The characters and situations in this short work are mine except for the characters and situations I borrowed from Ranma ½, which is the work of Rumiko Takahashi, and owned by Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty and Viz Communications.

C&C welcome. noirchloe@nyc.rr.com

Stories and such can be found at http://kpjam.anifics.com

A big thanks to Merc, SgtRanma, and Mads for pre-reading for me, after I forced them at gun-point.. ^_^

Chapter one: Nabiki’s birthday.

Nabiki sat, sipping her morning coffee. It was part of her daily ritual to come and peruse the financial news before she went to her office. It was a reminder of days when she woke up to ponder new ways to make money. Oh, she made plenty of money now, even dabbling in the stock market, but money wasn't the center of her life anymore. It was power.
She had breezed through Todai, and followed a career in law, joining one of the smaller, but very prestigious practices that catered to the city's top businesses. Her decision to join them had come from her belief that a smaller firm would give her more flexibility; allow her to shine, instead of being buried with the rest of the junior associates.
That belief had born true, she had impressed those she worked for, becoming known to the people who ran the firm. She had been elevated quickly, mostly in salary and power, if not title, but it was enough. Rising much faster than her peers, she was now handling her first assignment by herself.

It wasn't the most important deal her company was involved in right now, it wasn't even close, but it was hers.
Takahomi industries was one of the smaller subsidiaries of Mitsuhomi Corporation. They were a medical supplier, and had recently won a large contract to supply various medicinal supplies to another company, the Homohato Corporation. Without warning, before the first shipment had been made, Homohato pulled out of the deal and awarded it to another company, Matsumoto. What had seemed like an easy assignment might prove to be another stepping stone in Nabiki's career.She had employed her usual tactics, finding out people's weaknesses and information that they would prefer not to have others know about. The competitor, Homohato Corporation had a virtually spotless record, no government sanctions, no legal problems, no nothing. For a company that was supposedly as old as Homohato claimed to be, that was unthinkable.

She glanced at her watch, seven A.M., enough time to get to her office and prepare before her eight o'clock meeting. Her cell phone rang just them; distracted, she wondered who would be calling her this early, checking the number she allowed herself a small smile as she picked up.
"Hello."
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUNTY NABIKI!" Nabiki removed the small phone from her ear, to protect it from the yelling.
"Is this Kikyo and Sakura."
"Yes, aunty. It's us. We’re on the speaker phone." She smiled while listening, always finding Akane’s kids amusing.
"That's nice. Thank you. Is your mommy around?"
"I'm here, Nabiki. Happy Thirtieth."
"Well, thank you. You know, yours isn't that far away." Nabiki still enjoyed teasing her sister, even if her tone and comments didn’t have the bitter edge they had when they were younger.
"Hmmph. Don't remind me." She could hear the defiance in Akane’s voice, the same fire that had so defined her youth. She was still pretty easy to tease, although she didn’t take everything quite as personally now.
"Heh." Nabiki was scanning the small café while she spoke when her eyes locked onto a salary-man's. He turned his head when she caught him staring. He had short black hair and was wearing a suit, with his jacket on. While he was attractive, he appeared as any other man in downtown Tokyo. Yet, he looked... familiar. She turned away and wondered for a second.
"Nabiki!"
"Huh? I'm sorry, what was that Akane?"
"What are you planning to do today?"
"Oh, I have to take care of some business, then I’m supposed to meet Kentaro for dinner."
"That's nice. Are you going to bring Kentaro over for dinner sometime? Jiro would love to meet him."
"Maybe? Listen, thanks for calling but I have to go. I'll call you later, bye."
"Oh, Nabiki."
"Yes?"
"Mrs. Saotome sends her birthday wishes." Nabiki stopped suddenly at the mention of Saotome, the figurative light bulb going off in her head.
"Ranma," she whispered under her breath, turning to where she saw him a moment ago, only to find him gone.
"Nabiki! Geez, are you awake yet?"
"Oh. Sorry. Give aunty my thanks, I'll talk later." She hung up the phone and rushed to the door of the café, intent on finding him again. She looked at the heavy pedestrian traffic that comprised the city street, realizing that she could never find a single person in these conditions."No way could it have been him. Must have been my imagination." She justified her decision to abort her pursuit before returning to her table and finishing her morning coffee.

