Several hours later, Gerald Stewart was finally done with all of his meetings. They were a pain in the ass, but at least he got a lot of work done… especially with that politician. Time for a reward, I’d say.
He was about to fire up his .mp3 player for some quality time with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when a youma suddenly materialized before him. “Please forgive my intrusion, sir….”
“Don’t worry about it, Check. As long as nobody sees you there won’t be a problem. What’s up?”
“Well, sir, about this evening….”
Anthracite sighed and massaged his temples. “What’s the idiot doing to mess it up?”
“Nothing, sir, I just have a few… questions about your plan.”
Pleased that the youma actually had the guts to voice his concerns, Anthracite nodded his head. “Go ahead.”
“Well, I was wondering why you would put Hikaru Gosunkugi in such a perilous position. After all, you’ve invested quite a bit of effort in his magical training—it seems risky to put him in the path of a youma, even one as incompetent as Llobewu. At the very least, you risk alienating him, which hardly seems conducive to your overall strategy.”
“First of all, you don’t know what my overall strategy is, because I haven’t told anyone that yet. Your job is at the tactical level.”
Check nodded humbly. “Understood.”
“But most of your concerns are tactical in nature anyway, so I’ll respond to them. You are quite right, Check. Putting Gosunkugi in the same theater as Naru and Llobewu would be downright stupid, which is why I gave him the name of a different theater in Juuban for his date. In fact, it’s far enough away that you and your team shouldn’t run into them at all.”
“But why have him in Juuban at all?”
“I want him there in the off chance that all hell breaks loose and I have to use magic to clean things up. Rather than using my own personal store of magical energy and risk alerting the Senshi to my identity, I can simply draw energy from Gosunkugi, and that energy will be much harder to trace. But in order to use a magical energy silo, said silo has to actually be in the area where you want to use said magic. Are you following me now?”
This seemed to relieve the youma’s concerns. “I believe so… thank you, my lord. Your servant is exceedingly grateful for your explanation.”
Anthracite rolled his eyes at the honorific and dismissed the ninjamarketer with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He then turned his attention back to The Magic Flute.
Ranma had been home for several hours, going over the exercises his father had recommended, when his wife finally walked through the door. After his wife had had a chance to relax a little, Ranma decided to ask her a question that had been on his mind for a while.
“Hey, Setsuna? What exactly do ya do all day? Just sit in front of that Time Gate thing and watch stuff happen?”
“If I only did that, I’d probably go insane with boredom. Besides, time flows differently near the Gates. It’s difficult to get a grasp of how long any particular visit lasts without some understanding of quantum physics.”
“Uh…”
“In other words, I can’t tell you how much time I spend at the Gates, because even I don’t know the answer. That’s one of the main reasons I can’t tell you my exact age—I go to the Time Gates so often that the very notion of a ‘year’ becomes distorted beyond recognition. I’m fairly certain that relative to the ordinary flow of time that I’m somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 years old, however. I suppose my habit of citing the smaller number is just vanity.”
“Uh… yeah.” Ranma’s mind was boggling at the way his wife tossed such huge chunks of time around as though they were inconsequential—and he had every reason to believe that he’d be alive for similarly huge lengths of time as well.
Fortunately, Setsuna still remembered what it was like to feel blown away by the notion of immortality, and thus she moved the conversation forward to alleviate her husband’s overpowering sense of awe. “Anyway, to answer your question, when I’m not at the Time Gates, I’m usually spending time managing my financial resources, and when I can, I work on my hobbies.”
“Hobbies? Oh, ya mean that fashion designer stuff.”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Ya still plannin’ on startin’ yer own brand?”
“Well, perhaps… once things have settled down a bit.”
“Ya oughta do it. The stuff ya make looks real nice.”
Setsuna was not particularly prone to embarrassment, but still, a rush of color came to her cheeks. “Thank you, Ranma.” Of course, lately she’d been taking a break from designing women’s business clothing and had been focusing on a very specific niche market that had attracted her attention—but that could wait. “So, Ranma, how did the training with your father go?”
“Well, Pops managed ta remind me of just why I put up with all of his antics. He really is a damn good sensei—he’s already got a bunch of ideas ta help me out with my problem with Ryoga.”
“Huh. That’s interesting.” Setsuna had met Ryoga a few times before she and Ranma married, and though she knew her husband thought of the perpetually-lost young man as a friend (sort of) she didn’t particularly care for the fellow—mostly because he always seemed to show up while she and her husband were in the midst of a romantic date (and given Ranma’s personality, that variety of date was a rare occurrence to begin with). Still, she thought it best to leave well enough alone—she knew a directional curse when she saw one, and that more than anything else was the likely explanation for his almost-continual bad mood. Thus, she hadn’t used the Time Gates to follow up on Ryoga, out of sympathy for the less fortunate.
Of course, she also knew Ryoga’s most recent appearance; Ranma had told her about it last night in the midst of all the hubbub that had occurred. She had a few ideas about how to deal with this problem as well, but she had decided to respect her husband’s wishes and let him handle it. Besides, this gave her a chance to see if her father-in-law really was as skilled a sensei as Ranma claimed.
Ranma, in the meantime, had taken the opportunity to stretch out on the couch in the Meioh home before continuing. “Anyway, before I left, Akane asked me ta help her out tonight.”
“Really? That’s not like her—she’s the type who likes to handle things herself unless it’s absolutely necessary to bring in outside help.” Just like another martial artist she knew.
“Yeah, well, she could probably take care of this herself, except she’s gonna be busy.”
“How so?”
“Apparently, a guy from her class managed ta build up enough courage ta ask her out on a date. She wants me ta tag along ta make sure Kuno don’t try nothin’ stupid.”
“Isn’t he supposed to be confined to a hospital bed?”
“Yeah, he is, but he’s also pretty dang rich—he could pay someone ta spy on her, stuff like that. Akane an’ her date are already doin’ what they can ta avoid attention—they’re actually gonna be havin’ their date here in Juuban, where nobody’ll think it’s strange that Akane’s with somebody. I’m just gonna be the extra layer of defense.”
“You really think Kuno would send someone after Akane?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway, Akane figures her date’ll be safe if they keep movin’, so they’re plannin’ ta eat on the go, ya know? They’ll only need my help when they watch their movie, so I’m gonna meet up with them then.”
“When is that?”
“They dunno. Akane asked me ta recommend a theater an’ call her back. Apparently, they wanna see that space frog movie or somethin’.”
“Amazon Tree Frogs on a Spaceship?”
“That’s the one. Ya know any theaters that’re showin’ it? Say, around seven?”
“Well, that’s fairly large opening, so finding a theater shouldn’t be a problem at all—but if they want my advice, the Royale definitely has the best service and accommodations, and the snack food isn’t that expensive. It’s right across from the Crown Arcade.”
“Great! I’ll be sure ta let Akane know.”
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(Posted Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:32)
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