"Okay, so far this day had consisted of merely being bored in my classes. We all know what that means, Akane. It is really about to hit the fan when we get home."
Akane merely gave a long suffering sigh to Ranma's rant about how today was really going to be the one to screw him over much like she has the last twelve times this had happened. Hopefully this one wouldn't involve a ninja from another world that liked to wear orange. She was still wondered if that was a good career choice for the guy.
"Honestly Ranma, just because none of them showed up and the school didn't become a war zone is no reason to suspect that the universe has it in for you."
Ranma continued to merely shake his head and mutter something under his breathe involving cats and glue while they continued on the way home. Upon arrival they found the place rather quite, not exactly something that usually could be said about the Tendo residence, with or without the Saotomes living there. Just before they passed through the gate to enter the property Nabiki stepped out from where she was hiding beside the entrance.
"Ranma, ten thousand yen for recon." Ranma naturally handed her the money before he even had time to mutter about how bad a sign this was.
"Okay, it would seem that you have some new guests today. Thankfully, they are not all females so I don't think they are all fiancées." Ranma started to let out a breath to relax. "I believe a few of the men are fiancés." Ranma's head jerked up at that statement as his jaw became slack. Akane, deciding that rather than blowing up about this latest occurrence, mostly due to a doctor telling her she needed to watch her blood pressure more, poked his shoulder.
"Uhm... Nabiki, I think your joke broke him." Nabiki's eyes gleamed with pure mirth at watching Mr. Unbeatable Hot-shot Martial Artist frozen in place. "It gets better, it would seem the men are here to court and possibly marry Ranko, I think your mother decided you were lonely."
"Oh my, why are you all out here? We have so many people here to see Ranma and Ranko. Please come on in so that we may settle all this." Kasumi had opened the door to see the lot of them still standing around outside. The two Tendo sisters began to enter the house but stopped upon noticing that Ranma had not moved so much as a single muscle from where he was when he was told the news. Sighing, all three girls returned and drug Ranma into the house.
"Hm... Kasumi, if he does that again anytime soon, I will put him out in the backyard to act as a statue. I do believe it will really brighten it up out there don't you?" Kasumi of course tried hard not to laugh too awfully much at Nabiki's joke; it wouldn't do to laugh at a person's weak moments.
Moments later we see a functioning Ranma enter into the dining room where everyone was gathered. It would seem it was in keeping with his life's theme of bizarre that most everyone there was fairly strong power wise. There was the girl with the purple eyes and dark hair that seemed to radiate a great deal of power despite her sickly appearance. She couldn't have been much younger than Ranma, maybe a year at the most. Beside her, seemingly for moral support was a fairly mature looking woman with green hair and red eyes. Sitting not far from these two was another young woman, she seemed to be in a bit of a shock at Ranma's appearance, and almost like she recognized him as someone she knew. Off to the other side of the room sat two women with the wildest and spikiest hair Ranma had ever seen. Most people would have found their red and cyan colored hair to be a bit of a surprise, but Ranma was used to the odd hair colors of others at this point. Finally, for some reason Mousse was there as well.
Kasumi, ever the good hostess, decided to introduce everyone to one another. "Ranma, I believe you know Mousse there. He is one of three gentlemen who were here to see you, not sure what the other two wanted as they went on their way." Kasumi then indicated the young girl with the purple eyes. "Her name is Hotaru Tomoe. Next to her we have Setsuna Meioh. Over on the other side of the room we have Ryoko and Washu Hakubi. The one in the middle is Kagome Higurashi."
Ranma, deciding to stick to his now routine greeting, went on to introduce himself. "Hi, I am Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this."
Genma decided it was time to get Ranma's attention and set him on about the task of correcting his fiancée problem so he could marry Akane. "Ranma, this women claim they have a binding agreement to be married to you. Since we all know this to be a baseless claim and the fact that you are suppose to marry Akane, I suggest you get them to leave soon."
"Pops, are you implying I set myself up with more fiancées? You know damn well I have my hands full dealing with the ones I already have." As a fight broke out between the two Kasumi came in and served some tea for the guests as they all waited for the squabble to end. Naturally it took its course to outside the house and let to a wet Ranma-chan and panda.
Ranma, realizing what had just happened turned around to look in at the assembled people and found that none of them looked too awfully shocked at what had happened. The two Hakubi women where laughing at what had happened. The one with the red hair stopping only to say she had a new guinea pig. The other two females that were there seemed to be only slightly less amused, though it seemed the one with the purple eyes had cheered up a bit. The girl in the middle was about the only one that really looked all that shocked. Mousse of course didn't really react, having seen this routine so much he could predict almost blow by blow what would happen and how it would end.
