Untamed Neko
I would just like to assure Warp-wizard my prereader for this piece of work that his help is valued and apreciated and that his help speaks for itself.
Ch3: The shattering of an ideal
Ranma sported a feral grin as he bounced away from the town he had been training in for
the last several months. It seemed that the martial artist that so angered and disgusted him
had decided to follow. Good.
As soon as he reached the fields he had seen earlier upon entering the town there would
be a reckoning. The open space would ensure that he could go all-out and not risk hurting
any bystanders and judging by the martial artist's aura he would need to go all-out to be
able to teach her the lesson that he wanted to. He wanted to be able to outclass her so
much that he would be able to not only teach her a lesson but also humiliate her.
Up until now, his father and all the other martial arts masters he had met had belonged to
an ideal. All had been honorable men or women that had maintained a certain standard of
conduct; this martial artist - a master judging from the strength of her aura - had
effectively destroyed that ideal. No longer could he blithely say he was a martial artist
without having to worry about any stigma being attached to that title. To Ranma this
incident was an epiphany; a master martial artist did not automatically become a moral
martial artist. The martial artist following him was proof of that; it definitely was not
moral to raise a lynch mob against a child.
Did that mean that there were others out there that conflicted with his view of what a
martial arts master should be? If that were the case, was his ideal wrong, was the man he
idealized - his father - really the man he thought him to be? His father had been a moral
master martial artist who taught him the code he tried to live by. Was the code that he had
been taught even worth following now, knowing that his father may not have been the
paradigm of morality and martial arts that he had always thought that he had been?
Ranma hated the self-doubt that this martial arts master had instilled in him, the doubts
and questions that she caused him to have about his father. He snarled at the realization
that the way that he looked at, judged and read people would never be the same thanks to
this martial arts master. He didn't know whether to kill her or thank her for that. Ranma
knew that if he didn't continue to question things throughout his life then his thinking
would stagnate and his ability to adapt to situations would further be limited but to cause
him to question something so fundamental as his ideals and the very image he held of his
father angered him. Still, raising a mob against a child was reprehensible and she
deserved to be taught a lesson for that if not for the shattering of his own ideals. If her
behavior didn't change he knew that she would cause huge problems in the world at
large, not the least of which was permanently tainting the image of martial artists in
general.
Screaming pierced the fog of his thoughts; it was the child he had rescued. While he
didn't have to worry about entering the feral Neko state, at times of emotional extremes
his behavior became more catlike than was usual. Which was one thing he wanted to gain
more control over, since it had caused some problems in public situations before.
It was, however, something he was having less than no luck in gaining control of. With
all the snarling and raging he had been doing, on top of the harrowing experience the
child in his arms had just been through, it was no wonder the child was petrified.
"Calm down, you are safe now - no one is going to hurt you," he said, trying to force
himself to calm down as well. The aura of anger and disgust that he had been putting out
probably didn't help in calming the child either. He had found strong auras affected those
around him - some more than others, with children being especially susceptible.
Once he had calmed down himself and replaced his aura with one of tranquility instead of
the one of anger and disgust he had been putting out earlier he could see the child
gradually calming down. Seeing the child starting to calm down Ranma decided it would
be a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at the child he had rescued from the mob in
the alley.
It was a big surprise, Ranma hadn't seen anything like it; in fact he didn't even think it
was human. The thin layer of fur that covered it's face, plus the cat-like eyes and the
strange ears didn't fit what he would call normal. Still, it had shown some measure of
intelligence and a display of emotion that in Ranma's book was human enough. After all,
he had met people on his trip that had displayed neither, and they were not hunted down
and killed by lynch mobs nor were they children. Even then, people didn't string up
animals for fun - that was just sadistic.
"My name is Ranma, the mob is some distance away and cannot harm you," Ranma
repeated, further calming the child down. Who or what this child was no longer mattered
in his mind, more important he thought was finding out what had happened and
confronting and teaching the rogue martial arts master a lesson. "Now do you mind
telling me what happened back there?"
