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Author:
Cheb

An Unsuitable Person

* * *



Chapter 6

(Where the three fiancées gather their wits.)

* * *

“So, you owe her a debt of honor?” asked Cologne trimming Shampoo's hair with economic snaps of her scissors.

“Yes, sensei. She achieved victory where I could do nothing...” She clenched her fists laying on her knees. “I...” She made a move to straighten up.

“Sit still,” Cologne ordered, bending her back down. “Or we'd have to make you a buzz-cut.”

“I failed as warrior,” Shampoo continued sullenly, “My duty to protect...”

“Since when is it the duty of our tribe's warriors to protect the outsiders' children?” Cologne inquired with irony.

Shampoo jerked straight, her eyes bulging. Cologne prudently put the scissors away before asking the loaded question.

“But I...” Shampoo jumped to her feet, ran to the storage room and started rummaging there, overturning something noisily. Then she re-emerged leafing through the yellowed pages of the booklet containing the tribes' law.

“When will you stop digging pitfalls for yourself, time and time again?” Cologne shook her head, for umpteenth time regretting that she hid this rubbish in the chest of ancestral heirlooms instead of burning it. The chest attracted the attention of little Shampoo who barely had learned to read at the time. The other children dreamed of knights and pirates, while the young amazon had a tome of ancient laws only the old people remembered.

Shampoo feverishly leafed through the booklet sliding her finger over its pages. Cologne just shook her head. “You again confuse the dictates of your heart with these moldy remains of long past.”

“Moldy remains?” Shampoo boggled, almost dropping the booklet. “But granny, you yourself...”

“For the outsiders, maybe,” Cologne began in her 'wise sensei' tone. “If the Japanese are so crazed about the 'three thousand years of Chinese history' then why shouldn't we give them what they expect? Any superstitions outsiders have should be supported and exploited, after all. But you've forgotten one of the main principles of the bluff.”

“To make yourself almost believe so that opponent buys it, yes?”

“To not buy into your own bluff. You, the youngsters, too easily lose the border between 'almost' and 'really'... So you forget that these laws are just a tool to support our tribe's reputation. Well, tell me what allows the women to be strong, staying equal with the men and dictating them our will?”

“Speed, insidiousness, ingenuity,” Shampoo replied rapid-fire. “Everything is just tool for your supremacy in tribe and tribe's supremacy among neighbors.”

“Correct, you've parroted it perfectly. But you still don't understand it completely,” Cologne noted.

Shampoo frowned, obediently straining her brain, but failed to come out with any result.

“You are underestimating the word 'everything',” Cologne continued in her tutoring tone. “Which also encompasses your oh so favorite Law.”

Shampoo stared at the booklet in her hands, clearly surprised.

“Oh, I thought you're smarter than that. A hallowed tradition it may be, but that doesn't make it less a mere tool created by our foremothers for the same goals: to shed the yoke of men who dominated then everywhere, and to hold the conquered equality.” She pulled out her pipe and lit it without haste. “Now I will tell you the origins of the Two kisses' law, which goals this tool served, and why its place is in a dusty chest of ancestral heirlooms, not in the real life.

“But Granny... Sensei... You punished me yourself when I failed to kill Ranma...?”

“Oh? But you've violated the law, broke your own oath, haven't you?”

Shampoo's face reflected a total confusion, she looked like smoke could start coming out of her ears any moment now.

Cologne gave out a weary sigh. “By breaking the oath you took, you have sullen the reputation of our tribe as the fierce and unyielding warriors, which couldn't have been left unpunished. But you took that oath on your own initiative. A tool is a tool. You use it if it can give you advantage, otherwise you hide it away. The more so that only the old folks and unbridled youngsters like you ever know of these kisses nowadays. Had you found courage to forgive Ranma, had you accepted your defeat with due dignity — nobody would even recall that you could continue with a Kiss of Death.”

Shampoo started fidgeting.

“But if you shoulder this burden, then you have to carry it,” Cologne finished harshly. “Otherwise not disturb the eternal rest of customs that belong to harsh times when killing your fellow human being was common and banal. But look at yourself - you didn't just catch it yourself, you've infected all your peers as well. I swear, you're like a gang of Hong Wei Bing with a revolutionary itch in their undies.

