Climbing Together 15 (Patreon)

I don’t own SF, KoF or R½ LOL.

So, this chapter doesn’t cover the full scope of time I had wanted it to. Two reasons: One, my muse suddenly said, ‘Wouldn’t this be hella funny’ and introduced an idea to me. Second, I didn’t realize how many days would take the yacht to get to Manila from Hainan. I checked my notes, and had the flight time rather than the ship-time, but looking at a map had me going “huh?”

So, while there’s no problem of their ship being able to reach it, it’s going to take them five to six days doing it. Thus, the tournament will mostly take part in the next chapter. Both there, and here I use some KoF and SF characters as one-shot characters.

This has been checked over by Hiryo.

Chapter 15: A ‘Peaceful’ Voyage

Helping Shampoo down into the interior of the ship, while Mai steered the Rising Star further away from its previous hiding space and out into open water, proved to be incredibly difficult. The narrow confines of the hallway and the steps leading down hadn’t previously been an issue but carrying Shampoo sideways along the hall and then through the door into the bedroom proved ridiculously hard, when he was also trying not to jostle her enough to cause her further pain. Still, Ranma was able to lay Shampoo out on the bed they all shared, where he wondered if maybe they should try and make some kind of splint or something to keep her legs from moving.

“We should. I… my ki healing is better than Mai’s, but I’m not up to directing it so well. Not only is going to essentially need to regenerate my skin, there are so many broken bits in there…” Shampoo stuttered, staring at her legs with horror, allowing her fear and pain to appear in a way that she never would in front of anyone else. She could barely twitch her legs given how many broken bones she had in them, and the skin on her legs looked more like burnt meat than anything else.

Without the toughness training, I would’ve lost my legs she thought, before forcefully pushing that realization away and not for the first time that night. It’d been hovering at the back of her head most of the time Ranma had been carrying her in his arms.

“I know, damn it. I wish I knew a way to send my own ki into you, maybe then I could help things along, or maybe help direct your ki for you,” Ranma said, somewhat awkwardly as he scratched at his pigtail, looking around as he thought of how to create a splinter from what he remembered was aboard. Should have thought of that way back when we were first injured, but fucking hell, her legs look bad now that we’ve got better light to see by. “But I think your ki would probably fight mine, wouldn’t it?” he asked, trying hard not to stare.

“If it recognized your ki as foreign, yes, and pressing your ki into a living person is far tougher than inanimate objects. But like I said, we need to make sure all the bones are set in the right place, then my ki healing can do the rest,” Shampoo answered brusquely. She smiled then, taking his hand, bringing it up to her mouth. “Don’t worry. Once we set the bones, I’m sure I will be as right as rain given enough time.”

“Yeah, maybe, but that process is still going to be painful. Not just the bones, but touching the burned skin and the burned skin in general,” Ranma worried. “The kind of pain that I don’t think even a horse-sized aspirin would help with. Same with Mai’s injuries too, damn it.”

“Are you calling me a horse?” Shampoo mock-gasped, and Ranma rolled his eyes.

“I always thought of you more as a bloodhound really, considering how well you chased me down.” As Shampoo gasped for real this time, he turned aside, moving over to the medicine cabinet. “Still, just because it won’t help much to deaden the pain is no reason not to use—"

“Wait! That I can do. Get one of my needles,” Shampoo ordered, scowling in irritation. I should’ve thought of this hours ago! But no, I was too busy just pushing through the pain, trying to keep it away from my voice, trying to make light of it when I should’ve just been dealing with the pain in the first place!

Adrenaline and her own ki had kept Shampoo from feeling the true extent of her injuries at first, but as Ranma had been carrying her through the forest in the martial arts manner, i.e., by bouncing from one tree to another, despite how lightly he was able to land and diffuse the impacts of both takeoff and landing, each movement had caused Shampoo searing blasts of pain. Which had been made far worse by the injuries to her head. She wasn’t seeing double just yet, but it was all she could do to keep her eyes from becoming mere slits, if that, in the harsh overhead light of their bedroom.

It wasn’t actually harsh. Mai had replaced the bulbs in the overhead light of the bedroom within moments of purchasing the ship, giving the room a softer orangish light instead of the harsh yellow-white it had been. Still, while Shampoo hadn’t suffered a concussion, it had been a near-run thing.

Now though, Shampoo had a plan forward. Even as Ranma rushed off to find her spare needles, disenfectant and something to create splints for her legs, she went over a diagram of her body in her mind.

When he came back, Shampoo took the needle from his hand thankfully. The pain was getting really bad just lying here, feeling the sheets of the bed under her legs, and she knew that when Ranma began to set her bones, it would be even worse. “I’m going to need four more needles, and a timer set for fifteen minutes when I finish. Let me do that before you apply disinfectant or splint my legs.”

Nodding, Ranma pulled out his phone from his weapons space and set it aside for the moment before handing over Shampoo’s needles. Then he pulled bits of things out from his weapons space, spare clothing, and a few staves he used as practice markers when using his rope dart. They were good for training precision and control, but now would be put to a better purpose. “How long should the deadening effect last?”

“Erhh…” Shampoo frowned at that, pausing. “Um… by Mao’s hairy scrotum, that’s a point. Eh… in this case I think I’m going to need to accept that the cure will be pretty bad, as it isn’t nearly as bad as the problem.”

“Not filling me with joy, here, love,” Ranma muttered, holding back an inappropriate snicker at Shampoo’s curse.

“If I use the acupuncture needles consecutively more than a few times, they are going to cause internal bruises and superficial black and blue marks. Further, the deadening effect might take a longer while to wear off. I… ugh… I might need to keep them in for at least fourteen hours a day, maybe more. The, the pain in my legs is really starting to get to me, Airen. I will just need to deal with the consequences,” Shampoo decided, her voice showing more pain than before.

“TSK,” Ranma growled, then nodding. “Fine. I… I had really hoped your ki healing would have already begun to deal with the damages, but it certainly isn’t, and with that burnt skin… yeah. Okay.” He then smirked a bit. “Not that ya needed my approval or anything, since I’ll still be here to help with whatever you need regardless.”

Shampoo smiled at that, reaching out to squeeze his hand before taking a cup and some aspirin from him as Ranma helped her sit up, putting some pillows behind her. She gulped them all down, then took a needle in one hand, she briefly touched her upper thigh, then, finding the point she wanted, Shampoo pressed the needle in, pushing it in slowly. She did this three more times, and as the last needle slid into Shampoo’s flesh, the pain from her legs receded entirely. From the waist down Shampoo’s body was no longer sending her pain signals, and Shampoo sighed as she slumped back against Ranma, Ranma having had to help her to sit upright as she worked.

“Set the timer, love. Make it for twenty minutes rather than fifteen,” Shampoo requested, adding five minutes to her original time. “I’ll remove them then, but I should be good for six hours or so. Do what you have to.”

“What, no special acupuncture point for injuries to the head?” Ranma quipped even as he laid Shampoo’s upper body back down on the bed. With that done, he turned to his phone and started up a timer.

“No, and if there were, I probably wouldn’t use them anyway.” Shampoo’s tone, unlike Ranma’s, was serious as she answered, shaking her head slowly so as not to cause herself further pain. She still felt a small twitch of pain, but not nearly as much as previously, as her ki healing had finally begun to do something, despite Ranma’s earlier comment on that score.

It was helping with the more minor injuries faster than the major ones. “The brain is a tricky thing, and any acupuncture point that can do anything to it isn’t something I’d be willing to do on myself or anyone else without a lot of thought beforehand.”

“Well, let me get a permanent dressing on your head anyway before I start on your legs. That, and some more disinfectant. I don’t want any of your injuries to get infected or anything.” He snorted. “Heh, that stuff we actually have a lot of aboard thanks to you girls finding that sale of it before those dumbass soldiers tried to mess with us. Of course, I’ll have to use it with Mai, too, but I’ve already got a sewing needle cooking, along with thread.”

Blinking, it took Shampoo’s somewhat frazzled mind a minute to understand Ranma’s words, but then she remembered Mai’s injuries, and the tact they would need to be sewn shut. “I, I didn’t have a good look of her injuries, I know she was able to move well enough but...”

“Long gash across her stomach, not deep thankfully up until it reaches a point just below her left breast, but deep enough and wide enough that they’ll need stitching,” Ranma announced, shaking his head. “Three long gashes. They’re nasty looking and close set so sewing them is not going to be easy, but if I get them closed tight enough, even Mai’s limited ki healing should allow her to close the wounds entirely.”

Hearing that, Shampoo grimaced, but nodded. Now, if my Airen was like any other normal man, I’d demand he bring Mai down to me to let me do the stitching, but I’ve seen Ranma’s stitching before. He’s actually better at it than me, Shampoo thought wryly fighting the automatic urge to shake her head at that thought. “Well, that’s good at least. I hope she isn’t fretting about something stupid like them scarring or whatever.”

“Eh, so long as she stays still while I’m working, that’s probably about as much as I can ask for at the moment,” Ranma drawled, then, when Shampoo furrowed her brows at him quizzically, he shrugged. “Remember, Mai’s ticklish, and her sides and stomach are where she’s most ticklish.”

“Oh…” Shampoo thought about that for a moment, then chuckled quietly. “Well, in that case, I think she’ll need a few acupuncture points as well for multiple reasons. Bring her down here and let me do that before you do anything.”

“Ehh… let’s see if you can keep awake for that. First, let’s get your leg situated and deal with the burns, not just your broken bones.”

Unfortunately, there really wasn’t much aboard ship that could help with burns. Not specifically anyway. They had some stuff to use if someone got sunburned, and that was what Ranma ended up using after he slathered disinfectant on. He emptied the entire bottle of both disinfectant and aloe onto Shampoo’s legs, front and back, making the whole room smell.

Regardless, he kept working, slathering up her legs, trying hard not to notice how badly burned and just disgusting to the touch Shampoo’s legs were currently. He did not have an easy time doing so, and it was made worse by the fact that Ranma could also feel the bones underneath, and how many of them were broken. I knew that before, but damn, it still infuriates me! Fucking Vega!

Once Ranma had done all he could for the burns, which frankly was so little he had to wonder if it would help at all, a thought that made him feel even worse, Ranma started to feel up her legs again, one after another. “Well, at least when it comes ta broken bones I’ve got a lot more knowledge to work with. Hell, I even once broke one of my legs almost as badly as this when I was younger.” Ranma tried to inject some humor into his words in an effort to push aside his worries, and it worked to a certain extent.

“Oh, what did the stupid panda do this time?” Shampoo questioned, more for something to concentrate on than anything else. She was currently having trouble keeping her eyes open. Despite the murmur of Ranma’s voice and the work on her legs thanks to the fact she had no feeling below the waist, exhaustion was beginning to get to Shampoo.

“He didn’t have his curse back then, so Stupid Baldy would be far more appropriate,” Ranma joked, even as his hands moved, settling a few bones in both of Shampoo’s feet, then at her ankle on one side, and higher up her inner leg on the other. “It turns out that being ready for roof-hopping isn’t an exact science. He thought I was ready because I was able to jump from fence to fence without issue, and had no fear of heights, but there’s a big difference between being ready in terms of your balance and being ready in terms of your leg strength.”

Ranma snorted. “I jumped off a two-story house, landed, and even despite the fact that I rolled with it, still broke one of my legs, in several different places. My old man was furious at it, as much as he was frightened of the injury. Back then, he still kind of cared for me, I guess, more than just seeing me as a way to early retirement. But he was also furious that being so injured would take away from her training time for a while.”

“Yes, that does sound like stupid panda, for all he wasn’t a panda back then,” Shampoo growled, her desire to full asleep falling by the wayside for a second as her hands clenched and unclenched where they lay beside her. For some reason, besides the injuries to her head anyway, she was also feeling incredibly weak.

Ranma noticed her twitching fingers, and frowned a bit, wondering if maybe he missed some damage, some injury to her spine maybe. But then Shampoo’s stomach growled, and Ranma blinked, then chuckled. “Damn, it sounds like your stomach evolved to equal my ‘owner’ there.”

“Hah… hah…” Shampoo stated, before looking down at her stomach quizzically. “But how the hell am I hungry? That was a fantastic meal we had, and I certainly haven’t been doing anything too strenuous since fucking Vega decided to try and fucking blow us up.”

Not commenting on his lady love cursing like that when Shampoo, more than himself or Mai, was quite against that kind of thing. She thought simple curses like that showed a lack of imagination. Ranma stood up for second then looked down at his still aloe-covered hands, before getting back on his knees next to the bed. “Isn’t it obvious? You need to eat a lot to fuel your ki as it heals ya. It’s a good sign, it mean you’ve already burned off all of your inner energy and the food you ate earlier has been converted and your ki’s doing what it should.”

Or it could be a sign that the burns were way worse than I feared, deep tissue burns or something, as I’ve not noticed any changes to her legs’ appearance, Ranma mused darkly, keeping that out of his voice with difficulty. “I’m going to need to get you some protein bars and maybe something else to go with ‘em. But only after I’m done with your legs, okay?”

Shampoo just nodded at that, still looking a little embarrassed at her stomach for a second, even as Ranma moved up her legs again, exceedingly thankful that Shampoo had remembered her acupuncture training. Because she had also been right. Ranma needed to set the bones so that the healed properly in several places. Beyond the four previous places, one knee had been dislocated, her thigh bone had splintered, and several other bones had simply shifted just a bit off point.

Fucking hell, how was Shampoo even dealing with this?! Ranma thought. I know she’s tough as hell, but we didn’t even use pressure points or anything to deaden the pain on the way here! Could she have been using ki to block out the pain somehow? Or… huh, could her ki have kept enough adrenaline going through her for her to not feel it as much?

Shaking that thought off, Ranma continued, grimacing as he set the bones one after another. Like in her feet, a few of those fractures had been bad enough to point of nearly breaking Shampoo’s skin. He did, however, notice that a few of the veins in her leg, which should have been sliced by her own broken bones, weren’t. As he pressed around them, he felt that the skin showed signs of the bones having shifted away from them as well as toward.

Ah, so that was what her ki’s been up to. Glad her unconscious use of ki is up to my own in terms of what it can handle, if not in speed, Ranma thought, for once happy with what he was feeling.

Regardless, the amount of damage he was feeling didn’t say good things for how long it would be for Shampoo to heal herself back to full mobility, but Ranma still felt they been unbelievably lucky to get away with even that minimal amount, given the explosions they’d had to deal with. Literal fucking military grade damn IED type explosions. Toughness training, definitely need to continue our toughness training. I doubt we’ll ever get to the point where explosions aren’t a big deal, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t a goal to shoot for anyway.

He was soon done with that job and quickly ran out to grab Shampoo a protein bar, stuffing it into her mouth without further preamble as he had noticed as he stood up at her eyes begun to close. Despite having had several in his life, Ranma didn’t know all that much about concussions, but he did know that you shouldn’t allow someone to go to sleep all that easily.

“Mind you, it has been a few hours, so maybe it’s all right now? Still, I want to make sure you eat something,” Ranma addressed to Shampoo.

Working her jaw stoically, Shampoo grumbled around the protein bar, keeping it down with difficulty. They were supposed to be emergency staples for a reason, and while she knew that there were some out there that were supposedly quite tasty coming from American companies, they haven’t been able to find any of those in Hong Kong or any of the other places they’d stopped in. Thus, the protein bars, which they had left aboard ship for a reason during their stay on Hainan, was far too chalky and far too tasteless for her tastes.

Still, the protein within would help her, and Shampoo knew it. Finishing the first one, she muttered, “I think I can keep down a few protein bars, so long as we have something tasty to drink with them, but I don’t think a full meal would be a good idea. I think I need rest more than more energy for my ki at this point.”

“Got it. One especially tasty smoothie coming up,” Ranma declared, before leaning in and kissing her forehead. He then pulled back, pressing his cheek against hers. Despite becoming better at flirting and emotions and things like that during their time together, he still felt better not looking directly at Shampoo for this. Touch was far better.

“You, you really worried me you know,” he whispered into Shampoo’s ear. “Being stuck under that rubble with you, I couldn’t feel your heartbeat, I was too rattled. I couldn’t hear it, there was too much noise, too much rumbling all around us from the rubble, and, and then I pulled us both out and saw your legs and…”

“Wo ai Ni, Airen,” Shampoo whispered, forcing her arms off the bed to curl around Ranma’s upper body, pulling him into a light hug. “I would have been dead if not for you. If not for the toughness training. If not for Mai holding off that psychopath. But I’m not. We’re both still here. We’ll get better! I promise. My head wounds aren’t that serious. And four days, five days tops, I’ll be back in fighting form. And the next time some psychopath like that comes after us, we’re all going to be strong enough to feed him his legs instead.”

There was a very Amazonian take on things, but it was one that Ranma wholeheartedly agreed with, and he spent several moments simply nuzzling into her hair, staying well away from where her head had been cut open in various places, before deliberately shaking his head. “More Neosporin on those injuries on your head again, I think. And then I’ll redo the wrapping before going grabbing your smoothie.”

This only took him a few moments, as the original dressing only had to be replaced around one of the cuts, not all of them as he had thought a second before. When he was finished, Ranma leaned in and gave Shampoo a kiss on the cheek. “And I love you too. I don’t think I’ve told you that often enough, but I am happy you came after me from your village, Shampoo. I’m happy you’re in my life, and that you found me again in Nerima. I don’t even want to think about what my life would be like without you in it.”

“Hmmm… It’s doubly so the other way, Ranma,” Shampoo purred, feeling a desire to pull Ranma in for a kiss, but knowing she had absolutely no energy to do so. “If I hadn’t met you, I’d still be stuck in my village, never knowing how small it is in relation to the rest of the world, never realizing how much stronger I could become, to say nothing about just meeting you, having a friend in you, and then more.”

For a few moments, the two of them fell silent, with Ranma’s arm around Shampoo’s shoulder, his head leaning slightly into the side of hers, before her stomach let loose another little growl.

He laughed, and, as the timer went off, helped pull Shampoo’s acupuncture needles out. After a few moments, she nodded, indicating her legs were still completely numb. With that, Ranma hurried out and came back with a few more protein bars, along with a hastily made smoothie. “We’re going to need to buy more fruit and vegetables when we get to Manila. But we already knew we’d be needing to restock our larder anyway.”

The trio had moved most of the food aboard the Rising Star to their camp at the unfinished observatory. All of which had been destroyed in the helicopter attack. That left them with a good deal of their spices, sauces, rice, a few boxes of pasta, lots of water, and little else. No meats, eggs, vegetables, or, now, fruits.

“Well, right now I’m not going to complain,” Shampoo said happily. She opened her mouth and, for just a moment, playfully licked at the tip of the smoothie’s straw, happily giggling as she saw a Ranma’s eyes track the movement of her tongue for a second.

That straw was not just an affectation or something that Shampoo needed just because Ranma was concerned she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from spilling it or the fact that she was in bed. Rather, aboard the small yacht, such straws were a necessity to keep from spilling whenever this ship was in motion. As it was now, a fact Ranma became aware of as they hit a particularly heavy wave for a second.

In the distance, he could hear Mai cursing from above, and that and the wave broke Ranma out of his paralysis. He leaned down, giving Shampoo another kiss on the lips, before asking her if she was up to holding the smoothie cup herself. When she indicated she was, he piled up several more of the protein bars next to her within easy reach, then looked at her legs for a second, before asking, “Do you want me to get a blanket to cover those, or do you think the constant touching of a blanket would irritate them despite your acupuncture points?”

Normally, seeing Shampoo without any leggings, and with her panties barely covering her mound - Shampoo had been wearing ‘special’ panties, in the hopes that their date would lead into more private fun later - would have been intensely erotic. However, as it was, Ranma was asking more because he wondered if the sight of her legs would bother her than anything else.

“No, I don’t need a blanket. I’ll admit the sight isn’t… pleasant,” Shampoo admitted, greatly understating things, given the fact that her legs looked more like semi-burnt meat than anything else at the moment. “But yes, the constant touch of a blanket would probably bother the hell out of me the instant my acupuncture points wear off.”

Satisfied now that Shampoo had been seen to, Ranma gave her final kiss on the cheek, then left, knowing that if he didn’t, he’d probably be there all night, and he had another lover to see to. With that in mind, he went into the kitchen, grabbing the prepared needles and thread that he would use, which was the thinnest they had on hand, some food, and some Neosporin and a large cup of water, complete with its own straw.

Heading up the ladders, Ranma was greeted by Mai’s voice, a smile, audible even if he couldn’t currently see her face, because she was at the controls of the yacht. “Well, it’s about time, I’d say something about me being chopped liver or something, but considering how I was sliced open, that hits just a little too close to home. Oh, I also took some painkillers and saw to my other injuries as best I could.”

