A Mission to Train
Written by
Shiva Barnwell
Disclaimer: All anime characters and concepts are the property of their respective creators. The same is true of any references that might be applied in this fanfiction. This is strictly a work of fanfiction and is by no means meant to be taken literally.
Last time, in DT: Friends and Foes...
""Ryoga, do you really think it's a good idea for us to ask Shiva for lessons?" asked Ranma.
"He is definitely at a much higher level than us, and he seems to know a thing or two about teaching others what he knows," Ryoga pointed out. "He wouldn't be teaching physics at Furinkan if he couldn't teach and he knows more about martial arts than just about anything else."
"I guess so," said Ranma.
Ryoga added, "Let's just hope his training methods are less dangerous than the ones that dirty old man puts you through."
"Why are you asking for lessons anyway? It isn't like you're inheriting a Dojo or anything," asked Ranma.
"Like I'd let you get ahead of me," replied Ryoga. "One of these days I will be the one to beat you."
"You can try," Ranma smirked."
...
"...Kagome, Inuyasha, Crystal and Tyriel started on their way to the Higurashi Shrine.
"I wanted to go with them," Shiva pouted.
"You said you'd train me and Ryoga," noted Ranma.
"Then we better get started," Shiva was grinning.
"Uh-oh," said Ranma and Ryoga simultaneously."
And now, A Mission to Train
Shiva led Ranma and Ryoga to a secluded waterfall just outside of Nerima.
"There will be many stages to your training, but I will only be helping you with two of them," said Shiva. "I will teach you how to think and I will show you how to strengthen your body and mind through meditation. The rest is up to you. There is nothing flamboyant about this. There will be no special techniques taught, no extreme impossible mission to accomplish. This is essentially all one big mindgame, and if you learn the rules you can pass the game. Understood?"
"Yes sensei," said Ranma and Ryoga.
"Well it's nice to see you're decent liars," replied Shiva. "Now let's begin. I'm going to assume that you're already familiar with meditation. I want you to stand underneath the waterfall in kiba dachi (horse stance) and meditate. I want you to become detached from your body, to be able to observe what happens to you, but not feel it. After you have done that, I'll come by and attack you with some strength, but not enough to damage you beyond some light bruising. You will not attack me. You got that?"
"Yes Shiva."
"Good. However, there is one more thing I want to tell you before you begin. You are members of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. Keep in mind the name, Anything Goes. The rules I have given you were meant to be and will be broken. I may or may not attack you harder than I said. You may or may not attack me. The point is to expect anything and be prepared for it as well. You may begin your training. I'll be around doing my own training as well. Good luck."
And with that, Shiva walked off carrying his travel bag.
"So what do you think Ranma, should we do this?"
"Yeah. I'm not too keen on the whole 'anything goes' part, but I say go for it. I trust him."
With that, Ranma and Ryoga removed their clothes and stood under the waterfall, and began to meditate under the waterfall, trying to ignore the feeling of the water trying to pound them down.
Meanwhile, Shiva had increased the mass of his gi to a total of two metric tons and was balancing on his staff using his index finger. Periodically he would flex his finger, flip himself, and land on a different finger. After 45 minutes or so he hopped off and walked back to his pupils. He tapped, prodded, and thumped them to see if they could still feel, and then began to lightly attack them. He then randomly launched two strong attacks at Ranma and Ryoga to see if they remembered his warning. Ryoga flew backwards, caught unaware; Ranma simply dodged the attack.
"I warned you that I anything goes in my training Ryoga," said Shiva, "And as for you Ranma...good job."
Ranma grinned. "Gee, thanks," said Ranma as he rubbed the back of his head. Shiva then tripped Ranma.
"Like I said, anything goes," and with that he walked off to a clearing.
"Alright you two, it's time for lunch." Shiva grabbed his infamous picnic basket and pulled out some okonomiyaki, ramen, sukiyaki, and a bottle of weak saki.
"This is your lunch. There is enough for about 1.5 of you. You can either share or fight for it. The choice is yours."
Ranma and Ryoga immediately began sparring for the food. Shiva then watched them spar while eating their food and drinking their saki. After a few minutes Ranma won the fight and went to collect his spoils, only to find them missing.
"Hey! What happened to my food?!" shrieked a hungry Ranma.
"I ate it."
"Why did you do that, sensei?" asked Ryoga.
"Because you weren't thinking. You had many options. You could have shared the food between you. If you had done that I might've given you more food. You could've sparred me for my food to supplement your lunch. Instead you chose to fight each other for your lunch."
