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"Ran-chan!" – Regular Speech
'Stupid Spatula Girl!' – Thoughts
"Hiryū Shōten Ha!" – Martial Arts Technique
{Grandmother!} – Mandarin/Language other than Japanese Speech
Beta'd by rewind gone nuts
Chapter 10: Shadow Games
Several Days Later
Once again, Ranma found himself dragged out of his bed (during a nice afternoon nap) and tent by his useless excuse for a father. This time, the stupid Panda wanted him to 'spar' with Happōsai, because the old man was pissed at Genma for accidentally ruining a bra that he had stolen the previous night.
"Seriously, grow some balls, Pop." The Saotome Heir snorted. "Are you or aren't you the Master of the Saotome-Style Anything Goes?"
"BOY! The Master is the Grandmaster of the Anything Goes Style for a reason!" Genma cuffed his impudent son over the head. "As such if falls to the next generation to take the fall- I mean, endure his harsh training!"
"Seriously, no balls at all." Ranma snorted again. "You pissed the old perv off; you get your ass kicked by the old perv. I've got training to do."
"Oh, what a disloyal son I have!" Genma wailed, melodramatically flinging an arm over his forehead.
"Take it to Bollywood!" said 'disloyal' son snarled and booted the fat man back towards the Tendo Dojo to take his beating like a man.
Muttering about the stupidity of self-important fat pandas, Ranma got his stuff together and headed to the local bath house to get clean before heading to the Nekohanten for more training. He was really enjoying the training he was getting from Cologne.
As per the recompense she had promised him, she had run him through a bunch of different Chinese Weapons, starting with the Dao and Jian and going up. Thus far he had reached 'acceptable' skill in the Dao, Jian, Daodao, Húdié Shuāngdāo (Butterfly Sword), Liuyedao, Niuweidao, Piandao, Yanmaodao, the Shéng Biāo (or as the Japanese knew it, the Jōhyō) and she had recently started him on the Liúxīng Chuí, or Meteor Hammer, with Shampoo helping him out too, as something of an expert with the blunt weapons used in China.
Ucchan had also made good progress in the Hōsha Kōtei no Tsue, advancing from a purely wooden staff to a metal-capped wooden staff in just a week. This was harder than it sounded, due to metal not really being a decent conduit for chi. Cloth, natural or artificial, was lightly tougher than wood, but far easier than metal ever was. Metal was full of the remnants of the natural chi left over from the earth it had once resided in, as well as the fragments of the more chaotic chi that came from the forging process, both from the coal used to fuel the fire and from the fire used to heat it. Because she had been using a bastardised version of the technique for years on her weapons-grade tamahagane steel Battle Spatula, Cologne estimated that, in regard to this single technique at least, Ukyo would master it to a greater level than Ranma would.
Surprisingly, that didn't fire up Ranma's competitive spirit; rather, he was glad that his childhood friend had found a niche that she could call herself superior to him in. Ranma was a proud person himself, he knew it and accepted it, so he knew how important it was to have something to prove that your pride wasn't meaningless, that there was a reason you had it to begin with. As a kid, he'd been raised to practically exemplify pride, and he had been very clueless as a kid too, so it hadn't occurred to him that others might have been raised to not be as prideful as he had been. Because of that, he had outright crushed the pride of at least a dozen kids, thankfully not including Ucchan.
Shampoo, on the other hand, was having a lot of trouble with her chi blast. Passion, as a whole, was a broad category of emotions and she was having a lot of trouble quantifying and summoning up the feeling. It was understandable, really. Even for a passionate person, summoning passion at a moment's notice was something of a trial. Cologne had set her to practice meditating and identifying images that she associated with passion so she could use them to summon it at will. This was on top of her practicing her counter-projectile tactics, mind you. At this, she was rapidly improving, to the point that Ukyo and Ranma had been compelled to up their game to stay a challenge to her.
Mousse had been steering clear of all of them, aside from glaring at Ranma very occasionally. Evidently, the duck-boy didn't know when to recognise his own fault in a situation. Still, he wasn't training much, due to Cologne running the bespectacled boy off his feet with work. She had even taken to shackling him to the stove in the kitchen to stop him from doing his usual glomp attacks on Shampoo.
As he left the bath house feeling nice and clean, he had to wonder at how his life had changed since coming to Nerima. Ranma was more than slightly sure he could handily defeat himself as of the time he had arrived back in Japan; hell, he was certain he could do so without using the Hiryū Shōten Ha or any of the other larger tricks he had picked up from the numerous martial artists he had faced or been taught by in Nerima.
Not only had he gotten stronger, he had been forced to deal with girls on a far more intimate level. Literally, thanks to Shampoo jumping at him in the nude a couple of times. The image of the Amazon girl and her….ahem, assets, flashed through his mind and he flushed red.
Banishing the image, he walked towards the Nekohanten. The place was fairly busy and he spotted Ukyo sitting and eating a bowl of the good food Cologne whipped up for them.
"Hey Ucchan." He said as he sat down opposite her.
"Ran-chan!" she answered with a smile before frowning. "Ya look pissed off. Somethin' happen?"
"Just my old man being a pain in the backside again." Ranma rolled his eyes as he spoke. "Apparently he pissed off the old perv and he wanted me ta take the fall for it."
The Osakan chef shook her head in disbelief. "What an idiot."
