Author's Notes: I am really sorry that this chapter took so long to come out, guys. November was just... a bad month for me. Still, I hope that you all enjoy the end result, especially considering how surprisingly well you all took to the previous chapter!
Yasha-HebiHime: You are aware that McDonalds and KFC have both appeared in Ranma 1/2 canon, right? Even in the 1980s and 1990s, those two franchises did exist in Japan. One of Ranma and Akane's first major bonding moments, at least in the anime, was them eating McDonalds burgers together, and Colonel Sanders was used as an expo-gag in that one story where Ranma is being haunted by the astral projection of an old man.
Chapter 17: Ranma's Secret Shame! The Nekoken Revealed!
Life in Nerima just hadn't quite been the same since Nabiki Tendo had gotten engaged. Case in point, on Monday, it turned out that her fiancé's father had actually engaged said fiancé to another girl for a temporary profit - whilst this wasn't the first time she'd learned that fact, or the first time that said girl had tracked Ranma down hoping to call in the engagement, it was the first time that the Chinese Amazon who declared Ranma was her husband by tribal law had chosen to accept the engagement. That had been... messy, even for Nerima.
It was now Friday, and fortunately things had calmed down after the initial hysteria. Nabiki was uncertain as to whether to be impressed or disgusted by the fact that Genma had managed to talk his way out of her father Soun's righteous fury... seeing the two "big strong men" cowering in fear from two sixteen year old girls as Shampoo and Ukyo had made it very clear what their mutual opinions were on the idea of them being booted from the Tendo household had at least been amusing. Once Kasumi had added her support for Shampoo and Ukyo's continued presence, of course, the matter had been settled: nobody would ever defy Kasumi.
Oh, it was true that Soun and Genma weren't exactly happy with the situation, but as far as the teens involved were concerned, it was none of their business. Nabiki was a little upset that Akane still seemed to be angry about the whole situation, but had resigned herself to the fact that, really, Akane just didn't seem to approve much of Nabiki's engagement, period.
But things calming down was a very different kettle of fish to things going back to normal, even by the new definition of normal that Nabiki had abiki had adjusted to. Case in point; rather than the usual morning brawl of the resident teen martial artists trying to beat up Genma at an unholy hour of the morning, whilst Nabiki took candid shots of the usually soaking-wet ladies, instead Genma and Nabiki were sitting on the sidelines as Ranma stood in the garden, holding a defensive pose as both Shampoo and Ukyo poised themselves to attack at any moment.
"So... what, you get sick of getting your butt kicked, pop?" Ranma dryly asked his father.
"Ranma, my boy, if you're going to be serious about letting these... girls... consider themselves to be a part of this school, then it's high past time that you began training against them as well as with them," the Saotome patriarch rumbled in response.
"He has a point, airen," Shampoo conceded. "Besides, Shampoo curious to see if Shampoo got better since last we fight."
"Be careful what you wish for," Ukyo muttered. Unlike Shampoo, she looked more concerned, even nervous, than excited.
"Aw, don't worry, Ucchan; I'll be gentle," Ranma promised her, winking playfully and then looking briefly confused when Ukyo blushed in response.
"Enough talk - begin!" Genma snapped, waving an arm imperiously for emphasis.
All three teenage martial artists rolled their eyes at Genma's attitude, but they complied with his command all the same. Nabiki watched in admiration as they virtually disappeared from sight, moving with such speed that even after her crash-course in martial arts, all she could make out was three blurs interspersed with the occasional clear image. Shampoo and Ukyo attacked Ranma with incredible teamwork, considering how little time they had known each other, but Ranma countered them with impossible grace. It was almost like watching a hyper-speed dance as the two girls punched, kicked, jabbed and chopped at Ranma, who dodged and wove fluidly around every strike.
The air was filled with feminine battlecries and other sounds of exertion as the two girls attacked, but despite their best efforts, they just couldn't seem to land a hand on Ranma, who twisted and darted like a live eel on a hotplate in order to evade everything they threw at him. Nabiki was definitely not a martial artist, but even she knew enough to recognize and admire the skill on display.
Beside her, Genma simply sat and sullenly stared at the display, before finally bellowing, "Enough playing, Ranma! Finish it!"
Ranma threw an irritated glare at his father, nimbly wove around a punch from Shampoo and then jumped over a sweep-kick from Ukyo, but evidently decided to humor him. He landed on Ukyo's still-outstretched leg, and then used it as a perch from which to backflip over her. As the bifauxnen frantically wheeled to face him, his right hand stabbed out like a striking snake and tapped her on the forehead, causing her to backpedal in instinctive confusion and lose her balance. Even as she fell flat on her butt, Ranma was already charging at Shampoo, who at least attempted to put up more of a fight. But she just wasn't fast enough, with Ranma weaving in between her blows as if she were moving in slow-motion before tapping her on the face in the same manner he had with Ukyo. Unlike Ukyo, Shampoo continued to bull forward, forcing Ranma to instead sidestep and trip her, so she wound up with her face planted squarely into the grass of the garden.
