The Amazon and the Moneylender: Episode 3, Part 1:
Stood Up.
------------------------------------------------------
"By the time we get home," Ukyou said resignedly.
"I'll be walking again." She yawned as the terrain
crawled past. They were still somewhere in Texas, at
least Ukyou hoped they were. The comment had not been
merely idle sarcasm. It had been a week since Ryouga
had wheeled her out of Dr. Tofu's.
"Ukyou, I've been thinking," Ryouga said. "You
could use a chi-attack of some kind."
"Are you saying I'm a weak martial artist?" Ukyou
hefted her spatula and narrowed her eyes.
"Huh?" It was the wrong response.
*CLANG*
"OWW!" Ryouga shouted. "What did you hit me for?!"
"You said I was a weak martial artist!! Baka!!!"
"All I said was that you haven't developed a new
attack since I've known you!!" Ryouga shouted, rubbing
his head. "Even Ranma can admit he needs to train once
in a while!!"
"Hey! I've been helping you win Akane's love,"
Ukyou protested. "I haven't had much time for
training."
"Well we have plenty of time now," Ryouga told her.
Ukyou didn't really like the sound of that.
"And how do you propose that I do that for the
remaining week I'm stuck in this wheelchair."
"That's why I was thinking chi channeling."
"But all the chi channeling we know of requires
some extreme emotion or another," Ukyou noted.
"Control-freak, maybe?" Ryouga mumbled quietly in
Russian.
"What did you say?" Ukyou asked curiously.
"I said 'How about your devotion to perfection?'"
"Akane Tendo I have come to..." Kodachi's loud
declaration was cut off as something struck her
lightly in the side. She glared to the bushes at her
left and then straightened up.
"Kodachi!!" Akane said. She set down her bag and
entered stance. "Okay come on then!! We owe your
family a few lumps anyway."
"Careful, Akane," Ranma warned her unnecessarily.
"Miss Tendo," Kodachi said tightly, glancing off to
the left with narrowed eyes. "I want to apologize for
my earlier behavior. I have been a pest to you and
Ranma-Darling, and wish to make amends."
Akane blinked.
Ranma blinked.
"And how would you do that?" Akane asked in
suspicious disbelief. "I suppose you'll cook up some
amnesia drug to feed me."
"Hmm. Oww!" Kodachi rubbed her side again and
looked down at the rubber band.
"Shampoo already tried that," Ranma noted.
"Oh yeah, I forgot," Akane said, completely missing
the irony of the statement.
"Really, Miss Tendo, surely we can compete in a
more mature manner," Kodachi breathed in deeply.
"...than...silly...chemical concoctions. I'm confident
that my darling Ranma will eventually realize that I
am the logical choice without resorting to such
childish deeds." She glanced to the bushes and growled
softly. "Satisfied?"
"Don't talk to me you idiot!" the whispered
response came. Ranma and Akane glanced at each other
and sighed.
"Ryouga and Ukyou are much better at this," Ranma
told Kodachi.
"What ever could you mean, Ranma-Darling?" Kodachi
asked sweetly.
"Later Mousse," Akane waved at the bushes and
turned around to leave. "Nice...not fighting
you...Kodachi."
"Yeah, this has definitely been the least
frustrating encounter I've had with you," Ranma agreed
as he followed Akane away.
"Well, that didn't work," Kodachi declared angrily.
"Hmhmhmhmhmhmhm," Mousse chuckled evilly to
himself. "It worked better than it would seem, Saotome
did not respond to you with disgust this time."
*THWACK*
Mousse fell backwards with the imprint of a
gymnastic club on his face.
"Did you just call me disgusting?!"
"Ugh, when did Shampoo get here?" Mousse groaned.
*THWACK*
"We'll get to your problems later!! They dismissed
me!"
"Uggh...."
"WAKE-UP!!!" Kodachi tried to slap the dazed
martial artist awake and Mousse grabbed at the hand as
he came to.
"What happened?" he asked, and then caught a glance
of Kodachi's hands. "Kodachi, you don't have any lines
on your palm."
"A training accident!!" She pulled her hand away.
"Not that it is any business of yours."
"And what training strips the lines off your palm?"
he asked. He caught a shadow of revulsion and shame in
her eyes.
"I can't remember the exact exercise," Kodachi
snapped.
"And why do you always wear clothes that cover up
most off your body? I've never seen you in short
sleeves or skirts, and you always wear your leotard
underneath."
"And wear such peasant fashions? Really."
"There is something odd here."