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Nabiki sighed in frustration. Her meeting had gone nowhere, and it looked like this case might go to arbitration. While an accepted conclusion to her superiors, it was a solution she wouldn‘t accept. She should be able to strong-arm this company into backing down, and settling this early and to her client’s advantage was something she prided herself on.

She sat down at her desk, logging on to her computer. She had long ago set up a dummy account, something that couldn’t be traced back to her office. She logged onto this account first, ignoring her office in-box. She had acquired the location and password of the central computer for Homohato industries, now it was only ferreting out useful information.

The last time she was on, she had found some hidden firewalls; they protected portions of the computer system, without alerting people to their existence. It was a formidable set-up but not sufficient for the task of keeping Nabiki Tendo out.

She hunkered down to her task, throwing all her efforts into it. Hours passed in the flash of an eye as she lost herself into her task. She had found at least three different entry points, she couldn‘t be sure if they all led to the same location or if they protected three distinct places. Finally she broke through one. She moved carefully, lest she be discovered. She wasn‘t afraid of being traced, but if they changed their encryptions, or their set-up, it could be weeks before she made it this far again.
She found a sub-directory named: Project Omega Personnel. The directory was further broken-up into Alpha, Beta and Gamma.

She drilled into Alpha, might as well start at the beginning. There were two files, which she copied in the same directory. Opening the first one, two pictures popped up, one a picture of Ranma, as he was when she knew him, the other a picture of Ranma, the man she had seen just this morning. The words, "Codename: Alpha," were written on the bottom. She froze and just stared for what seemed like forever. She had seen him this morning.

"Miss Tendo." Nabiki jumped as the voice startled her. She turned to face her secretary, who jumped in response to the sudden movements. She felt her heart beating as she considered how far out-of-it she must have been for someone to open her door and enter her office without her noticing.

"Oh, I‘m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I came to remind you that you have a meeting with Mr. Fujiyama in two minutes." The woman smiled politely, waiting for Nabiki to respond.

Nabiki swore to herself as she glanced at her watch. She looked at her screen to see it had gone blank.

"Fuck," she swore again. "Thank you, Sayuri."

Sayuri bowed politely and exited the room while Nabiki pulled herself together. She jumped back to the computer, only to find that the connection had been severed. The thing that frightened her was that it had been disconnected at her office hub. Saying a few choice swears, she collected her things and left to meet with one of the office partners.

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She returned to her office after the meeting, frustrated and slightly frazzled. The meeting hadn’t gone particularly well. She could tell the old man was waiting for her to fail, his condescending smile when she said it looked like arbitration was infuriating.

She would have to get placed under the one man in the firm she knew hated her. He never said so publicly, but Nabiki was an expert at reading people. Her verbal sparring session with the man hadn’t been helped by the fact that she was now spooked. She had come across Ranma Saotome twice today, after having no trace of the boy for so long.

She sat down and logged into her office e-mail, hoping that mundane matters would settle her nerves. She went through the list, looking at the return addresses.

"Work, Work, Birthday, Work, Birthday, Work… hmmm…" She was mumbling to herself when a she noticed an e-mail from herself without a subject line. It was sent from her bogus account, the one she used to hack with.

She massaged her neck with her left hand while she pressed down hard on her mouse, to steady herself. She watched the mouse pointer zero in on the message only to click on the one above it.

Quickly closing it, she tried again, this time successful in opening the intended document.

"Meet me at seven tonight, Gainsho docks, pier 12. Alone."

She quickly deleted it, getting up from her desk and pacing. She had to meet Kentaro at her apartment at eight. Should she go, could she go? She contemplated telling someone, but whom. She had only been dating Kentaro for a month, if she asked him to accompany her, she would end up telling him things she wasn‘t prepared to. Unfortunately, that was true for most of the people in her life. She checked her watch, it was quarter past five. She could ask Akane, but if she called now, Akane wouldn’t make it in time.

Maybe she should just blow it off. The idea appealed to her, pretend like this day never happened. That’s what she should do.

