Interesting Times
By socchan
Chapter One: Nabiki-neko's Late Night Prowl
Sometime around midnight, Nabiki-neko awoke and left the warm comfort of her large fluffy bed to prowl. She looked around, her cat's eyes able to pick up more in the darkness than her human ones, and noted the slightly open window. She leapt up onto her desk and nosed it open enough for a lone cat to squeeze through.
Suddenly, she was free in the night. It was an amazing feeling; her senses were flooded with sounds and scents that she never would have experienced as a human: here, the rustling of a cricket as it hopped out of her way, and there, a mouse's heartbeat, almost a hum, speeding up as it sensed her presence. Fear washed over it, pungent and sweet, and Nabiki-neko reveled in its scent, never before having picked up the much-loved odor.
She ignored the mouse as she walked past it, tails waving slightly, uninterested. Paper rustled as the mouse dashed away from her to its nest, where it would spend a good fifteen minutes recovering from its brush with death, before hunger drove it out again into the cold unforgiving world to search for food. Nabiki-neko allowed her walk to take on a certain smug air—she liked having people fear her. And well they should be. The night-world of the city, or anywhere for that matter, was a dangerous place to be if you were not a cat.
The velvet darkness flowed around Nabiki-neko as she made her way to the Store-That-Was-Not-A-Store.
Scratching at the back door alerted the shop owner that Nabiki-neko had arrived. She smiled quietly and opened it a crack to allow the cat entry. Nabiki-neko dashed in, twin tails erect, yowling in indignant thanks.
"You're welcome," the woman said, the same smug smile on her face. She pulled a chair out from the back room table so her 'customer' could get up, then set out a saucer of cream for Nabiki-neko and some tea for herself. When she was finally ready, she sat across from the cat, hands folded neatly beneath her chin, still smiling. "Now, Nabiki," the woman addressed the feline in front of her, "what brings you here tonight."
Nabiki-neko muttered darkly in that secret language only cats knew, and glared at the woman in front of her. The woman laughed.
"You're right," she told the cat, "I don't need a translator to understand you, and it was awfully rude of me not to introduce myself to you. You'll forgive me for not getting up," she said ruefully, "but I just sat down, and I'm getting on in years."
Nabiki-neko yowled in disagreement.
The woman laughed. "I'm much older than I look, Nabiki Tendo, and I just had a rather long day in the store." She smirked. "But you know better than to ask a woman about her age." She ran a finger over the rim of her teacup, and glanced at Nabiki-neko. "My name is Carmella. By the way, that cream's not poisoned, and will only get warmer sitting there."
Nabiki-neko gave an indignant swish of her tails, then bent to taste the cream as if it was her idea in the first place. The woman laughed lightly, and Nabiki-neko was reminded of her thoughts earlier that day…
=^-,-^= Flashback =^-,-^=
Nabiki walked in the gates of the Tendo family home, clutching the package holding the other six Wishes. She smiled as she watched the antics of her little sister and her fiancée.
"Pervert!" the cry of the indignant Akane sounded, who had just undoubtedly tossed Ranma through the wall. A second crash told Nabiki that he had probably hit the fence instead of flying into the Koi pond as he usually did.
"I didn't do nuttin'!" Ranma's voice said, "I just came home, and there she was, lyin' on my bed like that! It wasn't my fault!"
"Oh, Ranma dear!" an unfamiliar female voice floated to Nabiki's ears; Nabiki groaned and smiled. It sounded as if Ranma had another wayward fiancée to deal with, and Akane, obviously, had gotten jealous and forgotten to think. Annoying it might be, but Nabiki wasn't one to turn her nose up at free entertainment. Besides, there were few other ways she knew of to get excitement in her life.
Nabiki walked in the front door and slipped off her shoes. "I'm home!" she called.
"Welcome back!" Kasumi said, sticking her head briefly out the kitchen door, customary smile on her face.
