Shampoo, who was currently dressed in a flower print cheongsam that was, arguably, just long enough to be decent, rode through the streets of Nerima with a delivery box containing a large order of Ramen tied to the back of her delivery bike as she headed towards her destination… via Furinkan High, which was in the wrong direction. Her customers could wait; she was going to see her airen so that she could try to talk him into returning to the village with her. If she wasn't able to convince him soon she would have to start trying other methods of persuasion, possibly even mind altering drugs. Permanent ones. Though that was a last resort. Unfortunately. His personality was really annoying.
She rode through the school gates and rode around to the soccer field where Kuno sat on a bench watching the other students in his class playing a game of soccer. Kuno didn't much feel much like competing with the 'peasants' at the moment, which was lucky as the reason he was on the bench was for verbally abusing the referee after being called offside. Shampoo brought her bike to a stop and pulled down the stand before walking up behind Kuno and glomping onto him from behind.
Kuno jumped in shock as he felt Shampoo start to press her body up against his back. "Akane? Ranko?" He asked hopefully, perhaps today was the day that one of his dreams would come true and Akane, Ranko or better yet both, would declare their undying love for him.
Shampoo was annoyed by that, it was bad enough that her airen loved other women without him loving the person who had humiliated her in front of her entire village. "Wo ai ni." Shampoo managed to reply playfully after successfully suppressing a growl.
Kuno sighed when he finally associated the words with Shampoo; obviously his loves had not yet broken free of the vile sorcerer's spell or else they would have been in Shampoo's place. "Please remove yourself from my person for even though it pains your heart I am unable to return your love." Kuno said sympathetically after trying, and failing, to pry Shampoo from off of his back. He looked to the side as heard the sound of a shutter clicking and saw Nabiki ten feet away happily taking pictures of him and Shampoo, she thought it was priceless that Kuno was getting a taste of his own medicine.
"Ah Nabiki, just the person I wanted to see." Kuno stated as he stood up rapidly, shocking Shampoo enough that he was able to dislodge her, before walking over to Nabiki and leading her away to a spot where they were in Shampoo's sight, he didn't want her to feel the need to follow them, but out of her hearing range. "Tell me, have you found out about the Amazon marriage laws yet?" Kuno asked anxiously.
"Not yet Kuno-baby," Nabiki lied, she had the information he wanted but she was enjoying the situation enough that she was prepared to wait a few days before she gave him the information and, subsequently, got paid "but I'll have the information soon."
It was almost a shame that Kuno would be able to easily get out of this latest predicament, at least it would be easy once he got over his ego problem, but then again she would have felt sorry for Shampoo if she ended up stuck with him, she couldn't think of anyone who deserved to be stuck with Kuno. All that had to be done to prevent themselves being married would be for both of them to tell an Amazon village elder that they did not wish to be wed. That's why Kuno's ego would be a problem, she could tell, and so could most others, that neither of them wanted to be married to the other but Kuno's ego wouldn't let him see past Shampoo's acting; not that she was that good, not that she needed to be. But that was the beauty of the situation, she could sell the information to Kuno and he, believing that Shampoo loved him, would do nothing with it and she could then sell the information to Shampoo making everyone happy, especially herself. She found it a little odd that Shampoo didn't know this law though she guessed it was probably a little known one since men usually purposefully defeated an Amazon woman in order to claim a bride and Amazon women were strong and usually only lost if they threw a fight on purpose meaning that one party normally wanted the marriage to take place making the law in question useless.
"Please inform me as soon as you have the information." Kuno replied despondently as he headed slowly back towards Shampoo, she would have just followed him if he left. When he had made it back to her he was surprised to see her conversing with what, to him, seemed to be a clothed monkey, wig and all, balanced on a staff. "I didn't know you had a pet, and a talking one no less." Kuno said, perfectly displaying his idiocy.
Kuno was promptly driven into the ground courtesy of Cologne's staff forcefully colliding with the top of his head. "You should show me respect, son-in-law." Cologne said, the last part more than a little grudgingly.
"SHAMPOO." Yelled a white blur as it ran towards them before hugging Kuno. When the blur stopped moving it resolved itself into a man, with long black hair that reached down to the middle of his shoulder blades, who wore a white robe over long black pants. "Please don't tell me you've fallen for another man."
"I am not Shampoo. And I assure you I have no interest in men." Said a clearly disgruntled Kuno as the man continued to hug him.
Upon hearing this he abruptly let go of Kuno and pulled out a pair of glasses from within his robes before putting them on. Now that his vision was cleared up he clearly agreed with Kuno's statement, the first one that is, he couldn't be sure of the second, and sent him flying backwards with a yell of "Who are you?" He looked around until he found Shampoo, raised his glasses so that Shampoo would be able to look into his eyes when he hugged her and ran towards her only to have her step out of his path leaving him to run into the gathering crowd and grab Akane in a hug.
Akane didn't take this too well and quickly broke free of his grip in order to punch him in the face at the same time Kuno's bokken crashed into his head, he had recovered quickly when he had seen this newest miscreant 'attack' one of his loves. "Who are you anyway?" Akane asked hotly as the man picked himself off the ground.
"I am Mousse. I am the one who is to be Shampoo's groom!" Mousse proclaimed proudly as he cleaned his glasses on his robes before putting them on again.
"What you talking about? We only friends from child times." Asked Shampoo as she stared at him with raised eyebrows.
"Mousse! Weren't you once spurned by Shampoo?" Cologne asked tiredly, the idiot must have followed her here in order to see Shampoo.
"But... But... That was when we were only three." Mousse retorted, shocked that she was bringing that up. How he wished she would just hurry up and get senile already.
"Age makes no difference. It has been decided. This man will be Shampoo's groom!" Cologne said as she waved her arm towards Kuno before adding under her breath so that only she could hear "Unfortunately." Truth be told, from what she had learned of Kuno so far she would much rather have Shampoo marry Mousse than Kuno and that was saying something, she certainly didn't hold Mousse in high regard. She would have to brush up on the laws and try to find a way to get Shampoo out of this mess.
"Actually I already have an intended." Kuno stated, once again trying to push his version of reality on to others.
