Without further ado, the fic: 
Making the Play 
Ranma slowly lowered himself to the ground, leaning his back against a 
tree. He felt tired, moreso than he had for a long time. It wasn't 
really a physical tiredness, though he had just escaped another long 
chase. The chase throughout Nerima, with most of his enemies and 
fiancees joining in, had become a regular routine. 
What he was feeling now was more of an emotional exhaustion. Everyone 
around him talked about love, constantly claiming that he or they did or 
did not love someone. No-one ever seemed actually willing or able to 
tell him what love truly was, however. 
He had thought, at Jusendo, when he held Akane in his arms and saw her 
lying in the peace of death that he loved her. He wasn't sure, he wasn't 
even certain what love was, much less whether it was what he was 
feeling. Still, he had known at that moment that he had felt a deep pain 
at her loss, and thought it might be love. 
Now he was not so sure. After realizing that he might actually care for 
Akane, might even love her, if love was what he thought it might be, he 
had made a conscious effort to be nicer to her. 
In spite of the effort he made to be nice, to avoid insulting her, she 
still seemed to mallet him at every turn. Twice in the last week she had 
malleted him before he even saw her and later malleted him when he asked 
why she had malleted him in the first place. She never did tell him why, 
and she continued to accuse him of leading on his fiancees and of 
committing perverted acts with them, even though he had given them the 
cold shoulder ever since they returned. 
He hadn't eaten at Ucchan's or the Nekohanten since their return from 
Jusendo, but still, every time he returned to the house, she accused him 
of going to see them. 
He had for a time wondered if Nabiki might not be deliberately 
antagonizing Akane while he was gone. He knew she'd done so before, and 
with Akane's suspicious and angry nature, Nabiki certainly had little 
enough difficulty manipulating her. He had considered confronting Nabiki 
about it, though he had decided it wasn't worth risking. Then he had 
overheard a conversation between Akane and Nabiki... in which Nabiki had 
been berating Akane for her actions toward him, and support him. That 
had been a shock and a half and had caused him to revise his opinion of 
them both. 
He was tired of it, tired of the unending suspicion, the constant 
malleting, the interminable insults. It was really kind of strange... 
while the others were still chasing him occasionally, they all seemed to 
have cooled down. Even Mousse and Ryouga were nicer to him now, and 
their fights were far more like sparring matches than the angry brawls 
they had been. Of course, he still couldn't resist teasing Ryouga to 
make him angry. Ryouga was somewhat like Ranma in that respect; both of 
them were well able to channel their anger into constructive uses and 
when angered, they fought better, with more skill. Of course, Ryouga 
also tended to lose perspective at the same time and become a danger to 
those around him, but at least he could give Ranma a good work out. 
The only one who seemed unchanged by the whole affair was Akane. No, 
that wasn't really right, was it? She's not unchanged, Ranma thought 
sourly. She's getting worse. 
Ranma shook his head, trying once more to clear it of the depression 
that threatened to overwhelm him. Raising his eyes, he looked around the 
park. It wasn't the park he usually went to, in Nerima. He wasn't 
actually sure where he was, though he knew he wasn't in Nerima any 
longer. 
There were a number of people there and his eyes quickly locked on a 
group of young kids, playing. For a time he watched them and his spirits 
lifted, as he remembered his youth, playing with Ucchan. 
They hadn't just fought, though their fights had been regular and 
enjoyable. After their morning bout, they had sometimes been allowed to 
run off and play together. Ranma hadn't had many opportunities to play 
and he learned a lot from Ucchan. Hide and seek, tag, and other games 
that he'd never had the chance to play again. 
Those had been the good days... before the Neko-ken. The Neko-ken seemed 
to have changed more than just me. Oyaji used to actually smile 
sometimes, used to tell me I was doing a good job, before that, Ranma 
thought. Afterwards, he just said I wasn't doing as badly. As if it was 
my fault the Neko-ken was such a screwed up technique. Baka oyaji. 
He shook his head almost angrily. 
"Damnit," he muttered, "I'm supposed to be cheering up, not getting all 
depressed again." He tensed his legs and rocked forward to get clear of 
the tree, then rose gracefully to his feet. He was thinking about 
performing a few kata to clear his mind when from his new height he saw 
someone on the other side of the playing children. 
She caught his eye because she had an almost wistful, wishful expression 
as she watched them, much as he imagined he had had moments before. He 
paused a moment, studying her, before suddenly tensing as if expecting a 
mallet and quickly looking away. 
