Project A-Ko Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Nabiki 1/2 (A Very Scary Thought) ❯ The Yamasenken... ( Chapter 95 )

Nabiki 1/2

(A Very Scary Thought)

Written by Jim Robert Bader

Proofread by Shiva Barnwell

Based Upon the Altered Destinies Storyline

Inspired by the works of such fans as

Wade Tritshler

Richard Lawson

James Jones

And Many Others

Standard Disclaimer: This is inspired by the work of Takahashi Rumiko and is not my original creation. All characters belong to her. This is only a fanfictional work, and is not intended to compromise the rights of the original owners, distributors and publishers of the Ranma series. I have no money to spare and would very much appreciate if no one tries to sue me.

Nabiki sat on a high cliff rise looking out at the setting sun and wondering if her missing fiancé was also looking on the same beautiful sight from wherever he was at the moment. It had been two days since he had left on his training mission and already she was missing him fiercely. Two days she had spent sitting and thinking like this, trying to make sense of the conflicting advice and counseling that her closest friends and family members had been offering without the need for prompting on her part. It reminded her of the old adage that advice was free, and usually worth as much.

Had she really been neglecting Ranma and taking his support for granted? It was hard to imagine that Ranma thought himself undervalued, but had she really been making it plain to him what he meant to her on a personal level? Could it also mean that she had not been paying him enough attention, nor had she been listening to him nor been attentive to his needs? Things had been so crazy of late, she had taken his silence for assent and his cooperation as willing support for her attempts to make life as "normal" as she could for her extended family, or "Posse" as some would have termed it. That she could have missed the significance of the stresses he must have been under was an incredible oversight on her part, one that may well have cost her the respect of the very boy around whom she had been building all her plans for the future.

Could she really have been so blind? Had she compromised the trust that she had so carefully built up between herself and her iinazuke? She had thought that Ranma understood her far better than to doubt her devotion to him, even in light of what she had going with Shampoo and their daughter…but was it in truth she who had failed to understand him and his needs? Had she lost touch with the man she reputedly loved? A boy who made her special inside, not like a freak, but warm and accepted?

Or was the issue that she had lost confidence in him and his abilities? Nabiki stared down at her own hands, strong and well callused from countless days of intensive training, hands that could split stone and smash steel like so much tinfoil, the hands of a proven martial artist whose abilities had been battle tested against foe after foe. Hardly the hands one would expect of a simple schoolgirl not yet eighteen years old…but then again she was no simple schoolgirl, and neither was Ranma an ordinary boy who just happened to have attracted her fancy. In many ways they appeared to be almost evenly matched, but Nabiki's abilities were far more advanced than those of Ranma, being closer to the center of the art than his own home-grown variety of training.

In a way it was a great shame, for Ranma had been trained by Nabiki's father, just as Nabiki had been trained by Ranma's dad, an arrangement that had seemed very odd at the time, yet which now seemed both logical and natural in the light of their representing two branches of the same school that was being reunited. The disadvantage was that Ranma lacked the hardening of travel on the open road, which had sharpened Nabiki's instincts to a razor edge and taught her to fight with the whole of her being. That Ranma could even approach her in skill was an amazing accomplishment in itself, given that her father had not taught him to be as ruthless in a fight as Nabiki herself could be, and there really was no shame or dishonor in his being a weaker fighter since few others in their merry group could even compete with him. Why, Shampoo and Perfume combined could hardly touch him, and no one else in their little group could match him with skills (with the sole exception of Ryoga, and Nabiki had her suspicions on why the two boys were so closely matched in raw abilities, Ryoga's superhuman strength notwithstanding), so what was there for Ranma to feel so intimidated about? It was hardly like Nabiki thought any less of him for being a marginally weaker fighter…

Or was it that Ranma knew that she considered his skills to be secondary to her own? Could his male ego honestly find that objectionable? Was being considered second to a woman that serious a blow to his self-image and manhood? Nabiki could hardly believe that Ranma could be that shallow, but what else was there to believe, given his statement on leaving that he believed Nabiki no longer needed him around. Surely he could not mean the OTHER possible interpretation to that statement, that Nabiki's need for him on emotional terms was less than the bonds that she had forged with Shampoo and their baby…?

No…that could not be it! Ranma had to know that she needed him still, regardless of how close she had become with Shampoo and little Lylac. How could he have turned around so soon after the safe delivery of their child? And when had he ever given her the least little hint that he resented the baby? He had proven to be among the most reliable and responsible of those who had "volunteered" to do their share of changing diapers and tending to the baby. About the only chore he could not help out with was breast-feeding, and in that regard Shampoo insisted that she had it covered (and boy, was that ever a double-entendre!).

Or maybe it was not the baby…maybe it was Nabiki who had done something to hurt his feelings? It might well be Kuonji's fault, but she rather doubted that angle, considering how well those two seemed to get along like "best buddies." Perfume had said something about Ranma feeling double-cuckolded, so might having two of the four women with he was engaged getting pregnant from the other two have something to do with him feeling extraneous in their relationship? And, then again, getting stuck with two pregnant fiancées was pushing it a bit by even Nabiki's admittedly liberal standards…

She sighed as she glanced down into the valley, aware of how lonely she was with Ranma absent from the picture. She could not help remembering him as he was on the day when they first met (not counting a brief encounter in childhood, of course, one that she only dimly even remembered). It had been a rainy day and she had been in male form, asking her sister for some hot water while making awkward introductions to a family she had not seen in ten years. Because-at the time-she looked like a boy (or was one, thanks to her curse), Ranma had taken her for a boy at face value and had sparred against her (after she had handily defeated Akane in a previous match), losing rather decisively but seeming to take it as a good sport, only later learning the truth of Nabiki's "problems" in gender-switching.

