Authors Notes: Thank you to everyone for your patience, and your warm welcome of the previous chapter despite the delays! Hopefully, future chapters will come out much quicker than the last! ...Assuming real life stops throwing curveballs at me like my father being hit by a falling tree and having his knee broken so badly it literally reversed the joint...had to have him airlifted to hospital, and he's still being surgically patched up... he was damn lucky he kept the leg, you know?

Tribun: Well, in fairness, it's less like Nabiki swings that way and more that she was in a position where she couldn't help but notice, y'know?

Digital Dragon Productions: To be honest, I actually did consider having Akane be the one to face off against Kodachi. I didn't think she'd win, and frankly I was worried about how to make the fight scene "pay off" - Akane got a LOT better in the previous chapter, but she's still a hotheaded, impulsive fighter, and Kodachi is an excellent tactician and dirty schemer. Akane definitely might have had the chance to prevail in a straight fight, but Kodachi wouldn't give her one, and I feel she'd have beaten Akane pretty readily... even if it's only by having Akane be disqualified once the youngest Tendo loses her temper and straight-up punches Kodachi's lights out. Of course, that wasn't such a big deal here, so... yeah, ultimately, I went with what felt right, and I'm sorry.

Jack Inqu: Being fair, Ranma actually DOES call everybody out on their shit in canon, especially Akane. It's just that nobody ever listens to him and admits they're wrong, especially when he's calling out Akane.

Shador: Ah... good point... that's a legitimate plot hole. I guess I was thinking that Ranma got splashed and escaped in the chaos without Kodachi seeing his female form, but now I don't remember why I wrote that line, I'm afraid...

Chapter 9: Fire Wrapped In Ice!

Despite some fairly common slander around Furinkan High School, albeit never uttered where she could theoretically hear it, Nabiki Tendo did have interests outside of making money. She actually had many such interests, including shopping, reading manga and watching anime, swimming, and playing tennis. Ice skating wasn't one of her favorite activities, but she enjoyed it enough that she had figured a nice Monday afternoon skating with her new fiancé would make a pleasant date.

Especially given it would be an excuse for them to have their arms around each other in public, which she hoped would at least make it up a little for whatever he had suffered whilst on his "date" with the crazed Kodachi Kuno a week ago.

It was a solid plan... unfortunately, reality decided to take that as a personal affront. And things had gone so well, too! She and Ranma had run into Kikuko and Ryonami, a genuine happy accident, she had paid for both their time on the rink, they'd gotten their skates. And then they'd set foot on the ice...

"You know, Ranma... ever since you arrived, I've had to redefine the term 'humanly possible' several times," Nabiki commented with a degree of fond exasperation. "I've seen you hang upside down from tree branches like a monkey, and scramble along an interior ceiling like a spider. I've watched you meditate by standing on your head and do a sort of push-up/handstand combination with just one hand..." she continued conversationally.

"Your point?" Ranma said back with a much less jovial tone of voice.

"How can somebody capable of doing all those amazing feats... be so absolutely terrible at ice skating?!" Nabiki finally blurted out, unable to hold back her disbelief any longer.

Ranma twisted his head to glare at her, and probably was about to give his excuse for the matter... but that proved to be a fateful mistake, as he finally lost the battle to keep both of his legs tucked straight under his body and they shot out into the air, dropping him flat on his butt in an impact that made all three girls wince. Instead, Ranma simply moaned as he span in circles for half a minute before finally falling flat on his back.

'Oh, great... and here I thought this would be a nice, romantic date, too,' Nabiki sighed internally.

Others watching Ranma's distress were not so compassionate in their observations of his obvious inexperience.

"Pfahahahaha! Boy do you look stupid! Is this your first time skating? You want me to teach ya?" cackled one passing skater.. the already insulting words made even worse by the fact they were coming from an obvious grade-schooler who had to be maybe half of Ranma's age, if that.

Ranma scowled like a thunderhead and began tearing at his skates' laces. Once he had pulled them off, he got to his feet and, showing no sign of his former clumsiness now that he was barefoot, raced off of the rink, pausing only to tell Nabiki, "Hang on a second, I'll be right back," as he passed her by.

This time, Nabiki couldn't help but sigh aloud, giving Ranma an empathic look as she watched him move away. "Poor Ranma... this isn't what I wanted."

"Well, look on the bright side; he isn't running away from the ring entirely, right?" Kikuko pointed out, trying to look on the bright side as she usually did.

"Yeah, although, really, Nabiki; why'd you make up those silly stunts he did? You knew he'd be more insulted that way," Ryonami asked her boss.

"I made up nothing," Nabiki said deadpan, causing both of her companions to blink in shock and give her dumbfounded stares.

"Wait... you were serious?!" Ryonami boggled.

"How...?" Kikuko added, trying but failing to complete the sentence in her shock.

Nabiki simply smirked at their antics. "You should drop by and watch one of Ranma's work-outs sometime... or better yet, one of his sparring sessions with his father. You'll never look at your own fitness schedules the same way."

Meanwhile, as Nabiki was talking with her friends, Ranma was in the nearest public toilet, filling an emergency fire bucket up with cold water. He stared morosely at the shimmering liquid, turning off the tap once it was full, and then sighed softly. 'This sucks... but Nabiki went to a lot of trouble to get us in here. It'd be wrong to waste it...' Then he picked up the bucket and poured the contents over his head, shivering as the cold water deluged him and brought on the change.

Newly female, she shook her head in an effort to clear the worst of it from her hair. 'I'm sorry, Nabiki... we'll consider this a practice one for our real date, okay?' she promised herself, before putting the bucket back down and heading back to the rink... leaving a pair of very confused teenage boys in her wake.

By the time she got back to Nabiki, her fiancée had retrieved Ranma's abandoned ice skates and was waiting outside of the rink. She looked up as Ranma approached. "Ranma, you're back! ...And a girl?"

"Yeah... it's too embarrassing to be out there as a guy. Even little kids laugh at guys who can't skate," Ranma glumly admitted. "But a girl just learning how to skate? Nobody's going to laugh at me like that... an' this way, we can get better so we can try this again for real some other time,".

Nabiki blinked in surprise. "You mean... you want to go back out there?" she asked a bit incredulously. She'd picked up pretty quick that Ranma's pride was a huge part of who he was, so his wanting to stick around was a pleasant surprise..

"Well, this was supposed to be a date," Ranma replied, scratching the back of her head. "An' I'd rather be a guy for it, but, I don't want to run out on it just because of some snotnosed brats, either. Don't wanna waste something like this; you're way too special."

Nabiki smiled and shook her head lightly, enjoying the feel of her heart beating just a little faster at Ranma's words. "You just love to throw me curveballs whenever I think I've got a handle on you, don't you?" she quipped, her tone light and teasing enough that Ranma could tell she wasn't upset.

"Ah, you love it," Ranma shot back, although the crimson tint of her cheeks at her own boldness made her words less cocksure than she had intended.

Nabiki simply stared at her fiancée, watching her fidget for a moment or three. Then she held out her hand, and tried not to let it show that it tingled when Ranma gently took it. No, it wasn't optimal that Ranma was a girl at the moment... but regardless of his current body, Ranma was still Ranma. It was important to keep one's perspective, especially when his curse was still such an unavoidable factor in their lives.

Ignored behind them, Kikuko slapped her hands over her mouth to keep herself silent. No matter how much of a compliment she might mean it as, she knew her boss would not take it kindly if she were to start squeeing at how adorable Nabiki and Ranma looked, holding hands so tenderly and just looking into each other's eyes, each blushing slightly before Nabiki led Ranma back out onto the rink.

Truth be told, Nabiki didn't really know where to start teaching Ranma how to skate. With only a single year's difference in their ages, she'd never really had the chance to do so for Akane. But she figured it couldn't be too hard; she just had to pass on what she knew about staying upright, starting and stopping on to Ranma, and then Ranma would be able to figure out the rest on his own. Her own. Whatever. After all, with Ranma's insane physical skills, it shouldn't take too much effort to get him on the right path and then let him take over from there.

The end result was Nabiki leading Ranma around, holding her fiancée's hand as the boy-turned-girl crouched for better control over her balance, inspired by some of the smaller kids that they were seeing scattered around the rink. "That's the way, Ranma; feel the rhythm. Skating's all about getting the rhythm of your legs under control... once we get that, we can start working more on your balance, so you can stand up."

"Thanks, Nabiki..." Ranma replied meekly. As Nabiki twisted around to skate backwards for a while, taking both of Ranma's hands in her own, the redheaded aquatransexual cast a mournful look up at her fiancée. "I must look really stupid like this, huh?" she asked.

At this, Nabiki shrugged. "Maybe a little... but, Ranma? You want to know something?"

"Hmm?" Ranma looked up at Nabiki inquisitively.

"Public opinion is overrated. When you're able to do what you want, who cares what other people think of you? Take me for example; they call me the Ice Queen at Furinkan High, and the Heartless Mercenary, and a lot of other nasty names too," Nabiki explained.

"Who calls you that?!" Ranma indignantly interjected looking around to find one of said people to give a righteous thrashing.

"Down, girl," Nabiki playfully scolded her in response. Though she'd be lying if she said that Ranma's protective fiance reaction didn't send a delicious warmth flooding through her heart. "My point is, they call me all those nasty names behind my back... but in the end? They all come crawling to me, and they don't have a choice. And that's real power. Who cares what they think? These people?" she gestured with a jerk of her neck at the people littering the rink, "They're nobodies. Their opinion doesn't matter. So you just focus on learning how to skate, and don't care about what they think, okay, Ranma?"

Ranma smiled brightly and nodded. "Okay! I mean, you're right... it's not like we're going to run into anyone we know out here..."

"BWEEEE!"

"Charlotte! Come back, Charlotte!"

The two fiancées blinked into each other's eyes in mutual confusion. "What the...?" Ranma began to say... right before a little black blur came zipping across the ice and right into her chest, causing the aquatransexual to instinctively clutch whatever it was that had hit her with both arms... a disastrous move, given the impact sent her shooting backwards across the ice, screaming like the girl she resembled as she went.

"Ranma!" Nabiki yelped, and immediately went to try and skate after her fiancée... before something slammed into her back and she fell flat on her face. "Ow! What's the big idea?!" she protested, instinctively twisting to glare at whoever had knocked her down, rubbing her nose with one hand to check that she wasn't bleeding.

She was greeted by a strange girl with long flowing locks of brown hair and bluish green eyes, her lips twisted into a childish pout as she leaned over Nabiki. "Give Azusa back her Charlotte!" the stranger demanded, stomping her foot in childish indignation.

"What are you talking about, you... kawaiiko bimbo?!" Nabiki spat back in a rage. Yes, Nabiki liked the idea of being thought "cute" - it was one of the few traditional Japanese girl failings she possessed. But she'd never been able to stand kawaiiko types - the forced cuteness made her teeth itch... and don't even get her started on burikko girls! Walking insults to her intelligence, the lot of them... worse, so many people just ate that stupid act up...

"You meanie! Give little Charlotte back to Azusa!" the stranger demanded petulantly.

"I don't have time for this nonsense!" Nabiki snapped dismissively, turning her back on the obvious mental case and trying to scramble back to her feet. She had a fiancée to rescue!

Completely out of her element, Ranma wailed in distress as she skidded backwards across the ice, clutching whatever had sent her on this unwanted trip to her bosom out of pure instinct. "Nabiki! Somebody! Help me!" she pleaded...

And that was when a pair of strong hands firmly but gently caught her by the waist, bringing Ranma to a proverbial screeching halt. The boy-turned-girl blinked in surprise as she was lifted upright, and then clean off of the icy floor of the rink.

Nabiki came skidding to a halt as she took in Ranma's savior, even as Ranma herself craned her head over her shoulder to see who was holding her up. As with the crazy girl who had knocked her down, Nabiki didn't recognize this brown-haired, blue-eyed stranger, but even she had to admit he was pretty damn handsome; a genuine hunk, even. Of course, as Nabiki would have been the first to point out, Ranma was just as good looking... when he was in the proper shape, at least...

"Are you alright, miss?" the stranger asked, and it actually took Ranma a moment to realize he was addressing her - stupid curse.

"Oh, yeah, thanks..."

"I must apologize for my partner... she has this habit of taking things that catch her fancy and giving them pet names, regardless of anyone else's opinion on the matter of ownership," the strange youth replied.

That finally drew Ranma's attention back to the... whatever it was... that she was holding. Looking away from the guy who was still holding her, too distracted to focus on that little annoyance for the moment, she looked into her arms... and two small, terrified eyes looked back at her, set above a flat pink nose. "Ryoga?!" Ranma blurted out.

The boy-turned-pig nodded, squealing forlornly and clasping his forehooves together in what was unmistakably a begging gesture.

And with perfect timing, the crazy girl came skating right over to the group, weaving casually around Nabiki and skimming to a halt in front of Ranma, Ryoga and the nameless youth. "Mikky!" she pleaded, eyes watery with unshed tears. "Make the mean girls give Azusa back her little Charlotte!" she wailed.

"Forget it! Ryoga's not your pet, lady!" Ranma blurted on pure instinct. Ordinarily, she'd have been content to let Ryoga fight his own battles... but this clearly wasn't a fair fight. Besides, this ditzy kleptomaniac had just butted her nose in on Ranma's date, and she wasn't going to forgive her for that!

