As it happened it was four days later that Nabiki set out on her visit to the area she suspected contained an errant martial artist/fiancé to her sister. A number of things cropped up that she had no choice but to deal with, various bills needed to be paid, and above all she had to make sure she could travel without being followed or in any way suspected of anything. Assuring herself of this last point was nearly a day's work in itself. Finally, though, she left the Tendo residence early one morning heading for the nearest train station with her cellphone turned off just in case. Taking a train in a different direction she carefully checked for a tail, switching trains three times before she was sure she wasn't being followed. After travelling nearly twice the actual distance between home and her destination she finally arrived at the station one stop away from her target, as another precaution, taking a taxi the final two kilometres.
After some thought she had decided to start at the university itself, then work her way outwards. She had photos of both forms of Ranma and of Kasumi, with the hope that someone might recognise either of them. It seemed a faint chance, none of her contacts in the area had ever come up with anything, but it was worth a try. Heading for the university admissions office she found herself talking to a pleasant middle-aged woman who, after some buttering up and a decent bribe, was willing to look at the photos. This drew a blank. She was sure she'd never seen any of the three people shown, and as she told Nabiki, she had worked in that position for twenty years and had a very good memory for faces. Thanking her with an inner feeling of mild disappointment, the Tendo woman left the office and walked outside to sit in the sun while trying to decide on another approach.
To be honest she hadn't expected that avenue to bear fruit, but it had been an obvious first attempt. Deciding to ask around in the various cafés around the campus, she picked a direction more or less at random and started off.
Three hours later she was getting irritated. She'd spoken to dozens of people, spending quite a lot of cash on 'incentives,' with nothing to show for it but sore feet. Sitting at a table outside the last café she made some notes, looking up to order a coffee when the waitress stopped by. Sipping it appreciatively when it came the brunette considered her options. She could give up, chalk the whole thing up to coincidence, go home, and forget about it. The idea made her snort derisively. She could expand her search, going further out into the community and hoping that she found something. A twinge of pain from her abused feet made her reluctant to do that unless necessary. Or she could sit here for a while, trying to come up with another plan. That seemed like the easiest solution, at least for the next half hour or so. Smiling slightly to herself she ordered another coffee and a sandwich, kicking off her shoes and massaging one foot.
Half an hour or so later a pretty brunette girl of average height, casually dressed in the normal student attire of a T-shirt with the name of a popular band on it and tight jeans, her long braided hair tied off with a bright red silk bow, came up to her, looking uncertain. Pushing her stylish sunglasses up her nose with one finger she glanced around nervously, then leaned closer. Intrigued, Nabiki watched with curiosity, waiting for the girl to speak. "Um, excuse me, but someone mentioned you were looking for some people?" The middle Tendo sister nodded with a faint smile. This was the sort of thing she was used to.
"Yes. Why, do you have some information for me?" The girl glanced around again, then pulled out one of the other chairs and sat. Leaning forward she lowered her voice a little.
"I might have. You have photos, I'm told?"
"Yes." Pulling out the now somewhat dog-eared pictures Nabiki dropped them on the table in front of the girl, who spread them apart with one hand while nibbling a nail on the other. She inspected them carefully, picking each on up in turn and looking at it over her sunglasses which had slipped down her nose again. Nabiki noticed that she kept coming back to the one of Ranma's female form and smiled internally.
"OK. I might have seen some of these people, I think," the girl said, putting the photos on the table in a neat line, reaching out with one finger to align one of them better. Not looking at Nabiki she casually, or at least what she presumably thought was casually, said "Ah, I believe you were offering, um, payment... for information?" Her cheek was twitching a little as she quickly glanced at the face of the other woman then away again, while once more her table-mate was smiling inside.
"If you have some real information I think I could probably come up with, hmm, shall we say five thousand yen?" The girl seemed slightly taken aback.
"Um. I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone finds out I told you anything. Twenty thousand." Nabiki grinned coldly.
"Trust me, dear, you could get in a lot more trouble if you're wasting my time. Six thousand."