She remembered that occasion when Ranma had accidentally caught her naked in the furo, and what amusement it had given her to "flash" herself before him, just a "harmless" bit of posing to determine what he thought of her as a woman, gratified that she could even produce such a reaction in a boy who knew her "secret." Ranma had panicked and backed away as if he had just committed some horrible crime in admiring her body, and then Akane showed up to administer the "punishment" he had evidently believed that he deserved. It was the first real inkling that Nabiki had about there being a genuine attraction between the both of them, a spark of interest that shortly thereafter flared into a virtual obsession.

From the first she had admired Ranma as a handsome, sometimes courteous, often rude boy with very good martial arts skills, but it had surprised her to notice that he also found her *interesting* to be around, and it made her heart soar to think of how they had quickly come to rely upon one another shortly after their parents switched the engagement from her sister to Nabiki. Not having been consulted prior to the announcement, Ranma and Nabiki had no sooner begun to adapt to the idea then they found themselves under virtual siege by a host of rival "players." Many of these, it turned out, were after Nabiki in either of her two aspects, first Kuno and then Ryoga, followed shortly after this by Kodachi-a girl with whom Ranma was enamored, yet who had mistakenly fallen for the charms of Nabiki's male form. And then came Keiko Arigami, who let out of the bag the secret of Nabiki's hidden bisexuality and gave Ranma an inkling of what was in store for the both of them when Shampoo arrived in Nerima.

So many interesting encounters, such as the further "surprise" that was in store for the both of them when Ukyo Kuonji had also arrived on the same rather colorful occasion as Shampoo, at that restaurant where Ranma and Nabiki had been enjoying their first date together. The thought that "Ojisan" Genma had engaged someone else to Ranma behind Nabiki's back (other than her sister, who no longer counted as even a technical "rival") had been infuriating enough without the added knowledge that the "arrangement" between fathers had come with a financial pricetag that was prohibitive should the engagement of Ukyo to Ranma be refused. Then Shampoo's great-grandmother had arrived on the scene to further enforce the Amazon's claims on Nabiki, and that was even before they knew about the baby!

Add to that the number of crises, challenges, rival claims and adventures that they had all endured ever since their meeting and it added up to one very exciting and *eventful* period of courtship, and yet in all that time had she ever really confided in Ranma how much she enjoyed his company or how excited she was by his very presence? She had never actually said the words of endearment that lovers were supposed to exchange with one another, and yet they had found many silent ways of expressing their affection. Nabiki had no doubt as to the nature of her own feelings, nor did she doubt that Ranma cared for her in a way that was more intensely personal than with any other (except possibly Kuonji), but still…

Still it frightened her deep down to know that there was someone in this world who could so deeply and intimately affect her in the way that Ranma did Nabiki. Her lifelong training in the husbanding of her own emotions left her ill-prepared to play the role of a romantic suitor. Poetry was more the style of Tatewaki Kuno, while Shampoo's free and uninhibited way of expressing her affections was beyond Nabiki's ability to emulate. She had always guarded the privacy of her feelings against the intrusions of other people, and letting go now felt like a violation of a lifetime of such training. Yet-absent a verbal expression of her need to have Ranma at her side-how else was she to make plain how much she wanted him to continue to be a part of her life? (And not just because their five-way arranged engagement would likely collapse without him in its center)

Perhaps the fault did lay with her after all…as she was, it was easy to understand how a man might feel a deep and abiding sense of confusion. She was a man half the time, and she had fathered a child on another girl. She had married that selfsame girl in a state of mild inebriation, yet she had come to accept Shampoo as her wife on all other levels. Topping that, Nabiki was a fiercely competitive fighter who accepted nothing less than the best in herself and those around her. Then there were her "business" dealings with her fellow high school students, the running of the dojo, her Internet Accounts and financial holdings to the tune of several score million yen, and the "information brokerage" that she ran on the sly with her network of "spies" keeping her informed of all that went down within Nerima.

Was it really so wrong to take pride in being the best of her generation? Nabiki was left to ask what her life would be like if she hadn't met and fallen for Ranma. What if she had stayed at home and been a "normal" schoolgirl with little interest in the martial arts, like Kasumi had been when her older sister had given up on her own formal training? What if she were alone (a horrifying word in her lexicon now) instead of surrounded by friends, followers, families and well-wishers who relied upon her to be the "pillar of strength" for the family? (Her father, rather obviously, being disqualified by his lack of mental acumen and emotional stability…)

She was just starting to grapple with these and other issues when she heard a voice shouting her way, "CAUGHT YOU NAPPING, NAB-CHAN! NOW YOUR ASS IS MINE!"

"Huh?" Nabiki reacted, then she jumped to her feet with great haste, just in time to avoid being slashed by a burst of Chi energy that scorched the stones upon which she had been sitting.

Keiko came vaulting out from the concealment of the woods at a dead run, leaping high into the air as she curled and tumble about before righting herself with a speed that was daunting. Her foot lashed out at Nabiki, who had to duck low to avoid it, only to find the girl's other foot had come rocketing towards her chin with force enough to knock her silly.

Nabiki turned in with the kick so that the impact was muted, and she spun about to dissipate the rest of the inertia before falling forward into a hand-spring as she spun her hips about and launched a kick of her own towards her assailant. The Kickboxer was ready for this tactic and met it effectively with a block that left Nabiki's body wide-open, but before she could seize the advantage the Anything Goes heir brought both of her legs forward and trapped the leggy redhead between them in a "scissors" headlock and-with a twist of her own body-Nabiki tumbled the girl around and slammed her against the ground with gone-jarring force…or at least that had been her intentions.

