"It's nothing, boy," Genma said in an effort to dismiss what was obviously a very loud "something" as quickly as possible. "Nabiki here just seems to be having some trouble identifying the root cause of your difficulties."
"The what now?"
"He thinks it's not his fault," Nabiki explained, "even though it's perfectly obvious that it is."
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"If you children can't behave, I'm going to have to separate you," Akane chided the pair.
"I must admit, you two do seem to be obsessing about this a bit much," Soun said uncertainly, still feeling uneasy about Kasumi's vague, foreboding warning.
"She started it!"
"He started it!"
"Enough!" Ranma said in an effort to establish some sense of order (or at least what passed for order in the Tendo compound). "Look, Nabiki may be exaggeratin' when she says it's all yer fault, but you guys—especially you, Pops—certainly were the ones who made this whole mess even possible by not tellin' us about the marriage arrangement."
"It's not my—"
"Shaddup," Ranma brusquely said, cutting off her father's self-righteous tirade. "This ain't gonna be easy, so lemme just get it outta the way so you can carry on carryin' on. An' can someone please get me some hot water?"
Amazingly, the three teenagers managed to get through most of their story without any interruptions—apparently, all the talk of genies and telepathy and polygamy had managed to stun the two fathers into silence. However, when a reaction did come, it did so at a very high volume. "Have you lost your mind, boy?! You get psychic powers and your first instinct is to get your own personal harem? That doesn't make any sense!"
"They do it to get around Amazon law—no time for anything else," Shampoo retorted.
"Oh, stick a sock in it, you gaijin slut," Genma sneered.
Ranma wasn't about to let this escalate into a violent conflict between (reluctant) in-laws, so he attempted to shift the conversation by announcing his own reaction, which was one of utter confusion. "Wait… so yer just gonna take us at our word that we got this psychic thing goin' on now?"
"Boy, given all the weird stuff that's happened to you, something like that is well within the bounds of plausibility. What's truly mind-boggling is that you'd actually go along with some perverted custom of a bunch of backwoods yahoos. Speaking of which, shouldn't you be pulling out your demon head trick by now, Soun?"
"Oh, don't be so silly, old friend," Soun said, diplomatically dismissing Genma's idea. "The youngsters have just made an insanely stupid decision that they could have avoided by listening to us in the first place. Fortunately, a simple annulment should fix everything."
"Can't," Akane said.
"Why not?"
"It's perfectly legal in Amazon law."
"But you're not an Amazon," her father replied.
"When I married Shampoo, I became one."
"What?!"
"Oh, don't look so shocked. After all, the Amazons have been saying Ranma was a member of the tribe since he 'married' Shampoo."
"But why would you agree to this? You've always tried to avoid scandalous situations like this before."
"And she's been oh so successful at that," Nabiki added sarcastically.
Soun looked rather nonplussed at his middle daughter's intrusion into the conversation. "Her lack of success as much your doing as it is hers, if not more so."
"So? That just adds more weight to my argument that they shouldn't be held totally responsible for their situation."
This, quite naturally, came as something of a shock to the others present. "Nabiki, you're willing to actually claim responsibility for this?" asked Akane, who was amazed that her sister would give up any ground in an argument like this one.
"Partial responsibility," the mercenary girl clarified. "There's hardly anybody in Nerima who hasn't had some hand in this mess," she added with only slight exaggeration.
"Look," Ranma said jumping back into the conversation. "We all basically decided that this was the best choice that was available to us. Is it perfect? No. But we did it, an' now everybody's gonna hafta live with it, 'cuz there ain't no turnin' back now."
Seeing that his son was adamant in maintaining the new status quo, Genma decided to console himself by transferring his frustrations onto someone else. "Well, at least your mother will be happy."
"Uh, not really…"
"Well, why shouldn't she be? After all, she's the one who's always going on about how proud she is that you have so many girls after you."
"I never said that," came an answer from the doorway. A series of head turns revealed the Nodoka had arrived to contribute her two yen to the conversation. "I merely meant that the fact that so many girls were vying for Ranma's attention was evidence of his desirability as a man. I never intended for him to have lifelong relationships with all of them."
Perhaps the most surprising thing about what happened next was Genma's complete lack of surprise at his wife's sudden arrival. He simply continued the conversation as if she'd been there the whole time: "Yet I assume that you've given your approval to this madness?"
"I'd say 'approval' is too strong a word, but…"
"But?"
"But… yes. Their situation is so far beyond normal, that no solution is going to be perfect."
"Oh, great, so Ranma and Akane get to spend the rest of their lives trying to come up with reasons for why three other women live with them. A perfectly adequate trade-off, there."
"Pops, will ya please just shut up?"
"Boy, if the two of you are to combine the schools, you'll need a legitimate heir."
"And we'll give you one."
"How? Do you really think the Japanese government will recognize this insanity?"
"They already did," Shampoo said with a vicious grin.
"Huh?"
"Yeah," Ranma confirmed. "We got everything set up with some guy from Foreign Affairs. It's all taken care of. We got dual citizenship now, so that means Amazon marriage customs are all okay for us, or somethin' like that."
That bit of news caused something amazing to happen: it sucked the hot air out of Genma's ranting. "D… Dual citizenship?" The three teenagers nodded in response, and the realization that there had to have been some major moving and shaking to get this done settled in on the stout martial artist. "Holy shit, they really are serious."
"What made you think we weren't?" Akane asked. Don't tell me he really thought we'd joke about something like that.
I dunno, Akane, Ranma thought back in reply. I think it's more that he didn't think we'd put much thought inta this.
"Well, it's just… I thought you did it on a whim…."
See? "Look, Pops. We know what we're doin'. It's not like we expect this ta solve all our problems—just replace a really big problem with a whole slew of smaller ones that'll be easier ta handle."
"I… I need to sit down."
As Genma did so, the room's attention turned to his best friend. "I must say, you're taking this rather well, Father," Kasumi said.
"Well, of course," Soun said amiably. "You can't take dreams to seriously, my dear."
"Dreams?"
The Tendo patriarch chuckled. "Of course. This has to be a bad dream, because there's no way in hell that my baby girl would ever willingly go through with something like this under any circumstances. Ergo, this isn't really happening."
"Uh, Daddy…"
"What is it, skanky dream Akane?"
The youngest Tendo winced at her father's flippant insult. "This isn't a dream."
"Yes, it is—ow!" Soun began rubbing his arm at the spot where Nabiki pinched him. "What was that for?"
"To prove that you're awake."
Soun didn't respond, instead staring blankly at his middle daughter, who waved her hand in front of his face after several seconds of silence. "Uh, Daddy?"
"Great," Shampoo said. "Father-in-law broken."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Kwakerjak
(Posted Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:10)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.