"But what if I continued to get pestered?" she wondered. "Maybe I can just brush them off, or scare them off?" The more she thought about it more she felt she was being silly. Nabiki Tendo had nothing to fear, she would just go meet this person and get them to back off.

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She slowly walked along the pier, it was early winter and the sun had gone down a while ago. The pier was lit with streetlamps spaced way too far apart. It was deserted as far as she could tell, apparently abandoned long ago.

She walked slowly, her eyes searching for her mysterious host. She had regained her nerves in the office, but she felt the atmosphere eroding what confidence she had. It reeked of bad American gangster movie, where the good guy gets shot down on a deserted dock.

"This is crazy," she said aloud turning and walking straight into someone. She stumbled back and gasped.

She looked up into the face of a ghost and let out a breath she hadn’t know she was holding.

"Ranma." It was only Ranma; she had nothing to worry about now. He looked different, more mature, a little taller and more sedate. He seemed to have lost the wildness that had so closely followed him in his youth. His hair was cropped short and his face serious, looking quite impressive in the overcoat he wore.

"Miss Tendo," he said formally, nodding his head.

"Ranma," she said annoyed. "Why’d you scare me like that? What’s the big idea dragging me out here?"

"My name isn’t Ranma, and I didn’t invite you out here." He continued to display none of the nervousness she had associated with her ‘Ranma’, and yet he was Ranma, of that she was sure.

"Not funny, Saotome," bringing back her normal mode of address for him. Acting like ten years hadn’t passed helped alleviate the surreal quality of the situation. "What did you think you were doing running out on my sister like that? I shouldn’t even be talking to you."

"So you do know me?"

Her jaw almost dropped as she considered the absurdness of that question. "Of course I know you, jerk. I only lived with you for a year!" She took a step forward, raising her hand to strike. Memories of helping Akane through her torment coming back to her. Akane had gone through denial, then hurt, then self-loathing, and finally acceptance, all because of this... this... Asshole!

It had taken a year before Akane had finally started to live again. Their father didn’t recover until Kasumi had finally married. He was standing there pretending that he was clueless, after all the pain he had caused. She never noticed his head leaning back, or his hand flashing to his pocket. She would never know if the bullet had been aimed at her or him, all she knew is that her action saved one of their lives.

"Get down!" he yelled as his momentum changed from bending backwards to jumping forward in the blink of an eye. She felt the impact as their bodies collided, she felt the world spinning as he grasped onto her tightly, turning her as they both fell to the ground.

She felt the jarring shock as he landed on the asphalt and she on him, followed instantaneously by the ringing out of more gunfire.

"Ahhh!!!" she screamed as the explosions rang out in her ears, and she heard the bullets bounce off the ground around them.

After what seemed like forever, she was turning again, and then being pulled up to her feet and then toward one of the warehouses. She looked towards Ranma as he dragged her along, turning around to fire at their unseen attackers ever couple of steps.

She gathered her senses enough to start moving under her own momentum as they entered the warehouse, and placed their backs against the door, next to the entrance.

"Do you know how to use one?" She turned towards him to see him holding out a gun.

"NO!" she yelled.

"It’s ready to fire, just aim and pull the trigger." He turned away and fired outside the building again. She covered her ears during the exchange, feeling the cold steel of the gun against her head. She almost dropped it from fright.

"Look around the warehouse. I don’t know how many are out there, but they could be trying to get in from another direction."

"God, what the hell is going on!" she thought, looking at the gun closely. It was heavier than it looked, black and sleek. She looked at it with a weird sense of loathing and fascination; being the first time she had ever seen a real one. She turned it over in her hands, flinching as Ranma began firing again. She placed it in her hand, holding it by its handle and slipping her finger onto the trigger.

She looked around the room, pointing the gun in her direction of sight. It was a large room, large enough to store a lot of equipment, with a staircase in the rear and two doors leading out of it.

She thought she saw something in one of the doorways, peering intently she thought it to be her imagination. She continued hew visual sweeping of the room when something flashed in the corner of her eye, she looked back to the doorway and fired at the man she saw stepping through.

