Magic Ice
Author's notes: This is was originally intended to be a pair of one shots I later turned into a complete story after some encouragement from a good friend. It starts out on a now familiar tone with Ranma asking Nabiki for help and works from there. Many of the characters in this story may seem OOC, especially Akane. This story takes place after the failed wedding and although it may not seem like it, this is indeed a Ranma and Nabiki pairing The story is complete and I will be releasing a chapter every few days or so, depending on the feedback.
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or any of the manga's characters. I write these stories only for my own personal pleasure.
Fed Up
Nabiki looked over the family finances for the tenth time that evening. Shaking her head, she thought to herself, "It's going to be close. That wedding disaster last month cost us a lot more than we took in."
She made a couple of small adjustments to her figures before she continued her thoughts, "I thought for sure that Akane didn't want to get married that time. The whole affair looked like another one of Father and Mr. Saotome's stupid plans to force them to get married. But later that night when Father postponed the wedding, Akane seemed very sad and disappointed."
Nabiki closed her ledger and looked out her window for a moment. "For once, it wasn't Ranma's fault. He would have gone along with the wedding with no real objections if everything hadn't gone to hell. But when Father announced the postponing of the wedding, Ranma didn't seem to care. His face was a complete blank as if something else was on his mind."
Nabiki got up from her desk and walked over to her dresser. Yawning, she removed the small earrings and placed them in a varnished wooden box, "Oh well, enough of that for now. Time to get some sleep."
She had just started to undo her blouse when there was a soft knock at the door. With a hint of irritation in her tone of voice, she answered, "Yes? Who is it?"
From the other side of her door, she heard, "It's me, Ranma. May I come in? I need to talk to you, Nabiki."
Nabiki sighed and walked over to the door. She opened it enough to look through, "It's late and I'm tired, Ranma. Can't this wait till tomorrow?
Ramna looked through the opening, "I'm sorry Nabiki, but this is really important."
Nabiki opened the door and let Ranma to into her room. He was dressed in his usual black Chinese pants and wore a red tank top. He had been sweating quite a bit and as Nabiki noted this, she smirked, "A little late to be working out…even for you, Ranma."
Ranma smiled sheepishly at Nabiki and noted with a bit of relief he had caught the middle Tendo daughter before she had dressed for bed. "Yeah, I sometimes do katas to help me think. Some people meditate. I work out."
Not for the first time, Nabiki noted with more than a hint of admiration Ranma's toned muscles on his arms and chest. After a moment she raised an eyebrow slightly, "Only you could think of a way to relax while doing martial arts."
She tilted her head to one side and drawled, "So tell me Ranma, what's this all about, anyway?"
Ranma hesitated for a moment and then said, "I'm going to ask her."
"Ask who?"
"Akane."
Nabiki gave Ranma an icy stare, "What are you going to ask Akane?"
Ranma took a deep breath and said, "I'm going to ask her to marry me."
Nabiki's eyes grew wide for a moment, "After all that just happened? I would have thought that you would have been too fed up to even consider another wedding so soon. What, with your dad knocking you out and dressing you up in a tux, my dad hiding the nannichuan from you, and then the wrecking crew showing up and destroying the wedding before it could even start..."
Nabiki stopped suddenly as she remembered her part in the wedding fiasco.
Instead of getting angry, Ranma sighed, "Look Nabiki, I've decided that its time for me to take responsibility for my life. I'm sick and tired of all the insane stuff that's been happening to me during the past few years. I'm cursed and I change into a girl. When I do, I get my breasts latched onto by a perverted gnome. I'm being hounded by a bunch of Amazons that want to drag my butt back to China for breeding stock. I have an insane girl chasing me that has sick and perverted sexual fantasies about my boy side and I have her brother having sick and perverted sexual fantasies about my girl side."
Ranma took a breath and continued, "My life long friend suddenly turns out to be a girl and is somehow engaged to me because of Pop. Another old friend of mine is trying to kill me because he couldn't find his way to a challenge and a blind Amazon wants to kill me because the girl he loves thinks I'm her husband."
Nabiki touched her finger to her mouth for a moment and answered, "You do lead a chaotic life, Ranma. Where ever you go, trouble follows. It's not really your fault, it just happens."
Ranma's deep blue eyes gazed sharply at Nabiki, "Not any more. I've had it with this crap. I want to clear up this fiancé mess and start to lead a normal life."
Nabiki blinked once, "You're serious about this, aren't you?"
"Dead serious." Ramna reached into his pocket, "Take a look at this."
He pulled his hand out and handed a small maroon box to Nabiki. She took the box and smiled when she opened it. Inside was a small but beautiful diamond engagement ring. The ring was made of gold, and mounted on the edge was a diamond of about half a karat. Around the base of the diamond were five smaller diamonds. Nabiki noted that there should have been six but one was missing.