He strode away quickly, keeping his head down, but in his mind's eye he 
saw her still. She looked young, younger than himself, with short dark 
hair and a pretty though solemn face. She had also been alone, a fact 
that he really hadn't registered at first. 
Lonely, that's what she had looked, lonely and wishing she could be 
playing like they were. He felt like that a lot and he wondered 
sometimes why he was so constantly lonely, surrounded by people as he 
was. 
It didn't make sense, but then, so few things did. Girls, including his 
mother, school, math, the Kunos, the Amazon laws, Ukyou's sudden 
reversal of intent, so many things made no sense that Ranma had long 
since given up any hope of figuring them out. Akane... Akane most of 
all. 
"Do you want to be friends?" 
She had seemed so nice that first day, so open and inviting; the only 
friendly face he'd seen since long before Jusenkyou. After Jusenkyou he 
hadn't really expected to see any again. After all, what was he now? A 
freak. 
Ranma kicked at a stone on the path he had made his way to as he 
remembered that first bout. She always complains that I don't take her 
seriously, he thought, but she didn't take me seriously then either. As 
if I was automatically supposed to be worse than her. Why would she 
think that? I had been on a ten year training trip and she knew that, so 
why would she expect me to not be as good as someone who only trained 
occasionally and didn't even have an active sensei? 
Two years had passed and he understood her no better now than he had 
when they first met. Can you really be in love, he wondered, with 
someone you don't know? 
He thought again of that girl he had seen. He wondered if she wanted a 
friend, a real friend, as much as he did. He would have liked to have 
gone over and talked to her. Maybe he could have cheered her up. Maybe 
she could have cheered him up. Maybe he could have played again, as he 
had so long ago. 
But he couldn't. He couldn't have friends, couldn't make friends, 
especially not with girls. His fiancees were too jealous to allow 
friends. Any girl near him was instantly a competitor. Not that it was 
so much better with the guys. He didn't have any real friends there, 
either. They were all too jealous of his luck with the girls. That was 
something that he really didn't understand. Couldn't they see how 
miserable the girls made him? Why did they envy that? 
He thought of Ucchan again. I wish she had stayed my friend, he thought, 
feeling a hot, burning sensation in his eyes. He held the tears back, 
much as he wanted to just let go. Have to be a man, have to be strong, 
men don't cry. Not even when they lose friends. 
Though he found his parent's insistence that Ukyou's engagement simply 
didn't count because they didn't want it to to be dishonorable, he had 
to admit that she didn't have a true claim. Her dowry had been lost to 
the Gambling King before Genma ever stole it, so technically, her dowry 
hadn't been stolen. That didn't change the fact that there had been a 
verbal agreement and that was all the Tendo's had, but the Tendo's did 
have a dowry to offer, while Ucchan didn't. 
He shook his head sadly. He'd never tell her that, of course. No matter 
how much he wanted to have his best friend back, he couldn't hurt her 
like that. 
Ranma had some hopes for Shampoo. After Jusendo he felt sure that he 
could eventually convince Cologne that his defeat of Saffron was 
sufficient to allow Shampoo to return without losing face for not having 
brought him back. After all, they couldn't expect her to be able to kill 
a god, right? So they would have to accept that he was far enough beyond 
her that it was no dishonor to fail to capture him. He hoped. 
As for Akane, he was growing daily more certain that she hated him. That 
was one of the reasons he had never taken more direct action to resolve 
the fiancee situation, even when he found possible honorable ways out. 
He didn't want to force her into a marriage with someone she hated, 
He had his head down in thought and so he completely missed seeing the 
woman standing by the park entrance in a well-tailored suit. Until, of 
course, he bumped into her, just as a passing car sent a sheet of water 
his way. Somehow she didn't get splashed at all, though Ranma was of 
course not that lucky. 
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I wasn't looking where I was going." 
He looked at the woman he had bumped into and was surprised to realize 
that she had green hair. 
"That's alright," she said with a soft smile. "You look like you have 
something weighing on your mind right now." 
"Well, uhm, yeah, kinda," replied Ranma uncertainly, fidgeting a bit 
when he realized the woman was looking at him... er, her, rather 
intently. 
"You look very healthy, young lady, so I assume its not a physical 
problem. Are you an athlete?" 
"I'm a martial artist," Ranma said proudly, standing straighter. 
"Oh, are you very good?" 
"I'm the best," Ranma boasted, earning an arched green eyebrow. "I'm 
Saotome Ranma of the Saotome branch of Anything Goes Martial Arts," she 
said, then she blanched suddenly. Damnit, why'd I forget and use my male 
name?! 
