Chapter 2. Nabiki's trouble.

Tendo Nabiki was not a happy woman. Everything seemed to be trying to go wrong today. Her new green dress had not been delivered, leaving hr in her street clothes for one of the most important meetings of her life and now the damn Weather Sat was back on the fritz, first time in a decade, and it had to be today. Today she finally squared her debts. The Hab and gym that her dad had remorgaged so many times would be free and clear again. She even figured that there might be enough money left to send her baby sister to college. All she had to do was pay off the 'Shark.

Ever since she was young she had been fighting this battle against bankruptcy. She had worked every dirty trick she could find, up to and including a very short foray into prostitution. To this day she could still feel the man's hands on her, and had never felt truly clean since. She had tried to shield her family from the worst of what was out there and mostly it had worked. Akane seemed oblivious even to the extent that she made matter worse, but Nabiki couldn't hate hr for it. Somehow her baby sister's naivety was reassuring, solid proof that she was doing her job.

This latest score was one of her biggest yet, netting nearly a year's salary for an average civil servant in one swift swoop. Sure it had been technically illegal but so was gambling and that never stopped anyone. She had managed to shift a thousand slightly out of date food parcels. They had been earmarked for incineration but she had wheedled them into her own car and punted them on to a downside operator.

So here she was at a swanky nightclub in the Nerima night district, about to break even for the first time since Dad folded. The door was opened by a gargantuan man with metal studs in his knuckles and a scar running the length of his butt ugly face. The interior was dark and ominously empty, smelling of seat and spilt booze. Around the room pretty young girls in revealing costumes were tidying, moving around like ghosts in the gloom. The only occupants other than her that were not working were sat around a table to the left of the bar.

Higurashi had weathered the storm that was the Cultural Revival, and survived where many others hadn't. He still ran most of the organised crime in this area and still stuck to some of the older values, like ignoring what 'caste' you were and mistreating everyone more or less equally. The crimeboss was sat in his neo-samurai garb and kept his hands tucked into his obi. Nabiki knew from the vine that he did that to hide the three fingers his leniency had cost him and suppressed a shiver glad she had steered clear of the organised outfits.

"Ahh Nabiki-chan," the boss began, politely bowing. She returned the bow, just a touch deeper for respect. "Won't you join me" he invited, waving his good hand to indicate a seat opposite. Nabiki gracefully folded her skirts and sat down. "Ahh, are you sure you won't reconsider. I could make you very comfortable…"

"Thank you for the kind offer Higurashi-sama" Nabiki said lowering her eyes, "But I cannot leave my family." It was an old game that had become something of a tradition. Higurashi had never hidden his attraction to the beautiful woman Nabiki had become nor that she could make good money 'working' for him. Nabiki had made a decision long ago to play it solo and for a reason she had yet to really fathom he had respected her decision, even sent some work her way once or twice.

"One hundred and twenty thousand standard." She announced, placing several large wads of cash onto the table, if the thought of handing that much money over at one time hurt she tried not to show it. "Which I believe clears the account" she added.

He swept the money to one side, where one of his Genetic soldiers proceeded to count it into a handy enamelled box. "Not that I don't trust you Nabiki-chan, but You do have a certain reputation…"

"I don't know, a girl passes one bad note and all of a sudden she's marked for life," Nabiki said in mock dismay. This too was an old game.

"One note?" he exclaimed, "Try a hundred, and they weren't just bad they were an insult to the forger's art."

"Ah but its not my fault the foreign idiots can't tell a yen from a yak." She finished still smiling. They were both enjoying this immensely. Her heart was hammering as the Yojimbo brought a black book over. The boss opened it up, to reveal two crystal screens. He pretended to check down the list and then said "Ah, here we are Tendo. One hundred thousand standard."

"Plus the extra twenty for early payment," Nabiki added.

"Of course how could I forget."

"Maybe you're getting too old for this job Uncle."

"Does that mean you'll reconsider being my successor?" he asked only half joking.

"My father would never forgive me." She replied, hiding the temptation.

"So does this mean we're through?" he asked, with some genuine concern.

