Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written fiction, the views and opinions in this story are not intended to be viewed as those of the author. Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Inuyasha, and Five Pound Gospel are the creations of Rumiko Takahashi, property of their respective rights holders and publishers. Please support the official releases.

CW: This story will contain violence, strong language, sexual humor and situations, drug use, Moroboshi Ataru, and Happosai. You've been warned.

|For Whom The Bell Tolls|

Suzuki, a smoldering cigarette in hand, stood midway on the steps of his Host Club, a petulant expression on his face, as Kamaitachi walked up to the foot of the stairs. No other members of either leaders' gang were in sight, leaving this meeting just between the two of them. As Kamaitachi set one foot on the bottom stair and looked up at him, Suzuki looked down at him.

"I'm not mad," Suzuki said, "Not about you getting into it with those gorilla girls from Furinkan. We're cool, there."

Kamaitachi looked a bit relieved to hear that. "Okay, and I meant it when I said they were boys with an okonomiyaki cart. That 'girl' who showed up was dressed like one then, too."

Suzuki took a drag from his cigarette, still seething. "Of course."

Kamaitachi shrugged his shoulders. "Just deny you had anything to do with it. It'll be easy."

"Easy? Easy?!" He gestured with a hand in the direction of Furinkan as he snapped at Kamaitachi. "Those gorilla girls are onto me, and so is that freaking moron Sōban! You need to do something about all of them, so it doesn't get around that I'm not the Top G around here!"

Kamaitachi looked off to the side, then sighed. "Bro, your status as Top G is not in question. Nonetheless, I'll take care of Sōban and those girls, but I'm gonna need a guarantee from you."

Suzuki blew out a plume of smoke after another cigarette drag. "What?"

"I need to know who has the deets on the Temple."

Suzuki frowned.

Kamaitachi pouted. "Come on, Suzu-kun! I've done all this for you! I've helped boost Moon Parlor Crown up over all the others! You can't tell me what I need to know, when now you're asking me to go after people as strong as Sōban?"

He pointed admonishingly at Suzuki. "This is the guy Lum Invader couldn't beat in a straight fight! This is serious!"

Suzuki's frown deepened; he might be self-absorbed, but he wasn't a fool. "All right, quit whining. Mess Sōban and those girls up but good, make sure none of 'em can even say a word, and I'll tell you the details."

Kamaitachi lit up, and he smirked to Suzuki. "You're saving my life, bro, thanks."

Suzuki clicked his teeth and looked away.

Backing up from the steps, Kamaitachi turned from him. "I'll shut 'em all down by the end of the week."

In a flicker, the leather-clad man vanished and left the street empty.

After a few moments of burning down the cigarettes and seething, Suzuki crushed it in his hand and tossed it away. "Eh… such a weirdo freak…"

As he turned to walk back up the stairs, a projectile struck the step just before his foot touched it. He nearly fell down the steps and stared at the spatula that had split the concrete step like it had been made of butter. Suzuki looked from the spatula to the railing along the walkway in front of the Host Club. Ucchan was perched upon it, squatting down with his elbows on his knees and his wide eyes burning a glare into his.

"Oi," he said, before tilting his head like a bird sizing up something small that it wanted to kill and eat.

Suzuki wasn't intimidated. "Can I help you?"

"You can help me, help you," Ucchan replied. "Pay me back for my cart and the money those leather freaks stole, and I won't punch you in the face until you're uglier than Sōban."

He looked down the street, presumably in the direction Kamaitachi disappeared in at high speed, then back at Suzuki. "And you also won't have to worry about any more arrangements you have with said leather freaks."

There was a quiet, seething rage–a frenzied feeling of unrelenting violence lashed into the calmest threat anyone had ever spoken to Suzuki in his life. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out another cigarette.

"Can you do it?" He asked.

Ucchan nodded. "Sure can. Those freaks only got one over on me because I fell for how ridiculous they look; now the first thing I want to do when I see them is give them the pounding the definitely don't want."

