Author's Notes: Well, blow me down, but I think that's one of the strongest opening receptions I've ever had for a fanfic! Folks really seemed to like this idea, crazy as it is! Well, you all asked for it, so here it is; the next chapter in Ranma's misadventures in the world of Konosuba.

Chapter 2: The First Day of Your Brand New Life!

The angel flapped her wings as she flew through the sprawling office of the currently appointed High-God as fast as she possibly could. Even at her top speed, the chamber was enormous, and barely recognizable as an office to most mortal visitors, decorated by past and present incumbents to soothe the soul in contrast to the spirit-crushing labors involved in wrangling a multiverse-spanning bureaucracy. Intricately engraved and stylized pillars of jade and marble rose from a floor covered in lush tropical flowers in all the hues of the rainbow, stretching up to a roof hidden beneath a layer of luminescent clouds that shifted through all the myriad colors and hues of a spring dawn on a clear day.

Had the situation been any less dire than it was, the angel would have gladly tarried amidst the whirl of colors and floral perfumes, but she still had an important duty to attend to, and so on she flew. Past wondrous fountains of crystal and gold, where slithy toves gyred and gimbled merrily in the water, through whirling flutters of butterfly-dragons and over the broad backs of gentle buopoths she went, hurtling across the faux-sky until she found herself before what seemed like a mountain-sized fortress of intricately-engraved wood. Then she blinked and it was nothing but a desk - finely made, but nearly buried beneath piles of paper, stone tablets, scrolls, DVD disks and other information mediums.

"What is it, my child?" Came the voice of the current High-God, and despite the seriousness of her message, the angel's heart skipped a beat at the beautiful, if oh so tired, face of the god behind the desk.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you, sir, but there has been a catastrophic destiny divergence event in World JPN/TR-18031988! Multiple deaths, all before their designated time - that world's Nornic Loom is on the verge of total breakdown!" The angel reported, while only just barely managing to keep their own panic under control, handing over her incident report sheet to the High-God. As they started reading through all the pages of this report, their once tired expression slowly morphed into a more serious one, along with them flicking through the pages faster and faster; before placing it down on their desk in a firm manner, which if it had come from anyone else would have been a very loud and aggressive slam.

"Order an immediate suspension of all soul migrations to and from that world. Initiate a temporal lockdown. And get me the overseer of that world - I want them in my office now..."

Thunder rumbled loudly in emphasis of the High-God's final word, the beautiful rose-and-gold clouds momentarily turning black as pitch and glowing with impending lightning. Gulping nervously, the angel promptly saluted in a professional manner which would make any drill sergeant worth their salt beam in pride, and then flew away as fast as she possibly could.

Elsewhen/Elsewhere...

The sky hung long and ominous, glowering with slate-gray clouds pregnant with an impending downpour, thunder rumbling like the breaths of some great beast stirring fitfully in its slumber. An ominous sight... and all the more ominous to Ranma, when he was currently stuck at the bottom of a deep pit.

He tried to leap out, but no matter how hard he pushed his body and will, he just couldn't reach even the lip of the pit.

He tried to climb out, but the walls were soggy, clay-rich loam that either crumbled or squelched into near-liquid between his fingers, a substance which kept refusing to support his weight no matter what esoteric climbing techniques he called upon. Again and again he tried, and each time he fell flat on his back or his face. The floor of the pit was damp, but mercifully not so much so that it could trigger the hateful curse. Even so, it was just wet enough to cling to him in rank smears of greasy, crumbly, gritty soil.

Looking up from his latest failed attempt at escape, he didn't even question the appearance of two familiar faces, staring down at him like a child observing a bug through a magnifying glass and deciding whether or not to tilt the tool just right to turn the sun's warm light into a beam of agonizing death.

Ranma pushed aside the unsettling feeling that those faces engendered, drawing himself up from amidst the muck and the rotting vegetation with all the affront he could muster.

"Akane! Ryoga! C'mon, get me outta here! A joke's a joke, but this ain't funny!"

Ryoga's lip curled in a disgusted sneer as he vehemently shouted back, "Funny? What do you think this is, a game?"

"Of course it's a game! It's always been a game! You, me, Akane, we've just been playing - it's all for fun and laughs!" Ranma cried back, not even trying to hide his frustration.

"You thought it was a game! To me, it's always been dead serious! You ruined my life, you destroyed my happiness - and now, you're going to pay for it!" Ryoga snarled, and Ranma's heart skipped a beat as something new came into view.

The dull, gray head of a well-worn shovel, its wooden shaft gripped firmly between Ryoga's calloused fingers.

"Wh-What the hell, man?! Ryoga, you're not serious! This ain't funny! Akane, tell him ta cut it out! Akane?!"

Akane responded to Ranma's pleas with a look as cold as the north wind howling over the winter seas of Rikubetsu. "Oh, isn't that just typical?! Always teasing, always tormenting, always laughing at me, making fun of me, and then when you actually think I can be useful, you come crawling to me! You think I just forgot how you treat me, you perverted jerk?! Ranma, I hate you! Ryoga is right, you're nothing but a blight on my life! And now it's time I get rid of you!"

A second shovel was raised mockingly into view. Ranma's heart nearly stopped as icy fingers suddenly wrapped around it and squeezed in a vice-like grip at the sight of dirt cascading down over the lip of the pit - just small showers of mud and rotting leaves at first, but rapidly it became a cascade, a torrent, a flood...

"No! No, you can't do this! Guys! GUYS! NNNNNOOOOO-"

"-OOOOOOOO! Wha?! Huh?!"

Ranma panted softly, with one hand still clutching the hem of his sheets, the other instinctively placing itself over his heart as his gaze frantically swept across the unfamiliar room he was inside, sleeping in a Western-stye bed that certainly did not belong in the Tendo household's guestroom. After a few pulse-pounding moments, realization hammered through the walls of emotion and Ranma sighed softly, gingerly reaching up to cradle his face.

He just sat there in the... well, not really gloom as such, the sun was clearly rising and filling the room he'd rented with warm light, as he let the tension bleed from his body. Slowly inhaling and exhaling, he tried his best to stuff the emotions back behind the barriers, like he had done the previous day.

'Man, as if I didn't get enough nightmares... By the kami, I still can't believe that happened. I mean... I guess I always knew deep down I was probably gonna die fighting some day, but... Ryoga was my friend! At least... I thought he was my friend... An', really, I guess it wasn't even his fault that much - Akane was the one who broke my neck, he just held me in place so she could do it!'

Ranma shook his head viciously, desperately trying to shake the unwanted thoughts away, but only making it worse, as they just kept circling back to what had happened only a day ago.

'Akane... I can't believe it. Of all the people to kill me, I never thought it'd be Akane! I... I liked Akane! An' I thought she liked me back! I mean, okay, yeah, she was a violent tomboy, but... but she could be so cute, when she wasn't getting mad over nothin'. I thought... I mean, I thought we were friends, at least, an'...an I thought... we were gonna... we were s'posed ta...'

To his disgust and shame, Ranma realized that tears were starting to drip down his face, and he wiped them savagely away on the back of his arm.

"Well, screw them both! I got a chance at a new life here, and I'm gonna take it! No more fiancees, no more rivals, no more stupid pops and no. More. Damned. CURSE! Hell, I ain't doing bad - I already gots me an adventuring partner! Maybe she'll even wanna be friends!" Ranma clenched his fist as he finished making his passionate, self-inspiratory speech... only to then wilt like a dying flower.

"Oh, who am I kidding? If the best friends I had were Akane and Ryoga... what's Yunyun gonna want to be friends with a guy like me for?"

Meanwhile, at that same moment...

Yunyun calmly finished rinsing off her face in the bowl of water that the inn had so generously provided, before she looked at herself in the mirror. She smiled softly at her reflection... before her smile slowly got wider, and wider, her two eyes glowing like crimson candles, and then it all rushed out...

"Yeeeeeee! I got one! I finally got a partner!" Yunyun squealed at the top of her lungs, clasping her hands and bouncing on the spot like a bopper-bunny in spring.

"And he's strong and brave and nice and cool and cute and - he might even agree to be my first friend! Oh, oh, thank you, Eris! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ohh, I have to do something! I have to keep making a good impression on him! Wh-wh-what can I do now to make him like me even more...? Oh, breakfast! Yes, that's the trick, I'll make him a delicious breakfast! The market - yes, I've got to get to the market - oh, where's my cloak, where's my coin purse?!"

Shortly afterwards...

'I wonder if they serve breakfast here, or if I gotta go elsewhere?' Ranma pondered to himself as he stepped through the door into the Adventurer's Guild. His mood lifted as he spotted that there were indeed people at the tables receiving some food and drink, although the place was far less crowded than it had been when he'd been there for dinner the previous night.

"Ranma! Hey, Ranma! Over here!"

Ranma twisted his head back and forth, trying to spot Yunyun, then blinked in surprise as he saw her excitedly waving to him from behind a small mountain of assorted foods - sausages, bacon, eggs, toast, bottles of jams and honey; things that Ranma would always associate with so-called "Western breakfasts". That surprise was only momentary though, and he powered towards the table she had claimed with a confidence that he only slightly lacked.

"Morning, Yunyun. Wow, so, does one Lightning spell really take this much energy outta ya?" He asked, mind filled with memories of a certain fantasy light novel series that Hiroshi and Daisuke had shared a little with him, back at Furinkan High. In particular, one of the only things that he actually did remember about it: how the witch protagonist was prone to devouring their food on a level that would make even his father wince and how she excused her gluttony as necessary to recharge after her spellcasting.

'Of course, Yunyun's got way bigger breasts-' A tiny part of Ranma's hindbrain supplied, before it was ruthlessly squashed by the rest of him.

Yunyun blinked in confusion, then blushed almost as red as her eyes. "Wha-? No! No, this isn't all for me! I was gonna share, honest, I swear!"

"Awesome! Thanks!"

And with that Ranma sat down at the table and immediately began helping himself to the food... Unfortunately for Ranma, as much as he refused to admit it, there were some areas where he wasn't quite so far removed from Genma as he liked to think he was...

Yunyun blinked, clearly confused by the random change in topic, but she then realized Ranma was busily loading up his plate and hastened to grab her own share of food, before it vanished.

They didn't talk for a fair bit, outside of the usual polite inanities of breakfast - requests to pass a bottle of jam or a pitcher of honey, for example. But inevitably, both teens had eaten their fill, a very rare event for Ranma, and once Yunyun had finished washing her breakfast down with a pitcher of rich milk stirred with honey, she daintily wiped her lips off with a handkerchief before smiling excitedly at Ranma.