Genma let out an ursine grunt at the sight of his son standing in between two stunned and fallen female warriors. "I guess you haven't been getting soft and letting them do all the work for you," he conceded.
"As if I'd ever do something that lazy," Ranma scoffed, crossing his arms at the very thought. "You girls okay?"
"Ten years..." Ukyo muttered, looking quite dismayed. "I spent ten years training by the raging sea to avenge myself on you... and I feel like a grade schooler going up against a black belt."
Ranma flinched at that. "Ah, well..."
"Stupid old panda is lousy excuse for father, but Shampoo must admit, he not bad as trainer. Ranma is toughest fighter Shampoo ever seen - almost think airen be invincible," the Chinese Amazon noted, a strange mixture of pride and annoyance evident in her voice and on her face as she made that observation.
At that, Genma let out a booming laugh. "Invincible? Nonsense, girl! My Ranma might be better than most, but everyone has their weaknesses... why, Ranma himself has a particularly glaring weak spot!"
"Shut up, y'old fool!" Ranma blurted out, staring in wide-eyed shock at his father.
Both of Ranma's martial artist fiancées were now staring at Genma with considerable interest, and even Nabiki's curiosity had been piqued.
"Issat so? You wanna share with us what that is, old man?" Ukyo 'suggested'.
"We your daughters now, is only right we know family secrets like that," Shampoo added with the sweetness of poisoned honey.
Sweat was visibly beading on Genma's face, his eyes darting in all directions behind his glasses as he obviously tried to find a way to wriggle out of it. Then inspiration seemed to hit him like a thunderbolt and he shouted, "School! It's getting late, you kids need to get to school, right now!"
"Tch, that lame excuse..." Shampoo scoffed.
"Except he's actually right, we really are starting to run late!" Nabiki interjected, having just confirmed her suspicions by glancing at the living room clock.
"Oh, weevils! C'mon, Ranchan!" Ukyo cried, scrambling to her feet.
Shampoo watched as her spouses hurried to gather their things and then raced out of the house, momentarily basking in pleasure at the fact that she was exempt from having to worry about such problems.
'...But it also means that now I will be left to my own meagre entertainment until they return, so in the end, it is hardly worthwhile being spared the minor inconvenience...'
She sighed and wandered inside to see if maybe she could give Kasumi some help with the dishes from breakfast. As she went in, she was unaware of a pair of beady little eyes watching everything from the darkness underneath the Tendo's house.
'So, the indomitable Ranma Saotome has an Achilles heel? How interesting... Master Kuno will want to know this, but first, I must uncover the secret in its entirety... ooh, a lot of nice fat bugs down here. I haven't eaten so well in days...'
That afternoon...
"Kasumi! I'm home!" Akane's voice echoed from the genkan, making both Kasumi and Shampoo look up from the television.
"Welcome home, Akane!" the eldest Tendo eagerly called out to her little sister.
"Kasumi, do we have any spare milk?" Akane responded, eliciting a confused expression from her elder sister.
"I... think so. But why..?" Kasumi asked, even as she stood up and headed towards the kitchen, the curious Shampoo following along behind.
They got their answer when they reached the kitchen and found Akane crouched over a bowl filled with milk, with a kitten greedily lapping away at it.
"Oh, it's so adorable!" Kasumi cooed, clasping her hands and beaming down at her smiling sibling.
"Where Akane get cute kitty?" Shampoo asked, smiling affectionately at it.
"One of my friends asked if I could take care of her for the night whilst she's out of town - some kind of sporting competition she's part of," Akane explained, reaching down to stroke the tiny black cat's back. "I've always wanted a pet..."
"Where are airens?" Shampoo asked.
"Kuno challenged Ranma to another duel after school - they should be along pretty soon," Akane explained to her. "Boy, is Nabiki going to be surprised when she gets home!"
Not long afterwards..
"Aaaaargh!"
The entire Tendo household, plus their two female freeloaders, stared in dumbfoundment as Ranma screamed like a little girl upon being presented with a happy and inquisitive kitten. Wide-eyed and trembling, Ranma literally sprang aways from Akane and tried to hide behind Nabiki and Ukyo.
"Get it away! Keep it away!" he demanded in blatant panic.
"What's wrong with you? She's adorable!" Akane protested.
"Just keep that little monster away from me!" Ranma snapped in response, only to squawk and duck back behind Nabiki's back when it meowed.
"Grow a spine, Ranma! You bring shame to me!" Genma barked angrily.
"Ah, shut it, old man! This is all your fault - you did this to me!" Ranma snarled, lunging out of cover and diving at Genma.
However, in a fantastic display of agility for such a stocky-looking man, Genma somersaulted over his charging son and landed in front of the startled Akane. Before she could stop him, he had grabbed the kitten from her arms and whirled around, holding the disgruntled feline out by the scruff of its neck into Ranma's charging face. Ranma skidded to a halt, falling back with a cry and such energy that he lost his footing and fell flat on his back, momentarily stunning himself before he scrambled backwards across the floor to get away from his father.
