Chapter Text
A Return to Innocence
Chapter One
Five years.
That was how long it had been since her sister and Ranma had finally settled down and gotten married.
After the fiasco of the wedding, finishing high school, and going through a couple years of college, Akane and Ranma had finally tied the knot, much to their fathers’ excitement and, despite how their teenage years might have led people to believe, they actually got along pretty well! They stopped fighting each other, they stopped getting into arguments, really they were the perfect couple.
And it was complete bullshit!
There was no way those two had just started being the perfect couple! Not after they had nearly trashed the college gym!
So, in order to solve the mystery presented to her, Nabiki had followed them for a month. For the most part everything seemed perfectly normal. They went to school, they bought groceries, they hung out with friends, everything perfectly normal…until Friday evening.
Every Friday evening, Akane and Ranma would drive to a medium-sized house on the outskirts of Nerima, park the car, and enter this older woman’s home. From Friday evening to Monday morning they stayed inside the woman’s house, not once could they be seen past the closed blinds, not once did they go into the backyard, nothing! For the entire weekend her sister and brother-in-law cut themselves off from the rest of the world until the following morning. Every Friday evening to every Monday morning without fail.
Sometimes they’d come out looking embarrassed, sometimes they’d come out looking near tears, but every single time they’d give the older woman a goodbye hug and a kiss on her cheek.
Her sister, Akane, gave an older woman a kiss on the cheek. Even Ranma showed affection to the older woman!
Something was clearly going on.
So, as anyone would do, she dug into the woman…and found nothing. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! No information at all, aside from the woman’s name, Satō Yua, and her job as an office worker, not even her underworld contacts could find out a thing about the woman!
And it only made her more curious.
So she waited, doing all she could to find more information, even if it was in vain, until Friday when she put her plan into action.
—
Carefully, she parked her car, downing the last half of her coffee as she looked over the simple home her sister and brother-in-law had gone into just a few hours ago.
Showtime.
With a tired sigh she set her coffee cup into the cup holder, opening her car door with a small grumble before climbing out. Why was her damn curiosity driving her nuts with this? Her sister was happy, Ranma was happy, everyone was happy, so why was it pissing her off?!
Shutting the car door, she made her way up to the house, her eyes glancing to the left and right to make sure that no one else was there as she made her way up to the front entrance.
Everything seemed normal, the lawn was well maintained, the outside of the house looked like it had been taken care of, everything was completely normal and acceptable…and that only made her more suspicious.
Putting on a fake smile, she pressed the doorbell, her heartbeat picking up as the sound of footsteps reached her ear from behind the door.
The woman who greeted her was beautiful, there was no doubt of that. If Nabiki had to guess, she’d say the older woman was just at the start of her thirties, despite the streaks of grey already showing up in their hair. She wore a simple white knitted sweater and a long dark blue skirt that went down to her ankles, comfort wear really.
“Yes?” The older woman asked, her voice soft and gentle despite the inquisitive frown marring her lips. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you ma’am,” she began, keeping her tone light. “But I was hoping you might be able to help me with something. I was driving by a couple of hours ago and I thought I saw my sister, Akane, walk into your place. Is she still here?”
Watching the older woman, Nabiki was sure of two things. The first, was that she had caught the woman off guard by mentioning Akane’s name, the second was that she never wanted to play poker with this woman whoever she was.
Aside from the slightest hitch in her breathing and a nearly imperceptible widening of the eyes, the woman showed no reaction to her sister’s name, and what signs of recognition there was vanished almost the second they appeared.
‘She’s good.’ She mused, keeping her smile as innocent as possible while noting the way the woman subtly adjusted her position to block the view into her home.
“Akane?” The woman asked, her voice not changing in the slightest. “If you mean Tendo Akane then yes, she was here earlier. You must be one of her sisters…Kasumi maybe?”
So Akane had told this woman about Kasumi huh? If that was true, her little sister might have mentioned her as well and then she really wouldn’t get any information. “That’s right.” She said simply, the lie flowing smoothly from her lips without effort. “Is Akane still here by any chance?”
Despite all her skill in lying and bending the truth, something must have given her away by how the woman’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I see,” the woman hummed, straightening her shoulders slightly. “I’m afraid you just missed her, she just left a few minutes ago.”
‘Liar, neither Akane or Ranma have left, I’ve been watching your place!’ She thought, carefully putting on a mask of disappointment. “I see, that’s too bad. Sorry for bothering you.” She said, giving the older woman another fake smile as she turned around to make her way back to her car.
And all the while, she felt the woman’s eyes on her back.
Well if that wasn’t suspicious, nothing was.
—
Breaking in had been far too easy, all it had taken was applying a bit of ki to the lock, and molding it into the correct shape to create a key.
Akane and Ranma weren’t the only ones who could use ki, she’d once been a practitioner of the family style too, she just preferred making money over fighting.
Carefully, she slid the door behind her closed using every trick she knew to keep from making any noise. With careful slowness, she applied her weight with each step, ready to pull back the second she detected even the slightest give that could indicate a creaky floorboard. Straining her ears, she listened, knowing that even the smallest sound could give away her intrusion to the woman that owned this house.
What was that old saying? Nothing ventured, nothing gained?
Mentally shrugging off the thought she peeked around a corner and froze.
What…was she looking at?
There, laying in front of a softly crackling fireplace, was her sister and brother-in-law. Both of them were asleep, curled into each other in an embrace so tender that, for a moment, she doubted every fight she’d ever seen them have.
That in and of itself wasn’t too surprising, she’d seen them at their most romantic and had even seen a few moments where they had been in a similar position…but never in outfits like that!
Her sister was dressed in a simple, white, oversized sweater with a cute black rabbit on the back, the sleeves bunching up over the girl’s hands and hiding them from view. Along with the sweater, her sister seemed to be wearing a pair of white and pink striped thigh high socks…but no pants or even a skirt?
‘What the? Since when does Akane wear stuff like that?’ She wondered, her eyes sliding over to her brother in law only for her mouth to drop open in shock.
There, laying in his female form, her brother-in-law was nearly unrecognizable. Long red hair was done up in a pair of twintails, held in place by a pair of pink hair scrunchies. A pink top hung over the cursed boy’s body, proudly displaying the word “Princess” in red glitter that sparkled in the firelight. Unlike Akane, Ranma was actually wearing bottoms, but her mind couldn’t make sense of them. A ruffled skirt sat on her brother-in-law’s hips, dyed in pastel pink, mint, and blue and complimented his own thigh high socks quite well.
‘What. The. Actual. Fuck.’ She thought, her fingers twitching with the urge to snap a picture, a shot like this was priceless!
Still, what was before her didn’t make any sense, it was like someone had come up to her and told her the sky was made of cheese only for her to look up and see it was made of gravy!
She took a step back, her mind racing as it tried to make sense of what she was seeing only to grind to a halt as she backed into something solid. Freezing, she slowly turned around, her mouth suddenly losing any and all moisture as she found the owner of the house standing behind her, sighing in disappointment.
“Now, what am I going to do with you?” The older woman murmured, tapping her index finger on her hip.
Well…shit.