Chapter 4

In orbit above the Earth, Zastin stood on the bridge of his ship with a thoughtful look on his face, as he viewed the planet's surface on the main screen. While he awaited the king's response to the princess' choice of consort, he had been wondering about the very person that she had chosen.

While he'd had his doubts about a human being capable of ruling over the entire galaxy as Deviluke's king, he had begun to wonder about that after he had requested a more detailed report from Maul and Smutts, regarding their own encounter with Ranma. Being able to run and jump across rooftops while carrying the princess was worth noting, but what he really wondered was whether he could match or beat the strength that his subordinates had displayed. Had he been confident when he had put himself between his men and the princess, or had he simply put up a brave front?

"Commander Zastin!" His blond-haired subordinate, Maul, suddenly shouted from his place at the control console, which made him train his mind on the matter at hand and turn to acknowledge the other man. "We've detected an unidentified spaceship! It'll soon enter the Earth's atmosphere!"

"So," Zastin thought, "they've already begun to appear..."

After considering the situation for a moment, he figured that he may very well be able to learn Ranma's true capabilities under these kinds of circumstances. If the princess was actually interested in him, he prayed that the human lived up to his expectations. Still, considering how he had the princess' safety to consider, since she might involve herself to protect Ranma, whose capabailities he had yet to learn the extent of...

"I'll go find Lala-sama immediately," he told Maul. "Keep your eyes on them."

"Yes, sir!" Maul replied.

The good thing about having a ki-sucking teacher like Ninomiya, whose primary focus was disciplining delinquents, was that she tended to drain people of their ki if she sensed enough hostility coming from them. It was hardly ever a good thing, as Ranma himself could attest, but it certainly was whenever it actually worked in his favor. Unfortunately, while he had been saved from the vast majority of the classroom after Lala's introduction, they were probably going to resent him for being drained, rather than the person who had actually drained them.

While Ninomiya had managed to spare him from the wrath of his classmates during homeroom and their first period class, they had recovered by the end of said class and he'd had to make himself scarce until the start of the next. One of the keys to winning battles was by being able to choose one's battlefield, and a classroom during the little bit of free time that was offered between classes was beyond his ability to make advantageous use of.

However, since he was only half of the equation in question, the class' attention had inevitably turned its full regard toward Lala. He had figured that she wouldn't be in any danger while school was still in session, except — possibly — during the break for lunch, so he had felt fairly confident that nothing would happen to her during his absence. There really hadn't been anything that he could have done about it, what with having so many people on his case, so he'd only been able to hope that she wouldn't cause any more trouble while he was trying to avoid some of the trouble that she had already caused. Still, he had made sure that he could see Lala from wherever he hid or skulked, in case someone actually decided to threaten her physically between classes.

Mercifully, from what he had overheard from the rumor mill during the following class breaks, it seemed that Lala had told his nosy classmates that their engagement and his declaration of love had been misunderstandings. While she had also maintained that they were living under the same roof, and had made clear her interest in him, a small favor was far better than none at all. Besides which, with the biggest issue cleared up and out of the way, he figured — rather optimistically — that he now had a reasonable chance to work out everything else with Akane.

The only thing that really bothered him was the reason that Lala had given for living with him, because it reminded him that some of his problems were quite literally out of this world. She hadn't said exactly who he was protecting her from, or why they were after her, but he recalled what Zastin had said — about fiancé candidates — before he had left last night, and if she really was the princess of a kingdom that ruled the entire galaxy...

When he noticed the door to the stairwell being opened, and saw Lala step out from behind it, he pushed away from the fence that he had been leaning against and approached her. Before his latest escape from the classroom, he had snuck a note onto her desk, requesting that she meet him on the roof during lunch, so he had been expecting her.

He noticed that she had brought her bento with her, but what really caught his attention was the fact that she seemed to be a bit subdued, which made him wonder if she actually understood what kind of trouble she had caused him earlier. If so, and her apparent mood was a sign of contriteness, then it'd make it a lot easier to chide her.

That wasn't to say that he knew exactly how to go about doing that. While she had certainly caused him a lot of grief since the time that they had met, she wasn't quite like the other girls that he had to deal with, who either didn't know when to quit, listen to him, or engage in civil, rational discourse instead of jumping off of the deep end from the very start. After they had cleared up things between themselves last night, she'd been good about cleaning up some of the mess that she had created so far, despite what had happened during her introduction to the class earlier. He wanted to be harsh with her because of the latest bit of trouble that she had caused, but seeing her subdued visage made him think that he could get his message across without doing that.

