Ranma ½ Divine Blood

[Thrythlind]

Naiki watched as Eija started walking off to go to her class, joining Kaname where she was walking with Kyoko. Soldier boy wasn't far behind, as usual.

The green-haired girl pouted as she saw that the pig-tailed girl wasn't aiming her camera anywhere just at the moment and then shrugged as she looked over to where Deimosu was walking next to her.

Her brother had been moody since yesterday when they went on the business trip with their mom. Their mother, by contrast, had looked a little more relaxed than she had before the trip.

Something had happened.

Maybe Deimosu had gotten in trouble or something.

If that was so, Naiki wished she knew what he had done. It wasn't fair that every time she messed up that everybody knew it.

Then again, she had to admit that when she messed up, it was usually pretty loud.

"See you after school, Deimosu," Naiki said.

"Hmm, yeah," her brother said. "Don't get in trouble for ogling your teacher."

"But she makes it sooo easy," the green-haired girl said with a smirk as she diverted off towards her class.

Naiki paused a moment as she passed one of the side hallways leading off to the gym, which was usually deserted at this time of day. And yet she was hearing voices down the hall and around the corner a short distance away.

Shrugging, the Satomi turned down the hall and followed the voices until she could hear what they were talking about.

"I don't think you get it Kazama," a young man was saying. "We gave you a job and you didn't just fail at it, you gave my name to Sagara."

"That wasn't too nice," another voice said.

"I'm sorry, he had a gun and everything," a whiny voice said in response.

"We don't care what sort of toy gun he had," a third voice said. "Avoiding a few paintballs isn't worth ratting out your buddies."

"Buddies?" Kazama whined. "You stole my negatives and said you'd burn them if I didn't steal Kaname's panties."

"See the ingratitude," the first said. "You don't even recognize when someone's giving you an opportunity."

At that, Naiki came around the corner.

"Okay, I've heard enough," she said.

The three thugs encircling Kazama turned around to face her.

"Listen, chick, you stay...AHHHH!!"

Fleeing from around the corner, Kazama bolted headlong away from the sounds of pain being inflicted by her rescuer on her tormentors.

A few moments of intense activity, for the three thugs at least, later and Naiki was turning away from three painfully twisted and battered high school toughs shaking out one of her wrists.

"That was a good warm up," she said as she started to walk away from the groaning individuals.

"Very nice," a sultry voice said behind the young martial artist.

Naiki turned around to see her homeroom teacher walking into the collection of thugs that had just been brutally taught a lesson.

"Ah, Geisthexe-san," Naiki said nervously. "They were..."

"Don't worry about it, kid," the blonde woman said, tilting the face of one of the kids up with the toe of her high heeled shoes. "They deserved it. If you don't tell anyone about this, I won't."

She gave Naiki an encouraging smile.

"Sometimes, the rules just get in the way of what you should do," she said.

"Right," Naiki said, relieved.

"Now, we have class to get to," the woman said, encouraging the girl to move forward. "Get there before I do and you aren't tardy."

"Oh, thanks Geisthexe-san!" Naiki said as she zipped away, leaving the blonde woman behind amongst the toughs.

The blonde woman shrunk down into a younger form, dressed as a Jindai-high freshman girl, though she kept her high heels for the moment.

The disguised demoness smirked as she set her heel down on the hand of one of the three and started to grind in waking the boy up from the pain just long enough.

"So, did you get your peek Murano-kun?" she asked sweetly to the dizzy young man.

"You bitch! You didn't say she'd be kicking me when I saw her panties," he snapped.

"Should have thought to ask," Mara said before she kicked him unconscious and walked away, melting back into an adult teacher.

 

[fitzgerald]

I'm sure you've already worked this out- but for whom are they meting out vengeance? Shampoo? Ukyou? Someone yet-to-be-named?

Heck, Akane?

I'm looking forward to reading how you work them in.

Hera of course.

She's always going after Zeus's spawn and often unwilling mothers.

Ciao

 

[rdde]

I'm sure you've already worked this out- but for whom are they meting out vengeance? Shampoo? Ukyou? Someone yet-to-be-named?

