The phone rang.
A small, wrinkled hand picked it up. "Yes, Nekohanten?"
Cologne, elder of the Chinese Amazon Tribe, listened to what the speaker on the other end of the line had to say and nodded.
"She did? Well, that's certainly good news. Yes, Shampoo will be glad to hear about that as well." A short pause. "Oh, not too good, I'm afraid. I believe she's still blaming herself for what happened... she hasn't spoken a word ever since." A sigh. "She also seems to spend much more time in her cat form. Yes. Yes, of course I'll tell her."
Another pause. "She asked to see me? Well, I can close early today, it wouldn't hurt our business much... No, we won't bring Mousse. Yes, I think so, too. Thank you, Mr. Tendo! Yes, we will hurry. See you in a while..."
She hung up. "Shampoo? Where are you, child? I have good news!"
She walked through the restaurant searchingly, looked into the kitchen and finally found her great-granddaughter lying on her bed in her room... in her cat form. "Shampoo! Guess what, Kasumi just woke up from her coma. Isn't that good news?"
Shampoo raised her head from where she was lying and looked at her great-grandmother with a hopeful expression. With a feline sigh of relief, she stood up and followed her great-grandmother downstairs, where a kettle of hot water was waiting.
"Now, hurry up and change back! Kasumi has requested the presence of both of us."
Shampoo-neko looked up at her questioningly.
"Yes, Mr. Tendo said so himself. You are welcome to come. Now, hurry up, we don't want to keep them waiting."
----
Later, the two Amazons were standing in front of the Nerima hospital. Shampoo, who was back in her human form, looked up at the building and sighed.
"I know this will be hard for you, child... but I'm pretty sure no one up there will blame you for what happened to Kasumi OR for Ranma's disappearance."
Shampoo didn't say a word, but her look and her raised eyebrows said everything.
Cologne sighed. "Yes, even Akane! I mean, it has been two years, surely she will have put aside that silly little grudge of hers. Of course it's a long time for someone to be in coma, but they all have seen how sorry you are. Now come and go up there. Kasumi has been out of it for two years, you don't want to refuse her request to see you, do you?"
Shampoo shook her head and Cologne smiled. "Well, let's go then."
----
"You did WHAT?" Akane Tendo shrieked so loud, that the nurse that was going past them threw her an angry glare. Akane remembered that this was a hospital and lowered her voice a bit. "What do you mean, you called Shampoo? Dad, all of this happened only because of that ditzy fool of an Amazon! And you're going to allow her to come close to Kasumi?"
Soun Tendo massaged his temples. "Akane, it was Kasumi's own wish to see her. And while I know all of this has started with Shampoo's little... experiment, I don't think she could have anticipated all of what happened... especially not that Kasumi would suddenly appear at the Nekohanten."
"Oh, so now it's suddenly Kasumi's fault that she has been in coma for two years?" the youngest Tendo sister ranted.
"Of course not," Soun sighed. "Listen, you know that Kasumi just came to the Nekohanten because she decided to take some ramen home with her... she didn't know that Ranma and Shampoo were doing their 'special training' in there."
"Training?" Akane huffed. "Daddy, that dumb broad changed herself into a cat deliberately, even though she knows that Ranma is terrified of cats. No wonder he entered the Neko-ken... and you know how dangerous Ranma can be to anyone in this state of mind."
"Well, from what Cologne told me, her great-granddaughter was just trying to cure Ranma from his fear of cats..."
"You think Ranma would be dumb enough to fall for a lie like that? It's obvious that they have used some hypnotic herbs again. I still think they know pretty well where Ranma has vanished to after this incident."
"Akane..." her father groaned. "Kasumi, Ranma and Shampoo were the only persons present, and Shampoo hasn't spoken ever since that day. We don't really know the whole situation here. Don't you think we should wait until Kasumi has told us the whole story behind all of this?"
"I still don't see why Cologne and Shampoo have to be present for that..." Akane grumbled.
"Because it was Kasumi's first request after she woke up," Soun said sternly. "Now you're going to respect your sister's wish, do I make myself clear, Akane?"
Akane's frown just deepened, but then she turned around and stormed down the corridor in the opposite direction of her father.
Soun scratched his head. "Akane... what am I going to do with you?" he sighed.
When he heard a strange noise, he turned around. He smiled in relief when he realized that it was just the clopping of Cologne's stick, as the Amazon elder pogoed out of the lift towards him, followed by Shampoo.
The young amazon warrior was looking very miserable. She didn't even look up from the ground once, and her beautiful hair was a mess. She seems to take what happened much more to heart than Soun had assumed.
He smiled at them. "Cologne, Shampoo! Good that you could make it!"
"How could we say no?" Cologne said in greeting. "After all, it was kinda our fault..."
Soun noticed how Shampoo winced under her great-grandmother's words and she looked even further away from him.
"I don't know what to do with her," Cologne said in a whisper. "She doesn't talk, she barely eats and she hasn't trained her battle skills for months... I'm really concerned about her future as an Amazon."
She coughed. "Well, how is Kasumi? Is she feeling fine?"
Soun smiled. "Yes, she's fine! She's wide awake and has an appetite I've never seen on her. And she seems to remember clearly what happened. But... she doesn't want to tell us until the two of you are present to hear it as well."
"Well, I must say I am pretty anxious about hearing the truth of what really happened. Are her sisters with her?"
