And now for something completely different:

Nabiki, Lingerie Thief

By Theo25

“Oh, yes,” Happosai cackled to himself in the Tendo common room. “Ranma will look sweet wearing this antique bra I liberated from its prison at the History of Undergarments Exhibit. It’s a crime what they did to you, my silky darling! You were made to be worn! And you will be again, once I give you a proper cleaning,” he said, doing just that with the dry cleaning fluid he’d ‘borrowed’ from Kasumi’s supplies.

“I’m not wearing any bra for you,” said a familiar male voice behind him.

“Ranma!” Happosai looked around. He saw the boy reach past him with a match.

The bra went up in his hands.

“No!!” Happosai screamed. “Gone! After surviving earthquakes, floods, fire and war, gone!” His grief spun around to rage. “Ranma!! What you did was utterly unforgivable! You must pay for this offense to all things delicate!”

“Yeah, yeah. As if I hadn’t heard that before.” Ranma used to the ancient martial arts master far more seriously before he discovered the Freak’s weak point. And he had a new and better bra to distract him with than that old thing he’d gotten rid of. “--Hey, where is it!?!” he cried, patting down his shirt and pants for it.

“You took it, didn’t you!” Ranma accused. “The saleslady said it was the very best one they had at their Clearance Special!”

“Nothing you could’ve gotten me could’ve matched the worth of what you just destroyed! It’s time you learned to respect lingerie!!” And he rushed out of the room.

That was Ranma’s cue to get out in the open of the garden. He didn’t want to be cornered by the evil gnome. And Kasumi frowned on fighting in the house.

“I didn’t want to do it this way,” Happosai said, jumping out of the window of what used to be the living room before he took it over. He was holding what looked like one of his larger Happosai Fire Bursts. “This has in it the dehydrated distillation of my Love of All Things Lingerie!” And he threw the lit firecracker ball at Ranma.

“I can see why you didn’t want to do it this way,” Ranma said, batting it away with the back of his hand.

“Aaaa! Do you know how many saunas I had to take to create that!?” Happosai cried, seeing it go over the corner of house. But before he could do anything, it exploded in the courtyard between the gate and the front door.

And then it rained.

d;)

“Things like this aren’t supposed to happen to me,” said a smudged and powder-covered Nabiki coughed as she entered the furo room. She peeled off her socks and tossed them into the laundry hamper. She was already out of her school uniform and in her slip before she checked the shelves to see if there was an outfit for her to wear after she’d taken her shower. Kasumi usually left a couple for each of them.

That’s when she saw it! It was the loveliest bra she’d ever seen! It was lacy and satin and seemed to luster! This master piece of lingerie deserved the full name of Brassiere! Who’s was it? Who in this family would...

It was on Ranma’s shelf.

“Ranma doesn’t even wear lingerie!” She frowned. “Or he’s not supposed to. That crossdresser,” she growled.

All during her shower, she couldn’t get her mind off Ranma’s special bra.

d;)

“What happened to my bra?” Ranma asked the others almost a half-hour later. It taken that long to deal with the Freak after she’d turned into his girl form.

“What are you doing with a bra, boy!” Mr. Saotome glared.

“Geez! I have them to distract the Old Freak, of course!” Ranma glared back pouring a kettle of hot water on himself. “And that one was for when I needed something special.”

It special, Nabiki thought. Feeling just how special it made her feel. Granted, Ranma was a mite bigger than she was, but not by that much. (‘What’s Ranma doing with a bra with a bra that would fit her, when she “didn’t actually use it”? Crossdresser.’)

d;)

“Did I hear you talking about silky brassieres!?!” Happosai cried, bounding in through the open garden door.

“You stole it, didn’t you!” Ranma accused the little gnome carrying a big bag of ladies’ underwear.

“I resent you accusing me of something I didn’t do! And I resent more whoever beat me to the sweet darling!”

“Why you--Give it back!” Ranma demanded.

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!”

While Ranma lunged and zigged, and the wicked master dodged and zagged, some bras and panties fell out of Happosai’s cloth bag.

Nabiki’s eyes widened at the site of them. They were lovely, all of them. As with Ranma’s bra, she found herself reaching for them before her conscious could tell her what she was doing it.

“Get your hands off the Collection,” Happosai warned in deathly seriousness.

Nabiki’s heart froze.

But the Master was warning Ranma, who had managed to snag the opening of the bag.

“Not till I see what you got!” Ranma threatened to threaten him.

Splash! Happosai used his pipe again to toss Ranma into the pond.

“Now you can see my Collection. And you can model them for me, too!”

The battle continued, ending in a compromise. Ranma did wear some bras and panties. But only over his regular clothes.

d;)

The rest of the day and evening, Nabiki tried to concentrate on her business. But her mind always returned to Happosai’s Collection. Only Ranma’s special bra gave her any contentment.

That night she had a dream where she went into Happosai’s room and took a few samples. He had so many bras and panties he surely wouldn’t miss a few. But that dream quickly turned into a nightmare. Nabiki was well aware he really was the Master of Anything-Goes.

The next morning it was even harder to get up than usual. Then Akane had to scream.

“I’ll kill him!” (‘Who? Ranma again?’ Nabiki thought.) “He stole all of my panties!!” (‘Ranma??’)

Suddenly Nabiki was bolting to her armoire and her lingerie drawer. “Gone! All gone!!” she cried, feeling as bad as if he’d stolen her money. “Happosai!”

She dashed downstairs in her pajamas, and into the kitchen. “Kasumi! Kasumi, you have to lend me a pair of your panties!” she practically pleaded like an addict.

“Oh, my, no!” Kasumi said gently but firmly. The thought had turned her pale. “I don’t like others wearing my things. And certainly not my underthings.”

Nabiki spent the next ten minutes pleading. Not only would her big sister not relent, but she was told there was no money in this month’s budget for extras like panties.

“You mean I have to use my own money??”

In the meantime, Nabiki went back upstairs to change into her school uniform. A dress. And a slip. Without panties. She’d have to go all day without panties. There was the danger that the wind, or an accident, or a skirt-flipper would show others she wasn’t wearing panties. But what really upset her was that she would not be feeling the silky lovelies next to her sex.

