“Kuno?” Yuka said as Akane whipped his mask off. “I thought it was you.”
Hiroshi frowned. Kuno had certainly been an obvious suspect, but there were things that didn't quite fit that neat picture.
Kuno laughed. “Naturally. No disguise can long conceal my glory.”
“How did you do it?” Akane asked. “Found another magic shop?”
“I am a nascent god,” Kuno said. “My will reigns supreme.”
Sayuri smiled. “Doesn't look much like it.”
“When my apotheosis is complete Akane shall sit at my right hand as High Queen of the heavens. To her are permitted liberties denied to all lesser mortals.”
“How many times do I have to tell you. I am not interested,” Akane said, banging his head against the floor, then looked up. “He's not normally this bad, and where did he get that kind of power?”
“We can't tell you,” Daisuke said, approaching Kuno, “but I think I can convince him he's no god.”
“Not by hitting him,” Hiroshi said quickly, “not because we can't but because we are above such things.”
Besides, Kuno was a martial artist. Akane could keep him under control, just, but not if other people got involved.
Daisuke glanced uncertainly at Hiroshi, but Kuno smiled.
“I knew it,” he said. “You are humbled by my might.”
“Hardly,” Hiroshi said. “Execute teleport, Daisuke and Yuka, the Kuno mansion.”
As the two vanished in a flash of light, Hiroshi smiled. “We know the source of your power. Now we know your true identity, it is easy enough to use a preset command to teleport there and destroy it.”
“Fools,” Kuno shouted, breaking free of Akane. “Did you not think I would stand prepared?”
“To do what?” Hiroshi asked. “We are all protected against you, there's no one else in the school, so you can't take hostages, and we're counter-attacking your home.”
“As if I would keep the source of my divinity within reach of my sister and father,” Kuno said scornfully. “You are not so clever as you think. You didn't even check the classroom doors.”
“What about them?” Sayuri asked.
Ignoring her, Kuno tapped his index fingers together and faded away, his laughter echoing round the gym.
“He's gone?” Akane said. “He doesn't normally run away.”
“Exactly,” Hiroshi said. “Execute check five.”
Glitter rained down from the ceiling, sticking to him, the two girls, and two invisible forms.
“Who are they?” Akane asked, her stance shifting.
“Looks like he's really gone,” Sayuri said. “You might have well show yourselves.”
Daisuke and Yuka reappeared.
“Sending these two to Kuno's mansion would have been stupid,” Hiroshi explained, smiling. “We don't know what traps he might have set up there, but it made for brilliant misdirection. Let him think we'd split up and weakened ourselves, when in fact the preset had just turned these two invisible, so they could ambush him, and all thanks to my extensive pre-planning of scenarios.”
Unfortunately, he hadn't allowed for Akane being present, which had severely limited their options, but they'd still forced Kuno to flee, and exposed his identity.
“Kuno got away,” Sayuri said flatly, “and what about the classroom doors?”
“Um, well, I'll just check on that.”
Five minutes later, Hiroshi frowned.
“Well,” Yuka said. “What's the bad news.”
“There's an additional-”
Hiroshi paused, glancing sideways at Akane. He'd need to choose his words carefully, so she wouldn't guess there was a computer involved.
“-spell on each classroom door, which on the surface looks like it just assigns each room one of the standard templates, a different one in each case, but if-”
“Just tell us what it really does,” Sayuri said. “You mustn't show off, remember.”
“OK,” Hiroshi said, mentally shaking himself. Showing off his Master-PC enhanced intellect was only natural, but he'd been warned it would lead to pride devouring him. He needed to keep things simple instead, so that ordinary people could understand it.
“There are going to be more girls at this school than there used to be.”
“But you said-” Daisuke protested.
“It's a free will thing,” Hiroshi explained. “Any boys who genuinely wanted to try being a girl for a bit got their wish, and so did any girl who really wanted to be beautiful, but the full personality modification didn't take effect. I don't think Kuno planned it this way though. It looks like he was planning something a lot sicker, but his spell and ours interacted oddly.”
“Will they remember who they really are?” Sayuri asked. “Will anyone, besides us?”
“Only in dreams,” Hiroshi said. “I can set something up so they snap back to normal the moment they think anything that could be construed as regret, but it may take a few weeks before everyone is cured.”
Daisuke smiled. “I can live with that.”
“Pervert,” Akane snapped. “Why would any boy want to be a girl?”
“No idea,” Hiroshi said quickly.
“Really?” Sayuri said, glancing at Daisuke. “You've never wished you understand how the other half thinks.”
“As long as everyone does get cured,” Yuka said. “I suppose that isn't too bad, and at least we know who we're dealing with now.”
“Actually,” Hiroshi said, “I'm not sure we do. What's the first thing you'd expect Kuno to do, if he gained godlike powers?”
“Go after Akane and Ranma, of course,” Yuka said, then hesitated. “But he didn't.”
Hiroshi nodded. “I think someone else has him on a loose leash. They give him instructions, but they make him think they're his own ideas, and they've probably told him to drop his more irritating habits too.”
“Like quoting old poetry?” Daisuke said. “But isn't that a give away?"
"Which tells us something about their priorities."
Sayuri frowned. "Why not just do it themselves?”
“Security,” Hiroshi said. “It makes them harder to track down.”
Akane smiled. “So what do we do now?”
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(Posted Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:18)
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