Disclaimer: I own nothing, this is purely a fanfic for enjoyment.
Cross-over from various games, books, anime, manga, and movies.
The familiar characters you see here belong to their respected authors and owners.
"Speech"
Time*
Noise*
{Timer}
Arc 1 - Chapter 16: Made A Mistake!
The next day*
"Morning, Ranma. You seem to have slept well. Same with Genma here." Lawliet grin at the two Saotome of father and son.
"Slept well, my ass." Genma grumbles quietly before letting out a loud yawn, for he didn't sleep that well last night due to being kicked out of his own bedroom and was forced to sleep with his old pal, Soun, but seeing how the two of them got too caught up talking about a certain topic related to his dishonorable son had made the two stay up all night, forgetting to sleep.
"I hate you, Lawliet-sensei." Ranma looks at his first mentor with baggy eyes while continuing to push Shampoo from giving him the Kiss of Marriage still, which she didn't stop even all night and was forced to share his bedroom with her, making the Chinese Amazon think this is Kasumi supporting her to be with him. Something Ranma wonders if Kasumi had a grudge against him or something.
"Come now, Ranma. I'm just looking out for you." And by that, Lawliet knew that Ranma seriously won't be able to have any normal girl in his life nor would be able to stand next to him as his wife in the future, with how crazy his life is. Furthermore, Lawliet knew how Ranma loves the art and out of everyone in canon that wanted to be his wife. Shampoo is someone Lawliet can think of at the top of his head, that would gladly help Ranma in his time of need. But, that of course after he makes some changes with Shampoo and not be solely focused on the Chinese Amazon's laws. That is the main thing that pushed canon Ranma away from being with Shampoo. Though, all the trickery and among other things, that Shampoo used on Ranma didn't help her case really.
So, it's up to Lawliet to change Shampoo like how he changed Ranma and Kasumi, with Nabiki somewhat.
"How is this looking out for me?" Ranma looks dead tired and he just on his last leg while doing his best to stop Shampoo from claiming him.
"Give me a sec. I should have done this last night. This is going to be long before we come out, so don't wait up and make sure to be at school. Kasumi, I hope you can run the shop by yourself for a bit. Have Nabiki help you out too if she not busy after school." Lawliet signal Shampoo to follow him outside and head to the dojo after making sure no one follow, which he asked Lala to help him out on this. No one in the household would dare go against Lala after she brings out some of her inventions to threaten from spying on what Lawliet and Shampoo doing in the dojo.
Furthermore, no one could persuade Lala that Lawliet might be cheating on her, which she dismisses instantly as she has trust in her boyfriend. Plus, Lala can see the look on Shampoo's face that she rather continues her quest to give Ranma the Kiss of Marriage than being separate from him for even a few seconds.
"Alright." Kasumi knew today would be a tough day for her, but she will push through and happy that Lawliet trusts her enough to run the store by herself.
9 hours later*
Shampoo is on her knees and lowering her forehead to the ground in front of the surprised and disbelief Ranma.
"Shampoo apology making Ranma uncomfortable. Shampoo only wishes to have a chance to be with Ranma." Shampoo begins by explaining how she is afraid of returning home empty-handed. As her village's laws are harsh if she doesn't complete the Kiss of Death and the only way she can avoid it with Ranma is by giving him the Kiss of Marriage after realizing his curse. In fact, Shampoo even expresses how she fell for him with how amazing his martial arts is. Shampoo even mentions about some males back in her village have been trying to defeat her in order to claim her and she rather not have that happen to her, for she dreams of being together with a man she loves, and that happens to be Ranma. Shampoo did her best to explain how her heart race seeing how Ranma defeated his father and defeat her so easily.
"Uh." Ranma looks at Lawliet-sensei for any help, because he did not expect all this. Hell, Ranma could somewhat understand what Shampoo going through somewhat with how his pop continues to try to pair him up with that tomboy, Akane.
What both Shampoo and Ranma missed the important part, where Shampoo literally just told everyone how she rather not have any males defeat her to claim her. Yet, Ranma defeated her, even though it was an accident and he doesn't want to claim Shampoo at all. Therefore, in a way, with Ranma rejecting Shampoo. This has caused Shampoo's subconscious to trigger her pride due to being rejected after growing up with many males wanting her, making Shampoo developing somewhat pride from this, and the moment Ranma didn't follow what Shampoo mostly think about other males in her village.
Well, in Lawliet's opinion. Shampoo would have been furious with Ranma and continue to attack him for rejecting her, or literally fall for Ranma or even both. Hate for Lawliet to remember if that was the case in canon.
