Guest Ki: Chapter 8

Special Training

"I can't believe I trusted you!" Akane stormed around the camp gathering her stuff together. Periodically, she would come to a halt and simply scream at the sky in a blind rage. Ranma and a small black piglet stumbled along behind her. The former stayed out of her private space but within easy reach. The latter followed almost blindly, sometimes bumping into the boy's ankles, stopping then trailing along behind. Neither had been touched by Akane, which worried the hell out of them.

"I had that damn pig in my bed for over a year!" she shrieked, tears streaming. "A year! I sure hope you all got your laughs over the baka, un-cute tomboy!" She abruptly changed direction and picked up more supplies she missed and stuffed them into her pack.

Ranma winced and followed along. Ryoga had been right earlier. The misunder-standing at the lake shore had gone well. This was turning into his worst nightmare. He never thought he would prefer Akane to beat on him.

"It's so wonderful that you want to be more honorable than your father, Ranma! Far be it from me to pull you down with the honor you left me!"

Barry wondered if there was such a thing as an abuse center for teenagers around. 'Ranma, you are going to have to stop her.'

'Yeah, right!' groaned the boy silently. 'Like anyone can stop Akane when she's like this.'

'I'm not talking about her breaking up with you! If she tries to leave here with a full pack in this state, she won't make it across the lake! And do you see her fixing a fire to dry off? Or is she going to push on, get pneumonia, get hit by a car, fall off a cliff... Get my drift?'

"Shit!" Ranma whispered and stopped abruptly, feeling the now familiar bump of P-chan at his ankles. Barry was right. And to stop her, he'd have to step across a line he avoided till now; she'd never been one to listen to reason. His heart feeling like a lead lump in his chest, he fought down revulsion at what had to be done and stepped close to the raging girl.

"Akane?"

"And another thing…" She turned violently, getting nose to nose with him to press her point home. "I am so glad to finally get this out in the open. You are an honor-less, shiftless pervert! I never want to see you or that," she spat out the word, "stupid pig ever again! I HA—!"

(SMACK!)

Akane bounced painfully on her bottom, one hand to the cheek Ranma had slapped. Eyes wide, she stared at Ranma who stood stony faced, looking not at her, but at the hand that had struck her. He held it before him as if it were some loathsome thing that had been found under a rock.

"B-b-Barry?" She couldn't conceive that Ranma had just hit her.

"Akane, I can't let you go anywhere, yet," Ranma said miserably, still not looking at her. He lowered his hand. "First, ya can't be outa control like this in the wild. I hafta make sure ya get home in one piece. Second, I owe it to yer dad ta train ya in the full Ryu of Mutsabetsu Kakuto." He lowered his hand and looked off into the woods, mentally plotting a future without Akane, ignoring attempts by Barry to break in or offer advice. "Actually, ya got most of it, but ya need ta learn how ta train yerself faster and how ta learn new techniques." He sighed then, but the tension was hardly abated. "I don't have the time ta make ya as good as me, but I can get ya to where you can become as good as me, if you push yerself."

Akane swallowed hard. There was something wrong with Ranma's voice. If he had been shocked and dismayed earlier by her tirade, she was now worried about his behavior. "I… I'm going home," Akane said shakily.

"After the training, I'll make sure ya make it home." The grim tone of voice did not permit argument. He walked quietly over and picked up her pack, then wandered over to the lean-to. There he yanked out what little property Ryoga had acquired while they were there and set out her sleeping roll. He turned, gathered Ryoga's bedding and, with meticulous care, rolled it up and set it under cover, but readily accessible. "Akane, you get the shelter. Ryoga, you an' me sleep in the open unless it rains." He sighed, closed his eyes and controlled himself with an effort. "It doesn't matter anymore, anyway," he muttered. Ranma finally met Akane's eyes again and she shuddered inside at how dull and lifeless they looked. "Today, we rest; try ta get calm. Tomorrow... Tomorrow we train."

Both P-chan and Akane exchanged troubled glances at the tone of his voice. Ranma turned and walked into the woods.

'What the hell are you planning, Ranma?' Barry was internally wincing at Dragonball Z played over and over again. Damn elevator music! None of Ranma's plans were available to review or discuss and Ranma was treating him like he wasn't there anymore. 'It's not the end of the world, Ranma; lots of relationships go through rocky times. If they're important enough to you, you keep fighting to make them work!'

