Author's Notes: Firstly, I want to apologize for taking so long to get this chapter up! The start of the year...was a bit overwhelming for my editor and I.

Anyway, I'm glad you all enjoyed the last chapter, and I hope that this chapter lives up to its legacy!

Chapter 18: Curse of the Chinese Ghoul! Cologne's Wicked Test!

As a jumbo jet flew through the skies over Nierma, Japan, after having departed in mainland China, it carried with it a strange passenger indeed. For this passenger didn't even ride inside of the jet, but instead was literally camped out in a strange contraption that looked like a giant bird with a small lean-to on its back, which was attached to the tailfin of the jet by a long, sturdy rope.

Three smaller giant birds were currently perched atop this lean-to, curled up in slumber... until a stick emerged from the darkness and tapped the closest bird on its beak. The oversized sparrow grunted irritably, but finally it opened its eyes and stood up, its two counterparts doing the same. The rope was unfurled and the very literal bird-basket dropped like a stone... until the birds carrying it spread their wings and began beating furiously, working to decelerate its descent into a gentle drift down towards terra firma.

...A pity that they dropped down right into the middle of a busy construction site, but that wasn't their fault.

"What the heck is that?"

"Maybe it's a UFO or somefin?"

"Dumbest-lookin' UFO I ever saw..."

Amidst that less than flattering commentary from onlookers, the bird-basket touched down and its occupant emerged: a tiny little old woman, a hag in miniature, clinging to the top of a stick three times taller than she was, resulting in her robe-shrouded feet dangling high above the ground. As the workers gawked at her, she spoke in a strong, somewhat croaky voice.

"Son in law... where is that son in law of mine?" She looked at the crowd, her gaze passing firmly over all of them as they stared back in fascination and a little disgust.

"Come, now; tell me where he is!"

They just stared back at her, too dumbfounded to even contemplate a reply. Which proved rather disastrous for the crane driver, who had been lifting a metal girder on the end of his hook when the strange old crone had arrived. He only snapped back to his senses as alarms began blaring in his cockpit as the cable retractor continued trying to pull the cable back onto its reel even though the hook and its metal girder had reached the very top of the crane arm. He frantically tugged on his control sticks, but it was too late; the reel continued pulling until the cable broke, sending the girder plummeting through the air towards the ground below - right on top of the little old lady!

The workers shouted at her to run, to save herself from what seemed like certain doom. But they were in for an even greater surprise. Instead of diving to safety, she simply dropped to the ground and lifted her stick up into the air, catching the girder atop its point as deftly as a performer with a spinning plate... a rather apt metaphor, as the air was filled with a sound like porcelain shattering on a grand scale. Cracks spiderwebbed across the girder, and then it fell apart into a harmless rain of steel dust.

As the assembled crowd stared in even greater marvel than before, the old woman reorientated her stick and then used it like a pogo to bounce across the ground, landing nimbly atop one worker's header so she could look into the eyes of his very startled companion.

"Where is my son in law?" She calmly demanded.

When her chosen target simply shook his head in wordless ignorance, she bounced off of his head and began pogoing away, calling "Son in law? Where are you?" as she went, with her birds carrying her transport along behind her.

Meanwhile, back at the Tendo Dojo...

"C'mon, Ranchan! C'mon! Catch the grass!" Ukyo giggled, flicking the aforementioned grass tuft so fast it became a blur.

In response, Ranma mewed in delight and batted at it fiercely with alternating strikes of his makeshift paws, hunkered down on all fours and butt wriggling in an obvious attempt to shake his non-existent tail with glee.

"You really think this is best thing to do?" Shampoo asked skeptically, hands on her hips as she watched the spectacle.

"Aw, c'mon, Shamchan, lighten up! He's adorable!" Ukyo protested, glancing up at her Chinese counterpart. Ignored by both girls, Ranma rolled onto his back and began grabbing at the now-still grass tuft whilst they were distracted.

It was a sight that elicited a small smile from Shampoo, before she sighed. "Maybe so, but it not right! How we get our Ranma back to normal? It been hours now, and he still not old self..."