That amounted to a lot of bruises, one nasty one right under her armpit that looked like it had been made from a piece of shrapnel that, had it gone any faster, could have done life threatening damage. As it was, the gashes left on her body by Vega’s tekko-kagi were by far the worst and both Mai and Ranma knew it. “How are you doing? In general and sitting up like that in that chair, I mean?” Ranma asked.

“Sitting down was excruciating, and I do not use that word lightly, but just sitting still, I’m… okay.” Mai grimaced, looking down at her front for a moment, a small smirk appearing on her face before disappearing just as quickly as it came. I can’t see my stomach right now due to my tits but I can still feel the wounds there. “Although, I can tell you that blood’s soaked through the bandages you put on me before.”

Grimacing at how carefully Mai was speaking, draining her words of pain before they came out, Ranma nodded. “In that case, let’s get this over with. Are we far enough away from the island, do you think?”

“It’s been two hours, and I’ve got us moving at cruising speed the entire time. Hainan’s well behind us. I was just waiting for you to come up so you could drop the anchor. I don’t think I should lean over right now,” Mai admitted.

She slowed the ship to a stop, and when she had turned the engine off, Ranma moved to the back of the boat, where he let loose the anchor, letting it drop down into the ocean. For a time, the ship bobbed in place, still moving forward thanks to momentum and the ocean waves working against it, until the chain pulled taut, and the ship rested in place, moved only by the motions of the wave’s underneath.

Those weren’t bad enough to cause issues normally, but Ranma wondered if they would make sewing Mai side up harder. Still, they couldn’t avoid it. Mai lacked even Shampoo’s ability with ki healing, and unless Ranma learned how to use his own healing on someone else like Cologne had been able to back in Xuwen, Mai’s body would need to heal on its own. And for that, those wounds need to be sewn closed as best I can make them… damn this isn’t going to be fun.

Come to think of it… “You do know if these injuries don’t heal in time for the tournament, you’re going to be sitting it out, right?”

“Ranma, I love you. Being with you, being with Shampoo, traveling with you two, it’s all a dream come true, and shows me how foolish I was to think I what I felt for Andy all those years was love. However, if you say something like that again, I am going to bash your head in with the end of my manriki.” Mai growled. “From what I can remember, the one in Manila is three weeks away or so. These gashes should be mostly closed by then, and even if they aren’t, I’m entering! Am I completely understood, mister?”

“Why do I get the impression that if I don’t just say, ‘ma’am, yes ma’am,’ I’ll get hit?” Ranma mumbled, shaking his head as he joined her back on the bridge of the yacht. “Fine, but to do that, we need to see to your injuries. Come on, lie down.”

Mai accepted his hand up out of the chair at the wheel, letting Ranma help her over to the small sofa at the back of the bridge. There she peeled off her combat gi with some difficulty, wincing at the injuries pulled at her side.

When the two of them looked at the makeshift bandages covering her stomach and side, her blood had indeed soaked through particularly directly under her left breast, where the three gashes that Vega’s tekko-kagi made dug in deeper.

“Normally, I’m all for the color red, but not when it’s my own blood,” Mai tried to joke, but Ranma simply shook his head, and slowly peeled off the bandages, before helping her to lay out on the sofa. As she did, Ranma tried hard not to notice her breasts bouncing and did so by concentrating on the wound directly below them. Even now, Mai’s body had an impact on him, but then he began to gently probe the sides of the injury, wincing in sympathy at every hiss and groan of pain that Mai released.

Those stopped after a few seconds, as Mai gritted her teeth, bearing through the pain, but still, Ranma found himself sad that Shampoo hadn’t been up to helping deaden the area around the injuries like she had for herself. Something to ask her to do for Mai tomorrow I suppose, when she’s had a rest, he thought, as he pulled out the needle and thread he had prepared.

“Okay. Here we go. I, I, really, really wish we had some things stronger than those Tylenols you girls had us buy, but there’s no two ways about it, this is gonna suck. Do you want something to bite into?”

“Is that a trick question?” Mai hissed; her fingers curled into fists so hard at her side that she was afraid her nails might start to cut into her skin. “You might also want to tie down my hands and legs just to make certain I don’t move.”

“Freaking hell…” Ranma hissed, but he couldn’t disagree. Using his rope dart, Ranma tied her legs down to the back and bottom of the sofa, itself a part of the ship’s hull. He also tied down one hand in a similar manner, but had to use a belt to tie her other arm up and over her chest. With all that done, Mai, who had taken her manriki out, bit into one end, letting the rest dangle off the side of the sofa. Gritting her teeth into the metal, she nodded at Ranma.

With a deep breath, Ranma began, first using disinfectant, wincing as Mai moaned and twitched under the pain of it.  That was only the start thought, as he used his fingers to pinch closed the lowermost of the three gashes right where it ended under Mai’s breasts. Pulling the injuries closed was quite painful even in comparison to the rest of what Ranma was doing, and the actual needles weren’t much better. Through it all, Mai grunted and groaned, at one point even letting loose a loud scream, all of it muffled through the rope dart, but more than enough to cause Ranma to flinch occasionally.

Soon, Ranma’s hands were slick with Mai’s blood, and he had to wipe them off on his shift, leaning forward to lay a gentle kiss on her stomach or under boob whenever he did, more to show his sympathy and sorrow for the pain he was putting her through than anything else. It worked, and after the second time, she even murmured a ‘hmm,’ at him.

Worse, though the rocking of the boat did bother the operation, forcing Ranma to stop on several occasions and just wait for a moment. All three of them and gotten used to the ship moving as a daily occurrence, be it cooking, sleeping, sparring or what have you but that was a far cry from intricate needlework like this on a living person, particularly one you cared about deeply. This slowed the process tremendously, and by the time Ranma was done, dawn had come and gone. Finally though, with the sun well in the sky, the three long gashes in Mai’s side and stomach were sewn shut. The whole thing was then quickly covered with new bandages made of some of Ranma’s pants shredded quickly give them more bandages.

The operation finished, Ranma quickly moved over to pull the manriki’s weight out of Mai’s mouth, noting absently her teeth had dented the metal. Damn, strong jaw muscles there. “Are you okay? Dumb question, I know, but I’ve stitched the wounds closed, and it should heal properly now. We’ll still need to remove the bandages and put some Neosporin or wine or something else on it occasionally to make sure that it doesn’t get infected, but…”

“Yes, it was a stupid question, but I...” Mai broke off, her growl soothing down to her normal tone as she took Ranma’s hand in one of hers, squeezing it gently. “I knew that was going to suck before you started, Ranma. I’m a big girl. I can deal with it. You did as good a job as anyone could under these circumstances.”

She then leaned forward, kissing Ranma, silencing whatever he might have been about to say before she pulled back. “Better, unlike Shampoo at least I can move around under my own power.” With that, and trying hard not to make use of her stomach muscles or even move her stomach very much, which wasn’t all that easy, Mai slid off the sofa to her knees on the deck below, before pushing herself upright, staring down at the steps leading into the ship. “Although, I wouldn’t say no to you helping me into bed.”

When Ranma nodded, Mai pulled him into another kiss. Much like the first, it was a very PG-rated kiss, but just as heartfelt as Mai poured all her emotions, her thanks and love for Ranma into that kiss. Only slowly did she pull back, resting her forehead against Ranma’s. “Thank you Ranma. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Probably safe back at home?” Ranma answered seriously.

“Probably, but what is life without a little risk? And even if I’d be safe there, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’d be happy. In fact, I can almost guarantee I wouldn’t be, considering that if I hadn’t met you and Shampoo, hadn’t seen what a real relationship was like and then realized I’d fallen in love with the pair of you, I’d still be chasing after Andy, not even understanding every chance I was taking to try to get close to them was just making the problem worse,” Mai snorted.

“… I suppose so. You’d be stuck there, I’d be stuck in Nerima, or, if I had run away as I had been thinking about at the time, I’d be on the road on my own if Shampoo hadn’t followed me. And who knows if I would’ve met you again if I had,” Ranma hummed, then shook his head. “Eh, I much prefer it this way, even if I could do without the masked asshat and dealing with actual freaking IED-based attacks.”

Mai laughed at that and leaned into Ranma with her uninjured side as the two of them made their way slowly down the stairs. Given that she had to lean over to get her head under the entryway, that wasn’t all that easy for Mai but leaning on Ranma and going sideways she made it down.

Soon, after getting a smoothie of her own and a sleeping pill, Mai sat on the bed across from a sleeping Shampoo, letting Ranma pull off her panties and socks, teasing him a little bit, even if her body very much was not up to doing more. Once she was laid out, Ranma decided that with their injuries, his sleeping with in the same bed as the two girls was probably not a good idea. Ranma knew that he liked to toss and turn occasionally, and he wouldn’t forgive himself if he hurt either of the girls in doing so. Without him there, there was enough space for the two girls to at least shift a little bit, not that he thought either would.

With the two girls seen to, Ranma headed back outside, where he grimaced at the amount of blood on the side of the sofa and its cushion. Shit, Mai might need a lot of iron in her diet to get over her blood loss too. But maybe her ki healing was dealing with that already? She didn’t look pale or anything.

He spent a few minutes cleaning the blood up and then, replacing the cushion slowly, fell asleep himself, despite the sun now showing it was past noon. He was woken up twice that afternoon by Mai groaning down below, and helped her to the bathroom, and then back into bed, bending over and shifting like that still bothering her a good deal. He joked at one point that he might even have to do her wiping for her, but the glare he got in return had Ranma quickly backing off, with Mai muttering that some things just were not funny.

How much sleep he actually got, Ranma didn’t know, but it was evening by the time he fully awoke again to hear nothing of any sort down below.

He snuck down on silent feet, checking on Shampoo and Mai alike. Mai’s wounds were covered by the makeshift bandages, and he had to remove them for a moment to check on them. Surprisingly, Mai kept right on sleeping, snoring in a slightly genteel manner, making Ranma wonder how either was possible. Regardless, he then shifted his attention to Shampoo and was pleased to see that some of the bruises on her upper arms and shoulders were nearly gone. The injuries to her head were also nearly gone, even so, Ranma doubted that equated to her possible concussion also being dealt with. Still, that was only a maybe, so hopefully we got lucky there. Freaking feels as if we’re due some.

The wounds on her legs though were obviously still there, and the sight of Shampoo’s burned, gnarled skin sickened Ranma, and would be for a good while. Still, I know how to help that anyway. Fuel, and a lot of it.

About an hour later, Shampoo and Mai began to stir as smells wafted their way out of the kitchen. Shampoo groaned, and found herself trying to sit upright, only to groan and fall backwards again. She had more energy than she had last night when she’d fallen asleep but still not all that much.

Mai had it a little bit worse. Her attempt to sit up caused her to nearly black out in pain, a low groan escaping clenched lips despite not being able to raise herself as far as Shampoo had.

“Mai? Is there anything I can do?” Shampoo asked, her voice sounding raw for a moment, before hissing in pain as her legs started to pain her once more. “Blessed Athena’s bronze bits, that hurtSSS!!!”

“Heh. Right back at you love, although in your case, beyond handing you your acupuncture needles…” Mai tried to shrug even as she reached out to take Shampoo’s hand in her own, raising it to her lips, pushing through her own pain to address Shampoo’s wounds, which were far worse than her own. “I was really worried about you, you know, when I first saw you after we scared off Vega and his cronies. I’m not going to go into detail love, but you looked bad.”

“So did you when I woke up as Ranma was helping with your injuries,” Shampoo countered as she pushed through her pain, shaking her head, her voice more of a hiss than anything else, but her words coming through. “This, this whole event was beyond the pale. I am a warrior, a daughter of a warrior culture. The idea of being injured in battle, even severely, it’s always a worry in a serious fight, and I accept that as a possible cost of being a warrior. But that wasn’t a fight, it was an ambush, when we had no idea or warning that anyone was targeting us. Why was Vega targeting us? Just revenge?”

“That’s what I think yeah,” Mai said, shaking her head, still kissing the back of Shampoo’s hand occasionally, although her giving Shampoo something to squeeze was probably helping more, just like squeezing back was helping Mai with her own pain. “The guy probably wanted us dead because we interfered in that assault on Chun Li. Well, that, and he’s a psychopath of the first-order.” Her teeth flashed in a smirk for a moment through her own pain. “You should’ve seen him screaming when Ranma smashed his little mask in and the bits cut his face a little bit. Nothing more than a few scratches and he shrieked like it was the end of the world or something.”

“O, oooo, I, I’d have liked to see that,” Shampoo snickered, shaking her head, relieved to note that the move didn’t add to her current agony. “W, well, I’ll do the acupuncture point as soon as I’m a-, able to move for both of us, Mai. You’ll lose all feeling though, so if y-, your injuries open up again you won’t feel it. You’ll need to be aware of t, that.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything strenuous, just get out of bed and pilot the ship. I honestly think that if I tried to do any kind of exercises, Ranma would smack me upside the head,” Mai joked.

“You’ve got that right,” Ranma agreed as he entered the bedroom carrying two bowls of food. “Shampoo, I’ve got more sterilized needles for you. Mai, If I’m right, we have five days sailing to Manila?”

“About that, yeah. We’re not as fast as bigger ships with larger engines,” Mai agreed, smiling at Ranma as handed the needles over to Shampoo,

Setting aside the food, Ranma busied himself a moment putting some pillows behind Shampoo’s back, so she could deaden her legs via acupuncture once more. Once she was done with that, Ranma helped her to shift sideways so she could reach Mai. When she could, Shampoo used her acupuncture needles to deaden Mai’s stomach and side. This took a while, but eventually she leaned back returning to her previous position with only a light tug from Ranma’s aid.

“There, that should do, Mai. Leave them in for twenty minutes, and then you should have no feeling in your stomach or side for around five hours, maybe. Tell me though if feeling returns faster. Now, food please!”

Even as she spoke, Shampoo’s stomach once more did a Saotome Stomach™ impression, growling out so angrily it sounded as if several lions had suddenly appeared in the small room and begun a fight. “I wanted to help Mai first, but now my stomach feels as if it’s making an acquaintance with my spine!”

Ranma chuckled and hurried over to grab up the food he’d set down earlier. Both Mai and Shampoo were well enough to move their arms now, so he simply sat on the foot of the bed by Mai’s legs, one hand gently resting on her lower leg occasionally as they shared the simple meal of rice and fresh caught fish that he had fished out of the water earlier. He mentioned this now, pointing out that fish would be the source of most of their meals going forward. They had rice, and they had some yeast and other breadmaking things on hand, but most of their supplies had been moved to the observatory. “We used the last of what little fruit we had on your smoothies last night, and beyond that, we moved so much of our supplies to the observatory, and well…”

“Kaboom,” Shampoo mimed moving her hands away from one another in explosion, chuckling darkly. “Via helicopter, of all things. I wonder if a ki blast could have taken it out.”

“Oh, for sure,” Mai answered instantly. “I spent most of the time at the wheel last night thinking of ways to take out helicopters and aerial targets, and my fans or even the Shadow Fans could do it, if I got close enough. If they’re over the horizon though, or out or sight, no. At that point, dodging would be the best we could do.”

“Or the toughness training making us immune.” Ranma grinned, finishing his food and standing up, getting lost in his thoughts of how cool it would be to be immune to machinegun fire.

Shaking those thoughts off, Ranma leaned down to give Mai a kiss on the cheek, only for Mai to turn her head to kiss Ranma on his lips. She gleefully deepened it, pressing up into his lips with her own, ecstatic at not feeling any pain from her wounds as she did so. When his mouth opened a little to allow his tongue out to gently tap it her lips, Mai opened her mouth and eagerly sucked in his tongue. It was only when Shampoo let out a wolf whistle that the two of them pulled away, and Mai watched happily as Ranma, urged by a come-hither gesture from the Amazon, moved over to the other side of the bed and gave Shampoo an equally hot kiss.

As they kissed, Mai spoke, her voice calm as she spoke about their journey even as she watched her lovers avidly. “Well, regardless of how bland our food is going to be, we can’t do anything about it. It’s around one thousand two hundred something nautical miles from Hainan to the Philippines, and then another few hours from the outermost islands to Manila, I think. Don’t quote me on that. I know the general direction we need to go, and I can chart our course will enough, but I can’t remember precisely how long it should take us, but from what I remember we shouldn’t run into any bad weather over that time. Shampoo, do you think you’ll be up and about by then?”

“Mmmmm,” Shampoo mused leaning back and smiling happily. “I think I will. Five days should be enough so long as we can keep feeding the Sarlaac pit that has replaced my stomach.”

That got a laugh from her lovers, who remembered watching the Star Wars trilogy with Kurumi and Natsume over the winter in the woods. Ranma had named his stomach that once during his stay in the hospital in Hong Kong, now it was Shampoo’s turn.

After they had eaten, Mai flipped her legs to the side and stood up, grinning a little bit, as she didn’t feel anything from her stomach or side. A few of her other injuries were still a bit painful, but she could deal with them easily. Even getting into a pair of shorts and a shirt only bothered her a little bit, so long as she was careful to remember her side really was injured, no matter how she couldn’t feel it right now.

Ranma watched her carefully, his eyes glued to Mai’s side and stomach, rather than taking in the whole view as he’d normally do with either of his ladies. Right now wasn’t the time for that kind of thing though, but thankfully he didn’t see any sign that her injuries had opened up again, and he stood up to follow Mai out the door, pausing to look back at the bed. “Do you need anything from me while I’m here, Shampoo?”

“Do we have any incense candles or something?” Shampoo grimaced a little as she looked down at her legs. “The aloe vera smell is getting to me, and I might need more of it, blast it. Maybe some books, ooh, and a small bell to call you for when I’m hungry again?” she ended teasingly.

“Eh, you’ve got those little bells for your hair, right?” Ranma snorted before becoming a bit more serious even as he mock-bowed like a servant. “I’ll be back down every hour and a half or so to check on you regardless. Do not worry my lady, your personal pit will be fed regularly.”

“I’ll take over cooking the real meals and dinner Shampoo, so you don’t have to worry about being poisoned,” Mai joined in, before giving Shampoo a kiss on the lips. Just like their kisses before with Ranma, this one soon turned ardent, the emotions from last night, the magnificent date they’d been on, coupled with the sheer joy of being alive after how the night had ended, pushing them through.

Mai even wiggled her rear at Ranma and both girls giggled as they pulled back, hearing him groaning behind her.

“Girls, you are trying ta write checks that your bodies literally can’t cash right now,” he grumbled. “Stop it with the teasing before you get too far, please.”

“Nope~~,” both girls trilled, causing him to groan again much to their satisfaction.

Mai made her way up the stairs without Ranma’s help, thanks to Shampoo’s acupuncture points. He did however make sure to check her injuries again as much as he could over the bandages when she settled into the chair at the wheel. When that was done, Mai shooed him away and popped back down to supply Shampoo with several magazines and books from around the ship.

They’d bought several of such over the past few days while on Hainan and then before as they went from Hong Kong down to Xuwen. A few of them were travel logs but most of them were simply fantasy novels, mangas or books of the kind that all three of them enjoyed: progression fantasies or military science fiction.

Ranma probably wouldn’t have bought them if it had just been him, but Shampoo had convinced him that some down time every night at least was nice early in their journey, and he had actually gotten into a few books since… which had subsequently been destroyed by the apocalypse at the observatory, those nights when they were all too sore from the toughness training to do anything else. Luckily, they hadn’t transferred all of those books to the observatory in the first place.

With Shampoo seen to and Mai steering, Ranma headed back up and to the back of the ship, where he began to go through some katas. Normally, Ranma would become completely devoted to his Art during moments like this, his mind settling down into a kind of almost Zen-like state as he exercised on his own. Now though, well, now that his girls were on the mend, Ranma’s mind turned back to the attack they’d dealt with, his fury rising as he did. I ain’t gonna forget you, pretty boy. I’m gonna remember the methods ya used, how many you killed trying to just get the three of us. The next time I see you, if I ever do, I’m going to put you six feet under! No hesitation, no remorse. Just justice!

Let’s see, his weapons add at least another six or seven inches to his reach, the straps around his wrists and the back of the tekko-kagi are a weakness, but he knows it. Palm strikes are also impossible, but forearm and elbow strikes are doable. His kicks were also decent, and he had ki attacks, but not very ranged strikes, at least not that he used, but more is possible there. He moved like…

Ranma’s kata began to fade away as he moved as if he was fighting Vega. He moved this way, that way, blocking, pausing, redirecting jab, grimacing occasionally, as he fought his imagined version of the masked assassin, his teeth bared in a wordless snarl.

