Author's Notes:

Okay, firstly, I'm sorry about the long delay, guys. Real life has just come down on both myself and my editor like a ton of bricks, and we've been swamped, so this took way longer than we wanted to get it out.

I want to thank you all for the kindness and warm welcome you've shown me with this project; it started as a mere idle thought, but I'm glad that others are finding it as convincing a basic concept as I did.

Pesterfield: To answer your question (I debated on if I should PM you or if this would be of interest to other readers), there's a number of incidents that people like to use as "evidence" for Nabiki being at least bisexual, or not a lesbian. Firstly, there's her initial reaction of calling Ranma-chan "cute" when s/he first arrives - followed by her repeatedly groping Ranma's bosom. Then there's the deal with Nabiki taking raunchy photos of Ranma-chan to sell and keeping them in her room until she sells them (though I feel that point's reaching). Then there's her brief conversation that Ranma overhears after he returns from his first fight with Kuno; the manga is mildly suggestive, with her dialogue being "what's wrong with a boy who can turn into a girl?", but the anime is more so, changing the dialogue to "I think it's cool he can change into a girl". There's also a sequence that I'm pretty sure is anime-exclusive in... I think it's the Japanese Nanniichuan arc, where Nabiki directly asks Akane if she's certain she wants to cure Ranma, adding - to paraphrase - an observation that Ranma's curse will make the honeymoon a lot more interesting. There might be others, but those are the ones I recall off the top of my head.

Chapter 4: Storm Clouds Gathering!

You could have cut the air in the Tendo living room with a knife as the three teens stared each other down. Kuno's fateful words seemed to echo in their minds, Ranma slowly clenching his fists in anticipation of a fight as Nabiki switched into damage control mode. "The truth, Kuno baby? Whatever do you mean by that?"

"Don't play games with me, Nabiki Tendo!" her classmate snapped back, a sneer of disdain marring his technically handsome features. "You and Saotome conspired to cheat against me in a sworn match of honor!" he declared, rising from his seat at the table and brandishing a condemnatory finger at the pair.

Nabiki felt a breath of relief that the 'truth' wasn't found out but Ranma found himself preoccupied responding to Kuno's accusation.

"I did no such thing!" Ranma barked in outrage, his pride as a martial artist not the only thing bristling at the insinuation that he was a coward.

"Pfah! Then what do you call running away and having somebody take your place, Saotome? You knew you stood no chance against my righteous blade, so you had that woman defeat me for you!" Kuno retorted hotly, his own outrage making his body rigid in its kneeling position.

"Like I said, I didn't do anything like that!" Ranma growled, fists clenching so tightly that his knuckles popped and crackled, making Nabiki glance at him with a hint of concern that he'd broken his own knuckles.

"Do you take me for a fool, Saotome? You may be utterly lacking in manhood, but it is only in the metaphorical sense; even I must confess you meet the physical requirements of the gender," Kuno scoffed, as Ranma snorted at the dig Kuno had snuck in the monologue. "But the ill-bred woman who defeated me - why, she was irrefutably a woman,"

Despite his scornful tone, Kuno's lips curved in a hint of a lecherous smile, his hands moving in gestures that the disgusted Ranma and disdainful (yet also slightly amused) Nabiki realized was a pantomime of someone groping a full female bosom. "Truly, the gods have a strange sense of humor, to create a creature so lovely and yet so lacking in the civilized graces - but stranger still is that you were fool enough to think your deception would not come out, Saotome!" Kuno then added, coming out of his lustful reverie to return to glowering at his underclassman.

"For the last time, nobody tricked anybody, Kuno. I beat you fair and square!" Ranma snapped , his furious gaze burning into Kuno's own ire-filled stare.

"Hast thou taken a heavy blow to the skull? Twas a woman who beat me, you cannot deny it!" Kuno shouted back, what little patience could generously be attributed to him having long since been used up to Nabiki's gaze.

At those words, Ranma flinched, casting an uncertain gaze at Nabiki, who likewise found herself lost for what to do. Much as it appalled them to admit it... Kuno had a strangely legitimate point; without revealing the truth of Ranma's little Jusenkyo problem, he technically had been beaten by somebody other than Ranma.

The kendo practitioner smirked at the silence of his two arch-nemeses, misreading the cause of their hesitance as confirmation of their guilt. "I knew you could not squirm your way out of this. I shall formally announce the truth to my loyal men tomorrow morning; your base trickery shall not go unpunished!"

"You can't do that!" Nabiki protested, horrific visions of having to...to...to refund all that money dancing through her head and her hands went to protect her precious, aka, her wallet. "If I have to pay out winnings to the people who bet on you, I'll be bankrupt!"

"Tis fitting justice," Kuno scoffed mercilessly, years of money being spent for pictures of 'his fair tigress' fueling his ruthlessness.

