What to say? I'm finally through the Writer's block (more like life block
) I finished playing Pirate Queen's Quest DLC (awesome!
), there are *two* chapters ahead that only have to be translated, I have solid feeling of Chapter 8 (10% in material, though) and know now exactly how to weave Chapter 9 joining Shantae's and Risky's stories plus my headcanon into one solid whole.
Already published this one @ fufunet:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12619961/5 ... nce-RumbleChapter 5
There Aint No such Thing As Too Much TrainingThe noise of Saotomes' morning spar haven't awakened the girls snoring, huddled together, beside the living room table. The TV was babbling some cheery nonsense for a while now.
Kasumi came, cast a disapproving look, turned the TV off and went away to hang freshly washed laundry.
Ranma and Genma finished their sparring, looked at the peacefully snoozing couple of friends and went upstairs to their room.
Souun came with a newspaper, sighed heavily, then sat down on the veranda-corridor platform, hanging his feet down to the garden.
For a while everything was quiet, with only sparrows chirping and the patriarch rustling his newspaper. Then a provisionally awake Nabiki trudged in, dressed in pyjamas, with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She stood there for about a minute, blinking slowly at the idyllic picture, then trudged back with renewed rustling of her toothbrush.
Everything was silent again. Akane turned over for an umpteenth time, wrapping herself in Shantae's mane.
Sounds of breakfast being prepared began reaching from the kitchen. Nabiki returned, dressed and almost awake, to sit down at the table opposite the all-nighters and stare at them contemplatively, with her hands propping her chin and her elbows on the table.
The sparrows got tired of chirping and scrammed. Someone's tiny dog yapped.
Akane turned over again, wrapping herself in hair even more thoroughly.
Kasumi came with a tray to serve the table. Sighing, she put the tray down on the floor and began shaking Akane.
The youngest Tendou mumbled incoherently, then stretched good, her fist hitting Shantae in the ear.
The half-Genie girl jumped up with a loud yell, her eyes wild. Wrapped in her hair, Akane got thrown up and spun around. Squawking, she landed on the floor and rolled away under Kasumi who jumped nimbly.
“With you, Little Sis, there is no need for circus,” Nabiki noted flatly, her elbows never leaving the table.
The patriarch cleared his throat.
“I'm sorry!” Shantae began apologizing. “I suddenly had that dream again, where burning sky is falling towards me...”
Akane was blinking in confusion, looking at everyone upside down as her legs ended propped up the wall.
“It's time for breakfast,” Kasumi said in a tone of disapproval.
“Gah!” Akane tubmled to her feet. “I'mverysorrywellgetbacksoon!” Grabbing Shantae by the hand she stampeded upstairs, a trailing mane of purple hair whipping around the corner.
“Please call Ranma and—” the eldest sister began, but the youngest was already gone. She turned to Nabiki: “Please call Ranma and—”
“No need to, we're here!” Ranma hastily stopped her as he came from the stairs, his sixth sense warning him somehow of this danger.
Kasumi was finishing when the victims of television emerged again, yawning and not yet fully awake. Akane was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, Shaantae wore Ranma's black pants and a black sleeveless sports shirt with English “happy” in white letters so weathered it read more like “harpy”. The letters were powerless to mask the fact that the girl didn't have a bra on.
“I tried,” Akane said tersely when she noticed where Ranma's eyes have wandered.
Kasumi's face suddenly showed such reproaching expression that everyone at the table began fidgeting nervously... until they noticed her customary red, pointy shoes on Shantae's feet.
“We don't wear shoes in the house!” Akane explained hastily.
The pointy-eared girl slid the shoes off her feet to replace them in her hidden weapons technique. Without bending down! Ranma barely held himself from boggling.
“Haven't we forgotten someone?” Genma asked innocently as he broke his chopsticks.
“Ryouga!” Ranma jumped to his feet, about to run, but then returned and handed his plate to Akane with a short “hold onto it”.
“You are growing up, my son!” Genma got emotional after losing his chance for a freebie.
They were almost done with their breakfast when Ranma dragged the eternally lost one in, still trying to inquire how he got in the shed. Ryouga was talking back lazily.
After the breakfast everyone gathered in the dojo. Ranma steered Ryouga there manually. Shantae stayed in her black outfit, more practical and comfortable for practicing her style.
The fathers and sisters sat along the wall. Ranma, Ryouga and Shantae stood in the center.
