Chapter 3 – Landing
I woke up with a start to the sound of two alarm clocks and the smell of burnt plastic. Damn, there goes one alarm clock. I'd started frying alarm clocks from the other side of the room with ki a while ago without having to wake up to do it. I'd eventually trained myself to wake up at exactly the time I wanted to, but what with the jet lag, I wasn't going to trust that for the next little while. Since I didn't have a tomboy here with me to toss a bucket of water on my head, I had to make do with those three alarm clocks.
I didn't want to get up, but it was morning, and the ceiling of my new home for as long as I stay here wasn't too wonderful a view. Plus, my overdressed partner would be here soon to collect me and get me to the office for my first full day of work. I suppose my feelings were mixed about that. I'd never dealt that well with people, and there were going to be a whole bunch around that I supposed I'd have to deal with on some level while I was here. I wasn't sure just how they were going to have me working, but I was hoping they'd let me do my own thing. It was hard to explain Amazon ki signature tracking techniques to... well to most people really, and that was one of the ways I was going to go looking for Noir.
After musing about life for a little bit, and trying to get my body's equilibrium back for a while, I was running late, so I didn't figure I had enough time for any sort of training this morning. Hopefully my partner would have enough time to spar. That might make things more interesting. At least the view was nice from the apartment, and its position on the top floor gave me easy access to the roofs of the city if I needed it. With just about everything downtown six stories high and no more, it'd make a good highway if I needed to get anywhere. The other nice thing was the bathroom in the apartment. It was tiny, not too clean, and not too new, but at least it wasn't communal.
So I got ready, filled a thermos with boiling water, and headed downstairs for breakfast. The whole flask of water thing was a reaction to my still common changes into a girl. It didn't always help, but I could usually get one change out of it. The food in the guest house made up for the sullen landlady. Half a baguette with jam and butter, and a big mug of hot chocolate so thick you could practically stand a spoon up in it. A good start.
Hopefully I could find someplace to buy some cup ramen or something to add that bit extra to all my meals. That, and ask Francois to explain to her that I'll pay more for two breakfasts. That should solve that problem.
I head outside to wait for Francois, and sit on the curb, listening to the city wake up, and watching the people flow past me. It's absorbing really. Each city has its own character, and its own feel. I close my eyes for a few minutes and relax. The only thing that greets me is a series of stroboscopic images: bullets striking sparks off the sewer walls yesterday, feeling them snap and hiss around me as I twirled and rolled down the sewer walkway, blood on the floor and sewer walls, blood on the floor and walls of that hotel back in Tokyo, splashes of blood on the crates in that warehouse on the waterfront, flashes as the JSDF sergeant fired his assault rifle at me in the darkness of the apartment with his family lying dead on the floor behind him... My eyes snap open again. Maybe I'll just watch the city some more.
A few minutes later Francois pulled up and greeted me. "Salut Ranma," he greeted me, somewhat more cheerily than this hour of the morning warranted, I thought. I'm still not much of a morning person, even if I'm used to getting up early. Soon we were careening through the streets towards the police station where Francois and his group were based.
The quarter station they worked in was quite a nice new place, and once we had parked the car and got up there, the offices they had were nice as well. Roomy and bright. Francois took me into the conference room, where all the members of the unit were gathered for their weekly meeting. Some of them were there already, making some small talk, and more filed in as time passed. About fifteen minutes after I figured the meeting had been supposed to start, most of the group was there, and one taller guy in a suit stood up and got things started.
Now, I was hardly a spit and polish sort of guy myself, but most of the guys in the room looked more slovenly than I did, and that was a shock. That, and the late start in the meeting. Francois stood out in his immaculate suit, but I figured that either he was newer than the other guys, or he was more disciplined, being a martial artist and all. Either way, it didn't really matter. The state of my other co-workers told me really bad things about the state of morale in this particular unit. As the French in the meeting whistled way over my head, I checked out people's auras a bit. While none of them were exactly Ryoga, none of them were too happy either.
"And finally, I would like you all to meet Ranma Saotome who's on loan here from the Tokyo police department," said the senior detective. "Since we all can, please use English while Detective Saotome is around, because he can understand it far more than French. Detective Saotome?"
"It's a pleasure to meet you," I said with a small bow. "Please don't all introduce yourselves right now. My memory for names is terrible, but I will do my best."
