Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Chained World: The Fall of the House of Kuno ❯ Vas-ah, Ryoga, the Humanoid Typhoon! ( Chapter 26 )

This was originally published by Tman at Anime Addventures (thank you!), and published here with his permission, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling and punctuation. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Naoko Takeuchi, and especially not Tman.

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By Tman

Ryoga had gotten lost again, breaking through a barrier of bushes —

— and right into the headlights of an armored car speeding towards him.

Squinting against the glare, Ryoga could make out the kanji for `Kuno' on the six-wheeled vehicle.

“So, you're siccing your goons on me already, Kuno?! Well, ain't that just like you, you coward! Hiding behind other people to do your dirty work!” Ryoga roared at the oncoming vehicle, ignoring in that moment the fact that it was HE who was seeking a confrontation with Kuno's minions. “ROARING LION BULLET!”

Six tons of armored car met Breaking Point Technique and went cartwheeling into the air, its turret snapping off, its wheels flying every which way, before it slammed back into the ground, ejecting its stunned and battered crew in the process.

“Humph!” Ryoga grunted and spat, before he walked back into the vegetation and promptly got lost again.

From where they had been standing in the road behind the stranger, where the Kuno security vehicle had caught them out in the open, the two members of the Hawaiian United Liberation Army stared in shock at their last moment reprieve.

“Who the hell was that?!” one of the guerillas whispered as he looked at the shattered security vehicle, then at the break in the scrub where the mysterious being had vanished.

“Dunno, don't care, as long he keeps doing that!” the quicker thinking freedom fighter declared as he pulled at his comrade to not waste the opportunity and disappear themselves before more Japanese forces showed up.

/oOo\

China: a warehouse had collapsed. Australia: a ranch slaughterhouse had been broken open, sending hundreds of head of cattle stampeding over the landscape. Korea: an executives' club and lounge had been totaled, its expensive furnishings tossed asunder like a tornado had struck it, the staff sent fleeing hither and yon. Hawaii again, a pineapple cannery had pancaked when a center support beam had been taken out. Taiwan: a microchip factory had lost millions of shu worth of computer chip production when the clean rooms had been violently breached, the sensitive electronics contaminated and ruined by dust and debris. Sumatra: a massive oil storage tank sporting the Kuno family crest had had that symbol PUNCHED in, resulting in an equally massive spill of its flammable contents, endangering the entire tank farm, and necessitating a very cautious and expensive cleanup. Just about anywhere there was a Kuno property, there had come reports of disruptions in business. There had even been a report of a Kuno-flagged tanker sinking in the mid-Pacific after it had been holed by a `green explosion'.

Just about all of them had one thing in common: a single ragged-looking young man with a tiger-striped bandanna and an angry attitude(though there had been the rather garbled account from several traumatized pig-farmers at a Kuno-run farm of a small brown piglet leading an animal uprising that had leveled the facility). He'd appear, see the Kuno emblem, then apparently go berserk, before disappearing as mysteriously as he'd appeared.

/oOo\

At that moment, a little less than half a world away, Lord Tatewaki Kuno himself was angry; this was the third night he'd put in, away from his pleasures with the fiery-haired goddess finally in his possession, dealing with the paperwork sent him from the various outposts of the Kuno empire. A recent rash of brush fires seemed to have struck his far-flung interests, and all apparently set by the same person. He thought he recognized the culprit ... that Hibiki miscreant! He'd have thought him an enemy of the vile Saotome, and had enlisted his aid in the past to the common purpose of opposing the vile demon-in-human form, but now he wondered if the mindless brute wasn't an accomplice of him!

If it had been Nerima, his finances could have handled it. If it had been one or two incidents, his vast corporate reserves could have dealt with the damage easily enough, as they would with any natural disaster. But, as he had been so politely reminded recently, the reserves had been drawn down, the margin of financial security dangerously narrowed, to service the auction payments. Furthermore, those regions outside Nerima had never heard of Martial Artist Insurance, and criminally refused to recognize the Kuno claims to damage coverage!

And Hibiki was apparently not content with one or two incidents; he was a continuing disaster unfolding. Nobody knew where he might strike next!

Some of the affected properties, land and workers alike, would have to be sold, but that would do little to recoup losses. Government regulators would expect the properties to be cleaned up first, free employees compensated for their layoffs or relocations, paperwork processed, work shifted to other sites. The Kunos would lose profits from the lost properties, income they needed to both expand their operations and pay off their anticipated future expenses.

