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Innortal
Author of 38 Stories |
Papa’s Back
Chapter 5
Making Home
Disclaimer: I don’t own this series or any other series. I am just floating an idea. I am making no money, nor plan to, off this venture. If you think of suing me over this, then grow up.
I would like to first personally thank all of those reviewing my stories. I enjoy reading your comments, and try to correct the grammatical errors I miss with my final read-through as well as my spell checkers. The suggestions you all make will help make this story better for everyone to enjoy, as well as allow my to fix some plot holes I may unintentionally leave. If you find any, let me know, and I will correct them and repost the chapters.
The day they got married...
The day he proposed...
The day he carried her into a home he built with his own two hands...
“Easy, dear,” said Ranma, helping ease Nabiki onto a cushion.
Then there were times she wanted to rip off his legs and beat him with them. And no, those were not pregnancy hormones talking.
“Damn it, Ranma,” she growled, “I’m not a piece of china, I won’t break.”
He sighed, sitting beside her, rubbing her back. “I know, but ... I ain’t sure how to act, Nabiki,” he said, rubbing her back a little higher as he felt the tension begin to melt away.
“If you’re acting like this when I’m only five months pregnant,” she said, “how are you going to act when the baby comes?”
He nervously chuckled. “The same way I handle everything else; eyes closed and jumping in head first.”
She giggled at that. He was still the same person she had fallen in love with so many years ago, the same person she married, the same person who occasionally got jealous if he found her speaking to some male that flirted with her. “Seriously, Ranma, calm down; otherwise our child will be born neurotic.”
The man paled. “OH MY GOD!”
She wanted to slap her own head against the table, forgetting how badly Ranma was taking the responsibility for a new life; his mind driven to be the best father ever. “Saotome, SIT!”
By instinct, he sat, still sweating. “By Kami-sama, my daughter will be neurotic!”
“Daughter?”
He paled more at that. “Shit,” he muttered; his anxiety over being nervous around the child overridden by the fear of Nabiki, as she had not wanted to know the gender of the baby.
Nabiki was no longer paying attention to him, her hands having pulled up her loose shirt, to rub her belly. “I’m ... having a baby girl.” Her eyes had misted up, a smile on her face, as she continued to rub her belly.
Ranma came up beside her, before placing his hand on both of hers. “Yeah, a very healthy little girl. Little Makoto is doing great.”
Nabiki nodded, remembering their earlier conversations about the names for the child; mostly centering on what they would name it if it was a boy. “My little Mako-chan,” she said, laughing a bit through her tears.
Ranma nodded, changing hands so he could hug Nabiki to himself. “She’ll be a perfect little girl; your brains, my skills, and none of our baggage.”
Nabiki broke down in laughter, leaning her head against his chest. “What if she doesn’t want to be the best martial artist of her generation?”
Ranma snorted. “She’s my girl; she’ll need to know it to beat back all those perverts that will be sniffing around her.”
As she began to laugh again, her tears of happiness drying, he maneuvered around her, allowing her to lie against him, as he wrapped his arms around her.
“And what happens if I don’t lose the weight?” she asked, still fearful she’d never lose the pregnancy weight gain.
Ranma snorted. “You’d never allow it; my wife loves to be desired by all, and walks in such a way, that everyone else knows they may look, but never touch.”
He nibbled on her ear. “Besides, I married you for you, not the body.”
“Really,” she purred, “well, after I deliver, I can get some Instant Nanniichuan and...”
“Don’t press your luck, Porky.”
“Hey!” she cried, as they quickly degenerated to a tickling match, which soon followed by the same activities that made Nabiki pregnant in the first place.
He had bought one place last week, finding it perfect for his desires, before fixing it up. With six rooms, it was slightly larger than the Tendo Dojo, and roughly the same size as his first home with Nabiki. He had already retrieved all of his stuff from the storage lockers Kasumi had placed them in after his disappearance, moving them into the new house. With the stuff he had just moved today from Makoto’s apartment, they had three rooms filled, with three guest rooms.
That was one room for Makoto, and two rooms for him, as he needed to keep up the idea of “Ranko” for the busy-bodies that insisted on knowing more about her.
Plus, it helped keep people from believing the perverted rumors of what “they” had done on that forced vacation.
He had been busy painting, repairing, rewiring, and replanting on the property. He even had time to install a koi pond.
He had totally redone the dojo; reinforcing the roof, walls, and floor, as well as adding separate changing areas should he feel the want to start teaching again.
He even stocked it full of pillows, since he assumed that like the magic girls he had read from Nabiki’s mangas, that they would want a meeting place, and he’d rather have his daughter as close as possible, since he doubted the bad guys would leave her alone.
