The room was lit with a patchwork quilt of the darkest blues, forms shifting and bleeding into one another, waiting for the coming light of dawn to shape them into being. The air filled the space in a thick sweaty haze, an extension of the lone human in the space, drifting through the night within its confines. A cool breeze from an open window occasioned to flit through the room, the sweet smells of summer fauna mingling with the collection of scents that marked the territory of the girl inside.

She lay in a tangled heap on top of her covers, her pajama bottoms kicked down and shackled to her ankles, a tank top skewed idiotically over her chest like a seatbelt. Her skin was flush against the heavy air in the room, collecting drops and rivulets of sweat that would soon find their way into the air, serving to further increase the weight of the warm blanket of humidity. Locks of blue hair dressed her pillow in a damp splay, her mouth sucking lightly at a thick strand of it pasted to the side of her head in a river across her cheek. Between her legs a small throw pillow had been repurposed. In the dim twilight of the early morning, the hips of her black silhouette could just be made out to rock lightly and rhythmically into it.

From outside, a car alarm sounded briefly, an elderly neighbor endlessly and maddeningly mistaking the buttons on their key-fob.

Akane half woke. Across from her the red numbers of her alarm clock blurred into a struggling focus.

Twenty minutes still.

Not near enough time to fall back into real sleep before the alarm would demand her attention.

Unconsciously, her lips were still playing over the lock of hair in her mouth. Slowly, she became aware of the momentum she had carried over from sleep. The state her body had worked itself into while her mind occupied some now forgotten dreamspace.

Akane rolled onto her back, hurling the pillow between her legs out into the void, spitting the lock of hair from her mouth to join its kin in tendrils across her pillow. In her mind's half in and half out state her hand started to wander on instinct as she muddled through a well worn debate.

It wouldn't do to put in the effort. It never worked anyway.

But still, maybe.

This time.

If she could just recapture that dreamy fantasy.

She was already so close, it should be easy to finally-

From behind closed eyes Akane attempted to channel the hypnopompic state of the early morning, surrendering her body and hands to act of their own accord. She couldn't be sure what it had been as she lay sleeping to bring her here, she never remembered dreams like that, but she had a hunch.

It was Ranma. It had to be, as much as she loathe to admit it. He was the only boy she'd ever met to spark these kinds of feelings within her.

In her mind's eye she formed a picture of the pigtailed boy, starting from his eyes and blooming outward. It was a fight between her conscious and unconscious control over the imagery. The more reality she was able to pour into the construct, the more energy her subconscious seemed to gain to grab her hand and run off in it's own direction.

Cool summer breeze met puffs of hot drowsy exhalation from a tangled silhouette.

A vision of her fiance moved toward her ethereal form, casually disrobing his silk shirt and flinging it somewhere into the void. The sculpted fitness of his torso struggled to maintain form, her eyes drawn to the deep cerulean blue pools of his eyes. He slipped toward her, and as he did, she felt the electric tingle as if something had slipped the clothes from her shoulders.

Exposed to him in the dreamscape, and he to her.

A shiver ran down her back as if another pair of hands were running the length of her. The unreality of the dream broke through to the body of the girl in the dim room.

From behind her slipped the purple haired Amazon, clad in naught but she was born with. The source of electric thrill.

The future matriarch moved to obscure the image of the boy. Her body was a toned lean thing, carrying patches of smooth fat in the only places that really mattered. Her eyes ran over the other girl's form as she tried to wrest control and reconjure the man held hostage behind it. Somewhere, in another world she still tentatively had one foot in, she could feel something familiar welling up inside of her.

Akane's conscious mind grabbed hold, partially dissolving the acuity of the fantasy. Through force of will the lavender object of her ire was hurled into the inky black, leaving behind the boy she had come here for.

She imagined his approach. How he'd take hold of her. How he'd gently slip a hand across her brow to shift aside a lock of hair. How he'd lean in to her and how she'd lose herself as those piercing blue forms grew larger and larger in her vision.

Rapidly, the dreamy state started to once again overtake her reality.

Back in her bed, her pace quickened as her hands lost themselves grappling with her body.

She leaned into her unreal fiance, leaving a trail of soft kisses down the side of his neck. Her breathing quickened as she felt his hands run down her back. Felt a leg pressed up firmly in between her own. Felt the soft mass of breasts pressing up against her as long hair spilled down to tickle at flesh now breaking out into goosebumps.

Akane rocked back to find herself embraced by Ukyo's athletic form. Ranma stood just behind, once again fully clothed.

From her bed, the blue haired girl growled.

So close. So infinitely far away all the same.

She fought back for control. Lazily, it bubbled through her mind that it always ended up like this.

This was why she stopped trying.

Still maybe, just once.

Roughly she shoved the chef aside, sending the brunette tumbling of into the dark depths of her subconscious. Approaching the boy, she raggedly tore his shirt from him, pressing herself hard into him as her dream hands found purchase in tandem with their partners back on Earth.

Suddenly the two were awash.

Akane briefly noted the change in mass of the girl now in her embrace. It wasn't ideal, but she had been working herself into a steady rhythm, an escalating thing that felt sure to climb all the way to a dramatic peak. Her physical momentum carried her forward as mentally she continued to express herself to the boy in the wrong body.

Some smaller part of her conscious self was now in a fitful war for control of the fantasy, even as her body moved onward undeterred. One moment she was able to wrestle the black haired youth back into being, only to slip off into another wet splash as she let go into the dream.

Despite this battle, the build inside of her was now reaching an urgent point.

A frantic, desperate, animal thing.

The heavy acceleration of a runaway train.

She needed this.

She craved it.

It had been so long.

They were tangled on the floor as she was tangled in her sheets, she and Ranma-chan. She wanted the boy, but more than anything she wanted release.

For a fleeting moment he was back.

Seizing the opportunity, she became a jerking, gyrating thrash of movement as she attempted to capitalize on the moment she'd been fighting for. It was there like some growing point in the distance. She could feel it swelling, cascading up and out and through her whole body. The electric tingles and pricks as every nerve ending prepared to release at once.

She was wrapped up in him. They were union.

She was there. Finally. The journey was over.

She felt it start to take her as she panted down at the flushed redhead beneath her.

Akane's eyes shot open just as she felt a climax begin to rocket through her body.

Only to stop dead.

The feeling rushed back as if draining from her, leaving her cold, numb.

Hollow.

Her breathing slipped into a growl of frustration as her eyes screwed shut. And as if on cue, the harsh sounds of her alarm clock echoed through the room. Her teeth gritted as her free hand slapped hard down on the mattress below her.

It was as her hand came cracking down on the bleating alarm that the door to her room slid open.

Nabiki stared blankly down at the state of her younger sister. The seconds hung as their eyes met.

"Oh, how fun."

Akane hurled a pillow at her sister's retreating back.

She launched disheveled to slam the door closed. Her fists clenched and she pivoted to let loose a haymaker into a hanging speed bag. It's prompt explosion sent whirls of gray powder lilting about the room.

Ukyo woke in a familiar fog. Her mouth held a sickly sweet taste on the back of her tongue as her sinus cavities seemed to swell behind her eyes and temples. To her chest she still clutched a pillow in a sleepy embrace, one of two bordering her form, the other tucked lightly against her back. Her body was secured from the chill of the central air by a thick comforter in lieu of any constrictive sleepwear.

It was fifteen minutes before her alarm would sound. She knew that, it always was. Ukyo didn't imagine she could identify the noise of the thing in a line up as infrequently as she ever heard it.

With the ease of routine, she disabled the device, content to forgo it's shrill roar yet another morning.

She slid into a sitting position on the bed, hovering slightly over her knees. Her brown hair stood up from her head in arcing cowlicks, cascaded down her shoulders in tangled clumps. Cautiously she rubbed her head, shaking it just slightly as if to test the waters before taking to her feet. Absently her upper teeth ran over her tongue. Small pops left her mouth as her tongue smacked her upper palette, grimacing as the taste of her morning communicated the night prior.

The restaurant was a silent thing around her, waiting on it's sole occupant to kickstart the animus of it. For the next several hours hers would be the only noise to disturb the silent spell lingering over the place.

Hands found purchase in a light switch as she fumbled about the room. The introduction of harsh white light from overhead caused the girl to squint and shake her head reflexively, the wash of it against her retinas forever a wake up slap to the face. Beleaguered, she made her way through the impetus to her days.

Ukyo's bedroom was in sharp contrast to the spartan lifestyle of many of her contemporaries. In many ways it could be said to compensate in a balance of scales, it's many shelves and surfaces each holding an eclectic collection of photos and knicknacks. The girl was a sentimental stockpiler of memories. Here and there were pictures of her and her father at different ages, little notes and pictures gifted to her from friends as far back as her elementary school days, trophies, souvenirs, and even a whole section of wall dedicated to the group of maniacs she had found here in Nerima.

This shrine to the moments and people in her life was hers and hers alone, never one to have company beyond the borders of her kitchen. That the girl could be one of Nabiki's more regular customers would be a surprise to most of her friends and general student body. The mercenary's market trended blue, but that didn't mean a collection of more innocent material hadn't also accumulated under the girl's omnipresent camera lens.