'What's the difference between me and Kuno if I don't take the hint, Barry-san? I'm not gonna stalk her an' make her life miserable.' Ranma moved swiftly through the trees and soon reached the other side of the island. 'I'm gonna make her so good at martial arts she won't need me ta protect her. Then I'm gonna make her better. She'll be able to carry on the tradition of Mutsabetsu Kakuto like Tendo wants and she'll have everything my family developed as well.' Ranma's fist clenched, and Barry could 'hear' the grating of his teeth. 'No one will be able to force her to choose their way over hers ever again.'

Ranma walked straight into the water and sat down. The change occurred and for long minutes she studied the reflection of the red-haired girl that was, and yet was not, Ranma Saotome.

'What about Ranma Saotome?' Barry spoke of his host as if he were another person. 'What future do you plan for him?'

The Dragonball Z theme roared up like gasoline poured on flames.

Ranma came out of the woods before dawn. Her face was hard and she collected every bit of food in the camp before heading back to the woods. As the sun began to light the camp she kicked Ryoga awake, then checked on Akane in the lean-to. For a moment her expression softened, but then she took Akane's canteen and upended it over her head.

(SPLUTTER!) "What did you do that for?" She glared at the redhead but subsided, as the other's gaze did not waver.

"Time ta train, Akane." She turned away and looked at Ryoga, who was poking at the fire. She frowned, slightly. "Hey, pork buns! I said, it's time ta train an' that goes for you, too!"

"I'm just fixing breakfast!"

Ranma blasted the fire with a ki burst. "No, yer not. Besides, the food's not here. Ta get it, ya gotta earn it."

"What!" they screamed at her.

"You can't do that to Akane," Ryoga bellowed and charged.

A splash of water and P-chan ricocheted off Ranma.

"Can't I?"

Akane looked horrified then regained her composure. "I'm ready for anything, Ranma," she challenged angrily.

"Yer gonna need ta be." She turned and pointed. "Breakfast is that way; if ya can find it and if ya can get to it. I'll be there by lunchtime. If ya haven't found it, it's mine."

"If that happens… when are we going to eat?" Akane said stiffly, trying to hide her dismay.

"When I feel like it and not before. Don't fail, or yer gonna get real hungry." She walked over to where Ryoga scrabbled at a thermos and picked him up by the bandanna. "Ryoga, you're gonna sit this one out." She turned back to Akane. "The pig is already a survivor, Akane. He's used ta this stuff, so I'm not gonna let him break trail for ya. He eats when you eat."

"Jerk!"

Akane pushed her way through the woods, holding to a southwest course. She went all the way to the opposite side of the island then retraced her steps. Every once in a while, she'd see Ranma, moving around her. At one point, she found some late berries of a type she knew to be good and ate every ripe one she could find.

"Stupid Ranma!" she sneered. "I'll show him! Even if I don't find the food he's hidden, I won't go hungry."

It was almost lunchtime when she saw the small sack tied to a slender limb from a tree. She could climb the tree or she could walk along the trunk of a fallen tree that was braced in a fork of a larger one. Its trunk passed right underneath the sack. Then she noticed Ranma resting comfortably along an overhanging branch, looking more like some forest spirit than the girl she presently was. She seemed to be asleep.

"Better hurry up, Akane. Yer almost out of time," she said without opening her eyes.

'Damn!' Akane leaped up on the trunk and began to edge along it.

"Well, jeez! If you're gonna take all day about it, let's make this interesting." Ranma flowed off the branch and dropped in front of the dark-haired girl, not coincidentally between her and the sack.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Toughening and balance training, Akane. If you can last ten seconds with me, you get the sack."

"But you never hit back!" she screamed frustrated. Ranma's leg-sweep nearly dumped her. Akane leaped in the air and kicked. Ranma blocked and counter-punched.

It was pulled, certainly; but it jarred Akane back on the branch and nearly sent her to a nasty fall. Nor did the punch end the attack, as Ranma carried through with a series of kicks and punches that were landing with bruising force. Akane, on the defensive, was forced back a step, then another. The attacks were basic but fast and she was too astonished to do anything more than block.

Suddenly, Ranma was gone. Akane almost overbalanced. She stopped, bruised and breathless, and looked about. But Ranma was nowhere to be seen. Smugly, she reached for the bag.

It was full of leaves.

"Ranma, you jerk! Where's the food? You promised!"

