Chapter 12: An Immodest Proposal.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on," Ranma mumbled to himself as he wheeled to the front door. His visitor, whoever it was, apparently wanted nothing to do with their pants, as the loud, insistent knocking came again. Pulling open the door, Ranma blinked to see Kaname standing there, her fist held back for another strike and a scowl on her face.

"Where is he?" she demanded, irritably.

"Guessing you mean Sousuke," he replied. "He left for a mission last night."

The teal haired girl rested her hands on her hips. "Well he was supposed to call me to set up a study session. There's no way that jerk's getting out of it, not after target practice yesterday!"

"Well, I'm not sure when he's going to be back," Ranma said, feeling a bit sorry for the brown haired boy, as he recognized the expression building on the girl's face from many a shinai inflicted injury when he was a teenager. "It's supposed to be a short mission, but with our group, that could be anything from a couple of hours to half a week."

"Fine," Kaname said, before walking past Ranma and into the apartment. "Then I'm going to stay here until he gets back."

"Um… right," the older man said, before shrugging. She was mad at Sousuke, not him, and having her visit wasn't really a bad thing, especially with how bored he was during his sick leave. "You want something to eat?"

HR.

"How about this one?" Kaname asked, as she lay on the floor, her feet resting against the couch where Ranma lay.

"Ah, Trial of the Dragon," he shook his head. "The wire work makes my teeth ache."

Kaname huffed. "Now I remember why I don't watch martial arts movies with you,... or war movies with Sousuke. Come to think of it, why'd it take so long to figure out you two were related?"

Ranma winced. "Well, the fact I thought I was a virgin until we found out sorta helped."

"Wait…" She rolled over to her side and looked back. "So… never?"

"I am not having this conversation with my ex-fiancee's daughter."

"Well, Mom said there were all those girls hanging off of you when you were younger… and a few guys, so it couldn't be that," Kaname mused.

"I'm not…" Ranma started and then shook his head. "You're not gunna let this go, are you?"

"Well, if it's this or movies I've seen half a dozen times," Kaname shrugged.

"Fine, I just… never found the right girl, all right? And it got pretty hard after I took up getting shot at for a living."

"Well, there are women who get shot at for a living," Kaname offered. "That Mao lady seemed pretty badass."

"I'm not dating Mao," Ranma shook his head. "She's a decade younger than me."

"At your age, ten years isn't that bad," Kaname said reassuringly.

"Gee, thanks," Ranma deadpanned.

The teal haired girl thought for a moment. "Well, Sousuke slipped once and mentioned that your captain is female."

Ranma actually laughed at this. "First off, she's almost TWENTY years younger than me, and second, fraternization on that scale would be… bad."

"Wait… your captain's my age?"

Ranma laughed nervously. "Yeah, and it actually makes sense, but I can't tell you why. Classified."

"...right," Kaname said, slowly. "Well, I guess you're doomed to be the forty-year-old virgin."

"Hey!" Ranma replied, irritably. "I'm thirty-seven… and not a virgin… apparently."

"I don't know," Kaname kicked her feet against the side of the couch. "Maybe someone stole some of your DNA and Sousuke is a clone."

Ranma snorted. "Okay, now you're being stupid."

"I was kidnapped because I had information on magical energy blasting robots a couple of weeks ago," she shot back. "That kind of cloning is actually technically possible."

"And someone would want to clone me because…" Ranma trailed off. "Actually, I could think of a few people who'd want to, but none who could actually pull it off… except maybe Kodachi."

"Well, it might have been that crazy mother of yours," Kaname offered.

Ranma frowned. "Sousuke said that… the meeting... didn't go well."

"Didn't go well?" Kaname laughed, "She lunged at us with a sword!"

"I guess I should have asked for the full report from Sousuke." the pigtailed man muttered.

"You don't seen all that surprised," Kaname observed.

"The old man warned me she'd gotten a little… off… when I first talked to him after I left. I asked if I should speak to her…"

"So she wasn't always that…" Kaname struggled to find a word before just going with her gut. "Crazy?"

