The panda reached over to take the kettle, shook it long enough to note how much water was in it, and then splashed it over his head. That turned the big ball of fuzz into a portly man with a shape rather strangely fit for someone with that sort of change. And his presence apparently was as large as his other form.
"Soun! Old friend! Brother!" Genma declared as he held out his arms in greeting. "It's wonderful to see you!"
Simply turning his scowl towards the other father, the Tendo patriarch growled. "It's great to see you too, Saotome, but do you realize what has happened?!"
"Well... yes. My son married your daughter, which is what we planned all along. What do you think the odds of that are?"
"Damn the 'odds'! Your son eloped with my baby girl! Who knows what he used to convince her to do this!"
"Come now.... Isn't it good to know that we have our plan done without any work?"
"I don't know what world you're living on, Saotome," Soun snapped, "but I am on this one, and my little girl was taken away from me, and I didn't even know it!"
"Yes, you did," Nabiki stated softly.
"I... WHAT?!"
"You don't think that we would leave you totally out of it, did you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Remember back when I brought you those papers, the ones that said that you would give permission for your darling daughter to marry?"
"No, I.... Those legal papers? The ones that were supposed to make some legal problems go away?" her father muttered in confusion.
"Those are the ones."
"But I didn't think that they were about her marriage!" Rubbing the bridge of her nose, the middle Tendo daughter sighed. "You signed a paper giving her permission to marry, and I would have thought that you would have recognized that. Though, I did wonder about why you never really mentioned it. But trust me, it's all legal. What I saw wasn't about to be made into a sham."
"You knew about this?!"
"Of course I did. This is my little sister we're talking about, and I only want the best for her. To me, that's him."
"How can you say that?! She's your sister, for heaven's sake! She doesn't need some loose wanderer off of the streets...."
"Father!" Kasumi snapped, shocking even the Saotome men.
"Kasumi...."
"I will not allow you to insult Ranma-kun. He may have his own problems, but he would do anything for Akane, and is always showing his love for her. What they have is precious, and you're sullying what is so special."
"But how can a secret wedding be 'special'?"
"When it obviously has the sort of feelings that you and mother had."
Soun sucked in a breath, both startled that his gentle daughter would respond to him in such a way, and would bring that sort of thing into it. "How can you say that?"
"I can say it because it's true. I remember what the two of you were like. There was always something there that made me smile when I watched you together, and I feel something similar from Akane and Ranma."
"I...."
Akane looked to her husband, who gave her a nod of understanding. Returning it, she walked over to her father, and stood looking up at him. "Dad? I.... I didn't tell you because I couldn't. It wasn't like I wanted to."
"But you still did."
"I didn't have a choice. You see, Ranma's dad wanted him to go on this trip with him, and I couldn't let you know that I was married until he was here with me."
"You mean that it was settled before we went to China?" Genma asked.
"Yes, it was," the youngest of the sisters barked, shooting her father in law a dark look. But then she visibly calmed herself, and turned to her own father again. "So, I needed to wait. I wanted to let you know when the time was right, but it came up before I was ready."
"How could you do something like this?" Soun grumbled.
"I could not think of not doing it. Ranma is too special to me to ever let go. I love him, Dad, with all my heart."
"So much so that you couldn't wait?"
"I couldn't. I needed to know that we would be a couple, no matter what. He is the guy for me. I just know it. The other ones that I know just can't match up."
"And he still sneaks around, not behaving like a man should, simply to get at you," her father replied, his face twisting into a look of disgust.
"No! He wouldn't!"
"Oh?"
"Well.... He actually seems to have trouble with anything hurting me. And he kind of stays away from trying to push certain... well... 'things' forward," Akane told him, oddly sounding rather disgruntled over the latter part.
Not that Soun actually heard that in her words. "He better not have...."
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"I love you, you know that, right?"
"Of course. And I'll always love you, my baby girl."
"But this 'baby' has grown up, and loves her husband too," his youngest daughter responded, looking up at him with her heart in her eyes. "Would you at least give this a chance? Give him a chance? Give me a chance?"
"Well...."
"I want to be the best wife that I can be for him, but I also don't want to hurt you."
"You already did."
"I.... I didn't mean to. I'm sorry...."
Seeing a tear trickle down his daughter's cheek, and the obvious agreement of feeling from the elder two sisters, Soun sighed. "Akane...."
"Yes?"
"I suppose that I can't change the fact that this is how your heart went."
"She could have wound up with some guy who'd try to abuse her trust hide his real perversion," Nabiki suggested. "And no matter what Ranma is, he isn't that."
The Tendo patriarch gave her a flat look before turning his attention back to his youngest girl. "This is absolutely not the sort of marriage start that I want for you, but I can see that you want to go with this anyway. So, I'm not about to try to fight it."
"Thank you, Daddy!" Akane cried out in joy, and hugged him with great big sobs of joy. "Thank you so very much!"
"I only want you to be happy."
"I know...."
"Which means that you will have to be good to her, or else," Soun told his son in law.
Upon seeing the naginata blade that his wife's father was somehow now holding at his throat, Ranma gulped. "I'll do my best."
"Wrong. You will do it, or I'll punish you before you can sneak off to wrong another man's daughter."
"I didn't 'wrong' Akane, and I never would! I love her!"
"We'll see. I'll be watching, to make sure that you don't mess this up, like I am certain that you could."
All three sisters made sounds of exasperation, but seemed to understand that he was going to be like this no matter what, while:
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(Posted Fri, 21 Oct 2005 06:04)
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