That day at the Tendo house proved to be quiet. Nothing killed Nabiki’s and Akane’s interest in Ranma like finding out he’d gone shopping for boxers. That had to be the most boring thing Ranma had ever done.
A knock on the door heralded something interesting happening.
Sayoko Bizen was a talented business woman with a bit of bad luck, or maybe it was a curse. She was a really sexy woman that tended to come off as a gold digger, but she was actually really competent when she was working. Her last good job was one she’d quit simply because her new fat slob of a boss had transferred her to his department simply because he wanted to have sex with her. After having her revenge by ruining his career she’d walked out of the building wearing little more than an overcoat she’d bummed off a guy to cover the fact she’d walked out wearing just her thong, stockings and high heels. She didn’t have much in the way of sexual inhibitions, but she was a woman of some standards, even if she did enjoy sex a little too much.
Currently she was working a job that grated on her nerves. Taking calls from lonely guys and basically offering them a fake service that amounted to a really expensive shoulder massage from a sexy girl. While she didn’t have a problem with taking advantage of guys, this was sleazy even for her. If she kept this up, she’d probably end up having pity sex with some loser sometime soon.
That changed when she answered a call. “Sayoko Bizen? I have a job offer for you.”
The first thing she wondered was how the hell this person had managed to call her directly. Well, they had, so there was the matter of getting down to business. “What sort of job offer?”
She couldn’t tell if the voice on the other end was a man or woman. “A young man is about to acquire a lot of money and needs someone to manage it for him. The salary is good, you can work your own hours and your boss would be a decent guy that respects women.”
It was an offer that sounded too good to be true. “Are you serious?”
The voice sounded bemused. “What you do with this opportunity is up to you. You’ll need to acquire the documents, get a proper outfit and introduce yourself by this afternoon. You can find what you’ll need waiting for you at First Hamatsu Bank. If you don’t show up, we’ll find someone else for the job.”
Phone call over, Sayoko had to consider the situation. While she didn’t like her current scam job, she needed it to maintain her apartment. She wasn’t far away from being out on the street, and finding a one night stand that would let her stay was a risky proposition. On the other hand, this job offer sounded really good and she was fed up with her current situation.
Before her lunch break was over, Sayoko was at the bank, examining the documents. They were legit, but there was no surprise that with the way she was dressed like a club slut that the staff were giving her dirty looks. Not that she really cared, but it might reflect badly on her new job if she made a scene.
Satisfied that the job was real, Sayoko treated herself to a bit of shopping that made her feel a lot better, especially since she was now wearing a brand new skirt suit she’d paid for with her new expense account. Then it was going to a nice place to have lunch and read over the particulars of her new job.
The assets were peculiar. They seemed above the board, but they came from a random variety of sources. It was like this kid had inherited a bunch of unclaimed properties and received the rest in anonymous donations from corporations and rich people.
Combined with the mystery of who hired her, she had no idea where all of this money really came from. She could track the individual assets, but there was no common thread connecting them to reveal who had pulled the strings.
Then there was the info on her new boss, apparently some sort of teenage martial artist. Not someone she’d expect to know what to do with money, although she had to wonder what made her the candidate for the job.
Well, according to her information packet, she didn’t need to meet him until this afternoon, so she had some time to prepare.
Sayoko made it to the Tendo residence at around three in the afternoon, finding a peculiar sign by the entrance.
[ Tendo Dojo To defeat owner is savage combat, please use the rear door. ]
Sayoko raised an eyebrow and rang the small bell at the front gate. After a moment a young housewife came out the front door to greet her. "Yes? May I help you?"
The sharply-dressed business-woman pulled out one of her freshly printed new business cards and presented it. "Sayoko Bizen, I'm here to see a Ranma Saotome about hiring his services as a martial artist."
