Or maybe she couldn't in Kasumi's case. She had been the only one not to miss her sister disappearing at Jones' order. That had to be bad news. But she could find her again, and once found she could do something to retrieve her, hopefully before it was too late. To do that, however, first she had to save herself.
Nabiki was long lapsed in her martial art talents. A bitter rivalry with Akane and a few broken bones when the younger sister had proved how much better she felt she was had taken all of the joy out of that for her long ago. Stuck in a soundproofed closet by a pimp who'd already taken her sister made her rethink that priority, as helplessness was just no fun. But one did not live long in a house with Ranma not to learn one or two things about building construction.
For example, most people thought a steel door was safe and secure. Most people hadn't had Shampoo constantly reintroducing the concept that doors weren't the only way in or out of a room. Thumping around in the darkness, Nabiki was able to confirm that the walls of this closet were nothing more than ordinary, with some sheets of soundproofing added. Well, lapsed martial artist or no, a child could punch through drywall.
Breaking apart the handle of a broom got her a pointed stick which she used to dig at the wall material, creating a hole in seconds that she quickly widened, all of the time wondering how many girls that pimp had thrown in here who hadn't had her problem solving ability and what had most likely become of them.
Shuddering at the thought, she found the hole she'd been opening between vertical posts had a pipe going right down the middle of it and moved over to create another hole. In a few minutes she had a large enough opening to crawl out of, and emerged into the restaurant's empty kitchen. All of the employees had fled.
Stepping into the manager's office, she emptied the open safe as a small measure of revenge, but also to get funds to rescue Kasumi. To get the full measure of revenge she went back into the kitchen, kicked over a bit pot of cooking oil, turned on the gas, lit some rags and set the place ablaze, doing her best to set it up to look accidental.
Then she went out, found some police still combing over the site, and began to tell her sob story about how Velvet Jones had taken her sister, then grabbed her and stuck her in a closet.
Detectives who had been very interested in collecting tableware from where Genma had been sitting (including one glass with a very nice set of fingerprints they were almost sure was his) began to be very interested. So interested that when the restaurant caught fire they just moved everyone to a safe distance and took their time calling the fire department.
Nabiki had little to no trouble summoning some very real tears as she sobbed out her story laden with concern for her sister.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Lionheart
(Posted Sat, 23 Jul 2005 01:22)
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.