Author's Notes: You guys are awesome. Seriously, I was absolutely inundated with cool and interesting suggestions of media and entertainments that would be available in the nebulous timezone of the Ranma canon, which has given me a lot of neat things to use for verisimilitude and even a few small plot seeds. Thank you all so much!

Pensuka: The simple version? The only girl Shampoo would canonically respect enough to consider invoking that law for is Ukyo, and Shampoo is confident that she can win Ranma all to herself and that she doesn't need to invoke that law, which is a rare and exceptional occurrence anyway.

Tarrangar: Of course there are such laws. It just wasn't relevant to mention them at that moment.

Pyromania101: Who? (looks her up) ...Oh. Now that you mention it, I can kind of see the resemblance...

Tribun: Yes, Akane still has her long hair. I really need to work on making that clearer, I'm sorry.

Chapter 13: Bloom, Oh Black Rose of Vengeance! Part 2

Ryoga idly drummed his fingers on the tabletop, trying to look anywhere other than the older teenager sitting across from him. Kodachi had led him to her home, alright - a huge mansion, not the little cottage he had seen the previous evening. 'What the heck is that place even for, anyway? Her own personal cabin?' He wondered.

Kuno calmly turned a page in the old-looking book he was reading, not even looking up at Ryoga. "So... you have returned," he observed.

"It wasn't my choice!" Ryoga protested tiredly. 'Stupid direction sense...'

"You didn't seem to be fighting my sister too hard," Kuno pointed out.

"What? Oh... yeah, she and I made a deal. We're going to team up against Ranma," the Eternally Lost Boy explained awkwardly, wincing at how stilted he sounded even to himself. 'Wow, I suck at making small talk...'

"I see... Tell me, Hibiki," Kuno asked, looking up from his book to direct an inquisitive gaze at Ryoga. "Whence forth this determination to best Saotome? Surely it cannot be over something as minor as a bread feud, especially since Saotome already attempted to apologize for that..."

"It's not the bread so much as what happened after the bread," Ryoga explained quietly after a long pause. "When Ranma vanished before I got the fight, I went after him to try and finish things. I eventually managed to catch up with him in China..."

"But Saotome acted as if your debut on Furinkan's grounds was the first time he had seen you in years," Kuno pointed out bemusedly.

"We didn't exactly recognize each other when we met, and we only met briefly," Ryoga bitterly replied.

"What? But... oh! You fought in Jusenkyo?" Kuno asked, realization dawning as he put the pieces together. Despite the impression his hamfisted pursuit of Akane gave, the elder Kuno was actually rather bright... just single-minded and prone to going on odd mental trajectories.

"If you can call it a fight... asshole knocked me into a spring without looking!" Ryoga grumbled.

"So... you also turn into a woman when splashed with cold water?" Kuno hesitantly asked.

And with that, Kuno unwittingly tore open an old wound and gave it a good twist in the process. "Hah! I wish I turned into a girl! It'd be so much better than the curse I got! Ranma thinks he's cursed? HA!" Ryoga spat, eyes glowing with hate as he fell back into dark, bitter memories.

"...Surely you're exaggerating? I mean, one curse is much the same as another, isn't it?" Kuno warily responded.

"Hah! A girl stays roughly the same height instead of shrinking down to a fraction of the size! A girl still has opposable thumbs so she can open doors and turn taps and make hot water! A girl can talk to people! And when people see a lost girl, they offer her help, they don't try to cook her for dinner!" Ryoga snarled, slamming a fist down onto the table and only managing to catch himself at the last moment, so the wood audibly cracked from the impact. "I tell you, compared to turning into a stupid pig, turning into a girl is the height of luxury! Ranma doesn't know how good he has iti!"

"Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ha! I never knew that you felt so strongly about the virtues of womanhood, Ryoga!" came an amused cackle from behind them.

Ryoga nearly jumped out of his seat, his spine crawling from both the shock and the auditory assault on his eardrums. "K-K-Kodachi! How much did you hear?!" he blurted out.

"Since you confessed to being cursed like Ranma," the female scion of the House of Kuno replied, grinning a devil's grin.

"I must say, that's quite ironic... poetic, even. Almost as if the fates destined the two of you to duel," she mused, trailing off and staring into space as she momentarily glot lost in her thoughts.

"Uh... sure," Ryoga replied slowly. 'Wow, what is her deal?'.

