The next morning Ranma came down the stairs. “Akane, Nabiki?”
“Here, Ranma,” the girls called. “We have breakfast.”
Ranma walked to the table and slid into his place. “Smells good.”
“Sure that isn't what's left of last night's fish you're smelling?” Nabiki asked with a sly smile.
Ranma considered that. “Nah, that smell isn't this strong.”
“You usually don't sleep in this late,” Soun commented from his place.
Ranma shrugged. “For once the old man didn't want to spar this morning.”
Akane thought back to the thrashing Ranma had given Genma. The elder Saotome had declared Ranma's mastery of the Saotome style to be adequate before passing out. “That doesn't surprise me,”Akane agreed.
Nabiki nodded slightly. “We'd better get ready to go soon. After the Amazons we still need to get you two ready for school tomorrow.”
“Ready?” Ranma asked, eating a bit faster.
“Well Daddy desilvered the house while you were away, but I haven't been able to get rid of it at school. I need to show you places that could be dangerous for you.”
“Great,” Ranma grumbled. “What's a school doing with silver anyway?”
“Chemistry and physics,” Nabiki said simply. “Also some of the athletic trophies. A few other places, too.”
Ranma sighed. Staying away from the crazy nerds that kept setting off explosions sounded fine, but that trophy case was right outside the lockerroom. “Great,” he repeated.
Ranma walked into the Nekohanten in front of Akane, with Nabiki in the rear. He wasn't tense, but ready. Cologne's promise to talk, just talk, wasn't enough to get him to drop his guard when he had the Tendo girls with him.
Cologne was sitting at a table with Shampoo and Mousse. The young Amazons' eyes were locked on Ranma's hair. Nabiki noted the CLOSED sign outside and ramped up the seriousness of this meeting a notch. The Amazons had no intentions to make the restaurant a career, but Nabiki was well aware that an isolated village in China had limited financial resources. Cologne had to turn a profit with the restaurant just to survive, and turning away the weekend lunch crowd was doing no favors for her bottom line.
Ranma pulled a chair up to the table and sat. “You wanted me here,” he said simply.
“Airen?” Shampoo asked, still looking at the hair.
“So you're finally a monster in body, Saotome,” Mousse snarled.
Nabiki coughed as Ranma and Akane both growled at Mousse. “We're not here to trade insults or blows.”
Cologne smiled slightly as the martial artists settled down, with a few glares but that was to be expected. “Peacemaker is a rare role for you, Miss Tendo.”
“It's a necessary one,” Nabiki said simply.
Shampoo bit back her own opinion; Mercenary Girl was after information she could sell about airen. “Is true Airen is werecat?”
Ranma nodded. “Yeah, that's true,” he said.
“So your nekoken is cured,” Cologne observed.
Ranma blinked. “How did you know that?”
“It was a probable outcome only,” Cologne confessed. “The nekoken is not of our village, but after you revealed it had been inflicted upon you I sought out what I could find about it. Your feline persona was a defense mechanism against the trauma of the experience. As a werecat, you have genuine feline instincts and abilities. Since you are clearly not overwhelmed by them, it seems likely that your feline persona has merely integrated itself into those instincts. This is a unique situation, however, so I would not advise you to seek to trigger an episode.”
“Mmm.” Ranma mulled that over. “But you didn't get me here to chat about my nekoken. What do you know, old ghoul?”
“Not as much as the Diggers, I believe. That is the name Ryoga gave the Americans, yes?” Cologne glanced around the various nods. “I have never heard of werecheetahs before, but the Amazon histories speak of weretigers. So do our laws.”
Shampoo and Mousse looked surprised that there were laws, while Ranma and Akane tightened up and looked ready for bad news. Nabiki tilted her head slightly. “What do your histories say?” she asked.
“Weretigers came from what is now northern China in the height of the Age of Magic,” Cologne said. “We don't know why or how they came into being. In the beginning they made large numbers of thralls, but that stopped relatively quickly. The last of the scattered clans eventually left this world these past few hundred years, that we know of anyway. We think the near-extinction of their animal population made it impossible for them to retain secrecy from the wider world.”
Ranma breathed out a “huh” as he processed that. “So what does that mean for us?”
“We didn't know, until Ryoga, that there were other werecreatures in the world,” Cologne grumbled. “Our laws are not written with this knowledge in mind. 'Were' and 'werecat' and 'weretiger' are used interchangeably in places. Fortunately we are a small tribe, so the actual laws are few and fairly direct.”
“Death squads?” Ranma asked.
“No death squads,” Cologne replied. “There are ultimately two laws we need concern ourselves with. One, an Amazon that is turned into a thrall shall be considered murdered by the werecat that claimed her, with appropriate repercussion to follow.”
