Disclaimer: The following is a fan-written parody. Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, Studio Deen, Shogakukan, Viz Media, and Madman Entertainment. Support the official release, okay?
Senpai
A Ranma ½ Story
|Love Like Winter|
In the grand scheme of things, there were a lot of words that could be spared on the history between Mousse and Shampoo. From the time they met as children, the threads of fate's rich tapestry had seen fit to tie them together. To be certain, there had been a lot of incidents that had fostered everything that had lead. But none were as bad as-
"You used me, " Mousse accused Shampoo, swinging for her face with the scimitar at high speed. "You took my love and threw it on the ground just for what? A revenge you didn't need to obtain? That you tried cripple me just to cover your guilt is the only reason I'm still standing here."
"You're an idiot." Shampoo said without a trace of emotion. Her dao did an admirable job of keeping the curved blade away from her. "I told you countless times that I hated you. Days on end without count. That you could fall for such an easy trick is exactly why you were never worthy of me in the first place."
Their slashes blurred as they danced along the street, sparks dancing off into the night like fireflies.
"And that somehow makes it okay for you to trample my heart like that?" Mousse asked, snorting in contempt. "Ah but I do forget, since you have no say in who becomes your husband, you wouldn't understand what romance and love is in the first place."
Shampoo snarled. "Shut your filthy mouth before I close it!" She forced him away with a mighty shove.
"Struck a nerve have I?" Mousse asked as he alighted himself on his feet. "Tell me, do you believe he loves you really because he punched you in the face first?"
"A man who doesn't respect our tradition doesn't get to question who I give my heart to!" Shampoo snapped back, holding her blade in front of her.
"Oh I know all about those 'traditions' and how you throw yourself at the feet of the barbarous outsiders so he'll put his dick in you." Mousse sneered, switching tactics to throw a knife at Shampoo.
Without even trying, Shampoo blocked the projectile, eyes never leaving the male who was out for her life.
"Look at that, you only even know how to block like that because of me." Mousse said, laughing with madness. "And yet you act like you were always the best."
"Shut up and fight," Shampoo returned.
"I'll fight how I wish!" Mousse hollered, attacking with further abandon. He whipped a bladed chain at Shampoo's face. When that was blocked, he came at her with a spinning slash that she narrowly avoided.
"Wow, he's pretty good." Akane murmured, though she wasn't sure she liked how the timid guy she met had morphed into some kind of psycho.
"Nah, she's holding back," Ranma said, shaking her head. "She knows I'm still here so she's taking it easy."
"He was pretty weak before, can he keep going at this pace?" Akane asked with apparent apprehension.
That thought was going through Shampoo's mind as well, as she could tell that Mousse was going at full throttle, not even caring about redlining. He was going to just hurl everything he had at her in this desperate scramble. Scramble, yes, that was a good word for this hectic hack and slash fight as they continued to fight back and forth across the street.
"You and that old bat, you think you can use people however you wish." Mousse shouted, now using two swords to press Shampoo. "That everyone else are pawns for you to move and sacrifice like they have no feelings or desires of their own."
"If you had a brain in your head, you'd have never fallen for that ploy in the first place." Shampoo said, just barely now exerting herself against him with the second sword in place. "But you keep blaming other people for your failures."
"Excuses, excuses!" Mousse roared, continue to pour on the effort. He was going to crash any second it seemed but he had something keeping him on his feet. "As if you don't know what she did to me, her most devoted pawn!" He lashed out at her with kick just to mix it up.
Shampoo actually shouldered the kick and skittered back with it. "What nonsense are you babbling now?"
Mousse actually stopped. "Don't pretend you don't know!"
"I'm not pretending, I don't." Shampoo said earnestly. "What the hell did she do to you that made you this bloodthirsty?"
Mousse laughed, weakly at first before he was full bore insanity laughing. "That's just great you… you don't know! You don't… know… ahuh…"
"Know what? Spit it out or stop yelling about it!" Shampoo snapped.
"If you really want to know, the old ba-" Mousse started, before a very solid and muscular arm slammed across his chest, flipping the poor bastard around a couple times before he landed face first into the pavement completely out cold.
"You never give up do you?" Ryoga spat, looking down at the unconscious young man.
"Airen!" Shampoo yelped, having thought she had given him the slip long enough to end this.
"Ryoga!" Ranma called, leaping down to stand next to Akane.
"You're being a bad girl…" Ryoga admonished before he turned to face the pair of people across from him. "But I love that about you."
"Ready to change your mind about that?" Ranma said. "She fucked up big time."
"Only one who fucked up is you, Red!" Shampoo said as she readied her dao.
Ranma bristled. "You just don't get it, do you?! This isn't even about that stupid food anymore! It's what you just freaking did! You wrecked my house! How is that worth more than your stupid pride?!"
Akane called out as well. "People who have nothing to do with this are getting caught up in this… if this keeps up…!"
Shampoo shot her a look much as she did Misao. "People who have nothing to do with this stay out of Shampoo way! Get hint! Go away so Shampoo can kill Red!"
"That's IT!" Ranma yelled. "I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, I'm just going to beat the stuffing out of you!"
Ryoga just blew out a sigh and stepped forward. "Can't let you do that, Red."
Ranma recoiled a bit. "… W-what?"
"I said, I'm not going to stand by and watch you beat up my wife," he said simply.
"She trashed my apartment! My roommate's pissed!" Ranma shouted back. "And did I forget to mention that she still wants to kill me?!"
Ranma was beyond furious. After the time he spent fighting alongside her against this nutjob, he was going to do nothing because he got roped into some insane marriage tradition?
"It's not that I don't want this to happen, and I really don't want it to," Ryoga lamented as he sank into a fighting crouch. "But I have a duty as a husband to uphold."
