And so Akane Tendo - also known as Shampoo - stood ready. Dressed for another day of combat, building herself up bit by bit so that she could face the challenges of this fresh day! With her breakfast filling her belly she rushed out of the front gate, finding her partner and fiance already striding atop the gate running along towards their field of battle.
He turns his handsome face to her, looks her up and down and gives his assessment.
"You sure you wanna run up in here in that skirt?" he asked.
“How many times have you asked me that? I’ll beat up any perverts that try.” Akane answered without missing a beat.
Yes indeed, the two of them were off to the dreaded hallowed battle ground known as "Furinkan High School". The two of them running atop the gate, her behind him. Not because it was the perfect chance to look at her fiance's butt, or anything! It was because... because he complained that one time she did run in front of him that her skirt was getting kicked up a bit, so he couldn't help but see her panties.
That was all!
<hr>
Inside of this amalgamated girl, one of the two halves was breathing a sigh of relief.
"Oh, thank goodness. Back to school. Something normal for a change."
Shampoo looked over at her 'other half' and rolled her eyes "By normal, you mean boring. There's nothing for us to learn there that we can't learn elsewhere."
But then her eyes lit up on realising something. "Although, we do spend all day with our husband..."
"I thought boys were supposed to be the ones who have single track minds," Akane grumbled.
Suddenly Shampoo lunged for the controls, seizing them away from Akane while tossing her across the room.
<hr>
"Well, you did see them that one time," Akane said, grabbing onto Ranma's arm. "But since it's you, I don't mind. You can see them any time you like."
<hr>
"Hey! Cut that out!" Akane screamed, recovering quicker than Shampoo had expected and pushing her away from the controls again. "Ah! Ah! He'll get the wrong idea!"
<hr>
"B-But don't take that to mean that I like you or anything!" Akane suddenly changed her tone and nearly tossed Ranma off the fence.
Nearly. Because that was when an arrow with a boxing glove on the end flew by, nearly hitting Akane square in the side of the face. No, it wasn't Green Arrow. Nor was it Hawkeye, or anyone else known for using that kind of gimmick arrow. It was some nobody from the Furinkan archery club out to get him a piece of half Chinese ass.
<hr>
“Oh… oh god dammit they’re still here.” Akane rubbed her temples.
“Who’s still here?” Shampoo looked up at the world to see a bunch of heavily armed boys. “OK… what?” A moment later the memories came to her, “Wait, you used to have to fight off boys who wanted to date you?”
“Still do now!” Akane griped, “And.. oh right. Remember now! Nabiki sold them an abridged version the Joketsuzoku laws that she translated!”
“Ah. So they want to beat you because then they think you have to date them.” Shampoo nodded, “So why aren’t they dead, that’s the proper response to an annoying suitor that can’t beat you.”
"As I recall Mousse is still alive."
"Not for lack of trying."
<hr>
The mob fell upon Akane like rain from the heavens, letting out cries of "She's mine!" and "Gimme some of that!" and even a "Please step on my face!" If we were to compare the size of this group with what she had to face in the original timeline, it would actually be about twice the size. They were also more heavily armed and looked moderately more skilled. Presumably from the entire extra year’s worth of practice.
"For. The. Last. Time!" Akane yelled, becoming a spinning whirlwind. Except instead of billowing air, she was made of pain. Nothing but pain. "That's. Not. How. Jokestuzoku. Laws. Work!"
Somehow they all had it in their heads that if they landed a blow, then she'd blow them. Or something. Or maybe if they touched her she’d fall for them. Or maybe they weren’t thinking at all with the heads on their shoulders. Akane didn’t care, she just wanted to crush them until they stopped.
"Step on meeee!"
Well, Akane refused to do that. Instead she summoned a mace and belted him off into the horizon. Ew! Ew! Ew! The only boy she wanted to step on was the one casually leaning on the wall over there holding up signs assessing their performance!
<hr>
"Future Husband is being far too generous," Shampoo sighed. "A five, really? These idiots are far too soft."
"Looks like we're dismantling them pretty effectively though," Akane mused. "Using the momentum from that guy to knock down five of them at once by reversing his momentum... not bad."
“That’s something I’d expect any little kid to be able to do though.” Shampoo said.
“Well, it is said that you are your own worst critic though.” Akane said with a little smirk, which just made Shampoo roll her eyes.
<hr>
"If you're done flirting with boys, we've got class to get to," Ranma said, walking off among the bodies of the fallen without a care. Ooh, that boy! It really annoyed her. Couldn't he show at least a little jealousy that all of these guys wanted her so badly? She would endure this every single day and he doesn't care one whit!
