The next day, Nabiki woke up and sat on the edge of her bed and thought about last night. Ranma, in his typical demonstration of being unable to handle emotions or anything female, that wasn't him, had stuttered his way out of her room after she told him she had loved him, without actually dealing with what she said, at all.
Had she been playing with him? If I am being honest with myself, I would have to say that I was mostly playing with him. She thought to herself. It was just so much fun to tease him. She thought about that for a moment and decided she had some maturing to do as well. Oh well, she figured she could do so at the same time Ranma did, and still stay ahead of the curve.
Putting all of her jumbled thoughts aside, she stood up and started to get dressed for the day. Before she had finished dressing, though, she stopped and thought for a moment, then set aside her shoes and overcoat and stood quietly in the center of her room. She then took a deep breath and ran through the basic footwork, balance, and striking katas she had learned when she was a little girl. She also practiced a few parrying hand drills she remembered. That finished, she finished dressing.
She normally didn't like to practice unless she was home alone, but since yesterday had proved that her own Martial Arts skills were suddenly in play now, she figured she had better at least keep sharp the skills she did still have. Ranma wasn't omnipotent, he would eventually not be there when she might need him. She had other resources she could call on besides Ranma, of course, but it wouldn't hurt to try to keep her own fighting skills sharp.
She smirked to herself as she thought about those silly girls attacking her yesterday. She had briefly considered just exacting a blunt revenge on them. She knew a lot of people in low and high places across the city. But she had decided to get back at them in her own way, in her own time. True justice took time. She had her own code that she followed, and that code included the teachings of Sun Tzu. She intended to win this war without ever actually fighting any of them, if she could help it. Turning an enemy's strengths against them was the mark of a master strategist, after all.
She knew Ranma, and for that matter Daddy and Mr. Saotome, wouldn't approve of her way of taking care of enemies. They were more the front-line soldier types. She liked to think of herself as at least a good intelligence officer, if not a master strategist. She had already set various things into motion last night after Ranma had made his hasty exit from her room after she told him she loved him. She had plans she could put into motion for almost all of the girls, and she would if she needed to.
Now that she was finished dressing, she shrugged and decided to go see how her fiancé was doing. She smiled and hummed happily to herself as she set out to find him. She grabbed a towel from the hall closet on her way out. Finding him didn't take long. The boy was fairly predictable. She found him working out in the courtyard where he usually worked out in the mornings. She hung back and watched him a bit from across the courtyard, in the shadows. She had wanted to go talk to him immediately, but she had hung back when she saw Akane across the courtyard quietly slinking towards him. She decided to see how he handled her. This would be his first encounter with her since she told him she loved him last night.
She couldn't hear what Akane said to him, or Ranma's reply, but after Akane poked her head around the corner and looked at him for a bit and he noticed her, they seemed to fall into their old pattern of friendly bickering fairly quickly. Well, so much for her declaration of love changing him overnight. She hadn't really expected it to, of course.
With a smile on her face, she stepped out from the shadows, and hurried over to where Ranma was standing. "Ah, there you are, Ranma, did you miss me?" She said happily. She was acting again, but she found the character she was trying to portray came to her much more easily than it usually did when she was acting. She wondered why.
Ranma immediately stopped moving as he heard her approaching. His face had a look of ... was that guilt? Akane was watching her cooly, but didn't move to interfere or say anything, so she ignored her sister and pressed the towel she had brought with her against his face and neck while smiling sweetly at him. "Here. Let me wipe your sweaty brow." She said.
Akane's neutral stare changed to an angry scowl as Ranma stuttered out in a panic, "Uh ... thuh... thank ... y-you ... v-v-very muhh..."
She fixed her own cool stare on Akane. "Hey! do you mind?" She challenged her younger sister.
Akane opened her mouth like she was going to argue with her, then closed it again with enough force that she could hear Akane's teeth click together. Akane spun on her heel and stormed off with a growl but not a word spoken.
