“Morning, Ranko!” Mei waved cheerfully, not expecting a wave in response as Ranma’s hands were currently full of knife and potato.

Ranma swallowed hard, and Mei could tell her mind was somewhere else. Ranko. Even my name is a lie, Ranma thought to herself. I can’t let them find out. I can’t undo it, and I didn’t know it at the time, but they deserved the truth. Hana and Yui called out their good mornings as well as Mei entered the kitchen and began her daily tasks.

“Aw, crap.” Mei stuck her head out from the walk-in cooler. “We’re out of pineapple juice for the coladas.” She frowned in slight embarrassment; she should have noticed that they were running low during yesterday’s setup, but she had been distracted by Ranma’s continued training.

Hana looked at her watch. “Well, we’re just about ready with time to spare. Wanna run up to the corner store and pick up a little bit to get us through until the next delivery? Grab some cash out of the till.”

Ranma, having finished setting up the prep area, looked around for something else to do. Everything had gone so much faster than yesterday, and all the tasks she’d been trained to handle were already finished. Mei tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Ranko, feel like a walk? You’ve been stuck here nonstop for days.”

Ranma shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” Following the blue-haired girl, Ranma exited the front door and they started down a side street. She was grateful that the route didn’t seem to pass the dojo where she’d suffered her humiliating defeat a few short days before.

“So, what do you think of everything so far? Settling in okay?”

Ranma blushed a bit. “Honestly, I don’t know what to think. All of you have been so nice to me, and I’m not sure I’m worth all this attention.”

Mei shook her head. “Of course you are, and anyone that told you otherwise is lying.”

Ranma wasn’t really sure how to respond, so she didn’t, and Mei continued. “Look, I know it’s hard. When you’ve always been on your own, sometimes it’s hard to take kindness at face value. When I first got here… gods, I don’t know how Hana put up with me. I was rude and angry all the time. All I could think about was getting the next fix. I was so used to being let down by everyone that I couldn’t imagine somebody genuinely caring about me. Assuming they didn’t was easier; if people didn’t care about me, then it didn’t matter if I hurt them to get what I needed. I don’t know what they saw in me, honestly. Even I was pretty sure I was beyond saving.”

Ranma nodded in sympathy. “You seem to be doing okay now though.”

Mei blushed a little. “Yeah, I guess I am. It’s still hard sometimes. For me, I always wanted to use most when I was depressed, so the best way to keep from being tempted is to try to be happy all the time, even when I have to fake it to get through the rough parts. Some days, that’s easier than others. But I remember that even when I didn’t deserve it, Hana and the other girls didn’t give up on me, and I can’t let them down now by giving up on myself.”

Ranma bobbed her head softly in contemplative acknowledgement as she pulled open the door to the little neighborhood grocery and held it for her companion.

Mei picked up a blue hand-held shopping basket, heading for the coolers in the back. Ranma followed, shivering a bit as they entered the refrigerated section. Grateful though she was for at least being in pants and not a skirt, extreme temperatures were still something of a problem for her. After dropping three plastic jugs of the milky yellowish liquid into the basket, Mei turned to Ranma. “Can we think of anything else we need?”

Ranma shrugged. “Don’t look at me! I’m still learning all of this stuff.”

With a playful shake of her head, Mei walked back toward the produce section and picked up a few whole pineapples. “We’ll use these for the garnish part, and in the worst case scenario we can throw them in the juicer if we have to.” Ranma couldn’t help but think about all of the times that the sight of a pineapple meant the sadistic Principal Kuno was up to something. It felt like a lifetime ago.

Dropping a few bills on the counter, Mei waved to the shopkeeper as she pocketed the remainder of the money she’d taken from the register. She headed to the door, her new redheaded friend not far behind. The little bell on the door jangled again when the person in line behind her, a squat man in a dark blue hooded sweatshirt, finished his transaction and left the store as well.

Mei led them on a different route back, behind the row of businesses, so they’d have a view of the small pond around which the main street curved. “So, what kinds of stuff do you like to do?”

