Nabiki's sour expression grew deeper. She hadn't yet noticed her sister had entered the room. "What's the meaning of this, Kasumi," she accosted the house guests. "This is not a good joke. What's with the outfit, and the hair-do, and where did you even find a panda?"
The second 'Kasumi' rolled her eyes. That was when Akane noticed the real Kasumi standing there, frozen, holding a tray of refreshments. Akane's eyes spranged open wide as she hastily tapped Nabiki on the arm.
Nabiki brushed off Akane's hand. "What is it, Akane? Can't you see I'm busy talking to ... Kasumi?" Nabiki had finally turn to look at what Akane was pointing at. She looked from one Kasumi to the other and back again. Sitting down heavily, she exclaimed "Would someone mind telling me what's going on here?"
However, the Kasumi that was probably her sister stood there shyly, hands shaken, the cups on her tray rattling loudly. The other Kasumi, the one with the panda, looked to her feet sheepishly. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry 'bout this." the Kasumi with the braided ponytail blushed.
"Ranma Saotome?" Akane peered quizzically at the newcomer. "You look just like-"
She never got to finish as her father suddenly sprang up from the floor at the mention of Ranma's name. "Ranma Saotome? Here? Where? Kasumi, be a doll and bring your panda outside. I wouldn't want to give Ranma the wrong impression," Soun addressed the Kasumi look-alike.
Ranma heaved a long suffering sigh. He was curious, though, now that he got a good look at Kasumi, at why the Spring of Drowned Young Girl made him look like Kasumi. 'Snap out of it Kasumi-chan,' Ranma soul-spoke to his mate. 'What do I do?'
Ranma's panic snapped Kasumi out of her funk. 'It'll will be alright, dear,' she replied to Ranma as she sent a soft, tender caress over the soul-link. "I'm right here, father," Kasumi said as she sat her tray down.
Soun looked over, looked back at Ranma, then promptly feinted.
"Oh my," two voices chorused in eerie unison.
"Do you think it was the shock of me looking like you?" Ranma asked Kasumi.
"I think, he's just surprised you're not a boy," came the reply.
"So, no one is getting married, then?" Akane stated with a sigh of relief.
"Where did you get an idea like that, little sister?" Kasumi's response was confusing to her sisters.
Nabiki looked at her elder sister strangely. "You can't marry Ranma, she's a girl. I know you were looking forward to meeting a boy, but ... If you are looking for a boy to date, how about we go out later, see what we can find."
"I'm just glad this whole arranged marriage fiasco is behind us now. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the dojo." Akane left to go finish breaking blocks.
Ranma and Kasumi looked to each other and laughed. "That's alright, Nabiki. I don't need to meet anyone. I'm going to marry Ranma."
"It's legal, I really am a boy."
Nabiki looked at Ranma disbelievingly. Reaching out, she poked Ranma in the chest before trailing her finger down Ranma's body.
Ranma made an eep noise as he flinched away from the finger before it got to low.
"Nabiki!" Kasumi chastised her sister, scandalized by Nabiki's behavior. "It is not polite to touch people like that."
"What's going on here? Am I on some kind of television show for pranks?" Nabiki seemed upset. Her sister and their guest sighed simultaneously. Nabiki became even more upset, and shocked, when the Kasumi-impostor accepted the tea kettle from her sister and used it to douse herself, turning into a boy in the process. "Wha- wha- wha-" Nabiki couldn't get her mouth to work right she was in so much shock.
Ranma smirked. "See, I'm a boy." Turning to Kasumi, he smiled before sitting down. Sniffing at the food, he remarked, "Looks and smells great. I'm starved, mind if I eat?"
Kasumi smiled. "Of course not, please, dig in."
Nabiki remained standing and staring confoundedly. Kasumi sat across from Ranma and the two began chatting. Genma, meanwhile, decided to deal with the feeling of eerie surrealism by just simply taking a hot bath.
"I always wanted a spring wedding. Do you think we ought to wait for spring first before marrying?" Kasumi mentioned in between taking bites from a cookie.
Ranma swallowed some green tea. "I guess it depends on how much work it'll be to put one together. Who should we invite? I can't say I know very many people."
Kasumi smiled, "Well, family of course. Maybe Dr. Tofu, he's taken care of the family for such a long time."
'I like him, he's funny,' Ranma sent Kasumi's way.
Kasumi continued speaking out loud as if she wasn't interrupted, but did send an acknowledgment via their linked souls. "Maybe there are some members of the town council father would like to be present as well." Both turned their head to the prone form of the Tendo patriarch upon remembering they had forgotten about him in their joy of being face to face finally.
