les@firstclass.unb.ca (Les)
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Dulse: a type of edible seaweed. Need I say more?
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.sys.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
This has been reposted with a few changes, the biggest being my
change in email address. The rest are minor spelling corrections.
Part 1 of 6
The sun rose slowly over Tokyo's suburbs. Sunlight danced
over the rooftops, played around the dewdrops, reflected off the shop
windows, and oozed through the sewer grates. It was a pleasant
morning, provided one was the type who liked oozing light.
Shampoo didn't notice the dawning light, as she was too busy
negotiating with a mustached Caucasian salesman over the latest
magical ingrediant.
"10,000 yen for one bag! That ridiculous!"
"Love-Dulse does not come cheap, Lady," Mustache countered
evenly.
"2000 yen not cheap either! I pay that much!"
"9000", Mustache offered.
"5000!"
"8000!"
"6000!"
"6500!"
Shampoo sighed, "I take it," she conceded.
"It's New Brunswick's best dulse, 'Mam. Results are
guaranteed." Mustache gave her the bag. "Just a question, though.
Why would a fine girl like you want something like this? Don't tell
me you have a problem getting a man!"
Shampoo took the bag with a grin and sniffed the contents.
"Not any more. If this work, it all in bag!" She giggled at her own
pun. "I have to be first girl he see after he eat dulse, right?"
"Or while he eats it," Mustache confirmed. "The more dulse
he eats, the more passion he'll feel. Only a bite and you'll have a
boyfriend. One strip and you'll have a husband."
"One bag?" Shampoo asked coyishly.
"Not recommended unless you have a fair sized cot within
three feet and the next 5 hours free."
"That strong?" Shampoo grinned, eyes gleaming with hope that
had nothing to do with virtue.
"With doses like the bag you're holding, you'd better wear
clothing you wouldn't mind being torn from your body."
"Lust at first sight!", Shampoo giggled.
The deal was concluded, and Shampoo politely bade the
salesman goodbye and sent him off with a written invitation to her
upcoming wedding. The salesman left the store chuckling to himself.
As he left earshot, the chuckle grew to a high-pitched sinister
cackle. Finally, with a quick glance around to make sure no one was
watching, Kodachi tore off her Acme Instant-Mustached-Caucasion-
Salesman Disguise and walked home, laughing evilly all the way.
What sinister purpose did Kodachi have in selling Shampoo a
bag of dulse?
Please wait. Do not spoil the story.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Despite the bright morning, Ranma awoke with a sense of
foreboding. Impending doom hung in the air like a bowling ball on
the end of a fishing line. Cautiously, he manouvered out of his
room. He carefully peered in all directions before he proceeded at a
snail's pace down the hall. <So far, so good>, Ranma thought, as his
eyes went over the details of the doorway into the kitchen.
He saw Akane running around in the kitchen. Except for a
skirt, apron, blouse, slippers, welding gloves, stockings, and
probably a set of ugly blue underwear, she was naked. <No big deal
here>, Ranma thought to himself, then mentally backtracked,
<Waitasec!>. His mind frantically reviewed what he had seen in the
last few moments. <Let's see, nothin's wrong with the kitchen that I
can see from here. Akane seems alright, though a bit frantic. The
ugly tomboy can't even keep here apron clea-->.
Suddenly the cold truth struck him with the intensity of a
Canadian winter. Apron, welder's gloves, and frantic action only
meant one thing.
AKANE WAS COOKING!
Ranma quickly scurried out of sight of the kitchen. Akane
didn't notice as she was wrestling a glowing purple glob from a
battered wok into Ranma's lunchbox. The purple glob was putting up a
good defense until Akane stunned it with a karate chop and threw a
glob of it, judo style, into Ranma's box. Before the disembodied
member had time to recover, Akane slammed the lid shut. She placed
the box beside Nabiki's lunch box, which would occasionally bounce as
something struck it from inside.
Quietly, Ranma crawled down the hall, distributing his weight
evenly on all fours to avoid squeaking the floorboards. His heart
stopped in mid-beat when he heard a loud squeak. Kasumi had stepped
into the hall, saw Akane in the kitchen, and called to her, "Akane,
is that you in the kitchen?"
"Oh, hi Sis!" Akane called out from the kitchen. "Have you
seen Ranma and Nabiki? I've fixed their lunches for them."
"Have I seen Ranma?" Kasumi repeated the question aloud,
looking inquisitively at Ranma, who in a state of panic was now
clinging to the ceiling using the Saotome patented cling-to-ceiling-
praying-enemy-don't-look-up technique. Frantically, Ranma mouthed
the phrase 'no' and shook his head vigorously. Kasumi shook her
head, mimicking Ranma's motion. "No?" she asked, reading Ranma's
lips.
"Oh, I guess they're still asleep then." Akane went back to
the business of pummelling her cooking.
Kasumi took the moment to talk to Ranma. "Why are you up
there?"
"I'm, err, practicing a new martial arts technique."
Answering Kasumi's next unspoken question Ranma told her its name. A
few more minutes passed before Katsumi joined Akane in the kitchen.
"Kasumi" Akane greeted, "sorry for the slight mess I made
here. Things got a bit frantic, but I'll clean it up after school."
Kasumi looked at the wreakage and had to suppress a gasp of
horror. The corpses of pots and pans were strewn randomly about the
kitchen. Spread amongst the carnage was a twisted array of notched
knives, twisted tongs, spent spoons, and -- Kasumi checked this twice
-- a badly misshapen crowbar.
"I sure hope Ranma--and Nabiki too--appreciate the effort I
put in their lunches." Akane sighed, as she wrestled her glob into a
nearby pot..
"Oh, that reminds me," Kasumi recovered from the shock of
seeing the destruction of her kitchen. "Ranma can't take his lunch
today because he had to leave early to master a new martial-arts
technique."
Akane was intrigued, "New technique?"
"Yes," Kasumi replied honestly, "he called it 'fleeing-tiger-
avoids-food-poisoning'."
"WHAT!"
"Don't worry little sister!" Kasumi soothed, "He said he'd
come back at the right time to eat it." Kasumi looked thoughtful,
"By the way, when exactly does Hell freeze over?"
"RANMA NO BAKA!!" Angrily she grabbed Ranma's lunch tin
along with a handy Tendou sword. Hurricane Akane then stormed out of
the Tendou household, proceeding in a Ranmaly direction. "Hanging's
too good for him!" she screamed, "Burning's too good for him! He
should be cut into little bitty pieces and buried alive!"
Kasumi watched Akane's departure with a deep sigh. Then,
with an even deeper sigh, she turned her attention towards the
thankless task of restoring the Tendou Kitchen.
"Kasumi, where's lunch?" Nabiki asked as she nonchalantly
entered the kitchen. Nabiki was oblivious to Akane's kitchen
blitzkrieg as she was busy reading her new book "Profiting from
Other's Misfortunes", occasionally adding some notes in the margin.
Kasumi looked at Nabiki's lunch box, which by now had ceased
it's thrashings. "Here!" She presented the box to Nabiki who
absentmindedly took it. "I'm afraid it's not as good as what I
usually make," she understated as she handed the box to Nabiki.
"Hey, no problem. Well, I have to run now. Another day,
another 100 yen!" She turned and left <not counting what I've hid
from the tax bureau>, she thought as she left.
Kasumi watched her goodbye with a look of optimism mixed with
apprehension. "She should be all right," she tried to orally
reassure herself, "once she gets past the burning sensation, and if
she can overcome the gag reflex, there's a chance she can actually
eat it." She sighed, then relunctantly brought her attention back to
the kitchen carnage.
