The Jura Mountains in the Swiss Alps (local time: 1:04 AM) …
"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. "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, trying not to show his crankiness at being woken up from a sound sleep because of the late information update concerning what had just happened in Canada.
Another executive stood. He had served longer on the advisory board to Ryū Sogen, so he was much more familiar with the older man's moods. "Sir, I'm pleased to report 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. His family have no objections; 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 third executive sighed. "That is proving to be difficult, sir."
Ryū'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. 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…"
"Sir?"
Ryū looked over to the executive who made the initial report concerning Giăng. "What is it?" he asked.
"I recognised that family name, sir," the executive stated. "Isn't that the family that formed the ninjutsu group that created Imperial Special Agent 49?"
Stunned silence fell over the conference room. "I thought that was a legend!" the junior executive that just reported on Tariko gasped.
"It's real."
Eyes locked on Ryū. "The whole incredible story of Imperial Special Agent 49 and the man who created her, Hosan Hirosuke, is all real, gentlemen. We know of those immortals who fight in this so-called 'Game' with swords to win this mysterious 'prize' that the last one of them surviving would obtain at the end of the Gathering. We also know Master Hosan was of a different type of immortal; he could only die when he wished to die, which he did when he disagreed with Japan's expansionist policies throughout the whole of east Asia and the Pacific before World War Two." That the Alliance had prodded that into happening was something they all knew, though they did not speak about. "And try as we might, we've never been able to locate whoever was it that bore that creature's soul within his subconscious mind…"
"Sir!"
Everyone turned as another executive came in. "What is it?" Ryū asked.
"A report from our agents within Kaiete, sir. Kaiete Seizō just had a private meeting with a woman from the Japanese Imperial Palace named Moroboshi Negako."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
And then…
"What shall we do, sir?" the senior executive asked.
Ryū sighed. He knew he should have dealt with that old Imperial army policeman a long time ago. "We need to act on our own concerning Kujū Mai."
A bow of the head. "Sir, we have the agent in place to assist."
"Proceed."
Meanwhile, at Tōkyō Station (local time: 9:10 AM)…
"I'm so glad that we're able to take a few days off to be on our own, Mai."
Tokiha Mai smiled as she gazed fondly on Minagi Mikoto. "Hai, we are that, Mikoto," she said as she squeezed her lover's hand, and then she glanced over to the couple beside them. "Though technically, we won't be totally alone."
Mikoto gazed on Tokiha Takumi, who was holding the hand of Okuzaki Akira, who was dressed quite beautifully in stylish slacks and a T-shirt with the Avalon double-phoenix on it, a jean vest over it. Both of them smiled at Takumi's sister and her bond-mate. All four of the travellers from Fūka were carrying wheeled luggage behind them. "Don't worry, Nē-chan. When Mikoto-chan gets the urge…"
"Which she gets a lot!" the raven-haired ninja added.
"…we'll be pleased to be out of the way," Takumi finished.
"And, of course, you'll be making love to each other, too," Mai said as she gave her brother a knowing look. "Takumi, I understand what you're going through, but PLEASE! I don't want to be an aunt before I graduate from high school, okay?!"
The others all laughed. "As I've reminded you several times, Mai-san, when Anata and I express our love, I use shiatsu to ensure my ovaries don't ovulate," Akira then said. "Considering the situation we're all in right now, I don't cherish the idea of bringing a child born of our love into this world when my fiancé's life is in mortal peril."
That quickly sobered the others up. All the HiMEs — at least those who were also Avalonians — knew what price they could be forced to pay if the Childs bonded to them were somehow killed. "Don't talk about that now, Akira-chan," Takumi said as he gave her hand a squeeze. "We have to keep thinking positive, okay?"
"Hai…eh?!"
Everyone stopped as the ninja began to glance around; they were now close to the Nihombashi ticket gate, which would allow them to get to Platform 22 for the next Nagano Shin-kansen run to Uedo (the stop before Nagano itself), where the HiMEs and Takumi would get off so they could go to the nearby Bessho Onsen for a half-week of rest and relaxation as they soaked up the mineral waters of the spring. "What?" Mai asked before she then tensed. "Oh, gods…" she breathed out.