Suzuki heard a shuffling from behind Ucchan, and then found one of his Hosts–battered and bleeding–hobble over to the top of the steps. Reaching out to Suzuki, the formerly handsome young man croaked out Suzuki's name then collapsed unconscious, tumbling down past him to the sidewalk below.

Ucchan looked back towards the Host club. "Kinda like what I did to your boys in there who weren't too hospitable when I came by looking for your ass."

Wide-eyed, Suzuki forgot all about the host lying at the bottom of the steps and rushed into his club. Swinging open the door, he stopped when he saw it a complete ruin–trashed from floor to ceiling with broken tables, booths, and all matter of alcohol bottles broken on the floors and walls. The club's entertainment for that evening, each host an excellent martial artist, were laid out with all manner of injuries as a result of fighting Ucchan.

He looked back at Ucchan, still perched on the railing, now looking back at him out the corner of his right eye, his left hand gripping the blood-splattered spatula carried on his back.

"Well?" He asked. "What do you say there, sugar?"

Suzuki let the cigarette to drop from his mouth, smoke still wisping from his lips as he closed them to swallow nervously. Pulling from the door, he gestured inside.

"… The safe should have what you need."

Coughing, Ryūnosuke slowly meandered down the empty hallway of Tomobiki High School, heading towards her destination–the school's commissary and store. Her hand held around her waist, her vision blurring from the pain, she walked with gritted teeth and her anger kept steady by the thoughts repeating in her mind.

"So, you got some moves. Doesn't change a damn thing, my boy."

"I said. I'm a chick."

"Are you sure?"

She clenched her teeth harder as she reached the school store's sliding door and rested her hand on the handle. Her face red and her eyes wet from the tears caused by the stabbing pain in her ribs, she took a deep breath to steady herself.

"We're exactly alike, Tama-kun."

Ryūnosuke tightened her grip on the door handle. "We ain't alike," she snarled quietly. "The hell we are. I ain't some dude with a leather kink who doesn't have an ounce of shame in public! I'm a chick… I've always been a chick… and no one is ever going to say differently…!"

She swung open the door, sending it banging off the doorway at the end of its rail.

Sitting on the store's tatami mats by a low table set out for after its closure at the end of the school day, was a black-haired man in white shirt and pants with a yellow brown haramaki around his waist. He held in one hand a bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks over a platter of badly cooked meat, vegetables, and miso.

"Welcome home, Ryūnosuke my son, who has always been my son, and will forever be my son in spite of his delusions of being a woman." Ryūnosuke's father greeted her.

Ryūnosuke stared at her father, her expression stony.

Her father stared back, stoic, his angular features betraying no emotion beyond laser-focus.

Lowering her hand from around her waist, Ryūnosuke calmly walked into the store-turned living room and over to the other side of the table from her father. He raised a clump of rise to his lips as he watched her cross the room.

Once at the other side of the table, Ryūnosuke and her father again exchanged a silent stare.

Then she hooked her foot under it and kicked the whole table up to slam into her father's face with thunderous force.

The table shattered into splinters with the force of her father's karate chop as he roared at her. "IDIOT BOY, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT FOOD COST?!"

Ryūnosuke's flying kick smashed into his face and her old man went flipping end over end to crash into some bamboo screens that were set up in front of the shelves of products that students would purchase during the school day. "I am not in the god damn mood, Pop! So, you're gonna shut the hell up with YOUR delusion!"

Fujinami-san sprang to his feet and raised his fists. He scanned Ryūnosuke from top to bottom and hummed. "You're injured. What happened?"

"I've been getting into fights." Ryūnosuke spat back.

Fujinami-san hummed in acknowledgement, before asking. "Are ya winning, son?"

Ryūnosuke, seeing red, threw herself across the room at her father. "SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Her father quickly dropped into a low, wide stance and blocked the rolling kick she unleashed when she reached him with his right arm. Still in the stance, he parried the barrage of kicks she followed with using just that arm.

