Happy belated Mother's Day! Last month I made the decision to update this story instead of the winner of the small story poll, which was FILFy teacher, since, let's face it, I have not proven very good at keeping the chapters of that story small LOL. Turns out that was the right move since I couldn't get even this chapter done and edited in time. Indeed, I barely had started it before the month ended. Yet here it is. I will also be updating one of my patty-on only stories here on fanfic as I do for international holidays soon.

This has been edited by Hiryo and myself using Grammarly.

Chapter 14: Gambling Isn't for the Faint of Heart

Almost as soon as the words left Ranma's mouth, more explosions were heard in the distance. "Okay," he groaned, several new sweatdrops appearing on his face to join the one already there. "Maybe running to the sounds of the explosions won't work as well as I thought."

As the sound of the explosion to their southwest faded, Tsukiumi twitched in fright as something appeared in her shadow to one side. A ninja was there, oozing out of the ground, and Ranma stared. He had seen something of the sort before, from the servants of that French frog, but those at least had appeared from spaces which could, theoretically at least, hide someone. To come out of the shadow like that was well it was something out of an anime. I have got to learn that, he thought to himself, rubbing mental hands gleefully at the very idea. Oooh, maybe mix it with Pops' Umi-Sen-Ken?

"What is it, Shadowed One?" Kuno asked, crossing his arms staring at the short shadow thing that was now wearing ninja garb.

The thing seemed to whisper something, its mouthparts moving silently, but unheard by Ranma or the others. But in response Kuno stiffened in shock, a scowl forming on his patrician features. "Very well, I will be heading home at once. Hold the line until I arrive to lead you, and gather the other Shadow Legion members."

He looked over to Ranma, scowl appearing on his features. "While it does not behoove one such as I from a family such as mine to ask for help from such as you, I understand that my darling little sister has informed you of what my family guards?"

"Something about a labyrinth underneath Nerima, where monsters and old legends and stuff were put?" Ranma asked, scowling.

"Indeed. The amount of ki and magic that has been thrown around in this city has awoken them, and they must be beaten back."

Ranma nodded then looked out into the distance towards the original explosion as another booming crash was heard from there. If I'm right, that's the direction of the Tendo house. Too close to it anyway. "I think that means we'll have to split up."

Akitsu moved to his side instantly, her eyes narrowing, having no need for her new verbal skills to make it plain that she was not leaving his side just yet. That left Tsukiumi, who Ranma looked at for a moment before blushing and looking back at Akitsu. "Er, do you think that you could hold on until Tsukiumi here can get changed and arrive to help you?"

"Most certainly," Kuno said haughtily before his eyes too turned towards Tsukiumi, becoming quite appreciative of the feast in front of them. "Although, if she wanted to show off as she is, certainly, no one with the eyes to see such a glorious flower in full bloom would…"

That was as far as he got before Tsukiumi remembered her state of undress. A loud scream and a blast of water later, Kuno was picking himself up from the ruins of a first-floor store several yards away, while Ranma huffed, wiping her face clear of the water. Ranma had been close enough to get hit by the splash of that blast. "Really you got to go there, Kuno? You deserved that."

Tsukiumi huffed but was still blushing hotly, as she leaped up towards her apartment. So, my reaction to him did not go away when he changed genders. That is an odd development. Is this what others feel when they react to their chosen one? If so, perhaps I owe some apologies to my fellow Sekirei. I have no interest in giving them, but I might owe them, nonetheless. And I might… I might have to talk to Akitsu about sharing.

The thought was not welcome. Ranma had been a friend before this and an ally to keeping herself from being forcibly winged. Now he, (currently she,) was causing her body to react in no uncertain terms. Her nipples were nearly hard enough to poke out of the diaphanous silk negligee she wore, and she knew that liquid had become to dew down below just from being around him.

Now away from the reasoning for it though, Tsukiumi decided she did not like this reaction. It was too powerful, too sudden, and too out of her control. But that doesn't change the fact that I am reacting so. I will have to figure out some way to either control it or to…quench my thirst.

Of course, given the sounds of combat echoing elsewhere, the others did not wait for her. However, before they could leave, there was an explanation to give before they could go their different ways.

"Wh, what madness is this!?" Kuno shouted, bringing Akitsu and Ranma's attention back to him. He waved his bokken in the air, staring at the redhead who was standing where Ranma had been a moment ago. "Some, some foul magic or other or some magic inherent in the water perhaps?"

"Er, no," Ranma groused, moving over to a puddle and pulsing some ki into it from her hand to heat it up. "I was in China a few months back and my old man and I got cursed. I fell into the Spring of Drowned Girl, so whenever I am splashed with cold water I turn into a girl." Ranma then splashed herself with the now heated water. "Hot water changes me back to my normal body. Now, I think that's enough explanation for now, right? Oh, and do you have a bokken I can use?"

If the southern brat sent who I think he will, I want a weapon in hand when I deal with him, Ranma thought. I don't need one to beat him, but I want to learn those earthquake-like attacks he's got and for that, a sword might be helpful.

"Hmmph, if I did not know what the Labyrinth contains within, I would be most suspicious of this talk of magic curses," Kuno groused, pulling a spare bokken from his sleeve and tossing it to Ranma. "But I suppose you have shown yourself marginally skilled with the blade. See that you do not dishonor that worthy weapon with your actions. I will see you at my clan's mansion anon."

With that, Kuno turned toward home, racing away. From every small shadow he passed, more ninjas joined him until he had forty of the Shadow Legion with him eager to join their fellows defending the Kuno estate.

Rolling his eyes at the other man's ego, Ranma led Akitsu onto the rooftops where they sprinted alongside one another from one rooftop to another. Ranma smiled in delight at how Akitsu was able to keep up with him, and not just behind him, as she had previously thought her place and should be, but beside him. That felt good. Although why the difference in position should make him feel that way Ranma had little to no idea. Then there was another booming quake and Ranma turned back in the direction they were moving. Right, mind in the game now. More Akitsu-'n'-you time later.

OOOOOOO

Near the Tendo house, Homura, Akane and Yashima had met up with Kodachi and her friend, Namiji. The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics pair had already beaten off the attack on Shiina but the young teenaged male Sekirei had collapsed afterward, having been pushing himself for more than twenty-four hours without food or rest to try and find Kusano's trail since he had been released into the Game.

Kodachi felt that showed the boy lacked a certain level of common sense, but that his heart was in the right place. She had sent him to the Tendo place with Sasuke to watch over him, while Kodachi and her kouhai had split off the instant they saw Akane and Yashima fighting it out with several of the invaders.

Akane and Yashima had been assigned close-defense of the Tendo house. Being the weakest twosome of the allied parties of Nerima, it was the obvious position for them. However, now they were being pressed back hard, almost to the street where the Tendo house was, by the group from the south.

Not that Mutsu and his followers had been having everything their own way. They'd been forced to go most of the way to this point over the rooftops. And every time they had stopped, the locals had seemed to find them all too easily, and once they did, the locals would start tossing everything they possibly could at the group of Sekirei. This had, to put it bluntly, not been fun. They were now covered by tomatoes, cabbage juices, watermelon chunks, and wounds given by people who had tossed knives and other sharp objects at them.

More than once Mutsu, who alone was not covered by such remains, had lost control of the others. The girls had descended on the locals, knocking dozens of them out, but while it had made them feel better, it hadn't stopped the humans from attacking them, shouting, "You leave that nice Kasumi girl alone, ya hear!?" or "You'll never get to the Tendo place alive!" More than a few had fought back with weird, esoteric martial arts or just flat out Judo and karate and all the Sekirei bar Mutsu was wounded and irritable by this point.

And then the group had been separated into smaller pairs by Homura, announcing his presence with a shout of, "For my future Ashikabi I will burn you all to ash!" Now Mutsu was contending with the fire user several blocks away, while the other southern Sekirei were faced off with two human women and two Sekirei.

"Hey! You're not the only ones who want a piece of these bitches!" a new voice sounded out, as two more Sekirei leaped up onto the rooftops from below. One was a slight girl, barely four feet tall, who wielded a claymore larger than she was. The other one was a more normal-sized woman at around five feet, who was wearing knuckle dusters on her fists. "We've been ordered to beat you all and then take the unwinged ones in the Tendo house. Judging by the message MBI just sent out, it's two for the price of one now."

Kodachi pondered that statement for a moment but Akane didn't bother thinking deep thoughts, instead, she sneered at Namiji, who she knew, having sparred with her occasionally. "Bah I knew these Sekirei were all trouble!"

"Do not denigrate the Sekirei themselves. It is the Ashikabi who make the decisions here. Just like chidlren, they can never be content with what they have," Kodachi replied, twisting around and attack one of the southerners, her ribbon lashing out to smash the one called Dorothy back into the wall.

She yelped as an attack from behind nearly caught her in the back of the head. She dodged it, but the attack, made by the large claymore being wielded by one of the two turncoats cut off a large chunk of her hair, leaving a small but bleeding cut on the back of her neck just at her hairline.

The now bob-cut Kodachi turned, hissing "You'll pay for that!" as she spoke a baton appeared in her off-hand, which she thrust forward like a small spear.

The end of it quickly grew a spearhead, which caused the claymore-wielding Sekirei to yelp in shock, frantically dodging only to see a cut appear across her chest, causing a thin red line of blood to appear and causing her shirt to fall, revealing her chest.

At present there were only girls there though, so that didn't matter overmuch. The cut and the deadly look in Kodachi's eyes, made the girl scowled angrily. "Fuck the rules, this one at least is dangerous enough we have to put her down permanently!"

The others were fighting Yashima, Akane, and Namiji hard while Kodachi faced off against the two turncoats. The six Sekirei from the south were battered, but fighting well enough for that, and working in teams they were slowly pushing the defenders back.

Homura launched a few blasts of fire towards Mutsu, simple fireballs at first, then a tongue of flame as Mutsu tried to leap away, moving around Homura's position to the Tendo House beyond. But Homura pressed in, hoping to use his range advantage, cutting the angle on Mutsu's move, flinging an even larger attack the other male Sekirei's way.

That didn't work out so well. Instead, the sword user grabbed his sheathe with his free hand, and with a swift I-ai, cut the fireball in two with a blast of air pressure.

Then he was back to holding his once more sheathed blade almost lazily, tapping it gently against the outside of his leg as he looked at the other male Sekirei. "It's been a while hasn't it, Homura," he said pleasantly. "How are you doing? Hmm…you're not winged either, are you? But then again you are a guy, and I know that my master prefers girls."

"Is that a hardship for you?" Homura asked mock-solicitously. "I can't imagine what it must be like to have your advances rebuffed all the time like that by the one who winged you. However accidentally it might have happened."

"I imagine that would be pretty much like your journey of trying to find a way to an Ashikabi who would be compatible with you with that freakish body of yours," the sword user replied drolly.

Homura smirked, gesturing above his head with both arms where a massive fireball began to appear in each hand. "It looks as if your information is old then. I've found my master, it's only a matter of time before she realizes that's the case. No more freaky body for me!"