Hearing her wallet crying out in panic, Nabiki looked to Ranma desperately. Normally, she had too much pride to use such hammy tactics like the Puppy Eyes of Pleading, but this time... well, extreme circumstances called for extreme measures! She bit her lip, eyes trembling as she wordlessly pleaded for Ranma to stop Kuno from doing what he was going to do.

Ranma bit his own lip uncertainly, glancing between Nabiki and Kuno as he tried to weigh up his desire to help his fiancee out with his desire to keep his curse hidden. For what felt like an age (but was really only a matter of seconds; Ranma definitely had a dramatic streak, one of the traits he shared with Genma), he wavered, torn by the dilemma, but ultimately he succumbed to the demands of his ego that he not let Kuno slander him as a cheat or a liar who'd "game" a fight in such a manner.

The fact Nabiki looked like she was about to start crying if her profits weren't saved wasn't that big of a factor. Really, it wasn't.

"Kuno... look, there's something I gotta tell ya," Ranma reluctantly stated, sighing softly in resignation.

"What do you possibly think you could say to me that would make me stay my hand?" Kuno huffed, his curiosity piqued despite the samurai wannabe's protest.

"The whole truth. I was the one who beat you... because that girl who kicked your teeth in? That was me," Ranma confessed with a full body cringe.

Silence reigned over the living room for a few minutes before Kuno responded. "...That has to be the most pathetic lie I have ever heard," he declared, sounding almost impressed at Ranma's temerity. "I mean, how stupid do you think I am, Saotome? I would have to have to fallen under a turnip truck to fall for something like that!"

"It's not a lie!" Ranma protested, despite a wince at the knowledge that if it wasn't his life, he'd have given the exact same reaction.

"Yeah, Kuno, he's telling the truth!" Akane said, making the other three teens start as her voice rang out from behind them.

"My tigress!" Kuno gasped in joy, neither noticing nor caring about the pained expression this brought to Akane's features.

"When did you get here?" Nabiki asked her little sister askance, too flustered by recent events to worry about putting on her normally cool facade.

"About when Kuno said what he was going to do tomorrow," the youngest Tendo replied casually, before focusing on the potential 'whistleblower'. "Anyway, that's not important! What matters is that Ranma is telling you the truth, Kuno."

At this, Kuno looked visibly uncomfortable, even through the bandages wreathing his face. "I... my love, I worship you and the ground that you walk upon, but you must understand, this is a claim I find rather hard to swallow..."

Ranma sighed again; he'd somewhat resigned himself to this when he'd decided on this course of action, but still, he couldn't help but hope. "Akane? Can ya please go boil a kettle? Actually, make it two or three... we're going to need to demonstrate..."

"Demonstrate what?" Kuno asked perplexedly, but received no answer to his question.

Instead, as Akane headed off to the kitchen, Ranma walked out into the garden, with the confused Kuno following in his wake, and Nabiki trailing along. They headed over to the garden hose, where Ranma took off his shirt.

"What are you up to, Saotome? I warn you, a base attack -" Kuno warned him, eyes narrowed in suspicion even as he prepared to defend against said attack.

"Ah, cram it, Kuno. You never heard the phrase 'seeing is believing'? Well, watch this..." He took the hose in one hand and turned it on to a low flow, cold water spraying out onto the grass. "This is just a normal garden hose, right?"

"Surprising as it may be to you, Saotome, I do know what is to be found in a garden," Kuno retorted dryly.

"And that makes this just ordinary water, yes?" Ranma added, feigning that he hadn't heard Kuno's mockery - although the twitch of his eye made it clear the barb had landed.

"I should hardly think it was liquid silver," Kuno snarked, almost passably by Nabiki's standards.

"Watch closely, then," Ranma replied, before raising the hose and letting the cold fluid wash over his bare skin, shivering instinctively at its touch and as he felt skin, fat, muscle and bone shift and twist into a new guise.

Nabiki couldn't help but smirk as Kuno visibly started back, his eyes bulging comically out of between his bandages. "The emperors have mercy upon us!" he blurted out at top volume.

Ranma turned off the hose and, now very obviously female, stared flatly at Kuno. "Do you recognize me now, Kuno?" Ranma said in her new guise as the 'uncouth female' with red hair.

"I... I scarce believe my eyes, but... all the kami preserve me, I do!" Kuno confessed, slowly and cautiously creeping forward, as if Ranma were a hannya ready to spring upon him and claw off his face. "Have I lost my wits? Where Ranma Saotome once stood, now stands the pigtailed girl from the pool this afternoon..."

And then, he boldly reached out and clasped Ranma's newly-bared breasts with both hands, squishing them firmly between his fingers. "My word, she even feels real!" Kuno marveled, a new lustful edge creeping into his voice as he continued his deviant 'test'.