"I'm not in the mood! For dealing with your crap!" She yelled while switching from one foot to the other for her repeated kicks. "Least of all you! The shittiest father who ever lived!"

Fujinami-san caught Ryūnosuke's foot and casually flipped her into the air back away from him. "Your anger makes you sloppy my boy–"

In mid-flip Ryūnosuke twisted her body around and spin-kicked her father in the jaw, sending him twirling off to her left and collapsing against the bamboo screens.

"And your stupidity makes you easy!" She shot towards him, but he blocked the punch she aimed for his head with the back of his left hand, then he kicked her right leg from under her before punting her in the chin.

"Stupid?! I'm not the shameful first son of a man of the sea obsessed with this stupid idea that he's a woman!" As Ryūnosuke crashed onto the remains of the table, he looked aside, tears running down his manly face.

"Masako, my beloved wife. I fight and struggle so hard in your memory, in your spirit… but this boy is dead set on betraying his born manliness…!"

Kicking up from the prone position, Ryūnosuke landed and felt nothing from pain. Snarling, she rushed at her old man again. "I'm a chick! I'm a chick! I'M A CHICK!"

Her father blocked the two haymakers Ryūnosuke sloppily threw at him, but as he opened his mouth to point out something stupid, like that she hit like a man, her uppercut connected with his chin and up his whole body went into the wooden ceiling of the school store. With a crunch, his head and shoulders punched through, and his body dangled from the hole he made.

"I'll punch you as many times as I need to freaking say it!" She screamed at her father.

Dangling there in silence for a moment, her father held a thumb's up. "That was one hell of a hot-blooded hit, son. Like a wave surging up a cliff."

Ryūnosuke screamed in pain and frustration and stormed out of the store. "FUCK YOU!"

Her father just dangled there. "… Wow, rude."

Marching outside, Ryūnosuke left the school and headed towards the river. The wispy condensation shot from her nose like steam into the cool night air with her every breath, as her enraging encounters succeeded in making her forget her pain and the red stains forming in her white shirt.

"Screw them both! With a rusty freaking metal bat!" She snarled as she reached the corner where Ucchan's stand had stood.

Looking at the spot where the okonomiyaki cart stood, she looked further down the street she stood on, at the curb where she and Ucchan had been attacked.

Her eyes darkened as she remembered that night. It happened exactly as it had been said–the moment the attackers of those pretty boys that offered their protection emerged, both she and Ucchan couldn't help themselves. They broke into laughter at their ridiculous attire, and the way they pranced around like girly idiots, and they were cracking wise about their leather duds and masks to hide their faces… when another half dozen of them got the drop on them from behind.

She thought about those weaklings that Katie and Akane manhandled. It burned her to the core to think that those losers were able to get in a cheap shot and leave her broken on the side of the street. But even that fire was incinerated knowing that she got jumped for that reason. Then there was Kamaitachi, and her Dad… everything making her angrier and angrier.

"Is it too much for someone to acknowledge that I am a freaking chick?!" She yelled.

And there was Moroboshi Ataru, as if her cry to the universe was answered by a hateful God.

"Ryū-chan!" He called as he approached her. "I'm glad I ran into you! Lum's trying to cook me dinner, but since I love having a stomach lining, how about you and me grab a bite to eat? I'm buying!"

Ryūnosuke quietly asked said hateful God what the fuck she did to deserve this, before turning to face him. "Not fucking today, Moroboshi, fuck off!"

Ataru backpedaled. "Oi, oi, what's wrong?"

He took notice of Ryūnosuke's condition and hummed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm. Fine." Ryūnosuke snarled at him. "I've just been fightin' more than usual the last couple days."

Ataru looked Ryūnosuke over, then beamed. "Kicking butt as usual, huh? Then let's celebrate the win streak! Seriously, there's a nice little place where we can have dinner…"

Ryūnosuke's left lower eyelid twitched upward violently, as her fists clenched and unclenched. "Moroboshi… go away."

