*** Earth  0.000,0.000

Soun Tendo sat at the dining table in his home and lit up another 
cigarette, while he absently stared out at the pre-dawn morning light.  
Next to his right elbow, an ashtray held over a dozen cigarette butts 
already within it.  He slowly inhaled a long drag of smoke from his 
current cigarette and contemplated his life, and the changes in it since 
Kimiko had died.  The manner of her death still disturbed him, and also 
the lingering effect it had on their children.  It had been several 
years, and the pain of losing her still sometimes kept him awake nights, 
as it had last night.  Luckily, his high position afforded him the 
luxury of missing a few days of work here and there.

If only I had talked her out of going on that mission, thought Soun, 
taking another puff on his cigarette.  She might still be alive today.  
But she was a soldier, an officer, and the Empire needed her skills one 
last time.  He closed his eyes and a sigh escaped his lips.  The twin 
burdens of duty and honor are a heavy one at times, but they are worth 
the effort of carrying if our lives are to have any meaning.  Soun 
opened his eyes and stared out at the fading night.  You taught me that, 
Kimiko.  It is something that I have never forgotten, as much pain as 
those words have caused me, but I still miss having you by my side at 
night.  No other woman has ever replaced you in my heart, and possibly 
no woman ever will.  I would sacrifice almost anything to be able to see 
you one more time, my little warrior princess.  He smiled as he recalled 
how she had blushed and smiled when he had first called her that, and he 
took another puff on his cigarette.

As Soun sat and contemplated, he heard footsteps on the stairs.  A 
moment later there was a very surprised inhalation from the person who 
came around the corner and saw him sitting there in the dim light of the 
approaching dawn.

"Oh!" exclaimed Kyoko Otonashi, startled by the unexpected, brooding 
presence at the dining area table.  She bowed graciously to him, still a 
little nervous around her unusually solemn, new employer.  She smoothed 
her long, brown skirt and said, "Tendo-san.  I did not realize that you 
were already awake this morning.  I was just going to start breakfast, 
but could I fix you some tea first?"

"Tea would be lovely, Otonashi-san," said Soun calmly, a wisp of smoke 
accompanying his words as he spoke.  "I apologize for startling you, but 
I could not sleep."

"I understand," said Kyoko softly.  "I will get your tea now."  The 
attractive woman bowed once more and retreated to the kitchen.  She 
busied herself with boiling water for tea and preparing the kitchen for 
cooking.

Soun blew out another long stream of smoke from his nose and returned to 
his thoughts.  It had been several months since his last bout with 
insomnia.  He had arrived home late last night, as he usually did, but 
he was unable to fall asleep.  When midnight had arrived with no sign of 
slumber claiming him, he had gotten up from his bed and gone downstairs, 
to sit and think about the past, the present, and the future.  Brooding 
about might-have-beens was a waste of effort, but it was also comforting 
in a way.

Kimiko was in his thoughts, as the ghost of her presence seemed to abide 
with him during these times.  The memory of the last time he had beheld 
her alive.  The memory of the last time he had made love to her.  The 
memory of the last time she had held her daughters.  Each of them had 
been affected by her death so much.  He himself had come so close to 
breaking, but her last words to him had prevented that.

"Be strong for our children, Soun," she had said, on that last day they 
had been together.  She had been standing there in her combat fatigues 
in their bedroom, looking so very beautiful, and so very tough, at the 
same time.  "This one is going to be bad, and I'm... I might not return, 
so I want your word of honor that you will be strong for our daughters."  
Her eyes had been dry, but he knew that the thought of leaving her 
children without a mother had hurt her deeply.  But she was a proud 
soldier of her Emperor, and her devotion to duty left no room for acting 
on personal fears or desires.  He had agreed and given his word, to be 
strong, for her.

Her words had proven to be prophetic.  His wife, Captain Kimiko Tendo 
was reported dead in the line of duty three weeks later, in noble 
service to the Empire, and something inside of himself had been mortally 
wounded at that time as well.  She had become his world since that day 
that they first met, overcoming so many obstacles in their courtship and 
marriage, and he had not even had a body left to bury at the end.  The 
explosion that claimed her life and the lives of a dozen men under her 
command had robbed him of that closure.

After that, all Soun felt that he had left was his duty to his children 
and to the Empire, and he did his best by them both to the limits of his 
abilities.  The wound to his heart eventually healed, scarring his soul 
in the process, changing him into the man that he now was, a man that he 
sometimes found it hard to recognize in the mirror.  At times he felt 
certain that he was now a man that Kimiko would have hated.  He knew 
that he hated himself sometimes, for becoming the man that he now was, 
but it had been necessary for him to be able to continue on.  He had 
been strong, but had it been the right sort of strength?

In many ways, his three daughters had changed even more than he had.  
Thirteen-year old Kasumi found a powerful new enemy to fight, one that 
no skill in martial arts could hope to overcome, death.  She began 
studying medicine as diligently as she applied herself to her martial 
arts training.  Ten-year old Akane withdrew into herself for a time, 
coming to terms with her mother's death.  Within six months, her spirit 
bounced back to its former self.  She redoubled her efforts at training 
her physical body and improving her skills, intent on forging herself 
anew into a duplicate of the last image that she held of her mother, 
that of the perfect warrior.

Lastly, and most regretfully, there was his middle daughter, Nabiki.  
Seeking an approval and show of love from him that he no longer allowed 
himself, the eleven-year old girl looked to him as her example, not 
knowing that he was losing his soul by hiding his grief from his 
children.  Perhaps because of the connection to her lost mother, she 
allowed her training in the martial arts to trail off.  Though she 
allowed her skills to deteriorate, her school's physical regimen 
maintained a relatively high state of physical fitness in her.  His 
middle daughter sharpened her mind to a razor-keen edge and, over time, 
turned herself into what she must have thought of as the only remaining 
option to her for parental approval, to be the quintessentially perfect 
Security operative: brutally efficient, cold, remorseless, and ruthless.  
All of these were apt descriptions of the new Nabiki Tendo, as they were 
oftentimes used to describe Soun Tendo as well.  She had become his 
daughter in all ways, and he was proud of her in his own fashion.  But, 
late at night, alone with his innermost thoughts, he sometimes worried 
if he had somehow betrayed Kimiko's memory by letting things change as 
they had.

Things might have continued on like this, until that day almost four 
years ago, when Soun had been working late in his office.  A file had 
come across his desk late in the day marked for his review.  He had 
reviewed it many times in the previous years without any real regard.  
But when he had seen it that night, it was as if for the very first 
time, giving him an epiphany of sorts.

The name on the jacket of the file was Ranma Saotome.  Soun had picked 
up and perused the file, not simply casually read it as he had before.  
One thing leapt out at him, a stray memory that surprised him for not 
having realized it before.  Information that not even one so highly 
placed as he was supposed to know but had picked up gradually over time 
from a variety of sources, suddenly coalesced in his mind.  He clearly 
remembered smiling at the realizations that had come over him.

Ranma was one of the Newtype Children, as were also his two daughters.  
Three representatives of the two hundred or so young Citizen boys and 
girls that had been chosen for two very special test groups by the 
eminent Professor Kozo Fuyutsuki, hand-picked by the then-current 
Emperor to oversee it.  All three youths had been chosen from among 
thousands of Imperial children.  Kasumi would have also been deemed 
acceptable, but she was already too old to undergo the treatments at the 
time.  Apparently, it caused extensive and permanent genetic damage if 
done to a child beyond the age of five.  There had been some exceptions 
in the previous, non-Citizen test subjects, but the risk was considered 
too great for a Citizen child to bear.

Project Adam.

Project Eve.

Each of them had been established with a single purpose for their 
existence: to create a new breed of humans, Homo Sapiens Imperius, 
beings genetically enhanced and improved in all aspects of human 
potential, both mental and physical.  Together, they made up Project 
Phoenix, an attempt to create a new and better race of humanity from the 
ashes and dross that made up the majority of modern man.  If these 
Children of the Phoenix (or Newtypes, as they were also called) bred 
true with each other, then enhancement would be made available for all 
pure-bred children of Japanese Citizen descent.  Within a generation, 
these new ranks of Citizens would take their place in the Empire and 
lead it forward to a glorious tomorrow.

Soun wondered why he had not seen it before, as he read through Ranma's 
file, and the idea of pairing his middle daughter to the Saotome boy 
seemed to possess him.  Ranma would be perfect for Nabiki, and Soun had 
begun working behind the scenes to bring about that pairing.  It had 
been a long, slow process, following Ranma's progress, becoming more and 
more certain that he was right in his plans.  The boy's sharp mind would 
be an equal for Nabiki's own, and his future opportunities seemed to be 
limitless.  If he did not end up in one of the Science Ministry's top 
laboratory facilities, then one of the many zaibatsus, the great 
industrial or financial combinations of the Empire, would surely offer 
him a great deal of money for his skills and talents.

He had finally told Nabiki about Ranma six months ago, to prepare her 
for his arrival, swearing her to complete secrecy on the matter.  Nabiki 
had been startled, but she hid it well.  She seemed to be most intrigued 
by his money-earning potential, and his future chances of success in the 
Empire.  She kept him up-to-date on Ranma's weekly activities, and he 
thought he detected in her a more than merely mercenary interest in 
Ranma at times, but he could not say for certain.  His middle daughter 
had become quite difficult for him to read since she had started at the 
Academy.

Otsu Mitsuma had reported back immediately after her lunchtime meeting 
with Nodoka Saotome.  She was evasive at first, until he had pressed her 
on the matter, but she finally told him the whole story, and of her 
failure to obtain a firm decision from the Saotome woman.  He had 
apparently misread Nodoka somewhat, taking her at face value, but it was 
of no matter.  He was still certain of Nabiki's superiority in being 
able to deal with any challenges over the matter of Ranma, even those 
that he himself might have inadvertently set into motion.  She deserved 
to have the best, and he would use every resource that he had at his 
disposal to get it for her.

Soun was distracted from his thoughts when he heard the gentle 
clattering of a tea service touching down on the table next to him, and 
he stubbed out the remains of his cigarette.  He nodded to Kyoko, and 
she poured out some tea for him and handed him the cup.  He took the cup 
with a slight nod of his head then waved her away.  She bowed briefly 
from her kneeling position before standing and withdrawing.

Taking a sip of his tea and enjoying its warming feel within him, Soun 
smiled out at the rising sun and raised his cup slightly in salute.  It 
is good to have such a dutiful child as Nabiki to follow after me in the 
Directorate, he thought proudly.  Her skills at subterfuge are already 
impressive.  I am sure that she will be able to yoke down that boy Ranma 
in no time, just as I will deal with the boy's father.  He and I have so 
much catching up to do, since our own long-past days of youth together 
at the Imperial Academy.  I wonder if he even remembers me?  A cold 
smile crossed his face.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quantum Destinies
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic
By Jurai Knight (sthesken@earthlink.net)

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are owned by Rumiko Takahashi.  This story 
is inspired by her works and the stories from some of my fellow fanfic 
authors.  Among these are D.B. Sommer's "Shampoo 1/2", Jim Bader's "A 
Very Scary Thought -aka- Nabiki 1/2", and John Biles' Elseworlds series.  
All C&C is welcome.

Other chapters of this story may be found at this website, or you can 
email the author for them:

The Quantum Destinies Homepage
http://home.earthlink.net/~sthesken/fanfics/qd.html


The list of worlds reoccurring in this chapter:
Earth  0.000,0.000 - The world of Scholar Ranma (Baseline cluster)


**LIME WARNING**: Please be advised that there is some sexual content in 
this chapter.


What has gone before in this story (or at least what will help you 
understand what is going on):

On a parallel Earth that diverged from the standard Ranma timeline over 
five hundred years ago, the Empire of Japan rules almost half the world 
and has done so for almost a century.  A young scientist named Ranma 
Saotome, through a device of his invention, is now possessed of the 
skills and memories of a martial artist version of himself.  After 
viewing some other alternate lives and dealing with some unexpected 
situations, Ranma decided to intensify his workouts to bring himself up 
to the level of his counterpart.  Dean Fuyutsuki and Soun Tendo took 
steps that will have an effect on Ranma and several of the cast, and 
Director Hinako learned something that surprised her about Ranma's past.  
Meanwhile, Nabiki snuck into Ranma's lab and used his device, not 
knowing what it was, contacting and duplicating the skills from an 
alternate version of herself, one who went on the ten-year training 
journey with Genma instead of Ranma.  Forever changed by the experience, 
Nabiki is now at an equivalent level of skill to Ranma as a martial 
artist.  Akane and Kodachi fought over Ranma in a vicious battle, 
leaving both injured, and Akane is to be transferring to a new school. 
Nabiki learned that she will now be in Ranma's special training class 
and the two challenged each other in an Anything-Goes duel of skill 
which ended in a tie.  However, they each experienced a new attraction 
for the other which surprised them both.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter 7 - Variations on a Life

         When we realize that the actual outcome did not have
         to be, that any alteration in any step along the way
         would have unleashed a cascade down a different
         channel, we grasp the causal power of individual
         events.  Contingency is the affirmation of control by
         immediate events over destiny, the kingdom lost for
         want of a horseshoe nail.

                                  -Stephen Jay Gould

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

   
The world seemed to be running in slow motion.  Distorted human figures 
sprang at Nabiki from the shadows, her fists and feet moving to defend 
herself from the onslaught.  The roar of engines sounded, as if from a 
very great distance away, along with the occasional sharp crack of 
gunfire.  She did not know where she was, only that she had to keep 
fighting.  When she spared a glance at herself, she sucked in a breath 
at seeing herself in her counterpart's male form.

A single figure moved to engage him, and Nabiki-kun grabbed him in a 
martial hold, feeling an odd sense of deja vu, as this all seemed to be 
so very familiar.  He suddenly sensed danger behind himself and turned 
around to see, dragging the struggling figure of the man he held around 
as well, and everything seemed to be moving even slower now.  There were 
more sharp sounds of gunfire, words shouted at him that he could not 
quite make out due to the distortion from the slowing of time.  The body 
held in his arms jerked as he instinctively used it as a living shield 
from the hail of gunfire, the eyes of his enemy widening in surprise as 
he died.

Then all was quiet for a moment.  Nabiki-kun looked down into sightless, 
accusing eyes.  Blood was everywhere, on the ground, on his clothes, and 
on his hands.  The body slipped out of his grip, disappearing into the 
blackness now surrounding him.  But the blood clinging to his hands was 
so brightly crimson, and he could only stare at it in horror.  She 
hardly noticed when the warm liquid transformed her back into a girl.  
Time seemed to stop.

There was so much blood.

So much blood on her hands.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

A scream ripped its way up from the depths of her soul.

