A doorway was forming in this strange dream-space they both were in, even as they watched...
And then the door opened, and two figures came tumbling out of it.
"...Nabiki-san?" Shinji murmured. "What are you doing..."
" - Mihoshi...san?" Ranma stared. Now what?
"Oh, good, Ranma, there you are - If you knew what I had to do to find this blasted ditz of a genie -" Nabiki stopped talking, then, panting.
"Errr...um...what?" Ranma looked at Nabiki and Mihoshi, owlishly.
"You...went and found Mihoshi? How?"
"Well, I remembered she'd been nattering something about giving a Wish to somebody named Keitaro Urashima who lived in someplace called Hinata House, so I set myself to finding the place and went there pronto once I'd gotten Shinji-kun there settled, that's all - and just in time, too. That Urashima person seemed to be a nice guy but about things like this - burrr. Well, I did get a nice bit of 'consulting fee' out of it, but..."
Nabiki looked at Ranma, and sighed, then. And then looked at Mihoshi.
"Hey, genie-person. If you could give me and Ranma some privacy, if you don't mind."
"Alright, Nabiki-san." Mihoshi smiled somewhat tentatively, and shook her hand. A cloudy wall formed, swirling, and hiding Shinji and Mihoshi from Ranma's sight.
"Well, good, then." Nabiki sighed, looking at Ranma. "Ranma..."
Ranma smiled tentatively, not knowing what to make of this. Seeing Nabiki with Mihoshi here was great, since if she couldn't get him out of this mess, he couldn't think offhand of anybody who could, but...
But why did she look so - tired and worn, anyhow?
"Ranma..." Nabiki muttered. "I'm sorry I got you sent here. I didn't mean to, you know..."
"Well, of course not, you were supposed to be trying to think of a good Wish for me to make, not make one yourself. I still can't figure out why Mihoshi-san ended up granting your Wish when she'd given me a Wish to begin with, really. Maybe she just made a mistake?"
"No, no - remember that she was blathering something about she was supposed to 'give three people around whom chaos swirls a wish' before she's freed? Or that somebody could wish to be a genie, in which case she got replaced?" Nabiki sighed, then, rubbing her eyes.
"Well, it seems like there's enough chaos swirling around me so that I qualify, too. Damnit. If I'd been just paying more attention - "
Oh. Ranma thought about that.
Well, damn.
Nabiki sighed yet again, looking at him. "Sorry, Ranma. You didn't get your money's worth this time - I didn't really believe that Mihoshi was a genie, or that the magical wish was real, and was distracted as all hell. I should have known better, you know - Saotome Ranma, weirdness magnet, and all that, but it just felt like some weird-ass dream I was having..."
Oh, well, Ranma could understand that feeling a lot, as he'd been experiecing it a lot recently but ...Ranma felt that by now familiar feeling of unreality sweep over him, again. Nabiki was apologizing? To him?
And she still hadn't mentioned how they were going to fix all this...
"...So I catch up with that ditzy excuse for a proper genie at long last, and help get Urashima-san set up properly, and after that, we have a chat, and..."
Nabiki muttering, pacing the floor. Ranma walked alongside her. It seemed the thing to do, somehow.
"First I asked her to cancel that Wish, as I wasn't supposed to be the one the Wish was being granted to anyway and all, so she tells me that I fit the parameters to a tee, too, and once I'd gotten to thinking about it, she had mentioned something like that among all the gabble, and - so then I, um, 'strongly suggested' that she should grant the remaining Wish to you like the initial plan was to, and your Wish could send both Shinji-kun and you back where you both belonged..."
Ranma gulped, thinking about it. That seemed like a fine idea, actually!
- Well, except that Shinji would be going back to a world which seemed to be heading like the Titanic towards the Red Goo, and... Misato-san. He'd just had to show her that DVD...what would happen to her, now? And...
Though if he had the Wish after all, that could be all fixed too, he supposed.
...Right?
......Right?
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(Posted Thu, 14 Dec 2006 14:45)
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