The official travel brochure listed the place as "a quaint hamlet, deliciously off the beaten track." To the watchers on the overlooking hill, it was just another grimy little truck stop at the ass-end of China. A dozen unpainted shacks hugged the edges of the single, narrow, pock-marked road. On occasion, an aging truck would coast up to the single gas-pump long enough to replenish the driver's supply of alcohol and gasoline. A trickle of people stopped at the government office to post mail. The small, bleak hotel at the edge of town sat deserted. The only other signs of habitation were a few overgrown paths that wandered off into the wilderness. Presumably, there was some sort of local industry or craft that justified the town's existence, but if so, there was no sight of it near town. Perhaps it was down one of the pathways.

As the sun approached its zenith, the air shimmered in the summer heat. The buildings had been rendered quite unbearable, and most inhabitants had long ago fled to more amiable surroundings. A couple of gas station attendants watched with envy as a gaggle of children ran, screaming, into the trees.

On top of the hill, the two watchers had decided to make their move. A cacophony of rustling followed their attempts to work their way out of the concealing bushes. With a final crescendo of snapping twigs, they came rolling out of the undergrowth and landed in a twisted heap. After a few seconds of pushing and shoving, the tangle of limbs resolved itself into a short redhead and a panda outfitted in martial arts gi.

"Right," said the redhead. "You wait here, and I'll make the call."

"Rurr rurau ree?" asked the panda.

"No, you can't come," sighed the redhead. "I think someone would notice a giant panda parading through town."

"Rrrr! Wraa waa war, wra waar wrarr," complained the panda.

"Yes, you are, and that's beside the point. If too many people spot us, the Amazons will getting a new panda-skin rug. Do you really need to go that badly?"

Clearly unhappy with her logic, the panda waddled off to perform a belly-flop into the nearest puddle of shade.

Smiling smugly, the redhead turned to made her way down to the town. After emerging from the brush behind the filling station, she a minute peering around corners and through windows. All of the attendants were out front, trying to escape the heat.

Satisfied, the redhead moved to the back door. After a minute of probing with a pocket knife, she managed trip the door latch. Easing the door open a crack, she peered into the back room. There was barely enough room to contain the two chairs, a small card table, and an oppressive heat. The table was currently doubling as a desk with piles of paperwork covering every inch of the surface. The redhead carefully propped open the door, hoping that the heat would take the hint and vacate the premises.

After a few seconds of digging through piles of records, she eventually traced a cord to the buried phone. Lifting the receiver, she started to dial. After a few dozen digits and a couple of operators, she finally managed to complete her call.

"Hello, this is the Happy Bathhouse. How may I help you?" came a distant voice.

Taking a deep breath, she replied, "This is Nodoka. We've secured the water supply, but there were a few...snags."


º•o•º•o•º•o•º•o•º
Toy Dojo
A Ranma ½ Fanfic
by Wordblindness
º•o•º•o•º•o•º•o•º
Chapter 3: Unexpected Trouble
º•o•º•o•º•o•º•o•º

The job looked simple enough. A reporter was doing an exposé on the government of Zeitverschwendung, and he needed some special equipment slipped past his government minders. I didn't really understand the point; he couldn't pronounce the country's name or name its key exports, but he was willing to risk his life for The Truth. Well, it was his money and his life; who was I to tell him what to do?

When they weren't being led around by the hand, all reporters visiting the dump had to spend their time at the government-run hotel where they could be closely monitored. Of course, their minders had way too much faith in the third-rate surveillance systems. After tapping into the hotel's closed-circuit feed, I determined that the only real obstacle would be the front lobby. There was the standard metal detector and x-ray units, followed by an area set aside for hand-searches. Luckily, they didn't have enough creativity to stagger searches; it was every fourth person, regular as clockwork.

