"Seal the area! Don't let anybody enter. We're gonna take this bitch down!" The radio burst out staccato commands. Then a wet sound came through, as if something fluid-filled had popped. The men on call grimaced. Professional security, they had well-defined procedure that they were trained rigorously on. So with only a sick grimace, they began taking action: Secure the perimeter. Make sure the authorities weren't alerted. Try to get the young master and mistress out of danger. Hopefully it wasn't just another dispute between the two of them. If it was, maybe they'd get another bonus to "forget" about it.
And if not, they could bring in the big guns. Anything the formidable corps already at the night's party hadn't already subdued was fair game for termination, legalities be damned. It was just another day in the life of a Kuno family security guard.
Genma padded through the town, the soft pads of his hefty frame in
counterpoint to the beat of the streets around him. Beside him Soun
trotted along, softly wheezing as he tried to keep up with the
deceptively slow appearing panda. Genma grunted softly at Soun, but
slowed his pace.
At that, Soun eased up, looking a bit less ridiculous only walking
instead of trotting. The traditional Samurai clothing he wore went
well with the traditional Samurai spear firmly grasped in his left
hand, but his face was painted a bright white with a fuzzy red ball
firmly entrenched atop his nose.
The people heading homewards from central Tokyo glanced curiously over
the warrior clown and his performing panda (as the placards strapped
to Genma's sides proudly proclaimed), but showed no signs of worry at
the visible weapons. Instead, they admired the realistic-looking
props, no few of them feeling a tinge of jealousy at the flair the
edges gave the two. They might look ridiculous, but they looked
ridiculous with style.
The crowds steadily diminished and the surroundings grew more
lavish. Genma heard distant chimes indicating the hour mark, and felt
rather proud of himself. He and Soun had made good time getting here,
and now with just a little bit of luck, they could meet up with Akane
and the other girls, and avoid any trouble. They were prepared for
trouble, of course; that's why Soun had brought his weapons. He had
two daughters in there, and he was taking no chances; whatever it was
that they thought they had found, he would be prepared.
And it looked like some caution was going to have been a great
idea. As they came to the street which Akane had mentioned, Genma drew
to a halt. He raised one mammoth paw to check Soun's progress. Some
distance ahead of them, they could see the largest estate they'd come
across yet. An ornate wrought-iron fence wound around a heavily treed
yard; before the fence, black vans were parked. Even more ominously, a
large number of black-suited men were getting out of the vans,
animatedly talking into headsets, taking meaningful looks into the
estate.
Soun was visibly deterred. "Genma...," he began, uncertain. But while
Soun may have felt uneasy at getting into such a situation, his
partner had no such problems. Instead, Genma drew himself erect. He
whuffed an indignant, self-congratulatory snort at Soun's timidity and
his own foresight. The meaning was clear: Genma was saying to trust
him. Hadn't Genma always gotten them through the rough times? Wasn't
Genma responsible for planning their glorious future?
Genma's fur began to blur, darkening into a slightly wavering,
slightly larger-than-life image of himself. Soun felt his worry
suddenly being pushed aside -- instead, he felt a great sense of trust
welling up from deep within himself. Filled with a new found sense of
purpose, he began walking towards the guards. When the leader of the
men noticed the armor-clad figure and panda coming toward him, his
hands went immediately to the holster of his stun gun But he was soon
captivated by Soun's arguments, unable to distrust a man who could
speak so persuasively, or at least had such a trustworthy animal.
"Well, we're clowns, you see, and we were sent for to help calm down
the children. It's important that the younger folk be calm, with the
gas explosions and all. So let us just get on our way, and we'll be
out of your hair"
"Gas explosions? " The man was suspicious. "That's not what I
heard. We wouldn't have been called if it was something that simple"
"Well, maybe it was something else. Some drunken guests or
something. But whatever it was, we -- " Soun waved his hand vaguely
towards the panda " -- got called to calm everybody down." Soun
frowned unhappily. "I was just getting to spend time with my kid, and
my boss has to call us in to save his butt. Think we're gonna get a
bonus? Nooo... nobody cares about the clowns"
The whining obviously annoyed the man. "Go in, then. Talk to your boss
-- he gets paid to care. Just if something goes down, get out of the
way." The man's eyes hinted maybe he wouldn't care so much if a
well-meaning but annoying clown didn't get out of the way.