"Actually, I never said the food was in the bag, Akane." She whirled to find Ranma behind her on the trunk. "You found that earlier. The berries were quite good, weren't they?"

"The berries?" she screeched astonished. Without thinking, she charged the redhead. Her world revolved around wiping the smug look from Ranma's face. She struck and struck and struck. When Ranma leaped back into the trees, she followed; every branch, every knob or roughness of bark was used as purchase for hands and feet. She raged through the woods in an agony to strike.

That evening, Ranma, still in girl form, Akane and Ryoga sat at the points of a triangle, quietly waiting for the food to cook. Ryoga shot glances at Akane and her many bruises and scratches. Akane looked at neither and kept whatever she felt to herself.

"Ranma," the lost-boy opined, "this isn't right."

"Shut up, porky," she replied. "Akane's a martial artist."

Akane started at that statement. How long had she wanted Ranma to offer that unembellished praise? Her anger earlier had driven her past her normal physical reserves. She had chased Ranma through the woods through the heat of the day. She had, whenever the redhead permitted it, attacked like a berserker until finally she was exhausted.

Ranma had promptly returned, picked her up and carried her back to camp. Once there, she started cooking dinner, a stew of fish and wild vegetables, transformed Ryoga back to human and then pounded him into the ground when he inevitably attacked. Ranma played out the fight, often taking punishing blows from Ryoga before exhibiting her normal speed and skill to finish the battle.

Ranma wiped the blood from her face, made sure Ryoga was conscious again, and served the stew. She was gentle, yet distant, making sure their injuries were treated and, later, that they were made as comfortable as possible in their respective beds.

Then she had disappeared back into the woods. Akane had been too tired to protest or wonder why she wasn't sleeping at the camp.

The next day, Ranma opened festivities by simply attacking without warning, grabbing Akane by the front of her pajamas and hurling her into the water at the lake's edge. Akane screamed as she felt the water close over her head, but quickly found it was only waist deep. Coughing and hacking, she thrashed her way back to shore where Ranma was under assault from a furious Ryoga.

Akane had not paused, angrily viewing this as an opportunity to get some of her own back. Ranma saw her coming and simply tossed Ryoga into the water as she had Akane. The splash of the boy turning pig was immediately followed by a series of a dozen unanswered kicks and punches that drove Akane back into the water. She felt every blow hammer home with bruising force. The last had been a foot that swung across and rocked her head back, driving her almost to unconsciousness. The water had revived her, along with the squealing of the floundering P-chan. Ranma, standing aloof, almost sneering on the shore, had driven her to enraged tears.

"Why are you doing this, Ranma?" she screamed at her.

"This ain't the dojo, Akane. This is reality, not a polite dance. We don't bow to each other; we don't stop and ask if the other is all right. We hit, we take hits and we plan strategies ta win." Ranma tilted her head, waiting to see if Akane would attack, ignoring the question. "Instead of tryin' ta block my attacks, ya should have risked taking a hit so you could start an attack yourself. Ya never win if ya don't break the flow of yer opponent's offense. It don't matter that the attacker's better'n you. Yer life depends on it." The redhead tapped her foot impatiently, pausing only to kick P-chan back in the water when he attacked. "You waitin' fer somethin'?" She waited some more, but when Akane finally rose and began squeezing water out of her pajamas, she turned and began walking away. "I guess yer not that hungry, student," she called back over her shoulder. "I was gonna let ya have some breakfast, but if ya even want dinner today, ya better catch me! Cause ya ain't gonna get it any other way!" She broke into an easy run and disappeared into the woods.

Akane and Ryoga both searched, but did not find the elusive redhead. They also didn't eat that day.

This went on for ten days, ten brutal days, while Akane fought for food against a smugly critical Ranma, and learned how to fall from ever-higher points and into more dangerous areas.

Ranma had her using the trees as roads through the forest, leaping from branch to branch, even blindfolded. Every once in a while, she'd make a dangerous mistake and Ranma would catch her, set her on her feet and tell her point by point what she did wrong. Then she'd make her do it again. If the mistakes were not life threatening, Ranma stood back and let Akane fall and bruise and feel the pain of her endeavor.

Every once in a while, Akane would break through some barrier, catch her fiancé and deal punishing blows that might have killed anyone else. Ranma would pick herself up, nod and drive the training that much harder. Always watching with a face of stone, always in the cursed form bequeathed by Nyanniichuan.