Keiko-much to Nabiki's surprise-caught herself with the palms of her hands reaching out to halt her downward momentum, and then she spun herself loose from Nabiki's grasp and lashed out with both legs in a "helicopter" fashion. Nabiki had to duck back against a series of kicks that would have hurt a great deal if they had connected…but then the ground underneath Keiko began to shatter and cave inward as though the force of her own movements had somehow shattered the cliffside granite.

All at once they found themselves at the top of an avalanche as the very stones that they were standing atop began to topple them into the valley!

"KEIKO-YOU IDIOT!" Nabiki shouted over the enormous tumult.

"Hey, it's not my fault!" Keiko protested, but as they had more important things on their minds besides assigning blame the two of them instead concentrated upon trying to avoid being crushed in the avalanche. They each did this by vaulting from stone to stone, using large boulders for support as they rode the rockslide down the side of a low mountain. Mid-way into their tumble, Keiko resumed fighting, making matters all the more difficult for Nabiki.

"Would you cut it out!" Nabiki cried as she evaded a roundhouse kick that came close to scoring while the two girls had momentarily become airborne.

"Make me!" Keiko challenged as they managed to avoid being trapped between boulders, bouncing off rolling stones the size of small cars while darting around from one point to another.

"All right-you asked for this!" Nabiki started to say when a shadow fell over her, and she turned about in time to see a huge boulder bearing down above their heads.

Fortunately Keiko saw it too, and executed a blindingly swift razor-kick that sliced the air and struck the boulder, splitting it in twain so that two massive halves went rolling on past their position.

"Nice," Nabiki said, very much impressed as they vaulted to a new series of boulders, then they came at each other again as they neared the bottom of the rockslide.

"I do my best!" Keiko replied as she rebounded off of one half of the shattered boulder then came sailing at Nabiki with a Dragon-Stomp kick, which same Nabiki countered with another kick, sensing that they were about to come to a very rude conclusion of the matter. With one eye she selected a handy clear space for launching, she then pushed off of a major boulder to strike the base of a tree before rebounding into the clear space. Keiko, meanwhile, did her dance above the rubble before tumbling clear and executing a one-point landing near to Nabiki.

"Shadowskills?" Nabiki arched an eyebrow.

"I've been watching you train," Keiko revealed, "You're good, but I'd already learned the technique from Mistress Lao during my last stay with her…hey, if it's got kicks to it, she taught it to me. Care to try me again? That was only a light work-out."

Nabiki did not dare to turn her head to regard the rockslide that had come so close to claiming them as she growled, "Try it and I'll lay you out! I'm in no mood for this kind of nonsense!"

"Nonsense?" Keiko visibly relaxed, rolling onto the balls of her feet as she smiled a jaunty smile towards Nabiki, "I thought you were here to train? Don't you think I make a good sparring partner? I'm almost as good as you, and I won't be satisfied until I'm at least your equal."

"Feeling mighty cocky about yourself, are you?" Nabiki growled softly.

"Well, that's one way of putting it, I suppose," Keiko tossed her head so that her long red braid flipped over one shoulder, "But hey, how am I supposed to improve if I don't take on the best of the best, meaning you, Nab-chan. You think you're the only one who's in need of some improvement?"

"No," Nabiki replied, "But next time you could try asking."

"Wouldn't be as much of a surprise if I did," Keiko counter-argued, "And I've always loved tangling with you…Sugar,'" she winked as she said this.

"You've definitely been hanging around with Kuonji," Nabiki slowly nodded.

"And that's a bad thing?" Keiko raised her eyebrows, "Don't bother answering, I know full well that Perfume would slice me into Sushi if I tried anything with her wife. I just thought the word suited you, considering I know how sweet and salty you are from when I buried my face between those legs of yours a couple years back…"

"Ah…" Nabiki felt her face go red all over as unbidden memories resurfaced. She hardly needed the reminder that Keiko had been her first, the first girl to claim her during their brief time together hiding out in the slums of Hong Kong, many months before the middle Tendo daughter had discovered a lovely Amazon to marry…

"Fact is, I was coming to talk to you when I saw you sitting there looking like you'd lost your best friend or something," Keiko continued, "You really are fretting over Saotome, eh? I know by that look that you're a woman in love…and please don't go into that stammering act of yours. It was cute the first dozen times, but you've been overplaying it a bit of late."

"I have, huh?" Nabiki replied with a sheepish expression, "But…if you wanted to tell me that, then why did you attack me?"

"Because I thought you needed something to take your mind off your woes," the redhead said with a grin, "And you looked like you needed to have your ass kicked."

"Am I really that pathetic?" Nabiki asked.

"You are as far as I'm concerned," Keiko sniffed, "I know you better than this…there's no reason for you to act like a kicked puppy, just because your boyfriend is going through a few personal problems and needs to get his head on straight. I can understand where he's coming from, but you…you just mope around and act like this just came totally out of the blue, like you've been blind-sided in traffic."

"That's pretty much how I feel," Nabiki said, "And what do you mean you understand where he's coming from? What do you know about Ranma that I don't?"

"You want a list?" Keiko replied, "Seriously, the problem you're both having comes down to having mixed expectations about what it means for the both of you to get married. You think of it as a business partnership in which all of the household labors get doled out and assigned to the respective family members, but I can tell you that there's a lot more to a relationship than that. For one thing you've got to let go of this idea that you need to be the head of the household and start respecting your fiancé more. You've been taking things way too much for granted, and yet you've also been taking them way too serious, like with your martial arts…"

"How's that again?" Nabiki asked, "How are those two related? My fiancé and my martial arts?"

"You shouldn't even need to ask me that," Keiko snorted, "With you it's the same thing…you study hard and you try to come out on top. You're too competitive, and yet you just won't let the other party join you in the dance. The saying goes, 'It take two to Tango,' well…that also means that you have to dance WITH your partner instead of dancing AGAINST him. You both have to learn to do this thing together, to trust each other and RELAX a little! You're so intense it's makes me sick just watching you…you're too wound up like a coiled spring, and sooner or later something was bound to go 'snap' under all that tension."

