Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½
Almost just another day
Chapter 1.
He did what?
If there was one thing that was common knowledge about the middle-aged martial artist named Genma Saotome it was that he valued his own life, personal health and access to delicious food very much. Considering that staying alive remained his top priority when things didn't look so good
"Jeez! I can't believe you did that, pop!" Ranma Saotome his only son exclaimed in disgust and outrage, despite some traces of relief in his voice. Sure that scratch on the right side of his neck was just that: a scratch, but it certainly felt a little too close for comfort!
"Oh, I didn't want to do it son," Genma failed to reassure him, "but after what happened last time when she came for a visit I thought that the best course for her was to get help."
"But sending her to the nuthouse of all places! How much lower can you sink, you two-bit creep?"
"Now don't be that way, Ranma, and besides "nuthouse" is a quite negative term to use here since doctor Kuro assured me that his private psychiatric hospital give all the patients the best and most humane treatment possible in the country."
"Funny, last time I heard it was called Happy Thoughts Mental Asylum."
"They changed name recently after a bakery sued them for using the same name and that the bakery won the case. They're now just the Nerima Private Psychiatric Hospital."
"I can't believe I'm hearing this." Akane Tendo, youngest daughter of Soun Tendo and fiancée (she'd disagree severely about that last part) of Ranma muttered under heated breath. Sure the elder martial artist was capable of all kinds of stuff when his life was on the stake or when he saw the opportunity to gain something, but sending his own wife to a mental hospital was new to her? She probably should have expected that since he did after all throw his son into a pit of starved cats and how he acted the first time when Ranma wanted to go meet his mother in his normal form.
"And when will they let her out?" Nabiki Tendo, the middle daughter of Soun Tendo inquired with smug amusement over the daily craziness that came into the lives of her family after the Saotomes arrived and began to reside in the Tendo household and dojo.
"Doctor Kuro told me on the phone that by their estimations she would be out by six months at the minimum;" Kasumi Tendo, eldest of the three Tendo daughters said with her one of her usual smiles. She had at first had some slight worry over what had happened, but friendly reassurances from the one in charge of the staff had made sure that this worry evaporated mostly.
Genma had been a bit disappointed of that news. True he loved Nodoka in his own way, but he also loved to live as well. He had actually hoped to incarcerate her for life and get the Saotome house back; occasionally come for a visit as himself or as Ranko's panda and report to her of the progress of Akane and Ranma's engagement (either authentic or fabricated, preferably fabricated of course). But the silver lining would be that maybe, after six-months, she could be completely free from committing herself to that seppuku pledge where he and Ranma would have to perform said seppuku while Nodoka delivered the mercy killing stroke after the deed was done. If cured from said conviction she would be a valuable ally in the struggle to get the Saotome and Tendo together through the marriage of Akane and Ranma. And she would give him those foot massages she used to give him at night when they still lived together and he wasn't afflicted by an ancient Chinese curse that transformed him into a panda when doused with cold water while hot water changed him back. That he considered a blessing compared to Ranma who turned into a girl at the touch of cold water. And that was why he and Ranma lived with the Tendo family instead of going back to their own house, since he didn't think Nodoka would see it as very manly to have a manly-enough-by-his-standards son who was cursed to change into a girl through cold water and that that probably meant it was seppuku time!
"Oh, Nodoka, my dearest. I'll miss you." he mused and then got bopped on the head so hard that his head made a hole in the floor.
"Says the guy who never even visited her after coming home to Japan!" Ranma growled with a sour, twitching face and gripped his father by the scruff of his gi.
"I need my stomach for eating, don't I?"
"Is that all you can think of right now!"
"Now, now," Soun Tendo interrupted the two and managed to force the two apart and placed himself between them. "I can understand that Genma-san had his reasons for doing this."
(Mainly staying alive and getting the house back.) Genma thought.
"But even if her last visit resulted in a repetition of the time she tried to kill Ranma behind the door and that she earlier lost her unsheathed sword and almost took her husband's arm off while he was a panda, I do disagree with putting her in that place since I consider it a bit harsh to do to your own wife of all people." Sound continued.
Genma pouted as a result of that. Sure his best friend had lost his wife, but that didn't mean that he had to lecture him about how to treat his own.
