Twists
A Ranma ½ Fanfiction
By Prospero Hibiki
The Grandmaster Mongoose
God of Misdirection, Caffeine, and Those Socks You Lost Last Tuesday
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Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine but the plot is. Read the disclaimer in part one for more info.
o.o
It'd happened. The first serious attempt was made less than three hours before. Ranma supposed that they should actually have been thankful that it took so long to occur. Ideally this should have given them enough time to figure out who was behind this entire farce and remove them from the equation. Except this time it hadn't. In fact what was worse was that he'd been unable to leave Nerima for one reason or another and had in fact only heard of the attack on the evening news.
Some monster or another was attacking a park in Juuban with the predictable result of drawing the senshi out to battle it. That should have been their first clue that something would happen. It was predictable. There had been enough time between the start of the monster attack and the conclusion for a damned news team to show up at the battle. It should have been completely obvious who else could show up.
The sniper had set up on the roof of a nearby apartment building. He hadn't been alone, in fact several members of the legitimate press had actually been on the same roof if in different places. He'd taken one shot and then left using the rifle to club one of the reporters who got in his way. It was actually somewhat sloppy. If he'd stuck around he would have realized he'd failed. Instead he just pulled the trigger and left.
It was actually Tuxedo Kamen who saved the day. He'd just happened to be facing the correct direction when the shot was fired. By the time anyone actually heard anything it was already too late. Whatever mystical enhancements were included in the whole Tuxedo Kamen power up they obviously included some form of ocular enhancement that the public hadn't known about before then. The man had actually managed to deflect the bullet using a thrown rose. A rose! If he hadn't been so angry about the attack he would have been amazed that Kuno might actually know a somewhat useful skill.
As if the actual attack on the senshi wasn't bad enough, it'd been broadcast on national television. Which meant that there was no way to conceal the things that the senshi had revealed inadvertently about their automatic reactions in emergencies. And it was bad. When an event like the one that happened in the park occurs, people will react to protect the things that they consider most precious and valuable. A mother will run for her children, a thief for his money. A husband will try to protect his wife, and a bodyguard will run for their principle. These things happen without thought. They're almost, no they probably are, instincts.
The things that Ranma had figured out from the film footage were practically a death sentence for them. In the minute it took for the senshi to figure out what was going on they had revealed too much about their relationships and thought patterns to remain safe. And it was a virtual certainty that anyone even considering taking the job would be reviewing every single frame of footage for the one thing that would prove to be the fatal flaw in the senshi's habits. They were there. Ranma had spotted them himself. And he knew that some of the people who would be watching the footage were even better at spotting the flaws than he was.
The bullet had been deflected, but it had still hit a tree not five feet away from Sailor Venus which probably meant the bullet had indeed been meant for her. She reacted quite well to the situation when she dove behind a rock outcropping that was nearby and protected from the location the shot was fired from. Sadly though that action revealed that she still had some of the loner mindset from her days as Sailor V. She reacted first to protect herself, which was good, but did so in a way that separated her from the group.
Sailor Mercury was supposedly the thinker of the group and she reacted in a way that was even more dangerous. She didn't actively react to protect herself at all. Instead she took the opportunity to scan for the enemy. This either showed a supreme confidence in her own and her allies' abilities or an ingrained habit from fighting the monsters that were their more common enemy. Against a group of trained assassins she was a target waiting to be taken.
Mars had reacted in ways that weren't so much dangerous as they were revealing. She was a young girl in a spiritualist field of some sort. She too had dove behind cover but had instead chosen a cement park bench. Her flaw was that she had immediately reached for an ofuda. It wasn't a bad reaction on the surface but it showed that she was more comfortable dealing with the spiritual than the physical. It also indicated that she received her training in it prior to becoming a senshi. She was probably a miko at one of the Shinto shrines in the Minato area. Ranma only hoped that this was one area that people would overlook. There were probably few enough shrines in the area that she could be easily found if one thought to look for her among them.
The reactions of Sailor Saturn were...odd. She flinched. Really and truly flinched at the possibility of being shot, and yet she continued to stand her ground with her giant pole arm at the ready. He couldn't really recall fully but he seemed to remember that she had some form of shield that she could call up. Who knows, maybe she had given the least away with her actions.
Jupiter was a physical fighter. It showed in that her first move was to do a quick scan of the area and then assume a neutral stance that would allow her to react in any direction a threat could come from. Not a bad idea except that it highlighted that she was used to fighting things up close and personal as well as within her range of sight. She probably could be trained out of those bad habits easier than the others could.
He'd thought the rumors of the relationship between Sailors Uranus and Neptune were just that, but with Uranus's instinctive grab onto the other girl to protect her with her body he wasn't so sure anymore. It was a potential weakness that could be used against them. But it was something that could also backfire against anyone who tried to use it as such.
