As Ranma walked into the dojo grounds, he looked around for anything that might tell him what was going on. From the outside, everything looked pretty much the same. Chipped paint lined the walls and there were a few tiles missing from the roof and other various small things that showed the wear and tear of three years on cheap materials used to fix numerous damages were all over the place.
It might have been his imagination, but the yard looked pretty unkempt from what Ranma remembered was supposed to be the norm, and the pathway was upswept. Since she was home all the time, Kasumi had always swept the outside at least once every two days, and mowed the yard about once a week. The weeds showing that the latter hadn’t been done in quite awhile, and there was enough dirt on the walkway to leave full footprints in some places.
Right before he reached the door to the house, Ranma wondered if it was really wise for him to be here. Ukyo had gone after him for almost ten years wanting revenge for what she thought had been running out on her, Ryoga chased Ranma for about a year because he was late for a fight… it seemed like almost everyone he knew liked to hold grudges. Then again, wasn’t that one of the reasons he came here in the first place?
Ranma sighed as he knocked on the door, trying to figure out the exact reasons. Was it to fix the problems that had been caused by his absence? What if they’re weren’t any, and everyone was happy that he left?
Did he need to sort out his feelings towards Akane? Oh good idea moron, get married and take your wife to meet your ex-fiancée. Ranma looked back at Miu and wondered how she could be so calm about all this considering that.
He wasn’t a girl, so he really didn’t need closure or anything stupid like that.
Why? Why did I have to come back here? Ranma demanded to anyone that was listening as the door opened.
The person standing wasn’t the one he’d been expecting. Her hair had the same pageboy cut to it, and she had kept her figure as well. If it wasn’t that her clothes were baggier than he remembered, the Nabiki standing before him could have been placed side by side from the one of three years ago and he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.
“Ummm, hey-” was as far as Ranma got before the door was slammed in his face. He blinked twice, then turned around to leave. “Okay we’re done, let’s go.”
Inside the house, Nabiki got one step away from the door before reality seeped into her. Ranma was a martial artist. Martial artists when where they wanted to and smashed down whatever was in their way. Having to wait for the insurance and repair process for her front door would be a real pain in the ass.
She opened the door and frowned at Ranma‘s back. “Well if you’re coming inside then hurry it up, the air conditioning is on.”
Ranma turned around and blinked at the somewhat uncaring tone, then sighed and followed her in with Miu and Niijima right behind. She led them to the dinning table and sat down before crossing her arms. “So what do you want?”
Before Ranma could answer, seeing as how the real answer to that question was eluding him at the moment. Niijima suddenly raised his hand to get the woman’s attention. “Excuse me, but are you Akane, Nabiki, or the uh, other one whose name escapes me for the moment.”
“I’m Nabiki,” she told them. “Akane’s teaching class in the dojo, and Kasumi’s at work.”
Ranma blinked. “Kasumi has a job?”
At first Nabiki just sighed, not sure if she was more put off by Ranma’s question, or the fact that he was so surprised by it. Then she just shrugged. “She’s a cook in a small restaurant.” A moment later she realized that they were getting off track. “So, what do you want?”
Wow she’s cold. Miu stared at the older woman for a few moments after shaking off the proverbial ice. No introductions, no offer of tea or any hospitality whatsoever.
Nabiki sighed at the idiocy of it all when he just stood there under her gaze and looked uneasy, not giving a single answer. He really hadn’t changed a bit. “Ranma,” she drawled out, punctuating each world as she went, “Why. Are. You. Here? Spit it out!”
“Well I-um, I just… I’ve been thinking lately and, uh, I was wondering if there were any, uh, problems because…” Ranma paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, and take a deep breath. “A lot of things have been happening in my life lately, and… well I’ve found myself thinking about this place more than usual. I know my leaving like I did probably caused a lot of problems, and I came back to find out what they were, and if I could clean up the mess I made.”
Nabiki clenched her teeth and gripped onto the table for a few seconds, then let out a sigh. “The mess you made? It’s been three years and now you want to come back to…” she took another breath and mumbled under her breath. “It’s a little late for that.”
