Disclaimer: I don't own YuYu Hakusho or Ranma

Warning: Chapter contains brief moments of emo Ranma. Bear with it. It'll pass for now.

"Gah…" The bandana-clad trainee of transcendence moaned, thankfully having the heavenly comfort of the lap of his crush beneath his head to balance out the severe strain of his body. He very much appreciated his sensei's nudge to Akane prompting her to rest his head on her lap as they all sat around the low dining table in the living room. Each of his muscles were tightened like knots and ached like he had been pounded by a crushing boulder, but in truth, he had. He had fallen over one too many times in his sprint around the world the equivalent to a normal human's daily jog.

"Ryoga, what's wrong?" Ah, there was some silver-lining to feeling half-dead already, just steps shy of knocking on death's doorstep. Akane, angelic voice, reaching down to soothingly trace her fingers through his hair, gazing down at him in comforting affection.

"…Sensei made me do laps around Tokyo," Ryoga remarked, struggling in vain to direct a half-hearted glare to said sensei, who was one of the three who wasn't sat in seiza, voice incredibly hoarse and low, "…But I teleported," He coughed, wheezing deeply, "Didn't make it back 'til noon… then Sensei made me balance four big water vases on my legs and shoulders for another six hours… It was hell."

"Aw, you poor thing," Ryoga stiffened, his sudden shy movement triggering the soreness in his body. Akane just continued to twin her fingers through his locks of raven hair, soft gaze enhancing as he relaxed into her touch, "A certain jerk could've at least taken it easy on you for your first day," She glared at that someone sitting leisurely across from her by Ryoga's feet.

"Oh, man up, you big wuss," Yusuke demanded, roguish grin proving he was far from serious sitting with one knee hoisted up to his chest and the other spread out before him. The picture of a laid-back sloth in all its glory, "I guarantee the shit I put you through puts hair on your chest." Akane glared in evident annoyance at him at his half-baked reasoning for torturing Ryoga. Unfortunately, Genma agreed, traditionally sat in seiza across from the harsh trainer beside his long-time Tendo friend.

"I agree. Harsh training is not only the key to strengthening one's body but it also enforces discipline," The bespectacled martial artist vouched for the demon reborn, a sagacious air about him.

"Right. 'Cos I'm such a shining example of discipline," Genma's own disciple mockingly verified, still in female form since last changing into one and sat in bored disinterest beside Yusuke, cheek pressed against her palm and legs crossed in a boyish fashion.

"Oh hush boy!" Genma demanded, promptly going on the elusive, "Don't make light of the results of my training," The martial artist's nigh perfect dodge of the hidden accusation was met by the raspberry of his currently red-haired disciple, prompting him to glare back at her.

Yusuke lightly nudged the thoroughly exhausted Ryoga with his elbow, careful not to warrant Akane's ire. Not that he wouldn't have dealt with her if she tried to impose herself on him. He was just being considerate. He wouldn't purposely antagonize someone just so he could put them in their place, "Eh! Hear see that, bro? Red here underwent her own hard-ass boot camp. Shoot, if she can, you can too."

Ryoga scoffed, lightly turning his head in disdain at the idea of his rival enduring the same severe levels of regimes he was put through, "Ha! As if that asshole could survive the hell you put me through, Sensei."

Ranma predictably rose to the challenge, eliciting collective sighs from her father, Soun and was what now her former fiancée, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well shows what you know. Pops ran my butt dry throughout my training montages!"

"Ptff! Come back to me when you've carried a boulder half way across the globe and back again Saotome!"

"Ha! Easy-peasy. That's the minimum requirement to last in Pop's boot camp. If ya can't do much you're a wimp in our book!"

"You're so full of it, Saotome." Ranma's sharp cringe to his flat accusation was all the evidence Ryoga needed to expose her bluff, but still he challenged, "If it's so 'easy-peasy' for you then why don't you try taking Sensei's hellish training."

Ranma expertly recovered from being caught flat-footed, regaining her bravado from the probing eyes turning her way. All except Yusuke who was distancing himself from the argument by looking out into the open, "Heh, I would, but I can already beat your Sensei, easy."

"You wish," Ryoga finalized tonelessly.

"I can too!" Ranma insisted defensively.

"Then prove it."