Heck, Akane?

I'm looking forward to reading how you work them in.

Hera of course.

She's always going after Zeus's spawn and often unwilling mothers.

Ciao

Yeah, she's loopy that way. You'd think that Hera going after Zeus's nuts would be a lot more effective at making sure he doesn't stray.

 

[Thrythlind]

The rest of the blonde Satomi's class was about the field in a makeshift track and field situation as Deimosu stood, thinking, towards the edge of the field and looking outward.

Deimosu wasn't usually the brooding sort.

Most of the time, he was very up front about what he did and did not like, or what he thought. The exception being such secrets that the family didn't want out and about like: we're supernaturally powerful martial artists.

He'd had experience with some of his mother's personal secrets before and wasn't surprised that she still had some.

It made sense, given how much secrets ran their life, that there were some things about their mother's life that she really wasn't prepared to tell them just yet, or else didn't think they were ready for.

And he could really admit it right now.

He wasn't ready to be thinking that he and his sisters were a result of rape. Even if it was something he should have considered himself a long time ago.

There was another thing he was certain of.

His mother was wrong if she expected him to stay out of this when she told him.

Deimosu could almost accept that if it were a matter of his mother's pride and desire to settle her own affairs, but it was more about him and his sisters' safety than her. She was putting their safety over her own pride as a martial artist.

That wasn't a reason he could accept for staying out of the situation.

Ranma had raised them to protect people that couldn't take care of themselves and while his mother didn't fit that description, she'd also raised them to protect each other.

He couldn't face himself in the mirror if he accepted the idea that he was supposed to do everything he could to protect his family...

...except in cases where he might get hurt.

He couldn't call himself a Satomi...or Saotome...or whatever...if he accepted his mother's plan for him to just stay back and protect himself.

The only problem was that he had no idea where to go with what he already knew.

And what he knew was that at some time seventeen years ago, one Ranma Saotome vanished from Japan and appeared in Greece, pregnant with three children.

He kicked a soccer ball that rolled near to him and cursed under his breath.

The ball soared through the air and past the boy that had originally kicked it off target, continuing onward to dent a shed at the other edge of the field.

Wincing at the loss of temper, Deimosu did his best to swallow his anger.

He was still keeping his thoughts inward when he said goodbye to Eija as she went off with Kanama and Kyoko to go to Akihabara. Sousuke Sagara tagging along behind them.

When Naiki hung back to talk to one of her teachers, of all things, he continued to keep his feelings quiet. So that he was heavily into brooding as he came home and found his mother, dressed in a dark blue business suit similar to her red one, getting ready to go out.

"Where's Naiki?" Ranma asked.

"She wanted to stay behind and talk to a teacher," Deimosu said.

"Good," Ranma responded after a long moments thought. "Out of character and strange for her, but good. Did she say what for?"

"No, something about a history project," Deimosu noted. "Do you have a job to go to?"

"Just a meeting," Ranma explained. "They want me to listen to a long-term offer of some kind. I'll probably be back before dinner."

"In the mean time," Deimosu noted. "It's just me."

"That's right," Ranma said. "So make sure to practice your meditation and not to burn down the house."

"Don't worry about the last one until Naiki gets home," the tall, blonde, young man said.

"She's not that bad," Ranma said shaking her head before sauntering out of the building.

It was only a few minutes after being left alone in the house did something occur to Deimosu. He had access to a ritual circle in the family library.

Eagerly, he moved into the library and started drawing his circle on the floor and then moving into it, kneeling down to quietly work at chanting a spell from the open text a few yards away.

"Give me what I need," he whispered between lines of prayer. "Tell me how I can beat the one that hurt my mother."

He repeated those two lines several times, feeling the twisting sensation that came with attempting to push his own thoughts onto the fabric of the Earth around his.

Finally, as he started to feel his vision greying out, the spell came to an abrupt end of things and a small, heavy paper card fluttered down to the ground in front of Deimosu.

