“What a surprise! It seems that, for once, you’ve thought before act,” Nabiki acknowledged.
The smile on her sister’s face grew upon hearing the flattery. However, she did so without realizing the implied insult in it.
“But I think that your plan has a failure.”
“Oh, really? Which?” Akane spat out with arms akimbo.
“I suppose that if the duel is in our Dojo, the referee will be dad.”
“And?” The voice of her younger sister didn’t sound very sure, because she started to see what could be the possible error.
“Do you think that dad will allow that you confront a stranger in a duel?”
The question remained floating in the air without get an answer.
Akane lowered her head and sighed, resigned.
She, better than anyone, knew how protective that her father could be towards his daughters. When he learned about the duel, the most likely course of action he would take is that he would forbid her to fight, or worse, that he would want to fight instead of her. The thought made her blush from the shame. Luckily for her, the shadows that were made because of the streetlights, the night sky and having the head lowered, joined forces to hide it.
Before her sister could say anything, Nabiki continued.
“And, even if he allowed it, Sanzenin always could invalidate it by saying that the referee wasn’t impartial.”
Akane raised her face and looked directly at Nabiki.
“I couldn’t care less,” she said with a haughty voice. “I’ll beat him as often as necessary!”
“But this way, you’ll never manage to get rid of him.”
Yuka and Sayuri, who observed the conversation in silence, realized that the fire of their friend’s rage had been defeated by the cold logic of her sister.
Her next words meant her surrender.
“Then, what do you suggest to do?”
“Don’t worry,” her sister answered with a smile. “I have an idea. We’ll hold the duel at my high school and I’ll ask to the captain of the Kendo team to be the referee.”
“OK.”
Yuka, who wasn’t as sure, expressed her doubts loudly.
“Nabiki, are you sure that they will give permission? After all, it is your first year in Furinkan High.”
“Trust me,” she said, accompanied with a smile of supreme confidence. “Furthermore, we even can give them a percentage from the tickets.”
Yuka and Sayuri looked at each other in surprise when confronted with this suggestion.
“Don’t even think about it!” Akane warned, annoyed.
In that instant, Nabiki was about to reply, but seeing how her sister’s arms were folded, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to change her mind.
“All right,” she agreed resignedly and, with a great, theatrical sigh, added, “though, it’s a pity.”
Before the young martial artist had the opportunity to reproach this last comment, she raised both arms in a reassuring gesture.
“Don’t worry! I understand. No tickets.”
Although her younger sister didn’t seem very convinced by her words, Nabiki considered this the end of the conversation. After quickly saying goodbye to Yuka and Sayuri, she started to walk towards the Dojo.
When she passed Akane, she raised her right hand in a farewell gesture.
“I’ll see you at home, sis.”
The person in question didn’t answer, but she did quietly observe with her arms folded, looking at the retreating figure of her sister.
As she moved away, her expression changed from anger to calm.
For once she had managed to win an argument with her sister. With said victory, Akane hadn’t a reason to continue irritated.
When Nabiki disappeared around the corner, Akane turned towards her friends, happy for the first time since the incident.
Nabiki turned slightly towards Ranma and commented to him in a didactic tone of voice.
“Did you think there was enough people to be interested to see this duel and pay for it? No. Betting, however, is a very different story. Very few people would miss a chance to earn easy money, and a duel between the famous and undefeated champion of martial arts skating versus the extremely young heiress of an obscure and little know martial art is one of them. Only took a couple of rumors to persuade the undecided.”
At the moment that Nabiki finished the explanation, Ranma noticed a shine on her eyes that surprised him. However, before he could ask what the meaning of this was, his hostess started speaking again.
The mix of rage and bitterness in her voice surprised Ranma, especially when the target was Nabiki herself.
“I thought that I was really clever, so goddamn smart. Smart enough to take advantage of my sister’s impulsivity and, at the same time, so selfish as to not worry about what could happen.” An ironic smile appeared in Nabiki’s lips. “I could say that I wasn’t worried because I knew that she was going to win, but I would only be lying to myself.”
Suddenly Nabiki turned towards Ranma and yelled at him, “Do you know how much I won this damn day? Do you?”
Ranma, completely taken by surprise by Nabiki’s outburst, was only able to shake his head.
“16,550 yen. 16,550 fucking yen.”
And, unable to bear the pressure anymore, the young woman rested her arms on the table and burst into tears.