“The beatdown dummy is ready.” Ranma demonstrated a thick, processed log half his height long.
“It would be prudent to go over the basics,” Souun noted. “Istinctive Ki usage is half the work done, but without conscious understanding the progress would be very slow and inefficient.”
“Magic may complicate things,” Nabiki added. “How much do magic and Ki differ? Wouldn't one get in the way of sensing the other?”
“An interesting question,” Genma said. “We wouldn't know until we try. Ranma?”
The younger Saotome coughed, putting the log in front of himself and placing his hands on it like a viking looking from on high leaning on his sword.
“So, Ki,” he began in lecturing voice. “It is manifestation of Chi energy that flows through everything that is, but is especially plentiful in living things. Martial arts training lets one touch this unlimited potential bringing it out in the form of martial spirit. As to: spirit of toughness that makes you tougher, spirit of strength lets you lift much more than muscles alone allow and jump much higher. The spirit of aggression, also known as battle aura, is the basis for many techniques. Killing intent allows some masters to paralyze their opponent like a snake staring a rabbit down. But it also lets anyone with modest training sense an attack from their blind zone. Even Akane could do that! While concealing your killing intent is a whole tricky school on its own.”
“So I gather some natiral energy inside me,” Shantae clarified, “to shape it with my willpower into specific spirit, then shape that spirit into a specific form?”
“That's simplifying things, but yes. The real trick, though, are the techniques.”
“That's exactly as one describes magic and spells!” Shantae proclaimed.
“But Ki and magic are different thing,” Nabiki noted. “Besides you admitting it yourself, the lamp had not a slightest effect on Ryoga's Lion Roar Blast.”
“Let's try a simplest meditation,” Genma decided.
Shantae sat down cross-legged as he walked her through a basic exercise for beginners to feel one's own Ki for the first time.
Se was doing well — too well. Barely a minute has passed when the girl trying to meditate was surrounded by an aura of white light.
“Hey, it's just my magic!” Shantae exclaimed with disappointment as she opened her eyes. “No wonder this exercise felt familiar.”
“Not surprising,” Souun said. “The difference is only in the energy source. Humans have Ki, youkai have yoki, half-bloods have unique problem how to tell these apart.
“Youkai?” Ranma asked.
“There are humans and there are magical creatures, Ranma-kun,” the mustachoed middle-aged man explained. “These two types are who inhabits our world and who you have a chance to meet. There are different names for the same thing in different lands, but that doesn't change their essence. If there are other types beside these two, meeting them should be so rare it's unheard of. Any mentions of demond from hell, for example, turn out to be either poetic exaggeration or allegory of brutality.”
“So you haven't really seen Hell, huh?” Ranma needled Ryouga. “It's a poetic exaggeration, turns out?”
“Shaddap,” the other guy grumbled. “It's allegory of brutality of the suffering you subjected me to.”
“Tendo-kun got it right,” Genma said. “By rumors, many higher youkai who posess a human form have pointy ears.”
“Hmm,” Shantae pulled at her ear toughtfully. “So I should take `youkai` as `magical creature` in general...? Then Genies fit. Do you know any half-bloods?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Genma admitted. “I only met one in the last fifteen years, but it was long ago, in the very beginning of our training journey when Ranma was a little kid. And that half-blood had disappeared a couple years later. Ran away with the daughter of the shrine's head priest or something like that. I wasn't prying into their affairs.”
“Maybe we can find him?” Shantae asked, hopeful. “Well, we can ask that head priest. It couldn't be that his daughter never passed him any messages, right?”
Ranma noted to self how get-up-and-go the half-Genie girl was, suggesting going on a lengthy quest for such a vague clue without second thought.
“We shouldn't.” Genma cleared his throat. “We don't have.. best relationship with the Higurashi shrine.”
“You've probably stolen their scrolls,” Ranma inquired nicely. “With techniques.”
“Nothing the like!” Genma straightened his glasses in indignation. “No scrolls! Only that manual for the Neko-k— Anyway! I suggest we go back to our previous plan and tackle the problem from the practical side. Ryouga-kun?”
“If you fear for your secrets of the cutting Ki,” Ranma `reassured` the lost boy, “then keep in mind that Pop got something similar already. A flying air blade or something.”
“That's a forbidden technique!” the elder Saotome rebutted preemptively. “Don't even ask teaching it to you!”
