Author's Note: The 365 Project is an experimental multi-fandom project to write and post at least one short every day for the next year, not including my semi-regular bi-weekly updates. For more details, see the relevent section in my profile. This is The 365 Project, 5 October.

In the immortal words of Samuel L. Clemens... "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR."

Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is the creation of Rumiko Takahashi and is used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.

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"Credo Quia Impossible Est"
'Enigma Magic'
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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Ranma walked into the room with a towel around his waist and drying his hair with a second.

"Woo, take it off!" May catcalled.

Except for blushing as red as his usual shirt, Ranma managed to ignore her - eliciting a curious look from Nabiki since it was the first time she could remember him not panicking when a female did anything that could be considered showing interest in him - and instead asked, "So what've we got, Boss?"

The Boss looked at Hiryuki and nodded, signaling for the other man to explain.

"Well, Ranma," Hiryuki started, "Between the raid on the nightclub and your..."

The technician winced at the cold look in Ranma's blue eyes, "Yes, well, anyway... We now have both the coded information with the auction location and the code to decrypt it with. We decided to wait on you before running the decryption program."

"Uh-huh," throwing the towel in them over his shoulder, Ranma folded his arms and smirked knowingly, "May, how many times did Boss have to threaten him to make him wait?"

"Oh, he's getting better," the girl answered him, "Boss only had to threaten him thrice... er, three times."

"I know what 'thrice' means," Ranma told her, adding to himself, "Kuno was good for nothing if not helping learn new words..."

"Okay, Hiryuki," Ranma continued with a shrug, "Go for it."

With a grin, Hiryuki entered a series of commands into the laptop computer sitting in front of him, "Decrypting... now."

Nabiki watched and fought the urge to cover her ears as the computer displayed a calendar and clock, the clock hands spinning like propellers while a green cursor highlight seemed to move randomly around the calendar - all to the time of bits and pieces of music that seemed to blur together into an unintelligible mess of noise.

"You made the decryption program yourself, didn't you?" Akira commented with a grimace.

"It's great, isn't it?" Hiryuki replied with a grin, "You can actually watch and listen as it works."

"Sounds like the mermaid song from that movie about the wizard and the burning cup," Nabiki retorted.

"It is rather... cacophonous," the Boss agreed, "How long will this take, Hiryuki?"

"Well, that depends on how long it takes the computer to match the playlist from the club two nights ago to the code we - that is, Ranma - retrieved last night and then use that to translateit," Hiryuki answered.

"Hiryuki," Akira sighed, "How long?"

"Any time," Hiryuki replied calmly, "Just... give it time..."

"Well, while it's doing that," Ranma grumbled, "I'm gonna go get dressed - Mayuko's eyeing me up and I'm way too familiar with that look; too many sleeping powders, paralysis powders and ancient Chinese Amazon tricks come from that look for my tastes."

When Ranma turned and walked out of the room, with May watching him with a grin on her face, Nabiki looked at the other girl speculatively, trying to decided if despite the fact that the government had put its foot down with the Amazons and Ukyo and the Kunos - something she now suspected was related to whomever 'The Boss' actually was and whoever this group worked for - Ranma still had the same situation of attracting fiances wherever he went.