This chapter containes the last material written by someone else, a good bit of the middle of the conversation with Kasumi written by Nekomata-sensei. I've condensed it, where Nabiki was basically recapping the story to date. From here on out, all the writing's mine.

I do not own anything written by Rumiko Takahashi.

It is well known in the Tendo household that Nabiki is not a morning person, but what is less well known is the reason why. While her current blackmail activities were very lucrative, the blackmail for money had only become a regular practice when she had shifted from using nature spirits to imps that demanded the material they gathered be used — before then she had mainly used the information collected as ammunition to punish those 'friends' that had betrayed her, then to protect herself from their anger, and their friends' anger, and then possible attacks from acquaintances... Not that the blackmail bothered her much, by that time she had a very jaundiced view of humanity and figured they deserved it.

At any rate, Nabiki had been getting increasingly paranoid over time and as a result was a very light sleeper. So when Ranma's arms circled her, Nabiki was instantly awake, out of bed, and plastered against the wall with her hand on the light switch staring as ... a naked, sleeping redhead was sinking into her bed!? But there wasn't anything living beneath her room to stop her... Just as suddenly Nabiki found herself under her bed with a deathgrip around Ranma's upper left arm just in time to keep her from sinking completely through the floor. She wriggled backwards until they were both out from underneath her bed, got up on her knees and yanked — and promptly learned one of the first lessons of any astronaut, the difference between weight and mass, as Ranma came flying out of the floor and knocked her onto her back.

Ranma came awake to find herself face to breasts with her new friend and promptly flew through the ceiling in panic, where she paused over the roof, gasping in panic. What the heck!? It must have rained where Pop an' me camped. Great, now Nabiki's gonna think I'm a total pervert. Well, might as well face the music, maybe if I grovel enough I'll keep the only friend I got. She flew back down through the roof, her face as red as her hair and already stammering out an apology, only to gape at the sight of Nabiki practically rolling on the floor with laughter. "Um, Nabiki? What's so funny?"

Nabiki looked up at the naked redhead floating just under her ceiling and her laughter died as she saw the mingled confusion and fear on Ranma's face. "Ranma, what's wrong?"

"You don't think I'm a pervert? I know I don't understand girls much, but don't you usually get mad when someone grabs onto your chest? Pop certainly got a real beatdown the last time he did that by mistake." Ranma scratched the back of her head and stared at her feet floating in the air. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Sorry for what? You were asleep when you arrived, and I was the one that yanked you on top of me."

Ranma stared at Nabiki in shock. She isn't going to blame me for it? But I always get blamed for whatever goes wrong, that's how the world works! She felt tears welling up in her eyes and turned away from Nabiki as she curled into a ball.

Nabiki stared at the crying redhead. What was the problem now!? And what did she do about it? It wasn't like she had much (or any) practice at comforting friends, human or otherwise. She took a deep breath, calming the panic she felt rising in her chest and thought back to years ago and the last time she'd cried in front of family and remembered how Kasumi had responded. She wasn't Kasumi, but still ... Well, the first thing was to get Ranma down from the ceiling. "Ranma, come down here." Ranma just shook her head and curled up tighter, so Nabiki walked over and jumped up, grabbed a convenient foot, and yanked down. This time she was ready, and only staggered a bit as Ranma smacked into her arms. She walked over to her bed and sat with Ranma in her lap and just held her in her arms as the crying settled down to sniffles. "All right, Ranma, what were all the tears for?"

Ranma uncurled a bit and laid her head on Nabiki's shoulder as she wiped at her eyes. Inside her a voice was screaming that this wasn't proper behavior for a man among men, but the cuddling felt too good, too natural. She had a real friend! "All my life, whenever anything goes wrong Pop would blame it on me. And then you didn't blame me for what happened and I was so happy, and I started crying and couldn't stop and guys aren't supposed to cry, girls cry, and ... and ..."

Nabiki chuckled. "Ranma, whatever you may be when you aren't here, right now you definitely are not a guy."

Ranma stiffened and sat up straight in Nabiki's lap. "Hey, I'm a guy, dammit!"

"You may be male in your mind, but physically you are definitely female. And just like girls are usually weaker than guys are, so too are they more likely to cry. At least that's how it works for humans, and from how you were acting earlier I'd say it works the same way for your type of nature spirit."

"Really?"

Nabiki chuckled again. "Really. Just because you cry more easily like this doesn't mean you aren't as manly as ever when you get some hot water."

Ranma relaxed again, laying her head back on that convenient shoulder. "Thanks, Nabiki."

