First post, first fic.  Hope I did this right.
----
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT [ R.5 ][draft]
by dirge@punkass.com

TIMELINE: Takes place in vol. 38 of the manga, post-Jusendo, but 
before the attempted wedding.  Assuming the series runs roughly 18 
months (as opposed to just a year), Akane, Ranma & everyone their age 
range would be placed roughly at 17 & change, Nabiki 18 and Kasumi 20. 
 Most of the background items will be based on (rather poorly) 
translated Chinese versions of the manga, since I've only seen a 
handful of episodes.

DISCLAIMER: The characters within Ranma 1/2 are the property of Rumiko 
Takahashi.  No infringement is intended and no money is being made off 
this work.  Parts of this fic pay homage to the novels of Jin Yong, 
specifically Xiao Ao Jianghu and Xiake Xing, as well as Plato's 
Symposium (the speech of Aristophanes), and are recurring themes.

NOTES: C&C appreciated.  I'd also like to send out a great 
big plea for any beta/pre-reader/editor angels out there who might 
want to help with what is going to be a somewhat large and unwieldly 
piece.
 
=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====
ONE
=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

It never ceased to amaze Ryoga Hibiki after the sun set, how quickly 
night would creep in and blot out China's countryside like a giant 
overturned inkwell.  

The lost boy leaned back against the thatched roof of the inn idly 
watching the stars crawl across the weary and somnolent sky.  It had 
been four days since his companions left Jusenkyo, and he had elected 
to stay behind just in case the floods receded.

At least that was what he told the group of wayward martial artists - 
two girls, a panda, a cat and a duck, the day they rolled out of the 
valley, their belongings packed on a bicycle and cart.  Mousse and 
Shampoo, at least, seemed to have understood.

Two days passed and the rains hadn't ceased.  On the third day, Ryoga 
departed.  Actually, he'd been looking for the bathroom in the 
Jusenkyo guide's house, took a long left somewhere and ended up . . . 
he reckoned he was at least still somewhere within the Tarim Basin. 

Though he didn't think he'd be able to find his way back to Jusenkyo 
any time soon, he wasn't exactly in a hurry to return to Nerima 
either.  He didn't want to face *them*, seeing them together.  He'd 
lost Akane just as surely as he lost her picture to the well in 
Jusendo.  Who was he kidding?  In order to lose somebody you had to 
have *had* them in the first place.  

What would she need him for, when she had the hero?

Ranma.  Always Ranma.

And as always, through an immense amount of luck and a little skill, 
the great Ranma Saotome had stumbled through another crisis and come 
out on top once again.

Plus the hero always got the girl.

Wasn't that was how it always went?

Glumly, Ryoga realized, he would never be the hero of any story.  
After all, what kind of hero couldn't find his way out of a room with 
one door?  Or turned into a helpless little (if rather cute) pig every 
time it rained? 

In the end, no one would remember that he was the one who pulled Ranma 
out of Saffron's threads.

Because he just wasn't hero material.

"It's not fair!" he shouted to the unresponsive sky.

"What's not fair?"

Ryoga sat up, whipping his head towards the source of the query.  He 
hadn't even noticed the arrival of the stranger on the roof.  Sitting 
down about ten feet away was an older man, perhaps mid-to-late 
twenties, dressed in an array of clothing that appeared to be a 
hodgepodge of red, blue and gray-dyed swathes of batik.  An intricate, 
gold braided belt circled his waist, and from it hung a rigid fan that 
bore the symbol of a crescent and a circle side by side, and a small 
decorative gourd.  "Mind if I join you?"  The accent was strange, even 
for this region.  The lost boy shrugged and the stranger pried the lid 
off the jug, then offered it to him.

The strong whiff of alcohol assailed Ryoga's nose and he shook his 
head.

"Isn't it a little early to be drinking?"

"Probably.  It's never stopped me before."  He took a long drink, then 
lay back against the thatching and sighed.  "So, what sort of 
misfortune were you cursing the heavens for?" 

