Min sweatdropped as she ducked behind the pedestal for cover from the explosion, and then pulled on the hanging rope again, closing the curtain.
"But don't think we'll stop there! Sure, we've given something for all you fans of repressed violent fanatics, who are probably only sticking around reading this stuff in vain hope that BD will break down and write a lemon someday, but what about the fangirls?"
Shampoo coughed up some black smoke before she caught her breath well enough to speak. "Fangirls read Dragon boy fics?"
"Of course they do!" Min said happily, "After all, what self-respecting... er... well... maybe not self-respecting..." She scratched her head for a moment. "Well, whatever. Chicks dig Iori, right? So obviously they read King of Fighters fics. Especially ones with the guy's name in the title. Anyway, on to the doll!"
The curtain opened once again, but this time where the Snake plushie used to be, there was instead a plushie of the same size with black hair in a pigtail. It was wearing a black jacket with a white crescent moon on the back, and its eyes were set in a half-lidded glare.
"Half dark, angsty, bad-ass bishie, and half plucky, heroic macho man, the Ranma Yagami plushie has something for every anime fangirl! Unless they're one of those weirdos who are into nice guy/loser anime men, in which case they're watching the wrong series anyway."
Shampoo finally finished dusting off all the soot that had covered her, and patted the plushie Ranma on the head. "Ranma Yagami plushie Shampoo favorite! Light fire with no match, it keep girl warm any time!" With a blissful smile, the Amazon picked up the plush doll and squeezed it against her chest.
Min immediately snatched it away from Shampoo, causing the other girl to glare at her. "That's right ladies! And this huggable, lovable little sweetie can be all yours for just $59.99! That's right! We're not even pretending this is a deal!"
Shampoo sweatdropped. "Need extra money to cover lawsuit what happen with sale. Already lawyer from SNK call twice!"
Min nodded. "It's definitely not because we want to spend our work hours cuddled up in crates of Ranma Yagami dolls! Nope! Not at all!"

The curtain closed again, and Min once again started her introductory spiel, though this time with noticeably less enthusiasm.
"The last item is a bit of a... well, it's sort of a rush job that was put onto paper after the whole Rayden Shikodan triplet production scheme fell through."
Shampoo sighed. "Stupid dragon boy pick bad time drop space fic. And get mauled by angry fanboys."
Min smiled and shrugged, a sweatdrop rolling down her head. "Luckily, he's used to getting beaten up and having his lunch money stolen! And now, if for some ungodly reason you want him around, he can be yours, in plushie form!"
She raised the curtain once again, revealing yet another dark-haired plushie, but with its hair in a ponytail instead of a pigtail. It wore metal-rim glasses, a pair of sweat pants, and an "All I know I learned from Nintendo" T-shirt, giving the doll an unmistakable "cutting edge nerd" look.
"True, he may not look like much, but if you're willing to put up with the constant whining and spiteful sarcasm, this Black Dragon, Lord of Chaos plushie actually presents a wide range of talents, from writing copious amounts of reasonably entertaining fiction, painting tiny figurines, calculating mathematical tables, and doing homework!"
Shampoo shrugged. "Warning what come with doll: Dragon plushie find hidden stash candy and eat if not watched. Also, if have computer with internet-"
"Which you probably do, given that you're reading this," Min reasoned wryly.
"-Dragon plushie spend all day spamming internet forum, and not get work done," Shampoo finished, shaking her head.
"All this, and slightly more, at a low, low price of just 12 cents! Note that you can get 50% off the listed price of the plushie if you promise the representative on the phone not to perpetrate any acts of voodoo magic upon our brittle and hapless creator!" Min said, poking the doll in the head.
"Shampoo not sure what happen if pull cord, though," the Amazon admitted, picking up the doll.
Min laughed as she sweatdropped. "Why, the BD plushie utters one of dozens of classic phrases, bringing to your home the kind of bitter, disillusioned sarcasm that is perfectly unique to a 20-year dateless fanboy living with his parents as he works at Round Table Pizza to pay for his junior college classes that might someday make him an accountant! Does the fun ever stop? Ha ha ha... ha... haaaaa......" Min slumped forward as he face darkened. "Don't pull the cord. I don't think I can take it."
Shampoo's curiousity got the better of her, and she pulled on the plastic ring on the back.
The BD plushie immediately flipped to its feet, and began talking to itself. "Akane's character, while perfectly suited to the given genre of 'romantic comedy' attributed to the series, is inevitably a poor choice of spouse for Ranma Saotome. Whether you grant that she's a psychotic whore, an idiot, a scarred child, or even say that she's a perfectly normal, perhaps saintly human being, and all instances of violence are just and righteous wrath against a vile and hideously insensitive Ranma, the fact remains that the two are unequivocably wrong for each other and that... Shampoo-chan!" Pausing in the middle of his unsolicited spiel, the doll launched itself towards Shampoo's chest Happosai-style, and managed a perfect glomp attack on her breasts.
Shampoo, having experienced a kind of creeping sedation from Black Dragon's monologue not unlike the effect of large animal tranquilizers, was unable to defend herself, and began to run around in a panic once she realized she was under some form of assault.
Min sweatdropped as she watched her co-star flee the stage screaming. Then she turned back around, looking apologetic. "Aheh... usually his bitter, disillusioned sarcasm is more concise than that. Sorry. Anyway, on with the show!"


Yagami 1/2
A Ranma 0.5/King of Fighters Crossover
by Black Dragon
black_dragon74@hotmail.com
https://www.angelfire.com/anime5/fanficlair/index.html

Here's the promised chapter! Complete with disclaimer saying I don't own Ranma, Nodoka, Mai, or Andy Bogard! There are other character from Rumiko Takahashi that'll show up, but frankly, they're not important or likeable enough to sue over.
I'd like to make an announcement that, for once, is not personal in nature: starting now, with all my given fanfics, I am implementing format changes to account for ff.net's damnable dispensation of my precious asterisks.
From now on, I will be using italics to indicate sounds or artificially produced speech, such as radio messages and such, instead of using asterisks. Fighting techniques, which I liked to type in italics for reasons that could not be understood without allowing oneself to suffer a swirlie in the toilet bowl of utter madness, will now be set out using bold print, along with emphasized words that I don't feel like typing in caps. I will now use regular dashes instead of underscores to generate scene separation lines. I will continue using the strange parenthesis-like marks for different languages even though they don't show up on ff.net, though I'll be sure to make note of which language is being spoken more carefully.
I take no pleasure in this act of conformity, and will continue damning the ff.net administrators and any legal offspring of theirs, for decades to come. My only satisfaction comes from continuing to deny my readers their much sought-after double-spacing. MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
So, to recap: Sounds, Emphasis or techniques, [Written words, 'cause brackets actually show up on ff.net], 'Thoughts', "Dialogue", {"Dialogue in a different language"}

Chapter 13
A Date and Destiny
**********************************************************************************

