"Arg! I can't believe how long I was stuck in there!"
"Hey, how was I supposed to know? It's not like-"
"Seriously man, are you actually gonna finish that sentence?"
"Uh, no?"
Sighing, Ukyo shot Mato a little glare. Idiot. I finally get them to start arguing, and you just had to shut Ran-chan up. There goes three more plans. Shaking her head, Ukyo leaned back into the tram seat. As per plan nine, Ukyo had convinced the others to go and visit Foot Town, but the way things were going, it didn't seem like it was going to pay off.
"So, we're goin' to Tokyo tower?" Mato leaned forward to see past Ukyo to look at Ranma and Akane. The way the traincar was packed, he was mashed between the wall, and Ukyo, and he just knew trouble was coming.
"No, we're going to Foot Town first." Akane fussed a little, trying get herself a little less squished between Ranma, and a trunk some jerk had put on the seat next to her. Oh well, better the trunk, than some pervert.
"Uh... Yeah, it's a town shaped like a foot." At least Ranma had the decency to look ashamed when everyone glared at him.
"Ok, could somebody with a passing knowledge of Japan field that one?" Mato, for his part, had his arms crossed over his chest in an odd way. With his hands on his shoulders, pulling them together, it was a little uncomfortable, but at least he could avoid being ebowed too much by Ukyo. Geez, you'd think she was UP to something, or something. Snorting at his overly sarcastic train of thought, he just looked at the three Nerimans passively. Goodie, Tokyo Tower. Why is it every time I go there...No, not gonna think about that. Just focus on nothing, focus on nothing. Don't think about how everything's gonna go to pot in a few hours. Dammit.
"Foot Town is a big building right under Tokyo Tower. It's got museums and restaurants and lots of stores and tourist attractions. I used to go there with my family every year, before mom died." Akane paused for a moment. She was used to her mother being gone, after so long, it wasn't such a painful memory anymore. I just wish she could see me getting married. "...Um, so we're going to the Aquarium Gallery first, right Ukyo?"
"Yup. According to the advertisements, it holds over fifty thousand fish." Ukyo grinned. Clearly, she was plotting again.
Ranma blanched a little, imagining just how much water could be in there, lurking. Waiting to get him.
"I hear that SURFACE is going to perform at Club trip three." Mato blinked, then cocked his head. "What?"
The combined stares of Ukyo, Ranma, and Akane all racked in on a point just between his brows.
"What? Wha'd I say?" Great, what's the problem gonna be this time?
"Club... Trip three?" Naturally, Ranma had no idea what was going on.
"The only club in Tokyo Tower is in the observatory, but it's called Club three three three." Akane frowned.
"Yeah, that's what I said."
"... I've never heard anyone call it trip three before."
"Heh, well it's not my fault that you live..." Whoops. That coulda been bad if I finished saying that one. Cover, need a cover. "Whoops, tongue slip. I mean it's not my fault that you don't listen to the hip kids." Hah, perfect. And nobody is the wiser.
"Sugar, the last thing you'd ever be, is hip."
"Oh ouch, my masculine pride."
Shaking his head, Ranma leaned back and made himself comfortable as best he could. "Whatever, just wake me up when we get there."
"Ugh, Ranma, you can't sleep through the whole ride." Akane gave him an irritated look.
"Can so. Skating is tiring."
Sighing, Akane lightly nudged him with her elbow. "Fine, lazy bum. But if you don't wake up the first time I call you, I'm leaving you on the train." A slightly bratty smile turned up the corners of Akane's mouth.
"What, you'd just leave me here alone?"
"Yes."
Fighting back a chuckle, Mato leaned back into his seat as well, letting his eyes droop closed. There's not much for me to do here, I've seen the damn scenery a hundred times already. As for the tower, well... It's only ninety-six, it's not like I have to worry about dealing with demons or anything for another three years or so. Oh God, do I hope I'm not stuck here for that long. Knowing my luck, I'd run into this Inari too. Oh, dear, God, would that be hell. I am NOT getting impaled again, not this friggin' time. Once is a goddamn 'nuff.
