DISCLAIMER: Ranma & co. don’t belong to me.

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Ranma and I walked away from Kunou’s mansion, the gravel from the wide drive crunching quickly under our feet as we nearly ran towards the gates. Well, I did, anyway. Ranma’s stride was long enough that he seemed to stroll while I trotted. We buzzed ourselves out through the tall iron gates without speaking to each other. I waited until we were out of hearing distance of any hidden speakers.

“What the hell is going on?” I burst out indignantly, startling a few pigeons nearby into flight. “Kasumi’s lost it, Ranma.”

Ranma looked deep in thought. “Things sure have changed since I left Nerima.”

I groaned in agreement.

“And not for the better,” he murmured, frowning.

Still caught up in my own worries, I nodded.

He turned to look up at the Kunou house, which loomed a distance from us. I in my turn was sidetracked from my problems by his obvious distraction. Ranma was thinking hard about something. That in itself was such a rare thing to see that I could only wonder what was going on in his head. Ranma was a man of action, someone who was most comfortable when he was in a fight. Or at least, that’s the way it used to be.

“What are you thinking?” I blurted out, and then flushed when those thoughtful grey eyes turned my way. He reached out and brushed a strand of grass from my cheek. The brush of his fingers startled me, and I could feel a blush forcing its way over my face. I looked away.

“You still wanna find Dr. Tofu?” Ranma cocked his head at me inquiringly. “I mean, it sounds like he’s dead.”

“He’s not dead!” I denied, turning back to him.

“Cos’ you’ve been dreaming about him? People dream about dead people, y’know,” Ranma pointed out patiently. “Doesn’t make him any more alive.”

“I’m supposed to find him,” I repeated, wondering where this conviction was coming from. “I don’t know where the hell he is, or what he’s doing, but I know he’s alive, and I’m supposed to bring him home!”

“Doesn’t sound like Kasumi wants him to come home.” Ranma crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at the sky, avoiding my eyes.

I stopped. “Well, that’s just because she thinks he was cheating on her. I mean, c’mon, this is Dr. Tofu! Remember? Dr. Fog-my-glasses-when-I-see-Kasumi Tofu? He’s never looked at anyone else.”

Ranma’s gaze returned to me, musing on this. “I guess that’s true. Ain’t no way I can really see Dr. Tofu cheating on Kasumi.”

“Let’s check out that place, what was it called?”

“The Gilded Lily?” Ranma recalled. “Den of iniquity, and bordello of sin?”

“Uh, yeah, that place.”

Ranma got a disturbing gleam in his eyes. “It’s going to be easier for a man to get in and ask questions. Why don’t you go back to the hotel? I’ll check out the place for you.”

I punched him in the arm. “Pervert! I’m going with you.”

“It’s exactly what I imagined a bordello would be like,” I stared up at the large, white building that fit neatly between a fishing store and a sushi eatery. It was a two storey structure, with marble stairs leading up to an entrance with double doors standing open. All I could really see of the second story was a covered railed balcony.

Ranma glanced up and down the street. We were in one of the more rundown areas of Tokyo harbour, a place filled with warehouses and fisheries. A gang of youths were playing hackeysack in front of a warehouse. They looked a little rough, as though they’d grown up on the wrong side of the track. Further up the street, groups of men talked in corners or sat at rickety tables smoking cigarettes, watching us from beneath half-closed eyes.

I suppressed a shudder, and glanced back up at the Gilded Lily.

Two women leaned against the rails of the second storey balcony, examining us with languid interest. Their faces were softly painted with rice powder and they wore bright kimonos. One of them fanned her face gently with her fan, and smiled down at me. I blushed. The other one was staring avidly at Ranma, running her eyes over the breadth of his shoulders and the length of his legs.

“That woman is checking you out,” I huffed indignantly.

Ranma grinned. “If it makes you feel any better, the other one is checking YOU out.”

I flushed, and blustered, “Nonsense! Let’s get this over with.”

“Are you sure about this, Akane?” Ranma asked, disapproval strong in his voice as he assessed the place. “This is starting to seem less and less like a good idea.”

