Ranma was smarter than people gave him credit for. Smarter than Cologne gave him credit for, at least. He knew she was very good at the whole 'subtle' thing, and that he himself wasn't. So he would do the clever thing and not play the subtle game, and he'd see what she thought of that!
He was willing to bet that she wouldn't expect what he was doing now, for instance. It certainly made the Tendos blink, him coming home with flowers for Akane.
Cologne thought she knew him! Bah, she was trying to plant seeds of mistrust against his own feelings in him.

Well he didn't think that would work, subtle though it was, but just in case he was going to take Akane out on a date tonight, and he was going to Show that dried up mummy.
The fathers had erupted in toasts and back-pattings, and Nabiki and his mother were huddled in the corner, whispering to each other, each looking up every now and then to study him.
But Akane, she was smiling.
Then she stopped smiling, and walked up to him.
She started circling him.

"Err…" he said.

"Where is it?" she asked, suspiciously.

"Where's what?" he replied, confused.

"There's some magical object making you nice or something…"

He was slightly annoyed at that reaction, but suppressed the thought. "There's nothing wrong with me."

His fiancée peered up suspiciously at him. "Did anyone make you drink something?"

"Err… no?"

She continued studying him sceptically. "Are you sure? No contact with anything magical at all?"

"None!" he exclaimed.

"And you haven't hit your head?"

"No!"

"Then what have you done or what do you want?"

"Nothing! I just wan… I just want a date!"

Akane blinked, and stood still for a few seconds. "Are you… sure?" she asked,a vestige of suspicion remaining in her eyes.

"I promise."

Soun approached Ranma from behind, and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know this great restaurant-"

Akane turned to him. "You stay the hell out of this!" she demanded.

Her father looked taken aback, but Nodoka came to Akane's rescue. "I think that may be just as well, Soun."

"But I'm only trying to help!" he protested.

"He's right dear," Genma filled in. "We only want to make sure the two have a wonderfully romantic atmosphere for their date."

"I'm sorry dear," Nodoka said, "but whatever Ranma's got planned, I think it's better to let him run his course with this one."

"But-"

"No buts."

A few seconds passed in silence. Akane looked up at him again, searching his eyes for something. "You promise you have nothing stupid planned?"

"Yes," he replied. "Honestly."

She took a deep breath. "Then I accept."

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

A quick outburst of paternal joy and approval and a subtle flick of a katana later, the two lovebirds left the Tendo home for a magical night in the city.

And then it rained.

The restaurant was happy to provide him with hot water, but it had still dampened his mood a little.

They ate in silence. Akane was pretty, despite the rain that had appeared without warning and messed somewhat with her hair.

The silence grew slightly awkward, but he didn't know what to say.

Akane came to his rescue. "So are you gonna tell me?"

"Tell you what?" he asked.

"Why you asked me out?"

"I told you, no reason."

She paused, trying to phrase her question in such a way that even Ranma would understand. "What… did you do, just before you decided to ask me out on a date?"

Ranma hesitated. "Well... Not that that had anything to do with it, but I was talking to Cologne."

Akane blinked. "…Excuse me?"

"Hey, I didn't see Shampoo or anything. For all I know she ain't even back in Japan."

"She's been away?" she asked.

"All of them have. Mousse is cured and everything. But Shampoo's missing, and only Cologne knows where she is."

Akane frowned. "So... what does she want you to do?"

Ranma sighed. "You know, I honestly have no idea. I was gonna ask Shampoo what Cologne's up to, but... she isn't here."

"Do you think it might be like your mother said?"

Ranma shook his head. "No, that doesn't make any sense. I mean I can see Cologne coming up with some great challange, and have Shampoo offer to teach me a secret Amazon technique or something... But Shampoo isn't even here." He frowned. "I suppose Cologne might have put Shampoo in danger, so I'd have to go save her... But if that's the case, she's sure taking her sweet time telling me about it."

Akane looked thoughtful. Then she frowned again. "But what's that got to do with our date?"

"Hm?"

"You said you decided right after you talked to Cologne. Why did that make you decide?"

"No reason!" he exclaimed. "Look, I just wanted to go on a date. Is that so hard to believe?"

Akane kept looking at him like she expected him to fess up eventually, but he ignored her and looked about them in the restaurant. It wasn't a particularily fancy place, but they had food from all over the world, and he had been meaning to go just to taste the different foodstuffs.

At one of the tables he saw a man eating a strange gelatinous looking substance. It quivered when the man took a piece off with his spoon.

"What do you think that is?" Ranma asked, nodding toward it.

Akane looked over, and frowned. "It's pudding."

"But it's see-through."

"Don't you remember? I made one like that last Christmas."

Ranma went rigid. He chanced a new inspection of the man's desert, but it looked nothing like anything he had ever seen in the Tendo household. Had he simply been out that time, or...

"Oh, yeah," he lied, weakly.

Akane didn't say anything, but he could feel that she knew he was just trying to placate her.

They finished eating in silence.

zzzzzzzz

After dinner they went to the cinema, and Ranma agreed to the first movie Akane suggested. That seemed to cheer her up, and though Ranma didn't enjoy the prospect of seeing a film that from the description might as well have had CHEESY in the title, he took solice in the massive amounts of popcorn he had managed to produce with a cupful of water.

