[Episode 258197] [Episode 258197]“He saw you with your face plate off?” Ukyou asked. “I'm not surprised he's been scarred for life, Ran-chan!”
“I didn't know he was there, alright?” Ranma angrily replied, kneeling at the side of his charging bed, where an unconscious Hayate rested. “Why didn't you stop him when he was heading towards the bathroom?”
Ukyou frowned at Ranma. “I was busy cooking the okonomiyaki! Konatsu-kun tried to stop him!”
“I tried to get to him without alerting Ranma-sama!” Konatsu protested. “I almost got to him before Ranma-sama could turn around!”
“Can we stop trying to blame each other for this?” Akane shouted, currently sat on the edge of the bed. “If he didn't see one of us with our face plate off now, it wouldn't be long before he did! Hayate-chan said Ucchan showed him hers when we were driven here!”
“But that was because...” Ukyou began.
“No buts!” Akane said firmly.
Ranma frowned at Akane, who only glared back. “I didn't want to give him some new trauma, okay?”
“Hayate-kun needed to see it, Ranma.” Akane replied. “He wanted to know how bad it was, what we were going through. If nothing else, he's definitely got the idea now.”
A soft groan caught Ranma's attention, and he looked down to see Hayate's eyes open. “Ranma-sempai? Akane-sensei?”
Ranma looked over at Hayate. “How are you feeling? You didn't hit your head on the floor, right?”
“No, I'm okay...” Hayate mumbled. “Please, tell me that I just dreamt I saw you without a face...”
Ranma averted his gaze from Hayate. “No... No, that was real.”
“Shit.” Hayate groaned.
Akane rested her hand on Hayate's chest, stroking it gently. “None of us liked seeing what we looked like under our face plates, Hayate-kun.” She said in a soothing tone. “And a lot of the human males who've seen that kind of thing like it even less.”
“How much less?”
Akane sighed. “Some of the older gynoids got badly beaten by their masters when they saw under their face plates. So bad that they had to have their craniums and C3Ns practically reconstructed from scratch so their CCUs could be slotted in and reconnected.”
Hayate stared at Akane silently, his face ashen.
“Though all of their CCUs survived those occasions.” Akane said nervously, attempting to be reassuring. “Most of those women are living happy lives in the compound with new lovers...”
Hayate rolled to face away from Akane.
“Maybe you shouldn't have mentioned the part about the vicious beatings, Akane-sama?” Konatsu suggested.
“Look, the okonomiyaki's already done.” Ukyou said. “Let's eat, before we do anything else. Make sure to leave one for Hayate-kun as well, okay?”
Akane gently smoothed out Hayate's hair before she rose off the bed towards one of the desks set up against the wall of the dormitory, now serving as a table for four large okonomiyaki. As Ranma took one to Hayate with a small bottle of sauce and mayo (knowing his irritation at Ukyou's tendency to skimp on both), Akane quietly began to eat hers.
“Ucchan,” Ranma asked carefully. “How long did you know... That you were an gynoid?”
“About from the time that I was converted, I guess...” Ukyou said. “That was almost a week ago. It's hard for me to say when. But at least I still was kind of like what I was before then. Konatsu-kun was, too. Not like over in Tomobiki.”
“Me too.” Akane added. “Me and my sisters knew that we were gynoids from the start. We even had knowledge of how to charge and use our ASUs. Apparently, the one person among us who didn't know...”
“...was me.” Ranma finished.
Ukyou stared at Ranma. “Why would they do such a thing to you?”
“So they'd make him believe that he's still human, I suppose.” Akane answered. “That way he'd be more subservient, especially if he is able to have any gynoids imprint on him.”
“Bargaining chips.” Ranma said quietly. “They were planning to use you as bargaining chips for me.”
“More like a leash.” Akane said. “If they could control us, then you would follow them. Maybe you would do anything they wanted.”
“Not like this!” Ranma said. “I don't want to do anything that anyone tells me just because some other jerk says so!”
Ukyou leaned forward, her eyes hardening. “Ranma, you saw what Ataru could do to me! He was able to make me do anything with just one little word! What if he could still do that to me? Or to Akane-chan? Or to you?”
Ranma's looked down at the remains of his okonomiyaki, poking at it with his chopsticks. “I don't know,” he said in a small voice.
“I don't know what to think about the others we haven't found yet.” Akane mused. “They'll be in serious danger, all of them!”
“Shampoo, Kodachi, Akari, Hinako-sensei...” Ukyou counted.
“Mom...” Ranma added, his head still lowered.
Akane gazed at Ranma for a while. “You're right. Auntie is missing too... We'll need to find her too. I hope that these people here can help us do it.”
“I sure hope so.” Ranma said quietly. “I don't want to lose my mother, just like anyone else here would.” He looked over at Hayate, still curled up on the bed. “'Specially him.”