                   ******************************

Nabiki rolled over with a gasp and eyed her alarm clock, uncertain where 
she was at first, her heart beating like a trip-hammer.  Her dream 
shredded into oblivion, not even the faintest memory of its actual 
contents remaining, only a fear of something horrible.  She lay on her 
side for several minutes, panting, feeling her breathing gradually 
slowing back to normal.  Not since those first few months after her 
mother died, had Nabiki been disturbed by any nightmare.  She had 
secretly learned how to deal with them.

Shutting off her feelings had been the secret.  Feel nothing, and the 
world could not harm you.  Emotions were a weakness, a frailty, and she 
had locked away the ones that made her feel weakest behind a mask of 
cool indifference.  Compassion, empathy, and love were all forgotten, 
and Nabiki Tendo allowed herself to be reborn into her new role as the 
Iron Bitch.  Her father became her role model, and she emulated his ways 
of dealing with people around him: always acting from a solid position 
of strength, never showing weakness, and finding a certain grim 
enjoyment in making someone caught in one of her webs squirm.  The 
barriers that she constructed around her soul had been strong, 
reinforced by several years of denial, until the day that a certain 
young man had walked into her life and made her feel again.

The barriers had cracked, the shields around her emotions exposing an 
intolerable weakness whenever she was around him, her own body betraying 
her by feeling such strong desires for him.  Nabiki hated Ranma for 
making her feel so weak, yet she desired him at the same time.  He 
didn't seem to notice or care, which strangely irritated her a great 
deal.  Nabiki had tried her best to keep him away from her, maintaining 
her distance as she studied him from afar, knowing that her father 
wanted them together.  Her mask of cool disdain for him acted as a 
refuge for her, and her usual sardonic wit acted as a weapon to draw 
blood whenever she had to speak with him.  It had worked, for a time.

Until her experience in Ranma's lab, only two days ago, when she had 
seen another way that things might have been for her, and the many 
barriers so carefully built up around her emotions had been broken.  She 
was now in a slow process of rediscovering herself, and she was finding 
odd changes taking place deep inside, unexpected and sometimes rather 
disturbing ones.  They confused her and left her feeling uncertain who 
Nabiki Tendo was anymore, but one thing was quite clear to her now.  She 
was a fighter, a warrior who never gave up, no matter what the odds were 
against her, and she would win this battle to reforge herself anew.  The 
old Nabiki Tendo may have been slowly dying inside, being eaten away by 
a cancer of the soul that she had never acknowledged, but the new one 
held the promise of great things yet to come.

Nabiki looked once more at her radio alarm clock with a little, sleepy 
frown on her face, her hand tapping the button atop it a few minutes 
before it would have gone off on its own.  Now that she was awake, her 
newfound need to begin her morning training was pushing her out of bed 
once more.  She touched her cheek where she had been bruised by Ranma's 
fist yesterday and felt no pain, and she grunted contentedly at that.  
Today she would have another try at testing her skills against Ranma, 
and even perhaps besting him during their training time together.  She 
was confident that she would win today against the pigtailed martial 
artist, and she was looking forward to seeing his reactions when she did 
so.

Her thoughts paused as she felt a sudden warmth in her cheeks at the 
thought of him.

Ranma Saotome.

Nabiki shook her head with irritation.  She was determined that she 
would not allow herself to be swayed by a copy of feelings for another 
Ranma in that other life, but it was so tempting.  That other Ranma 
loved that other Nabiki, perhaps as much as she loved him, but neither 
of them had ever said the words.  It would have been so easy for her to 
let herself feel the same way for this world's Ranma, but she refused to 
live her life as a copy of another.  She was Nabiki Tendo, daughter of 
Soun and Kimiko Tendo, and her life was her own.

Still, Ranma Saotome was going to be her husband someday, if her father 
had any say in her life.  Regardless, Nabiki intended to deal with Ranma 
on her own terms, walking her own path and not simply relying on the 
inherited feelings of some other woman.  She was also now a warrior, 
like her mother before her, and she was Ranma's better, no matter what 
he may have thought.

Nabiki suddenly smiled an impish, little smile.

Like her counterpart, she would teach Ranma that he should follow her 
lead in this life, like his counterpart loyally followed hers in that 
other life.  After yesterday, she knew that her fighting skills were a 
little better than his own.  Perhaps only fractionally better, like her 
body was in marginally better shape, but she was now just enough better 
than he was that she should have a slight edge over him in their 
conflicts with each other.  She even suspected that this would force 
someone with such a strong desire to be the absolute best, like Ranma 
apparently now was, to work even harder to try and surpass her.  She 
would then have to work equally hard to maintain her slight edge, or at 
least not fall far behind him as their respective levels of skill went 
up, a surprisingly attractive prospect that should keep both of them 
motivated to try and outdo the other in their training.  She even knew 
how to encourage him to do so, not that she was looking at it from quite 
that perspective at the moment.

She was going rub his nose in the fact that she had the edge on him.

Springing out of bed with a graceful movement, Nabiki once again found 
pleasure in the new agility gained from her counterpart.  The lithe 
muscles in her body twinged slightly at such activities so early in the 
morning, but they responded easily, almost fully recovered despite the 
heavy efforts that she had put herself through yesterday.  She softly 
landed on the floor of her room, her arms easily holding her up in a 
brief handstand, the muscles in her body flexing, her posture as poised 
and graceful as that of a gold medal gymnast performing on a balance 
beam.  After a few moments of posing like that, Nabiki pushed off with 
her hands and flipped back to land on her bare feet, making only a very 
slight thumping sound when they contacted the floor.  She stood briefly 
in front of the mirror, turning her face to one side to see how much of 
the bruise on her cheek was left.

The contusion was completely gone, to her relief.  Nabiki knew that she 
was not a very vain person, but the idea of a livid bruise on the face 
was an unappealing concept for any girl.  As she posed a bit in front of 
the mirror, she studied her barely shoulder-length hair in back and 
considered the thought of letting it grow out longer and possibly 
putting it into a braid.  It was strangely appealing to her.  Wrinkling 
her nose a little at the unexpected thought, she briefly smirked at her 
reflection and turned away from it to get dressed.

Nabiki opened up her closet door and began rummaging around inside her 
closet for several moments, before finally pulling out one of the sets 
of her newly-bought training clothes to use for her morning activities.  
Today she decided to go with a blue Chinese-style shirt.  Filling up one 
end of the closet, there were now a half-dozen similar silk shirts, all 
in blue, green, or red, each one paired off with an identical pair of 
black gi pants.  She slipped off the plain, silken nightwear that she 
usually wore to sleep, briefly standing naked save for only a pair of 
pink panties.  She pulled a white sports bra out of another drawer and 
slipped it on, adjusting it deftly to support her breasts comfortably.  
The rest of the outfit went on rapidly, and she flashed her reflection a 
victory sign as she headed out into the hallway.

Soun looked up as his middle daughter came bounding down the stairs.  He 
blinked as he took in what she was wearing, the grace that she moved 
with, and the look on her face.  The girl before him wore the face of 
his daughter, but the mannerisms she now had were very unfamiliar to 
him.  Their eyes met, and she smiled at him with the same sort of smile 
that she used to wear as a child.  It jarred him a bit to see it on 
Nabiki once again.  She had not smiled like that since before her 
mother's death.

"Good morning, Daddy," said Nabiki, snapping a quick and jaunty bow in 
his direction.  "Isn't it a lovely morning?"

"You're up early, Nabiki-chan," observed Soun calmly, his eyes once 
again studying her odd mode of dress.  She looks like one of those Arena 
fighters, he thought with surprise.  "Have you taken up your old morning 
training routine again?"  He briefly remembered when Kimiko was still 
alive, her getting all of the girls up at dawn to train for two hours a 
day before school.

"Oh, I'm back in full training, Daddy," said Nabiki casually.  "I'll be 
outside in the training hall if you need me for anything this morning."  
She jogged out, leaving her father to stare after her in further 
surprise.

Soun reached out and picked up another cigarette from the pack, lighting 
it up with a smooth motion, and contemplated the unexpected change to 
his life.  He did not think it would affect his plans, but he would keep 
a closer eye on Nabiki until they saw fruition.

As she entered the training hall for the second time in as many days, 
Nabiki paused once again to take in the feel of the place.  Even moreso 
than yesterday, she could feel her mother's lingering presence here, a 
reminder of happier times in the past.  Before the dark times.  Before 
her death.

Shaking her head, Nabiki went about setting up the area for her morning 
practice.  When she was done, she flopped down onto the mat and began to 
stretch.  She felt a tightness in the muscles in her back and shoulders, 
from her heavy exertions yesterday, and she slowly worked it out, 
feeling the blood warming up her body for her morning training.  Despite 
the heavy workouts she went through yesterday, she felt great.  Her mind 
was clear and razor-sharp, and even the dream from this morning was 
already forgotten.  She had told herself that it must have simply been a 
nightmare, and she was not going to let it ruin her day.

When her body was finally limbered up, Nabiki hopped back up to her feet 
and went over to the heavy bag.  She began driving punches into it, 
putting as much power into each strike as she could.  The thick chain 
holding the heavy leather bag suspended in midair jingled as she 
unleashed punch after punch into the bag.  A hundred punches from each 
fist became two hundred, and then three hundred.  Her shoulders and arms 
were burning from her efforts, sweat soaking her frame and dripping down 
her face as she breathed deeply.  Her hands, toughened by her Academy 
training and the training that she had done with her mother as a child, 
were only a little bit reddened from the numerous impacts.

"That felt pretty good," murmured Nabiki, rolling her head around on her 
neck, hearing the bones cracking and popping slightly as her vertebrae 
realigned.  She eyed the bag, feeling her strength returning, her lungs 
no longer heaving, and smiled at it.

Nabiki's right leg lashed upwards in a kick, putting her hips behind her 
efforts as she proceeded to work the muscle groups in her lower body as 
hard as she had worked the upper ones.  Minutes passed as her feet 
smashed into the heavy bag with incredible force, rocking it back on the 
chain with louder jingles.  Side kicks alternated with spin kicks and 
leaping kicks, her legs demonstrating much more endurance than her arms 
and shoulders had.  When she finished three hundred strikes with each of 
her legs, she felt less winded than she had after her punching workout.

She finished her morning exercises with practicing a kata, feeling her 
body flowing through the motions as she mixed Karate, Kung Fu, Muay 
Thai, Tae Kwon Do, and several other styles into a graceful combination 
of forms.  Muscles that she had not worked with simple punching and 
kicking practice made themselves felt to her, small twinges of 
discomfort as she maneuvered around the mat.  She ignored the minor 
pains, even while she marveled at how much more aware of her body and 
her surroundings she was today, even more so than she had been 
yesterday.

Finally, she was finished, and she mopped the sweat from her face with a 
clean towel from a small stack by the door.  She quickly cleaned up the 
training hall, and then she went back inside the house to take a quick 
wash and soak before leaving for the Academy.

                   ******************************

Ranma eyed his opponent, half hidden in the darkness.  Sweat dripped 
down his body, droplets silently falling from his face to the soft mulch 
of the forest floor, and his breathing was deep as he waited.  The night 
was quiet around them, not even the cicadas sounding, the only noises 
reaching him were those of his opponent breathing, in soft gasps like 
his own breath now came, a sign of the intense efforts that they had 
made against each other before now.  He had still not seen her face 
clearly.  Even when they had engaged each other from up close, it had 
remained cloaked in shadow, but he knew that he had to overcome her.

The girl sprang at him, one of her hands lashing out at him in a quick 
punching attack.  He blocked the strike and grabbed the arm, using her 
own momentum to lock the hold into place before she could halt herself.  
He pulled her close to him as they struggled intensely, warm bodies 
meshed together into a tight embrace as they tried to get leverage 
against each other, their strength evenly matched.  Ranma felt his 
opponent's lithe muscles moving underneath her soft skin as he held her, 
her body straining against his grip, while he maneuvered his free hand 
to strengthen his hold upon her.  She was strong, as strong as he was, 
and that was oddly exciting to him.

They were almost the same height, he noticed, as he struggled as hard as 
he could to capture her other arm and finally win the battle between 
them.  Their hot sweat mingled together as he felt her body gathering 
itself for an escape.  A scent tickled his nose while he was so close to 
her, redolent of musk and wildflowers.  The elbow of her free arm 
suddenly slammed into his gut, but he did not ease up.  As he quested to 
capture her other limb, his free hand grasped something soft and yet 
firm around her front, somehow warmer than the rest of her body was.  He 
heard a soft gasp of surprise from his opponent, and he felt her body 
suddenly quivering slightly in reaction to his touch, the powerful and 
sleek muscles moving beneath her very womanly curves, like soft velvet 
overlaid on steel.

The next thing that he knew, they were both down on the ground, her body 
pinned securely beneath him, her lips locked against his own in a very 
passionate, openmouthed kiss.  They still struggled, wrestling with each 
other, but each now desired something other than defeat for their 
opponent.  Her tongue probed into his mouth, setting off a firestorm of 
desires within him as he returned the kiss with equal fervor.  He still 
could not see her face clearly, only a hint of a profile, a flash of 
eyes filled with passions to equal his own.  Her hair color and length 
even seemed to shift from moment to moment in a random fashion, from 
purple to red to brown to black and then back through the colors.

The deep kiss finally ended, and his lips moved down to her jaw and then 
to her throat, as he felt her gasp and sigh softly and lustily 
underneath him.  Warm breath touched one of his ears as her voice 
whispered gently to him.  The words were familiar, and the voices, but 
they all seemed mixed together to form a single female voice speaking.

"Wo ai ni, Ranma-kun," passionately whispered the female voice.  "Ranma-
sama, wo da airen.  Ohhhh, Ranchan."  Her lips nibbled at his earlobe.  
One of her hands was held fast by one of his, their fingers interlaced 
together, her palm warm against his own.  His stroking thumb and 
littlest finger felt the calluses on the edges of her hand, a clear sign 
of a trained martial artist.  His free arm stroked down her side, 
enjoying the athletic feel of her body.  He felt the fingers of her 
other hand running through his hair as her lips kissed his throat.  Her 
legs were loosely wrapped around his hips.

Ranma lifted his head, enjoying the soft feel of the girl's lips on his 
neck, eliciting a groan of pleasure from him.  When he glanced up for a 
moment, he noticed another figure standing nearby, and their eyes met.

"Interesting dreams you have, Ranma," said Ranko Saotome dryly.

                   ******************************

Ranma jerked awake.

Wh-what was that all about? he asked himself in confusion.  The memory 
of the martial artist girl held in his arms in his dream began to 
quickly fade, and Ranma wondered why his mind had conjured up such an 
odd amalgam of the girls he knew without coming up with an answer.  He 
could not say for sure, uncertain if he wished to explore the meanings 
behind the odd dream right now.

