|\v/| Primal Chaos
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
:\_/: Part 7: Where's Akane? Who's Akane? What's Akane?
---begin part 7---
Ryoga tried to stay out of his beast mode as long as possible. It
wasn't as though he wanted to be a rat. However he'd found that
he could only remain in cyborg mode for so long before he had to
resume beast mode.
Sometimes that had problems he hadn't expected.
"Oh, how cute!"
---
"How diabolical," Soun bawled after hearing Ke Lon promise to cure
Akane's complete amnesia only if Ranma agreed to marry Shan Pu.
"It's not so bad," Genma exclaimed suddenly.
"Well, she is fairly cute," Ranma observed and received a blow to
the head to keep him in line.
"You were saying, Mister Saotome?" Nabiki asked as she lowered her
fist and stared at it thoughtfully. 'Hmmm, my training with Akane
has some benefit after all.'
"This isn't a problem at all," Genma continued.
"You know another cure?" Soun asked suddenly hopefully.
"Yes," Genma replied. "I mean, no. However, I'm sure her memory
will come back in time. Meanwhile we'll just have Ranma marry the
girl."
"But what about joining the schools? Ranma can't marry Shampoo!"
"I meant marry your daughter, idiot! You see, while caring for her
..."
~~~ flash
"Oh, Ranma, you've been so wonderful to me all this time," Akane
sighed as she gazed into his eyes.
"Taking care of you is the least I could do," Ranma explained as he
gazed back.
"You've been so patient, and kind and .... I feel that I've grown
so close to you."
"Oh, Akane!"
"Oh, Ranma!"
Cherry blossoms floated in the air around them as the leaned closer
and ....
~~~ back
"Come up with a better plan, idiot!" Ranma ordered as he lifted his
fist off of his father's head.
"Saotome!" Tatewaki snarled furiously. You could almost hear the
growl of a 'raptor in his voice. "Your playboy ways are to blame
for this tragedy! Prepare to die!"
"How will that help Akane?" Nabiki demanded as Tatewaki slashed at
her fiancee.
"You have a point!" Tatewaki admitted then cocked his head in
contemplation. "Ah! Ha! Saotome! Prepare to be married!"
"I just said I ain't marrying Akane!"
"Not Akane, you dolt!" Tatewaki thundered.
"Oh Ho Ho Ho!" Kodachi cried as she draped her form over
Ranma's armoured frame. "I will make such a lovely bride."
"Get off of me!"
"Creepy spider girl asking Shan Pu wash hair," the Joketsu
warrior threatened.
"Brother Dearest, what are you doing?" Kodachi demanded.
"Do you think that I would just stand by idly while she brainwashes
you, my Demented Sibling?"
"Oh, and how will holding me in a headlock stop her?"
"Stop her? Who mentioned 'stopping her'?"
---
'Who are these people?' She asked Herself, yet again, as another
fight broke out among them. 'Are they all insane?'
"Akane, do you feel alright?" a voice asked someone. "Akane?"
A hand tapped Her on the shoulder, causing Her to jump. "What?
Who are you? What do you want?"
"I'm Kasumi, your sister," the woman replied with a worried frown.
"Would you like some tea, Akane?"
"Who's Akane?" She asked while turning Her head to look for the
mysterious girl. 'Why does that name sound so familiar?' She
wondered.
"You're Akane, Akane," the Kasumi woman told Her patiently.
"Oh. Well then I guess I would like some tea," She answered,
paused, then asked, "Um, what's 'tea'?"
"Oh bother," the nice Kasumi woman sighed, then began to explain
about the mysteries of that 'tea' stuff and turned to set a kettle
on the fire.
---
"Now. Give me that shampoo, Old Ghoul," Ranma demanded while the
Kuno siblings squabbled in the background.
The old woman chuckled and shook the bottle at him. "Do you think
you can take it from me, Son-in-law? Here it is! Come and get ...
hey! How did you get to be so fast?"
"Oh! Husband snatch bottle from Great Grandmother? Is very good,
yes!?"
Ranma fehhed as he held the bottle up triumphantly. "I was pretty
fast _before_ becoming part chee... Hey!"