"Oooh! Little Azusa will fight you for her!" the brat whined, stamping her foot once more, Nabiki and Ranma both marveling a bit at the odd sort of skill needed for one to stamp their foot wearing ice skates and not fall over.

At this, Ranma burst out laughing. "Fight me? Yeah, at what? Teddy-bear throwing at high noon?" she mockingly suggested.

"No! Azusa challenges you to Martial Arts Figure Skating!" the brunette snapped back, pointing a demanding finger at the aquatransexual.

"...That's a thing?" Ranma asked, surprised but also intrigued. She studied Azusa with a new, more inquisitive eye, trying to gauge the potential combat abilities of somebody she had, until that moment, been ready to write off as probably having more hair than brains.

"What are you, stupid? Everybody knows Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin are the Golden Pair of Martial Arts Figure Skating!" the brunette scoffed, hands on her hips.

"Never heard of you," Ranma bluntly retorted.

"It's news to me," Nabiki added, smirking at the indignation blooming on the burikko's face.

"Aw, now you've gone and hurt my feelings... and here I was going to help you take your little pet back from Azusa," said the strange boy, obviously this "Mikado Sanzenin", whom everybody had been ignoring until now.

"He's not my pet," Ranma replied instinctively.

"Now you'll have to make it up to me," Mikado continued, as if Ranma hadn't spoken at all.

"Huh?" Ranma asked, twisting back to look up at her unwanted rescuer... and that was her fatal mistake. For Ranma had no knowledge of just who it was that she had been allowing to hold her; how could she have known that Mikado Sanzenin was the most famous womanizer in all of Kolhotz High School? With her arms full of P-chan and her mind on other things, she was caught completely off-guard as Mikado swooped in and forcibly kissed her squarely on the lips.

Nabiki froze dead, eyes bulging and hair standing on end in sheer shock at what she was witnessing, too startled to even care about protecting her reputation as the Ice Queen of Furinkan. Not that Ranma was in any better condition... had this been a manga or an anime, there would have been a shot of Ranma's head splitting like a cracked pane of glass to represent just how badly scattered her mind was by this. The aquatransexual's arms fell limp, allowing Ryoga the pig to drop to the ice with barely an oink of protest, even as Azusa squealed in joy and snatched him up - the other Jusenkyo-cursed boy was too busy staring at Ranma in shock and disgust.

Oblivious to the psychological turmoil he had unthinkingly caused, Mikado gently lowered Ranma back to the icy surface of the rink. Had anyone been paying attention at the time, they would have marveled at the way that Ranma stood stiff-backed and straight upright, even after Mikado released her and stepped away.

"R...Ranma?" Nabiki hesitantly asked, fearful of what might be going through her genderbent fiancé's brain at that moment.

Stiffly, like some mechanical toy, Ranma took first one step, and then another. And then she burst into tears, covering her eyes with her crossed arms and bawling like a child as she fled from the rink, picking up remarkable speed for somebody who previously couldn't even stand up on the ice.

"Ah, to be moved so by my kiss; she's such a pure and sweet and innocent naive young child!" Mikado sighed, running a hand through the forelocks of his hair in a clearly practiced sensual maneuver.

Nabiki didn't even spare a moment's scorn for the pompous lech; her whole focus was on her poor fiancée. 'I've never seen him cry before...' rushed through her mind. An inane thought, but what else was she supposed to do at a moment like this?!

Ranma, meanwhile, made a beeline straight towards the nearest public baths. Burning with shame and fury, she didn't even slow down, throwing some change at the receptionist and grabbing a towel before ripping off her clothes and barging into the men's baths to plunge bodily into the heated central bath.

"That stupid jerk! How dare he-how dare he-how dare he! And in front of Nabiki, no less!" Ranma hissed to herself, only her burning desire not to be heard keeping her from shrieking it for the world to hear. The image of his fiancée's face flashed in front of his mind's eye, only to be washed away in a storm of fire and blood. It would have been bad enough to be kissed, but whilst the girl he liked was watching?!

A gaggle of very confused and now mildly concerned men watched as the water where that strange redheaded girl had plunged into began to bubble and steam, as if literally boiling around something white hot. Any thought of approaching was swiftly quashed when a black-haired youth erupted from beneath the surface, water visibly flashing to steam on his skin as he thundered...

"I'mma kill him!"

Meanwhile...

In the privacy of her head, Nabiki cursed the ancestry of both Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin going back seven generations, with only her pride in being the Ice Queen of Furinkan keeping her from doing so aloud - a large part of her powerbase came from her reputation as being above mere human distractions. No sooner had she thought to go after her traumatized fiancée than Mikado had taken notice of her and, showing his true colors, immediately come onto her, despite the fact that he knew she'd just seen him kissing the "girl" that she was with.

...No; Mikado didn't care that she'd seen him, he just thought she'd fall for his charms regardless. Arrogant lech... Nabiki had seen his type before, but the ones in Furinkan High would sooner cut their own lips off than try that sort of game with her.

Unfortunately, Mikado wasn't from Furinkan, so he had no idea who he was messing with. Especially with his current gambit; trying to coax Nabiki into yielding her lips with the promise of giving her "Charlotte" back. A pity he hadn't realized that Nabiki didn't really care about Ryoga in that way, and had every confidence he would find some way to escape Azusa - who was still complaining about the idea of giving up "Charlotte" - once she wasn't looking at her.

"Come on, beautiful... one little kiss and the pig is all yours," Mikado wheedled, putting on what even Nabiki had to concede was a handsome, smouldering expression that was pretty attractive even given the circumstances. "Surely it's not such a high price to pay? Why say no?"

"Well, for starters, I happen to be engaged," Nabiki dryly retorted. "And trust me, he will not be happy if he sees this." Of course, Ranma had every reason to beat Mikado senseless as it was, but why tell him that?

"Pft. Do I look worried about what some boor who can't even treat his fiancée properly by being there for her in her time of need might think?" Mikado scoffed.

"Mikado!"

All across the rink, people who heard that thunderous bellow of rage felt a shiver of fear run icy fingers up their spines, flinching way or otherwise instinctively hurrying to get out of the way of its source as Ranma's battle aura unconsciously bled into his words.

Nabiki, daughter of a martial arts sensei and thusly not completely ignorant to the phenomena, even if she wasn't a trained fighter like her little sister, was better equipped to resist the urge to flinch. Instead, she smirked darkly at Mikado. "You should be..." she muttered to herself.

Ranma came stomping across the rink, compensating for his lack of control on the skates by literally stamping the blades into the icy crust like pickaxes. His fists were clenched until the knuckles had turned white, eyes almost glowing with hate as he leveled a killing glare at the man who had so humiliated him. "We gotta score ta settle, asshole!" he spat.

"Who are you? And why are you so angry?" Mikado replied in a level, almost pleasant tone, clearly too used to angry boyfriends to be really intimidated even by this sort of display.

"I'm Ranma Saotome, an' I'm the guy who's gonna beat ya within an inch of yer life!" Ranma snarled, raising a trembling fist... before bringing it down in a full-arm punch right into the icy surface of the rink.

Even Nabiki couldn't think of an onomatopoeia to describe the deep, sonorous cracking as the force of her fiancé's blow split the inches-thick crust of ice, causing a jagged crack to carve its way cleanly through the surface, stretching the meters-long gap from Ranma's fist to right between Mikado's feet. Of course, that might have been because she was busy trying and failing to process the amount of force that would be needed to pull off such a stunt, leaving her rather dead to the world.

From Azusa's arms, the wide-eyed Ryoga felt beads of nervous sweat prickling his skin; he knew that he could have pulled off a move like that, but Ranma? He didn't know his pigtailed nemesis had that kind of stunt in him! '...Wow, Ranma's pissed. I'm so glad I'm not in pretty-boy's skates right now...'

Despite this impressive (monstrous) feat of strength, Mikado seemed unphased. Instead, he simply closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know what your grievance is with me... but damaging the sacred rink is a serious crime... I accept your challenge!" he declared, eyes snapping open as his arms twisted into a combat stance.

"I'm gonna make you sorry you were ever born..." Ranma hissed, unclenching his fists and partially uncurling his fingers into claw-like shapes, each twitching digit emitting snapping, crackling noises that made Nabiki think less of popping joints and more of breaking bones.

Azusa simply glanced between the two boys, mildly curious but completely indifferent. Her attention was focused on her precious little Charlotte, who had finally stopped struggling against her mommy.

This was because Ryoga, like Nabiki, had fixated the entirety of his attention on Ranma and Mikado. This was going to be a fight to remember, they were both certain of it...

Images of that cursed kiss flashed through Ranma's mind, feeding the fires of his loathing and rage. With a wordless cry of fury, he sprang into the air, sailing towards Mikado in a diving punch that would probably have knocked Ryoga senseless...

And then Mikado slid to the side at the last minute, causing the startled Ranma to sail past him and slam into the ice rink head first, burying himself up to the shoulders in its frozen surface as the impact kicked up a cloud of ice-chips and frosty "dust".

"Ranma!" Nabiki cried out in dismay, hands instinctively rising to her mouth in horror.

Azusa giggled at the sight.

Ryonami shook her head in disbelief from where she and Kikuko had been watching from the sidelines, her orange-haired counterpart staring in silent horror at Ranma's ominously still form. "Talk about major league headbutts..."

Mikado spared the prone form a contemptuous look and then sniffed dismissively, running his fingers through his forelocks in a calculatedly suave gesture. "Idiot. Only a fool would attempt to launch a suicide strike against his opponent so early in a battle," he scoffed.

"Who's suicidal?" came a bitter growl in Mikado's ear.

Mikado yelped, literally leaping off the ice and narrowly twisting out of the range of a punch from behind as Ranma materialized behind him like a vengeful spirit. Quickly, Mikado scrambled to put distance between them, hands raised in a counter posture as he took in Ranma's own glaring form. "H-how, how did you get up?!" Mikado blurted.

Ranma didn't reply, his eye simply twitching as he made another clumsy charge at Mikado, legs rising and falling in high steps to pick-step his way over the ice rather than skating. Mikado simply wove aside at the last moment again, causing Ranma to stumble right past him. Despite a valiant effort on Ranma's part, his treacherous feet slipped out from under him and he fell flat on his face, whizzing across the rink in an impromptu face-stand, observers scrambling to get out of the way before he slammed back-first into the retaining wall with so much velocity that he smashed straight through!

Seconds later, Ranma clambered back to his feet and marched stiffly back onto the rink, defiantly resuming a defensive stance.

"...What is he made out of?" an appalled Ryonami wondered.

"I don't know... you think he's always got that kind of stamina?" Kikuko wondered, earning a sideways glance from her friend.

Nabiki bit her tongue and watched silently, taking in the angry red friction burn running the vertical length of Ranma's face.

Despite Ranma's feats of resilience, Mikado still seemed unimpressed. "So, I see you do have some fight in you... I regret using this on an amateur, but you leave me no choice." He struck an elaborate pose, arms raised like wings and one leg bent at the knee. "Behold, the Dance of Death!" he cried, and then he began to pirouette rapidly in that spot, spinning around and around on one foot until he became a blur.

"You don't impress me, asshole!" Ranma snarled, charging across the ice in that clumsy non-skating manner again. This time, he managed to reach Mikado... only to be pulled into the gyrating vortex, becoming a vaguely Ranma-shaped blur that swirled around and around in Mikado's orbit like a leaf caught in a twister.

Azusa laughed triumphantly, hugging Ryoga-the-pig to her bosom. "Him finished now! Nobody's ever breaked free of Mikky's spin before! He's gonna pummel him stupid!" she giggled spitefully.

Just this once, Nabiki regretted not keeping up with the martial arts training her father had tried to give her when she was little, the way Akane had. It just seemed so pointless after... well, it just seemed like a lot of dirty, tiring exercise. But she knew Akane could do things that she couldn't because she had kept up training, and one of those things was follow things at a faster pace than she could. To her novice eyes, Ranma and Mikado were just a pair of orbiting blurs, and she had no idea what was going on. All she could do was hope that Ranma would be alright...

A good minute passed... and then Ranma suddenly was launched straight up from the vortex, arcing through the air and landing squarely on his head on the icy surface of the rink. Cracks spiderwebbed around him as he span two or three times, then went still. Behind him, Mikado also glided to a stop, still with one leg up and both arms extended into fists at different angles.

"Ranma!" Nabiki cried out, skating over to her fiancé as fast as she could. "Ranma? Are you okay?" she asked, then wished she could bite her tongue at saying something so stupid.

Ranma surprised her by grunting and placing his hands flat on the rink's surface. Slowly, visibly shaking with effort, he pushed himself up from the ice in a handstand, and then thrust himself into the air, twisting in a backflip to reorientate himself and land on his feet.

...Which of course immediately tried to slide out from under him. But, to her own amazement, Nabiki was actually ready for this. "Oh no you don't!" she cried out, speed blurring her words into one garbled burst of noise as she lunged for her fiancé's wrists and actually grabbed them before he could completely lose his balance again. Instead, she pulled him into her own arms, leaving him slumped partially over her shoulder. She could already see the bruises forming, and feel the limpness in Ranma's frame as she did her best to support his weight.

"Nnngh... 'm'sorry, 'biki," Ranma moaned softly into her ear. "Really screw'd this up..."

"It's not your fault," she assured him softly.