(continued in next post)
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Part 2 of 6
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
-- Cut here --
* * * * (Backtrack 5 minutes, location: outside Tendo Home) * * * *
When Shampoo arrived outside to the Tendou homestead, it was
to find Ranma crawling out of the Tendou house on all fours. "Ranma!
You not been frightened into thinking you cat again, have you?"
"SSSSSTTT!", Ranma hissed, trying hard to keep his presence
unknown from Akane's keen ears.
"Now kitty, no hiss at Shampoo. Shampoo friend." She knelt
and patted Ranma's head affectionately, scratching his ears for good
measure.
Ranma was underwhelmed. "I'm not a cat! I'm trying to lose
Akane!" he whispered as loudly as he dared.
"Aren't we all," Shampoo smiled wickedly, "this mean you want
find-", she gently lifted his head, looked straight into his eyes,
and purred, "someone else?"
"What!" Ranma yelped, "Well no--er--I mean yes--I mean the
fact is--"
"RANMA NO BAKA!" Akane's battle cry shattered the rest of
Ranma's sentence, along with a few nearby windows.
Shampoo viewed the rapidly incoming Akane with detached
interest. "Akane holding sword I understand. Why she holding lunch
box?"
Ranma turned whiter than a bedsheet in a Javex Bleach
commercial, "I gotta hoof it!". Ranma hoofed, hotly pursued over
Hill and Dale by an enraged Akane. Shampoo have a "hmph" of
frustration, then helped Mr. Hill and Mr. Dale to their feet.
* * * * (Meanwhile, nearby the Tendou Home) * * * *
Happosai was trying to avoid an occupational hazard he had
encountered while about his business.
"Dirty Old Man! Give me back my underwear!" screamed his
occupational hazard--Ukyou, in this case.
"It's only a lousy pair of panties!" Happosai yelled over
his shoulder.
Ukyou turned several shades redder, and out of her throat
arose a deep growl that would have convinced a tiger to become a
vegetarian. Happosai doubled his speed, tossed his patented
Happodarikin over his shoulder, and dissappeared into the resulting
smokescreen. Kicking into overdrive, he tore into the Saotome
household. Looking into the kitchen, he saw Kasumi struggling with
the weight of a small pot.
"Ahh, little Kasumi," Happosai licked his lips with a
slavering tongue. "You needn't strain yourself with the weight of
all of your fine cooking. Here; let me lighten your load," he
snatched the pot from Kasumi's hands and raced to the safety of the
back porch.
Kasumi breathed a sigh of relief, and called after Happosai's
retreating form. "Thank you! I was wondering what to do with it.
Please take it outside." She turned yet again to the miraculous task
of restructuring her shattered kitchen.
A few seconds later, Happosai heard an inhumanly high-pitched
scream. This was not suprising, considering that he was the one
screaming. When Kasumi ran to the porch to find out what the fuss
was about, she found Happosai struggling with the contents of the pot
he had snatched.
"Heeeellllp! I've been jumped by a blob from outer space!"
Happosai screamed hysterically.
Kasumi giggled in a feminine way, which only made sense,
considering her sex. "Um, that's something Akane cooked up this
morning. I'm really not sure what it was; I was afraid of opening
the lid." She considerately paused to allow Happosai to yell
incoherently for a while. "I was going to throw it out along with
the pot but now," she retrieved the pot and lid from the ground where
they lay, "it looks like we can keep the pot after all. Thank you
very much Happosai. Please enjoy your meal." Kasumi returned to her
kitchen reconstruction. "Over eighty years old, and he still plays
with his food." she sighed to herself.
Her restoration miracle was interrupted when the door bell
rang. Kasumi ran to the door to find Ukyou simmering there.
"Happosai's here, isn't he?" she angrily demanded.
"Yes. He's out back." Kasumi smiled politely. "Do you want
me to tell him what you are here for?"
"I'm here to kill him. Slowly. Painfully. Using cruel and
unusual punishments." Ukyou licked the edge of her sharpened
spatula.
"Oh, that's nice! Would you like a cup of tea? Happosai's
busy at the moment with Akane's cooking."
"Akane's cooking!" Ukyou boiled over. "Happosai! Dirty old
coward! You think suicide will save you from my wrath!?" she rushed
to the back porch.
"Make yourself at home," Kasumi called after Ukyou's
disappearing form.
Meanwhile, Happosai was not taking current events very well.
It is not every day that one gets physically assaulted by kitchen
ingrediants, and he was having a hard time dealing with the
situation. The glob absorbed his kicks and punches like a modern
animate tar-baby. In desparation, he pulled out a Happodarikin, lit
it and threw it into the blob's central mass. Happosai watched with
satisfaction as it embedded itself with a 'splotch', but his
satisfaction turned to horror when he realized he could not separate
himself from Akane's cooking. He looked around in desparation to
spot Ukyou standing on the porch, a half-smile on her lips.
"Having a bit of trouble getting off?" Ukyou inquired
sweetly with a dash of malice, sprinkled lightly with a taste of
imminent revenge.
Wide-eyed, Happosai tried to blow out the burning fuse. He
huffed and he puffed, but he could not blow the fuse down. The
explosion blew the blob--and Happosai himself--up into the air.
Ukyou followed Happosai's trial flight from the ground, and watched
him plummet to the street. The pavement broke his fall nicely.
"I've fallen, and I can't get up!" Happosai whimpered. It
was true. The corpse that was once Akane's cooking stuck to him like
glue, and to the cement like, well, cement.
At that moment, an eighteen-wheeler came barrelling down the
road. The driver, noticing the vaguely man-shaped object on the
road, slammed on the brakes. Unfortunately, Newton's Laws of Motion
were being strictly enforced that day, and Happosai was caught under
the front bumper of the transport and was dragged for 300 metres
before the transport could come to a complete stop. Hurridly, the
driver got out to check what he had run over, only to meet Ukyou.
"Do you know what I just ran over?", he worridly asked.
"Oh, just some garbage in some old rags that I was going to
dispose of anyway." she smiled saucily, then feigned interest in the
driver's transport. "Ohh, what a big truck you have!", she gushed,
basting the drivers ego with flattery.
"All the better to haul cargo with, 'Mam," the driver smiled
sheepishly.
"Where are you hauling t?" Ukyou inquired with a dash of
interest.
"Err, " the truck driver melted under her charm (preheated at
350 degrees), "I'm going to Detroito."
"Oh, what a coincidence! My grandmother lives there!", she
sidled up to him, serving him a glance from her coquettish eyelashes,
"would you mind if I tagged along?"
"Welllll..., are you sure it's all right?"
"I was on my way to the bustop already, remember?", she lied
cheerfully. The driver was in no mental condition to notice.
"Well, I wouldn't mind someone to talk to on the eight-hour
drive."
"Great! I'll jump in the passenger side!", she walked around
the transport, stopping briefly in front of Happosai, who was
hopelessly entangled under the front bumper.
Happosai growled at her, "Get me outta' here!" He then
whimpered, "Please?"
"I've got good news and bad news," Ukyou stated with a dose
of malice, mixed with a taste of sadistic pleasure (simmer 5
minutes), "the good news is, I'm taking you with me."
"Happy happy! Joy! Joy!", Happosai celebrated as best as an
old man stuck under the bumper of an 18-wheeler by hopelessly bad
cooking could.
"The bad news is: I'm going for a ride in this rig, so why
bother unsticking you?" Ukyou cheerfully let Happosai stew in his
own protests as she climbed into the transport. "Roll on!"
