------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Switch: Herbs and Spices (Chapter 22 / 22) by Nikholas "Switch" F. Toledo ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please do remember that Ranma 1/2 is a trademark and a copyright of and by some big name people and companies I am not even worthy to introduce. Anybody who says that I took any of their stuff better not find me hiding. Also, great thanks to whoever reads this and likes it, good thanks to whoever reads it anyhow, and teeny-weeny thanks to whoever else even saw this. HARSH LANGUAGE HERE. Niceness patch to follow soon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wheel of Fortune Kasumi and Nabiki went out of the kitchen door, arms laden with lunch and heads full of each other's marriage. Whereas Kasumi was insistent that Nabiki would do well to decide between Kuno and Dr. Tofu, who she figured was better off with the middle Tendo daughter, Nabiki was wondering if Kasumi was going to decide to suddenly take Ranma away from Akane, or if Dr. Tofu was going to make her change her mind. Of course, they weren't able to say as much in so much detail, so when they entered the reception room, whatever they had wanted to say evaporated. Kuno raised his head the moment just before the door slid open, and wanted so desperately to catch Nabiki's eye. So many things running through his mind, as though the freeways were suddenly opened all throughout his left hemisphere and everyone needed to get to work. Her kissing him, Ranma being the pigtailed girl, Akane and Ranma getting married, Nabiki kissing him, him now cursed with the same gender-bending that Ranma had, Nabiki kissing him, the buzzing in his head, and how he could tell that Nabiki so wanted to forget about him. Why would he know that she wanted to forget the way that his lips felt? And why was he so sure that if he gave up now, she'd never talk to him again? He went to the center table to try his luck. The Shinto priest couldn't believe his luck. Just when he was about to make his move, the ceremony was going to begin. Then again, this was the first time in a long while since he had performed a wedding. And it had been a long time since he'd been in this house, and the last time was pretty exciting as well. He'd been here before - didn't he think about that before? That time with the dangerous demon trapped in a box. Then he thought about that nice girl who was always smiling and remembered that she always made tea. That made him smile. Cologne smiled. The Jumping Buddha Wall was a well-kept secret among Chinese cooks. In fact, it is said that the God of Cookery himself was the only one who could make a meal that can best the Jumping Buddha Wall. She sniffed the air: there it was, the nine distinct meats that made up the Jumping Buddha Wall, each individual flavor seeping into each other, making eighty-one distinct flavors. No doubt, Shampoo was able to use her Internal Skills to make the cooking time shorten from the required forty-nine hours to around two minutes, or else, she must have used a typical gas stove and an assortment of instant bullions and a pinch of the essence of flavor, cooking for at least the twenty minutes that it took them to cook. She nodded and marvelled at how modern technology and ancient techniques were perfectly harmonious. Hiroshi was suddenly at ease in the tense atmosphere. He knew exactly what was going on: there was going to be a fight, and he wasn't part of it. He pulled on Sayuri's wrist and pulled her about as far as they could get from the groom/judge before the sparks started to fly. The moment that Akane revealed the contents of the bowl, Ranma's worst fears were realized. It all made sense: the clothes she wore last night, catching wind of a heated conversation at the Ucchan's, the fact that Ukyo herself was not here, this - this bowl of "Vengeful Pork" before him. Somehow, Akane had pieced the truth from Ukyo, and the both of them had done in the li'l porker. He screamed and jumped away from Akane's entrée. Akane did not understand why Ranma was so upset. So it wasn't as fancy as Shampoo's Dancing Buddhist Bowl, or whatever, but this was her best, her finest meal to date. For one, it looked right. What did Kasumi tell her? Work with what you're good at? Put your feelings into your food? If you put your heart into your cooking, it will taste as good as you want it to taste? What was it that made Ranma jump out of his skin? Cologne took this interruption to make her move. She bounded over the table using the cane and pulled out her secret weapon from her pocket and shoved it in Ranma's gaping mouth. Only she was a few feet short, and someone else's gaping mouth was in the