A couple of them smiled at that. At least they didn't seem too uptight, which was good.
"I'm not certain why I've been transferred here to help you, but perhaps if one of the members of Noir is indeed oriental, then I will be able to help some. Thank you."
I sat down again. Public speaking had never been my forte, and doing it in another language was hard as well.
"Alright, we'll skip names for now, but please don't hesitate to ask us any questions you have. It also seems that detective Saotome is being somewhat modest. Yesterday he ensured that Gilbert from forensics got out of that sewer with only a stomach shot, not anything more. Francois, get Saotome kitted out with the basics, and then get him set up so he can access the Interpol files on Noir so he can cover some of the files he hasn't seen already. Later we can take you around to some of the incident sites if you like. At the moment we have to get ready for an inquest our group is involved in tomorrow, so we'll have to talk more later about your duties," said the Inspector.
"Thank you," I said, and quickly left with Francois. It didn't seem they were going to treat me too badly, even if they resented the intrusion on their territory.
We walked down to the armoury, where Francois got me issued a sidearm, a holster, a few clips, some cleaning supplies, and a box of bullets.
"Can I try it out on the range?," I asked. "I'm used to a revolver, not an auto. I've been trained on autos as well, but it's been a while."
"Of course, I should have offered," he said. "I didn't think that you wouldn't be used to the equipment we use, I'm so accustomed to it. I too could use some practise, so perhaps I will join you on the range."
"Sure thing," I said. It was good to see what he could do anyway, if he was going to have my back for any length of time.
So we walked to a couple adjacent booths on the range. Francois immediately started to loose off some rounds, while I checked out the pistol. I recognised it from the pictures. I had done some research on what I'd be using before I'd left, even if I hadn't had one to try out. But it was a Berretta 92G, built in France under license for the police. I'd used a Berretta 92FS on the range before, so it wouldn't be a big adjustment. It was a fairly new gun, if not part of the next generation of weapons that had started coming out around the turn of the century.
So I fired off a clip, nice and slow, not doing anything flashy with it. Truthfully, I didn't have much use for guns other than for making noise, and letting people know I was serious about stuff. For some reason, most people I met up with didn't really respect fists as a weapon until I'd punched them a few times, but most had a pretty inflated vision of what guns could do from movies and TV. Of course, I'd practised with them until I was pretty good, but that was more for a sense of personal satisfaction rather than any desire to master them.
As it turned out, I wasn't as good on the range as Francois. All in all, he was showing off some pretty spectacular marksmanship. At least I could trust him with that. He knew it though. I mean, he was looking at my target, and he could see he was better than me. I had to take a deep breath to keep that old competitive instinct down; to keep from heading back to the range and shooting some more, just trying to get a better shot cluster than he just did. Ah well, it wasn't too important. I'd just take him down when we sparred, that's all.
We spent the rest of the morning setting up the other details that needed to be covered. ID badges, network ID's, tours of the station, and so on. I thought it said something about the unit Francois was in when the first thing they did was give me a gun. I guess trying to hunt down Noir was a dangerous occupation. No big surprise there.
At lunchtime, the cafeteria didn't really quite meet up to my needs. But there was one of the serving ladies there who responded well to a big smile from a polite foreigner, so I got more than maybe I should have. Maybe once I understood the setup here a bit better I'd see if the two guys working there would pile on some extra food for a cute redhead. Heh.
"Perhaps you would like to go through some of the case files now Ranma," Francois said as we walked back towards the offices. "Unfortunately I have a meeting that I have to attend for a while, so I'll have to leave you for a while."
"No problem," I said. "It will take me a while to read through the case files anyway. If they're available in Japanese I'd be much faster, but I can get through them if they're in English."
"The only case files we have here are in French and English, I'm afraid. You could probably find some shared Interpol files in Japanese."
"I looked through most of those before I arrived here, I believe. There are some details I will have to review, but I think I can probably learn more from your case files. They're closer to the scene of the crime than the Interpol files. Did I say that right?"
"I'm not certain Ranma, what did you mean?"
"Mmm... well the Interpol files are usually... filtered? They don't include some of the guesses from the officers first on the scene because other people don't think they're worthwhile."
"Ah, I think I understand," Francois said. "You want to see those first impressions, as well as the guesses and theories that didn't make it into the official reports."