Over her time in Nerima she'd requisitioned countless shots of the lot of them. Many of the outings she'd participated in, but some still came from those that she'd had to miss out on. The photos presented a much different view of the Nerima Wrecking Crew. To an impartial observer they were of a group of rather eccentric looking friends, none of the pictures communicating the webwork of grudges, rivalries and obligations that plagued each of them. None of this had ever crossed Ukyo's mind, the chef having always been content to select the prints on gut instinct. If they made her feel happy or warm inside, she sought out their purchase.

The drain swirled with a flush of toothpaste. Ukyo's slightly bloodshot eyes impassively watched it go as her hands began working through her long hair with a stiff brush. Her mind went to the day ahead of her.

It was almost too bad, that today shouldn't be a school day.

She smirked absently at the thought, aware as she was of the loathing many of her peers had toward the obligation. But, as someone whose time after school was dictated heavily by the business she ran, there was something to be said about the grounds to socialize that her time at school gave her.

Should give her, at least.

Admittedly, her attendance had been slipping the past few months. Her peers had been supportive at first, knowing that the young entrepreneur's obligations balanced on a razor's edge. Eventually though, the increasing series of tardies and missed days had begun to displace her from her classmates.

As if she was some sort of delinquent.

The only one who hadn't shifted away from her was the one with an attendance record almost as bad as her own. Ranma was in many ways what got her out of bed and into class in the morning. To have those brief moments between classes that she might fritter away with a friend. The occasional lunch without interruption by other claims to his attention. To just have that quiet moment together to talk and vent and joke with one another.

Even that had become increasingly rare. The two of them were always under a microscope in a way, peers content to stay distant but scrutinizing behind layers of glass. And if not the student body, then Akane.

Still, today. Today she thought she had it in her take a chance on those small moments, given the chance.

She knew there was always a possibility he might show up at the restaurant. And if not him, then there were other peers that popped in here and there. Her regular customers could be good for small talk too. She'd be locked to the grill, but certainly someone could wander in and help her kill the time.

Making her way into the static harmony of the kitchen, she paused to remove an empty stained wine glass from the countertop and into the sink. A finished bottle of red clinked hard into a half filled recycling bin.

Ukyo began laying out the odds and ends for her own breakfast on the spotless countertops. With a sigh at the glass in the sink, she removed a small pill bottle from a drawer at her waist and tipped two brown capsules into her mouth.

Today was going to be fine.

Great even.

She was sure of it.

Across a landscape of hard packed dirt and towering blades of emerald grass one intrepid ant explorer roamed. It's loping path sent it in and out of steadily forming pools of dawn light growing and merging themselves into an ocean of goldenrod. It traced its way along the sides of a mountain that glowed warm and shifted slightly in a ready pattern.

The traveler was quick to scale the uncertain mass, heroically claiming new domains for it's queen.

From olympian heights it found the passageways to the source of the heat within. Hot air rushed out of the cavern at the antenna'd adventurer. It would find the source of this energy. It would return triumphant to his queen this day.

Ryoga Hibiki shot up from his sleeping pad as his breath hitched in his throat. Doubling over gagging, he pounded his chest wheezing, before coughing loose one very big, very angry ant. He flicked it off into the sunrise as he spit repeatedly off to the side.

The disheveled boy rose, taking stock of the makeshift campsite. His meager possessions were scattered haphazardly about a hastily dug fire pit. An open pack, a trench shovel standing upright in the dirt, a sleeping pad he'd managed to all but sweat through in the night.

It had been unusually warm for Saskatchewan last night he noted.

Laying on an upright log by dead charcoal of last nights fire was an open notebook, it's pages filled with a shaky uneven handwriting. It had been stupid of him to leave it out like that in the event of rain, but he knew it's whole contents by heart anyway. Inside were his hopes, his dreams, his fears, his wants and worries. The life of a boy who spent the majority of his time having to narrate, vent and opine to himself.

It was uncommon for the lost boy to find companionship with a common language out on the road. Communication had a tendency to trend toward quick one and two word sentences accompanied by hand signals and intonations. Sometimes he'd find himself venting to an individual nice enough to sit and listen politely to a litany of words they could never parse.

Mostly he spoke to the road.

He spoke to the night sky.

He spoke to the fire and flames, to the cicadas, the trees.

To himself. He spoke with himself.

Sometimes luck would have it that he might share a temporary kinship with a likely or not companion out in some strange land. He wrote the most about those.

Amber-Lynn from Tennessee, whose family took him in without question after he'd fallen in an emaciated heap through their fence and right into the middle of a neighborhood barbeque.

Sharif from Dubai, who'd spotted Ryoga wandering about while he and his friends burned cash on a late night booze cruise. The man had insisted on showing the boy a good time, and as his uncertain luck would have it, it was.

The next day had hurt something fierce though.

Boris and his pals Boris, Boris, and Leo who'd pulled him frozen and partially buried from a snow drift.

He'd had the time of his life with them and many others, but their encounters always ended the same.

With him leaving. And never finding them again. Memories of their encounters just about the only thing he could ever keep with him.

Suddenly a kickball rebounded off of Ryoga's skull with a thick thud. The boy was so lost in thought he didn't even register the impact, never breaking stride in his dismantling of the campsite.

That was what made Akane special, he thought. Not only was she one of the few people his muddled brain ever managed to find him back to, she also happened to be one of those precious few individuals that he could sit with and share the life he lived.

He remembered how good Akari was for that.

From his left a small child bent to pick up the estranged kickball, hastily mumbling an apology at the distracted bandana clad youth. His friends stood at the treeline of the public field ushering him to hurry up.

Ryoga guessed he was probably in the Catskill Mountains by the look of things around here. He figured it might be possible to walk to Paris by early evening, assuming the Himalayas didn't give him any trouble. From there, Nerima was always right around the corner.

From a room that any visitor to the Nekohanten would identify as a closet, the robed figure of a boy with coke bottle glasses removed himself. The floorboards beneath him occasioned creaks and groans no matter how deftly he learned to move on his feet. He'd long suspected the ghoul had somehow engineered it that way, she herself never eliciting a sound as she pogo'd through the building.

The musty humid smell of the upper floors gave way to the warm clean smell of the kitchen. By the time he saw either of the others the air would be awash in the aroma of a restaurants worth of prep work. Mis en place set, stock pots rolling, the smell of freshly crushed garlic. It was his job. It was his place, although that never stopped him from vocalizing his distaste.

The matriarch was strict. Quick to put you in line, but she was not nearly as scary as the stories back home made the kids believe. Over the years the tone he'd taken with the leader had relaxed more and more. Enough so that his contemporaries would surely assumed he'd be hanged for it. But it turned out she was much more even handed, even though she might treat him like second hand garbage on the surface.

It made him miss his own great grandmother. Not quite as high in status as Cologne, but of the same cloth. Pomade could be a mean hard nosed old bitch, but deep down the family all knew she had a heart of gold.

As if summoned, he noted the elder appear in the dining hall, somehow pogoing without spilling a drop of the large cup of tea she sipped offhandedly.

"Morning." He issued as she passed him through the kitchen on way to the refrigerator.

She offered him a glance and nothing more. With cream added to her tea, she slipped out without further acknowledgement.

Mousse sent up a cloudburst of flour from the wooden countertop as he slapped down a long roll of dough, doubling it back over itself to stretch and slap down again.

He'd learned how to make noodles from his uncle Jerry-Curl. The man had a way of making the kitchen fun for him in a way his own mother never quite could. Absently, he wondered what the old man could teach him now. What he might now be able to teach him in return.

From his peripheral he watched Shampo walk bodily through the swinging door to the kitchen, making her way in a beeline toward the coffee pot by the fridge. His stomach welled up at the sight of her. It never stopped, that feeling. It was why he had put up with the endless embarrassments and indignities over the years.

From the bottom of his heart he issued a "Good morning Shampoo!" He was met only by a scowl from the girl. Her hand jerked slightly in it's act of pouring water into the drip machine.

"No today, duck duck Mousse."

The feeling in his stomach drained back down at the tone from the girl. Lately the two of them had only been able to react to him with a mix of apathy and exhaustion. He almost missed the anger, at least there had been an intensity to it.

They spent an endless agonizing moment with one another.

He, awkwardly carrying out the task of preparing noodles, trying to avoid the impulse to babble at the girl in the room.

She, rocked back against the countertop, staring hypnotized by the slow steady drip of coffee into it's glass container.

When she left it dawned on Mousse to write up Uncle Jerry-Curl. He hadn't had much luck with the post recently with any of his family, but maybe his luck would change.

The dojo was filled with the heavy sound of a frustrated female martial artist working off energy with an accelerated morning routine. Normally she'd only do a couple hundred sit ups, but today she was gunning for an even thousand.

From over her knees she could make out the yard and house beyond through the wide entryway of the dojo. On the porch she noted her middle sister locked in to an extended conversation with the red haired Ranma. The pervert hadn't even changed back this morning, merely throwing on dry clothes after walking half naked through the house. Akane couldn't describe the kind of anger that passed through her any time the house guest brushed past her through the hall like that. The indecency of it.