Ranma shrugged. Pretty much all of her time had been spent in training for one fight or another, or bailing Akane out of some mess at school. The girls’ athletic teams at Furinkan really needed a better strength coach or something, because their star players always seemed to get injured right before a match. Then again, when all of your school sports have to do with martial arts, that might not be as crazy as she thought. “Haven’t really thought about it much.”

Mei groaned. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you something.”

“What about you,” Ranma countered.

“Oh, ya know. I’m big into movies, video games, stuff like that. I’ve had all the high scores on that Pac-Man machine at the bar for something like six months.” She continued on, rambling about some American movie where four guys shot lasers at ghosts or something, but Ranma had begun to tune out a little. Something wasn’t right, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

They turned a corner, cutting between two of the taller buildings to get back onto the main road where the bar was situated. Ranma’s eyes darted around. Footsteps. She was sure of it this time.

“Ranko, you okay?” Mei tugged on her arm, as she had clearly drifted out of the conversation.

Ranma had just begun to stammer out an apology for having spaced out on her, when a male voice came from the entrance to the alley in the direction they were headed. “Hey, girls, what brings you out here?” A second, and then a third, man entered the alley behind them, and Ranma recognized one of them as the guy who had been in line behind them at the store.

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“Yeah, I thought you were too good to hang out with us.” Mei looked genuinely afraid, her eyes searching for an escape as the men closed in on them from both sides of the narrow alley.

Ranma whispered to her, keeping close. “You know these guys?”

Mei nodded sharply. “We’ve had to throw them out of the bar more than a few times.”

The man in front of them cracked his knuckles, drawing closer. “So, how about that kiss now?” Oh. So they were those kinds of guys, Ranma realized. This was gonna be fun.

“Please, just leave us alone,” Mei pleaded.

The two men approaching them from behind advanced. Ranma’s eyes scoured the alley, searching for any advantage she could find. She spotted something behind a nearby dumpster, and handed Mei the paper bag of pineapples. “Hang onto this for me a sec.”

Mei watched in terror as Ranma created a few meters of separation between them. She leaned with one hand on the lid of a nearby blue dumpster and reached down to the ground, picking up an old broom that someone from the apartments upstairs must have discarded. “Look, guys, we’ve got somewhere to be, okay?” She closed the distance between herself and Mei, broom in hand.

The man in the blue hoodie snickered. “Oh, Mei, you brought us another girl so we didn’t all have to share. That was sweet of you.”

“Okay,” Ranma thought. “Now, it’s on.” Stepping on the head of the broom, she twisted a few times until the plastic collar holding the bristles dropped to the asphalt. “Mei? You might wanna go over there by that fire escape for a minute.”

Mei shook her head. “We should stay together.” Hana had entrusted her with their new ward, and while she knew she had no means to protect the younger girl, Mei felt an obligation to try.

Ranma gave her a small but forceful shove, soliciting a little yelp from the blue-haired woman. Mei stumbled forward and turned just in time to see the broken little girl they’d taken in just two days before transform before her eyes somehow into something fierce and unyielding.

The lithe redhead lifted the broom handle over her head, whirling it artfully around her body before locking it into her hands in a ninjutsu forward ready stance. The whoosh noises her makeshift bo staff made as it sliced through the air echoed between the tall buildings. “Well, come on then,” she taunted.

The men cackled dismissively. “Oooh, she must be a cheerleader. Look at how pretty she can twirl a stick,” a wiry punk in a gray shirt said before charging at Ranma in a dead run.

Ranma locked her wrists to fortify her grip on her weapon. Don’t get too close, she thought. Don’t get hit. Only gonna get one shot at this. As soon as her first assailant got within range of the broomstick, Ranma advanced. She bent low, whirling the wooden stick over her back to gain momentum before targeting the man’s knees. The strike cost him his balance and dropped him onto his back. Before she could follow up her strike, the man from the front of the alley lunged at her from behind. She jabbed the stick straight backward, striking his ribs and pushing him back. It was imperative that she kept them at a distance; she knew her weapon would do her no good in close quarters and if she started taking hits with the fragility of her body, this fight would be over quickly.