Once he stood before her, he decided to cross his arms and say, "Do you know how much trouble you've caused, by saying that you lived with me? Why did you decide to go to school all of a sudden, anyway?"

"Eh?" Lala voiced, before she looked away, cupped her blushing cheeks and smiled shyly. "But... I just wanted to be beside you all of the time, Ranma."

While Ranma had expected such a reason, he had not counted on its method of delivery, which had made his heart betray his love for Akane by skipping a beat. Between the earnesty and demureness of Lala's response, on top of her beauty, it had been one of the single-most cutest things that he had ever seen.

Since he couldn't really blame her for how attractive he was, and having been thrown off balance by her besides, he looked askance and scratched the side of his face as he tried to keep his reaction to her response from becoming evident. "W-well, in the future, be sure to run something like that by me first, okay?"

"Okay!" Lala responded perkily.

"That aside," Ranma went on, his curiosity helping him to recover his bearings, "how did you manage to become a student, anyway? You're an alien."

"Ah, that was easy!" Came Lala's merry reply. "I went to see someone who is called a 'principal' and made a request, and after complying with one of the school rules he allowed me to attend. He was really helpful!"

"Helpful?" Ranma wondered to himself, who felt rather confused as he looked at Lala's seemingly-untouched hair. "She's talking about him, right?"

Before he could begin to worry about it, Lala went on to say, "But, don't worry! I didn't tell anyone that I'm an alien."

Ranma waved his hand dismissively. "I wouldn't worry about that too much." He gestured toward Lala's tail. "Aside from having to explain that, a human-looking alien wouldn't be too out of place around here."

Peke chose that time to enter the conversation. "That may be so, but the problem isn't so simple: Lala-sama is the princess of Deviluke. If the public were to find out about it, her life could be in danger."

"Well," she went on casually, "if Ranma-dono were a dependable man, I wouldn't have to worry about it so much, but..."

Offended, Ranma pointedly looked at the source of Peke's voice — the clip in Lala's hair — and said, "Hey, just what are you trying to say?"

"Don't worry, Peke!" Lala said confidently, as she raised her hands to her chest and clenched them into fists. "Ranma's really dependable when push comes to shove!"

Ranma sighed and considered arguing about how he was dependable in general, rather than when the circumstances demanded it, but decided to let it go. Any vote of confidence was better than none, and it wasn't like he got even as much as Lala had given him all that often. He figured that he'd have plenty of opportunities in the future to prove them wrong with his actions, which would be better than trying to convince them with words.

His stomach chose that time to remind them of what time it was, and with a modicum of dignity he held back his embarrassment and suggested that they eat their lunch — not that Lala seemed to pay his stomach any mind. As they prepared to do so, they were unaware of the other pair of people on the roof, on the other side of the stairwell, who were eating their lunch in a distracted manner as they waited for their spy to return and fill them in on what they were doing.

After lunch, Ranma noticed that a change had come over Akane: she didn't seem to be in such a foul mood, though she still appeared to be ignoring him. That's the impression that he got, at least, because he'd caught her turning away from him as soon as he looked in her direction a few times. She also seemed to be paying Lala an inordinate amount of attention, even though she had pretty much been ignoring her earlier in the day. For that matter, he had noticed a similar change in behavior from Ukyo, except she had a ready smile — albeit a small one — whenever he had spared her a glance.

Fortunately, the enmity coming from everyone else was gone as well. Not completely, however, since Lala was still living under the same roof as him. That made a number of his classmates jealous, and/or they complained about the arrangement being improper. Of course, it was an improvement over how things had been earlier, to the extent that he didn't feel the need to make himself scarce anymore. It wasn't perfect, but it was a relief that Lala was willing to help him out for his sake, since — from personal experience — he knew that girls could be less than amenable if they liked both him and the rumor going around about them.