"I'm so happy for you," Mutsu drawled, again using single I-ais to create air pressure attacks, which sliced the fireballs in half the instant they came towards him, still looking somewhat unruffled. "Although I would've thought that you would be used to freakish bodies around Ranma, or is he the one that you reacted to?"

"…You know it's been so long, I forgot how horrible your so-called sense of humor was," Homura growled, before gesturing bringing it up from his side upwards, "Rising Dragon Bombardment!" The move created a dragon-shaped ball of fire that rose into the air, its tail connecting Homura's outstretched palm to the rest of the body. From that body several dozen small fireballs flew from several different directions down toward Mutsu.

Seeing the sheer amount of fire coming at him, Mutsu hopped backward, off the rooftop they had been sparring on, and down into someone's backyard, watching as the fireball came towards them. "Destructive point," he intoned, the tip of his sheathed sword smacking into the side of the house. The house collapsed but slowly enough that Homura got away leaping down to the street, but he lost control of his dragon-like attack, the fire disappearing without his direction. before he could renew his assault, Mutsu went on the attack, closing the distance between them so fast Homura barely had time to react.

A quick I-ai blasted through a hasty fireball, and the sheath then flashed in an arc to catch Homura in the chest, sending him flying backward. He slammed into the side of another house, and through it to land in a rather nicely appointed sitting room. There he rolled, coming to his knees where he readied another pair of fireballs in his hands as he stared at the hole he'd made in the side of the house, grimacing at the pain in his ribs.

But instead of coming after him, Mutsu landed on top of the roof, shaking his head. "Thank whatever powers that might exist beyond us that all of this is being paid for by those assholes at MBI," he murmured, before bringing his sheathed blade down on top of the roof, with much more force this time. "Destructive Point, Heavy Style!"

The entire house collapsed all around Homura, far faster than the first house had come apart. Gasping as a piece of ceiling nearly brained him, Homura raced for the entrance he'd just made but was unable to get out before it all collapsed on top of him.

Sighing, Mutsu looked at the debris, then shook his head. It wasn't worth it to try to dig the other man out and drag him back to the south to be winged. "Hayato would probably reject him anyway." With that, he turned back to the others, intent on end this battle before still more of the locals could show up.

As Mutsu moved to join his fellows, a sort of a lull in the battle occurred as all of them, including Mutsu, now turned in one direction. All of them felt it, could feel a power of some kind coming towards them. A massive pressure or power of some kind, not as large as Karasuba had been, or the Demon of the North, but huge in comparison to everyone here.

And there were two of them, not just one but they were so intertwined, only Mutsu could make that out. Fuck, we are out of time! "Break off," Mutsu ordered instantly. "We have a new threat incoming!"

His words weren't really necessary, and he could see that almost immediately, but they added to the seriousness as even the two locals moved with his fellow flock members. A second later only Mutsu was not surprised to see Ranma hopping along the rooftops towards them. He did nearly trip however when he saw who was with him. I'd have put my money on 09, but no, it had to be the broken one! Who, I see, is no longer broken!

He was not alone in his shock. All of the others, especially the two blondes who had fought Akitsu were surprised, staring in shock at the sight of Akitsu without her Broken Mark on her forehead. "I thought she was…"

"Isn't she the…" muttered Dorothy.

"Yeah, that's the ice-using bitch! She's supposed to be broken!" shouted Mitsuki.

Ranma heard that and scowling kicked up a bit of roof tile, then without even pausing his jump to the next roof twirled and used roundhouse kick to send the tile towards the speaker. It was only the intervention of Mutsu slicing it in half that stopped that one from being knocked unconscious and even so she yelped and fell back in shock.

By that point, Ranma and Akitsu were standing on the rooftop right above the fighters and Ranma growled, "I will kick the shit in of the next one to call Akitsu broken or even allude to the fact that she might once have been so by your people's weird-ass standards! Understood?!"

Mutsu sighed, knowing now that his defeat of Homura had been no reprieve, but merely the start of the next stage. "I don't suppose that we could say that we are simply after the unwinged one and back away? We really don't have a problem with any of you, it's just that my master wishes to welcome Kusano into his flock. And it's not like he's a pedophile or anything, given his own age," Mutsu droned, moving away from the rest of Hayato's flock once more.

"Considering that both Kusano and her watcher are under our protection, no that's not going to fly. You came into Nerima, our town and started this!" he said, his voice almost switching to that of an American accent, before he launched himself forward suddenly, absolutely nothing about his body manner, face or anything else showing that he was about to start the fight before he was already in Mutsu's face. "You think you can walk away after that, you got another think coming!"

He and Mutsu started to trade blows faster than most of the watchers could follow but the first exchange ended with a kick that, though he blocked it, hurled Mutsu further away from the others. "Akitsu, keep them off my back," Ranma ordered mildly before leaping after Mutsu once more. "He and I have a fight to finish."

"Of course Sun-sama!" Akitsu replied merrily and even as she spoke a giant ice wall appeared between Ranma and the other Sekirei. A bare second later, large chunks of ice started to appear in the air all around her, being flung forward by tiny gestures her hands and neck. Two of the already battered Sekirei of the south fell to that sudden assault instantly, Juusa being flung off the rooftop and then pounded into the asphalt below, while one called Momo was knocked off her feet and frozen to the roof underneath her.

"Okay," Akane said, staring at this and shaking her head, wincing at the pain it gave her head. "While a part of me is really happy for the rescue, the rest of me is really pissed off! How is she doing that, I mean before she could've barely been able to conjure that first wall, and now she's not only tossing around more ice than ever before, but she's better at it?! And she doesn't even look as if she's winded at all."

Kodachi nodded her head slightly, but she was too busy trying to staunch the flow of blood on the back of her neck with her friend's help to do more at present.

That friend was squealing quietly to herself, a low keening sound that was interspersed with, "Oh my, oh my! I am so happy for her!"

"Dare I say that Akitsu being rid of that mark on her forehead means what I think it means?"

"It sooo does, senpai!" Namiji giggled, finishing with her bandage. "Those girls over there are so screwed!"

"Language, Namiji," Kodachi said grabbing up a new ribbon and a club from somewhere. "And whether or not they are overmatched by Akitsu, I am a scion of the house of Kuno, and I will not let someone else fight my battles for me."

The halberd wielding girl blinked, then nodded firmly. The two of them leaped forward, hopping up onto the rooftops again and engaging three of the attackers in close combat before they realized that the two of them had rejoined the fight.

One of them, the one called Dorothy who looked like an Americanophile, fell to an overhead strike from the end of Namiji's halberd, having blocked her first blow despite the surprise of the attack.

Another one, the local with the claymore was nearly knocked off the building, only to find herself bound up in ribbon. So tight was the ribbon she couldn't get enough leverage to pull even an arm loose.

The third, Himeko, fell to Yashima's hammer, which shattered her own double-bladed weapon and her arms with one strike, the girl having been forced to try to block an overhead strike from the other Fist-type Sekirei. The next second an uppercut blow with the hammer smashed into Himeko's chest and face, hurling her away to bounce several times off the nearby rooftops, her cry of pain fading away with her.

A fourth, Taki, nearly did for Yashima a second later. "Sorry!" she shouted, her kick flipping Yashima onto her rear. The next second a dropkick would have finished her off, if not for Akane grabbing shoulder and performing a perfect over the shoulder throw, crashing the girl headfirst into the ground. She tried to kick off, but by that point, Kodachi wrapped her up with a ribbon and dumped the girl on top of the claymore wielder.

This left only the two blondes facing Akitsu, trying to close with her and quite honestly not having much luck. Their shouts weren't doing anything but incensing Akitsu further and listening to them, Kodachi was torn between simply laughing, or going to get some popcorn. Regardless, she pulled back, gesturing Namiji to do the same.

"How did you do it how! How did you go from being broken into being fully bonded! You're supposed to be broken…" Mitsuki stammered even as she used her thin ropes to smash the ice coming towards her away. As thin as they were the ropes acted with immense strength when she flicked her wrists just so, to attack or constrain.

"I'm so jealous! So jealous! And you can shut up sister! At least I'm honest about it and not hiding my jealousy beneath arrogance or contempt for her previous status. I want the same thing with Hayato-sama damn it!" Mitsuha growled, ducking and dodging in every direction, as her whip flashed, smashing ice projectiles into pieces.

"MUUU, darn it, you're not supposed to say that aloud sister!"

"… can you just feel the seriousness slipping away senpai, or is it just me," asked Namiji, cocking her head to one side. I mean, I'm actually kind of feeling sorry for them now.

"It's not just you," Kodachi replied, before breaking out into giggles quite unlike her normal haughty laugh. As her giggles subsided, she sighed in mock-regret. "Still, I think we should have an opening soon. Watch for it."

"Do not take it out on me that your Ashikabi sees you as toys rather than lovers," Akitsu shot back, freezing one of them to the floor of the rooftop, before leaping forward suddenly, catching the other woman by surprise and a kick to the face.

She bounced up and off that one, leaping higher into the air showing that she had learned quite a bit from Ranma, although before, she would never have been able to utilize it along with her own powers. "Ice rain!" at that shout, tiny but quick pellets of ice pelted the blonde twins, who ducked and covered yelping even as the whip user shattered the ice that had tried to corral them.

"Actually," Kodachi said as she joined the fight. "I doubt they are being treated like toys. Toys, after all, would be played with." All three of the still conscious attackers flushed at that, and then that flush turned to anger as Kodachi went on. "Rather, they are simply treated as trading cards, to be used in combat or perhaps bartered away. Winning the game is the thing, as well as having the largest… deck."

"How dare…" That was as far as the two blondes Sekirei got before Akane, Namiji, and Yashima hit them from three sides. This proved to be too much for the already battered twins, and they fell quickly, to be tossed to the other side of the rooftop from their still bound and gagged friend.

Akitsu blinked, then smiled simply, and turned to hop up on top of the ice wall she had made, which was a story taller than the surrounding houses. There, she rested on her hind legs, watching her Sun-sama fight.

Kodachi joined her a moment later, and then with a sigh, used her ribbon to pull Akane up, the other girl having trouble climbing up the ice. "I see you have not truly been trained all that well Akane Tendo. See to it that is changed in the future," she lectured. "It would not do for an ally of the House of Kuno to be so unskilled."

"Blame my old man, not me," Akane groused, before staring at the fight going on in front of them.

Rolling her eyes at that, Kodachi looked over at Akitsu. "Not going to interrupt dear?"

She shook her head. "My Ranma would not like that if I did so. He is as much a warrior as I am," she said, her tone ringing with pride, possessiveness, and pleasure. "Besides, it is not as if he will need it. He's playing with Mutsu."

Kodachi looked back at the fight, then slowly nodded. "He's using him as a training tool, I think taunting him into using those earthquake attacks of his. Good grief, is he really that good?" Then she shook her head. "Of course he is, I well-recall the fight he had with that sword-wielding woman. She was quite clearly above this man in skill."

Then she paused and leaned in quietly watching as her friend hugged Akitsu from the other side, her sheer exuberance and delight for Akitsu infectious. Akitsu in replied smiled widely, patting the other girls' arms gently, even if her eyes never left the fight going on in front of them. "So, how was it? Your, hmm, night of sinful passion, shall we say? Or rather, not so sinful as all that."

