Yet now he was going to have to go and handle another instance in dealing with the messes that were caused by martial artists. It would have been all fine if they'd kept their chaos contained to their own properties, which did happen from time to time. Unfortunately, they tended to drag it out into the streets around them. The only stroke of good fortune was that they hadn't gone and done too much damage, as they tended to strike quick and fast. Such a fact made it easier to deal with, as it could be treated as simple property damage, and allowed to let be more of a civil matter than a criminal matter.
Who wanted to go chasing after someone who not only was strong enough to smash concrete, but was careless about using it anyway?
Heaving a great big sigh, he got up and pulled his jacked off the back of his chair. "Come on, let's get going."
"'Going'? Where to?" his partner asked.
"There's an incident involving a martial artist, and we have to check it out."
"Ah, damn it. Do we really have to? You know what sort of crap that'll bring in on us."
"I know, but we lucked out in one regard," Saitoh commented. "We've been called by one of his relatives. So, even though we can't drag our heels on this one, we're covered."
"Great. Then we're just going to stick to the containment strategy?" the other officer murmured.
"Pretty much. Of course, they're probably thinking that we're giving them the chance to do as they want."
To admit that one needed outside help with a family matter was something that Nodoka was loathe to do, but not due to any disgust with the idea of gaining assistance. Rather, it felt like a failure on her part, as she wouldn't have been able to heal her family as a real wife and mother should have. The ideal was to keep family business within one's own home after all, and had she been able to do that, she would have been well pleased by that fact.
If only that could have been the case, she would have been happy, but it was long past that. Not only was her husband playing the role of a fool, but he was causing trouble outside of her house. Just the idiocy that he had perpetrated at her daughter-in-law's home was bad enough, and the possibility that he'd done more elsewhere made her unable to sleep. Ever since she'd married Genma, she'd known that he had never been the most respectable man around, but she'd been sure that age would bring maturity. Now, she didn't even know if her own son could stay safe from the foolishness that his father brought onto his head.
Her husband certainly needed help, but the question was of what type it should come in. So far, the care and support that she'd tried to give had been ignored for his pursuits, and now she couldn't be sure that he'd settle into the sort of life that she thought that they should lead. Calling on a doctor was a major step though, and she couldn't just bring him to the first name in the phone book. Perhaps she could get some referrals, or at least get an idea of which direction treatment should come in.
Things simply could not be allowed to continue on as they had been after all.
Laying on the ground and heaving his breath was not the way that Genma wanted to end his day, but he was pretty sure that he couldn't manage much else. Every bone in his body seemed to hurt, to the point that the aches flowed into each other. It even hurt to sigh, but he needed to get some way to be able to get his heart under control. As it was, the ropes that he had been using had snapped, tangling him up so that he couldn't move his limbs enough to crawl, even if he had any energy left. He was bloodied, bruised, and stiff, but it was just bad enough that he couldn't see himself getting his poor body down to a clinic any time soon.
Footsteps interrupted his thoughts, and he managed to crane his neck just enough to be able to see shoes tracking through the dirt of the quarry. The pants that the shoes wearers had on were clearly of the sort made only for municipal workers, which rather narrowed down the list of possible visitors. The fact that they weren't all the surprised to see him was both welcome and worrisome, but he couldn't dwell on either. What he needed right now was for what he could now tell were police officers to get him free and get him where his pains could be treated, possibly with a nice bottle of sake.
"Ah, nice to see you fellas," Genma told them in as friendly a tone as he could manage. "You wouldn't mind helping a guy out, now would you?"
The officer closer to him covered his own face with one hand as his partner reluctantly pulled out a radio to call for assistance.
It made Genma rather pleased, as he didn't have to worry about his problem now. Having to call for help would have been bothersome and terribly embarrassing. As a martial artist, they had to be tough, and now, he didn't have to worry about getting someone to come his way.
With his ego intact, Genma took this as a sign that things were going his way, while:
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(Posted Sat, 29 May 2010 00:59)
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