[Episode 250556] [Episode 250556]“Nabiki, Shampoo-kun, it’s time for lunch,” Kasumi announced from the family room doorway.
“Gotcha, sis,” Nabiki replied, glancing up. Yes, her big sister was still dressed in just an apron.
Shrugging slightly, the middle Tendo sighed with relief as she set down her pencil while an obviously just as relieved Shampoo set aside the scroll they had been studying. Nabiki wondered if Shampoo’s mind hurt as much as hers did. They’d hit yet another impasse, Shampoo simply lacking the Japanese to explain the concepts they were trying to translate. Normally they would have simply set the scroll aside for later and moved on to the next, but this one was important. At least, Nabiki thought so — considering the normal chaos that surrounded Ranma, in her opinion anything that dealt with healing had top priority. So the two had spent the morning circling the reading, trying to come up with some angle that might grant Shampoo the words or Nabiki the enlightenment they needed.
Unfortunately, they had failed miserably. Nabiki was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that they were going to have to put aside the translation for awhile and sign the Amazon teenager up for a crash immersion course in Japanese. The cost for an instant immersion course would be high enough that they’d be reduced to eating cheap noodles for weeks, and not even Kasumi could work magic powerful enough to make that palatable, but it might be worth it. Even going back over what they’d already sort-of-translated afterward, they’d probably save time and have a better product —
Idiot! ‘Ranko’ starts work tonight, and since she’s a new girl her first stipend’ll probably be a hefty one. And she is supposed to be working to support her family, right? Of course, that first check won’t arrive for a week — time to give Kuno a call, let him know where he can find a certain redhead. Considering the kind of waiting list there probably is by this time, he shouldn’t actually make it in for at least a month, that should be enough to give me cover. Then Ranma can pay me back when she gets paid. Happy that she’d found an easy answer for something, she gathered up an armful of scrolls from the table and rose from where she sat to put them in one of the room’s cabinets.
“Oh, let me help you with that,” Kasumi exclaimed, bending over by Xian Pu gather up her own armful of scrolls — and coincidentally give the Amazon warrior a side shot of the swell of her breast through the side of her sagging apron.
Well, at least that was a little more subtle than this morning, Nabiki thought, and she seems to have her blush under better control. Even as she gathered up scrolls of her own, Xian Pu’s eyes flicked to the side to take in the offered view, then over to Nabiki. Nabiki shrugged, rolling her eyes (careful to make sure that Kasumi couldn’t see her). When Kasumi had hurried from the room to fetch lunch, the Amazon asked quietly, “Kasumi really make offer?”
“Yup, she sure did,” Nabiki replied, grinning.
“And Mercenary ... and Nabiki no care?”
Nabiki shrugged again. “She’s a big girl, she can make her own decisions about her love life. As long as you don’t play with her emotions, go for it, we’re good.”
Xian Pu nodded as she placed her own armload of scrolls in the cabinet. “Shampoo understand. Kasumi no warrior, but —” She broke off as Kasumi and Nodoka entered the room (the Saotome matriarch, at least, was properly dressed) with plates and silverware, and the two teens hurried over to relieve the women of their loads.
Ranma was puzzled, enough that she was simply picking at her food (though the fact that she didn’t really need to eat any longer, except to enjoy the taste of Kasumi’s masterpieces, made that easy). Something was going on — something between Kasumi and Shampoo — and she didn’t understand what it was. The red-haired and -furred succubus glanced at the eldest Tendo out of the corner of her eye, the older girl sitting demurely at her usual place at the table ... still dressed in nothing but an apron, and glancing at Xian Pu out of the corner of her eye. If Ranma didn’t know better, she would think that Kasumi was actually making a play at the purple-haired Amazon. But that couldn’t be it, not Kasumi! Though the way Nabiki and Mom ... and ‘Auntie’ were watching her ... and it had all the earmarks of the way a parade of girls had come on to him before —
She looked up across the room as the outside door to the koi pond slid open, revealing the filthy, exhausted figures of Genma and Soun, with the tiny, gnarled, gnome-like Happosai sitting on the Tendo patriarch’s shoulder and one arm braced on the top of his head.
Ranma was impressed by Kasumi’s reaction speed. In spite of the Tendo’s lack of training, she instantly shoved herself back from the table, sprang to her feet, and spun around to race from the family room deeper into the house at a full run. The succubus didn’t think that the fathers and the old pervert had gotten more than a few seconds’ view of Kasumi at all, and that mostly of her shapely bare backside and slim legs disappearing through the doorway. Ranma wasn’t sure she could have reacted faster from a standing, or in this case sitting, start herself (not that she’d admit it).
As Kasumi’s flashing heels disappeared through the doorway, Ranma turned her attention back to the newcomers to find that they’d missed the older girl’s exit. They were too busy staring at the naked redhead, and the tiny horns on her head and red fur across her shoulders — the fathers in shock, the ancient gnome in knowing appreciation.