"Preachin' ta the choir, Ucchan." The Saotome Heir said with feeling before looking around. "Not that I'm complainin' but where's Shampoo? Usually she's glomped me by now."
"She's started meditating early." Ukyo answered. "She's a bit frustrated with her lack of progress with the whole passion thing."
"Ouch." Ranma winced. "Yeah, I can see that. I can barely make my chi manifest way from my body myself, so it must be harder for Shampoo."
"Wait…you can?" Ukyo leaned forward in interest.
Ranma placed his right hand palm up on the table and closed his eyes. A moment later and it started to glow. Sweat trickled down his brow as he focussed on this exercise. Slowly, a ball of white light the size of a Ping-Pong ball emerged from his hand and floated there.
The chef was astonished by this and her eyes were wide. "Ran-chan…this is…!"
"Incredible." Cologne's voice whispered, making Ukyo jump slightly in surprise. The miniature Amazon was standing on the table and staring at the chi ball in Ranma's hand with utter focus.
After a moment, the ball re-entered Ranma's hand and he let out a breath. "Man, that is so damned tiring."
"Unsurprising, Son-in-Law." Cologne snorted. "In the back with the both of you."
When they did, they spotted Shampoo sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed on the floor. Meditating, obviously.
"So then, Son-in-Law…where did you pick up that little exercise?" Cologne asked impatiently.
"A master at a temple showed it to me a couple of years back." The Saotome Heir shrugged. "He said it was a basic exercise for anyone who wanted to use their chi. He walked me through how to do it and told me not to force it until I could manage one ball the size of a tennis ball with ease."
"Of all the…!" the Matriarch muttered several words in Mandarin that did not sound complimentary. "That man was either touched in the head or lying outright."
"How so?" Ranma asked in puzzlement.
"The Joketsuzoku rank techniques and exercises like this: Initiate, Apprentice, Low Journeyman, High Journeyman, Low Master, High Master and Grandmaster." The old woman explained to the two Japanese youths. "They are also segregated by four technique categories: Unarmed Physical, Internal Chi Manipulation, External Chi Manipulation and Armed Physical. It is possible for a technique to have multiple categories. Just as an example, the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken is a Low Journeyman technique present in both the Unarmed Physical and Internal Chi Manipulation categories. The Hiryū Shōten Ha is a Low Master technique present in the Internal and External Chi Manipulation categories."
Ranma and Ukyo nodded to show that they were following her words.
"That little exercise you were performing, Son-in-Law, is a very complex High Master technique in External Chi Manipulation. You shouldn't be able to do it at all." Cologne said, a flicker of anger in her eyes. "If anything had gone wrong, you could have mangled your chi pathways permanently!"
The pigtailed boy gulped at that. "R-Really?"
"Yes." The single word held iron will in it. "From here on out, do not practice that exercise without me overseeing you performing it. I can tell that you have mastered it to a great degree, but it is not fully mastered, so it can still go wrong. Were you even told what it was for?"
"Nope." Ranma shook his head. "He gave me a buncha Zen gobbledygook about time and travelling many paths."
"Tch. Typical of a temple master." Cologne shook her head. She may act and speak mysteriously when training people, but at least she gives her students an idea about what the technique they're learning is for! "That exercise is for using pure, unadulterated chi, Son-in-Law. No emotional component to it, just pure chi. It's the first step to an anti-demon/Yōkai technique, used to slay those not of this world. I would say that this would probably be the first step to using it as a weapon. It isn't actually all that useful against humans though."
"Huh." Ranma flexed his right hand experimentally. "Well, if we do meet a demon or a Yōkai in the future, this might just be useful."
"True enough." Cologne nodded. "Now, I want you to spar with Ukyo today, Son-in-Law. I'll be teaching Shampoo one-on-one today."
"Hey Cologne, what's that?" Ukyo pointed at an incense burner and a packet that lay atop a table nearby. It looked out of place, which is why she noticed it.
"Hmm? Oh, that's something I bought from the salesman that resupplies my stocks of esoteric supplies." Cologne said looking at the burner. "That is the very last packet of the 3000-year old Chinese medicine Shadow Clone Incense that he had on him. he threw in the incense burner to make it just 3000 yen for the lot."
"Shadow Clone Incense?" Ukyo and Ranma parroted.
"Yes. He called it the true way to become a master of martial arts and also said that it allows the one exposed to the burning incense to create a shadow copy of themselves, one that allows you to spar against yourself. How better to gauge your strength than sparring against yourself? Of course, it was a similar man who sold Shampoo the Red Thread of Fate, so I made sure to read the instructions very carefully. If the user overuses it, the shadow can start acting out unilaterally, so we will be using this incense sparingly. Understood?"
The two teens nodded.
Once Shampoo was roused from her meditation session, and promptly pried free from her still-instinctive glomp of Ranma, they headed out to the back to start their training session. Unseen by them was a certain duck boy, who snuck the incense burner and packet out of the cupboard with a grin.
"The true way to become a master of martial arts, eh? Kukuku…" Mousse chuckled. "I'll train with this and become stronger than that bastard Ranma easily! Then my darling Shampoo shall be mine!"
With that thought in mind, he crept away.
A Week Later
Ranma's Tent, Abandoned Lot
"Mousse is acting strange?" Ranma repeated with scepticism. "Do ya mean he's acting like a normal person or do you mean he's acting stranger than normal?"
