The youngest Tendo sister had never been known for her patience, but in the last few months she had been making a dedicated effort to keep from exploding into violence when life became frustrating—and she’d been making progress, though this was arguably due more to the absence of Tatewaki Kuno from the Furinkan student body than to any noticeable character development on her part. Still, Akane had been doing her best, and she was already starting to reap the benefits—small children no longer ran away screaming when she walked down the street, and personal injury attorneys no longer traveled in her wake, looking for potential clients.
Without a doubt, Akane had learned the value of cultivating patience.
That said, it’s doubtful that Job would have the patience to sit quietly through the conversation in front of her—though to call it a “conversation” would probably be stretching the meaning of the word.
“‘Wife’?! What do you mean, ‘wife’?”
“I mean that I am the woman who is married to Ranma. What did you think ‘wife’ means?”
Genma recoiled a bit from Setsuna’s barb, but soon regained his composure. “Look, young lady, I don’t know where you’ve gotten your ideas…” Actually, he thought that she had to be one of the girls he’d promised Ranma to… why else would she think she had a claim?
“I got my ‘ideas’ from the wedding certificate!”
Soun glared at his friend. “Genma, how could you allow your son to get married? I thought you wanted the schools to join as much as I did!”
“I do! And I didn’t allow any such wedding! This woman is full of nonsense.” He motioned to his currently female son. “Ranma, would you kindly explain to this girl why you can’t be married to her?”
“Um… actually…”
Genma’s squint became even more pronounced. “Actually what?”
“Actually, we are… sorta… married.”
“What?! When did this happen?”
“Right before we left for our trip to China.”
“And when exactly were you going to let you father know about this?”
Setsuna cut in at this point. “Yes, Ranma, when were you going to tell him? You said you were going to tell your father right after the ceremony was finished, so I wouldn’t have to deal with his theatrics when you returned.”
“Well…” The redhead was getting really fidgety as a result of being put on the spot like this. “I was sorta waiting for the right moment…”
“Boy, there is no right moment for something like this! How could you do this? What about our family honor?”
“What about it? I didn’t even know about this agreement of yours until we got back in Japan!”
“That’s no excuse,” countered Genma, who was apparently unaware that his son was not psychic. “Boy, you are a disgrace to the Saotome name.”
“Well, then, I’d say it’s a good thing he took my name, isn’t it?” replied Setsuna with a thin-lipped smile.
This stunned the Saotome patriarch into silence for a few precious seconds, before he snapped out of his surprise with an even more defiant roar.
“WHAT?! This is an outrage! Boy, we’re going down to the clerk’s office right now to have this sham of a marriage annulled.”
“On what grounds?” inquired the green-haired woman.
Genma had to stop and think about that for a minute—he’d forgotten that one needed an actual reason to annul a marriage. Especially when neither spouse wanted the marriage annulled. Luckily, he realized that he had a very good reason. “I did not give my consent.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Of course I do. I am his father, therefore I must give consent before he marries anyone.”
“No, you don’t.”
“How dare you, you—you—woman!” Not only was this weak attempt at an insult ineffective, it also earned him the ire of every female in the room (including the one who had a male self-image).
“Um, Mr. Saotome?” Everyone’s attention turned to Nabiki, who was leaning against a wall with a semi-bemused smirk on her face. “Ranma didn’t need your consent, because he was eighteen when he got married. That means he’s no longer a minor.”
Soun sighed—Genma was having enough problems dealing with this without his crafty middle daughter taking sides. He didn’t understand what the girl was thinking—sure, Ranma had his curse, but that wasn’t as important as family honor. Surely Nabiki could comprehend that. “Nabiki, I appreciate your attempt to defuse the situation, but you should really stay out of affairs that you know nothing about.”
“What are you talking about? I was the one who introduced these two in the first place.”
Soun opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was an unintelligible squeak.
“This doesn’t matter,” interjected Genma, who had come up with another excuse. “This wedding obviously wasn’t serious, if there was, he’d have some sort of ring.”
That was when Setsuna realized that her husband’s hand was noticeably bare. “Ranma… where’s the ring I gave you?” she asked in a tone of voice so sweet that it could cause spontaneous cavaties in the mouth of a dentist.
