Crisis Building


Nabiki watched Akane as she mounted the stairs to her room. She wasn't
sure how to feel about what was happening. She had the feeling that
things were over between Ranma and Akane, at least from Ranma's side,
and for the life of her, she couldn't figure out how Akane was feeling
about it, or whether she even realized.

More to the point, she wasn't sure how she herself felt about it. She
ought to be angry at Ranma, right? He had hurt her baby sister and she
always defended family. Still, Akane certainly hadn't tried to make the
relationship work. Even after Ranma brought her back from death, she
still didn't let up on him. It made Nabiki wonder whether Akane's
protests might have been true. 

Kasumi had always seemed to think that there was a genuine spark between
them, and that their protestations meant little. Nabiki herself had been
a bit more cynical and worked to make sure they didn't get married too
soon. At first she had disliked the brash and arrogant jerk as much as
Akane professed to, particularly given the way he treated her baby
sister.

Still, as time passed, she had been impressed by Ranma's honesty and
honor, the way he defended Akane, the fact that in spite of her
intimations to Akane, he had never cheated on her. 

The most disturbing thing for her was the realization that she would
probably be more angry at Ranma for abandoning Akane, however much the
girl might have deserved and asked for it, if she herself hadn't begun
to develop feelings for him.

He had always been easy on the eyes and Nabiki had kept a number of his
pictures for herself. But she had always thought that that was all he
was. A dumb jock, with a pretty face and a nice body but a mind that was
useless for anything except his Art. To be sure, she was not blind to
the skill and adept thinking he displayed during fights, but she had
dismissed it as the sort of intelligence an idiot savant displays.

Now that she was beginning to realize just how wrong she was she could
finally see how foolish her initial reaction to Ranma's appearance in
their home. She was about to go up to her room when she saw Kasumi
coming in with the mail.

"Oh my," Kasumi said, looking at one of the envelopes. Nabiki's radar
pinged. 

"What is it, Kasumi?" she queried, rising quickly to stand by her sister
and try to get a look at the envelope.

"A letter for Ranma," Kasumi replied with a worried look. The few times
that Ranma had received mail, it had been the prelude to another
adventure, be it a challenge from Ryouga, the news of his mother's
arrival, or a new fiancee. "Oh dear, I hope it's not a new fiancee."

Nabiki paled. She was fairly sure of Ranma's feelings towards Shampoo
and Ukyou, particularly after the failed wedding. Still, he had just
given up on Akane, if she read him right. A new fiancee at this point,
especially if she were non-violent or worse yet, non-clingy, could be
the catalyst for Ranma to finally break out of Genma's control,
particularly given what he had been learning from her.

Kasumi continued into the living room, handing Soun the small stack of
envelopes. He noticed the one she held back.

"What is that, Kasumi?"

"A letter for Ranma," she replied, not noticing Nabiki's frantic signals
to her to stay silent. Nabiki instantly dove for the letter but Genma
was faster. He danced away from the table, ripping the letter open.

"Oh my! That was for Ranma, Saotome-san, you really should have allowed
him to open it."

Soun looked at Genma curiously. "So what is it, Saotome? Another
challenge from that Ryouga boy?"

"Uh, yeah, heh heh," replied Genma, who had become starkly pale when he
looked at the paper he held. 

"No way," objected Nabiki, "Look at him, Daddy, he's never that nervous
about a challenge. I bet it's a new fiancee!" She wasn't kidding,
either. She had gotten quite good at reading the elder Saotome and his
reaction to the letter had left her little doubt that this was one of
his schemes coming home to roost.

Soun stared at Genma in horror. "Saotome! How could you! What of our
agreement!?" His anger swelled his visage, until he finally burst into
his demon-head technique. "The schools must be joined!"

Nabiki chuckled as she slipped into the hall after snatching the letter
from a distracted Genma as he cowered away from the angry Tendo  
patriarch. She had failed to notice the look of desperate disbelief on
the elder Saotome's face. Had she seen it, she would have realized that
she was mistaken in how she had read him. Unfolding the letter, she
began to read. 

