Crane School
Age 442
Master Shen
Watching his students perform their daily katas and constantly improve gave Shen a sense of contentment. It was true that most of these students would never achieve the feat of harnessing their Ki, but having more students who learned the way of the crane over that turtle would allow his style to flourish long after that blasted fool's death. The world may consider Roshi the greatest martial artist, but eventually, he would be forgotten, and what would remain is his style. It didn't matter that many of his students would use his style to perpetuate death and misery, just like his little brother. What mattered was that they used his style to do it. Whether through infamy or fame, his style would be known as the greatest martial arts style in the world, and with his most junior pupil, Tien Shinhan, already beginning to outshine the most dedicated of his other students, that day may be coming sooner than even he thought.
After performing his morning spar with his students to show how far they had to go before they could even hope to scratch him, he decided it was time to meet with his contact in Central City, who had supposedly exciting news for him. Heading to his main office, he met the city administrator, who kept him and his brother apprised of the King's armies' plans to go against the crane school.
Opening the door to his office, he glimpsed his contact and ally within Central City, Benedict. Sitting at his newly installed mahogany desk, he looked up at Benedict. "Alright, Benedict, you were extremely excited about your news for me, so much that you thought I should delay the paid class I planned to have this morning. That is money I will not receive now, so explain why this information is so important. I am taking a pay loss, and if I deem it useless, you will be paying for all the students I would have had today, which is around 750,000 Zeni. Is that understood?"
Benedict's smirk gets more prominent as he says, "Well, Master Shen, when I show you the information on these documents, you might pay me instead."
Reaching for the documents that Benedict passed to him, he said, "Oh, in that case, let's see what you have to offer, Benedict." Quickly looking through the documents, he saw birth certificates for a child named Kameko Yosei and all the documents for her family throughout her two years of life.
"This is just some random brat, though a hybrid by the looks of it, that you think this was worth my time insults me because you have given me good info before; I will only raise the price to 1 million Zeni."
Holding up his hand, which contained another folder, Benedict said, "While the original documents you are holding don't properly explain why you would be interested, these applications for guardianship, on the other hand, are what you would be willing to pay me for."
He was reaching out for the documents, and he noticed that the original guardians from her birth records had been removed after dying, and this was an application from the father's side of the family to be the new guardian. Seeing the name on the documents, Shen felt the urge to do a spit take, but with no tea around him, he went over to the stove to make himself a pot. After carefully brewing the tea and ensuring it was at the proper temperature, he took a swig and sprayed it all over Benedict.
"HER GRANDFATHER IS ROSHI?"
Age 442
South City
Mercenary Tao
It had been a simple mission for him this time around. Some gangster had wanted to pay him to remove a politician from South City who had been cracking down on crime and corruption while making the death very public. That made him charge the man an extra 50 million Zeni. So he had done the very public and easy way by picking up a tree and flinging it at him while politician Harvey Rider was making another speech following a successful case against one of the different crime families in the area. Watching the crowd panic and run after seeing a tree going faster than the speed of sound smash into the target and erase the upper half of his body had been mildly satisfying.
What wasn't satisfying was seeing that his bank account had still not been updated with the funds he had been promised for his service. Calling up The Mozarelli Gang, he began walking to their hideout.
After the third ring, someone on the other line spoke with an annoying nasally voice: "Hello, you have reached Mozzarelli Pizza Brothers. We are currently busy with renovations, but if you leave a message, we will be sure to get back to you with our new hours and when we will be reopened for business."
Before the fool could think to hang up the phone, Tao responded, "This is mercenary Tao. If you hang up this phone, I will kill you and everyone in your family slowly and in the worst ways imaginable. Do you understand me? Put me on the phone with Mozzarelli or Baby Swiss, or Harvey Rider won't be the only dead man today."
Hearing the phone hit the table when the gutless worm on the other side dropped it. Tao thought that the person might have hung up on him until he heard sniffling from the speaker. "I understand, Mr. Tao, sir. I'll get Baby Swiss for you. Please hold on to the line. I'll have him available in 5 minutes max.
