There were rumours going around school that she had every room in her home bugged. Please. Did they have any idea how expensive that would be? Especially considering the need for replacement when their house guests and their friends got, aha, a little rambunxious or overexcited.
Why use expensive equipment when good old fashioned eavesdropping got the job done more often than not? It only went to show how little they understood Nabiki Tendo. The most she needed was a glass, which had long been paid for by her father.
In any event, this particular bout of eavesdropping had been rather unproductive. Except for a laugh, a very minor one at the very idea of it. Honestly now, how ridiculous. In spite of little sister's accusations (which had been dying down a bit of late) there wasn't a perverted bone in Ranma Saotome's body. Happosai was trying his damndest to mess with the young boy/girl's head, but this time the old perverted martial arts master had misfired.
'There's no fun to be had here,' Nabiki thought to herself. The glass was quickly filled up with a handy bottle of water so she could carry it off without raising suspicion. 'The idea of it. Ranma may have the potential to become a great and powerful martial artist, but the greatest pervert in the world? Hah!'
Still, what Nabiki hadn't quite noticed yet was that the idea had settled into her mind. It was ridiculous. It was patently stupid. Maybe that's why she couldn't help but mull it over: Whatever would turn that dopey jock into the kind of pervert that so called prophecy predicted?
And hey, since the idea was already out there how could she have some fun with it?
Such is the way of self fulfilling prophecies...
<hr>
It should go without saying that Nabiki was not the only one to be affected by Happosai's first use of that magical book of prophecies. Of course Ranma was hit by it as well. The stupid thing wormed its way into his mind, as was the magic's wont, even as he thought over and over again about how stupid it is. Well, not so much the part about him becoming a great martial artist. He could totally buy that. It was the other half that was unrealistic. Him? Becoming the world's greatest pervert? Get real!
Luckily he didn't need to dwell on it for long, as his own scent assaulted his nostrils more viciously than a series of chestnut fist punches. For a moment he feared that Akane was trying out some new recipe, then realised it was his own sweat that was making him gag. And one good rule of thumb to go by: If your own scent was tripping your gag reflex you'd best be bathing pronto because others will notice it more than you do.
Unnoticed by Ranma, a certain troublemaking girl slipped away around the corner holding a bottle of perfume filled with rancid milk. Always good for setting up a certain someone for a certain kind of encounter. Neither of them had figured it out yet either, which was the real kicker.
Still, off Ranma went sniffing at himself and regretting it immediately. It was as though he had the memory of a goldfish: Surely I don't smell that bad? Oh! Gag! Yes I do!
"The very idea," Ranma grumbled to himself on entering the bathroom. "Me, being the world's biggest pervert. Come on, pull the other one. In his old lecherous dreams."
Ah, there was another level of regret for him to wallow in. A self inflicted injury more severe than any physical blow he'd taken in his life. Before he could stop his traitorous mind, it conjured up a small taste of what might come in Happosai's dreams. All of a sudden his appetite was ruined. He might only be able to eat three courses of Kasumi's delicious cooking for dinner tonight.
"Erotic and perverted martial arts," he pondered aloud while tossing his shirt to the side of the room. "What would that even look like? Pretty sure that fighting and... the other 'f' word were pretty different in how they played out. Could you even call that martial arts?"
He set about scrubbing himself. Yet again his traitorous mind set to the task at hand. Ranma always had been the sort to see a challenge and to dive in feet first without thinking through the consequences. It's just that this time around the challenge was more... intellectual and imaginative than usual. Not that he noticed. It was to do with martial arts, after all.
"Maybe if you used it as a distraction?" he pondered. "Yeah. I hate to admit it but the old freak seems to be able to pull that off quite a bit. Slip into your guard, sneak a quick grope and - oops now your guard is even more off, you're angry. Which makes you sloppy... I could lure someone into the hiryu shoten ha like that..."
Now, Ranma was purely treating this an an intellectual exercise. To see how to apply the theory, hopefully in a way less bad than the old letch. Thoughts of using it were far from his mind. But that's how these things start, isn't it? The thought experiment, the hypotheticals. At that stage you'd never dare try to apply it practically in the real world. No, no. Never. But eventually you reach a point where you can't do that. You have to try it out, and even though Ranma was not the kind of person who would do it expressly for perverted reasons... Well, the prophecy only really talked about what he would appear to be to others, not what he <i>would</i> be. You catch the difference?
Well, even if you don't it didn't really matter. Because right at the moment Ranma was about to tip the bucket of cold water over his naked body, the door to the bathroom opened up revealing his unwanted, uncute and unsexy fiancee Akane Tendo. Standing there in her jogging gear, which was clinging to her uncute body. Shorts stuck up against her thick thighs, t-shirt bundled up a little bit to show off her flat tummy. Completely unsexy. Not a bit desirable.
As if this situation wasn't bad enough, there was another problem. Perverted intentions or not, thinking at length about how erotic martial arts might play out in real life is inevitably going to have something of an effect on a young man's anatomy. The beast was awake. Little Ranma was waving hello. In response to this, Akane Tendo accumulated enough blood within her body to turn herself beet red from head to toe and then inflicted Violence ™ upon him.
"Pervert!" Akane yelled, storming out of the bathroom again once her Violence ™ had been delivered. “Don’t do that in our bathroom!”
Leaning against the wall just outside the bathroom, Nabiki smirked in triumph. Oh, this had all sorts of potential. Now, how else could she mess with his head?
Not that she would especially need to. Whether he liked it or not, and mostly not, Ranma Saotome was going to find himself (and occasionally herself) in more, shall we say, erotic situations than she might prefer.
- Ryoga Hibiki delivers a challenge, ready to put his rival in his place once and for all! The fact that things keep conspiring to make his rival female is immaterial!
- Shampoo has a ploy to get Ranma's attention.
- Genma and Soun try to trick/force Ranma and Akane to go out on a date.
- Ukyo's in trouble and needs help! For something pretty mundane.. Until Ranma gets involved.
- Something else
Some combination of 1, 2, and 3?
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