She stared after Akane for a moment, and decided to catch up with her later in the day and try again to give her the opportunity to take Ranma back. The fool girl would have to put aside her childish pride to do that, though. But she figured she owed her at least a few chances to change her mind. The window was fast closing, though. She wasn't going to keep herself neutral for too much longer. She had her own feelings to take care of as well. The entire world didn't revolve around her emotionally damaged little sister.
She looked up at Ranma who was still twitching uncomfortably. She realized she still had the towel pressed up against his neck, and she was still pressing her body against him to be able to reach.
My but isn't he awkward around the ladies. She thought with a smirk. One would think that with his familiarity with his own sometimes-female body, that he wouldn't be so shy.
Or, was it just that he was only shy with her? She pondered that as she stepped back from him. "Ready to go to school?" She asked.
He nodded mutely. She looked down at her watch. "Leave in five minutes?" She asked in a breezy tone. He nodded again. Lordy, she was going to have to work on his communication skills. She smiled patiently up at him and headed off to the table to grab some food that Kasumi undoubtedly had prepared. Say what one would about Kasumi, but she took good care of the family.
Ranma joined her at the table, and instead of sitting in his usual place looked at her sideways in a way she assumed he thought was sneaky, and then casually sat next to her.
Interesting. Very interesting. She wondered what he was trying to say by sitting next to her. For all she knew, he was just trying to placate her and hoping that if he gave her the bare minimum amount of attention, that would be enough to keep her in the background for now.
She smiled inwardly as she watched him eat out of the corner of her eye. She had no intention of staying in the background. She wasn't the Kasumi-type. She saw Akane dash out the front gates a minute later, and checked her watch.
A moment later they were dashing off to school together. She had timed it so they were just enough behind Akane that unless her little sister stopped and waited, she wouldn't see them. She hadn't gone to school with Ranma since the first day he had arrived and she had gone with him part-way with Akane after telling Akane it was her duty as his fiancée to get him to school.
She smiled sadly at the memory. She kind of missed those days. Kuno's insane challenge to the school's boys that they had to defeat Akane in combat before they could date with her, had been extremely entertaining. She had also made a considerable amount of money betting on Akane every day. She had kept it fresh by changing the bets to things like how many boys Akane could knock down with a single strike, how many would lose teeth, etcetera.
She looked up at Ranma, who was running on top of the fence that protected the water canals that ran through town like it was no big deal and wondered what he was thinking about. He noticed her looking up at him, but other than meeting her eyes for a moment, he didn't say anything.
They arrived at the gates of the school soon after that, and stopped short. She couldn't help herself, she grinned openly.
Arrayed before Akane, who had stopped short of the gate herself, was more or less every guy in the school who was single. For that matter, she saw a couple of guys in the crowd whom she knew were dating people. She made a mental note to make use of that information later, then she turned her attention back to Akane. Her little sister was shaking with obvious anger at having to deal with the weird attentions of the boys of their school again.
Ranma stood passively next to her and just watched. She knew that he knew by now that Akane could handle the guys in the school trying to defeat her in combat so they could date with her, according to the bizarre rules Kuno had insisted on. She scanned his face and couldn't find any traces of concern or even all that much interest in the scene before him. She wondered if that was just anger at Akane, or if he really was starting to care less about Akane's personal life?
She didn't have any more time to wonder about it, though, as the dumb guys chose that moment to launch their attack en masse like they always used to do. It was over almost as fast as it had begun. Akane made short work of dropping them, as she always had, and walked angrily into the school without looking back.
She whistled as she surveyed the carnage. It was a good thing she hadn't made bets today. Most of the guys were sporting some serious injuries. A few of them were out cold. Her little sister was obviously more upset than she was letting on. She really did need to talk with her. She looked over at Ranma and smiled. He wasn't watching Akane leave, he was looking down at her expectantly. She commented as they started walking again. "Leave it to my sister, soon as the obstacle's removed... she's miss popularity!"
"Huh. What do they all see in her?" Ranma asked in a confused voice.