Kasumi sighed. 'One moment Dear, I better find father a pillow and get him a wet rag.'
Ranma smiled at Kasumi, briefly, before keeping up appearances by commenting in a spoken voice, "Would you like any help with your father?"
Kasumi shook her head. "No thank you. I'll only be a moment. Please enjoy yourself with these humble refreshments until I return."
After Kasumi left, Nabiki finally sat down across from Ranma and eyed him curiously. After a minute of being stared at, Ranma grew uncomfortable and addressed the girl, "Can I help you with anything?"
This seemed to have shook Nabiki out of whatever thoughts it was she was having. "Huh? ... Oh, no, nothing at all." Nabiki pursed her lips, and after a moment's thought she started to ask Ranma questions. "Where you always like this?"
Ranma smirked. "Like what? Dashing? Handsome? Utterly in love with your sister?"
Nabiki snorted. "You just met her, so I highly doubt the last is true. You know I meant about being a girl."
"It's a more recent development." Ranma shrugged. "And I'm not really a girl, I just have a girl's body sometimes."
"If it looks like a duck... So, how did it happen?"
Kasumi returned to the room with a pillow, a bowl of water, and a towel. Ranma eyed the bowl of water warily.
Ranma began to answer Nabiki, "Well, when I was in China-"
"Oh, China! How nice to travel, you must have lots of stories to share," Kasumi interrupted.
Nabiki nodded. "Yeah, must of cost quite a few yen. I always wanted to fly on a plane."
Ranma shrugged. "Me too. Maybe one day I'll get to fly on one."
"Oh, did you go by boat?" Nabiki's mind was imagining a nice, posh cruise ship.
"Actually, we swam over. Pops called it a training exercise."
Nabiki looked incredulous. "You don't think we'd believe that you and your father swam to China. Next you are going to say you were cursed by a Chinese witch-doctor to turn into a girl."
"Not exactly, but I did meet an elder who's not unlike a shaman. Anyhow, so there we were, in China..."
“Come on Ranma, stop being such a pansy and show me what you got,” Genma called out to his son from the edge of the springs.
"Right behind you pops," Ranma answered.
The two leapt unto the tops of a couple bamboo poles among the many poles that dotted the landscape. They took up their stance, each watching the other for a weakness. They continued their stare down as the wind rustled some leaves and while nature continued on its oblivious course. A big black bug buzzed by between the two yet neither moved a muscle. The shadow of a cloud passed by overhead, and a leaf from a nearby tree glided down on the breeze.
"What are you doing? Don't you know how dangerous this place is?" A guide popped out of nowhere speaking in Chinese, ruining the mood. The guide's presence distracted Genma first.
"Looks like you won that round, Ranma."
Ranma preened. "Yep, old man. You didn't stand a chance." Turning to the guide to talk to him in broken Chinese, Ranma trying to learn what he can of the language because Kasumi thought it would be nice to know, Ranma asked, "What do you mean by dangerous? It's just training."
The guide's answer went unheard as Genma used that time to surprise attack Ranma. "Ah ha! Always be on your guard!" The flying tackle of Genma's caught Ranma unawares. So while Genma was able to land on another bamboo pole, Ranma was unceremoniously dunked into a pool of water.
"Ayyah, That no good Mr. Customer," the guide exclaimed in poor Japanese, "Mr. Customer's son fell in spring of drowned girl. All who fall in take body of young girl. Tragic story of girl who drown in spring fifteen hundred years ago."
Genma looked at the guide in confusion. "Eh?"
That was when Ranma broke the surface. "Pops, what a low dow..." Ranma trailed off as something didn't feel right. His voice was higher. Looking down, he realized he turned into a girl. "Pops!" He screamed in anger.
'Ranma, what's wrong?' Kasumi could feel Ranma's strong emotions over the link.
Ranma was too busy to respond right away. Genma, surprised by a girl screaming at him, didn't bother to block Ranma's attack and found himself falling into a pool of his own.
"No good, Mr. Customer fall in spring of drowned panda. Very tragic story of panda who drown in spring two thousand years ago."
"...and that's how me and my father picked up curses in China. The idiot couldn't read Chinese, but had a Chinese pamphlet. The only thing he could make out on it was 'training grounds', so he dragged us there. I mean, it could of been a training ground for folk dancing or something."
"You expect us to believe that somewhere in China there is a cursed valley of pools that can change any person unlucky enough to fall into one?" Nabiki was still skeptical.
Ranma shrugged. "Believe what you want. Though, how would you explain my ability to change?"
Nabiki fell silent having no answer to that.