Ranma grunted in his sleep, and droplets of sweat began to bead on his forehead as he turned over, his expression disturbed.
"Uhnnn... can't... stop it... Sh... Shampoo? N... no..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma's vision swam as he saw Mousse's behemoth form stalk up to him. The beast's nostrils blew out a thick puff of smoke, which seemed to possess a furious array of sparkles that sang to the most primal parts of Ranma's brain.
Red splotches danced across his hazy vision as the monstrous demon reached for him; huge, hooked talons that would tear steel as easily as paper.
And then...
"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!!"
He wasn't sure what had happened. Where had that scream come from? He could hear his heart pounding, and yet he felt perfectly calm. He could sense his blood rushing through his veins, and in some parts of his body out of his veins, yet he felt no pain, and no adrenaline touched him.
He looked to his right, and blinked lazily. Mousse's human head laid on the ground, its face frozen in perpetual horror, its eyes filled with shock as blood trickled from the torn and shredded neck. Slumping onto the ground slowly beside it was Mousse's montrous behemoth body, severed at the neck, its damage obviously beyond regeneration. Ranma wanted to recoil in horror. Did he do this?
Instead, the edges of his mouth curled into a wry smirk, and he turned his head to look forward. A massive pile of bodies lay there, the corpses having been tossed haphazardly upon one another. At the very top of the pile, a small bit of purple flame burned at the top, the violet embers slowly eating downward into the core of the heap. A sizzling sound reached Ranma's ears as the flames began to burn away the blood oozing down the pile, seeping from hundreds of cuts and gashes that blocked the fire's progress with barricades of bright, liquid crimson. Ranma wanted to scream and cover his ears to protect his mind from the sound, increasing as it was in volume and frequency. But instead he smirked at the pile, and his eyes darted from head to bloodied head, taking in the features of those minor enemies he had made in life; people that he disliked, but who he had never seriously thought about maiming or killing. People like Kuno. Nabiki. Akane. Ryoga (though Ranma actually had thought about maiming him. And then he did). From there downward toward the base of the pile, Ranma recognized that the acquaintances who had been slaughtered were becoming increasingly less familiar, and the misdeeds he remembered increasingly minor, to the point that he couldn't recognize most of the lower half of the body heap, much less remember what offense they had committed to warrant this massacre. Ranma gave in to the rising feeling of nausea, fear, and disgust, and let go control of his legs, so that he could fall on his knees and gibber in terror.
Instead, Ranma chuckled, his smirk growing into a lazy smile. A feeling of warmth seemed to flow through him, congratulating him on his act of slaughter. And then he turned his head to his left.
Ranma wanted to sob, but by now had realized that he would not cry, no matter how badly his heart stung at the sight before him. His home, blasted apart, in splinters, the remainder being eaten away by the hungry flames that he himself commanded. His family, sprawled on the ashen lawn, each one destroyed. His mother, ripped apart at the waist. His little sister, blasted with flame into a charred skeleton. His father, gutted through the chest, as if a cannon had blown through his heart.
Ranma wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to turn away, but his body would do no such thing as he further admired his handiwork. Surrounding his massacred family was the rest of Ranma's friends and loved ones. The people that had always been there for him, or at least had been thankful that he had been there for them. Shampoo, Min, Tomas, Hashiru, Hana, Kasumi...
"WHY?!" Ranma wanted to shout, hoping that some greater will, or perhaps the cold, sadistic being that controlled his body could explain this catastrophe, assure him that it was not real. Assure him that it could be prevented. Assure him that it was not his fault...
Instead, Ranma grinned and laughed. Not the harsh, psychotic cackle of a murderer, but a light, happy laugh that simply spoke of one truly enjoying himself.
"Why......"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Gaugh!" Ranma jerked up in bed, throwing the covers off himself as he grasped the air wildly, his eyes wide with terror.
With consciousness, perception began to spiral chaotically around him and fall into place, and the pigtailed boy wobbled dizzily for a moment, panting, as he desperately grasped and clung to the idea that he was in his room in his undemolished home, rather than outside in the middle of a mass slaughter of his own devising.
"It... It was just a dream... Okay... of COURSE it was just a dream... breathe, Ranma..." Ranma began talking to himself to attempt to calm himself as he felt the adrenaline still pumping through him.
He remained sitting upright and facing straight forward for several minutes as his breathing slowed, and soon his panting was replaced by trembling.
Luckily, no one was around to see it. If someone had been, Ranma would have completely attributed it to the sheen of sweat he had collected while his subconscious was scaring him half to death. Not the actual scaring. Of course not.
Sliding out of bed, Ranma glanced at his alarm clock. 6 A.M. The pigtailed boy grimaced. 'Too early to be up, too late to go back to sleep. What a way to top off a horrific nightmare.'
Trying to decide upon what to do with the extra time that morning (he could stretch his normal morning workout, but didn't really feel very good about practicing combat at the moment), Ranma sluggishly walked out into the hallway and then into the bathroom, collecting his thoughts.
Once in the bathroom, Ranma turned on the cold water tap and splashed his face, jerking back in surprise as his Jusenkyou curse activated. "Geez... didn't even see it coming. I'm really out of it right now..." Not that she felt ashamed of her unease. Maybe her father, Mr. Stone Face Yagami could shrug off the images of friends and family thrashed and bloodied and still give 110% that morning, but for Ranma, that kind of thing just didn't spin. She was disturbed, she was scared, and she needed time to think.
Ranma stared leadenly at the petite, redheaded face in the mirror. "Back when I was fighting Mousse... I know I was on the ropes, but... but still..." he had almost lost it. He had almost lost control and gone berserk.
It just wasn't right. The first time it had happened, she had contracted a life-altering curse and had one of her major ideals shattered. The second time she had been beaten to within an inch of her life before finding out that someone who she had started to develop real feelings for had betrayed her trust, selling her most secret fear to her enemies for money.
She scowled. This time, she had been in pain and had started to feel the battle was hopeless when Mousse had started mocking her for her berserk tendencies. Not a nice thing to go through, but hardly the kind of crippling emotional misery she had suffered the only other times she had experienced the Riot of the Blood.
'Maybe it isn't emotional misery? Maybe the power just comes to me whenever I really need it?' Ranma rolled that thought around in her head, and then shuddered. Given what she already knew about the Riot, and what she had seen in the dream, she desperately hoped that wasn't true. 'If an outcome like that is possible... better to die fighting fair. Much better.'
The most likely cause, of course, was just as frightening. If the Riot of the Blood really was occurring more easily, and with lower levels of distress, there was no telling when or where she could end up suffering an emotional blow that turns her into a raging monster. 'Worse, I don't know why it's taking hold of me more easily. Is it because I've already succumbed to it twice? Or is it... getting stronger on its own?'
Ranma grimaced as her thoughts began thumbing through all the possible ways she could be feeding her berserk tendencies and not even know it.
'Ugh. It could be how often I use my flames... or how powerful my flames are... or just how strong a fighter I am, even!' "Yeesh. Maybe I should just move into a mountain and become a monk. No more fighting, no more training, no more evil fire of a dark God...... lame."
Ranma knew that she could never realistically give up fighting, much less general martial arts practice. It was a part of who she was. Actually, it was nearly all of who she was. 'But is that because I love it, or is that the Orochi's influence?' Ranma sighed as she turned on the warm water tap. This whole thing sucked, and didn't show any signs of not sucking in the future.

As Ranma splashed the warm water over his face to change back into a male, he noticed for the first time that there was a note taped to the wall, next to the light switch.
It took a moment for Ranma to sort out what the note said, because despite precise, eloquent handwriting, whoever had written it had terrible grammar. After he had figured out that much, he didn't need to read the signature at the bottom to figure out who had left the note for him.
[Ranma: Thanking you for helping beat Mousse yesterday, but ashamed. Glad have friend like you to help, but need learn stand on own legs and not be burden to you. Am taking training far away place on own, so please no try follow. Be back soon.]
Ranma smiled, feeling a good deal of the anxiety he had woken up with fade away. True, he was disappointed that Shampoo had left, but he could sympathize deeply with her. Even if he didn't think of her as a burden, and was glad to protect her, a fighter as proud as she was could never be satisfied playing the damsel in distress all the time. Hell, if their positions had been reversed, and she had saved him from a rampaging monster, he would barely be able to stand it.
'Hmmm...' [P.S. Maya follow Shampoo. I take care of her good. - Shampoo]
"Huh. Maya followed her? That's kinda weird. I didn't think the cat liked her that much." In fact, the pigtailed boy couldn't recall a single time that he had seen Shampoo playing with the cat, or even idly petting her.
Of course, had he really thought about it, Ranma would have realized that he had never even seen Shampoo and Maya in the same room together. But as it was, his mind easily skipped over that minor detail.
'Oh well. Good luck Shamps.' With that convenient distraction from his current troubles over and done with, Ranma left for the bath.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shampoo tightened her grip on her backpack straps as she bound from tree branch to tree branch, weaving her way through the trees to avoid the swamp muck below.
Snap! "Aiyah!" Shampoo started as her backpack caught on a stray branch, and she lost her footing due to the snag, sending her tumbling downward.
She wasn't the best of the current Amazon generation for nothing, however, and her hand lashed out and caught the branch she had been standing on, keeping her from falling into the slime pits beneath her.
Shampoo sighed and pulled herself back up on the branch, frowning at her backpack. She wasn't used to carrying one, as Amazons warriors and hunters were taught from the beginning of their training how to live off the land with nothing but their bodies, two weapons, and a single set of clothes (traveling with more gear was only approved of if one could manage to stuff it all within the confines of one's clothing; thus was born the art of hidden weapons).
And it wasn't that Shampoo had forgotten those lessons. But traveling with a backpack to carry some extra gear just seemed so... practical. Despite it getting snagged on branches, which was pretty much her fault anyway, a backpack allowed for the minimum encumbrance for carrying a good deal of camp and survival gear. And really, what was so wrong with taking a few extra necessities to compliment the bare necessities she was used to? It wasn't like she was packing a makeup kit in there.
The Amazon stopped moving through the trees and shook her head as she realized she was trying to rationalize it again, as if taking a backpack with her was going to make her "soft". It was true that she was flaking on several of her ancient Amazon traditions and exercises; she had been for some time. Nothing major, just a few little things she was taught to always do that didn't really seem necessary after spending some time in Japan. Things like keeping a minimal wardrobe, dietary habits, and devoted weapon maintenance. Life was pretty hard in the village, so things like snacking and shopping had seemed quite exotic and luxurious to her while she was in Japan living with Ranma. And she liked it.
Shampoo tried to ignore the nagging doubt in the back of her mind, but felt a bit guilty about indulging in the luxuries that suburban living had to offer. Was there a line she had to be careful about crossing? How would she know what to do?
Steeling herself, the Amazon warrior banished those thoughts from her mind as she pushed on through the trees toward her destination. For now, she was in the wilderness, far away from those luxuries, so the point was moot. She'd worry about the weakness of creature comforts later. For now, she was on a mission.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Min smirked as she adjusted her school uniform in the mirror, finally getting the kerchief-like collar of the uniform tucked away so that she could actually show some cleavage when she leaned over.
She heard some other girls mumble 'slut' and 'show-off' on their way out of the school restroom, but let them be. She wasn't a tramp, and she knew it; she was only after one guy, after all! And as for showing off...
"Heh. If you've got the goods, no reason to hide them." The Ninja gave the mirror a lazy grin. She had spent some time working with her clothes that morning to figure out how to make the drab school uniform sexier without making a fool of herself. Not an easy thing; while the skirt was easy enough to shorten, the blouse was restrictive and covered her up very well.
As she left the bathroom and checked the clock in the hall to see when her next period was starting, Min considered the idea of simply forgoing the school uniform altogether, as Ranma and Kuno had done. Heck, Tomas was technically in violation of dress code policy too, always wearing his cap and jacket, and nobody ever said a thing.