"Ughh," she heard as her head turned away from her target. The recoil wasn‘t much, but she hadn’t been prepared for it at all.

She looked back as Ranma’s gun fired off more shots, hitting the other two men who had followed the first one through.

"Come on!" Her hand was yanked as she began running after Ranma, or at least trying not to slow him down too much.

They made it to the stairs and he let go of her hands as he bounded up them. They emerged in what appeared to be a maze of hallways. She stayed close on his heels as they worked their way through the walkways, only to come out into a room that was missing a wall. There was a hallway that led to what appeared to be an opening.

She could see the harbor from where she was. She assumed the room this opened up into didn‘t have a wall, and could be used to load and unload cargo.

"Huh," she gasped as she saw a man standing near the end of the hallway, a couple yards away, with both hands raised in surrender.

She raised her gun to him, mimicking Ranma’s movements as they slowly walked forward.

"Who are you?" she asked, when they had almost reached him.

A slow smile crossed the man’s face as he stared at her. His hand turned slowly as she saw another hand and a gun come from behind the wall, pointing at Ranma’s head. She moved her gun towards that hand, but stopped when she felt cold steel placed at the base of her skull.

She froze as a new wave of fear overcame her. She felt her gun being pulled out of her hand and watched as the man they had first seen smirked.

Ranma shrugged his shoulders slightly and then he turned into a blur. She couldn’t follow his movements but he somehow took the gun that was trained on him and fired four rounds right by her neck in less than a second, before firing two more at in the direction of the disembodied hand.

She heard the gun trained on her go off and she flinched as she screamed, drowning out the painful cries of the men Ranma had just killed.

"Go get my other gun," Ranma said, not even looking in her direction as the gun he was holding was trained on the man that had again raised his arms.

She reluctantly turned to look for his gun; looking at the two men dead in front of her she started to hunt for it.

She spotted it, lying atop the groin of one of the gunmen. Reaching down, she tried to ignore the blood and gore of the slain men; this was the closest she had been to a dead person since her mother’s funeral.

She noticed the man’s other hand; it still held the gun that had been threatening her life a moment ago. She saw the bullet hole in his wrist, his finger was still on the trigger, and she remembered that it had gone off, and that Ranma had never turned around.

"Did you get it?"

"Yes," she croaked out.

"Hand it here." She turned back to the scene in front of her, placing the gun in Ranma’s hand as quickly as she could.

Ranma started circling around the other man, never taking the gun away from the man‘s head. He had an eerie presence, not saying a word, with an amused smile that looked out of place under the circumstances.

"Are you coming?" Ranma asked irritably.

She hastily scrambled around the man, following Ranma.

Ranma fired his gun and she froze while she watched in morbid fascination as blood and other ‘things’ sprayed out from the front of his face.

She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She couldn’t believe she had just seen Ranma… Ranma, of all people, kill someone in cold blood. That in and of itself was weirder than any of the happenings that had happened at the Tendo Dojo.

"Are you coming?!?" he demanded.

"You just killed someone!" There wasn’t the force behind her voice she had hoped to project, shaken more than she realized, or would admit too.

"It was him or us. It is us now. They’ve seen us together, so we’re both targets. If you want to live you come with me now. I’m not going to wait."

She thought for a second, his words seemed true, but there was something she was missing, some fact that was a lie behind them.

"Fine."

---------------

Nabiki quickly followed Ranma out of the building, almost running to keep pace with his steady gait. She kept glancing around, trying to pierce the darkness of the shadows, in order to spot someone else who would fire upon her.

"Where are we going?" she asked, breaking the silence between them.

"My car."

"And then?"

"Someplace safe."

She didn’t query him further. His persona disturbed her. Other people she knew had changed slightly over the years, but nothing as drastic as this. She was with someone who reminded her of Ranma in face only, the uncomfortable shyness was nowhere around. The deference to other people was lost in this man and it scared her. She wasn’t sure which scared her more, being shot at, or this Ranma.

She followed him up to an old Treuno, quietly getting in the passenger seat that he had opened up for her. She sat down; noting the pristine condition the interior was in.