Ranma wanted a clearer picture of what was happening before he confronted the martial
artist. So he continued to keep pace maintaining his lead over the trailing martial artist
and waited for some answers from the child in his arms. He had found out the hard way
that it was foolish to jump into situations without any knowledge about what was going
on. It could and had on occasions blown up in his face.
The girl tightened her grip on him before replying to his question, "My parents warned
me that going outside was dangerous, they said that the big people would want to hurt
me. I had never been outside before and I wanted to see it, I'm ten now. Why do they
want to hurt me, is it because I'm Mait?" With that she curled up into a tighter ball
against his chest and started sobbing.
Ranma did his best to comfort the child in his arms without slowing down from his run.
He needed some time to think, and to clear his mind. Having spent the majority of the last
five years away from society, training, and the rest of that time training under masters
and other martial artists he knew it took him longer to react to social situations than other
people. It was not high on his list of things to do - to socialize, plenty of time to do that
once he had completed his training journey. As a result most people found him to be a bit
rough around the edges.
Arriving at the field he had been running to, Ranma stopped, it was time to confront the
martial artist who had started all this mess. A confrontation would likely occur anyway,
unless he ran away, and he refused to run from this fight. It was too much of a
coincidence that the martial arts master was following him now; when this child had been
targeted. Ranma's feral grin once again adorned his face, he would teach her a lesson she
would not forget; raising lynch mobs against children is just not on.
Ranma glanced down at the child who had fallen asleep in his arms; he would have to be
very careful so that he/she would not get hurt. The fight would need to be kept down to a
non-lethal level and with the other martial artist out for blood Ranma knew that would be
difficult. With his own combat potential restricted so much it would be nigh impossible.
Even though he had never tried fighting without the use of his arms, or even trained with
introduced handicaps he knew this fight would be okay. If nothing else his style excelled
in adaptation and he had spent the last three years trying to increase its flexibility and
versatility, something that the inclusion of the Neko-ken and other styles achieved
admirably. Ranma knew that after another five years of hard work he would have earned
the title of Master of his school.
This was just another trial to work through, another obstacle in his path something to
work through, another challenge in his quest of mastery. Ranma could sense the large chi
source approaching, it wouldn't be long now.
________________________________________________________________________
Shampoo was not happy. Her prey had just been snatched, her perfect plan thwarted.
Now the one responsible was playing with her by just keeping himself far enough away
so that she could follow him but too far for any decent attack. It had only been moments
but already she was growing annoyed since she was no closer to catching him and her
prey the cat demon.
Wasn't she an Amazon, superior in every way? The fact that his aura was larger was just
ignored since size didn't count as much as skill. She would show him the error of his
ways; no one crossed the Amazon nation and lived. By wresting her prey away from her
like that he was definitely obstructing Amazon justice. The greatest martial artist in three
generations had taught her, she herself was the greatest in her own generation. This
upstart would be nothing against her skill and 3000 years of Amazon tradition.
Then he stopped. She let out a growl of anger and put on a final burst of speed to catch up
to the annoying obstacle. What she found was little surprising; a boy of about her own
age was holding her prey while it was curled up in his chest, evidence that it had been
crying could be seen by the dampness of his shirt.
How did a boy not much older than her be able to generate such a large aura? She had the
matriarchs of the Amazon Nation teaching her and no one could match their teaching and
instruction could they? Only two answers presented themselves to Shampoo's mind. The
first, there were greater teachers out there - here was living proof. Or two, this boy had a
greater potential than she did. But then she had the greatest potential in a thousand years
and she was an Amazon warrior. Neither of those two solutions was of any use or
acceptable to the young Amazon.
She now had two targets that needed to die, two scalps to collect; one of necessity and
one for the sake of her own personal prestige. There couldn't be many that had an aura
the size of the one standing in front of her, not at that age anyway.
Without even an "Evil cat demon die!" she charged forward, firing blasts of chi as she
went. The way he had trouble dodging her blasts just confirmed her view that he was
indeed an inferior opponent.