Ranma lifted the log up holding it in front of him vertically by its ends.
“Before we begin,” Shantae said as she stood up. “There is a possible clue. If you can figure out how this stuff works...” She pulled a white plastic bottle from her subspace pocket, its side adorned with a label depicning an open toothy maw. “It helped me many times to get out of really tight spots. I hit three times stronger but it fills me with such rage... Brrr.” She unscrewed the cap. “So I thought: does it act through my Ki or is it just another form of magic?”
“We will... try discerning it,” Genma worded cautiously, all attention.
“All right!” Shantae nodded, uncharacteristically serious. “I begin!” She mage a big gulp from the bottle, only to scrunch her face up in disgust: “Yeech! It went sour again! It won't probab—”
Rage mixed with killing intent exdploded from the half-Genie girl, so powerful even Nabiki felt it. Ranma twitched: his reflexes were screaming at him to take a defensive stance right now instead of standing there wide open holding the log.
“Die, you parasitic piece of wood!” Shantae yelled attacking the log, her power really tripled. Ranma was being pushed back. “Hiyah! Take that! Hhha!” Her strikes weren't coming any faster but each hit with consuderable force. The Ki of aggression overflowing the girl began seeping out as aura of bluish-red glow visible to the naked eye.
This induced rage stopped sharply and unexpectedly.
“So when sour it works for a very short while,” Shantae concluded as she studied deep dents in the wood with displeasure. “But the rage wasn't any weaker... What you say? I'm awfully curious.”
“That was definitely, unmistakably, an emotion-based Ki-strenghtening,” Genma declared. “How exactly this... potion causes such a state, I have no idea, but the strenghtening itself works because of the emotion. There are definite parallels with Ryouga-kun's technique and the technique that Ranma created from it.”
“So I can learn to enter such rage on my own,” Shantae clarified, “if I train properly?”
“Hypothetically, yes,” Genma replied evasively.
“Only, Grandma Cologne warned about the dangers of such easy ways,” Nabiki injected. “Right, ranma-kun?”
“Well, rage is not the emotion I would want to get used to,” he said putting the log down. “I, personally, use a positive emotion, self-confidence. But even this one has its pitfalls. But negative emotions — like Ryouga's depression or the rage you really shouldn't learn — they are like a snake biting its own tail. Lose control once and it goes downhill fast.”
Rouga just snorted derisively at these concerns for worrywart weaklings.
“Here.” Akane walked up to him to hand him a gymnastic ribbon from the dojo stores.
Ryouga took the sports implement by its handle and... The ribbon came lo life dancing in the air in elegant loops and spirals. In the end he slashed it sharply a couple times like a whip, producing loud snaps.
Shantae grew quite interested. Ryouga handed the ribbon to her.
“Interesting techniques!” Shantae tugged at the ribbon testing how much it stretched. “And interesting fabric. I'm not sure you can find such in our land.”
“Take it if you want,” Akane immediately replied from the row of spectators. “As my gift to you.”
“Thank you!” Shantae said, grateful.
“So, ribbon.” Ryouga said attracting her attention. Taking the ribbon back he whirled it in the air in a spiral. “There are three main uses. You can grab things by wrapping it around them, then tugging sharply like you strike a fish.” He demonstrated on the log tugging at it off-hand which made the log lift into the air together with the log bearer, accompanied with Ranma's indignant “Hey!” as he barely got his fingers away. “You can transfer the energy of your strike.” He slashed at the log making Ranma skid back half a meter, his bare feet squeaking across the polished floor. “And you can cut. This wasn't in the rhythmic gymnastics, I added it myself.” He slashed again, seemingly in the same motion but this time Ranma didn't even show reaction while a curl of shaved off wood flew off the log.
“Now you try it.” He handed the ribbon to Shantae.
She tried waving it around this way and that, getting accustomed to it. Very soon she was confidently imitating her hair whip technique. She then tried whipping the log. Her aim was true, but the effect was like it should be from a strip of fabric, namely none.
“Feel the ribbon like an extension of your body,” Ranma adviced. “It's the same as techniques where you channel your Ki through a weapon. Take Kunou-sempai, for example. Smart like an oak but cuts stone walls with his wooden sword none the less.”
“Aha,” Shantae said and began trying in that direction.
Twenty minutes of grunting and whipping later there was still no result. Not Genma's hints, not Ranma's taunts nor Akane's “we believe in you” helped.
