Chapter 5

Nabiki was reclining, one leg crossed over the other, in her bed. She 
had folded her pillows to act like a back support so she could watch her 
TV. Reaching over to her night table, she turned up the speed on the 
fan. The heat had been getting to her.

Wearing a white Henley T-shirt she had left open, she lifted up the 
right flap to allow the fan's breeze to flow around her breasts. The 
cut-off jeans she was wearing were so short they little more than a 
zipper and pockets. She also left her underwear in its drawer; the fewer 
layers that could trap the summer sun's rays, the better.

She had come home for summer break from Tokyo University where she was 
studying to become a corporate lawyer. She chose that speciality not 
only because of her interest, but also because her knack for such things 
precluded studying her ass off like so many other daigakusei. As a 
result, she could enjoy her break.

Picking up the remote and surfing the channels for a while, she settled 
on a station showing a rerun of a Shogakukan special. Shifting down and 
relaxing her head on the pillows, she ran her palm across her forehead. 
She wondered when the temperatures would drop finally. Although wearing 
so little was good for those impromptu business meetings--her schoolmate 
debtors being thrown off-guard were she to approach them--the risk was 
becoming too great for the gain.

She looked at her palm. She had collected so much sweat, it was 
trickling down her arm. She looked at her slim thighs as she ran her 
fingers across them, almost disgusted with the amount she was sweating. 
The weather had better change soon, she thought.

Turning the fan up to it highest setting, she crossed her arms so she 
could remove her shirt. It was becoming discoloured with perspiration 
and it was beginning to ride up. A knock at her door caught her with a 
bare mid-rift and her shirt piled around her wrists. Her door was locked 
and the heat overruled private modesty, so she just tossed her dampened 
shirt on the floor in front of her dresser.

"Who is it?" she called out when she finished.

"Nabiki," the reply came. "It's Father"

"Daddy?" He was the last person she expected to knock at--she brought up 
the clock on her television--four twenty in the afternoon. Usually at 
this time, he was either in the training hall doing his martial arts 
junk or playing game after game on that beat-up old chessboard with 
Ranma's father; this was completely outside his routine. From this, she 
knew that whatever was happening, it must be significant. Now if she 
only knew what it was. She was always adept at finding other people's 
motivations, but she could never fully understand her enigmatic father. 
Either she subconsciously didn't want to or he truly was a master of 
concealment. <<Yeah, right.>>

"If you have the time, could you come downstairs?" he asked, his voice 
muffled by the door.

His lack of inflection was agitating. She couldn't tell if it was good 
or bad and she hated having to enter an unknown situation. Such lack of 
preparedness would be bad for business--and to Nabiki Tendo, every 
situation was a business situation.

"Is something the matter?" she asked, easily hiding the building tension 
from her voice with years of coolness practice.

"I'll explain it in the dining room."

She heard his footsteps trailing off towards the stairs.

"Shit," she spat through a hiss. "What the hell is going on?"

Stepping over to her dresser, she bent down to snap up her discarded 
shirt to use as a quick towel. Dropping the shirt again, she sprayed on 
some deodorant under her arms and between her breasts to try and cover 
up the smell. She pulled a brush through her brown shoulder-length hair. 
"You know," she commented to herself, "certain animals are smart enough 
to shed their coats in the summer."

Dropping the brush on her bed, she pulled out a similarly styled, green 
tee from a drawer. Pushing the shirt down, she flung open the door and 
slammed it behind her. She stopped at the stairs, and chided herself for 
almost losing control. Shutting her eyes, she gripped the banister and 
took a few deep breaths. Though she a reason for being edgy--the only 
other time that Daddy ever came to her door like that was when Mama had 
died--she tried pushing those thoughts out of her head. They were 
counter-productive. There was no proof to sustain such suspicions; she 
needed facts.

When she felt calm enough, she allowed herself to proceed.

At the foot of the stairs, her composure gave away not to anxiety again, 
but confusion. Some sound may be coming from the dining room but it was 
unidentifiable.

Something near the door attracted her attention. It was pair of purple 
travelling slippers that were on the ground level of the foyer. She also 
noticed two more pairs of slippers and a pair of sneakers. Insight was 
developing slowly, but the evidence was far from circumstantial. 
Shampoo, Mousse, Ukyo, and Ryoga were called over. That meant the 
situation was centred on Ranma.

The lights were shut off, which wasn't irregular since it was daytime, 
but for some reason it gave the house an empty feeling despite the 
indication of guests. The effect was unnerving.