Now it was Ukyo's turn to look downcast. "I dunno... maybe some kind of shock to the system will snap him out of it? But what could possibly - gyah!"

Ukyo yelped and Ranma let out a startled yowl as Nabiki suddenly walked up on the trio and unceremoniously dumped a bucket of cold water on the cat-brained boy.

"And what's that supposed to do?!" Ukyo demanded, turning her dumbfounded expression on Nabiki.

"Well, you said a shock to the system might snap him out of it," Nabiki countered casually.

"Uh... how did I get here and why am I all wet?" Asked the soaking redhead as she sat up and tried to wring the excess from her shirt.

"Case in point! Welcome back to the land of humanity, Ranma," Nabiki quipped, grinning at her genderbent fiancé with obvious relief.

"Airen! You back to normal!" Shampoo cheered, even as she knocked the squawking redhead flat on her back with a passionate tackling embrace.

"Gack! N-nice to see you too, Shampoo... what happened? How'd I get here? And why am I a girl?" Ranma asked, somewhat muffled due to being buried beneath a busty Cinese Amazon.

"You don't remember?" Ukyo asked, her confusion visibly matched on Nabiki's face.

Ranma wrestled with Shampoo, and finally managed to slip out from beneath the Chinese Amazon. Rising to her feet and dusting herself off, she confessed, "I... don't actually remember anything that happens after I turn into a cat. In my head, I mean. This old priest the old man took me to said it was something to do with the trauma that made it happen in the first place..."

"I see..." Nabiki noted, filing that information away for later. "Well, after you blacked out, you saved Ukyo from a tiger, beat up said tiger, tried to beat up Kuno, got distracted, used a tree for a scratching post, beat up your father-"

"Don't tell me he tried the old woman disguise again?" Ranma pleaded.

"Again? He's done it before?" Ukyo asked in shock.

"I'm afraid that's exactly what he did," Nabiki confirmed, eliciting a mortified groan from her fiancé. "But I'm pretty sure that most of them will just chalk it up to yet more Saotome weirdness; you've earned quite the reputation for yourself since you started attending Furinkan High, after all."

"Terrific," Ranma muttered sourly. "At least I didn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it... so, why'd you splash me?"

"It seemed the best way to snap you back to your senses," Nabiki explained.

"Well, yeah, I think that's actually what pop did the last time this happened, and that was before this stupid curse," Ranma muttered, more to himself than to his fiancées. "Speaking of curses... can I get some hot water, please?"

"I'll fetch it, Ranchan!" Ukyo blurted, quickly scrambling inside to the kitchen. Minutes later, she returned with a steaming kettle, which Ranma hastily upended over her head, resulting in the deactivation of his Nyanniichuan curse.

"Ah, man, that feels much better. Thanks, Ucchan."

"My, oh my; so you really do have a Jusenkyo curse. It's good to know that life holds surprises even after three centuries..."

The four affianced teens blinked, staring at each other in mutual confusion before they followed the strange voice to its source atop the wall surrounding the Tendo estate's gardens.

Hunkering on the wall like an exotic gargoyle was the oldest woman that any of them had ever seen. A shriveled old hag, barely larger than a big toddler, with a flowing mane of stringy white hair the most visible remnant of her ancient days of womanhood and clad in an antiquated dress that looked several sizes too large for her, perched there atop the wall, clutching a great gnarly stick. With incredible dexterity for someone so visibly ancient, she leapt from her perch and dropped down into the garden amidst the teens with all the lightness of a falling leaf.

"Who're you?" Ranma demanded, already shifting into a guarding position and moving to block her from Nabiki. He was cut off by a sudden shriek of soul-rending horror from the house behind him, one that made all five parties involve wince and then turn to the verandah where Soun and Genma spent their leisure time together.

"The master! The master has returned as an okama!" Soun Tendo wailed in pure despair, before he fainted dead away.

"...What the hell was that about?" Ranma asked hesitantly, wondering if Soun's oddness had more signs than just the weeping.

