Sprinting Home(or Running for Base)
Tari Fallasion
Prologue
Rain cascaded down in sheets over the Nerima, a ward located somewhere in the country of Japan. People rushed to find cover from the watery onslaught, and certain cursed indviduals vented their frustrations to the sky.
At the Tendo Dojo, things were, for once, quiet. Akane Tendo sat in her room gazing listlessly out her window. Her mind wandered over the events that had played out earlier in the day, somewhat curious, but otherwise just bored. The day wasn't special in any real way. Like any other day, her idiot fiancee did something stupid, she yelled at him, he yelled back, and she malleted him into the sky.
The only real hiccup in the routine had occured when the rain had begun falling as school let out for the day. She was almost sure that she'd heard Ranma let out a quiet cheer before he bounded out the window, yelling at the sky. That couldn't be right, though, could it? The idiot hadn't returned yet, but she, for once, wasn't too worried. The other fiancees had already stopped by asking for him, and unless he'd run to Kodachi, he wasn't anywhere near any of them.
Akane yawned tiredly and let her head fall against the window pane as she dozed off, listening to the rain.
Hiroshi and Daisuke were standing in the rain, staring up at a decrepit old building in front of them.
"You sure your sis said to come here?" Daisuke asked, elbowing his friend.
"Yeah," Hiroshi replied. He glanced at Daisuke, then shrugged. "Wanna go in?"
"Ah... why not. Not like anything's gonna happen to us, right?"
"Right. All the weird stuff around here goes for Ranma, eh?" They shared a short laugh before walking up to the doors of the old warehouse.
"Mizuko! Is that you?" The girl in question turned to look over her shoulder and spotted a young high school student running towards her. "It's me, Ami!" She blinked a few times before finally recognizing the younger girl. Gone was the long, dark brown hair that the girl used to have, having been replaced by a shorter, shoulder-length cut. Add that to the fact that the last time she'd seen Ami it had been a full year ago and it was relatively easy to understand why, in the pouring rain, Mizuko was hard-pressed to recognize her friend from a distance.
"Ow!" She came back into awareness when Ami poked her in the side. Hard. "What was that for!?" She shot a glare at her friend as she rubbed her side.
"You weren't paying attention to anything I said!"
"Yeah I wa..." Mizuko trailed off, then dropped her head. "Okay, fine, I wasn't. That's still no reason to poke me that hard, though!"
"The club's back, Mizuko," Ami stated, ignoring the older girl's complaints. "We're setting everything up again! We've got almost all the positions filled already, the last spot's being tried out for today and--"
"The club's back?" Mizuko cut in, staring at her friend. "Didn't I disband it?"
"Uh, yeah, you did. But I brought it back! You wanna come watch the tryout today?" She smiled at Mizuko, then blinked as the older girl stared into the distance without responding. "Uh, Mizuko? Mizukooo? Miko!" Ami rolled her eyes when she didn't get any response, then rolled up her sleeve and slapped the older girl. "Miko!"
"Eh, wha? Didn't I tell you not to call me that?" Mizuko stopped and rubbed her jaw. "Why does my face sting?"
Ami boggled at her friend, then shook her head. "You were that out of it? Geeeez, Mizuko. You're going senile or something!" The older girl opened her mouth to retort, but Ami continued unabated. "Like I said, wanna come down to the tryouts? No, wait. Never mind. You're coming whether or not you want to." She grabbed the older girl's hair and began to march down the street.
"W-wait! Ami, stoooooop! Gah!"
"No! It's your fault for not answering me the first time!"
"Owowowowow! That HURTS!"
"Oh, right. Sorry!"
The two girls vanished down the street, yelling and laughing at each other all the way.
Hiroshi and Daisuke nodded to each other, then quickly shoved the doors to the crumbling building open. Or tried to, anyway, since the rusted doors refused to be opened as quickly as they'd hoped. After another few seconds of grunting and pushing, the doors opened fully, and they tumbled into the well-lit interior of the building.
"...laps! Let's go!"
"Whaaaaat!?"
The two boys looked up from their positions on the floor and froze. "D...do you see what I see, Dai?"
"Y-yeah... wow."