Someone actually listened to Kuno for once. "You have a fiancée... and yet you... and Shampoo... Enemy of all women!" Mousse said as he kicked Kuno in the side of the head. Kuno may not have been an enemy of all women, except in the eyes of Ranko and Akane, but that didn't mean the women present, or anyone else, liked him enough to correct Mousse. "I challenge you. Should I win..." Mousse started only to be cut off by Cologne.
"You can't have Shampoo." Cologne said simply, predicting what he had been about to say.
Mousse took a moment to consider what his terms should be now. "Then I will take your woman." Mousse said, if he couldn't have Shampoo he shouldn't be able to have his woman.
"Women." Kuno corrected simply.
"Women?" Mousse questioned incredulously.
"As in the plural of woman." Kuno explained, it was his duty as a nobleman to enlighten the simple people.
As Kuno and Mousse moved on to organizing a time and venue for their duel Shampoo shook her head at their stupidity. She had learned something today, two idiots were better than one. They kept each other occupied.
It was late at night when Kodachi left the Kuno estate heading towards the Tendo Dojo with a large bouquet of black roses in her arms. It had been too long since she had been able to spend some time with her Ranma-sama, in fact she hadn't been able to spend any time with Ranma since they had first met. He kept running away from her. That was why she had brought the flowers with her tonight, hopefully bringing him flowers would endear herself to him, and if it didn't there was always the paralysis gas she had hidden inside the bouquet.
As she was running along the rooftops it didn't take long before the Tendo Dojo came into her view. She had waited until this time of night so as to assure all of the Dojo's residents were asleep leaving her free to wake Ranma up and take him somewhere more private without any disruptions. As she jumped onto the boundary wall of the Tendo compound she saw a figure lying on the roof of the house. 'Ranma-sama must have known I was coming and stayed up for me.' Kodachi thought happily to herself as she bounded over to the roof. She was half right. It was Ranma but he certainly wasn't waiting for her, if he had known she was coming he would've made sure he was nowhere to be found.
At her sudden approach Ranma foolishly tried to get away. Actually the plan was a good one but the execution was poor, he tried to bolt instead of trying to slowly slink away. As soon as Kodachi noticed his rapid, frantic, movements, which was almost instantly, she threw the bouquet at him. Ranma caught the bouquet out of reflex and held it in a firm grip that was just strong enough to release the pressurised paralysis gas. "What the hell?" Ranma asked, inadvertently inhaling some of the gas.
"Don't worry, it's just some paralysis gas." Kodachi answered simply as she pushed Ranma back down onto his back.
"Damn... crazy... psycho... lunatic..." Ranma managed to get out, not even getting halfway through his intended insult, before the paralysis gas swung into maximum effect making it too difficult to continue.
"Don't say such hurtful things my darling Ranma-sama. Just because I'm quite skilled when it comes to making concoctions with... unorthodox uses hardly makes me... eccentric." Kodachi said as she kneeled down and straddled Ranma's chest. "Now let us drop such trivial matters and just enjoy our time together."
Those words alone were enough to send a shiver down Ranma's spine but, as was the case with most things in Ranma's life, it got worse. Kodachi placed her hands on Ranma's shoulders and leant her face down towards his until he could feel her cool breath on his face. As Kodachi's intentions became clear Ranma futilely struggled to move his head away from her. Unfortunately for him, and luckily for the roof, the temporary paralysis prevented him from moving, otherwise his head would've broken straight through the roof in order to move his face away from Kodachi's. As Kodachi inched her lips closer to Ranma's a rare thing happened; lady luck smiled on Ranma.
Ranko's foot arced swiftly through the air before it connected with Kodachi, sending her flying a few metres away to where she landed lightly on her feet. "Such tragic timing." Kodachi said sadly before bounding away over the rooftops with a call of "I'll see you later darling."
"You owe me." Ranko said simply as she picked Ranma up and took him inside. Ranma agreed, he was definitely indebted to Ranko for that save, so much so that he'd probably even let up on the teasing for while. On the bright side he'd gained what could possibly be useful information from that horrifying experience, he now knew that should he ever want a concoction with an unorthodox use he could probably get it from Kodachi.
Ranko and Akane made their way across the school's soccer field over to where a yatai had been set up by the Cat Café, a new restaurant that had just been opened up. They would have gone to the vendor, who was closer, but it was Shampoo and Ranko felt nervous around her even though she had apparently given up trying to kill her. "Two orders of Ramen please." Akane said as she and Ranko pulled out their money. Cologne, the proprietor and main cook for the Cat Café, quickly made and served up their orders before taking their payment.
Now that they had their food they walked back towards the centre of the field so that they would have a good view of the fight that was going to start soon; they were hoping to watch Kuno have his ass handed to him on a silver platter. Speaking of Kuno, he stood in the middle of the stage that had been built, on his request, and payment, to a local contractor, for his 'monumental battle', waiting for Mousse's arrival. Kuno wasn't left waiting too long before Mousse walked into his sight, well he was actually but that was because he'd stupidly showed up an hour early.
When Mousse reached the stage he wasted no time in jumping onto it and moving to the centre to face Kuno. "So you have come at last and just when I thought you might have done the wise thing and not shown up, it seems I gave you too much credit." Kuno said in a patronizing tone as he pulled a bokken out of his clothes and held it at the ready.
Mousse ignored Kuno's comment and moved into a simple fighting stance. As far as he was concerned this fight was nothing more than a formality in the process of winning over Shampoo, he probably wouldn't even break a sweat. "Whenever you're ready." Mousse said simply.
Kuno ran the short distance between the two of them and swung his bokken in a horizontal arc that would've left Mousse in two pieces had he not dodged it easily by leaping over it. Mousse delivered a simple kick to the side of Kuno's head, while still airborne, sending him sprawling to the ground a couple of metres away from the end of the stage. Kuno got to his feet quickly and held his bokken at the ready once more. It seemed he would need to try a little harder but that was no worry, after all, he had fought with vile sorcerers, the fact that he had lost was forgotten, or just considered trivial to him. Kuno charged at Mousse with more vigour and speed than his last charge and managed to score a few hits to Mousse before he was driven to the ground once more.