"Not… that crazy, no," Ranma confirmed. "Nabiki used to say that all of us had a few screws loose, except for her, but we were reasonably normal about it. Of course, given who she married..."

Kaname shivered. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Ranma gulped. "The ol' man seems to think that Mom got worse after I left. I didn't leave Nerima back then on the best terms with anyone, and it was Mom trying to 'motivate me' that finally made me say 'screw it' and run off. Apparently she didn't take it well."

"Oh," Kaname said. She knew, vaguely, what had happened back then. It'd had something to do with her mother's marriage to her father, and a pre-existing engagement to Ranma. Aunt Nabiki had once said that he'd disappeared somewhere for years before coming back. "Do I want to know how she 'motivated' you?"

Ranma thought for a moment, and then threw an unreadable look to the door. "Probably not."

"That sounds kind of juicy," Kaname replied. "Now I really want to know."

The older man rubbed his forehead. "Of course you do…"

"Well?" the teal haired girl asked, after a few moments of silence.

"Your mom's gunna kill me," Ranma started, before forcing himself to a sitting position on the couch. "Well, you know we were engaged. It was a lot more complicated than that, but I'm not gettin' into that right now," he started. "Things in Nerima were… kinda nuts, and Akane didn't really like that. I knew it, so after our last year of high school, when I flunked all the entrance exams for anyplace I'd wanna go and she passed one for a really good acting school, I decided to spend the next year doing my damnedest to settle things down."

"Given some of the stories I heard, that probably took some doing," Kaname chipped in.

"Well, yeah." Ranma nodded. "I beat up a buncha people, made a few deals I… might regret later, pretty much lost a friend, but that'd been comin' for a while by that point." He looked down for a moment before continuing, "By the end of your mom's first year of college, I'd gotten a lot of things straight, and was studyin' to try and get in to the same place. I thought everything was workin' out great…"

"But Mom met Dad in college," Kaname said, starting to realize where this was going.

"Yup," Ranma confirmed. "She said she was afraid to tell us in case the insanity from Nerima tried to get in the way. Hell, she apologized to me about it when she finally let us know, but I… didn't take it well."

"Didn't take it well?" Kaname asked. "You apparently disappeared for years."

Ranma winced. "I kicked around Nerima for a couple months grumbling about how the world was a dark and lonely place, then Mom tried to 'help' by giving me an ultimatum. She said I'd either shape up, or she'd make me do the 'honorable' thing."

Kaname's eyes widened in horror, and Ranma hurriedly continued. "She probably wouldn't have gone through with it. She'd gotten used to using the threat as a way to get me to do things, she… just happened to try it at the exact wrong time. I don't remember much that happened after that. I… think I got really drunk. Everything's a bit of a haze until I was in Korea about a week later, sleeping in someone's attic."

"I…. think you're right," Kaname said, her look of horror only diminishing slightly. "I didn't want to know."

"Well, curiosity and hellspawn, 'n all," Ranma replied.

Kaname had to laugh a little, mentally substituting the correct word without really thinking about it. Flopping back to face the TV, she distantly wondered why she thought of Sousuke as so weird, given her family. This, of course, reminded her that he still hadn't shown up, and it was getting late. "I can't believe he forgot about this. He'd better not have skipped out deliberately, or I'll…"

"Huh?" Ranma tried to follow the teal haired girl's train of thought, succeeding after a moment. "I doubt he'll be back this late."

"Well I'm still going to wait for him," she declared, letting out a small yawn.

"If you want to stay the night, you can use my bed," Ranma offered. "Fewer boobytraps."

Kaname raised an eyebrow. "Your bed is trapped?"

He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sousuke's insisted on implementing the field operations booklet for female officers since we've both got curses… and it was written by Mao… when she was drunk." He paused for a moment before adding, "And possibly on a bet to see how paranoid she could make it, though reports on that are sketchy."

Kaname nodded sharply. "Yeah, definately think you two would make a cute couple."

"Just… drop it, all right?" Ranma complained.

HR.