"He stranger than normal." Shampoo clarified. "Do nothing other than train, train, train all day. Even blow off Grandmother. Even blow off part-time job!"
"That don't sound like Mousse." Ukyo remarked. "The guy's as blind as a bat without his glasses, has the common sense of a gerbil on acid and has no subtlety, but he knows better than to piss off Cologne."
The three were having a day off from training on the older Amazon's orders. Evidently she was a believer in the phrase 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' That, and they had reached some sort of limit with the Shadow Clone Incense and they had to wait a while before they could safely use it again. Ranma didn't care much about 'safe', but the old Amazon had been adamant.
Fighting with your own shadow was bizarre and fun at the same time and it could be intoxicating, fighting an opponent who was exactly your own skill level. Ranma could easily see himself getting lost in the pursuit of skill if Cologne didn't break their training into bitesize chunks over the course of a week. Just about the only downside to the incense was that it reeked to the high heavens. Mouldy socks covered in rotten cheese had nothing on the smell of this stuff.
"Is true, but stupid Mousse still being too-too stupid, even for him." the Amazon champion replied with a shrug.
Ranma checked the pot on the campfire and nodded to himself. The nabe he was cooking was almost done. Aloud, he said, "Wonder what's gotten inta him? He should know that the Old Ghoul isn't gonna put up with him skiving off work for long."
"Hope she kicks his ass." Ukyo grumbled. Two days ago, he had accidentally glomped her, mistaking her for Shampoo again. She hadn't been impressed by that.
"Ukyo open shop again soon?" Shampoo asked, changing the subject to something less unpleasant.
"Gonna hafta. I'm runnin' low on my safe margin money." The chef scowled. "That'll cut down on the time I have fer trainin' too."
"It don't exactly help that you're doing it alone." Ranma pointed out as he got out three bowls from the rucksack he stashed them in. Cologne had given them to him a few days ago, saying that he should have proper crockery for when he was entertaining guests.
The old hag had been planning this. He just knew it.
"Yeah, but I can't afford a waitress." Ukyo pointed out. "I barely stay in the black as it is. Plus I still have that creep Tsubasa running girls off whenever he comes by."
"Well…I could turn female and part time for you sometimes." Ranma tentatively offered. "I did it for Cologne when I was learning the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken. And all you'd have to pay me would be an extra Okonomiyaki."
The chef stared at her fiancé with wide eyes. "You serious, Ran-chan?"
"Yeah. It's kinda my fault you had to take time off from the restaurant anyway, so…" he ducked his head as he served up the nabe. It was a basic motsunabe, with pork offal, Chinese cabbage, garlic chives and a small host of other small veggies for flavour. Shampoo and Ukyo had provided the veggies, while he'd bought the offal and stock himself. For cheap too. It was amazing what catching dine-and-dashers will do for your reputation.
"OK then!" the Osakan girl grinned happily. "When can you start?"
"When do you plan on reopening?" the pigtailed boy countered, handing her a bowl.
Shampoo was pouting. "Stupid Mousse." She muttered, knowing Ranma wouldn't work at the Nekohanten with Mousse there, as the blind boy would try to fillet him with a sword. Or try to turn him into a pincushion with miscellaneous esoteric thrown weaponry.
Emphasis on 'try' here.
That Night
Ranma's body moved before he was fully awake, dodging the numerous weapons that perforated his tent like swiss cheese by leaping through the tent flap. By the time he was fully awake, the offending weapons were being retracted by the chains and ropes that connected to their owner.
"MOUSSE!" Ranma bellowed as he came awake fully and spotted the long-haired man in a robe looming at him from on top of the fence. Just before said figure turned tail and leapt away.
"Oh no. You did not just pull a drive by on me!" the pigtailed martial artist snarled and leapt after him. Even amidst his anger, he noted that Mousse was moving way smoother than he had ambushed Ranma before his date with Ukyo and Shampoo just a short while ago. Still not up to his own standards, of course, but a marked improvement nonetheless.
Dodging the occasional thrown knife, Ranma chased the duck boy all over Nerima, culminating in a race back to the Nekohanten. Swiping yet another hurled blade, the Saotome Heir charged forwards with powerful leaps, batting more hurled weaponry out of the way before slamming into Mousse, the two of them crashing into the backyard of the café with a yell of pain from Ranma. The odd thing was, Mousse had somehow vanished as soon as they had landed.
"What is this?!" Cologne hopped out of the building with a scowl on her face. "Son-in-Law?"
Ranma looked around, a scowl of his own marring his features. "Where'd that lousy duck boy go?!"
"Mousse? He's inside, doing prep work for the morning rush." The Elder answered. "Why?"
"Wha-? No way! I just chased him all over freakin' Nerima after he tried ta kill me in my tent! Not to mention ruining my tent." Ranma answered, throwing his arms up in disbelief.
"And yet he has been under my supervision for the last thirty minutes." Cologne countered. "I do not doubt you, Son-in-Law, but how could he be in two places at once?"
Metaphorically, a lightbulb appeared over both of their heads as the same thing occurred to them. "The incense!" they chorused.
A quick examination of the sachet showed that there was less incense left than there should be, prompting Cologne to look at the incense burner itself. It showed more use than the short usage that Cologne had been using it for.
"Mu-Tzu, just what have you been doing?!" the old Amazon snarled. She and Ranma were confronting Mousse in the kitchen, where he was trapped against the cooker.
