Telepathic Hub, Chapter 10

Mousse was rather surprised to find himself human when he woke up—normally, when he was knocked out after a spat like the one he'd had with Cologne, she would splash him with cold water and put him in his cage. That surprise soon gave way to another surprise, however. "What the hell? Where are my clothes?" With the exception of a strategically placed bath towel, he was totally nude.

"The answer to that," came a familiar voice, "is quite simple. You are a martial artist of no small talent, and you are probably still angry with me."

"It follows, then, that I should do what I can to make sure you don't attempt to act on that anger, which required me to remove most of your weapons—or rather, the place where you store most of your weapons."

"Well, that, and you were already nude when I took you out of your cage and uncursed you, and I figured you'd prefer the towel to having me actually re-dress you."

Mousse shuddered noticably at this possibility. "You've got that right, at least."

The old woman smiled and motioned towards a nearby chair. "Now, are you ready to talk about this in a civilized manner?"

Cologne chose to ignore the young man's insolence and continued. "You had a serious lapse of judgment earlier this morning. Do you know what that was?"

"So I shouldn't have attacked Saotome without issuing a formal challenge. Big deal—ow!"

The Matriarch pulled her staff back from where it had impacted on Mousse's cranium. "It is a big deal. Ranma now fully acknowledges that he is a member of the tribe, and that means that such unprovoked, clearly malevolent attacks against him come with stiff penalties. Of course, given the way Ranma usually responds to formal challenges, he would be unlikely to hold anything back out of respect for his opponent, which in turn means that you would be soundly defeated."

This gave the nearsighted teenager some pause; he'd had his glasses firmly in place when he saw Ranma defeat Saffron, and quite simply, he had been in awe of his rival's skill.

Noting the boy's silence, the wizened Amazonian took the opportunity to move the conversation in a different direction. "Why did you follow Xian Pu to Japan?"

Mousse was silent for a few moments as he ran through the very long list of failed attempts. Since he couldn't find an acceptable answer, he decided to deflect the question. "That doesn't matter. First, I have to get past her sense of duty. I'm sure there are loopholes in the Law that would allow her to escape her marriage to Ranma. All I have to do is convince her to take them."

Cologne sighed. "I see." Obviously, Mousse still thought that Shampoo's actions were motivated by her sense of duty to the tribe than from any emotional attachments—not that this was particularly surprising, mind you. "I would be lying if I said that those loopholes you spoke of did not exist. They may not be easy to find, but they're there." This had the predictable result of causing Mousse's eyes to light up from behind his thick lenses. "There's one thing, however, that I don't think you counted on."

"Oh, that's quite simple. You see, Ranma's not just any kind of jerk; he's a sensitive jerk."

A lot had happened in the past hour or so, and as Ranma left his family's home with two of his wives, he found that needed to mentally pause to get his bearings, so to speak.

Ranma's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a cascade of cold water rushing over his head and triggering his curse. As the now-girl brushed strands of wet hair away from her eyes, she saw the source of the water standing before her, empty bucket in hand. "Kuno?! What the heck did ya do that for?!"

"But that was before I learned of the true nature of the pigtailed girl from my sister, which I now see is quite devious. To think she would try to despoil my good name by making it appear that I preferred the company of men—and men of your stature, to boot!"

Let it drop, Ranma. The idiot is finally acknowledging who you are in your cursed form; don't spoil it over something trivial.

Kuno cleared his throat uncomfortably before continuing: "It appears that I owe you an apology, Saotome."

"Spare me the jocularity, Saotome," the kendoist responded with a sneer, "this is difficult enough as it is."

Actually, Ranma had been totally sincere with her question, but she decided to take the word of her rival for the moment. "Sorry. Go ahead."

"My sister has informed me of your… situation, and while I must admit that I was initially aghast at the decidedly unorthodox solution you came up with, I must admit that when she explained your reasoning, this bizarre gaijin marriage practice truly does appear to be the most feasible solution."