As night fell over the ship several hours later, Mai turned her chair around to ask if Ranma could grab her some food, she paused, staring. Ranma had divested himself of his shirt, and she watched him bouncing around the area, lashing out at an unseen opponent, ducking, dodging, blocking unseen blows as if he was fighting for his life. Mai wasn’t nearly as good as Ranma wasn’t analyzing her opponent, but it only took her a few moments to realize that Ranma was trying to imitate how he would fight with someone like Vegas style.

Nonetheless, when she called out to him, he paused instantly, turning to her in concern, hopping up and towards her. “You all right? Do you need anything?”

“Some bread to munch on or something similar would be nice, yes, thanks Ranma. And I think it’s time you had a break. You’ve been back there since we came up here, and it’s now well into the night. In fact, I think we should drop the anchor, take tonight to reset our clocks from yesterday,” Mai decided. “I’ll make us some food, and then I’ll head back up here for some more time moving the ship.”

“No, I’ll take over,” Ranma argued. “I think I proved well enough that I could steer the ship, if there wasn’t anything else around anyway,” he added, causing Mai to chuckle a little.

Still, it was true. He’d learned how to navigate the ship well enough by the time they hit Xuwen, while Shampoo still hadn’t gotten a handle of it even by the time they’d hit Hainan.

While Mai began to cook something, Ranma stopped in to look at Shampoo. She’d fallen asleep at some point, but thankfully they had removed the acupuncture needles back when they’d had ‘breakfast’ whatever time it had been then. Now, though, he could already hear the grumblings of her stomach and knew she would wake up soon. He quickly left, heading into the kitchen where he very carefully maneuvered around Mai, not taking the chance as she normally would to cuddle, touch or caress her, something that Mai noticed judging by her pout.

“Sorry love, but not with your injuries the way they are,” Ranma replied to that look.

“Ugh. Another reason to kick Vega in his boy bits, if I can hit something that small,” Mai grumbled. “What’s the point of having a small kitchen if you can’t enjoy the closeness?”

Chuckling at that, Ranma made use of the electric stove for a moment, leaning into Mai’s uninjured side just a bit. “Yeah, well, we’ve already got so many reasons to kill that ass, what’s one more?”

OOOOOOO

Genma grumbled to himself, as he set the newspaper and the strangely advanced cell phone down he’d used to translate it down. Americans, what will they think up next, a function that lets you translate the written word if you take a picture of it. I’m not normally one to just steal things other than food, but in this case, it was a good use of my time. Heck, I even removed that tourist’s, what did he call it, photo-card? Something like that, anyway. Not sure why he was so adamant about that rather than trying to pay me to give him the whole phone back, but I don’t care much either.

The news about local events had been full of what occurred at a restaurant that had apparently been attacked by terrorists, and whatever the military helicopter had been doing attacking an abandoned observatory. There was a ton of speculation, but the official line was that foreign spies, Americans, apparently, had been discovered there. The line ‘the American government has no official statement at this time’ which was easily, in his opinion, the most accurate translation, actually made Genma snort, wondering if the CCP would even allow what happened to hit international news at all. Let alone mention it directly to anyone so that individual could then give a statement.

None of the newspapers, magazines or even tabloids, the Chinese version of them, anyway, which were just another mouth of the government if a very odd one, had mentioned anything about his son specifically. Reading both the tabloids and the regular newspaper, Genma determined that the locals had no idea what really had occurred there, but that the local criminals had screwed up big time. Buried under the more sensationalist headlines was a lot about people being grabbed, businesses closing down, and sighting of several members of an anti-corruption group the CCP had started along with images of the people in question.

The helicopter had almost certainly been sent after his son though, as Genma knew that his son and his two sluts had camped out at the former observatory. Whatever his son was involved in though, was far more serious than simply dishonoring himself with the foreign girl and that up-jumped hussy from Kyushu. Yet he also knew all of them had not been there at the time, and had, in fact, seemingly gotten away from the island cleanly.

Still, Genma understood his son enough that whatever it was, it would be a sideshow. The Art would still demand his son’s attention, perhaps the only area in which he really took after Genma. Outside of his appetite, anyway. And while there is a lot to be learned from constant training, only by facing other opponents can you really grow.

Unaware that this was precisely why Ranma had left Nerima and thus his own sophistry, Genma spent another day searching around the back alleys, criminal establishments and so forth looking for news about upcoming martial arts tournaments, grateful that he was able to get his demands across with body movements and a map. Well, that and smacks upside the head to whoever he was talking to. Otherwise, the damned language barrier would have made the task impossible.

Ah for the days of my youth, when such things would happen out in the open, He lamented now, shaking his head at having had to teal with such people for more than a drink. Nowadays, what most people consider martial arts tournaments are more just shows pandering to this or that style, meant for those who believe that the Art has to be controlled and dictated, points given for adherence to form and function.

That was not the Art in Genma’s mind. To him, the Art was an ever-evolving mastery of self, of learning and adaptation that new no boundaries, a mindset he knew he had his Master to thank. Not that I would ever do so, of course.

In this manner, Genma heard news about several tournaments occurring around Asia. After much thought, he decided to head to Thailand, having had enough of the islands and ocean travel. One short trip to China and then a cross-country trip into Thailand, would work out far better for him, he felt. After all, it’s far easier to hide in the hinterlands than on a ship. And I am far less likely to run into more crabs that way. Even the thought of seeing one on a platter is enough to make me shiver. There can’t be anything up there that is worse than that.

OOOOOOO

True to Ranma’s prediction, Shampoo’s appetite skyrocketed in direct response to how much ki her body was using healing her inside and out. She went from eating the normal three meals a day to eating five meals big enough to match Ranma’s normal intake at each meal. This had Ranma fishing more than he was training, as it wasn’t as easy as some might think to bring in that many fish but he did not begrudge it.

Shampoo’s injuries grew visibly better each day, while Mai’s did far more slowly. Her other, smaller injuries and pulled muscles faded swiftly, but the trio of gashes across her stomach and side remained. Her ki healing simply wasn’t up to the task of dealing with something that large.

Still, Shampoo was convalescing for all of those days, her legs completely unusable. She had to redo the acupuncture points on herself and Mai, every four hours or so when they were awake, and true to her concerns on that score, the continued use bruised both girls where the needles went in. Still, she estimated after the second day that she, at least, wouldn’t need to worry about limited returns before her ki healing had truly begun to mend her ravaged legs.

This didn’t mean the pair of women were completely without pain. They definitely were. After that first night, when all three were too tired to do anything but collapse, the girls could not sleep through the night, such was the pain the pair were dealing with. Shampoo in particular, the first two full days back aboard after the trio reset their sleep schedule, woke up whimpering from the pain. The Tylenols just were not enough to keep her asleep when the acupuncture points faded.

During those times, both Mai and Shampoo fell in love again with Ranma. He woke up every time at the first whimper despite sleeping outside on the sofa up on the bridge and was ready to slather their rapidly decreasing aloe vera on her burns, grab her acupuncture needles, or anything else he could do to help. This included shoulder and head massages, playing with her hair or making up jokes to get Shampoo’s mind off the pain. He would do the same for Mai if she woke up at Shampoo’s distress, or even foot massages, something that, like playing Shampoo’s hair never ceased to turn Mai into mush.

The Japanese beauty didn’t have as bad a time of it once she figured out how to stop herself from tossing and turning without someone holding her as she slept. Enough pillows between her and Shampoo and falling asleep with their arms touching was enough. Better, her injuries were, while painful, not bad enough to wake Mai up once she was sleeping.

On the fourth day, Shampoo’s burns were mostly healed; her skin looked almost as good as new, the ruined skin cleared away, and the areas where her skin had been completely burned away was restored. This meant that Shampoo could finally reward Ranma’s care.

Lemon start:

When Ranma entered the room, he smiled widely as he saw how much better Shampoo’s legs looked.  “They look almost as good as new, Shampoo.  What do you think, one more day before you’re fully healed?”

“I think so, Airen, but while I don’t think I would be able to move them all that much today, the pain is mostly gone, even without my using my acupuncture needles. I didn’t even put them in this morning when I woke up.” To emphasize that, Shampoo pulled up her shirt, a loose-fitting T-shirt that she routinely used as bedwear, to show her middle and upper thigh.  There was no sign that she had used her acupuncture points that morning, not the needles, and not the small black and blue marks that had started developing there the day before.

Shampoo pulled her shirt up so much that the underside of her breasts could be seen, giggling a little at Ranma’s blush.  She then reached forward, grabbed his hand and placed it on her thigh.  “And see? My legs don’t just look as good as new, they feel as good as new. You can touch them all you want, or rather, all I want, and I won’t feel anything, Airen~.”

“Ehh, maybe, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” Ranma admonished, shaking his head, although he didn’t lift his hand from her thigh. Rather, his hands began kneading her flesh there.

“Ranma, the poor girl isn’t saying she, or rather, we, want to go all the way or anything,” Mai interjected, leaning sideways to nibble at Shampoos ear, causing the Amazon to bite her lip, whimpering just a bit. “We’re just asking to have a little… fun.”

The sight of Shampoo turning to kiss Mai, her hand moving to gently fondle one of Mai’s breasts for a moment before shifting to caress her upper thigh, made Ranma blush a little, then look away quickly.  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Maybe Shampoo would be up for something, but you, Mai?”

“So long as you stay away from my stomach, I should be good,” Mai argued, pulling away from Shampoo’s kiss with manifest reluctance. She then stuck out her tongue to lick at Shampoo’s, which was still waving in the air between them invitingly having tried to follow Mai’s.

Ranma was only human. Despite his monumental self-control, it had been several days since they’d even been able to cuddle thanks to injuries of the two. Sure, they’d been able to kiss, and Shampoo had even been up for a bit of top-area type fondling the past two days, while Mai had once helped him with just her hands, but Ranma really wasn’t all into that, and had never actually asked even for that because it just wasn’t fulfilling unless he could give as much as receive. So when Shampoo pulled back from kissing Mai, and lifted her shirt up and over her shoulders, hurling it to the side, Ranma self-control finally snapped, and moved in, kissing Shampoo even has her shirt was still flying in the air.

The two of them kissed for some time, with Ranma dominating the kiss, his tongue deep into Shampoo’s mouth, twining with her own before he pulled back, then leaned over to give the same kind of intense kiss to Mai, while Shampoo’s hands were busy at his fly. “I still don’t like it,” he whispered as he pulled back, “But if you’re sure…”

“I’m sure, Airen. Think of this as just the proper way our date that night would’ve ended had the blonde baka not interrupted,” Shampoo soothed, pushing up at his shirt to kiss his abs, glorying in the muscles there for a moment, even as her hands began to jerk along his shaft, which had hardened most satisfactorily. “That date was easily one of the most romantic things I’ve ever even seen or dreamed of, let alone actually participated in, and I for sure would have… Would have…”

For a moment, even as her lips continued to lick and nibble at Ranma’s abs, Shampoo was at a loss for words. Either because of that activity or trying to figure out how to describe what she would’ve done that night had everything gone as they had hoped.

Mai on the other hand had no such issue, and she answered even as she leaned sideways slowly so as not to bother her injuries.  “ridden you like a bucking bronco, we all collapsed into a pile of exhausted bliss?”

Ranma blinked, then began to laugh, even as Shampoo nodded into his chest, only to start whimpering as Mai’s lips found one of her nipples. While she wasn’t as big up top as Mai, Shampoo’s nipples were just as sensitive, and it had been several days since she’d been able to do more than kiss Ranma or Mai.

Shampoo’s hands began to work Ranma’s shaft all the faster. For a few minutes as Mai played with her nipple, licking, nibbling, even biting a tiny bit.  However, Ranma backed away, forcing her to release him. She was about to complain about that, when he swooped down and kissed her again.

When Ranma pulled back to start trailing kisses down her neck and chest, any thought of complaining was long gone, and instead she let out a loud mewl as Mai’s fingers had found her moist pussy. Two of them began riding up and down Shampoo’s cleft.  While Ranma leaned down further to take Shampoo’s other nipple into his mouth, one of Mai’s fingers dipped in and out, while the other began to make a circle around her puffy lips, her nail just barely grazing across Shampoo’s clit.

Forcing herself to concentrate through the sensations her two lovers were wreaking on her body, Shampoo reached sideways towards Mai with one of her hands, returning the favor, although with none of Mai’s love of foreplay.  Instead, finding Mai also dripping, Shampoo instantly inserted on finger.

Mai yipped as she did, pulling her mouth away from Shampoo’s right nipple to moan, then dove back in. But Shampoo still wanted more. She worked the figners of her other hand into Ranma’s hair, pulling him away from her let nipple.  She paused as her lovers kissed their cheeks pressed into her breasts as they made out, then, as Mai went back to her nipple pulled at Ranma’s head.  “Ranma, Airen… come up here,” she whimpered. “Your, your manhood, your cock, please, here!”

For a moment, Ranma didn’t realize what Shampoo wanted, then as she tugged on him some more, he understood. Shifting forward, Ranma pressed himself into the hull right beside the bed. It wasn’t all that comfortable, one leg needing to be bent under him, the other pushing at the ground next to the small table there.  But it did bring his length close to Shampoo’s mouth, which was what she wanted.

With Mai still working Shampoo’s body like a pianist at her craft, Shampoo opened her mouth and thrust her head forward, taking as much fo Ranma’s shaft down her throat as she could.  That wasn’t all that much, really, as Mai had been the one to really enjoy this kind of play before this. But Shampoo was willing to learn, and was enthusiastic about her wifely duties in all forms.  She began to move back and forth, her tongue working Ranma’s tip then the sides of his shaft as she worked to slowly take her deeper.

Her efforts were somewhat impeded by needing to split her attention between that and using her fingers on Mai, while also dealing with the pleasure that Mai was giving her.  This was further enhanced when a groaning Ranma reached down.  At first, he began to play with her breasts, Mai’s ears and her hair, working his fingers into her hair, giving Mai a small massage.  But then, his hand dipped further down Shampoo’s body, and he inserted a finger alongside the one that Mai had been using, displacing her other fingers, which had been stroking and circling Shampoo’s pussy lips and clit. 

The two seemed to work together for a moment, a single finger from both her lovers working in and out. Then, they added more, stretching Shampoo a bit more.

That was enough for Shampoo. She had been so worked up by that point she squealed around Ranma’s cock spasming as she came.  

Her hand spasmed, and her fingers inside Mai twitched upwards, finding a spot within that caused Mai to buck up off the bed in her ecstasy, endorphins allowing her to ignore the sudden pain from her stomach. Pulling back from Mai’s breast, she whimpered, “OH god, there, love, there, yes!!!”

Shampoo obliged, while bringing her other hand up to help work Ranma’s shaft.  In the next second, she had to move that hand though as she had finally taken most of Ranma’s shaft down her throat. She gagged, and Ranma, who was already on the edge, quickly found himself unable to deal with the sensation, cumming hard with a low growl. “GAHHH... Shampoo!”

At the same time, Mai came, Shampoo having found her g-spot, causing her to buck up off the bed again with a cry.

As Ranma slumped for a moment against the bulkhead, Shampoo pulled back, gulping with every inch she pulled her mouth along Ranma’s shaft, drinking down his cum. It was far fishier than the times she had tried it before, and she didn’t like the taste, but Shampoo could handle it, for now.

Slowly, she pulled back until she was licking at his head again, then back once more, licking the final strand of thick cum down, while Mai and Ranma slowly removed their fingers from her pussy. For a moment, she just lay there, her head lolling to one side as she looked up at Ranma, who gazed down at her and Mai through half-lidded eyes.

End Lemon

Then Ranma noticed some blood showing on Mai’s stomach. “Crap! Mai, look!”

Mai blinked, shaking her head hazily from the orgasm that Shampoo’s fingers had given her, then looked down past her breasts, not exactly an easy thing, at where a splash of red could be seen directly underneath one of them. “Well, fuck.”

Despite the panic that moment caused, true to her prediction, Shampoo was up and about the next day, although her legs were still somewhat sore. She took over cooking and fishing from Mai, letting her rest more often, and even began some light training herself. And that evening, Ranma and Shampoo made real love to one another, which ended with Shampoo screaming in delight so loudly that Mai, who had decided to take over the wheel so the pair could share the bed, grumbled about it, kicking her legs against the hull in front of her feet enough to dent the metal a little. “Stupid pretty boy psychopath! If he attacks us again, I’m going to shove my metal fan up his ass in the open position!”

She was somewhat surprised only forty minutes later when Ranma joined her, holding out a bowl of food to her. Rice and fish again, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Let me take over.”

“You’re not thinking of just dropping the anchor? I would’ve thought Shampoo wore you out,” Mai teased, then found herself blushing a little as Ranma leaned down, nuzzling his nose against hers before kissing her. She joyfully returned the kiss, but with her hands now full of the bowl of food, couldn’t do more, which meant that when Ranma pulled away, she couldn’t stop him much to her annoyance. And judging by the smirk he was making at her, Ranma knew it.

“Shampoo’s endurance is still being hammered by how much ki she’s been using to heal herself. She was only good for two rounds,” Ranma answered glibly, before shaking his head and becoming a tiny bit more serious. “Which means I am more than awake enough to take the boat for at least half the night, maybe more. I’d like us to speed the trip along a little bit, I know we’re kind of falling behind that five-to-six-days estimate you gave us.”

Mai nodded and shifted out of the steersman’s chair to sit on the other chair next to Ranma as he took her place. She ate her meal slowly, savoring it, noticing that it tasted better than something Ranma could’ve done, making a mental note to thank Shampoo, before setting the book bowl aside on the deck beneath them, then reaching for Ranma. “You know, I think it’s time for us to test your concentration again…” she whispered huskily.

Ranma didn’t argue, and instead turned, giving her a light kiss on the lips even as he pulled one of his hands away from the wheel, letting it drop onto her thigh, where it began to walk its way up. “My concentration? I don’t think it was my concentration that was lacking the last time we did this. My endurance maybe, something I think we could both work on,” he whispered, a blush suffusing his features despite his words, as he wondered internally if he would ever get used to how… Well, how sexual both of the girls were when they were aboard ship… and had the energy to do so anyway.

A part of me thinks I will. But part of me looks at Mai and Shampoo and says yeah, no man is going to be able to get used to girls like these two.

“Mmm, an endurance match then. I’m down,” Mai chuckled throatily, and began to kiss and nibble at his neck.

About two hours later, feeling far more satisfied and happy with the world, a slightly trembling Mai pushed herself to her feet, and, after grabbing a small towel, cleaned Ranma’s lower half off, then her own, before giving him a gentle kiss. “That was just what the doctor ordered. In fact she recommends two doses of that a day.”

“Heh, those are some strange doctors you go to. I don’t think that endorphins or whatever they are will help you heal faster,” Ranma snorted, shaking his head.

“No, but being frustrated wouldn’t have done me any good either.” Taking the wheel for a second as Ranma pulled up his pants, Mai became serious even as she leans down to give them another kiss. “Are you sure you want to stay up here?”

“I’m sure. It’ll speed up our journey, and I can handle being tired for a day or so.” Ranma leaned up again and kissing Mai once more as she pulled back. The kiss continued for a few seconds before both of them pulled back to breathe, and he smiled at her gently. “Go get some sleep, love, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Beaming, Mai nodded and headed below.

Both she and Shampoo slept through the rest of the night, while Ranma was forced to deal with a sudden squall that came out of nowhere for a few moments. Thankfully, the bridge of the yacht had a roof, and while a lot of the water got splashed into Ranma’s face and triggered his curse, Ranma continued to pilot the ship forward on the course that Mai had laid out since they had left Hainan. The storm and somewhat occasionally heavier waves did threaten to knock the boat off course, but Ranma was able to pull it back on easily enough.

Come morning, Ranma smiled as he began to smell something coming up from below. Moments later, Shampoo and Mai joined him, with Mai taking over at the wheel. Ate breakfast together, then, Ranma headed to the aft of the yacht to start exercising and rub Shampoo quickly followed him after retrieving the fishing rod.

It was pushing midmorning when something happened. Shampoo grunted suddenly as something tugged at her line. “The heck!? That is one heck of a pull.”

“Maybe a large fish or even a shark? Sharks are supposed to be good eating,” Ranma mused, pausing in his kata to join her.

It was well he did, because the next moment, another tug on the line nearly had Shampoo off the back of the ship faster than she could react. “EEP!”

“Hang on, Shampoo!” Ranma grabbed her around the waist with one arm, his other hand grabbing the railing as he dug in his feet on the deck keeping her stable.