"Fine! I will," Ranma accepted, shifting her razor-sharp glare from disciple to master in one swift turn of the head, "Hey, you!" She nudged the disinterested master none too lightly in the shoulder, further feeling annoyed when he just looked at her with no real heat in his gaze, like she wasn't worth the time of day, "Let's go! Mano-a-mano!" She stood aerobically, springing from Yusuke's side to his flank just in front of the back garden, becoming more increasingly irritated by his lack of response.

"Uh-huh."

"Darn it! I just challenged ya. Take this seriously!"

"Not so nice when the shoe's on the other foot, is it, Ranma?" Akane quipped dryly, making Ranma slump her head. This was possibly karma's doing, punishing her for all the times she made light sport out of Akane's martial artist prowess. The urge to apologize to the girl swelled up inside of her being on the receiving end of their back-and-forth. Being looked down upon like her skills were just insignificant by comparison really strung her ego.

"Look, can ya 'least try to look interested?" Ranma requested, finally drawing a sigh of seeming acceptance from her desired opponent. Finally, a positive response from the non-responsive warrior. Ranma had almost been inclined to believe he had fallen asleep long before the idea of a spar between them ever came up to spare her pride. She even already knew what he was preparing to do when he lazily lifted-up his arm, beckoning her forward with his fingers. He had used that trick on her the day he met her to scold her about not being so bitter to assistance.

Ranma never forgot a trick, always engraving it to memory to lessen the risks of being caught out by it again to absolute zero.

"Oh, what now?" Ranma followed along sarcastically, even lowering herself to Yusuke's fingers, instantly flipping back onto the porch when Yusuke flicked his index and middle fingers toward her, "Ha! Nice try, pal! But Ranma Sa-." Like the fiancées and rivals that fuelled the chaos of her life, an unexpected gale of powerful wind ferociously slammed into her, carrying her off of the porch and into the back garden, sending her skipping off of the grass like a pebble before landing in the koi pond with a huge splash, "Aah!"

"And I win," Yusuke finalized in bored nonchalance, lowering his fingers and turning from the decidedly defeated red head.

His de-facto audience were stunned, some less so than others. The eldest and middle daughters of Soun were too in control of their emotions by nature to be gaping like fishes, and Akane just wasn't eccentric enough to be goggling her eyes wide in a cartoonish fashion like her father and Genma, so they merely gawked normally, mouths slightly open to the whole display Yusuke demonstrated with barely a budge of his muscles.

"Whoa…" Ryoga exhaled faintly, voice barely an audible breath in the wind, "What was that, Sensei?"

"Air."

"Urameshi-san…" Akane complained.

"No, seriously, that was air," Yusuke insisted, grinning a little sheepishly, "Well a shockwave to be precise," At Akane's tilt of the head, he knew he would be hard-pressed explaining what he meant. He was terribly inadequate at exposition, but he'd try his best to give them a brief idea of his demonstration for them to draw their own conclusions, "The harder you hit the more air you create. You start hitting hard enough you can create a dozen of those things I just whipped up."

"Oh, I got it!" Akane reached, unknowingly to her filling the young man on her lap with pride, "When you flicked at Ranma just then you did it so fast you produced a shockwave!"

"Oh?" Nabiki realized, flashbacks of Ranma's earlier bouts with her cash cow coming to mind, 'So it's like those things Kuno-baby used against Saotome. Interesting.'

'A little slow for my tastes, but meh, she got the gist of it,' Yusuke mused, tactfully keeping his evaluation of Akane's break down of his display to himself, fangs protruding from his lips in a bashful grin, "Nailed it."

'Oh Akane, you're so smart,' Every time his mouth opened to compliment Akane on her assessment of his sensei's – at first glance – enigmatic display of pushing air in Saotome's face butterflies emerged in the pit of his stomach, multiplying like hares and carrying whatever little nerve he once had away with them, leaving him feeling dreary, 'Yeah, right. Like I could tell her that.' His features fell into their usual desolate expression at that realization.

"Absolute skill means absolute nothing in the face of absolute power," Genma rhymed sombrely, Soun mimicking his expression devoid from the shock of seeing martial prowess nullified by sheer physical strength itself.

"I agree Saotome."