“Extension of my body, extension of my body...” Shantae grumbled staring at the ribbon in her hands. “Oh! I got an idea!” letting the ribbon drop she dug her hands into her hair to pull one single hair out, pulling it through the hub with effort.
“Want to wrap it around the ribbon?” Ranma guessed.
Shantae grunted in agreement, busy with her task: the hub was hugging her hair very snugly. The mystery of how does she put this thing on was itching with unsatisfied curiosity.
Finally, almost one and a half meters later, the single hair was pulled out completely. Shanae tried ripping it out this way and that, and by wrapping it around her finger, but she only succeeded in cutting her fingers. They had to get the first aid kit and bandage her hands as the girl herself thought of this as minor scratch not worth wasting healing potion.
“Let me bring scissors,” Ranma suggested.
“No need to,” Shantae replied. “I figured what to do.”
Lifting her left arm to her head she wrapped the hair around the bracer, wound it tight, pulled with all her strength... And failed.
“That's some durability.” Ranma was amazed. “You could be lifted by a single hair!”
Shantae emitted an irritated sound as she brought her second arm to bear, pushing at the bracer with all her might. Finally the hair tore out. By the root, judging by the tiny drop of blood at its end.
“Ow.” Shantae rubbed her head. “I always knew my hair is hard to rip out, but I had no idea how much!” Putting the end of the hair to the ribbon handle she slid her hand along the ribbon. The hair stuck along as if it was electrized. “Let's try it now.”
The ribbon was truly alive now, obeying, it seemed, Shantae's very thought. The half-Genie girl began whipping at speeds barely perceptible to the trained eye: moving one's hand with an almost weightless ribbon is quite different from moving one's entire body.
The effect on the log, though, remained zilch. It took five more minutes of advices, lectures and friendly encouraging before Ranma reported: “I felt it! It shook!”
Her enthusiasm blazing, the half-Genie girl renewed her assault on the log with twice the energy, trying for now to just mimic the effect of her hair whip. She even whipped it a couple times with her hair to feel the difference.
After half an hour of effort she learned to turn the ribbon into pale imitation of her main weapon. The striking power was several times weaker, but the speed was much higher.
But the power of her hair whip haven't increased at all.
“No surprise here,” Shantae said. “I learned to whip my hair when I was eight and trained almost every day since. I haven't grown stronger since I was twelve, I think. Either this is my limit or some non-trivial trick is needed to break through. No matter, that can wait! I want to learn a new technique!”
And so the grabbing practice began: first with the ribbon, then with the hair. With the ribbon again, with the hair again.
Ryouga was sitting at the wall feeling useless. Nabiki got bored of simply sitting there and began doing stretching exercises, making Ryouga uncomfortable. Akane followed her example and took up dumbbells. Kasumi excused herself and left to take care of the house. The fathers watched for a while and decided their advices weren't needed here. Shantae proved to be a true master of her own school and was now creating a new technique methodically and carefully, they would only get in her way. Exchanging glances, Souun and Genma went to take care of the dug up lawn: this state was becoming embarrassing.
They also dragged with them anyone who could help in the hard task of landscaping.
Ranma was busy being a training dummy. They did not risk asking Ryouga lest he reaches the other side of the yard in a month, bringing souvenirs from Hokkaido. They didn't even dare thinking about Nabiki, apprehensive of how much such help would cost. So `anyone who could help` consisted of Akane.
Leaving the training hall with great reluctance — because her best friend just performed a throw of Ranma, the log included, over her head — the youngest Tendou went on a shopping trip to buy seeds. Blissfully unaware this was the fathers' ploy to keep her away from earthwork, wary of her handiwork record. Alas, they were sure she'd break the lawn if they let her.
Finding grass seeds on Sunday was a whole quest. Akane had to zig-zag half across the town, even riding trains a couple times, before she found what she was searching for and returned home. That had been hour and half of running, no less!
“Have you already—” Akane began peeking into the dojo in cheery anticipation.
Only to choke on her own words.
There were no Ranma, no Ryouga, no log anymore. Instead, there was Nabiki, dressed in Ranma's other pair of silk pants and a bikini top, studiously swaying her hips under Shantae's tutelage.
“No, no, smoother,” the pointy-eared girl commanded while clacking the rhythm with a couple of wooden sandals. “Keep your back straighter... Good. Now, sharper finish.”
Nabiki, uncharacteristically for her, obeyed without complaint, frowning in concentration.