Curious, he bent over to pick up the fallen piece of heavy cardstock and read it.

"The Kindly Ones' Roost."

"Odd name for a bar," Deimosu noted as he flipped the card over to read the back.

"Come to us to settle your affairs," the back of the card said.

******************************************

eyes closing on their own and stupid mistakes becoming apparent...will post this now and finish up later...

 

[ringlhach]

Wow. Now, that's what I call miraculous interference. Could this maybe drive a breakthrough in the Saotome case? I think you might be missing an apostrophe, though: Kindly Ones Roost to Kindly Ones' Roost.

You know, all he'd need to make it a traditional Greek petition would be a little bit of blood sacrifice and a libation of ceremonial wine- sake might work for that; I'm really not all that sure on the differences. Goat or sheep were pretty common, if I remember my Ancient Religions class right, but some of his own would probably work too, since he's more than human. Blood was a powerful substance, after all, and Eija already draws some strength from its use.

 

[Thrythlind]

Eija has used small amounts of her blood to set up a Sympathetic Magic to let others share her vision. She sees people that have caused death as splattered in red (blood) more because of her own preconceptions (blood on their hands) than because she's actually seeing blood.

Aside from that, she doesn't know much of actual Blood Rites, as stated earlier.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Eija has used small amounts of her blood to set up a Sympathetic Magic to let others share her vision. She sees people that have caused death as splattered in red (blood) more because of her own preconceptions (blood on their hands) than because she's actually seeing blood.

Aside from that, she doesn't know much of actual Blood Rites, as stated earlier.

One thing troubles me on this point. How could she not see it on Mara?

 

[Thrythlind]

Eija has used small amounts of her blood to set up a Sympathetic Magic to let others share her vision.á She sees people that have caused death as splattered in red (blood) more because of her own preconceptions (blood on their hands) than because she's actually seeing blood.

Aside from that, she doesn't know much of actual Blood Rites, as stated earlier.

One thing troubles me on this point. How could she not see it on Mara?

she hasn't met Mara yet, and she usually keeps her senses suppressed so she can't see it....she's uncomfortable with the blood on her own hands

"Eija will be looking for the terrorists too," Ranma said. "She'll stop supressing senses and start looking. And she can get places no one would expect."

Eija passed without attention, sunglasses off her face and the red of her irises filling out into her sclera as she opened her senses. She looked reflexively down at her hands and noted uncomfortably the red that splattered her own hands and then looked away at the people around her.

 

[Thrythlind]

Akihabara was usually an all day sort of affair, but Kaname wasn't interested in waiting for sunday to keep her promise. Besides, she was in Japan on her own responsibility, and she'd already talked to Eija's mother about the possibility of being out late so she was fine.

One night out late couldn't be too bad.

And of course, she doubted if Sousuke slept more than five hours a night anyway.

There was another benefit to going out to Akihabara today, and that was that the crowds were going to be a little bit thinner without so many students coming in from out of the area.

"So what is in Akihabara?" Eija asked. "You said something about cute overload."

"It's where you go to get anime, manga, memorabilia, stuffed animals, ice cream, software, games and anything else you could possibly imagine," Kaname said.

"I did a circuit of the location recently," Sousuke said. "As she said, it appears to be a bazaar of sorts specializing in first and second-hand electronics and various figurines and fictional supplements. There are plenty of materials on hand to aid in the production of any of a number of surveillance or ex..."

And at that point the harisen came down on his head lightly.

"Anyway, regardless of what Sergeant Nutjob says," Kaname noted. "It's a place to go relax, shop and have fun."

"I do not think we should relax," Sousuke noted. "There are large crowds that could easily hide a number of..."

Down came the harisen again.

Eija kept her own thoughts on large crowds of people silent, Kaname was obviously psyched up about this and while she might be used to tolerate the soldiers commentary and attitudes, the pale, dark-haired girl didn't know how she'd take questions about this from the person she'd set it up for.

"Look, nothing happens in Akihabara," Kaname said. "It's a safe place full of fun stuff to do. We'll only be there two or three hours before it starts shutting down, but I figured you two would need to build up slowly rather than just tossing you into the deep end."

