"Sealed Past" Ch. 24 [novella, Kagome/Ranma(Inuyasha), M]

Chapter 24

"I'll just bet you preformed an exorcism!" Akane snarled again.

Kagome arched an eyebrow as she eyed the young woman, taking a breath to calm her own spiking temper. It was just as Ranma had told her. The girl was quick to anger and didn't look before she leapt. Perhaps she could help the Tendo girl to see the error of her ways.

"I preformed an exorcism," Kagome continued when Akane made no other comment. "Ranma, would you care to show them?"

"Let me Mama!" Shippou chimed enthusiastically. He'd love an excuse to dunk his father and get away with it.

All the Higurashi family and demon's present tried vainly to stifle their chuckles of amusement. They knew what the fox was thinking.

"I don't think so," Ranma said sharply as he raised a glass of water and dumped it over his head, shuddering at the cold temperature. Sesshoumaru's earlier use of the Soul-of-Ice Technique had turned it into liquid ice.
The Tendo's and companions stared in shock as with a dog-like shake Ranma shook off the excess water, but still remained male.

"I though the only cure was finding the Nanniichuan!" Mousse cried out, the first to find his voice.

"No, there are other ways to remove a Jusenkyo Curse," Kagome said gently, "And given time I could also remove the curses you have yourselves."

Akane fumed even more as the others with her bombarded the Higurashi woman with questions. Forgetting in their enthusiasm the real reason they'd come here. And it was not to exchange pleasantries with the witch.
"Enough already! Remember why we're here!"

"Why are you here Akane-san?" Ranma asked curiously, eying the tomboy.

"Because of your disgusting conduct! Especially with that woman!" Akane replied enraged, jabbing a finger in Kagome's direction. "Nabiki-chan, show them."

With a sly smile Nabiki placed the multiple pictures, perfect blackmail if she did say so herself, onto the table.

Ranma groaned, what had Nabiki managed to get on film this time? With a felling of dread he reached for a few of the photographs and looked. His eyes widening and he flushed a deep red when he saw just what Nabiki had taken.

"I didn't need to see that!" Shippou yelp in dismay as he slapped the images facedown, "That's something no son needs to know!"

"Ah!" Mrs. Higurashi exclaimed happily as she flipped through a handful, "Grandchildren!"

Souta followed Shippou's actions, only he passed the photographs onto Kagome, saying dryly, "I agree with you nephew. I didn't need to know anything about my sister's sex life either."

Biting her lower lip, Kagome with a growing sense of outrage flipped though some photos. How dare they invade her and Ranma's privacy! She would feel embarrassed later.

"Humm…" Sesshoumaru hummed softly, "They're very well done." Everyone stared at him. He raised a white eyebrow at the expressions on their faces. "They are superbly taken you can not deny that. This woman is an excellent photographer."

"My brother, the mercenary." Ranma said in dismay as he slapped his palm against his forehead. "You and Nabiki-san are going to get along like a house on fire."

"Just as long as it's not my house," Rin quipped. Evicting chuckles from the demons and Higurashi family.

"Akane-san, we are still waiting to learn the reason for your visit." Kagome drew everyone's attention back to the matter at hand. "Though those photographs prove that you've been spying on my self and my family, I still wish to know why. After all isn't it you who are the first to insist that the former engagement between Ranma and yourself was arranged by you parents and you had nothing to do about it?"

"Yes but—" Akane began indignantly.

"Than I really don't see the problem here." Kagome stated, cutting her off. "You did not wish to be engaged to him. He did not wish to be engaged to you. In fact, it was his father who arranged two of his marital prospects, first to a member of the Tendo family and than to Ukyo. The engagement to Shampoo came about through her tribal law, and was something he would have avoided at all costs if he'd know the results. In short, Ranma has never actually proposed marriage to anyone!"

"That's not the point here!" Akane shouted, glaring at the older woman.

"Than what is the point?" Kagome demanded, leaning forward across the table to pin everyone with a steely look.

"It's… he can't just…" Akane's angry answer was disjointed, as she groped for a logical response.

"He can't just what?" Kagome edged on.

Akane fumed silently, not knowing what to say without revealing her own feelings. No one, especially not Ranma, had the right to cast her aside. Wasn't she the most sought after girl in school? Wasn't she the one who all the males fought over? She was the only one who could break up a relationship.

"He has his duty to perform," Genma stated arrogantly. "A son's duty to his father. A practitioner's duty to his martial arts school. And a man's duty to marry."

"Duty…" Kagome said slowly, drawing out the word distastefully. "How do you Saotome-kun, define duty? Is this duty you speak of allowing yourself to take advantage of his sense of family, his honour of the martial arts, and his desire for his own family? Is his duty to you, to allow you to control him for the rest of his life?"

Genma shifted upon his seat uncomfortable, what the woman was saying was a little to close to the truth for comfort. Ranma was his son. It was only right that the boy did such things for him.

"What about my duty to myself?" Ranma asked rhetorically, his voice silky with barely concealed menace as he eyed the man who had fathered the body he now inhabited. "The duty to honour my own self. To hold true to what I believe and do what I know is good and right, even if it gains me nothing. But especially to honour what I once was and may be."

"What do you mean by that?" Ryoga asked without his usual belligerence, understanding what his rival spoke of for perhaps the first time since they'd meet. "What I once was and may be?"

"I am a reincarnation," Ranma replied, a little surprised by the directionless boy's perception.

"What?" Chorused eight voices.

"A reincarnation," Kagome repeated, enjoying the blank looks wreathing the faces of those that had caused Ranma so much trouble and now threatened the new future he was trying to create.

"What is reincarnation?" Shampoo questioned, not understanding the term and unable to translate it mentally into Chinese.

"A reincarnation is someone's whose soul has been reborn into a new body and time," Mrs. Higurashi explained kindly, hearing the Chinese accent of the young woman, and guessing the reason for the question.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Akane demanded.

"Everything Akane-san, everything." Ranma replied seriously.