Shampoo wished the earth would swallow her up: her great-grandmother rather disliked the Red Guards, using them as a negative example on various occasions.

Cologne smoked in silence for a while. Then continued, in a casual tone: “So, the origin of the Two kisses law. Do you remember Herb and his two minions well?”

Shampoo perked up. “Nice guys. Persistent, though. And their cursed prince is haughty. But he's strong, it's proper for him.

“Nice?” Cologne looked amused by her answer. “Well, you can say that too. But that boy, Mint, have easily defeated Mousse.”

“Stupid Mousse...”

“Stupid he is. And stronger than you as a warrior, he is too. If that Mint attacked you, he'd defeat you without breaking a sweat. But there was time when there was a whole tribe of these Musk. And they were our neighbors. For not all women of our tribe could prevail against them, so the Kiss of marriage was born. Well, mind you telling me, why?

Shampoo came with the answer in a second: “To save our tribe's reputation? To bluff and pretend everything goes as planned?”

“Excellent, Shampoo. I knew you could use your head if you try. To make everybody believe that everything goes as it should, that was one goal of the Kiss of Marriage. The second one was to bring a new, strong blood into our tribe. The Musk always were dim-witted, we always were good at manipulating and seducing men and directing their oafish power onto a useful path. And so, turning the strength of the Musk into our strength, we continued for centuries.”

“But there are no Musk now, yes?”

“Yes, now there are none.” Cologne sighed. “Practically, only their prince survived. Unrelenting they were, their arrogance immense, stood up to any and every trespasser. The Emperor's army, then the foreign interventionists, the Kuomintang - all felt their wrath... Then the great war was over, the Communists squashed those weaker than them and started bringing around the law and order of their own making. But the Musk did not relent, they continued head-butting the Communists like a bull head-butting a freight train. With the same result. If you ask your mother — if she remembers her family and visits us again

— she won't remember them. There were no Musk in her lifetime. To be honest, I too thought they were extinct.

Shampoo gave a sad sigh. Her mother loved her dearly, but they were barely seeing each other. Her mother chose a career in the Communist party over the way of the ancestors. Shampoo barely started to walk when she had to move to Beijing after receiving another promotion.

“Now you see why the Kiss of Mariage's place is in the ancestral chest?” asked Cologne. Adding silently that still, in the case of Son-in-law it fit perfectly — but that was merely blind luck, one chance in thousand. Xianpu would be better of not knowing that: she already had enough, one almost could see the smoke raising from her ears.

“Yes, sensei. But why Kiss of Death?”

“How many times did you fight outside the tournament? Fight seriously, for your life? In how many war campaigns have you participated? How many times have you fought off the attacks from neighboring villages?”

“I, umm...” Shampoo frowned, confused. “No times...? No, I fought off the attacks from Pink and Link. Right. Stomped on them hundred times. Impudent wenches.”

“For your life child, for your life,” Cologne reminded her patiently.

This time Shampoo fell silent for a long time, digging through her memories.

“Umm... One time bandits from beyond our mountains, but were stupid and weak, dangerous only in their numbers. And they stank, yuck. Ah, right. One time a big boar, it's when I was little, barely won. That time death was closest... And one time a wild bull, when I walked to the festival in red pants. That's all... Well, a couple times I fought off the real demons, but that wasn't for my life at all. They were so weak, almost pitied to beat on them.

Cologne took a long draft from her pipe. “The world became a quiet and safe place. Maybe too quiet and safe. The Japanese suffered a crushing defeat in the last war and swore to not wage any wars. The Communists brought our China to peace and stability... It lasts this way not very long, barely a couple of generations, but people have already forgotten how things were before. Were your grandmother here with us, she could tell a wholly different story. These were wild and harsh times. The bandits formed whole hordes, skilled and well armed, the fights between neighboring tribes were real and serious, the people really killed each other. We fought for Jusenkyou, but more important, we fought for the Musk... But our tribe had never had great numbers, and the women from the other tribes, like those herbalists for instance, weren't a weaklings either. So, the Kiss of Death was born. Well, mind you telling me its purpose?

“To make them wary of us, so they were afraid to mess with...” Then it hit Shampoo: “To win bloodlessly, without even starting a fight! It's the same as bluffing!”

“Good,” Cologne nodded. “Now think how should you have acted, how should you have used this tool.”