Every evening, Ranma would make sure Akane got back to camp. If the training had been satisfactory in Ranma's eyes, she prepared dinner, un-pigged and pounded Ryoga when he attacked. She served dinner, treated injuries and discussed problems with the techniques and strategies Akane had employed. Then she made sure Akane and Ryoga were as comfortable as they could be made and vanished into the woods.

As the days marched on, Akane missed fewer meals.

Ryoga was appalled. In many ways it made his own 'Breaking Point' training seem tame, but every time he protested, every time he tried to intervene, Ranma pounded him, 'pigged' him and the training went on.

This particular evening, Ryoga decided a change was in order. He watched Ranma start a stew simmering in a large tin pot. Then she had brought over the cup of hot water to pour over P-chan's head. Instead of attacking Ranma, he glared at the petite redhead and simply walked away. Ryoga tried to check on Akane, but backed away when she rebuffed him. Finally, he simply gathered a blanket around his shoulders and sat down an equal distance from them both. He was startled when Ranma handed him one of the plastic mugs. It was full of a hot chocolate mix Akane brought with her.

"Uh… Thanks, Ranma, …I think."

"Barry's doin' much better, ain't he, P-chan? He went all the way against ya last night."

"What!" Ryoga rasped. He glared at Ranma but recognized the attempt to start the hostilities. He chose a different tactic. "And here I thought you were getting slow," Ryoga smirked as the pigtailed girl's eyes narrowed.

"Heh, heh! Well, ya got that right at least." She smirked in turn, though to Ryoga's eyes it seemed somehow an empty mask. "Barry is nowhere near as fast as I am. Care ta see how long ya last against me from the get-go, piggy?"

"Did you have Barry fighting me?"

Ranma regarded Akane, all trace of levity gone. "No, Akane." She watched her across the flames and added. "I said I'd train ya, and I'm trainin' ya. I don't trust…" She grimaced and clenched her fists. "I'm trainin' ya." She glanced back at Ryoga, but the tension of combat had passed and it wasn't worth starting again.

"Is this business about 'earning meals' because that's what your father used to do?" Akane questioned without heat, curious but also looking for a way to attack the training's principles.

"Pops always stole the food right off my plate, Akane. He made me earn my food every time we got something to eat. He never stinted himself." She stirred the stew for a while, tasting and occasionally adding ingredients. Finally, to the accompaniment of multiple stomach growls she announced, "It's done." She ladled out generous helpings. As she ate, she explained, "I eat what you eat, when you eat. That way I can judge if the training's too much for ya." Several voracious minutes later, she informed her, "Akane, you are gonna be in real pain tomorrow. I think yer fast enough, now. We start training at dawn on the Kachu Tenshin Amiguriken."

As usual, Ranma seemed to vanish into the trees.

The fire popped and hissed at the two figures that remained. They thought their separate thoughts and kept their silence. The past week and a half had been hard on them both.

Ryoga was used to pain. He had dreamed of time alone with Akane. Time where Ryoga the man, could speak to Akane the woman — time without Ranma there to interfere. Yet this past week he retreated to his sleeping roll hardly daring to face her. It was not just that he had wronged her with his hidden agenda and invasion of her privacy. She seemed to listen to him when he tried to explain why he had done it, but she had offered neither forgiveness nor rejection.

A handful of times they had been driven to use the shelter together to escape the rain. She had acted as if he were no more than a log or a stone that occupied the same general space. Ryoga wanted to comfort her, but her bearing accepted nothing and gave nothing.

Akane seemed more withdrawn, more fragile this evening, than he had ever seen her and more alone. From everything he knew about her dreams as she had related them to P-chan, she should be dancing with joy at the prospect of learning one of Ranma's most devastating moves. Looking at her, he remembered what Barry had said about Ranma. About how he used manners and insults to keep people away. Especially people he cared about. He remembered how he, Ryoga, had mockingly told Ranma that Ranma was more alone than he was. He thought about whom Ranma had insulted the most often yet never touched until now. Ranma had always protected Akane. Now he was attempting to ensure that Akane could protect herself… because Ranma no longer believed that he would be there to protect her.

"Pain most keenly felt where love is grasped and lost, till one is left wondering which is worst, the love lost, or the love denied."

"What?"

Ryoga started and turned to see Akane's eyes on him. Embarrassed, he uttered a nervous laugh and brought his hand self-consciously behind his head. Akane frowned, irritated.

