Finishing the last dirty dish, Kasumi took off her apron and looked around the kitchen. She’d never been done this soon with her morning chores. Nevertheless, with the little Fae fluttering about, she had more free time now than ever before.
And to be honest, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself.
“…”
“Oh, just thinking,” she replied, looking about, before she spotted a chore yet unfinished, thus something to do and delay thinking about how to handle her new freedom—a scary thought for someone who considers her work to be fun. “Father!” she called out, grabbing a list from the refrigerator and the envelop holding that week’s grocery funds. “I’ll be heading to the store now!”
“Okay, dear,” came the voice from the patio.
Smiling to herself, she turned back towards the path of hallways that would lead her to the front door and thus her new mission of grocery shopping.
That, however, was stopped when she found a wall of fairies before her. “Oh!”
“…”
“Well, I guess I could pick up some fruit,” she replied. She did recall reading something about the yōsei loving citrus…
“…”
“Oh, I know where to get some honey as well. But I have to be careful; we’re on a strict budget, especially with the Saotomes here, so I have to watch what I spend. We may not be able to get much.”
THUMP!
Blinking, she looked at the gold brick that was on the countertop near her. “Oh my; where did you get that much gold?” she asked, eyes wide. “I thought you might leave a few coins about.” Now that, she did remember, but only because when Nabiki had read it, the middle Tendo had spent weeks looking for fairies with a butterfly net.
“…”
“Well, I suppose that would be a good investment strategy,” she pondered.
“…”
“Well, I never knew the Fae dabbled in the stock market,” she honestly replied.
“……”
“Yes, I agree; the housing market is never a stable investment, especially with the way the larger economies seem to foster bubble economies that are caused by poor regulation and greedy investors. But I am surprised that you have diversified from precious metals.”
“…”
“Really? I didn’t know that.” Who knew the Fae had a good stake in Microsoft.
Though given the way Fae were supposed to mess with technology, it could explain the bugs in some computer programs. “Now, where are Ranma-kun’s kitties? We did make those nice leashes for them…”
She wasn’t a martial artists, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in shape.
Nabiki Tendo prided herself on many facets of her life: quick wit, ability to make money, calculating mind, flexibility—thanks to yoga, and her speed. At times, speed was all that determined who won any prize.
And what a prize she had.
The Tendo Dojo didn’t have a dark room to develop film in—not that she would trust people to stay out of it if they did.
Odd thing about her family: half the time, they ignored an in-use sign. The other half, they assumed someone had forgotten to take it down.
But now, her speed was an asset for making money, instead of defeating her classmates on the tennis court—regular tennis, she wasn’t about to damage her body with Martial Arts Tennis, no matter how much the coach begged or offered.
At least not for the amount he was willing to offer…
Anyway, she was racing as fast as she could to the school. Morning papers might have something on the battle on the other side of Nerima, but they did have evening editions. If not them, there were magazines, school presses, news stations; those pictures could be worth a small fortune.
She just had to get them developed. Luckily, she had a few people she could trust, some with access to the school’s darkroom, as well as one otaku who would love nothing more than to have proof magic was real.
Of course, she would have to spell it out to him that if her photos were ruined because he decided to wear candles on his head while doing it… she ignored Hikaru Gosunkugi’s occasionally photos of Akane—mainly because it never cut into her profit from selling her own photos of her little sister to Tatewaki, but she would have to ensure the voodoo otaku didn’t cost her now.
Smiling, she saw her underlings already at the gate, waiting for her, as she had instructed when she called them last night. Oddly, even Hikaru was there—minus his head wrapping, thankfully, and set about commanding them.
“Hikaru, Anika, I want these rolls developed, be extra careful with them, and no extra copies for yourselves,” she stated, knowing both had a thing for magic, and both would probably love copies of the proof for themselves.
Let them buy it at the stand, like everyone else.
“Kiyono; I need you to look up this company, see if they got bought out or are still around,” Nabiki stated, handing the name that was on the barrels to her associate. The police would probably never release that name, not unless public outcry demanded it. People in the news would pay good yen for a story like that, having no trouble embarrassing old money.
“Teruko, start getting a list together of groups interested in what happened on the other side of the ward last night.”
“Is that what these are?” asked Anika.
Nabiki nodded.
“So I’m guessing it wasn’t a localized earthquake and a ruptured gas line?”