When the train came to a stop at the neighborhood in question, the three teens stopped off along with a small horde of other students and a few college-aged and older people. All coming for electronic components, software and otaku merchandise.

For once, Kaname found getting through the crowds to be easy as she led Sousuke and Eija through the streets, picking along to find her favorite hidden away stores away from the expensive name brand-name stores on the main street.

The first sign of success, such as it was, came from Sousuke rather than Eija.

He stopped over a large display featuring a hex-grid map and several plastic figurines depicting mecha and vehicle and troop formations.

"What's this?" he asked curiously. "I don't recognize any of these mecha designations."

The shopkeeper looked over and nodded.

"It's an American war simulation game," the man said. "Future wars after we've moved into space and colonized other planets. I believe its called Battletech."

"Interesting," Sousuke said, gears whirling as he considered the uses for simulating battle strategies and circumstances in his free time.

"If you're interested in simulating real Arm Slave combat," the shopkeeper noted. "We do have some Mecha and Mercenaries sets, that's a collectible miniature game that is based off real-world Mecha specs, at least what is public. We even sell a customization kit for altering the figures."

Across the way, Eija was looking at a store that was a little bit off the beaten track, appealing more to the yoga and meditative crowd, but Kaname supposed that included the dark-haired girl.

She was currently looking at the collected bansai trees and miniature zen gardens somewhat longingly.

"Need something?" Kaname asked.

"My room's feng shui is too active," she said. "I need something to soothe it down a little, I'm thinking the bansai sakura, but its just so expensive, and there's the indoor herb garden kit."

"Hey, didn't you say something about painting too, when you introduced yourself?" Kaname asked.

Eija's eyes were glittering a few minutes later as Kaname showed her the art supply shop with its endless shelves of supplies for the painting and sketching requirements of all sorts of artists from oils and waters to calligraphy kits and material for Western comic artists and mangaka.

****

Kaname was smug as they walked back to the train station.

Behind her, Eija was carrying an easel along with a giant-sized sketch pad and a bag with a small collection of paints she needed refilled apparently. Even Sousuke had purchased a copy of the Battletech game and several assorted packets of the "Mecha and Mercenaries" game.

He was currently looking at the customization kit, which was a set of glue and basic paints with small brushes.

"That'll be very hard to accurately put all the details down to customize these figures," Eija said. "Do you paint much?"

"No," Sousuke said. "However, it is primarily important to be able to identify the pieces for the purpose of the simulation. Though I'm not certain about these rules...some of the success and failure methods seem rather arbitrary. Rolling a die to determine hit or miss?"

"Kaname and I can help you with the customization then," the Satomi said turning to the blue-haired girl. "Didn't you do some sculpting for art?"

"That plaster bust?" Kaname said. "Yeah, but that's a little bit different from adding pieces to these game pieces. Still, sounds like a fun relatively normal thing to be doing. Though it's going to make me look like I'm in Kazama's peer group."

"Now, all I have to do is find figures to represent the two of you, Miss Chidori and Miss Satomi," Sousuke noted idly, unknowingly drawing blushes from the two girls. "And of course Miss Satomi's brother and sister."

"Oh, figures of us for tactical reasons," Kaname thought in disappointment.

Their considerations of the day's activities were cut short by the sound of screeching breaks and crashing metal.

Ahead of them, a driver had bent down to pick up a dropped cell phone and ended up slamming straight into a small delivery truck, causing both vehicles to crumple and block traffic in four directions and causing two other vehicles to plow into the first two.

Sousuke's first reaction was to look about the crowd for a sign of anyone watching them in an untoward manner. Eija's reaction was to leave her purchases leaning against the food vendor's cart and moving towards the wreck, obviously intending to help.

"Miss Satomi, that could be dangerous," Sousuke protested.

"Hey, wait," Kaname said before setting her own small bag of stuffed animals and manga aside and looking at the vendor. "Can you watch these for us?"

"That's no problem," the vendor said.

