It was the end of the school day Nabiki and was tallying her day's efforts.
Leaning against a wall, she checked off the things that were completed and
made a mental note what needed to be done before she went home.
She had sold a few photographs of Akane, so she knew she would need to have some replacements printed. Remembering that she saw a couple making out near the school parking lot, she added a small note to her "dirt" pages with details. After making sure that no one was following her she headed to the teacher's copy room and slipped in. There, she rummaged through the trash, looking for anything that may be of value. She knew that the teachers were careful not to leave copies of tests around, but occasionally she would find a copy of the teacher's bulletin or some official memo that could sold.
Quietly she left the copy room and headed for the exit. She stopped by her locker to change into her shoes and filled her briefcase with the homework that was due the next day.
"Ah, the sister of the beauteous one!" Kuno had appeared from the other side of the lockers, and as to be expected, dressed in his kendo uniform.
"Go away Baby Kuno. I have a lot to do tonight."
"But I need a boon from thee. My heart aches for the attention of my loves." Kuno stood there in a classic pose with his fists at his hips and his legs in a wide stance.
Not missing a beat, Nabiki named her price, "Five hundred."
"What?"
"Five hundred Yen to listen to you. And you have to make it worth my while."
"Robbery!"
"Six hundred."
"Why, why, why you..."
"A thousand." Nabiki picked up her briefcase and gave Kuno a look that meant he'd better take the offer or she was going to leave him. "I really must be going Kuno. Do you want to talk or not?"
Kuno handed the thousand Yen to Nabiki, who promptly stashed the cash away. "Well, I'm listening. What do you want?"
"I wish to give my pig tailed goddess a gift. A gift such that no woman of her grace can resist!"
"Yes. So?"
"I must give this gift in person. I must feast my eyes upon her happiness when the token of my affection is revealed. For once she had glazed upon my endowment, she shall forever be mine!" Kuno put his hands on Nabiki's shoulders. "You must arrange that meeting!"
Nabiki looked at Kuno's arms and wondered if she could still tear them from his sockets. Touching her was a dangerous proposition, she did not like physical contact, and having the demented son of the demented principal even this close to her nearly made her ill. Fighting against the wave of nausea she felt, she looked at Kuno in the eye and with a voice of steel, she spoke in a calm voice.
"Let go of me."
Kuno immediately let Nabiki go and stumbled backwards. When Kuno was two bokken lengths away, he stood straight and bowed to Nabiki. "I'm sorry. I guess I was carried away there."
Nabiki looked at her classmate and wondered if she should arrange the meeting between Ranma and Kuno. There was money to be made, not only from Kuno, but also from the betting pool that would result when she found out what Kuno had in his mind. Although she had not forgiven Kuno for his transgression yet, she decided to press on with business.
"Where and when do you want to meet her?"
"Tomorrow before school, before the evil Saotome arrives."
Nabiki thought about this. There wasn't enough time to set up a betting pool, so any money she made would have to be made now. She decided to see how important this was to Kuno.
"I may not be able to do that. There isn't enough time for me to find her and ensure that she arrives on time."
When Kuno's expression changed from confidence to panic, she knew that he had something going on, and whatever it was, it was important to him.
"You MUST have her there! She must receive her gift from me then or it will go to waste! Oh, for my love for her shall last forever, but the gift, my special gift... it may expire soon after the morrow!"
Nabiki now knew that Kuno was desperate and took advantage of the situation. "Twenty thousand now, just for trying to get her to be at the gates when you ask. And if she shows up, another ten thousand. And if you don't show up and she does, it's another twenty thousand."
"Twenty, no, thirty thousand Yen? That's gouging!" Kuno took a step towards Nabiki.
The pompous idiot was taking too long for her tastes and Nabiki wanted to leave. As she watched him go through turmoil of deciding if he should pay the money she started to quietly count upwards. If he did not make up his mind by the time she reached twenty, she would leave him standing there.
It was when she reached twelve when he finally responded. "Ah! But that is so much, but, oh, the sacrifices I must make for my love! Here, thy evil merchant. Take this and deliver my message to my loved one!"
Nabiki again took his cash and walked down the hall. "Remember, Baby Kuno, there's no guarantee that your pigtailed goddess will be there in the morning."
She smiled as she walked through the school gates, knowing that the next day would be entertaining at least, and quite possibly profitable.
***
Nabiki was watching her study mate do one-arm pushups while reading his science book when she asked when she couldn't restrain her curiosity any more, "Ranma, how can you study doing that?"
Without thinking, Ranma blurted the first thing that came to his mind. "I keep my eyes open and look at the book."
