The blond had a plan. Ranma didn't know what it was just yet, but it involved the two girls going into the other room of the apartment that Makoto used as a bedroom to discuss it.
No big worry though, he had plenty of time before dinner. Kasumi had guessed how long it would take her to prepare and given him a time to pick her up. All he needed was enough time to put whatever the plan ended up being in motion.
Makoto herself was wondering just what her excitable friend was planning. Minako tended to be pretty out there at times, and she didn't want her to scare Ranma off.
There were already problems with Minako's plan. "Even if you believe the crazy martial arts parts of his story, we can't turn senshi! That's a secret, remember?"
Minako rolled her eyes as Makoto was acting like the other spoil-sport senshi and moon cats. "Geez, relax. I was Sailor V long before you were a senshi. I happen to know more than a few tricks."
This gave Makoto pause as Minako had never really talked about her Sailor V days. Indeed, Makoto knew so little about it, she had just dismissed it as something of as publicity stunt for the Sailor V games. "...really?"
Sighing in exasperation, Akane tried to make sense of what her friend was telling her, but she was just talking too fast and excitably. "Calm down Yuka, I can't understand what you're saying about Ranma."
After listening a moment more, she blinked and stared at the wall as she tried to make sense of what she was hearing. "Are you sure?"
Listening a moment more, Akane bit her lip and nodded lightly. "Alright, I'll check it out. I don't see how though."
Checking out the accessories Kasumi had for her outfit, notably the choker with dangling gemstone, Nabiki glanced up distracted as Akane returned to stand in the doorway. Seeing her little sister standing there with a frown took her mind ever so slightly off of calculating the value of Kasumi's new outfit and determining which pieces she wanted to 'borrow'. "Well, spit it out already."
Somewhat distracted herself, Akane took a moment before quietly responding. "Yuka called to say she saw Ranma on TV."
Finding that mildly interesting, Nabiki took a guess. "On the local news?"
Shaking her head, Akane seemed uncertain about what she was about to say. "No, on a commercial as the star. Busts into someone's house and fights off ninja and it's about some energy drink or something."
Gears turning in her head, Nabiki was feeling uncertain about it as well. "I know he's goes off and gets into things, but a random commercial? Was she sure it was Ranma?"
Sighing as it was time to put on her lingerie, Kasumi prepared to either shoo her sisters out of the room or get the door closed. Her curiosity about Ranma could wait until dinner.
A typical Japanese family sits at their table eating a nice dinner. A shogi screen explodes into the room from stage right, followed by a ninja receiving a jumpkick from a young man in Chinese clothes.
The ninja body flies off screen as the young man alights briefly upon an upheld chopstick. For three seconds the scene pauses in a tableau of baited breath when all the walls explode inwards as a dozen ninja burst into the room. The young man springs into action, sending ninja flying with aerial moves while remaining above the table.
After the action clears, the young man alights this time atop the soy sauce bottle.
The pigtailed martial artist offers a grin to the boy seated at the table. "You gonna eat that?"
Numbly the boy shakes his head and raises his bowl filled with rice, with one fried shrimp hanging from the edge. Still grinning the young man kicks the dish up, catching the rice in his mouth in a single gulp. The bowl lands atop the same foot and is gently laid upon the table, while the shrimp is caught gingerly by the strange martial artist.
The strange intruder eats the shrimp in one bite with a sigh of pleasure, then jumps off screen in a burst of energy.
The martial artist flies through the next scene in a jump kick, destroying the backdrop and revealing the company logo.
Mad Bull! - Grab Life by the Horns!
Pleasantly surprised, the Mad Bull marketing director set the transcript down. "...and this has gotten an excellent response?"
The commercial's manager nodded excitably. "Yes, Saotome-san proved to be a natural. That little food stunt at the end? Pulled it off every time without practice. Great at improv too. We have at least a dozen alternate takes where he ad-libbed and did something else. After playing the first version a couple of time, just start slipping them in and it'll drive interest even higher. This could be one of those commercials everyone talks about!"
Nodding at the excitable rep, the director could see where this was going. "Well then, we might just have to talk to Saotome-san about a spokesman contract. You want to suggest a series of commercials starring him though, correct?"
"Right, we need to sign him now before he agrees to do a gig for someone else."
Jumping across the rooftops of Juuban was a familiar enough night time activity for Makoto. The ease with which she could do it was a big help as she was currently quite distracted. The poor girl just didn't know what to think now.
For one, she had initially had doubts about some of the stuff Ranma had said. Those thoughts had long since fled when he casually flipped out her window and landed on the roof directly above. Even in her powered up form, Makoto had to at least jump across to the adjacent building, then jump back across. To flip out of the window like he had simply required more skill than anyone she knew.
Even stranger, Minako had been right. She wasn't in a senshi form to manage the roof hopping, but instead an outfit similar to that of Magic Knight Fuu. It was a first level outfit and had upgrades, but it still amazed her that she had access to alternate magic girl outfits.
As Magic Knight Juno the look was very similar to the magic knight's, down to the magical green gems in her outfit. She had a basic wind bolt attack and a basic healing spell from what she could tell. She even had the ability to summon a sword and perform a lightning attack with it. On top of that, if she used this outfit enough, she would apparently upgrade to the next level of it just like the Magic Knights.
This brought troubling thoughts to her mind, as for the first time she questioned why the sailor senshi were like they were. This outfit seemed superior to the sailor senshi ones, and for that matter, why did their sailor senshi outfits even have upgrades? Why the heck did she have alternate outfit choices besides senshi? If they'd had this all along, why hadn't they used them?
The troubling impression she got was that Venus had figured it out and told no one. Likely because Minako figured they either knew or it wasn't really important.
On the other hand, Ranma was turning out to be rather impressive in the way he casually handled running across rooftops. With the mask that Minako had provided him so he could play magic prince, he gave Makoto a brief moment of worry. With all of her experiences in the subject, she was really hoping that he wasn't some sort of dark general here to seduce her.
Well no, she was rather hoping he would seduce her. Heck, as long as he didn't become an evil prick when it was revealed he was a bad guy, she'd still like him.
Shaking her head briefly, Makoto banished those thoughts. Hopefully she was just feeling paranoid there.
...if she did have to choose between normal boy that would ignore her and dark general that wanted to seduce her, maybe she could claim she was just negotiating with him?
Still though, just what was Minako doing as part of this crazy scheme of hers?
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(Posted Mon, 19 May 2008 08:53)
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