Recognizing the looming threat of violence, Ataru switched it up. "Hey, I'm not offering a date! Just a free meal as a reward for a hard day. It'd just be that I'd happen to be there too! We can talk about how it went; you can give me the punch-by-punch details, it'll be fun! C'mon…"

She turned her head to look at him. "Am I allowed to not be bothered by you, or do you not care what I want either?"

Ataru answered that by entering the deadly zone within her reach. "You look stressed out, Ryū-chan, and I want to be by your side to help you through it."

Lifting her hand, she pointed at him between his eyes. "You're stressing me out."

He reached up, gently took her hand in his, and lowered it from his face to clasp it in both. "… Then give me a chance to be your relief, instead."

Ryūnosuke took him up on that offer, but she did not feel any better after dunking him into a conveniently nearby trash bin.

She trundled off, heading down to the river and the wall on the other side that divided the Special Administration District and the rest of Tokyo. There was no fence on her side of the river, just a concrete slope down to the edge, which she sat at the top of.

Anger began to cool off, leaving only frustration and loathing in its wake, as she stared at the slow-flowing water reflecting the street lights above her. Her injuries throbbed, adding to her misery as she thought about the last day and a half.

Ataru, her Dad, Kamaitachi, Katie and Akane, Ryōko and her dumbass brother yesterday… they all had the same damn thing in common.

"Fuck me, right? What does what I say matter?" She said. "I can't say I'm a chick, I can't say I wanna be left alone, I can't say that I want to get revenge… I can't even get a freaking lunch…"

She sighed and stared at the water.

"I miss the sea. I could go there and forget all this crap for a while."

She stopped and grumbled.

"Yeah, and then I'd be back to square one all over again. Dealing with people who either think I'm a guy, want me to be a guy, or only care about me being a girl because they want to date me."

She stewed in silence, her head sinking lower as she drew her legs to her chest.

This was a mistake.

Her ribs were still shot.

"Ow."

She sat still, unwilling to move and cause more pain to shoot through her. A fair amount of time passed with her watching the river in silence, when footsteps approaching her broke the ambience of the water below. She looked up at the red-haired foreign man who walked up to her, professionally dressed in a dark suit, looking down at her with green eyes that reminded her more of an animal's than any bestial look Ataru could put on when he was feeling particularly inhuman.

She stared at the man, this stranger, wondering what he could possibly want with her.

"So… rough night?" He asked.

"Screw off," she muttered before looking down at the river.

The man hummed, before he asked. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Ryūnosuke closed her eyes. "I dunno, do you want to actually listen? Maybe even give a damn about what I gotta talk about?"

The man mulled over that response, and despite that nice suit he was wearing, he sat down beside Ryūnosuke–staying out of arm's reach but still close enough that his presence could not be ignored–and faced her. "Shoot, I'm game. Let's hear it."

Rather than simply start spilling her guts, Ryūnosuke opened her eyes and stared at him like he was something weird for this town.

"Seriously?" She asked.

He nodded. "Get everything you want off your chest. Heck, pretend I'm not even here if it helps, kiddo. You deserve that much, at least."

Ryūnosuke kept staring at him, still unsure what to make of this. "… Uh huh? Who are you, old guy?"

The man smiled at the girl.

"You can call me Nick."

Kodachi had fired half the faculty of Furinkan High School.

Between the teachers who were lax on their jobs, the teachers who did not know how to do their jobs, and the teachers whose negligence–if not outright contempt–enabled the reckless activities of Kuno Tatewaki… exactly half of the faculty body of the school were let go by the end of the hours long review. It was past sunset by the time the doors to the gymnasium finally opened, and the remaining teachers were finally free to leave for home.

They marched out, looking not unlike the male students of the school–broken, bleak, in many ways defeated. It had been humiliating, a moment that stretched to infinity to shatter their illusion of superiority. While many were not bad teachers or even bad people, the main reason they felt down was how out of the blue it was, and how it seemed they were still but another whim away from being fired as well.

Fanning herself, Nabiki walked out of the gymnasium to bring up the rear, Kodachi right behind her, and Vice-Principal Okamada as the very last.