Ranma's cheeks blazed red with equal parts mortification and fury. "Perverted jerk!" She screamed, before decking Kuno fair in the face with a mighty right hook that sent him flying backwards, nearly clipping Akane as she rounded the corner with two kettles full of hot water.

"Serves you right for running around bare-chested where a lech like Kuno could see," opined Akane, with a bit of an edge in her voice, walking casually past the prone form of her unwanted suitor. "Do you get off on letting people see your breasts, you pervert?"

Akane ran a critical eye over Ranma's lack of top attire, but it certainly wasn't in envy of the faux-female's larger bust, not at all. Just the impropriety of the situation... 'Oh kami I'm turning into my sister,' Akane thought with horror.

"Ah, cram it, Akane. Can you think of a better way to make him realize this isn't a trick?" Ranma growled in embarrassment, her new bosom feeling more than a little tender under Kuno's less than gentle ministrations.

"You're unbelievable - there's really no denying you're a guy, is there?" Akane retorted almost wonderingly. "A real girl would die of shame before she did half the things you do."

"Which is half the reason why Ranma's better than a normal girl friend," Nabiki cheerfully interjected, deciding to take the heat off her gender bimorphic fiance. She furthered her comment by quipping, "Best parts of both worlds!", making Ranma blush again and hide his/her breasts behind an arm. "And best part he only takes up half the space and food that two people would; win/win," she concluded, smirking mischievously as she did.

"Ugh! Nabiki! You're almost as bad as he is!" Akane complained, a look of mild-betrayal spreading across her face at the lack of feminine support from the Tendo middle sibling.

"Saotome - explain yourself!" Kuno interjected, pushing past the Tendo sisters, looking no further the worse for wear than he already did. "What in the world is going on?"

"It's a long, long story," Ranma sighed morosely as she began to elaborate. "But the short form of it is that it's a curse I picked up during my training in China. Now, whenever I get splashed with cold water, I turn into a girl until I can get some hot water." And with that, she took one of the kettles from Akane and emptied it over her head, reverting back to male form before shaking his head as steam rose from his scalp.

"I... this is hard to swallow, Saotome," Kuno slowly said, looking so lost that even Akane felt a momentary surge of compassion for him. Nabiki felt no sympathy however, the putz had practically invaded their home, accused them of cheating, and worst of all! He'd threaten to take away her profits. In Nabiki's mind, Kuno could keep squirming a bit longer and she'd be quite happy to watch.

"Try living it. I've been doing my best to keep it under wraps, because I don't want to wind up being the school freak, you know?" Ranma replied, shaking his head to get some of the water out of his hair.

Kuno fell silent, visibly thinking it over (Nabiki uncharitably expected steam to be coming out his ears at so much of what she considered to be unusual mental effort from Kuno), and then growled irritably. "Curse you Saotome! Fine. My honor as a samurai will not permit me to reveal your secrets - it would be a cowardly act to so humiliate you. I will not stand in the way of the ending of Akane Tendo's morning challenges - but do not mistake this for peace between us! I shall train, and then I will avenge my defeats!" he warned Ranma, thrusting out an imperiously pointing finger at his first real rival, more excited by the prospect than he'd ever be willing to admit in public.

"Anytime you want a fight, Kuno, I'll be ready for it," Ranma retorted proudly, slinging his shirt back on over his shoulders. "But... I guess if you're willing to keep your mouth shut about me, then you're not so bad,"

Akane shot Ranma a disdainful look at his admission, which Ranma pointedly ignored. He wasn't going to have another situation shouted out to the entire school, and if this is what it took then he'd do it. Kuno, however, drew himself up proudly, politely excused himself, and then showed himself out.

"You know... I can't believe that actually worked," Nabiki commented to Ranma once Kuno was safely out of earshot.

"Well, he's not a total idiot, right? What else was he supposed to do when we gave him the bare facts?" Ranma replied.

"At least it only took one transformation to get through to him... thanks for the water, Akane," he added - admittedly, as something of an afterthought.

"Eh, I suppose it was the least I could do for you getting Kuno and his idiots off of my back," Akane conceded. She tried to sound nonchalant, but despite how Ranma annoyed her, she was still actually pretty happy with how this had all turned out. No more crazy morning fights! Things could actually get back to normal!

She would look back on her optimistic thought years later and sigh at how utterly naive she had been back then.

That evening, after dinner...

As steam gently swirled around the bathroom, Ranma sighed softly in contentment, water splashing gently as he shifted in the tub. Even if living at the Tendo Dojo had absolutely nothing else going for it - and that wasn't the case! - the fact he had access to hot baths whenever he wanted would have sold him. Even before the curse had made them a vital key to maintaining his sanity, he'd always reveled in the oft-infrequent opportunity to just dip himself into a full tub of steamy hot water and let the heat soak into his bones after years on the road and washing in rivers, pools, or just heavy enough rain. Nothing could ruin this moment for him..

