A/N: Thanks so much for all your reviews...I’m trying to get this out before I fall asleep over my computer, else I’d thank you all individually(which I still hope to do soon). The new plan is to try and get a chapter of SOMETHING out every week.

The second reason I'm posting this is cos' I ran across an excerpt from a Ranma story that I really, really want to read!! If anyone knows what the name of this story is, who wrote it, or where I can find it, I'll willingly write you two chapters ASAP of any one of my stories you want updated!!! (As you can see, it's driving me crazy!)

Excerpt:

Ranma danced with Akane, leading her slowly down the hall toward her doom. Around them, other couples flashed by in a whirl of bright coloured silks and gay laughter. The haunting music played on, and Akane was caught in his eyes.

"So you want me to save you?" he asked, amusement brightening his grey eyes, his gaze trained on her face as he whirled her past the musicians. Akane could hardly bear the unholy delight she saw in his face. She averted her glance and mentally sifted through her choices again. There were too few- only two, actually. She could either watch as her soul faded away in a matter of days, or she could sell it to the highest bidder, and when she died, the demons would pull her to hell....or she could pay Ranma's price and keep her soul, what there was of it. And still she might have chosen hell, if she didn't need her soul to make the next transaction. Angels didn't deal with the soulless. It was her passport of entry. Even if she could retain her soul for a temporary period, it would be enough. But Balial wouldn't wait.

"Dearest lady Akane," Ranma mocked, "Your silence is most becoming, but really...inappropriate. Listen, wench! If you want to be saved, you've to decide now. In a few days, it will be impossible, even for one such as me. Whether I win or not, you'll lose."

Akane considered. The Eternal Champion...the knight destined to defend....yet what previous champions had done for free, now the Saotome clan charged for. Of course, it had brought them riches.

Lord Saotome, Knight of the Black, made his eyes unreadable. Even in this realm, what went around came around back to you, if you were patient. Akane had slipped through his hands once but she was so very near again, nothing could spoil it. She'd willingly give herself into his hands, and she would never be free again. He squelched a smile at the thought.

END Excerpt

So, if you know the story, don’t leave me in suspense! :)

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Chapter 8. Fishing for Details

Akane half-rose, startled. The young woman eyeing her suspiciously was entering through the small cottage door. Invisible in the seat across from Akane, Ranma folded his unseen legs and scowled at this new complication.

“This is Akane, Nabiki.” Kasumi’s voice floated out of the tiny kitchen behind her. “She’s our guest.”

Nabiki pulled off her slippers and eyed Akane inquisitively. “Akane, like the princess?”

Kasumi came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on a dishcloth. “You know how many Akanes there are in the kingdom after the princess was born!” she said cheerfully.

She motioned towards Nabiki. “Akane, this is my younger sister, Nabiki.”

“Great!” Ranma said, hitting his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Someone else to worry about! Watch it, Akane, this one looks sharper than the other one.”

Akane smiled nervously. It wouldn’t do for either of the sisters to know that she really was the princess. If it had been three days ago, Akane would have immediately spilled her story and demanded that they take her up to the castle, but circumstances had changed. She no longer blindly trusted everyone she came across. Kasumi seemed very nice, but Nabiki was watching her with speculation.

“Have we...met?” Nabiki asked. “You look...familiar.”

Panicked, Akane fought not to look at Ranma. She did travel the kingdom once a year, to be seen by her subjects, but she was usually so covered up and the glimpses of her were so brief, it was impossible for any citizen to have a very good idea of what she looked like.

“I doubt it,” she said. “But it is...nice...to meet you.”

“Bow to her, fool!” Invisible Ranma hissed at her. “No, don’t LOOK at me, just do it! Princesses don’t bow, it’ll throw that one off her guard.”

Akane hurriedly bowed to Kasumi and Nabiki. “I’m very grateful to your sister for allowing me to rest here.”

“Oh, no! I’m the grateful one!” Kasumi fluttered her hands. She turned to Nabiki. “Can you imagine? I let Ayako out of my sight for a moment. Before I knew it, she was wading out to sea...”

“Ayako?” Nabiki interrupted sharply. “Where is she?” Her worry for her niece drew her attention away from Akane.

