Most people would approach a war zone with the utmost of caution. In fact, most people would not even bother to approach. They would turn around and run at the first sight of an impact crater Partially destroyed structures and still smoking energy blast burns tended to have that effect on people. Kiyone and Mihoshi barely noticed the damage at all.
"Hmm, Ryoko and Ayeka REALLY got into it didn't they, Kiyone?" Mihoshi asked. Kiyone paused to pull something out of a tree.
"A spatula?" Kiyone blinked, and looked around. A brown haired girl stepped out of the trees then and snatched it from her. Kiyone noted the huge spatula strapped to her back.
"Thanks, I was looking for those," the girl said, unconcerned about Kiyone's presence. "Seen any more of these? I'm missing like three still."
"Excuse me," Kiyone said calmly. "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Ukyou Kuonji," the girl said cheerfully. "Who are you two, more of that Tenchi's girlfriends?"
"What?!" Kiyone sputtered. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Tenchi's girlfriend," Mihoshi laughed. "What a...oh hello Ryoko and Ayeka." Mihoshi waved cheerfully to the angry girls.
Oh no. Kiyone sighed and turned to face a fuming Ayeka.
"Detective Kiyone," she said tightly. "What is she talking about?"
"And what do you think about Tenchi?" Ryoko growled at Mihoshi. Mihoshi, being Mihoshi, took the question on face value.
"Well, let's see, he's cute, nice, polite, calm..." She looked up and the subject left her head. "Ooo, look at how pretty the stars are tonight!!"
"Grrr! You two know I don't feel anything for Tenchi," Kiyone growled. "Now, why are you here?"
"I'm here to save my Ranchan from that witch Nabiki," Ukyou said cheerfully. Her next movement was a swift dodge to the side, without changing her basic stance or expression. Where she had been standing a gymnast's club smashed into a tree.
"Why you peasant!" The speaker was a pale-skinned gymnast. "How dare you presume to chase my Ranma-darling! There is no way that he would even consider such a commoner as yourself. Not when he has Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose of St. Hebereke, ready to give herself to him. OHHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Everybody excepting Ayeka cringed.
"Is there something wrong with that laugh," she asked curiously.
Kiyone face faulted as somebody tried to smash the dark-haired, pale girl with a bon bori. The gymnast leaped out of the way and
"Neither of you marry Airen," the blue haired girl declared. "Amazon law say, he Shampoo groom, so Shampoo marry!"
"Nobody invited you three," a fourth voice nearly growled as another girl walked out of the trees. She tossed Ukyou the missing three spatulas. "There's your spatulas Ukyou."
"Hey, thanks Akane," Ukyou said cheerfully.
"Why you play nice-nice with pathetic violent-girl when she try steal Airen!"
"Why would I want that baka freak!?" Akane shouted. "By the way, Auntie Saotome was sharpening her sword, something about truce-breakers."
"Shampoo behave."
Just wait until I figure out the manner in which this little beauty operates, Kodachi smirked as she fiddled with a bracelet. "Excuse me, I have to find the rest of my clubs."
"Shampoo go set up tent." Both girls vanished into the trees again.
"Okay this is weird," Kiyone growled. "What's going on?"
"Oh, sorry," Akane said politely. "That Baka idiot my dad has me engaged to is Katsuhito's grandson, we're visiting for a little while, these three followed us."
More descendants of the Jurai? Hmm, maybe I shouldn't ask Mom to come here just now. Kiyone looked hard at Akane. "There's something familiar about you."
"You know, I was thinking the same thing about you," Akane said curiously.
"Hey, everybody!" Mihoshi shouted. "Kiyone's parents are coming to visit too!"
Great, so much for not asking mom to come here.
"Is that so?" Ayeka arched an eyebrow. "Who are your parents Detective Makibi? And why can they not find their own lodgings?"
"Yeah, we don't need more freeloaders," Ryoko agreed.
"Be, careful about accusing people of freeloading, Ryoko!"