Ninja were generally taught that one's guard could never be let down, no matter what the circumstances. For they knew, better than anyone, that death could come at any moment and from any direction, and the only real protection one had against these sudden dangers were one's body and its senses.
Min had been given the same lessons, but had also lived a relatively normal life, and had figured out that there were actually very few places where people jumped out to attack you. So it was that she usually wasn't on high alert at school, not deeming it a very dangerous environment.
Obviously, she hadn't been at Furinkan long enough.

Kwaboom!
Min blinked as an explosion rang out behind her, startling her from her thoughts. Had she been fully aware of her surroundings at the time, she would have noticed right away that one of the victims of the explosion was heading toward her at an accelerated rate, and could have simple sidestepped him. Instead, she didn't realize this important fact until she had turned around and saw Tatewaki Kuno just before he slammed into her.
"Gwah!" The Ninja girl shouted in surprise as she went flying backward from the impact, and grit her teeth as she hit the ground on her back, sliding down the hall a ways with Kuno lying on top of her, dazed.

Ranma blinked as the smoke cleared from his kaen kito attack, a bit worried after having heard a feminine shout of surprise from behind the explosion. He hadn't hit anybody with a piece of shrapnel, had he?
He was relieved once he had gotten a good look at what had happened. 'Oh, okay. Kuno just knocked into Min. She'll be all right.'

Kuno twitched as he felt the itchy sting of minor burns all over his face, arms, and chest... a sensation that was becoming extremely familiar to him. The flames themselves hadn't burnt him badly enough to hinder him, but the kinetic force Ranma had harnessed by pressurizing the flames in his closed fists and then releasing it forward into the air had done quite a number on his senses.
Further confusing the young noble was the surprisingly comfortable landing he had gone through. Not only that, but whatever had cushioned his landing seemed to come complete with a wonderfully soft and squishy pillow. Warm, too. And getting warmer...
Finally deciding that he couldn't spare time for a quick nap while Ranma Yagami still stood undefeated, Kuno pulled his face out of the remarkably convenient padding in order to regroup for the attack.
He blinked as he finally got a good look at his "cushion," who was glowing an angry red as she clutched her "pillows" protectively. She was also trembling, and had the most peculiar scowl on her pretty face.
"Why, if it isn't the noble warrior Min Bogard who comes to my aid! Thank you, sweet flower, for breaking my fall!"

Ranma sweatdropped as he watched the events unfolding before him. 'Then again, maybe she would have preferred a chunk of tile in her face.'
"OH, I'LL BREAK MORE THAN YOUR FALL, YOU PERVERT!!!" WHAM!!
The pigtailed boy winced as the building shook from the force of Kuno being ejected upward out of the building, blowing through an entire floor and the roof before sailing into the sky, a trail of dust and debris marking his passage.
'Dang... she's stronger than I thought...' Of course, Ranma knew precisely how strong Min was in a fight, but seeing an enraged woman's fury-enhanced strength was intimidating for any man.
So it was that when Min glanced over at the source of explosion, Ranma gulped and began to sweat.
"Eh heh heh... uh... sorry?"
The sweating continued as the teenage Ninja girl stood up and approached him, dusting herself off.
"Er... accident! Totally! You know how it is with Kuno popping out of nowhere and attacking! He's always appearing in the middle of a crowd! Yeah! It's his fault!"
Min raised an eyebrow, but didn't stop approaching as Ranma began backing away toward the end of the hall.
"Oh, gimme a break! Hell, you just made a big hole in the third story hallway!" Ranma tried desperately, glancing at the stairwell to his right. All he needed was a moment of hesitation...
Which he didn't get, as Min slammed her left palm flat against the wall next to Ranma's arm, barring him from any easy escape. Then the shinobi looked up into his eyes.
"So. What're you doing tomorrow night?"
Ranma blinked as he realized he wasn't under attack. "T-Tomorrow night? What?"
"Got any plans?" Min asked, not dropping her neutral tone. "You know: family trips, duels, babysitting jobs, heroic rescues, dates, that sort of thing."
Ranma blinked again. He understood the words that were being spoken, but his mind was blowing a fuse trying to put them in context and figure out where Min was going with this line of questioning. At least it seemed like he wasn't in trouble... though for some reason, he still felt a wicked urge to flee down the stairs.
"Uhm... n-no. Nothing like that. Er... why?"
Suddenly, Min smiled brightly. "Oh, okay! Then how about we have dinner together? And we can catch a movie, too!"
Ranma stared back at the Ninja, unblinking. "Are you... asking me out on a date?"
Min gave him a slightly curious look. "Yeah... is there anything wrong with that?"
Ranma's eyes slowly drifted to the right, confirming that Min's arm was still barring any easy escape down the stairs. "Of course not. Time and place?"
"My place at five," Min said happily, finally standing up straight and withdrawing her arm. "Oh, and dress casual. No need for anything fancy."
"Yes, Ma'am," Ranma said rigidly, wondering if she expected him to be writing this down.
"Hee hee! Don't call me 'Ma'am', silly!" The Ninja giggled and turned away, making sure her skirt swayed sharply with the movement. "Don't be late! Bye!"

