[I am going to try an experiment. I am going to write a scene from 2 different points of view. The first point of view will be Nabiki's, and will stay with this story. The second POV will stay with the 'canon' of this story, then branch off and fill in some details that wouldn't otherwise be seen. The scene I have in mind for doing this with, is one I have a feeling people will be cranky with me for not "showing" them the completion of, since Nabiki wouldn't see it, and therefore it wouldn't be in this story. (Because I'm a giver ^_-) I will, for sure, publish this to my website at some point. I will then later post it here to ff net. When I publish it here, I won't publish it under this story, I will publish it as a branched/new oneshot-story. If you want an update for when I do this experiment, there is a newsletter you can sign up for on my website. The address is in my profile. Or, you can simply follow me on ff net instead of just one of my stories, and ff net will notify you that way ^_- ]

[soundtrack for this one: How Crazy, by YUI, performed by SCANDAL, on the SHE LOVES YOU Album]

Ranma stopped about a dozen paces away from Nabiki and her friends. He absently brushed his hands through his hair and removed the flowers she had put there. He didn't knock the flower in his shirt loose, though. Whether that was an oversight or deliberate, she didn't know. She did know that it made her very happy.
She watched the girl who was headed straight for Ranma, and braced herself mentally for a fight. Everything about the girl screamed confrontation. The girl's face was pressed into a tight frown. Her hands were clenched at her sides, and her eyes were fixed and hard on Ranma. The girl was also trailing several additional people, all female, with similar expressions on their faces. They were clearly her backup.
The girl in the lead had long black hair, a trim figure, and a cute aristocratic face. She was wearing the standard blue dress that was the girl's school uniform that most of the schools in the area used. As the girl got closer, she could see an intense frown on the girl's face. The expression of outrage on the girl's face marred her otherwise attractive features, and that outrage was directed at Ranma.
As the girl got close enough to Ranma that he could speak to her, he walked forward a few steps and smiled. He was trying to do what she'd asked and stall her. Ranma said a few things to the girl quietly enough that she couldn't hear them. The girl didn't respond to him. It was clear the girl was waiting for a larger crowd before she began.
She watched the girl with a very critical eye. The girl's opening salvo would determine how she would respond to the situation, if at all. Since the girl had brought backup, she seriously doubted the confrontation was going to be about money owed or homework.
"What do you think? New fiancée?" Yui asked gently from her left side.
"No, my money's on paid assassin." She responded absently as she sat down a little bit away from the confrontation. She was close enough to hear them, but not close enough to stand-out. A crowd was starting to form around the confrontation, drawing people from all around. Crowds always loved drama, especially when it concerned Ranma. She saw Akane and her friends join the edge of the crowd. Akane looked ... troubled.
Riko returned at a jog a few moments later. A dozen or so additional students trailed behind Riko, all of them female, and loyal to her. She could see more of them making their way over in the distance. The ones who had arrived all silently joined the group sitting around her. Riko took her rightful place at her right side.
She interrupted her evaluation of the girl staring Ranma down, for a moment, to nod her thanks to Riko. Riko smiled and reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She noted the presence of the rest of the girls who had come when Riko summoned them for her. All of them she counted in the ranks of her most trusted lieutenants. She didn't say anything, but she did sweep her gaze over them briefly and gave them a tight smile. They all either nodded, winked or smiled back. She nodded and went back to watching and assessing the threat while more of her lieutenants continued to stream over to her from around the school as the moments ticked by.
Part of her mind wanted to analyze what she had heard Riko telling Ranma just a little while ago. On some level she had always wondered why Riko and the others had stayed with her. Their initial meetings had been business transactions that had just snowballed. Riko was the only one of them who had started out as a genuine friend. She hadn't been in the business of doing favors for people in primary school.