“Thanks to Akane...” Kasumi resumed, but was interrupted yet again by her tiny daughter, who ran out, yelling with glee to see her aunt, and was scooped up into the arms of a relieved Nabiki.

“Silly darling, what did you do now?” Nabiki demanded of her. But Ayako spotted Akane, and shoved her way out of Nabiki’s grasp to somehow squirm her way into Akane’s arms. There she gurgled, and batted Akane’s cheek happily.

Nabiki visibly relaxed when she saw her niece accepting the stranger, Akane saw. Obviously, the wary girl had a very soft spot for her niece.

“Well, dinner’s almost ready. Shall we eat?” Kasumi smiled cheerfully. She ushered Akane and Nabiki in to the tiny kitchen, with her unknown, invisible guest following close behind. Akane nearly groaned at the smell of fresh fish stew and warm bread that invaded and tantalized her nose. Ranma groaned aloud. He was starving. He hadn’t eaten since he went invisible, because it was impossible. His fingers simply went through everything.He wondered how he could filch some stew.

Kasumi seated Akane first, then she and Nabiki followed suit. She served Akane some stew and bread in a bowl first, as well as a huge mug of cider. Ayako she seated in her lap, and carefully fed her bits out of her own bowl.

Akane listened with one ear as Kasumi recounted the story of how she’d saved Ayako. She was distracted by Ranma’s attempts to steal food from the cooking cauldron still on the stove, and his curses when he failed. Served him right to suffer a little for a change.

She took a spoonful of the stew and found it to be rich and delicious. The cider was tart, cold and tasty.

“So what were you doing out on the beach?” Nabiki asked Akane, bringing her attention back to the table.

“Er...I was...well, actually, I’m...meeting my cousin at the palace tomorrow,” Akane lied desperately. “Er...she works there.”

“Oh, my! Really?” Kasumi exclaimed. “Why, I work at the palace as well. I’m a maid there, you see. What is your cousin’s name?”

Akane was flabbergasted. How in the world could she have such bad luck as to run into the one person arund here who worked at the palace? She racked her brain for any names, and finally remembered her lady-in-waiting.

“Ukyou,” she said. “Ukyou...er...looks after some of the royal family, I believe, and she said she may be getting a few days off soon.”

“Ukyou Kuonji?” Kasumi sounded startled. “Why, she’s Princess Akane’s attendant! I only know that because my friend Miko cleans her room. She says Ukyou is out at all times of the night and day, attending to Princess’ Akane’s every demand!”

Ranma laughed, though only Akane heard him.

“Every demand...?!” Akane sputtered. Since when was she such a demanding person? “And do you know the princess so well?”

“Of course not,” Kasumi demurred. “I haven’t been working there all that long, and the wing I clean is far away from the princess’ chambers....but, you hear stories.”

“What...what kind of stories?” Akane asked, unable to help herself. Gossip about herself was irresistible.

“Well, there’s the story that the princess is so hideous that she’s always hidden away. You have to admit no one REALLY knows what she looks like,” Nabiki drawled.

“What?” Akane was truly shocked. Ranma was laughing harder. She scowled at him. He winked at her.

“But that’s just exaggeration,” Kasumi said. “Lots of people have seen the princess. One of these days, I hope I might. I did hear that she’s been spending more time in the gardens, though. Some of the maids say they’ve seen her practicing some kind of magical martial arts she picked up on her trip.”

Shampoo.

Both Ranma and Akane paused when they realized the imposter was alive and well in the palace, Ranma with relief, Akane with fury.

“Anyway, I’m leaving for work early in the morning. You can travel with me, if you like,” Kasumi generously offered, then rose to clear the bowls.

“You should offer to help wash the dishes,” Ranma said. “We don’t want them to suspect anything. Man, couldn’t you have used a different name?”

Biting her lip to avoid snipping at Ranma and earning strange looks from the sisters, Akane did as Ranma suggested. But she was quite relieved when Nabiki, standing at the stone sink rinsing the bowls, refused her offer to help wash dishes, as she honestly had no idea of how to accomplish such a task.

Instead, Ayako climbed into her lap, and began to play with the lace on her collar.

Later, the three of them went to sit outside the cottage to watch the sunset, huge mugs of hot cocoa in their hands to warm them.

