The water was not as dark as she had feared. Little pinpricks of blue photo-luminescent plankton sparked into being all around her. It was as if all the stars in the sky had chosen to migrate to the sea on this stormy night. With a tinge of regret, Ranma pushed herself to keep moving. Though the plankton and other aquatic life helped mask her ki that didn't mean she was safe yet. Lazy the one-eyed ninja might be, but Ranma was willing to bet he would be no slouch in a fight. And while his ki or chakra or whatever they called it here was imperceptible to her still maturing ki-sense there was still a lingering touch of killing intent aimed between her shoulder blades. She wondered if Genma would call her cheeky for using it as a compass to navigate away from the dock in the darkness. Well, anything goes.
Wary of a shuriken to the back of the head, Ranma stayed well below the surface, marveling at how long she was holding her breath. It had been years since her father had taught her any under water fighting techniques or tested her endurance in this manner so to see her progress was empowering despite the circumstances. Torquing her body, she let her enthusiasm carry her deeper into the roiling sea. The glow of the plankton faded as she descended, but still she kept swimming downwards. The current and noise of splashing waves faded away until only the sound of her own dolphin kick remained. 'Am I already past the island shelf?' Spinning her feet faster, the bottom remained frustratingly out of reach.
A soft shimmer of light appeared in the distance. 'Did I get turned around?' No, she was certain she the pressure was still increasing, even if it was hardly a feather against the oppressive atmosphere generated beneath Ryoga's Perfect Shi Shi Hokodan. Focusing her eyes the vague blur solidified as she approached into a miraculous underwater forest. Long pink and red fronds swayed over brilliant coral and bright fish all flourishing at a depth impossible in Ranma's home world. Ranma switched to a slow scissor kick as she swam parallel to the thick, textured reef. Sloping down at an almost vertical slant it possessed a wild, uninhibited architecture unimaginable in the world above.
Time was a fragile concept under the ocean, moving slowly even as time raced by on land. As the sea life only increased in size and complexity the further she swam, Ranma began to wonder if it would ever end at all, or if this miraculous display of life covered the bottom of the sea throughout the world. That's when she noticed it. It wasn't an ending, but it was a gap. A black cave utterly devoid of color and massive in its size. Swimming closer to peer inside, Ranma was intrigued to find a slight current tugging her towards the entrance, growing in intensity as she came closer. Her loose hair, previously streaming behind her, began to sway around her face, tugged by the relentless current. 'A tunnel then, not a cave.' Try as she might to claim that she was nothing like her father, the decade she had spent traveling with him had left a mark. Yawning maw of the abyss didn't equal 'bad, stay away', but instead 'Treasure, hi ho!' Still, her time in Nerima had given her at least a few survival instincts. Thus it was that the danger came to her instead. '… is that a giant octopus?'
A deep, thunderous boom assaulted Ranma's ears, driving her into some semblance of consciousness. 'W-where am I?' She felt oddly light, but recoiled as she scuffed against sand before lifting back into the air. A soft susurrus of shifting sand played around her like a lullaby. Ranma almost let it carry her away but for the persistent irritation of her skin. Eyebrows shifting downwards in confusion, Ranma finally realized that it was not the sky of some tortured dreamscape she was looking at, but the choppy, gray-glass surface of the ocean several yards above where she drifted in the current. Her head ached worse than a sucker punch from Ryoga. 'Oxygen deprivation?' While not entirely sure what the words meant in her present condition, she still understood the gist. Hesitantly she began to swim upwards with heavy, lethargic limbs.
A brown oval came into sight at the edge of her vision, surrounded by a legion of bubbles. 'A boat?' Her mouth moved along with her thoughts but only a few errant bubbles trickled out. Feeling desperate to take a breath now but still aware enough to be wary of attracting attention from the boat or taking in a mouthful of water she slowly eased her head from the waves. Ranma was thankful the roar of the storm was so much louder above the surface as she broke into a wave of uncontrollable coughing. Her neck and throat burned as she forced up the sea water, not taking a true breath of air until half a minute later. Ranma felt her head clearing, limbs regaining strength as air coursed through her lungs. Letting one hand massage her temples she started to navigate through the waves, searching for the boat or some sign of the shoreline. Her dress, sporting a tear up one side she couldn't recall getting, impeded her little. Cresting a wave Ranma caught sight of something quite surprising.
"Tsu? Tsunami!" Kicking herself out of the water Ranma practically skipped over the waves, never falling deeper than the middle of her calves in her wild race towards the boat. The two sketchy-looking men barely had time to draw their swords before she was on them. While faster than civilians they were nothing compared to her skill. Not even bothering to knock them out as she danced across the deck of the boat she took advantage of their atrocious balance on the stormy sea to knock them both screaming overboard. They were carried off in moments, allowing Ranma to shift her attention to the wide-eyed Tsunami tied up and gagged below her.
"Err, hi. You may have heard some bad things about me last night but-," Ranma was interrupted by a muffled shout through the gag. "Right, I should probably untie you first." She started with the ropes rather than the gag. Wet from the intense rain and sea spray it was difficult even for Ranma's nimble fingers to unravel the knot. Giving out an annoyed huff Ranma took up the rope with both hands and just tore it apart. "Sorry, I'm just used to trying to apologize to Akane. Precautions like this tend to cut down on mallet strikes... or delay them anyways." Just as Ranma removed the gag the boat chose to flip over, tossing them both into the brine.
End blank
I really expected to finish this chapter like two days ago. I blame elections.
If anyone's curious, seeing as I probably won't mention him again, Inari is alive. Via the butterfly effect he didn't go racing off suicidally after his kidnapped mother and is thus probably pulling a thousand-yard-stare somewhere. Probably.
Despite this being the longest chapter so far, I imagine that as I finally, at long last, chose to correct the misspellings in the teaser summary, roughly half of the new reviews will say "Needs longer chapters". The next chapter will likely be about the same size as this one, so... sorry? On the plus side, it will probably be out in roughly 48 hours.
