"I don't want to use Lightning for fighting," Hajiki protested.
Hachisuka raised an eyebrow. "It's a twenty-foot giant robot. You're constantly being attacked by demons and mecha. What the hell else are you going to use it for?"
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"Why do you have to fight him?" Aiko asked worriedly.
Hajiki turned away from her, clenching his fists. "I want to stop Katana from doing bad things."
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"I don't want to fight you!" Hajiki protested from behind Lightning's head, as Katana and his techode Zero towered over them.
Katana was silent for a moment. "I really can't see any other way this could possibly play out..."
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Hajiki gaped as the industrial laser Lightning had been wielding started to meld with its shoulder.
"See? See? It wants to fight!" The gadrian hunter cheered, moving his heavy metal into a firing position.
"Uh... you started fighting, not the techode," Catherine observed from the cab of Hachisuka's truck.
"Lighting! Stop, please!" Hajiki shouted, running up to the robot and grabbing onto its leg.
"It's all right, really," Catherine insisted from the sidelines. "The guy is trying to kill you. It's okay to fight back."
"No! I don't want you to fight!" Hajiki shouted, willing his techode to rip the laser away from its shoulder.
Catherine sweatdropped. "But didn't YOU come to confront HIM? And you... oh, forget it."
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"Then there's Aiko, who can't seem to wrap her head around the concept of 'friend and foe', such that she can't understand why people can't get along and be friends with the people who are trying to kill them." Black Dragon said, pushing a button on his remote control.
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"I think those of us with techodes should all stay together and do something wonderful, don't you?" Aiko said cheerfully to Hajiki.
Hajiki shrugged as he continued writing. "Not now. First I have to find Katana and destroy him."
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"Katana uses his techode for evil!" Takumi proclaimed from where he stood on Thunderbolt's back.
"But can't we all work together?" Aiko protested, standing in the massive hands of Messah Schmit.
Hajiki frowned. "I don't really see how we can work with Katana to stop him."
"We can all be friends!" Aiko said again.
"He tried to kill me!" Hajiki shouted.
"He keeps beating me up and telling me I'm too worthless to kill!" Takumi said, feeling slightly jealous of Hajiki's more perilous encounters.
"But we can all get along!" Aiko said yet again.
"Crazy bitch," both of the boys muttered as their techodes began to walk away.
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"Katana-kun!" Aiko said as she wandered through the junk yard. "I brought cake!"
The lanky hitman poked his head out of the door to the garage he called home. "Are you here AGAIN? Why do you keep bothering me?"
"Hm? I'm your friend! I'm here to visit you!"
Katana twitched. "You are not my friend. I don't even like you. Go away."
Aiko smiled and held up the pastry box she was carrying. "Look! I brought cake!"
"You know that I'm an assassin, right? I kill people for money. Aren't you supposed to be some goody two-shoes rich girl?"
Aiko opened up the box to show him the treat she brought him. "Look! It's chocolate!"
"Crazy bitch," Katana muttered, closing the door.
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"Next comes Arashi, who seems really cool at first... until you get deeper into the series, and see that she averages about three lines per episode, if you don't count 'Hajiki-kun...' as a line. She also doesn't want to use her techode for fighting, which is both strange given her background as a martial artist, and questionable as there really aren't many other USES for a giant robot if the only emergencies that call for one to bring it up from its underground base is when demons and robots are on the rampage. On top of that, she seems to be the peer pressure poster child or something." BD pushed the button on his remote.
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Arashi watch in fascination as Hajiki rode away atop Lightning, looking wistful as he was joined a moment later by Aiko on Messah and Takumi on Thunderbolt.
"I want I had a techode, too..."
"Gads are dangerous," Catherine chided. "They steal something important from you."
"But... everyone else seems to enjoy them..."
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Hajiki blinked in surprise as he saw Arashi's techode Hayate land nearby next to the docks. "Shinozuka! I told you not to come!"
Arashi looked around, and noted that all the other techodes seemed to be present. "But... Aiko got to come!"
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Hajiki frowned as he looked back and saw that Arashi was following them through the canal, riding atop the head of her techode as it slogged through the water. "Shinozuka, why are you swimming down here? Can't you just fly home?"
"But... everyone else was doing it!" Arashi protested.
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"Hey, Shinozuka-san. I dare you to have Hayate throw you off a cliff," Hajiki said neutrally.
"What? No! Why would I do that?" Arashi asked, alarmed.
"Everyone else is doing it," Hajiki reasoned. "You want to hang out with the rest of us, right? Don't you want to be cool?"
Without another word, Arashi pressed her lips into a thin line, and then nodded as she guided her techode toward the large cliff that overlooked the city.
Wordlessly, Hajiki walked over to a stunned Aiko and Takumi, who shook their heads and handed wads of money over to him for winning the bet.
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Ranma raised a sign over his head: [Scenes may contain, or be comprised of fictional content.]
"Don't give me that! This is the truth!" BD shouted. "Finally, we come to Takumi, who seems pretty cool at first. A rich kid who wants to be a superhero and fight for justice, and has a giant robot to help him do it. Of course, he doesn't seem so cool when he's constantly getting his ass handed to him. He also has flaw that is most crippling for the crime-fighting super-detective: he has no clue."
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"Katana stole them! He stole the gads, didn't he?" Takumi shouted at Aiko, who stood in front of him atop Messah's shoulders.
Aiko shook her head. "I doubt it. Did he even show up in this episode? I haven't seen him in a while."
"It must have been him! He wants their power!" The blond boy ranted madly, glancing back and forth.
"But... he has a techode already. And he's never shown any interest in taking gads before. I mean, the one he got he tried to throw away..."
"Are you involved in this? Did you steal the gads?" Takumi yelled accusingly.
"Uhm... they belong to my family... and they're stored in my house. How would I steal them?" Aiko asked as she sweatdropped.
"Don't lie to me! I won't let the culprit get away with this!" Takumi proclaimed.
"But didn't you just try to take the gads yourself?" the teenager girl asked, scratching her head.
"That much power in one place is too much for one man to contain and control!" Takumi insisted.
"So... you're going to try to safeguard them yourself?"
"I will defend the gads! I will save the world! I am an ally of JUSTICE!!"
Aiko was silent for several moments. "... You're a creepy little guy, you know that?"
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"And there you have it!" BD said, turning off the projector.
"There we have WHAT? You just spent like five minutes talking about an anime series most of the readers probably haven't heard of," Ranma said harshly.
Black Dragon glared at him. "It's an ANALYSIS of what makes a character quirky and fun, versus what kinds of character points drag down the plot development and-"
"Blah blah blah, it's a long complaint full of slightly entertaining and mostly fake scenes from the anime. And, if I may say so, it's a lot closer to the behavior of actual fifteen year-olds than any Takahashi series."
BD continued glaring at Ranma. "Fine. Final point: stereotypical archetypes = good. Inconsistent characterization = headache. But it's still worth watching for the jazz music. On to the story."


Takahashi Soup
by Black Dragon

Dislcaimer. I do not own chocolate. The patent for creamy, cocoa-based sugary goodness shall forever elude me.
Oh, and if you want to know who the mystery chick was in chapter 6, you've got a LONG wait ahead of you. That was some seriously evil foreshadowing there.

Chapter 7
The Iron Chefs
**********************************************************************************

"Ranma! Ranma? That's strange. Isn't he up yet?" Kasumi asked Ataru as the more lecherous of the Saotome twins squatted down at the breakfast table.
Ataru blinked, then scratched his head. "You know... I don't really know. Pops tried to wake him up for practice, but Ranma just beat him up and went back to bed. He looked really bad, too. Like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all."
"Oh, my! Do you think he's sick?" Kasumi thought, looking upstairs worriedly.
"Pft. Not likely. Ranma never gets sick," Ataru said, already filling his plate with breakfast.
Nabiki entered the room next, having overheard much of the conversation. "Well he sounds sick to me. I dropped by his room to ask if I should drain the bath or draw a new one for him, and he just huddled under his blanket, begging me to leave."
Genma, who was sporting a black eye and a much larger white cloth over his head, grimaced. "I admit, while he hasn't been ill since he was a baby, something does seem to be troubling him. It's probably best if he stays home from school today."
"I'll alert the school board; they'll be overjoyed," Akane said bitterly. "Aside from having already totaled the school once, I heard that Ranma destroyed the school nurse's Shinto shrine yesterday. He probably got cursed or something as a result. Serves the jerk right."
As everyone else winced at her severity and prepared to change the subject, Akane suddenly felt a sharp pain on her hand, and then gaped as she realized the Kasumi had swatted her knuckles with a pair of chopsticks.
"Akane! I will NOT accept that kind of attitude from you!" The eldest Tendo daughter said sternly, causing everyone else to freeze absolutely still and watch, mesmerized. "I don't care what you think of Ranma-kun, but to speak ill of the sick is wrong! I expect better from you!"
"B-But... I mean... he... and..." Akane stuttered badly as Kasumi continued frowning at her.
Seeing that her younger sister wasn't getting anywhere as far as defending herself, Kasumi wagged a finger at her. "Saotome-san and his sons are our guests! Now, I've been very lenient with the way you treat them in the past, and especially as Ataru seems to provoke you deliberately, but I have had quite enough!"
Nabiki and Soun stared in mute shock at the lecture, unable to come to terms with Kasumi's sudden assault.
"I... I'm sorry..." Akane mumbled, lowering her head. Anyone else and she would have fought back, perhaps even physically. But against Kasumi, the only option was submission, and the youngest Tendo began to feel doubt and shame well up inside her as her oldest sister made her displeasure known.
Kasumi kept frowning. "Very well. I'll accept your apology for now. But I want you to show more restraint in the future. I'm going to go take Ranma's breakfast to him."
Then she turned toward the kitchen, and smiled at the dome-topped metal cylinder with legs that stood next to the kitchen door. "D2-chan, could you start clearing the table please?"
Beep! Boop! Blip! The astromech droid responded, shifting its bottom-mounted foot forward and moving forward to begin working with its many servo arms.