"Ranma," she said as he pulled out of the parking spot.

"Is that the name you knew me by, Ranma?" She regarded him carefully, trying to figure out how to proceed.

"Ranma Saotome. Son of Nodoka and Genma Saotome age, I guess you would be twenty-nine now. I met you when you and your father came to stay with our family, there was an arrangement between our fathers that you would marry into our family."

"Hmm. So I was engaged to you?" She was shocked at the simple inquiry. Out of all the weirdness she had experienced in this one day that was the strangest. He asked it genuinely, there was no mirth or sarcasm, or any hint of any emotion. She used to be able to send him into a fit of near hysteric just mentioning his engagement, any of his engagements. Now he had calmly asked if they were engaged.

"No. You were engaged to my sister, Akane."

"Hmm," he hummed, showing no real interest in her statement.

She sat quietly for a while, taking advantage of the opportunity to gather her thoughts. "What thoughts?" she laughed at herself. She hadn’t done an ounce of thinking since that invitation to the docks came. In retrospect, it was probably the stupidest things she’d done in her life. If she had been killed out there, who would have known? They could have… they could have… ‘Sent her swimming with a cement bathing suit,’ or some other cliched movie happening.

She looked over at Ranma again, realizing she didn’t even know what this stranger was calling himself, and asked, "What’s the name you’re using now?"

"Kiyoshi Shinigami."

"Not the talkative type, are you?" she tried to put a little levity into her voice, anything for this encounter to begin to resemble a normal meeting..

Her phone chose that moment to ring. She fished it out of her small handbag and looked at the LCD. It was Kentaro and she was supposed to meet him fifteen minutes ago.

She was about to hit the green button that would connect the call when a hand flashed in front of her face, removing the device from her hands. She turned to see it fly out the driver side’s window. She didn’t need to see it hit to know it was now ruined.

"HEY! What did you do that for?"

"What do you think is going on?" She absolutely hated when people responded to questions with questions, especially when given in condescending tones that implied she was stupid. What made it worse was she had the sinking feeling he was justified in his manner.

"I was going to talk to my boyfriend. You didn’t need to throw away my phone."

"Talk about what?" She definitely hated when people tried to lord some form of mental superiority over her; she just couldn’t believe, Ranma, was the one doing it. "Where you gunna tell him you just got shot at? Where going to say who saved you? What could you have said without getting him involved and added to the target list?"

"Of course I wasn’t!" she responded indignantly. "I was going to make something up, at least let him know I was alright," she lied as best she could, feeling hollow and out of place again. She idly wondered when she would regain her footing when dealing with this man.

He grunted in response and continued driving.

Ranma, Kiyoshi, or whatever he wanted to call himself was right. That fact grated at her, she couldn’t contact anyone, they would ask questions she couldn’t answer, or at least not to their satisfaction. Even if she could talk to them to let them know she was alright, it would put them in danger.

She had reacted like she would have reacted back in High School, if anything physical threatened her, go find Ranma and act like everything else was fine. He would defeat the bad guys and then they would move on. They wouldn’t move on this time, she realized. They would try again, unless miracles of miracles the people left behind dead at the docks were actually the only ones who had reason to kill her. She couldn’t act that way now, she had to be smarter, ready to play on this new battlefield.

"Kill me," she said the words aloud as the implication hit her. Sure she had been threatened before, sometimes by people she felt were capable of murder in the heat of the moment, but not like this. It would take a lot of money and power to coordinate so many people with guns in Japan. So why her?

She slumped into her seat, aimlessly watching the Tokyo skyline slop by, wondering what insanity Ranma’s return heralded.

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Kin Mori, Chairman of Homohato sat impassively watching his chief of Information and Technology, Abe, sweat profusely in front of him. He could always tell when the bald man had bad news to tell, something that would make him seem incompetent. He had only kept him around because he was related to his boss. "Politics," he thought disgustedly.

"We had a security breach today, sir," the man said meekly. Kin knew this already, he had taken the initiative of placing a few assets in place to independently monitor certain operations, systems security was one of them. What this sycophant didn’t know, he couldn’t complain to his father about. He also didn’t know that the intruder had been identified and was being dealt with.

