"Although our rink has been shattered, the fight goes on! How long can this continue?" The small islands of ice the pairings of Ayumi and Ryomi, Mikado and Azusa stood on were steadily drifting apart. Each realized it wouldn't take much to send any one of them into the cold, indifferent water. Ryomi's eyes jolted back to the water, the lump in her throat threatening to cut off her breath. She had more than one incentive not to fall into the water... A glance over at Ranma revealed the sidelined girl was resting against the wall bordering the rink. From her posture Ryomi guessed Ranma was - believe it or not - concerned for both of them. Weakness. That was why Ryomi was here in the middle of all the action and Ranma was not. Even though Ranma knew how to skate better than either her or Ayumi, it was Ryomi's opinion that Ranma didn't belong in this fight at all. From the beginning this fight had been about *her*, Hibiki Ryomi, as P-chan... whom Ranma had so innocently and unknowingly adopted as a pet. Ranma had no idea that her little pet pig was actually her chief rival in a different body. That Ryomi had a curse similar to hers... and if Ryomi had her way, Ranma would never find out. Ranma may have been embarrassed by her curse, though she was nowhere near as troubled with her curse as Ryomi was with hers. At first, the only reason for Ranma to accept this challenge was to rescue her pet from the oddest kleptomaniac any of them had ever seen: Shiratori Azusa. Now, she probably wouldn't admit it, but Ranma was also concerned for Ayumi's safety. After he'd made it publicly known that Ranma was his iinazuke and he would not allow anyone to so much as touch her... The thought angered Ryomi. Ayumi was supposed to fall in love with *her*, not Ranma! Why couldn't he ever see that? It hadn't taken long for *Ranma* to recognize it... She set the thought aside. It was time to put her mind to use, not her infamous temper. Ayumi watched the girl standing beside him out of the corner of his eyes. He was about to initiate another thought when Ryomi hesitantly picked him up and threw him toward Mikado. "*I* alone will remain after all of you have fallen!" Ayumi managed to turn around and slow his flight. "RYOMI! What'd you do that for!?" he yelled, landing - amazingly enough, on his feet - short of Mikado and Azusa. Ryomi wrenched a section of ice free of the water, a boulder which was almost as large as her. She flung it at Ayumi. "ALL of you are now my enemies!" The boulder crashed into the ice between Ayumi and the Golden Pair, sending them leaping in three different direction as the ice sank. The Golden Pair found a new island to stand on; so, too, did Ayumi. "How DARE you, Ryomi! Are you too chicken to win a fight the proper way?" "Weren't you listening? I said that the first one of us to go down is the loser! And I didn't say *how*!" "Oh, well... if THAT'S the way you want it to be..." Ayumi pitched a larger boulder Ryomi's way. "Ha!" she laughed, disintegrating the boulder with her fist. "It's gonna take more than a little rock like this to--" Her boast was cut short as Ayumi sailed through the boulder debris to deliver a drop-kick to her face. "Your guard's down!" Ryomi caught his extended ankle before it cleared her. "So's yours!" She wrenched him about by the ankle and vehemently slammed him to the other side of her small ice island. Unfortunately for her, Ryomi had forgotten the laws of physics. Impacting one end of their island caused the opposite end to swivel up into the air, turning the whole island into nothing more than a cross between a teeter-totter and a slide. Destiny's Wish Part Fifteen: It's Not Just for Love, Anymore written by Mike Koos ----------------------------- Ayumi's fingers found a small pit in the ice to help stop his slide... though not before he had dipped into the icewater. His 'partner' used him as a convenient means to stop *her* slide. Ryomi stared in terror at the water. Ayumi could go for a swim all he wanted, but her? No way! How was she to escape *this*? The answer? Mikado, of course. "Oh, my dear! Is there anyone out there who can save me?" she raised her voice to put on an act worthy of Mikado's bad acting. Predictably enough, the male half of the Golden Pair swooped in to carry her away. "Don't worry, my darling! You are always safe in my embrace!" His words, too, were highly predictable. Ryomi chose to wait until they were upon relatively solid ground again to turn on her would-be rescuer. If she waited too long, Mikado would segue into that infuriatingly self-absorbed fantasy world of his and she'd have no choice but to put him out of her misery. She hadn't expected him to start his fantasy *before* they landed. "Take comfort in the knowledge that I am here to deliver you from the clutches of the wicked Tendo Ayumi!" <"I *knew* I could count on you, Sanzenin-sama!"