Well, this is a great position you have gotten yourself into. Now what? Are you going to encourage him to try out a honeymoon with Ukyo? Oh ... just stop it ... quit feeling sorry for yourself. If I didn't do this, then I could have ended up as just another fiancée ... and I can't do that. I can't. So ... I just have to wait ... and... Nabiki couldn't bear to finish the thought.
She was sitting in the dining room and clutching her knees to her chest as she rocked back and forth softly as she tried to pass the time while shedding her nervous energy. It wasn't working. Doctor Tofu was sitting in a corner of the room quietly meditating after spending the night guarding their family. Kasumi was bustling around the house doing her usual thing. Daddy and Mister Saotome were patrolling the house, on guard for more attacks, and Ranma ... Ranma was out with Akane. Akane ... Ranma's first fiancée, and the one he's going to pick. She thought sadly.
She stood up and started pacing back and forth on the deck in front of the dining room. She saw out of the corner of her eye Doctor Tofu crack an eye open and gaze at her for a moment, before he took a deep breath and resettled into his meditation as he closed it again. She felt bad for disturbing him, but she couldn't just sit still while Ranma was out on a real date with Akane.
If she fights for him ... if she puts aside her pride and her embarrassment and is honest with him ... hell, if she is just mostly nice to him and they don't get into too many fights ... he's going to pick her. She rambled to herself silently as she stared at nothing and walked back and forth. I have to stop this, I'm going to drive myself crazy. Just because I want Ranma to choose me, doesn't mean I want to deny Akane her fair chance. I just ... need to not dwell on it or I'll go crazy. She chided herself.
She stopped pacing and walked out into the yard and stood next to the koi pond. She looked at her reflection in the surface of the pond and smiled tightly to cover up the anxiety on her face. That done, she took another look and thought she looked all right. She was still clearly a little stressed out, but there were no visible signs of sadness or anxiety. See, my masks work fine ... except with Ranma, she thought with a mixture of pride and distress. She was proud that he cared enough to learn how to read her through her masks, but it distressed her that he could. She was having to learn on her feet how to handle that. I guess that's fair though, he is having to learn how to be in a real relationship in only a week, after all. She thought with a small smile.
She looked up at the sky and took a deep breath and tried to settle her nerves. When she looked back down, Daddy's reflection was staring back at her from the pond. He was standing behind her and smiling kindly at her. She cemented her mask in place, then turned around and smiled at him. She didn't want him to know exactly what was going on.
He just looked at her for a moment with those large eyes of his. She knew that every time he looked at her and her sisters, he was seeing Mom in all of them. "How are you feeling today, Nabiki?" He finally asked after staring into her eyes for a moment.
She smiled in response. "I'm fine, Daddy. How about you, did you sleep well?"
He shook his head and stiffened his spine proudly. "It is a father's duty to watch over his daughter when she is injured, don't worry about me, Nabiki."
She rolled her eyes in her head but smiled outwardly. She knew what he did and said was out of a genuine desire for what he thought was best for them. She had a hard time holding that against him, even if he was misguided ... frequently.
She focused on him as she stepped next to him and laced her arm through his as she pulled him to start walking. She needed to keep moving, and he obviously wanted to talk. They walked in silence for a while as they circled the edge of their land by walking along the wall. After a minute, he cleared his through and asked her the question she had been hoping he wouldn't. "So ... you're engaged to Ranma now?" He added after a moment's pause, another observation. "It was ... unusual for you to be defending him, like you were last night."
She knew he knew that Akane had changed the engagement. Akane wasn't exactly subtle on that point. It had also been a topic of family discussion for the past few days. He was just trying to get her to talk. She just ... didn't like to talk about these sorts of things with him. It wasn't that she didn't trust him, it was more that she felt he had his own problems to deal with. She answered with a cheerful smile plastered on her face. "Yup, me and Ranma, we're an item now."
He stopped walking and looked at her again seriously. "Nabiki ... I know how much you like to joke and play games, so I have to ask, because this is serious. Do you intend to keep the engagement and go through with it?"
