The Cure
By: emeeem
Disclaimer: As much as I wish I did, I don't own Ranma ½.
"Well, I'm home again," said Ryoga to no one in particular. It was like any other time he was home. Nobody was there because his returns to the Hibiki house never coincided with those of his parents. Ryoga went to his room to drop off his findings from his travels, then took a nap. When he woke up, he felt like there was someone there, watching him.
"Good morning, sleepy head," said a female voice.
"Wha- huh? How long have I been asleep?" Ryoga didn't think it could be the next morning already. And he felt like he had heard the voice before.
"You've been out like a light since I got here," said the girl. Ryoga turned onto his other side and came face to face with a very cute, redheaded girl. The links took a few seconds to materialize, but then, "RANMA!!!!! GET OUT!!!!!!!!" Ryoga was certainly awake now.
"Okay, fine, geez," said Ranma. She walked toward the door, then stopped. "But I figured you'd like some company since you're always alone here. Your parents are never home, and you don't have any siblings, so why do you still come back?"
"I dunno," Ryoga almost mumbled, "I guess I still hope that I'll find my parents here sometime."
"Well, those odds are certainly astronomical." Ranma had very little care for Ryoga these days. She had just wanted to pull a simple prank.
"Yes, they are," responded another female voice.
I know that voice, thought Ryoga, though I rarely hear it.
Ryoga's mother was standing in the doorway. Finally, returns home coincided in the Hibiki family. They hugged each other tightly, for they rarely got the opportunity. Ryoga looked over his mother's shoulder to Ranma and said, "Why are you still here?"
Ranma responded as though she had rehearsed, "Because I just want to borrow some hot water."
"Fine, fine," said Ryoga, obviously getting annoyed by Ranma's presence, "Anything to get you out of here."
Ranma went upstairs a girl and came back down a boy. "See ya," he said.
Just then, a car drove up to the Hibiki house. A man got out, and gave a confused look to the boy coming out of the house, for he was not the man's son.
"By the way," said Mrs. Hibiki to Ryoga, "Your father told me to wait for him here, and to keep you here if I found you. And he promised that we wouldn't be waiting long."
"How can any in our family make such a promise?" Ryoga had no idea how his father could show up as fast as he claimed.
"He said he had some surprise for us, and that it would help," his mom told him.
"But wait no more!" The man who saw Ranma leave, Ryoga's father, entered the house.
"Dad!" Ryoga almost yelled.
"Honey!" his mom did yell.
The family had a nice, long session of catching up with each other. When that was done, Mr. Hibiki reiterated that he had something really special to show them outside. Outside was a shiny new car.
"Dad, how could you?" Ryoga asked when he saw the travel machine. "With our family's sense of direction, we'll-"
"Our sense of direction will be no problem," his father assured him.
"Why is that?" asked Ryoga.
"I can show you right now," said Mr. Hibiki.
The three of them got into the car. It had a nice leather interior that still smelled of new-ness and a CD changer and a radio and knobs and buttons and…
The author continued to list features found in just about every car.
The one thing that really puzzled Ryoga, though, was the screen just by the driver's seat.
"Dad, why is there a TV screen where the person who's supposed to be paying attention is?"
"That's no TV screen son," his dad said. "Check out how this works."
His dad started up the car. Speakers around the screen said "Where is your starting location?"
"Hibiki House," Ryoga's father said to it.
"'Hibiki' name confirmed. Switching to E-Z direction mode." The computer was silent for about thirty seconds. Then it asked, "What is your final destination?"
"Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts." Mr. Hibiki sounded like he had been using this thing for months. A map appeared on the screen.
"Destination confirmed," said the car. "Go forward and stop at intersection."
Mr. Hibiki followed the instructions exactly. Once he did, the car said "Turn left." A giant flashing red arrow pointing left appeared over the map on the screen. Mr. Hibiki made a left onto the next street. Then the car said, "Go forward for two blocks. Stop at each intersection."
This continued for a while. The car would give exact instructions and Mr. Hibiki would follow them. After about fifteen mintues, the Hibikis found them in front of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts.
"This is where you've been staying, right, Ryoga?" His father had to be sure he was at the right place.
"Yeah, it is. This is amazing!" Ryoga could not believe what had just happened. Fifteen minutes was a record for the Hibikis. What had taken hours before took mere minutes now!
The Tendos and Saotomes came outside to see who would step out of the car. Ryoga stepped out of the car first. Kasumi immediately offered, "Would you like a rest, Ryoga? You must be tired after such a long car ride. Your parents are welcome, too."
"Long?" Ryoga was confused, not realizing that Kasumi had made an assumption based on what she knew about Ryoga. "The ride was only fifteen minutes. There's no need to rest from that, Kasumi."
"But what about your family's horrid sense of direction?" inquired Nabiki.
"Is that why you thought it was long? Well, my dad can explain." Ryoga got over his confusion.
"Hello," said Mr. Hibiki. "I'm Ryoga's father. I just got this car today. It has a navigation voice built in so that we don't have to know how to get where we're going. It's a miracle of technology. No longer will our horrid sense of direction be a nuisance to us." He went on for hours, but the author was too lazy to write down everything he said.
When all was said and shown off, Ryoga's parents drove away, leaving Ryoga with the Tendos. Only silence was heard for a few minutes. Then Nabiki felt the need to break it.
"So, when will you be able to drive it?" she asked.
"I don't know," answered Ryoga. "I never thought driving was my thing. Maybe I should try it."
"The feeling's mutual," said Nabiki.
Yeah, it's not much, but I wanted to see something done about Ryoga's sense of direction. I figured that this was the best solution. I have no plans to continue it, but if you want more, start giving me ideas.