"I see," replied the woman, her smile broadening, "I've heard of you." 
Ranma groaned inwardly. 
"Doctor Ono praised your skill most highly," she continued and Ranma's 
eyes popped wide. 
"You know Dr. Tofu?" 
"Indeed. He is a colleague of mine, or was, before he moved on." 
"You're... you're a doctor?" Ranma sounded skeptical. 
She nodded and held out her hand. "I'm Meiou Setsuna. Its a pleasure to 
meet one of Ono's students." 
Ranma shook her hand but still looked uncertain. "How... how'd you know 
I was one of his students?" Not even Nabiki was aware of Ranma's studies 
in ujubitsu under Ono Tofu. 
"He spoke most highly of you, as I said before," Setsuna responded. She 
looked around. "Would you like to step over to that cafe, and continue 
this conversation over a cup of tea? I would very much like to hear 
some of your stories first hand. Dr. Ono told me many stories but I'm 
sure there were many details he never learned." 
Ranma glanced around nervously. The request had made him realize that 
she was in fact very attractive and the fact that she looked to be at 
least ten years older than him would not save him if someone saw them 
together. Still, the chance to talk to someone who knew Tofu would be 
nice. 
They walked across the street and stepped into a small cafe. Setsuna was 
surprised when Ranma held her chair for her to sit in. When she cast a 
questioning gaze on him, he blushed slightly as he pulled up a seat for 
himself. "Guess Dr. Tofu told you I'm a bit rough on the edges, huh?" 
Setsuna satisfied herself with an affirmative nod. 
"Yeah, well, I been trying to learn to keep my momma happy, but I can't 
practice around Nerima, cause Akane always thinks I'm being perverted." 
"Akane is your fiancee?" Setsuna looked up as a server came to their 
table. They ordered tea then she returned her attention to her 
companion. 
"Well, yeah. It was our dad's idea. She's not the only one though." 
"So Tofu led me to believe. I have to say I found some of his tales hard 
to credit... but then, if your father was foolish enough to take you to 
Jusenkyou it is hard to really put anything past him." 
"You... you know about Jusenkyou?" 
Setsuna laughed lightly. "Come, Ranma, if Dr. Ono had told me about you 
without mentioning Jusenkyou, would he not have described you as a man? 
The fact that I didn't laugh when a girl told me she was the famous 
Saotome Ranma should have been enough for you to know that I knew about 
Jusenkyou." 
"Oh... yeah, I guess so." 
"He... Dr. Ono also told me," Setsuna began, then paused as the server 
returned with a tray. They waited in silence until the server left. 
Setsuna took a short drink of the hot tea then cradled the teacup in 
her hands. "Though I find it hard to believe that anyone could be so 
stupid as to do it... he told me that your father tried to train you in 
the Neko-ken?" 
Ranma jerked when she said the word "Neko," then nodded. "Yeah, I don't 
think there's anything stupid he wouldn't do." 
"So... he tried to train you in it... surely he didn't succeed?" 
"Well, sorta... at first it just made me scared of c..c..c.. them 
things. He figured if he just kept throwing me in, I'd at least get over 
being scared of 'em. Instead I snapped. And I still do, if I'm around 
'em and can't get away." Ranma's voice was subdued and he was clearly 
working not to think, not to remember the pit. 
"Well, Ranma, as you may have guessed, I share a number of interests in 
common with Ono-san. One of them is ancient martial arts techniques... 
I have recently come into the possession of a scroll from an 
archeological site, written in ancient Egyptian. I had a friend 
translate it for me." 
Ranma sat bolt upright. She was sure she was going to say something 
about the Neko-ken, after all, that's what had led her to this 
discussion. She was practically hanging on the edge of her seat, her 
small hands planted on the table as she waited, hoping desperately. 
"Your father wrapped you in some fish product, correct? Then lowered you 
into a pit of cats?" 
"Threw me in, more like." Ranma's visage turned dark as he pictured 
throwing his father into a pit. I'd like to see how you like it, old 
man. 
Setsuna shook her head for a moment. "That's not right, but its close. 
What did he do after you reached a feral state?" 
"A what?" 
"After you went cat," Setsuna clarified. 
"Oh, uhm... nothing, really, he just waited till I woke up. Actually I 
think he had to chase me down, but he just dropped the whole subject 
after I woke up." 
"The scroll I have describe a process whereby a student is led to 
experience an extreme feral state and then describes the procedure 
whereby the attributes of that feral state are made available to the 
conscious mind and the fears induced by the training erased. He didn't 
do any of this?" 