Once she had closed to an effective range she started to pound him with the Kachu
Tenshin Amaguriken. It was appropriate at such a time to inform him of his crimes, "For
being an obstacle to the Amazon nation's demon hunt, I, Shampoo, have deemed that you
must die. You and the cat demon."
Shampoo was quite impressed at the rate at which her opponent was soaking up damage,
still it mattered not - it was just a matter of time before he fell. No one could absorb the
amount of damage she was dishing out without suffering for it, and the obstacle just made
it easier for her by trying to protect the little demon.
After a few minutes of pounding Shampoo started getting a little worried. The boy
showed no signs of dropping and the fight was taking longer than she was used to. She
had been going all out, thinking to end the fight with the Tenshin Amaguriken, however
he was just not falling. He too must be a demon she decided, to be able to take so much
damage. Regardless, Shampoo found herself to be running out of energy and if he started
to fight back, no matter how poorly, she would be in trouble.
Quickly taking stock of the situation, Shampoo started to lead the boy and the demon he
was protecting into a spiral, all the while pounding at him from all sides. Despite his
inhuman endurance she could see that he was weakening slowly. Shampoo just hoped
that her planned finishing move would disable him long enough for her to end the fight,
permanently for the two demons.
All of her hard training was finally paying off. She had confronted the cat demon who
had even gained a demonic ally and she was winning or she would win once she finished
the spiral, something that her great grandmother had been skeptical of her doing. Not that
she blamed her Great Grandmother, after all he had killed 15 Amazon warriors. Shampoo
just attributed it to the harsh training she had put herself through. Apart from the few
lucky shots that the obstacle had gotten in, she had done it relatively injury free.
Finally, she reached the center of the spiral and with a final blow she called out her
finishing attack: "Hiryu Shoten Ha!" The expected funnel appeared and lifted both the
obstacle and the evil cat demon into the air. Shampoo collapsed and waited for the two to
crash to the ground so that she could collect their scalps. She had never seen this
particular finisher fail before, so she had no reason to doubt that it would now.
"That's not supposed to happen," Shampoo mumbled as the funnel spat the obstacle and
the demon over the horizon, far out of reach for the exhausted martial artist, instead of at
her feet ready for quick finish. Her hopes for a quick victory were crushed - this was
quickly becoming a habit when dealing with the annoying obstacle. What was once a
simple matter of go here, kill this and be back in time for the autumn festival was now a
full-scale hunt with multiple targets. "Shampoo knew it too easy," she muttered to
herself.
So what happened? She had outclassed the obstacle in skill and speed; she had controlled
the fight throughout. By rights she should be standing over their bodies collecting their
scalps right now. How had he been able to get one up on her? Even she didn't know that
there was a weakness in that technique, so how did he?
"This is not over obstacle and too too evil cat demon!" she screamed out in the direction
she had last seen them heading. Right now she needed to recoup her energy and train. It
would not happen again, victory would not be snatched from her grasp.
________________________________________________________________________
Tef mery Bast woke up when her bed suddenly jumped and continued jumping. Opening
her eyes she found herself in someone's arms, not her familiar bed like she thought, it
was then she remembered. Her birthday, her exciting trip to the outside and the mob.
The terrifying realization that she was going to die at their hands, only to be snatched
from deaths door by a stranger. At first she had thought that he was one of them but
though he didn't look it, he had the mannerisms of a Mau. How one of them reminded
her of her father she didn't know, especially one her age. When he comforted her though,
she knew that everything was going to be all right. She had gone to sleep in his arms
hoping that when she woke up it would all be a dream; a terrifying dream for sure, but
only a dream.
She did wake up and what she saw scared her even more than the mob. With the mob,
even with the realization that she would die, she was comforted by the fact that her
friends and family were still safe. Now, it seemed that not only would she die but the one
who saved her would as well. The one that reminded her of her father, the one whose
name was Ranma. Already in an attempt to shield her he was barely avoiding the bolts of
light that Shampoo was shooting. She didn't know why or how she was being an obstacle
to the Amazon nation or why she had to die for it. That however was what Shampoo
seemed to think.
