Well… Who expected more of this? Because you're getting it… Took me long enough. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4: Girl Trouble.

"So, what are we doing, exactly?" Akane asked, as she and Ranma walked down the darkening street, she wearing one of her favorite yellow sundresses, holding a purse stuffed with towels in front of herself.

"Tryin' to look muggable," he retorted simply, surveying the street for a moment before briefly glancing at her. Something about him had been confusing her ever since they'd gotten off the train, but she wasn't sure what it was. Sure, he didn't usually wear the male Furinkan uniform he currently had on, and his pigtail was tucked inside of an oddly angled baseball cap, but there was something else that just nagged at her.

"I don't think that's going to work," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Probably not," he nodded, "but it'd make our job easier." He just shrugged this off, casually wandering down the street.

She followed his lead, and had to grimace slightly. She was kind of mystified as to why Nabiki had thought coming here for a new computer was a good idea. Several of the storefronts were obviously damaged, and not from Nerima's usual running battles. Cheap electronics stores seemed to share real-estate with run down hawk shops and seedy bars. It was one of those parts of the city that a lot of people pretended didn't exist, and Kasumi had always told her never to enter.

This didn't seem to be on Ranma's mind, though, as he walked over to a side alley and glanced briefly in. The next hour went on like this, Akane simply following him around as he slowly wandered through the small out of the way shopping area, and she couldn't help glancing at him a few times when he was facing away from her.

'...with the curse, I don't know if he's bisexual, or if the preference changes with form…' She remembered what Kasumi had said. To tell the truth, the thought wouldn't leave her alone all night. Ranma was attracted to her, but also to Ryoga. Deep down, at least, he wanted to be with both a girl and a boy. For a moment, her mind wandered, she imagined snuggling into bed, wrapped in Ranma's arms, gazing up at him while she could feel Ryoga's strong, muscular chest against her back, his hot breath against her neck, and….

"...Yo, Akane! You still with me?" Ranma asked, snapping his fingers in front of her face.

She shook her head. "Y-yeah, I'm fine!" she yelled, stepping back from where he was looking curiously into her eyes.

"You sure?" He tilted his head. "Your face is all red."

"I'm fine, you…" She bit back the exclamation she wanted to make, taking a deep, shaking breath. "What is it?"

"I asked if this was Nabiki's?" Ranma said, shrugging and stepping back a bit further, holding up a small black bag with one strap dangling where it had been torn.

"Yeah, that looks like it." Akane tried to pull her thoughts back to the situation at hand, looking quickly around. The two were standing at the end of a dingy alley, nothing really of note nearby save a couple of trash bins and the exhaust for what smelled like a laundry.

"Was kinda afraid of that," Ranma muttered, looking down at the purse. "All her stuff's missing. Guy who took this emptied all of it then dumped it."

"Well, at least we got it back, I'm sure it's designer or something," Akane offered.

"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure she had a discman and some other stuff in here," Ranma muttered. "It's gettin' late, but if you're up for it I wanna keep lookin' for a while."

Akane looked up, noting that the sky had darkened considerably, but shrugged. "If you think we can find it, sure."

Ranma nodded, continuing down the alley, and, in a moment, exiting to the street on the other side. With the sun going down, half of the stores along it had lit neon signs. Akane looked along them once more, having never really visited a place like this and a bit curious in spite of herself. "Oh hey," Ranma said, interrupting her train of thought, "I thought this place looked familiar."

"Huh?".

"Hey, Aunt Kirika!"

"Aunt?" the youngest Tendo daughter asked, following Ranma as he jogged towards a dimly lit storefront, a couple of subdued red neon signs shining through small, heavily frosted glass windows, a woman with long, dark hair leaning casually against a wall next to the door, looking at them in confusion. Straightening, she adjusted the shawl over the shoulders of her tight black dress and glared at Ranma irritably.

"Hey kid," she said as the two approached, Akane trying to grab Ranma to stop him but missing. "I don't need some high schooler calling me aunt, okay? Sends the wrong message."

Ranma blinked, confused. "But… you didn't have a problem with it before."

"Before?" The woman blinked back, then grabbed the hat off of the pigtailed martial artist's head. "Wait a minute. Ranma-chan, is that you?" she asked, her annoyance fading to be replaced with a broad smile. "Where the hell have you been?"

The boy scratched the back of his neck. "The ol' man didn't really stop by here after he came back from China," he shrugged.

