Okay, so for various reasons this fic is a real jerk to get running again after it stalls out. The result, after so much time that thinking about it depresses us, is a 3.2k word chapter. We apologize for how short it is, but some combination of poor planning and mutating plot ideas meant that we pretty much had to end it where we did, and couldn't think of anything to add that wasn't pointless filler.

Having said all that, we're still happy that we got this thing moving again AT ALL, and hope you enjoy.

So without further blathering from us...

Chapter 15, Chiyo is Angry.

"Yeah, I'm coming, I'm coming," Nabiki muttered, vowing to make whoever had dared disturb her before her morning coffee pay dearly. She glared irritably at the screen next to the front door as it made yet another plaintive buzzing noise, before jabbing a button angrily. "Yes?" she asked, not even registering what was on the screen. "What is it?"

"Looking for Saotome," a familiar looking man stood at her front gate, dirt-stained shirt and camouflage pants showing that he'd been through a long trip.

"Ryu?" she asked drowsily, shaking her head. "If you're looking for Saotome, you got the wrong place."

"I checked her place and she's not there, dojo's empty too," the wandering martial artist snapped. "And you're the only other one I know around here."

Nabiki turned slightly away from the screen. "Of course I am, just like with half the other crazies Ranma knows." Turning back, she continued more loudly, "she's taken her daughter and some of her friends on vacation at my summer place. They won't be back for a few days."

"Got it, thanks," Ryu said, before he turned, walking out of the range of the gate's camera. Nabiki just held up five fingers, slowly lowering them one by one. She hadn't finished lowering the final digit when he came stomping back into view, so she gave him some credit; he was smarter than Ryoga. "Where's your summer house?"

Nabiki just shook her head. "Do you really think I'm going to tell you that? You want to challenge her, again, right? I don't need any holes in my living room wall."

"You said it's a summer place, right? We'd fight on a nearby beach," the martial artist offered.

"I'd prefer to have a beach rather than an inlet next time I go down there," Nabiki countered. "And before you say it, fighting on the public beach is an even worse idea. This isn't Nerima."

Ryu thought for a moment, and then nodded. "Fine, then if she's at your place, she's got to come back here. I'll wait."

"You know, you could just go to her place in a few d-" Nabiki sighed as Ryu disappeared again, this time appearing to have leapt over her front gate. She rapidly tapped in the command to keep the house's security system from going insane at this, before turning the camera off. She'd deal with him in a few minutes. First, she needed coffee. Today was going to be a two pot day, at the very least.

HR.

"I'm bored!" Ranma winced, rolling sideways to glance in at the outburst from the center of the small group of girls huddled around the low table in the middle of the room. Its source was, of course, Tomo. "It sucks that the sun's down, especially since Yukari-Sensei used up the last of the fireworks last night."

"You can't just relax at all, can you?" Yomi asked lazily from where she was relaxing in front of the open porch doors. "Just stop trying to find something to do for a while and let yourself go."

"Of course you would be good at that, Yomi," Tomo exclaimed. "It's not gunna work for someone as energetic and lovable as me, see? Watch!" She then collapsed bonelessly to the floor, one arm landing in what had to be a fairly uncomfortable position. She stayed like that for about four seconds before hopping to her feet again. "Nope, didn't work."

"Sh… should she be on some sort of medication?" Akane asked nervously.

"Probably," Yukari said casually, "But then, the Japanese mental health care system's a joke."

"And you'd definitely know that, wouldn't you?" Nyamo drawled before taking a sip of her ice cold lemonade.

"Are you still angry about the shark?" Yukari asked.

"Gee, I don't know, how about you swim almost a kilometer out to retrieve a stupid pool toy and answer that?" the gym teacher snapped. "I'm still a little sore from that!"

"Watching you two argue got boring this afternoon," Tomo complained. "You should be more entertaining!"

"Gee, thanks!" both teachers griped in unison, turning a glare on the annoying student.

This only bounced off of Tomo, who snapped her fingers as if in realization. "Okay, I've got it! How about we try scary stories again? But this time, Chiyo-chan can't tell any."

"Aw, but why?" the pigtailed girl whined. "My story was so scary Aunt Kasumi got scared…"

"Right, whatever!" Tomo exclaimed. "Anybody else got something?"