Ryoga pulled his knees in under his chin.  "It's nothing."

"Does it have to do with a girl?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"No."  The stranger tapped a rhythm with his fingers on the husk of 
the gourd. "It just usually is the case."


====----====----[ t.he elephant game ]----====----====


It was, upon closer inspection, just a letter.

Delivered with all the necessary pomp and circumstance as only a 
two-foot arrow could, its still-quivering shaft decorated the wall of 
the Tendo household a scant two and a half inches away from Saotome 
Ranma's twitching right eye.  That being said, despite its somewhat 
obtrusive (and nearly fatal) nature, it was still a remarkably well 
mannered missive.  

A civilized one even, insofar as challenges went, considering that as 
most would attest, the more common method usually consisted of little 
more than some variation on the shouted epithet of "Ranma! Prepare to 
die!" accompanied by a shattered wall or floor or a multitude of sharp 
projectiles.  No, this time the destruction was minimal, negligible 
even (though that slight crack in the wall where the arrow shaft was 
still vibrating would have to be spackled over later). 

Nevertheless, by the sheer weight of comparison, the letter of intent 
to cause grevious bodily harm to its intended recipient, with its 
bold-yet-intriguingly-artistic brush strokes on the envelope, could 
almost be considered . . . 'polite,' even if it did disrupt dinner 
time at the Tendos.

"Who is it now?" sighed the much put-upon heir to the aforementioned 
dojo, as she lowered her chopsticks to the table.  Akane Tendo 
supposed it would have been too much of a good thing to expect the 
inactivity following their return from Jusendo to last much longer.  
After all, a whopping two days of relative normality passing without 
serious repercussions was . . . well, abnormal, and this particular 
spot in Nerima couldn't possibly attract more activity if someone 
painted a giant bullseye on the roof and plugged in a sign that 
spelled out 'Chaos park here, leave your keys with Kasumi' in giant 
pink neon letters below.

Without missing a beat, the eldest Tendo daughter pried the arrow from 
the wall and cheerfully carried it over to the hall closet.  There, 
she opened the door and placed the weapon on a shelf where it 
accompanied nine more of its kind, a pile of chains, sixteen throwing 
knives, a pair of steel claws, thirty-two spotted bandannas, four 
umbrellas, a length of ribbon, a bonbori with a missing head and a 
giant spatula with a face-shaped dent in it.

With the letter firmly in hand, she glided back to the dinner table 
where, prepared to hand it over to the pigtailed boy, she paused in 
reading and, rather predictably uttered:

"Oh!  It's a challenge letter."

Ranma in a rather impressive display of multitasking, negligently 
raised one hand to accept the envelope while the other holding 
chopsticks battled with Genma over the contents of his bowl.  After 
all, a fight was a fight, but sukiyaki was special.  

"Just the salient information: time, place and opponent," drawled 
Nabiki, her recently-acquired handheld ever at ready, stylus poised to 
strike.  The perfect merger of opportunism and high-technology, her 
newest toy might as well have been permanently fused to her hand.  If 
she could have married her Palm Pilot, she would have.  "Betting pools 
don't materialize by themselves you know."

"It's just . . . " Kasumi hedged.

"What is it this time?  Princes from some piddly island?  Dragons?  
Demigods?  Pissed off fiances?  That's going to up the odds a bit," 
the girl muttered, tapping the screen of the PDA.   

She handed Nabiki the envelope.  "It's for you."

Well.  

That certainly was different.  Though she would never admit it, Nabiki 
felt a slight twinge of concern about the contents of a letter that 
came yea close to leaving a particularly nasty paper cut had it been 
aimed just a quarter-foot closer to the left.  

On the other hand, she hadn't been the one nearly perforated, so she 
wasn't TOO worried.

Left eyebrow raised, she tore into the letter and came up with a 
fourteen page novella.  