Kasumi watched with mild concern as Nabiki read the letter, growing
visibly paler. She gasped when Nabiki looked up with a haunted look on
her face. "This is not good, Kasumi. Come on, we gotta go talk to
Akane."

"Oh my, do you really think Akane will take Ranma having another
fiancee well?"

Nabiki sighed. "Alright, we'll hold off on her for the moment. But it
doesn't say anything about a fiancee, Kasumi."

"What? Then what is it?"

"Here, have a look." Nabiki handed the letter over and Kasumi frowned
slightly as she took it.

She looked over it for a minute then glanced up, her eyes wide.
"Nabiki... this looks like a court document!"

"That's right. I... I guess that Ranma must have done this without
telling anyone, but... I... I never thought it would go this far! I
swear Kasumi, I never thought he would do this!"

"Oh dear," Kasumi murmured, "Father is not going to like this." She
gathered the distraught middle Tendo daughter into her embrace,
comforting her. Kasumi understood her pain. She had obviously come to
realize how truly worthy Ranma was and how ill-advised her many attempts
to prevent anything from developing between Akane and Ranma had been.
Now she must be thinking that she had helped bring Ranma to this action.

Their father stepped into the hall, a look of desperate hope in his
eyes. "Please, Nabiki, tell me it isn't true! Ranma didn't really... He
couldn't have, he wouldn't, tell me he didn't do it. It's just another
fiancee, isn't it?"

Nabiki lifted her head from her sister's embrace then plucked the paper
from Kasumi's grasp and handed it to Soun without saying a word, giving
no sign of her thoughts, though the mere fact that she had allowed
Kasumi to embrace her spoke of how shaken she was.

Soun took the letter with trembling hands. He glanced at it then dropped
it to the floor, collapsing to his knees wailing. "Now the schools will
never be joined!"

Genma came into the hallway a moment later, having recovered from his
encounter with Soun. He wore a look of deep anger but for the first time
in Nabiki's experience, it was a calm anger rather than an angry rage.

"How could he," he ground out, "after all I did for him! How could he
betray me like this?"

"More like did to him, Saotome," retorted Nabiki angrily. "He must have
felt trapped. Would you prefer he had chosen seppuku?"

Genma paled and he collapsed to his knees beside Soun. "But... but why?"

"You kept claiming that Akane's engagement was the only valid one,
Genma, but you never did anything to resolve the others! Ranma is too
honorable to ever sully someone else's honor before his own."

Genma looked stricken. "I... I...," he attempted to muster a protest
then dropped his face into his hands, looking in that moment years
older, as if he were visibly aging before their eyes. "What have I
done?"

Soun stood abruptly, a hard look on his face. "Ranma is no longer
welcome in this home," he said in a voice that brooked no contradiction.
"Nabiki," he said in a softer voice, "please collect Ranma's belongings
so that he may leave as quickly as possible once he returns."

He turned to face Genma. "All is not lost, my old friend. Tomorrow
morning, you will start training Akane. In her we will join the schools.
Surely the Master will see the necessity of doing this."

Nabiki smirked slightly. "Hmmph. I'm surprised you aren't just planning
on forcing him to undo what he's done, Genma." In truth she was curious.
In the past Genma had been so quick to lay blame on his son and force
Ranma to carry Genma's responsibilities as well as his own.

Genma looked up at her, a look of genuine fear on his face. "You were
not at Jusendo," he said. He turned away and went back into the living
room, his shoulders slumped as if he carried a great weight. 

---

Pulling his gaze away from the scarlet eyes which had briefly captured
his own, Ranma saw that Setsuna was wearing a dark blue conservative
business suit similar to the one that she had worn when he first met
her.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief and offered her a small smile as he
stepped aside to give her access to the clinic doors. As she withdrew
her keys from her purse, Ranma silently gave thanks. Her attire the
first time they met meant little unless the meeting had been a
deliberately pre-arranged accident, something Ranma wouldn't put past
some of his suitors. The fact that in their second meeting she was still
dressed conservatively reassured Ranma that she wasn't merely another in
his long line of suitors.