She was delighted to see Akitsu's face flush very noticeably. This was not a light flush that was only visible thanks to her porcelain skin like Kodachi had previously seen there a time or two. This was a full-on red-as-roses blush.

Yet, Akitsu replied with some spirit to Kodachi's teasing. "So good that were it not for the fact that we learned you all were in trouble, we would still be entwined with one another."

"Entwined, I like that," Kodachi said with a giggle. "It's dirty, expressive, and yet somewhat poetic sounding."

After that, the girls fell silent, watching the fight.

Almost the instant the fight had begun, Mutsu realized that either Ranma had been playing with him the last time they'd fought, or he had gotten remarkedly better since. At first, he thought to put it down to the first option, but after a little bit, he noticed that Ranma and his sword work was simply more refined than it had been.

It was then that he realized, he also knew some of Ranma's stances and strikes. His eyes were wide he stared at Ranma in something approaching bemused horror. "Oh my God, you really have been taught by the Hannya of the North."

"Hey!" a fist flashed forward, and Mutsu nearly was hit in the eye, only taking it on his temple by jerking his head backward, but it still rang his bell and opened him up to a slash that would have taken him in the shoulder, if not for a quick block from his sword.

"That's my big sister figure. She might use a demon head, but she a demon herself. Get it right," Ranma huffed.

Backing away slightly, Mutsu rubbed his temple, grumbling. That had hurt, darn it. "I have known her quite a bit longer than you have, I think. Do you have any idea what she is capable of? The word demon is the only one…"

"Or goddess?" Ranma interrupted with a laugh, pressing in again but no longer seeming to take the conversation seriously. "That's another word for those who are so high above us mere mortals. Although this mere mortal is going to get there by hook or by crook!"

Mutsu gaped at that statement utterly unable to comprehend where Ranma's confidence that he could grow to challenge Miya. Then he was nearly done in by a double kick to the chest and then Ranma was in the air. But Mutsu had learned from the last time they'd fought that Ranma's aerial style made his normal abilities next to useless. I have to break out some more of my skills here. He thought, kicking off the street hard to get some distance, and then pulling out his blade entirely, no longer willing to try and rely on I-ai strikes or his seismic-based powers, which he could only use through the specially crafted sheathe.

With his sword now unsheathed, Mutsu's entire style shifted. He lashed out with his sword as he shouted, "Cutting Wave!"

From the sword's edge, a sliver of energy flew out, not the near clear air pressure attack that Ranma could routinely use from his own blade, but an energy wave, almost gray in color. It was a very odd color, matching the sword almost exactly, and made Ranma wonder if the attack came from the sword rather than the man for a split second since he hadn't used his ki sight at the moment it was launched before he ducked under it. Then flashed out his own attack, an air pressure assault.

To Ranma's surprise, Mutsu blocked the attack with his sheathe, and the next second, Mutsu slammed the end of it down onto the ground, shouting out, "Destructive Point!" Once more from the front of the sheath, a blast of earthquake-like energy shot out towards where Ranma had been standing, destroying the building beneath the two of them, allowing Mutsu to leap away to a nearby building.

But Ranma had dealt with Karasuba and her penchant for slicing buildings in half and his aerial style was up to dealing with the amount of debris tossed everywhere. He bounced between the bits and pieces, then to one bit that had been flung into the air above the rooftop, clinging there like a spider for a brief second, before kicking off hard, coming down after Mutsu.

At the same time, he put both hands on his bokken's hilt for the first time, and the sword, which had previously simply seemed to be a wooden blade, one of many that Kuno carried, began to glow with energy.

The next second, when Mutsu launched his own energy assault, it was met by Ranma's. "Asama-school, Fierce Piercing Fang!"

This was a ki attack, but one that had been condensed beyond even that of the previous type Ranma had been able to use either with his sword or through his own body, and it was pure gold in color, a far brighter blazing gold than those previous attacks as well. It pierced through Mutsu's attack and nearly took his leg off before he dodged out of the way.

Ranma followed his attack into and through the area it had cleared of Mutsu's attack. This time instead of a slash, his sword struck forward with the tip, before coming up in a quick economic strike toward the neck, then back down to the leg, up to the neck again, followed by a thrust, all in the span of an eyeblink. It was all Mutsu do to batter his attacks side, and he couldn't dodge a second thrust, one that Ranma hadn't telegraphed at all even in comparison to his other attacks. The tip of the bokken caught Mutsu in the ribs, cracking two of them and hurling him backward.

He still landed his own blow with the sheath though, although this time he hadn't been able to shout it out. A blast of some kind of seismic energy crashed through the sheath into Ranma's hand, sending him staggering sideways and sending his head ringing.

He shook his head for a second, then scowled. Darn it, what the heck was that? I felt it, but it was like, like Mutsu converted his ki into something else, some kind of seismic energy? What'd be the term for that? It isn't vibration or anything like that either. Fuck, I'm not gonna figure those attacks of his out any more than I have already, I guess.

"Not bad," he said, shaking his head and dodging a few more half-hearted attacks from Mutsu, who was dealing with his own wound as Ranma was trying to clear his head. "But not up to Miya's standards, maybe not even up to the Karasuba."

"I don't need you to tell me that," Mutsu grunted, pushing himself to his feet slowly, wanting to hold his ribs, but unwilling to drop either of his weapons to do so. When Ranma made to attack him, he slammed the sheath down onto the ground again, hurling it forward with an upward motion of one arm, as he intoned, "Shrapnel Barrage!"

This blow didn't so much crater the ground or create a fissure there, as lift up a large segment of it in small finger size chunks, hurling them towards Ranma. They did indeed look a lot like shrapnel.

In response, Ranma slammed a foot down on the ground, pulsing his ki out and down into it, shouting out "Tatami Shield!" A good 6 feet of the road flew up in front of him, creating a wall. "Ha, that worked at least."

With that, Ranma dodged around the wall quickly, his wooden sword punching forward again as he closed.

Mutsu again attempted to block it but was blasted off his feet by the pinpoint blow, his sheathe cracking from where he had used it to block the attack.

He rolled, then leaped upwards to another rooftop, trying to put in some distance between them, while the watchers moved after them. Desperately, Mutsu decided to retreat, lashing out at every rooftop with his sheath, destroying buildings behind him, in order to slow Ranma down. Any thought of keeping the destruction to a minimum was gone now.

All that mattered getting back to Hayato. And then maybe try our luck breaking through the cordon around the city. Being on the run wouldn't be fun, but we'd be alive, which I can't say will be the case if we stay in this cursed city any longer. Seriously, what is up with these humans!? Fuck, I wish I had taken Hayato up on his offer to kiss me again so I could use my Norito.

But once more, it didn't work. As Karasuba had found to her cost, Ranma was almost as at home in the air as a bird, flitting from one piece of rubble to another, always closing.

Three buildings had been destroyed by the time Ranma caught them, and their swords flashed, slamming into one another, again and again, midair, with Mutsu being pushed backward and down to the road once more. Several blows flew faster than most could follow between them, and Mutsu beginning to wonder how Ranma's bokken was holding up to his own metal sword, let alone the sheathe, which had been designed by MBI to funnel his tectonic energy. Yet now there were several cracks appearing on it under repeated blows from Ranma's simple ki-reinforced bokken.

Pushing his body to the limits Mutsu got in one shot, which cut Ranma across the shoulder biting deeply into his skin despite the human's insane level of durability, Mutsu's blade having been coated with his ki. Another slice down to his knee as Ranma stumbled from the first strike should have ended the fight in Mutsu's favor, but Ranma stepped back just enough so that what would have been a crippling blow simply cut the skin across his kneecap.

Then he stepped forward, his own blow lashing out catching swordsman in the side before he could pull back, cracking still more ribs. He gasped in agony, backing away, and had to raise the sheathe to block the next blow that came in. As he had feared the sheathe shattered, leaving Mutsu holding just a bare hand of wood, before Ranma ducked under the next desperate blow from Mutsu, coming up in a rising arch with his fist this time, catching Mutsu on the chin, breaking it and hurling the man backward.

Another blow from the sword, thankfully without any cutting energy added caught Mutsu on the forearm, breaking his arm, and his grip on his sword's hilt. The Fifth Sekirei was barely able to push himself to his knees, before the next punch crashed in, catching him on the side of the head and knocking him out completely.

Staring down at the guy he had just knocked out, Ranma took stock of himself. He'd been hit several times in the earlier exchange, but his ki healing had healed up the wounds easily enough. They did the same for these, but Ranma watched the one to his knee, just in case. That was close I gotta admit. I was certain that strike was aimed to my side and was only just able to shift my footwork to dodge and even that was just barely enough.

He turned back to his friends, smiling at them broadly, only now noticing his Pops and Soun had joined his friends. "Well, that was interesting. So, were there any other groups coming in that we should know about?"

"No boy, I think that was it," his father replied smiling ever so slightly at his son. Then he frowned. "But you need to learn when to quit grandstanding! You should've ended that fight at least three maybe even five rooftops ago. Just for that, I'm going to force you to repair all these buildings yourself, and without pay either."

"Hey! I was trying to learn how he did that whole earthquake thing. I thought it looked cool, and you can't say I didn't learn something," Ranma shot back with a proud smile, gesturing towards where he had used the Tatami defense a moment ago. Then he waved one hand in the air to indicate a so-so gesture. "Offensively, the move isn't nearly as usable as I would like, but defensively, if I'm forced to the ground could work."

"Bah, it should be a cold day in hell when a user of the Anything Goes Aerial Style is forced to the ground at all!" Genma grumped, although he did nod fractionally, the only sign of approval Ranma knew he'd get for that idea.

Akitsu was looking around quizzically even as she nuzzled into Ranma's side, a smile of pure contentment on her face as she felt his arm going around her waist, his hand resting on her hip. "I believe there was a sign of Disciplinary Squad somewhere?"

"Actually yes there was," Kodachi replied, frowning. "But according to the last reports the locals passed on to us, they seem to have turned back, or perhaps they were just not here to fight in the first place."

As part of the defense of Nerima against MBI, Kodachi and Kuno had basically ordered a few people on each block to report in anyone unusual being in the area.

That and the Sekirei who were truly allied to them and the idea of no longer playing the game meant they had, at least at first, a decent information network. Since the fighting had begun though everyone had either been involved or been trying to hide so the reports had stopped.

Akane scowled looking around at the damage that had been done to the area all around them. "Personally, I think we need to start getting organized here. Genma might have said it jokingly but there could be people buried underneath this stuff, right?"

Ranma frowned but before he could do anything, Soun closed his eyes and then tapped his hands together. When his eyes opened, they glowed for a brief second as Ranma felt a light pulse of ki flow out from the long-haired man. It didn't go far, but it was certainly something Ranma would never have expected from the soppy man, who Ranma had categorized as an almost noncombatant at this point. "I can't sense anyone alive underneath it all. And I believe most of the citizens would have retreated when they realized the level of the combat going on."

At that Kodachi nodded. "I know that myself and my brother sent off orders to that point, but we didn't see any reports on whether or not it was obeyed. Still, for now, I think we should reposition to the Kuno estate and deal with the problem coming from below."