“I’ll tell you after we see those pictures developed. I want this done before lunch, so we can hopefully make some calls.
“Now go!” she stated with finality, sending her workers off to do their jobs.
Taking a deep breath, she made her way towards the entrance, past the assembling Hentai Horde. The next few hours, she had to be careful. What little she had been able to find in the books at home, suggested oni—who she thought would be considered fae—and other Japanese mythical beings didn’t react well to a few things. If Ranma had been telling the truth about the dryad, the last thing Nabiki wanted was to piss them off, lest they get revenge.
And a lifetime stuck eating Twinkies didn’t set well with her if this dryad could somehow keep her from eating any grown food. Until she learned how it might get revenge, best not to upset it. She also needed to get in contact with a girl who graduated last year, Naoko. If Ranma had been doing things like this before, certain circles had to know about him.
“And I want to know all about him,” she whispered with a smirk. After all, she might one day be married to this Golden Goose.
Akane occasionally stared at the boy beside her as they made their way towards school. Well, he wasn’t really beside her, as he was walking on top of the fence. “We’re not getting married, you know,” she stated, wanting to at least break the silence that had surrounded them since leaving the Dojo.
Ranma just shrugged. “I’m pretty sure it is illegal for us to do that at our age, anyway,” he waved off, nose buried in a book.
She narrowed her eyes, more confused than angry at his statement. “Oh?”
“Legal age I can get married is eighteen, sixteen for you, unless our fathers planned to register us as a lesbian couple, and I’m not too sure that’s legal at the moment,” Ranma stated.
Akane’s eyes went wide at that. “W-what? Are you saying I’m gay?”
“Don’t know you well enough to judge,” Ranma stated absently. “Besides, I’m pretty sure my Old Man might try it if he thought he could get away with it. Anyway, I have no plans to get married at the moment or the foreseeable future.”
“So we’re not good enough for you?”
He arched his eyebrow at that, pausing to look at her. “It has nothing to do with you, Akane. I simply have no desire for such a thing at the moment.”
“…Oh,” she murmured.
They continued to walk in silence for several more minutes before she spoke again. “Can you teach me?”
“Teach you what?” he asked.
“That stuff you did against that dryad.”
“The fighting was Anything Goes, and I can help you with that. The protections to keep any toxins on her outer shell from killing me, that’s something else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, dryads are fragile, but the toxic waste made her more durable, but drove her insane and made touching her a possible poor idea. A lot of things out there are toxic to the touch. It’s why a few legends had people attacking demons and such from long distances.”
“And she was like that?”
He just shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know, but better safe than sorry. With magic, there is usually some odd trade-offs, especially with instant power.” It was true. Usually, a few of the villains he had faced off against on his quests would always use something that granted them immense power. The end result tended to be that yes, they were stronger, but also less mentally stable, making mistakes they never had before in the battle.
Then again, it could be just the idiots he ended up fighting.
“So, can you teach me magic then?” she asked, visions of blasting a certain upperclassman with magic attacks she saw on TV dancing in her head. Though why she imagined herself in a sailor fuku while yelling about striking him down for Love and Justice, even she couldn’t say. I have got to stop watching magic-girl anime. Its rotting my brain.
“Depends on how quickly you can pool mana.”
“Huh?”
Sighing at the loss of avoiding such topics—it was annoying how many people thought magic could be done as easily as in some fantasy books—he hopped down off the fence and stood before her. “The simplest spell I’ve run across is a Drow spell for creating illumination, barely taps into your internal mana pool and allows you to still be useful in battle.
“However, if you aren’t trained right, you could start drawing it in from the outside, the natural or external mana, which could do several things to you, but basically damage the body.”
“So, I need to learn to pool mana first?”
“Right, and that takes a while. It’s not like you start trying one day and the next, you’re calling lightning to strike people,” he continued. “It’s like life force pooling; your body needs time to adjust to handling it. Like a balloon, pool too much, and you pop.”
She turned green at that image. “You sure?”
He nodded, taking his oddly designed book and opened it, and showing her several pages. “Seems to be the one thing most magical groups agree on,” he muttered, as Akane felt herself become sicker.
If she knew that Ranma was showing her the images and files that were heavily censored, she probably would have. The Drow even used it sometimes as a means of torture/execution.
