Subject: [KOR/Ranma][FanFic] Split Orange Intersection
From: David P Gao <[email-masked]>

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

A soothing wind brushed lazily against the trees with an almost
absentminded caress, egging the foliage atop to sway to and fro in a slow
rhythm and filled the high promontory with a murmuring rush like a
mother's song that gently lulls a child to sleep.  The verdant green moved
the air about sluggishly as if in halfhearted pursuit of the occasional
plump-looking cloud roving above.  

A teenage boy dressed in a deep-green Mao-suit along with a green hat lay
on the ground with his hands tucked behind his head, his eyes tracing the
puffy wisps of marshmallow white over him and idly watched the sky
floating backwards against the stationary clouds.  A light gust lifted
strands of hair above his face, only to have them settled down a moment
later.  He sighed for no particular reason.

Suddenly, he noted something drifting towards him from one corner of his
eyes.  "Masaka?"  It was rather large, deep red, and round like a UFO.
"Nanda kore?  Mu, mugiwara boushi ka?"  Before he had identified it, the
young man had already leapt up from prone position into the air and caught
the object intruding his rest with one hand, all in the blink of an eye.  A
long pigtail snaked out from underneath his hat and fluttered in the wind
as he did so.  He afforded himself a close look at his prize after he landed.

It was a red straw hat.

"Nice catch!"  A voice behind him made him tense and turn his head back
immediately, promptly forgetting about the hat.

"The wind just took it away."  He stood wide-eyed and stunned like a deer
caught in a headlight as the figure in front of him went on.  "I'm glad, I
thought it was going to fall all the way down to the bottom."

"Ah."  The voice had belonged to a girl, and a beautiful one at that.  She
was dressed in a white shirt and shorts, covered by a floral-paint shirt
tied into a knot at her waist.

"It would've been a real hassle since this stairway is so long."

He had no idea what she was talking about, but agreed anyway.  "Y-yeah, it
really is."  It wasn't really his fault that he couldn't help but notice how
her indigo-blue long hair flowed with the wind like it had a life of its
own, and how the multitude of expressions set themselves onto her face in
quick successions as she smiled or pouted slightly, seemingly without a
care in the world.  "After all, it's got ninety-nine steps."

"Huh?"  Suddenly remembering that staring was an impolite thing to do, he
shook himself out of the reverie and took note to what she was saying for
the first time.

"Don't you know?  There are ninety-nine steps, if you count from the
bottom to here!"  

"Uh. no, I didn't know that."  Still recovering from his daze, he replied
absently.  Not wanting to let girl talking to him know that he hadn't been
listening to her, he tried to find an excuse and quickly added, "I, ah, took
the elevator."

Blue-green eyes stared into his own and blink-blinked.  "But... there is no
elevator."

For the first time that he could remember, he was at a loss for words. 
"Well, um, anyway," the young man stuttered out in hope to distract her, "I
bet you there're actually a hundred steps."

The girl was incredulous.  "You're kidding!  There should only be ninety-
nine!"

"Nope, I tell ya, it's a hundred."  He shook his head deliberately, growing
confident.

"That can't be right!  When I counted there was only ninety-nine steps!"  

"Maybe you counted wrong?"  He offered generously.

Her expression was slightly indignant.  "Speak for yourself!  Isn't it you
who miscounted?"  As if suddenly recalling something, she broke into a
content little smile.  "Besides, how can you be so sure?  I thought you took
the elevator."

Caught by his own words, he stared helplessly at her before resolving into
a smile mirroring her own at last.  "Well, it's simple actually.  I've never
heard anyone stupid enough to design a staircase with only ninety-nine
steps."  Completely oblivious to the dangerous flash that appeared in her
eyes, he plowed on.  "I mean, since it's so close anyway, why didn't they
just spare themselves the trouble and make a full hundred?  C'mon, even a
child could figure this out."

"Oh, I see."  Her gaze was frosty, and her tone too leveled.  "So you're
implying I'm stupid?"

"No, all I'm saying is that there's no way those stairs only had ninety-nine
steps."  Just to add the dramatic effects, he afforded himself a little
smirk.

"And I tell you there's no way those stairs had one-hundred steps!"  She
suddenly yelled.

"It's a hundred!"  He yelled back.

"Ninety-nine!"  She tucked her hands to her waist and retorted.

"A hundred!"

"Ninety-nine!"

Their voices grew louder, and their faces were flushed.

"A hundred!"

"Ninety-nine!"

"I tell you, it can't be a hundred steps!"