Nabiki watched Kasumi go upstairs somewhat apprehensively, pondering her older sister's outburst. Had Akane merely crossed the line and gotten what was coming to her, or was there something else going on here?
"Not that I'm complaining, exactly..." Soun began, wanting to focus on a new subject so that he could purge what he had just seen from his memory. Kasumi was, after all, an air-headed and placid girl, docile almost to the point of apathy, and he wasn't about to let reality muddy up his perception of the world. "But what exactly is that... thing doing in my house?"
Ataru patted R2-D2 on top of its domed head. "The little guy followed me home last night, actually. After landing on top of my head in a legally sanctioned defense of the curse that inhabits my soul against an exorcism gone completely awry. Can we keep him?"
"I don't know, son," Genma mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Having your own utility droid is a big responsibility!"
Ataru blinked. "It is?"
"I... uh..." Genma frowned. "Well, I guess I don't really know."
"Please?" Ataru begged, clasping his hands together. "I'll wash him and recharge him and maintain his motivator all by myself! Honest!"
Genma sighed. "Well, I'll think about it. For now, why don't you run off to school?"
"Thanks, Pop!" Ataru said cheerfully, slapping his father on the back before he rushed out the front door, backpack in hand.
Nabiki finished chewing the last of her breakfast, then placed her plate on top of the rack that had popped open atop the droid's head. "So, out of curiosity, why WOULDN'T you keep it? It does nothing but help, and it's not like it costs you anything."
Genma frowned. "Huh. I actually hadn't considered that."
"Of course," Nabiki deadpanned. "Well, whatever. I'm going to..." she stopped as she heard a slightly muffled noise from upstairs. "Huh? What was that?"
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Ranma's breathing was quick and shallow as he remained squatting motionlessly atop his futon, his hands at his sides in a classic meditation pose.
Despite the outward appearance of peace and calm, however, his mind was anything but.
'Damn! Don't think about it! Don't think about it! Clear your mind! Purge all thoughts! Resist temptation! There is no spoon! AAARGH!!'
He continued attempting to meditate, but his emotions were in turmoil. Just when he had finally mustered the courage and rationale to decide that he could go through a full day of class in the presence of familiar girls without flipping out, Nabiki had come knocking at his door, her seductive voice calling to him, inviting him to take a bath with her, and share whatever pleasures of the flesh she could offer him.
Sweat started rolling down Ranma's head. 'No, she did NOT invite me to take a bath with her! She asked if she should draw a bath for me! No sexual intent was implied! Dammit, get under control, body!'
Of course, thoughts of baths brought back images from the dream-slash-nightmare-scape from the previous day, and the pigtailed boy found it quite simple to recall a perfectly nude Nabiki, despite never having seen her in less than shorts and a T-shirt in real life.
'This isn't working! I gotta get this under control! No WAY can I go out like this!' Ranma's face reddened despite his efforts to detach mind from body, and he cracked his eyes open to stare down in his lap. Besides the obvious problem of screaming like a madman and fleeing from every female he had ever met before, Ranma was also having trouble coming to terms with a very different, and even less voluntary, humiliating reaction to his predicament. Puberty had been very kind to the young man, and though he had never really thought about it before, his normal black sweat pants weren't the best clothes to disguise male arousal.
'No wonder Ataru wears jeans all the time. But none of his pants fit me,' the pigtailed boy groused. 'Maybe Pop's clothes? Of course they'll be too big, but maybe I can use that to-'
His thoughts were interrupted as there was a knock on the door.
"Yeah, come on in," Ranma said absently, not really considering the full range of possible guests seeking entry to his room.
Kasumi opened the door with her free hand, and noted that Ranma was sitting in the middle of the room, facing away from her. "Ranma-kun? I brought breakfast. How are you feeling?"
The reaction was instantaneous. Ranma lurched forward at the sound of Kasumi's musical voice, and his hands gripped the edges of his futon tightly as his entire body went on high alert.
"Ka-Ka-Kasumi! What are y-you doing here?"
Kasumi blinked. "Uhm... bringing you breakfast. Didn't you hear me?"
Ranma forced out a laugh, and beads of sweat began rolling down his forehead as he made eye contact. "Oh! Of course! Thank you! You can just leave it on the floor there and go now!" 'Maintain eye contact! Focus on the face! Do NOT start mentally undressing her! Sweet monkey Christ, she's beautiful! Why did I have to go insane to notice that?'
Kasumi looked worried as Ranma's face became flushed. "Oh my, you don't look well at all. Do you have a fever?"
Ranma twitched. It didn't look like the Tendo homemaker was planning on leaving right away. "Now that you mention it, I'm not feeling a hundred percent today! So I'll just stay in bed! You can go now! Don't want you getting sick!"
"Oh, that's all right," Kasumi said as she set the plate down. "Here, let me feel your head."
CRASH!!
Kasumi stared at the broken window that Ranma had leapt through, unable to comprehend what she had just seen. "Oh my... I can't imagine that's good for his fever..."

Splash!
Ataru turned around as he heard something impact the koi pond, and he blinked once he saw Ranma, in female form, scramble out of the pool of water and collapse on the ground, breathing heavily.
"Ah... cold water... that's the stuff..." Ranma's mind began to clear as her now frigid clothing clung to her skin, and she felt much of her emotional heat evaporate as she adjusted to the lack of proper male anatomy.
Ataru walked up to his brother turned sister. "Hey man, are you okay? Want some hot water?"
Ranma twitched. "No, thank you. I think I'm good. I'll go to school like this today."
"What? Why?" Ataru couldn't imagine why Ranma would want to attend school as a girl. With how attractive their female forms were, guys were constantly hitting on them, which frankly made his stomach turn. In addition, he remembered that Ranma had seriously injured Genma on a previous occasion for attempting to send him to school as a girl.
"There are... complications." The pigtailed girl groused, standing up and wringing out her pigtail. "It'd just be best for me to stay like this for now."

Without waiting for any other response from her brother, Ranma grabbed the front of Ataru's shirt and dragged him toward the front gate of the Tendo compound.
"W-Wait! What's the rush, man?" Ataru asked, stumbling along. "Nabiki hasn't even left yet! And I don't have my stuff!"
"You never read your books anyway, and it's not like you do homework; you don't need your backpack. Now come on." Ranma said, passing through the front gate and shoving Ataru in front of her.
"But why?" The lecher whined, unable to fathom why Ranma would want to get to school early. Education was one of the rare things that both of the twin brothers freely shirked without remorse.
"I just... there are certain people I don't want to run into today."
Ataru frowned. "Oh. Like Kuno?"
"Sure," Ranma mumbled, glancing back and forth as she plodded along behind Ataru. "Kuno. Right."
"Okay, fine. But why can't you go by yourself and leave me out of it?" Ataru asked irritably. Not that he wasn't used to his brother pushing him around, but he always demanded an explanation just to keep the pigtailed boy honest.
"I need you to get between me and every girl we come across on our way to school," Ranma said honestly, feeling slightly disgusted when Ataru's eyebrows rose. "It doesn't matter who they are or why they approach, just stand in front of me and flirt with them until they leave."
Ataru turned and stared at Ranma strangely. "Are you... feeling okay, bro?"
Ranma grit her teeth, restraining her urge to strike her sibling. "No, Ataru. No I'm not. And I-GWAAH!!"
Ataru flinched as Ranma shouted in surprise, and then he groaned once he saw Lum flying up to them. 'Great. Just what I DON'T need first thing in the morning.'
The alien princess frowned when she saw the cute redheaded girl staring at her, terrified, while hiding behind Ataru. While seeing people (mostly girls) terrified by her presence wasn't completely new to her, seeing them hide behind her husband/fiance was.
"Darling... who is THAT?" Lum asked menacingly, electric arcs sparking between her horns.
The lecher blinked, and then realized she was talking about his brother. "Oh! Her. Never mind her. She's just a relative."
"A relative? I don't remember seeing her around before," the alien muttered suspiciously. Truth be told, the girl DID look vaguely familiar, but Lum just couldn't quite put her finger on why.
"What are you doing?" Ranma whispered. "Hurry up and get rid of her!"
Ataru frowned, wondering what Ranma's problem is. While the pigtailed boy and Lum had never gotten along, Ranma had never wanted to simply ditch her on principle, and Ranma certainly never would have left it to him.
"Er... did you want something, Lum?" Ataru asked, sighing.
Lum narrowed her eyes, but decided to let the redhead's presence go. After all, it's not like they had been doing anything other than walking together, and Ataru seemed annoyed by her presence rather than aroused, for some reason. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to meet you at school today!"
Ranma twitched at the alien girl's smile, and looked down at the ground, trying to imagine that she was somewhere else. Preferably where it was cold and girls couldn't get away with running around in furry bikinis.
Ataru grimaced. "Lum, we've been through this: DON'T follow me to school! Do you know how much trouble I have keeping up a passing 'D' as it is?"
Lum pouted. "I know that! But I can visit you during lunch, right?"
"I'd really prefer that you not," Ataru said bluntly, "you'll cause an uproar no matter when you come." 'Plus, you'll probably fry me for eating lunch with Shinobu,' he added mentally.
Lum's pout turned into a more genuine look of sorrow, and she sniffled a little bit, causing both Saotomes to wince at the prelude to all-out tears.
"But... I was... going to bring you lunch..."
Ataru immediately perked up at this. "What? You were?" Then he narrowed his eyes. "Wait... it's not some weird alien dish, is it?"
"Uh-uh!" Lum said, brightening as her husband started to show interest. "I got the recipe from Kasumi! Something called... curry chicken, I think it was."
Ataru was already salivating, and Ranma growled and gave her brother a kick in the shin to remind them that they were headed somewhere.
"Ow! Okay! Fine!" Hopping on one foot, the lecher smiled gratefully at Lum. "Well, since you're going to bring food, stop on by! I'd be happy to eat lunch with you! You can leave, now!"
"Okay darling! I love you!" The alien giggled, blowing the lecher a kiss.
"Yeah, okay, fine. Go away," Ataru mumbled, moving forward with Ranma in tow while visions of hot, home-made cooking filled his thoughts.