Out in the hall, she stopped beside Kasumi’s bedroom door, rather pass it. She went in.

“No wonder Happosai doesn’t steal her panties,” Nabiki turned up her nose. “Cotton, and mostly plain. What’s this? It looks like cartoon face. “Hello, Kitty”? I wonder what Ranma would say.” She was about to close it, when her profit instinct told her there was a false bottom.

“Now this is more like it!” It had satiny, lacey lingerie of various sexy colors. But they also had a patina of age. One in particular captured her attention. Within the black lacework was a name. “Kimiko”.

“This was mommy’s!” She was overcome with lust.

d;)

Hypocrite, Nabiki thought as Kasumi served her breakfast. She didn’t want others wearing her lovelies, but it was okay for her to wear their dead mother’s. How ghoulish.

Not that Nabiki felt ghoulish, of course. Just the opposite. A little incestuous, perhaps. These sexy panties after all had been seen by her handsome daddy just before he and mommy engaged in love. (‘Oh! I mustn’t picture that. I mustn’t get them too wet!’)

Nabiki excused herself, and hurried to the powder room.

After that, she went straight for her schoolbag and out the front door.

It felt extra sensual to wear a dress today, becoming more aware than ever that only a thin piece of really great cloth separated her from the outside world. And the bodice of the school jumper leaned her special bra against her breasts nicely, too.

She felt so good she spent most of the day thinking more about her lovelies than her schoolwork.

In fact, her two business associates and classmates had to drag her off to work when a fight broke out on the school’s soccer field between the Pigtailed Girl and Kodachi. While everybody else was wondering what the St. Hebereke girl was doing at their lowly high school, Nabiki wondered what kind of lingerie the Black Rose had on. Something black was her guess. And very expensive. Oo, another word she loved!

d;)

It had taken a lot of quick talking to get the Pigtailed Girl and Kodachi to agree to a martial arts rhythmic gymnastics match in an hour. But she had a strong motivation.

Now all she had to do was lure out if hiding that little ninja servant of the Kunos. And there were only three ways into the Boys’ Locker Room. Where onna-Ranma would have to change into her tights. (Without the boys, of course.)

When Sasuke saw his master’s Pigtail Girl’s clothes lying on a bench, he twisted his body to try and get a view of her nude body. But someone had loosened the screws of the vent grate.

He fell onto that same bench.

Nabiki got the whole thing with her camera. “Trying to peep in on the Girls’ Locker Room is one thing, but the Boys’!? What will the other ninjas think?”

He was too easy to blackmail. He had no material possessions. All he had in his pathetic life was his secret ninja reputation.

So Nabiki was ready behind the Girls’ Locker Room door when Kodachi entered to change. She hit Kuno’s sister with Sasuke’s sleeping spray before she knew anyone was there. And she got a bonus, too.

d;)

Nabiki & Associates had earned a tidy profit on the match. Ticket sales had increased when word got out that neither gymnast was wearing any lingerie. And some pervs had actually made bets based on that. Kodachi beat the Pigtailed girl on the bounce count, but PG had the deepest camel toe.

She skipped the rest of the school day. She had someplace to go. Brought an alto saxophone carrying case into a dry cleaner that didn’t know her. She had five panties and twelve bras for them to clean for her. Besides her mommy’s panties, there were Kodachi and her second’s, and two she’d found in the locker room. Too bad no one had assigned lockers. As for the bras, there were Ranma’s, Kodachi’s and her second’s, and six from the locker room (proving girls had more reasons to take off bras than panties). And, then, there were the three Ranma kept in a hollow tree with other parts of his disguises.(Sigh, if only the crossdresser were more of a crossdresser. He still preferred boxers.)

Of course, that left her without any bras or panties to wear until she got them back from the cleaners. Of course, the boring thing would be for her to just buy some. But she was finding the thrill of other people’s lovelies too great to give up even for a one time thing.

So, where was she going to get her next lingerie fix? Well, the obvious place was a bathhouse. But attendant was usually on duty, watching for trouble...

d;)

The fire alarm went off, and the bathhouse customers ran outside. Many only had a small towel to cover themselves and those that were still wearing clothes had the wet tee shirt look.

Inside, Nabiki took off the slicker she had on and used it as a bag to quickly collect as many lingerie items she could find in the open lockers. It had been easy enough for her to set off the sprinkler system and trigger the fire alarm. All it had taken was to drip a little wax on an origami spider with a wick. She then lit it and shot it up with a rubber band. The legs of the burning spider caught the sprinkler and held it there long to set things going.

d;)

Nabiki took her sax case to a shed in the corner next to the Tendo dojo. She went through them, looking for some panties that seemed clean. As a final test, she smelled the crotch.

She found the perfume of one particularly intriguing. She sniffed it several times, trying to identify the fragrance. It seemed familiar, and yet...

Oh, no! Gross to the max! Mustn’t go there, Nabiki told herself, shoving all of the underwear back into the instrument case. She didn’t want to become a sex case.

Without any lovelies on, she headed back to the cleaners. They said the ones she’d brought in should be ready by now. But after the incident in bathhouse, she knew she had to find another way to get clean lingerie. She needed a minion. Someone who will not only clean her lovelies but provide a place keep them. But it couldn’t be a girl, because Happosai regularly paid the females in town regular visits. So that someone had to be a guy. But not someone so guy that he’d....

Nabiki smiled. She knew who was going to be her minion.

d;)

“M-M-Me!?!” Hikaru Gosunkugi asked in disbelief. “You want me?”

“Are your folks home?” Nabiki asked, coming into his house. Before he could answer, she was talking again. “In return for your valuable services, I will provide you with photos of my sister, Akane. Some of them quite risqué.”

“Really!??!” the frailest of looking boys squeaked.

“I can also get you some souvenirs. You need souvenirs for your voodoo dolls.”

“It’s not voodoo,” he frowned. “It’s a ritual that started in the Edo period—”

“But you do believe in voodoo, don’t you?”

d;)

All that she had to do after that was to warn him not to get any ideas of using girls’ underwear as a guy would. “I’m not going to tell you which ones are Akane’s.” With him not knowing, he’ll treat them all as if they were his precious idol’s. “If you like the idea of being pounded by little sis, you won’t like what big sister would do to you for making a mess on her delicates.” So Kasumi wouldn’t (but then again, after this morning...), but the jerk didn’t know that.

