Genma sat back to enjoy his sake and await the result of training Ranma in an ultimate technique. It was a very straightforward and simple protocol, shame Genma was drunk the one time he read through the instructions. So here was Genma, maintaining his Two-Bottles-of-Sake-Above-Norm level of drunkenness as his son laid wrapped in cat sausages and fed to a pit of starving fish. An obviously simple way to train a young brat requiring only cat and fish, as the name implied. In honor of that name, Genma made sure half of the fish were catfish, as well. It was worth the work and effort to make those sausages from those cats he found. Not only did they fight him as he put them through the meat grinder, but they made such an awful racket as they went through. Yowling and screeching like, well, cats in a meat grinder. Such noise did they make, that Genma had to sneak away from that one house he rented, with all those cops looking around. Why couldn’t neighbors mind their own business? Didn’t they know that pursuit of the Art called for sacrifices? Sacrifice needed to be made, Genma knew so well, but preferably by someone else and not him. However, it worked out in the end, after all, and Genma did have need for a ready supply of fish, and this deserted beach was perfect for both fish and pit digging. Why, digging that ten foot deep pit was a great back-building exercise for Ranma.
And so, Ranma sat in a covered, sandy pit, rapidly filling with water as the tide came in. Some of the fish were flopping about in the water, as Genma made sure a couple inches worth was in the pit for them, as the rest laid about dead and befouling the air with stench. The ropes bound him tightly with no chances of escape, the fish ignored him, and the water was inevitably submerging him.
“What am I suppose to do?” Wondered Ranma, confused at how he was to learn any martial arts like this. “Am I suppose to learn how to escape the ropes and pit?”
Time marches on, steadily approaching the point where Ranma drowns as his father sings drinking songs off-key. Thusly, fate would have looked grim had nothing occurred to interfere with the inexorable course of time. Where Ranma should have been sitting, as water would have closed about his head, was only a floating pile of ropes, cat sausages, and dead fish. Lightening from above flash cooked the contents of the pit. And police officers, who Genma hadn’t cleverly avoided like he thought, found a drunken man by what they thought was a pit for cooking.
Soun found his wife, Michiko, sitting and looking distressed. His normally stoic wife seemed to have been crying. Knowing that her only weak point was her children, Soun immediately felt worried.
“What is wrong, dear? Something didn’t happen to the kids?”
Michiko looked at her husband and tried to fake a smile. “Oh no, they are alright. I just heard some distressing news is all. The police were investigating the sounds of some terrible screaming, and tracked a man to this beach where they think he cooked his son with some fish and sausages and ate him. How could someone do something so horrible to an innocent child?”
Soun wrapped his wife in a warm embrace. “It’s alright, honey. The police caught him, right?”
“Yeah,” Michiko said as she sniffed. “They are now looking into his past, seems Genma Saotome caused trouble where ever he went. I shudder to think at what else they might find that monster also did.”
Soun paled at the mentioned name. Besides feeling the loss of the boy he hope to marry into his family, he was more worried at what might be discovered about himself if people dug too deep into Genma’s past. Suddenly, the idea a fellow councilman had expressed a week prior seemed to be more appealing. Soun was discussing with his fellow peer the state of martial arts in Japan. His peer mentioned that martial arts was quickly catching on in America, and that many who had moved there were becoming quite rich. Soun had dismissed the idea, though, as he was quite settled and happy in Japan. But now, maybe a few years time in a foreign country might be advisable. At least until things died back down here at home.
“Er, honey, there seems to be no good time to ask this. So I might as well ask now. I was talking with Mr. Morita last week, or maybe it was the other week. Anyways, he was telling me how successful many sensei were that moved to America. Truly it is the land of opportunity for those willing to work hard. At first, I hastily dismissed the notion. But now ... well, wouldn’t travel to a foreign country open the eyes of our girls and expand their horizons? They can try things there that they couldn’t here in Japan. We could make enough to retire on. And, of course, we don't have to stay for more then, say, five years, if you want to return. Our girls could be back in time to go to high school here, and have a well rounded education from two sides of the globe. I think I’d like to try while we’re still young enough. What do you think?”
Michiko, surprised at the sudden turn of topic and still feeling rather vulnerable, gave it some thought. “Well, I don’t know about just uprooting the family. But, like you said, it would be a good chance for our girls to experience more out of life. A few years time can’t hurt, if we decide we don’t like it there. Yes, lets go.”
Nodoka hid in her house in shame. “Oh, the inhumanity of it,” she lamented as she once again ran her finger over a piece of paper with a child’s finger painting. “Surely, Genma is innocent. Why would he want to hurt Ranma?” However, she did not convince even herself. Many witnesses claim to have heard what sounded like a child’s scream coming from a house Genma rented. Ranma was no where to be found. And, most damming, was the book found next to his passed out body. It was a book on medieval European torture techniques with a rather disturbing page dog-eared. While the press didn’t know this, the police had confided in Nodoka that they think Genma tortured his son with cats, and then ate him. As they couldn’t find the cats either, they think he ate those as well.
“How can I show my face in public? Oh, those old biddies at the hair salon must be gossiping up a storm. What will I do now, that our family honor has been besmirched and I have lost face.” Nodoka quickly gave in to her grief over the son she would never know.
Meanwhile, an oblivious Ranma was looking around with wide eyes and amazement. He only wished he knew where his father was. It looked like he would be trained to be a martial artist, wouldn’t his father be so proud of him? Ranma sighed; he missed his family. However, he now had a new family, of sorts. It was all very confusing for the young boy who was in a dark, wet pit one moment and someplace else the next. Ranma did not know how that happened. Did not know that...
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Errol Peregrinus
(Posted Mon, 19 May 2008 02:27)
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.