Ruroni Ranko
Chapter Seven

by Skysaber
aka Jared Ornstead

During the mushroom incident events diverge from normal and enemies try to take advantage of our pigtailed hero. Unfortunately for them, attempts to get rid of him often go disastrously wrong.

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In most of my stories I like to play with the power on 'high'.

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Amy and Serena had an interesting time being picked up for their dates, but it all worked out well.

Serena, propelled by a flood of fellow students who wanted to eavesdrop on the conversation, got shoved directly out of the classroom and down the steps, out the doors and to the meeting, where both she and her date were surrounded by curious listeners - although, only Melvin was obnoxious enough to tape-record what they said to each other.

Amy, who was very interested in making her way to that meeting herself, hoped that Serena would hold him there long enough for her to go get changed. Also, it wasn't her best fantasy to go on a date with two girls and one guy, but she was willing to try it once so long as she didn't advertise that over the whole school!

So, she went off to the locker room to change outfits while hoping for the crowds to die down.

Ranma's dream clone met Serena at the gates with a bunch of flowers and a bow. "Serena-chan, you look lovely," he repeated the words the two mirror-clone-girls had coached him on. Standing up straighter, he greeted her with a smile. "I was thinking we could catch a movie and then dinner, but the first show isn't for another couple of hours. So if there is something you'd like, I'm sure we could fit that in. Or, if not, I have several suggestions. We could even switch the order to have a late lunch before the movie instead of an early dinner after."

"Ooh!" the blonde's eyes glittered as she clasped her hands and bent forward imploringly. "Do you think we could have lunch and dinner? Hey! Maybe we could even blow a few hours at the arcade!"

Ranma smiled softly and warmly. "I think that sounds like a fine evening."

Instantly, Serena had grasped his hand and was off like a rocket, dragging him along behind. The crowds dispersed and Amy came puffing up a moment later, having run to try and not be too late.

Another Ranma stepped out from concealment behind a pillar, where he'd waited, with another bundle of flowers and a similarly bright smile. "Hello Amy."

"Thank you for waiting," the bluenette tried not to pant too hard, leaning a hand against the school gate so she could steady herself. Then she glanced around. "Hey, where's Serena?"

Instead of answering, Ranma's dream body leaned close to kiss her on the cheek. As he did so, he whispered in her ear. "You know about magic. I am using a special device that allows me to be in more than one place today. It should wear off at sunset, but until then I was hoping to have a fun day alone with each of you!"

He stood back and smiled.

Amy was a delicate person with a heart of steel. She'd been allergic to love letters, but got misty-eyed over scenes of her fellow Scouts getting touches of romance. That was her first kiss, even if it was on the cheek, so on one hand she felt she ought to have been collapsing into a heap just about now, face aflame and dizzy.

On the other hand, it had been a very light kiss, and he'd used the action to impart a secret that couldn't be shared out in the open in public, like they were. And, it was important information, too.

She felt very special that she got her own date when she'd geared herself up to have to share. So she focused on the flowers instead. They were lovely, and when she smelled them she discovered they were equally nice to smell as to look at.

Ranma inadvertently interrupted her internal debate over whether she should be allowing herself to get sick over this attention or not.

"Serena is already with one of me at the Crown Arcade, and between playing the games and eating there seems to be having a marvelous time. Rae and I were just able to catch an early matinee at the movies, but we're a little late for that ourselves unless we want to miss the first few minutes. I was thinking dinner and a movie, plus something else, and since this is a 'get to know you' sort of date, I was hoping you had suggestions?"

The samurai lifted an eyebrow to accompany a kind yet curious smile.

Amy buried her blushing face in those flowers. "I really don't know. I spend most of my free time reading."

His face warmed as he took her by the waist and led her off. "I think that's a fine idea. I've always regretted not making more out of my schooling. Why don't we swing by a deli and some bookshops, then take what we find to a park where we can eat and read to each other." Here he laughed. "And if you want to study some history, I can offer unique insights."

"Why is that?" the offer of books was probably enough to keep Amy from fainting at having a boy put his arm around her waist. Just barely enough, but still.