"Has the intruder been identified?" he asked menacingly.

"Ah. No sir. We’re working on that now."

"Have you fixed the problems that led to the breech?"

"We’re working on that, see---"

"I don’t care about the details, just fix you security measures. I’d hate for _certain_ people to find out about _your_ incompetence. Dismissed."

Kin leaned back in his chair, pissed that he had only gone on vacation for a couple weeks and all these problems seemed to crop up. He had fired his second in command upon returning a week ago, giving that contract away had been the biggest shock he had received in years.

The man thought he was showing some initiative, trying to impress him with the good deal he had quickly and quietly brokered with a new supplier. Now he was forced to try and close all the holes that dealing with outsiders had caused. He had two more details to check on before he went home.

He pulled out a small book and flipped through it finding the piece of information he wanted. He picked up his private phone and dialed.

"Hello. Aboshi, here," the head of security answered.

"This is Kin, report."

"Target was missed, sir." He felt like swearing, nothing was going as planned.

"What happened?" he asked.

"We’re not positive, sir. The strike team was annihilated."

"I see. Prognosis?"

"We have a search team in place. We’re also monitoring the subject’s family and friends."

"Proceed with that assignment, and let me know when it‘s complete."

"Understood, sir."

"Also prepare for another assignment, to be carried out at a moments notice, name is Fujiyama."

"Understood, sir."

He hung up and logged onto his computer, preparing a carefully worded e-mail to his boss.

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Nabiki followed Ranma into the small apartment building. The building looked like any other normal apartment building in one of the less urban districts of Tokyo. She wasn’t sure exactly which protectorate they were in, being unfamiliar with the area and not paying much attention to the route they had driven, but it felt like it could be almost anywhere.

Nabiki noted with curiosity that they had passed over the elevator in favor walking up the five flights of stairs to the top floor. Normally she would have inquired or at least made some clever comment about that fact, but instead she respected the silence that had settled upon them and said nothing.

She walked in and gaped when she took in his apartment, easily double the size of hers, which would mean it was around one thousand square-feet, mammoth by Tokyo standards. The door had opened into a small alcove with a closet that led to a huge room with small dining table, sofa and television. The room was made to appear larger because of all the empty space. There were two doors on the far wall she assumed were the bedroom and bath, and a swinging doorway that led to the kitchen. There was a small counter with high standing chairs that looked directly into the kitchen, which had a visible refrigerator, stove, sink and plenty of space for three people to work in.

Ranma walked in and threw the small bag he had brought from his car on a sofa. "Follow me," he said as he walked into one of the rooms.

She entered the room and barely caught the towel that was tossed at her. He was standing in front of an open closet and motioned her to look inside. "You can borrow some clothes until we can go get you some tomorrow."

"Okay."

"The female clothes are probably too small for you, although there are some male outfits that a woman wouldn’t look too bad in. Also, there are t-shirts and sweats in the dresser."

"You live with someone?" she asked confused about his possession of female clothing.

"No," he said abruptly.

"Then why… Ah, you still have the Jusenkyo curse." Her mind was moving really slowly to have forgotten that, although now that she thought about it, Ranma never did have any girl’s clothes of his own; he always borrowed from Akane.

"Jusenkyo curse? Is that what it is?"

"Yes…" Nabiki decided she just couldn’t take much more of these conversations right now and decided a bath would be just the thing she needed. She found a t-shirt and sweats, and followed him to the bathroom.

She felt thrilled that there was a bath, not a traditional Japanese bath, but a tub that she could soak in.

"Thanks, I’ll call if I need anything."

He nodded in response, closing the door behind him, and leaving Nabiki alone for the first time since they had met on the pier. She started the hot water running, disappointed at the lack of sufficiently bubbly bath soap. She removed her suit jacket, noticing the battering it had taken. She hung it on one of the bathroom hooks hanging on the door and started to de-wrinkle it as best she could, straightening out the sleeves, and beating them lightly to remove any loose dirt and grime. She was hoping familiar movements and thoughts of mundane things would settle her mind a little bit.