Akane poked a head over her shoulder.  "Is it Kinnosuke again?" 

"Can't be.  It's not postage-due."

Ranma, in belated surprise over not being the main focus of 
hostilities this time, made a grevious tactical error and blinked.  In 
that moment, his father seized several pieces of beef from his bowl.

A splash later, a tearful panda was attempting to manipulate 
chopsticks without the use of opposable thumbs.

"It's all in Kanji," Nabiki frowned.  "No, wait.  I don't recognize 
some of these characters."

She flipped through the first few sheets as the rest of the family 
crowded around behind her in various stages of rubberneck, offering 
their typically insightful commentary.

"Looks Chinese to me."  

['Whoa, big print'], came a raised sign.

"Those letters must be at least an inch high."

"It does explain why the thing's so long." 

"Who would bother to write in such large . . . "

Everyone snapped their fingers, arriving at the same conclusion 
simultaneously.

"Mousse!"

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

In the kitchen of the Nekohanten, an Amazon paused in the middle of 
scrubbing a particularly nasty spot out of a wok and cocked his head 
to the side.

"What is it?" queried Cologne, more out of habit than any real 
concern.

Mousse shook his head.  "I thought I heard something."

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

"So whadja do this time?"  Figuring he'd displayed the obligatory 
amount of concern Ranma returned to higher priorities and shoveled 
down a mouthful of rice.  "Cheat him outta somefin'?"

A crease arched into The middle Tendo daughter's eyebrows as she 
mentally reviewed books, ledgers and the contents of her desk calender 
over the past three months . . . and still came up short. 

"Not lately."  

"Maybe he's holdin' a grudge."

She processed back further, then shook her head.

"You must have done something to get his dander up," Akane pressed.

"I swear, I didn't do anything."  Nabiki rubbed her temples in 
frustration.

"Sure ya didn't." 

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

"So where were you earlier this evening, Mr. Part-Time?"

"I had to make a delivery, dried up old--OW!" Mousse rubbed his head 
as the end of Cologne's staff bounced off his cranium.

"Did your 'delivery' just-so-happen to pass by a certain dojo?"

He shrugged, wiping down a table.  "It might have."

"I don't understand why you're so insistent on a confrontation with 
the Tendo girl," the Matriarch of the Joketsuzoku sighed.

"I simply can't let this pass.  You of all people should understand 
that."

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

"I said, I ain't going," Ranma declared loudly, as he bit down on a 
senbei for effect, emphatically ignoring the pleas coming from around 
the room.

Well, actually, Kasumi frowned, Mr. Tendo's tongue started forking in 
precursor to a rapid head inflation, Nabiki began to vocally tally up 
his debts and the panda was playing with a beach ball, wisely staying 
out of any family disputes.

Finally, Akane stood.  "Come on, oneechan."  She shot Ranma a dirty 
look.  "I'll go with you," before walking her older sister out the 
door.

He snorted and another three rice crackers flew down his throat.

Stupid tomboy.  Always sticking her nose in other people's business 
even when it didn't concern her.  He *supposed* Akane might be 
somewhat perturbed if any physical harm came to her older sister over 
this whatever grudge Mousse had against Nabiki.  And then the macho 
chick would get it into that idiot head of hers that she could take 
him on and there'd be Shampoo there and maybe even the old ghoul and 
then she'd trip or miss or do something stupid and get hurt and . . .

Aw, hell.

"Hey, wait up."  He bounced to his feet and trotted after the two 
girls.

Not that he cared or anything.

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

"He was always cruel to her," Ryoga muttered, looking down at his 
palms as if he were trying to divine the elemental within the 
well-worn pattern of creases.  "Calling her names.  Deriding her.  
Stringing along all those other girls."  

"Sounds like a real jerk."

"Class-A.  He didn't deserve her, she deserved better, someone who 
would treat her nice, who would treasure her . . . "  The lost boy 
trailed off.