"Well, Nabiki is with her now, along with Ranma's parents... Akane, well, she has just left, but I think it's best she wouldn't meet Shampoo right now anyway."
Cologne frowned. "Is she still holding a grudge towards her?"
Soun nodded. "Cologne, I know our families haven't always been on equal terms, but I know Shampoo would never do something to harm Ranma, so I am assuming everything that happened was just an accident. But... you really don't know where Ranma could have vanished to after all of this?"
The elder shook her head. "I'm sorry, I have just so many magical items in my possession... anything could have happened. Or, for a reason I can't quite see, Ranma ran away on his own and decided not to come back."
"Well, hopefully Kasumi will give us an answer to that... Please, come in! Everyone has been waiting for you."
Cologne nodded. After waving Shampoo, the purple-haired girl followed the two adults reluctantly into the hospital room.
Kasumi was sitting upward in bed, her eyes as wide awake as before those two years, and with that cute smile of hers that everyone had missed on her face.
When the door opened, this smile was directed at the two newcomers. "Shampoo! Cologne! How nice of you to come!"
"Well, I can't say we weren't worried for you, Miss Tendo," Cologne said. "I'm glad to see that you seem to be fine."
"Oh yes, the doctors said that I'll probably be able to leave the hospital over the week. Everything has healed quite nicely."
"That's good to hear," Cologne smiled. Then, her face took on a serious look. "Kasumi... I'm sorry I have to pester you with this, but... do you really remember what happened on that day?"
Kasumi's smile vanished and made place for a sad frown. "Yes, I remember all too well, elder," she said in a quiet voice. Everyone in the room looked at her in surprise. It was very rare to see Kasumi with such a serious look on her face.
"Well, Shampoo only told me that she wanted to do something against Ranma's fear against cats," Cologne spoke up. "She didn't tell me all the details... and if I knew what would have happened, I would have never accepted that challenge of Happosai." She sighed. "It turned out to be an invitation for a date anyway..."
"Excuse me, but I think I speak for everyone in here when I say that we don't need to hear the details about that 'date'," Nabiki said.
"Yes, you're right," Cologne nodded.
"Well, after I walked back home from the grocery store, I came past the Nekohanten, as usual," Kasumi started her tale. "I decided to take some ramen with me... your ramen is always so delicious," she smiled at Cologne. "But then, I heard some strange noises coming from inside. It almost sounded like... a cat's meow. I was curious and went inside..." She sighed. "I probably shouldn't have done that. Well, when I came in, I saw Ranma and Shampoo... Ranma was on all fours and hissed at Shampoo, who was in her cat form. I realized that she must have awakened the Neko-ken.
Well, what I did next was pretty careless of me... I figured, with Akane not nearby, I could be able to calm down Ranma in his feral state." She looked down. "It seems I was wrong. For some reason, Ranma reacted all hostile towards me when I approached. I stumbled backwards and fell. While he slowly approached me, Shampoo must have ran into the kitchen, because I could see her coming into the room shortly after, in the nude, her body dripping with water. She kicked Ranma away from me, but that only made him angry. Now he attacked her, and I could see that she had trouble defending herself against him. I should have fled to get some help at that point... but I believed I had to do something to help Shampoo. So I got a large frying pan from the kitchen and tried to knock Ranma out from behind."
"Kasumi..." Soun murmured. His eldest daughter had never been interested in the arts, so he really couldn't see why she thought she could simply knock down Ranma with a frying pan.
"It was a silly idea, I know... but I just wanted to help them both. Sadly, Ranma noticed me and knocked the pan out of my hands." She shuddered. "Things kinda got blurry after that, but... I remember lying on the ground, with a sharp pain in my chest. Ranma was standing in front of me, on his two legs, and Shampoo was lying unconscious on the ground."
Kasumi really looked sad now. "Ranma kept shaking his head and saying 'No!' over and over again. I... I could see how his hands were shaking. He then stumbled backwards, against an old shelf that was filled with what looked like Chinese artifacts. Some of the stumbled over and broke on the floor... The last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness was that Ranma screamed out loudly... and then a bright flash. Well, maybe it was just my imagination... but I believe that Ranma was gone even before I closed my eyes."
Cologne shivered. She knew she should have locked away some of the old, magical artifacts. "Kasumi... this is very, very important! Do you remember which artifact Ranma touched before he vanished?"
"Well, there ave been so many various things, and I couldn't quite concentrate in that moment, but... I believe it was a mirror."
"A mirror?" Genma asked in alarm. "Not that mirror that brought us back in time?"
"I believe it looked kinda different... it was a mirror that would normally hang on a wall, and it was really surprising that it didn't shatter on the floor, that's why it caught my eye in the first place."
With a loud clatter, Cologne's stick fell to the ground.
Shampoo looked at her great-grandmother in alarm, and the other occupants of the room looked at her in surprise as well.
"No, that can't be..." the old woman muttered to herself. "After all that time... not THAT mirror..." She groaned. "And I believed I already got rid of it..."
"What do you mean, Cologne?" Nodoka asked. "Do you know what happened to my Ranma? Can we find him again? What is that mirror?"
Cologne buried her face in her hands. "I hoped... I hoped I would never have to deal with that person again, but if what I suspect is true, then... then it's the mirror... of Bleu!"
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(Posted Fri, 04 May 2007 12:27)
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