Curiosity piqued, the red-headed woman gazed evenly back at the young man. “Yes, my name is Nodoka. Nodoka Yagami. I’m interested to know what that means for you.”
Ranma himself seemed rather confused about the issue himself, the memories dim, muddled and emotional. “I’m not sure. Kind of confusing really. Something important, but kinda scary, but warm on the inside.”
Smiling slightly, the woman seemed amused by his description. “So, I would be someone important to you?”
Still looking confused, Ranma was trying to work out his memories. “Yeah, but it gets confusing.”
Looking at Kasumi, she was the easiest for him to recall with his memories of the other world. “Okay, I had to choose who I wanted, and it was kind of like this.” Moving along between the choices he tried to work out what they meant. “Kasumi I know. There was an amazon girl, but I don’t think it was Shanpu. A crazy rich girl. An old friend. There were four.”
Interested in the cosmic coincidence, Integra was rather curious how far these thoughts would take him. “So which is the right choice?”
Looking thoughtfully between the girls, Ranma seemed to sort his thoughts out enough to be satisfied. “I never got the chance. I ended up with all of them.”
Chuckling at his answer, Integra was definitely interested in the young man now. “How interesting. You really can have them all. Sopu-san and Mizuno-san are here of their own will, if they choose to go with you, they’re yours. Yagami-san and Tendo-san are a tad more complicated, but if they agree they’re yours.”
Integra mused over the possibilities.
Sopu was from a martial arts tribe from China. For reasons related to that she was in Japan and had a standing request for martial artists similar to Ranma.
Kumori Mizuno was similar, she had a standing request for someone that needed a legal guardian. She had also seemed particularly interested that the someone she was meeting was a young man that practiced martial arts.
Nodoka Yagami was a more complicated case. For one she was from a violent family of martial artists and was such a bad case for mental imprinting they were scared to try it on her. Second the only reason they were in the position was because shadow world machinations had led to her being put in such a delicate situation. Despite knowing about the machinations they at least had to pretend to go along with them for the moment. If she willingly went with the young man it might work well, but she had been included in the line up just to see Ranma’s reaction.
The main problem there was that martial artists and people with certain bloodline quirks tended to resist the imprinting process, which was generally bad for all involved.
There had been a recent case for instance of a rich young man getting a young girl as his sex-slave. It had seemed to go correctly at first, but after a few days she hospitalized the young man with rather permanent injuries. An investigation into the matter showed that the company that did it was shady and had cut corners, both in screening the girl and accepting bribes form the wealthy family to forge paperwork.
That disaster had caused a serious stink with the public. In general sex-slaves were a bit like pampered pets, they were relatively expensive to keep. Clothes, food, grooming, medical expenses, there were minimum standards for such things but it was difficult to police abuse. Other slaves were more like indentured servants, workers had certain standards of treatment, a lot like minimum wage earners except their food and lodging were provided by the owner.
These standards were important to at least pay lip-service, otherwise the people wouldn’t accept that treatment of friends and family.
That was the case of Akane Tendo, now a somewhat mentally broken girl from her partially effective mental conditioning. People weren’t upset that she hurt the Kuno boy. People were upset that their school princess had been forcibly made into the school pervert’s plaything. They were upset at what had happened to her. Despite the company responsible failing due to a loss of public faith, it was hurting not only the entire industry but the government as suicide rates spiked and several suicide attacks were related to the event.
In the end however the company responsible, instead of doing the right thing, had broken the Tendo family with legal expenses. Kasumi Tendo, Akane’s gentle big sister and much-beloved by her community had put herself up to cover those debts. Screening discovered something that seemed to be a bloodline trait that granted resistance to treatments, but they couldn’t risk anything bad happening to Kasumi or there would be a public backlash. They couldn’t just return her however as that would shake public confidence.
If Kasumi Tendo willingly went with Ranma Saotome, that would work out very nicely. If Ranma proved to be what Integra thought he might be, perhaps he could even help the little sister.
In truth that was the sort of thing she was hoping for from Ranma. If he could help trouble cases, it would be worth it to pay him for his time in treating them. There were those that cared that wanted to see the girls helped, but even the greedy people that only saw profits could see the value. If they were technically his slave girls instead of in some sort of rehab, there would be no face lost and troublesome girls would be quietly be dealt with in a way that satisfied the bleeding hearts..
Kumori turned back the quietly consult with her daughter as the decision fell to them. “Well Ami-chan, do you like that young man, or do you just want to be friends?”
Blushing brightly, Ami was already embarrassed to find herself on the slave side of a selection and Ranma on the cute studly master side of things. “Mother, that’s a little embarrassing.”
Smiling just a bit, Kumori seemed amused with the situation. “That shy look is delectable dear. I need to know now however, because I either take you off the platter and he won’t touch you, or you’re full service and he’ll help you relax in between studying.”
Biting her lip, Ami realized she had to answer now so her mother could outline their arrangement. “I guess, I need to relax more.”
Smiling warmly at her daughter for managing to indirectly admit to it, she decided to tease her a little. “So, shall we double-team him or would you prefer to tag-team? He seems like he should have stamina.”
Blushing brightly, Ami squeeked and hid her face in her hands.
As things quieted down and decisions were made, Rei had a curious question. “Master, was there a me in this other world of yours?”
Brows furrowing in thought, Ranma considered the question. “Well some stuff is the same, some is different. There was something though. It’s kinda odd, but there was one strange girl in that life, hard to actually recall her. All I can say is she was closer to me than my own shadow if that makes any sense. Does that make sense for you?”
Smiling ever so slightly at having a existential answer for her being by his side, Rei nodded slightly. “Yes, that answer is satisfactory.”
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(Posted Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:42)
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