Peering at his clock slightly bleary-eyed, Ranma grimaced at the 
displayed time.  Dawn was just occurring, and he was awakening even 
earlier today than he had yesterday.  He stumbled out of bed in the dim 
light, and the only thought on his sleepy mind that he could seem to 
focus on was that he had to get ready to train.  In a mental daze, he 
dressed himself in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, before he quietly 
crept downstairs to the yard.  The morning air was still.

When Ranma got down to the yard, his thoughts cleared a bit and focused.  
He picked out a large, open area in the yard and sat down to begin 
stretching and warming up, the concrete slab cold against his buttocks 
as he stretched his legs out in front of himself.  The brutally rigorous 
physical training at the Academy had added a significant amount of 
muscle to his frame and given him a solid core of physical excellence, 
but he still felt less than what he now knew that he was truly capable 
of doing.  He had never really cared about physical fitness before, 
until his experiences with that other Ranma, so this realization was 
quite a shift for him in his personal paradigm.

His body's limits were still unknown to him, but with each day of 
training he seemed to grow just a little bit faster and stronger.  
Testing himself against an opponent like Nabiki on a regular basis would 
push him along even more quickly in his development, as her skills 
seemed to be roughly equal to his own.  He was looking forward to wiping 
the smug smirk from her face when they sparred again.  He was confident 
that he had taken her measure yesterday as a fighter.  Today he was 
going to beat her.
 
Dwelling within Ranma now was a sort of hunger, a deep-seated desire to 
grow stronger as a fighter, to surpass his current levels of ability, 
and also those of his unexpected, new rival.  Although, when he allowed 
himself to be totally honest, before putting up a fresh wall of denial, 
his surprising, new feelings for Nabiki were not those for someone who 
was only a rival.  She had always been coolly distant to him in the 
past, whenever she was not being sardonic in addressing him, so the new 
Nabiki was somewhat unsettling but also strangely alluring.  Her mental 
abilities were equally intriguing; the spark of mental combat with her 
was just as strong as engaging her physically.

Still, the thought of a girl matching him in martial arts ability, even 
knocking him out in sparring (though he had also knocked her out as 
well), was a definite spur to improve himself.  He knew that within his 
body were the burgeoning seeds of the fighting skills from that other 
Ranma Saotome, through a quirk of fate imprinted deeply within his own 
brain, nerves, and reflexes, and he now knew that Nabiki had also 
received the same sort of 'download' from her own counterpart.  They 
kept clamoring at him to be allowed to awaken, to bring those skills to 
full bloom within himself, so he intended to do just that.

After several minutes of rigorous stretching, feeling the warming blood 
beginning to flow into his limbs as he loosened up, Ranma felt himself 
waking up more and more.  He rolled over on the ground and began doing 
pushups, taking it slow for maximum muscle tension and strain.  He felt 
the muscles in his shoulders and arms complaining slightly, but he kept 
at it, forcing himself to perform.  Sweat began to drip from his face as 
he pushed himself.

When he was done with that, he shifted to other calisthenics, his mind 
focussing on each muscle group that he could work without weights.  As 
he diligently exercised his body, his thoughts drifted to some of his 
more intellectual pursuits, ones that he had been neglecting a bit as he 
explored his new physical skills.  The power surge problem in the 
resonator was a concern, but he was planning on testing the circuitry to 
see if he could figure out where the power spike was coming from.  If he 
could not track it down, then he might have to consider running the risk 
of another one occurring.  He rested for a moment as he weighed his 
options on the matter.

Standing back up, Ranma brought to mind a long and difficult kata that 
he wanted to perform, one that should help him begin shoring up some of 
the weaknesses in his defenses that he had noticed in himself during his 
sparring against Nabiki.  He slowly stood up and stretched himself from 
side to side, much more aware of the state of his muscles and physical 
conditioning than he had been even as recently as a week ago.

I'm not going to be second best to a girl, Ranma decided firmly, as his 
fists and feet began weaving their way through a pattern that was 
already ancient when a carpenter's son from Galilee had walked the Earth 
long ago.  I just have to work harder, discipline my body better, 
embrace the warrior skills now within me, and I can become the best.  No 
girl can be as good as I am.  After all, I'm Ranma Saotome, Heir to the 
Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts.  He smiled at that thought, his 
arms still varying between attack and defense patterns, feeling a little 
bit more confidence and speed in his movements.  However, his face did 
grow slightly troubled as the memories of Ranko and Ranma-chan briefly 
demanded his attention.

When Nodoka came downstairs a little while later to fix breakfast for 
the household, as well as planning what she would pack Ranma for his 
lunch, she heard some strange sounds coming from the backyard.  Curious, 
she looked out the kitchen window and saw her son doing the most amazing 
performance in the backyard.  She watched in surprise as her son did 
flips and tumbles like an acrobat, as his body flowed through what she 
vaguely recognized as a complex kata of some sort, one that brought back 
a number of memories for her of some of her own martial arts training as 
a young girl.  Ranma's movements had an almost unconscious grace to 
them, but there was also the occasional brief hesitation, like he was 
practicing skills that had grown rusty.

What did Genma teach Ranma while they were gone? Nodoka wondered, her 
hands absently working at filling and pouring cups of water into the 
household rice cooker.  She studied Ranma's style and noted that it 
appeared to be a form of Kempo of some sort, and it looked very 
effective.  He moves well, but, as far as I know, Genma dearest hasn't 
practiced since he was a young man.  Did he teach Ranma how to move like 
that?  I would say that my son has been in training for years to have 
such a level of skill.  Nodoka had never taught another person, still 
considering herself to be a student of the martial arts, but she could 
discern one of great skill when she saw it.  She continued her usual 
routines for cooking breakfast, but her eyes were never far from 
watching Ranma.  She kept wondering why he was putting himself through 
such a level of effort.

Genma came into the kitchen area a little earlier than was his wont, 
coming up behind his wife.  He saw that Nodoka was engrossed in watching 
something in the back yard.  Genma gently cleared his throat behind her.  
"What are you looking at, dear?" asked Genma curiously.

"Oh, Genma dearest, come and look at our son," said Nodoka, her eyes 
bright, entranced by Ranma's demonstrated abilities.  "He looks so 
manly."

"Eh?" said Genma, surprised.  I wonder what Ranma is up to now? he 
thought.  He moved up next to Nodoka and stared out the window, blinking 
in surprise at what he saw, as Ranma put his body through its paces.  
He's quite good, noticed Genma, watching the movements of fist and foot 
that Ranma was doing.  I guess that the Academy must have changed their 
training since I attended there as a young man.  Ranma certainly never 
had time to pick up anything like that when we were travelling.  Seeing 
Ranma practicing fighting movements with such obvious skill ignited a 
measure of paternal pride in Genma for his son, but it was tinged with 
worry as well.

"Isn't he skillful?" asked Nodoka with a smile, turning back to look at 
Genma.  "Our son has the makings of a great martial artist."  She 
reached out and squeezed his hand gently.  "Dearest, why ever did you 
keep such a thing secret from me?  I didn't know that you let Ranma 
learn how to fight."

"But I didn't," said Genma, almost sounding defensive.  "I never even 
knew he was interested in learning."  Genma watched his son some more, a 
smile appearing on his face.  Still, Ranma honors his ancestors with his 
fighting skills, thought Genma even more proudly.  But the nagging 
memories of his own days of youth, and the enemies that his own martial 
arts skills had earned him, troubled him.  They were part of the reason 
why he had turned his back on fighting as a way of life so many years 
ago.  I hope that Ranma can avoid the mistakes that I did not.  The last 
thing that my son needs in his life is to have a bunch of silly 
adolescents who can only think with their fists fighting with him all 
the time.  He is going to have a better life than that.

"Well, he obviously picked it up somewhere," said Nodoka, her eyes 
glinting slightly with tears of pride.  Dearest raised him well, she 
thought as she looked back at Genma.  On impulse, she kissed him on the 
lips.

"What was that for?" said Genma, blinking.

"For raising our son so well," replied Nodoka.  "He is a scholar and a 
warrior.  His prospective wives will love him."  She hugged him for a 
moment and then went back to her cooking efforts and watching her son 
bound around the back yard.

Genma looked at Nodoka's rapt attention on Ranma's activities and smiled 
again.  He was puzzled by Ranma's sudden show of skill, but pleased as 
well.  Still, it's nice to see Nodoka-chan so happy, he thought, looking 
at his beloved wife warmly.  I guess I'll just have a talk with Ranma 
and find out how he knows what he knows.  It looks like Kempo, but I'm 
not sure.  His style is strange.

Meanwhile, Ranma finished his morning training and slumped to the ground 
into a seated position, his lungs gasping for air after the heavy 
exertions that he had just put himself through for the last hour.  What 
felt like rivers of sweat were now running down his face and neck.  
That's enough for this morning, he thought, panting.  I don't want to 
wipe myself out before this afternoon's sparring with Nabiki.  He stood 
up and wandered over to the garden hose, pulling it free and quickly 
turning on the faucet.  A stream of cold water spewed forth from the end 
of the hose, causing a brief shiver of fear to wash over him, which he 
quickly shrugged off.  He held the end of the hose to his mouth and 
drank until his thirst was finally satisfied before turning the water 
off.

"Son?" asked a voice behind him, as Ranma replaced the hose.  "What are 
you doing?"  He turned around to see his father standing behind him, a 
puzzled expression on his face.

"Hey, Pop," said Ranma, waving a hand at his father in greeting.  "I was 
just practicing."  Genma nodded, as if that explained it.

"I thought that you and I needed to have a talk," said Genma, sitting 
down on a chair on the back porch.  He tossed Ranma a towel.  "You 
haven't been yourself lately.  I am curious as to why."

Ranma blinked as he caught the towel.  He had been expecting such a 
question for some time now.

"I guess I have been acting rather strange the last few days, Pop," said 
Ranma quietly.  He quickly dried his face and laid the towel across the 
back of his neck.  He saw his father watching him with a thoughtful 
expression, before briefly gesturing at him to join him in the chair 
next to him.

"The sudden change in your manner of speech is one of the things that 
has your mother concerned," observed Genma pointedly, before turning his 
gaze to watch a flock of birds that suddenly flew overhead.  "I confess 
that it concerns me too.  I raised you better than that."

"My speech?"  Ranma paused as he went over what he had just said.  "Oh," 
he said quietly.  He sat down in the chair and rubbed the towel against 
the back of his neck.  "There's actually a very good explanation for 
that, as well as the other changes."  Ranma looked at his father.

"Go on," said Genma.  He removed his glasses and cleaned the lenses 
absently with a small handkerchief.  "I'm listening."

"I want to start off by telling you the good news, Father," Ranma said 
with a grin.  As Genma replaced his glasses, Ranma's grin got even 
bigger.  "I did it."

"Did what?" asked Genma in a puzzled tone.  He pushed his glasses up the 
bridge of his nose with his index finger until their position suited him 
and frowned in confusion.

"I've proven your theory of parallel worlds," said Ranma excitedly.  
"I've seen them!  Pop, you were right."  Genma looked very surprised.  
Whatever he had expected to hear, it was not that.

"Slow down, Ranma," said Genma calmly, startled at the way that his 
usually thoughtful son was acting.  "Do you mean that resonator device 
you were working on?  You finished it?  You tested it?"  Genma sat back 
in his seat and wondered.  He had always prided himself on his ability 
to know people.  The mannerisms of the boy before him kept shifting back 
and forth from the son that he knew to someone that he did not.

"Yes," said Ranma happily, nodding eagerly.  "I was finally able to work 
out the last bugs in the system a week ago, but it's still pretty crude.  
I'm not sure how deeply across the parallel timelines that I can reach, 
or how long I can sustain a synchronization lock, but it worked.  I saw 
other worlds, Pop.  Other timelines."  Ranma smiled broadly.  "I'm not 
sure, but I also think I can only tune into the most probable worlds out 
of all the potential worlds that exist."  Genma sat there in stunned 
silence as Ranma chuckled.  "Don't you see, Pop?  I proved you right.  
The parallel worlds do exist."

"You're telling the truth," said Genma in an amazed tone.  He began to 
chuckle softly as he got up and gathered Ranma into a hug.  "My son. 
Your father is proud of you."  He felt a tear at the corner of each eye 
as he hugged Ranma.  "Your father is so proud."

"But there were some unexpected, uh, side effects," said Ranma in a 
muffled voice, his face buried in his father's robe.  Genma did not hear 
him at first.  The elder Saotome's mind was filled with visions of the 
honors that he and his son would earn in the Ministry of Science for 
this accomplishment.  Ranma began to struggle, and Genma let him go with 
a smile.

"Pop!" shouted Ranma, irritated at the older man.  "I said that there 
were some unexpected side effects."  Ranma backed up a couple of steps 
as Genma blinked.  Geez! thought Ranma.  The old man never listens to 
me.

"Side effects?  What sort of side effects, son?"  His voice was filled 
with concern.

"I was a little overconfident in my first full-power experiment," said 
Ranma quietly.  "There was a power surge while I was in the mind of one 
of my quantum counterparts.  It left me changed."

"In what way, Ranma?"  Genma sat back down.  His expression spoke only 
of worry for Ranma.

"I gained some of his personality, and I also absorbed most, if not all, 
of his skills in the martial arts," said Ranma, and then he began doing 
a kata to demonstrate.  Genma sat stunned as Ranma went through the 
complex sequences of motions flawlessly.  Ranma's body was tired, but 
the movements were already almost second nature to him.

"So you got into a fight the other day to test your new abilities?" 
asked Genma quietly.  His eyes studied the ground.  I hope that he isn't 
following in that phase of my life, thought Genma, remembering all the 
troubles that he had fallen into then.  It was a part of his life that 
he had never even told Nodoka about, coming before they had met each 
other.  She was a woman who prided herself on being a true lady, so he 
knew that she would not have understood.  Still, there were a few 
moments when it was not so bad of a life.  The images of several girls 
that he had known at the time crossed his mind.

Ranma blinked, and stopped what he was doing.  "No, Pop, it wasn't like 
that at all," said Ranma, waving his hands in the air in front of him.  
"The fight was sort of an accident.  I was doing better at sparring in 
physical education, and Ak- one of my fellow classmates decided to 
challenge me after school."

"I see," said Genma, nodding.  And so it begins, he thought with an 
internal sigh.  "That would also explain the changes in your speech 
patterns, your manners at meals that your mother has told me about, and 
even the way that you're standing now."  Genma kept nodding as his brain 
processed the possibilities.  His son had become a martial artist, and 
he imagined that he could sense trouble looming on the horizon because 
of this.  Fighters attract other fighters, thought Genma contemplatively 
as he sat there, with another gentle, mental sigh.  Still, I can offer 
Ranma the benefit of my hard-won wisdom before matters get too far out 
of hand.  He paused and remembered some of his friends and enemies from 
that time in his life.  So many memories.