“Uh, of course it is, Ranma!” I didn’t want him to change his mind about taking me back to the hotel.

“In that case, let’s get this over with.” Ranma grasped my arm and tugged me along. I shook him off and increased my speed, so that I wouldn’t look reluctant.

Inside, a young girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen greeted us. She was dressed very simply, in an off-white kimono, her hair tied loosely behind her back.

“Greetings,” she sang sweetly, bowing so low I could see the black ebony hairpin that held her bun together.

“We would like to see the madame,” Ranma explained.

“Please, come this way,” she replied, smiling.

She led us silently into a parlour, and bid us to sit. We did so, perching carefully on stuffed Victorian style chairs. She served us tea, her movements graceful and elegant.

“Madame will be with you shortly,” She whispered.

“Thank you,” Ranma said. The girl bowed again, and exited the room. We waited in silence for a few minutes.

A portly woman dressed in a bright green and yellow silk kimono bustled in, her face wreathed in smiles. Her face was also painted with rice powder, and her lips were rouged bright red, the outline well within her actual lipline, making her lips seem like a tiny rosebud.

“Welcome to the Gilded Lily,” she said to Ranma, and bowed. We stood, bowed in return, and sat again.

“I am Madame Segawa,” she introduced herself. She clapped her hands. “Aya! More tea for our guests!”

“We’re fine, thank you,” Ranma demurred politely.

“Now,” Madame Segawa clasped her hands before her. “How can I help you?”

“Well, we…” Ranma glanced at me, and the madame smiled.

“Ah, I understand,” she purred in understanding. “You wish to join our family?” She asked me.

I jumped out of my seat. “What? No!”

Ranma burst out laughing.

“It’s a comfortable job, good pay,” she continued persuasively, eyeing me up and down as though I was on sale and she was trying to get a bargain. “Hmm, good figure, good skin. Your hair is too short, but we can do something with that.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Ranma explained, stifling his laughter. I glared at him for being amused. “Akane’s…not for sale.”

“We’re looking for someone,” he clarified. “A friend of ours, who was last seen here.”

Madame Segawa frowned. “There’s no one here,” she said automatically.

Ranma and I exchanged a glance.

I pulled out a small photo of Tofu’s that I had found in our family album. “This is him,” I said, hoping against hope. Please let her recognize him, I thought.

Madame Segawa stared at the picture with no sign of recognition. “I have never seen him,” she denied flatly. “Now, if you have no business with me, please leave. Aya!” She clapped her hands, and the teenaged usher reappeared at the door. “Show these people out. They are done here.”
Ranma shrugged. I cast an annoyed glance at him and at Madame Segawa, who was glaring at me, and I left the room, Ranma behind me. Aya walked ahead of us, looking back to make sure we were right behind her. At the door, she paused and stood silently, waiting for us to leave.

This can’t be it, I told myself. Someone here has to know something!

In a last ditch effort, I pulled out the photo again and waved it in front of Aya’s face. “Do you know him?” I demanded.

She pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face, and stared at the photo. “Dr. Tofu!”

“Yes!” I crowed, my heart quickening with triumph. “Where is he? What happened to…?”

Aya cast a quick glance back in the direction we had come from, and shook her head. “No, I don’t know anything!” She retreated from us and hurried away. I wanted to run after her, but just then a very large man, obviously the bouncer for Madame Segawa, began to walk toward us, his brows lowered threateningly.

Ranma raised an eyebrow at him, staring coolly, as though nothing on earth was going to make him move. The bouncer scowled back, and began to walk faster. I tugged at Ranma’s arm.

“Getting into a fight here is not going to help us find Dr. Tofu,” I persuaded. “Let’s leave.”

Ranma and the bouncer exchanged another glare, then finally Ranma shrugged and turned away.

“All right, Akane, let’s go.”

Outside, we walked away from the building. I felt frustrated by our lack of knowledge. Aya knew something, I could tell. She’d recognized Dr. Tofu, and I told Ranma as much.

“If only I could talk to her for a few minutes…” I mumbled.

“You shoulda let me talk to the bouncer,” Ranma muttered, still glancing back in the direction of the bordello.

