Chapter Twenty-Four

"Hello?" Nodoka said when she answered the phone the next morning.

"Hi Nodoka-sama, it's me." Ukyo said on the other end.

"Hi Ukyo, how are things?"

"My business is going to open up today, but I'm afraid I've got a concern. What exactly did you say to Ranchan when you talked to him?"

"Is there a problem?" Nodoka asked.

"Sort of. Ranchan apparently didn't take things well and has barely said a word to anyone, but from what little we have heard, it sounds like he believes you were attacking him."

"Just a simple miscommunication. I'm afraid my son is a little too fixated on martial arts and therefore stuck in the mentality of a fighter. To him, everyone is a potential enemy, even you three girls." Nodoka tried to explain.

"So what did you say that he took as an attack?" Ukyo asked.

"Just some parental advice. My son seems to have all his priorities in the wrong place. I was trying to show him how he could put his strengths to better use."

Ukyo tensed her lips for a bit. "So you told a headstrong boy you only just met that he's doing everything wrong?"

'Teenagers.' Nodoka silently moaned. "If that helps. But remember Ukyo, it might be somewhat insulting but that doesn't mean it's wrong. My son is strong and will get stronger, but what he needs more than strength is a reason to have it. A goal to achieve. Right now, Ranma seeks strength solely for the sake of having strength. It would be like you improving your cooking skills with no intentions of making a business of it. You get better solely so you can brag about it. Right now that is what my son is doing. I need you and the other girls to get him to see why that's wrong."

"Okay, that I can understand." Ukyo said. "But still, don't you think that was harsh to say to him?"

"You'll understand when you have children Ukyo." Nodoka claimed.

"Well, I have a fiancee right now and I don't understand how to help him. From what I can tell your husband did a terrible job at letting Ranma be anything except a martial artist. Everything else was surgically removed and thrown away."

"Then you will have to help him regain such qualities."

Ukyo couldn't help but feel like her mentor was actually trying to stay out of the problem here. "So you're saying my role here is to basically be the emotional equivalent of an organ donor? Give him back what your husband took away from him? No offense Nodoka-sama, but you do know how relationships work right?"

"I'm married you know."

"So? Since when has that guaranteed a healthy relationship?" Ukyo challenged.

"Be that as it may, I'm the voice of experience and foresight here." Nodoka pointed out. "I know my son needs help, you need to get him to accept that as well."

Ukyo suspected she had gotten all the help she'd be given. "Alright, I'll talk to you later." She then hung up and couldn't help but sigh. "Maybe part of being able to see the future is being a little out of touch with the present."

"Was that Mrs. Saotome?" Akane asked from behind, surprising the chef a bit.

"Yeah that was her." Ukyo paused to sigh. "I respect her greatly, but sometimes I have to wonder if she really is as smart as she wants me to believe she is."

Akane nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. I respect my father, in my own way, but I will admit without hesitation that he's an idiot."

Ukyo smiled. "I think all adults just want us to think they know everything. We should try something more realistic with our kids."

Akane blushed. "Let's focus on getting Ranma to love us before we think about having his kids. What ideas do you have? You've been thinking about this longer than I have, you must have some ideas."

"Last night we started on one of my better ideas." Ukyo started. "Thanks to our little game I think we've made it clear to Ranma that we are three attractive women."

Akane looked confused. "I think he already knew that Ukyo."

"Akane, have you ever seen a man that you thought was good-looking but you weren't attracted to them?"

The youngest Tendo slowly nodded, some images of handsome male faces flashing in her mind briefly. Then she silently gasped when she understood what the chef was getting at. "You were trying to wear down Ranma's hesitation weren't you?"

"Something like that." Ukyo admitted. "I was mostly trying to get him to be more comfortable around us and accept the fact that we all get perverted urges once in a while. Your way of saying it works too."

Akane nodded. "Good idea. I know that Ranma doesn't want to be married just yet, and this mess with his mother probably made it worse-"

"Oh you have no idea how much worse." Ukyo couldn't help but say right then.

Akane paused. "How much worse?"'

Ukyo had to think over the best way to phrase her response. "What it boils down to is that she thinks the best way for us to bond with Ranma is to spend time undoing all the damage hid father did to him and basically tell him what to do with his life."

Akane looked appalled and angry. "Is she expecting the three of us to treat her son like a project?"

"More like we're supposed to prepare him for something without being told what that something is. Making him husband material and a better martial artist at the same time is just how we do it."