Tef flinched every time a meaty "thunk" sounded, indicating that Ranma had taken a hit.
The fact that all of the hits were taken because he was shielding her made her feel guilty.
Hearing a cry of "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" the tempo of the meaty "thunks"
increased. She could feel his body flinching and shuddering, it was enough to make her
want to scream "Stop, let her kill me, just get away!" Tef knew that he wouldn't though;
his crystal blue eyes held hers and seemed to communicate concern for her and an almost
casual dismissal of all the damage being done to his own body.
Tef didn't know how he could stand it; she knew that she would have crumbled after the
first blow. After what seemed to her like hours it stopped, she didn't notice that they had
been launched into the air; she was just to relieved that her savior had stopped being
pounded. When she did notice that they were currently airborne she almost screamed
again, once again Ranma's crystal blue eyes reassured her. She was reassured that she
was safe with him; he wouldn't let anything hurt her.
What to do now though? She knew that she couldn't return home to her friends and
family, they would already have fled from the hysteria of the mob. Once again she looked
up at Ranma from where she was curled against his chest. She felt safe with him, and she
definitely did not want to face another mob. Would he have her? She hoped so.
________________________________________________________________________
Ranma had clearly underestimated his opponent. "Shampoo" she called herself, she was
much more skilled than her aura suggested. A couple of flaws in her style allowed him to
survive their encounter though, however handicapped as he was, he couldn't exploit them
but there was always next time.
She wasted frivolously her store of chi or life energy to do no more than increase her
speed. Sure, her technique boosted her speed enormously, but Ranma could never see
himself using such a technique. It smacked too much of weapons use, an artificial boost
in speed by temporarily boosting the chi flows in her arms. He would work hard in
developing and strengthening those flows through training to achieve the same results. A
reliance on techniques that artificially boosted endurance or speed would be disastrous in
a fighter. A view that was vindicated when she effectively ran her reserves dry. It was a
strategy that might have been effective on a lesser opponent, Ranma thought smugly.
Her final technique was a godsend. He wasn't totally unscathed after their encounter and
a quick exit was in order, he had a child to think of after all. The Neko-ken and his
father's secret techniques gave him a unique view on the manipulation of chi. This
allowed him to quickly determine how the spiral of chi-fueled air was constructed. It was
a short step from that to being ale to manipulate the tornado created by the Hiryu Shoten
Ha.
Ranma looked at Shampoo as he quickly flew from the site of the fight. She looked as
bad she no doubt felt after expending such large amounts of her life energy. Looking
down at the child in his arms some of the rage and disgust that he felt towards Shampoo
left him. The child in his arms looked remarkably catlike - if that wasn't a sign he didn't
know what was.
Never again would he ask for a sign; Ranma didn't think he could handle the results.
Still, he had asked and he had received: Neko-ken training it was.
** Before I start my A/N I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review
this on-going saga. All the reviews help me in some regard and are received in the faith
that they were written and greatly appreciated as such. The next stop from here is Tokyo
where in Tokyo –it's a surprise. However, before I publish the next chapter I would
love some really long, detailed reviews. A vote would also be nice: what match up do you
want to see. **
A/N: - In ancient Egypt male cats were called Mau and females Mait.
-No matter how mature Ranma is, he is still ten and a bit of hero worship for a dead
parent is common for a ten year old. But everyone comes to the realization that maybe his
or her parents aren't perfect. Sometimes that realization can be quite an adjustment.
-Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the gender of a clothed ten-year-old child.
Especially if they have unusual facial features.
-Many of my readers if I have any by this stage might have a problem with Ranma
getting his butt handed to him in a fight against Shampoo when he clearly has the
advantage in both style and training. Let's keep in mind however that he had his arms full
- literally.
-For those of you who don't know, the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken is a rapid punch
technique. These punches are often too fast to be blocked by a normal opponent. The
Hiryu Shoten Ha is a technique that uses the opponents aura against them by creating a
tornado fueled by their own aura. It is supposed to lift them up, then once they're dry it'll
slam them back into the ground.