"Of course he didn't," she snorted. "Genma was never all that considerate."

"Who is this, Ranma?" Akane asked, her curiosity finally getting the better of her.

"Oh right," Ranma winced. "This is Aunt Kirika. Pop always used to come here whenever we passed through Tokyo, and we'd stay with Auntie and her friends for a few days. Aunt Kirika, this is Akane Tendo. She's… um, my fiancee, sorta."

"Sorta?" Akane said, flatly, arms crossed.

"And you brought her here?" Kirika's tone was equally flat, and she swatted him on the back of the head with the hat she was still holding. "Ranma-chan, you really don't get women, do you?"

He looked between the two, confused. "What'd I do?"

Kirika sighed, throwing a look to Akane that almost seemed like reassurance before she grabbed Ranma's shoulder. "Never mind, but I'm sure everyone would love to see you now that you're back in Japan. You've got the time, right?" Not giving him the chance to answer, she pulled him through the open front door into the bar, Akane following in bemused silence.

Inside, the place was fairly small and quiet, plush booths and scattered tables, perhaps fifteen women leaning casually against bars or in booths, about half of them sitting and chatting with men.

"Hey girls, Ranma-chan's back!" Kirika called, and a few of the older women looked over, a couple who weren't preoccupied with dates walking over.

"Ranma-chan, that's really you?" one, a woman with an obvious blonde dye job and a tight halter top, asked, looking him over and clucking her tongue. "You're still so thin, that father of yours hasn't been feeding you right, has he?"

"Hey, I've been livin' with the Tendos for the past year or so, Kasumi's food is really good!" Ranma defended.

"He's just wirey, Sachiko," another woman snorted. "He doesn't need fattening up."

"Hey, just because you're into skeletons," the first shot back.

"...What's going on here?" Akane wanted to be angry, she really did.

There was a room full of women in provocative outfits, and as she watched, a third one walked up and started tugging at Ranma's uniform jacket. "Finally going to school regularly, I hope?" she demanded, in such a ...motherly tone that she found it hard to get mad.

Kirika took pity on her. "Don't worry, Akane," she said. "I'm pretty sure you've picked up what this place is, but Ranma-chan's never going to be a client here. Most of us have known him since he was seven."

"S-seven?" Akane squeaked.

Kirika nodded. "His father used to set up shop around Tokyo every year or so, and we'd get Ranma to fuss over for a while. He was such a cute little boy when he first showed up, now look at him. Dragging his fiancee to a hostess bar."

"We're not… um, I mean, it was our fathers' idea," Akane stammered, almost on autopilot, her brain still sort of shorting out.

"Sounds like Genma," Kirika nodded. "The man had stamina, but not a brain cell in his head, I don't think."

"St-stamina," Akane's face went white, then green. "I… didn't need to hear that." Why was it that, every time she tried to get up a good head of steam lately, something confusing or horrifying would show up to kick her feet from under her. Gripping onto the thing that had disturbed her most, she asked, "Genma visited here? For… what this place is for?"

"To pick up a woman," Kirika said, bluntly. "Yeah."

"But… but… Mr. Saotome's married!" AKane exclaimed in a scandalized tone.

Kirika shrugged. "So are a lot of people. Maybe he's got an understanding, maybe he's headed for a messy divorce, maybe he's got a terminally unhappy wife at home and deserves a severe beating, we don't ask unless he tries to get serious with someone."

"...Aunt Nodoka's going to cut his head off," Akane muttered, her fist clenching. There was the anger, and it wasn't being derailed. How could he do something like this when his wife had been faithfully waiting for a decade.

"Um… Akane, you're glowing," Kirika said, nervously.

"...right," the youngest Tendo growled, trying to force down her battle aura, as Ranma managed to pull away from the horde of women who had been fussing over him, straightening out his collar and making his way back to the two of them.

"So, you survived the mommy mob," Kirika grinned, handing him the hat she'd stolen at the start of their encounter.

"They gotten more excitable since last time?" Ranma asked, smoothing down some hair that had ended up out of place.

"Hey, it's been more than four years," She shrugged. "Besides, they didn't dress you up like a babydoll this time."

Ranma glared. "We ain't talkin' about that again."

Kirika giggled. "But you looked so cute, though."

"Uh, look," Ranma said,, trying to bury his embarrassment. "I don't suppose you know about a group of guys grabbin' purses around here lately? One's really tall, tends to wear black?"