"Someone like you?"

He looked down.  "Maybe."

"Did you love her?"

"She was beautiful, sweet, innocent, gentle and pure . . . "  

"Sounds like a real bore."  The stranger gave him a sideways glance.  
"You didn't answer my question."

"Yes.  Yes I did love her.  But it doesn't matter.  She never saw me 
that way.  It was always about _him_."  

"Then perhaps she wasn't your other half."  Off the lost boy's puzzled 
look, the stranger swished the contents thoughtfully around.  "Would 
you like to hear a story?"

Ryoga rubbed at his face absently, shrugged, then nodded.

The older man took another long drink from his wine gourd, then began. 

"'Once there were three sexes of humankind.  Each four hands, four 
legs, and two faces on one head.  One was male on both sides, one 
female, and one both male and female.  
	
They were smart and strong, and the gods were desperately afraid they 
would storm heaven and wrest control from them.  They could destroy 
these insolent creatures, but then who would worship and fear them?

One of the gods finally decided to cripple these insolent creatures by 
splitting them right down the middle.  Four hands became two, as did 
four legs, and four eyes.  What was originally two became one.  These 
halves wandered the earth, looking for the other half of their selves, 
so they could be one again.'  

Tell me . . . "

"Ryoga."

"Ryoga.  Do you think that if there were no 'Saotome' around, this 
girl, would she would have loved you back?"

"Yes!  Maybe."  He sighed.  "I don't know.  But at least I would have 
tried to make her happy."

A shadow of something ugly crossed the stranger's face before settling 
back into a neutral expression.  "Love isn't about happiness.  It was 
created to keep us in line and make us miserable."

Th lost boy sat there, staring into the pitch, before attempting to 
swallow with a very dry throat.

"I . . . I think maybe I will have that drink."

The other man smirked slighly and tossed him the gourd.

Ordinarily, Ryoga would have caught such an object without a problem. 
 However, distraction played a large part in his fumbling with the 
object as it arced in the air towards him.  The lost boy grabbed it by 
the edge of the lid, accidently snapping it off, and looked up in 
horror as the contents of the overturned jug splashed onto him.

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

Backlit against the outside street lamps, the pigtailed figure swung 
the door open into the dark and empty recesses of the Nekohanten.  One 
foot softly stepped into the doorway, then another.  His head pivoted 
slowly about, scanning the room with the wary eyes of a predator, 
until it locked on a familiar figure.

In the shadows stood the Amazon, hands hidden in his sleeves, face 
encased in shadows save for the glint of light that sparkled dimly 
against his spectacles.  He lifted his eyes, and they locked onto 
Ranma's with the same rapacious gaze.

Ranma gripped both of his hands into loose fists at his side, the 
crackle of knuckles echoing through the cavernous room.  Several fluid 
joints popped as he twitched his neck from one shoulder to the other, 
then lifted his head, arrogantly flicking his pigtail back, the 
trademark sneer curled onto his lip.

A pair of hands shoved into his back, sending him sprawling forward 
into the room and completely ruining his entrance.  The two girls 
stepped in after him.

"Will you hurry up and get on with it?"

Ranma turned to glare at Nabiki, then back to face Mousse.

"Hey man, whatever beef ya got with her . . . " he jerked a thumb back 
at the middle Tendo girl.

"This matter is none of your concern Saotome!" roared the bespectacled 
boy.

"Look, she ain't even a martial artist."

"Ha!  There are no innocents in the art of war!"  Mousse turned to the 
object of his battle lust, who had casually positioned herself behind 
a Ranma shield, and pointed, surprisingly enough, in the correct 
direction, at her.  "Take heed, Tendou-san, I will give no quarter."

Before any response could be formulated, in an impossibly fast blur of 
movement, a barrage of objects shot out from the depths of his silk 
sleeves.

