Ekusu-Hito: Talking to Akane [Episode 9524]

"Now, Tendo-san, I have heard interesting things about Nerima, and Saotome-san assured me that you were the best person to answer questions about the people in it..."

The voices cut off as Ranma closed the door, for a brief second Akane wondered at the level of sound-proofing that would need, then moved onto more important considerations.  Ranma looked at her, appearing somewhat embarrassed, without a word Akane moved forward and hugged him for a moment, whispering:

"I'm glad you're back."

Ranma returned the hug and smiled, things looked like they wouldn't be as bad as he had feared.  Akane backed off and stared at him:

"Now", she stated, "explain why you left without a word and caused m... everyone to worry themselves sick."

Ranma noted the flickering beginnings of Akanes aura of anger, and began to talk:

"Well... I didn't exactly leave... I went to sleep in my room at the dojo, and woke up in a cell in some super-villans prison", Ranma's faced hardened, "I have no idea how I was grabbed or what was done too keep me waking up during the kidnapping.  When I had time to think... that scared me, scared me a lot."

Akane locked gazes with Ranma and subjected him to an angry stare, stony-faced Ranma matched her stare with one of his own.  After a few seconds of this, Akane shook her head:

"I believe you", she whispered, "and if they could do that to you..."

Ranma nodded:

"Anyway, I woke up in a cell wearing some kind of... restraints... that made me too weak to do anything.  However the restraints didn't block the curse and I was able to use it to get out of them.  Once I could use my strength again, I broke out, freed the other prisoners and ended up in an... unfavourable... fight with the guards that came to deal with the breakout.  Then the X-Men showed up and rescued us all and carried us off to the USA in the process."

Akane blinked:

"The X-Men rescued you?  They took you back to America? Why?  What was going on?"

Ranma shrugged:

"Honestly, I don't know.  The X-Men said they were trying to track down an enemy of theirs and had found the base I was at because their enemy had made a deal with... some people... in the government, and rumours of the deal had leaked to a friend of theirs.  That was also why they took us back to the USA, they didn't know who to trust in Japan.  The X-Men thought - because all the other prisoners were girls with powers and I had the curse - that their enemy, Mr Sinister is what they call him, was planning on...", Ranma paused and went a little pale, his voice dropping to a faint whisper, "...breeding experiments."

Akane blanched and stared at Ranma.  Ranma swallowed and nodded, before continuing:

"The X-Men treated us all OK, but because they didn't know who to trust in Japan, they wanted to keep us safe in the USA and give us... I guess you'd call it 'hero training'... while they tried to track down Mr Sinisters contacts in Japan.  When they pointed out how little we could do to protect ourselves, and our family's, from another kidnapping, we all agreed to stay."

Ranma swallowed and turned his face to study the roof:

"They also convinced us that if we got back into contact with out families straight away, we'd only put you all in danger.  So after talking it over... we all went off to be trained while the X-Men went after Mr Sinister.  Worked for about a week."

Akane regarded Ranma thoughtfully as he lowered his gaze to look at her again:

"I can see why things went as they did, but then why are you here?  And how did Sunfire get involved?"

Ranma grimaced:

"The place the X-Men were training us at was attacked by a different enemy of theirs, and in the fighting the school was pretty throughly destroyed.  The same enemy also attacked the main base of the X-Men, and they decided that they couldn't keep us safe in the middle of that fight - since they hadn't beaten the bad-guys and were expecting more attacks.  The X-Men called Sunfire and asked him to take care of us as he was the only guy in Japan they were willing to trust, and they couldn't think of anything else to do with us.  From what the X-Men said when they sent us off, I think they were expecting Sunfire to quietly work us into the sort of 'hero training' they had tried to give us before the attack that destroyed their school."

Akane looked at Ranma, feeling a little puzzled:

"That doesn't sound like what Sunfire-san was saying in the other room."

Ranma sighed:

"As it turned out, Sunfire was trying to organise a group of super-heroes to be for Japan what the Avengers are for the USA.  The official greatest heroes in the land.  When the X-Men dropped us in Sunfire's lap, instead of putting us in training, he put us in his new team... sort of."

Akane opened her mouth, then shut it, then managed to squeak out:

"He can do that?  ...and what do you mean 'sort of' in the team?"

Looking a little grim, Ranma nodded at Akane:

"Yes he can.  He has to in fact.  He'd been working on his new team and if he tried to look after us the way the X-Men wanted, all the work he'd done on it would be wasted.  The team would never be formed.  But by adding us into the team... that actually helped things a lot.  One of the problems Sunfire was having was not having enough people with powers, and he couldn't bring in any gaijin for this."

Akane just looked at Ranma:

"But..."

Ranma spread his arms:

"As part of the team, we'll be too important and watched to kidnap easily, and our identities aren't going to be public knowledge.  Anyway, you don't need to worry about me too much.  The way Sunfire has arranged things, there's actually 2 teams - his team, team Katana, which is supposed to deal with all the threats to Japan, the world, the universe and so on... the big league team.  The other team...", Ranma paused and reddened slightly, "...my team in fact, since so far it's only me and the others from the X-Men, is team Yari, we're supposed to look after Tokyo, be a sort of special swat team for the police and generally cover for team Katana if it's too busy saving the world to do other stuff that needs doing."

Akane blinked and blinked again:

"That's... a lot to digest... so... what happens next?"

Ranma smiled