Sou Hidetoshi from class 3-B had a wedding voucher in his possession, which Kuno thought was odd considering he hadn't yet produced the time, location, or the list of gifts Sou Hidetoshi was currently thrusting into his face. "Dibs on the toaster," Sou Hidetoshi said. "My parents have one in the attic they've been dying to get rid of forever."

"Unhand that." Kuno snatched it from him. "Who gave you this?"

"Huh? You did."

"Who told you they were passing this around in my name?"

"Nabiki said you've made her a personal secretary and that these were supposed to go out to everyone. You know, man, I have to admit, all of us were sorta surprised," Sou Hidetoshi said. "We all saw you going after Akane, but no lie, all of us figured you were pretty much set on her sister. You two are like each other's only friends."

"That is a disgusting untruth." He was barely paying attention as he scanned the list. It was an explosively long list and now that he looked closer he could detect her faint watermark on the bottom right corner. "I have no need of a toaster. Or—" he looked again. "Of a hat stand either, or galoshes, or…" A fish tank? A fireproof safe?

"Then how about the shower curtain? Those go for pretty cheap. I could get you one of those clear ones with the fish on it for like two thousand yen."

… a CD player? A bicycle? "How many of these were distributed?"

"I mean, you know her. Hundreds probably. I think I saw a bird lining a nest with one."

"I am afraid you have been misinformed," Kuno said decisively, passing the list back. "I have not yet written nor approved of the distribution of the gift registry."

"Nah, keep it, I've got like, four," Sou Hidetoshi said. "You do know she's already been selling a shitload of tickets, right? Half of Nerima's going. That's why I wanted to call dibs on the toaster. Everyone's going to want to snap that one up. No one wants to be in charge of the car."

Truthfully he'd suspected Nabiki Tendo had been moving quickly in the periphery. It was eye-opening to come across evidence of just how quickly. If he'd thought it'd do any good to be angry about it he'd confront her before class, but as it was she had probably already started arranging overseas sales and would be impossible to stop at this point. "I have no need of a toaster. You are free from any registry obligations."

That day he was approached by two dozen interested parties claiming the embroidered pot-holders, vinyl records, the gift pack of stone ground mustard, the set of rubber duckies, the brass pie plate, the blown-up picture of Hibari Misora, the monkey wrench, the barbell with the numbers worn off, and the used fuzzy dice. He had no idea what constituted 'used' fuzzy dice and why that mattered. He got several claims for the plastic paddles and the small baggie filled with wood chips which he similarly did not pursue.

He thought about it all while eating his curry bread alone at lunch, then slightly more after the kendo room cleared out at the end of practice. Afterwards he went up to the roof and watched the sunset in his spare hakama and didn't think about anything else, because the sky was a cold empty unblinking abyss and sometimes, quite honestly, he couldn't handle more thinking. Not a Secret, just a fact.

.

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "I'm afraid I don't… quite know what you're asking. You want me to schedule your wedding today?"

"Are you available on my wedding date?"

"Yyou haven't specified one."

"Ah, but I did, here." Kuno pointed at the scroll. "'August through November'. Pray listen more carefully."

"... I'm afraid you have to specify."

"I did."

"Not the month, the day. Couples typically need to book with us a year in advance. To be honest, what you're asking for is plainly impossible."

"You may move other appointments," he dismissed, distracted. He was reviewing the list. "I will provide a sizeable down payment, of course. I'm certain your superior won't mind some rescheduling in light of the funds I will direct to your establishment."

"I'm afraid that's not how that works," the receptionist said. "I'll gladly take down your name and set up an appointment, but I must warned you that we're booked solidly up through the fall. Barring cancellations, I wouldn't be able to promise anything until late in the winter and likely not until next spring."

"I must have the wedding quickly before her courage fails her. She is easily influenced by outside forces and is currently being pursued by other brutish suitors. Marriage will be the only thing to rescue her from a life of poverty and abuse."

The receptionist's expression was an extraordinary picture. There were enormous portraits on the walls of happy couples and several glass offices with similarly happy couples inside. Kuno ached a bit for their mediocrity. "I realize the extravagance of this affair may be off-putting to those with pedestrian imaginations, but I assure you that these nuptials will be a feather in this establishment's cap," he told her. "Therefore it would strongly behoove you to prioritize my request and consider accepting my downpayment. I shall leave my list here for your superiors to review. Please get back to me within the hour, or two if you must. My servant will be there to receive your call."

