Something smelt foul about the whole deal. It was just too convenient, an old friend, a remarkably low price, and full-use? No, Ranma has dealt with enough of his father's scams to know something wasn't right. Slaves weren't just handed out like candy, and this world had rules regarding their use, the length of time they were slaves, and in particular about those going from free to slavery. There was a catch. There had to be a catch, and he wanted to find it before it came back to haunt him.
With a heavy sigh, Ranma rubbed his temples trying to stroke out the stress he felt. He was going to have to use the tiebreaker, and go over the rest of the contract-draft tonight. What's worse, he had a faint vision of something similar happening somewhere else. Was it intuition, or another life that he remembered? These problems, however, were not going to fix themselves while he mused.
"Okay, ladies," he began, while flipping through the numbered pages of document written in pure legalese, "I don't want to cause any undue pain to your family or to any of you." He continued speaking while looking over the document, hoping that he could be spared the various looks from the three girls. He was, however, hoping in vein. He could feel the unease and anger from Akane, the studious but hungry looks from Nabiki, and the judgemental looks from the eldest of the Tendos.
Trying his best to put those glares aside, he asked simply, "Can ya' each tell me why ya' shouldn't be the one?" Even as he spoke the words, he was unsure of how helpful it would be, but he had to start somewhere, right?
After a few moments of silence, and approaching the middle of the documents, Kasumi spoke, "I take care of the household. I do not know if father or Nabiki could handle the daily work around the house, and I'm unsure about your age. I mean you are a little younger than me, and I just don't hold much of an interest in younger men."
Ranma never answered; instead, he nodded and flipped past a few more pages of the standard-fare slavery contract, allowing a few minutes of uncomfortable silence to go by. After which, Nabiki gave a short answer, "I balance the bills, if I'm not here father may have to sell another one of us." Then, as if it was an after thought, she added, "I might be able to show Kasumi or Akane how to keep the books if we were given a week or so to prepare."
That earned a raised eyebrow from Ranma, "Is her libido that worked up?" Still, he continued to the last few pages of the document that were closed together conspicuously with a small, green, and round sticker that was folded over the top edges of about four pages.
This is when Akane gave her reply, "I am the heir to our families school of art; without me there is no future for the family dojo." Then, she amended her statement with a comment that earned herself an angry glare from her sisters, "I don't want to be a plaything for some hentai boy either."
That's when Ranma's eyes grew wide, and caused the three girls catch their breath in fear that their potential owner was offended. Ranma then looked up, with a steeled look permeating the air around him, "I think I found it. Hey, why are ya' all looking so scared? I'm not gonna' bite or nuthin'."
Ranma felt justified in his unease now; it was too convenient, and there was a very real catch. At least, it seemed to be so. He quietly vowed to beat his father and their's for such a dirty trick. Then, he asked, "Can any of you make out legal documents?"
Seeing Nabiki's nod, he handed her the paper and asked, "Does this thing say what I think it says?"
With a nervous gulp, Nabiki paraphrased the sealed pages of the document...
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(Posted Tue, 31 May 2005 20:05)
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