Before Nabiki had a chance to respond, her door flew open and Kasumi stepped inside. "Nabiki, is everything all right? I heard some odd noises, and voices ..." Kasumi's voice died off as she took in the sight of her younger sister sitting on her bed in her night clothes, with a devastatingly cute, very naked redhead cuddled in her lap, and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my!" She stared at the frozen pair for a moment, then lowered her hands and sighed. "Nabiki, the imps are mostly harmless and the people you've been blackmailing usually deserve it, but this! Are you really so lonely that this is how you seek ... uhm ... companionship? And what is it costing you?"

As Nabiki's mind raced desperately, trying to process the sudden information dump, Ranma seized on the — to her — important fact. "You can see me!?" she yelled, one hand covering her crotch while her other arm crossed over her breasts, while her face flushed as red as her hair for the second time that night.

"Yes, I can, and hear you as well," Kasumi said with a gentle, slightly confused smile. Ranma wasn't acting the way she would have expected a demon lover to behave. The cute demon was acting much more like an embarrassed teenager.

Nabiki sighed as her mind caught up with events, a little upset with herself for freezing like that however bizarre the night had been. "Kasumi, it isn't what it looks like, and we need to talk."

Kasumi frowned, "Well, I suppose I could get us some tea, and perhaps some clothes for miss demon?"

Ranma scowled in confusion, and Nabiki groaned in irritation. "Kasumi, this is Ranma, she is, as far as I can tell, a nature spirit, not a demon, she is incapable of wearing clothes, or touching things that aren't alive so any clothes would just pass right through her, but I suppose she can sit inside the bed so only her head is visible for now." Ranma jumped at the idea, and quickly drifted down into the bed, winding up looking somewhat like a severed head sticking out of Nabiki's covers near the corner of the bed closest to the door, looking between the two sisters. "Also," Nabiki continued, "hot water seems to dismiss her for some reason, and I don't think nature spirits eat solid food, since they can't even touch it, so don't bother bringing any for her, although perhaps you should leave some water being kept warm, so that she can get dismissed easier later."

Ranma looked like she was considering saying something about this, but Kasumi just smiled somewhat awkwardly and disbelievingly and left, and after a few minutes of silence where Nabiki seemed to examine Ranma in a way that left Ranma feeling a bit awkward, but with a slightly vacant expression that indicated she was reviewing memories and gathering her thoughts, Kasumi returned with some tea.

"All right Nabiki, let me hear your explanation about miss 'Nature Spirit'," Kasumi said, once they were both seated with teacups in hand.

Nabiki blew on her tea a bit to encourage it to cool, before launching into the story of how she'd come to be the friend of a nature spirit that for some reason thought she was a human boy.

Kasumi frowned thoughtfully when her sister finished her explanation and turned to Ranma, who had begun to look a bit antsy. "Do you have anything to say Miss Nature Spirit?" Kasumi asked.

Ranma gestured wildly and rose up, her breasts popping into view above the covers. "I'm a guy! Really! That hot and cold water stuff, It's a curse, see, and when I get dismissed or whatever by touching hot water, I'm really turning back to a human boy and going back to wherever I was when I got hit with cold water last.

"Ya see, a month or so ago I was traveling with Pops, and we came to this weird training grounds, off in China, and there were a bunch of pools of water all around in this misty valley, with a bunch of poles sticking up out of them. We didn't think it was weird or nothing, and were ignorin' the guide there 'cause he didn't speak Japanese too well and we could hardly understand him, although he seemed to think we were weird for some reason. We thought it was just some training ground for balance practice, you fought atop the poles, and if you fell, the water below was real cold, and that would be good motivation not to fall. Pops an' I jumped up there and started fighting, and the guide started yellin' at us. I kinda wish we'd listened...

"Anyway, I wound up knockin' Pops into a spring, and out pops this giant panda, an' I was pretty freaked, because there is a huge panda! And then I notice it's attacking me and it's got Pop's gi on, but badly and kinda torn, and his glasses off one ear and the bandanna he uses to hide his baldness off the other. I was so surprised I might'a forgot to put up my defense, but Pops is pretty good, even as a panda, and he knocks me into another pool, and I'm kinda shocked, and I come out like this.

"The guide winds up tellin' us after a while how these are the cursed springs of Jyuusenkyo, and when you fall in a pool, you turn into whatever drowned there. Pops had fallen into the spring of drowned panda, and I'd been invisible to Pops and the guide I think and flyin' and everything was weird at this point, and the guide says how I'd fallen into spring of drowned ghost girl, least, I think that is what he said and meant, but maybe it was weird nature spirit girl, but there was some kinda translation mistake. Anyway, it turns out that the curses are permanent, but you can temporarily reverse them with hot water, returning to your birth form, so we changed back, 'except whenever we get splashed with cold water, we turn to cursed form again! And not to long after that, pops an' I are traveling, and suddenly I'm here with Nabiki, and she 'splained most of that.