Akane kept her frown. "A project."

Ukyo silently sighed. "Akane, I don't like the approach to this anymore than you do, but Nodoka-sama is not completely wrong. Do you want him to become a strong martial artist."

"Yeah but-"

"And do you want him to become someone you can date?"

"Yeah but what right do we have to demand he change on our terms? We'll lose him if we do."

Ukyo grinned. "Which is why we won't."

Akane blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Simple, we handle our relationships with Ranma the way we want them handled. We don't plan or force any changes, we let them come naturally. If anything, they only thing we actually have to work at right now is simply getting the three of us to get along and be comfortable with each other."

Akane nodded. "Yeah, that is a good idea. I don't want us to be enemies this time around."

Ukyo nodded. "So let's give Ranchan a day to himself while we stay here and have a girl's day?"

"What about your store?"

Ukyo shrugged. "Would you mind helping out? I'm expecting a big crowd today."

The youngest Tendo was hesitant for obvious reasons. "I... suppose, but only as long as I don't cook."

"Ugh, what a day." Akane said as she relaxed in a chair while Ukyo put out the Closed sign. "How can you and Shampoo do this every day?"

"Think of it as training. It gets easier the more you do it." Ukyo said, walking away from the door while rubbing one of her own shoulders, spinning her arm in the process. "Though yeah, opening days in new areas usually are tough ones so I hear."

"Shampoo happy to help, but no can do each day. Have school and other job." The purple-haired girl added, relaxing comfortably two chairs away from Akane.

"Overall girls, I'd call it a successful day." Ukyo claimed.

"What about tomorrow?" Akane asked.

"Should be calmer. Now that I have an estimate of what to expect I know how much I can handle on my own. Besides, school hours will cut back the excess crowd. I'm marketing to the after school and early evening market."

Akane shrugged. "Well, you handled it just fine in my dream. You should be able to here. At least until Konatsu shows up."

Ukyo arched an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Sorry, my bad. Konatsu is a guy who appeared near the end of my dream. It was weird, it was like a gender role reversal of Cinderella, with a boy being the servant of an ugly and ungrateful step-family. Weirdest of all they raised him like he was a girl. I have no idea why."

"Even back home I not know anyone who make boy think he girl." Shampoo noted.

"Did this guy or his family destroy my story or something?" Ukyo asked, remembering that Akane mentioned Konatsu affected her business in some way.

"No, but he became homeless and had taken a shine to you so you let him stay here and work rather cheaply. To him a child's allowance was like giving my sister a seven figure income. But he had a lot to learn about working here. Honestly I thought you kept him around as a sort of spare boy in case you ever gave up on Ranma."

Ukyo laughed. "Fat chance of that Sugar. No one's popping my cherry except Ranchan."

Akane blushed a little at the remark. Sure she was easily the most tomboyish of her family, but she forgot Ukyo took it to another level.

A knock at the door drew their attention, and they saw Ranma standing outside. Smiling, Ukyo went and unlocked the door. "Hi Ranchan, did you enjoy your day?"

'That sounded surprisingly like a housewife greeting her husband.' Akane thought.

"It could have been better." He replied.

Rather than force him to spend the day running the restaurant with him, the three girls had allowed him to go out and have some alone time and fun on his terms. Hopefully this would give him time to think over what was bothering him and would reassure him that the three of them were not going to be as domineering as he feared.

"Did someone try to fight you again?" Akane asked.

Ranma was silent for a moment. "Sort of, I'm not sure how to describe it. One moment I'm just out for a stroll, some water splashes me and I go girl and then I go looking for a place to get dry so I can turn back. Then next thing I know, some guy riding a horse of all things shows up and runs into me."

"A guy on a horse?" Akane asked, that sounding familiar but not able to recall just what part of her vision that was.

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I must have blacked out, because the next thing I know is I'm in this guy's house as a girl dressed in a wedding kimono."

"WHAT?!" Ukyo and Shampoo shrieked, jumping to their feet.

Akane snapped her fingers. "Now I remember this part."

"Relax guys, I made it clear that I'm a guy. This dork said he was the heir of some martial arts school based on the tea ceremony of all things." Two of the three girls just looked disbelieving. "I couldn't make that up even if I wanted to. Anyway, he said he was supposed to be in an arranged marriage with a girl who knew the same style, but the fiancee was unlovable, so he got the brilliant idea to abduct the first girl he saw and make her take that girl's place."

