As the wish was said, Nabiki shuddered, and noticed that the rock was glowing. How peculiar... Perhaps it was some sort of magical item after all? The glowing stopped as suddenly as it started, and Nabiki resolved to figure out just what the hell this thing was supposed to do. Best thing for it was to lock it away for later inspection, and so she stuck it in her drawer. Best place to keep it out of the way. Hidden from prying eyes, or careless hands, or people trying to be helpful but somehow fouling it up and activating something that winds up destroying the house. Or worse.
Hm. Maybe she should make researching this rock top priority. Cologne and Happosai were out for much the same reasons. If it was useful, they would both want to take it from her. And she could hardly stop them. Distract, certainly. Lie to them? Definitely. Defend herself from them? Not a chance in hell. Therefore, don't tell them. Simple enough. It did cut off the two most useful candidates. That really left just one option. The good Doctor. In turn, there was only one danger for this one option. Kasumi being anywhere near him. For anyone outside this particular house, it would be something that would surely terrify the life out of you. Imagine being in the office when big sis arrived? Imagine that he was checking your temperature, your reflexes, your ears or - well anything. Being in that same office as him was almost like bungee jumping over a tank full of hungry piranhas under those circumstances. All they could do was play the odds. She wasn't there most of the time, therefore it was safe most of the time. Ah, but Nabiki lived with the inadvertant menace, and so could simply wait until she was definitely at home, then pop right on in. Easy done, no fuss.
As it happened, Kasumi was out at the moment, according to her father. That was fine. Nabiki had her very own private entertainment system set up. Not television or some form of games console or anything like that. The Saotomes were out sparring in the garden again. She knew because she could hear them. The same old insults - they'd almost certainly tried everything they could think of over the years and let the well run dry - the same sounds of them leaping into the air with impossible precision as they struck and blocked and landed and repeated. Soon enough one of them would be taking a dunking, so she hurried out to the garden to see it firsthand.
"What's wrong, old man? Having trouble keeping up?"
"Not at all! I was just wondering when you would take this seriously!"
And then, time seemed to stop. It happened just as Nabiki stepped out to take a look at the fight in progress. "Oh, what the hell is going on now?" she asked to nobody in particular. But then, somehow, everything seemed to just drain of colour and she was standing in the middle of... nothing. There was blackness to the left, the void to the right, darkness above her, emptiness below, the abyss in front of her and peering over her shoulder she could see that nothingness was behind her. Well, this at least answered to some small degree just what that weird rock did. But it did raise just as many questions as it answ-
"Hello!"
Nabiki jumped. She did try to retain a sense of cool aloofness under even the most trying circumstances, but given that she had just been teleported into the very heart of oblivion and a god-damn Kappa just said a friendly hello, she didn't really think any single soul could blame her for freaking the fuck out. Not that any of them could see her, or that she'd volunteer that information without a damned good reason... though that was assuming she'd ever get out of here at all.
"Welcome to the tutorial, Nabiki Tendo. I am Kappa, your guide for your newfound talent: Chaos Manipulation!"
Oh, well that explained everything. She'd gone insane. Somehow, the image of Ranma and his father appeared in the air above them in the middle of a mid-air flying kick joust. Yep, definitely lost it. And... was that some sort of music playing at the edge of her hearing? Where was it coming from? No, wait, she was insane. It didn't have to make sense.
"1: Concentrate on Ranma Saotome to trigger this skill. It will need to be him in person, as this will not work otherwise."
The kappa clutched the sides of his head, and stared at Ranma intently. Hm. Maybe she hadn't really gone insane at all. Maybe it really was something caused by the rock. After all, someone as nuts as she'd have to be to be seeing all of this would probably not be aware that this was simply not right at all. And then the threads started spiraling out of Ranma's body, straightening off in all manner of directions.
"2: Pick a thread. You will notice that the thread is tied to any one of a number of objects. Pluck it like so!"
The Kappa plucked the thread heading straight up into the sky, and just as suddenly a cloud formed in the inky blackness where the sky should be, and rain began to fall as Ranma and his father began to move again.
"Ugh! Stupid rain!" Ranma groused as she and the panda landed. It didn't even remotely interrupt their ongoing fight, and on they went like nothing was different. But the action paused again, which was more than a little strange...
"When you pluck a thread, you cause whatever it is tied to to interact with Ranma in a particular manner. You will then see precisely what manner the item will interact with him, and if you are happy with it just press the A button. Or in your case, snap your fingers. Time will reset, and events will unfold as you desire."
The scene played out again, just the same as before. No variation, no difference. No matter how slight, it was exactly the same.
"Once this step is taken, there can be no undoing it, so be sure of what you want! On the other hand..." Ranma and Genma returned to their positions in the air, just as before, and the Kappa hopped around towards another of the strings. "if you were not happy with a thread then you simply pluck another one, and so on until you snap your fingers."
This one was plucked now, and instead of rain beginning to fall, something rather different happened altogether.
"Ranma!" Ryoga bellowed from the front gate. "Today, you shall see hell!"
The lost boy charged directly at Ranma, and the scene froze...
"You see?" The Kappa asked. "Easy as pie! Have fun experimenting with your new special ability, but keep in mind that there are likely to be consequences for your actions if you're not careful!"
The Kappa ran away, too fast for Nabiki to follow. But right now she had other more important things to focus on. The darkness was creeping away, like a shadow as noon approached. Hiding in all the little corners that light couldn't reach, pretending that it had not been all enveloping, all consuming... That was a point. If there was darkness all around her, how the hell could she see? No, no, don't think about it, it'll only drive you mad. More mad. Whatever.
Still, now she was left staring at the Saotomes suspended in the air, just as before. There were any number of threads leading away from Ranma. Into his father, off towards the kitchen, towards the pond, towards the dojo - no, make that towards Akane. The one in the kitchen was probably tied to Kasumi. Okay, sure. She'd play along! Why not? But where should she begin this little game? Where best to start?
Wed Aug 10 23:53:45 2011