Nabiki staggered across the polished wooden floor of the practice room, collapsing near the wall with her head spinning. "That was worse than the roof-hopping," she mumbled, lying on the floor watching the ceiling gently spin. Her sister reverted to her normal appearance with a sigh, walking over and kneeling beside her.
"It will pass quickly. The first time through a teleport is always disorienting. I threw up for ten minutes the first time I experienced it." Kasumi patted her sister on the shoulder, then got up and returned to the others. Aiko was sitting on the floor with an exhausted look on her face, Ranma in her normal female shape squatting beside her healing her ribs. She looked up at her wife.
"I think these guys should stay the night, they're in no shape to go home right now." Kasumi nodded agreement.
"I'll get the guest rooms ready. Two of you are going to have to share, if that's OK?" She looked quizzically at the magical girl group. Tamiko glanced at Aiko, then smiled.
"I don't mind sharing with Aiko if she's OK with it." The brunette agreed, wincing as Ranma finished healing her ribs.
"Ow. Thanks, Ranma." She got to her feet with some aid from the red-head. "And thanks for helping us. That thing was a handful. If you hadn't been here it could have become unpleasant." She looked curiously at the martial artist. "On the way over, even in the middle of all that, I could have sworn I felt a portal form."
"Yes, it was Uthryyl and his crew on another shopping trip." Aiko laughed painfully, clutching her side.
"I hope they left some chocolate for the rest of us. That's the third time this year. He must be making a fortune at home from it." Ranma smiled.
"Probably. He certainly seemed in a good mood. Until you know who decided to drop through the roof." She gave a quick description of the intervention of the other group of magical girls and what had happened. Aiko started laughing again, as did the other three.
"Seriously? You head-butted her?" A slightly embarrassed but also amused Ranma nodded.
"Right in the face. Broke her nose. She looked like someone had eaten her puppy." The warrior women howled with laughter, as Nabiki sat up and watched, feeling much better. There didn't seem to be much love lost between the two groups, she reflected with interest.
"Serves them right. That blue-haired girl is all right, but most of the rest of them are gung-ho idiots. I'm constantly surprised they haven't killed any innocents yet," Tamiko said with a frown. "It's only a matter of time." Ranma sighed.
"I know. Their stupid prophecy seems to have made them believe anything they do is for 'The Greater Good'." She made little air quotes in a sarcastic manner. "No common sense, they just jump right in. If it wasn't for the fact that they seem to have quite a high hit rate on real problems I'd be even more annoyed about it all. I just wish they'd go on a course on threat assessment or something, not simply dive in guns blazing at the smallest hint of something from another world. It makes relations with legitimate travellers very difficult. I keep having to apologise to someone they've had a go at." The expression on her face made it clear she wasn't impressed. Nabiki giggled at the concept of magical girl training courses, wondering wildly if this was something the Minato universities should teach. Glancing at her Ranma quirked an eyebrow. She couldn't work out how to explain her thought so just shrugged helplessly.
The red-head grinned, having some idea of what she was feeling. This must all be a bit much for her. "Exciting night out, hmm, Nabiki? Was it what you were expecting?" The brunette laughed a little hysterically.
"Is it always like this? If so, how exactly have you gained by leaving Nerima?" Ranma snickered.
"No, tonight was weird even for this place. Not the weirdest night I've ever had, even back in Nerima, but pretty strange. Most of the time it's much quieter, I went to quite a lot of trouble to make sure of that." She looked at the various people standing around her. "Come on, let's go and sit down. You guys can wash up, we have some robes you can borrow, then Kas and I can finish healing anything that needs it. Anyone want something to eat?" Several heads nodded. The entire group went into the living room, then split up, Nabiki slumping onto the sofa with a sigh, the four magical girls heading for the various bathrooms. They clearly knew their way around. Shortly the middle Tendo sister was alone in the room. She leaned back and closed her eyes, thinking on the last few hours with wonder. A few minutes later, half-asleep, she heard light footsteps and opened one eye, then the other when she saw it was her sister. Kasumi sat beside her handing her a cup of tea.
"I know you prefer coffee, but this is less likely to keep you awake," she commented with a small smile, sipping her own cup. Her sister took the offered tea and tried it.
"Thank you." They sat in companionable silence for a little while. Eventually Nabiki turned her head and studied her sister, who returned her gaze with a familiar unreadable smile.