Anyway, since Ranma defeated Shampoo. Shampoo decided to force Ranma to claim her as a way, to prove her inner pride, that she is still someone very desirable without really realizing it herself.
"If you're worried about Shampoo here trying to take you back to her village. No worry, because of me here. I'll be able to make sure their laws won't affect you after I explain Shampoo here I have claimed you as my student in my art and that by honor. None should take you away from me until you're finished learning under me or you decide to not learn from any longer." Lawliet carefully explains to Ranma and anyone else that listening about how Shampoo and him have spoken a bit about how she dealing with Ranma and her laws as well as among other things. Plus, to give him some time with Shampoo to slowly stop her thinking the world outside of her village would be the same everywhere else.
"Ranma forgives Shampoo?" Shampoo look at Ranma with her eyes widen. Hoping he won't fault her with how she was raised and knew nearly nothing outside of her village.
"Uh, yeah." Ranma replied, then regret it instantly as Shampoo launch herself and tackle him to the ground, hugging the life out of him. The only saving grace is that Shampoo didn't take this chance to give him the Kiss of Marriage, much to his relief, and understood she wasn't trying to trick him or anything, unlike his pop. Maybe Ranma can see how it goes with Shampoo. Though, secretly, Ranma is hating himself for still getting caught off guard and will have to increase his personal self-training in improving his reflex.
If only Ranma knew that if it wasn't for Lawliet in his life, then Shampoo would be someone nearly like Genma in certain aspects in order to gain his hand in marriage. As well as having to deal with other kinds of trouble he will have to deal with Shampoo in her quest to win Ranma's hand in marriage.
"Well, that's out of the way. How was work today, Kasumi? Was it too hard? How about you, Nabiki?" Lawliet looks at Nabiki since he gave her a trial run, to let her see if she like the management job he gave her, which was supposed to be his job, but he decided someone like Nabiki should be able to do it while he will be able to lazy around and take a nap. In fact, Lala is close to the point, she doesn't need to make any more toys at all along with any other objects for adults to buy on the side while their kids are looking for the toys they wanted to buy.
"Thanks to having Nabiki and Ranma here. The afternoon customers came in was easy to take care of compared to the morning." Kasumi smiled at Lawliet, but honestly, she rather not manage the store alone again with how tiring it is.
"I'm gonna be honest with you, Lawliet." Nabiki put on her serious face. "I want this job and want to know what I need to do in order to keep it."
"Kay. You have the job. Just make sure to come in every day to help out after school." Lawliet didn't have to find out an excuse to get Nabiki to stay, so with her offering herself to keep this job made it better for Lawliet.
"That's it?" Nabiki furrows her eyebrows and wonders what kind of trick Lawliet is using against her.
"Well, yeah. This way I can have the extra time to take a nap." Lawliet said the truth, causing Nabiki and a few others to sigh since, at this point, everyone knows that Lawliet is someone who loves to take naps whenever he can.
"I wonder how in the world you can be like this when you're a wandering martial artist." Nabiki couldn't believe that there are people like Lawliet out there, with such amazing luck on top of all the things he has done that Nabiki saw personally. Including having someone like Lala as his girlfriend at that.
"You learn things on the go. Take a break whenever it's possible." Lawliet speaks the truth, for the time it took for the training he was forced to go through thanks to his adopted parents and how little breaks he was allowed. Just the thought about having to go through all that again made Lawliet want the [Automatic Cultivation] to hurry up and finish with the cooldown phase, so he can grab more powerful [Skills] mainly for combat just to show how wrong it would be to mess with him. Even when he has [18 Dragon Subduing Palm] and the [Authority: Space] in his possession right now wouldn't be enough for Lawliet, to show exactly how much his rage been built up while growing up. Plus, being killed by those two people had caused Lawliet to put more focus on combats a little more than anything else and rather not end up dead like that or anything similar. Just because of an outside force made so. "Anyway, good luck, Ranma." Lawliet quickly grabs Lala and rush to their bedroom, leaving everyone behind.
"Wait, what about dinner?!" Kasumi calls out, seeing how she about to make dinner soon. Shouldn't take her that long.
"Call us when it's time for dinner!" Lawliet replied back before he closes the door behind him.
"Is it time for us to cuddle?" Lala tilts her head as she looks at her boyfriend with a bright smile.
"Not right now." Lawliet drags his feet to the bed before falling forward on top of it. "It took so long for me to convince that girl to see reason, even when speaking in Chinese too." Lawliet complain to Lala. "Also, sorry for making you waste your time waiting for me. I'm sure you had something planned to do today." Lawliet turns over to his side until he is lying on his back, giving Lala the opportunity to move over to lay on top of him.