"Why did you say that, Ryoga?" she demanded. Akane was upset. The remark had struck a chord in her. "Was that supposed to be about you?"

"No. About Ranma." He sighed. "I should never have come back. I've ruined everything between you. I… I should never have come back."

"Well, I'm glad I finally know the truth," she said sharply. She turned away, but it only revealed her profile in the firelight. After a long silence she asked more quietly, "How does that apply to Ranma?"

"You don't understand, Akane?" Ryoga was astonished. He knew she hid things from herself; his own attempts to win her from Ranma had been facilitated by this blindness. "It's hard to believe that I understand Ranma better than you do." He stared at her suddenly angry at the apparent indifference he saw. "He told me once, but I didn't believe him, why he insults everybody, why he pushes them away. I even know why he never said he loves you."

The silence was like a heavy weight in the dark. Even by the firelight, Ryoga could see that Akane had gone pale. She licked her lips and tried to think of something to say. It took a while.

"So..." she said finally, "does Ranma love me?"

"It's not that easy, Akane. That's a question I will not answer."

"Damn you!" Akane withdrew into her cloaking blanket. "Just another joke on the baka tomboy. Is Ranma out there laughing?"

"Ranma may be out there, Akane," Ryoga sighed, retreating to his bedroll, "but I doubt very much that he has anything to laugh about." He was putting together a lot of pieces lately and didn't like his part in the mess one bit. If he was right, his long plotted revenge was now complete. If so, it was a bitter, bitter dish.

Deep in the woods a tree fell. It indeed made sound though the cause of its fall was not really listening.

As she had done every night since the training began, Ranma leaped over the falling trunk and unleashed her skills at yet another hapless piece of vegetation. As it shattered under her blows, a boulder the size of a car was unfortunate enough to catch her attention. Before long it was gravel. Soft plants were reaped as if by a scythe, then shredded. Ranma moved like a creature of air, a cyclone of violence that begged for release. Tears poured down her face, to salt the path of destruction she had sown.

'Ranma, stop this,' Barry yelled as loud as he could over the roar of the Dragonball Z theme song that played again and again in the tortured recesses of her mind. 'Dammit, Ranma, you're driving me nuts with that damn music! Ranma! You won't live to finish Akane's training if you don't calm down. Ran-MA! Don't you dare!'

Ranma shifted from destroying trees to bouncing off them. As it was nearly pitch dark, this ring-around-the-forest tree-pong was nauseatingly disorienting to Barry. Small animals, terrorized, charged out of the way of the raging martial artist. Finally, it happened. A nest of feral cats exploded from under her feet and one became entangled for long seconds as its claws caught in the weave of the silk shirt. Frenzied weeping changed suddenly to shrieks of fear, then…

"mmmmmmmMMMIIAOOOWwwww..."

'Ranma?'

A cat in human form padded through the woods like a ghost.

A girl in cat form leaped over the wall at the Tendo dojoand scouted around. For a change, Shampoo was not looking for Ranma but for a certain black pig. In her mouth she carried a plastic bag.

Cologne had shrugged after P-chan's fate was finally revealed. He was expendable, not an Amazon, after all. While they all had been horrified by the revelation that P-chan was now an 'it', what was done was done. It was however, a very doubtful shrug. They all knew, despite Ryoga being an outsider, he had been an ally. That meant some action had to be taken.

Both Mousse and Shampoo felt far guiltier about the incident than Cologne, having instigated it. Shampoo thought that at worst, Ryoga would lose his place in the Tendo house. At best, the pervert-girl might be forced to marry him, removing her from contention. She was uncertain about the customs the outsiders had.

The Amazons kept only sporadic contact with the outside, usually just enough to manage trade and oversee developments in magic, science and technology that might threaten them. Interpersonal relations had been gleaned from a variety of what Shampoo had long felt were really stupid sources. Shampoo acted like a bimbo primarily because all her sources told her that outsider men preferred their women to act like bimbos. Had Ranma ever seen her resume and educational credentials, he would have been shocked.

Shampoo shook herself and used ears and nose to find the stillness that indicated safety as she moved through the house. Though it was not the only reason she was here, she had to find Ryoga and ask if she could somehow help him, even if it was to give him honorable death. She smelled his scent and moved carefully toward it. A quick glance revealed that, as expected, the family was at dinner. Surprisingly, Ryoga, or rather P-chan in this form, was wandering around the low table, apparently waiting for scraps. Finally she moved upstairs. To her surprise, his scent was strongest, not in Akane's room, but Nabiki's.