Smiling widely at the feel of her lover’s arm around her like that, Shampoo concentrated on the line and the rod, which was now bent almost into a U-shaped as whatever it was try to zoom away to the side of the ship. She pushed some of her still-limited ki into the rod and the attached string. Almost closing her eyes in concentration, she kept that stream of energy moving, as she began to pull and tug, fighting whatever was trying to pull away.

Ranma kept her grounded, and for a moment, it looked like they were going to start tiring the shark or whatever it was out, but then a shark burst out of the water nearby. However, it became quickly obvious to both lovers that it had not done so under its own power. Instead, an orca came up out of it the ocean, its maw gaping. It had attempted to bite down on the shark as Shampoo was pulling away, but thanks to Shampoo’s efforts had only succeeded in smashing it up into the air.

The whale was so close to the yacht that it threatened to capsize them, and a second later, Ranma grunted as his funny bone of the arm around Shampoo got hit by the railing as the two of them fell sideways. His grip loosening at the strike, Shampoo found herself flying in midair sideways and moving almost sideways away from the ship, the rod still in her hand. A second later, Shampoo found herself in the water, while Mai quickly cut the engine, and the shark barreled towards her.

A swift kick through the water crashed into its nose with enough force to send it backwards, but also to send tingles of pain through Shampoo’s still not fully-healed leg.

It recovered quickly, then darted away as the orca came after it. The orca slapped Shampoo aside, not even noticing her so fixated on the shark-sized meal it was attempting to feed upon. Now Shampoo found herself smacked out of the water as the shark had been earlier, and she howled, “Stupid whale!”

Seeing that, Ranma, who had been about to dive into the helper, paused, then whirling his rope dart around, tossed it towards her midair. Shampoo caught it, and allowed herself to be pulled in rapidly, the two of them smashing into one another as the orca again flopped around the ship, enough to cause it to rock once more and mess up Ranma’s attempt at catching Shampoo just a bit.

For a moment, Ranma debated tying Shampoo down to the ship and jumping into the ocean to deal with both whale and shark. Neither animal was really a threat to him, or even to Shampoo, if she was fully healthy. And while he’d never tried orca, it could probably make good eating.

Before he could make a decision one way or the other, however, Mai did. Not used to considering whales as anything but pretty animals that should be protected or avoided, she gunned the engine again, pushing the ship away from the area where the orca was hunting just as it seemingly caught up to the shark. Red appeared in the water to one side of the yacht’s wake for a few seconds before disappearing, while Ranma watched from the back of the ship with some chagrin.

The three of them were silent as the ship continued on his way, with Mai quickly getting them back on course. Then Ranma shook his head slowly. “So, that was our fishing rod. I suppose Shampoo and I are going to have to try and fish by hand now.”

“Or use your rope dart to smash the fish unconscious,” Mai opined, looking over her shoulder for a second. “Unless you have some way of causing some kind of concussive force to go through the water of the ocean and knocking out anything nearby. And frankly, without a line to go deep enough to get away from the passage of the ship, you’d have to be really lucky to do catch anything by hand.”

Both Shampoo and Ranma grumbled at that but conceded the point.

Thankfully, the trio were able to figure out a way to bring more fish up, by using the remnants of the fish of the day before his bait. Their attempts to catch them failed, though, until Shampoo repurposed one of her Earthshaking techniques into a Watershaking technique strong enough to knock out several of the fish. With that, the trio’s immediate problems were solved.

The next afternoon, Ranma was at the wheel. Mai and Shampoo had decided they wanted to get some sun, and both of them had changed into bikinis, laying out at the back of the ship on towels and simply taking in the rays. To say that this sight was a feast for the eyes was to put it mildly, and Ranma had had a devil of a time turning away from the pair of them when they had climbed up out of the interior of the ship a few hours back. Thankfully, Ranma couldn’t actually see them as long as he was facing forward, so there was no danger of him losing his concentration for a second time.

“I wonder if these slashes will leave scars?” Mai wondered aloud as she looked down at herself for second, before fighting the urge to turn onto her stomach as Shampoo had done a moment ago. That would’ve been beyond stupid, even with Shampoo having renewed Mai’s acupuncture points having been renewed before they came out here.

And don’t get me started about how irritating it is for a side sleeper like me to not be able to turn onto one side! She thought, grumbling just a little bit. Thank goodness for the amount of sofa pillows this yacht has, or else I’d probably have tossed and turned enough to do myself an injury several times over.

“Don’t tell me you think those scars are going to take away from your beauty or something? I’m not a male, girl, that won’t work on me,” Shampoo scoffed. “Besides, in my clan, such a wound would be a sign of great honor, a sign that you’ve survived something extremely dangerous. The actual story behind those would mean you’d not have to cook a single meal or clean your own house for a month.”

“Ehh, not really,” Mai waved a hand in the air from side to side for second. “You and Ranma’s attentions have certainly proven that you don’t think my injuries are so ugly, and despite my style being partly based on taking advantage of my opponent’s… inattention… your opinions are the only ones that matter in that area. No, I’m just wondering if they’ll scar because I want to know. This is the worst injury I’ve taken in my life, and you know how much trouble I have with ki healing.”

“You’ll get there eventually,” Shampoo soothed, even as she acknowledged that Mai’s words were quite true. Thanks to how much time Mai had spent learning the techniques of the Shiranui School, which were based off Yin energy, she had neglected her Yin energy growing up, which healing of the body was based off of. Thus, it did not come easy to her at all even after starting to correct that imbalance. Even her efforts to learn the toughness training had been hampered by that propensity.

“I know. I just hope it’s before I can accumulate too many scars you know? I’d like to draw the line at, you know, four or five at most,” Mai joked, though there was a core of seriousness to it.

“You’d never be less than beautiful in my eyes or Ranma’s but I understand,” Shampoo agreed, leaning over and nuzzling into Mai’s uninjured side for a moment, before moving away, arching her back a little bit as she hummed in pleasure at the feel of the sunlight on her back. “Now, how long do you think the sunblock we put on will last? I wouldn’t mind another massage from Ranma~…”

“And I wouldn’t mind massaging you. More importantly, I just saw what might be another ship on the horizon right along our route. Should I change course to avoid them entirely, or keep on this course and come close to them?” Ranma asked from the bridge.

Mai shook her head, making no motion to get up and look. “If it’s just hit the horizon, we’ve got a bit to wait before you need to make that kind of choice. Besides, there’s only a one in five chance it’s a pirate vessel or something stupid like that. And even if it was, would that bother us all that much? Even if I’m laid out, the two of you would make hash of them.”

“Heh, you’ve got a point. Heck, we might just raid them in turn for food, if possible,” Ranma agreed with a chuckle.

Soon, it became apparent that the ship in the distance wasn’t going to be a pirate ship. It was far too modern-looking for a pirate ship. Ranma estimated, as they came closer, the ship ahead of them was about four times the size of Rising Star, but despite that, it was clearly a yacht, complete with an area at the back where people could be seen moving around, men and women alike.

Soon after Ranma was able to make out those details, the noise coming from the vessel reached them over the sound of the Rising Star’s engine. Obscenely loud music blared, out, almost drowning out the sound of several men and women laughing and chattering. The music was in English, and sounded like some kind of rap at first before switching to another genre as they zoomed closer. He still couldn’t make out actual voices, but there was a series of loud bangs, something like fireworks, maybe, a series of them going off followed by several one after another, with no rhyme or reason to the rhythm.

Peering forward and concentrating on the deck of the ship, Ranma could make out at least a few heads moving around up there, several of them with long hair and what looked like splashes coming up from some kind of pool. Huh, looks like someone’s having good time over there. Obnoxious as fuck, but that’s not exactly illegal, and I suppose it could even be courtesy to come out this far from the islands if you want to party that loudly.

He reported this to the girls, who decided to put an end to their sunbathing and shifted to stand up, leaning against the port side of the vessel and peering forward, only to flinch as Ranma groaned, and the ship jerked starboard for a second. “Oh my God! My eyes, my eyes, they burn, why, by my ancestors, why!?””

“Oh, no.” Mai quickly looked away, grabbing Shampoo by the shoulder and shifting her around to look away as well, while Rising Star continued to close with the other vessel. “Let me guess, there’s several people over there who shouldn’t be seen without their clothing on by anyone with actual taste?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Looks like at least three men in their early thirties, about as obese as my old man, along with seven or so girls who… eh… I’d say they are about our age? Not certain,” Ranma grumbled, trying to concentrate on the positive. “They’re all naked though, and the good doesn’t outweigh the bad.”

Shampoo grimaced, then shook her head. “That’s disgusting, and makes me want to order us away, but still, how long do you think it will be before we hit Manila? We ran out of rice yesterday and while sushi is nice, it really starts to lose its luster when fish is all you have on hand. We’re even out of most of our sauces and such for goodness’ sake.”

Groaning, Mai agreed. “Get us close to the ship Ranma. Hopefully, by the time we’re alongside, the people aboard will have put on some god damn clothing.”

They weren’t that lucky. Soon, they were close enough for Mai to shout across at the ship but the men and women frolicking aboard had yet to put on any clothing or even notice them bar one man on the bridge. Also naked, he was the only one who looked vaguely in shape to Ranma’s eyes, and as they came closer, Ranma could see his eyes, and they certainly weren’t tracking right. Crap. “Mai, Shampoo, look at their eyes.”

Doing so, Mai cursed, while Shampoo frowned a little, not understanding. “Damn, some of them are on drugs, the others look inebriated. Joy. There goes any hope of a civil conversation.”

“Or at the least hoping they could turn down the music so we could speak like normal human beings,” Shampoo grumbled, fighting the urge to hold her hands over her ears. From this close, the music was just on the other side of unbearable.

Still, she at least had to try to talk to them, and cupping her hands around her mouth, Mai shouted, in English, “Ahoy there! You wouldn’t happen to have any food to spare, would you? Only we been running on fish for days. We’re willing to pay for enough for two days’ worth.”

That was how far the trio estimated they had before they hit at least the nearest of the Philippines. Further, all three of them still had their wallets, and while most of their money was in MAB, the trio kept several thousand-yen worth of cash on them at all times just in case. As for speaking English, it was the secondary language of the Philippines. The first was Tagalog, but like with a lot of the world, English was seen as almost as important.

One particularly rotund individual stood up from where he had been doing something to a far younger, and far more attractive young woman, to peer out over the side of their ship at Rising Star from where he’d been lounging in a hot tub. He was large, at least six inches taller than Ranma’s male body, wider in the shoulders. His arms and shoulders showed actual muscles, and Mai could tell that they would probably be even stronger than they looked, just something about them giving her the same impression she got when looking at Ranma’s.

That was where the comparison stopped being to the taller man’s benefit. He looked to be prematurely balding and while he had a decently looked after goatee, the remnants of his blond hair did nothing for him. Worse, the man was dangerously obese, so much so that Mai felt his layers of fat would keep her from seeing his manhood even without the side of the ship in the way. She could also see what looked like a lot of blond stomach hair poking up over the side of the ship/ hot tub.

Despite being three sheets to the wind, as Mai had heard it put once, the man’s eyes lit up as he took in Mai’s form, her chest and head at least visible over the side of the trio’s own vessel. “Well, if it’s fud ya, ya wan, I’vvvv cerrrtly gots a ways ya can pay darln…” he shouted back, his words more a slur than intelligible.

Another, older but equally obese man looked over at them, his gaze even more vacant than the first one, while several women also looked in their direction, giggling excitedly, waving at the two exotic girls across from them on the smaller ship.

A few noticed Ranma, and they started to whisper and giggle, too lost in their drug-addled haze to care about their employer’s opinion of their actions as they tried to get the handsome man’s attention. Ranma however resolutely stared straight forward, cutting the speed of the yacht down to nothing as Shampoo dropped anchor, the two ships so close the three martial artists could easily just jump across the intervening distance.

The older man didn’t seem to notice the girl’s reaction to a guy who was truly attractive showing up. Two other men lounging on a sofa at the back of the larger yacht’s bridge, their ages somewhere between the towering blonde’s and the older mans, did, and scowled, with one of them going so far as to grab one of the girls, pulling her attention back to him. That caused Shampoo’s knuckles to start itching, but she held back for now as the older man spoke up, only for his words to add to the already horrible impression these idiots were giving the trio of martial artists. They were more understandable than his fellows, but just as damning. “My word, but if this is real and not a drug-addled hallucination… darling, why don’t you ditch the youngster over there, I’m sure we have a lot more to offer you in many ways.”

“…No I rather doubt you do,” Mai drawled, looking back to over her shoulder at Ranma, while Shampoo snarled, hearing someone else use the term ‘darling’ for her lover causing her to nearly see red. “Even the idea of red meat or chicken isn’t enough to deal with these idiots. Let’s get out of here before they do anything more foolish.”

“Given how much of themselves they’re showing us at the moment, I don’t know if it’s even possible to show or even do anything that could make me think less of them than I already am,” Shampoo growled, her eyes locked on the way the one man was holding the young local girl’s arm. I shouldn’t attack and beat the idiot males up in another nation’s waters, I must not attack and beat the idiot males into a pulp, I can’t attack and slaughter them like chaff, blast it all!

That was the moment that it became quickly apparent that the banging noises that Ranma had been hearing as they came closer were not, in fact, small fireworks or anything similar. Two of the young women aboard, looking a bit fitter, if no more with it than the others, and one of the men whose age was harder to determine pulled out firearms of all things. Both were pistols, handguns of some kind, though the three lovers lacked enough knowledge of guns to say anything more than that.

The two women, lost in some drug-addled haze to the point they hadn’t noticed anything going on around them, fired them up aimlessly into the ship sky, whooping happily at the noise. Several of their fellows giggled, laughed and clapped, while two more men came out from the ship, one of them stumbling forward, the other holding several magazines, the gun kind, not the paper kind, in his hands.

This showed Ranma and his girls that his estimate of how many were aboard the other yacht had been off by at least four. There looked to be ten or maybe even twelve people aboard.

The other man however, the second man who had been lounging on the bridge’s sofa, pointed his gun at the yacht as Shampoo began pulling up the anchor. Without any warning, he began firing at it, or at the very least in the Rising Star’s direction. “Hahaha, dance, dance!”

Instantly, Shampoo and Mai both crouched down quickly. “Oh, no, they are firing on us,” Shampoo droned, her eyes alight with delight that didn’t match her tone at all. “Nothing for it now.”

With that, she launched a needle across the intervening distance. The target was only two dozen yards away and while that was at the upper range of how far she could accurately throw one of her needles, it still slammed into the man’s shoulder, and he flopped down, crying out as the pain of it broke through his alcohol or drug-muddled mind. “ARGHHH, they’re attacking, the fairies are attacking!”

That seemed to be the queue for the two newcomers to begin firing at the ship along with a few other girls. Thankfully, only one of the group of five was aiming at them. The rest seemed inebriated or drugged in some fashion, their shots going wild.

Still, Mai agreed with her Amazonian lover that getting shot at, no matter how competently, was more than enough of a provocation. Crouching down behind the gunwale as a few bullets from the one girl aiming accurately at them flew over her head, Mai looked over at a grinning Shampoo, then up at Ranma, who had also moved away from the wheel. “Well, what are you two waiting for?”

“Yo ho, yo ho and a bottle of rum, a pirate’s life for me~!” Ranma sang, while Shampoo cackled with glee, leaping into the air. Before the shooters could retarget her, needles flicked out, slamming into each of the shooter’s shoulders, chests or stomachs, causing them to cry out in pain. She aimed a few at the blonde man too, but they bounced off as he shook himself, a strange flash of ki floating around his head for a moment in a corona.

As Shampoo landed on the enemy ship, Ranma jumped forward, landing on the front of the Rising Star before jumping up and over to the other one. Mai remained where she was for a second. Her sole nearby fan flew, multiplying as it did with her Shadow Fan technique. The Yin-energy created doubles crashed into several of the girls aboard knocking them out, while the real one just hit the other side of the hull.

With the majority of the joy girls now out of it, floating in the hot tub or slumped where they had been sitting, Mai hopped over herself, easily landing on the back of the other ship. Unfortunately for her eyes, this put her near the first odious fellow who had attempted to flirt or pick her up or whatever you thought he had been doing, while Shampoo had landed between the men on the sofa at the back of the larger yacht’s bridge, and Ranma had come in from the side of the bridge, taking on the men who he had deemed the more aware of the group.

“You, yoush think yoush can challenge the strongest man in America!?” the obese man bellowed as the man jumped up over the side of the hot tub., his voice shifting as he burned off the last of the nastiness in his system “I’m gonna put you all in your place!”

With that, he lashed forward, faster than most would have been able to track, his currently naked nature not bothering him in the slightest. It bothered Mai a lot, as she had been wrong: he wasn’t quite obese enough to cover everything below the belt, and at present, he wasn’t wearing a belt or anything else to do the job for him.

As fast as the man could move, though, to Mai he might as well have been as slow as his obesity should have made him. She easily slid to the side, thanking Ranma and her uncle for a moment for the amount of training she had done in terms of her footing on the slick deck beneath them as solid as stone under her feet. The man also didn’t seem bothered by it as he landed easily, lashing out with a kick, and to Mai’s surprise, both his feet and hands were lined with ki, yellow and orange.

Interesting. He’s not using ki to enhance his speed or strength, that doesn’t create visible signs like that, it’s all internal. This is… I’d guess impact. Hah, no threat then unless he hits, Mai mused, internally grateful even as she tried to not react as she normally would, bending and ducking around. Jumping and shifting her feet to dodge was fine but she had to be aware of her injuries at all times.

A foot lashed up and into the man, but was blocked, and Mai hopped up over a kick from the man along with a punch. “Feel the power of Rufus, bitch!”

“Nope, I don’t want to feel anything of yours, thanks,” Mai drawled, landing and twirling in place to avoid another two punches. Her elbow crashed into the man’s face only denoting a grunt from the man and an attempt to grapple.

“Hah! You’ll feel it all too soon, ya fucking Jap whore!” Rufus roared powering through strike, his arms spread wide.

Mai hopped up and into the air, a kick crashing into his face, sending rufus staggering against the side of the hot tub. A knee strike from on high caught him and then Mai pushed off, landing on the safety railing lining the large yacht’s gunwale, needing to slide along it away from a lunge as one of the other men in the tub tried to reach for her despite Shampoo’s needle stuck in his forearm.

A fast kick to the temple, however, sent him into la-la land, while elsewhere, Shampoo and Ranma dealt with the shooters, including the middle-aged buffoon who had started this incident.

That left only Rufus still fighting, and at a nod from Mai, Ranma’s rope dart slammed into the back of the man’s head with punishing force, he stumbled forward, and Mai dove in. Before the man could recover, seven punches landed on his face, neck and collarbone, followed by a roundhouse kick the man never even saw coming. It sent him into the gunwale to one side, and a final straight-ahead kick sent the man into unconsciousness.

“Ugh… ow, that hurt,” Mai mumbled, her hand going to her stomach. “Fuck, I need to speed up my healing, damn it.”

“You, you can’t do this! This is piracy!” one of the younger women babbled, rubbing at her forehead where a Shadow Fan had struck a moment before as she tried to push herself out of the sofa, ignoring the fact this put her entire body on display.

“Girl, your employers, and don’t you dare tell me you’re not getting paid for this, I wouldn’t believe you, is the one who started to fire at us, not the other way around,” Mai drawled, poking the woman lightly with a toe to slide back into the water, then indicating with that same upraised foot to another woman, who had been slumped nearby and just gotten to her feet, should move out of the way.

This the other woman did with alacrity, and Mai moved forward, grabbing up a small bag of white powder that had been laying on the side of the hot tub. “Besides, to report this attack as piracy, you’d have to go to the authorities. And then all of this stuff here you and your employers have been so enjoying would be found. Considering that we are in Philippine waters, and they are trying to crack down on the drug trade these days, I can’t see that going well for you.”

The woman very sensibly shut up at that point, cowering back into the water of the hot tub, while several who had been by the sofa held up their arms in surrender.

Only two of the younger women who looked a bit fitter than the others, possibly part of the bodyguard detail, did try to put up a fight. One of them grabbed up the gun a pistol, and tried to aim it at the back of Shampoo’s head, not even noticing Ranma’s rope dart before it crashed into her temple with enough force to break bone.

Ranma would normally pull punches when facing a random woman like this, but she had pointed a gun at Shampoo. That was cause enough to lose a few teeth and maybe have her jaw to be wired shut for a little while in Ranma’s opinion.

Another woman tried to grab up a knife and come at Mai from behind, but Mai ducked aside, grabbed her arm, and automatically performing a perfect shoulder throw, she hurled the other woman forward and up onto the roof of the yacht’s bridge, where the bodyguard or whatever crashed into a man there, who had been sunbathing.

