Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson
Summary: Ranma made another bet with Nabiki? Won't he ever learn? Well, at least this time it's a bet on an Anything Goes Martial Arts fight between Ranma and Nabiki. Surely our pig-tailed hero is capable of defeating Nabiki, 'aint he? Will this be the one time Ranma actually manages to one-up Nabiki?
Disclaimer: Ranma ½, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This series deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?
Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction dot net.
"speech"
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers
/thoughts/
/telepathy/
translation
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+
Heh, another fic that hasn't been updated for like a year or so. :) Well, what the heck. I was feeling a tad generous and somewhat inspired, so I spent the lions share of my lunch break at work today writing this chapter instead of taking a smoke in the sunshine that graced the harbour area where the office is located. I've had a chapter six more or less finished for three or four months, but like with so many other things, I wasn't entirely satisfied with it. My main disagreement with it, was that the changes from chapter five to what I was going to use as the sixth chapter seemed a bit rushed and I needed something to put in between them.
I was pondering this very dilemma when I decided I needed to get some writing done while the creativity was a'burstin' with youthful energy and Eureka. The solution came to me and what I had intended to use as the sixth chapter, suddenly became the eight, as this 'real' sixth chapter and roughly half of the new seventh were transferred from head to hard drive in 45 minutes or so.
I really wished that I could be so focused all the time when the creativity levels are fully jacked up. But usually I just wind up writing a paragraph or two in fifteen or twenty different stories, instead of thirty to forty paragraphs in a single story. Ah well, I guess that has advantages too as all my stories do progress, it's just that the progress is annoyingly slow most of the time. C'est la vie.
I'm currently mainly working on 'The Kanako Factor' BTW, just in case any of the persistent naggers constantly badgering me about it are interested. Though considering that TKF is the one of my stories that generates the most pleas to wind up in my inbox, I suppose there might be one or two people out there who're still interested in that one. :)
"Heh, I guess you do have a point." he slurred, his low tolerance already rearing its ugly head. "Here's to broken engagements, may it at least lead you to the life you deserve." he toasted and clanked the neck of his bottle against her cup, before he started drinking straight from the bottle again.
"To broken engagements." Akane agreed and downed the contents of her cup in one go. "And being married to Kasumi will probably make you happy, Ranma." she admonished him.
"Not to mention feeling guilty for ruining her life, undeserving of my happiness and most of all, undeserving of someone as wonderful as Kasumi." he admitted in a drunken slur.
Akane didn't have an answer for that, so she settled for letting Ranma refill her cup and keep him company as the two of them made short work of the bottle, as they drowned their joint misery in an alcoholic haze.
Genma and Soun of course argued for a pretty much instant wedding the moment they sobered up the morning afterwards.
A punctured demon-head and a soaking wet panda later, they reluctantly agreed to stay out of Ranmas and Kasumis relationship.
A promise which they actually managed to uphold.
For like, three or four minutes. Then it was back to the old drawing board, where the two of them plotted and schemed for how to bring about a marriage as soon as humanly, in Genmas case pandaly, possible.
Ranma was feeling a bit under the weather, but was relieved to note that he hadn't become as completely zonked out as Genma occasionally got when he overindulged in strong drinks. Ranma had shared the one bottle with Akane and let it go at that, so he wasn't feeling quite 100 at the moment, but at least he was up and about at more or less his usual levels of capability.
His seat at the breakfast table had shifted, so that he was now sitting next to Kasumi. It felt wrong, but he had to admit that it was kinda nice to be able to eat his breakfast in peace, without having to defend the food from his pops.
Akane was muted and withdrawn, black bags underneath her eyes. She hadn't slept all that well and she definitively felt the effects of the alcohol she'd had the evening before. She'd felt a brief flash of... Something... When she noted that Ranma wasn't seated next to her anymore. She couldn't quite identify the quagmire of emotions that particular revelation brought up, but she eventually decided that whatever it was, she didn't really like it.
Nabiki too was muted and withdrawn with black bags underneath her eyes. But that wasn't anything unusual for her. She was hardly human until she'd had some sugar and caffeine in her system in the mornings, the most horrible time of the day for the middle Tendo sister. If the events of yesterday had affected her in any manner, she kept it well under wraps.