“No,” Shantae corrected her. “Lighter... I mean, more cheerful. Feelings are important! You cannot frown: you'd become too stiff and it won't go smoothly!”
Nabiki tried to relax, a smile blooming on her face... A very charming one, for those who didn't know her closely.
“This feels a bit too predatory.” Shantae managed to see through it. “Never mind. You can go that way, too. Now smoother. More. Keep your back straight.”
“What...” Akane squeaked trying to overcome her stupefaction. “What are you...”
“Learning how to dance,” the middle sister replied innocently. “Isn't that obvious?”
“Your arms,” the half-Genie corrected her instantly. “Smoother, like rolling waves. You keep slipping to a wounded seagull.”
“Bugger,” Nabiki replied frowning in concentration as she tried to watch all her body parts at once.
“Cheer up!” Shantae reminded her, never stopping to clack the rhythm. “Don't frown, be weightless!”
Akane retreated quietly, fearing for her sanity.
Outside she found Ranma leaning against the wall. He wasn't there a minute ago! Did he just come or had he been so well hidden...? Try tell.
“I'd join too,” the pigtailed martial artist admitted, “If I had the girl form now.”
“I thought you can't stand it?” Akane inquired with sarcasm. “Your curse?”
“Well...” her fiance replied sheepishly. “It's bad where I have it, it's bad when I don't have it.”
“Aha! You admitted it, pervert girl,” Akane needled him half-heartedly.
Ranma just snorted thinking how lack of attention aimed at him — both from the fathers and other fiancees — turns the uncute one from a trained attack shrew into a normal human being you can even have a conversation with.
But maybe it wasn't that she was a violent maniac, just her life was that stressful? Ranma wasn't sure he could survive without a normal sparring partner for months and not start banging his head against the wall.
They stood there for a while in silence. Not one full of tension and apprehension of someone going to hit someone, but calm one, reflective even. Akane was squinting at the clouds drifting in the bright sky.
Then she said, just to make small talk, while still looking at the clouds: “She is amazing, isn't she? Shantae. I've never met a girl who takes training so seriously.”
“Well... She's too weak for a protector of entire town,” Ranma shared his observations. “Especially for someone training so hard.”
“What...?” Akane pouted looking at him sharply.
“I mean,” Ranma hastily corrected himself, “it's clear she started training that hard just recently... I mean, there are not enough results for her inventiveness coupled with such fervor. I'd give half a year, tops.”
“Really?” Akane grew so curious she even forgot to pout. “Why so?”
“Well, she got potential,” Ranma continued with caution as he stepped onto the usual minefield. “I can... feel it. If she trained that hard since childhood she'd make
me work up sweat, not just Shampoo. And if she was that good with her magic there'd be a chance for her to bring Happi down one-on-one... So, it means she trains so hard only for the last months. Also, the monsters where she lives are weak but come in hordes. You'd feel there at home, after your last year's training with the morning horde, heh-heh.”
Akane launched a half-hearted slap at the back of his head. He evaded it with a laugh. Then he added, in more serious tone: “Something had happened there. Something that makes one want to become stronger desperately.”
“Probably,” Akane agreed with a sigh. “I won't pry. I'm just glad she is with us.”
At this moment their slacking off was noticed by the fathers — who themselves were digging and raking with all the energy of a man meditating at a rock garden. Ranma was volunteered to plant seeds. Rake the earth, sprinkle it with seeds, shoo the pigeons away, pat it down carefully to avoid leaving loose ground, shoo the pigeons away, repeat in another place. Shooing the pigeons away.
Kasumi was walking around applying the watering-can. Akane was shooing the pigeons away with mighty swings of her broom. She even launched a couple feathered rats to low Earth orbit thanks to direct hits. The ninja builders had repaired the fence wall, but the lawn was threatening to stay a problem for the next week if not longer, until the grass sprouts and takes root.
Souun, in the end, excused himself saying it was their genius plan, so they had to deal with its fallout while he had an unread newspaper was unread and stuff. Ranma and Genma climbed up to the roof, to replace a few tiles that were too badly damaged.
The lawn was done and Akane was standing in a relaxed pose, her hand on the broom, ready to smack any free-peckers. Shantae walked out of the dojo accompanied by Nabiki toweling herself off.
