Jesus Christe! Fourth Chapter!

I absolutely love this story. It's so fun to write. Oh, and I must apologize for the delay of the last few chapters. Writer's block really sucks pond water, ya know?

Thanks to all my reviewers! You guys rock my face!

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. I write for the pleasure of the fans, not for the money.

FORGIVE ME
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FORGET ME

Chapter 4: Welcome to the Kunou Family Resort and Hot Spring!

It was around midnight when the door to Mousse's room creaked open. A small, piercing beam of light shot through the cracked doorway, searching the dark, curtain-drawn room. Curving and melting along random objects of mass destruction and several unwound yoyos that had obviously been dumped from his sleeves earlier that night, the young Shampoo, whose long, purple hair was up in two buns atop her head, became almost entirely entranced at all the junk that littered her prospective fiancé's floor.

She shook her head feverishly, furrowed her brow, and used the flashlight to guide herself to Mousse's bedside; she had a mission. She opened the door further with careful precision, shoving several objects out of the doorway, and crept inside.

Upon skipping over several yoyos and knives and such, and reaching the dark- haired boy's bedside, the stealthy Shampoo found a lightly snoring Mousse hidden under checkered covers up to his shoulders, with his glasses folded on his nightstand. He had his feather pillow wrapped tightly in his arms so that his head rested on the cold mattress with his long black hair draped across his face...

And upon further inspection, the foreign girl found the rumors to be true, that people looked much younger when they slept.

Shampoo stared with large, wondering eyes, not realizing that his lightly silhouetted features had entranced her as if by some dark magic. And, with her free hand, she carefully cupped his cheek, soft enough so that it did not wake him. His skin was softer than velvet, surprisingly enough.

Shampoo playfully poked at his cheeks, giggling to herself when he grumbled miserably, mumbled something about confessing his undying love for her in his sleep, and settled onto his back with one arm dangling off the side of the bed.

Shampoo cocked her head to the side, grinning deviously, and ran her fingers along his cheek. Mousse shivered in his sleep, smiling awkwardly-

-And was abruptly awoken the next moment by a metal flashlight across his face.

Curling up in his covers and cursing rabidly at the throbbing pain in his bulging cheek, the pajama-clad girl waited patiently for his tantrum to subside. She sat on her knees next to his bed, with her hands folded in her lap, knowing that once her furious admirer realized that it was she who had so cruelly awoken him, he would be forgiving and abundantly pleased by her 'mark of love.'

The visionless boy ripped the covers off of him, ready for a fight. Curling his fist, he yelled out angrily to his anonymous predator, "How 'bout you fight me like a man, you cowardly-!"

And upon seeing Shampoo sitting cat-like on the floor next to his bed, the longhaired boy promptly fainted back onto his mattress.

Shampoo whispered up to him, "This no time to play silly game, Mousse!"

Mousse spontaneously awoke, peered over the side of his bed with his long fingers grasping the bedspread in front of him, so as to gaze at his nightly visitor. Tears welled in his eyes with... joy? Shampoo grumbled.

"Sh... Shampoo? Is that really you?" he whispered in a croaky, irritable voice that would make anyone's skin crawl. "Oh, my darling Shampoo! How I have longed for this moment, when you would finally come to your senses and accept me as your husband!"

Shampoo did not respond at all.

"Shampoo? Is everything all right? You're very quiet all of a sudden."

Still, no answer from the unmovable Shampoo. Mousse carefully poked at her, felt her cold, hard exterior against his skin. For some odd reason, she seemed to wobble slightly as though ready to tip over. He grimaced in a disgusted manner, "Shampoo! What happened to your velvety-soft skin? You're all cold and... and..."

"Like vase?" she answered flatly across the room. Mousse made a curious noise in the back of his throat, grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, and took a second look at his 'wife.'

And found himself staring at a large, porcelain vase overflowing with multi- colored flowers.

Mousse shrieked in panic, before the flashlight came down upon his empty head once more. Pressing her fingers to her dainty lips in front of Mousse, whose upper half hung off the bed in a disheveled manner, Shampoo whispered urgently, "You make too much noise!"

"Sh-Shampoo! What are you doing in here?" he asked, this time with the right amount of curiosity. There was a large lump on his head that he seemed not to notice.

"Get packed, we leave tonight," she ordered.

"Leave?" he screeched. "Where are we going?"

"We going to mountains," she calmly explained. Mousse stilled looked confused as ever, but listened intently. "Pack enough to survive the week, and meet Shampoo downstairs. Make no noise, clumsy boy; great-grandmudda not know what Shampoo planning."

Mousse nodded doubtfully, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.

The sun had yet to arise in the early-morning sky. Newly polished stars beamed and twinkled down at the peaceful, slumbering city; an assuring sign of empty streets from which to make their silent escape.