"A coiled spring?" Nabiki blinked, "You're saying I've been putting too much responsibility and pressure on Ranma?""

"Exactly," Keiko nodded, "Only at the same time you aren't giving him any credit. You take it for granted that you're smarter and a better fighter than he is, and that's started to grate with him, see what I'm saying?"

"You mean I've been rubbing his nose in it…without realizing I'm doing it?" Nabiki asked.

"Give the girl a Prize for finding a Clue!" Keiko threw up her hands, "Trust works both ways, you know…you don't trust him, why should he trust you? You don't respect him, why shouldn't he resent it?"

"I never thought of it that way," Nabiki sighed, "You're right when you say that things have been awfully tense of late, but I never meant to make Ranma feel small or unimportant...""

"I'm sure he knows that," Keiko replied, "But it might not hurt if you told him that sometime. Tell the guy just what he means to you and maybe he might start to feel like he really matters to you, that what he feels is important. You've learned to delegate responsibility to your subordinates at high school, isn't it time you made more quality time for him? I know Shampoo wouldn't mind it if you spent more time looking after Ranma's needs and not just wait for him to come around to looking after your needs. Above all else what you need to practice is COMMUNICATION, you got that?"

"I think so," Nabiki smiled, "When did you suddenly turn into such an expect on my affairs?"

"Hey, somebody around here has to be keeping track of the score card," Keiko replied, "I'm the one who's trained for it, so why shouldn't I be the one to give your ego some deflation?"

"You are good at that," Nabiki grudgingly admitted, "So you mean I need to talk to Ranma more like an equal?"

"That all depends," Keiko replied, "Do you think of him as an equal? Or is he just a trophy husband?"

"A trophy husband?" Nabiki blinked, "You've gotta be kidding…"

"Nope," Keiko replied, "But that's what the guy must be starting to feel like. You're the Great and Powerful Tendo Nabiki, and you've been acting like he was a satellite moving around in your orbit. You've got to go back to the basics and think about what it is that attracted you to the guy in the first place, and then make him understand the real nature of your feelings."

"My…feelings?" Nabiki repeated, looking down, "Oboy…"

The redhead shook her head and smiled, "Same old Nab-chan. Long as I've known you, you've always tried to remain in control and act like you're on top of the game. You just don't know how to relax and enjoy actual human feelings and emotions. If you ever do figure out how to be more human, call me."

"More human…?" Nabiki blinked, "HEY, I'm human enough!"

"You actually admit it?" Keiko raised her eyebrows, "Wow, this is a red-letter day! Now maybe you might try saying it with even more feeling. The thing you need to do is try to relax and let go of this need to be in charge of everything. There's only so much you can do to control the way things happen in this life, Nab-chan, and the sooner you stop trying to play Kami-sama, the sooner you'll figure out that the job is already taken."

"I'm not that bad…am I?" Nabiki asked.

"Let's take a little test, shall we?" Keiko lifted a finger, "Try telling me, here and now, what exactly it is you think about when you hear the name Saotome Ranma."

"Ranma?" Nabiki thought a moment and found that many different (and sometimes contradictory) images appeared in her mind at the mention of her iinazuke, and she tried her best to verbalize the first words that came into her head, "Handsome…stubborn…a nice guy…nice butt, real tight-ah-is it all right if I change that last part?"

"Okay then," Keiko pointedly ignored that last question, "So you think of him as great looking and a nice guy, but just a little too stubborn for his own good. Anything else?"

"Well…" Nabiki screwed up her face a bit before adding, "He's brave, thoughtful, kind, not a bully, maybe a little rude sometimes, and not as well polished as when he tries to behave like his mother would want him to behave…"

"You know, something about that last part kind of amuses me," Keiko grinned, "Most boys raised by their mothers in Japan pick up all sorts of weird ideas and bad habits, but you had to luck out by having a mother-in-law who thinks large, extended families are a sign of Manliness. Frankly, I think she'd be happy if your boyo was screwing all four of you on a nightly basis, and maybe a few others on the sideline, like me."

"Like you?" Nabiki was mildly incredulous.

"Don't let the big 'L' label fool you," Keiko winked, "I've slept with a lot of things worse than a guy, and even quite a few virgins, present company included."

"Ah…well…" Nabiki colored once again.

"Actually, I think I'll leave the actual deflowering part to you," Keiko mused, "I think you both have earned that much happiness, don't you? I'd consider my role much more that of the referee cheering the two of you on in a stammering match to see which of you breaks down first and admits that you're nuts about the other. You really do have a sweet deal going down here, the best of all worlds, in my opinion, and isn't it about time you up and admitted that to yourself? So…the question you should be asking is…why would you want to screw things up by letting a good thing get away? Seize the day with both hands, I say, and don't ever let that boy get away! You do that and you'll regret it for the rest of your days."

"Ah…yeah…no fooling about that," Nabiki said in a very faint tone of voice, then she recovered herself and said, "What am I so worried about anyway? Ranma isn't going away forever, he's promised me that he'll come back, and he's never yet broken a promise…ah…to me that is…"

"So why should he start now?" Keiko winked, "You see? You can look on the bright side, if you put your mind to it. Now…try doing one more thing for me, will you?"

"And what's that?" Nabiki asked.

"Have fun," Keiko replied, "Smile, laugh, enjoy yourself, have a good time! That applies to the martial arts as well as your personal life, y'know? It's the one thing you've yet to master."

"Having fun?" Nabiki blinked as she said this.

"Lose yourself in the moment," Keiko explained, "Give yourself to the dance that is combat, live the fight, enjoy it! Revel in the feeling of what it means to be alive!"

