“Okay,” Ranma replied, “so, when Mousse wakes up—”
“When he wakes up you will do nothing,” the Matriarch interrupted. “He has some hard choices to make, and for any of you to become directly involved would be nothing more than an unnecessary and quite possibly dangerous distraction. I will deal with him personally.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts,’ Ranma. You are an Amazon, and I am your Matriarch, and I am ordering you not to get involved. Besides, Mousse is the least of your worries at the moment.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“The legality of your arrangement may have been taken care of, but you still need to deal with society as a whole. Public opinion cares very little for what is legal or illegal, and the vast majority of Japanese persons are going to consider your legal arrangement to be rather immoral, to say nothing of your actual status according to our traditions. You must be prepared to deal with the scrutiny of the public, and the sooner you come up with a workable plan, the better.”
“An’ how are we s’posed ta do that?”
“I don’t know,” Cologne replied honestly. “That is for you to decide; we Amazons tend to avoid getting involved with the affairs of other members of the Tribe unless necessary. And since that the five of you always have the option of moving to Joketsuzoku open to you, such necessity is not present at the moment.”
“But I don’t have a clue where ta start.”
“Then I suggest you ask your wives for assistance. Each one of them is intelligent in their own way, and if you work together, I’m sure you’ll manage to find a solution.”
Ranma blushed intensely as he realized that he’d inadvertently discounted his spouses’ ability to help. Um… sorry?
Soun Tendo didn’t wake up until half past ten, and even then it was only because he'd fallen out of his bed. His vision was blurred, his ears were ringing, and the sharp aftertaste of vomit was lingering in his mouth. Obviously, he and Genma had the time of their lives while they’d been drinking last night; too bad Soun could hardly remember any of it. He was fairly certain of the reason for their carousing: Ranma and Akane were finally taking care of those pesky Amazons, which in turn meant that they’d finally accepted the engagement that their fathers had bestowed upon them. At least, he was pretty sure that’s what it meant. Genma had come to that conclusion last night, and at the time, his reasoning seemed sound. Of course, when one is working through the evening’s third bottle of sake, it is quite easy for almost any idea to seem reasonable.
The Tendo patriarch managed to rise to his feet and exit his room. Someone was in the kitchen—presumably Kasumi, but his oldest daughter didn’t usually clatter her utensils so loudly that they sounded like high-pitched gongs. Soun let out a grunt of frustration as he shuffled into his home’s main room, where his middle daughter was apparently scribbling something-or-other into a notebook, presumably those lists of figures that she kept as part of that after-school hobby that she had yet to fully explain to him. Still, the entrance of her father was enough to pull her attention away from her ledger to give him an appropriate morning greeting: “Well, aren’t we up bright and early?” Nabiki asked sarcastically.
“Nabiki, I am a little too hung over to tolerate your usual flippancy,” her father chided her.
“Well, it’s not as though you had to go on a binge drinking session with Genma.”
“Ranma and Akane have finally taken the first steps towards handling those other girls. Why shouldn’t we celebrate? Their marriage is all but inevitable now.”
“Well, you’ve got that part right, at least,” Nabiki replied with an ever-so-subtle roll of her eyes.
“I’m glad you share my enthusiasm. In fact, hangover aside, this could very well be the best day I’ve had in a long time.”
“That’s assuming you don’t flip out when find out what’s going on,” Nabiki said under her breath.
Unfortunately, Soun heard her muttering. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
Nabiki paused in thought for a few seconds. Naturally, she had no intention of telling either father about what was really going on (in fact, she was seriously considering hightailing it out of the house when Ranma and Akane eventually returned), but perhaps she could cushion the blow a bit with some well-placed hints. “Well… let me put it this way. What’s the basic principle behind Anything Goes Martial Arts?”
Soun looked confused; why would his daughter need to ask him such a simple question? Surely it hadn’t been that long since Nabiki stopped training in the Art. “To win by any means necessary.”
“And when you say ‘any means necessary,’ you mean that you use every technique and strategy you know to come out victorious.”
“Yes…” Soun still wasn’t sure where this conversation was headed.
“But what do you do when the techniques and strategies you know don’t work?”
Another mind-numbingly easy question. “You come up with new ideas.” It was the central tenet of both schools of Anything Goes. “Nabiki, is there a point to this?”
“Don’t worry, I’m almost there,” his daughter reassured him. “Basically, Akane and Ranma have been taught to approach all of life’s difficulties this way, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s what they’re doing as far as the marriages go—they’ve tried every conventional solution they could think of, and it hasn’t worked, so now they’re thinking outside the box, if you’ll pardon the cliché.”
“Oh… I suppose that’s good to know… in fact, now that I think about it it’s very good to know. After all, it shows that they are listening to the sage advice of their elders.”
Nabiki almost had her father right where she wanted him to be, but she still needed to move in for the kill. “So you approve of the way they’re handling the situation, then?”
“How could I not? This is wonderful news to hear!”
“Will Genma feel the same way?”
“I'm certain he will—in fact, I think I’ll tell him myself. Uh, where is he?”
“I think Uncle Genma is still passed out in the dojo,” rang Kasumi’s voice from the kitchen.
“Thank you, Kasumi.” Soun had quite a bit more spring in his step as he walked to his dojo. It seemed that everything was going to turn out okay after all.
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(Posted Wed, 29 Aug 2007 23:34)
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