If one were in, say, a helicopter and were currently hovering over Nerima, one would see a curious sight. Happosai, lecher supreme, had apparently decided to not bother with relieving his beloved women’s undergarments from their wearer before stealing them, judging from how he was hauling a quite beautiful woman in an abbreviated seifuku. He himself appeared conflicted about this, twitching, sputtering, and occasionally breaking course for a few moments.
Finally, he found a blind alley that appeared suitable for whatever intentions he held, stopping there to examine his comely cargo. “Eris!” he called. “Snap out of it, damn it.”
“zihw zeehc stae natas…” Sailor Eris shook her head, and with it, shook off the rest of the chaotic backlash her last attack had incurred. “Ugh. That wasn’t fun.” She noticed her rescuer. “Aren’t you Happosai?”
“More or less.” Dominus allowed some physical effects of his possession to bleed over. It didn’t do much, just adding points to Happi’s ears and darkening his eyes and skin a bit.
“Nice choice. Guy’s like a youma as is.”
“I’m aware of that. Therein lies the problem.”
Eris blinked. “Eh?”
“His metabolism is nearly gone. He’s living on the discarded life energy of others and alcohol. He’s got so much negative energy in what’s left of his soul that trying to control him is like trying to steer a rocket.” Indeed, even as he said this, the pervert-demon chimera jumped about like a four-year old at the zoo.
“Then let him go.”
“Needed him to make sure you weren’t captured. Now that it’s done with…” The black cloud quickly exited Happosai, the very particles seeming eager to remove themselves from the depraved master.
As he was dispossessed, the shriveled man shook his head and grinned at Dominus’s core. “Aw, what’s the matter? We coulda had a lot of fun, you and me.”
“Even I have standards,” the cloud said coldly.
“Bah. You’re no fun.” His attention shifted to Sailor Eris. “Hachi-mama!” exclaimed the ancient, latching himself onto her chest like a horny limpet. “Now you wouldn’t begrudge an old man’s innocent fun, would you, dear?”
The response was a simple one. One menacing-sounding charge-up sequence later, a large cannon barrel was pressed into Happosai’s forehead. “Release me,” Eris said with an unnerving calm, “or your constituent particles will have a very loud and violent parting of ways.”
Happi’s danger sense went into overdrive as the woman was practically seethed with hostile chi. “I’ll just be on my way then,” he said in as pleasant a manner as he could manage. As he hopped out of the alley, he noticed something else on his person. Digging about, he discovered a pair of silky darlings. Upon closer examination, he nearly missed a roof.
“Pure silk,” he muttered, astonished, “lace trim, hand-washed. French, 1803…no, ’01, the weave’s the real deal.” He sighed as he reverentially placed the panties on his head. To the discerning connosieur, these were the underclothes equivalent of a bottle of Chateau Lafeyette 1828 wrapped in an original draft of the US Constitution and topped off with a mint Black Lotus. ‘Rude folks,’ Happosai thought, ‘but damn if they don’t pay well.’
“Happosai?” Setsuna had quickly returned to civilian form after Nabiki’s observation. “I thought I’d taken care of him after selling those two dolts the explosives and drugged sake.”
“So that’s where they got all that stuff,” muttered Ranma.
“He’s not a major threat to the future, just an annoyance I didn’t want the other Senshi to concern themselves with.”
“Well,” Nabiki said reasonably, “if you didn’t know he was here until now, he probably hasn’t been hitting Juuban.”
“True enough.” Setsuna sighed. “Well, we’ve secured two more Senshi, but there is the matter of you, Ms, Tendo.”
The mercenary girl winced a bit. She’d been hoping her involvement in the madness would’ve been forgotten in the melee. No such luck. “Yeah, there’s that…”
“I’m going to have to speak with an old acquaintance of mine before we can proceed on that front,” the green-haired woman said cryptically. “However, before I do that, there is one more thing I must do while here.” She turned to Sailor Cancer, who was making use of her enhanced abilities to start rebuilding the dojo. “Kasumi, where do you get your tea?”
After a brief bit of confusion and helpful redirection on the part of Usagi’s mother, the three wanderers approached the Hikawa Shrine.
“I bet more people’d come if they put in an elevator,” huffed Osaka as they ascended the stairs.
“I don’ think most people’d go for an elevator at a shrine,” noted Naru.
“How come?”
“Well, there’s somethin’ symbolic ‘bout havin’ ta work a bit before ya can speak t’ th’ gods, y’know?”
Osaka pondered this for a moment. “Then why not set up an obstacle course for ‘em instead?”
“An obstacle course?”
“Yeah, y’know. Like a maze, or makin’ ‘em smack their faces inta a pan o’ flour to get their fortune or sumthin’.”
Naru shook her head. “It ain’t a sports festival, Yumu-chan.”
“Um.” Sakaki hesitantly interrupted the discussion on religious practices for the twenty-first century. “We’ve arrived.”
The two Osakans looked about. “Oh. Guess so.” Naru turned to the others. “Word t’ th’ wise: Th’ priest here’s a little ecchi, if y’ know what I mean.”