Sailor Moon was scared and it showed. But at the same time there was a core of unbending steel in her body language. She would react as appropriate. Whether it worked or not was something else entirely, but she had the look of someone who would do what she needed to do. It might scare her or even hurt her, but she would do it. They said she was the leader of the senshi. They were right. Which also put the added burden of being the most important link in the chain on her shoulders. She would almost assuredly be one of the first targets.
There was only one left and it was her reactions that had him most disturbed. Sailor Pluto was a mysterious figure whose powers and motivations were endlessly being debated upon by senshi otaku. Ranma didn't see it. He saw instantly what motivated her. She was a protector. She was willing to give her life to protect Sailor Moon. Not in the same way that Uranus protected her lover by wrapping her body around her. No, Sailor Pluto instead seemed to almost teleport in front of Sailor Moon and position herself as a human shield all the while looking directly at the building where the shot had come from. Her expression was telling. She wasn't scared. She wasn't angry. She was resigned, willing to die for the girl she was standing in front of without a second thought. More than that, she had reacted as soon as Tuxedo Kamen had started to move. Without knowing why or what she was protecting the girl from, she'd placed herself in a position to protect her by sacrificing herself at the merest hint of danger. Had Moon really been the target, Sailor Pluto would have died. Ranma knew in that moment of realization that she would do so again and again and again.
Ranma looked up from his seat at the desk men from the organization had set up for him in the closest office they had to Nerima. The room's walls were covered in all the information that they had managed to collect to date on not only the bounty that had been issued but also everything that had been compiled on the senshi themselves. And when his people said everything they damned well meant it. There were lists of enemies categorized by power level, origin, date, weaknesses, and any other combination of items that could possibly connect one monster to another. He saw charts detailing the evolving nature of the senshis' uniforms as well as a comparison between uniform changes and new magical attacks. There were television screens and computer monitors showing continuous footage of not only the attack that day but also of any and every fight that the senshi had been involved in that had been captured on film.
He had all this information at his fingertips and none of it could tell him what he really needed to know. Namely who was behind the contract that had been taken out on the senshi. No doubt the information was in the room somewhere in some folder or on some list of names. But that didn't help him any. He needed that name. It was the only chance those girls had of surviving to reach their next birthday. As he'd just figured out from analyzing the footage he couldn't protect them all the time. Certainly he and the organization could try, but they would fail. The payoff was too high. Too many people would be coming after them, and someone would get lucky. And it only had to happen once. He had to win every single time. What was worse was that he couldn't even count on the person wanting to escape with his life. For the amount of money being offered there would be more than one truly desperate man willing to sacrifice himself to earn that money for his family. Bodyguards were only truly effective against people who wanted to live. If someone was willing to give their life for their goal there were very few ways to stop him unless you spotted him before the attempt.
Leaning back in the comfortable executive chair he'd been sitting in for over an hour Ranma stared at the ceiling in thoughtand brought a cigarette up to his lips. A quick burst of ki turned the end into a fiercely glowing ember and he inhaled deeply the nicotine in the tobacco soothing him slightly. He'd started smoking when he'd been forced into taking over as oyabun, and it was something that was more than a little dangerous for him because nothing else was more likely to get him caught than the smell to tobacco smoke on his clothes. As he blew a perfect smoke ring into the air he sighed. There was no putting it off any longer. He had to go to Juuban himself. It was the only way that he might be able to be of some use. The only problem was that he had no idea how he would be able to get out of Nerima for long enough without being followed by every nutjob chasing after him. As it was he'd probably already been gone long enough for people to start looking for him. That was really something he didn't need.
"Ranma-sama, we've been unable to find anything that fit any of the patterns you told us to look for." He looked up at the man who had entered the room without him really realizing it. "We shall of course continue looking but our preliminary examination of the data says that it is unlikely." The man bowed low and left the room after Ranma dismissed him. He hadn't expected anything else anyway. The possibility that a grieving relative of a victim that the senshi hadn't been able to save setting up a contract on their lives always had been a long shot but still one he'd felt obligated to check.
"Damn it!" Swiping his arm across the desk he sent papers flying in every direction. He didn't notice the greater resistance from an ashtray that someone had brought out for him. The solid glass mass ripped through the air and embedded itself into one of the walls. It was only peripherally noticed as something that would have to be fixed before they sold the office space. One of the men who'd been working in the small room outside the door came rushing in at the sound.
"Nakamura, start transferring all of our research over to an office in Juuban. If we can find one close to the place I'll be staying in, that would be best. Oh, and by the time I get there I expect to have a list of all the Shinto shrines in the Minato ward. Do not tell anyone else of this last instruction. I want for you to make the list yourself without asking anyone for help. Leave no notes, hand the only copy to me personally, and then forget that you ever did this." He leveled a stern glare at the man. "Do you understand? No traces."
"I understand Ranma-sama." He paused as he was about to leave. "When do you wish for me to deliver it to you?"
Ranma sighed once more. "Bring it to me tomorrow evening. By then I should be at whatever office space has been set aside for me to work in." With that he dismissed Nakamura and leaned back in the chair once more. "Damn it. This isn't going to end well. I can feel it."