Ukyo, after giving Mato another odd look, sighed and shook her head. I have no idea what that jackass in thinking most of the time. He's so weird. Oh well, it looks like I'm going to need another evil- no, not evil! It's not evil at all, I'm just getting what's mine dammit. Ran-chan is mine. He's been mine since he was promised to marry me when I was a little girl. There's no way I've gone through hell just to lose him. Now think Ukyo, think. Plan, plan, plan like you've never planned before!
... Yeah, this ain't gonna turn out well at all... God dammit.
-
Deep within the heart of Nerima, evil gathered itself.
"Finish washing the dishes Mousse. Then clean the tables, put away the rice, and go down to the market to order more peas." Cologne frowned. "Getting lost on a simple errand for ten hours, even for you, that's bad." Shaking her head, the Amazon elder sighed and looked over at her great-granddaughter. "Ready to go, Shampoo?"
"Yes great-grandmother. Shampoo just need to lock doors before trip." As usual, Shampoo was clad in a white dress with a slit up one side, and had a bubbly, slightly airheaded smile on her face.
-
"Well, huh." Mato stared up at the Tokyo Tower, tapping a finger against his cheek with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Something wrong sugar?"
"Uh, no. Not exactly, no. It's just..." Frowning for a moment, he wagged his finger at the tower. "Didn't it used to be lit up in green at one point? It's been a while since I've seen the tower, and I remember it was green for some reason."
Ukyo sweatdropped. "Uh, no sugar. The tower's never been lit up with green lights. From October second to July sixth the tower is lit in orange." She gave Mato a kind of 'what-are-you-from-mars' sort of look.
"Oh, huh. Weird." Shaking his head, Mato stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Well whatever, as soon as those two get out of the bathroom, let's get this over with."
"What, you don't like being at Tokyo Tower sugar?" Ukyo was playing coy, she knew exactly what he'd ment by getting it over with. As expected, she'd used the time spent on the train to come up with nearly a dozen new plans, all for use while at the tower.
"We have a bit of a history together. God knows that even with me being here, that's not likely to change anytime soon." Also, I really don't wanna have to wade through a bunch of crap today. The damn skating thing was enough as it is.
"What do you mean by 'here' sugar?" Ukyo arched a brow.
"Meh." Shrugging, he turned his head this way and that, looking around. Best view in Tokyo of the city comes right from the top, but there's no way Akane would be able to get up there on her own. Looks like we won't be hitting the tip of the tower today.
"There's Ran-chan. Lets go sugar."
-
Three hours of looking, shopping, eating, more looking, and a little more eating later, the group was spent. They'd trekked all over Foot Town, and were now looking out at the city through the windows of the Main Observatory. Naturally, they'd taken the chance to sneak in some icecream too.
All except for Ranma, who thought it was unmanly to enjoy icecream, and refused to change into a girl just for a bit of sweets.
"Tch, whatever man, your loss." Leaning against the glass, Mato munched on his cone, looking out across the city. It was starting to get dark, and all the lights were coming on, one by one. Kinda beautiful, ain't it? Reminds me a little of lookin' down on Japan from way up, just a little drop in a big ass bucket of lights. Lost in memory for a moment, Mato's stare went vacant, his green eyes seeming to dim a little.
Ranma, for his part, was sulking, and trying not to stare at Akane's icecream cone too much. Clearly, he had a very poor poker face, since Akane lifted up her cone to his mouth without looking. A hint of a blush swam into his cheeks, and he looked down at her.
Akane herself was a little red, but she didn't look away from her view of the city. She did, however, lean in a bit closer to Ranma, her shoulder pushing against his.
It was a sweet, romantic little scene.
That's why Ukyo was fuming. She'd ducked off to prep one of her little schemes, and had come back just in time to catch that little piece of light drama. Once again, the sheer intensity of Ukyo's rage made children cry as dozens of scoops of icecream were reduced to muddy little pools on the glass floor of the observatory. That little- eh?
"Ni hao Airen!" Ranma's face was smooshed up against the window by the force of Shampoo's glomp. The purple haired amazon buried her face in his back, clinging tightly to his waist. "Shampoo come to see husband. You is happy to see her, yes?"
"..." Silently, Akane stared at the fiancee hijack, her left eye twitching madly. "Hello Shampoo."
"Vamhoo... Vutr voo voing vup vere?"
"... Shampoo no understand Ranma, you speak Japanese very bad."