"Oooh, that needed to happen," Nabiki said to Kodachi, a bit proud at how thorough the review was. "The ones that are left have a chance to get their act together or accept that they're not up to the new standards."

"Regardless of their fates, this fat-trimming was long overdue," Kodachi noted.

"True that." Nabiki looked back at Okamada, making sure to keep him in her sights to overcome his lack of presence. Nevertheless, she chose to speak of him like he was not present. "So, what's going to happen to the Vice-Principal? He's got a bit to answer for himself, after all."

"The time for him will come, once the replacements for those fired settle in"" Kodachi answered, similarly without care for the man-either in how he might take it or in general. "The Vice-Principal's job is often to help corral the staff as it is to serve as the second in command."

"Good thing it's Golden Week," Nabiki said. "We have a few days to find someone."

Kodachi waved her hand. "I've had my servant prepare a shortlist of replacements."

Nabiki regarded that with skepticism. "You mean that little ninja? Is he qualified for that?"

"You'd be surprised what Sarugakure Sasuke is capable of. His family have been in the service of ours for generations, and they are held up to a very high standard," Kodachi revealed. "Though, not in the realm of martial prowess."

Nabiki hummed. "So, a traditional shinobi. Hey, what's a girl gotta do to borrow a Swiss Army Ninja?"

Kodachi gave her a pointed side-eye. "Consider full time employment with that ninja's mistress."

Nabiki returned that look with the same smarminess. "A tempting offer, but I'm not about to sign a contract just yet."

With a gentler version of her over the top laugh, Kodachi conceded. "As you wish, but the pond will remain open for whenever you want to take the plunge."

Vice-Principal Okamada spoke. "Kodachi-san."

And somehow, she heard him. "Yes, Vice-Principal?"

"Do you truly believe that you are up for the task that you have set for yourself?" He asked.

Kodachi scowled. "If you mean to present this as concern for the future of the school, you should look in the mirror and remember your failure in running this school is why I'm here."

Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what are you trying to achieve with this passive-aggressive crap? Plug in some self-doubt? Do a little bit of negging to chip away at our self-esteem?"

Kodachi turned to Nabiki. "Remind us that we are Japanese, and so we must feel shame for any action we take that society may not approve of."

This won a hard to achieve laugh from Nabiki, her derision dripping from the bark. "HA! Even more so because we're women, right?"

A twitch ran through the Vice-Principal. "Being considerate of society is only one concern…"

Nabiki faced Okamada, allowing her mask to slip and reveal the venomous bile her aloof nature concealed. "Hey, listen, baldy basic. In case you've forgotten? This entire country has decided that we're not Japanese enough to consider keeping–and sold us off to the Neptunians so they could get rid of Moroboshi Ataru in the deal. Why the hell should we be so considerate of society, when they didn't think much of us in the first place–kinda like you."

Kodachi followed right after that. "If you are so concerned for this school's future, then by all means Vice-Principal: do your job."

Okamada felt another twitch seize him.

"My father walked all over you, and you stayed down for my brother to trample upon your back at his pleasure. Now, however? Now you decide that it is time to make a stand, but you only come up to your knees?!"

She stepped up to the man, coming up to only his shoulder but looming over him in every possible way. "How is it that you can be a full head taller than me, and you still must look up?!"

Defer, demure, deflect, degrade, dismiss. "Kodachi-san–"

"Kodachi-sama," she corrected.

Defer, demure, deflect, degrade, dismiss. "I have done my job–"

"Liar!" She retorted.

Defer, demure, deflect, degrade, dismiss. "The changes brought by the SAD–"

"Are plainly obvious to everyone!" She yelled at him.

Defer, demure, deflect, degrade, dismiss. "You are not in your right mind–"

"One must be out of their mind to change anything in this wretched country!" She countered.

Defer, demure, deflect, degrade, dis–

"SHUT UP YOU SPOILED, ENTITLED, JUMPED UP WRETCH OF A GIRL!"

