The phone rang in Setsuna Meioh’s home, startling the Time Guardian. She crossed her fingers as she lifted the receiver, hoping that her lack of foreknowledge in this instance wasn’t the result of an immanent sales pitch.
“Hello?”
“Great news, Setsuna-chan.”
The Senshi of Pluto winced at Nabiki’s use of the diminutive, more out of habit than from any lack of propriety on Nabiki’s part. While the two of them were very close friends, their relationship had been mostly professional when Nabiki had begun using “Setsuna-chan” to address her employer—but then, the first time she did that was when she’d informed the Time Guardian of everything she knew concerning the Senshi, so perhaps one could see it as Nabiki’s acknowledgement that the two of them were going to get closer whether they wanted to or not. Still, there were more important things to consider about Nabiki’s greeting. “You’ve found Genma’s copy of the contract?”
“Yes, but a whole lot has happened over the last hour, and I think you’ll be happy to hear most of it.”
“Are you going to be dangling the proverbial carrot in front of me during this entire conversation?”
“As much as I would relish the opportunity, I’m going to have to pass this time. I’ll get straight to the point: the “other person” who signed the contract was Ranma’s mother, Nodoka, who is still alive and still married to Genma. If you’re wondering what that means with regards to the Amazon Ti Xiu, it means that the three of them are now in a group marriage as far as the Amazons are concerned, which I know because Nodoka and Tissue showed up not fifteen minutes after I found Genma’s copy of the contract. Tissue told Nodoka about Ranma’s curse (which doesn’t mean the contract has been violated, by the way) as well as his marriage (though neither of them knows it’s you he’s married to). After your father-in-law proved himself to be either the biggest idiot or the biggest jerk on the planet for reasons I won’t go into right now, Tissue cursed him with Nyannichuan water so he could undergo the same ceremony that Ranma was getting ready to go through, which, as you can probably guess, did not sit well with Genma. ‘She’ went off to un-curse herself, only to find that Tissue had already hit a pressure point that makes Genma supersensitive to heat, so that even mildly warm water feels like it’s scalding—but I’m digressing. Do you need me to repeat that?
Eventually the Time Guardian managed to squeak out a reply: “No… I… I got the important details.”
“Good, because there’s something they wanted me to ask you before they left.”
“What’s that?”
“Would you and Ranma be able to meet with them anytime soon?”
“What? Oh, um, sure… is tomorrow evening okay?”
“I don’t think they’ll have a problem.
“Don’t worry Setsuna-chan, I’m sure you’ll like both of your mothers-in-law.
“Great. Anything else?”
“Oh, yes. Tissue wants me to inform you that she looks forward to teaching you the ways of the Amazon—I’ll let you be the one to tell her that you helped to found the tribe in the first place.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Was that sarcastic, or are you genuinely grateful?”
“A little of both, actually.”
“I figured as much. Well, I’ll make sure to tell Nodoka and Tissue what you said. Should I give them your address?”
“Yes, please.”
“And though I doubt it’s likely to happen, do you want to let them bring Genma along?”
“Not really—at least, not until he accepts Ranma’s marriage to me, or at least stops referring to me as a prostitute.”
“All right. See you later, Setsuna-chan.”
“You too… and quit calling me that.” Setsuna heard Nabiki giggling as she hung up.
Ryoga sighed as he watched the sun setting and started to set up camp for the night. At least he had a pretty good idea where he was—somewhere on the island of Honshu in the Japanese archipelago. True, most people would desire to know their location with a bit more accuracy, but most people weren’t afflicted with the Hibiki family curse; for Ryoga, nailing his position down to the an island the size of Minnesota was pretty damn good. Of course, one might think he would assume that his certainty would make it less likely that he was actually on Honshu, but less than an hour since he’d checked, and it usually took him a lot longer than that to become totally lost. Based on the weather, he guessed that he was somewhere in the southern part of the island, but pinpointing one’s location using local weather patterns was unreliable, as they were continually in flux.
Right now, though, Ryoga was focused on his goal: finding Ranma Saotome, and beating the everloving crap out of him. All of his problems could be traced to Ranma—well, they could be traced to either Ranma or the Hibiki curse, but the problems Ryoga was focused on at the moment were mostly Ranma’s fault. Fortunately, he kept crossing paths with his pigtailed rival—though this had been the longest stretch of time since the day he’d met Ranma at school that he’d gone between encounters with him. Still, Ryoga’s instinct was telling him that they would meet up soon, and when they did—boy, did he have a surprise for Ranma!
Nodoka and Tissue were walking pack towards the Saotome home—without their husband, who was understandably upset with his significant others at the moment, which had Nodoka rather concerned. “Are you certain that was a good idea, Tissue? Just cursing him out of the blue like that?”