By the end of the school day, he was feeling fairly confident about patching things up with Akane. The problem, of course, was finding an opportunity. He didn't want to broach the subject in public, but it would be difficult to arrange a private meeting with Akane so long as she was still in a mood to ignore him. He supposed that he could pass her a note, but there was no guarantee that she would read it. Catching her on the way home from school might work, though, since seeing her at home was probably best avoided until certain people were given an update on the situation.

Unfortunately, when homeroom ended, and students could leave school or go to their clubs, Ninomiya had gotten Akane's attention and asked, "Since you're not in a club, could you give Deviluke-san a tour of the school, and show her the club activities as well?"

When Akane hesitantly agreed, Ranma was both devastated and beside himself with irritation and worry. Not only was his chance with Akane delayed, but Lala would be together with the girl that he was both betrothed to and had a keen interest in, and there was no telling what might be said between them and what may result from it.

At first, he thought about joining them, but he wasn't sure how Akane would react to that, and whether it would have a negative impact on his chances of talking to her later. So, after mulling the situation over, he decided to watch them from a distance. Unfortunately, trying to stay out of sight wasn't always conducive to being close enough for him to hear what was being said very well, if at all. Also, while he was so focused on what the two girls were doing and saying, the fact that someone was following him went unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Akane was showing Lala around the school, and doing her best to act like nothing of consequence was happening. After all, even though Lala wasn't an official fiancée or anything, she had made no secret about her feelings for Ranma. On top of that, a girl with those kind of feelings was living under the same roof of the love interest in question, who was not only engaged to someone else already but might even be ready to commit to them.

She couldn't be sure about that, though, because it was difficult to believe despite the unconscious flutterings of her hope-filled heart at the very thought of it being true. After everything that had happened recently, and knowing Ranma, it was difficult to believe that Ranma had confessed to her, even though she was the only one — other than Ranma and Lala — who knew the context of the misunderstood confession. If not Lala, then who else could he have said those words to, after all?

However, whenever she took notice of the other girl's figure, it was difficult for that logic to take a firm hold in her mind. She'd always been a bit insecure about her figure, and it had only gotten worse with Ranma's gibes and teasing. Ever since Shampoo had entered the picture, she had begun to feel inadequate as well, and that combination led to such reasoning as: "How could he have confessed to me, when there's another girl who looks like that?"

And it hadn't helped when Konatsu had shared with her and Ukyo what he had heard while eavesdropping at lunch for them: that, on top of her beauty, she could very well be a princess. There was also the thing about her being an alien, but she was a princess nonetheless. Not that it really mattered, since the only notably-alien thing about her was her tail, and it certainly wasn't so off-putting that it detracted from her beauty in any significant way.

She could expose Lala's identity, and she had certainly thought about it, but she didn't really have a good enough reason to do such a thing. Aside from the feelings that she had for Ranma, she hadn't really done anything wrong, and she seemed like a nice enough person besides. If not for the circumstances, and all the things that she had on her mind, she may very well have been on her way to becoming friends with her already.

There were other things holding her back, as well. Aside from the fact that she still couldn't figure out what had happened during yesterday's lunch period, when both Ranma and Lala had suddenly appeared out of nowhere without a single stitch of clothing on, the supposed alien had yet to show any sign of recognition; not only from that occasion, but from when Ranma had made his confession.

Should she bring any of that up? Should she tell Lala — assuming that she didn't know — that Ranma was already engaged, and to whom? She just didn't know. So many things about the situation inspired a wide range of emotions and thoughts, and so many of them were either at conflict with each other or didn't have enough of a basis to act upon.

She had become so engrossed in thought, while Lala was observing a club's activities, that being addressed by her had startled her a little bit. "Ah! Um, yes?"

With a bright, cheery smile, Lala said, "School is so fun, isn't it? Everyone is gathered together and having a good time! I'm glad I came."

"Is... Is that so?" Akane replied, who thought that the statement sounded a bit odd. Well, when she considered the possibility that Lala was an alien, it didn't sound all that strange. That is to say: if there weren't any schools wherever she had come from, then of course a school would seem novel to her.

It had also motivated her to observe a little longer, for the time being, before she decided to do anything that she might regret. Lala's behavior could all just be an act, for all that she knew, but she certainly seemed nice enough. Most of the other girls appeared to be responding to her positively despite the short amount of time that they've had to interact with her so far, and the fact that she was interested in Ranma.