Shampoo fell into the stupefaction, staying that way a sizable time. Then she said, without much conviction: “Should have killed Ranma anyway?”

Cologne gave a weary sigh. No, the case is hopeless. And here she thought her great-granddaughter started using her head at last...

“Why should you have killed her? Didn't you chase her to the very Japan? Wouldn't she forswear showing back at our lands? So return home with an epic fable of you catching and crushing her, tell it everyone. And that's all, your goal is achieved. Where's your insidiousness?”

“Tell everyone I killed her?” Shampoo asked, doubt evident in her voice. “But if someone meets her?”

“In the times of old when the world was endless and untamed, and traveling abroad was a feat akin to theomachy, you should have done exactly that,” Cologne explained. “But in this day and age of mercy and ubiquitous telecommunications, you should have lied that you've beaten her to within an inch of her life, but heeding her pleas for mercy you let her live, taking her oath to never approach our lands again. That would be an ideal conclusion for your quest.

Shampoo hung her head: “So, then I... I brought back to life a bloodthirsty law, like raising a hungry wraith from its grave? I tried to become an unneeded wolf among the happy sheep? And I failed even that?”

Cologne smoked some time in silence.

“Things aren't that bad. This new world I still cannot get used to, this sunny glade, is just a surface hiding the same primeval darkness, ever hungry, ever ready. And now you, thank to your obsession with the Martial Art, have reached the height from which one could see the real wolves roaming among the happy sheep, see the real hungry wraiths. Now you are destined to fight them the rest of your life.”

“The rest of my life?” asked Shampoo.

“Exactly.” Cologne nodded. “By seeing the Hollow and the Shinigami, by involving yourself in their fight, you woke your true spiritual power. Be you a common, untrained woman, nothing would have happened... Well, except if the spirits were insanely powerful, bleeding their excess reiatsu into everything around them.^{(note 6-1)} But you've followed the Warrior's Way since your childhood, training your ki, and the touch of the spirit world woke its forbidden side. Where you blindly groped your way before, you will begin to see now, more and more clearly. But there's no way back for you anymore.

“Way to where?” Shampoo asked, not understanding.

“To your old life with no Hollows, no Shinigami, nor their eternal war,” Cologne explained. “From now on you are doomed to see them, and the monsters will always notice you. And they'll want to have lunch. Congratulations, your life became interesting at last.”

“I...” Shampoo waved her concerns aside. “No matter, if Airen is by my side.”

“Well, if you think so... It's your life, it's for you to decide.” Cologne snuffed her pipe, and continued harshly: “Now go to sleep. Tomorrow we'll wake before dawn, you need a serious training!”

Shampoo beamed never the less.

* * *

“Now you understand?” asked Rukia, sitting at the edge of Akane's bed in Akane's spare pajamas. Where she slept during the night was still a mystery, but it wasn't the guest room still occupied with belongings of Ranma and panda absent on a “training trip”. Anyway, Akane had other things on her mind bothering her much more than this trivial mystery.

The harm done to her spirit form reflected on her body, which ached now wholly, as if she suffered a good beating. She was lucky the burns weren't transferred as well. But much worse was the memory gnawing at her, of her reflection in that storefront. She became a real monster. Not that Kai didn't ask for it, thoroughly, but... She really became a berserk, and there was no excuse for that. To lose control over one's own rage...

“But what should I do, Sensei? Must I hold myself back if I cannot control myself? But... How can I fight when I hold back all the time? Would I have enough power to win?”

“Rage could be cold,” Rukia said meaningfully. “Cold and focused. Such a rage could be truly terrible.” She stood up and walked to the door, but paused upon opening it, looking back at Akane. “Trust me, I saw it.”

Akane followed her with her eyes until the soft click of the closing door... She remembered punting Ranma into the horizon when he tried to bark something after that scene with the naked Shampoo in the bath. Her rage had been definitely cold then. Akane shuddered at her memories. Cold and somehow... acerbic. She didn't listen to his words then, just letting them by. She splashed Ranma with a smile. She sent him flying with a smile. She didn't growl at him, she didn't hit him with heavy things — she just hurt him, calmly and calculatedly. Was it that “cold rage”?

Akane felt very uneasy, she curled in her bed tighter, holding her pillow. How bad P-chan wasn't with her now.