The duck boy quailed at her shout.
"I've just b-been training!" he protested.
"With a dangerous medicine that no-one is supposed to use without my supervision!" Cologne growled. "Your Shadow Clone just attacked Son-in-Law in an attempt to kill him! That would mean that you have been constantly overusing the Shadow Clone Incense for at least five days! Did you not read the instructions?!"
"Eh? It's incense. Why would I need instructions for that…other than the fact I need a clothes peg for how much the stuff stinks." Mousse said in confusion.
Cologne's gnarled hand smacked into her face and dragged down as an expression of her exasperation. "You are a fool. Overuse of the Shadow Clone Incense results in your Shadow Clone becoming more and more independent and acting on your subconscious desires and wants. I highly doubt that the attack on Son-in-Law was the only thing your Shadow Clone has been up to since it gained semi-independence. One recalls that a mysterious vandal trashed the poultry sections of the local supermarkets the night before last…"
Mousse mumbled something like, "Damn bird eaters."
"…not to mention the graffiti on the outside of the Kuno Estate last night…"
"Something I actually approve of." Ranma joked.
"...and now this little debacle this morning." Cologne sighed. "Just what were you thinking?"
"That I needed an edge if I'm going to beat Shampoo after whatever bullshit training you're putting her through!" Mousse shouted furiously all of a sudden. "It isn't enough that this-" he spat out a string of Mandarin that had Cologne growl in anger, "-is stealing the woman I love! Oh no! You have to make sure I fail by specifically training her to counter me! What did I do to deserve this?!"
"What you do?" Shampoo hissed as she stormed out from the stairway that she had been eavesdropping from. "What you do?! You dishonour Shampoo! You act like stalker! You attack Shampoo's husband! Shampoo sick of this!"
The next second, her body was surrounded in a vermillion aura and she thrust her hands out and cried, "Shuhyō Jōnetsuen! (Passionate Flames of the Hunting Leopard!)"
That vermilion chi gathered in her hands, forming a basketball-sized orb that suddenly streaked forward, connected to its mistress by a comet-like tail of spiritual flames. It slammed into the stunned male Amazon like a run-away wrecking ball, carrying him through the doors and into the sky, where it exploded like a grenade, launching a blackened, smoking Mousse into the distance to his inevitable painful landing.
"She would choose right now to become able to use her technique." Cologne facepalmed again after a moment of staring.
"I guess she really, really, really passionately wanted to send Mousse flying." Ranma suggested with a grin, looking at the frozen Shampoo. "Congrats Shampoo; you just unlocked your emotional chi blast."
With a shout of triumph, Shampoo glomped Ranma, squealing and babbling enthusiastically in Mandarin as she did so, before landing a solid kiss on his mouth in her enthusiasm. She was, he noted absently, very obviously skilled with her tongue. Just as much so as when she had given him the Kiss of Marriage.
In the distance, Mousse let out a wild yell of rage as he detected that his beloved had somehow moved even further out of his reach. Then he slammed into a building and he lost consciousness for the next few hours.
The Next Day
Ukyo headed out to school, dressed in her Okonomiyaki chef's outfit as usual. She had heard about Mousse's stupidity when she had gone over to the Nekohanten and seen the fuming Ranma and Cologne. Shampoo was irked that her childhood friend had ruined her Airen's tent, but was otherwise ecstatic that her chi blast had finally been developed.
She had such a hard time believing that a martial artist from a village full of martial artists could make as big a mistake as Mousse had made. When dealing with ancient mystical medicines, read the damn manual first! Seriously, she was starting to agree with Shampoo that it was a brain problem rather than an eyesight problem with Mousse! For crying out loud, this just proved that Mousse was on the same level as Genma when he had taken poor Ranma to Jusenkyō without getting a Japanese translation of the pamphlet about the place!
She had seriously wanted to murder the Panda after hearing that from her fiancé. Luckily, he had managed to calm her down. It had occurred to her later that telling her about that incident had been a sign of trust in her that he had previously not shown before now.
She had just reached the gates of Fūrinkan's grounds, when a familiar bellow made her facepalm.
"RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!"
"Ryōga." The chef muttered with a twitching eyebrow. She had been told the story of why Ryōga sought vengeance on Ranma and it did not impress her. She tiptoed into the grounds and saw the familiar sight of an enraged Lost Boy flailing around with his fists while her fiancé dodged and weaved like an adult avoiding the clumsy attacks of a child.
"So, P-Chan, what've I 'done' to you now to make you this worked up?" Ranma asked conversationally. He wasn't even breathing hard.
"You know exactly what you done!" Ryōga snarled. "And don't call me 'P-Chan' dammit!"
"Hey, I ain't seen you for weeks." The Saotome Heir protested. "I've been too busy training to spend time with you. Sorry if yer lonely, Ryōga."
"WHO'S LONELY?!"
"Saotome Ranma!" another familiar voice called and Ukyo twitched as one Kuno Tatewaki charged in with his bokken raise.
"Kuno? I just kicked your ass yesterday!" Ranma pointed out, dodging a punch from Ryōga absently. "You ain't due to attack me again until tomorrow."
