The trip to the Tendo Dojo didn’t go exactly how Ranma envisioned it would.
He and Miu got on the Yamamoto Line railway line to head to the other end of the downtown area, then transferred to the Ikebukuro to get into the outer sections of the Nerima suburbs. Once they were out of the hustle of the downtown area and into the suburbs of the far western areas of the district, the Furinjis stopped for brunch.
After that, they went looking for the Tendo Dojo. Ranma quickly found it was easier said than done. Apart from the three years absence to help dull his memories, Ranma had done his best to forget his time spent at the Tendo family’s house, which included knowledge of its general location. Added to the fact that Ranma was a man, and thus unable to ask for directions, what should have been a quick trip to his old stomping grounds was becoming a harrowing search.
With her patience wearing thin, Miu commented on her husband’s search thus far. “You know when you said you might be gone for seven days, I thought it would be because these guys would try to stick you with some martial arts challenge or something, and you‘d need time to prepare. Not that it would take a week just to find the place!”
“Hey! This is harder than you think,” Ranma told her. There had been a lot of construction since he left on top of everything, so nothing looked the same.
Miu sighed. Just how hard could it be to find a dojo in a place like this? In order to speed up the search, Miu leaped onto a nearby fence and used it as to springboard a few dozen meters into the air. Once she was a few stories above all the other buildings, she located the nearest dojo over to her right. Okay there it is, well that’s not very far. As she was turning around another building caught her eye. Wait, there’s anther one.
… and another, the she counted as she noticed a dojo at her 12 o’clock.
When she landed, Miu looked over to her husband with a frown. “What the hell is up with this place? There’s three dojos in just a mile radius!”
Ranma sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, a lot of people around here decided to get into the dojo boom back in the mid 90’s,” Ranma told her with a great deal of annoyance over that little fact. “Course, most of them couldn’t keep enough students to make the payments thanks to all the competition, and then the bottom fell out of the market completely when interest in martial arts disappeared.” There was more to it of course, like how some people tried to rent the places out to wandering martial arts masters to train and give lessons that way, but Ranma knowledge in such a field was limited.
A bewildered Miu stared slack jawed at her husband. Turning martial arts into a business like that? The more she heard about this place, the less she liked it.
Ranma had to admit though, Miu’s way of searching was better than just wandering around and trying to look for recognizable landmarks that would help him get his bearings. He quickly followed Miu’s earlier tactic for finding their way and took a look around.
It only took him a few moments to find the place. The Tendo compound looked much as Ranma vaguely remembered it: house on the left, dojo on the right, a wall surrounding the perimeter. He didn’t see anyone in the yard, but there was someone outside the house that got Ranma’s attention.
Down the compound’s front gate a guy with pointy ears and a blue business suit was messing with a palm pilot.
“W-WHAT THE HELL IS THAT FREAK NIIJIMA DOING HERE?” Ranma shouted.
Soon as he landed down on the ground, Ranma grabbed Miu’s arm and headed in the opposite direction of the Tendo home. “Okay time to go home.”
Miu blinked as Ranma started dragging he back to the train station. “Huh? What‘s going on?”
“Today’s not a good time, let’s go home and come back tomorrow,” Ranma told her.
“Why?”
After Miu broke his grip and snatched her hand away, Ranma looked back to see she couldn’t take a ‘just because’ answer. “Aw come on Miu, there’s been… complications.”
Miu frowned and crossed her arms. “Like?”
“Niijima’s outside the Tendo Dojo,” Ranma whined. He hated having to deal with Niijima, the little twerp always seemed to get the better of him thanks to crazy twists in logic and contractual loopholes.
The woman blinked again, but when she thought about it a bit, Miu was hardly surprised. Although trying to get Ranma to talk about his past was as hard as hell, plenty of people in their little circle knew enough about him to lead Niijima here.
But there was the question of just why was he here in the first place?
She sighed, then reached out to grab Ranma’s ear and up him along. “Come on.”
“Ow, OW! Stop it. Lemme go, lemme go!”
“No way! I just spent all morning and most of the afternoon walking around this place,” Miu told him. “Whatever Niijima wants, we can deal with it and then get this whole thing over with.”
Twenty minutes later, Ranma reluctantly made his way down the street the Tendo dojo was on in front of Miu, who was cutting off his escape. As soon as they got within ten meters, Niijumi raised his hand in greeting.
“Ah, there’s by bestest buddy in the whole world.”
Ranma sighed and hung his head low. “Hello Niijima.”
After looking around for a second, Miu turned her attention back to the man with the long, pointed ears. “Where’s Kisara.”
“I’m afraid she had to go to work.” Mentally, Niijima cursed how much everyone graduating had interfered with his plans. How was he supposed to do anything when half his army was gone half the time? Quickly recovering, he pointed over to Miu. “That’s why I need you to function as my bodyguard for the rest of the day!”
“No Way!”
A wave of panic rushed over Niijima at Miu’s declaration, and he jumped to hide behind Ranma. The other martial artist simply stared at her dumbly for a moment. Now that we’re married, Sakaki’s intimidation tactic sounds even more terrifying coming out of her.
“B-But it’s in the organization bylaws, the commander can’t go around town without protection,” he said before holding up his miniature computer with a copy of those rules on in with a shaking hand.
“I’m on vacation!”
“I can tell you where to find Ukyo Kunoji.”
Both Ranma and Miu blinked, and then turned to look back at the demonic teen. “You what?” they both asked at the same time. With Ranma adding a “How you even know about that?” at the end.
Stepping out from Ranma’s shadow, Niijima adjusted his tie and stood up strait. “But of course I know all about you looking for those two girls, I am the number one intelligence gatherer in all of Japan after all!” After a quick laugh at his own brilliance he looked at the two. “So, is it a deal?”
When Ranma looked over to Miu expectantly, she sighed and nodded. “Fine.” The sooner they got all this done with, the sooner they could leave to fix Ranma‘s real problem.
“Okay then, here it is,” he told them while punching a few buttons on his palm pilot and then showing them the address.
Ranma looked at the screen for a few moments to fix the address in his memory, then nodded.
Miu however, was looking at something else on the tiny screen. “Tokyo restaurant guide?” the young woman growled out. “What the hell kid of intelligence gathering is that? YOU TRICKED ME!”
Wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist to pick Miu up and hold her back, Ranma sighed and headed for the Tendo yard’s entrance with Niijima following behind. “Come on, let’s just go in.”
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(Posted Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:04)
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