Chapter 10: Lunch Date

Ranma's mind was still plagued with indecision as she went downstairs for breakfast. With everything that was going on, she fully expected another bowl of cereal to be waiting for her. She would never dare complain of course, not the least of which because she was the reason her mother woke up late this morning.

As she approached the dining table, however, she stopped in surprise at the sight of a full sized Japanese breakfast spread out in front of her. "Mom had time to make all this?" she wondered aloud. Just how much time did she spend thinking while showering and getting dressed?

"Well, one of your mothers did at least," Mama Nodoka said, walking in behind her. "Michan was kind enough to do this for us before she left."

"She did all this? Oh wow, that was so nice of-" Ranma suddenly felt an aggressive force coming right at her from the side. She quickly pivoted and intercepted the attack, grabbing the dark clad intruder and tossing them in a judo throw. A long dark braid caught her eye, and she realized with shock just who it was now flying through the air right towards the wall. "Konatsu!"

Fortunately, the older girl was able to right herself midair, rebounding off the wall without disturbing any of the photos hanging there. She performed a single flip and landed right next to Ranma with a big grin on her face. "Wow, that was an impressive counter, Little Sister. You most certainly proved to be the better in that encounter."

"Now girls," Mama Nodoka chastised with her arms crossed, "what have I said about surprise attacks at the dinner table?"

Konatsu's smile immediately dropped and she contritely bowed in apology. "I'm sorry, Mother. I was only trying to cheer up Miss Ranma."

"Well, I appreciate you helping your sister, dear," Mama Nodoka said with a slight smile, "but I would definitely appreciate it more if you wait until you're outside first. It would probably also be better if you save that for when you're not in danger of being late for school. Now eat up quickly. I need to go now or else I'll be late." She quickly gave a hug to her daughters. "Have a good day, you two." She was almost out the door before she stopped and quickly turned back. "Oh, and Michan also made bentos for you both. They're on the kitchen counter. Make sure you don't forget them. Okay, bye now." Ranko just watched the door for a few beats before her mother walked in again, grabbed her bag that was left next to her chair while also snagging a couple pieces of fish, and this time left for real.

Ranma and Konatsu managed to finish their breakfast and leave the house in time for them to just catch the next bus to the Furinkan neighborhood. The older girl was more than happy to spend the trip talking about her new mother as well as the upcoming chance to get her own Jusenkyo water. There was a clear layer of nervousness about the latter though, which was understandable. Magic was always a tricky thing to deal with, even when it ended up being a good thing in the end. Ranma could definitely offer some advice on this particular one, but for now she ended up staying silent, unsure about how much she should give away. Did Konatsu actually know about her cur…her magical transformation? The fragments of memories she managed to get seemed to show that the her from this world said something. Was it the full truth though?

Ranma's eyes widened as the bus started to approach their stop. Wait, how much does Akane know? They were basically close sisters in this life. Well, sometimes sister and brother, but that may have made it even more likely. If this world's version of her told Akane about liking being a boy sometimes, then maybe she also mentioned Jusenkyo and being locked.

The bus came to a stop and the two girls got up to leave, but Ranma paused for just a moment. There was something else about her last thought that was nagging at the back of her mind. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to focus on it. She needed to think about how she was going to approach Akane to check if she knew about Jusenkyo without also giving away the whole different universe thing. As she left the bus, she was at least grateful that she still had a few blocks to get to school itself, plus all morning being in a different class, which would give her enough time to-

"There you are!"

With a loud popping sound, Ranma was now perched on top of the bus, quickly looking around. Down on the ground was a very annoyed looking Akane staring right up at her.

"Oh no. You come down here right now, Sis. I'm not waiting any longer for my explanation!"

"I'd suggest doing what she says," Nabiki said, standing next to her…their sister. "Avoiding her is just going to hurt you worse in the long term."

"Oh, good morning, Miss Akane. Um…Miss Nabiki." Konatu's voice got a little lighter at the end of her greeting and Ranma could make out a little red in the girl's cheeks. "I didn't know that this bus stop is between the school and your house."

