Really, there were only four bedrooms, one of which was intended as a guest room. However, several of the other rooms were easily converted into bedrooms. There was one spatious enough loft in the attic that attracted Ranma's attention. The height of it made her comfortable.
And Nabiki found herself looking at what had probably been built as a library, considering the bookshelves built into the walls. It was a place that she could. Then rethought that. It would make it too easy to make the research private, and then who would be able to tell what she was doing. She wanted to take this research cautiously, lest she fall to the same temptation as her elder blood family. And that included having her family in on it.
The downstairs included a copious main hall, a ball room, a dining room, lounge and living room. All set mainly for entertaining visitors. It was the kind of house that the rich would call a cabin and come to for private parties.
Nodoka nodded as she looked it over and considered the furnishings they would need. Mainly just to get started.
"They're asking a very cheap price considering the size of the property," Becky noted.
"Do you know why?" Rally asked.
"They need the money to pay the inheritance taxes," Becky said. "They're parents weren't kind to the family fortune."
Setsuna felt...something about the house. Something like a waiting. A watching.
She wasn't certain what it was, or what it's intentions were, but there was a presence about the house. An old presence.
"There's...something here, Mother," she said.
"Something?" Nodoka said, turning about.
"I can feel it, watching us," Setsuna asserted.
"What do you mean something?" Rally asked, hand drifting towards her gun.
"I don't know," Setsuna said. "Something about this place."
****
Ranma looked out the window of the attic loft and beheld the trees that hedged out the view of anything else beyond them. They had passed into a fair depth of woods before reaching the house. She liked that, she liked the privacy it afforded. She liked the reminders of her life on the road, the good points at least, and she would deal with the bad points for those.
She sighed and decided to test something that she hadn't done more than once or twice and never since killing Kasumi.
She stepped out of the window, closing her eyes as she dropped and the wings grew from her back.
****
Becky gasped out in terror as the form of Ranma's body slipped past the window.
"What?" Rally asked. She cursed herself, of course this was a great place to set a trap.
"She...she..." Becky pointed toward the window and was surprised a second time when she saw Ranma's form climbing gracefully into the sky. "Is..flying?"
They all crossed to window and watched Ranma wheeling around outside gracefully before finally settling down on the yard, her wings retreating back into her body as she set down.
"Is something the matter?" the agent asked desperately as she came running into the room, putting away her cell phone. "These old houses can sometimes surprise you."
Akane started mumbling something in Japanese about luck and talking to her sister about discretion. Nabiki agreed, but took the agent's immediate excuses and Setsuna's comments and added them up.
"No," Nodoka said. "One of my daughters was playing some unfortunate games and surprised the young woman there."
"Oh," the agent said, looking greatly relieved. "I see, well, teenagers are a handful."
Setsuna blinked, that watchful presence she had felt seemed to ease off, as if something had satisfied it. The building suddenly felt measurably more comfortable for some reason. Somehow, she felt that if they stayed here, nothing could come upon them by surprise.
"It stopped," Setsuna said in Japanese.
"What stopped?" Nodoka responded. "Whatever you felt? It's gone?"
"No, it's not...gone," Setsuna explained. "Just...I feel comfortable here now."
"Hmm," Nodoka said. She said, looking about. Haunted or not, they had little in the way of viable options. "I believe we'll take it."
****
Ranma walked about the edge of the house, heading for the doorway. Then she heard the steps from the woods and turned to see someone walking in from the woods.
He was a tall and broad shouldered young man about her age with a determined look on his face and a huge pack. He was quite familiar for some reason that she could not quite latch onto, but it made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.
The young man, boy really saw her and walked over to her, looking very haggard.
"Can you tell me if a boy named Ranma Saotome passed here?" he asked, speaking Japanese. Ranma froze and felt a chill go up her back.
"W..who?" she asked.
"Ranma Saotome," the boy said. "He's this jerk I know from boy's school. I've been chasing him all over mainland China for the last year. By the way, do you know the way to the nearest village?" That snapped the picture into place for Ranma.
"Ryouga?" Ranma said hesitantly, feeling suddenly very self-conscious for some reason.
"Huh?" Ryouga asked. "How did you know my name?" Ranma winced, now she'd done it. What should she tell him?
"Oh damn, am I still wearing that? Stupid part time jobs."
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 29 Jan 2003 19:57)
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