Before she could get any further, Azusa skated over, smirking triumphantly. "Aw, is him all beat up? Him shouldn't have picked a fight with Mikky!" she taunted them.

At this, Ranma actually managed a weak, shuddery laugh. "You should see the other guy," he rasped, free arm limply trying to shield obviously bruised ribs.

Azusa blinked, as did Nabiki herself. Both girls turned to look at Mikado, and realized that he was still in the exact same pose he'd been in since he'd sent Ranma flying. With barely a flick of effort, the burriko zipped over to Mikado, poking him in the chest, and then waving a hand in front of his eyes, all to no response. "Ah! He fainted!" she squealed in shock.

Ranma let out a stuttering laugh. "Dance of Death... wasn't too bad. But I gave better'n I got," he hissed.

"You big bully!" Azusa shrieked, zipping back over and making Nabiki flinch back. "You wouldn't do that in a real Martial Arts Figure Skating match!" she snapped.

"Any time, any when," Ranma spat back at her, raising his head and giving her a glare that was surprisingly undiminished for the fact he could only open one eye to do it with.

"One week from now! At the Kolhotz High School gym! Mikky and little Azusa will show you, and that uncute boyish girl of yours too!"

"Boyish?!" a surprised and indignant Nabiki blurted out, too shocked by that descriptor to consider the deeper implications of Azusa's words.

"We'll be there! And when we win, you'll give back the pig!" Ranma demanded, drawing upon the last reserves of his strength to try and stand firm.

"Then it's a challenge! Little Azusa will see you both on the rink!" the big-haired brunette proclaimed.

And that was something that both Nabiki and Ranma actually registered. "Both?" Nabiki asked.

"Martial Arts Figure Skating is for couples. One boy, one girl. You both have to fight Azusa and Mikado, or the challenge is forfeit," Azusa explained.

Those words sent ice-water running down Nabiki's spine. With an extra bucketful of icecubes added when Ranma blurted out. "Fine! We'll cream you losers!"

Azusa simply sneered and skated back over to her unconscious partner, leaving Nabiki shivering with equal parts fear and anger. "Ranma-," she started, unthinkingly slipping into the same icy tones that Akane used when angry, only to realize that her fiancé had finally reached his limit and was now passed out on her shoulder.

She bit back her scolding words, and then sighed loudly... no point in doing it now. She quickly headed for where Kikuko and Ryonami were standing, eager to put some distance between herself and the strangers who had ruined her date.

Her flunkies fell in at her side as she headed for the way off of the rink. "Wow, some odds, huh, boss?" Kikuko chimed in, trying to keep a stiff upper lip.

"What are you going to do, nabiki?" Ryonami asked her, more realistic than Kikuko.

"First... get this lunk home. Today is officially a bust," Nabiki sighed the sigh of the deeply frustrated. "After that... work out what we're going to do about this. But you girls? You're going to help me get Ranma home, and then I want you to dig up everything you can on those two clowns, understand?"

The icy look she cast at the other teens made them shiver and nod in hasty agreement. They would have helped out with carrying Ranma back to the Tendo Dojo anyway - you didn't just pass over a chance to 'innocently' fondle some prime grade-A beefcake when it was given to you on a silver platter, after all! - but the look in Nabiki's eyes was making them very, very glad that they weren't Azusa Shiratori or Mikado Sanzenin right now.

Oblivious to the three girls carrying one unconscious boy from the rink, Azusa tapped her foot as she stared into her partner's unseeing eyes. "Hmm... what to do with you..." she mused, idly petting her beloved Charlotte as she did. Then an idea struck and she smiled hugely. "Imma doodle on you!" she chirped, tucking Ryoga-the-pig under one arm and fishing out a colorful marker from one of her pockets with the other.

"Doodley-doo, doodley-do, doodley-doo-da-doo!" she chirped to herself as she began to scribble all over Mikado's face.

Later that afternoon, at the Tendo Estate...

Getting an unconscious Ranma all the way back to the Tendo Dojo hadn't exactly been the easiest thing to do. Nabiki was glad both for her friends being present and that she did at least keep up an exercise regime, including the occasional bit of dumbbell lifting.

Ranma hadn't woken up the whole way there, and frankly Nabiki wasn't surprised, given the amount of blunt-force trauma she'd seen him taking in the past hour. But finally she had made it home, and had taken Ranma right to the living room, it being the closest and thus most convenient place to lay him down.

"Welcome home-Nabiki, oh my! Whatever happened?" Kasumi gasped as she saw her little sister stagger into the living room, awkwardly carry-dragging her unconscious fiancé with her.

"It's a long story... help me out, sis?" Nabiki pleaded.

"Oh, my, of course." Kasumi murmured, but immediately moved to grab a pillow for Ranma's head before helping Nabiki lay him down... which, of course, was when Soun, Genma and Akane all walked into the room.

"Nabiki!? What happened? Are you alright?!" Soun blurted, overwhelmed by paternal concern for his middle child.

"I'm fine, daddy - Ranma's the only one who got hurt," Nabiki replied, sitting down next to her fiancé whilst Kasumi went to get disinfectant and bandages.

"And what happened to my son? I thought the two of you went out on a date!" Genma rumbled.

"We had an... incident with some jerk at the skating rink," Nabiki replied. Somehow, she doubted Ranma would want anyone to know about his having been kissed by some random lech... especially his father!

"Ranma picked a fight he couldn't win, huh?" Akane scoffed.

"Actually, it was Ryoga's fault," Nabiki shot back at her.

"Ryoga? Is he alright? What happened?" Kasumi asked, having returned just in time to hear that, even as she sat down next to Ranma with the first aid kit.

"We were just minding our own business when Ryoga comes scrambling across the rink as a pig, being chased by this saccharine little bimbo with bigger eyes than her brain. He sees us and tries to take shelter behind us, so she comes over and starts demanding we give her 'wittle Charlotte' back to her." The withering tone and air quotes would have been funny if not for the absolute disdain Nabiki was displaying for the aforementioned bimbo. "Then her partner shows up and he starts trying to put the moves on me, saying he'll give us our 'pet' back if I give him a kiss. Ranma objected to that, and they got into a fight, and... well, you can see what happened to Ranma," Nabiki explained, taking her own tube of disinfectant cream and gently applying it to Ranma's road-rash.

Which was Ranma shifted, hissing in pain and slowly opening his eyes. "Ngh... 'biki?" he asked blearily, blinking in an obvious attempt to clear his vision.

"You're awake! You had me worried, Ranma," Nabiki scolded him.

"What? Over a little scuffle like that? Nah, I'm tougher than that," Ranma assured her, actually managing to make that cocky smile of his that Nabiki enjoyed so much.

"I was more worried about the times you tried to headbutt your way straight through the rink. Should have known you don't have any brains to damage," she huffed, peeling open a bandaid and plastering it over Ranma's skinned nose with a bit more force than was called for, with Ranma's yelp being partly of pain and partly of confusion at his fiancée's rough bedside manner.

Her uncharacteristically harsh words towards her fiancé made everybody blink in confusion. "Um... did I miss something?" Akane hesitantly inquired.

"Oh, just my knuckleheaded fiancé deciding that it wasn't enough to beat up the jerk once, he also had to accept the bimbo's challenge to a rematch in Martial Arts Figure Skating," Nabiki replied coldly, swabbing disinfectant cream on Ranma's arm.

"And... that's bad? Ranma beat him once already," Akane pointed out, hoping she could stop playing devil's advocate for Ranma of all people.

"Yes, it's bad, little sister... because Martial Arts Figure Skating matches are held in mixed-sex pairs, and Ranma here decided it'd be just fine and dandy to accept when he knows I can't do martial arts!" Nabiki snapped, casting a frigid look at Ranma, who squirmed meekly before her righteous indignation.

"Oh, my... Nabiki, what are you going to do?" Kasumi asked in concern.

"Well, my first thought would be to call off the match," Nabiki declared.

"Not likely," Ranma muttered reflexively, before wincing at the very displeased look Nabiki shot him.

"Excuse me?" Nabiki snapped. "We both know Ryoga can escape on his own from that idiot Azusa, so why am I being dragged into this?!"

Ranma blanched. "It's not my fault! But do you really think that jerk Mikado will let me turn the challenge down? Or let us live it down if we do refuse to fight?"

Nabiki grimaced. She hadn't thought of that... she was tempted to say damn the consequences and refuse anyway, but then... that'd be letting somebody get the better of her. Forget what the kids at Furinkan might start thinking if they learned that; could she really live with herself if she came off as second best?

"...Dammit. You have a point... but how are we supposed to win this? Akane's the martial artist in the family, not me!" she complained, mentally admitting she could now see why Ranma had reacted the way he did but not saying anything. He was still in trouble after all

"But you are the brains," Ranma replied immediately, drawing an indignant "hey!" from Akane that everybody ignored. "I know you can think of something."

Nabiki bit her lip, frustration and pride and a touch of the now-familiar butterflies warring in her at Ranma's unabashed confidence in her skills. She almost couldn't bring herself to burst his bubble of hope...

Which was when Genma suddenly startled everybody by loudly feigning a cough. "That might not be as hard as you are both thinking. I know how you can win this fight."

A synchronized chorus of "You do?" arose from everybody else present, a series of surprised, suspicious or hopeful gazes suddenly locked onto the Saotome patriarch.

"That's right," Genma replied, nodding sagely. "I happen to be familiar with the fighting style in question."

"You are?! Since when?" Soun blurted out, staring incredulously at his old training partner.

"Do you remember Khristina Baranov?" Genma replied, casting a sidelong look at Soun.

"Who...? Ah! Yes, I remember her. That was a long time ago..." Soun murmured, stroking his mustache wistfully .

A baffled Nabiki stole a glance at Ranma, who responded with a confused look and a rapid shake of his head to indicate that this was news to him too.

"My point is, Martial Arts Figure Skating is an environmental style, rather than a traditions-based one," Genma explained. "It doesn't rely on specific competition rules or rituals in its matches - it's closer to kenpo than sumo wrestling. And that means that there's no rule that Nabiki has to actively participate in the defeat of your opponents."

"...You mean, your brilliant plan is for me to show up and let Ranma take care of the heavy lifting?" Nabiki asked, more than a little incredulously. It wasn't that she had some kind of moral objection to letting Ranma handle the actual messy business of punching faces, but there was still one little drawback to that plan. "And how do I avoid getting creamed whilst I'm out there?"

"That, unfortunately, has only one solution. We'll have to give you some emergency martial arts training," Genma explained with a patently false face of regret.

A cold sweat broke out over Nabiki, making her flesh tingle. "But I don't know the first thing about martial arts!" she protested weakly.

"Now that's an exaggeration; you trained when you were little, just like your sisters," Soun chided her, his look of disappointment putting Nabiki's figurative back hairs up right quick.

"That was years ago, daddy! And I haven't kept up my training like Akane has!" Nabiki pointed out.

"I'm not promising miracles, girl. But even you can be taught a few tricks to keep you alive out there," Genma solemnly explained.

A part of Nabiki bristled indignantly at the dismissive implications of Genma's words. It was promptly beaten into silence by the pragmatic majority of her. "And what about Ranma's training?"

Now, finally, Genma blinked in confusion. "What about him? He already knows how to fight, and he cleaned this Mikado's clock once already, you said."

"Yeah, he can fight... but what about skating? He's terrible at it! He can barely stand up on the ice!" Nabiki pointed out, too angry at this whole mess to have any hesitations about blurting out that little fact, which left Ranma wincing.

Genma simply shrugged. "Ranma will have to train himself for that. It wouldn't be the first time. He can handle himself. You, on the other hand... we had better get started straight away." Nabiki honed in on the words "It wouldn't be the first time." but did not have long to ponder them before he grabbed Nabiki's wrist and pulled her to her feet, dragging the startled middle Tendo daughter in the direction of the dojo.

"Hey, wait, I never! Stop!" Nabiki sputtered, trying to muster a coherent protest, only to find Genma's grip as inexorable as an iron shackle and the man moving with the inevitability of a bulldozer, leaving her helpless to do anything but follow.

The rest of the Tendo household watched her go, but the shock quickly wore off. A wicked grin spread across Akane's face. "Nabiki? Training? This I gotta see!" she giggled, quickly scurrying after the two, with Soun hot on her heels.

Ranma cast a guilty look after them, and tried to sit up... only for his bruised body to make its protests quite insistent, and sending him crashing back to the floor. "I really screwed this up," he sighed, feeling the guilt wrapping leaden links around his heart.

"It wasn't your fault, Ranma. It's not as if you started this on purpose, did you?" Kasumi asked, meticulously tending to her future brother-in-law's injuries.

"No!" Ranma immediately protested, shooting a look of wounded innocence at the eldest Tendo daughter.

"Then you shouldn't blame yourself. Just focus on getting better. Nabiki will be fine - your father's not going to hurt her, after all," Kasumi soothed him.

Ranma cast her an ambivalent look, but held his tongue and stayed his peace, letting the eldest Tendo concentrate on patching him up. Despite her kind words, he still knew he'd seriously messed things up... he had to make this up to Nabiki...

In the Tendo Dojo...

Doing her best to push aside ancient and rather unwelcome memories, Nabiki stared nervously at the hulking bear of a man who purported to one day be her father-in-law.

"Alright, Nabiki; let's start somewhere simple. I want you to punch me," Genma declared.