Ranma suddenly seemed to realize that his posture was one of relaxed 
readiness.  He put his hands behind his head and laced the fingers 
together while he chuckled nervously.  "Sorry... Father," he said, 
slightly distressed to discover that it was actually taking a minor 
amount of effort to control his speech.  "I wasn't anticipating anything 
like this happening.  I was caught unprepared."

"That was foolish, Ranma," scolded Genma.  "You should have set up some 
sort of safeguards for that.  I thought I taught you better than to make 
such mistakes."  Genma stood up and began to pace a bit.

"I was prepared for a power failure, but the surge came from within the 
system itself," said Ranma quietly.  "I don't know what might have gone 
wrong.  The surge itself was minor, but it's the only thing that I could 
think of to explain the results."  Ranma stared miserably at the ground.  
His father had always been a careful man, and Ranma could feel his 
disappointment.  I don't think I'll tell him about Nabiki just yet, he 
thought.  One disappointment in a day is enough.  I think I should just 
deal with her myself anyway.

"Well," said Genma slowly after he thought about things for several 
moments.  "The damage doesn't appear to be as serious as I thought, and 
I think you might have even come out ahead in the deal.  I want to look 
over your equipment for myself.  That is, unless you think your old man 
can't offer you any pointers anymore?"  Genma smiled as Ranma looked up 
in surprise.

"Sure, Pop!" exclaimed Ranma, smiling.  "I'd love your help!"

"Does your counterpart have a Genma Saotome for a father?" asked Genma, 
feeling a sudden curiosity.

"Yes," replied Ranma, his expression shifting into a grin.  "I think you 
might find him to be, uh, interesting."  Ranma eyed his father.  At 
least you haven't caused me any trouble in my life like that fat bastard 
did to my counterpart, he thought with relief.

"Hmm, I think I will have to see what you've accomplished for myself," 
said Genma with a paternal smile.  "Perhaps my experience will be able 
to offer you a new view on how to proceed from here."

"Well," said Ranma thoughtfully.  "I still need to check over the 
circuitry.  I want to try and find the bug before it gets used again."

"Tomorrow is Sunday," said Genma as he nodded in thought.  "I will have 
the whole day free to assist you."  Genma got up and walked with his son 
into the house.  "I confess that you've awakened an unexpected curiosity 
in me, my son."  He clapped Ranma on the shoulder proudly as they 
walked.  A chance to see how my life could have been if circumstances 
had been different, thought Genma with a smile.  I wonder if I'm a good 
father in this other world that Ranma received his new skills from?

                   ******************************

Akane felt the bright light of the morning sun slide across her face 
through her window.  She twitched her nose, grumbled for a moment, and 
then woke up with a dainty yawn.  She had been having a pleasant dream 
about Ranma, one that brought a faint blush to her cheeks as she thought 
about it.  The yawn turned into a full-body stretch that brought mild 
twinges from a few areas on her torso, but they were only the feelings 
of a slight stiffness in her muscles rather than pain.  She yawned a 
third time, not used to sleeping in like this, and she pushed back the 
covers on her bed.

Rolling into a sitting position, Akane smiled at the morning sun and 
stretched her arms back, letting the cloth of her cotton pajama top pull 
tight to her breasts.  Her stomach rumbled gently with hunger as she 
gathered a change of underwear from her dresser and headed for the 
bathroom.

"Mornin', Sis," said Nabiki rather lazily when Akane entered the 
bathroom.  The middle Tendo sister rested in the furo, faint wisps of 
steam curling around her as she let her muscles relax.  The hot water 
felt heavenly after her intense morning workout.

"Morning, Nabiki," chirped Akane as she made her way to the sink.  She 
slipped off her pajamas and tossed them into the hamper.  She eyed the 
fading remnants of the bruises on her body with a critical eye.  She 
could tell that she wasn't going to be back into full fighting shape 
until Monday.  She curled a hand into a tight fist.  Damn that rich 
bitch, Kodachi Kuno, she thought sullenly as she looked herself over.

"Nice bruises, Akane," said Nabiki in a mildly sarcastic tone.  "It 
looks like Kodachi worked you over pretty good."

"Hmph," grunted Akane dismissively.  "She just got lucky against me.  
I'll take her apart for sure the next time.  She's just a pampered 
noblewoman after all."

"If you say so, Akane," said Nabiki, standing up reluctantly from the 
hot water.  She stepped up and out of the water, picking up a towel to 
dry herself and rubbing it briskly over her body.  "I think you may have 
met your match."

Akane made another dismissive sound at the thought of Kodachi Kuno being 
her equal in a fight.

"Remember to take it easy today," said Nabiki.  "No working out in the 
training hall."  She headed for the door, the towel wrapped around her 
body.  "I'll see you downstairs at breakfast."

"Okay," replied Akane.  "I'll be down shortly."  She sat down on the 
bathing stool, filled the bucket that sat next to it with water from the 
tap, and then dumped it over her head with a faint shiver.  Nabiki just 
watched her younger sister with a slight smile.

A little later, the three members of the Tendo family in residence sat 
around the dining table eating breakfast.

"What happened to you, Akane-chan?" asked Soun, looking at her as she 
ate her breakfast hungrily.  She grimaced a little for a moment before 
answering, and Nabiki spoke first.

"Oh, Akane got into a fight at school yesterday with another girl, a new 
cadet at the Academy," said Nabiki.  "She's going to be staying home for 
a day or so to let herself heal up.  Isn't that right, Akane?"

"Yeah," said Akane, looking disgruntled.

"I see," said Soun, pulling out a pack of cigarettes.  He shook one 
loose and slowly pulled it free from the pack with his lips, his other 
hand reaching into his shirt pocket for his lighter.  He stuffed the 
pack back into a coat pocket and pulled the cigarette from between his 
lips with one hand.  He quickly lit his cigarette and then took a puff 
from it.  Nabiki moved a little bit out of the line of drifting smoke 
and kept eating.  Soun studied the beaten up condition of his youngest 
daughter.  "Akane-chan, are you sure that you're all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine, Daddy," said Akane, waving her hand negligently in the 
air for a moment.  She moved with a certain amount of care in her 
actions, apparently favoring her ribs.  "I just got into a scuffle with 
a new cadet at the Academy, an annoying b- girl named Kodachi Kuno."

"Kodachi Kuno, you say?" asked Soun, taking another puff on his 
cigarette and blowing it out through his nose.  Nabiki could tell that 
he was surprised from the subtle changes in his posture.

"Yeah, she lost though," said Akane very proudly, her battered and 
bruised face beaming with pride.  "She was trying to take my Ranma away 
from me."  Soun blinked again, suddenly wishing that he had been coming 
home more nights before this.

"Your Ranma?" asked Soun, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice 
at this latest revelation.  "Is this the same Ranma Saotome that I have 
been hearing about you beating up for the last month or so?"

"Oh, Ranma isn't a wimp anymore, Daddy," said Akane, her face glowing a 
little with passion.  "A few days ago he finally gave me a taste of what 
he's really capable of, and I want more."  She broke out into a rather 
disturbing smile, desire igniting within her eyes, and licked her lips 
briefly.  "He's stronger than I ever knew.  Very strong."

"I see," said Soun, even though he did not, puffing on his cigarette in 
thought for several long moments.  This is quite a surprising change, he 
thought, looking over at Nabiki briefly and considering the change in 
his middle daughter this morning.  Was that because of Ranma somehow?  
Could I have been wrong about the boy?  He then shook his head almost 
imperceptibly.  It doesn't matter.  He is still going to wed my little 
girl, Nabiki.  I will see to that.  This new development in him changes 
nothing.

"Well, I'm sure that he was just lucky against you, Akane-chan," said 
Soun with a smile.  "Your father knows how strong a fighter that you 
are.  You do your mother's memory proud."  Akane beamed with another 
smile, and Nabiki looked briefly amused.

"Ranma is a capable opponent, Daddy," said Nabiki casually, her eyes 
looking to her father's face.  "He gave me this, didn't he?"  She 
gestured at the almost unnoticeable bruise on her face, causing Akane to 
suddenly look at her sister in surprise.

"W-what?" cried Akane, a deep frown appearing on her face, and a surge 
of anger suddenly filling her.  "When did you fight with Ranma, Nabiki?"

"Yesterday afternoon," said Nabiki casually.  "He and I are now taking a 
special training class together.  We did some sparring."

"Huh?" exclaimed Akane, blinking in surprise.  She looked at her sister 
suspiciously, but could not detect anything through Nabiki's sudden 
poker face.  "So, why wasn't I put in this class?"

"Oh, that's probably because I put through a transfer to a new school 
for you yesterday," said Soun absently, gesturing at Akane with his lit 
cigarette, perhaps hoping to defuse through his words the quickly 
growing tension between his two youngest daughters.  It did take Akane's 
growing wrath away from Nabiki, but it only transferred it to himself 
instead.

"WHAT?!" screamed Akane at her father, apparently startling Kyoko in the 
kitchen, as there was a brief clatter of falling dishes.  "How could you 
do this to me, Daddy?!  A transfer?  Where are you sending me to?"

"I managed to get you a position at Furinkan Military Academy," replied 
Soun calmly, but within he was annoyed at being screamed at in his own 
home.  "As soon as you are able to attend, then that shall be your new 
school from now on."  Akane abruptly deflated in surprise.

"Furinkan," Akane said softly, as if tasting the word.  "That was where 
Mother went to school, right?"  She looked at her father, and he simply 
nodded once, taking another puff of his cigarette.  Akane very rapidly 
calmed down as she considered the matter, her brief explosion of temper 
dissipating as quickly as it had erupted.  On the one hand, she felt a 
flicker of excitement at the thought of walking the same halls that her 
mother had walked when she was her age.  However, it would also mean 
leaving Ranma alone with Kodachi, an unpleasant prospect.  She knew that 
young men were all driven by their hormones, and to her, Kodachi Kuno 
looked like the type to try and seduce him away from his destined place 
by Akane's side with her feminine wiles.  She had heard many of the 
sordid stories about how casually hedonistic that the upper nobility 
were.  However, there was also the very pleasant opportunity to attend a 
school filled practically to the rafters with some of the toughest young 
warriors in the Empire for her to fight with.  Akane looked up to see 
her father watching her with a distant sort of look on his face.

"It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you, Akane," said Nabiki 
with a supportive smile, genuinely pleased at this surprising turn of 
events, knowing how much her younger sister loved fighting.  This action 
would neatly separate Akane from Ranma.  Her father was a step or two 
ahead of her again, it seemed, since she had been planning to talk with 
him soon about this very subject.  "Just think of all of those strong, 
new, _male_ opponents for you to challenge.  After all, Furinkan's cadet 
population is easily well over eighty percent male.  Perhaps even closer 
to ninety."

Akane blinked and looked at Nabiki as a very familiar light slowly 
appeared in her eyes, an anticipation of battles to come.

"Over eighty percent?" asked Akane, her lower lip briefly pulled up 
between her teeth as she considered the matter.  Under the table, her 
right hand tightened into a fist as she felt an almost pleasurable sense 
of anticipation at the thought of facing each and every one of those 
strong, young, warriors-in-training in turn.  But then her thoughts 
popped back to remembering her wonderful new feelings from when she had 
fought with Ranma, and the intense excitement that she felt when facing 
off against him.

"The best warrior-trainees in the Empire attend Furinkan," said Nabiki 
softly, her voice almost coaxing now.  "Each of them fast, strong, and 
tough.  All well-trained in combat and the martial arts."  Most of them 
aren't too bright, but then neither is Akane at times, thought Nabiki 
with an internal chuckle.  This is for the best, little sister.  Ranma's 
potentials would just be wasted on you, I'm afraid.  He is so much more 
than a mere fighter.  She felt a little bad at tricking Akane like this, 
but she mollified her unexpected appearance of conscience with the 
thought that it truly was for the best.  Sensing Akane's resistance 
weakening, she went for the kill and said, "Not to mention the fact that 
you would be following in Mother's footsteps."

Akane felt caught on the horns of a dilemma.  Choose to stay with Ranma, 
or take a chance on finding an even better fighter at Furinkan Academy.  
She weighed the choices in her mind, an image of Ranma in a fighting 
stance on one side of a scale, and a small army of tough, young men 
offering new challenges to her on the other.  She blinked.  When she 
considered it in those terms, it was an easy choice.  Plus she would be 
training to become an officer in one of the armed forces of the Empire.  
She would then be able to fight the Empire's enemies directly, not 
scurry around in the dark like her sister Nabiki liked to.

Besides, I know that Nabiki isn't interested in him, she thought, 
remembering her sister's long-standing, cool disdain for Ranma.  So I 
could have her keep an eye on him for me, until I can see for myself if 
there are any decent fighters at Furinkan.  I'm sure that she wouldn't 
mind keeping Kodachi away from him for me, if I asked her for help.

"Well, Akane?" asked Soun, blowing a long stream of smoke up into the 
air from his mouth.  "The transfer paperwork has already gone through.  
Will you do this for your family honor?"

"I'll do it on one condition," said Akane, turning to look at Nabiki.  
"Big sister, would you keep an eye on Ranma for me?  I don't trust that 
little debutante, Kodachi, to be left unwatched around him."  She put a 
pleading look onto her face.  "I just need you to do it until I can see 
if there are any decent fighters at my new school."

"Of course Nabiki will do such a thing," said Soun quickly.  Akane had 
just given him a wonderful idea.  He turned to a mildly surprised 
Nabiki.  "Daughter, please do as Akane asks and stay close to Ranma."

"Uh, sure thing, Daddy," said Nabiki slowly, feeling a little weirded 
out by this particular change of fortune.  Akane came around the table 
and gave her a hug.

"Thanks, Nabiki!" said Akane loudly.  However, more softly she whispered 
into Nabiki's ear, "Don't let that pampered bitch Kodachi near my Ranma, 
okay?  I don't trust her at all, but I'm glad that I can count on you to 
watch out for my interests with him.  Will you be all right without 
having me around as your enforcer?"  She let go of her sister and knelt 
next to her with a smile.

"I'll manage," said Nabiki with a sardonic smile.  She flexed one hand 
and considered what it would be like to act as her own enforcer for a 
while.  The thought didn't hold quite as much appeal as it once would 
have, but there was a potential for more money to be made with her new 
abilities.

"Excellent.  Then it's all settled," said Soun calmly, grateful to his 
clever daughter Nabiki.  He gave his two younger daughters a brief 
smile, and then called Kyoko to bring them the rest of breakfast.

