Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Phoenix ❯ Chapter 16 ( Chapter 18 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: Maj_Scooter 
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Mecha / Hentai / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.17.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 819 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Mecha / Hentai / Drama | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.17.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 819 | Status: Completed
With an annoying buzz, the phone in the 539th Operations Group commander's office rang. "Colonel Marx."
"Sir, its Sergeant Hutton. The General would like to see you in his office right away."
"Alright. Let his imperiousness know that I'm on my way." Marx left his office and headed up to the "rarified air"—Wing Headquarters. There were very few times that he'd been there other than he had to be there. It was an unfortunate bit of planning that when the 539th Fighter Wing was stood up in the wake of 9/11, the first wing commander collocated all the group offices with Wing Headquarters in the New York Air Defense Sector blockhouse. It had been done originally to make sure the newest wing in the Air Force ran smoothly.
As he walked into the General's outer office, Marx nodded to TSgt. Hutton, the old man's aide. Rumor had it that the redhead was shacking up with a Japanese businesswoman that headed Mitsuhima Heavy Industries' Philadelphia office. The rumor may have had a ring of truth since Hutton was seen in the Brown's Mills Wawa every morning with an attractive brown-eyed Japanese woman with a pageboy hairstyle.
Marx knocked on the heavy oak door, then walked into the General's office. Major General Cortalano was dual-hatted as both the 1st Fighter Division Commander and the 539th Wing Commander. The General was also a former SAC bomber wing commander and real hard ass that had a political connection award him this assignment. "You wanted to see me, General?"
"Yes I did," Cortalano replied, his back to his operations group commander. Marx looked down at the General's desk and saw his personnel jacket sitting there. "I've been reviewing your records, Colonel. And I'll say I'm impressed. Air Medal for downing a MiG-29 that may or may not have shot down one of your wingmates. Silver Star for downing a terrorist Backfire that shot down your wingman.
"You're also the only pilot in the Wing, if not the Dart community, to have to kill markings on your plane. You've also been a royal pain in my ass since I assumed command of this wing."
"Sir, I assume this is going somewhere, and not just a criticism of my abilities."
"Yes it is, Colonel. I've noticed you're also fluent in Japanese."
"Yes sir. My wife's Japanese, and we talk to our children in the language as well. Is there a point, sir?"
"I'm grounding you. Effective immediately."
"What? Sir, you can't be serious!"
General Cortalano finally turned around and faced the Colonel. "I've received a request from the Defense Department for an experienced pilot, fluent in Japanese, to be transferred to State as the military attaché to the Ambassador to Japan. And, before you think I requested this, it was a DOD-wide request.
"In thirty days, you'll be out of my hair, and on a plane bound for Narita." Cortalano had an evil smirk on his face. From the first day, the General didn't like his operations group commander, whose whole tenure in SAC lasted only 400 days. Marx even had a picture framed over his desk that expressed his sentiment about that particular Air Force major command—it was an enlargement of a gag patch that had the gauntleted fist of SAC holding a pair of testes with the phrase "To err is human; To forgive is not SAC policy." General Cortalano believed in the SAC policy that even if you got a traffic ticket for the most minor of offences, you were to be taken off flight status, and possibly discharged because you couldn't follow regulations.
Marx, on the other hand, took every opportunity to intercept anything minor headed to the Wing Commander, and call the offender into his office. Behind closed doors, Marx would verbally admonish the offender, and tell a couple of old war stories of when he was enlisted in SAC, and that would be the end of it.
Marx looked at the wing king, said nothing, saluted and left the office.
-----
Pulling into his driveway, Marx sat in his jeep for a few minutes, collecting his thoughts. His wife was home already, it was a half-day for Summit, and would probably want to know why he was home early. Marx climbed out of the jeep and walked in. "Taidama," he called, as he slid off his low quarters and put on his house slippers. Sixteen years of living in the States hadn't broken either of them of that Japanese tradition, and it was still funny to watch when Saburo brought over someone unfamiliar with the custom.
