"And what, daughter, are you doing?!"
Nabiki awked on hearing that voice, she then spinning around to see Souun gazing knowingly at her, he having sneaked into her bedroom without her noticing, she having been intent on working on her machine. "Dad!" she screamed out before a flash of anger warped across her face at his blatant invasion of her privacy. "Would you mind, please? I've business to be done and I don't want to be interrupted . . .!"
Souun, to Nabiki's shock, didn't seem the least bit perturbed by her show of outrage when, not to long before, such a display of anger would have sent him running out of the room, he moaning about how his daughter had just screamed at him. "And would some of this 'business' happen to be you stirring up trouble by informing Ranma-san's would-be suitors and all his rivals about what he has now become thanks to Wysynski-sensei's appearance in Tomobiki late last evening?"
Nabiki frozen, her eyes going wide as her father's statement sank in. The fact that her usual show of anger didn't elicit the standard reaction from her gutless sire surprised her enough. But to hear him address Ranma so formally . . .!
"What's happened to you?" she then demanded, a brief flash of fright dancing through her eyes for a second before she moved to regain control of herself.
A touch of regret crossed his face as he replied, "Something that should have happened a long time ago, when your mother passed away." Hearing Souun mention the late Tendou Kimiko without launching into another bout of wailing hysterics, Nabiki could only quake. Things around this place had just gotten too weird, too fast! She had lost total control over the situation -- and that was something Tendou Nabiki never liked at all. "Indeed, had not Wysynski-sensei not made his appearance, things would have no doubt proceeded as they've gone before, much to my regret now that I've come to see things in such a new light. Especially when it comes to Ranma-san. Who knows what might have happened then should Ranma-san's patience towards all your actions against him -- and my actions against him as well, I freely admit now -- had come to an end in a less controlled situation than the one that happened last night." He stared warningly at her. "Think on that well, daughter. And remember what you saw on the television earlier today. As Mustang, Ranma-san fought on a level equal to that of Superman himself. We've all heard of all the enemies Superman possesses, their variety and their willingness to unleash all sorts of destruction in their quest to defeat and/or kill him. How soon do you think it will take for Mustang to acquire an equally-sized 'rogues' gallery' . . . and do you believe for a moment that they wouldn't hesitate to come after anyone who had any sort of relations with Ranma-san to try to hurt him?"
Nabiki's skin began to pale as that dire warning hit home somewhere deep in her bowels. She tried to regain some control over the argument by then stating, "Saotome would always protect us . . .!"
"Daughter, after all we've done to him, can you be truly sure of that anymore?" Souun asked as he turned to leave. "Considering that on his home planet -- and whose ways he was literally made to acknowledge long before Genma and Nodoka ever adopted him -- the very concepts of honour we strive to follow do not exist?"
Without waiting for an answer from the now sheet-white Nabiki, Souun walked out.
"Oh, my!"
"This is all some mad joke, isn't it?!" Akane demanded; she and Kasumi -- along with P-chan -- had been listening in on the conversation in their sister's room thanks to empty glass cups pressed against the walls. "It's bad enough that baka somehow turned out to be some alien mutant, but to see Dad just act as if anything he can do now is okay . . .!" A growl escaped her. "Oooh! When he gets back home . . .!"
As she started to vent out her plans to deal with her errant fiance, Kasumi could only shake her head as she moved to depart Akane's room. Down on the floor, the transformed Ryouga could only quake, he just as upset as Akane at what had happened to Ranma over the last twenty-four hours. You'll pay for making Akane-san mad, Ranma! the wanderer hissed to himself. And you'll pay for lying to us all the time, you alien bastard! By all I hold holy, you'll pay!
Approaching the Tendou home . . .
"I really appreciate you all coming with me today."
"Oh, relax, Ranma-kun. Since you actually come from Chiyosuke's home planet and we need to know more about Yiziba and what might happen to us now, it was the smartest thing for us to do," Yomi replied as she, Kaorin and Ayumu followed Ranma down the street, they having elected to spend their surprise day off with their new friend. Tomo and Kagura had elected to remain with Miyake Shinobu while Sakaki and the teachers had stayed with Chiyo and her father after the Justice League had headed back to America, Negi Springfield and Asakura Kazumi had returned to Mahora and Tokiha Mai had gone back to Fuuwa. She then paused as something seemed to arc through her mind from the large property they were approaching. "Uh-oh . . .!"
