Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Balance of Power ❯ Journey-Fighting Back ( Chapter 12 )

Journey

Chapter 6

Fighting Back

Nabiki dropped the unconscious Kuno onto the ground. She joined Ukyo at the end of the living room table. The room itself was quite crowded with Cologne, Shampoo, and Mousse on one end of the table. Soun, Genma, and an unconscious Kuno were sitting off to their right and Nodoka, Kasumi, and Dr. Tofu were on the left of the amazons. Nabiki, Ukyo, and Konatsu were sitting opposite to them.

"I realize these past few hours have been very stressful for all of you," Cologne said, indicating towards the Tendo's and Saotome's. "But we have a situation on our hands that cannot be ignored."

"According to the note Seiji Inafune left here after getting Ranma and the others, the organization from which Ranma and Ryoga had plotted against, is now directing some of its attention to us here in Nerima. I don't have any real clear idea on just how much danger we're in right now but, what I do know is that we must prepare for the worst.

"First things first, I am going to initiate a kind of buddy system. We are all going to split into groups that I feel will be able to work and cooperate the best. I will not hear any complaints about these groups except if a person feels they will be absolutely unable to work with someone."

Cologne paused to allow it to sink in.

"Group A will consist of me and Happosai, if he ever decides to show up. Group B shall consist of Kuno, Ukyo, Konatsu, and Nabiki; Group B will be staying at the Kuno residence."

"Wait a minute!" Ukyo shouted leaping to her feet. "What about my restaurant?"

Cologne turned and looked at Ukyo, icily. "At this time we are trying to ensure that no one here will be killed. But if you find that your restaurant is more important to you than your life and our own, then be my guest and leave."

Ukyo looked like she had just run into a wall. She sat down clumsily and muttered an apology.

Kuno (who had by now regained consciousness) spoke up.

"I shall lend the abilities of the great Kuno household for this mission honorable elder," Kuno said respectively. He spared a glance at his now houseguests and smiled. "I believe you shall all find the Kuno household more than able to accommodate all your needs."

Cologne nodded and continued. "Group C will include Dr. Tofu, Kasumi, Nodoka, Genma, and Soun. They shall be stationed here at the Tendo household. I expect that all martial artists in this group to do their best in protecting the other members," Cologne looked straight at Soun and Genma. "And not to allow their own personal feelings get in the way of protecting this house," she looked directly at Tofu, who winced inwardly.

"Finally, Group D shall consist of Shampoo and Mousse. You two will be stationed at the Cat Café."

To the surprise of everyone else, Shampoo did not make any verbal protests or bash Mousse's head in. She merely accepted the pairing with a nod, much to the pleasure of Mousse.

"Okay," Cologne said, gathering everyone's attentions once again. "Now that all the groups have been determined, I shall now assign the duties that each group will carry out. Group A will be responsible for making trips to every group daily and pass on any new information that is developed. Also, they will have to make sure that each group has a proper defense set up to ensure that no outside intruders will be able to get in or, if someone does get in, they will be detained until a group A member arrives.

"Group B is going to do be in charge of information. Gathering information and trying to organize it and make records of it all. As well, they shall be in charge of distributing any kind of devices that will prove useful to us. And last, Group B will be responsible for keeping this entire situation under wraps, which means from everyone. Group C will have it easy. The only thing their responsible for is informing the rest of us when our adventurers in China give us a call. The only other thing is their home station will be the site where we will all hold meetings for every other day.

"Finally, Group D will be responsible for doing nightly reconnaissance of Nerima. They will have the duty of checking every group's station and to check for any abnormal activity in the vicinity of Nerima."

Cologne stopped to see if anyone had any quarrels with what she had just laid out. Seeing as no one spoke up, she continued.

"I'm also setting down some ground ruled as well. Whenever you leave your respective stations, their must be someone that goes with you and at least one of those people must be martial artists, no exceptions will be made. The only people that will have the privilege of traveling alone will be I, Happosai, and Konatsu. The reason these three have been chosen is because we all have primary abilities to move around without being detected.

"Rule number two is that there must always be at least two people at a station at all times, except Group D. And at least one of those people must be a martial artist. Finally, and with my sincerest apologies, the last rule is that none of you will be able to go about your normal daily business. That means no school, no running a business, and no seeing any friends or relatives. We do not want anyone else to get involved in this."

"Alright," Cologne said, wrapping it up. "Let us split into our groups and head off for our stations."

Everybody got to their feet and stretched. They thanked Cologne and said their goodbyes to each other. Kuno, Nabiki, Ukyo, and Konatsu all headed for the Kuno estate. Shampoo and Mousse left for the Cat Café.

Cologne excused herself and left. She needed some time to think so she decided to take a walk. Cologne had gone for maybe a block before she felt someone watching her.

"Come out!" she shouted.

"I was watching you for quite some time Cologne. I expected you to sense me earlier."

"Happy," Cologne dropped her offensive stance (but not by much) as Happosai leapt down from a rooftop.

"It is quite a bind those boys have gotten themselves into," Happosai said casually. "Ranma certainly has a habit for getting himself in trouble."

"Oh please," Cologne laughed. "You got yourself into as much trouble as Ranma in your younger days, and you still do now."

"True," Happosai agreed. "But the trouble facing them right now is much more serious," he said, his voice deadly serious.