The receptionist slowly took the scroll. Kuno left through the open window so he wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of opening the door, and quite against his will thought about Secret Number Three. It happened whenever his stomach was empty.

And actually, speaking of Three:

.

Speaking of Three, if Kuno was going to be honest with himself, part of the appeal of getting a loving wife was the prospect of being able to take his mind off food for a few minutes. Food occupied a lot of his attention per day for mostly wrong reasons. Who was handling his food. Who was putting what in his food. Who was poisoning whom with his food. Would his food explode today or reach out with tentacles. Would his food run off the plate or cause violent hallucinations Kuno didn't need his meals to be cooked with love at all as much as he simply wanted net-neutral cooking.

Growing up without a mother wasn't unique and he didn't typically use it as an excuse, but to his knowledge the Tendos had never wanted for nutritious non-toxic meals after their mother had died. For Kuno, eating meals that didn't include twelve cans of sliced pineapple or metal shards or empty ketchup packets had necessitated he learn very quickly how to shop for and prepare food for himself. Before Sasuke there had been Father, sometimes, and before Sometimes-Father it'd been an exercise of learning how to shop, stock pantries, and wax his food containers shut to discourage Kodachi's tampering. Secret Number Three was that he was quite gifted at cooking for entirely survival-based reasons and he wasn't sure if this was better or worse than being good at cooking because he enjoyed it.

He concocted a simple Thai dish that night - duck rad nah - and when it was finished rapped on the wall four times to alert Kodachi that the meal was ready. She arrived down in her leotard with a rose instead of a knife between her teeth, which was good news. The bad news was that she was lethal with literally anything including roses, so it wasn't necessarily a predictor for success. "Sit down, dearest sister," Kuno said. "I have prepared one of your favorites."

"That you have, honored brother." Kodachi's delight was a purr. She settled herself with unnecessary grace in the chair, wrist ribbons flicking around her like satisfied little cat tails. "I'm almost afraid to ask the occasion."

"No occasion. I am allowed to indulge my sister and foster her unending happiness."

"Then you will be positively devastated to know that your untimely summons interrupted a simply orgasmic dream between Ranma-sama and I," Kodachi said. He didn't stop her from reaching for dessert first because she was in fact likely carrying a knife somewhere, just not between her teeth. Knives usually announced themselves by not announcing themselves. "I can't make up my mind whether or not to punish you."

"I would rather you didn't."

"Well, you did cook. I suppose it would be unsporting to attack the cook with dinner still hot in front of me. Oh ho ho."

"All things in their time."

"Inter arma enim silent leges." Kodachi batted her eyes at him. "Then let us enjoy this fine, fine meal, brother, and bicker no more."

Kuno counted a full interrupted seven minutes off the grandfather clock as he dished first her up and then himself. Kodachi murmured another appreciative noise around his the flan, licking the end of the chopsticks after each bite of the rad nah.

She said, "Sasuke was doing interesting things today."

"Was he indeed."

"Should I tell you about them?"

He pinched out some more slivered scallions from the bowl and added them to her meal. "I caught him stockpiling marriage catalogues from several local bridal shops," Kodachi said. "What a fascinating little thing for him to be actively hiding. I questioned him of course, brother. I couldn't have him keeping secrets from us. It's a beastly thing for our loyal servant to do."

Kuno finally did pause, straightening to look her in the eye. She beamed at him. "If he is not wholly intact you and I will have words," Kuno said.

"Oh, of course he's intact, don't be ridiculous."

"If he is not wholly intact, five senses and sanity included, you and I will have words."

Kodachi smiled at him. She had their mother's smile unfortunately. Kuno had other things but none of them were relevant in a fight. "You dote on him too much," she said. "You spoil him. There's a reason I make him sleep outside, you know. If he gets too pampered he won't work. Same thing with a mule. You feed them too much and they get fat and stubborn. This kind of disobedience shouldn't be encouraged."

"I have never cared that he sleep outside. That was your doing."

"At this point it's his doing. Even if you offered a roof to him I'd doubt he'd take it. Such… suspicious self-sacrifice."

Kuno speared an asparagus shoot to arrange it next to his noodles. "Almost as though he does it to deflect from his disobedience," Kodachi said. "So that got me thinking. Tell me, brother dear. Ease my suspicions. Why is it that such culinary extravagance would come unannounced in tandem with me finding out Sasuke's dreadful little nasty secret?"