                   ******************************

At the Kuno mansion, Kodachi sleepily opened her eyes and smiled, a soft 
languor fading as her body woke, a feeling almost like decadence washing 
over her for having slept in like this.  The sheer silk nightgown that 
she wore moved across her skin feather light as she sat up and slowly 
stretched.  Her muscles were still a little tender in places from the 
fight yesterday, but she felt satisfied at the outcome.

Ranma had walked her home.  He had chosen to spend time with her, and 
that had made her feel so happy.  Even the lingering stiffness and 
remnants of pain in her body were a small price to pay for that shining 
time.  She hugged herself lightly, the treasured memory of Ranma's all-
too-brief time with her making her feel joyous.  She would face a 
thousand fights with Akane Tendo to have more time with him, to have him 
walk home with her again.

Kodachi got out of bed and padded over to the window, opening it to feel 
the morning breeze wafting in.  She inhaled deeply, smelling the sweet 
scent of her mother's blooming roses from the garden two stories below.  
It was strangely appropriate for her mood.  I am like a newly-budded 
rose, thought Kodachi, inhaling the fragrant scent of the flowers once 
again.  I have awakened to a new life, and it is a wonderful one, filled 
with endless possibilities.

As she leaned on the windowsill, Kodachi heard the family car departing 
from the front of the house, taking her brother to classes.  She briefly 
looked at the clock on the wall of her room and wondered why he was 
leaving so early.  Perhaps my brother has a morning meeting with the 
members of that silly Duelists Club of his, she thought with a smile. 
She felt a little guilty for having the day to herself to relax like 
this, but it would allow her time to plan her strategy for next week.

"Now, whatever shall I wear today?" Kodachi asked to the air, opening 
the door to her walk-in closet, itself the size of a typical Tokyo 
studio apartment.  She hummed lightly to herself as she considered some 
of her more casual outfits.  Her gaze passed by several silken and lace 
outfits in one area, and she blushed lightly at the thought of modeling 
such things for Ranma, astonished at herself for thinking such brazen 
things about him.  She felt rather naughty but also happy to imagine the 
look on his face to see her dressed in such nightwear, her only desire 
to please him.

Kodachi finally pulled out a soft kimono to wear, her thoughts now 
filling with thoughts of Ranma, and a brief fantasy of the heinous 
beating that she fully intended to bestow upon Akane Tendo when next 
they met.  Both were a source of contentment to her.

                   ******************************

Tatewaki Kuno stood outside the walls of the Imperial Academy, dressed 
in the traditional styles of his warrior ancestors instead of his 
uniform from Whitehall Academy.  Resting comfortably in his hand was the 
haft of a wooden sword, though he was now of an age where he could carry 
steel if he chose, and his father had gifted him with a well-crafted set 
of daisho (katana and wakizashi) for his sixteenth birthday.  The truth 
of the matter was that Kuno was not actually seeking to kill Ranma, only 
defeat him utterly (perhaps breaking a few bones in his declared enemy 
in the process), and then he would display the battered remains to his 
beloved sister.

Ah, Kodachi, my sister thought Kuno.  Such a fragile and delicate flower 
art thou.  The duty of defending thy honor thus falls to me, as thy 
elder brother, to smite the cur who would seek thy hand so unworthily.  
Ranma Saotome shall know humility and pain when I am done with him.  It 
is inconceivable that it should be otherwise.

At his side, dressed in his Whitehall uniform, a silken scarf of the 
snowiest white added for effect, stood Mikado Sanzenin.  Held in one of 
his hands were his own weapons, twin jo sticks, as he stood within easy 
talking distance of Kuno.  As his bokken-wielding companion had fallen 
into a thoughtful mode, he amused himself by eyeing a few of the young 
lovelies entering the grounds of the Academy.  He was actually rather 
impressed with the selection available and was making note of some faces 
that he desired to know the names and phone numbers of later.  As most 
of them were only commoners, they would not help him reach his goal, but 
they could be pleasant for an evening's romp of pleasure.  
Unfortunately, since he was acting as Tatewaki's second, he remained by 
his friend's side.  The women could wait until a more appropriate time, 
but he was sure that the sight of two young Lords of the Empire was 
making an impression upon their passionate hearts.

Kuno spied Nabiki Tendo walking down the street and hailed her with a 
wave of his hand, his eagerness to see if she had any photos of her 
sister overcoming his usual stoicism.  "Tendo-san," he greeted her 
formally.  "I do not see your lovely sister with you this fine day.  I 
trust that she is well and hale?"

"Kuno-dono," said Nabiki, bowing politely to him, a touch of amusement 
in her voice.  "My sister is well, but she has other concerns occupying 
her today."  She eyed Mikado Sanzenin with a neutral look, brief 
memories of his counterpart filling her mind's eye, and her own thoughts 
of him were quite the opposite of the ones that she was the subject of 
from the aristocrat in question.  She decided to have a little fun at 
Mikado's expense and gave a polite, little bow in his direction.  
"Sanzenin-san, I presume?"

"Sanzenin-sama," corrected Mikado gently, and her opinion of him dropped 
a few points, not that it had started all that highly placed to begin 
with.  He was amazed that the beautiful girl before him already knew his 
name, but he reasoned that she was doubtless an admirer of his, perhaps 
having seen his photograph in one of the newspapers that reported on the 
doings of the nobility.  "You are indeed a very lovely creature, Tendo-
san."  He took hold of her hand, an act that caused Nabiki to blink at 
the breach in protocol, and he smiled warmly at her, with a hint of 
seductiveness rising in his tones.  "Perhaps after my companion and I 
are finished with our business, you might do me the honor of giving me 
your phone number?"

What a pompous ass, decided Nabiki, her thoughts about the young 
nobleman darkening.  His arrogant attitude rendered his touch mildly 
revolting to her, as well as the lecherous appraisal that she had 
noticed him giving her.  She firmly withdrew her hand from his grip, 
casually tapping one of the Shiatsu pressure points on his wrist with 
her other hand when he refused to let go at first, causing his hand to 
spasm open with a very painful muscle cramp.  "I'm afraid that will not 
be possible, Sanzenin-san," she said coolly.  "My social calendar is 
quite full."

"A pity," said Mikado through gritted teeth at the sudden pain in his 
hand, rubbing it casually to ease the intense cramp in it, not realizing 
that Nabiki's innocent-looking caress from her other hand had caused it.  
He could not seem to get his hand to close for several moments as a few 
more waves of spasms went through it before finally subsiding away.  The 
pain also distracted him enough that he had not noticed her refusal to 
use the '-sama' honorific with his name.  "It would have been very," he 
paused for a moment as he searched for the appropriate word, "gratifying 
allowing my humble self the great honor of showing you the many great 
pleasures that I have to offer."  He allowed his gaze to pointedly 
linger on her chest before bringing it reluctantly back upon her face.  
With an ingratiating smile, he finished, "Many great pleasures indeed."

Ick, thought Nabiki with disgust, suddenly feeling an intense urge to 
flatten the lecherous nobleman on general principles.  If Ranma doesn't 
kick your ass, then I will.

"Have you had a chance to obtain any of the small tokens of my lady love 
for me that I requested of you yet, Tendo-san?" asked Kuno, interrupting 
Mikado's ill-fated attempt at seduction.

Nabiki turned to face him, in her mind calculating just how many 
different ways that she could put Mikado down using only one major 
muscle group area to attack with.  She only came up with twelve.  That 
number just wasn't high enough to suit her, so she expanded her search 
to include two areas and was more gratified at the result.

"I have managed to obtain a few photos of my little sister to tide you 
over for now, Kuno-dono," said Nabiki with a sardonic grin.  She held 
them up in her hand casually, five photos from her scrapbook, of Akane 
training.  "I have not yet been able to get you a lock of her hair 
though.  That may take awhile."

Kuno actually began to tremble a bit at the sight of the photos of 
Akane.  His expression spoke volumes for the depths of his desires.

"I think two thousand yen each will be sufficient for my expenses on the 
matter," said Nabiki smoothly.  She felt a little odd for doing this, 
even though it was the exact same sort of act that she would normally 
have given little reaction to only a few days before.  It was somewhat 
distracting to her, and also more than a little annoying.  The pictures 
in her hand weren't even very risqué.  She had several female cadets 
that she knew certain things about, things that they did not want known 
publicly, and she had traded on that information to get them to pose for 
pictures in lingerie, only hiding their faces with masks to ensure that 
they would continue to cooperate in this.  The pictures of just one or 
two of the five cadets in question made up the bulk of that little side 
business for her.  Nabiki spied Mikado eyeing her with a speculative 
look, and she was reasonably certain where his thoughts might now be 
going as to what else he thought she might do for money.  Hurt him 
really bad, Ranma, she quickly amended to her earlier thoughts about the 
other aristocrat.

"The gods themselves would weep at such a price, but I shall pay it," 
said Kuno loftily, his eyes fixated on the small photos of Akane in 
various poses.  He pulled out his wallet from his robes and quickly 
counted out ten thousand-yen notes into Nabiki's outstretched palm.  He 
took the photos from her and gazed at them with adoration.  Ah, my 
beautiful tigress, he thought with a smile.  How I love you so.

"I will see what I can have for you next week, Milord," said Nabiki, 
pocketing the money with another quiver of conscience.  "You might also 
be interested in learning that my sister will be getting transferred to 
a new school on Monday."  Kuno's head snapped up.

"She will finally be away from that cur, Saotome?" asked Kuno, a gleam 
in his eyes.  "Truly the gods have answered my prayers then!  Hah!"  He 
struck a majestic pose.  "Then all that remains is to smite the fiendish 
Saotome and rescue my sister from his lustful desires."

At that moment, Ranma came walking around the corner and spotted the 
waiting Kuno and company.  Oh, damn, thought Ranma, noting that the 
aristocrat was armed and dressed in the same sort of archaic outfit that 
his counterpart usually wore.  He also saw Mikado Sanzenin standing with 
Kuno and was mildly puzzled at that.  Finally, he saw Nabiki with them, 
but she had apparently just concluded some business with Kuno as she was 
standing to one side.  Shrugging his shoulders at what he felt was 
inevitable somehow, he continued walking towards Kuno.

Kuno's eyes looked down from gazing upwards at the sky in a pose that he 
thought made him look virtuous, when he caught sight of Ranma.  He felt 
a savage hatred possess him.  Now I shall finally smite the villainous 
Saotome and show him to be the lowly and unworthy peon that he truly is, 
thought Kuno, beginning to smile nastily.  The point of his weapon moved 
slightly.

Mikado reluctantly tore his eyes away from his admiration of Nabiki 
Tendo's charms to see what Kuno was now looking at.  This is the man 
that stole Kodachi-chan's heart from me? he thought with amazement, a 
grin crossing his face.  Kuno-kun will take him apart in seconds.  He 
stepped back a pace to give his friend some fighting room, certain that 
this would all be over quickly.

Nabiki spotted Ranma and gave an inward smile.  She headed over to her 
usual area for doing business and rounded up her assistants.  The setup 
for a betting pool began, and she set the odds to encourage bets against 
Ranma.

"Ranma Saotome," intoned Kuno solemnly, feeling the desire to smite 
Ranma growing as the other boy walked towards him.  "Allow me to 
introduce myself.  I am Tatewaki Kuno, of the most noble House of Kuno, 
undefeated Champion of Whitehall Academy, and I am here to forcibly 
prevent you from taking advantage of my naive, little sister, as well as 
stopping thy lecherous advances against the beauteous Akane Tendo."  
Kuno raised his weapon to point it at Ranma.

"I see," said Ranma calmly, again feeling an odd sort of inevitability 
about the whole encounter.  He set down his bag very casually, not 
taking his eyes off of Kuno, and then stood up straight and looked him 
squarely in the eyes.  "And I am Ranma Saotome, of the Clan Saotome."  
His eyes flickered to Nabiki while keeping Kuno on the edge of his 
vision, as she watched the spectacle taking place while she accepted 
bets, and he pitched his voice loudly enough for her to hear. "I am Heir 
to the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts, and I accept your 
challenge."

Nabiki briefly locked stares with Ranma across the short distance 
separating them.  Oh, you really think so, do you, Ranma-kun? she 
thought, looking at him with a flat gaze.  You and I have something to 
discuss, it sounds like.  She broke the duel of stares after a few 
moments and went back to accepting bets on the outcome.

Kuno sniffed disdainfully and attacked, and Ranma leaped over his head, 
lashing out with a kick to the aristocrat's skull.  He hoped to end this 
quickly, but Kuno took the strike better than he had expected him to.  
They went into a blur of motion for several seconds, engaging each other 
at a speed that only Nabiki and Mikado could really follow with clarity.  
Ranma found himself slightly hindered by the uniform, cutting into his 
skill and agility advantage a bit, but he was still more than Kuno could 
deal with.  He heard a faint rip from one of the seams of his jacket as 
he fought, but he did not let it distract him from dealing with the 
young nobleman.

Within moments, it was over.  Kuno took the full brunt from one of 
Ranma's kicks, hitting him across his jaw and slamming him back into the 
wall at his back.  The nobleman actually left a series of faint cracks 
in the stonework from the impact of his body against it.  When he didn't 
do the sensible thing and collapse unconscious immediately, Ranma 
punched him across the face a few times until he did, taking care not to 
leave any serious damage.  When Kuno finally slumped to the ground 
unconscious, Ranma turned his eyes to Mikado.

"Ready to try your luck, Mikado?" asked Ranma with a glimmer of humor in 
his eyes.

"You will address me as Sanzenin-sama, you peasant," said Mikado coldly.  
He had been more surprised than the rest to see Kuno taken down so 
easily by Ranma, knowing how skilled his fellow aristocrat was with a 
weapon, but he was not afraid to face the pigtailed boy.  "I challenge 
your claim to Kodachi Kuno."

"Kodachi is just a friend," said Ranma, pausing a moment to study the 
other boy.  "I've got no real interest in her beyond that, so there's no 
need for violence."

"Liar!" accused Mikado, glaring at Ranma.  "How could any man resist 
such a woman?  The sight of her eyes gazing with love at you.  The feel 
of her soft lips parted in a passionate kiss.  The thought of that 
silken-skinned, athletic body wrapped around you.  How could any man 
resist the thought of that?!"

"Well, when you put it _that_ way," murmured Ranma, pitched low enough 
that only Mikado could hear it.  His attempt at humor seemed to drive 
the other boy into an almost frothing rage. 

Ranma was really trying hard to be reasonable about all of this, but 
nobody seemed to want to listen to him.  He moved closer to Mikado, and 
immediately had to dodge a blurring strike from one of the jo sticks in 
the other boy's hand.  There had not even been a blink or a flickering 
of the eyes to warn him that an attack was coming, so it would have come 
very close to breaking a rib if Ranma had not dodged it.