"Who you calling bizarre?" the aforementioned gaijin asked angrily. Shampoo had nearly had her own curse triggered as well, and she was already rather miffed.

Not now, Shampoo, Ranma replied before returning her attention to their brother-in-law. "Uh, thanks, I guess. Um, so does that mean yer gonna stop botherin' me an' Akane now?"

"Though I do not do so eagerly, I shall. For you to be so magnanimous as to place the honor of our country so far above your own demonstrates that you had far more depth of character that I had previously assumed, and I must therefore admit that you are indeed a worthy companion for the beauteous Akane." Kuno then addressed the (former) love of his life. "Sadly, it appears that fate has dictated an end to our relationship, Miss Tendo—or is it Mrs. Saotome now?"

For her part, Akane Tendo/Saotome/whatever was still trying to process the possibility of not having to deal with one her most irritating suitors ever again, and wasn't really all that prepared to give a definitive answer to his query. "Uh, we haven't really figured that part out yet, Kuno-sempai," Akane replied uncertainly.

"Ah, well, that is but a trivial matter. In the meantime, I wish you to know that the five of you have my continual support during this tumultuous period, and that I shall endeavor to assist you through whatever means I can muster. Indeed, I want to assure you that I shall henceforth put all my efforts into seeking out the one responsible for this misdeed and rectifying the situation."

Why don't I like the sound of that? "Uh, okay… an' what exactly do ya mean by that?"

Kuno then made a dramatic pose (which did nothing to alleviate the sense of impending dread which was gathering over the three women in his audience) and made his bold proclamation: "I, Tatewaki Kuno, Rising Star of the High School Kendo World and Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, shall devote myself to the glorious task of discovering the whereabouts of my redheaded fallen angel, and by all the gods in the heavens, I swear that I shall reform her!"

Mu Tsu stared at the old woman with a bewildered look on his face as he tried to process the oxymoron. "Sensitive jerk? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You know how girls talk about 'nice guys' and 'bad boys?' A sensitive jerk is essentially the perfect combination of the two. Ranma's considerate enough that you can always count on his loyalty and affection, yet still dangerous enough to keep a relationship exciting."

The Matriarch slowly shook her head at the nearsighted teenager's presumptions. "That, Mu Tsu, is why all your efforts to win Xian Pu's heart have been in vain."

"No, because you believe that it is nothing more than a 'routine.' The truth of the matter is that that really is Ranma's true personality, and he hasn't snared his admirers through any of the womanizing machinations you are so fond of accusing him of."

In truth, Ko Lon thought that the boy should have given up long before Ranma ever showed up in Joketsuzoku, but saying that aloud was not likely to help anybody. "What can you hope to accomplish by continuing? You know how devoted Xian Pu is to our traditions, and her marriage is traditional by our standards."

"But if Ranma does something to demonstrate his unworthiness as a spouse the marriage could be annulled—"

"Even if Ranma does something that extreme (and I highly doubt he will), then Xian Pu will still be married to Akane, Ukyo, and Kodachi. It's time to face the facts, Mu Tsu: Xian Pu is permanently out of your reach."

"I don't interfere in the lives of individual tribe members unless I believe it to be necessary, and in your case, it would most likely be counterproductive. Or are you seriously claiming that you won't dismiss any suggestion I make out of hand?" This was met with silence, so the Matriarch continued: "Do you know what you're going to do?"

This was progress; by using the past tense, Mu Tsu had essentially admitted that the woman he desired truly was beyond his grasp. "I doubt it was correct to ever say that you did have her. After all, she has been rejecting your advances since the two of you were children."

"Well, yes… but that doesn't mean she might not eventually change her mind, right?"