"I'm in the kitchen, Chris," Ranma called. Marx made his way there, humming a funeral dirge. As he sat down at the counter, his wife looked over at him from the stove. "How come you're home early? And how come you look like Saburo when's been called to the principal's office?" It was a look that she got frequently, since both mother and son were in the same building. It wasn't that Saburo was a bad student—far from it with his 4.0 GPA and his captaincy of the Summit High School martial arts team—it was just his tendency to defend his honor physically. As Saburo explained it every time a faculty member told him to go to the office, other students would question his parentage, and insult his honor. However, while he never threw the first punch, usually by resulting to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Name Calling technique, Saburo frequently finished the fights. And that was what the faculty usually saw.
"How can you tell something's wrong?" Marx asked. Ranma slid a cup of tea to him.
"Well," she replied, taking his evasiveness as a challenge, "it's two-thirty in the afternoon and you're usually not home until well after 7. Add into the evidence that you were humming Chopin, and you only do that when something's happened."
Marx took a sip of tea to collect his thoughts. "I've been grounded," he finally said after a few minutes of quiet reflection, with just the grandfather clock ticking in the background.
"Why? I know you passed your flight physical, and I doubt it's because the kids get those student visas every year to visit Xian Pu, especially since they fill out the usual contact paperwork from Langley, even if they don't understand why."
"It's because General Jackass is transferring me to State. It seems that I'm the new military attaché—to the Ambassador to Japan."
"That's wonderful news," Ranma said.
Marx looked at his wife. "Have you ever known me to be political? Hell, I pissed off Cortalano the first day he assumed command, because I despise Strategic Air Command.
"Besides, you've got a good job with Summit; you've got your tenure. Do you really want to give that up?"
"Chris," Ranma said quietly, "you know you could always retire. I know we've discussed it after every promotion board, or every time you start to get fed up with the Air Force.
"Remember, if you do retire, you've got 29 years in service, so we'll get a respectable pension. You could go back to teaching…" She let her last comments trail off.
"I know Ranma, I've got this bad feeling if I...we don't go."
"‘We'?"
"Do you honestly think I'm not going to let our children learn the Japanese part of their heritage? Besides, we send them to the Joketsuzoku every summer; I'm surprised that none of them have come back with a Jusenkyo curse." Marx chuckled.
Ranma, though, sighed. If there was one defining moment in her life, it was the day that Genma took her to Jusenkyo 17 years ago. That one act had the most profound effect, more so than learning the Neko-ken. At least therapy helped her overcome her terror of cats—not enough to allow them to have a cat, but enough to tolerate the little devils. "I know, anata," she finally said. "We've also been luck that my blessing hasn't run out."
"How come you just called it a ‘blessing'? You used to call it a curse."
"Because it allowed me to have a normal life, I call it a blessing. When Genma held me captive on the Kobayashi Maru, he hinted that I ruined his chances at uniting the two schools of Anything Goes. Only other school I know of is the Tendo School.
"If I hadn't been blessed, I probably would have wound up engaged to some psychotic martial artist, and knowing Genma as I do know, I'd probably have four or five more fiancées to deal with, just because he wanted to fill his fat belly." Ranma had a look of scorn on her face as she thought about her father, extradited to the United States to serve his sentence for kidnapping from a federal installation.
Uncle Sam, after discovering that Genma had a curse and magic was indeed real, felt that his sentence would be better served as a productive member of society. So instead of an 8x10 cell at Ft. Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, he was in the public eye at the National Zoo, in the Giant Panda exhibit.
The total irony of the situation was that when the Zoo's vet examined their newest addition, the tragic tale of the Spring of Drowned Panda became even more tragic for the obese martial artist—the panda that drowned in the spring 1500 years ago was female.
The head of the exhibit had been an Amazon who left the village with a case of wanderlust, eventually settling down in the States. When Ranma got a letter from Kuh Lon saying her father was in the States, she was initially nervous, but laughed when she read further that her father's cursed form was a female panda. She also got a chuckle from the verbatim description of the looks on the Marshals' and vet's faces when he changed back to his normal form right in front of them.
A few years after she got the letter, when Marx took his family down to Washington for the Air Force's birthday ball, they stopped at the National Zoo just to see the panda "Genma". When Genma saw his daughter standing on the other side of the moat, he started running towards her. He almost made it too, until an undercover Marshal's deputy nailed him with a tranquilizer dart.