The flirtatious move was lost on Ranma (naturally), as he took a moment of introspective thought to try and figure out how he should feel about what just happened.
"Did my cousin just bully you into taking her out?" Tomas asked, coming the rest of the way up the stairs from where he had been watching the exchange.
Ranma winced, then looked indignant. "'Bullied'? Ha! Please! She couldn't bully me into doing anything!" He insisted, crossing his arms over his chest haughtily. "It just sounded like a good idea, that's all! Hell, why shouldn't I go out with her?"
Tomas raised an eyebrow at him. Granted, Min was a gorgeous, intelligent young woman who shared several interests with Ranma, so realistically he had no reason to question their going out... but still, he knew Ranma pretty well. "You know she's going to make you pay for everything, right?"
Ranma twitched violently, as if being struck. "Dang it. Well... I guess it's to be expected..."
"Plus, she's not going to take you to a cheap restaurant just because you're dressing casual."
"Urgh!" Ranma flinched again, starting to recall memories of the few times he had eaten in expensive, fancy restaurants that served tiny portions and charged extra for the "atmosphere" and a big list of available alcohols. He hated places like that.
"And given that she wanted you to meet up with her at five..." Tomas started, shaking his head sadly, "well, she probably wants to go to the mall for a shopping trip first."
"Gack!" Ranma started as he recalled the misery of his last trip to the mall with women. "Oh no... what have I done?" he mumbled, twitching irritably.
Then the American fighter chuckled and slapped Ranma on the back. "But hey, that's what dating's all about, right? And Min's worth it!"
"All about. Worth it," Ranma mumbled leadenly, obviously not believing him.
"Hey, don't be like that! Play your cards right, and you could make second base tonight!" Tomas grinned and winked at the pigtailed boy.
Ranma blinked. "Second base? Are we going to go to a baseball game too?"
"........." The blond teenager remained silent for a moment, and kept grinning at his confused friend. "You don't date much, do you?"
"What? Of course I do!" Ranma insisted, smirking. "I know what I'm doing!"
"........." Tomas' expression didn't change. "You don't date much, do you?"
Ranma slumped. "No."
The American shook his head sadly, and clicked his tongue. "I figured as much. Well, don't worry about it; I'll help you out!"
"You?" The pigtailed boy asked skeptically. It wasn't that he found it hard to believe that Tomas was popular with girls, but he had enough in common with the American street fighter to assume that Tomas had suffered the same kind of social lapses he had.
Tomas smirked. "Unlike you, I didn't spend my childhood camping in the wilderness. I'm actually pretty experienced as far as relationships go."
Ranma nodded slowly. That made sense, really. And it was very convenient for him. He certainly didn't want to ask his mother for hints, and Hashiru didn't really seem like a good role model as far as relationships went. Of course, he could ask his father Iori... but he really had no idea what he would come away with in that instance, only that it would be either bad or unhelpful.
"Okay, I guess I could use a few pointers," Ranma said, trying to salvage a little bit of the cockiness he had displayed before. "For example, say she goes into a store and tries on a dress. Should I enter the changing room with her, or is that more of a 'third date' thing?" He was pretty sure it was, but then, having Shampoo drag him into a changing booth when they weren't even dating had cast that point in doubt. "Well, unless I'm a girl at the time, obviously. Then it's okay, right?"
"........................" Tomas stared expressionlessly at the young Yagami, searching for any signs of jest. He found none.
"'Pointers' nothing," the American said, patting Ranma on the back. "My friend, you're getting the whole lesson. What's your next class?"
Ranma blinked. "Biology."
"Skip it. You're no good at it anyway," Tomas said, grabbing the other boy by the jacket and pulling him toward the exit. "Come on. Today you're going to learn something useful, for a change."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"All right, then. Let's talk about talk," Tomas said authoritatively, slapping a long, thin metal rod against his upraised palm.
Ranma blinked. He was currently sitting on a couch in the living room of the Bogard household with a stand-up tray in front of him, presenting a firm writing surface for the pad of notebook paper and pen he had been given. Tomas was standing in front of him with a pointing rod, and for reasons beyond Ranma's comprehension, was wearing a black tie in addition to his normal jeans and sleeveless jacket outfit. Behind the American was a tripod-mounted presentation stand, which held a thick ream of prepared visual aids.
"Conversation is very important for dating. Especially at first, when you can't spend the whole date feeling each other up. The key is what I call the 'Three L's': Listen, Laugh, and Lie."
Ranma sweatdropped. "Lying is a part of this, too?"
Tomas frowned at him, and then slapped the stand-up tray with his pointer. "Are you planning on taking notes? Because there will be a test on this."
"You wrote out a TEST, too?" Ranma asked incredulously.
"Hey, this is important stuff!" Tomas protested. "Now pay attention!"
Pulling down the first sheet of paper on the display stand, Tomas revealed a diagram of a female stick figure talking while a male stick figure dozed off. Below the drawings was a pie chart that was composed of a large pink sector, and a much smaller blue sector.
"Point number one! Listen! If given the opportunity, a woman will gladly do most of the talking during a date! This is a good thing, since you never have any way of knowing whether what you say will offend her or not. Trust me on this; talking during a date is like playing a slot machine. You might get lucky, but you usually lose out, and there's nothing you can do to improve the odds."
Ranma finished writing that part down, though he frowned at what he was being told. "What about compliments? I can compliment her, right?"
Tomas shook his head. "Compliments should be used sparingly; mostly as a way to break a moment of silence or give a nicer greeting when you meet her. If you use too many, they become cheapened, and you still have no way of knowing if you'll say something wrong or not."
Ranma shook his head as he made the appropriate notes. Was it really that complicated?
"The best part about the Listen tactic is that as long as you maintain eye contact and don't fall asleep or anything while you let her talk, you get bonus points from then on for being a 'good listener', even if you can't recall a single thing she said. It should be easier for you, since you and Min actually have things in common."
Ranma nodded as he wrote it down.
"The second L is Laugh. This one is easy to understand, a bit harder to put into practice. Girls like guys with a sense of humor. Especially early on, jokes are a great way to score relatively safe points with communication. Just make sure they're in good taste. Meaning NO PUNS." Tomas was particularly insistent upon this point, as he shook his pointer in Ranma's general direction.
Ranma scratched his head. "But really, Japanese humor is pretty big on-"
"NO. PUNS." The American said firmly, slapping Ranma's note pad with his pointer. "Moving on. Lying."
Tearing down the first illustration, Tomas revealed a drawing of the same two stick figures, but with the man speaking with his fingers crossed behind his back.
"Eventually, you will be called upon to say something in a context where a joke would be inappropriate. This is where lying comes in handy. Any time you're called upon to talk about yourself, try to stick to things she already knows or is interested in. When that well runs dry, and it will, lie. It doesn't really matter what the lie is; even if she takes offense, it will probably turn her off less than the truth."
Ranma sweatdropped as he finished writing down his notes. "But aren't relationships supposed to be completely honest or something?"
"Relationships and dating are different," Tomas said sharply, slapping Ranma's note book again with the pointer. "You have a relationship with someone you're already with. You date someone you want to get with. You can afford to tell all your ugly secrets and embarrassing truths to somebody who's already committed enough time to getting to know you."
"Makes sense..." The pigtailed boy murmured.
"The topic of conversation inevitably leads us to the most dreaded mood-killer," Tomas started, suddenly looking dark and solemn. "The 'no-win query'."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "What's THAT?"
Instead of speaking, Tomas revealed the next visual aid for his lesson, which had the same stick figure people from before, with a second female stick figure walking past them.
"The 'no-win query' is any question that has to do with other women, or appearance. Typical examples are 'do you think she's pretty,' 'does my hair look okay,' and the feared and despised 'does this dress make me look fat.'"
Ranma stopped to think for a moment. "... No, yes, and no... right?"
"Ha!" Tomas barked, causing Ranma to jerk back. "If only it was so easy! Every one of those questions are asked with a the 'bad' answer in mind. If you disagree, she'll call you on it, claim you don't understand her or can't trust her to handle the truth, and that you don't care about her feelings. If you agree, she'll call you shallow and superficial, and that you don't care about her feelings."
Ranma was sweating now as he wrote it all down. Who knew that talking could be so dangerous? "So... the only option is retreat, right?"
"Last resort, actually," Tomas corrected, "the best solution to the 'no-win query' is to just glance at whatever it is she's drawing attention to, nod non-committally, and then change the subject! Acting uninterested while taking her side is the only way to distract her long enough to engage in a different topic!"
The pigtailed boy mulled this over for a moment. "So... I'm going to nod if she asks me if she's fat?"
"No, that's a special case," Tomas admitted. "In that case, fleeing is probably best. With a quick strike to the back of the head to knock her out first."
"I should knock her out and then leave her in the middle of a date?" Ranma asked incredulously.
"She deserves it for asking that," Tomas insisted.

"Tomas! I brought some crackers!" Both boys turned away from their discussion as Mai wandered into the room, carrying a tray of snacks and cups of tea, and with her youngest daughter Kikyo trailing behind her.
"Ah. You must be Min's mom," Ranma deduced, as Tomas had told him ahead of time that the house belonged to his cousin's family. Also, the similarities in bust size were simply impossible to miss.
Seeing Mai's questioning look (he had told her that a friend was coming over, but hadn't mentioned who), Tomas gestured to the pigtailed boy. "Aunt Mai, this is Ranma Yagami. Ranma, this my Aunt Mai Bogard."
Mai looked surprised. "Oh! You're Iori Yagami's son?"
Ranma blinked. "Yeah. You know my dad?"
"We've... met," Mai mumbled, twitching slightly. "I still have the scars to prove it."
Tomas winced. "Ooh... awkward..." Then he glanced at Ranma. "Keep taking notes. You'll want to avoid moments like this tomorrow."
"What's happening tomorrow?" Mai asked curiously, picking up a cup of tea and taking a sip.
Tomas chuckled. "Min cornered him in the hallway and got him to agree to take her out."
Mai stared at Ranma questioningly. "Min... asked you out?" She asked. Generally it was supposed to be the other way around.
Ranma sweatdropped. "Yeah. You have a very, uh... assertive daughter."
Little Kikyo, who had been hiding partially behind Mai's dress, finally came out to meet the stranger. "Hello! You can call me Kiyo-chan!"
Everyone else in the room couldn't help but smile at the little girl as she spoke, overwhelmed by how cute she was.
"You're the man-girl cousin Tommy was talking about, aren't you?"
Thud! Ranma fell over and hit the carpet as the others in the room sweatdropped.
"Kikyo, it's not nice to make fun of something like that!" Mai scolded, secretly wondering if she could "accidentally" spill some cold water on their guest before he left to see the rumored transformation herself.
Ranma twitched, then turned toward Tomas, who chuckled nervously as he scratched the back of his head. "So, I'm guessing you told your family about the curse, huh?"
"Eh heh... well, I needed to tell them SOMETHING after I came home from the Hebereke match with second-degree burns," Tomas explained.
Ranma's eye twitched again. "'Man-girl'?"
"Okay, fine, there was probably a better way to say it, but YOU try explaining something like that to a seven-year old!"
"Anyway," Mai muttered, shooing her youngest daughter out of the room. "It's nice of you to offer to give him some pointers, Tomas." Then she glanced at the display. "Have you covered the three L's already?"
Thud! Ranma faceplanted once again, this time hard enough to leave a shallow Ranma-shaped indentation in the carpet. "You know about that?"
Mai raised an eyebrow. "Of course I do. Who do you think taught him?" She jabbed a thumb at Tomas, who sweatdropped and shrugged. "Anyway, where were you at, exactly?"
"Er... I was just about to cover touch zones and no-touch zones," Tomas said slowly, still feeling awkward about discussing such things with a woman (even if she was the one who taught him the lessons in the first place).
Mai shook her head and took the pointer out of Tomas' hand. "He won't need to learn that here. Which leads me to an important lesson that I didn't teach you either: dealing with overprotective fathers. Sit down next to Yagami, Tomas."
The American twitched, annoyed at having his presentation hijacked, but did as he was told.
"All right, we're going to spin the basic violent parent model a little bit to reflect the actual situation we have here," Mai explained. "Yagami, when you get here at the appropriate time, you'll be waiting about fifteen minutes before Min is ready to go."
Before she could continue, Ranma raised his hand. "Why? She set the time. Why wouldn't she be ready to go?"
"You're never going to get an answer to that question, so I suggest you stop asking," Mai said flippantly to the two sweatdropping teens. "Anyway, before Min is ready, her father Andy is going to take you aside for a little 'talk'. How do you plan to handle that? Keeping in mind that Andy is a world-class martial artist very nervous about his daughter's welfare who has had some very bad encounters with your father in the past."
Ranma scratched his head. "Uh... maybe... invite him to have a friendly sparring match to show I'm a decent guy?"
"........................" Mai stared at Ranma expressionlessly.
Tomas sighed. "Forgive him. He's pretty new at this."
"Obviously," Mai said sharply, slapping the presentation pointer against her palm. "We have a lot of work to do..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"At... at last... I made it..." a small figure mumbled as he staggered across the street, past the large sign that marked the district: [Welcome to Nerima! Enjoy it while it's still standing]
The figure stopped for a moment, its eyes narrowing. Then it frowned deeply in concentration.
"Heh... heh heh heh. Ha ha ha! I got you! I'd know that aura anywhere! Even in a place as large as this, you can't hide from me, Iori! Ha ha ha! I'm coming for you!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shampoo leaned against a tree as she tried to catch her breath, holding her chest with one hand while irritably picking sticks and leaves out of her long hair with the other.
'Why the hell couldn't this woman have just lived in an apartment or something in the city? It's not like she's attached to tribal customs or nature or anything... could've taken a bus or a train...' A month ago, she would have been appalled at any warrior, no matter their background, who would complain about such a trifling hardship. As it was now, she seriously considered asking the one she sought if these rural areas had any local taxi service.
True, a few hours previous she had been chiding her weakness and fretting over whether she had gone soft due to the luxuries of civilization... but a difficult and speedy hike through unpleasant terrain usually caused those who had gone soft to stop pondering and start whining.
Steeling herself, the Amazon dusted herself off and put her discomfort aside. No matter what her troubles were, she was here to ask for help and training, and it would not do to present her teacher with a display of weakness. The manner of a warrior apprentice toward her master was one thing that had been pounded (physically!) into her head very well, and no amount of spoiling would ever let her forget those lessons.