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It didn't take a genius to realize that an Amazonian group marriage was going to be a hard sell for almost anyone, but this was especially true for people as obstinate as Soun Tendo and Genma Saotome. Fortunately, Nabiki was a master at the art of the hard sell, and for her sister and brother-in-law (and, by extension, her sisters-in-law), she was pulling out all the stops on this one. She had even set up a small whiteboard on an easel, recording the main points of her presentation with a red dry-erase marker:

HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS

1. Genma arranges marriages with no intention of following through with them.
Result: Ranma obligated to marry multiple girls, including Ukyo Kuonji.

2. Genma eats Shampoo’s reward, forcing Ranma to fight her.
Result: Ranma falls under jurisdiction of Amazon law.

3. Ranma allowed minimal interaction with girls.
Result: Ranma is socially inept and leads girls on without realizing it.

4. Genma and Soun come up with hare-brained schemes to get Ranma and Akane together.
Result: Enough interpersonal tension and angst to fill three albums by The Cure.

Conclusion:
It’s all your fault. (Especially Genma’s.)

It was a pretty decent presentation, all things considered, detailing the root cause of Ranma's difficulties with each of his suitors (now spouses, assuming that the proposed Amazon marriage had been seen through). Ukyo had been promised Ranma in marriage, Shampoo was obligated to wed him thanks to her tribe's laws, and Akane and Ranma hadn't done anything proactive about the others because of their somewhat strained relationship. The only part where the argument stretched was the third point about Ranma's social skills (or rather, the complete lack thereof), which was intended to explain Kodachi's continued presence. Obviously, one could argue that the gymnast would have pursued Ranma even if he was the most socially adept person on the planet, but Nabiki was fairly certain that some mild obfuscation on this point didn't really hurt her overall argument. Besides, once the fathers learned about the whole telepathy business, the subject would most likely be closed.

Of course, that was assuming that the present argument would actually register with the pair of fathers. "So, to summarize, we've established that Ranma and Akane, while not entirely without blame in this situation, can hardly be thought of as the 'primary offenders,' if you will, for the reasons listed here," the middle Tendo stated authoritatively as she gestured to the whiteboard with her pointer. "Are there any questions?"

Nabiki skeptically raised an eyebrow. "I see. And where, pray tell, is this error?"

"Well, while your argument does appear to be sound, I know it must be flawed, because they lead to the flawed conclusion that I am somehow responsible for the general situation, a notion which is so blatantly false that it hardly bears any consideration."

"Because it's not my fault!" The voices were really beginning to increase in volume now.

"Young lady, 'truth' is that which corresponds to reality, and the reality of the situation is that it's not my fault."

As the "discussion" between Nabiki and Genma devolved into an argument in which neither side was willing to concede anything, Soun turned to his oldest daughter in an effort to figure out what was really going on. "Kasumi, what exactly is Nabiki trying to get at?"

Kasumi thought carefully about how to respond before giving her answer. "Well, Father, Ranma and Akane have recently taken steps to resolve many of their conflicts with others, but they're worried that you'll see their solution as… less than ideal," she finished diplomatically.

Kasumi nodded. "They're worried that you will immediately denounce it as irresponsible before you have a chance to hear why they feel they had little choice in the matter."

"It's probably best if you hear it from them; they can probably explain it much more convincingly than I could."

This left Soun rather stunned as the argument continued. "I am a responsible adult!"

"My word is proof enough! Children are not supposed to question the wisdom of their parents."

"So the fact that you had sex with your wife means that you're qualified to ignore logical thought?"

"Yes!—I mean, no! You're the one being illogical, because it's not my fault."

The debate was clearly at a stalemate; fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), the argument was brought to an abrupt halt by a new voice: "What the heck are you guys yellin' about?" Four heads turned to see a female Ranma standing in the hall, with Akane and Shampoo behind her. "An' more importantly," she continued, "how is it gonna make my life even more complicated than it already is?"

"It's nothing, boy," Genma said in an effort to dismiss what was obviously a very loud "something" as quickly as possible. "Nabiki here just seems to be having some trouble identifying the root cause of your difficulties."

"He thinks it's not his fault," Nabiki explained, "even though it's perfectly obvious that it is."