This got a vast majority of the crowd going, it seemed as though it was going to be a decent fight. The section of the crowd that wasn't excited by Kuno's successful attack comprised of two people, Ranko and Akane, and it should, again, be noted that they were hoping for more of a one sided bloodbath than a decent fight.
As Mousse watched Kuno pick himself up once more he decided to take it up a notch, he wanted to crush Kuno so as to impress Shampoo so it wouldn't do for Kuno to look good. "I think it's time I introduced myself to you properly. I am Mousse, a master of hidden weapons." Mousse said as he raised his right leg off the ground until his knee was up to the middle of his chest and curled his fingers up to resemble claws as he moved his arms above his head until they were at a roughly forty-five degree angle from his body. "THE BLOW OF THE CHICKEN EGG." He yelled out as he started procure a small number of eggs from seemingly nowhere.
As Mousse threw the first batch of eggs at Kuno he dove out of the way, he may have been stupid but he still knew an attack when he saw one, leaving the eggs to harmlessly explode on the now empty part of the stage. As Mousse threw the next batch of eggs his way Kuno dodged once more before quickly focusing in preparation for his own mid range attack. He was not misguided to his abilities as most people believed, he knew full well what his abilities and limits were, his problem was misjudging his opponent's level of skill. As Mousse was still gathering eggs into his hands Kuno started thrusting his bokken through the air at incredible speed sending small pressurised blasts of air towards Mousse.
Mousse was caught off guard and was struck multiple times by the attack. The attacks wouldn't have caused him all that much damage, he'd taken worse hits before, had one of them not struck his left hand where the eggs were held. The eggs exploded in Mousse's hand causing him a great deal of pain, knocked his glasses from his face and left the top half of his robes singed. This infuriated Mousse. He was supposed to be winning this fight easily in order to prove himself to Shampoo. In his rage he threw an assortment of chains with bladed weapons on the end of them hurtling out of his robes in the direction he assumed Kuno to be in.
As the chains sailed through the air they passed nowhere near Kuno but instead flew off the stage and towards Akane's back, since the fight wasn't going how she'd hoped it would she'd decided to go and get some more food. As the various blades neared her back she was roughly pulled to the side. Akane assumed it was Ranma trying, and succeeding, to annoy her and was about to yell at him when she realised two things. Firstly, there was a set of deadly weapons stuck into the ground where she would have been had she not been pulled aside. Secondly, and most importantly, the person who had pulled her out of the way wasn't Ranma; it was a redheaded girl who bore a strong resemblance to Ranko. Akane had initially confused her for Ranma because she happened to be wearing clothes very similar to what Ranma usually wore; the biggest discernable difference was that her shirt was blue instead of Ranma's usual red. "Are you okay?" The girl asked.
Her anger subsided when she realised it hadn't been Ranma trying to annoy her, leaving shock at the fact she had almost been killed to take its place. Because of this it took her a while before she was able to regather her senses and respond. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for saving me."
"That's okay but you may want to pay more attention to what's going on around you. Seems like the fight's about to end." The redhead said cheerfully before walking into the crowd and disappeared from Akane's sight.
It took Akane a while to remember the redhead's words after she had vanished from her sight; this was due to the fact that while she was with the girl she had been unable to take her attention off of her and the effect had lingered for a few moments after the girl had left her sight. This made her a little uneasy because only two people had ever had a similar effect on her before, Ranma and Dr. Tofu, and one predominate feature that they had in common that separated them from other people in her life was that she was, or had been, attracted to them. Yes she could admit to herself, but not to anybody else, not even under the pain of death, that she was attracted to Ranma; her attraction to Ranma had started to crop up at some indistinct point over the last few weeks.
Casting any implications from that train of thought out of her mind for the time being she returned her attention to the fight just after Mousse had picked his glasses up from the ground and put them on his face before taking off his robe and throwing it off the stage. After nearly injuring someone in the crowd he didn't wish to use his ranged attacks again and losing the weight of the weapons hidden within his robes would give him a little more speed and agility which would be useful for unarmed combat. He moved into a defensive stance and waited for Kuno to make the next move.
Kuno quite happily obliged, his confidence had received an unneeded boost after setting off the explosive eggs while they were in Mousse's hand. Kuno charged at Mousse and started up a series of strikes when Mousse was in swinging range. Mousse dodged the attacks with relative ease and unleashed his own barrage of kicks at punches at Kuno. After a few seconds of the exchange Kuno was sent flying off the stage to crash into an unlucky group of boys in the crowd.
Mousse took a moment to relax and enjoy his victory, blocking out Kuno's accusations of trickery and black magic, before walking off the stage towards Shampoo. "I love you Shampoo." He proclaimed loudly as he wrapped his arms around her. He was promptly beaten into unconsciousness by an irate Shampoo but that didn't bother him, he was finally back with his beloved.
"So, what's this for?" Ranma asked as Dr. Tofu handed him a small fish bowl that only contained water. He was currently at Dr. Tofu's clinic. Akane and Ranko had overreacted, though only slightly, to some of his comments, he personally thought they were rather funny, and beaten him up before sending him flying. He had landed outside the clinic and the good doctor had been kind enough to patch him up. If the last few beatings Ranko and Akane had dealt him were a reflection of their ability to work together in a fight then they were quickly becoming a very formidable pair.
Dr. Tofu didn't answer his question immediately, instead leading him out to the small yard located behind the clinic. "A patient gave me some eels and I'd like to pass one on to Mr. Tendo. Since you're here I was hoping you could take it for me." Dr. Tofu said as he reached down into the large container that held several eels, pulled one out and placed it into the fish bowl.
"Sure thing." Ranma replied happily, it was the least he could do after Dr. Tofu had helped him out.
And so it was that five minute later found Ranma walking along the fences of Nerima, fishbowl in hand, on his way back to the Dojo. The walk had been peaceful so far but few things remained constant, especially when it came to Ranma, and this was no exception. As soon as he heard the shout of "RANMA PREPARE TO DIE!" he came to an abrupt halt leaving Ryoga to pass just in front of him in a flying sidekick.
