They had each had their ideas on how to prevent Kenichi and his friends from being hurt, but none of them carried more weight than Sakaki's suggestion. An arranged marriage between one of the masters and someone with both strong military and political ties.

And after Akisame suggested Sakaki gather some files on a few people in Japan, Kensei got on the phone and called Niijima, Kenichi's schoolmate and co-leader of the Shimpaku Alliance, and after a lengthy discussion with the young man- Niijima mentioned a young lady from America who was going to their school that had both of what they sought.

Niijima stressed that though the girl was just nineteen and in her last year of school, she should be a candidate since her family expected her to marry once she graduated anyways.

After that the masters spent another hour or so discussing what to do next and decided to take a few days to gather together the information needed and set up the right appointments with the right people- and then dispersed for the night to get some rest.

The next day they would begin to put their plan in motion and gather as many files on potential brides as they could before they decided on who would carry through with this particular task.

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Several days later-

It had been decided that since Sakaki wasn't ready yet to settle down (and Appachai and Shigure weren't yet ready to be separated from each other) that Akisame, the third oldest master of Ryozanpaku, would be the one to go through with an arranged marriage to a young woman of his choosing. And after Sakaki and everyone else's help in gathering files on potential brides, the poor man was practically swimming in them.

And don't even mention how tedious a task it was to go through the lot of them.

There were plenty of young women who's ages ranged from their mid to late teens to early twenties and somewhere even in their thirties! All had wonderful educational backgrounds, some had lovely personalities but were a tad bit too sensitive personality wise to survive him so much as speaking pleasantly with them. Some had some training in the martial arts or were creative like him (something in common was always a nice ice breaker when meeting in person) he supposed as he placed those files aside. Many had many physical attributes that he found appealing or even exotic. But most of all was that there were many from very prominent families with political and military ties, some ran their own companies, while others were heiresses that would gain vast inheritances upon marrying.

And while Akisame was sure that marrying one of the heiresses would take some of the financial stress from the dojo and allow them to buy more of the things that they would likely need. He somehow doubted that the women would allow them to use the money for things like weapons (not that they all needed them) when they were simply too used to getting what they wanted no matter how frivolous. He wasn't so shallow a man that he would do such a thing to someone else.

No- he needed a woman who wouldn't mind living at Ryozanpaku and having the same amount of things that everyone else had. Someone who was humble and kind yet had the connections they would need if trouble reared it's ugly head. Someone who would look upon Kenichi, Miu and their friends and would treat them all like younger siblings and want to protect them with everything they had.

But at the same time he had to think about what the woman would want from an arranged marriage. Would she be practical about it? Or would she romanticize the whole ordeal?

This was uncharted territory for him so he had no idea what the woman he chose as his wife would be expecting of him. Safety? Sure, okay. He could handle that. After all most women married for reasons like, safety, security, love, affection exct... But what about other things? Did she expect him to fit the role of the modern male?

It wasn't that he minded if that was the case. After all, he may not be a rich man in a manner of speaking, but he had more than enough money hidden away to help provide for a wife and possibly a few children. In fact every week or so when his patients at the bone setter's clinic paid him for his services, he took more than a third of the money he was paid, and stored it away in his work room under the floor where he knew no one would find it.

And he'd been doing this for well over fifteen years.

Just a year or two after he arrived at Ryozanpaku. And since he never touched it- well he'd imagine that he had more than he could shake a stick at. And while that was all well and good, he still couldn't quite figure out what would be expected of him.

Which is what made the task of finding a bride this way so damned frustrating.

There was a soft knock at his work room door, startling the jujutsu master slightly as he turned his head slightly and called out an almost angry sounding, "Yes?" Not wanting to be disturbed any more than he needed to be. The door opened as he turned to face whoever was disturbing him, expecting it to be Miu coming to give him food or check and see if he was still alive or something since he hadn't come out since yesterday morning when he'd had all of these damnedable files dumped on him by Sakaki and Kensei who had both wisely run for it once he realized what they were.

However instead of Miu, Harou Niijima- Kenichi's alien friend peeked in and gave an awkward sort of finger wiggle in greeting causing Akisame to sigh as he got a sinking feeling in his gut. "Hey how's it going?" The teen asked almost cautiously. Perhaps sensing that Akisame was just a few minutes (or hours in this case) from going absolutely, completely and utterly mad.

"It's...progressing...slowly." Too slowly for Akisame's liking. Seriously how did everyone expect him to choose a bride from these profiles before he decided to pull his hair out in frustration?

"Then I'll help." Niijima said as he stepped into the room and silently closed the door. Doing his best to hide the file on the American exchange student at his school while he was at it.

Akisame opened his mouth to tell Niijima that he had this handled but decided not to bother since the boy had obviously had come to him with an agenda of his own. And as much as that might distract Akisame from his current task and provide some much needed relief, he was curious to see what the boy would do. Besides, two heads were better than one and if anyone could help him at the moment, it was Harou Niijima.

"Alright," He said after a moment or so of thought. "How about I hand you the profiles and you go through them and set aside the ones that you think will fit my requirements."

"Sure." The teen said as he came over and sat down next to the man who handed him the first file as he asked,

"You know what I'm looking for right?"

"Yeah." Niijima said as he flipped open the file and pretended to let his eyes skim over the information in it while his mind went to the young woman that he'd brought with him to meet the master. She was waiting patiently outside with the others for the moment, which was good since he hadn't had a hance to sneak her file in with the rest just yet.

Akisame was an unusually sharp man. Sneaking her file in may be completely impossible at the moment. But he'd give it an hour then try to slip it in so that he at least appeared to be doing what he offered to do.

Besides, he was sure that Miu and the other masters could keep Hanna busy for the time being.