"Miss Chidori," Sousuke said, setting his own bags and following the two girls. "The vehicles could be dangerous."

"I know," Kaname said. "But we can't just stand here."

"Let's get them away from the accident," Eija noted as she started to grab a jammed door and try to bend it open.

"No, no," another voice said. "The weak point is over here, bend it this way."

Sousuke turned cautiously to see a short young man, maybe seven years his senior, with unkempt black hair giving instructions on what to do. Quickly he determined the young man was just there to help and moved to follow his instructions on another door as Eija pried hers open.

Kaname stood back and watched as the dark-haired girl, weaker than her siblings, but still very strong, went at the cars like a pair of living jaws of life under the young man's advice. Sousuke meanwhile was vigorously instructing other onlookers to back away from the accident while identifying others who could help.

Bitterly Kaname wondered how she could help.

"Can you help me carry the injured away?" a gentle voice asked Kaname from her side.

The blue-haired girl turned to look and see a young woman with a soothing look on her face and hair that could have been brown or silver or grey depending on how the light was hitting it.

"Sure, I can do that," Kaname said.

Between the five of them, and others on site helping, the victums that could walk themselves were freed and the unconscious quickly carried away.

Then it was a matter of first aid and emergency care.

Eija was looking over each of the injured carefully when the mechanic's girlfriend noticed the red as it filled her eyes and moved close in, drawing Sousuke's attention.

"You're a death seer?" she asked quietly, waiting as Eija nodded reluctantly. "Then please tell me who needs aid first, I'll attend to them."

The short young mechanic watched as Sousuke took notice of the quiet conference.

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "Being around Bell is probably the safest place to be."

Reluctantly, Sousuke nodded. His own instincts and feelings told him the same thing for whatever reason, but his habits were resisting that.

Eija watched with something akin to amazement as the long-haired woman worked her magic subtly making it seem like first aid and good luck on the part of the injured party. Of course, she had none of the problems in magical healing that Eija did.

But the thing that impressed her the most was that the only trace of death on the woman was that of death witnessed a long time ago. She had neither caused death, nor was death waiting for her.

She was immortal.

Soon the accident victims were all well tended and mostly commenting about their excellent luck to escape with only a few scrapes and bruises each. The official emergency crews were coming on site as the five main rescuers stood off to the side talking to each other.

"I'm Keiichi Morisato," the young man said, introducing himself.

"And I'm Belldandy," his ageless girlfriend said in a gentle tone as she bowed.

"I'm Kaname Chidori," Kaname returned politely.

"Eija Satomi," the dark-haired girl said as Kaname gestured toward her.

"And the sour one is Sousuke Sagara," Kaname said, as Sousuke nodded along with her.

"Thank you ever so much for acting as you did," Belldandy said.

"Ah, it was nothing," Kaname said.

"But it would have been a mess without you guys there," Keiichi said.

"It was very heroic," Belldandy noted.

"Really, Belldandy-sama," Eija said respectfully. "There wasn't much else to do."

"Indeed," Sousuke agreed. "The situation called for swift handling, and most of us seem trained to handle it. You're a mechanic of some sort?"

"Engineer," Keiichi said. "I used to head the Nekomi Tech Motor Club before I finished my graduate studies. Do you do life-guard work in the summers? Your first aid training is much better than mine."

Sousuke thought about that phrase for a moment.

"I guard lives full-time," he said by way of agreement.

"It is good to meet people who make such use of their skills in this world," Belldandy said. "So much of this world forces people to watch out only for themselves, it is pleasant to see people that step out to help others."

"Yeah, good to see there's something to do other than fight," Kaname noted teasingly.

"In any case," Belldandy said, smiling at Kaname's statement in a way that made the girl feel a bit ashamed at giving her friends a jibe in this situation. "Feel free to visit us anytime you want. We live at the Tariki Hongan Temple in Nekomi."

"You mentioned that you were from Nekomi," Sousuke said. "What are you doing here?"

"We needed a component for a personal project," Keiichi said with a laugh. "It's an obscure component you can't find easily, heard someone here had one today."