(continued in yet another post)
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Part 3 of 6
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
-- Cut here --
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meanwhile, Ranma was experiencing the daily doldrums of High
School. English was anguish, Grammer dragged on like a death
sentence, torturing Ranma in its subordinate clause. The only
redeeming feature of the morning came in Chemistry class, where the
near-sighted instructor confused a container of sodium with a
container of mercury. When he tried to explain density differences
by dumping it into a tubful of water, the resulting explosion gave
the entire class an early lunch.
Ranma, knowing full well that Akane was waiting for him with
the bento box of doom, used the confusion to stage a strategic
withdrawal to Ukyou's lunch stand. He arrived to fund it as closed
and inaccessable as Nabiki's purse.
"Wierd, it's not like her to miss the lunch crowd," Ranma
muttered to himself, "Hope she's okay."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Are you okay, Miss?" The transport driver worridly asked.
Ukyou didn't respond. Instead, she just sat there in a state of
bliss, with an ear cocked as if listening to a far-away sound.
"MISS!" the driver shouted.
Ukyou jolted out of her reverie, "Oh! I'm sorry, is anything
wrong?"
"You looked for a moment there as if you were hypnotized."
Ukyou giggled. "Oh, no! I was just listening to the
background noises," she replied with the sweetness of 2 cups brown
sugar, lightly packed.
The driver strained his own ears, "Yeah, that is strange.
Sounds like an old man screaming. Can't make out what the words are,
though."
Underneath the front bumper, Happosai futily struggled to
unstick himself. "Blast her! Blast her!" He shouted at the
heavens.
"It sounds a lot like 'Faster! Faster!'" Ukyou supplied,
serving the truth, omitting a few minor ingredients.
"Faster it is!" The driver obliged, flooring the
accelerator.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ranma next visited Shampoo's restaurant, only to find that
the windows were shut tight. "Another one closed during lunch?
What's up?" Ranma approached the door regardless, and found a sign
tacked on it:
A L L S E A T S R E S E R V E D
10:00 - 12:00
FOR
MISS ANIMERICA
AND
12:00 - 2:00
FOR
THE HITOSHI DOI FAN CLUB
Ranma sighed, and turned away, only to bump into a suddenly
materialized Shampoo. "Er, hi there."
"Ni hao," Shampoo purred. Ranma didn't like the way she was
looking at him. It resembled the way a cat looked as it approached
an unguarded fish.
He tried to distract her attention. "I guess you're gonna
have a heavy day, what wth all those reservations." Ranma gestured
at the sign on the door.
"No," Shampoo smiled, "pageant end early. And Fan Club bus
break down. They delayed." She slinked beside him, rubbing his side
with her flank. "I make something. You like?"
Ranma's stomoch rumbled approval. Shampoo quietly opened the
door and with catlike grace stepped inside. "Enter of your own free
will," Shampoo giggled with a glint in her eye.
Ranma puzzled over this remark, then shrugged it off. "Must
be an inside joke," he murmered as he entered of his stomoch's free
will.
The inside of Shampoo's Restaurant had undergon a slight
renovation since the last time Ranma was there. The tables in the
centre had been removed to accomodate a double-sized futon.
Ranma view the changes with apprehension, "this is one wierd
club you got here."
"Isn't it!" Shampoo smiled with the sincerity of a used-car
salesman. "Take seat near futon."
With a confused look, Ranma seated himself, trying to shake
off the premonition that something disastrous was about to happen.
In the kitchen, Shampoo evilly grinned, <Not best way to
marry, but Ranma too strong for headlock, and too fast for
hammerlock. Wedlock only hold left.> She set the dulse in a bowl,
carefully arranging the dry, purple strips in random order. At the
door, she took a moment to conceal a look of imminent triumph that
had worked its way into her features, then stepped out and presented
the bowl to Ranma.
Ranma looked at the bowl's contents dubiously. "This all you
got?"
"Wellll," Shampoo began, "I may get food from fan club, but
you must pay--"
"Forget it! This'll do fine!" Ranma began to shovel the
strips into his mouth. He was on his second bowl when his throat
reminded him to take the time to chew. It was when Ranma was midway
through his forth bowl, when he stopped in mid-shovel and
straightened, as if jolted with an electrical shock. His eyes locked
onto Shampoo's. He swallowed hard.
"Sh-sh-sh-Shampoo--", he began uncertainly.
"Rrrrrrranma," Shampoo purred.
"I can't," Ranma shuddered, turning away with visible effort,
"I shouldn't!"
"Why not?" Shampoo stepped out of her shoes, and with a tug
on her dress, she became barefoot--up to her hairpins. "It best
instinct in human nature."
Ranma caved in to the urge. "I guess that explains why
you're au natural," he said, backing away, "but I see no reason for
us to get to the bare essentials right now, and the naked truth of
this matter is that I've gotta get back to class, and I don't got the
time for a nude's broadcast."
"NO PLAY AROUND RANMA!" Shampoo snapped irritably, then
softened. "It time to fool around." She advanced at a stalking
pace. Ranma edged back, looking for the nearest available exit.
Shampoo kept in between him and the exit.
The cat-and-mouse game stopped abruptly, when both Ranma and
Shampoo heard an evil laugh come from one of the restaurant tables.
they turned to see Kodachi remove her Acme Instant-Table-in-
Shampoo's-Restaurant Disguise with her typical flourish..
"I always knew you were after my Ranma," Kodachi taunted,
"but I'd never thought you'd be *this* desperate!"
With a magician's grace, Shampoo quickly grabbed a tablecloth
from the table nearest her and wrapped the cloth around herself.
"Kodachi!" Shampoo hissed, her hair bristling, "What you do here?"
"Oh, nothing much," Kodachi replied offhandedly, "I just
wandered in to watch you attempt to be ravaged by Ranma after you fed
him a bag of pun dulse."
"Pu-pu-pun dulse?" shock stuttered Shampoo's words.
"Yes," Kodachi smiled wickedly, "Pun dulse. Until Ranma eats
the antidote--which only I have--his thoughts will consist of nothing
but puns. Bad puns. Horrible puns," she leaned forward for greater
emphasis, "Puns-that-go-groan-in-the-night puns."
"So I'm really in for some Pun-ishment?" Ranma quipped
before he could stop himself. He tried to rephrase his question,
"What you're saying is, I've now developed a pun-chant for bad
jokes?"
"Where antidote?" Shampoo hissed.
"That's between a wife and her husband," Kodachi cast a
meaningful glance at Ranma.
"You BITCH!" spat Shampoo, as she grabbed a pair of maces
from a box labelled "Feminine Protection", and leapt at Kodachi.
Kodachi quickly threw a wall of black roses at Shampoo's face.
Paralysis gas covered Shampoo's ears, nose, and throat, stopping her
in her tracks.
"You sure rose to the occasion, Kodachi," Ranma winced at his
own pun, "but now that your little joke has blossomed, why don't you
backpetel things a bit and give me the antidote before things get
thorny?"
"Well, the antidote is in a cake," Kodachi coyly began.
"No prob. You just tell me where the mix is and I'll get
cookin'."
"The cake's on reserve. For a wedding."
"A wedding," Ranma repeated numbly. He had the uncomfortable
feeling he knew what was coming next.
Kodachi didn't surprise him. "My wedding, to be exact." She
twirled a black rose in her hands, wrapping the stem around her
finger. "All that's missing is a bridegroom," she spoke to Ranma
with the innocence of a reformed axe murderer.
"Ahhhh, I hear Ryoga's available," Ranma generously offered.
"Sure, he can be a bit pig-headed, ham-handed, even a bit boaring at
times, but he can always bring home the bacon. He'd make a great
husband, given the oink-klination."