The siblings continued to make their way to school, and as they went, Ataru grew more and more concerned about Ranma's behavior. He had always thought that Ranma was a prude, and unnecessarily serious, as the pigtailed boy never flirted or slept around, even though girls flocked to him and gladly offered themselves. His behavior today, however, was not particularly prudish. No, the way Ranma constantly flinched away and averted his eyes from every girl or woman on the street spoke of pure, honest fear.
"Hey, seriously, is something wrong?" Ataru finally asked the cursed redhead. "You're not looking too hot, bro."
Ranma swallowed. 'He's right. This was a stupid thing to do. But it's this... or go home to be cared for by Kasumi...' Sensual images surfaced at the thought of the Tendo homemaker, and she began experiencing unfamiliar feelings of female arousal.
Luckily, those signs in a woman were less obvious, and less distinct.
"Ranma? Do you have a fever or something? Your face is all flushed, and you look dizzy."
'Must... purge... all... unclean... thoughts... Kasumi... not... sex object... must... not... picture her... naked.' "I'll be fine... I guess... eventually..." Ranma mumbled, her breathing becoming more and more labored.
"Excuse me?"
Ataru whirled around at the friendly, feminine voice, and beheld one of Akane's friends Yuka approaching them with her bag clutched to her chest. "Yeah? What's up?"
The brunette frowned at the sight of the busty redhead that seemed to be trying to hide from her behind Ataru. Did the lecher manage to snare ANOTHER fiancee? "I was, um, just wondering where Ranma was, actually."
"Ranma... riiight..." Ataru chewed on his lip for a moment, unsure of how he was supposed to respond to that query. "OW!"
Yuka blinked as she watched the redhead pinch Ataru, though she couldn't imagine why.
Remembering Ranma's instructions from before, Ataru cleared his throat and suddenly stepped forward, placing a hand on Yuka's shoulder. "Aw, just forget about Ranma! Why don't you hang out with me, instead?" the lecher asked, grinning in a way that made Yuka's stomach churn.
"Ugh! Don't touch me, you sicko!" The brunette spat, slapping his arm away. "You're disgusting! You really will hit on anything that moves, won't you!"
"No way! Only the cute things that move!" Ataru said, still grinning in that awful way that made girls want to deck him then and there.

Nonetheless, Yuka managed to restrain herself, and walked away in a huff. As she was leaving, Ataru turned toward his brother-turned-sister, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"All right, bro. What's going on? You've never encouraged me to flirt with or frighten girls before; why now?"
Ranma scowled, slightly surprised by Ataru's attitude; it wasn't like she was asking her brother to do anything he wouldn't gladly do on his own. "Look, I'm just not in the mood to deal with women today, all right? It's... complicated."
"Complicated in an 'I have a possessive girl stalking me who will exact vengeance on me and any female who gets close' way, or complicated in an 'I found out that my male body secretes ultra-pheromones and I fear girls will try and jump my bones in public' way?"
Ranma was not amused, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Complicated in an 'I've just been subjected to an alien device that has had unforeseen effects upon my brain' way."
Ataru winced. "Ooh... yeah... that's pretty complicated."
"Right. So drop the yeagh!" The redhead once again jumped behind Ataru as another girl approached the pair, and grew increasingly nervous; this time, the girl wouldn't be fooled by his current female state.
"So there you are," Nabiki said as she approached the Saotome twins. "We were all wondering why-"
As Ranma began to clutch her head and shake it to try and slow down the onslaught of lewd thoughts, Ataru took the initiative, happily indulging his normally useless and troublesome sex drive for the good of his sibling.
"Nab-chan!" Glomp!
"Gwaugh!" Nabiki let out a strangled cry of surprise as she was tackle-hugged, and she looked surprised for a moment before cooly planting an elbow into Ataru's head. "Ataru... I SUGGEST you remove yourself from me immediately. You will NOT like the results if you fail to do so."
Ataru couldn't think of a good excuse to remain attached to her torso after Nabiki requested he let go, so the lecher simply did so and rubbed the welt on his head, grinning stupidly the whole time.
Nabiki glared at him icily. "Watch yourself Saotome. You DON'T want to get on my nerves."
"I'm pretty sure there's no part of you I don't want to get on," Ataru said happily, apparently immune to Nabiki's warning tone.
Gritting her teeth, the middle Tendo daughter turned and walked away, unable to decide if Ataru's stupidity was really worth the trouble of putting together a decent revenge plot.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the young woman was far enough away. "This is not going well..."
"Ranma, as much as I love the general policy, I can't keep all the chicks away from you all day," Ataru said, leading the way and keeping a careful lookout for any women in their path.
The redhead scowled. "You're right. But I can't go home... I guess..." she pressed her lips into a thin line. "I'm going to have to buckle down and deal with this. That's for sure." She glanced at her brother hesitantly. "Say... do you... well, how to put this..."
"Eh? How to put what?" Ataru said, stopping in his tracks. It was rare that Ranma had trouble speaking his mind, and when he did, the subject was either very serious, or very entertaining.
Ranma fought the slight blush that threatened to emerge. "How do you... distract yourself? You know, from thinking about... stuff?"
Ataru blinked. "I have the attention span of a chipmunk. That pretty much takes the effort out of my part."
Ranma twitched, more annoyed that she couldn't manage to ask the question straight out than she was at Ataru's response. "Not in general. How do you distract yourself from thinking about... uh... g-girls?" she sputtered out at last.
The lecher's right eyebrow climbed up his forehead. "You're asking ME how I stop myself from thinking of girls?"
Ranma twitched again. "... That question sounded a lot less stupid in my head."
Ataru sighed, and then backed up so that he could put an arm over his brother-turned-sister's shoulders. "Bro, listen, while I COULD take you aside and explain men and women and the way sex works, now really isn't the best-URK!!"
Ranma growled and dug her elbow further into Ataru's stomach. "I don't need 'the talk', you dimwit! But I'm really at my wit's end, here!"
"Cough! O-Okay! Fine! But even saying that, things like noticing girls for the first time and how to deal with it are best discussed between a father and his fourteen year-old son," Ataru mumbled, rubbing his stomach.
"You know damn well the only thing Pop taught me when I was fourteen was jump kicks," the pigtailed girl muttered.
"True... let's see..." The lecher rubbed his chin thoughtfully and started pacing back and forth. "I suppose the best way to stop an erotic fantasy is to think of something as repulsive as the fantasy is enticing." He turned toward the redhead. "What's the vilest, most disgusting thing you-"
"Easy. You groping me at Jusenkyou," Ranma said immediately, interrupting her brother in mid-sentence. Then she shuddered. "Wow... I think it's working."
Ataru glared at her as she kept talking.
"Arousal... vanishing. Body... going cold. Affection for other people... replaced by bitterness and anger." Ranma's face darkened, yet she smirked at the same time. "Okay. I think I can do this."
"Care to keep your thoughts to yourself?" Her brother groused. Granted, Ataru could understand how revolting it would have been had their positions been reversed, but he still felt that Ranma was being overdramatic about the ordeal.
"Shut up and let's go," the redhead snapped, shoving Ataru along. "... And... thanks."
Ataru remained silent for a moment as they walked, until the curiosity became too much for him to bear. "You mean thanks for groping you, or for the idea?"
WHAM!! "AAAAIIIIEEE!! SORRY!! SORRY!! STUPID QUESTION!! NO MORE HURTING!! GWAAAAH!!"
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The English teacher scratched his forehead as he looked at the roll sheet, very unsure as to what to make of this turn of events.
"So... your name is..."
"Ranko Saotome," the somewhat gloomy-looking redhead said somberly.
"Okay... and you're filling in for..."
"Ranma Saotome, who's sick with a fever or something," Ranma lied, looking very disinterested in these proceedings.
The teacher frowned. "I suppose your Saotome-san's, what, sister?"
Ranma stopped to think for a moment. "Cousin," she said, after some hesitation. "He's my Pop's brother's son." Satisfied that the explanation should explain the common surname while staving off any requests as to why Ranma and Ranko were never together, the pigtailed girl prepared to go about the business of ignoring the day's lecture.
The man at the head of the classroom sighed. "Is it customary in your family to send a substitute family member to school when the original student isn't available?"
Ranma glared at him. "Is it customary in this school to ask stupid questions when there's no problem? Start the lecture already!"
The teacher flinched back, and then nodded nervously, turning to the blackboard.
In the meantime, the rest of the students openly stared at the pigtailed redhead, with the exception of Akane, who knew who Ranma was and considered it a personal favor to him to not blow his cover for her own amusement, and Ataru, who was already asleep.
Despite the claim of covering for Ranma, "Ranko" had abandoned her normal seat for one on the side of the room, such that she was surrounded by boys, and well away from the class's girls. This had been a slight problem at first, since the normal occupant of the desk, some skinny, gloomy guy named Himaru or Jikaru or something, had come to try and claim it, but that problem was resolved when Ranma planted the wiry fool upside-down in her normal desk, inviting him to take that one instead. That solution had the dual advantage of getting her point across that she would sit where she damn well pleased, as well as intimidating some of the guys who were considering flirting with their attractive new classmate.