"And I tell you, it can't be ninety-nine..." she paused in mid-sentence, her
voice drifting off as she realized what exactly they were saying.  And,
noticing that the roles had somehow reversed himself, he stopped too.

They looked at each other in surprise.

Then both burst out laughing.

"Well, what does it matter anyway," the blue-haired girl finally said after
a while.

He smiled back.  "I guess so."

"You're not from this town, right?"  She asked suddenly.

"Why... how do you know?"

"Because... you have an accent!"

"Ah... is that so?"  He looked downward to examine himself in a self-
conscious manner.

"Yup."  Without warning, she turned and started to head back down the
winding stairway.  "In any case, I gotta go now.  See ya!"  

He looked up to see her leave.  "Uh... bye."  The pigtailed boy trailed off
when he realized that he still had her hat in his hands, and called out to
her.  "Hey!  Your hat!"

She looked back.  "It's yours!"  She said with a small, mysterious smile
after a little pause.  "You look good in it!"  Then she was gone, leaving 
only the faintest trace of a laughter in her lingering voice.  Without 
knowing why, he clasped the hat to his chest and a healthy shade of red 
slowly crept into his cheeks.  

He considered putting the hat on when he noticed the color of his suit and
drew a brief mental picture of what it would look like with the straw 
hat.  After a few seconds of indecision he thought better and decided against
wearing it.  The color clash was frighteningly ugly.  

"Man," he muttered to himself in slight dismay, staring at the empty
stairway and then at the red hat in his hands, "is she for real?"

ukulele productions
proudly presents

Side-Project #4
A Spur of the Moment Series

                     Split.  Orange.  Intersection.

                          A crossover between

                          Kimagure Orange Road
                                    &
                                Ranma 1/2 

                           You've been warned.
------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   ONE

                     Mugiwara Boushi (The red straw hat)

My name?  It's Ranma.  Saotome Ranma.  Sixteen years old.  Nice meeting
y'all.  

I heard a wave of murmur washing across the crowd in front of me.  They
always do that for some reason.  Out of habit I felt myself scratching the
back of my head for a moment.  It was kinda embarrassing after all, the
way everyone seemed to talk about me from the sides as if I didn't exist,
although I guess I should be used to it by now.  Have they never seen a new
student before?  

The teacher was busy flipping through my transfer records.  It was very
thin, only a couple of pages actually.  It wasn't much of a surprise or
anything; me being on the road and what not really hadn't left much time
for me to go to any schools for the last couple of years.  Not that I wanted
to, anyway.

Oh well, it can't be helped.

Matsuoka-sensei examined the new student with a critical eye and
inwardly sighed.  The boy certainly didn't look like the studious type, and
his records showed.  Man, he thought, when will they give me a break?  One
delinquent was quite enough for him, and the possibility of having another
one in his homeroom just warranted a long series of migraines down the
road ahead.  The guy looked more like he'd be a club bouncer than a school
student - for god's sake, the kid's even wearing a Red-Army uniform!  

No doubt about it.  There was something decidedly not right about this new
student.  The smell of trouble emanating from this boy, he judged from
past experience, had already shot way past the mere danger level of being
strongly volatile and sublimed into a realm of disasterhood more readily
comparable to an wide-spread oil spill from a barge of ships carrying
premium grade Exxon-quality gasoline around an island hosting multiple
active volcanoes.

"Is this my seat?"  He saw the boy reaching for an empty desk.  Wasn't
that...

"Ah, not there."  Pushing the glasses further up against the bridge of his
nose, he amended, "that's Ayukawa-kun's."

"What, is he absent?"

"No, she's here.  She's here, but..." the teacher gently corrected as he
gestured with a little shrug, obviously uncomfortable at continuing.  

"She escaped."  A voice close to the new student whispered to him
conspiratorially.  "In other words, she's playing hooky."

"Hooky?"  The young man seemed surprised for a moment.  He scanned
about the room, pigtail waving left and right across the back of his
shoulders.  Then he shrugged.  "Well, that's too bad.  There ain't another
empty chair around here, so I guess I'll have to take this one.  I'm sure she
wouldn't mind; after all, it's only for a day."  With that, he plopped down
into the wooden chair and turned to the front of the classroom.

The class gave him a look filled with horror.

"What?"  Ranma blinked in puzzlement.  "Is there something wrong?"

For the rest of the morning, everyone else seemed to be fidgety and tense
for one reason or another.  They seemed to be more interested in watching
the door than listening to the teacher, not that I'm one to talk - I was
watching them instead, since first days were always boring on general
principle.  But after a while even I got bored watching the guys around me
watching the door like some horrible monster was going to show up, so I
turned back to stare at the wooden desk instead and tried to remember
why on earth I bothered to register for school.  Junior-high, no less.

