Chapter Twenty-One
The morning after the eruption, the hunt for Ranma and Shampoo was on. Certain the volcano wasn't going to erupt again, soldiers went into Nerima looking for the wanted pair, and by default anyone else who was still in the terraformed city.
Fortunately Nerima was a large place to hide in, and Japanese army equipment wasn't really meant for the new terrain. Even if it was, they had to diverge most of their funds regarding stopping the spread of the jungle more than going into it. And doing so was proving to be more difficult then they had imagined.
"General Togo, we have problems with containment." One of the soldiers told the man currently in charge of the Nerima situation.
"Tell me something I don't know." Togo replied without even bothering to look at the man.
"Our initial plans for preventing the spread of the jungle are proving inadequate. The city is over forty-eight square kilometers in size and irregularly shaped. Surely you must realize that barricading the city overnight is impossible. As I speak the jungle has spread to every neighboring prefecture where evacuations are in progress. That makes containment all the more impossible."
"I am aware of this. And don't call me Shirley." Togo said, unable to resist using one of his favorite jokes.
"With all due respect General, we seem to be fighting an uphill battle." The soldier continued. "With us working on evacuations first, the jungle gets to spread, allowing the plants and animals to multiply. With it spreading, by the time we have the district evacuated it becomes completely overtaken and the next one over gets infected. Which means we have to evacuate that district too which repeats the cycle. At the rate the jungle is growing compared to the rate we can work against it, it seems impossible for us to contain it."
"We then have to evacuate and prepare a barricade at the same time." Togo claimed.
"We don't have the manpower or numbers for that General. The higher ups have given us all the people and resources that can be spared. Even if you were able to convince them for more right away, by the time reinforcements got here there'd be even more work to do. We're already spending a fortune on fuel for fire machines."
Togo now faced this soldier with a patientless expression. "Is there a point to all this or are you just complaining?"
"Some others and myself see only two possible ways for containment to be effective." The soldier answered, trying to sound convincing. "The simplest way would be to only partially contain the jungle. That is, stop the spread into the other districts and ignore the spread to the north where the mountains and unpopulated areas are. By redirecting the soldiers positioned there to the south, east, and west, we stand a better chance at slowing it down enough to do something more effective. It's also possible that by allowing it to spread in one direction it will slow down the spread elsewhere."
Togo thought it over. "It has merit, but it's risky since the jungle would be spreading beyond the Kanto region. What's the other possible way?"
"If total containment is the only way, then something drastic will be required. Something like wide trenches created to ring around the jungle, positioned just far enough to ensure the jungle can't reach them before the trenches are completed. And wide enough to ensure the plants and animals can't simply go over them."
Togo shook his head. "Doing so would require machinery we don't have and cause a lot of needless destruction to the general area. So that is not an option."
"General, if you can think of something better than I just gave you, then by all means share it." The soldier politely challenged.
Togo looked away in an effort to avoid admitting he didn't have a better idea. "Let's proceed as we have been, and if we haven't made any significant results in twenty-four hours... we'll take the first idea into serious consideration."
Unable to reach their destination in a day, the Tendo family had to stop at a hotel in Utsunomiya. Soun had to pay for it since Nabiki was keeping up her masquerade of having less money than she really did. Genma had to sleep outside since the hotel had a 'No animals' policy. At least they weren't asking why this family had a panda with them.
"Dad, you and I need to talk." Akane said when she and her father had a moment of privacy.
"Okay Akane, what is it?" Soun asked, seated outside to have a cigarette. Akane sat in a spot to avoid having the smoke come at her.
"It's about you and how you ruined my engagement to Ranma."
"What?" He said, dumbfounded by the accusation.
"You heard me. My engagement to Ranma is ruined now, maybe beyond repair, and it's your fault." Akane said with a little heat in her tone. "It just had to be on your terms didn't it? You wouldn't let me and Ranma handle it our way, go at our pace. No, we had to fall in love on your schedule, at your convenience, not ours. Never ours. You just had to push me and him together before we were ready, and now thanks to that he can't stand the sight of me anymore. So way to go Dad, Ranma dumped me for another girl and it's all your fault."
As usual, Soun withered under his daughter's anger. "But Akane, I was just trying to help you two."
"How? How was pushing us to get married right away going to help us? Why did we have to fall in love on sight and want to get married? Why did it have to be so soon? Why couldn't you have waited for us to do it our way?"
"We... we couldn't take that chance." Soun replied. "Genma and I knew you two were against the engagement and if we left you to your own devices you both would have continued pretending it never existed. We had to push you two. It was the only way to get results."
"What if we were happier doing things our own way? What if you succeeded and we ended up truly hating each other? Tell me Dad, what was so important about our being married right away that you didn't care if we were happy about it?"