Nabiki simply sighed mournfully, covering her face with one hand in the expression of the typical mortified teenager. "Daddy..."

A polite cough drew their attention back to the ancient woman, who clearly didn't intend to be ignored. "As I was about to say, I am -"

"Great-grandmother!"

Three teenagers winced in unison as that high-pitched squeal of joy pierced their ears, even as Shampoo blurred into motion and snatched the old crone from the ground, crushing her to her bosom and twirling around in a loving familial embrace.

"Great-grandmother?!" Rama, Nabiki and Ukyo asked all as one, with varying degrees of shock and bemusement.

"That's right," said the old woman, trying to appear as dignified as possible when she was still being clasped to her great-granddaughter's breast like the world's biggest troll doll. "I am Cologne, Shampoo's great-grandmother. And you, I take it, are Ranma Saotome and Nabiki Tendo?"

"Hey! What am I, chopped liver?" Ukyo indignantly protested.

This elicited a confused blink from Cologne. "And who might you be?"

"Ah. That letter no catch up with you, great-grandmother? This is Ukyo Kuonji. She is Shampoo's other new wife," the younger Chinese Amazon sheepishly confessed.

The elder Amazon blinked her big buggy eyes once more in surprise. "It seems that life has moved quite rapidly since my departure from Nyuchiezu. I'm certain that there is quite a story behind that..."

"Short version is, my old man's a greedy idiot and Shampoo did what she thought was honorable," Ranma interjected, wanting to get ahead of the inevitable, in his mind, drama.

"I see. Very well, I suppose it makes no difference in the grander scheme of things," Cologne mused in response.

"Excuse me, not that it's not lovely to have you visit, but why did you leave China and come here?" Nabiki asked with her best diplomatic tone of voice.

Once more, Cologne blinked in surprise, and then directed a questioning look at Shampoo. "You haven't told them?"

Shampoo winced and looked away, at which Cologne's expression grew somehow more ominous and stern than before. "I see..."

"What hasn't she told us?" Ukyo demanded bluntly; she'd known there was something up with this whole situation.

"That is something I think we should wait until all members of the Saotome and Tendo family are assembled before discussing... it is a topic that concerns us all..."

Shortly afterwards...

A heavy silence hung over the Tendo living room, which was packed near to bursting with life. At Cologne's insistence, she was seated at the table, with Ranma directly across from her and Nabiki and Ukyo to either side.

Shampoo was sitting in formal seiza behind the ancient Chinese Amazon, looking quite uncertain.

Soun, Akane and Kasumi were all sitting more or less on the porch, watching the affair, whilst Genma timidly spied on events from behind a convenient door.

Taking a sip from a cup of tea thoughtfully provided by Kasumi, Cologne finally broke the silence. "For those of you who missed my earlier arrival, allow me to reintroduce myself; I am Cologne, great-grandmother to Shampoo. And I am here because of her engagement to Ranma Saotome... specifically, to investigate her offer to extend the bonds of matrimony to Nabiki Tendo and Ukyo Kuonji as well."

"Investigate?" Nabiki asked pointedly; she'd been wondering if this was, what was that word? 'Kosher', was it? Yeah, she'd wondered if it was 'kosher' when Shampoo had made her offers and turns out it was a legit risk...Nabiki didn't like this feeling of owing Shampoo one for putting herself on the line to keep things happy between all three of them; she'd have to find a way to make it up to the Amazon..

"As my descendant has hopefully made clear to you, a marriage of multiple brides is a rare honor amongst the Joketsuzoku, one only extended to truly worthy men," Cologne replied frankly. "My task here is simply to test Ranma and see if he is amongst their ranks."

At those words, Soun perked up. "You mean that you could annul your great-granddaughter's engagement to Ranma if he proves a dissatisfactory candidate?" He asked, the hope in his words naked as a newborn infant.

"That option is available to me, yes," Cologne graciously conceded, giving Soun a dry and knowing look at his transparent hope. "...But I do not expect to exercise it."

