“How is he?” asked Ururu, as Yoruichi shut the door to his room.
“Still sleeping,” said Yoruichi. “He’ll be out for a while. The doctors didn’t need to do too much to him.”
“Well, we did use the hojiku-zai [flesh-healing medicine] he had with him,” said Kisuke. “And the kikanshiki took care of their memories of him being hit. As far as the group was concerned, he was injured in a hit from Genma, and received a deep cut from the tree he hit.”
“Should I get him some food?” asked Ururu, still worried about the boy who had made himself her big brother.
“Maybe later,” said Yoruichi. “Right now, he needs his sleep. But I’m sure he’ll appreciate some food when he wakes up.”
The meek girl nodded happily, before she went down the hallway.
“You saw?” asked Yoruichi, after the girl was gone for long enough not to overhear anything.
“The tale end,” said Kisuke. “Was that what I thought it was?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t think you would teach him that.”
“I didn’t,” she said.
“Ah,” he said. “He came up with it on his own, quite impressive, especially for a child his age.”
“Every time I turn around, he’s doing something like this,” she said. “He makes new techniques like we breath.”
“He had good teachers,” said Kisuke. “And a teacher is only truly as good as the student they produce.”
Yoruichi sighed as she leaned against the wall. “If he is this capable now, what will happen in a few years. Hell, how strong will he be in a year?”
“Can’t say,” said Kisuke. “This is the first Semoris I have ever dealt with.”
She blinked. “You found a reference to what happened to him, to others like him?”
“No,” he said, very seriously. “But it is the best description for him; neither Hollow nor Shinigami. And when he gets too hard pressed, his face is covered by half a mask.
“But you shouldn’t worry too much about the boy,” he continued, his attitude becoming cheerful once again. “He’ll be healed before you know it, and you can chew him out for destroying his uniform. That must have cost you a bit.”
“Um ... yeah, very expensive,” she said evasively, not wanting to admit whose credit card she had used to pay for it.
“But there is something else I wanted to discuss with you,” she said, “well, before this all happened. I ran across a strange kid, someone else I think we need to watch.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t have a name, was kind of hoping Ranma would know him. He has almost orange hair, and a strong power inside him, nearly invisible unless you really look for it. He was about Ranma’s age.”
“Hmm,” said Kisuke, scratching his chin. “Maybe I know someone who fits that description. But I’d rather not say.”
“Until you’re sure?”
“Until I have permission to say so,” he replied, before he started to walk down the hallway. “After all, I wouldn’t want to call attention onto those who don’t want it, very bad for business.”
“Fine,” she admitted, giving one last look at the door to her adopted son’s room, before she too went down the hallway, leaving him to rest. The only regret she had about that day was that by doing what they did to heal Ranma and hide the fact, they removed a charge that could have been used to keep Genma away longer.
“At least that fat tub of lard will be away for a while,” she said, her mind reminding her of another similar fool from her former division. Man, I bet Soifon was pissed at that.
Genma awoke in his cell, handcuffed to the medical bed, his jaw feeling nothing but pain. What did they teach the boy? I’ve never seen anything like that.
And to make him that good in only a few months...
The man starred at the ceiling, wondering what he could do now. The cops had him, the vendors he stole borrowed from without expressed permission had caught up with him, and he had nearly lost his son after that weak woman had convinced him to shield her from the attacks of the Kijin Raishû Dan.
They have brainwashed him more than I had earlier thought, my mistake for assuming the boy was strong enough to fight it off.
But he knew he was in trouble, and he needed to get out of it.
That left only two options: shift the blame to someone else, or offer up another sacrificial lamb.
The first was out, the boy had disowned him, and if he sent them to Nodoka to collect...
He tried to suppress a shiver, his hands instinctively reaching for his gut to keep the imaginary blade away.
That left offering them someone else, someone who they would want more than him.
Soun? Nah, if he did that, they might take the Dojo for payment, and then where would he retire to after the boy married one of Tendo’s daughters.
Perhaps ... the Master? Surely the old goat had performed more crimes in his time than could be blamed on the innocent student Genma had been. Sure, it would mean having to lead them to where he had been buried alive with hopes of finishing him off sealed for the safety of all. And if the Master had learned of who had betrayed him...
Still, that was pain while being left alive, not having your guts sliced open because you failed in your pledge.
Yes, he would offer them the Master, in hopes they would drop the charges that had been filed against him by the upset victims misguided people who saw him as the guilty party.
But then what? They had too strong a hold on the boy for him to take alone. And now that the boy apparently could duplicate the Senkens, that made things much more dangerous for him. Hell, the boy had somehow been taught to see through the Umisenken, which meant Genma would have to enhance it and perhaps even complete the sealed technique to have a chance.
I may need to get Soun’s help in this. Surely, he will help me ensure that dishonorable boy of mine fulfills our honorable pact to unite the schools.
And if that failed, then he had one last hope—since it would be very doubtful by that point that the Master would help him.
Well, maybe if he blamed Ranma for getting the old letch arrested...
But if all else failed, then that meant ... he would have to get Nodoka’s help.
But how to explain it to her so that she would see how innocent he was, while not making Ranma look bad enough to get both their bellies slit? Hmm...
Ichigo looked around the clearing, wondering why this place felt ... odd.
A while ago, he felt something extremely ... unusual ... at this place.
He was sure it had to be this place, it was the only one that looked like a natural disaster had happened. Trees were broken, the earth was torn up in several areas, and he saw what looked like blood on the ground.
“Man, this must have been one helluva fight,” the orange-haired kid muttered, as he looked around. “Wonder what happened here?
“And why are there so many flyers here for restaurants?”
Pluto sighed, as the last timeline that promised Dominatrix Neo-Queen Serenity faded into the ether. She still wasn’t quite sure how Ranma nearly being cleaved in two by his former father had done that, but she’d take it.
But checking the timeline, she found herself still having trouble pinpointing when Ranma would run across the Senshi. “At least he didn’t become strong enough where the Senshi don’t need to fight,” she muttered. “They still seem to be fighting the majority of the battles, so at least they will grow as well.”
She found that also to be a major problem when she had started her earlier quest to remove Ranma from the Senshi. It seemed some of them either had him become strong enough to fight the threats on his own, or offer something that could do the same.
Either way, it weakened the Senshi as a team, enough to the point where they were often helpless if he wasn’t there to save them.
This often then led to him having a harem of magic girls.
And she was hoping to avoid that this time.
Unless of course, it led to a better Crystal Tokyo.
But only if Usagi and Mamoru were in charge.
Well, maybe...
She shook her head. “That’s the kind of thinking that got me in this mess in the first place.
“I’m just lucky some deity didn’t pop out and strip me of my powers.”
In Asgard, a certain chaos cat sneezed, wondering if he had been forgetting something. But considering the milk he was drinking wouldn’t stay cool forever, he decided to focus on it first.
But she would need to be careful for now. Any changes she made had to be well thought out, and designed to help Ranma as a whole. As much as she would like to, it was probably for the best she didn’t interfere too much, unless it endangered Crystal Tokyo as a whole ... or brought back the leather clad Neo-Queen who loved to do unmentionable stuff to her Senshi.
Yes, stop that Usagi from ever coming to be, then worry about Ranma.
“But what is coming next, though?” she wondered.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by The Demented Redhead
(Posted Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:48)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.