Kasumi smiled sweetly, while her sisters rolled their eyes; if they knew it was going to bother Kasumi this much, they would have waited until morning to confront the pervert. "Kasumi, you now he's forgiven you, right?" Nabiki commented, earning a curious look from Ranma.
"Forgiven her for what?"
"The jerk doesn't even know why, Sis," Akane added.
"Come now, perhaps your sister simply wants to demonstrate her abilities as a caretaker of the household. It is a most important skill of a wife, after all."
"Oh my, but he's still so... so young..."
Everybody's head snapped to the sound glass crashing onto the wooden floor, finding a landscape painting resting below where it had hung. "Most unusual," Soun commented, "Perhaps this is some sort of omen?"
"Oh my, the nail's still secure," Kasumi commented, inspecting the damaged picture and frame, then the nail it had been hanging from on the wall.
"Oh please, Daddy," Nabiki commented, unamused by her father's superstition. She turned back to her meal, before noticing Ranma was staring at the fallen picture nervously, "Have fears of broken glass, Saotome?"
"Ah... n-no, not afraid or anything!" Ranma stuttered, earning a raised eyebrow from Nabiki.
Nabiki snorted, "Good, because I don't want some scaredy cat for a fiancé." At that word, Ranma's eyes went wide, as he started to shake his head slowly. The action didn't go unnoticed by Nabiki, "Something wrong about having a cute, intelligent, and ambitious girl like me as your fiancée, Saotome?"
"Oh my, does that mean you're accepting the engagement?" Kasumi enquired, internally relieved the heat had been taken off of her. Ranma bowed his head, as if understanding he couldn't stop the inevitable.
Nabiki shrugged, "He is kind of cute, may as well try him out for a little bit."
"As long as you aren't trying TOO much of him, Nabiki," Akane warned, most assuredly not liking the idea of the sleaze touching her sister in any manner, much less inappropriate manner.
Nabiki stuck her tongue out at Akane, before picking up a morsel of her meal, "What we decide to do is our business, Akane."
"Na-Nabiki!"
"Oh, how it does my heart joy to know Nabiki won't become and old maid as Kasumi warned!"
"What?" Nabiki demanded in an arched tone, as she sharply turned to look at her eldest sister.
"Ah..." Kasumi began, fidgeting, "Oh my, Ranma, you're plate's empty, please allow me to fix more!" Before Ranma could comment, Kasumi was up with the plate, and in the kitchen.
"But I hadn't even..." Ranma began, before it clicked, "POP!"
Genma casually worked on his own plate, "You snooze, you lose, boy." Genma favored Ranma with a stoic gaze, "You sure you don't want the older one as a wife, she cooks a pretty mean-"
The TV crashed to the floor.
"That was weird," Akane quipped, noticing there was nothing wrong with the TV stand whatsoever.
Kasumi hummed to herself, as she finished brushing her hair straight. Ranma was too young for her tastes, but he seemed like a nice boy... if she ignored her and her sisters' suspicions of him being a peeping tom. Of course, that would mean he was just healthy and curious, and from the women's books she read, that was the sign of a man who would provide an excellent sex life with his spouse.
Her own room was one of the few places she would let her face grow a lecherous grin, before giggling to herself. Well, Nabiki took up the family honor, so she would be reaping the rewards. Besides, as uptight as the middle Tendou daughter would get, Kasumi figured she needed a good man to provide her with stress relief.
After tying her hair into a bun, Kasumi turned off the lights, and put herself to bed. Tomorrow was another day, and she needed to wake up to have everything prepared for everyone, especially breakfast. She had never suspected the two could have such hearty appetites; must have been all that traveling they did.
With a contentful sigh, Kasumi laid her head down, and closed her eyes to go to sleep, only to open them after a few moments. She rolled over, still pretending to be asleep, attempting to catch the intruder she knew had to be in her room, while mentally re-evaluating her opinion of the pigtailed guest in their household. If she caught him... well, Akane wasn't the only one in the family capable of massive violence.
Turning to lay on her back, Kasumi rolled her eyes forward attempting to see if the little pervert was at the head of her bed. The lovely countryside road painting hanging at the wall at the foot of her bed caught her eye, causing her to sit up and study it. She idly wondered when she had hung it there, particularly since it didn't fit the décor of her room. Her eyebrows climbed to the top of her forehead, when she realized it was the picture that had been hanging in the tea room. Blinking several times, she realized something was moving in it.
Tilting her head and narrowing her eyes, Kasumi watched, as something seemed to be running towards her down the country road. Nervously, she shifted back onto her headboard, as the figure, apparently a young girl, it was too small to determine the age, continued to run towards her, as if frantically chasing her, before suddenly tripping.
Kasumi blinked again, as the girl lay still on the ground, "Oh my, that poor girl." As if answer to her sympathy, the girl suddenly, slowly pulled herself from the ground. Kasumi's eyes widened, when the girl now stumbled forward, as her head bobbed listlessly, as if her neck didn't support it. The eldest Tendou daughter whimpered, when the girl's features were visible, showing her wide, impossibly large eyes with coal black pupils surrounded by eerily vibrant brown irises, her pasty white face that was devoid of life, and her lockes of brunette hair that stuck listlessly to her face, both showing a dirty coat from where she fell face first into the dusty dirt road.
The girl reached the edge of the painting, and fell out of the picture like a rag doll, falling to the foot of the bed and hidden by the footboard.
Gathering her courage, Kasumi slowly scrambled forward on her bed, and slowly, ever so slowly, peered over the edge, trembling slightly as she did, and ready to bolt from her room at the sight of whoever it was. With but the briefest pause, she finally peered over... finding nothing there. She abruptly looked up at the picture, only to find it missing as well.
"A dream," Kasumi realized, as she laid back in bed, staring at the ceiling. After getting over her fright, she rolled onto her side, and stared into impossibly wide, porcelain-like eyes that seemed to be the only things that absorbed perfect light in the room, making them eerily vibrant.
Kasumi screamed.
The girl screamed.
Kasumi screamed louder.
The girl's left eye burst, suddenly gushing out a stream of blood like a water hose.
Kasumi screamed, attempting to swat away the blood spray
The girl continued to scream and hose Kasumi down in crimson fluid
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Kasumi screamed
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" the girl screamed.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" Kasumi kept screaming, attempting to wipe the blood from her face.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" the girl screamed, continuing to give Kasumi a bloody facial.
They both screamed, while the ghostly pale girl continued to spray blood.
Kasumi terror took a hold of her, as her primal instincts demanded her to flee. Attempting to escape the direction of the girl, Kasumi turned, and jumped out the window.
At the sound of her sister's blood-curdling, Akane came running, kicking open her sister's door, "KASUMI!" Nabiki had been standing by the door, having already attempted to get it open but finding it locked. They both burst in, looking around frantically, just as Ranma had came up behind them and switched on the light.
"What happened?" he demanded, already poised for a fight. He then looked to the broken window the Tendou girls were staring at, and rushed to it, "Oh, crap! Somebody call a doctor!" With that, he jumped out the window, landing next to where
Galvanized by Ranma's demand, Nabiki quickly ran to her room to get her cell phone, while Akane tentatively approached the window. Before she got onto the bed, she noticed the writing on Kasumi's usually pristine white sheets. She gasped, and stepped back, as she read it. It was the same thing she heard the whispers saying the night before...
"My Ranchan"