"So what do we do now?"
Nabiki perked on hearing Akane's question, and then she took a deep breath. The Tendou daughters -- along with P-chan -- had moved into Nabiki's room shortly after Windtalker's latest transmission concerning Moroboshi Ataru's just-revealed twelve sisters had ceased. "That's a good question," she mused. "A very good question."
"It's just so hard to believe," Kasumi said. "To believe that Father, Uncle and Auntie would engage in such a deception when it came to Ranma . . . "
Nabiki gazed at the eldest sister. "Onee-chan, don't tell me you buy into that racist garbage some people here believe in about marrying a 'pure-blooded' Japanese being the only 'proper' thing to do."
Kasumi balked, and then she giggled. "I've never really thought about matters of that nature, to be honest with you." A pause. "What I'm concerned about is what might happen should Ranma-kun's identity as Mustang suddenly go public." She gave Nabiki a knowing look. "I hope you're not thinking of . . . "
"No! Relax, Onee-chan! I'm not that crazy," the middle daughter asserted. "We all know how easy it is for the superheroes of America to acquire 'rogues galleries' of supervillains. And if any of them ever found out Mustang's real name . . . " A shudder raced through her. "If things around this place weren't bad enough now, they'd become a million times worse should that ever happen. People would come after us -- anyone who had any sort of relations to Ranma-kun -- right away if they thought using us as hostages could make Mustang do their bidding. I can only imagine what people like Lady Marvel and Rampage would end up going through should their real identities ever get out to the wrong crowd."
"Would that mean Ranma would leave us?"
The older sisters gazed on Akane. Both were quick to note the slight tremble in her arms, the glistening of frightened tears in her eyes. "That's a very strong possibility," Nabiki noted. "He might do it out of a simple belief that by severing all links between him and us, he'll be protecting us in the long run." A pause. "He might decide to go on a 'training trip' back to this Yiziba planet we've heard so much about since Destructo-sensei appeared in Tomobiki last night. If that place is as wild as Windtalker hinted at in her commentary when she filmed that whole mess with Gojira earlier today, we've no guarantee when or if he'll ever return." A tired sigh. "Or he might ultimately decide that, given the way we've all treated him in the past, he really has no home here with us. He'd walk out of here in an instant. And I don't think none of us could stop him if he so chose to do that!"
"Why would he do that?!" Akane cried out. "This is his home! He hasn't lived in his real home since he was six!"
Nabiki stared at her sister. "Akane, with the way you often love to blame him for everything weird that's happened to all of us since he came here with his father, what do you think he should feel? Do you honestly believe that he'd want to stay here after I've done practically all my best to ensure he would never trust me at all?" A nod towards Kasumi. "What about the times Onee-chan's mistreated him, either by letting you force-feed that slop you call 'food' down his throat or times when she made fun of his ailurophobia by piling cats all over him?" She ignored Kasumi's gasp as she then pointed at P-chan. "What about the times you went after him for 'picking' on the little porker there when it was pretty obvious of all of us that it was P-chan who started it every time he ran across Ranma-kun!"
"Bweep!" the transformed Ryouga howled out. What?! he mentally thundered. How dare you blame me for what Ranma did to me, Nabiki?! It's all his fault! Another squeal escaped him. Ranma, you alien bastard! I'll get you for this even if it's the last thing I do in this life!
He then moved to slip out of Akane's grasp, but her tightening grip on his flanks kept him in place as she shot back, "What makes you say that, Onee-chan?! Ranma always keeps picking on poor P-chan! It's so damned obvious!"
"I think it's more obvious that we don't know the actual truth behind P-chan."
Ryouga froze in place, he stunned silent by those words as Nabiki and Akane stared at Kasumi. "What does that mean, Onee-chan?" the former then asked.
"I really have to wonder something, now that this time of truths has suddenly come down on us," Kasumi replied, she gazing intently at P-chan. "For instance, I find it curiously odd that every time he comes by, Ranma-kun has always been inclined to address Ryouga-kun as 'P-chan' or other such terms implying pigs. And isn't it odd that P-chan first appeared on our doorstep the very night Ryouga-kun also came to visit for the first time? It was raining that night as I recall. And given the considerable animosity Ryouga-kun has always expressed when it comes to Ranma-kun -- an animosity that's existed between them since junior high school, in fact -- it doesn't certainly take much imagination to envision Ryouga-kun actually trying to follow Ranma-kun and his father all the way to . . . "
"Jusenkyou!" Nabiki finished as it started coming together in her mind, and then she spun around to stare wide-eyed at P-chan. As all the fights between Ranma and Ryouga played out in her mind once more -- that now tacked onto the confrontations between Ranma and P-chan that she remembered -- things started to fall into place. I am such a moron! she cursed herself before a cauldron of anger welled up deep inside her as all the implications of this revelation struck home.