"What?!" Soun and Genma both protested, the former utterly disappointed and his day ruined.

Shampoo's family matriarch simply gave them both a cold look, for no longer than a moment, but it made several in the room shiver all the same. "My loyalty is to my family first and foremost, boys. The simple truth is that I couldn't care less about any personal deals that you may have concocted with each other - especially considering one of you clearly thought so little of it that he went and made a second arrangement behind the other's back."

Soun shot an angry glare at his old friend, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed in response.

"My goal here is to see that Ranma weds Shampoo. Whether or not that means he brings Ms. Tendo and Kuonji along for the honeymoon is entirely irrelevant to me," Cologne continued.

"You don't mince words, do ya, lady?" Ranma drawled, almost impressed at the sheer level of brazenness to Cologne's approach.

"Call it a privilege of reaching one's third century," the ancient Chinese Amazon shot back, likewise finding it refreshing to deal with someone who wasn't a Musk musclehead or a rival or deferential member of her tribe. Ranma had spunk, something her granddaughter was clearly hoping to enjoy later.

Unknowing of the tiny lady's lasciviously bent thoughts, Ranma put up his hands as if deflecting a blow.

"Hey, I ain't complaining, just... let me get one thing straight," Ranma stated, looking Cologne dead in the eye. "I don't care what your little rulebook says, I ain't gonna abandon Nabiki or Ukyo just because of some stupid law. But if you wanna test me, then I'm ready any time."

"Bold. That speaks favorably of you. But you may regret those words..." Cologne warned him, but not without a hint of approval, it spoke well of her Son-in-law that he wasn't like his father in his treatment of oaths and his word..

"Bring. It. On." Ranma replied slowly, smirking blatantly as he did so.

"As you wish!"

Faster than greased lightning, Cologne's trusty staff lashed out, the polished burl of its head thrusting into Ranma's own forehead with an audible clonk of wood on bone, the impact launching Ranma flying like a billiards ball. Straight backwards he flew, clearing the koi pond with ease before crashing into the wall on the far side of the grounds with bone-rattling force before bouncing off and ending up face-down in the dirt.

"Ranma!" three girls yelped in unison.

Unphased by the rough treatment she had so casually dished out, Cologne sprang from her seat and landed deftly in the garden, clinging to the top of her staff to add some level of height to her diminutive frame. "Come on, son-in-law, where's that tough talk now?"

In response to her jeering, Ranma pushed himself upright, glowering at her through smears of dirt on his face. "You old ghoul..."

With a hearty kiai, he flung himself at the ancient Chinese Amazon, fists and feet flying in a flurry of blows almost too fast for the eye to follow. But Cologne matched him blow for blow, jabs of her staff alternatively parrying Ranma's attacks and launching strikes of her own that Ranma was forced to dodge or parry in turn. The two bounced around the yard, constantly seeking new terrain in their mutual efforts to get the best of each other, trading attacks all the while.

"Hrm... she's very skilled, isn't she?" Soun mused grimly, watching the proceedings with a furrowed gaze.

"Great-grandmother is three hundred year old master of Chinese Amazon Wu Shu," Shampoo explained with equally grimness, never taking her eyes off of the chaos swirling around the garden as she did.

"That might have been good to know before Ranma challenged her," Nabiki sharply noted, at which Shampoo flinched.

"Now I got you-oof!"

Ranma landed hard on his rump in the dirt, whilst the smirking Cologne perched atop her cane like a living grotesque. "You can't beat three thousand years of Amazon tradition just like that, boy. Now come on; put some back into it! Let's go, gimme your best shot!"

Up sprang Ranma and back into the fray he went, fighting harder than he ever had before. But Cologne matched him in every way, dodging every strike and testing him to his very limits. Around and around they went, neither giving nor gaining any ground.

"So, future son-in-law, you can fight after all, but you won't defeat me," Cologne gloated during a momentary lull in the battle.

"We'll see about that!" Ranma snarled, and then sprang into the air, with the ancient Chinese Amazon hot on his proverbial heels.