"I can't believe you did that," Kurz Webber said, as he sat in the back of the cloaked transport helicopter, Sousuke sitting next to him and changing out of his combat gear into his school uniform.

"I needed to secure them before getting back to school," he explained.

"Yeah, but dropping into the guy's skylight?" The blond shook his head. "I swear he was gunna have a heart attack!"

"I have done this sort of thing before, and he relies heavily on my business," Sousuke replied.

Kurz rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but I don't think 'the customer is always right' covers assault choppers."

Sousuke ignored this comment, ensuring that his jacket was straight before tucking the small brown box into his bag.

"Good luck out there, lover boy!" Kurz said, pulling the side door open, just as a soft thud echoed around the cabin.

"Not a problem," Sousuke replied, grasping a secured line and dropping past the edge of the door.

Landing easily, he released the line and it retracted, the invisible helicopter moving off into the air. When he'd blinked the dust out of his eyes, Kaname was glaring into them. "I can't believe you did it again!" she yelled, her hands on her hips.

"...what did I do?" He asked, confused.

"You blocked my ball! It was another home run and you blocked my ball!"

"Wow," Kyoko said, walking up next to the teal haired girl. "I thought she was being paranoid last time, but it looks like she was right."

"I was attempting to get here as quickly as possible," the brown haired boy explained. "The interruption of your game was unintended."

"Unintended?!" Kaname replied. "You've done it twice now! And it's sooo convenient that you only managed to show up so quickly after our study session, isn't it?"

"I was unaware the… my duties would take as long as they did," he tried to justify, stumbling over his words.

"Yeah, whatever," Kaname said, turning and walking towards the batting box.

"Yes, well," Sousuke started, "since this issue has been resolved, I need to be getting to second period." Turning, he walked back towards the school.

"Oh, yeah, it's been resolved all right," Kaname yelled. "Not like you could have CALLED or something!" With that pronouncement, she bent down, scooping the home plate out of the ground, and pitching it through the air like a discus. Kyoko yelped as she jumped backwards, though the projectile would have missed her regardless as it smacked Sousuke in the back of the head, driving him to the ground.

"I assume that means that things haven't been resolved," he said, through a mouthful of dirt.

Kyoko stepped forward again, looking down at him. "I think you probably shouldn't try for a bit," she offered, before retrieving her camera and taking several rapid pictures.

"Suggestion noted," Sousuke groaned.

HR.

He peered into the reflective surface of a bag of all-natural corn chips, studying the figure across the room. Over the past hour or so, she seemed to have calmed down, which was good, as he would really prefer not to have something else thrown at his head.

In fact, judging from her expression as she shared her unusually large lunch with several other classmates, she seemed rather pleased. Digging for the small box in his bag, he decided to make his move.

Standing, he marched across to his target's desk, setting it down in front of her. "Hmm?" Kaname asked, squinting at the small brown box.

"I had these specially made for you," Sousuke said, standing at attention, arms held at his sides.

"Oh… um, thank you," the girl said, as the others at her table began whispering to each other. Opening the box, she withdrew the set of gold star-shaped earrings and bracelet inside. "These are really pretty," she started, holding them up for inspection, "But… I don't think these earrings really suit me."

"It doesn't matter if they suit you or not," Sousuke stated. "Practicality is what's important.

"Practicality?" Kaname gave him a dubious look. "It's jewelery."

"Actually, the earrings are a pair of concealed flashbang grenades, they are detonated three seconds after pulling the stars free of the chains," Sousuke explained.

"You're kidding, right?" the teal haired girl asked, studying the jewelry with more caution now. "You mean the normal one I've got isn't good enough?"

"You kept that?" Sousuke asked, evidently surprised but pleased. "Given your opinion on weapons in school, I assumed you would have disposed of it, however no, in a proper disarming search, it would be found and confiscated while a girl's earrings are rarely studied."

"He does have sort of a point, you know," Shinji chipped in, from where the group of students around Kaname's table had apparently grown to half the class.

The girl in question looked around, somewhat embarrassed. "It's kind of strange that your sister hasn't gotten any yet," she observed mildly.

