Nabiki x Kuno one-shot

Prized Possessions

"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." - Franklin Roosevelt

Nabiki Tendo would one day end up being one of the most lucrative business women in Japan. She would have a huge personal fortune, a huge business, a huge car.

But for now, she was still Nabiki, a teenage girl surrounded by people that saw her good business sense as something sinister, something to be avoided.

Fools.

It took genius to think of new ways to earn money, to find new ways of earning money, and out of all of her many plots, she was most fond of her photo-op plan for Kuno. What a stroke of genius that was, to supply her classmate with pictures of two girls she lived with. It was perfect, utterly perfect, to be able to make so much money so quickly.

Kuno, not that he knew it, was putting down a deposit on her first house. She squeezed him of so much money it was almost laughable- not that it made a dent in his fortune.

And she didn't mind that he liked her little sister, or that he liked Ranma's female form, because she knew he was never going to get either. She didn't mind selling him photos and time-tables, telling them where and when they would be, hosing Ranma down to get the second half of her payment.

As long as those two girls were on the market, Kuno would have eyes for no other. His devotion was absolute and painfully sweet, and only in her weaker moments did Nabiki wish she had it for herself. So Nabiki resigned herself for a long wait, because eventually Ranma and Akane would get together, she would make sure of that, and then she would just have to play her cards right. It couldn't help if she nudged that relationship in the right direction, either.

Kuno made her feel the way money feels, the way a new plan to make money made her feel: warm and fuzzy and happy. All three made her laugh, all three made her go home at night feeling a little better about herself.

Nabiki Tendo was going to be unstoppable, irrefutable, never rejected.

She would have anything and everything she wanted at the click of a finger.

But for now she was just Nabiki, and although she knew that one day she could have everything, she also knew that she couldn't have it now. And if the first thing that she really wanted was Kuno, then she was prepared to wait, because she had a proposition to make him.

She was just going to have to wait until the market was right.

And then she'd take her prize.