"If freeloading is all my father gets up to it'll be a miracle," Kiyone muttered.
"Is it just me," Akane asked. "Or is this getting weird?"
"Weird? around us?" Ukyou said dryly. "You've got to be kidding suger."
In the Nerima, in a similar scene of battle scars and smoking ruin, another group of people were quietly have tea. Aside from the panda and spatula weilding martial artist lying unconscious in pile outside.
"We should apologize for the state of your house, Kasumi-san," Amelia said politely. "Lina can get quite active at times."
"Oh, its no problem at all," Kasumi said as she filled her pot of tea. "Ranma's fiancees and rivals destroy the house on a regular basis. Isn't that right father?" The man nodded from behind is paper.
Just pretend nothing's happening, he thought as he scanned the paper, not noticing it was upside down.
"Will you be staying for the night?" Kasumi asked.
"In this mess?" Gourry asked surprised.
"Jellyfish-brains!" Lina whacked him upside the head. "We made the mess, so don't go complaining about it!"
"Oh this will be fixed in little while," Kasumi said.
"How is that...?" Zelgadis was interrupted by what seemed to be a flash of red light that whipped through the damaged portions of the house. Somebody seemed to step out of the flashing light for a moment, a slim man in a red jumpsuit with lightning bolts on it. He seemed to flicker off and on while the red blur continued zipping about the house.
"What happened here?" he asked Kasumi. "I don't see any of the normal sources of damage, oh wait, there's Ryouga." The bandanna wearing boy absently waved from where he was comparing methods of depression with Zelgadis.
"Some friends of my mother's are visiting," Kasumi said sweetly. "And there was an argument over some spilt food. Thank you for coming, I wasn't certain you'd come out this hour." The man in the red suit nodded momentarily, flickering again, as if saying, oh I see.
"Hey, this is good exercise," the man said before vanishing into the blur again. "I'll have this finished in a moment."
The last sentence seemed to come from everywhere, then suddenly the blur just vanished and the house was in perfect condition again.
"What was that?"
"The contractor," Kasumi said simply. "Will you be staying the night then?"
"Not me," Leaf said standing up, after blinking away the surprise from the rapid fix up job. "I don't have the time to be sitting around here much longer. As soon as my husband wakes up we're out of here." She blinked in surprise. "Oh by the Gods, I sound like SPARK!"
"And I'm going with you!" Ryouga shouted. "Its my only chance to get to Ranma before he does something terrible to Akane!"
"Whatever," Leaf waved the comment aside. They had all been variously breifed on the fiancee/rival situation. Leaf would have felt sorry for the poor boy if it weren't the fact that one of the fiancees was her daughter. "Wait a minute, that gives me an idea."
"Huh?" Ryouga looked nervous as the half-elf smirked, recognizing Ukyou's "I've got a plan" smile.
"See who's at the gate, Sasuke," Kuno ordered. "I must prepare for my trek to face the evil sorcerer Ranma."
"Yes, master," the ninja strolled to the front of the estate and out to the gate. Outside he saw a pair of nearly identical girls. Both wearing long, double pony tails coming out of a braided loop. One was dressed in tight, dark-colored clothes and had a rather venomous look on her face.
The other was fidgeting and appeared rather irritated and anger. The tight discipline in other seemed to not at all be present in the second girl. This one was wearing sweats and a t-shirt that showed more skin but revealed less than the other girl's apparel.
"Is this the Kuno estate?" the fidgety one asked irritably.
"Yes it is," Sasuke said. "How may I help.."
"Who is it Sasuke?" Kuno stepped out into the estate's yard.
Oh...what a BABE! Yohko thought practically drooling, and ignoring Iako's palpable irritation.
What a ditz, Iako thought shaking her head. When is she going to learn to apply discipline outside of combat?
"Two young women, I think they're sisters," Sasuke said. The the solemn girl arched an eyebrow at that. Yohko's latest crush didn't survive Kuno opening his mouth again.
