Check previous disclaimers.

Chapter 11

"I still don't know why I have to be the one to fight Ranma," Shampoo 
said to her grandmother. "I want to marry him, not kill him."

Great-grandmother hopped over to Shampoo on her cane and stared at her 
straight in the eyes.

"You had the chance to make him your husband, but for two years you did 
nothing. For two years you stood by while that Japanese bitch 
brainwashed him and destroyed him emotionally. Look what that 'love' has 
given him. Now he is no more a man than you are."

"Why do you talk about him this way? I thought you wanted your 
'son-in-law' to be member of Josetsuzoku."

Great-grandmother went over to the door. "Two years ago," she said, not 
looking at Shampoo, "a girl--an outsider--entered our village and 
defeated our most promising warrior. By amazon law the warrior gave the 
outsider the Kiss of Death--the promise that she would be dead if the 
warrior ever wished to regain her honour.

"The outsider is back, it is time to finish what you started."

"That outsider is Ranma!" Shampoo exclaimed.

"Ranma is gone!" Great-grandmother said, slapping Shampoo in the face. 
Her hands were small and old but she utilized her whole sleeve to make 
the attack. The resultant force was enough to shatter brick. Shampoo 
didn't flinch.

"Even if he were here," she continued, "he would no longer be an asset 
to our tribe!"

Shampoo tightened her gaze against her grandmother. "I won't."

"You will, or I'll have no choice but to return to China and inform the 
tribe about your failure to uphold your honour. Can you imagine what 
that will do to your father?"

Shampoo felt like kicking out the staff from under her grandmother, but 
what would that accomplish? She didn't like it but what the elder said 
was true. Unless the Kiss of Death was fulfilled she and--much more 
importantly--her family would be disgraced. On the other hand, Ranma was 
a special case; he was not a girl. Shampoo had been beaten by a man. But 
the Kiss of Death was given, and it made no discrimination as to 
gender...

<Argh. This is too hard to think about. It doesn't matter if he lives or 
dies, I still lose.>

"And let me remind you," Great-grandmother said, "that whatever love you 
think you feel for Ranma, was it not dictated to you by law as well?"

"Yes," Shampoo agreed reluctantly. "That is how it started, but--"

"Then it's high time it ended," Great-grandmother said. She hopped over 
to a case and took out a pair of bonbori. "Your honour demands it."

Shampoo looked away. Honour demanded a high price but did it have to be 
this high?

She looked at Great-grandmother again.

She reached for the bonbori.

??????????????????????

<<Tokyo Tower. April 5, 1998. Ranma had his arm around me and was giving 
a victory salute. I was doing the same because that was the day the 
family went downtown to celebrate us passing university entrance exams. 
It wasn't as big as Nabiki's school and it was closer to home, but we 
were happy. We were both happy.

<<We took a ride up the tower to look at the cityscape: the office 
towers, the apartment buildings. We could even see the harbourfront from 
our perch in the sky. We were both so very happy.>>

Akane took one last look at the picture before smashing the frame. 
Picking out the glossy image from the shards, she grasped it between her 
hands and tried to tear it in half. Her arms would not respond. She 
tried again and again she couldn't do it.

<Why?> She asked herself. <What am I holding on to? What's left?>

A trickle of blood moved slowly down the five-by-seven over Ranma's 
image.

??????????????????????

"Well, this is where the directions told me to go," Ranma said turning 
the corner. She looked up at the awning. "Cat Caf�, huh?"

She opened the door, suspicious of why they had mailed her personally. 
The seating area was empty. "Hello?" she called out, closing the door 
behind her. "Is anyone here? I got a letter this morning saying--"

She broke off her sentence when a girl with purple hair came around the 
corner. The girl wasn't looking at her though.

"Uh, yeah," Ranma said. "So anyway, someone sent me a letter saying to 
come here, was it you?"

The girl looked up. She was wearing elaborate clothing. A pink Chinese 
shirt was buttoned up the side with a frilled collar that covered most 
of her neck. Similar pants hung loose, tied up at the bottom with darker 
pink straps that matched her slippers. Most of this was covered by a 
dark blue sash running from her chest to mid-thigh with the design of a 
phoenix intricately woven into the front with silver and gold. It was 
held up with a gold silk belt, tied at the left side, the tails of which 
flowed down to her knee. In her hair, rows of fine, gold chains were 
wrapped around the buns in her hair and various bangles--loops and cut 
gems--hung from them. A pair of tails hung across her shoulders, held 
together at the bottom with a pair of pink glass beads, but the bulk of 
her mane cascaded down her back, each strand studiously trimmed and 
curled so as not to leave a point, with a few puffy bangs reserved for 
the front. Ranma caught the girl's gaze. Purple eye shadow accented her 
almond-shaped eyes but didn't fi
t with the sad look they contained.

"Hey, wait a minute," Ranma said. "Weren't you one of the people I saw 
at the Tendo's?"

