There was, however, another exception to this heuristic. Plans made outside Nerima were often more successful than those made within. This had to do with the fact that the average citizen of Nerima was blessed with the same planning abilities of Soun Tendo, rather than his middle daughter, while Nabiki herself would only register 'average' elsewhere. As such, Nerima was significantly behind the curve.
Usa was not born in Nerima; the entire district had been turned to a park by the time of her birth and no one actually lived there anymore. Moreover, she had been educated by Ami, Michiru, and Setsuna. She had had the opportunity to study Sun Tsu, Machiavelli, and other great tacticians over the years. And she had inherited her father's mental abilities, not her mothers.
In other words, Usa's planning abilities would have made her a goddess in Nerima.
--------------
It hadn't taken much to figure out where Ranma Saotome was going to die. Records found in what had once been China had been very clear that Ranma was both a superior martial artist, and all but a living incarnation of Chaos. Even if his records on his death hadn't been that clear, doing a 'school' report on his life had let her borrow the Time Gate long enough to track the exact time and circumstances of his death.
In a way, it was that report itself that caused her to select him. He'd died a needless death and his body had never been recovered. More than anything else, that had convinced her he was the perfect candidate to help her plans along.
It didn't have a thing to do with the fact that Ranma was absolute hunk and she had no serious suitors. Really.
Setting up her rescue mission had been fairly easy. After all, it wasn't as if she had to set up shop in Nerima; merely provide a portal for Ranma to fall through, and push out an equal mass of raw meat the other direction. Getting the meat and bone needed to fake a human body had been the hardest part of it; she had reasonably free access to the Time Gate since Setsuna's schedule was as regular as clockwork these days. Usa could just wait for one of Setsuna's trips to court before trying to grab Ranma.
The hardest part of the entire process had been trying to figure out what to tell Ranma once she got him here. Even as naïve and kind-hearted as he was, he would be highly suspicious of simply being abducted and brought somewhere against his will. And having examined his life, she was under absolutely no illusions about any attempts to seduce him, which really was okay with her since she wasn't sure she could seduce someone in the first place. It wasn't like she'd ever done that before.
No, she ultimately decided that the best tactic was to tell the truth, show him what happened to his so-called "friends and family" at the Time Gate, and hope he'd agree to help.
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Ranma didn't know what had happened to Ryoga, but this fight was starting to get out of hand. Somehow, Ryoga had managed to get a hold of the Kinjakan and Gekkaja from Jusendo and, after finding his way back to Nerima, attacked him with the two staffs.
Ranma was loosing and he knew it. Those two staffs were artifacts of tremendous power, and touching either of them should have killed Ryoga. But, somehow, Ryoga had found away around that problem, and was using them to kick Ranma butt.
The worst part of this was that, while Ryoga had never been able to master the Soul of Ice needed for the Hiryuu Shouten Ha, he did know how it worked. And the combination of both staffs was more than enough to let Ryoga pull it off.
Ranma had already had to evade and eventually device a counter to his own god-slayer move that he had used on Saffron. But there was no way he could keep up with the pressure Ryoga was putting on him. He'd been fighting for hours now, and his counters weren't a hundred percent effective.
"Hiryuu Shouten Ha!" Ryoga screamed out delivering yet another attack.
Ranma braced himself for the blow, throwing up his counter. Even with that, he felt himself get picked up off the ground and slammed through another wall.
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Usa activated her plan, plucking Ranma from his time and throwing the fake 'body' she'd created into the vat of corrosives that would have been Ranma's last resting place.
She looked down to the disoriented and wounded man now lying on the floor, and
See other episodes by Brian Drozd
(Posted Tue, 06 May 2003 02:07)
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