Events started off perfectly on cue. At exactly 11:45 a.m., I stepped into line at the security checkpoint. It was nearing the end of the morning shift, so the guards were at their most distracted. A few seconds later, the man at the front of the line was pulled aside to be searched. Counting back through the line, I confirmed that I had timed everything perfectly. Even if one or two people dropped out of line, I wouldn't be searched. Looking forward, I saw that the x-ray technician was almost asleep at his station. Good—the reporter's equipment was designed to foil detection, but every little bit helps. It looked like smooth sailing ahead.

Then it happened. A guard suddenly got a strange look on his face. After some hurried whispers with his supervisor, he dashed down a hallway. Had he spotted something? Was there something else happening? Should I take off? Pushing these questions aside, I tried to find an unobtrusive way to look down that hallway. By pretending to tie my shoes, I was able to move over the half-meter required to see. I was just quick enough to spot the guard diving into a restroom, hand over mouth. Adding up the facts, I sighed in relief. It looked like he had better things to do than cause me trouble. With any luck, he would finish his shift in there, and I would never see him again.

Looking back, I don't know what I could have done differently. There is just a certain amount of time you expect someone to spend gone after rushing off toward the nearest toilet. It's just common sense. I almost had to admire the dedication of that guard: rushing back from spewing up his guts and immediately attempting to search the first person in line. Unfortunately for him, that person was me. As he bent over to look into my bag, I slammed my foot into his already tender stomach and made a break for the front door.

The whole system worked against the guards. They were positioned to keep people out, not in. If I had tried to run further into the hotel, they would have had a clear shot at me. Instead, I went through one of the flimsy partitions separating the checkpoint from unsecured area. One I was through the gap, I only had to deal with the single guard watching the door, and he had been startled when the partition slapped into the ground. A simple shove sent him sprawling long enough for me to run outside.

There was no time to be subtle, so I continued running. After making a couple turns, I reached my destination. I made a quick detour through an empty building, locking doors along the way. The final door dumped me out into a narrow alley. After checking for watchers, I unlocked the door to the next building and stepped into the room where I had been staying.

I quickly stripped off my suit, and replaced it with a plain t-shirt and a worn pair of overalls. A tin of grease gave my skin a deep caramel tone, and a bandanna and a pair of sunglasses obscured the bone structure of my face. By the time the guards broke down the door to the next building in search of a middle-aged Japanese businessman, the newest member of the country's ethnic working class was walking down a street in the opposite direction.

Twenty minutes at a hurried pace took me too an older part of town. Small, tightly-packed houses cut their way up and down the hilly terrain. The place was an iron-monger's dream, with ornamental fences jealously guarding the small but colorful gardens that bordered each house. Unfortunately, any potential for tranquility in the scene was marred by the haphazard addition of wooden planks and nets to the fences. These fences now served a far more functional purpose than their designers ever intended. Occasionally, I would come across a women tending to her garden. In every case, I was skewered with a hostile stare until I passed out of sight.

It was with a great deal of relief that I came across a small cluster of stores and shops. Pulling out a small slip of paper, I compared it to signs until I came across a tent holding a small farmer's market. Ducking through a flaw, I went over talked to the proprietor. After a large amount of hand waving and a small bribe, he led me down a few buildings and introduced me to another man. After negotiating a somewhat higher fee, I found myself immersed in the pungent aroma of onions as I scrambled into the back of a rickety old truck.

As we drove off, I saw the market owner running back to confront a soldier who was entering his tent with a large tracking dog. As the merchant's voice rose in outrage, more and more people started to exit buildings to watch the proceedings. I laid back to try and get some sleep. Behind us, I could hear the distant sounds of gunfire. It was going to be a long trip.

•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o

It had been a long trip—much longer than I anticipated. It didn't help that the entire country seemed to go mad at once. Those that weren't out, adding to the chaos, were all hunched over their televisions, just trying to figure out who they would work for the next day. In retrospect, I would have been better off bushwhacking straight toward the nearest border. Instead, I wasted a week working my way down the road, desperately looking for a ride out of the country. I knew that I was leaving a path that a blind fool could follow, but I needed to put some distance behind me. Eventually, I made it out of the country and to the nearest airport.

Knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I emptied out my emergency fund. After a week of burning cash, I was the proud new owner a maze of false leads, the identity of a unreported heart-attack victim, and a one-year lease on an apartment. The effort wouldn't hide me from the scrutiny of any true world power, but I was sure it would be sufficient for my purposes. If I kept my head down, it would be easy to disappear into a city the size of Tokyo. After a few months, everything would blow over.

Unfortunately, time constraints didn't really give me the chance to deal with anything but security. The apartment came with bare furnishings, and that was it. I started to go stir crazy after the first week of confinement. There wasn't anything actively wrong with the apartment; I had just gotten tired of looking at the same things every day: bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, drab art prints, bed, table, chairs, couch, and television. To avoid showing my face in public, I was eating only what I could get delivered. The ancient television only received broadcast stations. The place was monotony distilled. Every day was the same old routine. Every day, the walls moved a little closer.

I started putting serious thought about sneaking out some night to get a few things. Put a few plants here, nail up a few paintings, repaint the walls, get some food in the refrigerator, fill a bookshelf, kill my neighbor—with a little hard work, the place could be livable. If nothing else, redecorating would have burnt a few hours. Only a years of ingrained habit held me back from risking my cover. Every day, it was holding me back less.

Eventually, I had to face facts: this job was making me old before my time. When I was younger, a few months of spent watching television and ordering delivery was no real chore. I had all the time in the world; I could afford to be patient. Now, at the ripe old age of forty-five, I did not want to waste my final few active years stagnating. Even eating had lost most of its appeal; who knows how much of my health was being stolen by greasy take-out? How much worse was hunger than the constant indigestion?

•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o

Then, the postcard came.

It was three weeks in; my entire world now consisted of my tiny apartment, and it was becoming harder and harder to maintain a proper perspective. Things that I used to taking for granted had become obsessions. As a man, I had certain desires I needed to indulge, and I'm not talking about a penchant for power tools. That's right: I was hungry for real food; delivery just didn't cut it. I needed a juicy hamburger, or some lightly grilled salmon, or just about anything that came served on a real plate. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything about it, not without going into public and risking exposure. I hadn't quite forgotten that things could get worse.

To avoid one source of temptation, I had developed one simple rule: don't receive mail; ignore it. This may seem a little extreme, but boredom, combined with a constant lack of variety, can turn even a simple sheet of fast food coupons into an diabolic instrument of torture. I would have simply let the junk mail compost in my mailbox, but that might have attracted the wrong sort of attention. Once a week, the contents of my mailbox caught a direct connection to the nearest trashcan.

As the current week's stack landed in the bin, my eye caught a cheesecake shot on top. On a whim, I fished it back out. It was a shame to waste any of my precious wall-gazing time on potential junk mail, but some things deserve at least a passing glance.

A quick look identified it as one of those slightly racy cards that fill racks at resorts everywhere. You know, the ones that a certain type of tourist buys, so that he can remember the good time he didn't have the balls to have. I think this was the first time I had ever seen one of them delivered through the mail. Most people realize that, for someone stuck back at work, a few acres of tropical beach are often even more liberating than an enormous expanse of bare flesh. I turned it over, sure that some vacationer had bungled a neighbor's address. Surprisingly, it was labeled with my current name and address. Curious, I read the message.

Old Buddy—

Got your address from one of your new
friends. He was planning to call on you,
but after a few drinks, he was dead to the
world. Don't worry about being lonely.
All new & old friends working on big surprise
for you.

Come see me down by canal. Lots of
interesting things to do. It'll make a
new person of you. You'll enjoy it. I
Promise!!