Ranma and Ryoga stared at each other for awhile, then dropped their heads in shame and embarrassment and said, "Oh."
"Oh indeed. You will receive no lunch today, and only a mild dinner. The better you perform in your training the better I treat you, and more importantly, the better you eat. Understood?"
"Yes sensei."
"Good," replied Shiva, "Now onto another session. You have from now until sunset to levitate."
"..." replied the pupils as they stared at Shiva as if he were insane, which was a possibility.
Shiva smirked at them. "It's not that hard a thing to do, just sit down and meditate. Envision yourself being warmed by the sun, heating and expanding, becoming filled with energy. Imagine yourself becoming lighter and lighter, so light that you can float. Once you've got that down then you can learn more advanced techniques based on this, and then you'll know techniques that even Happy and Cologne can't do. I suppose I could explain how this works scientifically, but then you two aren't exactly the intellectual type, so I'll just leave you to train." With that, Shiva levitated off the ground and flew off to a secluded spot to train.
"Well, it does seem pretty far fetched, but I have seen and heard stranger things done. And besides, I'd do almost anything to learn how to be better than Gramps and that old hag. Let's do it!" exclaimed Ranma as he sat down to begin his training. Ryoga followed suit.
A few hours later...
Ranma and Ryoga were meditating with their eyes closed, doing everything that Shiva had told them to do, but they didn't feel as if anything was happening. However, neither voiced an opinion because by speaking they would ruin each other's concentration. Moreover, neither would admit to failing.
Shiva suddenly reappeared on a tree branch, which immediately broke due to the combined weight of his weighed gi and himself. He then reduced the weight of the gi and jumped back into the tree.
"So, how're you two doing?" asked Shiva as he studied them intensely.
"It's not working, sensei," replied Ryoga as he opened his eyes and looked at Shiva, "I don't feel any warmer or filled with energy or lighter or anything!"
"And you, Ranma?"
"Same thing. I don't feel nothin'. It doesn't work. I guess we're just not ready for this."
"Oh really?" said Shiva, "You're not paying attention. Tell me Ryoga, where am I?"
"You're right in front of me."
"Yes, but where am I?
Ryoga was stumped, "...Um, is this a rhetorical question?"
"You idiot," replied Ranma, "He's in a tree."
"Correct, Ranma," replied Shiva, "But can you be a little bit more specific?"
"You're in a tree-branch...in the air...which...means," said Ranma as this knowledge slowly kicked in. He looked down and saw that he was indeed levitating above the ground by about ten feet, and did what most men would do in his position...he fell.
Things suddenly made sense to Ryoga, who also fell.
Shiva smiled at his pupils as they sat crumpled on the ground, dazed and confused. "Congratulations...I hadn't expected you to do that so early in your training. Because of this, you'll both be fed dinner tonight, and it will be more than enough to sustain you. However, before you get fed, a science lecture."
Ranma and Ryoga's faces, which had originally been cheery, were now crestfallen. Well, Ryoga's was; Ranma's was actually more enthusiastic.
"Alright, now you two know about inertia right? The tendency of an object to continue traveling at the same constant velocity until acted upon by a secondary force. In layman's terms, the tendency of an object in motion to stay in motion and an object at rest to stay at rest. You following me?"
Ranma and Ryoga nodded their heads in understanding.
"Good. Now what I'm teaching you is how to change your inertia."
"Um, sensei," interrupted Ryoga as he asked Shiva question, "Isn't it impossible to do that?"
"According to the known laws of physics, yes. However, it's what you have been doing subconsciously whenever you moved faster than what's considered humanly possible. What I'm trying to teach you now is how to do it at will. If you learn how to lower your inertia you can move at faster and faster speeds, and provided you can tap into levity, the opposing force of gravity, which you two just demonstrated a few moments ago, levitate. If you increase it, you can become immovable. In my attacks I often increase my inertia once I have begun moving so that when I attack, I will be virtually unstoppable. And if you can lower your inertia to zero, " replied Shiva.
"So you're saying that if we can learn how to control out inertia and tap into this levity thing, then we can move faster, make our attacks stronger, and even fly?" asked Ranma.
"In a nutshell, yes. True, there's a lot more to that, but I'll explain it to you later," said Shiva, "Now, it's time for dinner." With that statement, Shiva pulled dinner from his basket, which mostly consisted of okonomiyaki, ramen, and rice.
"Mmm...this is pretty good," said Ranma as he took another bite of okonomiyaki, "Tastes just like Ukyo's. You make a giant takeout order or somethin'?"