He had just begun to point yet another gun down at her, making Mai wonder if all these idiots came from America and not just Rufus but now found himself squished under the young Filipino girl’s body. “None of that.”

While Ranma flipped himself up and over the side of the roof to finish both of them off, Mai straightened up, grimacing a little as one hand went to her injured stomach, having felt another twinge there despite Shampoo’s acupuncture needles. Her hand came away dotted with a bit of blood, the sight of which causing many of the still conscious girls aboard the yacht to gape, gulp, or flinch but Mai couldn’t care less.

“I think that was it. So, what do we do now? I don’t think this lot are, you hardened criminal sorts or crime bosses, even if they’ve got a lot of drugs on them. And even with their bodyguards joining in, they weren’t exactly dangerous to the three of us enough to warrant anything more than we’ve already done. Even the blonde elephant wasn’t, despite his being an actual martial artist.”

“Yeah, that was a surprise. Still, even with Ruff-ruff there, they’re just normal rich buffoons, and hyped up on drugs and booze to boot. I wouldn’t mind learning that trick he used to clear his brain, but I ain’t about ta ask… or be around him long enough to learn it,” Ranma agreed, shrugging his shoulders as he looked at the one still conscious crewman, who was sitting very still, his hands upon his head. “How much do they pay you guys?”

“Not enough to get our asses kicked,” the man answered promptly. He, like the others, spoke English, but in his case, it wasn’t nearly as polished as the joy girls or the actual Americans.

“Yeah, I know, it’s kinda sad how few places offer insurance against wandering martial artists, especially here in Asia.” Ranma nodded commiseratingly, then picked up the nearest gun and tossed it over the side.

The man winced at that, but he didn’t try to stop Ranma as he, Shampoo and Mai did the same for all the other weapons. There were a lot of those guns, mostly pistols and a few old machine guns, the kind that Ranma had seen a time or two in documentaries from World War II, while the pistols looked more modern.

Over the side they all went though, along with all of the drugs that they found as they went through the ship. After that, the trio only took a little bit of money, but, after Mai questioned the women, they took a quarter of the food aboard. That would be enough for the three of them for two days of heavy eating, which Shampoo still needed, and left enough aboard for the rest to get back to one of the Philippine islands, which, according to the locals, they were indeed almost within sight of.

“If you keep going, you’ll see Scarborough Shoals before it gets dark out. We’re technically in international waters, but…” the woman who explained that, the oldest of the fitter girls, paused glancing at Shampoo, a flash of anger going through her for a moment. “But China thinks it’s theirs. We came out here to party, since Mr. Connors knew there wouldn’t be a patrol out here at this time.”

Figuring Connors was one of the older men, Ranma and his lovers just nodded at that, with Shampoo adding, “Don’t look at me like that woman. I’m a Joketsuzoku, we don’t like the CCP anymore than you do.”

That earned a snort, and soon, the trio left the large yacht for the last time heading back to their own. Soon, they were on the move once more, laughing and joking about the incident, while behind them, the rich idiots who had started everything only slowly began to groan, coming to from their beating.

This included Rufus, who pushed himself to his feet quickly, his blubber bouncing as he did, looking all around them, he snarled. “The fuck!? They just attack us out of the blue—”

“You all fired at them,” one of the younger girls muttered.

“--And then run off!? I don’t know who those three were, but I’m going to find out, and when I do, they’ll wish they never messed with the strongest man in America!”

As the younger man shouted, the locals shook their heads and went about the business of helping the others. All the joy girls had learned early on that it was normally best to go along with an employer’s delusions.

Unaware they had just gotten another blonde, albeit one far less lethal than the original, to swear vengeance on them, Mai grinned cheerily at the other two, despite the fact that Shampoo had already begun to peel off her dressings. “So, how about a little feast? Those frozen pizzas they had are seriously tempting me right now.”

The other two quickly agreed, and after she saw to Mai, Shampoo and the brunette headed inside to start cooking while Ranma will remained at the wheel.

Not two hours later, the tiny Scarborough Shoals passed by the ship on the right. That night, they spotted Luzon’s most northeastern shoreline.

As Ranma started to steer the ship onto a parallel course with the distant shore, heading towards Manila itself, Shampoo checked on Mai’s wounds. Despite the fight, they hadn’t reopened, and the two girls decided it was time for the stitching to be removed.  Thanks to Shampoo’s acupuncture, this wasn’t painful, but Shampoo wrapped her injuries up, using a bit of filler from a pillow to line the interior just in case.  “I think that these should be good in… eight days, a bit more? Your side’s already pretty well healed, but the deeper areas will need more time.”

“Thanks, Shampoo,” Mai said, leaning down to kiss the other girl.  “Now, let’s go and relieve our man at the wheel and get you some more practice behind it, hmm?”

“Erk, some way of thanking me you’ve got there,” Shampoo grumbled, but didn’t argue.

Late that night as they slept, the radio went off. A local patrol boat had spotted their anchored ship, but Mai had set up this trip weeks back. They were coming in earlier than scheduled, but Rising Star was already on the books of the Philippines, and after paying a fine, a perfectly legal one via wire transfer, for entering their waters ahead of time, the patrol boat let them pass.

Not a day and a half later, the yacht entered Manila Bay, known to be one of the best in Asia. It was also one of the busiest, as there were several large cargo ships moving about, still others already docked, dozens of fishing vessels, both high tech and sailing type, a few cruise ships, and more than a dozen yachts in sight even as they continued to make their way forward towards the docks.

As they came closer, more of the city became visible. A modern metropolis, Manila sprawled from one end of the horizon to the other, its size making the cities on Hainan seem small and constrained by comparison, spreading out all around the bay and as deep into the interior of the island the trio could see. The dockyard area, like those other cities, was separated into seven separate segments, and as foreigners, the Rising Star was sent to one area that dealt with private yachts, the harbormaster Mai dealt with settling them into a queue with the ease of long practice.

As they came closer though, the differences between Manila and other cities they had seen before this became more discernable. First of all, significant segments of it were far newer than many of the buildings in any of the cities on Hainan or the majority of Hong Kong had been. Second of all, the smaller buildings, the homes, small businesses and so forth, did not match with Chinese architecture, at least from Mai’s perspective.

Rather, they looked as if they had several different styles. Some she recognized as Portuguese or Spanish, others British, and still others she assumed were native, a mix of Asiatic and Spanish. She pointed this out rather excitedly to Ranma and Shampoo, who simply nodded, not understanding their lover’s interest but enjoying her enthusiasm.

Several hours later, the time added tremendously due to their early arrival, Rising Star pulled up alongside a dock, and after tying off, the trio went ashore. There, they went through customs. This was far more official than it had been on the island, both because they were all foreign to the Philippines, and because the customs officials here didn’t seem to be capricious or on the take, and were very concerned about Shampoo’s nationality, going over the ship with a fine-tooth comb. But since the trio kept their weapons in their weapons space, and that was all they had which could be considered contraband, it went smoothly, if slowly.

It was evening once more by the time this was all done and they boarded a bus to take them deeper into the city past the security and everything else around the docks. Once they got off the bus at the next stop though, the trio’s swiftly split off, with Shampoo and Mai heading off together to find a hotel. Thanks to the money they had taken off the idiots on the larger yacht, they will be able to find a really good one.

Meanwhile, Ranma went off on his own, heading deeper into the city, intent on scouting out the local criminal element for news or information about Vega. Soon, he was in among the rooftops, hopping from one to another with ease as he scouted around the area.

Soon, stepped into the lee of an air conditioner device, crouching down so that a nearby security camera on another building couldn’t see him; wondering idly if he’d already made some poor mook in the security office question what he’d put in his tea that day. The grimace, however, had nothing to do with how close he had come to being spotted. Rather, it came from the clothing that Mai and Shampoo had decided to add to his outfit for this little jaunt. I know I’m supposed to look like some kind of marathon runner on a run, but damn, do Europeans actually wear these things?

In this case, ‘these things’ meant a pair of exceptionally tight exercise shorts that Shampoo assured she could fit into fine. Between the two girls, she was the one that was closest to Ranma in terms of hip and waist size. However, Ranma had tried it on, and while yes, it looked magnificent on Shampoo, on Ranma’s female body, it looked so loose that they were in danger of falling down and also too tight in the rear in some fashion Ranma couldn’t understand.

Her top wasn’t all that much better, but there at least, Ranma had tried it out in the store and was happy enough with the sports bra and shirt, which looked good on the redhead but also covered everything up. However, Ranma sincerely doubted that anyone would actually be looking above the waist with those shorts on.

 To complete the ensemble, he pulled out a brand-new pair of sneakers, brand-new simply because Ranma didn’t really wear sneakers most of the time. Regular silk shoes had always been enough for him. If I could get away with not using this outfit, I would, but somehow I just know Mai and Shampoo would find out and then they’d be sad. UGH.

Sighing, Ranma set all that out, then reached over to a previously frozen water bottle the heat of the day having done its work. Freaking heck, it is hot here, and this is a martial artist saying it. Manila was even closer to the equator than the island of Hainan, and it showed, the humidity and heat hitting like a fist. Admittedly, it wasn’t nearly enough to matter to any of the trio, but it was still noticeable.

Dumping the water over his head, Ranma quickly practiced the Anything Goes Speed Change and was fully clothed within an eyeblink in the new outfit. That done, and the bottle and his old clothing stored in his weapons space, a different pocket because obviously he was now wearing a different outfit, Ranma jumped forward, leaping from that roof to the other from a standing start, before racing on his way once more.

Ranma found a small park, jumped down into an alleyway nearby, then made a point of running straight through the park and out the other side, acting for all the world like a young woman on an exercise run. For several blocks as she ran, all she did was dodge in and out of traffic, both pedestrians and cars. Car traffic here was heavy, heavier than she had expected if she was honest from the research she and Mai had done over the past few days on Manila, but just as haphazard as they had expected it to be.

There were also a lot of streets where cars just should not be able to go, but they had been forced into for one reason or another. This caused small snarls of traffic jams throughout her route, but Ranma dealt with this either by backtracking and going around, or, in one instance, following a group of pedestrians who were going up a staircase escape and down the other side to get around one such.

Five blocks after that, the car traffic began to peter out, but there was still a decent crowd of pedestrians moving around. Ranma kept on pushing, and finally began to get some wolf whistles, shouts, and other things in both Tagalog and English that Ranma very carefully did not notice. Until someone truly bit, Ranma figured she was better off having things shouted at her in the local dialect rather than anything she could understand. There is a limit to my self-control after all.

At one point, she came upon a light and had to stop and wait for it to go green to allow her to cross. And, just like clockwork, a small car pulled up beside her, with a lot of wolf whistles going on. She turned her head idly in that direction, flipping the boys in it the bird, then, when it started, continued on her way. The car continued to follow her for a bit, but ducking into a pedestrian only street she lost it. Young idiots like that weren’t her target.

Leaving the civilian only street behind, Ranma came to another stop sign. Below it was a warning in Tagalog, but oddly the English had been colored over by graffiti. Not that that isn’t a sign in and of itself.

The area of the city she was passing through was also visibly less clean at this point. It wasn’t anymore run down or old-looking, but it was definitely a step down from the other portions of the city she had seen up to this point.

The change from that to derelict and ramshackle happened almost instantly after and soon after that, she got her first real bite. A group of older gentleman came out of a run-down building to one side, grinning evilly as still others came up from behind her. They were armed, and pointed their guns, all pistols, at her, sneering in Tagalog, while Ranma pretended to cower back, her hands lifting to the headphones in her ears, as if she was only now aware of the area she had found herself in. One of them, in heavily accented English growled, “Ya’s entered da wrong area girly. Now ya’s gotta pay the price.”

Those grins disappeared within instants after they escorted her inside, and not a minute later, Ranma was lifting one of them, apparently their leader, up by his neck, slamming him up into a ceiling as his fellows groaned and whimpered all around her. “So, I’m going to ask questions about someone. You’re going to give me answers. If you don’t give me answers, the concussions I gave your fellows are going to be joined by broken bones, and I’m not too picky about which bone I break. It’d be awfully funny to see all of you try to figure out how to explain why your pelvic bones are broken, or why your knees are suddenly facing the wrong direction.”

This all came out in an almost jocular, upbeat tone, and that, perhaps more than the words was enough to terrify the man. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Crazy redhead! Knew that color was bad news! What do you want to know, just tell me please!?”

That was way faster than Ranma had expected and she blinked in surprise having thought that she’d get at least a few minutes of the guy trying to bluster. However, Ranma didn’t really understand the psychological impact of having a tiny slip of a girl toss you around like you weighed as much as a trash bag. Still, I ain’t about to complain.

“I’m looking for information on someone.” Ranma gave the best description of Vega he could, both from the fight in the restaurant, and from the fight way back in Hong Kong that Shampoo and Mai had told him about, when he’d been wearing a full combat outfit.

The man didn’t know anything. The guy sounded foreign to him, and the local gang he was a part of didn’t have any foreigners involved. He did, however, give Ranma the name of a bar, as well as its location from where they were, so Ranma allowed his fingers to remain unbroken. Not so much their guns though. He crushed each and every one of them into fine powder, as well as any other weapon or phone he could find in the place. “Wouldn’t want you to warn them I’m coming after all.”

With that, the redhead was gone, and the man stared after her, then turned to where few of his men were only slowly coming to, groaning and moaning. “And that is the last time I let you idiots override my instincts! There’s that damned tournament coming up, and you want us to just grab some random foreign girl? Have you learned nothing from movies or TV shows?!”

About an hour later, Ranma was giving the description of Viggo once more to someone, this time as she sat on top of the man, who was himself on top of a small pile of other men and one woman, was probably very, very unhappy at the moment. “So, now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, you’re going to start answering questions. Or else this is going to become even more uncomfortable for all of you. I’ll start by breaking your arms, then work my way down. You don’t want me to get to start breaking your ribs, trust me, that’s painful as hell.”

Not fifteen minutes ago the man who she was sitting on had bluntly told her that he was not going to be sharing any information with any outsider, no matter how much money she was willing to pay. Now he quailed under her, groaning just a little bit from where Ranma had already wrenched his arm quite badly, and possibly bruised his spine just a bit by throwing him into the wall of his own establishment so hard it had left a dent he could see from here. “I, I won’t sell out…”

Mentally rolling her eyes, Ranma smacked the back of his head. “I’m not asking for information about your own doings or whatever. I’m not even asking for anyone local. The guy I’m after is… Well, we think he’s European, but he could be American or Mexican. He speaks in Spanish when he’s in a bad mood.”

The man fell silent at that, but, after a moment’s hesitation, slowly nodded his head, a motion that caused a wince to go through his neck, and for his chin to dig into the side of one of his employees, who was moaning and groaning underneath him. “This man, what does he look like?”

Ranma gave him the same description as before, and, from his position, with one hand on the man’s neck, could feel when the guy started to recognize him, tensing up, his pulse rate speeding up once more. “You know him somehow. Or you’ve heard of him.”

“I, I know him. Or at least, I have heard of him. Never seen him, he’s not the type you see at my level. We call him the Mad Spaniard. He is an assassin, a mad dog, crazy! No one sane wants him anywhere near their business,” the man stuttered.

“Yeah, that I could’ve told you from firsthand experience. Who does he work for? Where are they based? Is there any chance of him showing up here in Manila?”

“I don’t know!” the man whimpered. “The only reason I know about him is that he came through here a few months back. He met with some of the bigger bosses and then kept on going. That’s all I know, I promise!”

“Big bosses. So, these big bosses of yours, they’re connected to him?”

“N, no, it wasn’t a friendly meeting. They went with a lot of guns, met up in a neutral warehouse here in Manila, one of the places where the organizations use for meeting with one another. Some deal was reached, I, I, don’t know the details, something immediate, not long-term. He went away carrying something… and that was it.”

Humming thoughtfully at that, Ranma nodded. “Okay, where can I find a boss that might know more about Vega and his bosses?” The man stiffened, and Ranma sighed, smacking the back of his head. “Don’t try to get out of telling me. And don’t try to lie either. I will know if you do.”

That was a lie, as Ranma couldn’t read the guy’s pulse or anything else that well, but she figured that with everything else she had already done up to this point, the guy wouldn’t think of questioning it. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m only after information. I won’t hurt your bosses too much, and I might not even hurt them at all if they’re willing to be paid for the information unlike your stupid ass.”

That seemed to mollify what passed as the man’s moral compass, but he also forced Ranma to promise never to tell who had given him the information as to where his boss lived. Ranma agreed and was swiftly given the address of the mansion in one of the upscale areas of the city. Apparently, when he came to the big bosses of crime, crime truly did pay.

With that information in hand, Ranma hopped off of the large clump of men and one woman, then went around and repaired the place a little bit with her Martial Arts Construction. She also destroyed every phone and weapon in the place, saying that she didn’t want them to have any of chance to warn anyone. “And of course, if they are prepared for me, I know where to come back to, and what you all look like,” she ended cheerfully, having just finished repairing the door to the man’s office, which she had broken earlier with the body of one of his fellows.

She needn’t have bothered with the threats. With the tournament coming up and the information that Ranma wasn’t interested in cracking down on their own doings, this man, like Ranma’s previous victim, was more than willing to simply cut his losses and put the entire thing down to martial arts craziness.

It was pushing near ten by this point, and Ranma rendezvoused with Shampoo and Mai at the hotel, where she found that the two of them had been busy. “Tripwires? Really?”

“Tripwires outside, another tripwire out on the balcony, a few traps on the door we’ll have to deactivate when we leave, a sign on the door saying Absolutely No Service, We Mean It, and every rooftop nearby also trapped to a fare thee well,” Mai said, marking off points on her fingers. “Between the two of us and our weapons space, we were able to get a lot of interesting stuff up there, up to and including a few flammable things that will give anyone a particularly bad day. I told you when we were heading back to the observatory that I had a lot of traps that could be used on people and I meant it.”

“That forest behind your house, yeah, I remember,” Ranma chuckled. “I just didn’t think that the two of you would be that paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you,” Shampoo quipped, leaning in to give Ranma kiss, hugging the shorter girl to her for a moment. “We even got several maps of the city, both official and unofficial, and know, generally speaking, where the tournament is going to happen, as well as a lot of the areas of the city which are condemned. We already picked up a place where we can probably set up our toughness training with relative ease and where no one will come around to bother us.”

“Inside the city limits?” Ranma frowned, his brows furrowed in surprise. When both girls nodded, she shrugged at that. “I’d think the noise at the very least would be troublesome, but I’ll go with what you think is a good idea there. For now though, I’m starving. Let’s get some food, let me get changed into my male body, and then I’ll head out tonight to that address I found. I figure with this one, I’ll want to infiltrate rather than walking up to the gates and asking to exchange money for information probably.”

“Probably, although it makes me very happy that we stole all that money off Rufus and the rest. If you do end up paying for information, it’ll probably be very expensive,” Mai chuckled, before becoming serious. “Just be careful. When you deal with men with mansions, that means they’ve got serious money and pull. Which implies you’re going to have to deal with their egos, and you might be at making an enemy we’ll need to interact with during our stay here. So, make sure it can’t come back to us.”

“So, a mask and a hair change, got it,” Ranma agreed, nodding.

True to his words, Ranma made a point of bringing along a costume to change into when he infiltrated this mob boss’s mansion. This amounted to a clown mask, complete with a hair thing to go over his head, and, of course, being male rather than female. This wasn’t a normal clown mask though. It was from a store that sold theater supplies, and Ranma felt it looked more like something from a horror movie than anything else. That, and a complete change of outfit to a suit and tie, which again, he bought specially for this operation, would do.

Soon, Ranma found himself perched on a house next to the one he was going to infiltrate, looking at it thoughtfully. The house whose roof he was perched on shared a security wall with the house of the mob boss, but there, the similarities pretty much ended. This mansion was home to a rather large family, complete with lots of kids, people moving out and around the backyard even now, throwing what looked like one heck of a pool party. The house next door was mostly quiet, with a few men with machine guns moving around it. The dichotomy was beyond bizarre but Ranma decided not to question it.

He waited there until several of the guards below turned their heads away from the property, then slid down from the roof, shifting around to the front of the property, where there wasn’t nearly as much going on at the moment. From there, he leaped forward until he was standing directly behind a security camera that was slowly canvassing around in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree angle. He waited until it was pointing back outside, then jumped in towards a tree situated halfway between the outer wall and the front of the mansion, part of a small garden bed there.

The two guards there had both turned their attention towards back towards the noise from their neighbors, muttering in Tagalog something that was probably the equivalent of, “Those damn kids.” They didn’t see Ranma, and then he was in the foliage of the trees, where he disappeared for a moment, despite the white of his mask.