Nabiki blinked and looked at the boy while remembering how he was trained. "Yes, I suppose he can study that way" she thought as she wished she could multi-task as well as he could.
Remembering her agreement with Kuno, she told Ranma that Kuno wanted to meet with him again.
"So what else is new?" Ranma answered as he continued his pushups.
"Uh, he paid me a lot of money to have show up at school tomorrow morning."
"So. What else is new?" Ranma switched arms and started a new set of pushups. "Hey, why aren't you trying to trick me into going?"
Nabiki sat there stunned. Once he said that she began to wonder the same thing. There's no way he'd do this on his own, and now that's he's aware, the chances of her tricking him dropped between none and zero. Silently she waved goodbye to ten thousand Yen.
"Never mind Ranma. Forget I asked."
Ranma didn't miss the resignation in her voice. "Is it important to you?"
Nabiki almost missed his question, but was able to decipher what he was asking. "Uh, it is a lot of money."
Ranma didn't pause his pushups as he pressed Nabiki for an answer. "How much?"
Nabiki felt a slight twang of ire and some part of her mind registered that she should be getting very angry at his inquisitiveness. But she wasn't getting angry; she found that she was feeling the embarrassment of making a confession. "Twenty thousand Yen" she found herself saying.
"Wow! Kuno really does want me there. Did he give you any clues as to what he wanted?"
"No." Nabiki realized she made a mistake in not learning any details of what Kuno had planed and started to berate herself for that omission.
"It's not a challenge, right?" Ranma was looking directly at Nabiki's face when he asked that question.
"No. He specifically asked me to try to get "his Pigged Tailed Goddess" to school before it started and before the "evil Saotome" arrived.
"Feh. That makes sense."
"Huh?"
"I'm there, he'll make some long speech about defeating me and freeing me from me, and I'm supposed to fall in love with him when he stands over my body."
Nabiki thought about what Ranma just said, and then remembered something. "Five hundred yen. I just remembered something."
"Huh?" Ranma thought he heard Nabiki charge him for something.
"I said I just remembered something."
"What?" Ranma stood up to find his money pouch. In a few moments, he held out the required money in his outstretched arm.
"He said that his gift may expire tomorrow."
Nabiki looked at the coins, at Ranma, and back to the coins. Remembering that she priced the information at five hundred yen, she took the coins from his hand and placed them on her desk. Then she wondered why he gave her the money with no questions asked. Then she realized this was the first time she charged him for anything in a long time. Then she wondered if Kasumi would find out about the money and get angry with her. Then she wondered why she's worried in the first place.
Ranma finished his pushups and was packing to leave his room to plan the next day's encounter. Obviously Kuno was going to try and make his day miserable no matter what happened, and now, thanks to Nabiki, he had warning that Kuno was up to something and it was possible that he could take extra precautions.
***
Just outside the front gate of the school the next morning, Ranma was soaked by a large, wet, and hairy dog appeared out of nowhere and decided to shake itself dry.
Ranma looked at himself, and cussed the moment. "Damn. Now I gotta face Kuno as a girl!" Wringing the water out of his shirt, he turned into the gate and looked to see Kuno waiting for him.
Nabiki, who arrived just minutes before, was smiling at her good fortune; she had planned to dump a bucket of water on Ranma, but this hairy dog knocked her over. As she fell, she threw the bucket into the air, spilling its contents on the dog. For once, she thought, she could honestly say that she did not get Ranma wet, the dog was the one that actually doused the boy. She watched her sister's fiancee trudge through the gates and watched his expression when he saw Kuno hand him a box.
Seeing his Pigged Tailed Goddess, Kuno cried "My fairest maiden!" and hands Ranma a short, square box. "I give you this gift as a token of my love for thee. For in it, thou shall envisage the reflection of my worth!"
When Kuno finished speaking, he anxiously waited for Ranma to open the box and see what gift was inside for her.
Ranma was suspicious. Anything that was given to him by a Kuno required extreme care. To avoid loss of face, he accepted the package and placed it on his head as if it were training aid for grace and balance. "Thanks, Kuno. I know just what I'm going to do with it." If it were worth anything, Ranma would give it to Akane or perhaps to Kasumi or even to Nabiki. If it wasn't, or was booby-trapped, he'd give it to Pop and be done with it.
Kuno couldn't believe that Ranma wouldn't open his gift and cried, "But you must open it! It is for you, and you only." When the wind blew Ranma's pigtail into a flutter, Kuno thought he saw the most romantic vision ever, and embraced Ranma in a tight hug and proclaimed for Ranma and the world to hear, "Oh, my love! You are so beautiful! Your very aura brings tears to my eyes!"