Mei huddled behind a pile of plastic soda pallets as she watched the battle unfold. Ranma ran at the most distant opponent, jabbing her stick into the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt. Carrying her forward momentum using the pole, she propelled herself at her adversary, landing a kick with her left foot and then another with her right to the attacker’s jaw. She pushed downward on the stick, vaulting herself higher into the air.

As she descended, she turned her body to face the first guy, who had just gotten back to his feet. Whipping her staff forward, she slashed at his cheek. He shrugged off the glancing blow and charged her, but she dropped to her back with a yelp as her feet hit the ground, holding her staff perpendicular to her body and locking her elbows. She planted her left foot square in the man’s chest, using his momentum to launch him over the staff and behind her with a well-timed judo throw. The gravel of the alley felt like sandpaper against her skin even through the fabric of her blouse, but at least she didn’t get hit. Her opponent careened into the first guy she’d kicked, and the two of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

While Ranma had been fighting off two of the men, she had lost track of the third. He approached Mei’s hiding place menacingly. “Come out, come out…” He burst around the corner, and Mei screeched, holding up her shopping bag to her face in some last-ditch attempt at a defense.

Ranma, now back to her feet, whirled. Damn, she thought. Missed one. “Hey, jerk! Pick on somebody your own size! Hyaah!”

The leering assailant turned to face the sound just in time to make contact with the threaded end of Ranma’s broomstick, which she had hurled like a javelin from some twenty feet away. From the sickening crunch it made on impact, Ranma knew his nose was broken, and he went down in a heap. The rattle of wood on concrete echoed through the alley as the stick hit the wall, but Ranma popped it up with her toe and caught it with a flourish.

“To hell with this, man!” The two men she’d previously dispatched had finally helped each other to their feet, and they had apparently had enough of this particular misadventure. They turned and ran back the way they came down the alley.

The ringleader, the guy with the broken nose, lay on his back, his hands looking for purchase on the wall to help himself up. Mei cowered a few meters away. Ranma rushed forward and snapped at the thug’s wrist with her stick, disengaging it from the wall. She took a step forward, ice and fire in her eyes, and placed her right foot on the brute’s throat. She pushed her leg forward ever so slightly, allowing him to breathe but applying pressure to the bottom of his chin. “Now, I think you owe my friend an apology, don’t you?”

He grabbed wildly at Ranma’s ankle, but she drove the end of her makeshift staff forcefully downward into the back of his hand, pinning it to the asphalt. He knew he was beat. “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry,” he coughed, his voice soured by the change in airflow through his crushed nasal cavity and the pressure on his airway.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” She lifted her foot from his neck, placing herself between the man and Mei before he could stand. “Get the hell out of here.” He scrambled to his feet and took off running after his fellow delinquents, the first few steps taken on his hands and knees.

When all three had vanished from sight, Ranma tossed the stick aside and turned to Mei. “Hey, are you okay?

Mei shook her head in disbelief. “How did you…”

Ranma waved off the rest of her sentence. “Well, okay, maybe I did have some hobbies growing up.” She put her arm around Mei’s back, leading her out of the corner.

“That was incredible,” Mei stammered. “You’re amazing.”

The redhead waved her off. “Nah, those guys were nothin’.” Ranma took the bags from her in her left arm, keeping her right around Mei’s back supportively. “Come on, let’s get you back.” Ranma sighed to herself as they walked. She had really hoped not to introduce this side of herself to her benefactors, at least not yet, but under the circumstances there hadn’t really been a choice.

“Thank you,” Mei whispered.

Ranma shook her head. “Please. After everything you guys have done for me? Don’t mention it.” With that, Ranma pulled the bar’s front door open with her foot, holding it with her backside to allow Mei to enter.