"That good workout," Shampoo said cheerily, while wiping a bead of sweat off her brow. "Not had chance to work out for a while."
In the corner of the dojo, slumped against the wall, Akane nodded while taking deep breaths. Perhaps trying to keep up with the pace of a lifelong trained warrior had been a bad idea? She stifled a whimper as she wiped the torrent of sweat away from her eyes. She didn't realise her arms could hurt this much.
After catching her breath, Akane staggered to her feet. Shampoo (damn her) had continued some strange, foreign kata. On any other day, in any other condition, Akane would take the time to analyse the form, in an effort to learn something from it. Any student of Anything Goes would do the same. But right now, at this time and at this place, she had much more pressing needs to attend to. Namely, re-hydration.
"I-I'll be back shortly. I just need to go get something."
Shampoo nodded her response without missing a beat. Akane trudged off to the kitchen, dragging herself with whatever strength her tired muscles could gather.
Nabiki smirked as she watched her sister leaving the dojo. Now was her chance! She'd been wanting to talk to this new friend of Akane's, preferably without her sister being around to get in the way. And now, Akane was dragging herself towards the house, following what must have been a long and hard workout, which inevitably meant that her mysterious new friend would probably be exhausted as well. A prime target for a subtle interrogation.
But to her surprise, on entering the dojo she noticed the stranger was still energetically training away. It was almost as if she'd not been sparring at all. If she could manage to keep up with Akane and still look this fresh... Nabiki resolved herself to tread lightly. This was not a person to be on the wrong side of.
"Um... Excuse me?"
The girl stopped for a moment to look at her. "I'm Nabiki. One of Akane's sisters. I don't believe we've met, miss?"
"Shampoo."
Odd name. But she was clearly foreign with that accent, and that did look like a Chinese dress. "So, how do you know my sister?"
"Shampoo meet Akane at nice Doctor's place."
"And what are you doing in Japan?"
"Is looking for... for friend. Find out friend is coming here. Shampoo get here first."
Friend? Yeah, sure. Nabiki didn't buy that for a second. The look in her eyes said that she thought of this person as anything but a friend.
"Well, I know the locals a bit better than you do. Maybe I can help you out?"
Shampoo stopped mid punch and turned to glower at Nabiki. "Her name Ranma. You find Ranma?"
Perfect. "Well, alright. I can ask around. But... You know, I'm just a little worried, is all."
"You find Ranma or not?"
"Oh, I'll keep an eye out for her." Nabiki smirked. Time to reel her in. "But I might be a little distracted. You see, my sister has been acting weird lately, and I'm a little worried about her."
A flash of concern crossed Shampoo's face. "Weird how?" she asked.
Hiding a smirk, Nabiki explained as best she could. She had a potential information mine now. Whatever Akane was hiding, she was one step closer to finding out.
Kasumi nodded, and walked off to the dojo. This left Akane a few free minutes while the water heated up. Since meeting Shampoo, she'd not yet had the chance to check her own diary out. Now was as good a time as any.
Shampoo attacked Ranma before he arrived! He was badly hurt, but is still alive!
"Oh, this is bad! I have to think of something! But how can I help him? I don't even know where he'll be until he arrives here!"
Just then, Kasumi called out for her. The bath was ready. Nothing else for it, the diary was secreted into its hiding place and Akane left to take her bath. Her muscles desperately needed to relax... Then she could come up with something to help Ranma out.
A shadowy figure sat outside Akane's window, and watched her leave. As soon as the door was closed, she effortlessly and silently opened the window. Within moments, she was in. A few of the things Nabiki had mentioned about Akane had bothered her. The sudden, furious assault that she'd laid out on her schoolmate. Her sudden decision to pick up the pace in her training. And then there was her fighting style, which was similar to something she'd read about recently. It had taken a while to make the connection, but could Akane be the Violent Girl mentioned in her diary?
"Shampoo think she saw Akane hide something here... Ah! Here!"
It was a book of some sort. She flipped open the pages absently, before silently cursing as she realised she couldn't understand the words as they were written. The layout of text made it look a lot like a diary, which is hardly a strange thing for a young girl to want kept secret. But just then, before she returned the book to where it sat, she saw something strange.
On one of the pages, the ink was shifting around. Forming from one set of shapes to another. Shampoo gasped, then returned the diary to its hiding place, being careful to leave it looking just as she'd found it. Then she fled back to the Doctor's place, carefully avoiding the attention of those in the house.
She had some reading to do.
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(Posted Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:15)
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