Somewhere in the Swiss Alps…
"I am most displeased about this."
The executive bowed his head. "I am truly sorry this happened, sir. We didn't expect ANYTHING like this whatsoever. We just detected David recently, so we were moving per your instructions to open contacts with him, but…"
A hand came up to silence him. "That's enough. Do we have contacts in other countries where we can acquire our own PKs so we can find some way to get the poor boy out of the grasp of the Canadian military?" the one-eyed leader of the Wisdom Alliance stated.
Another executive stood up. "Sir, I am pleased to report that we were able to make contact with Hoàng Mảnh Giăng in Vietnam," he stated. "He was more than pleased to accept our offers — through our subsidiary there — of training him in his powers. His family have no objections to that end; they care for him and wish him only the best, even if his powers have frightened them on occasion." A smile crossed his face. "Mister Giăng is a very smart young man. He knows his gift is a precious commodity, so he is aware that others might be after him. We were quite fortunate in this matter."
A nod. "Excellent. And of capturing Kujū Mai?"
A sigh. "That is proving to be difficult, sir."
The leader's lone eye narrowed. "All efforts are to be made to obtain her."
A deep bow. "Of course, sir."
"Sir?"
The leader perked as a junior executive walked into the room. "Yes?"
"We have an update on the situation in Canada, sir."
"And?"
"It appears the alien warlord's daughter is now married by her people's laws to a local girl, sir," the man reported. "A Japanese-born Canadian named Moroboshi Tariko. She also attends the Montessori school in Welland where the wife of Saotome Ranma currently attends. It just got out on CBC Newsworld and it's being picked up by everyone else."
A hum. "Indeed…"
Welland, in the house on Colbeck Drive…
"So you like it?"
"Darling, I LOVE it!" Lum gasped as she took a look around the beautiful home her wife shared with her two dearest friends (now joined, of course, by the husband of one of those friends). "How in the Maidens' Names could you afford to live in a place like this?"
Tariko laughed. "My grandmother — my dad's mom — was quite wealthy and she left behind a nice little trust fund for Onii-chan to use when he became of age." The smile then slipped from her face. "Baka Kā-san did everything in her power to get a hold of that money, but the people watching over the trust wouldn't bend an iota when it came to her wishes. When I became Matriarch, I was able to override Obā-san's will and have the money vested in me; Onii-chan was going back to live full-time on Okusei with Kyech, so he really had no need of it. And since we're supported a lot by all the technology our sisters got as reparations from the Niphentaxians…"
Lum giggled on hearing that. "Reparations" wouldn't be the right word she'd use when it came to what the Avalonians had taken from their former masters after the destruction of Phentax Twelve and the subduing of the Niphentaxian Navy by the forces of Noukiios. Put simply, it was outright theft, but many people in the Galactic Federation — especially those who had once had to deal with Ōgi in his capacity as leader of Phentax Two AND the "church" he had created in Lum's name — didn't bat an eye about it whenever someone from that planet loudly complained about what had been ripped away from them by their former slaves. "So we'll be able to live comfortably, right?"
"Quite comfortably," Tariko assured her as she took her wife's hand and walked her upstairs to the bedrooms. "Taxes are paid to the city, the province and nationally, but that's about it when it comes to expenditures. We grow our own vegetables and fruit and sisters do run farms to supply us with meat and other things. Sometimes we'll splurge and go to the market when it's open on Saturdays to get something special. But I had Reigi-kun — he's one of Komeru-ojichan's wards — properly invest the trust fund, so we're raking in about fifty percent more than we lose in expenses."
The Oni nodded. Like many of her people, she had quite a healthy interest when it came to all things Terran. This had stemmed all the way back from after the Liberation from the Seifukusu, when the newly-formed Urusian Empire discovered that the third planet of the star Sol had never been touched by the blue-skinned humanoids and their slave hordes of warriors (unlike the case of the eighth planet, Neptune, as Oyuki and any native of that world would loudly and gladly attest to). Because of that, even the poorest Urusian would feel pretty comfortable visiting cities such as New York, London, Paris or Tōkyō. While Lum did see her home now as Onishuto (her family owned a country home to the west of the city, near the borders of the Terrible Swamps), she could eventually come to call a city where rails and water met her home in the future.