"Weeell, Ah might have somethin'," Osaka said, raising her hand slowly. "It's a real scary story, if ya wanna hear it."

"All right," Tomo scooted back up to the table, Yomi, Kagura and Yukari leaning in to hear while Sakaki gradually started to edge for the exit again.

"Okay," Osaka started, some expression starting to enter her normally blank face as she hunched over into a creepy posture. "It all started in a beach house-"

"Aw, lame, not this again!" Tomo interrupted.

"THIS beach house!" Osaka continued, raising one hand triumphantly. "First, we found Tomo, liein' in the kitchen with a knife in her back."

"Ooh!" the murder victim squealed. "This is gettin' good." Sakaki drifted closer again.

"Of course YOU'D be excited about being the first to die," Yomi grumbled, adjusting her glasses.

"Next was Yomi, suffocated with a pillow in her room!"

"Your training's obviously slipping," Akane chipped in. "We'll have to work on that."

"Next," Osaka continued, seemingly ignoring the interjection, "Akane-san fell down the stairs, snappin' her neck at the bottom. A simple accident, or was it?"

"Wait," Yomi cut in again. "Are you just killing people off in the order they interrupt you?"

Osaka's mouth opened for a moment, and then she looked down at her hands. "Darn it. You weren't s'posed ta know it was me until the end…"

"I think you got the order wrong," Sakaki commented, retaking a seat near the table.

"Huh?" Osaka asked, blinking slowly.

"You would probably have to take Mother, Akane-san, myself and then Yomi out first, in that order."

"First off, it's pretty creepy you're thinking so seriously about this," Yomi started. "But why that order?"

"Well, um." The tallest teen in the room fidgeted with her hands. "Well, if Osaka-san's capable of smothering Yomi with a pillow, she's stronger than she looks. Still, if she were caught before all four of us were taken out, whoever was left would be able to stop her once we knew something was wrong."

"...Yeah, I s'pose you're right," Osaka said thoughtfully. "I'll keep that in mind next time."

"...Right… Next time..." Yukari shook her head. "I'm fairly sure that when people start making murder lists it's time to give up for the night. Anyways, it's getting late."

Aside from Tomo, the rest of the group were in agreement with this idea, several people standing and stretching. As Ranma was about to head upstairs, she felt a tugging on her arm and turned to see Chiyo looking at her nervously. "Huh? Somethin' wrong?"

"Um, not really…" the ten-year-old said, poking her two index fingers together. "But, um, could I possibly, if it's all right, um, sleep in with you guys tonight?"

"Don't wanna sleep near Osaka, huh?" Ranma smiled as kindly as she could at the other girl. "I don't blame you. Lemme help drag over your futon."

HR.

"So… you're really going to stand there all morning." Nabiki stood at her front door, coffee mug in hand. She glared irritably at the man who stood in front of the fountain at the front of her house.

"I've finally got it this time, and I don't want to delay my chance to prove it," Ryu explained, not moving from his cross-armed pose.

"Yeah… I don't think this is going to be as dramatic as you think it is," the brown haired woman drawled, smirking at him.

"I wish you'd just tell me whatever it is already," he grumbled back.

"I would've if you'd agreed to go home like a normal person." She rolled her eyes before continuing. "Now, the look on your face is going to be my payment for letting you camp on my lawn."

The martial artist just snorted, going back to his attempt to ignore her as he glared at the front gate.

Nabiki was just about to re-enter the house when a sound caught her attention. It was a car engine. Granted, cars weren't all that common in this neighbourhood, but they passed often enough that hearing one wasn't unusual. Hearing one that had just burned rubber somewhere around the end of the block and sounded like it was upshifting with almost no use of the clutch was another thing altogether. She was almost unsurprised when the residence's front gate blew inward, a barrelling mass of speed and metal thundering down the path towards the martial artist.

Ryu almost managed to get out of the way, even though he'd been caught flat-footed. Even still, as the car somehow fishtailed into a stop in front of the fountain, its back end clipped him and sent him rolling across the lawn.

"Woah, Yukari-sensei, I think you just killed that guy!" an excitable black haired girl yelled as she poked her head out of a window.

"He's… n-not dead," a much more pale redhead responded, opening one of the rear doors and stumbling out. "Ryu's a lot tougher than that."