On the other side of the table, Niijima raised his eyebrow a the girl’s reaction. It was obvious she was carrying some kind of grudge towards the martial artist sitting beside him. Although it didn’t seem to be the kind you stand up, start shouting something at the person your angry with, and then try to kill them kind of grudge. “Do you mind telling me something?”
“What?” Nabiki asked the weird teenager with the pointy ears.
“From what I’ve heard you’re supposed to be one of the more sensible types around here, mind telling me what’s got you glaring daggers at this idiot?” he asked before gesturing his head over to Ranma.
Nabiki looked over to the younger man and sighed, again. “Well, I guess that would be the best thing to do… I take it you guys know about all the basic back-story?”
“Pretty much,” Niijima told her. Miu simply answered with a nod.
Although she had figured as much, Nabiki decided to start at the beginning anyway to help re-cap everything. “Well basically Ranma showed up on our doorstep one day, the same day that our father broke the engagement to use five minutes earlier, and Kasumi and I passed him off to Akane because well, neither Kasumi or me wanted anything to do with a freak.”
“Hey!” Ranma cut it, a little hurt by the bluntness.
Nabiki raised an eyebrow. “What? You change sex with cold water, that’s what you are. Just because there’s eight or ten of you running around in one area doesn’t make you any less weird than the thirteen million people living in this city alone.”
Instead of interceding on her husband’s behalf, Miu simply reached under the able to hold his hand. She wanted to hear the story, and if Ranma started arguing with this Nabiki woman, that was never going to happen.
When it didn’t seem like there was going to be any other interruptions, Nabiki continued on. “It was never going to work out of course. Kasumi was fooling herself from the beginning, and I convinced myself for awhile too. In the beginning I was just glad it wasn’t me that got stuck with Ranma.”
Miu blinked, this time, she had to ask a question. “Wait, why do you say that?”
“Trust and pride,” Nabiki answered.
At the same time, Ranma replied with, “Respect.”
Nabiki looked over to Ranma and blinked, that she hadn’t been expecting. “Yeah, that too.” She sighed and shook her head. “Look, they had some good times here and there, but when it came down to it, pretty much anyone she knew could accuse Ranma of practically anything and she’d believe them, proof or no. Sure he’s guilty of plenty of stuff, but when you’re supposed be a person’s future wife, you’re supposed to stand by them, or at least withhold judgment until you see the fingerprints on the knife buried in the guy’s back.
“Then there’s the whole pride thing, and that was a problem with both of them. Ranma thought he was pretty much better than everyone else he met, not just in martial arts, but almost everything… maybe saying he thought he was more important would be better.”
She stopped for a moment, and looked over to Miu. “Let me guess, fiancée?”
Miu blushed. “Wife actually. We… got married a little while ago.”
Once again, Nabiki found herself surprised. Although she didn’t know if it was because Ranma had actually gone through with marriage, or that he was stupid enough to bring his wife to Akane’s house. “Does everything always have to be his way, even if he makes you bend over backwards?”
“I’m right here you know,” Ranma grumbled.
Miu giggled a bit and squeezed her husband’s hands. “He used to be that way… a little, I guess,” she added almost as an afterthought.
“Akane’s the same way,” Nabiki continued. “She was the best martial artist of her age that she knew of in the area at the time, and kind of like a hero. As long as you fit into her view of how the world works and don’t mess with that, she’s sweet as candy. But when you don’t match her ideas of how things should be, and how people should behave, she gets confused, then angry, and then usually violent shortly afterwards. That person was Ranma, and he liked to rub it in her face… a lot.
“Well without those things, they were doomed to failure,” Nabiki told them. She looked down at the empty table in front of them with a frown. If she had known she’d be needing to talk this much, she would have made tea. “I’m just surprised Ranma was the one who realized it first and took off. Happosai bragged that he chased you off between molestations, but then he claims it’s his fault cats and dogs hate each other too, so go figure.”