"What if Kuro and the rest of the staff are sick perverts who will do all kinds of sick stuff to her?" Akane suddenly started imagining, getting various images in her head like Mrs. Saotome being hung upside-down while people dressed up in gorilla costumes mercilessly tickled her bare feet with large white feathers while they laughed in a horselike manner that made her shiver a bit.
"You've been watching too much of Cowbert and Horsebert and all those other soaps, haven't you?" Ranma remarked to Akane. "Can you please leave us out of your fantasies for now before we start thinking that it's even worse?"
"Hey! It could happen." she protested.
"Get it into your thick head that that only happens on TV. Damn why did I have to get stuck with an uncute chick like you?"
Seconds after finishing that sentence Ranma Saotome head crashed down on the floor making a bigger hole than that of father, courtesy of his fiancée holding her twitching fist clenched firmly.
"Moron! We're talking about a serious issue here and then you suddenly just go and insult me?"
"Oh, my," Kasumi stated, "If it weren't for the fact that Mrs. Saotome was sent to the mental hospital, this would just another day as usual here with strange martial artists popping up or one of Ranma and Akane's friends coming for a visit."
"But I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding." Nodoka Saotome told him while sitting at the chair offered to her.
Doctor Hikaru Kuro, a thin, middle-aged man who seemed to be losing his grey hair looked up at her from behind his office desk, holding a few documents in his hand. "Maybe, Mrs. Saotome, but it could also be that you believe that this is a misunderstanding while in fact it is not."
It had went rather pleasantly with bringing her to his psychiatric hospital. The men he had sent to convince her that it was for her own good to come with them had politely knocked on the door of the house she lived all alone in and when she opened the door politely showed her their IDs and asked her to come with them in their car. After changing from her normal housewife clothes and into her kimono, put on her new Zouri sandals given to her by a sympathetic neighbour and taking the sheathed family sword with her wrapped in newly washed cloth she had accompanied them into this place and still politely requested that she should seek out the doctor assigned to her in his private office. She had been received quite politely and gentlemanly by the doctor who offered her a very comfortable chair before sitting down again behind his desk.
"But I'm really not troubled by any mental health problems, doctor." she tried to tell him again.
"Certain anonymous sources state otherwise, Mrs. Saotome. According to certain reports and a handful of photographies following them you have a habit to walk around carrying under wrappings of cloth a concealed sword, which frankly had me a bit worried when I sent two members of my staff to bring you over here. And it says here on this paper that you seem on some occasions to have an obsession with standards regarding male masculinity and their views and values in Japanese society."
"But it is normal for women to think like that."
"And what of the sword?" he inquired.
"Well, it's a family heirloom kept by generations before."
"Wouldn't it be easier to keep it at home?"
"Someone could break in and steal it."
"And since this object that has been kept in the family is precious to you you therefore keep it close in order to ensure that the next generation inherits it as a heirloom." he said.
"Correct." Nodoka confirmed.
"But has the thought occurred to you to use the family heirloom as an instrument of self-protection?" Kuro asked further
"I must admit, doctor Kuro, that I have thought of it many times considering that often the streets are not safe enough for lone women travelling alone. And I have defended the fiancée of my son from intruders and chased them away with it." It took a few minutes for Nodoka to come with this admission, fearing that he would use that to declare her mentally ill and lock her up inside those horrible padded cells in a straitjacket like she'd seen on the TV-screen.
"You needn't worry about that, Mrs. Saotome, in my profession we do practise confidentiality and I can assure you that nothing will be divulged from the conversations we have."
She let herself let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the professional expression of the doctor hadn't changed one bit.
"I'm just glad you didn't write me off as mentally ill just now, you must understand that you must have made a mistake somewhere."
"I assure you, Mrs. Saotome, that in my profession I have dealt with many people with martial artist backgrounds who are able to fit into normal society.
"I am afraid that you are mistaken since it is my husband and my son who are martial artists."
"My apologies then, madam, for making that mistaken assumption."
"You don't need to apologize for that, doctor," Nodoka gave out a friendly laugh, "many other people have done that before." She then got a thoughtful look on her face "Pardon me for prying, but do you study martial arts?"
"As a matter of fact me, my colleagues and our staff here are all initiates in the schools of Psychiatric Martial Arts and Psychology Martial Arts in order to ensure that our patients receive the best treatment possible here."