From there, it was child’s play to jump up and over their heads and cling to the side of the mansion again directly beside a security camera, which he bypassed entirely, heading up onto the roof for a moment. There he was faced with his first real obstacle, another two security cameras, forcing him to slide back off the roof. He clung to the edge of the sloped roof for a few moments there, shifting along until he was out of one of the moving camera’s area, then, waiting until the other one turned away, jumped upwards then back down on the other side of the mansion, where no doors existed and no cameras.

The Clinging Gecko technique allowed him to simply clinging to the side of the mansion there, shifting from one place to another until he was directly below one of the few remaining windows showing at light from inside. There, Ranma shifted up to the side of the window so he could peer in, keeping low by the corner just in case.

By that point, the noise of the party had begun to die down, as several adults had come out and shouted loudly at the teenagers about bothering the neighbors. With the music very much turned off, whoever was within the room opened the window with a sigh that was almost as loud as the sound of the window opening. “About time they got their kids under control. I swear, I know their son has just turned eighteen, but that’s no reason to bother the whole neighborhood. Anyway, you were saying?

That voice sounded just a little past middle aged, querulous and annoyed by something beyond his control, speaking in halting English.

The second voice was cooler, colder, and spoke English far better than the first voice, marking it perhaps as that person’s native language although the accent didn’t tell Ranma much. “I was saying that the money transfer from the King of Fighters Tournament’s official bank account went through. And that I had information about that incident on Hainan.”

“Good. I’ll want to go over the site personally, as well as the security that we’re going to need to clamp down on that area of the city. We’ve greased the palms of the politicians and police officers we need to keep them away, but there’s only so much we can do in that area with the general climate of anticorruption gripping the federal government at this point. And the news of that so-called terrorist attack on Hainan hasn’t made it any easier.”

“Well, it won’t surprise you to know that it wasn’t a terrorist attack. It also wasn’t technically gang-related, even if gang resources were used. The local gang, Wúshēng Fèngzhēn (Silent Needles), apparently attacked someone in that restaurant, along with the Mad Spaniard.”

For a moment, there was silence, then the first voice began to curse in Tagalog, before regaining control of himself. “Tell me that Vega isn’t supposed to be part of the tournament here? I’ll cancel his entry permanently. We were fucking clear we didn’t want to work with him going forward! Mr. Big himself is gonna be here for this tournament and you know he hates that fucker with a passion.”

“No. In fact, along with the last payment we received word from Wolfgang Krauser came a message: Vega is heretofore banned from any tournament that is in any way connected to or sponsored by the King of Fighters Tournament. We haven’t heard anything about such a ban from the people behind the Street FIGHT Tournament but—”

“—But they’re more connected with organized crime anyway. Still, that’s good. Mr. Big would’ve taken it out of all of our hides. Hmmm…Is there any way that Shadaloo is connected to the Street FIGHT Tournament?”

That last question seemed to come out of left field to the second speaker within the room, and Ranma continued listening avidly, not really believing his luck for a moment. Admittedly, there wasn’t much here to go on in terms of hunting Vega down as a large part of Ranma’s mind wanted to, but it was exceedingly nice to know that they wouldn’t need to deal with him while they were here on Manila, and in point of fact, that Vega seemed to be very much disliked by the locals to boot.

“It’s unlikely. From what they bought from us and what we know they’ve been involved in elsewhere, Shadaloo seems to be interested in high tech contraband and certain agricultural products that can be used in various, normally legal, drugs. Not even the drugs themselves, which is interesting in and of itself when you think about it. There’s been no indication from their interaction with us that they are involved in the Street FIGHT Tournament. They have several martial artist types working for them, and they use a lot of the same connections and so forth that the drug trade uses to move their own goods, but we’ve seen no sign of them organizing or funding the Street FIGHT Tournament.”

“Thank Christ for small mercies. Being ground zero for some kind of confrontation between Mr. Big and Shadaloo would not be good for business.” For a moment the older voice seemed to think then asked, “So Vega was involved in the Hainan incident. What was he after?”

“No idea, but, whatever Wúshēng Fèngzhēn and Vega was going after, it must’ve been big. Over the past few days, a lot of our contacts there have gone silent, burned by the CCP. I can’t imagine any crime syndicate would be happy about the CCP flexing its muscles there, and terrorist organization or criminal network, Shadaloo’s no exception to that.”

“Still, make sure we get the word out. We are looking to make a lot of money on the gambling that’s going to come from this one tournament, and without nearly as much risk as we would normally see from our operations. Not even that shipment of heroin going into China that’s due to hit Hong Kong in two days will match what we are getting from the house take from this tournament. I don’t mean to let anything happen here.”

The older man snorted, then said something that seemed to be some kind of inside joke which went over both his listener and Ranma’s head. “The new ‘Thrilla in Manila’ is going to go off without a hitch just like the first one did, even if it isn’t nearly as legal.”

Ranma clung there for a few moments as the conversation turned to the minutiae of setting up for the tournament seventeen days from now then the shipment of drugs heading into China, something that was a bit of a rarity and only happening now because the Triad in Hong Kong had been defanged so badly. The local group was eagerly looking to try and get into that market, and was taking a big risk with that shipment, which had not only several tons of drugs, but also equipment and men to set up drug labs in China, letting the locals expand their power base.

As for the tournament, apparently a lot of fighters had already come in. Mostly those already connected to Manila itself in various fashions, but there were a few dozen that had arrived from around Asia. Some of the names were read out with such import that Ranma figured they were big time names on the Street FIGHT or King of Fighters Tournament scene, including one, this Mr. Big character, who had been a participant in the King of Fighters Tournament the last time it happened. On top of, apparently, being a bigtime mob boss from Australia who the locals were in somewhat tenuous contact with.

That was interesting, as was the knowledge that some supposedly renowned martial arts masters from China who were also going to be here. Ranma idly wondered if Shampoo would recognize any of the names, even as he considered whether or not to wait around and interrogate the boss further when the conversation ended for the night.

However, after a moment, he decided there was no point. The guy wasn’t attached to this Shadaloo group, seemed fearful of them, and didn’t have anything to do with Vega other than a meeting in the past which he wasn’t bringing up now. So, while he really hadn’t learned anything new about the asshole in question, the news that Vega wasn’t going to be here on Manila was enough for his presence of mind, and when the lights turned off above him, Ranma made good his escape.

Not forty minutes later, he reported all this to his girlfriends, tossing the mask that he hadn’t even needed to use into his weapons space before changing into his underwear for the evening and snuggling into bed with Shampoo, wishing that Mai’s injuries were up to the point where she could join them. “I’d like to do something about that drug shipment, honestly. I don’t care so much to go around shattering local crime rings, I just know another’ll be up in place the moment we move on, but that much heading into China, I’d like to stop, and I wonder if we could contact the colonel guy that Chun Li brought in to help with the raid on Yamazaki’s group.”

“Major Heidern,” Shampoo answered, humming thoughtfully even as she stressed the man’s actual rank. “Chun Li gave me his number; suggest we call if we ran into anything organized crime related. I hadn’t thought about it before, but that’s an angle we can look into to find out more information about Vega and whoever he’s working for, a simple exchange of information.”

“Sounds good to me. This name, Shadaloo, was also a good find. And hearing about the different groups backing the SF and KoF tournaments was interesting. Doesn’t that match up with what Yokozuna Honda told us last year?”

“It does, come to think of it. Huh, maybe we should call him too. We’ve got his number, after all. In fact, I think Mister Crime Boss mentioned something about some sumo wrestler coming for the tournament. It’d be interesting to see if that’s Honda-san,” Ranma mused.

Thus, early next morning, as Mai headed out to exercise, roof hopping was actually one of the better exercises for her lower body that she could do without bothering her stomach and side muscles all that much, Shampoo and Ranma called Major Heidern. At first, the secretary they reached didn’t want to let them through, but when Shampoo dropped Chun Li’s name and mentioned how she had been involved in an apparent assassination attempt on her, the woman finally got the idea that Shampoo was serious about wanting to talk to the Major about something serious.

The talk wasn’t all that constructive. While the Major was more than willing to ignore the fact that they had been involved in the incident on Hainan, as they had been very obviously been the victims there and happy to hear enough details about the incoming drug shipment that would help them capture it, he didn’t have much information about Vega or Shadaloo to give. Shadaloo was a known international terrorist group, rather than primarily a criminal organization, but its aims and goals and resources were completely unknown to him and the CCP.

Surprisingly, Heidern agreed with the local criminals. There wasn’t any connection between them and the Street FIGHT Tournament.

“The Street FIGHT Tournament isn’t as clean, for a given value anyway, as the King of Fighters Tournament is. That one’s organized by several prominent investors from Europe. Extremely old money, which was probably ill gotten in some fashion in the past, but is clean enough now,” Heidern explained, to which Ranma nodded as that dovetailed with what they had learned now, and what they had heard from Yokozuna Honda all those months back.

“However, I do have Interpol’s information about Vega. It doesn’t make for… nice reading, though.”

What followed really wasn’t all that useful in terms of defending themselves from Vega, unfortunately. Knowing that, yes, Vega was indeed Spanish, and that he had spent some time training as a matador then worked his way up and then out of several Spanish crime syndicates as both assassin and torturer wasn’t pretty. The psych profile of the man, his fascination with his Spanish heritage, his obsession with killing the beautiful so that they could not age, was all interesting, but not useful. It definitely hinted at the fact that it was a personal vendetta that had caused Vega to come after Shampoo and Mai but that was all.

There was only one point that was useful in the whole information dump, beyond the fact that Vega had apparently left China heading towards Russia of all places after events on Hainan. This bit of information once more had to do with his psych profile, a very specific item in point of fact.

“While Vega is a known master of disguise, there are two things that he refuses to do. He refuses to change his face at all, and he refuses to change his hair color. He will wear wigs, or masks, but never change his face or actual hair color. Whether or not that’ll be enough for you to spot him in a crowd is unlikely, but it might give you a few seconds warning if you spot someone like that.”

Regardless, with the knowledge that they likely weren’t going to see Vega at all for this tournament, Shampoo and Mai set aside that issue at last, turning their attention to if their old friend Honda was going to be here in Hainan. This time, it was Ranma who made the call rather than Shampoo, and after a few seconds spent talking to Edmund’s butler, Ranma was quickly put into contact with the Yokozuna himself. “Ah, young Ranma. Good to hear from you. It’s been a long while, how have things been going on the road with you and your lady friend?”

“Pretty good all things considered. We’ve been involved in a few tournaments, got involved in a few sting operations, courtesy of being shanghaied into it by the local police, and are now in the Philippines for a tournament in Manila. I’d heard from one of the organizers that some sumo wrestler had already arrived to sign up for it and I was wondering if that was you,” Ranma declared.

He had kept his tone light and airy throughout, to the point where Edmund, wasn’t certain if Ranma was exaggerating or just joking. Then again, if they are going around fighting in Street FIGHT Tournament, and with how much organized crime has to be involved in that kind of thing, well, it makes sense.

“Part of me wants to ask questions about the sting operation you were involved in, but a larger part of me thinks that ignorance is bliss here. As to your question if I am going to be involved in the tournament in Manila, that is a no. I am, however, going to be involved in a tournament in Thailand. I even know and have corresponded with the local organizer. Sagat is incredibly well known in the Street FIGHT and King of Fighters world, having participated in both before, and is a national champion in Muay Thai just as I am in sumo wrestling. He isn’t the sort I’d have over for food as there are a lot of rumors about him, but nothing proven. However, it’s actually fortuitous that you call, because that tournament is supposed to be team based. I’ve already rounded up one teammate but I need for more.”

“We can provide three of those,” Ranma stated instantly, while Shampoo’s eyes lit up with unholy delight, squeezing his hand as the two of them lay out on the hotel room’s sofa. The antiquities that Shampoo and Mai had found in Yamazaki’s quarters had been bound for Thailand. Moreover, the two toughs that gave the girls the most trouble in their infiltration of Yamazaki’s personal quarters had come from Thailand and had practiced Muay Thai. If this Sagat fellow was involved in the purchase of Chinese historical objects, Shampoo not only wanted a piece of him, but also wanted the opportunity to get any such antiquities back if she could. “Myself, Shampoo, and Mai Shiranui, a travel companion of ours.”

At those words, Shampoo’s dangerous look faded, and she waggled her eyebrows at Ranma, but Ranma just rolled his eyes. He very much did not want to explain the relationship over the phone to Edmund for obvious reasons.

“Good. I think I can find one other individual to join up with us. That’ll make us a full six-man team. And since you and Shampoo have been training together so extensively, your teamwork will probably help us get a leg up there as well. I had honestly worried I wouldn’t be able to find anyone,” Edmund confessed. “Thank you, Ranma. Heh. I’m looking forward to seeing how you have grown.”

“You better have done some of that yourself, and not just sideways either, oh mighty Yokozuna,” Ranma taunted.

Edmund barked a laugh at that, and the pair hung up. “Well, that was interesting.”

“Yes! We now know to watch blonde men closely, especially if they are pretty boys going forward, and a way into the tournament in Thailand!” Shampoo stated gleefully, hugging Ranma tightly, causing him to smile in turn, wondering what this tournament would have for them.

OOOOOOO

As her two technologically-challenged lovers tried to find the answer to that question, and began to make plans going forward in terms of setting up the toughness training, Mai, who had found the location for such, was doing the only exercise she really could, or rather, should, with her injuries. Wearing a t-shirt that covered her stomach entirely and hid her scars, she raced along the rooftops, bobbing her head to some music on a pair of headphones stuck in her ears. And unlike the night before with Ranma, Mai stayed to the rooftops, and was listening to music, while Ranma hadn’t been, instead just using the earbuds as another prop.

The movement from landing and jumping didn’t bother Mai’s injuries much any longer, despite the fact that she had told Shampoo to not use her acupuncture on her that morning. That was a good sign, though the injuries themselves were still only slowly healing. Mai estimated that at this rate, they’d be fully healed in around fourteen days or so.

Which will be three days to go through the toughness training at most, although hopefully I’ll convince Ranma and Shampoo that we can spar for at least a few hours a day. To say I haven’t exactly been happy with five days of doing nothing but sitting on my perfect ass is saying something, Mai thought, snickering at her own hubris for a moment between one roof and the next racing along the roof of some kind of public gym or indoor mall.

Hmm… but I did really like how growly and demanding Ranma’s voice got when he told us we would be concentrating on toughness training as much as possible going forward. I’m not certain I’ll ever be able to get to the point I’m as tough as he wants us to be but I wasn’t about to argue when he used that tone. Mmm… I wonder if I can somehow convince him to use that tone of voice when were in the bedroom? I don’t think he’s the type to go for full-on domination type stuff but giving out orders during fun time is possible.

Another roof came and went as Mai’s body ran on autopilot while her brain, annoyed and horny from five days of only the fingers and tongue of her lovers and little in the way of petting-type play up top, lost itself in some fantasies.

That could be nice, especially if we ever get into role-play. Acting the part of a young student and their sensei in a dojo somewhere. That could be fun and check off one of my old fantasies back when I was chasing Andy. Then again, maybe I should concentrate more on the next time the three of us can go on a date like we did before Vega showed up. That night had been downright amazing up to that point. This is Manila, a polyglot city, with a lot of different restaurants to choose from...

Mai was so engrossed in her lust-and-romance-tinged thoughts that she didn’t notice that the rooftop she was jumping toward at that moment already had two occupants. Both young women had pulled out lawn chairs for themselves and as Mai came over the edge of the roof, the two rolled off to the left and right respectively, with one of them kicking the lawn chair and up and towards Mai from the side, while the other one grabbed up two kunai from the rooftop as she charged forwards. “What the hell, intruder, this has to be one of the Tsukis! Elena, you go high, I’ll go low!”

The young women in question were quite different in appearance. One was short, somewhere between Shampoo and Ranma’s curse form, and looked Japanese, despite what looked like a recent tan with long black hair much like Mai’s, if not quite as long. She was a young woman who definitely took her exercise program seriously but didn’t have the visible muscles or speed of someone at Shampoo or Mai’s level.

The other was the second black person that Mai had ever seen, the first having been the fighter Birdie from the tournament in Hong Kong and while Birdie’s skin had been more brown than anything, this girl’s skin was pure black, a harsh contrast to her white hair. She was also tall, taller than Ranma’s male body by at least an inch or more. She wasn’t currently armed but moved with as much speed as her companion and had been the one to kick the lawn chair towards Mai.

Seeing the lawn chair coming towards her, Mai broke out of her romance-induced fugue and kicked out, sending it back towards the African girl. Elena had anticipated that and had jumped up and over it before the chair had even changed direction. She did not anticipate Mai whipping out a fan up and into her face, or the fan expanding into a fireball. This caused Elena to yelp and raise her hands to protect her face from it even as Mai leaped forward, dodging several tossed daggers from the other girl.

Manriki coming out, Mai used it to block several more strikes as the other Japanese girl charged in. She tumbled the instant she saw the weapon, a small flicker of shock written on her features even as she tried to regain her footing and attack. The next instant though, her weapons were sent flying out of her hand, and Mai twisted around a kick from Elena, then jumped over a kick, before, with a wince, bending out of the way of another one, manriki flicking out to slap into the woman’s forehead hard enough to drive her backwards.

A series of hurled fans from Mai even as she twirled away from a kick by the shorter girl slammed into both girls, sending them stumbling back, and allowing Mai to gain some distance. “Stop! I’m sorry, I didn’t see the two of you. I was simply exercising and lost myself to the music. I wasn’t looking for trouble. If you keep attacking me though, I will defend myself.”

Which, judging by how both of these girls were grimacing already, probably wouldn’t be good for either of them, she reflected shaking her head. It’s very obvious they’ve never gone through any kind of toughness training. Although that is a message to me and my lovers. We might need to pull our punches a good deal in this tournament. At least against most of the people involved… and I refuse to think that these two aren’t here for the tournament. Although given how they reacted, perhaps they have some personal reason to be wary of strangers?

Straightening up from where several Shadow Fans had hit her stomach, side and thigh, the Japanese looking girl frowned heavily. The other girl scowled, shaking her head just a bit from the hit to her forehead from the manriki. “How the heck did you miss us? Neither of us are exactly difficult to ‘miss’ out here on this rooftop,” she grumbled, making air quotes over the word miss.

“Let’s just say that one shouldn’t get lost in one’s own fault thoughts while roof hopping. Although, I will make a point to remark that this also isn’t exactly a rooftop where you’d normally see sunbathers,” Mai drawled, shaking her head as she looked around what looked like an abandoned restaurant’s rooftop.

“It’s a bed-and-breakfast, and the owner is a friend of the family,” the Japanese girl muttered, staring hard at Mai, fighting an urge to become jealous at the slightly older girl’s looks. Damn! She might not be dressed to show it much now, but this girl’s got curves on her! And that height, and that hair, and those legs...ugh. If I were the jealous type, I’d be going green with envy right now.

“Look, I’ll apologize for butting in on your tanning time or whatever. My name’s Mai. I’m here for the martial arts tournament, what about you too?” Mai inquired, as the slashes Vega had given her began to once more remind her of their presence.

Her introduction finished the job of decreasing the tension between the trio, as the blonde haired, black-skinned girl raised a fist into the sky. “Yep, Yep, that’s what I’m here for! I’m hoping to learn a lot of escrima while we’re here and I hope to see more in the actual tournament.”

“That does sound interesting, and I could be hoping much the same, but as you can see, my style lends itself more towards nontraditional weapons and mid-range combat rather than close range-weapons usage like that,” Mai answered cordially. “Did the two of you meet when you arrived here, or did you come together? And I’m sorry, I can’t place your nationality, Miss… Elena, right?”

“Oh, I’m Kenyan, and yep, Elena Abdi, that’s me,” Elena answered easily, her Japanese flawless, way better than Mai’s Chinese had been before she met Shampoo. “I’m currently studying abroad in Japan, where I met Ibuki. I’m looking to travel the world in the next few years though, learn different styles and meet new friends.”

Smiling softly at that idea as it paralleled what she and her two lovers were doing, Mai nodded agreeing that sounded nice, before looking over at the heretofore un-introduced Japanese girl.

She was still looking at Mai with a bit of suspicion, and asked hesitantly “I, sorry, but I need to ask You wouldn’t have a last name of Tsuki, would you?”

“No, I don’t. You mentioned them earlier.”