'When you told me you were changed into a girl, I never expected it to be me.'
'Yeah, weird isn't it? I didn't know what you looked like, so I didn't know it was you I turned into. I do wonder about that now.'
Soun made some groaning noise as he came around. "Oh what a horrible dream. I dreamt Genma's son turned out to be a girl."
"Are you feeling better, Father?" Kasumi was as dutiful of a daughter as ever.
Soun slid the wet compress off his eyes. "What happened? I drea ... Ranma?" Soun caught sight of a young man sitting nearby.
Ranma chuckled nervously. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about that."
Soun sprung up to give Ranma a hug. Unfortunately, he also manage to send the water bowl flying triggering Ranma's curse.
"Oh how I waited -" Soun noticed the person he was hugging wasn't male. "Kasumi?" Soun asked weakly while staring Ranma in the face.
"Wow," Nabiki breathed.
"Yes, Father," Kasumi responded.
Soun heard his daughter's voice from behind him. "Ahh, it wasn't a dream, it's a nightmare! I died and I am now in Hell thanks to the Master's wicked ways."
Ranma sighed. "I'm going to have to explain this again, I see."
Nabiki rolled her eyes at her father's antics. Kasumi picked up the fallen bowl and filled it with hot water from the kettle.
"Would you like some hot water?" Ranma accepted the bowl with a smile of gratitude before upturning it over his head. "Oh, Father, relax!"
Soun's jaw dropped as he witnessed Ranma change back. "What is going on here?"
"I think I can explain, Soun-old-pal." Genma entered the room as a human.
"Genma, is that you?" Soun was happy to see his old friend.
Genma nodded. "Yes, and now listen to my story of the horrors surrounding Jusenkyo like a foggy mist."
Ranma rolled his eyes. 'Would you like a bath, yourself? All of that traveling, the rain, and you keep getting wet too, you must be in need of one.' Ranma heard over the link. He smiled at the concern Kasumi was showing him.
'Yes, a nice hot soak sounds excellent.' Kasumi and Ranma left the room unnoticed, as Soun and Nabiki were engrossed in the exaggerated and embellished story Genma was telling.
Kasumi led Ranma to the bath. 'I'd join you, but I do have guests to see to.' Kasumi mentioned wickedly, with a mischievous glint to her eye.
Ranma smirked back. 'Let pops fend for himself, he'll be fine. I'd like to have all of your attention so we can finally greet properly.' Ranma leaned in to kiss Kasumi softly on the lips.
"Well, if you put it that way," Kasumi said breathlessly in a daze, "what are we waiting for?"
Genma was wrapping up his story, no one had yet noticed the absence of the two teens, when Akane came in from her workout.
"Ranma tells it different," Nabiki commented to Genma.
"What a worthless son," Genma began to rail to the heavens, "to curse his father first with a sucker punch and then to lie about it. What did I ever do to deserve such an ungrateful brat."
Nabiki snorted. "And you want one of us to marry him?"
"Urk," Genma exclaimed in surprise. "He-he, I mean, Ranma hasn't yet grasped the art of storytelling. He tends to keep it er ..."
"Honest?" Nabiki guessed.
"... Simple."
"Oh Genma, to be cursed so, it is worse then anything the master has ever done to us." The two old men shivered in memory.
Akane blinked at the antics of everyone. Sidling up to Nabiki, she whispered to her sister, "Who's the guy with Dad?"
"Ranma's dad," Nabiki answered. "Oh, hey - The bath is ready for you."
"Thanks, Nabiki."
Akane entered the first room of the bath, and began to strip out of her sweaty gi. She didn't notice Ranma's clothing in the hamper as they were below Kasumi's, and didn't register anything out of the ordinary with her sister's clothes being present. Grabbing a towel, she slid the door to the inner room where the shower, drain, stools, buckets, and furo resided. She was shocked to find some strange boy standing in the furo, dripping water from all over. She didn't even notice her older sister was also in the bath with the boy at first, not until Kasumi nervously said, "Oh, hi there, Akane."
Nabiki was shocked to see Akane go running by wearing only her gi top. "I'll drown him in the bathtub," she was muttering.
Watching her sister come waddling in carrying a heavy stone lantern, Nabiki asked, "What are you doing? Drown who?"
"There's a pervert in the bathtub."
"A pervert?" Nabiki figured Kuno upped his strategy. "Anyone we know from school?"
"I don't know who, it's just some boy." Akane was panting from trying to hold up the lantern while Nabiki questioned her.
Ranma walked in at the moment, having dressed much quicker than Kasumi. "He-he, sorry about that."