Walking upright and facing forward, Shampoo strode through the small farmlands purposefully, the perfect image of a youth marching onward toward her destiny.
Of course, young Chinese warriors meeting their fate was fairly uncommon in backwater Japanese villas, so the purple-tressed girl drew quite a bit of attention, as farmhands and herders in the surrounding low-lying hills all turned to stare at the strange foreign woman in the exotic-looking dress.
One by one, they all turned away once again, allowing themselves to fall back to their day-to-day drudgery. Some were more curious about the Chinese girl, and contemplated asking her what she was doing here, but after some thought, they too decided that there was only one likely destination. Shampoo was forgotten mere minutes after having appeared.

Walking along the dirt and rock path that passed for a road in this part of the country, Shampoo considered the directions she had memorized, and then searched for a mess of rocks on the edge of the fields.
Continuing her search through the large, but sparsely populated village, the Amazon eventually noticed a path that had been made through a field of particularly tall grass. Beyond the path lay the cleft of two hills, and likely a small valley she couldn't see.
Acting on a hunch, Shampoo departed the road and took to the path, noting that it had been created entirely from townsfolk walking through the field to whatever lay beyond, rather than having been deliberately cut or packed to create a walkway.
'Shau Wa... the lost huntress...' Shampoo thought to herself as she tried to peek over the high grass to see what lay beyond. 'Once the tribe's most promising student and finest aspiring warrior... you ended up following a man to Japan after you lost a battle against him... despite the outcome clearly being a fluke... and despite the encounter clearly not being a battle.' The purple-haired girl marveled a bit at the parallels between her and the woman she had traveled here to meet. Granted, Shampoo's loss against Ranma in his berserk state had been granted one of the very few reprieves from Amazonian law in Joketsuzoku history (she was guaranteed to be remembered for that, at least. Or maybe not, considering Ranma had also savaged roughly sixty other warriors), but to end up in Japan following a man to his homeland, rather than end up dragging him back to her own... well, it was a pretty romantic coincidence, and Shampoo thought it would have made a damn decent TV drama.
Of course, the story of Shau Wa was actually told to Amazonian trainees to remind them that a single moment of relaxed guard can end one's life... even if you don't actually die. To the young Amazon warrior trained in the ways of the tribe, it was easy to imagine that a warrior's life was practically wasted when she lost to a weakling on a fluke and then ended up being dragged to Japan, never to return to her family and fellow warriors.
No honor. No battle. No warrior's death or combat tournaments or war with raiding Musk. Not even a life of relative dignity serving the tribe as a disgraced champion, taking care of menial tasks while birthing new Amazons for the tribe. Just a boring, meaningless existence carved out of some pitiful plot of dirt in Japan, bearing a weak man's daughters without any hope for them becoming fine warriors.
Shampoo smirked wryly. She remembered distinctively that when she had first heard the story, she had made a childish comment to the effect of Shau Wa's fate being "worse than death".
The huntress's story ended in rumor. It was pretty much assumed, and apparently true, that she had stayed in Japan and hadn't bothered or been able to make it back to the tribe. But nobody knew what had happened to her besides that. Her family had not tried to contact her, despite there being a great possibility that she had borne children since her exodus, and while her teachers lamented the loss of such a great warrior, and the supposed secrets of the Hiryu Shoten Ha that Shau Wa had uncovered, no effort had been made to reclaim her, or recover the skills she had taken with her into a foreign land. Oh, sure, as an Amazon who held no rank in the elder council, she was forbidden to speak to outsiders of the tribe's secrets (a rule that Shampoo herself had already firmly broken), but it was said that the lost huntress knew of a power that rivaled anything in the Amazons already-formidable arsenal of special techniques.
'Well, that's what I'm here to find out,' Shampoo thought to herself as she left the path and emerged before a mound of sharp, jagged rocks piled on the lip of a quarry.
Feeling a bit of nervousness overcome her, Shampoo noticed a single figure sitting on top of a large boulder. She was an old woman, obviously, although to someone who had grown up under Cologne's tutalege, the signs of age that lined the woman's face didn't even remotely diminish the image of strength and confidence that surrounded her. Of course, Shau Wa should have been only around sixty years judging by the tales, and as such hadn't been subjected to the intense shrinking and body-mangling effects that an extended lifespan had upon a person. She was still tall, and in fact had a few inches on Shampoo herself. In addition, her age didn't seem to have affected her muscle mass, as her skin had not shriveled and her arms and legs were still relatively thick. Her hair was completely gray, although the way the evening sun glimmered against it seemed to hint at a very bright color in youth.
The old Chinese woman didn't bother to acknowledge the newcomer, but continued to stare into the quarry with a stony expression and smoke on a long pipe. After a few moments, Shampoo realized that her careful observation of the old Amazon could be interpreted as staring, and in turn be considered rude. Judging that the old huntress must have noticed her by now, Shampoo bowed her head and fell to one knee, planting one fist into the ground while placing the other on her raised knee.
{"Warrior Shau Wa! My name is Shan Pu of the Joketsuzoku Amazons! I humbly request your guidance in my martial arts training!"} Shampoo said loudly in Chinese. She dearly hoped that the woman before her was still in practice as a warrior. Quite frankly, her senses weren't able to get anything from the woman, other than the obvious fact that she wasn't very interested in talking to her.
Nonetheless, the purple-haired Amazon had secured her prospective master's attention. Shower casually craned her neck around to see who was calling her. Once she saw Shampoo, her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, great. Not another one."
Shampoo sweatdropped. It didn't look like this was going to be as easy as she thought.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm home!" Akane called out as she tugged her shoes off, laying them on the small tile area behind the front door.
Behind her younger sister, Nabiki frowned as she closed the door behind them, immediately sensing something amiss. Nobody really knew why (and for that matter, very few people knew in the first place), but for some reason Nabiki had always been far more sensitive to danger and abnormal circumstances than Akane, despite her overall lack of martial arts training. Soun had always assumed it had to do with the basic martial arts training she had endured as a child before she quit serious practice, while Akane wrote it off as a type of "business sense" she had developed to detect circumstances of financial significance.
Nobody had asked Ranma, or even knew that he had noticed, but he would have simply said it was because Akane was dense.
"Daddy? Is everything okay?" Nabiki asked, noting that there was an extra set of extraordinarily tiny shoes lying on the floor. She also noticed that nobody had come to greet them, which indicated that Soun and even Kasumi were already occupied with something relatively serious.
Finally, she noticed that there was a pair of panties lying on the floor next to the door to the kitchen. And it didn't belong to any of the three women in the household.
Now, Nabiki was a sensible, modern girl. If her single father wanted to have a relationship or even a fling, it wasn't any of her business, and she wouldn't make a fuss. Blackmail, maybe. Fuss, no. But there was simply no way that the underwear on the floor was an indication of Soun's carnal affairs. Frankly, she just didn't give her old man that much credit. It was more likely to be the discarded article of Kasumi's secret lesbian lover, and - she didn't care what Akane claimed to see when she got up early to jog - Nabiki would assume a hundred alternative possibilities before she went there, either.
"Dad? Hello?" Nabiki called out, cautiously moving past an obviously confused Akane. "Are you home?"
A moment of silence ensued, and Akane glanced at her sister questioningly, wondering if she should get into "martial artist taking charge to protect her loved ones" mode.
"Wait! No!" Soun's voice rang out suddenly from the guest room, and Akane and Nabiki both turned their heads in that direction. "Nabiki! Akane!"
"What is-" Before Akane could finish that sentence, her eyes widened, seeing something burst through the door, rebound off the wall, and fly at her at high speed. "What the?"
"Akane! NOOOOO!!" Soun cried, stumbling through the doorway in a panic.

