Author's Note: When I made the options for the last episode, I neglected to notice that it had been morning when this story started. Since I doubt Ranma would have stayed under the bridge all day, I can only apologize for my negligence.
"Ranma?"
Ranma and Kodachi looked up towards the voice they heard. Looking over the guardrail of the bridge was an older woman with dark red hair and an odd bundle strapped across her back.
Ranma shuddered briefly. "M-mom?" If there was any person he didn't want to see him like this, his mother certainly would be it. Although seppuku had looked like a rather attractive option a short while ago, Kodachi's presence had changed his mind on that score.
Kodachi, in turn, was worried. She knew about the seppuku contract (Nabiki Tendo wasn't the only person who had their ears to the ground after all, and Kodachi was rich), and she certainly didn't want Ranma fulfilling it (although she wouldn't mind feeding a certain panda to Midori-game). She surreptitiously readied her ribbon.
Nodoka was also worried. She'd been on the way to the market when she'd heard someone yell, "HOLD, SAOTOME!" Knowing her son's propensity for attracting challengers, she'd made her way to where the voice had come from.
There she saw an awe-inspiring sight. Her son, facing down that deluded Kendo practitioner from his school, talking about how he'd killed a god while in China, and looking somewhat like one himself, wreathed in blue fire as he was. Even that Kumon boy hadn't been this manly...
Then she heard, "And if you ever even think about touchin' Kodachi again, I'll kill you! NOW GET LOST!"
Kodachi? Wasn't she that stuck-up girl with the gymnastics fetish? She thought she remembered the girl from the time Ranma's fiancées had destroyed her home. But isn't he Kodachi's brother? Nodoka shuddered, hoping she'd interpreted Ranma's sentence incorrectly.
Looking down, she saw her son, no longer aflame, with the girl she remembered as Kodachi Kuno laying one hand on his shoulder. One look on her son's face convinced her this wasn't the time to be celebrating her son's manliness. She called out, "Ranma?"
Her son's reaction was like a knife to the heart. He looked up, and all the blood seemed to run out of his face. "M-mom?" he stuttered, as if only seeing the katana on her back, and the contract her foolish husband had signed a decade ago.
The girl's reaction was also interesting. Recognition had appeared on her features as well, followed briefly by fear, and then cold determination. Nodoka realized that the girl had decided that she would protect Ranma, from his own mother if need be.
Nodoka smiled internally. Arrogant and delusional this girl may have been in the past, but now she was ready to defend herself and the man she loved, something none of the other fiancées had done. Perhaps her son had finally found a worthy bride...
Time enough for that later. After the disaster her son had lived for the last year, Nodoka felt the last thing he needed was more pressure. "Ranma, why don't you and your friend come up here? You look like you could use someone to talk to, and I was just on my way to the market."
Ranma blinked, then jumped effortlessly up to join his mother. Kodachi followed, using her ribbon to give herself the momentum to clear the guardrail.
Nodoka looked at the pair. It was obvious that they were keeping something bottled up, and equally obvious that it wasn't going to stay that way for long. "On second thought, the market can wait, my son. Let's go home. Miss...Kuno, was it?"
"Hai, Saotome-dono."
"Why don't you accompany us? I think it's high time my son found a girl capable of more than hitting him and getting kidnapped."
Kodachi blinked. That sounded a little...sharp. She thought the Saotome matriarch had approved of the Tendo engagement. "As you wish, Saotome-dono."
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(Posted Sun, 31 Aug 2003 06:09)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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