"Silence! Die, foul sorcerer!" the kendoist exclaimed, unleashing a flurry of strikes at Ranma. The Saotome Heir avoided them as easily as breathing and then dodged a slash from Kuno as he leapt in close. Pivoting around gracefully on his left foot, Ranma slammed his right foot into the centre of Kuno's spine, sending him flying face first into the school building itself.
There was a moment of silence as Kuno struggled out of the hole he had punched in the stone, turned around and raised his right hand up, index finger pointing upward.
"That…did not hurt."
With that, he collapsed to the ground face first.
"That was unusual." Ranma remarked. He casually leaned back to avoid another punch from Ryōga, who growled at the ease at which he was being avoided.
"Stand still and fight, dammit!"
"Tell me what I supposedly did to you and I might." Ranma countered.
The Pig Boy hesitated before stomping over to his backpack, discarded at the base of a tree, pulled out his umbrella and snapped it open in Ranma's direction. Covering the top of the traditional Japanese Umbrella was a drawing of Ryōga's pot-bellied piglet form, with 'P-Chan' written in rōmaji underneath it.
Blinking for a moment, Ranma let out a snort of laughter. "Ha! That's good look for ya, Ryōga! Unfortunately for you, it wasn't me. I was busy at school and training mosta yesterday and then I had to buy a new tent. Besides, knowing you, you were in Kobe or somewhere like that before today. How would I've gotten to you and gotten back here without letting most've my training slack?"
"Well who did this then?!" Ryōga brandished his defaced umbrella at him. "You're the only one who calls me by that stupid name!"
"Ranma, stop bullying Ryōga!" Akane shouted as she stormed up to him.
"Excuse me?! He comes outta nowhere to attack me and I'm bullying him?!" Ranma growled irritably.
Ukyo decided to interfere. "OK, that's enough."
The three martial artists looked up at her, with Ranma smiling at her, while Ryōga and Akane scowled at her.
"Morning Ucchan." Her childhood friend waved at her.
"Morning Ran-chan." She answered with a nod. "Ryōga, Shampoo, Cologne and I were with Ran-chan for most've yesterday and he never left Nerima. He couldn't have done that to your umbrella."
"Tch." The Lost Boy obviously didn't believe her, but he did recognise her logic.
"By the way Ranma, did you sneak into my house last night?" Akane asked with a scowl.
"No." the pigtailed boy scowled back.
"Why, what happened?" Ukyo asked, walking over to stand next to her fiancé.
"Someone snuck in and burned all of Happōsai's stolen underwear collection." the Tendo Heiress replied. "Also, a bunch of food was eaten from the fridge."
Ranma blinked. "Well I woulda liked to have done the first one just ta piss off the old perv, but it wasn't me! Neither was the second one!"
"Ranma-sama." A diminutive man dressed in a ninja outfit appeared between them.
"Sasuke?" the Saotome Heir blinked at the appearance of the Kuno Family's steward. "What's up?"
"Someone stole all of Kodachi-sama's portraits of you, as well as Tatewaki-sama's pictures of the 'pigtailed girl', from their rooms last night." The Sarutobi Ninja replied. "Was it you, by any chance?"
A tick mark appeared on Ranma's head. "No, it wasn't!"
"Any clue how they got in?" Ukyo asked.
"Someone blew a hole in the wall of the mansion." Sasuke replied respectfully.
"Shampoo." Akane nodded firmly.
"Why though?" Ranma shook his head. "Stealin' ain't her style, Akane."
The next moment, a bike slammed into Ranma from the side and sending him sprawling, heralding the arrival of said Chinese Amazon. "Nihao!"
"Ran-chan!" Ukyo helped her fiancé up worriedly before wheeling on the Amazon. "OI! Watch it Shampoo! Ya just ran over Ran-chan!"
"Oops. I is sorry." The purplette ducked her head bashfully. "Airen OK?"
"Yeah. It's nothin' compared to the Old Ghoul's whacks." Ranma answered.
"Shampoo, did you take the pictures from Kodachi and Kuno's rooms last night?" Akane asked.
A twitch of an eyebrow showed Shampoo's irritation at that question. "Is no me. Shampoo already deal with Crazy Ribbon Girl quarter of hour ago. Grandmother upset because someone break into Nekohanten and read her books. 4000 years of knowledge in them. Very precious knowledge."
"Wait, so everyone's had something happen to them?" Ranma frowned.
"I ain't." Ukyo denied before frowning in thought. "Unless ya count the restaurant bein' cleaner this morning than it was last night."
"Someone broke into your place…ta clean it." Ranma said doubtfully.
The chef threw her arms up. "It ain't like I had anythin' else weird happenin' around me!"
"Now bruddah, dat ain't no regulation haircut for da keiki!" a horribly familiar voice said from behind Ranma, who automatically ducked down, allowing a shaver to pass through where his head had been, barely missing his pigtail.
"Oh great, this guy again." Ukyo growled. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and with a miniature palm tree seemingly growing out of his head, Principal Kuno stood there, tanned, wearing sunglasses and wielding those damn shavers in each hand.
"What now, ya pineapple!?" Ranma put up his guard. He had no desire for the nutcase to try and shave off his hair as he had tried to do at least a dozen times since he had returned from Hawaii.
"Da big kahuna no be likin' it when da keiki be ruinin' school property!" the plainly insane man said.
"Does this guy come with translation notes?" Ryōga muttered.
"What happened, Principal?" Ukyo asked straightforwardly. She had been dealing with him to deliver his Hawaiian Okonomiyaki every week, so she knew she had the best chance of getting through to him.