Nabiki was in her own room lying stretched out on her bed, pondering the possibilities with the information today that would really interest certain someones. And trading the information she had with the money the potential buyers interested in what she knew had was a habit she would probably never try to grow out of.
"Now who to contact first," she mused with thoughtful eyes staring into the ceiling.
Maybe Ranma's childhood friend Ukyo Kuonji would be the safest to approach, then possibly meet with Cologne and Shampoo at the Nekohanten, and then dare to give Kodachi Kuno a call by phone. Last time she came to meet the female Kuno member in person to exchange something Mr. Turtle had gotten loose and was about to have her as an evening snack if not for the timely intervention of Kodachi who tangled the crocodile's jaws with her trusty rope.
As the radio started playing the song Material Girl by Madonna, Nabiki began to grin like a shark because of the irony of this particular song popping up on the radio channel she had tuned to minutes ago.
But when thinking over it all this was just simple routine: sell the information after bargaining a price that suited her without making the customers too upset – and then stand safely in the sidelines and watch the fireworks.
Doctor Kuro put down his phone and turned his attention at Nodoka. Minutes earlier their conversation had been interrupted when his office phone began ringing. While she was wrapped up in her own thoughts about her current predicament she did her the doctor ask the receptionist to put the caller on the line and then spent minutes discussing politely in a very low voice with the one who had called. Sometimes she heard him say the word Saotome.
She hoped it was her husband Genma trying valiantly to come to her aid by telling doctor Kuro that she wasn't insane. The thought almost made her feel a bit giddy like she often had felt in her schoolgirl years.
"It seems that doctor Tofu, who was just on the phone and showed interest in your case, also arguments that there must have been made some mistake when the diagnosis about you being mentally ill was made." Doctor Kuro said, remaining composed and calm. He clearly didn't register Nodoka's brief look of disappointment over it not being her husband or at least her son.
"But-"
"This certainly seems to make things complicated," Doctor Kuro continued, unaware of his interruption, "so many contradicting facts and witnesses seem to pile themselves up in a heap of paradox. And my colleague by profession as a doctor, doctor Tofu adamantly argued that he would provide me with the evidence needed to prove that you are of sound mental health and without of need of treatment."
"But does that mean that I am free to go home until this is resolved?" Nodoka looked pleadingly at him and then suddenly realized that she had raised her voice more than she had expected to and sat down flushing in embarrassment over the breach of her usual proper etiquette.
"I'm afraid it isn't that simple, Mrs. Saotome, I am afraid that I must insist that you stay over until doctor Tofu arrives with documented facts." doctor Kuro replied calmly, trying to put on a friendly, reassuring face.
"Does that mean that I'm going to be a patient here?"
"No, not at all, Mrs. Saotome." -his face continued showing the face of someone trying to professionally reassure- "For the time being you are not to be treated as a patient unless future evidence show otherwise. You are simply a temporary guest who is allowed access through all of the safe parts of this facility, but you are still prohibited from leaving the premises until this is all sorted out."
After ordering a nurse to show Mrs. Saotome her temporary living quarters, Hikaru Kuro cursed the day that his former classmate from high school had appeared again in his life and blackmailed him into this preposterous charade!
Inside the Saotome house Genma Saotome was rummaging through a cardboard box.
"Finally!" he suddenly declared, tears of joy in his eyes as he held a vinyl record cover that said: The Stooges.
Beside him lay an old portable record player that had gotten all the dust on it wiped away just minutes ago and some Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and Jefferson Airplane records.
Soon the high-volume sound of Somebody to Love by Jefferson Airplane was heard coming from the house followed by Wild Thing by the Troggs.
His friend Soun could never figure his particular taste in music and Nodoka was more a fan of the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel even though they both liked Janis Joplin.
He was so going to enjoy these six months.
Kasumi Tendo, the eldest daughter of Soun Tendo, thanked the stammering older man through the phone before putting down the receiver with a small sigh of relief. She so hoped that doctor Tofu could help Mrs. Saotome out of this jam.
But if she knew her younger sister's fiancée, this would usually spiral out of control like things usually did here in the Tendo dojo and entire Nerima.
Author's notes: Funny how a heated disagreement about ideas for a Ranma fic can anger someone to actually get motivated to start on it. Finishing the chapter fast enough as an entirely different matter, of course...