"It's not," Nabiki responded. "Akane here didn't want to wait for…hey, Ranma! Are you going to get off there, or are you planning to take a trip to Suginami?"

"Wha…oh right." Ranma hopped off the top of the bus just as it started to pull away. As soon as she touched the ground, Akane was right up in her face with an expectant look.

"Well? Go on already. Spill."

"Uh," Ranma glanced over to the other two for any sign of help, but Nabiki had a matching look of expectation and Konatsu seemed to be just as confused as she was. "What exactly am I spilling?"

"What happened with our moms!" Akane threw her arms up in exasperation. "All we got was a call saying Mom was spending the night at your place and that 'things were fine'. What happened? Did they fight? Did they make up? Are they friends now? Are they…are they back together again?" The girl sounded almost hysterical by the end of her little rant.

"Woah, woah. Calm down." Ranma backed away slightly, making warding gestures. "I'm pretty sure everything's okay. I mean, yeah sure, Mom did have to sleep on the couch, but also Mother made breakfast for all of us. Plus, they hugged a bunch, so…maybe?"

"Oh, that's good to hear." Akane gave a sigh of relief. She then looked at Ranma with sparkles in her eyes. "So does that mean you're moving back in with us?"

Ranma froze as that question shot right through her. Sure, she still didn't have very memories from this life, but she did spend such a long time living with Akane in her past life, more than a whole year even, and the realization that she wasn't anymore now fully sunk in. Sure, her moms probably made up, but Mama Nododa just bought a house, so…

"Maybe we can save any discussions of living arrangements later on when we're not about to be late for class," Nabiki interjected. "Not sure about you, Saotome, but I'd rather not spend my morning holding buckets in the hallway."

"Oh, I don't know," Ranma said with a shrug. "You can turn that into an okay workout if you know what you're doing."

"Really?" Konatsu asked with sudden sparkles in her eyes. "A new training method. That sounds fascinating!" Konatsu's enthusiasm quickly dulled however. "Oh, but Mother would be disappointed if we miss any of our classes."

Ranma's eyes widened. She made a vow that her mom would not be sad because of her again, and part of that included actually trying to do well at school this time. She told her mom that she would be there, and if she ended up in trouble for being late…

"Right, we better get going then," Ranma quickly said, rushing off before anyone could reply.

They all were able to get to school barely on time. As the two first years ran up to the third floor, Akane took a moment to look over to Ranma. "Hey, we'll be eating lunch outside in the courtyard today. You better be there, Sis, or else," she quickly said before going into her classroom. Ranma gave a silent nod before making it to her own classroom right before the final bell rang.

"Well, Saotome," the teacher commented. "I commend you for being on time for your second day, but I do hope we won't have to see a last second finish from you every time."

"Don't worry, Teach, I got this. No problem." Ranma gave a confident grin as she skipped over to her seat. She remembered the time that pineapple head worked to make her late for school. Compared to that, this challenge would be a breeze. She'd definitely make her mom proud of her.

As she sat down, she could feel the eyes of all the other students on her. Reina off on the other side had a look of stoic annoyance that was somewhat reminiscent of both Kuno siblings. Ranma made a point to try and ignore that. What she wasn't able to ignore was the expression on Sayuri's face that she couldn't quite figure out. Before she had a chance to ask, the teacher spoke up again, getting everyone's attention for role call.

The first classes of the day somehow managed to drag on forever and yet still go way too fast for her to keep up. This was ridiculous. She was even making sure to pay close attention and actually write things down. Shouldn't she at least remember some of this stuff from the last time she was in middle school? Something was missing here, but she decided to just shrug it off as probably due to her lazy attitude about school before. She definitely wasn't going to do that now, though. She even went so far as to carefully look over her notes between each class. Sayuri apparently wanted to talk with her about something, and she did feel a desire to chat back with the girl and potentially her only friend in the class, but her first priority had to be not disappointing her mom.

