Chapter 11: Showdown
Kuno pulled his kendo stick out from it's sheath nestled in between his sash and smacked his ninja servant on the head with it.
"Sasuke fetch me my carbonated drink."
He pointed the kendo stick at the soda machine, and waited for the small man to hand him his can of soda. Sausuke knelt down to where the machine had spat out the soda, picking it up he handed it to his master. Kuno grabbed it from him and was about to pop it open, till he noticed his pigtailed goddess as she ran by him. Kuno tossed the unopened soda can to his servant.
"Sausuke take care of this for me."
He then took off after the pigtailed girl with concern, since she hadn't even acknowledged his presence.
He stopped running as he finally caught up to the pigtailed girl in the park. Sausuke came running up behind him, and handed him the can of soda. Kuno grabbed it from him and snapped the top open and chugged a good amount, before handing it back to his servant.
"Pigtailed girl why do you run from your lover?"
Onna turned her head around and smirked as she noticed kuno.
"I was on my way to your place kuno senpai, I guess I was too preoccupied on getting there, that I didn't notice you."
She smiled and leaned on his shoulder and ran her finger tip up and down kuno's neck line. Kuno shivered at the feeling, and had to force himself to take her hand away from his neck.
"That can wait till later pigtailed girl, now come I shall escort you to my chambers!"
He picked her up into his arms and ran off cackling like an idiot, being all excited at how his love was acting towards him in a new way. Finally she admitted her true feelings for him, now the vile sorcerer ranma saotome had no power over her.
Kuno skidded to a halt as they neared the front gates of his mansion, and waited for sausuke to open the main gates. Sausuke ran over and opened the gates for his master quickly, and moved aside as kuno sped by with the pigtailed girl in his arms running into the house. Onna listened to the new command her master gave out to her, and the words filled her head as she looked up at kuno sweetly.
"Oh kuno senpai how about we bathe together hmm? All that running around made me sweaty."
She teased him cutely, as she pulled at her shirt's collar slightly. That's all kuno had to hear, he dashed off still holding her as he ran towards the bathing area cackling.
"Oh pigtailed girl you vixen! The gods would not permit such a thing, but fear not for I Tatewaki Kuno shall protect you my love!"
Onna giggled cutely at kuno, as he laid her down near the large indoor pool sized bath, and started stripping off his clothes while cackling about his victory. He remembered the last time the pigtailed asked to bathe with him, and how the vile ranma saotome had interrupted their love, we'll he nor the gods would do such a thing this time. Onna listened as the new command filled her head, and she stood up and silently sneaking up behind kuno who was untying his sash and ranting on about his victory, she kicked kuno into the large bath by kicking him in the back harshly with one foot. Then she started walking off out of the bathing area toward's Kodachi's room as instructed, her red gem necklace glowing brightly.
Kodachi looked up from the magazine she was reading, as the pigtailed girl came walking into her room, how dare she just invade her personal area. She put the magazine down and glared at the girl.
"You there what do you think your doing, just barging into my personal area.."
Onna skimmed through ranma's memories regarding kodachi, and watched the images play through her mind about the rhythmic gymnastic martial art's challenge, and how ranma had met kodachi.
"Why should it matter Kodachi, you do the same thing."
She ignored the furious outbursts that kodachi threw about, and the name calling and pulled the matches out from her pant's pocket and lit one of the matches, walking over to one of kodachi's large boy ranma pictures and lets the flame catch onto the picture, then she does the same to all the other boy ranma pictures in the room. Then she tosses the dimly lit match at kodachi's bed, and cackles. Kodachi screamed and jumped up off the bed, running towards her burning ranma-sama's pictures, trying to put them out with what ever's handy while glaring at the redhead. "Why?"
Onna gave kodachi a sickenly evil sneer.
"Because only I can have ranma, you don't deserve him."
She dashes out of the room before kodachi can say or do anything, and listens for the next command as she runs out of the kuno mansion down the street back towards her house.