Soun and Genma went on their way, clowns entering the gates of hell.
-
Nabiki could only stare at what the hurled wrestler had revealed, the
hole in the wall exposing a harsh reality behind the facade of
sophisticated civilization. Or that's how it seemed -- she had been
losing herself in the party's flow, and now this. The ninja Sasuke,
one arm in a sling, was clearly startled at being exposed, and jumped
to his feet. The bowl of soup he had been feeding the bridal figure
clattered to the floor, liquid slopping over the side.
The figure in white didn't stir. She might have been dead; except that
the lacy white wedding dress showed signs of breathing.
Nabiki's entire grasp on reality was weakening; first her sister had
crashed her coming-out party (for somehow Nabiki had transferred an
almost romantic notions to the very practical business introduction of
earlier), and now this. She took one step further on the landing and
saw the red hair spilling from behind the headpiece and onto the
pillow.
Lacking any sort of conscious will to direct it, the fine gears of
Nabiki's minds slipped by habit into usual routines. How this would
impact the odds of martial battle that daily beset Nerima. Where the
astute gambling consortium would position themselves to profit
thereby. The profit wedged in the gears, halting their progress even
as pressure built up in the machinery.
Nabiki stepped to the side reflexively, as a soldier's head appeared
in the floor where she had been standing. Apparently someone beneath
had decide the soldier should look into opportunities as a
stalactite. Briefly, Nabiki's mind slipped into considering whom she
knew the someone was; but she allowed the numbness to reclaim her,
and the image was gone.
But where her thoughts could ignore anybody whom the tides of battle
had shifted from view, her sight was forced to pay attention to that
within its domain. She saw a dark-clad girl in a boy's uniform forcing
her way, one labored step at a time, to the foot of the stairs. The
girl's name flashed briefly in Nabiki's mind... and then vanished. The
girl's leg had been injured somewhere. But she had made it to the
railing. Nabiki idly thought it'd be a good thing if she stopped
trying ; she was almost certainly hurting herself.
A figure dashed past Nabiki towards the stairs. "Stay away from
Mistress Kuno, you ... cook!" When that name flickered across Nabiki's
ears, she instinctively flicked her eyes upwards. A ribbon leashed
down from the rafters above. But the girl was prepared, slicing it
with her baker's peel. A small remnant of ribbon fluttered to the floor.
Before any further action could be taken, the person who had gone
underneath the stairs re-emerged into the center of the room. She was
surrounded by a blinding light that masked her identity
completely. The light pulsated to the frequency of a low guttural
noise.
Was that noise coming from the person's throat? It hardly seemed
possible; it barely sounded human. It was getting louder though; the
blinding aura was washing over Nabiki. Nabiki had to close her eyes
to it, but it was obvious the others in the room were being affected
as well. The screams that she heard seemed too much for simple
physical pain; the emotional waves were disconcerting.
But she opened her eyes when she sensed motion behind her, where
Sasuke had been feeding Ranma soup. She felt freer as she looked away
from the swirling centrum of dark emotions, but then she saw the small
ninja messing with the wheels at the foot of the gurney where Ranma
lay so still. In her frozen silence, Nabiki stood silent -- except her
mouth was moving? "Hey! Stop that"
Sasuke looked away from the sumo wrestler, startled. The alto tones
close by seemed much more relevant than the high-pitched screams of
agony from the floor beneath. And somewhat more worrisome, in the long
term; Nabiki wasn't one of the martial artists in Nerima, and Sasuke
was well aware that many ordinary people would not understand how
passion could have led to this situation. He hurriedly yanked one last
time at the wheel lock -- it's stuck! -- and began moving the
bed. 'She must be saved -- for the sake of the family'
Nabiki wasn't getting out his way, sadly. Sasuke had time for a quick
toss of his ninja smoke pellets, but they bounced too far. Nabiki's
eyes teared, but she could still see the shape of the bed as Sasuke
tried to roll it by. "No you don't, you little twerp..." Nabiki
blindly threw herself at the shapes. She hit the bed, but her
outstretched right index finger managed to plunge into something. A
mouth?