way. When her instincts came into play, at Ranma's scream, Hinako jumped up with a five-yen piece in-between two fingers, her back to protect the screamer. When she started to ask what was going on, someone stuffed her mouth with something soft yet crunchy - and so she bit and swallowed the mushroom that was in her mouth. When Hinako swallowed the fungus, she stopped to look at everyone. She looked like she wanted to say something, but immediately Cologne's finger was at her lips. Ranma's eyes caught the interplay, and opened wide. Akane turned to look at them, but not before someone said a verb. All eyes were on Sayuri. Before Hiroshi could stop her, she pointed at their teacher and repeated what she had just said. "She's gonna drain us!" Hinako finally registered the action and the trigger for her hypnosis, and started to oblige her student by initiating the Happy 5-Yen Good-Girl-Get-Well Technique. Nabiki pushed Kasumi to the floor, just to glance at Kuno, who covered the two of them in turn. If she could have, she would have given him a look that would thank him, only if he kept his body parts to himself. She also noticed that only the Furinkan folks knew well enough to jump out of the way. Case in point: Yuka and Daisuke dove to get their non-combatant classmates out of the way. And, since Daisuke didn't realize until he knew better, Hiroshi was now wondering about who of their classmates wore boxers. Plain white boxers, too, not even cutesy frilly pink boxers, or ones with ducks or whatnot, or say "Boy". Shampoo's reaction was way too slow, since on the week that Hinako first came to school, she had been on a training trip with Cologne. In any case, Cologne should have been fast enough to avoid any attack, so she just braced herself. Since no one else was in the cone of absorption, Cologne found herself alone being reduced to a prunish state symptomatic of being victimized by Hinako's ki-draining technique, as though this would actually be noticeable. This also left Hinako with quite a devastating figure, naturally bursting at the seams of her outfit. She quite gave Yuka and Daisuke's Mousse-sponsored ensemble a run for the money. She also seemed a little confused as to what had just happened. To her credit, and much to everyone's surprise, Cologne was still standing, albeit woozily. She seemed to be trying to prop herself up with the staff on one hand, while the other was fishing for something within her cloak. She was mumbling something in Chinese, way too low for any human to hear. But they do say that being cursed by the springs of Jusenkyo leaves something in the cursed even when she's human. So Shampoo's eyes grew large as she nodded imperceptibly, and she rushed her elder. As Shampoo streaked across the room, she set her mind at the goals she had at hand. If she wanted to move about freely, she couldn't afford to let them be able to follow her. And, if her grandmother's inventory of what Mousse had brought with him here was accurate, she would have enough ammunition for the contest. But first, she needed a patsy. Hiroshi was sitting up, because he knew damn well that if something was going down, or going out, trying and straining against something to go out, he needed to see it, even at the price of life, limb or (hopefully) nosebleed. Imagine his surprise when he sat up to a quite explicit close-up of the only hidden piece of Shampoo's currently worn clothing, which made Hiroshi think that red really was a lucky color in China. Shampoo glanced back and, sure enough, pulling up the bottom of her dress in that instant left a suitable reaction in a receptive male. She flicked a hypnosis mushroom in the direction of Hiroshi's openly gaping mouth. "Point at," Shampoo pulled down the neckline of her dress to make sure that Hiroshi was not going to miss her point. Obediently, Hiroshi obediently lifted his arm and started to point, as Shampoo jumped toward the pond, glancing back to see if her elder was in any danger lying prone near the table, then smiled as she saw the lady in the yellow dress pull out another coin. Ranma rushed his teacher from the back, arms poised oddly, as she readied to drain his classmates once more. He intended to use the pressure points that the old master had taught him, and actually tried to use on Hinako for thirty consecutive days, until the weekend, when she was completely nowhere to be seen. He pressed the two points on her back, and had his left hand feeling along her left breast when he and the English teacher were steamrolled. Akane wanted to kill the bastard, and that slutty teacher that, not only wanting to seduce her father, had her husband-to-be want to jump her and squeeze her breast! THE BITCH! The