She then blinked on seeing a romantic sight: Ranma and Shinobu asleep in their bed. Tariko was quick to notice, and then she quietly closed the door before beckoning the Oni with her to the next room, which was her own. "Tcha…" Lum breathed out in her native language as she looked in on the warmly decorated space, and then she drifted over to one wall, where many pictures had been hung, mostly of Tariko in military uniform alongside many other Avalonians and normal Terrans (they were all either men or more normal-looking or older women). She then noted what some people in the Urusian military derisively called the "love me" part of the wall: The framed certificates of Tariko's accomplishments in her four years as an officer in the Canadian Forces. Commissioning scroll, graduation scrolls from her basic officer's course at Saint-Jean, primary flight training at Portage la Prairie in Manitoba, basic land survival training at Winnipeg, basic sea survival training in Comox on Vancouver Island, basic flight at Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, space survival training in Montréal and advanced space flight training in Shearwater near Halifax. Lum then grinned as she looked over to where Tariko's blue dress uniform hung from a hook mounted on the wall. Save for the Canadian Forces Air Command badge under her name tag on the right breast, the squadron badge over the nametag, the two gold stripes at her wrist cuffs marking her rank and her pilot's wings, there was nothing on the uniform that would mark Moroboshi Tariko as unique.
Hands wrapped around her as a pair of lips began to nibble her ear, making Lum gasp. "What's wrong?" the Terran gently wondered as she allowed her wife to lean against her.
"I can feel the amount of excitement you experience when you fly," Lum noted. "To me, it's so ordinary. Then again, we've been doing it for centuries. You people…"
Her wife purred. "What excites me right now, sweetheart, is getting you into this bed, getting out of these clothes and making love to you for a hour."
The Oni then gasped as Tariko's tongue began to lick her horn bud. "Darling…"
Near the Togakushi Shrine, northwest of Nagano, Japan…
"Another child blessed like Mai-ojōsama?"
"Hai," Kujō Shūichi stated with a firm nod of his head. "There was a strange sports competition between an alien — a real, honest-to-goodness Oni of all things — and the heir of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū in a city in Canada several hours ago. Some maniac American terrorists tried to kill the poor alien girl…and they were aided by someone who had the same type of horrible powers as Mai does…"
"HORRIBLE?!" Madarao Chiezō, the elder cleric in charge of Togakushi-jinja, gasped on hearing that flat statement from the business executive. "RIDICULOUS! STOP SAYING SUCH HIDEOUS THINGS! Mai-ojōsama's magnificent powers were a gift from the Gods Themselves! To spit on Their Gift to Maki-ojōsama's daughter — this most sacred trust — is sacrilege! DON'T EVER SPEAK OF SUCH TERRIBLE THINGS AGAIN!"
Shūichi winced at the old priest's tirade, and then he turned to gaze on the sleeping Mai, who was lying peacefully on a tatami mat nearby. "Still…"
"You said there are people pursuing Mai-ojōsama, correct?!"
"Hai."
"Who are these monsters?"
"Ultimately, they call themselves the 'Wisdom Alliance,'" Shūichi began, and then he explained what he knew about that particular organization. "Right now, the dirty work's being done by Kaiete Information Research, which — as the intelligence forces of Marubishi have learned — is the front company for the Alliance here in Japan."
The old priest tensed. "Kaiete…?!" He then scowled. "Kaiete Senzō…!"
The executive blinked. "Who is he?"
"A former Imperial Army military police officer," Madarao reported. "He'd been involved in some quite ethically questionable…" — that was the polite way of saying the man had been involved in what most others would call "war crimes" — "…actions during the war. He survived the Americans' dragnet after the war and then established his own private intelligence gathering group."
"I heard from a friend at work that particular group has information on almost all underground activities happening in Japan," Shūichi mused, remembering his brief encounter with the old swordsman in Ueno Park before he and Mai had fled to the mountains to avoid his helpers. "A very dangerous man…"
A hum. "Not as dangerous as you might think, son."
"What do you mean?"
The old priest smiled. "There are more dangerous things…"
In the woods near the lower shrine…
"I can sense her. She's asleep now."
"Good," Happōsai mused as he puffed his pipe, his eyes narrow as he gazed out onto the country road that passed by the front entrance of Togakushi-jinja. "You kids think you can get close to Mai-chan without having much in the way of problems?"
Both Kudō Rie and Ikegami Yumiko nodded. "There are a dozen or so clerics here," the former, a rather stocky woman the same age as Mai, mused as she adjusted her glasses. "I know they don't like visitors unless we're invited in, but those creeps that were chasing after Mai-chan and her dad in Ueno…"
"Clearly don't care for any sort of pleasantries," the latter, a tall and thin girl, growled as she cracked her knuckles. She then smiled as she glanced back towards the deep shadows of the trees around them. "Still, we have our own way of dealing with any surprises this perverted old man might have!" She then blushed as she remembered who was present. "Um, I'm sorry, Ojii-san…" she said as she gazed on Happōsai.
The grandmaster of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū chuckled. "Don't worry about it, Yumiko-chan," he said as he winked playfully at her, and then he tensed. "Ah…"
They braced themselves as two cars full of men in dark suits arrived as we…
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(Posted Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:52)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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