Kodachi snorted, "Ryoga doesn't need the antidote hidden in
the cake. You do. Pretty soon, you won't be able to open your mouth
without releasing a horrible pun, and it will only get worse. The
only way you can be cured is to eat the antidote in the cake, and
only I know where it is." Her eyes gleamed in the way Count
Dracula's did when he learned that open-necked shirts were back in
style. "So, the only way you can ever hope to function normally is
to marry me. Brilliant concept, n'est-ce-pas?"
"Lemme get this straight," Ranma mused aloud, "I'm doomed to
spend a lifetime telling horrible jokes."
"Hei," Kodachi replied, demonstrating her flair for foreign
languages.
"And I can end this Judgement if I propose to you."
"Yes."
"But I can't do that!" Ranma wailed, "It's improper to end
my sentence with a proposition!"
When Kodachi recovered, she gave Ranma a half-smile. "It's
all right. Once you understand the predicament you're in, you'll
come around to my way of seeing things." She walked to where Shampoo
was still standing immobile. "Well, It's time I left this greasy
chopstick, Shampoo. Give my regards to--"
With a deft right cross, Shampoo ended Kodachi's sentence.
Another right dotted Kodachi's eye. The martial arts gymnyst, voted
most likely to finish at the top of her class or else, staggered
back, stunned.
"Faking paralysis!" Kodachi sputtered, "Cheater!"
"To be precise," Ranma supplied, "she double-crossed you."
Shampoo spared a sympathetic glance towards Ranma, then
turned her attention towards Kodachi, fangs bared. "Make deal. You
give me cake, I let you out here in one piece. Maybe even let you
live."
"The only thing you're getting from me is the thrashing of
your life!" Kodachi roared, unleashing the mother of all ribbons.
Shampoo dodged Kodachi's twirling assault, grabbed a sword from under
a nearby table, and sliced the ribbon into shreds. Quickly Kodachi
pulled out the father of all ribbons, which Shampoo set about dodging
and slashing.
"Shampoo has the making of a good comedian," Ranma remarked
out loud as he watched the two locked in combat, "Even when she's
angry, she's a real cut-up." His glance fell upon the clock attached
to the wall. "Whoops! Gotta go gals! Lunchtime's almost over, and
my pop'll kill me if I don't do a class act. He's got a real panda-
ring towards these things, Ya know," Ranma grimaced, <This is bad,>
the thought as he ran back towards school, <I can't stand my own
jokes!>
Akane angrily waited for him at the school gates. "Where
were you!" she demanded angrily.
"You might say I saw a Japanese version of 'The Naked
Lunch'," Ranma involuntarily said as he raced towards school.
"Subbed or dubbed?" Akane queried, distracted. "Wait, you
forgot your lunch!", she ran up to him, holding out his lunch
container.
Ranma looked fearfully at the badly bent bento box . "Forget
it! I've already eaten enough poisons today!"
"You haven't even tried it yet!" Mount Akane erupted.
"Coward! Pervert!" she yelled at his rapidly retreating form,
"Cowardly Pervert! Perverted Coward!"
<For once, I wish she'd come up with some different insults,>
Ranma sighed as he skidded into class.
"Psst! Hey Ranma! Check this out!" It was Homatsu Katta, a
classmate holding a cheap fan magazine. "They're featuring an 'H'
fanfic of Kimagure Orange Road!" He hugged the magazine close to his
chest and chortled lecherously, "They're showing *everything*!"
"Really hard-KOR stuff, neh?" Ranma commented, before he
could help himself. Wearily he left a shocked Homatsu and collapsed
on his chair, <I've got a baaaaad feeling about this.>
(continued in still another post)
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Part 4 of 6
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
-- Cut Here --
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Much later, a desperate-looking Ranma and a disgruntled Akane
waited in Dr. Tofu's waiting room.
"You don't meant to tell me the reason you told those
horrible jokes was because you ate something called 'pun dulse'?",
she looked at him as if he had tried to sell her reservations to a
Switzerland seaside resort.
"You got any other reason why I'd suddenly yell at the Chem
Teach 'All Chemists are Reactionaries'?" Ranma angrily yelled.
"I thought It was because you're an idiotic transvestite!"
Akane roared back, brandishing her wooden sword labled "Ranma: for
exclusive use on".
"You're next, Ranma." Dr. Tofu appeared at the door to see
Akane, Ranma, and sword. "Oh, if you're not finished injuring him,
Akane, I'll come back later."
"It's not that!" Akane defensively blurted, "It's just that--"
"Doc," Ranma interrupted, "Ya gotta help me here. I ate some
pun dulse and now every time I open my mouth a horrible pun comes
out. Just today in school, my Stats teach gave us an assignment
before the long weekend, and the next thing I knew I stood up and
shouted, 'That's a *mean* trick.'"
"Oh."
"It got worse. She yelled at me for changing the subject so
I replied 'It was only a standard deviation!'", Ranma sighed.
"That's when I got sent to the principal's office."
"That's bad," Dr Tofu agreed.
"It wasn't the office, it was the principal of the thing,"
Ranma finished.
Dr. Tofu suppressed the urge to hit Ranma with the nearest
bed. Akane didn't.
"And now I'm bed-ridden," Ranma groaned.
Dr. Tofu pondered the situation for a moment, "You wouldn't
know if this dulse came from Eastern Canada, would you?", he asked as
he gently lifted the bed off of Ranma.
Ranma rubbed his head, "Don't Know. Is it important?"
"Very. The only antidote that exists for that will take me
weeks to order."
Ranma groaned, "That's probably it. Kodachi already has the
antidote, and the only way I can get it from her is marriage." Ranma
sighed, "I guess this really takes the cake."
Dr. Tofu was barely able to prevent Akane from impaling Ranma
with a foot-long needled syringe. "Akane", he shouted, "Don't!
Ranma's a poisoned man!"
Ranma assumed a defensive stance, "Don't worry Doc. I can
take a little needling!"
"Akane, I think you'd better wait outside." Dr. Tofu gently
led a smoldering Akane to the door. After she left, the doctor sat
on his stool and addressed Ranma. "What you've got is a severe case
of what doctors call 'Appundicitus'."
Quickly, Ranma dumped a nearby glass of ice water on himself,
"Make that *acute* appundicitus, she said, posing coquettishly in
front of Dr. Tofu.
Dr. Tofu winced, "Look Ranma, Appundicitus isn't by itself
fatal, but people have been known to die from this."
"Waitaminute Doc," Ranma interrupted, "if it isn't fatal, how
can I die from it?"
"Ever hear of a lynch mob? Appundicitus is one of those few
poisons that inflict more suffering on the vicim's aquaintences then
on the victim itself. There are more than a few instances where a
victim's constant bad jokes got him strung up by enraged listeners."
"Oh," Ranma answered, slightly mollified, "Is there any time
of day when I'm most likely to be at risk?"
"None that I know of," Dr. Tofu looked puzzled, "why do you
ask?"
"Oh, I just wanted to avoid the lynch-hour rush, that's all,"
Ranma struck his head when he realized what he said. "I think I'd
better go now."
"Quite all right," the doctor replied as kindly as he could
between clenched teeth, "I'll order some of the antidote as soon as
possible. But even with a rush order, it'll take several weeks for
it to get here. Try to avoid talking until then."
"Before too many people get the urge to put the die in my
dialogue? Talk about a dead-ended conversation!"
"Good-bye Ranma," Dr. Tofu pushed Ranma towards the exit.
"Remember to avoid meeting anyone, and don't talk."
"But, but, mmmf!" Ranma's protest was cut short as Dr. Tofu
stuffed a handfull of cotten balls into Ranma's mouth.
"Here, this should keep you safe until you get home. Take
them out only for sleeping or eating. Oh, I nearly forgot! Give my
regards to--to--to--", his glasses fogged over.