She just stared at him with her mouth agape. How do I answer that? She thought in a mild panic. She finally settled on a half truth. "If Ranma doesn't break the engagement, I promise, I will marry him." She said sincerely as she looked at him calmly.
He didn't look convinced. He stared at her with narrowing eyes and prompted her to expand her answer. "And ... if you marry him ... will you help him carry on our school of Anything Goes Martial Arts? Will you keep the school open, and not sell it?" He demanded.
Oh ... so he'd heard about that? She'd told Kasumi that as a joke a while ago. She smiled and nodded as she answered. "Yes, Daddy, we will keep the school open, we wouldn't sell it. I promise."
He looked mollified at that, and began walking with her again, arm in arm in silence for a while. After another few minutes he asked as he walked another hard question. "Are you sure this is what you want, Nabiki? Are you happy with this? Despite what she says, I know Akane has feelings for the boy. I know she'd eventually take him back, even though she handed him off to you. You don't need to do this if you don't want to." He said quietly.
She smiled with a mischievous gleam in her eye as she couldn't help herself from teasing him a bit. "Oh, no, we have an agreement, he only goes up the chain. Now that Akane's passed on him, if I pass, he goes to Kasumi." She knew it was mean, but it was damn funny. Daddy stopped walking again, and twitched as he looked at her with wide eyes.
"K-Kasumi? Really? She agreed to take him?" He asked in shock.
She nodded her head emphatically. "Oh yes, as a matter of fact she said she had dibs next on his, how did she put it? Oh yeah, 'cute little booty,' she said she had dibs on that next." Inside she was dying laughing, but outside she froze her best poker face on as Daddy wibbled at that and his eyes darted towards the house. She was sure he was frantic to run to Kasumi and demand to know what had possessed her to say such a thing.
"K-Kasumi ... s-said t-that?" He gasped.
"Oh sure, she thinks she can teach him a thing or two about being a real man. Said she's eager to, 'put him through his paces,' I think was how she phrased it."
His eyes started to narrow as he caught on.
She piled on quickly before he called her on it. "Yeah, she figures she can have him running to the snap of her fingers in about two weeks, depending on how much she has to discipline him." She said as she allowed a huge grin to crack the poker face she had been wearing.
"Nabikiiiiii—" was all he could say as she caved his mind in with that idea about his beloved eldest daughter.
She lost all control at that point and doubled over laughing. She laughed so hard that she actually started crying a little bit, and her abs hurt. She put a hand on his chest and leaned against him as she tried to stay upright while she laughed. She could feel him tense up indignantly while she laughed, and then eventually relax as she poured out some of the stress she had been carrying into her laughter. It felt good to laugh.
She finally lifted her head up as she got herself under control and looked up into his face. He was looking down at her with a mixture of exasperation and impatience. But there was also love on his face. She allowed herself to fall in towards him and hugged him. He hugged her back strongly. She could tell that he knew she was leaving things unsaid.
After a while, he held her back from him at arm's length and looked at her with a mixture of pride and confusion. "I have never understood you very well, Nabiki. You know?"
She nodded.
"You've always been my clever one. You're just like your mother with that. I never understood her either." He said wistfully.
"Oh ... Daddy..." She said softly. She hated it when he brought up mom, she always ended up crying.
"Kasumi has always been my hard-working, loyal and soft-spoken one. Akane has always been my fierce, honest fighter. And you, ... you Nabiki, more than any of your sisters, have always been my quick-witted, clever girl who always has an idea, always has something to say, never gives up, and speaks her mind. You're so much like your mother it's like she's still here sometimes." He said softly as he looked into her eyes.
She nodded her head again, fighting back the tears, but she could feel them winning the war to get out.