"You're also too cocky for your own good," Ke Lon smirked after she
knocked the bottle out of his hold with her staff. "Still, you're
the one for Shan Pu, alright."
Shan Pu caught the bottle and tucked it between her breasts. "Oh!
Husband want bottle, only have to take!" She blinked coyly at him.
---
"That was really pathetic, Ranma," Nabiki commented crossly. "How
could you do something like that? Have you no respect for a
woman's feelings? You just don't do things like that to a girl!"
"What was I supposed to do?" he complained. "I got the shampoo
from Shampoo didn't I?"
"Yes .... But did you have to promise to go on a date with her to
get it?"
"Sheesh! What did you expect me to do? Pluck it from her b-b-b...
bodice? Anyways, let's get this shampoo to Akane and .... Kasumi,
have you seen Akane?"
"Oh Ranma," the girl cried suddenly as she turned at his approach,
"she was just here a moment ago, but she seems to have wandered
off."
"Ranma!" Soun cried, suddenly just there, and grabbing Ranma by the
shoulders. "Find my little girl! She's lost in the woods alone
with no memory. My poor baby!"
"Jeez, don't blow a gasket," Ranma exclaimed as he pried the man
from him. "How far could she have gotten?"
---
Cheetahs were not renown for their tracking ability, and Ranma
was a complete novice himself, but they really did have a good
sense of smell and that shampoo was fairly pungent. With the
Joketsu warrior helping, finding where the girl had wandered off to
(probably after forgetting what she was doing, where she was going
and where she had come from) should have been easy enough.
The complication was that the clear trail abruptly ended with
neither sign, sound nor scent of Akane.
"It's like she just grew wings and flew away," the cheetah
muttered.
"Shan Pu agreeing. No being sign fight, yes?" Shan Pu observed as
she looked around. "Girl no hiding tracks. Now no tracks. Very
strange, yes?"
"Like you care," the cat muttered darkly from her perch on the
cheetah's back. "I don't know why you had to come along."
"What silly cat girl talking," Shan Pu snorted. "Husband knowing
how good hunter Shan Pu being." The warrior sniffed. "Shan Pu not
knowing why little kitty cat come along."
"Akane is my sister," the cat protested. "Besides I'm not about to
trust you alone with Ranma."
"Shampoo did track us all over China," the cheetah pointed out,
lashed his tail then stared about the clearing. "Something is not
right about this."
"Looks like we'll have to form a search party after all," the cat
commented.
"Would you stop doing that, Nabiki," Ranma protested.
"Huh?" the cat inquired and looked at her feet to find her claws
digging into Ranma's back. "Oh, sorry about that."
---
Meanwhile, 'Charlotte' was having problems of his own, thanks to
Shiratori Azusa's ability to find even a rat to be cute. It wasn't
being carried around and cuddled like a plush toy that he minded so
much; Azusa might have been short, but her package was developed
well enough to give him nosebleeds. It was that damned collar that
locked him in beast mode. That, and her playboy partner, Sanzenin
Mikado!
"Stop!" Azusa screamed as she fairly flew across the rink. "Don't
you hurt my widdle Charlotte!"
"Vile rodent!" Mikado yelled as his skate sliced just passed the
rat's head. "You have interfered with my womanising for the last
time!"
"Do your girl chasing on your own time!" Azusa ordered as she
pirouetted and clubbed her skating partner in the head with her
dainty, but skate-booted, foot. "And leave poor Charlotte alone!"
Grabbing the rat by the collar she zipped away across the rink.
"Oh, did the mean man hurt my sweetums?" she asked and brought him
up to her face. "Azusa will kiss it all better, mm!"
At which point the rat's nose sprayed servo fluid and he passed
out.
"That is disgusting," Mikado told his partner. "How can you kiss
such a horrid creature?"
"She is a cute little mousy!" Azusa defended her pet.
"He is a big fat rat!" Sanzenin accused.
"You're just jealous!" Azusa countered and stuck her tongue out at
her partner.
"Why would I be jealous of a rat?"
---
The velociraptor stalked through the mountain woods. Kodachi
sprang from branch to branch above him, sometimes as a spider, but
mostly as a gymnastic cyborg.
