The beach house Washu built for Ranma and his happy little harem had become quite the lively place.
For one it was the center of families via the magically locking doorways that only let certain people open them.
The Masaki family mostly consisted of the shrine priest Katsuhito, sometimes called Yosho or Grandpa, his disciple and grandson Tenchi, and Tenchi’s two girlfriends Ayeka and Ryoko. Tenchi’s father and a blonde Galaxy Police officer named Mihoshi were frequently at the Masaki household, but not always. Sasami mostly spent her time at the Masaki household since neither her older sister Ayeka nor Ryoko could cook.
Washu still had her lab there, but she had made herself a bedroom at the beach house and spent most of her days at a little workstation in the corner of main room where she could watch the kids. That she was sometimes in adult form caused Tenchi to simply smile quietly when he visited.
The Takamichi family had five people. Shiro the father was a retired swordsman style bodyguard, currently helping his wife Momoko run the Midori-ya cafe. Their only son Kyoya and oldest daughter Miyuki were both inheritor’s of their father’s family sword styles, although they preferred the double short blade style to the single katana style. Their youngest daughter Nanoha could frequently be found where ever Ranma was to the extent of taking some time between studying for school and training her magic blasting abilities to learn to cook and run a household.
The Kinomoto family was mostly Sakura and her older brother Toya, and Sakura spent most of her time at home and with her school friends.
The Daidouji family was initially just Tomoyo, her female bodyguards and her female maids. As soon as her mother Sonomi found out about the magic doorways, she requested a similar connection from Washu so she could quickly get from the corporate life to spend time with Tomoyo and the other girls. Shortly after that Sonomi went as far as to get a room at the beach house herself, actually spending entire days around the house.
The final family connected to Ranma was the Tsukino family; mother Ikuko, father Shinji the reporter, daughter Usagi and little brother Shingo. As Ikuko was a housewife she naturally took to taking care of the kids at the beach house and cooked and served supper for her family there. Shinji had initially questioned the set-up until the first time he came home from work and stepped through a doorway to a house on a tropical beach. If that alone wasn’t enough to sell him on the situation, after supper the kids mostly took care of themselves, leaving him alone with Ikuko to work on adding a third child to the family.
As for the beach, most of the families assumed it was somewhere in the tropical region of the Pacific. Others like Tenchi didn’t make foolish assumptions like the beach being on the same planet or even the same dimension.
The beach house in particular had been designed by Washu to resemble a traditional Japanese house with all the electrical and plumbing neatly hidden. The one major exception was the kitchen, a large modern affair with multiple ovens, stoves and fridges so at least three girls could cook in there without bumping into each other. With the beach house getting increasingly lively it had expanded a bit until it had sprawled around enough to contain an inner courtyard.
As for rooms, Washu of course gave Ranma a master bedroom suite. The bedroom was rather bare however, mostly serving as a playroom for the kids. A smaller room just off of it was Ranma’s actual bedroom, holding all his manga and toys, plus the small bed he slept in when he actually slept alone.
For Alita Washu had been a bit more whimsical, giving the girl a large treehouse near the waterfall to serve as her bedroom.
So when Ranma returned home for cookies, Nanoha ended up joining the cooking event going on in the kitchen. Sasami was apparently handling dinner tonight as Ikuko was instead coaching Usagi on how to cook. Even Alita was in there learning to cook, something that mystified Ranma as no part of her was domestic.
He’d almost expected Tomoyo to be in there with her mother, but they were instead in the main room discussing the distinct lack of household maids with Nanoha’s friends. The purple haired Suzuka even had her maids with her for their opinion on the situation. Tomoyo for her part seemed torn between her family providing the maids and potentially getting Sakura and the other girls into maid outfits.
Hearing the conversation, Ranma quietly backed up, looking for an escape as the house started to overflow with estrogen.
Pondering his options he looked around for a bit before heading to the Masaki shrine. If Sasami was handling supper at the beach house, he was curious what Tenchi was up to that night.
Finding the older boy at the Masaki shrine, it was certainly quieter at the rural home and shrine. “Hey, you coming over for supper tonight?”