“Good,” the younger girl grumbled, before holding out a hand. “I’m Ibuki Iga, of the Iga Ninja Clan. I’m not nearly as martial arts mad as my friend here is, or as much as my mom and dad would like me to be, even if the idea of traveling the world sounds amazing. They’re the ones that demanded we come here, specifically because we heard our ancient rivals would be involved in the tournament here, and they wanted me to face against the Tsuki clan. Hence, why I was wondering if you were one of them.”

“Nope, my last name is Shiranui, not Tsuki, and frankly, my family-style isn’t really all that based on real ninja arts anyway. We’re not all that ancient, and what history we do have we can trace to more Onna Bugeisha and Shinto traditions.”

“Huh… That explain where those weapons came from, and I notice all of them disappeared when they hit us. That means they were spirit-created right?” Ibuki mused. “I also refuse to think that manriki came from under your shirt.”

“Huh, yeah, come to think of it, I could swear I saw my fist go through a few of those,” Elena added to her friend’s words. “Even though, I’d think shadow or smoke-based weapons would be something a ninja would grab with both hands.”

“They are a kind of yin energy technique, and as for being ninja, maybe, if you believe the modern interpretation of that term,” Mai explained. “As for the manriki and my one real fan, they came from my weapon space. You’ve probably seen examples like the infamous booby window.” Both girls giggled at that, but Mai went on seriously, holding back a wince.

This time, it wasn’t caused by her lingering injuries. “If neither of you have even heard of those, do you have any ki attacks at all?” If they don’t, and the fighters in this tournament are on me and my lovers’ level, these girls are going to be sheep to the slaughter. I’m nowhere near one hundred percent, and I don’t have my combat outfit on me, but I was still able to hold my own against both of them at once.

“Eh… I know a few kicks and punches, I can add a cutting force to my daggers and swords sure, even enhance my speed a bit for short spurts. But weapons space? I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never met someone who can use it, not even my parents,” Ibuki admitted.

“Um, I’ve got ki, but I can only enhance my speed and striking power with it. Oooh, does this mean you’ll teach us something, Mai-senpai!?” Elena exclaimed, actually clapping as she beamed at the older girl.

“Agh, the cuteness, stop it!” Mai mock-stumbled back, before shaking her head. “I, I suppose my friends and I could be up for some sparring and cross-training. But first, how long have you two been in town?”

The answer was two weeks ago. The two of them had come here early because it was summertime over in Japan, and school was out. They were going to spend the entire summer here in Manila, not just for the tournament, but because both of them were really interested in all the various architecture styles and everything else the Archipelago had to offer.

Thankfully, Ibuki’s parents trusted the two girls to be responsible, and they also had a friend here, a Goro Daimon, who was, while not participating in the tournament, lived in Manila, and had agreed to watch over them. They had lunch with him every day, and he had helped Elena a lot with her own martial arts style of Capoeira and Ibuki to further refine her grappling techniques.

The girl’s movements had impressed Mai a moment before, and she was interested to learn more about them, and invited the two of them to come by and meet up with her and her friends for some sparring in the future. “Mind you, I won’t be able to participate, even this little fight between us was a bit much…” she grumbled, staring down past her tits at her stomach for a moment, but not seeing anything despite the pain coming from the gashes Vega had given her.

“Wait, what? You’re bleeding?” Ibuki exclaimed, pointing at Mai’s stomach right below her breasts. “And I know we didn’t tag you. You were fighting us hurt?!”

“That looks almost like a knife cut, or something, and I know Ibuki didn’t tag you with her kunai,” Elena added, frowning in confusion and worry.

Cursing, Mai scowled a bit as she saw a line of red on her shirt. “Damn it. Let’s just say that my friends and I got involved in something a little more serious than normal tournament action a week or so ago. I’m still not healed. Do you mind if I borrow your bathroom for second?”

The two girls nodded and led the way inside. Soon, they were all situated inside, and Mai, in a new shirt, with the old one stuffed into her weapons space, walked the two girls through how to connect to their inner ki, and then how to form it into the necessary net to create a weapon space within a pocket or other enclosed area. She was told about a few romantic restaurants that the two of them had seen, the local movie theater scene, and where the best food stalls could be found, during which the name of her boyfriend came up.

“Huh…” Ibuki mused, frowning a bit, hugging a small Japanese tanuki to her.  The little critter, apparently named Don-chan, seemed to be very affectionate and well-mannered. “Saotome… That name sounds familiar. Think my parents mentioned him once.”

Mai twitched. “That um, that wouldn’t have been in conjunction with any talks about omiais or anything similar, would it?”

“Er… No. No I don’t think so. My Mama would come down on my Dad like a ton of bricks if he tried anything like that. Eh, it’s probably nothing,” Ibuki murmured, unaware that really didn’t convince Mai of anything.

Still, if the girl doesn’t know about it, and doesn’t know Ranma’s name specifically, maybe we can get away with this not being something Genma caused? Mai snorted internally. Oh, who am I kidding. With Ranma’s luck, Genma will have sold off his hand to Ibuki’s family for a few pickles and a bowl of katsudon. She kept those thoughts off her face, though, and steered the conversation back to training, before copying the girl’s phone number into her phone and leaving soon after.

For a few minutes as Mai bounce across the rooftops, the girls watched her go. Then Elena spoke, “So, did you get a glimpse of her injury? I know you snuck over to look into the window from outside.”

“Yep I did, and it was nasty,” Ibuki grimaced. “Three long gashes, from some kind of tekko-kagi I think, straight across the upper stomach from the side, ending right below her left breast. Not deep, for the most part, right up until the end right under her breast. Nasty and would have probably been a fight-ending kind of wound if not worse. And she was able to move and fight like that. I am really, really glad she isn’t a Tsuki ninja.”

“… Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering about too. She was nice, friendly even, and utterly terrifying in terms of speed and strength. My head’s still ringing from that manriki hit, and those Shadow Fans hit like one of your punches. If her friends are as good as she was, I think we can kiss any chance of winning the tournament goodbye,” Elena stated, to which Ibuki had no reply but a shrug.

OOOOOOO

Now certain that they had nothing to fear from the ‘blonde baka’ as Mai called him, while in Manila, the trio set about further investigating the city and setting up a version of the toughness training course once more. They did so in an area that was apparently due to being condemned in the near future. However, much like the observatory back on Hainan, work on taking apart what had been a school at one point had been paused due to lack of funding. This left a good deal of real estate left over, and, surprisingly, several buildings with their walls and even occasional roofs intact and an area where homeless people hadn’t yet moved in.

This was predominantly because this area of the city was far away from the other areas of the city where the poorer people resided. Why it hadn’t been taken over by gangs or similar had something to do with why this area was being condemned in the first place. Apparently, according to Mai’s research, the buildings here had been supposedly built to code to handle the frequent earthquakes and such that the Philippines were known for, but the construction company had cut a lot of corners and the school had collapsed at a bare 3.0 earthquake. Even gangs weren’t willing to put up with that kind of threat, especially when the district surrounding this building was a decent one, with a good police presence.

After a hearty lunch at the hotel’s built-in restaurant, the trio made their way over to the former school and by the end of the day, had set up the toughness training construct, and had put up a canvas on the condemned school’s gym to act as a roof. Mai had even cleaned the interior and made it so it could act as a sparring area for the three of them while Shampoo and Ranma were busy hauling heavy weights around.

The toughness training device utilized several large chunks of concrete essentially fused together and then wrapped around in heavy metal piping torn out of further portions of the building. It wasn’t exactly the toughest kind of concrete, there were a lot of imperfections in it, and Ranma warned that they’d need to replace the makeshift wrecking balls more often than any of them would be happy with, a sign of the shoddiness of the construction, on top of how few steel girders there were as well within the various buildings.

“And if we are hit with a quake when we’re in there, I want us all out of the gym and well away from any of the still standing walls as fast as possible,” Ranma grumbled, shaking his head.

“Understood, and can I just say once more how happy I am that you learned so much from that Martial Arts Construction school?” Mai murmured, staring up at the strange trebuchet-like creation he had put together in under an hour, then across at the second one, her expression a mix of amusement and resignation.

Both sides of the construct served the same purpose, to send something large and exceptionally heavy flying in a single direction, but beyond that, they didn’t really look all that alike as Ranma had to make do with what was on hand. Still, they would definitely serve the purpose: to bring together two large heavy objects in conjunction with one another, with one of the trio tied to one or the other such heavy object.

And just thinking about that makes me really wonder about our basic sanity, she mused with an internal chuckle. “It’s a really useful skill to have Ranma, and I wager when we’re in places where we won’t have access to MAB or they don’t even take money for some reason that that kind of skill is going to be worth its weight in gold.”

Ranma smiled at that but then pointed at her. “That’s nice and all, but don’t expect me to forget that you still injured yourself when you fought those two girls you talked about. You’ll be sitting on the sidelines going through meditation practices to connect to your body’s Yang energy from now until dinner, or else.”

“Airen too too right on that, sister wife. You’ve set back your progress and healing from those injuries by at least a few days, and we’ve only got sixteen to go before the tournament starts,” Shampoo reminded Mai from where she was putting the final touches on the ropes that would tie her or Ranma to one of the heavyweights. “If you’re not fully healed, and we will be taking you to a doctor to make sure, you’re not joining us in it.”

“And I say again my last on that one. If I have to miss out, you two are going to deal with an incredibly pouty, incredibly angry girl,” Mai growled, before shaking her head. “Still, you won’t hear me complaining about getting out of this training for a little bit.”

“For now. You’ll have a harder time catching up to us later, though. I was serious when I said I want us all to be at least handheld machine gun or rifle proof by the time we hit India. We probably won’t have time for all of us to get to that point before the tournament is supposed to begin in Thailand and we’re due to meet up with Honda-san and whoever else he’s bringing into the team, but that’s our primary long-term training goal. As a group anyway,” Ranma added, to which both of the girls nodded.

Shampoo still wanted to delve deeper into the ‘earth control’ techniques that her grandmother had started her on. Ranma wanted to get a handle further on various parts of the Blue Wave technique, a type of training that had been reluctantly set aside since the fight with the jiangshi. Mai wanted to start adding more and different element-based powers to her basic attacks on top of building up her basic strength, durability, agility and speed, something the other two wanted as well.

That brought up another idea for training, and she talked about it with her two lovers even as Shampoo lost the rock paper scissors challenge with Ranma to see who would be put through the toughness training first. To the backdrop of the Amazon cursing various historical figures’ body parts in Putonghua, she and Ranma discussed how best to start training their agility and speed using a few baseball related pieces of equipment, as well as a portable generator. “Honestly, the portable generator might be a good idea just to have on hand when we’re going forward. India is a huge freaking place after all, and having something like a solar powered generator with us when we’re traveling there might be a very good idea.”

Ranma agreed with that, and, as Shampoo began to snarl even louder as Ranma winched the two masses of concrete into position from his control station on the ground, Mai left to purchase the necessary equipment. This took her longer than she had expected and transporting them back to the school was also somewhat annoying, as she could only carry one piece of equipment at a time along the rooftops and into and over the wooden wall separating the school from the rest of the area around it.

The Krump of the two heavy objects slamming into one another welcomed her long before she was over the side, but just as they had hoped, it didn’t actually reverberate all that loudly, not to the point where people in the city around the condemned zone would be able to hear it very well. At least, not during the day, with all the background noise of the city drowning it out.

Mai took over using the controls, while Ranma tinkered with the new equipment, setting it up in the gym area along with dozens of pool balls, rather than the baseballs that the baseball shooter thing, Ranma wasn’t certain what they were really called, would normally use. He also heightened the speed of the thing as much as he could, although when it came to fiddling with equipment like this, Ranma wasn’t nearly as home as he was with building something.

Still, again, he fell back on his training with the Martial Arts Construction school and it worked. The pool balls that he experimented with first slammed across the intervening distance between where he’d set it up and the wall opposite with enough force to shatter the pool cue against the concrete wall. “Nice. We’ll also have to be aware of shrapnel, then. Good. That just means its better training.”

Whether or not Shampoo would have agreed with that, given what she was currently going through, was in question to be sure, but Mai was happy with the results, and eagerly looking forward to practicing with the device when she could. That wasn’t going to be for a while though, and with the need for someone to operate the controls of the toughness training device, Ranma took over that task once more to allow Mai more time to meditate. Like with the toughness training, she would need to seriously concentrate in order to get in touch with her ‘male energy’ in order to heighten her ki healing

Early the next day, Elena and Ibuki arrived in the area, with Elena wondering idly, “I have to wonder why there are so many small, condemned areas like this in cities that can be repurposed for martial arts training. I mean, my family did it back home, your family did it near your dojo for your more serious training we even did it in Hokkaido for the school trip this past winter.”

“Are you asking if it’s a conspiracy or something?”

“Or maybe some underlying rule of the universe, that there’s always going to be someplace where crazy martial artists can train…” Elena’s voice trailed off as she landed on the inner side of the security walls set up around the school, staring. “Um… but maybe not this crazy...”

Ibuki also stared, watching as a pigtailed man was swung back and forth on one weight and into another under the control of a Chinese looking purple haired young woman a little bit older than Elena or her friend.

“Is this some kind of training, or a marital discipline device?” Elena whispered.

Ibuki turned to her friend, her brows furrowed. “Marital discipline device?”

Elena blushed a bit, looking away hurriedly. “Don’t ask, I have no idea where that thought came from.”

Shaking her head at her friend, who, Ibuki new, had a certain tendency towards bondage in her personal doujin collection, the young Japanese girl raised a hand, shouting, “Hey there! Mai told us it was all right for us to stop by and for us all to train together?”

Shampoo looked up from her work, then motioned over towards where a small tarp had been set up nearby. The sky looked as if it was going to rain sometime soon and Ranma had thoughtfully set up a tarp over where Mai could sit and meditate, and another one over where he had set up the center of the levers and pulleys that made up the toughness training/torture device.

Ranma himself would probably have to go through getting wet while strapped to the construct, but neither he nor his two lovers cared so much. “Hello. You are the two that Mai-chan fought and busted one of her wounds open, right?” Shampoo said, her tone friendly yet dangerous at the same time.

“I think both sides were to blame for that little debacle,” Ibuki answered hastily before changing the subject quickly. “What is this thing you’re doing to your friend over there?”

“He is not my friend, he is my boyfriend,” Shampoo stated, the term boyfriend sounding odd and far too small in her mouth for what Ranma really was to her, even as her words caused the black skinned girl to hiss, I knew it! But… wait’ to the point that Shampoo could barely make it out. “This is the toughness training. It is to train your body up to take significant blows, and to come out the other side without damage.”

“I know it looks weird,” Ranma said, startling both Ibuki and Elena, because, despite being currently pressed in between two multi-time bits of concrete, he didn’t sound as if he was in any pain. “But it actually works. I’ve been shot at by pistols, and the bullets have basically bounced off me, and if a normal person tried to punch me now, they probably break their fingers and wrists doing it.”

“… Okay, that does sound kind of cool. But I don’t know if it’s worth this,” Elena muttered, becoming while her friend rapidly shook her head.

“Yeah, I’m not going through that,” Ibuki stated firmly. “And if you three could make a point of not mentioning it to my parents if they show up for the tournament, I would be forever grateful. My mom would probably be sensible enough to take one look at it and go ‘no’ like I am, but my dad is a different story.”

“And I thought Mai-chan said that Ranma was her boyfriend. Are you all together?” Elena asked excitedly. “A few of the tribes in the jungles back home did that kind of thing.”

“We are, yes, and I know how bad this looks.” Shampoo chuckled. “Trust me, if I hadn’t seen the warriors and elders of my tribe going through similar training back home, I would never believe that it was a real training technique. But if you’re not serious about the Art, there’s no real need for you to get put through it.”

“Implying that if you are serious, it’s a necessity for some reason,” Elena mused, scratching her chin thoughtfully.

“It is. For one reason or another, we’ve run into a lot of people who are just…tougher than they should be. Stronger than they look to be, too,” Shampoo said grimly. Even setting aside the jiangshi duo.

“When you get nearly crippled by a mad man whose very ki has become so vile that it acts almost like a corrupting element to anything that touches it, yeah, you want to get stronger. And we had it on good authority that the guy in question barely registers to some of the true powerhouse martial artists out there,” Ranma answered before smirking, just as Shampoo finished winching him and the other side of the device into position once more. “Then again, that just gives us a goal to rREAAGCHH!”

His voice rose into a loud groan as he was sent forward and down to crash into the opposite weight, making both younger girls grimace a little. “UM, well, we’re not here for that. We’re here to spar, so if you don’t want to do it today, that’s fine, we’ll just set up another time.” Ibuki almost gabbled, not exactly comfortable seeing what she thought of as torture going on.

Moments later though, as Shampoo and Ranma agreed that they could take a break from the toughness training of a few hours, she was astonished to see Ranma drop down from the two-story height of the torture device to land lightly on his feet as if he wasn’t injured at all. He moved like he was a little battered, a little sore, but that was about it. While Elena looked even more intrigued at that, Ibuki could only shake her head, understanding that these three took the art way more seriously than she ever wanted to. Still, she had already been signed up by her parents for the Thrilla in Manila Part 2, and she wanted to make at least a good showing of it enough to get them off her back.

The two of them Ranma and Shampoo headed into the gym, where the two girls looked up at the makeshift ceiling for a time just as thunder began to roll in the distance. “Is that going to keep out the rain and weather?” Ibuki muttered, staring up at the large tarp. And where did they get that tarp? It’s way too big to be something they simply bought in the store.

“It should,” Ranma announced, while staring up at the tarp, which they’d found here in the school over a set of abandoned construction equipment. The equipment though, had mostly been scavenged already for parts, and hence have been completely unusable by them as anything but more weight to add to the toughness training device. “Now, who wants to go first?”

“How about we both take them on two on one?” Shampoo stated rather than questioned, moving over to stand across from the two girls, crouching down and raising her fists. While she still had the chui that her grandmother had given her, she didn’t think these two would be worth using them on. She wasn’t nearly as good at as Ranma at analyzing combat styles, but she was actually better at analyzing people, and Ibuki in particular came off as somewhat reluctant to be there at all. Elena gave off the impression of an eager puppy in some fashion, but Shampoo didn’t think she would be much of a challenge either.

In a way, she was right. In the battle that came, neither of the younger girls proved to be much of a match for Shampoo. There was simply that much of a difference in their basic strength agility and dexterity. Shampoo could tell that, had Ibuki been part of her clan, she’d probably have been a match for Shampoo when she and Ranma had first met in her village less than two years ago now. But Shampoo had grown tremendously in the past two years, and armed or unarmed Ibuki simply couldn’t keep up with Shampoo.

Elena on the other hand, had a style that Shampoo had never seen before. It was highly mobile, rhythmic almost, and based entirely on moving around on the ground or in short bursts through the air, using all four limbs in conjunction with one another in a rising series of strikes as she kept moving. Ranma was also interested in it, watching a thoughtfully. “Hmm… that’s capoeira, huh? It’s somewhat unpredictable except for its tendency to try and target the lower body of your enemy. I wonder what it would look like if you added the Drunken Fist into it?”

As her back slammed into the wall behind her, Elena grunted, then hastily dodged out of the way of Shampoo’s knee, where it crashed into the place were her head had been a second ago. She tried to flip up into a kick, only for Shampoo to have used the impact of her knee on the wall to push off somehow in time to avoid it, then ducked underneath another strike. Elena found her own punch going wide, then her hasty second punch being grabbed, and then she found herself in the air and flung to the side where she crashed at her friend’s feet.

“UGHhh…,” she groaned. “I know you’re trying to sound nice, but when your girlfriend is tossing me around like this, it kind of loses its impact, you know?”

“Also, please don’t insinuate that an underage girl should start drinking,” Ibuki stated firmly, shaking her head. “Elena is a bit of a lightweight. When we drank some of my father’s sake, she was out like a light in minutes. I had to literally carry her back to my room, and that wasn’t fun.”

“Regardless, your style is very interesting. But I thought Capoeira came from Brazil, how did you learn it?” Ranma asked, his voice sounding honestly confused.

“My dad originally came from Brazil and moved to Kenya for work. He was a major martial arts follower and had a lot of stuff about Capoeira on his computer. I studied it a lot when I was younger, more to get into shape than anything else, but I soon grew to love it,” Elena confessed. “We moved back to Brazil for a time, and I met some actual instructors there who took me on when I was in middle school before we moved back. I spent a few years of pursuing it on my own, and then I was accepted at a high school in Japan where I met Ibuki.”

That made sense in both Ranma and Shampoo’s opinion. Elena looked to have a very good grounding in Capoeira, but not so much a good grounding in terms of the Art in general. She made mistakes occasionally in terms of throwing a punch or kick, or worse, her footing, that someone who had learned something simpler, like karate or judo, wouldn’t have made. Still, that was easy enough to correct, and both of them knew that a few days of sparring would do it.

