Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Chained World: The Fall of the House of Kuno ❯ Blowout ( Chapter 36 )

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, or anyone else's published work.

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In the loading dock of what on the outside seemed like a typical warehouse and on the inside was something else entirely, a figure that appeared to be a cute teenage girl kept perfectly still where he held himself to the ceiling, his long, dark hair tucked down the back of his red ninja battle uniform to keep it from hanging down. His eyes again scanned the length and breadth of the room, before returning to the spot directly in front of the door leading into the “warehouse” proper, and the heavy machinegun nest made of stacked sandbags that had been built there in the last hour. Two otokodate thugs, average build, one raven-haired the other almost blond, were sitting inside the nest, their backs against the door and their feet propped up on the sandbag wall of the nest, and Konatsu was careful to keep up his Invisibility Art. It wasn't as effective as Ranma's and Genma's Umisenken — it had no effect on cameras — but for these two it was more than enough.

Idly, he wondered just what the crimelord was thinking — testing the determination of a new lord was one thing, but the machinegun was likely to bring down the wrath of the Shogun's people. Unless, of course, he had the backing of another of the Great Families to provide a bolthole if needed. Konatsu was just glad that he'd gotten here last in his slow sweep of the interior instead of coming this way first, before the nest had been put together.

Suddenly, two loud thunderclaps reverberated through the “warehouse,” and Konatsu tensed as the two thugs below shot upright from their slouched seats, whirling to stare at the door. “Those were gunshots!” the blond thug blurted out. “What's going on in there!”

“Only one way to find out,” the other replied, pulling a semi-automatic pistol from under his jacket and stepping up to place his back to the wall beside the door. The blond thug followed suit in the other side of the door and reached across to yank it open, while his partner swung out of Konatsu's sight into the corridor, gun first. The blond followed, leaving the door open.

Konatsu wrestled briefly with the idea of following the two, but before he could make up his mind they were back, with another two thugs. “What an idiot!” the first dark-haired thug groused as he seated himself behind the machinegun's grips, one of the newcomers dropping down next to him and checking the ammunition belt leading from the ammo box into the firing chamber. “I can't believe Kenta-kun was stupid enough to fire his gun without closing the door first! Those rooms' soundproofing —”

“May not have made a difference, considering the cannon he carries around,” one of the newcomers broke in to say from where he crouched to the side, just outside of the machinegun nest. “I wouldn't be surprised if there are a couple of bullet holes through the outside wall, now. Do you think he's compensating?”

The others laughed at the suggestion, then the other newcomer patted the machinegun and said, “It doesn't matter. Even if the cops do hear and strike early, this baby will pile them up. By the time they can bring up what they need to deal with it, we'll have the rest of the girls moved into the cafeteria and be ready for them.”

The sound of breaking glass came from the corridor, causing the otokodate to turn and look back into the building. At the previously agreed upon signal, Konatsu released his hold on the ceiling, dropping straight down toward the four thugs now exchanging glances and shrugs. Even as they turned back toward the outside door, Konatsu's feet smashed onto the top of the head of the leftmost thug, driving it into the concrete floor with a sickening crack. As the body beneath him spasmed, the male kunoichi leaped lightly to the top of the sandbag nest and the drawing stroke of his wakizashi swept the head of the thug behind the machinegun from his shoulders. The otokodate beyond him had started to rise only to stagger back as the fountaining blood from the headless corpse splashed up his body and across his eyes, and Konatsu kicked him in the chest, pushing the reeling thug back over the low sandbag wall and into the last of the four. The fourth actually had a little training — he rolled with the collision, and came to his feet with the gun in his hand rising, only to encounter the wakizashi coming down. The hand with the gun bounced off the wall, the follow-up stroke looping up and around to take him across the neck.