Mikoto and Takumi were looking around as well. "One of us…but really powerful," Mai's bond-mate mused as she fought down the urge to summon her sword; much that she was always ready for a fight, she did agree to the whole matter of keeping the true nature of her powers secret from the general public. "A HiME…?"
"No, all of us are accounted for now. Including Alyssa-chan," Akira stated, and then she looked right. "There! The blonde girl about to go through the ticket gate."
Everyone looked…to see a blonde teenager about Mikoto's age about to head through the ticket gate. She had stopped and was now looking their way with brown eyes that was quite expressive yet also possessed a steely edge to them. On seeing that, Akira tensed as she fought down the urge to draw out her double-edged kunai-shaped elements. "Marksman's eyes…" she whispered before nodding to the other girl.
"What do you mean?" Mai asked.
"She's a soldier, Nē-chan. And she's killed many times before."
Mai and Mikoto both gaped at Takumi…
Sometime later, having left Ueno Station for Ōmiya…
"So you're seeking your bond-mate at Togakushi, who's a psychokinetic like you yet not yet of our blood," Akira recapped as Mai served soft drinks to everyone.
"Hai," Anna stated as she gazed on the ninja and her companions. She had heard rumours about the HiMEs of Fūka over the various chat lines connected to the HyperNet (the Avalonians' closed hyperspace-based version of the Internet), but had never seen pictures of this mystical warriors before as nothing really serious had happened involving them anywhere off Fūka Island in the Inland Sea off Honshū. "I hope to change that soon, but I still have to seek the permission of her father — who just now learned of us — before I could make Mai a sister." She then smiled. "Fortunately, she has two good friends who are sisters; she was introduced to us about a year ago, just before I was able to reach out through the 'Scape to touch her mind. She knows about us and what we're after. She's still in middle school, so she's certainly some time away before contemplating a career in the Self-Defence Forces."
"If she does at all," Takumi noted as he popped open his diet cider and drank from it.
"Ja, true," Anna said with a nod, affirming that in her own language.
"So what do you do outside your school?" Mai asked.
Instead of answering, Anna made international signs with her right hand, spelling out the letter-number combination FSLB 20. Seeing that, the other people now relaxing in the two booths across from each other in the second of the eight-car Asama train. "Must be pretty exciting," Takumi said; he was holding Akira's hand and the ninja had been psionically transmitting the translation of Anna's hand signs to her fiancé. "So you'll be going to Togakushi-jinja, right?" Mai asked. "Do you have a place to stay there? We'll be getting off at Uedo so we could relax at the Bessho Onsen."
Anna mused. "Well, I am here for seven days, so I think I could drag Mai down to Bessho so we could take in the mineral waters there," she stated.
Mikoto blinked. "'Mai?!'" She then growled as she grasped her lover's arm as she glared death at the visiting German. "MINE!"
Laughter escaped the others as Mai tried not to blush…
A couple of cars down from where the HiMEs, Takumi and Anna were, two black-dressed businessmen were relaxing, reading newspapers as they quietly spoke to each other. "Did we have any report of Turm Garten coming here to Japan?" one whispered.
"No. Ever since we got her test results, we've been trying to track her down. She's barely at home in Germany," the other answered. "Any attempts at contacting her adopted mother or her lover hasn't turned up anything."
"What of those girls and that boy she's with now?"
"Just a second…"
He glanced down at the palmtop computer in his lap as it scrolled through known student records obtained from Kaiete Senzô's organisation. After a minute, one file then came up. "Tokiha Mai," he whispered. "Native of Kitakyūshū. Currently a first year high school student at…" He then stopped as his jaw dropped. "Oh, hell…"
"What?!"
"The Fūka Academy."
Silence.
"Oh, shit…!" the other man breathed out as he moved to fold his paper up. "I'm going to call this in. This is not a good thing."
The other man nodded as his companion stood up to head to the washroom while we…
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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