She suppressed a shudder and quickened her pace.

Ranma and her sister had been spending an usual amount of time in each others company actually. Now that she thought about it. Normally the two repelled each other like magnets of the same sign, as if it was inherent to their structures to maintain a certain distance between one another.

At least this past week though, hadn't she seen the two of them together more than usual? Come to think of it, didn't it sound like Aunty Nodoka's name she kept hearing from the two in passing?

That was it!

The house.

Ranma must have been trading some small part of his soul to her sister to help his mother repair the damages from the wedding. She was so proud of herself for making the connection her mind almost let her pass the disastrous non-union that had taken place. Either a half a year or a lifetime ago now.

She tried not to think about it. Not because the failure to launch had hurt her, that she felt as if she'd missed the chance of a lifetime. No, it was her reaction there on the aisle right before the chaos took over. The sense of relief that had washed through her even as her body began ducking flying shrapnel.

Why had it been relief?

Immediately before walking down that aisle, she had been so sure she was making the right decision. Sure, they were both getting swept up in the moment, but she had been inexplicably comfortable with it. That was, right up until she was facing him. Him in his best suit, looking for all intents and purposes like a Queen's bounty. But looking at him then, she'd been so suddenly and viscerally conflicted, torn apart on the inside by some unknown source.

Then there was just a zen like calm as the world exploded around her.

All the way through the disaster ending the last of the nannichuan, it had carried through her. Somehow so nonplussed by the end of all ends to her future husband's dilemma.

Maybe that was it, she thought. The curse was what held her back, the thought of it always trying to leap up from her unconscious mind.

If he just didn't have that stupid curse she wouldn't feel so confused.

Akane rounded out the last of her sit ups, rising to a standing position to move onto the next exercise. She noted the curse in mind come jogging over. To this day she still ran around loose under her shirts, unwilling to invest in even a simple sports bra. It irked her so much watching the smaller girl prance around like that. As if she had no shame.

"Yo, Akane."

"Ranma."

The girl rocked back on her heels casting her eyes up at the sky.

"Listen. You gonna be round tonight?"

"Why wouldn't I be? You're the one that's always out doing who knows what with some other girl."

Earnestly, the boy-turned-girl cocked her head at Akane. "There's a couple a guys that hold me up too ya know."

Akane reeled inwardly at the implications behind the statement as the redhead looked on innocently. He couldn't be? No. But maybe because he was sometimes a she did that-

Akane shook the image from her head. It was just- It was wrong.

Ranma was as oblivious as ever to whatever was going on in Akane's head.

"But anyways, my moms is gonna be down later. We were gonna get everyone together and, uh well, talk bout stuff." Sheepishly she followed, unaware that Akane's mind had gone elsewhere. "An well, you oughta be there, and if ya can't we can try 'nother time."

Akane nodded detached at the other girl, still trying to parse the implicit message she'd received from Ranma into sense.

Was Ranma...that way? Was that why she'd felt so hollow at the altar?

But if he would always be they-

Akane launched into a series of one hundred pull ups as Ranma returned to her seat by Nabiki. Her mind slipped further and further from the task at hand.

Shampoo fumed inwardly as her feet drove the bike forward with reckless aggression. Even before she began speaking, her last delivery had pegged her on appearance as someone they could talk down to. When they heard the girls pidgin Japanese, it only went further downhill. The proud warrior had stood there with a smile on her face as a man she could easily put six feet under berated her like a small idiot child. Not because of a problem with the order, or a late delivery, not even for who she was inside, but because of what he saw of her on the surface.

The Japanese were unusually polite people by and large. They wore their masks well, but over the years Shampoo had been given ample reason to be suspicious of whatever inner monologue they weren't voicing. Because every now and again she met one like her last delivery. Someone almost refreshingly content to wear their prejudice on their sleeve. Someone more than happy to reinforce her insecurities about being a stranger in a strange land.

Great grandmother had been increasingly less forgiving about Shampoo's behavior. Not more than a few months prior she'd have been congratulated for sticking up for their people's honor, had she put the frail bigot in the ground. Now though, such actions would be attacked as allowing her personal pride to further shame her. She should think about what her behavior said about the restaurant, what the ramifications would be on her as Cologne hammered home that her days of being protected from herself were over.

Shampoo had grown so accustomed to letting her anger solve her problems that suppressing the urge was a pain almost physical to her being. Having to hold in that hurt, to pretend it didn't exist. It hurt to know that she could be hurt like that. That she couldn't lash out and make it all go away. That she had to come upon another way of processing the frustration and pain inside of her.

Looking on at this little beady eyed relic of an age that still wouldn't pass, as he tore her down for who he thought she was, telling herself that she knew who she was inside, that she wasn't as small as his worldview would place her. Smiling at him as she waited patiently for him to pay. Him slowly feeding each yen into her palm, counting it out to her with an exaggerated over pronunciation. Feeling like an animal being made to dance for peanuts, her pride preventing her from lashing or crying out.

That someone so objectively weak could make her want to cry, it was torturous.

It was over. Over, but never over.

An experience she'd hold in her heart like a stain that would never wash out.

The proud Amazon's eyes screwed shut as she held back tears, the recent inhumanity dredging up a laundry list of painful memories of her time in Japan. Her face contorted into an angry mask as she let out a feral scream to the road in front of her. She would not allow this to hurt her.

It did not hurt her.

She could not be hurt like this.

Beneath her the bike moved like a wild horse, channeling the energy of it's rider. It ran through lights, skipped and skidded between cars, seared black marks into walls. It was just as it's rider began to lose herself in the energy of the machine underneath her that injustices and humiliations sought to compound themselves.

The leg of her silk pants had been knocked loose by her viscous cycling of the pedals, falling from its place around her calf down to her ankle. Before the girl could even notice, the loose fabric had worked its way into the spinning chain of the bike, tearing and tangling the expensive pink silk and grinding the wheel to a sudden halt.

Shampoo was so distracted trying to block out her mental processes she didn't register the disaster until she was already in the thick of it. As the bike started to skid, Shampoo tried to compensate despite her ankle firmly trapped to it's side. It was the weight of the delivery box on the back that would ultimately spelled her downfall. She knew the crash was imminent, but chose to attempt to save the box ahead of herself. The skid transformed into a flip as the front wheel caught the ground at an odd angle, dragging Shampoo along with it by the ankle. In the midst of the tumble, the lavender haired girl used the momentum to whip the delivery away, low and parallel with the ground. It skidded along the road surface until friction safely halted it as the bike rolled the girl into the bumper of a parked car like a crocodile in a death spin.

She groaned as she leaned back into the vehicle behind her, kicking herself free from the twisted chain with a rip down the full leg of her pants. She was slightly shaken up, but she'd certainly had worse. It was the loss of control that spooked her the most, that she could get so sloppy.

Still, she was fine. The bike was fine, the food was fine. Everything was fine.

Her clothes weren't fine. The cute silk uniform was covered in a laundry list of scuffs, black marks, and tears. She could feel her hair had come undone on one side. With the back of her wrist she rubbed a smudge of blood from her cheekbone.

Shampoo tried not to think about how her great grandmother would react to the condition she would be coming back in. Tried not to think about how different it would have been only a few months prior. How she herself was ultimately at fault for new paradigms.

At that, the universe decided to add insult to the injuries and injustices of the warrior.

A small molotov of a girl leaned over her, the delivery box perched delicately in her cocked arm.

"Jeez Shampoo, I seen you look better." The girl started, attempting to place the box of ramen beside the downed amazon. It was quickly anticipated and snatched from her grip, Shampoo shielding it away from her.

"NO FOR RANMA."

Crimson locks played over the girl's eyes as she put on the expression that had won her countless free meals.

"Not even just one?"

"NO."

Ranma looked taken aback by the tone of the other girl, seeming all of a sudden too curious as to where the exuberant youth he knew had gone to. Shampoo felt herself being assessed as she flipped the bike and disengaged the back wheel with a practiced finesse. With a quick reattachment of the chain she was soon resecuring her package to the rear of the bicycle. The whole time her eyes stayed focused on her task, even as Ranma's eyes stayed focused on her.

Ranma was always the easiest to draw in when he was ignored, the hardest to catch when chased. Infuriating. She could almost feel the gears clicking in the other girl's head as the unexpected lack of attention was processed like an obstacle. If she played things wrong Ranma may just chase her all over town.

Not that she would mind that. For once.

But if it held her up. Especially if Cologne found out why.

"Don't get mad. Like I think you're weak or nothin'. But're ya hurt Xian-Pu?"

Her pronunciation wasn't perfect, but the years spent in Shampoo's home country resonated through the other girl's words. There was a perverse sincerity behind hearing Ranma use her name like that. She knew she should be pushing the redhead away, and now it was taking everything in her power not to embrace her.

She stared resolutely down at the bike, mind on the duty she had to perform.

No, it wasn't fair. She couldn't say that. What she was supposed to say. Not now.

So she said the thing she always said. That same stupid thing. One of the first bits of Japanese she'd made sure to learn, back when she'd assumed it could all be so easy.

"You take Shampoo on date. Yes?"