"What is it, Yomi-san . . .?" Kaorin then asked before her empathic senses began to lock in on those points of interest her former classmate's telepathy were now focusing on. "Oh! I see now!" She glanced at Ranma. "Are you sure you want to go to that place now, Ranma-san? Some of the people there don't seem very happy at you right now. Though I can also sense a lot of pride burning from your father -- and your mother's there, too! Along with someone who's very old and wise . . . "
"Male or female?"
"Female."
"Elder Cologne, then," Ranma concluded.
"Is she a friend or foe? Her great-granddaughter is one of your so-called 'fiancées,' remember?" Yomi asked.
"Her primary concern's the safety and future of her village," Ranma replied as they continued to walk to the Tendou doojou. "I can applaud such an attitude, even if small clusters of people living together, separated from each other, stopped bein' the way things went on Yiziba a long time ago. She'll probably see me more as a potential future threat if I ever got dragged back to Joketsuzoku against my will -- but she'll be very afraid of what my retaliation might be if she decided to push matters. And there's the Doc to think about, too. I met him a couple times in the past, sometime after he came back from Yiziba after the Conservator got done with him. To the Elder, it's very simple now: I'm a very big unknown to her and I have a direct line to someone who could, with a thought, destroy three thousand years of Nyu-che-zuu history in the blink of an eye. That won't sit well with her. She's as much of a control freak as Nabiki is. Problem is, she's a lot smarter about it."
"So she could push it . . . " Yomi began.
"Or she'll decide it isn't worth it and back away," Kaorin finished.
"Exactly . . . "
"Ranma!"
Ranma jerked on seeing the front gate of the Tendou doojou open, Saotome Nodoka stepping out as she raced over to embrace her son. "Oh, my boy!" she sobbed out. "I watched everything that happened today! You were so manly today, helping out with those alien monsters! I'm so proud of you, my son!"
She then paused on seeing the three attractive young ladies currently accompanying her son. Taking in how beautiful they were -- Yomi's studious looks, Ayumu's more innocent aura or Kaorin's quasi-tomboyishness -- Nodoka then whooped with delight as she whipped out her fans and did her happy dance. "Oh, my son's got three new ladies chasing after him! He's so manly! I'm going to have loads and loads and loads of grandbabies to spoil! He's so manly!"
"Ano . . .!"
Nodoka stopped, she turning to gaze at Ayumu. "What is it, dear?"
"How can you have grandbabies to spoil if Ranma-kun decides to go back to Yiziba?" the transplanted Osakan asked. "You're a norm. You wouldn't survive there."
Dark clouds appeared over Nodoka as the thought of her beloved child -- adopted or not, it simply didn't matter to her -- leaving for his birth-world, where she might never, ever see him again dropped down on her like a falling anvil hitting Wile E. Coyote. She then screamed out, twin jets of tears shooting out of her eyes like twin mini Niagara Falls. "I WANT TO HAVE GRANDBABIES!"
Ranma shook his head as sweat-drops appeared in Kaorin's and Yomi's hair. "Um, I hate to sound rude, Ranma-kun, but your mom's really unbalanced," the latter stated.
"She suffers from a type of acute hypersexuality disfuction disorder," Ranma replied. "It's controlled to some extent with shiatsu treatment she gets from her doctor -- Father made sure she would get those treatments when we went off on our training trip -- but it still makes her thinking quite . . . " A pause. "Unique."
"I wonder if she's related to Kimura-sensei," Kaorin mused.
"Good point," Yomi noted. "Well, shall we go in?"
"Hai," Ranma said as he and the others moved to head inside. "Tadaima!"
"Oh, Ranma-kun!" Kasumi called out as she walked out onto the porch, her trademark smile crossing her face. "You're back!"
Ranma paused as he glanced quickly at Yomi and Kaorin . . .
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(Posted Tue, 19 Sep 2006 06:52)
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