"Fighting makes you feel alive?" Nabiki repeated.

"You got a problem with your hearing?" Keiko asked as she leaned closer, "Repeating everything I say isn't like you, Nabiki. You're usually a livelier debater than this, and you really don't need to ask me these kinds of questions. You should ask yourself…why do you fight? What's in it for you? Why go to the trouble of training so hard for a fight if you're not in it for profit or destruction or to simply kick butt? What purpose would there be to fighting if not for the love of the art? You certainly aren't planning to face Ranma with the intent to either hurt or kill him, so what other reason can there be but to prove to yourselves that the two of you are partners and equals?"

"Equals?" Nabiki blinked her eyes, "We'll be fighting each other to prove that we're equals?"

"You're doing it again," Keiko pointed out.

"Uh…yeah…guess I am at that, huh?" Nabiki said sheepishly, "Sorry about that…"

"Don't be sorry," Keiko replied, "I'm not the one you need to apologize to here, Nab-chan. I'm just your friend…Ranma's your iinazuke, and if there's any groveling to be done here, he's the one who needs to see you do it."

"Me grovel?" Nabiki smirked, "I'd sooner do the Crouch of the Wild Tiger."

"Huh?" Keiko blinked, "I'm afraid I don't know that one…"

"No reason you should," Nabiki replied, "It was one of Uncle Genma's 'Special' moves that he taught me on the road. It's…not all that impressive, and it's even pretty humiliating to put into practice. He recommended that I use it once with the old man when he slapped that Moxibustion thing on me a while back, but it turns out it wasn't needed. I…don't know if it would be all that effective with Ranchan, but…I'll keep it in mind just in case I need to do some serious fence-mending."

"Uh…okay," Keiko replied, "Well…think about what I said and see what you come up with. Heck, you're smart enough to do your own thinking, I just thought that I'd give you a nudge in the right direction."

"Thanks, it's appreciated," Nabiki nodded, "But Kei-chan? In the future…think you could find a way of making your point that's not so hard on the landscape?"

"Oh," Keiko glanced at the now-settled landslide and said, "Well…I guess geology never was my strong point. That's the problem when you use a technique as powerful as the Shadowskills…it tends to wreak havoc on the neighborhood."

"Guess that means I shouldn't use this stuff indoors," Nabiki mused, "Thanks for the ass-kicking, by the way, I needed that to cheer myself up."

"Hey, anytime you need a little ass kicked, you can always count on me," Keiko winked, "And if Saotome were here, you can bet I'd give him what for!"

"Have ass, will be kicked," Nabiki nodded, "Duly noted."

"Now, you'd better get back to camp before your OTHER significant other starts wondering where you got off to," Keiko smiled, "And take it from me, you don't want an Amazon doubting your solidarity and commitment."

"Right," Nabiki nodded, "That's one match I wouldn't want to give odds about. Sham-chan means the world to me, but Ranma…" she sighed.

"Now, you see?" Keiko grinned, "The way you said his name just now…THAT had genuine feeling behind it. You should practice on that before Ranma comes back, learn how to share what's inside you, and then maybe the fight will be wholly unnecessary."

"I thought this fight was to prove that we're equals?" Nabiki reasoned.

"Don't get pedantic with me," Keiko sniffed, "You're only equals if you accept him as a co-partner. This isn't about satisfying Amazon law or proving which one of you is the better fighter, this is about showing how much trust and respect you have in your relationship. Nothing else counts as much as showing Ranma what you are and what he means to you…what it's all about that brings the both of you together."

"I'll think about that," Nabiki nodded.

"You do that," the pig-tailed girl smiled as she turned away, "Now I'd better go find Kodachi before she comes looking for me. Don't want her thinking I've run off and seduced you behind her back."

"Ah…right," Nabiki replied nervously, "No need to have a jealous Kuno on my back…been there and done that…"

"Oh, I'm not worried about her being jealous," Keiko lasciviously grinned, "But if she thought I'd made love to you without inviting her to share in the fun…now that would get ugly. Seeya, Sweet-tush."

With that she flipped her head forward and her long pig-tail slung out and curled around Nabiki's back, striking her on the rump and earning a yelp from an unprepared Nabiki.

"Caught you napping…again," Keiko cheerfully called back over her shoulder, and Nabiki just stood there watching the jaunty redhead saunter away, swaying her hips in an exaggerated manner until at last the Tendo heir said, "Oh…"

It went without saying that Nabiki had always found Keiko a puzzling mass of contradictory elements, both strong and gentle, tough and insightful, brash and yet somehow very warm and personable, a good friend and a tough competitor, one minute street-savvy, the next minute the very model of good manners and politeness…all of that and more, and still she could constantly surprise Nabiki at moments such as these by offering advice that actually made sense after a fashion. They had known each other for years, off and on, and still Keiko Arigami was something of an enigma, but Nabiki knew that the half-American girl was a very good friend and her advice could be trusted…(like her)…up to a point.

She just wondered why that pig-tailed redhead could sometimes remind her so much of Saotome Ranma…

Happosai realized at once the drawback to his resolve to find Genma and his son…namely being that just knowing the man and his haunts did not absolutely insure that Happosai would find his wayward disciple…namely that there was a lot of territory to cover in a day or two, and no certain direction which Genma might have chosen to take the boys for training. The one thing that was certain, however, was that it would have to be close to a residential area, preferably near to a ruined building that could be destroyed without recriminations. The Yamasenken and Umisenken would require it if the boys were to master such a powerful and difficult technique.