She side-eyed the redhead as she mounted the bike to leave. Already anticipating the response. Attention focused on avoiding having to deal with more in consequence back at the restaurant.

Her foot froze in a downward stroke on the pedal as her she struggled to parse the words.

"What you say?"

Ranma was sheepish, all of a sudden having to speak with eye contact returned.

"Yeah. I guess. If you gotta call it that, or whatever. Maybe we should hang out. I got some things to talk bout with people, and I guess you're one of em."

The entirety of her resolve flew out of her as she shot from her bike like a dart into the side of the smaller girl. Ranma managed to retain their balance, backpedaling until she was forced against a wall. Shampoo spoke from a place directly in front of the other girl's face.

"Tonight. After Nekohanten close."

She could feel tenseness of the smaller girl as she pressed the two of them together.

"I-I can meet you there."

"No work. Meet at park by shop. There a lamppost over too too big frog statue."

She leaned in, brushing her lips lightly with the smaller girls.

And before Ranma could say or do something to spoil the moment, she was off.

Ukyo mopped the sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve, watching as stray droplets struck the hot surface in front of her to sizzle and pop their way back out of existence.

The restaurant held the quiet murmur of the handful of stragglers still holding barely audible conversations over top of picked over meals. Remnants of the rush. Evidence of the sea of life that washed in and out of the place like the tides.

The steady rhythm of life behind the grill was one the girl had rarely been without. She'd been born into it and shaped by it like a stone buried in the sands of the shore. Her life felt most honest, most rewarding, most clear, moving along with the passage of these steady days.

Soon the last of the lunchtime crowd would move on, perhaps to leave this eddy and rejoin their own current. Here and there she would pick up wayward souls like pieces of driftwood, never but so many and never but so long. A rare few may even fly in like messages in a bottle, lost treasures containing memories that Ukyo could lose herself in briefly while the water lapped gently at her toes.

Always the storm would form on the horizon, it's appearance running hand and hand with the cycles of the sun and the moon. She would be there to face the strong winds and crashing waves as she had the day before, as she would the day after. As she always would. Forever fighting back the sea.

The door clinked, announcing the accumulation of more aimless driftwood. From her peripheral a shaggy mop of black hair alerted the chef that she may have lucked into a lost treasure from some far off land. She felt her stomach light up at the gift received to pass the sleepy lull. She turned her eyes up to face the boy.

Ryoga Hibiki, looking as muddled and disheveled as ever, his eyes currently making the connection between the language of her menu and his own potential position in space. Maybe it wasn't who she'd been hoping for, but the lost boy was still a welcome surprise.

She stole his attention with a playful jab in his side. It was like punching a concrete barrier, but he felt it enough to turn to her with surprise in his eyes.

"Good to see ya sugar! But what are ya doin' in Detroit?"

She suppressed a giggle as doom and confusion spilled down his face.

"Detroit? Ugggh, I've hardly gotten anywhere! Wait." Her shit eating grin was no give away to the dense boy in front of her. "What are YOU doing in Detroit?"

Ukyo doubled over herself laughing as she led her idiot friend over to a seat by the grill.

"Hibiki, really. Let me personally welcome you back to Nerima."

She watched his face light up as she began prepping the grill.

"Nerima!? I can't believe I made it so quickly. Normally it takes way longer to walk here from New York."

Ukyo had often wondered to what degree this boy had actually lost himself. Whether he spent his days merely wandering Tokyo in confused circles assigning domestic locations foreign names from a map. If she hadn't seen some of the souvenirs he'd managed to carry along with him she'd fully doubt he ever made it even as far as Osaka.

There was always room to take him with a grain of salt. Maybe a tablespoon.

"Any preferences?" She motioned down at the grill, already running a mental checklist on his ordering habits. Mushrooms, no pork, heavy on the sauce, burn it a bit. It suddenly occurred to her that his tastes may have developed largely by way of campfire cooking.

"Anything's fine, thanks." Ryoga grunted out the response, his unfocused eyes playing over the wall behind her. Ukyo failed to notice, her hands already quick at work, smiling inwardly to herself.

"So where ya been this time huh? Been a while since we seen you."

"What? Oh, um. All over I guess. Kinda lost track." Almost as an afterthought he added, "What's going on with you?"

Ukyo beamed at him, either oblivious to the other. "Oh I'm glad you asked! Where do I even start? Well first, I've been super into these two new shows. I don't know if you get a chance to watch much TV but this season has had some amazing stuff."

"I can't say I'm aware."

Ukyo launched into an extended dialog at the boy about what he was missing on television, how business at the restaurant had been, a litany of anecdotes and stories she'd collected off of the nameless faceless masses. Ryoga maintained a polite but distant eye contact, nodding or offering short interjections and affirmations as necessary. He moved methodically through his food as the chef gesticulated merrily about her day to day.

Suddenly he cut through her dialog. "What about everyone? How they all been?"

Ukyo was caught off guard. How had everyone been? She'd seen Ranma a few times, Shampoo and Mousse once or twice at the market. It didn't feel like as much time should have passed as it had, as little as she was dredging up.

"Oh, umm. Well. They've all been good. You know, same old same old."

"Akane?"

Now that was one right there. Akane used to be the first and primary thing Ranchan had come to talk with her about. When had that stopped? She honestly couldn't remember the last time the other girl had come up.

At school, she'd certainly seen her. Almost always in passing though, from a safe distance.

"I think she's doing okay." She hoped, at least. Honestly she had no idea.

Ukyo regarded the lost boy, clearly mulling through something in his mind. If she let him get out that door who knew when she'd see him again? And it was so nice to have company. Maybe she could offer him a place to crash for a bit? Get some help around the restaurant from a friend? It'd be like a sleepover every night! She could introduce him to all the wonderful stories she watched after closing and he could regale her with all the wild adventures he'd been on. It would be great.

"Ya know Sugar, you could certainly-"

He cut her off, unaware. "Could you take me over there? To the Tendo's?"

Ukyo felt her heart sink a bit, but she kept a cheery disposition. "Yeah. Absolutely! I can walk you over after close. Stop in and say 'hi' myself for a bit even."

"That'd be great." He turned his head toward an open table out of the way in the corner. "If you don't mind, I can sit over there. Keep out of your hair and all that."

"Long as you want." Anywhere would be fine. Here at the grill even.

She watched him displace himself to the solitary table. Soon he'd removed a worn notebook from his pack and began to start scribbling in it.

Black hair spilled down over the dark mahogany table beneath it. With a swipe of the hand the image of a boy deep in concentration rose up to reflect off of it's surface. The soft scuff of the towel lilted through the space, joining a faint clink of dishware on dishware elsewhere in the distance.

Scanning the horizon of freshly bussed tables, one could hardly ascertain the mad house the place had been less than an hour prior. This lull would never last, not if they were lucky. No, the asylum would once again reach full capacity, and the hours once again race by as the small guard tried to keep a mass of people from shaking the walls apart.

For now though, Mousse was free to move at his leisure, to let his mind wander to other things as his body worked through the established patterns of maintenance this part of the day required.

For once, he wasn't mentally zeroed in on the lavender bombshell that brought him to this strange land. No, since the morning, he'd been thinking more and more about the family he'd left behind to pursue the potential antecedent for his own future family. How he'd thought himself a renegade, a lone wolf setting off after an unattainable prey. How he didn't need the warm shelter of the nest he'd grown up in anymore. That he could stand up to an Elder if he had to.

His family had always nurtured his passions, even when such things brought him at odds with the world around him. Even after leaving them behind, they'd still managed to keep in touch on a fairly regular basis, filling him in on the goings on of village life, devouring the stories of his life away in the big city. Living vicariously through his actions, and pushing him on in support, even if they didn't always truly believe he could achieve his goals. They'd never said so directly, but he knew they didn't think he could win over the Elder's great granddaughter.

But he knew they'd allow him to try. To succeed or fail on his own merits.

He missed that kind of support. When he could declare he was going to the moon, and they'd smile and say that they knew he had it in him to do it.

Their exchanges since he left had always been shaky, byproduct not just of distance, but of the secluded nature of the Amazon village. He'd gotten used to losing letters, of knowing that there were words out there that would never be read. It had been quite some time though, this gap. Almost six months on and not a word back. Four now had left for the village, twice he'd sent repeats, but still no word back from anyone.

The moment the old ghoul bounced out of the kitchen he had decided. They could find some help around for a week or so without him. Maybe Shampoo or Cologne could work the kitchen for once, since they were always so critical of his efforts.

While he was there, maybe he'd have time to think. To take into consideration whether or not he wanted to come back. Not that he wouldn't. No. He was sure he would. Definitely. With time away he'd be able to settle any doubts on the matter. Once he wasn't living within it.

"Hey old ghoul,"

He was rubbing a growing bump on top of his head before another word could leave his mouth. The Matriarch held a cold gaze to him from her position atop the cane.

"Well, on with it then."

"I think I'm going to take a vacation soon. Let you two run this place for once."

He smirked at her. Waiting for her to start negotiating about losing the restaurant's workhorse. Instead she broke out into a beaming smile, catching him off guard.

"Oh yes yes. How wonderful. Get out, see the world."

