Gasping and dry-heaving over her wastebasket, Nabiki was aware of the blonde vanishing and Ranma asking concernedly if she was all right.
Nabiki shook her head, but gently. "No. Ranma-kun. No, but I'll be fine in a minute. Your father on the other hand..."
Nabiki was sick at herself. It was one thing to take advantage of a jerk, but an emotional cripple? It was like finding out that the dog you'd just kicked out of your way was a search & rescue dog that had been crippled saving lives.
Physically retarded was easily spotted and shunned in Japan for the most part. Mentally retarded likewise to some extent. Ranma was brain damaged and emotionally retarded. It all made sense now. Why he acted like he did, why he never reacted to naked women except with embarassment, his need not to be alone and to have people pay attention to him.
The sounds of someone, likely Akane, retching sounded from elsewhere in the house.
Ranma merely looked puzzled.
Years ago, a young doctor had seen a boy badly mauled by cats. She had humored the father with the engagement deal as payment for the boy's treatment while her daughter chatted with him in the ER.
Seeing the boy's injuries had furthered young Ami's desire to be a doctor that day.
Ami Mizuno quietly excused herself and was ill while her friends looked on, mainly puzzled.
The echoes of a little boy screaming in a pit of cats, of crying for his father not to abandon him - that he'd be good and go steal that food for them, and of hundreds of other similar scenes of abuse and neglect and horror were fresh in her mind. Given time they'd fade in the normal manner of memories, but right now she could barely make it out the sliding doors.
Ami's head came up. Her fiance was thataway, where he'd entered some horribly mutual abusive relationship with some girls. She had to rescue him! This was definitely a matter of love and justice and so it was Senshi business!
While many didn't consider her to be a fiancee, some did, and she herself did.
Kodachi screamed and sobbed in anguish as she beheld scenes and realized in this moment of clarity that the "pigtailed harridan" was in fact her "Ranma-sama."
She also understood, as did others going through this, that marrying him anytime soon was out of the question. He needed help, serious help, in overcoming some really bad habits in his life - such as Genma's teaching that affection was best expressed through insults and violence.
"Don't worry, Ranma-sama," breathed Kodachi as her stomach slowly stopped aching, "I'll save you. Somehow."
"AGGGH!" Mousse exclaimed. As Shampoo had just barfed on him, this was perfectly understandable.
The scene was repeated elsewhere as those women or girls who had been engaged to him at one time or another, or who might have been engaged to him, suddenly understood why Ranma acted the way he did.
Though Mihoshi had gotten a few details wrong.
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(Posted Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:06)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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