She moved up to the collar, when she noticed some dark spots in the top of the back of it. Peering closely she realizes it was dried liquids, blood. She ripped the jacket from the hook and threw it across the room, breathing heavily to control the anger and helplessness she felt.

She walked quickly to the sink, examining her neck and hair; sure enough, there was blood there as well. Fighting down the tears she turned on the hot water in the sink as well, grabbing a towel and soap as she began scrubbing away the symbols of her tattered life.

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Nabiki came out of the bathroom, feeling slightly refreshed. The hot waters had done wonders for her nerves; she had even been able to forget this horrible day for a few moments as she soaked. She was in an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants, still wearing her own bra and panties. Ranma was sitting at the table, concentrating on a computer when he looked up and saw her. Her pressed a few buttons and she could see the computer powering down when she approached.

"Dinner will be ready in a moment." She nodded and held out her ruined suit.

"Could you throw these away?" He looked at her quizzically, but didn’t respond. "They’re ruined, blood all over them," she explained.

Her reached out and took them, bringing them with him into the kitchen. She looked back at the closed laptop, never imagining he would own one. She moved towards the little counter separating the two rooms and watched as he fiddled around the stove, turning off burners and taking some plates out of the counter.

"You cook a lot?" She tried to make idle conversation.

"Yes. It’s relaxing." He quickly had both plates full and placed them on the counter. "Would you take these to the table?"

He had turned around before she had a chance to answer. Ignoring his manner, she took both plates and placed them on the table, where he joined her shortly with some chopsticks and tea.

The table was quickly arranged and they began eating. Nabiki took a small, cautionary bite, not remembering if Ranma could cook or not. She was pleasantly surprised to find the food quite good.

"Not bad, Ranma." He looked at her quickly, annoyance evident in his manner. She realized belatedly that Ranma was no longer his name, it was Kiyoshi. "Sorry, Kiyoshi."

He sighed before replying. "It doesn’t matter. Call me what you will."

She took the statement as a rebuke and wondered at how it made her feel like a little child who had been admonished by a parent. She wondered at that, why was he having this affect on her? She glanced at him again, considering the few hours she had spent with him.

He seemed a man in command, not the little boy who was always so unsure of himself when he had lived at her father’s house. When he was younger, he had succeeded, seemingly by accident some times, but always with amusing or sometimes-hysterical results. There was nothing amusing in the events of this day, and his actions had been sure and precise.

Even when the immediate danger was over he seemed determined and sure of himself. Outside of fights in high school he acted the fool, before.

"You said I lived with you for a year." His sudden words ended her contemplation.

"Yes. You and your dad just showed up one day."

"Why did we stay there?"

"You were engaged to my sister, Akane, so our father’s thought it the best way for you two to get acquainted. It also turned out that you father was afraid to go home to your mother. Your parents had made some agreement that if you didn’t turn out to be ‘man among men’ you’d both commit sepukka."

"So, my mother and my father didn’t feel I was manly?"

"Well, your curse. Turning into a little girl isn’t exactly manly."

"What else?"

Nabiki then spent the rest of dinner and some time after that telling him of the events that transpired during his stay at the Dojo.

--------------------------------

A man was reading classified documents in his office when his computer beeped, alerting him to e-mail. He looked over and clicked on his new message, reading the following impassively.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have need for target, will complete assignment when finished.

Alpha

----- Original Message -----
From: "HQ"
To: "Alpha"

Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 18:26
Subject: Current Project

