Of course, thanks to their access to Ranma’s stream of thought, Akane, Shampoo, and Kodachi had already been informed that their new condition somehow involved Ukyo, an airheaded genie, and a non-wish gone horribly wrong, but given that Ranma’s inarticulateness began not with his attempts to express ideas into words (as Mihoshi had thought) but with his difficulty processing certain types information (for example, his own emotions) into ideas that he could readily analyze, the fiancées (incidentally, Kodachi didn’t stop dismissing the new voice in her head until she realized that Ranma occasionally thought of her as belonging in that category) weren’t really sure what it all meant. Thus, they’d agreed to meet at Ucchan’s, which had been “closed for the evening due to an unforeseen emergency,” as the sign on the door put it, to see if any sense could be made out of the situation.
This was easier said than done.
“I don’t believe it… so this is your fault? Not Ranma’s?” Akane asked incredulously. The story was all but unbelievable. In fact, if it wasn’t Ukyo doing the telling, I’d think it was just one of Ranma’s half-assed excuses.
Hey, since when do I make excuses?
“No,” Ukyo replied defensively. “It was the fault of that ditz of a genie. I never even made a wish; she went and ‘granted’ one all on her own! I just said that Ranma would be better off if he could communicate with us better. This was the last thing I expected.”
“You really expect us to believe that one of the fabled djinn would be so grossly incompetent?” Kodachi asked with a raised eyebrow.
“How else do you explain this? Even if I had actually made the wish, I doubt it was necessary to create telepathic links to get it to work right.”
“Shampoo still want to know how Airen learn Mandarin.”
It was the third time the Amazon had asked that question, and Ranma still didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “How ’bout first explainin’ why yer still speakin’ Japanese like a five-year-old when ya can speak it like a normal person in my head?”
“She is?” asked a surprised Ukyo.
“Hell yeah,” Ranma replied. “It sounds real poetic an’ educated, too.”
“What? Shampoo not understand; speaking Japanese best as possible now.”
Kodachi leaned forward in interest — the ability to speak multiple languages was a mark of sophistication in her book (which would, in turn, mean that she was an even better choice for her Ranma-sama). “Hmm… perhaps Ranma has become a man of languages without realizing it. Say something in your native tongue, gaijin.”
“Please refrain from speaking disrespectfully about me, or I shall be forced to do you serious harm,” the Amazon replied with a glare.
The rest of the girls looked at her in mild confusion. The Amazon’s tone of voice suggested moderate irritation, but none could discern any further hint of the statement’s actual content. “Well, Ranchan,” Ukyo asked, “can you translate that?”
“Uh, well, I guess I sorta understood that — Shampoo don’t want Kodachi ta talk down her nose at her.”
Shampoo simled broadly. “That right! Well, it close enough.”
“But that’s mostly cause I heard yer voice sayin’ the same thing in Japanese in my head while ya were talkin’,” Ranma admitted.
“Oh….”
“Oh, who cares?” asked a particularly grumpy Akane. “I’m just worried about what’s going to happen when he starts thinking perverted thoughts.”
An’ just what the hell are ‘perverted thoughts,’ anyway? It was the question Ranma always asked in his mind whenever his fiancée brought up the subject of perversion. The only difference was that now, that question was actually “heard” by four other people, each of whom found themselves answering almost involuntarily.
| Ukyo knew that the question was likely directed at Akane, but she had her own answer to that question: Well, I think it involves sticking stuff that normally doesn’t have anything to do with sex into body parts that aren’t designed to have those things stuck into them. | Kodachi rolled her eyes; Ranma-sama clearly had much to learn about the intricate subtleties of sexuality. “Perversion” is nothing more than a myth perpetrated by the lower classes who have yet to realize that all orgasms are created equal. There’s nothing wrong with any sex act as long as somebody eventually climaxes. | Well, Airen, according to my great-grandmother, the definition of perversion varies from culture to culture. For example, many in your culture view sexual contact between two consenting women as a form of perversion, where we Amazons have no such taboo. It was a fairly diplomatic answer; ironic, given Shampoo’s tendency to assert the superiority of her own culture. | Akane was a bit taken aback by this particular question; she’d always held perversion to be self-evident, and it had never really occurred to her that Ranma might not even know what counted as being perverted. This put her in a bit of a bind, and she had trouble articulating a response: You know… thoughts… about… perverted stuff. |
It was a lot of information to receive at once; Ranma, however, was only really paying attention to Akane at the moment. I’m gonna need a little more than that, Akane.