"So, what are we going to do today?"

"We?" Ranma asked instinctively, before polishing off the last of a sausage.

"I-I'm sorry, I just thought, since we're p-p-partners and all..." Yunyun quavered, unable to look Ranma in the eye, meekly pressing her index fingers against each other as she spoke.

"Oh, right, the adventuring!" Ranma winced at the sad expression on Yunyun's face, a feeling of guilt welling up inside of him. "Sorry, I just... well, never mind. Anyway, I was thinking we'd go and hunt some more giant toads - I bet we can get way more than five if we try hard enough!"

Ranma grinned wickedly at the thought, but Yunyun looked shocked.

"But - you turned the quest in already!" She protested.

"So what? They want the giant toads culled, don't they?" Ranma asked, not even trying to hide his confusion.

"Oh wow, things must really be different then, wherever you come from… Well, in a village like Belzerg, once you've completed a culling-type quest, you're not allowed to take that quest again for the rest of that year, or at least for that season, in the case of especially numerous monsters. You do have to remember, you're not the only adventurer in town, so there's other adventurers also doing their part. Last thing we want is to trigger an ascension event..." Yunyun shook her head and shivered at the thought.

Ranma stared at her, blinked slowly, and then declared flatly, "What."

"Ascension events are when some monsters transform into higher classes on a wide scale; it's theorized to be a natural defense mechanism that keeps any single species from going extinct in a given area," Yunyun explained brightly, before wilting at the continued look of confusion on Ranma's face.

"...You don't know what monster classes are, either?" She asked, weakly.

Ranma shook his head at once.

"Okay then... Well, most monsters are divisible into either classes, variants, or both. Classes are like... different tiers of power; the higher the class a monster is, the more powerful it is. Variants, on the other hand, modify a monster's attributes without necessarily affecting their base power. Dragons are a perfect example of both; a dragon's power depends on its class, such as Lesser Dragon, Greater Dragon, or Elder Dragon. But they're also divided into a number of different variants; Red Dragons are elementally aligned to Fire, Green Dragons are innately attuned to the Element of Wind, and White and Black Dragons, regarded as the most powerful variants, have the Holy and Dark elemental attribute. Do you understand?"

Ranma nodded his head, brow slightly creased as he digested everything that Yunyun had told him. "Okay, yeah, I get you now. Simple enough system... well, guess we'll have to look at the board and see what else is available, then. You ready to go?"

Yunyun smiled brightly and nodded her head in reply to this question. "Yes!"

Moments later...

"Wow, way fewer quests here than I thought…" Ranma spoke aloud, as he and Yunyun looked over the options available to them on the noticeboard. "Someone named Seraphina is offering to join a party that wants a Sage - only temporary, though… This lady wants somebody to train her son in how to use a sword? Oh... she wants a Swordmaster or a Rune Knight. That cuts me out…" He then blinked and pointed at one of the pieces of paper stuck up on the board "What's this one? Test subject wanted for magical experiments; must have high hit points and/or magic defense... how's that supposed to work?!"

Yunyun shivered as she briefly looked at the piece of paper Ranma was pointing at. "At best, they just want a living target for trying to master a new attack spell they've learnt, but at worst...? Working with experimental spells can be really dangerous. Even we Crimson Demons don't try to invent our own spells lightly, because all throughout our training, we're told numerous horror stories about what happened to wizards whose experiments failed. Like Lady Belinda, who tried to invent a new protection spell that would repel any enemy spell attacks like a mirror, but turned herself into a lifeless statue of glass when she tested it on herself. Or the Marvelous Millefleur, who experimented with a speed-boosting spell and aged himself into dust instead..."

Ranma removed the finger that had been resting idly on the quest notice as sharply as if it had suddenly turned red hot. "Who in their right mind would take this quest then?!"

Yunyun shrugged her shoulders in response to Ranma's question, but then something caught her eye. She reached up to touch one of the quest notices for emphasis as she said, "Hey, what about this one? This guy wants somebody to find his missing pet..."

"That's a job for adventurers?" Ranma asked in sincere surprise, twisting to look at it himself.

"Well, it is a White Wolf, so that might be the reason why - they're a variant of the Giant Wolf, and they can be very dangerous, though domesticated ones are known for being extremely loyal and affectionate to those they trust. It's actually pretty odd that one would run away, if its master hasn't been cruel to it," Yunyun mused thoughtfully, even as Ranma was already taking the quest marker down from the board.

"Heya, Luna!"

The blonde receptionist blinked briefly in surprise as she looked up from the... well, it looked like some kind of old-timey newspaper analogue to Ranma, and then smiled politely at him. "Oh! Why, hello, Ranma; you're here early today."

"Well, y'know what they say. I wanna take this quest, please," He told her, sliding the flier in question as well as his adventurer's card across the shelf to her side of the window.

Luna picked the flier up with a well practiced eye, studying it in a single deft glance-over. "Oh, the pet retrieval one? Well, I'm sure Lord Mathonwy will be most thankful! He does love his pet so much..."

Ranma's ears pricked up at the title of the person giving the quest. "A nobleman, huh? Big deal around here?"

"Oh, no; the Mathonwy family are far from the likes of the Alderp or Dustiness families! They're scholars and merchants who've made enough to live comfortably - I think they've had one or two wizards or archmages in their past, but they're very much a local name."

"Huh... Is him sendin' adventurers to bring his wolf back normal?" Ranma continued to probe.

"Not at all; Lord Mathonwy has raised that wolf from a pup when he was a boy, they've been inseparable for years! I just can't understand why exactly Wulfric would run away like he has... Please, be gentle when you find him, okay? Lord Mathonwy would be devastated if anything happened to his beloved pet," Luna gently asked Ranma, even as she passed him back his adventurer's card.

"Don't worry, I know how to handle runaway pets," Ranma assured her with a friendly smile.

Five minutes later...

"So, you're absolutely sure we don't need to rush? I know I said this was important, but I don't want to be risking this guy's pet just so I can do some shoppin'..." Ranma winced at the thought, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

"It'll be fine! A White Wolf is scarier than anything that should be hanging around Axel for miles in any direction! So... what did you want to get, anyway?" Yunyun asked inquisitively, looking up at Ranma as she did so.

"Well... I can't believe I'm saying this, but I was thinking of getting a new weapon," Ranma reluctantly confessed, a faint blush of embarrassment lightly dusting both his cheeks as the words left his mouth.

Yunyun simply stared at him, her confusion at this statement so palpable that even Ranma felt the urge to fill the silence out of sheer awkwardness.

"Look, back home, I am - was - the heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts. I'm trained to fight with weapons, but I'm expected to not really need them, you get me? But those toads... if I'd had some sort of weapon, I could have taken them down easy. I don't wanna be in that situation again - this isn't like the playful scraps I had back home, this is serious stuff! But... I don't really know what I should get..."

The archmage at his side nodded slowly as Ranma's words sank in, crimson eyes narrowing in thought. "Well... I don't really use weapons myself, but I'll help out however I can! Um… so what kind of weapons do you know how to use then?"

Ranma couldn't help the amused snort he let out at Yunyun's question, lips perked in a friendly smile as he replied, "What can't I use would be the better question! Staff and spear, sword and axe, cudgel and bow... if you can hit someone with it, I know how to do it. I guess... I suppose a sword is probably the most practical weapon, but I really do prefer to use my fists..."

Yunyun blinked a few times, then smiled brightly as a sudden thought struck her in response to Ranma's confession. "Well, what about some battle-gauntlets, then? They're normally used by monks, but warriors, assassins and berserkers all use them too. They're basically just gloves with reinforced knuckles and retractile blades mounted on the back of them - that should be just the sort of thing you need!"

Ranma stopped dead in his tracks, eyes going wide as he fully realized what Yunyun had just said. His face lit up with a massive grin and he nodded excitedly. "...Yeah. Yeah! That sounds perfect! Let me keep doing what I'm good at, but gives me some better options! Let's see if we can find some of those then!...

Ten minutes later...

"I am so, so sorry, Ranma! I didn't think they'd cost that much!"

An extremely mournful Yunyun bowed three times to emphasize her dismay, finally drawing Ranma's attention from where he'd been examining his new acquisitions.

"What're ya sorry for? It's only money! Easy come, easy go - I'll make it all back with a couple of quests, no sweat! Sides, these things are awesome! Ya even helped me find a set of matching boots!"

To emphasize his words, Ranma flexed his fingers in the manner that he'd been shown by the salesperson he had purchased his new gear from, causing the black leather-and-metal gloves he was now wearing to repeatedly sprout and retract sets of three long, slender, razor-sharp metal blades from the back of his wrists. A click of his heels and the matching boots he was wearing sprouted short but sharp blades from their tips that would turn any kick he made into a scything slash attack, before a second heel-click made them retract again.

Yunyun blinked, before a hopeful smile started to creep across her face again. "You...You really mean that?"

"Hell, yeah! You've been a big help already! Now, let's get going and find that wolf... anything we oughta be looking out for?" He asked her.

Still smiling widely at Ranma's praise, Yunyun then gave the matter a moment's thought, then shook her head. "I can't think of anything... White Wolves are much stronger than anything that would normally be seen around Axel. I mean... there is one thing, but... no, no way that we need to worry about that."

"What? What is it?" Ranma asked her curiously, even as they started walking down the road towards Axel's main gate.

"Well... White Wolves are notorious for their rivalry with One-Punch Bears. Both species have been known to travel some considerable distances to fight each other, their rivalry is that strong! But... Axel is fairly far removed from One-Punch Bear territory, and nothing around here should be intimidating enough to draw one. No, I'd bet you that there isn't a One-Punch Bear within a hundred miles of here!" Yunyun asserted proudly as the two of them set off to begin their quest.

Several hours later...

"...A One-Punch Bear. What was a One-Punch Bear doing so close to Axel?! They're far too strong for this area! And... Why was it... I mean... how?! With a White Wolf?!"

Yunyun's face was turning beet-red at the memories which had now burned themselves into her mind (no matter how much she'd wished that they hadn't), while looking desperately for some answers from her new partner, only to wilt ever so slightly as she realized that he was too busy scratching the Clydesdale stallion-sized lupine behind the ears, an activity that both boy and wolf seemed to be thoroughly enjoying, to pay her any attention. Or so she had thought... she nearly leapt out of her skin when Ranma suddenly spoke up.

"Well, they do say love conquers all... Poor boy, you wanted her to come with us, didn't you? Aw, I'm sure she'll come looking for you if she misses you badly enough..."