"I take it you want something." Ranma said dryly as he leapt off of the fence and onto the ground a few metres away from Ryoga.
"Yeah, I want you to fight me." Ryoga said menacingly as he pulled several bandanas off of his head and started to twirl them the fingers of each of his hands.
"What's in it for me?" Ranma asked in a bored tone. A lot of people had tried to kill him over the years and they always had some bizarre, yet oddly amusing, reason why. Because of this he always liked to find out why people wanted him dead. It was kind of his equivalent to collecting bottle caps. That was the only reason he'd fought Ryoga in the first place, he'd wanted to beat Ryoga's reason for wanting him dead out of him. Things hadn't worked out that way but he'd got what he wanted and now that he knew why Ryoga wanted him dead he had no interest in fighting him.
Ryoga was left dumbfounded by Ranma's question, that wasn't anywhere near the response he had expected. "Ah... If you can beat me you get to live." Ryoga dumbly managed to get out after a moments contemplative silence.
"Almost sounds tempting." Ranma said as he lazily flopped down into a conveniently located park bench. Ryoga growled at the way Ranma was dismissing him so easily before slowly and purposefully walking towards Ranma so as to give the pigtailed boy time to get to his feet and ready to fight. Ranma however chose to use the time he was given to move his hands behind his head, close his eyes, and slump down until he was reclining comfortably on the bench. "You know Ranko and Akane seem to really enjoy fighting you. Why don't you go find and fight them?" Ranma asked calmly when Ryoga was a meter away from him.
"No thanks. Even if they were here I wouldn't want to fight them." Ryoga said as he grabbed a hold of Ranma's shirt collar and roughly pulled him up off the bench and into the air.
"That's a shame." Ranma said just as calmly as before even as Ryoga drew back the hand that wasn't holding Ranma up in preparation to cave his skull in.
"And why's that?" Ryoga asked indifferently, deciding that he may as well humour Ranma a little before knocking his head off. He hadn't set out to kill Ranma today but the option sure as hell looked tempting right now.
"They're probably going to fight you regardless of your wants." Ranma whispered before forcefully changing his demeanour, moving his body around so that it seemed he was trying to break Ryoga's grip on his collar. Ranma's sudden change of behaviour confused Ryoga and as he tried to work out what was going on Ranko blindsided him, driving her knee into his temple. The shock of the blow caused him to release his grip on Ranma.
"You might want to get out of here." Akane said as she ran up to join Ranko. Ranma was all too happy to oblige, or at least pretend to. He quickly ran to and around the nearest corner before doubling back and taking perch in a nearby tree so that he could keep track of what was going on while remaining unseen.
"Dammit." Ryoga spat angrily after Ranma had run away and Ranko and Akane prepared to attack him. When Ryoga told Ranma that he didn't want to fight Ranko and Akane he hadn't been lying, had Ranma still been around he would've fought them to get to him but since he wasn't there he had no reason to fight them. "There's no point in us fighting, I'll be back for Ranma later." Ryoga said before turning away from Ranko and Akane and walking away. Ranko and Akane only stayed long enough to watch Ryoga walk out of their sight before heading off to look for Ranma to find out if he was okay.
After the others had left Ranma slammed his fist into the tree to partially vent his anger. He truly didn't care if Ryoga wanted to fight Ranko and Akane or not, he could be buddy-buddy with them for all he cared. All that mattered to him was that Ryoga did fight them, preferably attacking them viciously, and if Ryoga wasn't going to fight them of his own accord then he was just going to have to find a way to persuade Ryoga into doing what he wanted.
Ryoga wandered aimlessly through the streets of Nerima hoping, but not believing, that he would stumble upon either Ranma or the Tendo Dojo soon. As he turned down yet another random street his stomach started to growl, demanding it be fed soon. His hunger wasn't surprising. It was getting late, the sun had almost fully set, and he hadn't eaten a decent meal in a few days. Since his lack of directional sense had conveniently led him to an area that had several restaurants he chose one arbitrarily and walked towards it. As Ryoga entered the restaurant in question he read it's name out aloud to himself "The Cat Café."
Upon entering the restaurant he was promptly greeted by... hmm, that was odd, there was no one standing near him. After quickly looking around he decided that it was most likely that he had been greeted by the man in the white robes who was currently trying to usher a pot-plant that was located a few metres from the entrance to a table. After walking over to him Ryoga grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around so that he was facing him. "I think you were trying to speak to me." Ryoga said a little awkwardly. Even with all the travelling he had done having the greeting staff mistake you for a pot-plant wasn't something he'd come across before.
The usher, Mousse, cleverly decided that now would be a good time to put his glasses on and was able to lead Ryoga to a table close to the kitchen, only bumping into other tables three times along the way. "Some one will be along to take your order soon." Mousse said before retreating into the kitchen.
While he was waiting to be served he took a look around the restaurant he was in, it wasn't like there was much else he could do. It was a decently sized, nicely decorated, place with various bamboo screens partitioning off what he assumed were private tables. Spread out evenly throughout the main are were around twenty tables that could seat three or four people depending on their placement. Judging by the almost completely unmarked furniture where he sat he guessed that the restaurant was either new or had been recently refurbished. The Cat Café was certainly better than a lot of the dumps he had had the misfortune of dining at, in fact by his standards it was a high end restaurant.
Any further observations were delayed as a purple haired waitress dressed in a silk shirt and matching silk pants walked up to his table with a notepad in hand. "Hello, I Shampoo, I take your order now." Shampoo said in a friendly voice, her Japanese still slightly broken but much improved from a couple of weeks ago.
"I'll just have whatever you recommend." Ryoga said without even having looked at the menu, Shampoo nodded in understanding and made her way back to the kitchen. This was his standard practice when eating out. Since returning to a particular restaurant was a rare occasion for him he allowed the staff to order for him as they knew what the place's specialty was, this generally ensured that he got a decent meal instead of ending up with some horrible slop.