"You have a very strange life," she commented. Kasumi merely sipped her tea. "I mean, we just teleported from a park a kilometre away into your house, after your husband, who was female at the time and disguised with a shape-shifting illusion spell, blew an enormous crater in the ground in the process of disposing of some weird man eating monster from a different dimension. There are four magical girls using the bathrooms right now. That same husband is more of a magical girl than they are!" She shook her head. "Not to mention the demons with the rented warehouse full of chocolatey goodness, which they're exporting to hell or something like that. And the other magical girls, and everything else." She drank some more tea. "It's weird." Kasumi grinned at her.
"It's never boring." Nabiki nearly choked as a sudden attack of the giggles caught her. When Ranma came in a minute or two later having showered and changed her clothes, she looked at the two sisters giggling together on the sofa with a raised eyebrow. Nabiki pointed at her and whispered something to her sister which made them laugh until tears ran down their faces. The red-head shrugged, heading for the kitchen.
Eventually the whole group of seven people was sitting around the table, having a late meal. Nabiki wasn't hugely hungry, since the meal earlier had been quite large, but still ate something, while the others were ravenous. She looked around the table at the two familiar faces and the four new ones. She knew the names of two of them, but the other two hadn't said much yet or introduced themselves. The group seemed to have a higher average age than the ones that had dropped in on the warehouse, looking like they were late teens to early twenties. The other lot had been around sixteen or seventeen. Ranma noticed her glances and correctly interpreted them. "That's Fumiko and Misaki." Fumiko, a tall girl with short dark hair dyed blonde at the tips and grey eyes smiled at her over her chopsticks, while Misaki, who looked similar enough to be either a sister or a cousin, but with light brown hair and almost black eyes, was concentrating too hard on eating to do more than grunt.
"Forgive her, we haven't had much to eat today. She's permanently starving anyway." Fumiko grinned, then went back to eating.
"She doesn't do much more than grunt either," Aiko commented with a sly smile. Misaki stopped eating and glared at her, then shrugged with another grunt and went back to shovelling food in as fast as possible. Everyone laughed. "Case in point," the short girl said, giggling.
Ranma shifted to male, getting up to refill the teapot. Tamiko watched him leave the room, shaking her head in wonder. "I don't think I'll every get used to that no matter how many times I see it." She glanced at Kasumi with a grin. "So which do you prefer in the bedroom?" Everyone stopped eating and stared at the eldest Tendo, who blushed. After a moment she produced a small, remarkably perverted smile and sipped her tea, not saying anything. Tamiko laughed and saluted her with her chopsticks, resuming her meal. Nabiki studied her sister for a while, wondering, as Kasumi met her gaze evenly. Deciding it was none of her business while at the same time being quite curious, Nabiki went back to eating as well. When Ranma came back he was met by six grinning women.
"What?" he asked, feeling slightly worried. They all burst out laughing. "Women are weird," he muttered, sitting down amidst even more laughter. The young man sat and sulked for a moment, feeling surrounded, before looking at Nabiki. "I'm going to have to relieve you of that bracelet." She smiled, slightly disappointed.
"I was hoping you forgot."
"I'll just bet you were." He smirked. "But I think a Nabiki Tendo with effective invisibility might be a bit too much for Nerima." Laughing, she removed the device and handed it over. "If you ever really need it let me know, I think we could help you out." Making it vanish he poured more tea for everyone.
Nabiki noticed a few minute later that she seemed to have massive difficulty remembering the faces of the four newcomers. When she looked at them directly, everything was perfectly normal, but seconds later she found their faces were just a blank spot in her mind. Aiko noticed her looking at them intently, then away, furrowing her forehead in an attempt to remember. "It's the bracelets. Ours are still on. While you were wearing one it neutralised the effect, but because you weren't present when they were activated it still affects you." She glanced at Ranma and Kasumi. "Can we trust her?" They looked at each other before nodding. "OK." Something indefinable changed about her. Nabiki inspected her for a moment trying to work out what it was, then glanced away. This time she could remember her face.
"That's very strange. I can see how it would be useful, though, in your line of work." The other three also deactivated their identity masking devices. Tamiko spoke up.
"We have to be careful. You start to get very paranoid when you think about how some people might want to seek revenge, or attack you, something like that. You get a lot more paranoid when you think about your families, especially if they don't know what you are and what you do."