Just then, there was a booming bellow, like a herd of steers on steroids all lowing off at once from several dozen blocks over. As they all turned in that direction, they saw the head of some kind of creature rising above the roofs of the houses in that area.

"Oh no! Is it too late already! How could something from the caverns below get this far away from the estate!" Kodachi gasped, her eyes wide.

"Right!" Ranma growled, hopping up onto the rooftop before turning to the others. "Homura, are you good to keep fighting?"

Homura nodded. He had pulled himself out of the rubble during Ranma's fight with Mutsu, joining the rest a few minutes after Genma and Soun had arrived. "Yes. You want me to take care of that thing or head to the mansion?"

"Do you know where the Kuno mansion is?" When Homura nodded – he had been shown it during one of the times he had come to visit with Kasumi – Ranma went on. "Then head there right now. The rest of us will gang up on that thing and meet you there, but you're one of our two most destructive long-range fighters, and no offense, but Akitsu's better at working with friendlies around than you. Besides, Tsukiumi should be there and the two of you should be able to come up with somethin' explosive to use if things get out of hand."

"True," Homura replied, chuckling dryly.

With that Ranma led everyone bar Akane and Yashima up to a surviving rooftop and then away.

Homura turned and moved in a different direction, while Akane, with her friend accompanying her, grumbled but raced along the streets as fast as her legs could carry her to try and keep up with the others.

OOOOOOO

The Disciplinary Squad had been moving through the area, mainly observing the fights, waiting for the opportune moment to strike at Ranma whenever he appeared. That was their objective here. Take out Ranma, the ringleader of all of the strangeness going on that was holding up the Sekirei game, then if possible anyone else they could who had stood with him. But they were under orders to leave the ones, unwinged, Kusano, Tsukiumi and Shiina alone entirely.

But at first, with no sign of Ranma, or Akitsu, there hadn't been much for them to do other than observe the fighting going on between Kodachi Kuno, Namiji and the forces Higa had sent in. So they had pulled back and begun to investigate the area in general.

Here, problems arose as should've been obvious from having four people whose attitudes were so incredibly different to another.

"And I tell you, that our job is just to observe, then wait for a chance to strike! Back me up here Haihane!" Benitsubasa growled, trying to stare down the two men who had joined their squad.

One of them at least she knew was as tough as he looked. The other one, the one with the more bishounen face, hadn't shown much just yet.

And what is up with the water bottle anyway? Is he another water user but he can't generate his own? And why was I told to keep this thermos of hot water on me? I mean, I know about the curses, but why would I be the one to carry it? And what's his curse that he would possibly want to use it, the pink-haired girl thought once more, staring at the chilled water bottle at the bishounen's side.

Benitsubasa and Haihane had not been told of Taro's curse-form. They might have been told eventually, if not for Takami's interruption of Benitsubasa and Taro's face-off. And after that, Minaka had felt it would be funnier not to explain anything and see what happened.

"That might be what our job entails, but how much do you want to bet, that the boss will want us to start taking out his allies too? We're near where the Kuno estate is supposed to be, and they are the moneymakers here, the ones with real pull both politically, and economically. Take them out, this entire area ceases to be able to look after itself."

Ryu Kumon was many things, a lot of which was negative in the eyes of normal society, but stupid was not one of them. He had carefully read a lot of the data that MBI had pulled together and knew that while Ranma was the titular figurehead of the trouble Minaka was so worried about, it was the Kunos who had been the ones to really get it all organized.

According to MBI's sources, the Kuno clan was paying for many of the Sekirei who had removed themselves from the game, food and board both. He felt that taking them out would force a lot of the Sekirei back into the game, which was what their boss wanted. "And if we do that, the way will be clear for me to challenge Ranma and his father personally. Not any of this gang up on him shit we're supposed to do."

"I agree with him," Taro said sticking his thumb almost into Ryu's eye as he did so, causing the other young man to growl at him, which Pantyhose smirked at before gesturing back down the road they'd been walking along. And is it just me, or are there not nearly as many people around as there should be? "You can see the water user back there too. She's supposed to be one of Ranma's best friends, right? I think that she's a better target than heading to the Tendo house itself. Take her back, hell, let one of us even 'wing' her, that'd add her power to our own and remove her from his side of things."

Whatever response Benitsubasa would have made to this was ruined by Haihane's sudden shriek of embarrassment. She had been looking into a store nearby, staring avidly at an old anime called Turn A Gundam, Special Edition, which she had never seen before when she had felt something land on her back. Turning her head slightly, she stared into the face of a wizened old dwarf. Then he suddenly disappeared from over her shoulder, only to reappear an instant later, nuzzling her chest happily where it was covered by her breast bands and half of her kimono which covered her left side, which was open on the right.

"Oh, my dear! Why are you covering such well-formed, and perky beauties with that! I simply can't have it!" The next second, Haihane shrieked getting the other's attention as the little creature somehow pulled off her breast band before she could even blink. Pulling her black Disciplinary Squad kimono into its proper position with one hand, she lashed out with her free hand, the claws of her gauntlets glinting in the sunlight.

The little creature hopped up, landing on top of her thumb as light as a bird, before flicking out a pipe he was suddenly holding to smack into her forehead. It hit like she just been struck by a fist type of Musubi's strength or more and the blow hurled Haihane backward.

"That's no way to react to an old man who's about to do you a favor," he said with a cackle, hopping forward. In his other hand, he held a bra, a bright red, frilly thing that while in her size, Haihane blearily noticed, was something she would rather use as kindling than actually wear.

The others stared, fell into fighting stances as Benitsubasa screeched in pure rage, "You! You bastard, you'll pay for what you did!"

The old man looked over at her almost this interestedly, before blinking, smacking one fist into the other palm. OH, I remember you!" he then seemed to sag, shaking his head. "The flat-chested one. So sad about that. Still, my dear, I understand there are these amazing inventions called breast implants now anyway. Don't worry, I'm certain that modern medical technology can help you with your tiny… flat… problems."

Benitsubasa practically exploded in fury, her rage, and desire to inflict pain causing a visible aura around her as she charged forward, her feet leaving cracks in the ground. "DIE!"

The two men looked at one another, then shrugged, and charged as well, although Taro was frowning as he did so, staring at the little creature. Something about him was familiar. Almost as if I've seen his picture before, but it was kind of blurry or something.

While the old man simply dodged Benitsubasa's frantic, manic charge, he dealt with the two men more severely. His pipe flew to one side, catching Taro's fist flipping him up over his head, hurling him down the street. Then he lashed out with a kick to the face of Ryu, sending him in the opposite direction.

Like Haihane, Ryu was surprised by the force behind that blow. "Ugh, that was like getting hit by a tiny bulldozer," Ryu muttered, pushing himself to his feet, and rubbing at his forehead. "I'm going to have to break out the Yami-Sen-Ken to beat this guy."

The next second, his hands lashed forward, sending four black slashes of energy towards the little creature, and unfortunately, Haihane behind him. "Kijin Raishu Dan!"

Seeing these unknown energy weapons coming towards her, the claw user had a brief second to wonder if she could block them with her claws, before deciding not to try not knowing what the heck they were. She dove to the side, her robe flapping loose, which caused Haihane to hurt herself on the ground as her bare breasts rubbed against the concrete, while the little man simply skipped through them, staring at them thoughtfully.

"Oh ho, now that is something I've never seen before, and that my boy is saying something! An entirely new kind of energy attack. Or rather the absence of energy. Something like those black hole things are supposed to be. Fascinating! Why, if you are a follower of Anything Goes then…"

"Anything goes!" Taro growled interrupting the old man, pushing himself to his feet. "You're talking like you're a master of that school, is that right?"

"Indeed, have you heard of me, I am Happosai purveyor of beauty, liberator of silky darlings, and Grand Master of Anything Goes!" the old man said, looking back at Taro even as he continued to dodge the attacks coming from Ryu who stopped attacking an instant later, realizing that using the Yami-Sen-ken blades at long-range wasn't going to cut it.

Another person might well have been worried about the fact that he had nearly caught his allies with that ability, something that both Benitsubasa and Haihane were very aware of, as they slowly pushed themselves out from where they had hidden, glaring at him and then the damage he'd done to the surrounding area, ripping up trees, concrete, and houses with impunity. "Fucker could've killed us," the pink-haired one growled, shaking her head angrily.

"You! You're him! The one who cursed me with this name!" Taro growled, stepping forward angrily, stomping towards the little creature in front of him. "Do you remember bathing a little baby in a cursed spring in China?"

Puffing on his pipe, Happosai frowned for a moment, then nodded, slapping his hands together. "Ah, I remember that! The poor woman had just gone into labor, as I was coming by. She needed help, and I did so. A pity about the whole, um, cursed thing though, there was no other water nearby to wipe you off with though. Would it help if I said sorry?"

"What, no! I don't care about that!" Taro replied, growling. "The mother was so grateful to you for your help she asked you to name the child. Then you gave that little baby a name, a name that no baby should have!"

"What's wrong with Pantyhose Taro? I thought it was a great name," the old man said.

"That name has haunted me my entire life!" Pantyhose Taro growled, lifting the ancient master in one hand. "Change it, or else!"

Happosai rolled his eyes, and the next second Pantyhose Taro was sent twirling away, his grip broken, and his body given so much centrifugal force that he looked as if he had just become a propeller for a moment as he crashed into a nearby building. "Or else what? You young ones, you never seem to understand that when you make a threat like that, you should understand where you stand in relation to the person you're threatening in terms of power."

"What is with this guy!" the claw user muttered. "He's tossing all of us around like…"

Whatever else she would've said was interrupted as Pantyhose Taro pushed himself out of the rubble of the building he'd been tossed into, ignoring the stares from a family that had been taking shelter there during all the martial arts madness going on around them. They raced down into their basement, hoping to hide there from now on. "Or else this!" Pantyhose shouted, triumphantly pouring the cold water over his head.

With that, he grew as his body changed shape. Where before a somewhat thin, bishounen young man had stood, now stood a giant Minotaur, easily two stories tall, with wings on his back, and a snake for a tail. The thing let loose a booming roar and charged, fist lashing down towards the ancient Grand Master.

"Now I've seen everything," Haihane drawled, finally settling her kimono into a position to cover her goods as she and the others watched the fight.

OOOOOOO

This was the scene that Ranma and company arrived at, and Ranma instantly decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "That would be the Disciplinary Squad, although I don't know who the two guys are. Take them out, but be gentle with Haihane if possible, she's where she is because of her job, nothing more nothing less. As for the rest, put them down hard!"

As he spoke Ranma turned to the others, only to stop and stare at the sight of his father and Soun. They were both staring at the little gnome that was currently battling the minotaur, staring at it in abject horror in point of fact, their eyes bugging out of their heads and their jaws slack. Huh, on the one hand, I want ta take a picture because that is hilarious. On the other hand, what's got them so spooked?

"H, how did he get out?!" Soun jabbered to Genma, literally jabbered, his mouth opening and closing between each word as if he was having to really work on putting trouble getting the words out all at once. "How, how did he do it!? The Boulder, it must've been at least forty tons. We had to get a construction crew to put it down for us!"