Ranma launched himself in forward, guarding the two girls from the 
impending attack of whatever deadly apparati the master of hidden 
weapons launched, pausing only when he noticed that the flying 
projectiles weren't actually being aimed at *them*, but rather, 
towards the countertop, not only that, they were arranging themselves 
into a pattern.

The flurry of activity subsided, Mousse's hands disappeared back into 
the sleeves of his robes and he leaned back smugly.  Nabiki peered 
over the pig-tailed boy's shoulder, blinked, then narrowed her eyes, 
glaring in half-lidded contempt at the contents of the table.

"You have . . . got to be kidding."

"Ah . . . a . . . " stammered Ranma.

" . . . a chessboard?"  Akane finished dumbly.

Nabiki turned crossly to Ranma and Akane who were still attempting to 
pick themselves up from the ground.

"This is your fault isn't it?"  She glared at the pigtailed boy.

"Actually," Akane coughed.  "It's mine."


====----====----[ o.pening moves ]----====----====


"Bored."  

Ranma Saotome was never one to disguise his thoughts or emotions.  
Which was the main reason his mouth got him into so much trouble in 
the first place, especially when it came to things he deemed 
unimportant - like basic social skills.  Oh, he could have learned it 
all at Martial Arts School Of Thinking Before You Open Your Trap 
Dumbass, had one such school existed (A certain erstwhile fiance had 
looked long and hard for such a possibility, alas there was none to be 
had), but like most other non-autonomic functions, it fell by the 
wayside.

Akane personally preferred to travel by legitimate means.  Skulking 
about shipyards, surreptitiously hopping on frieghters and sneaking 
onto cargo holds, while common fare to the other martial artists, were 
not a part of her normal travel pattern.  Unfortunately, when she'd 
been taken on an impromptu flight to Jusendo she hadn't exactly had 
time to pick up her passport, so there they were, taking a ride on a 
slow boat from China.

Genma turned in his sleep, blowing little panda bubbles out of his 
nose.  A sign propped up next to him read ['ZzZzZzZzZzZz'].  Shampoo 
stood at the porthole staring moodily out at the waves.  Mousse kept 
an eye on her from across the room, watching her with some concern and 
trepidation - after all, she'd glomped onto Ranma only once so far, 
and even then it seemed a half-hearted effort.  

As for Ranma, he was, well. . . 

"Bored," he repeated, just in case.  Sure primates might have had 
better manners, and occasionally, higher intelligence, but HE could 
pour the hell out of a cup of tea.

"We heard you the first time!"

Fearing another repetition of the obvious, the master of hidden 
weapons stood and shook out a sleeve.  Toys, boxes and various 
paraphenalia of amusement dropped out onto the middle of the floor.

"Monopoly . . . Risk . . . Dungeons and Dragons . . . " mused Akane, 
browsing through the pile.

Ranma tugged open the Chinese boy's other sleeve and shoved his head 
inside its depths.  "Hey, you got a Playstation in--GLURK!"  Mousse 
glared at the pigtailed boy and peeled the spring-loaded mace back 
from Ranma's face, retracting it into his sleeve.

Undoing the first frog from his robe, he fiddled around inside a 
hidden breast pocket and held out a color Gameboy.  "Will this do?"  

"Hey, Final Fantasy!"  Ranma eagerly snatched it out of his hands and 
retreated to the far end of the room happily accompanied by noisy 
electronic blips.

" . . . Magic, the Gathering . . . Chinese checkers . . ." Akane 
continued, then paused, unfolding what appeared to be a chessboard. 
"This sort of looks like Shogi except the board is funny."

Mousse's eyes lit up at the last of her comments and he began to talk 
animatedly, arranging pieces around the board.

"It's called Xiangqi.  A Chinese variant on chess, much like Shogi.  
Do you play at all?"  

>From the porthole, Shampoo groaned.

"Er, no.  I have played a little western chess though."

"I can teach you Xiangqi if you like."

"I take it you're good?"

"I beat Cologne twice," he shrugged.