"Chris," Ranma asked, "are you going to retire or are we going to Japan?"
Marx sighed. "I don't know. General Cortalano didn't exactly say that retirement was an option. And I'm sure if I tried, he'd axe it when it got to him for review. He's that spiteful."
"So I guess we're going back to Japan, then?"
Marx nodded. "We're going back to Japan."
------
The next morning found Saburo at school, dressed in his trademark red silk Chinese shirt with wooden ties and black kung fu pants, sitting morosely outside of school. "Hey Saburo," his girlfriend called, "what's wrong?"
"Oh, hi Jenny," he replied neutrally. "It's just that Dad's being transferred at the end of the month."
"Really? Where?"
"Japan."
"Ooh, Japan. Sounds exotic. Is he taking over a wing there?" Jenny was the only girlfriend that his parents had approved of from the get go. It helped that, even though she was popular, she was a closet military fangirl.
"No, he's taking over a diplomatic post; we're going to Tokyo."
"Cool."
"I'd rather stay here, though."
"Why's that?" Jenny asked as they started to walk to homeroom.
"I'm a half-breed; Mom's married to an American, and Japan is still on the insular side when it comes to people like me. They don't see the advantage of the American melting pot," he said, answering his Latin girlfriend's question.
"So? You're an American, Saburo; not Japanese. You should be proud of that fact."
"I guess you're right. I guess that's why Mom and Dad…" If there was one thing that Saburo didn't inherit from his father, it was his height. So when Saburo accidentally walked into the 6'5" star quarterback, he had to look up to see his face.
"Why you little creep," he said, shaking the spilled coffee from his hand.
"Hector," Jenny started to say, but Saburo beat her to the punch. "Excuse me, Hector. Sorry about the coffee." If there was one thing that his father tried to beat into his son's thick skull, it was humility.
"Your momma ain't here to protect you now, slant. It's been long since time that I taught you where your place is."
Saburo looked at the quarterback, as if assessing the 6'5", 230 lbs. All-State football player. "And how many times have I told you that you're never going to beat me?" He smirked, in his self-assured manner, even as he handed his books to his girlfriend.
"Why you little runt," Hector growled, as he cocked his fist back, and launched what would have been a powerful, if wild, haymaker.
With unearthly grace, Saburo jumped into action, first by blocking the haymaker that would have hit his girlfriend, then counterattacking with a series of vicious punch and kick combinations—all pulled so as not to seriously injure the football player, and all hitting pressure points. Hector froze and toppled to the floor like a statue.
"Mr. Marx." All the students in the hallway froze when they heard the principal's voice. "My office, right now."
"Yes sir," Saburo replied. He looked at Jenny. "I'll see you in History?"
"I'll see you then," she said.
Saburo stood at attention in the principal's office. That was another thing his father tried to instill in him—military customs and courtesies since they tended to go hand in hand with humility. He spared a glance at his mother, her long red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. At least his father wasn't there.
"Ranma, this is the tenth time I've called you in here this month. Something has to be done about Saburo's tendency to get into fights."
"Phil," Ranma said, "Saburo's not the one causing the fights. I've told you this every time that Saburo's been called in here. Hector throws the first punches when he gets into a fight with my son. Just as I'm sure he did this time."
"He did."
"Then why do you constantly blame my son for acting in self-defense?"
"Because Saburo never loses a fight. And Hector's currently in the nurse's office, stiff as a board."
"Saburo never loses because I taught him to be the best," Ranma said with pride. "I also taught him to never go full out, unless life or limb were at stake. If he did go full out with Hector, we wouldn't be having this conversation here, but at the Police Station. Especially if he used techniques that he was taught by myself and my sister's family that are fatal.
"Phil, I tell you this every time as well. What are we going to do?"
"To be honest, Ranma, I'd love to suspend everyone involved, but I can't."
Ranma fixed the principal a look, like she was ready to beat the snot out of him. There are some fights that can't be won by fists alone, Elder Lo Xian would tell the neo girl during her time with the Joketsuzoku. You must be prepared to fight on a mental battlefield, fight wit to wit, yet never draw a sword or raise a fist. That is what it means to be a great warrior. "Phil, I'll make you an offer: in thirty days, Saburo will not be a problem anymore, if you allow him to remain a student here."
