Chapter 5

It was a quiet afternoon at the Hikawa shrine, but Hino Rei felt uneasy despite the placid atmosphere. The feeling had started early in the morning, but she had ignored it so she could focus on her school work and activities. Without knowing the cause behind her unease, she had no choice but to wait until she could meditate before the shrine's fire. And that's exactly what she did after school, once she was dressed up for her duties as a Shinto priestess. She hoped to ease her concern before she went about her responsibilities, and — if possible — learn what her feelings were founded on.

The meditation began to mitigate her sense of unease, much to her relief. However, just as she had begun to feel relaxed, she was suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding, and anxiety rose up within her breast. Realizing what that meant, she opened her eyes and stared into the fire. Images began to appear within it, showing a girl outside of a school, who had horns protruding from her head, a tail, and — as far as she could tell — demonic-looking wings and eyes. The girl was breathing fire indiscriminately, and students were screaming in terror, trying to escape with their lives. Before the entire scene was lost in the flames, the name of the school, shown on a plaque on the school's perimeter wall, became blatantly obvious and burned itself into her memory. Then, the fire died out.

Surprised by her vision, she failed to react for a time. Instead she reviewed what she had seen, to make sure that she could recall all of it. The girl with the horns, wings and tail, who breathed fire, had red hair and wore a Chinese style of clothing. Her red, reptile-like eyes were a perfect expression of evil intent, and the owner of those eyes would carry out her deed at Furinkan high school.

The meaning of the vision was clear, with or without the ominous death of the shrine's fire: the event in her vision was a possibility in the future. Whether it was an unconnected, random monster, or a new enemy, remained to be seen. What she did know, however, was that she needed to contact the others and inform them of what she had glimpsed in the fire.

With that in mind, she left the shrine and quickly made her way to her home, where she lived with her grandfather. It was a simple matter to relay her message with a special communicator, in the privacy of her bedroom.

The following morning found Ranma walking to school with Akane. She looked down at her fiancée from the fence that she was currently walking on, and saw that she was still giving her the cold shoulder. Not only for accidentally torching her head yesterday morning, but because she had also accidentally hit her into a wall with her tail — when she had turned around — later that same day.

Thinking back on that reminded her of some other things that had happened yesterday. For one, her mother — along with Kasumi, as it so happened — had altered a few outfits to accommodate her wings and tail. Now her tail didn't appear to burst out of the back of her pants, and her wings could slip in and out of slits that had been made in the back of her shirt. She had also spent a good portion of her day getting acquainted with her new endowments and abilities. Breathing fire seemed easy enough to control, and getting the hang of flight had been a fun experience. Her tail, on the other hand, still slipped her mind at times, so she could still hit something — or someone — by accident.

The worst part of the day had been the time when Nabiki returned home from school. She had her pose for photographs in various ways, and in various states of dress, with or without her wings, in her room. She had even made use of her fire breath for some shots. While she knew what the pictures were going to be used for, she felt that she could deal with them better than a case of anyone else knowing the real reason for why she had put on the skin suit; especially her mother, who may not consider her reason to be manly.

And, as expected, she saw a large gathering of boys as she and Akane entered the school grounds. While neither of them could see Nabiki, they both knew that she was at the center of the throng, selling something. However, since Akane didn't know what it was that her sister was selling, she deviated away from the school building and targeted a boy that had just broke away from the crowd. Since he was busy looking at the photograph in his hands, Akane had no problem plucking it away from him.

"Hey!" He complained.

Akane ignored him and held the picture up, so she could take a look at it. However, before she could train her eyes on it, a spout of flame passed over her hand, incinerating most of it. With a cross look on her face, she glanced over at Ranma, who had her arms crossed behind her head and her eyes turned away.

Pretending to have just noticed Akane's gaze, Ranma regarded her and asked, "What?"

"Hey, it's you..." The boy said, forgetting about the loss of his photograph for the time being. Then, louder, he added, "You're that girl!"

He caught the attention of a few others nearby, and they — in turn — drew the attention of more people, wondering what had them occupied. Soon everyone in the courtyard, and even some from the classroom windows and balconies, were staring at Ranma, some murmuring and others pointing.

"So, my sister's selling candid shots of Ranma's current form..." Akane concluded.

Then, before too long, someone spoke up and said, "Hey... Isn't that just Ranma?"