"Oh, how sweet it is!"
Nabiki sweatdropped at the sight, marveling at how her normally bash-happy little sister simply stood there, stunned, as a tiny old man clamped onto her vulnerable chest, rubbing his cheeks against the twin flesh pillows liberally.
"Akane! Oh no! Did she pass out?!" Soun said nervously, wringing his hands. Why wasn't the girl moving to defend herself?
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "Give her a sec, Daddy. You know how sensitive Akane's pervert detection is. I think our guest just blew out the meter, so to speak."
Just as the middle daughter guessed, within moments Akane snapped back to reality, her hands clenching into fists as an aura of rage and hate manifested around her.
"WHY... YOU... LITTLE... SLIMEBALL!!" CRASH!!
Soun and Nabiki winced and covered their heads to keep the falling plaster out of their hair as the elderly midget burst through the roof and into the afternoon sky, taking a fair bit of the Tendo household with him (as it got lodged in his face on the way out).

As Akane took many deep breaths to try and control her unbound rage, Nabiki turned toward her father.
"Okay Daddy. Spill. Who was that?"
At that moment, Kasumi finally emerged from the kitchen, holding a tray of tea. "Oh my... I take it grandfather Happousai just left?" She looked over at Akane as her aura slowly faded, and then up at the ceiling. "Oh, good. You hit him through one of the fixed holes Ranma-kun made when he was here. That should make the repairs easier."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow at Soun. "Happousai, huh?"
"In the flesh," Happousai said, calmly taking out a wooden pipe as he sat down behind Akane.
"YAAAAAAAAH!!" Everyone but Kasumi jumped in surprise at Happousai's sudden reappearance, and Akane whirled on him.
"Hey! Who do you think you are, molesting me like that?! Maybe I didn't hit you hard enough!" The youngest Tendo growled, clenching one hand into a fist.
Nabiki sweatdropped. "If he got back THAT quick, yeah, you probably didn't hit him hard enough." Heck, the old man didn't even have any apparent injury from the debacle, though bits of spackle had ended up clinging to his brown gi.
Happousai just smiled. "Now, now! Just think of it as a friendly greeting from me to you!"
A vein popped up on Akane's head. "Oh? Well here's a 'friendly greeting' for you!" With that said, Akane rushed forward and attempted to punt the lecher forward.
To her surprise, the tiny old man didn't take the hit this time, but instead jumped up past her leg and used her head as a springboard, hopping away to land next to Soun. Happousai was surprisingly heavy for his apparent size, and Akane quickly found herself unbalanced, and fell backwards into a heap.
Soun winced as Akane fell, and began to sweat as Happousai shook his head at him.
"Soun, Soun, Soun. What a disappointment you are. After all this time, this is all you've managed to do with your life?" He gestured toward the backyard. "A dojo with no students," he gestured toward Soun, "a master with no heir," and then he gestured toward the Tendo sisters, "and a family with no martial artists? Are you TRYING to live your life a failure? Have you no ambition? No pride?"
"Hey! Leave him alone!" Akane growled, getting up and shaking a fist at the old lecher angrily. "And I'll have you know that I'm a martial artist! AND the Tendo heir!"
Happousai raised an eyebrow, and took a good, long look at Akane. Then he turned back to Soun. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Soun winced. "I... I'm sorry..."
Thud! Akane facefaulted at her father's apology.
"Okay, okay, that's enough," Nabiki chided. "Now what is your relationship with Daddy, anyway? We still don't know who you are."
Happousai smirked. "Why, I'm this fool's martial arts master, that's all!"
Nabiki and Akane looked startled as Soun nodded despondently. Kasumi didn't react, as she had already met the man and gotten the story.
"Wait, so this is that 'Master' that you always talk about in whispers and hushed tones?" Nabiki muttered disbelievingly, pointing at the wrinkled old dwarf. "Never mind you never told any of us his name. Isn't he supposed to be the grandmaster of the school?"
Soun sniffled miserably. "I was afraid that Sniffle! if I said his name, he would appear..."
"But why has he come?" Akane asked irritably, "And how can we get him to leave?"
Happousai smirked, and got up as he took a drag on his pipe. "Why, I've just come to check up on my old students, and see what's become of them after they... 'completed' their training under me. In fact, I've already finished checking up on that fat fool, Genma."
Soun perked up upon hearing this. "Saotome? Why, I haven't seen him in ages!"
"And you never will ever again, if his fellow dock workers don't find him and pull him out of the harbor soon," the old lecher said scornfully, missing Soun's horrified expression. "At least you managed to find yourself a wife and build a failed dojo; that lazy twit was just wasting away his days doing menial labor! I tell you, kids these days! You waste your life learning the art, and then you end up hauling crates until you die! Pfeh!"
Then he narrowed his eyes at Soun, and the long-haired man began to sweat profusely. "Now... as for you, Soun..."
The Tendo patriarch's life began to flash before his eyes, causing a sudden, simultaneous downpour of tears (as much from the mental confirmation of Happousai's accusations as from fear). "M-Master... please... I-I beg of y-you..."
"Congrats, Tendo!" Happousai said, bouncing onto Soun's shoulder so he could slap the man on the back. "I approve!"
Soun blinked. "Wh... What?"
"I mean, sure, you're a pathetic excuse for a human being, an utter failure of a man, a much worse failure of a martial artist, and ultimately worthless yourself..."
The Tendo daughters, while they disagreed significantly with this assessment, all just sweatdropped and held their peace, not wanting to interrupt whatever actual praise Happousai was going to give.
"... But you produced three VERY attractive daughters! So at the very least, we can say the world is a better place for your being here!"
"Go team," Nabiki mumbled sarcastically.
"Thank you! Thank you Master!" Soun cried happily, bowing down repeatedly after Happousai leapt off his shoulder.
Akane massaged her head; part of her mind couldn't believe her father was acting this way. The rest of her mind was wondering just who the hell that first part thought it was fooling. "Okay, fine. Are you done here, or what?"
Happousai nodded. "Yup! I just have one last errand to run, and then I can finally select an heir, and prepare for my retirement!"
Soun blinked. "One last... errand?" Then he gasped. "Of course! Yagami!"
Nabiki snapped to attention. "Oh, yeah! Mister Yagami must have trained under you too, right?"
Happousai grinned. "That's right... Mmmm, I can't wait to see what my most... 'willful' student has made of himself."
Nabiki grimaced. "Oh yeah. Him and Ranma are gonna get along REAL well."
"Hmph. As long as they stay away from here, let the perverts do what they want," Akane groused, mistaking Nabiki's sarcasm for a straight statement.
Happousai didn't know what all the talk of this "Ranma" person was about, but his work here was done. As such, there was only one more thing keeping him here...
He turned toward Akane. "Well, I'm leaving now! Give Grandpa Happousai a big hug goodbye!" Glomp!
'Chernobyl, eat your heart out,' Nabiki thought, stepping back from Akane along with the rest of her family as the local air temperature rose a good sixty degrees.
"DIE, PERVERT!!!" WHAM!!

