I think around this point in my life, Steel really played a major part.. Hard to keep writing when you have a love life finally... (Girlish blush)
I'm still amazed I kept writing, though. A year is a very long time between chapters...
Spatulas and Bandannas by Shikoku
Chapter Fifteen: Getting Back To Business
Let's see, where was I...? The author thinks for a few minutes. This was a tough question to answer... Seemed forever since she visited this particular world...
Around her, a giant crowd had formed. They consisted of mostly every student, and even a few teachers of Furinkan high school. All of them were watching something, something which caused them to shout and scream and get all excited. The author couldn't tell what they were all looking at, because they were doing a great job of blocking her view. She had absolutely no idea what was going on.
The author sighed and obviously frustrated, ran a hand through her already unruly long hair. For crying out loud, she was the author! She was supposed to know what was going on around here!
She hated to admit it, but she was going to have to find out the hard way...
Sighing again, the author made her way through the crowd. She passed by a few booths selling refreshments, not even noticing that Ukyo's okonomiyaki cart was absent for once... She walked past an annoyed looking Shampoo, past Akane and Ranma and Cologne. Ranma and Akane were looking worried, Cologne indifferent, and the bag Akane was carrying was thrashing around violently, but again, the author didn't notice. The author was never known for having very good observational skills... Oh, well...
Finally, though, she found the person who she had been looking for. If one needed information in Nerima, who better to go to than the one person that had her nose in everyone's business? Yeps, the author was desperate enough to go to Nabiki Tendo for help. Sad, ain't it?
The author paused a moment to get her courage together, then she bravely tapped the taller girl on the shoulder.
Nabiki sighed, wondering who dared to distract her from watching her assets pile up. (She of course had made sure to take full advantage of this opportunity and had a good sum of money riding on this fight. Naturally...) The Middle Tendo sister turned, and was somewhat surprised to see who exactly was bugging her. She raised an eyebrow questioningly.
The author gulped. "Ugh... I'm sorry for bugging you, but I need to ask you something..." She rushed into her question before losing her nerve. "Whexactlyisgoing on?"
Nabiki blinked, then gave the author one of her sly smiles... "YOU don't know?" She smirked.
The author blushed a deep red, then nodded. "I've been busy lately," she tried her pathetic excuse...
"Ah... Ten thousand yen"
"What?"
"That's how much information will cost you." Nabiki smiled pleasantly at her.
The author sighed, then excused herself. Information from Nabiki Tendo was just too expensive for her. She decided to make do with the next best thing. It wasn't as accurate, but at least it didn't cost a thing...
It didn't take as long for the author to find who she was looking for this time. They were in their usual place on the sidelines, watching like they were always doing. Hiroshi was munching on a corndog, as was Daisuke, but the darker haired boy would sometimes stop eating to watch a cute girl pass by. He was doing that again when the author approached them.
"Hey, guys," She greeted them.
The boys were surprised to see her, to say the least. "What are YOU doing here?" Hiroshi asked.
She looked sheepish, again. "Uhm... I need some help... I'm not sure what's going on around here. Can you tell me?"
The boys looked shocked to hear this, but it wasn't to last. They started laughing. "You... don't know what's going on and you're the one writing this?" Daisuke choked back another fit of laughter.
The author just turned a nice shade of red. "Comeon, I'm only human! Now are you going to tell me, or is this whole chapter going to be about me catching up?" She grabbed Daisuke and started shaking him around violently.
Hiroshi came to his friends rescue. "Okay, okay... put him down. We'll talk."
The author immediately dropped Daisuke on his butt.
"Ouch!"
"We're watching another fight in the schoolyard... Ryoga's fighting that weird Chinese guy that just showed up..." said Hiroshi.
"Yeah," Daisuke chimed in from his place on the ground. "Though Ryoga looks kind of... funny..."
The author blinked, then smacked fist to palm in remembrance. "Oh, yeah... thanks, guys!" She cried, cheerfully. Now that she knew she could leave and get back to work.
"Hey!" Hiroshi called out after her. "Aren't we gonna get anything out of helping you?"
"Yeah!" Daisuke added. "How about setting us up with Shampoo and Ukyo. Grrroowwwll!"
The author turned and gave both boys a raspberry, sticking out her tongue cutely at them. "Too late, boys, you should have asked for payment BEFORE giving me the information I needed. You guys will never be good business men, maybe you should learn something from Nabiki..." She then gave them a cute grin, then left.
The boys now alone again in the crowd sighed as one.
"We never win." Commented Daisuke.
Hiroshi nodded sagely, and they went back to watching Mousse and "Ryoga" fight.
Shampoo had a dilemma. Well, maybe 'dilemma' isn't the right word... She wasn't exactly in danger or nothing... All she was doing was standing in the sidelines watching Mousse and Ukyo dressed up as Ryoga fight. Maybe the word I'm looking for is 'problem'. And a problem is what Shampoo had.
Who the heck should she root for?
She didn't really care for either fighter. Mousse had been her childhood friend, that was true, but he was still more often an overbearing pain to her. He'd been like that ever since he got that silly idea to fall in love with her. Since then, he had been constantly harassing her trying to 'win' her over, make her love him, too. In other words he was annoying her too much for her to decide what SHE wants.