Sasuke smells the smoke and runs into his mistress's room with a large bucket of water, dousing the bed's flames and then whatever is left of the burning photo's. After all the flames have been put out he bows his head to his mistress apologizing for being so late, but she doesn't seem to hear him, she just stares at the burnt ashes with a bitter expression on her face.
Kuno floats up to the top of the surface finally recovering from the hard kick, he automatically thinks that Ranma is to blame. "Curse you Ranma Saotome, you enemy of women you shall pay!" He fwails his arms around very fast and rants to himself about the vile cretin who always rips him apart from his love. He begins to feel dizzy from moving around so much in the hot water, and passes out face first back into the water.
Ranma-chan walked by kuno's mansion without noticing, for she was too deep in thought about the things that just happened and doesn't realize it as she bumps into someone, till she hears the person grumble. Then she looks up from her thoughts at who she had bumped into, and her mouth falls open in surprise at who it is. "Onna?"
Onna shakes her head around recovering from bumping into someone, she looks up at who said her name and see's that it is Ranma, her red gem necklace glows bright red and the coal piece embedded inside the gem gives off a black light.
"Why hello Ranma, isn't it funny meeting you here." She throws back her head and laughs wickedly at her twin.
Ranma notes the gem glowing brightly with two different colors, and tries to grab at it in hopes of releasing his twin from her hypnotized state. Onna sneers and blocks the gem with her arm in a defense stance.
"Sorry but I can't allow that, now fight for your life Ranma Saotome.."
She goes into a defensive battle stance, and slides her leg out and crouches down low on her legs doing a side sweep kick, knocking ranma off her feet. She laughs as ranma almost falls over, and looks pissed as ranma catches herself before she falls and flips back onto her feet and into the air. Onna has a not amused expression on her face.
"You coward.. running away from a fight, some martial artist's you are."
She hasn't noticed that ranma has landed silently behind her, and looks around the area for any trace of her enemy. Ranma quietly and quickly grabs the necklace and yanks it around her twins neck tightly.
"Hah stop talking about me, and look at yourself.. you couldn't even sense my moves. Now I don't want to hurt you.. so just cooperate and take off that damn necklace.."
She tightens her hold on the chain, ignoring the excruciating burning pain it's giving off to her skin, more so then before. Onna looks around and notices their near a wall and sneers as she slams herself and ranma into the wall forcefully, making the wall crack abit. Ranma winched as she still held onto the chain part of the necklace tightly as it burned her skin.
"Come on I know ya don't want to do this.." She looked pleadingly at girl, while she held her grip on the necklace, ignoring the pain.
Onna smirked evilly at her twin.
"That was the old me, the new me doesn't care about those sort's of things."
She notices the painful look that ranma is trying to hide and laughs.
"It burns deeply doesn't it, you could save yourself some pain and let go.. Besides why should you care whether I a mere clone dies or not, think about your self you idiot. Besides you should hate me, I've done some really mean things to the people around you."
Ranma tried not to listen to this new personality that her twin had acquired since she had disappeared, and tried to reason with the old Onna if she still existed.
"It wasn't your fault.. you were being controlled by that freak, I don't hate you.. you have my DNA in ya.. so your like my sister, like I told you before..
Onna threw her head back and laughed as the chain tightened into her neck.
"That's so pathetic to hear you all upset because of something stupid like that."
Ranma growled at the girl, still holding tightly onto the necklace pulling her twin by it, slamming her into the wall and yanks at the chains that hold the red gem in place. "Shutup!"
Ukyou tossed the fire extinguisher down onto the ground angrily, and wipes the tears from her eyes as someone enters the restaurant. Ryouga looks down at a trembling and teary eyed ukyou on the floor, and looks around at the smoke filling the air.
"Ukyou.. what happened here?"
Ukyou looked up at ryouga and her eyes widened as she thought about the horrible messed that was burning within the fire, it couldn't possibly have been ranma.. he would never admit to loving that tomboy. Now ryouga on the other hand openly admitted his love for akane, not in front of her but to others he did. She tightened her fist as she thought about it more, and glared up at ryouga.
