Whatever idle fascinations Nabiki might have had were knocked aside by the call over the train's intercom. Reality intruded on her consciousness, and the car around her came into clarity. She saw the people around her and she began to realize that her mind was in the past. Dragging herself into he here and now, she turned her attention to the opening doors.
Looking at her Master move out of the car, and followed in his wake without question. Others might have been around her, but she only cared about Ranma, which made it easy to go where he wanted to. Of course, he was trailing after his father, but that wasn't a problem at the moment. They had a place to go to, so she didn't need to make a comment quite yet.
Then again, she was finding that she wanted to look at what was around her, even if she hadn't been the sort of person to gawk before. There was something about being in this district again that brought it out in her. Around her people rushed here and there, some running along, and others walking along at their own pace. Advertisements lined the walls, almost like decorations and she took a moment to consider them as she passed. But they weren't enough to keep her attention, and she gazed at the people around her, with the high school students chattering along really catching her eye.
Had the world gone a bit differently, she would have been just like them. Wearing her school's uniform, she would have been leaving classes and walking with her friends as they talked about whatever was the latest thing that interested them. Perhaps she would have even been like the woman in the pantsuit holding out for a small boy hurrying to her. In that life, she could have become a personal assistant or even an executive who would head out to work hard, only to return to have her daughter or son greet her at home.
That was no longer possible for her though, as she belonged to another. Even if Ranma was perfectly willing to give her the freedom to do what she wanted, at the end of the day, he was the one who would choose the path that her life would take. Such a thing wasn't the terrible sort of problem that it could have been, and she wasn't as terrified about that prospect as she could have been.
After all, the place that she was seeing as they stepped out of the station was going to be her home. For other girls, that wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for someone who lived on the road, the prospect of being able to have a stable place to live was a major change. In her eyes, this was a fantastic shift, and she did like the idea of getting to live in one place for a long time. She could see herself walking those long streets, and visiting those shops. Property walls extended around houses, giving privacy to those living in those homes. A quiet air of comfort hung around the neighborhood, with cars passing along with shoppers heading in to the market avenue. There seemed to be at least one school in the area, with girls in jumper style uniforms and boys in uniform jackets heading out from one direction.
Nearby was a cake shop that looked to have some tasty stuff available. Close to that was a police kiosk, complete with officers standing there to help anyone who needed some aid. Food carts waited nearby for customers, and all sorts of work was going on around them. It all seemed to be very natural... save for the slight confusion that she got when she saw the florist shop nearby, as she couldn't shake the image of seeing candy in the position of those flowers.
"Is somethin' wrong?" Ranma asked, turning to look at his slave with a frown on his face.
"Eh? Huh?" grunted Nabiki before she gave him a rare sheepish expression. "Oh, sorry. It's nothing major."
"Really? 'Cause ya look kind of... out of it."
"Well...."
"What is it?"
Her eyes lowered as she looked at the street in front of her. "I'm... I'm from this area. I used to live here."
"This is your home?!"
"Actually, my home is with you, Master."
"Ya know what I mean," her Owner muttered as he spared her a sour glance.
"Yes, and I was being serious. But still, I was born here, and lived in this area before I was taken to be a slave."
"So... this was where your family came from."
"Yes, we were. But back then, we would have never thought that we would have wound up as we did," Nabiki admitted, giving a small shrug.
"Like you in that market when I got ya."
"Exactly."
He pressed his lips together before asking his next question. "What about your family?"
"My sisters and father? I don't know."
"They make certain that they don't," Genma piped in, glancing over at the two teens. "Unless they are going to be owned by the same person, or will be working the same area, they wouldn't know."
"It gives them a chance at a new start, free of the past," she reluctantly agreed.
"It still seems to be a sucky thing ta be separated from them," the pigtailed boy grumbled.
Hearing that touched Nabiki, and tears threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes. But crying would have ruined too much for her to give in to it, so she gave him a bright smile and wrapped her arms around his arms. Leaning in towards her blushing Owner, she cuddled up to him and they continued to walk along, while:
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:27)
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.