Nabiki smiled back at her sister. She doubted Kasumi was in much danger of being cursed. Seeing her younger sister's smile, Kasumi ducked back into the kitchen, presumably to work on dinner. Fumbling into a pair of slippers, Nabiki ascended the stairs to her room to change out of her school uniform. She glanced out the window before closing the blinds, and smiled as she watched her sister and Ranma argue, the forgotten 'extra' fiancée watching off to the side. Akane was a lot more likely to be cursed, Nabiki realized, than most of her other family members, but considering her relationship with Ranma, she didn't think that she would need to give a Wish to her. However Akane's cursed, Nabiki mused, Ranma will be right there with her trying his damnedest to get it off again. He'll probably succeed, too. Nabiki closed the shade, and took her uniform off.
Clad in only undergarments, Nabiki regarded the violet claw dangling around her neck. It must have been given to me for a reason, and I've seen too many curses and other magical paraphernalia to take things like this lightly, especially since Ranma came. Besides, I don't want to end up cursed. (In hindsight, Nabiki supposed this was a very stupid thought.)
Nabiki didn't think she would mind if Genma was cursed again—frankly, he deserved it—so if he wanted a Wish, he would have to pay through the nose. Maybe she'd add a humiliating task onto it, just for fun.
Ranma, on the other hand, she felt she owed the Wish. Without him, she might never have realized her place in the world: an extortionist. Nor might she have ever realized that life could be more exciting than it had been, even if that excitement was rarely centered on her. Her little sister might never be happy without him as well. Besides, after how much she'd already exploited from him, and all the stress he'd gone through because of her (though most of it was cleverly, and perhaps thinly, disguised matchmaking) he deserved to have some relief.
Nabiki ran different ideas through her head of what to make Ranma do in exchange for a Wish. After all, she had shelled out two thousand yen for the set of 'em, and though she felt he did need some relief, his ultimate reward would be Akane and her happiness. The way things were going nowadays, she probably wouldn't be able to have much more fun with him. If she let her mercenary mask slip for even one charitable moment, people might think she had gone soft and decide to try and take advantage of it—Lord only knew she would in the same circumstances. Besides, yen was yen, and it was decidedly hard to break old habits.
A loud shout could be heard from the back yard, followed by a THWACK!, so Nabiki rushed downstairs posthaste to catch all the details she could on the latest fiancée fiasco. Life with Ranma would no doubt be short lived, and Nabiki intended to get the most she could of it before things got boring again. She went to sleep that night thinking of the possibilities for the Cat's Wishes, and awoke shortly thereafter as a two-tailed cat.
=^-,-^= Flashback Ends =^-,-^=
"How do you know my name, anyway?" Nabiki-neko mewed, licking the last of the cream from her whiskers.
Carmella shrugged. "There are a few basic facts I can pick up about a person simply by looking at them. It's all in their aura—sort-of like DNA, only with personal information as opposed to genetics. I can get your name, the number of close family members you have, and other general information like that. It's all there if you know how and where to look*."
Nabiki-neko gave her a disapproving glare; she did not like such vital stats available to the public eye. The woman caught the glare, and smiled faintly, guessing what Nabiki-neko was thinking. "Of course, like DNA, few people have the ability or resources to actually see it. Most moderate-level mind readers can pick it up easily, as well as basic mediums and other psychics, but other than that, you don't need to worry much about it." Carmella refilled her teacup. "Now, let's move on to more interesting subjects. I'm sure you've already figured out the advantages and disadvantages of being a cat like this."
"Yes," Nabiki-neko growled, unhappy. "I can go a lot of places my human form can't, but I'm going to have to restrict the number of people who see me because two-tailed cats are believed to be vampires. That seriously cuts down on my 'hiding in plain sight' element." Though it does a lot towards me finally getting an adventure.
Carmella nodded her head sadly. "I know. A good number of believed vampires that were assassinated were actually people under the same curse as you."
Nabiki was unsurprised the unusual shape she took was a curse. "Plus, this form would scare the bejesus out of Ranma if he ever caught sight of me like this. Can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, though." Carmella snorted into her cup. "How did I get this, anyway? And will I always turn into a cat at night?"
