5 minutes earlier...

"Ranma, you jerk..."

Akane Tendo had started many a thought with that phrase, but seldom had it crossed her mind with that much bitterness. The other heir to the Anything-Goes school sat alone at the desk in her room; she had requested to be left alone, and her family knew that denying these "requests" could be very dangerous to their health. Akane wasn't crying; she wasn't the type of girl who bawled at the drop of a hat. However, she couldn't shake this overwhelming feeling of frustration and bitterness.

"I swear, he'll never change! Why does he feel the need to humiliate Ryoga at every chance he gets? I can't imagine what started the grudge between those two... It's more than that 'bread feud' Ranma mentioned, that's for sure. Ranma started it, no doubt. Ryoga is the type of guy who is always polite, honest, and kind; not exactly traits that I would use to describe my fiance."

Her eyes narrowed as she remembered the incident at dinner. "Ryoga is so sensitive... He looked like he'd been stabbed with a knife when Ranma made fun of him. Grr... Then, like always, he managed to turn the situation into an opportunity to insult me, too. I've gotten used to that, but still... it irritates me. Almost as much as the fuss he made after eating my cooking..."

Akane took a deep breath and stood up. "I've got to stop dwelling on this," she thought. "Maybe a little walk will clear my head..."

Akane quietly slipped out of her room, down the stairs, and out the front door. She was only a few feet away from the gate when she was surprised by the sound of knocking.

KNOCK, KNOCK!

"Hello! Is anyone home?" a woman's voice called.

Akane smiled slightly; she knew that voice. "Sure, Ukyo. Wait just a second, okay?"

She quickly unlocked the gate to let Ranma's "cute fiancee" inside. In all honesty, Akane wasn't entirely unhappy to see her. While it would be a serious stretch to say that the two girls were friends, Akane had to admit that she had a certain amount of respect for Ukyo. Unlike several other girls she could name, the okonomyaki chef was a fairly reasonable gal. She had never used homicide threats or mind-altering serums to try to win Ranma over, and the two shared a sense of being the "normal" fiancees.

"How's it going, Akane?" Ukyo asked. She was wearing blue jeans, a man's white business shirt, and was carrying a large take-out box in her hand.

"Oh, I'm doing fine," Akane answered, "but something tells me that you're not here to see me. What's in the box?"

"Ha! You're sharp! And here I thought that I was the businesswoman," Ukyo laughed. "Well, you have me there, Sugar. On behalf of Uchan's Okonomyaki, I come seeking a certain pigtailed hunk to taste-test a new recipe. Where is Ranma-honey, anyway?"

Akane blushed slightly from embarassment. "He, uh, ate something that didn't agree with him. He's a little sick right now, so this probably wouldn't be a good time to..."

"Nonsense!" Ukyo interrupted, obviously not to be deterred. "If Ranma has one rule to live by, it's 'there's always room for more'. Besides, eating some of this is bound to help his stomach get over your dinner."

Akane faceplanted, but immediately hopped back up. "H-how did you know that?"

Ukyo winked. "Call it an educated guess. So, are ya going to lead me to him or not?"

Akane's good will toward Ms. Kuonji had completely dried up; she was now running on strained hospitality. "Right this way..." she grumbled.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

However, the two girls discovered (to their great suprise) that Ranma was not in his room! They shared the thought, "How could he have moved in that condition?", but neither voiced this curiosity. They conducted a quick search of the house, but everyone's favorite gender-bender was nowhere to be found.

"Where on earth could he have run off to?" Akane finally yelled in frustration.

Ukyo looked aggravated as well. "I don't know, but..."

BOOM!

The house shook slightly from the nearby tremor. "What the heck was that? An earthquake?" Ukyo wondered aloud.

"I don't think so; it only lasted a second," Akane replied. "In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that it came from behind the house..."

Akane realized the significance of what she had just said at about the same time that Ukyo did. The two girls nodded at each other and took off running for the back yard. When they got there, they saw that their suspicions were correct: the back wall of the Tendo home was sporting a rather large, gaping hole.

"Dad's going to be ticked when he sees this," Akane sighed, her hand on her forehead. "Well, it looks like whoever did this has already left."