"Wah-um-ehh?" {Katsumi}, Ranma queried.
"Yes, her," Dr. Tofu tried to pat Ranma's shoulder in a
farewell gesture. Ranma, learning from past experience, quickly
dodged the pat and exited.
"Wyanwounff," {Syonara} Ranma muffled as he left, "Ah hoof
hay fumming out he-inn eh moun hat hut--" {I would have said
something about getting it down pat, but} Ranma signed at his
incomprehensible pun.
Alone in his office, Dr. Tofu deliriously pondered, "If
Kasumi's coming, I'd better tidy up here a bit." Foggy-eyed, he
turned to his office, "Simple enough, I'll just toss everything loose
into the closet."
Outside, Akane angrily waited for Ranma. <Pun dulse>, she
seethed, <this wouldn't have happened if he'd only eaten the lunch
*I* made for him, but nooo! He just had to go get into trouble.
You'd think by now he'd learn to avoid Shampoo, what with all the
magical ingredients she's tried to stuff in him. Couldn't he at
least give my cooking another chance!? Sure, I've had some bad luck
in the past, but it's not as if I killed anyone. Well, knocked out
for a while, and there *was* the sukiyaki that put Daddy in a coma,
but he recovered in no time, and-->
She was interrupted in mid-seethe when she saw a female,
puffy-faced Ranma walking towards her. "Well, cured yet?"
"Ahm hoh heh meeh, hoh hyam hoh hureh heah heagha," {I'm not
dead meat, but I'm not cured meat either}, Ranma elucidated with the
clarity of contaminated mud.
"Akane gave him a queer look. "You're not making sense
Ranma," she said, "though gods know I should be used to that by now,"
she sighed to no one in particular. She noticed Ranma run behind
her, "Hey! what are you doing?"
What Ranma was doing was grabbing Akane's backpack. The
martial arts hemephrodite snatched a pen and notepad --<Masculine
blue,> Ranma noticed, <Figures!>. Akane looked on confusedly as she
watched Ranma scribble frantically on the paper. Triumphantly, he
finished writing, tore off the sheet from the pad, and handed it to
Akane.
Akane studied the paper, tilting her head this way and that,
"OH!" Akane said at last.
Ranma looked relieved.
"I can't read your handwriting at all," Akane finished.
Ranma upended in the bandy-legged style we've all come to
know and tolerate. Angrily he shouted to her in cotton-muffled
gibberish, and ended pointing violently at Dr. Tofu's office.
"Alright," Akane replied, "I'll ask him about it. At least
there's *someone* here who can act sensibly." With an angry "hmmf"
in Ranma's direction, Akane turned her back on Ranma, walked into Dr.
Tofu's office, and stopped dead in her tracks.
The Doctor was in. Most of the office furniture was not,
being for the most part shoved into a closet that began to look as
if it were going to reach critical mass. "Hi Nabiki," Dr. Tofu
paused from his task of shoving a desk into the remaining 1/2 cubic
inch available in the closet, "I was just tidying up the place for
Katsumi's visit. Need any medical help? Broken leg to be set? Nose
out of joint?" he smiled earnestly through thickly hazed glasses,
"I've been reading up a bit on brain surgeries lately, want one?"
"Ahh, no thanks, I, ahh, just came to thank you for helping
Ranma, that's all. See you later, Doctor!" Akane beat a hasty
retreat. Ranma met her outside
"You *had* to mention Katsumi to him didn't you!" Akane
shouted. Behind her, there came a sound of a closet's wall
exploding, followed with the scrape of heavy furniture across a
wooden floor.
Ranma shook her head.
Akane was not mollified, "I still haven't found out why
you're now sounding as if your mouth has been stuffed with cotten
balls."
Ranma pulled a cotton ball from her mouth.
"Ooookay," Akane said dubiously, "your mouth *is* full of
cotton balls. Part of your treatment?"
Ranma nodded gloomily.
Akane smiled, "Then I guess I'd better enjoy the peace and
quiet while it lasts."
Ranma glared at her. she also tried to stick her tongue out,
but only succeeded in spitting out some cotton balls. <I'm not
taking a cottoning to this at all,> she thought bitterly, then
gritted her teeth at the horrible pun.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
BUMP!
"Yeow!" the transport driver exclaimed, "Look at those
potholes!" The truck jolted again, grinding Happosai into the ground
briefly before lurching him onwards, still stuck firmly under the
bumper. "Better brace yourself, Miss! We're in for a rough ride."
Ukyou looked at the array of bumps and potholes, "I know,"
she replied with a look of happiness with a side order of delight,
"isn't it great?"
(continued in the next post, but first a song from our sponsor:)
Let me be your hog
Let me be your hog now
I said baby baby baby baby
*BABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABYBABY*---
(sound of a CD being forcibly ripped from player)
'Wierd Al' Yankovic "Let Me by Your Hog", UHF Soundtrack
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Part 5 of 6
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
-- Cut Here --
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At Kodachi's haunt, the girl who laughed at the end of 'Grave
of the Fireflies' was busily choosing her wedding dress. Kodachi
sought the one that would best accomodated the bandages she now wore
on account of her bout with Shampoo. She cast an appraising eye over
each of the dresses. She couldn't use a critical eye at the moment,
as that was swollen shut.
"Ha ha ha!", Kodachi laughed to herself in the style that B-
ko would have approved. "My plan is perfect. Soon, Ranma's own puns
will drive him to the alter, or drive everyone else to force him to
it. Either way, he'll be mine, all mine!" Kodachi hugged her dress
and twirled as gracefully as she could on a bandaged ankle, "and
we'll live happily ever after, until we drop dead and rot!"
For the next 5 minutes, Kodachi's laughter echoed through the
neighborhood, prompting parents to bring their children indoors.
People travelled in pairs after that, and kept their doors bolted at
night.
At the Tendou household, Akane felt a sudden chill pass
through her. She shivered.
"Something wrong?" Nabiki queried. She, along with Akane,
was sitting watching a TV cartoon: Sailer Conty: Mistress of Science.
Nabiki was neutral towards the show, but Akane loved the premise of a
computer user banishing evildoers using the "Internet Flame Post
Action."
"Oh, nothing," Akane pulled her housecoat over her shoulders,
"just for a second, I thought I heard Kodachi laugh."
"Oh, she's probably enjoying the disguise kits I sold her.
Real bargains too at 50 000 yen each." <Especially good deals,>
Nabiki thought, <since I got the pair for 5000 yen.>
"You did *WHAT*!"
Nabiki looked at Akane innocently, "Just making a little
spending money. Anyways, what could she do with something as
innocent as an ACME-Instant-Table-in-Shampoo's-Restaurant Disguise
anyways?"
"I can guess," Akane replied, then resumed her line of
questioning, "you didn't sell her anthing else, by any chance?"
Nabiki stared at her, aghast. "You wouldn't expect me to
violate a sacred client trust," Nabiki leaned forward, eyes half
closed, "for free?"
Akane sighed, "how much?"
"Wellllll," Nabiki considered, "considering an information to
price-of-goods-obtained ratio of 1 to 10, and a total of purchases of
around 7000 yen--"
"You'd charge your own sister 7000 yen!" Akane shrieked.
"I guess blood *is* thicker than water," Nabiki sighed, "6000
yen. I can't compromise my principles any further."
Akane stared at her sister. <There's no way I can pay that
much! Ranma's not even worth a tenth of that anyways. Still, at the
rate he's swallowing cotton balls he'll either turn into a quilt or
pun us to death fir-->. Akane stopped as the solution came into her
mind. <Puns!> she thought as she ran towards the training hall, <for
once, Ranma my just be helpful after all.>
Nabiki looked at Akane's departure with curiousity. "Well
sis, what's it gonna be?" she called after Akane's retreating form,
"it's all right if you can't pay 100% up front, I've got an
installment plan--"
"I won't need it!" Akane reappeared with Ranma in tow, "I
think you'd better tell us everything you know; now; or I won't be
responsible for the consequences.