Yusuke smirked. They weren't entirely wrong but they weren't all right either. Warriors like his long-time friend Kurama or one of his greatest adversaries in Sensui would've begged to differ with their conclusion. Both took the best of both worlds, being highly skilful but also possessing the extreme power to make that skill matter, something of which Ranma lacked. She was very skilful, perhaps even on Sensui's level if he were basing her on hand-to-hand prowess alone, but until she moved past C-class in the spiritual department she wouldn't be scratching Toguro's muscular armour let alone Sensui's.

A violent eruption of exploding rubble voluminously vibrated from Ranma's direction, promptly causing Yusuke to jump indistinctly before he whirled around to find a cloud of smoke billowing forth obscuring the obvious hole smashed in the dojo's wall.

"What the fuck was that?" Yusuke mused aloud, and his eyebrow raised in curiosity from Soun's passive sigh of grief telling him he knew what the disturbance was but was powerless to do anything to prevent it. Yusuke doubted it was the diminutive old man's doing. It could've just been his arrogance talking but he liked to think he did an excellent job intimidating Happosai earlier. All his dark thoughts of murdering him that manifested itself into his devilish aura he shrouded the dojo in also should've warded him off, so who could Soun be referring to-?

"I wonder who the lad has attracted to my home this time?" Wait, what?

"He brings shame on his poor old Dad with his reckless behaviour," Genma cried hysterically, further boggling Yusuke's mind. Even his supposedly ditzy "fiancée" happily calling out to him wasn't enough to spur him from his astonished trance which was becoming increasingly disgusted with each accusation Ranma had piled on her.

"Yusuke-airen!~"

"What else is new?" Akane grumped dryly, apparently hard of hearing.

'Why're they all pointing fingers at Ranma?' Yusuke mused to himself, staring at them like they had all grown second heads. Soun noticed his incredulous stare, feeling the overwhelming urge to fidget uncontrollably from such an unbelieving stare, as though he was questioning their sanity.

"Is something the matter, my liege?" Soun fidgeted under the intensity of his gaze, promptly causing his youngest daughter's head to snap to Yusuke in disbelief of her own before she realized he was new to the flow of things. He wasn't used to Ranma initiating all the bizarre occurrences that often quickly spiralled out of control in their lives.

"Yeah. Kinda."

"Would you like to discuss the matter?"

Yusuke opened his mouth to contest the accusation of Ranma with a raised finger, but abruptly closed it, choosing to instead wave his hand in dismissal, "Never mind, s'not important." Ultimately, they could've been justified for assuming the worst of Ranma, even if it didn't sit right with the reborn demon that they were all to content to point the blame at her without evidence. He barely knew Ranma or anyone of the Tendo family and Genma, or the incidents that take place in their lives. For all he knew Ranma could've been a pot-stirrer, creating trouble wherever she treaded, in which case their trigger-happy accusation of her was a little more understandable, but it still didn't sit right with him that they were all too satisfied to just point the gun at the redhead for a spontaneous occurrence that may or may not have been her fault.

Yusuke considered himself a fair guy, which was why he was withdrawing judgement until he come gather more evidence on the seeming Ranma-prejudice.

"I… see," The patriarch said with uncertainty. Somewhere in him told him that wasn't the end of the annoyance chipping away at his saviour's patience, but he buried the thought to the furthest recess of his mind. Such things led to confrontation and Soun hated confronting matters directly, so if he could avoid doing so he would happily take it, "Well, yes. With you here I'm certain whenever disturbance Ranma brought along won't be such a threat."

There he goes, blaming Ranma. Yusuke resisted calling him out on it, instead reassuring him of his safety with a grin, "Count on it."

"Splendid!~"

"Yusuke-airen!~"

"Oh, what now!?" The redhead demanded, grumpily pulling her soaking wet form free from the pond she was flung into, glaring in the direction one of her usual suitors of the fiancée-mess was heading to, 'Darn it! That smarted! How the hell did he do that?!' It was a rhetorical question. Ranma knew what Yusuke did, knew how insignificant of a 'technique' it was, but knowing what it was didn't make her feel any better. In fact, it made her feel ten thousand times worse, knowing she was brushed aside like a kid trying to playfully beat up his father for kicks, 'Stupid jerk.' She felt a small window of retribution open seeing one of her usual annoyances now springing to his side. It was her devious hope that Shampoo could grate on his nerves the same way she used to irritate her.