During the actual lecture, Ranma tried to do some productive thinking rather than just mope around, but the only thing he could think of was making a plan to track down Kurama and either get revenge on her for trying to warp his mind, or make her reverse the process. The problem being, of course, that he couldn't think of Kurama for long without imagining her naked, which derailed any possibly productive thinking that might have otherwise occurred.
CRASH!
Everyone turned to the side, startled, as the wall adjacent to the hallway burst inward, and those closest to the sudden act of destruction had to cover their eyes as a wave of dust and debris showered over them.
Ataru perked up immediately, and grinned. "Sham-chan! You came to-" Thwok! Out from the dust emerged a colorful steel mace, which clocked Ataru squarely in the face and sent him tumbling to the floor.
When the dust finally cleared completely, it revealed an annoyed Chinese Amazon, standing atop the rubble she had created while scanning the classroom.
A quick look around told Shampoo that she had the attention of everyone in the classroom except for Ataru, who was still reeling, and a bored-looking red-haired girl, who she recognized as accompanying Ataru and the panda when she was chasing the group across the Orient.
"You! Where Ranma?" the violet-haired girl demanded in her usual endearing sing-song voice.
"Not here. Home sick," Ranma mumbled absently, trying to hold her stomach under control as she forced thoughts of Ataru's wandering hands into her mind.
"Hmph. Why Ranma not around home or school when Shampoo look?" The Amazon said, pouting. "Is almost like he avoid Shampoo."
"Wow. With THOSE detective skills, it's no wonder you managed to track us all the way to Japan," Ranma drawled, still not making eye contact with the Chinese girl, who at the moment was trying to see if she could set the redhead on fire with the power of her glare.
The English teacher, tired of being ignored, finally slapped his desk with a ruler to try and get the intruder's attention. "Excuse me, miss, but we're in the middle of class," he said sharply, narrowing his eyes. "As lenient as the administration is with fighting and property damage, I cannot permit you to burst into this classroom and chat with your friend there when I have a lecture to give." The man's frown deepened. "Also, you're standing on Todoroki-san."
Shampoo looked down, and saw that, true to the teacher's word, a teenage boy with dark hair was lying on his back, partially buried by the remains of the wall that she stood on top of.
Daisuke, for his part, simply chuckled. "No, it's okay. Don't mind me," he said, enjoying the view up Shampoo's dress immensely as blood trickled down from his nose to mix with the blood that was caused by the flying debris.
"Hmph. Fine. Ranma not here, so Shampoo go." As irritated as she was, sticking around Furinkan wouldn't solve anything, and taking out her frustration on people in the school, such as the dolt beneath her, would end up being more problematic than soothing.
"Sucker," Ranma mumbled as her Chinese suitor left. Within moments those who had been knocked over from Shampoo's entry had set their desks back up, and the English teacher went back to lecturing, all ignoring the gaping hole in the classroom wall.
All in all, it was just another typical day at Furinkan High.
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"Ah... lunch. My favorite class ever," Ataru said to himself as he stretched out underneath the large tree in the center of the grassy field that made up the East side of Furinkan's campus. It was the best spot in the entire school for him to eat lunch; not because he particularly enjoyed shade or grass, but because it was the sort of place that put chicks in the mood. Nothing helped his cause to cop a feel like a setting which kept the girl from paying any attention to him.
The lecherous Saotome had just begun to unpack his lunch, when he heard a groaning sound above him. Looking up, he frowned as he saw Ranma stretched out atop a tree branch, looking absolutely miserable.
"Hey 'Ranko'. What's the problem?" While Ataru knew that Ranma had been having a bad day in general, the redhead was looking particularly distressed, and there were no other girls around.
Ranma looked down at her brother gloomily, then sighed. "I freaked out and left the house so quickly, I left behind my lunch."
Ataru nodded somberly, entirely sympathetic with Ranma's plight. "I see. Most unfortunate, as you know damn well I'm not sharing mine." Well, maybe not entirely sympathetic.
Ranma glared at him. "You know, with all the trouble and pain I go through on your behalf, one would think you'd be a little more grateful and generous toward me."
"Only if one didn't know me," Ataru reasoned, eating one of the rice balls Kasumi had made for him whole. "Mmmmm... Gulp! Oh yeah... that Kasumi is going to make a REAL fine wife some day."
Ranma twitched, trying to keep thoughts of the eldest Tendo daughter from her mind. "Yeah, whatever. I've had better."
"Aw, c'mon man!" Ataru said, wagging a chopstick at the redhead. "You have to admit she's a great cook! And she has one hell of a body!"
Ranma twitched more violently. "Whatever. Let's talk about something else."
"You know, since I'm engaged to Akane, maybe you should make a play for Kasumi, man!" Ataru said, redirecting his attention on his lunch. "I mean, she's home all the time taking care of her old man! You KNOW she's lonely! I'll bet it'd be easy! Just catch her when she's filling up the bath or something, and if you play your cards right, GACK!!"
Ataru began to choke as Ranma, face flushed red as her hair, wrapped her legs around his neck from behind, lifting the lecher into the air.
"Don't... you... finish... that... thought..." Ranma hissed through clenched teeth, heedless as Ataru writhed more and more violently.
"What are you two doing?"

Ranma immediately froze up upon hearing a feminine voice, which only caused her leg muscles to tense further, which caused Ataru to be choked even harder.
Akane sweatdropped as she slowly walked up to the twins, deciding that she really didn't need to know the specifics of why Ranma was hurting her brother. If anyone was a fan of Ataru's suffering, it was her, after all.
"Never mind. Ranma, why are you attending school as a girl today?" The short-haired girl asked, deciding to open up the conversation with a relevant and hopefully neutral topic.
She became somewhat annoyed as Ranma just stared at her expectantly. "What's wrong with you?"
Slowly, the redhead seemed to come to her senses, and shook her head as if to clear it. "Uh... nothing. Nothing's wrong," she said curiously, as if that in itself was strange and unusual.
"Then why are you looking at me like that?" Akane asked, annoyed. She was also slightly disturbed by the fact that Ataru's eyes were rolling back into his head.
"It's just... I'm... I'm not feeling anything at all," Ranma mumbled, apparently oblivious to the sudden weakening of Ataru's struggles. "I mean... wow. I guess... it seems I'm not even remotely attracted to you."
Thwack! Ranma grimaced as her skull impacted the tree she had been hanging from, grinding deep into the outer layer of bark and splintering the trunk beneath.
"I can't believe you!" Akane seethed, her fist shaking after its sudden encounter with Ranma's head. "I come out here just to give you lunch and be nice to you, and you just insult me out of the blue like that!"
"Yeah, okay. I'm sorry," Ranma mumbled as she rubbed her head, recognizing the complete lack of tact on her part. Then the rest of Akane's sentence caught up with her. "Wait, you're here to give me lunch? Why would you do that?"
Akane crossed her arms over her chest and turned away angrily. "It's not my idea, all right? Kasumi gave me a lecture about the way I've been treating you this morning. Of course, you totally deserve it, but Kasumi isn't the type of person who thinks about that sort of thing. Still, I decided to apologize anyway. For her."
Ranma stared expressionlessly at the short-haired girl. Or, more accurately, her back. (Akane was far too embarrassed at this point to look Ranma in the eye.) Then she kicked the insensate Ataru hard in the chest.
Hack! Cough! Gasp! "I'm alive! My heart is beating again! I was-"
"Yeah, whatever, shut up," Ranma snapped. "Get a load of this: Akane made me lunch to apologize for being a jerk!"
Ataru's own personal agony was immediately forgotten, and he jerked upright to stare at Akane. "Serious? No way! I demand proof!"
"Look! She's got the lunch bag right in her hand!" Ranma pointed to the bento box hanging from Akane's trembling hand, wrapped in a pink cloth. "I guess Kasumi got on her case for always being a... well... you know."
"Oh, yeah! I remember that! Wow, I guess it really got to you, huh Akane?"
The youngest Tendo daughter didn't offer a response right away, although the fiery red glow that had engulfed her body did intensify sharply.
"Hey, bro?" Ataru said weakly, still staring at Akane's back. "Did you suddenly feel a cold chill crawl down your spine? As if Death was standing right behind you, waiting for The End to come?"
"Ataru, you're her fiance; if you're not used to it by now, your marriage years are looking kind of bleak." Then Ranma turned around, and glared at the black-cloaked figure standing behind Ataru who was checking the watch that hung loosely off of its skeletal wrist. "Although, seriously, you're NOT helping."
"Hey, screw you buddy! I'd like to see you do this job!" The figure shouted, shaking its scythe at Ranma impotently before stomping off in a huff.

"Anyway, thanks for making me lunch Akane. I appreciate it," Ranma said amiably, snatching the wrapped-up bento box away before Akane could act on her building rage and take it back. "Oh, and apology accepted."
"Super," Akane mumbled absently, distracted from the brutal murder of her fiance and prospective in-law only by the fantasized planning and rehearsal of said atrocity.
Ranma unwrapped the box and sat down with it, placing the box in her lap before splitting her chopsticks apart.
"Itadakimasu!" She said brightly, opening up the top of the box and fitting her utensils in her hand.
"Wow! A home-cooked meal from Akane!" Ataru said excitedly, looking over Ranma's shoulder. "I tell ya, I'm actually... uh..." Ataru's face darkened considerably. "Erm... I'm... actually not as jealous as I was just a moment ago."
"Huh. Not much for presentation, are ya?" Ranma said, scratching her head as she looked at the multicolored blobs that filled the lunch tray. Her face twisted slightly as she detected a powerful, unfamiliar odor. "And the aroma is... unusual. Smell is important to taste, you know."
Crack! Crack! Ranma sweatdropped as Akane loomed over her, her eyes glowing a bright, bloody red under the dark shadow cast by her hair as she cracked her knuckles.
"ARE YOU GONNA EAT IT OR NOT?" Even though she wasn't shouting, Akane's voice seemed to boom in Ranma's ears, and she started to sweat slightly.
"O-Of course I'm gonna eat it! Chill out, already!" Ranma said, trying to deny her fear by portraying annoyance.

Ataru gulped and started to crawl away backward, his superior survival instincts (which were not currently complicated by the presence of a hot babe) telling him that nothing good could come from close proximity to the two teenage girls.
Bump
"Oops, sorry," Ataru turned his head to apologize to who he had backed into, and then blinked when he realized that Death was once again standing behind him, staring at the scene of Akane standing over Ranma. "Huh? What're you doing back here? He said he was gonna eat it."
"Well, yeah. And here I am. Again. Er, still." The apparition offered. "Such a shame. To go so young..."

Ranma's chopsticks hovered over the separated sections, wandering from item to item in search for something that was recognizable.
However, when she did find an item she could name, she was less than pleased.
"Huh. Why'd you put so much wasabi in here?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, there isn't even any sushi or sashimi... I think."
Akane's lower jaw slid from side to side, creating a sickening grinding noise as she spoke. "That's zucchini, not wasabi."
Ranma blinked. "Oh. It looks exactly like wasabi, though." Sniff, sniff. "Actually, it smells just like wasabi, too." Throwing caution to the wind, she scooped up a big wad of the dry, mushy zucchini and ate it, chewing only twice before swallowing. Gulp! "I knew it! It even tastes like wasabi!" Ranma insisted, pointing her chopsticks accusingly at Akane.
Whump! Then she fell over backward, completely unconscious.

"Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeee..." Death, feeling obligated to provide his usual brand of dark humor, approximated the sound of a heart rate monitor as Ataru went pale in realization.
"Ranma... RANMA!! NO!! RANMA, WAKE UP!!" The young lecher shouted, panic beginning to overcome his senses. 'This can't be right, can it? My brother, the invincible fighter, the unstoppable Ninja, the world's most powerful martial artist, done in by bad cooking?'
"In case you're wondering," Death said, seeing that Ataru was having trouble coming to terms with the irony of the situation, "yes, God does have a sense of humor, and yes, He is one sick bastard."
"ERRRRGH!!" Both Death and Ataru flinched back as Akane suddenly shouted, not expecting anger to be the first emotional response to this most recent turn of events. "I'm tired of you and you're sick melodrama! My food is NOT that bad!"
Ataru sweatdropped. "Uh... Akane-chan... Ranma? Not moving? Death? Standing next to me? And you KNOW I don't have the attention span to plan a practical joke this complicated."
"Shut up!" Akane growled. "And you! Get up already! You're not fooling anyone!" With that final demand, Akane raised her foot and stomped hard on Ranma's stomach.
"BLEARGH!" Ranma's eyes shot open as a wad of unrecognizeable green slime burst from her mouth like a cannon shot, sailing into the air while she curled up on the ground, holding her stomach and coughing.
"Ranma! You're alive! Thank whatever sadistic gods are responsible for Akane's temper!" Ataru cheered, before getting socked in the face by the aforementioned girl.
Akane retracted her fist and crossed her arms under her breasts, looking smug. "See? I TOLD you the food didn't kill him."
"Aw, c'mon! This is ridiculous! The soul was lingering! She should totally be dead!" Death insisted.
Ranma spent a few more moments hacking over the grass, while tenderly rubbing the bruised mess that Akane had made out of her abdomen. "Oh man... that... that was NOT zucchini..."
Akane frowned. "It wasn't? Uh... well, it was green, whatever it was. But that was only a side dish anyway. Try the teriyaki!"
The redhead grimaced. "No way in hell. This lunch is an affront against food." Wrapping the box up in disgust, and ignoring Akane's enraged expression, she held out the box to Ataru as her twin brother stood up dizzily. "Ataru, this lunch must be purged. Arrange an exorcism, and then burn the remains."
Ataru nodded. "I see. I'll have it done."
"Oh, come on! You only tried one thing! And it wasn't THAT bad!" Akane protested angrily.
"And what about me?" Death asked just as angrily.
Ranma frowned at the apparition. "What ABOUT you? I'm not dead, so you're not needed. Shove off."
"'Shove off'? Okay jerk, here's the deal: you don't die, I don't get paid. Do you know what the price for gas is nowadays? The least you can do is reimburse me for travel."
Ataru sweatdropped. "You drive a car?"
"Of course I drive a car," Death snapped irritably. "There's only one of me, you know. I have to handle all death all over the planet. Hell, there are three poor saps in North Korea that're due to keel over from hunger in two minutes; am I supposed to walk there?"
Crack! Snap!
"Not any more," Ranma said, tossing away the two broken femurs as Death collapsed onto the ground. "C'mon Ataru. We must cleanse this bento."
Ataru nodded seriously and followed his brother-turned-sister, incidentally stepping on Death's arm as he passed.
Crunch! "Sweet Moses! What the hell is wrong with you people?"
Akane fumed and followed the Saotome twins while loudly protesting their opinion of her lunch. She was distracted enough doing this that she didn't notice when Death's other arm broke apart underfoot.
Crack! "Oh, yeah. Fine. That's just swell. Right on the joint. Do you jerks have any idea how brittle a skeleton gets without ligaments?"
The apparition waited for a moment, with no response. "Uh... jerks? Hello? Anybody there?" It waited some more, then let out a dusty sigh. "Man... I'd better get workman's comp for this."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You're doing this just to annoy me, aren't you?" Akane seethed as Ranma put on a set of ceremonial robes.
The redhead shook her head. "No, but it's a nice bonus. Ataru, are you almost ready?"
Ataru nodded and pulled down the metal torching mask over his face. Then he hefted a large flamethrower and pointed it at the bento box, which itself had been placed within a pentagram drawn with chalk.
All around the three teenagers, various students were whispering to each other and staring at Ataru's latest misadventure, many of them wondering when Ranma was going to emerge to save the young lecher from the bossy redheaded girl.
"Hmph! See if I ever cook for YOU again!" Akane snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Silence!" Ranma shouted, causing the other students to stop chatting and step back. "It has begun!"
"Oh darling!"
Ranma and Ataru both flinched badly when the sing-song voice rang out from above; Ataru by reflex, and Ranma because he had gotten used to being around Akane and had stopped thinking revolting thoughts to try and distract himself from women.
Lum flew in a low arc to duck in through the front door to the cafeteria, and waved once she located Ataru (a simple task, as he was in the middle of the wide circle that had formed around him and Ranma). "Darling! Here I am! I brought you lunch just like I said!"
"Aw, hell. I forgot about her," Ranma mumbled, back away as Lum approached swiftly. Then she realized that Ataru was putting the flamethrower down. "Hey, hey, hey! We're not done here! What're you doing?"
"It's been a long day; lemme break for lunch," Ataru reasoned, waving Lum over.
Ranma's left eye twitched. "You just HAD lunch. Unlike me."
"'Aint my fault. Thanks, Lum-kins!" Ataru said happily, snatching away the bento box and quickly dodging Lum's attempt at a hug.

Holding their positions in the spectator circle centered around the kitchen malfunction, the young men of Furinkan High seethed quietly as they watched Ataru casually blow off Lum's gesture of affection while taking the lunch she had made.
'What a jerk! Does he have any idea what we'd give for a kind gesture from Lum, never mind a homemade lunch?'
They also didn't like the lecher's proximity and seeming familiarity with the chesty redheaded girl. Of course, none of them had any idea who she was, or why she didn't seem appalled by Ataru's very existence as most women were (Shinobu and Lum notwithstanding), but she was paying attention to Ataru and not them, and that was enough.
'How the hell does a perverted, sex-changing creep like that get all the babes? It's not fair!'
Last, and probably least, Furinkan's biggest lecher also obviously had some kind of relationship with Akane, despite her protests that they were strangers. Granted, all he got was negative attention, but it was still attention, while any other man would have been dismissed with a roll of the eyes and a swift kick. Akane hadn't even put as much effort into hating Kuno as she did Ataru, and so long as they were hurling accusations at him anyway, the young men didn't see any reason to stop just because it wasn't a relationship any of them envied.
'Akane too! And he probably didn't even beat her in combat! Oh, he'll pay for putting his filthy hands on her! Well... more than he already has, anyway...'

Ataru tugged on his shirt collar as he unwrapped the bento, suddenly feeling uncomfortably warm. "Hey, Ran... er, Ranko, is it getting hot in here, or what?" He turned away as Lum tried to grab onto his arm, foiling her.
"I think the PDAs are getting on people's nerves," Ranma said neutrally, idly thinking about how nice it would be to have a half-naked woman cuddling up next to her, too. 'No! Bad thoughts! Lum is Ataru's needy, unwanted, and lonely fiancee! ... Gah!'
Ataru frowned for a moment, then smirked. "Ha! Well, that's too bad, huh? Not every guy who has a girlfriend to cook him lunch and bring it to him, huh?" He sat down, and then scooted over when Lum tried to sit next to him. "Thanks for the lunch, Lum. You can go away now."
Ranma sweatdropped as she noticed the girls in the room begin to glow with violent, angry auras, while the boys' jealous auras grew even hotter. "Yeah... Ataru? Talking? Not a good idea right now."
Taking a moment to wipe the collected sweat off his brow, Ataru put all other concerns behind him and lifted up the top of the bento box, his mouth already watering.
"... Uh... Lum? You did say this was... curry chicken, right?" Ataru mumbled. Seeing Lum nod, he frowned. "I thought the curry part was supposed to be... you know, a sauce, not a powder spice. I mean, you said you used Kasumi's recipe, right? This doesn't look like hers does."
Instead of being offended, Lum smirked and looked proud. "That's because my lunch is made with a wife's love for her dearest husband!" The alien chirped, causing every jealous male in the room to flinch violently, as if struck.
"......" Ataru looked skeptical. "And love dries out the sauce?"
Ranma slowly crept up to her brother, and lightly jabbed him in the back.
"Ow! What did you-" Before he could continue, Ranma leaned forward to whisper in his ear.
"Ataru. There are a lot of very upset people standing behind you waiting to lynch you for the very legitimate reason of you being a total jerk. I am not going to stop them. I suggest you shut up and try the stupid lunch."
Ataru bigsweated, and became far more aware of the multitude of hot, hateful glares being aimed at his back. "R-Right. Sorry." He picked up the chopsticks and broke them apart, and then fit them in his hand.
He was just about to select a reasonably unmolested piece of chicken to eat, when he heard a rattling noise behind him.
Turning around, his eyes bugged out as he saw the skinny, pale-looking kid who Ranma had tossed around earlier dropping Death's armless and legless torso onto the floor.
"Wh-What's THAT doing here?" Ataru asked shakily, pointing to the apparition, and addressing the young man who was carrying it.
Hikaru Gosunkugi shrugged. "I'm not really sure. But it said that it needed me to carry it down here, quickly."
"Don't mind me," Death said, being unusually civil and neutral for someone who had just recently lost all their major limbs. "Go on with what you were doing."
Ataru slowly turned back toward his meal, and spent a moment staring at it. Then he slowly replaced the lid atop it. "You know what; I actually just had lunch, and I'm not really hungry. But I appreciate the thought, Lum."
"SON OF A BITCH!!" Death yelled on the floor, thus making the boys far less jealous and the girls far less angry that Ataru hadn't eaten Lum's food.