> Ryomi could almost see the flowers and multicolored soap bubbles taking shape. She left him after imbedding a straight punch in his face. "Ayumi-san... Ayumi-san!" she called. "Where did you go?" She looked in every direction yet couldn't find him. Where could he hide in a sea of floating ice cubes? Unless he was avoiding her for some reason... Ayumi either hadn't recognized she cared for him, or he was too dense to notice. She'd prove to him that caring for *Ranma* was the wrong thing to do... Ryomi felt a hand take hold of her right shoulder. "You shouldn't run away, dear girl. How can I protect you if you won't remain with me?" Oh. Mr. Fantasy had returned. That was fast... Ranma squinted to get a better look at the interior of the former rink. All of a sudden everyone in the rink had disappeared into the jagged field of ice and water. Not even the announcer could see them, though he didn't consider that to be a bad thing. Merely another break from having to announce every little pointless detail that took place. The fact that her pet, P-chan, had vanished as well didn't worry Ranma. P-chan *constantly* disappeared. For days or weeks... yet the little pig always found her way back safe and sound. Ayumi continued to tease both Ryomi and P-chan, calling Ryomi 'P-chan' and P-chan 'Ryomi.' As if the two were *connected* somehow... as in a Jhusenkyou curse. Geez, just because she had a curse Ayumi figured he could take shots at both her and Ryomi at the same time by giving Ryomi an imaginary curse? All this served to do was make Ranma more conscious of her embarrassing curse. Her curse was one of the main reasons she refrained from entering the rink now. With the rink's surface turned into a sea of mismatched glaciers not even the Koruhoz High Stylists' Club would risk stepping onto the ice to help a girl trapped in a boy's body - and a girl's costume. No, she'd wait until she had no choice left but to enter the rink. The fight for P-chan was presently out of her hands. So where was her team? Ayumi was thinking along similar lines. Despite Ryomi's intent to turn this fight into a one-on-three grudge match, she was still his current partner. They were *supposed to be* working together. Oh, why hadn't he insisted on bringing Ranma back as his partner while he had the chance? "Why don't you just admit it?" she'd yelled at him this morning. "You're only doing this because of your *stupid macho pride*!!" Those latter three words went hand-in-hand when it came to describing Ayumi, as far as Ranma was concerned. And though he hated to admit it, she had a point... Ayumi *did* let his pride influence many of his decisions, like this one. Another part of his mind answered, "Hey, handsome! I'm glad I found you!" 'Handsome?' Who in the world...? Later, he'd wonder why he hadn't merely bothered to place the voice. Much, much later he would discover his chief problem was that his mind stopped working when it came to the opposite gender. He turned to find Shiratori Azusa smiling coyly at him. "Uh... can I help you?" Azusa blinked, wondering how to answer that question. "Yes. I want you to be my partner." What? *Another* person wanting him to be her partner? And a member of the opposition, no less! "Don't you have a partner?" Azusa gestured with her finger toward Mikado, who was busy hitting on Ryomi. "I'm sick and tired of him hitting on every girl he meets! Even during a match! Well, if he wants that girl, he can have her! I wanna teach him a lesson, how about you?" The more Ayumi thought about the idea, the more he liked it. Ryomi would get more than she deserved - being forced to count on the biggest playboy Ayumi had ever seen. Ha, she did deserve it, didn't she? Sneaking around at all hours of the day and night with the intent of murdering or otherwise maiming him and Ranma... and take advantage of her Jhusenkyou curse by pretending