"Of course not Uncle," she teased, "we'll just have to find new things to work together on."

"Nabiki" he said suddenly serious. "Your sister…"

"Akane?" Nabiki asked suddenly worried.

"Yes" he answered, stalling. "She has annoyed some very important people." He added after a pause.

"And you shouldn't be telling me this?" Nabiki asked, already seeing the implications.

"No. I shouldn't" he said regretfully.

"If I get her out of town?"

"Its too late child." He said with regret, remembering another friend he had given up a decade ago.

"No, you didn't!" Nabiki begged, and then she was up and running.

-

Even before she got to her door she could see there had been trouble. Her family owned a sizable place, or hab, down on one of the best plazas in the block. Customers used to go straight from the street to the dojo office and there used to be plenty of them. The business had allowed her father to live in one of the best patrolled areas of the district, private police hired to protect the shops and shoppers who used the plaza. Two of those police lay staring at the ceiling, ragged holes torn into their chests by high velocity lead. Nabiki ignored them and ran into the crowd at her door.

When she reached the interior she finally found her father, kneeling in the centre of the trashed family room, clutching a yellow gi.

"Dad?" she asked, moving round him. As she caught sight of his face her blood ran cold. It was a mess, whoever they were he had not given in easy. The price was obvious, bruises and blood covered his face, but worst of all she could clearly see the jelly of his left eye dribbling down his face. Looking further she could see that his left hand was similarly mangled. He was weeping silent tears from his good eye.

She fell to her knees opposite him, for a moment completely lost. Then gentle hands reached out to hold her shoulders, Kasumi's hands. Doctor Tofu had come with his bride and now everything was going to be alright.

Only it wasn't Akanewas gone. The bird-masked men that had done this had come for hr and now she was gone. Nabiki felt black despair rob her of all else. She cried, for Akane for her father and for her shattered dreams. All the while Kasumi just held her and let her cry. Finally Nabiki looked up, her soulful eyes looking to her sister for re-assurance.

Kasumi didn't cry instead she met Nabiki's gaze and said "Don't worry, we'll find a way." That finally did it. They were the same words her sister had said at their mother's funeral, the same words she had said when the first final notice arrived and the same words she had said when Nabiki had failed to make the money for the mortgage payments and they had taken mother's gravestone away.

Inside another small part of her died. Nabiki gave up her last dream of college and happily ever after and replaced it with cold hate.

"They took her alive, that means there's still hope." Kasumi said, "We'll find her yet."

These words did the trick, Nabiki wiped her eyes and stood. "Damn right we'll find her. And I know just where to start!" And then she was pushing her way back through the crowd.

-

Crimeboss Higurashi was hardly surprised when Nabiki came storming back in. Yes he had expected her to come back but not this soon. He also expected her to be more polite.

Nabiki strode over to the same table she had sat so happily at not half an hour beforehand, and threw it onto its side. She grabbed the boss by his fancy robe and in a low voice demanded "Who Took My Sister?" Higurashi held up a palm stopping the Yojimbo from turning the young woman into person paste.

"I don't know" he said looking right back at her. Then he pointedly looked at her hand. Reality crashed in, Nabiki knew he wasn't lying. Her energy fled and she slumped into a seat.

"They came with orders from way over my head," he explained, waving a waitress to fetch a drink. "Rude as hell, but they could afford to be."

The waitress returned with the drink, Nabiki drank like a woman who had just escaped the Rad-desert that was most of China. The liquor was harsh and burned her throat. Between it and some tightly clenched eyes she fought off the tears.

"Nabs I have known you since the day you were born and I love you like my own but I cannot tell you who those people were." He said with genuine concern in his voice.

"Can't or won't" she said spitefully.

"Same thing my little butterfly," he replied. "what I can do is start you in the right direction. I can give you one name." She looked up hopefully. "Whoa girl, don't get your hopes up too much. Nobody's life would be worth spit if I told you anyone important.

"So who?" she asked, despair warring with hope in her voice.

"His name's Saotome Ranma and he's about the very best sort of help you can hope for."