It was also clear that neither girl had enough grounding in ki to really be up to the trio’s weight class. What little they could do with it was not up to snuff. The trick with enhancing their speed was rudimentary and left both of them tired, neither could really add much to their strength or hitting power, and the cutting-edge trick was sub-par at best. They’d had no idea about Yin style techniques at all either, having thought it was mere fantasy.

And, as it became time to stop for the day and the sky opened up at last, the pair got a crash course on something else they had thought mere fantasy: magic.

The girls and Ranma were already under cover in the gym by this point, and they sat around a small fire pit in one corner of the former gym, the rain pounding down above them into the tarp. For a time, as Mai and Shampoo cooked over the fire, there was an almost homey feeling to the scene. Which ended abruptly as the tarp above them tore open for no discernable reason, dumping water down onto Ranma’s head and causing the girls to scatter as rain poured in after, causing the fire to hiss and sizzle and wrecking the area.

“AGH! Drat it, I guess that tarp wasn’t up to taking up much weight,” Elena muttered, wiping wet hair out of her eyes only to stare as Ibuki did the same at the short, buxom redhead sitting with a resigned expression where Ranma had been sitting a moment before. “Um… hello?”

“What, what the…” Ibuki muttered, reaching forward to poke one of the short redhead’s chest. “Is this some kind of Yin-type trick?”

“Hand’s off!”

Moments later, Ibuki shook her head, staring at the still-female Ranma as she went about setting up a tent. “See the world, my parents said. Spar with new and interesting people. You didn’t know the half of it, you two.” And that name, Saotome, is still bothering me for some reason…

“Eh, look at it this way, at least nothing we can see in the tournament will top this, right?” Elena quipped before blinking as Mai, Shampoo, Ranma, and even Elena stared at her in horror. “Right? Guys? Guys?”

OOOOOOO

While more than a little disturbed by the curse and the fact that magic was real, neither Ibuki nor Elena were bothered by it enough to stop coming by to spar and otherwise train with their new acquaintances, even if they did become more and more concerned about the trios’ basic level of sanity whenever they saw the toughness training in action, or the training and agility that Ranma had set up with the former baseball tossing machines.

The next two weeks thus settled into a semi-rhythm of training, sparring, and other activities. Ranma or Shampoo would be tied into the toughness training device, while Mai concentrated on connecting to our inner energy and using it to heal herself. They would continue in this manner until evening, when Ibuki and Elena would come by, and they would spar until it was dark out and then have a meal together either in the ruins or at a nearby restaurant.

As they got used once more to the toughness training, Ranma and Shampoo would have more energy at the end of the sparring, and would occasionally have some adult type fun during the night. From her own bed Mai watched on, unable to take full part, but also partaking occasionally, even if the look she got when Ranma refused to have full on sex with her until her injuries were healed was starting to make Ranma fear for his boy bits the moment when she could join them fully.

This turned out to be prophetic. Fourteen days after they had arrived in Manila, Mai’s injuries had healed. They took her to a local doctor for a checkup, and that night, Mai had literally ridden Ranma all night, with Shampoo’s blessing, to the point that both of them were incredibly sore the next morning even with Ranma’s ki healing.

This gave Mai three days to train, but the trio decided three days wasn’t enough for her to get much out of the toughness training. Thus, sparring and speed training became the name of the game, with Ranma pushing Mai hard to come up with new ways to use her spiritual-based powers and Shampoo helping to work on her basic combat skills.

The tournament was set up in one of the worst areas of Manila, an area about the size of a normal city’s district built entirely on a former landfill. Traveling to that area was difficult, as the zones around the landfill was also heavily crowded, but the segment of the slums around the tournament had been cleared out specifically for it over the course of several months, the area taken over by the local organizers.

They had brought in guards, handed out markers to everyone coming and going, had overhead snipers positioned on watchtowers made out of junk, specially trained TV crews, large TV sets and so forth scattered around the area for those who couldn’t get a ticket into the actual stands around the main tournaments arena. A lot of money changed hands as people came in, with several thousand people there from all walks of life, and the five teens had to hand over some money as they gave their names to the organizers.

Almost as soon as they did, however, the day started to go sideways. No sooner had Ibuki given her name that a thrown kunai came her way from the crowd. “There she is, the Iga heiress! Tsuki kunoichi, attack!” This shout was followed by an attack from someone else in the crowd behind them who were waiting for entry.

“Die scum?” Ibuki drawled twitching a hand up and catching the thrown kunai. After the past few weeks training with Ranma and the rest, the speed it had been going might as well have been a softball. Using it, Ibuki block the throwing stars coming at her from behind before doing a backflip up and away, pushing into an area beyond the guarded exterior, turning to face her attackers.

One, the one who had attacked from the inside of the tournament area was a short… well, Ranma wasn’t the only man there to gag and back away rapidly at the sight of the… individual who had thrown that first kunai and had shouted a moment before. Even his words of “Good God, who let the midget bearded lady in?” Didn’t cause any of his companions to glare or smack him upside the head for being mean, because it was all too accurate.

The woman, or man, it was literally impossible to tell, was short, and wore a very tasteful looking white kimono, her(?) hair done up in a traditional Japanese style bun. She, if the onlookers decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, also had a five o’clock shadow a miner would envy in the form of a mustache, lips so thick they looked as thick as two normal fingers pressed together, eyebrows that almost looked as if they could be detached and used as sickles, and enough wrinkles to look like a pug.

“You’re the Iga brat, huh? I don’t see anything special about you, but I suppose that clan honor would still dictate we kill you, for the glory of the Tsuki Kunoichi,” the man, if judging by his tone, answered, further confusing things for everyone watching this odd event.

“Wait Kunoichi?” Elena mused. “Then, um, that person is, um, really female?” she looked over at Ranma.

He blinked then rapidly shook his head. “Don’t look at me, I got no idea. I’ve got a curse sure but that doesn’t mean I’m some kind of crossdressing expert or whatever you’re implying. Besides, for once this looks as if it’s got nothing to do with me.”

While Mai and Shampoo exaggeratedly breathed out sighs of relief, two more attackers came out of the audience and while their appearance was only peripherally similar to the first woman/crossdressing midget, their looks were no better. In fact, both were almost worse images of horror if in different ways.

The pair wore similar floral-patterned kimonos to the first woman and didn’t have any of her wrinkles. However, one was a stick thin figure with absolutely no curves either at her hips or chest, a horrible bowl cut and a face only a kappa, a frog monster, could love, dominated by large lips below beady eyes. The second was a massive, somewhat overweight ‘woman’ who stood so tall her shoulders were equal to Ranma’s full height. Being bald did nothing to make it clear if this person was male or female, although the fact she had a very tiny nose and an insanely large, almost frog-like mouth, wide enough to bit down on a man’s head, certainly was to his(?) detriment.

“When the large person spoke, the voice was quite dulcet, making it even harder to figure out her(?) gender. “If you really are of the Iga clan, it’s clear how far they’ve fallen, having an heiress as ugly as you. It will do the world of kunoichi good to end your clan.”

“World of Kunoichi?” Ranma murmured to Mai.

“Don’t look at me, my clan’s not part of whatever that is,” Mai protested, using Ranma’s earlier words deliberately, causing him to chuckle.

Ibuki shook her head. “You’ve never been forced to look in a mirror in your life, have you? But if you want a match, I’ll—"

“You’re not supposed to be getting attacked at all!” roared one of the gun-toting organizers nearby, recovering from his surprise. He pointed his rifle at the woman, who scoffed, but paused as several others also turned their guns in her direction and that of Ibuki. “No fighting outside the tournament, or else.”

“Or else what?” The androgynous member of the trio scowled. “You think your guns scare us?”

That had even more guns turned in their direction, including some of the snipers on the watch towers. The trio of ugly self-proclaimed kunoichi frowned, tensing, but then, a fourth voice interjected. Just like the largest of the trio, this voice was distinctly, feminine, but instead of a threat, this voice tried to calm things down. “Please, sisters, Mother, attacking out of the blue like this is not necessary. We are here to compete after all, and we have no need of challenging Iga-san like this. We can simply see which of us goes further in the tournament, and let that decide which of our clan is strongest.”

The crowd parted, and immediately a lot of the tension in the gun-toting locals evaporated as they, and many of the men in the audience stared, faint flushes appearing on a few faces with leers appearing on still more. The three uglies all huffed, with the mother growling out, “Konatsu,” under her breath.

The speaker was an extremely pretty girl around their own age, so much so that even Mai and Shampoo felt faint stirrings of jealousy. Much like her seeming family, the young woman was dressed up in a floral kimono, but in her case, it showed off her spare, trimmed frame to good effect, despite cutting into her curves, which, Mai suspected, wouldn’t come up to Shampoo’s own or even Ranma’s cursed form. In her arms, she held numerous skewers and other street food, showing, in Ranma’s opinion, she had her priorities straight.

The woman bowed from the waist towards the man who had shouted earlier. “I apologize for my family. If you think you must kick them out or even shoot one to encourage the others, I would completely understand, but being in this tournament is a matter of honor for us, and I would request that I at least be allowed to remain in it and fight in our clan’s name.”

“Oy!” the trio of gender-questionable individuals shouted.

“Huh, that feels familiar,” Ranma observed.

“Er, n, no, we don’t have to do that, so long as your family understand they are on thin ice,” the organizer muttered, looking away from where the pretty girl had bowed to him.

“I don’t have a problem with it either,” Ibuki stated, while Elena smiled happily. Having a rival was nice, getting attacked out of nowhere wasn’t. “If you want to face me in the arena, that’s fine too.”

“HHMMf, I suppose even someone as ugly as you can have some good ideas, Konatsu. One of us will meet you in the ring, girl, and then the Tsuki clan will reclaim our place on top of the ninja clan’s hierarchy.”

Once more, Ranma looked over at Mai, joined by Shampoo this time, and she snorted. “Again, it’s got nothing to do with me or my family. Even if it did, I wouldn’t care about something so small.”

“I heard that!” the thinnest of the ugly trio shouted. “You, girl, I’ll put you and those udders of your in your place, down in the dirt in this tournament too.”

“Hmm… the delusion is strong in this one,” Mai retorted, causing her lovers to remember another movie night and smile. “But if you want a fight, sure, I’ll enjoy showing you the reality of the world beyond your river, kappa.”

“Enough grandstanding. You’re in the way. Move off, join the prelims, or fuck off. Make further trouble you won’t get another warning,” the operator growled.

Within moments, the group had been shown to two smaller sparring rings, where matches were already taking place. Konatsu was quickly called up to one, while the others were forced to wait. Thankfully, the organizers knew that having the two antagonistic groups near one another was a bad idea, so Ranma and his expanded group went to one of the sparring rings and the ugly trio went to the one where Konatsu was competing.

Soon, even as a lot of the watchers leered, Konatsu proceeded to show that she was strong enough to toss a man twice her size and three times her weight around like a ball.

Soon, more and more people began to arrive in the area to watch the tournament. Thanks to getting there so early though, they were able to watch the majority of the other preliminary matches, with Ranma in particular taking a good deal away from it. There were also a few food vendors even here, and all of them grabbed food, staring over the heads of the crowd toward the central edifice of the area that had been set up for the tournament. There, surrounded by what looked like a football stadium’s worth of stands, and a few, richer box-like areas crafted out of cars and so forth, a fully enfolded arena had been created.

Waving off one food vendor, as he tried to hawk or something, Mai stared at the wall around the arena shaking her head. “I swear to all that is holy, if I hear anyone start try to start a chant about two men entering, one man leaving, I am going to go full murder hobo on everyone here!”

Shampoo and Ranma snickered at that, having been introduced to that term the night before when they had been watching something on YouTube from America. Despite that knowledge, though, the actual reasoning behind her annoyance failed to register to either of them, not having seen the movie she was referring to.

Elena had, and she giggled wildly, shaking her head from side to side, while Ibuki just stood and looked at her friend and their new acquaintances shaking her head. “I have no idea where that came from, and I don’t honestly care to know. Let’s just get this over with…”

The small groups preliminaries set up all five of them against locals. The girls all easily passed their own examinations, with Ibuki and Elena having a little bit more trouble than Shampoo and Mai but mostly easily defeating their opponents, something both girls were pleased to discover. Ranma found himself also facing a local, but in his case, the guy looked like a Male Dom straight out of a bondage calendar, and Ranma was tempted to fight with his eyes closed, it was such a disgusting sight. “Why do I want to shout about bad touches?” he asked, to the amusement of the crowd, as the man growled and charged.

Two seconds later, he regretted this decision for the one second he was conscious, before Ranma’s fist interacted with his temple at speed.

“My word, but you ended that quite quickly,” a new voice said to one side of the of the group as Ranma rejoined his companions. The words were in English, the language Ranma had been speaking earlier. After all, it was important when you were taunting someone to speak in the language they could understand, but this man’s English sounded more British than American like Ranma’s and with a Chinese accent. “All of you passed remarkably quickly in point of fact. Fascinating. I’m glad I decided to join this tournament if I get to face young folks such as yourselves.”

Recognizing the accent, Shampoo turned to the speaker. Taking in his appearance, she bowed from the waist, one hand pressed into the palm of the other as she thrust them forward towards the man. “We thank you for your words, Elder,” she said formally in Putonghua.

The man she so addressed was indeed an elder, a short stooped elderly man, with a bald head, and a white beard which had been neatly groomed into three parts. He was dressed in something Ranma could honestly see himself wearing, a nice white Chinese button down shirt, and brown pants, along with the same kind of slippers Ranma routinely wore as everyday wear.

Despite his stooped nature, the man moved with a certain likeness of foot as he dodged around a few other people in the crowd around them without even looking in their direction, his gaze locked with Shampoo. “I thank you for your respect,” he answered formally, bowing his head lightly in her direction. “I detected something I have not seen in many a year from your style child, would you happen to be a member of the Joketsuzoku?”

“I am indeed, Elder. This is Ranma, and our friend Mai.” Both Ranma and Shampoo nodded to the man, while Elena and Ibuki looked on in interest. “We are all three on a training journey together, and hope to see where we stand in this tournament.”

“Fascinating, indeed to see young people so willing to share their styles. I will watch you in this tournament with great interest, and if we come to blows, I will be most honored to do battle with you. So long as, that is, you are indeed not searching for a husband. I’m afraid I’m a bit old for that kind of thing,” he joked.

Ranma laughed and put an arm around Shampoo shoulders. “No worries on that score elder. She’s taken.”

“Quite happily so,” Shampoo purred leaning into them, while Mai thought about joining them, but decided that they didn’t really need the attention. Instead, she found her eyes drawn back to another area of the tournament zone, where Kotetsu, apparently the wicked stepmother of the Tsuki quartet, had just stepped into the arena.

“What are we looking at here?” the Chinese agent man said, while Ranma found his attention diverted elsewhere for a second.

“We still don’t know, actually. We’re acting under the assumption the Tsuki clan currently consist of three blind cross-dressers and a normal girl,” Mai joked before gesturing to Ibuki. “All of whom are here to apparently beat down Ibuki because she’s from a rival clan.”

“Ugh, despite my earlier words, I really, really don’t want to fight any of those three. If they even come close to me, I’m afraid I’d probably run the other way out of sheer horror,” Ibuki grumbled. “Still, at least Konatsu seems normal enough, maybe after I defeat her the two of us can become friends.”

“Normal, hmm?” the older man murmured, then shrugged. “Well, we will see.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t mind fighting any of them. If they’ve got skills to back up their ugliness, anyway. I didn’t like how they just attacked you randomly so fast,” Elena said with all of the casual cruelty of a normal teenager.

As they watched, two of the Tsuki uglies had sparring matches with other would-be contestants, which they won. However, during these fights both Kotetsu and Koeda, the one who made Mai think of a kappa, they used some of the same techniques that were supposedly kunoichi-related: subtle flirtations, shifts of the body to bring attention to their chests or legs. Which in this case, caused flinches and terror in their opponents, rather than lustful stares.

One of them, however, the biggest one, proved to be against a very bad matchup, as Koume’s opponent was no more bizarre in appearance. Indeed, the man she was facing looked more animal like than human to the point that none of the watchers had thought he was human until he raised his fists to a word from someone in the crowd, shouting something in Tagalog back to the man.

He had long red hair, spiky, almost like a certain character from a ninja fixated mango that young boys like to read, but also green skin, and the hunched shoulders of a gorilla. His long arms also matched that image, and the way he moved was a mix of animalistic and trained.

Stranger yet was to come as the two of them squared off. Possibly because of the ugliness of the man across from her(?), the large cross-dresser, none of the watching women thought he was actually a woman, simply charged forwards, lashing out towards the man with numerous hurled daggers, showing that she had access to weapon space as well.

That caused Ibuki to grimace a little. “Seriously, is my school the only one that hasn’t looked into that kind of thing?”

“Probably,” Elena answered bluntly, causing Ibuki to wilt a little, even as the man ducked dodged and then rolled under the assault, coming up in a rising punch that the giant cross-dresser dodged around, her leg lashing out in a brutal sidekick. This was batted aside by one of the man’s young arms. His own legs came up in a double kick, which the woman blocked with her forearms but was sent stumbling away from the impact.

Koume turned it into a roll, but the man followed suit, as soon as his feet touch the ground, rolling forward in a tight ball and coming up to slash at her with claws that suddenly gleamed with a bit of ki light. The cross-dresser dodged around and sent him spinning, but the man used that to first cut at her leg, then lash out with a kick that caught the woman square on the side, launching her away from him.

The next second, the man was rolling after her again, and Koume, recovering, launched into a shoulder charge from above, a long sword appearing from her weapon space. However, the man just ducked to the side, and then grabbed her hand behind the wrist before she could pull back. All the hair on him stood up for a second, and suddenly, there was an electrical surge from a man, as if he had become part electric eel. Koume screamed as the electricity coursed through her body, then she collapsed, the man tossing her almost negligently aside as he raised a hand in victory.

“Damn… ki use to create fire or water, I’ve seen. Ki to heighten your body’s bioelectric outfit, that’s a new one on me,” Mai muttered.

“I have not seen something similar either. This trip is getting more interesting,” the ancient Chinese man, who had yet to introduce himself, said, while Shampoo nodded in agreement, and Elena and Ibuki exchanged worried glances. How exactly were they supposed to protect themselves against electricity after all? And frankly, some of the injuries even these pretournament trials were causing were a bit worrisome.

Ranma had been silent for a little while, and noticing this, Mai looked over at him, leaning over and grabbing his hand, squeezing it enough to startle him out of his reverie. She glanced in the direction he was, and saw he was watching one of the locals in particular. After a second, she wondered if he was indeed a local, seeing how tense some of the gun-toting crowd was around him but it was clear he was comfortable with them.

He was another bald man, who wore a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, under, of all things, a purple, fur-lined coat.  He stood around six feet and a bit, with broad shoulders and dense muscles, and had a certain predatory look to him, arrogance exuding from the sneer on his face under a pair of expensive sunglasses. Two escrima sticks resided on a holster on his back. He didn’t look Filipino, more European, despite his tan. And despite his shorts and open Hawaiian shirt, it was clear the heat wasn’t bothering him, as there was not a bit of sweat on his body despite the fur coat.

“What’s wrong?” She whispered, or as near as she could, given how loud the crowd around them was after the recent victory.

“That guy, he’s… I’m getting a feeling like him like I did from Yamazaki. It’s not nearly as bad, but it’s there,” he muttered. “His ki isn’t so… evil, but there’s something inside him, a kernel of the ‘Dark Hado’.”

Flicking her head sideways, Mai looked at the individual in question again out of the corner of her eyes, reaching inside and using her ki sense for a second, only to recoil a little. It was true, the man did radiate to her senses a bit like the mad dragon had. Only a bit, like a hatchling to a full-grown dragon, but it was there, and even without it, the man looked formidable. “All right, she murmured, “that’s disturbing.”

“Yep,” Ranma nodded, then blinked as the smell of electrocuted meat hit him. “What the heck? What did I miss?”

Chuckling at her lover’s narrow focus, Mai explained, and Ranma smirked just a little bit. “Well now, isn’t that interesting. This tournament just got a whole lot more fascinating…”

End Chapter

SO you see, I’m introducing yet another big-time enemy for Ranma here, even if somewhat subtly.  I have plans for the Dark Hado and so forth going forward, but you will have to wait and see.  As for the ugly kunoichi and bishounen ninja, heh, I haven’t ever really played with them before in my fics, so when I thought about using Elena, they came with for some reason. Anyway, I am sorry this was posted so late in the month, but I hope you enjoyed regardless.