Response to reviews: Woo, people remembered me! Your reviews have been appreciated.
Lady Relena (Back in April, *cough*): That is a very good point. It will be addressed.
Rewind: Appreciation appreciated. The lack of post manga Shampoo/Ranma was what pushed me to begin this fic in the first place.
Major Mike: That's a secret. :p
eternalfox: In my universe, you are wrong.
xxxxx
"Yo, Akane!"
The heir to the Tendo Dojo looked from her homework to see her fiancee hanging upside down in her window.
"What's up?" she asked.
"Let's spar."
Akane blinked.
"Really?"
Ranma nodded. "Now."
Akane smiled. "I'll be down in a sec."
Ranma jumped down on the ground, and did a few katas while he waited. His fiancee came out a minute later, having swapped her clothes for a gi.
"Alright, try to hit me," Ranma said.
Akane attacked. It was a pitiful attempt, but at least she tried.
Unlike many of their earlier sessions, Ranma didn't outright dodge her strikes, but just blocked them. Countering only when the gaps in Akane's defences widened more than usual beyond what was acceptable.
"What changed your mind?" Akane asked, coming in for an attack.
"Bout what?"
"I thought you didn't like sparring with me."
Ranma shook her head.
"I don't. But ya gotta learn, right? And I'm the best teacher you got."
The tomboy frowned, and aimed for him with a roundhouse kick that would have done a lot better if it had hit.
"Then what?"
"Nothing. Just wanna see if you've improved."
"Yeah? How am I doing?"
"Pitifully," Ranma jeered, blocking another attack, quickly circling in to tap her between the shoulder blades.
She scowled, spinning around to strike with more enthusiasm than skill.
He could feel her anger mount, and every strike he avoided added to her emotions, causing even more cracks to appear in her defences.
He began to add more counters, not striking hard, but landing taps to expose the weaknesses in her defence.
This added to her anger.
Finally he could take it no longer, and he complained. "You can't just put your all into the attack, stupid. You've got to save some for defence."
He didn't know if she could hear him, but she didn't change anything. He started adding more push to his counters, not hurting her, but disrupting her balance a bit, forcing her to tone down the offence or fall over.
She fell over.
She leaped up decently enough, but launched straight into the same useless attacks as before.
"Why don't you try to get better?" he prodded.
"I am, you prick!" Her punches increased in sheer power, but the added momentum only made it that much easier to lean out of the way.
"You're doing it all wrong!" he pointed out. "Really, just slow down, you're not accomplishing anything by just barging in fists blurring."
"That's what you do!" she screamed, landing her tenth blow in a row on empty air.
"Yeah, but I'm not slow," Ranma jeered. "Or clumsy."
Akane exploded. Her strikes were imbued with that ridiculous strength that only an angry Akane could provide, but they were also imbued with only the accuracy that an angry Akane could provide.
"Try harder!" he demanded. This was getting ridiculous. Even more so than usual.
With one final useless attack, Akane overexerted herself, and Ranma added just a little to her momentum with a tap, sending her tumbling to the ground, screaming with impotent rage.
He went over to her, and stretched out his hand to help her up. "Come on, Akane. Are you gonna let the old ghoul be right?"
Akane's eyes had been glaring unseeingly at the sky, but on hearing that they shifted to her fiance. "What?" she whispered.
"Come on," he said.
Akane slapped his hand away, and stood up. "What was that? What's Cologne got to do with this?"
Ranma froze.
Oh yeah, that hadn't been too smart a thing to bring up. Funny how it seemed so obvious in retrospect.
"You only wanted to spar with me because of something Cologne said?"
"Well," Ranma began. "I mean to say-"
"What did she say!" Akane demanded.
"Um, er, just you know, Akane can't fight kind of thing-" he said, backing away, panic mounting. "She didn't say anything else at all!"
"Raaan maaa!" Akane screamed, and lunged at him.
xxxxx
Having been denied dinner (Or rather, having been out cheated in speed eating by his father) Ranma thought to make his way to Ucchan's.
He was fuming. With Cologne for having provoked him into picking a fight with Akane, and with himself for falling for it.
But there was also a slight nagging feeling in the background. Cologne was trying to widen the gap between Ranma and Akane... but she was doing it by provoking him to spend more time with the tomboy. And she wasn't interfering with what they actually did together.
There was a presence.
He looked up. Against the setting sun was the contour of a girl.
It was Kodachi Kuno.
She wasn't laughing, though, just standing there, and against the sun Ranma couldn't see her face.
"Y- Yo," he said.
Kodachi was holding something.
It was a bucket.
"Ranma," she said. Her voice had a subdued tinge to it. A sadness.
"What is it?" he asked, both surprised at the tone of her voice and made nervous by the presence of the bucket.
"My brother told me something today..."
Ranma gulped.
"Can you guess what it was he said?"
Ranma had an inkling. "No?"
"He said... he said my Ranma-darling and the pigtailed girl was the same."
His heart beating faster, Ranma considered the situation. Kodachi finding out about his curse, was that a good or a bad thing? It might get her to stop attacking his female form. Or it might cause her to feel betrayed because he hadn't told her before.
In either case, though, maybe... she wouldn't be more dangerous than before? If she was rational about it?
He gulped.
She stood quiet against the sunset for a little while. Then she continued.
"At first I thought my brother was delusional - he has been wrong before. But then he told what he had learned from the mercenary girl, Nabiki..."
Thanks a lot, Ranma thought.
Kodachi jumped down on the road, a few metres in front of him.
"Ranma, are you cursed?"
He could only nod in silence.
She looked sadly at him, raising the bucket.
She splashed it at him.
Had he not been so surprised by the whole situation, he might have thought to suspect there was something wrong with the water.
As it was, he was very lucky there wasn't.
Kodachi backed away, moaning sadly to herself.
Ranma stepped forward, trying to find something to say. But the Kuno girl was acting so strangely. She wasn't seeing the Black Rose, but a girl, looking hurt. And she had done it. And she didn't know what to do.
"Kodachi..."
"No!" the girl screamed, backing away. Then she stopped again, and raised her eyes to meet her gaze. A tear had fallen from one eye, but the look in them now froze Ranma where she stood.
There was hatred in Kodachi's eyes.
"I can explain," Ranma said.
"No! Kodachi screamed, backing further away from her. Then she turned, ran, and disappeared, leaving Ranma utterly confused.
The sheer suddenness of the encounter had stunned her, and now she had seen Kodachi of all people cry. She didn't know what to think.
And she couldn't help but feeling guilty. It wouldn't have been difficult to reveal the curse to Kodachi sooner, if only she had thought of it. But somehow she had never considered telling the Kunos out of worry for how they'd react.
When Tatewaki had found out, his reaction had been about what Ranma had expected, but Kodachi... Kodachi had been hurt.
All thoughts of where she had been headed forgotten, Ranma stood still on the sidewalk, trying to sort his thoughts out.
There was the ring of a bicycle bell.
He sighed with relief. It wasn't going to help with Kodachi, but at least now he could finally ask Shampoo what the hell the old mummy was up to wait a minute-
Keer-ash!
xxxxx
Well, believe it or not, but the snowball has actually begun rolling. Stay tuned!