"You honourless bastard . . . " she hissed out, she bolting to her feet as she glared down at the transformed wanderer. "How dare you . . .?!"
"I'll go fetch some hot water," Kasumi then declared as she stood up. "Akane-chan will need to see this for herself."
She walked out of the room. "What?!" Akane gasped as P-chan, he now scared out of his mind, renewed his struggles to get free of her grasp. "What's this all about?! What are you saying, Nabiki?! All that garbage Ranma always implied about Ryouga actually being P-chan?! Get serious! That's not true!"
"And what the hell makes you say that, Akane?!" Nabiki icily wondered.
"Ranma couldn't lie to save his life, Onee-chan!" Akane shot back.
Nabiki stopped, her steam of anger suddenly derailed as that point hit home. Her mind then quickly came up with a possibility. "What if that honourless jerk decided to play up on Ranma's honour to make him promise not to reveal his little problem to the whole world, Akane-chan?" she then asked. "After all, a Jusenkyou curse which turns a man into a piglet would be seen as a very big vulnerability, one that could be exploited with a glass of cold water. And given what Ranma-kun was made to believe back then as the truth, especially when it came to honour matters, I think it would have been easy for Hibiki to do just that! Especially if he was stupid enough to follow Ranma-kun to Jusenkyou all because of a few missed chances of getting lunch when they were schoolmates!"
Akane jolted as Nabiki's point hit home, and then she looked down at her pet. Before she could conceive of what to say next, the door then opened, revealing Kasumi with a glass of steaming hot water. "Excuse me, Akane-chan, but may I have him, please?" she then asked, her free hand held out. "I think if we're going to do this, we best do this in the furo room so we don't mess up the floor here."
"That won't be necessary, Kasumi-san."
The girls shrieked out in shock on hearing that voice, then they spun around to see Ranma standing beside the window, he back in his normal Mandarin tang and sweat pants, an amused look on his face. Seeing him, P-chan squealed out as he bolted clear of Akane's fingers, he bouncing off the bed as he lunged for his hated rival's exposed arm. His teeth bit in hard on Ranma's sleeve above his wrist bracers . . .
And then he froze as the jarring impact of teeth on skin tougher than the hardest form of adamantium ripped through his skull. Ranma remained undisturbed as P-chan fell away from him, slamming headfirst into the floor by his feet. The impact was enough to shatter the piglet's front teeth, they already cracked after trying to bite into Ranma's skin. As blood began to flow from his mouth, it forming a small pool around P-chan's head, Ranma muttered, "Sorry about that."
Nabiki smirked. "It's his fault for biting into you after we all watched you this morning fighting alongside Superman of all people, Ranma-kun. If he can't accept now that you're now way out of his league, that's his problem." Her smile then turned into the feral grin of Fuurinkan's resident Ice Queen as she gave Ranma a knowing wink. "Besides, I can bill him for the damages afterward."
"True," Ranma said as he reached down to pick up the stunned P-chan, he cupping his hand under the piglet's mouth to prevent him from dripping blood over the rest of Nabiki's floor, and then he walked him out of the room.
The Tendou sisters turned to follow him into the furo. Once there, Ranma slipped off his slippers, then walked over to dunk P-chan into the hot water of the furo. A second later, a shocked Ryouga bolted up, his body ablaze with rage as he moved to grab Ranma's throat. "RANMA, YOU BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU . . .?!"
He then awked on feeling the plump flesh of the female Ranma's chest. A coy look then crossed her face as she leaned up to stared playfully into his eyes. "Ryouga-kun, much that I do know how much you loved to feel up a girl's melons, but Akane-chan and my other fiancées have first dibs on them. You have to get in the line up!"
Silence.
Nabiki gaped in shock after hearing Ranma's statement.
Kasumi could only cover her mouth, a shocked "Oh, my!" escaping her.
Akane could only twitch, her brain coming close to totally crashing.
And Ryouga . . .
He passed out, twin geysers of blood exploding from his nose.
Ranma stared down at him, and then she breathed out, disappointment crossing her face, "Ryouga-kun, you serious need to get laid!"