"Oh, what does that matter," Kodachi said trying to
dismiss his suspicions, then she smiled evilly. "Now
it is my turn to play set-up." Mousse swallowed hard.
"Hey, isn't that Ukyou?" Sayuri asked out of the
blue. Yuka looked over as she tried to draw the
remains of her soda through the star.
"It looks like it," Yuka agreed. At the next table,
Hiroshi and Daisuke also turned their attention to the
returned chef. The seeming Ukyou turned around a
corner and vanished in the crowd.
"I thought she was out with Ryouga," Hiroshi said.
"That was supposed to be the longest date ever."
"Yeah, lost that bet, apparently," Daisuke
commented. Yuka and Sayuri glared at the boys.
"I wonder where Ryouga got to," Sayuri pondered
that while Yuka walked to a pay phone.
"She was walking? You're certain it was her?"
Nabiki asked Yuka on the other end.
"Big spatula, chef's outfit, who else could it be?"
"Hmmm, that is somewhat odd," Nabiki leaned back
against the wall and brought her hand to her chin.
"Check by Ucchan's if you can, and listen for any
reports of heavy property damage in case Ryouga is
around as well."
"What's up chief?" Yuka asked.
"I don't know yet, but something strange is going
on."
"Gotcha, later chief," Yuka hung up and Nabiki
snapped her portable phone closed. Nabiki had seen the
injuries Ukyou had sustained. Even Ranma would have
still been out of commission at this point. This did
not add up to anything that made sense.
Nabiki looked up as Ranma and Akane walked into the
door.
"You'd never guess what just happened to us," Ranma
said in amusement.
"Have you two seen Ukyou or Ryouga recently?"
Nabiki asked
"Well a post card came in the mail today," Akane
said. "They're somewhere in Texas." Nabiki sprung away
from the wall, no longer merely suspicious.
"Hey I didn't see that," Ranma noted.
"Do you know when it was sent," Nabiki asked
seriously.
"Why?" Akane looked at her curiously as she walked
to the desk in the entrance hall.
"What's up Nabiki?" Ranma demanded. Akane dug the
postcard out of the desk and looked at it. It was one
of those custom jobs made from a photo scanned into a
computer. It showed Ukyou in her wheel chair her cast
carpeted in signatures. Behind them was giant stadium
of some sort. Ukyou was garbed in a variety of
souvenir clothing and waving cheerfully with the hand
that wasn't in a sling. Ryouga was standing behind her
standing in the middle of a small pile of bags looking
rather embarrassed. There was a ball-cap with pig-ears
on his head.
Nabiki and Ranma took a quick look at the post card
and burst out in near hysterical laughter. Akane
looked at them in confusion.
"What's so funny," Akane asked, looking back at the
postcard curiously.
"Inside joke Akane," Nabiki said as she examined
the card a little closely. She pointed to the marquis.
"Hmm, this game was just a couple of days ago."
"So if this is Ukyou," Akane said, glaring at the
still hysterical Ranma. "Who's downtown?"
Shampoo checked the clock again and yawned. She
would have expected Mousse to have shown up by now.
Especially since Nabiki had told her a little of the
plan to get them out of her life. As usual, Shampoo
thought that Nabiki's plan was slightly risky. She had
been watching everything placed before her with a
paranoia that rivaled that of an American in the same
room as an IRS agent.
"Who know what nasty drug crazy-girl use on me,"
Shampoo muttered.
"What is wrong Shampoo?" Cologne asked with a
mixture of suspicion and concern.
"Crazy-girl and Mousse team up," Shampoo explained.
"And who gave them that idea?" the withered old
crone asked.
"Nabiki," Shampoo said idly. "Plan matchmake them
out of Shampoo life."
"Kodachi Kuno and Mousse?" Cologne thought for a
moment. "They have similar styles of fighting at
least. All those tricks up their sleeves. Still, I do
not want you seeing that Tendo girl anymore."
"Why you say that?" Shampoo asked. "She do good
work."
"There is something going on here that is..."
Cologne paused and looked out the door. "...odd."
Kodachi walked into the restaurant.
"Oh my, how quaint," she laughed quietly. "This
really a very charming establishment that you are
running here. I can somewhat see what
Ranma-Da....Ranma thought made this place worth coming
to."
"Go away crazy-girl," Shampoo snapped. "Kuno no
welcome here."
"Oh please," Kodachi half-laughed. "I don't approve
of my brother's actions either. He has brought shame
to family name."
"What do you want, Miss Kuno," Cologne asked in
that polite sarcasm she used so often. "Actually I was
looking for Mousse. I think some of our purchases at
the...convention may have been switched. I do so
dislike wearing such impairing clothing."
