Chapter five
Prior Claim Trumps All
Ranma's visits to the shrine were practically daily now that the memory seal had broken. He was certain that the Tendo family as well as his other fiancées were getting suspicious but in all honesty he could have cared less. Shippou told Sesshoumaru about the loss of the seal. Sesshoumaru arranged a meeting in order to verify the information and was pleased to see that his nephew was correct. He welcomed Ranma as his brother reincarnated.
Unfortunately every bed of roses is filled with its goodly share of thorns.
"Ranma," Saotome Genma confronted his son one day, "we need to talk. Inside,"
Ranma had a sneaking suspicion what his father wanted to talk about. A suspicion that was confirmed when he was met with all three of his fiancées as well as the entire Tendo family and Cologne. With great care and calm he sat down and faced the firing squad.
"Yes?" he asked with a smile.
Nabiki spread out some pictures from a file in her lap before him, "Care to explain?" she asked. Ah. Pictures of him and Kagome together. The Inuyasha in him wanted to snort and tell them that it was none of their business. The Ranma reasoned that they had a right to know. They both wanted Kagome there.
"Do I get a phone call?" he asked. Kasumi got him the portable handset. He dialed a familiar number and waited for it to connect. "Hey, Shippou it's me. I got a little explaining to do here. Can you swing by the shrine and bring Kagome to the Tendo dojo? Yeah, you can sit in on this too. Him? Sure, if he really wants to come. Just be quick about it, they're staring at me," and he hung up. Everyone was looking at him expectantly. He shrugged, "I'll start talking once they get here. I might as well get this over with in one go,"
"That's a good idea," Kasumi agreed. Everyone else just frowned. They protested, threatened and cajoled but Ranma said nothing. Not a word, not even a twitch of the mouth. His lips were sealed until the doorbell rang.
"That's them," he said, getting to his feet to answer the door. He came back with three people in tow: Kagome – whom everyone recognized from the pictures on the table – Shippou and Sesshoumaru.
"Ranma I don't understand," Kagome was saying when Ranma slid open the door to where everyone was gathered, "Shippou didn't explain what's the… oh," she trailed off, catching sight of the gathered people.
"Yeah," Ranma said, helping her sit. She nervously smoothed her top over her distended belly. "Can you see why I wanted you here?"
"I hope you don't mind Ranma," she whispered, "but I might have to fight over you like a shard of the Shikon,"
"Just do your thing," Ranma agreed and smiled wryly at her.
"Cologne-san!" Kagome exclaimed when she caught sight of the ancient Chinese matriarch, "What are you doing here?"
"Kagome-sama," Cologne nodded, "I'm here because Ranma is my son-in-law,"
Kagome frowned, "No he's not," she protested.
Cologne frowned as well, "He is by our customs,"
"But he can't be,"
"Why not?" Shampoo demanded.
"Because you can't lay claim to a married man,"
Shocked silence. Ranma groaned at the poleaxed look on everyone's faces – sans Sesshoumaru and Shippou of course.
"WHAT!"
"Oh dear," Kasumi frowned slightly, "I think this is going to take a while,"
"Probably," Shippou agreed with a roguish grin.
"What are these?" Kagome asked, picking up some of the pictures that were still on the table. Her face darkened dangerously, "Who took these?"
"That would be me," Nabiki confessed fearlessly. Kagome looked the mercenary girl over and handed the photographs to Sesshoumaru.
"I think you had better explain things to these people, sister," Sesshoumaru said as he accepted the pictures.
"What we want to know is why you're so close to Ranchan!" Ukyou slammed her hands on the table for emphasis. Kagome took a deep breath.
"Very well. Please keep in mind that everything I am about to tell you is true in every detail. On my sixteenth birthday I fell down a well that the Higurashi shrine was built around just less than five hundred years ago. This well, the Bone Eater's Well was built using the wood of a goshinboku for the disposal of youkai bones and bodies,"
"Sounds yicky," Akane murmured. Kagome smiled at her.
