Chasing the Rainbow
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any related characters in any way, shape or form.
Author's Notes: Sorry that this took so long to come out… though, seeing the proliferation of Ranma-chan and Ranma/Akane works on this website, I'm really starting to wonder if this work even fits here… Anyway, folks were wondering what was going to happen to Kodachi, right? Well, here's what we have planned for her…
Chapter 10: Kodachi's Very Bad Day
"You are looking… tired, my twisted sister. Did something trouble your sleep? More so than usual, I mean?" Tatewaki Kuno asked casually across the communal dining table. It wasn't often that the two siblings ate in the same room, but this was as good a way as any to showcase the truce they had so recently declared after their latest squabble.
Kodachi glowered at her brother half-heartedly. Truth be told, she was tired. The previous evening had not been a very restful one. It was several days since that horrible truth had been forced upon her, and her initial rage and denial had given way to guilt and shame and cold realization. It was not Ranma's fault that she had been ignorant… at least, not entirely. There had been much deception between them, on her part and on his, and now those deceptions had been stripped away. Did she want to close that chapter of her life, flee from the tattered falsehoods that had enshrouded her and the man that had inspired them? Or did she want to try and bring the light of truth into the darkness, chase them away entirely and see if her dreams could have had their basis in reality after all?
At last she had made a decision. Though she knew she would have chosen to flee all memory of her "beloved" Ranma had she learned in any other circumstance, the fact that he had come to her and chosen to unveil himself had convinced her that he truly was the man she wanted to marry. She had… "conversed"… with Sasuke in regards what he overheard, and that discussion with the faithful manservant had convinced her that if she wanted to have any chance at making up for her error and claiming Ranma as hers, she must make the first apology. As the diminutive ninja had pointed out, Ranma had at least two other women competing for his hand, and he may very well settle for turning to either of them. It was attempting to figure out a way to make her apology, something she rarely had to give, that had kept her up so late.
Of course, she had just exited the gates of the Kuno estate when she halted. Where to begin…? After a few moments thought, she decided that the best place to proceed would be to the Tendo dojo, seeing as how that was Ranma's current domicile. She trusted Sasuke to have informed her should Ranma have left the residence of his former fiancée. With a triumphant laugh she began sprinting off in the direction of the Tendo estate, taking to the rooftops as was her frequent wont.
This turned out to be a fairly prudent decision, as she watched a fair-sized stampede of angry dogs chasing after a lavender-furred cat. The feline in the unwanted position of leader of the charge finally managed to evade the dogs by racing up a telephone pole, sitting at the top and unleashing a truly astounding array of caterwauling. Kodachi had the distinct feeling, even as she turned and resumed leaping, that any child who had used the human equivalent of that sort of language would have gotten its mouth washed out with soap.
Finally making it to the Tendo residence, Kodachi took a moment to recollect her poise, then knocked boldly on the door. About five minutes later, when no one appeared to have heard her, she frowned and knocked again, louder this time. Another couple of minutes passed, Kodachi growing rather offended about being ignored like this, and decided to damn propriety and walk on in anyway. She did remove her shoes at the inner porch and announce her presence, however, nobody paid her any attention, which was as much disconcerting as it was rude, when she thought about it. After all, she knew that she wasn't exactly liked by the residents here, so they should be up in arms to try and force her away.
"Oh dear… how am I going to remove this? I don't think we have enough paint thinner." Kasumi complained softly, walking unflinchingly through the choking cloud of smoke pouring out of the kitchen, a sight that truly alarmed Kodachi, who knew the eldest Tendo took as much care of her kitchen as the female Kuno took care of her garden.
She found out precisely why Kasumi wanted paint thinner a few moments later, when she walked into the living room, now splattered in copious amounts of garish paint. Although not quite as much as the livid-looking Nabiki Tendo, who looked like a colorblind artist's paint-by-numbers come to life. She paid no attention at all to Kodachi, instead staring hatefully into space and fuming with indignant fury. Kodachi stifled a laugh; she didn't particularly like either of Kasumi's younger siblings, and the only way it could have been more amusing was if it had happened to Akane instead. Seated across from Nabiki was what Kodachi could only suppose to be a panda that had been electrocuted, given the way its bulk had practically doubled and sparks occasionally crackled across the erect fur.
