The strange woman had only been there a few minutes and the situation had been platonic between her and Ranma, but that didn't mean the girls were happy. The woman was not only very pretty and hands on with Ranma, but the young man had blushed a little too much in her presence.
Akane naturally was the first to speak up as the most hot-headed. "What was that about?"
Luckily for Ranma he was already worrying about defusing the situation. "Well I'm supposed to keep it quiet, but calm down and I'll explain."
Seeing the girls calm down a little to give him a chance to talk, Ranma looked around to confirm they were mostly alone in the back room. "Alright, well basically, I go and help people out. You know, hero stuff, although sometimes it's just kinda boring stuff. Her older sister Urd is my handler, she basically finds stuff for me to do and helps me get there. So I just used up some of the favor I earned to call in a favor to get this fixed." Ranma let that sink in before continuing on to the bad news. "The bad part though is Urd likes playing love goddess, so she's always considering different girls to set me up with because she really doesn't like you girls. I was worried you girls woulda given her the excuse to actually start 'helping' me with my life."
Akane once more took the lead, recapping his story, starting with the part people were surprised she had trouble believing. "So you're a hero?"
Ranma nodded, annoyed with the attitude Akane was giving him. "Yeah, in the original Greek sense too."
Akane for her part didn't want to admit she had no idea what the original Greek sense meant. "And the one giving you quests is a Love Goddess that hates us?"
The young man was just glad Akane didn't accuse Urd of being a slut and sleeping with him. "She's the Goddess of the Past, she just likes playing love goddess. Keep the whole hero and goddesses thing down too, you don't wanna to be talking about that stuff with people, it's a secret. Anyways, she just dislikes you girls, something about how you're ruining me for love or something. I don't really get it."
Most of that was easy for the girls to handle, allowing them all to latch onto the idea that they were 'ruining Ranma for love'. Normally that would have been taken in a different way, but they had spent a large portion of the last day with Ranma's thoughts in their head. For three of them it was now obvious Ranma wasn't thinking of anyone that way, much less them, while Akane had been brutally informed that her ideas of perversion were incredibly disappointing. Also that Ranma wasn't interested in doing that with her anyways, which was a fairly massive blow to her ego.
With the girls mulling over what to do about their love lives, Shampoo had another concern. "Mirror woman turn off mind link? Shampoo no longer mind talk good to Airen?"
Blinking at her Ranma turned on Shampoo's connection. "You wanted it on?"
Blinking right back at Ranma, Shampoo found the connection to feel a little different. "Yes please. I much prefer to be able to speak to you clearly. I suppose I shall still have to practice my Japanese, but this could help as long as I don't depend on this method solely to speak with you."
Ranma could understand that, plus this new connection was nicer because they had to deliberately voice their thoughts to each other. "That's cool, I get it. Having everyone think you're an idiot because of how ya talk is kinda annoying."
The other girls knew from experience what the looks Ranma and Shampoo were sharing meant, this time Ukyou speaking up first. "I thought the mind link thing was gone?"
Seeing the girls looking at him, Ranma opened up Akane's link experimentally. Seeing the distrust she had for him made him want to tease her too much to resist. "Akane, I have power over your mind. You are in my control. Obey your Master. Ooooobbbbbbeeeeeyyyyyy meeeeeeeee."
Shampoo had to giggle at what she was mentally hearing as Ranma was making this weird wide-eyed face at Akane to go with his melodramatic mental speech.
Fortunately Akane could tell when she was being teased, merely shouting at Ranma in annoyance. "You are not my Master!"
Shampoo had to smirk at having a private connection to chat with Ranma on the sly and with her full vocabulary. "That girl is such a prude. If Airen wants, I shall play along with being your love-slave."
The offer surprised Ranma, but Akane surprised Shampoo more by turning towards her. "I am not a prude!"
Mildly surprised, Shampoo quirked an eyebrow at Ranma. "She can hear me? I suppose the mind link was changed quite a bit... and yes, you are so very much a prude."
Ukyou stared as Akane got closer to Shampoo and basically shouted in her face again that she wasn't a prude, to which the girl simply smirked and the tomboy seemed to get even angrier. "What's going on now sugar? I'm feeling kinda left out here."
Ranma glanced sideways at Akane and Shampoo while turning on Ukyou's link and motioning for her to be quiet.
Ukyou didn't have long to wait as Shampoo was enjoying teasing Akane. "Oh yes you are a prude. Now I understand why my Airen is shy about even an innocent embrace if you're shouting at him at every opportunity because of your childishly low tolerance for intimacy. Until you grow up, please cease bothering my beloved with your childishness little girl."
With Ukyou now smiling at some private joke, Kodachi was feeling left out. "Come Ranma-sama, surely you wouldn't leave me out of this?"
The martial artist in turn considered Kodachi. While spending less time with her would be nice, she had also started behaving at an almost tolerable level lately. "You remember how we were sharing a dream and could talk last night, but you kept waking Ucchan up by telling her she was dreaming?"
Kodahci wasn't so out of touch with reality that she didn't understand the look, but that didn't mean she had to accept it. "Certainly you wouldn't hold that against me?"
Ranma gave her a cool look while listening to the girls on the side. Besides letting the girls hear each other so they would talk in turn instead of all at once, it was much nicer since he could feel when they were connected. That let him easily keep track of the fact that Kodachi was the only one that couldn't hear his mental speech at the moment. "If you behave I guess I'll talk to ya later, but right now you're getting left out."
Kodachi pouted as she was ignored, Ukyou joining Shampoo in teasing Akane. "Sugar, honestly, that is kind of silly. I understand Ranchan thinking like that because that stupid panda is just the kind of jackass to lie to him like that, but you're not exactly living a sheltered life sugar."
Akane finally settled down enough to stop shouting and use her mental connection. "Well excuse me for being normal."
Ranma in turn gave her a flat look, facial expressions working amusingly well in this situation. "Come on Akane, even I think that's a bit much. Next time you see Hiroshi and Daisuke bothering me, sneak up behind them and listen, they're real perverts. It'd be nice if you shut them up and saved me the misery of listening to them."
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(Posted Fri, 18 Mar 2011 02:58)
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