Story: Shampoo and Conditioning

It was not working.

That was a hard thing to admit for a proud young warrior, but pride is a kind of obstacle as well. It can get in the way of the truth. Shampoo had forced herself to smash through it, and therefore made herself see: It was not working. She was pretty. She was strong. Yet her new airen boy Ranma was not interested in her.

The whole situation was too, too frustrating. Beaten in her moment of victory by girl Ranma. Chase her and pet panda across China. Track them down to this ward in Tokyo, ambush at cafe, follow the panda to the Tendo home when she escapes again.

Then meet Airen. It was love at first bash. He knocked her out and made it look so easy! Swoon. He was too, too handsome. But also too, too shy! It didn't help that he seemed to have an ugly, mean-tempered girlfriend already. Martial artist, but weak. Shampoo had thought that throwing herself at him, reminding him who the better girl was, would make him change his mind, but he was being stubborn. Not seeing what was best for him.

Although. One does not become the mightiest warrior of her generation in a village like Joketsuzoku by being a simple-minded fool. Shampoo was cunning. Shampoo was more than a pretty face and a spectacular body. Not to discount either of those points, but she did also have a bit of a fiendish brain.

So that's when she came up with a plan. A devious, fiendish plan. It would take quite a while to play out, but when it did the results would speak for themselves.

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Every day Akane Tendo had a simple ritual she would follow. She would get up, go for a jog around the block, then spend time until breakfast training in the dojo. It helped wake her up, body and mind. It was pretty relaxing, let her tune out a certain annoyance and get on with things without having to think of -

"Nihao, Akane!"

Petty little irritations like a perky Chinese bimbo. Akane glowered at the girl. Look at her. Standing there in the middle of the training hall with her hands behind her back, rocking back and forth on her feet. She had this aura around her like she owned the place, or at least was about to buy it.

"What do you want?" Akane huffed. This girl had given her a bad first impression almost as soon as they had met. Throwing herself at Ranma like that all the time after spending the better part of a month trying to kill him. Or rather, kill his girl form. Anyway! Couldn't she tell he wasn't interested?

"Shampoo think make bad impression," she said, and what do you know? Probably the first thing she'd said that Akane totally agreed with. "Shampoo want to make it up, make nice friends."

"Oh, really?" This was a ruse. She hated being suspicious of someone, but when your very first meeting with someone involves them tearing up a cafe in pursuit of a friend of yours, it's kind of difficult to bounce back from it. "And what did you have in mind, exactly?"

Shampoo simply smiled at her, bounced a little on her feet, and then undid the very top of her dress, letting her tits flop out for just about anyone who walked into the dojo to see. Akane boggled. Not because she was jealous, or enraptured by how big and perfect they were, nothing like that. She was just... shocked that Shampoo would do that so casually, for no good reason at all.

"What the hell -" she began to yell, but as she did so Shampoo popped them back in and buttoned back up so quickly Akane barely even noticed. "- Did you want to... Uh... Do to make it up, exactly?" she finished, feeling a little bit weird that she'd been so emotional a moment ago.

"You martial artist, yes?" the foreign girl asked. Akane nodded, tersely. "Shampoo know all kinds of secret techniques to teach. Amaguriken, Bakusai Tenketsu..." She had been counting off on her fingers, then for some reason Akane could not catch chuckled a little before reciting the next bit out. "Xi Fa Xiang Gao...  Shampoo too, too happy to teach."

"Thanks, but no. Not so long as you're trying to get my friend killed, so -"

Suddenly and without warning, Shampoo slipped forwards and kissed Akane on the lips. It was just a tiny little peck, nothing like how Ranma described the kiss of death. It was more like the kiss of marriage she gave Ranma! Was this what that perverted girl was up to? Why, that deviant slut! Now Akane was really going to give her a piece of her mind!

Those thoughts went through Akane's head in the second or so of contact between lips. Except that she did not. Instead of yelling at Shampoo as she had been intending, she continued her sentence in a more terse manner. "- You can forget any friendship overtures, missy!"

"Oh," Shampoo tittered. "That okay. Shampoo give up on that already."

"Huh?" Now Akane was really lost. Though not as lost as she was when Shampoo suddenly snaked a hand around Akane's waist and squeezed her rump. "Hey, what the hell do you think you're playing at?"

The hand was extracted, and Akane blinked. "What do you mean you gave up on that already? Wasn't that kiss of death a promise to chase her until the end of the world?"

"Hai!" Shampoo nodded. She flipped back some hair. "But cancel out by kiss of marriage. Found out about curse last night while trying to surprise airen." She shrugged. "No can kill and marry, so neither apply. Now Shampoo want to make up for trouble she cause."

Now Akane was really torn. On the one hand, Shampoo's little story there told quite a bit about her personality. Imagine! Sneaking up on poor Ranma like that in the dead of night. She must have scared him spitless! Especially if he found out she noticed his curse.

Not to mention that this girl was really kind of annoying Akane. Something about Shampoo was irritating her even though nothing weird at all had happened during this entire conversation, and she'd just been standing there talking.

Then again, being offered a chance to learn some martial arts techniques... That wasn't something she could pass up lightly, especially when given as payment for irritation already conducted. It would also help get rid of this girl much faster, because otherwise she might hang around looking for ways she could "help".

It was outside her better judgement, but Akane stuck out her hand. "Deal," she said, and the bitch took it. "But no more perverted stuff, alright?"

"Hrm..." Shampoo hummed. She pulled out a book from... Somewhere and thumbed through it. Obviously her answer wasn't quite something she'd picked up yet. It didn't actually take her long, though. "Shampoo promise... Neither you, nor Ranma, nor sisters remember Shampoo do anything perverted."

A bit weirdly worded, but what could you expect from someone reading from a translation book? So Akane didn't think any more of it than she really, really should have. Otherwise, she might have noticed much sooner what was actually happening to her. And around her.

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Well now, Shampoo thought while watching the other girl with care. It seemed to her like she could call this a rousing success. Or half of one at any rate.

There was little question of it. The Xi Fa Xiang Gao was definitely working as intended. One use was all it would take, and suddenly Akane Tendo cannot remember anything perverted Shampoo did for more than a second. That was what the technique did, you see. It made the target forget, and then become completely unable to remember anything about a particular topic. Akane had forgotten all three things as soon as they had happened.

That part Shampoo had fully expected. It was the emotional reaction she'd been especially watching for: Namely, that Akane had retained the same kind of irritation in body language even though she couldn't remember what had caused it anymore.

Unfortunately her hypothesis about the girl being a lesbian hadn't panned out... But Shampoo was patient. This girl was kind of cute in a roundabout way. She would learn to love girls soon enough, even if Shampoo had to change her approach.

The body remembers. The mind forgets.

1. Shampoo does a quick training session with Akane.
2. Shampoo skips off to flirt with Ranma, in a slow effort to condition him into being turned on by her mere presence.
3. Shampoo works over Nabiki and/or Kasumi first.
4. Shampoo enrolls at Furinkan.
5. Something else