"Kasumi looks more like her, and Akane fights like her ... oh, Nabiki, if you could have ever seen her fight. I am not sure even the Master could have beaten her when she was really serious. She was deadly grace and cool as ice when she fought..." he trailed away for a moment, then came back to himself and refocused on her and said, "... but she only trained in the Art privately and rarely after you girls were born. She had a new mission in life after that. You all were her life. All of you. I thought she had given her entire heart to Kasumi when she was born. Then you were born, and I saw her double what she gave. Then Akane was born and I saw it increase to triple. She loved you all more than words can ever describe, you know?"
She did know. She nodded her head roughly, not trusting her voice, as the tears started. Damn it, Daddy, why do you always have to be so sincere, especially about Mom? She griped to herself as he continued.
"She was a guide to Kasumi who tried to mirror everything your mother showed her. She was an unattainable goal to Akane, who idolized her. She was my wife and companion. And to you, Nabiki, to you, she was your friend and constant challenge. Do you remember, do you remember the word games you two used to play? Do you remember the pun wars and the constant attempts to trick each other into slipping up to say something?"
"I-I remember, Daddy." She said as she let the tears fall, and buried her head in his chest. God damn it! Every single time we talk about Mom, it's like this. I miss her so much! She thought miserably to herself as she cried.
He was right, he had been Akane's sparring partner, but Mom had been hers. With Mom, she had learned the benefits of a sharp mind, a ready word, and being quick on one's feet. She had watched Mom disarm people in public with a simple turn of phrase or an offer of an exchange of favors. Mom could always take a quick look at a situation and figure out what people's motivations were, and how best to exploit them. She'd seen her turn strangers into friends, and rude people into bewildered people she got the better of with a faster wit and a sharp eye for details. She had never been worried about anything when she had been out with Mom. She'd known that Mom knew the Art as well, but she'd never displayed a need for it. She had loved that about her mother.
After a minute passed and she allowed herself to embrace her grief at the loss of her mother, she finally pulled herself back to her center and forced herself to stop crying. A moment later Daddy held her out at arm's length again and looked at her seriously. "Do you know why I made the promise I made with Ranma's father to marry one of you?" He asked.
She shook her head.
"I made it, because your mother made me swear to her that I would ensure that the Anything Goes Style survived. She had me promise to find a suitable husband for one of you girls, who would be willing to help carry on the school and ensure her legacy and mine."
"M-mom did?" She asked in disbelief.
He nodded emphatically. "Oh yes. She loved the Art as well. That was one of the reasons I married her, you know. She was my equal in every way. It also didn't hurt that she could cook extremely well." He added with a small smile.
"But ... what if Ranma hadn't turned out to be a suitable husband?"
"In that case ... I would have had to break my promise to his father, and keep looking. My promise to your mother takes priority over my promise to him." He said with steel in his voice.
She blinked in surprise. She'd had no idea.
"So, I ask you again, Nabiki, if you marry Ranma ... will you help him carry on our school of Anything Goes Martial Arts and keep the school open?"
She looked him in the eyes and firmly nodded her head. "Yes, I will, I promise," she added as a side note, "of course, Ranma would have to be in charge of teaching." She smiled weakly at him.
He nodded as he put her hand back in the crook of his arm and started walking with her again while he patted her hand. "Of course, of course, at least ... at first." He looked sideways at her and smiled with encouragement. "It's never too late, you know, you could resume your training."
She looked up at him and winked. "Let's cross one bridge at a time, all right, Daddy? If we get married, we can talk about that."
"If? Are you saying you don't really want to?" He asked her carefully.
"What I'm saying is, Akane gave him up to me because of a temper tantrum, and she may take him back again if she decides she wants him again."
"What about ... what you want?" He asked as they stopped by the koi pond, back where they'd started. He pulled her around to stand in front of him again, and held on to both her hands as he tried to look into her eyes to figure her out.
Good luck, Daddy. I don't think I have myself figured out. She thought with a surprising amount of bitterness. She answered his question sadly. "What I want ... isn't as important as other things."
"So ... what is it that you mean?" He asked.