“Why have me have them?” Gosunkugi said, looking a gift horse in the mouth.

“You’ve heard to the panty thief that’s been terrorizing the town?”

“P-p-p-panty thief!!?” that was news to him.

“He lives with us. He steals all of Akane’s bras and panties.”

“Akane’s panties... The Fiend!”

“Exactly! And think what it’ll do to Akane’s reputation if word got out! Why she could even be arrested for harboring and abetting a criminal.”

“No!!” he cried in horror.

“So, are you ready for the challenge?”

“I’m ready!!” he declared, taking a heroic stance.

The only problem with her plan is having to see the emaciated twerp regularly. But, then, most minions where short on looks and/or personality. That’s why they could allow themselves to be minions for their betters.

d;)

It was late when she got home, and lucky for her Ranma wasn’t there. Something had delayed him. Or her. She’d deal with the ‘big, bad’ martial artist when she had too. But she needed a shower. Despite having washed her hands and face, she could still feel the soiled undies where she’d touched them.

Getting undressed, her eyes fell on more bras and panties. She licked her lips hungrily.

But, wait, they were on Ranma’s shelf. Was this a trap of his? Was he trying to trap Happosai?

d;)

Nabiki’d had a nice long shower and soak. Not only did she find that enjoyable, there was the added pleasure of knowing she was making Ranma wait. His moral codes wouldn’t allow him to purposefully peek on a naked girl. And as long as he couldn’t, he couldn’t watch the things he’d left out as bait for Grandfather Happosai.

All she needed to do to claim those lovelies for herself was a long enough gap between when she’d left and they were discovered missing. Confusion beat a fighter more than his opponent’s greater abilities. And there was one person who could confuse Ranma more than any other.

She screamed.

Then when the rest of the house rushed to see why she had, she told those opening the door, “I’m in still in the bath!” Only Akane came in.

“What’s the problem?!” Akane asked, her hammer ready.

“I think Ranma’s peeping.”

“I am not!!” the idiot raised his head above the window.

“You pervert!!” she screamed, turning around hurrying to catch him outside.

Nabiki saw her skirt rise. She didn’t know where she got them, but Akane was wearing panties!

d;)

Nabiki was naked, rolling around in all the clean silky, satiny, and taffeta she had in her small but growing collection. Damn, if she wouldn’t have to have them cleaned again, they were making her ooze her love for them!

“My panties! My bras!! Even my slips!!!” little sister yelled her rage.

“My panties! My bras! Even my slips!” Nabiki yelled when she thought Akane was about to open her door. Let her think the same thing had happened to her.

“Happosai!!!” Akane screamed revenge and rushed downstairs.

Nabiki slipped on her robe, and went into Kasumi’s room. Opening up the window beside her bed, she listened in to what was going on in the common room below.

“I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! Why is everyone ganging up on an old man like this!!” Happosai cried his frustration.

“Don’t give us that, Gramps!” the pigtailed girl told him. “We know you too well! Just give them back, and we won’t stomp you up, too bad.”

The crash-bang-thuds of the fight that followed even shook Kasumi’s room above. Nabiki didn’t feel guilty for Ranma and Akane. Happosai was a fetish freak, but he did live by the Code. He didn’t hit girls. And of all the girls Nabiki knew had stomped him into a crumpled heap, the only one he’d ever tried to get revenge on was Ranma. And that was because she was a he.

Besides, those martial arts nuts wanted an excuse to use their skills.

“That is enough! I’ve had all I can take!!” Happosai declared in his Master voice. Nabiki’s confidence was thrown off when she felt his battle aura coming up through the floor. “I shall find who is the real thief is! This is more about my reputation! This is about the sanctity of girls’ lingerie drawers and clothes lines everywhere! When someone steals from those, they steal from me!” Nabiki got a deathly chill at the tone of his last remark.

Shit! She should have seen that coming. But her yen for all things silky next to the skin had taken away her ability to see things in a long-term perspective. She’d being living for the moment, the thrill came not only from wearing somebody else’s lovelies, but also from the appropriation of them.

She had wanted to avoid a confrontation with the Founder of the School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts. But she had no choice now! This called for desperate measures!!

d;)

Nabiki had a little time. Happosai usually disappeared right after losing a round. She gathered all of the lingerie she had in traveling canvas bag she had, and walked as casually as she could to the guest room. Getting one of their fishing poles, she cast tied the bag to its line, and cast it out the window. The bad swung down and through the open window of Happosai’s room below. The Master may have a spell to keep unwanted visitors out, but he wouldn’t want to keep his “silky darlings” out. She cut the line and left.

There, now she had to use disinfectant to take the scent of underwear out of her room and incense to cover up any trace left that Happosai’s sensitive nose my catch. She thought that would get her by until tomorrow. That is, if wearing no panties or bras could be called “getting by”.

d;)

She awoke the next morning to the sound of the Saotomes in their usual sparring bout.

Splash!

Now she would see if she was plan would work.

d;)

“Ranma!!” Genma cried in utter astonishment. “Y-you’re still a boy!!”

“I...Am!” Ranma said, looking down at his flat chest.

As everyone came rushing out of the common room to congratulate him, Genma jumped in the koi pond. He, too, didn’t change.

“We’re cured!!”

“You are! You are cured.” Even Akane was happy.

“Never gonna be a gurl again...Never gonna be a gurl again...”

“Let’s celebrate!” Soun grinned, picking up a glass of water someone had left on the table in the middle of the night.

Splash!

Otoko-Ranma was now onna-Ranma. “What?? How?? Why??”

“I think I know,” an angry Akane came in from outside, holding a small wrapper. “I found this.” It was an open packet of Instant Nanniichuan.

“No! Anyone already cursed gets an allergic reaction from that stuff!” Ranma cried, starting to scratch her body.

“Ranma!!” Soun cried, aloud and in tears, as he scrambled for the open doors. “This reaction is particularly bad!”