Kasumi stared a little longer than was polite, surprised by the strange looking business woman and the idea that someone had business with Ranma. Well it wasn't that strange, he was a busy young man sometimes. This was just an odd visitor for him to get, it was more in line with what her father received. "Oh, I see. Come in, Ranma-kun just came home a little while ago."
Sayoko realized she hadn't been in a traditional Japanese home in quite some time. It was a bit homey and the inhabits inside sort of matched the feel of the place. Following the young housewife inside, she found two older men in opposing black and white dogi outfits, a woman in a kimono, a couple of normal teenage girls and her target young man wearing a silk Chinese tang shirt and pants set reading a book on the veranda.
Kasumi introduced her. "Ranma-kun, she says she's here to ask about hiring your services."
The room suddenly become more active as the inhabitants became interested in the new arrival.
Akane was immediately suspicious that a beautiful woman was there to see Ranma, even if she did seem a bit old for him, she was way too sexy for her comfort. "What does she want with you, you pervert!"
Nabiki found herself surprisingly irritated by a twinge of jealousy. This woman was exotic, well-dressed and oozed sex appeal.
The fathers were more upset that she wasn't making the deal through them and thus offering them money, Genma especially. "What sort of money for what services?"
Sayoko ignored them all, smoothing her skirt neatly as she knelt by Ranma. Ranma in turn paused from reading his book, marking it with his finger.
The business woman offered him her card with one hand with a small bow, acting less formal than most business introductions. "My card Saotome-san."
Ranma took the card, glanced at it and promptly used it as a bookmark, closing his book and giving her something more approaching his full attention. "So what's this about?"
Sayoko smiled, intending on making this quick. "I have been told you are the person for this job. It is to be kept confidential, the person hiring you wishes to maintain privacy. I have a car waiting outside and we can discuss the particulars over dinner, then you can decide if you wish to accept the offer."
Ranma raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Dinner will be on you?"
The sultry platinum blonde woman merely smiled in response. "I'll be writing it off as a business expense, so of course. Any expenses related to the job will be covered."
Soun nodded sagely, seeing an opportunity. "Then he can take his fiancee, Akane, to dinner with him."
Sayoko leveled a cold glare at the tall man in the dark dogi. "What part of confidential did you misunderstand? If there is to be any information revealed, that will be decided between Saotome-san and my employer."
Akane did not trust this overtly sexy woman and was now annoyed she was only going to talk to Ranma of all people. "Just what sort of devious things are you trying to keep secret?"
Genma had a different concern. "How much are you offering to pay?"
Sayoko frowned at the both of them. "There is nothing shady, and the details will be discussed with my employer when they meet. I am merely to make the introduction and arrangements. This will easily be clear to Saotome-san, I just have to keep it confidential to protect the identity of my employer is all."
Ranma sighed, tired of all this drama. "Okay, let's go get this over with."
The two left the house without any further significant protests, although Ranma paused at the car. With his life he didn't have much experience riding in vehicles, he would even hitch rides on trains by clinging to them. Still, it was only enough to make him uncomfortable with riding in a car. When Sayoko opened the door, he only paused to see what or who else might be in the car first.
With no surprises there, Ranma got into the backseat, followed by Sayoko.
As the driver of the rented car left, Sayoko decided to let the figurative cat out of the bag. "So, here's the deal. I got a job offer today to be a financial manager to some guy that just got a metric buttload of money. I don't know who pulled the strings, but it turns out it's all legit. So that brings us to why you're here."
Ranma decided to take a wild guess. "I'm the guy that just became rich and that was an excuse to get me outta the house and keep it a secret?"
Sayoko stared at the young man as that had been a surprisingly good guess, suspiciously spot on. "Yeah, no idea why it needs to be a secret, but you nailed it dead on. You're my new boss kiddo."
Ranma looked the exotic woman over. Darkly tanned skin, bleached platinum blond hair in a style like Nabiki's except spiked backwards and the the left. A sultry but cold look on her face, dressed overtly sexy and she'd just switched to a more relaxed style of speech as soon as they were alone. Still, she'd behaved well in front of the family. "I take it you're better with money than you look if you got recommended for the job like that?"