He ruffled the wolf under its chin, causing the enormous lupin to arch its neck in apparent bliss, whilst Yunyun swallowed nervously at the thought of a One-Punch Bear lumbering into Axel's main gate, in an attempt to locate its new 'friend'. Saying that this would cause mass hysteria to break out would be an understatement!

For a few moments, Yunyun lost herself in nightmare visions of the panic that would ensue as a high-level monster came barging into Axel, before she realized that both Ranma and the wolf had continued moving on, forcing her to jog to catch up.

"Um... Ranma? W-Why are we delivering Wulfric back to his owner personally? Normally, the Guild would take care of all that, once we got back to them with the missing pet..." She pointed out uncertainly.

"Why not? It's a nice day, an' I wanna see more of Axel! I only got here yesterday, after all..." Ranma lightly replied, still absently petting the wolf as he led it through the streets.

"Oh-Okay! I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" Yunyun began, cheeks burning red with embarrassment.

'Stupid-stupid-stupid! What were you thinking, questioning him like that?!' She scolded herself.

"Ah, it's a fair question. But you don't need to come with me; a local like you knows where everything is, right?" Ranma flippantly observed over his shoulder.

Yunyun stopped in pure shock, her confusion actually pushing aside her embarrassment. She stared dumbfounded at her new partner, only to realize he had no intention of stopping in his leisurely stroll and being forced once again to jog to catch up with them. "I-I'm not a local! I'm a Crimson Demon!"

That finally got Ranma to stop and look at her in surprise as he asked, "What's that got to do with it?"

"Wow, you really must be from somewhere far away! Crimson Demons all live in the Village of the Crimson Demons, and that's days away - we're located way closer to Arcanretia than we are to Axel," Yunyun patiently explained to him, still marveling at his naivete.

"Huh. So you came here to start out being an adventurer too, then?" Ranma asked, even as he resumed his own leisurely walking pace.

This time, Yunyun was prepared for a question like the one her traveling companion had asked, so she was already in motion as she answered. "It's tradition. I mean, not so much for Crimson Demons, we don't actually become adventurers all that often, but I... was a bit of a special case. I've only been in town for a little while myself, though..."

Ranma simply smiled and shrugged at the admission. "Then think of this as a chance to get to know the place better! Sun's out, we solved that quest with only minimal violence needed, and we're about to make somebody's gloomy day better. What more d'you need?"

Yunyun blinked slowly, but couldn't help smiling hugely, as a strange warmth seemed to well up somewhere inside her chest at Ranma's good-natured cheer. "Honestly...? I think you're right. You're pretty smart, Ranma."

"Really? Wow, I can't remember the last time anyone ever said that to me..." He marveled.

Shortly afterwards...

"So, this is the noble's quarter, huh?" Ranma asked, looking around as he took in the sights.

"Well... it's, ah, more the edge - the families living here would be kind of... um... the bottom ranks of the noble families?" Yunyun hesitantly replied, nervously pressing the tips of her index fingers together.

Ranma nodded absently at this explanation, sweeping his gaze over the array of large houses in that weird retro-European style and parks that made up his surroundings. "Now then, how do we find where you belong, wolfie...?"

Even as he mused aloud on the question of how best to complete his good deed for the day, the white wolf was visibly perking up and sniffing intently at the air, its bushy tail wagging excitedly behind it. The giant lupine suddenly let out three sharp barks, and then launched itself off down the street, its claws clacking against the flagstones as it sprinted away.

"Wha-hey! C'm back here! Sit! Stay! Heel, boy!" Ranma cried as he and Yunyun bolted after the runaway wolf, racing as fast as they could go.

Now, the Crimson Demon Clan's members were quite rightly famous for many, many things... but their stamina wasn't one of them. And in that area, Yunyun was, sadly, no exception to the rule. Within moments of desperate effort her sides began to spasm and her legs to burn, leaving her gasping desperately for air as she slowed to a lurching stumble, watching as Ranma and the wolf began to rapidly dwindle in the distance.

"Wai-Wait!" She gasped out instinctively, while tears of shame were tracing tracks down cheeks that somehow managed to burn with humiliation, even through the laundry list of pains her body was throwing at her.

Ranma was just about within reach of the runaway wolf, his hand inches away from sinking its vice-like grip into the beast's ruff, when Yunyun's desperate voice reached his ears. Instinctively, Ranma looked back over his shoulder, and saw Yunyun was not only falling far behind, but had tripped over, clearly about to take a nasty facefault onto the street.

Without the slightest hesitation, Ranma now launched himself backwards, managing to reverse directions with a suddenness that would have left a lesser mortal reeling from the whiplash. He swept Yunyun up in mid-fall, while instinctively hoisting her into a bridal-style carry, and then he reversed direction again and surged forward once more, his brand new boots striking sparks on the flagstones.

"Hu-wha-Ranma! This is all so sudden - I mean - we shouldn't - I-I-I-I'm not that kind of girl - un-un-unless you want me to be - what am I saying?! Puh-puh-please, put me down!" Yunyun babbled, while her face turned red as a smoldering coal.

Ranma ignored her words though, his attention entirely focused on chasing after the runaway wolf as it barreled through the streets, leaving random civilians scattered in its wake as it rushed right past them, with the martial artist rocketing right along behind it. Not even five minutes later, the wolf rushed right up to a simple stone fence about as tall as a single-floor cottage and leapt gracefully over it.

"Ranma, wait, stop, slow down!" Yunyun wailed in fear, instinctively burying her face in her new partner's chest and screaming like a little girl, as he suddenly launched himself high into the air!

Still ignoring her, Ranma instead swept his eyes over the estate behind the walls, keen gaze taking in everything in an instant.

'Huh, nowhere near as big and fancy as the Kuno's place was, but definitely bigger than the Tendo's place... nice two-story mansion, a copse of conifers, big ol' pond - hello!'

"Wulfric! Oh, buddy, I missed you! Ahahahah, no-no-no, stoppit, that tickles, stoppit, ahahhaha!"

Ranma drifted back to earth with the grace of a falling leaf, watching on with a fond smile as the huge white-furred wolf now gamboled like a puppy, nudging and licking at what was clearly his owner, emitting the odd happy bark in between great slobbery licks.

Lord Mathonwy, as it so transpired, was a young man - older than Ranma, sure, but far younger than either Soun or Genma. Maybe somewhere in his early twenties. He was thin and slightly built, with long, artist's fingers and short-cut, neatly groomed blonde hair. Not unattractive - in so far as Ranma, somebody who was very much not into guys, as he would loudly remind anyone who might have asked, could ascertain - but definitely the more bookish type of guy. Not that this seemed to stop him from grabbing the giant wolf that probably could have crushed his skull like a grape if it were so inclined in a massive bear hug, burying his face into its neck even as it sat down, tail audibly thumping away on the ground.

"Huh, guess he knew his way home after all," Ranma observed, even as he absently swung Yunyun back down to her feet.

'Wait, why does she look so red?' He wondered to himself for the briefest instant, before his attention was diverted back to the nobleman standing in front of them.

"You brought my Wulfric back to me?" Lord Mathonwy asked politely, though his arms were still wrapped around the beast's neck.

"Yeah. Didn't feel right just dropping him off at the guild, so we thought we'd made extra sure he got home safely," Ranma cheerfully replied.

"Well, I'm certainly not complaining! I was worried that nobody would ever find my poor Wulfric - now why in the world would you run away like that, you silly boy? Hm? You're just a big silly boy, aren't you?" The nobleman cooed, while he affectionately ruffled the cheeks of the giant white-furred wolf as he spoke to him.

"He, ah, went looking for a playmate. But I'm sure he's happy to be home now, sir," Yunyun feebly interjected.

"Well, I'm certainly glad to have him back! Come, I'll go get you two your payments - I'll speak to the Guild afterwards about reclaiming my deposit...Oh! Where are my manners; would either of you like some tea? Perhaps a bottle of beer?"

"Ah, no, no, thank you," Ranma politely declined, shaking his head twice in accordance.

"Come now, you must stay a while; I want to hear all about the girlfriend that this naughty rascal found himself," The aristocrat chuckled as he affectionately tapped his index fingertip against the white wolf's nose.

"Guh-guh-girlfriend? Wh-What do you mean by that, ahehehe?!" Yunyun nervously chuckled, trying to look cool and collected despite the fact that she had gone pale as a sheet.

"Ah-ah-ah, don't try to play innocent; I know what time of the year it is," Lord Mathonwy chuckled lightly, winking as he waved a finger at the two of them in playful mock-reproach.

"But, seriously, I'm astounded; I've tried to pair him off in years before now, but he's never expressed an interest," The young nobleman sighed, shaking his head as he briefly gazed off into space.

"Guess he's got a very specific type," Ranma absently mused aloud.

"Precisely! That is why you must tell me! Of course, I'll also compensate you for your time - say, another twenty percent of the original reward?" The minor nobleman suggested, a playful smirk on his lips as he rubbed his fingertips together meaningfully.

"Deal!" Ranma immediately declared. Though he was smiling brightly as he spoke, his thoughts were a little more ambivalent on the subject...

'Ugh, I feel like Pops saying that... but hey, I gotta make a living on my own now; can't turn down free money... hey, even Pops was right every now and then!'

Half an hour later...

"Wow, so much money!" Yunyun cheered, both of her eyes glowing so bright they were visibly illuminated, even against the noonday sun, as she drizzled gold coins through her fingers into the sturdy money-pouch that Lord Mathonwy had so graciously given them.

"Told ya we'd make it all back and then some!" Ranma proudly teased her, a smug grin on his face as he bounced a second, equally sized bag on his fingertip.

He caught it on the tip of his thumb, then launched it up skyward with the same sort of sharp gesture that Yunyun would normally associate with somebody flicking a coin. It soared so high that Yunyun lost it in the dazzle of the sun, causing her to cover her eyes protectively with her hand, but she still lost sight of it. Ranma didn't even look at it, however, but easily caught it in the palm of his hand as it hurtled back towards the ground.

Ranma tucked away his money pouch into a pocket, somehow without making an obvious bulge to attract any would-be thief's attention, before he spoke again. "So then, what are you going to do now?"

"Uh...um... I'm not sure... what were you going to do?" Yunyun politely returned the question.

Ranma leisurely stretched, crossing his arms behind the back of his head as he contemplatively stared off into space for a moment. "Well, I was going to check out the town library... see about getting an account. Need somethin' to do between adventures, right?"

Yunyun blinked, then smiled cautiously as she asked, "Oh... do you like to read too?"

