There was a knock on Nabiki’s door. The room’s occupant tilted her head up and frowned, confused. Who could that be? Her father never bothered knocking. He was the sort that just barged in as if he owned the place. Which he did, but let’s not get into semantics. Kasumi would knock and always declare who she was, while Ranma was more inclined to appear at the window. As was Happosai those two - and only ever two - times he dared try to enter her room. Hook up a few boxer shorts to swing down if the window is opened from the outside…
By process of elimination this indicated someone else was trying to get her attention, but who could it be? Nabiki considered for a moment, and looked down at her photos of Ranma posing in various bikinis. Could he have come around after a change of heart to try and get her to give them back? Meekly knocking at her door in his own version of a polite gesture? Well then, that possibility got her moving pretty quickly! A chance to fleece Ranma for more money didn’t come around every day. Alright, well, it did tend to but again! Semantics!
But rather than seeming too eager Nabiki brought herself to a halt and made sure she was quite presentable. Calm. Collected. Dictating the pace rather than having it dictated to her. She put on her best smirk, smoothed out her clothes and then just as smoothly opened the door -
“Hi, Nabiki!” said one of the two idiots Ranma tended to hang out with. “Look at this!”
A strange crystal was dangling outstretched from his fingertips right about head level. She couldn’t avoid looking at it if she tried. If they were trying to bribe her with something, they’d have to do a lot better than that. Aside from its sparkling quality it didn’t look anything like any kind of jewel she’d ever seen before…
And then a brief moment of dizziness. Nabiki blinked and stared at the two idiots Ranma tended to hang out with, grinning like lunatics. One of them was stuffing something into his pocket, but Nabiki couldn’t quite focus on it for some reason.
“Well?” she asked, inspecting her nails and sounding every bit as impatient as she suddenly felt. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Now that you mention it, there is!” one of them said, rolling slightly on his heels. Probably thought he looked cool doing that. In which case he had a lot to learn, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you could teach. “I was thinking you might do us a favour and get rid of everyone else in the house, ’cept Ranma and Akane.”
“Sorry, boys, you couldn’t afford -” Nabiki began, but stopped when her feet suddenly lurched forward against her own will and began to carry her off down the corridor. She didn’t even get the chance to think about why she was doing this all of a sudden, because when she passed Akane’s room she could quite clearly hear what her little sister was saying, and the strangest thing about that particular experience (which said a hell of a lot) was that she didn’t even slow down. Just kept right on walking until she hit the kitchen, where she found Kasumi washing dishes by the sink.
“Kasumi,” she said aloud, “I noticed there was something happening at Mister Satake’s store. I think I heard something about celebrating his daughter getting married soon?”
Which was true. She had heard that earlier on and had intended to strategically use that particular tidbit about an hour from now when she decided to mess around with Ranma. Which wasn’t something she was particularly ready for quite yet. Was she? Nabiki was starting to feel a little confused about her actions. Why was she…?
“Is that so?” Kasumi thoughtfully said. “How wonderful! I really must pay him a visit; he’s always been such a nice man.”
Worked like a charm. Nabiki watched Kasumi finish up the dishes, and then rush out the door with just a little bit of satisfaction. Of course, she hadn’t done that because those two boys had asked her to do it. No, no, nothing like that. It was only because she was so eager to corner her little sister and Ranma about their strange behaviour, not to mention a chance to interrogate those two losers about what was causing Akane to also make such an out-of-character chant.
“Would you look at that?” Nabiki said aloud, just in earshot of a certain easily manipulated elderly martial arts pervert. “It looks like the CEOs of the top lingerie companies in Japan are having a celebration at the Furinkan Viewpoint Hotel today. I bet it’s the kind of party where they have all their top models -”
“Soun! Genma! We have a mission for today! My lovelies need liberating from a foe most fiendish! My pretties! So cruel to keep them away…”
Right. And just like that they were all gone. Just her, Ranma, Akane and the two perverts that were her current number one suspects for why people were behaving weirdly recently. As a sidenote: Funny thing about that crystal spell the two of them was using was that part of its magic prohibited anyone from finding their own influenced actions strange or connecting it in any way to something the user was doing. On the other hand, this did not prevent the victim from noticing the strange behaviours of others. This essentially meant that currently Nabiki was rethinking her plan to empty the house since she didn’t actually know anything about what the two of them were doing, and she wanted to avoid them doing it to her.
Except that she didn’t realise that she was already under their spell, but alas! She rushed towards the front gate like a demon from hell was after her with the intention of pulling in a little backup before pushing any further -
“Hey, why don’t you come over here to talk with us?”
Then turned around and walked right over to the two suspects, because - Because obviously she didn’t really need backup. Just so long as she was careful and kept a close eye on them, they couldn’t really do anything. Right? She’d notice the second that they tried to pull something, and she was definitely much smarter than these two idiots. They would never pull the wool over her eyes.
“Thanks for getting rid of everyone,” one of them said. Honestly, she couldn’t remember their names. What did it matter, they were pretty much interchangeable so far as she was concerned. Nabiki adopted her cool girl pose. Leaning back against the nearest wall with arms crossed and a calculating gleam in her eye. Maintain eye contact at all times. “We really needed the privacy.”
“So you could turn my little sister into a pervert?” Nabiki asked, don’t break the eye contact, show them you’re not afraid of them. They actually did flinch quite a bit at that. “Interesting mantra you got her to chant. However did you do it? And please, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to deny it. In the long run that would only make things much worse for both of you.”
They looked at one another as if expecting the other to know how to answer her. Which meant that not only was she on the right track but that with a little extra push she’d have arrived home. And what else would be home but a great big jackpot, waiting for her to exploit? Except… The expressions of shock turned into smiles, as if they knew something she did not. That was hardly a good sign. Nabiki glowered at them a little.
“Sorry. We don’t know what you’re talking about,” one of them said.
“Not a clue!” said the other, sticking his hands in his pockets and again adopting that really stupid innocent look. “Come on, Dai! We should talk with Nabiki when she’s not being so paranoid. Next thing you know she’ll be trying to seduce us into talking.”
Ugh. The very thought made her roll her eyes in disgust. She never went out of her way to flirt with anyone that wasn’t at least a little bit cute, and even when she did get confessions it wasn’t because she’d gone out of her way to get them. Always from boys tripping over themselves to date her, because all they knew was her looks. They deserved a good fleecing. Might even teach them something, but she seriously doubted it. The very idea that she might decide to try to seduce these two -
“Not so fast,” she said, lightly flicking her hair behind her ears. Huh? She was dropping her ice-cool intimidating body language and instead adopting a far more sensual approach. She ran her hands down the sides of her body, which she was fully aware was rather excellently formed regarding pleasing the male aesthetic. “I really must insist.” She strode forward and - And she really must be trying to seduce them into telling her, because now she was pressing herself up against this idiot in a rather transparent attempt to make him too horny to think properly. “I want to know ev-ery-thing.”
Mon Oct 27 12:11:12 2014