It wasn't long before I started seeing Pop's face again in my mind, us both
jumping among bamboo poles and screaming battle cries at each other like
there's no tomorrow.  The old man, where is he now?  What's he up to?

I knocked myself on the head once with a fist.  I'm doing it again, worrying
about the lousy, sniveling, decrepit old liar; I'd sworn that I'd never
wanted to have anything to do with him again.  It's why you left in the
first place, I told myself.

But I couldn't let it go yet, no, not all of it.  Every time it rained, I 
would get a reminder of what had happened in China, the stupid training 
ground, the stupid curse, the stupid dreams...

The stupid oyaji.

"Hah!  You're way too slow, Pops!"  I taunted the old man as I saw him
coming at me heel first.  I leapt from my end to meet him halfway,
spinning in mid-air twice and feeling wind howling around me as I flew
towards him.  His foot tagged my shoulder, but it's no big deal; I had
slammed a knee into his fat belly and knocked him down into a spring with
a huge splash.  He should know better than to try that on me.

I waited for him to come out of the pond.

I didn't have to wait long.  A large, blurred form dripping with water
sprang from beneath the spring heading straight for me, and I shifted my
center and readied in response.  Then I almost did a double-take and lost
my footing on the pole.

Something came out of the spring all right; but whatever that thing was,
it ain't Pops.  In fact, I could almost swear that it was a huge, soaked,
half-crazed panda flying towards me with that look that said it wanted to
have me as a side dish to go with raw bamboo shoots.  Then, half a second
later and still in shock, I felt the massive ball of wet fur nail me with a
punch in the gut and I fell and fell and fell

The teacher frowned when he heard a loud crash coming from the back of
the room.  His frown darkened noticeably when he saw who had caused the
ruckus during his lecture.

Saotome Ranma was so fast asleep that he had apparently fallen out of his
chair.

"Saotome-kun!"  He chided sternly at the flushed young man, "what were
you doing?  I realize that this is only your first day, but at least you can
try to act like you're paying attention.  As a reminder to make sure you
don't fall asleep during class next time, I would ask you to stand outside
in the hallway with the buckets now."  

Several girls nearby giggled.

What a mess, Matsuoka-sensei groaned inwardly, and on his first day no
less.  He thought about having to deal with the new student in the class
for the rest of the year and shuddered.

"Man, I can't believe that happened," Ranma mumbled, carrying two large
buckets of water with his shoulders slumped.

He stared at the water buckets, watching the ripples skim across the top
with every movement of his body.  Water, he thought tiredly.  It always
comes back to water, doesn't it...

The first thing I noticed was that my body was itchy and tingling all over
like my skin was oversensitive or something.  I saw Pops sitting by a
campfire, waiting for me to wake up.  He explained to me that I landed on
my head and knocked myself out on a large rock by one of the springs, and
I've been out cold for the last day or so.  He told me that we were quite a
ways from Jyusenkyo now, and he had changed us back to our own forms
after the guide explained to him about the curses.  Of course, at the 
time, I told him in all honesty that he was nuts and I had no idea what 
the hell he was babbling about.

He promptly gave a quick demonstration with a cold pail of water.

By the time I had gotten over it - however much one can get over a curse
like that anyway - and he from his near-death experience and the large
swollen bruises on his neck, we had somehow left China and landed back in
Japan again.  From then on things went pretty fast, starting from me being
dragged to the Tendos, the whole deal with the engagement, to the fight
with the Kunos, then Ryouga, Shampoo, Mousse, Cologne, Ukyo and finally
Happousai, not to mention the little run-in with Herb and Saffron;
everything came and went before I could blink.  Finally, I got married to
that Akane girl, and found myself in the hospital's emergency room on my
wedding night.  

I probably don't have mention that she had cooked the whole feast in
celebration and had expected me to down at least half of the
unrecognizable lumps she called food.

I was kinda numb when the doctors told me out of the blues the next day
that I probably weren't going to survive the week, with more toxic
chemicals floating around in my body than a mercury plant and the lining
of my guts and what not washed out from being force-fed so much of her
junk over the years.  

I remembered spending a couple long days lying on the squeaky hospital
bed trying to swallow the fact that the great Saotome Ranma, heir to the
Musabetsu-Kakuto Ryu, was going to die from a bellyache before he even
turned twenty.  