What indeed? She thought to herself as she walked into the school with Ranma and looped her arm through his. He twitched a little at the public display, but didn't say anything, and didn't remove her arm. She smiled up at him, and he looked down and returned her smile with a nervous one of his own.
She couldn't blame him. The school grounds were a pretty dangerous place for him, especially when his romantic life was involved. They parted ways on the stairs as they headed to their separate classes. But, as Ranma walked away, he turned back and called after her. "Nabiki?"
She stopped and looked curiously over her shoulder. He had skipped all of the prior moments he'd had alone with her so far today to speak with her. She was sure it was no coincidence he was choosing to do so now, right when classes were about to start. She raised an eyebrow and waited. Several people passed them as she waited, many of them calling out greetings to her and Ranma. They both ignored them. Ranma pressed his fingers together awkwardly as he obviously worked hard to summon the courage to tell her whatever it was he wanted to tell her.
The bell rang, and neither of them moved. Finally, in a small voice, he said her name again. "N-nabiki?"
She nodded but didn't speak.
He gulped and pressed onward. "N-nabiki ... would you meet me for lunch under that big tree over by the softball fields?"
She actually blinked at that in surprise. Was he ... was he asking her out on a date? So soon? She had been sure that it would take weeks if not months of coaching on her part to get him to that point, and that would have been after she managed to get Akane to calm down, and get the rest of his crazy suitors to back off. This was surprising, to say the least. Still, she felt like she should reward his courage. She walked over to him, and grabbed his hand with both of hers and squeezed it gently. "Of course, Ranma. I'll see you then, all right?" She said softly.
He nodded solemnly, like they had just made a very serious promise, and quickly turned and bolted for his classroom. As she walked towards her own class, she mused that in his mind, it probably was a solemn promise. With Genma as his father filling his head with all of the crazy honor stuff he and Daddy liked to squawk about, it was no wonder he was so hesitant to agree to do or say anything, let alone to make a promise. The fallout from the few promises he had made, and which had been made on his behalf, had already changed the course and destiny of his life in ways he probably still didn't even understand.
Class flew by for her as she waited for lunch to start. She was rapidly making and scrapping plans as she tried to best benefit from the situation she found herself in. She could make some serious money by being in a relationship with Ranma. All of her planning also helped to keep her thoughts about her true feelings about him in check. She didn't want to look at those feelings right now. When the bell for lunch rang, she bolted from the classroom and headed straight outside.
She made her way to the meeting place Ranma had asked her to come to faster than her pride really wanted her to. She forced herself to slow down and walk at a more leisurely pace as she got within eyesight of the tree. She could see Ranma's trademark red Chinese shirt standing under it from where she was. It wouldn't do to make him think that she was eager to see him. She wasn't, was she? No, she was just curious about what he wanted to talk about. Sure, and if you believe that, I have a beach in Hokkaido to sell you. She thought to herself sarcastically.
As she reached the meeting place and came within easy speaking distance of Ranma, she stopped and clasped her hands behind her back. She liked to think of that as one of her cuter poses. Ranma hadn't turned to look at her, so she tried to prompt him. "What is it, Ranma? What's so urgent?"
Ranma continued to look away from her, but started bridging his hands together nervously. He finally spoke up a moment later in a small, nervous voice. "Well... about ... you know..."
Oh, of course, he wanted to talk about last night. That made much more sense than him asking her out on a date. Well, she might as well double-down on what she had said last night. If she didn't present at least a semi-consistent message to him, she would confuse him like Akane had. She smiled as she replied to him. "About me telling you that I loved you?" She asked in a sweet voice.
Ranma turned to look at her and returned her smile in a hopeful way. "Um ... you were only kidding ... right?" He asked.
Well, damn. This was more like how she had been expecting him to behave, but it was still a little disappointing to hear it. The sad face she put on after he said that wasn't much of an act. She looked away from him and asked a question she actually had been wondering about since the day he showed up. "You don't ... like older women?"
Ranma made a choking sound in reply. She buried her face in her hands without turning around and wailed with fake tears. "Then it's true, I'm too old!"