Ranma cleared his throat and looked down at the table, unable to meet anyone in the eyes. “Actually, he… sort of is the reason I ran away. He said some stuff, and well, I couldn’t listen to it because… he sort of had a point. I didn’t leave to save Akane from a bad marriage or anything, I… did it because I didn’t like him making me face the truth about myself. I’m… not exactly proud of it.”
As much as she tried to hold it in… “Can’t say I’m surprised,” Nabiki mumbled.
She took in another deep breath and sighed yet again. “Well if you want to know what happened after you left… Akane was confused at first, you do tend to leave for extended periods after all. When she got it through you weren’t coming back, she cried, then got angry. First she was mad at you, then she went around to the others girls and started demanding to know where you ran off to because she thought they were just going to meet you after a while, then she said how they chased you off, then got mad at Genma cause she thought it was yet another fiancée had come around to kidnap you or something.”
Nabiki stopped to look over to the busty woman with the suit and jacket, then blinked. “You… didn’t, did you?”
The question puzzled Miu for a moment, and then she smiled at the unintentional joke. “No. Ranma showed up at my family’s dojo to… learn some things, and well, it just sort of happened.”
For a moment Nabiki stared at the couple, completely speechless. She wanted to comment on the irony, and a tiny part wanted to yell at him for abandoning her sister just to go off and find another girl. On top of it all though, the similarities between the girl in front of her and Akane made Nabiki start to wonder about all the ‘what if’s’. Ranma had been dragged to dojo by his father to get married against his will, Akane’s first impression of ‘him’ had been Ranma naked in the bathtub right after the announcement of the engagement.
For a moment, she wondered if Ranma had been brought to the dojo under false pretenses, to train or some such reason, and the girls never told of the engagement, would things have been different? Would Akane and Ranma gotten together? Would Nabiki? Kasumi? How would their lives have been different if they hadn’t been thrown together so forcefully by Soun and Genma, and their greedy needs for an heir?
But she only entertained such thoughts for a moment, then reality came back to her.
“Hn. So anyway, right as Akane had pretty much accepted the fact that you weren’t coming back, and all men were scum, then Ryoga started coming around again.”
Ranma rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me they got together or something. What happened to that girlfriend of his?”
Nabiki blinked, then cleared her though. “Okay let me be a bit more clear, P-Chan started coming around again.”
Ranma groaned and looked up at the heavens for strength. Niijima just looked confused over the unknown name of Ryoga, and Miu blinked. “P-What?”
“Remember how I said that guy Ryoga had a curse too? Well, he turned into a little animal that sort of… slept with Akane.” Ranma added rather reluctantly.
After several seconds of enduring Miu’s deadpan gaze that hid a deadly rage behind it, and a grip that would have turned his bones to pudding if he didn’t have the proper defenses, the blonde girl spoke. “And you didn’t tell her?”
Ranma grit his teeth and finally dragged it out. “Well, she was already mad at me for plenty of stuff, and I didn’t want to dig my hole any deeper. I thought it was only going to be one night, so no real harm done-”
“The fucking martial artist’s motto,” Nabiki said though clenched teeth.
Ranma looked her way, but finished his rather pathetic excuse. “-and well, he just didn’t stop. I couldn’t tell her after two nights, or I’d… be in even more trouble than if I’d come clean at first. Then there was a week, then two, and it kind of snowballed from there.” Under his wife’s gaze, he completely forgot to ask Nabiki just how she’d figured out the connection.
Miu resisted the urge to slap him. She reminded herself those mistakes where in the past, after a lot of hard work and help Ranma had changed. She lightened up on her grip, and looked over to Nabiki. “So then what happened?”
“Akari came by, she was the girl that Ryoga had gotten himself engaged to,” Nabiki added at the questioning looks from the blonde and demon-boy. “It was in the morning, and Akane was still in her pajamas, Ryoga was snuggling his head between her breasts. Kasumi offered her some tea and, you can imagine what she did with it.”
“Oh boy,” Ranma mumbled.