It frankly shocked her to learn that Riko and the others didn't care about the favors. She had always thought that at least some of their loyalty to her was due to those favors. That was part of the reason why she never cashed in the favors they owed to her. She loved them too, and had wanted to help them when they'd needed it. She had wanted them to stay with her and be her friends, so she had never asked them for payment for the favors she had done for them.
If Riko hadn't been yanking Ranma's chain, then ... all of that time she had spent trying to make sure they had owed her favors so they would stay with her ... had been silly time wasted. She could feel herself starting to tear-up as the urge to cry rose up in her. Maybe ... maybe others, like Riko, hadn't thought of her as the Ice Queen like she had thought everyone did. She couldn't afford to get weepy right now though. So she clamped down viciously on the feelings rising up inside her, and vowed to deal with them later. Right now, Ranma needed her.
The girl who had marched straight up to Ranma was now standing in front of him and glaring at him with her hands on her hips. The girl's half dozen backers arrayed themselves behind her and fanned out to partially surround him. All of them had their arms folded and looked angry. She only recognized about half of them. She was fairly sure the rest didn't actually go to their school. She was positive the lead girl didn't go to their school.
When a large enough crowd had gathered, the lead girl started yelling as she pointed at Ranma. "He's the guy! He's a pervert! He groped me behind the girl's locker room earlier!"
The crowd gasped and started murmuring about Ranma being a pervert, and out of control, a womanizer and various other common names he was called.
Riko and Yui both put their hands on her shoulders comfortingly. She nodded her thanks but didn't break her focus. She wanted to wait until this girl had laid all her cards on the table before she called her bluff. It was rapidly dawning on her what this really was, and who had to be behind it, and she vowed to seek revenge later. But, at the moment, she was busy formulating a defense for Ranma.
"He's a pervert! He should be punished! He should be thrown out of school! Someone call the police!" The girl cried out indignantly as she pointed at him angrily.
And that's your first and second mistake. She thought icily to herself. Don't worry Ranma, this kind of fight is one I can protect you from.
Ranma tried to stammer a denial. "I didn't, I didn't. I wasn't anywhere near there, it musta been someone else!" Ranma said with both shock and fear in his voice as he waved his hands back and forth. If there was one way to get to Ranma that was almost guaranteed to fluster him, it was to force him into an awkward situation with a female. She sighed inwardly about that and promised to keep helping him work on that. Riko was actually the perfect person for that. Ranma needed all the exposure to Riko he could get. She idly considered bringing Riko home to hang out with him, then discarded the idea. Riko mixing with Akane or even Kasumi ... wouldn't end well.
"Oh come on, you're a well known pervert. Your own fiancée calls you a pervert all the time." The girl said haughtily as she swung her gaze over to Akane in the crowd. "Isn't that right, dear?" Ranma's accuser asked. Akane had been watching the whole scene with a detached look on her face. Now that the focus was on Akane, her little sister blushed mightily and looked down at the ground.
Well, I guess I have to give this chick points for doing some research, incomplete research to be sure, but she may have just asked the wrong people. There is no way a paid assassin would know about a fiancée of his at all, without at least some research being done. She acknowledged to herself as she watched how Akane would handle being singled out.
"What? Oh, um, well. Ranma's not ... you don't un... it's ... um ... " Akane stuttered as she blushed under the intense stares of the crowd.
"See, his own fiancée won't even vouch for him. Nobody believes him." The girl smirked, clearly thinking she had Ranma on the ropes.
"All right, that's enough." She said softly as she nodded to her lieutenants, who nodded back. They stood up as one as she shouted, "I BELIEVE HIM!" Her lieutenants started to ring her, many of them were wearing stone-faced masks to hide their feelings. She decided to keep her own feelings hidden behind her professional mask, for now. Yui, Riko, Chihiro and Nanami didn't bother to hide their feelings though. They looked just as pissed as she felt. They may not have been involved with him romantically, but he was one of them now. He'd gone through his trial-by-fire, and they looked after their own. That was one of the reasons she loved them.