"Ah, keiki, da big kahuna's office be ruined!" Principal Kuno bemoaned. "All de Hawaiian plants an' decorations be cut up and ruined! Me desk be cut in half!"
"Again; it wasn't me." Ranma objected dully.
"This's odd though…every person we know that we might have a grudge against, or vice-versa, that's a martial artist, getting hit in the same night by pranksters…" Ukyo frowned. "Could Mousse's shadow've gone on a rampage again last night?"
"Grandmother used mystic wards on Stupid Mousse's room and lock door." Shampoo denied. "Shadow not leaving that room."
"Shadow?" Akane asked with a frown.
"A new training method." Ranma informed her. "Basically we fight our manifested shadows, who're just as skilled as we are. Mousse stole some of the incense that we use to create the clones and overdid it, meanin' his shadow went nuts and attacked me. The Old Ghoul isn't happy with him."
Akane's frown deepened into a scowl as she listened. So even more training? She was getting left behind even more than normal! Her father was going to get an earful tonight!
"We should speak to Cologne after school. This can't be a coincidence." Ukyo said with a frown. "Either someone's tryin' ta frame Shampoo and Ran-chan or something's up, and I dunno which idea I like less."
Shampoo nodded. "Will tell grandmother. Bye-bye!"
The girl sped off on her delivery bike, running over Principal Kuno as she did so and sending Sasuke flying with a small bump. Ranma sighed.
"Just one day without nutty principals and insane kendoists. Is that so much to ask?"
After School
Nekohanten
"Hmm…I can confirm that Mousse's shadow did manifest last night, but the wards I placed on his room trapped it in there with him." Cologne mused aloud. "It is most strange…"
"What is?" Ranma asked. She was in her Cursed Form and had just finished a spar against Ukyo, who was flat on her back and panting from the workout.
"Mousse didn't use the Incense yesterday. At all. And yet, his Shadow Clone manifested." The Elder said grimly. "I believe that until he truly defeats his clone, it will not vanish and return to being an ordinary shadow. Unfortunately, Mousse sees no point in defeating his clone."
"Eh?"
"If I continue to ward his room, nothing will happen." Cologne explained. "If I forget or if he comes up with a way to sabotage my warding scheme, his Shadow Clone will simply continue to act out his innermost desire: attempting to kill Ranma."
"That's…sneaky…underhanded…" Ukyo puffed.
"Stupid Mousse!" Shampoo growled.
"Can't ya order him to do it or else he forfeits the match to Shampoo based on dishonourable conduct or somethin'?" Ranma asked.
The Elder pondered this for a moment. "I may very well do that, but only as a last resort. That's a card that we shouldn't play too much. No, I think I know how to resolve this…"
A short while later, Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo watched in bemusement as Mousse utterly trounced his Shadow Clone in a mutual exchange of what had to be half an armoury.
"What did she say to him to get that kinda reaction?" Ranma whispered to Ukyo.
"Not a clue." The chef whispered back.
"For now, I want the two of you to sleep here in the Nekohanten." Cologne said to them firmly after Mousse was sent back to the kitchen. "We cannot be certain of who or what is attacking your enemies and acquaintances, but it could be that the next targets are you three. As such, keeping you all under one roof is the best defensive plan. I'll keep an eye out tonight. As for sleeping arrangements, Ukyo can sleep in Shampoo's room and Son-in-Law can-"
"I'll pitch my tent in the backyard." Ranma stated flatly. "That way anyone who makes a move on the Nekohanten from the back will have to get past me first."
"Just what I was about to suggest." Cologne nodded. "Until then…Shampoo, you spar with Son-in-Law. Ukyo, return to your apartment and retrieve what you need for a night's stay."
"Right." Ukyo nodded.
"Now that Shampoo has her emotional chi attack figured out, we are going to have her practice using it multiple times before moving on to using it whilst moving." The Elder outlined. "Then we'll move on to increasing the amount of power she can use. I would estimate that she used about 40% of the technique's full potential against Mousse…"
The look on Shampoo's face told anyone looking at her that she knew this was going to be draining. There was, however, also determination in her eyes.
"Let's get cracking then!" Cologne clapped her hands and sent the teens to their assigned tasks.
That Night
Shampoo's Bedroom, Above the Nekohanten
Ukyo spread out the sleeping bag that Cologne had supplied her before nervously smoothing down her pyjamas down as she slid into it. They were plain, ordinary pyjamas that were nice and comfortable cotton ones.
The reason she was nervous was that Shampoo was only wearing a pair of panties and a tank top as her sleepwear. The pure sensuality of the girl practically stalked around the room and pounced on Ukyo, and she had the feeling that the Amazon girl only wore the two skimpy items of clothing as a concession to her presence.
"Ukyo OK with sleeping bag?" the purplette asked with a frown. "Shampoo not mind if you want share bed?"
Well now, what an image that was.
"N-No…I'm good, sugar." The chef croaked out. She found that she was blushing scarlet and hid her face in the sleeping bag. She cursed her blood for acting without her permission, dammit!
"Shampoo is Shampoo! Not Sugar!" Shampoo pouted, crossing her smooth-skinned arms and stamping her dainty bare foot in an expression of her distaste.
It was a very cute sight.