Nabiki stared at Genma as if he'd just turned into a panda for the first time. "Are you sure about that?"

"It's the easiest way for me to gauge your skills. Now... punch me!" he ordered, taking a very open stance.

Nabiki didn't hesitate twice. All it took was a moment's thought to dredge up all the things about Genma that she found annoying, and she launched a straight-arm punch right into the Saotome patriarch's stomach. To her amazement, she actually hit him! She'd been expecting him to dodge or block it at a split second, like she'd seen Ranma do all the time. For the briefest of moments, she felt a glimmer of hope, even pride!

...And then the pain in her wrist registered and she grabbed her hand up with a bawl of surprise, clenching her wrist as what felt like every bone in it reverberated from the impact on Genma's stomach. "What are you made of? Brick?" She gasped, panting in pain as she tried to squeeze the burning fire from her pulsing fingers.

Akane covered her eyes in sheer embarrassment, whilst Genma shook his head with ponderous slowness. "I wasn't expecting much, but... that was pathetic," he proclaimed with a broadening grin that Nabiki swore was sadistic. "We've got a lot of work to do... I want you to try and copy these forms... hurry up!"

About an hour later...

"And rest!"

Nabiki allowed herself to stop repeating the exercises that Genma had been showing her and demanding that she mimic, sinking to her knees in exhaustion, sweating like a pig and panting like a dog. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd felt this worn out!

Watching the shuddering, exhausted wreck of a girl, Genma simply rubbed his chin contemplatively. "Hmm... better. You're not entirely hopeless," he announced begrudgingly.

"High praise," Akane sarcastically quipped from the sidelines. Still, she couldn't deny a certain sense of schadenfreude at watching her sister's suffering... this felt so much like karma for the many years of her teasing Akane for her interest in martial arts!

Meanwhile, Soun sniffed back a tear, although even he couldn't determine if he was crying at the suffering his little girl was undergoing, fear of the thought of her having to get into an actual martial arts battle, or pride that Nabiki was actually trying to learn martial arts herself.

"You have a surprising ability to grasp the forms, and a very good memory. Physical traits all need major work... how long do we have until this match?" Genma looked over at Ranma, who had crept in about half an hour ago to watch and hadn't dared to speak up.

"Uh, about a week?" he confessed after tallying everything mentally.

"Hmph. Well, I suppose there's one thing for it. Your father will help in trying to get your physical abilities to a somewhat passable level. But it seems we'll need to focus your training on mastering the Saotome School Final Attack," Genma declared with a raised finger and, in Ranma's opinion, an overdone pose.

"The Saotome School Final Attack? What's that?" Akane interjected, giving Genma an excited look. An actual secret technique, from Ranma's school no less?!

"Nothing less than mastery of the principles of Speed, Strategy, and Separation," Genma explained stoically, his face the very picture of a wise martial artist dispensing great wisdom.

Silence fell across the dojo, as three knowing minds waited for two unknowing ones to be similarly enlightened. Ironically, it was Akane who put the pieces together first.

"That's just a fancy way of running away!" she cried out, glowering at Genma. "How can you call yourself a martial artist with a move based on that?!"

"Hey, it's harder than it sounds!" Ranma protested, earning a scornful sneer from Akane.

"And it's our only option," Genma interjected hurriedly. "Unless either Nabiki is actually a master martial artist who's been hiding her prowess to spare your feelings-"

Despite herself, Akane couldn't help but cast an inquisitive look at Nabiki, who quickly shook her head.

"-Or she's a martial arts prodigy who can master in seven days what it took my boy fourteen years to learn? Then all we can do is teach her how to better evade danger whilst Ranma focuses on doing the actual fighting," Genma concluded. He stopped and looked at the still-panting Nabiki, then shook his head. "I think we've done enough for this evening. We'll resume training tomorrow... naturally, you'll be skipping school until the day of the match to focus on practice."

At that, Nabiki moaned in despair and collapsed face-first onto the floor. A week of this?! Ryoga was going to pay when she saw him next!

Unable to resist, whilst their fathers filed out of the dojo and headed back to the house, eager to see what Kasumi had prepared for dinner, Akane walked over to her prone sister and patted her on the shoulder in a consoling gesture.

"Don't worry, Nabiki; it gets easier with practice," she assured her. The words elicited another mournful moan from the middle Tendo, at which Akane merely smiled; it was about time Nabiki learned what it took to be a martial artist.

As the youngest Tendo left and made her way to the living room, Nabiki was left to stew in her thoughts. At least, until the sound of soft footsteps approaching her drew her back to the world of the living. She shifted around, and looked up into the guilt-stricken face of Ranma.

"Um... here. I got you some cool water," he said, meekly offering her a glass.

Nabiki immediately snatched the life-giving nectar from Ranma's hand and pulled it to her mouth, her own hands shaking with her eagerness to drink.

Ranma promptly snatched it back from her. "Hey-hey! Not so fast, you'll make yourself sick," he chided her, before slowly bringing the rim of the glass to her mouth.

This time, Nabiki consented to letting Ranma dictate the pace... she had to admit, after those first few agonizing moments where she just wanted to guzzle it down, it actually did feel and taste much better as it slowly sluiced down her throat. By the time she'd polished off the glass, she felt much better. "Thanks, Ranma," she instinctively told him.

"It's nothing... um, Nabiki?"

She looked up at him, seeing the way he couldn't meet her gaze, fidgeting in clear discomfort. 'I've never seen him look this shy before... no, wait; back when we first learned about the curse,' she privately corrected herself.

Finally, after a moment's hesitation, Ranma sighed and mournfully said, "I'm sorry, Nabiki. I didn't mean to get you involved in this."

Nabiki simply stared at him calmly, considering his words. 'I should give him the riot act for this mess... but it's not like he wasn't provoked, was it? Besides, look at him; it would be like kicking up a puppy... lucky for you, Ranma, that I like puppies.' Pushing down the urge to smirk, Nabiki instead calmly proclaimed, "I know you didn't, Ranma, and I'm not mad... not at you, anyway. But still, you have got to learn to think before you leap! We might not get so lucky the next time something like this happens," she chided him.

"I promise, Nabiki," he replied, visibly perking up at her accepting his apology. Then his expression shifted to a more pensive one, with Ranma nervously twiddling his fingers. "Um...ah... about our date?"

"Yes? What about it?" Nabiki asked, wondering what he was thinking.

"I know today was a bust, but... could we maybe try it again? Once we beat the tar outta these saps who messed it up?" he asked hopefully.

'He really needs to ask?' Nabiki marveled. Then, she replied aloud by saying, "Of course we can, Ranma."

Ranma visibly brightened up. "Thanks, Nabiki!" he cheered.

"But you're going to pay for it," she interjected, smiling as she did so. "That's your punishment for this."

Ranma simply shrugged. "Eh, fair enough. C'mon; let's get and have dinner. You need to eat to get your strength back."

With perfect poignant timing, Nabiki's stomach growled like an animal, wringing a blush from the startled Tendo girl. Taking Ranma's hand, she let him lift her to her feet, and then the pair of engaged teens made their way to the dining room.

Tuesday morning...

When the Saotomes had moved into the Tendo household, Nabiki thought she had found the worst wakeup call ever: being jarred awake by the sounds of father and son fighting like a pair of wild animals, with battle cries and the smack of flesh-on-flesh dragging her into the waking world at the crack of dawn.

Now she knew there were even worse ways... like being grabbed from her warm cosy bed and thrown out the window, with only the desperate efforts of her fiancé keeping her from plunging into the icy waters of the koi pond the way that Ranma had done mere minutes beforehand.

"Pop, are you nuts?! What were you thinking?!" the soaking wet redhead shrieked, cradling her significantly taller fiancée to her newly sprouted and consequently still-damp bosom.

"Pah, a little wake-up bath never hurt anybody! Besides, she needs to start working on her danger sense, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone," Genma scoffed, giving Ranma a look that said he was being particularly thick for not getting the idea.

Which was when a palpable wave of battle aura rolled across the garden, a sensation of mingled rage and fear and intimidation that even Nabiki could sense - if only because she'd had previous experience with this before. The light dimmed as a monstrous, ukiyo-e rendition of her father's head suddenly loomed over the now-pale and visibly sweating Genma, tongue lashing like a whip.

"Sao! To! Me!" Soun's voice thundered like the echoing cacophony of an angry deity. "How dare you do that to my little girl!" he roared, the Demon Head technique bursting like a soap bubble to reveal the Tendo patriarch, clad in full samurai armor and sporting a naginata, with which he began to chase Genma around the garden.

Nabiki took in the sight of her father in full protective outrage mode, and then blinked slowly. "So... what now?" she asked hesitantly, trying to ignore the feeling of Ranma... well, squishing up against her arm.

"Well..." Ranma said, before swinging her gently to her feet. "First we're going to stretch..."

Ranma immediately set to taking up a pose she obviously expected Nabiki to mimic, "...And then we're going to chase pop down and beat him senseless. Sound good to you?" she chirped, smiling wickedly.

Nabiki blinked, and then her own malicious grin spread slowly across her face. "I think that sounds like a wonderful idea, Ranma" she agreed, beginning to mimic Ranma's stretches...

Tuesday afternoon...

Ranma spat a curse in Chinese Sailor, a multi-ethnic pidgin tongue he'd learned on the docks of China, as his treacherous feet slipped from underneath him yet again, sending him crashing face-first onto the ice. Nabiki was back at the Tendo house, undergoing more training, but he'd been sent back to the local ice rink to get his skating practice done. Some snot-nosed little brat laughed at his ineptitude on the ice, but went very quiet indeed when Ranma snarled and smashed one fist against the ice, sending thin cracks radiating outwards through the thick frozen crust.

'Stupid skates... why is this so hard?! But I gotta do this... I got Nabiki into trouble because I was a coward and tried to hide behind my curse... it's my responsibility to make up for!'

Gritting his teeth, Ranma slowly clambered back to his feet, determined to try this again, and again, and again; as many times as it took to make things right!

Wednesday morning...

"Alright, the principle of this exercise is simple... if you can dodge a ball, you should be able to dodge a punch," Genma explained, casually tossing one of Nabiki's tennis balls up and down in his hand as she did so.

"I guess that makes sense..." Nabiki admitted, watching Genma warily.

"Good... now, dodge!"

Nabiki yelped as Genma's arm suddenly snapped out - she'd forgotten how fast the chunky-looking Saotome patriarch could move! - and just barely stepped out of the way of the ball as it sped past her like a giant green bullet.

It audibly ricocheted off the walls and ceiling of the dojo before slapping meatily back into Genma's waiting palm, where he began to casually toss it again. "Hmm... better than I expected, to be honest. Let's try that again..."

That was all the warning Nabiki had before the ball rocketed past her again, which she narrowly avoided. "What happened to the warning?!" she protested.

"Foolish girl! Do you believe your enemy will telegraph every move they make so blatantly?! You must learn to sense danger and react without thinking!" Genma thundered, even as he launched the ball at her a third time.

To Nabiki's credit, she managed to dodge Genma's "attacks" a good five or six times... then she took one right to the sternum, and things went downhill rapidly from there.

Wednesday afternoon...

The sound of ice-skate blades biting into the frozen crust of the rink filled Ranma's ears as he sped across the surface, pushing himself to see how fast he could really go. It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to finally get the trick of balancing, but now he could reliably stand upright and move without falling over, a far cry to how badly he'd done before.

But that didn't mean he could be resting on his laurels! Now it was time to keep pushing, because just being able to stand up reliably wouldn't be that impressive against that asshole Mikado...

A kid suddenly darted in front of Ranma, who tried to swerve away... only to lose control and go sailing across the ice, smashing headfirst through the retaining wall.

"Aaaoooowww... Gotta work on my turns," he moaned, rubbing his aching forehead.

Thursday morning...

Seeing Nabiki going for a morning jog was not an unusual thing in this neighborhood - Akane would also do the same thing. But the locals had never seen her being chased by an angry bald man in a gi cracking a horsewhip in the process before.

"Come on, run, girl, run! Your enemies will be crueler than this!" Genma roared, punctuating his words with snaps of his whip.

"You're crazy! How did Ranma survive training under you?! Mikado wouldn't be this bad!" Nabiki hollered over her shoulder as she did everything she could to stay ahead of Genma. She had a welt on her ass to prove that he wasn't brandishing that whip for show.

Hot on Genma's heels was the enraged Soun Tendo, clad once again in his ancestral samurai armor. "Saotome?! I told you not to harm my little girl!" he roared, swinging his naginata around for emphasis.

"Come back here, you maniac!" Akane Tendo agreed, brandishing her shinai with murderous intent as she ran alongside her father. She'd been planning on heading to school, and then she'd caught sight of Genma's latest "training exercise" for her sister, and all thoughts of that had flown right out of her head.

Popcorn was distributed as neighbors and passers-by alike stopped to watch the impromptu farce being performed in broad daylight.

Thursday afternoon...

Ranma waved his arms frantically, trying to reaffirm his balance after landing from a leap and flip - ordinarily, such an act would have been child's play to him after his years of dedicated training, but doing it on the ice added an element of extra continuous motion that he was having to deal with. For one long, terrible moment, he thought he was going to fall again... but finally, at the last second, he managed to simultaneously stop himself and stand up straight. He exhaled a sigh of relief, but then permitted himself a triumphant grin.

