Ranma 1/2 (Chapter 4)

[EK]

He couldn't take much more of watching the girl eat in a fruitful bliss, one that he was left out on. How many containers did it take to make such a delicious mountain, he'd never know. He stiffled a hungry groan as the supposed goddess once again began to scarf down from suffering a case of brainfreeze.
"Would you like something?"
He was snapped out of his mourning from the waitress as she stared attentively over at him. He swallowed thickly before muttering, "Ice cream, please..."

[Skuld-chan]

"Hold on.", she said and turned to go to the back room, "Let me go see if there's any left.", Ranma-chan said.  She perfectly knew that the little girl beside him was eating every drop of ice cream.  She stopped by Ukyou and whispered,

"We don't have anymore ice cream, and that guy over there wants some.  What do you think I should tell him?", Ranma-chan said with a devilish smile.

"Tell him....", she covered her mouth and responded in to Ranma-chan's ear.  A few moments later Ranma-chan came from the back room with a empty over-sized bowl and a spoon, placing them down in front of L.

"Here ya go.  I guess you two are just going to have to share.", she said and turned away, bracing for the fight that was about to erupt.

Share? Skuld said as she looked upwards seeing the empty bowl in front of L.  Her mouth was covered with ice cream stains and drippings of fudge.

[EK]

L stared at the empty bowl in front of him and then to the mountainous ice cream. Well, he didn't see much of a problem with it unless the girl had an obsession. He looked back at the waitress. "Do you have an ice cream scooper I can use?"

[Skuld-chan]

Ranma-chan smiled devilishly at L, and calmly replied, "Nope.", and turned away walking back into the kitchen area.

[EK]

L stared for a moment. Isn't that unsanitary? He gazed back at the ice cream as it began mix with the other flavors. He sighed. If he waited any longer, the ice cream would only turn into much. "Do you mind?" he asked though already he took a spoonful to his mouth.

[Skuld-chan]

"HEY!  That's MY ice cream!", Skuld exclaimed.  She galared at L with defiance.  In an instant a memory played through her head...

The street was hot, baking in the sun.  She laid there curled up in pain, unable to move on her own.  One moment she was in a cold, damp basement, the next...being scorched by an unkind sun.  She was alone, scared, and confused.  A few moments later, a stranger approached her, and with a hand of care helped her swallow her fear. ...

An alternative image flashed through her mind....

... Instead of helping her up, he could have ignored her, turning his head away and walked away...

..When she cut herself, he could have ignored her loss of circulation instead of pointing it out to her...

Her daydream had ended.  Her glare turned from fury to a look of gratitude.  She looked back at the mound of cold cream, and shoved the top half into his bowl.

"Thank you.", she said and returned to shoveling ice cream back into her mouth, blushing a tad.

[EK]

He stalled for a moment as he heard the mutter. He cocked his head to the side, his raven bangs brushing into his eyes for a moment. "Why are you thanking me?"

[Skuld-chan]

Skuld stopped for a moment and gazed into L's eyes.  She calmly replied, "For being my friend.", and smiled, as she took another bite, almost automatically.  For that brief moment, it appeared that time had slowed down and the scene dragged on as the camera backed away from the two.

[EK]

Friend? He lifted his head for a moment as he listened to the title. It was a word that he never personally got to listen to. Detective work kept you out of range, out of contact of other people. He never got the chance to know the meaning, really. Whether this was a good or bad thing, he would love to see. "Well," he began, twindling his spoon, "your welcome."

[Skuld-chan]

Skuld smiles while blushing and looking at L.  She slowly ate a bite of ice cream.

[Lookout]

"Enough with your pleasantries!" muttered Il Palazzo, who had been munching at the ice cream mountain for the past three minutes while the two had been in their own little world.

"Some of us are trying to enjoy our large amount of highly saturated carbohydrates and bovine excrement flavored with granules of imported glucose yielded from the work of an innumerable army of migrant workers."

[Skuld-chan]

Skuld looked up from the ice cream mountain in confusion as to what Ii was talking about now.

"Huh?", she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

[Lookout]

"Oh dear. The poor girl is too dull to understand plain English. Allow me to rephrase it into smaller portions:Little girl stop talking now."

"Wow, when he talks like that, he sounds alot like-"

A low rythmic thumping slowly grew louder.

"Speak of the devil...amazon. Well, it's not like there's a difference..."