"What? I cared-"
"Don't give me that Dad." Akane cut him off. "If you cared you would have asked. You would have given me a way out. You would have let me and Ranma handle this without pressure. But no, you pushed and pushed and pushed. Me being happy wasn't important to you, what was important was your stupid agreement to your friend."
"You would have been happy with Ranma, and he would have been happy with you." Soun insisted.
"I don't think so anymore." Akane complained quietly.
"I know it's true. Ranma cared about you Akane. He still does, he just doesn't know where his priorities are supposed to be." Soun tried to reassure her. "Remember when you ate that Super Soba? If Ranma didn't care about you he never would have given you the antidote I gave him."
Akane blinked. "Wait, you gave him the antidote?"
Soun nodded. "Where did you think he got it from?"
Akane narrowed her eyes. "Wait, if you had it why didn't you just give it to me yourself? You had to know Ranma doesn't always say things the right way and that I wasn't likely to listen to him at the time. If you cared you would have come to me yourself, so why make Ranma do your job for you?"
"Umm... I thought you would see it as a sign he loved you?" Soun weakly defended.
Akane huffed. "Yeah right. At the time I was for once stronger than Ranma, something he always held over my head, then he comes up and tells me he has something that can take all that away from me, and you expect me to think that's a romantic gesture? You know what, I think you knew full well how I was going to react and used Ranma as a lightning rod so I wouldn't turn my anger towards you. Am I right?"
Normally when his daughters got upset with him, Soun fell apart like a house of cards in the rain. Despite his years of martial arts training, Soun was surprising feeble in the face of adversity. Sure, he could stand up for himself to a point like everyone else, but against Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane? Not once. He just couldn't handle the thought that they were unhappy with him. If they were unhappy, then it meant they might... well, he wasn't entirely sure what they would do, but he didn't ever want to find out.
However, this time was different. Maybe it was the stress of having his home destroyed and family relocated for an indeterminate amount of time. Maybe it was the subject on which he was being berated on which meant a lot to him. Maybe it was the fact that Akane was sounding like she was almost trying to deny any responsibility for her own past actions regarding the engagement and shifting blame all onto him. Or maybe it was some combination of these factors. Whatever the reason, this time Soun decided to stand up to his daughter.
"Akane, I don't need to justify my every decision to you." The Tendo patriarch said firmly, catching his daughter off guard. "Remember, I am the parent here, not you. What I do I do for a reason, I do not need your permission to do what I do. What I tell you and don't you isn't meant for you to decide. Like it or not, there are some things you're better off not knowing."
"I think I have a right to know why you believe I can't marry Ranma soon enough. Seriously, what's so bad about taking our time? What's the worst thing that could happen?"
Soun shot her a glare that made her voice freeze. "You don't want to know Akane. You will never want to know."
'He's keeping something from me. It's almost like he needs us to get married right away, like somehow our lives depend on it.' Akane told herself. "Alright Dad, I won't ask about it anymore. It seems like a moot subject anyway."
"Only until the game ends and we can go home. Then we can get you two together right away." Soun replied.
Akane sighed with much impatience. "I didn't say I agreed to that. Besides, I get the feeling I've pretty much lost any chance with Ranma. By the time this is over, Shampoo will have won him over entirely."
"Doesn't matter. He needs to marry you. I will not allow anything else to happen."
Akane rolled her eyes. "You sound just like Cologne." She then got up to leave. "One more thing Dad, it turns out that my pet pig P-chan is really Ryoga with a curse. I asked Kasumi and Nabiki if they knew about it but they said no, and were quite upset about it. Did you know?"
Soun sweatdropped a bit. "Uhh... no. How could I? I mean, it's not like I saw the boy change form or anything."
Akane was wide-eyed, easily able to see through the lie. "You... you knew? You knew?!"
"I thought you knew and were just being nice to the boy." Soun claimed.
On the verge of crying, Akane ran off, leaving Soun to wonder how much this was going to cost him.
Ukyo was on board a train watching the scenery pass by on her trip back to Kyoto, to be with her father until the situation in Nerima could be resolved.
'I never got to say good-bye to Ranchan.' She thought with regret.
Cologne and Mousse were lucky to find a ship leaving for China right away the next morning. And they considered themselves more than just lucky when no one stopped them from buying tickets. Cologne could only assume that the army was preoccupied or hadn't been able to identify the two of them, instead focusing more on Ranma and Shampoo. Either way, they were going back to China undisturbed. They had to leave from one of Tokyo's ports so they had to go around Japan to reach China, but it was better than nothing.
"So Mr. Part Time, care to tell me exactly why you didn't resist being pulled away from Shampoo this time?" Cologne asked when they were at sea.