"Because it is no secret."

Kodachi was satin. "Oh?"

"I requested he take up those catalogues."

"I can't possibly imagine why."

Kuno quietly counted all the intact ribs in his body and said a eulogy for them. "Because I plan to wed Akane Tendo."

The knife appeared in the air between them. Kuno knocked it off-course with his asparagus stalk and rolled out of the way of her descending kick before it split his skull down the middle. He collected his plate and intercepted her elbow; it shattered and sent the rest of his food flying and then her knee found purchase in his stomach. He doubled and she slammed his forehead down against the table. "Now I believe I have told you," Kodachi said, ribbon taking out his leg and dragging him back before he could flee for the exit, "that these discussions of leaving me for another woman were to be curtailed for your personal health. Do you recall this, brother? How I'm relentlessly concerned for your health?"

He swiftly cut the ribbon with the knife and used his freed foot to kick out the leg of the table. It'd been broken before and split neatly along the glue line. He caught the dishes as they slid, saving all but one before he was forced to let the last saucer shatter in lieu of his nose. He absorbed her next descending heel with the makeshift bokken, used the table leg to launch her towards the ceiling, and rolled away to duck under the coffee table as she sent down a spray of dagger-sharp roses. One pierced the wood an inch from his eyeball. "You are ruining the furniture," he said.

"You promised," Kodachi's composure was gone. She swung from the chandelier to soak up her momentum, hanging onto the crystals as she ran sideways against the adjacent wall. "You promised you would stop trying to leave me!"

"I am not trying to leave you. Once I wed Akane Tendo—"

The coffee table exploded. He was flung into the wall amidst a sea of shrapnel and something in his head went warm and pleasant and grey for a moment. He came back in time to avoid a nasty collision with a thrown ceramic pot. "If I can't be first in your affections then I will be the last thing you see," Kodachi screamed, and the explosion of the chalk dust she used on the uneven bars made it impossible for him to correct her poor assumptions. He gasped and hacked as he clawed his way away from the china cabinet. She was on him a moment later and now he truly did have to fight if he wanted to avoid actual hospitalization.

Making sure they deflected rather than bruised, he pulled off a quick san-dan waza with the table leg and heard one of her hoops clatter to the ground; an instant later she bashed a plate across his head and he was forced to roll with it before he could come back with a harai wasa and take care of the other one. He heard them whistle through the air, heard Kodachi shriek with rage, and then there were six ribbons from impossible directions and he hit the floor like a trapped fly. "I am not leaving you," he got out, desperately trying to scrabble away to the window. "I only intend to bring her into the house—"

"Lies!" A descending heel on his back smacked him down into the tile; he yanked a ribbon by chance and felt it knock her balance off kilter, forcing her into a cartwheel. "You will replace me the instant that hussy comes through the door!"

"You are my sister, she would be my wife, there is no reason that we all cannot—"

"You will abandon me the way Father did, and I will be alone!"

He yanked on another and caught her mid-cartwheel. She crashed into him and sent up another shower of chalk dust; Kuno took the very real chance of being stabbed and embraced her, yelling, "She cannot replace you because you are irreplaceable!"

The fighting abruptly stopped.

Everything hurt very badly. Kuno heaved for breath against her, dimly feeling the fawn quiver of her body as she debated whether or not to mutilate him. She enjoyed mutilations even on good days so he imagined this was likely very difficult for her. "Do you truly mean that," she whispered.

"Whole-heartedly. You are my dearest sister. I would bringeth Akane Tendo into our homestead to perform wifely duties as is befitting her sex; it is my responsibility as head of our house to take a wife and sire children. That does not mean you would be expected to leave. This is your home. Akane Tendo would not replace you, have any dominion over you, or otherwise usurp you in any way. Your skills outrank hers. She is quite literally no threat to you in any capacity."

Kodachi wavered.

Kuno felt something trickling down between his shoulder blades. He sucked in a breath as Kodachi shoved him back against the nearest wall, but this time both arms found his neck and embraced him rather than strangled him. "There now." Kodachi was tender as she nuzzled her cheek against his. "Why didn't you just say so? How perfectly sweet of you, honored older brother. If you'd just told me all that in the first place, I wouldn't have had to react so strongly. Can you blame me for having so visceral a response, not knowing your intentions? Be more forthcoming in the future and these distasteful little scenes won't happen."