Which of course was when the door slid open. Ranma's gaze immediately shifted to the door, already instinctively readying himself to complain if his father thought he was going to just get into the tub as a panda - only for the words to die in his throat at who he saw standing there.

Since the first moment they had met at the inner hall of the Tendo house, Ranma had thought Nabiki was cute. Admittedly, he didn't have a lot of experience with girls, but he knew what he liked, and Nabiki? She was the cutest girl he'd seen since that one unfortunate incident in China. So, understandably, the image of a naked Nabiki, modesty just barely preserved by a towel she was holding by one hand above her breast as it draped loosely down her torso, utterly failing to hide the curve of her hips, the fullness of her chest, or the abundance of creamy smooth skin, was burned into his brain... until he realized what he was doing and he hurriedly averted his gaze, covering his eyes with his hand for added measure.

"Gah! Nabiki, I'm sorry!" he yelped instinctively, whilst he didn't have much experience with women, he knew that blatantly staring counted as a big no-no in most cases.

"Why? I was the one who walked in on you," she replied casually. To Ranma's surprise, she didn't sound angry or upset, as had been the case in those mercifully few other times when circumstances had led him to see women in considerably less than full dress.

"It would have helped if you'd put the occupied sign up, you know," she added, her tone still light and playfully teasing. "Can't blame a girl for getting ready when she think she's alone."

It actually took Ranma a few moments to work out what she was talking about, and then he finally remembered seeing a cute little door sign in the clothing section of the bathroom. "Oh... right, sorry. It's... taking a little longer to get used to civilization again than I thought. I'll remember it next time," he promised her, grateful that he wasn't in hot water...figuratively speaking of course.

"Probably a good idea if you do. Akane would have hit the roof if she'd walked in on you," Nabiki quipped, albeit with a look in her eyes warning Ranma to take the advice to heart. Last thing the house budget needed was repair bills. "...Will you look at me already? I'm not going to bite," she assured him - she actually giggled at the comment, making Ranma blush gently.

Hesitantly, Ranma uncovered his eyes and turned his face back to her - pointedly looking above the neckline as he did. "I'm really sorry about this, Nabiki," he repeated again, really wanting to make sure they were alright. He didn't want to mess this up.

"Oh, it's alright, Ranma. No harm done. After all, nothing you haven't seen before, right?" she replied, grinning that impish grin of hers that made Ranma's heart skip a beat. "Besides, after the shows I've gotten so far, a little tit-for-tat is only fair," she added, still grinning.

She winked at him as she gave a little wave goodbye and then turned around to step back out through the door... giving Ranma a perfect look at her shapely bare back and perky buttocks in the process. She swished her hips in a way that just had to be deliberate, making it perfectly clear she expected him to be watching, and then slid the door closed.

"Don't take too long, please? I like a nice hot bath myself," she called back through the closed door.

"O-okay, Nabiki..." Ranma responded, slinking down deeper into the water and hugging his knees. Funny, he'd just been enjoying the heat... now he wished the water was colder. A lot colder.

In the entrance room, Nabiki smirked to herself... though an astute observer would have realized that she too had a dusting of crimson on her cheeks. She'd always been the most sexually confident of the Tendo sisters, and using her charms to aid her schemes was nothing new to her, but that? Well, that had been a whole new experience for her.

...Not that she hadn't enjoyed it. Handsome, sweet, and so easy to tease? Mmm, yes, she really did need to thank daddy for this engagement some time in the near future...

The next morning...

Yet another morning's rest that had broken too early for Nabiki's liking saw the middle Tendo daughter glowering across the table at the man who would call himself her father-in-law. "So, incidentally, how long do you expect to stay a guest at our home, Mr. Saotome?" she asked, her irritation shining through in the iciness of her tone even as a mug of nectar (coffee to anyone else) warmed her hand.

"Why, I am going to be living here, of course!" The almost literal bear of a man responded, scarfing down his rice with a complete lack of shame or waste, she had to admit, his gluttony not letting a single grain escape his rapacious appetite. "Where else would a father live but with his son and daughter-in-law?"

"I would have presumed in his own home," Nabiki replied, sweet as poisoned honey, her eyes never leaving the subject of her interrogation.

"We don't got one," Ranma promptly interjected, munching on his own rice just as eagerly if less voraciously than his father.

Nabiki's head whipped around to face him, the implications of that simple statement and the conversational tone her fiance spoke it in stirring up old and painful memories of her own. Impulsively, she reached out and gently brushed his hand with her own, so distracted that she missed the puzzled look that Soun directed at Genma, and the shifty look the elder Saotome developed in turn. It wasn't until the elder Saotome spoke up that Nabiki redirected her attention back his way.