"Great way to change the subject," Kirika rolled her eyes, but then nodded. "I might, what's up?"

"They ripped Akane's sister off earlier today. tryin' to get her stuff back." Ranma explained.

Kirika considered for a moment. "Handle this without getting the cops involved, and I can tell you where they are."

"Just like that?" Akane asked, surprised.

The older woman shrugged. "Been getting reckless and full of themselves lately. Ripping off stupid tourists, taking even dumber risks. A good scare might straighten them out a bit, maybe even get 'em to drop this, and I know Ranma-chan won't do any more than rough them up."

"Guess that works," Ranma agreed. "So where are they?"

"They like getting stoned and pretending they're badasses in a lot a few blocks away," Kirika explained, rattling off a set of directions. As Ranma nodded and turned to go, she raised a hand. "Hey kid, come by and say hi every once in a while, okay?"

"Are you-" Akane started, before being interrupted.

"You can come too. Any friend of Ranma-chan's is a friend of ours." She looked at the older woman incredulously, but just got a teasing smirk in return.

As the two exited the bar, the youngest Tendo daughter looked over at her fiance. "I can't believe you came to a place like this so often."

Ranma shrugged. "What's wrong with this place?"

For a moment, Akane remembered being tied up, naked, in a bed with Ranma's girl side and Ryoga, and being asked about martial arts techniques. Sighing, she just shook her head. "You know what? Nothing. Don't worry about it."

"...sure…" Ranma said, looking at her oddly before starting down the street. She continued to glance at him, trying to figure out if he were really as oblivious as he seemed, so after a while she finally began to realize why he'd come off so strangely since he'd walked off of the train.

It'd all been in the way he'd been walking. Normally, Ranma had a walk that was almost a glide, an unconscious demonstration of his martial skill that screamed 'look at me!' and sort of put her teeth on edge. Since they'd started walking around tonight, that had been gone. He'd walked and carried himself almost exactly like any other boy at Furinkan. Now, though, that was changing, though not back to his usual casual glide. Now it was more purposeful, a more active demonstration of strength and ability that would probably scream it even to someone who wasn't trained.

It was fairly obvious why he was doing it, especially as the two got a few blocks down. Without hesitation, Ranma turned and walked into an alley, heading for a large group of chatting, laughing teenagers and young adults, all clustered around a blaring boombox.

"Hey!" Ranma barked, as the two of them approached. One guy, definitely an adult but not by much, who was leaning against a wall and casually smoking something that didn't look like a cigarette, straightened up and looked at Ranma dubiously.

"Whadda you want?" the guy asked, crossing his arms over his chest, several of his friends turning to face them.

"Heard one of you guys grabbed a purse from a friend of mine," Ranma returned easily. "I want what was in it back."

"Hear that, boys?" The clear leader of the group asked, chuckling and running a hand through his hair, drawing attention to the fairly bad dye job that drew a streak of white through it. "Tough guy here's tryin' to get his friend's stuff back. Well, do we know any friend of his?"

Before the others could respond, Ranma cut in. "Brown hair, sorta bowl cut thing, looks a bit like her," he gestured at Akane.

The guy chuckled. "Yeah, real brain trust, that one. Kept checking her purse constantly. Drew a lot of attention to herself."

"So you've got her stuff," Ranma said, flatly.

The guy shrugged. "Maybe I do, what're you gunna do about it?"

"Get it back," Ranma said, stepping forward. The guy just laughed, gesturing one of his friends forward. The thug in question was a bit younger, and fairly obviously had some non-japanese heritage, fully a head taller than everyone else there, with massively broad shoulders. He reached out to grab Ranma, but the pigtailed martial artist intercepted the meaty hand with his own. The two clenched around each other for a moment, before the big guy yelped in pain, Ranma lashing out with one foot, hitting a spot just below the knee on each of the other's legs.

When the hulking boy dropped to his knees, Ranma stepped back, letting go of his hand. "Now, what were you saying?" he asked, smirking.

"H-hey, what the hell?" the leader of the group stammered, the others looking between each other nervously. "You're gunna pay for that!" He dropped his 'cigarette,' putting it out with his shoe.

Ranma just backed up next to Akane, looking over at her. "You want the rest of 'em?"

"Wha…?" she asked, surprised.

"Well, group fighting's your thing, right?" Ranma shrugged. "You want 'em, or not?"