"Does anyone else hear foreboding background noise?" asked Il.

"Ran-chan?" whispered Ukyou to her waitress, only to find that the space that had been occupied a moment ago by the red-head was empty.

"**** it! He Umisenken-ed!"

[Skuld-chan]

Skuld gently puts her spoon down and out of nowhere a long reddish metallic mallet appears in her hands.  "I TOLD you NOT to treat me like a KID!", and she came down with full force onto Ii's head.

[EK]

L lifted his head into view from the gigantic ice cream, hearing the rant from IL. Oh god... he doesn't need any ice cream. He felt a slight breeze go past him and he tilted his head to see that the waitress was no longer there. "What?"
He swirved his head back to Skuld, noticing the giant mallet cradled in the girls hand, ready for some destructive use. He gulped as he advised, "Skuld, don't--"

[Lookout]

Il's crown took the brunt of the concussive damage, but it left a rather large bump on the man's head.

"YOU DARE TO STRIKE AN ENLIGHTENED MEMBER OF ACROSS YOU ********** LOLI?!"

Grasping her by the throat with his telekinesis, he twitched in rage.

"How could a corrupt individual such as yourself even exist?! Taking offense to such a minute comment! Your destruction will-"

The low booming sound reached its crescendo, peaking in the smashing of the wall behind Il. The large chunks of cement and wood came down on his head, burying him under the rubble and reopening the bandaged wounds. His telekinetic grip was broken as he slipped into unconciousness.

Again.

Over the mound that held him stood a buxom girl, who appeared to be in her late teens. From her face and dress, one could divine that her heritage was obviously Chinese. She held what seemed to be two large rounded clubs.

"Airen?"

"Again with the wall, Shampoo?! That's the third time this week! Why don't you use a door?"

Shampoo turned and replied without pause "Shampoo no use door until door defeat Shampoo in combat!"

Just then, the door seemingly grew arms and legs.

"CHAAAARGE!"

Launching itself at Ukyo, it only met with the combined might of Shampoo's bonbori and Ukyo's spatula. As the door flew into a low earth orbit, one could almost see a rather cute girl groaning from inside the disguise.

"As Shampoo says, Shampoo no use door until Shampoo lose in armed combat."

Ukyou groaned and grumbled "Blasted Tsubasa."

[Skuld-chan]

Parallized with fear, Skuld hung there in the air by Ii's hold on her.  She didn't see what happened when Shampoo came barging into the room through the wall, she was too entranced with her own fear.  As soon as she hit the floor with a hard thud, she scampered away on all fours to the furthest corner of the room, cowering under the table.

[EK]

L sighed. Every five minutes, he began to wonder if he had just lost his mind. It seemed so much more logical to just say that somebody just slipped something into his morning tea (even with that as a near impossibility) and made him go mad than this. The frickin door ran away! He placed his head on the table, pushing the finished ice cream bowl away. "I think it's okay now..." he mumbled, scowling.

[Lookout]

Shampoo blinked and looked at the new people.

"Who be man with sunken eyes and little girl?"

"They're from out of town." replied Ukyo, before catching a glimpse of the frightened Skuld.

"Hey..." began the girl as she came out from behind the counter."Sweetie, you okay?"

"What wrong?"

Ukyo glared at Shampoo.

"You probably scared her by busting through my wall."

"Oh, Shampoo see. I sorry."

Ukyo turned back to Skuld and offered a hug.

"You alright, sugar? Don't worry about her: it (unfortunatly) happens quite often."

[Skuld-chan]

"No.....I'm not ..... fine.  He.... tried to......kill ..... me!", Skuld accused as she pointed a trembling finger over to the unconscience Ii.

[Lookout]

"What?!" yelled Ukyo as she grabbed her spatula.

Smacking him awake, the girl yelled "What the heck's wrong with you?! Trying to murder a kid?!"

"You dare to strike an upper member of-"

"Can it, you scum. Get outta here!" yelled the girl as she flung Il out of the shop with a smack of her spatula.

"What's the world comin' to?"

[EK]

L lifted his head slightly as he watched Il hoisted out of the shop by the restaraunt owner. He was ticked, obviously, but L wasn't going to bother right now as he felt the dull pain of a headache. He felt ridiculous somehow. He gazed over at Skuld, sighing, "It could've been worse," before sitting back up.