"How dare you write something like that, and then try to burn my restuarant and my home down!"
She pulled her gigantic spatula off it's holder from her back and charged at ryouga while swinging it around. Ryouga saw the gigantic spatula coming towards him and the angry okonomiyaki chef, and turned tail running off. He wasn't sure why ukyou was mad at him, and couldn't ask her when she was mad, so it was better to leave as fast as he could. Ukyou chased after him swinging her spatula around full of pure rage.
"Get back here you jack ass!"
Ryouga ran as fast as he could not watching where he was going, and fell through an open man hole disappearing. Ukyou was so full of rage she hadn't even noticed and kept running, swinging her spatula around furiously, thinking that she was still chasing after him. Ryouga was quite thankful atleast this one time about falling through the man hole cover, but not about always falling into water and turning into a pig. P-chan sighed and paddled his way towards the edges, so he could pull himself out of the water and tried to find a way out of this place.
Ranma was still trying to reason with his twin, as she had her slammed up against the wall and held the chain part of the necklace tightly in her grasp, she blinked as ukyou stormed by not noticing them. Then a plan came into her mind as she saw ukyou, she could help her out abit. So she decided to get her attention. "Hey Uchan!"
Ukyou stopped and her rage cooled down as she heard ranma's voice, she just wanted to hug him and never let go.
"Ranma huney!" She smiled and turned her head in the direction the voice was coming from, her mouth dropped open in awe as she saw two girl ranma's, one was holding the other by a necklace. Ranma-chan noted how ukyou just starred at them.
"Ukyou it's me Ran-chan, I need your help.. smash the red gem on the other me's neck."
Onna growled and tried to attack ranma, but couldn't do much but struggle since she was behind held down by her necklace which her twin had in her clutches. Ukyou looked for a red gem necklace, and spotted it on the ranma that was being pressed up against the wall, she ran over to where they were and pulled out a smaller spatula.
"Ranma huney catch!"
She tossed the smaller spatula to the ranma that was pressing the other one against the wall, hoping she had the right ranma. She watched as the ranma that had talked to her caught the spatula with one hand, and grasped the other ranma by her necklace with the other. Ranma-chan then slid the chain around, still grasping it tightly as her finger's twitched from the burning sensation, till she saw the glowing gem. With her other hand grasping the small spatula tightly she sliced into the chain part of the necklace roughly, and yanked at it forcefully, making the spatula's sharp edges cut into the weakened chain. She gave it one last hard yank and broke the chains that held the red gem in place, she released her hold on the chain and from onna and cursed at her scorched red hand.
Onna's eyes lost the glazed look, as the gem separated from her broken necklace, and she tensed up feeling naked once more. She suddenly remembered how she had acted and how she had attacked her twin, she hung her head low and backed away from the wall, and ran off as fast as she could, the tears slowly filling her eyes. Ukyou noticed the other ranma had run off with tears in her eyes after that necklace was broken and was very confused and seeked answers.
"Ranma huney.. why were there two of you?"
Ranma-chan looked up from blowing on her scorched hand at ukyou. "What do ya mean by were?"
Ukyou shrugged her shoulders before answering. "Well the other you ran off really fast, after you broke that necklace she had on.. why is there another you?"
Ranma-chan looked upset as she heard what ukyou said. "She ran away huh.. I'll tell you, though you might not believe me, but then I have to go after her."
Ukyou nodded and listened as Ranma told her that the girl was a clone made by the devil to frame him, but since ranma's DNA was used she was more like a sister. Ukyou looked very concerned, but also grew angry as she thought about the sudden fire from before. Ranma noticed this and knew Onna must've done something horrible against her will again.
"Ukyou.. try not to be mad at her, she's being controlled by the devil.."
Ukyou's rage grew as she listened to ranma making up excuses for his twin, she gritted her teeth as she replied.