He didn't throw up but it was very difficult. He panted with his eyes closed against the wall as the silk of her ribbon slid by his bruising cheek. "Mother left," Kodachi said. "Father left. They all leave. Not you. Not from me. You are the one person in this family who will not leave. You won't replace me, will you, dear brother? Especially with either of those brazen hussies. We two are the only ones who understand each other. Well, that and sweet Ranma-sama. But he would come live here of course, and I would never dream of usurping your place as head of the house. I'm sure when Honored Father returns, he will be so pleased by your command of his homestead."

He couldn't speak. He sat there and continued to pant as she untangled herself enough to give him a sound kiss on the forehead. "Thank you for the meal," Kodachi said brightly. She collected the dishes he'd rescued earlier and balanced them along her arms like a circus performer. "And I must reiterate that you are the most marvelous cook, brother. When Ranma-sama and I are married, I just know he will grow fat and happy with our efforts, don't you? Oh, what a family we will be!"

Kuno sat there for a while as yellow bean paste and noodle starch congealed on his uwagi.

When he could move again without splintering, he got up and went to fetch the hammer and nails and wood glue to repair the dining room table.

Secret Number Four—

.

He didn't interact much with Nabiki Tendo the next couple of days, which he suspected was deliberate on her part. They sat next to each other in class and he knew it took directly concerted effort for her not to actively fleece him at least once per hour. The conclusion it left him was that she was avoiding him out of what most people classified as 'guilt' but in Nabiki Tendo typically manifested as 'fiscal recalibration'. "I want to know what you are up to," he said, collaring her for lunch.

"I can't imagine what you're talking about."

"Do not insult me with lies." It was too hot to sit on the roof that day, leading to most of their class to lounge in the room for lunch instead. There were the usual group of girls in the corner now peeling back the covers of their bento; a trio of boys lounged sloppily on the desks by an open window, unwrapping their bread from the cafeteria and sneaking furtive glances at the girls peeling back their bentos. "I know that expression. It is of a fox deciding upon which helpless prey to feast."

Nabiki Tendo made an interested noise around her mouthful. Her English homework lay on her desk. Kuno pulled it over to get to work editing it for her before the bell. "And who says I need to choose between prey," Nabiki Tendo said, swallowing. "The smart fox realizes he can have all they prey he wants if he collects enough wool to hide his teeth."

"Your recent avoidance of me has been evidence enough you are plotting something."

She rolled her eyes even as her pencil dug into one of the apparently incorrect problems on the left side of his math paper. "What is it," Kuno pressed. "I know of the registry. What other machinations have you engineered?"

"See, these are the times I'm convinced you've lost your sense of childlike wonder. Wouldn't you like to be surprised when the moment comes? Maybe all I'm planning for is a tasteful entourage of bejeweled elephants. You have any idea how hard it is to quietly engineer the arrival of elephants?"

"I am perfectly capable of collecting my own bejeweled elephants for my wedding."

"But who says you have to? What if I can get you a discount? These are the footnotes you're missing," Nabiki Tendo said. "What's a few bejeweled ceremonial elephants between friends? For all you know I've managed to get my hands on bejeweled giraffes as well. You'd really deny your future wife the pleasure of shock-value elephants and giraffes on her own wedding day simply to satisfy your uncouth suspicions?"

"'Friends'," Kuno said skeptically.

Nabiki Tendo's chewing slowed. She blinked very pretty vulpine eyes at him. He assumed they weren't her mother's but had no proof. Before he could quest further into her larceny, she abruptly dropped her pencil and whipped out her camera to take a snapshot of his face. "Stop that," he snapped, making a grab for it and missing. "Is there no end to your exploitation?"

"If you're really that concerned about being exploited, just get ugly. It's what us girls have to do."

"Females are designed to be admired. It is your primary purpose beyond bearing children for the men who admire you."

"Gross," she said. "If you're going to be sexist then shut up and take your ogling like a man. Either way give it up, I'm a fortress. A bastion of commerce. You ain't getting zip from me. Just trust that I have your best interests at heart and am the soul of propriety."

"You haven't a philanthropic bone in your body."

"No, there is a bone I have to pick with you. Kuno, a third of these problems are wrong. Even you aren't this stupid. What's going on?"

Kuno craned his neck to look over her shoulder. "Egregiously?"

"Look at this one. You dropped the middle part of the equation entirely and just multiplied the fours."