'Ha! Let's see ya muscle your way outta this one, pal!'

"Yusuke-airen!~" Shampoo bubbled. Surprisingly, she didn't immediately try to glomp Yusuke but instead sweetly sat aside him on her knees, hands cupped to her cheek.

'Oh… kay,' Ranma mused in incredulity, 'She's acting weird.'

Yusuke was far from pleased to see her, which only made the Amazonian warrior less inclined to possessively clamp onto him. He didn't even look nervous. He just stared at her with total apathy. It was actually a little unsettling and reminded Shampoo just how different he was from Ranma. If this was the cursed martial artist she lovingly approached he would've been a nervous rack, which would have encouraged her to force herself onto him knowing he would submit to her.

These vibes of acceptance were entirely vacant with Yusuke.

"Shampoo, why didn't you use the door?" Yusuke asked plainly.

"W-What?" Shampoo stuttered, caught entirely off guard. Surprisingly, no one had ever asked her why she hadn't used the front door like a normal person whenever she came barging through a wall and she honestly didn't know how to react.

"The front door, young lady. Why didn't you use it?" He emphasized.

"Because I-?"

"Someone's gotta fix that," Yusuke reasoned, gesturing over to the damaged wall of Shampoo's doing, "The shit you break doesn't just get 'magically' repaired overnight and repairs don't come cheap. Remember that next time you decide to just charge through someone else's wall with no fucks to give."

"Oh?" Well when laid out to her like this it really had the effect of making her feel extremely inconsiderate, "Shampoo sorry."

"S'not me who you gotta apologize to," Yusuke corrected, gesturing with his head to the owner of the damaged dojo looking surprised, "It's him."

To her credit, though, Shampoo did turn toward Soun, pressing her head formally to the ground by way of apology, "Shampoo sorry."

"Uh…" Soun fumbled, truthfully caught flat-footed himself. He never expected any culprit to offer him any semblance of an apology after damaging his property. Normally, his first instinct was to just blame Ranma, followed by throwing the destructive youth out of his home until she could either round up the money needed to fund repairs or wait out the duration of her punishment. It had become almost second nature at this point. Realizing the girl was still awaiting a response, Soun coughed, "Never mind, dear. I'm certain the council will fund the worst of it." Although he would still have to chip in himself, just the acquired amount needed to summon the repair team out to his residence to fix his wall.

"Nah. Don't worry about funding squat. Leave that to her folks," Yusuke advised with a cheeky grin, putting clouds of confusion over everyone's heads.

"What you mean?" Shampoo asked first.

"Yes, I would very much like to know too, my liege," Soun followed up.

Yusuke sighed, running his hand through his raven-hair. Did no one here use their brain? Damn, "Simple. She wrecked house so naturally the debt falls on her old man or lady."

Soun inhaled in realization, "Ah! I see your point. Very clever of you my liege."

"Sensei's amazing," Ryoga said in a hushed whisper, promptly getting his master to shake his head.

"Great-Grandmother be mad at Shampoo," The Chinese-descent acknowledged.

"Well, sucks to be you. Should've thought about that before you decided to bulldoze through Soun's wall," Yusuke told her matter-of-factly, crossing his arms uncaring of the potential consequences she could face from her guardian for the debt her destructive nature brought upon her.

"You're right!~" Shampoo quickly beamed up at him in agreement, shifting shyly in place, rubbing her thighs together as she gazed down at her lap, "Shampoo have hug from airen now?"

Yusuke rolled his eyes, "Knock yourself out." She squealed, tossing her arms around his neck and pressing her breasts against his muscular chest, instantly lightening Yusuke's mood. He may not have wanted to marry her, but he would admit making skin on skin contact with her was beyond heavenly, 'Guy could get used to this.'

"No way!" Shampoo eased off on the cuddling, slightly pushing herself from her new beloved to dumbly look over in her former sweetheart's direction in her cursed form, mouth open agape at them, "You never ask me if wanna squeeze the living hell outta me. Why does he get fancy privileges and I don't huh!?"

"Because I'm not a pushover, maybe?"

"Shut up!"