With a bold laugh, so much like his adopted father, he told her, "Time travel. I was a fairly ordinary student one ward over, who got sent back to live in the last days of Tokugawa Japan for ten years. The Meiji Revolution had started before I left to return here. Why don't I tell you all about it?"

"That sounds fine!" Amy agreed enthusiastically, her academic interest overriding her romantic anemia.

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"I don't think you are supposed to laugh quite so hard during the fight scenes," Rae told her date after the initial scenes of the movie had passed from the 'dramatic entrance' to the plot building parts of the story.

"I couldn't help it." Ranma had to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. "They were supposed to be so deadly serious, and..." he couldn't suppress a chortle at their 'fighting' styles. "It all just turned out so hilarious!"

He got glares from some of the other movie patrons at his noise.

Rae just sank back deeper into her seat. So far, this date wasn't going so well. She'd later grow to accept that he was a highly trained swordsman, one of the absolute best from a very competitive and deadly era, and that the studio choreography using actors with low or no effective training in those same sword arts would be too ridiculous to ignore. A bit like they'd all just whipped out cream pies and started to throw them at each other. Pretending that sort of thing was serious was itself hilarious. So she could hardly blame him for chortling.

But for right now she wasn't feeling so charitable.

That was when her date suddenly froze in his seat, staring bug-eyed out toward the screen. Following his gaze, Rae saw that they'd just introduced the heroine, who'd come out on screen. "What? Didn't you know that this was a flame-haired Ranko film?"

"B.. but..." the samurai weakly pointed a finger. "That's my mom."

Rae's startled gaze fixed on the famous actress indicated.

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Nodoka was blessed. There was no doubt of that. Though she did not know it, her history had been somewhat rewritten by a certain amount of time travel, the effects of which no one outside of a certain supernatural few or those involved had noticed.

Those changes had left her in the envious state of a naturally redheaded Japanese woman. Her open, soulful and kind brown eyes would perhaps be more appreciated if the Japanese mania over blue-eyed redheads wasn't so entrenched, but she was able to wear colored contacts for her film career.

She was the number seven box office star in Japan, and had held onto a 'top ten' slot longer than most before her had careers. Part of that was her family refusing roles they felt would cheapen her or degrade the 'untouchable innocence' air that had allowed her to star in one flame-haired Ranko film after another.

Part of that was her sword expertise, coming through training which her father had not permitted her to withdraw from upon marrying. Her knowledge of how to accurately fight with a katana had delivered an extra layer of believability to her 'Legend of Ranko' stories that brought her into the realm of action adventure features, and put her on a first name basis with such personalities as Jackie Chan.

A much greater part of her longevity on the silver screen was that a personal tragedy had brought her terrible anguish, and once she had done mourning her on screen presence had a great deal of emotional depth that slightly younger actresses couldn't touch, so they'd so far been unable to displace her.

All of Japan knew the story of how Nodoka's son had been stolen from her mansion in the dead of night by a wandering martial artist. Her husband, another popular actor she'd met and married during a production of Ranko and Hideki, had confronted the kidnapper and been killed during his escape.

Every so often a new reward got posted for that child's return, but with nothing more than a handful of baby pictures and DNA tests to screen out the fakes, they didn't have much to go on. The only clues they had were the fact that all the liquor on the estate had also vanished, and that all of her underwear had simultaneously gone missing.

But that last was hardly a point to go on. Like most stars, items reputing to be used or owned by the actress were routinely sold among fans, and personal apparel topped the list for prices. So whoever had stolen the child probably also took those for sale.

Their only guess as to why no ransom had been posted, nor the child returned after repeated offers of a pardon (limited time only, and those offers had expired), as well as a generous reward just for the child's safe return, were that some psycho had taken the child for the same reason items reputing to be her underwear sold - delirious fans wanting to own something of hers.

The other possibilities never got mentioned around Nodoka - that the kidnapper's plans had somehow gone foul and the child was injured or destroyed, either during the attempt or after, and so could not be returned. That could also explain why no ransom had been asked, or pardon accepted. The kidnappers would not desire to be forgiven for an abduction only to get charged with murder.