"Yeah. I mean, I wasn't always the best in school, but when I'm not trainin', I like settling down with a good book," Ranma casually replied to her.

'I mean, I didn't mind watching the odd bit of TV either, but probably better not tell her that,' he privately noted to himself with some amusement.

"I love to read too! There's nothing like a good book - and, you know what, I've been meaning to check out the local library too since I first got here, but I've never actually gotten around to it. Um... maybe we could go together?" Yunyun asked Ranma hopefully, unthinkingly lacing her fingers together into a praying gesture and giving him what she desperately hoped was a winning smile.

"Well, sure, I guess, if that's really what you want to do..." A confused Ranma replied, blinking slowly as Yunyun's request sank in.

"Great! Then what are we waiting for?" She asked, smiling broadly and trying her best to ignore the way her cheeks had grown warm and her heartbeat had picked up at how bold she was. Yunyun didn't wait for an answer, instead dramatically pointing in the right direction before she set off, Ranma casually loping along beside her.

They were about five minutes into their stroll and Yunyun's heartbeat had finally calmed down when Ranma suddenly spoke up from beside her.

"Hey, Yunyun, how hard would it be to get a wolf pup of our own?"

Yunyun nearly tripped over in her shock, recovering at the last moment before she whirled to face Ranma, blurting out, "What? Why?"

Now it was Ranma's turn to blush for once, albeit with only the faintest pink tinge present on his cheeks, when compared to Yunyun's more spectacular displays of mortification. "Well... I know it's stupid, but I kind of always wanted a pet...was just thinking that, well, since I'm on my own now..."

"But... that's not stupid at all," Yunyun told him, mouth running on instinct.

'Should I tell him? I mean, breeders charge a small fortune, and I don't think he's the type to find a pup the...other way... he seems far too nice to do a thing like that!'

Ranma shrugged, defensively noting, "Well, pops always said I wasn't good enough to take care of one, an' that's why I couldn't have a pet..."

Yunyun stared at him blankly as she tried to picture her own father saying something like that to her. No matter how hard she tried, though, the mental image just wouldn't come. In fact, she was so lost in thought that Ranma eventually shrugged his shoulders again.

"Eh, I'll see if I can find something at the library..."

Even as he said that, he was already setting off again, forcing Yunyun to hurry after him.

Soon thereafter...

'Okay, now this place feels like a library! I mean, yeah, I've seen bigger ones back in Japan, but this place just feels more like the libraries I've been to...'

The Axel town library had the sort of rustic, archaic style that Ranma was familiar with from his childhood of visiting every single dojo, martial arts temple, and other potential training ground his father could discover, make up or mistake; huge wooden shelves stretched several times the height of a man, and groaned under their contents - mostly books, with smatterings of stone plaques and scrolls, though those tended to be grouped off in their own little sections of the library. It wasn't hugely busy, but there were plenty of people about, and Rana easily found himself drifting idly though the shelves, Yunyun having gone wandering off in pursuit of her own interest in books.

'Lemme see, what do I want to get out? Maybe there's some practical stuff, but I think, right now, I just wanna look for some fiction...Well, whatever a crazy world like this would consider to be fiction, anyway...'

Down through the veritable maze of shelving Ranma wandered, eyes flicking across the various titles.

'Hmm... what's this one? Famous adventurers? That could be fun - hello!'

Even as Ranma had reached out to take a book that had caught his eye from a nearby shelf, it suddenly disappeared - clearly having been pulled away by somebody on the other side. Several more volumes followed it near-instantly, before Ranma found himself virtually face to face with the equally surprised individual responsible, the two of them locking eyes through the gap opened up in the shelf's contents.

It was a young woman - around Ranma's age, if he was any guess. Through Ranma's limited window of vision, he could see she was wearing some kind of robe with a hood, which was currently pulled over her head, framing her heart-shaped face. Violet eyes blinked slowly, staring at him through thick, rectangular-cut glasses that were perched daintily on a button nose, raven-black hair with purple highlights in a pageboy cut almost perfectly offsetting her alabaster skin. Even Ranma, well used to being around beautiful girls, found himself nervously swallowing at the sudden sight of her.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Did you want this one?" The stranger politely asked him, their eyes flicking to the book she was still holding just above its resting place on the shelf for emphasis before her gaze snapped back to him.

"What? Me? Nah; I'm just browsing, you go ahead 'n' take it," Ranma graciously assured her.

Her politely neutral expression mellowed at his words, a small but sincere smile blossoming on her full pink lips, if only for a moment. "Thank you! You are most generous."

Ranma simply shrugged nonchalantly and smiled in response to this. "Hey, like I said, I'm just browsing. Don't even know what I'm lookin' for... well, 'cept maybe somethin' on the best way to make friends with a white wolf..."

"A warm fire, a comfortable chair and let them sniff your hand before you start petting them. If you got your wolf as a pup, you will have less problems getting them sleeping beside you or at your feet. The older the wolf, the harder it is to get them relaxed, the same with foxes and dogs. Oh yes, and do have a small bowl of meat chunks close to hand, but don't put it down for them. They'll not touch it, otherwise."

Ranma stared at the stranger, who had just launched into that monologue without the slightest hesitation. She didn't even seem to have thought about it; the words just came tumbling out. Catching herself, she blushed adorably, and quickly added, in a slightly defensive tone of voice, "I have some friends with an interest in beast-taming."

Even as she said that, she finished withdrawing her book and started to walk away to the left. On a whim, Ranma followed her, stepping out from the far end of the shelf and getting his first good look at the mysterious young stranger... Relatively speaking.

'Huh, she's dressed a little bit like that priest from yesterday - big drab robe with a hood to pull up over the head. Kind of looks like she's wearin' a temple bell; she's even got the same dark green color! Though looks like there's only so much she can do to dress down - ack, what'm I thinkin'!? I ain't no stinkin' pervert!'

Ranma desperately squelched the part of himself that had noticed the distinctive way that the stranger's formless robes managed to bulge at her chest, his cheeks blooming red - something he could not only feel, but knew she could see from the politely curious expression on her face.

'Look at the rest of her, look at anything else, or she's going to hit you like Akane does- did! Big solid leather pouch hanging at her hip; must be her book-bag, some kind of pink book in a side pocket, split off from the rest. That staff's kind of neat; looks like a bunch of black bramble vines all twisted together... hey, are those thorns still on it? Wonder if they're just for decoration then; people around here got weird taste in gear. Oh, hey, that necklace is pretty cool looking; a gold and silver snake, both tied up into a knot, yet somehow they still got their fangs in each other's mouths. Funny taste in decoration. Wait a moment, that book...'

Whilst the girl was carrying easily half a dozen books, the one that had caught Ranma's attention was at the top of the pile. A very large and thick book with reddish-brown covers, two placeholder ribbons sticking out of it, and overall it would have been quite unremarkable... but for the line of distinctly Japanese kanji characters that went down just off-center of the front cover, a slight indentation in the front of the book matching the necklace.

"The Neverending Story...?" A bemused Ranma read aloud.

The girl looked at him sharply, a rather Nabiki-like calculating expression on her face. Then she asked him, in a halting, heavily accented Japanese that kind of put Ranma in mind of Shampoo, when she was trying extra-hard to ensure he understood her, "You speak...Japan?"

"Japanese? Yeah. Why?" Ranma asked, giving her a quizzical look as he did.

'Wait... does that mean I've been speakin' something else this whole time?' He suddenly wondered, before pushing the thought aside to focus on the matter at hand.

That eerily Nabiki-like expression never shifted as the girl's eyelids narrowed, intensifying her study of Ranma. "Very interesting... are you a scholar? Or perhaps simply... not from around here, hm?"

"Um... yeah, I'm from out of town," Ranma admitted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

She actually lost her composure at that, her eyes going wide with shock as she stared at Ranma with naked disbelief. A short, sharp laugh burst from her lips, before she covered her mouth with a clenched hand and coughed into it, clearly trying to cover up the brief outburst.

"Little piece of advice; I'd suggest you not throw that fact around too freely. Might lead to... complications," she said, and despite the lightness of her tone of voice, there was a sinister undertone that Ranma picked up immediately.

'Yeesh, what's with this chick?' He wondered to himself, even as his mouth moved without him even thinking about it.

"Yeah, I wasn't exactly planning on it. I'm just here for a second chance, that's all."

"So many of us are. I hope yours turns out the way you hoped," The stranger declared, before she started to walk away.

"Hey, I'm Ranma Saotome! What's your name?" Ranma asked her on a whim.

The girl slowed to a stop, but she didn't turn around. Instead, she addressed him from over her shoulder, not looking back at him but somehow pitching her voice so he didn't have any trouble hearing her clearly either.

"I'm... Grimoire. Seraphina Grimoire."

"I'm Ranma Saotome. Nice meeting ya," Ranma declared with a smile.

"...Likewise," The newly-named Seraphina replied, slightly hesitant, but no less sincere than Ranma in her response. "I'd say that I was enchanted to see you, but it's my job to do the enchanting, yours is to hit things, very effectively. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some places to be now… besides, your… pet demon...is coming…"

Ranma blinked in confusion. "What the heck?" He wondered to himself, as Yunyun ran over, Ranma trying not to compare her to an excitable puppy.

"Ranma! Look, they have the newest in the Seraphina's Grimoires line! I had no idea this was due out for another week yet!"

Though Yunyun tried to keep her voice suitably low - they were in a library, after all - there was no hiding the sheer excited glee in her words. The fact her eyes were glowing like a pair of car headlights beaming through a blood-red filter certainly didn't help her stand out any less as she rushed up to Ranma as silently as she possibly could. So enthused that she somehow missed the smattering of chastising looks cast her way, she proudly held up her prize to Ranma, who took in the title absently. He was a bit distracted by pieces of an unexpected mental puzzle falling into place in his mind and demanding his attention.

'She did not mean Yunyun!'

Ranma tried not to think of Yunyun in a similar way to the white wolf he'd been thinking about, only for any more thoughts to be pushed out by an ear-piercing noise…

"Kiiiyaaaaaah!"

"Gah! My ears!" Ranma cried out in pain, protectively slapping his hands over his ears as Yunyun's scream reached decibel levels that had every canine and canine-adjacent beast in town suddenly barking in dismay.

Every other browser and staff member in the library immediately turned their filthiest look on Yunyun, but they rolled off of the Crimson Demon like water off a duck's back as she excitedly gesticulated at Seraphina, eyes glowing so bright they seemed about ready to burst into actual flames.

