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Author's Note: Ranma 1/2 is owned by Takahashi Rumiko and they have no connection to this what so ever. These characters are used without their permission and include a plea not to be sued as I have no money.
 
 
Chapter 11

Since Nabiki left for school a good bit ahead of the others, Akane took the opportunity to talk to Kasumi. Akane joined her sister in the kitchen, to make sure that there was little chance that their father could overhear them. “Neechan, what are we going to do about Nabiki?”

Kasumi stopped as she was filling the bowls with miso and looked thoughtful. “I don’t know Akane. I honestly don’t think Nabiki cares about the fact that she has caused Ranma a great deal of pain. She probably hasn’t realized how much pain that she has caused you. Simply asking her not to do what she has been doing won’t help in this case.”

“Ranma had an idea and I’m not sure if it is a good one. What if we brought her in and let her know about the plan? We could let Nabiki make money with the information we approved.” Akane sounded skeptical of the whole idea and it showed in her voice.

Kasumi picked up the tray of bowls and bit her bottom lip slightly. “Let me think about this.”

Akane nodded and followed her older sister out. Time for breakfast.

Meanwhile, the Tendo in question was skipping happily towards the Nekohatten café to make the first sale of the day. She knocked on the door and waited patiently until Mousse opened it. She beamed at him and said, “Good morning. Can I speak with Shampoo?”

“Akane Tendo, why have you come here?” He replied angrily, his body tensing.

Nabiki reached up and lowered the boy’s glasses back onto his face. She looked a good bit more serious now. “Just get Shampoo.”

Mousse was grumbling something non-flattering about her when he left that Nabiki couldn’t quite make out, but she was okay with that. As long as she got paid she really didn’t care what people called her. Making money was the important thing and being seen as the Ice Queen had it’s advantages.

Shampoo came down shortly and stood in the doorway, arms crossed under her breasts. She looked over at the middle Tendo curiously and said with some heat in her voice. “What mercenary girl want?”

“I happen to have some information for you… if you are interested.” Nabiki put just the slightest bit of taunting in her voice. She had found that it drew out customers really quickly.

Shampoo brightened. Nabiki always had the best information in Nerima. “Tell.”

Nabiki held out her palm, curling her fingers rhythmically. “Cash up front. A girl’s gotta eat you know.”

“How much?” Shampoo’s eyes narrowed. Sometimes the deals were not in her favor and she wanted to avoid that.

“For you, only 5000 Yen. I think you will find that a favorable deal.” Nabiki radiated confidence and smiled.

Shampoo rushed back inside and Nabiki could overhear the conversation, which was in Japanese. Even if it had been in Chinese, she would have been able to follow it. Eavesdropping on people when they thought their language was safe yielded plenty of money and information. “Great Grandmother, Shampoo need 5000 Yen.”

“What for child?” It was clear that Elder Cologne was surprised by the request.

“Mercenary girl come with information.” added Shampoo, as if that explained everything.

There was some grumbling and then Shampoo was back with five one thousand Yen bills in her hand. Nabiki took them, pocketed them, and then said, “I just thought you should know that Ranma is trying to get over his cat phobia.”

“AiYah! Airen do this for me?” Shampoo’s eyes widened excitedly. This was the best news she could imagine. Her cursed form scared her husband and this was a weakness, yet if he was working to fix that problem then maybe her Airen was trying to get better so they could head home to the Amazon Village together.

Nabiki just nodded and headed off to school, humming happily. That had been nicely profitable and if she were lucky she might be able to get Kuno baby to buy this before school. If not, lunch would be soon enough. Her profit margin was looking up.
 

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Ranma was getting nervous. Lunch had been pretty quiet, with the girls eating in peace outside, but at this school the quiet often meant that something was on the horizon, waiting to collapse on top of her. She wasn’t sure what it could be. Maybe the Principal and another stupid plan to cut everyone’s hair or Kuno or Kodachi or someone would show up and demand to fight? After a short bit of thought, she realized what was looming ahead and her face went red in embarrassment. Since the pondering had taken so long, lunch was over and they were back inside. Akane looked over from her desk questioningly at the flushed redhead. Ranma gestured that she would let her know later and went back to hiding behind her book.

Between classes, Akane leaned over and whispered, “What is it?”