Truthfully, he'd expected more resistance than this. The work he did here kept the business running. Without him they'd have to waste their own time picking up the slack. To be dismissed so casually though, it almost hurt his pride, as much as he hated the job. Almost.

"Maybe even a couple of weeks." That might just make the old crone sweat. Deep down somewhere he wanted that acknowledgement. To know that he actually meant something of significance to the people that shared his immediate life.

She killed him with kindness.

"Oh heavens yes. In fact, take as long as you'd like."

Rarely had he found the elder so agreeable. He'd begun wanting leverage and respect, but now found himself uncertain how to proceed the exchange. Still, maybe it wouldn't do to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it was better to lean into the unexpected response.

"Well you know, if there's anything back home that Shampoo might need-"

She snapped his words out of the air in a way he was intimately familiar with, her tone proving a bizarre juxtaposition.

"Nothing that you're capable of acquiring boy."

There it was. This was how he'd wanted it in the first place. Truly.

"And just what's that supposed to mean?"

She regarded him like a dog looking at the sounds coming from a TV whose images it couldn't parse.

"Well for one, how is it you plan to return home?"

Did she think he was so ignorant? She knew damn well he'd made the journey home countless times.

"Like I can't find my way back to my own-"

"No no no. How is it that you expect to get back in?"

There was something menacing in that pleasant smile now. He felt his skin go cold, felt it worm through his pores deep into him, sinking hard into his gut. She took him in before elaborating, giving off the feral energy of a cat playing with it's prey.

"Did you really think? My my my. What do you suppose would happen back home to someone who openly spoke down to or undermined an Elder? Let alone as repeatedly and doggedly as you've made habit."

Jail. Servitude. Exile. Death. All the things the other kids always warned about.

"Why, you should count yourself lucky to learn this lesson here instead of back at the village. At least here you have a life to live out."

She began pogoing away, stopping just briefly to have a last few words.

"That is, unless you'd like to chance a visit?"

The boy looked on at himself in a mirror across the room, contemplating the life trapped within its confines.

She slipped quietly through the empty restaurant, slinking around obstacles instead of through them, cautiously maneuvering her way up creaking stairs. Exhaling a heavy breath she hadn't realized she was holding as the door to her room closed behind her.

Quickly and without fanfare, Shampoo slid out of the damaged outfit. Fingers ran over the large tear in the leg of the silk pants as she considered whether it would be possible to save them even with her above average sewing skills.

Shorts. It was hot. They could be shorts. In some way they'd always be the pants she'd bought excitedly at the market before taking off for Japan, but no matter how elegantly she masked the scars of the journey, she would always know that they were there.

The lavender haired girl wondered why that thought should cause such a melancholy feeling to swell from her chest, even as she beat it back down with practiced ease.

For a moment, the girl in the simple floor length mirror regarded her own scars.

Her room was a mystery shop of esoteric looking objects and tools of her trades. Furniture was sparse; a sleeping pad tucked into the corner, a small dresser holding a jade lamp, a desk with an old warhorse of a sewing machine. The dress form next to it was wearing a set of emerald green silks pinned into the rough shape of a romper. On her window sill, a small plush pillow she sometimes splayed on as a cat, letting the sun's warmth carry her off. A set of naginta, her bonbori, and a few swords rounded out another side of her personality in a corner with a Chinese wooden dummy.

The most interesting part of the girls life occupied the walls. Shelves were lined with a bizarre variety of magical objects. Some obvious, covered in ancient symbols and carved into grotesque forms. Some innocuous, designed to spring like traps on hapless victims. Her grandmother's knowledge of the occult had carried over to her, starting as an imprinted interest, evolving into a lifestyle.

Down the stairs she made way toward the small delivery order prepared by Mousse, awaiting her on the counter to the kitchen. Soon she'd be back out the door again, free to take on the streets, rooftops, and anything else she could balance a bike on at a breakneck pace. The destination never her own, but the path and means hers to decide.

A shiver shot through her from the shoulder as she felt the light tap to her person from behind.

Her great grandmother was eyeing her impassively, holding her cane over her lap from atop a freshly polished table.

"You were quite a while on that run granddaughter."

"Aiya."

"Mouse will be leaving tomorrow, and it will be on the two of us to keep things running smoothly. It won't do for you to be so leisurely in your duties."

Shampoo regarded the boy pretending not to be eavesdropping from the kitchen. There was something the elder wasn't saying under the surface of that statement. She knew from a lifetime interacting with the woman, but even still she was rarely able to find the actual meanings on her own.

"Will not happen. Shampoo just have trouble with bike."

"I suppose that explains the clothes you destroyed. And," Cologne pointed up at Shampoo's face. The girl brought her hand up to her cheek, she'd been so sure the foundation had covered.

"How long have I been training you?" A response started to form on her lips when Cologne cut her off with a gesture. "Don't answer. It's more than long enough. For a bike of all things to get the best of you like that."

Shampoo felt herself bristle at the insult to her pride. After all, her focus wouldn't have been off if great grandmother wasn't expecting such unreasonable levels of customer service to Japan's not so secret bigots. And besides, her body had been sacrificed to save the product of the business. As if the restaurant even mattered as anything more than-

"You were chasing that boy again." Shampoo felt her blood run cold as the elder seemed to see right into her.

"No chase boy today." It was a white lie. The girl had come to her.

Cologne's eyes narrowed. "Did you tell him at least?"

The matriarch took the silence that followed as an answer. She sighed heavily.

"This is your duty to fulfill. My days of babying you are past. The longer you allow this to go on," The older woman pinched the bridge of her nose, "It's already shame enough without you continuing to roll around in it."

She was a mix of hurt and anger, not the least so because she knew she would be meeting with 'that boy' tonight.

"Airen-"

"That boy, great granddaughter. He must know."

Shampoo pivote and scooped the awaiting order, barely registering the blind boy's strained face behind the counter while trying to mask her own.

"Bad for business if Shampoo keep talking."

Ukyo had lost track of Ryoga during the dinner rush. The sudden upswell had overtaken him and pulled him out to sea. He could be halfway to Kyoto by now. Or walking circles in her bathroom.

It was unfortunate really, he could make great company sometimes. Today she hadn't been so lucky. She'd tried periodically to pop over to him between orders, but his curt responses and body language eventually made it obvious that he'd rather be alone.

Like spending time with her would've been such a hassle in exchange for a free meal.

Pretty soon her irritation was washed away by the surge overtaking her. She had a love hate with these kinds of nights, counting herself lucky that they happened when bills were due, but struggling for air when in the thick of them.

Tonight was such that even her regulars couldn't hold her attention before she was ripped away, leaving idle stories about family dogs, work woes, and uncertain relationships bobbing along without audience like packages lost at sea.

The chef didn't notice the spark of red hair in the ocean until it was almost upon her.

"Ranma-honey!" Ukyo felt a lighthouse burst to life inside her chest at the sight of the other girl. Her eyes traced a quick arc across the grill seats. All the while her hands flew as she kept an eye on her business in her peripherals.

Ranma gave her a quick look about the room.

"Busy night?"

Ukyo nodded in response as she rang out a pair while simultaneously giving signal to a waiting couple to occupy the vacated table.

"Too busy?"

The brunette's hip cocked, impacting the register drawer closed. At the same time, her foot shot behind her, kicking a spinning plate in a clean arc over her head. She caught it delicately in one hand as her other raced over the grills surface in a smooth motion to deposit the steaming food on the porcelain surface. With a cocky smile and eyes that never wavered from Ranma's, she launched the order across the room, the package defying physics to land delicately and unmolested in front of a customer who casually started digging in without pause.

"I think I can handle it."

Searching out over the din of humanity, she spied the small table Ryoga had vacated. It was close enough. If she couldn't open up a single seat at the bar she wouldn't have to stray far whenever things chanced to slow down.

She nodded over to it. "Take that one, I'll be over in a bit with the usual."

Ranma took in the frothing chaos, appearing almost sheepish. Still, after a moment's pause she made her way over to Ryoga's vacated life raft.

Soon Ukyo lost again in the push and pull, one young woman against the might of the sea.

Her friend and fiance's order fell into the queue. It felt as if she was swimming upstream toward it, some such rocky outcropping in the distance where maybe she could find purchase. Even as the distance narrowed, so too did the queue grow, and she knew that this current would be too strong for her to rest long.

Her mind raced over all the things she wanted to say to Ranma. All the things she wanted to share with her that they never quite found the time for. The thoughts and dreams and experiences that she had to keep to herself because there was never anyone appropriate to voice them to.

Everything under the sun that she said to herself. The running narrative of a lost soul on an island, speaking unheeded truths to the sand and stars.

It hurt, suddenly, to recognize how much she had to say that had only been spoken to herself. To realize she had to organize and prioritize the expression of who she was in lieu of ever finding someone who she could let go and allow the dam to burst over.

Ukyo held Ranma's order in her hands, looking down, knowing how much she could say, feeling the weight of this brief opportunity to say it. Uncertain. Anxious. Scared that she should find herself having to place so much importance on something as simple as a meeting with a friend. Scared of the need she felt, the desperate clawing cry for connection that routine kept at bay.