Nabiki crossed her arms and nodded. “It got pretty hectic then, but let’s see if I can remember everything… well Ryoga blamed you for everything of course, he said you gave him his curse, it was your fault cause you didn’t tell her, and… oh, I think my favorite was how he was sleeping with Akane to protect her from you; I actually think he believed that too. Akari was pissed at Ryoga for sleeping with Akane, Akane was angry at you for not telling her about Ryoga, but since you were here all of that rage went to Akari.
“Then she kicked Akari’s teeth in, and that’s when I really wish I’d brought my camera to the breakfast table. Ryoga was like a deer caught in the headlights, so Dad came in to keep Akane from killing Akari. I noticed he wasn’t too surprised by Ryoga’s transformation, so I commented on it, and that got Akane of the girl, and onto him when he started blathering excuses about martial arts codes and crap. Your father just decided to disappear, Happosai was laughing at the whole damn thing, and… I’m not sure what Kasumi was doing, I think she went back into the kitchen for more plates.
“By the time it was all over, Akane was crying, Ryoga was missing, your father was long gone, and Akari was being loaded into an ambulance. Oh, and Happosai had stolen everyone else’s food. Anyway… so that pretty much destroyed the last shred of faith in men Akane had, I haven’t seen Akari since but I’m pretty sure that her engagement with Ryoga was called off, and with you gone and thus unable to beat some sense into him, Ryoga started blaming you for everything, and I mean everything.
“He showed up at the school a little under a week later looking for you. From what I heard from the people who saw him, he was practically foaming at the mouth crazy with anger. I heard him shouting how he knew you where hiding at school and for you to come out, or he’d make you. Let’s see, he went on and on about how you ruined his life, his chances with Akane, his relationship with Akari, and a lot of other crap that didn’t make sense. At one point I think he blamed you for his flashlight running out of batteries, if you’re wondering what I meant by that.”
Ranma grasped the table for support and sighed, he knew what was coming. “How many people did he kill when he blew up the school?”
The question brought Nabiki to a halt. “How did you…”
“It’s pretty obvious that’s what you were building to,” Ranma told her. “Plus, I didn’t see it on my way here. I didn’t really think of it at the time but, after you started talking… it hit me.” He thought it over for a moment and looked back to her. “I would have thought Ms Hinako or someone would have stopped him.”
Nabiki shook her head and looked down towards the ground. “No, he… bashed her head in with a rock, or an umbrella, or… I don’t know, she maybe no of even seen him in time. Then Kuno showed up to stop him and they fought. I was staying the hell away from the place so I don’t have any details, and Akane was skipping school because of her depression, but with those techniques of his he was probably blowing up walls left and right so eventually… I saw the whole place cave in on itself.”
“… I’m sorry,” Ranma mumbled.
For a long time, Nabiki sat there silently, and no one else said a word. Although in the end, she was the one to break the silence. “I want to say it’s not your fault. Ryoga knocked the school down… Ryoga… killed all those people, my classmates, my-my friends.
“But you weren’t there! You could have stopped him but you go and run off and… and… married this bimbo!”
Despite the arguments she could make regarding her grade point average, Miu kept silent to let the older woman vent.
Once again, Nabiki glared at Ranma, the memories bringing ears to her eyes. “Aren’t you going to say something? Tell I’m wrong,” she dared him, “tell me how you weren’t there, and it’s all Ryoga’s fault. Say it!”
Ranma sighed, but didn’t look up. “I didn’t kill those people Nabiki.”
“No, you just make a mess and never clean it up,” she told him. “You don’t throw the first punch, but you fuck with people until all they want to do is fight you. You wreck homes, and shops, and dinners, and don’t gain a bit of weight on your conscience because you manage to luck out and avoid anybody getting hurt.
“Well listen to the reality of the situation. Those messes you leave become other people’s problems. Those emotional scars you give others makes them strike out at people other than you. And all the crap that you break that costs money. You destroy a business, and they have to shut down waiting for the insurance company to come take a look at their place, and then wait for the repairs, both of which take an exceptionally long time thanks to the fact people like you are breaking stuff everywhere and creating a huge backorder. All of a sudden people have no income, they can’t pay their rent, their mortgage, utilities, and whatever the hell else they need, and so their life turns to crap when they have to move for the slums and their kids can‘t go to college. You ruin people’s lives!