to be Ranma's pet pig. He'd known he wasn't going to be able to trust her the moment she volunteered to be his skating partner. Naturally, she was here just to destroy any effort he or Ranma made. Not that he could trust Azusa any differently; the only partner he could trust was Ranma. It was nearly impossible to see her from atop the bobbing ice floe on which he and Azusa stood. If he *had* been able to see her, he might have been inclined to bring her back into the rink as his partner instead. But with all this ice-water mere inches underneath their feet... Ayumi was willing to bet Ranma was a little afraid to come out here. Or maybe not. Ryomi's curse was worse in several aspects than Ranma's. Yet that wasn't enough to keep Ryomi from being here, so maybe he was underestimating Ranma. It wouldn't be the first time... "Okay," the word fought to make its way past his lips. As long as this didn't turn into a game of musical partners and pair him off with Mikado at any point in the future. Visibility remained nonexistent for anyone standing at ground level. In an effort to try to get a better view of the arena, Ranma had taken off her skates momentarily to run in her socks over to the elevated announcer's platform. The problem was, it wasn't really much of an improvement. "What's going on?" she asked the announcer. He gave her a puzzled look. "You're asking me? You've got a better chance than I do to see what's going on. Just go back out there." Easy for him to say! "I'm not legally allowed to be out there right now!" Ranma shrugged. "What makes you think I can just walk out into all that mess?" "From what I've seen, it's turned into a free-for-all fight... but I can't be sure. If that's true then *either* side can easily be disqualified by the tiniest mistake now." Assuming any of the officials ever caught sight of the fighters again. "I, uh... I think I'll wait for a little while," the girl reluctantly withdrew, her voice going oddly distant. For some reason the announcer felt a touch of sympathy for Ranma... What was it about this girl that was different from most of the girls he had ever known? He dismissed the thought. "Afraid to go out on all that broken ice?" "Not really," answered Ranma, not paying too much attention to him. That *was* part of the reason, she had to admit, but there had to be other reasons. Now, if she could figure out what most of them were. Had she only known Ayumi had just agreed to pair off with Shiratori Azusa... Mikado was about to lapse into a serenade for the latest girl to take part in his fantasies - all this time, and she still hadn't given him her name - when the new challenge came. "San-chan!" What? Oh, it was merely Azusa. What did she want? She had a knack for picking the worst moments to interrupt... such as this one, when this nameless vision of feminine beauty beside him would show her affection for the one and only Sanzenin Mikado in any of a number of ways. Ryomi was exhibiting remarkable patience and restraint in not decking him. No, that was too easy; he never got the point that way. She'd chosen to save it all for one point where she would finally let him have it - maybe put the fool out of *everyone's* misery. Then she could go back to forcing Ayumi to see things her way. She never imagined she would drive Ayumi to *Azusa's* side. "Haven't you flirted with enough girls for one year?" demanded Azusa, while Ayumi forced his attention elsewhere. They stood on an ice island that had drifted close to Ryomi and Mikado's small patch of ice. "We can't go *anywhere* without you trying to kiss every girl you meet!" Mikado snorted a low laugh, turned his head away and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. "My dear *girl*... if I accord the fairer gender the proper respect, that is my business. You, on the other hand, cannot go anywhere without trying to *steal* something." "I do NOT!" Apparently, Azusa was the only one in the entire building who believed that. Ayumi tried to get her attention. "Ano..." But she would have none of it... "You take that back! Take it back, take it back!!" When Mikado coolly ignored her rather than respond, she hopped over the gap separating their islands to get to him and repeated her refrain. That didn't work; Mikado made more of an effort to ignore her - one of the worst possible things to do in Azusa's presence. She raised