Akane didn’t want to answer, but in order to deliberately not answer a question to which one knows the answer, one inevitably thinks about the answer that is to be withheld — something Akane realized a split-second too late, as her mind brought forth (and transmitted) the most perverted images she could think of, causing Ranma’s jaw to drop. “Ya gotta be kiddin’ me!”
“That bad?” Ukyo asked.
Ranma responded by reproducing the images for the others — they’d put him in a state of mind where he couldn’t seriously consider Akane’s privacy.
Ukyo’s eyes went wide. “Oh, my goodness… that’s… that’s….”
Akane blushed beet red. “That’s what?”
“That’s it?! That’s what you consider to be perverted?!”
“Well, it’s…”
“It’s just sex! Ordinary, consensual, heterosexual, missionary position sex! Nothing else!” Ukyo could hardly believe that Akane could set her standard of decency so high that anything less than celibacy counted as a form of deviancy.
“I must admit, that is quite anticlimactic,” Kodachi concurred. “I was certain that your obsession with the subject was merely a cover for a wide variety of kinks and fetishes you might have. I hardly imagined that you could be so ignorant of the subject.”
“Exactly — that part of reason Shampoo think Akane must be pervert herself. Never expect that views on sex would be warped in other direction. By the way, how Kitchen Destroyer plan to have children if think normal sex is perverted?”
“Yeah,” Ranma said, “all yer thinkin’ about there is pretty much the same thing as makin’ babies. That can’t be perverted — people gotta do that, or we go extinct.”
“I… I….” Akane was losing her composure; she’d expected the others to be scandalized, but not because her thoughts about sex were too tame! “I don’t know….” She swallowed hard and tried again. “Well, I figure, once your married, it’s alright. But… but that’s it, I guess.”
Ukyo sighed. “Sugar, you are setting yourself up for the most boring sex life ever.” Granted, I don’t have much experience with it myself, but there’s got to be more to it than “in, out, repeat if neccessary.”
“Ah, who cares if its boring?” Ranma said. “It ain’t like sex means anythin’ beyond havin’ kids.”
“What?!” chorused the girls (including Akane).
“Yeah, Pops explained it ta me. Sex nothin’ more than the way our species keeps itself around. It ain’t like there’s anythin’ special about it. I mean, I don’t see no reason ta do it unless ya want kids anyway.”
“Well, Ranchan, it does feel really good….”
“Pops says that’s the way we evolved. Sex feels good ’cuz we wouldn’t do it otherwise.”
“But what about the emotional part of sex?” Ukyo countered.
“There’s an emotional part ta sex?”
“Of course!” I should have know that the panda would mess things up.
“Yes,” Shampoo concurred. “Help unite partners, create stronger relationship.” Why do you think I’m always trying to convince you to sleep with me?
“Well, I, for one agree with you, Ranma-sama. The emotional aspect of sexual play is highly overrated.” Though I can’t see why you wouldn’t even want to have sex for fun. How am I supposed to snare you with pleasure if you don’t even want to be pleasured in the first place?
Ranma wasn’t quite sure what to make of the three girls who’d just spoken. He turned to the only one who hadn’t spoken on the subject. “Akane, at least you know what I mean, right?”
“Um, actually, I’m pretty sure Kasumi mentioned something about emotions when she gave me ‘the talk.’” I don’t really understand it, but Kasumi wouldn’t lie to me, right?
“No… she wouldn’t, would she?”