She was not the sort of whom he would have thought such a thing, however
getting malleted for having been seen with her had made it abundantly
clear that his family saw her as a possible fiancee. That fact had
forced him to reevaluate her and admit that while she was considerably
older than himself, she was quite beautiful. With her lustrous green
hair and red eyes, she stood out amongst traditional Japanese nearly as
much as his female form, with her red hair and blue eyes.

He followed her into the clinic, idly noting the similiarities between
the lobby into which they stepped and the lobby of Dr. Tofu's clinic. He
stepped out of his shoes, nudging them into place by the door beside
Setsuna's own elegant flats.

He followed her as she walked through the lobby, catching up to walk
beside her when she spoke.

"You came earlier than I expected," she commented, "my receptionist
won't be in for another hour. Still, that's for the best." She didn't
say why it was for the best and Ranma wasn't sure he wanted to ask.

She led him into an examination room. It looked mostly familiar, similar
in many ways to the room where Dr. Tofu had so often examined Ranma's
injuries. The familiarity of it served to bleed off some of Ranma's
nervousness. 

She gestured him to a table and he hopped easily to sit upon it while
she moved about, opening drawers that she unlocked with small keys from
a large keyring and removing small trays full of the various implements
of her trade. Picking up a mercury thermometer, she handed it to him.

"Place this under your tongue please, Ranma."

From its resting place on a hook securely fastened to the wall near the
sink she took a clipboard; two others like it hung still upon the wall
to the left of it. 

Unlocking and opening a deep drawer that Ranma saw was full of hanging
files, she flipped through the sparse collection and removed a folder.
Seeing his interested glance, she smiled softly. 

"Medical records for persons scheduled for an examination. My assistant
puts them in here a day or two before the exam." 

Ranma nodded though it occurred to him to wonder how long his records
had waited there and what her assistant might have thought of their
prolonged presence there, mostly because he was afraid that any
curiousity aroused about him might lead to information getting back to
Nabiki.

Setsuna flipped through the folder and removed a few sheets, placing 
them on the clipboard. Taking a pen she made a few notations on the
chart then turned to Ranma, clipboard in hand. 

"Strip to your underwear please, Ranma," she requested, deliberately not
smiling nor making any attempt to ease his obvious and expected
discomfiture. She guessed that he would feel more comfortable if she
kept this portion of their relationship stricly professional; at least,
for now, though maybe later... Setsuna felt a tingling sensation run
through her and forcefully cast those thoughts aside, strengthening her
grasp on her professionalism.

She found that air of detachment considerably harder to attain when
Ranma nodded and in swift, sure motions removed his shirt and pants,
revealing his rock-hard, perfectly-defined muscles. Drawing on the 
experience of a millenia of suppressing her emotions, Setsuna forced her
gaze back to the counter while she fought down the swelling desire that
filled her at the sight of him.

Setsuna focused her will as she lifted a stethoscope from the counter,
placing it around her neck. When she lifted a blood-pressure cuff from
the counter and strode to the table, no hint of her inner fight showed
on her face. Her features were set in a calm, serious mask that 
emphasized her strong focus on her task. 

Ranma looked askance at the cuff but made no objection, raising his left
arm as she approached, and helping her slide it up to rest on his
bicep.

She didn't immediately operate the cuff. In fact, she hadn't intended
to put it on him yet but had decided that he might as well get used to
it. It certainly wouldn't hurt and it was better than embarrassing him
by ignoring his attempt to cooperate. 

She held out her hand for the thermometer. Taking it in hand she shook
it then held it up. She set it down on a tray to one side before making
a notation on the chart she held, then set it aside as well.

"Okay, Ranma," she said, "Now if you could sit here please." She
gestured to a chair. Once he was sitting in it she reached beneath it,
spinning a lever to lower it until his feet were resting on the floor.

