CHAPTER SIX

"ALMOST FROSTBITTEN"

The sun has just risen, morning dew covered the green grass. Tis' a new day… tis a new beginning for—chaos…. BWAHAHAHAH!

Morty sat up from his futon and rubbed his eyes, he looked around… the room was strangely empty. He fixed up his futon and walked out of the guest's room. He could smell such delicious aroma wafting from the kitchen, he gulped as he remembered the incident from last night. He tiptoed past the kitchen, he saw two people by the stove, one was the brown-haired girl from the doctor and the other was Rio. He sighed a breath of relief, if Rio was the one helping with the cooking there's no need to flush anything down the toilet again… besides from… bah, you know what I mean.

Morty shuffled his feet over to the living room, he saw two middle-aged people sitting at the table. One was skinny, with long black hair, the other was quite the opposite. "Hello…" Morty said as he raised his hand in greeting.

Soun took a sip from his tea, "Yes, Akane has told me about you people… how long do you plan to stay?"

'Akane?' Morty thought, 'Oh, she must be the girl who… cooks…'. Morty laughed, "Well, not too long I hope." He answered.

Kasumi walked in the living room carrying breakfast, Rio followed with the rest of the meal. They both placed it at the center of the table.

'That woman is fit to become my queen…' Rio thought. 'She is perfect for me.'

Ranma dragged his feet to the table, his eyes were blood red, and there were bags under them too. Ranma didn't get sleep last night, he was too busy to try to move from his position. By the time he was able to move again it was already 5:00 in the morning. He sat lazily on his same spot and looked groggily at the food before him.

"Why are you like that, son?" Genma asked, "You got a decent night of sleep last night."

Ranma grumbled, his head thudded against the table, he began to snore.

"Hey, breakfast!" Yoh cried out as he walked in the living room from outside. "Great! I'm starving mad!"

"Where've you been?" Morty asked.

"He's been training." Anna answered the question. "Just because we are on vacation doesn't give him an excuse to stop training, does it?"

"I guess so." Morty answered quietly. "Where are Trey and the others?"

"Somewhere, probably." Yoh said between mouthfuls, he stopped then began eating again. This time at a slower pace.

"I'm glad that you enjoy my cooking!" Kasumi smiled. "But, I couldn't make it that good without your friend, Rio."

"Why thank you, madam." Rio said quite happily.

Akane walked in the living room, she had on her school uniform. She sat down next to her father and began to eat. Ranma was still snoozing away.

Trey, Pilika, Jun and Len walked in at the same time, Len still lugged around the useless crutches. They seated themselves on the table. "So who cooked this?" Trey asked as he examined the breakfast. He saw Anna and Yoh eating, he didn't wait for an answer.

"Where did you guys go to?" Morty asked.

"Just catching some sun." Trey answered. "We had to drag Len out the room…" he looked at Len with a wide grin. " being locked up in a little room is bad for someone with your condition, Lenny."

Len just growled. What condition? The sprain had already healed, he wanted to break those hellish crutches into pieces.

Akane looked at Ranma, who was still sleeping. "Ranma! Let's go, we'll be late for school!" she yanked Ranma up. The boy's eyes fluttered open.

"Uh, yeah… I'll get there, you go on ahead." He murmured, he closed his eyes again, his body looked limp as Akane held him by the shirt. Akane looked at her guests, "We need to go to school, is it alright with you?"

"Yes, it is fine." Jun answered. "You can't let us get in the way of your education. Besides, we could help out a lot with chores here."

"Thanks." Akane walked out of the front door, Ranma followed like a drunk.

Ranma walked on, his movements so uncoordinated. He collided onto the wall, this shook him back into waking, "I'm fine" he grumbled. His eyelids drooped as he continued on.

"So, what brings you here?" Sound tried to start a conversation with his guests.

"Well, we were supposed to go to the Bahamas but something went wrong with the plane and we cash landed somewhere near here. We ran out of money at the Cat Cafe so we don't have anywhere else to go…" Pilika answered. She remembered to leave out some parts of the story.

"Oh…"

XXX

"I'm glad that I have someone to talk to when doing chores." Kasumi said as she hung the clothes on the line. Jun was next to her, doing the same.

"Well it is the least we could do for letting us stay here." Jun replied.

Kasumi smiled, "I didn't get your name, Miss."

"It's Jun Tao."

"I'm Kasumi Tendo."

