The following morning provided little entertainment for the female student body as Akane, with the aid of Ranma, quickly dispatched of all opponents, including Kuno.

"Man, Akane must be getting impatient," Sayuri said as she walked back to our little table. "She didn't even try to make a show out of it today."

"And she makes a show out of it everyday?" I said suspiciously.

"Oh come on, you've seen it. It usually takes her about five minutes to kick their butts, but today? Less than three," Sayuri said.

"It's cause Ranma was there though," Yuka said. "He and Akane used a double kick for Kuno."

"Maybe they're getting along," Kotori said.

All of us looked at each other for a moment before breaking out in uncontrollable giggles. "Yeah right!" Yuka gasped through peals of laughter.

"The day those two get along," Sayuri said. "Is the day Rizu's hair turns black!"

I stopped laughing and sat back, feeling a little light headed. "Who knows?" I said. "Maybe a pig'll fly by the window." This set us off even further.

The door slid open to reveal an angry Akane and a sickened and angry Ranma. "What are you guys laughing at?" Akane said as she walked over to us.

"Nothing," I gasped, catching my breath. "It's nothing."

Akane sat down in a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. "Akane," I said. "You really need to break a smile every once in a while." I turned back towards Ranma and smiled. "Hey Pigtail!" I said cheerfully. "Sleep well?"

The question was innocent enough, but it made Ranma wince visibly. "I'll take that as a no," I said, turning back towards the girls.

I walked leisurely down the outside hall, my c.d. player in my hand and my headphones positioned over my ears. The music was blaring, my favorite song: "She Fuckin Hates Me" by Puddle of Mudd. It was around lunch time and I'd decided to take a little walk before heading off towards lunch. I was on the first floor when I noticed a flash of red below me. Right on time too.

I looked over to see Ranma and Kuno, Ranma holding a large stuffed bear. I still have no idea what the hell Kuno thought was so "gift-worthy" of that bear, even in the flesh it was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. Ranma tossed the bear back to Kuno and began to walk away and I ducked back into the hallway just as a splash of water fell right were my head woulda been. Better Ranma than me, I'm telling ya.

Never thought I'd be the one who slipped,

Kuno whirled around the corner to find the "Pigtailed Goddess", whose graceful self fell from a tree.

Then I started to realize,

I swear, Kuno had to be the most disgusting pervert I'd ever seen. I wanted to cheer for Ranma, trying to punch away Kuno's advances, that's sure as hell what I would've done.

I was living one big lie.

Enter sly Nabiki with her kettle of hot water. Not exactly the most secret way to get Kuno's attention, but hey. It made sense to her at the time although I knew better.

She fuckin' hates me,

Ooh a kick right to the face from Ranma, just at the entrance of the chorus too. Now that's what I call good timing.

The fight between Kuno and Ranma started right with the guitar solo (with a little help from the fast forward button of course). Akane showed up so I waved, but she didn't see me. Probably the best thing too, I don't know what would of happened if she had seen me.

The pictures fluttered out of Kuno's shirt and I almost collapsed with laughter at Ranma's expression. But then the song was almost over and I decided to keep moving, already knowing the outcome. As I began to leave the hallway, I saw something above me. Looking up I saw Jhim with a triumphant look on his face, obviously rooting for Ranma. I smiled and went on my way.

That's my story, as you see,

Learned my lesson and so did she

Now it's over and I'm glad…(1)

Don't I wish.

"So Rizu," Akane said one day while we were shopping together. "Ranma says you know."

"Know what?" I said innocently. "I know lots of things."

"You know," Akane said quietly. "About his curse?"

"His curse?" I said in mock shock. "Do tell!" Akane looked so horrified that she might've just blabbed that I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore. "I'm sorry," I said. "I couldn't help it."

"You haven't told anyone have you?" Akane asked.

I waved my hand. "It's like I told Ranma, it's his secret to tell, not mine. S'not my problem."

Akane remained silent at this comment. "So how've you been?" I asked. "I haven't been able to talk to you in a while."

"Oh well, you know," she said half-heartedly. "I only got engaged to a sex-changing pervert that can't keep his mouth shut."

"That's gotta suck."

"It does!" she exclaimed. "Oh, he just makes me so mad, I just wanna throttle him!"

"And you're positive that he just doesn't like you but he's just really immature?" I said.

"Positive! The only thing that's true about that is that he's an immature imbecile!"

"Glad to know that you feel so strongly about this." I sighed as I adjusted the bag in my hand. "Dang, Kasumi really needed to go shopping eh?"

"I guess so," Akane said. She sighed and looked up towards the sky. "I'm just really tired lately."

"So take a nap," I said. "Or meditate or something, I don't know. I don't deal with stuff like this."

"What do you deal with then?" she asked.