Once the pieces began to fit together in everyone's minds, concerning the Chinese clothes, red hair and the apparent association with Akane, they went back to what they had been doing before. Among the boys clustered around Nabiki, who were once again trying to buy pictures from her, some made comments that were loud enough for Akane and Ranma to hear.

"But, she's still hot," one boy reasoned to another.

"Yeah," the other boy agreed. "Literally!"

"Honestly..." Akane muttered in disgust.

Ranma agreed with Akane's sentiment, but said nothing. Instead, with the show being over, they both decided to not waste any more of their time standing around. However, after only a few steps toward the school building, a familiar voice rose above all of the others, one that made them stop in their tracks.

"So... It is true."

Tatewaki stepped out from under the shade of a nearby tree and approached Ranma, his steps slow but sure. Resigning herself to a confrontation, she turned to face him. In one hand was his bokken, which he held at his side, and in the other there appeared to be a photograph. Some students began to watch, but others — who had better things to do — ignored them and went about their business.

Once Tatewaki ceased his approach and stood a fair distance away, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and said, "At first I thought it but a joke, when I asked to see my goddess in pigtails. However, now that I've seen the truth with my own eyes, I must ask you this..."

He looked up, held up the picture that was in his hand, and angrily demanded, "What have you done with the pigtailed girl!?"

"Huh?" Ranma responded, nonplussed.

Akane, who stood nearby, got a good look at the photograph and saw that there was nothing candid about it. So, she regarded Ranma with an accusatory stare, and it was with some disbelief that she shouted, "You posed for those photos!?"

"Of course not!" Ranma vehemently denied, the only tale-telling sign of a lie being the faint blush of shame on her cheeks. "It's doctored, obviously!"

Before Akane could really think about the possibility, which would not have been an unlikely one, Tatewaki cut in and exclaimed, "Silence, enemy of all maidens!"

"Surely that wretch, Saotome, knew that it would only be a matter of time before I freed the pigtailed girl from his vile clutches," he stated with an air of surety. He raised his bokken, leveled it at Ranma, and declared, "Thus, he enlisted a dragon into his service to guard her!"

Ranma and Akane, in response, stood in dumbfounded silence; along with every other person that had been paying him any attention.

"What in the world did Nabiki tell him, for him to come to that sort of conclusion?" Ranma wondered to herself.

"But, enough talk," Tatewaki said, before he grasped his bokken with both hands, raised it above his head, and sprung forward. "I attack!"

When Tatewaki was nearly upon her, Ranma lazily blew a stream of fire at him. He yelped as it torched the upper half of his body, and burned away his bokken until there was nothing but a stub left. He managed to stay on his feet for a moment before he collapsed at her feet, overwhelmed but not unconscious.

Glancing over at Ranma, with an eyebrow raised, Akane asked, "You're going to become really fond of that, aren't you?"

Ranma shrugged noncommittally and said, "Who knows?"

They then continued to make their way into the school building, so they could make it to their classroom on time. Tatewaki's charred form was left behind, his mind aflame with thoughts that were very familiar to him.

Ranma had just finished an explanation of her situation to Ukyo when their homeroom teacher, Ninomiya, entered the classroom. She was in her younger form, which was often the case at any given time of the day.

"Good morning, class," she greeted said class with a smile.

"Good morning, Ms. Ninomiya," some of the students returned.

Ninomiya reached the lectern at the front of the class before everyone found their seats. It was then that she noticed an immense battle aura nearby, so she looked around for the source. When she looked over her students, she caught a glimpse of a tail before a certain someone sat down.

With a raised voice, she looked pointedly at Ranma and demanded, "Who are you?"

"Saotome Ranma," came said person's casual response, who had decided to play it cool. She couldn't expect everyone to recognize her, after all.

"You shouldn't wear a costume during class," Ninomiya chastised her, since she didn't know how to approach the real issue that was on her mind. "Please remove it."

With a sigh, Ranma tried to argue. "But, it's not a costume."

Ninomiya appeared to be ready for a rebuttal, at first. However, after a brief pause, she leaned forward and adopted a look of interest before she asked, "So... Are you saying that it's real?"

Ranma looked toward Akane for an answer, but all that she got was a shrug from her shoulders. So, not knowing what else to do, other than to continue along the same track, she returned her attention to Ninomiya and said, "Uh... Sure?"