"Eeeeee! You're her! I mean, you're Seraphina Grimoire! I can't believe this! You're actually here! You're my favorite author - I have all your books! I'm your biggest fan, Yunyun! W-W-Will you autograph this for me?!"

Simultaneously grinning from ear to ear and blushing fiery red with a mixture of excitement and embarrassment, Yunyun thrust the book she was holding towards the startled Seraphina, who looked at it as if it were a snake rearing back to bite her.

"I don't think you're allowed to do that with a library book," Ranma instinctively pointed out.

Yunyun blinked, then her eyes filled with tears as she yanked the book back against her chest, wailing, "No! You're right! And my books are all back at the inn!"

She sagged like a doll whose strings had just been cut, to the point Ranma instinctively moved to catch her. He looked helplessly over at Seraphina... only to find her staring back at the two of them, mouth quivering and shoulders shaking. The robed author quite visibly wrestled with her feelings for a moment, before she covered her mouth in what even Ranma knew was supposed to be a demure gesture and burst out giggling.

"Gegegegegege! I'm-I'm sorry, but you are just...You're adorable! I can honestly say I've never met a fan like you before, gegege!"

Yunyun's head snapped up so quickly that Ranma narrowly avoided catching it on the chin, both eyes wide with delight and a crooked smile plastered all over her beet-red cheeks. "Th-th-thank you! Um... It's a real honor to meet you..."

"So I noticed," Serapina giggled, finally removing her hand and revealing her own, more delicate, smile.

"Why don't you let us treat you to dinner? We just got done with a quest, so we got plenty of cash to spare - maybe Yunyun can go and grab one of her books for you to sign?" Ranma suggested lightly, doing his level best to keep his thoughts to himself.

'C'mon, lady, please say yes; just look at her! How can you say no to that face?'

"Yes!" Yunyun... well, less 'cried' and more 'squeaked' in sheer emotional overflow.

Fortunately for both the floundering martial artist and the over-wound fangirl, Seraphina looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded, still smiling.

"Gegege, however could I resist such a charming invitation? Very well, Ranma and... Yunyun, was it?"

Yunyun nodded so fast that for one morbid moment Ranma thought her head was about to pop off.

"I'll accept your invitation. I was planning to dine at the Adventurer's Guild this evening; will that be a problem?"

"Not at all!" Yunyun blurted out, cutting off Ranma before he could even think to give his own opinion. Since he didn't have any reason to object, he simply nodded in agreement.

"Well, I still want to browse some more, but I'll wait for you at the entrance when I'm finished; does that sound good to you?" Seraphina offered politely.

"Yeah, that sounds good - I still wanna grab somethin' for myself. C'mon, Yunyun," Ranma said, grabbing Yunyun's hand and gently but firmly pulling her after him as he walked away.

"B-but! Seraphina!" Yunyun protested, trying to yank her hand away out of Ranma's grip... to absolutely no avail.

"...Okay, now I understand how you laid out that One Punch Bear with one punch yourself..." Yunyun observed in equal parts fascination and irritation.

"Ah, it was nothin'. Now c'mon, you can help me find somethin' that's good."

Seraphina watched the bizarre pair disappear amongst the shelving and shook her head, quietly muttering to herself as she did.

"Well, now; there's some actual intelligent members of that foolish race of idiots. Wonder if she's seen me in that damn telescope? Thank god they don't know what I really look like…"

She then blushed lightly as she contemplated just how strong a One Punch Bear was. Definitely stronger than her father, who a flagon of alcohol could down for several hours. Although why he had to have it in those packs of six tins, she didn't know.

That evening...

"Okay, I just need to run to the inn and grab my collection! I'll be right back, so don't go anywhere, please, okay, bye!"

And with that Yunyun was off like a rabbit doped to the eyeballs on crystal meth, leaving a trail of dust and two dumbfounded traveling partners in her wake.

"...I think she's more excitable than Miss Ninomiya..." Ranma absently observed, watching as his new partner vanished into the distance.

"Miss Ninomiya?" Seraphina asked, while turning an innocently interested expression towards Ranma.

"Ah, she was my homeroom teacher... despite the fact she looked an' acted like she ought to be a student in a grade school somewhere... some sort of magical bullshit," He explained leisurely, gently massaging the truth for a slightly easier explanation as he did, stretching before folding his arms behind his head.

"If that's all that happened to her for messing about with age manipulation, she got off lucky…" Seraphina solemnly proclaimed. "As for your little playmate... well, she's a Crimson Demon; they're all a little… crazy."

"Hey, Yunyun's not crazy!" Ranma immediately protested, turning a hurt look at the hooded author on his new partner's behalf.

Seraphina looked right back at him, simultaneously intrigued and studying him as she did so. "I wonder… So, exactly how long have you known her, anyway?"

"Since yesterday," Ranma proudly revealed. Seraphina stared at him, long seconds ticking past, before she removed her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose before she slowly answered with, "And if me or her turned into a soul-sucking demon that tried to ravish you?"

"Pft! Yeah, like that's gonna happen!" Ranma scoffed.

"You have trust issues..." Seraphina offered, as she polished her glasses with the edge of a deep red piece of cloth from under her robe, smirking at some private joke as she added, "...I just hope you don't have cause to regret that loyalty. Well, It's not like that was how you ended up in Belzerg… Gegegegege…"

An awkward silence fell back over the duo, Ranma hiding his wince at just how close to home her words had landed, making her point better than she even thought. As hungry adventurers began filing into the guildhall behind them, the two of them simply stood there. After a minute or so, desperately reaching for a topic, Ranma asked, "So, what brings a big-shot author to you to a sleepy little town like Axel?"

"Research, believe it or not. I find adventurers tend to be a veritable goldmine of inspiration for my books," Seraphina proudly declared, before musing, "I used to know a girl who knew more about anyone than even they did back where she came from. She's why I'm a writer, since she told me her secret…"

Ranma blinked as his memory threw up something from earlier that day, and unthinkingly he said, "Hey, there was a notice on the guild's message board that somebody called Seraphina was looking to form a party..."

"Oh yes, That was me! Easiest way to spend time with interesting adventurers is to sign on with them for a time, after all. I never have trouble finding temporary parties either; I happen to be a rather talented Sage, you know, gegege!" She giggled that unnerving little laugh of hers with delight, smiling and patting her book bag as she did.

Ranma looked at her with new eyes in response to this revelation, but before he could say anything, Yunyun came barrelling back onto the scene, arms wrapped desperately around a bulging book-bag.

"I'm back! I'm - huh! - I'm suh-sorry I - phew! - took so long," She gasped out, clearly quite wiped out from moving so fast in such a short amount of time. She sucked in a deep breath, and then thrust the bag in Seraphina's direction, cheeks flushed and sweat dripping down her brow.

"Suh-Suh-Sign! I mean can you…!"

"Gegege... Don't worry, I don't bite..." Seraphina offered playfully, patting her on the head as Yunyun blushed bright red. The author and self-proclaimed Sage reached into a concealed pocket and withdrew an ornate pen, capped with a small crystalline faceted orb.

"Right, all you need to do is lie them on the ground, open to the front page. Or the back page if you're an Isekai," Seraphina drawled, Yunyun hurrying to do what she was told as Seraphina released the pen into the air, setting it spinning, before counting the books, pointing to one end of the row, then the other, then pulsing a bit of magic into the orb.

The orb lit up with a gentle shimmering rainbow-hued iridescence, and then began to dance in the air as if carried about by an unseen hand. It swooped artistically through the air and, with impressive speed and dexterity, began to inscribe Seraphina's signature upon each book in turn.

"Whoa," Ranma marveled, whilst Yunyun let out a squeak of amazement so high-pitched that he instinctively glanced towards her, afraid she was about to faint.

"It's a simple little device of my own design. Saves me from wrist-strain in those really hectic autographing sessions," Seraphine proudly proclaimed.

"It's absolutely incredible! You must be really talented to make a device like that - there was a device maker back in the village, and he... ah... wasn't really the best at it," Yunyun trailed off quietly, eyeshine dimming as she stared off into the memories of her past for a moment. Then she shook herself back to reality and quickly knelt to gather her precious books, hastily sliding them back into their bag and slinging it over her shoulder before she stood back up with a quiet groan of effort.

"I really can't thank you enough! Oh, Arue will be so jealous! ...But that might be because she thinks of you as her biggest rival," Yunyun admitted sheepishly, blushing at her confession.

"Oh, this Arue... Is she like you, one of the Crimson Demons?" She asked, her voice seemingly dripping with pure malice all of a sudden.

Yunyun nodded. "Uh-huh. She graduated third of our class at the Crimson Prison, but she's set on becoming a famous author."

"Oh, how fun... Gegegege..." Seraphina mused to herself, "She will be a suitable rival, yes... Oh yes she will..."

"Alright, ladies, if you two are done, then let's go and grab a table, shall we? Oh, but I just gotta check out the Eris shrine first - I'll find you when I'm done," Ranma declared.

"Wait, I'll come with you - I want to pay my respects to Lady Eris too," Yunyun declared, absently adjusting the strap of the bag she was clearly struggling to carry a little.

"Very well, I'll stake out a table for us all and wait for you both," Seraphina declared simply, and with that, the trio headed inside and went their separate ways.

The shrine to Eris was a small alcove in an out-of-the-way part of the main guildhall, little more than a glorified hole in the wall to house a money box with a deposit slot cut into its top. Without hesitation, Ranma fished out money equal to the registration fee that Morgan the Eris priest had covered for him - then he stopped and, after a moment's thought, added a little more, before he dropped it into the box with an almost musical jingle. Yunyun watched Ranma, and then imitated him, right down to the size of the donation. Both teens clasped their hands in front of them and bowed their heads respectively, silently offering up their personal prayers.

The Crimson Demons were not, as a general rule, religious, but that didn't mean that they were so uncivilized as to not accord the gods proper respect. And so, Yunyun did her best to try and translate her personal feelings into the proper reverent tone of mental language.

'Oh, Lady Eris, Queen of Fortune, Master of Fate's Dice, I humbly thank thee for bestowing thine generosity upon a wretched soul like me. Thou hast blessed me thricefold, and I offer unto thee these coins in recognition for thy bounty. I beg of thee, please do not turn thy face from me! Let me continue to bask in the warmth of thy favor, and I swear, I will be thy humble servant. Um... Please? And thank you?'

She might have been rather put out to hear Ranma's prayer...

