Ni Dao was, in many ways, a typical Amazon. Although she was an excellent martial artist and warrior by the standards most of the world had, by Amazon standards, she was pretty much average—unlike her best friend Xian Pu, who was still undefeated in formal combat, and recognized as the best fighter in her age group in their village. Xian Pu was pretty, too, with her toned, athletic body, her perfect set of curves, and her flowing lavender hair. Sure, people told Ni Dao that she was good-looking as well—her deep blue hair was almost always styled nicely, if not always glamorously, and her overall physical health was guaranteed by the Amazon training regimen, and though she was a bit taller than most of the other girls her age, there was nothing about her proportions that could make anyone think of her as “ugly,” or even “awkward”—but they never seemed to gush praise upon her like they did on Xian Pu. And of course, since Xian Pu was the Matriarch’s granddaughter, she came from one of the wealthiest families in the tribe, with a long history of producing some of the greatest heroes of Joketsuzoku, and while Ni Dao’s family had produced several distinguished warriors, most of her ancestors had been humble cooks—the kind of people who rarely found themselves on the front lines of battle where true heroes are made.
In a way, she was glad that that young Japanese man had defeated her, as she wasn’t certain she would have been able to get a husband otherwise. After all, there was really no comparison—Xian Pu had everything going for her, but she was just plain old Needle.
She wasn’t actually that surprised that her new husband had hightailed in out of the area when he’d discovered what was going on. Sure, others in the village pointed out that many foreigners had that reaction to suddenly finding themselves married—especially those that didn’t know about Amazon traditions in the first place. That, however, didn’t keep Needle from feeling somewhat pessimistic as she prepared for her journey to find this young man and bring him back to the village so that the pair could go through a more complete ceremony.
Of course, given the way he seemed to have vanished after she’d given him the Kiss of Marriage, finding him would be an undertaking in and of itself.
In the back of his mind, Ryoga knew that a chick with blue hair in a silk pantsuit was coming after him, but he had a more pressing concern on his mind at the moment, which was avoiding cold water, and the bizarre physical change that came with it.
He turned into a cat. Appropriately enough, given his luck, his fur was a solid jet black (and given his sense of direction, he ended up crossing his own path way too often). Ryoga couldn’t think of a worse thing that he could have turned into. Granted, there were some advantages—stealth, for instance. As a cat, Ryoga found that sneaking into out-of-the-way places was much easier (especially at night, given his fur color). If he was discovered, it usually didn’t matter, as a lot of people were willing to tolerate the presence of a cat (though occasionally some well-meaning person tried to take him to an animal shelter). And of course, as far as natural weaponry went, the claws and fangs of a cat could come in pretty handy for self-defense.
But these were hardly enough to make up for the disadvantages of his curse. For example, those same well-meaning persons who would try to take him to an animal shelter also often spoke of having him neutered—not exactly a prospect that Ryoga looked forward to. Also, whenever he came out of his curse, he was invariably naked, as the only article of clothing that stayed on him as a feline was his bandanna, which moved from his forehead to around his neck—and that was mostly because he instinctively used ki to keep that bandanna (or rather, bandannas) on him at all times as part of the Iron Cloth discipline he’d incorporated into his style. He’d been lucky so far in that he’d always managed to find his pack relatively soon after changing back to his human form, but with his sense of direction, Ryoga wasn’t exactly confident that this would always be the case. The fact that hot water was a lot harder to come by that cold water in general wasn’t encouraging either.
But the biggest disadvantage as far as Ryoga was concerned was the dramatic drop in his strength and power whenever the curse was activated—now, he had to take extra care not to get wet in the middle of a fight, because if that happened, he’d stand no chance whatsoever.
After all, who could possibly be intimidated by something so innocuous as a housecat?
“Achoo!” Ranma sneezed so hard that he nearly dropped the stack of plates he was holding.
“Are you alright, dear?” Kasumi asked with a hint of concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine—musta got some dust in there or somethin’.”
“Oh. Well, as long as you’re okay.”
“Trust me, I’m fine. Do these go here?”
“No… the next cupboard over.” At least her father’s mess was still relatively organized; basically, all he’d done was to remove things from the cupboards during his search and carefully place them on the counter—though whether he would have been able to return everything to where he’d found it was doubtful, given the haphazard way everything had been collected. Of course, on the most important level such speculation was unimportant; Soun had still violated his daughter’s trust—even if he know realized just how bad an idea that actually had been.
Nabiki reentered the kitchen at that moment. “Well, it looks like Dad’s going to be doing a lot of soul-searching over the next hour or two, so I think it might be best to give him some time alone.”
“Where is he?” Ranma asked.
“I left him sitting in front of our mother’s shrine.”
“Huh. Well, I hope for everyone’s sake that he figures out what he should do—though it would probably be better if we could figure out why my Pops keeps comin’ up with these hare-brained ideas in the first place.”
Hearing this, Nabiki grew quiet as she once considered an idea that had been germinating since she first time Ranma had told her of his father’s antics.
This silence didn’t go unnoticed by Ranma. “Somethin’ on yer mind?”
“Maybe… Ranma, does your father always act this impulsively?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean, does he often do things without thinking about the consequences?”
“How often are we talkin’ about here?”
“Often enough that it adversely affects the quality of his own life and the lives of those around him.”
Ranma snorted at that. “Heck, sometimes I think that’s his overall approach ta parentin’. Ya wouldn’t believe some of the stuff he’s done without thinkin’. In fact, one time, he decided ta train me in this one technique…” The martial artist paused—he hadn’t yet told the Tendos anything about the Neko-ken. Sure, they knew that he didn’t like cats, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about that particular experience yet. “Uh… yeah… there’ve been… uh… bad things pretty often. But that don’t necessarily make him a bad person, ya know.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that it did.”
“Oh. Then what did ya mean?”
“Well, I’m not a medical professional, and I haven’t really spent that much time around him, so this may not be accurate at all… but I think your father might have ADD.”
“Huh?”
“Attention Deficit Disorder,” Kasumi explained to her husband. “It’s a psychological condition characterized by an abnormally short attention span, hyperactivity, and extreme impulsiveness. In cases where the hyperactivity is particularly pronounced, it’s sometimes called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. Several medications have been developed to treat it. It’s a fairly controversial subject, mostly because of likely over-diagnosis and subsequent overmedication in children.”
“And ya think Pops might have it?”
“Well, it would explain a lot of what you’ve told us about him in the past… but like I’ve said, only a medical professional can accurately diagnose it.”
“So that’d mean gettin’ Pops ta a doctor. Well, so much for that.” Ranma shrugged and returned to his task.
“Wait—what do you mean by that?”
“Come on, Nabiki. Not only does Pops hate goin’ ta a doctor fer any reason other than resetting broken bones, you’d be askin’ him ta admit ta maybe not bein’ the perfect specimen of manhood.”
“But…”
“But nothin’. Pops won’t go willingly, an’ even if ya dragged him there an’ somehow convinced him ta cooperate, he wouldn’t believe it if the doc told him that there’s somethin’ wrong with his head.”
Nabiki wasn’t sure what to think; Ranma seemed to think it was a definite possibility, but her brother-in-law seemed convinced that trying to actually have Genma evaluated would prove an insurmountable task. Still, if Genma did have a problem and did get some sort of help, that would definitely make unfortunate incidents like this one much less likely….
Maybe I should talk to Auntie Nodoka about this.
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(Posted Mon, 24 Jul 2006 06:15)
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