"Oh, it's just Ranma. You can relax now, Akane." Nabiki grabbed another cookie from the table and munched on it.
"What do you mean? Ranma is a girl!" Akane had missed the whole show and tell, having been working out.
"Sheesh, get with the program, Akane," Nabiki said nonchalantly. "Ranma's a boy who turns into a girl."
Kasumi walked into the room, blushing, but not one was paying much attention to her.
"Ah, there's my boy," Genma proclaimed loudly.
"Yes, I can see. What a fine boy he looks too." Soun was drunk on excitement, knowing the promised day was at hand. Putting his arm around Ranma, he introduced all of his daughters. "This is Kasumi, she's nineteen. This one is Nabiki, she is seventeen. And that is Akane, she is sixteen. Pick the one you want to marry."
"I choose-" Ranma began but was cut off.
"Choose wisely son," Genma slapped Ranma roughly on his back. "Kids these days," he mentioned to Soun, "they wouldn't know a good wife if they saw one."
"Ah yes, so true, Genma," Soun said as he nodded his agreement.
"What do you mean, pick one and he'll marry her?" Akane was incensed. She was upset at the whole arrangement, embarrassed that Ranma saw her naked, embarrassed she saw Ranma naked, and angry that he was a pervert (as she saw it). "Why would any of us want to marry a pervert like him?"
"Pervert? You're the one who walked in on me," Ranma tried to defend himself, calmly.
"Yes, little sister. Did you not see the occupied sign on the door?" Kasumi wanted to defend Ranma as well.
"It doesn't matter, it's different for a girl to see a boy naked. And you turn into a girl to boot. How much more of a pervert can you be?"
Ranma took a deep breath to calm himself, as Kasumi had shown him ages ago. He knew from her that getting mad was a terrible way to win a fight, and the first person to lose their temper is the one that loses the argument. At least, that was always how Kasumi saw it.
"Look, I think there has been a misunderstanding here." Ranma was once more calm and collected.
Akane snorted. "All you perverts are alike, so what's to misunderstand?"
"You're not giving Ranma a fair chance, little sister." Just as Kasumi had been a calming influence on Ranma's temper, Ranma had influenced her into standing up for herself more often. Each had become a little like the other over the long years they shared intimate, yet non-physical, contact.
"It is decided, then," Soun said sagely. "Ranma and Akane shall be the ones to marry."
Genma nodded. "They get along like married couples already."
Three sets of frowns was turned towards the dumb and dumber duo.
"I'm not marrying that pervert." Akane vehemently rejected the proposal.
Soun just nodded like everything would be fine. "There, there. You'll see, it'll all work out fine."
Akane and Ranma snorted.
"What's for dinner, Tendo? I'm starving and we have been on the road for some time now." Genma, once he got the important business out of the way, resorted once more to pampering his urges.
Soun looked at Kasumi without nary a concern. "Kasumi, dear, when are you planning on feeding us?"
Kasumi frowned deeper. "Why don't you ask Akane to cook for you? You let her do everything else."
"Splendid idea, lets see how your new wife cooks, right son?" Genma rubbed his stomach to emphasize his point.
Soun grew white. "What's the meaning of this? Kasumi, go cook now."
Ranma frowned, he did not like to see Kasumi treated like that. "Doesn't anyone care for what we want?"
Genma thought Ranma was trying to weasel out of the marriage arrangement. "Nonsense, boy. Don't you think your elders know what's best for you? You'll marry Akane, it is for family honor."
Ranma fought back the urge to strangle his father, slowly.
"We have guests, Kasumi. Can't you show some hospitality? When have I ever asked much of you?"
Kasumi grew flushed and angry. "You must really hate me, Father, to give my fiancče away like I don't even matter. Akane can cook for you from now on. I'm eating out. Only Ranma and Nabiki are welcomed to join me." Kasumi stormed out of the house.
Ranma gave the flabbergasted father his coldest glare. "If she cries, I'm coming back to finish what she started." Ranma punctuated his statement by cracking the knuckles on his fist.
As Ranma turned to follow Kasumi, Akane remembered seeing the two in the tub, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. "Hey pervert, you don't think I'm going to leave you alone with my sister, do you? Who knows what you'll get up to with her, and Kasumi can't fight."
Ranma paid her no heed, having more important stuff on his mind. 'I'm right behind you. It'll be OK, I promise.'
"Hey, look at me when I am talking to you!" Akane grew angrier and angrier. When Ranma didn't even stop, let alone turn around, she grabbed the nearby table and brought it down on Ranma's head.
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See other episodes by Errol Peregrinus
(Posted Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:04)
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