Konatsu stepped back to avoid the collapsing body and spraying blood and grimaced as he stepped into a puddle of blood, then stepped over to where the last living otokodate in the loading dock lay gasping to run him through the chest. Looking around, the cute kunoichi grimaced again at his bloody footprints — that was going to make stealth difficult. Then the sound of gunfire came through the doorway, and he shrugged. Maybe `stealthy' wasn't that important, anymore.

Stepping over to the machinegun, he hastily removed and bent the firing pin, then quietly slipped through the door into the transshipment center.

/oOo\

Oshin Noritoshi sighed, shaking his head, as he watched Kenta step into the room next to where he had just shot the previous night's plaything, smoke still rising from the barrel of the massive revolver in his fist. Sure, the idiot probably hadn't changed anything, just moved things up by half an hour, but still ... And while it wasn't going to matter with this batch of new slaves, considering how beaten down and terrified they were by now, all the otokodate had been ordered to stay out of the cells unless they had backup.

Turning away to unlock the door of his own next girl, Noritoshi dismissed thoughts of the soon to be dead fool and concentrated on his own part of the job of getting the girls moved to the central cafeteria, and the other machinegun the otokodate had smuggled into the transshipment center. Opening the door, he tossed the handcuff keys to the visibly shaking young woman dressed in a torn shirt and panties and chained to the post by the room's futon. “Get yourself unlocked and come on out if you don't want me to give you what your neighbor got,” he ordered, motioning with his own revolver. The girl hastily followed orders, and he stepped back as she scurried from the room, clutching her torn shirt to keep it closed. Passing responsibility for her off to Isamu further down the hall toward the entrance to the cafeteria, Noritoshi unlocked the next door in line.

He'd gotten the next girl out of her cell and on her way, when he realized that Kenta hadn't rejoined him back in the hallway. Glancing up, he stiffened when he saw that the door to the room Kenta had entered was closed. He looked further up the empty hall to Kotara Daiki, the otokodate that was assigned the job of shepherding Kenta's girls to the cafeteria, but the other man simply spread his hands and shrugged. Don't tell me he's taking time for a quickie now, of all times! Noritoshi thought through his rising anger, and he strode down the hall. Yanking open the door, he shouted, “Kenta, get your ass out here, we don't have time —” then broke off to gape at the sight of his fellow otokodate lying on the floor of the otherwise empty room, arms and legs all bent at odd angles. He never saw the butt of Masatake's revolver before it smashed into his temple.

/\

Ranma ignored the body collapsing at her feet, hurling her revolver down the hallway toward the gaping thug by the doorway leading deeper into the “warehouse.” She charged in its wake, and the otokodate's shout of surprise mixed with the sound of shattering glass behind and above her.

Even as the otokodate batted the gun away just before it hit him between the eyes with one hand while raising the semi-automatic he held in his other, she grabbed his gunhand by the wrist, twisted, and caught the pistol as it dropped from suddenly limp fingers when the wrist snapped like a twig. The thug sucked in a breath to scream at the sudden pain, only to choke as the hand that had broken his wrist speared into his throat.

As the otokodate stumbled back, his good hand clutching at his throat as he tried to force air through a collapsed windpipe, Ranma whirled to look back down the corridor, only to find the last otokodate in sight staring upward, arms still upraised to shield his head, several pieces of broken glass stuck in his arms and more shattered glass lying scattered around his feet. She followed his gaze, and her eyes widened at the sight of a familiar chef standing on the walkway that ran on top of the cells the girls were kept in, an unfamiliar battleaxe in her hands. Ukyo! What is she — ? Later, focus.

Turning her gaze back to the thug, Ranma made sure a round was chambered, and with two shots knocked the thug off his feet just as he was raising his revolver toward Ranma's oldest friend.

Ukyo stared down at the dying thug she had been about to drop onto, then over at the strange auburn-haired girl that had killed him. She could swear she'd seen her somewhere before.... Then she remembered what Kodachi had told them, and her jaw dropped. “Ranma? When did you learn how to use a gun?”