Akane frowned. “You consider a thrall dead?”
“Any Amazon whose will has been sundered in such a way is considered dead,” Cologne replied gravely. “The few times it has happened, we have sought to make it a literal death to release her soul from imprisonment. Most thanked their killers in their final moments.”
Akane shuddered, but Ranma nodded. “I don't like it, but I get it,” he said.
“And the second law is that a werecat is not considered a cursed human,” Cologne said.
None of the Japanese teens knew what to make of that, but it clearly meant something to Shampoo as she let out a strangled wail.
Ranma looked from Shampoo to Cologne and back. “Wait, what does that mean?”
“It means, Ranma Saotome, heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, that you can never be an Amazon, nor can any Amazon claim you as husband. Shampoo's claim on you is broken.”
Ranma sat ramrod straight as that echoed in his mind. He...had lost a fiancee. That should make him intensely happy. Shouldn't it?
He looked to Shampoo, who had tears from her eyes. She ran from the table, but didn't make it far before she collapsed and retched. The girl that had put him through so much trouble...
Nabiki looked to Cologne and blocked out the Amazon girl. “What about the kiss of death?” she asked coldly.
Cologne looked back with equal iron. “Shampoo could never kill Ranma,” she said simply. “The council of elders will need to rule on her pledge to kill 'her' now that marriage is no longer an option. But whatever the cost to herself, she will not go through with it.”
“But,” Ranma whispered, “her honor is satisfied, isn't it? She doesn't have to marry me anymore.”
“Have to?” Cologne asked. “Oh, Ranma, it isn't that simple. Shampoo chased you out of a duty of honor, yes, but do you think she stayed here for such a simple reason?”
Ranma looked to Cologne, confused and frightened. “Yes?”
Cologne sighed. “Shampoo hasn't been chasing her honor since the waterproofed soap incident. Maybe before that. She cares for you, Ranma, more than she cares for herself. More, I fear, than she cares for life itself.”
Akane looked at the broken girl and punched Mousse. “What are you doing?” she snarled.
Mousse honestly didn't have an answer for that. This was the best news he'd heard in a year! This was terrible! This was an amazing opportunity! He should kill Saotome for making Shampoo cry! “I...I should help her,” he mumbled, getting up unsteadily.
Ranma worked his mouth slowly, trying to find anything to say. He never knew what to say to an upset girl, and Shampoo was so far beyond “upset” that even his foot-in-mouth knew better than to say anything carelessly.
“Ranchan!”
Ranma had never been so grateful to the horrifying mess that was his life. “Ukyo!?”
Ranma's “cute fiancee” was in the door. She ran over to Ranma. “Ranchan! I heard you were back! Why didn't you come to see me first?”
Nabiki sighed. “Konatsu. We missed Konatsu.”
“Yeah, well, at least he isn't going to tell everyone in Nerima,” Ranma grumbled.
Ukyo stood by Ranma and ran her fingers through his hair. “So cute! Can I see your kitty form?”
Ranma sighed. “At least this time you aren't going to drown me,” he grumbled.
Ukyo giggled. “Weeelllll?”
Cologne smiled slightly. “I confess I am curious as well, Ranma.”
Ranma sighed. “Fine.” He reached into himself and pulled out the cat.
Ukyo's eyes widened. Fur grew over Ranma with shocking speed. He shot up to seven feet, maybe more, his loose clothing stretching over his frame. Muscles Ukyo wasn't even sure most people had gained definition enough to be seen through his shirt. His face didn't change that much, a bit of change to his nose but nothing that could really be called a muzzle, although those eyestripes were kinda attractive. She almost missed the tail until it thrashed behind him. “Well?” he asked.
“At last the demon reveals himself!”
Ranma gave Ukyo a flat look. “You didn't have Konatsu make sure you weren't followed.”
Ukyo put her hand behind her head, laughed a couple times, and pulled her combat spatula. “Not a problem, Ranchan. It's just Kuno.”
“OH HOHOHOHOHOHO! Ranma-sama! I am here to save you from that wretched Tendo fiend!”
“Both Kunos,” Ukyo corrected. “Still not a problem.”
“It is if they've gone to lethal tactics,” Nabiki snapped, heading for the back.
Mousse followed her with his gaze...such as it was. “Lethal?” he asked a nearby plant.
“It seems they think werecreatures are demons to be slain,” Nabiki pointed out helpfully. “Are the kitchen walls reinforced at all?”
Shampoo pushed Mousse away and turned towards the door of the Nekohanten. At the same moment, Kuno slashed the door with a katana and kicked the broken halves inwards in a suitably dramatic entrance. “No one raises a weapon to my husband without getting through me first,” she growled.
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(Posted Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:51)
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