It didn't take a genius to see what was coming next, and Nabiki quickly headed for the kitchen to retrieve a kettle of hot water. Sure enough, the sound of wood cracking against Ranma's skull soon drifted into the kitchen, followed by a mighty splash.

"Son, are you alright?" Soun called, even as Nabiki came running back with the kettle clutched tightly in her grip.

A drenched redhead clambered from the pond, halting temporarily with her arms draped over the boulders ringing the pond and glaring at Cologne.

"You old ghoul," Ranma spat, before she crawled back onto dry land. She hadn't even finished standing up before Nabiki poured the kettle's contents over her, reverting her back to her real form.

Ranma spared a moment to give Nabiki a grateful smile, and she winked back at him in support. Then Ranma turned his attention back to Cologne. "Now where were we?" he growled darkly.

"Right about here," Cologne replied... before suddenly leaping clean over Ranma's head and onto the wall around the Tendo estate! "Come and get me, sonny boy!" she called, even as she hopped off into the distance.

"Hey, where're you going?!" Ranma demanded. "Get back here, don't you run away from me!" he cried, leaping after Cologne in hot pursuit.

The two martial artists raced through the streets of Nerima, weaving around confused bystanders, the diminutive elder keeping ahead of her younger foe with a series of frog-like leaps. Trailing behind them came the rest of the Tendo Dojo's occupants, doing their best to keep up but not get caught in the crossfire.

"You fight me fair and square!" Ranma bellowed angrily.

"Come on, son! Come on, son, you're almost there! Come on!" Cologne called back, openly cackling at Ranma's efforts.

Finally, Ranma's luck seemed to change as Cologne hit a t-intersection and stopped, turning to face him. The younger martial artist smirked at the sight, muttering to himself, "Now I gotcha!"

With a great kiai, Ranma leapt through the air in a diving kick at his foe... only to sail harmlessly through thin air as Cologne suddenly split in half! Hitting the ground, Ranma could only gawp in disbelief as his troubles began to literally multiple; the Colognes doubled and then doubled again, until the horrified teen was completely encircled by the miniature hags!

"Wh-what's going on?!" Ranma demanded, only to be met by a chorus of cackles.

As if that wasn't weird enough, the entire ring of Colognes spontaneously levitated off of the ground and began to drift around him in a circle, slowly at first, but gradually picking up speed.

"How the heck's she doin' that?" Ranma wondered to himself.

"Behold; the Chinese Amazon Splitting Cat Hairs technique!" the Colognes boasted gleefully.

"Ah! She's split herself into eighteen separate illusions! I'd only heard of the Splitting Cat Hairs technique in legend! To think I should see it with my own eyes!" Soun passionately observed, for by this time the rest of the Tendo Dojo's residents had finally caught up with the battle.

"How about it, sonny boy? Do you know which one's the real me?" Cologne taunted her younger opponent.

Ranma simply marched up to the edge of the ring and punched at the first Cologne to come into arm's length, only for her and her nearby sisters to fade into invisibility, causing him to stumble forward. "Hey!" he protested instinctively, even as the ring of Colognes reformed and then resumed circling around him. He glanced back and forth, looking for the slightest sign of difference to give away the real Cologne, but as far as he could tell, the illusory doubles were all perfectly identical!

And then the ring began to spin around him faster than ever, turning the many miniature hags into a near-blur... which was when blows began to rain down upon Ranma. Wherever his guard was dropped, Cologne's cane came flashing out, quicker than lightning, audibly cracking against his skull, his shoulders, his ribs, his spine. Ranma tried to defend himself, but he couldn't even see the attacks coming, never mind keeping track of where they were coming from amongst the whirl of foes.

'How am I supposed to hit someone I can't even see?! ...Wait, what'd the old man say about a situation like this?'

In Ranma's mind's eye, a stern-looking Genma materialized, in full lecture mode. "Ranma, listen to me, boy; you can't look at her with your eyes! Look at her with your gut!"

'Sometimes, the old man does have useful advice!'