"So... um, where did you go?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"To complete arrangements for your stay here. This is our manservant, Saske," she declared, gesturing to a figure that Ryoga hadn't noticed before, having been hiding literally in the teenage girl's shadow. It was a small, homely man, with a bucktoothed face that Ryoga instinctively, if rudely, compared to some kind of rodent, clad in what looked like a traditional ninja garb of pale red and faded gray. "He will be your personal guide as you stay here, leading you wherever you need during your time at the estate when I am not directly supervising you. I have also prepared a room for you, which Sasuke will escort you to."

"Wow... um, thanks?" Ryoga said, trying his best to be polite. "But... I thought we were going to prepare to get revenge on Ranma?"

"Whilst a brute like you may be used to making your way through the world without rest, I am possessed of a more delicate constitution and require my sleep," Kodachi icily retorted, a haughty sniff turning her nose up for good measure.

"And in that vein, I bid thee both adieu for the night," she declared, before sweeping out of the room complete with gust of rose petals.

Ryoga watched her go, unable to help himself. "Strange girl.." he muttered with supreme bemusement.

"In truth, my sister has always had a penchant for the dramatic," Tatewaki confessed with an embarrassed grimace on his face. "But if you have a moment before retiring...?"

"Yeah?" Ryoga asked. Then the pieces clicked and his eyes went wide, before he held up a hand in a warding gesture. "Whoa, wait, I have no intention of putting the moves on your sister, I swear it !" he blurted out.

'I mean, okay, yeah, she's kind of cute... but she's also crazy... not that I'm stupid enough to say either of those things to her brother!'

"As much as I am relieved to hear that," Tatewaki responded, face twisting into a perturbed expression that all brothers get when forced to contemplate their feminine siblings dating. "What I intended to ask was if you would be willing to assist my training, being that we share a mutual rival."

"...What?" Ryoga asked, blinking as he did so. Did this family live in a perpetual state of 'coming out of left field' or what?

"It has... come to my attention that my unarmed skills require... remedial work," Tatewaki reluctantly admitted, and Ryoga was fascinated to note almost physical pain when the other boy acknowledged the failing. "But such training requires a tutor. Given your brutish fighting style, and the fact we are both determined to prove ourselves superior to Ranma Saotome, you seem an acceptable choice. Will you assist me in this venture? After all, you are a guest in my home..."

'Wow, this guy makes asking for a favor sound so backwards,' Ryoga mused. "...Alright, sure, I can do that. But tomorrow, alright? I want to get some sleep."

"But of course. Sasuke! Take Mr. Hibiki to his quarters," Tatewaki ordered.

"At once, Master Kuno!" the little ninja responded, bowing his head. "If Master Hibiki will please follow me?"

Wordlessly, Ryoga stood up from his seat, and Sasuke set off, with Ryoga following close behind.

The next morning, at the Tendo Dojo...

"Again, stupid old man?! How long you do this?!" came an angry feminine shriek.

"I always wake my son up this way! If it bothers you so much, stop sneaking into his bed!" came the booming baritone retort.

'Well, at least I never have to worry about being late for class,' Nabiki mused, grabbing her camera from her bedside table and doublechecking that it was loaded with fresh film before hurrying over to her window. 'But the real bright side is how much extra pocket money this is going to make me!'

"Shampoo have right to share bed with husband!" the Chinese Amazon protested vehemently, thrusting out her chest in protest and giving Nabiki a perfect money-shot in the process.

"And what about Nabiki? Doesn't she have that right too?" Genma shot back.

"Course she do! Not Shampoo fault she never there - Shampoo not kicking her out of bed!" the Joketsuzoku protested indignantly. Then she stopped and looked puzzled. "Actually... Shampoo never see Nabiki in Ranma's bed, or in Ranma's bath... Maybe she feeling sick?" she suggested, sounding legitimately concerned at the idea.

Nabiki felt her cheeks grow warm at the mental images that her unwanted co-wife's words conjured... not that this stopped her from snapping up the perfect chance to take a shot that wasn't of Shampoo in mid-motion.

Even Genma momentarily looked thoughtful. "Now that you mention it, he is a little slower than I expected, given how obviously he's in love with Nabiki..." he conceded, rubbing his chin contemplatively.

"Will you two stop talking about me like I'm not here?!" Ranma spluttered in protest, springing forward in a pair of spinkicks directed first at his father, and then at Shampoo, although presumably from sheer embarrassment, his attacks were fairly halfhearted, with both of his targets easily dodging his assaults.