Nabiki sweatdropped as Akane stood in the middle of the dining room, clutching her chest as she tried to control her breathing once more.
"Oh, good. You hit him through the same hole," Kasumi said happily. She didn't know if Akane had done it on purpose, but it was nice to think that her younger sister was at least learning how to cut down on collateral damage when she vented her feminine wrath.
"Well, THAT was a big, fat waste of time," Nabiki mumbled, turning toward the stairs and making her way to her room. "I'm gonna go get changed."
"That dirty, filthy little rodent," Akane murmured darkly, her hands twitching as if she was imagining choking something. "I hope that jerk Ranma fries him to a cinder!"
"Oh dear, what's this?" Soun and Akane both turned as they heard Kasumi speak, and blinked as they beheld a pair of light blue panties being picked up off the floor. "Akane, did you or Nabiki buy new panties?"
Akane frowned. "No... I didn't... actually, those are too big to be any of ours. I wonder what they're doing here?"
Very slowly, both girls turned their heads to look at Soun, whose hair suddenly stuck straight out in shock. "D-Don't look at ME! I don't know what they're doing here!"
The appearance of the panties posed a mystery that would haunt the girls for hours on end into the night... especially after Nabiki revealed another domestic calamity.
"Hey! What happened to all my underwear?!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma shook his head as he slowly walked back home, his hands in his pockets.
The last four hours had been... educational. And not in the "I passed a test and now my future is secure!" way.
He felt as if he was entering another reality. A reality that took everything that he knew about people, the world, and what was right and good, put it all into jar, shook the jar like mad, and then threw the jar away, which seemed kind of insulting after the reality took the time to shake up his thoughts first.
And the worst part was: after all the time Tomas and then Mai had spent chiding him and talking down to him and lecturing on topics too foreign to him to comprehend, he didn't think he had learned anything at all. Sure, he knew what to do... mostly... but he didn't know why. Most of his lessons involved pounding conditioned responses into him, and forcing himself not to act like himself, which made him question the whole idea of the alleged "relationship" in the first place. Did girls really want to date puppets that said only what they wanted to hear?
Tomas said yes. Of course, Ranma didn't think he was much of a modern-day Casanova, so he had his doubts. He was pretty sure that was Hashiru's call.
Then again, Mai said yes as well. And her qualifications for knowing what women wanted really couldn't be more concrete.
His experience was limited to his one date with Nabiki, which hadn't felt much like a date at all. It had been arranged via a business transaction, and Nabiki had held his hand through it the whole time. She seemed like she had enjoyed herself... but then, she was being PAID to be there, and she then used the situation to glean personal information to sell later. No, it was safe to say that his only dating experience was no good. Not to mention extremely discouraging.
Ranma sighed. Really, this whole situation had him much more distressed than excited, and he was even contemplating just canceling the date and simply avoiding Min to evade retribution.
'Really, do I even WANT Min for a girlfriend?'
Ranma deemed this question significant enough for a long moment of drawn out, dramatic contemplation, and stopped in his tracks, holding his head down as he crossed his arms over his chest.
'Well... what DO I think of her? She's... nice. Sometimes. Fun to be around, sure. She's a fighter. Not spectacular, but it's a plus. Pretty smart, too. Definitely not an airhead or nothin'. And she's... well, she's cute... oh hell, who am I kidding? She's a total babe.'
Evaluation? It would be nice to have a girlfriend... at least, he assumed so, since it seemed to be what the vast majority of other guys his age were obsessed with. But dating Min seemed complicated enough that he'd rather keep her as a friend. Still, SHE wanted more than friendship, as evidenced by her making the first move on him.

So serious was the situation, and so deep in thought was Ranma, that his normally impeccable danger sense didn't pick up the quickly approaching sounds of rage and havoc until AFTER he felt a sudden weight fall on his head.
"Hey! What the-?" Jerking his head up from where he had stumbled forward, Ranma caught sight of a tiny little man (at least, he assumed it was a man) in a brown gi running away along the fence that lined the sidewalk and separated it from the canal. He was also wearing a black bandanna around his head, and tied under his nose. But what caught the most attention was the large sack the dwarf was carrying, as it was stuffed to the point of bulging, such that it had twice the volume of its apparent owner.
"What a haul! What a haul!" The little man cackled, jumping across the street at the next intersection to allow the chase to continue.
Ranma frowned, unsure of what to make of what he just saw.
Of course, at that point, a white, lacy bra floated down from the sky where it had been jarred loose from the rest of its kind, and landed right on Ranma's head.
His frown deepening, the pigtailed boy plucked the item off his head, and held it in front of him to observe it, only partially aware that the recent rumbling sound had come to abrupt stop.
"Well, this is DEFINITELY not a good sign."
And then, realizing there was something behind him, Ranma turned around to see a crowd of forty plus schoolgirls, housewives, and female pedestrians gathered around him, every one of them brandishing some sort of common item or article as a weapon, and each burning with an aura of rage that screamed for the blood of perverts everywhere.
Very slowly, a sweatdrop rolled down Ranma's head as he felt dozens of glares sink imaginary daggers into his heart. "Uhm... So! Who's interested in hearing a perfectly innocent explanation for this?" He asked pleasantly, pointing to the brassiere he held with his free hand.
The mob declined to answer, instead descending upon him with a howl of indignant fury.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shampoo tried not to let her nervousness show as she thought of the best way to answer her new teacher's question. Martial arts hermits were legendary for being extremely fickle about their students, so it was very likely that if the old woman before her saw something she didn't like, she'd send the young Amazon packing without so much as a critique of her skill.
{"You see Master Shau Wa, recently I-"} Shampoo begin to speak in Chinese to the elder woman before being interrupted harshly.
"Speak Japanese, girl. We're in Japan now. Besides, my Mandarin is rusty," the tired old woman snapped. "And as long as you're speaking Japanese, call me Shower, like everyone else."
Shampoo winced at that. She had assumed that a relatively venerable Chinese Amazon would be horrified to have her name butchered by the Japanese language. Especially one with no apparent sense of humor. So much for good first impressions.
"Master... Shower. Recently, criminal and outcast from tribe come challenge Shampoo, and use curse to use power of demon. He... he beat Shampoo, but friend come and help defeat him."
Shower rose an eyebrow at the younger Amazon. Not because of the story, but because of her Japanese. 'Then again, she probably hasn't been speaking it for more than a few months. And it is passable...' "This criminal, he wouldn't happen to go by the name of Mousse, would he?"
Shampoo blinked. "Y-Yes... How you know Mousse?"
The older woman snorted. "Some buffoon from the village walked through here about a week ago and asked me to train him so that he could win the heart of his beloved."
"And you refuse?" Shampoo asked, though it was a rhetorical question. Mousse hadn't shown her any new tricks other than his curse when they fought, and surely a martial arts master as wise and intelligent as Shower must have sensed the hatred in him, or divined his dark intentions.
"Of course I refused him," Shower said matter-of-factly. "I don't train men."
Shampoo sweatdropped. 'Well, we all have our own standards...'
"And frankly, I don't want to train you, either. Why are teenage Amazons suddenly popping up out of the woodwork looking for training? Was there an exodus from the village or something? YOU'RE not an exile too, are you?"
Shampoo winced some more at the old woman's words. This was not what she'd expected the legendary outcast to be like. These masters were supposed to be mysterious and aloof, or mellow and a bit dirty-minded (though often the second parameter was taken to extremes), or at the least relentlessly strict and vicious, with an underlying soft heart. Grouchy and cold was not an attitude she was prepared to deal with.
"Shampoo not outcast! Shampoo come to Japan visit friend!"
Shower narrowed her eyes. "If you're here on vacation, then there's no reason to take up grueling new training. And if you're Cologne's great-grandaughter, there's no reason to come all the way here to get access to the tribe's best techniques."
Shampoo frowned, but said nothing.
Shower remained silent for a moment, then continued. "Why are you here, girl? Why are you in Japan? And why do you want ME to train you?"
The younger Amazon, feeling quite annoyed at this point but still mindful of the respect Shower deserved as a superior, responded hastily. "Shampoo in Japan to visit friend, like said. Shower know techniques that Shampoo's birthright. And basic fighting style is same. Shampoo learn much from teachers in village, but not plan go back to village for long time." Keeping a neutral expression on her face, Shampoo awaiting the older woman's response.
Shower raised an eyebrow. "So... You need a quick power boost to keep pace around here, and I just happened to be the best teacher for your fighting style within a convenient distance?"
A sweatdrop rolled down Shampoo's head. Soon it was followed by several others. When she put it like that...
Then the old woman nodded. "Sensible girl, aren't you? I like that."
The purple-haired girl blinked.
"You seem confused," the elderly woman drawled. "I'll be blunt, Shampoo. I'm not much for intrepid young heroes on life-changing quests for wisdom and strength, or noble, honorable souls that wish to perfect their art. Nor do I put up with selfish morons who want a shortcut to power. You seem like you have a decent head on your shoulders, and you don't seem like the sort who'd leave me alone right away if I refused, so I suppose I can give it shot. I owe that withered old grandmother of yours a favor, anyway." Shower got up, and then turned away from her bewildered new student.
"Tomorrow we'll get to know each other a little better, and I'll assess your talent. I have no time for dunces or weaklings, you know."
Shampoo bowed deeply, extremely grateful for the woman's apparent approval. "Thank you, Master Shower! Shampoo not fail!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said dismissively, causing Shampoo's expression to fall, "cut out the 'can-do, never-give-up' attitude, all right? I can't stand that nonsense. If you succeed, great. If you fail, get over it and get out."
Shampoo twitched slightly. "Uhm... yes... Shampoo sorry..."
"Guest room is on your right. Bathroom is down the hall. Night." Without another word, the legendary failure of an Amazon turned away and went to her room for the night, leaving her severely disillusioned pupil still squatting in the middle of the living room floor.
After several moments, the purple-haired girl shook her head. 'Is she cold, or is it just me? This might be more frustrating than it is difficult.'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oof... geez... I... I can't believe I managed to get away..." Ranma mumbled weakly to himself as he staggered home slowly, using a broken broomstick (painfully removed from where it had been lodged in his head) to help support himself.
"Man, women can be pretty tenacious..." Of course, Ranma had lived in the Tendo dojo, and had shared a residence with Akane, so he had already experienced irrational feminine wrath to the very greatest extreme.
"Still... I wonder what that little old man was doing..." Ranma suspected the retreating figure had something to do with the bra that landed on his head, but had no idea what a little man would do with women's underwear, and the women who has assaulted him hadn't bothered to give any explanations.
"Oh well. Here I am." Stretching, and then wincing, Ranma tossed his walking stick away and straightened up, unwilling to let any signs of weakness or injury show before his family. 'I'm sure as hell not going to try to explain that I was beaten up by a bunch of women off the street for being a pervert.'
Still working the kinks out of his back and massaging his bruises, Ranma moved onto the front yard, and made a beeline for the front door. "Ah... home sweet ho-"
KA-BLAAAAM!!
Shouting in surprise as a fiery shock wave blasted him off his feet, Ranma was blown back onto the lawn of the Yagami residence, landing face-first on the grass.