* * *

“Dammit!” Ukyou hit the floor with her fist, still wide awake on her futon. After the today's victory everything had been going sour. The evening customers entered reluctantly, as if there was something scaring them off. Her okonomiyaki turned out bad, not once, but twice - either a very bad luck or an inconceivable crook-handedness on her part. The spoiled pancakes went to the trash bin, of course: she'd never steep so low as to feeding a sub-par food to her customers.

“Some victory it was,” Ukyou thought bitterly. “Not mine, that's sure.” She sighed darkly. “I knew what shit I've been stepping into, but I had to have that stupid hope to out-do Akane... So what happens? When their stinky butts are on fire they beg me to help. But when we have to finish our business, they suddenly remember all their 'thou shall not kill', 'only a Shinigami can'... Damn hypocrites.”

She turned onto her side. There was no denying it, she was doomed to play the second fiddle. Both in the battle against the monsters, and in the battle for Ranma's heart. But pulling back now, when both her rivals were in it up to their necks... No, you just have to know Ranma. There's no chance he'll stay aside, uninvolved. Such a man he is.

Ukyou turned to look at the Ranma's photo at her head, there was an obsessed gleam in her eyes.

“Ran-chan, you tore into my life like a typhoon, uprooted me and threw me to the winds. And so I'm still tumbling, unable to take root.” She wiped an uninvited tear. “What would happen to our dreams now? Dreams of the best okonomiyaki stand in the world, of the kids...” She felt tears swelling and wiped them angrily. “But I won't give up!” She clutched the photo so tightly the frame gave a creaking sound. “Do you hear me, Ran-chan? I won't let you go even if that means becoming a devil hunter for the rest of my life. Even if that means selling my soul to these...” Her eyes glinted dangerously. “Who am I kidding? I'll have to forfeit something: either the school, or my calling.” Ukyou flopped back onto her futon, giving a heavy, tired sigh. “The school then. Without the education, I can get by. Somehow. But if I... No, never. Without the okonomiyaki I'm nothing.”

She lay still for a long time, gazing at the ceiling.

“If you just saw that I, your cute fiancée, am always ready to accept you. If you just found the courage to ditch that rude tomboy...”

Her eyes slowly closed under the weight of fatigue, but just before the sleep claimed her, a brilliant plan flashed blindingly in her fogged mind.

“I won't let you go,” mumbled Ukyou, drifting away. “You'll see... I'll be... stronger...”

And she drifted to the dreamland, as always nursing the vain hope to break her curse of “eternally second”.

* * *

It was barely a dawning when the fire in the yard of Neko Hanten started to die out.

“Thus I proclaim your training completed,” Cologne avowed, throwing the last empty chestnut pack into the brimming trash bin. “If we continued, we'd go bankrupt with the chestnut expenses alone,” she added under her breath.

Shampoo dropped two handfuls of chestnuts into a bowl, her glossy hair tied into a double knot on the back of her head, leaving her neck open. Surprisingly, this just made her more feminine. And serious. Anyway, the airy bimbo image now laid in shreds under that fence, with the remains of her lush mane.

“I have truly mastered this technique now? Not like four years ago, yes?”

“Wrong,” Cologne corrected her. “Kachuu Tenshin Amaguri Ken is nothing more than a training technique, however legendary it may be. What you have mastered is your speed. But did you really master it?” She made a long pause, puffing her pipe, then put it away. “We'll see now. Let's do a light sparring. But careful, don't you break the fence.”

Shampoo nodded obediently, pulling out her maces and crouching down in a stance, one foot forward, her hands with maces held aloft at her sides.

“Begin,” Cologne commanded.

Less than a second away, the maces hit the ground with a resounding thud. Shampoo shook her bruised arms, cringing a bit.

“So,” Cologne continued, her tone completely nonchalant. “What is the reason for such swift defeat?”

“Sensei is much faster, much more experienced...”

“Wrong. Have you forgotten how to read your opponent? I held back, making our speed equal. Not much, mind you, you are pretty fast yourself — a couple years more and you'll surpass this old woman.”

“Then what...?”

“One more time. And pay attention, try to understand.”

The second skirmish was as short as the first, despite Shampoo's attempt at a feint and a tricky, twirling follow-up. The maces rolled to the side, Shampoo jumped back, shaking her arms sporting many new bruises.