three of them flew through the sliding door, and landed roughly just right of the largish stones ringing the pond. Ranma did the smart thing by letting go of the older woman as soon as he was sure she was uninjured and held Akane's wrists. So he definitely wasn't ready when Akane headbutted him back to the house. Mousse stood up just as the sliding door toward the pool exploded inward in a hail of splinters and door-paper. The bespectacled Amazon shielded the Saotome matron from the debris, and was in good position to shield her from the sight of Ranma's crumpled form, who seemed more genuinely shocked at the nasty red welt on his forehead than any actual damage. Akane seemed inclined to do much more damage to the teacher. Her wild blood-red aura seemed to burst around her, whipping her hair and the folds of her wedding kimono about, and she raised her fist, quite willing to make the jump on the teacher before she could even raise the coin. Dr. Tofu held Akane's wrist and quickly pressed three points on Akane's back and neck, before he pressed another pressure point, so her now limp body jerked spasmodically, releasing the built-up ki. He carried the dazed Akane in his arms, while he knelt down to check on Miss Hinako. The disciplinarian teacher was astounded by the speed that events were unfurling, mostly because of the hypnotism. When her head cleared, she was laying down outside the house, and a quietly handsome face floated above her. She'd noticed him earlier fleetingly, but in this proximity, she was beginning to register some details that were immediately intriguing, like how he had the air of a doctor - the way he looked at her with the air of detachment and analysis, so unlike the stares of the young men of her daily school life. Even the way he seemed to be intently scrutinizing her left breast with a clinical eye was making her tingly all over. She leapt at him, arms to latch onto his neck. Soun was watching with a lot of worry spread across the landscape, but Tofu seemed to be on top of the situation. Nonetheless, he wanted to make sure of her safety, so he was already behind the younger man when the busty woman jumped at the doctor. He watched the moxibustionist maintain his ground, and even straighten up. When Tofu had turned to him, Soun offered to carry his daughter back. Nabiki was watching the four near the pond from her vantage point, helping Kasumi pick up some of the mess made by spilled soup and upended rice bowls. She also noted her sister's reactions to what was going on, and had to smirk when Kasumi's back straightened noticeably when Tofu suddenly found himself at the attentions of the truant officer. Ever nonchalant, the Shinto priest was sipping miso from a soup ladle and watching the event with some amusement. So this was what an Anything-Goes Wedding was all about - screaming, crashing through doors, and quite a bit of sexual tension. It was barely though the soup, yet. He took the bowl that Kasumi offered him, and passed it to the person nearest to him. Uninterested, Kuno waved off the appetizer, and stood up. He wanted to talk to Nabiki but she kept herself busy, and something was buzzing in his mind, telling him that locating Shampoo was of utmost importance, but she was too fast, and it would somehow make Nabiki SOOO so much happier if SOMEONE would look for her. He stepped to the door, left open by the freshmen who fled the room after the rumble earlier, without wondering how exactly he knew what Nabiki would feel, and that it would probably be best to start in the guestroom, since Shampoo last saw Mousse there. Who was Mousse? Apparently, looking for Shampoo was also on the agenda of the four freshmen, with Hiroshi and Daisuke leading the way up the stairs just ahead of Kuno. They both figured that where Shampoo was going to be was where something interesting was going to happen, although after Hiroshi stopped several times to point at Daisuke's and Yuka's décolletages, they had him doing rear guard duty, and with Sayuri to keep watch on him. The foursome rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and Hiroshi slid the door to the upstairs guestroom, immediately noting the chaos left by the earlier trysts there. Daisuke checked the view from the window, but since the people near the pond had gone back to the receiving room, there was nothing to see. Also, the tree was obscuring quite a bit of the field of vision, but he could see someone approaching the house through the gap in the wall. Gosunkugi panted, partly out of breath, partly out of elation. Here, he was going to show Saotome the true might of the changeform. Here, he was going to show everyone how he was going to harness and to utilize