"Eh, the usual, school, friends, guys, stupid things," I said.

"Guys? Like Chimofu?" she asked teasingly.

I could almost see the matchmaking gears turning in her head. "No. I don't want any matchmaking done, especially with this guy. Just… no."

Akane shrugged. "Whatever you say," she said.

"Akane, I'm dead serious about this. No matchmaking. For anyone."

"What? You can set me up, but I can't set you up?"

"You're different," I said. "You're engaged, so you might as well get used to the guy."

"Don't remind me," Akane groaned.

Two weeks went by and I happily watched the story progress in front of me. Since the male student body's surrender of Akane to Ranma, Ranma had begun eating lunch with the guys, giving the girls a nice quiet lunch. I guess because the boys didn't see Ranma as competition anymore, they didn't care he was Akane's fiancé. Yes, things had fallen into a pretty pleasant pattern. Too bad it didn't last.

Kotori and I had been leaving school when we saw Ryoga standing at the gates of the high school. I stopped short and grabbed her arm. "Oh. My. God."

Kotori looked at me quizzically. "What is it?" she asked. I indicated towards Ryoga's solemn figure and she looked ahead, raising her eyebrow approvingly. "Oh, who's that?"

I was almost too stunned to reply, Ryoga being one of the only anime guys I had ever fangirled over. "He's hot!"

Kotori looked at me with an evil grin. "Aww, does Rizu have a crush?" she said in a babying manner.

The last comment snapped me out of my daze and I laughed. "Just because he's hot doesn't mean I like him. I mean, look at Ranma!"

Kotori's eyes grew big. "You think Ranma's hot!" she asked incredulously.

"Oh please," I said. "You did too before you found out he was engaged to Akane."

"I did not!"

"Liar!"

At that moment, Daisuke had the unpleasant fate of passing Ryoga who grabbed him by the collar. "You."

A distressed Daisuke stammered out a "Wh-what do you want?"

"Where is Furinkan High School?" Ryoga said dangerously.

Kotori and I looked at Ryoga for a second before looking at each other. It took all we had to not laugh. No mercy for the extremely hot Ryoga.

"RANMA!" we heard Akane yell from behind us. We stepped quickly to the side to let Ranma through. "STOP!"

"Come and get me!" Ranma hollered back to the disgruntled girl.

I nudged Kotori in the ribs. "Check it out," I said, indicating the quickly oncoming figure of a very pissed Ryoga.

"RANMA! PREPARE TO DIE!"

"What's he thinking?" Kotori said to me as the two boys plummeted to the earth. "He's gonna spear him with his umbrella?"

"Uh hon," I said. "Check out the crater. Yeah, that, he made it with said umbrella."

"Oh."

"Someone you know?" Akane said to Ranma.

I know him! I know him! I thought. I have like six notebooks filled with pictures of him! … I'm a fangirl.

However Ranma seemed to be having more difficulty remembering Ryoga than I did. "Um… yeah! You're… you're…"

I slapped my head. "Ranma, don't strain yourself," I said to him.

"Heh," Ryoga said dramatically. "Just tell me one thing Ranma. Why did you run out on our fight!"

"Wait! I remember!" Ranma yelled. "You were in my class at my old high school!"

"Really?" Kotori said. "I thought he was in China."

"The guy has to have some form of education I guess," I said. "Come on, let's go."

"Wait, I wanna hear about the fight that Ranma ran out on!" Kotori said as she followed me out of the courtyard.

I sighed. "Ryoga challenged Ranma because he kept stepping on his head to get the bread at lunch, so Ranma waited at the place for three days, but because Ryoga gets lost easily, he didn't show up till the fourth day. Since then Ryoga's been hunting him down."

Kotori looked at me strangely. "How do you know that?"

"I don't. But doesn't that sound like something that would happen?" I said.

"Good point."

I've always been one to poke fun at things, especially the Ranma ½ series. So come the day of the big showdown between Ranma and Ryoga, Kotori and I brought her old boom-box and my cd of bad American 80's music.

"Alright, cd 1, track 8."

"What song is it?" Kotori asked as I pressed pause quickly.

I smirked an evil smirk. "Ever heard of the song 'Eye of the Tiger(2)'?"

Akane, who was sitting in front of us turned around. "Is life like one big music video to you or something?" she asked.

"Yes, yes it is."

The fight went on like the manga, with one major difference for me: I couldn't stop laughing. I mean, come on! It was 'Eye of the Tiger'! Imagine watchign a semi-serious fight between Nerima's currently best fighters and listening to one of the cheesiest songs in the world. Yeah, that's what I was doing.Only when Akane got involved and the fight got moved out of the vacant lot did I stop clutching my sides in laughter.

