After coming down the stairs, the pigtailed boy looked around to see that Akane and Nabiki had already left for school, and the breakfast table had already been cleared. Genma and Soun were nowhere in sight, as usual whenever Six and Jane were around. “You didn’t make breakfast this morning?”
“Yes,” Kasumi replied, confused, “But you didn’t come out of your room until later, and even then it was just to take that bath. You need to wake up earlier Ranma. You’ll just have to wait for lunch.” To put the point across, Kasumi held up a wooden box tied in a handkerchief.
Opps, Jane thought with a bit of embarrassment. The seal placed around Ranma’s bedroom prevented any noise from crossing the barrier. So, the dragon guessed she couldn’t exactly be angry at the servant for a mistake she couldn’t of possibly known about.
Ranma gave an empty thanks to Kasumi as he picked up his bento and hurried out the door with his wives trailing behind, and only Six gave a half-hearted reply when Kasumi handed out her and Jane’s food. Not that Ranma didn’t understand, neither of the dragons really needed to eat. Six had given him some kind of nonsense explanation about being able to draw most of the energy they needed in from the ether stream and only needed about one tenth the food of humans. Not knowing what the ether stream was, Ranma still didn’t get it.
“You could of told me you didn’t know how to remake my pigtail before untying it you know,” Ranma mumbled as he ran his fingers back and fourth across the length of hair while he walked at a somewhat leisurely pace. Redoing his hair by himself had taken forever, and although he would be late for school, Ranma really didn’t want to start something by making the dragons run, and Jane probably become topless halfway there.
“We grow our hair when we change forms Ranma. And just what’d you expect? We’re not barbers.” Throwing the comment out of her head, Jane wondered what to do about the box of food that the servant girl had given her. Jane supposed that Kasumi might have been an okay cook, but most of the ingredients were sub-par compared to what she ate when with her former husband. At least the girl knew how to act around them though; obedient, respectful, the girl might make a good human wife for Ranma one day if he ever decided on having children.
When Jane didn’t ask the obvious question, Six decided to pick up the conversation. “What makes you say that Sire?” she asked after looking down at the boy’s face.
“Because you’re girls,” Ranma replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. But instead of agreeing with him, Six looked over to Jane in confusion, and the other dragon just shrugged to show she was also clueless.
After a turning a corner, and a few moments of silence, Six’s curiosity got the better of her again. “Sire, why exactly are we going to this school?” She still wasn’t all that sure of what the place did really. There were schools to learn magic back on the retreat that dragons sometimes talked about visiting for one foolish reason or another, mostly because of their mystical libraries, but humans in this realm had all but forgotten magic long ago.
“We? Just because I got to doesn’t mean you two have to go,” Ranma mumbled, not sure if he was annoyed about Jane and Six coming with him, or having to go at all.
“First off husband, we do have to go because you’re going,” Jane informed him, “and second, you don’t have to do anything.” She was still dumbfounded how Ranma thought he had to do so many things for beings far weaker than himself. “If you don’t want to go, then don’t. It isn’t like there’s anyone whose going actually can make you. Right?”
“And you didn’t answer my question,” Six reminded him. She really didn’t like just getting pushed to the side, especially by a guy she had found to care a lot for.
Blinking at the darker woman, Ranma tried to remember what he told her, and shrugged. He guessed Six did have a point. “Well… everybody has to go to school. You do it to learn… stuff.” Not that most of it was actually useful.
Jane rolled her eyes at the rather lame answer. “Yes Ranma, we know what the definition of a school is. What exactly are you trying to learn there? Something to use in a future career, right?” From what she had seen on television, and the real world, their jobs were the only things that the humans in this part of the world seemed to care about. Stupid humans.
The question stopped Ranma in his tracks. “Well… actually… no,” the boy said, realizing that for the first time in a long while. When Ranma had first been put into Furinkan, he had wondered why he needed to go to school in the first place, it wasn’t like he needed a degree to carry out Genma’s plans for him. In fact, school severely cut into his training time. But after a few weeks he just stopped questioning the reason behind it.
“What exactly do you want to do then, Sire?” Six asked. She knew it was a warrior of some type, judging by the boy’s skill with fighting, but humans had categorized and complicated so many things that Ranma could use his skills to make a living for himself in over a dozen different tasks; most of which were the same thing of course, humans just made the people dress differently and gave them different names.
Blinking at the question, Ranma sat down on the sidewalk and leaned up against a nearby wall. What did he want to do with his life? “I… I don’ know! I’m seventeen for crying out loud! I shouldn’t even have to think about that until the end of next year at the least!”
“I think you hit a sore spot,” Jane whispered to Six low enough so only the dragons could hear it.
Not even noticing the dragon’s comment, Ranma jumped up to continue his rant. “And hel-lo, has dad seen the poor turnout for dojos? It isn’t like I’d ever be able to make enough money to live on ya know. Not to mention the guys that actually do show up to pay for lessons are nothing but stupid kids, losers who’re always getting picked on and won’t go anywhere, and rich jerks.
“If I have to do that, and marry Akane, then I’ll take the suicide option, thanks,” Ranma finished with a frown.
Looking at Ranma, then back to each other, the two girls decided that their husband was done with his rant. Six was the one to ask the question on both their minds. “But what about the other two, Kasumi and Nabiki.”
That had completely lost Ranma. “Kasumi and Nabiki?”
“Your other fiancées,” Jane clarified. Sometimes Ranma’s cluelessness did get on the nerves. “Kasumi would make a nice cook and maid with a little more training. Nabiki… well, you could do better, someone a little less seedy, but I’m sure I could put the girl in her proper place.”
“Huh?”
“Your other… candidates for marriage,” Six explained, slightly confused. “The two other Tendo girls. I can see why you wouldn’t want the youngest, but if you do not wish to take the Tendo family’s positions through marriage, then wouldn’t you need to break your engagements with all the older man’s daughters?” Maybe it was a package deal, you had to take the bad egg with the two good ones.
Ranma looked back and forth at his wives. They hadn’t actually… yeah, they did. “You think I want to marry Kasumi and Nabiki?”
Wasn’t that what Ranma had told them after coming to that dilapidated home? “You said you had three fiancées… three women live with you. What’d you expect?” Six replied.
“Wait,” Jane cut in, a little angry. “You have two other girls that you have selected to be your wives and you haven’t shown them to us?” If the boy ended up with Akane instead of the other two girls, his choice in potential mates really sucked. At least he had the brains not to go ahead with it.
“But-”
“Sire!” Six interrupted crossly. “You mean to tell us you let us think those two girls were going to marry you and didn’t do anything? I know that you’re our husband, and you don’t really need our approval, but… we should at least meet the other women you intend to wed!”
After seeing the two of them had finally finished, Ranma let out a sigh and slumped down. “Can we just drop this and get to class?”
“Sure,” Jane said with a shrug. If her husband didn’t want to talk about right now, she could understand. Besides, I should probably try and meet the other two before I fry them. Well, if they're not good enough for him I mean.. She wasn't COMPLETELY opposed to Ranma getting some new wives, but they had to be good enough for him.
“Okay,” Six agreed a second later.
WHEW, Ranma thought, letting out a sigh of relief in his mind.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Fri, 05 Aug 2005 04:58)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.