the power of transforming into a girl! He was going to show them what being a girl was all about! He rang the doorbell and patiently waited for someone to come to the door. At the sound of the doorbell, Nodoka stood up, assured that, if she was not going to be able to do anything until the wedding began, and she needed to do something to be useful. Of course, Mousse went with her, because it was his job for the next half-hour or so. Shampoo finally found the room where she last found Mousse, but there was no one there. Damn! Where was he? She really should've waited until much much later to return Akane's uniform, which her rival loaned her two days ago. Why did she feel that she had to tie up her loose ends right now? She jumped into the room through the broken door. The door to the downstairs guestroom opened once more, and Kuno just wanted to make sure. He already passed by it to see two women there (neither of which was Shampoo), and went to check the toilet, the bath, the kitchen and the back door, but something insisted that the guestroom would be where to check. So, lo and behold, the Amazon was right there. Now what? Since neither of them had noticed, Nabiki was able to stumble into the room from the wooden walk around the rooms without either one able to take advantage of the distraction she presented. She made it a point to be looking down, but when she noticed bare legs, she looked up. It only took seconds for her to register Shampoo, then Kuno. She looked at the two of them, then raised her hand to shakily point roughly at the two of them. "You...!" This Nabiki said to Shampoo. "You...!" This time, her finger pointed to Kuno. "I... I..." She was fairly flustered, her eyes huge, and her mouth long and narrow, as though her cheeks were billowing slightly inward. "I HATE YOU!" Again, Nabiki was pointing at Shampoo, but more in her face. "And I HATE YOU! Too!" She was actually smiling a bit, and looked much more manic. Shampoo smiled. "You eat fish from Jumping Buddha Wall, yes?" Nabiki stepped up right to Shampoo, who had already turned to the short-haired girl. "And I REALLY hated it!" And she swung her arm around viciously to Shampoo's head. Tatewaki watched the Amazon barely avoid the hit, put off-balance by the reckless punch. He felt quite a bit of a shiver as Nabiki stepped closer. Her finger pointing at him, she said, "And you... I REALLY *DON'T* hate YOU." He felt her peck his cheek, electricity, as she skipped out of the room through the door he came in through. Hiroshi, who opted to go downstairs first, noticed Nabiki traipsing along the hallway as though it was full of freshly harvested sakura petals and she was sniffing something entirely illegal and probably expensive. As she entered the receiving room, he saw Hikaru Gosunkugi enter the front door after a fairly pretty yet haunted-looking middle-aged woman and Mousse. He also noted that Gosunkugi's pants looked a little damp, and that he had water pistols in his hands. That's good ol' Gos' for you, picking up the worst thing to use in a fight. He tailed them to the reception room; he was getting quite famished. Much as he wanted to come out with guns dousing, Gosunkugi thought better of it and waited for the right moment before he let his feminine side show. That was why he was able to appreciate fully how completely unstable the situation before him was: Akane and Ranma were screaming at the tops of each other's throats over this barbecued-pork rice bowl; the Shinto priest was telling Akane's father a story about this monk who turns into a monkey, interrupting himself often, while Akane's father was just staring at this young ponytailed girl in a brown jumper-dress; the aforementioned girl fixing plates and bowls, occasionally offering food to the others in the room and talking to Akane's egregious sister, Nabiki, who seemed a little too chipper; that chiropractor, Dr. Tofu, squatting a few feet away from a blindfolded and fully-formed Miss Hinako, who was giggling and squirming quite a bit, in the far corner of the room. The last made Hikaru feel a little soft-kneed, but he steeled himself, fingers on triggers. Hiroshi clapped the smaller student on the shoulder, surprising Gosunkugi, but not enough to either get himself wet or scream aloud. He called to the three upstairs, telling them that another of their number was there, and it was probably time to eat, right? Shampoo'll just pop up. He thought of what he had been seeing pop out, and he smiled. Shampoo popped out from the kitchen, fully pleased with herself. She found it all. The only truly worrisome thing was that each of the containers was half-full, although she wasn't sure if they had been used before Mousse took