The well dressed slut grinned. "Yeah, it's something I can handle. I kinda have problems in a business environment because of how I look and my attitude, but I am good at what I do. Usually there's some creep trying to force himself on me that ruins it all. You’re kinda good-looking, plus you seem sharper than the usual turnip, so maybe I wouldn't mind if you put the moves on me."
Ranma had to wonder what kind of luck he had with women. "Bizen-san, just to warn you, but I have a lot of violent martial artist girlfriends that wanna marry me and are kinda possessive and violent."
Sayoko had to stare since she'd never been warned off by a guy because he had a violent girlfriend. Well, Tosa sort of counted, but it hadn't quite been that way. "Gotcha. Anyways, you know how you got all this money? I tried figuring it out but it was kinda random."
Ranma considered the woman, trying to peg her personality. Kind of what he expected Nabiki would be like after college if she was really the slutty greedy girl the guys at school liked to exaggerate her to be, except Sayoko seemed like she didn't quite like her life and wanted to give it an honest try. At least that was the feeling he was getting from trying to read her. "Mhmm. You'll keep it confidential and work honestly for me to manage my money?"
The slutty businesswoman was impressed by the simple honest nature of the bargain. "Yeah, I won't do you bad. If I can't handle it, I'll find someone that can."
Ranma smiled a bit, with her personality they'd probably get along surprisingly well. "Earlier today I found a genie and she said she'd grant me a wish. I couldn't think of anything, so I just went with, 'I wish I was a rich man.' Then poof, she vanished and nothing happened. Didn't think it'd take time to happen because there were arrangements that had to be made. Kinda expected some clue or something at least to pop up after she granted it."
Sayoko stared at the young man, not expecting to be told a story like that with a straight face. Still, the sudden job offer and the multitude of sources for his assets were mysterious enough that a genie wish sort of explained it. "No shitt'n me?"
Ranma had a chuckle at her surprise, finding some amusement in it himself. "At the time I was mainly worried because she was a busty blonde bimbo in a skimpy outfit, and I didn't want any of the nutjobs in my life seeing me with her. If I'd thought it through I woulda wished for a cure for my curse."
"Curse?"
Ranma glanced at her, not surprised by her reaction. "Yeah, you should probably know about it, so I'll show you later."
It was sounding like a subject she didn't want to touch, so Sayoko changed the subject. "So, is there any particular need to keep your money a secret?"
Ranma considered the issue, which didn't take long as he'd been pondering the possibility today. The genie and wish had been a bit thought provoking for him. "Well, first of all, it'd be liked throwing bloody fish chunks into a shark tank. If say I pretended to have a job and gave them what I was making, they'd be thrilled. If I gave them the same money and they knew I was rich, they'd complain and demand more."
Sayoko could sort of see what he was getting at. People did tend to go crazy around money, something she'd experienced in the business world with people skimming the company’s bank accounts. "I can see that."
The young man shook his head at the miserable memories. "Nah, it's worse than you're thinking. For a while I was engaged to Nabiki, she's a pretty greedy girl, the kind that goes on dates with guys to get their money, sells pictures of girls to the guys at school, that sort of thing to get money and spend it like crazy. I was engaged to her for a bit and she was selling dates with me to other girls and other things, making whatever cheap dime she could offa me. That girl just doesn't know the value of money, she undercharged way too much for my time, she could have made so much more money it disgusts me. Such a waste. I could have snagged four times as much with a simple part-time job in that time and it'd have been easier."
Sayoko was sort of impressed by his rant. While it had started with explaining how much the people he knew would take advantage of him given the chance, it had devolved into a rant about the girl's bad business sense. Sayoko definitely knew a lot of girls like that, greedy girls that spent their money too easily, always having to look for some way to make some more money, even sleeping with guys for money. Heck, sometimes she was that girl, although her self respect generally woke up and made her straighten up a bit. She was kind of curious to find out if this guy was any good with money. "Are you any good with money?"