“Although, since you practice martial arts, you should be able to build your pool quickly,” he offered to lift her spirits.
“Really?” she asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “Of course, since you’ve already trained in pooling your life force to empower your moves.” He ignored her look of confusion, continuing on. “However, there are some things you need to know first,” he muttered, looking into her eyes. “Once you start this, stopping may not be an option. Hell, I’ve had things pop out at me, just because I know magic.
“It ain’t anything like what you see in shows or read about, but it is unlike anything you can imagine. So, I’ll give you some time,” he replied with a smile, closing his book loudly, and slipping it into his shirt. He could already tell that he wasn’t going to get any research done for the foreseeable future.
“What? You don’t think I can handle it?”
“One thing I learned from those that taught me,” Ranma said in a harsh voice, “is don’t teach those who can’t handle it. That way, I ain’t responsible if they get killed, and I don’t have to kill them if they go evil.”
Her eyes went wide at that. “Y-You killed someone!”
“Nope,” he said with a smile, breaking the tension. “Never taught anyone.” Well, as far as he knew, anyway. He’d never had a student, so it was technically true. Nor had he waited around during some of his excursions to see if those who had been trying to kill him had survived his booby traps.
She glared at him, preparing to strike him with her book bag.
“But it seems pretty standard for most Master/Apprentice relationships,” he replied, turning around and hopping back onto the fence. “So, we going to school or what?”
“I’ll show you,” she growled. “I’ll master it quicker than you did!”
“Tell me in three days,” Ranma replied. “I’m not taking an answer before then.”
In many parts of the world—at least those with the resources for such, the means to deliver, and the public desire to sustain it—you can find out a few things by looking in the public directories, usually the phone books. Inside these beasts—the size depending on the population of the area you are searching and that is divided by the phone company(s)—you can find at least two things about a person or place: the address and the phone number.
Sadly, that applies only to a perfect world, not the real one. In the real one, the phone book may have the wrong address, the spelling of the name, and even the phone number itself could be wrong. True, a phone company would spend lots of money to try to ensure such didn’t happen.
However, in reality, it was known to happen, even to those who paid good money to have sizable advertisements in it.
“You’d think that if some newb offers to train my daughter and niece, they’d at least give a street address or at least ensure it was listed right in the damned phone book…” muttered one such customer who discovered a few things.
One: the Tendo Dojo was not listed correctly in the phone book. It had been listed as the ‘Tendy Dojo’.
Two: the number listed was to a small figurine shop that was currently going out of business. They too just discovered that they had been listed wrongly in the phonebook, likely the reason for bad sales and for what they thought were sexually harassing phone calls.
Needless to say, someone was going to get sued.
And third: the address listed for the probable Tendo Dojo existed… if it floated over a canal and had an entrance on a bridge.
In this area, it was not entirely the phone company’s fault. They had sent a letter to Soun Tendo to ensure the information was correct. While addressed incorrectly, a few of the local mail carriers did know his correct address and had dropped it off for him. But since it was addressed to ‘Tendo, Mr. and Mrs.’, he immediately broke out into tears, ruined the notice, and proceeded to forget all about it.
For Aya Kazunari, ninety-sixth generation devil hunter, mother of Akiko Kazunari and aunt to Junko Kazunari—her father had married into the clan, it was already a bad day. Last night, she had been awakened to hear her daughter pounding on the front door. Opening it, she discovered her daughter and niece were in rough shape, their modesty preserved by the oversized coat of the taxi driver who had brought them home—a man she had saved from losing his soul a few years earlier and would run them occasionally as needed.
So of course, as she dressed their wounds, Akiko explained in loud detail with large hand gestures just what had occurred.
After several minutes and while the girl was panting heavily, she then asked Junko for what really happened.
So, after sending the two girls to school, she took the train over to the other side of Nerima, and began going about, asking the local shop keepers if they knew where the Tendo Dojo.
Finally… “Well, that young lady right there can tell you.”
Sighing in relief at her first solid lead, she turned, spotting… a teenage woman with long brown hair, dressed in a plain dress, surrounded by several spirits and being escorted by two cats… wearing sakura-themed robes, and being tied with leashes.
“…”
“Oh, hello,” Kasumi replied. “Don’t mind them, they’re just looking about.”
Aya just rubbed her forehead. “I’m too old for this—”
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(Posted Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:38)
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