Akane turned to go back inside, when she felt someone holding her sleeve. "Hold on, Akane!" Ukyo whispered. "Look over there."

Akane followed her finger toward the dojo. "Do you normally leave the lights on in there at night?" Ukyo asked.

"No... no, we don't," Akane finally answered. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

The two girls stealthily crept toward the dojo door until they were standing directly outside. Grabbing the handle, Ukyo thought about simply swinging the door open and screaming "AHA!", but instead she decided to "play it cool".

Creeeeeeaaaak...

"Hey! Anybody home?" she asked quietly. As she nudged the door open, Ukyo heard a several male voices give a panicked scream. Shocked by the reaction, she was about to burst into the room when she had the door unceremoniously slammed in her face and held shut! Now thoroughly convinced that something was rotten in Denmark, Ukyo body-slammed the door open with a powerful force that took both Akane and the mysterious door-holder by surprise. Dashing inside, Ukyo saw four very familiar figures jumping out an open window. Her mouth went agape as she realized who those four were...

"Ukyo, what happened?" Akane gasped, rushing inside.

Ukyo seemed shell-shocked. "I... I just saw Ranma-honey, but... he wasn't... that is..."

"He was what? C'mon, spit it out!" Akane urged her.

Ukyo blinked and gulped loudly. "He didn't look like Ranma! I mean, that's who it was, but he was covered in hair, and Mousse and Kuno were the same way. Kuno turned blue, and Mousse was green! And..."

Akane was beginning to wonder if Ukyo had lost her mind. "... and what?" she finally asked.

Ukyo had the strangest look on her face. "If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn that I saw a pig with bat wings..."

A king-sized sweatdrop rolled down the side of Akane's face. "Ukyo, I think you'd better sit down."

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Ukyo angrily snapped. "Well, if you don't believe me, then why don't you ask him?"

Akane turned to see Dr. Tofu lying face-up on the floor, his glasses knocked off and only half-conscious.

"Oh my gosh! Dr. Tofu, are you okay?" Akane shouted, rushing over to him.

She gently patted the side of his face, bringing him around. The stunned M.D. groggily opened his eyes, allowing everything to come into focus (a job made much easier when Akane put his glasses back on for him).

"Oooooh... What hit me?" he moaned.

"I did; or rather, the door that I pushed did," Ukyo answered in a no-nonsense tone. "I think you owe us an explanation. You mind explaining why my fiance had dog ears?"

"Ukyo! Give it a rest, already! It must have been some kind of optical illusion. Right, Dr. Tofu?" she asked the bruised chiropractor.

"Well, that is..." Dr. Tofu stammered. "I don't want to make Ukyo look like a liar, but Ranma and the others specifically requested that I keep this quiet. Arrrgh... What should I do? Well, I suppose there's only one thing to do in a situation such as this..."

"I plead doctor-patient confidentiality!" he blurted, causing Akane and Ukyo to faceplant.

"So she is telling the truth! Dr. Tofu, what's going on?" Akane shouted, wild-eyed.

"I know nothink!" Dr. Tofu answered in a fake German accent, emphasizing his point by symbolically zipping his lips.

"Psst! Akane, come here for a second," Ukyo whispered.

Akane did as she was asked, and Ukyo put her hand to her ear. "Sugar, I don't know about you, but I've seen smoking gun barrels less suspicious than your boy Tofu here. I'm not leaving until he tells me where Ranma is and what's going on! How about you?"

Akane considered for a second, then reluctantly nodded. "All right, count me in. No rough stuff, though, okay?"

Ukyo nodded in assent, and both of them looked over at their future victim; from his determined expression, they knew that this was NOT going to be easy.

"What are they talking about over there?" he wondered. Soon, the two girls sauntered over to where he was sitting.

Akane pulled up a chair and sweetly said, "Won't you have a seat, Doctor?"

He shook his head. "No, that's all right. I..."

His sentence trailed off when he saw Ukyo pull a nylon cord from behind her back. The tomboy glared daggers at him and snarled, "We insist."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"You live here?" Mousse gasped incredulously. "It looks like a castle, for crying out loud!"