'Huh, that's weird... then again, I don't think I've ever really seen Ranma fight a girl, before? I mean, he took Akane down the first night he showed up, but he didn't exactly hit her. Same deal with Shampoo when she first arrived... gotta ask him about that later,' Nabiki mused, even as she kept up her private photoshoot of the Chinese Amazon.

Down below, the morning spar had degenerated into an open three-way free-for-all, with Genma openly taunting both teens, but Shampoo proving as willing to attack Ranma as she was Genma, although the smile on her face when she attacked her unwilling husband suggested that Shampoo's motives weren't malicious, but some strange martial artist expression of affection that made no sense to Nabiki.

Meanwhile, at the Kuno estate...

"Ooof!"

Ryoga winced as Tatewaki hit the ground with all the grace and dignity of a rice sack, the impact leaving the uppercrust teen momentarily stunned. "Sorry... you did ask me to demonstrate that move," he apologetically reminded him.

"Ugh... I... fight... on!" Tatewaki growled, rolling over and forcing himself to his feet. With an impressive kiyai, he charged at Ryoga... who simply caught him at the last moment and used the Kuno scion's own momentum against him, sweeping him off of his feet and into a headlock.

"As I was saying, even with just basic grappling techniques, there's more to it than simply rushing blindly at your opponent," Ryoga chided, ignoring the feeble way that Kuno flailed his arms in an attempt to break free.

"Your point is taken... now let me go!" Tatewaki growled.

Ryoga promptly did as he was asked... whilst also kicking his 'student' in the rump and propelling him through the air to land squarely on his face. "For what it's worth, you're doing better than I thought you would," the Eternally Lost Boy assured the incumbent Kuno.

"Why does that bring me little comfort?" Tatewaki muttered darkly.

As he began pushing himself upright again, a breathy peal of hysterical laughter echoed across the expansive gardens of the Kuno estate. "Why, brother dear; you look so fitting like that! Whoever knew that all it took was a little dust on your cheeks to bring out the real you?" Kodachi teased.

"Begone, my twisted sibling, you disrupt my training!" Tatewaki thundered, glowering at his little sister once he had stood back up.

"Unfortunately, brother dear, it is time for you to get prepared, or you will be late for school," Kodachi informed him.

Tatewaki's face paled. "That is the time already? How could I get so distracted?! Sasuke! Sasuke, attend me at once!" he bellowed, already bustling off into the mansion's interminable hallways.

Ryoga watched him go, trying not to feel too relieved. "Wow, is that the time already? I guess you'll be going too? Gah!" he spluttered as Kodachi suddenly shot him in the face with a water pistol. What did you do that for?! the newly porcified Ryoga squealed angrily.

Smirking, Kodachi bent down and picked Ryoga up by his bandanna. "You're right, it is time for me to be off as well... sadly, given your complete ineptitude at finding your way around, that means I will have to bring you with me. How convenient this curse is for me - even one such as I couldn't get away with bringing a man to an all-girls school!"

She burst out into one of her near-hysterical peals of laughter, making Ryoga wince and fold his ears flat against his skull to protect his hearing. Even as he did, he could feel her moving as the gymnast began bounding away, obviously heading for the door. With no other option left to him, the porcine aquazoomorph had little choice but to rest in her arms and let her carry him as she saw fit.

'Ranma, I'll find a way to make you pay for this, I swear it,' he mused darkly.

Lunchtime at Furinkan High...

"And there you are! Be sure to check in tomorrow; we may have fresh snaps available," Nabiki chirped happily, rifling through the yen notes that she had been handed in order to double-check the payment was right. Unnecessary, she knew, since nobody at Furinkan High was stupid enough to double-cross her, but she loved the way money felt as it shuffled through her fingers.

The boy simply nodded and shuffled away, no doubt eager to begin ogling his new acquisition, before his place was taken by a newcomer. Nabiki glanced up, and smirked mischievously. "Why, Kuno-baby, what's this? You want to get in on the hot new action?"

"Heaven forfend, Nabiki Tendo," the Kendoist scoffed , scowling at the thought. "I only desire more pictures of my beloved Akane... you do have those available, I trust?"

"Kuno, Kuno, Kuno," Nabiki playfully sighed, shaking her head even as her lips remained quirked in amusement.

"Have I ever let you down before?" she asked, before pulling out a few shots she'd remembered to snatch whilst she had film in her camera after the three-way brawl between Shampoo and the Saotomes. She spread the shots of her sister's workout routine on the table and flashed her money-shark grin at her juiciest repeat customer. "You interested?"