Closing his eyes, Ranma concentrated, reaching out with all his other senses... and that was when he smelled it; the delicious scent of a certain popular franchise of spicy-crumbed chicken. Locking onto that scent, his eyes snapped open and he locked onto its source; a little boy clutching an as-yet unbitten drumstick in his tiny hand. With one mighty leap, Ranma bounded out of the ring, sprang over to the boy and snatched the drumstick from his hand before flinging it back over to the still-spiralling ring of Colognes... which faded into nothingness as the original suddenly abandoned her place in the ring to snap up the drumstick like a hungry crocodile.

"Guess I saw through that one!" Ranma boasted proudly.

"...He just beat the legendary Splitting Cat Hairs technique... with a drumstick?" An unimpressed Ukyo rhetorically asked aloud.

"I guess a taste for KFC runs in the family, hmm?" Nabiki asked Shampoo, unable to resist the temptation to tease her.

Shampoo had her eyes covered with one hand, radiating embarrassment like a furnace radiates heat. "Great-grandmother..."

"I knew I shouldn't have fought on an empty stomach," Cologne muttered, the admission muffled because she was still ravenously gnawing on the chicken clamped tightly between her jaws. She then sprang away in one of her toad-like leaps, hitting the ground running, with Ranma in hot pursuit.

"Wait up, you -!" Ranma found his pursuit and his sentence cut off as Cologne plucked the denuded leg-bone from her mouth and flung it through the air to plunge into Ranma's own open mouth like a dart. He stopped and spat it out with a wordless expression of disgust, choking momentarily before he recaptured his breath. "I'll get you..."

Shortly afterwards...

As sunset painted the sky in reds, pinks and oranges, Cologne perched atop a temple gate, having evaded Ranma's attempts to pursue her all afternoon. "That smart-aleck little punk. He's about a hundred years too early to defeat me."

And that was when, with perfect timing, Ranma's voice rang out from behind her in a casual, "Yo".

Cologne turned around, visibly surprised to find Ranma standing behind her, hands on his hips and bending over her.

"Well, granny, looks like the hundred years are up now," Ranma teased her, smiling proudly as he did so.

"Oh! I didn't even hear you. That great-grandchild of mine knew what she was doing when she picked you for her husband," Cologne conceded. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to agree to just accept her engagement and be done with it?"

"I already told you, I ain't gonna just throw Nabs or Ucchan aside! Shampoo's a nice girl, but they got prior claim to me!" Ranma snapped back in response.

"Hmph. Loyalty. An admirable trait... now let's see how deep that runs," Cologne declared, before she swung her stick around and jabbed the narrow end hard into Ranma's sternum.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Ranma demanded.

"It means the preliminary trial is over. You passed. Now comes the real test..." Cologne declared, before turning and leaping from the gate to the ground below, bounding away and leaving behind a confused Ranma, who simply clutched the spot where she jabbed him and watched her go.

Back at the Tendo Dojo...

"I'm home!" Ranma called, once he'd shed his shoes and entered the Tendo household proper.

"Ranchan, you're back! Ohh, I was so worried about you!" Ukyo cried, racing to greet her fiancé, who yelped in surprise even as she threw her arms around his neck.

"Did you sort things out with Cologne?" Nabiki asked, doing her best to throttle the feeling of jealousy that flared up at the sight of Ukyo hugging her Ranma.

"I... I don't know. I caught her, then she jabbed me in the chest and said something about the real test being to come, then ran off," Ranma admitted. "C'mon, Ucchan, lemme go!"

"Did she now? Alright... Shampoo, do you know what she means?" Nabiki asked.

The younger Chinese Amazon, who had been subdued ever since her great-grandmother's arrival, simply shook her head. "Shampoo sorry, but Shampoo not know what great-grandmother planning. She not tell Shampoo anything. Just know that Ranma will need to fight..."

"Great..." Nabiki drawled sarcastically.

"Ah, don't sweat it, Nabs; I beat the old ghoul once, I can do it again," Ranma assured her. "But, right now, I'm gonna go take a bath - is the tub free?"

"Sure, go right ahead," Nabiki assured him.