Ranma bristled, her eyes narrowing. "Even when she's going to… you know what? Nevermind." Ranma said, throwing out any hope she had of a friendship with Ryoga at this moment. "Bring it on Ryoga."
Akane stepped up, drawing off her back the shinai she brought with her, tapping it against the ground. "Ranma… I am with you on this."
Ranma looked over at Akane. "Akane…"
She then looked ahead. "This girl… she doesn't care who she trashes as long as she has her way. That reminds me way too much of Kuno."
Raising her shinai, she achieved a mid stance, the tip of the shinai aimed at Shampoo. "I don't care how important she is to you, Ryoga! But I'm not letting someone like that run around, never again!"
"Airen?" Shampoo asked uncertainly, having expected him to just drag her away anyways.
"It's okay, Xian Pu." Ryoga assured. "I won't let them hurt you."
"There no need for-" She began to protest the protection
"I love you, so stop arguing and get ready to fight." He snapped back. "Let's see how they fair against the both of us."
"L-Love?!" She thought almost, dumbfounded before she reasserted herself. "Y-yes!"
"You want her? Get through me!" Ryoga roared, stamping a foot and shattering the asphalt.
"With pleasure!" Akane and Ranma both replied as they began to walk towards them.
|But Her Pride Refused to Die|
Misao Darlian was not a girl given to a temper. In fact, when it came to matters of anger, it took a tremendous amount to really agitate her. However–as one Mikado Sanzenin learned several months ago–when her fury was triggered, she had a wrath that shook the world and even drove Katie into silent compliance. The two of them stood outside a hastily summoned limousine in front of the towering black monolith in the heart of Shinjuku Ward, the headquarters of Hyuuga Heavy Industries–the military industrial company owned by her mother and aunt.
Hyuuga Heavy, as it was often shortened to, was the company inherited by Hyuuga Momiji and Hyuuga Mizuho, Misao's mother and aunt respectively. Since the 70s, the company built ships and planes for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces–among others–but in the last twelve years, since the sisters Hyuuga took leadership, more esoteric technology. With such interesting work accelerating in the last year alone.
"I could be breaking her in half for you right now," Katie pointed out as they began to walk towards the front doors of the building.
"That bitch has her pride, and I have mine. My apartment got trashed, and my roommate has a target on his back and I'm supposed to sit back and have no say on that? Fuck. That. I'm destroying that cow and shipping her home to her inbred family so they know the fuck better than to march through people's houses like they own them. And a bill will be attached."
She waved her hand, much like a Jedi, as she reached the doors, and they swept wide open. Across the long blue carpet on white tile floor at a front desk, a colorful woman sat behind the desk. Sporting bright orange hair with yellow-dyed tresses and darker red tips, the hazel-eyed woman looked up and smiled brightly.
"Hello, Misa-chan, Katie-chan-" She stopped when she saw the look on her face. "Ah… Misao…?"
"Unlock the basement elevator, Reika-san," Misao said. "I need to talk to Mom."
Reika nodded obediently, and hit a button on the phone at her desk. "The elevator's open."
As the two walked past, Reika looked over to Katie, mouthing a "What happened?"
Katie shook her head, warning her to not ask lest she get dragged into something she wasn't ready to handle. Accepting that, the secretary went back to what she'd been doing before the couple walked in–watching the King of Braves GaoGaiGar punch a Zondar's face off with an envious sigh.
Less than a minute later, the elevator doors opened, revealing a large, wide-corridor laboratory lined with thick glass windows, showing various machines and production lines constructing parts and equipment ranging from engines to weapons, to mechanical limbs of various sizes. It didn't look like anything standard she'd seen before.
Katie looked back and forth at the lines, before her eyes fell to the front, watching the back of Misao's head as she led her to a laboratory at the end of the hall.
"The heck is all this?" She asked. "I mean, I know you guys make military stuff, but…"
"Don't worry about, it's a side project," Misao advised as they reached the doors.
The double doors opened, revealing a row of eight large metal cylinders, each labeled 00-07, with a ninth cylinder labeled 08 pulled from the wall to the floor, underneath a large gantry that a mass of manipulator arms hung over, hard at work on the machine within.
Surrounding the container were several engineers and scientists, with one standing out–a black-haired woman shorter than the already diminutive Misao, wearing a lab coat. Turning to face them the woman, who was a spitting image of Misao without the dye job and having a chest flatter than Katie's, lit up in a warm smile.
"Hey there, girls… what's…" Momiji Darlian trailed off when she saw how angry Misao looked. "… What happened?"
"I need the CX Type 2," Misao said simply.
Momiji tilted her head to the side, and brought up a hand to adjust her the black-rimmed glasses she wore.
Katie looked over at Misao, then at Momiji. "CX?"
"Type 2, the Oni unit? Why?" Misao's mother asked.
"Type 2?" Katie asked before she looked up at the cylinders. "What is this stuff?"
"A bitch destroyed my apartment to try to kill one of my friends, and she had the nerve to rub my face in it. Type 2 is perfect for her," Misao said.
Momiji looked over at the Cylinder labeled 02, then back to her daughter. "You do realize what the Type 2 is designed for."
"I know, I designed it," Misao responded. "And I want the lesson I teach to stick."
Turning to face the cylinder completely, Momiji sighed. "Good thing you live in Nerima… I'll prepare CX Type 2 for combat deployment."
The cylinder opened slowly opened, and when the light hit the contents, Katie tensed up. "Uh… Misao…"
Misao walked towards the cylinder, the fury even colder. "I'd text Akane if I were you for a status update; because it won't take me long to get dressed."
A/N: You know there's a funny thing about the term "Karma Houdini". Even Houdini's antics caught up with him in the end.