Ranma's eyes were as wide as they could get and she looked, Setsuna 
thought, like she was about to hyperventilate. 
"You... you have the complete technique? You know how to get rid of the 
fear? Without losing the technique?" There was a fire in her eyes now 
and Setsuna nodded. 
"That's what it seems to describe. I don't know how effective it will be 
so long after the training, however. It seems to have been intended to 
be done immediately after the student first came out of the feral 
state." 
"Would... would you help me?" Ranma asked, giving her best kawaii 
give-me-icecream look. 
Setsuna paused, as if pondering. "I am generally fairly busy," she 
commented slowly, then continued before Ranma could respond, "but I 
would certainly like to see if this scroll's technique works. I would 
never try such a thing myself, it would be horribly unethical, but 
you've already been through the worst part. The latter portions don't 
sound particularly dangerous," she mused. 
"You will?" Ranma sounded startled, as if the idea that someone would 
actually be willing to help, without being bribed or blackmailed, was 
unknown to her. 
Setsuna nodded and pulled a business card out of her purse. "Come to my 
clinic sometime next week, Ranma, and I'll give you an exam to set a 
baseline, then we'll go over the scroll together, and you can help plan 
the procedure. All right?" 
"Yes," shouted Ranma ecstatically, ignoring the surprised looks of the 
other patrons. She leapt up from her seat and hugged a surprised Setsuna 
tightly then danced out the door. 
Setsuna sat in mild shock. It had been many many years since anyone had 
touched her in an affectionate manner, and receiving a hug from an 
excited Ranma, for whom the face-to-face meeting had only strengthened 
her desire, had affected her more than she expected. Leaving a 
sufficient amount of yen on the table, Setsuna hurried to the ladies 
room, where she vanished, reappearing in her apartment. 
As soon as she appeared, a knife was in her hand, having been plucked 
from a hidden pocket in her jacket and a moment later was quivering, 
embedded in a dart board across the room, right in the center of the 
black nose of a picture of Genma-panda taped over the dartboard. She 
collapsed to the floor in tears of anger and sorrow. "I'm so sorry, 
Ranma," she sobbed, wishing once again, though in vain, that she had 
been able to spare him the pain of his early life with Genma. 
She did nothing about the tightness of her nipples and the moistness in 
her panties. Aroused as she had been by Ranma's exuberant hug she felt 
too ashamed and saddened at the part she had played in allowing that 
travesty of fatherhood to raise him to feel right about taking advantage 
of the feelings he brought out in her. 
She headed to the shower to calm her nerves as she thought about the 
meeting. It had gone better than she expected. She had expected him to 
be more skittish and she got the feeling that he was now only concerned 
about being seen with her because of Akane's physical reaction and not 
for fear of hurting her feelings. She hoped she was right. 
She hadn't been lying about the scroll; she did in fact have an 
authentic Egyptian scroll describing the proper means of training a 
Neko-ken warrior. It was a religious artifact, a scroll that she 
appropriated from a lost temple to Bast or Bastet, a cat goddess 
worshipped in Egypt for a time. 
Nor was she lying about Dr. Ono, for she had made certain to make his 
acquaintance. She hadn't wanted to affect the timeline by giving him new 
knowledge, so she had avoided contact until after he left Nerima, but if 
Ranma managed to contact him, he would vouch for her. Setsuna had been 
well aware of the fact that without her deliberately seeking to force 
the timeline to one path, the timeline that she had watched for an 
entire lifetime would not be precisely what occurred, particularly with 
her minor interferences. 
She had been intensely grateful for that foresight when after making 
Tofu's acquaintance, she had learned that he had left Ranma and Ranma 
alone the means to contact him. 
Stepping out of the stream of warm water, she toweled off then dressed 
again, in lighter clothing, before stepping to the Time Gates. There she 
settled in and began to replay the day, watching for signs of Nerimites 
in the area that she would have to neutralize. She followed Ranma first 
and she was both surprised and pleased when she saw him pause and watch 
a girl whom she recognized as Tomoe Hotaru. 
"He doesn't know yet," she commented to herself, "but I guess he must 
have recognized the look of loneliness." For once, it seemed, chance was 
working with her rather than against her. 
Not so for Ranma, however. She caught a young girl who had paused 
outside their cafe. She had gaped at the scene inside for a minute then 
pulled out a camera and snapped a shot... at just the worst moment. 
Setsuna was certain that the picture would show Ranma hugging Setsuna 
tightly, a look of brilliant joy on her face. 