Because of where he was seated his voice carried on into the kitchen to where Cologne was currently cooking up a customer's order of pork ramen. Upon hearing the voice Cologne was intrigued, she recognised the voice but was unable to place it with its owner. She hoped over to the kitchen door on her long, gnarled, staff and poked her head through the bead curtain that separated the kitchen from the dining area. As she saw spotted Ryoga a smile grew on her face. It seemed she had been spared the effort of tracking him down. A fact for which she was truly glad, she had tried to find him after he had walked away from Ranko and Akane that afternoon but she let him out of her sight and had been unable to find a trace of him afterwards.
Cologne quickly finished up making the pork ramen and served it into a bowl before giving it to Shampoo to take the customer. She quickly made Ryoga's order, shrimp ramen, and took it out to him herself hoping that she would have some time to talk to him before another wave of customers came in. "Do you mind if I talk to you for a while?" Cologne asked as she placed Ryoga's order down on the table just in front of him.
Since Cologne was the only elder member of staff Ryoga had seen he was able to make the logical connection that she was the owner of the Cat Café. Not wishing to offend the proprietor Ryoga gestured for Cologne to take a seat as he asked "What do you want to talk about?"
After quickly introducing herself and learning Ryoga's name Cologne decided that she should take the direct approach to finding out what she wished to know in case another wave of customers came along soon and she was forced to return to work. "I wish to know your reasons for trying to fight Ranma Saotome." Cologne stated calmly as she took the seat opposite Ryoga.
Upon hearing Cologne's words Ryoga immediately became distrustful of her, for all he knew she was a friend of Ranma's gathering information on him on Ranma's behalf. "What's it to you?" Ryoga asked rudely, earning him a sharp smack to the side of the head from Cologne. "What the hell was that for?" Ryoga asked angrily as he rubbed the side of his head.
"For disrespecting your elder." Cologne said with a small smile, the fact that he was still conscious after that hit to the head spoke well of the boy's durability. "Now will you tell me why you wish to fight Ranma or do I have to beat you over the head again?"
Cologne's smile grew as she watched Ryoga making warding signs with his hands as he quickly agreed to talk to her. "I fought him a while ago and just when I thought I was going to win he used some strange technique that knocked me out. I want to find out what it was and how he did it and to do that I'm going to need to force him into using it again. If I'm lucky he'll have more than one technique that I can learn this way." He said, purposefully being ambiguous about the details of their last fight.
"So you wish to fight Ranma in order to force him into using the various special techniques that he knows?" Cologne summed up. "It seems that our goals are more or less the same. How would you feel about helping me? I'll even teach you a technique in order to help you out." Cologne said calmly before offering Ryoga her hand. As Ryoga grasped her hand firmly to seal the deal a large grin formed on her face, if she toughened Ryoga up and had him attack Ranma she would hopefully get a clearer picture of the extents of Ranma's abilities.
Ranko stood in a basic fighting stance in the middle of a large clearing facing off against Genma. She was dressed in a plain white gi that had picked up several grass stains during the short time that she had been sparring Genma. She watched Genma wearily as she struggled to regain her breath knowing that it wouldn't be long before he resumed their sparring match. She mirrored Genma as he charged towards her and the two met in a head on clash and started to exchange a flurry of blows once more. Genma had managed to quickly gain the upper hand of the exchange, just like he usually did, before sending Ranko flying backwards, putting yet another grass stain on her gi. Ranko got to her feet quickly and charged at her father once more.
This was the third day of a planned two week training trip up in the mountains. The supposed purpose of the trip had been for Genma to teach Ranko some of the special techniques of the Saotome School but so far, with the exception of their current sparring match, they hadn't done anything that even resembled training. In fact all Ranko had done over the first two days of the trip was set up the camp, cook and argue with Genma. And to think that Ranma had actually wanted to come on this poor excuse for a training trip, though she reasoned that he probably would've enjoyed being here simply because it would have gotten him out of school for a couple of weeks.
Ranko jumped to the side just in time to dodge what would've otherwise been a particularly nasty kick to her stomach. Genma's failed attack had made it so that he was no longer facing Ranko and she was able to move in and score a few hits on him. Genma let himself take the full force of the blows in order to allow himself time to cut of Ranko's attack before she was able to gain too much momentum. With Ranko's attack broken Genma retaliated with his own only to met by Ranko's stubborn defence. After a minute of his assault making no progress Genma smiled and prepared to use a new tactic.
Genma's intentions had, honestly, been to train Ranko in some of the Saotome School techniques but when he'd outlined some of them to her she'd thrown them back in his face and started arguing with him, claiming that they were idiotic. He had been offended, how could she claim that techniques such as the fast break, the crouch of the wild tiger or the Saotome desperation strikes were idiotic. But it no longer mattered; he now had the perfect opportunity to show her how wrong she had been.
Genma broke of his attack and pointed to a random spot on the ground roughly ten metres away. "Look a hundred yen coin." He said with genuine excitement; the excitement coming from the mere thought of a hundred yen.
Ranko recognised Genma's ploy for what it was but turned to look at where he was pointing anyway, planning to use his own trick against him. Ranma had, inadvertently, taught her about this technique during one of his, thankfully infrequent, boasting sessions; Ranma had just used the trick on Genma and was in hysterics that Genma had actually fallen for a blind person using it on him. "Hey, you're right." Ranko exclaimed. Genma quickly ran to spot he had pointed at and dropped onto his hands and knees in order to search for the non-existent coin, completely forgetting about attacking Ranko. Ranko walked slowly over to Genma, who frantically increased his searching not wanting his daughter to get her hands on his money, before raising her foot into the air above his head and slamming it into the back of his head.
As Genma groggily got to his feet he couldn't help but feel proud, Ranko had managed to create a counter to the second of the Saotome desperation strikes. Maybe Ranko had the same potential as her brother. He momentarily thought about starting to teach her the two fighting styles he had created, to give her something to work towards, but quickly quashed the idea; he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, besides he had technically sealed them.