Nabiki gave Akane an amused glance. "Trading Ranma for some
info about Kodachi?", she sized Ranma in terms of meat quality,
"hmmm, I'll offer you 220 yen per kilogram, now all we have to do is
weigh him, and--"
"You don't get it sis," Akane turned to Ranma and punched him
in the stomoch, forcing him to spit out the cotton balls. "Ranma,"
Akane explained to a shocked Ranma, "Nabiki probably knows something
about Kodachi's pun dulse, why don't you talk to her about it?"
Nabiki's eyes fully opened, "You ate the pun dulse I sold
Kodachi?"
"Four bowls worth," Ranma answered, "what happened next was a
four-gone conclusion."
Nabiki cringed.
"I'd like to four-go this, but your reluctance to four-feit
you knowledge has lead me to four-fend all sense of four play. Ranma
gripped Nabiki's wrists to prevent her from plugging her ears, "Talk
now, or I'll really bring some bad puns to the four-front."
Nabiki screamed. Akane barely noticed, as she was listening
to a Doug & the Slugs CD on her walkman, at full volume. The precise
details of what Ranma said to Nabiki during the next half-hour have
been ommited, as it isn't necessary or healthy to go this far into
detail. Suffice it to say, Nabiki eventually broke.
"OK! OK!" Nabiki sobbed, "all I know is that I sold her a
few kilos of pun dulse, the antidote, and a couple of disguise kits.
I also gave her the address of a bakery I have shares in."
"A bakery!" Ranma exclaimed, "now we're cookin' with gas!"
Nabiki collapsed. Ranma waited for her to recover,
"Where...is...the...bakery?" he strained out the words singly, barely
overcoming the urge to pun.
Nabiki's business instincts rallied gamely in an attempt to
salvage her reputation, "it'll cost you."
"Nabiki," Ranma sighed, "Don't make me grill you. Trust me.
You can't take the heat, and it'll burn heavily on my conscience--"
"122SukiyakiStreetShinjukuDistrict!" Nabiki shrieked.
"Thanks," Ranma spoke the word and quickly sped out of the
house before the rest of his pun-laden sentence could be heard.
<Now,> Ranma thought as he ran, <what's the fastest way to Shinjuku
District? I could take a left at-->
Ranma's train of thought was derailed by a feminine voice
from above.
"Going somewhere, Ranma?" purred a heavily Chinese accented
voice.
Ranma dodged Shampoo's diving bicycle and ran further down
the street. Shampoo easily pedeled her bicycle alongside him.
"Why in rush? Akane violent again?" Shampoo spared a
backward glance towards the Tendo household, but saw nothing in the
pale moonlight.
"Kodachi's cure-cake is shelved in a shop," Ranma
alliterated, "a shelf-ish act, to be sure. I gotta' get there before
my jokes punnel me to death."
"Want ride?" Shampoo asked innocuously, "Bike go further,
faster."
"I suppose those tires do get around," Ranma mused before he
could stop himself.
"Get on back!" Shampoo pointed over her shoulder. "I drive."
Ranma looked at the one-seater dubiously.
"Plenty of room," Shampoo assured him, "Ranma just squeeze
reeeeal close."
Reluctantly, Ranma boarded and placed his hands on Shampoo's
shoulders to stabalize himself.
"Ouch!" Shampoo delicately exclaimed, "Please no hold
shoulders. They hurt from fight with Kodachi."
Ranma murmured a "sorry", cringed as yet another pun about
shouldering her burdon entered his mind, and looped his arms around
her waist.
Shampoo "ouched" again. "Stomach hurt too." She took hold
of Ranma's hands and positioned them on her breasts. "Must hold
here. Only place not hurt." The darkness concealed Ranma's blush,
and Shampoo's grin. "It dark. No one notice."
At that moment, Akane came onto the scene. "Ranma, is that
you?" she came closer until she could make out both Ranma's and
Shampoo's faces, and noticed where his hands were. "Ranma! You
pervert! Can't you take your mind off sex long enough to get the
antidote!?"
"I need the ride! I'm only trying to make the breast of a
bad situation!" Ranma gaffed.
"We go now!" Shampoo slammed on the pedals with an intensity
that would have convinced 50% of today's race car drivers to forsake
their careers in favour of basket weaving.
"And to think I was trying to help you!" Akane yelled at the
retreating pair. "I should've known better than to try to help a
perverted idiot like you!" Akane "hmph"ed, <I shouldn't have even
taken the time to get dressed again.>
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Well, here we are, finally!" the truck driver said as he
slammed on the brakes. "Thanks for the company."
"Ohh, thank *you* so much for the ride!" Ukyou gushed,
"remember, the next time you drop by Tokyo, stop by my place for the
best free lunch in your life."
"You can count on it."
Ukyou quickly dismounted the truck and scraped Happosai off
the front bumper, resisting the urge to flip him while he was stuck
on her spatula.
"Unnnnhhh..." Happosai groaned.
"I hope you've learned a lesson from this," Ukyou admonished
as she helped him to his feet.
"Ohhh!, yes! Yes!" he moaned.
"Good, at least that wasn't for noth--" she stopped in mid-
word when she realized that Happosai's attention was fixed soley on
her chest.
"Ohhh, yes! Yes!" Happosai lecherously groaned.
Without further ado, Ukyou slammed Happosai under the bumper
of a Greyhound bus and went home.
(concluded in next post, assuming that overzealous filespace conservers
did not delete it yet)
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
Part 6 of 6
Fan fiction by: Leslie Mills, aka: les@firstclass.unb.ca
Original Characters by: Rumiko Takahashi
-- Cut Here --
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"I'm sorry to be so bad for your business, Shampoo," Ranma
said as he rode behind Shampoo.
"You not bad business, Ranma," Shampoo admonished, suprised
that Ranma would say such a thing.
"Oh yes I am. Because of me, your assets are on hold."
Shampoo didn't know whether to laugh or scream, then saw that
they were nearing their destination. "Brace yourself Ranma. We
here!" she yelled over her shoulder.
Ranma and Shampoo arrived at the bakery in typical Shampoo
fashion, making a 2 point landing on the head of a bystander.
"I gotta' ask you Shampoo," Ranma began after releasing
Shampoo's assets and dismounting (the bike, that is), "where'd you
learn to ride like that?"
"Instructor in village taught me," Shampoo answered proudly.
Ranma scratched the back of his head and looked at the semi-
conscious bystander, "Must've been a crash course." He ripped his
gaze from the fallen man to examine the store. The lights were out,
and in the picture window Ranma could read the "Sorry, we're closed"
sign. He cursed under his breath, "Shampoo! It's an open and shut
case. The store's closed." Shampoo approached the door regardless.
"Shampoo, what're you doing?"
What Shampoo was doing was unsheathing one of her maces. A
few swings given with Shampoo's experienced guidence smashed the
door. Shampoo smiled, went inside, and turned on the lights, "Store
open now."
With the lights on, Shampoo could see the shelves containing
the wedding cakes, all fourteen of them. "This wedding cake shop?"
she asked incredulously. A quick look at the store's sign confirmed
it. "Nothing but wedding cake. Whole lot people get married, neh?"
Aghast, Ranma looked at the array of cakes. His spirits
plummeted to his socks.
"Let get started," Shampoo articulated, cutting a piece of
the first cake she came to and offered it to Ranma. "Only sure way
get antodoke--antaadack--cure, is eat all cake here."
