DO NOT READ END NOTES UNTIL AFTER THE CHAPTER!

Chapter 13, the most unlucky chapter, The most unlucky person…

Ranma winced in sympathy as the cask of water flew into the head of a woman who had just arrived at the battle scene on a motorcycle, her companion doing the same. Thankfully, the blunt force impact seemed to have not done anything but knock the woman out, sending her to the ground in a crumpled heap. The monstrous form of Taro dove over her body, catching the small missile in his tentacles once again before it could crack open on the ground, and flapped his wings to boost himself into the air.

“Where the hell’re ya going?” Ranma yelled, as she saw that the monster was fleeing from the battle.

“I think he’s chasing Happosai.” Ukyo said, looking around to see that the old man was nowhere in sight. “Now can you tell me what’s going on here?”

Ranma looked worriedly after Taro, and shook her head. “Sorry, but I can’t let him get the ol’ freak with that water. I’ve gotta go after him.” Seeing the unconscious form of the girl who had been knocked out by the flying cask being tended to by the man who had come with her, she frowned. “Can you take her to doc Tofu’s? I think she could be hurt pretty bad.”

Ukyo was going to protest, but then remembered that Ranma had been training under Dr. Tofu, and she just may know what she was talking about. Of course, the idea that this girl was Ranma was still rather hard to swallow, but this wasn’t the time to question things like that. Nodding, she headed for the couple near the motorcycle.

As Ukyo left, Ranma jumped to a rooftop and looked for any sign of Taro or Happosai, quickly seeing an explosion from what looked like a local public bath.

HR

At Furinkan, Nabiki burst into Ranma and Akane’s class, searching for someone. “Ryoga, where’s Ryoga…” She panted, having run to this class on the third floor from the school yard, and just now catching her breath.

“Ms. Tendo, I trust you have an explanation for this?” The teacher asked, glaring at her.

“There’s something wrong at the Dojo, Ranma told me to find a guy named Ryoga, is he in here?”

“Something wrong at the Dojo?” Akane asked, standing from her desk.

At the back of the room, a boy with a black and yellow bandana stood as well. “I’m right here, Nabiki-san.” He said, heading for the front of the room.

“All right, come on.” Nabiki said, leading Ryoga and her sister out of the room, and down the hall. A few minutes later, the lost boy scooped the middle Tendo into his arms, as she began to slow down.

“Hey, what are you doing to my sister?!” Akane asked, glaring at Ryoga suspiciously. She had thought that he wasn’t a pervert.

“I’m carrying her so we can go faster.” Ryoga explained, sighing as he saw Akane’s glare. The youngest Tendo blinked, but then nodded and Ryoga sighed in relief. He knew she was just trying to protect her sister, but a mallet strike could slow him down too much right now.

HR

At the bath house, Taro roared angrily as his tentacles pierced the wall next to Happosai, the old man having jumped out of the way just in time. “Now c’mon Pantyhose my boy. Let’s be reasonable about this now!” Happosai said, slightly panicked. He knew that the monster was carrying a pretty decent amount of Jusenkyo water, and some of the pools in the accursed training grounds could do particularly bad things to one such as him. Also, the shear size of the boy’s cursed form and the amount of limbs that the octopus gave it made him almost impossible to fight.

Taro just growled, launching a burst of ink from one of his tentacles and blinding the old master of Anything goes, who hadn’t seen this ability coming. Within a few seconds, Happosai was bound up in several tentacles, and being held as far away from Taro’s body as possible. The monster seemed to give it’s equivalent of a laugh as it held up the Cask, beginning to crush one end to get at the water.

“Now, H-how about you reconsider this. I’m just a sweet innocent old man. Please STOP!” Happosai yelled, as a blast of blue energy came out of nowhere, knocking him from his prison and across the room. “Could you have been a little more gentle?” He coughed, as he immerged from the rubble of a wall that he had been thrown into.

“Sorry ‘bout that old man, figured you wouldn’t mind.” Ranma said, as he entered the room, now male and holding a bucket full of hot water. While Taro was surprised and distracted by his singed tentacles, he pitched the bucket at him, returning him to human form.

Taro glared angrily as he resettled the cask, it’s lid now slightly cracked, carefully so that none of it’s contents would spill. This left him with use of only one arm, however, so he was pretty much on the defensive. Worse than that, he was in the middle of a bath house, where hot water could be found in abundance. “So, why are you defending the old bastard?” He asked, deciding to buy time to think of a plan. “Unless you’re another pervert, I doubt you actually want to save him from becoming a kind and virtuous person.”