"One win, one stalemate," the Amazon girl qualified.

"You know very well a stalemale counts as a win."

"Mousse also no mention lose one hundred twenty seven times to 
Hibachan."  Oh, she loved being smug about that.  "But is Joketsuzoku 
youth champion," the lavender-locked girl grudgingly conceded.

Akane had a sudden vision of her father and Genma huddled in serious 
concentration over chessboards, moving wooden pieces.  Then she 
imagined her father in Mousse's robes and glasses and a panda with 
purple odangos, its hairy figure squeezed into an Amazon outfit twelve 
sizes too small bent over the shogi board.

"What's so funny?"  Queried Ranma as her lips began to twitch.

"N-Nothing."

"Why look like that?"  Shampoo frowned.  "Is good battle training - 
skills needed for strategy, planning, logic in war.  Good player maybe 
make good battle commander.  Or in case of stupid Duck Boy, married to 
good battle commander and sweeping house."

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

"Yeah, yeah.  Duck Boy.  Good housekeeping.  I still don't get what 
any of this has to do with me."

"Well," Akane hedged.  "I might have . . . mentioned . . . that you 
were . . . good."

"It was all explained in the letter," the Amazon noted.

Nabiki waved the booklet in the air.  "You wrote it in Chinese."

"I provided a translation in the back."

She flipped through the pamphlet to the last few pages, then blinked. 
 

"Well, I'll be."

"Well, why didn't you just write it in Japanese then!" shouted Ranma, 
punching the bespectacled boy on the side of his head.

Mousse blinked.  "It's just that--I--uh---well--"  his jaw worked in a 
few more soundless contortions before finally grumping, "SHUT UP."

Nabiki stood up.  

"This is so stupid. I didn't come all the way here to play a game."

"Afraid then, are we?"  The Chinese boy laconically leaned back 
against the edge of the booth, features drawn up in an arrogant smirk 
not unlike Ranma's when he was taunting an opponent. 

An odd-colored aura flared up around Nabiki, not unlike Akane's.  "Of 
course not.  It's just that I don't like to waste my time with games 
that are . . . unprofitable.  Unless you'd care to make a small 
wager?"  Casually sliding into the booth, she smiled in a particularly 
sharklike manner at the possibility of carnage in the air.

The two not unlike people in question nervously glanced at each other, 
almost hearing the strains of 'Da DUM.  Da DUM' humming ominously in 
the background.

Mousse, surprisingly enough, returned an equally predatorial grin as 
his battle aura flared as well.  "I do not enjoy taking money from 
women."  He slid into the other side of the booth.

Da Dum Da Dum

Okay, he was DEFINITELY hearing John Williams now.  Ranma slinked a 
couple of steps towards the door anticipating an oversized mechanical 
Great White to come bursting through the floorboards.

"Oh, are you?  Or are you just afraid of losing the shirt off your 
back to a l'il ol girl like me, Silky?"

"Silky?"  Akane (who also edged a few steps closer to the exit) and 
Ranma paused at that.

"This is your name, isn't it?"  She held up the envelope up to the 
Chinese boy.  "Granted the kanji's not Japanese, but I believe it does 
translate to 'Washed Silk?'"

Da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM Da-- 

Cologne lifted the needle off the JAWS soundtrack that was spinning on 
the record player with the tip of her cane.  Leveling a glare at 
Mousse she grumbled something about inconsiderate youngsters, the time 
of night and beauty sleep, before hopping back up the stairs and 
slamming the door shut. 

"Three hundred years too late for any kind of beauty sleep, I'd say," 
muttered the Amazon, sotto.

The door opened and a spinning ashtray careened off the side of 
Mousse's head before shutting again.

"Now," the Chinese boy motioned to Nabiki, ignoring the growing lump 
on his temple.  "Where were we?"

