At 03:45 PM 8/1/97 -0400, you wrote:

trying to.  So let her thoughts wander over to some other profitable 
business enterprises.  So it was that she was completely surprised with 
what came next........

  A first.  Nabiki caught completely unawares.

	The three men put away their weapons and stepped back into the 
car and drove away.  They had done what they had been told to do, and 
that was give a warning.  As the flames grew high in Uchanns, you can 

  In Nerima, use of guns isn't a warning, it's an act of war.

	She never knew what hit her, for she never expected it.  For who 
in their right mind would attack Kodachi Kuno on her home ground?  So it 
was the two figures laid into her beating her soundly only the grunts 
and the occasional crunch as a bone was broken could be heard for 
Kodachi was not one to scream in pain.  Leaving her unconscious and 
bleeding body on the gymnasium floor with all her weapons; her ribbon, 
her clubs, and bunches of black roses filled with paralysis power, 
laying about her.

  So much for the belief in a criminal mastermind.  A criminal muddlemind
is more like it.  How many fingers does the gang leader have left?  The
"warning" consisted of shooting Ranma's oldest friend, and seriously
injuring a member of a Nerima family that is rich enough to underwrite a
small war.  I suppose that for their next trick, they will harm Shampoo and
incur the wrath of Cologne and the entire Amazon tribe.  

  Are these dunderheads purely small fries, or are they supposedly
affiliated with some larger Yakuza group?  

  

                dml

  Dogs are from Jupiter.  Cats are from Saturn.  Raccoons are from Procyon.