"I don't know, and I don't think it matters, Soun," Genma said, only a little calmer than his friend. "Unless you think he's mellowed in his old age…"

Soun gulped as a shout of 'hotcha' and a shriek from Haihane reached them. "It certainly doesn't look like he has. Oohohohoh god ohohoh god, ahhhh… he's going to kill us. Or worse, force us back into training! No, legs, be strong, gah, I, I'll need you to run, stop trembling!" he shouted to his own legs as his knees noticeably wobbled.

Ranma not wanting to waste any more time on what looked like the old men having a nervous breakdown. "Fine, you two just sit here and do whatever it is are doing, the rest of us, let's get down there. Akitsu do your thing! Kodachi and the rest gang up on Haihane and the Sakura-wannabe."

With that, Akitsu, instantly understanding what Ranma wanted, moved towards the fight around the minotaur, the largest and most dangerous of their opponents, as well as the one dealing with the unknown old man they had been warned about by the Seo's Sekirei. As the others leaped down to engage their targets, her ice powers lashed out with ice spears about as large as a man was tall launching them forward under her direction. They weren't pointed, so they smashed into rather than cut the Minotaur, and yet, the Minotaur fell back squalling in pain.

At the same time, Ranma made for the guy who looked kind of like him, if Ranma's entire style was different, with camo pants and a black muscle-t and his haircut too. Still, the face was kind of similar, and that alone made Ranma want to smash it in.

That worthy turned and was the first of the Disciplinary Squad to notice they had company. "Shit! Heads up!" That shout having fulfilled his duties as a teammate, Ryu began to lash his hands forward, shouting out, "Kijin Raishu Dan!"

Ranma blinked, hearing the name that his father had shared with him as one of his 'Sealed Techniques' coming from this complete stranger. I think my old man hasn't told me everything about those techniques just yet, he thought even as he ducked out of the way of weird, semi-spherical bolts of blackish energy. At range they were fast as heck, but nowhere near as fast as Miya's own energy attacks or as fast as her training had made Ranma.

The effect though was something else. The energy blades pierced the houses to either side and behind Ranma, not so much cutting through, almost seeming to make the segments of the houses they hit disappear almost. Regardless, the buildings collapsed, and Ranma hoped no one had been inside them.

He had no more time to wonder about that though, as he landed in front of the man wearing camo pants, lashing out with a kick which was blocked, then attacking with his fists and feet faster and faster, pushing him backward, but only for a second as the guy replied with a decent amount of speed and skill himself. Then he lashed out with his hand thrust palm forward, his fingers outstretched like a claw attack, and from his palm, several more blade attacks lashed out at Ranma from a bare few inches away.

Ranma barely dodged in time to stop the attack hitting him in the chest and was still slashed in the side and inside of his arm quite badly before his ki healing went to work. Grah, that stings, what the hell is that attack? He hissed in pain, but once more the tougher training and fighting he'd been doing of late served him well. Like in his fight with Karasuba he pushed through his pain in order to hop into the air over the next attack, catching the guy in the head with a kick that sent him flying down the street.

The other young man rolled with it, and came up, grinning evilly. "Ranma," he breathed. "It's gotta be you, with that idiotic pigtail of yours. You and your old man are going to pay for what you did to my father!"

"As if I haven't heard that before, although, the to my father line is somewhat unused," Ranma quipped giving the guy up thing the finger.

Nearby, Haihane, Benitsubasa, and the others were being pushed back hard by Kodachi and the others.

Even Akane was getting in on it now, charging forward like a bull down the street towards the claw user, having followed the others on the ground as they made for the winged minotaur's position. "Finally, I get an excuse to beat you into the ground! Let's see how good you really are, you cheater!"

Growling, Haihane dodged around Akane, lashing out with a heel kick that caught her in the back of the head, sending Akane sprawling forwards but not doing all that much damage. Anticipating Akane's next strike she hopped up off of a back kick then as Akane pirouetted around to face her, Haihane slashed forward in a blow that would have at the very least caught Akane in the chest and face, mangling her badly. "GRraah take this you…HUH?"

But her arm was caught in a ribbon, and she had pulled away from Akane and tossed into a nearby building which she slammed into with numbing force.

"I regret to inform you this is no longer a one-on-one competition, but a battlefield," Kodachi said coldly while behind her, her kouhai and Yashima attacked Benitsubasa.

Elsewhere two others were now ganging up on the Disciplinary Squad. The name of the loud thief technique had broken Genma out of his stupor, and he had leaped down, watching as his son dealt with a young man who looked oddly enough, rather like him as Genma pulled the Umi-Sen-Ken around him. Under the Silent Thief Technique, Genma snuck up on the young man who was tossing that technique around.

Before the young man knew he was there, Genma's arms went around the man in a classic chokehold, which he tightened quickly, even as the man gasped in shock twisting his head to stare at Genma. "What, where did… You! Genma Saotome!"

"Quiet boy," Genma growled, shaking the youngest even as he tightened the hold to the point where he was close to breaking his neck, twisting his body so the young man's free arm couldn't come into play. "You're tossing around a power that can all too easily kill anyone who comes in contact with it. I'll not allow that! Not with the technique I made."

"You made! My father made it! You just stole it! Or don't you remember the name of the man you killed!?" Ryu growled, trying to break out of the grip to no avail, only hurting his shoulder in the process.

"Kill? I've never killed anyone except in self-defense brat. Still, it's no great leap to figure out who you are. You'd be Kumon's son then? He helped me develop the Yami-Sen-Ken I'll give you that, but he only helped. And he should never have taught it to you someone who would use it so wildly. You could've killed people here today with that technique all too easily!" Genma didn't have the hyperdeveloped (as he thought of it) sense of honor that Ranma had, but even he would never condone using the martial arts to kill random civilians, as he was all too certain Ryu had when those houses had collapsed.

Nearby, Happosai had not been having fun dodging both the attacks of the maddened minotaur and the attacks of this new woman who was tossing around ice attacks as if she was some kind of mage in one of those children's games he'd seen of late. And then there were her immense ki reserves which he could all too easily feel, a monstrous amount of it. Ooooh, I could live off even a touch of one of her silky darlings for weeks!

"Come to Happy darling!" Happosai shouted, bouncing off one of the minotaur's fist and back to Akitsu.

Her eyes widening, Akitsu scowled, and with a single finger created a wall of ice all around Happy's leaping form, a square of ice forming out of thin air, a sign of the greater control and dexterity that Akitsu had gained upon being winged to her Sun-sama. With a thought more ice flowed underneath her, lifting her high into the air away from the old man as he smashed his way out of the ice box she had trapped him in.

Another gesture sent several more bullet-size ice needles pelting into him, going for his eyes and mouth. "No," she growled. "No man other than my Ranma will touch me!"

Then the minotaur roared up from where it had been sent to crash into someone's backyard, his fists reaching. An ice wall protected Akitsu and she leaped away, landing easily as the creature turned its attention on the old man.

With the Kumon guy being dealt with by his father, Ranma decided to switch his attention to the weird minotaur with wings. He raced past Akitsu, hopping into the air to get up to where, several stories up, the thing was doing its best to swat the gnat that was the old man as he used the Aerial style of Anything Goes to dance and move around him. Proof positive he's got a connection to my old man if I needed more clues ta that. Still, we can get to the bottom of why an old pervert like that's part of our school later. "Akitsu, I need a landing!" he shouted, near the top of his jump.

Instantly Akitsu summoned up more ice, creating a series of steps that Ranma used to get up to the Minotaur's head over the thing's flailing tail. Racing along its back he then hopped up as the thing turned, trying to shake him off, before flipping around a punch from the thing's massive fist, using his sword to direct it past his side. This put Ranma right above the creature's head, and he lashed down with his bokken, the wooden crashing down on top of the minotaur's head.

The blow was so strong that the wooden sword shattered in Ranma's grip despite his ki reinforcing it, but he also saw the minotaur's eyes rolling back in its skull as it was knocked out.

"Oh ho! Now that was as pretty an overhead power strike as I've ever seen boyo. And a somewhat acceptable use of the Aerial style too. You're working on mixing an armed Sword style with the Aerial school, interesting," mused the old man, staring at Ranma thoughtfully from where he sat on the minotaur's side as it started to fall towards the ground, tumbling lightly. Despite that movement though, the old man kept his seat on whatever portion was topmost, looking at Ranma as he rode down towards the ground with a grip on the shoulder.

"Seriously old man, who the heck are you anyway?" Ranma asked, scowling at him.

Below the tumbling minotaur, the battle was about to take another turn.

Realizing that they were close to not only losing this fight but losing their new fighting strength, Benitsubasa shouted out "Haihane, Norito!" With that, she brought both of her fists down on the ground, calling out, "By the power of my pledge, shatter and bury the enemies of my master! 8.0!"

From the epicenter of where her fists slammed into the ground, a massive blast of tectonic power crashed out in every direction, dwarfing the amount of energy that Mutsu hat been able to put out, although it was of the same kind of energy. The ground caved in, already ruined buildings shattered, and massive cracks appeared in the earth in every direction, dumping Kodachi, onto her rear, burying Yashima, flinging Akane and Namiji into the air. Even Akitsu, the still gibbering Soun, and Genma were buried or, in Genma and Akitsu's case, lost their balance.

Having not quite been choked into unconsciousness, Ryu suddenly felt Genma's grip loosen. Taking his chance his elbow slammed backward into Genma's side four times, which broke the older man's grip enough for Ryu to get a hand between them, lashing out with another blast of the vorpal blades.

Genma was forced to duck from this attack, which carved into the ground and the rubble of a building behind him, even as he rolled away shaking his head. "Genma… you'll pay, you'll pay for killing my father and stealing his work!"

"Your father was fine the last time I saw him. And that was years ago. Have you been following us all this time?" Genma asked incredulously. "Who does that honestly!?"

Ryu gave no reply but to launch more vorpal blades in every direction, causing the Nerimites to scatter, even Ranma who had to dodge away from where he had ridden the minotaur into the ground. Happosai had leaped clear, making for Akitsu who had found herself hallway buried by Benitsubasa's attack.

She panicked, throwing up both hands, and encasing Happosai, and about a hundred feet in every direction from the midget, in a column of ice.

"Retreat!" Benitsubasa shouted, racing over to Pantyhose and grabbing up her hot water bottle from her side, dumping it over his head. "Full retreat!"

Pantyhose Taro, who had just sneezed despite being unconscious, found himself tossed over the pink-haired Sekirei's shoulders, while Haihane, who had been holding her own somewhat better than Benitsubasa against Akane and Kodachi, followed on her heels, still clutching the front of her kimono with one fist, unmindful of the fact that she was kind of cutting herself with her claws very lightly, even as she turned, staring at Ranma and Akitsu. The power of their bond had only just begun to register but now she was nearly overwhelmed by its power so close to her.

"Is that what we're supposed to be like? Jealous," she muttered, racing after her friend.

However, despite being the one to almost accidentally give the others a chance to do so, Ryu couldn't quite break contact. Even as he had rolled away from the young man's latest attack, Genma had pulled the Umi-Sen-Ken technique around him, and now appeared right in front of him. A blow to the solar plexus doubled the younger man over, and then he found his head gripped with one hand before a series of sharp blows to the head from his other hand, and Ryu fell comatose to the ground.