“Taro, if he was gunna become kind when you hit him with that water, I’d help ya hold him down, but you got the wrong spring water, and you REALLY don’t wanna use that on him.” Ranma said, carefully alternating glances between Taro and Happosai.

“Well, you tell me that but you won’t tell me what’s really in this thing, so how about I test it on YOU femboy?” Taro said, smirking as he cracked the top of the cask the rest of the way open and pitched some water towards Ranma. Unfortunately, due to his usual luck with water, the pigtailed boy wasn’t able to get out of the way in time, and got doused completely. Strangely, nothing happened aside from his usual curse, and he shifted to female form. She glared at Taro, wiping her red bangs from in front of her eyes.

“Damn, that’s strange…” Taro muttered, looking at the half cask full of water that he still had. “Well, it didn’t do anything really terrible to you, so I still think I want to get the old freak with this and make him change my name!” he said, running at Happosai once again, and deciding that if the water hadn’t effected Ranma it wouldn’t do anything to him either, dipping his hand in and immediately shifting to his cursed form. The monster immediately bellowed after that, however it sounded just a little bit off. He didn’t seem to notice.

Happosai yelped as a group of tentacles came at him again, and quickly ran out of the bath house. Ranma, however, just looked stunned. There was something strange going on here. Of course, she was glad that she hadn’t suddenly gotten a twin, but the water wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. What if it had done something like lock her curse instead somehow? Her face paling, she ran to one of the large pools of warm water in the room and jumped in, sighing in relief as he returned to male form.

HR

Where in the world did you lead us now?” Nabiki yelled, as she glared at the lost boy who stood next to her. Akane had gone off in another direction to find Kasumi when the three had reached the Dojo.

“I think we could be back at the school.” Ryoga offered, hopefully.

The middle Tendo just growled, as she went to find someone to ask directions from, ensuring that she led the lost boy instead of the other way around. True, she hadn’t really had much of a reason to stock up information about him, but she really should have found out about something as big as his ability to seemingly get lost in a room with one door. Quickly getting the information that she and Ryoga had somehow wound up on the other side of town from a helpful shop keeper, she looked back at the lost boy. “Now, let’s go.” She said, while thinking that she was going to do horrible, horrible things to Ranma Saotome the next time she saw him.

HR

Ranma sneezed as he leapt across rooftops yet again. This particular chase was getting pretty annoying, yet Happosai had started to bolt like a scared rabbit after the incident in the public baths, for some reason, and Taro was going almost as fast. The decrease in strength that he had noticed yesterday had begun to show now, as Ranma’s endurance was running low. He would definitely have to start some pretty hard training soon.

A few minutes later, Happosai realized that he couldn’t hope to outrun someone who could fly, and turned to face the winged monster who descended upon him. Focusing, he sent one of his fire cracker bombs at the beast, hitting where he wanted to and sending the half empty cask flipping into the air once again. The grand master of anything goes quickly avoided it, and most of the water splashed off of the rooftop, landing on the street below. He sighed in relief, thinking that he had dodged the horrible fate that lay within the cask, when he heard an ear piercing scream followed by a loud thumping sound.

Ranma, who had just arrived on the roof, quickly jumped to the ground while Happosai ant Taro continued to fight, now not caring what they did since they didn’t have the drowned twins water anymore. When he got to the ground, however, his eyes widened in shock at what he saw.

HR

At Ono Tofu’s clinic, The front door opened as Ukyo Kuonji carried the sleeping form of Urd, while Keiichi followed her. He had tried to convince her to let him take the goddess back to the temple, but she had argued that such a bad knock to the head needed to be looked at, and he couldn’t contradict her without giving something away. Besides, with those limiters, Urd really COULD be badly injured.

“Hey, anyone in here?” Ukyo called, leaning the unconscious Urd against a chair.

“Ukyo-san?” Came a woman’s voice, from the back of the clinic. “What’s the matter?”

Keiichi blinked as he heard the voice, blurting out the name “Belldandy?”

Ukyo just looked at the man next to her oddly, before responding. “Kasumi, we’ve got a girl out here with a pretty bad bang to the head. Is Dr. Tofu here?”

The two heard a few strange sounds, before a door in the back opened, and Dr. Tofu exited it, his glasses slightly crooked, and his face flushed.

“Were we interrupting something?” Ukyo asked, slightly amused despite the situation.

“N-nothing, nothing at all!” Tofu stuttered, his glasses fogging up slightly. “Now, what seems to be the problem here?” As he said this, Kasumi exited the same room that he had, looking slightly less flustered, but still wearing a bit of a blush.

“Tofu-kun, do you need some help?” She asked, walking up to him and straightening his glasses.

Tofu cleared his throat, examined Urd’s head, and nodded. “Thank you Kasumi, get one of the beds in the back ready, it looks like she will be out for a little while.”