Ranma saw Nabiki standing next to him and handed the box to her, saying, "Here. Hold this while I get this idiot off of me."
With the box in her hands, she watched Ranma pry Kuno from his body. Every time Kuno tried to re-attach himself to the female Ranma, Ranma would throw Kuno into the dirt. After the fifth or sixth throw, Nabiki lost interest in the fight and started studying the box.
The box was shaped a bit like a pizza box, only the cardboard was replaced with what looked like Cyprus wood. The joinery and finish showed master craftsmanship and size and shape indicated that the box was custom built for its contents.
Nabiki's curiosity took over and she opened the box, wondering what is in it that caused Kuno to be so adamant about his personally giving the gift to Ranma. As she lifted the lid, she saw a gleaming silver platter with intricate engravings along the edge. Studying the platter, she was amazed at the craftsmanship that went into the engravings and clarity of the mirrored surface. It was obviously expensive, and wondered why Kuno would try to give such an extravagant gift. She held the box up so she could get a better look, and then she saw a ghost flicker from within her reflection.
Peering closer at the platter she saw another ghost, only this time it stayed in her vision. As Nabiki tried to determine the shape of the blurry apparition, it became focused. Nabiki thought she would see herself, but instead she saw Ranma's face looking back.
The face was missing its usual smirk or other expression of bravado. Instead she saw different things in his visage; she saw determination, innocence, kindness, and loneliness. Then the face started to lose form, as if it were smoke blowing in the wind.
Turning her attention to the fight, she saw that Kuno was sitting at the center of a small impact crater, groaning in pain.
"Here Ranma." Nabiki offered the box and plate to Ranma. "I think this is yours."
Ranma looked inside the box and saw the plate. Pulling the plate out of box, Ranma looked at his reflection.
"Nah. You can have it," he said as he returned the plate to the box. "I don't need it. 'Sides, I think it'll look good on your bookshelf."
Nabiki knew that Ranma could be generous. Part of her wanted to get rid of the plate, seeing Ranma's reflection instead of her own frightened her a little. On the other hand, it was obviously worth a lot of money. In the end, just before they parted for the day, she decided that Ranma was right, it would look good in her room.
Before class started, Nabiki took another peek at the plate to find a smiling Ranma looking back at her.
At the end of the day she discovered her cheeks hurt from the smile that never left her face.
She had sold a few photographs of Akane, so she knew she would need to have some replacements printed. Remembering that she saw a couple making out near the school parking lot, she added a small note to her "dirt" pages with details. After making sure that no one was following her she headed to the teacher's copy room and slipped in. There, she rummaged through the trash, looking for anything that may be of value. She knew that the teachers were careful not to leave copies of tests around, but occasionally she would find a copy of the teacher's bulletin or some official memo that could sold.
Quietly she left the copy room and headed for the exit. She stopped by her locker to change into her shoes and filled her briefcase with the homework that was due the next day.
"Ah, the sister of the beauteous one!" Kuno had appeared from the other side of the lockers, and as to be expected, dressed in his kendo uniform.
"Go away Baby Kuno. I have a lot to do tonight."
"But I need a boon from thee. My heart aches for the attention of my loves." Kuno stood there in a classic pose with his fists at his hips and his legs in a wide stance.
Not missing a beat, Nabiki named her price, "Five hundred."
"What?"
"Five hundred Yen to listen to you. And you have to make it worth my while."
"Robbery!"
"Six hundred."
"Why, why, why you..."
"A thousand." Nabiki picked up her briefcase and gave Kuno a look that meant he'd better take the offer or she was going to leave him. "I really must be going Kuno. Do you want to talk or not?"
Kuno handed the thousand Yen to Nabiki, who promptly stashed the cash away. "Well, I'm listening. What do you want?"
"I wish to give my pig tailed goddess a gift. A gift such that no woman of her grace can resist!"
"Yes. So?"
"I must give this gift in person. I must feast my eyes upon her happiness when the token of my affection is revealed. For once she had glazed upon my endowment, she shall forever be mine!" Kuno put his hands on Nabiki's shoulders. "You must arrange that meeting!"
Nabiki looked at Kuno's arms and wondered if she could still tear them from his sockets. Touching her was a dangerous proposition, she did not like physical contact, and having the demented son of the demented principal even this close to her nearly made her ill. Fighting against the wave of nausea she felt, she looked at Kuno in the eye and with a voice of steel, she spoke in a calm voice.
"Let go of me."
Kuno immediately let Nabiki go and stumbled backwards. When Kuno was two bokken lengths away, he stood straight and bowed to Nabiki. "I'm sorry. I guess I was carried away there."