She watched him carefully through the gaps in her fingers for his reaction. He gasped at her display and started waving his hands in a panic as he tried to calm her down. "N-n-no ... I ... no! I don't care ... about age ... I ..."
Well, that was good news. He was a terrible actor, and that had been a genuine reaction, so at least she now knew that he really didn't have a problem with her being slightly older than him. She rushed over to him and dropped her hands from her face to clasp them under her chin. "Really?!" She asked earnestly, as she made her best doe-eyes at him.
He leaned back from her advance but held his ground. "Y-yeah, I don't care how old you are, really. But I—"
"—Oh, Ranma! I knew it, thank you! I'm so happy!" She cut him off happily as she grinned at him. Was she acting? To be honest, even she didn't know for sure. Ranma, overwhelmed, staggered away from her for a few steps and crouched down quietly in the shade of the tree.
Unfortunately, at the same time some of her regular customers spotted her and called out to her from across the field. She swung her gaze over to them in a panic, then back to Ranma, but he hadn't moved. He seemed very lost in thought. Well ... while he was day dreaming, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to continue to get rid of some of the extra photos she had of his girl-side.
The whole photo thing had started as a way to bribe and control Kuno. And, honestly, selling him pictures of Akane breaking bricks and sweating in her uniforms seemed entirely innocent to her. When Ranma had come along and brought his cursed female body with him, she had found out rather quickly that he had no sense of the usual female urge to cover up, especially from the waist up. She had resisted for a long time, but as the weeks and months had dragged by and he had made absolutely no effort to cover up, despite numerous lectures from Akane and others, she had finally given in and started taking pictures whenever he was on one of his nudist streaks.
Since he didn't consider his girl-form part of himself, but instead just a cursed illusion that he just had to put up with, she really didn't feel like it was that big a deal. He walked around nude to semi-nude at home all the time as a girl, and even in public he went shirtless quite often, and with absolutely no effort to cover up.
As her feelings had grown for him over time, though, she had stopped taking new pictures of him when he was a girl. But, still, she had made so many prints of the duplicates of the ones she had taken ... at the very least she wanted to sell enough to break even on the cost of printing out the duplicates. She took another look over at Ranma, but he was still lost in thought. So, she waved the guys over and held a finger up to her lips. As they gathered and formed a line, she took out the ever-dwindling envelope she had in her bag of the prints she had left.
"Three thousand Yen for a set of five." She said with her business-smile on. They each paid up quickly and were on their way again clutching their new photos in moments. Interestingly, she knew at least two of them knew full well that the red-headed girl they were buying pictures of, was really Ranma. And she caught both of them sneaking glances at him as they retreated. Interesting. Very interesting. But also not important right now.
As she was putting the envelope away, she heard Ranma getting to his feet behind her. That wasn't good. She hurriedly stuffed the envelope in to the top of her bag and turned to face him with her best innocent face plastered on.
As he walked over to her his eyes darted to the backs of the retreating guys, then narrowed as he looked at the ground behind her. Before she could react he darted over and picked up a couple of the pictures that must have fallen out. They showed his girl form in various states of undress. He looked up at her with a mixture of betrayal and happiness on his face. The source of the betrayal was obvious, the happiness was probably just because he was back on what he considered to be solid ground. He stood up and waved the pictures at her indignantly. "Hey, what were you just ... what are these?" He asked.
Busted. Was all she could think of as she looked at him with regret. She then dropped to her knees and tried her best to deflect him, while trying to pull him off his center, of course. "Well ... a girl does love to gaze ... upon the man she truly loves ... even when he doesn't happen to be a man!"
Ranma wasn't having it, he leaned towards her and growled. "Tell me you're not selling these?!"
Thinking fast, she reeled back and brought her hands up under her chin as she tried to stay calm. She could recover from this. If Ranma forgave Akane for whacking him with that mallet of hers, and for constantly splashing him with cold water to get back at him, then he could forgive this. "I was only selling the duplicates!"