"I have to admit that it scared the daylights out of me for years before I fell down it. But I digress. I fell down the well because I was being attacked by a youkai by the name of Mistress Centipede. While trying to escape I accidentally used the power of a sacred object that had been born in to my body and created a rip in the fabric of time. I surfaced five hundred years in the past in what was then called 'Inuyasha's Forest.'"
"It still is, by the older youkai," Sesshoumaru murmured.
"Is it?" Kagome was surprised.
"Mainly around the shrine, but really it's pretty much all of Tokyo proper," Shippou nodded. Kagome smiled brightly and patted Ranma on the shoulder.
"That would explain a few things," she laughed.
"What does this have to do with anything?" Genma demanded impatiently.
"Everything, Saotome-san," Kagome said, turning her attention back to the room in general and grinning, "for it is five hundred years ago that the solution for this entire fiancée mess was born. You see that is when I met a hanyou named Inuyasha. He was pinned to a tree by a sacred arrow but I managed to free him. We traveled together with a priest, Miroku-sama, and a taijiya, Sango-chan, for the next couple of years. That's a whole other story and if you're really interested you can ask me about it later. Anyways, as time went by and we defeated a manipulative and very, very evil hanyou named Naraku. Inuyasha and I fell in love and eventually married by human and youkai customs,"
"Naraku?" Cologne asked, sounding faint.
Kagome nodded, "I see you are familiar with the name,"
"There are few my age who are not familiar with the name of that black demon. Then you are the miko who restored order to the Shikon?"
"I am," she said, "but like I said, that is another story. I married Inuyasha but not even a year later he was killed right before my eyes,"
"Had my heart ripped out," Ranma growled under his breath and scowled darkly. Kagome drew in a shuddering breath and nodded.
"He had his heart ripped out by another youkai lord during what was supposed to be a peaceful meeting," she agreed, tearing up at the painful memory still tearing fresh wounds in her soul, "he died right there in my arms. I didn't even find out until a week later that I was pregnant with our first child,"
"That's so sad!" Kasumi sniffled in to a handkerchief.
"Two months later I ran into Ranma. Well, to be truthful, he fell on top of me. I noticed he had a curse and as a thank you for taking care of me during the time it took for my doctor to get to the shrine to stop a threatened miscarriage I offered to try to take it off. That's when I met Cologne-san, who my son, Shippou, had ascertained had information on the juusenkyou curse,"
"Your son?" Everyone was confused.
Shippou grinned and hugged Kagome, "Yup, Kagome's my mama!" he laughed.
Kagome smiled fondly at him, "I adopted Shippou-chan five hundred years ago. He's a kitsune youma,"
"Then who's this guy?" Ukyou asked, jerking a thumb at Sesshoumaru.
Kagome smiled benignly, "This is Taisho Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha's older brother and ruler of the youkai Western Lands,"
"Back to the story," Ranma sighed.
"Right. Sorry. Where was I?"
"You met with Cologne," Shippou prompted.
Kagome nodded, "Right. Anyways, Cologne-san ended up giving me the most important information I needed in order to perform a removal ceremony: what the curse looked like in an aura. Anyways, during the time that I was researching the juusenkyou curse Ranma was stopping by the shrine every once in a while to help out. It's pretty much only me, Mama and my younger brother, Souta there ever since my grandpa died two years back. It was really, very nice to have someone help out with the heavy stuff since Mama has to work and Souta has school. I can't ask Sesshoumaru or Shippou to come over all the time because they both have companies to run," she shrugged helplessly, "and since I'm pregnant I'm under strict doctors orders not to strain myself since hanyou pregnancies are always very much touch and go so I couldn't do any of it myself like I normally would. After a week or two I was confident that I could perform the removal. Well, it wasn't so much confidence as necessity," she slumped and shook her head.
"Necessity?" Akane pressed, "Why?"
"Because the seal that is placed on reincarnated souls was dissolving due to continued contact with my aura and Ranma was getting erratic flashes of his fast life. I thought that if I could perform the removal then he would have no reason to continue frequenting a shrine that was so far from where he lived and that the seal would allow him to lead his own life,"
"But things never go as they are planned," Sesshoumaru smirked. Kagome tossed him a scowl.