Only to blink as a bouquet suddenly landed on her desk, covering the photos. "Um... Kuno-baby, even if I weren't already engaged, I take money, not flowers," she chided him.

Kuno, however, looked as white as a ghost. Before Nabiki could really process what was wrong, he had snatched up the bouquet and thrown it at the window... whereupon it blew up with enough force to blow a hole in the wall!

"The hell?!" Nabiki blurted aloud in instinctual shock. 'Who the hell puts a bomb in a bouquet?!'

"Twisted sister, you go too far this time! You almost caught me with that one!" Kuno spat, scowling like thunder as he did.

"Oh hush, brother dear; it's not as if you were harmed! Besides, it's your own fault for standing so close to my target," came a mocking female voice, right before a petite form clad in a mint-green leotard came sailing through the new hole in the wall, landing in a picture-perfect pose before belting out a peal of maniacal laughter.

"Kodachi Kuno!" Nabiki hissed, shooting up from her desk as she recognized the most dangerous unstable girl in her life outside of Shampoo.

"In the flesh, Nabiki Tendo! And now, you shall pay for your transgressions against me, just as I - hey! No fair running away!" the youngest Kuno squealed in dismay. 'The nerve! Running away before my monologue has even begun! Has she no manners at all?'

Her words fell on deaf ears as Nabiki ran through the door as fast she could possibly go and shot down the corridors, wending her way past students who seemed almost to be moving in slight slow motion.

'Nope! I'm not dealing with her on my own! Reputation is one thing, but she's nuts! Ranma, help me!'

Nabiki could hear yelling behind her, and definitely pinpoint Kodachi as at least one of the people in evident hot pursuit, but she blocked such trivialities from her mind and concentrated on pouring on the speed. 'Oh, to be able to jump off of ridiculously high points like Ranma! Where is he?!'

Hoping that the odds were in her favor, the middle Tendo ran for homeroom 1-F - luckily, it being her little sister's homeroom as well meant that she knew how to get there from her own up in 2-E. Never had the little signs denoting each room been more welcoming to her; going too fast to stop by that point, Nabiki simply shoulder-barged the classroom door, violently slamming it open. 'That's gonna hurt in the morning...'

"N-Nabiki!? What the heck!?" Ranma blurted, whipping around to face his fiancée with an expression of equal parts shock and guilt... the latter readily explained by the fact that Shampoo was sitting on his desk, snuggling up to him like some American bimbo.

'For once, I don't even care that you're doing that - I could kiss you, Shampoo!' Relief washed over Nabiki at the sight of her fiancé and her self-declared stalker together in one place, cutting through her previous panic like a knife. "Am I glad to see you both," Nabiki blurted out, smiling even as she felt her adrenaline surge finally reach its inevitable crash, leaving her panting for breath.

"What's going on? Why'd you come barging in like that, Nabs?" Ranma asked again, getting up from his desk and heading for Nabiki with obvious concern on his face.

"Ranma Saotome! This time, you die!" Ryoga snarled as he launched himself at his rival through the doorway, Nabiki yelping in shock as the wind from the Eternally Lost Boy's passage ruffled her own dress.

"Ryoga?! What the heck are you doing here?!" Ranma yelped, even as he began the process of defending himself from his assailant's flailing strikes - no easy task in a room crowded full of desks and chairs, with screaming students scattering like panicked chickens as they tried to avoid getting caught up in the brawl only adding to the chaos.

"I told you I'd be back to settle the score!" Ryoga retorted, casually stomping one desk into splinters for getting in his way before idly backhanding a chair straight out of the window.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it!" Ranma complained, doing his best to simultaneously dodge both Ryoga and the students without letting the former accidentally hit the latter.

"He's just the flunkey! This is all Kodachi's plan - Kodachi is here!" Nabiki cried out in warning. No sooner had she said that then the hairs on the back of her neck tingled madly, a sudden sense of impending doom compelling her to throw herself to the floor - barely seconds before something whipped ominously through the space her head had just occupied.

"Flunkey is such an ugly word... we're partners," Kodachi purred in a sickly-sweet tone... before her features twisted into a hateful leer. "Partners in punishing a pair of perfidious pests!" she spat, making a downward strike at the prone Tendo daughter.