“It had been a long time since you trained so... seriously,” Akane noted: although her sister was breathing evenly, she held her shoulders unnaturally stiff. Her gait was a bit unnatural as well. Her short brown hair was matted with sweat, a frazzled mop instead of her usual immaculate bob-cut. “Have you covered much?”
“Much?” the other girl replied sarcastically as she carefully flexed her shoulders. “I'm just at the foothills of the first kata.”
“Master this move, then seven more,” Shantae said, “then you could be called a beginner dancer.”
“Exactly,” Nabiki agreed. “I have mountains of work ahead of me, every day, until my arms and legs refuse to obey.”
“You always told us you have no talent for the Art!” Akane was indignant.
“For the family one, true,” Nabiki replied, nonplussed. “But this one, I feel it calling to me.”
“The dance of a little shark,” Shantae quiped.
“Ouch, sensei!” Nabiki stumbled away in mock shock. “You are as always very insightful!”
“Why?” Akane couldn't understand. “What is in it for you? Learning a whole school?”
“Why? It's
fun!” Nabiki smirked, flexing her shoulders, then winced. “And for the profit, of course. Ouch.”
“You were always afraid of pain,” Akane said, much quieter.
“You misunderstood something, Little Sis,” Nabiki replied seriously, looking her in the eyes. “It's not question of aversion, it's the
principle of things. My credo is `if you feel pain it means you either played dumb somewhere of slacked in your training to dodge`.”
“Or you were unlucky to get in the way of an invading horde,” Shantae corrected. “Though, in my case this is more true for the hordes themselves.”
“I wish I could see your world,” Nabiki said dreamily, overtaken by unhealthy curiosity. She then asked a question no one had thought to ask till now, by some reason: “By the way, how did you end in our world?”
“Mmmm...” The pointy-eared girl fell silent, deep in thought for a considerable while. She was emitting occasional grunts. Finally she admitted in a too casual voice: “I can't remember.”
“You can't?” Akane was shocked.
“Well, what do you remember then?” Nabiki wasn't giving up, her curiosity piqued. “You were chasing Happousai, right? What was before that?”
“Mmm... I was chasing happousai who snatched the lamp... How did he do that? It should be on the bottom of the sea, no one knows exactly where, and the sea is big.”
“On the bottom of the sea?” Akane asked.
“Well, we had threw it into the sea,” Shantae explained like it was obvious. “But that was a long time ago, half a year or more.”
“All right,” Nabiki continued. “Here you are, chasing Happousai who has the lamp which isn't on the sea floor somehow. And before that...? What do you remember before the chase?”
The half-Genie fell silent again, deep in thought. Finally she said: “Before that, there's a hole. Like when you go to sleep, then wake up. You can remember yourself going to sleep, then remember yourself awake. But the moment of falling asleep itself... It's similar here. Before that... I brought Uncle the iron slab. He spent half day forging the wheel while I was cleaning the fields of monsters who had encroached since last time. Then we all got together, put the hamster in the finished dynamo, Dooky began running, all this machinery began spinning... Mmm... Then I was chasing Happousai knowing somehow he had the lamp.”
Nabiki was going to ask more probing questions, but discussing such serious topics as suspiciously selective amnesia...? In this house...?
“My belowed Shampoo!” Mousse proclaimed as he squished Shantae in a strong hug. She let out an indignant squawk.
“Hey, Mousse, you kinda grabbed the wrong gal,” Ranma gave friendly advice from the roof.
Shantae made a tricky squirming motion pulling free to immediately put her foot against the blind guy's jaw, thus preventing any further grabbing: “Keep your hands to yourself!”
“What a dexterous move to free yourself,” Nabiki buttered up. “Mousse, I would advice you to return your glasses to your nose.”
“Ah, just a skill of my trade,” the half-Genie demurred.
Mousse followed the advice, squinted at Shantae, then declared accusingly: “You are not Shampoo!”
“Eeh?” She was taken aback.
“Meet Mousse,” Nabiki introduced him. “Shampoo's suitor who couldn't tell his love from a phone booth without his glasses but stubbornly keeps them on his forehead.”
“What did you do to Shampoo!” the white-robed guy demanded. “Where is she?”
“Um, I have no idea?” the dancer supplied, puzzled. “She promised to come for a rematch, but never showed up.”
“Hold your horses, water-fowl!” Ranma added. “She hadn't been here today! Go find her yourself!”
“Just you wait!” Mousse promised menacingly. “If you did something to her!” He then left by leaping over the fence.