"Soatome Ranma," the 'raptor snarled, not for the first time, "if
anything hath happened unto the fair Tendo Akane, I, Kuno Tatewaki,
the Bronze Dragon of Furiniken, swear that thou whilst pay dearly."
"Oh ho ho ho ho!" Kodachi laughed. "Brother Dearest, do not
worry. We shall find the girl and bring her back safe and sound."
'And then,' Kodachi thought, 'I will make the wicked child pay!'
In her own, sweet, demented way, Kodachi was concerned about
finding Akane. She wanted to be able to do her in personally; this
just wouldn't do.
Neither found any sign of where Akane had vanished to. Alas it
didn't occur to either to wonder where Gosunguki had gone either
but, then, they weren't the only ones to have forgotten the Gothic
tarantula.
---
Ke Lon considered the tiger warily as she sprang along the ground
beside him. There were tales of Musk going berserk or loosing their
human minds from remaining in their bestial state for too long.
The Musk were reputed to control their beast shapes through a style
of martial arts, the Shokai Ken, which incorporated the movements
of animals. However the groom, his father and the others had
gained their forms, she wondered how much control over their animal
natures they had from their martial arts training.
She knew something about the Musk, of course, but it had been so
long since they had 'interviewed' the women of the Joketsuzoku that
they had been thought to have died out and their secret with them.
However, through ties of blood and honour, they were technically
still allies which made those who stole the Musk's secret were thus
the Joketsuzoku's enemies as well.
She had come to Japan expecting to find an enclave of Musk and
revive the old alliance through Shan Pu. Finding that someone had
the audacity, and ability, to steal their secret had been a shock.
But the Law of the Joketsuzoku demanded that Shan Pu marry the boy,
which was a predicament.
Oh, certainly it wasn't the first time that a Joketsu warrior had
been forced to marry her enemy, since the Law practically
guaranteed it. However, marrying someone who had also incurred the
wrath of someone as reputedly powerful as the Musk was never a good
idea.
Unless, of course, the boy could be made to share his secret with
his wife and her village and was given training in Joketsuzoku Wu
in return. If he was as promising a student as he seemed, they
might all survive this after all.
First she would have to gain the boy's trust, after having botched
their first meeting. Antagonising him by withholding the girl's
cure had seemed harmless; she had only intended to impress him with
her abilities, then challenge him to accept some training in return
for the cure. She had badly underestimated his abilities and
hadn't expected the dratted girl to wander off.
Why did it have to be so complicated?
---
"So where is Mousse?" the cat asked suspiciously from her perch
atop the cheetah.
"What you talking?" Shan Pu asked back as she ran along side them.
"Mu Tzu back in China." She reflected and frowned, "how cat girl
know Mu Tzu?" She slapped herself in realisation. "Aiya! Is not
thinking same person, yes?"
"Thick glasses, long robes, hidden weapons, wants to kill me," the
cheetah growled. "Sound familiar? He's not in China."
"Aiya! Husband think Mu Tzu take long hair girl? Why do?"
"He wants to win you back," the cat replied for him.
"Mu Tzu no have Shan Pu," the warrior protested. "Shan Pu defeat
Mu Tzu when only three. He only friend being."
"I guess he doesn't feel the same way," the cat observed. "So, is
it possible?"
"Mu Tzu very tricky, is so," Shan Pu admitted thoughtfully.
"And Akane wouldn't even know to put up a fight," the cheetah
growled, implying that this was Shan Pu's fault.
"If being so, Mu Tzu no hurting girl," Shan Pu observed. "Is Ranma
want kill, yes?"
"Ranma!" the cat exclaimed nervously. "If Mousse has kidnapped one
of my sisters ...?"
"Your father can protect Kasumi, can't he?" the cheetah asked then
thought about it for a moment and turned around.
Shan Pu pipped up. "Husband move more fast if Shan Pu is carry
kitty, yes?"
The cat swiped the amazon's outstretched hand with a paw. "You
think I'd trust myself in your hands?"
---
Ryoga had learned a new and very useful skill; lock picking. With
that dreaded collar of off his rat mode's neck, he'd been finally
able to return to cyborg mode. It was amazing how dexterous his
rat form's paws were and really quite handy. He didn't know what
he might have done with trotters, say, or even a cat's paws. Hmmm
.... He'd have to remember that.