She tried the door, but found it latched. That presented no problem, in and of itself; she was quite capable of leaping up and turning the knob. Inside, she used a paw to hook under the door to close it. Then she searched the room. Ryoga's pig-form scent was strong in the room. Under the bed, she discovered the faint scent of blood.

Leaping up to the computer, she tried to access the database, a difficult task with paws. Jumping down again, she punctured the first compartment of the plastic bag, which sprayed her with hot water.

Damp and naked, but human, she tapped rapidly at the keys, showing a startling facility with Japanese computer terminology and idiosyncrasies. Finding it password protected, she debated then tried the backdoor code that Cologne had given her. Shampoo gave no thought as to how it had been obtained. It worked and that was all that mattered. She probed for the latest activity.

She was astonished at what she found. There were e-mails of course, some personal documents and day-schedules, but very little to do with finances. The whole thing looked disgustingly like the correspondence of any average Japanese girl. The Internet files were more interesting in what was implied about 'mercenary-girl'. Apparently, Nabiki set her computer to erase records of website visits the same day. Shampoo knew, if Nabiki did not, that such files were recoverable, if you knew what you were doing. An eyebrow perked up as she reviewed the past week. Especially the files dated immediately around the time of Akane's disappearance. Maybe she was calling the wrong sister 'pervert-girl'.

A noise in the hallway carried to Shampoo's sensitive ears. Without undue haste, she closed out of the computer and ripped the remaining compartment of the bag with her teeth. Carefully, she poured cold water over her head and glided under the bed, taking the trash with her. The door opened and closed; she'd cut it fine. Bare feet padded across the floor and the western-style bed squeaked as someone, probably Nabiki, sat down.

"Here you are." Nabiki set down a plate of scraps and then a small black pig. "Boy! Am I going to be glad when Akane gets back! No more pets for me!" The feet left the floor as the owner stretched out on the bed. A faint rustling betrayed that she was reading a book or magazine.

Just beyond the draping bed sheets, a small black pig snarfed a plate of table scraps with enthusiastic squeals. Shampoo's stomach growled. Kasumi's cooking was as good or better than her great-grandmother's and she had missed meals as a punishment for writing that letter. Revealing Ryoga's secret without clearing it with Cologne first had been a stupid waste of resources as far as the matriarch was concerned. The pig heard the sound and oriented, without stopping its headlong attempt to choke itself on its meal, on the hidden cat. As soon as it finished its food, P-chan II charged under the bed.

"MWRRROOOWWR!" 'He bitme!'

Fur on end in outrage, Shampoo left the dubious cover of the bed to face her opponents in the open.

Nabiki recovered rapidly from her shock of having a cat scream under her bed. She scooped up the aggressive pig and regarded her uninvited guest. Shampoo returned her gaze coolly and used peripheral vision to ascertain that both door and window were closed and latched.

"Well, well, well, Shampoo! Fancy meeting you here." Nabiki smirked. "Did you want a date with P-chan?" Of course Shampoo could make no reply. Choosing pride, confident in the result, she turned and stiffly paced to the door, tail high. Once there, she sat and gave Nabiki a single disdainful glance over her shoulder. It was more than obvious she wanted to leave.

Nabiki briefly considered putting P-chan II on the floor to give Shampoo a hard time. She had had four choices at the shop where she got him and chose this one in particular when Masuranoya mentioned it didn't like cats. Having it around might reduce damage by reducing Ranma's Cat-Fist episodes. Nabiki decided that it wasn't worth the potential pain. She'd likely have all three of the Chinese after her if she deliberately injured Shampoo.

"Oh, very well! If you're going to be like that." She walked to the door and opened it, allowing the offended cat to leave. "You know, I don't think P-chan likes you very much." Shampoo sniffed and exited with a flick of her tail. "I wonder why?"

With Shampoo gone, Nabiki lay back on her bed and watched the small black pig run around on the floor. Shampoo wasn't normally into snooping on the rest of the family.

"Why would that bimbo come in here?" She glanced around her room. 'Everything seems in place. No, it couldn't be… Not that airhead! The computer?' She felt the computer. It was warm.

"So-ho! The bimbo's got more brains than she's letting on?" Nabiki opened a program and began asking her computer questions.