There was a pause in the conversation. Well, in the spoken conversation, anyway.
| “She wouldn’t?” They must be talking about Kasumi — but what about Kasumi could provoke that kind of response? Wait… maybe Kasumi’s a pervert, and that’s what’s screwed up Akane…. | I don’t believe this… here I am feeling guilty for not being perverted enough. What kind of stupid idea is that? This is all Ranma’s fault. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for having standards! It’s not my fault all the others are sluts! Pervert! You want me to feel guilty for not being a slut! | This is indeed an unexpected quandary. I had thought I could ultimately claim Ranma with the pleasures of the flesh; I never expected that I would have to convince my love that the pleasures of the flesh are worth seeking out. If he’s truly this reticent, perhaps I will need to use actual restraints, rather than the furry Velcro handcuffs. | Damn. It seems that Airen truly does believe that the only valid application for sex is procreation. Now I’ll never have a shot at his cursed form… he’d probably think I wanted him to bear a child, and his psyche simply isn’t capable of the pressures of motherhood. |
| Kasumi… perverted? | Sluts? | Furry Velcro handcuffs? | Motherhood?! |
Ranma had had about all he could take. He slammed his hands on the table and stood up, shouting, “Yer all nuts!”
This came as a surprise to all four girls. “What? What are you talking about, Ranchan?”
Ranma pointed an accusing finger at Ukyo and gave the chef a mildly crazed glare. “Don’t ‘Ranchan’ me! Yer the one who’s thinkin’ about Kasumi havin’ sex with my girlform in furry handcuffs while I’m pregnant!”
“What?!”
“Or was that Akane? I can’t tell the difference any more — I can barely tell where one of ya stops an’ the other starts… ugh… I’m getting’ another headache….”
Ranchan!
Airen!
Ranma-sama!
Ranma, you don’t understand….
“Ugh… I just wish someone would do somethin’ about the noise, if only for a few minutes….”
From behind Ranma, a voice spoke up: “I can take care of that.”
“Huh?” Ranma turned just in time to see a fist smash him square in the forehead, knocking him unconscious.
“Why’d you do that?!” Ukyo asked indignantly.
“If he’s unconscious, he can’t sense anything,” the newcomer explained diplomatically, “including the four of you.”
“Never mind that,” Kodachi said. “Just who are you and what are you doing here?”
The withered old woman simply raised an eyebrow at Kodachi’s question. “I, young lady, am Cologne, Matriarch of the Amazons at Joketsuzoku.”
Kodachi didn’t seem fazed by this announcement at all: “Ah. I see — you’re part of the same contingent of gaijin as the purple-haired harlot.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. And I suggest you do the same, Shampoo.”
The teenaged Amazon reluctantly obeyed her great-grandmother’s orders, changing the subject slightly: “Why you here, Great-Grandmother? And why you do that to Airen?”
“I’m here to try and help explain what’s going on,” Cologne casually replied, “and I knocked Ranma out because the boy needs some peace and quiet, and right now, that’s probably the only way he’s going to get it.”
“Then you know what’s going on?” Akane asked.
“I have a pretty good idea. Granted, I only got here in time to hear the part of your conversation — and only the parts that you spoke out loud, at that — but I think it’s somewhat obvious that Ranma now has to deal with some sort of telepathy on top of all of his other problems. Is this correct?”
All four girls nodded. “Ranma met up with a genie….”
Cologne sighed. “So it’s a wish gone bad?”
“No! It wasn’t even a wish! The stupid ditz granted it before I had a chance to make it, and now the four of us are stuck with some sort of mental link to Ranma, and we can’t seem to turn it off.”
“Outside of clobbering him,” Akane pointed out.
“You would suggest something like that, wouldn’t you?” Kodachi said with a disdainful sniff.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
Cologne, however, wasn’t about to let the conversation derail, and rapped her staff on the table. “Ladies, the last thing you should be worrying about right now is petty arguments. Now, I’d like to help you out, but I need to have some idea of what’s going on, and that means I need you to describe what little experience you’ve had with these links in detail.”
When Cologne said she wanted something described in detail, she didn’t kid around. She questioned the four girls on the minutiae of the links for nearly ten minutes before she was satisfied — but she still wasn’t done. Now, she had to talk to Ranma, who was still out cold at the time. Fortunately, Kodachi always kept several pungent varieties of herbs from her garden on her person to use in the rare occasions when she needed to quickly revive someone she’d knocked unconscious.
| Ugh… what the hell happened? Last thing I remember is yellin’ somethin’ stupid about havin’ sex with Kasumi, and then… argh… my head…. Wait… if I’m just wakin’ up, maybe that whole genie thing was just a dream— | |||
| It wasn’t. Sadly, these interlopers are still here to cause dissonance in our relationship. |
It wasn’t. I’m still stuck with you — and I still say you’re a pervert! |
It wasn’t. I really, really wish it was, but it wasn’t. |
It wasn’t. Fortunately, my Great-Grandmother seems to have some ideas that may help us. |
| Crud. How come nuthin’ ever seems ta go my way? Just for once, it’d be nice if— Wait… “Great-Grandmother?!” Cologne’s here?! | |||
Ranma managed to rouse himself to a sitting position before reacting: “All right, ya old crone, what’s the deal?”