"So how does one become a magical girl, anyway?" Nabiki asked curiously. Indicating Ranma with a finger, she said, "I know how he did, but what about the rest of you?" Ranma looked insulted.
"I am not a magical girl." His sister-in-law stared at him.
"Really? A man who magically becomes female? Who uses illusion magic without even thinking about it? You're more a magical girl than they are." The four females turned to look at him with interest.
"She's right," Fumiko said with a grin. Misaki nodded, still eating. The grunt this time was affirmative. Sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms defensively the martial artist grumbled.
"Not a magical girl," he muttered to himself, staring daggers at the innocent plate in front of him. Laughing, Aiko turned back to Nabiki. Kasumi leaned over and put an arm around her husband comfortingly, but her eyes were twinkling.
"It varies. There are all sorts of stories, some based around reincarnation, old gods or demons, or magical artefacts from the deep past. In our case it was sort of a mix, a statue of an ancient being, no one knows if it was a god, a demon, an alien, or what. We ran across it on a school trip years ago in a museum in Kyoto. One thing led to another, we kind of got caught up in a spell gone bad, next thing you know we have these weapons and some magic powers and tools. It was a bit of a shock. For a while we tried to pretend it never happened, but the weirdness kept finding us. In the end we didn't have much choice."
"Who decided on the uniforms?" Nabiki was smiling a little, they really were extremely immodest. She could see why Ranma had found them so irritating. Aiko groaned.
"Not really our choice. When we use the magic, which gives us a large boost in speed and strength, our clothes turn into those things. Unfortunately they don't change back." The girl appeared annoyed. "I lost several really nice outfits because of that at first." She sighed. "Unlike some magical girl uniforms these ones aren't armoured or anything useful like that. They just expose as much skin as possible. Whoever designed that spell was a real letch." Tamiko laughed.
"She hates them. I don't mind, but I've got nice legs." All three of her team-mates gave her nasty looks, while Nabiki giggled.
"So why were you annoyed about having to repair the uniform earlier, if you can just make new ones?"
The auburn-haired girl looked at her as if she was mad. "Clothes are expensive! I don't want all my nice dresses turned into more uniforms."
"Ah. I see." It seemed a fairly silly argument but she could accept it.
"Some magical girls get fancy transformation sequences with pretty lights and sounds. We have to find somewhere to change, or lose yet another set of clothes." Aiko seemed pretty grumpy about the whole affair. Brightening up, she grinned and glanced at Ranma. "At least that meant we had spares when Ranma stood in for me. We're even about the same size." Everyone looked at the martial artist again, who looked embarrassed. Nabiki nearly lost it again, picturing him in female form wearing one of their uniforms. Having seen one she found it even funnier than when she'd imagined it earlier.
"Perhaps you can model for us later?" she suggested, giggling manically when he glared.
"No chance."
"Oh, come on Saotome! Let us see your long smooth legs!" Kasumi collapsed in laughter, her sister not far behind her. The other four were giggling, even Misaki having to stop eating for a moment.
"It's not funny. Shut up." He crossed his arms again and glared at them which only made them laugh harder.
When the laughter died down, Tamiko glanced at Nabiki, then at Ranma. "If Nabiki here has found you, does that mean you're going to approach your family now?" Kasumi and her husband looked at each other. With a sad sigh, Ranma shook his head.
"I don't think so. To be honest, if I never see any of them again it wouldn't worry me much. I know Kas misses her other sister and her father, but as for me... My father is a child abusing drunkard, while my mother is missing some fairly important marbles. Akane very nearly drove me to commit either suicide or murder." They all looked sympathetic, and a little scared by the concept, knowing damn well how dangerous the martial artist was even when not homicidally angry. "As for the rest of that lot of lunatics? Cologne is a manipulating bitch, if we're being polite. Oh, sure, I learned a lot from her, and I think she still has a lot I'd love to learn, but anything she ever taught me came with huge strings attached. Shampoo is in many respects a nice girl, and a fine warrior, but she's as obsessive as Akane about me although less obvious about it. Mousse is as obsessive as that about her, and is that obvious. Ryoga is just a pain. Ukyo... Her I kind of miss."