"Yes. Facts are not always that useful to me, because I'm not the smartest person, but the emotion of a crime will often tell me something."
"Ok, we'll get you to a work station to see those files then. You're lucky as well, because our unit tends to make quite a few unofficial annotations on the case files on the servers," said Francois. I thought he looked like he approved of what I'd said, but that could just have been my imagination.
So I got deposited in front of a workstation with my brand new user ID and so forth, and set free in the computer system of the Paris Police Department to look at Noir case files. There were a lot. Who was I kidding? My English wasn't that good, so it was going to take me a week, or maybe more to get through all the files they had on hand. So I filtered them a bit. You only see the real fighter when they're being pushed, so I was only gonna look at the big fights, not the small ones. So anything over four or five bodies was fair game, and that still left me with a couple days reading.
Sorta scary really. I mean, that's a lot of bodies to leave behind you. So I got down to it and started to find out what I could about these two girls who the police figured were the members of Noir. There wasn't much info collected together on them at all, and certainly no pictures.
A couple of hours later, well into the afternoon, I could hear voices raised in the conference room. Francois seemed to be getting pissed about something, and sure enough, about ten minutes later he stormed out, slamming the door, and heading out of the office. Ten minutes later, he was back.
"Ranma, do you wish to spend some time in the gym? I find that I have some energy to work off at the moment."
"Yes, I would enjoy that," I said. I guess he wanted to work off some anger doing martial arts. Feh. Never a good idea, in my opinion. But I was happy to get a bit of a work out anyway. We changed, and wandered out to spar in the gym.
We ended up sparring for two hours or so. For the first while I was mostly absorbing and containing while he worked off his aggression. When he got a bit winded later on I moved into some more offensive forms and put his ass on the mats a few times. He surprised me a few times, but considering I was sticking to straight kenpo pretty much the whole time and I still knew I'd taken him more times than he had me I wasn't too worried about him on that front. If I'd gone all out using my full array of techniques, he wouldn't have stood a chance.
He didn't seem bothered that I was better though, which was a bit strange. I would have expected a bit more competitiveness from him. But there were some odd forms he'd used when I'd pushed him a bit near the end; little things he didn't mean to let slip out. All of the strikes missed me though, but it seemed to be on purpose. Maybe he knew some chi attacks he was holding back, but I'd find out about them eventually. Now that was an interesting prospect, if I was right.
We showered and changed, including a rather unexpected change of a different sort for me into a redhead, but I covered that one up before anyone noticed it for the cost of only a 20 franc bill. The old Saotome desperation strike number two had its uses after all. While people were looking at the money they totally failed to see me sprint full out to get under the hot shower on the other side of the locker bank.
Francois didn't ever really say what the disagreement was about that had gotten him so angry in the first place, and I didn't really want to ask. They did give me the next day off work though. The rest of the unit would be involved in the inquest, and Francois figured I could do with some time to look around the city and do a bit of tourist type stuff anyway. So I thanked them, and left.
And then back to my apartment. Some of the unit had been going out after work for some wine or beer or something, but I didn't drink much, and I didn't really feel like it. I'm certain they just woulda been trying to get me drunk anyway, and I certainly didn't feel like that at all. I got a bit of dinner and some groceries, and sent postcards off to Akane, and mom. I'd give a call once I'd figured out the time zones and got a phone hooked up in the apartment, but I figured it was still nice to get mail.
I worked out a bit more, then cleaned up, and lay back on the bed to think. Some things had become obvious to me just looking at a few of the files. First, this recent attack was the only large scale action in the last six months with only a few other corpses tentatively attributed to Noir during that period.
Second, the previous wave of large scale battles with some pretty heavy body counts and nobody really trying to clean them up had reached a peak just before this six month period had started. Third, the hits that actually happened seemed mostly to be on other underworld figures of some note, not innocent people. Fourth, most of the large scale fights looked like self defence to me, not hits. I mean things were still messy, but I knew what could happen when you were going all out to defend yourself. Of course, I'd tended to leave craters scattered about Nerima, not corpses, but the principle was sorta the same.
So what had been going on six months ago, and why had it started up again? Just who was trying to kill these two girls? And why wasn't this self defence angle in any of the official reports I'd read? I mean, I guess I could understand that the police here were pretty bitter about Noir, since they'd lost a few people during their investigation of Noir, but it seemed a bit strange that this info would be totally missing from the official files. I mean, I'd figured all this stuff out pretty easy, and I knew I wasn't really that smart or anything.