Dodging and ducking under and around Mikado's two wooden weapons, Ranma 
was taken by surprise when the taller boy's foot also lashed out and 
caught him in the thigh in a glancing blow.  That's what you get for 
being cocky, Ranma scolded himself.  He studied Mikado's movements with 
the eyes of a scientist.  He's using Escrima, both armed and unarmed 
styles.  Moderately interesting, but this won't even be a challenge.  
Ranma leaped up into the air and lashed out with three quick kicks that 
Mikado was unable to block or dodge, each one whipping his face into the 
next strike that came in.  Ranma landed back on his feet and noted that 
Mikado wasn't moving, only standing there with a blank look on his face.

"You awake in there?" asked Ranma, waving his hand in front of Mikado's 
sightless eyes.  He calmly tapped his finger against the other boy's 
forehead, and Mikado Sanzenin fell like an uprooted tree.  "I thought 
not."  Ranma went over and picked up his bag and quickly dusted it off, 
before walking past the entire student body and into the main building.

Nabiki smiled after he passed her.  Nicely done, Ranma, she thought, 
sparing the fallen Mikado a cold look.  Hardly anyone had bet on Ranma, 
so she had just cleared quite a lot of money.  It made her feel a little 
more charitable to the pigtailed boy, even though she also felt that she 
was obviously the better choice to lay claim to being Heir to the 
Anything-Goes School between the two of them.

Upstairs, in his office, Dean Fuyutsuki studied the commotion that had 
just occurred down at the main gate with interest.  After learning that 
Kodachi Kuno would now be attending the Imperial Academy, he had taken a 
little time to refamiliarize himself with her file and that of her 
brother.  He suspected that it was most likely Tatewaki who had just 
accosted Ranma, based on what he had seen of the aristocrat's most 
recent psychological profile, but the distance was too great for him to 
be sure.  He had been unable to see most of the fight due to the wall 
blocking his view, but Ranma had emerged unscathed from the altercation.  
That pleased him.  The Saotome boy is proving to be a fascinating case 
study, he thought with a faint smile, sitting back down behind his desk 
and folding his hands in thought.

                   ******************************

Ranma gently touched another spot on the circuitboard with the voltage 
meter, noting the level of power running through the wiring.  He checked 
it against his notes, finding it to match his specifications exactly.  
Moving to the last connection, he found another match to his notes, and 
he then set the meter down.  That's it, he thought, a little puzzled at 
finding nothing.  All of the components were working at their stated 
specs, so there was no way for the power surge to have even reached the 
coil, unless it had been generated within the coil itself.  But that was 
ridiculous, or at least that was where Ranma's thinking was going.

Leaning back, Ranma stretched out his arms and legs, feeling them loosen 
from the cramped position that he had been seated in for the last 
several hours.  It was getting to be late in the afternoon, and he still 
wanted to test the system with a couple of runs now that he had checked 
out all of the components.  There is no way that the surge could have 
occurred in the coil, but it did, thought Ranma with a frown, hating 
having a mystery like that.  He had checked every circuit pathway three 
times to be sure of that, and none of them were the source of the 
mysterious surge.  The energy to do so would have had to come in from 
along the signal pulse somehow, and the probability of such an 
occurrence happening was so low as to be beyond imagining.  Yet it had 
happened twice in only a few days.  It left Ranma puzzled.

A fluke event, Ranma decided.  He had checked every other one of the 
possibilities that he could think of and eliminated them, leaving only 
two remaining.  One, it was a feedback problem of some sort, perhaps 
caused by his linking with certain quantum frequencies and resulting in 
an energy surge pulled from the quantum foam itself, the vast energy 
field where the different timelines were suspended like stations on a 
radio dial.  Or, two, it was an act of Kami-sama.  Either way, it left 
him with a single decision, to abandon the research or continue to use 
the device.

Ranma wasn't sure what to do.

He had come so far, devoted so much time to this experiment, that he 
could not bring himself to simply stop.  He sat and stared at the 
device.  The Quantum Neural Resonator was his life's great work.  I'll 
just run a few more tests, he decided, picking up the headset and 
flipping the power on.  I'll try a few of the frequencies that I have 
already recorded.  He took a few minutes and hacked the software code to 
compensate faster for signal strength variances.  It was a simple enough 
change, and Ranma felt confident that it should provide him with a 
greater modicum of safety for his remaining tests.

Ranma tapped away at the keyboard, taking his time as he set up for the 
next test run.  He checked the clock on his wall and noted that he still 
had a couple of hours until his training class.  He pulled up one of the 
files and waited for it to load.

*QUANTUM COORDINATE FILE #0000004 LOADING INTO ACTIVE MATRIX...

*PLEASE STAND BY...

*MATRIX LOADED: FILE #0000004.  DETAILS?  YES

*FILE #0000004 - QUANTUM DIVERGENCE POINT OCCURRED:
    158 YEARS
      3 MONTHS
      0 DAYS
      5 HOURS
     57 MINUTES
     59 SECONDS AGO.

The last recorded, yet still unexplored, world I have, thought Ranma, 
looking at the breakdown of the file.  But this one seems to be close to 
my world, at least.  He felt sweat on his palms and rubbed them against 
the cloth of his pants.  He settled back onto the couch and put the 
headset on, listening to the computer speak softly in the background.

"Initiating upload cycle."

                   ******************************

*** Earth  +0.002,-0.002

Ranma was staring up at the ceiling of his room, lying on his futon.  
This familiar thing surprised him due to the lateness of the hour.  It 
was only the middle of the afternoon, and he was in bed, but he did not 
feel sick at all.  In fact, his body seemed to have a lethargic feeling 
of satisfaction running through it.  He blinked his eyes and waited for 
his mind to awaken and clear a bit, since he had apparently entered his 
counterpart while he was just waking up from a nap or something, so his 
thoughts felt a little fuzzy.  What's going on?

That was about when Ranma noticed that there was an arm lying across his 
chest, and a warm body cuddled comfortably against his side, completely 
hidden beneath the covers.  To say that he was surprised by this would 
be putting it mildly, but he blamed it on the sleepy state he had found 
himself in.  This body was in such a relaxed and comfortable state that 
it took a little motion from the body lying next to him to call his 
attention to it.  Not even the top of her head was visible, so all he 
had to go on for identification purposes was that: a) the body was quite 
obviously female, and b) she had an athletic build.  A warm gust of 
breath wafted against his shoulder.  A female voice mumbled softly 
against his side, but the words spoken were totally unintelligible.

Ranma's eyes darted around the room, and he was uncertain what to do.  
Posters of several martial arts action movies were tacked up on a few 
locations around the walls, a severe contrast to his own rather bare 
walls at home.  He blinked when he noticed that three of them even had 
himself pictured prominently on them, with action movie titles such as: 
"Young Master: The Legend Begins"; "Young Master II: Warrior of the 
Empire"; and (this title was the one that was most amusing to him, 
apparently a comedy of some sort) "Big Trouble In Nekonron, China."

He stared at them, feeling a chuckle threatening to bubble up from 
inside him, distracting him briefly from trying to figure out who it was 
lying next to him.  He focused his mind on this more important matter. 
Who is lying next to me?  Who is lying next to me?  He repeated this 
mental question like a mantra, hoping to stir up his fragmented memories 
to make themselves available quicker.  He blinked his eyes again as the 
name finally came to him, along with a brief rush of memories.

Shampoo? he realized with shock.  He gently lifted up the covers with 
his free hand and took a quick look downwards, and seeing her head of 
long, tousled, violet hair confirmed it.  He moved a little bit to one 
side, trying to ease away from her in order to get out of bed.  The 
Chinese Amazon firmly held on to his arm in her sleep, a pleased smile 
curling her lips.  She muttered something softly in Mandarin, then 
sighed as she tightened her hold on his arm.  Ranma decided to just lie 
back and see if any new memories would unfold.

As expected, the kaleidoscope of memories filled his mind, scenes from 
an alternate life.  He was Ranma Saotome, Heir to the Saotome School of 
Anything-Goes Martial Arts, the only school of martial arts descended 
from the Founding School, and for the last three years he had been one 
of the biggest box office hits in the martial arts action movie genre.  
The "Young Master" series alone had already made him wealthy by the time 
he was fifteen, and his latest film, the comedy that he was looking at 
the poster of, was even now earning yen by the truckload across the 
Empire.  It was a surprising life to find himself living, but the 
surprises did not end there.

The other unexpected (but not unwelcome) change was the girl at his 
side, his wife.  Apparently, right around the time of his sixteenth 
birthday, to prove his detractors wrong, those who called his fighting 
scenes faked, he had gone to China to participate in the 'Tournament of 
the Amazons' and had been given the unexpected opportunity to go up 
against Shampoo, recently acclaimed the Village Champion, by a series of 
amusing circumstances.  The purple-haired Amazon had been obviously 
unimpressed by the sight of him, at first, which had irritated the young 
star, used to having girls his own age flocking to him.  The two young 
warriors had fought hard for close to an hour before he finally managed 
to overcome her skills and knock her out.  He did not even really 
remember their wedding night though, and he suspected it was due to some 
sort of special Amazon alcoholic drink he had been given at the victory 
celebration.

When he had awoken the next morning, Shampoo was sleeping at his side, 
murmuring words of love in her sleep in Mandarin.  She had not left his 
side for a single night since then, and his nose had a drop of blood 
emerge from it at the memories of what had gone on every night, almost 
always multiple times, since his marriage to her.  I had no idea that 
Shampoo was so, er, eager in bed, he thought with some amazement, or 
that she was so flexible.  A second drop of blood then joined the first, 
and he backed away from looking at more such memories to examine what 
this version of himself knew of the history of this timeline.

For someone who had always before expressed great disdain about the 
importance of history, Ranma was now getting quite a first-hand 
education on the significance of changes to it.  In this timeline, like 
in his own, the final conquering of China by the Sixth Japanese Imperial 
Army led to the interesting discovery of a small tribe of very special 
people, the Joketsuzoku Amazons of China.  He could not remember how 
things had happened in China in his own timeline, but he knew that it 
had not gone quite as it had here.

In this timeline, the Amazons had tried their best to fight against the 
invaders, but it was ultimately in vain.  Their special martial arts 
techniques that they had used in combat must have seemed like sorcery to 
the first troops, but the iron determination of the Emperor to allow for 
no defiance of his divine rule refused to admit surrender.  It was even 
thought that only by completely exterminating the Amazons would victory 
be attained, but a chance meeting had changed that destiny.

A young soldier was on a solo reconnaissance mission near the regions of 
Joketsuzoku.  He surprised a young warrior maiden of the Amazons, also 
on solo reconnaissance for her people, and they had fought.  It was said 
that they struggled through half the night against each other, using 
only naked fist and steel, by the light of a full moon.  In the end, he 
had emerged as the victor.  The young Amazon pledged herself to him as 
his wife, per her own people's laws.  He was an honorable warrior from a 
proud samurai family, and the Amazon was comely, so he had agreed to the 
marriage.

The Emperor of that time, upon hearing the report of this young warrior 
conquering an Amazon as an individual, came up with a very radical plan.  
Armies were proving to be impractical against such a remote enemy, and 
there were always hot-blooded sons of the many samurai families looking 
for challenges.  The Emperor sent a long letter to the Chief Matriarch 
of the Amazons, Khu Lon.  In it was a challenge, as well as a treaty.  
The Amazons would not be destroyed, but they must withdraw from the 
defense of China.  In exchange for this, the Emperor made a pledge to 
send ten of his very finest young warriors to challenge ten young 
Amazons to single combat.  He also stated that the warriors sent would 
all be unmarried men.

The specific terms of the challenge were still considered a state 
secret, but over time it became commonly known as the Tournament of the 
Amazons.  The Emperor sent his emissaries throughout the islands of 
Japan to find warriors of superior martial arts ability, and the ten 
finest warriors that were found took up the challenge eagerly.  Out of 
this original group, six of the ten young men emerged from the 
Tournament victorious and claimed Amazons as brides.  The Emperor 
honored his pledge, the Chinese Amazons were left alone, and they in 
turn left China to its eventual fate.

Since that day, over a century and a half ago, it had become a sign of 
skill to attend the Tournament of the Amazons.  Any man winning an 
Amazon bride was able to remain there in the village, or he could return 
to Japan with her.  Ranma had been the first of his family to attend the 
Tournament, held once every ten years since that initial treaty was 
signed.  The result of his trip, and a mark of great honor for the 
Saotome family, was the lovely girl who was sleeping beside him.  She 
had been his wife for less than three months.

Shampoo shifted her position and casually draped one long leg across his 
body as she snuggled happily against him.  Ranma felt a cold sweat break 
out on his forehead and swallowed nervously.  I'm just going to lie here 
and pretend to be still asleep, he decided, fervently trying to ignore 
the odd sensations awakening in his body from the feel of Shampoo's leg 
gently moving against his body.  It just wouldn't be right to take 
advantage of this, uh, situation.  The softness of her skin, and the 
delicate play of her athletic musculature running beneath it, was not 
helping Ranma's concentration at all.  He tried to remember how much 
time he had left before the retrieval cycle was supposed to kick in.  
Thirty minutes?  Twenty?

Ranma heard Shampoo's breathing suddenly change as she woke up and 
peeked her head up above the covers.  She moved her free arm and gave 
him a hug, as he tried very hard to not look at her full breasts, 
currently naked to his gaze as she slid up his body.  He attempted to 
draw his mind away from staring at the tempting sight by reciting the 
periodic table of the elements, but he lost count somewhere around 
Argon.  The feel of her body against his was awakening the most 
intriguing sensations.

"Good afternoon, Husband," said Shampoo in her singsong way of speaking 
Japanese.  She sat up and smiled warmly at him, her eyes bright with 
affection, and then her tone of voice became a little bit husky with her 
passions.  "Shampoo so happy with beloved husband.  Ranma make Shampoo 
feel so good this morning.  Ranma ready try again?  Shampoo ready."  
That last declared with certainty, she pulled herself up for an 
openmouthed kiss, and nibbled at his lower lip very gently.

I suppose I could use this time as a, uh, learning experience, Ranma 
reasoned, feeling his thoughts becoming more confused as his desires for 
her awoke further.  When Shampoo's left hand drifted down his body to 
grasp gently at a certain location, her fingers beginning to insistently 
fondle what she found there, his resistance to her advances crumbled 
quickly.  It's like my dream.  He pulled her closer to him and felt a 
warmth and closeness for the Amazon that he had never felt before for a 
girl, the emotions of his counterpart coloring and filling his thoughts 
as he tasted her lips against his own.