Thinking of that, he added something to his shopping list. “Ice cream freezer and maker. Hmm, better make that two.
“Mmm, ice cream.”
Shaking his head, he looked at the clock. “Damn, time to go get Mako-chan and bring her to her new home.” He smiled at that, glad to be able to provide that to his daughter.
He knew she loved the fact that he had returned, even if her mother was not able to be brought back.
“I wish I could give her that,” he whispered. He truly wished Makoto to know her mother. Ranma knew how much it hurt the Tendo sisters to lose their mother, and he had hoped to allow his children to know both their parents. He wanted his daughter to know both parents, something he knew both he and Nabiki wanted for their children.
Sadly, fate and a dead pervert named Happosai had other plans, and he could only hope his daughter would have better luck with her own children.
Shaking his head, he turned to see a photo of one of their few family outings.
It was of them in Hawaii. Ranma in his female form with Nabiki were standing in the surf, Makoto jumping into the air, her arms extended in happiness. It had been the last shoot out of Japan he had done, and the last time they had been together like that.
Smiling, he turned towards the door. He still had to pick up Makoto and her friends and show them their new home.
There was always time later to reminisce. And he would love to tell that story to his daughter, to see if she remembered it.
He still had her left, and memories, especially the happy ones, should always be shared.
But the Kami had decided otherwise.
She knew it was too much to hope that they could restore her to life. Since she fell in love with Ranma, she came to accept and desire certain things, and she knew there were more deserving individuals who would deserve life again. She was relatively certain that while her life had not been the most ... selfless ... before her marriage, she wasn’t about to try and excuse it.
Besides, she could always hope for reincarnation.
Shaking her head to dismiss what thoughts of what might have been, she looked around. “It really is a good home, anata. Make certain you never let her feel unwelcome.”
With that and a smile as she turned towards the wedding photo that was also on the wall, she faded back out, offering whatever prayers might be heard, that everything would be for the best.
“She really looked at you like that?” asked Minako.
“Yeah,” said Makoto. “What did I ever do to that theater teacher?”
Ami nodded, looking at the Mercury Computer. “Well, she’s fully human, I can say that much.”
“It’d be easier if we could just dust her,” said Makoto.
“I take it you had a bad day in classes?”
She turned around to see her Father. “Daddy; did you ever have a teacher that just seemed to hate you for no reason?”
Ranma nodded. “It’d be easier to count those that didn’t hate me, want me dead, or see me as a battery to keep them in adult form,” stated Ranma, much to the surprise of the other Senshi.
“O...kay,” said Makoto. Must be a weird family thing. “So, where’s this new home you wanted to show me?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
Smiling, Ranma bowed. “This way, my Princess; let this undeserving peasant escort thee to thy humble abode.”
The other girls giggled at the display, while Makoto looked down at her feet in embarrassment. “Daaaaadddy!” she whined.
Chuckling, Ranma stood back up, taking his daughter’s arm, before leading her and her friends to the new Kino Dojo.
This of course, was not missed by many of her friends who had heard the conversation.
“My God,” said one, “Makoto’s Dad is “the Ranma”.”
“Whoa,” said another, “she is so lucky!”
By the next day of classes, the truth about who was Makoto’s dad would be all over school.
“Excellent dojo,” awed Haruka.
“The landscaping is beautiful,” nodded Michiru, smiling as one of the koi jumped out of the pond to snag a fresh bug.
Makoto nodded, having just returned from her new room. “Dad, this is just so ... I mean ... this is all ... wow!”
Hotaru and Usa agreed; the latter having been brought over with the other Outers, as the two proceeded to eat the freshly made ice cream Ranma had produced.
Minako and Rei were just standing before the big screen plasma TV that Ranma had purchased, looking on as the attached entertainment system came online, drooling.
“What about security?” asked Ami, wondering if she could talk her mother into purchasing the same internet access system Ranma had installed.
Smiling, Ranma whistled a bit, as three very large and very odd looking dogs came from under the house, panting.
It wasn’t the size of the dogs that made everyone stare; more the fact that the dogs had spines sticking out of their limbs and spine.
“Um ... dad,” said Makoto, eyes wide as her father started petting the largest one, “what are those?”
Smiling, Ranma turned to her, as the other dogs surrounded him, before sitting and panting. “They’re hellhounds. I breed the little guys.”
Usagi gulped, easily imagining one of those dogs swallowing Luna like a gumball. “Why are they here?”
“Security,” said Ranma, as one of the dogs rolled over, allowing Ranma to rub its stomach.