Both Shampoo and Ukyo looked like they wanted to hurt this person, but let Ranma continue.

"Once he saw I'm a guy that ruined his plans, but his conniving grandmother forced me to fight off the fiancee, saying I couldn't win even if I wanted to."

"And last in my dream, you sort of trapped yourself into this." Akane mentioned. The exact dialogue was iffy to her right now, but as she recalled the gist of it was that Ranma said he never backed down from a challenge and the old woman of this event had interpreted that as accepting the duel and engagement. And rather than refuse and let them handle this themselves, Ranma went along but refused the engagement part at least.

It appears the same thing happened again.

"A few hours of learning the basics and the guy decided that was enough. If you ask me he just wanted the problem gone and me with it." Ranma continued. "But when it came time to face this unlovable fiancee, it was a monkey."

Ukyo arched an eyebrow. "You mean she looked like a monkey?"

The pigtailed young man shook his head. "No, I mean an actual monkey. With fur and everything."

"Unlovable is right." Shampoo remarked.

"That was the last straw. There was no way in hell I was going to fight a duel with a monkey. But apparently the fleabag had other ideas and tried attacking me. I was already in a bad mood, and if that little creep wanted me to hit it then I figured why not. I was totally winning, but then some girl showed up and made us stop. If you can believe it, apparently this girl was the real fiancee meant for this guy, but she sent a monkey in her place because she was too shy to see him in person."

"And she actually thought sending a monkey was a better idea?" Ukyo asked in disbelief.

"Welcome to Nerima Ukyo, where the population is higher than the collective IQ." Akane said sarcastically.

"Mind if I use your shower Ucchan?" Ranma asked.

"Help yourself Ranchan. And if you want to crash here again tonight I don't mind." The okonomiyaki chef offered.

Ranma didn't respond, rather he just went upstairs.

Ukyo turned to Akane. "Is that everything?"

The youngest Tendo nodded. "More or less. The only real difference in my dream is I was there for a bit and at the end the guy tried to eliminate both Ranma and myself and make me the replacement fiancee. In the end the outcome here is no different."

"Shampoo hope this no make Airen fear marriage more." The purple-haired girl stated.

"Almost roped into being the bride against his will? Sorry, I think Ranchan is less eager to marry now than he was this morning."

"We can't think like that you two." Akane started. "Yes we all want to marry Ranma, but we can't skip to the happily ever after part of the fairy tale. Believe me, trying to here will only make things worse."

"We're not trying to Akane, but there's one thing here I don't think we can ignore." Ukyo started. "I may not have visions of the future, but I have learned how to read people. And looking at couples, I've learned a few things. Such as no girl wants to be with a guy long term if it's clear he's not going to commit to her. However patient she is, however understanding, if the boy only ever acts platonic or shows signs that he's just fine without her, she will lose interest in him. And none of us want that to happen."

Akane could only slowly nod, as did Shampoo. "So you don't want to rush him, but you do want to encourage more than friendship with him. How exactly do we do that? To him, anything other than friendship is rushing him."

Ukyo smiled. "Well I have one idea. There's a flipside to what I said. No guy wants to be with a girl long term if it's clear she has no intention of ever putting out. Some guys aren't patient beyond one night, but some are patient enough to wait months or even for marriage, as rare as that is these days. But no matter how patient the guy is, if the girl acts like she wants everything except sex, he's going to feel used and find someone more appreciative of him."

Akane's face turned as red as her name. Shampoo didn't blush, but she did look surprised to hear this kind of encouragement from the chef.

"Now I'm not saying we should just jump into bed with Ranchan and shag his brains out, as appealing as that does sound. I'm saying we should make the most out of our sex appeal and always be his friend before his fiancee. He might be nervous at first, but he will get used to it and hopefully want to spend more time with us, and if all goes right, date us."

"Be sexy, be friendly, and don't be a tease." Akane summarized.

"Exactly."

The next day everyone went to school and Ukyo was introduced as the new student. She got an exceptionally warm welcome when she handed out free okonomiyaki to the whole class, even the teacher as a sort of bribe to do this. Though that warm welcome quickly became a gaggle of questions once she announced that she was Ranma's third fiancee and sat next to him and the other two. The teacher had a difficult time getting the class to settle down and resume the lesson.