her voice a few decibels higher, stomping angrily up and down on the ice like an annoyed kangaroo and flailing her arms at her sides as if she thought it would emphasize her point. "TakeitbacktakeitbacktakeitbacktakeitbacktakeitbacktakeitBACK!!" An instant later the ice collapsed underneath the Golden Pair, sending them both plunging into the icy water. Ryomi uneasily backed away from the resulting splash. "Ayumi-san..." she said breathlessly, casting a look at her one-time partner. "It's just the two of us now." Ayumi innocently pointed to himself. "You're crazy if you think I'm gonna walk away and let you go after Ranma!" The Lost Girl bounded toward Ayumi. "This has NOTHING to do with Ranma!" As she touched down on Ayumi's island Ayumi sprang high into the air. She wondered what he was up to - until he landed with force on the opposite end of the island, catapulting her off in an entirely new direction. "Well, folks, this has been an unusual fight, to say the least," the announcer recited. More canned lines! Oh, well... the fight was over, so it really didn't matter. "The paramedics have rescued the Golden Pair from an ice-water fate and officially declared them unfit to continue. The Fuurinkan team has therefore won the match by disqualification! Although..." He glanced at the scene in the rink. "...it looks as if they still have a few problems of their own to work out." In the meantime, the Golden Pair were being escorted out of the building on stretchers. Azusa had a plain white blanket draped over her to keep her warm - while the blanket covering Mikado had a large, bright yellow baby duck pulling the string of an equally brightly-colored balloon in its mouth. On seeing the design Azusa shot out from underneath her cover to examine this interesting blanket for herself. "I've never seen anything so *cute*!" she squealed, attempting to head back to her stretcher with her new-found prize clasped tightly to her chest. With great effort Mikado hopped off his stretcher and snatched his blanket away from her. "I am practically DYING from the cold, and you want to steal my blanket? You've got your own - use it, you little brat!" Honestly! Even nearly being turned into an ice cube couldn't stop Azusa from taking other peoples' possessions in the name of cuteness. Azusa scanned the area around her, found a metal folding chair and brought it down on her partner's head, strong enough to snap the wooden bars of his stretcher in half. "How *DARE* you take my Marianne!" She walked off, holding the blanket high. One of the more popular children's songs crossed her lips. The paramedics studied the young man sprawled in an extremely undignified position on the hard cement floor. "Guess there's no way he's coming back to finish this fight, then." "Guess not," the second medic adjusted his glasses. Ayumi and Ryomi leapt toward each other in midair. This was it - the final confrontation! No more Golden Pair to get in the way... just him, and her. One of them would lose this fight. For Ayumi, losing meant he would have to break his engagement to Ranma forever. Dad and Mr. Saotome wouldn't like it at all, but he had accepted the bet as a martial artist. His honor insisted that he follow through with it. To go back on his word would mean the loss of everything he had worked to accomplish. "No more interruptions! It's time we ended this fight, Ayumi-san!" Ayumi hmphed. "Fine with me, *P-chan*!" Ryomi launched a kick at him. "WHO'RE YOU CALLING 'P-CHAN,' PERVERT!?" She hated to call him a pervert - that was Ranma's accustomed name for Ayumi! - but she wanted to upset him, disrupt his concentration. Ayumi could be a dangerous enough fighter if he needed to be. As possible proof of that theory, Ayumi vaulted over Ryomi's extended leg to catch her in a headlock. They plummeted toward an open section of water. "You're going straight to Hell!" he declared as Ryomi yelled and flailed uselessly against the hold. Just before they were to hit the surface of the water, a chunk of ice about the size of a compact car hit them instead, pushing them away from the water. Ranma withdrew the arm she'd used to toss the ice at her iinazuke and the Lost Girl. She was shaking; maintaining her balance on all fours on a wobbling ice floe while pitching considerable sections of pure ice around wasn't easy. She made sure the ice had knocked Ryomi and Ayumi