Okay, let’s see if I figured this right, the succubus thought. She rose to her feet, the lightly trimmed red bush between her legs showing she wasn’t wearing anything below the waist either, and reached up to heft her breasts. “Hey, ya ol’ freak, ya want these?”
“Ranma!” a shocked Akane shouted, rising to her feet, but the succubus ignored her lover to focus on the Grandmaster of the Anything Goes school. His eyes were fixed on her offered mounds, mouth gaping slightly and a trace of drool beginning to ooze down his jaw. Giggling at the sight, she flicked her thumbs across tightening nipples. “C’mon, have a taste,” she offered, leering at her target (an expression she had been expressly ordered during her training to never use, unless specifically authorized by a supervisor — the clients might have considered the cosplay girls that serviced them to be sluts, but they usually didn’t like the girls acting that way).
Happosai hesitated, unease flickering in his eyes, then threw away all restraint. “Sweeto!” he shouted, launching himself off Soun’s shoulder and across the room in one bounce to slam into Ranma’s chest, one arm circling each breast as he buried his face between them. Ranma held her breath, forcing herself not to knock the pervert away as his arms squeezed and he snuggled his face in the valley between her mounds. Akane was rising to her feet, expression thunderous, as the gnome’s breath tickled Ranma’s chest and his hands gripped at her nipples, and ...
The redhead was knocked back a step as a crack of blinding black light blew the arguably-human limpet clamped to her chest away. The room’s shocked occupants rubbed or blinked their eyes clear to find a charred, smoking Happosai staggering to his feet on the chest of the Tendo patriarch that he had knocked over.
“Wha’d’ya know, it worked,” Ranma said, fighting the temptation to rub her breasts — she hadn’t expected the stinging backlash. “Like I thought, ya can’t leech offa whatever replaced my ki when I got changed. Ya never actually met a succubus, did ya?”
“A ... what?” a stunned Genma finally managed to get out, his gaze switching between his bizarrely changed child and his burnt, smoking master.
“A succubus, a sex demon,” Nabiki replied from where she sat, smirking. The inevitable confrontation was turning out a lot more fun than she’d expected.
“Demon ... not human?”
“Do I look human?” Ranma demanded, turning in place to reveal the ‘V’ of scarlet fur running from her shoulders to the base of her flicking tail, and on down to its tip. Facing forward again, she reached up to flick at her horn buds. “An’ then there’s these,” she added, bringing out her wings and spreading them to full extension before pulling them in again. She glanced over at her Grandmaster. “But then, ya knew what the Champion was when me an’ Akane first told ya about it, didn’t ya?”
“Yes, m’girl, I did,” Happosai agreed nonchalantly. “Though I must admit that the loss of your ki came as an unpleasant surprise, how unfair of fate to deprive an old man of one of his few remaining joys! Still,” he added with a leer at a suddenly pale Akane, “there are plenty of other fish in the sea.”
Ranma stepped between them, dark energy coruscating around her clenched fists. “No.”
“No?” The gnome looked over at the stiff figures of Xian Pu and Nabiki.
“No.”
“No.” Happosai glanced up as Kasumi reentered the room, without her ever-present apron and still fastening the top buttons of her house dress. His eyes sharpened and he started to grin, but then shook his head with a sigh. “No, I suppose not. Still, there are plenty of other dainties to be found in the district —”
“Nerima is mine. Take yer perverted little games somewhere else.”
“I did say that I could pursue my harmless little pleasures anywhere, didn’t I?” Happosai, mused. He leaped from Soun’s chest up to sit on Genma’s shoulder. “I’ll admit that it would be a relief to get away from these two pathetic losers, knowing that I’m leaving behind a true student. Though there’s much I could teach you about the new joys you’ve discovered....” He chuckled at the horrified, disgusted looks on Ranma and Akane’s faces. “Not that either, hmm? Very well, it isn’t exactly foundational to the School, anyway.”
Sobering, he gazed at Ranma for a long moment. “Still,” he continued, “there is one way you have yet to prove yourself worthy of the title of Master, one that neither of these fools have mastered — a Master is not just one that has mastered his School, but one that can teach it to others. Your few attempts in that have been almost as pitiful as those of these two. This fool —” he rapped the top of Genma’s head with his pipe “— was lucky to have you for a student, or you’d be dead. That fool —” pointing his pipe at Soun, now sitting up “— dove into the world’s longest pity party after his wife’s death. Not only can’t he teach, he’s sorely in need of more retraining than I can be bothered to provide.” Happosai flipped up to perch on top of Genma’s head and grinned at Ranma. “So, girl, do you think you can do a better job?”
Ranma crossed her arms under her bare breasts and bared her teeth back. “Ya know it!” she asserted confidently.
“Then prove it. I’ll take myself off on a vacation for a year, and when I get back you can show me what you’ve done with one student. If I like what I see, I’ll give you your certificate.”