"Just because I say something, doesn't mean that I mean it. And just because I feel something, doesn't mean I say it, Daddy. But to set your mind at ease, if Akane doesn't marry Ranma, I promise you, if he is willing, I'll marry him." She said quietly.
"Can you be happy with Ranma?" He asked with concern.
She nodded earnestly without meeting his eyes.
He teared up at that and nodded, accepting that was the best he was going to get from her in the way of an agreement about Ranma. "Nabiki..." he whispered as he squeezed her hands softly, "...you're a good girl, Nabiki. Your mother would be proud of you."
She didn't know if that was totally true, but she liked hearing it anyway. A moment later he let her go. "Well now, I had best get back to guarding the house." He said gruffly.
She nodded and waved at him as he marched away. He was such a strange mixture of strength and weakness these days.
She stood and looked at herself in the koi pond for a while longer, then looked at her watch, and realized that it was nearing the time that Ranma had planned to be home, so he could go with her to confront Shampoo. She turned around and looked into the dining room, and considered going back there to wait, but decided she needed to still be on her feet and doing something, so she wandered slowly towards the front gates.
I don't want to stand by the front door waiting for him to get home, though. That looks ... needy at the very least, if not desperate. She thought to herself as she approached the gates, and then walked past them. She decided to pace inside the wall and listen for them coming home. She wouldn't rush out to greet them, of course. She didn't want to see them kissing or something. Heh, fat chance. Even if Akane wanted to, she could never do it out on the street where anyone could see her. She thought.
She looked at her watch and hoped she didn't have to wait too much longer, they really did need to be going soon to track down Shampoo and talk to her. She didn't want to be out at night doing that. It was —
She paused, and listened, she could have sworn she heard someone yell something, she listened again and heard, "—he —ell am I no—?!"
Was that .... Ryoga? She raised an eyebrow as she turned around and headed back towards the gates, short circuiting her pacing. She stepped outside the gates, and sure enough, saw Ryoga standing in the middle of the street, shaking his fist to the sky while holding a large map in his hands that looked an awful lot like a map of Australia.
She smiled and walked over to him. At the very least he could distract her for a few moments. And every moment she spent not agonizing over Ranma's date with Akane was a moment she valued. She walked closer to him as he yelled again while looking down at his map then up again repeatedly with a confused expression on his face. "Where the hell am I now?!" He yelled again to nobody.
She leaned in right behind him and yelled as loud as she could, "Tokyo!"
She grinned when he jumped at least two meters straight up in surprise, dropping his map in the process. He landed twisted around so he was nose-to-nose with her and glared.
She ignored him as she picked up the map and looked at it. Yup, it's Australia all right. I mean, I get not having a good sense of direction, but he can read ... can't he? She thought with a smirk as she straightened up. He was still glaring at her, but she didn't care. She knew that unless she provoked him, a lot, he wouldn't do anything to her. Both because he liked to pretend he lived by a code of honor, and also because he had a bad case of puppy-love for Akane, and Akane didn't exactly tolerate people who bullied her family.
"You didn't have to sneak up on me." He growled at her.
"I didn't think I needed to announce my presence to a man who fights with Ranma regularly. I thought you were as good as he was." She replied sweetly as she handed him the map.
"I'm better than he is!" He yelled.
She shrugged. "Of course you are. Isn't that what I just said?"
He looked at her blankly as he tried to process that. It worked every time. Leading statements, half-truths and sideways compliments almost always allowed her to take the balance of people like Ryoga. She didn't really like people like Ryoga. They were usually loud and brash, quick to anger and slow to think and somewhat cruel. The aspect of Ryoga that made her dislike him the most, though, was his insistence to blame his misfortunes on everyone but himself — usually with Ranma receiving the majority of the blame.
Sure, Ranma could be loud and brash as well, and he didn't always think when he should, and he allowed people to goad him into things by making him angry. But, aside from the whole fiancée thing and his Chinese water curse — both of which were legitimately not his fault — she rarely saw him blame others for things that he was responsible for; and he was never cruel. She'd also seen Ranma think things through and plan when he needed to, usually when he was outclassed in a fight by the old ghoul or the old lecher. When push came to shove, she had seen Ranma do the honorable thing time and time again, Ryoga she was less sure about. There was something ... off ... about him that she couldn't put her finger on.