“You can say that again!” she said, rubbing longer and harder.

“Soun!! What died in your pond!?!!” Genma joined his friend in the fresh air.

“What are you talkin’ about?” Ranma asked, sniffing between scratches.

“Yes! I don’t smell anything, either,” Akane told them, suspicious that they were up to something.

“Neither do I, Mr. Saotome, Father,” Kasumi reported.

“How can you, Kasumi of all people, not smell that filthy stench?!” Soun asked his daughter.

The reek was so bad for the two men that they couldn’t come anywhere near Ranma.

“That’s fine by me!” she told them. “We’re gonna have breakfast without you! Maybe this time, I’ll get a full meal.”

When Nabiki finally came down, she answered them that she, too, smelled nothing unusual. She was used to the smell of wet clothes by now. Of course, she knew what had happened, though she didn’t like having to. Besides it going against her principles, it had been a gamble, because it might not have worked. She needed a way to keep Happosai away. But nothing they’d tried in the past had worked. The only thing that she knew of that had been effective against him kept people away from him. But if she could take Ranma’s Girl-Away and turn it into Guy-Away. Instant Nanniichuan could turn girls into guys, could it turn something that worked only against one sex to something that worked only against the other? It sounded like a stupid idea, but, then, she thought the whole concept of magic was illogical.

Now all she had to do was get them to realize what they had, but without them suspecting it was her that had created the situation.

Luck was with her, for the Master chose that moment to return from wherever he disappeared to.

“Ranma!! Yahoo! You’re a girl!” he leaped for her butt. The wind was taken out of his sail when he caught wind of her.

“Yugh! Puee! Gag!” he cried, dropping like a stone behind her. “Change your perfume! That stuff is worse than toilette water d’ages-old cisterns!”

“Huh??” Ranma looked over her shoulder at the Freak rolling around on the stoop. “You mean it ain’t just the Pops?”

“I still don’t smell anything,” Akane checked again with her nose.

“I wonder why only guys seem to notice it?” Nabiki said innocently.

“Guys?” Akane, as Nabiki had expected, used the tea kettle on Ranma.

“Oh... Oh, yeah! That’s much better,” Happosai sighed with relief. “I hadn’t smelled anything that vile since you tried to get your petty revenge against me with that Girl-Away patch.”

“Girl-Away?...” Akane hurried to the pond. Smart girl, Nabiki praised her in her mind.

Akane splashed herself and hurried back.

This time it wasn’t only Happosai who cried in disgust. “Aaaa!! Get away from me, Akane!!” Ranma cried almost tipping over the table as he bolted to get away from her. “You stink!”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Happosai agreed next to him.

“Turn into a girl if you don’t like the smell!” Akane told Ranma.

Happosai fought him, but Ranma made it outside and into the pond. And with that there was the peaceful sound of Grandfather Happosai screaming in horror as he fled the Tendo property.

Now for part 4 of her plan. “You know, if you guys leave that pond water on, you won’t be allowed in school. Or anywhere else there are guys.”

“Geez!” Ranma swore. “And here I thought we’d finally found the answer to the Pervert Problem.” Boy, he’s forgetting about when he is a guy already. Boy, what does that say about the way he thinks?

“Hmph!” Akane said. “I hate boys. It’d be relief to not be bothered for them. For a while, at least.”

“Uh, right. Maybe there is a way to not have to go that far. How do you think the stink works?”

“Hmm...when Ranma had me sew the Girl-Away patch—And it looked like a dog!—he said it was activated by body heat.”

“So...” Nabiki got up and walked to the pond as if in deep thought. “If I just dab myself...” she said, putting some pond water under her wrists and behind her ears. “...it may be only mildly offensive at close quarters, until I do something that would generate real body heat.”

The idea planted, Ranma and Akane took separate showers. After scrubbing herself extra hard, Akane came out and let otoko-Ranma smell her. She and Nabiki then spent most of the morning experimenting on him to determine just how little of the Guy-Away to use. Nabiki was again lucky that it wasn’t a school day. It turned out that so little water was needed to make the dabs to work that Ranma didn’t have to change into a guy from the Instant Nanniichuan. And if she remained a girl, she, too, could use the stink against guys.

The three of them decided to test out their system at the Nerima shopping arcade. It soon became a game for onna-Ranma. With her control over her body heat and energies in general, she could as good as turn the effect on-and-off. This demonstration of how incompetent she was as a martial artist infuriated Akane. After that, it only took minutes before the growing malodor became so great that the arcade was emptied of guys. Akane, the unnatural disaster had struck again.

Ranma taunted her as she went to find Kuno. Akane still hadn’t gotten the idea that Guy-Away was not something she could use with her temper. She ran after the pigtailed girl, not wanting to let Ranma be the only one to turn the samurai off. If Kuno thought she didn’t stink, then she might concentrate just on her!

Nabiki, a firm believer in using the minimum of energy, had no problem controlling how well she smelled, of course. It also helped that it wasn’t a hot day.

The experiment a success, Nabiki went home and splashed all of Happosai’s Collection of Lovelies with Guy-Away pond water. It would need female body heat to trigger it, but it was like she was re-christening it as her own. And, she told herself, she would inherit them! And soon.

She kept a small bottle of the pond water in her (formerly Ranma’s) bra for emergencies and there wasn’t time to work up a sweat.

Feeling that she’d accomplished quite a lot for the day, Nabiki decided to see if she could concentrate on mending all of the flaws in her stinky impromptu plan.

d;)

As she sat at one of the café’s tables, Nabiki noted that Shampoo wasn’t wearing any panties. Those tight, silk pants of hers would’ve shown any panty lines. And though Nabiki knew of a time had worn a bra, she no longer did. Now that she thought about, she believed Shampoo did occasionally wear lingerie. Hmm... Lingerie was probably frowned upon by Cologne, but not by Shampoo herself. So the Amazon chick had a weakness for silky lovelies, too.

“What would you like, Nabiki Tendo?” Cologne asked. She had come out of the kitchen on her own initiative. The old woman was smart enough to know she was here for a reason.

“Do you know anything about what happened to our pond, Cologne-san?”

