"Wait," Nabiki said, suddenly uncomfortable with this, "are you sure about this, Saotome? I mean, this is a pretty big pair of dice you're handin' me here?"
"Yeah," he said slightly miffed, "I already paid ya to make the wish for me.
"And what makes you so sure that I'll just conviently wish for what you want?" she shot back at him.
"Um excuse me," Mihoshi interjected, hoping to get back to the wish. "About that wish..."
"Hang on a sec, would ya?" Ranma snapped at the djinni. "And I suppose that's just what you have planned don't ya?"
"As if I'd stoop so low as to steal a wish from you." Nabiki snapped back.
"Excuse me...." the djinni said again, trying to head off the suddenly violent spat.
"Oh I get it, you're not wantin' to go through with this, because if you screw it up, you'll have to live with it!" he growled, upset that it appeared she scammed him again, after he had trusted her again.
"Exactly! Why do I have to cast this suddenly huge pair of polyhedral dice for you?" she asked heatedly, a huge burden weigh heavily on her shoulders.
"Excuse me..." the perk blonde said again.
"Because you charged me for your services! If I had known you'd suddenly cop out on me, I'dve simply done it myself!" he said evenly, with a light trace of venom. The cure to all his ails is only a carefully worded sentence away, he wasn't going to be denied that because she suddenly got cold feet!
"Whatever Saotome, you're too much of a coward to do this on your own. That's why you came to me, remember?" she taunted him, trying to get him riled up so she could forget this whole thing and still be a little richer at the end of the day.
"EXCUSE ME!" roared the blonde dijinni, finally having enough of this squabble.
Both Ranma and Nabiki turned to the pissed of djinni. They had been carrying on so much that they had forgotten all about her. Sheepishly, they both turned to her.
"Look, I don't know much about the two of yo, but can we please get on with it?" she pleaded.
They both looked suitably chastised by the strange girl's admonishment, lowering their gazes to the floor. After a few moments of silence, they finally raise their gazes and look at the dijinni again.
"That's better," she said cheerfully. "Now, Ranma has said that the wish has got to come from you, so I'll take that as an order that I must grant a wish for him from you. Am I clear?"
Nabiki nodded and said, "I don't know why I let myself get roped into this..."
"Because you're too greedy for your own good," Ranma quipped, drawing ire from the normally reserved girl.
"Oh yeah?" she said in a level tone of voice.
"Yeah."
"Not again," quailed the blonde. she had just gotten them quiet too. She sighed, waiting for this fit to end.
"At least I have the facts of the world straight," Nabiki casually said, jabbing at Ranma's pride. "I understand how things in this world work better than you, because "You take that back!" the boy in question snapped in consternation. "Is that what you think life is about? Money and nothing else?"
"What else is there Saotome?" she inquired, rolling her eyes.
"Family and honor," Ranma spat back. "Or have you been ignoring them so long that you've forgotten what they mean?"
"How dare you question my love for my family?" she howled in an uncharacteristic rage. It was obvious she had lost sight of all control, Ranma's barb having finally cracked through her wall of indifference.
"How dare you try to back out on our deal?" he shot back. "All I ask was for a wish to help me straighten out my life and you run and hide from it."
"Because I shouldn't have to do it for you, you nitwit!" she huffed in amazement. "Kami above, do you need someone to hold your hand on everything but martial arts and eating?"
"No..." he drawled, somewhat stung by the viciousness of the barb. "But me and words mix as well as you and "free"."
"And like a coward you run from fixing that deficiancy!" she retorted back, clinging to the small advantage she had.
And that sobered him up. Why was he fighting her tooth and nail like this? Why was he so mad and wanting to hurt her? Had he lost sight of himself so much that hed get into a worthless arguement?
"I don't know how." he quietly admitted.
"What?" she asked, shocked by the loss of his fighting spirit.
"I... I-ah, who am I kidding?" he asked. "I'm always looking for someone else to solve my problems aren't I?"
"Well, yeah.." she answered hesitantly. "Ranma, what are you getting at?"
"I don't fix my "foot-in-mouth" problems," he said, crooking his fingers in quotation marks, "because I don't know how."
"Oh..." she said, "that is kind of depressing actually."
"I don't blame ya for gettin' cold feet." he said quietly.
"Why's that?" she asked curiously.
"Because there's nothing you can wish for that would improve everything here as it is now." he said, confirming her reservations.
"But your cure...." she started.
"Would probably cause me more problems than it'd be worth." he interjected. "I mean, if the pig-tailed girl ever completely disappeared, do you think Kuno would leave me alone?"
"No," she said honestly, "he'd bug you even more."
"Yeah..." he said, before shrugging. "You wanna wish for something pointless and let her go on her happy little way?"
"Sure, just let me come up with something harmless." she said, thinking for a while.
"It's a shame," he said before she got ready to make the wish. "This wish could have meant something if it weren't for all my problems."
"Yeah," she agreed, before musing.
"Is the wish ready yet?" Mihoshi inquired tiredly, while jumping for joy inside that the two finally quit arguing.
"Just about," Ranma quickly answered.
"Just a little bit longer," Nabiki assured the partially depressed djinni.
"OK." the girl glumly responded. She'd never get out of here at this rate.
"Hey, before you give the wish, what might you have wished for before you stopped?" Ranma asked, curious as to what it might be.
Blushing for some odd reason, Nabiki said, "Nothing major, just have wished you'd been engaged to me from the beginning, jsut to help you out a little."
"Oh," was all Ranma could muster as his mind boggled at any implications that might have had.
The forgotten about djinni's ears perked at what Nabiki had said. Of course, the brunette's words hadn't necessarily been a wish, but it was all how the djinni in question decided to interpret them that counted. This would be fun, she'd pay them back for their little spats that appeared for no reason and left just the same.
"Wish granted!" she exhaulted, leaping to her feet as she waved her hands for some unknown reason.
The pair, who had been discussing something, both nearly jumped out of their skin when they heard that. Wish? There had been no stinking wish, unless...
"Oh no, she must have heard me!" Nabiki exclaimed as the phenominal cosmic powers of the djinnin began to work.
A pillar of golden light rose up around the blonde as the wish was being prepped for fullfilling. Nothing the pair could do except watch as the light filled the area.
"I feel... shleepy." Ranma muttered, as the light relaxed him, until he slumped over and was dissolved by the light.
"Saaaahhtome..." Nabiki yawned, before she too slumped over and was dissolved by the light.
Slowly, the light began to cover the world as the wish was brought to fullfilment. The world was slowly being reset, thanks to the temporal annomaly that would have to take place. It would have been simple to just alter everone's memories to where Nabiki was percieved as the fiancée of Ranma. But she had said to help him with his problems, thus enabling Mihoshi to get away with this little hiccup breach.
Finally the reset took place and now...
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(Posted Mon, 27 Dec 2004 11:25)
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