"Hmm!~" Sadly, Ranma's pride was set to undergo a world of hurting. Shampoo was seriously considering Yusuke's lazy reasoning for her not forcing herself on him the same way she used to force herself on Ranma, "Yup! That about right!" She cuddled him tightly, "Yusuke-airen has big balls, boy-Ranma don't."

The winces of agony were collective by everyone who had heard Shampoo's reasoning for being accommodating for Yusuke and not for Ranma. Even Ryoga and Kasumi all of people shared the unison "Ooh!" verb of absolute pain.

"Ouch! That's a kick in the nuts," Yusuke commented.

"Humph! Now you can experience a faction of the hell you put me through, Saotome!" Ryoga exclaimed.

"Oh Ranma," Akane sympathized.

"Looks like Saotome isn't as manly as he… or she thought she was," Nabiki snarked.

"Poor Ranma," Kasumi sympathized.

"Oh the humanity!" Soun exclaimed.

"He brings shame on me!" Genma cried.

Meanwhile Ranma had never felt more emasculated in her life.

"Oh man."

One way or the other she would beat Yusuke and restore her destroyed pride.

Coasting Through Life

A coal-tinted boot stomped its mark on its precipice point of a mountain overlooking the rising sun bathing the capital city of Japan in its bright radiance, flicking its golden rays off of the darkened lenses of his ski glasses. Finally, he had completed his journey to Tokyo, only getting side tracked a couple more times to help the people with their problems. Such as leaping up to a tree to rescue a cat stuck on its branch for a little girl, rescuing a lady from a burning house, assisting an elderly woman across the street before shortly helping her with her groceries; that kind of stereotypical heroic boy-scout duties.

While it was true Recruit was an efficient killing machine he was still built to serve and protect the environment and humans, eliminating any threats to their stabilization and longevity, threats like the lawbreakers. And while Recruit's primary mission was to eliminate Ranma Saotome, he was also tasked the sub-quests of eradicating any of the other misusing curse form criminals in his line of sight. It wasn't nearly as vital as destroying Ranma, but it was important enough that Recruit should stop to engage one if he was to come across one in his hunt for the Jusenkyo Preservation Society's main thorn.

…Which brought him to now.

As he flickered off his perch from the mountain, reaching the city below in one blurring step of nigh-untraceable speed and skipping off the rooftops of the many houses he passed in blurs, his scanners detected one of the side criminals targeted for death on the bounds of breaking fair play with his murderous intent trudging through the early streets of the Nerima district in depression.

"…Shampoo," The long-sleeved, long-haired Amazonian sighed wistfully, shoulders weighed down by the palpable sense of helplessness he felt at being unable to fight for her hand. That man's killing intent had been completely terrifying and indecipherable. Mousse didn't even want to so much as look at him again much less adamantly challenging him time and again like he had done so with Ranma countless of times until he won Shampoo from him, "Damn it!"

He cursed his cowardice, tried to shallow it and strategize like he knew he could, even repeatedly telling himself if he could just estrange the devilish man in his web of trickery his frightening aura would diminish to his senses, but no matter how times he envisioned the plans he would enact each one ended the same; in his bloody death.

For the first time since he had started engaging other contestants for his one true love's hand, Mousse felt truly defeated, unconditionally crushed, any semblance of hope that he could pick himself back up to just try again until he could succeed leaving his heart. There were no re tries. Unlike Saotome, he had made it clear he did not want to be pestered by him and his schemes.

"What have I got left to live for now? Now he was starting to sound like Ryoga.

The ground violently erupted into an upheaval of dust and rubble right in front of the depressed warrior, knocking him back from the force generated from the explosive tremor.

"What the hell-?" He was spooked, sent spiralling on his rear. He covered his face with his arms from the dust sprawling forth from the source of the sudden eruption of concrete earth, "What was that?" He wasn't picking up nearly the same frequent of malevolence as before, so that was a relieving sign, but he was still sensing high levels of killing intent. He couldn't afford to drop his guard, "Who are you!?" He demanded.

The clouds parted, revealing at face-value an average stealthy military-dressed young man slightly on the short side. A black woolly hat concealed his identity, cloaked over his small round head like a mask. A pair of ski onyx-tinted glasses were placed over the eye-holes in the mask-like hat masquerading his expression as stoic. Over his chest, he flexed a long sleeved dark grey military top underneath a sleeveless black vest Mousse had to guess was bulletproof based on the sheer number of bullet holes he could see littered all over. Black gloves, iron-pressed combat pants and black combat boots otherwise finished Recruit's soldier attire.