"Such an ingrate!" Genma snarled, angrily flexing the fingers of his free hand.
And then Shampoo stepped in and snap-kicked him straight in the head, deftly catching the mewling kitten as it flew free of his grasp. She petted the confused animal and soothed it for a moment, before passing it to Akane and then turning a thunderous expression on Genma.
"Okay, old fool going to explain what you do this time? Or Shampoo beat it out of you?"
"Maybe we should just skip straight to the beating and be done with it," Ukyo suggested, cracking her knuckles.
"No, no, wait, that won't be necessary!" Genma protested, waving a hand in a desperate attempt to ward off the wrath of his future daughters-in-law. "Ranma has suffered severe ailurophobia since the spring of his sixth year!"
"Ailurophobia?" Akane asked, sounding the unfamiliar word out.
"It means 'fear of cats', Akane," Kasumi explained from the side.
"No kidding," Nabiki muttered, looking at her fiancé as he trembled on the floor, teeth visibly chattering.
"And just what happened in the spring of Ranma's sixth year to make him scared of cats? Because I sure don't remember Ranchan acting like this!" Ukyo spat, glowering down at Genma.
Genma hesitated, warily watching the martial artists, but when no beating was forthcoming he slowly stood up. "Cat Fu. It was the Cat Fu training that did this to Ranma..."
"Cat... Fu?" A confused Nabiki looked at Shampoo and Ukyo, who simply stared back in equal bafflement and shrugged.
"Shampoo not know this style."
"First I've heard of it."
"It's also known as Freestyle Cat Fist Fighting," Genma interjected. "Training is deceptively easy; wrap the trainee from head to toe in jakuwa (Japanese fish sausage), then toss him into a pit of starving cats."
"Don't remind me!" Ranma shouted, hunching over himself and huddling miserably in the corner.
"That's what you call training?!" an appalled Nabiki asked. 'And that's why I never wanted to become a martial artist...'
"That not training, that torture!' an affronted Shampoo declared, with Ukyo nodding her agreement. "Where you even find a regime so stupid?! Not even you can come up with something so stupid all on own self!"
Genma simply gave the girls an indignant look. "I found it in this ancient tome of martial arts lore," he solemnly explained, withdrawing a battered martial arts manual from the depths of his gi and passing it over to Soun.
To his credit, the Tendo patriarch didn't exactly look too thrilled with what Genma had been saying, but he took the manual. "Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts, Final Attack: Cat Fist" he declared, reading the title aloud. Flicking open the manual, he continued reading, "How to master Cat Fu... wrap trainee from head to toe in fish sausage and then throw into a pit of hungry cats..."
"You see? The technique was so simple, I should have known that there was a catch," Genma interjected, the light catching his glasses and making them shimmer in an almost menacing way. "Turn the page, Tendo, and see for yourself!"
Soun did as instructed, incredulously reading, "This method has been banned for causing severe psychological distress."
Silence fell across the room. As one, every girl present turned to look at Ranma, the same two words echoing in all their heads; 'No shit.'
You could have cut the tension with a knife, but fortunately for Genma, it was Kasumi who broke the ice and spoke up first. "Is there truly nothing that can be done to help poor Ranma?"
Genma sighed and shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Kasumi. I tried everything... I lost count of how many times I put fresh fish products on Ranma and threw him back into that pit full of starving cats. I tried plastering him with packets of dried sardines, strapping him with smelt, and even covering him with kamaboko fish cakes... no matter what I did, he kept coming out of the pit as scared as ever."
"In what world does that count as trying to help?!" an appalled Nabiki demanded, only to be cut off as three angry teenage martial artists collectively and literally threw themselves at Genma, knocking him out into the garden in a rolling tangle of bodies, all martial arts forgotten in the face of sheer rage.
As the three teenagers and one pathetic excuse for a man tumbled and rolled around on the grass, Sasuke Sarugakure silently slunk from the shadows and sneakily began making his way out of the Tendo household and back to the Kuno estate. Though even he couldn't help but wince at the sounds of carnage emanating from behind him.
CHOMP!
"Aaaargh! Shampoo, that's me!"
"Sorry, airen - you come back here, panda!"
"Hold still, we've gotta tenderize ya a'fore we make bun mince outta ya!"
Soon afterwards, at the Kuno estate...
Tatewaki Kuno kneeled seiza style in one of the more humbly decorated rooms of his palatial estate, whisking tea leaves in the traditional fashion before he heard a quiet knocking.
"Ah, Sasuke," Tatewaki observed patiently.
"Master," came the humble response.
"You may enter," Tatewaki graciously said, turning his head to face the door.
"Yes, master Kuno!" came the response, shortly before a floor panel exploded upwards out of its slot as Sasuke surfaced from beneath the house.