And yet, when she arrived at the redhead's table, looking down at the girl and the order in her hands, her mind found nothing but a smile. It was met in kind, a slight thing under sad eyes, but such to spark the lighthouse into action once more.

"I was hopin' ta catch ya in school this week."

Ukyo searched her memory, had she been out all week? Well, half a week really, they'd started vacation was it, Wednesday? Thursday? The days had really slid into one another this time. She gestured around the restaurant, suddenly ashamed, willing to lie even to herself.

She laughed. "Been kinda crazy round here sugar. How have you been?"

The redhead's face was a mask of curiosity. She sidestepped the question.

"Everything 'kay with you Ukyo?"

The chef placed the food down in front of her fiance, her senses quickly taking stock of various hourglasses running down throughout the space. She waved one hand dismissively as the other fingered the bow tying back her hair.

"You kidding? If things keep up like this I bet I can retire before we graduate!" The other girl gave a half-hearted smile at the statement. Ukyo pushed forward. "I missed anything monumental? Or just the same old bombs going off?"

It took a moment for her to register the lack of tact in the question, but she could see the immediate reaction on the redhead's face. Inside she sunk. That she could find opportunity so important but use it nonetheless to say the worst possible thing.

Ranma, to her credit, chose not to address the slip.

"Been a weird week Ucchan." Somewhere an alarm began to sound in the back of Ukyo's head. A table of four fiddling with jackets and purses. "Like the world's gettin' turned upside down. Shook out."

Her attention was divided, increasingly, not fully taking in the words but merely throwing them in line for eventual processing.

"Listen, I know this ain't a good time. I just-"

Ukyo's hand came up, halting the other girl.

"No no no, it's fine honey. Just hold that thought till I can get a handle on all this."

With that she was carried away, the group at the register transitioning into a new flood of life from the door, into a series of new orders from the bar. Here a spill, there a table to be cleared, everywhere an order to be filled. In the midst of it all, a small spitfire of a girl hovering patiently over an empty plate, occasionally sending furtive glances between the overstretched chef and a clock on the far wall.

The sea beat down on her and she fought it to a standstill, the lighthouse inside of her forever turning to cast light on the spot of red in the distance.

It was endless.

Relentless.

They were two souls, trapped on adjacent islands separated by shark infested waters, looking out over the horizon for a message in a bottle.

Something in the chef started to break at the injustice. At the simple thing being denied to her. At how much that simple thing should mean and that she should have to be in such a position to give it so much meaning.

Her lighthouse sank into the sea as she watched the girl take one last look at the clock before removing herself from her seat. It was as she drowned in the roar of breaking waves that she heard the redhead speak.

"I'm sorry Ucchan. I can't stay."

Some force from beyond let Ukyo know that those words held so much left unsaid. She removed herself from her work, even still tipping over a collection of mental hourglasses.

"It's no big deal sugar. Another time."

The smaller girl looked down at the floor, bangs masking a concerned expression.

"Yeah. We'll talk another time. Just," Ranma cocked her head at Ukyo, twin blues contemplating. "Take care of yourself alright?"

Ukyo couldn't understand the tone coming from the girl in front of her. Why this moment should feel so important, as if something in the very air around them had changed. As if the lights had turned up.

Ranma paused briefly to smile up at her before turning to go. Even as the hourglasses started to wind down Ukyo found her hand taking hold of the other girls. They regarded one another through spyglasses from opposite shores.

"Ranma. Is something wrong?"

And over the roar, even as alarm bells rang in the space around her, even as it all threatened to swallow her up, she could read a confused torrent of things unsaid in the other girl's eyes.

"S'fine Ucchan. I'll be back."

The chef found them pulling away from one another as either caught separate riptides.

"Just remember that. I promise."

Once again she was adrift at sea.

Lavender and crimson.

Soft lips and milky skin.

A moment she hadn't been meant to bear witness to.

Cobalt tendrils snapping through the air as Akane shook the image from her head once again.

From across the busy subway terminal her two friends stood waving her on, dressed fashionably casual alike for today's outing. Two girls. Akane stuffed down image, anger, and anxieties to return the wave, entering a playful jog toward Yuka and Sayuri.

"Heya! You two look good."

They did. Really.

Sayuri cooed, slipping into a pose as Yuka mirrored it ironically behind her.

"Only the best for girls night!"

"Yeah! Now let's get moving and find something so nice it makes these clothes look like trash."

Akane smiled inside as the lot of them slipped into their usual chatter about school, home, gossip, and hobbies. They were transported into the night ahead of them by an escalator, at the end of whose tunnel shone a cacophony of fluorescent lights.

From each of their arms paper bags draped, ordained in the couture logos and photospreads of the most chic storefronts they dared to enter. The three were all smiles, radiating energy around them in an aura of positive light.

Akane's mind had long let go of the image of her fiance with the amazon from earlier that afternoon, locked it away, taking care to keep an eye on the key regardless.

It was, however, a law of her universe that any good mood she was in, Ranma would find a way to ruin. Yuka was looking on her with a characteristic shit eating grin that forever meant trouble.

"Soo. Seems like your sister and your fiance." She paused, allowing Akane to take the meaning. When the bait was left hanging she continued. "They've been spending a weird amount of time together lately huh?"

Sayuri squealed, knowing that they were about to play one of their favorite games. Just how much could they get Akane to admit to about her fiance?

"Uggh, no. Don't. Those two hate each other and you all know it."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know. They've been talking about Aunty a lot. So it's probably got to do with Ranma asking Nabiki for help with…"

Akane dropped the thought as she started to stray into uncomfortable territory. Even with her best friends, she'd found herself talking around the wedding day, skipping and dodging, but never fully addressing it. Despite their nature as provocateurs, they'd respectfully left it to her to broach.

"Besides, I know my sister. She wouldn't go for. You know, his curse."

Yuka's grin looked like it could split her face in half. "Oh yeah? And I suppose you would?"

Akane flushed. "Well, no! It's just, he's stuck with it."

"And you like him enough to deal with it?"

Akane groaned. "No!"

"Well. I tell you, if that's a stipulation for getting a guy like Ranma I think I'd be okay with it." Sayuri piped up.

She regarded her friend like she'd just grown a second head. Sayuri was? Like that? Was she just fooling around again?

Yuka cocked her head up at the billboards overhead, her hands behind her head.

"You know, I guess I would too."

A sense of unique uncomfortableness flowed through the blue haired girl's body. Her world suddenly didn't seem to make rational sense anymore. What if they were all like that? Every last one. A animalistic tug of irrational anger tore through her body as she considered the pervert pied piper at the center of it all.

From deep inside of herself she listened to the two of her friends push the envelope of the conversation, trying in vain to elicit a reaction from her. So preoccupied was she with the rush of thoughts in her head she failed to allow their teasing to affect her.

With a concerned look in Akane's direction, Yuka switched gears to take the heat off of her.

"How are you gonna bag Ranma-kun when you're hanging all over Yoshi like a hungry dog?"

"Oh shut the hell up!"

And so the conversation shifted, and Akane came back to being. Three friends laughing together on a warm summer night.

Subway doors opened on three weary but cheerful girls. Soft amber spheres of light guided them from the terminal, mingling with pale blue moonlight and the rainbow of electricity still scattered sporadically around the back streets of their daily lives.

Akane spun under a street lamp to face her friends. Something in her didn't want to go home yet.

"Anyone else hungry?"

Sayuri began to speak up before being cut off by a rolling growl pulsing out from Yuka's stomach. "Well! Where to then?"

"I don't know about you guys, but I could EAT."

"Clearly Yuka."

"What about Ucchans? It's close."

Akane glared at Sayuri. "Really?"

Sayuri looked incredulously at the blue haired girl. "Yeah really. Why not?"

"Yeah, why not?" Yuka dropped in.

"I don't see why you two have to keep picking on me."

"Ugggh. Look girl, Ukyo is good people. Sorry."

"And her food is tops!"

"But her and Ranma are always! You two are the ones that let me know all the time."

Unconsciously their bodies had already started moving on the path to the young chef's restaurant. Akane had been here before with the other two. They did genuinely like the other girl, and Akane guessed she didn't quite hate her either.

"Besides, she's been way absent lately."

"Habitually. Like even when she's there she's kinda...not there."

Akane thought about that. Truthfully, at first it had been a bit of a relief to have her rival taking so much time away. But they were right, something seemed to have changed. Like she'd stopped putting up a fight anymore.

"No guys, it's fine. It'd be nice to know she's doing okay."

Yuka and Sayuri exchanged a smile, both aware that they'd won this particular battle almost from the start. Appealing to Akane's compassion was a magic bullet to move the other girl.

"Good! I'm gonna get the shrimp, or- No! The bacon. Wait. The bacon, AND the shrimp!"

Akane smirked as she watched Yuka's stomach take off with her mouth. It might do well to find some sort of allegiance in this weird game they were stuck in. Besides, even if Ukyo couldn't exactly be a friend, she was still a human being. Maybe her absence was by way of entrepreneurial success, or maybe they signaled something the girl wasn't asking for help with. It didn't hurt to be sure. It didn't hurt to check.