"What can we do for you, young lady?" Came Soun Tendo's stern, disapproving voice from behind her.
Kodachi turned to confront the patriarch of the Tendo family… and promptly split her side laughing. It wasn't every day that you saw Soun Tendo with a dyed Mohawk hairstyle and one of Happosai's spare pipes wedged up either nostril, after all. The fact he was clearly trying to hold onto his dignity despite having blatantly lost all contact with the word just made him look even more ridiculous. He glowered at her, which just set her off on another peal of laughter, but Kodachi finally managed to calm down, wiping tears from her eyes.
"What… just what happened here?" She blurted; she had meant to ask about Ranma's whereabouts, but this was just too ridiculous to not find out the cause!
"This… this nasty little imp thing just showed up and started causing mischief. The last thing we saw of it, Ranma was chasing it vaguely in the direction of Ukyo's place." Nabiki interjected.
Kodachi didn't stop to think, thanking them with absent politeness and rushing for the wall. She was over a block away before she realized that she had left her shoes back at the Tendo house, slapping her forehead in an expression of exasperation, then deciding to keep on going. After all, it wasn't like they'd go anywhere, and Ranma might need her help. As she approached the restaurant owned by Ranma's crossdressing fiancée, the sounds of a fierce scuffle convinced her that she'd been right to go with her instincts.
"Come here ya little gray pest!"
That was most unmistakable the voice of her darling Ranma.
"You horrible little…! I'll teach you to mess with my ingredients!"
A rather muffled Ukyo, unless Kodachi was mistaken. She could have lived with a different set of proof than the barrage of spatulas that came hurtling her way like kunai, leaping aside and batting them away with a swift stroke of the club.
"Yeow! Ucchan, watch where you're aiming those things!" Ranma suddenly yelped, making it appear that the attack had been a genuine misaim on Ukyo's part rather than deliberate malice.
Hurrying onto the scene, Kodachi caught sight of Ranma leaping from one end of the street to another, trying to catch a diminutive figure in a jester's motley, while Ukyo tried to simultaneously claw a clinging coat of okonomiyaki batter from off of her head and curse with a mouth half full of the sticky stuff. Not even pausing to smirk at the sight of one of her actual rivals looking so ridiculous, Kodachi raced towards Ranma. "Ranma, my darling, I've come to help you!" She called.
It was doubtful he even heard her, and she barely had time to say that before something soft and very heavy collided with her head. Knocked back a step from the force of the impact, she swooned but managed to remain steadily on her feet, trying to shake the senses back into her head, only to find herself caught in a buffeting flurry of wings and beaks. By the time she fought her way free of the feathery tornado, there was nobody in the street except her and Ukyo, face cleared but hair full of batter. She was paying this no attention, instead swearing with a proficiency that made it quite clear she had spent most of her life in purely masculine company as she looked over her battle spatula, now bent cleanly in two.
"…What just happened?" Kodachi finally couldn't resist asking.
"Ugly little bastard makes bad luck happen – I don't know how, I don't care. All I know is that it's an annoying little shit to catch." Ukyo groused, scraping at her hair more from instinct than any belief it would help. The site of Kodachi, disheveled and with feathers in her hair, made her mood lighten a little.
Barely had she heard Ukyo's explanation before Kodachi sprang up onto the rooftops and began chasing after Ranma again; if he needed help, then she certainly wasn't going to just wait around and hope for the best. And not because it would make it easier for her to convey her message, either. She had hoped that taking higher ground would give her the edge in seeing Ranma, but she had evidently underestimated just how quickly he could move. Picking a random direction, she set off, bounding from rooftop to rooftop with practiced ease, hoping that this mysterious 'bad luck imp' had not woven its curse over her. After all, what were the odds that she'd run into somebody she could ask for directions up here?
"…What are you doing up here?" She finally managed to ask. This broke the awkward silence that had descended when she had, about three or four minutes after setting off from Ukyo's business, all but run over Akane and… some strange man who Kodachi neither recognized nor cared about… sitting together quietly on a rooftop.