“Oh, so that is the cause of my future-son-in-law’s...air of relaxation. No. It was not I who came up with this idea,” she narrowed her eyes as she looked at Nabiki. Nabiki did not react.

“Okay. But you heard it sent Happosai away. But how long can that last? Then I remembered that he doesn’t bother you, and he’s notorious for eating-and-running. He also leaves Shampoo pretty much alone. Do you have a secret that keeps the old dog away?”

“If you had sharp eyes, you would see the answer to our glow of success,” Cologne said, touching the end of her staff to Nabiki’s forehead. “And yet it’s something you could bump into.” With that she hopped back into the kitchen.

Now what did that cryptic remark mean. Nabiki talked to Shampoo when she had the chance. Shampoo laughed at an inside joke she wouldn’t share with her rival’s sister. Then said, “If Shampoo help Nabiki, she also help Akane. Shampoo no that dumb.”

Well, Cologne certainly wasn’t dumb. She’d left Nabiki with enough clues for her own reasons. It was up to Nabiki, now, to figure out what they meant. She was pondering them as she left the café.

She turned around, and almost went back in. She changed her mind, and went in the direction opposite from the way home. She turned again, and almost bumped into the display case outside. (Bumped?) Inside were some inedible examples of the dishes they served inside the Nekohaten. And that was all. No little knickknacks to make a passerby remember where he saw the delicious-looking items. The Cat Café. A thought tickled the back of her mind. Over the three-part entrance curtain at head-level (Bump!) in front of the door, besides the café’s name written in Chinese (repeated on the doors), were an ornately designed dragon and phoenix. There were no cats outside. Understandable, since Ranma didn’t like cats.

...And by calling it “Cat” they just reminded him of his one great vulnerability. And about Shampoo’s curse! –And the curse is one of the reasons Ranma couldn’t stay warm to her! Why would Cologne encourage that? –“That’s it!” Nabiki cried. Cologne chose the name because she knew Ranma belonged to the School of Anything-Goes!

She went around to the back of the restaurant to wait in ambush. A wicked grin refused to leave her face at the thought. “Happosai really is the Founder and Master of Anything-Goes.”

d;)

“Mousse?” Nabiki said to the help taking out the garbage.

“Shampoo!!” Mousse rushed to embrace her. “You’re speaking to me!” He found her, and held her. “And you’re wearing underwear, too.” He seemed to think that meant this was a special occasion.

“Sorry to disappoint you, big fella.” She stuck her foot in his abdomen.

“Who?” the nearsighted martial artist lowered his glasses.

“How would you like me to arrange another fight with Ranma for you? Winner takes Shampoo?”

“Nabiki?” he said when he could see a clearer blur. “I don’t need others to act on my behalf!”

“Oh? Not even when I can arrange for the odds to be in your favor? I live with the guy, and I know of a technique that Ranma’s helpless against.” As Mousse struggled with his pride as a fighter and his desire to take his love away from Ranma, she added, “It involves a weapon.”

In return for the weapon, and the promise of sneaky tactics, Mousse had told Nabiki the secret to keeping Happosai from trespassing against person and property. It was no wonder that it hadn’t worked at the beach during that love pill incident.

d;)

“Are you sure about this?” Ranma asked. He was nervous, he was a guy, and Akane, otherwise known as the stench that had half of Nerima in behind closed doors, could come home.

As it was, Nabiki had to stand away from the heat of the fire pit she had him create. Now was not the time to sweat.

“Hurry up and get it over with. We’ll never know until we try.” She stepped closer to the fire, threatening to rise a stink.

Breathing in, and gathering his energies he poised his hands over the pails of chestnuts.

Nabiki sought to assure him she knew what she was talking about, for that, too, was part of the recipe. “The traditional elements of the East are Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Wood, or Life. The chestnuts are the seeds of Wood, and the nothing better represents the concept of Life as seeds. And nutgall is an essential part of the formula.”

“And the Fire is this fire, right? -- Kachu Tenshin Amaguuriken!” he cried, picking the chestnuts up and crushing them over the fire before depositing them in a sieve in the pot hanging from a spit.

“Partly. Earth is the iron filings. And there are other items in that bowl there that also represent the different elements. I got the formula straight from Dr. Tofu.” Actually, from one of his books. “You trust him, don’t you?”

When everything had been mixed and dried into a powder over the open fire, Nabiki explained the next step, “All inks need to be wet. Water. And, in this case, Magic Water.”

“The pond!” Ranma grinned. “It has the magic Instant Nanniichuan in it!”

“Made more permanent with this,” she said, pouring a packet of powder in the pond, “It’s a fixative I got from...Well, never mind who I got this from.”

She carefully poured a little of the treated water into the bowl at a time until it looked like the right consistency.

“Now, I’m afraid the next part is a job for me and Kasumi. Your handwriting is atrocious, and Akane can’t do any fine work when she’s upset. I’ve copied the Chinese ideograph for cat, and we’ll paint it on gates.”

Ranma watched in the street as the two sisters brushed the characters on the gate. They did do a neat job of it.

“Ranma!” Akane roared, coming down the street, but otherwise worn out from her adventure that day.

“Kasumi, keep Akane away. This is the most important part of the spell! And only Ranma can do it!” As big sister went to intercept their younger sister, Nabiki quickly explained to Ranma, “All that’s missing is Air. You will speak your wish, putting your chi-breath behind it. Ground yourself in the Earth and draw up power from it. It will travel through your body, which is mostly water. And you must find the fire in your belly to really mean it! This is all being channeled by your life force!”

As Ranma prepared to do as he was told, Nabiki told him what the spell must be about. She could not tell him the exact words, because it had to be totally, sincerely from Ranma’s wish. “You are creating a talisman, a repulsion spell. You have to be a guy to make it because your guy form is the most repulsed by being grabbed by Happosai. And Happosai can’t stand being touched by guys, even through his energies. Think of all the indignities and humiliations he’s done to you—But wait! There’s more! This is the reason this character is so important to him. This is the reason only you can make this spell truly effective.