"Um, Ranma . . . "
Ranma stared wide-eyed at Nabiki. "Hai, 'Biki, what is it?"
Nabiki's eyebrow twitched. "Would you please tell us what's going on here?" she pleaded. "Your parents and Father won't say a damned thing to us and we're really, really, really scared about what's going on with you right now!"
Ranma considered that for a moment, and then she sighed. "Well, if you really are interested in my life story . . . " She hummed for a moment, and then she held out her hand, palm up. "A hundred thousand yen, please!"
Nabiki shrieked out, "THAT'S HIGHWAY ROBBERY!"
"Oh?" Ranma trilled as she drew her hand away, she turning around as her eyes fell on the passed-out Ryouga. "I guess you wouldn't mind my totally destroying Akane's reputation then." She then gazed knowingly at Nabiki as she added, "By telling everyone that Ryouga here has been playing as her pet for the last year, after he tricked me into making a promise never to say anything about his curse."
Nabiki's face slammed into the furo floor. "Nabiki-chan, pay her, please?" Kasumi then urged. "Akane-chan wouldn't begin to survive that sort of embarrassment."
A moan escaped the middle Tendou daughter . . .
Later . . .
"You were sent to Earth when you were a baby after your real mother died?!"
"Hai," Ranma replied. Still as a woman, she was currently relaxing on a chair by Nabiki's work desk. The Tendou sisters sat on Nabiki's bed. Ryouga -- after clothes had been found for him and he had been cleaned up -- was laid out on the floor nearby, he still passed out. Ranma had thoughtfully put a damp cloth on the wanderer's head. "I had just gone to the Hall of Power to get my powers as Mustang when some of the more powerful heels began making hints about taking me in under their wing."
"And these 'heels' are the bad guys on your planet, right?" Nabiki asked.
Ranma nodded. "Right. Mom -- her name was Wildflower -- didn't want that of me. She wanted me to be a 'face' -- one of the good guys. So, after she found out what Superman's father Jor-el did to him just before Krypton blew up, she decided to take a chance and sent me to Earth. A telepath who was allied to Doctor Death, one of the chief heels on Yiziba who was interested in me, found out her plan, then poisoned her. By then it was too late; I was in my rocket halfway to Earth. I crashed down in the woods outside of Tokyo, where Father and your father found me while they were training under Jijii. Since your mom had already given birth to you two and was pregnant with Akane, Father and Mother decided to adopt me. End of story."
"And since this Conservator, the person who decides what powers babies on Yiziba receive when they go to this Hall of Power, elected to name you 'Mustang' . . . " Kasumi moved to wrap up.
"Hence my Japanese name 'Ranma,'" Ranma finished with a nod.
"Oh!" Kasumi and Akane spoke together.
"So why keep your powers a secret from all of us, then?!" Nabiki demanded.
"Nabiki, look at my cleavage," Ranma teased her, a knowing smirk crossing her face as she gave the middle Tendou daughter a wink. "Who do we know would just love to attempt to drain some power from me? Especially now, given how strong I am as a Yizibajohei, not just a Terran at the height of physical development."
Silence.
"Happousai!" Akane breathed out.
"Right," Ranma drawled. "Even if he does have his good points, he's more of a control freak than Nabiki-chan and Elder Cologne combined. Lucky for us the Doc showed up while Happousai was off on vacation in Osaka to beef up his 'collection?' If you think he's been bad to date, Akane, think of what he'll do once he clues into the fact that his two students, his two primary means of keeping me under control, kept a secret like this . . . " -- in emphasis, Ranma morphed her clothes into her costume as Mustang -- "From him? And then add onto that the amount of ki I can produce now that the blocks the Doc put on me after the Neko-ken training are gone?"
Kasumi blanched. "Oh, dear."
"Oh, shit!" Nabiki gasped.
"He'd be impossible then," Akane concluded. "And with Dad and Uncle obviously more than ready to stand up to him now . . . "
"Everything Happousai believed was 'right' in his worldview would collapse like a house of cards," Ranma finished as she morphed her clothes back into her civilians, and then she shifted back into a boy. "And that could be enough to send him right over the edge into doing something which could easily see people hurt. If not dead."
Silence fell as the Tendou daughters took that in, and then Nabiki nodded. "I can see why this was kept top secret," she grimly noted.
"So what do you intend to do now, Ranma-kun?" Kasumi then asked.
Ranma sighed, and then he declared . . .
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(Posted Fri, 29 Sep 2006 18:20)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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