"Ah--All cakes?" Ranma stammered, his mouth hung open.
Shampoo took the moment to shove a cake into his mouth.
"Eat up!" she said cheerfully, a sweep of her arm
encompassing the entire room, "we have long way to go!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At home, Akane fumed as she paced back and forth across the
living room. "I help him find where the cure is. I even get dressed
to help him get it in the middle of the night, and what do I get? I
get to see Ranma, running off with Shampoo, feeling her up!" she
paced and railed, "Pervert! Idiot! Perverted Idiot!"
"You left out 'Idiotic Pervert' this time," Nabiki casually
pointed out, "This mean you're finally calming down?"
Akane gave Nabiki a look that would have melted the T-1000.
"Calming down? Why should I get upset in the first place over a
worthless transvestite like Ranma?" she yelled, then grumbled,
"Waitaminute, what if the cake isn't cooked yet? Ranma'll probably
let Shampoo bake it." A chill went down Akane's spine when she
thought of the things Shampoo could put in the batter. angrily, she
stormed out the door.
"Where're you going?" Nabiki asked. She already knew the
answer, but conventions must be followed.
"To the bakery! To save Ranma's convertible hide!" Akane
yelled back before she dissappeared from the door. A moment later,
she reappeared and added, "not that he's worth it!" and then she was
gone.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
At the shop, Ranma was experiencing the horrors of a forced
feeding frenzy hurridly administered by Shampoo. "Eat! Eat!
Faster," she encouraged as she shovelled yet another cake down
Ranma's throat, "still have 2 more shelfs left!"
"Nnnnnn..." Ranma groaned. After being the recipient of 12
shelves worth of wedding cakes, it was the loudest and most coherent
protest he could make.
Akane entered the room to find Ranma sprawled on the floor.
"Shampoo," Akane asked as Shampoo lovingly rammed another layer into
Ranma's mouth, "what are you doing?"
"No card tell us which cake has cure. So, Ranma eat all
cake, he must get cure," Shampoo explained logically.
Akane blinked, then asked Shampoo, "Didn't you bother looking
at the cakes before you fed them to Ranma?"
Shampoo gave Akane a puzzled look, "Why? All look same."
"It is customary to have the bride's and groom's names
written in the icing on the cake."
"Oh," Shampoo looked at the cake she was about to shove in
Ranma's mouth, "strange custom. Label food with more food."
Akane looked at Ranma with contempt. "GLUTTON!" Akane
screamed at the prone Ranma and kicked him in the side for good
measure, "just lying there letting your perverted face get stuffed!
Couldn't you have at least tried to tell her how to identify a
wedding cake?
<They all look alike to me, too. And the only kicks I got
out of this were from you!> Ranma thought. What he said, given his
present condition, was "Ehhhhhhhh!"
Akane ignored Ranma's inarticulately witty rejoiner, and
began reading the cakes, "Ushiko & Umou, Kyosuke & Hika--whoops!
Misread that!--Madoka, Pai & Yakumo...nope, no Kodachi & Ranma here."
Shampoo opened the door to the storeroom, "I look in back,
maybe it--," her voice trailed off.
"What's wrong Shampoo? Did you find--" Akane's voice seized
up faster than a faulty transmission when she saw what Shampoo had
discovered. "--it?", she finished, when she finally found her voice.
'It' was the best description possible given to this wedding
cake. 'Black' and 'Large' tied for second. The icing was basic
black, decorated by midnight black roses, trimmed with coal-black
lace, with trimming and lettering in power-cord-insulation-black. On
top of the cake were the figuines of the bride and groom, both
dressed in black. Not counting the low table it rested on, the cake
was a full four feet tall and just as wide. Four layers adorned this
cake.
"It Kodachi cake alright," Shampoo said quietly, still
somewhat overwhelmed by the sight. Still, Shampoo, being the type
that always lands on her feet, recovered quickly. "Ranma!" she
shouted over her shoulder, "Good news Ranma! I find right cake!
Come in!"
Painfully, Ranma got up on all fours and slowly crawled to
the back room entrance.
Shampoo proudly showcased the black cake before a striken
Ranma, "Eat up!"
Ranma took one look at the black sugar monstrosity, decided
that life would be far more bearable unconscious for the next few
hours, and collapsed in a dead faint.
"Ranma?" Shampoo innocently queried, poking the martial
artist's collapsed form. After some more gentle prodding, Shampoo
offered her diagnosis, "Ranma asleep."
"Fainted probably," Akane supplied. "I guess there's a limit
even to his appetite."
"Only when you cook," Shampoo said with the matter-of-
factness of a frog across a cheese-grater.
Akane gave Shampoo a glare that would have killed women of
weaker constitution. Shampoo, having the cat's ability to withstand
dark looks, cooly ignored Akane's Stare-of-the-North-Star, and
pointed to the cake. "Look, it divided in sections, and here my
name!"
Akane came closer, "Where?"
Shampoo pointed at a spot on the cake. "Right here, see? It
written in black, so hard find."
Akane looked, "Oh, there it is. And here's mine!" She
pointed at another section of the cake. "The whole cake's been
marked into named sections! There's Kuno, Ryoga, and... Ranma!"
"Great!" Shampoo rejoiced, "All Ranma have do is eat piece."
She took a look at Ranma's prone form. "Now we wake Ranma. I get
some hot water."
"Splash cold water on him, it'll work better," Akane
corrected.
"No! Want Ranma boy, not Ranma girl!" Shampoo angrily
protested.
"Don't be catty Shampoo! Cold water's better for waking
someone up!"
"No! Hot water!"
"Cold!"
"Hot!"
"Cold!"
"Hot!"
"Why is everyone so hot about colds all of the sudden?" a
groggy-eyed Ranma queried, stirring from his horizontal position with
the speed and grace of an arthritic lead statue.
"Ranma! You awake!" Shampoo gleefully exclaimed.
"Kodachi marked off each of the cake pieces and gave each a
name. the cure's probably in yours," Akane informed, "you only have
to eat one piece and you'll finally be cured."
Shampoo cut out the piece with Ranma's name on it, then
paused, "Wait minute! There two Ranma here!"
True enough, there were 2 Ranma-labelled sections in the
cake. One written in the hirigana alphabet, the other in the Kanji
characters that Westerners have learned to hate so passionately.
"That's no problem," Akane explained, "Kodachi obviously
meant the hirigana Ranma piece for the girl Ranma. She doesn't know
about Ranma's transsexuality!"
Shampoo was still suspicious, "Still could be trick. Kodachi
tricky with names."
"What do you mean, tricky?" Akane asked.
"Remember, she name pet alligator after turtle!" Shampoo
elaborated, then remembered something else Kodachi liked to do.
"Akane, please taste piece of Ranma cake," she offered one of the
Ranma pieces to Akane.
Puzzled, Akane took obligingly took a bite. She was about to
swallow when Shampoo explained to Ranma, "May be poison."
Akane promptly spat out the bite taken. "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING
TO DO, KILL ME!?" she yelled.
"Better you than Ranma," Shampoo replied sincerely. Angrily
Akane stormed out of the room.
"Thought she never leave," Shampoo smiled as she presented
the Kanji cake to Ranma, "Eat this, Ranma."
"EAT THIS!" From outside the room, a tier of wedding cake
came flying through to impact on the side of Shampoo's face. At the
doorway Akane shouted, "You want safe cake? I'll give you all you
can handle!"
Shampoo's face darkened, "Oh, really?" She dodged the next
layer Akane threw and rushed towards the door. Akane withdrew from
the doorway, disappearing from view, Shampoo followed after her with
a vengence. Ranma watched cake and icing fragments fly, accompanied
by the screeches of women in combat.