"...and if I get three, I can divide everything up into pairs with the bacon to see what the best one is."

They turned the corner, finding the warm glow of Ucchans spilling down the street. From the large front windows they could make out the bustle of life inside the building. Signs of success in population density.

As they closed in, Akane could even make out the chef herself. Her small hands held the smaller hands of a girl in front of her. Their eyes mimicking the gesture.

It hurt to check.

Akane pivoted on her two friends.

"You know what? FUCK Ukyo."

Amsterdam. No, Cairo. He definitely knew it wasn't space. Again.

"Urgh, I knew I should have just waited." Ryoga tapped the bottom of his fist lightly against a passing lamp post. As he continued walking, from behind him the pole cracked across and doubled over itself, crashing without ceremony through a wall across the street.

The lost boy noticed none of this, ripped only from his inner monologue by an irritated voice behind him.

"Ryoga you jackass! Why you gotta be like a damn boar in a china shop?!"

There, standing atop rubble amidst the hole he'd inadvertently created, Ranma Saotome stared sharply up the block at him.

"Ranma!? How did you find me in Amsterdam?"

He watched the other boy pinch his nose, looking down. "You really believe that crap coming out of you mouth or is it just some sort of catchphrase now?"

A growl ripped through him. "What crawled up your ass today!?"

The pigtailed boy gestured wide armed at the destruction under his feet, an exaggerated look of mock incredulity parading over his face.

"What do ya think, you hardhead? Now what's bothering you this time ya gotta crash in on me like this?"

Ryoga closed the distance between the two, embedding the tip of his umbrella in the ground and leveling a finger at Ranma.

"Nothin's bothing me!"

The two stood tensed and glaring at one another. Statues of great warriors carved in stone standing atop the remains of a long malfunctioning street lamp.

"You wanna fight about it?"

He felt the anger fall out of him at the earnesty in his rivals question. His perennial solution to life's problems. For once though.

"Not tonight."

Ranma's curiosity piqued, but it didn't appear in him to try to goad a conflict onward.

"Then what're you here for? Or you just feel like doing your version of ding dong ditch tonight?"

"I didn't come here for you Saotome." Ryoga spat, following Ranma into the compound and the dojo beyond. "I came to see Akane."

He watched the other boy's shoulders tense upward.

"Come on Ryoga. When you gonna drop it man?"

"She's my friend too!"

"Oh yeah, s'that why you're always sleeping in the same dang bed as her?

"She's one of the few people I know that actually listens to me."

Ranma sighed at him. Their argument was circular and played out.

"You got someone like that already. Can't you just count yourself lucky someone as lost as you actually managed to find someone?"

Ryoga bristled at the mention of Akari. He hadn't come here to talk with Ranma about her.

He'd come here to talk with Akane about her.

"She's. It's not."

He hated the look of compassion the pigtailed boy slid into. This wasn't the person he wanted condolences from. This was his rival, and anything he volunteered to him was just a potential weapon to use against him in the future.

"Look dude. I'm sorry, if-"

Rage shot through him like a volcanic uprising. This asshole owed him everything but pity.

"No one asked you! Don't you dare think I want pity from a scumbag like you!"

He could see the same rage he felt carry over on psychic currents into the Saotome heir. As it did, and as they returned to form with one another, he suddenly felt much more comfortable. At ease in the fury.

"Oh yeah! Well ya think maybe she dumped ya cause you couldn't stop obsessing over MY fiance P-Chan!?"

A wave of shame swept through him, acting as nothing more than tinder to fuel the inferno inside. Deep down he knew. She had said. It was no one's fault he could pin blame on but his own, so he did the only thing that made sense.

He blamed Ranma.

"If you'd just make a damn decision already everyone could move on. Do you want her or not?"

"It's complicated and you know it!"

"Oh sure, like you don't just enjoy stringing all of them along. Reaping the benefits while everyone else has to deal with the fallout."

"Is your head on straight? Like I know you ain't here cept to ogle chicks like a damn pig, but it ain't my fault all this is so…" Ranma paused to find his words as Ryoga clenched his fingernails into the surface of his palms. "Sides, I'm working on somethin'."

"Ah ha! I knew it! You can end all of this whenever you want, but you just love the attention."

"That's not it! It's just if I know how to end it. Like should I? What if she wants?"

Ranma's dilemma suddenly made perfect sense to Ryoga.

"So you're holding her hostage."

"No! You jackass, do the words get lost in there too? Maybe you finally get your stupid chance tonight. Maybe not ever."

He thought back to all those nights he'd laid there, drifting off to sleep as Akane talked out her fears and desires. How often Ranma came up. How she really felt about the Saotome heir.

"How could you dare hurt Akane like that!?"

Ranma looked like he might scream himself hoarse.

"Kami please! Do you want me to marry her or dump her? What the hell is it!?"

"I want her to be happy you bastard!"

Ryoga was fed up with the circling and verbal sparring they'd been up to. He lunged toward the pigtailed boy in a flying haymaker.

Faster than he could process, Ranma flipped backward and away from him, impacting and rebounding off the wall and over his head. By the time Ryoga swung around, a bucket of cold soapy water was already impacting him square in the chest.

He looked up as his rival bent down to pick him and and set them eye to eye. His tiny legs jerked in a furious display. Ranma's stare was half lidded, checked out.

"Nope. Not tonight P-Chan."

With that, Ryoga found himself soaring over the wall of the Tendo compound.

The front door to the Tendo home shook from the force of it's closing, signaling the return of the household's youngest charge.

Akane balanced a collection of bags from her arms as she removed her shoes, careful not to tip a take-away box as she did so. Most of her meal was inside.

Her friends had quickly settled on other accommodations once Ucchan's was off the table, but Akane had been mentally elsewhere. By the time the check had come, her food was barely picked over, and for the life of her she couldn't recall the conversation her friends had been forced to have with one another in her absence.

She wanted to let it go. She wanted his actions to stop hurting her. To stop having to feel so hard in lieu of ever expecting his behavior to change. It hurt so much to be given reason to feel so angry all the time. To look back at herself, enraged and out of control once again.

All she wanted right then was to disappear up to her room. To avoid seeing the boy that was destroying her so that she didn't embarrass herself again.

Walking past the kitchen, she spotted said boy's mother, deep in conversation with his father and her own. The table was decorated with a smattering of official looking documents, their faces with somber expressions. Kasumi caught her eye on route to deliver a tray of tea and small snack foods.

"Oh good Akane, welcome home! Would you mind fetching Ranma for me?"

Inside her gut twisted into a knot. Tonight. He'd mentioned his mother visiting tonight. Her teeth grinded into one another, knowing she was stuck on rails, that she'd have to try and hold herself together and maintain some sense of formality with their guest. At least for a few hours.

She could handle it. Keep it all in check. It was nothing she hadn't had to process before, she should be used to these mundane indignities by now. Besides, saying no to Kasumi wasn't something she could bring herself to do.

"No problem sis. He's?"

"Out back. I think his friend Ryoga is with him."

She smiled at that a bit. Ryoga wasn't around often. He was one of the few men she knew that she felt comfortable talking with. When he wasn't being goaded into fighting with Ranma, he was usually full of interesting stories about the places he'd been and the people he'd met.

Unfortunately, from the sounds of it as she zeroed in on the two, they were playing out things with one another as they typically did. She could feel the vein on her forehead begin to throb, knowing she was about to have to break up a fight between the two for the nth time.

"-you want me to marry her or dump her? What the hell is it!?"

"I want her to be happy you bastard!"

Akane rounded the corner to the sight of Ryoga launching himself in a screaming bullrush at Ranma. Both boys attention was so fixed on one another they neither registered her approach.

Ranma flowed effortlessly away from the lost boy, looking so very detached as he did so. In an instant he'd rebounded off the wall and taken an arc over the overextended opponent. She watched him land by a bucket of soapy water and brush. For a moment she wondered if Ranma was planning to activate his curse as she watched him bend to pick it up. What kind of game was he playing at this time?

Ryoga spun to face Ranma as the water soared from the bucket to strike him. Akane's temporary confusion gave way to a feeling of total numbness as a high pitched ringing filled her head. Ranma picked up the piglet and said something she couldn't hear to it before tossing the animal - the boy, Ryoga, P-Chan - high and hard over the walls of the Tendo compound.

She watched as Ranma sat, his back facing away from her, still unaware of his fiance's presence. The ringing in her ears got louder and louder as she mapped the contours of his back like a silent cartographer.

Ryoga.

Ryoga was P-Chan.

Ranma knew Ryoga was P-Chan.

Her eyes scrunched in effort to hold back the tidal wave of feelings flowing back into her.

This boy. She'd almost married him. He knew. She had been in the dark and he'd allowed for it. And the other boy. She thought she could at least trust.

Suddenly her mind was flooded with a history of thinly veiled remarks and bizarre behaviors centering around the boy she'd almost married and the lost boy she thought she could trust.

All those stupid comments Ranma had made about the pig, seemingly designed to incense her. Taunting her. Taunting Ryoga. He'd been content to let her play the hapless fool for so long. Let his biggest rival invade her privacy for the sake of, what? His own amusement at her continued humiliation? Just another humiliation, drawn out and stacked on so many countless others. And the pig.