               —Happy

I started to play with the postcard nervously. This was bad! In my experience, "old buddy" is short for "poor sucker that I am about to take to the cleaners." Coming from Happosai, it was even more worrisome. Happosai wouldn't try to cheat a friend, but he was hardly altruistic. He would expect a favor in return, and his concept of what constituted a reasonable favor was always a bit skewed. In this case, he would expect me to join this new project and thank him for such a fine opportunity. I had been through all this before, and I had the scars (among other things) to prove it. It is often better to promise away your first born child than to let Happosai save your life.

I guess the whole part about all the people after my blood wasn't good either. From the sound of it, the Zeits had dug up everyone I had ever pissed off over the course of a lifetime. I shuttered to think what would happen if they caught me; there wouldn't be enough left to hurry. From what Happosai hinted, one of them had managed to track me down after only a few weeks. That spoke tons about the money and manpower they were willing to invest in revenge.

I was really starting to hate that bloodthirsty little tin-pot dictatorship. All I did was smuggle a few harmless pieces of equipment through security, and I'm treated like some sort of international terrorist. Okay, maybe I was the indirect cause of a race riot, but that wasn't really my fault. It was an inevitable result of their own government policy. Why else had the duke's detractors been planning to use the riots as a cover for their coup attempt? He should thank me for triggering events before the revolutionaries could fully prepare.

With the arrival of Happosai's message, I was faced with a choice. I could play it safe and run again, admitting that I was over the hill, or I could join Happosai, risking everything in one really stupid gamble.

There was really no choice; I would accept Happosai's offer, if for no other reason than to get out of that dump. It was risky, but so was running from assassins. If my time was up, I chose to see death coming.

Besides, it would be nice to see how the place had changed in over the years.

•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o•o

As I got off the train in Kurashiki, I started looking around the station for my guide. It was the only logical place to meet me. The train was fast and relatively anonymous, so I would be a great fool to travel any other way. If I rode the train, I had to pass through the station. There should have been someone there to pick me up. After ten minutes of looking and a stop at the vending machines—nobody should ever be forced to go for a month without chocolate—I heard the next train pull in to the station. I gave up and left in disgust.

Outside the station, I tried to work out my next move. While sipping at the strange concoction of ice, sugar, and caffeine I had found at a nearby booth, I came up with a plan. Happosai had mentioned a canal in his postcard. I had interpreted this as a reference to Kurashiki, because we had first met near the canal there. Perhaps he had been more literal than I thought.

After a short taxi ride, I made it to the Historic District that ran along the canal. This area was a less that ideal setting to meet someone, with much more ground to cover and a slew of businesses. I could have sent out a dozen searchers, and I wouldn't be sure to find anyone. Besides, the vendors had lines and were being stingy with the condiments.

After wandering around, I spotted the bar from my first meeting with Happosai. Surely, he would have left some message there. I entered the bar and found that, sometime in the last few years, it had been remodeled as an Italian restaurant. No one would admit to knowing a Happosai or anyone of his general description. Not wanting to be rude, I stayed for some stuffed pasta and a crepe—a good choice over take-out any day.

At a loss, but with a full belly, I wandered around until a found a small public park. I sat down on a bench, and admired the well-sculpted topiary. Looking around, I tried to figure out where I was. This buildings in this area had always been fairly tightly packed, and I didn't remember there being any gaps as large enough for a park all those years ago. They would have had to tear down a building for that much space, but only an idiot would damage any of these buildings. Their historical value made them far too expensive for that.

I wondered why I felt that I was forgetting something. Shrugging, I decided I was done searching for the day.

As I exited the park, I noticed a flier posted where it would be seen by anyone walking on the path..

Feel like the world is out to get you?
Need a safe haven from the daily grind?
Then head right down to the Happy Bathhouse.
Just take a left....

I decided that a nice warm soak was exactly what I needed to relax. After carefully memorizing the directions, I made my way to the bathhouse. As I walked through the entrance, I fished through my pockets for coins. Finding the correct amount, I looked up just in time to see the attendant do a double-take. Hurrying forward, she practically shoved me through a side door with a quick "this way, sir. They have been waiting for you."