I would just like to assure Warp-wizard my prereader for this piece of work that his help is valued and apreciated and that his help speaks for itself.
Ch3: The shattering of an ideal
Ranma sported a feral grin as he bounced away from the town he had been training in for
the last several months. It seemed that the martial artist that so angered and disgusted him
had decided to follow. Good.
As soon as he reached the fields he had seen earlier upon entering the town there would
be a reckoning. The open space would ensure that he could go all-out and not risk hurting
any bystanders and judging by the martial artist's aura he would need to go all-out to be
able to teach her the lesson that he wanted to. He wanted to be able to outclass her so
much that he would be able to not only teach her a lesson but also humiliate her.
Up until now, his father and all the other martial arts masters he had met had belonged to
an ideal. All had been honorable men or women that had maintained a certain standard of
conduct; this martial artist - a master judging from the strength of her aura - had
effectively destroyed that ideal. No longer could he blithely say he was a martial artist
without having to worry about any stigma being attached to that title. To Ranma this
incident was an epiphany; a master martial artist did not automatically become a moral
martial artist. The martial artist following him was proof of that; it definitely was not
moral to raise a lynch mob against a child.
Did that mean that there were others out there that conflicted with his view of what a
martial arts master should be? If that were the case, was his ideal wrong, was the man he
idealized - his father - really the man he thought him to be? His father had been a moral
master martial artist who taught him the code he tried to live by. Was the code that he had
been taught even worth following now, knowing that his father may not have been the
paradigm of morality and martial arts that he had always thought that he had been?
Ranma hated the self-doubt that this martial arts master had instilled in him, the doubts
and questions that she caused him to have about his father. He snarled at the realization
that the way that he looked at, judged and read people would never be the same thanks to
this martial arts master. He didn't know whether to kill her or thank her for that. Ranma
knew that if he didn't continue to question things throughout his life then his thinking
would stagnate and his ability to adapt to situations would further be limited but to cause
him to question something so fundamental as his ideals and the very image he held of his
father angered him. Still, raising a mob against a child was reprehensible and she
deserved to be taught a lesson for that if not for the shattering of his own ideals. If her
behavior didn't change he knew that she would cause huge problems in the world at
large, not the least of which was permanently tainting the image of martial artists in
general.
Screaming pierced the fog of his thoughts; it was the child he had rescued. While he
didn't have to worry about entering the feral Neko state, at times of emotional extremes
his behavior became more catlike than was usual. Which was one thing he wanted to gain
more control over, since it had caused some problems in public situations before.
It was, however, something he was having less than no luck in gaining control of. With
all the snarling and raging he had been doing, on top of the harrowing experience the
child in his arms had just been through, it was no wonder the child was petrified.
"Calm down, you are safe now - no one is going to hurt you," he said, trying to force
himself to calm down as well. The aura of anger and disgust that he had been putting out
probably didn't help in calming the child either. He had found strong auras affected those
around him - some more than others, with children being especially susceptible.
Once he had calmed down himself and replaced his aura with one of tranquility instead of
the one of anger and disgust he had been putting out earlier he could see the child
gradually calming down. Seeing the child starting to calm down Ranma decided it would
be a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at the child he had rescued from the mob in
the alley.
It was a big surprise, Ranma hadn't seen anything like it; in fact he didn't even think it
was human. The thin layer of fur that covered it's face, plus the cat-like eyes and the
strange ears didn't fit what he would call normal. Still, it had shown some measure of
intelligence and a display of emotion that in Ranma's book was human enough. After all,
he had met people on his trip that had displayed neither, and they were not hunted down
and killed by lynch mobs nor were they children. Even then, people didn't string up
animals for fun - that was just sadistic.
"My name is Ranma, the mob is some distance away and cannot harm you," Ranma
repeated, further calming the child down. Who or what this child was no longer mattered
in his mind, more important he thought was finding out what had happened and
confronting and teaching the rogue martial arts master a lesson. "Now do you mind
telling me what happened back there?"