The sudden and unexpected entry wrung a startled cry and an instinctive flailing of limbs from Tatewaki, before he realized its source and rounded angrily on his manservant. "I meant through the door, you blithering idiot!"
Sasuke visibly wilted. "Yes, of course, master Kuno..."
Recomposing himself, Kuno returned his overt attention to his traditional tea-making equipment. "Right then, what is it?"
Hopping onto the floor behind his employer, Sasuke knelt behind him in subservience. "Great news, master! I, Sasuke, your own humble manservant, have discovered Saotome's weak spot! Armed with this knowledge, your defeat of him is assured!"
As Sasuke quietly giggled in triumph, Kuno sat silently, mulling it over. It said volumes about how intense his struggles with Ranma Saotome had grown that he did not explode in a temperamental declaration of his superiority, but instead quietly waited for Sasuke to elaborate.
"Allow me to reveal this truth to you, oh master! It seems that, due to a terribly misguided training mission by his father in his youth, Ranma Saotome is absolutely terrified of cats! The sight of even the meekest, most gentle-natured kitten is enough to leave him a whimpering, terrified heap! Armed with this knowledge, you will surely triumph over him in your next duel!"
And that was when Kuno threw the contents of his tea cup in Sasuke's face.
"Muh-Master?!" the little ninja spluttered as he wiped his eyes clear.
"Is this some manner of joke?" Kuno demanded icily.
"Master!"
"Ranma Saotome is the most formidable opponent I have encountered in all my years, a man truly worthy to be deemed my rival, for all his vulgarity. And you tell me that such a mighty warrior is crippled by a weakness so pathetic as a fear of cats? Inconceivable!" Kuno roared.
"But it's true, master! I swear on my honor and my life!" Sasuke whimpered in a soggy groveling pose.
"Then prove it!" Kuno demanded with an imperious raise of one finger. "Tomorrow, at school, you shall reveal Ranma's weakness, and use it to bring him to his knees!"
"Of-of course, Master Kuno, you are wise and benevolent," Sasuke groveled, kowtowing as deeply as he could.
Kuno simply gave him a flat look. "You are dismissed, Sasuke."
The ninja bowed again, and promptly vanished back into the crawlspace under the floor, pausing only to replace the panel he had displaced in his entry.
Once Sasuke was gone, Kuno permitted himself a smirk. 'If this extraordinary claim of his bears fruit, then I will at last have an ace up my sleeve in battles against Saotome. And if it fails, then it will not be I who looks like a fool for threatening my rival with a cat. Verily, this is what is known as a win-win situation...'
At school the next day...
"Help me, Ranma, it's me, Nabiki! I've been kidnapped by villains! Please come to the school gym as soon as possible!"
When Ranma read the words on that note which had been stuffed into his footlocker, he saw red. His whole body trembled with the urge to track down whoever had dared threaten his Nabiki and teach them the error of their ways, before a sudden stray observation derailed that train of thought entirely.
'Wait a minute... since when does Nabiki talk like that? ...This is a fake. Somebody's trying to set me up. But who'd try a stupid stunt like this? Ryoga and Kuno have way too much self-respect for a trick this dumb...'
As he was pondering this matter, Ukyo tapped him on the shoulder. "Whatcha looking at, Ranchan? Got a love letter?" she playfully joked.
Ranma simply wordlessly handed her the letter, watching her reaction. He felt rather vindicated as she watched her frown, first in righteous indignation, and then in confusion.
"...Since when does Nabiki talk like this?" she asked Ranma suspiciously.
"As far as I know? She doesn't. You go to her homeroom and check to see if she's there; I'll go and scope out the gym," Ranma replied.
"And what if it's a trap?" Ukyo suggested in concern.
"C'mon; do you really think anybody whose best idea was a routine as corny as this would be an actual threat?" Ranma scoffed
Ukyo didn't look entirely convinced, but she nodded and set off briskly in the direction of Nabiki's homeroom. Ranma crumpled the letter in his fist and started off to the school gym..
Nobody else was there, and when Ranma slid the door open, he found himself stalking into a dark, empty hall. But there was somebody on the raised platform at the far end of the gym, and for a moment, Ranma's rage rekindled... only to be summarily snuffed out with disgust as he approached and realized what he was actually looking at.
Because the... person... on the... what was the term for it, anyway? Stage? Podium? Ranma had never really known - well, they definitely were not Nabiki. A surprisingly small, ugly man in a Furinkan High girl's uniform and a blonde wig was wriggling around on the platform, spouting off the most cliche "damsel in distress" dialogue Ranma had ever heard in the absolute worst falsetto that Ranma had ever heard.
Ranma's palm met his forehead with a meaty smack as he tried to force his exasperation down to a reasonable level, as opposed to just breaking something that would probably get him into trouble with the faculty.
"So... I think it's pretty obvious that this was some kind of lame stunt, huh?" Ukyo's voice suddenly interjected.