Ranma nodded in grim agreement; he knew from experience that the Kuno ancestral mansion was as big as a castle, and just as well defended. The four extra-cursed boys had managed to sneak across town without causing any heart attacks, but now that they had reached their objective they were unsure as to how to proceed.

"Um, I suppose knocking would be out of the question?" Ryoga finally ventured.

"Maybe, but maybe not..." Ranma muttered as he noticed a note tacked to the front door. "For us, maybe?"

He snatched the note off of the door and began reading. "Huh... looks like some kind of contract," Ranma finally muttered. He looked up to see his friends giving him puzzled stares.

"How in the world are you reading that?" Ryoga blurted. "You're in almost complete darkness!"

Ranma realized to his own surprise that they were right; there was no way he should have been able to read the letter with such poor lighting.

"Heh. Whaddya know? I guess this new curse gives me night vision or something..." he chuckled. "Here, I'll bring it over to the streetlight so you guys can read it."

That accomplished, Mousse took it from Ranma's hands and began reading aloud: "We, the undersigned, admit that we have not given Hikaru Gosenkugi the respect he rightfully deserves. In reparation for this injustice, we promise to sincerely apologize. In return, the great Gosenkugi will generously restore us to our normal forms..."

The four boys didn't say anything for a few seconds; Ryoga finally broke the silence. "I don't know about you guys," he said, "but at this point I 'ain't too proud to beg', if you know what I mean. If an apology is all it takes to get my normal body back, then I'll kowtow to him all he wants!"

The lost boy pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and was about to sign when a large blue hand slapped the pen away. "Hey! Kuno, what's the big idea?" Ryoga yelled angrily.

To everyone's suprise, Kuno was deadly serious. "I'm doing you a favor, fool. Take a look at paragraph 13, line 36, clause 112."

Using Mousse's glasses as a magnifying glass, they scoured the fine print until they had located the phrase in question. It read: "We, the undersigned, also pledge to give up our free will to Hikaru Gosenkugi for an indefinite period of time."

Ryoga's already pale skin turned stark white as he realized what he had almost signed his "John Hancock" to. "Thanks, Kuno," he gulped, "I owe you one."

Mousse growled, "Geez, he's sneaky... This contract has some kind of voodoo power too, no doubt." A closer inspection (and the Haitian symbols on the bottom-right of the paper) confirmed that suspicion.

Meanwhile, Ranma was searching frantically for the signpost to the Twilight Zone; Kuno had actually said something bright! Finally, he couldn't contain his curiosity any longer. "All right, Kuno! Spill the beans!" he demanded. "How in the world did you notice that?"

Kuno smirked. "Ranma Saotome, I may be a swordsman, but I am also a Kuno. We did not get where we are today by NOT reading the fine print."

Although he still had trouble bringing himself to believe that the "Blue Thunder" he knew and (didn't) love had managed to do something so intelligent, Ranma had to concede the point. "Well, the contract is a wash-out, then. I should have known that we'd have to do this the hard way. Okay, then; here's what we'll do. Ryoga, you can fly, so you take the top floor. I'll take the ground floor, and Kuno can take the basement. Mousse, you take the moat; with this place's huge plumbing system, you should have no trouble getting inside."

Ryoga nodded in agreement. "Sounds good to me. He'll have a much harder time fighting us if we split up like that."

"You still haven't said how we're going to get inside in the first place, though," Mousse pointed out.

Kuno walked over to the door of his palatial home, a knowing grin on his face. "Quite simple, my good man. As our toothy companion suggested, we shall knock."

With that, the Franken-swordsman rared back and punched the door with all of his curse-enhanced might. The door flew off its hinges as if it had been held in place by staples, crashing into the house with a deafening impact! The other three knew that that was the signal to move; without a word, they each dashed in their appointed directions and quickly infiltrated Castle Kuno...

END OF CHAPTER 4
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I don't have a whole heckuva lot to say here, so I'll just state the obvious: things are about to get wild and crazy as the seige of Castle Kuno begins!

Stick around, okay? (Also, don't forget to drop me a review.) Hasta la pizza, home-fries!