“A huge jerk, I warned ya,” Ranma added from the roof.
“What have you meant by `skill of your trade`?” Nabiki asked, curious. “A Guardian Genie technique?”
“Naw, naw,” Shantae corrected. “I'm taking occasional side jobs dancing at the night club. You wouldn't believe how many fans get irretention of hands after a good dance!”
“Oooh, I see.” Nabiki said, her eyes half-lidded.
Akane shivered remembering the morning hordes of the last year, before Ranma appeared and chased them away. If anyone had irretention of hands, it was them for sure.
At this moment Kasumi called everyone to supper. Somehow, the half-Genie's mysterious past never came up after that.
After the supper it was the fathers' turn to be volunteered, their plans for a quiet evening on the veranda dashed. Akane bursting with enthusiasm proved to be irresistible force.
Shantae changed into gi but left her hair in the combat do. Kasumi achieved the impossible by convincing her that gi and without a bra were mutually exclusive.
They continued like yesterday, taking turns. Shantae was attacking exactly as she did yesterday, Akane was growing accustomed to her moves. But the defense of the half-Genie girl was based today on her newly invented technique of grabbing and throwing with her hair. For Akane this sparring turned into an endless row of desperate dodges and landings from forced tumble. But she was simply glad of being pounded at her weak spot: her defense!
Akane wasn't trying to vary her moves, concentrating on performing them faster and incorporating dodges smoother. She was becoming not half bad at rolling and tumbling.
They had this fun for several hours until the two girls could barely stand. They limped out of the dojo hurting all over but very satisfied. After returning from the bath, both accreted in front of the TV, Shantae wearing her now usual black garb while Akane was dressed in blouse and shorts.
Shampoo came after the diner to observe thoroughly exhausted Shantae with sceptical eye.
The dark skinned girl apologized for not being able and stuff.
“Great-grandmother says,” the Chinese girl dictated, “If she trains herself into the ground again, tell her to come tomorrow before sunrise.”
“Errr, all right,” Shantae agreed. “I am beginning to look undependable, what with promising to come myself. That was two days ago. Tell her I will definitely come!”
Nodding in agreement Shampoo left peacefully.
The Sunday come to an end.
“Would we be training tomorrow?” Shantae asked looking into sunset sky, her eyes refusing to stay open.
“No, it's a school day tomorrow,” Akane disappointed her.
“You are going to school...? Working there?”
“We are studying there!”
“How studying?” Shantae was surprised. “But you are... Until what age are you people learning here?”
“Well, we have a year and a bit more left, til we turn eighteen.”
“Wow! You can learn a lot of things! So, every one of you is a scholar?”
“Scholar...?” Akane began counting on her fingers. “Calculus, physics, chemistry, literature, home economics, English, history—”
“Wait,” Shantae interrupted her. “That one... repeat it please, `eng-lish`?”
“English,” Akane repeated, puzzled.
“I got double hearing,” Shantae explained squeezing her eyes shut and massaging her temples. “I hear both `eigo` and `old world language` at the same time.”
“Old world? Did your people come to your world from another one?”
“Weeell, it seems our world was rich like yours long time ago,” the half-Genie girl explained with some doubt. “And then it went kaput, somehow. So now everything new is thoroughly forgotten old that relic hunters scrounge from ancient ruins. And Eng..lish was the language of that old world. There are lots of words and ever whole sayings left from it, take my spells for example, but the language itself is dead. If they find an ancient text written in it, oooh. The scholars would dechipher it for three years, squabbling and tearing at each other's beards!”
“Let me wish for you to know it!” Akane suggested.
“Won't work,” Shantae declined sharply. “Fulfilling wishes doesn't work for yourself, it worked that time only because you sister was worrying from the depth of her heart for you all while I knew how dangerous the lamp was. Well, also because I am half-human.”
“Can't cheat?” Akane asked already knowing the answer.
“Can't cheat. It simply is that way. I can feel that.”
“What do we do.” Akane was sincerely chagrined.
“I can live knowing two,” Shantae reassured her.
“I know!” Akane got an idea. “We'll sneak you into the school! We just have to disguise you.”
Shantae found the idea of disguise fascinating. After that the two BFFs dragged themselves to the bath while still able to keep their ayes open. Naturally, they fell asleep in the bath until Kasumi pulled them out by their ears. What else could she do, they weren't waking up.