Ranma wanted a clearer picture of what was happening before he confronted the martial
artist. So he continued to keep pace maintaining his lead over the trailing martial artist
and waited for some answers from the child in his arms. He had found out the hard way
that it was foolish to jump into situations without any knowledge about what was going
on. It could and had on occasions blown up in his face.
The girl tightened her grip on him before replying to his question, "My parents warned
me that going outside was dangerous, they said that the big people would want to hurt
me. I had never been outside before and I wanted to see it, I'm ten now. Why do they
want to hurt me, is it because I'm Mait?" With that she curled up into a tighter ball
against his chest and started sobbing.
Ranma did his best to comfort the child in his arms without slowing down from his run.
He needed some time to think, and to clear his mind. Having spent the majority of the last
five years away from society, training, and the rest of that time training under masters
and other martial artists he knew it took him longer to react to social situations than other
people. It was not high on his list of things to do - to socialize, plenty of time to do that
once he had completed his training journey. As a result most people found him to be a bit
rough around the edges.
Arriving at the field he had been running to, Ranma stopped, it was time to confront the
martial artist who had started all this mess. A confrontation would likely occur anyway,
unless he ran away, and he refused to run from this fight. It was too much of a
coincidence that the martial arts master was following him now; when this child had been
targeted. Ranma's feral grin once again adorned his face, he would teach her a lesson she
would not forget; raising lynch mobs against children is just not on.
Ranma glanced down at the child who had fallen asleep in his arms; he would have to be
very careful so that he/she would not get hurt. The fight would need to be kept down to a
non-lethal level and with the other martial artist out for blood Ranma knew that would be
difficult. With his own combat potential restricted so much it would be nigh impossible.
Even though he had never tried fighting without the use of his arms, or even trained with
introduced handicaps he knew this fight would be okay. If nothing else his style excelled
in adaptation and he had spent the last three years trying to increase its flexibility and
versatility, something that the inclusion of the Neko-ken and other styles achieved
admirably. Ranma knew that after another five years of hard work he would have earned
the title of Master of his school.
This was just another trial to work through, another obstacle in his path something to
work through, another challenge in his quest of mastery. Ranma could sense the large chi
source approaching, it wouldn't be long now.
________________________________________________________________________
Shampoo was not happy. Her prey had just been snatched, her perfect plan thwarted.
Now the one responsible was playing with her by just keeping himself far enough away
so that she could follow him but too far for any decent attack. It had only been moments
but already she was growing annoyed since she was no closer to catching him and her
prey the cat demon.
Wasn't she an Amazon, superior in every way? The fact that his aura was larger was just
ignored since size didn't count as much as skill. She would show him the error of his
ways; no one crossed the Amazon nation and lived. By wresting her prey away from her
like that he was definitely obstructing Amazon justice. The greatest martial artist in three
generations had taught her, she herself was the greatest in her own generation. This
upstart would be nothing against her skill and 3000 years of Amazon tradition.
Then he stopped. She let out a growl of anger and put on a final burst of speed to catch up
to the annoying obstacle. What she found was little surprising; a boy of about her own
age was holding her prey while it was curled up in his chest, evidence that it had been
crying could be seen by the dampness of his shirt.
How did a boy not much older than her be able to generate such a large aura? She had the
matriarchs of the Amazon Nation teaching her and no one could match their teaching and
instruction could they? Only two answers presented themselves to Shampoo's mind. The
first, there were greater teachers out there - here was living proof. Or two, this boy had a
greater potential than she did. But then she had the greatest potential in a thousand years
and she was an Amazon warrior. Neither of those two solutions was of any use or
acceptable to the young Amazon.
She now had two targets that needed to die, two scalps to collect; one of necessity and
one for the sake of her own personal prestige. There couldn't be many that had an aura
the size of the one standing in front of her, not at that age anyway.
Without even an "Evil cat demon die!" she charged forward, firing blasts of chi as she
went. The way he had trouble dodging her blasts just confirmed her view that he was
indeed an inferior opponent.