She wasn't sure if it was the triteness of Ranma having a girl interested in him, or assuming that said girl already knew about the engagements, that no one had bothered to say anything to Lala about it yet; in much the same way that no one had shown much interest in her tail, aside from confirming if it was real or not. Either way, she would prefer it if Lala pursued the relationship in ignorance. If she knew about it and still had her eyes set on her fiancé, then... Well, she wasn't sure what she would do, but she would certainly expect Ranma to put his foot down and make himself off-limits, even though she didn't have much confidence in his ability to do such a thing.

As she was leading Lala through the breezeway that connected the school to the gymnasium, to show her both it and some of the sports clubs thereabouts and in the playing fields, she found herself being engaged in conversation once more. "Hey, Akane?"

"Yeah?" She responded distractedly, and was thus unprepared when she was asked, "Do you have someone you like?"

It was such a surprising and embarrassing question that she had to stop walking and turn around to face Lala, who had her hands clasped behind her head in a rather casual fashion. "Wh-why are you asking me something like that all of a sudden...?"

Lala smiled somewhat fondly while she had a distant look in her eyes. "I fell in love for the first time very recently. It's a strange feeling being in love... My heart's never beat like this before."

While hanging from a tree limb some distance away, Ranma strained to hear them, now that they seemed to be speaking again. "What are they talking about? I can't hear anything from here..."

He left the tree stealthily and made his way over to a row of bushes that would put him closer to the two girls, so he could hear what they were saying. Unfortunately, his chosen place just happened to be in the path of a stray baseball, which struck him in the head and had the effect of knocking him senseless.

Before Akane could decide on how to respond to what Lala had shared with her, which hadn't been helped by the naive and carefree way that it had been expressed, a certain baseball stopped rolling nearby and caught Lala's attention, whose eyes lit up with interest upon seeing it. "Hm? What's this?"

She was already in the process of picking the baseball up when Akane's belated response came, who hadn't expected that kind of a question regarding such a commonly-known object. "Ah... That's the baseball club's, um, baseball..."

"Ohhhh," Lala voiced, whose eyes sparkled as she held the baseball up for inspection, before she abruptly ran toward the baseball field and shouted, "Hey! Let me try it out!"

Akane held up her hand, about to say something to stop her, but seeing the likely futility of it made her sigh instead. Lala seemed like such a child, doing things at her own pace while she sated her curiosity and had fun, and it made her wonder how pervasive that attitude was. If she was lucky, her "first love" with Ranma might just be a simple, passing crush, and all that she would have to do was wait for the situation to resolve itself. Hopefully, it wouldn't be like her own first, which she had held onto for years...

As the slightly melancholic nostalgia came and went, while she idly watched Lala from afar, she wondered if it would be that simple. Things hardly ever were with Ranma, who seemed to have a knack of making things worse regardless of whether the situation were simple or not. She could only imagine what kind of trouble he might get into if Lala were truly an alien and a princess.

Just as she began to wonder what Ranma's mother would think of a princess being interested in her son, her attention was refocused on the princess in question when she hit the baseball that had been pitched to her. It wasn't so much the action itself that had pulled her away from her thoughts, but the sight of the baseball as it was launched into the sky: not only did it disperse a good portion of the cloud that it had plowed through, but she hadn't been able to detect an arc in the ball's trajectory before she lost sight of it.

"Wow," a familiar voice vocalized her own opinion, "that girl's got some serious power."

She turned to regard Ukyo, in part because those in the baseball club were too stunned to do anything worth paying attention to. "Ukyo? What are you doing here?"

With a snort, Ukyo jerked a thumb over her shoulder, where Ranma was in the process of picking himself up from behind some bushes. "He was following you, so I thought I'd follow him."

Akane regarded him with a measure of exasperation, who pretended to look for something on the ground when he noticed her attention. She wasn't going to buy it, of course, so she marched on over to him and gave him a good wallop upon the crown of his head, where she unwittingly struck the very spot where the baseball had hit him. Then, with her arms crossed in a no-nonsense manner, she asked, "What are you doing?"

Ranma cringed in pain as he rubbed his doubly-injured noggin, before moodily replying with, "What do you think I'm doing? I'm trying to find the thing that I just happened to drop over here."

"Uh-huh," Akane replied, with a half-lidded stare. "What did you drop?"