“‘The deal,’ as you put it, is your relationship with your suitors has just changed significantly, and as my great-granddaughter is one of those suitors, I have a vested interest in discovering what’s going on.”
“Oh… and ya knocked me out because….”
“Because you wanted some quiet — and because I didn’t want any of your suitors to be distracted while I asked them some questions.”
“Uh-huh. Well, got any for me?”
“Just one: you said all of them were blending together right before I knocked you out. Does that mean they were distinct before?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, it wasn’t easy, but I was able ta pick out who was thinkin’ what up ’til then.”
“How about now?”
“Uh, yeah. It seems ta be fine.”
“Ah. Good — that means that your problems were likely the result of your brain being overworked.”
“How the heck is that a good thing?”
“It’s a good thing because it fits rather well into my theories, which means I might be able to help you.”
“Theories? Like what?”
“Well, I think I have a reasonably good idea of what’s going on, though I must admit that I have very little experience in this area, so my assessment may not be accurate. First of all, it seems that this telepathy is limited to what you are thinking. None of you are seeing out of each other’s eyes or hearing out of anyone else’s ears, for example.”
“But I picked up images from Akane,” Ranma pointed out, causing the girl in question to blush.
“Because she was actively thinking about them, not because that was what she saw through her eyes at the time.”
“Oh. Makes sense, I guess. Even that genie probably wouldn’ta done somethin’ like that, since she was tryin’ ta ‘improve my communcation’ or whatever.”
“Right. Now, moving on, it’s rather obvious that you four can each ‘talk’ to Ranma and vice versa. Furthermore, it appears that the link is automatically translating Shampoo’s thoughts from Mandarin to Japanese for Ranma and vice versa. What seems to be troublesome is your ability to ‘eavesdrop’ on Ranma’s half of any mental conversation, while not having direct access to whomever he is talking to.”
“But what about when I’m just thinkin’ ta myself? They still pick that up.”
“Yes, but it seems that your minds are treating that sort of thinking differently.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Well, look at it this way. Right now, you’re getting messages from all your suitors, correct?”
“Yeah….”
“Yet you are still able to carry out a normal conversation with me with almost no trouble.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s just cause I’m concentratin’ on you.”
“Exactly.”
“Huh?”
As Cologne tried to rephrase her explanation for Ranma’s benefit. Shampoo’s face suddenly lit up; she realized what her great-grandmother was talking about, and furthermore, she knew a way to communicate it quickly to her Airen. Rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Ranma’s face immediately screwed up. “What the— what the heck was that, Shampoo?”
“Shampoo talking to Airen in head,” the Amazon replied. “You not notice what Shampoo thinking before, because too busy talking with Great-Grandmother. But when Shampoo think nonsense phrase, it get Airen’s attention.”
“I get it,” Ukyo said. “It’s like background music in a film. You don’t notice it unless there’s a reason, like a sudden increase in volume or a change in the overall tune. Ranma ‘hears’ us when we ‘talk’ to him because it ‘sounds’ different from out normal thoughts.”
“Uh, actually, it don’t ‘sound’ no different. I just noticed it ’cuz it was kinda jarrin’.”
“Still, Ukyo’s analogy is a good one,” Cologne agreed. “One can push it even further, as a person might notice the background music in a movie for no particular reason other than his or her mind decides to focus on that for a while, or a person might deliberately pay attention to background music if he or she has been told that it is worth listening to.”
“So, what, it’s all about attention?” Akane asked.
“If my suspicions are true,” Cologne said with a nod. “You’re always going to be ‘hearing’ Ranma’s thoughts, but you probably won’t ‘listen’ unless there’s something interesting going on in his head or you make a deliberate effort to hear what he’s saying.”