I am distressed at the your failure to complete objective. Awaiting explanation. Payment frozen.

~~~~~~~~

Commander Abe leaned back in his leather chair and puffed on his cigarette as he re-read the message. He quickly typed and sent a reply, "understood" was all it said. He would wait, but not long before he acted.

---------------------------------------------------

"A couple months after the incident with Saffron, you disappeared. The weird thing is you and Akane generally seemed to be getting along a lot better." She stopped her retelling there. She hadn’t covered everything, mostly the major happenings. She also left out a lot of her personal feelings about things, trying to be objective and let him soak in the information. He had been very curious, but lacking much animation to his actions. He barely reacted to things that she was pissed at learning, like the Neko-ken and Ukyo.

"What exactly happened? I mean about me disappearing?" His face and movements finally betrayed a little emotion for this answer. He leaned a little forward, his eyes had widened slightly, and his eyes; his eyes had widened and seemed to come alive, as if the rest of her tale had had little or no meaning to him.

"You and Akane argued, she… she punted you away and you never came back." She finished wondering how he would take that.

"So why didn’t I come back? Did anyone ever find out?" he asked, curiosity etched on his face.

"We tried. Your father went after you and disappeared also. I had people searching for you also, there wasn‘t a trace found. After Mr. Saotome didn’t return, I made a few inquiries about him but nothing ever panned out there either."

"I see. What of the other suitors and hangers on you mentioned?"

"They all left eventually. The amazons started searching for you right away. I was actually half-suspecting to hear about or find out that they had found you and dragged you back to China. They did track you to Nerima pretty easily."

"Did all those who searched for me disappear?"

"Not exactly. Ryoga still showed up on occasion, the Kuno’s both left to find you multiple times, always returning. Ukyo returned for a very brief period to pack up, although I didn‘t talk to her, only hearing that she had no luck in finding you."

She watched as he absorbed all of this.

"Okay, I’ve answered your questions, now how about a few of mine?"

He nodded instead of speaking. Taking that as acquiescence she continued.

"What happened to you?"

"If I knew would I be questioning you?"

"Hmm alright." She took a deep breath to control her annoyance.

"Why were you at the pier tonight?" It was one of questions she kept trying to remember to ask but had continued to slip her mind. "You said you didn’t invite me."

"No. I followed you."

"Why?" she asked, when no further explanation seemed forthcoming.

"Your reaction to me at the coffee shop this morning. You looked like you recognized me. I had to know why or how you knew me."

She pondered this for a while before responding. "So I recognized you. Why would that cause you to follow me?"

"I--"

"Wait, you knew my name at the pier also!" He was lying about something she knew it.

"I followed you to your office, the people at reception were very nice at providing a name for the woman who had just walked in. Especially when I said you had dropped a wallet and I was returning it."

"That still doesn’t explain why you would care if I knew you?"

"Two reasons. The first doesn’t concern you right now. The second is you knew me, something I don’t. I want to find out who I was, how I got to be how I am. You’re going to help me."

She was taken aback by his bluntness and the intensity that had flared up in his eyes. She looked at him, he wasn‘t pleading, he wasn’t even really asking, he was just stating a fact like she had no choice.

"What if I say no?" she responded.

"You can always go and fend for yourself. It doesn’t matter to me that you’ll be dead before the next day ends." The coldness of his words shocked her, the Ranma she knew valued human life and protected others above all things, including his honor.

He got up from his seat, grabbed the laptop he had been using earlier, and disappeared into his room. A few moments later he returned with beddings in his arms. She watched as he prepared the couch as a bed.

"Will you help me find out who was trying to kill me?"

He stopped for a second, apparently considering her request before turning to her. "Sure, we can do both."

Relief flooded her, as tension she had grown much too accustomed to washed out of her. She had been dealt a horrible blow today, but if he would help her, maybe she could get her life back.

"So if we take care of those after me, I can be out of your hair and get back to my own life," she tried to sound hopeful, finding the small shreds of silver in this clouds lining.

He stopped and looked at her. "Out of my hair, yes. I doubt you’ll ever be able to go back to your old life though."

"What?" She asked confused.

"The trouble and cost to get one gun into Japan is substantial, the number of people that were employed against you today means someone with a lot of money and connections is after you. Getting them off you back means killing them or you disappearing. If we kill them, the noise from it will mean you’ll have to go underground anyway. I prepared the couch for you; I have a little work to do first. Don’t make too much noise."

She watched as he retreated to his bedroom and closed the door.

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Author’s notes. I like it, It’s an Idea that popped into my head after watching the first episode of Noir. In case your wondering it won’t be a cross or fusion with that show, I‘ll just steal a scene or two from it, very cool scenes in that show. The next chapter will have Nabiki finding out a little bit about Kiyoshi(Ranma) including his profession and decisions about her own life. I hope you enjoyed.

Ja.