They were all standing in the waiting room. Well, standing would be a loose term. Bickering would be a better term in her opinion. However, Akane realized that at least they hadn't let anything degenerate beyond that. It was probably because they knew how serious things were.
Ranma had been shot. Ranma had been shot. For something like that to happen was insane. Well, not that insane considering the people she knew who hated Ranma with a passion. It was just, Ranma had been shot. It was surreal. In all the time she had known him, she thought of him as invincible. She would never be caught dead admitting it to anybody, especially Ranma. His ego would go out of control if he found out. I mean, it was already bad enough that he could use it as a weapon.
That thought sent her shuddering back to the present. Why? Why had this happened? This was Japan! Nobody is supposed to have any guns in Japan. Who would do this?
"This is your fault!"
The shout broke into her thoughts as Kodachi spat her statement at her.
"My fault? How is any of this my fault?"
"Ranma wouldn't be hurt at all if he wasn't busy dealing you peasant girl!"
"He wouldn't be there at all if you weren't busy fighting each other!"
"Everyone stop yelling!"
They each turned to Ukyo's outburst.
"This is not the time for yelling and blaming each other. None of us may like each other, but we need to be there for Ranma's sake."
Her words brought a silence to the room. None of them could even look at each other. Although, it was clear that Ukyo's words had struck true to each of them.
Fortunately, they were all spared from any more awkward moments by the arrival of Dr. Tofu.
"Dr. Tofu!" Akane exclaimed. "How is he? Is he alright?"
Dr. Tofu looked at her. She noted an incredulous look on his face.
"Of course he's fine. I'm honestly surprised you're so worried. It's not like it's that bad."
"What do you mean it's not that bad? He was shot! How could it not be that bad?"
His eyes simply looked back at her in confusion.
"What are you talking about? Ranma hasn't been shot. What would make you think that?"
"What you talking about? Shampoo hear shot. See airen fall."
"Exactly! Ranma warned me about something and lunged towards me. Then, I heard it. It sounded like a gunshot to me. Then, after that, all I saw was Ranma. He looked like something had hit him in the back. Then… then…"
Akane couldn't get any more words out. Her eyes teared up at the thought of what had happened. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up at Dr. Tofu.
"It's alright Akane. I looked over Ranma, and I didn't see anything that even resembled a gunshot wound. Aside from him not waking up just yet, it doesn't even look like he's hurt. He just looks tired is all."
"But that doesn't make sense!" Akane blurted out.
"Well, I can only go by what I see and I just don't see anything wrong with him. Knowing him, his fatigue will pass shortly, and he will be up in no time."
His words were starting to make her feel better.
"Ranma wake up soon? Then Shampoo go to side."
Those words quickly sunk her rising mood.
"Oh no you don't, sugar. I'm going to be the one by Ranma's side when he wakes up."
"Ohohohohoho! My, my little dearies. What makes you even think he wants you at his side when he awakens from his not so peaceful respite? Clearly, I, Kodachi, the Black Rose of St. Hebereke and the rising star of martial arts rhythmic gymnastics, should be the one who shall share a room with my darling Ranma once his now peaceful slumber ends."
"Cut it out, everybody!"
Akane's words, however, fell on deaf ears as the four of them stared each other down.
"Oh no! Where did Ranma run off to?"
Dr. Tofu's words, however, did find the right sharpness to cut through their tension. All four of them ran back to see where Ranma had been taken. Except, when they arrived, Ranma was nowhere to be found.
Akane just stared at the bed.
"Where did Ranma go?"
Down the street, Ranma was running at a brisk pace.
"There's no way I'm getting stuck in the middle of that!"
As soon as he reached a branch in the road, he instead hopped over it and started jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He was going to make sure he was a good distance away before they came after him. Not to mention that he needed to clear his head as well.
What did happen? He was in the middle of watching all the girls fight over him, as usual. That really didn't matter to him. Sometimes he really wished they could all get along. The constant bickering between everybody gave him no peace. If they all got along, then maybe he would have a lot more time to study martial arts. Instead, he had to break up fights between them, which usually nearly broke him each time.
Speaking of broke, how did he end up in Doctor Tofu's clinic anyway? He was pretty sure he wasn't even fighting this time. Well, except for that uncute tomboy. Why did she have to be like that anyway?
"Wait. I was fighting with her and then my danger sense flared up. Next thing I know I was moving towards Akane. As klutzy as she is, there ain't no way she would've been able to dodge anything. Then…"
Ranma leapt down to the street below.
"Then… Wait… Was there a gunshot?"
He walked along the street with his head in his hand.