"Who are you?" Mousse commanded again, setting himself into a stance, "You look suspicious."

Recruit didn't answer, only confirming seemingly to himself that he had found one of his men, "Tango acquired."

"So it's a fight you want, is it?" Mousse smirked, soundly unprepared for the cybernetically-enhanced warrior's charge. The ground was left cracked from the mere act of Recruit pushing off it and Mousse found an elephant-like crushing blow driven into his ribs, 'He's fast!' He choked, catapulted like a cannon several miles down the sidewalk by the fence of the canal, his back shovelling through the concrete ground better any digging machine ever could.

He skidded to an haltingly painful stop against a telephone booth, shattering the glass from the force of which he collided against it with. He groaned loudly in agony, pressing his palm against the dented metal of the interior and forcing himself to his feet, ignoring the glass shards seeping into his skin. He had endured several beatings at the hands of his beloved. He'd to have some pain resistance.

"What the hell-?" He wheezed hoarsely, squeaking from the immense burning sensation resonating from his back, "…Even that scumbag Saotome and Shampoo has never hit me that hard," With the full intent to crush bones upon impact. Both his beloved and romantic rival instinctively held back because they didn't want to inflict serious bodily harm onto him; the kind of harm which could be fatal.

Nervously, he touched at his damp back, wincing from the aggravation of his wound and felt his hand soaked before facing his palm in petrified shock. His entire front palm was coated in the crimson-red liquid of his own blood, 'Is this guy trying to kill me?' Like actually aiming to take his life with each strike he delivered to him and not just exclaiming he would kill him for exaggeration purposes. Many times Mousse had told Ranma he would annihilate him for stealing Shampoo, but he had never been serious.

His threats had always been metaphorical.

Mousse stiffened, heart skipping several beats in anticipation from the heavy, methodical footsteps of Death itself taken humanoid form approaching his way, shallowing down his sudden fear to meet Recruit's shielded gaze as the cybernetic warrior followed the beaten path of carnage left behind in the wake of his first attack on the cursed criminal.

'This is bad! If I make even one mistake this guy might seriously kill me!' Mousse gritted his teeth, clenching his fists tightly in preparation for a battle that would most likely decide whether he lived or perished. His very life seemingly hung in the balance. He couldn't afford any slip-ups or-.

"Hey, mister."

"What?"

A string of what had recently become his most lethal substance shot forth from a toy model gun designed to hold and fire bursts of it for mere enjoyment purposes and landed in his face, drowning his heart in despair before his form plummeted in on itself. The one responsible for surely condemning him to death, a little boy, just skipped merrily away, innocently oblivious to the fact that he had just assured a fellow human's demise.

"Quack, quack." He squirmed from his decidedly too huge robe, flapping his white wings despairingly as his beak moved a mile a minute, "Quack, quack!" He quacked desperately, wanting to plea his case so badly, to cry for help or for any convenient hot water to land on him but it was all for naught. The imposing shadow of his escort to the world beyond the living loomed over his tiny body, causing him to freeze and slowly rotate his head to stare up in horror at Recruit's emotionless face, "Quack…"

He attempted to run, but Recruit's hand quickly snapped around his throat and pulled him up to his height.

He said all but one word that made the odd bespectacled duck pale.

"Eat."

Another weakness of Recruits.

They loved roasted duck.

Chapter 5

The following day Ranma stormed off without waiting for Akane and Yusuke to walk with him to school, eating nothing but a piece of toast and curtly telling his former fiancée to leave him alone when she had tried to stop him.

He needed to be alone in his grief, having barely restrained his anguished tension since essentially being told he just wasn't man enough for his needs to be accommodated. It was humiliating, painfully so. Real, pure seeds of unadulterated hatred began to sprout in his heart. He truly knew he now hated Shampoo for trampling all over his pride like dirt. Before Yusuke arrived, back when the flow of events wasn't disrupted, he couldn't say his negative feelings toward the bubbly Amazonian were that strong. He didn't like her, but he definitely never possessed such a fierce aversion of her that the very sight of her made his skin crawl in disgust.