"Make it two minutes. Any longer than that, and I will kill your family members one after another for every minute after."
"I understand, Mr. Tao, sir, I'll be back with Baby Swiss."
As he waited for someone to answer the phone, Tao began counting while debating whether to kill them all, even if they paid him, or move on to his next contract. At precisely 1 minute and 45 seconds, he heard footsteps walking up to the phone, and then a deep and gravelly voice came from the Speaker: "This is Baby Swiss. What can I do for you, Master Tao?"
"Baby Swiss, maybe you can explain why I have not been paid to complete my assignment. People who don't pay get to experience what they paid me to do to the target. And since you all have decided not to pay me immediately, if you decide to change your mind, I charge a 10 million Zeni late payment fee for every hour over our agreed-upon payment time."
Hearing him hiss over the phone, Tao waited for his response, "Fuck that stupid mother fucking idiotic son of a bitch. I thought he was joking about that plan."
Hearing him talk about a plan, Tao responded, "What plan? What idea could your little crime family have that made you think you could survive not paying me my dues?"
Sighing over the phone, Baby responded, "It's simple: the boss intends to pay a bunch of mercenaries and equipment and gear to kill you when you invade the base looking for your money. He thought it would be cheaper to hire all of those thugs and buy all the gear than pay you for your price. I told that stupid son of a bitch that it was a bad idea and we should just pay you for your asking price. Now, you are going to come and kill us all. I saw what you did to Harvey. The boss is insane if he thinks he can beat you."
"Indeed, you are correct. Inform your boss, Mozzarelli, that I will be over there in an hour and will be killing every one of you."
He is going to hang up the phone. He pauses as he hears from Swiss, "Wait, please don't do this. I'll make it up to you. The gang will even pay you for your troubles. How about 300 million Zeni? We will even let you kill the boss. He is all yours to do whatever you want with him."
Thinking it over, with the extra 200 million Zeni, he could improve his personal Castle, so Tao decided to humor the Second in command and maybe not kill him after all. "Fine, if you can get the money into my bank account in the next 15 minutes, I'll allow everyone not at the bunker to live and won't hunt down all of you."
Not waiting for Baby Swiss to respond, he hung up the phone and went to his bank to check his account. Walking over to a nearby Tree, he knocked it over and threw the tree while jumping on it. He should arrive at his bank in the next 10 minutes based on his flying speed.
Ten minutes later, he landed at his bank, Mercenary Tao's Credit Union. Heading inside the bustling establishment, he went to his personal Teller, Wealthwise Elise. Looking up from her desk, she began to bow to Tao as she should: "Good Morning, President Tao. Are you here to make a deposit or withdrawal?"
"No, I am not, but I want to see if the funds from Mr. Baby Swiss have gone through."
"Oh, I can pull that up in an instant, President Tao. Just give me a second while I pull up your account. Hmm, it does not seem like it has come through yet. You think people would learn to pay you when you complete jobs for them?"
Tao began to walk out the door to pay the Mozarellis a final visit and ensure that Baby Swiss suffered. Behind him, he heard an exclamation from Wealthwise: "Oh there, it looks like Mr. Swiss has paid. I see 300 million Zeni has been added to your account, President Tao."
"Oh, it looks like Swiss's word has fewer holes than his boss Mozarelli's. I guess I won't be filling him with more holes today, and only his boss will be dying. Lucky him."
Grabbing one of the pillars that the Credit Union placed off to the side for him, he left the bank and calculated the throw he would need to make to reach the Mozzarelli Brother's Pizza Place. Dialing it in, he threw the Pillar to create the necessary opening in the ceiling for him, making the suitably dramatic entrance that the PR rep said would be required for these kinds of situations.
Mozzarelli Brothers Pizza Palace
Five minutes later, Tao got paid.