"You're not going to ask me to stay out of it?" the blue-black haired girl asked, suspiciously.

Ranma snorted. "Like I said, if you couldn't take on a couple street thugs…"

"Yeah, I get it," Akane nodded. She'd been following him around, confused or baffled all night, but this, she knew. Looking over the nine boys arrayed before her, one of whom was pulling out a heavy chain and another flicking a butterfly knife, she grinned.

"Wh… what, you talk big and now you hide behind your girlfriend?" the leader demanded.

"I'm not hiding behind anyone," Ranma replied. "She just enjoys these kinds of fights more than I do."

An almost feral smile crossed Akane's face as she fell into a low, forward leaning stance. She definitely wanted to hit something right now, for a whole bunch of reasons, and even if she had to hold back, this was going to be satisfying. Shoving forward on one foot, she bowled into the middle of the group, two of its members lunging forward to stop her as she dodged past the incapacitated big guy. Ducking under a clumsy punch from one, she responded with a sharp strike to the guy's stomach that sent him staggering to the side, coughing. She grabbed one arm of the other attacker as she passed, rolling him over her back and into his friend.

Continuing on, she lashed out with a mule-kick that connected with a third boy's thigh, sending him staggering off balance into a wall, and met the first weapon wielder, the guy with the chain, who was now spinning it around his hand. Lashing out quickly, the links smacked into her open palm. It stung slightly, but she ignored this, clenched her fist around them and yanked. Pulling the boy off balance, she easily connected with a punch to the face that forced him to stagger back, clutching at his nose with one hand.

She was turning to the knife wielder when he abruptly dropped his weapon, backing up with his hands raised, along with the rest of the standing boys. "Okay, okay, you've made your point!" The group's leader yelled.

The youngest Tendo stopped herself before she could lunge for the next target, letting out a short, sharp breath and straightening. "Nice timing with the chain," Ranma complimented.

Akane nodded, stepping back to stand next to him. "So," she said, fairly sure of how this worked now. "About my sister's stuff?"

"Y-yeah, yeah," the gang leader stammered. "Just take it, take whatever." He dropped a bag on the ground, one side of a set of headphones sliding out of it. Akane knelt down, quickly going through the bag and locating Nabiki's wallet, discman, a camera, and a few other things she was fairly sure were hers.

"Should be about a hundred thousand yen in there, too," Ranma offered.

"...There's only about twenty," Akane shook her head.

"Yeah, look, the rest of it's gone," the gang leader started. "We don't got it, and beatin' us up more's not going to get us to give it to ya, okay? Debts and all that."

Ranma grimaced. "Well, at least we got something, better than I thought we'd do."

Akane grunted in agreement, taking a few of the towels out of her own purse and sticking in Nabiki's stuff.

"I gave my word I wouldn't call the cops," Ranma said, glaring at the group of boys, several of them just recovering from Akane's attack. "Just ya might not wanna grab anyone else's stuff, yeah? I don't wanna have to come back," he smirked, "or bring her back."

Several of the boys flinched, glancing fearfully at the blue-black haired girl in the pretty yellow sundress.

"W-we got it," the leader stammered.

"Cool, " Ranma said, turning to leave.

As the two gained some distance, Akane looked at him oddly. Looking back to ensure they were out of earshot, she observed, "You seemed way too used to that."

Ranma shrugged. "Grew up on the road, and there's a lot of road in cities. Used to go out thug huntin' sometimes." he chuckled. "Got way easier when I got my curse. Lotta idiots think a cute little redhead's easy pickings. Probably what I was gunna do before you asked to come along."

"That's… I'm not sure how to feel about that," the girl admitted. "At least we got some of Nabiki's stuff back."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed. "We can get it back to her tomorrow. It's getting fairly late, we should probably catch a train before they stop runnin'."

HR.

"Genma Saotome, enemy of all women!" Nabiki blinked tiredly as a shriek echoed through the house, followed by a massive crash, and the familiar sound of a body hitting the koi pond. She was about to roll over, dismissing the noise as the usual idiocy involving Ranma, when the content of the yell penetrated her sleep fog. Bolting upright, she clumsily scrambled out of bed, throwing her bedroom window open just in time to see Akane landing a dropkick into the face of a very surprised looking panda.