"Anyway, when I get hot water here, I go back to my real form back wherever I was summoned from, and recently, 'cause of this week long summon thingy, whenever I get hit with cold water, suddenly, BAM, I'm right next to Nabiki, or even touchin' her! I don't mean nothin' perverted by it, 's just an accident 'cause a' Nabiki's summon thingy."

There was a few moments of silence, as this registered to Nabiki and Kasumi, and Ranma finally noticed that her breasts were above the bed, promptly blushed, and dropped down again, looking at them somewhat nervously. "Oh yeah, and my name is Saotome Ranma, sorry about this..." she added, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed.

Nabiki shook her head in shock, "Wait, you mean you were serious about all that stuff about curses and being a boy? I thought it was some weird spirit thing that doesn't translate well to human terms, or metaphorical."

"Metawhatsit?" Ranma asked.

Nabiki groaned. "Metaphorical, a metaphor is where you describe something by calling it something else similar."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I'm really a guy, sorry if ya misunderstood." She looked kind of depressed and worried, and Nabiki realized she was probably expecting some sort of rejection.

"It's all right, Ranma, we're still friends. Now that I think about it, this actually explains a lot. I don't see how it is possible to change from a human to a spirit and back, it defies all sorts of theoretical laws of magic I've read about, not to mention the power requirements for such a transformation, I've got no clue where they come from, but it definitely doesn't come from water ...

"Anyway, humans aren't able to be summoned, at least not normally and with the sort of summoning spells I use and know about, so when hot water deactivates the curse, the effect that translates your location to here is canceled, as when you summon something it doesn't 'really' leave wherever you pulled it from, it is still tied to its 'home' or whatever, the place that it came from before being summoned, it is more that the summoners energy allows its presence to be here instead, even while it is meant to be there. Initially I was just summoning you with temporary spells, which got dispelled when you stopped being a spirit, but when I got you with a long term summoning, it stuck with your cursed form, so whenever you get changed to cursed form right now, you find yourself right by me, as I'm the summoner, and you pop back as soon as you get hot water." Nabiki explained.

Ranma's eyes were slightly wide in understanding, but also slightly vacant, as if she understood the meaning, but the way it was said was a bit beyond her, then nodded, obviously pretending to understand better than she really did, "Yeah, that is what has been happening. And I'm not a demon, or at least if I am right now, I'm not all the time, and I'm a boy usually."

Kasumi nodded thoughtfully, "I suppose that if one can summon demons and spirits, curses might exist too. I'm really sorry that you've been cursed like this, Ranma, and I hope Nabiki's hobby hasn't caused you too much trouble with your father."

Ranma grinned and shook her head, "Naah! It's good to get a break from Pop once in a while like this. Nabiki's cool, I've never had a friend like her. She gets me hot water without complainin', and don't blame me for everything, like when I accidentally touched her breasts, she didn't go poundin' me and callin' me a pervert like what happened to Pop the last time he accidentally did that to a lady, or how Pop always tells me how everythin' going wrong 's my fault! It's kinda weird being in China one moment, and here the next, but right now it's great, because I can get away from Pop whenever I want just by touchin' some cold water. And if the old fart don't like it, he can screw himself, 'cause he deserves it after takin' us to Jyuusenkyo from that dumb guidebook without bein' able to read Chinese and see the warnings on the damn thing, and knockin' me in after he'd gotten cursed."

Kasumi gazed thoughtfully at Ranma's apparently disembodied head sticking out of the bed. "Come on out, Ranma. You're going to be visiting awhile, and you can't be diving through floors or walls every time I walk into the room you're in if we are going to be friends."

"A-are ya sure?" Ranma stuttered.

Kasumi nodded with a smile. "Yes, it isn't as if you can help your lack of clothes, and if Nabiki can get used to it I can as well."

"She's right, Ranma," Nabiki agreed, and as Ranma rose Nabiki grabbed her arm and pulled her back into her lap, then sighed when Ranma stiffened. "Relax, Ranma, it's not like you have anywhere else to sit here that you won't sink through." She turned back to Kasumi. "So, big sis, just how long have you been able to see spirits?"

"Oh, all my life! I used to have the most wonderful 'imaginary friends' that would play with me and tell me stories."

"And why did you activate your sight when you came here?" Nabiki asked.

"Activate it? I didn't — it's on all the time."