By some miracle, lunchtime eventually managed to arrive, which was very good news because Ranma was starting to feel her brain boiling from all the focused studying. Happily, she grabbed the bento her mother made for her and started to head out to-

"Where are you going?"

Ranma froze and turned back to find Sayuri still sitting at her desk and looking at her with a hurt expression on her face. "I was heading outside, ya know, to eat lunch and stuff," Ranma plainly stated.

"Oh." Sayuri looked down at her still wrapped bento sitting on her otherwise empty desk. "I just…I thought maybe we could eat together for real this time. Like, you and me, sitting here for the whole period. I even made a couple of new things and I kind of want to know what you think of them. But I guess it's fine if you don't-"

"Course I wanna eat with you," Ranma immediately corrected. There was no way she was going to let one of Akane's friends be stuck with eating alone. Especially Sayuri, who Ranma at the very least remembered as being the most outgoing and energetic of Akane's little group. Heck, she was the one that actually tried a few times to get Ranma to join them for lunch. Of course, Ranma always turned down the offer, as hanging out with a bunch of girls would have been…unmanly…

Wow, I really was an idiot back then.

"Really?" Sayuri asked, snapping Ranma out of her contemplation. "Okay, then we can push our desks together and-"

"Wait," Ranma said, remembering again that there was somewhere she was supposed to be right now, and a big sister that would be very upset if she didn't hurry up. Fortunately, this problem was an easy one to solve. "It's a really nice day today. Why don't we both go and eat outside." She then offered a hand to the girl.

Sayuri looked at Ranma's hand for a moment before accepting it, standing up and getting her bento. "Yeah, that does sound nice."

"Not so fast!"

They both turned to see Reina and a couple of other girls blocking the exit.

"Before you even think about going anywhere, there's some things we need to discuss first," Reina said with a cocky smirk.

Ranma just blinked a couple of times at the three in her way, then handed her bento over to Sayuri. Plowing her way past them, even with a normal girl like Sayuri with her, wouldn't be much of an issue. However, any damage to the classroom they'd cause would probably upset her mom or her mother. Luckily, this particular school had an extra something her old high school didn't.

"Sorry girls," she said with a smile as she swiftly picked up Sayuri into her arms, "but I got a lunch date to get to." With that, she turned and ran past the currently open sliding glass door to the outside balcony that every classroom in this school had and, while paying no mind to the yells of the bullies and the surprised cries directly in her ear, effortlessly leapt from it.

"Hey! Ranma? What are you…wait wait wait! RANMAAAAAAAAA!"

Even with the scream from Sayuri, Ranma was able to easily reach the tree that was only a few yards away from the balcony. She landed on one of the mid level branches and used it as a springboard to leap to a slightly lower branch on the next tree over, successfully halting her momentum with her passenger no worse for wear.

Sayuri stopped yelling when she realized they were no longer moving and slowly opened her eyes. "Wha?"

"Pretty cool, huh?" Ranma said with a big grin. "No stairs needed. Oh, don't drop our lunches, okay? Don't wanna go hungry now."

"Oh. Right." Sayuri tightened her grip on the bento boxes as she looked around. "So, are we going to eat here?" she asked with a slight nervousness in her voice as she tentatively glanced at the ground about 3 meters below them.

"That sounds kinda fun," Ranma said while looking around, realizing she was on the opposite side of the building from where Akane would be. "I got a different idea for today, though. Are you ready?"

Sayuri looked up at her for a couple of seconds before giving a silent nod.

Ranma gave a nod back, then jumped over to the next tree. She landed on one of the branches for just a moment before bouncing off again. As she leapt from tree to tree going around the school grounds, the scared cry from Sayuri quickly shifted into joyous laughter.

Off on the other side of the school grounds, Ranma spotted Akane sitting down by a fairly large tree, along with Nabiki and Konatsu, as well as Yuka. She gave her own little laugh and sped up her tree hopping, arriving with a nice soft landing at the spot in almost no time at all.