Then, when I felt a terrible burning pain from my stomach and tried to tell
myself that I couldn't die like this, that this couldn't be happening to me
and that I could just ignore whatever part of me inside that had just been
ripped off to shreds and go on and stay awake just for a little longer even
though I was so tired and sleepy, everything around me seemed to blur out
and dissolve like washed paint.

That was when I saw her.

[2]

Students stormed out of the doors en masse as soon as the lunch bell 
rang.  

Ranma sighed.  So much for the first day, he thought as he stacked the
water buckets at the back of the classroom.  "Hey, wait up!"  A voice called
out to him before he could leave.  It was the guy who had tried to talk to
him earlier when he was finding a seat.

"Man, I can't believe you did that," the curly-haired boy told him.

"Did what?"

"He means taking Ayukawa's seat," a new student walked up beside the
first and supplied.  "Usually people who do that have a death wish of some
sort."

Ranma shrugged, disinterested.  "It's only for a day.  Besides, she wasn't
using it."

The two boys gaped at him for a moment, then laughed.  "You've got a lot of
courage to say that.  I envy you."  One of them, the plump one with the
glasses, said.  "Anyway, I'm Hatta, and this is Komatsu, glad to meet 
you."  

Hatta was about to say something when his friend, Komatsu, suddenly
yelled.  "Oh no!  The Katsu-sand!  Quick!  We've gotta hurry!"  Then, turning
to Ranma, the freckled young man apologized.  "Sorry about that.  We'll
explain later.  By the way, if there's something around here you don't
understand, we'll probably have the answers!  So, see ya!"  With that, the
two took off after the direction of the school cafeteria like there's no
tomorrow.  

Ranma gave a wry little smile.  "Weird."

The lunch period seemed surprisingly long for some reason.  Since they had
insisted for me to join, I ate with Komatsu and Hatta on the roof.  Of
course, I should've known that if it was going to rain at all, it was going
to rain at that moment.  

"Look out!  It's a, uh, mad suicidal flying squirrel!"  Out of 
desperation I screamed and pointed wildly at the empty air behind them 
with a shaking finger.  To their credit, Komatsu and Hatta didn't look 
back; they instinctively ducked with hands over their head.  For a moment 
I wondered if these sorts of freak accidents had happened here before.  
Meanwhile, the usual wave of tingling sensation washed over my body and 
confirmed my transformation as the first drops of rain hit me, and 
without further hesitation I leapt down the roof before my secret was 
discovered by those two.  

Fortunately, I had landed in a clear area with little noise, and those
students who were out and about on the fields nearby were busy shielding
the rain, bowing their heads and covering them with whatever was at hand.

I was quite relieved, once I had time to think back on this day, at how
things had turned out - also at the fact that pops never got around to teach
me that Fist of the Mad Suicidal Flying Squirrel.  Yes, it is an actual
martial arts fighting stance, and a powerful one too - if you can count out
the low hit ratio.  As for the people who don't know the real terror behind
the style, they'd see it as nothing but an elaborate form of self-
destructive midair headbutting contest where the guys, with their eyes
closed and their lips turned upward squealing out disturbing chipmunk
noises, jump down from a good distance above their targets and hope
they'd make contact with the enemy somehow - preferably with their
hands first and not their heads.

Anyway, the bell rang again when the lunch period ended and I figured that
my chances of returning to classes were gone, at least until I had a chance
to get some hot water.  Since this wasn't the first time I missed classes
right from day one of school, I thought my time might be better spent
wandering around the other buildings that I didn't have a chance to look at
earlier in the morning.  After a bit of walking blindly, I found myself
outside an empty classroom one floor above the music department.

[3]

While I was having a good time strolling at a leisure and everyone else
was doubtlessly in their respective classes being hastily put to sleep by
their respective teachers, I couldn't but help looking downward at myself
on occasion, as though even when the change had occurred every single
time cold water had come there was still some small possibility that it
might not the next time.  Of course, I had long grown out of my days of
resentment over the curse - as much as I had more or less followed her
advice on not actively displaying any of my training in public - but this
whole business to me was still very unnatural.

When I first saw her - or myself, depending on which way you look at
things - I was momentarily stunned.  "Oh, no, not again," I recalled blurting
out as she came out of nowhere.  Or, more correctly speaking, the hospital
room I was in faded into nothing and when I blinked, I found only her
standing in front of me.

My redheaded female counterpart regarded me with an eyebrow slightly
raised in amusement.  "Not what again?"  Then she smacked her fist into
open palm as she realized what I was talking about.  "Ah-h-h, you think I'm
some other by-product of that magic mirror?"  I nodded.

