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

Ranma wearily dropped his pack in the doorway of the apartment he'd been told was being rented out for his exclusive use while he was in Juuban. It'd still taken longer than he'd wanted to make a clean escape from the dojo. In fact he'd left over eight hours before and had spent almost that entire time repeatedly changing trains and buses in the hope of losing any pursuit. He thought he'd been successful, but then he couldn't be sure about that. Frankly though that was really the last thought that should have been on his mind. The fact that it wasn't probably had more to do with being unable to do anything about the real reason he was in Juuban in the first place.

There was so much that needed to be done, but he had no idea where to start. If Nakamura had been here he would have been able to get started on the search for Sailor Mars, but Nakamura wasn't here yet which mean the only really viable lead he had wasn't available for investigation. He'd been having second thoughts about that avenue of investigation anyway. If he were being followed by someone from Nerima or even if he weren't it was too much of a risk to chance leading someone to whichever shrine or shop the Senshi of Mars worked at. Even worse would be the chance of leading someone to the thought process behind that investigation. Ranma knew he was arrogant but he was also aware that some of his arrogance was actually justified. He really was that good in some respects. None of that eliminated the thing that would probably be the biggest obstacle in this whole affair. Some people were better.

It was rare that Ranma had to really think about the fact that he wasn't the best there was in something. He always knew that if he was weak in one area he could always improve in that respect and possibly overcome any weakness with strength in another area. This was after all one of the tenets of the Anything Goes Style. Adaptability had become so ingrained in him over the years that it was his first reaction in a situation. Well first reaction after he tried his usual rushing into things without thinking.

Looking out one of the apartment's windows Ranma lit up a cigarette and stared out at Juuban. He was about ten or so stories up and so had a good view of the surroundings, but the sight only dismayed him. It was so big. Not just the ward, but the whole city. There were too many places for the senshi to be and even more that could now be housing the hit squads that were undoubtedly forming in reaction to yesterday's attack. And they were forming. He'd been informed of the organization's takedown of at least one such group not three miles from his current apartment building. They'd been amateurs, which was what had allowed Mizuno-san's men to spot them as they had, but their presence only confirmed what Ranma himself had feared.

People wanted the money. More than that they wanted to be the ones to collect which meant they had to get to the targets before anyone else did. Anyone who didn't know that others had gotten the same offer that they had knew now. With that knowledge came increased urgency. Ranma could practically see the endless lines of assassins coming. What was worse was that there was no way he could stop it because they had failed to discover the person who had opened the contract. No, he had failed.

Walking over to the kitchen countertop he looked around for an ashtray. Not finding one he shrugged and simply flash fried the stub of the cigarette with his ki without leaving any ash behind to mar the carpets. He pulled out another one but simply stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. Slowly wandering back to the window he looked out once more. From this spot he could actually see the rooftop from which the shot had been fired. Shrugging his shoulders he nodded absently to himself. It wouldn't be a bad place to start while he waited for Nakamura to arrive with the data. Just because he probably wouldn't be visiting the places on the lists didn't mean that he shouldn't know how many there were and their locations. Turning he walked to the door briefly running through the mental map he'd made in his head for the surrounding buildings.

Once he'd made it to the ground floor it only took a few minutes to make it to the building in question. It did take longer for the building manager to give him the keys for rooftop access but the man that had been assigned to be his gopher was able to explain things in the proper way. With keys in hand he'd practically run up the steps to the rooftop. But there is where he had his first real surprise of the evening. It seemed that he wasn't the only person to have had the idea of investigating the site.

His first reaction was to cloak himself in the Umisenken techniques that his father had developed and observe the actions of the shadow that was examining the area. He didn't exactly know why he did that as opposed to simply going and confronting the person that was doing the snooping about. The best he could figure it was just an instinctive reaction on his part that had him doing so. Well instinct and the desire to actually be the person who knew something for a change.

It was a woman in a suit. Not a very remarkable first impression but one that did come with slightly more detail that could be conveyed in words. For example it was a very well fitting suit. Clearly not something that someone could just pick up off of a rack. So it gave Ranma a place to start from in regards to her background. It probably eliminated police officer from the equation as well. They just didn't make enough to wear something like that. Well the lower level local officers didn't. It was the higher levels of the national agencies that would actually be able to wear something like that so casually and then ruin it as she was doing by kneeling in the dirt of the rooftop. The problem with that idea was that no one at that level of the government would be alone as she did so. Still the possibility did exist but it was a very small one. Reporter was out for similar reasons. No, whoever this lady was she was out of place in several ways. That should have immediately sent up red flags in his mind that pointed towards assassin, but for some reason she just didn't strike him as such. For some reason he was leaning towards a private investigator that was searching for clues to lead her towards the person who placed the bounties.

That decided he took in actual details about the woman's appearance. She was probably about his height of five feet eight inches. It was somewhat tall for a Japanese woman but not completely unheard of in the current day. She was also fairly well tanned showing that she probably either sunbathed or, more likely, visited a tanning salon regularly. Her hair was done up in a somewhat severe style that still showed she cared enough to have quite a bit of length to it. The color was somewhat odd too. It was a deep green and done up in a way that left a small bun on the back of her head before the remainder dropped down to her knees. Idly Ranma wondered just how she kept it from dragging across the ground when she had crouched down.