So Happosai found himself wandering down the trail to the outskirts of town, having already visited Genma's usual favorite camping spots (ones near enough to a roadside café where they had a dumpster out of which good eats could be pilfered), wondering where next to look for a balding man and two teenaged boys traveling on foot like wandering mendicants. Knowing their destructive potential and tendency to wind up getting into trouble made it seem a simple enough proposition to one who knew what signs to look for in order to catch up with their trail, and being that said trail was hardly two days old made it likely that he could find them in very short order.

Especially considering that the older man had a Jusenkyo curse, which made it very unlikely that he could avoid contact with cold water. All it would take was one sighting of a panda in the company of two boys and Happosai would be on this lead in less than a heartbeat. Genma might go to ground and be hard to find for the local constabulary, but nothing would hide him from the probing eyes of Happosai, his concerned and doting Master.

Near the edge of town, however, the diminutive martial artist caught sight of something else that was both unusual and wholly unexpected…a circus had come to town…and not just any circus indeed, but one that bore the distinctive name of the Cherry Blossom Traveling Circus.

Cherry Blossom? Now THAT brought back some memories! Ah, yes…the old days when the lads were young and spry and had all sorts of cuties dogging their trail and making life exciting! Happosai never could understand why Soun and Genma had settled down with only one woman apiece when they could have had a literal harem to their credit a piece, but then those two always had been disappointing in the selective way that they chose to receive his training.

[Wonder if that special cutie, Sakura-chan, is still giving fortunes?] the wizened old Hentai silently mused, [Wouldn't mind a bit sampling some of her cherry blossoms. Too bad I'm in a hurry to find that worthless old panda…]

It was not often that Happosai had an epiphany, but a stray one dawned on him right there and then as his mind slowly did the math and came up with the stunning equation: Panda + Circus = Genma + Sakura = HIDEOUT!

It was a stunningly clear equation, one so bright and obvious that Happosai marveled at its simplicity. And to think that Genma could have come up with such an effective and cunning strategy on his own, the sly dog! Perhaps Happosai had underestimated the rogue after all, or perhaps Genma was just reverting to type and sensed a free meal and some lodgings that he could use as a base for training for his boys to be better martial artists. Happosai silently complimented his favorite pupil for showing some initiative (for once!). This would make the search much, much easier for his loving Master to track the old boy down and find the son Genma wanted to train in the two styles of the Senken.

And besides, if Sakura still had her girlish figure after all these years, then Happosai could cop a good feel, thus stoning two birds with one rock…or some such nonsense…

And then some instinct…a sixth sense known only to the truly perverted, made him turn to look in a particular direction, and there he saw what looked like Sakura from a time warp, young and beautiful once again, and in the company of two boys whom the ancient Master of the Anything Goes school would have known in a fogbank. Happosai smiled, seeing opportunity come knocking with the force of a large wooden mallet, and without further adieu promptly altered his forward direction…

"There you go, boys," Kaoih remarked as she paused at the lion cages, and the two boys standing next to her realized that they were not the ones to whom she was addressing.

To their amazement, the caged animals responded to her verbal entreaties with some snuffs and animal noises that sounded like an affectionate greeting. Clearly they recognized her as a friend and not just a source of care and feeding. The brown haired girl clearly had a rapport with these dangerous creatures, enough so that Ranma and Ryoga watched in awe as she patted one lion on the head, as if not even mindful of what the big cat could do if it turned and snapped at the hand that fed it.

Of course, seeing the large creatures behaving like oversized members of the domestic breed did not embolden them to approach any closer. They instead watched as Kaoih talked to one big cat in its cage, and then to another, said cages well spaced apart from one another so as to prevent the animals from clawing at their neighbors.

"You take care of all these animals?" Ryoga asked as he noted the other cages stationed upwind and away from the leopards, lions and tigers, mainly the monkey, gorilla, giraffe, ostrich and elephant pens that were attracting the interest of many patrons, especially children.

"Well, I'm one of the handlers, yes," Kaoih replied, "But since they're a part of my act, we have to get to know one another pretty well so we can trust each other and not have any misunderstandings. Most creatures respond favorably to a kind word and some patient understanding. There's no point in being afraid of them because they are dangerous…it's that element of danger that attracts the Rubes and makes them want to see them perform with me inside a large cage…though maybe a few just watch because they think there's a chance that they might go wild and try to eat me."

"And you're not afraid they might?" Ranma asked.

"Wouldn't be much point," the brown haired girl replied with a shrug, "They're strong and fast enough that they could take me out with very little trouble. My job is to see that they never feel any inclination to chomp down on poor, tasty little me. Besides, I know how to handle myself in the ring, and I've been doing this since I was very little."

"You must be very brave," Ryoga turned a glance at Ranma, "Nabiki wouldn't even come within a hundred feet of one of these cages…"

"Yeah, no kidding," Ranma said, "She deathly afraid of the things since Pop…" he did not continue.

Kaoih sighed, "I never could get Nabiki over her Alurophobia. She'd break out in a cold sweat just standing downwind of one of these cages. She'd circle around an entire city block rather than have to get near them, and even a stray alleycat could set her off like nothing I've ever seen, which is kind of funny when you consider what an acrobat she was, utterly fearless on the trapeze and high wire acts…"

"Nabiki performed in your circus?" Ranma's eyebrows arched in dull amazement.

Kaoih straightened up and turned to face him, saying, "You're her iinazuke, right? Yeah, you look like you might be her type…strong, handsome, shy, not too bright…"

"Hey!" Ranma protested.

"Just kidding," she grinned, "Don't be such a rube, Saotome-san. Actually, I knew Nabiki five years ago, but I think I had a good enough handle on her character to know her pretty well, and I doubt she'd give her heart to just any old stud, which means there's got to mean a lot more to you than just another pretty face. And you are definitely Aunt Atsuko's kid," she added with an aside to Ryoga, "There's enough of her in you that you can't be anybody else, and that headband is a definite giveaway. Last time she was by she gave us a pretty good description of you, but that was eight or nine months back in Hokkaido…"

"Hokkaido?" Ranma blinked, "What was she doing out there?"

