For some reason, everything seemed better to Miu now that she was married. The sun caught in the remnants of the morning mist to create a sparkling effect in the air, children’s laughter was much happier, the bird’s singing more cheerful, the flowers smelled more fragrant, and everything just seemed right with the world. She took her husband’s arm and pulled herself in close as she could while they were walking along the street.
All of a sudden, a darkness descended upon the world. The children clutched their parents legs and some began to cry, the birds departed, flowers wilted, and all the joy in the world seemed to just die.
The evil presence behind him made Ranma turn around and sigh. “Hello Niijima.”
A man with elongated ears and a face that matched his demonic/alien personality, Haruo Niijima was what Ranma guessed that Nabiki Tendo would have been if born male; he simply valued information more than money like she did. Added to his underhanded sneakiness, he also had an abundance of ambition. Ranma still wondered how this guy, despite no real combat abilities at all, had become the leader of the toughest fighting group in the city outside of the dojo. The only thing that had changed about him since graduating high school was that he now wore a dark blue business suit instead of his usual clothes.
The woman he was with did attract Ranma’s attention though. The redheaded Tae Kwon Do martial artist was one of the higher ranking members of Niijima’s gang, but Kisara wasn’t the person who usually got stuck with bodyguard duty.
Ranma raised his free hand to greet the two of them. “Hey Niijima, Kisara,” he said before looking over to the guy. “Where’s the guy who usually follows you around?”
The demonic young man growled at pointed a finger at the older martial artist. “You will address me as Commander! I may have put up with such things in high school, but out here in the real world we need to show discipline if we’re to be taken seriously.”
Kisara sighed at Niijima’s antics and rubbed her forehead. Ignoring her ‘commander’ for the moment, she answered the question. “Well, you remember at the party last night Niijima told Siegfried to relax and go have a few drinks? He never actually told the guy to stop. Sieg is back at his house sleeping off his hangover, and I drew the short straw.”
“I said have a few, not ten cases,” Niijima grumbled. I wasn’t his fault if the man didn’t know when to stop, and he certainly never ordered the guy to get into a drinking contest with Sakaki.
“But that’s not important,” he said before pointing an accusing finger at the two and raising his voice. “What’s this I hear about the two of you planning a trip to China in a few days?”
Miu blinked at the sudden change from defensive to offensive and put on a disarming smile. “Well since Ranma’s girl problem started there, it’s really the most logical place to look for a way to fix it.”
Kisara made a sound as if clearing her throat and looked away from the two newlyweds. A guy turning into a redhead was a little weird for her taste. Hell Ranma was weird all around, he used to be afraid of cats for crying out loud! She still wanted to ask him what all that was about. Well, ask him and get a strait answer.
“No, you can’t!” Niijima shouted in desperation. “What about the Shinpaku alliance? All the territory we’ve taken over! WHAT ABOUT OUR PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION?”
Both of the couple moaned at the other man’s description of their groups activities.
He makes us sound like some kind of gang, Ranma thought to himself before holding his hand up to his face in embarrassment. Taking over territory? All they did was run yakuza and drug dealers out of the local parks and stuff.
“World domination? I didn’t see that in the group charter,” Miu mumbled to herself, confused.
Kisara sighed at the antics of their ‘commander’ and gave the man a light uppercut to stop his babbling.
Knocked back to his senses, Niijima approached the problem from a different, more logical, standpoint. “Look, now that I’ve graduated, we can finally begin our long term plans. But without the two of you as our secret weapons we’ll never be able to stop the major opposition,” he told them before imagining the battle that had been playing out in his mind for the past several days.
-Warning, you are now entering a mindscape of monomaniacal teenager-
Haruo Niijima surveyed the battered landscape of Tokyo with his binoculars. In the distance another building toppled and he watched his men rout the JSDF infantry thanks to a brilliantly planned pincer move he had developed.
“Lord Niijima, the Americans are sending in their tanks and air support! We have to fall back your greatness,” a lowly peon that looked a great deal like Kenichi shouted in terror.
Taking the binoculars away from his eyes, the great Lord Niijima dramatically threw back the came on his general’s uniform to place them back upon his belt. “Ranma! Miu! Deal with this weaklings.”
As the general’s cape fell away, two beings radiating power were revealed standing on top of a pile of rubble behind him. As one they bowed to their leader and responded. “Yes Lord Niijima!” Miu flew into the sky while Ranma leaped to meet the advancing armor.
In the air above, Miu surrounded herself with a golden aura of ki as half a dozen missiles came into range and destroyed them before cupping her hands and pulling her arms back. “KAME-HAME-HA!”
