Once upon a time, a young girl named Nodoka was enjoying her very first lunch at an all girl's school. She remembered it keenly to this very day. She had sat down underneath a tree, taking in the beautiful sky. Opened up her bento...
And then found herself looking into a pair of wide bright eyes that were staring at her sandwich. It was a girl easily half her age.
"Are you hungry?" Nodoka asked. The little girl nodded vehemently. "Would you like a bite?" The girl nodded even harder. Nodoka held out her sandwich - And then recoiled as the sandwich was devoured whole in a single bite.
That was how Nodoka and Hinako met for the first time. With Hinako using her looks to take advantage of another. As usual. Of course, it turned out that Happosai had taken her enrolment into the school as a good reason drag his other two students into a P.E panty raid. It had ended with Nodoka using her practice naginata to beat her future husband over the head when the old master dropped her underwear on him.
There are probably parallels here between father and son, but Ranma would probably try to beat us up if we made them. The real point here is that after that meeting the two of them developed into what could only be called a friendly rivalry. When Nodoka was voted as the 'Spring Flower', Hinako got all jealous - and used her special ability to compete for the position. In particular draining Nodoka's new boyfriend of energy for that extra long period of time in her more, aha, womanly figure.
Then there was the time Nodoka <i>accidentally</i> dropped that cat in the range of Hinako's draining attack, resulting in her temporarily acting in a most feline manner. Quite an amusing sight. Nodoka still had the pictures of her grooming herself.
So you can understand the anticipation in her as she approached the place she knew was the residence of her most bitter rival of youth. The woman who had inexplicably married her husband's best friend. Nodoka stood at the gate. She knocked on the door. She heard that annoyingly cutesy voice going "I'll get it ahahaha! Vrooooom!"
This was it. They hadn't seen each other in almost twenty years. Nodoka gripped her weapon, waiting for the inevitable moment. The gate came open. Hinako looked up, as deceptively youthful seeming as ever -
And then Nodoka tossed a handful of lollipops over her head. As expected the little troll doll scarpered off to gather them up in her mouth, sucking on all five of them at once. How she didn't get toothache was yet another mystery of her condition that made her <i>infuriating</i> to know.
“Ah! Nodoka! You sure did show up fast!” She said, licking her sugar filled treats.
"You didn't tell Genma I'd be coming, did you?" Nodoka sweetly asked. Though not too sweetly. She didn't want to risk Hinako licking her face.
"Nope! Just like you told me!" She bit down on one of the lollipops,
Well. How surprising. There really was a first time for everything. Nodoka stepped into the grounds a little more - but then felt her sleeve being tugged quite insistently by the bane of her existence.
"Come! Come! You gotta meet my cute girls!" Hinako insisted. "Wheeee! All three of them really like Ranma! Really like him! It's soooo cute!"
And there it was. The one thing that could draw Nodoka away from her blinding anger at her husband. Her beloved son! Who she hadn't seen since he was little! But he had to be strong and manly (<u><b><i>Or Else</i></b></u>) because at this point her entire self image was relying on him. “Really? Your children like him!” She asked, “What do they like about him!”
“Well he seems funny! And cute! And I bet he’d look adorable in a dress!”
What. Why would her manly son look cute in a dress? Was he one of the bishounen types!? Did he cross-dress but was still popular with girls? She had heard that was popular with a lot of teenage girls these days...
As Nodoka was thinking that, a rather flustered looking girl in a gi nearly ran headlong into them. "Akane!" Hinako squealed, full of her usual infectious energy. Better than her stolen energy at any rate. "Akane! Akane! Akane! You're my youngest dau~ughter! Tralalala! This is Ranma's mommy!"
Her youngest? Oh yes. Nodoka looked at this girl quite closely. She could certainly see the resemblance within this Akane. A more rounded face than her mother, and her long dark hair clearly came from Soun rather than Hinako’s brown. But their eyes were the same as Hinako’s in her child form, and it made her super cute. Though thankfully not sugary sweet cute.
"Hello Mrs Saotome!" Akane bowed very quickly. So quickly that Nodoka nearly got headbutted - and Hinako actually did. "Oh gosh! Look at what I'm wearing! Aha! If- If I'd known you were coming I would have put on something much cuter! I must look like a mess!"
"Think nothing of it Akane," Nodoka smiled at her. "I'm sure you'll have little trouble charming my son in such a cute gi."
"Who says I want to charm Ranma?!" Akane said a little too loudly. "I - I don't want to kiss him, I don't want to be touched by him, I don't want him to look at me, I - I don't want him!"
Oh, this girl had it <i>bad</i>. To turn a girl this tsundere, Ranma must be a true man among men. There was no other possibility.
"I'm just... you know... Annoyed that I made a bad first impression, that's all..."
Cute! Cuter than Hinako, even! Look at the way she was shyly twiddling her thumbs. Akane looked up at Nodoka, then down at her kimono - then all but vanished at top speed.
"Uwaah, Akane!" Hinako cried. "At least apowogise for headbutting mommy!" Hinako bawled a little, rubbing at her head. "Oh, that girl! She's so violently adorable, it's no wonder the boys can't leave her alone!"
"What's all this hubub about?" another girl asked, poking her head into the room. Another pretty girl, with similar general features to Akane. Short haired, with the cut framing the face. She was wearing a rather tight pair of black shorts and a loose fitting shirt. This girl - obviously another of Hinako's offspring - took one look at Nodoka and said "Ah, so you must be Ranma's mother."