“Your father was a student of Happosai. He got that book of about the secret Cat Fist Technique from his library! It’s Happosai’s book! Happosai is the reason you’re afraid of cats! Happosai knew about the Nekoken because he also trained for the Cat Fist!—He’s afraid of cats too!! Now take out your anger on that symbol!!!” she pointed

All of Ranma’s rage blew out up from the ground, through his belly and heart and out his throat. “Damn you, Happosai!! Stay away—For good!!!

The inked characters now became seared into the stone. And those who knew how to feel battle auras could feel the intensity infused into the Cat character. It was stronger than Happosai’s.

Nabiki splashed Ranma as he fainted. And it was just in time, Akane would’ve suffocated the weakened guy with her funk.

d;)

In the common room, Nabiki filled in some of the details. “We can make a stamp and keep Happosai away from us personally as long as the ink doesn’t fade. Cologne and Shampoo have ones. You don’t see them because they wear high necklines.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Ranma said. “I remember Happosai attacking Shampoo at the beach.”

“And if you remember his reaction to Cologne, you get the idea of how he was supposed to react to Shampoo. But at the beach in her bikini, Shampoo didn’t want the stamp at her chi heart-point to show. So she washed hers off. She also didn’t want to think repellent thoughts. She went to the beach to feel attractive. Cologne has a hard enough time keeping her teasing under check as it is.”

“So, even if Happosai was going to be around her, she was more afraid of guys not ogling her!” Akane glared, thinking of the bimbo.

“She’s never been treated by the Freak like I have. She’d change her priorities if she did,” Ranma said bitterly at the memories.

“Wait a minute,” Akane asked. “Why didn’t the Cat-spell work against Ranma?”

“Because Happosai was its main target. But it is one of the reasons Ranma is so uncomfortable around Shampoo and Cologne. As far as our more powerful gate talisman, it’s charged by Ranma’s energies, so he won’t be effected by it.”

“If the Freak was scared of cats, why ain’t he shown it?” Ranma asked.

“The only reason we never saw Happosai react to cats before was because he’s had over a hundred years of practice disguising his fear of them,” Nabiki said. “He knew that he couldn’t let his victims know about his weak point.”

Burst! Burst!

Giant Happosai Fire Bursts were raining down on the Tendo yard.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be the end of it,” Nabiki sighed.

But Ranma took Akane’s hammer and knocked them back from where they’d come.

“It oughta take even him some time to heal from those!” Ranma gloated at hearing the far distant explosions.

While everybody slept that night, Nabiki dove into a big pile of Happosai’s Collection, losing herself to the utter sensuousness of them all. And when she’d had enough of swimming in the lingerie, she tore through them, and found more than two dozen bras she could wear!

d;)

Things went fairly smoothly for a few days. Ranma had become more comfortable in her girl form, because she didn’t have to think about pervert guys. If any of them gave her any problems, she’d just heat herself up and skunk them.

Of course, her pride as a fighter wouldn’t let her to that to Mousse when he met him with the secret weapon Nabiki’d given him. Even when he’d made onna-Ranma so sick with the Girl-Away he wore that she almost wretched, she refused to use her Guy-Away. All she had to do was use the Saotome Secret Technique of Strategic Retreat until she could find some hot water.

But when he did, some of the girls working for Nabiki’d used their Guy-Away on otoko-Ranma.

Mousse’s one mistake was moving in for the kill. Overcome by the fumes, Mousse had fainted, knocked out cold by the stink. But he still won, technically. Otoko-Ranma had runaway again to escape the combined girls’ ‘perfume’. Appearing to runaway from a fight was a big no-no. Mousse won his date with Shampoo, and Nabiki was able to blackmail Ranma into not contesting the contest. He was free of Shampoo for a while, at least. (Much to his annoyance, though he refused to admit it.)

The two fathers behaved themselves, knowing the penalty to their sense of smell if they didn’t. Genma had even moved with Soun, because he couldn’t stand being in the same room when onna-Ranma had her nightmares.

Akane, on the other hand, was miserable. Not only wasn’t she allowed to use Guy-Away because of her temper (the mayor personally got a court order against her wearing the “perfume” again), Ranma was staying a girl more and more. Ranma couldn’t use the Guy-Away if she wasn’t a girl. But, also, Nabiki or any of the girls she sold Guy-Away to, could use it against him if he were a guy! Even Kasumi proved that though she didn’t look it, she could feel heated about some things.

Luckily, one of those some things did not get Kasumi heated up was having to do Nabiki’s large Collection of Lovelies. Gosunkugi was still her minion. And, in fact, she was arranging things for him to go out on his very first date. With Akane. (She was, after all, on one of her “Anyone But Ranma” kicks.)

Things were going so well for Nabiki, in fact, that she felt ready for a new challenge.

That challenge appeared when Ranma had apparently absorbed enough Nanniichuan pond water for the allergic reactions became more than simple itching that could be ignored by his discipline or treated with a salve. She was developing a rash. It was the perfect opportunity for Nabiki to get Ranma to wear a cool, smooth, soft slip against her skin, rather than the cotton undershirt and pants her preferred. Ranma reacted badly to that suggestion. Didn’t he have enough of a reputation for being a so-called crossdresser!? “It’s not crossdressing if you’re a girl wearin’ girls’ things!” So why didn’t Ranma just remain a girl? “Because I’m a guy!!”

Later that night, as she laid in her bed surrounded below and above by her sexy skimpies, wondering why Ranma couldn’t understand how wonderful they felt against shaved skin, the answer came to her.

She stopped outside Ranma’s room, and listened for the sounds of sleeping. She knew by now that Ranma usually made some sounds. And that he hadn’t put done anything to keep people from entering through either the door or window. There had to be subconscious reason for that, beyond the fact it wasn’t his own room but the Tendo’s guest room. There were other ways besides locks for sliding doors.

Entering and closing the door, Nabiki set down the bag of lovelies she’d brought and slipped her robe off. The red-skinned boy with no blankets and only his boxers on gave no indication that he was aware of her. Again she had to think there was a reason why a martial artist would seemingly leave himself open for attacks at his most vulnerable.

Her eyes fell to the empty space between the open window and Ranma on his futon. He still left a space ready for his father to sleep beside him. Conditioning.