"Oh wow," Sayuri said in a low voice. "That was amazing. I-"

"Hey, Akane!" Ranma called out, announcing their arrival. "I made it, just like you wanted."

"Woah, that was really cool!" Yuka exclaimed.

"See, what did I tell you?" Akane said with a big grin. "My little sister knows how to make an entrance."

Ranma smiled at that, then looked down at Sayuri, only to find the girl with a hard, stony expression on her face. "Put me down," she softly stated, a layer of ice coating her words.

"Huh?" Ranma tilted her head in confusion. "What's wrong?" I thought she was starting to enjoy flying through the air.

"I said put me down! Now!" Sayuri angrily growled out while flailing and kicking in Ranma's arms.

"Um, yeah sure." Ranma carefully set Sayuri down on her feet.

"Hey, Sayuri. I-" Yuka started to say, but was cut off as the brunette slammed one of the bentos into Ranma's stomach.

"You know, for a moment I actually thought that maybe you…but no, of course not! I should have known, all you really want to do is be with-"

Sayuri froze for a moment, then slowly turned towards Akane, her anger seemingly evaporated. "Wait. What did you call her?"

Akane, who was on her feet now, paused for a couple of seconds before responding. "Um, my little sister."

"Your sister?" Sayuri turned to Ranma with a look of surprise that morphed into slight embarrassment.

"Yeah," Ranma said with a nervous chuckle while rubbing the back of her neck. "Did I never mention that?"

"Oh." Sayuri looked from Ranma to the group that was now all staring at her. "I…I'm sorry. I should go," she quickly said before she turned and ran off.

Ranma just stared at Sayuri's retreating form, then turned to the group, completely unsure what to say. Akane had a look of shock. Yuka seemed to be morosely studying the grass in front of her. Konatsu had a confused expression on her face. Nabiki, however, was glaring at Ranma with a mixture of annoyance and expectation.

"Well, Saotome?" Nabiki then gestured towards the corner of the building Sayuri disappeared around. "Go on and chase after her already."

"Me?" Ranma squeaked out. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Why don't you attempt the special techniques you used back in the ninja village," Konatsu suggested. "I'm sure those could also work here."

"Special techniques, huh?" Nabiki asked while shooting a raised eyebrow in Ranma's direction.

"Oh yes," Konatsu continued. "Back in my village, my sister would always be so quick to provide comfort to the other kunoichi in training. Whenever Koharu or Akiko or Fuyuko were upset about something, Ranma would be there to provide a shoulder to cry on and to smoothly say all the words the girl needed to hear. And sometimes…oh dear, I probably shouldn't talk about that part."

"Hey, don't skip on the details now," Nabiki said with a grin.

"Okay," Konatsu said a little apprehensively. "Well, sometimes while I was performing my ninja spying training, I would spot Ranma sitting alone with one of the girls, and she would…" Her face started to glow a deep crimson. "...she would hold the girl's hand and gently cup her cheek…"

With a tiny squeak and a puff of smoke, suddenly four Konatsu's were sitting next to each other, deeply embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, Little Sister…"

"...I should not have talked about…"

"...something so intimate…"

"...in public like that!"

As the group of seven became four again with another puff of smoke, Nabiki spoke up again. "Yeah, so like I said, hurry up and go after her, stud."

"Um, are you sure?" Ranma glanced around and nervously tapped her index fingers together. "I mean, Akane was pretty insistent on me being here, so…"

Akane stepped forward and placed a hand on Ranma's shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. Sayuri needs you right now. Please, Little Sister, go and help her."

Ranma found herself momentarily taken aback by the earnestness in Akane's voice. She looked over to Yuka, who didn't say anything but instead simply glanced up with a pleading look behind her eyes. She turned back to Akane and gave a big grin. "Don't worry. I got this. No problem." She then leaped up into the tree above them and started to head out in the direction Sayuri went.