Ukyo, on the other hand, had given Shampoo no reason to like her. She had been mean to her since the first day they met. Shampoo still wasn't sure what Ukyo's problem was. She had no claim over Ryoga. It wasn't like Shampoo was trying to steal Ukyo's fiancee or husband... He was only her best friend. Shampoo shook her head. She had more right to Ryoga than Ukyo did. He WAS after all her husband to be by amazon law.
So Shampoo was watching the fight, hoping that somehow everything would work out in her favor. Her only comfort was knowing that if Mousse won he'd get to take Ukyo away from Ryoga... Still it felt funny for her to root for the dopey blind duck... This was definitely a first... She was afraid that doing it once would cause her to actually... shudder LIKE him... Of course that will never happen... Right...
Shampoo pushed that evil thought from her mind. Instead she went back to concentrating on the fight...
Wow... both fighters weren't that bad...
"Ryoga" was having a harder fight than she... I mean HE thought it would be. The girl who usually called herself 'Ukyo Kuanji' was still trying to decide if listening to the pig was such a good idea. Ukyo cursed herself and the pig, called "P-chan"... Honestly, why did I let him talk me into this? She asked herself. But subconsciously, she knew why, but she wasn't telling...
The thing is Ukyo considered herself a decent martial artist. She could hold her own against Ryoga, who she considered a VERY good martial artist, and she even showed Ranma a thing or two, while she was fighting him... But those times were when she had her weapon of choice, the giant spatula which really packed a whallop in her slender hands. But to be Ryoga, Ukyo had to fight up against Mousse without her beloved spatula, otherwise, she'd blow her cover.
Ukyo was far from helpless without her weapons, but she was up against a guy that had weapons coming out of his armpits (literally), not to mention the fact that he was taller than she was and had the reach advantage, she was used to getting...
"Fist of the White Swan!" Mousse cried as he tried his training potty attack on her, again.
Ukyo ducked under it, trying to get past his strong defense, so she could take this fight a little more up close and personal. The only problem was that Mousse wouldn't let her do that.
"Die, Ryoga!" He cried again, now throwing a bunch of chains at her. She tried to avoid them, but they still managed to find their way around her wrists before she could duck away. Ooo, look! One of the chains is a yo-yo! Oh, never mind...
Mousse took advantage of this and slammed her down on the ground. "Gee, I'm disappointed, Ryoga... I thought you'd be a better challenge..." Mousse quipped, grinning cockily. He began throwing spears at her, trying to pin her down... or just skewer her, depending on who's point of view you're going by...
Ukyo somehow managed to wiggle out of the way from being punctured. The spear went through the chains instead, freeing her. Ukyo quickly jumped to her feet and grinned. She grabbed one of the spears and pulled it out of the ground. Once freed, she twirled it around much like she did her spatula and ended in a ready position with the spear's tip pointed straight at Mousse.
"A challenge, you say?" She grinned evilly at the taller boy. "I can do that..." And she charged at him.
Mousse suddenly found himself on the defensive, as the tables were turned.
P-chan decided that hiding in Akane's book bag was not exactly a good idea... Sure it was a great hiding place. Nobody had noticed that he was there, yet, but he forgot to consider the drawbacks...
For one thing, P-chan had no idea how the fight was going, or if Ukyo was doing all right. He cursed at himself, for not thinking about this earlier, and wishing that dumb bookbags had eyeholes for him...
The only way P-chan had been getting any idea about what was happening so far was from listening to Akane and Ranma's reactions to the fight, and whatever other sound effects made its way to inside his cozy little bag. That way he had an idea of what was going on, but not enough to satisfy him...
Frankly, P-chan was wishing he had just swallowed his pride and sent a message to Mousse telling him that he couldn't fight with him. But no, now Ryoga's best friend was fighting his fight for him, and Ryoga had no idea who was winning...
Once again, P-chan heard the crowd roar, and he wondered with a sigh which fighter that cheer was for.
Outside of Akane's bookbag, Akane and Ranma had a better
view of the fight, but they were both just as worried as P-
chan was. Twice, Akane had to prevent Ranma from rushing
into things and 'saving' Ukyo. "It won't do her any
good, you baka. She said, once again keeping him back by
pulling on his shirt tails.
"What do ya mean, 'wouldn't do anything good'" Ranma almost shouted, yanking his shirt out of Akane's hands. "That Mousse guy is creaming her!"
"Do you think I missed that!" Akane shouted back, her anger sparking, once again. "But you can't just go in to save her, this is her fight! Besides, she's supposed to be Ryoga, right, now, remember?'
"Oh, yeah..." Ranma said, suddenly remembering.
"Baka..." Akane muttered. How could he be so thick?
"What did you say?" Ranma cried, overhearing her. His own anger quickly returned, and it caused his pigtail to stand straight up. It looked kind of goofy.
Fortunately for the crowd around them, Dr. Tofu happened to show up, ending their fight.