Ranma's accuser looked over her shoulder and sneered at her. "And who are you, girl?"
She smiled back in return, a special, predatory small smile, that didn't reach her eyes. Several of the guys in the crowd took involuntary steps back when they saw the look on her face. They knew that look. They feared that look. She started walking to put herself in between Ranma and his accuser. Her lieutenants formed up into two lines of a loose wedge in front and to the sides of her.
She walked calmly between the two ranks of her lieutenants as they parted the crowd before her like water. Her lieutenants on the leading edge actually brushed up against some of the accuser girl's backup, and she could see her lieutenants brace to fight, but the accuser's backups retreated after a brief staring match.
She very rarely called up favors like this, especially with her own most trusted lieutenants, but she was angry and Ranma was being threatened, and she wanted to make a point of the kind of power she could wield. Ranma wasn't the only one who could save people. And not all fights had to be done with fists.
As she neared Ranma's accuser and looked at her, she realized she was more than angry, she was furious. She had to call on her deep pool of willpower to keep her professional mask in place and not just leap on the girl and claw her eyes out. She could already feel herself flushing with heat and her breathing rate increasing as her body prepared to fight.
She could see Ranma out of the corner of her eye looking at her with wide eyes. She had to ignore him for now and take care of business. She wanted to run over to him and hug him and tell him it was going to be all right. But that would actually hurt his defense at the moment. She needed to be strong and not show any weakness right now.
She looked around at the crowd and made eye contact with several people before she smirked and snapped her fingers. One by one, some of the largest Martial Artists in the school came out of the crowd and lined up and stood behind her with their arms crossed, looking extremely imposing. Over a dozen of them quickly gathered and stood behind her. Ranma eyed them warily.
Ranma's accuser took a cautious step back as she repeated her question in a much shakier voice. "W-who ... who a-are you?"
She didn't answer right away. She looked left and right to her ranks of her most trusted lieutenants, and smiled that special smile again. It was a remorseless smile. Then she looked the girl up and down dismissively before she scanned the crowd. She could already see some of the rabble-rousers who had been yelling for Ranma's head slinking away with their tails between their legs. They knew the fun was over. Her eyes rested briefly on Akane. Her little sister was looking at her with a mixture of resentment and appreciation.
Oh, Akane ... if you care about him so much, why does it embarrass you so much to say so openly? She thought sadly for her little sister. She widened her eyes and tilted her head a millimeter towards herself, inviting Akane to come out and take the lead. Akane actually took a step towards her, then hesitated and stepped back. Her little sister looked down and hung her head and didn't look up again.
Sorry, sis, Ranma needs me. She thought sadly as she swept her eyes back to the girl who'd made the accusations against Ranma and put her hands on her own hips. She stared at the girl with dead eyes, like a soldier who had seen too much and didn't care what happened next. She answered Ranma's accuser in an icy voice. "I am someone you really, really don't want to mess with. Am I, ladies?"
"NO!" Her lieutenants thundered in a chorus so loud and abrupt that most of the girls backing Ranma's accuser actually jumped in a startled reaction. She smiled a real smile briefly at that. She loved her lieutenants. It hadn't escaped her notice that the lead girl who had made the accusation hadn't jumped in fright. A conditioned response against fear indicated training. This was no simple school girl.
A moment later, she watched in satisfaction as some of Ranma's accuser's supporters quietly stepped back and tried to sneak away unnoticed. They were the girls she was fairly sure attended their school. She saw the accuser's resolve waver for a moment as her supporters fled. She noted all of their faces to deal with later. Ranma's accuser looked around in surprise for a moment, then gathered herself and clearly decided to fight. She could tell by the girl's stance and facial expression.
That's your third mistake. She thought with satisfaction that she kept hidden behind her professional mask.
"Well, I don't care who you are, or how many people you have with you. I have the truth on my side, and I want to see this pervert punished!" The girl yelled.