"I see," Sousuke noted.

"Well, it's getting late," Kaname said. "We should be going, but we'll be sure to stop by some time."

"That'll be lovely," Belldandy said. "My sisters would love to meet you, I think."

 

[ringlhach]

Can anyone say "monkey wrench?"

Or was this fallout from that nonexistant bug Peorth's team noticed earlier?

 

[Thrythlind]

I'm not saying whether the meeting was accidental or not, but I am thinking the norns would have been asked to talk to Kaname as the mortal whom the "virus"/"bug" temporarily "infected" once.

Given that they IDed the "virus"/"bug" as someone without a good link to the system, and Kaname is spending time with someone with a psychic gift, I think Bell is smart enough to make the connection

also, I'm wanting to wait for A-21 to be the decision point for the three

so sometime between then and now, the kids are going to learn who/what they're talking to and then they'll make their decision afterwards...

 

[ecs05norway]

Heh. That scene was -so- much fun. And the Battletech bit... Yeah, I could see Sosuke getting into it. Especially given how much detail there is to the game-world.

I take it you've heard the Good News? They've finally got the liscences back for all the anime-based 'mech designs from the 80's.... all the Macross, Dougram, etc, mechs are back!

 

[Thrythlind]

the guy turned an amusement park mascot into a cutting edge power-armor set that, silly as it looks, really IS the ultimate in urban camouflage...

after a few raids, criminals would never be able to look at stuffed animals the same way


I can really only contemplate what he can do with a mecha-based game.

 

[ringlhach]

Now, if only he was able to get the external voice transmitter to work... well, with something other than "fumo," anyway.

 

[Thrythlind]

oh, it worked fine....except when he tried to turn it off...

 

[Thrythlind]

"That was Ranma."

Eyes turned toward Akane and the quiet end of the day conversation came to a close.

Kasumi and Tofu's young daughter was away in bed and not around to hear the conversation that would be coming.

"What do you mean Akane?" Kasumi asked. "We know her name is the same and she looks similar."

"Similar, because it is Ranma," Akane repeated.

"That sounds a little more sure than even I am," Nabiki noted. "How do you know it was he...him."

"I sparred her," Akane said. "It was almost a repeat of what happened the first night she was here."

"But if that was Ranma, why didn't she...he say anything to us?" Kasumi asked.

"Because Ranma is a jerk?" Ryouga suggested drawing a few glares.

"Most likely because of her children," Tofu said. "Considering some of the first questions we'd ask."

"'What happened with the curse?', 'Where did these kids come from?'" Nabiki ticked off.

"She asked me not to say anything until today," Akane said. "I don't think she's talked to them yet, but I think she's planning on talking to them soon."

"So where did the children come from?" Ryouga asked. "I mean, all you have to do is look at them and see they're he...his kids."

The three girls were silent on that issue and even Tofu looked a little uncomfortable.

"If you look at their ages," Nabiki said quietly. "Then they were born less than a year after Ranma vanished. And at the time, I wouldn't think Ranma would be comfortable with even cuddling as a guy, much less doing anything as a girl but flirting."

"You mean..." Ryouga looked more than a little stunned.

Silence held for a long moment before Ryouga spoke again.

"So what's the next move?"

"Wait for her to contact us," Akane said. "I told her I'd pass that along. And don't tell anybody else."

 

[PCHeintz72]

The problem I would have with this is it is Nerima. Secrets really do not work well.

And for the prior segment, I found:

Soon the accident victims were all well tended and mostly commenting about their excellent look to escape with only a few scrapes and bruises each.

'look' s/b 'luck'.

 

[Thrythlind]

The problem I would have with this is it is Nerima. Secrets really do not work well.

And for the prior segment, I found:

Soon the accident victims were all well tended and mostly commenting about their excellent look to escape with only a few scrapes and bruises each.

'look' s/b 'luck'.

yeah, if you look at the AA list of options, my first one is: Someone overheard them

 

[ringlhach]

Oh, "don't tell anyone" works; it's just that someone finds out anyway around five minutes later. Usually because someone pulls up a microphone and makes a melodramatic announcement out of it.

