Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu was not a well-known school of martial artists. There were but a handful of practioners and none of them had ever involved themselves in the rest of the martial world.
They were a relatively new school of martial arts, with only two known grandmasters in the lineage.
The school was more a philosophy of acquisition and training than a set of techniques. The practioners were known to accept any training and any technique and were able to weave it seamlessly with all their other martial knowledge.
The founder and original grandmaster was regarded by the few that knew of him as an incarnation of unthinking and selfish evil. He had casually ruined several lives in his wake just to accomplish momentary goals. He was also regarded as dangerously competent, almost impossible to kill and more powerful than he acted.
His more immediate disciplies had little more respect. One was a despised thief, especially of techniques, and the other had ceased his constant training in order to establish a dojo of few students and little to no repute.
The second generation included the master Genma Saotome who invented the Ryu's two sealed techniques. Styles that would only be taught to an heir in order to insure their survival against a time they were needed, but two dangerous or abuse-prone to be allowed common use.
The third generation of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu blew away the first two. It included one outright genius who eventually fought the acceptance of second grandmaster from the first in addition to three other exceptional practioners.
The school had had encounters with several powerful opponents, with the second grandmaster, Ranma Saotome, having defeated an incarnation of the legendary Saffron. However, that same young man also ended up gaining the respect of those enemies.
Ranma Saotome continued the operation of his father-in-law's dojo, but, unlike that man, he had not let his edge fade. Instead, he'd come to view teaching others as yet another sort of training for himself.
Unfortunately, while his past enemies may have respected him and come to befriend him, some of his family had less so.
Ranma and his wife Akane did not immediately settle down, but pursued the life of wandering martial artist for many years after their marriage. Giving rivals space to build their own lives, and Akane the chance to work through to some of her greater potential. (The hope for a cure to Ranma's curse was in there as well.)
It was many years before they had their first child.
Nodoka and Genma Saotome, his parents, soon began to fear for the continuance of both the line and the school and, while Nodoka was still young enough to bear more children, they had two more children.
Neither was a son.
The first of these daughters, Ryoko, was raised as the next heir to the line in preparation for what the two saw as the failure of their son to produce an heir.
The second, Joseibi, was largely left to the first to care for.
This lasted until word came that Ranma and Akane had born their first child.
At which point the younger sisters, still unknown to their elder brother, became...extra.
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(Posted Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:03)
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