“It’s so beautiful!” Akane exclaimed, unable to believe the riot of colours washing across the horizon as the sun began to sink.

“Yeah, we like the view,” Nabiki said complacently.

For a few minutes they sipped their drinks and watched the show, their silence punctuated with the soothing sound of waves.

Inside the cottage, Ranma was concentrating with all his will.“C’mon c’mon C’MON! It can’t be this hard to turn visible.” He stood in front of the stove, inhaling the lovely odours. “I don’t want to starve. C’mon, concentrate!” He breathed the odour of the stew deep into his lungs, setting his mouth salivating.

“How long have you been here?”Akane asked, taking another sip of her cocoa.

“Since our parents passed away,” Kasumi said. “We lived...elsewhere when they were alive. When they died, our great-uncle, a fisherman, brought us to live here. He passed on over two years ago.”

“I’m sorry,”Akane said sincerely.

“It’s all that sorcerer’s fault!” Nabiki’s voice was filled with hatred.

Inside the cottage, Ranma filled his mind with hunger, and then...

Pop!

He was visible again, he knew it! He grabbed the wooden spoon in the cauldron, and wanted to jump for joy when his fingers curled firmly around it.

He was about the brig the spoon to his mouth when he heard Akane.

“Sorcerer?” she squeaked.

What was she talking about? Spoon forgotten, Ranma moved closer to the entrance.

“Yes,” Nabiki said. “He came to our house. He was looking for a baby with ‘the gift’, he said. Mother was pregnant with her third child. He wanted the baby. We were poor by then, but we would never have sunk so low. Father threw him out.”

“Father grew ill after that,” Kasumi said sadly. “And then, after he...was gone, Mother lost the baby. The midwife came out saying that the baby was stillborn. And Mother couldn’t take the disappointment.”

“How awful,” Akane murmured, her mind stuck on the one word-sorcerer.

Inside, Ranma, too, had gone still. Not a muscle moved. Slowly, he shook his head. It couldn’t be. Were they talking about Kulloden? How many sorcerers were there?

“What did he look like?”Akane asked.

“Had a face like a knife,” Nabiki ground out.

“Long black hair,” Kasumi added.

Ranma nodded. Yup, it was him all right. That meant...that this family had had their child stolen away by Kulloden.

That meant either he or Shampoo could be the lost sibling.

“Was the third baby a boy or a girl?” Akane asked. Ranma almost felt like hugging her then, but his spirits didn’t stay high.

“We don’t know,” Kasumi asked. “We were too young to ask that.”

Akane turned shocked eyes towards the doorway, and wondered if Ranma was listening to all this.

“We didn’t mean to bring up such grim topics tonight,” Kasumi said with a laugh. “Nabiki, please tell us a story to make us smile.”

Akane listened, and laughed when Nabiki narrated the story of Nala and how he had outwitted a demon. Meanwhile, Ranma ladled stew into a bowl and thoughtfully chewed some bread, his mind turning over the things he had heard.

He washed the bowl as silently as possible and replaced it with the others. He looked around quietly. Akane’s bedding had already been laid out in the loft of the cottage. Quickly, he climbed up the stairs and hid himself in the quilts.

The night grew cooler, and Ayako drooled on Akane’s shoulder, happily asleep. Kasumi and Nabiki rose, and collected the empty mugs, ushering Akane inside. Entering the kitchen, Akane looked around for Ranma, but there was no sign of him.

For a brief moment, she entertained the idea that maybe he had left. The thought panicked her, and that in turn infuriated her. Just because he was the only familiar face around didn’t mean she WANTED him around!

Perhaps he had slipped out and gone for a walk.

“As I said earlier, Akane, your bedding is up in the loft,” Nabiki reminded her. Akane immediately yawned at the thought of warm bedclothes. Laughing, Kasumi took Ayako from her, and shooed her up the wooden ladder.

“Good night, and than you very much,” Akane said, looking down at them as she climbed. She reached the top of the ladder and scrambled across the low wooden crawlspace. Tired and content, she didn’t notice the unfamiliar shape in her bed.

Until a large, male hand came up to cover her mouth, making her scream.

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Okay, please do review. I’m so happy people are still reading this! By the way, if anyone recognizes the excerpt, PLEASE let me know! :) Thanks loads!