"It is!? But when Ranma showed up at dinner, right in the middle of the table, you didn't even flinch!"

"Oh, I've had a lot of practice at not reacting to the spirits nobody else can see. Invisible friends are cute for children, but when you grow up you have to stop noticing them or people think you're strange." Kasumi looked sad for a moment. "Most of my spirit friends stopped coming by after mother died and I had to take over the housework and didn't have time to play. I suppose I just wasn't fun anymore. Still, a few do stop by occasionally. Perhaps we can ask them about what kind of nature spirit Ranma turns into."

Nabiki nodded, then broke out in a huge yawn. Instantly, Kasumi exclaimed, "Oh my, it's late! And you have school tomorrow, or is that today? We still need to discuss some issues, such as how you were able to summon Saotome Ranma in the first place," she shot Nabiki a sharp glance, "but that can wait until later. Ranma, let me get you some hot water."

"Hold on a moment," Nabiki said. "Ranma, can you float under your own power for a moment? Let me check out the weather." The naked redhead floated up and out of the way, and Nabiki walked over and sat in front of her desktop computer, booting it up and quickly searching the internet weather sites for radar views over China, Kasumi walking over to look over her shoulder. "Ranma, do you know where in China you fell asleep?"

Ranma shook her head as she floated over and joined Kasumi looking curiously at the monitor screen. "No, I don't. Pop an' me spent months gettin' to Jusenkyo, but we wandered all over lookin' for dojos and monasteries that ain't there anymore."

"Hmm," Nabiki frowned. "What's the ground like where this Jusenkyo is located, plains, mountains, forests?"

"Up in the mountains somewhere, with forests. We ain't there now, anyway. For a couple of weeks we've been headed for the coast — movin' pretty quick, too, Pop must have done somethin' really bad to get those women at the village we visited right after the cursed springs mad, big surprise," Ranma said, rolling her eyes.

Nabiki chuckled, then sat and thought for a moment. "Where are you headed, and in which direction?"

"Back to Japan, an' we've been movin' east."

"All right, so you're a few weeks' fast travel by foot east of a mountain range and west of Japan." Nabiki shifted to the appropriate maps and frowned. "Ranma, looking as the weather patterns, there's no point in sending you back to China right now, you'll probably be right back here again before morning. And if you're asleep and I don't wake up you could sink right through the bed, floor, the floor below and into the ground, there's nothing living below to stop you. I'd say you're stuck here tonight. In fact, it would probably be a good idea for you to spend all your nights here until the summoning's time limit wears off, or at least come here to have me check the weather every evening."

Kasumi nodded, "Good thinking, little sis. I'll just make up a futon in the guest room —"

Nabiki smirked slightly. "Weren't listening too closely, were you, big sis? We can't use the futons, Ranma'd just sink through them. We'd need a bed covering that's alive."

"Hmm," Kasumi tapped her lip uncertainly. "I ... I suppose she could sleep on the grass in the yard ..."

Nabiki's smirk grew. "Now Kasumi, is that any way to treat a guest? She'll sleep here with me."

"What?!" Ranma and Kasumi chorused loudly.

"Sure, any night Ranma bounces here she'll end up in my bed anyway, might as well start the night that way."

Ranma was blushing yet again while Kasumi frowned. "Nabiki, that isn't exactly proper."

Nabiki's smirk turned into an outright laugh. "Come on, Kasumi, since when have I been all that concerned with 'proper'? And is having a guest sleeping on the lawn more 'proper'? Besides —" with a huge yawn "— even if I was inclined to try anything, which I'm not, I'm too tired, and who's going to see anything?"

Now Ranma's blush was replaced by confusion, but Kasumi reluctantly giggled, then just as reluctantly nodded. "Very well." She turned toward the door, and flipped the light off on her way out. "A good night to you both."

Nabiki got back onto her bed and motioned to the now barely visible figure of her new friend. "Come on, Ranma, let's get to sleep."

Even seen only as a dark shape, Ranma's hesitation was obvious. "Are ... are ya sure 'bout this, Nabiki? I could make do with the lawn, really..."

Nabiki shook her head. "No, Ranma, it's not like we haven't been cuddling already a good part of the night, better to stay here. Besides, I think I'd like to spend the night with a ... a friend."

"A-Alright, Nabiki." Ranma floated over and turned onto her side and settled down onto Nabiki's outstretched right arm lying on the bed. Nabiki pulled the blanket over the two of them (which promptly sank through Ranma, of course), and yawned yet again. "Good night, Ranma."

"Good night, Nabiki," came back the soft, uncertain reply.