The girl drew up what looked like a pair of beach balls on sticks. She 
dropped into--

<A fighting stance?>

Her eyes suddenly grew angry. "Shampoo is name," she said in heavily 
accented Japanese. "Tell you ancestors what when you see them." She 
lunged at Ranma.

??????????????????????

Akane pulled out the splinters and bandaged her hand with some ointment. 
As the medicine soaked into her hands, it stung her cuts and she tried 
to shake the pain off. She collected the blood- and peroxide-stained 
tissues off her desk into her wastebasket and placed the bottle into the 
first-aid kit.

Leave it to Kasumi to follow Akane's demand to the letter. She had set 
the box down in front of Akane's door and left without knocking. It 
would have stayed there, but her hand had kept hurting every time she 
moved it and every time it was a little harder to ignore.

<<...I can't love you...>>

Akane grit her teeth and got up. She flung the metal box across the 
room. When it hit the wall, the latch popped open and bottles and 
Band-Aids spread across the floor. She picked up her chair and--with a 
growl--swung it at her bookshelves. Both the shelves and the front legs 
of her chair broke. The books and manga that had been placed on the 
shelf--a collection that had been growing for over a decade--fell to the 
floor in a heap. She broke the back legs against her desk when she 
smashed her table lamp, then took what was left of the chair and 
launched it through the window.

??????????????????????

Ranma had barely dodged the first ball when Shampoo swung the second. 
<Block the arm, not the weapon,> she remembered from the instruction 
yesterday but this girl was too fast for the advice to be of any use. 
The ball hit Ranma in the chest and knocked her back a few feet onto her 
ass. That thing was made of steel!

"*What the fuck is that?*"

Shampoo didn't respond. Drawing back, she threw one of them straight at 
Ranma's head. Ranma managed to duck and scramble away, and the steel 
beach ball crashed through some tables.

She crawled across the floor trying to remain hidden behind tablecloths 
while the psycho was tossing the furniture or smashing them behind her. 
She tried looking for the fallen weapon when she almost hit the wall.

<Shit! I'm going the wrong way!>

Looking around quickly, she noticed she was against the back wall, the 
wall furthest away from the door. Judging the distance to that door, she 
discounted that as an escape route. Then--off to her left--she saw the 
weapon she was seeking. It was near the corner, but Shampoo was in 
between.

<Okay, what would MacGuyver do in this case?>

Ranma jumped up to the nearest table. Grabbing the chopstick holder, she 
flung it at Shampoo but she batted it out of the way with the beach 
ball. Switching the weapon to her left hand, she ran at Ranma.

In desperation, Ranma threw the only other thing available, a flower 
vase. To her surprise, Shampoo dodged it as though it were acid.

<I hope this works.> Before Shampoo could land, Ranma jumped forward and 
kicked straight up through the opening. The heel connected square in the 
chin of her attacker.

Instead of falling however, the psycho flipped backwards and landed on 
her feet. She felt the cut on her chin. If she wasn't angry before, she 
was now.

Ranma felt a chill crawl down her back. In a small voice, all she could 
say was "Aw, crap."

??????????????????????

"That can go outside," Kasumi said.

"Yeah, yeah," Nabiki muttered under her breath. Never mind that every 
step she took fired off a twenty-one gun salute inside her head.

Picking up the wastebasket underneath the sink, she saw the crumpled 
piece of paper with Ranma's name on it. <Oh, yeah, he got that this 
morning--uh oh.> She smoothed out the sheet as well as she could and 
read it.

Dropping the wastebasket, she ran for the stairs with the letter 
clutched in her hand.

"Nabiki--"

"I'll get it later."

"But--"

"Later!" she said to her sister and climbed the stairs as fast as 
possible. Turning the corner, she opened Akane's door without knocking 
and--if she hadn't ducked--would've been hit with a barbell.

She tried to remain calm. "Can you stop trashing the house long enough 
to read this?"

Akane glared at her. "What do you want?"

"Item A: Calm down, it'll save on structural damage.

"Item B: This," she said holding out the letter.

"So?" Akane said. "It's a flyer for the Cat Caf�. They're allowed to 
advertise."

"Maybe, but then, why personally address it to Ranma?"

"So?" Akane asked again.

"So, has he ever received a letter that had good news?"

The glare lessened. "No. But Shampoo wouldn't--"

"Are you sure about that? Something like this has never happened before. 
Who knows how people will react?" <Who am I talking about here anyway?>

Akane looked like she was thinking about it but wasn't convinced.

"Look, Akane. I want you to look me in the face and tell me you don't 
love him anymore."

"Of course I--" All of her anger disappeared when she caught Nabiki's 
eye.

Nabiki made her best effort to keep her gaze as even as possible, to not 
even blink.

"I..." Akane tucked some hair behind her ear.

"I..." She tugged at the waist of her T-shirt.

"I...have to go." She left the room.

Nabiki watched her run out the gate. She finally let out the breath 
she'd been holding.

"Well," she mused," better her than me."

??????????????????????

Ranma was rapidly running out of options. She'd pressed herself up 
against the wall. One step in any direction would only bring her closer 
to the psycho. The only possible way out was up.