"You know," she commented, "traditionally speaking, the patient is not
supposed to have engaged in vigorous exercise for at least half an hour
before having their vitals checked. I'm fairly sure from Dr. Tofu's
description of your normal mode of travel that you roof-hopped here. So
before I continue, I just need to know if that was enough exercise to
cause you to sweat or breathe more strongly than you normally do?"

He shook his head and she nodded. "I suspected as much." Grasping 
Ranma's wrist in her right hand she shifted her fingers until she found
the right spot, then pressed lightly on the radial artery with two 
fingers. Noting that he had a nice regular pulse she glanced at her
watch, waiting for the seconds to reach fifteen, since they had already
passed zero, then began counting. Stopping at thirty seconds, she
continued holding his wrist, remembering her count but subtly turning
her attention to his chest, watching his respiration and counting his
breaths. Satisfied, she released his wrist and picked the chart back up.
Noting down his rhythm and pulse, she commented, "You're bradycardic."

Noting his puzzled and slightly worried glance, she shook her head.
"It's nothing to worry about. It just means that compared to an average
person your age, your heart beats more slowly. It's a common trait in
athletes as a result of the improved conditioning."

Ranma smirked when he realized that she had been commenting on how good
he was, forgetting completely the mild worry that had assailed him when
she first mentioned it.

Setsuna took hold of the blood pressure cuff and moved it to an inch
above his elbow before applying several quick squeezes to the inflation
bulb to hold it in place. With a series of fssh sounds the cuff 
inflated, accompanied by occasional popping noises as the folds in the
cuff snapped out. After a few moments a comfortable pressure enveloped
his arm.  

Placing her hand beneath his elbow she elevated his arm until the top of
his elbow was level with his heart and with her other hand, she
pressed the release on the chair arm and raised it to support his arm
at its new height. 

Placing her hand once again on his wrist she pressed lightly with two
fingers until she felt the slow beat of his pulse. Grasping the bulb
again, she slowly inflated the cuff until she could no longer feel his
pulse. Taking a brief note of the gauge's reading to get a rough
systolic pressure, she released the bulb long enough to set the
stethoscope's arms against her ears. 

Holding the stethoscope in one hand, she lightly felt his arm just below
the cuff with her fingers until she located the brachial artery then
held the stethoscope's diaphragm against his brachial artery. Although
the Korotkoff sounds, named for the Russian physician whose 1905 study
popularized this means of obtaining blood pressure readings, are low
frequency and therefore should be better amplified by the bell of the
stethoscope, Setsuna, as with most doctors, preferred to use the
diaphragm for this task, as properly placing the bell above the
antecubital fold of the inner elbow is a difficult task, and not
strictly necessary.

Holding the diaphragm in place with light pressure, Setsuna listened to
the distinct snapping sound. It indicated that she was within about
fifteen millimeters of mercury of his systolic pressure. Squeezing the
bulb with her other hand, she watched the momanometer gauge as it rose
steadily, pausing at intervals to listen. With the third squeeze the
Korotkoff sounds had ceased. Glancing at the gauge again, she continued
squeezing until it reached two hundred millimeters of mercury in case
the silence was merely an auscultury gap, a region where the harmonics
caused an artificial silence.

Shifting her grip from the bulb to the release valve, Setsuna began
releasing the pressure at around five millimeters of mercury at a time.
When the sharp snapping sounds recurred, she noted the momanometer
gauge's reading, then continued releasing the air from the cuff,
listening as the sharp sounds faded into liquid murmurs before hardening
into a distinct thumping sound. She released the air more slowly then,
paying careful attention as the thumping became muffled then finally
ceased. Noting down that final value which should be his diastolic
pressure, she then continued releasing the air in five millimeter of
mercury increments until she felt confident that there was no gap of
silence.

Removing the cuff, she noted the pressures on her chart. Well within
the normal range. She was almost surprised that he did not have a high
blood pressure considering his daily life but apparently his overall
physical conditioning was more than sufficient to counterbalance his
emotional difficulties.