As soon as she was out of sight of the group, her grin dropped. Why'd I agree to this? I don't know nothing about comforting an upset girl. Or, maybe I do. The me from this world figured it out. I guess when the girls aren't all trying to marry me or acting like really uncute tomboys, then it's easy to become the best girl friend ever. You know what would be a big help? If I suddenly got one of those memories of that me helping out a girl. That sure would be real nice right about now…

X

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X

"...Dammit."

Ranma soon spotted Sayuri sitting at a lone bench off in one of the corners of the school grounds, silently staring at the still wrapped bento in her hands. Not knowing what else to do, she simply dropped down in front of her.

Sayuri looked up in surprise for a moment before turning her head away. "What do you want?" she grumbled out.

"Um, well…you see…" Ranma stammered for a bit, then looked down at the wrapped box in her hands. "Uh, you accidentally gave me your bento…?"

Sayuri turned back to Ranma with narrowed eyes. She then quickly stood up, ripped her bento out of Ranma's hands, then slammed the other one into Ranma's stomach before sitting down again. "There. You can leave now."

Ranma continued to stand in place, not daring to open her mouth out of worry of tripping one of the many verbal landmines all around her. Great, I bet other me would be saying the perfect things to her right now and the only thing I can think about is lunch.

She looked down at her bento, then went over and took a seat on the other side of the bench.

"I said you can leave," Sayuri curtly repeated.

"I know, but this a really nice place to eat," Ranma said with a smile.

Sayuri gave a huff, but didn't move from her seat. "Whatever."

Ranma decided to take that as a good sign and opened up her bento. She basked in the lovely aroma of the somehow still intact food, then started to dig in. After a bit, she remembered something. "Hey, didn't you say that you made a couple of new things for today?"

"Yeah, I mentioned that," Sayuri noted. She then seemed to hesitate a little before plucking out a piece of sausage that was carved into an octopus shape. "Do you want to try it?"

Ranma gave an enthusiastic nod, then leaned in and took a bite. "Oh, this is amazing!" she gushed. She then studied her own bento for a second. Guess my moms would want me to be nice about it. Grabbing a piece of katsu out, she offered it to Sayuri. "Here."

"Um, okay," Sayuri said, popping the bit of fried chicken into her mouth. "Wow," she said with widening eyes as she started to chew. "This is delicious! Did your mom make this, too? It tastes sort of different from yesterday's."

"Nah," Ranma said through a mouthful of food before taking a big swallow. "My mother made this one for me."

Sayuri blinked a couple of times with a confused look. "Um, isn't that what I just said?"

"What? Oh." Ranma quickly gulped down her current bite so she could explain. "The one who made my lunch yesterday was my and Konatsu's mom."

"Wait, who's Konatsu?"

"She's my other older sister. She was the one with the long braid sitting with Akane back there. Yeah, so this lunch was made by Akane's mom who's also my mother."

"You have two moms?" Sayuri now seemed to be completely engrossed in the details of Ranma's current life, which was definitely better than her sad mood from a few minutes ago. Although it would be even more better if Ranma could actually remember all those details herself.

"Um, it's a little complicated." Ranma gave a nervous laugh as she tried to piece together the parts she currently had. "So for a while there, me and Mom were staying at Akane's house because of…um…some stuff I don't wanna talk about. Anyway, after a while, Akane's mom became my mom too. Then, me and Mom left and went to this secret village, and that's where I met Konatsu. She became my sister and my mom became her mom. We were there for a couple of years or so, and we just came back to Tokyo. Mother was really mad at Mom, but I'm pretty sure they made up. And, um, I guess I'm here now."

"Oh wow. Sounds like you've been through a lot, and…" Sayuri trailed off, then looked down at her half finished lunch. "That's why you were asking about Akane. You wanted to know how your sister was doing."

"Um, yeah. Exactly." Ranma gave a little chuckle. "Everything feels so different now, uh, you know, but it sure is nice to see her, um, again and stuff."

"Then why aren't you over there with her, instead of here with a loser like me?"