<Up?>

Shampoo lunged at Ranma determined to put the weapon through her head, 
but she jumped up over the attack. Repositioning, she pushed off the 
wall with her legs like she'd seen Akane do it.

<Yes!> She thought, a confident smile on her face. <Now all I have to do 
is grab that beam in the ceiling and-- Oops.> Losing her momentum, she 
made a futile grasp for the beam and fell through a table onto the 
ground. She landed on her side and the tabletop flipped over onto her, 
covering her with a tablecloth.

She remained perfectly still, trying to ignore the pain in her shoulder, 
in hopes that Shampoo would think she was unconscious.

No, wait. That wouldn't work. Shampoo would probably still crack her 
head open to make sure.

Ranma rolled her eyes and that's when she saw it, the other beach ball! 
Well, she only saw the handle, but she knew what it was attached to. She 
heard Shampoo moving tables out of the way and quickly reached for the 
handle.

When Shampoo tossed her cover aside and plunged the other beach ball 
down, she swung hers with both arms and deflected it to the side. She 
tried bringing up a leg to kick Shampoo in the pelvis but the girl 
flipped over her and--grabbing both sides of her collar--lifted her up 
and threw her overhead into the wall. Before she could fall, Shampoo 
rushed her, knocking the wind out of her and reopening some of the 
wounds on her back.

The loss of breath and all the blood rushing to her head made for deadly 
attacks on her consciousness.

Shampoo grabbed her again and tossed her onto another table. Ranma 
crashed into it and--hitting the back of her skull--everything flashed 
white before she passed out.

??????????????????????

She grabbed Ranma and tossed her onto another table. Crashing into it, 
she upended the table and fell behind it. Shampoo walked 
around--preparing for another attack--but her adversary was unmoving.

Picking up her bonbori, she sidestepped around Ranma. Still no movement. 
Tentatively, she pressed a finger against Ranma's throat. <Good, he's 
still alive.>

"Well?" Great-grandmother asked.

"He's unconscious," Shampoo replied.

"Then finish him off."

Straightening up, she lifted the bonbori above her head. Looking down at 
Ranma's crumpled form, she froze and wouldn't deliver the killing blow. 
This was the girl who had dishonoured her in front of her entire tribe. 
Yet, somewhere inside her was the man she knew she loved, no matter what 
her grandmother said.

Honour or Love? And how can I choose?

"What are you doing, Shampoo? Hurry up and kill him!"

Shampoo looked at her grandmother, tears welling up in her eyes. Taking 
a breath for what seemed like an eternity, she forced herself to do 
what--even a week ago--seemed impossible.

"No."

Cologne's ki flared with anger. "Perhaps you are no longer aware of the 
consequences of such a decision, so I will give you a chance to rescind 
it. Kill him."

Shampoo lowered her arm and rested the weapon in her hands. "No."

"Then *I* will!"

She was thrown aside by the force of Cologne's ki.

"This is for destroying my tribe and my village, 'boy'!" she said 
raising her cane.

<So that's it.>

Before Cologne could strike, Shampoo swung her bonbori in an underhand 
arc and hit her. Because of her diminutive size, the ball hit like a 
full-body blow, lifting her off the ground and sending her across the 
room.

"Fuck your tribe!" Shampoo said in perfect Japanese. She picked Ranma up 
and--throwing the girl over her shoulder--ran out the door. 

Looking back to see how much distance she could put between her and the 
restaurant, her reflexes were the only thing to save her from getting 
punched in the head when Akane ran up to confront her.

"What are you doing-" Akane stopped when Shampoo turned to face her 
rival. She'd never seen fear in Shampoo's eyes before. <I've never been 
scared like this since I was a child.>

"Akane," she said. "You have to help me, Cologne's gone insane."

"What?"

"I said--" <Wrong language, idiot!> "Akane help Shampoo with Ranma. 
Cologne nuts! Crazy!"

"Crazy?"

"No time for explain! We go; now!" She grabbed Akane by the arm and 
started running.

"So where are we going?" Akane broke free of her grasp but kept up.

"Is dojo okay?"

"Why? What happened?"

"Shampoo tell all when Ranma wake up." She looked at Akane, who was 
understandably dubious.

"Please, Akane?"

Akane sighed and looked at her again. "Let's go."

--

Author's notes:
Well, there's another one down.
Chapter 12 is shaping up to be a short one so it should be out soon, but 
chapter 13 will definitely be a doozy.

As always C&C is 100% required. Even if you only read the first line, 
you must C&C because Lurker says you must. We must return to the golden 
age, we must go into the light.

Sorry, I don't know what the hell that was. Well, see ya.

- Shakudo -
Eternal Worshiper of Makoto Kino, Ukyo Kuonji, and Sakuya Kumashiro
Holder of the files of Ranma Nibun no Usugurami and Sailor Moon D

Email: shakudo@hotmail.com
URL: http://members.tripod.com/Shakudo/main.html

I love the way those cute little anime girls say, "kawaii!"







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