On the ground, Ranma let out a bestial roar and unleashed a wave of every that created a crater thirty feet in diameter. When the smoke cleared the young man appeared to be on fire, and had become a ten foot giant of bristling muscle. He shrugged off the shell that clipped him in the left ear and looked over to the source of his anger. “RANMA SMASH!”
“MUHAHAHAHAHAHA! You can’t defeat the power of my army with mere weapons!” Niijima laughed.
-And now back to reality-
All three of the assembled martial artists looked up at the thought bubble with dumbfounded and slightly annoyed expressions.
“I can’t fly!” Miu told him. “AND STOP CALLING ME AS A SUPER SAYIAN!” Just because she had golden-blonde hair and could do advanced martial arts now, everyone was referencing her with that old 90’s anime. He ki blasts didn’t even look anything like a Kamehameha!
“So… what? I’m the Incredible Hulk?” Ranma mumbled. That’s not even Japanese. He didn’t even have any techniques that let him do that kind of stuff. Well, the bulking up and several feet of growth anyway.
“You’re joking, right?” Kisara asked the little weirdo.
Niijima shook his head. “Allow me to give you a demonstration,” the wannabe conquer of the world said before pulling out his palm pilot and deftly dropping the stylist under the nearby parked vehicle. “Oh darn it, Miu, could you help me get that?”
Not noticing the obviously fake pleading tone in Niijima’s voice, Miu let go of Ranma’s arm. “Oh, sure.” She reached under the hummer’s step below the passenger front door and picked it up.
“You know, the real scary thing about all this is that she picked up the car, not the pen,” Kisara deadpanned as she looked at the oversized jeep Miu was now holding over her head while the various surrounding civilians either looked on in astonishment, or screamed in terror and ran.
Ranma just sighed and shook his head while the car alarm started going off.
“But, but I was just doing what he was telling me to!” Miu explained in her own defense as she looked around at the fleeing crowd. When Niijima did manage to get his stylist, she set the thing back down and Ranma kicked it to stop the alarm.
Kisara rolled her eyes at the display as Miu seemed to try and close in on herself, as if she was trying to turn invisible or something. “Niijima, I was talking about your stupid delusion. I already know they’re freakishly strong and can do all that weird stuff you see in martial arts anime.”
Hiding behind her husband, the words ‘freakish’ and ‘weird’ echoed in Miu’s head, causing her to groan and focus on her shuffling feet. Just because she could do the higher level martial arts didn’t make her some kind of monster or something! Anyone who could tap into their ki could do the same thing.
She was a really just a normal girl. She had normal dreams like getting married and starting a family, like all normal girls.
Ranma sighed and reached into his pocket to pull out the weapon he carried around for occasions like these. “Okay Niijima, back off,” the young man told his ‘boss’ with a weary voice.
After taking a look at the clear liquid in the bottle, Kisara frowned. “What is that, whisky?” She was surprised Ranma actually carried liquids around with him thanks to the sex change problem he had.
“AHHHHH!” Niijima screamed before running behind Kisara for protection. “Back! Stay back! I’m warning you, Kisara will throw away her life to defend me!”
“No I won’t.”
Miu looked over to the label and cross on the front of the bottle and blinked. Holy water… wish I’d thought of that.
Seemingly unaware of the standoff between the two couples, a pair of men walked out of the nearby restaurant and looked over the sports utility vehicle that Miu had recently manhandled, bringing a confused pause to the four gang members.
“Man, I told you that wasn’t our alarm.”
“Yeah yeah. Well come on, let’s go.”
Ranma blinked as one of the men swung opened the car’s door and the mirror struck the bottle Ranma was holding, sending the liquid back to the chest of the person holding it.
A second later, Ranma sighed and she looked down at her wet shirt that might as well of been transparent. She looked back up to her wife, who was now more than a head taller than Ranma, and sighed as she hung her head.
With motions that said she had done this plenty of times before, Ranma took off her oversized shoes and pulled her socks to they were on better, then rolled up the ends of her pants that were now too long. She undid the top two buttons on her colored shirt, and then tucked the extra into her pants before tightening her belt.
“Come on, let’s just go.”
Miu gave her husband an apologetic look and turned back to Kisara and Niijima to wave her hand. “Goodbye guys. I’m sure we’ll see each other again before we head to China.”
“N-No! You can’t just quit! Kisara, stop them,” Niijima ordered.
“I’m not that stupid.”
In response, Niijima cried as the mental battlefield that had been dominated by his invincible warriors suddenly changed to his forces being defeated and the upcoming emperor being sent to prison as a result of his failed takeover of Japan. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
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(Posted Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:38)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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