After the cat fist training Ranma's progress in his training started to improve by leaps and bounds and after around a year and a half of this Genma, wanting to make sure Ranma kept his head on his shoulders, planned to show Ranma a technique or Style that he believed him incapable of learning. He had eventually decided on, and had shown, Ranma his two most powerful fighting styles, the umi-sen-ken and the yama-sen-ken. He believed his plan to have worked until two months later when Ranma demonstrated the ability to use both styles, even though he was unable to use them very effectively because of his limited speed and strength at the time. Since that was also the time that Ranma's lack of obedience towards him had started to noticeably diminish he believed showing Ranma the umi-sen-ken and the yama-sen-ken to be the cause. No, he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice; he wanted Ranko under his thumb as long as possible.
While this was going on inside Genma's head Ranko's thoughts hadn't been idle. She had realised that when Genma had created the techniques he currently wanted to teach her he had probably had himself in mind, she came to this conclusion because she couldn't think of anyone else stupid enough to fall for the trick he had tried to use. Because of this she had decided that it would be worthwhile to learn these techniques after all; they'd probably be useless in a real fight but they'd help her to keep Genma in line.
Akane sat on one of the, red vinyl covered, bench seats in an ice-cream parlour that was located a few minutes walk from the Tendo Dojo. As she placed another spoonful of her sundae into her mouth she looked over to the girl who was sitting across the table from her. If you were to choose a random group of people and ask them to describe her in three words, three words that would commonly appear would be: short busty redhead.
This was the third time that Akane had met up with her since they had met, the day of Mousse and Kuno's fight, and so she still had much to learn about her new friend. Her name was Kaya Sasaki and she had been blind since birth, at least that's what Akane took "this body was created blind" to mean. If it hadn't already been clear to Akane that Kaya was, at least a little, eccentric by her use of some stranger mannerisms, "this body was created blind" had only been the tip of the iceberg, then it had been driven home by her hero-worshipping of Ranma; it apparently came from the fact that he had taught her his, or inspired her to create her own, she hadn't been clear on the details, blind fighting technique. While Akane could understand her being thankful towards him she felt that copying his appearance, which she pulled off quite well, and following him around, she was only in Nerima because Ranma was, was going way overboard; when she had told Ranma about her he had put it down to karma, if he could have someone trying to kill him for what he had done in the past why couldn't he have a worshipper. Akane wasn't bothered by the fact that she was eccentric at times because she was a nice person. In fact that only thing that bothered Akane about her in the slightest wasn't even her fault; Akane found her somewhat attractive, she hadn't been sure at first but had recently confirmed her feelings, and that made her feel a little awkward around her at times as she had never felt that way about another girl before.
"You worried about something?" Kaya asked Akane in between shovelling spoonfuls of ice-cream down her throat at a rapid pace when she heard Akane let out a sigh; Akane had been quieter than usual but she had, up until now, just ignored it believing it was nothing important.
Akane placed her spoon down on the table as she internally debated on whether or not to answer the question truthfully. She didn't normally like to share her insecurities with others but eventually decided that the truth couldn't hurt. "It's nothing really," she started hoping that verbally downplaying her feelings would weaken them "it's just that my friend, Ranko, has gone on a training trip with her dad to learn some of her family's special techniques. We've been training together for a while now and, as much as I hate to admit it, she's a better martial artist then I am and I'm just worried that I'm going to fall even further behind her and that'll she'll lose interest in training with me."
Not once had Kaya stopped methodologically devouring her ice-cream as Akane was talking, she had to make a quick transition between her second and third ice-creams in order to pull this off, and that didn't change as she pondered how to cheer her friend up. It took a while for her to come up with a way to help cheer Akane up, but she could be forgiven for that; she'd been too focused on savouring the taste of her food to be able to think efficiently. "If you wanted I could help you train a little." Kaya suggested happily as she placed her spoon onto the table, signifying that she was finally finished eating.
It took Akane a moment to let the words set in and when they did she couldn't help but stare at Kaya sceptically as she tried to work out if she had been serious or not. After a minute had passed and she was still unable to work out if Kaya had been serious or not Akane felt the need to verbalise her confusion. "You're joking right?" Akane asked, struggling to keep her voice even but failing miserably.
"There's no need to be so enthusiastic." Kaya replied a glare; while she was, technically, unable to glare her facial expression still managed to have the same effect and caused Akane to cringe back into her seat slightly.
"Sorry," Akane replied abashedly as she looked down at the table "it's just that the only thing you could teach me, that I know of, is a blind fighting technique which I don't have any use for." Even though Akane was fully convinced of her statement she was actually a little hopeful that Kaya wanted to teach her the blind fighting technique; she had been interested in how Ranma's worked ever since he had refused to give her, or Ranko, any information a few weeks ago in the dojo and Kaya's technique was bound to be similar to Ranma's, if not identical.
"It'd actually be pretty useful for you but it's not something I plan on teach you." Kaya said as she stood up without warning and made her way towards the door indicating for Akane to follow her.
Akane hurriedly got to her feet and fell into step behind Kaya; maybe it would be appropriate to add spontaneous to the list of things she knew about Kaya after today. "So, what are you planning to teach me?" Akane asked shortly after they had left the ice-cream parlour.
"Nothing much, I'll just try and help you improve an ability you can already use to a certain extent." Kaya said simply, happy to leave Akane guessing for a while what she'd be trying to teach her.
Genma walked through the dense undergrowth of the mountain's forest as he made his way to nowhere in particular, he simply wished to be away from the campsite for the time being. He had originally planned to put Ranko through extended hours of their normal training sessions combined with teaching her the techniques so that she would only just have enough time to learn the techniques before the end of the trip. However it seemed that he had not given her enough exercises to run through because she had already learned the techniques he wanted her to. This was why he didn't wish to be around their campsite at the moment, he wished to avoid Ranko until he was able to come up with something more constructive than running through a couple of exercises for her to do.
The forest has been exceptionally quiet for the past few hours and so he was quite surprised when the sound of a large bang carried through the air. Since he presently had nothing better to do he started heading towards the direction he believed the source of the sound to be in, the direction in which several flocks of birds had simultaneously flown into the sky. After around twenty minutes he entered a large clearing that had a small flowing stream through the middle of it. The stream held no interest to Genma, what did interest him was the unoccupied campsite on the other side of the clearing. He moved quickly towards the two erected tents, planning to see if there was anything worth pilfering, but quickly fled back to the cover of the trees at the edge of the clearing as another explosion sounded through the air, seemingly coming from just on the other side of the clearing.