Ranma didn’t know, but the fact was that Nabiki felt responsible for Akane’s rape. This was very likely due to her bad conscience for all the times that she had taken advantage of her sister. But she didn’t tell to anybody because she feared the possibility of being hated. The feelings of guilt, to that day, continued torment her. That is, until that very moment when, unconsciously, she had told everything to someone that she had met just a few hours ago.
After her confession, her tears served as both, at least to her, her penance and absolution.
Ranma, for his part, didn’t know what to do. Throughout his life had been trained to react quickly under any situation. However he was paralyzed when he saw Nabiki cry.
After a few moments of indecision, he raised his arm shyly to touch her and ask if she was alright but it didn’t work. For a moment it remained half stretched, until feeling that he was making a fool of himself and lowered it again.
Totally powerless, Ranma could only sit there, watching her as the minutes pass by.
After the agonizing silence punctuated by only Nabiki, her crying was transformed in a faltering sob as she ran out of rage and strength. He took this moment to try and change the topic.
“How was the fight?”
The young woman raised her head in surprised and looked at him. Her eyes and face were red from crying, the streams of tears flowing down her face.
Before answering, she looked away from his inquisitive, grayish-blue eyes and wiped away the last tears with her hand.
“I don’t know.”
Ranma’s surprised expression couldn’t hide his light disappointment.
“Oh! I thought that you had gone to see...”
“Yes!” She cut him off quite abruptly. “But, I was more concerned with estimating my possible profits than with the combat.” Her voice had lost almost all its rage, leaving in its place a trace of tiredness and sadness.
She placed her hands on the table and remained staring at the wall in front of her. After a moment of silence she added, “Nevertheless, I remember perfectly what happened after it.”
Whilst she did say that she had gone to support Akane, the truth was that she had only paid attention to the fight when the referee proclaimed her sister as winner; she spent the rest of the time noting down names and figures. However, she spared no thought about it since she didn’t think that her sister had realized if she was cheering up or not. The important thing was that everything had turned out just as her plans had dictated and now she had the necessary funds for the dress.
When she arrived outside the changing room’s door, she spared a moment to put the money in her pocket. Satisfied, she got ready to open the door when she heard a male voice.
“It’s a pity that you took as little time as you had taken to have a shower; I would have preferred to see you naked.”
If Nabiki had any doubt about who could be talking, her sister’s voice trampled it.
“Sanzenin! What are you doing here? You had promised to leave me alone if I won you!”
Her tone, annoyed and slightly surprised, contrasted the mocking tone of her adversary.
“When did I say that? Remember it well! The challenge was for your lips only. Nothing else!”
“You…you…” was the only that Akane managed to articulate. Her indignation made her choke on her words.
Behind the door, her sister had lost her smile, and the satisfaction that she felt earlier was being replaced by irritation.
Her change of mood wasn’t as a result of any feeling of guilt for not having confirmed the terms of combat. She had only volunteered to agree the time and the place of the duel; it was never her intention to have fallen victim to such a crude trap. Her annoyance came from her pride as a manipulator, pride that had been hurt by the words of a teenage Don Juan. If she was as clever as she had boasted, she would have seen his scheme from a mile away. However, this hadn’t been the case.
Lost in these thoughts, Nabiki almost missed Akane’s words, who, after giving free rein to her outrage, allowed to her pride to talk.
“It doesn’t matter! I’ll beat you as often as necessary!”
Sanzenin didn’t seem to flinch, since he answered with the same mocking tone.
“Do you think that it will be as easy? Now you haven’t a referee to pull us apart.”
At this moment Nabiki opened the door and entered in the room, determined to give a surprise to the cocky young man.
“Perhaps I can take his place.”
“Nabiki!” her sister exclaimed, while the young man, surprised on hearing a new voice, turned towards the door.
To the young woman, one look was enough to get a clear idea of what had happened.
Akane, half-dressed and with the hair wet, was at the back of the room near the showers, while her opponent, fully clothed, was in the middle of the doorway, blocking her way. The narrowness of the room limited her sister’s options. If Akane made a break for the only exit and if he managed to catch her, he only needed his strength and weight to immobilize her on the ground. Nabiki understood that both contenders knew it and that this was the cause of the stalemate. The young predator waited for the attack and his prey, caught in his path, hesitated like a deer caught in headlights.
Sanzenin, recovering from the surprise, regained his smile and insulting mocking tone.