At a four-way stop a few blocks down from the Cat's Café, Ranma impatiently checked his non-existent watch. A heavy canvas bag sat at his feet, and a barely-conscious Akane sat upon a tall cement wall, nodding off every now and then.

Both looked as though they had just jumped out of their respective beds, for both were tousle-haired with drooping eyes and posture; Akane was wrapped in a large green blanket she had probably carried with her since she fell out of bed; and the slouching Ranma didn't even notice his two new guests until they were settled right behind him.

"RANMA SAOTOME!?" A panicked voice jolted the young Ranma from the calm of his own subconscious. "What on earth are -you- doing here so early in the morning?"

Grumbling, the irritated pigtailed boy turned on his heels to face his four- eyed nemesis and his disdainful, purple-haired bride-to-be. Mousse was wide-awake, obviously, and carrying two large canvas packs on each shoulder; Shampoo, on the other hand, remained empty-handed but somehow much more lifeless than her companion. Ranma couldn't blame her.

Akane awoke abruptly, her brown eyes rolling around in her head for one confused moment. She made a small, inquisitive noise as she stirred.

"Ss... what? Time to go?" she asked lightly.

"Akane!" Mousse said cheerfully, suddenly spotting the girl atop the wall. "Good morning to you."

"Morn... morning?" she asked in a slurred voice, as though he had sprouted another head. Or could it be that she was questioning her own assumption of what time it was? "Oh, yeah... Good... morning..."

Ranma sighed drearily, picking up his pack and leaping cat-like onto the wall next to Akane with astonishing grace and accuracy. "Does everyone have what they need? Once we're outta here, we're not coming back for anything." He glared particularly at Mousse, who grumbled inquiringly.

"Shampoo," Mousse asked in a rather disappointed and skeptical voice, turning to the purple-haired girl, "Tell me we're not spending the next week with..." he glared suddenly at Ranma, the corner of his lenses twinkling dangerously, "him..."

"This no fun vacation, silly Mousse, this serious business," Shampoo grumbled simply.

Mousse glared daggers at his pigtailed enemy, as though desperately trying to tear Ranma's organs out with his mind. Alas, his attempts were fruitless. He chuffed, crossing his arms like a spoiled child, and looked in the direction from which he had come.

"Okay," said Ranma, swiftly scooping up his dozing fiancé in his arms and crouching down on his haunches, hugging her protectively, "Let's go."

And with that, the young boy leapt from his position on the wall, several feet into the air, kicked off of the cement wall on the other side of the street, and back and forth, giving him enough boost to maintain an exemplary speed for the other two. Mousse and Shampoo trailed swiftly along behind him, using the trees and rooftops as their most convenient means of staying caught up.

No conversation was made the entire way. There was too much land to cross and too little things of much importance to discuss to bother with idle chitchat. By the time the sun had begun to rise, and the pastel clouds to begin breaking through the dark sky, the foursome had made several days worth of travel. Thus, they were ultimately proud of themselves and ready for a well-deserved break.

Upon entering a rather large wooded area, the young leader admitted to having them lost. For how long they had wondered about the woods, following their leader's footsteps with absolute trust, they had no clue. And it was rather infuriating.

"But think about it this way guys," Ranma slyly reasoned to his comrades, as they rested on a thick branch in one of the tallest trees in the area, "If we're lost, then it will make finding him even less of a hassle, right? I mean... he has no idea where he's going the majority of the time."

The rest reluctantly agreed that he was, indeed, rather correct in his assumption. Thus, the motley crew ventured further into the heart of the gargantuan forest, pouncing from limb-to-limb in search of a nice resting area.

From her mid-air leap to the next tree limb, the young Shampoo's glowing eyes searched the forest floor in a subconscious manner. Spotting a sizable hotel within the first clearing they had come upon, she cried to the others, "Look! There hotel in clearing!"

And it was a nice hotel indeed. Three stories tall, and by the looks of it, fairly brand new; like a mansion more than anything. But why on earth such a nice hotel had been placed at such a random location, nobody knew.

Ranma and Mouse stopped on whatever limb they were on, and turned to look in her direction. Following her pointing finger, the boys were ecstatic to have found a place to rest for the day. And, Ranma noted to himself, when Akane woke up, she'd be rather delighted as well.

"Awesome! Good job, Shampoo!" Ranma cried. Akane was becoming rather heavy, he noted, as he leapt from the thickened tree branch and onto the forest floor.

The dark-haired boy carelessly tossed his dizzy fiancé aside for the spastic Mousse to catch, and said dismissively over his shoulder, "I'm gonna go check this place out. Stay right here until I say it's safe."

