It was 1964, and Setsuna knew exactly how to invest and where. Turning a small amount of money into larger sums was ridiculously easy with her talents and she set herself up as an investment broker in Tokyo.
Genma Saotome was greedy, skilled in the martial arts, and suffered from an acute case of situational ethics. Sharing a few drinks with a comely young lady, he woke up with less money. A few days later the young lady "bumped into him" to tell him that his investments were doing well. That he had NO memories about setting up an individual retirement account (IRA) much less at his age was beside the point. At this stage of his life, he had no idea how he could afford the monthly payments even if that WAS his signature-stamp on the contract.
The young lady smiled and suggested a few jobs that he could do for her, that surely such a talented martial artist such as he could handle.
Genma might have fled or balked, except each job somehow tied into the great love of his life - the martial arts.
A construction job on a dojo led him to speaking with the Master of that dojo and learning more of that particular Art.
A job to learn a special manuever that might be useful in clearing land took him to China decades before such a thing would have occurred normally.
Of course, there were things that Setsuna learned were unavoidable or close to it. Eventually Genma would train with Happosai, meet Soun Tendo, mutual suffering would forge a friendship and a vow to unite the two schools.
Now though, Genma was following a slightly different path and might not even cross paths with Soun OR Happosai. This was not a Genma who would create the Umisenken and Yamasenken as approaches to thievery. This was a Genma who learned ninjitsu secrets and distilled them down to their essence. This was a Genma who learned techniques of Amazon and Marines and Ancient Masters, then made them his own as he fit pieces together into a formidable whole.
Oh, he was still looking for an easy way, shortcuts that minimized effort and didn't cut into mealtime. He wasn't finding it any more than he would have under Happosai's tutelage.
Nor was Genma's life the only one changed. Nodoka wasn't the same either, though that required far more subtlety. Oh, she was oblivious to many things, but not as much as some.
Well, perhaps subtle wasn't the right word. It had been intended as subtle, certainly it had started out that way, but things had gotten a little bizarre after Nodoka had:
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(Posted Fri, 29 Sep 2006 19:36)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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