Akane blinked and seemed to shake herself slightly as she caught up with what was going on. "Just enjoying not being part of the usual havoc for once." She proclaimed.
Kodachi waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever. Have you seen…?"
"We last saw Ranma vanishing into that alley over there." The stranger interjected politely, pointing to the precise place where Ranma had headed.
Kodachi didn't even bother to thank him, instead sprinting off of the roof and leaping to the indicated alley. A few moments later, she rebounded off of a parked car, landed at the entry, and darted in. "Ranma? Where are you?" She called, slowing her advance into the alleyway. Her face lit up when she saw Ranma appear from around a corner of the alley, running towards her, but her delight was quick to be scattered when he raced past her, leaving only a despairing wail in his wake.
"I hate cats!"
Kodachi blinked in shock; what was that about? …And what was that rumbling noise? She turned in the direction from which Ranma had come and barely had time to scream before she was body-slammed by a veritable tidal wave of black cats, knocking her from her feet and pressing her to the ground as the yowling horde trampled her underfoot. When the last of the cats had vanished, the disheveled female heir to the House of Kuno pushed her aching body off of the pavement, to the sound of an obnoxious giggle. She cast a fierce glower at the top of a fire escape, where perched the imp. It giggled again and then vanished in a blur of speed.
"I am growing to hate that little creature." Kodachi announced to the world.
She had more cause to hate it about ten minutes later, when a major water main suddenly burst just as she walked past it. No, it didn't drench her – Kodachi would have preferred that. The sheer volume of water slammed into her like a solid blow and carried her, flailing and screaming in a most undignified manner, down a different street entirely. And she had just seen Ranma and a beleaguered-looking Ryoga trying to catch the horrible little imp just at the other end of the street she'd been heading down, too! By the time she got back, she found that all three of them had vanished. In a thoroughly foul mood, she had refused to give up and instead returned to her search.
Another half-hour later, she found herself narrowly avoiding breaking an arm after a roof edge gave way under her foot, sending the unprepared Martial Arts Gymnast plummeting towards the street. Of course, when moments later she found herself blinded by a sudden power surge in the contents of a nearby electronics shop's display window, then catapulted into the air by an incredibly powerful gust from a vent in the sidewalk that she stumbled over in her visually impaired state, she found herself wondering if maybe averting her fall had been so lucky. When she finally came to a rather painful crashlanding in a large pile of rubbish, she was seriously considering if she ever should have bothered getting out of bed today.
"Ryoga, circle it! I said circle, pig-boy! If you don't take responsibility, for once, I'm gonna beat it into you!"
Kodachi shook off the fuzz of her impact and raised herself up as best she could despite the aching of her body. That sounded like Ranma.
"Why are you acting as though this is my fault?" Came a second voice, masculine, somewhat deeper, yet petulant. Kodachi thought it might be one of the people who tended to hang around Ranma: she had never paid any serious attention to anyone besides him.
"Because it is!" Came a distinctly Chinese accented voice.
Speak of the devil; if it wasn't that foreign strumpet…
"Can we save killing each other for after we've gotten rid of this thing? I've been through too much hell today ta just let it get away with that!"
And there was Ukyo, her accent thickened by her anger. Not that Kodachi couldn't sympathize with her, just this once. So, they had cornered that awful little creature, had they? Well, maybe she had a trick or two up her sleeve… she checked to see if her supply of paralytic bouquet bombs was still present and was pleased to find that they were still there. Pushing herself to her feet, she stealthily prowled her way towards the sound of the commotion.
There, indeed, was Ranma… in his female form, which meant it would have been a less welcome sight than usual. At this moment, however, she had forgotten her mission of the morning, instead consumed by the desire for revenge. Unnoticed by any, not even the dancing imp at the far end of the alley, she edged closer. Then, seeing her moment, she struck; with practiced ease her bouquet bombs hurtled through the air, zipping dangerously close to the startled martial artists hemming the creature in, they exploded in a saturation burst that ensured the imp was totally paralyzed. With a triumphant shriek of laughter she leapt onto the scene, ignoring their shocked outbursts and sending her ribbon lashing out at the imp, twining about its neck and pulling it into the air, whereupon she began swinging it around like an impromptu flail. All the while, she kept up a litany of outrage.
