Pulling the stitches tight, she tied the end in a knot before bringing her knife to the thread. Grabbing a wash cloth, she carefully cleaned around the wound. Grabbing a bottle of alcohol, she popped the top and took a long, deep breath, before pouring a generous amount on her wound. The pain was intense, burning, stinging, she felt the near overwhelming urge to tear at the wound, but forced herself to do nothing. After the burning died down some what, she quickly ran a damp rag over the wound before slapping a med-patch over it.
Ranma, for lack of better terminology, disgusted her. She was never one to forgive or forget, if you made an enemy out of her you generally stayed that way. She smirked slightly, then, "Just use him and dump him." If whatever he had planned with Yamada failed, well, she could always claim she had no idea how the hell he had figured out where her boss had been hiding. Plausible deniability. A bonus, Yamada knew she and Ranma disliked each other with a passion, and would likely believe that bastard, if he happened to squeal, just named her as his informant out of spite.
"Who am I kiddin?" She sighed, exiting the bathroom. The likelihood of anyone surviving an encounter of the Ranma kind was nil. He may be a bastard, but he was a tough bastard. Toughest she had ever met in her life. She didn't remember him being so fucking direct in high school, but she supposed anyone could change after a year.
"Hey Tash."
Natasha waved dismissively as she moved toward the kitchen.
"So..." her roomy followed after her, leaning against the wall while the slightly older girl busied herself with getting something to drink. "... who's the guy? Hmm?"
Natasha rolled her eyes, "An asshole."
"Hmmm." Mizuho tapped her chin, "He's a cute asshole. What were you two doing in there anyway? You were in there for a long time."
"Screwing each other brains out." Natasha replied as if it didn't matter. Not like she was going to tell any version of the truth.
Mizuho's eyebrow's rose curiously at that, "Oh reeaally." she smirked, poking her roomie in the arm, "Details girl. He as good as he looks?"
"Depends if you like getting stabbed." she retorted with a half lidded gaze, idly motioning to her stitched up leg.
Mizuho blinked, "Oh.."
---
Ranma spared the fathers a glare, removing his shades as he ignored them, making his way for the stairs. The way those two old bastards were whispering to each other clued him to the fact they were planning something, and that something probably had to deal with him. He couldn't think of anything off hand that they would try, so he shelved that thought for later. He'd deal with whatever they threw at him, then generously drown their sorry asses.
"I'll get you a drink. You stay in bed! You need your rest, Nabiki." Kasumi said just before shutting the door to Nabiki's room. She turned and nearly squawked, "Ranma!"
Ranma frowned, deeply in fact. Kasumi was blushing, which wasn't a good sign, and the way she had grabbed hold on the hem of her apron before wringing it just screamed nervousness. Hmm, she couldn't still be hung up about yesterday, could she? "Nabs back from the hospital?"
The question apparently broke the older Tendo out of whatever nervousness she had felt, immediately returning to that prim and proper persona he had gotten use to her wearing since he got here. "Oh my, yes. She came back this morning. She still needs a few days of bed rest, however."
"Whatever." he waved the girl off, stepping around here. "I'm going to bed Kasumi, don't bother wakin me up."
"But.. dinner.." Kasumi mumbled.
"Not hungry." he snapped, before slamming the door to his room shut.
---
Nabiki blinked, carefully easing her door closed. She doubted Kasumi had noticed her peeling the door back to spy, and Ranma didn't seem to give a damn. Something was wrong with that boy, she was sure of it. Crawling back under her covers, she sat there and seriously thought about everything that had happened. The boy had turned down dinner, which wasn't something that ever happened, he also got a lynch mob worked up and set them on her. Granted, he had only really tricked Kuno, but that insane Kendoist usually gave it his all when he was tricked into such things, naturally a mob would come about. At least she thought so. Before that, he accosted Kasumi, nearly choked her father to death, gave Akane a trip to la la land courtesy of a lead pipe, and tried to drown his father. Heck, he did all of that in one day, she was willing to believe he had done even more since she was sent to the hospital.
That still didn't give her the why nor reason for his sudden violent change. Ranma was anything but capable of everything he had done, at least the Ranma she knew. Which just further proved in her mind something was wrong with the jock. But what? What happened the day before? Let's see, it was a Sunday, there hadn't been any school and in typical Ranma fashion he had spent the majority of the day training. There was a brief pause to watch TV some where in there, were he said something that earned him a slam to the head...
Nabiki blinked. Slam to the head.. of course! It made sense! Just like that time he hit his head and thought he was a girl! Yeah! That just had to be it! .. "Nabiki no baka." she sighed, tiredly. What were the odds something like that could happen a second time? She wasn't a head doctor, never pretended to know just how the brain operated. She tapped her chin, thinking over that. "I'll just need to do some research, I guess."
---
Ranma stared at the ceiling, tiredly. He wanted nothing more then to go to sleep, last night hadn't exactly given him much time to enjoy that wonderful aspect of his life, his mother's punishment obviously a draining affair. His mind was still too active, still unwilling to drift into sweet oblivion. His mother had been dealt with, mostly, he had no desire to do that with her again. That still left a helluva lot of people he needed to deal with.
Akane.. well, he'd need to wait on her. He doubted he'd be welcome in this household if something happened to her, same thing with Kasumi, Nabiki, Tendo of Genma. They would get there's sooner or later, that he was sure of, but for now he needed them.
Which left Kodachi, Uyko, the blasted Amazons, Hinako, the nutty principal.. the list went on and on. Tatewaki Kuno would be off limits for awhile now, he had plans for that boy when it came to getting back at Akane. What could he do about them.
He spared the pills in his hand a quizzical look, smirking a bit as something came to mind. Yeah, that'll do for Shampoo. He couldn't think of a worse fate then that. heh.. heh.. What about Ukyo though? He couldn't think of anything off hand to do to her.. hmm, he'd need to think on that a little later. Right now, he had something more important to deal with.
Natasha had told him where to find this 'Yamada' chump, and he had been rather tempted to head there straight after leaving her place, but he figured it would be better to go once he had a full nights sleep, and some time to think about the right way to go about things. While he couldn't care less about the girls request for him not to kill the prick, he just didn't know if he could deal with Yamada in any other way and still retain Natasha's, albeit shaky, loyalty. He needed a connection on the inside of things, some one who knew how to get things done. Course, Nabiki had been at the top of his list in that regard, but she couldn't deal with the more illegal things, such as drugs and the like. No, she was woefully inadequate for that.
He idly twirled one of Natasha's throwing knives in his hand. He doubted she even realized he had taken it. He realized it had been on an impulse, but now that he actually thought about it he was glad he took it. If the girl happened to cry wolf on him before he could do what he had to, he doubted Yamada's successor would be very happy with the girl, especially once they found one of the rather unique daggers the girl was renowned for having. Heh, insurance policy, he just hoped he didn't have to cash in on it.
---
To be continued.
See other episodes by Matdeception
(Posted Thu, 30 Dec 2004 04:27)
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