"Yes, as my son said, the open road has been our only home for quite some time. So of course I will be remaining here, as your father knew," Genma declared pompously, before turning back to breakfast to signify an end to the topic.

For a brief moment, Soun looked like he wanted to say something about that, but a quick shared glance between the old friends and he held his tongue. They would speak of it, but in private.

"That's all well and good... but have you given any thought to room and board?" Nabiki bluntly asked him, not having been distracted from her original conversational current, despite the show and tell just arrayed.

"Nabiki!" Soun scolded her, trying to give a stern look to his middle child to curb her impropriety. Sadly, it failed utterly.

"I'm sorry, daddy, but we are going to need to feed six people now, if that's the case; your council wages only stretch so far," Nabiki reminded him politely, but without yielding any ground. The whole family knew that Nabiki had a better head for keeping the book-keeping straight, so she occasionally would lend her father a hand when he needed to do his accounting. It gave her what she felt was a right to weigh in on the larger financial decisions in the family - with her mother dead, somebody had to do it, and she enjoyed it more than Kasumi did.

Genma simply laughed at Nabiki's words, seemingly unoffended by her directness. "Ah, Tendo, but she is the spitting image of your wife! I'm well aware I will need to pull my weight here as well; I already have a part-time job lined up," he boasted with what Nabiki considered an excessively smug grin.

"Wait, really? Who'd hire you?" Ranma asked, looking at his father skeptically, his long experience making Ranma skeptical of the legality of his father's potential 'job'.

"The local chiropractor needed an assistant, as it so happens. He thought I was just the man for the job," Genma responded, taking up a wounded mien at his son's doubt. "And speaking of employment... the three of you had better hurry up and eat, or you'll be late for school," he added, before resuming wolfing down his own portion, which had miraculously refilled itself somehow.

Nabiki, Akane and Ranma shared glances, but hurried to finish off their meals and head on their way.

Once they'd gotten a good distance away from the house, Nabiki couldn't resist asking Ranma - who had refrained from jumping up to take to the fenceline this morning, "So... you really don't have a home of your own?"

"Assuming we ever did, I figure the old man sold it years ago," Ranma confessed lightly, not bothered by the question. "My oldest memories are wandering the roads of Japan. Pops always told me he used to carry me on his back before I was old enough to walk. I've never had a roof over my head that wasn't going to be temporary before."

"Your mother just let it happen?" Akane asked, curious despite herself. Having lived her entire life with a loving family and family home, Akane couldn't imagine never having a safe place to rest or escape from her troubles.

"She was never in the picture. Assuming she's alive, I always figured she dumped the old man before I could remember her," Ranma explained, and both the Tendo sisters winced at his words.

Although Ranma tried to sound nonchalant, both Nabiki and Akane could recognize the sad, almost haunted look in the young Saotome's eyes. They wore similar expressions on the anniversary of their own mother's passing, after all. Nabiki hesitated for a moment, looking at her sister to silently check if it was okay. Akane simply nodded; she figured Ranma was probably curious about it anyway. Thus emboldened, Nabiki replied, "Our own mother fell sick about ten years ago. Came on suddenly. The doctors couldn't help her."

Ranma glanced over at her, and gave her a silent, but appreciative nod. He nodded to Akane as well, if a bit shorter, but her younger sister nodded back as the three continued on, a little closer after their shared histories.

The trio made good time and in a few minutes arrived at the gates to Furinkan High School... which is where they stopped dead in their tracks. The entirety of the Hentai Horde was gathered there, clad in their usual paraphernalia, looking grim and determined to the last.

"Hey, what gives!? You guys were supposed to quit this routine!" Akane snapped, glowering angrily at her myriad unwanted suitors. "I should have known Kuno would break his word..."

"Akane Tendo, you wound me dearly!" came the cry of protest. Kuno, clad in his school uniform for once, pushed his way through the crowd, walking over to stand next to the Tendo Dojo trio. "I assure you, my tigress, I had nothing to do with this gathering!" he assured her, a hand placed on his heart for emphasis.

"Then what's going on, Kuno?" Akane replied dryly, a hand gesturing to the testosterone tumble before her.

"Akane, forgive us!" Said one of the gathered students. "But we cannot simply let you go without a fight!" added a second. "So, Ranma Saotome - defend yourself!" cried a third - and then, at that signal, the entire Horde suddenly charged forward, hollering battlecries as they thundered towards Furinkan's newest student, who'd been barely paying attention before the declaration of attack yanked his attention back to the proceedings quite firmly.

Akane yelped in shock, Kuno withdrew his bokken and took up a protective stance in front of her, and Nabiki instinctively drew back, but Ranma simply frowned, cracked his knuckles, and then met the Hentai Horde's charge with one of his own.