His yell was able to make Nabiki jump, recoiling from Okamada in surprise. The anger in his voice brought Kodachi's eyebrows up, and the force of his shout blew her side-bunched hair backward.

Bathed in sweat, shaking where he stood, Vice-Principal Okamada pointed at her. "You think… you can just come here, acting so high and mighty, after breaking out of that asylum your father paid triple the tuition to lock you inside! Pretending that you are of some sound mind enough to take on something as important, as vital as the head of your family'?!"

He let out a laugh. "You are a child! A girl! Your brother was the only one of your family of maniacs who could be trusted with some kind of consistency! To do what was expected of him and play his role as a prince of this HELL!"

He pointed at Nabiki. "But no! Thanks to your beast of a sister and that criminal ape of an American…" He turned back to Kodachi. "… There's you, plotting to become a Queen when you're nothing more than a case study for the benefits of LOBOTOMY!"

Kodachi and Nabiki stared at Okamada in silence, as he slowly brought himself back to composure. His huffing turning into panting, then into heavy breathing as he readjusted his tie, smoothed out his collar, what remaining hair he had left, and finally adjusted his glasses and wiped the sweat rolling down his face with a handkerchief.

Nabiki whistled. "… Well. Was that cathartic?"

He finished dabbing his face and put away his handkerchief. "Without comparison."

Nodding, she turned to Kodachi. "So…?"

Kodachi breathed in deeply. "I appreciate your honesty, Vice-Principal."

Vice-Principal Okamada nodded. "Thank you."

"It makes it easier for me to dismiss you from your position effective immediately." She stepped aside and gestured to the school's gate. "Leave, and never return."

Former Vice-Principal Okamada sighed, as if every weight in the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "I hope you burn in hell."

With that he calmly walked off the property, not looking at either. "You and both your sisters as well." He added to Nabiki as he passed her.

Kodachi watched him leave the grounds, turn left, and fall out of sight.

"Shame that ninja of yours isn't rated for actually killing someone," Nabiki said, "I'll have to go tell Akane and her Senpai who to put on their shit list, next."

"Worry not about him; we already knew he was unfit for his position. That when his repetitive passive-aggression could not serve him, he fell upon frothing vitriol, only demonstrates how small and pitiable he is. Let Okamada Kamoyo fade from our memory and from history itself–we have more important matters to concern ourselves with than retaliating against his worthless words."

Nabiki didn't expect such a high road answer from Tatewaki's sister. She didn't expect a lot of things from this loon, and now it had her wondering just who this girl was. Much like Katie, however, she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Not when she was having this much fun.

"Well, we still have Golden Week," she said.

Kodachi agreed. "Correct! We'll find suitable temporary staff in short order…"

Down the street, Okamada Kamoyo felt like he was walking on air as he walked left Furinkan behind. He had said what he had felt about Kodachi and her tyrannical hysteria, about her usurping of Furinkan High School, and about those animals that had shattered the peace he had enjoyed so much. He was free of that school, of kissing the dainty foot of young women, and of the disgusting arrogance all of them dare to hold above all others.

His light footsteps grew heavier, however, and slowed down from a near skip to a slow trudge.

At the street corner he stopped at, he watched several young men–stragglers Katie and Akane missed–drift by as if on the wind.

Young men robbed of their youth, their dreams, of the fire that burned so passionately. Burned for something so foolish.

His hand came up to his mouth, as a realization dawned upon him.

He was running away.

From Kodachi and her madness, from violent women who young men clamor for in vain, from those same young men now at their mercies.

He was running away, happily! Leaving these young men to languish in the hell he declared this Special Administration District.

"… No… this world," he whispered as his hand spread up and over his face. "… This… this impure… hideous world…"

His breathing picked up, growing quickly into hyperventilation as he clutched at his face, his nails digging into his skin.

"It is no one's fault but theirs. I was too meek, slow, too complacent…"

Okamada Kamoyo could not make things right.

"… I…"

Okamada Kamoyo was not the man for the job.

"… I…"

Okamada Kamoyo was incapable of anything.