Kasumi was her usual cheerful self, but to the perceptive viewer, it seemed as if her smile was just a smidgeon more stiff this morning. But it brightened up some whenever she glanced at Ranma and her motherly gaze was just as warm as ever. Ranma instantly decided that he needed to have another talk with her.
Genma was contemplative, but the smile on his lips and the happy sparkle in his eyes left no doubt as to what his feelings on this matter were. Quite obviously, he imagined a rapidly approaching marriage to be in the future.
Soun was muted as well, his mood swinging wildly. He was incredibly pleased at times, but whenever his gaze found its way to Kasumi, he grew pensive and hints of sadness could be seen in his features and expression.
Nodoka had returned home last night.
Other then the occasional request to pass a condiment or Nabiki asking her father for the business section of the newspaper when he was done with it, breakfast was consumed in sombre silence.
"Saotome!"
"Oh, no." Ranma sighed and slowly turned to face Kuno. "What is it now, Kuno?" he asked, wondering just why the deluded upperclassman hadn't attacked him yet.
"Is it true?" Kuno demanded to know.
"Yeah. I'm the pig-tailed girl." Ranma confirmed.
"I require no confirmation of that. The word of my beauteous tigress is sufficient." Kuno proudly proclaimed. "My inquiry was as to the possibility that you have abandoned your foul campaign to unrightfully claim the fair Tendo Akane as yours, corrupting her to better suit your twisted ways! The mercenary Nabiki hath informed me that you have sought out another to bend to your demonic ways! Is this true?"
Ranma considered Kuno's delusions and how to properly respond to them for a few seconds, before he sighed.
"I 'aint engaged to Akane no more. The engagement has shifted to her oldest sister Kasumi instead." Ranma confirmed with a faint shrug.
"So the mercenary spoke the truth." Kuno reasoned and nodded to himself. "I pray that even a depraved sorcerous being as yourself knows better then to treat such a delicate flower with anything but the utmost respect. Should I hear the merest mentioning of you mistreating the gentle angel in any way, I shall fall upon you like a very respectable amount of construction material and mete out the punishment of heaven itself unto you. So speaks the Blue Thunder. Know it to be true!"
"Kuno. I would rather take my own life then hurt Kasumi in any way, shape or manner." Ranma spat out.
"I see that even a corrupted being such as yourself still harbour some slight measure of honour. Very well, I approve. You may date the gentle angel of the Tendo household, so sayeth Kuno Tatewaki!" Kuno announced.
"I'm so happy that you approve." Ranma grunted sarcastically. "And the fact that Akane is now a single woman again wouldn't happen to have something to do with that approval, Kuno-sempai?"
"Tendo Kasumi hath made a noble sacrifice, surrendering her innocent self to your depraved ways, so that her youngest sister may be liberated from your foul clutches and set free to seek sweet bliss in my arms." Kuno said and clapped his hands together. "Her noble sacrifice will never be forgotten."
Ranma was silent for nearly a full minute, before he nodded.
"No, it won't." he agreed and continued towards the main school building, falling even deeper into his depressed funk. Kuno was an all-out no-holds-barred weirdo, but he did have sort of a point this time. Kasumi had nobly sacrificed herself by engaging herself to him. He could never allow himself to forget what she'd given up for him.
He felt like going back and smacking Kuno around for a bit in order to relieve some tension, but an unprovoked assault just wasn't his thing. That was the kind of stuff Kuno himself, Ryoga and Mousse did, but Saotome Ranma was a better man then that. Had to be a better man then that, to show himself somewhat worthy of Tendo Kasumi.
"Well, Saotome. That was unexpected." Nabiki said as Ranma entered the school and found her waiting for him inside.
"I thought you'd given up on your little business ventures?" Ranma said icily.
"I have." Nabiki responded with a note of surprise.
"And yet you sold the information about my new engagement to Kuno?" he countered.