As if in response, the black haired martial artist groaned, sitting up and shaking his head. "I'd ask if anyone got the licence number, but…" he trailed off as he caught sight of the bearer of the familiar voice he'd just heard. "Huh… did Saotome have another kid? I thought…"

"No, it's me," the girl in question said, obviously getting a little tired of surprised reactions. "Ryoga had a little run-in with some magic mushrooms."

"...Really?" Ryu's face ran through several expressions. Turning to Nabiki he saw her nod, slipping a small digital camera into her pocket. "Whatever," he said, shaking his head. "Does this mean I can challenge you now?"

"Right now?" Ranma asked, the color only barely starting to return to her face. For a moment she looked as though she were going to object, before some realization crossed her face. "Y'know what? Yeah, sure."

"I'd ask you to go wreck my sister's dojo with this," Nabiki cut in, "but I wouldn't mind having some fight footage of you two. There's a sand pit in the side yard, if you want to use it."

Both martial artists nodded, moving across the lawn without speaking.

"What… just happened?" Yukari asked, staring at the retreating figures.

"I don't know, but I think it's gunna be awesome," Tomo opined, hopping out of the battered car and following them.

HR.

Nyamo was almost expecting to find the Mihama house's front gate off its hinges when she and Sakaki followed Yukari's loud and tire-tracked trail. The other woman's car being abandoned in front of the house's fountain didn't surprise her much, either. The loud explosion and flash of blue light from around the side of the building, however, was unusual.

Pulling to a stop and shutting off the engine, she hopped out of her car and started running towards the disturbance. She could hear Kagura coming up behind her, though Sakaki and Akane blew right past her.

When she finally reached the scene of… whatever was going on, she skidded to a stop at the edge of a large sandy area. In its center, a disturbance was kicking up large amounts of the sand, several explosive shockwaves disturbing it for brief moments.

"What… what's going on here?" she demanded, blinking as Chiyo's mother handed her a dust mask and a set of goggles. Akane and Sakaki were already wearing sets and were calmly watching the scene.

"Mother's fighting Ryu-san," Sakaki explained, her eyes locked on the dust cloud. "Its fairly even at the moment."

"You can tell?" Tomo asked. "I haven't seen anything since they started throwing those Hadokens around."

"Hado-" as if in response to Nyamo's half formed question, the dust parted and a glowing silver air distortion ripped through it, Ranma nimbly dodging out of the way before responding with an eye-searing blue one of her own. She followed it in, locking fists with an older black haired man before the two energy attacks impacted the ground behind their targets, throwing up new debris.

"This…" Yomi incredulously began. "This is something I could learn to do?"

Akane shifted a bit before answering, "Ki blasts are pretty high end, so you'd have to be a serious martial artist for quite a while before you could really begin getting to that stage."

"Elder Cologne said that it'd take me about 30 years to learn how," Sakaki added. "But then, I don't train very much."

"How… WHY are they doing this?" Nyamo finally burst out, after several more seconds of additional exchanges from within the sand pit.

"When Mother was younger," Sakaki explained, "Ryu-san challenged her for a set of martial arts scrolls that he felt she owed him. She beat him, and he renounced that style, but promised that he'd create his own. Since then he's challenged her every year to see if his new school is strong enough yet."

"And it isn't?" Nyamo asked, gesturing around the sand, which was pockmarked with craters.

""These are idiot martial artists," Ms. Mihama replied. "It won't be strong enough for him until he beats Ranma with it, which is never going to happen."

"You want to bet on that?" Sakaki asked flatly, her eyes having never left the fight.

"Very funny," Nabiki drawled, but then blinked a moment later. "Wait… you're serious?"

Sakaki silently proffered a two thousand yen bill.

"I'll get in on that," Akane said, holding up her own bill.

"And if Akane hadn't joined in, I might've fallen for it," Nabiki said, shaking her head. "Now I'm just curious why it'll happen."

"Thanks, Aunt Akane," Sakaki grumbled.

HR.

It was finally happening. He could feel his opponent's strength failing with every exchange. After almost twenty years, he was finally going to do it, and as his confidence rose so did his power. Ryu Kumon's right leg slammed down onto the ground, propelling him forward as quickly as possible. Saotome still moved to intercept, but she was slower, favoring one leg, and her lip was bloody.