"Well, you're wrong, of course, like you usually are."  She said it so
matter-of-factly with just a flair of arrogance that I was more than a
little offended.  Of course, since she was just me in female form, she
spoke more or less the same way I did, and more or less taunted the same
way with the same efficiency as well, unfortunately.  She was using my
trick against me, and she was doing it disgustingly well.  "All right,
Saotome, here's the deal," she continued before I could interrupt.  "You're
still in Jyusenkyo."

"Huh?"  I huh-ed, not comprehending the least bit.

"Well, everything you remember about the Tendos and Saffron and Herb and
the whole basketful of them - I mean, every single thing including the
hospital episode on your wedding night - are only visions that I conjured
up.  They're dreams now, but they'll all come out to be true once you start
following your idiotic father back to Japan.  And no, before you do, please
don't ask how I know; I'm not the spirit of the Spring of the Drowned Girl
for nothing, you know?"

I stared at her dumbly.

"Oh yes, now that I'm all worked up, I might as well give you a piece of my
mind - what in the heavens were you doing?  I was having a nice afternoon
nap when you came splashing down into my spring with all the grace of a
slab of concrete.  Seriously - for a top-class martial artist, couldn't you
at least have come down with a little more poise, even if diving was
clearly a concept too difficult for you?"  To tell the truth, she could be
very acidic when she wanted, and I had to hand it to her that she could
elevate mere insults into a form of art without any effort.  It reminded me
of Nabiki on her worst day - or her best, again depending on which way you
look at things.

"Fine, fine, just get on with it!"  I said in exasperation.

"Don't you dare interrupt me while I'm insulting you," she wagged a finger
and warned me with overflowing self-justification.  "But anyway, take my
word for it when I say that what you saw was what's going to happen if
you keep hanging around your dad.  So it's really up to you what you want
to do - I was just warning you ahead of time because, well, a girl's gotta
look out for her interests."

"What are you talking about?"  I asked in alarm at the mention of the word
"interest."  The speculating, glittering eyes of a certain busty Chinese
Amazon rose unpleasantly to the surface from dimmed memories.

"Don't you remember?"  She chided almost pityingly, as if speaking to
some lower lifeform.  "You fell in my spring, and like it or not, I'm coming
with you."

"What?"  I shouted.  "No way!  I don't want to go through all that again, and
I certainly don't want to share my body with a girl if I can help it -
particularly with a saucy tart."  I added the last part just to get back at
her.  However, she did have a point - the dreams of all those years after I
was cursed did cushion the shock a great deal.  Of course, that certainly
didn't mean I wouldn't object to it as loudly as I possibly could.

"That's just too bad," she shot back with a trace of steel in her tone,
"because I happened to want to go out and take a look at the world as 
well.  It's just so dreadfully boring here."  She sighed wistfully.  "I 
just had to draw somebody in and take me out for a spin.  I couldn't 
really do anything here but vegetate and drink fresh mineral water, you 
know-"  And suddenly, with a mischievous look she batted her eyelashes at 
me and said, "and there's not a thing you can do to stop me from going 
along with you anyway, so why waste the time to argue?"

"What you want to do is your business, not-"  I was about to retort, when
it suddenly dawned on me what she had implied.  "Wait a second," I
sputtered angrily, "you planned all this!"  Quite beside myself, I went on,
gradually heating up along as I punctuated each sentence with an
exclamation stronger than the one before.  "You used your magic to draw
me into your spring!  All because you want to hitch a ride in my body!"

"Of course."

"And you blamed me for disturbing your afternoon nap?"  I asked
incredulously.

"Who else was I supposed to blame?"  She asked with a nonchalant shrug. 
"I wasn't going to drag that fat slob of your father down here, if that's
what you were suggesting.  I'd have a trauma each time I get splashed with
hot water and look at myself if I did that.  Besides, you were already going
to fall into a spring anyway, and I'm sure that given some time even
someone like you will see the advantages of being a beautiful, intelligent,
good-natured human girl than a skunk - or a black little pig."

My anger slowly evaporated.  She was right, even though she was rude and
annoying and like to nail you on the head with the fact that she was right
over and over again just to rub things in deliberately, I told myself.  It
must have been a girl thing, I decided then, and let things went at that -
but I just had to ask.  "The Spring of the Drowned Pig?"

