"We are home!" Ranma called out from the hallway.
"Welcome back," Kasumi answered somewhat less loudly before going to meet him.
Shampoo slowly followed behind her.
In the Tendou living room they met up with Ranma and Akane. To Shampoo's horror it appeared that Ranma was leading Akane around on a leash.
"Shampoo is here," Kasumi informed them.
"Hi, Shampoo!" Ranma greeted her jovially, "We noticed your hole in the wall when we came in."
Shampoo did not answer, she was still staring at the collar and leash that Akane wore. How could the annoying but strong and independent-minded girl that Shampoo remembered have been reduced to this?
"Don't you have something to tell her, Akane?" Kasumi nudged. "You don't want to earn yourself another punishment, do you."
"Oh yes, I have something to tell Shampoo," Akane agreed before turning to her. "Hello, Shampoo. Just so you know: My master Ranma has taken me as his slave and I am his property now. You hear that I am Ranma's slave-girl and he can do with me whatever he wants. I serve him and he uses my body for his pleasure. Do you understand, Shampoo?"
Shampoo did understand. Her worst fear had just proven true. Somehow Ranma had enslaved and already broken Akane to his will.
Likely sensing the mood that Akane's announcement had put Shampoo in Kasumi tried to change the topic.
"You probably needn't be quite this verbose, Akane," Kasumi told her younger sister. "Anyway, did you get what you were looking for Ranma?"
"Oh yes!" Ranma's eyes lit up as he told them, "They had lots of cool stuff there. There must be more slaves and masters living in Tokyo then I thought if they have such large stores especially for them. We have to go back there at some point with more money and time. But today we did find the right thing for the problem we had earlier."
He rummaged in the plain nondescriptive bag he carried and took out a dark oblong object. As he held it up and fanned it out she could see that it consisted of two black leather strips that were stitched together at one side forming the handle. At the other end the strips were loosely lying on top of each other. It looked very dangerous to Shampoo.
"A leather slapper," Ranma explained grinning.
He quickly reached behind Akane and lifted up the back of her skirt with his free hand and then viciously brought down the implement on Akane's behind.
Slap!
"Ouch!" Akane's scream accompanied the unnaturally loud sound of the leather hitting her flesh.
Shampoo looked on in horror as Ranma again held up his torture instrument, casually dangling it from side to side and letting its ends lightly slap against each other.
"A genuine slap-stick, neat, isn't it?" he proudly told them. "Now I have a way to adequately punish Akane if she does something as silly as earlier when she walked into the kitchen for a glass of water."
"It does sounds very intimidating." Kasumi observed.
"That's the idea, very showy with just enough sting to punish Akane when she feels like testing her limits," Ranma agreed bringing down the flexible leather rod on Akane's butt again.
Slap!
"Oh! Master, it hurts!" Akane moaned. "Why are you punishing your poor innocent slave-girl like this?"
"Very funny, Akane," Ranma muttered mocking her suffering. "For that I will give you another swat."
Slap!
Shampoo could not move or speak. She had just seen Ranma cruelly physically abusing Akane. This was utter madness!
"This slave-girl is very sorry for having had the temerity to question her master." Akane excused herself. "She really is very grateful that her master went to the trouble of buying a tool to properly discipline her."
The poor girl gave Ranma a strange look that Shampoo was not able to properly read. But Ranma seemed to understand its meaning and smiled at what he had done to make Akane give it.
Unable to take it anymore, with an inarticulate scream of rage Ahampoo launched herself at the cruel monster that she had thought she loved.
Nabiki had only gone for a quick walk to get one of the pictures she had taken of Kodachi blown up to poster-size and printed on glossy paper. She would not sell it to the general public, but between Kodachi herself and Mrs Saotome there was bound to be a customer for a framed picture of Ranma's shibari skills.
When she returned only a short time later she found a new bimbo-sized hole in the side of their home and chaos reigning inside.
"What is going on here?" she asked stepping through the new entrance not bothering with such niceties as announcing her return or using the door.
"I don't know what is going on," a distraught Kasumi answered her. "Shampoo came by with one of your booklets. She seemed really interested in it, but aunty Saotome was busy. Everything was fine, but when Akane returned with Ranma she started bantering with Ranma, showing off her slavery and teasing Shampoo with the fact that Ranma was her master. And then Shampoo suddenly went totally crazy and started attacking. But for some reason she went after Ranma and not Akane."
Indeed Akane was still standing at the side with a rather befuddled look on her face as Shampoo did her best to bash Ranma's brains in with her bonbori. Shampoo was really going all out. Nabiki had not seen the Amazon fighting this seriously since she had first come from China. Ranma was hard pressed to keep her from landing a blow. He tried to reason with her as he evaded her attempts to take off his head but Shampoo was only hurling insults at him. Occasionally broken bits of Japanese surfaced in the stream of Chinese profanities. The words 'slaver', 'oppressor', 'enemy of women' and 'won't enslave Shampoo' could be made out in Shampoo's speech.
Nabiki watched angrily as the two combatants were slowly reducing the Tendou living room to so much kindling. Couldn't Ranma stop dodging and let Shampoo hit him? Broken bones healed for free, broken furniture was expensive to repair and replace.
"I really don't understand what has gotten into her," Kasumi lamented.
"The wrath of an Amazon scorned?" Nabiki suggested.
"I don't think that's it." Kasumi replied. "She is only attacking Ranma and not going after Akane at all. And she keeps shouting about slavery and Ranma not getting her, but earlier she seemed really interested in it."
"I think I understand," Nabiki speculated. "It makes sense, if you think about how she always insists on he crazy Amazon laws about having to marry Ranma because he has beaten her and everything. I guess she is attacking Ranma all out because she wants him to beat her and enslave her."
"Do you really think so?" Kasumi was not totally convinced.
"Just watch," Nabiki told her before turning to the martial artists and shouting. "Hey, Ranma! When You have beaten Shampoo are you going to strip her naked and tie her up, too?"
Seeing Shampoo flush deep red and hesitating upon hearing this, Nabiki decided to go a step father. She got out the poster she had just had made and unrolled it holding it up.
"I have just gotten the print of the girl you defeated yesterday," she shouted. "It came out really nice, but I am sure that you can trump that with this Amazon tramp."
Shampoo's eyes got very wide when she saw the picture of a naked and tied up Kodachi. Once she got over her shock she attacked Ranma with renewed vigor, but she kept glancing back at the poster that Nabiki held up and it became obvious that while she was putting more and more into her attacks her defense became increasingly sloppy.
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(Posted Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:27)
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