“From what,” stared Rei, “the military?”
“Nah,” said Ranma. “Just the usual suspects; prowlers, paparazzi, demons, Amazons, Phoenix tribe, Musk warriors, youma, perverts, rogue agents out for the head of myself or my daughter, neighborhood kids, religious zealots, assassins, gods, goddesses, demons, demonesses, psycho fans, love interests who can’t take no for an answer, undead creatures, family members that won’t leave us alone, demon hunters who see you do one thing and immediately want you dead, fiancées, fiancés, debt collectors—”
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” yelled out Rei.
Ranma nodded. “Yeah, these little guys wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless I told them to.”
This might have built some faith, had one not snatched a low-flying pigeon out of the air with a frog-like tongue, and quickly swallowed it.
Of course, one had broken away, sniffing at Minako’s bag, licking its lips.
“Help me!” cried out a voice from the bag.
“No eating Artemis!” yelled Minako, grabbing the bag and cradling it.
“Who or what is Artemis?” asked Ranma, as he called the dog back to him.
“Me,” came the weak reply, as Artemis stuck his head out of the bag.
Ranma blinked, glad his troubles in Hyurn helped him get over his fear of cats. “Mau?”
“You know of them?” asked Setsuna.
Ranma nodded. “Yeah, the Mau were created in some dimension about 59,000 years ago by a ten year old girl named Princess Serenity IV. She apparently wanted her dozens of pet cats to talk with her, so she stole some weird crystal called the Ginzuishou from her mother and created them.”
Everyone turned to Usagi. “Um,” started Ami, “which was...” she left off, wondering exactly which ‘Serenity’ that Usagi was.
“The forty-second,” said Setsuna, grumbling about how the scouts all knew how the Mau came to be.
“What’s his name?” asked Hotaru, as one with green spines was currently licking her face, causing the little girl to giggle wildly.
Ranma nodded. “That’s Shinji XIII, he seems to like you,” commented Ranma. “Would you like him? I can always get another one, and he seems so attached to you?”
“Can I?” the Senshi of Saturn pleaded towards her parental figures, giving them the full dreaded puppy-dog eyes, which was also mimicked by the hellhound.
Haruka gulped. “Um, we’ll discuss it, I don’t know if we can have pets.”
“But don’t you guys own the house?” asked Usagi.
“Yes,” said Michiru.
“YEAH!” cried Hotaru. After all, if they owned the house, surely they’d let her have a pet. “He can sleep in my bed!”
Ranma nodded. “Well, I better get one of the owner’s manuals I wrote for them. That is if Shinji wants to go with you?”
The demon dog barked loudly, before he resumed licking Hotaru’s face.
“He’s not going to eat her, is he dad?” asked Makoto.
“Nah,” Ranma said, waving dismissively. At least I don’t think so. “If you guys want, I can get you each one? They’ll help you on whatever magic girl business you have, and I can equip them with a spell so everyone else will see them as normal pets.”
Several of the girls began to consider that, including... “MINAKO!”
“Sorry, Arty,” said Minako. “They won’t eat a Mau, will they?”
Ranma looked back and forth between the dogs and Artemis. “I don’t believe so.
“Well, as long as you keep them pretty well fed.”
Artemis gulped, remembering how often he had to yell at Minako when it was her turn to feed him. I’m a dead man.
Sad thing was, she had already placed a purple ribbon on Shinji’s tail.
“Listen,” said Setsuna, “I’m still not one hundred percent positive things are going for the better, but Makoto asked me to help you out, so I will.”
“Gee, thanks,” he spoke with sarcasm.
“Here,” she said, handing him a folder, “is someone who will interfere with Mako-chan’s life.”
Ranma opened up the folder, growling and glowing slightly red as an aura of anger began to emerge from him. “Akane.”
Setsuna nodded. “She’s a new teacher at Juuban High. Her address and information is in ... that ... folder,” she finished, noticing Ranma had vanished.
“That ... can’t be good.”
Ami opened, it looking on the data. “Trouble!”
As they all left, Artemis looked nervously at the dogs. “Um ... perhaps you should go help them?”
The three dogs licked their chops once again, as they lunged for Artemis, only to have their meal picked up at the last minute, the Garnet Rod striking them all on their noses.
“Bad doggies,” said Pluto with some humor. “No eating Mako-chan’s friends.”
She shook her head as all three sat down. “I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”
Artemis was still panting heavily at his near death experience. “And she wants to get one of them,” he cried.