"Ugh... not my day. Not my day at all." Then the pigtailed boy blinked. "Wait. The shock wave. Purple flame? Yurumi?!" Ranma whirled around, afraid to see that his entire household had been vaporized by his younger sister's poorly controlled powers.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that only the front door looked like it had been struck by the fire blast. 'That was a directed blast... Yurumi doesn't have that kind of control. Pop?'

Cough! Cough! "Why, you ingrate!"
Ranma looked over, wide-eyed, as a tiny blackened... thing got up from where it had been blasted onto the lawn next to him.
"I come all this way to check on you, and even have the kindness to forgive you for what you did to me, and this is the thanks I get? Your impudence is starting to get on my nerves, Iori!"
Ranma slowly turned from the soot-covered figure to look back at the house. His father stood in the doorway, a gloomy violet aura surrounding him.
The pigtailed boy gulped. In all his life, Ranma had never really seen Iori when he was mad. It just didn't happen. The man had resorted to violence and savagely beaten people plenty of times before in Ranma's presence, but the crimson-haired man had always possessed the same stony look of disgust and disdain on his face.
But now... for the first time he was seeing the true face of a demon uncaged. Iori's teeth were clenched tight as he fixed the burnt figure on the lawn with a narrow, hateful glare. Not a glare that spoke of a desire or intent to harm, but rather a gaze that spoke of personal suffering, indignation, and humiliation that needed to be avenged.
"P-Pop?" Ranma stuttered out nervously. "Hey... wh-what's going on here?"
Iori spared Ranma a glance, but then immediately refocused his attention on Happousai, making a mental note to apologize to Ranma later for blasting him along with his old master. "This is your FINAL WARNING. Leave now. If I ever see you again, I'll rip you apart!"
"Tch! You're the same as ever, I see. One would think the family life'd mellow you out a little!" Ignoring the strange boy gaping at him a few feet away, Happousai shook himself to get rid of the ash that had covered him.
Ranma jerked back upon getting a good look at the tiny figure. It was the same old man from before; about two feet tall from head to toe, and mostly bald with a band of white hair above the ears and behind his head. The only other hair on him was a tiny mustache.
"Hey! You're that guy who jumped on my head before!"
Both Iori and Happousai turned to face Ranma.
"Eh? Stay outta this kid, you could get hurt," Happousai advised, producing a pipe and popping it into the corner of his mouth. Then he faced Iori once again. "I don't see what your problem is, Yagami. I mean, come on, you've actually done pretty good for yourself! Nice wife, two kids, a good job. 'Course, you're not making any progress on advancing or teaching your art, but hey, at least you're not a complete failure!"
Iori's expression didn't flinch. "Leave. NOW."
Happousai just smirked and stuck his tongue out at the redhead. "Ha! And what're you gonna do about it if I don't?"
At that moment, the elderly master sensed a sudden burst of power next to him, and Happousai's eyes bugged out as he saw Ranma's aura appear in a blossom of purple hellfire.
"Not making much progress in handing down the art, huh? Let me show you exactly how much progress he's made!" Ranma said, twitching. He didn't know who this resilient little geezer was, but it was obvious that he wasn't wanted here, and the old man had insulted him as Iori's student. Added to the fact that he hadn't been having the best of days, Ranma decided that this new distraction would be a perfect chance to vent some heat.

"Mom, Ranma's back!" Yurumi said excitedly, pointing out the window in the kitchen as her brother lit up like a purple airplane beacon. "I think he's going to fight that little wrinkled man with Dad!"
The redheaded girl blinked as Nodoka suddenly grabbed her arm, and pulled her away from the window. "Stay away from the window, Yurumi. It isn't safe."
"But Mo-om!" Yurumi whined, "I want to see the fight!"
"No!" Nodoka said sternly, "You get too close to fights as it is hanging around your brother! Now go to your room and stay there! It's dangerous!"

Happousai began to sweat as he looked back and forth between the large, redheaded man and the young pigtailed boy, both of whom burned with a dark energy that made his skin crawl.
This was not good. He had been fairly certain that he could beat Iori if it came down to a serious battle between them, but he could tell at a glance that the young one was strong enough to be troublesome as well, even without considering that he apparently also commanded the Yagami flames. There was no way he could take both of them; he knew Iori's fighting style well enough. It would only take one good opening, of which there would be plenty of in a two-on-one fight, for Iori to thrash him completely, and he really wasn't sure if his old student would stop before he was dead.
"Ah... so! Y-You must Iori's son!" Happousai said, trying to mask his nervousness as he planted his fists on his hips and faced Ranma. "So, what's your name, boy?"
"I'm Ranma," he growled, letting a fireball light up in his right hand. "Who are you?"
"The name's Happousai, m'boy!" Happousai said heartily, slowly inching to the side around Ranma to try and get the younger Yagami between him and the older one. "I must say, I'm surprised! I didn't think Iori had it in him to teach an heir! Well then, as his master, and the Grandmaster of the Anything-Goes School of Martial Arts, I'll have to judge your skill, boy! Gotta make sure my students are living up to their potential!"
"No," Iori's voice interrupted Ranma's hot-headed acceptance. "Stay away from my home, and away from my family."
Happousai glared at the larger man. "What's the matter with you?! I'm a busy man, you know! Here I take the time to come all the way to Tokyo to find you, and this is how you greet me? Is this any way to treat your master?"
"Hey! Geezer!" Ranma shouted, mindful of his father's decision toward the fight, but not willing to let the tiny old man go without punishment. "You heard the man! You're not wanted here! Gouka dan!" With that, Ranma snapped off a large, rolling fireball that writhed violently as it tore through the dirt toward Happousai, leaving a large, burnt gouge in the Earth behind it.
Happousai snorted as he hopped out of the way of the fireball easily, noting that it moved far slower than Iori's blasts. "Ha! Don't think you can bully me around, kiddo!" The fireball rumbled past him, and the old lecher smirked. "If it's a fight you want, then... hey... why are you smiling like that?"
KWA-BOOOOM!!

Yurumi blinked as there was a huge flash of purple that bled through the blinds of her bedroom window (despite it not being at an angle to view the battle outside), followed by a sudden tremor that caused her things on her shelves to bounce and shift slightly.
The young redhead pouted. "Aw... I wanted to watch the fight too..."

"YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THe last of meeeeeeeee-e-e-e-e......" Happousai's voice faded into the distance along with his soot-covered body, trailing smoke into the afternoon sky.
Iori watched his old master's ascent into the air, and then stared at the large, smoking crater in the middle of the front yard. 'Hmm. That technique again. Impressive, but... wasteful.' He didn't offer this criticism to Ranma, as the boy actually took some pride in the sheer destructive power he commanded. And besides that, such excessive and inefficient displays were good for intimidation; Ranma didn't have his father's knack for causing cold dread, so he needed some other way to make idiots like Happousai think twice about starting trouble.
"Good job," the redhead finally said to his son. "Sorry about the blast at the front door."
Ranma sweatdropped and chuckled a bit. "Eh heh... No problem. Stuff happens, right?" Even Ranma, used as he was to Iori's lack of expression, was hard pressed to accept the apology as genuine. Iori just had a strange way of talking about things like blowing up a front door in his son's face with the force of a plastique, as if the whole incident was trivial at worst. "But... seriously, was that weirdo really your master?"
Iori snorted. "Yes. He was. It's a long story." Then he turned around and gestured to Ranma as he entered the house. "Come in. And see if you can find something to close off the doorway."
Ranma sweatdropped again, glancing at the chunks of burnt wood and charred splinters that used to be the front door. "Uhm, yeah. Sure, Pop."

**********************************************************************************
End Chapter 13