The evening sun shining through my windows painted the ceiling red as it set. I had so many questions about this whole thing, and no answers at all. Of course the case was a frustrating sorta manhunt, but it looked like my initial feelings about what was going on were right. There was something happening at a higher level in the Police department here. Some sorta cover up or something. And that still didn't explain just why it was that I was here. Frustration with the whole situation stopped me getting off to sleep for a while, but eventually I drifted off, thinking of one of Kasumi's better dinners.
The next morning I woke up really early, without the alarms, which was great. The smell of burning plastic wasn't really that nice early in a day. I got out of bed, dressed, and wandered out of the building into a hot, sullen morning. I'd get my double share of breakfast later on. At the moment, I'd seen some clear space in a park near here, so I wanted to run through a few sets of Tai Chi. It had been a while since I'd done it, but I figured the relaxation and concentration might help me get back to being more centred. Less worried about things that I can't control yet. I hung my towel on a tree and moved into the first set as the sun just peeked above the horizon.
Chapter 3 Author's Notes
You'll notice that Ranma's speech is very formal when he's talking. That's because he's speaking English at the moment, a language he doesn't know well enough to use contractions or idiosyncratic forms, or whatever. When he's speaking Japanese, it'll be rougher and back closer to his usual. It figured I could either do what I did or make his English the painfully bad sort of 'you want go now?' type, but I didn't want to have to keep that writing style up the entire time he's speaking English so...
The 'good old Saotome desperation strike #2' refers to the 'Feline Fu' Ranma uses in Vol. 13 of the English manga after Ryoga has been given the mark of the battling god by a wandering hermit (the mark is a big goofy smiley face on his stomach). The attack involves throwing some money down on the ground and then attacking your opponent while they're distracted by it. Needless to say, the technique attracts Mr. Saotome and Mr. Tendo, but not Ryoga.
Sorry these first chapters aren't that fast moving, but I need to set the scene a bit for what's to come.
Thanks to everyone who's reviewing. Feel free to mail if you have any specific questions, or would like to pre-read etc.
I woke up with a start to the sound of two alarm clocks and the smell of burnt plastic. Damn, there goes one alarm clock. I'd started frying alarm clocks from the other side of the room with ki a while ago without having to wake up to do it. I'd eventually trained myself to wake up at exactly the time I wanted to, but what with the jet lag, I wasn't going to trust that for the next little while. Since I didn't have a tomboy here with me to toss a bucket of water on my head, I had to make do with those three alarm clocks.
I didn't want to get up, but it was morning, and the ceiling of my new home for as long as I stay here wasn't too wonderful a view. Plus, my overdressed partner would be here soon to collect me and get me to the office for my first full day of work. I suppose my feelings were mixed about that. I'd never dealt that well with people, and there were going to be a whole bunch around that I supposed I'd have to deal with on some level while I was here. I wasn't sure just how they were going to have me working, but I was hoping they'd let me do my own thing. It was hard to explain Amazon ki signature tracking techniques to... well to most people really, and that was one of the ways I was going to go looking for Noir.
After musing about life for a little bit, and trying to get my body's equilibrium back for a while, I was running late, so I didn't figure I had enough time for any sort of training this morning. Hopefully my partner would have enough time to spar. That might make things more interesting. At least the view was nice from the apartment, and its position on the top floor gave me easy access to the roofs of the city if I needed it. With just about everything downtown six stories high and no more, it'd make a good highway if I needed to get anywhere. The other nice thing was the bathroom in the apartment. It was tiny, not too clean, and not too new, but at least it wasn't communal.
So I got ready, filled a thermos with boiling water, and headed downstairs for breakfast. The whole flask of water thing was a reaction to my still common changes into a girl. It didn't always help, but I could usually get one change out of it. The food in the guest house made up for the sullen landlady. Half a baguette with jam and butter, and a big mug of hot chocolate so thick you could practically stand a spoon up in it. A good start.
Hopefully I could find someplace to buy some cup ramen or something to add that bit extra to all my meals. That, and ask Francois to explain to her that I'll pay more for two breakfasts. That should solve that problem.