Lum pouted. "You think it's no good, don't you? You didn't even try it!"
"What I don't try can't hurt me," Ataru reasoned, earning a far more dangerous expression from the alien princess.
"You think it's THAT bad?" Lum said angrily, electricity sparking from her fingertips. "How do you know it's no good if you won't taste it?"
"Can I just call it a hunch, or do I really have to explain the talking skeleton guy?" Ataru asked.
Ranma wordlessly picked up the bento box, and then carried it over to the pentagram, placing it next to Akane's. Both boxes suddenly began to tremble violently on the ground, and several black arcs of lightning flared between the two lunches.
"Wh-What's happening?" Akane asked, becoming more nervous by the unexpected reaction even as she became more annoyed by Ranma's overdramatic "prank".
"Two such great sources of culinary evil cannot coexist in close proximity to each other for long. Being sealed in a closed system like the pentagram, the forces repelling the lunches becomes stronger. They are attempting to remove each other from existence." Ranma clasped her hands together, and then uncrossed them before putting one hand to her temple. "We must hurry and cleanse the over-spiced abominations."
Ataru quickly put his mask back on, and struggled once more to heft the flamethrower. "Okay! I'm ready!"
Ranma began making several more gestures as Akane and Lum fumed silently.
"Power from beyond, great lord of feasts, picnics, the larger Tupperware (TM) containers, and club sandwiches, the good ones, with crisp, meaty bacon and the colored plastic-tipped toothpicks so that you don't accidentally try and eat them with the sandwich, bestow upon me your blessing, and allow my soul to become a vessel for your wholly organic power and vitamin-enriched might!"

Akane sweatdropped. "There's no way in hell this is a legitimate exorcism," she mumbled as Ranma went on to mumble more prayers about the evil spirits that lurk within diet soda and low-fat mayonnaise.
Lum frowned. "But... if she's faking it, why is she glowing like that? And why are those shadowy things coming from darling's lunch?"
"By Buddha's ultra-reflective scalp!" Cherry suddenly cried. "Can this truly be the legendary 'rite of the famished'?"
"GWAAAAH!!" Several teenagers jumped back in surprise at the outburst, horribly displeased by the monk's sudden presence.
"Yo-You KNOW what they're doing?" Akane asked in disbelief. Realistically, a religious ceremony that came from Cherry was only slightly more credible than one from the Saotome twins, but it still shook the youngest Tendo that there was somebody watching the ceremony and not trying to contain laughter.
"Of course!" the hideous monk said, mesmerized by the sight of the ceremony. "It's an ancient ritual passed down through generations of traveling chefs of the legendary Sakumon-Go cooking style! The ceremony is said to be able to bring nutrition to the most processed and deep-fried fast food, and explosive flavor to the most horribly bland or bitter dish! It is one of the holiest rites among those who live for food!"
"That explains why YOU know about it..." Akane mumbled, trying desperately to wrap her mind around the fact that such a religious rite existed before she took on the momentous strain of contemplating how both Ranma and Ataru knew it well enough to perform it.
Cherry nodded. "Yes, yes! This is a valuable experience! Only once before, in all my years of traveling and eating, have I seen this rite performed!"

"-And let perish that nasty flavored powder they put on Doritos to add flavor, bestowing upon our empty stomachs a blessing of extra salt and fresh salsa! Culinary abominations, begone!" Ranma thrust her hand toward the two lunches, which by now had sprouted shadowy arms that clawed ferociously at the barrier erected by the pentagram. "Ataru! Finish it!"
"Aye-aye!" The lecher said gleefully.

"... Huh. Strange. I don't actually remember there being a flamethrower involved in the ceremony," Cherry mumbled, scratching his bare head. "I mean, that's the kind of thing you'd think you'd remember. A flamethrower. You know, because it's kind of unusual that-"
"Yeah, okay. We get it," Lum said leadenly, none too happy at seeing the lengths her fiance had to go to destroy the lunch she had made.
"So, which is worse," Akane mumbled bleakly, "the fact that they actually did this whole ceremony in order to battle with our lunches... or the fact that our lunches seem to be winning?"

"They're too strong!" Ataru shrieked. "No good! No good! They're breaking through the barrier!"
"What?! Aren't you using the blessed flamethrower fuel?" Ranma shouted in alarm, charging up her ki to help.
"You mean you were serious? They actually have blessed flamethro-OH FRACK!! THEY'RE COMING!!"
"NO!! LOOK OUT!!" Ranma cried, leaping forward as a dark hand emerged from the floor and crept toward Ataru's throat.
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Shinobu frowned as she watched students run screaming out of the cafeteria, and then sighed deeply.
"Well, now I know where Ataru is." It seemed lately that all the mild weirdness that used to haunt Akane had been pushed into the background to make room for the mind-blowing weirdness that regularly assaulted the Saotome twins. Unfortunately, making them easy to locate was the only positive side effect.
Taking a deep breath to help steel herself against whatever horror or humiliation laid in wait on the other side of the door, she prepared to charge into the cafeteria and confront her boyfriend's latest problem.
She didn't get the chance, as said boyfriend suddenly emerged from the cafeteria himself, severely charred and talking to the busty redheaded girl from earlier.
"Well I'm SORRY, okay? I thought you were being sarcastic. I asked if I should buy a set of holy silverware, and you said, 'yeah, and while you're at it, pick up some blessed flamethrower fuel, will ya?' Cut me some slack!"
"But you DID buy the holy silverware," Ranma snapped, "and right in front of me. Of course, then you went and tainted them right away."
"That's because I didn't know you were being sarcastic when you suggested eating at the Macaroni Grill! It's not my fault you have the same deadpan voice whether you're lying or being serious! And how often is it that you encourage my pyromania?"

Shinobu sweatdropped heavily as the pair passed by her, still arguing vehemently enough that Ataru didn't even notice her presence.
A moment later, just as she was about to try and get Ataru's attention, Lum and Akane emerged from the double-doors leading to the cafeteria, both of them showing far less energy. Lum hair was wet with a thick, dark substance that Shinobu could only assume was some type of sauce, and had scorch marks all over her skin. Akane didn't look to have suffered any physical harm, but had clumps of mashed potatoes stuck to various parts of her uniform.
"Uhm... excuse me?" Shinobu asked hesitantly. "What just happened here?"
The two Saotomes jerked to a halt as they noticed Shinobu, and they both turned toward her.
"Oh! Uh..." Ataru hesitated as he thought of the best way to describe the incident without offending Akane (who he wanted to date) or Lum (who wouldn't hesitate to turn him into a lightning rod with the slightest provocation at this point).
Ranma had no such qualms, nor was she interested in holding her tongue for the sake of tact. "These two morons tried to kill us with what passes for a meal when your brain is the size of a chickpea," she said mercilessly, jabbing a thumb at the two teenage girls behind her. "The result was a cross between a food fight and a Final Fantasy boss encounter."
Brzzt! Lum's electric field started to spark as her rage increased tenfold. "What... did... you... say?" She snarled through clenched teeth.
"You have a lot of nerve..." Akane seethed, her battle aura causing the potatoes still stuck on her to bubble and melt off onto the ground.
Ranma was unimpressed by the display, although Ataru slowly took several steps away from him. Before hiding behind Shinobu. In the fetal position. While whispering prayers for salvation.
"A lot of nerve to do what? State the obvious?" The readhed said nonchalantly. "There's no way you can mess up a meal THAT badly unless there's something wrong with you. Yeah, sure, there are some dolts who screw up trying to boil water. But you have to be some sort of genetically altered super-idiot to totally ruin a simple recipe, and then actually try and FEED it to someone. Don't you have any pride in your cooking? It's disgusting!"
Shinobu joined Ataru in offering prayers to the higher powers as she clutched her boyfriend in terror, an act he would have greatly enjoyed if he wasn't so busy being scared out of his wits.
Ranma glanced at the two discouraged women as their auras turned from red to black. "Aw, what's the matter? Did I hurt your feelings? Does it sting, on the inside? Just like your food?" Then she pointed to Lum as the alien slowly raised her arms in preparation to summon the mother of all lightning strikes. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you."
"SHUT UP AND DIE, YOU LITTLE-" Lum's swiftly building electric field suddenly sent a shower of sparks into the thick, gelatinous substance that was still stuck in her hair, and the space oni's eyes widened as her emerald mane suddenly lit ablaze. "WAAAAAAAAAAUGH!! SOMEBODY HELP!! PUT IT OUT!! PUT IT OUT!!"
Turning away from the flying fire hazard, Ranma regarded Akane, who had a gigantic mallet in her hands that had spikes on it like a meat tenderizer. "And I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Akane ignored her and swung the mallet back over her head in preparation to swing. Then she hesitated as she watched Lum zip across in front of her, waving her arms wildly with her hair still on fire.
"Uh... why wouldn't you do this, exactly?" Akane mumbled.
Ranma just raised an eyebrow at her, causing the youngest Tendo to twitch in irritation.
Finally, Akane dropped her hammer. "Okay, fine. Have it your way."
"I realize that instead of giving you useful, reasonable criticism, I'm just throwing hateful insults that don't help you at all," Ranma said condescendingly, crossing her arms over her abundant chest, "but you have to weigh that against the fact that your cooking nearly killed me, and that making you miserable makes me happy."
Akane grit her teeth. "Oh, please! 'Useful criticism' from YOU? Like you could even do better!"
"............" Ranma flinched, as if slapped.
"............" Ataru stopped shaking, and his jaw dropped.
"............" Shinobu bit her lip nervously as the balance of cold rage suddenly shifted.
"Water! Fire extinguisher! Anything! Why won't you people HELP ME?!" Lum flew wildly through the air, being that she was still on fire, and didn't know where the pool was on the campus.
Ranma twitched, and slowly stomped up to Akane, her eyes narrowed into slits. "... So. You wanna say that again?"
Akane frowned, suddenly feeling queasy as the entire situation shifted without her knowing why. "Uh... well... you couldn't do... MUCH better..." She began to get nervous as Ataru started glaring at her too. Had she crossed some line she was not aware of? But that was silly, right? All she had done was insinuate Ranma's lack of cooking skills. That wasn't a big deal, was it?
She began to think harder on that point as the redhead suddenly brought her face very close, so that their noses were almost touching.
"Really? You don't think so? And you're basing this on WHAT, exactly?" Ranma said in a cold, deadly tone that sent shivers down Akane's spine.
"W-Well... uh... you spent a lot of time out in the wilderness..." Akane stumbled over her words as she tried to rationalize her comment. "And you're, uh... well, you're a guy. Usually, anyway. Your curse doesn't give you feminine skills or anything, does it?"
Ranma glanced behind her to see who had been listening to the revelation that she was male. She nodded in satisfaction as she saw that Lum was still on fire, and that Shinobu had finally taken pity on the alien and was busy directing her to the pool to put herself out. Then she turned back to Akane.
"'Feminine skills'? That's a riot, coming from a chick that specializes in the 'masculine skill' of beating people up!"
Akane clenched her teeth. "What, are you saying women can't do martial arts?"
"Are you saying men can't cook?" Ranma countered.
Akane fumed for a moment, and then backed off. "Okay, fine! If you really can cook a decent meal, prove it!"
"Oh, we'll more than prove it..." Akane turned around in surprise as she heard Ataru's voice.
"Wha? 'We'?"
Ataru clenched one hand into a fist as tears streamed down his cheeks. "I can see you're confused, Akane-chan... but you see, by insulting Ranma's cooking, whether in ignorance or in jest, you've challenged his honor just as surely as if you called him a Jackie-Chan wannabe!" Ataru sniffled dramatically. "Or if you made fun of his pigtail. Anyway, by mocking his cooking skills, so too have you challenged my own, for-"
"Wait, wait, wait," Akane said, shaking her head. "Hold it. He's sensitive about his hair?"
"That's not important!" Ranma shouted, shoving Ataru onto the ground. "If you want to see just how pitiful your cooking is compared to mine, then I challenge you to a contest!"
Akane blanched. "A... c-cooking contest?" She gulped as she tried to think of a good way to refuse without embarrassing herself.
"Hmph. Not against YOU," Ranma said snidely. "I wouldn't insult myself by putting my cooking up against kitchen sewage. The challenge is THIS:" the redhead pointed at Akane, causing the black-haired girl to step back in surprise. "You acquire the best meal you can manage to find; a special dish from Kasumi, good restaurant take-out, a full-course meal from a professional world-class chef, whatever. Then me and Ataru will prepare a better meal the next day."
Akane glanced at Ataru in surprise. 'What? Ataru's involved in this too? But that moron can't do anything!'
"Your own family will be the judge," Ranma continued, "so if anything, the judging will be in your favor. The losers of the contest must foot whatever expenses come from preparing both meals, and buy meals for the winners for a week."
Akane swallowed nervously as the redhead stuck out her hand for her to shake. 'Should I do it? I mean, it's not like my own pride is on the line. He's not even giving me that chance. There has to be a good reason he's acting like this; maybe he really is an amazing chef. And really, I could solve this whole problem and we could all just move on with our lives if I just apologized...'
At that point, the portion of Akane's brain that was responsible for her aggressive responses in the face of any given stimuli reasserted itself, and easily squashed the few cells that were promoting calm, rational thought. 'APOLOGIZE?! To that bastard?'
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Ranma. "You just made a big mistake, Saotome," Akane said seriously, clasping the redhead's hand.
Ranma frowned at this, then clicked her tongue. "You're right. With how competitive you are, I probably could've gotten free meals for life, rather than a week. Really, you'd have agreed to anything, huh?"
"Don't get too cocky!" Akane growled. "Maybe you are a better cook than me! Maybe you're even a really good cook! But Kasumi's specialty will blow you out of the water!" With that, the youngest Tendo daughter turned away in a huff, her thoughts a turbulent ocean of rage, trepidation, and anticipation.