Once she had closed to an effective range she started to pound him with the Kachu
Tenshin Amaguriken. It was appropriate at such a time to inform him of his crimes, "For
being an obstacle to the Amazon nation's demon hunt, I, Shampoo, have deemed that you
must die. You and the cat demon."
Shampoo was quite impressed at the rate at which her opponent was soaking up damage,
still it mattered not - it was just a matter of time before he fell. No one could absorb the
amount of damage she was dishing out without suffering for it, and the obstacle just made
it easier for her by trying to protect the little demon.
After a few minutes of pounding Shampoo started getting a little worried. The boy
showed no signs of dropping and the fight was taking longer than she was used to. She
had been going all out, thinking to end the fight with the Tenshin Amaguriken, however
he was just not falling. He too must be a demon she decided, to be able to take so much
damage. Regardless, Shampoo found herself to be running out of energy and if he started
to fight back, no matter how poorly, she would be in trouble.
Quickly taking stock of the situation, Shampoo started to lead the boy and the demon he
was protecting into a spiral, all the while pounding at him from all sides. Despite his
inhuman endurance she could see that he was weakening slowly. Shampoo just hoped
that her planned finishing move would disable him long enough for her to end the fight,
permanently for the two demons.
All of her hard training was finally paying off. She had confronted the cat demon who
had even gained a demonic ally and she was winning or she would win once she finished
the spiral, something that her great grandmother had been skeptical of her doing. Not that
she blamed her Great Grandmother, after all he had killed 15 Amazon warriors. Shampoo
just attributed it to the harsh training she had put herself through. Apart from the few
lucky shots that the obstacle had gotten in, she had done it relatively injury free.
Finally, she reached the center of the spiral and with a final blow she called out her
finishing attack: "Hiryu Shoten Ha!" The expected funnel appeared and lifted both the
obstacle and the evil cat demon into the air. Shampoo collapsed and waited for the two to
crash to the ground so that she could collect their scalps. She had never seen this
particular finisher fail before, so she had no reason to doubt that it would now.
"That's not supposed to happen," Shampoo mumbled as the funnel spat the obstacle and
the demon over the horizon, far out of reach for the exhausted martial artist, instead of at
her feet ready for quick finish. Her hopes for a quick victory were crushed - this was
quickly becoming a habit when dealing with the annoying obstacle. What was once a
simple matter of go here, kill this and be back in time for the autumn festival was now a
full-scale hunt with multiple targets. "Shampoo knew it too easy," she muttered to
herself.
So what happened? She had outclassed the obstacle in skill and speed; she had controlled
the fight throughout. By rights she should be standing over their bodies collecting their
scalps right now. How had he been able to get one up on her? Even she didn't know that
there was a weakness in that technique, so how did he?
"This is not over obstacle and too too evil cat demon!" she screamed out in the direction
she had last seen them heading. Right now she needed to recoup her energy and train. It
would not happen again, victory would not be snatched from her grasp.
________________________________________________________________________
Tef mery Bast woke up when her bed suddenly jumped and continued jumping. Opening
her eyes she found herself in someone's arms, not her familiar bed like she thought, it
was then she remembered. Her birthday, her exciting trip to the outside and the mob.
The terrifying realization that she was going to die at their hands, only to be snatched
from deaths door by a stranger. At first she had thought that he was one of them but
though he didn't look it, he had the mannerisms of a Mau. How one of them reminded
her of her father she didn't know, especially one her age. When he comforted her though,
she knew that everything was going to be all right. She had gone to sleep in his arms
hoping that when she woke up it would all be a dream; a terrifying dream for sure, but
only a dream.
She did wake up and what she saw scared her even more than the mob. With the mob,
even with the realization that she would die, she was comforted by the fact that her
friends and family were still safe. Now, it seemed that not only would she die but the one
who saved her would as well. The one that reminded her of her father, the one whose
name was Ranma. Already in an attempt to shield her he was barely avoiding the bolts of
light that Shampoo was shooting. She didn't know why or how she was being an obstacle
to the Amazon nation or why she had to die for it. That however was what Shampoo
seemed to think.