Speculation had been raging for years, and plots guessed got so convoluted that a handful of popular mystery novels had been written using those as material. Nodoka even got a share of those royalties.

What no one expected was a drunken old master who'd found any old boy during a routine panty raid and taken him for his unmarried disciple to raise as an heir. Knocking the poor guy who'd confronted him out a three story window and into a greenhouse had never seriously been expected to kill him, and in fact Happosai didn't know that the man he'd hit that night had died.

But what did the guy expect, putting up a brave front like that when he couldn't take a hit? Pretend to be a martial artist, and get treated like one, that's what he'd say.

Genma, on receiving a boy, had to pretend to be married to his old friend Soun who otherwise might have displayed a shred of moral character and got reluctant about engaging his daughter to a kidnap victim, so the bald man wound up fabricating a story remarkably similar to an unaltered timeline, except one without all of those times Nodoka had stopped over at the Tendo place to see her son and husband.

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Genma had just returned from inside the Red Hot Tea House, eyes bulging with horror that anything could be so ugly as to make HIM look pretty by comparison (though, naturally, his internal dialog did not say it in those words).

Even the dreaded Master wouldn't find THOSE prostitutes attractive!

As he was just about to flee out of those mountains at top speed, captured scroll with the unsealing technique on it held firmly in one hand, his way out was blocked by a samurai, of all things.

Seijuro stood on his path, subtle readiness in his stance, but beyond that Genma couldn't read it. Being who he was, Genma ignored the man and planned to mindlessly rush past, perhaps using the guy's face as a springboard.

As he rushed, intending to try this, however, the disciple of Happosai felt that oddly familiar (by now) sensation of having all of his limbs fly away from him, and he fell, sprayed out over a wide area, in a mangled mess on the dirt path.

The massively muscled man who normally had quite a kind face stepped to stand over the limbless head and torso lying on the bare ground.

"Genma Saotome. I Will Not Break My Word To My Son! And I promised him that the first day I should see you would be the day your head left your shoulders." A quick swipe of the blade followed, and that decapitation was performed. Seijuro picked up the still living severed head and addressed it, "I realize that, due to a potion, you cannot die from this injury, But I had to keep my promise."

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"No!" Rae shouted, dragging her date out of the movie theater towards the exit. "I'm not about to let you just say those sorts of things and get away with it! Now, either admit you were lying, trying to impress me, or we're going over to that studio right now! Nodoka is filming nearby, so don't think I won't do it."

Like most people, Rae referred to her favorite stars by their first names, as often as not without even thinking about it.

Ranma's only answer was to shrug. "I can only say what I know. That woman in the picture looked very much like my mom, and my mother's name is Nodoka. I don't see why you should get upset over this."

"As if you didn't know," Rae scowled to perhaps the one person in all of Japan who DIDN'T know about the abduction of Nodoka's son. Grabbing his hand, she dragged him away. "Come on, if you're going to be like this then you'll have to explain it to the gate guards of the film studio. I won't put up with jokes about people I care about!"

Meekly, the amazingly talented samurai allowed himself to be towed along behind. After one very furious bus trip, in which Rae fumed, they found themselves at the gates, where the irate girl was informing those guards. "This guy said he was Nodoka's son. I just want you to prove him wrong so I can get an honest story out of him."

She crossed her arms, frowned and began tapping her foot, not noticing the duck wearing coke-bottle-bottom glasses fly overhead and notice them.

Though perhaps not the usual way 'presumed sons' got returned in pathetic attempts to claim the reward money, the guards took it as a fairly standard affair anyway. "Right, okay 'son', spit on this dish. We've gotten expert at turning false claims away, and it's been years since we bothered Nodoka with any of them. You'll be on your way in ten minutes, and then your girlfriend can tear your ear off."

The other guard scowled at Ranma. "Kids like you make me sick! How can you keep toying with the feelings of a famous actress like this?"

"But..?" Ranma could see neither the two gate guards, nor Rae, were listening to him so he just spat in the petri dish. One of the guards took it inside, and they waited...

...and waited...

... and waited.