"That's supposed to be me? Seriously?" Nabiki observed in the frostiest tones Ranma had heard in a while.
Ranma brightened, turning to face his fiancées with obvious relief. "You're okay!"
"Of course I am; who'd be stupid enough to try and kidnap me?" Nabiki scoffed. "Now let's find out what this little weasel wants with this silly game..."
The three teens made their way onto the platform, where the stranger was still begging Ranma's help, and Ranma asked the question they were all wondering; "Who the heck are you?"
At that, the terribly faked Nabiki suddenly sprang up, ropes that had been draped around his body in an attempt to mimic being bound up and helpless falling loosely to his feet, the wig mercifully following suit. He laughed and struck what he obviously thought was a menacing pose. "A loyal servant to the great and noble House of Kuno; Sasuke Sarugakure! I have you now, Ranma!"
"I thought I recognized that face!" Nabiki muttered to herself.
"You 'n' me should talk," the unimpressed Ranma declared.
"Too late to beg, your fate is sealed!" Sasuke cried, and then sprang up towards the roof in a mighty leap. He grabbed a rope that was dangling amidst the assorted paraphenalia stored in the rafters and gave it a mighty tug as he fell back to the floor.
In response, a trapdoor suddenly opened up underneath Ukyo's feet and she plummeted into the underground storage built below the stage with a startled shriek.
Sasuke blinked and turned to direct a bemused look into the gaping opening. "Hmm, that's odd, I thought it was more to the front..."
"Yo, Ucchan, you okay?" Ranma shouted down to his fiancée.
"What'd he do that for?!" came the natural complaint.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," Sasuke admitted, still staring in confusion into the trapdoor.
Ranma walked over to the Kuno servant and squatted down beside him, chin in hand before asking conversationally, "And just who were you trying to drop in there?"
Sasuke looked up sharply with a nervous look on his face. "N-no one," he assured Ranma... before making another mighty leap to grab a second rope from the rafters. He turned to Ranma again and sniggered... right before a tanuki statue on a chain came sailing through the air and caught Sasuke squarely in the back, sending him plummeting down the hole in turn.
Ranma gave Nabiki an amused look, his early concerns now long forgotten in the face of such a laughable threat, before he turned back to the squashed Sasuke. "You okay down there?"
When no answer greeted him, Ranma hopped down into the understage and crouched over the fallen servant. "And just who were you trying to hit?" Ranma asked, in the same conversational tone as before.
Sasuke groaned, and then slowly stirred. "I...I have something... take this..."
Playing along, Ranma reached out and took the gift that the battered, semi-conscious Sasuke held out to him.
"What's that?" Ukyo asked, her own annoyance having given way to curiosity in the face of Sasuke's obvious bungling.
"It's... fish sausage?" Ranma explained in confusion, staring down at the crude necklace of jakuwa strung on a rope that had been tied into a circle.
Ranma's confusion died a quick, horrible death as realization dawned. He stared at Ukyo in horror, understanding quickly dawning upon her as well when she heard the first meow coming from behind them both...
Reluctantly, the two teens turned and stared into the darkness. Which stared back with dozens of pairs of glowing yellow eyes. More cats than Ukyo had ever seen outside of that one time she'd made the mistake of cutting through a fishmarket late at night were crammed into the dark, dingy confines of the understage, hungry gazes fixed on the strips of dried, pressed fish mince still clutched in Ranma's hands.
As they grew closer to the small circle of light that descended through the trapdoor, Ranma's eye began to twitch, and Ukyo felt a shiver of concern race up her spine.
'Poor, Ranchan! This has to be awful for him - it's just like being back in the Cat-Fu training pit!'
Sasuke's mad cackle rang out, the little ninja having regained his consciousness and squeezed out from under the tanuki statue. Now he was sitting on it, grinning with far greater smugness than a man in a schoolgirl uniform should possess.
"Ranma, welcome! Welcome to cat hell!" he taunted the Saotome heir, before hopping down from his perch.
"Poor wittle Wanma; afwaid of the kitty-cats?" he mockingly asked, before grinning and striking a triumphant pose. "I'd say you were chi-chi-chicken!"
"You're a... you... you're a..." Ranma trembled, trying to find his tongue before finally he whirled on Sasuke with a mad look in his eye. "You're such a twit!"
Sasuke stared in confusion, prompting Ranma to rise to his feet and put his hands on his hips.
"D-did you really think you could scare me with a couple of crummy cats?!" Ranma demanded, even though the tremor in his voice, the wild expression on his face and his body language made it obvious that he was fighting the sheer terror of being in this situation.
"Well, yeah," Sasuke admitted flatly.
"Well, you're wrong!" Ranma screamed in response.
"Aren't you just a little scared?" Sasuke asked hopefully.
Ranma shook his head, letting out wordless grunts of denial.
"Not even a teensy-weensy scared?" Sasuke pushed.
Once more, Ranma shook his head and made noises of denial.