"Well, you got it from examining the contents of that green persimmon pot and getting some on your fingers. Just for the record, it's called Cursed Whisker powder. And no, you won't turn into a cat every night. Only on full moons. You'll be more-or-less anthropomorphic** on 'half' moons, and a catgirl on new moons, but you'll always have the two tails. You'll otherwise remain human. You might want a calendar with the phases of the moon in it." She glanced to Nabiki-neko's neck. "On the plus side, that Wish should make sure you are able to keep your human mind when in a cat-form, and allow you to control whether or not less-adept people are able to understand your cat noises." Carmella sighed. "That Wish is used up, though."
Nabiki-neko nodded in understanding. "How do I get a Wish to work against Jusenkyo curses?"
Carmella's eyes glinted. "I was wondering when you'd get around to asking me about that. Concerned for your sister's fiancée, are you?"
If it were possible for a cat to blush, that is what Nabiki-neko would have been doing. Instead, she just laid her ears flat back on her head, looking like a thoroughly embarrassed kitty. "Could you read that in my aura, too?"
Carmella laughed. "No, I couldn't. I could read that you had a male friend you considered family, that one of your sisters cared deeply for him, and he for her, and that there was something unusual about him, but I had to consult… other sources for the rest. His name is Ranma and he turns into a girl when splashed with cold water, correct?" Nabiki-neko nodded, still embarrassed. Carmella nodded, too. "Good. Well, you'll be happy to know that yes, the Wishes would keep him from turning into a girl as long as he wore one, but you'll have to find out which one will work best. Yes, they will all work, but one will work better than the others, and you'll be happy to know it's not the one around your neck. That's about all I can tell you about them, other than you'll have to find good uses for the other five, and I do not mean soliciting. I know your hobbies, Nabiki Tendo." She met Nabiki-neko's gaze squarely, and Nabiki-neko found she had to look away after more than a moment of it.
"I understand," she mewed pityingly.
Carmella nodded. "Good. It shouldn't be too difficult—this is the sort of charm that likes to be helpful, and has a habit of… hurrying things along, shall we say, in order to be useful. You'll know which one is right when the time comes."
Nabiki-neko nodded again, in thanks, then jumped down from the table. As she was about to walk out the door, she was stopped by Carmella's voice.
"And Nabiki." Nabiki-neko looked over her shoulder at the woman. "Just for future reference, someone you know attracts curses." Nabiki-neko nodded one last time, then walked out the door.
Carmella watched the retreating cat's form disappear into the night, and sighed. "Ah, Nabiki," she said, a bit sadly, "I don't believe those curses will make it easy for you." Then she went to tidy up the shop that was not a shop for her next would-be customer.
=^-,-^=
*I don't know if this is true or not, not being able to read auras myself, but for the sake of the story, I'm going to go with it. If you're the type of person who doesn't believe in that sort of thing, I have no idea why you're reading Ranma fan fiction in the first place. If you actually know better, you can correct me, but I'm not going to change it because some of the story elements don't work as well without it. If you want to correct me, but don't wish to do so through the review system where pretty much anyone can see what you said, feel free to e-mail me. Sorry if it's wrong, but now you know my reasoning, so you can't exactly justify a flame. For those of you interested in this, don't listen to me, I don't know what I'm talking about! Go get yourself a copy of Joy's Way, and stop bugging me for info. It should all be in there.
**Anthropomorphism: The attribution of human shape or characteristics to gods, objects, animals, etc. ß copyright Websters. For those of you in the trade, 'Furry'. For those of you who aren't, think Bugs Bunny, or even Sonic the Hedgehog, and you'll get a basic idea. Stand a cat upright, give it basic humanoid form (in this case female), keep the fur and give it hair, and viola! Half-moon Nabiki.
Dude, freaky… I never actually expected to get reviews… Especially from people I didn't know… Uh, keep it up if you feel like it, and please, no holding back. I know I made mistakes in here (but if you haven't noticed them I won't point them out… At least, not till later.). Seriously. I'm used to taking crap. Not that I'm masochistic or anything… It's just, you know, a test of will. Ah, well.
Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is property of Rumiko Takahashi, and therefore, not mine. I make no claim of it, and this piece of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment, not for money. The Cat's Wishes and Cursed Whisker powder are my concepts, and Carmella is my character, so you'd better ask before using them—or at least give me some credit. Thanks much!
--socchan