"… Fufufu…"

Because Okamada Kamoyo was just a mask. One he wore for convenience.

"… I am~"

He went still. Slowly, he slid his trembling hand down his face as he breathed freely for the first time in years. Unbound from his previous self, free to be what he truly was….

The herald of a beautiful world.

"… Madame Kamenbell."

|Escape from Shanghai|

Ranma didn't know what his father did, but somehow, they had managed to avoid that crazy warrior girl for days after cutting through that bamboo forest–more than enough time for them to hop aboard a train that took them straight to their final destination, the city of Shanghai. It was their last stop, from here it was a matter of hopping aboard a ship, or a plane, or hell just swimming all the way back to Japan.

Not that Ranma wanted to go back. Still stuck as a girl, he brooded under a dark brown cloak as the train passed through a security checkpoint in the railyard in the harbor. He was not alone in this railroad boxcar, as a dozen or so other people were huddled aboard it, waiting for the inspection to come.

Beside him, Genma Saotome sat in human form, similarly cloaked and grumbling as he looked out the partially opened doors at the pouring monsoon rains outside.

"Tell me again, why you get to have hot water and I don't?" Ranma snarled at him.

Genma looked at his son. "Because pandas are extinct and if suddenly one were to start dancing around in public it would draw all possible attention."

"And why can't I be a guy for this?" Ranma asked.

"Because we want to get on the first boat out of here to Japan, and they'll be more sympathetic if an ailing father and his daughter want to escape to a better life."

Ranma saw the flaw in that plan. "And exactly how do you expect to speak to the Chinese guards and Chinese officials when you can barely bother to understand Japanese?"

Genma nudged him. "That's why I had you study the dictionary after we lost that girl. I need you to speak for us."

Scowling at his Dad, Ranma looked out the partially open boxcar again, seething.

"Like hell; I am not leaving China until I cure this curse," he growled.

Genma growled in frustration. "Must you continue to be so hard-headed?! That girl will kill you before you get within a thousand kilometers of the spring!"

"Good! I would rather die than spend another second cursed to be a freaking girl!" Ranma snapped back at him.

"You would rather die as a girl?" Genma sharply countered.

It was a blow so low that Eddie Guerrero was calling foul, but since the ref wasn't looking and Ranma sold everything at a discount, he slumped forward in frustration.

"… I can take her, even in this body. I took her on before, damn it!" He reasoned.

"You knocked her out once," Genma said. "Do you think she's going to just give up if you knock her out again?"

"I'll knock her out as many times as I have to!" Ranma offered. "And it'd be easier if you didn't run like a coward every time!"

"I'm being reasonable! We're pulling back to put distance between us and the opponent, so we can figure out a better attack!" Genma said. "It's the Saotome School special technique!"

"Bullshit! She doesn't even want to kill you! She thinks you barely exist!" Ranma snapped at him. "Why is it so damn important that we go back to Japan when we could be figuring out how to beat that nutjob, then get back to Jusenkyo and find the spring that'll cure us?!"

"I have my reasons, boy! You'll appreciate them when you're older!" Genma argued, before he heard talking coming from outside. "Now sit down and remember your lines! You have to say a very specific thing to the guards, just like we practiced."

Ranma glared at his father, then looked out the doors again. Just outside were two sets of men, all in combat fatigues and wearing clear plastic rain ponchos. Two of the men were armed with assault rifles, the third wielded a shotgun, while the fourth man and the one seemingly in charge had his weapons holstered for a digital clipboard. Looking inside the car, as two of the soldiers opened the door wider, he said something in Chinese that Ranma's study of the dictionary allowed him to understand bits and pieces of.

He was welcoming them to Shanghai, and something about congratulations and freedom.

The other passengers began talking all at once, a mixture of kind words and praise to an Empress, but Ranma paid it no mind as he shot a look at his father.

The soldier with the clipboard then ordered a queue, so that everyone could get off the train in an orderly fashion and get out of the rain in short order.