"Ah, doubtless they have come to seek the incomparable grace and majesty of Tatewaki Kuno, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High. Alas but my heart already belongs to the pig-tailed goddes and the virtuous Akane Tendo. Still such persistance should be rewarded," Sasuke stepped back from the open entrance as the two girls looked at each other for a moment. "Very well I shall....ACCK!!! ARGGH!! EEEK! AEIIII! OW!! OW!! OW!!"
"It seems the rumors of insanity were correct," Iako said cooly.
"Hey, where do you think you're going, toad?!" Yohko shouted, a small blast of magical armor passed in front of the ninja. "We have some questions to ask." Iako's whip flashed out and caught the ninja, bringing him back towards them.
"We are looking for one Kodachi Kuno," Iako said.
"What a coincidence," a new voice said. They turned around to see a woman in her late twenties with long red hair and sparkling red eyes. She was dressed in a manner similar to Iako, but with much brighter colors. "So am I."
"And who are you?" the woman handed her a card. "You-gen-kai-sya? Ayaka Kisaragi?"
"Oh I've heard of you," Iako sneered, holding the ninja out at arm's length. "Mystical investigations, you work for money."
"Family talents for swordsmanship and magic," she shrugged. "Might as well use it to make a living. And you two I guess are Manos, lack of battle dress notwithstanding."
"Yeah, so what are you doing here?" Yohko asked.
"The musuem hired me to recover a supposedly mystical item," she shrugged. "Thanks for going through the gymnast's ahead of me, made it easy to get information."
"Speaking of information," Iako said levelly. All three looked to a nervous Sasuke.
"This is starting to turn into a family reunion weekend," Nabiki said cooly. Behind her Akane and Nodoka were going through family photo albums. Ranma was supposedly doing the same, but it looked more like he was sleeping. "How long has it been anyway?"
"You remember the hell brat?" Kiyone asked.
"Yep," Nabiki nodded. "That's right, didn't see the whole thing though."*
"Think we should warn him?" Kiyone asked, glaring at the younger girl. Both thought about it for a moment.
"Nah."
Xellos glanced about nervously, that sense of impending doom had just deepened.
"Xellos, what is it this time?" Amelia demanded irritably. He had been on the verge of "convincing" her not to be mad anymore when suddenly he's looking for threats again. Hmm, wonder if we need a new game.
"Must be my imagination, Ame-chan," he smiled cheerfully.
"Ooo, Shampoo get see Airen's family!" Shampoo plopped down on the table, oddly enough it fell rather round under her feet, and snatched up the book.
"Hey, what do you think your doing?" Akane demanded.
"That certainly wasn't polite," Nodoka agreed.
"Grrr."
"What that noise?" Shampoo asked then shrugging.
"Excuse miss...Shampoo," Sasami said quietly, pointing down.
"Oh, Shampoo land on Airen head," she giggled. "Sorry." She flipped off, driving Ranma's head back into the table again, and landed on a couch with the book. She flipped through several places and stopped.
"Shampoo, we were looking at that," Akane yelled. "Now give it back and go off and cook up some Ramen or something."
"Who's that?" Shampoo asked turning the book towards Nodoka with a pale expression. She was pointing to a slim angry looking young man standing between a younger Nodoka and some other girl.
"Oh him?" Nodoka said. "That's my brother Wu Fei, we haven't heard from him since he went to China several years ago."
"Airen's uncle name Wu Fei?" Shampoo asked quietly looking at Ranma.
"Why you asking me?" he responded. "I just found out about all this stuff." The amazon looked at the picture and turned a lovely shade of green.
"Excuse me, Shampoo go be very sick now," and with that the amazon vanished through the hole in the wall. Well, Washu, HAD just fixed it, but Shampoo solved that problem easily enough.
"ARG!!! Ryoko and Ayeka are bad enough!" the pink scientist shouted. "I haven't seen this much damage since my ex was learning black magic. Grrr, a blind man practicing attack spells indeed."