"Well your sister tried to burn my home and my restaurant down! She left the rudest message burning in the flames.. I almost blamed Ryouga for it!"
Ranma sighed and gave ukyou a tired looking expression.
"Ukyou please.. I know it's a horrible thing that she did, but it's like I told ya she has no control over what she does. She's ok for now, and I'm sure she knows what she did and feels very guilty about it.."
Ukyou noted how upset ranma looked when she talked about her twin, she decided to be abit more understanding.
"Well I'll believe it when I see it Ranma-Huney.. and she owe's me big time for the damages.."
Ranma smiled somewhat as ukyou went abit easier on her twin for her actions.
"Thanks ukyou this means a lot to me, I'll help you clean up your place for awhile."
Ukyou smiled with teary eyes and glomped onto ranma. "Thank you Ran-chan.."
Ranma-chan and Ukyou walked back towards the restaurant, both deep in thought about the recent event's.
Onna keeps running till she spots a cemetery, she walks in through the gates wiping away her tears and trying not to shake as all the horrible things she's done played through her head over and over. She grabbed her head and slumped up against a headstone, and curled up starring off into nothingness as the rain started to fall from the sky. She was to busy crying to notice nodoka who was visiting the grounds at one of her families headstones, not too faraway. Nodoka stopped praying as she heard a girl crying not far off from where she was, she grew concerned that it could be Ranko and grabbed her umbrella up from the ground, following where the sounds were coming from. Nodoka finally came upon a headstone with a red-haired girl curled up crying, with her head down, she immediately recognized that it was Ranko.
"Ranko dear…what are you doing out here in the rain like this.." She popped open the umbrella that she held in one of her hands, holding it over the girl.
Onna looked up at the kind voice and her eyes widened, she couldn't stop from trembling as the horrid images kept playing in her head. Nodoka noticed that she was trembled and quickly grabbed her by the arm and dragged her up onto her feet gently.
"Come on now Ranko.. your freezing from being in the cold rain, it's not good for you.. Lets go back to the house, and I'll make you some warm tea to warm you up."
Nodoka didn't wait for a reply, as she was too concerned with the girls condition and started walking off, still holding the girls hand and making sure she was walking with her under the umbrella as the rain poured down hard from the sky.
Soon they entered nodoka's house, nodoka closed the umbrella and put it away and lead onna into the house, then she ran off into the kitchen an began to prepare the tea quickly. Onna just sat there at the table with her head down, she didn't care that she was cold and wet. Nodoka ran back into the room with the tea and set the cup down near the girl. She had panicked and microwaved the tea, seeing that it was faster then waiting for the water to boil. She grew nervous as the girl didn't move from the spot, or the fact that she wasn't touching the tea at all. Nodoka reached both of her arms out and took hold of Onna's, and guided them to the warm cup of tea.
"Please Ranko dear won't you have some tea? You'll catch a cold if you don't warm yourself up."
Onna looked up from the ground into the woman's pleading eyes, again the kindness that she showed reached through to her heart, melting away her cold barrier towards people. She sighed and took hold of the cup, lifting it up off the table towards her face gently blowing her breath onto the tea's surface to cool it off. Then she sipped some of it, noting how relieved the woman started to look. Nodoka thought this was as good a time as ever to tell the girl what she had been constantly thinking about, and cleared her throat.
"Ranko dear.. I'd like to ask you something, just listen before you answer alright?"
Onna nodded and sipped her tea slowly, as she waited for Nodoka to continue. Nodoka smiled nervously at the small girl, and finished what she had to say.
"I'd like for you to move in with me, of course you don't have to I'd just feel a lot better knowing you were safe under my care."
Onna just starred at the woman in awe, of how kind she was being to her. She remembered how happy it had made her when they had both taken a bath together, and cooked that afternoon snack. Then she came upon a sad memory of ranma's, one where he had to hide from his mother, and watched how sad she looked when she heard ranma was not at the tendou dojo. Another memory played in her head, it was about ranma disguised as Ranko, and how happy Nodoka was being with her. Onna looked down at her neck, remembering the necklace was gone which meant Satan could not boss her around at the moment, she pulled her new red gem out from her pocket and laid it on the table.