"OK, Ok." Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Let's get ta sleep. I have to go buy Ran-chan's waitress uniform tomorrow."
"Airen had uniform he wore when Ukyo went on training journey." Shampoo frowned.
"Yeah, but that's a cook's uniform." The chef explained. "Ran-chan needs a waitress uniform. That's a totally different kettle of fish."
Shampoo just blinked. "Ah. Shampoo gets it. Ukyo not make Airen wear skimpy outfit!"
"Like I'd do that to my own fiancé!" Ukyo scoffed. "Besides, a skimpy outfit wouldn't suit the traditional feel of Okonomiyaki Ucchan's. I was thinkin' a kimono, actually."
"Ah. Is good." Shampoo nodded sagely. "Would hate to see Airen have to run away from Ukyo."
The chef winced. Ranma would run rather than wear some kind of foofy, princess outfit. Heck, so would she! The dress she'd worn for the Martial Arts Dining match had been the very limit of what she would tolerate, dress-wise, and that was for special occasions. The tomboy-chic attire she'd worn for the friend-date was way more her speed.
It took a while, but the two girls eventually settled in to sleep. Given that she was used to roughing it from her frequent training journeys, Ukyo found herself drifting off rather easily, Shampoo doing the same in her bed.
The next thing they know, they're being woken by yelling from a familiar source.
"Ran-chan!"
"Airen!"
The two leapt out of bed-slash-sleeping bag, hurriedly dressed and ran out to see what the heck was going on.
Ranma was in the middle of fighting his Shadow Clone, who looked like an exact duplicate of him albeit with no irises or pupils in its eyes or a mouth. It was what was on the other side of the backyard that made Ukyo and Shampoo's jaws drop.
Their Shadow Clones were dressed up in cheering uniforms obviously made from Kodachi's gym leotard with a skirt thrown over it. It was completed with pompoms and there was a sign propped up in front of it saying 'Go-Go Ranma!' on it. The Clones were also doing cheer positions. It made them wonder exactly where they had stolen the pom-poms from though.
"…is that one of your hidden desires?" Ukyo asked Shampoo.
"…maybe. Ukyo?"
"…maybe."
"Where the heck did they come from?" the chef muttered, looking away from her cheerleader-clad self. "Did someone use the incense on us while we were asleep?"
"Is good question. Ask grandmother later."
Well, yeah, cheerleader outfits were nice and all, but the main thing was, for Ukyo at least, she deeply just wanted to support Ranma as much as she could. The reason she wasn't militant about it was, mainly, because it would make Ranma himself uncomfortable. He was so used to being left on his own to struggle through life as best he could (damn your hide Genma) that he was both deeply cynical and skittish when it came to overt help or support being offered seemingly without strings.
The best thing to do was to remain supportive, but have it be discreet. Just being around him was a way of supporting him, one he didn't realise that he needed. Being alone or isolated (aside from Genma) was something that Ranma had slowly become numb to over the years, so having human contact willingly being near him was a palliative for him.
The whole cheerleader thing was something of a visual aid, if Ukyo was one to judge it. A visual expression of her willingness and desire to support Ranma. Seeing how Shadow-Shampoo was there too, she guessed that it was something the Amazon girl wanted too.
'Given how uninhibited she usually is I wouldn't have guessed it would be a desire she'd be reluctant to act on.' The Chef thought in bemusement. It just went to show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Turning back to Ranma, she could see that he was having a hard time against his Shadow Clone. It was faster and stronger than him and could use the Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken better than he could. It knew his moves just as well as he did and was ruthless in executing them.
Ranma, on the other hand, was used to fighting from a disadvantage. Fighting against powerful martial artists like Happōsai and Cologne on a frequent basis tended to do that to a guy. The entire basis of Ranma's martial art was adapt and overcome, something he was very proficient at. He regularly made his father look like an idiot whenever they sparred these days.
The Shadow-Ranma unleashed a barrage of punches at the original, who avoided those he could while blocking or deflecting those he could not. His copy had some power behind his blows, but Ryōga was at least as strong, so it wasn't anything he wasn't used to.
"All right ya shadow bastard! Time to go nighty-night!" the real Ranma shouted and launched himself at his Shadow Clone, launching his own Amaguriken barrage at his enemy. Unlike the Shadow-Ranma however, he used the Parlay du Foie Gras variant, which emphasised speed and accuracy over strength. That being said, a hundred hits as strong as your average highschool junior isn't something anyone could walk off easily, especially if all of the blows are delivered near simultaneously to vital locations on the body.
In an explosion of foul smoke that smelled the same as the incense, the Shadow-Ranma was defeated, returning to nothing more than an ordinary shadow at its caster's feet.
"Nice one, Ran-chan!" Ukyo cheered.
Ranma smirked at her. "Nothing to it but ta do it. They may know our moves and our usual attacks, but they've got no skill at adapting on the fly!"
"Also no chi." Cologne put in as she hopped out of the café. "At least, no ability to use it externally."
Ukyo kept an eye on her, but the rest of her attention on her duplicate, which had gone into a series of acrobatics over Ranma's victory, ditto for Shampoo's alter ego. Huh. She figured they were rooting for their fellow Shadow Clone. Go figure.
Now though, the two clones were…circling each other? What the heck? It looked confrontational, but also not at the same time. Exchanging puzzled looks with Shampoo, Ukyo was about to do something –step forward, hurl a spatula- but then the two clones wrapped each other in an embrace and put their heads together as if they were exchanging a lip-lock!
