| Welcome Home, Yoiko! | ||
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Slightly trembling, Ryoga reached for his doorknob. In his mind a billion scenarios played out, all of them revolving around another of Ranma's tricks. Summoning all of his courage he turned the knob... only to discover it was locked. "What? No... NO!!" Ryoga stared at the door dumbfounded. The door being locked was the last thing he expected. "Why is this door locked? It's supposed to be open in case someone came home..." Finally his mind realized that if the door was locked, then someone must be home. He began to pound on the door screaming for someone to let him in. The sound of the door being unlocked silenced him. "It's me! Ryoga! I've come home!" He called. Swinging the door open, a young girl with pig-tails ran towards him, arms outstretched. "Ryoga! Welcome home!" She threw her arms around him and began to cry. "I thought I'd never see you again!" "RANMA! What is the meaning of this?!" "Who?" "Ranma, stop the act. I don't have a sister and you know it!" The young girl stepped back, looking both hurt and ashamed. "How could you have forgotten me again?" "Ranma knock it off!" Ryoga started to charge after her just as she ran inside and slammed the door shut. Ryoga blindly slammed into the door and was stunned long enough to hear the door lock from inside. "RANMA! LET ME IN!!" "STOP CALLING ME THAT!!!!" "What do you expect me to call you? Yoiko?! What do you take me for?!" "I'm calling Mom!!" Ryoga began to laugh at the stupidity of the statement. His whole family suffered the same since of direction as he did. Tracking down his mother would be nearly impossible. "So, Yoiko, how are you going to do that?" He said, sarcastically. "I'm going to call her new cell phone!" Panic began to strike him. What if this isn't one of Ranma's tricks? Ranma never did admit to being Yoiko. Could it be possible he did have a sister? "Ok, um... Yoiko, this isn't funny anymore... Let your brother inside now..." "What, so now you believe me? "Of course I don't!!" "I HATE YOU!!!" Ryoga listened to her footsteps as she ran off into the back of the house. Guilt began to wash over him. If only he knew if it was really Ranma or not... At that moment, Checkers the dog, ran around the side of the house and tackled him. "Checkers! Where did you come from girl?" Then, remembering the dog door, Ryoga quickly ran to the backdoor. * * * "Where did I put that phone?" Yoiko searched around her kitchen desperately trying to find the phone. Disspite the fact she almost never left her house, she still had trouble finding things from time to time. Behind her, Checkers came running in from outside. Yoiko spun around to see why she was so excited only to find Ryoga crawling in through the dog door. Without thinking she grabbed the nearest thing to her, the phone, and began to beat Ryoga over the head with it. "YOIKO!" -BONK- "...I'm" -BONK- "...sorry!" -BONK- Angered, Ryoga backed out of the dog door and screamed. Without thinking he grabbed the door and spun it open. Briefly he stopped to wonder why he never tried to open the door to begin with. This gave Yoiko just enough time to turn and run out the front door. "Good! Just stay out!" He yelled after her. Checkers looked from Ryoga to the front door and back. Her mind was trying to determine which was more important. Finally, she ran out the front door after the Hibiki that had fed her the most. Exhausted, Ryoga went upstairs to his room to get a change of clothes for a bath. Picking a room at random, he stepped inside and looked around. Souvenirs decorated the walls. "Hmmm... This must be my room..." he said to himself. Opening the closet and grabbing some clothes at random, Ryoga turned and went off in search of the bathroom. After about an hour he managed to finally find the bathroom at the end of the hall, and went in to take a nice hot bath. Less than 30 minutes later, the house was filled with a blood curdling scream. "My clothes? What happened to my clothes?" Ryoga stared down at the dress he had absently put on in confusion. "What was this doing in my closet?" Slowly his mind began to realize what was going on, "But that means... that means... that means she's going to be lost forever because I threw her out of the house!!" Without pausing to think, Ryoga ran out of the house screaming after his sister. Not long afterwards, faithful Checkers led Yoiko back into the house. She ran upstairs to cry in her room but stopped along the way to investigate the wet foot prints leading down the stairs. She followed them back to the bathroom where she found Ryoga's clothes lying in a heap in the corner. "He's such a pig..." Two days had passed until Ryoga's search brought him to the Tendo Dojo. Exhausted, Ryoga screamed one last, "YOIKO!!", before collapsing on their doorstep. Ryoga awoke later that evening in the Tendo's guest room. Kasume was standing over him while Ranma and Akane looked in from the hall. In a kind voice Kasume asked, "Are you feeling okay, Ryoga?" "I think so... where am I?" Ranma stepped into the room, "We found you at the door wearing a dress..." "You where muttering something about Yoiko. Who's she?" Akane asked. "Ranma! Do you remember pretending to be my sister?" Remembering, Ranma shuddered, "How could I forget?..." "Where did you get the clothes you wore?" "Oh, that's easy. I got them from your sister." Akane quickly glanced at Ranma, "You mean he really has a sister?" "Of course, We kept switching places to drive Ryoga crazy." "NOOO!!!" Ryoga screamed as tears began to flow from his eyes. Everyone was too shocked to speak. Finally, the silence was broken by Akane. "What? What is it? What happened?" "I... I thought Yoiko was Ranma, and I ran her out of the house! Now she's... now she's gone! And with my family's since of direction..." Akane glared at Ranma, "This is all your fault!" "Me? What did I do?" "You made poor Ryoga think he didn't have a sister!" "What!? So what do you expect me to do about it?" * * * Ranma and Ryoga slowly walked down the street looking for