I have absolutely no idea where this idea came about.  I thought it, 
and started writing.  I intended this to be just a spamfic, but if 
anyone thinks this can go further, I invite them to be my guest.  ^_^

Ranma and characters belong to the esteemed Rumiko Takahashi.  I'm 
only borrowing them to tell my tale.  ^_^



Blitzed Cooking
by Apollo Racer


Akane violently spat out her latest attempt at cooking.  She had 
insisted on making dinner the night before, and after belting Ranma 
into the koi pond for refusing to eat it, Kasumi gently suggested 
she taste what she made to see if it was edible.  It took a half an 
hour for the dizziness and nausea to subside, after which she 
realized that maybe Ranma had a point.  Maybe.

"I WILL learn to cook," she growled under her breath.  "I'll show 
them all that I can make meals at least half as good as Kasumi's.  
And Ranma will eat it if I have to shove it down his throat."

In her flurry of mixing together ingredients, she angrily reached 
for bonito shavings and wound up adding wood shavings instead.  
Normally, Kasumi didn't have a big need to stock wood shavings in 
her kitchen, but they could have been left over from her attempts 
last night at chopping vegetables.  After adding a generous helping 
of the debris, Akane searched for the chili powder.  She added maybe 
a pinch too much of paprika and offset it with a bit of salt.  She 
emptied the bag of sugar into the pot.  "I wonder why Kasumi would 
buy salt in such quantities," she thought aloud as she stirred in 
the rice... possibly the only item she truly meant to use.

Akane smiled as she put in the final touches.  Before dishing it 
onto the plates, she remembered Kasumi's advice again and tasted the 
dinner.  She reacted violently, spraying the sink as she forced the 
food from her mouth and dumped her cooking.  "Ugh!  That was 
horrible!"  Disgust quickly gave way to despair.  "Oh... why can't I 
cook as well as Kasumi?"

Sighing, she started cleaning up her mess along with the rest of the 
kitchen.  Her hand brushed against a bottle of sake her father left 
out after his usual game of shogi with Mr. Saotome.  She blinked as 
she picked it up and found it was still pretty much full.  "Can't 
those two ever pick up after themselves?"  What she hadn't seen was 
her father opening the bottle, noticing her in the kitchen, then 
suddenly convincing Genma that their time would be better spent out 
at the bar.

Akane turned to put the bottle away and bumped it against the side 
of the refrigerator.  Its contents spilled against her hand.  "Ack!" 
Akane put the dishes in the sink and shifted the bottle to her other 
hand.  "Even just putting stuff away I can't avoid making a mess."  
She reached for a cloth to wipe her hand off and she brought the 
hand to her mouth to clean off any excess sake.

At points like this in the average human mind, a fairly mischievous 
thought will spring into being, and despite every conscious effort 
to fight down the impulse, the mind gives in to its basest instinct 
and acts on this thought.  It was to this that Akane stared at the 
bottle for a moment, said, "Ah, the hell with it," and took a large 
swig.

Fifteen minutes later, the bottle was empty.  Akane rested her head 
on the counter, as the room seemed to spin less that way.  Finally, 
she stood to walk out of the kitchen and go lie down, but her state 
of inebriation caused her to spin and face the sink and the product 
of her recent failures.  "No..." she slurred.  "No, I ain't gonna 
give up that easily."  Slowly, deliberately, she retrieved clean 
dishes and staggered through the process of trying to make dinner 
again, giggling through the preparation.

~ * ~

That night, the family was seated around the table.  Ranma seemed 
ready to bolt at any minute.  "You're saying Akane made this, 
Kasumi?"

She nodded.  "When I came home, she didn't look all that well.  She 
told me she had dinner keeping warm and she asked me if I could 
serve it while she went to lie down for a while."

Ranma cocked a grin.  "Heh... the fumes must have gotten to her.  I 
wish she'd learn that her cooking is a hazard to people and the 
environment."

Genma swatted him hard across the head.  "Stop being so disrespectful
to your fiancee, Boy!"

Nabiki was staring pointedly at Akane's latest concoction.  "So are 
we to understand that we actually have to eat this?"

"Nabiki," her sister admonished, "we should at least try it.  Akane 
seemed to have spent all day trying to make dinner.  She would be 
terribly upset if we didn't make the effort."

The middle Tendo sister smirked at Ranma.  "Then I elect Ranma to be 
the official taste-tester."

"Aw, no!  You ain't gettin' me to go near that stuff!"