“You’re on!” Ranma agreed. “Akane will —” She stumbled to a stop. “Oh, right, it can’t be Akane.”
“Why not?” his lover shouted angrily from she’d been standing, listening to the exchange. She stomped over to glare down at the redhead. “I’m good enough!”
“Yeah, ya are, but you’re also pregnant, pretty soon you’ll be a growin’ girl,” Ranma replied.
“I ... Oh, right.” Akane blushed.
Ranma sighed. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, we’ll train as much as we can, just means I can’t use ya fer this,” she said softly.
Akane nodded, eyes dropping. “Sorry,” she murmured.
Ranma pulled her into a hug. “Not a problem,” she whispered.
Kasumi smiled at the embracing couple, before looking over at the fathers and giggling for a moment — Genma was frozen in place, eyes wide, and her father had fallen back in a faint. “Grandfather, I’ll do it,” she said quietly.
The room went still.
Kasumi glanced around at the frozen people all around, giggling again at the sight of Ranma and Akane still locked in their embrace, frozen in place with their faces turned to stare at her.
“My, the caterpillar truly is turning into a butterfly, isn’t she?” Happosai murmured. In a louder tone, he said, “Yes, you would be perfect, a true test of Ranma’s skill.”
“Hold it, time out!” Nabiki shouted, jerking up to her feet. “Let’s talk about this for a moment.” She stalked over to grab her older sister’s elbow and pulled her out the door and down the hall to the kitchen.
As soon as they were in the center of Kasumi’s empire, Nabiki whirled to face her older sister. “There are a lot of easier ways to get into Shampoo’s bed than this,” she growled. “We’re talking about a solid year! What if you and Shampoo only last a few weeks?”
Kasumi blushed furiously, wildly shaking her head. “No, it’s not that! Well, a little,” she admitted, “but there’s more to it. The Art can open up a whole other world to me, not even beyond our dojo — it’ll come here. It already has, with the Saotomes here, but with this I won’t be just an observer, anymore.”
Nabiki paused, mouth open. Finally, she closed her mouth to gaze searchingly at the young woman that had finished raising her. “You really want this?” she asked.
Kasumi nodded, eyes dropping. “Yes.”
Nabiki sighed. “It would be a lot easier to put an ad up on a singles website — I’d even do the background checks for you — but if it’s what you want, I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” Kasumi whispered, then abruptly hugged Nabiki.
Nabiki stiffened, then hesitantly returned the embrace for a moment before pushing Kasumi away (blushing faintly as she realized her sister hadn’t taken the time to put on a bra — she’d found herself disturbingly aware of that sort of thing since her couple of evenings feeding Ranma). “Okay, okay, no need to get all mushy,” she groused, but couldn’t keep a smile from briefly crossing her face. “Let’s get back before Ranma gets into a brawl with the old letch and destroys the place.”
The tableau was essentially unchanged when they walked back into the family room, except that Nodoka and Xian Pu had risen to their feet where they had sat, and Ranma and Akane had broken their embrace and were standing beside each other and holding hands. The two were smirking at Ranma’s father, who was determinedly not looking at his naked “daughter” and her lover — or her mother.
All eyes turned to the pair of Tendos. “Well?” Happosai asked brusquely, then brightened when Kasumi shyly nodded. “Wonderful! Now I must be off — another ward to seek out, full of soft, beautiful, silky darlings and sweet women eager to be embraced!” And with that, he threw himself off of his student, bounced out the door, and was gone.
The room was silent for a long minute, before Genma finally said, “Well, boy, we have one year —”
“It’s girl, and I have one year,” Ranma interrupted, voice hard. She let go of Akane’s hand and stepped forward, instinctively bringing out her wings and spreading them out to full extension between Genma and Kasumi. “If ya think I’m lettin’ ya anywhere near my students —”
A groan interrupted her rant, and she furled her wings as everyone looked over at Soun. He was sitting up, his hand to his forehead. He looked up and his youngest daughter. “You’re ... you’re pregnant?” he asked.
Akane nodded, glowering at him. “Yes!” she said shortly.
“Genma brightened. “That’s right! Soun, old friend, the schools will be joined!” He reached down to pull Soun to his feet. “Come, this calls for a celebration!”
“But ...” Soun tried to protest. “But ...”
Ignoring his friend’s sputtering protests, Genma pushed him from the room out into the yard and around the house for the front gate, and the two were gone, leaving the rest flabbergasted behind them.
“Well ... that was interesting,” Nabiki finally said, “and a lot easier than I expected that to go. That does call for a celebration. Why don’t we all take the afternoon off, and catch an early dinner out before ‘Ranko’ goes to work? My treat,” she added, when everyone but Kasumi looked at her suspiciously. I can use the afternoon to arrange Shampoo’s Japanese lessons, call Kuno when we get back, and talk to Ranma about paying me back for the week’s food tomorrow when she wakes up — Akane will be starting school again, so she’ll be out of the loop.
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(Posted Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:44)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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