"Do you have to ask?" Kaoih eyed him blandly, "She's a Hibiki."

"Ah…yeah…that sounds like Mom," Ryoga rubbed the bad of his head and gave a nervous chuckle.

"So," Kaoih tried to sound nonchalant as she asked, "What the deal between you and that guy in the Rambo suit? You two arch enemies or what?"

"Actually, we only met him yesterday," Ranma shrugged, "He tried to break my back and came damned near close to killing Ryoga…"

"It was just a lucky punch," Ryoga growled, "Now that I know what to look for he won't have it so easy…"

"I dunno," Kaoih said with a frown, "That guy seemed way too slick and casual to be just any old brawling street fighter. I get the strong impression that-if he'd really been serious about it-he could have killed you both without half trying. That he let you live means he wants something…this Umisenken thing that your Dad's supposed to teach you."

"The Umisenken," Ranma frowned, "A powerful technique, I barely even saw it coming."

"I hardly saw it at all," Ryoga complained, "It was like your father just became invisible or something…one minute he was there, the next he wasn't."

"You mean like he just vanished into fat air?" Kaoih turned away to hide her expression, "Yeah…that sounds like Pops Saotome…"

"Fat air?" Ryoga repeated, "Don't you mean thin-oh…"

"Yeah, Oh," Ranma said dryly before turning his focus back towards the girl before them, "What do you mean it's just like him? Just what do you know about Pop that we don't?"

"Oh…nothing too much," Kaoih replied, "Just that he can't be trusted any farther than you can throw him, and that he can steal pretty much anything that isn't nailed down-including the nails-if he has a mind to. Nabiki kept his larcenous habits in check, and they seemed to amuse Mom more than annoy her, even when she caught Uncle Genma eyeing the security lock box with the weekly proceeds. It was almost uncanny the way he could just seem to vanish and sneak into any place that he wanted without anyone seeing him move…"

"Without anyone seeing him move?" Ranma repeated, blinking his eyes as a sudden awareness dawned upon him, "Of course, that's it! That's the secret we've been missing all this time! I understand it now! I've finally figured out the secret of the Umisenken!"

"So I've gathered," a familiar voice said, "I knew that even a young punk like you would have enough on the ball to figure it out without much effort."

All three teenagers turned around in time to see the little man perched on top of the tiger's cage gazing at them with a very wizened expression. It took a whole second for Ranma to gasp, "YOU? Where the heck did you come from?"

"Lots of different places, my boy," Happosai replied when his attention riveted upon the member of the female sex who was present, "Do my eyes deceive me? It's little Kaoih, all grown up into a beautiful young lady. Come to Poppa, Baby!"

"Urk!" Kaoih reacted as the little man launched himself at her and latched his arms around her chest, hanging on in spite of her best efforts to dislodge him.

"HEY!" Ranma protested.

"You damned pervert!" Ryoga cried in outrage.

"Just a minute, boys," said pervert responded with nonchalant indifference to the implied double-threat, "I'll get to you just as soon as I finish becoming re-acquainted with little Kaoih-chan here…"

"I-you…" Kaoih began to sputter when an amazing thing happened…she calmed down and took on a crafty look that was utterly unexpected. Instead what she said aloud was, "Uncle Happy…long time no see…enjoying the squeeze?"

"Oh…this is heavenly!" the old man was positively weeping, "You've filled out so nicely, just like a girl ought to do when she starts out as such a cute little child…"

"Thanks for the compliment," Kaoih cast a glance sidelong and then cried, "HEY-RUUUBE!!!"

Ranma and Ryoga were taken by surprise at the sudden fierceness of that cry, having been torn with indecision as their desire to peel the Old Man away from the young girl was tempered by the knowledge that no attack within their dual arsenals would be effective on at a low-level thrust, and that anything powerful enough to actually threaten Happosai was likely to prove damaging to the girl. What they did not count on was a third party coming to the rescue before either of them could make a move forward. Like a blur, that figure tore the old man away from Kaoih and savagely threw him to the ground, planting a dragon-stomp on top of him as he followed through on his own momentum.

"What the…?" Ranma blurted.

"How did he…?" Ryoga began to ask.

"How did I what?" demanded Ryu Kumon, "I was in the area and I saw this creep molesting a girl, and since neither of you two idiots looked ready to do anything…"

"Hey, it's not that!" Ranma immediately protested.

"You don't know him like we do…" Ryoga started to say when all at once a pipe held in a tiny hand detached itself from the blackness of the hole and tapped Ryu along the shin, causing the older boy to go flying sideways as if struck by a large hammer.

"Now that was rude," Happosai said as he climbed out of the small mini-crater, still holding his pipe, "Can't a man sit down to enjoy a good feel-up without every hoodlum in the neighborhood trying to take advantage of my kindly nature?"

"What the…" Ryu declared as he got back to his feet once again, having flown a great distance, "that should have crushed every bone in your body with that move, Old Man. How did you survive it?"

"Pshaw!" Happosai said dismissively, "It'd take a lot more than a young punk like you to put me down. I don't know who you are, but if you try that again…"

"Old Freak," Ranma said matter-of-factly, "Meet Kumon Ryu. Kumon-san, meet the bane of our existence and all-around embarrassment to the Anything Goes school, Happosai the Hentai."

"Now is that anyway to talk about your Master, you young ingrate?" Happosai growled, "And after I went to all the trouble to find you, too…"

"Shut up!" Ryoga snarled, "You have a lot of nerve attacking a poor defenseless girl just because you want to…"

"Did you say defenseless?" Kaoih got a very peculiar smile on her face, and then with surprising flourish whipped out a silk sheet from seeming no where and flashed it around her supple body, then gripping both ends as she held it aloft and cried, "Taa-Daa!!!"