"Hands off of my sister!" Akane roared, hurling herself bodily at Kodachi. The Kuno girl yelped wordlessly as the youngest Tendo slammed into her, knocking Kodachi off of her feet like a human wrecking ball before Akane began wrestling her to the ground.

"What kind of girl are you?! You're as brutish as that Chinese mercenary!" Kodachi squawked, flailing in a futile effort to escape Akane's merciless clutches.

"You've had this coming for a long time, Kodachi! You shouldn't have messed with my sister," Akane spat, dramatically drawing one arm back in anticipation of a punch that would have laid Kodachi out cold for a week...

Alas, if only it had landed! As dramatic as Akane's gesture was, it also freed one of Kodachi's arms, letting the younger Kuno grab for the satchel around her waist. She withdrew what looked like a half-bloomed black rose and jabbed it into Akane's side, completing the circuit for her customized personal hand-taser.

Akane locked up as every single muscle in her body suddenly seized on her, pain more intense than anything that she'd ever felt before flooding her body so thoroughly that she couldn't even muster a scream of pain. Slowly, Akane toppled clean over, falling to the side with all the grace and weight of a felled tree trunk, leaving Kodachi free to sit up and glower at Nabiki from across the room, now all but empty of other students.

"Nabiki Tendo, prepare to die!" Kodachi spat, even as she shot upright. "Hey!" Ranma and Ryoga shouted in unison, albeit for different reasons, but Kodachi ignored them as she lobbed yet another black rose bouquet-bomb at Nabiki.

Survival instincts kicked in, and Nabiki did something that she never would have done before; she grabbed a nearby desk and hurled it at the bouquet, even as she tried to race out of range of the explosion. Miraculously, she hit it! ...Unfortunately, she underestimated the shockwave, and the next thing she knew, the rolling blast of pressure from Kodachi's bomb had bodily picked her up off of her feet and carried her headfirst through the window!

Nabiki screamed wordlessly as she plummeted towards the ground, pure terror washing over her; lessons with Genma or no, she was still human; she was going to go splat! Unable to do anything else, she squeezed her eyes shut against the terrifying image of the ground rushing up to meet her. 'Save me, Ranma! I don't wanna die!' she wept internally.

And then suddenly she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her waist. Her stomach twirled uncomfortably as the whole world suddenly spun a loop, and then... the feeling of falling stopped as a light shudder ran through her frame.

'I... what? What just happened? What?'

It took Nabiki several long moments before she dared to peek out of one eye, and realized that, somehow, she wasn't dead. Instead, she was being held protectively in a pair of strong arms, which were cradling her almost bridal-style above the ground. It took several heartbeats more before the trembling Tendo managed to put two and two together... in her defence, she had never come so close to her death before!

"You saved me! Oh, thank you, thank you!" she wept, twisting to hug her saviour, burying her face into their shoulder to try and hide as the emotions ripped through her mind. Sheer relief at being alive flooded her, and she couldn't have stopped herself even if she wanted to; she blindly twisted around and lunged forward, planting her lips on her savior's mouth in the passionate kiss only somebody glad to be alive could deliver, pouring out her emotions through her liplock.

Finally, Nabiki's heart ceased trying to beat itself out of her ribcage in sheer distress and the now-calmer Tendo broke the liplock. Smiling to herself, she opened her eyes at last, saying, "Thank you, I knew you'd save me... Shampoo?!" she blurted, her confident, sultry purr giving way to shock as she realized that her savior actually wasn't her fiancé, but instead the Chinese Amazon who was so adamant on sharing him.

"Um... Nabiki welcome?" a wide-eyed, clearly stupefied Shampoo slowly returned.

Nabiki took in the surprise written all over Shampoo's face, and the obvious way the Chinese Amazon's mind had been overwhelmed, and she managed to smirk, pride pushing its way through the sea of embarrassment at having kissed another girl. 'Oh, so you can dish it out, but you can't take it, huh, Shampoo? Bet you didn't think I had that kind of fire in me...wait a sec...'

"If you're here, then where's Ranma?" Nabiki asked, the thought finally catching her attention.

"Ranma busy," Shampoo replied automatically, brain obviously still rebooting, which was another boost to Nabiki's pride.

Which was when, in a moment the universe choreographed perfectly, a massive crash filled the air as Ranma rode Ryoga three storeys down to a crash-landing in the ground right behind them, the cacophony making Nabiki instinctively clutch onto Shampoo's shoulders for comfort as her battered nerves screeched at the sudden noise.