The three teens watched as he slammed into the gathered perverts of Furinkan like a divine thunderbolt, a blur of motion that left flying bodies in his wake. The air was filled with desperate battlecries, and the distinctive sound of sharp, fleshy impacts.

Even Akane couldn't help but feel impressed as Ranma wove around her assailants and pounded them senseless; it wasn't exactly the break from the routine she had hoped for, but it was better than nothing. "I wonder what made those idiots think of pulling this," she wondered, even as a sumo wrestler came flying through the air to land on his back in front of her.

"Twas his showboating yesterday, Akane Tendo," Kuno explained with aplomb. "Because of his own...seeming displays of cowardice, the fools thought that maybe they could stand up to Saotome's wrath even if he had managed to fell me."

"So you're not denying that Ranma beat you?" Akane asked, surprised that Kuno's ego wasn't pushing him to declare it a cheat or some such.

"Much as it chagrins me, there is no point to pandering to my pride in such a fashion. Better to focus on honing my skills and taking a swift, certain vengeance in the near future," Kuno explained with what he no doubt considered to be solemn resolution...but to Akane looked more like the onset of deep rooted constipation.

"Wow, that might just be the smartest thing you've said all year," Nabiki quipped, taking bets from students coming in on how late this would make Ranma or how many would be stubborn enough to land themselves in the nurse's office.

"Viper-tongued wench! How Saotome tolerates you as his betrothed I shall never understand," Kuno snapped back at her, once again raising the prices he would have to pay for anything he needed from her in Nabiki's book. Kuno-baby just doesn't know when to quit she thought to herself with an unchanged smirk, although her right eye was twitching slightly.

"So, does this mean Ranma's going to have to fight them every morning now?" Akane interjected - she didn't really want to have to beat Kuno senseless this morning if she could avoid it.

"Nay, Akane Tendo; this was their last gasp effort. Saotome's imminent victory will surely scatter what little steel these boorish weaklings had mustered; they shall not bother you again," Kuno assured her, acting as if it were his doing. As Ranma had already laid out more than half of the Horde by this point, his words sounded quite convincing.

"So that means things will be going back to normal from here on," Nabiki added cheerfully, watching as her fiance dispatched the last holdouts of the Hentai Horde - many of those who hadn't fallen already turning and running as it sank in how outclassed they truly were.

Meanwhile...

The sun beat down over the coast, the dunes sprawling seemingly forever as the wind raced in off of the sea and carried dust and grit across the expanse. Through this desert-like wasteland, a lone figure sketched out a meandering course, clad in well-worn hooded cloak and goggles to protect against the sun and flying sand. On and on he trudged, indifferent to the bleakness of his surroundings, for he had a greater purpose.

'Ranma Saotome... I will find you, and make you pay...'

It was rare that he had cause to be happy during his wanderings, and rarer still as of late, but fortune had given him one of her rare smiles when he'd stumbled across that witch in Hong Kong. She had assured him that his enemy could be found back in his homeland, attending Furinkan High School in Tokyo's Nerima district, and so that was where he was headed.

To somebody else, it might have seemed a longshot. But what other choice did he have? If he simply wandered aimlessly, he might never exact his revenge...

Lunchtime at Furinkan...

"Ah, perfect timing! We were about to come looking for you," Nabiki chirped as Ranma approached the tree where she and her henchwomen were sitting. "Ranma, meet Kikuko and Ryonami," she said, gesturing first to the girl with long, curly, orange-brown hair, and then to the light brown-haired girl with a pageboy cut. "Girls, meet my fiance," she added.

"Well, hello there..." Ryonami purred, giving Ranma a grin that reminded him of a shark he'd met whilst swimming to China.

"Oooh, wow, he really is a handsome one! You're so lucky, Nabiki," Kikuko gushed, making Ranma blush as she looked at him with almost glittering eyes.

"Now girls, behave," Nabiki playfully scolded them, giving a less than playful narrowing of the eyes above her cheerful smile. "Ranma, the girls and I are going to be hitting the shopping mall after school - would you like to come with?"

"Eh... sure. Sounds like it could be fun," Ranma responded, smiling and shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly as he spoke, not knowing the horrors that would await him.

Meanwhile, at that same time in Shikoku...

A masculine scream split the air of a quiet village in the mountains of Shikoku as one of the residents ran for his life along the rugged paths. "This is a disaster!" he bellowed. "A wild boar's coming! A wild boar's coming!" he shouted for all to hear, making for the watch-tower and its disaster bell as if his life depended on it.

And indeed, arguably it did! For this was no mere ornery pig that came racing along the path behind him. This was a true monster; a snorting behemoth the size of a tractor, bred and raised in the rugged forests of Shikoku. Fearless, bad-tempered and all but unstoppable; a swinezilla descended from the hills to trample, crush and gore anything in its wake.