The principal looked at his straight-A+ troublemaker. "Mr. Marx, can I trust you not to get into any fights while you're on this thirty day probation?"
Saburo looked at his mother first, then the principal. "On my honor, I will not get into any fights that I cannot avoid. If someone throws the first punch at me, Doc, what should I do?"
"Since you've always protested your innocence, I would recommend a passive course right now. You're treading on extremely thin ice, young man.
"No get out of my office."
"Saburo" Ranma called, "wait for me by the secretary's desk." Saburo nodded and left. She turned back to the principal. "Phil, we've known each other for what, nine years?" The principal nodded. "Have you ever questioned my judgment on anything?"
"No, I've always trusted how you run your classes the way you see fit. Even if there is an over emphasis on martial arts."
"Then why are you questioning my son's judgment?"
"Because I can't give him the luxury of the benefit of the doubt. Every student tries the self-defense plea at some point. Saburo does it every time."
"Even if there are witnesses that will validate what happened?"
"Even if the Legal Club were to have a mock trial."
"I see." Ranma reached into her gym bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. She placed it on Phil's desk.
"What's this for?"
"A request for sabbatical leave, thirty days hence. My husband's been reassigned."
"So that's why your son won't be a problem in thirty days. Sneaky, Ranma; very sneaky. I'll forward this to the board."
"Thank you Phil." Ranma stood and left his office.
"Mom," Saburo said, "you know we're leaving in thirty days?"
"Of course I do, Saburo-kun," she replied in Japanese. This was a conversation she didn't want overheard.
"Then why did you make that deal with Pagonis-sensei?"
"Because you still need an education, Saburo-kun. I don't want you attending the Embassy school, and your father agrees with me. You, more so than your brother and sister, are Japanese. We don't want you to miss out on that side of your heritage."
"So what does that mean to me? I'll be attending a local school?"
"As will Chris and Nodoka. Think of it as a challenge to master a new school environment, as you've mastered an American school." They paused outside Saburo's first period classroom. "Do you have your pass?"
"Hai."
"Good. I'll see you at gym. And remember what you were taught in aikido, Saburo-kun, if Hector attacks you again."
"Hai." Saburo said, as he opened the door and began his school day.
"Sir, its Sergeant Hutton. The General would like to see you in his office right away."
"Alright. Let his imperiousness know that I'm on my way." Marx left his office and headed up to the "rarified air"—Wing Headquarters. There were very few times that he'd been there other than he had to be there. It was an unfortunate bit of planning that when the 539th Fighter Wing was stood up in the wake of 9/11, the first wing commander collocated all the group offices with Wing Headquarters in the New York Air Defense Sector blockhouse. It had been done originally to make sure the newest wing in the Air Force ran smoothly.
As he walked into the General's outer office, Marx nodded to TSgt. Hutton, the old man's aide. Rumor had it that the redhead was shacking up with a Japanese businesswoman that headed Mitsuhima Heavy Industries' Philadelphia office. The rumor may have had a ring of truth since Hutton was seen in the Brown's Mills Wawa every morning with an attractive brown-eyed Japanese woman with a pageboy hairstyle.
Marx knocked on the heavy oak door, then walked into the General's office. Major General Cortalano was dual-hatted as both the 1st Fighter Division Commander and the 539th Wing Commander. The General was also a former SAC bomber wing commander and real hard ass that had a political connection award him this assignment. "You wanted to see me, General?"
"Yes I did," Cortalano replied, his back to his operations group commander. Marx looked down at the General's desk and saw his personnel jacket sitting there. "I've been reviewing your records, Colonel. And I'll say I'm impressed. Air Medal for downing a MiG-29 that may or may not have shot down one of your wingmates. Silver Star for downing a terrorist Backfire that shot down your wingman.
"You're also the only pilot in the Wing, if not the Dart community, to have to kill markings on your plane. You've also been a royal pain in my ass since I assumed command of this wing."
"Sir, I assume this is going somewhere, and not just a criticism of my abilities."
"Yes it is, Colonel. I've noticed you're also fluent in Japanese."
"Yes sir. My wife's Japanese, and we talk to our children in the language as well. Is there a point, sir?"