"Dr. Tofu," gasped, Akane, reverting to her cute and extra feminine side of her personality. She knew deep down that she would never be able to steal the good doctor's affections from her eldest sister, but a part of her still hoped.
"Why hello, Akane," Dr. Tofu greeted her pleasantly, totally unaware that there had been tension in the air before he showed up. "Hello, Ranma. Why I do believe there is a fight going on around here."
"Yo, Doc," Ranma replied. "Yeah, there usually is a fight going on around here, but what brings you around here?" Ranma wanted to cut through the chit chat and get to the point. Besides seeing Akane act all girlie girlie around the doctor really got on Ranma's nerves.
"Actually, I'm here looking for Ryoga. I may have found something that can help his case." Akane and Ranma's ears perked at this. "Do you two happen to know where I can find him?" The good doctor continued on, unaware of the two teenager's reactions.
From inside Akane's bookbag came a loud 'bwee!" Dr. Tofu looked in and saw the cute lil piggy. "Oh, there you are, Ryoga," the doc said, somehow recognizing him. "Did you know you are a pig?"
Everyone face-faulted.
Now back to the more interesting stuff, namely: THE FIGHT SCENE! Ah, gotta love senseless violence.
Now armed with a spear, Ukyo had effectively turned the tide of the fight to her side. Better yet, she still managed to do that and look like Ryoga. At least more than half of her audience still believed her to be him. Even Kuno was rooting for Mousse to kill his 'hated enemy'. Not that Kuno was all that hard to fool, anyway...
Mousse however, was far from calling himself defeated. He had always been persistent, how else could he be able to put up with Shampoo's rejections all these years? The fact that 'Ryoga' knew how to fight with a spear was not enough for the master of hidden weapons to give up the fight. Still he knew that it was time for him to change his plans.
He backflipped away from Ukyo and her pointy weapon, creating distance between them. Once again, he was grateful for his time with the circus for he was quite agile because of it. Once enough space was in between them, Mousse reached up his sleeve and pulled out a large fistfull of pointy knives. With those knives, Mousse started to throw them like darts at Ukyo, hoping they would be small enough to get past whatever defense Ukyo could create with her spear.
Ukyo wasn't happy. She preferred being the one to use this type of technique, but she couldn't as Ryoga... Sure, she could have used Ryoga's bandanna throw as a counter, but Ryoga had never showed her how to do that. For now she would have to suffice with using her spear to knock as many of the blades away and dodging as many of the ones that get past her spear as best as she could. Unfortunately, she found herself barely dodging most of the sharp objects, at least enough not to get cut, but her baggy clothes on the other hand... Let's just say, Mousse was effectively undressing her by shredding her clothes off bit by bit.
This of course didn't go unnoticed to the spectators. Many a girl got excited as more and more of 'Ryoga's' clothing got ripped off, in anticipation of seeing his 'manly' assets. However, as the clothing swiftly disappeared, their anticipation turned to shock, as they found out that 'Ryoga' wasn't as manly as they had all thought.
Still it wasn't a total loss, once the women lost interest, the men perked up considerably.
Finally, one especially smart Furinken High student realized something. "Hey! That ain't Ryoga! That's Ukyo!"
Well, of course a declaration like that caught everybody's attention. Soon almost everybody in the audience agreed that this Ryoga was indeed Ukyo. The only one who still disbelieved of course was our favorite Kendo captain, who thought that Hibiki was performing some kind of evil sorcery to fool everyone's eyes. Kunos, go fig.
Meanwhile, Ukyo was devastated by what was happening. It seemed that as soon as she found a spot that needed covering, a new one would form on the other side of her body. By this time, she felt completely exposed in front of everyone. She didn't know whether to burst into tears or pound everyone that was looking at her into the ground. Rage and embarrassment burned within her, and she didn't know what to do about it.
But as it turned out, she needn't do a thing, for suddenly the knives quit coming. Dumbfounded, Ukyo looked down at the rest of her clothes, which were mere rags by now. She blushed a bright red, and vainly tried to cover herself, again. She glanced around to see if everybody was staring at her, but she was surprised to find that not one person was looking at her in the audience.
All eyes were on the naked, wet, and VERY enraged Ryoga, who had one fist around the Chinese fighter's neck.
Next time on Spatulas and Bandannas: Will Mousse live through Ryoga's wrath? Will Ryoga think to put any clothes on before pounding Mousse into the ground? Find out in Spatulas and Bandannas Sixteen.
Wow... I finally managed to finish another chapter... bows
I so sorry for the long wait.
Here's my list of lame excuses:
Started working on other projects
Computer died, deleting much of story
Then promptly lost the rough draft version, I have on paper
Lost interest in 'normal' couples' for awhile
My muse. Bertha, didn't feel like writing.
School
Got a life beyond writing/reading fanfiction.
There, I hope those lame excuses suffice for now. Now I'll
see what I can do about writing the next chapter.
Please, nobody time me, it might end up taking another year.
Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to everyone who actually
wrote me, begging for more, especially, Joey from Chorus who
has bugged me on numerous occasions.
See, it finally paid off, I just hope it was worth it.
Love,
Shikoku
P.S. Character's not mine, they belong to Rumiko Takahashi.