Lala gives Lawliet a smile, "It's fine! By the way, are you planning to have Shampoo be together with Ranma or something?" Lala is curious about why her boyfriend would take his time to talk with Shampoo for 9 hours, nearly half a day just for talking alone.
"Oh, out of everyone I could think for Ranma to be with. It's either Shampoo or Ranma's childhood friend, Ukyo Kuonji. Who if I remember correctly, would willing to give up her business, even her entire lifestyle for Ranma's sake... Oh shit. I think I might have made a big mistake." Lawliet's eyes widen as he just recalls this information only just now.
"Does that mean we have to try to break Shampoo away from Ranma now after all the work you've put into pushing them together?" Lala wonders if it is possible for Ranma to accept both Shampoo and this Ukyo Kuonji person. Lala doesn't know why, but the thought of forming a harem feels normal to her.
"Ugh, I hope not. I rather not have an angry Chinese Amazon after me just because I suddenly wanted to change my mind in helping her be together with Ranma at the last minute." Lawliet groans and closes his eyes. "Maybe I can convince Ranma, that taking Shampoo and his childhood friend, Ukyo would be a good thing. I'll think about this later. Wake me up when it's dinner time, Lala. If you don't mind."
"Don't worry, I don't mind one bit at all. Go ahead and take your nap. I will wake you up when dinner's time." Lala said as she rests her head on her boyfriend's left shoulder and enjoying the sound of his heartbeat too. Something about listening to Lawliet's heartbeats seems to make her so calm.
The next day*
"Well, I got to say, I mess up big." Lawliet let out a sigh, as he watches Shampoo trying her best to help Ranma out by beating Genma up for trying to steal from Ranma's plate during breakfast.
"Bad panda! No, take Ranma's food!" Shampoo scold the panda, not caring one bit that he is Ranma's father. A failure of a father in Shampoo's eyes. It's a good thing, Lawliet helps her out, making her secretly sigh in relief, that she didn't have to fight against him. Shampoo knew how powerful Lawliet is with the way he positions himself on a subconscious level. She can even say maybe only her great-grandmother would have the ability to face Lawliet. Even then, Shampoo not too sure about it.
"By the way, have you think it through? Would you like to learn Japanese from Lala or me?" Lawliet asks Shampoo after she finished beating Genma up. Something Lawliet wonders why Genma is taking the beating without fighting back, because honestly, even as a failure of a parent. Lawliet knows Genma is still somewhat a powerful martial artist. Since he did raise Ranma up to now, with questionable training methods, but Ranma still possesses a strong foundation.
"Hm. Shampoo still thinking." Shampoo knew how fluently the two are in Chinese and Japanese. Just that she has no idea which one is better at teaching her. "Shampoo want to know, how long."
"Well, it depends on you. Both Lala and I have our own methods of teaching you Japanese." And by that, Lawliet knew that his way of learning Japanese wouldn't do much since he was self-taught and it took a bit longer to learn by himself without anyone to help him out at the time. This was before being adopted too.
"I could make something, to make it so Shampoo could learn Japanese right away." Lala said to Lawliet, causing everyone to listen to look at her with wariness. Even Shampoo has been warned by Ranma about how dangerous Lala's inventions could be if it wasn't made into normal, ordinary toys that are being placed in the Toy Store for sale.
"That could save everyone the trouble. How about it Shampoo? If you're willing to give it a try, then you won't have to waste much time in learning Japanese from either Lala or me. Plus, if anything goes wrong. I should be able to fix everything with no problem at all." Lawliet is willing to gamble with this Lala's invention idea in mind, because if it wasn't too dangerous with its side-effects. Then, Lawliet can see how great it would be to have such a thing, to learn other languages.
"Shampoo. Not sure." Shampoo look at Ranma, then back at Lala, who is just smiling right at her, but for some reason. Shampoo keeps getting this dangerous feeling coming from Lala sometime and now it's getting bigger and bigger, causing Shampoo to shiver.
"Well, the offer stands whenever you feel like taking it." Lawliet wasn't too much interest in this invention Lala would make, but for the time being, Lawliet just have to think up some way to get Ranma to accept the idea of having two girls in his life. Because if not, then Lawliet can see lots of trouble will happen around Ranma with just two girls alone, excluding the other future girls that would bound to show up due to Genma's influence in the past. Though, Lawliet wasn't completely sure if there are many girls appearing often that wasn't Akane, Shampoo, Ukyo, and Kodachi, with the last one, is now solved as she more into Soun than Ranma. While the first one is clearly off-limit now, Ranma no longer has any good feelings towards Akane.