And, wouldn't you know, the pigtailed boy took not one step, before a sizable square of the ground beneath him caved in suddenly. Ranma fruitlessly attempted to climb the air for a panicked millisecond, but to no avail. With a sharp yelp of terror, the uppity young leader had disappeared beneath the earth.

"RANMA!" Shampoo screamed, and chased after him. But the large hole had vanished, and was somehow replaced with brand new dirt. "Mousse! What we do now?"

"You're asking -me-?" Mousse screeched defensively, whilst struggling to hold the sleeping Akane. His glasses were gradually slipping down the bridge of his nose, which he attempted to readjust with his shoulder, which, in turn, made him look disheveled and silly. "I don't even know where we -are-, much less what to do when our dumb-as-dirt 'leader' runs himself into a hole!"

Shampoo shot him a scathing look, before beginning her short, bouncy trek up to the glass double-doors. Mousse shamefully followed.

Upon entering the double-doors, Shampoo was stopped dead in her tracks by her simple amazement. She stared up at the marble, gold-encrusted walls and towering coliseum ceiling, large, lovely winding stair cases located on each side of the of check-in desk right ahead, complete with a twinkling, glass chandelier that could easily crush an eighteen-wheeler.

The thing that really caught the foreign girl's eyes was the long line of royal-looking family portraits that numbered all the way up the staircase. The people in each portrait were elderly and seemed wise beyond all reason, and were eerily similar to someone she had met before...

"Mmm, might I help you, young mistress?" a snobby, British accent brought Shampoo from her glorified reverie, and into the real world, though there wasn't much of a difference upon stepping into the hotel.

The young girl carefully sashayed her way to the check-in desk, where a short, stoutly old man in a nice tuxedo was impatiently curling his already- curled mustache in his fingers.

"Shampoo and stupid people behind her need place to stay for night. Also, friend of hers fell in hole in front yard. We need Ranma, so his falling in hole rather inconvenient..." she said half-heartedly, while still gazing at the portraits. They were so familiar...

He looked over his half-moon glasses, and smiled sweetly.

"Mmm, might you be a friend of the young master?" he inquired slyly. "It rehlly –is- about time he found himself a nice young guhl to settle down with..."

Shampoo whipped her gaze from the portraits, to the portly old man behind the desk. "Young master? Who you talking?"

"Oh, why, didn't you know...?"

Mousse came jogging up behind the befuddled young Shampoo, huffing and puffing and completely out of breath. The sleeping Akane fell from his numb arms, and plopped onto the sleek, marble floor, finally gaining enough sense to wake up. Still garbed in her blue pajamas, the young girl grumbled and set to work at folding her blanket on the floor.

Akane rubbed the sleep from her bright brown eyes, and studied the entrance hall with slightly blurred vision. Her small jaw dropped as her eyes moved over the portraits. She let out a small gasp.

"It... It couldn't be..." she exclaimed to herself under her breath.

"Why, the young master has always been rather popular with the ladies, or so he tells me..." the little British man remarked snidely, "Ah, but the lad has a good haht. He has his eyes set on only but two of the -luckiest- young women that attend his public educational facility..."

O.

Coughing up sour-tasting water that had gone down the wrong pipe, the petite, redheaded Ranma sat up in a rather vast, shallow pool that came up only to her waist. Looking around her, she noticed that the abyss she had so foolishly fallen into was something of a manmade cavern, complete with hanging lanterns and small waterfalls that flowed down from strategically placed boulders that lined the walls. Distant sitars strummed a relaxing, oriental tune.

The water, she also noted, was freezing, and gave off a somewhat familiar stench. She shivered and stood up, wringing the excess water from her shirt.

"Where is this place...?" she asked herself, sloshing around in the knee-high pool for some sign of an exit. There was none to be found, and Ranma was beginning to wonder if she was still on the same continent...

Sighing, she dropped her hands to her sides, and said in an exasperated tone, "One moment, I'm checking out a hotel, and the next, I fall into a pit. What luck..."

The sound of water rippling and moving water quietly behind her knocked the young Ranma from her despairing subconscious; the sound of someone stepping into the pool, suddenly. She hadn't heard any footsteps...

She swung her body around to meet her predator, and gasped.

.O

Akane stood up from her sitting position on the floor, eyes glittering and fascinated. "Just who are you talking about? Who -is- this 'young master' of yours?" she asked with a tinge of impatience in her voice. The blue duck pajamas were rather disarming, so the man behind the desk hardly noticed.

"Mmm, why, the same young master who happens to own this lovely chain of hotels. T'was passed down to him by his forefathers and his forefather's forefathers and..."

"That isn't telling me anything..." Akane said with a deeper edge to her voice. The portraits were infuriation little peeves in the back of her mind.

The small, British bellhop adjusted his glasses, and peered absently at the befuddled young girl from behind the counter. The corner of his lens gave off a devious twinkle.