"Yes and the danger facing them is probably more than it seems," Cologne said, then continued. "Does this mean that you're going to help me try and wreck some havoc over here to help get some off of Ranma and the others?"

"Perhaps," Happosai said, staring off in the distance, as if in deep thought.

Cologne followed his gaze and saw two young girls walk by wearing short skirts. She sighed and shook her head. Some things would never change. Cologne whacked Happosai over the head with her staff.

"Can you even go five minutes without acting like a pervert?" Cologne asked, disgusted.

Happosai rubbed his head. "I'm sure I've gone five minutes before."

"Sleeping doesn't count Happy," Cologne said.

"Ah, never mind, we should stick to the situation at hand. I think it would be in my best interest you Cologne," Happosai said. "Especially since I'm going to be making midnight visits to a lot of pretty ladies!"

Cologne fought her desire to smack Happosai for his idiocy. She waited for Happosai to stop his maniacal laughter before speaking up.

"Come with me Happy, were going to my restaurant to pick some things up."

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"So how come your not going to come with us the rest of the way to Xining Seiji?" Akane asked as they walked past a temple.

"I don't want to bore you girls with the details, but in short, I'm trying to make sure that when I go back to Japan I'm going to be able to walk in public without the fear that I am at the risk of assassination."

Akari leaned close to Akane and whispered into her ear. "I don't think those details would exactly be boring."

"Look," Seiji started, "I had an alternative reason for asking you girls to come on this walk with me."

"Oh, what is it?" Akari asked.

"When we were in the hotel room and I got on the phone to talk to Akane's parents, I instead found myself talking to Dr. Tofu. Now, I'm going to need you two girls to promise me that you're not going to get upset," Seiji said.

"Okay, we promise," Akane answered.

"Tofu told me that he has been going over Ranma's past medical files when he came upon a startling realization. Ranma may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder," Seiji said simply. He watched in sadness as Akane and Akari's faces rapidly turned pale.

"W-what, how?" Akane asked quietly.

"The doctor doesn't know for certain if Ranma is actually suffering from the disorder or not but, he says that it is almost a sure thing that he is. From what I know of this disorder, it's usually caused by a very traumatic event occurring. Tofu tells me that from what he's heard, what happened in Jusendo could very well be the event that would cause this disorder to inflict Ranma."

"Oh god," Akane breathed. Akari put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. Akari looked at Seiji.

"But that occurred a month ago."

"Ranma may not show any symptoms for up to six months," Seiji said sadly, then straightened up. "I know that this is very upsetting, but if this is indeed the case then we need to be strong for Ranma. As awful as this might sound, we can't afford to have Ranma snapping or having a breakdown and slowing our journey down. We are under a lot of pressure right now and we can't have anything slow us down."

"But what can we do to help Ranma?" Akari asked, her voice pleading.

"I think the best thing for us to do is to try and make sure Ranma does not see anything that might trigger some kind of memory of his fight with Saffron. It will also be for the best if we do not tell Ryoga any of this," Seiji said.

"And why is that?" Akari asked.

"Because if Ryoga were to find out that Ranma may have something wrong with him in any way then he is going to act very careful around Ranma."

"Why would that be a bad thing for Ranma, that would mean that they wouldn't fight anymore," Akane said.

Seiji looked a little shocked at Akane. "You mean you haven't seen it before, the way Ranma acts when he's with Ryoga. When Ranma and Ryoga are fighting or arguing, I think their both really at their happiest. Those two are best friends, whether they care to admit or not."

"But what's going to happen if Ranma has a breakdown?" Akari asked.

"Well, a person that is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome will usually have a kind of flashback to the event in question and think that their in the middle of it again. So I guess Ranma would think that he was at Jusendo again and he was fighting Saffron."

If it were possible, Akane would have turned even paler.

"Oh my god."

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Author's Notes: The second chapter released by my wife, and if I don't say so myself, I couldn't have done it any better. She wrote this entire chapter in one sitting, after having read every single chapter of Ranma the manga, quite a feat. Both my wife and I have been stationed in Japan before, which is where my love affair with Ranma first began.

I had only been in Japan for four months, but that was enough for me to learn Japanese enough to speak it fluently and read it. Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, the whole shebang. Well, after about two months, I saw someone on a bus reading a Shonen Sunday book, and after that I saw almost everyone everywhere reading them so I decided to pick one up for myself.

None of the stories really appealed to me, but then I stumbled upon the first chapter of the Age of Mushrooms Episode of the Ranma manga. I think the people on the bus thought I had gone insane because I laughed so much.

The next day I went to my commanding officer at my base in Nagasaki and asked him for two hours off. He allowed me the time off and I very quickly went to a comic book store and ordered all the Ranma graphic novels that had been released. The guy running the store looked at me a little strangely. I don't blame him. I was twenty-five years old, a captain in the American Army, a big muscular guy, and here I was inside a comic book store ordering every single comic of a series that was beloved by the Japanese people.

The books arrived the next day and I read them non-stop, for six hours. I got my wife to read them, and she liked them as well.

I left Japan and headed out to Germany before the series was finished, and I arranged for my previous post-commander to send me the comics as they were released. He did, and I am eternally grateful. The last few graphic novels of the Ranma series were the best. I have probably read them at least five hundred times since I received them almost five years ago.

I've loved the series since that day, and I love reading the stories produced by fans, they are sometimes as fun to read as the original stories.

Heh, sorry about that, just my rambling on about my love for this great series.