“Heya, Uc-chan!” Ranma called back as she waved her friend down, a broad, happy grin across her face, before refocusing her attention up and down the corridor. “Good ta see ya. Pop showed me how they work, fer when I had ta go up against one, an' how hard can it be ta use `em? Ya point and squeeze. So who all is crashin' the party?”

“Genma — Father, that is, Kodachi, and her bodyguard came in through a windows off the alleyways,” Ukyo started, dropping down next to Ranma. “Ko-chan is already inside somewhere, Akane's out on a nearby roof as backup.”

“Pop is your — later, we got some business ta take care of, first.”

Ukyo hefted her battleaxe. “Right! Lead on, Sugar.”

Ranma's grin turned feral. “Ya got it.”

/oOo\

Ranma and Ukyo sat on the top of the wall surrounding the cafeteria, watching the cops of the first assault wave bustling about the room, cuffing the few surviving otokodate and tending to the few girls wounded when their guards had opened fire on them after Genma had gutted — literally — the four men manning the machinegun that had been set up to mow down the girls lined up against the cafeteria wall. The thugs had never imagined anything like the vacuum blades Genma had used, but the survivors had only frozen for a moment before trying to the job themselves with their pistols. Fortunately, by then, with Ranma and Ukyo coming over the wall from one side and Kodachi and Hanh leaping from the walkway over the circling corridor and down into the cafeteria from the other, the otokodate had only had time to get a few shots off before they were overwhelmed. There had been a few more thugs in the outside corridor still gathering in girls and they had killed a few, but each gunshot had pinpointed another target for the vengeful martial artists. Unlike the otokodate inside the cafeteria, most of those thugs were still alive — if badly broken — and waiting for the police to collect them. All in all, the number of casualties among the kidnapped and illegally bought girls was remarkably low.

“So Mom and Pop took ya in when yer father threw ya out?” Ranma asked the girl beside her.

“No they took me in when I told my father to go fuck himself!” Ukyo growled, her face tightening. “Your ... our father said he owed me for what he did all those years ago, and offered to adopt me. After my father insisted I carry on with trying to kill the two of you, I told him off and took Father up on his offer.”

“Cool!” Ranma enthused, pulling Ukyo into a one-armed embrace. “I'm sorry it didn't work out for you with your family, but I'm glad ta have a new sister.”

Ukyo returned the hug with a tremulous smile. “It wasn't like he was much of a father to me, anyway. I would have rather been your wife, but I obviously lost that one and I'll take what I can get.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “Akane's just a roof away, why don't we spend a few minutes with her?”

“Sounds good!” Ranma said, perking up, only to deflate as a fresh wave of cops entered the cafeteria, led by the new Lord Kuno. “Damn, Lover Boy is here. If I don't go down right away he'll tear the place apart lookin' for me.”

The temporarily auburn-haired girl hesitated, obviously torn, and Ukyo sighed and gently shook her shoulder. “Then you'd better get down there, we want him to concentrate on those bastards instead of you, for now. But listen, when you get the chance, ask Kuno to let you visit the dojo. It was Kodachi's idea, ask her for the details.”

Ranma nodded, gave Ukyo another one-armed hug, then dropped down into the cafeteria while his new sister rose to her feet, jumped across the outer corridor to the walkway, then slipped out the second story window to join the rest of the Tendo raiding party.

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Yes, I know just a bit of a cakewalk, but what do you expect with martial artists with surprise on their side? Especially since the otokodate knew all about the cops' plans—few things are as shocking as having an ambush turned back on you.

And yes, Ranma used that gun rather well for someone that hadn't really practiced with one before. But when it comes to complete newbies firing pistols in a crisis situation, at least at close range, there tend to be two results: either the shots are hitting anything but the target, or at least the first few go dead center before recoil pushes the gun out of line. Basically, the accurate ones instinctively point the gun like a finger, and are lucky enough to squeeze the trigger rather than yank on it. As for the training he mentioned, I'm thinking that Genma's training was a bit more expansive in this world, on account of unarmed martial artists still being sought after by the various Families.