He'd picked Ranma's last name to be Tomoe, but had chosen his mother's name by picking names at random. Then he'd laid the appropriate paper trail, supposedly because he wanted to avoid embarassment coming down on his daughter, linked together by expenses made along the way.
Being a well known physicist and archaeologist, he kept his papers up, it wasn't unknown of him to spend some time outside the country. Ranma was an "ai no ko" or half-Japanese, born of a woman he'd met in Peru. He was helped by the fact that for a small amount of money, in some countries, you could get legal government documentation showing just about anything you could want. So Ranma's mother was killed in an accident, but had tried to get Ranma to learn the ways of his father's people and had unfortunately gotten all her ideas about Japanese culture from movies. As there were not a lot of blue-eyed folk native to Peru, the Professor had gone with Germans who had fled the rise of the Nazi Party prior to World War II and had settled there.
He'd gone to get Ranma as soon as he'd learned of his existence, and had finally brought his son home to become officially part of his family.
That accomplished, Ranma was learning Japanese language and culture - particularly the writing - so that he could eventually get into school. Etcetera etcetera.
"Hey, little girl," said one of the big kids. "I hear your dad's all special - got you out of classes. Must be nice to be so SPECIAL."
Hotaru backed against the wall as the bigger kids formed a semi-circle around her.
swishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHAP!
"Jiro?" asked one of the bullies, as one of their number attained the horizontal.
"Y'know," said an unfamiliar voice. "Ya just might wanna leave my sister alone."
The bullies started looking everywhere, but Hotaru had already noticed something about Ranma - he preferred heights. She wasn't sure why, but he tended to go for high ground. "Ranma!"
Clued in, the various bullies could see the boy lying along the tree branch, idly flicking a crabapple up and catching it, apparently unconcerned by the drop underneath him.
Several of the bullies looked towards their fallen member and now noted the swelling lump and a crabapple not too far from his head.
"You tryin' to tell us what we can't do?" swishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh WHAP!
With two of their number down, the remaining six looked slightly nervous. Still, they had heard this girl's father was rich and they were reluctant to release cornered prey when their own pockets were empty.
"You try anything, and we'll just have to hurt her!"
"Morons," said the boy on the branch. "Not even a warmup."
"What was that?" demanded one.
"You want to come down here and say that?" demanded another.
ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!
The various bullies noticed that the boy had disappeared from the branch and was now standing a few feet away, discarding three crabapples and then cracking his knuckles.
"Ya know," said the boy, looking almost sad, "this is gonna hurt ya a lot, but if you ever give my little sister ANY grief - I'm gonna show you whole new worlds of pain."
"Tough talk, let's see you say that without your teeth," said the lead teen punk, moving forward.
Hotaru closed her eyes. She didn't think she wanted to see this.
Michiru stared at the photograph, turning pale and began to sweat. "Where - how - did you get that?"
"I have my sources," said Setsuna. "The originals come at a very reasonable price."
Haruka stood on tiptoes and tried to look and see what could be so horrible.
"We can save lives by ending the threat of this android weapon?" asked Michiru, her voice shaky.
"Yes, that is indeed the price," said Setsuna. "Now, Haruka. I have something for you to see." She placed a photograph face down and pushed it across the table. "My photograph vault with the original might suffer a little... accident if you can help me with this little problem."
"What about us being recognized? I can't endanger my reputation by attacking something that looks human," said Michiru, a lot more worried about such things at this point in her career.
"Don't worry, I have costumes that are fireproof, provide some limited armor protection, and will conceal your identities as... Team Rocket." Setsuna smiled, absolutely not having any revenge or bad feelings about being killed twice by the actions or plans of these two.
Haruka flipped the photo up. Absolutely unconcerned. That changed when she saw the photo. "HOW?! Th-this can't be!"
"I absolutely would not send any such photos to your rivals or those who might feel... intimidated by your talent," Setsuna assured the two. "My photo collection is entirely for my own enjoyment."
The two unawakened Senshi exchanged a silent glance, not doubting for a moment that if anything happened to the older woman - those photos would be everywhere the next day.
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(Posted Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:57)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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