"…eep!?" was all the Osakan chef could say, her face flushed bright red as her copy's hands started to wander.
"Gah!" Ranma blinked in disbelief. He stared at the two clones of his girls seeming to make out with each other and blushed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small part of him fist-pumped and yelled, 'That's hot!' before being beaten down by his iron self-control.
"Shampoo no want to watch, but want to watch too…" the wine-eyed girl muttered in a daze as the touchy-feely part of the current situation continued.
That snapped Ukyo out of her daze. "OI! Quit lip-locking Shadow-Shampoo, darn it!"
The shout at her clone was summarily ignored.
"Shuhyō Jōnetsuen!" Shampoo cried out, blasting the two with her chi. That, at least, forced the two apart, which was something positive. On the negative side, the clones were now focussed on their respective originals.
"Hell!" the Chef cursed as she blocked a punch from her Clone. She shivered slightly as she stared into the soulless eyes of her Shadow Clone. It was so damn creepy!
"Shampoo going to break you!" the Amazon declared as she battered at her Clone's guard. The Clone was using a high-level Amazon Wushu defensive technique that was doing well at defending itself from its original's attack, but Shampoo spotted that it was using the standard defence, rather than the one Shampoo herself used that was customised for her body and flexibility.
Taking advantage of that, Shampoo used the prescribed counter-technique for this defence method and broke through it, slamming a palm into her counterpart's chest and unleashing a hard chi strike that blasted the Shadow Clone away and dispersed it.
'Great, I'm last. Just lovely.' Ukyo thought with a grimace. She exchanged blows with her copy, leveraging all of her increased skill in hand-to-hand combat to try and overcome her copy but it just. Wasn't. Enough! The Clone was better than her at everything and she couldn't outmanoeuvre or overpower her Clone unlike Shampoo and Ranma because she was the weakest out of the three of them!
'So then, take it back to basics.' She reasoned. Simplify the way she fought and take down her Shadow Clone that way.
Having decided on what to do, she backed away and waited for her chance. Dodging a punch, she grabbed the arm and twisted it around into a submission hold. Kicking the backs of her Clone's knees, she forced it to the ground using her superior leverage. With her free hand, she then bashed the clone on the back of the head three times before it gave up the ghost and dissolved back into its true shadow form.
"You OK, Ucchan?" Ranma asked in concern. She waved him off weakly as she came down off the combat high.
"I'm fine, Ran-chan." She said with a tepid smile. "But I ain't ever doing that Shadow Clone Incense trainin' again."
"Speaking of, how the heck did our Shadow Clones go nuts?" Ranma asked as he ignored Ukyo's weak protestations and helped her to her feet. "We stopped at the limit prescribed in the instructions, didn't we?"
"Ah, yes. I think I figured it out." Cologne nodded sourly. "You recall how we burned the incense out here in the backyard? That was to prevent the smoke caking the walls with the scent. Mousse, on the other hand, performed it inside the Nekohanten, in the corridor in fact. This means that you three essentially got a small dose of the incense every time you walked through it."
"Why weren't you affected?" the Osakan chef asked, cheeks dusted with pink at being held by Ranma.
"Such small doses would only affect those who had been exposed to a concentrated dose of the incense." The Elder explained. "I was not, so I was unaffected. You three were, so if affected you. You essentially got ten days' worth of incense exposure, allowing your shadows to manifest and act on your true desires, most of which seemed to be petty revenge on people who have wronged you or Ranma in the past. The more…interesting show tonight was Ranma's Shadow Clone trying to defeat himself. What exactly happened, Son-in-Law?"
"My shadow was peeking inta Shampoo's room through the window." Ranma admitted with a blush. "I surprised him and that started the fight."
"Ah." Cologne smirked at him, making his blush redouble in strength. The two girls were also blushing; both at what the actions of Ranma's shadow implied and at what their shadows had done.
"Well, I think that we all deserve a good night's sleep after this." Cologne sighed. "I'll craft a potion tomorrow that will remove the incense from the hallway's walls, carpet and ceiling. Until then, enter and leave through windows."
"OK." Ranma said and looked at Ukyo. "You OK ta stand, Ucchan?"
"Yeah. Thanks, Ran-chan." The brunette nodded and reluctantly let go of him to stand on her own. Ranma went back to his tent, while Cologne entered the door. Shampoo and Ukyo waited until she opened the window of Shampoo's bedroom before nimbly jumping up to it and entering that way.
They were both silent as they changed back into their sleepwear, both pointedly avoiding looking at each other in their half-naked states. The image of their Shadow Clones making out was too fresh in their minds for them to be comfortable speaking.
'Yep, this is gonna be awkward.' Ukyo thought glumly. 'Why did they have to do that? If they'd tried to kiss Ranma, they would've been less awkward than this!'
Shampoo was also thinking about what her clone had done with Ukyo's clone. She had to admit that the thought of kissing Ukyo…wasn't disagreeable, but she was still on the fence about it. Or so she had thought. Evidently, she wasn't so much on the fence as she was in denial about it!
'I had better talk with Grandmother tomorrow. This is confusing!' the purplette thought as she lay down on her bed and pulled the covers up.
Neither of them got much sleep that night.
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Next Chapter: Gosunkugi, the Voodoo Spike
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