Before she could take advantage of the position, she felt teeth
savagely tearing into her finger. Sasuke apparently felt his task was
more important than discourse. Nabiki howled and shoved the bed
against the ninja. It was one of the few weapons she could see clearly
enough. Given its heavy cast-iron frame, it seemed surprisingly light,
even given Nabiki's adrenaline fueled strength: she had to
look twice to make sure that Ranma's body was still there. Its lightweight
metal frame provided little resistance as she smashed it into Sasuke's
body, hurling him across the room.
The awkward ninja turned it into a somersault of sorts, to end up
sprawled against the wall. Through labored breath, he wheezed, "Master
Kuno is interested in hiring you to make this all go away." He was
lying, of course, but he was sure that if by some miracle the
mercenary Tendo could rescue this unpleasant scene, his master would
pay half his inheritance. Hearing the noise from outside, Sasuke
swallowed. Make that half his inheritance, and all of his sister's.
But the way Nabiki looked at him, her answer was clear.
Nabiki didn't bother responding further. Blinking her eyes
furiously, she made her way over to the bed, looking for the buckles
she had seen holding Ranma in. "Come on, let's get you out of here"
So caught up was she in this job that she didn't notice the ninja's
revival, or his surreptitious motion, barely slowed by the arm sling.
-
As Genma and Soun strolled into the banquet room, their careful pose
of nonchalance was hard-pressed. Things were not well, not well at
all. And had Genma not shoved hard against his friend when a piece of
wood came flying through the air, it wouldn't have gone well for the
pair either.
"Saotome, old friend, this is it, the end..." Soun's calm was
shattered, his emotions again engaged full-throttle at the sight of a
thick oak table leg flying past throat-high and shattering against a
iron grating that discreetly lined the decorative french windows. But
even as the tears began falling, he was looking, looking to see the
root cause for the violence in the room. The pulsating aura made it
difficult enough even to see that it was human, rather than a shadowy
glowing figure. But the way it held itself pricked at Soun familiarly.
"Akane? Is that " -- he blinked away the tears -- " is that you? What
are you doing?" He moved towards her, trying to collect his
thoughts. "Calm down, these men aren't fighting anymore." And they
weren't; the few men still able were taking advantage of Soun's
distraction to leave, presumably to summon the reinforcements waiting
outside the estate. "Daddy's here. Come on over here, and I'll take
care of everything." It was clear that Akane hadn't waited, and was
now fighting with pure emotion. Her stance was not the skilled martial
stance of a traditional martial artist; it had evolved into the
emotion-based chi-projecting stance of a master of the Musabetsu
Kakutou School of martial arts. And so Soun was very careful
approaching her.
The men may not have been fighting anymore, but a gymnast's ribbon
snaked down from above. It grabbed one of the men, and hoisted him
into the air, sending him arcing across the room to crash into
somebody who had just landed on the second floor railing, at the edge
of the room. "Is that that Ukyo girl?" Soun asked Genma, but received
no answer. The two collided figures fell onto the floor.
Instead, the furry panda held up a well-worn sign, "Don't look at me,
I'm just a cute panda." But then a big toothy smile flashed and the
sign twisted around. "I'll go check it out. Take care of your
daughter." In a flash, the confident ursine twisted away in a flashy
show of agility. The Akane figure growled at him, but with one quick
jump he was on top of her head, and another jump later he was on the
stairs. The aura alone proved no match for his skill.
His daughter's anger-fueled aura briefly dimmed, as if she was
distracted by something more than just her chin slamming into the
ground. But before Soun could reach her, or even yell at his old
friend, a rubber ball was tossed from above, knocking Akane's rising
head back to the floor, bouncing from there to knock Soun down on his
haunches, and then rolling to the center of the room, where it
stopped.
Then it blew up.
The explosion hurled everybody in the room backwards, away from the
blast. Genma's furry body was helped upwards, to impact with the
ceiling. Smoke detectors were spurred into action, and soon a gentle
rain from ceiling-mounted sprinklers was floating down.