"Yeah," she jerked a thumb somewhere to one side and deadpanned.  "Three
springs down, to the left.  It's right next to the one with the skunk.  Ryoga
should be grateful he didn't fall into that instead."  I shuddered, then 
tried very hard to suppress a laugh at the thought.  "And you shouldn't 
complain - you did get a fair trade too," she continued.  "I had shown 
you what was supposed to happen in the future, so instead of being 
blindly railroaded into something you don't want and get all miserable 
down the road, you can ditch the whole thing together and start new 
again.  Who knows?  Maybe you'll turn out half-way decent and civilized 
this time after all; not to mention you have just gained knowledge of 
some of the most secret and powerful techniques from the best masters of 
martial arts on earth - and you can train yourself in those techniques 
without having your life made a mess."  I felt my eyes widening as I 
realized what she said, and I could not help but let a little glow of 
satisfaction show on my face.  "Most importantly," she continued, "read 
my lips: No Poisonous Food!"  

My little glow of satisfaction turned into a full-fledged grin.

To my surprise, she smiled.  It made her look absolutely ravishing -
believe me, I knew.  I was her already, in a sense, and I had practiced
exactly that same smile many times over myself.  Really, how else did you
think I was going to get all that free food?  "I'm sure you'll eventually see
things my way, Ranma," she - ah, hell with it, Ranko - said sweetly that
had the unmistakable signal for the end of any ensuing discussion on the
matter.  "Just to let you feel safer, I'll even let you in on something 
else."  She waited a little and drew herself up to make sure I know that 
she was feeling magnanimous at the moment.  "Even though our 
personalities will merge to a degree, you'll be running things most of 
the time and I'll stay dormant.  In fact, you probably won't even feel 
I'm around anymore after this, if the merging is as complete as I think 
it is.  I'll only come out and say hello to everybody from time to time, 
probably say when you get knocked on the head or something like that - 
but I don't see that happening often, especially if you decide not to 
give into your masochistic instincts and stick around with that psychotic 
gorilla that calls herself Akane.  So I guess that more or less covered 
all the grounds."  Ranko turned around and her figure began to fade.

"Oh yeah, one last thing," Ranko's face popped up from nowhere once more
just when I thought I was finally rid of her, "do try to remember how to
breathe, Ranma, for both our sakes.  You're turning unheathily blue."  When
she saw she wasn't getting her point across, she paused in thought as if
she had forgotten to mention some irrelevant detail. Finally, with large,
innocent eyes, she supplemented a bit of information she withheld from
me before.  "Oh, did I forget to tell you?"  That demonic girl actually
managed to sound shocked.  "You're still in the middle of drowning, 
Ranma.  Why, if you don't swim up to the surface from the bottom of the 
pool, I think you'll probably even die - and I just can't have you 
polluting my home with your rotting carcass bloated with water to the 
size of your ego now, can I?"  She beamed at me one last time, and then 
was gone.

That was about the same time when I, fully indignant and about to work up
a good comeback to my evil half, choked on a mouthful of the spring water
and blacked out.

[4]

The rain had tapered off to a thin drizzle by now, and I was taking my time
perambulating aimlessly by a row of empty rooms.  Strangely, I didn't
mind doing it for some reason; being alone and undisturbed is a wonderful
way to clear out stray thoughts.  

However, the momentary feeling of peaceful solitude fled as quickly as it
came when I noticed that there was someone else nearby as well.  Out of
reflex I quickly scanned the surrounding area for any imminent dangers,
but it turned out I didn't have to at all.  A faint saxophone melody slowly
flowed through one of the doors down the hallway, and since I didn't have
anything to do, I followed the sound and stopped just outside the
classroom.  

Upon getting closer, I strangely found myself moved by the soulful music
as it reached me with more clarity.  The tune was slow and probably
played ad-lib, and though I wasn't one to judge, I felt a sense of unbridled
freedom expressed from the song.  Then, soon following that short-lived
exultation of freedom, a trace of irreparable loss and loneliness, and a
little touch of longing for something that I didn't know then.  I 
listened in rapt attention despite never caring much for any music 
before, because at last I realized that I could relate, and even 
resonate, with those feelings the song had evoked from me.  It was a 
sweet euphoria that was not sweet in that it was just stating a fact, but 
at the same time that fact to me was truth presented with such a helpless 
nakedness that I could not stop but force myself to stare in awe at its 
sheer beauty.

A sudden compulsion seized me to find out the identity of the person
playing on the other side of the door, and noticing that the door was not
shut completely, I leaned in to get a better look.  My eyes nearly bugged
out when I discovered who it was.  It was the very same girl whom I met
by those long stairway last Sunday.