Looking around again, her eyes darting back and forth, the girl sweated a little. Pushing her sunglasses up her face she replied, "Eighteen thousand, and I'll tell you where I saw them." Leaning back in her chair, Nabiki considered the increasingly nervous-looking young woman for long enough to make her squirm.
"Take me to where you saw them, tell me what you know, and I'll agree to sixteen thousand." The other brunette went still for a moment then reluctantly nodded.
"OK." She pushed the photos further apart, then indicated the one of the female Ranma. "This one, I think. She looks younger in this photo, but I'm pretty sure it's her. I think she's some sort of martial artist, I've seen her doing some sort of practice. She and a friend moved in to my apartment building about eighteen months ago. They always seem to be really careful about being seen outside." Trying not to grin, Nabiki leaned forward.
"What about this one. Have you seen her?" She pushed the photo of Kasumi forward. The girl picked it up and studied it again, looking doubtful.
"It might be her friend. It kind of looks like her but she's got different hair. I haven't seen her as much." Inspecting the photo some more, she finally put it back down. "Sorry, I can't be sure." Slightly disappointed but not showing it, Nabiki nodded.
"All right. Where is this apartment building of yours?"
"It's about a kilometre and a half away."
"Fine. Show me where, and I'll pay you when I'm sure you're being honest with me." The girl appeared offended.
"I'm telling the truth!" Nabiki smiled coldly.
"They always say that." The brunette looked at her oddly, then glanced around again.
"Fine. Come on. It's about ten minutes walk." They stood, the Tendo woman dropped a couple of notes on the table before following her new acquaintance out of the café and down the street. The girl struck her as a fairly new student, perhaps first or second year. Curious, she asked, "I assume you're a student here? What are you studying?"
"Sports medicine," the girl replied, constantly looking around as if she was sure they were being followed. Her obvious paranoia was becoming irritating and Nabiki had to suppress the urge to tell her to calm down. "Physiotherapy, biomechanics of athletes, that sort of thing. It's fascinating." Nabiki nodded in the right places as the girl chattered nervously, learning far more than she wanted about oxygen depletion in muscles. Eventually her continued silence seemed to make the girl sufficiently nervous to shut up and they walked the rest of the way in silence, with the brunette looking over her shoulder now and then. Reaching a block of what looked like high-end apartments that backed onto a large park, the girl stopped.
"This is it. That girl and her friend are in the apartment on the top floor." Nabiki inspected the building, which had a high-security door access control panel next to the main entrance. It looked like a nice place to live and as a result quite expensive. If it was indeed Ranma that the girl had seen, how did he afford this? Looking up at the front of the building she saw that it probably didn't have many flats in it, perhaps one or two per floor, each of them with a balcony at the front. The top one also seemed to have some sort of roof garden from what she could see from the ground.
"Expensive place." The girl nodded.
"Very. My grandfather pays for my apartment, but I don't get much money otherwise. So..." She held out her hand looking embarrassed. Nabiki smiled.
"Get me inside and I'll pay you." With a slight sigh the brunette nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a swipe card. She walked to the door and ran it through the reader which beeped and illuminated a small green light, then she pulled the door open. Nabiki walked through with satisfaction. The girl followed her inside, leading the way to an elevator. Pressing the button and looking around nervously, she jumped a little when the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Waving Nabiki inside she once more followed, pressing the top button once inside.
"Only building residents can access the top floor. There's a swimming pool up there as well." She swiped her card through the reader next to the control panel, the doors slid shut, and the elevator ascended. When it stopped and the door opened she stuck her head out, looking quickly around. Waving Nabiki out she held the elevator door open with her foot and held out her hand again. "Down at the end on the left. Apartment 601." The Tendo woman glanced in the indicated direction then nodded.