He was very relieved to be able to stretch out again. He just
hoped that he could find his way out of Shiratori's bedroom before
the compact packet of cute and sexy returned and found ....
"Eeeek!" Azusa screamed, though cutely. "What are you doing in my
room?"
Ryoga spun around to confront his accuser. That was a bad move as
she had been preparing for bed. He backed off in panic at the
sight that threatened to cause another nose bleed.
"Ah! I can explain! That is ...." He tried to think fast. The
last thing he wanted her to discover was that he was the rat she'd
cuddled, kissed and undressed in front of. Oh, just thinking of
that meant that he really had to hold his nose.
"You!" Azusa accused and pouted up at him. "You're my widdle
Charlotte, aren't you!?"
"Whad?" Ryoga gasped. "I mean, how absurd. Do I lood lide a rad?"
She looked him over, noticing the open collar in his hand, the rat
features on his armor and the distinctive nose bleed. She clasped
her hands together and peered up at him smiling with bright eyes.
"Wes you are. Your widdle Azusa's widdle Char-wotte!"
---
Kasumi poured a fresh cup of tea to calm her father down and tried
not to let her worry show. That would only set him off again and
he was so bothersomely high strung. She smoothed her apron and
looked up.
"Oh, Akane, welcome back!" she sighed in relief. "Where have you
been?"
"Oh, just walking around," the girl replied vaguely, brushed her
hair back and looked around. "It really cleared my head. Where is
everybody?"
"They're out looking for you, Akane," Kasumi said over her father's
cries of joy. "Everyone's been so worried about you."
"I can take care of myself, Nabiki," Akane protested angrily.
"I'm Kasumi," Kasumi corrected.
"Whatever," Akane replied crossly.
"Akane!" Soun gasped in realisation and grasped her shoulders. "Is
your memory coming back?"
"A little, Mister Saotome," Akane said with a smile.
"Wah!" Soun collapsed into a crouch. "My baby still doesn't
remember me!"
"I'm just kidding, Pop, really," Akane apologised and patted him
on the back.
---end part 7---
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
:\_/: Part 7: Where's Akane? Who's Akane? What's Akane?
---begin part 7---
Ryoga tried to stay out of his beast mode as long as possible. It
wasn't as though he wanted to be a rat. However he'd found that
he could only remain in cyborg mode for so long before he had to
resume beast mode.
Sometimes that had problems he hadn't expected.
"Oh, how cute!"
---
"How diabolical," Soun bawled after hearing Ke Lon promise to cure
Akane's complete amnesia only if Ranma agreed to marry Shan Pu.
"It's not so bad," Genma exclaimed suddenly.
"Well, she is fairly cute," Ranma observed and received a blow to
the head to keep him in line.
"You were saying, Mister Saotome?" Nabiki asked as she lowered her
fist and stared at it thoughtfully. 'Hmmm, my training with Akane
has some benefit after all.'
"This isn't a problem at all," Genma continued.
"You know another cure?" Soun asked suddenly hopefully.
"Yes," Genma replied. "I mean, no. However, I'm sure her memory
will come back in time. Meanwhile we'll just have Ranma marry the
girl."
"But what about joining the schools? Ranma can't marry Shampoo!"
"I meant marry your daughter, idiot! You see, while caring for her
..."
~~~ flash
"Oh, Ranma, you've been so wonderful to me all this time," Akane
sighed as she gazed into his eyes.
"Taking care of you is the least I could do," Ranma explained as he
gazed back.
"You've been so patient, and kind and .... I feel that I've grown
so close to you."
"Oh, Akane!"
"Oh, Ranma!"
Cherry blossoms floated in the air around them as the leaned closer
and ....
~~~ back
"Come up with a better plan, idiot!" Ranma ordered as he lifted his
fist off of his father's head.
"Saotome!" Tatewaki snarled furiously. You could almost hear the
growl of a 'raptor in his voice. "Your playboy ways are to blame
for this tragedy! Prepare to die!"
"How will that help Akane?" Nabiki demanded as Tatewaki slashed at
her fiancee.
"You have a point!" Tatewaki admitted then cocked his head in
contemplation. "Ah! Ha! Saotome! Prepare to be married!"