Ranma smirked. "Well Ataru, it looks like we'll be teaming up once again. It's been a long time."
The lecher nodded, smirking. "Poor Akane-chan... she has no idea what she's dealing with. Of course, if she has trouble paying her losses, I can always accept 'alternative payments'." Ataru snickered for a split second before Ranma smacked him upside the head.
"Sick fantasies later. Planning now. She said Kasumi was going to prepare her specialty. We need to figure out what kind of dish that is so we can plan one with... uh..."
The redhead frowned. "Hey... do you get the feeling that we're... well... forgetting about something? Or someone?"
Ataru looked toward the cafeteria. "Well, that skinny geek you tossed around in first period is hauling Death this way again. Is that it?"
Ranma scratched her head. "No... not quite... I think it's..." then she turned completely around, and pointed toward Lum. "Ah. I see you put the fire out."
Indeed, the alien princess was now soaking wet rather than blazing, with her normally emerald-green hair much shorter than it had been, with the ends charred black. She had several burns all over her body, which was exposed even more than normal, as she had lost her bra at some point while putting the fire out. Ranma also noticed, with slight trepidation, that her horns had sharpened and elongated, turning from a pair of cute bumps to needle-sharp spikes.
Beads of sweat started rolling down Ranma's brow as thick ribbons of lightning curled around Lum's body. Not only was the display impressive enough to make her nervous, but it even distracted his thoughts from the fact that Lum was using both arms to build up her lightning charge rather than, say, cover up her exposed breasts. 'Wow. She must be REALLY pissed!' "Hey, Ataru? I'm gonna go grab some hot water. At twice the speed of sound. Could you distract her or some... thing..." She trailed off as Ataru dove into the bushes, and started scrambling away on his hands and knees. "Uh oh."

Death sighed as Ranma dodged the initial volley of lightning bolts and got enough acceleration going to speed away from the main field. Although Lum was hot on her trail, the spectre from beyond had no illusions about Lum finally finishing off the gender-changing martial artist.
"Damn. Those brats cheated me again. And I don't think my HMO covers limb re-assembly." Death gazed down upon the teenage boy who was carrying it upon his back. "Alright shrimp, I've still got a quota to cover. We're goin' to Korea. Move it."
Gosunkugi blanched. "Bu-But I can't! I mean, I have-" Thonk!
Death clubbed his forehead against that back of Gosunkugi's skull. "Shut your pie hole and get moving. And make sure to grab my scythe on the way out. You have a driver's license?"
"N-No," the pale, skinny boy stuttered.
"I guess you'll be paying bus and air fare, then. Get a move on, shorty." Thonk!
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Akane slammed the door hard behind her as she stomped into the living room, still fuming over the day's events.
'Stupid sex-changing freak! I was trying to be nice to him for once, and he has the nerve to do something like that? Well, I'll show him a thing or two...'
"Ah, there you are Akane."
Akane stopped fuming momentarily, and stumbled slightly as she barely avoided stomping right into Nabiki. "Huh? What is it?"
The middle Tendo daughter regarded her younger sister with the a lax, bored expression that gave Akane the distinct idea that Nabiki was simply reading lines from a script, rather than actually having a conversation. "I heard there was a pretty dramatic fiasco down in the cafeteria today. Something about exorcizing evil spirits in bad cooking. Your work?"
"No!" Akane shouted in protest, angry that Nabiki would work out such a conclusion when she obviously lacked the details.
Nabiki, for her part, just raised an eyebrow.
"Er... well, not entirely..." the youngest Tendo daughter amended lamely.
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Uh huh. Well, I know it wasn't cooking class, since they banned you last year; so where did you find a kitchen that would let you in a twenty-meter radius?"
At that moment, just when Akane thought her face couldn't get any redder from the humiliation, Kasumi descended the stairs and noticed her sisters talking in the living room.
"Oh, Akane! I've been meaning to talk to you!" Kasumi's normal smile became a bit shaky. "While it's okay to use the kitchen once in a while for small projects, Akane, you should learn to clean up after yourself!"
Akane's face got redder from humiliation. "Uh... yeah. Sorry. It's just that... I needed to make it before school... and when I finished, I was already late..."
This caught Nabiki's attention. "Huh? Why did you need to get it ready so fast? If you want to make yourself lunch, you could have started earlier."
Akane twitched. "It was... SUPPOSED to be... an apology... to Ranma. You know, 'cause you said I was being mean to him, Kasumi."
"... Ooh..." Nabiki sweatdropped.
"... Oh my..." Kasumi paled.
Akane's face darkened. The results were THAT obvious to them?
"I take it the apology was not accepted?" Nabiki deadpanned. "At least, not willingly?"
"Oh no... oh dear..." Kasumi began to fret. "Is Ranma-kun's condition very bad? He didn't slip into a coma, did he? Oh my, he already looked very unhealthy this morning with that fever. Which hospital is he staying in?"
Akane twitched again. "He's NOT in a hospital. Other than his disposition, he's fine. And, if I may say so, he didn't look very sick when I met him for lunch."
"So you took it upon yourself to change that. Same old Akane." Nabiki sighed. "Oh well. At least the fiasco's already over and done with."
Akane twitched some more. "Uhm... yeah... about that..."

(One long and embarrassing explanation later...)

Soun nodded grimly. "I see. A cooking competition. Who would have thought?"
"You should have stuck to martial arts, Akane. Even if Ranma's ten times better, at least it's something you're good at, and you might have been able to negotiate a handicap or something," Nabiki advised, munching on a cracker while glancing at Genma, who had been sitting quietly the whole time.
Kasumi clapped her hands together, looking extremely pleased. "I think it's wonderful that Ranma-kun and Ataru-kun can cook! It's a far more practical skill than martial arts. Oh! Maybe we could swap recipes!"
Akane twiddled her fingers nervously as her family openly discussed the Saotome twins' newly discovered talent. "So... Kasumi?"
The Tendo homemaker's pleased expression suddenly became strained. While slightly airheaded, Kasumi knew damn well where this was heading.
"I was... you know... just wondering if you could make your special dish? For my end of the contest?" Akane clasped her hands together and bowed low to her sister. "With your special ham and onions sukiyaki and spicy shrimp yakisoba, they won't have a chance!"