Chaos erupted in the village as people dropped whatever they were doing and ran for their lives to the gathering point. Behind them, the giant boar rampaged, smashing through windows - and walls, crushing stalls, knocking over tractors, upsetting carts and generally destroying everything in its way.

From his position in the watchtower, the villager who had first stumbled upon the monster watched in horror. "That boar's gonna tear this here village to pieces!" he lamented. But what could they do? A creature like that was beyond their ability to fight - they had no weapons beyond farm implements, a smattering of bows, and maybe a handful of low-powered varmint rifles; stuff that wouldn't do anything more than make such a monstrous boar madder than it already was. Still, at least the villagers had all managed to get out of the way...

And that was when he realized that somebody hadn't; a youth he didn't recognize was wandering through the streets - and the boar was coming up behind him fast! "Hey, you! Look out!" He called to the stranger. "Run for it!" he pleaded - but it was no use. The kid didn't seem to hear him, and the boar was coming up fast - any second now, and it'd be right on top of him!

Resigned to the inevitable, the villager cowered, throwing an arm over his closed eyes to shield himself from the gory sight about to befall his once-peaceful home... and heard nothing. No screams of pain. No sounds of anybody fighting for their lives. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes... and saw that the stranger was holding the boar at bay! The youth had thrust out a bamboo traveling umbrella with one hand, jabbing it right into the middle of the boar's snout... and despite the way the startled hogzilla was trying to push forward, hooves gouging at the dirt road, the kid was holding it back effortlessly!

And then, as the villagers called out in awe, the youth removed his umbrella and let the boar charge forward, only to effortlessly duck beneath the goring tusks and catch the massive swine in the middle, launching it into the air! One dumbfounded boar went flying up, several stories into the sky... but what comes up, must come down, and so it was that it found itself falling back to earth, peddling its hooves in a futile attempt to arrest its flight before it landed squarely on its head, partially burying its snout into the earth. And there it sat, the fight clearly gone out of it.

Hesitantly, the awestruck villagers gathered around their unlikely savior, wondering aloud just what could enable a human to fight off such a beast - and so effortlessly at that! The villager from the tower slid down the ladder and approached their champion. "Do y'all do them martial arts or somethin'?" he asked.

Instead, the yellow-clad youth simply held up a map to the villager. "Tell me; where is Furinkan High School?" he asked, quietly and politely despite the abruptness of his question.

Confused, but eager to answer a question for the savior of his village, the villager looked at the map... but then, a moment's later, he frowned in confusion. "Hey... that there map's a map of Tokyo!" he pointed out.

"Well, of course! The school's gotta be around here somewhere," the stranger replied.

"But... this here's Shikoku," the villager pointed out.

Quiet fell over the villagers as they watched their savior, who visibly twitched at his words. "Sh-Shikoku? Very well. Goodbye."

And with that, he turned and walked away, leaving a very confused crowd of villagers behind him. "What was... that?" their spokesman wondered. But nobody had any answers.

In Tokyo that afternoon...

"I can't believe that he came! Not a lot of guys want to hang out with girls on a shopping spree," Ryonami confessed to Nabiki.

"What can I say? Ranma's no ordinary guy," the middle Tendo replied, a confident smirk on her lips.

At that moment, a jerk on a motorcycle came roaring past, hitting a puddle in the street with such force that the dirty water splashed over the four teens, who yelped and squalled in shock.

"Ya stupid jerk! Watch where yer goin'!" Ranma called after the douchebag, who didn't even bother to look back. "Road hogs..." she growled, wringing out the front of her shirt... then glancing up and flinching at the dumbfounded looks on Kikuko and Ryonami's faces. "Ah, great..."

"What? How? But!" Ryonami babbled.

"He-He changed! He was a boy! Now he's a girl!" Kikuko boggled, looking desperately at Nabiki.

The middle Tendo sighed. "Like I said... Ranma's no ordinary guy..."

That evening, in Hokkaido...

The farmer looked at the map he had been handed, and frowned. Although the sun was setting, there was still plenty of light to see by, and he could make out the details clearly. "Furinkan High School?" he repeated, looking up at the youth who had interrupted him as he milked his cows. When the stranger nodded, he stood up to look him in the eye and said, "This here ain't Tokyo, boy."

After a moment to let the farmer's words sink in, the strange youth replied, "This wouldn't be... Hokkaido?" He sounded quite resigned to the fact, especially as the farmer nodded. Odd feller.

Still, the farmer wanted to be helpful, and so he beckoned the youth to follow him. He took him to the nearby slope and pointed at the road that ran down below. "That there road there boy goes to the Seikan Tunnel just up the way. Now if y'all wanna go to Tokyo then y'all gotta go straight down that there road."

"Go straight, you say?" the youth asked.

"Yessir. Straight as the crow flies, you bet," the farmer assured him.

