Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Chained World: The Fall of the House of Kuno ❯ Shots fired! ( Chapter 35 )

This was originally published by me under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. 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.

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Ranma desperately wanted to pace. Lying on the thin futon her cell had come with, she once again surreptitiously checked the watch that had come with her disguise. Five minutes since the last time she'd checked, and half an hour until the police assault came roaring in — the one the otokodate thugs knew was coming.

As the temporarily not-a-redhead once again rolled onto her back, closing her eyes, the moaning from those thugs' party favorite of the previous night picked up yet again, and Ranma yet again fought off the urge to scream at the girl, shout at her to shut up, promise to protect her, anything to get rid of the sound that had haunted her for hours now, ratcheting her tension higher and higher.

“Okay, cunt, time to go.”

Ranma's eyes shot open at the voice, then relaxed as she realized that the voice was coming through the same wall as the moaning. For a few seconds nothing changed, then Ranma jerked upright on her futon as the moans were replaced by a high throat-ripping shriek that went on and on, until two thunderclaps slammed through the wall and the scream cut off.

Ranma was on her knees, staring at the wall. Those were gunshots! He didn't ... didn't ... But with sinking certainty she knew he had, and she jerked as her exploding rage slammed up against the same mental wall she had hit hours earlier — slammed up against it and through, and the walls were suddenly bathed in the red light of her normally blue battle aura. Closing her eyes, Ranma fought for control, and felt her battle aura slowly fade away.

Even as she opened her eyes, she heard the deadbolt on her door click open. She hastily twisted the wrist handcuffed to the post by her bed, sending pieces of another link pinning softly about the room even as she dove for the wall beside the door.

“Rise and shine, cunt!” the same voice from the other room called as a strange otokodate pushed the door open and stepped through, the smoking revolver in one hand leading the way. “Don't give me any trouble like —”

He broke off at the sight of the empty futon, gaping at the broken handcuff bracelet still around the steel pole. Then the air whooshed out of his lungs as a small fist buried itself in his stomach, even as a hand closed around his hand with the gun, trapping his index finger against the trigger guard. With a jerk, he was swung around against a side wall as the door was gently kicked shut, a speared hand lanced into his diaphragm, and the gun was yanked from his hand to the crack of a snapping finger. He tried to shriek as the pain lanced from his hand down his arm, but was unable to force his diaphragm to pull air into his empty lungs.

Ranma stared down at the thug at her feet, eyes cold. “Don't worry,” she said quietly to the man beginning to writhe, “you'll be able to breathe in a minute. I don't want ya dying `til Kuno gets his hands on ya. An' when they tie yer hands and feet ta the crosspiece and hoist ya up, and the hinin shove their spears through ya, I hope ya think about the girl you just killed.

“And ta make sure ya stay here `til the cops show up ...” She grabbed a hand by the wrist, yanked it away from where it clutched at the otokodate's throat, locked the elbow, and the thug's eyes bulges as with a quick blow of her elbow to his the arm abruptly flopped free in the wrong direction. The second arm quickly followed, then quick kicks shattered first one kneecap and then the other.

By the time Ranma was done, the thug had gotten enough air in his lungs for a thin shriek. The girl smiled grimly at the sound. “I doubt they'll bother giving ya any painkillers when they tie ya up,” she said as she scooped up the revolver. “Maybe by then, you'll scream as loud as she did.” Stepping to the door, she seemed to vanish into the air as the door closed and the deadbolt locked.

/oOo\

In the alley behind the former warehouse, crouching behind the dumpster, a Kuno ninja did his best to fight the boredom of long hours and stay alert as he listened to the random bits and pieces of conversation that the vibration sensors attached to the second story window above him picked up. The sensors were tiny, practically invisible, and the wires running from the sensors down to the ninja's keyboard were also incredibly thin, to the point that, with them taped down the way they were and so not swaying in the breeze, only the most alert person would have noticed them.

However, the listening device's near-invisibility came with a price — it was designed for overhearing conversations within the same room, not an entire warehouse. As a result, it had only been picking up the occasional sentence fragment, incomprehensible without the surrounding conversational context, though Muraoka Jun Kee hoped that what he was forwarding on to the nearby operations center for the upcoming raid would mean more to someone there that presumably knew more about what was going on than he did.

Suddenly, Jun Kee's reverie was cut off as two sharp barks of sound came over his earbugs. Were those gunshots? Grabbing the keyboard, he quickly bounced back twenty seconds and listened again, then hit the emergency button. “Gunshots from within the target!” he whispered urgently. “I repeat, gunshots from within the target!”

/oOo\

“No, my lord, you will not be a part of the first wave. You may command in everything else, but not in this — as with the retainers of Yoshitsune that protected him from the archer, it is our duty to see to your protection. And we will.”

Kuno paused, mouth open to shout at Captain Kasai Morimasa, head of the lording polce, then closed it with his retort unuttered and turned away with his fists clenched. After a moment he turned back and said through an angry snarl, “I understand your point and normally would agree fully, but not this time — the flower of my life is in there, waiting for my rescue, and I will be there! You will obey me in this!”

But Morimasa simply shook his head. “I know how important Ranko is to you, my lord, and we will do our best to see to her safety, but she is not our sworn lord. If you wish my life it is yours, but my second will say the same, and his second. If you wish this raid to go forward, you will wait.”