"Shampoo thanks for helping." Shampoo knew how troublesome it will be for her if she didn't have someone like Lawliet to help her out. In fact, if it wasn't for Lawliet. She would have long been able to give Ranma the Kiss of Marriage before heading back to her village, where she most likely be punished for not killing Ranma. Even though she managed to cancel it out with the Kiss of Marriage, which was only possible due to Ranma's curse. Otherwise, Shampoo would either have to kill Ranma somehow, leading to her being hunted down by Lawliet for killing his student or forced into a self-exile, for not completing the Kiss of Death.
"By the way, Ranma. Since it's Saturday. I'm thinking about teaching you another stance." Lawliet said to Ranma, who nearly jumps onto his feet with joy.
In fact, everyone can see the joyful expression on Ranma's face, that he is very happy to learn another stance from Lawliet. While Genma and Soun grim at this news, for Ranma is already considered very powerful as he is now. Therefore, adding another stance into the ones that Ranma already know would make him even stronger. In other words, harder for the two excuses of a father to find a way to control him.
"What is it going to be?! Will I be able to do that one palm strike you used on me before?!" Ranma can still remember Lawliet-sensei used this one fast palm strike, which easily took him down and prevents him from getting up. Ranma just knows that if he learns this one palm strike, then he will find out something that was missing in all the stances he has learned and make them more powerful than it already is. This is more of a guess on Ranma's part, but he keeps getting this gut feeling that all the things he has learned from Lawliet-sensei, where Ranma still hasn't scratched the surface of what it could truly do. So, this made Ranma eager to learn this one palm strike alone, which Lawliet-sensei didn't teach him yet, for some reason.
"Not yet. But, you will learn it later." Lawliet really didn't want to teach Ranma the [A sudden Advent], for this one actually does require [Dragon Ki] to work since without [Dragon Ki], then [The Swan Gracefully Descends] would be better to use without the usage of [Dragon Ki]. Well, this is what Lawliet figures out from the experiment alone with the [18 Dragon Subduing Palm] so far. "The one I'm going to teach you. Would help you a lot by mixing it in together with the other stances."
"We need to do something quick, old friend." Soun whisper to Genma with a panicked look.
"That we do, old pal, but what can we do right now?" Genma whisper back while glaring at Lawliet, not realizing that many could easily hear him and Soun. Something many ignored since neither Soun nor Genma realized the look they have right now. Baggy eyes, dirty clothes that were in a rush to put on, and if one got a bit closer to either of the two failures of a father would cause those to back away right away as they would smell a bad odor coming from them. A sign that someone hasn't showered for a while now.
"So, after breakfast. We can do a quick training for you to learn about it, then head over to the store to work afterward." Lawliet said to Ranma, who is too excited to wait and quickly devour his plate of food before rushing to the dojo, waiting for his first mentor to meet him there as he takes the time to warm up.
Shampoo blinks and looks at Ranma running off in disbelief. Then, look at everyone eating, to see none were surprised by the action of Ranma's.
"He is really into martial arts." Kasumi answer Shampoo's unspoken question. "Give it some time and you will understand Ranma without any problem." Kasumi is secretly happy that Shampoo like Ranma more than Lawliet and more than willing to help the girl out in her quest to win Ranma's heart.
Nabiki snorts at her older sister's words, but kept quiet. Not wanting to cause Shampoo to want to leave, including the gold bar since Shampoo didn't stay here that long.
"So, how your days been lately, Akane?" Kasumi asks out of politeness, seeing how no one has spoken to her little sister up to now and the way she growling a few times during breakfast made Kasumi somewhat a little unease. Then again, with what happened last week in the skating match. Ending with Akane in defeat, causing Akane to go on a rampage the next day; well, at school against other students than at home. Something Kasumi is grateful for not happening as she was very nervous to be anywhere near Akane at the time.
"Peachy." Akane took a couple of deep breaths, not wanting to shout at her older sister. Akane can see how uncomfortable her older sister whenever she looked at her. Making Akane both sad and angry for looking at in a way by her own sister. Nabiki, she can understand, but Akane could see the disdain in Nabiki's eyes whenever she is training via breaking bricks. The best training to improve her striking power.
"Well, I'm off before Ranma goes crazy from waiting too long." Lawliet said to everyone, with Lala sticking around to speak with Kasumi instead of following Lawliet to the dojo. Something that Nabiki raise an eyebrow at, but didn't think too much of it and head upstairs to get ready for work.
Leaving a confused Shampoo behind with Kasumi and Lala. While both Soun and Genma are quietly thinking about more plans to deal with Ranma and Lawliet, especially the former than the latter really. Not realizing, that Lala stayed behind to eavesdrop on the conversation, which only Kasumi figure out and soon by Shampoo once she noticed the way Lala glance at the two old men.