"Oh, the irony." Mato leaned back against the window, arms crossed over his chest. Oh yeah, this is what I was talking about before. This is the last damn thing I wanted to have to deal with today. Anything else I could've handled without losing it, but not this.
Blink blink. "Who is you?"
"Nobody important. Just let go of the dork, and head on back home to your own dumbass, and everything'll turn out fine."
"Shampoo no let go of dork! Is Shampoo's dork!"
Finally unpressing his face from the window, Ranma was going to shoot Mato a glare, but instead settled for sweatdropping as he stared down at the purple head that was clinging to his stomach now. "Uh, hi Shampoo?"
"Let go of my fiancee now Shampoo, or you're going to regret it. He's marrying me, and that's that." Akane crushed her icecream cone as she clenched her hands into fists. Oh, ewww.
"Is Shampoo's! Ranma marry Shampoo, not tomboy pervert girl."
"I'm afraid that's right." Cologne pogoed through the gathering crowd on her staff. "Her engagement takes precedence over any other."
"Says who?" Akane tried to split her glare between the two Amazons, mixed up, went a little crosseyed, then settled for just glaring at Cologne for the moment.
"Says Amazon law."
"Sorry, but you're in Japan now. Local law takes precedence over foreign unless it's involving homicide."
"Oh? And who might you be?" Cologne turned her eyes on the boy dressed in the dark school uniform. "Insolent and ignorant, how often those two come as one."
(Not really, I just happen to know Amazon law pretty well, elder one.) Tilting his head to the side a bit, Mato lowered his eyelids a little. Dealing with Cologne was always fairly dangerous, usually when you were getting on her bad side, though there were some exceptions. Sometimes it was just bad period to be dealing with her.
(My my, you speak such good Mandarin. Odd that you don't look Chinese.)
(That's because I ain't.)
(I see. Well, in any case, your claim of understanding our laws is baseless.) Cologne shook her head, wagging a withered finger at him. Only a member of our tribe would know the laws.
(Yeah, I know. So what I don't get, is why you're claimin' that I don't know anything.) A smirk curled up one corner of his mouth. (And why you didn't say anything about if I was wrong or not about the law being valid here.)
(I don't care about the law, Ranma is mine.) Shampoo clung possessively to her fiancee, who was staring at her, Cologne, and Mato oddly, each in turn.
Not that Akane was doing much better understanding whatever the heck is was they were jabbering on about. I'm so confused.
Ooooh, that IDIOT! Why'd he have to go and open his stupid mouth like that? Hiding in the crowd, Ukyo had considered getting involved for a moment, then decided against it. At this stage in the game, if the rivals could get rid of Akane, they'd be doing the dirty work for her. But noooo, that jackass just had to go and open his mouth like that. It didn't matter that she couldn't follow the conversation, she knew just from the fact that they were talking that three and a half of her plans were now utterly ruined.
(Say whatever you want boy, but it won't change a thing.) Cologne shook her head again, switching back to Japanese. "Ranma will marry Shampoo, regardless of what anyone says or does."
Tch, great. Well this ain't gonna turn out well. Sigh. "Well, that's tough luck then, because nobody here really cares what you think. There is no way in hell that Ranma's gonna marry Shampoo of all people. I can promise you that."
Oooh, you stupid jackass, now isn't the time to start getting dramatic. You have no idea what you're dealing with here. Even Ran-chan has problems wi- WAIT! Oh Ukyo, you're brilliant! If we team up with Ran-chan and Akane against those two, we could beat them! And then, with us on Ran-chan's good side, I'd have an excuse to get even closer. Stop over to visit the two of them, maybe a dinner or two with the family. So many chances. Ukyo zoned out a little. Plans for the future began to dance before her eyes.
"Young fool, do you really think you stand a chance against one such as me?" Cologne was starting to get irritated now. It wasn't often that somebody confronted her, and was either bluffing, or running on pure ego. "You haven't traveled the globe enough times to even last one minute."
"Now, what makes you think that?" Smirking, Mato arched his back and dipped forward a bit, using his hips to buck himself away from the window, and into an upright position. "Last time I checked, I was neither young, nor ignorant."