'I got you now, Mikado... Next time, we'll have a real fight...!'

Friday morning...

Ranma stared into the sink full of cold water, trying to chase off the twin feelings of deja vu and fear that were rattling around inside his skull. 'Stop it, Ranma! Mikado ain't gonna be here, and you know that you need to train your girl body for this too. Your center of gravity shifts, and you know it's possible you could get splashed as part of this match - ice is just water so cold it froze, after all.'

He took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled slowly as he steeled himself. Biting his lip, he plunged his arms into the water and splashed it over his face, feeling the now-familiar transformation take effect. Flicking her wet ponytail aside, Ranma grabbed her female-sized skates and headed for the rink, ready to start practicing.

Friday afternoon...

Nabiki stared at the cinderblock as it lay there before her, silently taunting her from atop its brick stands. She held up one dainty, feminine hand, staring at it as if she'd never seen it before. Hesitantly, delicate fingers curled into a tiny fist, doubt squirming in her stomach like a live eel.

Closing her eyes, Nabiki inhaled deeply, holding her breath. 'Okay, Nabiki, you can do this... Akane does it all the time. Daddy said you can do it, and even Mr. Saotome said you were ready. Just gotta focus... find your center... and...!'

The middle Tendo's eyes snapped open and her held breath exploded from her in a mighty "Hi-yaah!" as she drove her fist down without hesitation squarely into the cinderblock... and split it in half!

"Ha-huh!" Nabiki half-gasped, half-laughed. "I-I did it! Akane, I did it!" she blurted out, looking over to her little sister for recognizance... and then blanching as she watched Akane effortlessly smash a pile of four bricks with one lazy-seeming strike.

Akane blinked and looked up from the pile of concrete shards. "Hmm? Did you say something, Nabiki?"

"N-no, never mind," Nabiki told her, wilting. 'What was I thinking, showing off like that to Akane, of all girls?'

Unfortunately for her, Akane was a bit more observant than Nabiki had given her credit for. She spotted the smashed brick in front of her elder sister, and her eyes lit up with glee. "Nabiki! You did it! That's amazing!" she shouted, smiling happily as she ran over to give her startled sibling a hug.

"I- it was just one brick, though!" Nabiki protested feebly.

"Doesn't matter! Just five days ago, you couldn't have broken a stick of pocky!" Akane laughed, giving Nabiki a playful squeeze before letting her go. "You really have come a long way, sis - I never knew you had a talent for martial arts yourself. Even Mr. Saotome said it," Akane confessed.

"He did, huh?" Nabiki replied, trying to wrap her head around the idea of Ranma's crazy father saying that... and if it was a good or a bad thing that he thought so.

"Yeah... okay, he was a jerk about it, too, but he did say you have a knack for martial arts... how come you've never given them a try before?" Akane asked inquisitively.

"They're just... not my thing. I like my creature comforts, not getting all hot and sweaty. So don't worry, little sister; once this stupid mess with Mikado and Azusa is done, I'll be retiring and you can go back to being the Tendo School Champion, okay?" Nabiki assured her.

Akane simply looked at her strangely. Truth be told, there was a part of her that felt relieved by that; martial arts had always been the thing that made her special in the family, and she didn't really like the idea of Nabiki taking that from her. It actually stung a little that nobody had suggested that she substitute for Nabiki in this upcoming fight... well, alright, she probably would have refused, but it was the thought that mattered! But... on the other hand, she kind of liked the idea of being able to share martial arts with her big sister, too.

'Gah, how am I supposed to feel about this?' Akane grumbled in the privacy of her own head. 'Thank goodness the match is in three days, and this nonsense will all be over and done with!'

Saturday...

"Gee, Ryonami, do you think Nabiki will be mad that we took so long to come here?" Kikuko hesitantly asked her companion as they walked through the front gate into the Tendo Estate.

"You worry too much, Kikuko!" the brunette chided her. "Nabiki always says that the more information you have, the better. It's not our fault that it took us so long to get all this information from Kolhotz High School... especially since she also had us doing her homework for her this week, too."

"Yeah... I wonder why she's been absent. Do you think she's sick?" Kikuko mused.

"We'll soon find out," Ryonami replied. Spotting Kasumi sweeping, she walked over to the eldest of the Tendo Daughters. "Good afternoon! I'm sorry, but may we see Nabiki? We're friends of hers from class," she explained.

"Oh, yes, I remember you - Ryonami and Kikuko, right? Nabiki should be in the dojo - please, go on through," Kasumi politely replied.

The two 17-year-olds exchanged mutual confused looks. Nabiki? In the dojo? Thusly both informed and bemused, they followed Kasumi's directions and soon found themselves stepping through the doors into the Tendo Dojo... and into a scene that neither of them could have imagined in their wildest, most late-night junk-food binge-fueled nightmares!

There in front of them was their friend and unofficial leader, Nabiki Tendo, the smartest girl in Furinkan, the girl who always tried to get out of gym class or anything physical when she could... clad in a gi and fighting with her little sister. Not in the usual female use of the term "fight", either, where two angry girls would scream insults and accusations at each other at the top of their lungs. No, this was Nabiki and Akane going at it with fists and feet flying; punches, kicks, karate chops, the whole shebang... and Nabiki was winning!

...Okay, she was keeping Akane at bay instead of being knocked out in one blow, but still, it was a sight that the two teens couldn't have imagined in their most fevered dreams. And when Akane made a fatal error in the form of an overextended punch, which Nabiki responded to by grabbing and flipping Akane cleanly over her shoulder to a painful rump-first landing on the floor? Kikuko and Ryonami's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets!

But it seemed her actions had come as a surprise even to Nabiki, because moments after Akane hit the floor, Nabiki blinked and then clasped her hands over her mouth in horror. "Oh-no-Akane! I'm sorry! Are you alright?!" she cried out in a rare display of sincere sisterly dismay.

"Wha? Bleh!" Akane shook her head, and then gave her sister an upside-down grin. "I'm fine, Nabiki! Wow, you've come a long way since we started - I can't believe you got this good in just five days!"

"Well, it wasn't like Mr. Saotome was giving me much of a choice," Nabiki pointed out, concern quickly snuffed and buried under a more normal layer of dry wit and sarcasm.

At that, Akane frowned. "Yeah... actually, that kind of explains why Ranma is such a jerk, if he grew up with that. I think I'll stick to asking for Ryoga's help if I need to kick up my training..." she muttered.

This was all too surreal for Ryonami, who shook her head and tried to get things back to normal by announcing herself. "Hello? Nabiki? You wanted to speak to us?" she called.

Nabiki visibly started, clearly not having detected her friends arrival. "Ryonami?! Kikuko?! What? ...Oh. Oh, yeah, that's right," she replied, memories finally managing to shoulder their way forward after the crazy near-week that she'd had. "Akane, do you mind?" she asked.

Akane, who had pulled herself upright by this point, simply shook her head. "No, no; go ahead. You've been training long and hard. It's about time that you went and had a break," she assured her sibling.

"Thanks, Akane," Nabiki said, giving her sister a soft smile before she turned to her friends. "Let's go to my room; we can talk there..."

Without hesitation, she began leading the way, with Kikuko and Ryonami instinctively falling behind her. The path to Nabiki's room was far more familiar, and soon the trio were safely ensconced in the intimate territory of Nabiki's private room. The middle Tendo sat on her chair and stared up at her underlings, steepling her fingers as she said. "Now... what have you learned?"

Save for the little incongruity that she was still wearing a gi, this was a slice of normality, and Kikuko immediately felt the balance of the universe restored. "Okay, so, Azusa Shiratori and Mikado Sanzenin; they're students at Kolhotz High School and they're its resident champions of Martial Arts Figure Skating. In fact, they're known all over Tokyo, and might even be going onto the world stage at some point if they stick with it as they age - they've scored a record of 950 consecutive wins since their career began!"

Truth be told, that was a very impressive number; even Nabiki felt shocked. But she had a reputation as the Ice Queen to uphold, and so she buried her feelings behind her traditional icy mask. "Interesting... they're that strong?"

"Yeah... they've both got big fanclubs, although most of them are horny teens with a crush on them. Azusa's actually supposedly from some rich family, which is how she avoids getting into trouble with all her klepto antics. Mikado's smarter than she is, but he's also an incurable lech - Ranma wasn't the first girl he kissed like that... uh, no offense," Ryonami added, once she realized who she was talking to.

"I kind of suspected that," Nabiki noted dryly, Mikado's actions had been way too...natural to be something he didn't do often enough to be second nature to him.

"A lot of people think he has some kind of weird 'thing' for kissing. Because he kisses one girl, and then that's it; he dumps her and goes looking for the next one, ready to score and then start the cycle all over again."

'I knew something was creepy when he came onto me at the rink,' Nabiki mused privately. "Good work, ladies... anything else?"

"One other thing... the Golden Pair are also known as the Anti-Matchmakers. See, a lot of Martial Arts Figure Skating teams are romantic couples, and the Golden Pair's tactics revolve really heavily around turning couples against each other," Kikuko added.

"Wait, seriously?" Nabiki asked, too incredulous to resist doing so.

"Yeah... they both like to flirt with the team-member of the opposite sex or make it look like they're doing stuff, so their opponents will get jealous and start bickering with each other. But their main tactic is a move they call the Goodbye Whirl," Ryonami explained. "Azusa grabs the guy on the other team, who grabs the girl, and then Mikado lifts Azusa up and starts spinning around like a top. As they spin, they tell the guy that if he lets his partner go, they'll let him down unharmed... course, once the sucker does what they tell him, Mikado darts off to save the girl and Azusa basically piledrives the guy into the rink. Naturally, the couple breaks up after that."

"Naturally..." Nabiki agreed ruefully. "Quite a clever tactic, actually... smarter than I would have given them credit for. But this time, they won't be using it on a pair of saps who didn't do their homework before the match. Excellent work, ladies."

"Thank you, Nabiki!" Kikuko chirped, visibly basking in the praise, with Ryonami smiling smugly beside her.

"Now, the match will be at Kolhotz High on Monday... do you think you can arrange to take care of the profit side of things for me...?"

Sunday...

With just one day left until the match, Genma had, reluctantly, conceded that it was time for Nabiki to take a break, lest she stress her body too much to actually fight. So Nabiki was, instead of some insane physical training, doing something she would normally do on a Sunday; curl up in front of the TV and watch anime with a can of juice and some snacks.

She was so engrossed in this - it was her favorite series - that she didn't realized Ranma had crept along and sat down next to her until he stole one of her snacks just as she was about to take it. "Gah! Where did you come from?" she yelped, instinctively starting away from him.

"The door ," was Ranma's attempt at a pithy reply, smirking as he crunched down the rice cracker.

"Wise guy... remind me to get you a bell after we sort this mess out," Nabiki scoffed, rolling her eyes but unable to keep a small grin off of her face.

"Remind me to tell you about some of my dad's lessons in stealth," Ranma quipped back.

"Ugh, please don't. I've only had to put up with him for five days - I can't imagine doing it for your entire life," Nabiki said, only partially exaggerating her shudder.

"It's not all bad," Ranma replied, if only because he felt he had to. They sat together in silence for a while, watching the TV, before Ranma hesitantly asked, "So... are you nervous?"

"About what?"

"About the fight tomorrow. It's your first time, an' all that..."

Nabiki bit back a giggle at the unwitting double entendre. "Ah, that. No, I'm not worried... why would I be? I'll have you there to beat them up for me," she quipped, poking Ranma in the shoulder.

"Ah," Ranma shrugged, visibly unsure of what to say in the face of that. In fact, he looked so uncertain that Nabiki felt obligated to elaborate.

"Look, Ranma; I wasn't thrilled about being dragged into this, and I'm still not. But I have every faith that you're going to win. You've been training hard all week, and I know firsthand just how ridiculously good you are at getting better. Your dad's been showing me how to keep out of harm's way, so they won't lay a finger on me. All I have to do is smile and look pretty while you turn that pervert and his bimbo into smears on the ice. Okay?"

Ranma visibly brightened up at Nabiki's words, smiling as he gave her a look filled with wonder. "You're incredible, Nabiki," he marveled.

"And don't you forget it," she smugly shot back. "Now pipe down; this show is just starting to get good."

Ranma smiled and made himself comfortable. He had no idea what this anime was, but right this moment, he couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than sit here and watch it with his fiancée.

Monday...

Finally, it was the day. A full week had come and gone since Ranma and Nabiki's unwelcome encounter at the ice rink, and now they had come to Kolhotz High School, ready to settle things. With the rumor mill fed by Kikuko and Ryonami at Nabiki's behest, many of the other students from Furinkan High were also there. Ranma having a match was reason enough for many to come, since the boy had unofficially established himself as Furinkan High's new champion since his arrival, but the idea that Nabiki was somehow going to be a part of the match - not just running the bets, but actually fighting?! Well, that had the Furinkan High students running!

...Admittedly, more than a few were hoping to see the Ice Queen take a thorough pounding, but nobody was dumb enough to verbalize such hopes!

The two fighters from Furinkan had just arrived at Kolhotz. They stood in front of the sign directing interested parties to the gymnasium, drinking in what was written there.

"The Charlotte Cup, eh?" Nabiki drawled.

"Yeah... who'da thought all this nonsense would happen because of Ryoga?" Ranma agreed.

"Ranma? Nabiki? Issat you!?"

