DB Sommer wrote:

Ranma turned to some guy standing nearby. He was dressed in an outlandish
red spandex bodysuit with a yellow lightning bolt across the chest. "And
what are you supposed to be?"

"I'm, Jiminy Quick," 

There's a comma after 'I'm'. Intentional?

the man boasted. "The fastest man alive."

"Yeah, right, I'd like to see you prove that," Ranma said.

"I already did," Jiminy boasted.

Ranma stared at the man. He hadn't even moved. "What do you mean?"

Reminds me of an older fic of yours... The top ten rejected Gung-ho guns... with the scene with the quickdraw guy.

Which also means there would typically be a punchline a-coming. ^-^ 

Ranma felt his chest, then pulled his shirt up. He discovered he was now
sporting a white athletic bra. "Ack!" he cried out, and tried to remove it.

"Hey, that's mine!" Akane exclaimed, grabbing at her own chest and feeling a
lack of something that was there a moment ago.

Ranma: (contemplates, shrugs) But there has always been a lack over _there_.

"I needed to prove a point. It's not like I walk around with bras," Jiminy
said, laughing so hard he doubled over. When he looked back up, he saw that
Akane was now in front of him, fist raised back.

Akane: Dodge this. *smack*

"Tough talk coming from someone that felt so threatened he tried to ambush
me. And you still have to pay for roughing up Kachi," Ranma threatened.

Tarou didn't appear the least bit concerned. "If she had minded her own
business, she wouldn't have gotten hurt. Besides, I only popped her twice.
She could take it."

"Why you!" Ranma started to intone,

If Ranma _started_ to intone, then it should be "Why you...!" or "Why you..."

Though I'm not so sure with the former (the ellipsis with the exclamation point) as with the latter (just an ellipsis).

<snip Lord Asmodeous scene><

One word: Heh.

Nice scene with Asmodeous... it really broke up any monotony within the whole fic, as well as providing Grade A humor to boot. Well, I liked it.

"How?" Was all Ranma could get out at the inconceivable impossibility.

It was more than Akane could manage, as she just stood and pointed.

"Like the new modifications?" Kachiko posed for him, jiggling as much as if
she was running.

Didn't quite see this one coming either. You're really getting creative with your plot points and gags, DB.

Nearby, Tarou shook his head in disapproval. "You were better off with what
you had before. That's what, H-Cup size? It's just inhuman and disgusting."

"Says the guy who turns into an oversized bull," Kachiko shot back, before
bouncing her way to the judges' table and paying her entry fee.

Oooh... nice commentary... wow, Kachiko was able to shoot back with a decent comeback... OOC! :P

Casually, the older youth said to Ranma, "Look, Fem-Boy, just because I'm
not wearing any underwear and am at... full extension, and while you can
turn into a girl, don't get any idea that I'm attracted to you or anything.
I just get kind of turned on by fights is all."

Ewwww... bad mental image... back, mental image! Stay back!

Another water balloon met his face.

So there was one water balloon, then there was two... where'd the third one come from?

Earlier, a snippage of the scene was cut due to its graphic nature:

Tarou: (eyebrow raised) And you're h-cup by both top _and_ bottom? Nice  J.Lo impersonation there... from the bottom-up. 

She quickly came upon what appeared to be a bottomless chasm. Well
technically it probably wasn't bottomless, but when one couldn't see the
bottom, there was little difference between the two. 

Akane: Splitting hairs and all that.

Directly in front of

her, spanning the chasm was a bridge. On her side was a man so ancient he
made Happosai look young. He was stooped over, clutching a gnarled staff
that was as wrinkled as his skin.

Autolycus? It has been ages! How goes the villain foraging? Too bad for that Shihana incident, that Stargrave was a moralist dopehead.

"You'll only be doomed if you don't answer the questions right and try to
cross the bridge. Actually getting the wrong answers doesn't intrinsically

do anything to you. This isn't 'Jeopardy'," the man clarified.

Extra space over there.