It was just so COOL to see Akane's hair get shredded by the stray bandana that was flying through the air. I mean, ahem me being a good friend and all, it was a very sad thing to see her prized hair get cut. Very sad, yes. But so friggin cool!

"So what'd you get for answer three?" I asked Akane as we sat in her bedroom. It was two weeks or so after the showdown between Ranma and Ryoga and everyone had already gotten used to Akane's short hairstyle. Things had somewhat calmed down between Nermia's favorite Not!Couple although there were still the occasional arguments in class and they were always fighting about something outside of class.

"Uh… x is equal to thirty and y is equal to fifty," Akane said offhandedly.

"X is thirty? What the? I got 103! And Y is 85!"

"Wow, how'd you get that?" Akane asked. I showed her my paper and she quickly looked over my work. "Oh here's the problem! See…"

Three knocks came at the door before Ranma-chick poked her head through the door. "Uh Akane?" she said. "You've got visitors."

"Uh sure," Akane said. "Let them in."

Ranma opened the door and jumped onto the bed next to Akane, followed immediately by a group of sobbing girls.

"Huh? What is it girls?" Akane asked worriedly.

"Akane! We've been so humiliated!" one girl said (I didn't recognize her).

"That cheater Kodachi!" another girl (nope, didn't know her either) exclaimed. "She injured everyone of us!"

"Every member of the team injured?" Akane asked.

This was way too much exposition dialogue for me. It was like Simon Says or something equally annoying.

"Now we'll have to withdrawn from the match!"

"Then… you want to me to take your place?" Akane asked.

"Please Akane!" the one girl said. "There's nothing else we can do!"

"You could forfeit," I said offhandedly. Even Ranma was staring at me like I had just uttered an unforgivable word. "O-kay, sorry I suggested it."

The girls finished glaring at me and faced Akane again. "You see Akane," another girl said with tears in her eyes. "The next match is Rhythmic Gymnastics Wrestling!"

"What the heck is that?" Ranma said quizzically.

"This!" I will tell you right now, not even I, in all of my practice in the use of The Twighlight Zone, could pull out something of that size that quickly. One of the girls pulled out a giant poster with two girls fighting with various gymnastic objects on it. "The school's championship fight, with the techniques of rhythmic gymnastics!"

"That has to be the dumbest things…" I muttered. No one seemed to hear me else I might've been the subject of yet another group glare.

"I'm still not sure I get it…" Akane said. "But all right! I will avenge you!"

"Oh thank you Akane!" the overjoyed girls said as they clutched her hand in gratitude. "Thank you so much! We won't forget this!"

A few minutes later, Ranma, Akane, and I all sat in her room, the other girls gone with light hearts. "Akane," I said. "Don't you think it woulda helped if you were, oh I don't know, maybe say a gymnast?"

Ranma nodded. "No kidding. Do you even know what to do?"

"Do you?" Akane shot back icily. "And besides," she said to me. "How hard can it be? I mean, it seems kinda like Martial Arts."

"Yeah but gymnastics require a little grace," I said.

"So does Martial Arts," Akane said.

"Yeah but you don't even have grace when you fight," Ranma said.

"I have to agree hon."

Akane started to glow and even began to growl.

I raised my eyebrow. "Well then can I stay for dinner?"

"I can go ask Kasumi for you," Ranma said as she jumped off the bed. "I gotta go take a bath anyway."

"Didn't you say you have something to do?" Akane said to me.

I smiled evily. "Nope, I just cleared my schedule."

"You shouldn't have agreed so quickly," Ranma said as he picked up one of the ribbons and began twirling it in the air.

"Right behind ya man!" I said.

Jhim nodded beside me. He had decided to stay for dinner also as soon as he figured out that Akane was going to begin her training. "I have to agree with them Akane, do you even know how to use these things?"

"Aw come on guys," Akane said as she picked up a hoop. "You just watch. It can't be that hard."

Jhim and I looked at each other with a "This'll be painful" look when a little black piggy trudged into the dojo.

"Well where have you been?" Akane said to the little piggy. "I've been so worried about you Pchan!"

"Pchan?" Ranma asked.

"Oh, it's so cute!" I said as I scooted over. "Where'dcha get him?"

"He just wandered into my room one night," Akane said. "I've kinda adopted him." This comment earned a huff from Ranma and made Jhim smirk.

"He's adorable! Can I hold him?" I said.

"Sure," Akane said cheerfully, handing the squirming pig to me. So happily I crossed my legs (I didn't like the whole 'Let's sit on our feet thing' the Japanese had going) and played with Pchan's ears. It seems to be a general rule that all baby pets have to have soft ears even if the pet happens to be a teenage boy.

Ranma snorted and rolled his eyes while Jhim shook his head miserably. "What?" I asked. "What's with you two?"