Genma stayed hidden behind the cover of the bushed for a few minutes waiting for any sign that someone had spotted him before starting to circle his way around the clearing to see what had caused the noise. He wanted to find out if the people who were staying at the campsite were dangerous, he assumed they were behind the explosions and thus thought it likely, because people tended to be hostile towards him; of course he conveniently chose to ignore that he gave people reasons to be hostile towards him, the act of theft he planned to commit shortly was a prime example. When he was on the opposite side of the clearing than before he heard to people conversing with each other, well to be more accurate one person was verbally abusing the other as they meekly protested. He silently crawled into a nearby bush that was close enough to the two people to hear them speaking clearly and pulled a few branches to the side in order to give himself an unobstructed, unobtrusive, viewing spot.
Roughly ten metres from where Genma was hidden a large, roughly spherical, boulder in a harness was being held a few metres off the ground by a particularly thick rope tied to one of the larger branches of the biggest trees in his sight. Suspended alongside the boulder was a young boy, with a yellow and black spotted bandana tied around his head, wearing dark green pants and yellow long-sleeved shirt, who was tied up so that he had only one arm free and the hand on that arm had been tied up with cloth so that his fingers, with the exception of his pointer finger, were balled into a fist. "Again." The boy said angrily as he stared angrily at a tiny old woman who stood atop the boulder.
Cologne, the old woman, was more than happy to comply with the boy's request. She reached out with her staff until it was touching one of the tree's other branches before pushing hard against it to send her, and the boulder she was on, away from Ryoga. When the boulder reached the peak of its swing it stopped momentarily before swinging back towards the boy like the pendulum it was at the time. From his viewpoint Genma was unable to discern what the boy tried to do but he clearly saw the result; the boulder collided with the boy with incredible force knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing him a lot of pain. To Genma the whole thing seemed close to torture. In other words he saw it for what it was; a bizarre training technique that produced great results because of its extremity. Just the type he liked.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Ryoga? You have to hit the breaking point." Cologne said as she reached down and tapped the boulder with one of her fingers before leaping off the boulder just before the boulder exploded and landing safely on the ground. Ryoga hadn't been fortunate enough to escape the blast, being tied up and all, and now sported several, slowly bleeding, lacerations over the entire front of his body from where the rock shrapnel had struck him. Ryoga slowly shook himself to his senses before wiping the blood, sweat and dirt from his face with his free arm eager to continue his training.
Genma was pulled out of his daze, the daze had been induced by learning that he was witnessing the breaking point training, by the sound of another boulder slamming into Ryoga's body. He briefly wondered how the boulder had been put into place, surely it couldn't have been the old woman's doing, before deciding that it didn't matter, he had to focus on learning the secret of the breaking point technique. With all thoughts of stealing from the campsite wiped from his mind Genma slowly started to move around in order to find a place where he could more clearly see Ryoga's movements. Since Genma's prying eyes and ears went unnoticed by Ryoga and Cologne Ryoga's training continued on and Genma was able to see Ryoga poking at the boulder with his finger several times, before he was promptly smashed by the boulder, but was unable to get even an inkling at how the breaking point was supposed to work.
Cologne had developed a growing ire as Ryoga continually failed to find the breaking point and she felt the need to bait him into trying harder. "How do you expect to even pose a threat to Ranma when you can't even learn such a simple technique?" Cologne asked snidely as she looked distastefully down at Ryoga's battered and bruised body.
Genma's excitement at having a chance to learn the secret of the breaking point left him, being replaced by worry, as he heard Cologne's words; this boy was obviously planning to attack Ranma using what he understood to be a lethal technique, the breaking point. He slowly snuck away, giving up on his chance to learn the breaking point in order to warn Ranma of what was coming as soon as possible.
Soun, Nabiki and Ranma sat around the table in the family room as they waited for dinner to be served; Soun and Nabiki with dreaded apprehension, the likes of which you would expect from a condemned prisoner, and Ranma with amusement, caused by their anxiety. Akane was cooking tonight. Even though she tried hard to make decent meal she always failed miserably and her family were either too polite, Kasumi, or too scared, Soun was a cry-baby and Nabiki was scared of how her temperamental sister may react if her barbed tongue were to slip, to say anything about it. So as it was all that could be done was to have Kasumi watch over her in order to prevent any potentially fatal mistakes; occasionally, when Akane was far out of earshot, Nabiki commented that that wasn't necessarily for the best, though that was sarcasm, at least mostly.
Nabiki's mind was working frantically as she tried to think up a decent excuse to escape her impending fate; she usually knew when Akane was going to be cooking and made arrangements to be out of the house but this had been one of the few times she had no warning and had been herded to the table by Kasumi before she could escape. There had to be some way to guarantee her survival through this meal, after all if Ranma was able to survive… that was it Ranma was immune to Akane's cooking and since that wasn't natural for a human, then again maybe he wasn't human, to be able to eat Akane's cooking it must have been a weird martial art's technique that allowed him to eat it. All she had to do was get Ranma to teach it to her before dinner was served and she would be safe and, considering her motivation, she'd be able to learn anything almost instantly right now. It must be noted here that Nabiki's thoughts were both eccentric and erratic due to her belief that she may be about to eat her last meal.
"Hey Ranma, care to tell me what you did to let you eat Akane's cooking last time?" Nabiki asked as casually as she could manage, which wasn't all that much at the present moment in time.
Having already been on the receiving end of several of Nabiki's money making schemes, see blackmail and extortion, Ranma wasn't feeling inclined to answer Nabiki's question, not for free anyway. "How much is it worth to you?" Ranma asked curiously.
Nabiki had to think about that one and after deliberating long and hard, well not so long but hard, Nabiki stated her answer "Ten thousand yen." This was not a lie on Nabiki's part either; she was by no means a suicidal person wishing to end their life but if she spent more than ten thousand yen on anything she wouldn't be able to live with herself anyway, unless it wasn't her own money.