"I'm grounding you. Effective immediately."
"What? Sir, you can't be serious!"
General Cortalano finally turned around and faced the Colonel. "I've received a request from the Defense Department for an experienced pilot, fluent in Japanese, to be transferred to State as the military attaché to the Ambassador to Japan. And, before you think I requested this, it was a DOD-wide request.
"In thirty days, you'll be out of my hair, and on a plane bound for Narita." Cortalano had an evil smirk on his face. From the first day, the General didn't like his operations group commander, whose whole tenure in SAC lasted only 400 days. Marx even had a picture framed over his desk that expressed his sentiment about that particular Air Force major command—it was an enlargement of a gag patch that had the gauntleted fist of SAC holding a pair of testes with the phrase "To err is human; To forgive is not SAC policy." General Cortalano believed in the SAC policy that even if you got a traffic ticket for the most minor of offences, you were to be taken off flight status, and possibly discharged because you couldn't follow regulations.
Marx, on the other hand, took every opportunity to intercept anything minor headed to the Wing Commander, and call the offender into his office. Behind closed doors, Marx would verbally admonish the offender, and tell a couple of old war stories of when he was enlisted in SAC, and that would be the end of it.
Marx looked at the wing king, said nothing, saluted and left the office.
-----
Pulling into his driveway, Marx sat in his jeep for a few minutes, collecting his thoughts. His wife was home already, it was a half-day for Summit, and would probably want to know why he was home early. Marx climbed out of the jeep and walked in. "Taidama," he called, as he slid off his low quarters and put on his house slippers. Sixteen years of living in the States hadn't broken either of them of that Japanese tradition, and it was still funny to watch when Saburo brought over someone unfamiliar with the custom.
"I'm in the kitchen, Chris," Ranma called. Marx made his way there, humming a funeral dirge. As he sat down at the counter, his wife looked over at him from the stove. "How come you're home early? And how come you look like Saburo when's been called to the principal's office?" It was a look that she got frequently, since both mother and son were in the same building. It wasn't that Saburo was a bad student—far from it with his 4.0 GPA and his captaincy of the Summit High School martial arts team—it was just his tendency to defend his honor physically. As Saburo explained it every time a faculty member told him to go to the office, other students would question his parentage, and insult his honor. However, while he never threw the first punch, usually by resulting to the Saotome School of Anything Goes Name Calling technique, Saburo frequently finished the fights. And that was what the faculty usually saw.
"How can you tell something's wrong?" Marx asked. Ranma slid a cup of tea to him.
"Well," she replied, taking his evasiveness as a challenge, "it's two-thirty in the afternoon and you're usually not home until well after 7. Add into the evidence that you were humming Chopin, and you only do that when something's happened."
Marx took a sip of tea to collect his thoughts. "I've been grounded," he finally said after a few minutes of quiet reflection, with just the grandfather clock ticking in the background.
"Why? I know you passed your flight physical, and I doubt it's because the kids get those student visas every year to visit Xian Pu, especially since they fill out the usual contact paperwork from Langley, even if they don't understand why."
"It's because General Jackass is transferring me to State. It seems that I'm the new military attaché—to the Ambassador to Japan."
"That's wonderful news," Ranma said.
Marx looked at his wife. "Have you ever known me to be political? Hell, I pissed off Cortalano the first day he assumed command, because I despise Strategic Air Command.
"Besides, you've got a good job with Summit; you've got your tenure. Do you really want to give that up?"
"Chris," Ranma said quietly, "you know you could always retire. I know we've discussed it after every promotion board, or every time you start to get fed up with the Air Force.
"Remember, if you do retire, you've got 29 years in service, so we'll get a respectable pension. You could go back to teaching…" She let her last comments trail off.
"I know Ranma, I've got this bad feeling if I...we don't go."
"‘We'?"
"Do you honestly think I'm not going to let our children learn the Japanese part of their heritage? Besides, we send them to the Joketsuzoku every summer; I'm surprised that none of them have come back with a Jusenkyo curse." Marx chuckled.
