"I wanna practice my kata-s," Ranma protested as 'he' was hustled out of the hotel's lobby door into the chill night in just a skirt and blouse.
"What're those?" Lupin said, looking up and down the boulevard.
"They are the practice routines of a warriors's body and mind that atunes one with the spiritual," Goemon informed him. "It borders on the sacred."
"Well, we certainly can't have you doing that! Fujiko would never do anything like that. What do you want to do, upset the space-time continuum? -Taxi!"
"You may practice at the same time as I," Goemon offered Ranma. "I vow to join you in the repulsion of any unwarrented intrusion." He lifted his sword an inch out of its scabbard to prove how serious he was.
The samurai's pledge molified Ranma. 'He' still hadn't any real chance to check out what was left of 'his' martial arts skills and abilities. 'He' figured, though, 'he' could adjust to this new body Another girl one like 'he' had with the other; maybe more easily, since this time 'he'd' had a good idea on what to do and not to do.
So Ranma felt no pressure. After all, I don't know what else to do, yet. With these guys, I got, maybe, the closest I'm gonna get to people who know me and care about me in this time. 'xpect, of course, the "me" is this Fujiko-woman.
Lupin had his buxum woman slide all the way to the far window, while he took the middle position beside 'his' thighs; Goemon sat on his right. Jigen opened the passenger door up front.
"Nobody sits-a wi' me besides-a me!" the cab driver yelled...until Jigen showed him his "persuader", the magnum.
"Hey! Are you threatening the guy!?" Ranma threatened to threaten back.
"We wouldn't think of it." Lupin took out a gems from the fortune still in his pockets; he had recovered the stolen loot while Ranma had been in the closet. He casually tossed it to the ex-mob killer turned killer of mobsters.
"Are you freaking nuts?" But Jigen gave the driver gem.
They received speedy service.
"That gem is catalogued, you know," said the unhappy man slouched down in the front seat. The driver wouldn't be able to sell it, but he would get a finder's reward, and more money for information leading to the arrest of any of the ones who had given the insured gem to him.
"You know the method of my madness: "Conspicuous Inconspicuousness"," Lupin said as if he hadn't a care in the world.
"What does that mean?"
"This from a broad with a G cup rack," Jigen said.
"It's why I wear a kimono in Europe," Goemon said. "Though I usually wear a hakama. I was at a formal function when called away."
"Yeah, a real black tie affair," said the man with the unkempt beard with no mustache, waving his wrinkled black tie.
"And it's why I wear this snazzy red jacket. Wouldn't you say we were conspicuous?"
"Uh, I really don't know what that word means," Ranma confessed.
"It means we stand out like sore thumbs. People like us shouldn't want to stand out, especially in line-ups. But we do, because the witnesses don't expect people looking so wrong to be doing something wrong."
"That's bull. He actually got the idea from some friggin stupid foretuneteller."
"My lucky color is gray," Goemon said. "My lucky object is a cord from a temple charm."
"Okay. And Lupin's lucky color and object is a red jacket." Foretunetelling like that had a following in Japan. Ranma wasn't one of them, but 'he' was curious. "So what's mine?"
"You weren't part of the team, then," Jigen said. "You were never part of the friggin team."
"Until now," Lupin said, lifting Fujiko/Ranma's ring hand. "And this is your lucky object," he said, kissing the nearly golf ball-sized diamond. Very conspicuous.
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(Posted Wed, 22 Nov 2006 06:11)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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