“See, the doc’s one of the best doctors in the ward, your friend should be fine here sugar.” Ukyo said, as she looked back at Keiichi.

“Thank you, Ukyo-san.” Keiichi said, gratefully. Looking up at the clock on the wall, he winced. “Is there a phone in here? I need to call Belldandy and tell her where I am or she’ll get worried.”

Ukyo raised an eyebrow, remembering that Keiichi had said that name when he had first heard Kasumi’s voice, but shrugged it off. “Sure, I think the doc’s got a phone in his office.” She said, leading Keiichi back there, while Urd slept on.

HR

Ryoga Hibiki felt strange. He and Nabiki had just been doused with water from some careless person on the upper floor of an apartment building, however when he had turned to see who had done it, he had felt something off in his balance. It was almost like his chest moved a little bit on it’s own, and his shirt sleeves were falling a little bit over the backs of his hands.

Looking down at his chest, he saw that his shirt was slightly baggy and wrinkled, aside from in one place where it seemed to fit correctly. Curious, he reached with his hands, feeling the area. There were two things there. They were soft, and round… and they hurt if he squeezed them too hard. With a feeling of impending doom, he opened the front of his shirt, looked down and screamed before realizing what he was seeing and passing out with a massive nose bleed.

HR

Nabiki looked in astonishment at the body that lay on the ground next to her, a stream of blood flowing from it’s nose. It was wearing Ryoga’s clothes, however it didn’t look much like Ryoga. In fact, it looked like a black haired girl, a bit over average height, with a decent body. “How…” She muttered, before hearing someone hit the ground behind her. She turned to see Ranma, standing and gaping at the form on the ground.

“Nabiki, is that Ryoga?” He asked, seeming to be in a state of shock.

The middle Tendo daughter just looked confused. “That… Was Ryoga, I think…” She said, uncertainly. “We got hit with this water and he… she…” She seemed to ramble off into incoherence at this point. If anyone from Furinkan could see her like this, they would probably think the end was near.

“So that’s why the water didn’t do anything to me.” Ranma said, then snickered. “But it’s gunna be really funny when Taro realizes what he did to himself.”

Suddenly, Nabiki was back to her cold and controlled self, walking up to Ranma. “You know what happened, Ranma?” She asked, calmly.

The pigtailed boy only shrugged.

“THEN TELL ME!” She yelled, sounding almost hysterical.

“Well, I think Pantyhose Taro accidentally brought spring of the drowned girl water to use on Happosai instead of the spring of the drowned virtuous man… but I don’t know how that happened, ‘cuz it was supposed to be spring of drowned twins water…” Ranma explained, slightly nervous because of the way Nabiki was acting. Maybe the stress of all of the changes hitting within such a short time had made her crack, or something. ‘Nah, this is Nabiki.’ He thought, dismissing that notion.

“So now Ryoga’s got the same curse you do?” Nabiki asked, quickly getting the idea.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Ranma said, as he heard the sound of someone groaning from the ground.

“Ugh… I just had this really strange dream.” Ryoga said, as she opened her eyes and sat up, rubbing the back of her head where it had struck the ground. “I dreamed that I got turned into a girl and…” She trailed off, as she noticed that Ranma and Nabiki were both staring at her, looking nervous.

Then, she realized that her voice sounded different. Eyes widening in horror, she looked down at her chest once again. Yes, those were breasts. With that firmly established, she stood up, looking very shell shocked. Ryoga had been, since at least two years before, practicing mental discipline to control his temper, and excesses of emotion. Ever since the incident in Jr. High, he had realized that they were a problem. Another problem at the moment however, was that HER brain was on the verge of complete collapse from shock, and would grasp onto whatever it could to keep from blacking out. Quickly and sketchily connecting several dots, it came to the only thing close to a logical solution in this situation. “Ranma, this is all your fault. Prepare to die!”

Ranma gulped as the enraged black haired girl who was actually Ryoga charged at him, murder in her eyes. “SorryNabikiIgottago!” He yelled, running in the opposite direction.

End.

Notes: Damn, I’m not too good at the description of the traditional Ranmaverse running battles… well, good to know anyways. Oh, I need a name for poor Ryoga to use at some point in the future. I’m currently leaning towards Hichiki, which means “Faulty direction,” but that just sounds mean…

Sorry, but I spent the last week trying to describe how to install a power supply to a computer illiterate. Damn my lack of depth perception, or I’d have done it myself and gotten it done in thirty minutes… At any rate, Here’s the next chapter, and I didn’t mean for the cliffie to last this long. That’ll teach me for putting one in, ne?