Lunch came and Ranma found himself gifted with a rare moment of privacy. Ukyo was making some more okonomiyaki as a promotion for her restaurant, only now it wasn't free. Akane was with Yuka and Sayuri talking about something Ranma wasn't interested in. And Shampoo had been asked by one of the school clubs as a consultant for something in Chinese. She'd probably be the one to get to him first.

Given an okonomiyaki ahead of time Ranma sat by a tree, smiling at Ukyo's design on the japanese pizza. Just like she had done when they were kids.

"Hey, Saotome!"

He looked to his right seeing one guy and one girl he didn't recognize standing there, neither of them looked happy. "What is it this time?" He asked, well aware that this could only lead to a fight.

"You're a horrible person you know that?" The guy accused.

Ranma blinked but looked apathetic. "Am I supposed to react to that? Because that's pretty weak."

"Shut your hole you bastard." The girl warned. "Three fiancees? No one has three, let alone two."

Ranma shrugged. "Take it up with my parents. They're the ones who made this mess."

"Don't give us that. You're planning on playing with every girl in this school aren't you?" The girl declared.

"And making it where no man here but you can have a girlfriend." The guy added.

Ranma gave a 'are you kidding?' look to them both. "Were you both hit in the head or something?"

"No but you're going to." The guy warned.

Confused, Ranma wasn't fast enough to react before something collided with the back of his head and he blacked out.

Finished with her work, Shampoo left the room of the club. Apparently one of the cooking clubs was going to be in a contest with other schools and got the idea that Shampoo might know and exotic prize-winning recipe. She said she didn't know any off the top of her head but she could check some of her grandmother's cookbooks and bring them a copy if she found one they could handle. That sufficed the club members and she was free to have her lunch.

'Where Airen?' She thought as she headed outside. She was tempted to shift to foxgirl form and sniff him out, but she didn't want to risk being spotted. Especially since Kuno kept trying to tell everyone she was a fox demon haunting the school and empowering Ranma with dark magics. Frankly it was no wonder to the Amazon that the kendoist had tried the hentai horde approach to get a girlfriend. With his sense of sanity he'd be lucky to die an old virgin instead of a young one.

Outside and at the area where most students ate, she looked for her betrothed, quickly seeing him conversing with two other students. Nothing too unusual, even if they weren't Akane or Ukyo, so Shampoo kept a casual pace.

But she stopped when she saw someone show up behind the pigtailed teen, and her eyes widened when she recognized the newcomer.

"No, not him. It can't be him."

The initial shock over, Shampoo rushed but she was too late. The newcomer had struck Ranma then bound him fully and took off, disappearing over the fence. Neither of the two who had been talking to Ranma showed any sign of surprise.

Enraged, Shampoo ignored the two and jumped over the fence, seeing the fleeing person run down the road a bit and she kept chase. Screw whatever punishment the school might give her for leaving the grounds without permission. Someone dared to abduct Ranma, he wouldn't stay behind if it had been one of the three in his place.

The abductor turned left and Shampoo followed, then another turn, and soon the Chinese Amazon's target came to a stop on a bridge over the Nerima canal. They stopped and put Ranma's body by the edge, like they were willing to push them into the canal at any moment.

"It's been a while, hasn't it Shampoo?" They spoke when she came close.

"You make big big mistake jerk."

"So did you."

Lunch ended and everyone went to class, and the absence of Ranma and Shampoo was noticed. Both were docked for it, but Akane and Ukyo were concerned. Sure, it was likely Shampoo would want some private time with him, and it was possible she could convince him to give it to her, but it was unlikely they'd not be back by now. Shampoo was a surprisingly diligent student, and had never been tardy once.

The day continued and still neither were seen. The two remaining fiancees knew beyond all doubt that something was wrong. But neither had any idea what it was, not even Akane.

When school ended both girls rushed out of class and began looking around the school. When they asked people, most knew nothing, but some did say they saw Shampoo chase someone off the grounds. The two left the school and headed in the direction they were pointed to.

After an hour of searching, they reached the canal, and Akane froze in horror. "Ukyo! I found her!"

The okonomiyaki chef looked down, and on one of the safety ledges in the canal was an unconscious fox. Knowing what to do she went to the side of the canal and went over the fence, then slid down the sides of the canal landing on the ledge. She picked up the fox and checked for injuries, seeing none.

"Who could have done this?" Akane asked when Ukyo came back up.

"We wake her up and find out."

Akane nodded and the two rushed to the Fox Cafe.