I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Steve Jackson Games.

Jason Evans looked up at the soft sound of the proximity alarm he'd installed outside his temporary headquarters (the tone for the door, not one of the windows), and quickly brought up the window on his laptop for the outside camera. A moment later he was closing the files he'd been reading and shutting down the connection. However secure it was, that didn't matter if it was already open.

Even as he was closing everything down the expected knock came at the door, and he hurried over to open it. "Mr. Otsu, welcome." He stepped back to allow in the elderly gentleman in his usual business suit that become his contact with Japan's 'hidden' side. Though from Jason's discussions with Toshiko and Mercedes—and especially Ms. Baker, while they had waited for the team (he couldn't really call it a squad) to return—he suspected that that 'hidden' side was more bizarre than anything the Company had ever dreamed of.

After offering a seat at the table and a drink—Jason couldn't possibly offer standard Japanese courtesies for an important visitor and wasn't going to embarrass himself by trying, but he wasn't going to skimp on the courtesy—he got down to business. "So, my people reported a successful mission, at least as successful as circumstances allowed. Are your own people satisfied?"

"Yes, Mr. Davidson, we are," Mr. Otsu replied. "Thanks to your warning we were able to arrange for the smoke to quickly be labeled nontoxic, in spite of the stench. Those evacuated from their homes will be able to return as soon as the interiors are aired out. Do you know if the odor lingers?"

Jason grimaced. "No, we don't. As I said, this is the first time we have dealt with ice worms in an urban environment. We didn't linger at previous outbreaks longer than we had to. Speaking of ice worms ..." He rose from his chair and stepped over to a briefcase against the wall to pull out a flash drive. "One thing we do know is you never get them all, which means they'll eventually be popping up again somewhere else. With as thorough a job as my people did and the fact that the nest was inside an unmapped basement lined in concrete we might be lucky this time, but no one sane wants to depend on luck, not with these things." He reached across the table to hand the flash drive to Mr. Otsu. "This is everything we know about ice worms, from their habits to their origins and genetics. Perhaps you will have avenues of study available to you that we do not."

"Yes, it seems we were fortunate that smugglers had made use of that building." Mr. Otsu tucked the flash drive into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. "Speaking of your people, we did not expect to see a powerful onmiyoji and Ranma Saotome among them."

Ah. Jason had been wondering if—hoping that—his contact would say something about either or both of the girls. He allowed the silence to stretch for a moment, then said, "In the United States the onmiyoji—at least one of Mercedes Baker's power, is called a Guardian. And she is an independent agent, hired for the operation when we were unable to provide a full squad in a timely manner. We were lucky she was available. Normally she would have still been training stateside, but her mother is serving in our Air Force and when she was transferred to Misawa Base her daughter chose to come with her rather than remain behind with family friends. This was actually her first mission, her teachers will be pleased that she did so well."

Jason paused for a moment, to let his statement sink in, then added, "It is my understanding that she and her mother would have normally had mystical protections, but decided to forgo them when Ms. Baker was assigned here—that without the support available stateside, those protections would merely draw attention to them without ultimately protecting them from a determined attacker. Now that Miss Baker's nature has been revealed her mother is planning to send her back to the States, but neither is happy about it. Would it be possible for you to provide reassurances that Miss Baker will be safe here for the remainder of her mother's assignment?"

"Yes," Mr. Otsu instantly agreed. "Understanding that this is a simple case of a child staying with her mother, there is no violation of our agreement. Those we have watching over the base will be notified and do no more than keep an eye on Miss Baker when she is off the base, for her safety."

Jason managed to keep his surprise off his face—both a mystical US organization the onmiyoji could make an agreement with and the onmiyoji were guarding Misawa Base!? He continued, "Mrs. Toshiko Tatsuno, who you know as Ranma Saotome, is also an independent agent, hired for the occasion. She is the wife of one of the fighter pilots stationed here, Lieutenant Wendell Blake. She was also the one that brought Miss Baker to our attention; the two met in school and became friends, and Mrs. Tatsuno sensed an artifact at the Bakers' apartment. When she heard we were short even with her help, she thought of the Bakers. We were lucky that she and Miss Baker were available, the mission would have cost the lives of two good men and ended in failure without them."

Mr. Otsu's expression of polite interest had finally broken, his eyes widening and—perhaps—his jaw dropping slightly. For a long moment after Jason finished speaking he simply stared, then slowly blinked. "Saotome Ranma ... is married?"