Nabiki shook her head to clear it when she saw what appeared to be a vein popping up on Kasumi's head. That was ridiculous, right? 'Then again, she did chew Akane out this morning for bad-mouthing Ranma...'
This set Nabiki off on a tangent. Was it possible that Kasumi had a thing for Ranma? 'I can't imagine that she does... he's definitely not her type. But... even so...' Nabiki had no problem admitting that Ranma was incredibly attractive. He was muscular, lean, strong, hard-working (if one didn't consider his schoolwork), and smart (again, if one didn't consider his schoolwork). Even his bitter and cynical attitude had a brash honesty and wit that turned her on (though for her, the bitterness and cynicism itself turned her on too).
Really, if Nabiki had to name the two major obstacles keeping her from snatching Ranma for herself, it was that he didn't take his education seriously, which would hurt his future earnings potential, and that he turned into a girl, which didn't freak her out nearly as much now that her family had a bikini-clad, lightning-slinging alien ogre hanging around all the time.
'But... come on... Ranma's violent and rude and young. Unless Kasumi secretly has a thing for those types... but that's silly! She and Tofu have this... thing... going on. Don't they?'
Nabiki's brow furrowed in contemplation as Akane begged Kasumi more humbly for help, even getting on her hands and knees.
'Then again, Akane totally has a thing for Tofu, and she's violent and rude and young... there's something to be said for opposites attracting...'

Kasumi sighed wearily. "Akane, please. You know that dish is expensive and that our finances are tight."
"That's the best part!" Akane exclaimed. "After we crush them in the contest, Ranma has to take care of the bill!"
Akane didn't pick up on the way Kasumi's eyebrow twitched, but Nabiki definitely got the impression that her little sister wasn't getting much sympathy for her case.
"Akane, please, be reasonable. Whatever mean things Ranma said about your food, he did try it first, and you did insult his cooking without even doing that much."
Akane blanched. "What? I didn't insult his cooking! I just said he probably couldn't do better than me!"
"Well, ouch," Nabiki mumbled. "Even I would be upset if someone said that to me!" Perhaps Nabiki couldn't cook a single dish, and didn't exactly take pride in the fact that she could successfully prepare a basic cup of instant ramen, but she considered having her work in the kitchen compared to Akane's being more an issue of intelligence than skill.
"It's not fair!" Akane whined. "Why are you taking HIS side?"
Kasumi sighed again. "Akane, we're not taking his side. No matter whose side we're on, and no matter how immature Ranma-kun was being, it was foolish to accept such a challenge. Now, no matter how this turns out, someone's going to be humiliated for nothing." The eldest Tendo daughter shook her head. "All right, then. I suppose I'll do my best to help you."
"REALLY?!" Akane squealed, clasping her hands together.
"Yes. However, if I'm going to judge it too, I'm going to do so fairly. Even if it's my dish, I won't cheat Ranma-kun."
Akane was about to shower her older sister with thanks and praise, when suddenly, a leaden sigh from the other end of the table seemed to draw everyone's attention.
Genma grimaced and put his tea down, shaking his head. "Kasumi, it's really best you not get involved in this. For your own sake."
"What? But why, Saotome?" Soun asked. "Or do you want your son to win?"
Genma snorted and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Please, Tendo. Needless to say, no matter how great the loss from his challenge, I won't spare a single yen to help Ranma out a hole he dug himself..."
Everyone else in the room sweatdropped. 'Geez, some father...'
"Not that I'll have to, in this case. You don't know what you're getting yourself into."
Akane felt an overwhelming sense of dread overcome her as Genma's eyes bored into her own. "What? You... You can't... You're not serious, right? You really think they could beat Kasumi?"
Genma crossed his arms over his chest, and began to rub his chin, transitioning smoothly into "contemplative story" mode. "Ranma and Ataru are like oil and water; opposites in nearly every sense of the word. In temperament, morals, attitude, sex drive, hobby, intelligence, and devotion. However, there is one thing, and only one thing, that unites them as one and, indeed, makes them truly of the Saotome line!"
"Lousy grades?" Nabiki guessed, startling everybody with the interjection.
"...... There are two things, and only two things, that unite them as one and, indeed, make them truly of the Saotome line!" Genma corrected shamelessly, not about to let Nabiki's comment ruin the drama. "Their love of food!"
Soun paled. "You... You mean?"
"Yes," Genma said somberly. "On the road, with no women around, and only my lousy cooking to sustain them, it was only a matter of time before they took the next logical step and began to experiment in survival cooking. At first I was against it, as it took valuable time away from martial arts training, but it was the only kind of training I could actually get Ataru to participate in, so I let it run its course. But there was no way I could've known how far it would go!"
Nabiki frowned and scratched her head. "Survival cooking, huh? I suppose that would involve catching wild game and making a decent meal out of them? Doesn't seem like a great basis for real cooking."
"It wasn't, and Ranma and Ataru failed every attempt at domestic cooking. But they didn't give up. Until one day, they met a traveling master of the Sakumon-Go school of cooking, the Master of 1,000 Ladles, Geni Sakurazaka!"
Soun looked aghast. "My God!"
"You've heard of him?" Akane asked breathlessly.
"No! But such an impressive title! 'Master of 1,000 Ladles'!"
Thud! The Tendo sisters facefaulted, and Genma took that as his cue to continue.
"Thanks to my efforts, the boys were apprenticed to Sakurazaka, and-"
"Whoa, wait, hold on," Nabiki mumbled. "What kind of efforts? I thought you didn't care about cooking."
Genma sweatdropped. "Well... uhm... okay... the truth is... well... I sort of thought that Sakurazaka's school was a martial arts school, not a cooking school. So when I met him, I challenged him to a duel, and asked that if I win, he would teach his school's secrets to my sons." The bald half-panda scratched his head. "Come to think of it, I wondered why he immediately turned his back to me and started setting up a grill, but hey, an opening's an opening, right?"
Akane sweatdropped. "So you beat him up, and forced him to teach Ranma and Ataru?"
"Hmph! After I found out that he was a cook, not a warrior, I offered to let the apprenticeships slide in exchange for a few good meals, but the old fool saw something he liked in Ranma and Ataru, and held up his end of the bargain."
Genma seemed slightly frustrated as he continued. "They took off for a month, and when they came back, they had... changed. No longer was dinner the simple act of gathering mushrooms or roasting a fish. Now every meal was a ritual, a carefully planned and executed assault on the ingredients that dominated the taste buds and satisfied to the end!" Though the portly martial artist was drooling at this point, he wiped away the saliva. "Unfortunately, these rituals took so much time and preparation, there was no way I could allow them to continue it, no matter how much I missed their cooking. I guess since then they've fallen out of practice a bit, but together, Ranma and Ataru are still a match for a Sakumon-Go master chef. No meal prepared by mere mortals-no offense, Kasumi-can compete with their expertise. It's impossible."
Akane looked shaken by the explanation. "So... you're saying I should just... give up?"
"No, no!" Genma said quickly. "I'm just saying, keep the meal cheap, since you have no chance of winning. But don't call off the contest. It's been a long time since I've had their cooking." He licked his lips in anticipation as Akane fell down in a heap.
"Wh-What am I gonna doooo?" Akane whined. "Saotome-san's the only one who's tried Ranma's cooking, and he's already tried Kasumi's, so he's the only one who can compare!"
Nabiki frowned. "Wait a minute. Even if they are 'Sakugo masters' or whatever, aren't they still only trained in survival cooking? Roasting rabbits and fish over an open fire can't compare to a home-cooked meal in a normal kitchen!"
Genma nodded. "True. But a true master of cooking is also a master of adaptation and improvisation, which are also tenets of the Anything-Goes school of martial arts! I can guarantee you that Ranma and Ataru have a recipe to take full advantage of the best ingredients and utensils they can get their hands on, no matter what the situation."
"Then... Then it really is hopeless?" Akane asked in disbelief.
"Yes," Genma said bluntly. "But again, don't call the contest off. And if you could, get them to make a Thai dish, would you? Haven't had that in a long time..."
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"Oh... what am I gonna do?" Akane mumbled as she lifted her weights in the dojo. "I really don't stand a chance without outside help... but if Kasumi isn't good enough, who IS?"
In reality, Akane had still been gunning for Kasumi to be her entry, but to her horror, the eldest Tendo daughter retracted her agreement to help, citing that her specialty was a dish for celebratory occasions, and not to be used for petty competitions. Which was perfectly reasonable, but Akane couldn't help but think Kasumi was a bit intimidated by what Genma had said, for her to change her mind after the fact.
Her only options left were her friends, who were years behind Kasumi's level of skill, and a professional, which would have caused the potential losses incurred by the contest to skyrocket, and still wouldn't guarantee a victory.
"So I have to acquire the ultimate dinner. NOT my specialty," Akane admitted to herself, dropping the dumbbells. "Damn! I'm out of options!"
"Well, if it's options you want..."
Akane whirled around at the voice, settling into a fighting stance. She relaxed only slightly when she saw it was Lum, who was leaning on the dojo door jam and smirking at her. "Oh, hi Lum. What's up?" Her tone was neutral. Even though she liked Lum, and considered the alien's arrival a blessing, Lum wasn't nearly so fond of her, as Akane made no effort to hide her disgust and hatred for Ataru, who likewise openly lusted after her.
"I heard everything," Lum said smoothly, still smirking. "I think I can help."
Akane sighed. "Look, Lum-chan, I appreciate it, really, and I believe me when I say that I can empathize, but your cooking is even worse than mine. There's no way you can beat Ranma and Ataru."
A vein popped up on Lum's head. "HEY!! How do you know it's worse? Nobody even tried it!" She growled.
"True, but your dish took three incantations, a hand grenade, and the flamethrower to vanquish. Mine only took the flamethrower and a box of baking soda," Akane explained calmly.
"Yours still did more damage!" Lum accused, clenching her teeth.
Akane sighed. "Whatever. It doesn't really matter. Was that all you wanted to say?"
Lum's scowl faded. "No. I didn't say I was going to cook a meal to put against Ranko and darling. But I know the perfect chef to do just that."
Akane perked up. "Really? But... wait... I thought you liked Ataru?"
"Of course I do!" Lum said defensively. "That red-headed floozy dragged him into this, and for that I can't forgive her! And she insulted me and the lunch I made for my beloved, with all my love! She's as bad as Ranma!"
Akane sweatdropped. 'I can't tell her. She'd crack.' "So, you're going to help me?"
Lum grinned and nodded. "Yes! Let's put that girl in her place." She reached out with her hand, which Akane clasped eagerly.
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."

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End Chapter 7