"Oh my gods, what happened?!" Yui rushed around the counter, immediately sensing from the way Ranma shepherded Mei through the front door into the bar room that something was wrong. Her exclamation drew the attention of Izumi behind the service bar, and before Ranma could take five steps into the room, Hana had appeared from behind the blue saloon door leading to the kitchen and her office as well.
"Some guys jumped us in the alley. I think she's okay. Just a little shaken up," Ranma said, walking with Mei to the split between the main and service bar counters and transferring her into the care of the bar's matriarch. She set the shopping bags on the counter, unable to push past the cluster of women to reach the walk-in refrigerator in the kitchen area. It's just orange juice; it'll keep fine for a few minutes out of the fridge, she reasoned.
Hana, Yui and Izumi fretted over Mei behind the counter, checking her over, hugging her, and trying to calm her down. Ranma, however, wandered away to give the family space to look after their own. She tried not to watch them huddle around Mei, as it only served as a painful reminder to her that there was no one left to care if she had been hurt - not that anyone really ever had. The fact that Mei kept gesturing to her was making her nervous, too, though she couldn't hear what her blue-haired coworker was saying. The redhead's mind raced through what repercussions could come from letting the genie that was her former life out of its bottle around her benefactors and coworkers, even if only a little.
She walked sullenly to the back of the bar and dropped a coin in the dusty old Pac-Man machine behind the purple-felted pool table. Perhaps it would calm her racing mind. Sure enough, the top ten slots for high scores all bore the initials MEI. Ranma doubted she'd dislodge any of them, but what the hell - for once in her life, it was refreshing to do something without caring whether or not she won. The machine fired up with its little chime, and soon the waka-waka-waka noises began to drown out Ranma's thoughts. It didn't last long, though, because all three of her lives were lost in a matter of seconds.
The spring-loaded joystick rocked back when she released it with a loud thwack that seemed only to underscore her frustration. Shouldn't waste another fifty yen. Better hang onto my cash. They're gonna toss me out on my ass any second, and that'll almost be enough for a rice ball or something from the vending machines at the train station. Over the last few months, she'd memorized the prices of nearly every regularly-restocked machine in the Minato and Shibuya districts - indeed, the primary reason she'd chosen the Minato train station as her home base while living homeless was its inexpensive array of vending machines. The relatively clean bathrooms, access to a few moderately comfortable - and mostly secluded - benches to sleep on in the park nearby, and a roof she could duck under at any time of night if it started raining hadn't hurt, either. Sighing with regret for having spent the first coin so frivolously, Ranma turned away from the machine. When she looked up, she found Yui standing behind her, waiting for her game to end.
Yui smiled tentatively. "It's a damned good thing you fight better than you eat ghosts, kiddo."
Defensively, Ranma snapped back, recoiling until her backside bumped the joystick of the yellow-and-black arcade cabinet. "Look, I don't know what she told you, but it's no big deal. Some guys got a little sassy. I hit 'em with a stick, and they took off. End of story."
Hana slipped between the bar counters, emerging from behind Yui and rushing toward Ranma. With all of the adrenaline still coursing through her system, Ranma fought her every instinct to drop into a defensive stance as the leather-clad woman charged toward her with urgency in her eyes. Welp, the jig is up now. They know I'm a fake. Better just go upstairs and get my shit. Fuck. It was fun while it lasted.
Hana reached Ranma's position, wrapping her arms around the slender redhead's shoulders tightly. "Are you alright, Ranko? You're not hurt, are you? C'mere, honey. Let me see you." She remembered the teen's black eye from a few days before, concerned she might have sustained further injury.
Wait, Ranma thought, shocked by the turn of events. She's not… huh? What the hell is even happening right now?
Before Ranma could react, Hana extended her arms and locked her elbows, still holding her by the shoulders but at Hana's full arm length to create a bit of space between them. She began to look Ranma over, physically turning her body this way and that exactly as she had done with Mei. She brushed away some loose gravel that remained trapped in the wrinkles in the back of Ranma's yellow floral blouse, letting the gray dust and pebbles scatter on the freshly-mopped hardwood floor.
Satisfied that her young charge was undamaged, Hana pulled her into another forceful hug. Ranma's muscles tightened again, instinctively preparing to break free. Most of the hugs she had experienced in the last few years had involved people trying to grope her. Hana spoke gently, still holding her newest ward tightly to her chest.
"Thank you so much for looking out for Mei, Ranko."
Not even Ranma's own father had ever shown that much concern when she'd been in a fight. Of course, that might not have been because he didn't care, but because he knew how skilled she was in a fight and how unlikely she was to sustain real injury. Well, before, anyway. Now… Akane had sometimes fawned over her after a fight, but usually only when she thought Ranma might be beaten badly enough to actually be dead. Even then, it was only in the handful of cases where Akane hadn't been the one who'd pounded her half to death in the first place.