He was trying to say something with his signs, but she would smash them out of his hands just as he produced them. "How could you do that to poor Auntie Nodoka?!" she yelled, slamming him into the ground with a sign that said "Akane, wait!".

Eventually, the panda-man got tired of taking the abuse, rolling away and lashing out with his claws to cut the sign to bits, only to take a kick to the stomach that sent him into the compound's outer wall. As he fell forward, unmoving, Akane huffed and then turned, heading to the gate for her morning jog.

"What the…" Nabiki muttered, blinking firmly a couple times, but the image refused to go away. Turning, she proceeded to get dressed, pushing her door open only to almost trip over something in the doorway. Bending down, she picked up her purse. "They got it back?!" She smiled, rummaging through it and rapidly confirming that most of what she'd had was still in it… unfortunately not including most of the money, or the envelope of pictures, for that matter. Still, she'd gotten her camera back, and that was better than she'd been expecting.

Dumping the purse on her bed, she rapidly headed downstairs, wandering into the living room to see a fairly normal sight. Her father was desperately hiding behind a newspaper as Ranma, in female form, sat next to the table doing a few stretches, wearing nothing over her upper half but a towel thrown over her shoulders. Nearby, a panda was sitting in Genma's spot, looking thoroughly miserable.

The middle Tendo daughter raised an eyebrow as she took her own place. "I thought Akane fought your father today, why are you a girl?" she asked, bluntly.

Ranma shrugged, eliciting a twitch from Soun's newspaper. "Mom's not around, and I haven't practiced as a girl much since she got here," she explained.

Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "You say that like it's something you need to do."

Ranma shrugged again. "I fight as a girl way too much to avoid practicin' in this form."

"...Could you please change back or at least put a shirt on?!" Nabiki's father demanded, his voice cracking near the end of the demand.

"Yeah, sure," Ranma said, looking at him oddly. As she was about to stand, Kasumi appeared in the doorway, carrying a steaming kettle in one hand. "Oh hey, thanks Kasumi," the pigtailed redhead said, accepting the kettle and changing to male form before passing it to his father, turning to him. "My training'd have been better if someone hadn't been hamming it up all morning."

Genma snorted, crossing his arms over his chest and angling his face so that, to Ranma's perspective, his glasses gleamed. He was going all out, apparently. "I haven't been hamming it up, boy! That fiancee of yours has quite the punch on her, you know."

"Sure, whatever," Ranma looked disgusted. "Just like Ukyo, huh?"

"Hey, it got her to leave me alone," Genma shrugged, the grave mood he was trying to project failing spectacularly. "What did you do to get her so angry, especially at me? You're the one who should be taking your lumps."

Ranma didn't respond for a little over a minute. "I… really can't think of anything," he eventually said. "Heck, she actually got a good fight in last night. Thought she'd be happy."

"Well, whatever's wrong, you need to take care of it, boy," Genma grumped. "Isn't that right, Tendo?"

Soun lowered his newspaper and nodded. "Quite right, Saotome."

Ranma just rolled his eyes. "Speak of the tomboy," he gestured, Akane coming jogging through the front gate, diverting to run through the dining room, using Genma's head as a springboard to jump over the table on her way by.

"Breakfast is almost ready, you're going to be late!" Kasumi called after her as her youngest sister ran up the stairs.

"I'll get ready fast!" Akane called back, the sound of her bedroom door slamming punctuating the statement.

"See, she's fine," Ranma said, waving a hand. "Just needed ta beat up a panda, I guess. Maybe it's more revenge for you tossin' her into the pond yesterday?"

"Well I wouldn't have done that if you'd been where you were supposed to be!" Genma snapped, rubbing his nose and straightening his crooked glasses. "Oh, my disrespectful son, what have I done to deserve-"

Nabiki sighed. '...Here we go again.'

HR.

"I'm… finally… here," Ryoga Hibiki panted, staggering forward and catching himself on a fencepost. Hearing a snuffling sound that he somehow knew was worried, he looked up to see the lumbering mass of fat and muscle that was the Sumo Pig Katsunishiki sniffing at him. "Hey, big guy…" He said, "So this is Akari's place?"

The pig snorted an affirmative.

"I've been hanging around here too much," He giggled a bit manically. "I think I can understand you." The Sumo pig didn't respond this time, just acting as a crutch so that the lost boy could stagger towards the farmhouse. He hadn't slept in over two days, and it was starting to show in his bloodshot eyes and unsteady gait.