Kuno was opening his mouth for another shout, when the technician that had been monitoring the communications feed from Jun Kee (and doing his best to appear to be ignoring the argument behind him) shouted, “Gunshots fired within the target! Gunshots fired within the target!”

Kuno whipped around to stare at the technician for a moment, then turned back to Morimasa to find that his eye's hadn't left him. “Well, my lord?” his chief law enforcement officer asked quietly.

Kuno took a deep breath, then nodded jerkily. “Go, I'll be in the next wave.”

Morimasa nodded. “See to it, Goro,” he said to his second, then as the man hurried away added to his surprised lord, “My responsibilities don't allow me to go first, either. So, my lord, will you join me for our ride?”

/oOo\

Kodachi had expected to spend the time waiting for the police assault to go in being seriously bored, with nothing to do but wait and try to stay alert. As it turned out, it had been anything but boring, with Ukyo and Akane demanding to know every minute detail of Ranma's time in the Kuno mansion — so long as she didn't mention the redhead's time in Kuno's bed (not that that had been hard, given the way Ranma had avoided the subject).

Since the only time the Kuno sister spent with Ranma was when they sparred, she hadn't been able to give many details. Hanh had been able to do a bit better but not much, though Ukyo had been somewhat relieved to learn that her best friend had found an avid supporter in her assigned body slave.

Akane had been more suspicious, and Kodachi had readily agreed that Usagi's attentions were perhaps motivated by more than friendship and the Juuban slave's innate eagerness to please. “It's Ranma,” she said to Akane with a shrug. “Something about him — and apparently her — just draws people in.” Then with a sidelong glance at Ukyo, she added, “But you have nothing to worry about. Even as tempted as I was to pursue Ranma for real, I could see how devoted he was to you.”

Even as Ukyo had winced slightly, Akane had relaxed, some of the suspicion she'd practically radiated since Kodachi's arrival fading. “Good,” the youngest Tendo murmured. “I'm glad he has at least one friend in that madhouse.”

“Two, at least on my part,” Kodachi responded instantly. “But I have to say that I'm a little surprised you didn't already know all this. I would have thought you'd have already heard it from her directly. But you didn't — Nabiki really doesn't have an information pipeline into the mansion, does she?” she added thoughtfully when the only response was glances between a suddenly stiff Ukyo and Akane.

“No, she doesn't.” Kodachi started as Genma's voice came from behind her. The heavy-built martial artist walked around to kneel by the girls in front of her. “She — we — expected opening up a conduit would be simple, as insane as Kuno is and you were believed to be. But it hasn't turned out that way, we haven't even been able to learn how my son is doing, much less communicate with him.”

Ukyo and Akane again exchanged questioning glances, Ukyo shrugging, but Kodachi nodded, carefully ignoring her suddenly tense minder beside her. “So why hasn't Ranma simply asked Kuno if she can visit the dojo? Or at least call?” she asked nonchalantly.

Genma stiffened as the girls gaped at the gymnast. “Ask?” Akane finally managed to get out. “But ... but Ranma's a slave! Slaves can't ... everyone knows that ...”

“That slaves are usually forbidden to contact their families?” Kodachi asked, staring at the stunned trio. “True, but my esteemed but delusional brother thinks of his sex slave as the love of his life and willing companion rather than his sex slave, doesn't he? If he didn't, Ranma wouldn't be in that warehouse right now. You ... you really didn't think of that?”

The three shook their heads in unison, and Akane suddenly started to giggle. The giggles grew in volume, until she clapped a hand across her mouth to smother the guffaws. Fighting herself under control, she managed to gasp out, “Nabiki will never live it down — all that planning and trying and frustration, and all we had to do was ask....” She lost it again, and Ukyo joined her in doing her best to keep her own laughter from getting too loud.

Eventually, even Genma shook his head with a wry chuckle. “Well, Kuno is unlikely to listen to us, so we'll just have to make certain Ranma gets the word when we —”

“Mistress!” Hanh hissed urgently, “shots have been fired inside the warehouse, the police are on their way right now!”

The laughter cut off and Genma rose to his feet. “All right we're going in now. As we planned, Kodachi, you and your bodyguard have the north side, Ukyo takes the south, and I'll take the west in the middle where I'll be able to respond either way if needed. Keep an eye out for Ranma — don't forget what she looks like now — but Ranma can handle himself. Our priority is protecting the girls first and the cops second. Go!”

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Yes, I know, not exactly a humorous situation. But Saotomes and Tendos have been living with this for weeks now, and gallows humor comes out in the oddest ways. And yes, they missed the obvious. But then, they were thinking of Kuno as The Enemy rather than as a delusional lunatic, or at least not completely thinking through what that means.

Historically, hinin were the non-persons of Japanese society — the burakumin, ninja, beggars, entertainers, exiled criminals, survivors of suicide pacts. Theoretically they are equal before the law (killing one is now legally murder, where before the punishment was a fine), but most law enforcement isn't all that concerned with whatever happens to them. They have a role in the Japanese version of crucifixion, where the condemned are tied to the T, then hinin kill them with spears, their heads are cut off and go up on spikes for three days as a warning, and the body is kept at the jail for samurai to test their swords or swordsmanship. Whatever is left after three days is then returned to the families.