"Nabiki! Are you okay?!" Ranma cried, hopping out of the shallow crater Ryoga was lying in the bottom of and racing over to his fiancée... Well, technically, his fiancées, but Ranma still wasn't accepting this whole triad marriage thing.

"I'm alright, Ranma," Nabiki assured him... though only after she'd hopped out of Shampoo's unresisting arms and into Ranma's, so that he was now the one carrying her bridal style and she could snuggle up close. Looking over Ranma's shoulder, she stared at the crater where her fiancé had landed. "Is he dead?"

A loud groan echoed from the crater's bottom as Ryoga suddenly moved, brushing off chunks of concrete and stone before hugging his chest. "I think you cracked a rib, Ranma," he observed, clearly trying to sound stoic, but not doing as well as he'd hoped.

"Serves you right! You want to fight with me, fine, I'll take you on anytime, any place - but leave Nabiki out of it!" Ranma spat right back.

As he said this, he unthinkingly hugged Nabiki tighter against his chest, and the middle Tendo daughter took the opportunity to savor an almost feline pleasure in being held like that.

"It wasn't my idea!" An indignant Ryoga protested, sitting up in his crater only to wince as he evidently pressed against the previously mentioned rib.

A whistling noise filled the air, and Nabiki's spine tingled with instinctive dread as Kodachi came somersaulting through the air, turning like a green-and-black wheel before finishing with a pinpoint-perfect posed landing right next to Ryoga.

'Why am I surrounded by freaks who can jump out of buildings?!' Nabiki grumbled to herself, unable to fight the pang of jealousy at seeing Kodachi so effortlessly handle a drop that had legitimately terrified her.

"You have an oni's own luck, don't you, Nabiki Tendo?!" Kodachi hissed. "Your Chinese mercenary won't protect you forever! And you, Ryoga - how could you botch so simple a mission?" she snapped, turning her wrath to her erstwhile partner in crime.

"Me?! You're the one who never told me what the plan was!" Ryoga protested. "And I never would have agreed to it if I'd known - I want to beat Ranma, not hurt some random girl who never did any harm to me!"

"That's the whole point! If we take down Nabiki, it will weaken Ranma's resolve enough that you can crush him like a bug!" Kodachi retorted, looking rather irritated at her erstwhile partner's sudden attack of conscience..

As the two bickered, Shampoo sidled up to Ranma and Nabiki. "Who is crazy rose girl? Why she so mad at you two?" she asked.

"Her name's Kodachi Kuno. She fell in love with Ranma - at least, that's what she says - when Ranma saved her after Ryoga beat her up for trying to attack Akane. But then she found out that Ranma was the girl who beat her up in retaliation afterwards, and for some reason, she's blaming me," Nabiki explained.

"Hmm..." Shampoo narrowed her eyes, staring daggers at the bickering raven-haired teens. "Shampoo fix this..." she hissed, and then she shot forward in a sudden surge of motion, exploding from her starting position like an arrow loosed from a bow. Kodachi never even saw her coming as the Chinese Amazon struck like a thunderbolt, Shampoo's finger stabbing at the back of Kodachi's neck and hitting some kind of pressure point that caused her to drop like a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

"Ranma! Stop her! Stop her before she... what?!" Nabiki began to cry out, already panicking at the thought of the mess Shampoo seemed set to make - where was she supposed to hide a body?! Before the words had finished forming, however, sheer shock stole them from Nabiki's mouth, leaving her to stare dumbfounded at what her self-proclaimed 'wife' was doing.

"Whoa, look at her go! I've never seen anybody wash hair like that before!" one onlooker commented, the teens having completely failed to realize that the students who had previously fled the attack in 1-F and 2-E were now gathering around the impromptu entertainment.

"Wow, she's good..." a female onlooker added.

"Maybe she's a professional hairdresser?" her companion suggested.

"Makes sense with a name like that," a third girl interjected.

Indifferent to the commentary, Shampoo's hands flashed across Kodachi's scalp, lathering up her hair in a dense foam as she scrubbed away as if her life depended on it. Almost too fast for the eye to follow, Shampoo unwound Kodachi's ponytail to add it to the scrubdown, then sluiced the foam from the Kuno girl's hair with a handy bucket of water. Then she busily set to work with comb and blowdryer before restoring the ponytail and then finally letting Kodachi collapse face-first into the dirt.

