Story: Sudden Wedding 1/2

You know, Nabiki was really starting to get on his nerves. If not for the fact he knew fine well they were getting married in future, he was considering breaking off the engagement. Gee, who needs a troublesome girl like that around anyway? Taking pictures of him when he was down, making snarky comments on the side, it was like she was trying to rile him up. Hrmph! Why hadn't he dumped her, anyway? The only thing that was good about her was her looks, and frankly the other two sisters were just as pretty as she was.

Ranma wasn't exactly the sort of boy to get into retrocausality, but he was starting to think along those lines. Is the only reason he didn't dump her purely because he saw a future where he hadn't dumped her? That couldn't be it. He knew he was too stubborn for that. There had to be a reason behind it, and -

He jumped without warning, as had happened every time so far. Of course. From sitting in Ucchan's to standing out in the Tendo garden, holding Nabiki in his arms. From the way he was standing and the impact on his feet, he'd probably just jumped from... say, where there was usually a balcony up there outside Akane's window. It must've cracked or something and - 

Slap! It came in before he had time to process anything.

"How dare you!" Akane huffed, then turned around and stormed off, limping a bit on one ankle.

"That went well," Nabiki said. She rolled out of his arms to the floor, then turned towards him and squeezed his bicep. "Huh. Wow. I knew you were stronger than you looked, but... "

"Hey, Akane!" Ranma leaped out ahead of her. He was genuinely confused here. He landed in front of her. "Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

"What're you apologising for?"

Uh oh. Ranma was unaware of it, but he'd fallen into the ultimate blunder of any relationship. Do you know what you did? Normally, it would be bad if you couldn't answer because you obviously haven't been paying attention. In Ranma's case he quite literally had no idea what he was apologising for. None. At all.

"Uh- " he began, and then learned yet again that Akane had a real good slapping arm when she got in the mood for it. He picked himself out of the bush, but by the time he had she'd already gone off inside.

Great! Just wonderful. Couldn't he jump to, say, a lazy day at the beach. Or maybe his birthday? Christmas might be nice. Did he have to jump to a wild and wacky event he had no context for every. Single. Time?

Yes. Yes he did. But let's not tell him that, it might ruin things a bit.

Urgh! Alright, fine. There wasn't anything else for it, but to head inside and maybe try to get a bit more information from Na- Wait! His wallet was already crying out in pain at the idea of asking her what he'd done. Kasumi. Yes, of course. Kasumi was very keenly aware of her sisters, and would be far more helpful than Nabiki!

He found her in the kitchen doing the dishes. The picture of the ideal Japanese housewife. Ah! Now, this sister he could understand marrying. Certainly more than Nabiki!

"Hey Kasumi!" he called out. "Listen, Akane's kinda in a bad mood with me, and I really want to make it up to her -"

"Oh? You want to make it up to Akane?"

What was this? What was this... frightening aura he was suddenly feeling? Had a martial arts master wandered in? A wizened assassin with enough bodies under their belt to bury a city? Perhaps a demon or a devil had been summoned from hell itself, he'd never felt such pressure in his life! What was this, where was it coming from, why did he feel so... Anxious!

Then, Kasumi turned around, a smile on her face that wasn't quite natural. Her peaceful exprsesion was a little too peaceful, as if she was having to carefully, oh so carefully maintain it. A mask she was wearing rather than her true feelings.

"Just Akane?" she asked, all innocence and smiles. "Nobody else? You don't want to make up for what you did to <i>anyone else</i>?"

"... Guuuuuuh~" Ranma whined. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"Ranma Saotome, I am hereby breaking off the engagement with you," Kasumi said. "Unless you can tell me exactly what you did wrong and make up for it, that's how it's going to have to be."

"Throw me in there as well!" Akane said. Ah! Where had she come from?! "How about you, Nabiki? You want him?"

"Hrm?" Nabiki replied. Hey! Was she staring at his butt? "You mean, I can marry the kinda cute but stupid martial artist that all the girls in town want a piece of? One sec, I need to think about this."

Then she wandered off, leaving him at the tender mercies of the other two Tendo sisters, and quickly finding that they had no mercy to spare. He quickly rushed out of the room and went for his diary, hoping against hope that it had the answer he was looking for, just this once.

"Come on, come on..." he muttered to himself. Let's see. Something about Kuno learning a new technique, a hot springs race... Hold on, here we go! "Sorry, I still haven't worked this one out yet, but whatever you did it was really bad. Ps: Don't have sex with Nabiki yet, she's baiting you."

Great. Super. That was absolutely amazingly helpful. In the sense that he knew full well he had to kick his own ass if he ever managed to meet himself! Urgh! So, by the point he'd written that out in this useless damn diary, he hadn't worked out exactly what he'd done to piss those two off? Was there anything on how to make it up to them? Y'know, beyond 'do not put it in the ice queen'. Come on, there's gotta be something here. He wasn't planning on doing that anyway!

"Hedge maze...?" Ranma muttered to himself. "Uh... Hang out around door entrances and eavesdrop, then do what comes naturally." So he was being left on his own to work this out, huh? "Trust me, if I tell you what to do you'll come across too phony, can't say more, you'll work it out!"

Oh, but he was gonna deliver an ass whooping to himself one of these days. He'd probably wind up writing that shit out, then sock himself right in the jaw just for good measure, or maybe he'd figure out a jump was coming and force himself to eat Akane's cooking in time for the him coming in to have to deal with it.

"Great, I'm stuck dealing with two pissed off Tendo sisters, and another one who wants to bleed me dry," Ranma grumbled. "How can this possibly get any worse?"

Never mind your future self, Ranma. You should be getting some hate on for your current self, saying something that stupid! You should know better by now. That was just asking for trouble, come on, you're smarter than that.

"Airen! Shampoo hear good news!"

Oh no. He was being glomped by an amorous not-really-an-Amazon-but-the-alliteration-is-hard-to-resist! Great, of course, of course Shampoo would jump on him the second she heard the -

"How did you find out again?" Ranma asked while trying to wrestle her off.

"Nabiki gave us a call," Ukyo said, suddenly cuddling into him from the other side. How the - Was he really getting sloppy here from all the jumping around? How did she sneak up on him like that?! "So? How about it? How about the two of us get married as well as Nabiki? It's not my first choice, but -"

"Ohohohoho!"

Nabiki Tendo was a bitch. Ohhhh, but he really wanted to break off the engagement with her, so, so badly, but then that would mean he'd probably wind up with these three as wives instead, and frankly?

"Shampoo kill obstacle!"

"Not on your life! Leave Ranchan alone!"

"Hrmph! This is a race to determine last place! Clearly, the Black Rose shall prevail, while the two of you -"

Honestly, the end of this had better be worth it. It better be! He kept on going from one ridiculous event to another! And it kept on somehow being worse than the last!