"Alright, Ranma," Setsuna said, "that takes care of your vitals. Stand,
please." She removed the stethoscope arms from her ears, returning it to
its resting place around her neck.

He stood obediently and moved to stand where she indicated. She walked
around him comparing his scars to those in the medical record and noting
a few new ones. Completing her visual inspection she moved to stand
beside him and guided him through a series of range of motion tests. She
was impressed by his flexibility and while she knew that he had gone
through considerable practice to attain that range of mobility she still
felt the need to proceed to passive range of motion tests.

In point of fact the passive tests, involving the doctor manually
working the joint through its full range of motion, were generally
considered necessary if the patient showed either a particular
limitation in the range or an unusually large range of motion. The fact
that it meant she got to feel his hard muscles all over had nothing to
do with her decision. Really, it didn't.

Setsuna found herself having difficulty keeping her breathing controlled
as she tested his joints; the feel of his strong muscles rippling and
shifting under his skin was playing havoc with her self-control. Without
mentioning the change, Setsuna shifted from merely testing the range of
motion of the joint to testing the range and then palpating the joint
and surrounding muscle groups. She really should have done this first,
she told herself, as she searched for any areas of tenderness or
deformity. She had skipped it knowing that with Ranma's unusually fast
healing it was highly unlikely that he would have tender regions. Even
if he did it would simply indicate that he had received them recently;
they would be gone before the day had passed. That logic fell to the
strength of her desire.

When she finally removed her hands from his skin, she had difficulty
repressing a longing sigh. She did suppress it, in spite of the effort,
for she knew that letting Ranma know of her interest at this stage would
be counter-productive.

Having already checked the radial and brachial pulses in his left arm,
she held her hand out for his right wrist. Verifying that the radial
pulse on his right arm was as strong as that on his left, she moved on
to the posterior tibial and dorsalis pedis pulses on his right arm, then
returned to check the same two on his left arm. As they were both
strong, she did not check the popliteal or femoral pulses.

Taking his strong hand in her own slender fingers, she turned it over
and gripping his ring finger, she pressed firmly on the fingernail
causing it to turn white from loss of blood. Releasing it she counted
under her breath. The speed with which it returned to a warm pink
gave her no cause for concern but Ranma seemed confused.

"What was that for?"

"It tests how long your capillaries take to refill," she told him. "If
it took more than two or three seconds it would have suggested vascular
disease, that is, a disease affecting the blood vessels, an arterial
blockage, shock, or even heart failure. Not that the latter two are
likely possibilities in your case."

"Oh." Ranma settled back feeling slightly disappointed without knowing
why. He had gotten a little unnerved during her prolonged examination of
his extremities but her clinical explanation reassured him. He was glad
she had moved on to something he felt safe asking about. He was
decidedly leery of asking any question that might imply that he had
recognized an advance as such, being far too familiar with the ability
of a fiancee or prospective fiancee to take the slightest hint of
encouragement as permission to drop all pretense of subtlety. As Setsuna
walked around behind him he suppressed a sigh of relief. I'm simply too
used to my fiancees and their behavior, he decided. There was no reason
to think such things of the doctor.

Setsuna hyperextended her right middle finger and placed it firmly
against his back then flicked her other wrist, striking her right finger
sharply with the middle finger of her left hand. She proceeded from side
to side, working her way down, avoiding his shoulders and stopping
before the small of his back.

Nodding to herself at the symmetry of the sounds she strode around to
his front and percussed her way down his chest, again working in a
pattern from top to bottom, focusing on the horizontal symmetry.

Stepping to the side she made a note on his chart. Returning to stand
behind him she set the stethoscope in her ears and repeated her earlier
pattern both back and chest, listening to his lungs. Hearing no 
adventitious sounds and finding the vesicular, bronchovesicular, 
tracheal and bronchial sounds at the appropriate levels she once again
made a mark on his chart.