Ranma, though, sighed. If there was one defining moment in her life, it was the day that Genma took her to Jusenkyo 17 years ago. That one act had the most profound effect, more so than learning the Neko-ken. At least therapy helped her overcome her terror of cats—not enough to allow them to have a cat, but enough to tolerate the little devils. "I know, anata," she finally said. "We've also been luck that my blessing hasn't run out."
"How come you just called it a ‘blessing'? You used to call it a curse."
"Because it allowed me to have a normal life, I call it a blessing. When Genma held me captive on the Kobayashi Maru, he hinted that I ruined his chances at uniting the two schools of Anything Goes. Only other school I know of is the Tendo School.
"If I hadn't been blessed, I probably would have wound up engaged to some psychotic martial artist, and knowing Genma as I do know, I'd probably have four or five more fiancées to deal with, just because he wanted to fill his fat belly." Ranma had a look of scorn on her face as she thought about her father, extradited to the United States to serve his sentence for kidnapping from a federal installation.
Uncle Sam, after discovering that Genma had a curse and magic was indeed real, felt that his sentence would be better served as a productive member of society. So instead of an 8x10 cell at Ft. Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, he was in the public eye at the National Zoo, in the Giant Panda exhibit.
The total irony of the situation was that when the Zoo's vet examined their newest addition, the tragic tale of the Spring of Drowned Panda became even more tragic for the obese martial artist—the panda that drowned in the spring 1500 years ago was female.
The head of the exhibit had been an Amazon who left the village with a case of wanderlust, eventually settling down in the States. When Ranma got a letter from Kuh Lon saying her father was in the States, she was initially nervous, but laughed when she read further that her father's cursed form was a female panda. She also got a chuckle from the verbatim description of the looks on the Marshals' and vet's faces when he changed back to his normal form right in front of them.
A few years after she got the letter, when Marx took his family down to Washington for the Air Force's birthday ball, they stopped at the National Zoo just to see the panda "Genma". When Genma saw his daughter standing on the other side of the moat, he started running towards her. He almost made it too, until an undercover Marshal's deputy nailed him with a tranquilizer dart.
"Chris," Ranma asked, "are you going to retire or are we going to Japan?"
Marx sighed. "I don't know. General Cortalano didn't exactly say that retirement was an option. And I'm sure if I tried, he'd axe it when it got to him for review. He's that spiteful."
"So I guess we're going back to Japan, then?"
Marx nodded. "We're going back to Japan."
------
The next morning found Saburo at school, dressed in his trademark red silk Chinese shirt with wooden ties and black kung fu pants, sitting morosely outside of school. "Hey Saburo," his girlfriend called, "what's wrong?"
"Oh, hi Jenny," he replied neutrally. "It's just that Dad's being transferred at the end of the month."
"Really? Where?"
"Japan."
"Ooh, Japan. Sounds exotic. Is he taking over a wing there?" Jenny was the only girlfriend that his parents had approved of from the get go. It helped that, even though she was popular, she was a closet military fangirl.
"No, he's taking over a diplomatic post; we're going to Tokyo."
"Cool."
"I'd rather stay here, though."
"Why's that?" Jenny asked as they started to walk to homeroom.
"I'm a half-breed; Mom's married to an American, and Japan is still on the insular side when it comes to people like me. They don't see the advantage of the American melting pot," he said, answering his Latin girlfriend's question.
"So? You're an American, Saburo; not Japanese. You should be proud of that fact."
"I guess you're right. I guess that's why Mom and Dad…" If there was one thing that Saburo didn't inherit from his father, it was his height. So when Saburo accidentally walked into the 6'5" star quarterback, he had to look up to see his face.
"Why you little creep," he said, shaking the spilled coffee from his hand.
"Hector," Jenny started to say, but Saburo beat her to the punch. "Excuse me, Hector. Sorry about the coffee." If there was one thing that his father tried to beat into his son's thick skull, it was humility.
"Your momma ain't here to protect you now, slant. It's been long since time that I taught you where your place is."
Saburo looked at the quarterback, as if assessing the 6'5", 230 lbs. All-State football player. "And how many times have I told you that you're never going to beat me?" He smirked, in his self-assured manner, even as he handed his books to his girlfriend.
"Why you little runt," Hector growled, as he cocked his fist back, and launched what would have been a powerful, if wild, haymaker.