“Hey, he need to do it one way or other. Tissue’s grandmother is Matriarch of tribe—to have man in family bring dishonor. If Tissue fail to make Genma woman, then he have to deal with grandmother personally—and nobody want to do that, if know what good for him.”
“Yes, but to immediately put the Cat Tongue on him….”
Tissue good-naturedly shook her head and tried to better explain her plans to her sister-wife. “When husband agree to spend full month in female form and become woman, then we remove Cat Tongue and use regular lock for month—much less hassle that way. Genma not really expected to be miserable for whole time; that just warp experience.”
“So how exactly are we to convince him to go through with this? He can be quite stubborn, you know; after all, he did douse himself in what felt to him like scalding hot water to regain his gender—twice.”
Tissue sighed as she remembered the scenes from that evening; she wasn’t sure whether to be irritated at her husband’s stubbornness and refusal to listen to reason, or impressed with his extremely high tolerance for pain (in fact, at first she thought that she might not have applied the Cat Tongue at all; it was only Kasumi’s confirmation that the water Genma had used was just barely heated enough to qualify as “warm” that convinced her that she’d indeed applied the point correctly). Obviously, Genma wouldn’t agree to this easily. “Guess we have to show husband what good about woman.”
Nodoka’s face contorted slightly at that; had her sister-wife stumbled in her Japanese? (And just as importantly, was she already beginning to accept the notion that Tissue was her sister-wife?) “What do you mean?”
“Five hundred year of Amazon experience prove there always something positive about being woman that male can latch on to—something other than chance to have male body back when done with ritual. It just matter of finding what it is.”
“I see… though that won’t be easy. Genma isn’t very happy with either of us right now—particularly you. Regaining his trust is going to be an undertaking in and of itself.”
“Well, could use traditional Amazon approach, but not sure if Nodoka want to do that.”
“Why? What is it?”
“We use… intimacy.”
“What?! Are you suggesting we….”
“Make love to husband’s girlform? Maybe. Amazon is different from outsider like that—intimacy used to build relationship, instead of relationship built before intimacy. Not necessarily make love—just snuggle can work wonders.”
“Is that why you wanted to sleep in the same bed as me last night?”
The Amazon nodded. “Tissue understand if not want to share body—some people just not like that. But not sure why Nodoka not want to share emotion.”
“I… I’m sorry, Tissue, but I don’t think I can answer that—not right now, anyway.”
“Too personal?”
“No… no, it’s not too personal, given the circumstances. At least not for you. In fact, given that it appears that your people will consider our ‘marriage’ to be permanent, you probably should know. I’m just a little emotional—I need some distance from everything that’s going on. I can’t really clear my head right now.”
“Maybe later?”
“Maybe… when all of this has settled down a bit.”
“Okay,” the Amazon said, though the concern had yet to leave her eyes.
The pair walked on in silence for a few seconds before Nodoka spoke up again. “Although… I wouldn’t mind if we slept in the same bed again—just having someone else there… after so long….”
“Tissue understand,” the Amazon replied. “Be happy to do for Nodoka.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you for allowing Tissue to help.”
Bob sat in his office looking over the written version of Anthracite’s offer. He was surprised by its simplicity—there was absolutely no fine print at all, and the main body of the text was both clear and concise. Obviously, no lawyer had seen this document, which meant that it was likely written by Anthracite himself. The offer itself had not changed: pending his acceptance of the offer, Gersaøïhg TyVrklþiwkð (i.e., Bob) would become the personal advisor of Maxil D’raal, better known as Anthracite. In this capacity, he would assist Anthracite in formulating (and to a lesser extent, executing) his strategy regarding the Sailor Senshi and “other related subjects.” Thus, Bob would be privy to most of the plans that were unrelated to the business Anthracite ran under the pseudonym “Gerald Stewart,” and would have the privilege of questioning any and all parts of that plan without repercussion, so long as the objections were reasonable. That was the part that Bob wasn’t sure how to take. Quite frankly, he’d never heard of a megalomaniac who was willing to take constructive criticism, simply because megalomaniacs tended to be egomaniacs as well. Sure, Anthracite claimed to be different, but could the spiky purple youma really take him at his word? Why should he?
The fact was, he really didn’t know very much about Anthracite, aka Gerald Stewart, aka Maxil D’raal, and he wouldn’t be able to make an informed decision until he did. And since that information was unlikely to just materialize while he was sitting on his duff, he decided to be proactive. But that meant he’d have to do something that was dangerous in any corporate situation, but particularly so in the (literally) cutthroat world of Demon Resources: digging into the boss’s past.
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(Posted Mon, 17 Apr 2006 04:47)
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