Ranma thought about it a bit. Since she was his money manager, it was probably a good idea to be honest. "Not with big money. I just don't spend a lot of money, so the occasional part time job is all I need to have the money I need. Grew up a poor traveling martial artist and all that."
Sayoko smirked at the idea. "Well, you won't have to worry about money anymore, just people wanting your money."
Ranma realized he'd forgotten to ask. "How much do I have?"
Sayoko did some mental tabulations. "I haven't gotten into the details yet, so I'd estimate if I liquidated everything I could get you at least a hundred million US dollars in cash. If I managed everything well and got it all working smoothly, in a year you'd probably be worth as much as two billion US dollars. The more useful number, is that by a conservative estimate, if I got you a tenth of a percent a year as your spending money, that would be about twenty thousand dollars a week."
Ranma knew enough about money to know that she was talking about giving him part of the money his new wealth earned as spending money, and twenty thousand a week was a lot. He could live pretty well on just two hundred dollars a week, that would be enough to eat out every night and still have spending money. Hell, he didn't even know what to spend that much money on, about all he ever bought was food, clothing and books.
Twenty thousand dollars a week? He could rent nice apartments in Tokyo and Hawaii, fly to Hawaii every weekend, live it up like a prince and still have money left over. Heck, with the rest he could make Nabiki his personal harem slave-girl and she'd probably love it. Actually, he'd probably still have money left over even after spoiling someone like Nabiki.
It was an order of magnitude beyond the money he'd expected. It wasn't an amount the petty thieves he knew could really steal or squander. It was an amount that would outright alienate them. It was the kind of money to make even the Kunos feel awkward around him.
Sayoko was beginning to warm up to this guy. He was sort of like a gentleman delinquent, nice but informal, so it was comfortable to hang around with him. Unfortunately she came with some unpleasant baggage, but just maybe we wouldn’t hold it against her. “You really don’t mind having me work for you? If this is serious, then I’ll need to clean up my life. I’ve had some bad luck, so I’ve got some debt following me I’d need to take care of so I don’t cause you any problems.”
Ranma wasn’t troubled, wanting to hear specifics before he made any judgements. “What kinda trouble?”
The exotic slut gave it a bit of thought, deciding that Takako Tosa made for a good example. She was one of the people that would find her if she stayed still too long, which would happen with this job unless she was very careful. “A few years ago I was VP of a company, but my bad luck kinda made it go south. First there were a bunch of drunk guys at a party that started feeling me up ‘til I punched them, that sort of ruined some of our business.”
”It didn’t sink until a certain incident that crushed the owner, Takako Tosa. It turns out Tosa’s sleeze of a boyfriend was sending her off with fake leads just so he could hang around the office to try and get into my panties. She came back at a bad moment and thought we were doing it, so we ran for our lives ‘cause Tosa is a third dan black belt with a temper problem. It all fell apart for her after that. She’s one of the people hunting me down that’ll find me if I get a steady job like this, although she might want some blood as well as money.”
Ranma considered her story, finding the honesty a positive thing despite the troubling story. “Mhmm, well if you can tone down the sexy to a tasteful level, then I’ll handle all the punching. It’s a martial artist’s duty to make sleazebags eat dirt.”
That wasn’t the reaction Sayoko had been expecting. It wasn’t the sort of bragging meatheads did to impress girls either, but a more matter-of-fact statement that implicitly said he wouldn’t hold her sexiness against her if she was just tasteful about it, which was more than reasonable. Her opinion of the young man improving another notch, Sayoko decided to lay her plan bare. “Tosa has a good head for business and is a hard worker. I was thinking of actually hiring her after settling our issues to help pay her back. Her credit is probably shit now, so proving herself to someone like you is about the only way she’ll ever run a company again.”