"Not bad, Pops," Ranma said smirking as he moved towards his father, staring at the retreating trio of Disciplinary Squad members, then down to the young man unconscious on the ground. "So, I take it you had help creating the Yami-Sen-Ken?"

"Indeed. I created the Quiet Thief entirely on my own, but the Loud Thief technique I was having trouble with containing the energies of the attack. This young man's father ran a down on its luck dojo. Frankly, the entire place should've been condemned years before we even arrived there. But the man had a few ideas that helped me in finishing it."

"Now that's interesting," said Happosai mildly, from where he sat nearby on the same icicle that had previously been freezing him solid. How he'd gotten out was something of a mystery to Akitsu, who quickly moved to stand next to Ranma, growling angrily at the older man's attempt to feel her up a moment ago.

"M, Master!" Genma said, all his normal bravado disappearing instantly. "I that is I I'm so happy you survived! Where did you go!?" with that he made to leap forward his arms flung out in a hug that made Ranma twitch back in horror.

"Cut the crap Genma," the old man said mildly, his words causing Genma to stop where he was and drop to his knees in a perfect example of the Crouching Tiger technique. Happosai ignored him and the nearby Soun, who had yet to move from where he had been at the start of the fight, puffing on his pipe as he stared at Ranma, then Akitsu, a wide, almost childish grin on his face as he stared at her.

If that is, the child in question looked like a wrinkled raisin and could pull off a smile that was both completely, childishly delighted in something and about as dirty as a mountain of porn. The look made Ranma tense noticeably, his fingers twitching while Akitsu readied her power once more.

Then, with a visible effort of will, Happosai tore his eyes from her back to Genma, his smile drooping instantly into a frown. "Heaven to hell in one easy glance," he muttered almost under his breath, before pointing at Ranma with his pipe. "This your boy, Genma?"

"He is indeed, master," Genma said, grabbing Ranma around the shoulders with both hands, and thrusting him forward. "If you're looking for someone to teach all that you can about Anything Goes to, he will do nicely. In fact, he's, it's gotten to the point where I barely have anything left to teach him."

"Except for the two techniques that you created in order to claim the title of master yourself," the Grand Master of Anything goes retorted slyly. "Those are interesting. Remarkably interesting indeed, a worthy addition to the school of anything goes. Well done."

Genma blade the sigh of relief, then found himself flung through the air, twirling like a twister in midair before he slammed down a few feet of away from where he had previously been standing. "As if! Just because you seemingly kept up your martial arts training doesn't mean I'm going to forget the fact that you and Soun over there locked me into a cave for who knows how many long years! Is that any way to treat your master!?"

"I'm sorry master!" Genma shrilled as the old man laid into him, with Soun screaming the same thing from nearby. He had broken out of his stasis near the end of the battle and had been working with Akane and Yashima to clear some of the rubble away and get at people who had been buried. Luckily, no lives had been lost to Ryu's profligate use of his technique but there were several dozen people buried.

The first people to be freed from the rubble now stared as Akane groaned, her head in her hands as her father fell to his knees, shouting out, "I'm sorry Master! We're unworthy!" as Genma said the same thing.

"It depends on what the master has done," Ranma interjected, staring at the beatdown being given out and Soun's response to it with amusement on his face. "Unless you're going to tell me that you're as white as the driven snow? After I've heard about you stealing panties and bras off of women whatever they did to try and stop you?"

The old man scowled, shaking his head. "You wouldn't begrudge an old man his fun, now would you?" he asked, actually trying to do the puppy dog eyes technique on Ranma, which was possibly the scariest thing that Ranma had ever seen.

Akitsu seemed to agree as frost began to grow across the ground towards the old man and she scowled, "Stop that! Honestly, are you the only sane one who has ever been taught this Anything Goes school, Ranma?"

"I'm kind of beginning to think so. Although maybe Miya-nee's training offsets the insanity of my original school?" Ranma said with a nod, and a bright smile for her, which she returned.

Then Ranma became serious. "However, right now we've got bigger fish to fry than whatever is going on with the old raisin and those two reprobates," he said to the old man.

Happosai broke off berating on Genma, sitting on the now-unconscious Genma's back. He puffed on his pipe again staring at Ranma. "What kind of things are we talking about? The reason for all these incredibly powerful but not all-that-skilled women around, maybe?"

Ranma smirked. "Well, they're not all unskilled. But first, before you say anything about me being my old man's successor the Aerial Style of Anything Goes, you should know I'm also the apprentice to one of those ultra-powerful women, who is frankly on an entirely different level of power, and skill to any of them. If you have a ki-sensing technique…" he paused, looking at the old man.

When he nodded, Ranma pointed back the way to the north, his face breaking out into a grin a second later as the old man's eyes seemed to bug out of his head as he stared towards the north. "Right, that's Miya-nee. That's my teacher. The old man was my teacher at one point, but he's right. What he calls the sealed techniques are the only things he's got to teach me any longer, and I've surpassed him in strength and speed thanks to her training. I won't say I'm entirely a sword user now, but I'm almost as much a student of her school as I am the Aerial style."

Genma grumbled a little, but he also looked extremely proud and nodded his head firmly. "It's true master. My boy's the finest martial artist of his age I've ever seen."

The old man continued to look at Ranma, puffing on his pipe thoughtfully, his mind going down two quite different roads. One was his perverted side, a side of his mind that was normally the one in the driver's seat. That side was going, Woohoo I have landed in paradise, and there's someone out there even stronger than the ice user!? I could live a thousand years of the power I'd get from one bra of this 'Miya-nee'' While training this boy into the ground to be the next Grand Master of my school. His own ki reserve's pretty large and very potent.

The other side was his martial arts master side. Normally that part of his brain worked only to feed his perversions or simply his sense of fun, but right now, it was combined with his normally dormant sense of self-preservation. After all, if you could shrug off being buried alive or being hit by a Type-90's main gun and walk away, you didn't need much self-preservation instincts. Yet right now, that part of his mind was, while sounding somewhat groggy from disuse, screaming the message, Tread lightly dude, tread lightly! Some bras are just not worth your death Happy old boy.

Before this mental confusion could be resolved, Ranma had turned away, staring first after the retreating Disciplinary Squad, then out past Nerima into the rest of Tokyo. "Listen, you three can stay here, work out whatever the hell's going on here. Akitsu, Kodachi, and the rest should head over to the Kuno estate, see if they need any more help. I'm going to head out for a bit on my own. It's time to remove some players from this game."

"Ranma, I would prefer to go with you," Akitsu said, grabbing at Ranma's sleeve and speaking far bolder than she would have in her broken state.

"I know, but I can do this best myself. Don't worry. If I run into anything that is even remotely a fight I'll pull back. But I bet I can get to the southern brat easily now, and the Pretty Boy of the East has been asking to become less pretty for a while now. This was just the final straw and will have weakened his position by quite a bit. Best to strike while the iron's hot y'know?"

Akitsu continued to tug at his sleeve moving into Ranma's personal space and pouting up at him. "Sun-sama…"

"Gah, that should be illegal!" Ranma groaned looking away while Akitsu smiled slightly in victory, though the smile faded away a second later as Ranma went on. "But no. I need to do this Aki-chan, we need to start permanently removing the factions from this game. Then with them gone, we can move openly against MBI."

"So long as all the Sekirei working for us have gotten rid of their MBI cards," Kodachi cautioned. "And we make certain of a few other matters at the same time."

While a part of her was over the moon with the idea of having been given a new nickname by her Sun-sama, Akitsu still pouted until Ranma leaned down and kissed it away. The others gaped at the bond wings appearance, wings of ice and silver flashing from Akitsu's back. It was a short kiss, but Akitsu was practically glowing as much as her bond wings had a moment ago as Ranma pulled away.

"So nice," Namiji moaned, pouting herself now. "I seriously would like some more time with Takano-chan once this is all over."

Ranma kissed Akitsu on the forehead then, winking at her. "I'll be back soon, promise." To that, Akitsu could only nod, staring into his eyes before Ranma slowly moved out of her arms.

Then Ranma turned and raced away, going so fast he was out of sight within a few seconds.

"Such a hasty fellow that boy, why if I was with a woman like you, you'd have to drag me away with a fleet of ships! And as for the rest of you, ah, a veritable smorgasbord!"

With that Happosai was about to launch himself towards Akitsu and the others but a wall of ice appeared between Happy and his targets. "Let us go!" Kodachi shouted. "Leave the venerable pervert behind to deal out punishment to his former students, we must go to back up my brother and the Shadow Legion.

By the time Happy got around the ice wall, three of the five girls he had been aiming for were gone, leaping away over the rooftops as fast as they could go.

Pouting at having his first desire being so horribly taken away from him, Happosai turned back to his two minio-that is his two students, filing away the mention of the Shadow Legion for later. "Hmm, an interesting young man you've raised their Genma my boy. Very, very skilled for his age, as you said. In fact, it became down two of the fight to the death, I'm not certain I would get away without being crippled. "More importantly, he's got such fantastic taste in girls!"

"Feh, they aren't so hot. And neither is he. In either of his forms," Akane scowled, shaking her head. She had yet to really get over the fact that most Sekirei, even element types, were simply flat-out tougher than she was. Or that Ranma had freely offered to train a few of them.

Then she screamed as Happosai was suddenly hanging off her chest, fondling her lightly before hopping away towards Yashima's chest then back, fondling Akane's rear this time. "Oooh, you must be Akane-chan! Soun was bragging about you the last time I was able to drag him away from home! And you don't have to be jealous my dear, you are a hidden gem, a gem I tell you. Those thighs, a gift from the gods they are!"

Genma and Soun stared at one another, then sighed. It looked as if their master had not changed all that much in his enforced hibernation. Then Soun moved forward to help his daughter only to pause as Happy hopped off Akane, dodging the smaller ki hammer Akane wielded and the far more massive one from Yashima with ease. "Wait, what did Akane-chan mean by either form?"

Realizing this could be the perfect way to get the Grand Master off their back, the two old men stumbled over one another in their haste to explain Ranma's curse, while elsewhere, nearly out of Nerima, Ranma had the sudden desire to kill his old man. Alas, he put it down to just being normal, unknowing of the horror that would await him in the near future thanks to that revelation.

OOOOOOO

"W, where am I?" Pantyhose Taro muttered opening his eyes and seeing nothing but pink in front of him.

"On my fucking back," Benitsubasa growled, reaching behind with one finger to flick him in the forehead, pushing his head out of her badly rumpled hair. "After changing into some kind of giant flying minotaur thing you went nutso on us, and then we got jumped by practically all of the locals! All of them at once. And they weren't playing by the rules either, no one-on-one matches anything like that. I think the other attacks into Nerima got their asses kicked. We had to retreat."

Pantyhose Taro raged at that, pushing out of her arms and standing on wobbly legs. "W, what, retreat!? I had him, I had the bastard who has cursed me for my whole life right there! And you dragged me away!?"

"Better to live and fight another day than get your ass kicked today," Benitsubasa rejoined, slapping him side him upside the head. "Get over yourself! Or are you saying you could fight that many high-level enemies all at once, including that little pervert? We already lost Ryu damn it!"