"Yet you don't deny being a fool." Cologne frowned, something was very wrong with how relaxed this stranger was. The fact that he spoke seemingly fluent Mandarin, and seemed to know herself, Shampoo AND Ranma somehow, was setting off alarm bells inside her head.
"Oh, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a fool." Mato strode forward a few paces, mainly to get himself a little elbow room away from the windows, but also because he had a sense for drama. "After all, aren't I standing right here?" His smirk became a wild grin, his lips curling back to reveal a pair of fangs. "Right between you and Saotome?" His eyes glittered as he stared at Cologne, enjoying the moment in spite of himself.
"Do you really think you've traveled far enough to deal with the likes of me?"
"Oh, you could say I've been around a bit..." Reaching up, Mato flicked away his dark bangs, revealing the bandanna wrapped around his forehead. "Quite a bit, and pretty far and wide, as the saying goes." He tugged the bandanna down to cover his left eye. Tch, guess I'll have to resort to using THIS if I wanna get outta this fight in one piece. I REALLY hope it's good enough to compensate for this craptastic body. It didn't really do me any good the last time I tried it. "So, unless you really wanna have a bad day turn worse, I'd suggest you back off right now."
-
Another chapter, come and gone. I think I've finally recovered from all that sleep I've been missing out on for the past few weeks. Yay. Also, side note upon trying several times while editing... Why the hell can't this damn site let me use different fonts, and enclosements besides the standard brackets? God, it's not that friggin' hard to put the fit UP like it was printed, is it? Geez!
Review reply time!
Baitdcat- Yeah, I know. Unlike nearly everything else I've written, I tend to upload chapters at a rate of about once every half week, to a week. Blinding speed compared to once a month to eight times a year. Yeah, the Golden Pair got the boot pretty quick. Heh, it seems like it was a popular choice, considering the reviews. God, do we ALL hate them? The answer appears to be 'yes, yes we do. bring them back so you can do it again'. And yes, accidental aww on Ukyo's part. I just liked the mental image of the two snuggling up. If I was an artist, I'd do a picture of that, one being Ukyo's thought bubble of her snuggling with Ranma, and beside it, what's actually happening, and Ranma's bug eyed stare from across the table.
Rose1948- Yup, Ukyo just can't seem to get any luck at all. What's the deal with that?
SithKnight-Galen- Yup! The paragraph added was indeed the one about Mato having every one horning in on his fate. A point for you. And then I dock that point because you also guessed that it could have been the riding leathers one, which was not a full paragraph in italics. But you break even, which is kick ass in casino odds.
Also, Ukyo has about thirty-five concurrent plans in the running, but a lot of them end up being impractical as events change. She does think of enough to make up for the ones ruined, so she remains about even. That means, at any one time, she's got five new plans for the day that are spur of the moment, about ten that hinge on a lucky break happening to give her a perfect chance to swoop in (unlikely) and go for broke, and about twenty plans that are just dedicated to ruining any plans her rivals may be using at the time.
Palpatine may be a master planner in the long run, but Ukyo utterly kills him when it comes to short term plots and ploys. Be very afraid of Ukyo, because she's delt with the one thing that's stopped her from being dangerous; a lack of grim, single minded focus. Still... Palpatine has the
robes and the creepy, gravely voice, he wins points for that.
The Azure Penguin- Sweet, my very own rabid fangirl. Just teasing. I'm glad that you're enjoying the story so far. I pretty much try to stay true to the source material whenever I do a fanfic, though sometimes I find it a bit hard to not give the characters common sense, stupid Mousse.
My little scene inserts are done for two reasons. The first reason, is yeah, I want to give everyone a little laugh. The second reason, it that I like to actually use scene breaks in my writing, to gap up the story a bit without going 'two hours later' all the time. Instead, I throw an insert in here, and then just imply that time has passed. I guess it's Takahashi style? Also, I have a secret reason, and by the time you read this reply, you'll know exactly what the secret reason was.
Heh, feel free to fangirl. It makes me feel appreciated, and motivated to continue writing the story.
Thanks to everyone for the reviews. Needless to say, the next chapter is probably going to get very messy. There's something suspicious about covering your left eye up like that... I wonder what it could mean?
Factoid! Mato is indeed fluent in Mandarin, and was not just bluffing. He also is very well versed with Chinese Amazon law, though more in the area of crime and punishment, then marriage laws.