Mousse was cleaning his glasses then put them back on before he answered. "Let's just say I need a second opinion from someone who can give me one without insulting me at the same time."
"Where am I? What's going on here?" Ryoga asked himself while walking down a road. He knew he was in a city but he saw no one around.
A car was driving to him and stopped. It was a civilian car, not an army vehicle. "Hey, you shouldn't be walking around like this out here. This place is getting dangerous." The driver said after he rolled the window down.
Ryoga shrugged. "I can handle it. I'm no stranger to dangerous situations."
"You don't understand. The cities in this area are being evacuated. Everyone has to leave, no one is allowed to go the direction you're going."
"What? Why? What happened?" Ryoga asked.
"We're not sure. But we're not waiting to find out. You want a ride to somewhere safe?" The driver offered.
Ryoga shook his head. "No need to trouble yourself, I'll just turn around." Ryoga said, seeing the car around had four people in it including the driver and was packed heavily. Ryoga turned and walked off.
"Hey, that's the wrong direction!" The driver warned. Ryoga had meant to do a 180 turn, but somehow only made a 90 turn to the right without realizing it, leading him down a different road.
"Alright you two, before we do anything we must first set up some ground rules for surviving in this place." Happosai told Ranma and Shampoo as all three were hiding in a tree.
The two teens shared a look. While neither were exactly in favor of letting the old pervert be in charge, they had to admit he was the voice of experience here so they had to at least hear him out before they objected.
"First rule, no leaving the jungle. The army is going to try and handle this place from the outside rather than the inside so as long as you're within the limits you should be safe from direct conflict. When we need anything from outside I will go to the other cities to get such provisions as I'm sure they are not looking for me. If there ever comes a time when you two must leave the jungle, you both will have to go in your curse forms to avoid being spotted right away. Also, Ranma, your girl form will need to dye her hair and wear it a different way in those times since red hair in a braid will stand out."
Ranma and Shampoo nodded, surprised by how reasonable this was.
"Second rule, try to stay near the edge of the jungle but not too close. If the army surprises me by trying to destroy the center of the jungle first we don't want to be there, so sticking by the border helps keep us in a relative clear zone from them. Also it will encourage the jungle to spread more. Now I know you two are against that, but you two are being hunted by the army. The bigger the jungle is, the more room you have to hide from them. Also it is a deterrent from any drastic measures they might take."
"What you mean?" Shampoo asked.
"Right now a single bomb would end the problem once and for all." Happosai answered, shocking them. "Luckily Nerima is too close to the heart of Japan to permit such a thing. Dropping a bomb on the jungle would in the long run do more harm to the country than good. But in case the army decides to go ahead with a bombing anyway, we need the jungle to get bigger. Big enough that one bomb would not be able to fix the problem, and therefore the amount of bombing necessary to solve the problem would destroy the entire country. So by making the jungle bigger, we're keeping Japan from becoming a wasteland instead."
"It feels wrong, but it makes sense." Ranma stated.
Happosai nodded. "Third rule, you two must always be together. We can't risk anything happening to you two that will prevent you from finishing the game. Having the game back won't matter if one or both of you no longer can roll the dice or face the threats yet to come. You two need to defend each other, train together, hunt together, even bathe together if that's what it takes. And if necessary, only one of you should sleep at a time while the other keeps watch for a shift."
"You sure about that?" Ranma asked, blushing at the thought. 'I showered with Shampoo only out of necessity, now he's saying that it's mandatory?'
Shampoo blushed too, but she was less opposed to the notion.
Happosai nodded. "Yes Ranma. You want to risk Shampoo being killed because you weren't around to have her back? Or the same happening to you because she wasn't around? Now is more about survival than modesty. Besides, this is how me and Soap handled the game when we were in the jungle."
"And look where that got you." Ranma jibed, but regretted it once he saw the angry/hurt look on the old man's face. "Sorry, that was going too far."
"Yes, it was." Happosai proclaimed. "Fourth rule, don't object to my orders. Remember I'm the experienced one here. I've been in this jungle, I've seen what it has to throw at you. Maybe not all, but no one can help you now except me. If you want my help, don't fight it. Pay attention to what I say and follow it. I'm trying to help you win this after all, why would I set you but for failure?"
"We get that, but we're not going to let you use us for your perverted needs." Ranma firmly stated.
Happosai took a deep breath. "I suppose I could make an effort to fulfill my addiction outside the jungle, but remember boy that when I need a woman's touch there's no substitute. If I need it I need it, simple as that. There may come a time you two will have to let me get my fix because there's nowhere else for me to. Just keep that in mind."
"Any more rules?" Shampoo asked, trying to change the subject.
"Just one. When we find the Amazon woman who took the game, don't go easy on her."
Ranma and Shampoo nodded. "No problem with that."