“Look who’s here! If it isn’t the pimp sister! Did you come to watch the show?”
‘You’ve got another thing coming if you think that this is enough to make me lose my temper,’ the person in question thought, amused. ‘Moreover, don’t forget that two can play this game.’
Without moving from the door, Nabiki folded her arms and stared at the young man before answering him.
“Which one? The one with the vulgar, honourless playboy?” She asked before to add quietly, ‘or the one where the perverted man gets spanked (via wits) by yours truly?’
Her tone of voice, a mix of indifference and disdain, didn’t seem to affect the young man who answered proudly.
“Yes! Your sister surrenders to my charms; like the multiple young women that I have seduced before.”
Nabiki made no move to acknowledge what he said.
“I heard something about it. The truth is that I couldn’t imagine that there were so many desperate girls in Japan. Or are you counting the ones that you have forced against their will?”
A slight change in the smile of the young man confirmed that she had hit the nail on the head.
“You can laugh all you want. You’ll change your mind when you see your sister moaning with pleasure in my arms. And you’ll be the next.”
“I don’t think so.”
Annoyed by her tone of confidence, Sanzenin dropped his facade of the self-confident playboy, and sneered with a menacing tone.
“Oh? And what are you going to do to prevent it?”
Nabiki, feigning to be surprised by the question, placed her right hand over her breasts.
“Me?” She asked with her more innocent tone, before smiling mischievously. “Distract you.”
At that moment, the young predator, realizing his serious mistake when he stopped keeping an eye on his prey, tried to turn around as fast as possible, but it was too late.
Akane had taken advantage of his distraction to finish getting dressed quickly and was ready.
When he started to turn around, she threw her sports bag at him before charging at him. On seeing that something was approaching, he dodged it, instinctively pulling back. The bag missed, but fulfilled its purpose; Sanzenin, completely off balance, couldn’t avoid the next attack. She buried her knee deep into his abdomen, draining his lungs completely. Without air, the supposed hunter fell on his knees, gasping like a fish out of the water.
With her adversary on the floor, Akane didn’t lose any more time. She picked up her sports bag and quickly went to the door. Her sister, who waited for her there, moved away to allow her to leave. When she passed at her side, Akane simply told two words to her.
“Let’s go!”
As they were moving away, the enraged shouts of the frustrated hunter reached them.
“You fucking bitch! You’re gonna pay for this! I’m going to screw you, bitches! Just wait and see!”
Ranma kept quiet. He, better than anybody else, knew the meaning of be afraid of something.
“It was three or four weeks before we heard from him again. Then, one night, Akane didn’t return in time to have dinner. I remembered that I was hungry and I made myself a mental note to give her a good scolding when she arrived. Then the phone rang...”
Nabiki had thought that she would be strong enough to tell what happened during this night, but her fortitude had cracks. The pain of that time reappeared in her faltering voice and wet eyes.
“They had found her in the park. They told us that we have to go and... When we saw her, she didn’t recognize us. She was lying with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling; completely oblivious to the world surrounding her.”
She tried to add something more, but she wasn’t able to.
“Was Sanzenin the culprit?” Ranma asked unconsciously.
On hearing this name Nabiki’s voice recovered part of its strength.
“Yes! It took us a lot of time to find out the culprits, and it took us even more time to obtain proof, but finally everything fit.”
Her voice oozed such hate that the young man felt a shiver on hearing it.
“Whatever his punishment may be, it couldn’t pay for the time that my sister was catatonic.”
Upon mentioning her sister, sadness flooded her voice again.
“You couldn’t know what it means to see your sister each day without being recognized by her. Lying there as a doll, unable to do anything by herself; isolated in her mind. Perhaps reliving again and again the hell she suffered.”
Her voice cracked and she wasn’t able to continue. The painful memories of these months were too fresh in her mind to recall them. In any case, she only had one last thing to say.
“You understand it now, right?” she asked to her guest. “Akane has already suffered too much and I won’t allow that anybody hurt her again. Do you understand?”
Although he didn’t consider himself to be able to understand all her pain, Ranma nodded.
“Now, leave me alone, please,” she asked him with a quivering voice. The young man stood up and crossed the room quietly. After a moment, the sound of the door closing quietly was heard.
Alone, she lost the little control that was left. The tears didn’t take long to appear again, relieving her anguish.
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(Posted Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:54)
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