As the two got closer, the house's door flew open and a pink and green haired girl stepped out, gasping. "Ryoga!" she yelled, running to meet them. "What happened to you?"

"Ranma was sick," he explained, simply, and then one arm went up to his shoulder. "Wait, where's the blanket? Kasumi wanted a…" He shook his head.

"Oh dear, let's get you inside," Akari said, guiding him through the door. Settling him down in a chair in the living room, she quickly went to grab a cup of tea.

When she returned a moment later, the lost boy looked a bit better, leaning back in the chair. Accepting the tea, he drank some and sighed. "So, what happened to you?" the farm girl finally asked, after a short silence.

"It's… hard to explain," Ryoga started, not sure even what he should tell the girl, given the situation he'd been in.

"You said Ranma was sick," Akari offered. "He's that boy you always fight, right?"

"Yeah," Ryoga nodded. "Except he wasn't a boy." 'Shut up.' "He was a girl, his curse, you know? And Kasumi thought there was something wrong with her, which I guess was true, because she grabbed me and Akane and dragged us up to Akane's room." 'Stop talking, stop talking now!' his mind shrieked, but it almost seemed like his thought process was disconnected from his mouth, as he began confessing the entire incident, from the stripping naked to Ranma's rambling list of all the things she liked about him.

"...And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since," he finished, his mind having long since given up on shrieking in outraged terror and gone for incomprehensible jibbering.

"That's…" Akari said, and then took a slow sip of her tea, her hands shaking. Ryoga gulped, hard. He expected any number of reactions, and prepared himself for all of those he could think of, cursing his traitorous mouth. For a moment, the green haired girl's face clouded with tears, her mouth contorting in anger, though as she lowered the cup from her lips a strange, unearthly sense of calm seemed to suffuse her expression.

That was it. She was going to splash him with cold water, and send him to the butchers. He just knew it. "That's… so romantic!"

"It didn't mean anything! I swear, I'm with you, I don't- what?" The lost boy stopped as if he'd hit a brick wall, all attempts at justification blown away.

"Love blooming between two rivals," Akari clasped her hands around her cup, looking down into it with her hair shadowing her eyes for a moment. "It's true, hate can turn to love so easily, can't it?" She then looked up sharply. "Y… you still love me, though, right?"

"What?! N-no! I mean yes! I mean I don't love Ranma!" Ryoga stammered, his head spinning.

"Well, you did say you couldn't get her out of your mind," the farm girl countered.

"That's not what I…" Ryoga snapped his mouth shut and started to blush. He was a teenaged boy and he'd seen two naked girls bobbing around, it wasn't his fault he couldn't stop thinking about it, honest.

Akari clenched a fist as her boyfriend blushed, bolting out of her chair. "So it really has come to this?"

"Come to what?!" Ryoga demanded desperately. Cold water, a butcher knife, he could see it in his mind's eye.

The girl headed quickly to a bookshelf on the other side of the room and rummaged through it. Producing a thin magazine with a picture of a twin-pigtailed brown haired girl on the front, gazing longingly out at the reader, she paged through it rapidly.

"Here it is!" she declared, tapping a finger against one page. "I'm not going to give up on you, Ryoga! I'm going to go and challenge Ranma for your love!"

"You what?!" he stammered, trying to jump out of his chair, but failing miserably, several days of constant running abruptly catching up with him.

"That's right," Akari nodded, certain of her action. "Katsunishiki and I are going to go to Tokyo, while you rest up. Everything's going to be fine, you'll see!"

"Wait, Akari, I-" Ryoga was interrupted by a slamming door as the girl bolted out of the room. For a moment, he felt a surge of blind panic. Akari was going to challenge Ranma? He'd destroy her! And then Ryoga'd smash him into the ground like a tent peg for doing it, but that wouldn't help Akari getting beaten up. Then, he took a deep breath. Ranma was capable of holding back. He may hate his rival, but he had to admit that. Ranma wouldn't hurt Akari… this whole thing would just be so humiliating that Ryoga wouldn't be able to show his face in Nerima ever again.

"Wait, Akari!" he yelled, this time managing to get out of his chair… and fall forward onto his face. "...ow."

END.

Well, that's all for now. Not much else to say, really. Admittedly, some character ideas have started mutating in some unusual ways since last time I wrote, but not much of that has shown up yet.

So… yeah. Again, hope you enjoyed. Please drop a line and let me know what you think!