The movie turned out to be worse than he had expected. It was so sickeningly sweet at times that he had to grip his seat till his knuckles turned white to avoid noticably squirming. There was a point, however, after Akane had finished her share of the popcorn, when she had put her hand down on the arm rest, and she was too absorbed by the movie to notice she had put her arm down on top of his. He tensed for a moment, but she didn't seem to notice what she had done. He could feel her hand a top of his. It was warmer than he had expected, the arm giving off a slow, steady pulse that made his stomach flutter. He enjoyed the movie after that.

zzzzzzzzzzz

They had returned home after the film, and Ranma had fallen asleep with a smile on his lips, the old mummy be damned.

The next day brought school, and all the chaos that that entailed in Nerima. Gosunkugi had developed a new use for black magic, which he used to give people a mild headache over a distance. Ranma wouldn't have found out if it wasn't for Ukyo, whose friend had heard the creepy boy talking to himself. As it was the headache had stopped growing worse after Ranma had trashed Gosunkugi's hidden altar in an old storage room, but the headache he already had remained for the whole day, and had only partially subsided in the morning.

The tuesday also brought a new headache in the form of Kuno, who, with his new 'understanding' of Ranma's situation had redoubled his efforts to help. He had gone about this by setting up water traps over the entire school, most of which accomplished nothing but more than soaking the other students, who didn't have Ranma's reflexes. When he finally did fall for one, he discovered that there was no warm water to be had in the whole school; even the staff room's boiler had been removed, by decree of the head master.

The one upshot was that Akane was acting friendlier toward him, even if that did mean he had to choke down one of her lunches on the thursday. It wasn't like she was entirely unaware of her own inability to cook. She had somehow managed to make more than enough food for him, but litte enough that she herself was 'forced' to buy a sandwitch like the other students. He came close to pointing this out to her, but he knew that would only get him into more trouble, so he suffered in silence.

zzzzzzzzzz

It wasn't until the following tuesday he found the world blinking out of existence and he woke up in the dungeon like room again.

"Auch," he said, glaring at the Amazon elder.

Cologne was sitting on her staff again, a disapproving scowl on her face.

"Well, what do you want?" he asked. "Let's get this over with."

Her scowl deepened. "You are a stupid man, young Ranma."

He blinked. Then he put on a scowl of his own. "Excuse me? What did you say?"

"I said you are stupid. Or at least you are acting like it."

He wasn't used to Cologne throwing insults, and he certainly wasn't going to just take it. "How the heck am I stupid, you dried up mummy?"

"You don't think. You paint yourself a pretty little picture and pretend that's the end of it."

He frowned. "How?"

"Bah," the elder erupted.

"Wh- what's that supposed to mean?"

"You took the Tendo gir for one date, and that settled all your concerns?"

"Hey, how do you know-"

"Spying," she cut him off. "I asked around, after you had left. But what did the two of you discuss, when you were having dinner?"

"I don't remember. Nothing much."

"Nothing much?" she prodded.

"Hey, why are you being so much angrier this time?"

"Because it irritates me how slow you are."

Ranma was positively fuming at this point, but was hanging in the air, shackled so he couldn't even turn his head, much less attempt to break free.

"What did I do wrong?" he demanded.

"You didn't do anything, Ranma. That's what you did."

"We spent the whole night together without arguing once!"

"Yes. And you are saying that like it is something special."

"Well for us it is!"

Cologne sat still, looking at him in silence.

He considered what he had just said. He grimaced. "Guess I walked right into that one, huh?"

Cologne remained silent, unblinking.

"Look, I just... We had a nice date, ok? Why do you have to make it sound like that proves something bad?"

Cologne's face relaxed, looking sympathetic for once. "I'm sure you had a nice night. I'm sure that meant something to you. But it says very little about your future together."

"Well, yeah... But you don't have to do the same things every day."

"Of course not, young man. But you have to consider what your everyday life would be like, not just if you could have nice moments together every now and then.

Ranma hung silent.

"You know why I came to Nerima, Ranma, but I honestly do believe it would do you good to consider these things..." She sighed. "I think we are done for today."

"Gonna knock me over the head this time?" he asked sourly.

She shook her head. Then she hopped forward, and unlocked the shackles in a fluid movement.

Ranma landed on his feet, and looked around. The torch light (Who used torches in this day and age?) revealed about as much space behind him as in front of him, so in total the room was maybe as big as the Tendo living room. There was another set of shackles by the wall behind him.

"You use this room often?" he asked.

Cologne shrugged. "Mostly for storage. I cleared it out for our sessions."

"Where'd you put all the stuff?"

"Shipped back to China, most of it."

"Really? Why?"

"I don't expect to be in Japan much longer," she replied.

He frowned, but she didn't look like she was going to say more on the subject.

zzzzzzzzz

There. (Oh my, he updated! This must mean he's going to resume adding chapters at a reasonable pace, and never abandon us again!)

Again: The machinery has utterly killed the formatting of this fic. I'll be adjusting earlier chapters, but I may not have time to do so before people start discovering that I've updated the fic.