Fourth mistake. She thought as she got even more angry. "All right, I am going to stop you now, because you are only embarrassing yourself and you are also frankly harming women everywhere with your bullshit. It is because of vile little prevaricators like you, that real victims have a hard time getting justice for real crimes against women. How dare you lie about something like that just to try to hurt Ranma? I won't stand for it!" She yelled as she dropped her hands from her hips into fists and felt herself blaze with anger. She could feel the heat of it rising off her. The dragon inside her was spitting in rage and trying to claw its way out to get to the girl. She could feel the heat of that anger in the center of her chest, and it was getting worse by the second.
The rest of the girl's backers stepped back then, and started to turn their backs and walk away. Now Ranma's accuser was alone. The girl looked around in disbelief as they abandoned her, before she answered. "W-what are you talking about? Everything I said is true." The girl protested indignantly but with a bit of a waver in her voice. Most people would have missed it, but she didn't.
"Really? Where are your witnesses? They all seem to be fleeing the scene of the crime." She bit off each word angrily as she said it, and took several steps towards the girl. To the girl's credit, she could tell Ranma's accuser had realized she was beaten. The girl actually took several steps back from her and visibly prepared to run.
She normally would have let her go, but she furious. She snapped her fingers again and flicked her hands out, then closed her fists to signal her lieutenants. Her lieutenants responded instantly and sprinted out and away from her, and then charged inward quickly, as they linked their arms and closed ranks to encircle them close enough so that they were literally standing hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. That trapped the girl and forced her back into the center of the circle they had formed around them.
She snapped again and waved a single finger in the air in a circle, and the guys she liked to think of as her brute squad moved quickly and loosely encircled her lieutenants and again took up positions with their arms folded and scowls on their faces. Ranma was outside the circle now, along with Akane. The rest of the crowd had been pushed back as well. Some of them started to wander off, but most of them just stood on their tip-toes or did little hops every now and then to see better. Crowds were like that, especially in high school.
"W-what ... what are you doing? Who are you?" The girl asked as she put on a brave face and tried to act haughty, but she could tell the girl was thinking that she hadn't been paid enough to face something like this.
Well, tough, you take the job and try to slander Ranma, and I have to destroy you. Anything goes when you mess with my family, girl. She thought in disgust.
"I, as you clearly don't know, am Ranma's fiancée." She said calmly, but with anger still burning in her voice.
"W-what? No! That girl is." Ranma's accuser said, as she pointed to Akane.
Akane shook her head but didn't look up or say anything.
Ranma's accuser looked back at her with real panic in her eyes now. She had moved on her target with bad intel and an incomplete grasp on the assignment, and she would pay the price for it now. And she was sure whoever had given her the job would be paying as well, later.
"All right, well, so what? It doesn't change anything. He's still a—" The girl started to say.
"Shut up! Just shut up!" She interrupted as she actually took a step forward and raised her hand to slap the girl, and had to force herself to stop. After she had regained control, she slowly lowered her hand while she stared at the girl with eyes blazing with cold fury.
She looked down at the ground for a moment, and took a couple of deep breaths before she trusted herself to speak again. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She focused on the scent of the grass and the dust in the air and tried to control her anger. When she looked back up, she found the girl backed as far away from her as her lieutenants would allow.
The girl wasn't pressing into her ring of lieutenants, but she was sure she wanted to. Her lieutenants were watching all of this with impassive faces, although some of them, like Riko, Yui, Chihiro and Nanami, who had spent time with Ranma, had anger in their eyes.
As for herself, she felt herself burning with the anger. It was melting her icy facade, and she knew cracks were appearing in her professional mask. She didn't care. The dragon inside her was stalking back and forth as it glared at the girl and flexed its paws to pop its claws in and out, as it readied itself to tear the girl apart. She laid into her, speaking mostly for the crowd now.