"I'll make it only two questions," the man pleaded. "One of them will be
where you were born. Come on. Please. No one ever crosses my bridge. I'm a
lonely man." He fell to the ground in a pathetic, crying heap.

Akane crossed the other bridge anyway. These obstacles were definitely
proving easy to beat.

(sweatdrops) U-huh. ^^

"Because most people would regard pummeling harmless little girls as being
morally corrupt," Rei offered.

Eyebrow raised curiously, Tarou asked, "Do I look like most people?"

Mei and Rei laughed nervously. They also released their holds on their
ropes.

"Go on past," Mei said, ushering him past.

Tarou placed them back on the ground and patted their heads. He then walked
over the ropes and continued down the path.

Straightforward, that. Admittedly, other than Monty Python thing you made note at the end notes (oooh, redundancy), I could imagine this in the actual manga at least. Takahashi-like humor? Or perhaps it's just good humor in general.

The warrior said, "By the Code of Kachoo, you are given the right of three
free blows, before I shall strike you down. That is three, and not one more,
nor one less. Just three. A trio of blows, like triplets born of a mother.
Not two, like twins. Not quartets, like in a barbershop-"

I always liked colorful personalities. But this (wince) makes me reconsider such likings....

"What do your friends call you?" Ranma said slowly, pronouncing each word
through clenched teeth.

"My friends call me... Glazz Jaw."

"Glazz...  Jaw?" Ranma said slowly. "Any reason for that?"

"Indeed," the man said. "It was something of a joke. You see. I inherited a
hereditary condition from my father. He-"

Ranma's fist met the man's chin.

Glazz Jaw said, "Yes, that would be it." His eyes rolled into the back of
his head and he collapsed to the ground.

Ranma sighed to himself and hurried onward. What a waste of time.

(sweatdrop) I'll be dehydrated by the end of this c&c.

Kachiko hummed pleasantly to herself, enjoying her superiority. She was
barely out of sight of the board when the world went spinning as a sudden
pain shot through the very center of her being. It was unlike anything she
had felt, ever, a piercing thing that seemed to erupt from every portion of
her body. She cried out and doubled over in agony, curling into a fetal ball
and praying that the pain would go away. For a moment, the pain lessened,
but the decreasing pain was accompanied by a feeling of weightlessness, and
a lack of sensation from her surroundings.

Then, as suddenly as it started, it was over. Everything felt like it was
there again, and the pain drifted away, almost as though it had never been.
Kachiko stood up, making a critical examination of her herself in an attempt
to discover what had caused such agony. She could see no wounds, nor any
indication of what had triggered such an experience in the first place.
There was nothing at all wrong with her. Not even a lingering sensation of
pain.

Ooooh... ~FORESHADOWING~

That, at the very least, would definitely keep me reading til the end. Something's amiss with the Genie's wish.....

As Kachiko began sinking into the tar, she heard the man say, "My favorites
are the dumb ones that think they're incredibly brilliant when the only
people they can outsmart are themselves. God, I love my job."

And then Kachiko was completely submerged.

Flashbacks of Whizzer vs. Hawkeye from your other current fic, Avenging come to mind... at least with the fact that Hawkeye 'outsmarted' herself with her first fight with the one later known Speed Demon. 

As the pole slowly began to fall, Tarou called out in an overly dramatic
voice, "Oh no, I'm about to fall in a pool of water that is going to
activate my curse. Whatever shall I do?"

Makes one want to hit him upside the head, ne? Very apt, his characterization... like all your characterizations so far, DB.

"Ever hear the one about Brier Rabbit and the Tar Baby?"

Tarou sniffed the air, crinkled his nose, then looked over his shoulder at
the girl so firmly attached to him. There was a black substance smudged on
her face, and he could see quantities of it on the arms that encircled his
torso. "You idiot! If you're attached to me, you can't win either."

"I don't need to win." Unable to remove her arms, Kachiko shook her head
behind them, indicating he should look in that direction.

Tarou turned to see Akane Tendou had also emerged into the final obstacle
course.