Her lip curled slightly, from the anxiety that seemed to hang in the 
air. She looked down the kitchen corridor; it was equally as dead. It 
was--she glimpsed her Seiko--four twenty-three and she heard no sounds 
from the kitchen. On a normal day, Kasumi would have been in there 
cooking enough food for all the family's ancestors.

As she tried walking down the hallway to confirm, a clinking sound 
pierced the silence from the room beside her. Her head whirled around so 
quickly, hair slick with sweat smacked her face and stuck. Clutching her 
chest and grabbing the corner of the wall, she tried to keep her heart 
from beating it's way out of her chest.

She shook her head the way she would shake her television set, as if to 
reconnect the logical part of her brain. Chopsticks striking a plate. 
She was getting spooked over chopsticks striking a plate. The absurdity 
of it was humiliating yet coyly humorous.

<<You did it Daddy. You got me.>>

She turned back toward the foyer.

Resting her hand on the door handle to the dining room, she had to 
compose her expression. Other people *were* in this house and it was 
important to keep up appearances. The key was to always keep the same 
cynical look on her face that would encourage people to ignore her. If 
too many people were trying to observe her, she wouldn't be able to 
observe them, finding *their* motives and agendas, ulterior or 
otherwise. And with this bunch of guests there would be enough angles to 
make a defence lawyer go nuts and take the jury with him.

Opening the door, she took a quick scan of the room. Shampoo and Mousse 
were sitting on the left side of the table. Ukyo and Ryoga were on the 
right. Daddy and Mr. Saotome were sitting behind the table and Kasumi 
was closest to her. Everyone, except for Daddy, was calmly eating shrimp 
and rice dishes that Shampoo had brought over by the looks of the 
delivery box beside her. Ranma was outside looking at the fish in the 
koi pond.

Ryoga looked like he'd been sightseeing--or whatever he wanted to call 
it--for a couple of weeks again and brought a whole desert for a 
souvenir. Shampoo was dressed as if she were still working. In fact, 
everyone looked like they had been grabbed from whatever they were doing 
and set down in this room.

Daddy, resting his hand on the table, held a cigarette between two 
arched fingers. The only time he ever smoked was when he either 
celebrated or had unfortunate business. And, with the absence of any 
alcohol contemplating his other hand, she took it to be the latter.

Taking a pull, he exhaled slowly. "Please sit down, Nabiki," he said and 
motioned to the spot beside her sister.

She sat and Kasumi placed one of the dishes in front of her. "Thanks, 
Sis," Nabiki mumbled absently but didn't touch the food. Instead she was 
eager to find out what Daddy was going to say even though, outside, she 
looked as though her Prozac prescription ran out last week.

Daddy took another pull and watched as the streams collected and flowed 
around the light on the ceiling before snubbing his butt in the ceramic 
ashtray and pushing it away from him. "Recent events have prompted me to 
call you here today," he said.

Lowering his head, he looked around the table and continued. "I have 
called you because you are the closest friends of Ranma's. And this is a 
matter that requires the utmost co-operation. It is the hardest task 
that a martial artist must face. You all have been collected with one 
task in mind, you must help Ranma."

"Help him?" Ukyo asked. "Help him with what?"

"Nothing happen ever to Ranma what he not able to face." Shampoo stated 
firmly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"True," Mousse said pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 
"Ranma is very...adept at handling himself. What could have possibly 
happened to...shake your reliance in his abilities?"

Nabiki rolled her eyes. <<Ah, the innocence of youth,>> she thought, 
resting her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. 

She knew that Mousse was trying to expose a weakness. What he seemed to 
completely miss was the fact that if Daddy *were* hiding something, he 
would not have gone to the trouble of assembling them here.

"What I'm trying to say--" he glared at Mousse "--is that Ranma not feel 
like he is going to be attacked every minute of the day. This is my 
request, a covenant I want you all to abide by. None of you will try to 
assail Ranma with challenges. You will not raise any weapons toward him. 
You will not attack him openly or subversively. My daughters excluded of 
course." He gestured towards them, Nabiki blinking in lieu of response, 
Kasumi remaining cheerfully oblivious.

"Why are you doing this?" Ryoga asked, only he didn't use a menacing 
tone. Nabiki detected a small note of concern just beneath the surface. 
To Ryoga honour was nothing to toy with and, she guessed, even a hated 
rival was no exception.

Daddy sighed, defeated. He stood and turned toward Ranma who was still 
looking at the fish. "Ranma," he called out.

Ranma broke her attention from the water. Standing up, she walked into 
the house.

"Ranma," Daddy said.

