Setsuna Meiou wondered. What about her past. She was a 21 year old woman who was a Magical Girl, the slave of a 16 year old boy? How did that happen?
In her original timeline, the Senshi had been added to the sexslave queue by forces unknown. Having just witnessed that Ranma didn't know what he was doing and wouldn't normally do anything of the sort, she had to conclude that it had been something like had just occurred - where Nuku Nuku had been the one doing the actual dirty work.
In this timeline?
Setsuna held her hand next to Ranma's forehead, using her retrocognition power.
The Gatekeepers operating in 1969 against alien Invaders had provided some precedent for Empowereds (term to indicate Magical Girls, furries, and whatever males were along for the ride) to be in government service. However the public outrage and heavy handed reform in the Diet (and to a lesser extent in other countries) against Magical Girls caused them to be downgraded to the status of 'slave' and so they couldn't *openly* be working for the government, could they?
The solution was obvious. The government hired the owner of the Magical Girl for her services. Rather like dealing with a burakumin that had useful skills, you used a front man who wasn't 'untouchable' for the job. So Setsuna Meiou was hired through her Master - Ranma to use her power for finding items/people/clues. Retrocognition was very handy in police work.
While the idea of owning a pretty girl with super powers might be attractive to some, not just anyone could go down to the corner mini-mart and get one.
They were slaves, they were owned, they were property. That didn't mean they didn't have rights or supporters.
Mothers of Magical Girls tried to find a good owner. Not necessarily a rich one, since there were plenty of rich but despicable guys out there. They wanted nice guys who wouldn't do as some of the more wealthy ones - keeping their slaves naked except for a leash and pitting them against each other in hidden arenas.
This oddly converged with something the government had developed. It had started as a process to keep supervillains-in-secret or Yakuza would-be-overlords from accumulating Magical Girls as private armies. A screening process that looked for someone responsible.
In the original timeline, neither Genma nor Ranma particularly fit the description of responsible.
In the aftermath of the Magical Girl Wars, behaving as an irresponsible thug would get you attacked and incarcerated in very short order - especially if it looked like you'd cause either massive property damage or injuries to bystanders.
Wed Sep 11 15:51:44 2002