Shampoo and Mousse both listened intently, brows furrowed.

"Well, I would ring for him, but I'm afraid the young Master Tatewaki Kunou is in his study, and wishes not to be disturbed."

O.O

Ranma, her braid swinging madly behind her, tightened her fists with a terrified look on her face.

"K... Kunou!?"

A young man with short-cropped brunette hair gave the redhead a foreign look through piercing brown eyes. The wooden katana fell from his loose grasp, and he hadn't realized that the bottoms of his light blue kimono were soaked and probably ruined by now.

"My pigtailed goddess...?"

A mad dash for the pigtailed girl (made only worse by his scream of: "MY PIGTAILED DARLING, HOW I HAVE LONGED TO SEE YOU!") and the horrified Ranma (made only so by her furious attempt to get the hell away from this maniac) was speeding through the water at an impossible pace, making title waves behind her that pulled the infatuated young swordsman under.

After several loud, splashing minutes of being chased, she stopped, skidded to a halt, and put a hand to her chest. The rest of her clothes were drenched with all the torrents she had raised in pursuit of an exit, and her hair was damp with sweat. Ranma wasn't sure if she dared to move in fear of... piranhas or whatever Kunou had cooked up, thus settled to listening to her own exhaustion.

A sudden, deafening battle roar issued behind her and she spun on her heels, only to be mercilessly drug under the raging torrents by a too- determined young swordsman. Ranma attempted a scream of fright at Kunou's sudden entrance, and ended up with her lungs full of water. She spat and coughed wiggly air bubbles and breathed in the water in sheer panic.

In the back of her subconscious, she noted that what she was breathing in was not, in fact, water, but something much stronger.

Throwing her head out of the water, Ranma gasped deeply for sweet, sweet oxygen, and fell over, crippled with exhaustion and an abundance of water floating around inside of her.

She coughed harshly, and wallowed around in the shallow pond dizzily. She gave a sharp hiccup as her vision began to blur and her insides began to twist oddly. Little bubbles of giggly warmth made their way through her stomach, and she smiled as a red blush painted her face.

'This... is not... water...'

"What...'s going on...?" Another sharp, gut-wrenching cough (this time, spewing up unnecessary 'water' in the process), and the aching young girl was down for good. That meaning, her numb, shaking legs gave out from under her, and she fell into the water shoulder-first, her long red braid tailing behind her.

A Buggy-eyed Kunou stood, feet away from her, staring as though his beloved had been shot full of holes. She was drowning – it was close enough.

"My... beloved pigtailed princess..." he whispered in a disbelieving voice to himself, and ran to his wounded captor, whisking her up in his arms. She jerked in his grasp like a sand doll. A perplexed expression came across his face once Kunou realized that his darling redhead was, indeed, snoring – quite soundly, at that.

"Have no fear, my love," he assured her, "You are safe within the confines of my abode. I oblige you; have your stay, as long as you wish, whilst you rest off your hangover." He looked about the cavern, and mumbled skeptically to himself, "Mayhap a mantrap of sake carried not such a menacing appeal..."

-.O

"KUNOU?" the crew shouted in disbelief.

The butler smiled, his mustache curling up almost to his eyes with pleasure, and gave a hearty laugh. He said in his content British accent, "So, I see you've already met the young master! I must say, he'll be quite pleased to know some friends have come to visit."

Akane turned quickly on her heel, and began strutting heavily towards the exit. "I'm outta here."

Mousse, his heavy glasses slipping down his nose, called after her in his squeaky voice, "Akane! Where are you going?"

Akane was already to the double-doors, and gave a strong push to open them. She turned her fiery gaze quickly over her shoulder, and responded in a furious manner, "Anywhere that does not contain that idiot, Kunou!" The butler gave an appalled gasp, the tips of his curled mustache singed. "This place is a death-trap, if I know how his sick mind works. I'm going to go find Ryoga by myself."

With that, the blue-haired girl pushed the double-doors open, and the two remaining companions watched her bustle out of the mansion and across the yard.

After a few moments of awkward silence, the purple-haired girl turned to the wide-eyed little man behind the desk, and said curiously, "It okay if we rent out room for night?"

"Oh, yes, dear, of course." The butler turned and grabbed a key from a hook and handed it to her, before scribbling something down on a clipboard next to him. "You'll be in room two-thirty-nine. Please, make yourself at home, and don't touch anything that looks like it might explode or sprout legs and kill you." The old man turned from his clipboard, and smiled gingerly to the couple, "Welcome to the Kunou Family Resort and Hot Springs."

Sorry for the wait, amigos! I really had trouble writing this chapter, trying to be so spontaneous and all. Thanks for being so patient with me! I do accept Flames, even though I don't like them at all.

Please review! I love knowing that my stuff doesn't suck pond water!