This got boring after a while, so Ranma turned towards his
choice of two evils. The Akane taste-test was inconclusive, Ranma
concluded, because Akane spat out the cake, avoiding any lethal dose
Kodachi may have placed there. He looked at the slices again. One
clearly spelt Ranma in hirigana, the other in kanji.
<Character-istic choice,> Ranma thought, cringing at his own
unspoken pun, <either one could be a write-off.>
Ranma sat and stared, not used to the efforts involved in
thought. Kodachi was attracted to the boy-Ranma, and wanted to kill
the girl-Ranma. The girl Ranma was usually spelled in hirigana, so
any poison must be in that piece. He reached for the kanji slice.
He pulled his hand back. As Shampoo said, Kodachi loved
using deceptive names. It would be just like her to feed the female
Ranma with a poisoned cake piece named after a boy Ranma, literally
adding insult to injury.
He sat in thought, then jolted upright as the solution dawned
on him. Ignoring the sounds of battle, Ranma made his choice, with
all the confidence of the Japanese at Midway in 1942.
Meanwhile, the cake shop battle was in full swing. Angrily a
cake-covered Shampoo hurled a three-tiered wedding cake in stages at
Akane, "Triple-layer cake attack!", she yelled, Kung Fu style. Akane
successfully dodged the smaller tiers, but was caught flush on the
face by the third. Pressing her advantage, Shampoo leapt in the air.
Before Shampoo could use her altitude advantage however,
Akane seized a bowl. "Batter up!" she yelled as she flung its liquid
contents across Shampoo's face. Blinded, Shampoo landed on a shelf
of cakes, spattering cake, icing, and wood splinters in all
directions.
"Will you cut it out?" Ranma groaned from the doorway.
Both combatants stopped in mid-combat, and turned to look at
Ranma, half-expecting to hear a horrible pun to emerge. None came.
Shampoo looked at Ranma hopefully, "Ranma cured? No more
puns?"
"Yup. Guessed the right piece and finally ate it," Ranma
said, then collapsed face-first on the icing-covered floor. "Now I
can die in peace," he groaned as his mind passed into never-never
land.
"Ranma!" Shampoo cried, running to him.
Akane reached him first and looked him over. "He's all
right," she reassured Shampoo, "just ate a bit too much, even for
*him*." She grabbed Ranma by the feet and began to drag him towards
the exit. "Time to go home now," she puffed, "sheesh! He's a lot
heavier than usual."
Outside, a neon signed advertising "Sunset Studios" shone in
the distance. The word "Studios" was currently blacked out, owing to
poor quality Canadian manufacturing. Akane used the light to guide
her way home, as Shampoo looked at the scene the pair made.
"Akane," Shampoo observed to no one in particular, "with wild
horse, disappearing into Sunset." Without really knowing why,
Shampoo donned a cowboy hat and rode home.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ranma awoke that next morning, with the funny kind of feeling
that his insides had been dragged across sandpaper and boiled in
turpentine. Blearily, he decided to risk opening his eyes, and
focused on the only other person in the room: Akane.
"Are you all right?" Akane asked, a touch of concern briefly
flashed across her face.
"I've felt worse," Ranma replied truthfully. He still
remembered when he last tasted Akane's cooking. "How'd I get here,
anyways?"
"I brought you in myself."
"You *carried* me!" Ranma groaned, "I'm never going to live
this down." He sank in his futon.
"I didn't carry you!" Akane snapped back, "I dragged you in
here!"
"Oh," Ranma felt the back of his head, "I guess that explains
why my hair's filled with gravel." He looked at Akane for a second,
"Why were you watching over me anyway?" he grinned, "concerned about
me?"
Akane blinked in outrage, "Me!? Hah!" She angrily turned
her head to one side, "I just wanted to know how you chose the right
piece. That's all."
"Easy," Ranma answered, "I thought about the way Kodachi does
things. You see, Kodachi always handles every problem her own way,
so the cure to the problem she gave me had to have her name on
it."
Akane was flabbergasted, "You ate *Kodachi's* piece?"
"Yep. Worked like a charm."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thus ended the appundicitus incident.
This is the Tendou household, paractitioner of the "Anything Goes School of Martial
Arts." There is Genma, walking around in Panda
form, the way he always does. There's Nabiki, selling photos of
Ranma and Akane to Kunou, the way she always does. There's Kodachi,
watching "Windaria" to lift her spirits, the way she always does.
There's Akane, beating on Ranma, the way she always does. And
there's Happosai, lying immobile in a body cast, the way he always
should be.
And this? This is my story.
** THE END **
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
RANMA 1/2: LIFE'S DULSE MOMENTS
EXPLANATIONS, APOLOGIES, AND DOWNRIGHT LIES
When I started writing this fanfic, around September of 1992, I
began to notice that there were a few inside jokes that people may
not immediately know, so I thought I'd try to explain them.
First off, dulse is in fact an edible seaweed, eaten (as far I know,
and I don't know very much) in the Atlantic Maritime Provinces of
Canada. It's supposed to be a delicacy here, but I've always found
the taste to be the snacking equivalent of being mugged.
About the characters: As you obviously know, I'm no where near as
good as Rumiko Takahashi, and I probably (and in some cases
definitely) warped the characters to suit my purpose. I plead
"Artistic licence".
I've heard that Akane's cooking has become palatable in a recent
story. I'm assuming that such a recovery is temporary, or that this
story took place before her change.
Inside Jokes: I couldn't help but place some references to other
posters of the Internet. I did my best to try to get their
permission. In any case, if you don't know the ones who I referred
to, they do.
"Hanging's too good for him. Burning's too good for him. He should
be cut into little bitty pieces and buried alive!" is a quote I grabbed
from "the trial of Captain Stern" in the Heavy Metal Movie.
"I've fallen, and I can't get up." is a quote from a commercial that
was popular around here during the winter months of 1992-1993. The
commercial was advertising Medic-alert.
Homatsu Katta is a spoonerism on Komatsu and Hatta, the two clowns in
the Kimagure Orange Road series.
The group 'Doug & the Slugs', the band that Akane was listening so
intently to when Ranma was punneling Nabiki to death, actually
exists. They are no Michael Jacksons, which is one reason why I like
them.
I don't know if they actually have any Greyhound busses in Japan. If
they don't, then I'll claim that the Greyhound was on a tour from the
U.S. That should make Happosai's return trip *real* fun.
I don't know if the wedding cake is a common occurance in Japan, or
how it would be decorated (or even if it is customary to have the names
written on it). I assumed that most Japanese know it, but for the
Chinese-raised Shampoo (especially in her remote village), such a
custom would be unknown.
I put several descriptions and other quotes that come from fairy
tales I've read a long, long, time ago. There are other references
to stories and genres other than what I've mentioned, such as the
'disappearance into the sunset' cliche, but I'll leave it to the
intelligence of the Internet to notice them.
Since I could not figure out any common English turtle names for Kodachi's
pet alligator, I considered renaming it "Fluffy". I finally decided
to sidestep the problem entirely by having Shampoo refer to it as
being named after a turtle, thus avoiding the wrath of purists.
I know fully well that the Tendou household does not practice the
"make my day" school of martial arts. The most common translation
I've heard on the net has been the "unlimited/unrestricted"
technique, while Viz changed it slightly to "indiscriminate
grappling", then to "anything goes". I figured one more
change wouldn't hurt all that much.
The closing paragraph is a parody of a beer commercial that kept
running through my head. I can't remember the brand name, just the
*&@#% commercial.
If you like this story, let me know.
"It's not that Life is too short,
It's that Death is too long." -- T-shirt