She didn't like Ryoga chasing after Akane, but as long as Akane didn't accept him, she felt no need to intervene. Akane could do much better than him, and she did not want him as a brother-in-law. But at the moment, it wasn't anything to worry about. After a moment passed and he didn't say anything further, she sighed and tried to jump-start his brain. "So ... where are you trying to go?"
He blushed and looked away from her as he replied. "Don't worry about it, I have everything under control."
She smiled and nodded while she put on her friendly mask. "Sure, sure no doubt ... but, if you wanted some directions, maybe I could ..." she trailed off, catching his interest.
He looked back at her with eyes that spoke volumes about his navigational woes. Got you now. She thought happily. Now that she had him hooked, all she had to do was reel him in. He finally replied after an uncomfortable pause. "Well if you must know, I am on my way to mount Hyōno. There's a shrine there that is supposed to make you stronger if you complete their ritual.
She blinked at that. Well, she supposed he wasn't too far off course, mount Hyōno was in the Hyōgo Prefecture, over six hundred kilometers way. But hey, he was still on Honshu which was the right part of Japan at least. She would love to know why he thought a map of Australia was Japan, but she knew if she brought it up and embarrassed him, that he'd just storm off. She didn't want him to do that yet, he was a great distraction.
She supposed he could take a flight there, and get there in about an hour or so, but she knew he'd never go for that. She doubted he had the money to fly there, and even if he did, he would probably think it was skipping out on his training to not walk there and suffer on the way. She figured with his fitness level and ability to run for long distances, he could probably do about eighty kilometers a day. So, she pointed to the West as she gave him the directions. "You want to go about six hundred kilometers that way. If you head away from the sun in the morning, and towards it in the evening, and you go all day, you should be in the right area in a little over a week.
"Of-of course, I knew that." He said hastily as he shoved the map in his pocket and immediately started heading East, the exact opposite direction of where she was still pointing.
"Ryoga, look where I'm pointing." She said as she rolled her eyes.
He looked up and nodded with an embarrassed jerk of his head. "Oh yeah, sorry." He changed direction, and started walking North.
She seriously thought about letting him go, but she didn't have anything else to do while she tried to avoid agonizing over what Ranma and Akane might be up to, so she called after him again. "Wait!"
He froze and she walked over to him. "I can make sure you leave here heading in the right direction, if you just wait a moment, all right?" She said, bemused.
He slumped a little bit, realizing that he had been heading off in the wrong direction again, and nodded.
"So ... after you get stronger at this shrine you want to visit, then what?" She asked as she walked around to face him. She didn't really care, but information like that about people like Ryoga always came in handy.
He looked up at her with a determined scowl on his face. "I will go back to training on mount Odake to defeat Ranma!"
The boy certainly had a one track mind, that was for sure. She was sure that he had defeated Ranma rather recently when he'd gotten super-strong from that strange drawing on his stomach. And he could have easily beaten Ranma when the old lecher had made Ranma weak with that Moxibustion thing. Of course, neither one of those cases could be described as beating Ranma in a fair fight, but he didn't seem to be all that concerned about that, usually.
"And ... once you defeat Ranma ... then what?" She asked, genuinely curious now.
He stammered for a bit as he looked at the ground as he replied. "T-then I can ask A-A-A ... to ... "
Well, it was no surprise that he was still hung up on her sister. She couldn't really blame him, she supposed. Akane was gorgeous when she wanted to be, and she was very sweet and kind, again, when she wanted to be. She wasn't sure what had gotten him infatuated with her in the first place, but it didn't really matter. She decided to poke him a bit more before sending him packing. "You can ask ... what ... all the girls in your high school out?" She asked with a playful grin on her face. She could feel the heat of his embarrassment even before he answered.