Nabiki blinked, turning in the direction of the voice they'd just heard. "Speak of the devil..." she muttered.

Ranma himself stared dumbfounded as Ryoga came racing up to them, a look of wild desperation on his face.

"Oh, man, it is you! Listen, Ranma, I know we got off on the wrong foot... but you gotta win this! Please!" Ryoga begged, literally throwing himself down on his knees and begging Ranma.

"What the hell?! What happened to you, Ryoga?" Ranma blurted out. Not just from the sheer shock of the proud rival he remembered from Junior High actually and literally begging for help, but because Ryoga had traded in his usual travel-worn apparel for a sleeveless green Chinese shirt, a pair of studded black armbands around his forearms, a gold-edged green bandanna around his forehead, flowing green pants cinched with yellow bands around his knees and ankles, and... a little pink collar around his neck?! Complete with a red love-heart ornament and leash?!

"It's that crazy kook, Azusa! She's had me prisoner for a week, ever since you beat up Mikado and then left!" Ryoga cried. "I can't get away from her - it's like she can sense my every move!"

"But.. what about turning into a human? Shouldn't that have let you escape?" Nabiki pointed out.

"Yeah, except Azusa was the one who changed me back. And she might be crazy, but she's not stupid enough to think we're not one and the same! She doesn't care if I'm a human or a pig; I'm still her 'Charlotte'," Ryoga grizzled.

"...You entirely sure you want us to save you?" Ranma asked.

"Don't even joke about that, Ranma!" Ryoga snapped frantically, looking around wildly like a hunted animal. "I tell you, it's been hell! You have no idea the kind of torments I've endured! She keeps me in her room at all times, unless she decides my pig-form would be perfect to go out with her! She feeds me by hand, and makes me sleep in her bed - she even damn well bathes me! She forces me to play games with her, and watch the most saccharine, girly anime and movies I've ever been forced to sit through!"

"Wow, yeah, it sounds like you've had it sooo rough," Nabiki dryly drawled.

Ryoga exploded up from the ground, grabbing Ranma by the shirt with both hands and shaking him. "You've got to win this, you hear? I can't be her plaything for the rest of my life!" he howled desperately.

"Charlotte! Naughty Charlotte, what are you doing without Azusa? You know you can't run off, Charlotte!"

"Oh, crap!" Ryoga wailed, before turning and running in a random direction. But it wasn't enough to save him. Ranma and Nabiki watched as Azusa suddenly zipped past on rollerskates, brandishing a water pistol and firing it at Ryoga, then scooped up the disorientated pig without even breaking stride from her skating.

"...Suddenly, I'm a little more sympathetic to Ryoga's plight," Ranma confessed with a disquieted expression on his face..That just wasn't right.

"Yeah, no kidding... but we won't do anything about it just standing here. You better get to the men's dressing room, Ranma; I'll see you on the rink when it's time for the match," Nabiki said.

"Alright, yeah, see ya, Nabiki," Ranma replied, and then jogged off in the direction he'd been told to go.

Nabiki began to head in the direction of the women's dressing room... and then stopped as she realized something. 'I could have asked him for a kiss for good luck! Dammit, Nabiki!'

Only her need to protect her image kept her from dope-slapping herself at the realization.

In the men's dressing room...

"Mr. Saotome; you finally made it," Mikado declared, spinning suavely in his seat to face Ranma as his opponent walked through the door.

Ranma responded by flippantly raising a hand in greeting and nonchalantly replying, "Yo, Mikado the molester! How's it going?" He didn't even try to hide his smirk as Mikado nearly fell backwards off of his seat in shock.

"It's Sanzenin, you idiot!" Mikado snapped, the suave and debonair mask he cultivated at all times cracking in his rage as he leapt to his feet, fists clenched. But then, as quickly as he'd given in, he reined himself back in, turning his back pointedly on Ranma to look into the mirror and start fixing his hair with his comb.

"Your booboos all better now?" Ranma mockingly asked as he put his backpack down and began withdrawing his outfit for the match.

Mikado actually managed to chuckle at Ranma's insult. "I merely let my guard down for a moment, that's all. The real match will be a different story. Your charming partner... Nabiki Tendo, isn't that her name?"

Ranma blinked at the sudden change in topic from the usual pre-match trash-talk, letting out a wordless noise of vague confirmation.

Still fixated on his reflection, Mikado conversationally observed, "I still haven't given your partner my special greeting."

Now Ranma turned fully to his opponent. "Greeting?" he repeated in his confusion.

"The girl hasn't been born who doesn't welcome my special greeting," Mikado purred, visibly luxuriating in pleasant memories.

The memories his words conjured in Ranma's mind were nowhere near so pleasant. Suppressed images of his first encounter with the sickeningly suave youth, and in particular what he'd interrupted him doing before their first battle, flooded into Ranma's brain in a wash of dark realization. "Your greeting? You don't mean..." he began.

Now, finally, Mikado turned to Ranma. "One more," he declared, holding up an index finger for emphasis, his eyes burning holes into Ranma's soul. "One more, and I shall have kissed one thousand girls, each more gorgeous than the last!" he bragged.

That confirmation was the final spark to light the tinder of Ranma's rage. "No you don't!" he snarled, fists snapping up into a pre-punch pose in his rage.

"You will hear me out!" Mikado declared, the steel in his words shocking enough that Ranma bit back his instinct to just take the lecher's head off right here and right now. "At some point during today's match, I shall surely steal a kiss from the lips of Nabiki Tendo," he vowed, aura twinkling to life around him with the passion of his promise.

"Don't you think of anything other than kissing girls?" a disgusted Ranma asked in exasperation.

Mikado merely made a dismissive gesture. "What else is there worth thinking about?" he responded flatly.

His response actually shocked Ranma out of his protective mode, and he started at the other youth with a mixture of surprise, resignation and disgust. 'Geeze, this guy's almost scary...'

Time for the match...

The Kolhotz gym was packed, with seating clustered around what had originally been the school's swimming pool until it had been reconfigured into the rink for today's match. Students from Kolhotz and Furinkan rubbed shoulders with each other and even with a smattering of visitors from elsewhere, drawn by the lure of gossip or their membership in either Azusa or Mikado's fan clubs. The air reverberated with music playing from the speakers around the gym, augmenting rather than obscuring the buzz of excited whispers and gossip.

Practically invisible amongst the crowd, the occupants of the Tendo dojo - Soun, Kasumi, Akane and Genma Saotome - were all impatiently settled into their seats.

"Oh, it's so exciting, isn't it, father?" Kasumi chirped, clasping her hands together. It had been... well, a very long time since she'd been out to a spectacle like this. The heady atmosphere of anticipation had her quite giddy.

"Oh, Nabiki... please be careful!" Soun muttered to himself, eyes dripping with unshed tears of concern for his frail and innocent daughter, too distracted to listen to Kasumi.

"I still don't feel right letting Nabiki go through with this," Akane grumbled.

"Pah! My son will keep her safe. Have a little faith in your brother-in-law, Akane," Genma boomed, making Akane grit her teeth.

The announcer tapped his microphone, and then leaned forward to start speaking into it. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Charlotte Cup! The Martial Arts Figure Skating fight to the finish to determine ownership of the pig named 'Charlotte'! And now let me introduce our competitors!"

From his position chained to the golden trophy cup, Ryoga squealed forlornly. He gave his bindings an experimental tug, but resigned himself to needing to wait for Ranma and Nabiki to win the match. This was humiliating... he was supposed to be Ranma's worst enemy, damnit! Why did he have to hope for Ranma, of all people, to save him?!

"Representing Kolhotz High, it's the Golden Pair, the undefeated Emperor Sanzenin and his consort, the delightful Azusa Shiratori!"

The lights went out, and spotlights lit up as new music began to play, signalling the debut appearance of the Golden Pair. Down a multicolored "catwalk" of lights they skated, hand-in-hand and moving with perfect synchronization, until Mikado suddenly picked Azusa up and perched her on his outstretched left arm, gliding across the ice to the cheers and applause of an appreciative audience. His own fanclub in particular went wild, cheering and calling declarations of love, to which Mikado blew them kisses, whilst Azusa's fan-club struck up a rhythmic chant of her name, causing her to give them a cute wink before the Golden Pair drew to a stop, with Azusa dropping to the ice.

From their position, Ranma and Nabiki watched the whole affair. "Show offs," Ranma grumbled.

"Now, Ranma; they may be jerks, but they're also legitimately skilled. Don't go underestimating them," Nabiki chided him.

"Sorry, Nabiki..." Ranma apologized. Before he could get any further, a spotlight illuminated them both, the obvious signal for their own entry to the rink. "Come on; we'll show these two a lesson they won't forget," he vowed... then he reached out and swept Nabiki up onto his shoulder.

Despite everything, Nabiki couldn't help a flutter of nervousness as Ranma shifted under her; she knew, abstractly, that Ranma could really learn when he put his mind to it, and she'd come a long way from the defenseless nobody she'd been after a week in his father's dubious care, but could Ranma actually skate?

She got her answer when Ranma surged forward, almost flying across the ice, much faster than Mikado and Azusa had gone. 'Huh, that practice paid - OFF!?' Nabiki's thought surged into panic as Ranma suddenly launched her skywards.

For a moment, she was too scared to even scream... but then the training kicked in and she instinctively began to twist into a forward flip. As she spun through the air, she caught glimpses of Ranma bounding across the ice in a series of rapid-pace forward flips, leaping from hands to feet and back again, but she pushed that aside to concentrate on controlling her descent.

To her own private amazement, she actually pulled off a perfect four-point landing... which became all the more impressive when she realized that she hadn't landed on the ice, but in Ranma's upstretched hand. He twisted in a full circle, spinning her around like a dancing ballerina toy, and then lowered her to the floor smoothly, allowing her to daintily step back onto the rink.

"And here, representing Furinkan High, are Ranma Saotome and Nabiki Tendo!"

From their place in the ringside seats, where they were frantically running the bets, Kikuko and Ryonami stared dumbfounded at the feat they had just witnessed, comparing it to Ranma's absolute hopelessness of a week prior. "Remind me to never, ever bet against Ranma learning anything martial arts related again," Ryonami breathed in shock, Kikuko mutely nodding her agreement.

Genma glanced at Akane, and then smirked at the dumbfounded look on her face. "Still have doubts that Ranma will look after her?" he gloated.

Down in the rink, Akane wasn't the only one stupefied by what they'd just seen. "How did such a thug improve so quickly?!" Mikado hissed to himself.

Azusa merely glared at the two. "Those two meanies... they're not taking my Charlotte away!" she vowed.

CLANG!

"And there's the bell! The battle for the pet black pig begins! Remember; this is a no-holds-barred single match competition, people!"

"No holds barred, hm?" Nabiki purred. "Sounds like the Anything-Goes School has the advantage, eh, Ranma?" she quipped, brushing a flirtatious hand against her fiancé's cheek.

To her surprise, instead of playing along, Ranma shuddered. "Please, Nabiki... don't do that again," he pleaded.

'...Well, that was random...' Nabiki thought. But she didn't have long to muse on it, because Ranma suddenly jetted off, and she had to race to follow. Even if the plan was to let Ranma handle the bulk of the fighting, visibly lagging behind would just make her an obvious target.

Mikado and Azusa skated straight at their Furinkan High foes, Azusa riding on Mikado's backwards-stretched hands. Ranma sprang at Mikado in a diving kick, but Azusa simply leapt from Mikado's hands to dodge the attack, whilst Mikado evaded with a subtle twist. As Ranma skidded along the rink, fighting to simultaneously stop and keep his balance, Mikado shot towards the startled Nabiki, nimbly weaving around her and catching her by the waist, tilting her backwards so that he could look her in the eyes.

"Might I say you're looking particularly lovely today," he purred seductively.

"Emperor Sanzenin wastes no time in launching his famous Kiss Attack!" cried the announcer, to the obvious dismay of Mikado's fangirls.

"...Yeah, no," Nabiki replied icily, before driving her fist into Mikado's closest kidney, simultaneously folding him over and using that to propel herself out of his now-slack grip.

"Rejected! That's a true first for Emperor Sanzenin!"

"Serves you right, you pervert!" Akane crowed from her seat in the stands. "Nice work, Nabiki!"

"Wow, I didn't know the boss had it in her," Kikuko confessed to Ryonami, who nodded her agreement.

"Stupid Mikky! Fight now, flirt later!" Azusa screamed at her erstwhile partner, even as she directed a rapid-fire set of spin-kicks at Ranma, who blocked each blow and then retaliated with a snap-punch... which she deftly dodged, much to Ranma's frustration.

'Great. I spent all that time learning to skate, and I forgot to learn how to actually fight on skates! Slippery pair of jerks are better at dodging on this surface than I am at hitting 'em...'

Unfortunately for Nabiki, Mikado was nothing if not persistent. With almost Kuno-like tenacity, he bounced back from her kidney-punch and, winning smile fixed on his face again, he skated after her. "Aw, poor thing - don't be shy! I'm a lover, not a fighter!"

"That is the lamest pick-up line I've ever heard!" Nabiki spat back, skating off as quickly as she could.

Seeing Mikado going after his fiancée, Ranma saw red. "You stay away from her, ya skirt-chasing kiss-stealing blue-blooded snot-nosed prick!" he snarled, charging across the ice with the subtlety and grace of a stampeding bull, aiming himself like a human missile right at Mikado.

