Ranma’s coming! The mantra once again echoed through Nabiki’s mind, and the brown-haired girl sighed as the answer to the math problem she’d been working on vanished like it had never been. It had been days since she’d ... fed ... Ranma, and the nature spirit and boy she’d come to like so much was just hours away — a day or two at most, if that waste of space she ... he ... called a father would just hurry up, and she couldn’t wait to meet that gorgeous hunk she’d seen in her dreams in person!
Nabiki sighed, then frowned as she remembered Ranma’s brief visit the other day, when the busty, and deliciously naked, redhead had told her that her father was bringing the two of them to the Tendo dojo, ‘to visit an old friend’. There’s something more going on than just a visit, I know it — that greedy, lying bastard could care less about any ‘old friend’, or he would have dropped by years ago. So why now? Maybe Ranma will be able to convince him to talk before it’s too late, whatever it is. As it is, we’ll probably have to step up my own plans.
She shook her head and, deciding that she was too distracted for school work, pushed away from her desk. Pulling her laptop out of its case and sitting on her bed, Nabiki booted it up, pulled up Genma’s police record, and reviewed it yet again with a sigh. I suppose I should be glad he never did anything to really hurt anyone, but considering the statute of limitations, with this list of petty thievery and con games he’d get a few months — less than two years at most. Especially since most of those injured eventually decided not to press charges. I wonder why? Still, that’s not long enough to get Ranma completely out from under his legal authority.
Closing the police records folder, Nabiki opened up another file she’d started the day after Ranma’s feeding, her notes of her conversation with Cherry Blossom when the effervescent sprite had returned from her spying mission on one Nodoka Saotome. Her face relaxed from a scowl to a slightly lascivious, slightly embarrassed smile at the memory of the cute little winged and naked blonde hovering in front of her face and commenting on her sex life. That bubbly airhead act has to be a con job, Nabiki thought, remembering the scatterbrained manner of the report — Cherry Blossom’s delivery had been near-incoherent, jumping from one observation to another without any rhyme or reason Nabiki could figure out, but the observations has been spot-on, insightful, and thorough, very thorough. And it had covered subjects that Nabiki couldn’t understand a sprite knowing at all — financial statements and business records, rankings in kendo and kenjutsu tournaments, the hints that Mrs. Saotome had some sort of sideline career that used up what little free time she had ... it’s like Kasumi’s comment on Cherry Blossom’s cooking skills. Why would a sprite learn enough to understand all that? For that matter, I didn’t think the little airheads could learn all that. There’s something really strange going on here.
Still, in the midst of the minutia and shadows of Cherry Blossom’s report there’d been two things Nabiki found very promising, and she read once more of the reports from private investigators searching for Genma Saotome and his son Ranma, going back almost eight years, and of the torn up seppuku contract in the little shrine Nodoka had created in honor of her son. Closing down her laptop and putting it away, Nabiki flopped back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, again debating the pros and cons of contacting ‘Auntie’ Saotome, the way the contract had been torn up versus the fact that it existed at all. Finally, deciding again that she’d just have to wait and see what the future brought, Nabiki pulled out her latest manga and tried to distract herself from thoughts of the coming meeting.
* * * * *
Kasumi sighed and paused, pans in hand, as she gazed out the kitchen window from a long moment before resuming her preparations for that night’s dinner. Ranma’s coming, she thought to herself, and how am I supposed to handle this? The elder sister thought back to the other day, when Nabiki had told her of Ranma’s hunger pains, and how she’d taken care of them — and how she intended to keep on taking care of them, as necessary. Nabiki had been half shame-faced, half resentfully rebellious at how she must have expected Kasumi to react, but Kasumi had simply thanked Nabiki for her honesty and walked away. Since then, she’d found herself needing to be extra-careful as thoughts of Ranma and Nabiki continually intruded on her daily routine.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Ranma wasn’t actually coming here, she thought half-despairingly. At least that way, even if Nabiki insists on not waiting for marriage as she should, there wouldn’t be any chance of pregnancy. But with Ranma’s boy-form available ... and with her preferences Nabiki will want to try him out as well, and without birth control it won’t be safe for a couple of weeks. And I know she isn’t going to be willing to use birth control — that would mean actually buying it and she’ll be worried about what would happen if the wrong person found out about it. Chuckling slightly to herself, Kasumi admitted, Of course, I can’t buy it for her, either — oh, horrors, the rumors that would start if the neighbors found out! Too bad there’s no way that Akane would get it for her, any rumors that would start are better than the ones beginning to circulate at school right now.
Coming to herself, Kasumi realized that she’d been staring out the window again, and with another sigh picked up a kitchen knife and turned to the melon on the counter.
* * * * *
A tall, dark-haired and mustached man stood in the doorway to his home, staring down at the battered postcard with a panda on the back that he held in his shaking hands. Again, he read the short note: “Hi. Bringing Ranma from China. Saotome.” Tears started flowing from Soun Tendo’s eyes as he thought back to the days he and his fellow apprentice had suffered under the ‘tutelage’ of the perverted Master Happosai, and the agreement they had made to join their children and their schools when their plot against their master had actually worked. Over the years since Saotome had left on his son’s training trip, and as Soun’s students has fallen away because of his emotional outbursts after the death of his wife and money had gotten tighter and tighter, he had first worried and then despaired. But now the silence had finally been broken, Ranma was coming, and his daughters’ futures would be secure!
“Kasumi! Nabiki! Akane!” the tall martial artist shouted as he rushed into the house with the good news.
* * * * *
The pigtailed boy in the red Chinese-style shirt and black draw-string pants stared at his balding, bulky father in shock. “Engaged?” he asked again. “You engaged me to one of the Tendo daughters when!?”
Genma chuckled nervously while trying to unobtrusively shift to block the alley exit. “Before you were born, when me and my fellow apprentice agreed to united our families’ schools. Ranma, just think of the new techniques there will be to learn!”
Ranma hesitated for a moment then, remembering Akane and unconscious boys scattered around a school yard, stared suspiciously at Genma. “And which of the girls will I be marrying? What do ya know about ‘em, anyway?”
Genma waved dismissively. “Any of them, it doesn’t matter — one woman is as good as another.” Then, as Ranma’s stare turned into a glare, he hastily continued, “Besides, I don’t really know anything about them. It’s been ten years since I’ve spoken to Soun.”
Ranma laughed bitterly and started to reply, when thunder rolled down from the clouds that had blown in suddenly and thick raindrops started spattering down around the pair. “Oh, that’s just great!” he managed to say, just before the shower turned into a downpour and a large panda found herself watching her son’s suddenly empty clothes drop to the alley floor.
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(Posted Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:23)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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