Then the song abruptly ended.

Madoka Ayukawa turned her head sharply to the door and narrowed her eyes
when she thought she heard a creaking noise coming from its hinges.  

"Dare?"  She called out bluntly with barely concealed hostility.  From the
look on her face, Madoka did not seem too pleased to have her private time
disrupted - especially if the interruption came from some petty gang
member in school looking for a pointless fight.  Slowly, the door was
pulled open from the other side, and a redheaded young girl wearing a wet
male uniform emerged from behind it with a sheepish expression on her
face.  "Sorry about this," the girl replied, ruffling her hair absently with
one hand and slightly embarrassed, "I didn't mean to interrupt anything. 
I'm new to the school here, and I was just looking around for the heck of it
when your music drew me here."  

Madoka's expression became unreadable for a few moments before she
finally replied.  "You're not interrupting anything," she said without a hint
of emotion.  "I'm just about done anyway."  Then, walking to the wall
where she left her saxophone, she picked it up and headed out without
another word.  

Left alone in the room the red-haired girl wondered with a slight frown. 
"Was it something I said?"

By the time I found a place safe enough where I could use hot water to
change back, school had just about ended.  No doubt the sensei would be
pissed off, but even that would be better than having to explain the 
curse.  As I tried to think of an excuse to fend off any questions that 
might be asked regarding my absences, I found those two - Komatsu and Hatta -
waiting for me by the school gates.

"Man, the teachers were pissed off," Hatta greeted me with a grin that
stretched the freckles on his face like drawings on a balloon becoming
inflated.  "Where were you?"  Then, before I could respond, his eyes grew
large behind those square-framed glasses and he exclaimed, "why, you sly
little - you saw that girl and tried to chase her, right?"

On the side Komatsu reproved disappointedly.  "Ranma, my friend, it was
poor manners to ditch your friends at lunch to go after a girl... all right,
spill it, which class does she belong to?"  He suddenly changed topic and
asked impatiently, rubbing his hands together in an expectant manner.

"Wait, what girl?"  I was positive that no one saw me when I was talking
to her.

"Who else?"  Komatsu replied testily.  "Come on now, Ranma, don't deny you
didn't see her.  I mean, even if she's got some weird taste in clothing,
she's still a hot babe.  Don't try to hog the information all to 
yourself!"  All sorts of alarms were sounding in my head now.  A timely taken
photograph provided by Hatta had confirmed my suspicions.

"Here, I took down her picture the second I saw her," the plump schoolboy
said, almost slurping back a slight drool from the corner of his mouth. 
"Can you believe it?  That chick moved fast - one instant she was there on
the field, and then the next she was gone!"  The photograph was, of course,
none other than my female form in mid-stride on the field, soaked to the
bone in the rain.  I sighed miserably.  Why me?

"Look, Komatsu," Hatta pointed at the picture with undisguised enthusiasm
as if he had just discovered America.  "I don't think she's wearing a bra
either!  Woo-hoo!"  I sighed even harder and hastily walked ahead of those
two, leaving them ogling around at their leisure.  Well, at least they
weren't bugging me anymore.

Then, quite unexpectedly, I stopped when I reached the front gates.  Apart
from the hordes crowding the sidewalk and leaning against the gate a few
feet away from me was that strange girl again... and she was smoking? 
For some reason that did not sit too well with me, and I found myself
reaching out to knock the cigarette away from her hand.

"No, don't go near her!"  The duo had caught up with me at the last second
and tried to restrain me as best as they could manage, their interest in my
picture momentarily eclipsed by total, overwhelming fear.  "That's
Ayukawa!  You'll only get into trouble if you mess with her!"  Ayukawa?  A
thought flashed across my mind.  So she was the one who skipped class
today.  Doubts began forming in my head; the nice girl with a dazzling
smile whom I met at the park was a terror at school?  I pushed the doubts
away and shrugged my two new classmates off.  Some things could wait.

Instinctively I sent a tiny wave of frosty ki towards her off a half-raised
fingertip, promptly extinguishing the cigarette.  "Ayukawa" seemed more
startled than dismayed at the fact that the cigarette in her hand was put
off for no reason whatsoever, and she quickly drew the lighter for a
second try.  I nudged that off as well, and stubbornly she kept going at it
while I casually put out the light every single time.  The whole thing got
to the point that every student in the surrounding area was drawn to the
spectacle, and I could swear that the blaze in her eyes alone could light up
that cigarette as well as setting the entire school on fire in the 
process.  Finally, feeling a bit short on patience myself, I stepped up 
and flicked the offending thing away from her hand.  Her smoldering eyes 
snapped up to challenge mine in an instant.