“We have gym today.” stated Ranma, color rushing back into her cheeks.

“So?” replied Akane, not sure what was the girl’s problem. So they had gym, what was the big deal?

Ranma just gave her a hard look, as if to call her an idiot and then Akane got what the redhead was talking about. Her eyes went wide and her hand went to cover her mouth when she said, “Oh my.”

Akane got up from her desk and quickly went over to Yuka and Sayuri. They huddled and spoke quickly, occasionally glancing at the redhead. Then Akane came back, sat down, and smiled. Ranma was worried, what was the plan now? Before she could get that the next teacher came into the classroom and they had to be quiet.

All too soon, it was time for gym class. Ranma followed Akane down to the locker room, trembling inside, bracketed by Yuka and Sayuri, almost as if they were trying to keep her from running. Sayuri leaned in and said conspiratorially, “Just get changed with the rest of us. Talk with us and don’t look around too much. Act like this is no big deal. You can do this.”

Ranma nodded and then there they were, inside the girl’s locker room. It wasn’t her first time into the room. She had been there several times for one screwed up reason or another and it almost always ended with a beating of some kind, so there was some natural trepidation. It wasn’t like the room was even all that different from the guy’s side, but the fact that she wasn’t completely a girl worried her. What would the other girls think? Had they done enough to confuse things that this would be a non-issue? With a heavy swallow she joined into the causal discussion so nervous that she couldn’t recall what was being said even as they were speaking.

There was an empty locker next to Akane’s and Ranma began changing, taking off her uniform and only occasionally looking at either Akane or Yuka, who was on the other side of her, to make some ort of comment on the conversation. She was pulling on her buruma when some one spoke up, “What’s he doing here?”

Ranma and Akane looked around confused, trying to find the guy in question. The short haired girl replied, “He who? I don’t see any guys here.”

“Ranma.” accused another girl.

“What do you mean? Ranma’s a girl.” countered Akane.

“We know all about that curse of his and that pervert has peeked on us before. Why are you defending him?” Several other girls joined in on that one and a small mob was growing.

“Curse?” Ranma asked. “What curse?”

A number of the girls growled and tensions were clearly rising. Ranma pulled on her t-shirt and tied her shoes as another girl called out, “Your Chinese water curse, baka!”

Ranma stood and looked at Akane, as if she had all the information. “My what?”

“You know that whole cold water girl, hot water boy thing some people have mentioned.” explained Akane, a bit exasperated.

“Is that all? You all think that… Fine, come on then.” Ranma headed into the bathroom and got the tap water nice and hot. Steam was rising from the stream of water. “Everybody watching?”

When she noticed that the doorway was filled to max capacity, she thrust her hand under the steaming water and winced at the heat. She held it under there for about ten seconds and then pulled it out. The skin was all red. “See. There was hot water and I’m still a girl.”

One of the other girls came over and tested the water, just to make sure that Ranma wasn’t pulling a fast one. The water was really hot and she pulled her hand back quickly. “Gah!”

Ranma looked worriedly at the other girl, “Are you okay?”

The girl nodded, almost as stunned by the concern in the girl’s voice as she had been by the temperature of the water. Ranma turned off the water and looked at the crowd. “Is this stupid joke done now? Can we go to class now?”

Ranma walked past the girls who were staring at her, their minds all a whirl, confused over things. Ranma was a boy, right? Everything stopped making sense when Ranma arrived at Furinken but this was a bit strange even for the usual.

Ranma found that gym with the girl’s was a lot of fun. Instead of having to be the best all the time all she had to do was play with the other girls and not try to show off all that much. She thanked Akane for that tip after class, as playing volleyball with the others had been different from games with the guys and she had liked it. With classes over for the day, Ranma and the others got changed and headed home.

Ranma looked over at Akane as they were strolling home, “Uhm… ‘kane, do you think we can head over to Uchans? I could really use an okonomiyaki. All that worrying made me hungry.”

“Do you think that Ukyo will be okay with that?” Akane sounded worried, knowing just how tough the chef could be in a fight. “She might not deal well with this.”

“I don’t know, but she makes them so good and tasty that I Need one right now. Please Akane?” Ranma tried to use the puppy dog eyes that she had seen other girls use with near lethality. It was not a successful technique yet for her.