At best, he tolerated her, and at worst he avoided her completely. Never had he felt such spite and rage at anyone but insulting his masculinity was a define way to earn his ire, "She treated me like dirt." Embracing him lovingly, gazing at him affectionately, but never respecting his boundaries, only to throw whatever little connection she'd assumed she breached between them away when a more confident man stepped onto the picture. By extension, he resented Yusuke, but his feelings toward him wasn't as straightforward. Unlike Shampoo, Yusuke was remorseful, sensitive to his embarrassment and even tried to offer him an apology for Shampoo's tactless honesty, but Ranma wasn't in the mood for pity and rejected it, further resenting the delinquent for the unusual kindness he showed him, and by extension, resented himself for being so bitter toward it.

That was all his heart ever yearned for, to be treated with compassion and to be empathized with, not with contempt and spite by everyone around him. He had that and yet his ego was pushing it away, leaving him in an anguished torment of conflicted feelings, "Damn it!" He cursed aloud, bitter frustration erupting from his throat as his determined pace slowed to a melancholic trudge. For once, he wasn't even walking on the fence. His feet were firmly on the ground, symbolizing how grounded he felt.

"S'not fair," He complained lowly, miserably thinking of just how in-control Yusuke was of Shampoo, "What does he got that I don't?" Social skills, the ability and the swagger to freely communicate with the opposite sex without dissolving into a spluttering mess, and Ranma greatly envied him for it, "This sucks!" He pounded his fist against his palm, contemplatively mulling over his solution to heal his bruised ego, "Gotta beat the guy. It's the only way I can get back my lost pride!" He told himself resolutely, features falling as he whispered, "I just gotta."

The almost inaudible sounds of sizzling fire drew the young man from his tormented musings of reclamation, "What's that?" He wondered, catching sight of a rising black stream of smoke. Either it was because he desired an escape from his ravaging thoughts of sanity, was curious or even an unholy combination of the two, Ranma found himself following the smoke signal, which led him to the usual wide open parking space clearance his rival typically set up camp at, only instead of Ryoga an inappropriately dressed military-geared young man was set upon a large wooden log with his back to him, in front of a fire producing the signal-like smoke roasting was some meat.

'Okay,' Ranma deadpanned, intelligently reacting to the oddly placed individual, which ironically made him well-placed in a district full of such quirky people already, 'Kinda odd to see a military-guy camping out here, but meh.' Ultimately, the camping armed soldier was just that; the expected norm. He wasn't normal, in any of the other districts of Tokyo, but in Nerima he blended in like the everyday commoner, as such was the case in the realm of eccentricity.

The uncommon had become the common and the common was the uncommon.

He was part of the norm thus Ranma would've walked right on if his eyes hadn't caught sight of the unmistakeable pair of distinctive thick round lenses just behind the soldier, making him gasp.

'Hey, ain't those…' Mousse's. He would know those glasses from anywhere, usually sitting on the Amazonian's forehead because he was too stubborn to put them on, 'I got a bad feeling about this.' His eyes narrowed, a trickle of sweat rolling from his forehead. He watched, apprehensively, heart tightening as the alleged cannibal removed his roasted meal from its makeshift grill of sticks and lifted it into the air, revealing a well-cooked browned whole meat that looked frighteningly duck-like in shape.

'No way…' Ranma trembled, eyes wide in petrified horror to the scene he borne a front view row to, the stuff of nightmares. He gripped the wall beside him, trying to stabilize his shaking hand as he frightfully noted the hairstyle of the roasted duck heavily resembled that of Mousse's in cursed form, 'Is that really…?' He didn't want to finish as his beads of sweat turned icy cold down his visage.

He knew one thing for sure though.

Shit just got real.

Conflicted Feelings

Mousse is dead and what a way to go out, killed as a duck, roasted to a tasty crisp and eaten by the mighty boy scout Recruit. How will Ranma flare against this powerful foe near the level of 40% Toguro? Will his likely defeat be the thing he needs to spur him into going under Yusuke's wing? After all, he wants to be the best. Well, sometimes to be the best you gotta learn from the best. That's all I got for you Ranma buddy.

Review my great people and I might just update next week. ;)

Catch you all in the next one.

Peace.