Pantyhose Taro scowled but nodded agreement. The odds were certainly against them back there, even if none of the Nerimites, bar the ice user and the pigtailed one Pantyhose Taro recognized as their primary target seemed to work together. "Fine. But what do we do now? I gotta admit, I underestimated how many of them there were. And how skilled too. That Ranma fucker, he's the one who knocked me out, right?"

While her pink-haired companion nodded, Haihane spoke up, staring back over her shoulders. "I think we've waited too long, to take direct action. All told that group's a lot stronger than us. If we're supposed to enforce the rules or even just get Ranma to stop interfering in the Game, we'll need a lot more in terms of numbers and skill too."

"Agreed," Benitsubasa said with a sigh. Unless the big boss has something else planned, I think we're going to be best served to fort up in the tower, and maybe, maybe start deactivating all those Sekirei who have joined them if we can. I don't see us regaining control of this game by playing even remotely by the rules any longer, she thought but did not say aloud. She knew that Haihane had trouble with that kind of move. But to her, it was the only way forward. Or else we're screwed!

OOOOOOO

Ranma crossed much of the city within about forty minutes to an hour of leaving the others behind. He knew that Akitsu could probably have kept up with him, but he really had wanted to send her with the others to back up Kuno at his family's mansion just in case. Besides, after the beat down we just gave them, the Disciplinary Squad, which is now the only other real power in this 'game,' shouldn't be able to mess with us again. At least not today. And making sure of the fact that MBI and the Disciplinary Squad are the only ones left makes far too much sense for me to ignore.

With that in mind, Ranma made his way to the south of the city, racing along the rooftops as easily as someone else would have through a forest trail, scowling angrily. The little brat first and then the pretty boy asshole. That'll give me time at least think about how I'm going to go about dealing with him. The little brat is easier. The pretty boy might've thought up the idea of using Ashikabi as hostages against the behavior of their bonded Sekirei like he did with Uzume, but two can play that game. Hell, in this case, we could even call it protective custody instead of his being a hostage.

To Ranma's surprise when he arrived at the Mikogami mansion, there were still two Sekirei on security duty outside of the mansion. One was a young woman, probably fourteen or so, with her green hair done to look like dog ears and a pretty svelte body in a body glove of some kind. Her feet were covered by iron boots, as were her elbows and knees.

The other was tall and tomboyish, like Akane only with a few extra feet of height, a much larger bust, but also a cold, haughty, even disdainful look on her face as she looked around the mansion grounds. That look, and the fact her hair was done up in spikes with bells on the end – something that reminded him of an anime character he saw once – made her perhaps the third or fourth Sekirei who was just genuinely not all that good looking. At least to Ranma's eyes.

No accounting for taste though he thought, launching himself forward over the gate. The two of them had already been looking in his direction even before he was in sight of the gate himself, so Ranma figured there was no point to try and be sneaky right now. Odd, I think every one of the Sekirei, bar the DS squad, noticed me coming before I arrived. Although given how badly they were being handled by the ancient raisin I can't blame 'em. Still, it's something to think about in the future.

The green-haired girl yelped, dodging away, while almost at the same time the other one reacted by punching forward, well before Ranma was inside arm's reach. Ranma was about to taunt her about that then her thrust out arm seemed to grow larger than was physically possible, almost as if it had been made of rubber. It only stopped growing when the Sekirei's fist was as big as her body yet somehow the blow didn't slow down despite its size.

Still, Ranma was able to dodge up and over it easily, lashing out with a kick as he passed her, which caught the Sekirei in the side of the head with bone-jarring force. Her body flew sideways, and Ranma used the impetus of that impact to launch himself sideways towards the other Sekirei, catching her with a fist to the chest before she could raise her weapon. She fell back with a cry, then Ranma grabbed her head and flipped up and over her, kicking her in the back towards the Sekirei with the arm-growing trick.

Before the two of them could untangle themselves, Ranma was on them, hands lashing out in a chop to crash down onto the back of their necks, knocking them unconscious. Both of them fell boneless to the ground, and Ranma quickly tied them up, one to another, watching in some fascination as the brunette Sekirei's arm returned to its normal size. "Huh, you see something new every day."

He knew it wouldn't hold them and eventually they would be up and about. But by that point, Mikogami would be with someone who could very easily watch over him and keep them from interfering.

Ranma moved to the front door of the mansion, debating whether or not he wanted to kick it in then deciding, yes, yes he damn well did. "After all the property damage Mutsu and the DS did, doing a little on my own sounds like a fine idea." The next second the large wooden doors flew inward, their centers cracked and warped by the force of his kick.

Moving through the mansion a second later, Ranma found it was utterly empty. No servants, no butler, no one attacking him at all. "Huh, so he really did double-down on trying to take Tsukiumi and the other un-winged ones, didn't he? Still, shouldn't there be servants or what have you around here?" Ranma was feeling a little weirded out by how empty this giant mansion was.

Quickly Ranma moved through the mansion, searching it from one end to the other. Eventually, he found Mikogami in a small escape room, the side of which Ranma smashed open after three kicks, before tearing the previously hidden metal door out of his way just in case the kid was behind it somewhere. He didn't want to hurt the kid after all… much.

"So, you're the big brat big bad brat of the South," Ranma drawled, staring at the little kid that he had last seen the night he had met Akitsu. "Well, think of this as the just deserts of your wicked ways. I mean come on kid, you had the biggest flock of them all and you didn't think that was enough? Didn't your parents ever tell you not to treat people like things?"

"My parents never taught me anything you, you pigtailed jackass!" Hayato shouted back. He had twisted the room's emergency bed onto its side and was now using it as a fort, pointing some kind of electrical weapon at Ranma. It was like a large cattle prod almost, with twin tines set as wide as Hayato's arms. "Stay away or I'll electrocute you! Mutsu will be back soon and…"

"No, he won't. Not with the concussion I gave him, and the broken ribs and the broken arm," Ranma added, counting out the three wounds on his fingers mockingly. "You overplayed kiddo, you lost this so-called game of yours. Now you got to pay the penalty."

"Hey, I was never told about any penalty!" Hayato shouted indignantly. "The only ones getting hurt are supposed to be the Sekirei, even if we don't win the ultimate prize."

"You were never told a lot of stuff evidently," Ranma shot back, before hopping up over the bed faster than the boy could track. Hayato tried to raise the cattle prod even so, but a light kick to the center of it shattered it, the thing coming apart in the kid's hands, sparking and fizzling.

Mikogami yelped and dropped it, blowing on his hands for a second, then found himself hoisted into the air by Ranma, who dangled him in front of his face for a second. "Now don't think I'm going to hurt you or anything like that, I'm not that kind of person. But, I'm not going to let you free to keep on acting however you want either."

"T, then what are you going to do with me?" Mikogami asked hesitantly, although he was much calmer looking now that he knew his death wasn't in the near future.

"Nothing much, I'm just going to turn you over to someone who can watch over you, and make sure you don't act out any longer."

An hour and a half later, after carrying the kid like a sack of weed under his arm over the rooftops, which the kid took two with a somewhat blasé attitude thanks to how often he'd been carried like that before, Ranma arrived at Miya's house. He rang the doorbell then smiled as Miya answered it,

She smiled at him, then blinked staring down at the little boy still being held like a sack of wheat under one arm. "Ranma, I hope you know that stashing kidnap victims is forbidden in Izumo House."

Ranma laughed. "Heh, but this is a special kidnap victim."

"Help me Oba-san, he's crazy! He burst into my house and…"

"That's enough that of kiddo," Ranma said clapping his free hand over Mikogami's mouth. "You get points for quick thinking though. He then placed Hayato on his feet in front of Miya. "Miya, meet Hayato Mikogami, Ashikabi of the South."

Miya's eyes had already narrowed at the use of the word 'Oba-san.' They narrowed further now as she looked at the little boy who suddenly realized that perhaps this wasn't just a kind middle-aged woman. "I see," she said coldly, then she smirked. "And you wish me to look after him? How many of his feathers are still in the game as they would put it?"

"All the ones that attacked Nerima are still conscious, not injured enough to remove them from the game, but enough to stop them from being able to fight," Ranma reported. "There's two more down south that I just beat up and tied up outside of his mansion, but…" Ranma shrugged. "They'll probably be along eventually if they can figure out where I took him. I did knock them out rather hard."

"I see. But why here and not the Tendo place?" Miya was rather worried about what this might mean for the arrangement between her and Minaka. "You realize that if they come for him, and ask politely, I won't be able to stop them. That would be a step too far in terms of interference for my agreement with Minaka."

"Yeah, I was kind of afraid of that. But Kasumi already has to look after Kusano, and frankly, with Yashima, me, Akitsu, Pops, and the Tendos, it's already crowded there. Here, you have a lot of room left. Plus, I don't know how they'll even go about finding him, I doubt he has some kind of homing device or something on him. And when they do show up, can you honestly say most of the Sekirei from the south are smart enough to not annoy you?"

Miya's chuckle answered that, and Ranma moved on. "Besides, if anyone can set this kid on the straight and narrow after he's gone so far astray, it's you. With a little help from Kasumi, I think."

Miya smiled at the compliment already thinking about what she would have to do to make certain that Hayato realized her little Feathers were people, not trading cards. "Very well, I will do what I can to correct his attitude before one of them arrives. Ooh…" her smile turned somewhat darker as an aura of darkness appeared behind her, the faint gleam of a Hannya mask slowly coalescing. "I do hope it is Mutsu. I have so many things to speak with him about."

Having first perked up at the idea of the woman just letting him go once his Sekirei showed up for him, Hayato had quailed at the strange apparition behind the kind-seeming woman. When it disappeared though, he bounced back slightly, gaping at Miya. He had no knowledge of her other than they were somewhere in the North, Mutsu never having given a description of the Demon of the North. "That's it! You're, you're just going to, to kidnap me?"

"Take you into protective custody," Miya and Ranma said as one, then smirked at one another before Miya went on. "We wouldn't want you to suffer a mischief after all. Nor would we want you to be the cause of mischief."

"Tha, that's not fair!"

"And was it fair for you to order adult women around as if they were playthings? To make them dance to your tune in this bizarre game created by a madman?"

"But, they, they're just Sekirei, I mean, they like to fight! And the whole point of the game was to gather as many Sekirei as you could," Hayato protested.

"Does that mean they did not have feelings, could not feel pain? And if this is indeed a game, then should you not realize that you are now in an enemy's 'base' as it were. And have thus lost? Or would it become more real to you if you saw your Sekirei killed or the next best thing to it as they are taken away from you by MBI?"

The boy flinched at that, and Miya smiled slightly. There did seem to be at least some hope for him then.

"Fine," he grumbled, unable to argue with her logic. I'm not exactly bargaining from a position of strength after all. "But the moment some of them show up I'm going to be sending them back to the mansion to at least get me my stuff."

"That is well within your right, so long as Mutsu is not the first to arrive. If he is, he and I will be too busy having a… conversation, for him to be of much use to you," Miya replied, though she kept her Hannya mask from appearing once more.

The boy pouted but nodded after a second his attempt to use the puppy dog eyes look on her not having worked at all.

