Ranma Half Moon chapter 86 "There's No Business Like Snow Business" Part 2.

Author's note: This episode happens during the Sailor Moon episode 38 "The Snow! The Mountains! Our Friendship! And of Course, A Monster, Too".

Author's note: The word "hentai" means "x-rated" in Japanese.

Mio and her supporters maneuver laboriously around the beginners' course.

Mio falls in a heap. I guess it was a fortunate idea to have tied pillows to my hips and back. I have been falling every fifty feet.

As Mio collects her thoughts after a fall, she sees a familiar sight. Aino Minako and some blonde girl that Mio doesn't recognize ski past. Minako looks right at Mio but shows no sign of recognizing Mio. Someone must have wiped out her memories. So, that's why she is still alive. I'll have to do something about this.

"Let us help you up!"

"I can get back to my feet by myself." Mio struggles but can get back upright. "I will conquer this, it's an idol's pride that's at stake."

Mio starts forward again, but this time goes too fast and loses control. She veers off the trail.

Mio's fans chase after her but cannot stop her from crashing headfirst into a snowdrift leaving her legs dangling in the air.

"Get her out!"

Mio sits on the ground after being pulled out, her head spinning.

"Are you okay?"

"One-twenty-five? You have to go back in there."

"Did you lose an earring?"

"No, I wasn't alone in there."

Mio's fans start digging in the snowdrift and to their astonishment pull out a human shaped figure made of ice.

One-seventeen tries lifting it. "It's not solid ice, there most be something inside it."

"Let's take it to my suite. It will thaw out there."

"Maybe it's a prehistoric man?"

At the suite they cover the figure in blankets and put it in front of the fire. Soon the ice melts and becomes warm water. The blanket suddenly jerks, as if the contents under the blanket had tripled in size.

Mio pulls off the blankets to find a teenage boy with a leopard print head band. Mio smiles evilly and claps her hands.

"Hey, we're missing the slopes."

"Yeah, Mio has it under control."

Mio's fans leave Mio and the strange boy alone.

"Where am I?"

"You're safe. You had fallen into a snowdrift and I just thawed you out. Who are you?"

"My name is Hibiki Ryoga. The last thing I remember was I was trying to walk to Furinkan High School."

"You must be forgetting a lot of time. I go to Furinkan High School and we're at a ski resort some three hundred miles from there."

"No, my sense of direction is bad. I often get lost like that."

"By three hundred miles?"

"Usually more."

"Wow, and people often call me eccentric." Mio giggles nicely. "My name is Mio."

Ryoga's eyes grow wide. "Mio as in Mio Kuroki?"

"Thanks for recognizing me. I still have fifteen pounds to lose before I'll be back to my old look."

Ryoga bows. "Number eighty-five."

Mio smirks to herself. "So, Ryoga, are you a student at Furinkan High School?"

"No, I was going there to challenge a student to a duel."

"That wouldn't be Saotome Ranma, would it?"

"How did you know that?"

"It seems like half the guys in the school want to fight him and half the girls are engaged to him."

Ryoga smirks. "Well, if I catch up to him, that might change, especially when they see him go down in defeat."

"What about his cousin? Do you also want to fight her?"

"Cousin? Ranma doesn't have a cousin."

Mio looks at Ryoga in shock. "Everyone at school talks about his cousin, a red-headed girl with the same name."

Ryoga laughs. "Is that the cover story he uses? Look, Ranma and I, we are alike. Let me show you."

Ryoga walks into the bathroom and closes the door. He takes off his clothes and gets into the shower and hides behind the curtain. "You may come in."

"I hope you're decent."

"I'm not, but that's not the point."

Mio enters and sees Ryoga sticking his head out from behind the shower curtain. "I hope this isn't some hentai thing."

Ryoga smirks. "Actually, it is. But, it's a hentai thing only because the word hentai comes from the verb to change."

"Okay." Mio sounds skeptical and flustered at the same time.

"Now, I am going to turn the cold water on and you're going to look at the result. Whatever happens, you must promise to turn the hot water on."

"Okay."

Ryoga turns the water on and vanishes.

Mio peeks behind the shower curtain and sees a small pig. "WHAAAAAA!"

Squeal, squeal.

"Oh, the hot water." Mio turns the hot water on and backs away.

Ryoga pokes his head out from behind the curtain. "Ranma and I are the same, except that he doesn't change into a small pig. He changes into the girl that people think is his cousin."

Mio smiles an evil smile. "Ryoga, you dreams are going to come true. Today you will get to fight Ranma, and you're going to win."

"That's good."

You might wind up not thinking that, number eighty-five.

...

Saeko Yamamoto watches the contestants come off the ski lift. Suddenly she hears a voice inside her head.

"Do you see any girl who is likely to be Sailor Moon?"

"Not yet, my lord."

"Don't worry, I am sure she will show up. And, I am sure that with the Yoma Monster powers I have given you that you will without fail defeat Sailor Moon."

"Yes, my lord."

Kunzite relaxes in his room. Now, if Prince Endymion can keep his nose out of my business, this plan should succeed!

...

Ranma finally finishes the intermediate trail. At the end is Haruka who looks impatient.

"Hey, slowpoke. Do you want to see me compete or not? The race starts in thirty minutes, and it will take twenty minutes to get up all of the lifts."

"I'm going to do more than watch you compete. I am also going to compete with you."

Haruka smiles a determined but also an honest smile. "It's on."

To Be Continued