“Ah! My sincerest apologies, Shampoo-san!” Konatsu exclaimed, giving his deepest bow of apology to the fair, elegant and beautiful exotic Chinese flower. Konatsu stumbled slightly from the loss of energy employed in the technique, but this time easily retained his consciousness. “This poor, humble kunoichi did not deliberately intend to embarrass or surprise you in such a manner. I beg your forgiveness, but I must depart post haste!”
And off he went, effortlessly and silently blending into the background while hopping off towards his destination. Konatsu didn’t look back out of shame for his actions, which actually was a shame because otherwise he might have noticed that Shampoo’s expression hadn’t altered even the slightest for about three minutes after the technique had been used on her.
“Is okay,” Shampoo finally said. “Shampoo no mind.”
She blinked and realised she was empty. Alone. Same difference. Her rather adorable face turned up in a frown. Something felt wrong. She shook her head, unable to figure out what it was. Maybe if she asked Master Konatsu, he could -
Master Konatsu? Since when did she think of him as -
Training kicked in on reflex. A mind-affecting technique! She began a series of mental exercises to keep it at bay. She’d never believed for a moment she’d need to use them, but there it was! The first thing she had to do was isolate the nature of the technique, which seemed rather easy to do: It was clearly intended to make her into the user’s obedient slave, that much was obvious pretty much immediately.
Except… Except Ma- Konatsu didn’t seem the kind of person to do that. He was so… Nice. So apologetic, so thinking of the needs of others before his own. It was kind of adorable in a way how he’d retain such loyalty, how he’d look up to just about anyone and be so completely humble while still being an amazing martial artist.
Shampoo sighed with a smile on her face, and then slapped herself so hard she couldn’t taste anything but cheese for about an hour.
“That sneaky,” she said, reeling a little from the slap. “Shampoo best be careful, return home to Great-grandmama. She know what to do.”
Of course, the trick to that was making certain that she didn’t fall under the influence of whatever effect this was. Which meant performing a few meditations on something. Something other than the lingering memory of Konatsu’s bishonen face and squeezable butt… Oh, tricky but no dice! No, definitely not thinking about that! Nuh uh! Instead she was going to think about what to tell her great-grandmother. If she didn’t have the full details, she’d never get things sorted out.
Let’s see. Shampoo had seen a ninja girl attack Konatsu. Since Konatsu is sort of Ranma’s friend, she decided to give a helping hand. That was always the way things seemed to go. One of Ranma’s associates would be attacked by something, then they’d all get dragged in, and honestly it was best to nip that sort of thing in the bud before it started.
Konatsu must have had the same idea. What was it he’d said? “I learned it from a scroll she had after she attacked me in the first place. I’m still trying to devise just what it does.”
Still trying to devise what it does.
Shampoo stopped in her tracks and bit her lip. After that, the ninja girl had done some strange substitution trick and Shampoo had been hit by the technique by accident. By accident. Without the intention of being hit by it. By someone who didn’t even know it enslaved people.
That made sense. It made far too much sense. Konatsu was too nice (and handsome) a person to consider enslaving anyone. It was obviously an accident. But would Great-grandmother see it that way? No. If she thought that Konatsu was using an enslaving technique, much less on her… The reaction…
Shampoo walked in through the front door of the Cat Cafe. The bell rang. Her great-grandmother lifted her head and gave a small nod.
“Greetings, child,” she said to Shampoo. “Did anything interesting happen while you were out?”
“No, Great-grandmother,” Shampoo answered cheerily, resolving to conduct her own discreet investigation into this strange technique and how to counteract it. All the while a word buzzed in the back of her mind: Master.
<hr>
For reasons beyond her ability to comprehend, some people seemed to believe that Nabiki Tendo had every room of her home wired so that she could more easily blackmail people living there. Honestly. What a ridiculous notion. Do you have any idea how expensive that would be? And the maintenance costs? And how much that would be versus the payoff? Not to mention how many dead hours would have to be listened to before anything of substance was discovered.
Nope. No thanks. Not when there were much more practical ways of going about getting information. A glass tumbler against the door was far more effective, far cheaper, and far less likely to be discovered.
See, Nabiki knew that the best way to manipulate people was simply to understand them. Nabiki understood her little sister. She was a prude. Attracted to Ranma in an emotional and physical manner, certainly, but completely unwilling to act on it. That was Akane Tendo, or at least one aspect of her.
So… When that particularly prudish girl starts asking about the typical size of the human penis it sets off a few red flags here and there. Especially since she and Ranma hadn’t been arguing of late at all, spending more time hanging out than they used to (which was already a fair amount), and other tiny little cues. Which is why it had been necessary to affix two bells in her room to two separate pieces of rope. One on the top of Akane’s window, the other on her door. The second either was opened she’d know about it.
And what do you know? A rope was pulled, the bell rang and - Briefly investigating the guest room revealed that Ranma was missing.
Oh, how thoroughly juicy. So they’d finally gotten over their insecurities and started letting out some of that sexual tension? It seemed so hard to believe. The two of them had been intending to hump each other stupid for - Well, probably since about the week they met, honestly. Nabiki felt a little bit of pride swell up in her, genuine happiness for the two of them finally getting it out of their system and getting it on.
Not that it would stop her from blackmailing the living hell out of the both of them. If anyone found out about this, there would be all sorts of chaos raised, and several people would pay good money for evidence of this sort of event. With great care and silence, Nabiki pressed the tumbler against the door and listened intently.
- Nabiki gets caught before Konatsu arrives.
- Konatsu arrives, and he notices Nabiki.
- Nabiki is somehow not noticed, and is genuinely shocked by what she hears.
- Meanwhile, Shampoo tries to keep herself from succumbing to the technique. With limited success.
- Something else
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