentedly twisted her pencil in its sharpener, making its point extra-sharp.

Her profits had been, if not nonexistent, lower than usual over the last few days, and a girl like Nabiki had serious demands on her purse to deal with. It had been all the business with Mariko and the martial arts cheerleading that had given her inspiration. Ranma and Akane had been quite sweet together for a while, in their violent confrontational manner, and Mariko at least had obviously assumed they were a lesbian couple. The effect on the male population of the school had been electric. And Nabiki had overheard enough speculations about what those two got up to when Ranma was in his female form to realise that there was a huge, untapped source of wealth just begging for an entrepreneurial woman to insert the pump.

If boys had a fetish, however inexplicable, who was Nabiki to deny them the chance to enjoy it? She owed it to the world to fulfill their needs.

She really had been hoping for nothing more than a few snaps of feline Ranma being kittenishly affectionate with his fiancée. Now… she devoutly blessed the savvy and lack of moral inhibitions that had caused her to put hidden cameras in her dear little sister's room.

What Nabiki had hidden between the pages of her textbook was pure gold.

The class ended, and Nabiki gathered up her possessions quickly. There were quite a few boys in school, and a couple of girls, that she suspected would pay well for her candid snaps. But there was always one person she could rely on to always have the desire, and the cash, to make Nabiki a very happy woman.

"Hey, Kuno-baby," she drawled, laying a small hand on her classmate's huge shoulder.

The kendo champion paused in his composition, and whirled on her. "Why do you interrupt my poetic contemplations and assault me with your undesired presence, Nabiki Tendo? Do you not know my time is precious?"

She fanned the photos in a carefully controlled and practiced movement, flashing their contents for a split second, then snapping them together in her palm. "I guess you're not interested in these, then," she said sadly. "Never mind. See you around, Kuno-baby."

He had frozen, his eyes wide. Nabiki idly wondered if even she, bored by martial arts as she was, could knock him over without effort when he was like this. "How much?"

She smiled sweetly, reviewing the afternoon's classes in her mind. Nothing she couldn't stand to miss. "Buy me ice-cream, and we'll discuss terms."

A little later, Nabiki was glowing at the pile of money in front of her, while finishing up her third sundae. Kuno was eating up the photos with his eyes in a way that made her, frankly, a little uncomfortable. Maybe it really was morally questionable, to sell pictures of your own baby sister in bed kissing another girl to the boy who stalked them both.

She touched the money, and her conscience was assuaged by its magical presence. Akane and Ranma could deal with Kuno, as they always had. Someone in her slapdash family had to keep her head out of the clouds and provide for them. Not that Nabiki ever shared much of her ill-gotten wealth with her family, but that was just the way it went. Surely she deserved adecent percentagefor all her hard work.

Kuno had abruptly started to weep.

"Aw, Kuno-baby. Don't take it so hard," she consoled. He was almost cute, heartbroken like that. The great big, beautiful, muscular baby. "Isn't this supposed to be every guy's fantasy or something?"

He lifted a face streaming with tears to her. "Poor, beauteous Akane Tendo! And my innocent pigtailed goddess! They despaired of ever winning my love, and in their heartbreak, have turned to each other for comfort! If only they knew how I really felt…" He leapt to his feet, bristling with new energy. "Such purity… Such sweetness… Never fear, my true loves! I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furikan High, will save you both and heal your broken hearts!"

He rushed from the room, as desultory applause started among the other customers.

Nabiki stared after him for a moment, with something like awe. Then she went back to eating her ice-cream and counting her profits.

It wasn't like any of it was really her problem.