Yoiko. Ranma, using a branch as a crutch, was mumbling. "I don't see why she had to attack me like that..." "Just shut up!" As they continued walking, a group of girls walked past them giggling. Ryoga, realizing he was still in a dress, began to pull at Ranma's shirt. "Give me your clothes, Ranma!" "What? What am I supposed to wear?" "You can change into a girl and wear this dress!" "NO!" "YES!" "NO!!" "YES!!!" Ryoga pulled on Ranma's shirt again, ripping it off of him. The two of them stood in the street dumb founded. "Now look what you've done! That was my last clean shirt!" "Oh... lets just go to my house, You can wear one of mine." "Why didn't we just do that in the first place?" "Just shut up!" * * * "Akane! You have a visitor!" Akane went downstairs to see why Kasume had called to her. Once she got their, she found someone waiting for her in the front room. She was a young girl with reddish-brown hair that was braided into two pigtails. Although she bared more than a resemblance to Ranma-Chan, the fangs she bared when she smiled and her bandanna proved she was Ryoga's sister. "Yoiko?" The young girl looked up at Akane and grinned. "I thought I'd never find you." "Ranma and Ryoga have been looking for you all day." Yoiko's face dropped and her eyes began to water. "I thought he didn't like me..." "Um... so what brings you here?" "I-I thought... maybe you knew why brother was being so mean to me." "Oh, Yoiko..." Akane quickly decided to change the subject. "Yoiko? How did you find my house? I thought your whole family was..." "Navigationally Challenged?" Akane blushed. "Well, that's why I have Checkers. She always seems to be able to take me where I need to go." "So where is Checkers now?" Yoiko looked around the room worried. "Um... I don't really know... Checkers? Checkers?!" Hearing her name called, Checkers came running into the room wagging her tail. She went to Yoiko's side and sat down. "Hello again Checkers!" Checkers looked at Akane and lifted her paw to shake. Akane took and shook the dog's paw. Yoiko looked at the two of them and smiled. "Akane, could you come with me to my house for awhile? It's so lonely their." "Um... I guess so... I've got nothing else planed for the day." As Yoiko and Akane reached the Hibiki Household, their neighbor suddenly ducked behind her fence. "Oh no! I hope she didn't see me..." "Oh Mia-chan!!" "Uh, H-hi Yoiko..." She said as she slowly stood up. Seeing Akane, she relaxed a little. "Who's your friend?" "This is Akane Tendo. Akane this is Mia-chan." The two of them exchanged brief hellos. Both of them shared an unusual look of dread, as if being forced to talk to Yoiko against their will. Yoiko, of course, was oblivious to this... "Mia-chan, have you heard anything from my family since I was gone?" She thought for a moment. "I've never met them before, and they probably don't know who I am... How or why would I hear from them?" Yoiko looked puzzled. "Well if you see them, please tell them that I'm back, okay?" "Uh... sure, Yoiko... " She said as she rolled her eyes. "Come on Akane, let me show you my house!" Akane shared one brief look of mutual confusion with Mia before she followed Yoiko into the back of the house. * * * As Ranma and Ryoga limped down the street, Ryoga asked, "Ranma? How did you meet my sister?" "Oh. Remember when you had me take you to your house 'cause Checkers had puppies? Well, after you disappeared, I started looking for you. When I finally caught up with you, you where escorting Akane inside your house. I sat across the street and tried to think of what to do next. Finally, I decided to pretend to be your cousin or something. So, I changed into a girl and snuck in the backdoor. "I ran into Yoiko in your kitchen. When I first saw her I freaked out 'cause of how much she looked like me. She did the same. Then she asked who I was, so I told her I was a friend of yours. When she said you and Akane where in your room, I got mad. Your sister noticed. That's when I told her we were going out and that I needed to find a way to get even." "WHAT?!?" "Well, what was I supposed to say? Anyways, she came up with the idea to dress me up as her, so I could keep an eye on you two. But of course, I couldn't just sit back and watch. So, I talked her into trading places back and forth to throw you off. We figured, since you didn't know her too well that you'd never notice the difference between us." "Yeah, well I did notice!" "Well if you noticed, then why the heck did you think she was me and kick her out?" "SHUT UP!!" Hearing the two of them screaming, Mia came out of her house to see what was going on. What she didn't expect to see was two guys arguing with each other with there clothes ripped apart. What she really didn't expect was one of them to be wearing one of Yoiko's headbands and the remains of one of her dresses. "Hey, do you know Yoiko?" She asked them. Both of them looked at her questioningly. After a minute, Ryoga spoke. "Yes, she's my sister. Have you seen her?" "She actually does have a brother?!" "Yes stupid! Why else would I call her my sister?" "You don't have to be so rude," Ranma joined in. "Shut up, Ranma!" "Oh yeah? Why don't you just make me!" "Fine! I will!!" Mia felt she had to do something. She couldn't just leave these two to duke it out in her front yard. Quickly thinking, she ran into her backyard and grabbed the waterhose... Upon seeing the two boys melt into a young girl and a black pig, Mia blacked out. * * * "This is my room, Akane!" "This looks like a bathroom..." "Oh, uh... then THIS is my bedroom!" "That's a linen closet..." Yoiko looked around the hall in confusion. "I know my room is around here somewhere..." Just then Checkers came running up to them with P-Chan on it's back. "P-CHAN!!!" Akane screamed as she picked him up and hugged him. "Kwee! Kwee! Bu-keee!" Yoiko looked at the pig and came to the conclusion, "I think it wants us to follow him." P-Chan looked at his sister and tried to nod in agreement. Checkers, hearing the word 'follow' ran outside. P-Chan, Akane, and Yoiko followed her. | |