No, I don't see this secret staying secret, either. And what's that rule for keeping secrets- the Rule of Twelve? Over so many people share a secret, and it's not a secret anymore because it WILL get out?

 

[Thrythlind]

indeed, this idea is doomed to fail

 

[rdde]

"You mean..." Ryouga looked more than a little stunned. "So what's the next move?"

Seems to need a spacer for Ryouga to handle that information.

Considering their experience with secrets, shouldn't Akane be a lot more careful with the initial disclosure by checking for ninjas?

 

[Thrythlind]

Nerima was a small town encircled by a large one and it followed small town rules, even though it was populated by a larger than normal segment of superhuman martial artists that one would think could keep things fairly well to themselves.

But, the problem was that there were individuals as good at rooting out secrets as others were at finding them.

There were fewer now, of course.

People had grown up and, after a long enough time, either forgot Ranma or didn't.

Shampoo and Cologne had left the area in search of Ranma a long time back. One, the other or both occasionally came through Nerima, but the last such time was years ago. Most suspected they spent most of their time helping to secure their village against the possibility of renewed civil war between the two Chinas, but they still occasionally came through.

Mousse was slightly more often seen. Though when he did stop by it seemed more often just to speak to one of the old crew that still lived in the area. He'd at least appeared to mellow over time. Some suspected him of having a lover somewhere in the area and that he had given up on Shampoo, but it was next to impossible to tell.

Kodachi, like Nabiki, had vanished in looking for Ranma. Unlike Nabiki, she hadn't returned. There were rumors she was seen, occasionally, but only rarely and most were unreliable and sheer ridiculous reports. The most absurd being a rather static-filled bit of digital video on the Nerima-Paranormal blog site where she was supposed to appear out of a shadow at a politic rally during an attack by terrorists.

Ukyou and Konatsu kept in touch with Akane, but the Saotome woman lived in Okinawa with Ryuu and her own children, when she wasn't on the water, so the chef rarely had need to come to Nerima and speak with people she was less than friendly with.

Kuno was still unmarried and spending large amounts of money on the search for the "pig-tailed woman." He also had a tendency to harass Ryuu occasionally, especially if Akane was at sea on mission. He was still as twisted as ever, and more dangerous.

Word eventually reached one of these figures about the red-haired visitor to the old Tendo Dojo.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Of all that...

Kodachi, like Nabiki, had vanished in looking for Ranma. Unlike Nabiki, she hadn't returned. There were rumors she was seen, occasionally, but only rarely and most were unreliable and sheer ridiculous reports. The most absurd being a rather static-filled bit of digital video on the Nerima-Paranormal blog site where she was supposed to appear out of a shadow at a politic rally during an attack by terrorists.

This actually sounded the most interesting to me, as it could easily fit into Black Tech category. Maybe even making her Whispered.

 

[Thrythlind]

I actually had another idea, but if she were exposed to Tau waves at the right point of birth from some source other than the canon experiment, that would work...you kind of think it has to be possible since Leonard Testarossa is Whispered as well and I can never find confirmation on whether he's a twin or not

 

[Thrythlind]

Kuno's methods had gotten more sophisticated over time, but that was more because we was hiring people with actual skills to get him his information.

The bug in Kasumi Ono's house had been there a week, and the residents and their guests hadn't yet realized their conversations were being listened to.

Reports and tapes were coming in from the previous few nights' surveillance and Kuno was reading them.

"As I feared, the cur dared to steal her very virtue away," Kuno ranted. "And even drive her desires away from the healthy and proper regard for masculine virility. And she still carries his name like some badge of ownership."

He paced up and down his room.

"And still the damnable sorcerer fails to make his appearance," Kuno said.

To add to the irritation, nobody had managed to follow a family of four back to their home.

Still, he had enough money to start searching Tokyo area schools for students of the appropriate name.

Eventually, his minions would find them and then he could move to rescue them from their fates.