"I just said I ain't marrying Akane!"
"Not Akane, you dolt!" Tatewaki thundered.
"Oh Ho Ho Ho!" Kodachi cried as she draped her form over
Ranma's armoured frame. "I will make such a lovely bride."
"Get off of me!"
"Creepy spider girl asking Shan Pu wash hair," the Joketsu
warrior threatened.
"Brother Dearest, what are you doing?" Kodachi demanded.
"Do you think that I would just stand by idly while she brainwashes
you, my Demented Sibling?"
"Oh, and how will holding me in a headlock stop her?"
"Stop her? Who mentioned 'stopping her'?"
---
'Who are these people?' She asked Herself, yet again, as another
fight broke out among them. 'Are they all insane?'
"Akane, do you feel alright?" a voice asked someone. "Akane?"
A hand tapped Her on the shoulder, causing Her to jump. "What?
Who are you? What do you want?"
"I'm Kasumi, your sister," the woman replied with a worried frown.
"Would you like some tea, Akane?"
"Who's Akane?" She asked while turning Her head to look for the
mysterious girl. 'Why does that name sound so familiar?' She
wondered.
"You're Akane, Akane," the Kasumi woman told Her patiently.
"Oh. Well then I guess I would like some tea," She answered,
paused, then asked, "Um, what's 'tea'?"
"Oh bother," the nice Kasumi woman sighed, then began to explain
about the mysteries of that 'tea' stuff and turned to set a kettle
on the fire.
---
"Now. Give me that shampoo, Old Ghoul," Ranma demanded while the
Kuno siblings squabbled in the background.
The old woman chuckled and shook the bottle at him. "Do you think
you can take it from me, Son-in-law? Here it is! Come and get ...
hey! How did you get to be so fast?"
"Oh! Husband snatch bottle from Great Grandmother? Is very good,
yes!?"
Ranma fehhed as he held the bottle up triumphantly. "I was pretty
fast _before_ becoming part chee... Hey!"
"You're also too cocky for your own good," Ke Lon smirked after she
knocked the bottle out of his hold with her staff. "Still, you're
the one for Shan Pu, alright."
Shan Pu caught the bottle and tucked it between her breasts. "Oh!
Husband want bottle, only have to take!" She blinked coyly at him.
---
"That was really pathetic, Ranma," Nabiki commented crossly. "How
could you do something like that? Have you no respect for a
woman's feelings? You just don't do things like that to a girl!"
"What was I supposed to do?" he complained. "I got the shampoo
from Shampoo didn't I?"
"Yes .... But did you have to promise to go on a date with her to
get it?"
"Sheesh! What did you expect me to do? Pluck it from her b-b-b...
bodice? Anyways, let's get this shampoo to Akane and .... Kasumi,
have you seen Akane?"
"Oh Ranma," the girl cried suddenly as she turned at his approach,
"she was just here a moment ago, but she seems to have wandered
off."
"Ranma!" Soun cried, suddenly just there, and grabbing Ranma by the
shoulders. "Find my little girl! She's lost in the woods alone
with no memory. My poor baby!"
"Jeez, don't blow a gasket," Ranma exclaimed as he pried the man
from him. "How far could she have gotten?"
---
Cheetahs were not renown for their tracking ability, and Ranma
was a complete novice himself, but they really did have a good
sense of smell and that shampoo was fairly pungent. With the
Joketsu warrior helping, finding where the girl had wandered off to
(probably after forgetting what she was doing, where she was going
and where she had come from) should have been easy enough.
The complication was that the clear trail abruptly ended with
neither sign, sound nor scent of Akane.
"It's like she just grew wings and flew away," the cheetah
muttered.
"Shan Pu agreeing. No being sign fight, yes?" Shan Pu observed as
she looked around. "Girl no hiding tracks. Now no tracks. Very
strange, yes?"
"Like you care," the cat muttered darkly from her perch on the
cheetah's back. "I don't know why you had to come along."
"What silly cat girl talking," Shan Pu snorted. "Husband knowing
how good hunter Shan Pu being." The warrior sniffed. "Shan Pu not
knowing why little kitty cat come along."