Fortunately sympathy came from one of the girls cautiously tip toeing over to her with a stopwatch. "Ten seconds, fifty one. New personal best!"
<hr>
"Why is a mannequin talking to us?"
"That's my friend Sayuri!"
"Ohhh. I thought she was one of those background characters that has no personality." Shampoo said.
Akane glared at her Soul-mate. “You're not the protagonist of reality Shampoo.”
"Then why did reality make me smart, pretty and strong? I'm practically a Mary Sue." Shampoo sighed, “My only flaw is that somehow I was too perfect for my dear Ranma. But now with you weighing me down he can approach me instead of being burned away by my radiance.”
Urge to throttle other half rising... But while Akane fought down that urge, this seems like a good time to show how these two first met up in this version of reality.
<hr>
In the original timeline Akane had been friends with Sayuri since the first year of middle school, when she and Yuka met her. But in the new timeline Akane, or Shampoo was she was called, was educated back in Joketsuzoku (they have some of the top schools in China) So this time around they didn't actually meet until Akane came to Furinkan in search of Ranma. They didn't talk much. In point of fact, none of the girls felt comfortable talking to her.
Not hard to see why when she accidentally destroyed a baseball during PE. When they weren't even playing baseball to start with. The boys had been playing while they were jogging around the track and she'd casually punched it into powder. That's not the kind of good first impression for a girl. Unless you happen to be a total masochist, which it turned out most of the boys at school were.
Anyway, that resulted in some pretty lonely time for Akane. The only one willing to talk to her was Ranma, and even then he was his usual tsundere self. It did mean that none of the girls were willing to talk to him either, since that seemed like a good way to have a limb twisted off.
But then, one day...
Akane was bored. This Romeo and Juliet play was completely unrealistic. So, the two families were feuding and these two idiots wanted to shack up after love at first sight. Then get themselves killed because they didn't think things through. While she could certainly buy that love makes people do stupid things the whole situation felt a touch too contrived for her to accept, and the play seemed to promote the idea that love was a bad thing that got people hurt.
Then again...
"I'll play Romeo!" a creepy boy said. "How about it Sayuri, since you seemed so happy to play Juliet you must be happy to have I, the best actor in class, playing the role of Romeo!"
And that’s when a very… round student jumped in. “Ah, Sayuri, I think that as a member of the Manga club you should let your President serve as your Romeo.”
"Pft, no way! Why would she be happy with your ugly mug playing Romeo?" another creepy boy asked. "Miss Sayuri would be much happier with the most handsome boy in class."
"Funny, I don't see Ranma anywhere," Akane said, hopping down from the ceiling and, incidentally, making all three boys suddenly need a new pair of trousers. They scarpered, and Sayuri let out a sigh of relief.
"Ah, T-Tendo, Thanks," she said. "I wanted to play this at first, but those boys... They only want to play Romeo for the smoochies." She rubbed her temples, “I was pushing for it to be like a Takarazuka performance, but the director says that we need to preserve the integrity of Shakespeare's intentions.” Sayuri snorted, “Then a boy should be playing Juliet in that case you idiot clown.”
Akane sighed. Of course they did. All boys were like that. All boys but one, at any rate.
Now, in this timeline “Shampoo” did not have the complex the original Akane did. Mostly because the idea of her playing “Romeo” because she could fight was laughable when the entire school’s female student base consisted of martial artists. So she didn’t feel super eager, but she decided to help out anyways. "Alright, how about if I played Juliet instead?" Akane offered. "None of the boys would dare try anything with me."
And she was right. Only problem was, the news got back to her dad. Who pushed Ranma into taking on the role of Romeo. Which led to the annual theatrical performance of a Shakespeare play being cancelled until those two graduated. Also the banning of certain strange Chinese flowers on campus.
But that was the (new) past. In the present Sayuri had become one of Akane’s closest friends, if not channeling her not too subtle crush on the half-chinese girl by shipping her hard with Ranma when a in female form. Not that Akane noticed.
Back in the present, Sayuri was admonishing Akane for her behaviour, which in the eyes of other girls in school marked her as the bravest student Furinkan ever had.
"Seriously now, if you want Ranma's attention then you shouldn't rely on violence," Sayuri said. "You should build up your cuteness and hit him that way. Since Ranma is a girl sometimes, he can understand things about girls that most boys will never get. Not to mention that 'she' is cute as a button!"
"So he's always reminding me," Akane groused.
"He only does that because he likes you and won't admit it," Sayuri beamed.
Which was when Yuka sighed, reached out and tweaked the ear of the bravest girl in Furinkan giving it a good hard twist. "Behave!" Yuka commanded. Thank you, Yuka. Honestly, the way that girl talks sometimes almost makes it seem like she wanted to hook Akane up with Ranma's girl form.