"I… hadn't thought of that," Sousuke admitted. "I may need to have a second set commissioned."

The Teal haired girl sighed explosively. "Do I want to know what the bracelet does?"

"It contains a short-range radio tracking device that is activated when it's unclasped for more than thirty seconds. It has approximately five hours of battery life, and can be picked up by the matched receiver within four blocks, barring unusual interference."

"...of course it does," Kaname said, irritably, before putting the jewelry back in the box and shoving it in her bookbag.

"You don't like it?" Sousuke asked, concerned.

"No, it's fine, really," she replied. "I'm just surprised you didn't throw in a laser watch or something."

"I don't believe I know anyone who could get one of those," he shook his head. "At least not one useful for anything more than painting a target."

"Gah!" Kaname yelled, standing. "I can't believe you sometimes!" Turning, she stomped out of the room.

"I… don't understand," Sousuke said, blinking. "Did I do something wrong?"

"I'd say, yeah," Kyoko said, walking up next to him. "Practicality is what's important?" She made quotes in the air with her hands. "I mean, sure, sometimes getting a practical gift is nice, but if you were trying to make it up to her for that missed date, practicality isn't the best idea."

"He stood her up on a date?!" another girl butted in, shocked. "That's horrible."

"It wasn't a date…" Sousuke said, looking around at several feminine dirty looks. "...was it?"

"Let's see, she cleared out her whole weekend for you," Kyoko nodded. "That was a date."

"I see," Sousuke nodded back. "So that's why she was so angry."

"Yeah," Kyoko agreed. "And instead of giving her a nice, thoughtful gift, you gave her weapons… and a tracking device. That's kinda creepy now that I think about it."

"But… I put a lot of thought into those gifts," the brown haired boy said, his puzzlement growing deeper by the moment.

"Try something that she would like that wouldn't interest you at all," one of the girls suggested. "Like… new clothes, or a diamond ring or something!"

"You seriously want him to buy her a diamond ring?" another girl snorted. "Okay, practicality has SOME impact."

"I…. understand," Sousuke stated. "Thank you for your help." With that, he marched out of the classroom.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Shinji muttered.

HR.

"All right, now keep pulling," Ryoga Hibiki said as he stared out at the Unryu Farm's back field, where his daughter was locked in a tug-of-war with a very large pig, his wife watching on with a pile of rocks at her feet.

"Easy for you to say!" the girl called back. "You can lift tanks!"

"And how do you think I got that way?" he asked. She was about to respond, but her distraction cost her as the pig gave a hard jerk on the rope, sending her toppling off balance. Turning from the view out the window, the lost martial artist pulled the satellite phone out of his pocket and began to dial a familiar number.

He was relieved when someone picked up. For some reason, five times out of six he would get a connection error. "Hello?" Ranma's voice asked.

"Hey, Ranma," Ryoga returned.

"Look, if you wanna spar, now's not a great time," the pigtailed man interrupted.

"I'm actually too busy for that as well," Ryoga admitted. "Ino's gone and gotten herself in over her head and I need to train her up a bit."

"Really?" Ranma asked. "How did that happen?"

"She got a job with one of those mercenary companies," the part time pig admitted. Looking back at Ino, he called, "That's enough of a break. Try again!" Turning back to the phone, he added, "So, yeah, I just wanted to know if you've heard of the group she joined."

"It'd better not be Amalgam," Ranma muttered, the growl perfectly audible to Ryoga.

"No, it's called Myth-something," he replied. "Ino managed to get hired by some underaged submarine captain to be her bodyguard or something. Anyways, do you know anything about the group? I want to know if it's relatively safe or if we should go to ground."

"Did… you say an underaged submarine captain from a group with Mith in their name?" Ranma's voice sounded strained.

"You do know something, then," Ryoga confirmed, nervously. His old rival's tone did not sound promising.

"Yeah," Ranma started reluctantly. "But telling you nearly anything would probably get me shot. If we're talking about the same people, though… What color hair does the captain have?"