I snorted. “Talk! Yeah, that would have been useful. You just wanted to punch the answers out of him. It would have gotten way too loud.”

Ranma shrugged. “Well, if you want answers…”

“The only way to get in there is to sell yourself,” I mused. “Too bad, you should have sold me when you had the chance.”

I stopped, struck by the obvious solution, and turned slowly to look at Ranma, who suddenly got a worried look on his face.

“Uh uh, Akane, whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea.” Palms up, shaking his head.

“Madame Segawa has seen us already, but Ranko could get in there!”

“Akane, NO.”

“C’mon, Ranma, we finally have a lead!” I nearly jumped up and down in my excitement.

Ranma didn’t reply, but began to walk very fast toward the harbour. He walked so fast I had to trot behind him again. I finally caught up to him at the pier front, where he stopped to stare moodily into the watery depths.

“What’s the problem?” I asked. “It’s not like you’re gonna be trapped in there or anything. I mean…”

“I was…once.”

“Huh?”

Ranma stared straight ahead then, his expression unreadable.

“Remember Toshi Yoro?” His voice was even.

“Toshi…uh, yeah…” In China, Ranma and I had called on an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Yoro. Unknown to me, Mr Yoro was on familiar terms with Ranma. His son had tried to kidnap Ranma. Or something. I’d never heard the full story, Looks like I was about to hear it now.

“I was doing recon for a job, had to dress like a girl for it. I was picked cos’ of my curse, y’know.” Ranma continue to look straight ahead. I might have thought he didn’t even know I was there, if he hadn’t been talking to me.

“What happened?” Though I could sort of guess.

“We were trying to bust up a prostitution ring of teenage girls. Toshi Yoro was a suspected pimp. I was the bait, and I went in all confident. It never occurred to me that I could get trapped too. He used the same drug on me that he used on other girls, and…it made me really weak. I couldn’t…He mauled me, and…If he hadn’t wanted to sell me as a virgin, he would have…” Ranma looked away, only the tense line of his jaw now visible to me.

I shuddered in sympathy. It must have been awful to be trapped like that.

“But he didn’t,” I prompted, steeling myself against showing it.

“No, he sold me to the brothel, and luckily, by the time my first ‘customer’ showed up, I had fought clear of the drug enough to smack the hell out of him.”

“…”

“But I never found Toshi. He’s the one I wanted to destroy. For seeing me like that. Weak. But I lost track of him. He caught wind of our operation and escaped. That’s why I was so pissed off to see his old man in Shanghai.”

I paused for a second, and shrugged. “Well, it happens.”

Ranma turned a baffled stare at me.“Huh?”

I placed my hand on his shoulder and forced a smile at him. “You don’t think you’re the first or only person to be used as bait who wasn’t rescued in time, do you?”

Ranma frowned. “No, but I was supposed to rescue myself! I don’t depend on other people!”

“Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans,” I half-sang. “Anyway, Toshi’s in jail now.”

Ranma sent me an irritated look. “It’s worse for a guy.”

“What, being vulnerable?” I wanted to know. “Geez, you’re as sexist as ever, Saotome.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“It’s a matter of pride for you. You just can’t bear to lose to a guy, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right!”

I shook my head mock-sadly. “And now you’re about to lose to a woman. Is that any better?”

Ranma’s eyes glinted. “That old lady back at the bordello, you mean?”

I nodded.

Ranm opened his mouth, paused and looked at me. “Reverse psychology. Nice. You still trying to get me in to that bordello to find out about Dr. Tofu?”

I shrugged. “In case you want to prove something…”

Ranma began to laugh. “Here I confess my tortured memories to you, and you turn around and use ‘em to push your own agenda. Who’da thought you’d turn out such a schemer, Tendo? Have you been learning from Nabiki?”

I flushed, caught out. “Nooo, I mean…look, like I said, you’re not the only person who’s ever had a plan go wrong.”

“Oh yeah?” Ranma folded his arms and cocked an eyebrow at me. “You speak from experience, I suppose?”

“I’ll tell you later. This isn’t the best time for it. Now are you going in or not?”

“When you put it like that…”

Tbc…

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