From his position at the trophy display, Ryoga waved a hoof dismissively. 'Meh... I'd give it a 3 out of 5.'

To Ranma's irritation, Mikado simply evaded him, twisting away into a long curving arc. Ranma chose not to chase after him, instead skating over to rejoin his fiancée. "You okay, Nabiki?"

"Yeah; as far as I'm concerned, he'll be harmless. Pervert like that would never raise an actual hand to a cute girl," Nabiki assured him.

"Now, Nabiki... brace yourself! I will have my kiss!"

Nabiki glanced over at the sound of Mikado's voice and blanched. "Then again, I could be wrong!" she yelped.

Ranma followed her gaze and his eyes went wide as he saw Mikado careening towards him, spinning Azusa around and around like a human flail. But in an instant, he had figured out an opportunity; he grabbed Nabiki's hand and began skating towards the spinning Golden Pair.

"Ranma?!"

"Nabiki, get ready to fly!" he called back over his shoulder.

Trusting her fiancé's instincts for combat, Nabiki nodded and hopped up against Ranma's back, allowing him to reach back and grab her under the shoulders before hurling her in a massive arc towards the ceiling.

As she soared through the air, she watched as Ranma continued charging right for Mikado, who this time was unable to make any clever last-second dodges. Ranma ducked beneath Azusa's legs before they could smack him across the face, and delivered a straight-armed punch right into Mikado's stomach, momentum adding extra "oomph" to his blow.

'Take that, you miserable lech!' Nabiki cheered in the privacy of her mind, even as she dropped gracefully through the air and landed on Ranma's broad, welcoming shoulders and back. Well, "gracefully" might be a bit of a stretch, but Ranma caught her before she hit the ground, so that was important. Although his sudden skid-start as he pivoted on his blade like a pylon did nearly jerk her out of his grip - evidently, Ranma still wasn't in the same league as the Golden Pair when it came to actually skating.

Behind them, Mikado's grip slipped on Azusa, who went flying and deftly saved herself as her partner collapsed onto his knees, clutching where Ranma had punched him with one hand and groaning in pain.

As they watched, Azusa deftly skated back over to Mikado. "Mikky? Does him hurt here?" she asked, poking at the skater's obviously sore side repeatedly and bringing tears to his eyes... before, still intermittently asking "Here? Here?", she began to punch him in the side, eliciting gasps of pain and shock from Mikado.

"Yes, it hurts - it hurts I said!" Mikado groaned. When this failed to stop Azusa from pounding on his side, adrenaline brought him surging to his feet. "I told you it hurts! Stop hitting me there, you silly wench!" he roared, bellowing into Mikado's face.

Incredibly, rather than flinching back and putting on her cute girl act, Azusa simply glared right back at him. "Then maybe Mikky will take this seriously! Little Azusa will be so mad if you cost her my Charlotte!"

"Trouble in paradise? Is the Golden Pair having a lover's quarrel?" Nabiki called out, deliberately projecting her voice to the audience in order to better mock her opponents.

Both Mikado and Azusa recoiled at the admittedly rather common mistake. "We are not a couple!" Mikado snapped, although his pride recoiled at the childishly exaggerated way that Azusa agreed by nodding, covering her hands with her stomach as if she felt physically ill, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes in disgust.

Quickly, though, Mikado forced himself to get back under control, putting on a suave smirk. "Well done, Mr. Saotome. It is rare that I am ever brought to my knees," he confessed. "But you will regret it."

"You don't stop trying to pull that kissing junk with Nabiki, and I'll do more than bring you to your knees," Ranma darkly warned his foe.

"Oh really? Such as?" Mikado scoffed; he'd heard this sort of talk more than once before.

"Such as putting your lady-killing butt straight into a coffin!" Ranma snapped. "Got it!? Nabiki is my fiancée! You touch her, and I'll kill ya!" he snarled.

Nabiki fought in vain to keep the blush from showing on her face, cursing the butterfly swarm that chose that moment to start having a ballet inside her stomach. This was ridiculous... she'd never been the "handsome prince on a white steed" sort of girl. So why did hearing Ranma say something like that reach deep down inside of her and touch all the right buttons?

"So romantic!" Kikuko and Ryonami cooed, staring at their boss and her fiancé with dewy eyes. For a single brief moment, they wondered if Nabiki would be averse to sharing... then reluctantly admitted that word wasn't in her vocabulary.

"Hey! Don't go saying stuff like that in public, ya jerk!" Akane yelled, red with mortification for her sister's sake.

"Oh, my! They really are a good match, aren't they, father?" Kasumi marveled, the faintest hint of crimson dusting her own cheeks. 'Nabiki is so lucky to have a boy who cares for her like Ranma does...'

"Hahaha! That's my son-in-law!" Soun chortled gleefully, now dripping with tears of joy.

Genma simply glowed with smug pride.

Down in the rink, oblivious to the family drama above, Mikado simply scoffed. "Well, fiancées aren't forever," he chuckled.

He began to methodically crack his knuckles, oozing suave, sophistication and menace as much as it was possible to do so when Azusa was childishly bouncing around behind him, pulling ugly faces at Ranma & Nabiki from over her partner's shoulders. "I, Mikado Sanzenin, will take it as a personal challenge to break those ties," he vowed, cackling like the villain he truly was.

"You can try," Ranma scoffed.

"I'll do better than that! She won't be yours much longer!" Mikado vowed, even as Azusa scrambled up onto his shoulders in a handstand-like pose. "We, the world-famous Golden Pair, have another nickname..."

"The Anti-Matchmakers!" Nabiki cheerfully interjected, to the shock of her opponents. She smirked at them with the grin of the cat that got the cream. "What, did you think we wouldn't do our homework? We know all about your reputation for focusing on breaking up your enemy team's partnership. We won't fall for a stupid gambit like that," she bragged, before deciding to rub salt in the wound by wrapping herself around Ranma's arm, hugging him close in a way that had the Furinkan students present boggling; who knew the Ice Queen could be so... spicy?!

"Oh, my! She really shouldn't be doing that in public!" Kasumi protested, cheeks red as she covered her mouth in shock.

"It's just a little healthy affection, nothing strange about it," Genma replied absently, carefully adjusting his video camera for a clearer shot.

"Wait, when did you bring that in?" Soun wondered, having just realized what his old friend was doing.

Mikado quickly regained his smug smirk. "So you say... but actions will always speak louder than words," he cautioned them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's the moment we've all been waiting for! The Golden Pair's ultimate attack; the Couple Cleaver!"

Mikado took off skating, heading straight for his Anything Goes-practicing foes. "There's not a single couple we've ever faced on the ice-"

"-That has stayed together after we split them up!" Azusa finished, giggling with wicked glee.

"Come on, Nabiki; we'll show them who they're messing with!" Ranma gloated.

"Right behind you," she chuckled, skating off in unison with her fiancé. She was so caught up in the act that she even tried to copy Ranma when he tried a leaping kick at the Golden Pair - she landed safely, but without actually hitting anybody, as Mikado simply ducked and Azusa leapt straight up. But Nabiki had to let go of Ranma in order to land without falling, and that was when things went against them.

Looking back, she saw that Azusa had somehow belly-flopped onto Ranma in mid-air, forcing him to instinctively catch the burriko bitch in the process of saving himself. And it didn't take a genius to know what Azusa had in mind, not after what she'd heard about the Golden Pair's fighting style. "Oh crap! Ranma, get away from her!" Nabiki cried, instinctively racing over to try and grab Ranma out of harm's way.

"Nabiki! I swear, it's not!" Ranma blurted, unfortunately failing to realize what was actually bothering his fiancée.

"You're wide open!" Azusa mocked him sweetly, then swung herself across the ground and between Ranma's legs, grabbing his ankles and sending him careening face-first towards the rink's icy surface.

On pure instinct, Nabiki lunged for Ranma's hands and caught him, only to realize at the last moment what a mistake she'd made. Before she could let go, Mikado had skated up and grabbed Azusa's legs before he hoisted his partner aloft in an incredible feat of strength.

With the smoothness that spoke of how often they had not only practiced, but successfully used this move, he began to spin like a top, the centrifugal force traveling through Azusa and into both Ranma and Nabiki, turning them into the weighted end of a spinning flail.

"Say hello to the Goodbye Whirl!" Mikado cackled.

Ranma gritted his teeth; whilst as an Anything Goes practitioner, he'd trained for a lot of crazy situations, being spun around like this wasn't one of them! But it helped he had something else to focus onto - namely, clutching onto Nabiki's hands for dear life as he stared into her panic-stricken eyes.

"Oh-ho! Take a good look, ladies and gentlemen; at last, the Golden Pair's dreaded final technique - the infamous Goodbye Whirl!"

"Listen to me, Ranma Saotome! Release the girl's hand and I'll stop spinning!" Mikado called.

"Go suck a lemon!" Ranma spat back.

"Yo might as well let her go - you can't hang on much longer anyway!" the male half of the Golden Pair taunted him.

"Sez you!"

"Ranma! Listen to him! Let me go!" Nabiki suddenly blurted out, drawing Ranma's incredulous gaze to her.

"What? No way! You'll go flying headfirst into the ice!" Ranma protested.

"Here's where the Goodbye Whirl gets its name! If one partner betrays the other, than he or she will be spared! But what then? Oh, what a terrible way to end a relationship!"

"The more you trust each other, the greater the shock when you're betrayed! A couple caught in the Goodbye Whirl is doomed to disaster!" Mikado gloated.

"Rama, listen to me! It's a set-up; Mikado will grab me before I actually hit the ice and leave Azusa to pound you! This whole thing is a trick to mess with our heads and ruin our partnership! You can let me go!" Nabiki protested. 'Oh, gods, I really hope Kikuko and Ryonami were right... I don't wanna go splat because they got bad intel!'

"I don't care what their game is! I'm not letting you go!" Ranma spat furiously. "You're my fiancée! I'm not letting anybody hurt you!"

Nabiki's treacherous heart chose that moment to skip a beat, although if it was from terror or romantic overload, she couldn't say.

Unfortunately, no matter how determined Ranma was, there was one random element on the battlefield that even he couldn't contain, and her name was Azusa Shiratori. No couple they'd ever fought had managed to cling to each other for so long, and the girl's stamina for this kind of move had been taxed to her limit. "Oooh! Little Azusa is all worn out!" she moaned, even as she slackened her grip and let her victims go flying.

Nabiki screamed in fear as she felt the winds tearing at her dragging her backwards. She couldn't see behind her, but she knew that she was heading legs-first towards the surrounding rink wall. Horrible images of shattered limbs, of months in hospital or even permanent paralysis filled her mind's eye...

And then Ranma's grip on her wrists tightened as he pulled her forward and twisted around. His determined look was the last thing she saw before she spun around. An enormous crash filled her ears, secondly before her head slammed into something that was at once solid and giving - a painful shock, but not hard enough to actually damage her. Still, it scattered her senses, to the point she was barely cognizant of her side protesting as she fell from the air to land on the rink.

She regained full consciousness as a deep, hollow moan of pain drifted into her ears, dimly feeling something sliding past. Slowly and painfully, she sat up on her hip, trying to will the world back into focus... which was when she saw the crater indenting the wall, and Ranma's comatose form lying next to her, one hand still clamped in a deathgrip around her wrist. The world shrank away as that fact sank in, sounding as if it were all coming from far away.

"Look at that! Challenger Saotome never let go of his partner! The Goodbye Whirl was a failure! But faithfulness has its price! Ranma Saotome has sustained serious injury!"

Being the Ice Queen of Furinkan? That meant nothing at this moment. Carefully, timidly, Nabiki laid a hand on Ranma's cheek, bending over him to look for the slightest sign of life. "Oh, no... Ranma? Ranma, please!" she pleaded, as a feeling she'd only ever felt once before in her life came creeping over her heart.

Off to the side, Mikado smirked, ignoring the dreamy way that Azusa was swaying back and forth. "I'm sure that every bone in his body must be crushed! Nothing human could have withstood that!" he gloated, even as Azusa finally succumbed to her dizziness and keeled over backwards with all the grace of a dying pigeon.

In the stands, Kikuko and Ryonami stared, mouths covered in horror. This... this wasn't what was supposed to happen!

"Nabiki..." Akane and Kasumi breathed in unconscious synchronization, staring at their obviously grief-stricken sibling.

Soun broke down and began bawling. "My son! My family!" he sobbed.

"Pull yourself together, Soun!" Genma snapped, giving his old friend a smack on the back of the head. "The boy's had worse hits than that! He'll be fine!"

"Ranma... you... no..." Nabiki whimpered, tears starting to fill her eyes. They hadn't known each other all that long, it was true, but she'd really grown to like him... and he was hurt because he was trying to do the noble thing and protect her, of all people! Most of the boys in Furinkan High wouldn't have spat on her if she was on fire, and she knew it. "Ranma... please, wake up! Open your eyes!" she sobbed. "Don't leave me alone...not like mom..."

And as she made that little connection, the well finally broke and she slumped forward, burying her face into Ranma's chest and weeping.

She was so caught up in her grief that she didn't notice when Ranma finally groaned and began to stir. 'Oh... my achin'... everythin'. That fucking sucked...' he moaned in the depths of his head. Drawing on every single stamina trick he'd picked up over his life, every ki healing technique and pain blocking exercise he knew, he forced cracked bones to fuse and bruised muscles to repair themselves as fast as he could. 'Gotta get back up... Nabiki - huh?' He registered the sound of weeping, and forced himself to open his eyes, dampening the pain as best he could.

