The voice on the other end of the line asked, "Is this Special Operations Director Fujisawa Masamichi?"
Masamichi grunted. "That's me. How did you get this number?"
"This is the Prime Minister, Fujisawa," the voice said sternly. Masamichi checked the caller ID, and paled.
"S...sorry, sir," he stammered. "I hadn't expected--"
"We'll discuss that later. At the moment, I need to know why you decided to dispatch one of your operatives to the Tokyo Tower situation without consultation or approval."
Masamichi furrowed his brow in thought, and then asked, "Can you hold on for a moment, Prime Minister?"
"Certainly," the voice on the phone said dryly.
Crossing the office, Masamichi peeked into the lobby, counting heads. Six special operatives, enjoying their daily activities, still on stand-by. They looked up to see him, one of them bounding eagerly forward to meet him. "Do we have a job?" she asked excitedly. "Can I blow stuff up?"
"No, Mini-may," he said, frowning. "As you were, but be prepared for immediate dispatch."
Ducking back into his office, Masamichi locked the door, and picked up the phone again. "Sir," he began apologetically, "all operatives are present and accounted for. I haven't been notified of any situation that should require deployment as of yet."
"...then we have a problem," the Prime Minister said after a moment. "Someone with forged identification appears to be engaged in combat with someone atop Tokyo tower."
"Ah ... instructions, Prime Minister?" Masamichi asked hesitantly. Theoretically, any commands would need to go through the Diet before Special Operations could actually unroll, but if the Prime Minister ordered him to mobilize, he would in a heartbeat.
"Not at the moment," the Prime Minister decided. "I want this 'Special Operative Saotome' monitored. I'm sure you want to know where he forged identification."
"Yeah," Masamichi agreed, fumbling for a cigarette before remembering he was speaking with the Prime Minister. "Uh, that is, I do, Sir."
"See that it's done." The line went dead.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Masamichi sighed. After a moment of thought, he lit his cigarette, took a long drag, and pressed the intercom function. "Send in Nanami, please," he said quietly. "We're going to need to send her in under-cover to investigate someone." Covert operations didn't require extra departmental permissions, at least, he thought with some relief.
***
As the roof of Tokyo Tower's main deck crumbled beneath him, Tarou reflected that his plan had not, so far, gone very well. Not that he'd ever considered himself a prime example of debate and discussion; he had to admit he couldn't really manipulate people, and his attempts at Ranma had just seemed to annoy the Japanese martial artist.
Of course, Tarou hadn't wanted to fight Ranma, but reasoned that it probably would come down to one. That was the reason for making sure the battlefield was empty of innocents -- outside those Tarou had dragged in, but he had been confident that one or two girls could survive a battle unscathed. Akane'd been kidnapped before, surely her little sister....
Though, Ranma had claimed she was a daughter. He could think about that later.
Grunting, Tarou climbed to his feet, brushing off some of the rubble, and looking around the interior of the observation deck. He'd stashed a sizeable store of pantyhose for his technique, and expected that Ranma would tear through many of them before he'd achieved anything near a victory.... But Tarou was hardly out of aces up his sleeves.
Grabbing some of the pantyhose, he clipped a canteen of cold water to his belt, not wanting to reveal the long results of his training just yet. After he'd armed himself appropriately, and gave himself a moment to recover from crashing through the ceiling, he leapt back upwards. "Fem-boy!" he yelled, not seeing his target immediately. "Show yourself, you coward?"
"I'm here," Ranma's voice answered, from all directions at once. "Can't see me?"
Then he appeared again, standing on the opposite end of the deck's roof, his cape flaring out behind him. Not a cape, Tarou realized, a bath-towel. "I can now," he sneered. "Playing dress-up?"
Rolling his eyes, the Japanese martial artist said, "I really don't have time for this. You gonna show me your trick, or am I just going to put you down?"
Tarou shrugged, and then surged into motion, expertly flinging wide nets of pantyhose at Ranma.
Ducking, Ranma evaded, then seemed to vanish. Tarou yelped when the nets were pulled from his hands, and Ranma reappeared, twirling the nets. "That's it?" he asked in disappointment. "You throw nets?"
"That's only a fraction of what I've learned," Tarou growled. Then he grabbed for his canteen, only to find it was somehow missing from his belt. "What the...."
Ranma smirked. "Try again?" he asked, holding the canteen up.
Growling, Tarou dove for the hole in the ceiling, making his way to the observation deck and the auxiliary canteen he'd stowed there. He managed to get it before Ranma caught up, and doused himself. While he was too large to properly fit inside the observation deck, the floor supported his weight.
The ceiling crumbled around him, and he swept out both monstrous arms to aid its collapse towards Ranma. For his part, the Japanese martial artist shot back up through Tarou's initial hole, and grabbed onto one of the girders overhead. Then Tarou showed Ranma his new trick.
***
"Oh ... boy," Ranma mumbled, as Tarou's monstrous form took up a martial arts stance, tentacles oriented around him and looking prepared to strike. He'd had enough trouble closing with Tarou's monstrous form before, once he'd added the tentacles.
Now that Ranma was faster, stronger, and had access to the forbidden techniques ... he found himself not looking forward to a monstrous Tarou that actually employed martial skill. "This one's going to get ugly, he deduced, for a moment wishing he'd not given the naganita to Akane. Then he banished that thought; he wanted to hurt Tarou, preferably very badly.
He didn't really want to kill Tarou though. Not right away, at least.
Thinking quickly, he worked on devising a plan to attack Tarou while keeping himself out of harm's way.
See other episodes by Sgt. Chibi De`Ohki
(Posted Wed, 20 Jul 2005 01:07)
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