Okay… This isn't so bad. Feels… kinda nice, actually. The smell of oiled leather filled her nostrils from the proprietress' jacket. There was something about it - an inherent sense of safety that Ranma found entirely unfamiliar and unexplainable. Hana held the teenager close until she felt the tensed muscles of Ranma's body begin to relax.
At last, the young martial artist spoke tentatively. "So… so I'm not in trouble, then? You're not gonna, like, fire me, or throw me out, or nothin'?"
Hana scoffed incredulously. "Ranko, honey, why would you think you were in trouble? You protected yourself and Mei from gods know what out there. I'm so proud of you, and truth be told, pretty damn impressed. I've seen the guys you fought in here before, and the smallest of them is almost twice your size. I don't know how you did it, but I'm so thankful that you did, and that both of you girls are okay."
Ranma gulped slowly. She knew that fighting the trio of assailants had presented an injury risk given her condition, but she hadn't considered the other part of what Hana said. Ranma's only instinct in the alley had been to protect Mei. Her adrenaline had kicked in, and her thoughts had reverted entirely to her base training: Fight. Win. Ranma hadn't even considered that whatever the three men had planned to do to Mei, they probably would have done to her as well if they'd gotten the chance. The fight had ended nearly an hour ago, and only now did she realize that the threat to herself had been far greater than the pain the Full-Body Cat's Tongue would have forced her to endure from a punch or a kick. She was just as vulnerable as any other girl, and just as likely to have guys thinking they had power over her. Guys just like…
"I…" Her mind scrambled for words, but there was too much confusion and far too many mental alarms blaring in her consciousness to focus her thoughts enough to find further words. She looked up, making eye contact with Hana for the first time since the fight, and exhaled slowly. Every instinct told her to fight. Protect herself. And yet, when she gazed into the old woman's brown eyes, searching for dishonestly, deception or dark intent, she found only… compassion. The care and concern in Hana's eyes somehow put her at ease. "I'm good, ma'am, honest." She managed a small smile, even though honest was the last thing she felt as it pertained to her benefactors.
Yui sighed, shaking her head. "I'm really sorry you had to deal with those guys. We don't get too much trouble around here, but the bar business does invite the occasional asshole, especially when the bar's run by all women."
Ranma shook her head dismissively. She flashed a confident smile. "It's really okay. I'm used to having to defend myself in a fight." She was surprised to see her self-assuredness met not with a smile, but a frown of concern, from the Phoenix' lead bartender.
"Ranko… you're not supposed to be used to this. Nobody should be." Yui searched her emotional reserves for a smile to show the frightened teen. "But, I guess we have a bouncer now, huh?"
Ranma shook her head. "Oh. Come on, I'm not that good. Seriously, those guys were pushovers." It was another lie, but the last thing she wanted was for martial arts to define her existence again, especially now that her fighting prowess had been severely handicapped by her unnaturally hypersensitive skin.
"Seriously, Ranko, where did you learn to fight like that? Taking on three guys at once? And at your age?" Izumi, having just finished putting away the groceries Ranma and Mei had procured, smiled downward into Ranma's eyes, a smile of pride crossing her face.
Ranma wondered whether she meant the false age she had given in her interview, or if Hana had told Izumi and the other women that she'd discerned the truth. "I, ah… well, my pop, he was big into martial arts. I guess I picked up a few things." Before the Cat's Tongue stole her ability to take even a single hit without crumpling in agony, she could have beaten her father into next week while half-asleep and drunk, but that minor detail didn't seem particularly useful at the time.
The blonde smirked, giving the younger girl a bit of an impressed nod. "Well, if you ask me, you're a badass, kiddo."
Ranma blushed, but cracked a small, nervous smile. "Okay, okay. Maybe a little. So you guys don't have to worry about me, 'kay? Just make sure Mei's good. She didn't get hit, but she was pretty freaked out."
Hana shushed her, turning the slight girl's frame physically with her hands until Ranma was looking directly at her. "Listen to me. You are both worth looking after, Ranko. It's not mutually exclusive. You deserve for people to care about you, too, sweetheart."
I… I do? Ranma blinked. This is… weird. They're treating me like I'm one of…
Yui grinned, giving the shorter girl a soft play-punch on her shoulder. "That's what family does, blockhead. Ya know?"
Ranma looked up incredulously, her eyes darting from one of the women to the next as she searched their faces for confirmation that they were playing some kind of sick joke on the poor homeless girl that had all but declared herself an orphan. She found none. "F… family?!" In her experience, the punching thing was far more of the family pastime than the hugging and the supportive words were.
It wasn't Yui's voice that answered, but Mei's. The blue-haired girl seemed to have collected herself. She was smiling softly as she leaned on the wall separating the kitchen from the gaming alcove in the back corner of the bar room, peering out between Yui and Izumi.
"You heard her, little sister."