"Yay! 'Biki's so smart!" Hinako cheered, the pain of the headbutt apparently long forgotten. "How'd you know? Huh? Huh? How'd my middle daughter know?"
"Well, I mean, she's the spitting image of Ranma.” She said, “She’s taller though.”
"Eh? Ranma... looks like me?" Nodoka gasped. Now, that didn't sound manly at all! "Are you sure? Please, picture my son vividly in your mind. Are you sure he looks like me?"
A curious thing happened just then. Nabiki's eyes glazed over, she licked her lips, and then her hips made an extremely lewd movement. “I got a pretty good look at him. He definitely gets his looks from you.”
Well. That was... promising? This Nabiki seemed to be a little more out and out lewd than Akane, but no less smitten with Ranma. Or at least she wanted to get get down and dirty with him. But one could work with this. The girl was charming in her own way, and there was definitely a sense of both confidence and intelligence about her.
"Excuse me. I have to take care of a thing," Nabiki said and slipped away. "We'll meet again in a minute."
The next thing Nodoka knew she was being dragged off to the kitchen, where there was apparently a maid working for the Tendo family. A rather mature and serene woman working over a stove, making a rather delicious smelling dinner. Goodness! Even Nodoka's own culinary skills might not compare based on scent alone - and you'd better believe that you don't marry into the Saotome family without having some measure of culinary talent!
Elsewhere, Akane twitched nervously while pulling on her fanciest yukata.
"And this is my eldest, Kasumi!" Hinako loudly declared. She skipped on over to the woman, who hadn't reacted to her name being called, then she tugged on her dress. "Kasumi! Kasumi! This is Ranma's mother Nodoka!"
"Nodoka!" Kasumi suddenly and loudly said. "Yes! That would be a fine name for our first daughter!"
Right about this point was where Nodoka suspected that Genma, for once in his life, had been far too successful in something he had set out to do. There was “manly” and then there was “a trio of beautiful sisters wanted him so badly it was driving them to distraction.”
Not like Nodoka was complaining. The prospect of her son getting this much action was something she could live with. It meant grandkids. Cute little grandkids that she could dote on and spoil. As long as they were consenting and discreet no problem!
It also provided an alternative explanation for why Genma had been trying to keep her away for the time being. If she were to appear in Ranma's life while these three sisters were still pining for him - why, it might over complicate matters. Overload his emotions. Distract him from his manly duties. Perhaps... Perhaps it would be best if she quietly left. Came back in a few weeks time. Let Ranma get to know Hinako's daughters a little bit better, and then - well. Nature must take its course mustn't it?
"Hey Kasumi, listen. About what happened -" a young girl began right as Nodoka was about to leave.
They stood opposite each other with a doorway in between them. Both Nodoka and the pigtailed girl blinked. Their heads tilted in the same direction. They lifted up their hand and reached out, then pulled back at the last possible moment. Both frowned. Leaned in for a closer look. Goodness, if not for the clothes then... Nodoka flicked back her hair. The girl in front of her did the same with her pigtail. Nodoka adjusted her kimono. The girl tugged up her trousers. Then the two of them spun around in place and each pulled a slightyl different funny face at one another -
Then out of nowhere a panda grabbed the girl and tried to run away before an extremely worrying battle cry rang out.
<b>“Tendo! Go! Yen! Satsu!”</b>
"Akane! Don't go draining our houseguests!"
"Yes, big sister!" a haughty voice instructed. Nodoka looked to the other doorway and beheld... Akane. Though only the hair gave it away. She was taller than before, and that yukata she was wearing did not quite fit her. Otherwise she'd have called it extremely fancy. "That was really quite... naughty of you. Especially in front of Ranma's mother."
Then, as if Nodoka wasn't full of enough dread, a smaller and bustier version of Nabiki skipped and frolicked in through the front door, the confidence and maturity the girl had shown before outright vanished. "Aw, but Akane! That mean old panda had it coming!"
"I do not dispute that, I was more concerned for the extremely desirable young woman the idiot was carrying," Akane said. "Hmph! Forgive her, mother dearest. Nabiki never did know her place."
Nodoka cast a worried gaze back towards Kasumi. The girl had finished cooking and was nervously playing with a coin. One with a hole in the middle. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! They were all... Exactly like Hinako!
This seemed like as good a point as any to faint dead away, luckily she was able to hold on to consciousness. Nodoka opened up her mouth to give Hinako a piece of her mind -
"Akane's right!" Hinako admonished Nabiki. "You might have drained Ranma dead away while he was in his girl form!"
Oh, wait she was wrong before this was actually the perfect time to faint. Yes that floor did look extremely clean and comfortable she really ought to close her eyes and rest there for an indeterminate amount of time after which she'd wake up and things would make sense again.
Or not. They rarely did eventually make sense when Hinako was involved.
- While Nodoka's unconscious, the sisters immediately make plays for Ranma.
- Genma has enough energy to explain the situation. Cue him being blasted into the horizon for being a dumbass.
- Nodoka comes back to consciousness the next day, tries to find Ranma
- Ranma asks what the heck is going on. Hinako's teacher instincts kick into hyperdrive.
- Something else
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