Ninomiya was at her side a second later, the roll call completely forgotten.

"Really!?" She exclaimed. When her eyes got a good look of Ranma's horns, in addition to the tail, she enthusiastically asked, "What do your horns make you?"

Afraid that she was going to receive the same treatment as her father, when he was in his panda form, Ranma reluctantly said, "Part dragon."

"So, you can breath fire?" Ninomiya asked, who looked on with wide-eyed expectation.

Deciding that it might be better to humor her, Ranma tilted her head back and blew out a small gout of flame. She had no idea where her childish teacher was going to take things, but she figured that a few demonstrations wouldn't hurt anything. At least no one else appeared to hold any objection to it, as far as she could tell.

"Wow...~!" Ninomiya voiced her awe. "And can you fly?"

Ranma sighed and got up from her desk. She proceeded to will her wings out into the open, which drew a few gasps from those around her, then flexed them before going airborne. It took a moment for her to adjust the force that she used to beat her wings, but she eventually stabilized herself so she maintained a similar distance between the floor and the ceiling. And while she heard various sounds of awe from her fellow students, she was more concerned about her teacher's reaction, who — much to her concern — had an expression of utter delight on her face.

"Can I... ride you?" She asked with large, expressive eyes, her clasped hands tucked beneath her chin.

In an attempt to avoid anything embarrassing, Ranma tried to redirect her teacher's attention back to her job after she landed. "But, what about...?"

"Pleeeeeeeeease...~?" Ninomiya implored, interrupting her.

Ranma tried to think of a way out of it, but then she noticed the looks on some of the faces around her. The guys, in particular, made her realize that flying around would be time better spent than sitting through a lesson in class. That, and it would certainly spare her from the teacher's reaction, if she were to deny her what she wanted.

So, while she pretended to shrug her shoulders in surrender, she said, "Oh, alright."

"Yaaaaay!" Ninomiya cheered in response.

She hurried over to a window and opened it before she excitedly shouted, "Let's go! Let's go!"

Ranma reached her a moment later, with a hint of a grief-stricken expression on her face, and secured her within her arms. She knew that her teacher wasn't going to be the best of company, but she figured that she would be able to manage it, somehow.

"Ready?" She asked, even though the answer was evident.

"Of course!"

With that said, they were off. In the classroom, boys and girls alike gathered at the windows and watched them fly away, but not for long. Soon, the class was filled with a variety of conversations, concerning various topics. A deck of cards, as well as other games, were taken out as well.

Ukyo took the opportunity to sit at the vacated desk in front of Akane, who — for all that anyone could tell — appeared to be bored. Once she got herself settled in the chair, which still faced the desk, she crossed her arms over the back of it and asked, "A rather interesting situation Ran-chan's gotten himself into this time, huh?"

"I guess," Akane offered, looking elsewhere.

"Now I wonder if that would have happened to me, had I worn the thing," Ukyo continued. "Did you try it on?"

Akane's brow furrowed a bit in response, and had trouble keeping her voice down when she replied. "Of course not."

The conversation, if one could call it that, didn't survive after that. Akane's mind was preoccupied with feelings of jealousy, as well as arguments against said feelings of jealousy. Why should she feel jealous of Ranma, after all?

"It's not like he needed to get any stronger," she grumbled to herself.

However, she did feel better near the end of first period, when Ranma returned. She came in through the open window, screaming in a panic, while Ninomiya rode on her back. Said teacher was squealing with joy while she yanked upon Ranma's horns, as if to steer the dragon half where she wanted her to go. They ended up crashing into the lectern before sliding into the wall on the other side of the classroom, where Ranma's head became embedded.

Showing no signs of injury, since her ride had absorbed everything, their teacher hopped to her feet and declared, "Whew! That was fun!" She yawned, before sedately adding, "But... All that excitement really wore me out..."

So saying, she found the nearest, unoccupied desk to sit at, rested her head on her arms, and promptly fell asleep.

"So..." Daisuke drawled. "Should we continue our 'free study,' then?"

Hiroshi looked upon their teacher with reverence and said, "It's what our teacher would have wanted."

In the meantime, Ukyo had reached Ranma's still form. She knelt beside her, shook her shoulder, and asked, "Are you okay, Ran-chan?"

"I'm sure he's fine," Akane remarked from nearby, sounding unconcerned.