I spent a few seconds just blinking at the door that had been shut in my face. That had been unusual. Unable to work out what had just happened, I returned the coins to my pocket and turned around to see where I was.

I was standing at the beginning of a short hallway containing five doorways and a dead-end. Judging by the bare floors and walls, this was the service section of the building. An orderly stack of boxes in the dead-end showed an ancient attempt at organization, but the walls were now lined with haphazard piles of cleaning and tiling supplies.

Picking my way through the mess, I started checking the doorways. The first pair of doors yielded a small restroom and the boiler room. I passed on without slowing. Finally, at the third door, I found someone. A heavyset man sat reading a newspaper. Around the edges, I spotted a white gi and a handkerchief.

"Saotome, what have you done to yourself? You look terrible," I greeted in mock horror. It wasn't that I had anything against the man; he just rubbed me the wrong way. It always felt like he was about to throw his arm around my shoulders and offer me a great deal on a used car. I knew it was unfair to act on the impulse, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, his current outfit did nothing to hide his weight or his baldness.

"At least I'm not stupid to accept a cure for baldness from the old fart." Okay, that was true, but at least I didn't live under the delusion that I could reclaim my youth. "Finally decided to show up, huh? We thought you would show up days ago."

"Days ago? But I only got the postcard toda—oh. Hehe. Well, I don't really check my mail that much anymore. The message was probably sitting in my mailbox for a while." No wonder nobody had been waiting for me at the station.

"Typical, just typical. Half the world is hunting for you, and you almost get caught because you couldn't be bothered to check the mail."

"Well, nobody was supposed to know where I was," I complained. "And it wasn't half the world; it was just one little dung-hole. Why should I have been worried that they would find me?"

From the look on Saotome's face, I might as well have asked, "Godzilla who?"

"What?" I snapped.

With a growing smirk, Saotome flipped through the sections and threw the business section at me. "You should pay more attention to the news. When you choose to screw up, you don't use half measures."

As I read the headline, I suddenly felt a headache coming on. "Zeits Riots Delay Mines."

"Yeah, some of the most accessible deposits of beryllium in the world. They were right in the middle of trade negotiations when the riots broke out. The duke has closed down all operations and negotiations until such time as he can feel that his workers are safe. There is a strong feeling in the international community that a the head of the vicious terrorist—that would be you—would quell all fears."

I slumped down across the table from Saotome. "Cute, real cute. I'm assuming that, since you called me here, you have some way to hide me."

Saotome suddenly gained a smug aura of knowledge. "Oh, we have something, all right," he pronounced. "But I thing the Master wanted to show you that personally."

I glanced around the room, half expecting Happosai to appear on cue. "Where is the old geezer, anyway?"

Saotome gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Our public front is a bath house, and we're in the middle of the evening rush. You figure it out."

Of course. I should have been able to work that one out for myself. There was nothing to do but wait until Happosai was done. I considered convincing Saotome to fetch something to eat, but experience indicated that no food would survive the trip back with him.

To pass the time, I started skimming over the remainder of the business section. On the second page, I found a more in-depth article on the mineral resources of Zeitverschwendung. An extensive survey had identified deposits of over sixty minerals, metals, and gems, including uranium, beryllium, gold, silver, iron, beryl, ruby, emerald, sapphire, and jade. Several analysts were already calling it an area of "critical strategic importance." It was good to know that someone was happy.

It was at that moment that I felt the water pour over me, and then everything changed.


Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and all associated characters and concepts belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, Fuji TV, and Viz Communications. I am borrowing them for non-commercial entertainment purposes only.
Author's Notes: On this chapter, I learned that while flashbacks are often awkward, rewriting a chapter in chronological order is worse. Passages that worked really nice before contained redundancies when moved next to each other. Lots of foreshadowing had to be trimmed because it now took place afterward. Oh well, them's the breaks.