Tef flinched every time a meaty "thunk" sounded, indicating that Ranma had taken a hit.
The fact that all of the hits were taken because he was shielding her made her feel guilty.
Hearing a cry of "Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!" the tempo of the meaty "thunks"
increased. She could feel his body flinching and shuddering, it was enough to make her
want to scream "Stop, let her kill me, just get away!" Tef knew that he wouldn't though;
his crystal blue eyes held hers and seemed to communicate concern for her and an almost
casual dismissal of all the damage being done to his own body.
Tef didn't know how he could stand it; she knew that she would have crumbled after the
first blow. After what seemed to her like hours it stopped, she didn't notice that they had
been launched into the air; she was just to relieved that her savior had stopped being
pounded. When she did notice that they were currently airborne she almost screamed
again, once again Ranma's crystal blue eyes reassured her. She was reassured that she
was safe with him; he wouldn't let anything hurt her.
What to do now though? She knew that she couldn't return home to her friends and
family, they would already have fled from the hysteria of the mob. Once again she looked
up at Ranma from where she was curled against his chest. She felt safe with him, and she
definitely did not want to face another mob. Would he have her? She hoped so.
________________________________________________________________________
Ranma had clearly underestimated his opponent. "Shampoo" she called herself, she was
much more skilled than her aura suggested. A couple of flaws in her style allowed him to
survive their encounter though, however handicapped as he was, he couldn't exploit them
but there was always next time.
She wasted frivolously her store of chi or life energy to do no more than increase her
speed. Sure, her technique boosted her speed enormously, but Ranma could never see
himself using such a technique. It smacked too much of weapons use, an artificial boost
in speed by temporarily boosting the chi flows in her arms. He would work hard in
developing and strengthening those flows through training to achieve the same results. A
reliance on techniques that artificially boosted endurance or speed would be disastrous in
a fighter. A view that was vindicated when she effectively ran her reserves dry. It was a
strategy that might have been effective on a lesser opponent, Ranma thought smugly.
Her final technique was a godsend. He wasn't totally unscathed after their encounter and
a quick exit was in order, he had a child to think of after all. The Neko-ken and his
father's secret techniques gave him a unique view on the manipulation of chi. This
allowed him to quickly determine how the spiral of chi-fueled air was constructed. It was
a short step from that to being ale to manipulate the tornado created by the Hiryu Shoten
Ha.
Ranma looked at Shampoo as he quickly flew from the site of the fight. She looked as
bad she no doubt felt after expending such large amounts of her life energy. Looking
down at the child in his arms some of the rage and disgust that he felt towards Shampoo
left him. The child in his arms looked remarkably catlike - if that wasn't a sign he didn't
know what was.
Never again would he ask for a sign; Ranma didn't think he could handle the results.
Still, he had asked and he had received: Neko-ken training it was.
** Before I start my A/N I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to review
this on-going saga. All the reviews help me in some regard and are received in the faith
that they were written and greatly appreciated as such. The next stop from here is Tokyo
where in Tokyo –it's a surprise. However, before I publish the next chapter I would
love some really long, detailed reviews. A vote would also be nice: what match up do you
want to see. **
A/N: - In ancient Egypt male cats were called Mau and females Mait.
-No matter how mature Ranma is, he is still ten and a bit of hero worship for a dead
parent is common for a ten year old. But everyone comes to the realization that maybe his
or her parents aren't perfect. Sometimes that realization can be quite an adjustment.
-Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the gender of a clothed ten-year-old child.
Especially if they have unusual facial features.
-Many of my readers if I have any by this stage might have a problem with Ranma
getting his butt handed to him in a fight against Shampoo when he clearly has the
advantage in both style and training. Let's keep in mind however that he had his arms full
- literally.
-For those of you who don't know, the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken is a rapid punch
technique. These punches are often too fast to be blocked by a normal opponent. The
Hiryu Shoten Ha is a technique that uses the opponents aura against them by creating a
tornado fueled by their own aura. It is supposed to lift them up, then once they're dry it'll
slam them back into the ground.