Ranma was pleased she was willing to make amends to put things to right, plus it sounded like this Tosa woman would be a good find if her failure was undeserved. “Okay, sounds like a plan.”
Sayoko was actually shocked that he approved of it it so quickly, partially because it was still a half-baked thought to her. Since on second thought it did sound like a good idea, that was another point in Ranma’s favor for being able to make a good quick decision. Was she really going to get serious and clean up her life? “Uh, well I have yakuza after me too. Ugh, that’s not something I want to deal with, those creeps are nothing but trouble.”
The young man beside her was still untroubled. “Since your excuse was in hiring me for a job, do you know what our family does as martial artists?”
Sayoko blinked, having never really given it any consideration. “Bodyguard?”
Ranma grunted at her guess. “Not really, there are others better suited to that.” Taking a moment, Ranma organized his thoughts since it was a fairly complex issue few people understood. “First, it’s sort of a pillar of the community. They hold meetings at the dojo and we sorta keep the trash out of the neighborhood so it’s nice and peaceful. Second is when priests are gonna deal with something dangerous like someone possessed by a violent spirit, they’ll get us to handle the fighting.”
Ranma paused for emphasis. ”Third is anti-yakuza. Say you’ve got some debts, I go in with you and make sure nothing unpleasant happens and make sure everything is fair. You’d still pay them back as long as they didn’t cheat you, but I make sure nothing bad happens. If they step out of line, I’m the kind of person that puts them back into their place.”
Sayoko stared at the young man as he looked like he probably couldn’t even take Tosa in a fight. Part of her was wanting to call bullshit on this, the genie and the curse. Her willingness to believe in him a bit surprised her however, as a martial artist family being anti-yakuza somehow made a bit of sense. What the hell did they do if not what he’d just said? “Not to be rude, but yakuza are dangerous, ya know? Genies and curses are one thing, but you’re making it sound like yakuza are high school delinquents to you.”
Ranma chuckled at way she said it. “All yakuza thugs are basically delinquents that weren’t fit for a normal life. There’s a guy at school that can cut a tree in half with a bokken and I consider him an annoyance at most.” Considering it, Ranma thought of a little way to show off in the car. “Give me two more of those business cards.”
Holding up two business cards between her fingers, Ranma took one from her. “There, now just hold that one like that.”
Ranma made a swipe with his card, and half of Sayoko’s card fluttered down into her lap without her feeling the least bit of resistance from the cut. “I don’t go around picking fights with them, but in a straight-up confrontation I’ve got nothing to worry about. I’d be more worried about them pestering me afterwards.”
Heart beating a little, Sayoko put the card he’d used away and the one that had been cut in her pocket for later. Turns out her new boss was being dead serious instead of just some clueless kid with delusions. “You’d do that for me?”
Ranma smiled, it was nice to be appreciated for once. “Sure, it’s been a boring day. If you’re on my side, I’ll look out for ya, just don’t cause me too much trouble. You can just owe me a favor for it.”
Sayoko couldn’t believe it, but she was believing the young man could do it now, despite what her cynicism and common sense said to the contrary. Still, it would suck tremendously if she got him hurt or killed. “Is this common for martial arts families?”
Ranma shook his head. “The house you visited was the Tendo family, I’m supposed to marry into them and take over their dojo. They’re a former minor samurai family with just enough assets they don’t have to work a regular job to get by. My family is all former yakuza and shinobi that went straight a few generations ago. The fathers get along real well, so old man Tendo brings the honor and my old man brings the skill.”
Sayoko stared at him for a moment. “...and what about you?”
Ranma grinned, ready to brag only a little bit since his ego didn’t need stroking at the moment. “According to an ancient Chinese martial arts master, a ridiculously strong prodigy that she’d marry if she was a few centuries younger.”
The older woman simply raised an eyebrow at the idea of a woman centuries old. At least he wasn’t boring.
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(Posted Mon, 09 Sep 2013 17:35)
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