them. Did the Tendos use them while they were cooking for lunch today? She took stock of what she fetched: passion spice, nearly empty; five longish aging mushrooms, which she recognized from one of their fetch runs; a large and really old ginseng root, completely uncut, and would make quite a few gallons of really strong herbal tea; three cloves of attraction garlic, which is a revered Amazon weapon, used during the early fights with the Cultists of the Muscle Sword, where they would be attracted to the Amazon warrior's extra-strong pheromones and would come close enough so that the Amazon's extra-strong garlic-breath would incapacitate them; and quite a bit of aromatic herbs of all sorts, none of which seem to have been used to flavor the dishes - notably, a small bit of chicken saffron, used by warrior mothers everywhere to honorably discharge their overzealous little warriors for days on end, stamens of the horribly reclusive lily-liver. That herb in particular was notable because that was flung in the air as Daisuke was flung into her by a rampaging Sayuri. As they were both breathing heavily, both of them had inhaled the stringy, wispy herb and were reflexively sneezing, to no avail. Daisuke came to, and noticed that the Amazon was below him, and reflexively threw both arms up, which was why he was flung back as Shampoo also threw her hands up in the same reflexive way. Still fuming, Sayuri dragged her freckled classmate to the hallway, all the while glaring at Daisuke, who yelped and scrambled to his feet as the pair came out. "Keep your hands off of Hiroshi, you!" She hugged his right arm tighter and glared even harder, while the faux girl had fled to the guestroom, sliding the door open and shut quickly. Having been escaped from, Sayuri set her sights on the other girl in the hallway, who was hurriedly picking up her great-grandmother's foodstuffs. When Shampoo turned to notice Sayuri's glare, the warrior-woman "eep!"ed and ran to the guestroom as well. When Daisuke entered the room, Mousse thought that he had the glimpse of someone in the hallway that he did not want to meet. When the door opened a second time, he stood up and greeted the newcomer with a grimace of disgust. His change of expression piqued the interest of Nodoka, who sat with her back to the door, and was ignored by Kuno, who was stretched out and cooled with a wet hand towel on his forehead. Shampoo slid the door closed and then turned - to see a glowering Mousse. She felt the blood draining from her face, from her arms, as the shakers and packets fell to her feet, and from her legs, as her feet pushed outward under her weight, and she fell to her knees. She watched with horror, wondering - dreading - what he was going to do to her, catching her with his stolen goods. She watched his face unclench, contorting in mild confusion, but too quickly a sinister, bright light sparked in his eyes, and his features twisted maliciously. Mousse viciously berated her, in terse Japanese, "That's just so amazing, Shampoo. What is it, the chicken saffron? Feeling a little scared of me? Weak, stupid, Mousse?" He made claws at her, and she cringed. "You so stupid, Shampoo." He leered. "Never had a plan backfire on you this bad, huh? Always thinking you could use your secret herbs and spices to get your way, HUH?" He stepped forward, making her skitter back, but he saw her eyes beginning to regain their steel, their ire. "I guess you thought they'd make everything right, right? Look at ME." He pointed at himself. "Here I am, and you can't even hit me like you do EVERY TIME I told you that I LOVED YOU." He spat, and Daisuke crawled quickly out of his corner of the room, and out toward the pond. "Well, guess what? I *HATE* YOU. I HATE YOU *MORE* than you *EVER* hated ME." "Shampoo hate stupid Mousse," Shampoo whispered, hoarse. She couldn't stop her eyes from watering. "SHAMPOO HATE MOUSSE!" she shrieked, shielding herself. "Now, there." Nodoka wasn't sure what this was about, but it was going too far already. "I think you've both said your piece." Mousse didn't turn to Nodoka. "Well, I haven't." He took a deep, hot breath. "Every time you hit me, every time you said you HATED me, EVERY SINGLE TIME you HURT me, I NEVER thought to pay you BACK for your VERY GENEROUS feelings." He clenched his fists, and grit his teeth. "I must have been REALLY fucked-up. You AREN'T *WORTH* ALL - THAT - SHIT." He saw her swallow her breath, eyes huge. "So WHAT, if you're PRETTY, you're stacked and SEXY, or you're a GOOD FIGHTer. You were a CUNT! You were such a FUCKING - STUCK - UP - *BITCH*! You were NEVER nice to ANYONE and you ALWAYS had to show EVERYONE how PERFECT you are!" "THAT NOT TRUE!" Shampoo