Shaking her head, Pluto teleported to the battle, hoping the Senshi would be too busy with it and forget about getting new pets from Ranma, and that Ranma didn’t do anything that required the Senshi to try and stop him.
“Kami-sama damn it,” he muttered. From Kasumi’s stories, he knew well enough how against Makoto that Akane had been in the past. It was only by sheer luck and amount of support from her aunt and uncle that Makoto didn’t have a slew of issues. It had gotten so bad, that Makoto didn’t even know about her own grandparents, or her Aunt Akane.
“Kasumi was right,” muttered Ranma, “perhaps it would have been better if she had died at Jusendo.
“Then she wouldn’t be thought of as this bitch.”
He let out a drawn out sigh. “Then again, the families would still be upset with me and Nabiki; or someone else would blame me for not saving Akane.”
Shaking his head, he stood up. “Can’t live off wishes. I got to fix this before the tomboy decides to try and make Mako-chan’s life worse.”
Nodding, he turned towards the direction he felt her aura coming from. “Have to hold off though; looks like the tomboy has company. The damn panda if I remember correctly.”
Shaking his head that he was going to have to put off dealing with Akane for one more day, he began to head home, only to stop, as he felt a disturbance.
“Well,” he snarled, getting a pole ax out of his weapon space, “looks like I’ll get to work off some of this anger, after all.”
“What a workout,” grumbled Soun, as he looked across the mobile shogi board to Genma. “I’m glad we decided to help my lovely daughter.”
“But Grandpa,” said Kai, “you guys only brought the board and the bottles of the smelly stuff in. Mommy brought in everything else.”
“Really,” stated Nodoka, returning from starting a meal in the kitchen. While Akane had finally gotten better, she still wanted to make the moving in celebration feast. “Well then, the men can go and set up all the furniture and rooms, before they get one bit of food.”
“But No-chan...”
Kai splashed him with a cup of water. “Grandma said whining isn’t manly, and is for pandas only.”
Akane giggled at that, as the panda stood up, moving slowly to the bedroom to start assembling the furniture.
“You too, dad.”
“But dear,” whined Soun, “my back is acting up.”
“Soun,” said Nodoka, “I went with you for that physical at Tofu’s. He said you were in perfect health.”
“Well, it acts up on occasion,” he chuckled, a little embarrassed, forgetting that since she moved in, Nodoka knew when he was lying.
After the men had left, and Kai went to keep them in line, Nodoka sat beside Akane at the table, having some light snacks before the meal would be ready. “Dear, I know you wanted to get away from that dreaded Kuno boy, but this is a dangerous ward.”
“I know, Auntie,” said Akane. “But I can take care of myself.”
“From energy draining monsters that can’t be harmed by physical attacks?”
“Well,” said Akane, nervously shifting a bit. Ever since Nodoka had forced both fathers to begin training her seriously after Ranma and Nabiki left the clans, she was forced to admit she had flaws.
Not to say she didn’t improve. But between classes and her social calendar, she had never been able to put in the full dedication they wanted. She could roof-hop, and she was definitely better than when she had first met the Saotomes, but she was also forced to accept defeat on occasion.
Which meant she knew how well her usual attacks would do against a youma or whatnot, and Genma Saotome had steadfastly refused to teach her Yamasenken or Umisenken.
“If Uncle would teach me those techniques, I wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Dear, we’ve been over this.”
“I know, I just don’t like being left out of a fight.”
Nodoka nodded. “I also noticed you were a little bit snippy with them when you got home from work today. Anything happen?”
Akane snorted. “I just ran into some piece of trash student.”
“And how did they offend you?” asked Nodoka.
“She’s just like her parents.”
Nodoka nodded. She knew Akane did tend to hold several grudges, so she merely assumed the parents in question were probably friends of Akane’s ex-husband.
“Mommy!” cried Kai, running into the room with a radio in his hand; the cable was not on yet; due to be turned on till tomorrow.
“What is it, dear?”
“The Senshi have been sighted!”
The eyes of the women in the room widened as Kai set the radio down, retuning it to the station in question.
“That’s right, folks. The Senshi are currently battling some major bad guys outside the station as we speak. Hopefully, we can get an interview with them after they...
“Wait one moment. A figure has just arrived, and is cutting through the monsters like they’re nothing. I can’t be certain from here, but it looks like that male model, Ranma! He even has the famous black pigtail!”
Akane began to glow red, as her tea cup shattered in her hand.
Nodoka paled slightly, unsure if she should be happy that apparently her missing son had returned, or to support the girl who had been a daughter to her since Ranma had left her.
“I don’t know what that was yet, but I just know I’m going to get blamed for it.”
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