"Thanks for your help!" The youth said, already jogging down the escarpment towards the road.

"Y'all come back now, y'hear?" The farmer called after him, seeing him off with a friendly wave.

As the friendly farmer disappeared into the distance behind him, and the sun continued its slow descent below the horizon, the traveling youth cursed himself in the privacy of his own head - not for the first time, certainly not for the last. 'Why? Why can't I ever get where I'm going? What's wrong with me?' he lamented.

But he didn't spend too long pitying himself. Now he had a road to follow, and vengeance to attain! The asphalt flew by as he jogged along at a pace few others could have matched on foot... right up until the road curved around to the right. He spotted a sign past the bend, but he refused to be swayed; he knew his goal!

"Straight it is!" he shouted, and poured on the speed, racing to where the road bent and smashing through the guard-rail before leaping down into the forested wilderness at the bottom of the hill. No sooner had he hit the ground than he was off again, still keeping a straight course from where he had started, ploughing relentlessly through the underbrush.

A pity he had been so literal-minded about his directions. Had he only stopped to read the sign, he would have seen that it indicated the Seikan Tunnel lay another twelve kilometers to the right, following the road - and Tokyo lay beyond that...

Ignorant to his grievous mistake, as the setting sun turned the forest into a tangle of shadows and fiery light, the youth continued his mad sprint. "I can do it! I can make it to Tokyo!" he vowed. Branches smacked against his face and limbs, catching him in the stomach as he pelted along, but he refused to stop. "Gotta make it to Tokyo!" he growled, bulldozing his way through the densest thickets.

On and on he ran, as night fell and then dawn rose, never once stopping no matter how many bruises he collected in his headlong flight. Finally, as the morning sun shone overhead, he stopped to catch his breath... and realized he was nowhere near Tokyo. He glared back and forth, and then he turned around and walked back into the forest.

"Just you wait, Ranma!" he howled, his hatred echoing through the wilderness. Even if it took him the rest of his life, he would find Tokyo, and there would be a reckoning!

Chapter End & Closing Notes

And so we come to another chapter's conclusion... but I'm sure you're all just itching for the next chapter, am I right?

Now, I'm honestly surprised that nobody guessed what Kuno was going to do in the reviews for last chapter, but then, Kuno does have a memetic reputation as an idiot, and a lot of the ideas I have seem to come out of left field to most Ranma readers. Whilst the memes may make Kuno's reactions in this chapter seem implausible, remember that Kuno has never had a direct explanation for Ranma's curse in canon. They've always danced around the issue, leading Kuno to believe both that the "pigtailed girl" is real, and that Ranma knows a spell that lets them trade places. In this scenario, Kuno gets that explanation - and also hasn't had the chance to ogle the pigtailed girl that he got in canon - so he's neither ignorant nor wanting to deny reality due to his attraction to "her".

Fun fact; I'm actually not rushing Ryoga's appearance. Ryoga canonically entered the anime in the 7th episode, which chronologically took place somewhere around 3-5 days after the start of the series. So, this story is chronologically about the same point as the canon intro.

Now, some readers have asked what I'm going to do with P-chan and, by extension, the other "Akane-centric" storylines, given that she's no longer the primary female protagonist. Suffice it to say, I have a plan, although for P-chan in particular... you'll see the start of where I'm going in the next chapter, but where it ends, I'll be very impressed if anyone can guess. Suffice it to say that the Japanese Nanniichuan arc will be quite a change from canon...

Speaking of work... I thought folks might like to know the other projects I have in the pipeline at this moment. I'd love to hear which one(s) folks would like me to get started on and push out alongside Heated Storm here.

The first, as mentioned in the last chapter, is a Ranma 1/2 crossover with Dungeons & Dragons: taking its starting point from the "Nabiki, Ranma's New Fiancee!" arc, it will see Ranma, Nabiki, Shampoo and Ukyo accidentally stumble through a one-way portal to Sigil, the most prominent multiversial hub in D&D canon, and be stranded there - which will force them to team up in order to survive and ultimately find a way home.

The second, inspired by the 2019 re-release of Resident Evil 2, is Ranma 1/2 crossover with Resident Evil. Rather than just putting Ranma into the events of the games, though, this will be an "analogue" universe; Ranma and company existing in the RE universe, but interacting with it off to the side, rather than crossing paths with the canon cast. Starting with an outbreak in Japan in 1995, three years before the canonical Arklay Incidents. I'm tempted to start a new FFN Forum for this one, because it will require a lot of work to come up with appropriate monsters, mutants, and biohazard incidents - we're already planning to incorporate RE: Dash (the canceled original version of RE3) and the Castle Prototype for RE4 - and having fans weigh in with ideas could be helpful. What do folks think?

There's other ideas on my mind, but these two are the major projects I've got prepwork of some kind done for.