I head outside to wait for Francois, and sit on the curb, listening to the city wake up, and watching the people flow past me. It's absorbing really. Each city has its own character, and its own feel. I close my eyes for a few minutes and relax. The only thing that greets me is a series of stroboscopic images: bullets striking sparks off the sewer walls yesterday, feeling them snap and hiss around me as I twirled and rolled down the sewer walkway, blood on the floor and sewer walls, blood on the floor and walls of that hotel back in Tokyo, splashes of blood on the crates in that warehouse on the waterfront, flashes as the JSDF sergeant fired his assault rifle at me in the darkness of the apartment with his family lying dead on the floor behind him... My eyes snap open again. Maybe I'll just watch the city some more.
A few minutes later Francois pulled up and greeted me. "Salut Ranma," he greeted me, somewhat more cheerily than this hour of the morning warranted, I thought. I'm still not much of a morning person, even if I'm used to getting up early. Soon we were careening through the streets towards the police station where Francois and his group were based.
The quarter station they worked in was quite a nice new place, and once we had parked the car and got up there, the offices they had were nice as well. Roomy and bright. Francois took me into the conference room, where all the members of the unit were gathered for their weekly meeting. Some of them were there already, making some small talk, and more filed in as time passed. About fifteen minutes after I figured the meeting had been supposed to start, most of the group was there, and one taller guy in a suit stood up and got things started.
Now, I was hardly a spit and polish sort of guy myself, but most of the guys in the room looked more slovenly than I did, and that was a shock. That, and the late start in the meeting. Francois stood out in his immaculate suit, but I figured that either he was newer than the other guys, or he was more disciplined, being a martial artist and all. Either way, it didn't really matter. The state of my other co-workers told me really bad things about the state of morale in this particular unit. As the French in the meeting whistled way over my head, I checked out people's auras a bit. While none of them were exactly Ryoga, none of them were too happy either.
"And finally, I would like you all to meet Ranma Saotome who's on loan here from the Tokyo police department," said the senior detective. "Since we all can, please use English while Detective Saotome is around, because he can understand it far more than French. Detective Saotome?"
"It's a pleasure to meet you," I said with a small bow. "Please don't all introduce yourselves right now. My memory for names is terrible, but I will do my best."
A couple of them smiled at that. At least they didn't seem too uptight, which was good.
"I'm not certain why I've been transferred here to help you, but perhaps if one of the members of Noir is indeed oriental, then I will be able to help some. Thank you."
I sat down again. Public speaking had never been my forte, and doing it in another language was hard as well.
"Alright, we'll skip names for now, but please don't hesitate to ask us any questions you have. It also seems that detective Saotome is being somewhat modest. Yesterday he ensured that Gilbert from forensics got out of that sewer with only a stomach shot, not anything more. Francois, get Saotome kitted out with the basics, and then get him set up so he can access the Interpol files on Noir so he can cover some of the files he hasn't seen already. Later we can take you around to some of the incident sites if you like. At the moment we have to get ready for an inquest our group is involved in tomorrow, so we'll have to talk more later about your duties," said the Inspector.
"Thank you," I said, and quickly left with Francois. It didn't seem they were going to treat me too badly, even if they resented the intrusion on their territory.
We walked down to the armoury, where Francois got me issued a sidearm, a holster, a few clips, some cleaning supplies, and a box of bullets.
"Can I try it out on the range?," I asked. "I'm used to a revolver, not an auto. I've been trained on autos as well, but it's been a while."
"Of course, I should have offered," he said. "I didn't think that you wouldn't be used to the equipment we use, I'm so accustomed to it. I too could use some practise, so perhaps I will join you on the range."
"Sure thing," I said. It was good to see what he could do anyway, if he was going to have my back for any length of time.
So we walked to a couple adjacent booths on the range. Francois immediately started to loose off some rounds, while I checked out the pistol. I recognised it from the pictures. I had done some research on what I'd be using before I'd left, even if I hadn't had one to try out. But it was a Berretta 92G, built in France under license for the police. I'd used a Berretta 92FS on the range before, so it wouldn't be a big adjustment. It was a fairly new gun, if not part of the next generation of weapons that had started coming out around the turn of the century.
So I fired off a clip, nice and slow, not doing anything flashy with it. Truthfully, I didn't have much use for guns other than for making noise, and letting people know I was serious about stuff. For some reason, most people I met up with didn't really respect fists as a weapon until I'd punched them a few times, but most had a pretty inflated vision of what guns could do from movies and TV. Of course, I'd practised with them until I was pretty good, but that was more for a sense of personal satisfaction rather than any desire to master them.