"No. I gave it away for free. I really have stopped." Nabiki replied. "And a good thing too, I could have lost a lot of money if there had been any betting regarding the outcome of your usual fight. That there won't be a fight at all, is a real long-shot, but occasionally there's some brave soul that actually makes that bet."
"You gave away information for free?" Ranma exclaimed in astonishment.
"Ranma, we rake in about 675 000 yen a week on the massage parlour. Even with expenses, advertising and your cut, I still walk away with more money from that then I usually made in a good week in my former line of business." Nabiki replied with a bemused smile. "Besides, I make plenty of valuable contacts and get to know a lot of important people in the reception and waiting room, which I can put to good use once I'm out of school. I wouldn't risk any of that for the chance of earning some petty cash. If you walk, I'm left with an useless office and a three-month termination clause." she explained and smiled.
"Wow. I actually thought it'd be harder to get you to just walk away from it all." Ranma said as the two of them started ascending the stairs, heading for their respective classrooms.
"I couldn't keep up both my old and my new businesses at the same time even if I had wanted to. There just isn't enough time for it." Nabiki replied with a shrug. "Besides, it's kinda refreshing not having to sully my hands with underhanded dealings any longer."
"You're not coming down with something, are you?" Ranma asked suspiciously, reaching out to put his right hand against Nabiki's forehead.
"Honest money is what I'm coming down, and home, with." Nabiki replied. "It feels... Good."
"I'm happy for you, Nabs." Ranma said and stopped outside the door to his classroom.
"Thanks, Saotome. Well... Have a good day, I guess." she responded, before she nodded once then kept on walking, heading for the stairs.
"You too, Nabs." Ranma finished, before he entered his classroom.
"It's not too late to change your mind, Kasumi-chan." Ranma said as the two of them met in her room in the evening, after he'd finished school, spent three hours working at the parlour and done his homework. He took a sip from his cup of tea that she'd thoughtfully enough provided as he awaited her response.
"I don't give my word often, Ranma-kun. But once given, I don't break it any more easily then you do." Kasumi replied and took a sip from her own tea.
"But you're not happy!" Ranma protested.
"And you are?" she countered without missing a beat.
"If I only knew that you weren't sad, I would be. I'm not marrying a sex-changing freak, like you. I'm marrying one of the, if not the most, amazing woman it's ever been my privilege to meet." Ranma replied after a moment's consideration, then gasped as Kasumi leaned forward and poked his forehead, before she flicked his nose. That was more punishment then he'd ever seen her mete out before and it shocked him somewhat.
"I told you to stop being so hard on yourself, Ranma-kun." Kasumi gently chided him as she leaned back in her seat and took another sip from her tea. "But you're mistaken. I am happy." she said, then continued as she saw him about to debate her statement. "I'm not as happy as I could be, that much is true. But I don't think you really understand my situation. Let's see if I can't make clarify some things for you." she said and assumed a thoughtful expression. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about what you're about to hear." she finished before she leaned forward on the bed she was seated on, resting her elbows on her thighs and entwining her fingers around the cup she was holding.
"I haven't been happy, truly happy, in all the time that you've known me, Ranma-kun." she revealed with a faintly bitter sigh. "Growing up, I had dreams and aspirations, like every other girl my age. I wanted to do so many different things with my life. Florist, secretary, veterinarian, astronaut, pianist, doctor, pilot, nurse... I had lots of dreams and none of them included being a housewife. The closest I ever came to imagining myself in married life, was becoming a princess by marrying a prince." she admitted with a faint smile as she looked back on her life.
"All that changed when mother died." Kasumi said with a note of pain in her voice. "Father was, and still is, a wreck. He's a mere shadow of his former self, I don't recognize anything of the father I once knew in the man he is now. My mothers death completely devastated him and he has yet to recover from that. It's only since you and your father arrived that I've seen some faint hints of recovery in him, but he's still got a long way to go. None of us girls could depend on him for anything after mother died." she explained and wiped a few tears from the corner of her eyes.
