The withered old woman simply raised an eyebrow at Kodachi’s question. “I, young lady, am Cologne, Matriarch of the Amazons at Joketsuzoku.”
Kodachi didn’t seem fazed by this announcement at all: “Ah. I see — you’re part of the same contingent of gaijin as the purple-haired harlot.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. And I suggest you do the same, Shampoo.”
The teenaged Amazon reluctantly obeyed her great-grandmother’s orders, changing the subject slightly: “Why you here, Great-Grandmother? And why you do that to Airen?”
“I’m here to try and help explain what’s going on,” Cologne casually replied, “and I knocked Ranma out because the boy needs some peace and quiet, and right now, that’s probably the only way he’s going to get it.”
“Then you know what’s going on?” Akane asked.
“I have a pretty good idea. Granted, I only got here in time to hear the part of your conversation — and only the parts that you spoke out loud, at that — but I think it’s somewhat obvious that Ranma now has to deal with some sort of telepathy on top of all of his other problems. Is this correct?”
All four girls nodded. “Ranma met up with a genie….”
Cologne sighed. “So it’s a wish gone bad?”
“No! It wasn’t even a wish! The stupid ditz granted it before I had a chance to make it, and now the four of us are stuck with some sort of mental link to Ranma, and we can’t seem to turn it off.”
“Outside of clobbering him,” Akane pointed out.
“You would suggest something like that, wouldn’t you?” Kodachi said with a disdainful sniff.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
Cologne, however, wasn’t about to let the conversation derail, and rapped her staff on the table. “Ladies, the last thing you should be worrying about right now is petty arguments. Now, I’d like to help you out, but I need to have some idea of what’s going on, and that means I need you to describe what little experience you’ve had with these links in detail.”
When Cologne said she wanted something described in detail, she didn’t kid around. She questioned the four girls on the minutiae of the links for nearly ten minutes before she was satisfied — but she still wasn’t done. Now, she had to talk to Ranma, who was still out cold at the time. Fortunately, she always carried some pungent herbs on her person which she could use like smelling salts to speed up his recovery.
| Ugh… what the hell happened? Last thing I remember is yellin’ somethin’ stupid about havin’ sex with Kasumi, and then… argh… my head…. Wait… if I’m just wakin’ up, maybe that whole genie thing was just a dream— | |||
| It wasn’t. Sadly, these interlopers are still here to cause dissonance in our relationship. |
It wasn’t. I’m still stuck with you — and I still say you’re a pervert! |
It wasn’t. I really, really wish it was, but it wasn’t. |
It wasn’t. Fortunately, my Great-Grandmother seems to have some ideas that may help us. |
| Crud. How come nuthin’ ever seems ta go my way? Just for once, it’d be nice if— | Wait… “Great-Grandmother?!” Cologne’s here?! | ||
Ranma managed to rouse himself to a sitting position before reacting: “All right, ya old crone, what’s the deal?”
“‘The deal,’ as you put it, is your relationship with your suitors has just changed significantly, and as my great-granddaughter is one of those suitors, I have a vested interest in discovering what’s going on.”
“Oh… and ya knocked me out because….”
“Because you wanted some quiet — and because I didn’t want any of your suitors to be distracted while I asked them some questions.”
“Uh-huh. Well, got any for me?”
“Just one: you said all of them were blending together right before I knocked you out. Does that mean they were distinct before?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, it wasn’t easy, but I was able ta pick out who was thinkin’ what up ’til then.”
“How about now?”
“Uh, yeah. It seems ta be fine.”
“Ah. Good — that means that your problems were likely the result of your brain being overworked.”
“How the heck is that a good thing?”
“It’s a good thing because it fits rather well into my theories, which means I might be able to help you.”
“Theories? Like what?”
“Well, I think I have a reasonably good idea of what’s going on, though I must admit that I have very little experience in this area, so my assessment may not be accurate. First of all, it seems that this telepathy is limited to what you are thinking. None of you are seeing out of each other’s eyes or hearing out of anyone else’s ears, for example.”
“But I picked up images from Akane,” Ranma pointed out, causing the girl in question to blush.
“Because she was actively thinking about them, not because that was what she saw through her eyes at the time.”
“Oh. Makes sense, I guess. Even that genie probably wouldn’ta done somethin’ like that, since she was tryin’ ta ‘improve my communcation’ or whatever.”
“Right. Now, moving on, it’s rather obvious that you four can each ‘talk’ to Ranma and vice versa. Furthermore, it appears that the link is automatically translating Shampoo’s thoughts from Mandarin to Japanese for Ranma and vice versa. What seems to be troublesome is your ability to ‘eavesdrop’ on Ranma’s half of any mental conversation, while not having direct access to whomever he is talking to.”
“But what about when I’m just thinkin’ ta myself? They still pick that up.”
“Yes, but it seems that your minds are treating that sort of thinking differently.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Well, look at it this way. Right now, you’re getting messages from all your suitors, correct?”
“Yeah….”
“Yet you are still able to carry out a normal conversation with me with almost no trouble.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s just cause I’m concentratin’ on you.”
“Exactly.”
“Huh?”