"Oh." Frankly he couldn't recall doing the assignment. He did remember Kodachi coming into his room in the middle of the night and standing over him in the dark for a good thirty minutes, effectively spoiling his sleep for that night and also the rest of his life. "If you mark them I shall endeavor to correct them."

"Whatever. Don't bother. This is faster."

He watched her pencil as it busily scratched. She'd washed her hair the previous night; he smelled coconut and verbena. The light in the classroom created a shifting shine as she occasionally nodded her head to a rhythm only she could hear.

The brightness hurt his eyes. Kuno gave up for now and on second though set his forehead into his palm, directing his unstable attention back to her English homework. A petty part of him wished that she'd erred just as egregiously on her own work, but as it was there were only a handful of easily-fixable grammatical errors and a smaller handful of stylistic ones.

He took care of them, absently massaging his temple with his thumb, letting the ambient sounds of the classroom take him out of his own head for a while. At some point he heard Nabiki Tendo unearth the rest f her lunch and it didn't matter. Life at school required laughably little effort. Once Kodachi was safely at her school there was no longer a need to look over his shoulder. No need to check the cafeteria food for contaminants, no need to set up his defenses every time he closed his eyes. Even sitting next to a soulless python of capitalism, Kuno was safer at his desk at Furinkan High School than he was anywhere else in the world, and that made extortion easier to bear ultimately. Suffering had gradient.

For the briefest of vulnerable moments, Kuno found himself wishing he perhaps hadn't gone through with his plans to announce the engagement. It was mostly Nabiki Tendo's fault but if he were being honest with himself, keeping secrets wasn't his strong suit. Perhaps it would've been best to eschew the bejeweled elephants and simply marry privately in a proper place of law. They could elope someplace warm enough to permit her to wear as little clothing as possible. He wouldn't have to cook anything with pineapple hopefully, but he'd be willing if that's what she wanted. It was a good price for the security of their happiness.

"Kuno."

Kuno jerked his head up. Nabiki Tendo had an expression on her face that didn't look promising. "I apologize," he said, straightening belatedly. "What did you say?"

Nabiki Tendo tapped her eraser on her desk briskly, eyes hard on him.

He waited. "Did you need something?"

She began to speak, frowned, and bounced the eraser off harder. She said, abruptly, "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

She bent over to rummage through her backpack. A few seconds later she emerged with a small, unadorned metal bento box. She slammed onto his desk so hard a nearby girl screamed. "600 yen," Nabiki Tendo said.

Kuno could only blink at her for a moment. The class was whispering. "600 yen," Nabiki Tendo snapped. "Now."

The venom jerked him out of his daze. He fumbled for it hastily. Nabiki Tendo snatched the bills from his hand the instant they emerged, checking the amount brusquely before shoving them in her pocket. She twisted again and emerged with a thermos and a bottle of painkillers, which she also slammed down on the desk. This time there were no screams but the whispering burgeoned into murmurs.

She jabbed a finger in his face to bring his attention back up. "I have five different martial artists showing up at my place every other week to destroy our dojo," she enunciated. "Ranma and Akane have spent the last week squalling like three-legged one-eyed tomcats. We have electric bills and water bills and repair bills and cleaning bills, which would normally be adult problems except that every adult in my world is a lazy lard-ass, making it my problem. You don't get to fall apart on me on top of everything else. You don't get to make your problems my problems."

"I'm not," Kuno said wonderingly.

"Yes you are, and I need you to stop it," Nabiki Tendo said. "I need you to stay in shape. At the top of your game. Sleeping, eating, meditating, whatever it is you do to stay sharp. The works. Got that?"

"Why would you require—"

"Furthermore," Nabiki Tendo said, "furthermore, I need you to grow a pair and clean up whatever crap is going on in your house. How do you expect Akane to respect you when you come to school looking like this? Ranma may be an ass, but at least he doesn't run away from a fight."

"I'm not running away," he said, a bit taken aback by the fusillade. She was usually more circumspect with her warfare. "The situation is complicated, with many facets that need to be carefully attended to, and—"

"The situation isn't complicated, you're just spineless and your sister's a truck in a leotard." Nabiki Tendo slammed her things back into her bag. "Your homework's done. I'll correct the rest of mine on my own."

"Where are you going?"

"Didn't you hear? There's a wedding happening soon." She stormed out the door. "Think I'll go dress shopping."