"Akane is my sister," the cat protested. "Besides I'm not about to
trust you alone with Ranma."
"Shampoo did track us all over China," the cheetah pointed out,
lashed his tail then stared about the clearing. "Something is not
right about this."
"Looks like we'll have to form a search party after all," the cat
commented.
"Would you stop doing that, Nabiki," Ranma protested.
"Huh?" the cat inquired and looked at her feet to find her claws
digging into Ranma's back. "Oh, sorry about that."
---
Meanwhile, 'Charlotte' was having problems of his own, thanks to
Shiratori Azusa's ability to find even a rat to be cute. It wasn't
being carried around and cuddled like a plush toy that he minded so
much; Azusa might have been short, but her package was developed
well enough to give him nosebleeds. It was that damned collar that
locked him in beast mode. That, and her playboy partner, Sanzenin
Mikado!
"Stop!" Azusa screamed as she fairly flew across the rink. "Don't
you hurt my widdle Charlotte!"
"Vile rodent!" Mikado yelled as his skate sliced just passed the
rat's head. "You have interfered with my womanising for the last
time!"
"Do your girl chasing on your own time!" Azusa ordered as she
pirouetted and clubbed her skating partner in the head with her
dainty, but skate-booted, foot. "And leave poor Charlotte alone!"
Grabbing the rat by the collar she zipped away across the rink.
"Oh, did the mean man hurt my sweetums?" she asked and brought him
up to her face. "Azusa will kiss it all better, mm!"
At which point the rat's nose sprayed servo fluid and he passed
out.
"That is disgusting," Mikado told his partner. "How can you kiss
such a horrid creature?"
"She is a cute little mousy!" Azusa defended her pet.
"He is a big fat rat!" Sanzenin accused.
"You're just jealous!" Azusa countered and stuck her tongue out at
her partner.
"Why would I be jealous of a rat?"
---
The velociraptor stalked through the mountain woods. Kodachi
sprang from branch to branch above him, sometimes as a spider, but
mostly as a gymnastic cyborg.
"Soatome Ranma," the 'raptor snarled, not for the first time, "if
anything hath happened unto the fair Tendo Akane, I, Kuno Tatewaki,
the Bronze Dragon of Furiniken, swear that thou whilst pay dearly."
"Oh ho ho ho ho!" Kodachi laughed. "Brother Dearest, do not
worry. We shall find the girl and bring her back safe and sound."
'And then,' Kodachi thought, 'I will make the wicked child pay!'
In her own, sweet, demented way, Kodachi was concerned about
finding Akane. She wanted to be able to do her in personally; this
just wouldn't do.
Neither found any sign of where Akane had vanished to. Alas it
didn't occur to either to wonder where Gosunguki had gone either
but, then, they weren't the only ones to have forgotten the Gothic
tarantula.
---
Ke Lon considered the tiger warily as she sprang along the ground
beside him. There were tales of Musk going berserk or loosing their
human minds from remaining in their bestial state for too long.
The Musk were reputed to control their beast shapes through a style
of martial arts, the Shokai Ken, which incorporated the movements
of animals. However the groom, his father and the others had
gained their forms, she wondered how much control over their animal
natures they had from their martial arts training.
She knew something about the Musk, of course, but it had been so
long since they had 'interviewed' the women of the Joketsuzoku that
they had been thought to have died out and their secret with them.
However, through ties of blood and honour, they were technically
still allies which made those who stole the Musk's secret were thus
the Joketsuzoku's enemies as well.
She had come to Japan expecting to find an enclave of Musk and
revive the old alliance through Shan Pu. Finding that someone had
the audacity, and ability, to steal their secret had been a shock.
But the Law of the Joketsuzoku demanded that Shan Pu marry the boy,
which was a predicament.
Oh, certainly it wasn't the first time that a Joketsu warrior had
been forced to marry her enemy, since the Law practically
guaranteed it. However, marrying someone who had also incurred the
wrath of someone as reputedly powerful as the Musk was never a good
idea.
Unless, of course, the boy could be made to share his secret with
his wife and her village and was given training in Joketsuzoku Wu
in return. If he was as promising a student as he seemed, they
might all survive this after all.