Nabiki looked at her classmate and wondered if she should arrange the meeting between Ranma and Kuno. There was money to be made, not only from Kuno, but also from the betting pool that would result when she found out what Kuno had in his mind. Although she had not forgiven Kuno for his transgression yet, she decided to press on with business.
"Where and when do you want to meet her?"
"Tomorrow before school, before the evil Saotome arrives."
Nabiki thought about this. There wasn't enough time to set up a betting pool, so any money she made would have to be made now. She decided to see how important this was to Kuno.
"I may not be able to do that. There isn't enough time for me to find her and ensure that she arrives on time."
When Kuno's expression changed from confidence to panic, she knew that he had something going on, and whatever it was, it was important to him.
"You MUST have her there! She must receive her gift from me then or it will go to waste! Oh, for my love for her shall last forever, but the gift, my special gift... it may expire soon after the morrow!"
Nabiki now knew that Kuno was desperate and took advantage of the situation. "Twenty thousand now, just for trying to get her to be at the gates when you ask. And if she shows up, another ten thousand. And if you don't show up and she does, it's another twenty thousand."
"Twenty, no, thirty thousand Yen? That's gouging!" Kuno took a step towards Nabiki.
The pompous idiot was taking too long for her tastes and Nabiki wanted to leave. As she watched him go through turmoil of deciding if he should pay the money she started to quietly count upwards. If he did not make up his mind by the time she reached twenty, she would leave him standing there.
It was when she reached twelve when he finally responded. "Ah! But that is so much, but, oh, the sacrifices I must make for my love! Here, thy evil merchant. Take this and deliver my message to my loved one!"
Nabiki again took his cash and walked down the hall. "Remember, Baby Kuno, there's no guarantee that your pigtailed goddess will be there in the morning."
She smiled as she walked through the school gates, knowing that the next day would be entertaining at least, and quite possibly profitable.
***
Nabiki was watching her study mate do one-arm pushups while reading his science book when she asked when she couldn't restrain her curiosity any more, "Ranma, how can you study doing that?"
Without thinking, Ranma blurted the first thing that came to his mind. "I keep my eyes open and look at the book."
Nabiki blinked and looked at the boy while remembering how he was trained. "Yes, I suppose he can study that way" she thought as she wished she could multi-task as well as he could.
Remembering her agreement with Kuno, she told Ranma that Kuno wanted to meet with him again.
"So what else is new?" Ranma answered as he continued his pushups.
"Uh, he paid me a lot of money to have show up at school tomorrow morning."
"So. What else is new?" Ranma switched arms and started a new set of pushups. "Hey, why aren't you trying to trick me into going?"
Nabiki sat there stunned. Once he said that she began to wonder the same thing. There's no way he'd do this on his own, and now that's he's aware, the chances of her tricking him dropped between none and zero. Silently she waved goodbye to ten thousand Yen.
"Never mind Ranma. Forget I asked."
Ranma didn't miss the resignation in her voice. "Is it important to you?"
Nabiki almost missed his question, but was able to decipher what he was asking. "Uh, it is a lot of money."
Ranma didn't pause his pushups as he pressed Nabiki for an answer. "How much?"
Nabiki felt a slight twang of ire and some part of her mind registered that she should be getting very angry at his inquisitiveness. But she wasn't getting angry; she found that she was feeling the embarrassment of making a confession. "Twenty thousand Yen" she found herself saying.
"Wow! Kuno really does want me there. Did he give you any clues as to what he wanted?"
"No." Nabiki realized she made a mistake in not learning any details of what Kuno had planed and started to berate herself for that omission.
"It's not a challenge, right?" Ranma was looking directly at Nabiki's face when he asked that question.
"No. He specifically asked me to try to get "his Pigged Tailed Goddess" to school before it started and before the "evil Saotome" arrived.
"Feh. That makes sense."
"Huh?"
"I'm there, he'll make some long speech about defeating me and freeing me from me, and I'm supposed to fall in love with him when he stands over my body."
Nabiki thought about what Ranma just said, and then remembered something. "Five hundred yen. I just remembered something."
"Huh?" Ranma thought he heard Nabiki charge him for something.
"I said I just remembered something."
"What?" Ranma stood up to find his money pouch. In a few moments, he held out the required money in his outstretched arm.
"He said that his gift may expire tomorrow."
Nabiki looked at the coins, at Ranma, and back to the coins. Remembering that she priced the information at five hundred yen, she took the coins from his hand and placed them on her desk. Then she wondered why he gave her the money with no questions asked. Then she realized this was the first time she charged him for anything in a long time. Then she wondered if Kasumi would find out about the money and get angry with her. Then she wondered why she's worried in the first place.
