Story: Akane's Gift: Eggstremely Selfish Sister

One would think that, by this point, word would have gotten around. Do not attempt to date Nabiki Tendo. Do not pass her a confession letter. That is, unless you are the kind of guy who is turned on by being blackmailed, used up and stepped on. Which some boys might well be. Not that it especially mattered to Nabiki. She got her fun and their cash either way.

This night had been just like the others. Some boy (whose name she had written down, but couldn't be bothered remembering) had made the classic mistake of writing a sappy letter confessing he "loved" her, and asked her out on a date. Pft! Laughable! They didn't love her. They thought she was hot. Which, objectively speaking, she was. All three of them were in their own way. Kasumi almost certainly had her own little nest of secret admirers who were too shy to comment, while Akane...

Well, Akane's love life was a story unto itself. It honestly made Nabiki chuckle a little to herself on her return home. Boys tripped over themselves for her attention, but there was only one boy she had any interest in at all these days. And half the time he was a she.

Anyway, back to the date: He showed up. She forgot what he looked like every time she stopped looking at him, which was about 75% of the date. She didn't pay him any attention beyond the bare minimum, except for moments where she could squeeze a little something out of him. Get him to pay for dinner. Get him to give her an expensive gift. And so forth. Make him pay for the opportunity to spend time with a cutie like her.

Then, at evening's end, spring the bill: A monthly payment to keep her mouth shut. A little bribe to keep her from photocopying and mass distributing the rather sappy letter and the poem it contained. Really now, it was quite pathetic. If they actually did "love" her, then they wouldn't care about that sort of thing. Now, would they?

"Evening, sis," said Akane. Which was surprising, because at this particular moment in time she was sitting on Nabiki's bed. Looking up at the ceiling and weirdest of all tossing an egg between her hands. "Have a good date?"

"Same old, same old," she answered with a shrug. "Something I can help you with?"

Strange. There was something a touch cold and hot behind her eyes. Oh, dear. Little sister did have a bit of a temper about her. That sort of thing didn't usually bother Nabiki... But then again, it's not every day that a girl's wedding gets ruined. You can't really depend on "usual" in that case.

Also, why the egg?

"How do you live with it?" Akane asked. "You keep doing such terrible things to people. You invited those people to my wedding, and you even blackmailed Ranma for your silence when his mother first showed up.* How do you live with doing such terrible things to people?"

"I don't do terrible things to people," Nabiki offered. "I let them do terrible things to themselves. If Ranma had been more honest to his mother up front it would have saved him a lot of hassle, and do you really think any of them would have let it be with just a marriage certificate?" Nabiki shrugged. "If anything, I dare say I did you both a favour. If I don't show you your personal weaknesses, then maybe someone even nastier than me will instead."

"In other words, you were acting in our best interests when you ruined the happiest day of my life?"

Uh-oh. Miscalculation noted. Don't say that Akane was seriously planning on marrying that idiot! The younger girl climbed up off her bed, still tossing that egg in between her hands. Weird how something like that could seem menacing all of a sudden.

"Well!" Akane huffed. "Thanks for making this easier for me than I was expecting!"


The egg was thrown. It hardly seemed a worthwhile revenge, really: At this trajectory the only thing that would be hurt was Nabiki's jacket. Or should that be Akane's jacket? She had planned on sneaking it back into her little sister's room later on before she even noticed it was missing, but oh well! Now it was going to get ruined and - Uh...

A series of threads were coming out of it? What? Wrapping around Nabiki's body, holding her tight, pulling her into the fetal position against her will and closing up around her in this dark... Comfortable... Warm...

Sleepy. So sleepy.

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Oh, gosh. Oh, gosh! She'd done it. She'd really actually done it! There it was sitting on the floor, an egg with a mean-spirited big sister sitting inside of it. Now Akane was pacing the floor around it, sweating like she'd done an hour-long workout in the middle of a desert.

Now, you see the issue was that Akane was a bit of an emotional girl. Yes, yes! Shocking but true! Her emotions were on her sleeve. Sometimes she'd act without really thinking through what she was feeling or overthink things and get emotional and there's little more emotional than a wedding, except maybe, just maybe a ruined wedding.

She bit her lip. "Deep breath," she said, and then took one. "Nabiki sent out the invites. Any plan I tried, she'd sell me down the river first chance she got. She'd find out about the eggs. Try to use them herself. I'm just saving everyone a lot of hassle." Self included, big time.

Of course, her conscience nagged, there were other reasons for doing this to her. You're not very clever at this sort of thing. Your best plan for dealing with Shampoo would probably be to challenge her straight up, toss some eggs - and then she'd counter because she'd encountered them already and Shampoo is a much, much better martial artist than you and prettier than you and has more in common with Ranma and -

"No!" she firmly declared. "I'm not giving him up to that - That - psycho-bitch!"

Oof. That felt good to say. Shampoo was a psycho-bitch. A murderous, manipulative devil who was probably worse than Nabiki. Ukyo was... Decent, but that little stunt at the wedding definitely cost her some friendship points. If this was how they were going to behave on the brink of defeat, then let's face it, girl: This is the <i>only way</i> you're getting your man and keeping him.

Because Ranma loved her. And she loved him. Loved him. Loved him to pieces. Even though he was a bit of an idiot, even though he didn't want to admit how he felt deep down. Because. Jusendo had shown her what kind of man he was. Not the immature boy that joked around. A man. A real man. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. The man she wanted to have children with. The man she wanted to set up a dojo with. The man whom she -

"Akane, Nabiki! I'm home!"

Kasumi. That was Kasumi's voice! Akane looked at the clock. So soon?

"Mrs Saotome will be back soon. She wanted to make a quick stop first to see a friend."

What should she do? That egg wasn't ready to hatch yet, and she'd need at least another few minutes before it was. Akane gulped. She had to play this carefully. She had to keep her big sister from finding out, or maybe even worse from being the first person Nabiki saw when the egg hatched. And since Kasumi must have seen Nabiki's shoes, she couldn't pretend her sister wasn't here!

But the sound of feet on the stairs wasn't making her feel particularly confident....

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*I should note there's a translation issue here. In the original Japanese, it's pretty clear this is what Nabiki's doing. Trouble is, the translation most people read paints her in a different and more sympathetic light, making it seem like even she's a little moved by Ranma's predicament in this one case and offering not to force him to pay her for silence. This is not the case in the original, and frankly that's way more in character.

1. Backed into a corner, Akane is forced to egg her older sister too.
2. Akane steps outside of Nabiki's room to keep Kasumi busy and send her off elsewhere.
3. The egg hatches before Kasumi arrives.
4. Akane can't keep Nabiki from seeing Kasumi first.
5. Something else