[Episode 209879] [Episode 209879]Setsuna groaned herself awake. Her insides felt twisted and bruised. Her mouth tasted vile. Her stomache felt as though it had been pumped.
“Gods, does it have to taste so hellishly bitter?” Sestuna heard Usagi complain through her pain. She turned her head to see that she was in Ami’s apocatherium, once more lain out on a pallet.
“Oh, stop fussing, milady,” Ami chided. “Medicines can taste horrid, but this is merely unpleasant.”
“Can’t we just…” The question was accompanied by a vague hocus-pocus guesture.
“Aura power can accellerate healing, milady, but you should still take the antidote. Especially in your condition, it’s best not to take chances.”
“Wha… what happened?” Setsuna demanded.
“Oh, my Pet is awake at last?” Minako’s voice drifted down. The girl’s head leaned upside down to peer in concerned releif. Setsuna realised then that the pillow under her head was Minako’s lap. “You gave us quite a fright, Love.”
Ami sighed. “She’s very lucky, you know. The Hilsome powder in her system lowered her pyschic resistance to poisoning.”
“Uhm. Just how’s that lucky?” Usagi demanded.
“It’s lucky that she survived, Milady,” Ami explained cooly. “Your dosage would have been fairly lethal, save for your tallent.”
“Oh!” Usagi exclaimed quietly, and swallowed the rest of her bitter antitoxin without further protest.
“Poison?” Setsuna demanded.
“Slipped into the ice-cream,” Ami explained. “It’s not that uncommon for assassins to poison sweet foods in order to disguise the taste. Actually, thanks to you sharing just that one dish and falling ill so quickly, we were able to identify the culprit rather easily this time. Lord Ranma has taken some guardsmen to help destroy her village.”
“… Destroy… the village?” Setsuna coughed.
“Well, but of course, Pet,” Minako explained as though her captive were dense. “We simply can not abide poisoners to live!”
“O-kay. But why destroy the village? Isn’t that a little extreme.”
“Not in the least,” Usagi replied calmly, and craddled her belly protectively. “When villagers hire assassins to kill an overlord’s family, the lord simply must answer by destroying whole villages. It’s nothing personal. A reputation for bloody revenge helps protect us better than the strongest aura guard.”
“It’s better to be hated than sorry,” Minako misquoted, though apparently deliberately. “You’ll soon learn that, Pet.”
“It’s a shame really,” Ami interjected. “The village elders were probably emboldened by the clan war, hoping that blame would fall on the Tendo clan. Rather foolish of them, though. He’d normally be inclined just to hang the elders, but at a time like this, Lord Ranma cannot afford to show weakness.”
“Oh, please! If they were not so stupid to try in the first place, he wouldn’t have to kill anyone at all,” Usagi stated bluntly. “It’s not like they didn’t know what would happen.”
Why are they so cold and callous? Setsuna worried, is it because their lives have been so hard? Privilaged, perhaps, but at a cost.
(Posted Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:07)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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