Ranma finished his pushups and was packing to leave his room to plan the next day's encounter. Obviously Kuno was going to try and make his day miserable no matter what happened, and now, thanks to Nabiki, he had warning that Kuno was up to something and it was possible that he could take extra precautions.
***
Just outside the front gate of the school the next morning, Ranma was soaked by a large, wet, and hairy dog appeared out of nowhere and decided to shake itself dry.
Ranma looked at himself, and cussed the moment. "Damn. Now I gotta face Kuno as a girl!" Wringing the water out of his shirt, he turned into the gate and looked to see Kuno waiting for him.
Nabiki, who arrived just minutes before, was smiling at her good fortune; she had planned to dump a bucket of water on Ranma, but this hairy dog knocked her over. As she fell, she threw the bucket into the air, spilling its contents on the dog. For once, she thought, she could honestly say that she did not get Ranma wet, the dog was the one that actually doused the boy. She watched her sister's fiancee trudge through the gates and watched his expression when he saw Kuno hand him a box.
Seeing his Pigged Tailed Goddess, Kuno cried "My fairest maiden!" and hands Ranma a short, square box. "I give you this gift as a token of my love for thee. For in it, thou shall envisage the reflection of my worth!"
When Kuno finished speaking, he anxiously waited for Ranma to open the box and see what gift was inside for her.
Ranma was suspicious. Anything that was given to him by a Kuno required extreme care. To avoid loss of face, he accepted the package and placed it on his head as if it were training aid for grace and balance. "Thanks, Kuno. I know just what I'm going to do with it." If it were worth anything, Ranma would give it to Akane or perhaps to Kasumi or even to Nabiki. If it wasn't, or was booby-trapped, he'd give it to Pop and be done with it.
Kuno couldn't believe that Ranma wouldn't open his gift and cried, "But you must open it! It is for you, and you only." When the wind blew Ranma's pigtail into a flutter, Kuno thought he saw the most romantic vision ever, and embraced Ranma in a tight hug and proclaimed for Ranma and the world to hear, "Oh, my love! You are so beautiful! Your very aura brings tears to my eyes!"
Ranma saw Nabiki standing next to him and handed the box to her, saying, "Here. Hold this while I get this idiot off of me."
With the box in her hands, she watched Ranma pry Kuno from his body. Every time Kuno tried to re-attach himself to the female Ranma, Ranma would throw Kuno into the dirt. After the fifth or sixth throw, Nabiki lost interest in the fight and started studying the box.
The box was shaped a bit like a pizza box, only the cardboard was replaced with what looked like Cyprus wood. The joinery and finish showed master craftsmanship and size and shape indicated that the box was custom built for its contents.
Nabiki's curiosity took over and she opened the box, wondering what is in it that caused Kuno to be so adamant about his personally giving the gift to Ranma. As she lifted the lid, she saw a gleaming silver platter with intricate engravings along the edge. Studying the platter, she was amazed at the craftsmanship that went into the engravings and clarity of the mirrored surface. It was obviously expensive, and wondered why Kuno would try to give such an extravagant gift. She held the box up so she could get a better look, and then she saw a ghost flicker from within her reflection.
Peering closer at the platter she saw another ghost, only this time it stayed in her vision. As Nabiki tried to determine the shape of the blurry apparition, it became focused. Nabiki thought she would see herself, but instead she saw Ranma's face looking back.
The face was missing its usual smirk or other expression of bravado. Instead she saw different things in his visage; she saw determination, innocence, kindness, and loneliness. Then the face started to lose form, as if it were smoke blowing in the wind.
Turning her attention to the fight, she saw that Kuno was sitting at the center of a small impact crater, groaning in pain.
"Here Ranma." Nabiki offered the box and plate to Ranma. "I think this is yours."
Ranma looked inside the box and saw the plate. Pulling the plate out of box, Ranma looked at his reflection.
"Nah. You can have it," he said as he returned the plate to the box. "I don't need it. 'Sides, I think it'll look good on your bookshelf."
Nabiki knew that Ranma could be generous. Part of her wanted to get rid of the plate, seeing Ranma's reflection instead of her own frightened her a little. On the other hand, it was obviously worth a lot of money. In the end, just before they parted for the day, she decided that Ranma was right, it would look good in her room.
Before class started, Nabiki took another peek at the plate to find a smiling Ranma looking back at her.
At the end of the day she discovered her cheeks hurt from the smile that never left her face.