"Shampoo finish," the Chinese Amazon declared. Some would later say that it had taken her just under a minute, others would say it only took five or six seconds; all agreed that, however long it had taken, nobody had ever seen somebody give a hairdressing with such speed before!

'...Maybe I should see if I can coax her into doing that for money," Nabiki noted, even as the beaming Chinese girl strutted proudly back over to Nabiki and Ranma.

"Hey, what'd you just do?" Ryoga protested. 'I mean, okay, she kind of brought it on herself... but what kind of man would I be if I let a girl get beat up?' he privately mused to himself. Extracting himself from the crater at last, he knelt at Kodachi's side.

"Hey... hey, Kodachi? Kodachi, are you okay?" he asked her, even managing to sound genuinely concerned as he did so.

Kodachi opened her eyes with a dramatic moan, staring right into Ryoga's own eyes as she did so. She froze for a second, seemingly held in place by her unwitting partner's gaze, and then a faint smile spread across her pink lips. "I... ah! Oh, Ryoga, hold me!" she cried, suddenly levering herself up off of the ground to wrap her arms around her startled male counterpart.

"Wh-what?!" Ryoga blurted, freezing up... well, except for his treacherous arms, which gently scooped Kodachi up off of the ground on pure instinct.

"That dreadful brute! Oh, I feel faint - I think she hurt me badly," Kodachi sobbed.

"You liar! Shampoo not even touch you!" The Chinese Amazon shrieked in protest.

"You sneaky jerk - you don't attack a girl when her back is turned!" Ryoga growled angrily. He took a step towards Shampoo, only for Kodachi to clutch him tighter, burying her face into his chest.

"Oh! Please, Ryoga; take me home... I just need to be safe, and you're the only one I can trust."

Ryoga hesitated, but, in the end, his nobler instincts won out. "Alright, Kodachi, I'll get you there, just hold on, I promise you," he said, turning around and starting to jog off.

"Oh, thank you, Ryoga... but... you need to turn left here, not right..."

The three fiancées watched the odd duo go, before jumping as one when Akane's voice rang out from behind them. "What did you just do to them?!" the youngest Tendo demanded.

"Akane! You're alright!" Nabiki chirped, a flood of extra relief washing through her at the sight of her little sister up on her feet again.

"Stupid cheating jerk... what was she doing with a tazer anyway?" Akane complained. Then she turned her attention to Shampoo and added, "You still didn't answer my question."

"Shampoo fix problem with crazy rose girl," the Chinese Amazon chirped proudly.

"Exactly... how? All I saw you doing was giving her some hair-care," Ranma interjected.

"Legendary Chinese Amazon technique; Xi Fa Xiang Gao!" Shampoo replied, proudly drawing a bottle of shampoo from her cleavage and twirling it around her palm like a Western gunslinger with his trusty sixshooter.

"And what's that do?" Akane asked her suspiciously.

"Xi Fa Xiang Gao is pressure points technique. When combined with right herbal extracts, it let user alter victims' memories!" Shampoo shot back, still grinning proudly as she did.

A shiver ran down Nabiki's spine. "What do you mean, 'alter', Shampoo?" she insisted.

"Exactly that! Wipe memories away. Add new memories. Change old memories. Do almost anything Shampoo want," the Chinese Amazon explained. "You say that crazy rose girl do all this because she think she love Ranma? Well, Shampoo alter her memories; make her think she love Ryoga all this time instead."

The two Tendos and one Saotome simply stared at Shampoo as her words sank in. Goosebumps prickled three different skins as they digested the implication.

'And I thought she was scary when she was waving that sword around!' Ranma noted in private appallment.

"...Why didn't you use that to break up Ranma and I?" Nabiki hesitantly asked.

"Never cross Shampoo mind. Shampoo not learn Nabiki be Ranma wife until Nabiki earn right to be Shampoo wife too," Shampoo casually replied, shrugging as she spoke.

'Thank the kami for small miracles, then...' Nabiki mused.

"So... what happens when the technique wears off?" Akane asked.

"Technique not wear off. Never do. Only way Kodachi get old memories back is if Shampoo undo technique for her," the Chinese Amazon explained, still smiling proudly.

She completely missed the horrified looks her 'spouses' cast her as they shared a single thought; 'I am so glad she's on our side now...'

Akane's reaction was quite similar as she resisted the urge to inch away from the beaming mainlander and simply gave a hesitant thumbs up.

An awkward silence hung over the quartet, before Nabiki finally broke it with a genteel cough. "Ranma, shall we head home now? I think school is done for the day."