"You know, Ranma really doesn't like being called a pervert, and I don't like hearing him called one. It would be one thing if he actually was one. Or if he was at least a bit of a shameless romancer. But even that isn't true. Ranma is actually very shy. He is also very nice, and he does a lot for this school. Doesn't he?!" She yelled.
Her ring of lieutenants all nodded their heads, as did several heads in the crowd. She piled on as Ranma's accuser flinched away from her as she continued to yell.
"Ranma has saved this school, multiple times! Ranma has protected this school from actual perverts like that dirty old underwear thief! Ranma has protected many of the students at this school, many times, including myself and my sister! He might have some personal problems, but his problems are our problems, aren't they?!"
"Yeah!"
"That's true!"
"Leave Ranma alone!" Several people cried out from the crowd as she jogged their memories. She let her gaze wander into the crowd again, and found Ranma looking around wildly at everyone in disbelief as he blushed at the praise. Akane was looking up again as well. Her little sister had tears streaming down her cheeks and was staring at her. She watched Akane carefully and saw her mouth the words, thank you, silently to her. She winked at her sister then refocused her attention on the character-assassin.
Ranma's accuser was staring at her with a mixture of awe and loathing. She decided to give her one last chance to back out of this before she destroyed her. "Now, do you want to take back what you said, and apologize?" She asked with steel in her voice.
"N-no." Ranma's accuser said as she visibly gathered her courage. The girl stood up straighter and pointed at Ranma and yelled. "It doesn't matter if he's done nice things in the past, he should be punished for being a—"
"I told you!" She interrupted Ranma's accuser sharply. She paused for a moment for effect, then said more quietly in a deadly tone, "I told you, Ranma doesn't like to be called that. So, unless you have some actual proof of anything, I am going to have to really insist that you not call him that."
"What kind of proof would I have of him groping me?" The girl asked, incredulous.
She grinned. Fifth mistake. She thought smugly as she pressed the girl harder. "Tell me, where was Ranma standing when he was supposedly groping you?" She asked as calmly as she could, but her voice still shook with anger.
"Behind the girl's locker room, near the window." The girl said indignantly.
She let her special smile slip into a full grin. Gotcha. She thought as she walked forward and began ticking points off her fingers loudly to the crowd. "Your third mistake was deciding to stick to your story after being called on it, when you and I both know it is a lie. Your fourth mistake was doubling down and wrapping yourself up with a claim of truth being on your side when you knew you couldn't back it up. And your fifth mistake was not thinking your story through and thinking about the trail of evidence and any proof that might be searched for."
Then she pointed at Ranma's feet. "Ranma wears very unique shoes he got in China. Nobody else in this school will leave footprints like his. How much do you want to bet his footprints won't be found outside that window? I'll give you one to ten million odds."
The girl didn't say anything, but she could tell Ranma's accuser was beaten. She didn't care, she'd given the girl a chance to back down, and she hadn't, now she was going to destroy her. Don't start fights you can't finish. She growled to herself.
"I need a volunteer!" She yelled to the crowd while she kept her eyes on the girl. Several guys and girls raised their hands eagerly. They smelled blood in the water, and were eager to see her make the kill. Normally she wouldn't indulge them, but today she would. She picked one of the girls at random, whom she didn't know. "You there, can you please go over to my fiancé and ask him to lift his foot so you can see his footprint?" The crowd waited silently while the girl nodded and did exactly that. Ranma obliged her while looking embarrassed.
Don't worry Ranma, this will be over in a minute. She thought with granite resolve. Her volunteer looked over at her and waited for more instructions.
"Okay, now that you know what his footprint looks like, can you please run over to the girl's locker room and check the back for that footprint? Please come back and tell us what you see there." The girl nodded and jogged towards the locker room. The crowd watched her go quietly. She decided to rile them back up again.
She pointed her finger at Ranma's accuser and sneered. "You know she isn't going to find anything. Ranma is innocent, and you know it."