Now, it was Sasuke's turn to direct a flat look at Ranma. "...You must be a little scared," he declared.
"No way!" Ranma bellowed back, making Sasuke recoil with his own scared look.
"Don't yell at me!" He begged Ranma. "Oh, now what am I gonna do..."
As Sasuke was pondering that, Rama let out a crazed cackle, it being quite obvious to anyone watching at this point - namely, Ukyo and Nabiki, who had been watching with horrified fascination from her perch on the trapdoor - that Ranma's sanity was not exactly coping as well with this scenario as he was so desperately trying to pretend.
'I better get him outta here, quick!' Ukyo thought to herself, reaching out and grabbing Ranma's hand. "C'mon, Ranchan, let's go back up into the light where Nabiki is waiting for us; you don't want to keep her waiting, do you?" she asked sweetly, even as she gently but insistently led him through the cats - most of which were too busy eating the dropped rope of jakuwa to be interested in the doings of humans anyway - towards the door leading out of the understage area.
"Ah! Ukyo, don't go in there!" Sasuke suddenly shouted, just as Ukyo's hand reached for the handle.
"What? Why not?" Ukyo said... but it was too little, too late; she'd already pulled the sliding door open.
...And that was when she found herself face to face with a fully grown tiger. She promptly withdrew back to Sasuke, dragging the petrified Ranma with her. "How'd a tiger get in here?!" she demanded, even as the snarling beast padded forward, scattering its lesser brethren like mice.
"I-I thought maybe it might scare Ranma?" the nervous ninja confessed.
"I'd say you went a little overboard!" Ukyo complained.
The beast snarled, and everybody in the understage - Ukyo, Sasuke, and even the cats - instinctively clung to Ranma, the action managing to break through the cloud of fear hazing his mind.
"Oh... great! You guys, will you stop using me as your shield?!" he he sadly didn't have the luxury of focusing on that as the tiger stalked right up to him, until they were quite literally face to face.
"Hang on, Ranma, I'll get help!" the horrified Nabiki cried out, before calling on every bit of speed and agility that Genma had almost literally beaten into her to spring from the stage and race off to where she knew Kuno would be meeting with the kendo club. 'He's an idiot, and this is his fault, but if anyone can save Ranma from a tiger in time, it might just be him!'
Down below, Ranma trembled like a leaf caught in a storm. "Nice kitty! There there... you don't wanna eat me, do you?"
The tiger pressed itself literally nose to nose with Ranma, drawing its lips back from its long, yellow fangs and growling loudly. Ranma's eyes went wide with sheer terror, mouth hanging open in a wordless ululation of pure terror as his pupils rolled skyward...
At that moment, back at the Tendo dojo...
"It's really quite a shame," Kasumi said as she passed Genma a mug of freshly made tea.
"Hm? What's that, Kasumi?" Genma asked, staring up at the eldest Tendo daughter.
"I was just saying, it's a shame that you put Ranma through so much in the name of teaching him the Free-Style Cat Fist, only for him to not even learn the move," Kasumi explained.
Shampoo glanced over at Genma with a sour look on her face. 'That, my dear if exasperating sister-to-be, is what would be qualified as an understatement.'
At Kasumi's words, Genma let out a bitter laugh. "Who said he didn't learn the move?"
"But... Ranma's afraid of cats..." Kasumi pointed out, with Shampoo staring with intensified interest, watching Genma's response.
"True, the sight of a cat does render Ranma a sniveling coward. But that fear is the very key to achieving the true power of Cat-Fu. For you see, when Ranma's fear reaches its peak and there is no alternative means of escape, that is when the transformation occurs!" Genma declared dramatically.
He then swallowed nervously as Shampoo seemingly teleported across the floor, glaring into his eyes. "Do tell..."
And back at school...
Ranma's eyes suddenly narrowed and he let out a harsh, angry yowling sound - an imitation of an angry cat. Ukyo and Sasuke stared at him in confusion as Ranma suddenly hunched down, hissing between his teeth, and then bounded forward, landing on all fours in a posture that the two of them quickly recognized as something akin to an angry cat's.
Yowling and hissing, Ranma stood back up on one leg, striking a series of strange, cat-like poses, before hunkering down on all fours again. The tiger actually backed down for a moment, but then snarled and pushed forward again. Its actions triggered more angry cat noises from Ranma, who pawed at the floor with one foot.
"Does this have something to do with Cat-Fu?" Ukyo wondered aloud.
She promptly got her answer as the tiger finally grew tired of its posturing and sprang forward, only for Ranma to leap forward in the same manner, fingers curled like claws and eyes gleaming madly in the dark..
Up above...
"This way! Hurry!" Nabiki commanded, leading the charge as Kuno and the kendo club thundered into the gym.
"Nabiki Tendo, you must believe me, I knew nothing of Sasuke's ploy!" Kuno blustered.
"Save it! If that tiger hurts my Ranma, you mark my words I'll make the whole kendo club pay for it!" Nabiki snarled.