Nabiki grinned. So that was the secret to Genma Saotome’s power over his son. A lifetime of brainwashing. And, perhaps, one of the reasons Ranma Saotome let others get so near to him as he slept was his subconscious’s silent plea for someone to take control away from his abusive father.

Nabiki knelt down beside the boy. “I will not abuse you. I want you to allow yourself to feel pleasure.” And with those words she sprayed him with some of the sleeping powder she still had left from Sasuke’s can.

From her bag, she took her most prized silky, satiny, and taffeta delicates. She ran them gently over his skin, giving him just a tickling sample. She knew she had to be careful with her rash, and watched carefully for any signs that she was aggravating it. She then took the next step of softly rubbing a satin slip from his chest to his stomach...and down, under his shorts.

It wasn’t until she wrapped it around his sex that she knew why Ranma would be her greatest prize. He was certainly a prized male. But he was also valuable to her as a female. While she couldn’t wear Akane’s and most other girls’ bras because of her own above average bust, onna-Ranma’s she could. They were nearly the same size in lingerie. Or she liked to think so.

And as she continued to caress his male member within the swaddling, she admitted that she got more of a thrill having lovelies touch her that had been touched by a girl who was really a guy. It made it seem more heterosexual. And at the thought, she licked and sucked on his small, male nipples.

But this sex scene was taking too long to develop. He just wasn’t responding much to the foreplay.

Reluctantly, she took out the small bottle of water she had in the bag. She took one last look at his chiseled muscles before turning him soft. Like it or not, it was a fact of life that girls were always open to sex, awake or sleeping. It took longer for them to respond to foreplay, but once they had, it was easier to keep them aroused.

As she began to play with onna-Ranma’s erogenous zones with lingerie, mouth and hand it soon became apparent that this girl didn’t fall in the usual bell curve of how quickly girls responded to foreplay. It was like a damn broke. Nabiki could well believe that Ranma’s father’s obsession with keeping his son’s mind and body purely devoted to the martial arts had conditioned him to be inhibited. But, now that she wasn’t a son, did onna-Ranma felt freer to let go of her bottled up needs?

Ranma wasn’t impotent, was he!?!

She put that thought aside. That was for her to find out later. Right now, she had to concentrate on getting any Ranma as turned on by silky lovelies as she was.

“Ran...ma, it’s me...the lingerie fairy...”

d;)

Working nights and any naptime she could spend with Ranma, Nabiki had, in less than a week had Ranma in slips, and then panties. The pigtailed girl’d even used the rash as an excuse to wear dresses and skirts, because they had no material to touch her bare legs. That same logic soon led to low necklines and an exposed midriff.

Nabiki was considering getting Ranma to wear a nonallergenic, medicated foundation to cover up the rash’s redness, when one of Dr. Tofu’s treatments worked. The rash began to fade.

When Ranma still wore lingerie and skirts that was the last straw for Akane. She gave the “boy who’d rather be a girl” over to Nabiki. She refused to be seen as the fiancée of something worse than a crossdresser.

Unfortunately, Nabiki knew that was just what Cologne had been waiting for. That had been the reason she had let her figure out the secret to the Anti-Happosai Cat-Sign Talisman. She traded Happosai for Nabiki, because she considered Akane the real rival to Shampoo marrying Ranma. Once Ranma had been freed of the conditioning Nabiki’d been giving him, she counted on him rejecting her, and turning to “the wise, old Amazon” to undo the ‘damage’ to his sense of manhood. She’d have to do it anyway to heal the damage Genma’s years had done to him. (Another thing, now, on Nabiki’s own to-do list.)

But Nabiki had already been thinking about what to do about Akane and Shampoo. And while she was at it, she may as well x-out Kodachi and Ukyo off the list of girls who wanted to marry Ranma. So she got Ranma to go into detail some of the special training he’d received since he’d came to Nerima. She actually found herself more interested in them than she’d thought she’d be. Ranma had so few subjects where he could show how intelligent he really was. Martial arts had only been his one real motivation until she had started taking him away from Genma’s influence.

Be that as it may, she’d thought she had enough to explain what Mousse, and Konatsu had to do to win the girls they were devoted to. But she would only tell them if they took two others on their training mission. One of them was Hiraku Gosunkugi. He knew that it was a dirty trick to pair her little sister off with that loser, but he had been a devoted minion. But maybe she can make something out of him. The real reason it had to be Hiraku, however, was exactly because of his devotion to Akane. If Nabiki’s plan worked half as well as she thought it was, it was going to be so powerful that only someone fixated on one girl would leave other girls alone. Like herself. Nabiki did not want to show anyone something he could turn around and use against her. She did not want to become part of anyone’s harem.

She knew she was risking that, though, with the fourth guy to be taken on the training mission. She just hoped Sasuke’s lifetime conditioning as a sniveling toady prevailed until he and the other three were married and she could deny them the secret to the power over women she would be giving them.

While she was waiting for the four to return from their training mission, she did a survey to find out where the people who most wished to keep the panty thief Happosai away lived. If they showed the proper amount of battle aura, she stamped their house with a larger version of the one she herself wore in her bosom. Ranma’s own energies would anchor and amplify theirs. All of Nerima soon became a No-Happosai zone.

That it seemed to work, boosted Nabiki’s confidence that her scheme to marry off Ranma’s ‘fiancées’ would succeed. So, after a week, she felt ready to make the final ingredient the four guys would need.

Nabiki had to respect the power of magic, but she didn’t have to respect the concept behind it. Not after it allowed her, not even an amateur to magic, to rewrite the rules so easily in making her Guy-Away. It was exactly because people like Cologne devoted decades, even centuries in studying the details and intricacies of the craft that they could not see how basic and simple-minded the logic of magic really was.

So, Nabiki took four packets of Girl-Away powder that Ranma’d shown her how to order, and mixed some iron filings left over from making her Anti-Happosai stamps. And that was all she had to do.

She hoped. The four were going to kill her if it didn’t work.

Mousse and Konatsu came to her with the others in tow as soon as they got back. Hiraku looked like the camping life had just about killed him, but Mousse reported that he, too, had indeed learned the Rising Dragon Ascension. Nabiki had figured he could. Ranma had learned it when he was even weaker than that skeleton of a teen.