"Huh? What makes you say that, Nabiki?" Ranma asked, looking at Nabiki with sincere puzzlement. In response, she simply pointed to the massive holes in the exterior walls that marked where their respective homerooms had been, causing Ranma to blush faintly in embarrassment at missing something so obvious. "Oh... okay."

"So... are you going to get down any time soon, sis?" Akane dryly interjected.

Nabiki blinked, and that was when she realized she was still in Ranma's arms, having been too distracted by everything that had ensued afterwards to even think of getting down. Then she looked at Akane's expression, and the imp of the perverse reared its head in her mind. "Hmm... nope!" she chirped, before nuzzling up against Ranma's cheek, just to watch Akane scowl.

"Now home, Ranma!" she ordered imperiously, complete with grandiose point towards the dojo.

"Yes, Nabiki," Ranma replied, trying to sound flat, but unable to hide his amusement.

"Oh, honestly... you're as bad as Shampoo!" Akane scoffed with an eyeroll, albeit with a slight upturn of her lips at her sister's antics.

"That not fair!" Shampoo interjected, pouting. "Shampoo not get her turn!" she pointed out, stomping a foot indignantly... before she stopped, looked thoughtful, and then smiled mischievously.

"Gah!" Ranma squawked as Shampoo suddenly sprang onto his shoulders, wrapping herself around his back. "Get off of me!"

"Ranma carry Shampoo, too!" the Chinese Amazon insisted.

"You got legs of your own!" Ranma shot back as he wobbled back to a balanced stance. Despite his verbal protests, he did lurch forward again, and observers would note that he actually didn't seem to be struggling too much to carry the two girls... assuming they weren't seething in jealousy over Ranma having two hot girls be all over him like that. Even if one of the girls was Nabiki Tendo, of all people.

That afternoon, at the Kuno Estate...

"Get me outta here!"

That heartfelt statement was followed by a thunderous crash as Ryoga plowed headfirst through a wall in his desperate attempt to escape. For once, he didn't care where he ended up; anywhere had to be better than here!

The reasons for Ryoga's efforts at a hasty retreat were in hot pursuit, and would have made his reactions perfectly justified to anyone who might have been viewing this chaotic turn of events.

"Ryoga, darling, please, stop running!" Kodachi pleaded, jogging along in a pair of red silk panties embroidered with black roses and nothing else.

"Vile wretch! Hibiki, you cur - you swore to me you had no designs on my sister's virtue!" Tatewaki roared, swinging the family katana at Ryoga.

Fortunately for the Eternally Lost Boy, the solid lead core of his umbrella made it a perfect parrying tool, and he deflected Kuno's strike with deft ease. "I don't! I have no idea why she's acting like this!" Ryoga protested. "It's gotta be something that crazy blue-haired girl who was with Ranma did to her!"

"Lies! No woman could compel such lewd behavior from my sister, of all people! Die, Hibiki!" Tatewaki bellowed, striking again and again in rapid succession, with Ryoga narrowly parrying each swipe.

"Brother dear, if you harm so much as a hair on my darling Ryoga's head, I'll take it out of your hide!" Kodachi snarled, before attacking Tatewaki with one of her characteristic gymnast's clubs.

"Twisted sister! You dare side with this virtue-despoiling ruffian over your own brother?" Tatewaki spat, parrying the blow.

As the siblings fell to their duel in earnest, Ryoga took this golden opportunity and ran for it, plowing through any walls in his way. 'This is your fault, Ranma! I'm going to get you back for this!'

Chapter End & Closing Notes

And that's another chapter closed. I am really sorry this took so long. Things have... not been too great in my corner of the world. Originally, this chapter would have gone longer, and would have included a scene of Kodachi attacking the Tendo Dojo with her Boys anti-tank rifle... yes, that's a thing in the anime, albeit in one episode (Tatewaki prefers a multiple rocket launcher)... as part of an attempt to impress Ryoga and make him return her love, only for her to be defeated and Shampoo to try and fix her mistake - only for Ryoga to get the wrong impression and destroy her only bottle of blend 110. My editor wisely convinced me that this was both padding the chapter out unnecessarily and moving too quickly. The Kunos and Ryoga will return in the near future, I promise. But the next four chapters, ideally, should finally see some major events happen in this fic at long last; we can look forward to the Nekoken story, Cologne's arrival at long last, and a special twist that I hope you guys will enjoy. Catch you there!