And that was when, with an ominous rumbling sound, the stage suddenly exploded, a veritable pillar of cats erupting from its depths like a furry oil gusher.
"What the hell?!" Kuno blurted out, shortly before a tiger fell on him. To give the leader of the kendo club his due credit, he actually caught the hulking feline, which was covered in shallow bleeding cuts and looked very upset - more like a scared and distraught overgrown housepet than the mighty lord of the jungle.
"And where did Sasuke get you?" Kuno demanded, to which the tiger didn't reply. Instead, it whimpered and tried to bury its face in the curve of Kuno's neck, eliciting an instinctive if feeble attempt at a comforting pat from the elder scion of the clan Kuno.
"What happened?!" Nabiki demanded of Ukyo, who had just fallen from the sky and landed neatly on her feet right next to her.
"I'm not sure I understand myself! Kuno, look out!" Ukyo replied, shouting an alarm.
Kuno looked around the tiger's furry bulk, and his eyes went wide in surprise as he saw Ranma bouncing around the stage, face twisted into a bestial mask of rage. "Ranma Saotome?!"
Ranma promptly lunged at Kuno - or at least at the tiger that Kuno was still holding. He sailed across the gym and lashed out in a clawing motion at his targets, he dodged aside at the last moment, causing Ranma to instead tear a ragged gash in the floor.
The tiger leapt from Kuno's arms and hid behind him, whilst Kuno snarled and gripped his bokken. "Have you gone mad?!" he exclaimed in shock, even as he struck at Ranma.
Ranma simply sprang back, but at the same time, his hands flashed through the air in a series of clawing motions... which caused Kuno's blade and his clothes to shred as invisible talons of wind ripped them away, and even scratched long curling strips off of the wooden floor itself.
"Lookit what Saotome did - that's not possible!" cried one of Kuno's flunkies.
"He shredded the floor into wood shavings without even touching it!" observed another.
"My blade! How dare you defile my weapon!" Kuno spat, glaring at Ranma, who instead hunkered low amidst the shavings, still hissing.
"Master Kuno, no, do not attack! Young Saotome's mind, he has gone completely feral!" Sasuke shouted, having just managed to regain consciousness after striking the floor head-first.
Kuno blinked, but gave no explicit sign of acknowledging his underling. He shifted the ragged remains of his bokken in his hand, and watched as Ranma's eyes followed it. 'Interesting...'
Suddenly, Kuno flung the mangled piece of wood over Ranma's head, shouting, "Fetch!" as he did so.
To everybody's surprise, Ranma scampered after it on all fours, pouncing upon it as it hit the floor and beginning to bat at its ragged, shaving-like end with his hands. He seemed totally enthralled with his new toy, and Kuno slowly exhaled a sigh of relief, absently reaching back to pet the tiger still meekly hunkered behind him.
Nabiki and Ukyo promptly hurried over to their fiancé. "Ranma, are you okay?"
Ranma glanced up at them - and then recoiled away from them, hissing defensively and making the two girls flinch back in shock. Before they could regather their wits, Ranma suddenly lifted his head up and sniffed the air, letting out an intrigued meow. He sprang away on all fours, bounding over to Sasuke, who yelped in fear and dropped a stray jakuwa on the floor. Ranma snatched up the fish sausage in his teeth and bounded away. He hopped through an open window in a mighty leap and was gone.
Despite their shock, Nabiki and Ukyo quickly rallied themselves and ran after him, followed by Kuno and the kendo club. They chased Ranma halfway across the school, ending only when he decided to sit in the crook of a tree. By this point, Ranma had attracted quite a crowd of students, who were watching the show with considerable interest.
"Ranma? Ranma, please, come down from there!" Nabiki called up to her fiancé, who instead simply began to wash his face, cat-style; licking his forearms and then rubbing them over his face.
"Ranchan? C'mon, the cats are all gone now, why are you acting this way?!" Ukyo pleaded.
"So... it is as I feared," Genma rumbled, making Nabiki and Ukyo jump before they whirled to face their unloved father-in-law.
"What's going on here?!" Nabiki growled at him.
"This is what Free-Style Cat Fist all about. This end result of Genma so-called training," Shampoo explained to them, looking sourly from Genma to Ranma and then back again.
"I don't understand; what's this got to do with Ranchan's ailurophobia?" Ukyo asked.
"Basic idea of Cat-Fu is to go beyond just emulating cat fighting style, like other 'Beast Fist' styles. Cat Fu try to each trainees to unlock full power of feline fighting instinct - create special technique where trainee goes into combat trance. No thinking, no hesitation, just mind and body act as one...only training not work properly."
The three angry teenage girls turned their wrathful visages on Genma, who flinched slightly under their combined gaze. "Shampoo has the basic gist of it. Due to the trauma of his training, Ranma has developed something of a split personality. When Ranma's fear of cats becomes too great to handle, he copes with it in the only way he knows how; by becoming a cat himself. This allows him access to the altered perspective that the move was intended to induce, but with no ability to control it."