She was very good at dramatic exits. Kuno finished his lunch and dated his homework, ignoring the whispered gossip as he unfurled this week's calendar scroll. There were optional homework assignments to help him angle his grades upwards but more importantly, he now had a list of the hours of operations for the stores he needed to visit before the week was out. He would need to keep his choice of wedding caterers secret in order to avoid mass poisonings, but while Kodachi could and frequently did weaponize flowers, those explosions were a bit easier to prevent. He could safely input the bouquet orders now and arrange a meeting with a caterer through a series of secondary contacts to make his activities harder to trace. He soothed an itch from behind his ear and then numbered his to-do list for the afternoon.

Nabiki Tendo sullenly re-entered four seconds before the bell rang for class.

.

"Okay, so uh," Ranma Saotome said. "I was thinking about not askin' it, you know, seeing how it played out, but then it sort of became two hours later and my feet are starting to hurt. So I guess I'm just gonna come right out and say it. What the hell am I doing here again?"

"You are answering a letter of challenge."

"Yeah see that's the funny part," Ranma Saotome said. "'Cuz I could've swore letters of challenge involved actual, you know, fighting and stuff. A duel. With fists or weapons and all that. I mean, I guess I'm getting my ass kicked, but it's mostly from humidity and being seen around town shopping for plush toys with another dude."

"It is your right as the acceptor of the challenge to choose the weapons."

"Uh huh." Ranma Saotome stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around the crowded shopping mart, then craned his neck to look at the police on bicycles a block away. "Pass I guess."

"The challenge was worded clearly. You are to stand here and match me in a battle of wits. I knoweth Akane Tendo and you knoweth the pigtailed girl, but I proclaim my knowledge to be superior. This infuriates you of course. Therefore it is necessary to meet on the field of battle as adversaries in love and war to declare dominance."

"All I knoweth is that I'm real damneth confused."

"Nabiki Tendo has oft stated that to get to the pigtailed goddess I must go through you."

"Nabiki Tendo says a lot of stuff," Ranma Saotome said. "Look, Kasumi's makin' dinner and I gotta be back by six. This is weird, no offense. Actually yeah offense. This is weird. I think I'm just gonna jet."

"Hold." The panda and the teddy bear smiled mysteriously at him from the shelf. Kuno took down both and thrust them out. "Our first exchange of blows: you will tell me which one Akane Tendo favors."

"Oh god, how the actual fuck would I know," Ranma Saotome said. "Are you drunk? What is this?"

"Her gullible family took you in against all conventional and common sense. However, despite my grave misgivings and against multiple warnings to the contrary, you remain in close proximity with my wife. You are not unobservant when it suits you, so you will tell me which plush it is she would favor on her bed or perhaps her bureau, and failing to do so will forfeit your victory in this battle of wits."

Ranma Saotome's eyeballs were the most earnestly bewildered eyeballs Kuno had ever seen on a human's face. "What?"

"Furthermore, as I have formally rejected the pigtailed girl, I will be purchasing a consolation plush for her." Kuno examined them both again with some misgivings. He was the most eligible bachelor in Nerima and a plush toy would likely not go far in soothing a maiden's broken heart, but he had no choice. Anything else would muddy his intentions. "Clearly I have more knowledge of the girl, but that is what we are here for: to match wits. Tell me what you know and I will confirm if it is correct."

"Look, I dunno what kind of relationship you think I have with either chick, but secret: it doesn't involve knowing what kind of stuffed animals they like," Ranma Saotome said. "If you just brought me here to dick around, I'm leaving. I'm hungry and I gotta pee."

"Ah hah!" Kuno tucked both plushies into the crook of his elbow and spun. "So you forfeit the challenge! I have won!"

"Well I didn't say that—"

"I shall commission Nabiki Tendo to make flyers. Ranma Saotome: Loser of the Blue Thunder's challenge. Curse me that I am now promised to another! The women shall flock and I shall have to break their tender hearts. Damn me to eternity for such cruelty. I shall have to purchase multiple bouquets so that the fair maidens of Furinkan do not perish from broken hearts."

Ranma Saotome let out a remarkably slow breath.

Kuno was imagining all the maidens at Furinkan swooning at his feet in anticipation of the day they would at last be the one privileged to launder his embroidered underthings when Ranma Saotome said, "Y'know, Kuno, you really shouldn't send me a challenge if you don't plan on fighting me. And I already told you to give up on Akane. For real, this is pretty pointless, even for you."

"You told me no such thing."