Nabiki felt the rattle and leaned towards the secret entrance of the
room, trying to see what was going on out there. Fortuitously, this
meant Sasuke misjudged the distance between them, and rather than
snaking his hand around her throat, his lunge ended with his hand
plunging into her exposed cleavage.
"Sasuke, I didn't know you cared." Nabiki was surprised to find her
voice saying this. "That'll be 1000 yen." That was surprisingly
automatic... she hadn't even thought about the price. Although, now
that she had a second, that seemed about the market price for
embarrassing situations.... And then the less rational part of her
brain finally awoke to the situation, and her extremely rational
part concluded what Sasuke had been trying to do, and she panicked.
She raked her foot down Sasuke's leg and stomped on his inner heel. As
he opened his mouth to whine, she whirled and shoved him hard against
the wall, making him stumble over the unconscious sumo
wrestler. Holding the small man there with one hand, she yanked off
his sling with the other. Without full control of his arm, it flopped
down, and his face noticeably whitened. Grabbing that arm with both
hands, Nabiki squeezed it hard, feeling the bones grind together, out
of position. She felt rather than heard the snap of a fracture turning
into a compound break. This made her job easier, as the ninja was
frantic not to resist her any further; she tied his arms behind him
with his own sling.
Knowing she needed to get out of here, to think if nothing else,
before anything else could go wrong, and definitely taking Ranma
with her, she bent to unlocking the gurney's wheels. 'Maybe I can just
wheel him out of here during the after-dinner speeches. Yeah, that's
the ticket, I'm sure the ominous silence as I step here into the open
is because a speech is about to begin...' As she began pushing it out
the door, she still took time to kick Sasuke's arm savagely.
But even with her heightened alertness, she wasn't prepared for the
razor hoop slicing through the handle she was pushing the bed
with. Nor the club that hit her head, or the club after that,
or.... She slumped, barely aware of what was going on, barely aware
that her weight pressing on the bed had started it moving, towards the
stairs, no longer propping her up... wait, the stairs?
Nabiki was dazed and out of it, but Soun, having just reached his
youngest daughter, could see everything that was happening by her.
His middle daughter slumped over, pushing the gurney away from her,
towards the stairs; it came to the edge of one step, whoofed down,
again, again, bouncing its passenger out to fall down the rest of the
stairs. And then the bed landed on top of her. In the confusion,
perhaps nobody but a skilled martial artist would have noticed the
protruding curve of Ranma's belly as she went down the stairs, until
she landed squarely on it... but of course the room was filled with
high-powered martial artists.
Ranma lay sprawled on the floor, a small figure beneath a large
bed. Her legs were crumpled beneath her, a small amount of blood
visible beneath her, only some of which had come from her nose
slamming into the ground. A small lavender-haired girl -- Shampoo,
Soun noted -- appeared to rouse herself from unconsciousness to
stretch over and grasp ranma's hand.
It was good that Soun had come to stand by Akane, as she fainted, a
small sigh of air the only notice. Soun managed to catch her, even as
the massive front doors were swung open, and black-suited assult
troops began pouring in. Framed in the center was a young Tatewaki
Kuno, holding a katana in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other,
looking aghast. "For touching my bride, you shall all die"
And he might have made good on that threat, had not behind him
appeared the firemen summoned by the fire alarm, and their
increasingly alarmed police escort, who promptly summoned the
ambulances on seeing the disaster area.
The ambulances were rather full, taking the combatants, Ranma, a
gi-clad Genma found in a warm puddle of water, and also Soun -- for
Soun, dear Soun, had himself fainted at Kuno's words. His blissful
unconsciousness would undoubtedly prove the happiest memory of that day
for a long while to come.
- - - - - - - - -
Thanks to Kitsune, Rakhal, and Figment for pre-reading this fic. I'm
thankful to them, and to everybody who has written a review or sent me
feedback on previous chapters. I'm still very interested in how people
receive this fic; and although I do have an overall outline with my
eventual goals that I intend to follow (if only slowly), I'd love to
hear what people would like to see in the fic.