"Blonde-ish grey?" Ryoga offered.

"Yeah, they're the same people," Ranma agreed. "The group's mostly altruistic, so they're all right there, but the sub you're talking about participates in combat operations fairly regularly. The captain tends to stay onboard, though, so Ino's probably safe unless the boat sinks."

"That is not reassuring," Ryoga grumbled.

He could almost see the shrug. "Well, you asked. How did this happen, anyways?"

Ryoga winced. "She somehow inherited my curse," he explained. "Then she pulled a P-chan with the captain."

"Oh…" Ranma said, and then repeated. "Oh… um, you'd better be real thankful she's a girl, or Mardukas would probably have shoved her out a torpedo tube two hundred feet down."

"Wait, you know the first officer's name?! Do you work for this Myth group?" the pig-herding martial artist demanded.

Ranma sighed. "Ryoga, y'know I can't tell you about that."

His hand tightened on the phone. "Well, if you do or not, I'm going to hold you responsible if anything happens to her now."

"Of… course you will. If I see her, I'll look…" Ranma was interrupted by a slamming sound in the background. "What the…" he exclaimed, his mouth held slightly too far from the receiver. There was a muffled, high-pitched response and another bang. "Look Ryoga, I've gotta go; I'll talk to you later."

"Wait! Saotome, what the hell's going on over there?" Ryoga was only answered by a dial tone. Putting down the phone, he headed for the back door. He'd gotten the information he wanted to know out of Ranma, and though his assurances of this Myth group's altruism were reassuring, the fact that he was apparently directly involved with them definitely was not. "Akari! We're going to be stepping up the training, go get the gun!"

"Gun?!" Ino squawked before being pulled off balance again, falling face first into the dirt.

HR.

"Where is that idiot?" Kaname grumbled, as she tapped her fingers against the top of her desk in history class. Given how badly the last test had come out, this was one class he definitely shouldn't be missing, but she hadn't seen him since lunch. She winced, sticking her left hand into her bookbag and feeling the jewelry box there. She couldn't believe he'd done something like that, though she really shouldn't have been surprised, she supposed. His get well gift after the kidnapping HAD been a first-aid kit, after all.

Still, would it kill him to exhibit some rational human responses every once in a while? In the back of her mind, a tiny voice piped up to answer that question with a 'probably.' From what she'd heard, he had spent most of his life in war zones, it just frustrated her so much sometimes.

When the door to the classroom swung open and Sousuke, or more accurately Sora stepped in, Kaname would have wondered if it'd been her thoughts that had summoned the girl, if not for the fact that she couldn't get the worry out of her head all afternoon.

When the red haired girl walked across the room, startlingly similarly to how he'd approached at lunch, a sinking feeling began to grow in her stomach. A small black box hit her desk at about the same time her stomach hit the floor. "Sora… what's this?" she asked, nervously, as the rest of the class and the teacher watched on.

"I believe that this gift might be considered more thoughtful than what Sousuke gave you," the mercenary replied.

"I…. see," Kaname said, noticing that the students around her were giving her very intent stares.

"Well, are you going to open it or what?" Mizuki asked, having apparently gotten out of her seat to get a closer look.

"Yeah, I'm just…" Kaname started, before reaching forward and taking the top off of the box. Inside, surrounded by red silk was a silver-white ring with a beautiful clear stone in a simple setting.

"Th… that looks like an engagement ring," Mizuki stuttered, which caused several other students to leave their seats in order to investigate. "And… I think it's platinum." While Kaname just gaped, the blonde girl plucked the box up and began turning it from side to side, blowing gently on it. "Marquise cut diamond, and yeah, that's definitely platinum."

After this pronouncement, whispers flew through the room, Kaname catching a few. "So… the Sagaras are fighting over her?" "Pretty lucky girl I guess, that Sousuke's hot." "You kidding? Look at his sister." "It's really romantic, even if they are a little weird." At each new comment, she hunkered down in her desk a little more, until she reached her breaking point.

"It's not an engagement ring, all right!" she yelled, vaulting to her feet.