"Oh, Ranma," murmured the Amazon, enjoying the feel of his lips against 
her jawline after the long kiss finally broke.  "Shampoo love Ranma so 
much."  She cooed softly.

Ranma felt her supple muscles moving under her skin, the body of the 
Amazon warrior reacting to his touch as if it had been a musical 
instrument made to be played by him alone.  His hands rested on her 
sides as they kissed once again, and that was when he absently noticed 
that he was naked beneath the covers, a startling realization that 
brought a third little drop of blood from his nose, especially while 
feeling what Shampoo was still doing down lower on him with her hand.

The purple-haired Amazon looked him lovingly in the eyes and softly 
said, "Shampoo take Ranma up to Clouds and Rain as dutiful wife should.  
Ranma relax and let Shampoo do everything."

Ranma blinked as she disappeared beneath the covers, and his thoughts 
briefly cleared as his alternate's memories informed him of what was 
about to happen next.  He could not seem to summon up the will to 
protest her actions, and a distant thought sounded in his head, a hope 
that he had enough time left.  His ears picked up the faint sounds of 
Shampoo softly giggling as she shifted her position, her lips kissing 
down to his waist area.  He was now fully aroused, and it was an effort 
to relax as he felt his breathing quickening like he was about to enter 
into combat.

To call what happened next a completely new experience for Ranma would 
have been putting it extremely mildly.  Shampoo apparently took such 
'duties' as a wife very seriously, and she was putting every possible 
effort into giving him maximum pleasure.  He heard more faint giggles 
emerging from underneath the covers as the Amazon began her tender 
ministrations on him, and an occasional cooing sound as well.  A 
pleasurable tension slowly began to build within him from her efforts, 
and he noticed out of the corner of his awareness that he was now 
gripping the sheets to either side of him as he slowly ascended up to 
the Clouds and the Rain.

I can't believe that this is happening, thought Ranma, his head rearing 
back as the feelings of pleasure kept building and building in 
intensity.  It feels so good... so good.  His eyes fell half-closed as 
he let himself surrender to the many sensations assailing him, and brief 
images of the women from his own life rose up in his mind unbidden as 
the feelings grew closer and closer to peaking.

Then the pleasurable tension finally reached the point of no return, and 
his body and mind were both overcome by the waves of orgasmic sensations 
now flooding through him.  A name forced its way through his lips as he 
yielded himself up to the pleasure, lost in the bliss of the moment, 
and, an unknown number of seconds later, the gray void of nothingness 
claimed him, and the world faded away.

                   ******************************

Ranma became aware of himself as his body shuddered with the last 
vestiges of orgasm, his beautiful wife working her usual magic upon him.  
He guessed that she had decided to awaken him in this most pleasant of 
ways, thinking he had just been asleep until now.  When it was finally 
done, he let out a soft sigh of contentment.  He felt her pause in what 
she was doing.  Shampoo's head emerged from beneath the covers, a very 
deep frown on her face that puzzled him even as she glared at him.  A 
light blue aura seemed to surround her.

"Ranma say other woman's name!" she accused him.  "Shampoo no could hear 
name clearly, but know it not Shampoo's!"

"Huh?" said Ranma, confused by what was going on.  "No, I didn't."

"Yes, Ranma did!"

"No, I did not!"

"Did!"

"Did not!"

"Did!" yelled Shampoo one final time.  To punctuate her argument, her 
fist then lashed out and impacted into Ranma's face, propelling him from 
the bed on a ballistic course to slam into the wall, leaving a deep 
impression in it as he rested partially embedded into it.  "Now Ranma 
learn why it not nice to play with loving Amazon wife's tender 
feelings."

"Help," murmured Ranma, as the naked Amazon loomed up behind him and 
cracked her knuckles, her eyes narrowed in that most feared of looks by 
men, righteous female fury.

The sounds of carnage began to ensue.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

"Retrieval cycle complete."

Ranma opened his eyes and sighed as the hum of the headset faded into 
the background.  "Wow!" he muttered, feeling quite pleased with himself.  
"I never realized I could be such a stud with the ladies."  He stretched 
his arms up over his head and grinned happily.  "I must try and remember 
_that_ file in particular."  He found himself to be very tempted to link 
back to that reality immediately.

"No," he finally decided, sitting up to examine the data from the test 
run.  A lingering feeling of well-being filled him as he watched the 
graphs of the power levels.  The coil's power levels had come close to 
his assigned limit, but had not surpassed it.  He looked at the clock on 
the wall.  "It looks like I have time for one more test run before I 
need to quit for the day."

Ranma pulled the keyboard down to his lap and started typing.  The 
system hummed as it initiated its scanning mode.  Ranma adjusted the 
headset to rest comfortably on his skull, relaxed back onto the couch, 
and closed his eyes.

"Quantum signature match found.  Initiating upload cycle.

                   ******************************
   
*** Earth  +0.004,-0.003

Ranma stumbled for a moment before quickly regaining his balance as he 
walked along with his father.  He adjusted the sunglasses that he found 
himself wearing, blinking his eyes at the afternoon sunlight.  He had 
noticed a tendency for his eyes to dilate for a few moments after he 
possessed an alternate version of himself, rendering him sensitive to 
bright light.  This time was no exception and the bright sunlight was 
exacerbating the problem as he felt his eyes water for a moment.  He 
took a guess that he was somewhere in the central market district of 
Tokyo as he looked around.

"Are you all right, Ranma?" asked Genma, pausing for a moment to look 
back at his son.  He looked impatient at the delay, apparently with a 
strong desire to get to the place he seemed to be heading to.  "We need 
to hurry up, or we're going to be late for the auction."

"I just tripped, Father," replied Ranma, deciding that a little bit more 
formality was easier to fake.  Auction? he wondered.  Are we going to 
buy a car or something?  He let himself trail along behind his father, 
and they soon arrived at an area filled with people who all seemed to be 
waiting for something to happen.

Genma turned to him with a smile.  He was wearing a fine silk suit in 
charcoal gray, and looked quite prosperous.  Ranma had noticed that he 
was also wearing fairly fine clothes himself, instead of a school 
uniform of some sort.  I guess I don't need to go to school here, or 
it's some sort of holiday, he decided.

"Are you excited, son?" asked Genma, looking at him expectantly.

"Uh, yeah," Ranma replied, trying to look eager, seeing his father smile 
back at him in reply.

"That's the spirit, my boy!" said Genma exultantly, clapping him on the 
back as they walked over to one side of the crowd.  They pushed their 
way to the front of the crowd, Ranma trailing along a little bit behind 
Genma like a satellite.  "I hear that they even have several samples of 
the legendary Chinese Amazons in the latest batch," Genma said as they 
reached a point near the stage.
 
Chinese Amazons? wondered Ranma, suddenly realizing where he was, and 
what they were here to buy.  Oh, no.  No.  At that very moment, the 
memories of his counterpart washed over him.  He let them settle into 
place for a moment, ignoring them as he listened to Genma speaking.

"It's a proud day in a young man's life when he buys his first female 
slave," Genma said jovially, looking at Ranma with a paternal smile. 
"The Empire knows how to take care of its Citizens.  Why, I remember 
when I was a boy, the day I was able to purchase my first female slave, 
Rina.  She was fresh from the newly conquered territories in Russia, 
those the Empire first acquired during the Unification War, you know.  
She was a beauty."

Ranma tuned out Genma's words, focussing his thoughts on piecing 
together his life in this timeline, one where the Empire now controlled 
the entire globe in an iron fist.  The Unification War was the name for 
the final efforts by the Western European powers twenty-five years ago 
to hold back the Empire from claiming them by right of conquest, but 
they failed.  The entire population of the planet was now divided up 
under the control of the various Prefectural Governors, each of them 
under the direct control of the Emperor.  To be an Imperial Citizen, and 
especially to be a noble, was to be a Lord of the Earth, but to be 
anything else was to be some degree of slave.

The Saotome family was considered poor by most standards of the nobility 
to which they belonged, but his father ran a very successful dojo that 
earned him some respect and an adequate income for his family.  The 
Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts was alive and well on this 
world, and Ranma was the designated Heir.  However, they were not the 
only School that claimed descent from the Founding School under Master 
Happosai (dead for over fifteen years now from some sort of training 
accident).

Ranma rubbed at the spot on his face where a bruise had been only 
yesterday, a phantom pain, a reminder of his counterpart's less than 
excellent performance in one of his frequent disagreements with the 
youngest of the three daughters of the Master of the Tendo School, Akane 
Tendo, on the relative strengths of their competing martial arts 
schools.  As usual, their disagreement had become heated, and this Ranma 
had ended up receiving her fist into his face, distracted at a critical 
moment by one of her seductive smiles, preventing him from dodging.  
Akane hadn't pressed her advantage, instead standing back and lowering 
her fists, a smirk on her face and a gleam in her eyes as she watched 
him pick himself up off the ground.  She had patted him on the cheek and 
sauntered off.  Luckily no one else had been around to see his dismal 
performance.

Against a male opponent he still remained undefeated, even with the 
likes of Tatewaki Kuno and Ryoga Hibiki attacking him all the time, 
accusing him of trying to steal their girlfriends.  Ranma blinked at the 
reoccurrence of the same people being involved in this life, but he was 
amused at this Ranma's problems.  In this world, each of the three Tendo 
sisters was very well-versed in the fighting skills of the Tendo School 
of Anything-Goes Martial Arts.  Both schools were famed across the 
Empire for the capabilities of its few students, but the training was 
more rigorous than most would-be martial artists were willing to put up 
with.

Of them all, this Ranma preferred to fight with Kasumi.  She was the 
Heir to her family's school, as he was to his, but she was also the only 
one that would fight him fairly and not use any sort of feminine wiles 
to distract him during a fight, his one weakness, like Akane and Nabiki 
would do with glee.  Kasumi had recently returned from an exhibition 
tour around the Empire, demonstrating her family's style in the various 
Arenas around the globe.  She had even added a few new tricks to her 
arsenal since last time.  Her increased skills were a fun challenge for 
him, and he was working up counters for her new techniques.

Nabiki was the ultimate seductress in a fight, using her beauty to 
distract him before unleashing her considerable skills at fighting to 
pummel him unconscious.  She had even once worn a breakaway shirt to one 
of the duels that he had fought with her, which he discovered when it 
came off in his hands as they were grappling with each other.  He had 
been totally mesmerized by the unexpected sight of her bare breasts 
bouncing firmly before his eyes, surprised that she had not worn a bra, 
a moment before she had kicked him unconscious.  Genma had not been 
pleased to hear that Ranma had fallen for such a cheap shot.

Lastly, there was Akane, and she was the worst, at least in the eyes of 
this Ranma.  Strong for a girl, her frame was well-muscled on top of a 
solid skeletal structure, but she was also nicely padded in all of the 
right places.  She was not as fast as her two older sisters, but she 
made up for it with enormous power in her strikes, sufficient to shatter 
bone if her fist made solid contact.  Akane was not as well-built as 
Kasumi or Nabiki, but she had a compact beauty all her own.  She just 
had to smile at him with a certain look in her eyes, and his reactions 
would hesitate just enough for her to unload upon him with powerful 
strikes from her fists and feet.

Genma and Soun had once been the best of friends, when they were 
training with the revered Master Happosai, in this timeline one of the 
most well-respected martial arts masters that had ever been seen in the 
Empire, but they had had a severe falling out towards the end of their 
training.  Each of them had desired to be the one to officially carry on 
the Anything-Goes School under their name, and only under their name, 
the beginnings of a rivalry that continued to this day.  Only now, each 
of them had passed on that rivalry to their children, and this Ranma was 
outnumbered three to one.

The three Tendo girls never attacked him all at once, but they all 
seemed to fight with him at least once a week.  And his skills had shown 
marked improvement from having regular sparring partners for the last 
two years, ever since Ranma and his parents had returned from wandering 
the globe.  Kasumi he could fight to a standstill, and she seemed to 
enjoy their encounters as a chance to polish her skills with an equal 
opponent.  Nabiki and Akane he generally lost to, only due to their 
preying upon his weakness.  They alternated in their challenges against 
him, and each seemed to enjoy the duels with him much more than he did 
with each of them.

That brought events to their current place in time.  Genma had finally 
had enough of this weakness in his son and had decided to do something 
about it, so he and Ranma were here to purchase him a girl who would be 
his sparring partner as well as a bedroom playmate, in order to get him 
more used to fighting a girl.  Inside his counterpart's mind, Ranma 
mentally blinked at the notion.

The curtain opened and Ranma beheld a dozen young girls near his age, 
each of them strikingly beautiful.  Only two girls had hair that 
differed from brown or black in color, and one of those framed a very 
familiar face, with long, violet locks of hair that he had last seen in 
a very different life, Shampoo.  To her right was the other girl, a 
pink-haired beauty who occasionally glanced at Shampoo, and her features 
rivaled Shampoo's own.  Both of them had the appearance of martial 
artists, muscular and graceful in appearance, even weighted down by the 
chains holding them.

Ranma only had eyes for Shampoo.  He saw her standing tall and proud, 
her posture unbowed by the chains and manacles on her wrists and ankles, 
as she looked out at the crowd of men.  Like the other girls with her, 
Shampoo was dressed in a simple, white silk outfit composed of a long 
sleeveless tunic with a short skirt that barely reached to her thighs 
and was cut low in front, exposing her cleavage to easy viewing by 
prospective buyers.

The pink-haired girl near Shampoo caught sight of Ranma in the front of 
the crowd, the only person less than forty years of age, and she smiled 
at him sexily.  He shifted his gaze to look at her in surprise, and she 
adjusted her posture to thrust out her nicely-endowed chest in his 
direction.  There was a promise contained in those eyes that was quite 
captivating, and her athletic figure was very tempting to him.  She 
licked her lips as she looked at Ranma, and frowned murderously at 
Shampoo when his eyes went back to look at her and stayed there.

Ranma was grateful for this chance to offer Shampoo a good home.  He 
could see in the mind of his counterpart that this Ranma was a very 
honorable sort, and he would never mistreat the Amazon.  He tugged on 
Genma's sleeve and whispered the identity of his selection to him.  He 
felt a fatherly slap on his shoulders, and saw Genma nodding in 
agreement with his choice.

"An excellent choice, my boy," said Genma.  "She looks to have a good 
amount of fighting spirit in her, and that body looks built for being 
made love to by the right man.  Consider her yours."

"Thank you, Father," said Ranma with genuine sincerity.