Ranma paused and hid his rising nervousness, since he hadn't thought that far into his excuse, and there wasn't any particularly good-sounding object for him to be looking for coming to mind. "Oh, um, well..."

"Give it up, Ran-chan," Ukyo said levelly, as she joined them. "You were tailing Akane and Lala."

Ranma sighed and stood up with as much dignity as he could manage. By the time he was fully upright, he had to hide his relief when an obvious excuse for his dilemma finally came to him, at which point he pretended to drop his shoulders in defeat. "Okay, you got me. I guess I still need to improve myself if I can't protect someone from the shadows without being detected."

That sounded plausible enough to the two girls, between the previous claim of protecting Lala and the possibility of her being royalty. However, one fact still remained, which Ukyo bluntly addressed. "I don't know how else to tell you this, sugar, but you really suck at it."

Ranma's eyebrow ticked upon hearing that, but he was saved from saying anything tactless in response when Lala called out his name as she ran over to them, leaving a dumbfounded — yet even more enamored — baseball club behind.

Lala had plenty of time to notice Ukyo while she was on her way, and she perked up at the possibility of making a new friend. Once she was standing at Ranma's side, she greeted her with a smile and enthusiastically said, "Hi! I'm Lala!"

"Kuonji Ukyo," said person returned coolly, before casually adding, "I'm Ranma's fiancée."

While Ranma watched on anxiously, which he managed to hide fairly well, Akane wasn't really phased by Ukyo's challenge, and not only because it had been expected. She had been tempted to say something like that herself, if only out of curiosity for what Lala's reaction would have been, but she wasn't as open about her feelings for Ranma, nor was she as possessive. Ultimately, however, she was simply more critical of Ranma, expected more from him, and his many failures — along with his misbehavior — made it easy to doubt or distrust him first, unless there was something obviously wrong with the other party involved.

If Lala had picked up on Ukyo's attitude, however, it certainly didn't show. In fact, if anything, she appeared to be even more excited than before. It wasn't the kind of response that either Ukyo or Akane desired to see, because it would mean yet another competitor for Ranma's hand, and thus that much more trouble. And if the fate of the baseball was any indication of her strength, then resolving the issue physically may not be a good idea.

"Really?" Lala replied, who seemed to be delighted. "So, you like Ranma, too?"

"O-of course I do!" Ukyo admitted, with flushed cheeks. Despite how easy it was to make the claim that she was Ranma's fiancée, she still found it fairly embarrassing to acknowledge her feelings in front of others, even — perhaps especially — Ranma.

"That's great!" Lala cheered, much to the bewilderment of everyone else.

"How is that great?" Akane asked, who was truly perplexed by Lala's behavior. "I mean, he's already engaged."

Now it was Lala's turn to be confused. "Eeeeh? Isn't polygamy okay? I thought Ranma was engaged to more than one girl..."

Understanding came to Ranma and the others, though his came from a different source than theirs: while he realized that neither he nor his mother had ever explicitly said that the multiple engagement situation was odd, having unconsciously assumed that their cultures weren't different in that regard, and thus allowing the context to do the talking for them, Akane and Ukyo were now more convinced than ever about Lala being an alien, which would help explain the misunderstanding.

When Ukyo recovered, she sardonically stated, "Oh, he is, but it's because his father's an idiot, not because it's lawful."

Ranma nodded his head in confirmation, as he did his best to hide his chagrin for having such a father.

Unfortunately for him, not all of Lala's doubts about the situation had been dispelled, and she thoughtfully asked, "But... Then why would Ranma give me a chance?"

Akane and Ukyo suddenly regarded Ranma with a pair of unforgiving glares, which made him cringe and sweat as he took a cautious step back. He could admit to being rather clueless and thickheaded at times, but this particular error was rather obvious to him, and he was pretty sure that he was in big trouble. While the thought had crossed his mind to try to make some kind of excuse to get himself out of trouble, or even lie, he was afraid that it would probably make things worse... Which was often the case. Ultimately, though, he just couldn't think of anything to say while his two fiancées looked at him like they were.

"Well," Akane said lightly, as she regarded Lala with a pleasant smile, having come to the conclusion that said person was the victim in all this, "you know the old saying: the apple doesn't fall short from the tree."

"Hey!" Ranma protested out of reflex, against his better judgement.