"If you children can't behave, I'm going to have to separate you," Akane chided the pair.

"I must admit, you two do seem to be obsessing about this a bit much," Soun said uncertainly, still feeling uneasy about Kasumi's vague, foreboding warning.

Oh, for cryin' out loud…. "Enough!" Ranma said in an effort to establish some sense of order (or at least what passed for order in the Tendo compound). "Look, Nabiki may be exaggeratin' when she says it's all yer fault, but you guys—especially you, Pops—certainly were the ones who made this whole mess even possible by not tellin' us about the marriage arrangement."

"Shaddup," Ranma brusquely said, cutting off her father's self-righteous tirade. "This ain't gonna be easy, so lemme just get it outta the way so you can carry on carryin' on. An' can someone please get me some hot water?"

Amazingly, the three teenagers managed to get through most of their story without any interruptions—apparently, all the talk of genies and telepathy and polygamy had managed to stun the two fathers into silence. However, when a reaction did come, it did so at a very high volume. "Have you lost your mind, boy?! You get psychic powers and your first instinct is to get your own personal harem? That doesn't make any sense!"

"They do it to get around Amazon law—no time for anything else," Shampoo retorted.

Ranma wasn't about to let this escalate into a violent conflict between (reluctant) in-laws, so he attempted to shift the conversation by announcing his own reaction, which was one of utter confusion. "Wait… so yer just gonna take us at our word that we got this psychic thing goin' on now?"

"Boy, given all the weird stuff that's happened to you, something like that is well within the bounds of plausibility. What's truly mind-boggling is that you'd actually go along with some perverted custom of a bunch of backwoods yahoos."

"Speaking of which, shouldn't you be pulling out your demon head trick by now, Soun?"

"Oh, don't be so silly, old friend," Soun said, diplomatically dismissing Genma's idea. "The youngsters have just made an insanely stupid decision that they could have avoided by listening to us in the first place. Fortunately, a simple annulment should fix everything."

As this back-and-forth continued with neither side gaining much ground, Ranma briefly addressed a question with another of his wives. Shampoo?

What is it, Ranma-airen?

I was wonderin'… why don't the Amazons got divorce?

An annulment is not the same thing as a divorce, Airen.

I know that… sorta. But I'm still curious about the divorce thing. I mean, there's gotta be some unhappy marriages in the tribe, right?

Not as many as one would think. You see, it has become abundantly clear to me that we have very different expectations for marriage than many outsiders, who seem to think it is intended to be some sort of bizarre, extended courtship, which is utterly ludicrous, if you think about it. But I digress; you wanted to know why divorce is so rare among our people. The matter is a bit complicated, but I suppose it can be adequately simplified this way: if you've done something that the Amazons believe merits a termination of your marriage, then a messy legal proceeding is the least of your worries.

Huh?

Never mind, Airen—we can discuss this later, when we have more time.

"Oh, don't look so shocked. After all, the Amazons have been saying Ranma was a member of the tribe since he 'married' Shampoo."

"But why would you agree to this? You've always tried to avoid scandalous situations like this before."

Soun looked rather nonplussed at his middle daughter's intrusion into the conversation. "Her lack of success as much your doing as it is hers, if not more so."

"So? That just adds more weight to my argument that they shouldn't be held totally responsible for their situation."

This, quite naturally, came as something of a shock to the others present. "Nabiki, you're willing to actually claim responsibility for this?" asked Akane, who was amazed that her sister would give up any ground in an argument like this one.

"Partial responsibility," the mercenary girl clarified. "There's hardly anybody in Nerima who hasn't had some hand in this mess," she added with only slight exaggeration.

"Look," Ranma said jumping back into the conversation. "We all basically decided that this was the best choice that was available to us. Is it perfect? No. But we did it, an' now everybody's gonna hafta live with it, 'cuz there ain't no turnin' back now."

Seeing that his son was adamant in maintaining the new status quo, Genma decided to console himself by transferring his frustrations onto someone else. "Well, at least your mother will be happy."