Mozzarelli knew that not paying Tao was a dumb decision, and he also realized that as the rest of his gang fled the building, today would most likely be his last day on earth. He understood all of this, so he gave Baby Swiss access to the gang's funds last week so that he could pay off Tao to protect the rest of his family. He would not let that bastard continue to walk around after killing his brother Goudal 5 years ago. That is why he planned out all of this. The moment Tao walked through the front door, the Deadly Poison Gas he had bought from Dr Castorbean. While it worked to slow his body down, the hidden Turrets he had bought from someone who just went by the name of Engineer would drop out of the false walls and unload their payload, firing over 5000 rounds per minute of 12.7 mm. After that, he would have to navigate the hallways filled with multiple thermite charges and mines. If all that didn't kill him, he had the semifinalist and winner from the 16th Worlds Martial Arts Tournament who had agreed to fight Tao for no charge. With all of this together, he would kill the world's greatest assassin, Tao. If he survived everything else, he would have kept the new Ray gun he had bought. Let's see him try dodging Light.
Sitting back, he waited at his Mahogany desk for the death of Mercenary Tao. Five minutes later, he continued to wait, wondering if Tao decided not to show up and would wait until he left the building.
Mercenary Tao
Mozzarelli Brothers Pizza Palace
30 seconds after landing
Well, that is done, and with that idiot dead, people will stop trying to skimp on his payments. Making sure to take some photos of the pillar piercing through the chest of the mob boss and the two corpses that thought they had a chance to beat him. He got paid, and it was time to go to another contract. He could probably stop by and upgrade his wardrobe to something else besides these drab robes. In pink? He could pull off pink. It would only enhance his image as the Greatest assassin in the world.
"Hmm, I should wait a few days for images to circulate of what I did to this worm. I guess I am due for a vacation anyway. Anyway, I should check on Tien's training. My brother will fail to teach him how to grow into what he is destined for." With that, Mercenary Tao leaves just like he arrived.
Crane School
Mercenary Tao
Walking up to the School, Tao noticed that his brother's usual paid classes seemed empty for the day, with only the serious students and his protégé Tien practicing in the courtyard. He stopped by Tien, who was practicing pressure point attacks on one of the anatomical dummies that Shen had set up for his students to train on.
"Ah, Tien, you have been practicing as we discussed, but your strikes are meant to disable. When you engage an opponent, you must always push for the lethal strikes because they will also aim to kill you."
After adjusting Tien's stance, Tao went to see what his older brother was up to and why he had decided to cancel the paid classes. Heading to his brother's office, he saw that Benedict was exiting, meaning his brother had received new information that would benefit the school.
"Brother, you have decided to be lazy today and not perform your duties as Master of this school. Would you be willing to enlighten me on why you decided to skip your duties for the day?"
Looking up from all the paperwork he was reading and filing, Shen gave his brother a deadpan stare. "Brother, it was so good of you to show up for once. Do you remember how you promised me one mission free of charge when I set you up with my contacts at the start of your career? Well, I need to call in that job now, and it needs to be discreet, with no one tracking it back to you."
Age 442
Crane School
Kameko Yosei (Tanya Degurechaff)
When I was reborn in this life, Being X had promised that I would never see him again for the rest of my life and beyond. He told me that the actions of this life would judge me and that he washed his hands off me. This result made me want to rub it even more that I, a lowly mortal, had defeated a supposed God. Of course, throughout my second life, I learned that sometimes you should just let it drop and that continuing to rub it in is what led to most of my problems in life. He seemed grateful that I didn't push further, and maybe that is why he let me keep my memories of my life as Tanya Degurechaff even though I could no longer remember my first life. At first, I thought the cat ears and tail had been the final petty move from Being X until I saw my mother, who turned out to be a cat person, but only for the first few months I was alive, at which point she turned back into a human again. At least he allowed me to keep the magic from my first life, even if it felt different in how I could use it. I had two parents who loved me, and this new world had technology that was so much more advanced than in my last life. My family owned our sky car, which was stored in tiny little capsules. I could grow up in a happy family and become a functioning and diligent member of society.