As Nabiki looked the ring over, Ranma said, "It used to belong to my mother. When she was little, her mother gave it to her and told her that when she had a son, he was to give this ring to his fiancé. A few months after Pop married Mom, he found the ring and sold it to a pawn shop for a few thousand yen. He came home that night drunk as a skunk and bragged to her that he had found a little treasure. She did a quick inventory of her things and found the ring missing. When Pop woke up, Mom had tied him up and was holding her katana ready. She told him that if he didn't tell her right away where the ring was, she was going to cut him apart one piece at a time, starting with his crotch."
Nabiki snickered as she thought of Genma all tied up while staring up at Nodoka as she loomed over him with her katana. "I take it he told her."
Ranma continued, "Yeah, Pop saw that katana inching towards him and started talking real quick. Mom left him tied up and went down to the pawn shop to get the ring back. Once she paid the pawn shop owner, she inspected the ring and immediately noticed that a stone was missing. When she asked the clerk about it, he said that it was like that when he received it. When Mom returned home, she beat Pop with her training bokken for half an hour before letting him go. Once she was done, she told him that if he ever took anything of hers again, she would kill him for the sake of honor."
Nabiki raised an eyebrow, "It doesn't seem to have stopped your father from taking stuff."
Ranma nodded, "Yeah, old panda butt hasn't changed much from what I've seen. Then again, he's been away from Mom for quite a while. She did tell me the ring meant a lot to her."
Nabiki chuckled to herself as she placed the ring back in the little box and said, "It's still a very nice ring, Ranma. I'm sure Akane is going to be very happy when you give it to her."
Ranma looked at the floor for a moment and then said, "Yeah, I sure hope she likes it"
Nabiki looked at Ranma and asked, "Do you love her?"
For a moment, Ramna almost started his automatic series of comments about uncute tomboys, but then he thought about it for a moment and said, "That's the hard part. I never had the sort of family you have here, so it's real hard for me to know exactly what love is. I care for her a lot, Nabiki. There are times when she's smiled at me just right and I was so blown away by it I couldn't think straight. Most of the time, I feel really good when we're together and all, as long as we're not fighting."
"That's an important point to consider, Ranma. You two fight like cats and dogs and sometimes over the stupidest things. I'm not an expert on this, but I have heard it said that when you do fall in love with someone, you will know it and everything will feel right in the world."
"Yeah, I've heard something like that too. But I think that a lot of the problems we have are from all of the crazies and the fact that neither of us can seem to admit our feelings to each other. There have been many times when we were so close to making a breakthrough, only to have it interrupted by the parents, the fiancés or god knows what else."
He looked at Nabiki for a moment and then continued, "The day of that wedding, she acted like she really wanted to get married. She was so beautiful looking in that wedding dress and at that moment, I would have done anything she asked. I thought for a moment that the time was right and we could freely admit our feelings to each other. The last thing I expected was for her to say that I would regret it if we didn't get married."
Nabiki said, "That may have been because of the nannichuan. I'm pretty sure she knew father had it."
Nabiki closed the box and started to hand it back to Ranma. She was surprised to see Ranma place his hands on top of hers to stop her. As she raised an eyebrow, he commented, "I still need a favor to ask of you, Nabiki. I don't know anything about this sort of thing and I would like you to help me get a new stone to replace the one missing from the ring."
Nabiki smiled coily, "Why, I'd be happy to help you out Ranma…And because you're going to be family, I'll even give you a discount."
Ranma chuckled, "The family discount, eh. I don't have enough money for your discount Nabiki, and I don't have the time to go work at the Cat Café for Cologne.
Nabiki shook her head a bit, "Now Ranma, even if I wave the fee for my future brother-in –law, the work to repair the ring is still going to cost some money."
A smile formed on Ranma's lips, "Tell you what…You help me get the ring fixed up and I'll help you work on your ki."
Nabiki stuttered, "My…ki?"
Ranma smiled again, "Yeah, I can help you understand how to channel it better and you can help me with the ring!"
"But I don't-"
"It's settled then. I'll talk to you a bit more about it tomorrow. Good night and thanks for everything."
With that, Ranma reached out and gave Nabiki a gentle hug. Nothing romantic, or Amazon, but a nice family sort of hug. After a couple of seconds, he let her go and headed out the door, closing it quietly behind him.
Nabiki just stood there for a several long seconds as she thought about what just happened. For the first time since he had come into the Tendo home, Ramna Saotome had made a deal with Nabiki and wound up on the winning end. There was something very different about Ranma that needed to be looked into.
With the latest developments running through Nabiki's mind, she started to get ready for bed. After she got in her nighty, she turned off the light and slipped in the covers. As she fell asleep, Nabiki smiled to herself as she remembered how nice it felt to be hugged by Ranma.