He’d already gone through his morning workout—twice, in fact—but without his father it just wasn’t the same. Correction: without his sensei it wasn’t the same—Ranma was still angry with his father. Still, the fact that Genma was lousy at parenting didn’t change the fact that he was an effective (if extremely unorthodox) teacher, and one who knew how motivate a student at that. Sure, often that motivation was little more than “become a better martial artist if you plan on eating,” but it did work.
It felt like he was supposed to be doing something, but he didn’t have a clue what that something was. Over their honeymoon, Setsuna had asked him about his long-term plans—a simple question, really. He wanted to take over his family’s school and run a dojo. He wasn’t even sure why she’d asked, since they’d gone over this countless times during their counseling sessions. While it was true that these dreams were to some degree foisted upon him by his father, the Art was so integral to Ranma’s life and identity that he couldn’t imagine being satisfied with any other vocation. That was how Setsuna had convinced him of his need for a college education, since he’d probably require some sort of certification to set up a dojo. With nothing to do, he’d spent the past week applying to different colleges, and he felt confident that he’d get into at least one—but there was still the problem of how to fill the time between now and the next semester.
Hotaru, trying to be helpful, had suggested that he contact his father again, since he was obviously becoming restless and miserable without some sort of structured training.
Ranma had simply looked at his “daughter” and sighed. “Well, I’d really like ta get back ta trainin’, but if I get in touch with Pops again he’ll just try and pull some sorta crap ta get me ta break up with Setsuna so I can marry one of the Tendos.” He’d then returned to moping.
But now, he was seriously considering contacting his father—or at least getting in touch with the Tendo sisters to see if things had calmed down. He resolved to do just that—once this show was over. Ranma turned his attention back to the television which was still showing a commercial.
…because everyone deserves a second chance. I’m Gerald Stewart, and this is Hypercorp.
“Gerald Stewart” turned off the monitor in his office that he had been using to preview the English-language commercial that Hypercorp would use to introduce its credit service to the West. The ad men had suggested that he play a central role in these commercials, since his Caucasian appearance would do much to assuage worries about Hypercorp being a “Japanese” company trying to horn its way onto European and American turf. The ironic thing, of course, was that that was exactly what Anthracite’s plan was—as he continued gathering magical energy in Japan, the West was going to keep supplying him with the financial resources which would force the Senshi to negotiate with him on his terms. Of course, Hypercorp wasn’t planning on simply being a credit card company; if all went as planned, he would gain a controlling interest in several major banks throughout the world, which would allow him to make more traditional loans to various businesses, further increasing his influence. Of course, this sort of thing had to be done carefully—one wrong move and he could be accused of trying to make Hypercorp into a worldwide financial monopoly. That would be particularly hard to deny, since that really was his goal, but then, when traditional methods failed, he’d always have magic as a backup.
But those were matters for Anthracite, and for the next few days he’d have to be Gerald Stewart; he had to fly to New York to oversee the establishment of his company’s North American branch (if all went well, the European branch would be set up in the near future). He really would have preferred to simply teleport there, but that would raise questions about how he could travel from Tokyo to New York so quickly. Ah well, sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
There was really only one concern that he had: Hikaru Gosunkugi. The boy was exceptionally eager to learn how to harness the power of magic—no doubt a result of being bullied for most of his life—and for that reason he’d agreed to become a repository for excess magical energy. Indeed, he was so eager that Anthracite wasn’t entirely sure that his silo would have refused even if he’d known where that energy came from.
Not that he would tell Gosunkugi anytime soon; he wasn’t sure how much self-control the boy had, and he didn’t want anything connecting “Gerald Stewart” to man in the military uniform. When he did meet with the boy, he always did so using a fairly strong glamour spell (ironically, it actually made him look pretty bishonen), and he’d identified himself as “Max.” True, there was a chance that someone (i.e., Pluto) would connect this with the name he’d used millennia ago, but he felt the chances of that were slim—after all, most people with the nickname Max were named Maxwell, or perhaps Maximilian—or something else altogether.
So “Max” had informed his student that he would be away for a few days, he wasn’t to try anything that would call attention to himself. Nevertheless, as Gerald Stewart left his office and headed towards Narita International Airport, he began making plans to control whatever damage his student might do.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Kwakerjak
(Posted Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:12)
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.