Akane and Ukyo sent Ranma flying into the distance, with their fist and peel respectively, before turning their full attention to Lala, who watched his departing form with a mixture of confusion and concern. Their eyes met during the transit of their focus, and they managed to recognize what the other was thinking: they could simply discourage the new girl so she would lose interest, since they didn't need yet another girl vying for Ranma's affections. Upon realizing that they both had the same idea, they exchanged nearly imperceptible nods of agreement.

Ukyo slung an arm across Lala's shoulders and said, "Don't worry about that jackass."

"Eh?" Lala voiced, who had been made nonplussed by recent events.

"You don't know that jerk like we do," Akane chimed in, who huffed with exasperation for effect — though not much. "You should know more about someone before you decide you love them, right?"

"I guess..." Lala belatedly agreed, after some thought.

Ukyo smiled at her encouragingly. "Well, how about we fill you in while we continue the tour?"

That sounded reasonable enough, and she was curious since she'd yet to learn much about Ranma, so Lala regained her bearings and said, "Okay."

As "luck" would have it, Ranma fell onto Zastin, who had been asking a police officer for directions at a kōban at the time. After they disentangled themselves, Ranma offered an apology, then followed Zastin to an out-of-the-way place because he had some business to conduct with him in private.

Once they made it to a small clearing amongst some trees, Ranma kept his arms folded behind his head as he casually asked, "So, what's up?"

Zastin wasn't about to freely admit that he had been lost for a better part of the day while trying to find Lala, so he brought up the matter that came up during his "sight-seeing," which concerned Ranma in particular. "I brought you a message that came directly from the king of Deviluke."

That was rather unexpected, and a potential source of worry, so Ranma adopted a more serious air and lowered his arms. "You mean... from Lala's father?"

"Yes," Zastin acknowledged solemnly, as he pulled out some kind of device that was about half the size of a person's head and floated above his palm. "He is a great person, who united the war-torn galaxy and stood at its zenith."

To Ranma, the bones, fangs and skulls of unknown creatures, which made up the device's appearance, caused him to think that it would look right at home with a death cult, or something along those lines. The only innocent-looking part about it was the rhombus-shaped crystal, which floated above the main body of the device.

"Well, then," Zastin said, as he released the device and let it float between them, "listen carefully."

"...Hey," a rough voice came out of the device, which Ranma stubbornly decided to not think of as sounding scary at all, "Saotome Ranma, I've heard Zastin's story. Therefore, I shall approve you as one of Lala's fiancé's."

Ranma froze up with dread upon hearing those words, to the point where he didn't notice a certain dog when it ran up to Zastin and began to gnaw on his leg again, despite the man's efforts to avoid it. He had thought that he had managed to get a decent hold of the situation, by giving Lala a chance, with the intention to turn her down, but now her father had arranged for him to be one of her official fiancés.

Could things get any worse?

Lala's father continued. "I've heard that Earthlings are rather shabby, but you're the first guy that my daughter's ever favored, so I'll be looking forward to... seeing your capabilities. I will eventually decide when the 'marriage ceremony' will be held, so — until then — try your best to protect Lala."

Well, that was quite a quandary, wasn't? Either he did that and ended up trying to get out of yet another engagement, or he allowed a girl to be exposed to whatever dangers were after her and risk bringing down the wrath of her father upon himself.

Surely, things couldn't get any worse than that?

"The entire galaxy is perfectly aware of your existence," Lala's father went on. "Thus, sooner or later, other fiancé candidates will appear before you... To take Lala away! If you manage to protect Lala from them and complete the 'marriage ceremony' without any problem, then you shall be my successor."

...King of the galaxy? That was certainly tempting... Not.

Lala's father wasn't done, of course. "But, if you allow Lala to be taken away, and fail to meet my expectations... When that happens, I'll smash your life... Along with that small planet! Remember that well."

Stunned and horrified, he looked toward Zastin, whose ear was being nibbled on by the dog, and sought some kind of answer to this dilemma, or — even better — a punchline to a joke. What he got was a story that confirmed the king's willingness to destroy an entire planet because of the actions of a single person, much to his dismay.

It was official: his situation had gotten worse.

Two homeroom periods: many are familiar with the one in the morning, before first period, but there is also one after the last period of the day.