shook her head violently, as horrified at his tone as at what he meant. "Great-great-grandmama-" "I took abuse from HER because she TRAINED me, and she was FAIR. But YOU ALWAYS - *ALWAYS* - had to make SURE that I would SUFFER. And I CAME BACK FOR *MORE*!" He almost screamed, incoherent in his fury. "EVERYONE *HATED* you for being SO smug and OVERbearing. They WANTED Ranma to BEAT you SO BADLY you WOULD just *DIE*!" "ENOUGH!" Nodoka slapped Mousse hard. "I MAY not have SEEN my SON in *TEN* YEARS, but Ranma would NEVER hurt a woman." She turned around, but her anger had not subsided. "What kind of MAN would BEAT UP a woman? What kind of man are YOU?" She knelt down gingerly, then wrapped her arms around Shampoo to comfort the Amazon, who was mumbling to herself in Chinese. "You CANNOT hurt a woman the way that YOU just did to HER, NO MATTER *what* she did to you." Mousse's arms fell to his sides, and he swayed, as though nodding to whatever Shampoo was saying. After a moment, he straightened himself, and breathed out, a long dragged breath. "I'm sorry, madam. I'm sure that Ranma has been keeping to his vow. He is, after all, a man among men." He took another breath, then dropped down, squatting. "I'm sorry, too, Shampoo." She stopped in mid-snort. "M-Mousse...?" She rubbed her eyes, which were puffy by now. "M-Mousse... no hate Shampoo? No hate Shampoo no more?" Mousse smiled, a small, easy, even warm smile. "No, Shampoo. I don't hate you." He stood up, and offered an arm to the two ladies. While Mrs. Saotome glared at him, she still took his assistance - Shampoo, on the other hand, seemed even more teary-eyed. When she rubbed the fresh tears out, Shampoo leapt at Mousse, hugging him fiercely along the neck. She clamped down on her mouth, not daring to say anything. For a couple of seconds, they stayed like this, then Mousse gently pushed her off. Nodoka watched her guard kneel down to pick up the assorted condiments and food additives on the ground, while the Chinese girl, who she remembered from the grocery a few days ago, stood still, confused. Mousse hid the items in his sleeves, then turned to Shampoo. "You guys can't be finished deciding who Ranma's going to marry, so you go back there, now. Go on, now." Kuno finally came to, at the sound of the door sliding closed. He sat up, watching the bespectacled man with long hair (Mousse) sitting down. The lady (mother?) sat herself back down facing him. He returned the towelette to her and bowed in gratitude. That was when he heard something made of plastic smash itself open wetly. Happosai chuckled to himself, peering into the hole in the roof where he had let his payload fall down onto the unsuspecting man's head. Now, though, he only had one water pistol left, and this one had HIS name on it. He had to expose the traitor to everyone at this farce. But where was he? He jumped down next to the pond and saw the chaos in the receiving room. Kodachi had just entered the room, but she saw him fall from the sky outside the room. "There you are, lover!" she screamed, and almost intentionally crashed into the center table. She skipped along the mess and jumped to the pond, except that she was caught in mid-air. Nabiki grinned from ear to ear as she pulled down the Kuno. Not only did he get himself dirty and covered with paint, he also changed into a girl again. What a silly, silly boy! Strange how he looks a bit like his sister - what was her name again? Good thing she had a kettle ready under the table, kept smoking by the foot-warming heater. Nabiki upended the steaming water on the hapless girl struggling ferally in her grip. Now why wasn't he changing? Then she noticed that Kodachi had a ponytail, while Tatewaki had short hair in either gender. From the street, Tsubasa heard her scream from just outside the ruined wall, and jumped into the far corner of the yard of the Tendo estate. In the distance, he saw her rushing out of the house, wearing a long white tunic. She seems a little disoriented, he thought, sure that the person he saw was indeed Kodachi, with her telltale tuft of curly hair, and her ponytail. He rushed over to her side. Hinako had to remove the blindfold, even though the nice doctor with glasses said that she should. Too bad, he wasn't around to tell her to put the blindfold back in place. Soun wasn't around either. Phooey. Who just screamed, then? She looked out, and saw a girl covered in different colors of paints wearing only shorts. She, obviously, was a delinquent, and needed to be dealt with. Since her dress was now loose again, she dug around her pockets for a coin. Unfortunately for him, Hiroshi woke up at that point, smarting a bit from the shiner Sayuri gave him for overindulging