Luckily for him, Shampoo was one of the first girls placed up on 
auction, so he had time to watch.  She went up for sale right behind the 
pink-haired girl named Perfume, who turned out to be another Amazon.  
Shampoo earned a fair amount of bidding, but her cool, defiant look 
limited the height that it climbed to from most of the potential buyers.  
Finally, it came down to Ranma and a representative from one of the 
zaibatsus, apparently recruiting for the Arena.  The Amazon, Perfume, 
was one of his purchases, and it looked close for a time when it came to 
being able to buy Shampoo.  However, he finally dropped out, and Shampoo 
became his property for the sum of a little over five million yen, a 
full million yen over what Perfume had gone for in price.

When the gray void of recall finally pulled him away, he wished the 
Ranma of this life good luck with his new slave.

                   ******************************

*** Earth  0.000,0.000

"Retrieval cycle complete."

Ranma blinked up at the ceiling of his lab and smiled.  He felt that he 
had just done a little bit of good on one world, and it made him feel 
pretty happy.  Shampoo, thought Ranma with a smile.  In three different 
lives she was part of it.  A brief fantasy about the purple-haired 
Amazon filled his mind as he relaxed on the couch, but he shook his head 
free of it a minute or so later.  He took a quick look at the statistics 
for that world.

*FILE #0000007 - QUANTUM DIVERGENCE POINT OCCURRED:
    221 YEARS
      9 MONTHS
     29 DAYS
     14 HOURS
     32 MINUTES
     17 SECONDS AGO.

Ranma reached over and pulled the keyboard into his lap, his fingers 
beginning to tap away, calling up the diagnostic software.  He eyed the 
clock on the table, seeing that he only had a few minutes left until his 
training class was to begin.  How time flies, he thought with a smile.  
In one day he had managed to: deal with the annoyance of Tatewaki Kuno 
and Mikado Sanzenin without taking a scratch; determine that his device 
design was apparently safe for his father's use tomorrow; meet a version 
of Shampoo in one counterpart's life who was his wife; and purchase 
another one as a slave for another counterpart.

All in all, it seemed to have been a pretty full day so far.  Now he 
just had to finish up in his lab, and then he could go out and show 
Nabiki Tendo that he was the better martial artist.  No ties for him 
today.  Ranma Saotome was certain that he was going to win.

A short time later, Ranma found himself facing off against Nabiki, both 
of them seated across from each other after they finished with their 
stretching.  He noticed that Nabiki seemed quite angry with him, and he 
imagined that he could feel it rolling off her like waves of heat.  It 
was rather disconcerting.

Unlike yesterday, Ranma was now wearing the standard Academy uniform for 
physical education: a pair of blue shorts and a gray T-shirt emblazoned 
with the words, "Property of the Imperial Academy Athletics Department."  
He was wearing the black slipper shoes that Nabiki had gifted him with, 
as they just felt more comfortable for this sort of training.  He made a 
mental note to obtain a few more outfits like the first one to expand 
his wardrobe.  It felt vaguely 'wrong' to dress as he was now clothed to 
train in martial arts.

Across from him, Nabiki was dressed in the same sort of outfit that she 
had on yesterday, only with a red Chinese-style shirt on.  She saw Ranma 
looking at her appraisingly with a slight smile on his face, and she 
continued to glare at him but said nothing.  I'll show you who the 
'Heir' to the Anything-Goes School is, Ranma-kun, she thought with 
amusement, her expression becoming one of her usual cool smirks.  Just 
you wait for it.

Finally, it was time for their daily sparring match.  Only the two 
coaches were present this time, and Coach Fujinami acted as their 
referee once again.

As before, neither of them held anything back from this match, even 
though it was nominally sparring.  Things proceeded much as they had 
yesterday, each of them weaving in and out of the defenses of the other, 
and both proving themselves to be equally as adept fighting on the 
ground as in the air.  However, today there was something subtly 
different, an air of much greater intensity in the efforts that Nabiki 
was putting forward, and the upper hand began to fall away from Ranma to 
her, to his great surprise.

Almost desperately, Ranma struggled to regain the initiative, but he 
became more and more pressed into a defensive posture.  As minutes 
passed, Ranma briefly managed to regain the upper hand for short periods 
of time, but they were not to last.  Nabiki's slight edge in skill and 
her marginally superior levels of conditioning were both acting to force 
the upper hand away from him each time that he thought it was finally 
his.  Finally, he was forced into a defensive posture one last time, and 
then it was over, almost a half hour after they had begun.  Ranma stared 
up at Nabiki in shock, his inner thoughts matching his outer expression.

He had lost.

"Looks like I win, Ranma-kun," purred Nabiki teasingly.  "Perhaps I 
should be the one to call myself Heir, hmm?"  She smiled at him in an 
almost seductive fashion.

Ranma's reply was interrupted by the coach yelling at them.  He did not 
have an opportunity to talk with her for the remainder of class, so he 
occupied his thoughts with reviewing the fight in his memories as his 
body went through the usual training regimen.  Over the day off from 
classes, he planned on doubling his training efforts.  He was now 
determined to best Nabiki.  He was confident that it was only a matter 
of time.

In one of the upper windows of the Academy, Dean Fuyutsuki was smiling 
downwards at the practice field.  It had been a close contest, so very 
close indeed, in his eyes.  He nodded to himself as he watched one of 
the coaches spur them out to the field to begin running.  Even at this 
distance, Ranma looked shell-shocked.

Now their real exertions against each other will begin, Fuyutsuki 
thought with a smile.  Ranma will have to learn to treat Nabiki with 
some respect, it seems.

                   ******************************

Ranma collapsed back onto his futon and stared at the ceiling.  He felt 
drained.  The loss today against Nabiki rankled a bit, and he had 
resolved himself to training harder to defeat her.  He felt twitchy 
about the loss, as if part of him did not even want to admit that it 
happened, but he knew that he would win in the end.  Ranma Saotome 
always won in the end, and he would keep trying until he did.  To add 
further misery to his day, all throughout dinner he was forced to listen 
to his mother chattering on about the good qualities of each of the 
girls that he was going to meet next week, including a certain Nabiki 
Tendo.  Each of the glowing descriptions and subtle demands about 
marrying a proper girl just made him feel more and more anxious, as if 
the walls were starting to close in.  How quickly life can change, he 
thought as he laid his arm across his eyes.

For several minutes Ranma just laid there, his mind processing the 
events of the day.  He still had some nagging questions to deal with 
from his jaunts to the other Earths that he had been to, ones that he 
had put off getting the answers to long enough.  He rolled to a sitting 
position and eyed the computer that sat on his desk.  Now is as good a 
time as any to start looking for some answers, he decided with a firm 
nod of the head.

Ranma powered on his computer and waited as it booted up.  He settled 
himself comfortably in his chair and began typing, calling up a number 
of programs that he had specially written for such information searches 
in the past, those that he did not care to have traced.  Just in case he 
ran into any problems with Security Directorate monitoring, he started 
by logging into the data relays at Tokyo University through a secure and 
secret backdoor that a friend had once told him about.  He then began 
bouncing his communications signal around the planet by means of several 
non-Imperial nodes first before he re-entered into the Imperial Datanet 
by means of one of the Science Ministry hookups.

With all of the high-security protocols set up to prevent such a thing 
from happening, it was a little bit of a challenge to his abilities, but 
Ranma had cut his teeth on computers many years ago and had only kept 
perfecting his skills ever since.  His fingers danced across the keys as 
he navigated around the dangerous areas of the Datanet.  Over the past 
several years such efforts as this had been one of his hobbies, a way of 
thumbing his nose at the system.  Finally, after he finished setting it 
up so that he could not be traced without at least his awareness, he 
hacked into the first Datanet server he encountered and began punching 
in his first information request.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  CHINESE AMAZONS, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The Amazons of Joketsuzoku, China were first discovered by the Fourth 
*Imperial Army in the year 1841 (see entries for Mount Phoenix, and Musk 
*Dynasty).  The Supreme Matriarch of the Amazons willingly entered into 
*a treaty with the Emperor in the year 1849, recognizing his divine 
*sovereignty over all people.  A primitive, agrarian people following a 
*simple matriarchal-based system of local government, they have been 
*consistently labeled by the Security Directorate as a low-risk group 
*for rebellion.  END FILE.

"That's it?" asked Ranma, expecting to see reams of data, instead of a 
single paragraph.  "That's not much."  He wasn't sure if a search for 
Shampoo or any other specific names would even turn up anything, what 
with the information on the Amazons being as sketchy as it was.  If the 
Empire followed its usual patterns for how they maintained the census on 
the conquered peoples under its control, then Shampoo would only be 
identified by a serial number, not her name.  He decided to investigate 
some of the other groups mentioned to see if he could learn more from a 
different angle.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  MUSK DYNASTY, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The Musk Dynasty was first discovered by the Fourth Imperial Army in 
*the year 1841 (see entries for Joketsuzoku Amazons, and Mount Phoenix).  
*This group was determined by the Security Directorate to be a clear and 
*present danger to stable Imperial rule of the region, and a pogrom was 
*declared against them by special order of Director Shikei Kashuoh in 
*1845.  Extermination measures were carried out under the direction of 
*Colonel Hisato Tendo in 1846 with the final elimination of last members 
*of the Musk Dynasty confirmed in 1848.  END FILE.

Hmm, what could a group of primitives in the backwoods of China have 
done to warrant an extermination order? Ranma thought with a frown.  
Local ethnic groups have resisted the Empire before without such a level 
of reprisals, let alone genocide.  That seems to be a surprisingly harsh 
reaction by the Security Directorate.  I wonder what it was that 
frightened them so much about the Musk Dynasty?  The Amazons were left 
alone, and they have some powerful abilities at their disposal.  I 
wonder why the Musk were not?  A very interesting puzzle.

Ranma sat back in his chair and thought about this, idly tapping his 
fingertips together as he rested his elbows on the arms of his chair.  I 
don't seem to have any memories from that other Ranma about any past 
encounters with them, so I suppose they might not exist in his timeline 
as well, he mused.  Still, if there are any members of the Musk Dynasty 
somehow still managing to survive, then they aren't going to be too 
happy with any of the existing descendants of Colonel Hisato Tendo.  I 
wonder if Nabiki even knows what her illustrious ancestor did?  Perhaps 
not.

Ranma eyed the indicators for his countermeasures software, all of them 
running in the background.  None of them had been triggered yet, so he 
was still safe.  He moved onto his next data search.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  MOUNT PHOENIX, ALL AVAILABLE 
*INFORMATION

*The inhabitants of the region known as Mount Phoenix in southern China 
*were determined to be only a rumor by the Security Directorate in the 
*year 1842 (see entries for Joketsuzoku Amazons, and Musk Dynasty).  END 
*FILE.

That's the shortest one yet, thought Ranma with a smile.  If they 
haven't been spotted by anyone since then, then they must be a myth.  Ah 
well, now for the big one.

*PLEASE INPUT INFORMATION DESIRED:  JUSENKYO, ALL AVAILABLE INFORMATION

The system seemed to hiccup and paused for several long moments while 
the system conducted a search for any files related to his request.  
Ranma nervously eyed his countermeasure indicators, but they had not yet 
been tripped.  After a time, the screen cleared and came back with:

*ALL INFORMATION ON JUSENKYO IS CLASSIFIED BY IMPERIAL EDICT.

Hmm, now that's interesting, Ranma thought, sensing a genuine challenge 
to his abilities now.  He cracked his knuckles and grinned.  However, 
it's not about to stop me.  He began to call up some of his best hacking 
algorithms, ones that not even his father or any of his other teachers 
even knew that he had.  He had crafted them all on his own, testing 
their effectiveness and refining them further during his travels with 
his father, even once going so far as to penetrate into the Security 
Directorate's payroll files for fun.  A few moments after he activated 
them, he was rewarded with success.

*STAND BY FOR FILE TRANSFER FROM SECURE SERVER.

Ha!  The Anything-Goes School of Data Hacking strikes! Ranma exulted to 
himself.  He grinned at the screen as the files involved began a complex 
sequence of transfers around the globe, hidden among the regular data 
traffic by one of Ranma's algorithms.  He was a little astonished at the 
amount of data available.  His grin faded as he studied the historical 
summary on Jusenkyo.

*Jusenkyo Valley and its many Springs were first discovered by the 
*Fourth Imperial Army in the year 1841 (see entries on Joketsuzoku 
*Amazons, Mount Phoenix, and Musk Dynasty).  The local tales of the 
*Springs' reported magical ability to transform living creatures into 
*duplicates of the first creature drowned in a particular Spring was 
*initially thought to be a myth.  Preliminary gathering of evidence was 
*delayed due to several pacification efforts needed in nearby regions.  
*Confirmation of Springs' magical ability to transform living creatures 
*obtained through direct experimentation in 1847.  The Mobius Institute 
*(see entry) has classified Jusenkyo Valley as an Alpha Class Mystical 
*Nexus and maintains a representative to monitor the site.
 
*The Musk Dynasty was discovered to use the so-called 'Spring of Drowned 
*Girl' in order to breed with local animal life in 1845.  The Security 
*Directorate determined that members of the Musk Dynasty were to be re-
*classified as a sub-human species, and were to be considered as a clear 
*and present danger to the future security of the Empire.  The necessary 
*purification efforts were carried out under the direction of Colonel 
*Hisato Tendo in 1846.  The final pogrom was completed in 1848, save for 
*ten subjects reserved for use in experimentation (see current entries 
*for Human Enhancement Projects).  Current status of Jusenkyo Valley: 
*Maximum Security Biological Research Facility.  END FILE.

Ranma's countermeasures software picked up a trace attempt at that time, 
and he immediately aborted the remaining file transfers, routing those 
now in transit to several previously-established secure sites he could 
retrieve from more safely later.  The link died quickly, the attempted 
trace frustrated by the numerous cutouts and blind alleys that he had 
set up in advance.  Ranma breathed a quick sigh of relief, and then he 
saved what he had managed to retrieve of his captured data.  He would 
examine it all in more detail at a later time.

So that's the real story, Ranma thought, considering what he had just 
seen, amazed at the implications and tantalized by the references that 
were given.  He had answered some questions, only to raise even more in 
the process.  No wonder it was classified, but at least the Amazons 
still exist.  Since the Empire has practiced a relatively light approach 
with them, they may even be much as they are in that other Ranma's 
timeline.  He wandered back to his futon, undressed quickly, and 
stretched out.  Despite the earliness of the hour, he was exhausted.

I wonder if Shampoo even exists in this timeline? Ranma sleepily mused.  
Is she back at her village, the Champion of her people?  Is she married 
to some guy?  She's the only one I haven't been able to find.  Not that 
I've really tried to find her  He laid his arm over his eyes.  I wonder 
where she is now.  His thoughts faded off to sleep.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Thanks to my pre-readers for all of their help and advice:

Michael Allen
Jim Bader
Donny Cheng
David Eddy
Doug_W
ShortYes
D.B. Sommer
T.H. Tiger