Ranma's accuser shook her head urgently. She was pretty sure the girl was in denial at this point, not able to fully appreciate how badly she had miscalculated.
"How dare you. How dare you accuse someone innocent of something like that. That is the kind of thing that can follow someone around their whole life. Ranma is my fiancé, and I won't stand for it. He isn't perfect, but he is a good, and kind person. He cares about people. He's saved the life of my little sister so many times, I've lost count. He protects my family. He goes out of his way to try to keep people from being hurt. He has never done anything to deserve being called a pervert, and I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!" She yelled in a voice that was verging on a scream, she could feel herself rapidly losing control.
The crowd cheered in response to her. Riko, Yui, Chihiro and Nanami cheered the loudest, and nodded their heads enthusiastically. Even her brute squad guys were nodding and smiling. A part of her was watching herself do what she was doing, and heard what she was saying, and had its mouth open in shock. Even she didn't fully understand why she was doing it.
She pulled her mind back to the task at hand, and watched the crowd and frowned. She found crowds to be weird things. The same crowd could be whipped up into a murderous frenzy and then turned around and brought to praise the same person they had wanted to kill just moments before, depending on how one played them. They were almost like living organisms.
She rounded on the girl and stepped fully in front of Ranma, and blocked his accuser's line of sight to him as she held her hands out to either side of herself protectively while she yelled. "Do you understand?! Ranma is my fiancé. If you try to slander him, I'LL RUIN YOU." The crowd erupted into cheers as well as oohs and aahs and many side conversations rapidly discussing her new revelations about her feelings for him. She had never done anything like this for anyone in the school before. Even her lieutenants were letting their masks slip as they blinked at her in surprise.
She held her hands out for quiet and rounded on the girl and glared at her. "I have a feeling I know who put you up to this. When you see them again, tell them that Nabiki Tendo will not tolerate people coming after her family. You want to take down Ranma, or Akane, or anyone else in my family, you have to go through me. Ask anyone at this school you want, they will all tell you that is a bad idea." She growled.
She turned away for a moment, then turned back and said in a quiet voice that the crowd immediately quieted down to hear. "Oh, and in case you were wondering, your first mistake was not knowing who I was, and that Ranma is engaged to me. Everyone in the school knows about it. The fact that you didn't, tells me you aren't even a student here. And your second mistake, and the most fatal, was you didn't even check your target before you struck."
"W-what do you mean?" The girl asked timidly but with a hint of her paid assassin's actual personality starting to peek out. She had clearly roused the girl's professional interest.
She looked at her and smiled. "If you had bothered to watch your target before you attacked, you would have known that Ranma was with me and my friends all during lunch today. We can all vouch for him, can't we ladies?" As one, Riko, Yui, Chihiro and Nanami all nodded and glared at the girl.
"S-so what? It's still your word against mine." The girl stammered.
"So what, indeed." She said as she savored the kill. She stared into the girl's eyes for a moment, then asked the crowd a question. "Can anyone tell me what is in the middle button of Ranma's shirt?"
"A little pink and blue flower." Someone called out.
"Yup. A flower." Someone else confirmed.
She smirked and pointed to Chihiro. "Do you see the camera hanging on the strap on her wrist over there? That's my friend Chihiro. She just so happens to like taking photos, and she was with us at lunch today. I can guarantee you that she has pictures of Ranma and me on her camera, and Ranma will have that flower in his shirt. You can ask anyone in this school, Ranma never walks around with flowers in his shirt. The only reason it is still there is because you ambushed him and he forgot about it after I put it there."
She paused for a moment, then saw the girl who she had sent to check for footprints coming back. "Checkmate," she said under her breath with a smile.
Ranma's accuser looked up where she was looking, and shattered. She could actually see the will to fight drop out of the girl as she slumped down as her mask slipped and full panic showed on her face as she turned and tried to run away.