'Yo, Eris; it's me, Ranma. I know you're busy an' all being a goddess - can't be easy lookin' after a whole world, especially with Aqua to run after at the same time! - but I just wanted to say - thanks… I've been doing really well here, an' I'm really glad I got to live in this world, so... yeah, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it. Hope Aqua isn't being too much of a pest!'

Prayer complete, Ranma raised his head and clapped his hands - unwittingly startling Yunyun, who clumsily aped his approach - and turned to go in search of his other dinner guest.

Finding her wasn't difficult at all; the sun was only just starting to dip down into the horizon, and so only the first few adventurers had begun trickling in looking for that evening's meal. With the hall so open, it was child's play to spot Seraphina sitting in one of the more out-of-the-way tables. As the two teens approached the author, Ranma noticed that she had two books open on the table; one of them the pink book she had so carefully kept in its own separate pocket, and the other was one of the books she'd borrowed from the library - the Neverending Story, specifically, as she'd left the others behind at her inn before they'd set off for the guild.

As they approached, Seraphina was nodding to herself, before she glanced over to her side, where a second ornately decorated pen - similar to yet different from the one she'd used to autograph Yunyun's collection - was hovering in thin air, clearly writing something in the notepad. But when she glanced in their direction and saw the two of them coming, Seraphina reached out and took hold of the pen with her left hand, stopping it from writing even as she shut the three books one by one with her right hand and began piling them up.

"Well, well; the boy and his puppy returns, gegege," She playfully laughed.

Yunyun twitched gently, a faint look of hurt flashing across her face so fast that if Ranma had blinked, he would have missed it, before she replaced it with the adoring grin she had been wearing since they began hanging out with Seraphina.

"Are you working on your next story already, Miss Grimoire?" The Crimson Demon asked, politely and with sincere interest, as far as Ranma could tell, even as she and Ranma both took seats at the table.

"Of course. One can never rest on their laurels, after all. And when it comes to writing... well, good authors borrow, but great ones steal, gegege! I was using a diary that a passing magister gifted me. It means that I don't need to worry about a good idea escaping me, but my pen…" She mused, "That can be a problem,"

"Why did you call her…" Ranma began.

"Small, excitable and will run you ragged if you don't keep them on a short leash?" Seraphina asked with a smile, "Considering you're so…"

She stopped as Ranma noticed something he didn't expect to see walking along. The outfit was different, but he'd dealt with people whose appearance changed on a whim… or when a bucket was tipped over… enough to know who was approaching. Seraphina had her pink book open, but the pen was not in view, and was studying it for some reason. "Gegegege…" She laughed about something, "Interesting…"

She then flicked her eyes to look towards Ranma and then Yunyun. "Very interesting…" She mused, taking out the pen and notepad she'd been using earlier and letting it write a few lines out before she closed it and went back to observing.

'Eris? Issat you? I mean... okay, you're flatter than Shampoo's little sisters and you didn't have that scar, but... that's gotta be you! What're you doing here, slumming it with us mortals? And who's this chick?' Ranma wondered, his gaze going past the Eris-lookalike with her combination of a glorified sports bra top and tight booty-shorts paired with thigh-high stockings, a scarf and some kind of weird mini-cape slung over her shoulders to the girl next to her.

This definite newcomer was a tall young woman; perhaps about Kasumi's age, if Ranma was any judge, but quite tall, with alabaster white skin, long blonde hair with just the faintest hint of coppery orange, done up in a style that combined a loose ponytail and face-framing bangs, and light blue eyes. Even Ranma couldn't deny that she was a true beauty, with a sincerely kind and friendly look on her graceful face. In contrast to her practically naked counterpart, the stranger was dressed completely in a modest combination of a black, long-sleeved dress with a yellow tabard and a metal breastplate on top of that - admittedly, a breastplate that was struggling to contain the fullness of what lay beneath, and Ranma hastened to avert his gaze from /that/ portion of her anatomy. Armored boots and mismatched shoulder pads - the left one fairly conventional, the other stylized to look like a wing - combined with a large, European-style straight-bladed sword strapped to her back completed the ensemble.

There was only one odd thing about this second girl... well, odder than the mismatched shoulder pads, that was. Her armor was dotted with smears of soot, small pockmarks that looked eaten by something corrosive, and strange, iridescent smears on the metal. The very tip of her flowing mane of hair was letting off the faintest wisp of smoke, and she was smiling happily, her cheeks lightly flushed and eyes slightly glassy, as if she were slightly distracted by something.

"Umm, Ranma, remember that quest you scoffed at?" Yunyun hissed, Ranma nodding his head, "I think I know who took it…"

"Hello, My name is Chris, and this is Darkness… She's kind of looking for a party…" Eris offered, shaking the girl, "Say Hi, Darkness…"

"Hi, Darkness…" The girl offered, clearly out of it, for Seraphina to root in her book bag, taking out a blue crystal orb, throwing it at Darkness for her to be abruptly drenched with water.

"Was worried about that one…" Seraphina mused to herself, while taking out her notebook, "Create Water - Success…"

Darkness let out a shuddering gasp, cheeks flushing brighter and eyes shutting as she hugged herself tight, her smile growing deeper for an instant.

"Such scorn! Oh, and the water, so cold, sinking into my every crevice and collecting in my most delicate recesses!" The blonde purred in delight.

"Uh... are you okay, miss?" Ranma hesitantly asked.

'What the hell?! I must be imagining things, I'd almost think she enjoyed that! Also, what the hell is an author doing toting around water balloons?!'

His words seemed to reach the blissed-out blonde, who stopped hugging herself and opened her eyes, drawing herself up straight and giving Ranma a radiant smile that was perversely reminiscent of Kasumi's. "Forgive me, I allowed myself to be distracted for a moment. Yes, I'm quite alright, thank you. As my companion said, I am Darkness, a Crusader of the Eris Sect, and I am in search of a party to join..."

"I've never seen a Create Water spell used that way before... wait, did you say you were a Crusader?" Yunyun asked, eyes momentarily glowing as she leaned forward for a better look at Darkness, voice raising in her curiosity.

Darkness simply nodded, and then reached into a concealed pocket to withdraw her Adventurer's Card, which she passed over to Yunyun. The Crimson Demon took it and her eyes went wide in shock.

"Wow, she's the real deal! And look at these stats - I can't believe you're only first level, Miss Darkness!" Yunyun gasped.

"You don't have to call me that; just Darkness will do," Darkness told her, blushing ever-so-slightly at Yunyun's words.

"Crusaders are a big deal?" Ranma asked Yunyun softly, trying to not be rude... Hey, it wasn't like he was a complete socially inept idiot! Even his stupid old man could use his own manners when it was important!

"Crusaders are one of the Advanced Classes; they're a higher-ranked version of the Warrior, with access to the best defensive skills, and even the ability to use Holy Magic! A Crusader is basically the ultimate defensive member of an adventuring party - and like all the Advanced Classes, they're very rare, especially at low levels like this," Yunyun replied, showing Darkness' card to Ranma to emphasize her claims.

Ranma made a point of looking at the card. 'Really don't wanna tell her I still don't get how these card things work. That said... wow, even I can tell that's some Strength score, and that Vitality score is through the roof! And look at all these Resistance skills; I mean, I don't know how they work, but... yeesh, this chick might be able to out-tough Ryoga!'

"You flatter me with your kind words," Darkness said, her voice drawing a guilty Ranma and Yunyun's attention away from her card, the Crimson Demon hastily proffering it back to its rightful owner. "But the truth is that attaining the skills I have with such low experience has required some... minor sacrifices.."

She blushed as she said this, but Chris (or Eris, or whoever she really was) suddenly interjected before Darkness could say anything more.

"So, now you know what the deal is, what do you say? You guys willing to hire Darkness on for your party?" Chris asked, hand on her hip and smiling what was clearly supposed to be a winning smile.

"...Why are you asking us?" Ranma questioned her, looking between the two young women in confusion. "I mean, we only just became a party yesterday; wouldn't she be better off with a more experienced team?"

"Veteran parties tend to be much more resistant to taking on new members; they've had a long time to form tactical and social bonds with each other. Since you guys just started out, you're more open minded than an older, more tightly knit party would be. Plus, with only two of you, you're more in need of Darkness' skills - no offense," Chris chirpily explained.

"Are you able to count?" Seraphina offered dryly from where she was sitting.

"I thought you were just an observer, Miss…" Chris offered.

"Seraphina Grimoire…" Seraphina drawled, "So, Ranma, you willing to take her?"

Ranma looked thoughtful before he turned to Yunyun. "What do you think?"

"Muh-Me?!" Yunyun squeaked, eyes growing wide and cheeks flaring red.

"Well, you're a part of this team too," Ranma pointed out, "And Seraphina, you're not part of the party yet either!"

"Um... w-w-well, if you really want my opinion... I think we should take her on. Most parties have at least three members for a reason, and a Crusader is a really, really strong party member. Especially since, well, I'm really not very good at fighting. If anything can get close to me..." Yunyun trailed off, nervously tapping her index fingers together, unable to look Ranma in the face.

Ranma nodded his head and then turned back to Darkness, extending her a welcoming hand. "Well, you heard her! If you want to join us, we'd be happy to have you!"

Darkness' eyes lit up, albeit not as literally as Yunyun's would have done, and she clasped Ranma's hand in both of her own, beaming in delight. "You mean it?! Thank you! I promise, I'll be a credit to the team! You can throw me at any threat, and I assure you, they will never get past me! No matter what pain and suffering comes my way, I will endure it all, with a smile! For my precious party members, no sacrifice, no humiliation, no torture is too much!"

'Okay, lady, there's healthy enthusiasm and there's a line beyond it, and I think you just took a flying leap across it!' Ranma thought in growing discomfort, taking in Darkness' flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, and the way she had started to pant heavily.

Seraphina abruptly put her book away as she looked towards the quest counter. "Chris, I think we have a perfect opportunity to show Ranma who his party members will be…" She offered, approaching the thief before adding, in a low tone, "And I want to talk with you later, Eris…"

The scar-faced thief didn't flinch, or gasp, or make any overt sign of reacting to the robed sage's words. Only a narrowing of her eyes and a sudden coldness in her gaze betrayed any reaction at all. But whatever she might have been thinking, she didn't get a chance to react.

The sound of ringing bells suddenly echoed through the guildhall, snapping Darkness from her starry-eyed gaze into the depths of Ranma's soul as she, Ranma and Yunyun all looked towards the ceiling, the sound clearly coming from somewhere on a higher floor.

"Emergency quest! Emergency quest!" Cried a voice that Ranma recognized after a brief moment as Luna, echoing from some kind of public announcement system.