Finally, those guards came out of the shack and asked for another sample. Half an hour later they came out and wordlessly led Ranma and his date inside, where he was put in a small hospital room that served both as a set for scenes, and as a clinic for the staff. A doctor there had Ranma take his shoes off and scanned prints of both his feet and hands to compare against those recorded for the star's kidnapped son, checked for a few identifying marks in other areas, took a blood sample (which caused Ranma to sweat profusely, but to his surprise the tiny pinprick did not disrupt his present dream-clone) and, after puzzling over these results and consulting with a few fellow doctors, they reached a consensus...

... and sent for Nodoka.

Rae's eyes were now round, having grown wider and wider in ever increasing shock as one test after another failed to disprove what she'd felt was a ludicrous claim. And, by the time they'd sent for the famous actress, the bold shrine maiden was actually feeling acutely humbled, and strangely honored. Here she was on the site to see when one of the more famous tragedies of Japan's popular culture might be about to get resolved.

On another part of the lot, going into a sound stage currently set up for her latest movie, the gopher (go-for, a stage job) whispered to the director, who sent him back for confirmation and was replaced by one of the doctors to review the actual information. This time the director listened, and filming got called to a halt. Then a procession led by the doctor and followed up by the director and producer and a few other hefties who'd been briefed on what was happening approached the star's dressing room where Nodoka had just gone to remove her makeup.

She was still in costume as the troupe came to her door and knocked. She answered and staring out on all of those serious faces might have felt she were being fired for all of their grimness.

In truth, no one among them knew quite what to think. They were used to fakes and frauds coming to try and claim the reward money, but all of the tests they used to turn those away had failed to disprove this boy's claim. None of them could be sure if they were going to disappoint the actress again and possibly ruin her career for grief this time...

... but, on the other side of things, they knew she did have a son once, and it was possible that he was still out there, and just vaguely possible that he might come by. And, well, all of the ways used to detect a fake had yet to disprove this guy.

There were those, many in fact, who'd happily have poked and prodded and tested for a good dozen weeks or more. But the fact of the matter was, their star had requested to be notified if anyone should get this far through the claimant process.

So far no one ever had... until today.

They weren't sure how the results of so many tests could be faked. In fact many of them would like to make a movie about someone who tried, because the difficulty of fooling so many and varied tests was epic in scale, and would probably involve getting access to critical machines, and so could result in an excellent spy thriller.

The very reason they'd sprung for a specialized DNA test machine for the guards to use was so they could absolutely turn away all of the charlatans before they even got in the front door.

And it had worked, so far.

"Nodoka," a star who'd been summoned from another set and briefed to bear the news, as he was one of her oldest friends, spoke tenderly. "A boy came to the gates today. So far he's passed all of the tests. Now, we'd like to double-check everything, reset the equipment and retest, make sure nothing has been faked. But at least by what we've seen so far..." the man was used to delivering emotional lines, so his acting training bore him up through a startling, and personally significant, admission.

"He just might be your son."

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"I feel a little guilty, not having Ranma around so he can share," Ukyo commented, looking down a touch shamefully on a scene she'd imagined for years. Still, it made her feel so happy inside!

"You must learn not to limit today's happiness for yesterday's sorrow or tomorrow's perils," Seijuro told her, roasting marshmallows over the fire. "Besides, I fully intend to do this again sometime soon. Perhaps fairly often."

Genma, who's many bits were strapped to a metal frame over the fire and gagged, sweated as his flesh was roasted by near continual flames at close range to those coals, but otherwise had no comment.

In a nearby pile with his clothes was his pack, and a scroll with the unsealing technique on it.

"Actually, I'm glad we're saving the best for later," smiled Ukyo, pouring another layer of boiling tar over Genma's bald chest, and soon the flames were roaring up around and over his body once again.

Nodding sagely, Seijuro agreed, "Yes. It would not be fair to my son for him not to be present when we tie up this thief in fish sausage and throw him into a pit of starving cats."

"Actually, do you mind if we make a stop on the way home?" Ukyo asked brightly, as an idea occurred to her.

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In the horrid center of the Negaverse, another Dark General was making his plea for permission to act upon his plan.