After Ranma got cleaned up and reentered the room to deal with this latest fiasco he wondered if Nabiki had set most of these up. Almost all of the women in there had either immense spiritual or magical power. The only exception was that Ryoko, he couldn't get a decent read off her at all. "Alright, so how did this wind up happening? Was I sold to you for fish, pickles, or something like a few bucks?" Washu was the first to answer. "Actually, we Hakubi are here due to an old agreement between our family and yours. Its rather outstanding agreement you understand, a few centuries old for all intents and purposes. Our family had an agreement that one day it would join with yours into a single clan." Washu left out exactly why she and her daughter were there, thinking that the tale of Tenchi choosing some other woman was best left out of it all at the moment. Ryoko, needing to get it out of her system finally said what she wanted to. "So, you really a guy or a girl? I wanted to know before I got much further into this, after all a girl has to know how to approach her prey." Ranma didn't like the predatory look in her eyes, nor the fact that the eyes made him think of a cat. That tail/belt she had didn't help his nerves much either.
"Okay so that explains you, how about you two?"
Hotaru decided to go first for her side of the room, seeing as no one else volunteered. "I am here due to an agreement made between my father and your father. Apparently in exchange for being allowed to take some samples of your energy for his research you were to marry me. We just found the documents a few days ago during an attempt to clean up some of his old laboratories." Ranma nodded to this, having recalled some quack that had him in a lab for awhile studying him as he practiced.
"And you Ms. Meioh?"
"I actually have been engaged to you awhile it would seem and had completely forgotten about it. You would be amazed at what you find cleaning out your attic. It would seem it was an agreement between me and your father in exchange for some scrolls I had acquired recently." She doesn't mention that for her recently could have been in the last 400 years.
"Okay, that also sounds very likely. So how about you Ms. Kagome?"
"Well it would seem that my grandfather arranged for us to meet actually Ranma. Unlike the others, I am here on more or less a prospective marriage arrangement, rather than already betrothed to you."
"Well that is a first. Congrats, give her the prize folks." Akane mutters from the back of the room, then tries to resist the urge to facefault when Nabiki walks up to Kagome and gave her a custom made pin that read 'not quite Ranma's fiancée #1' on it. Nabiki looked at the others as they sweat dropped. "Ehh what can I say, I was prepared plus it was a wonderful time to use it."
"I suppose you all are wondering about that incident with the water just a moment ago, well it's a long story. I hope you all believe in magic because…" Ranma proceeded to tell them about what had happened to land him with the curse. ((Really, you think I am going to retype that mess up when everyone has it memorized by now?)) "So that is my story. Now then, uhm… what should we do now?"
Setsuna answered for her group, after a beep went off in her purse. "We will be heading home since it is getting late and we have some other business to attend to." Kagome said that she actually would be staying at the dojo for the night, having already made arrangements with Kasumi concerning this. Ryoko and Washu informed them that they also had to attend to business elsewhere and would be returning shortly. "Sorry kid, but we do need to get back home. I am afraid the old woman here", she points at Washu, "might try to experiment on you while you sleep otherwise." Washu began to argue with her as they went out the door. Ranma thought he heard something about not treating one's mother that way, but tried not to ponder it too much.
"Well if anyone needs me, I will be on the roof. I have some thinking to do." With that, Ranma went outside and hopped up onto the roof to ponder. Several hours later, after everyone had fallen asleep Ranma finally spoke again. "Marla! Urd! Which one of you two set me up with this fiasco? I know the both of you have some odd interest in me, but is it really a good idea to keep setting me up with these disasters?"
Urd formed in front of the poor boy. "Come now Ranma, isn't it more fun with a lot of people around. Besides, these ones will bring you new challenges I can promise you that." Marla appears behind the boy. "Bah Urd, I told you this was a bit much. But if you keep pushing he is liable to wind up siding with us." Urd of course couldn't leave it alone here. "Now Marla, you know you were the one who set up that Kagome girl arriving here, plus you are also the one that put Cologne up to her plan too."
Ranma got a bit weary at the mentioning of the old ghoul. "Cologne? Oh yes I remember now, Mousse was here for something but he didn't really talk much during the meeting." Urd nodded at this. "Let's just say she hasn't given up getting you into the tribe and decided on a new approach. By the way, Marla and I should be by in the next few days also posing as prospective fiancées." Ranma just grumbles to himself about how he had to be the only person in the world that qualified for a wish from both rival offices and had to get these two as the ones to appear and deal with them.
Mousse had been helping out in the kitchen earlier and after everyone else had gone to bed had spent some time in the dojo just practicing and trying to calm his nerves. After all, it wasn't every day you got to tell one of your most hated rivals that you had wound up engaged to them. Hopefully something would turn up and he wouldn't have to explain it.