Knowing that he couldn't just keep doing the same thing, he'd learned the hard way that getting lulled into a pattern was instant death against Saotome, he redirected in mid-lunge, slamming his hands to the ground and lashing out with one lightning fast kick. It connected, and not just with a glancing blow. It'd contacted fully and something had snapped. His opponent flew out of the dust cloud their fight had stirred up, and, as Ryu's chi sense tracked her, she didn't correct her course to come back in. She simply hit the ground, bounced once, then rolled to a stop.

He stood, though he kept his guard up, waiting for the smoke to settle rather than moving out of it to engage her. When it did, he saw her struggling to one knee. "I… I'm done," she croaked, the sand they'd been engulfed by having done a number on both of their throats. "I yield."

It was only after this that he stepped forward, taking stock of her condition. It was clear that she couldn't stand; her battle aura had guttered out and one leg was bent at an unnatural angle.

"You need any help?" he asked.

"Nah, you enjoy your victory," she responded. "Looks like your school's finally made it, huh?"

"...Yeah, it finally has." He smiled, looking up into the cloudless sky. He'd finally made it. He'd-

"How could you do something like that?!" His triumphant mood was abruptly shattered as he heard the yell of a horrified little girl. Next to Saotome, a brown haired child crouched, her hands hovering a few inches from the other, obviously wanting to help but unsure how. "R… Ranma-san, are you all right?"

"Chiyo, I'm fine," the redhead said, waving her off.

"No… no, you're not! Your leg's broken, and there's blood, and…" the girl stammered, obviously panicking.

"It's just a fight, I'll be fine in a couple weeks," Ranma waved her off again, but this didn't seem to do much, other than cause her to temporarily change targets.

Turning, the girl hit Ryu with a glare that, despite her small and cute appearance, actually caused him to step back with a chill running down his back. "Why would you ever do that to her?!" she demanded. "She's only twelve right now, you know!"

"S-Saotome accepted the challenge!" he found himself yelling back. "She wouldn't have accepted if she wasn't ready."

"That's no excuse to do that to her!" the girl yelled. "I know Ranma-san is really strong for her size, but you're a full grown adult! That can't be right at all!"

"Well, I…" It was like being stared at by a kicked puppy and your disapproving mother all at once. Something deep within Ryu's soul just wanted to curl up and hide. "This was… I mean, the thing is…"

"Chiyo, really, it's not a problem," Ranma interrupted his floundering. "He's right, I accepted, he won. Leave it alone, would ya?"

"No, he is not!" Chiyo stamped her foot. "Even if it weren't wrong to beat up someone as badly as he did to you, it doesn't matter because it couldn't have been a fair fight! You're much smaller, lighter, and your bones and muscles haven't even developed fully yet! Of course he was going to beat you!"

"She's right," Ryu said, bowing his head. "I apologize. I'll be back next year to see if whatever's happened to you has been reversed."

HR.

"Wait, Ryu, it's-" Ranma started, but the other martial artist simply turned and ran off. "Chiyo, do you… I… Damn it, Chiyo!" she burst out.

"Saotome, don't swear at my kid," Nabiki said as she lead the group of spectators over from the edge of the pit.

"Right," Ranma took a deep, calming breath, trying to ignore the pain this caused in about half of her body. "Sorry, Chiyo, it's just… what you just did... wasn't helping. Nabiki, why didn't you stop her?"

"Are you kidding?" Nabiki rolled her eyes. "She was finally standing up for herself and Kumon's an idiot."

"She was technically standing up for someone else," Ranma argued, "who didn't need the help."

"I don't understand," the pigtailed girl said, all of her anger fleeing her as its source had left. "Why were you defending that mean person!?"

Ranma sighed. "He wasn't being mean," she started, slowly. "Ryu believes that his new style won't be complete until he beats me in a real fight. Nothing held back, and he'll know if I try. Problem is, the guy started restructuring his entire style when I'd basically already become a master, and I'm still improving. Hell, I'm not sure if he'll ever catch up, but if he does, it'll take decades…" She gave the other girl an irritable look. "Decades where he'll keep challenging me rather than passing down his perfectly good school, since he's decided the one time he managed to win wasn't fair."

"...Oh…"

END.

The fic green room is empty, several chairs tucked into a table, and the lights off. In several random places, fanfic characters are fairly sure they were supposed to do something, but can't remember what.

On the wall, next to a 2012 calendar, is scribbled the words "Out to lunch. Please R&R."