"Jedite failed because he tried to collect energy from too many humans at once. I can collect more energy from one single person than Jedite was able to collect from a hundred. The human race is ruled by the movement of the stars throughout the heavens, and each person is ruled by a unique and special rhythm that is theirs alone. Everyone has a moment in their lives when their energy rises to its very highest point."

Queen Beryl considered him through half-lidded eyes, after allowing Zoicite to mock her current supplicant. "Very well, Nephlite. You may proceed."

Deep in Juuban, a high forested hill merely phased into existence, the magical force of its creation altering the plane upon which it appeared, displacing nothing as it brought with it the space on which it stood and merely stretched the surrounding reality to accommodate it - a trick that, if humans could learn it, would alter real estate prices forever.

Nephlite stood before his personal star map, gathering his energies for divination.

"Jedite was a fool, using wasteful and indiscriminate methods. I can draw more energy from a single person who reaches their energy peak than he could from crowds."

Calling upon the constellations of Sagittarius (the Archer) and Orpheus (the Musician) to guide him to a human who was about to reach their energy peak, he saw in his divination a picture of a young Chinese man in a white robe just emerging from the male side of a public bath, a determined expression on his face.

"This is the person selected by the stars. Mousse, your energy will be mine!"

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Cologne was having a happy day.

There were comparatively few Amazons whose names had been recorded as having made great additions to the knowledge of the tribe. Oh, she'd tried, like most, in her youth to excel and be different and epic enough to make a difference, but it was an uphill battle. With so many and so grand achievements done before, the bar was quite high to pass over those to score even a fractionally higher mark.

As maturity had come upon her, she'd become happy to have been among the best of her generation, which was a significant enough achievement on its own.

That was about to change.

As the three-hundred-year-old matriarch gazed into the mirror at her newly restored sixteen-year-old body, and the beauty that came with it, she felt that this discovery was going to be one of those achievements that made an individual amazon's name live forever among the tribes.

And, if these mushrooms worked the way she thought, she'd be around to see it.

Of course, as she well knew, there was little point in living empty, lonely years of life. The reason she'd come here to help her great-granddaughter was to maintain a relationship with her, as close contacts with other people were, as near as the Amazons had been able to determine, the whole purpose of life to begin with.

People certainly got miserable enough to seek death without them. And if they didn't die, they certainly got bitter enough that those around them wished them dead. Besides, kids these days grew so fast, you turn your back on them and they've married and had kids of their own in what seemed like minutes - like had happened with Shampoo's mother.

No, if she was going to live another three hundred years, it wasn't going to be alone. And as the mother and father and brothers and sisters that had seen her off to such a good start so long ago were now long gone themselves, she really had to look into starting another family to replace her first.

Luckily, she had just the thing.

Ranma had defeated her in combat. Due to the tremendous age difference, she'd not quite pressed him for marriage, but that was a close thing. She'd almost gone ahead and done it anyway, as he was such a marvelous catch. Well, no time like the present. She had a husband to catch and a family to start.

Being generous never hurt, so she'd graciously allow Shampoo to share. Amazons could share husbands when circumstances required. And in the case of Son-In...

No.

In the case of her Airen, there was no doubting that he was good enough of a find to require as many strong ties to their village as possible. A couple of Amazon brides would be an excellent place to start with that.

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The date with Amy was going very pleasantly.

They had stopped by a bookshop, and a deli, and armed thus with books and sandwiches the couple had retired to a park to eat and read.

Amy, to his delight, had turned out to be one of those who knew how to speed read and had shown him how. Naturally, being able to master just about any technique in short order, Ranma had not only picked those tricks up, but the memory improvement ones that followed after.

Thus armed with the tools to be an excellent student, the duo had sat down with a stack of historical references on the late Tokugawa regime and early Meiji era, stopping in between reading each books to share their insights and discuss what they knew.

For Amy, that made this date close to a study session, and she never felt upset at those. For Ranma, he was picking up a vital perspective on something he'd lived through a part of. Having your feet on the ground gives one viewpoint, while a big picture is another. By combining the detailed, close up perspective with the overall, wide angle summary, the duo were learning more about the period than either view alone could've given.