Picking fresh vegetables in the field, Tenchi slightly raised an eyebrow at seeing Ranma in an outfit that vaguely resembled what they wore as battle uniforms. “No, I’ll be cooking here tonight.”
That amused the younger boy. “So those two really can’t cook huh?”
Looking around Tenchi shushed Ranma. “Don’t let them hear about that or they might try again.”
Grinning the younger boy took some amusement in Tenchi’s situation. Tenchi only had the two girls but they caused way more fuss than however many girls it was that were around Ranma at any given moment. “Well they’re doing cooking lessons over at my house. They could join if they want.”
Tenchi blinked, wanting to say it was a bad idea until he remembered that time Ryoko had been picking on Ranma a tad too much in Nanoha’s presence. Ryoko hadn’t been the only one not to take the little magical girl seriously, but Nanoha had one massive advantage between the two.
Nanoha could shoot to stun while also using full power, so she had no moral quandry about blasting Ryoko into the dirt. While she had to worry about collateral damage with missed shots, her aim was far better than Ryoko’s. What had followed had been a rather embarrassing day for Ryoko as she ended up trying to escape a rather irate magical girl that turned out to be able to sensor lock Ryoko without a visual and shoot her through cover.
No, Ryoko and Ayeka would probably behave if they went over to visit Ranma’s house. “Well I suppose we could ask. I don’t really care if they can’t cook though, I like doing the cooking.”
A gentle clearing of a throat behind Tenchi let him know it was time to turn around. “You don’t care if we can’t cook Lord Tenchi? Obviously there is no hope for the crude demon woman, but would you not wish for me to cook for you?”
Ever helpful, Ranma piped up. “That’s alright, lots of women can’t cook these days. That’s what the girls at school were saying at least when we had that cooking class and Sasami and Nanoha got into a mini Iron Chef battle. Lotsa guys can cook these days too, I mean even I can cook over an open campfire. At least you know how to use chopsticks, lotsa kids at school can’t even do that.”
Face twitching, Ayeka ever so slowly calmed herself down. Sasami had dropped a few hints that if she wanted Tenchi, she should learn to do something around the house since Tenchi took after Yosho in his preference for rural life over living like nobility. Like Ranma’s innuendo she’d also cheerfully asked if Ayeka just preferred for her little sister to continue cooking for Tenchi.
Ten minutes later, Ayeka found herself in the kitchen of the beach house and as promised there were cooking lessons going on. Unfortunately for her ego several of the little girls including her little sister were cooking fine on their own, it was just the clumsy Usagi and anti-social Alita actually getting cooking lessons.
As embarrassing as it was to be learning at her age, Ayeka sighed and joined Ikuko’s basic cooking lessons.
Relaxing on the porch of the Masaki home with Tenchi and Ryoko, Ranma enjoyed the sound of insects in the evening that they didn’t quite get on the beach. Like Alita though, Ranma was a bit used to being alone, so every once in a while he liked to escape the girls and moms for a bit. Without Ayeka there he didn’t have to worry about Ryoko causing a fuss either.
Ranma however failed to account for the fact that Ryoko might just hold a grudge against him for her humiliation at the business end of Raising Heart.
Ryoko didn’t get past the point of putting the evil grin on her face to watch the brat squirm when a burst of pink exploded across her face. Blinking the stinging sensation away she turned ever so slowly to see Nanoha smiling at her, finger still pointing from her target shoot magic. “You’re not thinking about bothering my Ranma-kun again, are you?”
Seeing Tenchi giving her a dull look, Ryoko put her hand behind her neck while nervously laughing. “Who me? I’d never pick on a little kid.”
Still smiling the brunette laid out her little cloth bundle of cookies out as she sat on the veranda by Ranma. “Your cookies Ranma-kun, freshly baked with love. A little snack to get your energy back. We have a little bit longer before supper though.”
After a quiet moment as the four enjoyed her cookies, Nanoha suddenly pumped her arm up in the air with a cheer at her little wifely victory. “Total Annihilation with Maximum Power, Anytime for my Ranma-kun!”
At which point Ryoko choked on her cookie.
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(Posted Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:43)
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