Ah. Very good... fiendish and clever in a straightforward manner... too bad the characteristics was rather split up between two sisters (Nabiki= fiendish and clever, Akane= Straighforward)

But the finish line wasn't that far away. She could be the hero for a change
instead of Ranma, and he would be so grateful to her.

But the cat could die.

"I'm sorry," Akane said out loud.

Typical to the very end. Whatever 'weakness' you claim this chapter has over its former, this scene and the scene that follows more than makes up for it. 

"You thought what?" Kachiko raged. "That if you had good intentions and pure
motives everything would turn out all right? Here's a little piece of
advice, from mother to daughter. That's a bunch of !#$%! Look around you."
She pointed to where Tarou was now standing in victory, congratulating
himself. "What do you know, we lost. That asshole, won the race! The ring is
his, not Ranma's! Now an exceedingly dangerous person has even more power
than before, and Ranma's just as screwed over as before.

"Don't delude yourself into thinking you won anything by taking some
imaginary high moral ground. Thanks to you, Ranma's going to be paying for
your 'benevolence,' for a long time afterward. But hey, what does it really
matter in the big scheme of things? At least you saved the cat." Kachiko
gave Akane a disgusted look as she turned away in anger and headed toward
the finish line.

All Akane could do was look down at the ground, and try to hide the tears
that rolled down her face.

Very, very nice scene. The true essence of conflict doesn't have to be all fights, victory and glory... this dramatic scene personifies it. Now that's true chaos and world-upside-down anarchy from Kachiko... now that's the kind of impact I'm looking for in a fic.

True, she was harsh... but it was all necessary for the oh-so-good drama to ensue. Good work as always.

"Hand it over," Tarou said menacingly, holding out his hand expectedly.

Kachiko placed the ring in the palm of her hand, rose a glowing fist above
it, then brought the fist down directly upon the ring, breaking it in half.
"Here you go," she placed the pieces in his open hand.

Coolness. The Nabiki-Akane fusion woman has done it again.

Rather than speaking any further, Tarou rushed forward. Kachiko tried to
strike him, but he deflected both her attacks. He then grabbed her by the
face, brought it forward, and kissed her full on the lips.

Breaking off the kiss, Tarou said, "God, you seriously turn me on."

She really has done it again. O_o

Oh well... as I mentioned earlier, too much things happen to her. But who says that's necessarily a bad thing? ^-^

Unable to think of anything that would drive him off, or make him want to
kill her, Kachiko fell to her knees and began to cry. It was beginning to
look like throwing herself in front of a truck would be a good thing. At the
very least it would be less painful than having to deal with a total creep
like Pantyhose Tarou as a suitor.

"Why does everything have to happen to me?" she wailed.

That's the very conflict within this fic, isn't it?

There's nothing more I could add that I haven't already said... except for the fact that when one tries to weight down the pros and the cons of this fic... it still delivers. It's a very good read, and a refreshingly new type of fic from you, DB... I mean, it's not everyday that you make a pretty decent new character fic that's not nearly as annoying it should be. ;)

Besides that, I rather liked this latter half of the fic... much more lighthearted and not so much dragging and detracting like the first part... and I rather liked the Akane-Kachi conflict, which was IMO cooler than the forseeable Tarou crush thing (oooh, he's falling for her in a Ranma's fiancee'-type manner... didn't see that one coming). The drama... oooh, the drama... that's what it's all about.

[END NOTES]
Yes, Kachiko coming down on Akane was exceptionally harsh, wasn't it? You'll
glean a little bit of the reasons for her almost irrational ire in the
interlude that's coming up next. Work on it has already started.

Yes, those really were lyrics to a real song. "I Must Increase My Bust' by
the Lords of Acid.

Coolness.

And yes, Monty Python and the Holy Grail inspired more than a few of the
'obstacles'.

Next time out we get a little interlude that will hopefully explain a few
things.

Looking forward with the resolvation of that 'anxiety/dizziness/whatnot' episodes Kachi keeps on having. Other than that... keep on writing!


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