And so the teens drifted their separate directions; Nabiki back to the living room, to catch up on some reading, Shampoo and Ukyo to the kitchen to lend a hand with the night's meal, and Ranma off to the bathroom. All was peaceful in the Tendo Dojo...

"It's hot! It's hot! It's HOOOOT!"

For about five minutes.

Ranma's agonized screams drew his fiancées and Kasumi running to the bathroom, where they found the naked and female Ranma sitting on the floor, panting as if she were a normal girl who'd just run a marathon.

"What's wrong, Ranma? What happened?" Nabiki asked.

"The water is boiling!" Ranma squealed.

"What? You ran the bath too hot?" Kasumi asked, marching in and reaching down to carefully touch the contents of the bath, as she'd done for her little sisters more times than she could count. Then her brow furrowed in confusion and she fully dipped her hand in, swishing it about.

"That's odd... Ranma, this water is lukewarm," she announced.

To say Ranma looked put out would be an understatement. "It can't be! It was so hot, I couldn't put my hand in there! It felt like I was being scalded all over!"

"Are you sure you're feeling okay, Ranma?" Nabiki asked.

And that was when the window slid open, and a now-familiar haggish face loomed into view, chuckling evilly to herself. "What's wrong, sonny-boy? Water a little too hot for you, maybe?"

"Great-grandmother! You do this?" Shampoo asked indignantly.

"Ahh! You old ghoul, what's the deal?!" Ranma demanded furiously.

"I told you earlier that if you wish to marry Nabiki and Ukyo as well as my great-granddaughter, you must prove yourself worthy of such an honor. The Full-Body Cat's Tongue shiatsu technique, which makes your whole body as sensitive to heat as a cat's tongue, will ensure you give it your all in the trials to come..."

"You... diabolical old hag!" Nabiki blurted out, her horror as the pieces fell into place causing her famous composure to slip.

Even Ranma gave her a puzzled look at that little outburst. "Eh? Whatcha talkin' about, Nabs?"

"It's the ultimate leverage... either Ranma wins your trial, or he agrees to give us up and just marry Shampoo for his manhood back... or he fails your test, you annul the engagement to Shampoo, and then leave him trapped as a girl forever!" Nabiki explained.

Ranma screamed in horror at the revelation, whilst Shampoo looked livid. "Great-grandmother, no! That not right! You no can do this!"

"I can, I must, and I have!" The elder Chinese Amazon snapped back. "You knew when you invoked the law that it would be no walk in the park for Ranma to prove himself! I will not allow him to besmirch your honor by deliberately failing the trials!"

Turning her attention to Ranma, she continued, "So now you know the stakes, Ranma Saotome. You had best be prepared to give it your all, if you ever hope to regain your precious manhood... or, as the Tendo Girl said, you could swallow your pride, accept my Shampoo as your only bride, and be cured. The choice is yours!"

And with that, Cologne bounded away into the night, leaving Ranma to slump to his - now her - knees in despair, the weight of Cologne's deeds hanging over the Tendo Dojo like a shroud...

Chapter End & Closing Notes

At long last, we have reached the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken arc! Sadly for Ranma, there's only two real ways in all the manner twists and turns of the timelines for him to avoid this little turn of events. Ah, well, at least it's entertaining for us who are reading it, yesno?

I'm not going to lie, I actually had a pretty bad attack of self-doubt about halfway through this chapter, which didn't exactly help me in getting it out on schedule. Long story short, I grew so paranoid about being guilty of false advertising that I needed my long-suffering editor to metaphorically slap me back to my senses. So, I'm recommitted to this project... but, I might be sneaking out a few different Ranma 1/2 oneshots in the future, some of which might even spin off of this verse or even serve as serial backpilots. Who knows?

Anyway, catch you all next time, and hopefully it won't take so long for the next chapter to get here!

...And yes, for those of you who are somehow miraculously fans of my other works, there are updates for Love Opens Many Doors and Voyages of the Wild Seahorse in the pipeline... I just gotta ungunk it.