in his position and her passion-addled gestures. He, too, noticed that Tsubasa was definitely not going to set any fashion trends wearing a paint-and-boxers ensemble to a wedding, but the fact that he now sported a complete transvestite outfit, with added bounce. He pointed to Tsubasa's cleavage, and soon found himself flitting about in the slight breeze, along with a leotard-clad Kodachi, who did not know any better. Daisuke chuckled a bit, knowing that whether or not Shampoo used a hypnotic mushroom, his friend would still point at anyone's cleavage, as long as it was as easy to view as Tsubasa's was. So, apparently, including himself, there were three of them that were now also changing into girls, and he knew that the total count was much higher. He also assumed that the culprit was the perverted master of Anything-Goes Martial Arts, Happosai. Somehow, the old pervert must have found a way to curse people to change into girls with water. And why not? He was making Nerima a smörgåsbord of female flesh. Now if he could also figure out why the food was making people act so strangely. Yuka was halfway done braiding her friend's hair, and wouldn't be finishing anytime soon. She got the idea from watching Akane's sister, Kasumi, braid her father's hair when he started to pick a fight with Dr. Tofu. She even borrowed a set of ear muffs, which she figured was very handy in a house full of martial artists if you needed to mend some clothing. Kasumi was sitting next to a completely silent Shampoo. Though they were both watching Ranma and Akane shout and scream at each other, she could tell that the purple-haired girl was no longer concerned with the outcome of their argument. She didn't even seem to make a move to slip anything into his rice bowl. The now-youngest Tendo had tried to revive Cologne by finding some miso soup to feed her, since that seemed to get everyone spirited, but she seemed to have run out. So she had Dr. Tofu heat the pot of soup that Nabiki made her earlier. She also told him to have some himself, if he wanted to try it. Since she told him to do that almost a full ten minutes ago, she just assumed that he did have some, so she asked her father to bring it in. Of course, she insisted that he not have any. Case in point, Soun entered the room with a soup bowl, and a ladle. Since no one complained about it, Soun did not notice that the two-tail braids did not match his mustache at all. He set the bowl on the low table. The stretch-edition Hinako had already chased the obscenely-dressed girl and her strangely-dressed companion full-way round the house, but now had lost track of her. But now she found Soun, and gladly made her way back to the room to sidle up next to him, much like a large female cat on the prowl. Intent on ignoring them, Kasumi quarter-turned, and went to dumping the entire bowl's contents into Cologne's mouth. Then she stood up to return the bowl to the kitchen. The Amazon matron's eyes bugged out as the warm gruel took a short dive into her stomach, and then she proceeded to shake, shudder, spasm, sputter, splash and splat back down to the tatami. Her direct-line descendant gave her a lazy eye, and turned back to watching the couple at the head. Ranma was, after quite a bit of circular argument and tangential interrogation, sure that Akane had not seen Ukyo since they came from the Ucchan's two days ago, and so he was sure that the meal before him was not Ryoga's last stand. He had been dodging blows and Akane's accusations that he had seeing Miss Hinako, Yuka, Shampoo as a cat and that old lady that splashes water behind her back last night, even though it was chronologically impossible, since he was with her. He was already worried that he wasn't going to be able to get it through her thick head that he WANTED to marry her, dammit! "Quit it, will ya, Akane? You want proof?" He picked up the bowl of "Vengeful Pork". "Hey, everybody! Look here!" Without giving everyone enough time to turn and look, he opened his mouth and stuffed it with the entirety of Akane's heartfelt meal. Everyone stopped, and waited for Ranma to swallow the enormous serving. Swallow he did - and his eyes flew open wide. He opened his mouth - and belched loudly. Ranma bowed to the assembled applause, thanking everyone heartily. Even Akane seemed pleased by Ranma's reaction, if not relieved that he ate it all. Having finally wiped herself clean of paint that had dripped on her, Nabiki stood up, and went to fetch Nodoka and whoever was in the master guestroom to the receiving room to pass judgment, and to find tea for the priest. As the world-wise Tendo sister passed by the door on her way to the guestroom, Kasumi and a sleepy teenaged Tofu