"But, that doesn't make any sense. Guns aren't allowed here in Japan. What could it have been? A car backfiring maybe? Yeah, that could've been it. Though, what happened after that? I don't remember anything after that. What happened then?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
Ranma jumped and turned a 180 in the air to face the voice he heard. It was a woman in strange clothes. She had light blue hair and green eyes. She was looking at him intently, which made him a little nervous of female wrath coming for him in the future.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Karin Aoi. I was hoping I could talk with you for a second."
"I guess I can do that. What is it you want?"
"Well, I kind of have this problem."
Ranma rolled his eyes. He could almost see where this was going. Alone with a girl. She wanted to 'talk'. He just hoped he wouldn't run into anybody he knew while-
"Ranma!"
He turned to see an angry Ryouga Hibiki running towards him from down the block. It was pretty much what he expected.
"This is for Akane!"
Ranma quickly turned and scooped up Karin and jumped out of the way of Ryouga's wild haymaker. His dodge didn't help telephone pole behind them any, however, as it bent over from his punch. Ranma landed a good distance away from him before setting down Karin and addressing him.
"Geez Ryouga, what was that about?"
"You know darn well what this is about, Ranma!"
"No, I don't. Can it wait though?"
"No it can't wait!"
"Come on Ryouga. I'm trying to have a talk with this girl."
Ryouga looked over to the girl; noticing her for the first time.
"So, you already have Akane, and now you're talking to another girl. Ranma! You make me sick!"
Ryouga lashed out at him again. Ranma again jumped out of the way. This time he didn't take Karin with him. As Ryouga kept attacking him, Ranma yelled back to the girl he just met.
"Sorry, I'll have to talk to you later."
Karin watched as Ranma and this Ryouga person leapt away.
"No way! I'm not going to wait for later!"
She ran after the both of them. As she did, she watched the two of them fight. Ranma kept on the defensive for the most part. She was amazed at how fast he seemed to be. He always seemed to be keeping him from hitting him. Sometimes it was by a foot, and sometimes it seemed like he missed by only a few centimeters. He never seemed out of control. She even heard him taunting his pursuer from time to time.
She was also surprised that they were slowly getting away from her. She was no slouch. She had been enhanced to be stronger and faster than any normal person in order to do her job. The fact that they could outrun her was crazy. She was even giving it everything she had. The only reason they weren't already out of sight was because they weren't going in a straight line.
Her thought were interrupted by the sound of an explosion. She looked on as the one called Ryouga seemed to make an explosion come from nowhere. They were currently near a bridge close to a waterway.
"Strange. I didn't see any explosives. What could have caused that?"
She watched as Ryouga's finger actually buried itself into the concrete. Then, her eyes bulged as the concrete around it exploded outward from it.
"Wait. But… Huh? Is that even possible?"
The fight seemed to stop for a moment. She was too far away to hear what they were saying at the moment so she moved in closer to hear them.
"-Chan. She came up to me. I was about to find out when you attacked me."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"It's true! Why don't you believe me? Nobody ever believes me!"
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I said I wanted to talk to him!"
The two of them looked over to her. She was interested in what they were doing, but she didn't want to risk them running off like that again. She couldn't be sure that she could catch up to them again.
"I need to ask him some things. I'm worried that something may happen to him after seeing what happened in the park."
"What are you talking about? What did he do in the park?"
"It wasn't something he did, but it was something that I shouldn't have done."
Ranma's face lit up.
"You! You're the one who shot me in the park?"
She looked down sheepishly.
"Yeah, that was me."
"Wait! You shot him!?"
"Yes," she said in an even lower voice.
"Why? Why did you shoot me?"
"Because of all those women!"
"What?"
"All of those women were fighting over you. Not to mention that you weren't even paying attention to most of them at all! Instead, you were arguing with one of them. You're just as bad as the mega playboy!"
"The what?"
"Rrrranmaaaaa."
Ranma looked over to Ryouga. He was visibly fuming.
"How dare you string along Akane like that!"
"That's what you're focused on! What about the fact that she shot me?"
"It sounds to me like you deserved it!" Ryouga yelled and launched himself at Ranma once more.
"It ain't like that!"
Ranma dodged the furious haymaker and continued to backpedal. All three of them resumed the furious chase. She was beginning to wonder what kind of man this Ranma was.
Ranma was beginning to wonder what this newest crazy chick was talking about. What the heck was a mega playboy? He'd been called a playboy before, but what was she talking about? It was a secondary concern to him right now as Ryouga continued his angry assault. He was aware that the girl was following them, but he really didn't have the time to worry about that either.
After some more dodges and a quick Amaguriken barrage, he realized they had traveled back to the park. At least there wasn't anybody around to get caught up in the destruction now. He needed to finish this little bout up soon or who knows how long he could have to deal with good old pork butt. He considered steering them both to a source of water, but he needed to talk with that crazy chick and seeing him turn into a girl probably wouldn't make it any easier.