"What's going on!?" Ranma asked, looking at his party members, who gave him baffled looks in response.

"We need all able adventurers to report to the front gate! I repeat: all able adventures assemble at the front gate at once!"

All around them, adventurers hurriedly rose from their seats, abandoning drinks, meals, card games, books, whatever distractions they may have. Ranma unthinkingly yanked his hand out of Darkness' distracted grasp.

"Alright girls, that means us too!"

Ranma fell intuitively into the flood of adventurers pouring out of the guildhall, Yunyun, Darkness, Seraphina and Chris hot on his heels. The five youths jogged for Axel's front gate, the initial tide of their fellow adventurers swelling by the moment as those who had been elsewhere in the city poured in from side-streets and alleys, joining the main throng. Bells rang from watchtowers, and pandemonium reigned as the ordinary civilians of the city reacted to the guild's announcement. Even over the furor of adventurers charging for the gate, Ranma could make out cries of panic and people trying to wrangle order from the chaos, calling for the children to be evacuated to safety.

'This really sounds bad! Well, time to do yer duty, Saotome! It's the role of the martial artist to defend the weak - it's why you became an adventurer!'

Within minutes, the collective adventurers of Axel were massed outside of the city's front gate, parties instinctively grouping together, the guild's "lone wolves" standing in loose synch with their more organized counterparts. All around him, Ranma could hear them muttering - whispered orders between party members, individual attempts to psyche themselves up, the standard pre-battle dialogue. But his attention was focused on the horizon... and the enormous shapeless mass of vibrant green steadily pouring towards the city like the headwaters of a flash-flood.

"What kind of monsters are we dealin' with? Goblins? Trolls?" Ranma softly asked Yunyun, flexing his knuckles and popping his gauntlet-claws from their sheathes.

"Cabbages," she solemnly whispered back to him, eyes gleaming like candle flames as she watched the approaching stain, withdrawing her wand with its conical purple crystal cap from its holster.

Ranma turned to face her, a blank expression on his face as he uttered the only thing on his mind: "What."

As one, the assembled adventurers raised their weapons or fists to the sky and roared out enthusiastically, "It's harvest time!"

Ranma turned back to the road leading to Axel and, sure enough, the great green mass was a swarm of thousands of flying cabbages, rocketing towards Axel like leafy vegetable missiles!

"What the hell?!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs, disbelief overwhelming even his considerable tolerance for nonsense.

Luna's voice suddenly rang out from behind the assembled adventurers. "Attention! The annual cabbage harvest has finally arrived! This year's crop is the best yet, and we're offering 10,000 eris per head! We have cages to store them in, so catch as many as you can! Alright, get ready everybody, because they're here!"

And with that, the flying veggies were upon them, and there was no more time to gawk; instinct kicked in and Ranma launched himself into the fray, just as those around him were doing.

After the harvest, Yunyun and Darkness would explain to Ranma how, when the cabbages reached their pinnacle of freshness, they would uproot themselves and take wing in great swarms, flying across vast tracts of land to some unknown destination - perhaps simply some remote badland where they could die without being eaten. Naturally, the humans and demihumans of the world took this as an opportunity to capture as many delicious vegetables as they could get their hands on.

But at the moment, there was no time for such explanations; only the act of capturing (well, killing) as many cabbages as possible. Arrows, darts, shuriken and throwing knives filled the air as those with ranged or throwing weapons launched madly at the fast-moving, small, nimble targets. Those who had the skills to do so launched beams of energy or blades of wind from their weapons, Ranma absently drinking in such attacks as he saw them. Spellcasters launched offensive spells, whilst those who had only melee weapons simply did their best to hack, slash, stab, chop and crush any cabbage they could get close enough to.

Of course, some melee weapon users had an easier time of it than others...

'I've battled masters of Martial Arts Shogi, Martial Arts Calligraphy, Martial Arts Dining and Martial Arts Tea Ceremony... and this might be the weirdest foe I've ever faced. Still... it ain't like they're putting up a real fight!'

Ranma was a blur of motion, leaping back and forth like a locust on bath salts, bladed fists and boots sweeping out in a manner that only a brave man indeed would have compared to a frenzied cat within Ranma's earshot. Cabbages fell by the score, pierced and chopped, dropping to the ground in his wake.

'Heh, actually, this is kinda fun! Hmm... y'know, if that moron Kuno could do this... let's give it a shot!'

Ranma suddenly dropped to the ground and went still as a statue, arms tucked tight against his chest as he flooded muscle and sinew with power, feeling them begin to burn with pent-up ki.

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken Revised! Wind Bullet Barrage!"

The martial artist exploded into action, arms disappearing from sight as hundreds of blows erupted into being in the gap between seconds, each punch so powerful that the air it displaced hurled forward like a bullet. Cabbages went down like a flock of geese in front of an AA-flak gun, falling leaves tumbling down like green snow as Ranma massacred everything in front of him for the brief seconds before the swarm collectively decided it was safer to go around him rather than through him. Of course, by that point, Ranma's arms were burning with exhaustion and he fell still as quickly as he'd surged into motion, panting with exertion as the fatigue caught up with him.

'Whoo, that was harder than I thought; need to work on that! Still, can't argue with the results...'

"Wow, nice work! So that's the power of a Sennin, huh?"

Ranma glanced over his shoulder, and met the cheerfully grinning face of Chris, who was dispatching cabbages with perfectly aimed throwing knife shots.

"Little tip, though! You want to make sure you get cabbages, not lettuces! They often flock together, but the lettuces are worth a lot less - avoid the ones with white eyes and wings growing from the bottom of the bulb! Oh, and make sure you avoid anything that's moldy or worm-infested! They won't pay you anything for that!"

Even as she spoke, she kept up her rain of death, and Ranma nodded to her in equal parts gratitude and genuine respect for the skill on offer.

"Thanks. How's Darkness doing?"

At that, Chris winced, and her next attack missed the cabbage she had been targeting to instead skewer one just past it. "Darkness is... ah..."

Ranma followed her gaze, and he blinked in confusion as he took in the sight of the Crusader swinging her two-handed sword with an almost frenzied desperation... and completely failing to land a single blow. Cabbages sailed past her without so much as getting a scratch, and Ranma winced as Darkness actually tripped herself with one overly enthusiastic swing and landed flat on her face in the dirt.

"...When she said she'd made sacrifices to get as good as she is..." Ranma slowly began.

Chris had the decency to look embarrassed, nervously pressing her index fingers together as she replied, "Um... she may have neglected to spend any skill points on offensive skills in order to have more to boost her defensive ones...?"

Ranma could feel the vein in his temple pulsing with irritation at the very *concept* of such lopsided training, spitting out a reassurance that tasted like hot venom on his tongue through gritted teeth, "Well... I suppose it's not like these cabbages are any real threat..."

"My arm!" Howled an agonized woman's voice.

"Me leg!" Screamed some guy that Ranma couldn't see.

"My baaaaallllssss!" Shrieked somebody, causing a collective wince from all in earshot.

That was when Ranma realized that the cabbages had no qualm about using themselves as living bullets, their blisteringly fast flying speed turning what Ranma would have thought of as soft, squishy, inoffensive vegetables into veritable battering rams that hit with bone-breaking force. Easily a dozen or more adventurers had fallen whilst he'd been distracted with his own branch of the swarm, and others still were either being knocked painfully from their feet or actually retreating from the kamikaze cabbages. In fact, more and more of the adventurers were beginning to fall back in the face of the relentless vegetable onslaught, whose numbers seemed practically undiminished...

'Okay, that explains why all the townsfolk were panicking...' Flashed briefly through Ranma's head, before he forced himself back to reality. Especially once he noticed that one adventurer had been knocked unconscious and fallen over another, trapping the smaller man under his armored bulk.

"Hey, look out!" He cried instinctively, but even as his legs tensed and he prepared to leap in to assist, he found himself shocked as Darkness, having scrambled to her feet with impressive speed, threw herself in between the defenseless adventurer and the ballistic veggies.

The sound of cabbage smashing into steel, flesh and bone echoed like a gunshot, the meaty crunching noise sickening even to Ranma as the first cabbage hit Darkness squarely in the stomach... and then bounced off like a spitball off of Ryoga. Her act of defiance seemed to enrage the other cabbages, for the flying vegetables seemed to concentrate their assault on her; three more smashing off of her within a second, and more hot on their heels.

"Run, both of you! I will hold them back!" Darkness cried over her shoulder at the two men she was defending.

"Milady, forget about us! Save yourself!" The trapped adventurer pleaded.

"I will not! I would never abandon my comrades!" Darkness defiantly roared back, only to grunt and gasp as cabbages pelted her with brutal force. Again and again they smashed themselves against the blonde Crusader, the force of their impact first denting her armor, and then tearing it free of her body, piece by piece! Her under-dress began to tear as the ballistic brassicas brutally battered her, wringing gasps and cries from the increasingly defenseless girl.

"Hold on, Darkness!" Ranma cried, but even as he spoke, he was in motion. He zigged in front of Darkness, clawed gauntlets carving up a dozen or more cabbages that were about to collide with her, then zagged to leap to the men behind her.

"Up ya go, buddy!" He declared, effortlessly hauling the huge unconscious adventurer off of his accidental victim, slinging him across his shoulders before grabbing the second man by the hand and roughly hauling him to his feet. This second man needed no further encouragement and ran for the shelter of the walls, where various priests and other healing magic-users were tending to the injured, protected by a rain of offensive spells from assembled wizards.

Ranma vaulted in that direction, covering the distance in two mighty leaps and roughly dropping his burden to the ground in front of the nearest available healer. He was somewhat surprised to see that Chris was right behind him, but he was too distracted to pay it any real mind.

"I'm going back for Darkness!" He announced, only for Seraphina to emerge from amongst the clustered mages and stop him by holding her staff out in front of him. "Hey, what?!"

"Leave this to us, Ranma," Seraphina declared proudly, before she nodded in the direction of Yunyun, who was just bringing down a cabbage with a Blade of Wind spell.

"Hey, Yunyun…" Seraphina offered, her cloak seeming to billow out, a burgundy top and skirt visible briefly as she began to chant, "I, who stand in the full light of heaven…"

As she began chanting, a wind began to pick up, Yunyun mumbling along with her, "Call upon thee, who openeth the gates of hell… Come forth, divine lightning…"

Chris's eyes popped as she realized what was happening, several of the people who she knew Aqua had resurrected turning to look at the localized storm that had whipped up with Seraphina in the center. Due to the wind, Ranma could now get a proper look at her, the cloak billowing behind her.