Ranma and Akane unconsciously sidled closer together in front of the 
door as the two on opposite sides of the booth eyed the other with 
matching feral toothiness.  The crackle of ozone sizzled in the air 
caused all manner of hairs Ranma never knew he had on his body to rise 
in static salute.

A smirk.

A gilded smile.

A queen's pawn edged forward two spaces.

The tinkling of the doorbell and the human-shaped dustclouds provided 
the only evidence of two former figures that had stood there only 
moments before.

=====----=====-----====----====----=====-----=====

The stranger watched the tiny pig with the bandanna collar next to 
kettle on the Dragonfly stove with a certain sick fascination.  After 
a few more minutes, a 'bwee' shook him out of his stupor and he picked 
up the kettle.  The piglet formerly known as Ryoga stood up and walked 
under the spout and looked up expectantly.  He hesitated, then poured 
the water over the tiny mass, eyes bulging when it sprang back into 
the full form of the lost boy.

"That . . . " he stammered.  "That's . . . "

"It's Jusenkyo, that's what it is,"  Ryoga sighed as he crawled back 
into his clothes.

The stranger's eyes grew even wider.  

"The cursed springs?  I've always thought it was a myth."

The lost boy grimaced, pulling his shirt on.  

"I wish it were."  A head popped out of the sleeve, looked around, 
then ducked back in.

"Is this Jusenkyo . . . easy to find?"

"A bit of unsolicited advice," warned Ryoga, wringing out his 
bandanna.  "I wouldn't go anywhere near it.  There's a reason why it's 
'cursed'.  It's been nothing but that for anyone who's gone there."

"You mean you're not the only one who's been 'cursed'?"

"Nuh, uh," he flicked off the switch to his stove, and snapped the 
spider legs shut, before stowing it away into his backpack along with 
the kettle.  "Lots of different springs - panda, cat, duck, 
yeti-riding-a-bull-while-carrying-a-crane-and-an-eel, girl, you name 
it, someone I know has probably fallen into it."  Busy with repacking 
his items, he didn't notice the stranger stiffen.

"Couldn't you just cure yourself by jumping into a man-pool?"

"Believe me, I've been trying since the beginning.  So many times, 
I've come close, yet . . . " Ryoga snorted, shaking his head.  "Maybe 
it's like my 'other half.'  Maybe I just wasn't destined to ever find 
either.  But thanks for the story."

The stranger smiled thinly.  "Actually, it was my niece who told it to 
me."  He shook his head.  "She was in love with a boy who, 
unfortunately, had other obligations.  Sometimes I think she clings to 
that silly ideology because it's all she has."

"Other obligations?"

"The arranged kind."

Ryoga's eyes narrowed.  "His name wasn't Ranma was it?"

"No."

"Good."

A silence overtook as both men settled into their respective thoughts.

Leaning back against the thatching, Ryoga watched the crescent moon 
sweep along its nightly course in the sky above.

Was it true?  Had Akane never been fated to be his . . . other half in 
the first place?  And if not, who was?  Was it even a she?  He really, 
REALLY hoped it was, in fact, a she.  The idea of being part of a 
four-legged male was rather unappealing.  And if it was a she, how 
would she recognize him?  And more importantly, how would he find her?

An image of Akari came to him unbidden, and he unconsciously smiled at 
the thought.

Tomorrow . . . tomorrow he would return to Nerima.

He'd return and then he'd ask her.


The stranger drew an old battered scroll out staring at the first two 
letters that spelled out "Sunflower" old Chinese characters.

For weeks he'd agonized over the decision, of the sacrifice he would 
have had to made to dip into the true power of what he held in his 
hands.  He'd come to the roof to make that decision, forsake what he 
was for the art, and to get as much liquid courage as he could into is 
body.  Because he'd have to get truly, madly drunk to even contemplate 
what he'd been about to do.

But if what the boy said were true, it could . . . would . . . make 
all the difference.

"Jusenkyo," he whispered, clutching the scroll closer to his chest.
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