To everyone else's amazement, when she pulled the silk screen away what was revealed in its wake was nothing less than a seven hundred pound fully grown Bengal Tiger!

"Oh…" Happosai blinked his eyes, "Hey, that's not half bad! Did you learn that trick from your mother?"

"What do you think?" Kaoih smiled over the roar of her large striped companion, "Sick 'im, Bashira!"

Said tiger launched itself at the old man, who ducked out of the way of its massive swipe with paws as big as the old man's head, and to their amazement the tiger pivoted around and faced the old man once again with a roar that was loud enough to peel the paint off of a large wagon.

"Nice kitty," Happosai tried to sound entreating as he slowly backed away from the large cat, "Don't come any closer, or I'll have to use my special technique…OWWW!!!" he cried as he suddenly got kicked away by an opportunistic Ryu Kumon.

"Save it for a rainy day, Old Man," Ryu growled as he rather pointedly placed himself in the path between the Tiger and Kaoih, "Don't worry, Miss…it won't get to you past me. I can take this overgrown tabby down long before it can hurt you."

"But I don-ah…" Kaoih's expression changed and suddenly she said, "Oh…how brave you are, kind sir! This is twice in a single day that you've come to my rescue. You must be a very great hero…"

"Huh?" Ryu's attention wavered by a fraction as he started to turn back towards the girl, which the tiger immediately saw and recognized as an opening in which to launch another attack, having reacted as if offended by the larger boy's previously dismissive comments.

Ryu saw his peril and started to react, knowing he had just lost a critical advantage, but before the great cat was able to clear half the space between them another figure darted forward from seeming nowhere with a second silken cloth in hand into which the tiger vanished, then Sakura turned around and completed her motion with great flourish, converting the silken cloth into a mere kerchief, and bowing to her astonished audience with a flashy grin that was pure showman.

"Sorry to interfere," the Ringmistress told a non-plussed Ryu, "But I can't have you damaging a valuable member of my show. Tigers like this are very rare in the wild, you know, and it's awfully difficult to replace them."

"I don't believe it," Ryoga gasped, "Where did the tiger go?"

"Why, to its cage, of course," Sakura noted as she turned to reveal said cage containing a very frustrated looking tiger, "Can't have Bashira running around unattended, it might scare off my customers for the evening."

"Kind of dangerous letting a big cat like that off the leash, don't you think?" Ryu said as he glanced around and said, "Where did that old freak get off to?"

"Who knows," Ranma shrugged, "But hey…how did you show up all of a sudden? Are you following us around expecting to steal the Umisenken?"

"Shut your mouth, Saotome," Ryu glared, "I've got a perfectly legitimate reason for being here…"

"Quite so," Sakura said brightly, "Kumon-san has quite gallantly accepted my offer of temporary employment and is now a paid staff employee of the Cherry Blossom circus, so it is only natural that he should be looking out for the welfare of my daughter…"

"Oh yeah," Kaoih said brightly as she glommed onto the arm of an astonished Ryu, "My hero…"

"Uh…hah?" the combat-clad young martial artist reacted, finding the power of speech stolen away by the large moon-eyed look the younger girl paid him.

"Call me crazy," Ryoga remarked, "But I think that guy just met his match…"

"Seriously," nodded Ranma, feeling ironic sympathy for his nominal foeman.

"Boy," Genma said as he appeared behind Ranma, "Was that the Master I just saw standing here not twenty seconds ago?"

"Yeah, Pop," Ranma said, "It was him."

"Too bad," Genma sighed, "Now that he's found us he'll be impossible to get rid of. And here I was hoping that I'd have more time to train you by myself…"

"Don't worry," Ranma murmured softly as he glanced towards Ryu, who was being distracted by the distracting feminine presence latching onto his arm in the form of Kaoih, "I think I've got it figured out now. I know how to do the Umisenken."

"Do you now, Boy?" Genma asked, drawing him away while they were presently unnoticed, and then out of sight of the others he pulled out the other scroll he carried and handed it to Ranma, "Take a look and see if it's what you expected."

Ranma undid the binding and began to unroll the scroll, pausing as he read the title written at the top in silence, then slowly nodded his head and said, "I was right…now I know why you call it a dishonorable system."

"I warned you that I created it when I was a very different man than I am today," Genma sighed, "But I don't blame you if you're disappointed in your father."

"Not disappointed, Pop," Ranma said as he continued to unroll more of the scroll, pausing to study each of the dozen different maneuvers he saw illustrated there, "Just a little sad. I think I understand that part too, now…living under that pervert, it's a wonder you didn't use this to make yourself a fortune."

"I might well have turned out like that," Genma nodded, "But…well…time changes a man…and maybe you'll understand more when you are a father."

"I hope so," Ranma said as he rolled the scroll back up again and handed it back to his father, "You don't mind if I take off for a little bit, do you? I wanna practice this by myself."

"No problem," Genma said, "And take your time. It's still two more days until you have to face Kumon."

"Two days?" Ranma sniffed, "Won't even take me that long. And Pop…thanks for trusting me. It means a lot."

"You've earned it, Boy," Genma said, "Make me proud."

"I'm not sure what Pride has to do with it," Ranma said, "But I'll put this to a very good use in putting that creep down but good."

"I know you will," Genma nodded, "I wouldn't trust it to you if I had any doubts, Boy…Boy?"

Silence answered him as Genma glanced around, finding himself seemingly alone, to which he smiled and adjusted his glasses, murmuring faintly to himself, "What do you know…he's got it already…that's my boy…"

A faint whisper from seemingly everywhere and no where at once replied softly, "Don't remind me…" and then there was silence…

Continued

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