"You shouldn't smoke, you know,"  I said without thinking in a tone that
offered no grounds for debate.  "It's bad for your babies' health."

A synchronous gasp escaped from everybody present.  Maybe the words
didn't come out the right way, I reflected.  The way the crowd drew back
and murmured something along the line of "Ayukawa is pregnant?" and "I
wouldn't be surprised" was more or less an indication of that.  As for the
object of the currently-spreading rumors, the look on her face had
transformed from an initial shock into incredulous outrage.

I amended immediately, attempting to alleviate the situation.  "No-no-no,
I didn't imply you're having babies or anything," I quickly backpedaled.  "I
mean, I don't even know if you can have babies, you know?"  

Incredulous outrage gave way to burning fury as I realized I had misspoken
again.  The rumors of Ayukawa's pregnancy circulating among the
encircling mass was subsequently mixed in with new rumors about her
sterility as well.

I tried everything I could at that point to head off the impending 
disaster.  "Uh, I mean, of course I know you can have babies - very, very 
healthy and pretty babies," I appeased her with a soothing voice.  "It 
was stupid of me to say that.  After all, you are a girl, aren't you?"

The student body promptly dispersed at a mental signal at that.  Uh-oh, I
thought as I noticed burning fury had finally ascended into a blind,
homicidal impulse.  Me and my big mouth, I berated myself.  This was going
to hurt.

[5]

S-L-A-P!

The male population in the crowd winced in sympathy as they
unconsciously rubbed their own chins.  It was a undeniably feminine, yet
cleanly forceful SLAP with big, capital letters complete with etched
horizontal lines in the background.  Ranma was sent to the ground after
pirouetting four or five turns in mid-air.  Performed on ice it would have
been a quintuple-axle and an immediate Olympics gold medal.

At last, the blue-haired girl - still obviously fuming - pushed past the
students and left, disregarding numerous questions thrown at her from a
few audacious persons among the speculating mass.  The new student,
Ranma, weakly sat up from his position on the ground and stared at her
retreating figure with an expression that nobody could penetrate.

Komatsu and Hatta hurried to their fallen friend.  In unison they knelt in
front of him and bowed until their foreheads touched the pavement.  "Our
new hero," they intoned in chorus, gazing in awe at Ranma.

"What are you doing?"  Was the slightly creeped out but curious reply.

Hatta grinned.  "Buddy, you've just become our personal idol!  I mean, you're
the only one who managed to get a rise like that out of Ayukawa and still
survived!"

"Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen her so mad before... she was already
scary enough usually when she turned on that ice-queen mode."  Komatsu
chirped in.  Then, a little concerned, "are you all right, Ranma?"  He 
asked.  "You sure you didn't get a concussion or anything?  You really 
should've taken our advice earlier.  I heard Ayukawa's even into martial 
arts too, and she's like, really good at it or something.  Things won't 
look too bright for you if you don't act careful around her, you know... 
Ranma?  Hey, Ranma?"

Ranma nodded subconsciously, his gaze far away.

"Um," Komatsu said, slightly hesitant as he rose and dusted himself.  "I
think he's still out."  He told Hatta as the two of them watched Ranma
sitting with a vacant stare in the direction where the blue-haired girl
departed.  "Maybe we should leave him alone for a little while."

Hatta nodded with an understanding look.

"Madoka-san?"  Elsewhere, a lively young girl with short, brown hair
gushed at her companion.  Her gestures were animated and her gait was
full of energy, almost making one believe that she was a walking deposit
of concentrated sugar.  "Madoka-san?"  She called again.

"Eh?  Nani, Hikaru-chan?"  Came the absentminded reply as the two
strolled along quietly on a sidewalk.

"That guy at the school gate - did you know him?"

"No!"  The older girl immediately spat through gritted teeth.  Promises of
slow, excruciating torture could almost be heard in her tone.  The younger
girl, unused to such a vehement reaction from her, visibly jumped.  Seeing
this, Ayukawa quickly composed herself.  "Eh, gomen ne, Hikaru-chan.  I
don't know what came over me just now."  Then, weakly smiling, "I guess
I'm just a little tired today."

"Oh."  Hikaru meekly responded.  

[END OF ONE]
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Notes:
1.  C&C, MSTs welcome :)
2.  Thanks to tannim for hosting this fic - all current and future chapters
    can be found at:
    home.earthlink.net/~tannim/Split_Orange_Intersection/SOI.html