It had all only been meant to be a joke, but Ranma and Akane had unquestioningly believed her when she told them that Akane was now legally Ranma's slave. They had believed and acted on those beliefs. Nabiki thought that they might be slightly angry with her if they found out the truth now, wich was why she had to keep the illusion alive for now.
Ranma and Akane were under the impression that their relationship as master and slave was registered with the government like an adoption or marriage would have been. Had that really been the case the school would have been notified. Nabiki was just now manually correcting the oversight and buying herself a bit more time by giving some more credence to her lie and manipulating their files.
It wouldn't fool anybody with even a hint of common sense, but Nabiki hoped that it would not have to and that a solution would present itself soon. If it would not, and her con stood up long enough, Nabiki might end up as Ranma's slave herself thanks to Nodoka's blackmailing. She shuddered as she thought of Ranma doing to her what he had done to Akane last night.
Nabiki finished what she was doing and left. As she passed a door to the teacher's lounge she saw the missing secretary and several of the teachers gathered in a group. When she realized that Ranma and Akane were the topic of their conversation she decided to listen in.
"... and then she stood up before the entire class and announced that she was Saotome's slave," a math teacher told the group.
"Doesn't the girl have any shame?" one of the other teachers demanded. "Publicly announcing such stuff like that. It is bad enough that they disrupt the lessons with their fights and violence but openly discussing their sex-life like that?"
"I think it might actually do them some good," an optimistic elderly teacher commented. "Being in a stable relationship should cut down on fights here at school. If they insist on playing their kinky games in public, we might as well use that. Saotome should be able to handle Akane's temper and we could always tell him to discipline her if the need arises. Indulging their little adolescent fantasies might be a small price to pay for avoiding Akane smashing half the home-economy room again because she would not admit to herself that she is a catastrophe in the kitchen."
"I don't think it is just a kinky game. From what I heard Akane has legally become Ranma's property," an especially credulous teacher put in.
"Don't be ridiculous. There is no such thing as legal slavery in Japan," a colleague told him but then added somewhat less sure. "There isn't, is there?"
"Well I didn't know that it was legally possible for a girl to be registered as a male either before Ms. Kuonji showed up," a teacher admitted reluctantly. "And I don't think anybody here would have even believed half of the stuff that Mr. Saotome regularly does before they saw it with their own eyes."
"But that is just magic, martial arts and in the case of Ukyou some clerical errors. We are talking about some actual Japanese laws here that nobody ever heard off," a skeptic objected.
"I am sure there are many laws on the books that normal people never hear of. Tell them about that Chinese Amazon incident." Another teacher nodded at the secretary.
"Chinese Amazons?" One teacher who was not all that up to date wondered.
"You know the Chinese delivery girl who comes to school occasionally to visit Mr. Saotome?" the secretary explained. "The vice-principal was getting annoyed about the damage she did on her visits and went to have a word with her guardian to put a stop to it. He could very well confront the girl herself for breaking down walls. Only people who are like Hinako or the Principal get involved with those kids directly. He thought it would be better to talk to her grandmother instead. But the old woman explained to him that the girl had to pursue Ranma because of some strange law of their tribe of Chinese Amazons, and that according to their laws it was illegal for anybody to interfere in her quest."
"But that are just some stupid laws of backwards foreigners they don't apply here in Japan," somebody exclaimed.
"Apparently not," the secretary explained. "The guardian told him that according to §XXII of the International Accord on the Protection and Preservation of Customs and Traditions of Minorities and Indigenous People their laws also apply here in Japan and we could get in trouble if we tried to stop the Chinese girl."
"I would have asked her to show me that §XXII." The sceptic teacher declared.
"Apparently §XXII also says that she does not have to show it to him. If their laws say that they can't show them to outsiders, then according §XXII they don't have to show their laws to outsiders. And If they have adopted the accord into their own amazon book of rules, then they don't have to show §XXII to anybody either."
The teachers were moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of $XXII. Somebody let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some law, that §XXII," one observed.
"The best there is, according to the old Chinese woman," the secretary agreed.
Nabiki moved on. There did not seem to be any danger of somebody with sanity or common sense stumbling over the files here in Fuurinkan High. She went on to do some business.
Later Nabiki was holding court in her office, brokering information and addressing the concerns of various petitioners. Actually she was sitting under her favorite tree in the schoolyard handling gossip and telling classmates that they could pay her back later if they were prepared to pay the interest on the small sums they owed her, but a girl could dream.
Todays session had been predictably dominated by Akane's earlier announcement. There were several betting pools to be addressed and Nabiki had to make it clear that getting enslaved did not count as going steady, acknowledging their engagement, eloping or other things that people had bet on. It was amazing how many girls considered becoming a slave a romantic development. Most of the boys focused on the sex aspect of the couples new relationship.
Considering the audio evidence from last night, Nabiki had no choice but to pay out anybody who had betted on Ranma and Akane doing the deed in the current time-period. What galled her was that she also had to pay out to those who had bet that Ranma and Akane would finally admit their feelings for each other.
Everybody including Ranma and Akane themselves thought that they had and only Nabiki knew the truth. That they had been only been tricked into thinking that they had declared their feelings for each other and then acted on that. It shouldn't count, but Nabiki couldn't very well tell anybody the truth.
At least not many people had thought that Ranma and Akane would resolve their problems this soon and few of them had bet on them doing it in any way close to the one they actually had. Nabiki had made quite a lot of money today.
In addition to betters arguing semantics there were quite a few of people who wanted more detailed information on Ranma and Akane's new relationship. Nabiki repeated the lies that she had made up earlier and some of the things Akane had told her.
Curiously there were as many people who wanted to know details of her sisters sex-life as there were those who wanted to know more about the institution of legal slavery itself.
Several girls had already approached her privately and furtively enquired into the mechanics of legal enslavement. None of them had come right out and revealed their true motivations, but Nabiki doubted that they had just blushed out of curiosity or because they were enquiring for a friend who was interested in that sort of thing.
Nabiki had given some evasive answers and promised all of them that an information package on both Ranma and Akane's relationship and the legal basis behind it would be available shortly.
She would have to prepare her story carefully to avoid contradictions and scare other people away from trying to imitate her sister. She could not risk being exposed right now even if the truth not being exposed sooner or later might lead to her own enslavement.
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(Posted Sat, 26 Feb 2005 03:23)
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