“Ecchi?” Sakaki shivered. Kimura-sensei was bad enough…
“Yeah. Be careful, Sakaki-san.”
Osaka frowned a bit. “Whaddabout me?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine, Yumu-chan,” the redhead said dismissively.
“Oh.” Most girls would’ve felt uncertain as to whether they had just been insulted or complimented. Osaka, fortunately, didn’t bother. “OK.”
Naru did the knocking. Readers will recognize the short, bald, fellow who answered as Rei’s grandfather, Shinto priest extraordinare and reincarnation of one of Metallia’s seven youma generals, not that that will have any bearing on the story. “Ah, young Osaka,” he said merrily.
“How you doin’?” replied the other young Osaka.
“Eh? Ah, you brought friends.” The elder’s gaze passed over Osaka and Sakaki. Stopped. Passed over Sakaki again. A third time, more slowly and appreciatively.
As the developed girl started to fold in on herself, the priest’s granddaughter came by to pop him on the head. “Cool it, Gramps,” Rei growled. Her “perverted-grandpa” sense was, if anything, even more refined than her evil detection abilities. She checked to see what had triggered the former. “Oh, hi Naru-chan. Usagi’s in back. Want me to get her?”
“Actually,” said Osaka, with the utmost air of importance, “we have come for the Sen—”
Rei, as it is well known, had some amount of precognitive ability. She didn’t need it to see where this sentence was going. “Zazen meditation?” she said frantically. “Sorry, but that’s Buddhism. Guess you’ll have to—”
“Rei!” Her grandfather was not pleased. “Do not be rude to guests, and do not interrupt.”
“Yes, Grandfather…”
The priest turned back to Osaka, thankful his heavy eyelids kept anyone from noticing that his actual eyes were firmly locked on Sakaki’s bust. “Now then, my dear, you were saying?”
As the Senshi of Fire began to sweat bullets, the spacey girl resumed her look of utter severity and replied. “We are here to meet and join the Sailor Senshi, sir.”
The wizened man smiled at this. “The Senshi, eh?” He turned to his grandchild. “Rei, dear, would you happen to know anything about the Senshi?”
Rei gave a grin that helped redefine the phrase “lying through one’s teeth.” “N-no, not at all. Do you know anything about the Senshi, Grandpa?”
“Hmm…” Clairvoyance of the type demonstrated by Rei is usually hereditary, and it had taken little effort on the part of the old priest to discern the reason behind his grandchild’s suddenly active social life and increased meditations at the Sacred Fire. While he had decided to wait until she chose to confide in him before assisting her, that didn’t mean he couldn’t derive a fair amount of pleasure from watching her squirm. “Well, I have heard one rumor…”
“Oh?” Osaka was hanging on his every word.
“Yes, yes. Apparently one can find the Senshi through one of two means. The first and more obvious is to be involved in a monster attack here in Juuban. Mind you, if it isn’t in this ward, then odds are some other group will attend to it.”
“I c’n vouch for that method,” Naru said wearily.
“Right, right.” Osaka had produced a notebook and was writing a few things down.
The priest continued. “At the moment monster attacks aren’t very frequent, so we come to the less obvious method. That requires getting the high score on a Sailor V arcade game.” It took all he could to not burst into laughter upon seeing Rei’s expression.
While Osaka seemed to take this at face value, Sakaki was more skeptical. “May I ask how that one works?”
“Ah, of course. As I said, not immediately obvious, that one. You see, those games are in reality secret communication devices for the Senshi, but the only way to use them for that purpose is to have the current high score. So, if you beat the current high score, a Senshi will have to reestablish her number one status.” He chuckled to himself, not realizing how close he’d come to the truth.
“I see. So Senshi get super game-playin’ powers?” asked Osaka.
“Of course not!” scoffed the priest. “What girl that age could be trusted to save the world if she could beat every arcade game in the world?” Ignoring the increasing glare from his granddaughter, he pressed on. “No, the Sailor V games are based on the Senshi’s own exploits. That’s how they get so good at them: They’ve already done everything there!”
“Ah.” Osaka paused and considered one datum her research had kept coming across. “Even th’ ‘Hot Chai’ Easter egg?”
“‘Hot Chai’?” Everyone else present asked this. Only Rei's grandfather thought, 'Ha! Didn't even have to mention it myself!'
“It’s this secret in th’ latest Sailor V game. ‘Parently, if y’ do somethin’ just right, ya fight this giant tentacle monster, an’ if ya lose…”
The narrator will now take this opportunity to switch the audio of our story to the peaceful music heard during the drunken rants of Kurosawa Minamo as she outlined her love life. As the music continues, watch as Sakaki’s blush intensifies, Naru’s face pales, and Rei’s demeanor in general becomes more indignant.
“…with a rug beater,” concluded Osaka. “So, did that ever really happen t’ the Senshi?”
“Down to the last rubber chicken,” replied the priest, wiping his nosebleed as surreptitiously as possible.
“WE NEVER DID ANY SUCH THING!” Rei paused, considered what she just said, then cursed quite thoroughly.
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(Posted Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:15)
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