As it turned out, I wasn't as good on the range as Francois. All in all, he was showing off some pretty spectacular marksmanship. At least I could trust him with that. He knew it though. I mean, he was looking at my target, and he could see he was better than me. I had to take a deep breath to keep that old competitive instinct down; to keep from heading back to the range and shooting some more, just trying to get a better shot cluster than he just did. Ah well, it wasn't too important. I'd just take him down when we sparred, that's all.
We spent the rest of the morning setting up the other details that needed to be covered. ID badges, network ID's, tours of the station, and so on. I thought it said something about the unit Francois was in when the first thing they did was give me a gun. I guess trying to hunt down Noir was a dangerous occupation. No big surprise there.
At lunchtime, the cafeteria didn't really quite meet up to my needs. But there was one of the serving ladies there who responded well to a big smile from a polite foreigner, so I got more than maybe I should have. Maybe once I understood the setup here a bit better I'd see if the two guys working there would pile on some extra food for a cute redhead. Heh.
"Perhaps you would like to go through some of the case files now Ranma," Francois said as we walked back towards the offices. "Unfortunately I have a meeting that I have to attend for a while, so I'll have to leave you for a while."
"No problem," I said. "It will take me a while to read through the case files anyway. If they're available in Japanese I'd be much faster, but I can get through them if they're in English."
"The only case files we have here are in French and English, I'm afraid. You could probably find some shared Interpol files in Japanese."
"I looked through most of those before I arrived here, I believe. There are some details I will have to review, but I think I can probably learn more from your case files. They're closer to the scene of the crime than the Interpol files. Did I say that right?"
"I'm not certain Ranma, what did you mean?"
"Mmm... well the Interpol files are usually... filtered? They don't include some of the guesses from the officers first on the scene because other people don't think they're worthwhile."
"Ah, I think I understand," Francois said. "You want to see those first impressions, as well as the guesses and theories that didn't make it into the official reports."
"Yes. Facts are not always that useful to me, because I'm not the smartest person, but the emotion of a crime will often tell me something."
"Ok, we'll get you to a work station to see those files then. You're lucky as well, because our unit tends to make quite a few unofficial annotations on the case files on the servers," said Francois. I thought he looked like he approved of what I'd said, but that could just have been my imagination.
So I got deposited in front of a workstation with my brand new user ID and so forth, and set free in the computer system of the Paris Police Department to look at Noir case files. There were a lot. Who was I kidding? My English wasn't that good, so it was going to take me a week, or maybe more to get through all the files they had on hand. So I filtered them a bit. You only see the real fighter when they're being pushed, so I was only gonna look at the big fights, not the small ones. So anything over four or five bodies was fair game, and that still left me with a couple days reading.
Sorta scary really. I mean, that's a lot of bodies to leave behind you. So I got down to it and started to find out what I could about these two girls who the police figured were the members of Noir. There wasn't much info collected together on them at all, and certainly no pictures.
A couple of hours later, well into the afternoon, I could hear voices raised in the conference room. Francois seemed to be getting pissed about something, and sure enough, about ten minutes later he stormed out, slamming the door, and heading out of the office. Ten minutes later, he was back.
"Ranma, do you wish to spend some time in the gym? I find that I have some energy to work off at the moment."
"Yes, I would enjoy that," I said. I guess he wanted to work off some anger doing martial arts. Feh. Never a good idea, in my opinion. But I was happy to get a bit of a work out anyway. We changed, and wandered out to spar in the gym.
We ended up sparring for two hours or so. For the first while I was mostly absorbing and containing while he worked off his aggression. When he got a bit winded later on I moved into some more offensive forms and put his ass on the mats a few times. He surprised me a few times, but considering I was sticking to straight kenpo pretty much the whole time and I still knew I'd taken him more times than he had me I wasn't too worried about him on that front. If I'd gone all out using my full array of techniques, he wouldn't have stood a chance.
He didn't seem bothered that I was better though, which was a bit strange. I would have expected a bit more competitiveness from him. But there were some odd forms he'd used when I'd pushed him a bit near the end; little things he didn't mean to let slip out. All of the strikes missed me though, but it seemed to be on purpose. Maybe he knew some chi attacks he was holding back, but I'd find out about them eventually. Now that was an interesting prospect, if I was right.