"What?! No! No no no no no!" He said practically tripping over himself in embarrassment. "No! There's only ... only one girl for me!" He clenched his fist when he said that, and looked up into the sky like he was making a covenant with the gods or something.
Wow, melodramatic much? She thought as she cringed inwardly. Having this guy hanging around all the time would be exhausting. But, he'd left her an opening, and she couldn't not take it, so she smiled sweetly at him and cupped her face in her hands as she put on an excited, breathy voice and teased him. "Really? You mean it? I'm the only girl for you? Oh, Ryoga, I had no idea!"
She was sure that if he could have actually died of embarrassment, he would have right then and there. He flushed bright red, and took a step back from her as he waved his arms back and forth in a panic. "No! N-not you!"
She put on a hurt face and took a step towards him. "But why not? Is it someone else? Are you in love with my sister? Is that it? You are, aren't you?!" She said accusatively.
"H-how did y-you ..." He asked in a shaking voice as he continued to step away from her.
She clasped her hands together behind her back and leaned forward with a smile on her face. "Oh, come on now, be honest, I've seen the way you look at her, anyone who sees you look at her knows that ... " she paused to savor the moment, as he cringed. She delivered the knock-out a heartbeat later. "You're in love with Kasumi!" She said sweetly and batted her eyelashes at him.
He actually fell over at that and yelled twitching from the ground as he lay on his backpack like an overturned turtle. "W-what?!"
She grinned down at him as she moved to stand over him. "Just kidding." She said as she stuck her tongue out at him happily.
"Why you!" He growled at her as he jumped to his feet. Then he paused and looked over her shoulder and said in a weak voice, "...Akane?"
"Na-bi-ki, my name is Nabiki!" She said in irritation as he stepped past her and started walking back towards the house.
He had his eyes fixed down the road as he muttered Akane's name again.
She turned around and could see that all the way down the road two people were walking into view. She couldn't make out who they were yet, but she trusted that his obsession with her sister would allow him to recognize her at a distance.
About time they got home. She thought in irritation as she noted the low position of the sun in the sky. Then she put a mental brake on her emotions and pushed them down out of range of her mouth. She needed to not act like a crazy-jealous person right now. She walked slowly behind Ryoga to watch them come home. With Ryoga front-and-center, their attention would be on him, so she would be able to read their body language and try to gauge how their date had gone.
As they walked closer, she realized that Akane had an arm wrapped around Ranma. That made her blood pressure spike. Really, public displays of affection? Already? She thought in surprise. What happened to her embarrassment about that? She thought with some resentment. She walked closer to Ryoga as she tried to stay behind him and observe. She could tell that Ryoga was already getting ready to attack Ranma, he was clenching and unclenching his hands into fists and his shoulders were heaving in anger as he sucked in air sharply. Not surprising, as Akane had her hands on Ranma. In Ryoga's warped little mind, she was sure that meant Ranma needed to die. She rolled her eyes inwardly as she continued to watch them get closer while Ryoga took off his backpack as he prepared to fight.
She realized a moment later that Akane was limping. Oh! That makes much more sense! She thought as she realized that Akane must have gotten hurt somehow and Ranma was helping her limp home. They were both smiling a bit though, that wasn't a good sign. I wonder why he didn't just carry her home? She thought. Not that she minded of course. Those kinds of things were how he kept picking up suitors like Kodachi, after all.
As Ranma and Akane arrived at the gate, he had just enough time to notice Ryoga, and to make quick eye contact with her and widen his eyes in confusion which she shrugged in response to, before Ryoga shouted his challenge. "Ranma, what have you done to Akane?!"
Ranma glared at Ryoga and unwrapped Akane's arm from himself. She quickly stepped forward to support her sister, who hopped gingerly over to her and eagerly put her weight on her. As she held Akane up she watched Ranma square up with Ryoga. Then he yelled back his own challenge. "Back off man, now isn't a good time!"
Oh boy, here we go. She thought as Akane leaned into her heavily.