Falling silent he reflected on the chef. "She was pretty, intelligent, a good martial artist, and a very good cook." Turning his head to look at Kasumi, he added, "I already have one of those, though." She held his hand with a pleased smile. "I hope she and Konatsu make a go of it, I really do. They're both good people, probably the best of that lot." He thought about what he'd said, then shrugged. "No, all things considered I'm in no hurry to ever meet any of them ever again. The only ones I could stand either came with me or eventually tracked me down." Grinning at Nabiki he squeezed Kasumi's hand, then picked up his chopsticks. Aiko looked at his wife.
"What about you, Kasumi?" She looked sad.
"I would like to see Akane and Father again. I do understand what Ranma means, I know what he went through. But they're my family. One day, perhaps."
"Except for Akane, the rest of them do seem to slowly becoming more sensible," Nabiki commented. "Father and Genma seem to be doing fairly well as teachers, I think. It's definitely been good for our father, he's much more like the person I remember from when I was little. Genma is still a lazy idiot, but he's actually working now. It's made quite a difference." Ranma listened with a neutral expression.
"This may be true. But I can never forget what he put me through in the name of training. Oh, it was effective, I'll give him that. But I'm pretty sure that there are methods equally as effective that are less psychologically damaging." Shaking his head in disgust, he ate a few more bites. "A couple more years of him, and I would either have snapped and slaughtered everyone in Furinkan, or killed myself. Or both. Akane and the rest were pushing that timetable to a matter of weeks." The dark-haired young man put his chopsticks down and stared at his bowl, while everyone else looked at him uncomfortably.
"It was so close. So very close. If things had worked out even slightly differently..." Putting down her own chopsticks Kasumi got up and knelt next to him, putting her arms around him.
"It didn't happen then and now it never will, my love. You've grown past that. The man I love is so much better than what those people tried to force him to be. I'm more grateful than you can possibly imagine that I was finally able to see that." Ranma looked at her for a long moment while the others watched, before his hand came up to cup her chin.
"If it wasn't for you... Don't ever leave me, Kas."
"I won't." There was silence for a while, before she returned to her own chair and they resumed eating. The mood, which had become somewhat melancholy, quickly improved as Fumiko started telling dirty jokes, rapidly reducing them to tears of laughter.
After the meal the whole group retired to the sofa, which was just large enough. Swapping stories of ever more unlikely events, the four girls and Ranma and Kasumi tried to top each other, while Nabiki listened with amazement. Some of the stories sounded insane even to her, but she was assured they were all true. Eventually, Kasumi looked at her watch. "It's nearly one AM. I need some sleep, and I'm sure you four must be tired as well after tonight." Aiko nodded while Misaki yawned hugely, setting off everyone else.
"Very true. Thanks for the meal, and the beds. See you guys in the morning." The four girls trooped off to their various bedrooms, quietly talking amongst themselves. The three people left behind looked at each other.
"This has been a very unusual day. But, aside from the moments of extreme terror, a lot of fun." Nabiki grinned tiredly at her sister and her brother-in-law.
"When do you plan on going back?" Ranma asked. The brunette considered the question. "There's no hurry," he hastily added. "I'm not trying to suggest you should leave. I know you and Kas still want to talk as sisters." Nodding, Nabiki grinned at him.
"Don't worry, I know what you mean. I was thinking probably tomorrow afternoon. I can catch a train at about three, if I remember the timetable." She'd explained her roundabout method of travelling, which Ranma approved of from a security viewpoint. It was rather tedious though.
"Would you like me to ask Aiko to teleport you back? Or at least to somewhere close to home, it would cut a lot of travel time." With a slight shudder Nabiki remembered her first experience of teleportation. Kasumi looked at her, correctly deducing from her expression what she was thinking.
"It won't be nearly as bad the second time. You'll only feel a bit dizzy for a second or two. Trust me." Reluctantly, she did, and nodded.
"Thanks. That's probably a good idea."
"OK, I'll ask her in the morning." Looking at his wife, he added, "I'm heading for bed. See you in a while." The martial artist stood and with a wave to his wife's sister left the room. Left alone, Kasumi and Nabiki looked at each other.
"You must visit more often, sister," Kasumi said with an impish smile. "All sorts of interesting things happen when you're here." She giggled, Nabiki joining her for a moment.
"I'm not sure I could take much more of that sort of 'interesting thing', sis. I'm amazed you seem to enjoy it so much." The two of them talked for another half hour, before heading off to bed. Kasumi gave her sister a spare set of pyjamas, which she quickly changed into before sliding under the covers. Turning out the bedside lamp she was asleep almost instantly.