'...Is it something in the water in this world? First Yunyun, then Darkness, now her; they're all stacked! I mean, Shampoo would be feeling insecure here... wow, this might just be Akane's idea of hell...'

The reason behind Ranma's rather ungentlemanly thoughts, which he privately regretted as soon as he'd had them, was the sight of Seraphina without her largely form-concealing robes. The fact she was wearing something that looked an awful lot like a Japanese schoolgirl's uniform - a burgundy waistcoat vest over a white, collared, buttoned blouse and a plaid-patterned crimson skirt - was not so surprising. Fashion sense in Axel was very much an eclectic concept, as even Ranma had picked up. What was more attention grabbing, especially for the males who happened to be within eyeshot, was the full, heavy breasts that strained said waistcoat and blouse to the veritable bursting point, as if a too-deep breath might send buttons flying.

It was almost enough to make Ranma not notice the spell that Seraphina was casting. Almost.

Words failed Ranma as he watched the sweeping gestures of Seraphina's staff trace curling lines of eldritch sigils in the air, more such sigils blooming in the form of concentric circles that stretched into the sky and painted a massive, intricate, star-like emblem upon the ground. The sky went black as night, only for a seething sun of blue-white fury to bloom in the heavens above.

"This Ends Now… INDIGNATION!"

Seraphina punctuated her words with an authoritative thrust of her staff towards the heavens, where that pulsing pseudo-star exploded in tongues of hungry lightning that scythed through the air, burning, searing and smashing through the swarm of cabbages in an explosive storm of thunderbolts that forced Ranma to cover his eyes.

When the spell was finally over, the cabbages had been decimated. The surviving vegetables scattered, fleeing in all directions that wouldn't involve directly going through Axel or returning the way they came, lightning-kissed brassicas by the score littering the ground.

The assembled adventurers went deathly silent as Seraphina stamped the butt of her staff on the ground, her robes falling back into place over her form. Then she smiled and she was, yet again, the unassuming author she'd been a few moments before.

"And that, as they say, is that," She declared in a tone that was almost sweet and innocent in its nature, were it not for the undertone of smugness that it only just barely managed to gloss over. The fact she took her glasses off and gently polished them with a handkerchief whilst smiling somehow managed to intensify both sentiments.

You could have heard a pin drop. And then everybody present on the battlefield let out a great cheer, the sounds of applause, laughter and other verbal outpourings of admiration fit to rattle the roofs of those buildings nearest the town's walls.

"Th-That was the incantation from The Magus & The Princess! You mean, that's a real spell?!" A dumbfounded Yunyun gushed, clasping her wand between both hands in a way that implied she would have been leaning on it for support had it been a proper staff.

"A great author always strives for verisimilitude in her works, gegege," Seraphina giggled. Then she was surrounded by excited adventurers eager to congratulate her, cutting her off from view.

Ranma watched as Seraphina's admirers mobbed her, and slowly shook his head. 'And here I thought the Hiryu Shoten Ha was hot stuff... I'm going to really have to up my game here... awesome! Wait, Darkness!'

Pausing only for the briefest instant needed to retract his blades, Ranma then turned and sprang across the field to join Darkness, whom he found picking up her armor and checking it out with a forlorn sigh.

"Hey, Darkness, are you okay?" Ranma asked, doing his best to not let his eyes linger on the way her tight black undergarment hugged her very ample curves, the myriad rips and tears exposing tantalizing glimpses of creamy white skin...

Darkness' head snapped up from the fractured breastplate she was holding, evidently having failed to realize he was approaching her, and she blushed brightly, hugging the ruined armor piece tight against her bosom. "Oh, ah, yes, of course. I'm perfectly fine, Ranma."

"You sure? Looked like you caught quite a beating from those cabbages - who'd have thought vegetables could put up such a fight, huh?" Ranma smiled, trying to make light of the subject.

Given the way Darkness blushed even harder, it didn't seem to work. "Oh... you were watching me? Then... I suppose you saw... Yes, I am really quite terrible at hitting things. I'm just naturally clumsy. Oh! B-But don't think that means I will be useless! I may not be able to harm our enemies, but I am an impenetrable shield!"

"Yeah, I saw that. Don't worry, we'll fix you up in no time, I promise!" Ranma grinned and flashed her a thumb's up, only for his smile to fade at the wince that suddenly crossed the crusader's face. "Hey, are you sure you're okay...?"

"I-I'm perfectly fine! Those cabbages didn't even deplete my hit points, I swear! My armor was the only thing they damaged!" Darkness quickly stammered.

"Oh, yeah, I saw that... man, that's gonna be pricy to get fixed, huh? Still, we caught enough cabbages that it shouldn't be too much hassle, right?"

Darkness stared at Ranma with genuine surprise. "You mean... you still want me in your party? I thought...well, you'd prefer somebody like Seraphina instead..."

"Hey, you may be a total klutz who just lost a fist-fight with a leafy vegetable," Ranma began to say, only slightly losing his verbal stride as Darkness let out a soft, shuddering gasp, "But you threw yourself in front of two random strangers and let yerself get pulverized to protect 'em, all because it was the right thing to do, an' that kind of guts is welcome on my team any day! As for hiring Seraphina; where'd ya come up with a dumb idea like that? She's a famous author; even if she does moonlight as an adventurer, she's far too strong an' busy to want to permanently join up with a total rookie. Sides, even if she does have some flashy magic, Yunyun'll get that strong someday too. So it's just you, me, an' Yunyun; assuming you want to stick with us, that is?"

"Y-Yes! Absolutely! I would be truly proud to consider myself a part of your adventuring party!" Darkness gushed, cheeks slightly flushed and face lit up in one of the biggest, happiest smiles that Ranma had ever seen... At least, since Yunyun had agreed to join his party yesterday.

"Then help me start hauling cabbage; they won't pay us if we don't pick up our kills!" He playfully teased her, although he did notice that Yunyun already had a cart of them that were noticeably scorched by Seraphina's spell.

"Seraphina said that she'd teach me some of the spells from her books…" Yunyun sighed in a dreamy tone of voice, "Although, when I asked her about why the Magus in that story was a girl, she just laughed and went back to directing her pen…"

And so...

The Adventurer's Guild of Axel tended to get quite rowdy of an evening, but after one of the most spectacular cabbage harvests of the last decade, well, they were setting new heights! Especially since Seraphina had graciously turned down the exorbitant amount of money she had earned for her act of attempted brassica genocide, instead asking that the Guild hand out free drinks for the whole night in her honor. Needless to say, Seraphina had just become the single most popular person in the entire guild, and everybody was taking full advantage of the free bar.

As liquor flowed like water, music and song filled the air as the guild's hired entertainers took advantage of the clientele's rare state of full pockets and excess cheer - and more than a few adventurers decided to show off their own talents for the amusement of their fellows, justifiably or not. Boasting stories were told back and forth as adventurers traded tales of their exploits, both in the harvest and in the local wilderness or dungeons, over mugs of booze and plentiful meals of cabbage in every imaginable variety, from fried cabbage skewers with harissa butter sauce to cabbage meatloaf to humble cabbage stir-fries.

Ranma and his newly expanded party weren't exempt from the good cheer either; though obviously overshadowed by the sheer shock and awe of Seraphina's exotic spell, Ranma's one-man coleslaw factory act had caught its share of attention. As had Darkness nobly throwing herself into harm's way to protect a couple of random strangers. So it was that the small three-man party had attracted a good-sized crowd, ranging from simple well-wishers to warrior-types interested in discussing Ranma's fighting skills.

It was actually a little overwhelming for Ranma who, despite the ego problem he was often accused of having back in Nerima, had never really been the type to brag about his skills that much. Especially because he had no idea how to come clean about the fact that he still had no idea how his Card actually worked or how to go about teaching any of his Skills (note important capital letter) to others. Still, he managed to, somehow, talk his way out of direct demonstrations without offending anybody, largely by claiming that his "Mana" had been exhausted and so he couldn't show off any Active Skills until he'd had time to rest.

Across from where Ranma was sitting, Seraphina was getting Chris's attention. "So, What's your game?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" Chris asked, trying to be nonchalant, for Seraphina to put what looked like a paperweight down on the table she was sitting at, motioning for Chris to take the other chair.

"Did you prefer Yunyun's prayer or Ranma's?" Seraphina asked, "Minutes after he goes to your shrine, you provide a really good tank. And I'm sure you're looking at finding some reason to join his party yourself…"

"Why would I want to do that?" Eris declared, barely able to hide the fact her cheeks went slightly pink.

"He turned me down, passively… despite the fact that he got to see the clothes No-chan got for me, and I've had at least a dozen adventurers… of both genders, ask me to join their party, and clearly not because of the spell," Seraphina mused, "You weren't offering one party member when you showed up with Darkness, Eris… Ranged DPS would go really well with a tank like that, wouldn't you agree?"

"And what were you up to with Yunyun? We all know your opinions on the Crimson Demons…" Chris replied, surprised no-one had looked their way, "What would you do if I yelled out that the Dark King's daughter was sitting here?"

"Gegegegege… Right now, absolutely nothing at all, since all they're currently hearing is a riveting conversation about the difference between two types of cuisine. They might even notice the voices don't match ours eventually…" Seraphina mused, "Anyway, We'll meet again, and I warn you…"

"What?" Chris asked.

"I don't care what you say about my deadbeat father, but you insult me or my mother in my earshot…" Seraphina began, her tone turning frosty as she declared, "The next thing I flash fry won't be cabbages… Good day,"

She then picked up the 'paperweight' and swept out of the room, Chris tilting her head as she heard a prayer, cursing to herself before she made her own way out of the increasingly rowdy party, a small healing spell cast on Ranma, Yunyun and Darkness, so, hopefully, they'd not have a splitting headache in the morning.

Chapter End & Closing Notes

And so, Ranma takes the next big step into his new life, and his party officially gains a member! Meanwhile, Seraphina has her own mysterious goals, but you'll have to wait and see to figure out how they develop!

Now, I'm sure people are gonna ask: why didn't Ranma freak out at Darkness' masochism? Well, the irony is that Ranma's comparative innocence means he actually hasn't quite figured out that she gets off on pain/humiliation yet. Kazuma pegged Darkness instantly because he's got so much experience with hentai and eroge from his hikkomori gamer past. Ranma doesn't really have that much familiarity with sex; it's going to take him a little more time to realize that Darkness is a pervert of a kind he's never actually encountered before - Ranma's experience with perverts is largely based on molesters and panty thieves, in canon.