"It isn't?" Mizuki said, dubiously.

"It wasn't intended as one, no," Sora confirmed.

"See? She agrees with me," Kaname exclaimed. "Why the heck did you buy a ring like that, anyways? And why would you spend that much on it?"

"Don't you like it?" Sora asked, adopting the same confused tone Sousuke had at lunch.

"It's… really a nice gift," Kaname said, slowly, "But… it's a bit much, isn't it?"

"Geez, Chidori," Mizuki commented. "If it were me getting something like that, I'd honestly start considering playing for the other team." Dropping the box back onto Kaname's desk, she continued, "Try it on, I bet it looks good."

"Well I…" Kaname started, looking between Mizuki and Sora, who was looking at her expectantly. Sighing, she reached forward and removed the ring from the box, making it very obvious that she was slipping it onto her right ring finger. "Wow, it fits… how did you get my ring measurements?"

"They were in your file," Sora responded.

Deciding to ignore that, she examined her hand. "It is pretty… but there's got to be another reason you got me this."

"It was suggested to my brother by several of our classmates," Sora explained, "And a diamond of that type can be used to cut glass, if necessary."

"So…. the Sagaras are working together?" one boy at the back of the room asked.

"That is kinda kinky," a nearby girl chipped in, while Kaname could see Kyoko caught between rubbing her forehead and holding back laughter.

"You know what, fine," she decided, not wanting to know what Sousuke's next step in making up for his missed study session would be. "Thank you for the gift, Sora," She then stood and glared around the room. "But to all of you guys, this does not mean what you think, got it?"

"What do we think it means?" Mizuki asked, giving the teal haired girl a sidelong look.

"It means we really should get back to class!" Kaname yelled. "Why didn't you stop this?" She pointed a finger at the teacher accusingly.

"I, um, wanted to see where this was going," the grey haired woman said. "It's more interesting than my soaps."

HR.

"Wait, so you borrowed the money off of uncle Ranma?" Kaname asked, as she and Sora stepped out of the elevator.

"All of my discretionary funds were invested in non-lethal weapons developments," the redhead responded. "I will repay Sergeant Ranma in the coming months."

Kaname shook her head. "I didn't even know he had that much. I mean, he lives out of a suitcase, and that suit he had a while back..."

"When I asked, he explained that he rarely ever spent any, and had it invested by a friend, rather similarly to the way I handle…" Sora trailed off, reaching into her blouse and withdrawing a gun.

"Oh no, here we go again," Kaname mumbled under her breath, but took a position against the wall behind the shorter girl. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Sora shook her head. "Something feels off."

Kaname rolled her eyes. "Should I watch out for dangerous love letters?"

Sora didn't respond, leaning forward and turning her apartment's door knob. When the door clicked open a slight ways, she smashed against it with her shoulder, entering a shooting stance with her gun aimed down the interior hallway. Kaname held her breath for a moment, before poking her head around the doorframe to see Sora and a wide-eyed girl with bright grey hair holding eachother in a standoff.

Without thinking, she leapt in past Sora, aiming for the grey haired girl's legs. The other let out an indignant squeak, and her gun went flying out of her hands. "Sousuke, I've got 'er!" she yelled, reaching out to secure the smaller girl's arms. Thankfully, she wasn't struggling too much.

"M… Madam Captain!" Sora said, her voice trembling slightly.

"Huh?" Kaname asked, looking up from where she was securing her opponent's hands behind her back to see the redhead looking at her in horror.

"Kaname, you can let her up, she's not a threat," Ranma's voice came from the living room end of the hall. "I can't tell if you're taking after your mother or if Sousuke's rubbing off on you."

End.

And… the setup is FINALLY complete! Though we hope you enjoy this chapter on its own as well. It's kind of strange. When we decided on a Neriman descended Kaname, we only thought it would make her slightly less nerve-wracked. Apparently the end result is that Sousuke's as much of an influence on her as she is on him. If this keeps up, these two are going to get scary.

Anyhow, thanks for reading, please don't hesitate to give feedback.