“Okay, all that remains is for you guys to put on one of these tank shirts.”

It was Sasuke who recognized them. “Aren’t these Ranma Saotome’s undershirts?”

“He donated them. He doesn’t wear them any more.” Or any other male underwear, for that matter, Nabiki almost smiled at the memory of Ranma in her lingerie.

“What is this sewn on the back of them?” Mousse asked.

“They’re patches. I had a couple of girls who owe me favors sew them on. No, Hiraku, Akane wasn’t one of them. Get used to the idea she has no marital arts skills.”

“That’s okay, Nabiki! I will perfect them so that I may serve her!” Yea. Give Nabiki further reason to regret what she was going to do to Akane.

Once they had the shirts on and had put on their outer clothes, Nabiki patted them on their backs, rubbing them thoroughly.

“Why are you doing this,” Konatsu asked. “And what is that you have in your hand?”

“This?” Nabiki held up a temple good luck charm. It looked to be a typical one. It was two inscribed ribbons on a string sewn together with padding in the middle. “Why do you think.”

“Ah, the spiritual part of the method,” Mousse nodded, thinking he understood. He didn’t, and Nabiki didn’t want any of them to understand. Hidden in the charm’s padding was a powerful, little magnet. If you wanted to reverse the effect of Girl-Away the best way Nabiki could think of was to reverse its polarity. That was what the iron in the mix was for.

But, too, there was also the reverse of body heat Girl-Away need to be activated. Body coldness. And that was exactly what the Rising Dragon Ascension Technique gave a person. It was basic physics. Heat drawn towards cold, not the other way around. By combining the two different ways of making something opposite, one of them was sure to turn Girl-Away into Girl-Towards.

That was the theory, any way. And they were about to find out, as Akane was in one of her moods again.

“Wha...? What are you all doing here?” she asked. “Nabiki....” she threatened.

“Back off,” Nabiki warned, herding the three professional martial artists away from the scene of the crime. “This is Hiraku’s turn.”

“Hiraku?” Her heat cooled. She was friendly towards him, but she had no interest in him as a male.

“Hiraku, remember your training. If you don’t use it now, you’ll never win!” Nabiki coached him.

Hiraku tried to keep his cool and find the nerve to speak to his idol.

“Do you want me to get Ryoga to take your place?” The reason she hadn’t was because he was claimed by Akira.

“Akane!” That had been the spur he needed. “You’re a fool! You couldn’t see how much Ryoga was devoted to you, and you could not see how much I worship you! Are you going to be a fool all of your life...” Hiraku rambled on, propelled only because once he’d started he didn’t know how to stop, afraid that if this didn’t work, she’d never give him a chance to say anything to her again.

The heat of Akane’s anger rose. Her battle aura was being kept contained with difficulty. Only her vow not to harm the weak kept her from harming Gosunkugi.

Come on, Nabiki almost prayed. Something happen. Let’s see what this Girl-Towards can do!

“Be cold-blooded,” Mousse coached Hiraku.

“Do it for us your training mates,” Sasuke, too, encouraged the boy who was even more pathetic than he himself was.

“What’s that smell?” Akane said.

“Uh, oh! Gotta go! Bye!” Nabiki said, running for safety.

“Oh, that’s the most wonderful smell I’ve ever smelled. It smells like all of my favorite things in the world... Oh, I feel like I’m walking on air.” Just the way a girl expects to feel when she’s in love.

And she was, too. From her safe distance, Nabiki saw her lift up and drift towards Hiraku’s cold vortex. He held out his arms to embrace her and she went into them.

“Oh, Hiraku, I never felt this way before. I feel so light headed. I’m trying to be mad at you, but the more I try, the more I’m drawn to you.”

The three other guys blinked in astonishment. It worked. Hiraku of all people had gotten himself a girl. His girl. The girl he’d wanted!

“Well, what are you waiting for!” Nabiki called to them.

First Mousse, then Sasuke and finally Konatsu snapped out of it and ran with all their speeds to make their women hot and bothered. And while they were light headed, they would get them to see how much they really cared for them. (Well, Sasuke didn’t really care for Kodachi, but he thought he was supposed to, since that was the point of the training mission, and that was enough to make Nabiki’s scheme work.)

d;)

Before anyone could come to their senses, Nabiki arranged for quick and easy civil signing of the wedding contracts. Legally, they were all married. And once the deeds were done, their families would have to accept their new in-laws (with more of her scheming) and proceed with fancier, more formal wedding ceremonies.

“So you think you have won?” Cologne told her at the wedding ceremony of Shampoo and Mousse. “There is no “Anti-Cologne” ward you can use to against me.”

“I won’t let you harm Nabiki, or anybody else, you old crone!” Ranma told the Amazon who’d plagued her life since she arrived at Nerima. “You lost. It’s over.”

Cologne focused on the pigtailed girl in the bridesmaid outfit. Nabiki saw the old woman assessing the situation carefully. “Yes. It is over. We all have lost.”

What did that mean? Nabiki wondered.

She found out too soon.

Five weeks later, the final legal hurdles had been overcome (mostly through bribery, breaking-and-entering, and falsifying records). That done, there was one last wedding for the Nerima Wrecking Crew to attend as a group. Their formal wedding announcements said, “Ranko Saotome is to become the wife of Nabido Tendo”.

Cologne had kept her threat. The next time Nabiki had used Instant Nanniichuan on herself after Shampoo’s wedding, she was unable to change back to a girl. Cologne had used her knowledge of magic to make the change permanent.

As for “Ranko” she was able to change back to a male, once she had delivered the baby girl Nabiki had fathered on her. Nabiki’s conditioning sessions with Ranma late at night really had turned her into a pervert. She could not resist taking sexual advantage of Ranma as either a guy or a girl, and as either a girl or a guy.

But that was not the end of Cologne’s revenge on the former Nabiki. Since Nabido was stuck being a guy, Ranma, Akane, Shampoo, Ukyo and Kodachi and any other girl she had ever wronged could punish him all they wanted to, by putting up a stink from their Guy-Away perfume.

2NG