"Actually, I made this," replied Shiva, "Minus the whole 10-year old sauce, this is Ukyo's okonomiyaki, ingredient for ingredient, and mixed in the correct proportions as well."
"How the hell'd you get Ukyo to tell you her recipe?!" exclaimed Ranma.
"She didn't," replied Shiva, "My training improved my sense of smell, which in turn improved my sense of taste. By eating her okonomiyaki I was able to figure out what ingredients she used, and their proportions. When I told Ukyo, she swore me to secrecy to make sure I would never reveal her secret."
"Wow," said Ryoga, "Do you think you could teach us how to do that, sensei?"
"Not unless you want to find your food solely by sniffing for it. For six months I stole food, using only my nose to find it. I was hungry for many nights. If you feel like going through that, go ahead."
"Err, never mind" said Ryoga as his stomach growled.
Shiva tossed him another okonomiyaki. "Now you two will continue to train under the waterfall and by levitating. I suggest that one of you train while the other watches and tests you. I'm going to go do some training of my own, and I'll be back in two days. I'm leaving my basket here with you, so you can eat whatever you like, when you like."
"Hai, sensei," replied Ranma and Ryoga.
The next day, Shiva woke up early and wandered off carrying a canteen of water and his katana. Ranma and Ryoga promptly began their training, alternately meditating under the waterfall while the other would attack him, and levitating. They progressed until they could not only ignore the pain of the attacks being inflicted upon them, but they could block and parry as well. They had learned how to fight while in a meditative state, even with their eyes open. Levitating was a bit harder, but by the end of the two days they had mastered it.
Meanwhile, Shiva was practicing his sword skills, cleaving the air so swiftly and cleanly that a vacuum blade would fly out and strike down objects, cleanly cutting through trees. He also worked on his endurance and speed, alternately running at 1000 kph (600 mph) for several hours, or running at top speed for a few hours. Eventually he managed to run at a speed of about 1290 kph (774 mph), at which point he broke the sound barrier.
Ranma and Ryoga had been sparring while levitating when they heard the sonic boom. "What the hell was that?!" exclaimed Ryoga.
"That sounded like a sonic boom, but I don't see an airplane," replied Ranma, "But I do feel Shiva's aura, so that means..." both youths stared at each other, realizing what had just happened, and then immediately began sparring with much more intensity.
A few minutes later, both fighters came down for a lunch break, and opened up Shiva's picnic basket.
"Hey!" shouted Ryoga, "It's empty!"
"Baka," muttered Ranma, "Of course it looks empty; it's a portal to a sub-dimension."
"...."
Ranma sighed. "You have to jump into the basket to get the food."
"Then why didn't you say so?" said Ryoga as he jumped into the basket. Ranma quickly followed suit.
They found themselves inside of a well lit cavern, filled with freezers, refrigerators, stoves and ovens, microwaves, toasters and...pens?
"Hmm," said Ryoga, "It looks like he raises his own meat."
"That's an understatement," said Ranma, "Come look at this."
Surrounding the two were several gardens growing various vegetables, as well as pens housing many kinds of livestock, including cattle. Farther on, they could make out some fish farms. All in all, Shiva's 'lunch' stretched as far as the eye could see.
"Well, I suppose this explains why we've never seen him go grocery shopping," said Ryoga.
Suddenly the ground began to shake. Ranma and Ryoga stared off into the distance, trying to find what was causing the rumbling, when they finally saw what it was.
"A chicken?!" exclaimed Ryoga.
The purple monstrosity, seeing the two boys, began to run after them.
"Y'know, somehow I get the feeling that this involves Shiva feeding Akane's cooking to farm animals," said Ranma as he fled from the beast.
"Why do you think that?"
"Well, he looks like some of the stuff the crawls out of the frying pan, and his breath smells exactly like her cooking."
"Hmm, you have a point there."
Ranma suddenly stopped and charged the chicken.
"Hey! Ranma are you nuts?"
"Maybe, but I've got an idea," Ranma leaped into the air and imagined himself as an immovable object. He shot a kick out at the creature's neck, which collided. The chicken's own forward momentum snapped its neck, as Ranma kicked through it. Ryoga got bathed in the creature's blood.
"Ranma, you bastard!"
"Heh, sorry about that. Well, let's see if we can find some actual food, preferably not moving."
Ranma and Ryoga went to the fridge, got out some ramen, and heated it in Shiva's microwave.