We showered and changed, including a rather unexpected change of a different sort for me into a redhead, but I covered that one up before anyone noticed it for the cost of only a 20 franc bill. The old Saotome desperation strike number two had its uses after all. While people were looking at the money they totally failed to see me sprint full out to get under the hot shower on the other side of the locker bank.
Francois didn't ever really say what the disagreement was about that had gotten him so angry in the first place, and I didn't really want to ask. They did give me the next day off work though. The rest of the unit would be involved in the inquest, and Francois figured I could do with some time to look around the city and do a bit of tourist type stuff anyway. So I thanked them, and left.
And then back to my apartment. Some of the unit had been going out after work for some wine or beer or something, but I didn't drink much, and I didn't really feel like it. I'm certain they just woulda been trying to get me drunk anyway, and I certainly didn't feel like that at all. I got a bit of dinner and some groceries, and sent postcards off to Akane, and mom. I'd give a call once I'd figured out the time zones and got a phone hooked up in the apartment, but I figured it was still nice to get mail.
I worked out a bit more, then cleaned up, and lay back on the bed to think. Some things had become obvious to me just looking at a few of the files. First, this recent attack was the only large scale action in the last six months with only a few other corpses tentatively attributed to Noir during that period.
Second, the previous wave of large scale battles with some pretty heavy body counts and nobody really trying to clean them up had reached a peak just before this six month period had started. Third, the hits that actually happened seemed mostly to be on other underworld figures of some note, not innocent people. Fourth, most of the large scale fights looked like self defence to me, not hits. I mean things were still messy, but I knew what could happen when you were going all out to defend yourself. Of course, I'd tended to leave craters scattered about Nerima, not corpses, but the principle was sorta the same.
So what had been going on six months ago, and why had it started up again? Just who was trying to kill these two girls? And why wasn't this self defence angle in any of the official reports I'd read? I mean, I guess I could understand that the police here were pretty bitter about Noir, since they'd lost a few people during their investigation of Noir, but it seemed a bit strange that this info would be totally missing from the official files. I mean, I'd figured all this stuff out pretty easy, and I knew I wasn't really that smart or anything.
The evening sun shining through my windows painted the ceiling red as it set. I had so many questions about this whole thing, and no answers at all. Of course the case was a frustrating sorta manhunt, but it looked like my initial feelings about what was going on were right. There was something happening at a higher level in the Police department here. Some sorta cover up or something. And that still didn't explain just why it was that I was here. Frustration with the whole situation stopped me getting off to sleep for a while, but eventually I drifted off, thinking of one of Kasumi's better dinners.
The next morning I woke up really early, without the alarms, which was great. The smell of burning plastic wasn't really that nice early in a day. I got out of bed, dressed, and wandered out of the building into a hot, sullen morning. I'd get my double share of breakfast later on. At the moment, I'd seen some clear space in a park near here, so I wanted to run through a few sets of Tai Chi. It had been a while since I'd done it, but I figured the relaxation and concentration might help me get back to being more centred. Less worried about things that I can't control yet. I hung my towel on a tree and moved into the first set as the sun just peeked above the horizon.
Chapter 3 Author's Notes
You'll notice that Ranma's speech is very formal when he's talking. That's because he's speaking English at the moment, a language he doesn't know well enough to use contractions or idiosyncratic forms, or whatever. When he's speaking Japanese, it'll be rougher and back closer to his usual. It figured I could either do what I did or make his English the painfully bad sort of 'you want go now?' type, but I didn't want to have to keep that writing style up the entire time he's speaking English so...
The 'good old Saotome desperation strike #2' refers to the 'Feline Fu' Ranma uses in Vol. 13 of the English manga after Ryoga has been given the mark of the battling god by a wandering hermit (the mark is a big goofy smiley face on his stomach). The attack involves throwing some money down on the ground and then attacking your opponent while they're distracted by it. Needless to say, the technique attracts Mr. Saotome and Mr. Tendo, but not Ryoga.
Sorry these first chapters aren't that fast moving, but I need to set the scene a bit for what's to come.
Thanks to everyone who's reviewing. Feel free to mail if you have any specific questions, or would like to pre-read etc.