Pilika was in the kitchen doing the dishes, Trey was on the roof 'unclogging' the gutters he and Yoh clogged up with Akane's teriyaki, he wretched every time he pulled out a chunk of meat. Len watched Trey from below with a huge smirk plastered on his face, "I'd really love to help you up there, Trey. But, being with my broken leg and all…"

"I'll show you a broken leg…" Trey grumbled. He reached his hand back in the gutter, he took out another nasty chunk and chucked it into the bucket. Just then, the bucket slid down from the roof and fell directly on top of Len's head. Trey laughed his head off.

Len threw the bucket off his head and wiped away the meat from his face. He grabbed his kwan-dao and swung it downwards on Trey. Trey jumped to the side, avoiding Len's fury by an inch. There was now a huge crevasse from where he was. Len looked up at him, eyes ablaze.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" Trey snapped. Another swing came at him, Trey blocked it with his board. "Quit it!" he yelled. "What about your leg!"

"Don't mind me. I'm more worried about what I'll do to your bloody corpse!" Len yelled.

Soun and Genma watched the fight from the lanai. "They're good, for children." Soun commented.

"Hmph, that's just child's play." Genma replied, he looked at his shogi pieces. He was losing again. "Oh look at that!" Genma cried out.

"Where!" Soun looked at the direction Genma was pointing at. He looked back at Genma with a confused look, "You're kidding me, Genma. There's nothing there."

Genma laughed, he just switched the pieces around. He was relieved that Soun did not catch him. "Must be another wandering spirit."

Morty was wiping the floor when he heard this. He panicked, could these people see spirits as well? No that couldn't be, they would have noticed Amidamaru, Bason or Cory by now. He kept on wiping the floor with a rag.

"You should get his house an itako, Soun. It's infested with spirits!" Genma laughed.

"Very funny, Saotome." He moved a piece.

"If they only knew…" Morty said to himself.

"You missed a spot, Shorty." Anna looked down at Morty.

"I'll get to that." Morty quickly scrubbed the floor. "Where's Rio?"

"He left earlier."

Morty sighed, Rio always managed to get away when he wants to.

Trey kept blocking the attacks Len kept throwing at him. He couldn't find an opening to hit Len back, just for once. An idea flashed in Trey's mind.

Len's kwan-dao collided on Trey's snowboard, quickly Trey froze his board with solid ice, and the ice crept up to Len's kwan-dao. Len let go of his kwan-dao, the ice could move up to his fingers.

"Careful now! I don't want to give ya' frostbite!" Trey taunted.

Len clenched his teeth, "Bason—"

"Len!" Jun shouted sharply. She strode to her brother, "Don't do that here!"

Len glared at his sister, then he strode away. Leaving his crutches behind.

Yoh was busy scrubbing the bathroom tiles with bleach. His hands felt raw. Still it was the least he could do. Amidamaru appeared behind him, "Maybe you should rest?"

"Nah, the quicker I finish this the sooner I could have a long undisturbed nap." Yoh answered. "It's something to look forward to... but maybe Anna has some plans for training again."

Amidamaru just nodded at this. Somehow he wished that he could help Yoh, besides in the battlefield.

XXX

Rio walked around the neighborhood. He could bare to be imprisoned in that place. But… he couldn't wait or lunch when he could help his beloved Kasumi once more. He did a little skip, as he walked.

"Oh, a school." He said to himself. He stopped in front of the large black gates of Ranma's school. He slid open the gate and walked inside. He missed the atmosphere of a school, students were everywhere, the teacher's voice droning on when not one student was listening. He walked to the baseball field and watched the batters swing the bat hoping to get a home-run.

Tokageroh appeared behind him, "That looks easy. All you have to do is swing the stick and hit the ball." He scoffed.

Rio nodded, "Why don't you hide, Tokageroh. Maybe some students here could see you. I don't want a commotion."

Tokageroh sighed, "Fine." He disappeared.

Someone tapped Rio's shoulder. Rio turned to see who it is.

XXX

The teacher discussed the works of Edgar Allan Poe, he read aloud quotations filling the room with a certain eeriness. Akane tried to take down notes, she was irritated to see Ranma sleeping.

A few minutes later there was a blood-curdling scream. Most of the students jumped out of their seats. The teacher stopped, everything was quiet.

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(a/N) Don't worry about cartoon network anymore…. I just sent them a letter bomb (laughs)

Sapphire-Amethyst: I… really…don't… know… sorry…. I haven't really seen Len interact with Pilika yet.

I'm so short on words today. Anyway I love you guys!

With tons of love,

Pazaway-tiger

P.S.- don't forget the reviews!