By the time the two of them had finished their minor argument, Ranma was long gone. Miya shook her head at that, then gestured the boy inside with one hand, and it suddenly struck Hayato that whatever the woman looked like, she carried herself with more poise and authority than his mother or anyone from their social circle ever had. He gulped at that but her words assuaged him a bit. "Come. Lunch will be served shortly. You can meet your fellow tenants at least the majority of them."

From the north, Ranma traversed the city heading into the east towards Higa's hospital building, deciding to put off meeting with the idiot from the west for the day. His Sekirei had been hammered a bit harder than most of the ones facing Kodachi and Akane and his parents but had also been imprisoned by Kuno and his Shadow Legion. They were not going to be in fighting trim anytime soon, and frankly, from the way they went about ambushing Tsukiumi, Ranma wasn't certain if he was going to let them do so anyway.

Beyond that incident and the fight with Ryoga though Nishi's acted if not honorably then not like a total bastard. On the other hand, the pretty boy has to be dealt with now.

Once more Ranma found himself staring up at the second tallest tower in the city, thinking about how best to break-in. Damn, they've stepped up security. Huh, are those automated guns on the rooftop? Still, I really don't want to hurt anyone normal if I can help it, but I need to remove both the pretty boy and the glasses-wearing asshole from the game.

Finally, he shrugged. Everyone else seems to be going into property destruction these days, I might as well continue the trend. When ya get down to it, a single large door isn't much after all. With that, he pulled ki into his hands, then raced forward, leaping across the intervening distance the buildings, slamming his hand into the side of the building and shouting out his attack, an attack he had made after watching Mutsu in action that day, "Bursting Flash!"

The blow crashed through the side of the building, pieces of the concrete beginning to rain down everywhere as shouts of alarm and fire alarms began to be heard from inside. From there Ranma just worked his way up around the building, destroying more of the outer wall, until large bits above began to collapse downward. Then he leaped away, watching as the top of the building collapsed downward. "So much for those automated guns. Honestly, if they can't shoot straight down the side of the building, what good are they?"

With that, Ranma dropped down and used the same technique again to shatter the entrance to the underground parking lot. No one was going to get out of the building in a vehicle. Not that way.

OOOOOOO

Higa sat at his desk, staring at the computer screen in front of him. He was supposed to be going over some bookkeeping for one of his companies, there had been signs of a middle manager somehow embezzling funds from his own secret programs, yet another sign of the computer-generated attack he'd been dealing with since the Veiled Sekirei and her Ashikabi had been turned against him. But for the life of him, Higa couldn't concentrate on it right now. No, his thoughts were away with his last two Sekirei, his allies, and this last gamble on his part.

Here I sit, once one of the strongest, most powerful players in this game, on top of my already considerable empire, ready and almost able to challenge the gamekeeper himself and now look at me. My pawns removed, my abilities sharply curtailed, and most of my allies no longer willing to obey my directives.

Yet going over his past actions, Homura couldn't decide what he should have done differently. He knew intellectually where he'd gone wrong but could not see how he could've acted in any other manner. Ranma had been a threat, he had moved to remove that threat. The game had called for the accumulation of power. He had moved to acquire that power as ruthlessly and as morally as he ever had in business. What was wrong with that? Every decision he made was logical, any other decision or choice unfathomable.

And it had been working, until Ranma. Ranma, with his strength and his desire to make the game fair. And of course, his odd alliance with the immovable object, the monstrous Demon of the North.

Even now, Higa scoffed at that very idea. As if this game had ever been 'fair' for anyone but the game master himself. It didn't take a genius like Higa was to see how rigged the game was from the very beginning.

"Ranma," he growled, "the source of all my troubles." The one who had freed the oh so useful Veil Sekirei from his control. The one who had beaten more than half of his allies, who had killed his two strongest Sekirei, and damaged the others so much that MBI had seen fit to recall them like so many cheap car pieces. The one who had personally assaulted and humiliated Higa and was almost certainly connected to the ongoing cyber-attacks on his corporation.

I wonder, have I ever hated someone like I hate Ranma? I hate Minaka of course, but that is based on the fact that he is the game master instead of myself, it is cold and calculating. It isn't personal, not like my hatred for Ranma. That is very, very personal, he thought, his eyes flicking once more to the computer screen and his reflection there.

The image of his face brought back to his mind the humiliation he had suffered at Ranma. The wig was, of course, the starting point, constantly reminding him of it whenever it itched where it was practically glued to the top of his head. The fact that his face also still contained a tinge of blue was another. Luckily all the little messages and doodles that Ranma had left on his face and upper body had long since been washed away. The blue was perhaps four more days' worth of showers away from being gone.

"All my strength, all my ability, all might vast intellect, and I was forced to roll the dice on this move into Nerima, on an all or nothing gamble, something I would never condone in business, or even in this game, but something that has become necessary due to my own weakness. And I can't even contact them, because MBI cut off their electricity and phone lines!"

Sighing Higa clenched his hands then breathed in deeply, trying to dispel his anger and, though he would never admit it, anxiety. After all, the fat was this gamble had been for all the cards. He had nothing left, no more Sekirei to call upon, no means with which to continue participating in the Sekirei Plan.

Several minutes later, his intercom buzzed. "Yes?" he asked as he flicked it on.

"Sir, our external cameras have spotted Ranma Saotome outside somewhere, he seems to be just watching our building but…crap, we just lost him!" the voice on the other side of the intercom suddenly shouted, losing his earlier controlled, if anxious tone.

The next second, there was a booming crash, and Higa sighed, letting his face fall into his hands as he propped them on his desk. "Well, I suppose that could serve as my answer," he whispered to himself, even as his advisor burst into the room.

"Sir, we have to evacuate! The entire top half of this building is coming down!"

OOOOOOO

As the building was evacuated Ranma retreated a bit, putting himself in a nearby shadow and watching the main entrance to the building. No way would Higa's ego let him escape out the back unless they were under direct attack. And look, there he is now. Ranma watched as a group of human security guards hustled Higa out, while the glasses-wearing one, whose name Ranma hadn't heard before this followed, shouting into his phone.

Ranma waited until they were a few blocks down the street, getting away from the wrecked building and the group of MBI-paid first responders who were trying to evacuate the rest of it. Then he dropped down on top of them, crashing down onto two of the security guards bearing them to earth.

Without pausing Ranma kicked one of them up like he was a sack of rice into the face of a third bodyguard, before jumping the fourth, pushing him into the wall, then tossing him down the street. "Humans," he quipped, grabbing Higa before he could try to flee, "they don't make them like they used to."

A kick sent the glasses-wearing one to his knees, gasping in air from what he thought might well be a ruptured stomach, but was in fact just a bruised one. A knee to the face sent him sprawling backward unconscious, and Ranma looked between him and Higa who he was still holding in the air, smirking at seeing some of his earlier handiwork still visible there. He was tempted to knock the wig off Higa's head but decided against it. It could be glued on, and that meant doing so would take more effort than he was interested in using right now.

"Perhaps, I wasn't clear the last time we saw one another. Perhaps you think my earlier warning was just a suggestion. That you still had some kind of leeway when it came to deciding whether or not to follow the whole one-on-one format, not to take hostages and not gang up on or forcibly wing Sekirei. Was this in fact the case?" Ranma continued, his tone a sarcastic drawl as he dropped Higa to the sidewalk. "You can speak now," he added.

"You'll, *cough*, *cough*, never get away with this!" Higa shouted after getting his breath back.

"That is the most unoriginal line from someone in your position I have ever heard. And I have watched a hell of a lot of movies where moronic villains are cornered at last by the hero or his sidekick," Ranma said, kneeling down in front of Higa. "Next you'll say you have powerful friends in this town."

"Not just in this town, in the government of Japan! Around the world! You can't just…

"That's enough," Ranma said with a sigh. "I was hoping for something original."

He karate chopped Higa in the center of his forehead, causing him to sprawl backward unconscious. Then with a sigh, he picked up first one, then the other onto his shoulders turning towards Nerima. "I'm pretty certain that the Kunos will have some kind of dungeon we can keep the two of you in. Hopefully with chains. You certainly deserve it after all the crap you've done."

Ranma was nearly back to Nerima and was just about to turn towards where he knew Kuno mansion to be when he suddenly shivered the air growing cold. A second later there was a blast of ice that rocketed up into the air and then spread over the ground, covering everything for several dozen miles in every direction within a few inches of ice. This included people who were outside at the time.

Several hundred people in the radius of the attack found themselves frozen to the ground, ice covering them from the feet up to their waists. Thankfully, it was a hot day. That and their own body temperature would thaw them out. It wouldn't be pleasant, but the back-blast from Akitsu's attack was survivable. Not so much for the target of this assault.

Ranma blinked, staring down at his feet, which had been caught in the explosion of ice, before reaching down with a hand and shattering it. From there he made his way forward. When he came within sight of the mansion he had to slow down, moving forward more cautiously as every step threatened to freeze the bottom of his feet to the ice beneath. When Ranma reached the mansion, he found the entire landscape still frozen, along with several dozen of what looked like…

"Are those tentacles?" Ranma asked, pointing at them in shock.

"Ranma!" Akitsu shouted, turning towards them, racing towards him in fact.

Ranma smiled at her, then his eyes widened, and he only had a second to dump his burden as she flung her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a kiss, her bond wings blasting out of her back in thousands of ice-like feathers. Ranma returned the favor, greatly enjoying this more emotive Akitsu before pulling back reluctantly. As Akitsu nuzzled into his chest, Ranma gesturing with his head over towards the mansion, where he could now make out the forms of Kuno and the others slowly moving away from the doorway. Tsukiumi was there as well, and Kodachi's friend.

"Do I want to know what happened here?" Ranma asked. "And wasn't this kind of overkill?"

"Probably not. And no, no it was not," Akitsu said primly.

"She's right, Homura intoned, shivering a little as he leaned on Kodachi, who herself looked a little shocked. Behind them came Tsukiumi. She paused, her entire body flushing red, as her breath began to come in short gasps as her eyes locked on Ranma. Akitsu noticed, and quickly put herself between the two of them, her eyes narrowing.

"…So, exactly what happened here?" Ranma asked, staring at the giant tentacle things pushing out from every window and doorway. "Or is this going to be one of those R-rated hentai stories?"

"Not quite," Kodachi replied, smiling wanly at Akitsu. "But it could well have been if not for our Sekirei allies…"

End Chapter

This is not quite the chapter I'd hoped to be but considering the fact that it not only did not win the small story poll for last year month but working on it is cutting into this month's works, I felt this was an appropriate place to cut off, and only a day off my Mother's Day goal. Although honestly speaking, putting out a story with as many lime/lemon goodness as this story on Mother's Day would have been a bit quixotic to me anyway. LOL.

Next chapter, we find out what happened under Kuno mansion, why Homura will never look at octopus the same way again, and where in the world have the Amazon's gone? While Minaka tries to figure out what to do now that no one is going to be playing his game. Finally, Ranma and his friends decide to launch an offensive and talk about the consequences of doing so as Nabiki and Ranma 'talk' and Tsukiumi tries to beg without actually doing so.