"During the process of removing the juusenkyou curse as well as some other smaller ones I managed to weaken the seal. I never have been very good at detailed work like that. I'm more of a 'big blast of power that incinerates everything' kind of girl. Anyways, the seal didn't break until after I collapsed during the festival,"
"And Inuyasha and Ranma became one," Ranma finished for her. Kagome looked around the room.
"And what does that have to do with our claim on him?" Ukyou asked, frowning. Sesshoumaru and Shippou snorted.
"Everything," Shippou said, "unlike humans us youkai mate for life, binding our very souls together. Father and mama were mated as well as married. Father was reincarnated and the mating bond still holds since his mate was still living. If you tried to force him to marry any other he would probably end up killing himself as penance for adultery even if the union was never consummated,"
The serious nods from Ranma and Sesshoumaru had most of the room's occupants paling at the implications.
"So, effectively Ranma is already married and was even before the engagements to the three of you were agreed upon," Kagome said seriously, "As the mate of his previous incarnation I lay prior claim on Ranma,"
"You can't do that!" Shampoo exclaimed, jumping to her feet in righteous indignation, "Ranma Shampoo's airen!"
"You can't be engaged to a married man," Kagome argued.
"Ranma not yours!"
"Yes he is!"
"You only want him because he's a reincarnation of your dead husband," Ukyou snapped.
Three separate, deadly, growls erupted on either side of Kagome. Sesshoumaru and Shippou's human disguises faltered revealing their true youkai selves. Ranma clenched his fists to keep himself from jumping in the fray.
Kagome went still. "You question my feelings for Ranma?" she asked quietly, quite aware of the picture her youkai family made as they took offence at the slight made on her honour, "Even before the seal on Inuyasha's memories I was falling in love with him. It seems to be our fate. Inuyasha loved Kikyou, my prior incarnation, and he loved me. As separate people. It is the same for Ranma and I. Never accuse me of using his reincarnation as an excuse to steal him from you," when no one said a word of further protest she smiled, extending a calming aura to the irate men beside her. "Anything else we need to clear up now?"
"I think it's terribly romantic," Kasumi sighed, throwing everyone off kilter.
Kagome and Ranma both blushed a little but only Shippou laughed, "So do I, Kasumi-san. I've been waiting five hundred years for mama and father to get back together,"
"It's like something out of a romance novel," she dabbed her handkerchief at the corners of her eyes.
"If that is everything," Sesshoumaru said, getting to his feet, "Then I believe that we shall be leaving. Brother, kitsune, Kagome-san," he motioned for them to follow him out. Ranma and Shippou helped Kagome to her feet and bid their farewells.
"Someone will be by later to pick up my things," Ranma said before leaving the room, "if you need me I will be at the Higurashi shrine,"
And he left.
"Well," Cologne said finally, drawing everyone's attention, "Nothing we can do about a claim like that,"
"Great-grandmother?" Shampoo looked stricken.
"Come, Shampoo, we must go back to China,"
Ranma helped Kagome into the back of Shippou's car and slid in next to her. Sesshoumaru declared that he was going to drive and peremptorily confiscated the keys from his nephew. Shippou grumbled about the arrangements but settled himself in the passenger's side seat. That left Ranma and Kagome alone in the back, not that they were complaining very loudly.
"Thanks for helping out back there," he whispered to his mate of two lives. Kagome smiled at him as she stretched the seatbelt over her distended middle.
"Hey, I told you I'd fight for you. Tooth and nail, as dirty as Naraku ever was, if need be," she joked lightly.
"Thankfully you didn't have to fight physically," Shippou said, "You're useless in close combat mama, baby or no baby,"
"No respect," Kagome pouted.
"It's only the truth," he defended.
"No respect," she repeated, sighing gloomily, "Even if it is true you don't have to rub it in,"
"Make me!" was the taunting retort. Ranma reached forward and smacked his son upside the back of the head. Shippou whined and Kagome laughed. Sesshoumaru just sighed. What had terrible thing had he done to deserve a family like this?
Owari