to safety before choosing to yell at them. "I've had it up to HERE with both of you always fighting! I thought *I* was the one who's supposed to be fighting with Ryomi, not you!" "She's got a point," Ryomi said, sweetly. Ayumi was far too concerned with Ranma to notice the tone. "What in the world did you do that for!?" "I want to know why you two keep arguing with each other!" Ranma pointed an accusing finger at them. "And why do you keep calling her 'P-chan,' Ayumi?" "Because--" was all Ayumi could utter before Ryomi clamped a hand over his mouth to keep him from talking. "It's because, he's a jerk! This fight doesn't concern you, Ranma, so go back to the sidelines and stay out of this! I'll be glad to explain everything to you in detail once we're done!" Ryomi punched Ayumi away. Ayumi rebounded off a small patch of ice. "Hold it!" insisted Ranma. Her words were lost. "What's to explain?" Ayumi retorted. "You're an annoying little pest and Ranma doesn't know it!" "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO KNOCK IT OFF!" insisted Ranma, who wrenched another large chunk of ice free from her floe and threw it at them to emphasize her point. Ayumi barely avoided having the lower half of his body sheared off by the ice. He didn't, however, avoid Ryomi's next attack. Sensing her chance, she popped up from behind Ranma's projectile to swing a foot across Ayumi's face before the boy had a chance to react in time. The kick sent Ayumi crashing to the end of Ranma's unstable ice floe opposite her. Ranma paled; Ayumi's impact with the ice caused her to teeter closer to the edge. "Ah..." Then Ryomi, wanting to make sure Ayumi stayed down, leapt in with the blade of one of her skates aimed for the boy's face. "Got you now!" Ayumi played dead until the last instant, then rolled to one side. His opponent's skate was left to slice through the ice floe instead, which left Ranma with far less ice to perch on. She tumbled over the side and clawed desperately at the edge of her diminishing island to keep from falling off... her feet scant inches from the cold water now. Okay... time for a new tactic. She took all of her body weight and levered it above her, her body maneuvering into a handstand worthy of a skilled gymnast, so that she could flip her body back around to come to a standing position on the ice. Ranma succeeded - deftly arranging her skates so that she wouldn't slide any farther - but her tiny island collapsed like a falling tree, taking her with it. She fell into the water with an unusually loud splash. If anything, the noise brought Ayumi and Ryomi's argument to a screeching halt. "Ranma!" Ayumi went wide-eyed. "Didn't we tell her to stay out of this?" Ryomi frowned in minor disgust. Ayumi gave her a look of reprimand then turned back to the water. Ranma's male form surfaced for a second or four as she vainly tried to tread water to stay afloat. But it was far from enough. Her frantic struggling dragged her underwater that much faster. One of the lilies that had adorned the sides of Ranma's head floated on the calming surface of the water to mark where she had fallen. Ryomi gulped. "It... it can't be..." Ayumi hadn't torn his eyes from the water. "She doesn't know how to swim!?" How could that be? He dived into the water after her. To his surprise, Ryomi followed. "Ryomi?" The Lost Girl looked at him peripherally. "What d'*you* want?" There was no time to waste. She had to save Ranma from drowning! They were rivals... if anyone was going to take Ranma out, it would be Hibiki Ryomi! Ayumi directed her attention to the water they were about to dive into. "You DO know that's cold water...?" It was. After all, Ranma had changed... They hit the water, Ryomi's screaming entirely within her head. ** ** ** She opened her eyes. Overhead, the lines of a ceiling slowly became solid. She blinked to speed the process. A ceiling......? Now how had a ceiling gotten underwater? It hadn't, of course. Ranma forced herself to sit up. No, she wasn't in the water any longer. In fact, she was her proper gender. Someone had gone to the trouble of turning her back into a girl and dressing her in the school uniform she'd worn to the arena - since they'd turned the fight into a big grudge match against schools. Sayuri and Yuka stood next to the bed. Ranma knew they had come, but hadn't had a chance to look for her friends