"Akane was too young to really understand what had happened to mother, too innocent to understand a concept like death at that age." Kasumi continued and smiled sadly. "She was such a precious child, happy and innocent." she recalled before she shook her head. "Nabiki did sort of get it, even if she too was too young to fully understand it when mother died. But at least she realized that mother wasn't coming back, ever. I was all this family had at that point. Mothers insurance policy could have supported us for a couple of years, but father spent most of it drowning his sorrows and on a very extravagant funeral."
"When that money started running out after about a year, I began taking part-time jobs to keep us fed and clothed. It was... Hard. I had to keep up my grades in school, or they wouldn't let me work part-time. I had to work hard so that there would be food on the table. Then I had to tend to the house. For almost a year, I did that all alone, despite the toll it took on me." Kasumi revealed and Ranma felt his own eyes starting to moist up as Kasumi revealed the horrible facts of her childhood to him. She wiped away a few more tears and quenched a sob, which caused Ranma to abandon his seat on her chair to seat himself next to her, wrapping his right arm around her and hugging her close to him.
"Thanks, Ranma-kun..." Kasumi mumbled and took a deep breath, before she continued. "Nabiki who'd grown two years older and a lot more mature since mother died, saw what I was doing to myself and decided to ease my burden a bit by earning money on her own. She... She wasn't a good student back then and it got worse when she started working part-time, so the school put a stop to that. But she'd seen how much easier it became for me when I didn't have to work so much any longer, so she found another way to earn money." Kasumi explained and chuckled humourlessly.
"She wasn't very good at it, at first. After a particularly bad week, when one of her schemes had failed miserably and she had to dip into our meagre savings to cover for her loss, she swore that it'd never happen again. She understood that she needed to be smarter then those around her to succeed and she hit the books with a devotion bordering on fanatical. Half a year after that, she brought in so much money that I didn't need to work anymore." Kasumi revealed and then sighed again.
"Akane wanted to help out as well, but... She's a kind girl, really, but..." Kasumi sighed again and took another deep breath. "She couldn't help out around the house without causing a disaster and after Nabiki's failure to juggle schoolwork and part-time work, school wouldn't allow her to work either. Failing to be of any help to us changed her. A lot. She became frustrated and had nothing to take that frustration out on, so she turned to Martial Arts. She spent all her time training, improving on what father had taught us before mother died. She read the schools scrolls and tried her best to learn from them, constantly pleading with father to get him to train her, to no avail. That was the last straw for her, I think."
"That was when she started loosing her temper and started to loose respect for males. She loved, and still loves, father, the man she was most disappointed in. She couldn't turn her anger towards him as she both pitied and loved him at the same time, so she bottled up her resentment, not really letting it out until Kuno started pestering her and the 'hentai horde' began attacking her in the mornings." Kasumi revealed and turned pensive. "At first, I didn't do anything about it because it seemed as if she was finally starting to process her grief and anger. But when I finally discovered that it did her more harm then good, it was too late. She wouldn't listen to me when I suggested other ways to deal with her problems. I think this is what led to her main problem with you."
"The one she's really angry at, underneath it all, is probably father. She blames him for failing us all and for withdrawing when she needed him. But before you arrived, he was such a pitiful figure that she couldn't take it out on him. Then you arrived, one of the boys she'd grown to hate and engaged to marry her on top of it all, through fathers machinations. You were a link to father, without being father, whom she could take out her anger on." Kasumi explained and coughed. "It's not an excuse for how she treated you, of course. Her behaviour was completely unacceptable, though you weren't exactly blameless yourself."
"I know." Ranma agreed. Nabiki's tutoring had made him see a lot of things more clearly then ever before.
"Anyway, I've given up the dreams I had as a young girl. I'm a very different person now than I was then and my dreams have changed somewhat since then as well. I no longer dream of marrying a handsome prince, become an airline pilot or running my own flower shop. I would still like to become a nurse or a psychologist instead of a medical doctor, so that I can help father. But running the household, doesn't leave me with enough time to study for such a thing, so I had more or less resigned myself to run this household as a single housewife for the rest of my life. Or possibly wind up in a loveless arranged marriage, due to some foolish decision of fathers." Kasumi explained and then directed a warm smile at Ranma.