“But hey, as long as nobody got hurt, who cares? Right?”
Ranma sighed and shook his head. “I learned that lesson a long time ago Nabiki,” Ranma told her in a deadpan tone. “So, if you’d get off your high horse for a moment, and answer me one more question, I’ll be going.”
“Oh, don’t you want to go see Akane?” Nabiki asked sarcastically.
“Where’s my father and your dad, and the old man? I know they should have been here by now,” Ranma asked.
Nabiki took in a deep breath. “Oh well then let me continue my story. You see, after Ryoga killed everyone he could at school and got away. Yeah, he got away with it, people found his clothes next to a leaking pipe and so P-Chan scampers off to kill again.
“After all that,” she continued heatedly. “People started taking notice. Oh you can smash up all the houses, and businesses, and utilities you want, and nobody cares. But knock down a school with kids inside it well… martial artists, the new danger to Nerima! Of course the district council and governor couldn’t pass a law or anything, they just controlled this once piece of Tokyo. But the police were more than amicable for new suggestions and protocols. Our parents decided to go on a training trip and leave my sisters and I holding the bag. Have you ever been questioned by the police who think you’re basically a terrorist sympathizer? It hurts!”
Ranma stood up and sighed. “Goodbye Nabiki. Thanks for the… info. You actually were helpful with something.”
Not letting him off the hook, Nabiki stood up. “Hey! I’m not finished talking to you!”
Instead of Ranma, it was the demon-boy who addressed her. “No, you were done with that about ten minutes ago,” he told her. “What you’re doing now is called yelling.” He sighed and turned around. From the looks of things he wouldn’t be getting any new recruits from his army here.
“What happened with Akane?”
Nabiki frowned at Ranma’s question. “Ask her yourself.”
Turning around to face her, Ranma locked his gaze with the older woman’s. “You know, when I came here I had so many thoughts going through my head, I didn’t really know why I was coming. Maybe Happosai had turned you all into his little sex toys, and I was going to save you. I thought that I’d show up and everyone would try to kill me, or yell at me, or we have a happy life now so go away Ranma. I thought I’d fall back into the old routine, or maybe have to go through some stupid martial arts battle because I had been engaged to Akane. But when it comes down to it though I think it was just curiosity, and some bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s turned out to be Ryoga.
“Now I’ve had to listen at you berate, and insult me for nearly an hour. So you’re either going to answer one more little question, or I’ll go and see Akane and open up all those old wounds like I’ve done with you. Is Akane better, or worse because I left?”
“She’s never getting engaged again, but I think that everything that happened forced her to take a good, long look at everything and think about her life,” Nabiki told him immediately. “I think she’s personally better off than if you’d stuck around. Business is up too, we have to fingerprint and register the students, but apparently hurting people is fun again.”
With that, Ranma bowed his head ever so slightly, and headed out the door.
Niijima took out his palm pilot and started messing with it. “Well, that could have gone better.”
Over on the demon boy’s side, Miu looked back and raised an eyebrow. “What? You wanted more fighters for Shinpaku?”
“W-What? How’d you-”
“We’re at a dojo moron, not that hard to figure out,” Ranma cut in.
Miu quickly hurried up to catch Ranma and grabbed his hand. She was a little disconcerted by what she’s learned about her husband’s past. Getting Ranma to talk about things he was ashamed of was hard, but the fact he didn’t tell her everything was a sore spot for her.
Although, Miu supposed she hadn’t been that forthcoming about her own family matter when they first met either…
“So,” she said, getting her mind off such thoughts, “drop him off on someone else then back home? Or… do you want to go visit your other fiancée next.”
Ranma ignored the emphasis that told him what Miu thought of the idea. “There’s no need.”
“What?”
At Miu’s question, Ranma tired to form what he was thinking into the right words. “The Elder was right, sort of. I didn’t need to come back here. But… I did need to, so I could find out I didn’t need to. I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t think I ever did.
"My past is in the past. If it wants to visit me, then I'll kick its ass and settle it then. Let’s go home.”
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:38)
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.