The two boys stared as a group of girls ran by them, barely sparing them a glance. On the far side of the building, a number of girls were tossing something back and forth, and another was testing out what Hiroshi guessed were baseball bats in the corner.
A leg stepped into Hiroshi's vision, and he glanced up. "Hi, bro~! You showed up!"
"A-Ami!" Hiroshi clambered to his feet and stood beside his sister, trying to ignore his drooling friend on the ground. "What's going on in here?"
"You'll never believe it, but we got the club set up again!" Hiroshi blinked as his sister began to dance around him.
He sighed, then let out the question he knew his sister wanted him to ask. "What club?"
"The Furinkan softball club, of course!" Ami beamed up at her older brother.
"Our school has a softball club?" he muttered quietly. "Since when did we have a softball club?"
"Well, it wasn't very popular, so it disbanded early last year, but I thought it was a neat club, so I asked if we could reform it and the school approved!"
"Ah," Hiroshi mumbled, staring around at the numerous girls inside the building. "Ah," he repeated, intelligently. His sister glanced at him queerly, then shook it off. Her brother could be really weird sometimes.
"Oy, Ami! Where's this tryout you wanted me to see?" Hiroshi's head whipped around and his gaze locked onto the girl who was jogging towards them, her red hair tied into a loose ponytail.
"This way, Mi--"
"R-RANMA!?"
The older girl glanced in his direction and waved. "Heya, Hiroshi. Why're you here?" Her gaze fell to the growing puddle of saliva on the ground, then shifted to the source of the mess. "And, uh, hi, Dai."
"You, what, eh, uh..." Hiroshi trailed off incoherently and settled for pointing to Ranma, then sweeping a hand across the warehouse and raising an eyebrow.
"Ask your sister," Ranma responded, shrugging.
Hiroshi looked down at his younger sibling, only to see an angry glare directed at him. "Her name is Mizuko! Mi-zu-ko!" She punctuated every syllable with a poke to the ribs, then shifted her hands to her hips. "Got it, bro?"
"Er... yeah. Wait. No way..." Hiroshi's eyes widened suddenly.
"Don't ask," Ranma broke in. "She named me and yes, she knows who I am. I haven't been able to convince her to call me anything else."
"You're MIZUKO!?" Hiroshi yelled, suddenly in the redhead's face.
"Uh, yeah? I guess?"
"Oh god," he muttered, slumping down into the puddle of saliva. "My sis kept going on and on about how cool Mizuko was. I never thought it would be you, man." He shook his head and glanced up at his friend. "Not too surprised, though."
"Eh, right. Well, it's sorta a secret, really, so don't go spreading the news around, alright?"
"Right," Hiroshi replied, patting himself off as he stood. "Well, let's go do whatever my sis wanted us to do, huh?" He slapped a hand on Ranma's shoulder and laughed.
"Oh, GROSS!" Ranma shoved Hiroshi away from her and pulled at her uniform's sleeve. "That's just nasty, 'Roshi... eew." She turned around and walked towards the far side of the building, grimacing at her shirt the whole way.
"What'd I do?" Hiroshi mumbled from where he had landed on top of Daisuke. He rubbed his head tiredly and sighed.
"Eeeeew," he heard his sister whisper from beside him. "That's so icky. You're totally covered in his drool." Hiroshi glanced down at the puddle, looked at his wet hand, and groaned.
AN: A stupid name, I'm sure, but it's all I could think of, so... yeah. I guess I'll just have to live with it. Help me figure out which name to use or offer up a better one if you feel like it. :D
I've picked up writing again after a FF-review for my AMG/Ranma cross popped up in my e-mail inbox the other day. I'd forgotten about all this stuff until I saw it. :P
That aside, work on my main story (the AMG/Ranma cross)--which I've recovered the outline to--is on hold until I get a decent word processor on this computer. I'm currently working with nothing but Notepad, so pardon any spelling errors.
Oh, my writing might not be very good right now. I blame that on not doing any writing for a while, though that's probably more of an excuse than anything else. We'll see if I get warmed up again anytime soon. Sticking with this story to warm up. :D
Until next time, then.
-Tari
(Oh, and Mizuko means Water Child.)