The sight of Nabiki crying into his chest made his heart ache like somebody had put it in a vice; Genma had always told him that only a scumbag makes girls cry, and since he happened to actually like Nabiki, that just made it worse. "Nnngh...Nabiki?" he managed to say, reaching out and stroking her hair, simply because that was the best that his protesting limbs could still do at the moment.

She jolted as if electrified, snapping her head up and staring into his eyes with a wide-eyed, teary expression he'd never seen her wear before, and would give anything to never see again. "R-Ranma!?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, Nabiki," he said, trying to make her feel better, only to lose track of his train of thought as he watched the obvious relief wash over her face.

"But... how?" she babbled, too emotionally turbulent to be her normal articulate self.

"Pft. I've had harder love taps," Ranma assured her, before he settled his weight on his hands, kicked his legs straight up, swaying his torso like a pendulum before he sprang upwards to land on his feet. At once, his whole body quivered, a fresh spike of agony hammering through still-raw nerves as his still-healing frame protested the strain. But he bit back his cries and choked down the pain, with only the tears falling from his eyes betraying how much that little reassuring stunt had really cost him.

"Incredible! Challenge Saotome is back on his feet, despite a catastrophic blow!"

"Is this guy some kind of monster?!" Mikado protested, horrifying visions of Ranma's inhuman feats of strength and durability from their first encounter flashing through his mind's eye.

"You jerk! Don't you ever scare me like that again!" Nabiki shrieked, nerves too raw to even think about what she was saying... or to stop her from doing what came next. Before Ranma could even register her words, Nabiki had pounced on him, grabbing him by the pigtail and bodily dragging his lips into hers in a passionate kiss.

"Oh my!" the crimson-cheeked Kasumi squeaked, covering her face with her hands as if too embarrassed to see, yet at the same time peeking between her fingers as her little sister gave her future brother-in-law the sort of ice-melting, firework-lighting kiss she'd only read about in the bodice-rippers that she kept hidden under her bed.

"Nabiki! Not in front of everybody!" Akane protested, as red-faced as her eldest sister.

"The schools! Joined! So happy!" Soun blubbered, one arm draped around Genma's shoulders for support, shaking his old friend in his excitement.

"Easy, Soun! I'm trying to get a good shot here!" Genma complained as he tried to shake the other man off him.

"You go, girl!" Kikuko and Ryonami whooped in encouragement, an act that many of the other audience members were doing; they had no idea of the particular history between these two teens, but the spectacle more than made up for that.

"Enough of this mockery! Let us fight!" the seething Mikado thundered, fists clenched into white-knuckled bundles of rage as he watched his foe receive that which Mikado had been seeking for the entirety of the match.

Finally, and perhaps coincidentally, Nabiki released Ranma's lips. "...Wow," she marveled softly to herself. It wasn't exactly her first kiss, but that had been more of a kiss than any she'd had before - especially when Ranma started kissing her back! Reluctantly, she forced herself to concentrate back on the present, particularly the unwelcome jerk that had been responsible for all of this. Looking into Ranma's eyes, she asked, "Are you sure you're up to taking them down?"

Ranma blinked sightlessly, then shook his head, visibly regathering his thoughts before he looked at Nabiki. "Wha? Oh! Yeah, you bet!"

'Of course you'd say that... stubborn bastard; you'd try to keep fighting even if you had broken legs, wouldn't you?' Nabiki marveled. "Alright, then I need you to trust me, okay? I have a plan, but you have to believe that I know what I'm doing, understand?"

Ranma hesitated for just a moment, then nodded. "Gotcha. I trust you, Nabiki."

'And you have no idea how special that makes you...' She mused to herself. "Alright, then watch what I do; you'll know when it's your moment to get involved," she told him.

Again, Ranma nodded. And at that signal, Nabiki turned and began skating off. Twisting around, she waved jauntily to Mikado. "Yoohoo, Mikado! Over here! I'm the one you want, aren't I? Come and get me!" she called in her best girly sing-song.

Snorting with a mixture of rage and lust, Mikado immediately rocketed after her.

"Oh, come on! You can't dump Ranma this soon after giving him a kiss like that!" Akane protested. 'Just what the hell is going through Nabiki's head anyway...?'

"The girl has a plan? Interesting... Ranma picked a good one," Genma rumbled approvingly, still filming the whole thing.

Nabiki literally led Mikado in circles, carefully gauging how hard she was pushing him. When he caught her, it... wasn't entirely because she'd let him, but she was confident that it was still in the area she wanted. She couldn't help the way her heart started to beat faster when Mikado grabbed her wrist, but she assured herself that she was in control.

"Now, Ms. Tendo, you're going to give me what I'm owed!" Mikado leered, his normal charm and sophistication washed away by frustration and rage.

"Oh, I have every intention of giving you what you deserve," Nabiki purred. And before Mikado could digest the implications of that, she called on everything she'd learned from her father, her sister and Mr. Saotome, dredging up all of her rage and fear and pouring it down her leg as she delivered the hardest kick she could imagine squarely into the fork of Mikado's legs.

Now, Mikado wore a cup. Even beyond the obvious practical connotations for somebody in his line of sports, he'd pissed off too many male and female opponents with his skirt-chasing ways to not realize that a protective casing for his "little emperor" was a good idea. But Nabiki had more of her little sister in her than she'd ever realized, and so even with that protective implement, Mikado's world exploded in fireworks of pure pain. The audience audibly winced or jeered at the sight as he cupped his most tender parts and sank into a squat, barely able to keep from collapsing onto the ice.

"Ranma, now!"

Dread roughly elbowed the pain aside in Mikado's world as those words sank in. With the grim reluctance of a man facing the hangman's noose, he turned to watch his doom approaching; Ranma Saotome, skating towards him at top speed, wearing an evil grin. Crippled by the searing pain in his nethers, Mikado could do nothing to save himself, and the last thing he saw was Ranma's fist flying straight into his face, the blow picking him up off of the ground and launching him into the wall with enough force to leave his own crater.

Mikado was out cold by the time he hit the rink.

"And then there was one," Nabiki smirked, turning to Azusa. "So, what's it going to be? You going to surrender? Or do we have to beat you into submission too?" she asked.

Ranma loomed behind her, making a show of cracking his knuckles as he stared dead-eyed at the female half of the Golden Pair. True, he didn't like to actually hit girls, but he of all people knew and appreciated the concept of "bluffing".

Azusa gritted her teeth, fists clenched until they were white-knuckled, visibly trembling with rage. The heirs to the Anything-Goes school watched her cautiously, waiting for her response.

"Azusa hates you! I hate you so much!" she screamed, stamping her feet, features screwed up in rage, the verbal explosion going off like a small bomb and making them both skip backwards in shock at the sheer volume pouring from the petite pugilist. "But I'm not stupid either... Azusa..." she broke out into tears, letting them stream down her face as her voice trembled, "Azusa surrenders!" she spat.

Then she spun on her heel and skated off, leaving her presumably ex-partner behind on the ice.

"Incredible! A legend has been broken! A streak of 950 consecutive wins ends in defeat at the hand of two unknowns! The Golden Pair has lost! Victory goes to Ranma Saotome and Nabiki Tendo!"

The stadium erupted into auditorial pandemonium as the audience reacted to that. Cheering, booing, clapping, whistling, a hundred different responses filled the air as Nabiki, with perfect showman's instincts, raised her and Ranma's arms triumphantly into the air and led her battered, bruised boyfriend off the rink and to the trophy presentation.

Soon afterwards, in the boy's dressing room...

Ryoga sighed blissfully as he stretched his arms to their fullest, visibly grateful to be back in his human form. "I can't believe I'm saying this," he grizzled, "but... thanks, Ranma."

"Hey, man, I couldn't just leave you like that. Besides, Mikado went and made it personal," Ranma added as an afterthought.

"So I saw," Ryoga dryly observed. "Actually... you did pretty well out there yourself, Nabiki. You going to take up training for real?" he asked inquisitively.

"When pigs fly," she immediately shot back. "This was a once-off thing. There's in no way I am ever getting mixed up in this kind of thing on the regular - that's Ranma's job." Despite her words, she was smiling, and Ranma himself didn't exactly seem heartbroken by the idea that Nabiki would be staying out of harm's way.

"So... I don't suppose you have the key to this stupid thing?" Ryoga asked hopefully, fingering the collar locked around his neck.

Ranma blinked in realization, then instinctively rifled through his pockets. Finding nothing, he turned a hopeful look to Nabiki, wilting when she shook her head.

Ryoga's shoulders slumped. "Great. I guess I'll just have to try and find somebody who can cut it off, then..."

"Charlotte!"

'Oh, no...' ran through three heads simultaneously, as Ryoga, Ranma and Nabiki all reluctantly turned to face Azusa Shiratori.

"How many times do I have to tell you? My name is Ryoga! And what do you want, anyway?" Ryoga snapped.

Azusa sniffled, her once-lovely eyes red and puffy; she'd obviously been crying. Meekly, she held out a key. "Here...Azusa brought her little key for Ryoga."

"You did?!" Ryoga asked incredulously, brightening as she nodded.

"Well, get over here and take it off!" he told her brusquely.

Mutely, the female skater approached Ryoga, who bent over to facilitate her reaching up and unlocking the collar. Azusa did exactly that... and then, before Ryoga could move away, she flung her arms around his neck and hauled herself upright to plant a passionate kiss on his lips!

Rama and Nabiki simply watched in shock as Azusa clung to Ryoga like a limpet, the Eternally Lost Boy frozen in shock as Azusa moaned and whimpered into his mouth. Finally, she let him go, casting a hopeful look up at Ryoga's face, and then visibly slumping at his stunned expression. "I'll miss you, Ryoga," she sobbed, before bursting into tears and running away.

The dressing room was dead silent as the sound of Azusa's footsteps faded into the distance.

"...What the hell was that all about?!" Ranma blurted, holding out his arms and looking at Nabiki for an explanation.

"Beats me... I guess maybe Azusa thought of Charlotte as more than a pet?" Nabiki suggested, shrugging her shoulders. 'Or at least a different kind of 'pet'... Wow.'

"Yeah... yo, Ryoga? You in there? Hello?" Ranma asked, waving his hand in front of Ryoga's glazed over eyes, to no response. "...Big lug's fainted!"

"All that over one little kiss?" he mocked.

"I seem to recall you being rather out of it after one little kiss, Ranma," Nabiki observed, smirking as she did.

"Th-that was different!" Ranma blustered.

"Oh? How so?" Nabiki asked innocently, batting her eyelashes for good measure.

"...Because you were the one kissing me," Ranma shyly admitted.

"Aw, you say the sweetest things, Ranma," Nabiki giggled. Unable to resist, she slunk over and kissed him on the cheek before twining her arm around his.

"Of course... our family did see what I did out there," she admitted, and here her facade cracked a little to let her nerves shine through. 'I'm a big girl now, but daddy never was good at accepting that kind of thing...'

Ranma visibly wilted. "Oh, great... maybe we can run away?" he suggested hopefully.

"No, they'd find us in the end. Come on, Ranma; time to face the music. I promise, I won't let daddy hurt you," Nabiki giggled.

Despite himself, Ranma smiled, and the two fiancées left the dressing room, leaving the still comatose Ryoga in their wake.

Chapter End & Closing Notes

Quite the change up from canon! I won't lie, I did initially consider just skipping past this story... but then I contemplated the big moment where Ranma and Akane fall afoul of the Goodbye Whirl in canon, pictured what this Nabiki would do in Akane's place, and... well, a chapter was born!

Because I'm sure somebody's going to ask it, let me answer this off the bat; Ranma is so much more aggressive about Mikado's kiss in this story because, ironically, he's more sensitive to it than he would have been in canon. In canon, Ranma by this point has had Kuno confess his love to "the pigtailed girl" complete with flowers, and been repeatedly glomped or hit on by him. Additionally, in canon, by the time of his kiss with Mikado, Ranma has both seen Mikado's lechery in practice (albeit directed at Akane) and learned of his skills as a Martial Arts Figure Skater. In this verse, none of that happened. Ranma's not had Kuno's "help" in desensitizing himself to the idea that hornballs WILL try and get gropey with his girlside, nor was he aware that Mikado's a lech - that added element of surprise, and the fact that he got kissed on what was supposed to be a date with his fiancée, meant that Ranma took it a LOT worse than he did in canon.

Likewise, Ranma staying conscious enough to get himself and Nabiki into the match... well, okay, it is for plot purposes, but mostly it's Ranma burning his reserves a lot more intensely than in canon, to try and put on a better show for Nabiki. It's a side-effect of this Ranma feels even more humiliated than his canon counterpart did. It also paid him back with a comparatively slow recovery.

And Ranma's increased skating skill can be attributed to a much more driven Ranma with much more time spent on training, whereas we don't get any real impression of any time spent on the ice after that disastrous first lesson in canon.

And with this story complete, it's time for what you've all been waiting for; the second major landmark of Ranma 1/2 canon, the arrival of Ranma's first "real" rival fiancée, the debut of Shampoo! Let's see how having a non-tsundere but also non-fighter fiancée affects things... I hope you're all looking forward to it!