"I'm not doing anything bad! Just a little relationship advice!" Sayuri whined.
Ah... but suddenly Akane's attention wasn't on these two. It had instead turned towards another pair of girls. Well... Girls was putting it wrong. Girl and boy. One was dressed in the boy's uniform, the other the girl and you first guess was almost certainly the wrong way around for which was which.
"Hi Ukyo!" Akane waved. "I see you've brought a new friend along."
"Yeah," Ukyo said, glancing sidelong at Konatsu. Who was skipping alongside her. In the Furinkan girl's uniform. "Couldn't quite leave Konatsu alone, you know?"
"Oh, MIss Akane!" Konatsu suddenly yelled, and leaped in to embrace her. "Thank you so much!"
Sayuri made a noise like a kettle boiling. Yuka simply boggled. Oh dear. It probably wouldn't be a great idea to explain that Konatsu might be a boy, maybe, Akane still wasn’t sure, under these circumstances, would it? They might get the completely wrong idea about the kind of boy that she likes!
"This is Konatsu," Akane said. "A ninja princess who I saved from a bunch of evil ninjas."
"Congratulations," Yuka said to Sayuri. "You've corrupted her. Completely corrupted her."
"Oh, I wish!" Sayuri said. She was scribbling down notes so fast that smoke was rising from the page.
<hr>
“Ohhh so we have a cute Ninja girl servant now!” Shampoo said happily.
"Ninja boy," Akane protested. "And we should not exploit this. We shouldn't free him from his awful family only to turn him into our own slave!"
<i>"Miss Akane! Thank you so much for saving me from my family! I would consider it an honour to repay you in any way that you like! I shall be your devoted servant!"</i>
Akane fidgeted while Shampoo looked smug. "Okay, fine," Akane relented. "But only because he said it was okay."
<hr>
Ranma had arrived to class a bit earlier than Akane, because he didn’t have to deal with her gossiping girl friends.
No, he dealt with his annoying gossiping friends <b>in</b> class. That way the teacher would inevitably put a stop to it when the bell rung, and he wouldn't have to deal with it for very long.
"So Ranma," Hiroshi said, patting him on the back. "Another day of watching your fiancee beating off a whole mob of guys, one after the other."
"Phrasing!" Daisuke tsked. "Still though. It's pretty amazing that you're able to feel safe around her. That chick is as strong as she is hot."
"Nah, she's way stronger than gelatine," Ranma immediately answered. "That chick doesn't have a single cute thing about her."
"Translation: I want to bang her. Because she's the hottest babe on campus."
"... My girl form is the hottest babe on campus," Ranma protested.
"Denied! Sometimes she has a penis!"
“That’s not a disqualifier!” Ranma whined. Bah! These philistines didn’t know good looking girls if she loudly announced her entrance! "Anyway, maybe you shouldn't talk about Akane like she's some kinda monster. She's a little violent sometimes, but she's not <i>that</i> bad..."
“Hello Class!” A somewhat familiar voice shouted, “Make way for the wonderful Lady Akane and Lady Ukyo!”
Well that was annoying timing. Ranma - as well as the rest of the class - gawped in amazement as Konatsu carried Akane into the room on her back, with Akane sitting smugly there like a queen. Ukyo followed after shaking her head.
"Oh no, now she's starting to gather a harem of girls as her slaves," Ranma heard whispered by someone a few seats back.
“I heard that in back in her part of China the Amazons have entire palaces filled with skimpily dressed harem girls.” Another whispered. “She’s trying to build one here!”
"Here's your bag 'Mistress'," Sayuri said with extremely obvious sarcasm.
"Oh shit, she got Sayuri!"
"Mistress..." Yuka sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"And Yuka too!"
"I don't want to be a harem girl!" a girl protested in a whisper. "B-being forced to service that beautiful goddess... Oh no it's already starting!"
<hr>
“This is your fault.” Akane said.
“Amazon? Really? That’s silly. Also, why would I have harem slave girls? Waste of good fighters.” Shampoo said.
"I don't know, why would you have harem slave girls?" Akane asked. "Don't give me that look, you know this is going to take forever to untangle. And that Ranma's going to make things worse for us somehow."
<i>"I bet she's even the reason for Ranma's curse. All the better to enslave her!"</i>
Both girls threw up their hands in dismay.
"Do they think ‘I’ can't hear them?" Shampoo asked whoever would listen. "Seriously!"
- Akane attempts damage control on this harem things. Finds several girls volunteering to join the harem.
- Ranma decides to have fun with this.
- Konatsu is secretly working to set up Ukyo with Ranma.
- Something else
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