Disclaimer: I still own my socks. No one has sued me and triumphed. I dare you to try. I'm telling you right now that I don't own any of the bishies or chicas from Ranma ½ any more than I own the 8th volume of the manga. Hammerspace© belongs to somebody, but I don't know who!

This chapter is in (dun dun dun) Third Person... Person... person...

(a scream is heard in the background) Yes, third person. I am exercising my right as an authoress to not use first person although I lapse into it every now and then throughout the text.

Muu Tsu looked over Akane's shoulder, his duck eyes blurry. Not that blurry vision was unfamiliar to him. It wasn't as bad has his human vision.

His thoughts were all over the place, as he watched the fuzzy gray and blue street. And he was trying to keep them on Xian Pu. And not trying to think of what that girl had told him. And failing miserably.

After all, he had professed his love to some strange girl who knew he was looking for Xian Pu. There wasn't as much of a struggle as usual. They walked to the valley- the park! The park in Nerima. Since when was there a park in Nerima? Obviously since this afternoon. And all the time he was enveloped in the haze of being near. . . Xian Pu? No! He quacked irritably aloud. It was that girl. He had betrayed his beautiful Amazon warrior for a girl whose face he never saw clearly.

A girl who had been feeding him every night since Genma had sold him to her father. Of course, she'd find him in the strangest places. Curse the old woman who blesses doorsteps with water. Curse her dozens of times over. Curse the doorstep of her house. And Ranma too, this was entirely his fault. The Jusenkyo duck wasn't quite sure how, but it was.

While Muu Tsu was lapsing into thoughts about maiming Ranma with any number of his items of destruction, who should wander into their path but Ryouga!

"RrrrAAnMAAAaaaa! This is all your fault!" He pulled his umbrella off his back and started to battle without further prelude.

"Hey, P-Chan, What's up?" Ranma-chan dodged as the lost boy tried a direct hit to the redhead.

Akane, still shielding duck-boy, was wondering what Ranma did to Ryouga. It must've been awfully bad. Even so, the rivalry had been going on so long that no-one could really tell. She let it go on until Ranma-chan had maneuvered Ryouga to a position that cannot be put on paper. It was then that the aquatransexual felt the shining aura of Akane as she pulled one of her famous mallets from hammerspace.

"uuuuh…" He slowly turned around.

"QUIT PICKING ON RYOUGA!"

Soon Ranma-chan was on an express trip to the Tendo dojo, which was fine with him. Even Nabiki didn't believe that Genma had sold Muu Tsu to Yuka's father until she saw a white bundle of feathers being carried by Yuka home from just in front of the Tendo dojo.

"Hey, old man!" Ranma-chan burst into the Tendo dojo looking for a large panda. Genma usually stayed in panda form if he didn't feel like facing the world or had done something looked down up on in Neriman circles. (And between you and me, we know that's not really hard to do. Especially if you're Genma Saotome.)

Upstairs and downstairs, though, there was not fur nor tail of said martial artist. Happosai was, however- and he was tasting the different brands of sake from the case. Never mind that it was a "variety case". He was proved more than willing to try them all. Despite his condition, he was in no fit state to slip into "drunk-fu", so Ranma (having found a tea kettle of hot water left on a burner) was able to extract some information from the tiny drunkard. Of course, it required changing back for a brief five minutes of excruciating glomping and rear pinching, but nothing worse than he'd received from Kuno.

'So pops and Mr. Tendo had decided to go on a little training trip.' He mused to himself as he hopped rooftops in order to find Akane. 'How very convenient. Luckily I ain't got the time to mess with him.' He assumed that she'd be taking Muu Tsu to the Cat Café. Little did he know just how right he was.

"Ding ding," rang out a bell on a bike. Ranma froze for the one second that was required for Xian Pu to run him over.

"Nihao, Airen!" She glomped him faster than the speed of light. Physicists are still trying to find out how she did it. "Airen take Shampoo on date, yes?"

"Let me go, Shampoo." He slid out from under her arms and began to slowly back away.

Funny thing about roofs. You can only back away so far before your feet don't have anything behind them. And when you do run out of room, and you lose your balance, you have no-where to go but down.

So Ranma did.

He regained his balance for a decent landing, right in front of Akane and "Mu-Mu Chan".

She grabbed his hand without really thinking about it, and wordlessly dragged him to the Cat Café, duck semi-cradled in one arm.

Above, on the rooftops, Xian Pu watched. "Airen-"

Meanwhile, Sayuri had called Yuka.

"So you mean you kissed this guy?"

"NO!"

"But he read you love poems, right?"

"Yeah."

"And he said he loved you."

"Yeah. . ."

"And that he'd never leave your side."

"Mmm. . . hm."

"And he didn't try to kiss you once."

"Nope."

"Why didn't you kiss him!"

"What kind of a question is that! I'd be taking advantage of him! He thought I was someone else, remember? I couldn't do that! It'd break is heart if Nabiki had any pictures of me with him, let alone kissing him. There was no way I'd ever let that happen. Never."

"But Sayuri!"

"Never."

Yuka smiled on her end of the phone, laying back on her inflated mattress. 'You know,' she thought, 'I was so worried about Mystery Man's emotions and here he's just about romanced every woman in my class. Not that I actually said anything to hint that I had been one of them, but Sayuri! I wonder if those glasses are just-'

"...and then Hiroshi said- Hey, Yuka. . . you still there?"

"Yeah. But I gotta go start dinner. See you at school tomorrow?"

"Sure. Get some rest, Yuka."

"You too, Sayuri."

When she finally hung up the phone, Yuka found her Mom in the kitchen looking at the empty cabinets.

"Kiddo," she said, turning to look at Yuka, "Looks like we're going to either eat out or order in."

Less angst, more confrontations this chapter, hope you didn't mind. If you did, tell me. If you didn't, tell me!

I want to think that I hadn't accidentally pushed Ranma and Akane OOC, but the person that I was most worried about was Ryouga, followed closely by Xian Pu. Are they? Aren't they? Let me know!

Questions? Comments? Ideas? Drop a line! Please!