With unearthly grace, Saburo jumped into action, first by blocking the haymaker that would have hit his girlfriend, then counterattacking with a series of vicious punch and kick combinations—all pulled so as not to seriously injure the football player, and all hitting pressure points. Hector froze and toppled to the floor like a statue.
"Mr. Marx." All the students in the hallway froze when they heard the principal's voice. "My office, right now."
"Yes sir," Saburo replied. He looked at Jenny. "I'll see you in History?"
"I'll see you then," she said.
Saburo stood at attention in the principal's office. That was another thing his father tried to instill in him—military customs and courtesies since they tended to go hand in hand with humility. He spared a glance at his mother, her long red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. At least his father wasn't there.
"Ranma, this is the tenth time I've called you in here this month. Something has to be done about Saburo's tendency to get into fights."
"Phil," Ranma said, "Saburo's not the one causing the fights. I've told you this every time that Saburo's been called in here. Hector throws the first punches when he gets into a fight with my son. Just as I'm sure he did this time."
"He did."
"Then why do you constantly blame my son for acting in self-defense?"
"Because Saburo never loses a fight. And Hector's currently in the nurse's office, stiff as a board."
"Saburo never loses because I taught him to be the best," Ranma said with pride. "I also taught him to never go full out, unless life or limb were at stake. If he did go full out with Hector, we wouldn't be having this conversation here, but at the Police Station. Especially if he used techniques that he was taught by myself and my sister's family that are fatal.
"Phil, I tell you this every time as well. What are we going to do?"
"To be honest, Ranma, I'd love to suspend everyone involved, but I can't."
Ranma fixed the principal a look, like she was ready to beat the snot out of him. There are some fights that can't be won by fists alone, Elder Lo Xian would tell the neo girl during her time with the Joketsuzoku. You must be prepared to fight on a mental battlefield, fight wit to wit, yet never draw a sword or raise a fist. That is what it means to be a great warrior. "Phil, I'll make you an offer: in thirty days, Saburo will not be a problem anymore, if you allow him to remain a student here."
The principal looked at his straight-A+ troublemaker. "Mr. Marx, can I trust you not to get into any fights while you're on this thirty day probation?"
Saburo looked at his mother first, then the principal. "On my honor, I will not get into any fights that I cannot avoid. If someone throws the first punch at me, Doc, what should I do?"
"Since you've always protested your innocence, I would recommend a passive course right now. You're treading on extremely thin ice, young man.
"No get out of my office."
"Saburo" Ranma called, "wait for me by the secretary's desk." Saburo nodded and left. She turned back to the principal. "Phil, we've known each other for what, nine years?" The principal nodded. "Have you ever questioned my judgment on anything?"
"No, I've always trusted how you run your classes the way you see fit. Even if there is an over emphasis on martial arts."
"Then why are you questioning my son's judgment?"
"Because I can't give him the luxury of the benefit of the doubt. Every student tries the self-defense plea at some point. Saburo does it every time."
"Even if there are witnesses that will validate what happened?"
"Even if the Legal Club were to have a mock trial."
"I see." Ranma reached into her gym bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. She placed it on Phil's desk.
"What's this for?"
"A request for sabbatical leave, thirty days hence. My husband's been reassigned."
"So that's why your son won't be a problem in thirty days. Sneaky, Ranma; very sneaky. I'll forward this to the board."
"Thank you Phil." Ranma stood and left his office.
"Mom," Saburo said, "you know we're leaving in thirty days?"
"Of course I do, Saburo-kun," she replied in Japanese. This was a conversation she didn't want overheard.
"Then why did you make that deal with Pagonis-sensei?"
"Because you still need an education, Saburo-kun. I don't want you attending the Embassy school, and your father agrees with me. You, more so than your brother and sister, are Japanese. We don't want you to miss out on that side of your heritage."
"So what does that mean to me? I'll be attending a local school?"
"As will Chris and Nodoka. Think of it as a challenge to master a new school environment, as you've mastered an American school." They paused outside Saburo's first period classroom. "Do you have your pass?"
"Hai."
"Good. I'll see you at gym. And remember what you were taught in aikido, Saburo-kun, if Hector attacks you again."
"Hai." Saburo said, as he opened the door and began his school day.