The girls glanced up at the tree, watching as Ranma first scratched his ear with his foot, and then began to scrape long ribbons of wood and bark away from the trunk with his fingers.
"How do we change him back?" Nabiki asked with a hint of unwilling fasciation.
"There was only ever one person who could reach Ranma in this state and bring him back to his senses... a kindly old woman who lived in our old neighborhood," Genma explained, slinging a large bag off of his shoulders.
"Then why we not call her?" Shampoo asked.
"Unfortunately, she's dead..." was the grim response.
"Dead!?" the three fiancées cried in horror, staring up at Ranma in shock, before turning to Genma - only to then cry out in horror at what they saw: Genma Saotome, crossdressing as an old woman.
"But I will take care of him!" Genma vowed, clenching a hand into a fist as he added, "For my only son, there is no humiliation I will not bear!"
With a great cry, he sprang into the air, arcing towards the branch where Ranma still sat perched. "Don't worry, my son, I am on my way!"
As he landed on the branch, however, Ranma glanced over his shoulder... and then whirled around, back arched, teeth bared and eyes wide, yowling angrily and hissing, looking for all the world like a very disgruntled cat.
Ignoring Ranma's obvious hostility, Genma held up a tuft of grass and began waving it back and forth, putting on his best falsetto. "C'mere, come on, come and get it, nice kitty..."
The onlookers all winced as Ranma pounced, mauling Genma with his teeth and "claws" before angrily kicking him off of the branch.
"Don't worry Ranma, I forgive you!" Genma called as he fell, ending up in a spectacularly buffoonish landing as he crashed into a bucket of water being carried by one startled female student, rolling off into the underbrush even as he transformed before finally hitting a tree and coming to a halt.
"...Not one of his better ideas," Nabiki sarcastically observed.
"He has good ideas?" Ukyo drawled in response.
"Maybe so - look, he bring catnip!" Shampoo interjected, opening the bag that Genma had been carrying, which had luckily dropped nearby after Genma's humiliating failure..
"Well, that should at least calm him down until we can figure out what to do with him," Nabiki conceded.
"But how are we supposed to get it up to him?" Ukyo asked.
At that, Shampoo looked dismayed. Then she spotted something out of the corner of her eye, and she smiled, before approaching her target; a student from the archery club. "Excuse, please, but can Shampoo borrow bow?"
"Uh, sure," the confused boy said, handing over his bow and the arrow he had been about to use before Ranma's latest bout of craziness.
The bag was hastily tied around the arrow, before Shampoo took aim and launched it at Ranma. The crazed boy hopped off of the branch to meet it in mid-flight, slicing the bag open with a lazy swipe of his hand and filling the air with scattering catnip leaves. The heady oils immediately went to work on Ranma's brain, and his fiancées winced as he hit the ground flat on his face. He didn't even seem to notice, smiling goofily as he rolled around amongst the leaves... and then he sprang up and began to hop around, batting at leaves still drifting on the breeze with a kittenish delight.
"Well... that didn't work too well, either," Ukyo observed.
"Is slight improvement, no?" Shampoo replied.
"Well, yeah, but how do we snap him out of it completely? I want a husband, not a pet," Nabiki declared icily.
She could feel the unspoken quip hanging in the air, and turned partially to cast her coldest glare on any would-be smartmouths who might decide to push their luck. Which left her caught off-guard when Ranma hopped over and began insistently rubbing against her legs, nearly pushing her over.
"Yee! Ranma, stop that!" Nabiki scolded him.
Ranma simply meowed happily and continued to slink around her. In fact, the attention made him start to purr. Nabiki watched him and then sighed softly, reaching down to gently scritch him behind the ear.
"Now what do we do with him?" she asked, the question only slightly rhetorical.
"Take him home? He obviously trust Nabiki, maybe we get him somewhere safe, he calm down and wake up?" Shampoo suggested.
"Well, it's a better plan than just hanging out here," Nabiki conceded. "C'mon Ranma... nice kitty, come on, we'll go home now..."
Fortunately, Ranma seemed inclined to listen to her coaxing, and so the odd quartet began slowly making their way across the Furinkan grounds and towards the Tendo Dojo.
"Why does life with Ranma have to be so weird?" Nabiki sighed in mostly feigned and half-affectionate exasperation.
"Who knows? But at least they can't possibly get any stranger," Ukyo consoled her.
Hours later, she would be eating those words. For unseen in the sky above them, a transcontinental jet was soaring through the air towards Japan, and it was bringing with it a new intruder to their respective lives...
Chapter End & Closing Notes
And we're done! I took liberties and went with a mixture of anime canon, manga canon and completely homebrewed interpretations for this take on the infamous Nekoken debut story, and I hope you all like the results.
And now it's a moment I'm sure none of you have been waiting for: the long anticipated arrival of Shampoo's dreaded great-grandmother, the infamous Cologne! Tune in next time!