Once they were done eating, they began to leave the sub-dimension, when they realized that there was no way to get back up. The opening to the basket was a few hundred feet above them.
"I don't get it," said Ryoga, "When we jumped in we didn't fall down, so how is it that the exit is above us?"
"How the hell should I know? Anyway, there is a way for us to get out."
"And what's that?"
"What Shiva just taught us."
Ranma sat down and began to meditate, imagining himself becoming lighter and being filled with the sun's energy. Slowly he began to rise into the air. Ryoga soon followed suit.
A few minutes later, the pair floated out of Shiva's basket and landed on safe ground.
"Phew! Man, I never thought I'd find a person who had weirder training regiments than you, Ranma."
"You said it. I'm betting the next time we go down there there'll be another random monster waiting for us."
"Knowing Shiva, probably. Well, I guess we should go back to training again." And with that Ryoga and Ranma began to spar, incorporating the new techniques that Shiva had taught them into their session.
An hour or so later they began to test one another's wills, with one meditating, and the other attacking. After that, the two went to sleep.
Meanwhile, Shiva was meditating, and had been doing so for the last twelve hours.
"Damn it," he thought to himself, "There's still a power within me that I can't reach. I already realized my maximum potential, so what can it be?"
Shiva thought about the possibilities. One, he could have been wrong, and only accessed some of his potential, but he was absolutely certain that that wasn't the case. Two, there was some sort of implant or something within him, but that was too farfetched, and he knew his body well enough to know there were no foreign substances in it, save for any he put in himself.
Shiva went through his mind, categorizing his powers and techniques, both learned and intuitive, until he hit upon something. He remembered that he was an Aspect and an Avatar to Shiva, the god of destruction.
"Of course! Why didn't I think of this sooner?! I've realized my full potential, but I've yet to tap into my namesake's powers.... Now how the hell do I gain control of a God's power? Ehh, meditation always worked before."
And with that, Shiva continued meditating.
Ranma and Ryoga woke up early the next morning, went through the routine of fighting one of Shiva's monsters for breakfast, and then began training again.
By now, the two had progressed to the point that they no longer needed to go through the motions of meditation to levitate and merely did it.
Suddenly, Ranma stopped fighting while sparring with Ryoga, which knocked him off his feet.
"Oops, sorry about that Ranma."
"That's okay. Anyway, I stopped because all of this just clicked."
"What do you mean?"
"The stuff that Shiva's been making us do, I think I get it now, Ryoga. Shiva had us begin to meditate, and then we imagined ourselves levitating, believed that we could levitate, and we did! And the thing with blocking pain; it's the same thing. We believe that we don't feel the pain, and we don't. I get it!"
"What are you blabbering about Ranma? What do you get?"
"It's like the old saying, 'mind over matter.' We believe that we can do something, and we do it."
"Sounds kind of out there. Do you really think you can do it?"
"I dunno, but I'm gonna try it."
So saying, Ranma sat down and thought about what 'miracle' he could perform. It needed to be simple, but flashy. He then settled on an idea, and began to meditate.
A few moments later, Ranma began to sink into the ground, as the ground became liquid. Ryoga just stared.
"See? I told ya I could do it," said Ranma, as he opened his eyes. However, he looked and saw that he was in the ground, and logic took hold again, telling him that the ground is solid, and so it was that he became buried up to his armpits.
"Ack! Hey Ryoga, help me out. You baka, quit laughing and get over here."
"Heh, sorry about that Ranma, but this really is funny," said Ryoga as he dug Ranma out of the ground.
At that moment, Shiva came back from his training, a look of irritability on his face. He looked at the hole in the ground, then at Ranma, who was still covered in dirt.
"You know, most people wait till they're dead to be buried."
"Sensei, I got it! The power of belief! Mind over matter!" Ranma continued rambling on for awhile, until Shiva stopped him.
"Well now, you learned faster than I thought would. In that case, training's over. What techniques you learn next are up to you, and limited only by your imagination. Now c'mon, let's get going. I feel like a home-cooked meal cooked by somebody other than me."
As Shiva was walking back towards the Tendo house, he thought about why nothing had come of his meditation. "Hmm...well, I guess meditating won't do it this time. However, there is still one way...but will Fate allow me to even attempt it? And what will happen to me if I fail?" Shiva put the thought out of his head, figuring that worrying about the future would only bring him grief. And with that, he stepped into the house, where a warm meal would soon await him, as well as his pupils.
Continued in DT: Friends and Foes
Comments/Criticism/Leftovers: shivabarnwell@yahoo.com