"Yes, sir?"

<<Sir?>> Nabiki echoed silently. The keigo sounded thoroughly 
alien...coming from Ranma.

"Do you recognise anyone?"

That's it, she thought. That's the problem. That's why Daddy was 
stalling and acting apprehensively.

Ranma looked at every one in turn, starting with Ukyo and ending with 
Mousse. Then back again. She kept the same bewildered look the entire 
time. After a third pass, she was becoming upset.

Daddy put a hand on her shoulder to console her. "Don't worry, it's 
okay." He turned his attention back to the group. "Ranma was in an 
accident earlier this morning. It left her with a compromised memory. 
It's not complete amnesia so she has a better chance for recovery. Thank 
you, Ranma." She left.

"However," he continued in a lower voice, "one of the missing pieces in 
his memory has the knowledge of his male half inside. So this is 
imperative. Ranma must remember being a man on his own. If he finds out 
before he's ready, the consequences will not benefit any of us."

A few seconds passed to allow them to assimilate the information. The 
summer crickets' chirping was becoming a din in the quiet of the room. 
Then Ryoga broke the silence.

"All right," he said, raising his head from behind his woven fingers. 
"Count me in."

Daddy looked around at the others. There was a mixture of "Yes" and 
"Okay" from around the table.

"Very good. Thank you all," Daddy said.

Nabiki expected Mr. Saotome to say something but he stood up and left. 
Maybe it was hitting him harder than she thought.

She shifted her position so she was watching the four teens as they left 
looking for something--anything--that expressed what they were really 
thinking.

<<Remind me not to play poker with them anytime soon.>>

Daddy went after Mr. Saotome. Kasumi started to clear the table of the 
dishes Shampoo left behind.

?                    ?

"What do you think, Kasumi?" Nabiki inquired, keeping her gaze on the 
now-empty doorway.

"About what?" her sister asked back with that unconquerably nice 
attitude.

"Do you seriously think those four will keep their promise? If I were 
them, I would be thinking of ways to reap personal benefit before I made 
it off the property."

"Don't be silly, Nabiki. Friends wouldn't take advantage of other 
friends."

She swung her head towards Kasumi. "Yeah, but we're talking about 
Ranma."

?                    ?

Leaving the dining room and going to the stairs, Nabiki was set on 
getting back to her room. When she saw Ranma come from the end of the 
hallway however, she stopped. Her mind debated with--her heart?--over 
how to handle the situation. It was the first time in a long time, since 
Mama died, that she was unsure what roles she would have to take over, 
if she would have to provide. The last time she chose it was easy; to 
separate herself from the rest of the world, become merely an observer. 
<<And look where that got you.>> No real friends left. Nearly alienated 
herself from her family. But it was still the easier choice.

Akane could help Ranma, but that was unlikely. Daddy or Genma? Maybe, 
but instead of fixing things, they might make it worse. 
Kasumi-definitely not. Ryoga or the others?

<<It might be more humane to kill him now. But am I any better a 
choice?>>

It came down to the very next choice she would make, easy or hard, and 
she made it. 

"Ranma," she called out.

She met Ranma halfway down the hall. Ranma looked exactly the same as 
Nabiki saw her in the dining room, but now she did seem defenceless. 
Though she would be unable to defend herself if one of those wackos were 
to attack, Nabiki refused to take pity on her. Ranma was still one of 
the world's best martial artists, even if she couldn't remember it right 
now.

"I want you to know, I'm pulling for you," Nabiki said at last. "I hope 
you get your memory back."

Ranma smiled and hugged her. "Thank you, Nabiki."

Nabiki stiffened for a moment but returned the favour. "'Kay, no need 
getting gushy on me."

"Sorry," she said pulling back.

Nabiki smiled the first sincere, heartfelt smile she had in a very long 
time. "Don't be, just be careful." She followed Ranma to the stairs.

"Don't worry," Ranma said, unaware of the danger ahead of her. "I've got 
my friends helping me."

Nabiki watched Ranma the rest of the way up. She hoped Ranma was right. 
She wanted to uphold her reputation as being a tough person would she 
end up drawing benefit from Ranma's affliction? She knew it would be 
easy--oh God, would it be easy. But I won't. Why?

Some part of her wanted to criticise her, say that she was going soft. 
But in truth she knew that to do such a thing would be worse than just 
being an impartial businesswoman, it would be heartless.

She just hoped that the others had similar convictions of conscience. If 
not, Ranma would be in for a rough ride on the road to recovery.

Then she remembered the hug.

She hoped to hell nobody saw her.

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