Her lieutenants just stood there as the girl pressed frantically against them and tried to break out from their ring. She waved everyone off and called out to the guys in the back ranks to let her go. As soon as her ring of lieutenants stepped back, the girl sprinted away like her ass was on fire.
She couldn't help getting in one last shot as the heat of her anger died down. "You're a disgrace!" She yelled after her.
She then turned back to face the girl who was running back to the crowd, looking excited. As soon as the girl was in earshot she began shouting. "No footprints. No footprints. I didn't see anything!"
At that, Ranma deflated with relief, and the crowd cheered. She didn't cheer with them. She actually had nothing but contempt for most of those in the crowd who had been willing to go along with that girl's charade just because they liked a good spectacle, and quite frankly because a lot of them were jealous of Ranma. Her brute squad also cheered.
Only her lieutenants also refrained from cheering. She knew that, aside from her friends, most of their loyalty was bought. Well, at least, she thought it was bought. Riko's comments to Ranma were causing her to question everything she thought she knew about all that. But, regardless, her lieutenants were loyal to her, and she could count on that.
She smiled her thanks to Riko, Yui, Chihiro and Nanami, and the rest of her lieutenants as they dispersed. Many of them hugged Ranma as they left. Both Riko and Yui were so excited, they kissed him full on the mouth. Riko actually jumped into his arms to do it. She rolled her eyes at their antics. At least they'd kept their mouths closed while they teased him. She looked for Akane but didn't see her.
She imagined her sister had probably faded away from the crowd as soon as she knew Ranma was safe. She wanted to talk to her later, but what would she say? 'Sorry I had to jump in and protect Ranma because you wouldn't, how you feeling about that?' Yeah, that would go over really well. She thought to herself. Still, she could only imagine how much her sister must be hurting. She knew she would be very upset if someone else jumped in and defended Ranma because she couldn't.
Poor Akane. She thought sadly. It was funny. Earlier in the day she had been extremely worried that Akane was succeeding in taking him back, and now she was worrying about Akane feeling bad about losing him. Her emotions were all over the place right now.
As the crowd cleared, she found Ranma looking over at her with an expression of open bewilderment mixed with awe and appreciation for her. She was sure he would want to know how she had arranged that. Maybe she would tell him some of her secrets on their date. She thought about that and smiled. It would be nice to share some things with someone she could trust.
He made his way over to her, and took her hand in his and whispered. "Thank you, thank you so much."
She smiled at him. "That's one less I owe you now, Saotome. You'll have to save my life again if you want to bring the count back up." She winked at him playfully.
"I'd rather you not have your life in danger, at all." He said softly.
"I know ... I know." She looked at him and smiled softly.
"Nabiki?" He said in a smaller, more playful voice.
"Mmm?" She replied as she started to lean in to him. He smelled like Riko and Yui's perfume, but she didn't care. He also smelled strongly of his own cedar and flower scent, probably because he had been sweating nervously during all that.
"You ... can be ... kind of terrifyin' sometimes ... you know?" He whispered as he stepped closer to her.
She nodded and pulled him closer to herself, and wrapped his arms around her. Unlike this morning, he responded immediately and pulled her into a strong hug.
"Mmm hmm, and don't you forget it, Saotome." She mumbled as she relaxed into his arms. Her limbs felt a little shaky now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but it didn't matter, since he was holding her anyway. Her breath was coming in shorter, more urgent little gasps. She didn't know if that was an after-affect of the confrontation, or if he just had that affect on her now. But it was all right, she could already feel her breathing slowing as he held her in his warm arms. He was always warm. She loved that about him. She buried her face into his chest, and grinned happily where nobody could see. "Ready to go back to class, Ranma?" She mumbled into his silky shirt. She didn't care what anyone might be thinking of their public display at the moment.
"Not yet." He said as he lifted her off the ground and hugged her even more tightly.
He's picking me up! She thought excitedly as she buried her head into his chest and nuzzled him. She knew what that meant.