He spotted something he could use. The water fountain in the middle of the park. He could send Ryouga flying into that and he would not get wet himself. All he had to do was bait him. Wow, would that be tough.
He got himself in position and did what he always did.
"Geez, Ryouga, why do you always got to be so pig-headed?"
The reaction he received was predictable as always. Ryouga yelled and lunged at him. Ranma jumped over the top of him. Ryouga flew by him and stopped at the edge of the fountain. He then landed on top of Ryouga's head and jumped off with enough force to send him the rest of the way into the fountain. He then landed a good fifteen feet away looking back to the fountain.
"I told ya man. You're just too pig-headed to listen."
He looked on as a now soaked black piglet wearing a bandana glared at him from the fountains edge. He then turned back to look for the girl that was following them. A few second later, she arrived.
"Where is that man who you were arguing with?"
"Oh, he decided to cool off a bit. So, now that he's gone, there was something that you needed to talk to me about?"
She looked down towards her feet.
"Alright, I need to tell you this, but you'll need to believe me even if it sounds crazy."
Ranma scoffed.
"Yea, that's what they all say. So what's your story and why did you shoot me?"
"Alright, here it goes. My name is Karin Aoi. I.D. number 80427. I'm a DNA operator who's come from a hundred years in the future. In my world, I operate on and manipulate on DNA for a living."
"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, for example, if I operate on the DNA of a star athlete, I can give him the DNA of a normal person who isn't very good at sports at all. We use any number of composite mutagens to change the DNA depending on the needs of a specific operation. It usually comes in the form of a bullet which has a tip that contains the substance which we call a DCM. It stands for DNA Control Medicine. You see, one hundred years from now overpopulation is a serious problem and anyone who has more than two children is put to death."
"They're put to death? That's sounds pretty harsh. Why would they do that?"
"Like I said, it's a serious problem. The reason behind this problem is because once upon a time, one hundred women were impregnated by some sleaze ball called the Mega Playboy who left behind one hundred children. He's been dead for quite a while in my time, but the problem is the children he left."
"Yeah? What about them?"
"The one hundred children all ended up being men and all of them became Mega Playboys just like their father was."
"Wow that sounds pretty bad."
"Exactly! After that, each of them impregnated one hundred women and then their offspring did the same and so on and so forth."
"Riiiight. That does sound like a pretty big problem."
"Indeed it is. That's why I came back in time. In order to stop this problem, we decided to come back and use the DCM bullet to take care of the original Mega Playboy before he had the chance to impregnate all of those women. If we can take care of it before that happened, then we won't have the problem with overpopulation in the future."
"OK, so you came back and were going to shoot this guy so that didn't happen."
"Exactly! Then, I would go home and get paid by the government for this job. Then, I would use that huge paycheck to get myself the sweet home of my dreams with a wonderful husband and a cute pet in our very own house with a garden!"
He looked on as she appeared to sparkle a little bit with that last sentence.
"Alright then. What in the heck does that have to do with me?"
After he said that, she seemed to visibly deflate.
"Well, you see, right after I got here, I started to look for my target. Not too long after that, I stumbled upon you and that group of women in the park who were fighting over you. Each of them were saying that you were their fiancée and I thought that you were even worse than the Mega Playboy and so…I ended up shooting you instead."
Ranma stared blankly at her for a few moments.
"You did what!?"
"I'm sorry! You just seemed like you were leading on all those women and you didn't even look like you cared! You were even arguing with one of them!"
"You shot me!? What the heck did you do ta me?"
"I don't know!"
"You don't know!?"
"No, I don't! When I went back to my ship, I got a call from the people who sent me here. They told me that I left with the wrong DCM bullet. Since that was the one I was supposed to use, I have no idea what I shot you with."
"You shot me with something and you don't even know what it was? What the heck is wrong with you?"
"I wasn't thinking!"
Ranma wasn't sure what to make of this. She shot him with some kind of junk that she had no idea of what it was. What if it took away his martial arts? What if it made him act like Gosunkugi? What if it made him crave Akane's cooking?
He shuddered at that last thought.
"The only thing I can do right now is keep an eye on you and see if anything happens to you."
"What? How the heck am I supposed to do that?"
"You could just say that I'm your fiancée like the others."
"Do you have any idea how bad of an idea that is? I already have enough of those to last me my entire life thanks to my pops."
"It doesn't matter to me. My future depends on this too! I have to find out what happened to you so that I can fix it."
"Alright, alright. I'll take you to the Tendo dojo so we can hopefully figure this out. That sound alright to you?"
"Sure. Lead the way."
As he led her to the Tendo's, Ranma wondered what the heck he had gotten into this time. He really hoped nothing bad was going to happen.