"Not good, not good," Setsuna muttered to herself as she sped the flow 
of time up while following the girl. She cursed softly when she saw the 
girl stop first at a phone and place a call, then head for a one-hour 
photo developing shop. 
"I'm sorry, Ranma," she sighed, knowing that she was already too late to 
prevent the information from reaching Nabiki. She had forbidden herself 
from traveling through time to achieve her goals in this project. She 
could teleport somewhere to provide an influence at just the right time, 
but she would not alter time. That she had promised to Ranma and she 
would not break it, no matter how much it hurt. "I'm so sorry. If I had 
just come straight here..." 
She rolled the timestream back to Ranma's exit from the shop and set it 
to follow her. "I might as well see how they took it," she sighed to 
herself. Momentarily she remembered Nabiki's nature and hoped that it 
might be kept quite in exchange for money, then she reconsidered. It was 
one thing when Nabiki knew that the situation was innocent. Here, 
however, she might very well wonder about Ranma hugging some girl none 
of them had ever seen. Setsuna knew Nabiki was very protective of her 
family. 
Ranma grinned happily as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop, heading 
towards Nerima. She felt like singing and probably would have, had she 
known any appropriate songs. Two stains on her life, two failures had 
haunted her and now she finally had the opportunity to lay one to rest. 
Not only would she finally be free of her debilitating fear, her 
greatest weakness to those who knew of it, she would gain a new attack. 
She thought about how she had been described while in the Neko-ken and 
grinned widely. The only flaw in the technique had been the instinctual 
behavior and the ease with which the cat could be distracted. With those 
gone, she'd probably be a match even for her father using his secret 
techniques. 
Reaching Nerima, she raced along the drainage canal for a ways before 
bounding to the fence. She dimly heard Kuno but not being in the mood to 
play, she simply poured on the speed, glowing softly, and left him 
behind. She reached the Tendo residence and flipping at the end of her 
descent, landed lightly in front of the door. She reached out and opened 
it, then stopped short. Standing in front of her smirking, hand 
outstretched awaiting yen, was Nabiki. 
"What'd ya want?" Ranma asked curiously. 
"15,000 yen," replied Nabiki, arching her eyebrow at Ranma. 
"What?!" Ranma shrieked, "Why would I... what for?" 
Nabiki simply shook her head and gave him a look promising that he would 
wish he had paid her. Ranma shook her head and brushed past the middle 
Tendo daughter. She stepped into the living room and caught Nodoka's 
sharp glare. She glanced down and realized that she was still a girl. 
Kasumi stepped up beside her with a kettle. 
"Uh, thanks, Kasumi," Ranma said, taking the kettle and pouring the hot 
water on his head. He heard stomping on the stairs and knew Akane was 
coming down to berate him for some reason or another, not that she 
seemed to need one, but Nabiki forestalled her. 
Just as Akane burst into the room, Nabiki put a hand on her shoulder, 
halting her progress and drawled out, "So, Saotome, who was that woman 
you were with at the cafe? And why were you seen embracing her as a 
girl?" 
Ranma winced, which of course everyone took as an admission of guilt. 
"Ranma," Akane shouted, "You pervert! How dare you!?" 
Soun had jumped to his feet and gone into his demon head. "Ranma! How 
dare you cheat on your fiancee!" 
Genma followed him up. "Boy! You will marry Akane!" 
"Who wants to marry that perverted jerk!? He can shrivel up and die for 
all I care! Go on, Ranma, go play with your hussies!" 
Nodoka looked at him sternly, a tinge of disappointment in her gaze. 
"Its not very manly to hug a girl as a girl, Ranma." 
"But.. but I can explain," protested Ranma, turning towards Akane. As he 
expected, he was not given the chance. Mallet-sama was already high and 
it came down hard. She didn't stop for some time. 
When Ranma awoke, he was lying on his futon, a wet cloth on his 
forehead. He opened his eyes and saw Kasumi kneeling beside him. She 
noticed that he was awake and looked at him disapprovingly. 
"It really wasn't wise to be seen with another girl, Ranma, especially 
behaving like that in a public place." 
Ranma moved to protest but Kasumi rose and drifted from the room, 
leaving him to defend himself to empty walls. He felt the bandages on 
his chest and momentarily considered that he was actually lucky. Since 
Akane had been so mad at him, at least she hadn't had any desire to bind 
his wounds. That always seemed worse than what she was trying to treat. 
"It wasn't like that. She was just helping me," he said quietly, knowing 
no-one was listening and turned onto his side. 
Setsuna stared at him through sorrowful eyes. "I am so sorry I wasn't 
quicker, Ranma. I'll make it up to you. Somehow."