in all the excitement. Ah... had they been the ones to do this for her? "Welcome back, Ranma-chan," Sayuri greeted her. She, as well as Yuka, was also dressed in the standard Fuurinkan girls' uniform. "You were out for a while there." "I-I..." Ranma stammered. "You... know?" Her friends' expressions became serious. "About your curse...? Yeah, Ayumi told us because he needed our help to make sure you were all right and get your clothes changed. Your costume's been ripped to shreds. Don't worry, we made sure he didn't look. Why didn't you tell us about that curse sooner?" "Because... it's embarrassing. I didn't want anyone to know." "I can understand that," Sayuri said. Yuka nodded in agreement. The twin sisters were almost so identical to each other, it was amazing... "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with us!" The edges of Ranma's lips turned up in a smile. "Thanks." Ayumi sneezed. Ranma turned to glance behind her. She hadn't noticed Ayumi was in the room until now. The youngest of the Tendo boys sat in a chair in the corner. He held a towel wrapped tightly around him; Ayumi had barely bothered to dry himself off. He *had* bothered to change back to his dry street clothes, however. A sudden realization came to Ranma as she studied him: he must have wanted to make sure she was okay before tending to his own problems. Ayumi tossed a small black object to her before she could say a word. She instantly recognized what was in her hands... "P-chan?" The collar-less pig looked up at her nervously. "What's the matter, P-chan? Goodness, you're soaking wet..." "She helped Ayumi-kun pull you out of the pool with her teeth," Sayuri told Ranma. "It was so weird," added Yuka. "P-chan just appeared out of nowhere. She must really care about what happens to you." Ranma brought her pet up to eye level. "Thank you, P-chan." Ayumi came to stand nearby. "You know, Ryomi dived in after you, too." "She did?" "Yeah, she did, didn't she..." Sayuri recalled. "Where did she go?" finished Yuka. Ayumi glanced at P-chan and sighed. "I'll bet she's gone home," Yuka was saying. "We should get going if we want to take the bus. It's getting late." "I guess..." Ranma made an attempt to stand. She was still weak; her legs threatened to give way under her. Thankfully, Yuka and Sayuri caught her. P-chan offered a concerned squeal. Ranma gave P-chan's head a reassuring pat. "I'll be okay, P-chan." Oh, what an unusual day this had been... nearly everyone coming and going... Ayumi at the center of it all. Everyone scheming to get rid of everyone else. And yet... She arranged her head so that she could see Ayumi, who was trailing them at a distance as they left the infirmary and took to the halls. "Ayumi... tell me, why were you and Ryomi fighting?" "Unfinished business. So why didn't you tell me you can't swim?" Good point. "Little miss martial artist, world traveler, been to China and back... and you're telling me you never learned to swim?" "Don't push it," Ranma glared at him. So did Sayuri and Yuka. She turned away. "Dad never let me have the time to learn how to swim. I never thought I'd need to know how... Dad didn't find out until after we went to Jhusenkyou. He tried to teach me, but that didn't go so well." An image of male Ranma trying to stay afloat while Genma the panda bobbed nearby, attempting to tell him what to do, passed through Ranma's thoughts. "I *can* kinda swim... sort of... as long as I keep calm and don't panic." Yuka shuddered. "I guess I'd be afraid to swim too if I had a curse that turned me into a boy every time I got wet." "Yuka-chan..." warned Sayuri. "What?" They reached the main door. "Forget it," Ranma muttered. "Let's just get outta here before anything else weird happens to us." (end) -------- Credits: Written by: Mike Koos Prereaders: Richard Beaubien, Tom Williams, David Wills With apologies to Takahashi Rumiko... (and everyone who was expecting to see Shampoo's debut at the end of this part :) All parts of this series are available at the RAAC archives at ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works or from my WWW pages at http://www.fanfic.net/~makoto/ Comments and questions welcome. * Mike ('Kino Makoto') Koos: makoto@cal.net * http://www.fanfic.net/~makoto * * "I can do nothing to stop you. Your background music is too strong * for me." - Sam Johnson, Whose Line is it Anyway?