The redheaded girl became really nervous now. “Um… I wasn’t wearing it.” Her wife’s red eyes became even redder, prompting Ranma to give a hasty explanation. “I—I didn’t want Pops ta freak out! And besides, it doesn’t really fit me too well when I’m a girl, so I keep it in my pocket. C’mon, Setsuna, I jumped in a freakin’ cursed spring ta get it back!”
“So that’s why you got cursed? You were too focused on getting my ring back?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Setsuna’s demeanor morphed from furious to overjoyed. She rushed to her husband and embraced the petite girl in a hug. “Oh, Ranma, that’s so sweet of you! Really stupid, but sweet nonetheless.”
Unfortunately, her actions gave Genma another idea. Upon seeing the green-haired woman embrace his son’s female form, He knew exactly what to say to convince his progeny to give up this dishonorable madness.
To be fair, Akane actually managed to keep her temper through all of this. But what Genma said next snapped whatever patience Akane had left.
“I don’t believe this! Look at the two of you! Aren’t you ashamed? To think, my only son went and married a lesbian slut instead of fulfilling his duty to his family.&rdquo
Akane didn’t know why Genma would think his daughter-in-law (whether he liked it or not) was a “lesbian slut,” but she didn’t particularly care; Setsuna was her friend, and nobody called her friends names like that. In one swift motion, she stood up, picked up the table, and brought it crashing down on Genma’s cranium.
Everyone else in the room stared silently at Akane as she glared at Genma’s prone form, breathing heavily. “Setsuna… is not… a slut…” she said, to no one in particular. And I’m pretty sure she’s not a lesbian either.
Finally, Kasumi worked up the courage to put her two yen in. “Now that he had coming.”
Life is good, Anthracite decided. Sure it had been rough the last few years—when he awoke along with the rest of Beryl’s generals, he had been disappointed to find that the millennia had only increased the would-be deposer’s eccentricity. It was not long before he became dissatisfied with her unrealistic strategy for world domination, with her bizarre plans that involved trying to corrupt otherwise innocent activities to gain energy, rather than use activities that were already soul-draining in and of themselves. He was not surprised when she banished him using her favorite imprisoning spell, but what really got his goat was the fact that he wasn’t punished for questioning her strategy, but for refusing to be turned into a bishonen by her magic.
As if androgyny was necessary to take over the world! thought the former Dark General. He much preferred his regular face, with its somewhat bushy eyebrows and scarred left cheek, framed by short, wiry, dirty blond hair. When he had finally escaped, he wasn’t surprised to find Jadeite in a similar prison (he was always the least partial to boot-licking, after himself of course), nor was he particularly surprised to find that Beryl had been utterly defeated by the Sailor Senshi, who apparently had been sent forward by Serenity. Anthracite didn’t care; in fact, he was glad for the opportunity to reevaluate his life.
After much consideration, he’d decided not to attempt to take over the world—the Senshi seemed hell-bent on seeing this Crystal Tokyo thing to fruition, and to get in their way only spelled disaster. Thus, he came up with a plan—since trying to gain direct political power had too many problems (the Senshi being the first among them), he decided to reach his goal from a different direction—financial power. If he controlled the money of the world, the Senshi would be forced to negotiate with him when the time came to set up their little utopia, and he’d be able to reduce them to mere figureheads while he wielded the true power.
That was why he had founded Hypercorp—so he could get his fingers in every wallet in the world. Through aggressive marketing (which included summoning minor youma to be trained as ninjamarketers for those who needed extra… persuasion), Hypercorp had become the dominant credit company in eastern Asia, and he was planning to expand into the American and European markets—which only made sense, since most Japanese assumed he was a gaijin anyway.
A buzz came from the intercom on his desk. “What is it, Miki?”
“Sir, Mr. Yakamoto has arrived,” replied his secretary. “He’s waiting in the conference room.”
“Thank you, Miki. I’ll be right there.” After giving himself a quick once over in his mirror, Anthracite aka Gerald Steward, CEO of Hypercorp, left his office to deal with the business at hand.
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(Posted Fri, 09 Dec 2005 01:40)
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