Genma poked Ranma's shoulder, nudging him towards the guards. "Say the line, boy. They'll put us up to the front if there's an emergency."

Staring back at Genma, Ranma's eyes widened slightly… before they narrowed, and his lips curled into a sinister smile.

Abruptly, he turned around, pulling his hood off to reveal his bright red hair and cute face. With well-practiced desperation, he called out to the soldiers while pointing at Genma.

The other passengers in the box car, and the soldiers all outside looked at Ranma in shock–and then at Genma. With all eyes on them, the elder Saotome slumped back and played the sickly, ailing father.

Perfect, my boy. Even stubborn as you are, you cannot ignore what must be done, he thought.

Quickly two of the soldiers jumped into the box car, the rest of the passengers quickly backing far away from Genma and Ranma, and the former gave a start at the alarm with which they moved. What did Ranma say he was sick with?

Then the guards began yelling, angrily, with their weapons pointed at him, something Genma did understand:

For him to lie down on the ground or die.

Falling onto his belly, Genma looked up in disbelief as Ranma kept pointing at him–saying the same thing over and over while edging towards the doors. While calling his Chinese rusty was generous, there were a few things Genma quickly put together as his mind raced in full fight or flight mode that his normal laziness wouldn't allow.

Old man. Sell. Slave.

Oh, you little SHIT! Genma thought as the soldiers began to kick him while wrestling his arms behind his back to cuff him.

With military police brutality going on inside the boxcar, Ranma stepped off it and into the rain. Ignoring the two other soldiers' questions, he turned to them and flashed them a smile. With a thanks and goodbye in much more cheerful Chinese, he jumped up onto the top of the boxcar, and began running down the top of the train, towards the back end of it.

Ignoring the calls for him to stop, Ranma just kept running–a big grin spreading across his lips. "So long, Pop! Next time you see me I'll be a whole man again!"

As he hopped the gaps between cars, he looked out over the massive port city of Shanghai and couldn't help but let out a whistle.

He and his father had not come in through Shanghai at the start of their training journey, so this was his first time seeing it. A sleek, gleaming metropolis even in the pouring afternoon rain was spread out before him. Black and silver skyscrapers, like spires and monoliths, reached up into the low clouds, many more buildings were under construction, both of a traditional modern architecture, the wild alien aesthetic that came with Earth's visitors, and amidst it all… a large palatial tower that served as the city's new center–a modern palace.

"Okay, why were we in the middle of nowhere rural China with horse-drawn carts and cursed springs, when we could've been in cool Cyberpunk China with laser swords and aliens?" Ranma asked aloud.

He shrugged his shoulders, as the end of the train came up. "Oh well, I can visit when I come back… as a one-hundred percent man, hahaha!"

Right as he jumped onto the second to last car, his sixth sense–the very core of a martial artist that alerted him to threats–screamed like it was being murdered. He stopped, and barely avoided a projectile crashing into the center of the boxcar with such force that its thin roof bent inward like a V. The violence of the reshaping threw Ranma into the air in a ballistic flight towards the crowded city that surrounded the rail yard and port, leaving him bewildered.

For all of three seconds.

"… Oh shit," He simply said as a familiar violet-haired human homing missile ran up and leaped from the destroyed box car's other side, kicked off it, and hurtled at him with her twin chuí raised for the kill.

"Ranma!" Shan Pu roared as she reached him, bringing both weapons up to swing at him. "YOU! DIE!"

"Can you say any other freaking words?!" Ranma yelled back as he raised his hands to block the weapons, and was launched into the streets below.

As thunder rumbled and Shan Pu fell towards the streets below and her prey, the shape of a large black wolf emerged from another box car, and sniffed the air before the sound of slamming and banging came from the crowded city street where the woman warrior had launched her prey. Turning towards the noise, the wolf shook out the rain trying to soak into it–revealing a yellow and black bandanna around its neck–before it broke into a sprint to join the battle.

Our boy's almost home... and what a home to come back to. A lot... a whole lot is about to go down with Volume 6 of Senpai.