Her mother had been a sweet and kind lady from what she remembered of her. There was no doubt in her mind that the Tendo matriarch would have simply accepted the idea that her husband was playing the field, and would have taken in any child that might result from one of his affairs. Which meant that any of them could have been illegitimate.
What she needed was information, and in this case, there was only one source for it that she needed, as her father wouldn't have been much help, even if he hadn't gone to hide in his room. It was distasteful, and she knew that she would want to keep it short, but she had no choice. There simply was only one person to talk to.
So, having chosen her course, she stepped up to her father's old friend, and frowned. "I need to talk to you."
"You do?" Genma asked. He didn't doubt that someone would come to him for help, since he was so experienced, and in this case, he thought it likely that this girl was going to try her own way of getting to marry his son.
"Yes. I need to ask you about my father's training."
"He didn't tell you enough?"
"He didn't tell us anything, other than he'd been trained in this school."
"Ahh..," the portly martial artist said as sagely as he could. "I can understand why. It was a dark time in our lives, and we try our best to simply put it behind us. We even literally buried a major part of it."
"Hhmmmm... And would you actually mind telling us something useful? Like just why Daddy's was so... free with his attentions?"
"Oh... I suppose it had to do a lot with our training. You see, our Master, who's name shall never be spoken, was a slave driver. We starved as he ate the food that he'd sent us to steal.., er, forage for him, he trained us brutally in every technique, and would make us do all sorts of horrible things..."
Ranma would have observed that the elder Saotome might have been describing himself, but he was a little busy with the fact that he was between two girls, one brown haired, and the other bluehaired, both of whom were cuddling up to his sides so that the sides of one of their breasts pressed into his arm.
"Anyway, he was a creature of lusts, one for whom only one thing would top all others.
"What is that?" the middle Tendo daughter asked.
"Women. Specifically, beautiful and shapely women. He'd be so fascinated by the idea of groping and fondling feminine flesh as he stole their underwear that he make us help him on his raids."
"Daddy helped him do that?!"
"Oh, yes. He had no choice!"
"He could have left."
The Saotome patriarch wiped a tear from his eye. "And abandon his training? No true martial artist could do that. Besides... the Master wouldn't let us go."
"Oh..."
"Your father agreed with me that it was horrible, but for him it was even worse. He was afraid that it would ruin any chance that he'd actually have to be with a woman after we finished training."
"That's it?"
"Of course not! You see, when the Master wanted to see how the women of the area were distributed, he'd send Soun out to find out. I didn't look as good in a dress, and was a better schemer..., er, planner, so..."
"Daddy was sent out in drag to spy on girls?" Nabiki asked flatly.
"He was. Also to steal what of their lingere that he could for our Master. When the raids did go off, and we were being chased by angry women, our Master would leave us, knowing that we'd keep his precious items safe. But there would be times when the women would catch up to us, and only his way with words would let us survive. In fact, he was so good that we sometimes got food to put into our bellies and places indoors to sleep. As time passed, he grew skilled not only in the martial arts, but in the marital ones as well."
"I can guess how..."
"Exactly. Though the Master would always find us, and punish us for not immediately returning to him, we'd have the time to actually enjoy ourselves. It made the times when we were being belittled and our manhood being maligned that much easier to take."
"Hmmm... I see," the middle Tendo daughter mururmered as she frowned thoughtfully. It did explain a bit about why he would go around sleeping with women, but she wasn't about to excuse it just yet. The explanation didn't change her opinion of the portly man didn't change though. She was just glad that in all this mess, it didn't seem that her mother had followed her father's example.
She did have a lot to think about though, and she glanced around the room while:
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 26 Jul 2004 17:19)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.