First she would have to gain the boy's trust, after having botched
their first meeting. Antagonising him by withholding the girl's
cure had seemed harmless; she had only intended to impress him with
her abilities, then challenge him to accept some training in return
for the cure. She had badly underestimated his abilities and
hadn't expected the dratted girl to wander off.
Why did it have to be so complicated?
---
"So where is Mousse?" the cat asked suspiciously from her perch
atop the cheetah.
"What you talking?" Shan Pu asked back as she ran along side them.
"Mu Tzu back in China." She reflected and frowned, "how cat girl
know Mu Tzu?" She slapped herself in realisation. "Aiya! Is not
thinking same person, yes?"
"Thick glasses, long robes, hidden weapons, wants to kill me," the
cheetah growled. "Sound familiar? He's not in China."
"Aiya! Husband think Mu Tzu take long hair girl? Why do?"
"He wants to win you back," the cat replied for him.
"Mu Tzu no have Shan Pu," the warrior protested. "Shan Pu defeat
Mu Tzu when only three. He only friend being."
"I guess he doesn't feel the same way," the cat observed. "So, is
it possible?"
"Mu Tzu very tricky, is so," Shan Pu admitted thoughtfully.
"And Akane wouldn't even know to put up a fight," the cheetah
growled, implying that this was Shan Pu's fault.
"If being so, Mu Tzu no hurting girl," Shan Pu observed. "Is Ranma
want kill, yes?"
"Ranma!" the cat exclaimed nervously. "If Mousse has kidnapped one
of my sisters ...?"
"Your father can protect Kasumi, can't he?" the cheetah asked then
thought about it for a moment and turned around.
Shan Pu pipped up. "Husband move more fast if Shan Pu is carry
kitty, yes?"
The cat swiped the amazon's outstretched hand with a paw. "You
think I'd trust myself in your hands?"
---
Ryoga had learned a new and very useful skill; lock picking. With
that dreaded collar of off his rat mode's neck, he'd been finally
able to return to cyborg mode. It was amazing how dexterous his
rat form's paws were and really quite handy. He didn't know what
he might have done with trotters, say, or even a cat's paws. Hmmm
.... He'd have to remember that.
He was very relieved to be able to stretch out again. He just
hoped that he could find his way out of Shiratori's bedroom before
the compact packet of cute and sexy returned and found ....
"Eeeek!" Azusa screamed, though cutely. "What are you doing in my
room?"
Ryoga spun around to confront his accuser. That was a bad move as
she had been preparing for bed. He backed off in panic at the
sight that threatened to cause another nose bleed.
"Ah! I can explain! That is ...." He tried to think fast. The
last thing he wanted her to discover was that he was the rat she'd
cuddled, kissed and undressed in front of. Oh, just thinking of
that meant that he really had to hold his nose.
"You!" Azusa accused and pouted up at him. "You're my widdle
Charlotte, aren't you!?"
"Whad?" Ryoga gasped. "I mean, how absurd. Do I lood lide a rad?"
She looked him over, noticing the open collar in his hand, the rat
features on his armor and the distinctive nose bleed. She clasped
her hands together and peered up at him smiling with bright eyes.
"Wes you are. Your widdle Azusa's widdle Char-wotte!"
---
Kasumi poured a fresh cup of tea to calm her father down and tried
not to let her worry show. That would only set him off again and
he was so bothersomely high strung. She smoothed her apron and
looked up.
"Oh, Akane, welcome back!" she sighed in relief. "Where have you
been?"
"Oh, just walking around," the girl replied vaguely, brushed her
hair back and looked around. "It really cleared my head. Where is
everybody?"
"They're out looking for you, Akane," Kasumi said over her father's
cries of joy. "Everyone's been so worried about you."
"I can take care of myself, Nabiki," Akane protested angrily.
"I'm Kasumi," Kasumi corrected.
"Whatever," Akane replied crossly.
"Akane!" Soun gasped in realisation and grasped her shoulders. "Is
your memory coming back?"
"A little, Mister Saotome," Akane said with a smile.
"Wah!" Soun collapsed into a crouch. "My baby still doesn't
remember me!"
"I'm just kidding, Pop, really," Akane apologised and patted him
on the back.
---end part 7---