exited the kitchen, missing her by seconds. At the guestroom, she told Nodoka that the time was here and told Kuno that his sister was here. She still had to look for Mousse, so she took a right to the back of the house, where the bath and the path to the dojo was. From the bath, Mousse emerged, fully male again. He was surprised, well-aware that somehow he had come into contact with Jusenkyo water once more. He always assumed that if he did, hypothetically, fall into the Spring of Drowned Young Girl, that he would just turn into a young female duck, but apparently this wasn't the case. Seeing Nodoka and Kuno exit the guestroom, he beckoned to his companion to follow. Tsubasa learned the basics of the Jusenkyo curse from Mousse, which made him feel better about things. He had a random thought that maybe because he was cross-dressing so often that he ended up growing boobs. Nice firm and round ones, too. Just like Ukyo's... err... Anyways, Mousse was nice enough to loan him another tunic (but no extra pants, since Mousse was wearing his Wear-Anywhere Blast-Proof Extra-Durable Dockers with Stain-Guard, and he didn't need a spare), he wanted something extra to keep him from being recognized, so Mousse loaned him The Man from Ganymede. Nabiki thought that she had finally caught up to Mousse, but when the person she caught turned, Tsubasa was wearing a gaudy plastic facial mask. The Tendo girl let him go, breathing heavily, and went to the kitchen to fix up some tea. The Shinto priest, who was much calmed down with his mint tea, coughed a bit, to address the congregation, and coughed a bit louder to cue the groom and his prospective bride to keep quiet. "Well, then, we've gathered here to test the marriage between these two members of the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts. As members of this School, they are enjoined to learn and to challenge every and all that they meet, and to join in matrimony means not only that they must learn from and challenge each other daily, but also that they have, indeed, found sparring partners for the rest of their lives. "As they have presented themselves to the world at large to test the strength of their resolve in this union, so the world is saddled with the burden of proving this coupling unfit." He smiled, since the next words were much more familiar. "Whosoever has any reservations with the marriage of this man and this woman, speak now, or concede your defeat." It took a full five seconds before he spoke, "I have something to say." Everyone turned to the pond to look at Happosai. Luckily, Kodachi was still groggy and was much easier to restrain, from jumping up, or from throttling herself. "Speak," the priest intoned. "I have a question for the father of the bride." Soun straightened his gi-top and approached his mentor. "I-Is anything wrong, m-master?" He only hoped that the master was not looking for revenge for yesterday. "Soun, m'boy, how can you let them get married?" The Tendo patriarch looked confused. "What do you mean, master? Ranma is a suitable husband for Akane." "You fool!" Happosai spat, jumping toward him. Hinako used the height of her more adult body to push Soun away, so it was that both of them were doused. "How could you let your daughter marry your SON?!" Ranma stood up from his seat, but his statement died in his throat, as he saw Soun Tendo stand up, a wet twin-pigtailed twentyish woman with a full head of red hair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Detach here) THE END Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Aherm... okay. Got that out of my system. Guess what, folks? This is actually the TWIST. This is where Book II is supposed to jump off and finally resolve this situation. Of course, there's still an epilogue (or two) that will be cleaning up the aftermath of this chapter, and establish the themes for what would have been the second leg of the series, if I were at all persuaded to write it. Actually, if I could convince anyone ELSE to write it. God, in the early anime, Yuka has such a horrible haircut. And it's fun to note things that a lot of people miss out on. Gotta remember to talk about Tofu's wedding competition. ^_^ Anyway, peace and out, for the moment. Read the epilogue, and give me a holler. If I haven't been too keen on criticism, especially advice on how to write the rest of the series, it's because I've been intent on a style, and I wasn't going to let anyone (including my well-meaning friends) tell me otherwise. And I had too many balls in the air to say why or why not. Now you know what I know. Well, here are my balls, whatcha think? (Detach here) -------------------------------------------------------------------------