"Yes I'll move in with you Auntie Saotome..but could you make this into a necklace?" She pushes the red gem further out across the table, so Nodoka can see it. Nodoka eyed the gem astonished by it's soft glow, and how red it was.
"Of course I will, this is so unlike you Ranko, you never wear jewelry, and I'm beyond happy at hearing that you accept my proposal." Nodoka wipes tears of happiness away, and dabs at them daintily with her napkin.
Onna smiled at seeing the woman so happy, then she looked frightened for a moment.
"Auntie Saotome..i need to go back home and get some of my things.."
Nodoka stopped her before she could say anymore, by raising her hand up gently.
"Please Ranko don't try to decide such dangerous things all by yourself, I understand you want to go back and get your stuff. I'll go with you if that's the case."
Onna's eyes widened at the woman's determination, and gave up on arguing further about the situation, and finished her tea rather quickly.
Nodoka noticed this and shook her head, but pressed further on the other problem.
"Alright let's go get your stuff then, stay close to me at all times won't you Ranko dear? I don't want you getting hurt anymore."
Onna nodded and followed after Nodoka, as she walked out of the house down the street towards onna's house. Onna stayed very close to her, as they neared her house. Nodoka noted that the girl was trembling slightly as they approached the front door of the house.
"Ranko dear it's alright, i'm here with you and i won't let anyone lay a single finger on you." She smiled geniunely at the girl.
Onna's eyes trembled with tears, at how much this woman really cared about her. She nodded and entered the dark house with Nodoka, stepping about quietly and carefully till they reached her room. Onna snatched up her bookbag from the floor and quickly started stuffing some outfits and her most important things inside. Nodoka knelt down onto the floor next to her and helped her pack most of her things. Onna finished and nodded at nodoka letting her know she was ready to leave. They both exited the dark and gloomy house, walking outside into the sunny atmosphere.
Ranma-chan kept walking deep in her thoughts, till she heard a loud squeeling noise, listening to where it was coming from. She jumped up onto the fence and looked down into the water canal below and spotted p-chan, being carried away by the water's current, jumping off the fence and down into the water canal below, she grabbed p-chan and hauled herself out of the water. Ukyou snapped out of her thoughts at hearing the noise as well. "Ranma huney..did you hear that?" She blinked confused, as she noticed that ranma had dissapeared and looked around till she found both ranma and p-chan in the water canal below.
"Ranma huney?" She peered down at ranma through the chain fence.
Ranma-chan jumped back up ontop of the fence holding p-chan by his bandana, and jumped down from the fence onto the ground next to Ukyou.
"Look who i found." She showed ukyou the black piglet, as it kicked it's legs about furiously trying to get away.
Ukyou noted this, and blushed embarassed for blaming her misfortune on Ryouga. "Ryouga don't worry i'm not mad at you anymore.. " She twiddled her fingers nervously as she talked.
Ranma-chan smirked at Ukyou and P-chan. "Why don't you continue this love chat after he gets some hot water, back at your place."
Ukyou blushed again, but more furiously then last time and reached behind her, grabbing her gigantic spatula and lifting it into the air, bringing it down crashing into ranma's head. "Ranma you jack ass! How could you say such a thing!" She quickly put her spatula back into it's holder on her back, and dashed off towards her restuarant looking very embarassed. Ranma fell over face first into the ground from the instant impact that the gigantic spatula had given her. P-chan trotted over to where ranma was and snorted smugly, as if to mock ranma. Then he started walking off in a random direction, not paying attention to any details.
Disclaimer: I do not own ranma 1/2 or any of it's characters, they great and powerful Rumiko Takahashi does, and Kitty, Shogukan, Viz Video and any others i forgot.