Having decided that he'd seen enough he released the Umisenken a few feet behind her while she was closely examining one of the walls. "So what exactly do you think you're doing up here? This place is a crime scene." Her expression was interesting as she whirled around to look at him and it looked as if her instinctive reactions included something somewhat odd. It wasn't anything really seen, more something he understood on a deeper level. It was a subtle tensing of the muscles in her shoulders and arms that was aborted before it even finished. He'd seen similar things before though and it took him a while to figure out where. Bojutsu. If he'd seen more he probably would have been able to narrow it down to a specific style of staff fighting. Hmm, so she was at a minimum slightly familiar with at least one form of martial art. Probably more since bojutsu was more of supplementary art than one that was started as a focus.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Ranma smirked at her. "Really, I think that you should answer those questions yourself before you try to get them from other people. So what exactly do you think you were trying to do up here? This place is a crime scene and you're disturbing evidence. Not to mention that you were completely exposed to anyone who decided to snipe at any woman that decided to investigate. They wouldn't care that you're not one of the senshi; they'd just shoot you in the hopes of earning even a part of the bounty. Bullets are cheap after all and they can waste them on..." Something seemed off with what he'd just said, but Ranma couldn't figure it out. Or rather he hadn't figured it out yet.

"What bounty?" The words froze him in the middle of his thoughts. He'd screwed up in assuming that this woman was a private investigator. Ranma had acknowledged that it was a possibility but he had somehow stopped thinking about it and taken it as a fact. Any real investigator would have already known the answer to that question without needing to ask. More to the point her tanned face was deathly pale so she clearly wasn't trying to trap him into admitting something by playing dumb. There were only a few sets of people who might possibly be up there and not know about the bounty and still be investigating. A senshi fangirl was one option, but he couldn't see it. No, the only other possible option was also one that Ranma had dismissed immediately without even thinking about it. Ranma still didn't know what to believe but he was beginning to get the idea that wasn't entirely his fault. He only hoped that it was his previous exposures to magic that were letting him figure things out, because otherwise they were all screwed.

Ignoring her question for a moment he reached for his phone. Hating the thing didn't change the fact that it occasionally proved useful. Still he normally kept it in stuffspace to prevent it from being damaged in one of the daily brawls in Nerima. Since leaving though he'd kept it in the small holster on his belt that his people had provided for him. "It's me. Lock down the area around my location. No one is to get within one hundred feet of me and the person I'm with. Stage the counter-sniper teams on the roof tops surrounding me and tell them to take out anyone they see with a gun that isn't us with extreme prejudice." Ranma snapped the phone shut knowing his instructions would be carried out.

Mizuno's choices for the counter-sniper teams were practically perfect. He'd exhaustively researched every single man the government had with the qualifications. He'd selected twenty men from them. And he'd violated pretty much every accepted method of selection in doing so. He'd found ten men who had owed extremely large amounts of money to various people. The reasons had varied, but his response was the same. He'd bought the debts and then told the men that they were completely clear of them. All they had to do was do their job to the best of their ability, that if their principles lived they were essentially debt free. Seven of the others had had family members personally saved by the senshi at various times over the years. The remaining three had children who were extremely ill. The children were even now being seen by the best specialists in whatever fields were needed to save them even if those specialists were in other countries. No expense was being spared and needless to say their counter-snipers were all extremely motivated individuals with vested interests in making sure the job got done. Still there Ranma hadn't taken any chances and had put into place a small insurance policy of his own in that regard that even Mizuno didn't know about.

"Miss, I don't know which one you are but you have to listen to me. The attack on you and your friends yesterday was because someone recently put a ten million pound bounty on each of your heads and a five million pound bounty on both Tuxedo Kamen and Chibi-Moon. Our investigations as well as those of the police and defense forces of Japan haven't been able to discover who or why. However, we have discovered and stopped at least one other group of assassins who came to collect."

"That's not possible. I would have known." She sounded completely shocked as if her entire world belief system were tumbling down around her with that one statement.

"Well I don't exactly know why you think it's impossible, but I can tell you that the facts remain unchanged. Now you have a couple of choices. Option one is that you can go warn your fellow senshi about the danger and then continue on your own while we try our best to keep you protected separately as we have already been doing. This allows you to remain separate from you so as to protect your identities from us but there is no guarantee that you will be able to remain safe. Option two is that you can allow us to help you in some way. What way that is depends on you, but I do have resources and abilities that you don't know about. This method does have the greatest chance for success of all of them. Option three is that you all continue on as you have been ignoring the danger completely and leave the protection completely on us. In which case you will die. We already know we can't stop them all. There are too many people who know about the bounties and are desperate to be the ones to achieve the goal." He didn't want to be that blunt about it but nothing he'd said was untrue.

"I've...I've got to go." From out of nowhere a long staff in the shape of a stylized key appeared in her hand and her clothes morphed into a black trimmed senshi fuku. Even as her clothes stabilized she passed through a portal that flashed into place only long enough for her to pass through. Then she was gone.

Ranma stood on the roof of the building that had focused so much of his thoughts the past two days. He tried not to think that the one senshi he'd encountered was the one he actually least wanted to find out. Ranma hadn't realized which one she was which seemed kind of stupid of him looking back on it because they looked so much alike. He attributed it to the magic of whatever they used for their transformation. Still he couldn't think of a worse way for the senshi to have found out. Pluto's total disregard for her own safety in order to protect Sailor Moon was frightening. After all it was his goal to protect all of them. He wouldn't fail again.

Putting his cell phone back to his ear he hit one of the speed dials. "We need to talk. I think we've got a serious problem. Meet me at my apartment."