It was also proving amazingly interesting to both of them, and they were rapidly learning to enjoy each other's company.

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Back at the Mirror Mansion, two copies of Ranma were hanging out. One was all dressed and ready for a date with Ukyo - if she ever showed up. The other was dressed in his usual, or rather, his former Chinese silks and simply relaxing.

As the manor had alot of books, the two of them passed most of their time reading. One of those books was on castle design, using historical examples of both western and eastern types. Another was comparative combat styles.

Hey! Just because he had a chance to read and catch up on his book learning didn't mean that he'd suddenly acquired a different set of interests!

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Mousse was startled as, on his way from the bathhouse to where Ranma was, he nearly got run over by an expensive sports car. During the near-accident, while he was in the act of recoiling against the near miss, Mousse's glasses were tugged from the top of his head by an invisible and unnoticed pull of magic, to land beneath a wheel of the low-slung, red car, which then pulled to a stop by the curb.

The Dark General got out in the guise of a wealthy young businessman.

Mousse was already reaching for his glasses so he could see this new face, when his fingers came up empty.

'Maxfield Stanton' was already bending low to stand, with the ruined pair of lenses and their twisted frames in his hand.

"Hmm, how lucky for you I'm an optometrist. These are ruined. But I've got a pair in my trunk that should fit your prescription, and frame your eyes better, too."

Before the confused martial artist could say a word, Nephlite was already bending over the open trunk of his car, rummaging around for just a second before he stood holding a pair of gold plated, wire-rimmed, glasses...

... that just happened to have a Dark Mark upon them.

Without asking for permission, the disguised villain put the new frames over Mousse's face, fitting them on carefully before giving him a mirror to look in. "Well, how do they fit?"

The nearly-blind man from the Amazon tribes stared about in wonder. He'd never seen this good before! And his face! Looking in the mirror it was obvious that he could wear these new glasses without hiding his pretty eyes, which were his best feature!

"Thanks!" Mousse shook the man's hand enthusiastically. "But I've got to go. There's a man I've got to fight."

Nephlite stood grinning as the nearly blind man ran away, really seeing the world for the first time. Oh yes, his energy would peak soon!

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"Ranma! Why are we going?!?" Rae was the one being dragged along this time, and the puller was her boyfriend, who stopped for a moment to explain.

"Think! I'm not truly myself just now. I told you at the start of our date that I was just a mirror clone. Frankly, I'm amazed that I didn't poof into nothing when they pricked my finger to test my blood type. What would happen if my mother came in and gave me a hug just a wee bit too hard and I poofed into nothing in her arms?"

The shrine maiden's face reflected her horror as she thought about how that would hurt the woman, who'd probably conclude the whole thing was just a cruel trick. "That could be bad."

"So that's why we're leaving," the young man continued to pull.

"But wait! Ranma! At least leave her a note!" Rae dug in her pretty heels.

He paused. "And what would it say?"

The unpowered Sailor Mars thought for a moment, trying and discarding ideas. Had an appointment? What appointment could be more important than this meeting? Family emergency? How ridiculous would that sound to his own mother? Any school she knew of would fall all over themselves to reschedule anything they could if doing so meant that the famous actress could meet her son once again. He got sick? How odd would that sound? They were just walking out of a clinic!

The shrine maiden gave a small shrug. "I can't think of anything. But we still have to tell her something!"

Just then the wall of windows they were walking near burst apart in a spray of glass as a horde of chains tipped with knives flew through it.

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Author's Notes:

I love the fan community. I really adore you guys. The rush of help to point me toward my beloved anime was amazing and came in a very welcome flood. I couldn't have asked for better help from my best friends.

Thank you.

The reference to Gettysburg was tongue-in-cheek humor. I wasn't making a mistake in ignorance, you should know me better than that by now. No, I was mocking high school history students by introducing an obvious (and pretty ridiculous) error in my narration of Nabiki's internal dialog. There were others.

We've got high school and college students who can't name what ocean they live next to. That sort of thing is just too easily mocked to be left alone!

So if you see something like that, look for the humor. That's probably what it's there for.