"What?" Ranma looked over in confusion. Sure, she didn't spend a lot of time with Akane's friends in her old life, but she still at least remembered Sayuri as being really outgoing and friendly and pretty good at the stuff she did. "Who the heck would think you're-"

"Ah, here's where you losers went."

Sayuri shrunk in on herself a little as Ranma rolled her eyes and turned towards the approaching blonde. "Hey, Reina. What's up."

Reina crossed her arms and gave a confident smirk. "What's 'up', Saotome, is your soon to be total humiliation at my hands during our sporting competition today."

"Heh, good luck with that. Can't wait to take you on at whatever we're doing in…" Ranma paused, then turned to Sayuri. "Um, do we even have gym today?"

As Sayuri silently shook her head, Reina gave a scoff. "Oh no, this will not be some small scuffle confined to the time limits of a mere gym class. For you see, I have gone and reserved the soccer field for this afternoon and evening. After school has concluded this day, we shall have a full complete match to see who truly is the superior one. That is, unless you would prefer to simply surrender now."

"No way! Ranma Saotome never loses, and neither does Sayuri, right?" She put an arm around the girl and pulled her in.

"Um, I guess so," Sayuri mumbled out.

"Very well. Let the record show that I provided you the opportunity to save whatever dignity you may have remaining." The smirk on Reina's face grew even bigger as she put her hands on her hips. "Just keep in mind that a full team of six will be required for this particular event. If you do not have the requisite number of members by the time the match starts, I'm afraid you will have to forfeit."

"Of course." Sayuri narrowed her eyes as she squirmed her way out of Ranma's friendly side hug. "And you wouldn't dare think about convincing all our classmates to not join us, right?"

"Oh, perish the thought." Reina gave a dismissive wave. "Although, if it makes you feel any better, this is an open invitation, so it need not be someone in our class, or even our grade for that matter. Be that as it may, I look forward to seeing who you manage to scrounge up for our match." With that, she turned on her heel and sauntered off, giving an annoying, high pitched laugh as she did so.

As soon as she was gone, Sayuri spoke up again. "You know, you don't have to put me on your team. There must be a whole lot of people better than me that you could get."

"Probably," Ranma admitted. "Don't matter, though. I still want you there."

"Why though?"

Ranma gave a shrug. "Easy. Because I like you."

"You…" Sayuri turned away, a slight bit of redness in her face. "You don't know anything about me."

"Sure I do!" Ranma countered, before momentarily freezing. Shoot, the bits I know about her are from my past life. Is she even the same? She looked at Sayuri again, then gave a smile. Yeah, of course she is. "You're really nice and friendly, and you do what you can to help out your friends. Plus you got one hell of a drop shot in volleyball. Can't forget about that."

Sayuri snorted out a small laugh and smiled. "Right, I guess you can't."

Ranma's smile turned into a big grin. Wow, I guess this is easy when I don't have a whole bunch of girls chasing after me. The grin then dropped just a bit as she continued to look at the girl next to her. Oh, was Sayuri always this cute?

She looked down into her now empty bento box. Guess things are really different when I don't have a bunch of engagements over my head. Yeah, I do really like being around her. That's pretty nice. Huh, it's almost kinda too bad that we're both…

"Hey Sayuri?"

"Yeah, what's up?" Sayuri asked, her mood definitely improved.

Ranma continued her focus on her bento. "Um, let's say I have a brother…"

"A brother now? Just how big is your family anyway?"

"No, no." Ranma quickly shook her head. "I don't actually have one. But just pretend I do. A brother that pretty much looks and acts like I do. Except…you know…he's a guy."

"Um, okay," Sayuri said with a hint of confusion in her voice.

Ranma took a deep breath before continuing. "Do you think that maybe…you would like to…"

"What. Would I like to what, Ranma?"

Ranma just stared at the box in her lap for several seconds, then quickly stood up. "Nevermind. It's not important. Hey, we better go and get the rest of our team, huh?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure," Sayuri said, standing up as well. "I'm not sure where we'll find them, though."

"Don't worry about it," Ranma said with another big grin. "I already got that covered."