"Good. Thank you." She pulled out a roll of notes and peeled off the negotiated amount, handing it to the girl and putting the rest back in her pocket, "Here you go." The girl took it and smiled a little uncertainly. As she stepped back into the elevator the doors slid silently shut. Satisfied, Nabiki turned and headed in the direction the girl had indicated, finding that at the end of the corridor was only one door, with a discrete 601 in gold numbers on it above the lens of a security viewer. Below that was something that made her heart miss a beat. A small sign in the form of a wooden duck, painted yellow, hung from a screw in the door. It looked very familiar, since for years she, Akane, and Kasumi had ones exactly like it hanging on the doors of their respective bedrooms, each with their names on. This one was unmarked but she felt it couldn't possibly be a coincidence.
Raising a hand which she noted with inner surprise was trembling a little, she knocked on the door next to the wooden duck. There was no immediate answer, so she knocked again, slightly more firmly. With a faint click the door opened a little, apparently not having been shut properly. After a moment's thought she gently pushed on it, watching as it swung open to reveal a hallway with a number of doors opening off it, some coats hung up on the wall inside above a rack for shoes. Tentatively stepping inside she looked around curiously. There were a couple of house-plants on a table a few metres down the hallway, three or four paintings and a pair of prints hung on the walls, a nice carpet on the floor. The walls were painted a muted yellow with white trim on the woodwork. Walking slowly down the hallway she glanced into each open door as she came to it, seeing sparse but nice furnishings, a well-equipped kitchen, three rooms that seemed to be bedrooms, only one of which appeared to be in current use, and a large living room that obviously opened out onto the balcony at the front of the building.
So far she hadn't seen any sign of life, but for some reason couldn't bring herself to call out. 'This is going to be very awkward if it turns out that Ranma doesn't live here,' she thought wildly to herself, trying not to laugh hysterically. The quiet was starting to get to her. Hearing a faint noise from somewhere behind her she whirled around, looking about for the cause. Nothing was visible but she noticed something she'd missed up to now, that the hallway turned away from the front of the building just beside the living room, heading towards the back. The apartment seemed to occupy the entire top floor, nearly as large as the entire Tendo house. Cautiously heading down the corridor towards the back of the building she came to a closed set of sliding doors. There were faint noises coming from beyond that point which sounded like footsteps.
Taking a deep breath she slowly slid one side of the double doors to the side. It silently opened to reveal that the entire back half of the apartment was one enormous room, floored in polished wood, with several large windows overlooking the park beyond. There were a pair of skylights in the ceiling which was a good three metres up. All this she took in at glance, before her attention was drawn to the figure in the middle of the room.
The person, tall, female, brown hair in a ponytail down her back to her waist, dressed in loose black silk clothing, was concentrating completely on an intricate martial arts kata, one Nabiki instantly recognised as belonging to the Anything Goes school. She was performing it smoothly and flawlessly at considerable speed, smiling gently to herself. Stepping further into the room Nabiki watched with her heart beating at twice the normal speed. She had seen Ranma perform this kata dozens of times, but this woman wasn't Ranma.
It was, of course, Kasumi. She turned towards her sister and smiled more widely at her, apparently unsurprised at seeing her standing there with a dumbstruck expression on her face, unable to speak. Nabiki got the sudden impression that Kasumi had been aware of her presence the entire time she'd been in the apartment. Taking a couple of steps towards her long-missing sister she raised one hand, then slowly let it fall to her side, watching as the woman continued the long and complex series of motions, a graceful dance with deadly potential. Just as she was finishing Nabiki heard the noise from behind her of the door to the room closing with a click, spinning around to see the young woman who had led her here. The brunette dropped her hand from the door and walked past Nabiki to meet Kasumi who was coming in the other direction. They met, then hugged, while the middle sister watched agape, unable to work out what was going on. Both turned to smile at the stunned Tendo woman, who saw they were holding hands.
"Hello, Nabiki. We were expecting you three days ago," said the young woman with a cocky grin, one she recognised with shock even if the face it was on was one she'd never seen before today. While she was staring in disbelief the girl shimmered as if seen through a heat haze, shrinking slightly, hair brightening and changing colour. A second or two later the once-familiar sight, last seen three and a half years ago, of Ranma in her female form grinned at Nabiki.
Who promptly fainted.