“Of course, given what we’ve experienced so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if idly thinking about Ranma-sama is enough to count as a ‘deliberate effort’.”
“What? Why would that be?” Akane asked.
Kodachi sighed and once again adopted a patronizing tone. “My dear, it is highly unlikely that any of us will be able to think of Ranma-sama without being reminded of these links. Thinking about the links will probably be enough to activate them, and we will gain access to Ranma’s thoughts.”
“So? All we’d have to do is stop thinking about the links, then.”
Cologne sighed; at times, it seemed that Akane was the perfect match for Ranma — under the right circumstances, they could be equally short-sighted. “My dear, do you realize how hard it is to not think about something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Try to not think about what Ranma is thinking for the next thirty seconds.”
| Ha! I’ll show her. I can think about things other than Ranma easily… damn, I just thought about him. Okay, let’s try again. I’ll stop thinking about Ranma… now. I am not thinking about Ranma. Dammit! I need to stop thinking about Ranma. This is getting me confused, just like Ranma — shit! | What the heck is going on? Music? What’s music got ta do with anythin’? I sure wish someone would explain it ta me, ’cuz it ain’t makin’ no sense. I mean, I guess what she’s sayin’ is true, ’cuz I ain’t noticin’ what the girls’re thinkin’…. Well, I wasn’t noticin’ ’til I thought about how I ain’t noticin’, but now I’m noticin’ that they’re tryin’ not ta notice that I’m thinkin’ about how I wasn’t noticin’ them…. Man, this is weird. Wait… why is Akane usin’ cuss words? Did I miss somethin’? |
“Okay, that was strange,” Ukyo said. No wonder he doesn’t communicate well. Anyone would get confused with a thought process like that.
“Well, excuse me for bein’ confused,” Ranma said indignantly. “I still don’t know how I’m s’posed ta keep from havin’ migraines.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry, Ranma. Like I said, I think you’re going to learn to process all of this information instinctively. In that sense, I suppose that it’s fortunate that you are the only one who has to deal with more than one link.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Why, your training, of course. Your father has spent the last decade training your mind to the point where it can quickly adapt to any new situation with little conscious effort on your part. The fact that you seem to have already gotten better at choosing the information you want to pay attention to is evidence of that. I’m not worried about you at all.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.”
“The rest of you, however….”
“What about us?” Akane asked.
“You are all going to have to resist the urge to jump to conclusions while you’re reading Ranma’s mind. Before you get upset, allow me to explain. Ranma is going to be dividing his attention between the four of you, but each of you only has to deal with Ranma. That means you will likely learn more about him in the short run than he will about each of you. Thus, I ask that you remember that he can not think about every aspect of a situation at once, which means that you will never be able to deduce his whole opinion about anything from a single glance.”
Shampoo wasn’t thrilled with Cologne’s suggestion. “And Airen free to jump however he want to conclusion?”
This was an extremely awkward sentence, even for Shampoo, and as a result, Ranma found himself unintentionally repeating it in his mind in an effort to sort out what his Amazon suitor actually wanted to know: I’m free to jump however I want to conclusion?
This confusion was not lost on the Amazon in question: Aiyah! That’s how that came out? I knew my Japanese grammar wasn’t perfect, but this is ridiculous!
Uh, don’t worry about it, Shampoo. It usually ain’t that bad.
I should hope not — but we’ll have to continue this later; I believe my Great-Grandmother is answering my question.
“Of course not,” Cologne answered her progeny. “However, it will likely be much easier for you to correct his errors, because you don’t have the distraction of three other people in your head to worry about.”
Akane sighed. She still didn’t like what Cologne was talking about, but she supposed it couldn’t be helped. This sucks.
Ya got that right.
Kodachi spoke up again. “Is this all, old woman — ouch!”
Cologne retracted her staff from where it had struck the gymnast on the noggin. “For now, yes. There may be other problems further down the line, but they can be dealt with when they arise.”
Other problems? I don’t like the sound of that….
I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Airen. Great-Grandmother is no doubt referring to Japanese social mores.
Morays? Ya mean there’s gonna be some kinda problem with eels?
As Shampoo attempted to stifle a groan, the other girls looked confused and somewhat nervous. So far, this had been the strangest day of their lives (and that was saying something), but something told them that it would get stranger still before too long.