"Well, why shouldn't she be? After all, she's the one who's always going on about how proud she is that you have so many girls after you."

"I never said that," came an answer from the doorway. A series of head turns revealed the Nodoka had arrived to contribute her two yen to the conversation. "I merely meant that the fact that so many girls were vying for Ranma's attention was evidence of his desirability as a man. I never intended for him to have lifelong relationships with all of them."

Perhaps the most surprising thing about what happened next was Genma's complete lack of surprise at his wife's sudden arrival. He simply continued the conversation as if she'd been there the whole time: "Yet I assume that you've given your approval to this madness?"

"But… yes. Their situation is so far beyond normal, that no solution is going to be perfect."

"Oh, great, so Ranma and Akane get to spend the rest of their lives trying to come up with reasons for why three other women live with them. A perfectly adequate trade-off, there."

"Boy, if the two of you are to combine the schools, you'll need a legitimate heir."

"How? Do you really think the Japanese government will recognize this insanity?"

"Yeah," Ranma confirmed. "We got everything set up with some guy from Foreign Affairs. It's all taken care of. We got dual citizenship now, so that means Amazon marriage customs are all okay for us, or somethin' like that."

That bit of news caused something amazing to happen: it sucked the hot air out of Genma's ranting. "D… Dual citizenship?" The three teenagers nodded in response, and the realization that there had to have been some major moving and shaking to get this done settled in on the stout martial artist. "Holy shit, they really are serious."

"What made you think we weren't?" Akane asked. Don't tell me he really thought we'd joke about something like that.

I dunno, Akane, I think it's more that he didn't think we'd put much thought inta this.

See? "Look, Pops. We know what we're doin'. It's not like we expect this ta solve all our problems—just replace a really big problem with a whole slew of smaller ones that'll be easier ta handle."

As Genma did so, the room's attention turned to his best friend. "I must say, you're taking this rather well, Father," Kasumi said.

"Well, of course," Soun said amiably. "You can't take dreams too seriously, my dear."

The Tendo patriarch chuckled. "Of course. This has to be a dream, because there's no way in hell that my baby girl would ever willingly go through with something like this under any circumstances. Ergo, this isn't really happening."

The youngest Tendo winced at her father's flippant insult. "This isn't a dream."

"Yes, it is—ow!" Soun began rubbing his arm at the spot where Nabiki pinched him. "What was that for?"

Soun didn't respond, instead staring blankly at his middle daughter, who waved her hand in front of his face after several seconds of silence. "Uh, Daddy?"

Although Ukyo had originally told her husband that she was going to use a bit of misdirection on her father, it turned out that Akira Kuonji was quite a bit more perceptive than Soun or Genma. He hadn't had to grill her for very long before she found herself admitting the entire thing: the genie, the telepathy, and the lurid details of the "Amazon wedding." By the end of her lengthy explanation, the chef felt utterly deflated and emotionally drained.

Ukyo heard her father sighing in resignation over the phone. "I should have known it would turn out like this."

"Oh, I don't blame you, pumpkin. I blame myself. I mean, I should have seen the signs: the clothes, the way you talked, that ridiculous story about Saotome's kid turning into a woman…"

"Oh, right: people like you find that word offensive, don't you? Sorry. I meant that it's not your fault you ended up homosexual."

"I mean, while it's still kind of gross that you want to have sex with women, at least you'll be able to hide it by having relationships with men. Just try to keep the ladies 'on the down low,' okay?"

"Look, honey, it's alright. I know you think your old man's a fuddy-duddy, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that times change. Just promise me that there won't be any pictures of you making out with your girlfriends showing up on the YouTube."

"Look, honey, I know that you're in love, but I'm not going to call them your wives."

Look, we can show him that ain't the case later. Right now, we need all the allies we can get, an' if yer old man is willin' ta accept the current situation, then that's one less person we need ta convince.