He tried to back away, but Genma and Soun flanked him and pinned him 
to the floor.  Soun glared at him.  "Ranma, if you know what's good 
for you, you'll taste Akane's cooking."

"No!  I don't haveta!"

"A martial artist's life is fraught with peril, Boy," Genma chimed 
in.

Before Ranma could protest further, Nabiki took a generous dollop of 
food and shoved it in his mouth.  The fathers held his jaw shut as 
he gagged and thrashed, trying to get away so he could spit it out 
and breathe.  The body's reflexes won out, though, and he 
involuntarily swallowed the mouthful.  All was silent as they others 
watched for any negative reaction.  Kasumi hovered close to the 
phone, ready to call the hospital in case they were needed.

His eyes boggled and they feared the worse, but Ranma shocked them 
all by saying, "Hey... this is actually pretty good."

Genma slapped his hand over his son's forehead.  "The poor boy... 
Akane's cooking has made him delirious."

Nabiki tried a small portion of the food on her plate.  "He's right. 
Akane really made something good for a change."

"Oh, my," Kasumi replied.  "I wish I was there to see what she did."

Ranma shrugged off the two men holding him down.  "I don't care.  
I'm starving!"  He proceeded to shovel food in his mouth.  Genma 
proceeded to try and fight Ranma as usual; they fended each other 
off as they tried to steal food from one another's plates.

Soun looked with concern at Kasumi.  "Should we at least go tell 
Akane her dinner was a success?"

"I don't know, Father.  She really didn't look very well.  I think 
it would be best if we left her alone for now.  We can tell her 
later."

Nabiki sighed between bites.  "It's a shame, really.  I doubt she'd 
believe that Ranma ate her food without putting up much of a fuss."

~ * ~

Morning hit Akane as intensely as if she had smashed her own mallet 
on her head.  As she slowly opened a sleep-encrusted eye, she 
winced, finding that even the sunlight hurt.

She barely got out a moan when suddenly the earth exploded in her 
ears.  "Hey, Tomboy!  Ya gonna get ready for school?  Yer gonna be 
late!"  The door between Ranma's voice and Akane did nothing to stop 
the pain.  It was all she could do to cringe into a tight ball and 
burrow even further under her covers.

She thought she heard Kasumi say something to Ranma, but remarkably, 
not only did her voice not cause her pain, but she was quiet enough 
that Akane could hardly hear her.  After about a minute, she heard 
her door open and close.  "Akane?" her older sister whispered to her.
"How are you feeling?"

Akane groaned and slowly peeked out from under her blanket.  The 
light wasn't any better.  "Like Ranma and his dad are sparring on my 
head," she mumbled, "with Ryoga thrown in for good measure."  A 
thought suddenly hit her... in her hungover state, even that packed 
a wallop.  "Kasumi, how did you..."

Kasumi smiled in her usual serene way.  "I found the empty bottle on 
the counter next to the sink.  Whatever were you thinking, Akane?"

The younger Tendo blinked, trying to remember.  "I honestly don't 
know.  I was cleaning up from my last mistake, found the bottle... 
and it's fuzzy after that."

Kasumi nodded.  "Well, perhaps a hot bath will help you recover.  
Besides, you'll be late for school if you don't hurry."

At first, Akane couldn't believe Kasumi was still going to make her 
go to school, but then she realized she only brought it on herself.  
Slowly she rose from the bed and went to the furo to clean up.

After she bathed and dressed, she headed downstairs.  Ranma and 
Nabiki had already gone to school.  Kasumi met her at the foot of 
the stairs.  "I've let the school know you're running late... I told 
them you woke up ill, so they won't hold it against you."

"Thanks, Kasumi."  The excuse wasn't exactly a lie... she did feel 
ill until she was able to soak for a few minutes.  "Ummmm... I was 
curious... how badly did dinner turn out?"

"Actually, you did just fine.  Even Ranma complimented it."

Akane's eyes went wide.  "RANMA said it was good?"  Her heart 
fluttered at hearing this... after working so hard to cook for Ranma,
to hear that he liked it made her feel giddy.  "Well, I'd better get going."

"Have a good day, Akane."

As Akane walked peacefully to school, she thought, 'I wonder... was 
last night just a fluke?'  She chuckled to herself.  'Anything Goes 
Drunken Chef Cooking.'  Her expression grew pensive.  'I don't know 
if I want to get used to that.  It seems like an awful price to pay 
for the results.  But maybe,' she smirked, 'for Ranma, at least until
I get good enough to cook on my own, it might be worth it.'


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