"Yeah, but I know someone who did. I know it's hard to wrap your head around, but it's really for the best. I'm actually kind of being sort of nice for whatever reason. Looking out for you or whatever. You're an ass but I got no bone to pick with you specifically."

"Akane Tendo and I are meant to be. Nothing you or your fat drunk patriarch can do will change that."

"Okay that's funny and I'm using that later, but seriously, knock it off with Akane," Ranma Saotome said. "Look, I'll throw you a bone if it'll make you piss off. Akane likes giraffes. Pigtailed girl likes money. There, you happy? Can I go now?"

"But what about plushes." Kuno thrust them back out. "All women like money. I desire to know her taste in adorable stuffed companions."

Ranma Saotome looked a little helpless. Kuno waggled both of them and when no response was forthcoming switched to the panda and the anteater. "The panda," Ranma Saotome mumbled. "I'm leaving. This has been nightmare fuel enough."

"I accept your surrender." Satisfied, Kuno put the anteater back. "But I shall keep your spineless capitulation to myself as a courtesy. Consider it a consolation gift."

Ranma Saotome was gone in seconds. He was unfortunately back just as quickly, hanging upside down by a hanging wooden sign that creaked catastrophically under his weight. "By the way, if you see your psycho sister, can you tell her that Akane's old man's about to have a heart attack?" he said abruptly. He's tired of having to scrape the crap out of his pants every night."

Busy reading price tags, Kuno finally did pause at this. He turned to gauge Ranma Saotome's expression. It was upside-down but serious for once. "My sister," Kuno said, just to be clear.

"She's usually at our house every week but the last couple of days have been real intense. Like murder stabby-stab intense. I've had to chase her off a few times and Kasumi's having a fit."

"I was… not aware," he said stiffly. "I shall speak with her."

"I figured you weren't." Ranma scratched the base of his pigtail. "Kay. Takin' off. Don't come crying to me if Akane belts you one with that giraffe. She's not into you. Or weddings. Or anything except karate. Fair warning."

Kuno watched him hop onto the roof. He bought the giraffe and the panda and thought about all the things he didn't like thinking about.

Fifteen minutes later he came back and bought the anteater. It was for Secret Number Six. Secret Number Six was not always about anteaters but was occasionally about anteaters.

.

His father picked up on the third ring. "Ossu!"

The midnight den sat in blues and moon-washed greys around him. "Father, I am getting married."

"Naaaaani? What's dis den, my Tatchi-chan calling me up outta da clear blue-hoo?"

"In fact, I plan to marry this next week. I would take it as a supreme kindness if you were not to attend."

"Oh, no! You gon' get married in de Nihon?"

"Yes. Where you were born. And are in fact a native speaker and not an offensive Western caricature."

"Tachi!" Delight or alcohol. There was some sort of commotion behind him, making hearing him even more difficult than usual. "She's a pretty one den, hai?"

"She is as lovely as the eastern sky, but you will never meet her. You are not returning home."

"Me don't think you'll be needin' the house no more, move into de girl's house den, no?"

"I am staying right here because you are not returning home."

"Methinks you be disrespeckul to your papa, Tatchi."

Kuno closed his eyes to center himself, drawing on his meditative calm, but his heart was starting to race and his mouth felt stuffed with down. "I will hang up the phone now. I will assume I have received your blessing."

"Maybe you jus' receive an asplodin' pineapple in da mail den for de blessing, ya?"

There was something that sounded like bulls bellowing and volcanoes exploding. "No."

"We'll see," his father said cheerfully, and behind him was something very much like hellish tribal screams.

Kuno hung up and went to change his shirt. The bruises on his torso from the tussle with Kodachi were still livid atop the lattice of his childhood scars. He stood there for a moment, shirt in hand, and wondered if he should feel confused or not. It was times like these that something didn't add up in his head.

He searched for traces of his mother in the mirror and then, much more quietly, much more reluctantly, searched for traces of his father. What he found was alien hodgepodge. Certainly there were no deficiencies physically. He met his own gaze, frowned, smiled, turned his head experimentally. There were bruises on his face that matched the color of his eyes. Nothing appeared to be missing.

Just in case he stood there for nearly fifteen minutes, checking himself over. He brushed the hair out of his eyes, checking his teeth, his gums, the bones of his face.

Secret Number Four –

He dropped the thought and went to retrieve a clean shirt from his bureau. Some secrets were meant to be kept even from oneself.