In the months that she had spend in Tokyo Shampoo had come to the conclusion that the Amazon's view of the outside world was perhaps not quiet up to date. None of the girls she had met really fit the image the others had painted.
A lot of negative things could be said about the cross-dressing spatula-girl, the crazy rose-girl, the angry pervert-girl or her sister the sly greedy-girl, but being submissive and docile were not among them. The closest Shampoo had come to meeting the kind of girl her friends had described had been Kasumi the eldest Tendou daughter, but even she held far more power then she seemed to at first glance.
There had been no sign so far that Ranma would, once he stopped playing coy and accepted their union, expect anything other than a normal and natural Amazon marriage with Shampoo in charge.
Of course Ranma had voiced on occasion some strange and outlandish notions about girls being weak, but Shampoo had paid it little mind at that time. Ranma went around insulting any- and everybody without really meaning anything by it. Considering his own curse and his acceptance of great-grandmother as a teacher such ideas seemed to be especially absurd.
But after seeing the pictures in the little booklet she had found, Shampoo was no longer so sure.
There was always a chance that it had just been some sort of joke or that Shampoo had missed some important subtleties when she had tried to decipher the text. But you did not joke about this sort of thing where Shampoo came from and while she was not sure about everything that had been written the words slave and ownership were prominently and unmistakably featured all over the booklet.
Slavery! It had to be a misunderstanding. Yes, Japan might be a bit backwards compared to home, but it still was a civilized country! Such barbarism just couldn't really be practiced here.
With her bonbori and the offending piece of literature in hand Shampoo went to the Tendou home to seek clarification and if necessary show whoever was responsible for this piece of disinformation that slavery was not something to joke about.
Kasumi turned at the sound of destruction to see a purple haired girl stepping through a hole that had just been smashed into the wall.
Strange — they had not ordered out today.
"Hello, Shampoo," she greeted the guest remembering her duty as host, "how nice of you to drop by. I am afraid that Ranma and Akane are not at home at the moment. They should be back soon would you like to wait for them?"
Shampoo seemed to consider this for a moment.
"Greedy-girl is home?" she finally asked her accent made worse then usual by her obvious agitation.
Not another one! Kasumi thought when she noticed the booklet in Shampoo's hand as the girl answered.
"Are you here about the slavery thing?" Kasumi asked.
That had been a bit blunt of her, but after a string of girls had come by blushing and beating around the bush before finally admitting the true purpose of their visit, Kasumi had lost some of her patience. There had been too many casual visitors who had apparently come to talk with Kasumi about the weather and then just totally on the spur of the moment decided to say hello to Ranma's mother since they were already there.
"Yes!" the Chinese girl answered. "Shampoo here to find out about slavery."
"I am sorry," Kasumi told her, "but Nabiki is not home either and Mrs. Saotome is currently in a session. You really should have called to make an appointment...."
But Shampoo was not listening to what Kasumi was saying.
"Is true?" she demanded angrily. "Ranma made Akane into Slave? Ranma own Akane and treat her like thing?"
The Chinese girl seemed extremely upset about this. Probably jealous for not getting enslaved first.
"Yes, Ranma took Akane as his slave," Kasumi perpetuated the lie Nabiki had made up. "Akane volunteered and Ranma enslaved her with her consent. Nabiki helped with the paperwork so that Akane is now legally Ranma's property."
"Ranma own Akane?" Shampoo asked again as if to make sure that she understood it right.
"Yes, Ranma owns Akane, "Kasumi told her.
The Chinese girl gulped. She tried to speak several times, but it took her a moment to calm herself down enough to form a halfway coherent Japanese sentence. She really must be very excited by the idea.
"And punishment? Is true, too?" Shampoo wanted to know, helpfully pointing out the booklet's picture of Ranma spanking Akane to illustrate her query.
"That too," Kasumi assured her. "If Akane is a disobedient slave-girl Ranma punishes her. Just today Ranma spanked Akane's bottom because she went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water."
Personally Kasumi believed that Akane had done that on purpose. Her 'oops, I broke the rules, but you aren't going to spank me for it, are you?' had been entirely too unbelievable. Ranma's reaction had been far better played and Kasumi could almost believe that he meant it when he had told Akane how much he regretted having to do this.
Ranma in the end had concluded that he needed larger variety of possible punishments for Akane so he would not have to give the same penalty for everything. His mother had suggested a store where they could find the right tools for it that had not been included in her earlier present.
Shampoo meanwhile had gone pale.
This could not be happening. That could not be her husband doing such things. Shampoo tried to deny what she was hearing, but the too nice Tendou girl would not lie, would she?
She couldn't have misjudged Ranma so badly. Ranma couldn't be a slaver, an oppressor of women a cruel and sadistic fiend.
As a child she had grown up with stories of proud Amazon warrior of former time who fought male oppressors, of stupid girls who out of false feelings of affection submitted to an outsider and ended up being trapped and cruelly abused. Shampoo had always imagined herself as the proud heroine in those tales who went out to rescue her foolish sister, not as the naïve girl who fell for a pretty face and had to be rescued.
Could Shampoo really have been so blind?
Uncomfortably she remembered that as a younger girl she had often gotten far too much into the parts where the heroine was trapped, seemingly helpless and unable to escape being ravished by her male captor. But that was when she had been young and foolish. She had trained and steeled herself to become a true warrior. She had been sure that she was over that now.
Could it have been, that going after an outsider where such dangers were rumored to lurk for real, had just been her subconscious influencing her? Her secret desire blinding her against all the warning signs such as Ranma's contempt for female superiority and lack of true male devotion? Could she have been unintentionally maneuvering herself into a position where she would end up being enslaved?
No! That was not her! Shampoo was a decent and moral amazon warrior. There had to be a simple and logical explanation for this like Ranma acting under some kind of magic spell or being replaced by a dopplegänger.
And if not, than Shampoo would have to do her duty and oppose the impetuous male. She would free Akane from his chains and teach him a lesson. She could not allow her feelings for Ranma to weaken her resolve.
Shampoo was not weak! And she would do whatever was necessary to prove this.
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(Posted Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:33)
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