And again, Hibiki continued to prick the mighty Kuno clan, shedding a drop of its financial blood here, another drop there, a few more drops over there.

Kuno gritted his teeth. He'd already put what facilities he could on alert, directed that security be beefed up; another drain on the corporate coffers. He'd even directed the authorities and his own people to investigate the Hibiki family, and somehow try to hold them to account for their wayward family member's criminal mischief.

His agents had come back empty-handed. The Hibiki properties had been vacant, and apparently so for many years. All that inhabited the grounds were a family of curiously well-behaved dogs. The property bills were still being paid, but apparently by mail or by wire, the payments being sent in from a constantly changing variety of locations.

The man and his kin seemed to be shadows, with only the most tenuous of legal and social existences. But Ryoga Hibiki seemed to be a shadow that was intent on bleeding the Kuno clan, and thus far the Shining Light that was Kuno was unable to dispel this particular shadow.

With a growl Kuno returned to listening to the phone in his hand; the security chief of a Sumatran petroleum facility adjacent to the one Hibiki had sabotaged, one that had been thus far undamaged. Reports had come in that the rogue had been spotted on at least two occasions over a period of some weeks wandering near it, getting closer with each report. The manager had called for assistance, certain the refinery was to be the next target, but he was one of several plant and facility executives all calling for more help, more funding, more, more...

Kuno finally got sick and tired of listening to the whining, demanding, nearly pleading tone in the older man's voice. Was there no more nobility, no more respect, no more responsibility left in Japan that it all fell on HIS shoulders to carry every half-wit?!

“Then DOUBLE the security, if you're so concerned!”

“We can't immediately do that, sir!”

“And why can't you?!” Kuno's voice took on a dangerous edge.

“Because we do not have the funds to cover the increased security, sir!” The security man finally bit out, unmindful of whatever punishment he might get for his candor.

“Not enough funds?! We are the Kunos! We control over a third of the Imperial economy! We are not beggars! And your operations have been more than generously funded!”

“Except, sir, that our budget for the coming period was slashed to cover `other expenses'! I've spoken to Accounting already! They told me —”

“Then you'll divert those expenses from other places! When times are lean, you adapt! Find your funds in cutting your nonessentials, and bother me not with your own inadequacies! Make it so!”

Kuno snapped the phone shut, cutting off the man in mid-reply.

Honestly! Truly the kami were testing his charity and good nature!

No, t'was more like demons from Hell trying to dampen his triumph over the fiend Saotome! Yes, that had to be it! No sooner had he dispatched one devil, than another was sent to keep him from his good works, his noble calling, and his loves!

The phone buzzed again. He took one look at the caller ID; an urgent message from another far-flung corner of his business empire. He snapped up the phone and listened for a moment —

Kuno purpled in outrage as he heard the news.

”HIBIKI!!! DAMN YOU!!!”

/oOo\

Across town from the Kuno administrative offices, in the halls of Kuno Manor, Maid Usagi stopped in her delivery of dinner to Ranko, and shivered. Somehow, in recent days, she'd acquired a knack for knowing when Master wasn't coming home, and that he'd be unhappy, and this was definitely one of those days.

She hurried off to tell Ranko that Master Kuno would not be joining her for dinner.

Again.

/oOo\

In another office across Tokyo, a green-haired woman looked at a newsfeed, got up and went over to a map on her office wall, picked up a red pushpin, and plugged it into the map.

There were several dozen red pushpins dotting the world-map.

Setsuna smiled as she contemplated it.

”You're a walking disaster, a living economic downturn, young Ryoga Hibiki. You make me proud.”

/oOo\

It was Hidyehyo-Five, one of Kuno Corporation's (Petroleum Division) largest offshore oil platforms, a man-made mountain peak of metal and reinforced concrete rising out of the ocean waters, drilling deep into the dark depths to bring up the lifeblood of the Empire's economic machinery. Its crew were among the best in the division, freemen all, well-paid and generously compensated by the company. A successful season working the offshore fields on the Hidyehyo-Five could make crew members modestly wealthy, rich enough even to buy servants of their own. None drilled better, faster, deeper, nor brought up more for the glory of Kuno Corporation, and the proud oilmen of the Hidyehyo-Five knew it.

The clangor of pipes being lifted and fitted, the whine of the drills, and the pounding pumping of drilling mud filled the air as the drilling floor crew plied their trade, plumbing the depths for black gold.

With all the people milling about, concentrating on their various tasks, nobody paid any attention to the solitary figure wandering along one of the catwalks above.

The wandering figure with the tiger-striped bandanna.