"No see Mousse for twenty minutes," Shampoo said
without inflection.
"What?!" Kodachi shouted. "He's not here!? And
after..." Kodachi glanced at Shampoo and Cologne and
continued at a much more sedate pace of speech. "I
mean....I need those bags for an upcoming gymnastics
tournament."
"The boy took out a delivery," Cologne said. "He
should be back within an hour."
"Oh, I see," Kodachi saunded annoyed. "Then perhaps
I'll have the Ramen special."
"Stay away from kitchen," Shampoo ordered her.
"Really, Shampoo. As I just explained to Akane,
I've moved beyond such silly artificial methods."
Despite this the gymnast did sit down in the middle of
the room.
"Whatever."
Mousse had only been here once or twice before, he
had briefly considered partnering with Kuno to get rid
of Ranma. Fortunately he decided that would probably
be more difficult than it was worth and instead joined
with Ryouga. Because of those early excursions to
investigate the Kunos, he had a fair idea of where he
needed to look.
The young man was surprisingly stealthy for one
almost totally blind. The master of dark magic even
managed to avoid the questionably observant Sasuke. He
knew from experience that Kodachi's part of the house
was even more heavily booby trapped than all the rest
of the place. Fortunately he wasn't going to Kodachi's
residential area.
The chambers that formerly belonged to Tatewaki
Kuno were sparsely furnished. Everything that was
there maintained a traditional style that would have
fit into a Kurosawa film. On the surface it seemed the
Kuno was not a man for modern enhancements. Mousse
knew differently, however, it took very little
searching to find the catch again. Then suddenly
Kuno's collection of samurai flicks and training
documentation videos.
The big screen TV conflicted almost blasphemously
with the surrounding decor. It wasn't so much the
presence of the video equipment among the traditional
decorations, as it was that the item was hidden. There
was an innate hypocrisy that lay about the room and
engendered a level of disgust in everybody who came
into it.
Mousse scanned the titles, squinting and leaning in
close to make out the words. He didn't know quite what
he was looking for, but he felt it would jump out at
him. It didn't take him long to find a series of tapes
that apparently catalogued Kodachi's training. The
tapes seemed to extend over a period of three years,
ending shortly before Ranma arrived in Nerima.
Looking at them closely he found time gaps of
varying lengths in record. These gaps ranged from one
week to a full month. Playing a hunch he picked one of
the tapes that recorded the time immediately before
one of those gaps. He checked the date and calculated
that Kodachi would have been about thirteen at the
time. Turning on the television and muting the volume,
he placed the tape in the attached VCR.
As the video played out his eyes widened in
disbelief.
"Ancestors," he gasped in shock. He stopped the
tape, rewound it and snatched a few more of the tapes
for the few seconds it was rewinding. Stuffing these
up his sleeves into hidden pockets somewhere he
immediately set about to leave the Kuno estate.
It wasn't long after he had left that Sasuke
entered Tatewaki's chamber. The ninja immediately
noticed that the television was on. He didn't know who
had been there, but he had a number of suspicions.
He had been hiding information about Kuno from his
clan superiors for a while now. Perhaps they had
discovered Sasuke's plan to free his Master. He
thought the better of that though, if they had
discovered him, then he would have already learned
about it. He wouldn't be nearly so active either.
"But what were they doing here?" Sasuke wondered.
"Mousse wander again," Shampoo noted angrily. "He
stand you up."
"Stand me..." Kodachi started.
"OO-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! What
interest would I have in such a spineless little man?
How would I expect that fool to protect me." The
thoughts running through her mind were something like
this. "I am going to kill him! As soon as I find him,
I am going to kill him!! Snap me with rubber bands
like he was dealing with a child while he disappears
for his humiliation!!"
"Don't ask Shampoo what Shampoo don't understand."
"I didn't know that you understood anything,"
Kodachi said with her usual mock cheerfulness. Shampoo
glared at her.
"Well, would you mind telling your visually
challenged friend that I want my things as soon as
possible?" Kodachi asked formally. "I have other
errands I need to run." In her head the word "kill"
was being repeated over and over again with
variations, such as "stone dead," interspersed
liberally.
"Yeah, yeah," Shampoo dismissed her with a wave.
"Don't worry about it girl," Cologne chuckled.
"I'll be sure that he gets the message."
=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
Signed
He of Too Many Names (Thrythlind/Thryth/Luke/Hyperbole/Pika/Pooka)
http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com