Even though Nabiki hadn't offered him very much money he accepted it anyway. He was only taking her money because he wanted to get money out of her for once and since he wasn't stupid enough to believe it likely for him to outsmart her he was going to make use of this opportunity. He waited until he had his cash in hand, he'd had to pry it from Nabiki's grip, before he started with his explanation. "The reason I can eat Akane's food so easily is because I've eaten a lot of food of only slightly better quality when I was wandering around China by myself. Do you know how hard it is to cook when you're blind, let alone over a campfire? Most of the things I cooked got burnt to a crisp because I couldn't smell them burning because of the smoke from the fire. The things that weren't burnt until they were probably beyond recognition were closer to being raw than cooked and that generally left me vomiting for a few days. On more then one occasion I even managed to grab something inedible and mix it in with my food by mistake. The great part was that I had to eat whatever I made, at least most of the time, because otherwise I would've starved. So all you need to do to be able to eat Akane's cooking no problems is eat it for month straight and after that you'll barely even notice it; it's not poisonous you just can't stomach it." Ranma said happily. He knew his answer wasn't what Nabiki had wanted and that she'd probably extort him even more from now on but that didn't matter, all that meant was that she'd be getting what small amount of money he had off of him slightly faster.
Ranma hit the pavement with a loud thump. He had just taken the scenic route to… wherever he happened to be now, i.e. he'd pissed Akane off and been sent skywards for it; he probably could have gotten away with his comments about her loving Mousse, who'd mistaken her for Shampoo and glomped onto her putting her into a bad mood, had he not added that Kuno would be crushed that she was breaking up with him and that Shampoo would probably want to kill her for making moves on both her men. He slowly peeled himself off of the sidewalk and started to rub the multiple bruises that were stating to form all over his body. Oh well, it'd been worth it. In fact he'd gotten off lightly, Ranko had returned the night before and he'd been unable to resist throwing in a couple of comments about Akane stealing Kuno from her but she'd apparently been happy with the beating Akane was dishing out and had let Akane deal out the punishment by herself.
Since Genma had told Ranma that Ryoga was training in some technique, he hadn't really paid attention to the details, in order to beat him Ranma's mind had been trying to come up with a way to divert Ryoga's attack on him to Ranko and Akane. As of yet he had been unable to come up with anything but he didn't need a plan urgently yet as he figured he had at least a few days before Ryoga showed up. He slowly started to head back in the general direction he had come. He had a long walk ahead of him. Who knew, by the time he made it back to the Tendo's he may have had a solution to his problem.
He had walked around five blocks when he heard the shrill laugh that belonged to his, current, greatest annoyance, since Shampoo had started pestering Kuno to marry her Kuno no longer had time to try and kill the 'vile sorcerer', Kodachi. "Greetings my Ranma-sama." Kodachi greeted happily as she pressed herself into his back.
Ranma replied something to her absentmindedly even as he suppressed a shudder; Kodachi gave him the creeps. This was mainly due to three things: Her laugh, self explanatory. Her bondage fetish, she always tried to tie him up with her ribbon when he tried to run from her. And her unorthodox concoctions that could alter a person's bodily functions and probably even a person's mental state…
A/N:
I'm sorry for the long delay between chapters. My university assignments took a fair bit longer than I had originally anticipated but I now have no more assignments for the rest of the semester. On top of that my inexperience at writing cropped up pretty badly in this chapter, I had some trouble putting my thoughts into words. I think most of it's alright but there a few small things that could have probably been done better.
I hope I haven't killed off anyone's interest in the story yet by having Ranma know the senkens. If it's any help I don't have any intentions of having him using them in the present, though there I have one planned use for the yama-sen-ken in a flash back that'll hopefully help to explain some of Ranma's actions.
People are probably going to bring up the fact that the senkens are sealed and so Ranma shouldn't be able to be taught them but it is my belief that Genma giving Ryu Kumon's father the yama-sen-ken scroll would be an event that fits into the ten years ago category. Since Genma wouldn't have given away the scroll if it was sealed it is my assumption that the senkens were only sealed within the last ten years and in the story I have Ranma having learned them around nine years ago so I'm assuming he learnt them before they were sealed.
That thing to allow Kuno and Shampoo out of being married. That's just there in case I want to get them out of it down the track but it definitely isn't going to be used anytime soon. The only effect it's going to have in the short term is to change Shampoo's attitude towards Kuno.
If people are wondering where Kaya Sasaki comes from. According to some forum I looked up Kaya is a popular Japanese girls name, or was a few years ago, and I got Sasaki from a downloaded list of the top five hundred Japanese surnames and surprise surprise I added them together. If you think it sucks, I personally don't think it's that great, feel free to suggest a better name because I suck at giving things names; hence why Ranko is named Ranko and the chapters haven't been titled, I think my bad summaries come from a related problem. I could name the chapters but there would be the risk that the names would suck and that some of the them may be the titles of songs that I feel have some relevance to the chapter. So if you think the chapters should be named just tell me so, though keep the previous sentence in mind.
It was pointed out in a review that I didn't show who Ranma went to while under the cat fist in order to calm down. This is because he won't go to anyone he prefers to avoid people and anyone who comes to close him will be swiped at.
As to Ranma being unable to use two ki techniques at once. That just comes down to my personal opinion really. I'm working with the assumption that the martial artist's inhumane strength, speed etc. comes from them subconsciously augmenting their natural abilities by focusing their ki within their bodies. Ranma's blind fighting technique is overriding this natural response and pushing his ki out from his body in order to sense things. The two are basically opposites so it's pretty much one or the other when it comes to that. Even if they could be done in unison that would require pushing however much ki out of his body to survey his surroundings, manipulating his ki to enhance his body and focusing on whatever else he was doing at the time; I think that's too big a task. Some techniques like the chest nuts roasting on an open fire technique (catchu tenshin amiguriken) would be able to be used in conjunction with the body's subconscious abilities because they would be quite similar. Make sense? If not, or you just don't agree, just put it down to my personal opinion.
Sorry for the long A/N. Next chapter will hopefully be done in the next three to four weeks.