Ranma stumbled to a halt, then had to go running to catch up with his old man. "Whatta ya mean by that?!"
Genma leapt over a trashcan and climbed a wall to start running atop the brick "shortcut" he'd found. "You remember that tournament you entered?"
"Which one?" Ranma frowned as he followed his father. "You've entered me in a few lately."
"The one six months ago where the first prize was a merchandise voucher," answered Genma as he hurdled over a set of flowerpots.
"Yeah, ya thought it was food," said Ranma, remembering that. "It turned out they were... oh."
"Well today's the day of their big auction," said Genma. Over the wall, to the roof, along the fence on the other side, to the next set of roofs. "I signed your name to the forms and the contract is still good. To my surprise, you passed the psychological test."
"Yeah, I do tend to suck at tests," admitted Ranma in an odd moment of candor. "But a slave?!"
"Or two or three," grunted Genma. "Depends on how many accessories you want with her to fill out the amount. She'll have skills you don't have, and allow us both to focus more attention on the Art. We have to get there before the best choices are taken though!"
"...but a slave?!" asked Ranma, still not comfortable with the concept. Still, he'd heard things about female slaves. Particularly the full-use ones. There were things spoken of in the all-boys schools he'd attended, and there were possibilities therein.
Genma didn't answer, finally leading Ranma to a large tent set up in a square. Brandishing the winner's ticket, Genma was waved on in and Ranma continued to follow - still trying to sort out his feelings on the subject.
Genma quickly found someone in charge who looked at the voucher, nodded and went into an area in the back. Genma waved to Ranma to stay there, and followed the guy.
Ranma was getting impatient when they emerged, and not alone.
The young martial artist stared. This girl was to be his slave? She was cute. Wearing an outfit that showed off a feminine figure, the thick collar and leash being a symbolic thing that wasn't practical for day-to-day use but kind of traditional in this atmosphere.
Other girls were brought out, one by one, and knelt by the stage. Some looked down towards his feet, others looked up at him with a challenge, another looked ready to break out in tears and had a sort of "lost puppy" expression.
The auctioneer started talking, and Ranma only half-listened. Full use slaves, yadda yadda, he gave their names and what kind of skills they had, what they'd done or their parents had done to get into this situation, and so on. One of the girls had been disobedient and disrespectful, perpetually late, and had gotten rotten test scores. She'd been so bad that her mother had threatened to sell her into slavery, and then done so when the girl had continued to misbehave. All had received some minimal "treatment" so that they'd be less troublesome from now on. He was to take care of her and treat her well and humanely, not use a big switch or anything like that, and so on.
Most of Ranma's attention was on the various girls, and one in particular. Ranma startled as he realized he'd been asked a question. Looking at all the girls again, his attention was riveted by that one who had most caught his eye. "Her."
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(Posted Mon, 26 Jul 2004 09:50)
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