"Wicked, wicked creature! How dare you subject me to such torments?! Take this, and this, and this! How do you like a taste of pain yourself, hmm?"
After several minutes of this, her spleen satisfactorily vented, she began preparations to send the creature into orbit, whereupon Ranma shook off her shock at seeing Kodachi here and latched onto her from behind.
"Wait!" She cried.
Fortunately for her, Kodachi listened, turning what would have been a skyward toss into a downward slam, grinding her heel into the imp's spine in order to pin it down. "What is it, Ranma?"
"If you just throw that thing away, it might come back to haunt us! We've got a plan worked out… so what are you two waiting for? An invitation?" She snapped, turning her head to face Ryoga and Mousse, who jumped to attention and bustled forward.
Kodachi lifted her foot and watched as they hastily crammed the imp into a small steel drum, wrapped it in chains that looked suited to anchor ships, closed it with half a dozen padlocks and tied a shimenawa, the traditional Shinto sealing rope, around it for good measure.
Beside her, Ranma heaved a sigh of relief, then scowled at Ryoga. "Now, you live up to your side of things and get that drum good and lost, ya hear?"
"What about our duel?" Ryoga protested.
"Stupid duel can wait: bury evil monster first!" Shampoo snapped.
Ukyo brushed past her, bristling indignantly (and not just because her hair had been matted into a crest of spikes by dried okonomiyaki batter, either). "Listen here, jackass; I don't care what new petty quarrel you got with my Ranchan! You take that damn nuisance and you hide somewhere even you can't find it, or so help me, I'm gonna cram it where the sun don't shine!"
"Shampoo help!"
"And I as well!" Mousse added, and only partially because of his desire to impress Shampoo.
As the three began arguing fiercely with the outnumbered Ryoga, Kodachi saw her chance and gently, but insistently, drew Ranma over to a relatively distant part of the alley. The boy-turned-girl gave her a warily sheepish look. "Some day it's been." She said.
"Quite." Kodachi agreed. "This is hardly what I had in mind when I set out to find you this morning."
"You… were looking for me?"
"This… is hard for me to say. I'm not used to apologizing for my actions… but when you came to me, when you chose to share your secret… I reacted poorly. I treated you poorly in general, and I have been forced to confront that fact. And I want to say… I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that it took me so long to tell you that."
She paused, finally daring to see how Ranma was reacting. While she would have been quite shocked herself if Ranma wasn't surprised, Ranma didn't look skeptical or disbelieving. Emboldened, Kodachi continued to press her point.
"And though I will not make a fool of myself by lying, the truth of your… curse… is hard to accept, I… I still want to see if we can be together."
Mustering up more courage than she would have ever dreamed necessary a matter of weeks ago, she darted forward, clasped Ranma's face with her hands, and kissed the boy-turned-girl quickly and shyly on the lips. Kodachi then spun on her heel and bounded away for the rooftops, feeling as though a great weight she had never known was present had been lifted from her shoulders. Though most assuredly not how she ever would have wanted to receive it, she had even managed to obtain her sought-after kiss with Ranma at long last. In mid-leap she ran her tongue over her lips, eager to reacquaint herself with any semblance of the taste of Ranma. Her brow furrowed as an aftertaste seemed strangely familiar, and she came to a halt on the middle of a rooftop as she licked her lips harder than before, allowing her to recognize the aftertaste.
"Don't tell me I used the paralyzing lipstick by accident!"
Even without magic, bad luck seems to plague all of the folks who make up the Nerima Wreaking Crew, don't it? Apologies for the shortness of the chapter, but this was fundamentally a filler: don't worry, there's only one more chapter to go before we bring up our personal adaptation of Big Trouble in Nekonron… and Ranma will also finally have hit his biggest snag in his plans soon, too.
Oh, and just in case folks were confused, the nameless stranger Kodachi encountered with Akane was Gelf. I told folks he wasn't going to be put into a dominant character position.