Akane followed Ranma's gaze towards the bed. “Hayate-kun?”
Hayate made a “Huh?” sound.
“You're listening to us too, aren't you?”
Hayate turned his head towards the other four. “I could hear you guys from over here, anyway.”
Ranma put down his empty plate, and walked over to the bed. “You okay there, Hayate? You still not raw about your mother or anything?”
Akane sighed in exasperation. “Ranma, don't be so blunt!”
Hayate paused for a second, before rolling onto his back, looking at Ranma. “No, I'm feeling okay. I guess.”
Ranma looked down at the plate resting on Hayate's chest. Empty. A smile spread across his face. “Well, at least you're eating!”
Hayate nodded. “I couldn't hurt Ukyou's feelings, you know.” His gaze stayed on Ranma, not leaving him. “Hey, Ranma-sensei, I wanted to know something...”
A soft blush started to rise in Hayate's cheeks, causing a similar heat to rise in Ranma's cheeks.
“You know, since you're an android and all...”
Hayate felt the gaze of everyone in the room focused on him, and felt his embarrassment rise.
Ranma leant forward, his face bright red. “W-well, if you wanna know about me... Do you really think of me that way? Could you...? Would you...?”
Hayate blinked. “Well. I just wanna know... Do you still eat food? Can you even take a shit?”
Ranma teetered over, and fell face first on the floor. Akane turned around to try and hide her giggles.
“I mean, you've got that charger thing, right?” Hayate sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Do you even need to eat or drink?”
“Yes, we can still eat and drink.” Akane said, still blushing. “And we can... Do that thing. I think it helps with our power cell, and makes it last longer. Not to mention provide mass in the case we need repair. These bodies were made to seem as lifelike as possible, you know.”
Ukyou smiled a little. “Well, except for some other things we got that humans don't...”
Hayate grimaced. “I might regret asking this, but what other things are you talking about?”
Akane's blush deepened. “Our anuses aren't just designed for waste disposal.” She said quietly. “They're also made for anal sex.”
Hayate grimaced even further, and his head flopped back down on the bed. “It's weird. You still look and act a lot like how I'm used to. But you seem to be completely different on the inside.”
“You must've been dealing with it before they brought you here, huh?” Ranma said quietly. He looked down at his body, and his usual red shirt and black draw-string pants. “You wanna see what's inside of me, Hayate?”
Hayate stared at Ranma. “You... You want me to look inside you, Ranma-sempai?”
“Well, you've seen me half-naked as a girl, and then you just saw me with my face plate off... So yeah, I want you to see.”
Ranma looked into the younger boy's eyes, and saw a mix of feelings. There was fear, probably of what he be able to accept from what Ranma is now. There was curiosity, of wanting to see all of Ranma's body, so easily.
And there was also something that Ranma felt from Hayate, something that made him want to do it. A slight trace of wanting.
Ranma's fingers went up to his shirt, and slowly undid the buttons holding it closed, letting his chest and stomach slowly be exposed. “Don't be scared, okay? Even after what you'll see, what you've already seen... I'm still me, okay?”
The shirt slid off, revealing Ranma's bared chest, followed by his pants not long afterwards. Akane, Hayate, Ukyou and Konatsu watched in quiet fascination as Ranma walked up to the bed and sat down, pulling Hayate into his arms.
Ranma pushed his navel, unsealing the access hatch on his abdomen, and gently peeled away the skin to see the workings underneath, the energy and mass conversion reservoir that replaced his digestive system, the grey artificial muscles, and the various wires and conduits that carried energy to and from the power cell.
Hayate lifted his hand and slid it inside, past the musculature, to touch the inner sac, hearing Ranma exhale shakily as he did so. He looked up at Ranma's face, worried.
Ranma gazed into the other boy's eyes. “It's okay. I wanted you to see this. It doesn't look right, does it? Being able to touch my guts and all...” Ranma tried to force down the fear forming inside of him, and tried not to think of that hand tearing at his innards.
Hayate's hand moved away from the energy pump and rose higher, Ranma compliantly pressing into his breastbone and unsealing his chest hatch. Hayate could see some of his hand past the CSAT, moving over the power cell and the motor functions. Ranma breathed quickly as Hayate's head moved closer, and his hand drew out from inside of his body.
Silently, the panel of artificial flesh was pulled over Ranma's stomach, and was resealed again. Ranma quickly sealed his CSAT access hatch as Hayate rested his head against his chest. “Are you okay, Hayate? I mean... It's me, your Ranma-sempai... You believe me, don't you?”
Hayate's arms wrapped around Ranma's chest, and squeezed tightly. In response, Ranma gently reached up and moved his fingers through Hayate's short black hair, attempting to soothe him. “Don't worry. We're all still here...”
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(Posted Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:12)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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