Ranma narrowed his eyes at her like he wanted to argue the point further when Ukyo's voice interrupted them. "She'd sell love itself, if she could..."
She couldn't see Ukyo, so the okonomiyaki-girl must be in the tree. There was no way Ukyo could have gotten there unseen while she had been there, which meant either Ranma had told Ukyo about the meeting, or Ukyo had followed him to the meeting and slipped into the tree while he was waiting for her to arrive. She hoped it was the later instead of the former.
Ukyo interrupted her musings as she jumped out of the tree and yelled, "Nabiki Tendo, take this!" As the young chef said that, she threw something at her. She braced herself to dodge. She didn't want to risk trying to grab it out of the air again—
Before she had to do anything, though, Ranma stepped in front of her protectively and snapped, "Ukyo, no!" He snatched whatever Ukyo had thrown out of the air with deft hands. "I won't let you hurt—"
She swore her heart skipped a beat as he said that. Even after all her teasing, and the lines she had crossed, he still wanted to protect her. He really was very kind. She watched him as he looked at what Ukyo had thrown.
"—what is this?" He asked Ukyo, holding up one of Ukyo's throwing spatulas with a Yen note tied around it.
Oh boy, this is going to cost me. She cringed as he rounded on her.
"That's the rental fee for you, Ranma." Ukyo piled on happily.
"Fee?" He repeated numbly.
Ranma turned to stare at her in disbelief as Ukyo looked on smugly. She shrugged and figured she would explain this one to him later. "Yes, fee. One thousand Yen an hour."
"B-but ... why?" He asked.
"To keep the peace, silly." She said cheerfully. She knew she was going to have to explain this better tonight, but Ranma's shouts had already summoned several sports teams their way. She could hear them charging up now. Oh well, Ranma was a big boy. He could walk away from this whenever he wanted. In the meantime, to keep the peace, she was indeed going to rent him out by the hour. She wasn't nearly as jealous as Akane was. Besides, the best any of his would-be suitors would get out of an hour alone with him would be awkward silence. As for the sports teams...
"Did you say you're renting out Ranma?!"
"We want him for our competitions!"
They shouted over each other as they ran over to rent Ranma's skills. With Ranma on any sports team, they couldn't lose. He was like Furinkan High School's reluctant secret weapon.
She waved them over and smiled as she said in her best carnival voice, "Step right up!"
Ranma started to protest, but Ukyo dragged him away. "Uh-uh! You're mine for the next hour!"
Bless that girl. She thought happily to herself as she watched Ukyo drag him away. Then she rounded on the assembled guys and picked the various fighting teams that she knew Ranma would do well with, and rented him to the Aikido club, the Judo club, the Karate club, and the Kung-Fu club for their competitions. She turned down the Kendo club's request regretfully. While she was sure it would have been extremely amusing to have Ranma under the authority of Kuno in any capacity, she also knew that Ranma had breaking points, and Kuno was one of them. For that matter, Ranma could very likely break Kuno as well, if he was pushed too far.
To the clubs she had agreed to help with Ranma's skills, she gave each of them a paid receipt to show Ranma, and sent them on their way. She knew he would honor the agreements both because he would feel honor-bound to do so, and also because he loved to fight and prove himself to be the strongest fighter around. She figured it was win-win and he would forget all about being annoyed with her afterwards.
She watched the gleeful sports teams follow Ukyo as the young chef dragged Ranma away for her idea of a date. She's probably going to try to get him to go slave over an okonomiyaki stove for an hour and play married chef couple. She thought with no small measure of satisfaction. The fool girl wouldn't make Ranma want to spend more time with her if she insisted on date activities like that, for sure.
She reached down and gathered her bag up to her shoulder as she did a quick survey of the ground to make sure nothing else had fallen out of it. She then watched Ranma get led away for awhile, and stared wistfully after him. Still, she wasn't jealous that he was with Ukyo. She was kind of dreading what he was going to say to her when he got home, though.
She decided that she would go out of her way to be nice to him when he got home. She owed him that, at least.