"Yes."

" ... To a man?"

"Yes, to Lieutenant Wendell Blake, one of our finest fighter pilots. He found her in a doorway just off-base dying of exposure and nursed her back to health. When he heard her story he did some quick research into possible ways to provide her with a legal identity, and when he found he couldn't adopt her offered to marry her instead. She accepted."

Mr. Otsu just sat and stared at Jason for a long moment, before finally asking, "You are aware of her ... previous situation?"

"Water-based sex-change curse that got permanently locked, then hunted by mostly likely a foreign agent pretending to be a Chinese businessman when her father and his best friend sold her to him? Yes, we are. So was Lieutenant Blake before he made his offer, she told him everything ... at least, everything relevant. And yes, he believed her, before he found her we'd shown him the camera footage taken when she helped blow up a mountain and asked him to keep an eye out. We thought he might have contacts of his own in the circles Toshiko moved in due to his first wife, now deceased."

"I see." Mr. Otsu contemplated what he just been told, his expression returning to its normal polite interest. "You have been remarkably forthcoming for a representative of an organization that operates from the shadows."

Even more than you know, Jason thought, considering that as best he could tell Mr. Otsu's organization was an actual government shadow agency ... and thought that Jason's was the same. But he just shrugged. "It seemed appropriate, to explain why we have sent several people to Nerima to look over the situation on the ground. With her marriage Toshiko Tatsuno is one of our own now and while our ability—and right—to intervene in Japan is limited, we will still do what we can." Not that 'right' actually meant much, the twelve people that made up Argus—the ruling committee of the Company ever since then-Vice President Truman had met with a general, a colonel, two biologists, two astronomers, a psychologist, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Howard Hughes, and a psychic that called herself Madame Z to review all the government's secret files on extraterrestrial artefacts and encounters—had long since decided that there wasn't much difference between ignoring U.S. laws and authorities and ignoring other nations' laws and authorities. Of course, when that decision had first been made they had thought they were the only conspiracy effectively dealing with the exo-threats—and hadn't that worried them to no end at the time, considering their lack of penetration in both the U.S.S.R. and the People's Republic of China and light footprint in all too many other nations. Like Japan.

"I see," Mr. Otsu repeated. "Toshiko Tatsuno ... Tatsuno Toshiko. She chose her own name?"

"Before she knew we existed, much less met with us to arrange the details of her new identity."

Mr. Otsu smiled faintly. "Interesting." He paused thoughtfully, then nodded and rose to his feet. As Jason rose as well, Mr. Otsu said, "Very well, I will pass the word of Tatsuno-san's new status and of your investigation of Nerima. This has been a fortuitous and productive first collaboration." He shallowly bowed then offered his hand, and with the handshake and exchanged farewells made his exit.

/oOo\

Ku Lon was very happy to be home, and equally happy at the circumstances of her and Shan Pu's return. It had been trying, living for so long among the barbarians, swallowing the insults offered daily by the ignorant barbarians she was forced by the village's poverty to serve. The fact that those insults were for the most part unknowing had just made the medicine even more bitter. Her great-granddaughter had hated it just as much—a village champion reduced to no better than a common drudge?—but had born the burden her thoughtless gesture had forced on her with equal fortitude ... mostly.

But the locking of Ranma's curse had freed them, allowing them to return to the village with honor intact, and so with no loss of status beyond the inevitable weakness of position from their extended absence. Shan Pu had quickly overcome her own loss of status with a series of victorious duels (and only one fatality when her inferior had refused to accept her clear inferiority and surrender), and Ku Lon was slowly rebuilding her web of friends and supporters.

Now, several hours beyond the rising of the sun, she rose from her cot and stretched before pulling on her robe. Her heir would have greeted the dawn as she exercised and trained, but Ku Lon was long past needing more than a few hours for maintenance of her skills and so could sleep in. She would let her household know she was up, then a quick visit to the bathhouse while one of her grandsons cooked her breakfast—

A knock on the frame of her bedroom's entranceway yanked her attention around. She'd sensed the weak chi of a male's approach, of course, but had expected him to simply pass by on his errand ... only it seemed his errand was her.

Her grandson stood in the entranceway, hands clasped in front of him and his eyes on the varnished wooden floor. "Honored grandmother, you are summoned. There is a message from Beijing, and the council is meeting to discuss it."

Ku Lon felt her heart sink. It was too soon, she wasn't ready.