As Cologne tried to rephrase her explanation for Ranma’s benefit. Shampoo’s face suddenly lit up; she realized what her great-grandmother was talking about, and furthermore, she knew a way to communicate it quickly to her Airen. Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Ranma’s face immediately screwed up. “What the— what the heck was that, Shampoo?”
“Shampoo talking to Airen in head,” the Amazon replied. “You not notice what Shampoo thinking before, because too busy talking with Great-Grandmother. But when Shampoo think nonsense phrase, it get Airen’s attention.”
“I get it,” Ukyo said. “It’s like background music in a film. You don’t notice it unless there’s a reason, like a sudden increase in volume or a change in the overall tune. Ranma ‘hears’ us when we ‘talk’ to him because it ‘sounds’ different from out normal thoughts.”
“Uh, actually, it don’t ‘sound’ no different. I just noticed it ’cuz it was kinda jarrin’.”
“Still, Ukyo’s analogy is a good one,” Cologne agreed. “One can push it even further, as a person might notice the background music in a movie for no particular reason other than his or her mind decides to focus on that for a while, or a person might deliberately pay attention to background music if he or she has been told that it is worth listening to.”
“So, what, it’s all about attention?” Akane asked.
“If my suspicions are true,” Cologne said with a nod. “You’re always going to be ‘hearing’ Ranma’s thoughts, but you probably won’t ‘listen’ unless there’s something interesting going on in his head or you make a deliberate effort to hear what he’s saying.”
“Of course, given what we’ve experienced so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if idly thinking about Ranma-sama is enough to count as a ‘deliberate effort’.”
“What? Why would that be?” Akane asked.
Kodachi sighed and once again adopted a patronizing tone. “My dear, it is highly unlikely that any of us will be able to think of Ranma-sama without being reminded of these links. Thinking about the links will probably be enough to activate them, and we will gain access to Ranma’s thoughts.”
“So? All we’d have to do is stop thinking about the links, then.”
Cologne sighed; at times, it seemed that Akane was the perfect match for Ranma — under the right circumstances, they could be equally short-sighted. “My dear, do you realize how hard it is to not think about something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Try to not think about what Ranma is thinking for the next thirty seconds.”
| Ha! I’ll show her. I can think about things other than Ranma easily… damn, I just thought about him. Okay, let’s try again. I’ll stop thinking about Ranma… now. I am not thinking about Ranma. Dammit! I need to stop thinking about Ranma. This is getting me confused, just like Ranma — shit! | What the heck is going on? Music? What’s music got ta do with anythin’? I sure wish someone would explain it ta me, ’cuz it ain’t makin’ no sense. I mean, I guess what she’s sayin’ is true, ’cuz I ain’t noticin’ what the girls’re thinkin’…. Well, I wasn’t noticin’ ’til I thought about how I ain’t noticin’, but now I’m noticin’ that they’re tryin’ not ta notice that I’m thinkin’ about how I wasn’t noticin’ them…. Man, this is weird. Wait… why is Akane usin’ cuss words? Did I miss somethin’? |
“Okay, that was strange,” Ukyo said. No wonder he doesn’t communicate well. Anyone would get confused with a thought process like that.
“Well, excuse me for bein’ confused,” Ranma said indignantly. “I still don’t know how I’m s’posed ta keep from havin’ migraines.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry, Ranma. Like I said, I think you’re going to learn to process all of this information instinctively. In that sense, I suppose that it’s fortunate that you are the only one who has to deal with more than one link.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Why, your training, of course. Your father has spent the last decade training your mind to the point where it can quickly adapt to any new situation with little conscious effort on your part. The fact that you seem to have already gotten better at choosing the information you want to pay attention to is evidence of that. I’m not worried about you at all.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.”
“The rest of you, however….”
“What about us?” Akane asked.
“You are all going to have to resist the urge to jump to conclusions while you’re reading Ranma’s mind. Before you get upset, allow me to explain. Ranma is going to be dividing his attention between the four of you, but each of you only has to deal with Ranma. That means you will likely learn more about him in the short run than he will about each of you. Thus, I ask that you remember that he can not think about every aspect of a situation at once, which means that you will never be able to deduce his whole opinion about anything from a single glance.”
Shampoo wasn’t thrilled with Cologne’s suggestion. “And Airen free to jump however he want to conclusion?”
| I’m free to jump however I want to conclusion? Ranma mentally repeated. | Aiyah! That’s how that came out? I knew my Japanese grammar wasn’t perfect, but this is ridiculous! |
| Uh, don’t worry about it, Shampoo. It usually ain’t that bad. | I should hope so — but we’ll have to continue this later; Great-Grandmother is speaking. |
“Of course not. But it will likely be much easier for you to correct his errors, because you don’t have the distraction of three other people in your head to worry about.”
Akane sighed. She still didn’t like what Cologne was talking about, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. This sucks.
Ya got that right.
Kodachi spoke up again. “Is this all, old woman — ouch!”
Cologne retracted her staff from where it had struck the gymnast on the noggin. “For now, yes. There may be other problems further down the line, but they can be dealt with when they arise.”
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(Posted Fri, 12 Jan 2007 04:05)
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