"And then, the engagement shifted to me." she announced and reached out to stroke the arm Ranma still had wrapped around her. "I was telling the truth yesterday, Ranma-kun. I like you, very much. I even love you in a way. It is not what I wanted to do with my life, but it's much better then what I've been expecting from my life lately. I get to marry a man I love, a marriage that also has the added benefit that it may shock father into some semblance of his older self again. I truly am happy, Ranma-kun. I'm just worried because you're not."
"Kasumi-chan..." Ranma mumbled and smiled sadly at her. "All right. If you can honestly tell me that this is what you want, I'll stop fretting about it."
"This..." Kasumi started, then leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Ranma's cheek. "Is what I want." she announced. "I want us to try and make this work, Ranma-kun." she finished.
"Then that is what we're going to do." Ranma agreed and leaned over to kiss her cheek as well.
"You're not... Disappointed that you're marrying an old woman?" Kasumi inquired with a hint of worry in her voice.
"You're not old, Kasumi-chan! You're a young, beautiful girl and I'm privileged to be your fiancée." Ranma protested and desperately wracked his brain for the correct words. "I couldn't have done better for myself even if I searched all over the world for the perfect woman, because she's right here beside me."
"Thank you, Ranma-kun." Kasumi said with a breath-taking smile. "Thank you..." she said, then leaned over and when she kissed him this time, it wasn't on the cheek.
"Yen for your thoughts, Saotome." Nabiki said as she sat down next to Ranma as he meditated by the Koi pond.
"Kasumi is an amazing woman." Ranma announced after half a minute of silence.
"And you're only realizing this just now?" Nabiki asked with a faint hint of annoyment.
"No. But I'm constantly discovering new depths to just how amazing she really is." he responded. "I thought I knew, but... I... I'm envious of your family, Nabs. Kasumi has more love for her family in her pinkie finger then both my parents have in their entire hearts."
"Yeah... She's the only thing that kept this family together since mother died, y'know? Without her, all three of us would probably have wound up in foster homes and father in a mental institution." Nabiki replied. "Not that I don't occasionally wonder if that might not have been the best for father." she muttered under her breath, which Ranma just barely managed to pick up on.
The two of them sat together in a contemplative silence for a couple of minutes, before Nabiki spoke up again.
"You're really going to marry her?" she asked.
"Yes." Ranma replied without hesitation. At first, he'd been reluctant because he felt that Kasumi deserved better then him. Now, he was determined to do so in order to protect her from doing worse then him.
"Well, I guess congratulations on your upcoming nuptials are in order then, Saotome. I'm certain that Kasumi will make you very happy." she said with a friendly smile. "And you had BETTER make her happy too, or you'll never know what hit you. You'll be begging for the Nutcracker of Persuasion if you ever treat her wrong." Nabiki finished with a feral snarl.
"I love you too, Nabs." Ranma said with an amused smile as he reached out and put his left arm over her shoulders, not at all intimidated by her threat. But had she been able to see his face at that very moment, she would have been able to see in his eyes just how much that one statement had saddened and cost him to utter.
"Well, aren't we getting touchy-feely all of a sudden." Nabiki groused, but wasn't all that displeased with it at all, to tell the truth. She'd gotten used to having Ranma touching her during the month he'd been her slave and she'd gotten a few massages after that as well. Ranma too, had become a more physical person after all that, often reaching out to touch people. If she were to be complete honest with herself, she'd probably even admit to missing his touch after she'd been without it for a couple of hours.
Not only the marvellous massages he doled out, but something as simple as his arm over her shoulders as well.
"Ukyo and the Amazons have been remarkably quiet. I expected Shampoo and Ukyo both to show up at the parlour the moment school was out, to demand an explanation. After your little 'chat' with Kuno this morning, the rumour that you're engaged to Kasumi now was all over school. It must have reached both their ears by now." Nabiki mused.
"I talked with Ucchan at school and called Shampoo at lunch. I told them that I'd explain everything tomorrow evening so that I wouldn't have to deal with them right away." Ranma replied as he stared at the water, holding the woman he had grown to fall in love with over the last month while he contemplated the woman he was going to marry once school was out for summer.
The End! ( For now... )