This happy life lasted until my second birthday when that man showed up and killed my whole family, burned our house down, and brought me in front of this old man whom he called Shen. I had pretended to be unconscious so that the man in the pink clothes would hopefully ignore me, even though it didn't work. After being thrown at the older man with the Crane hat, who deftly caught me and set me down, I pretended to continue sleeping to figure out why they had done what they did. From what I heard them discuss, I knew that if I were to survive and escape, I would have to pretend that when that pink bastard had smashed me over the head, he had given me amnesia.
Master Shen
As the small child was thrown at him and he heard Tao's description of the simple recon mission he had asked his brother to perform, for the first time, he started to have second thoughts about the path he was allowing his brother to take the Crane School down. There was no need to blow up an orphanage after kidnapping an orphan of a similar age to Roshi's granddaughter and then tossing the orphan into the burning house after killing the child's parents and kidnapping her while knocking her out.
All he had wanted was for his brother to investigate the house and see if the family had any contact with Roshi and if they could become a problem for his school later on. Now, he had another child to take care of on top of Tien, and if this child remembered Tao killing her family, he would just have to get rid of her. They couldn't have her growing up and training under him to get revenge.
"Tao, what were you thinking? All you had to do was investigate whether the family had ties to Roshi and then report back to me. I am not paying for you killing the family and an orphanage. Especially when I told you to be discreet. Vaporizing an orphanage in Central City is not being discreet."
Huffing at the lack of disrespect his brother was showing to him, Tao responded, "Well, brother, if you had listened, I was discreet. No one will know that I destroyed this child's family home and the orphanage; instead, it just looks like an atrocious gas leak that sparked off, killing both the family and child while the orphanage was already unstable and in bad repair. Those support frames at that orphanage should have been repaired long ago, and when the sparks set off the natural gas system, sadly, it left no survivors."
Turning away from his brother, Tao continued, "Now, if you are wondering why I decided to kidnap the child, it is simple if you just sense out her ki."
Pausing, Shen decided to expand his senses and felt the Ki of the child he was holding for the first time. He was shocked that it was already on par with most students. Looking deeper, he felt that offputting taste that he had come to associate with magic as well. Now, he understood why his brother had kidnapped the child.
Not letting what he had just sensed show on his face, Shen began speaking to his brother, who was still just looking at the wall, "Well, brother, I now see why you decided to kidnap the child, but she is already two years old and must have seen what you did to her parents. At this point, you would be better off killing the child because she will only grow up to hate you and me by extension."
"That, my dear brother, is why I knocked her out. On one of my previous assassination missions, the client was so grateful that he threw in extra training on how, by a certain blow to the head with the proper ki flow, a person could erase the recipient's memories, allowing you to mold them as you see fit. I performed this attack on the child, and when she wakes up, she will have no memory of what happened or who she was, so just explain that you are her grandfather, and the child will do whatever you said."
Looking down at the child in his arms, Shen already started envisioning what it would be like to raise the child and have her defeat Roshi. Having been raised to be his granddaughter, he could and would finally surpass Roshi. "Fine, you have convinced me, Tao, but you will not interact with her, and I will be watching as you train Tien from now on. Leave. I must be ready when the child wakes up."
After Tao left, Shen took the child to one of the guest bedrooms and decided to wake her to see if the amnesia attack had done what Tao said it could do. Setting the child down on the bed, she began to stir.
"Huh, where am I? Who are you? Why can't I remember my name?" Noting that the child seemed to be acting well above her age, Shen wondered if that ability had other effects besides erasing memories.
"Well, Kishiko Kana, I am your grandfather Shen, and your mother and father died in an accident, so I decided to take you in. It seems you are suffering from amnesia after receiving a blow to the head. But don't worry, I will ensure you are well taken care of. It is what your parents would have wanted. Now, get some rest. When it is morning, I will show you around your new home. If you need anything, the bell beside your table will summon a servant willing to help you with anything you need. Just make sure not to leave the room. Understand?"
With the child nodding her head and crawling under the blankets of her bed, Shen couldn't help but feel optimistic about the whole occurrence. It may not have gone how he initially wanted, but he would turn this around, and the Crane School would reach even greater heights.