“At least you didn't forget to jump back this time,” Cologne continued in the same nonchalant, tutoring voice. “But you still failed to notice the elephant.”

“The elephant, Sensei?”

“Your main mistake, as big and glaringly standing out,” Cologne drawled, her eyes half-lidded.

Shampoo flushed deep red, awkwardly shuffling her feet, trying desperately to understand the nature of her mistake.

Cologne just sighed, shaking her head. Youngsters these days. Teaching them feels so futile... She pogoed to one of the maces, almost big as she was, jumped down onto the ground and lifted the painted iron ball on a wooden handle, straining slightly. “Hmm. Not less than thirty kilograms,” she noted.

“Thirty two,” Shampoo replied with some pride. “Can even carry with the hidden weapons technique, just not whole day.”

“I see,” Cologne replied shortly, dropping the mace with a dull thud. Then she raised her gnarled stick in her other hand, whirling it on one finger like a turbofan. “Two kilograms.”

After that, she turned around and walked back to the restaurant.

Shampoo wished earth would swallow her. She truly overlooked her elephant.

“Come on, it's not the end of the world,” Cologne said over her shoulder. “It's time for breakfast, then you have to train with Akane and Ukyou. Tomorrow we'll find you a normal weapon and start teaching you to reinforce it with your ki, to be effective against the real, tough spirits, not just the weaklings like that Mao Mao Ling.

“Really?” Shampoo perked up. “I'm so glad!” She fell silent after stumbling onto her discarded mace, then bashfully moved the accusing thing into the corner with her foot. What a humiliation... No, it's true that nobody in her tribe was her equal in speed, and Sou Pu... The frog-face has always been a brawler, relying more on her brute strength. Unconsciously mimicking her style was... Oh, the shame...

* * *

Yawning widely, Urahara Kisuke trudged towards the main room of his humble habitat more widely known among the narrow circles as a shop selling goods smuggled from the afterlife. Yawning again, almost to the point of dislocating his jaw, he tried to understand what made him wake up so early. It seems there was some smell. A very inviting, appetizing one.

“But still, these with herring and sweet beans are the best,” Tessai's voice reached him. Urahara started: his companion had a, mildly speaking, extravagant tastes in food. Not another culinary experiment!

“Naw, the best ones are those with shrimp,” Jinta's voice replied, severely muffled — doubtlessly by something with high percentage of shrimp in it.

Suddenly anxious, the owner of a striped had walked hastily towards the voices, widely awake now. And the scene revealed to him was...

“Here, try this one,” Ukyou handed Tessai yet another okonomiyaki.

“The same for me, please,” Jinta asked her with an uncharacteristic politeness.

“And for me too,” Ururu added timidly. “I'm not asking too much, am I...?”

Urahara's eye twitched.

“Eat 'em up,” Ukyou smiled at them, uploading the culinary masterpieces at the rate of conveyor belt. Urahara had just one glance at the portable stove, a large tub of batter and a whole pyramid of cabbage heads.

She'll corrupt them.

She'll feed them until they're ensnared with her food. Until they are her loyal companions, not his.

“A-hem...” He failed to start with a harsh rebuke, he had to swallow an unexpected lump of saliva first. “Things are turning tough,” he thought. “Ukyou is a formidable opponent, however little power she possesses.”

“M? 'Morning, master!” Jinta greeted him without interrupting his chewing.

“Good morning!” Ukyou bowed to him. “Would you like a fresh okonomiyaki? I just made some for breakfast.”

And even her smile was practically natural and sincere.

“I...” Urahara forcefully gathered his willpower. “I would be honored, young lady.” His smile was a bit strained.

The fight for the hearts and stomachs has begun.

~~ End of Chapter 6 ~~

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Thanks for C&C to:

— people who contributed using the Orphus system (21 bugs so far - most likely, 13 of them by Ordieth117).

Last correction: December 15, 2008

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Note 6-1: That was exacly what happened in the Bleach manga. Ichigo in his Shinigami form had so much reiatsu and bled it so profusely that he have unwittingly charged all his friends and even the people who just happened by, waking their sleeping spiritual power and making them to evolve.

Поэтому — присылайте ошибки! =^^=