Ranma's nervousness had steadily faded and as she proceeded to examine
his ears Ranma berated himself silently. "I'm as bad as Akane says, 
thinking everyone wants that from me." As the exam proceeded through
more familiar territory, Ranma's chagrin grew. He could hardly believe
that he had allowed himself to believe the doctor had felt that way
towards him. Knowing what was coming up, Ranma focused on his thoughts,
responding to Setsuna's commands on auto-pilot.

His embarrassment led him to recall a comment that Nabiki had made about
his ego. Was it true that he enjoyed the thought of so many beautiful
girls wanting him? Ranma wasn't sure. When she had first mentioned it,
he had known that she was trying to provoke him and resisted making a
comeback. That had, after all, been the point of that particular
exercise. The ostensible meaninglessness of the statement, meant only as
a training tool, at least theoretically, had not stopped his emotional
reaction to it and he had spent some time later thinking about it. 

At the time, he had come to the conclusion that all the girls only
wanted him as a prize, an object, rather than wanting him from actual
desire. Now he was forced to face the idea that his conclusion had
simply been a way to escape a more unpleasant conclusion. After all, he
had seen no indications whatsoever that Setsuna wanted him as a prize
and yet he had thought... that... about her when she had had her hands
on him, kneading his muscles. 

A startled thought struck him as he thought back to his reaction to her
answer. Disappointment? Was he disappointed that she hadn't been
attracted to him? More disturbingly, was it because of his ego or
because of the attraction he...

"Ranma!"

Setsuna's sharp statement cut through Ranma's querulous thought and he
gratefully abandoned it, unwilling to face its implications. Instead he
focused on Setsuna. A shiver ran through him when he saw that she was
holding out a cup of water to him. He took it from her and looked
blankly at her.

"Both forms, Ranma," Setsuna said calmly.

Ranma blanched but nodded. He had been half-hoping that she would forget
his curse in spite of knowing that she would not. He lifted the cup and
let the water run over his head. She glanced down at her bare breasts
and realized with a stifled gasp that her boxers were pooled at her
feet. Oh, yeah, she realized, the last thing she'd done was turn her
head to the side and cough. Ranma was quite glad she had remembered to
abstract her focus; unfortunately, the mere memory of Setsuna's skilled
hands there was arousing her now. Ranma flushed as she felt her nipples
hardening. She bent down quickly and pulled her boxers back up.

Ranma was relieved when Setsuna gave no sign of having noticed Ranma's
obvious arousal. In the absence of comments from the doctor, Ranma tried
to convince herself that it was merely the cold. Unfortunately, one of
the things she had learned from Nabiki was that lying to oneself made
one easy to fool. It didn't hurt that Nabiki had used Kodachi and Kuno
as object lessons. The thought of being the same as them had quickly
poisoned Ranma against that sort of self-deception and he sighed as he
quietly admitted to himself that he was attracted to the green-haired,
red-eyed doctor. It actually wasn't that hard to admit, he realized,
when he knew it wasn't returned and when admitting it didn't carry with
it the threat of imminent marriage, dishonor, and chaos.

Setsuna proceeded through the same tests, even taking Ranma's blood
pressure and pulse again, to Ranma's mild surprise. Tofu had never gone
that far, at least, not in a single exam. Still it helped to calm her.
When Setsuna got to the portion of the exam where she palpated Ranma's
joints Ranma's reaction was considerably different.

Having convinced herself that the doctor was not attracted to her nor
trying to seduce her she was free from the anxiety that had plagued her
the first time Setsuna had done this. Admitting her attraction for the
doctor relieved her of another source of tension. Without concern and
anxiety to steal her attention, Ranma gave herself over to the doctor's
warm hands, reveling in the pleasant sensation of Setsuna's hands
working her muscles and joints. In spite of the pleasure Ranma did not
feel a strong sense of arousal. Instead, the warm massage induced a
peaceful lassitude in her. 

It took Ranma several moments to focus again when Setsuna completed the
exam but as soon as Setsuna's words penetrated the haze cleared
instantly.

"Have you had a breast exam before, Ranma?"