“Yes?”
“Before you go, could you do something about the phone? Or rather, the hole in the wall over there where the phone used to be before you Dead Screamed it into oblivion?” The androgynous blonde pointed at the blackened hole in the kitchen wall. “By the way, the Inners didn’t believe me when I told them you were trying your hand at interior decorating.”
For the most part, Setsuna was able to suppress her blush. “Oh… of course. I’ll just hook up another phone to one of the house’s other jacks until I can get an electrician in here—in fact, I can do that right now.” The green-haired homeowner set about her task immediately, mostly to avoid the further wisecracks Haruka was obviously ready to make about the Time Guardian’s unusual loss of her temper.
Truth be told, Setsuna probably could have handled the telemarketers if she could just figure out why she couldn’t predict them. This in itself was nothing new; throughout the millennia she’d realized that her foresight was utterly useless at helping her avoid unsolicited sales pitches of any kind. The best guess she had for a reason was that her powers were created that way to keep the Senshi of Pluto humble—either that or some cosmic being had a really off-kilter sense of humor. However, Setsuna firmly believed that if this gap in her ability was caused by a sentient being, then that being obviously had never to deal with anyone like Hypercorp. In her experience, the only corporation whose marketing strategy approached that level of aggressiveness was Crazy Hasid’s Discount Camels, and they went out of business around 800 A.D.
Hypercorp’s telemarketers had gotten so bad that she’d disconnected all of the phones except the one in the kitchen, so she could just take that one out of its jack when she wanted to make sure the she and her housemates were undisturbed. She’d thought they’d eventually taken the hint, but her treatment resulted in remission rather than a cure—in the last few days they’d started up again, just as aggressively as before if not more so.
After retrieving one of her old phones from a closet (Setsuna’s penny-pinching nature refused to let her get rid of anything that was still functional), the green-haired homeowner plugged it into the long-neglected jack in the living room.
It rang immediately.
You have got to be kidding me. Don’t these people ever stop? Grimacing, she lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Good morning, Setsuna-chan,” the person on the other end of the line practically sang.
“Nabiki! Thank the goddess it’s you…”
“…and not Hypercorp. I’m assuming you disconnected your phone again?”
“Um, something like that.”
“Ah, so you destroyed your telephone in an uncharacteristic display of violence and frustration, then.”
“How did you know that?!” Setsuna knew Nabiki’s powers of deduction were sharp, but this implied access to some sort of gnosis on the level of the Time Gates.
“I didn’t— I was just joking.”
Okay, maybe Nabiki just had a whole lot of good luck.
The information broker continued talking to her friend/client. “So, how did things go last night?”
Setsuna sighed. “How much time do you have?”
“Plenty.”
So, Setsuna told Nabiki most of what had happened the previous night, though she didn’t mention coming out of the closet, mostly because she wanted to keep some secrets from helmet-haired mercenary (at least she hoped it was still a secret—one could never be too sure when Nabiki Tendo was involved). She also didn’t go into any details about her bedroom activities with Ranma because “our sex life is our own business, thank you very much.” She did, however, acknowledge that her pigtailed husband was “pretty good, considering his lack of experience.” She then told Nabiki about their impending honeymoon, and gave her instructions on how best to contact her if something urgent came up.
Once all of this was out of the way, Setsuna decided it was high time they changed subjects. “So, Nabiki, what exactly happened at your place after we left?”
“Well, the three of us had to do a lot of explaining, but eventually we managed to calm our father and Mr. Saotome down.”
“So they’ve accepted my marriage to Ranma?”
“Of course not! In fact, the two of them solemnly declared that they would convince Ranma to see the light and leave you for one of us—I think they’re leaning towards Akane as the designated bride, mostly because she’s had the most dedication to the Tendo School out of the three of us. Akane, of course, won’t hear of it. She doesn’t want to break up two people who are, quote, ‘so obviously in love,’ especially since both of them are her friends.”
“Speaking of which, how did those two react to the news that the three of you already knew the two of us?”
“Genma was in denial. I think he honestly thought that when Ranma was by himself, he wouldn’t try and make any friends, since that would distract from his training. And Daddy seemed to think that the five of us were conspiring to keep the schools of Anything Goes separate.”
“Yes… I knew your family had its own style, but I was surprised that it turned out to be one of the schools of Anything Goes—did you really not know that Ranma was heir to the Saotome school?”
“Honestly, no. After our first meeting, it sort of became clear that Ranma saw my sisters and me as people he could talk to outside of the martial arts world, so there was an unspoken agreement between the us not to discuss it unless it was necessary. From the one brief sparring session he had with Akane, she was only able to determine that his style was ‘similar’ to ours; it ended so quickly that she wasn’t able to see enough specific moves to identify it as Anything Goes—I assume it was the same with Ranma.”
“Yes, in our counseling sessions he only referred to your family’s style as being ‘kinda like’ his,” Setsuna confirmed.
“Anyway, eventually we convinced them that Ranma didn’t necessarily have to marry one of us in order to join the schools—that seemed to calm them down somewhat. They’re still angry, but I think they’ll get over it eventually, especially after Ranma and Akane hammer out an alternative plan for uniting the schools.”
“Uh, Nabiki, are you sure about that? Let’s face it, those two are not exactly the best when it comes to long-term planning.”
“Who? Daddy and Mr. Saotome, or Ranma and Akane?”
“To be frank, both, but I was referring to Ranma and Akane. I know that Ranma can be quite creative when he’s being pushed to his limits in a fight, but he has little capacity for lateral thinking in other contexts…”
“…and Akane’s the same way—maybe it’s the result of their training.”
“More likely that Anything Goes is best suited to people of their personality type.”
Nabiki’s smirk was almost audible on the other end of the line. “Yeah… what would people like them do without people like us?”
“They’d probably get exploited by people with even fewer scruples.”
“Why, Setsuna-chan, do you mean to tell me that you still keep your scruples around? I traded mine in years ago for ¥2000 and an ‘Ice Queen’ persona.”
“You got ripped off. I could have gotten you ¥3500 and cynical worldview to go with the ‘Ice Queen’ persona.”
“First off, I already had a cynical worldview. Second, you obviously have no idea what condition my scruples were in. And third, we’d better get off of this train of thought before things start getting silly.”
That sounded sensible to Setsuna, who smiled broadly as she replied. “Agreed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wake up my husband.”
“Alright. Never let it be said that Nabiki Tendo tried to stand between a friend and hot monkey lovin’.”
“Do you and Haruka trade notes or something?”
“Occasionally. Why?”
Setsuna sighed good-naturedly into the receiver. “Nothing. I’ll see you later.”
“You too. Bye.” A dial tone replaced Nabiki’s voice.
Setsuna shook her head as she replaced the receiver. She was about to head back to her room to wake up Ranma when the phone rang again. Huh… Nabiki must have forgotten to mention something. She once again picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Selena Kyle? I’m calling from Hyp—” To her credit, the Senshi of Time managed to avoid causing further structural damage to her home, and simply unplugged the phone before returning to the task at hand. With those thoughts behind her, Setsuna headed upstairs.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Kwakerjak
(Posted Sat, 31 Dec 2005 04:00)
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.