Ucchan, even though the whole situation is totally fucked up, I am still yer husband, an' on top of that, we're best friends. Ya know I only want what's best for you. Trust me, this is the way ta handle things right now. I mean, sure, yer gonna be lettin' yer dad think yer inta girls for a while, but it could easily be a helluva lot worse, right?

"Yeah… yeah, I'm here, Dad. And… thanks for your support—though I still want to make it clear that you don't have the whole situation right."

"Don't say anything, Dad. You might not have everything straight, but… but I guess it's close enough to the truth for now. Just promise to visit us when you can, okay? Then I'll be able to explain everything."

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "Trust me, Dad, that's the last think you need to worry about."

"Bye-bye." Ukyo hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. Well, it didn't go exactly the way I wanted, but that wasn't too bad, all things considered.

Yeah, that's generally the way the rest of us have been approachin' all this. Uh, say, when does Ucchan's close?

Oh… good. Um, say, could you, uh, do that? A lot's happened today, an' we need ta get together ta figure out where we go from here.

How 'bout your restaurant? We can help ya finish takin' care of things if it goes longer than ya thought.

That sounds fine, Ranchan. (Sure… if by 'fine,' you mean 'a real pain in the ass.')

Ukyo slapped her forehead. Crap… sorry, Ranchan. Really, it's okay for you guys to come over here.

I do not suppose I would be remiss in indulging in a bit of elation at this point; our conversation with Ranma's mother went quite well, given the nature of the extenuating circumstances. Mrs. Saotome does seem to be quite reasonable for someone who grew up in this area—why, with any luck, we may yet change her stance from acceptance to approval…. Calm down, Xian Pu. You need to be reasonable. That possibility is still highly unlikely at this moment. Still, it would certainly help Akane to have approval from an authority figure in her culture. I do hope that she will be alright…	Okay, so we got Mom on board. That's pretty good. She's even agreed ta stop over at the Tendo home later ta help convince our dads. That's even better. Shampoo's feelin' confident, Akane's feelin' nervous, Ukyo's too wrapped up in runnin' her restaurant ta really notice that anything's different, an' Kodachi… is bein' Kodachi. An' now that I think of it, none of them are really payin' me any attention right now. Been a while since I could say that. So I guess I've got some time ta myself, until one of them takes notice, anyway. So… yeah. Man, who'd've thought thinkin' about whatever ya want could be so hard? I mean, I've mostly been concerned with them since this mess happened yesterday. But… can I really handle this? I mean, I think I like them all, sorta. Even Kodachi's, uh, likable in her own way, once ya get ta know her. But still, this whole thing is… What the hell?	Well, now for the hard part. I'm glad we convinced Auntie Nodoka to accept what's happened—I don't even want to think about what we'd have to do to get our fathers on board without her in our corner. Still, I wish she could have come with us, instead of taking all that time to "prepare" for this… I still don't see why we couldn't have waited for her before leaving to go back to my house. And—hang on, what the heck was that look Shampoo just threw at me? Don't tell me she's starting to get perverted ideas too!
Oh, great, it's that moron who keeps insisting on calling me "sweet cheeks." I swear, if he wasn't such a heavy tipper, I'd punch him right in the snoot the next time he decided to try his borderline sexual harassment out on me. I still don't know how Konatsu manages to tolerate that guy—he probably thinks of it as a training exercise in self-control, or something like that. Bet that guy would flip if he ever realized that the cute waitress he insists on flirting with is actually male.		Ah, it's good to be me. Every time I think that there might be a ceiling to my greatness, I somehow find a way to prove myself wrong. I have accomplished what my spouses claimed was impossible, and have successfully reasoned with my brother. Granted, "reason" is a somewhat inaccurate term in this case, but this is my dear brother, after all. And if I can do that, who's to say that I can not bed any of my wives, even Akane? It is only a matter of time. It had better be only a matter of time.

Telepathic Hub

Chapter 10: Expecting Different Results