Akane rolled her eyes at the attempted display of cute. “Fine.”

They made it to the restaurant just in time to see Konatsu opening the store. Ranma and Akane were still amazed at how feminine and graceful the man was in the flowered kimono. It would have come across as weird if the crossdressing man didn’t honestly seem to consider himself a woman, for the most part. The way he had been raised made him a girl for all intents and purposes and if they didn’t remind themselves of his physical sex they would never have been able to tell by his actions.

When the kunoichi looked up and spotted them heading his way, he bowed slightly in greeting. “Good afternoon Ranma and Akane.”

“Afternoon Konatsu.” They walked in and headed for the counter. Ukyo was just finishing getting everything set up for the day’s business and ready for the customers when she looked up and spotted the redhead. She began to scowl at the girl. “Ranma…”

“Yes?” Ranma was confused. Why did she seem so angry? She hadn’t said anything yet and usually people only got angry at her when she spoke, for the most part.

“What’s this I hear about you trying to get over your cat phobia?” growled the chef, eyes ablaze.

Ranma winced at the word, as it surprised him. As Ranma searched quickly to ensure that there were no cats there in the restaurant, Akane just sighed and said the one word that made sense of everything, “Nabiki.”

“Well!?” demanded the irate chef, who was now clutching her battle spatula menacingly.

“Uchan, I am just trying to get past this problem. Why should that be a problem?” asked Ranma, a bit confused.

“Surely you are doing that for Shampoo, right?” Ukyo was getting quite worked up and was ready to attack the redhead, to show her Ranchan what she felt about this.

“Uhm… Ukyo… I am doing this because I don’t like the fact that c… c… cats scare me. Akane has been helping me with that. I don’t get why my trying to get over a fear is a bad thing? I don’t like having such a weakness.” Ranma was really getting confused now. Had cats now ruined her relationship to Ukyo?

Ukyo paused, not sure what was going on. This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. Akane joined in at this point. “Let me guess? Nabiki told you that Ranma was doing this in order to grow closer to Shampoo?”

Ukyo nodded slightly, a bit impressed that the tomboy had been able to figure that out so easily.

Ranma shivered over her whole body in a very visual reaction to the idea of her and Shampoo. “Ugh… no thank you. She is nice but she turns into a c… c… c… one of those things. Bleagh…”

“So you’re not doing it for her?” Ukyo was not really sure what was going on. Was the information that Nabiki had sold her over lunch wrong?

“No. I am doing it because I don’t want to be afraid of them any more.” explained the redhead, a bit exhasperated.

Ukyo put down her battle spatula and said sheepishly, “Oh.”

“So, Uchan, can I get a combination? Akane?” Ranma changed the subject as her stomach was complaining that it hadn’t gotten any food yet.

“Can I get a shrimp with Udon?” Ukyo had just started making the more modern pancakes and that made her happy. She really liked the mix of flavors.

Back on familiar ground, the chef smiled at the two. At least Ranma honey still thought of her as a friend. Maybe when whatever was wrong with him went away he would remember this and decide that he wanted to be with her. After all, she was the cute fiancé who could cook. “Okay sugar. Two okonomiyaki coming right up.”
 

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Ranma sighed in contentment as she walked back towards the Tendo Dojo with the girl she cared about. Her belly was happy now. “That was so good.”

Akane shook her head. If there was anything that Ranma did better than fighting it was eating. The petite redhead had eaten two of the combination pancakes and it had taken Akane reminding her that dinner would be waiting for them later to make the girl stop trying to decide what she wanted for her third. “You always say that.”

“Well, it’s true.” Replied Ranma as if it were a great cosmic truth.

Akane sighed heavily. With the way she cooked, there was no way that she would ever get that sort of response from Ranma. All she wanted to do was be able to cook for the one she loved. Was that really too much to ask for? She really had no idea how her food turned out the way it did, how it became a weapon of mass destruction. It bothered her and she wanted to get better at it. Maybe she needed to ask Kasumi or even Auntie Saotome for help? Surely it couldn’t hurt.

With that resolved in her mind, they walked down the street, just enjoying the quiet together. Akane wanted to hold the girl’s hand, but they had decided that things needed to quiet down more before they could do that. She wished things would hurry up, unaware that next to her Ranma was thinking the same thing.

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To Be Continued...