“Let me guess: that’s some sort of training you’re doing.”
“Got it in one, Nabiki.”
“Wow,” said Akane. “I know Daddy said that one of the tenets of Anything Goes was that everything can be adapted into some sort of training, but I always thought that was an exaggeration.”
“Yeah, well, when ya train with Pops, ya learn pretty quickly that he doesn’t exaggerate much when it comes to the Art. He puts a lot of stress on trainin’—in fact, I was kinda surprised that he didn’t show up this morning for our usual sparrin’ session.”
Genma didn’t even bother knocking when he returned to the Tendo compound. He was in a good mood—sure, he’d had to endure his wife’s rebukes the previous night, but his patience was more than rewarded when she reminded him of her skills in the bedroom. Unfortunately, their activities last night had been so vigorous that he’d overslept—which meant that he’d been unable to spar with his son at their accustomed time (just after daybreak). Still, he’d make it up—he couldn’t very well let the boy go soft now, could he? “Alright, Soun, where’s that son of mine? I’m already running behind, I’ve got a lot planned for his training today.”
“He is at school, where children his age belong.”
“What?! But what about the Art?”
“No son-in-law of mine is going to be a listless high school dropout!”
“You seem rather tense, old friend,” replied Genma, concerns over his son’s training momentarily forgotten. “How about a nice, relaxing game?”
A rather damp Ranma-chan did her best to wring some of the water out of her tang. “Now, ya see, if I’d have stayed on the fence, this never woulda happened.” She (then he) had transferred to the sidewalk at the behest of the Tendos, who were starting to complain of the neck strain that came from trying to maintain eye contact with him in the course of a conversation. Unfortunately, an elderly woman had chosen that particular moment to clean off her the sidewalk in front of her home. “Just great… I don’t wanna show up ta school as a girl… Is there someplace we can get some hot water?”
“Well, there’s always Dr. Tofu,” said Nabiki with a sly look towards her sister.
“Oh? Who’s he?”
“He’s a local chiropractor and physician. He’s taken care of us for a few years now—and more importantly, his office isn’t too far out of the way.”
“He’s… really nice, too,” added Akane.
“Sounds like a plan ta me.”
Dr. Tofu’s office really wasn’t much of a detour, so soon Ranma found herself waiting for the sisters to come back with the desired hot water. She hoped that this wouldn’t become a pattern for the day (though with her luck, that seemed pretty likely). She was beginning to wonder what was taking so long, when she suddenly felt something on her shoulder. A glance at the skeletal hand was all it took to send the redhead scurrying up the sign outside of the office.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that…”
Ranma looked down to see a bespectacled man in his late twenties smiling warmly at her, holding a skeleton. “Wha? Huh?”
“There’s nothing to worry about—this is just my skeleton, Betty.”
“Oh,” said Ranma as she slowly climbed down to surface level. “Uh, nice to meet ya… Betty…”
This elicited a chuckle from the man. “I’m sure the pleasure is all hers. I’m Dr. Tofu, by the way.”
“Ranma.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”
“Nah, I just arrived yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Where are you staying?”
“With the Tendos, actually.”
“I see. I’ve known them for a while now. How are you getting along with them?”
“Uh, pretty good, actually. I’m just waitin’ for them right now…”
No sooner had Ranma said this, when the duo emerged, Akane holding a steaming kettle. “Here you are, Ranma.”
Ranma gladly accepted the kettle of water, and had soon reverted to his uncursed form.
“Well, that certainly explains a lot,” remarked Dr. Tofu.
“Whaddya mean?”
“Well, I just thought it was odd that a girl would have such a distinctly male ki signature.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway,” Nabiki interjected, “this is Ranma, our brother-in-law.”
This was the last thing Dr. Tofu had expected to hear in an introduction. “Brother-in-law?”
“Yeah, I’m married ta Kasumi.”
“K-K-Kasumi?” For the remainder of the explanation, it wasn’t really apparent whether Dr. Tofu was listening intently, or catatonic.
“Alright, Soun, what’s wrong?”
“Whatever do you mean, Genma?”
“Well, we’ve been playing shogi for nearly ten minutes now and you haven’t even tried to cheat yet—and what’s more, you’ve let me get away with cheating so obvious that even someone who knew nothing of the rules of the game would be able to spot it. Once or twice to let me fall into a false sense of security I can understand, but no attempts at retaliation at all? That’s not the Soun I know.”
The Tendo patriarch sighed. His friend just knew him too well. “It’s the marriage.”
“What about it?”
“Aren’t you concerned?”
“Should I be?”
“Our children went out of their way to conceal from us! I should think that would be cause for concern.”
“Well, I suppose you have a point, but still, I don’t see how that’s a major problem. It might not be ideal, but at least they’ve fulfilled their obligation to unite the schools.”
Soun was flabbergasted. He’d fully expected Genma to completely empathize with him on this matter. “Aren’t you concerned at all?”
“Of course—in fact, I was going to pound some sense into the boy this morning for keeping it a secret, but that can wait. After the discussion I had with my wife, I realized that in the long run, it’s really not that big a deal.”
Somehow, Soun wasn’t surprised that Nodoka had a part to play in his friend’s demeanor. “In the long run?”
“You know, the ends justify the means. Sure, things didn’t go exactly the way we planned, but our goal has been reached! And we didn’t even need to do anything.”
“But what about… you know…”
“Are you still on about that lesbian thing? If so, I really think you’re overreacting.”
“But aren’t you concerned about their reputations?”
“Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, no. Soun, you need to get your priorities straight. What’s most important right now is that they produce an heir to unite the schools. Once that’s taken care of, it doesn’t really matter what else they do in the bedroom—Soun? Are you okay?”
Genma called out for his daughter-in-law. “Kasumi? Could you come her for a moment? I think your father’s frozen up.”
Dr. Tofu just watched as the trio continued on their journey with a blank look on his face. “Well, what do you know? Kasumi’s got married… to someone even younger than she is… whom she hasn’t known as long as me… and who turns into a girl…”
“Um, are you going to be okay, Dr. Tofu?” asked an extremely nervous looking patient.
“Yes… I’ll be fine… Would you mind if I went into my office for a bit?” The good doctor didn’t even wait for an answer as he shut the door behind him. He sat down at his desk and absently stared at some papers there for a few minutes. After about ten minutes, there came a knock at the door.
“Um, Dr. Tofu? Is everything alright?”
“No, I’m fine,” the chiropractor called back. However, any relief his patient might have gotten from this response was instantly negated when he suddenly started banging his head against the wooden desk.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”
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(Posted Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:36)
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