It was almost too much to bear trying to remember all the pig had been there for. Her brain searched furtively over years of memories. All those things she'd said. All the things she'd done in front of this traitor in her midst. He'd seen so much. He knew too much. She suppressed a shudder.

Her throat constricted. She didn't know if she wanted to cry or scream. The betrayal. It was all he ever did to her. All anyone ever seemed to do to her. She wanted to curl up into a ball and die. She wanted to thrash and scream and compound her humiliation. Dig dig dig, lose herself in the hole she was falling into. A hole in her heart that was opening wider and wider by the passing moments, swallowing her up.

The boy no one had ever really asked her if she wanted to be engaged to turned around. A small smile lit on his face as he recognized her. She watched him mouth 'hey Akane' and something inside her broke.

She had been hiding inside the eye of the storm, sheltered from the fury of the hurricane force winds all around her. She allowed herself to fall into them.

One of the dojos thick support beams imploded into itself as Akane's fist shot outward. A roar like a tortured animal resonated guttural up from within her with an involuntary force like she was going to vomit up bile. Ranma's eyes went wide as dinner plates as he reflexively rose to his feet, hands out in front of him as if facing down the terror of a hungry jungle cat. She could see his lips moving in the red haze, but the ringing was now a physical thing drowning out all other sensations. Dimly she was aware that her hand may have broken from the impact. Whatever he was saying, she spoke over him.

"YOU KNEW. THIS WHOLE TIME."

Her body cleared the space between them in three steps that impacted like falling stars. His collar was in her hands as his defenses fell away. A second support beam was stamped with a Ranma shaped hole as she slammed him mightily into it.

"The pig. The fucking pig." She spat the words as if she was spitting blood. "He slept in my fucking room! HE SAW ME. HE SAW ALL OF ME YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH AND YOU KNEW!" With every word she felt like she was going to be sick.

Ranma started stammering something and she cut him off by flinging him into the opposite wall. She was back on him before he had any chance to recover.

"The girls weren't enough!? All the shit you throw at me that I have to figure out how to choke down?!" She could feel the hot tears running down her face now, the blood running from her broken hand to her forearm.

Her fists found openings all over his body. Somewhere it occurred to her, that even now, as she made her best effort to break his body like he had broken her spirit, that he still wasn't going to fight back.

"Why can't you just respect me?! Why?! WHY?! Am I just some fucking toy for you to play with?!" She was over top of him, raining blood and spit and blows down on him. She grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking him into the floor, his head cracking back into the boards with emphasis to her words.

"WHY DO YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE THIS? WHY DO I EVEN CARE ANYMORE?! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST STOP?!" She hiccuped. "Why can't everyone just stop already?"

Her chin was drawn to her chest, eyes no longer able to meet his.

"I don't wanna be like this anymore…"

Blood, sweat, and tears rained down in slow motion onto the face of the boy she had almost married. She was still fighting inside for control, despite outward appearances. Her heart thudded in a bass rhythm driving the piercing ring in the back of her head. Her breathing was the ragged sobs of a bad night out on the town, facing down some unfamiliar commode, praying for a release from the filth.

When the small hand touched her shoulder, it took all the control she had not to let her reflexes take over. Not to let the tortured animal lash out and maul whatever the next stupid evil thing was that sought to drag her screaming into a corner.

Her vision shifted from a deep red to the coldest blue when she met the concerned eyes of Nodoka Saotome. They moved from hers to her son's in a cautious rhythm. Standing behind her, agape in the collapsing doorway, her father and his. The surrogate mother that was once her sister.

"Ranma," she began, "Akane. I'd hoped that tonight we could have the chance to sit together. I see now that the situation is worse than I'd suspected."

Despite the mess of his face, Akane could see his expression drop. Despair. Pleading. Fear. A mix of strangled emotion hidden behind a tableau of bruises and blood.

She felt herself lifted up and away from her fiance by the strong assertive arms of her father.

"It has recently been brought to my attention, the powers I possess in these matters. Legal powers." Her soft concerned gaze hardened like hot steel meeting water, piercing through her husband. "I loved your mother Akane. God, we all did. In many ways maybe it was that love that clouded us all."

The iron willed matriarch of the Saotome clan bent down to her son.

"Our love has blinded us. The Saotome and Tendo names have been joined in all but law since long before her passing."

There it was, that cold hollow feeling. Dread. A building tension, a flashing of memories all suddenly tying together in an instant. Suddenly Akane knew what the boy had wanted her for tonight.

And like that, shame and humiliation threatened to overtake her once more, to drag her down from a pit inside of her own heart. She was blindfolded, swinging, surrounded by those she thought she could trust. Paraded around like a clown. Doomed to keep failing tests she had no awareness she was even part of. Again and again.

Nodoka produced a neat packet of documents from within her antiquated robe. In another world Akane may have been amused by the juxtaposition.

"And our two families will forever be joined. But not like this. Not at the expense of our children. I will not stand by and watch her memory be tainted like that." A dainty hand held out a robust lighter. "I'm sorry Ranma. I'm sorry Akane."

The flame burned symbolic, washing over the paradigm that was their days. And maybe that was all it was, a symbol. Some unnecessary pageantry. But to each life in the space, eyes drawn like a wayward soul through twilight fog, flames roared and seared the eyes, threatened to overtake the senses.

Akane felt like she may have snapped her father in the jaw in an effort to escape his grasp. His embrace. The embrace of a man clinging to a life raft like a last memory, dying and adrift at sea. All she knew was that she needed to get away. To run. It was too much to be there in front of all of them. In front of herself.

She barreled recklessly through the house on her way up to her room. The only place she'd wanted to be tonight in the first place. She needed to scream, to cry, to thrash and tear and curl into herself so hard she disappeared.

Down the hall she spotted her sister's light.

She needed to talk with someone.

Someone who hadn't been there. Hadn't seen her.

The door slid open silently. She didn't knock.

And there, the curious sight of her middle sister lost in thought, a large pair of headphones blocking out the chaos of the world. Under her contemplative expression, a copy of the documents she'd just watched set ablaze, two pictures of the boy she had almost married. The girl she had almost married.

Before Nabiki could even register her presence, Akane knew she couldn't be here. Felt the crash of memory hit her again like a fist to the gut. Over and over and over again, even as she lay downed and crying out. Another secret slight against the girl too naive to know any better.

There was no safe haven here.

Akane ran into the night.

From the small musty room everyone knew was a closet, black hair rained down over the possessions destined for a pack on the floor.

In the din of sepia into black his eyes moved over the contents of a handwritten letter. Chinese lettering. Neat script. An echo from the past saying he could go the moon if he wanted. They'd always be there to watch him.

To cheer him on from afar. No matter how far.

A heart burst in the solitude of the night.

The too too big turtle glowed a subdued gold against the sea green expanse of a park no longer filled with waking life. From atop its shell purple locks lapped at the night air.

Anyone could see she was done up in her best.

But no one would.

Three figures stared out at a collapsing past, beyond toward a shaky future. Two desperately holding together hearts, one holding the cold wetness of an ice pack to his jaw.

From behind, the echo of a mother holding the six ringed release of an amber liquid.

And as they three sipped, so too did she.

The fairy queen regarding the boy she'd ordained to save. Lit offhand by the harsh white light of a desk lamp projecting down on uncertain goals.

Two hands met as each moved to squirrel away his meager possessions. Their eyes locked over top the pack he'd have to carry forward.

Neither moved and neither would.

The room was covered in the carefully curated life the one who occupied it never seemed to have the chance to live.

An empty bottle and a cord lead away to a handset at her ear.

"Dad? It's Ukyo. Again. I don't know if you're not getting these. I'm-i'm doing well though. I'm doing really well. Business is great and I just. I know so many people. I wish I could tell you about all of them. I wish-I wish you- I miss you daddy."

The girl in the sinking bow pulled hard at a drink gripped hard as if a life preserver in uncertain seas.

Out in the moonlit expanse they found one another. One lost boy and one lost girl.

He was confused, but elated.

She was fury.

"Akane?"

Her eyes were hard, piercing the soft tissue of his heart.

"Do you really want me to be happy?"

And even as he made the connection, as he put together the implications behind that statement, he knew his answer.

He held her crying in his arms as she unwittingly had for him. So many times over.

From the author:

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! To date, this work and especially this chapter are probably the most ambitious things I've ever written. When it dawned on me how long this might get after outlining it, I never thought I would finish. Even after the first draft was down it still felt like a mountain. I hope no one minds. After focusing so much on Nabiki and Ranma in the first two chapters, I felt like I really needed to do the rest of the cast some justice and raise them out of one dimensional status. At the moment I'm prepping my first big art show, so this may be dormant for a bit while I'm slinging paint, but I'm having a lot of fun writing it so I'll try and be back ASAP. Hopefully you're having as much fun reading as I am writing, thanks again for all the nice feedback, it's forever appreciated!

Also I just wanted to note that I've been writing Ranma's speech patterns in a pretty typical way for someone coming from Pittsburgh. Just think it's funny how much those two things seem to align.