"Ranma doesn't like Pchan for some reason," Akane said a little coldly. Another snort from Ranma.

Apparently, the presence of Jhim and myself didn't affect the story at all because Akane still couldn't use the gymnastics tools for her life.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" Ranma said sarcastically.

Jhim and I were trying our hardest not to burst out laughing at the disgruntled girl. She shot us a classic death glare as we held in our giggles. "Don't you two have anything better to do?" she asked frustrated.

"Nope, I got nothing," I said cheerfully. "How bout you Jhim, you got anything to do?"

"Not that I remember," he said with a smirk.

Akane growled as she picked up the hoop. She gracefully tossed it in the air, jumped up and grasped it, went through it, landed on the ground, and… broke the hoop.

"… BWHAHAHAHA!" I couldn't help it, I'd been holding in way too much laughter for the past five minutes. "I'm –gasp- sorry!" I said through giggles. "It's just... HAHAHA!" I fell back and laughed whole-heartedly while little Pchan trotted away.

"-snicker- I'm sorry," Jhim said through snickers. "I really –snort- am."

"That does it!" Akane yelled frustrated. "Do you have any ideas on how to do this?" she spat at me.

"I couldn't do a cart-wheel for my life!" I said.

"You're gonna have to if you don't shut up!" Akane shot. I shut my mouth and tried not to laugh.

"Aren't you supposed to have a little grace?" Ranma asked skeptically.

"Shut up!" Akane snarled. "Just you watch!" Thus said she picked up the clubs again and tossed them in the air… only to have them land on her head. "Oowww, my head!"

I told myself again and again that this wasn't funny. Nope, not funny one bit. Not at all like a slap-stick routine. Nope, nope, nope.

"I'm a klutz!" Akane cried, coming over to Ranma. "I'm a klutz, I'm a klutz, I'm a klutz!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" Ranma said, edging away from Akane slowly.

"I can instruct you."

Ryoga stood over in the doorway, looking very debonair. If I weren't a fangirl, I would've gagged.

"What happened to Pchan?" Ranma said innocently.

"And who is Pchan?" Ryoga growled, moving across the dojo and grabbing Ranma's collar with the speed of an embarrassed boy.

"Yeah Rizu," Jhim said to me with a sly grin. "Where isPchan?"

I shrugged. "No idea, he must've trotted off while we were watching Akane," I said. Ryoga looked nervous as he picked up the ribbon from the floor.

Holding it taut in his hands, Ryoga suddenly flung the ribbon at Ranma with a snap.

"That was wonderful!" Akane said admiringly.

"You think?"

I smiled to myself and rose from the ground. "Well guys, it's been fun and all but I think I'd better get."

"I think I should go too," Jhim said as he stood up. "Gotta make sure she doesn't blow anything up on the way home."

"Hey! I don't have a single explosive on me!" I said defensively. "I'll see yall later!"

"See you tomorrow Rizu! Chimofu!" Akane called after us cheerfully. Ryoga nodded to us and Ranma just waved.

Leaving through the back (we decided we didn't want to risk meeting Kodachi on the way out) Jhim and I headed home. "So what do you think?" Jhim asked.

"About what?" I asked my hands behind my head.

"About Akane's training session."

"You already know Ranma's gonna be the one fighting."

"Yeah well," Jhim said in tired tone. "Have you ever thought that maybe by us being here, we'll mess up the plot?"

I looked back at him quizzically, remembering the fight we'd had earlier about the same topic. "I guess," I said. "I mean, no other SI's that I've read have affected the story line too much. Well… at least none that I've read so far."

"But there hasn't bee two SI's in the same story before."

I stopped walking, the statement taking me by surprise. It had never occurred to me that the fact that there were two SI's in Nermia would screw up the plot. I just kind of accepted the fact that there was someone else besides me here and didn't question it any further. "Do you think," I said quietly. "Do you think one of us shouldn't be here?"

Jhim shook his head. "I'm not sure really. I mean, it's not really normal if you think about it," he said continuing to walk ahead. "We nevertalked toeach other in the real world, not like the partner SI's where somefriends get to enter the story."

"And the only type of stories I've read like that," I said. "Are parody's. So why are we here?"

Again Jhim shook his head in confusion. "I don't know why we're here. I don't think any SI has ever figured that out, nor were they meant to."

"It's kinda like the meaning of life huh?" I said.

"Yeah, a lot like the meaning of life."

I sighed heavily and shoved my hands in my pocket. "This bites. Now I'm gonna be depressed all night thinking heavy thoughts."

Jhim laughed at that and shrugged. "Guess you're not going to be getting much sleep tonight huh?"

I smirked and elbowed Jhim lightly. "Yeah and it's all your fault."

And so we continued on home, two people that didn't belong and never would.