Chapter 8: No Longer Boared.
02/10.
"You're sure?"
Ranma resisted the urge to grit her teeth, and silently apologized to pretty much all of the girls in Nerima, with the exception of Kodachi, as Shiro said this, the boy's light-brown eyes reflecting nothing but pure curiosity. The black haired girl behind him pulled her crossed arms more tightly against her chest, one foot twitching as if she desperately wanted to tap it.
"Yeah, I'm sure," the shorter redhead answered. Was the guy literally this dense, or just trying to get out of it? "I mean, yeah, Saber's gotta come to keep you guys safe, but I'm pretty sure you don't need more than that, right?"
"Exactly," Rin said, happily. "Now let's go, already. She said she's fine."
"Yeah, but I-" the boy in question started, before the girl grabbed him by the arm and pulled. He yelped, and Ranma could swear that she saw a flash of magic circuits on the Tohsaka girl's part before they exited the front door, which slammed behind them.
All of this had started earlier in the morning, when shiro had woken her asking if she'd taken a loaf of bread. The culprit had turned out to be Tohsaka, who had used it to make a picnic basket, and informed shiro that the two were going on a date. He'd honestly looked sort of panicked at that pronouncement, and Ranma felt briefly sorry for him, but wasn't prepared to stick her nose into it given how many bystanders she'd seen having theirs bitten off in Nerima.
When Saber had invited herself along in order to defend her master, Shiro had apparently decided that this meant it wasn't a 'real' date, and attempted to rope her into it. Fortunately, Rin's conversation the previous night, and a glare from behind the auburn haired boy's back, had clued Ranma in, and she'd declined. Several times, as he'd kept asking.
The pigtailed martial artist stretched her good arm, heading back into the kitchen. She'd agreed to take care of the dishes for breakfast, with the ulterior motive of finishing off the leftovers. Shiro's food might not be on the level of Kasumi's, but it did have the advantage of being free, and not camp cooking.
("Hey P-chan, you wanna come in and have anything?") Ranma sent.
("I'm fine,") her Servent reported from his place outside of the house. It was strange. Both he and Archer seemed reluctant to come into the place's grounds, while Saber had no problem with it. Then again, Saber felt… off… somehow in general, compared to the other Servants in a way the redhead couldn't figure out.
("Your loss then,") Ranma replied cheerfully, before preparing to dig into her first bowl.
A moment later, the kitchen door slid open, and Ms. Fujimura walked in. "I'm home!" She called cheerfully, before looking around to see only Ranma at the table. "...huh?"
"Shiro, Rin and Saber went out someplace," Ranma explained.
"The three of them?" The older woman asked before tilting her head.
Ranma shrugged one shoulder. She was getting fairly good at that. "I didn't really ask many questions."
The orange haired woman frowned, and then glanced at the rice cooker in the middle of the table. "Is there any of that left?"
Ranma sighed. So much for getting all the leftovers to herself.
HR.
Taiga Fujimura was annoying. Mind, she wasn't as annoying as, say, Hikaru Gosunkugi, or Tatewaki Kuno. she was actually very friendly, but after she realized that Shiro wasn't here to torment, she'd focused on Ranma. She hadn't really been impolite, just curious and inquisitive, first about the martial artist's training trip, places she'd been, and styles she'd learned. The woman had been surprisingly knowledgeable on that, though she seemed to be a weapons specialist, and Ranma recalled that Shiro had mentioned being trained by her before.
The pigtailed girl had been just about to ask for a bit of a spar when the subject turned to other things, primarily, how she was keeping up with her schooling on her short trip, and the teacher had decided that she would help.
She was pretty good at that, too, Ranma had to reluctantly admit, just… hyper-active. She somehow managed to be almost as over-dramatic about random english topics as Ms. Hinako, while also being far less easy to distract.
"Look, I think I'm good now, Ms. Fujimura," the redhead grumbled, putting her pen down next to the paper in front of her.
"Well, your hand-writing could still really use some work," the older woman said, bluntly. "Still, that is the last of the stuff you brought with you. Your english teacher has some very strange subject matter, you know? I never thought of translating children's television shows… but I guess the language would naturally be pretty simple…"
"I don't think you wanna copy Ms. Hinako," Ranma responded, uneasily. "She's kinda…" the redhead trailed off as a strange sensation seemed to crawl down her spine. She looked around, feeling that something was wrong, but unsure exactly what. It had something to do with the magical theory Rin had been trying to teach her and Shiro, something about…
("The house's wards just fell!")
Yeah, that was it. Ranma had already slowly rose to her feet as she'd tried to place the feeling, and now stepped towards the door into the rest of the house.
"Ranma?" Taiga asked, standing herself.
("Caster?") Ranma asked, simply.
("I can't… wait… fog, yes, Caster,") Ryoga snapped back.
"Ms. Fujimura, you probably want to get outta here," Ranma said, looking back to the older woman.
"Wha…" her question was answered as mist seemed to penetrate the building's doors and windows, skeletal figures solidifying out of it with blades in hand. Ranma moved as soon as the last one formed, heading for the one standing by the back door and smashing it with one blow before yanking the door open.
"C'mon, out, now!" She barked, following her own advice on the heels of the teacher.
Hovering over the back wall of the compound, glaring directly at her was a hooded and robed figure, only the lower face and hands of the woman beneath visible.
"Caster, I guess?" Ranma asked, having only gotten short glimpses of the woman previously.
"Indeed," the Servant answered.
"Caster?" Taiga demanded, looking between the two, and then nervously to the magically created soldiers that were scattered across the backyard. "Wh-what's going on here?!"
("P-chan, blow the wall as you come in, I want an exit for Ms. Fujimura,") Ranma ordered, glancing back at the woman who was gaping up at the hovering figure as her skeletal familiars shambled from the house.
"Can't really explain right now," Ranma snapped. "Let's just say this is what I'm here ta fight." It wasn't exactly true, but maybe the 'hero of justice' thing that had come up a few days ago would work.
"You're not exactly the fish I wanted to catch," the mage Servant said, in a drawling, feminine voice. "Still, after you gathered together, I'll take what I can get."
"Usin' the mist to get around attackin' during the day?" Ranma asked, deciding that if her enemy wanted to talk before the fight, she wasn't going to say no.
The robed figure just nodded. "I would extend the same offer to you as I did Saber's master… except our meeting earlier severely annoyed me," she continued, raising a hand to rub her upper arm.
"You annoy me pretty bad too," Ranma admitted. "So we gunna get to the part where I kick your ass?"
The Servant laughed at that, sounding genuinely amused.
("Now.")
The wall about six meters to her left crumbled in a shower of stonework, Ryoga charging through and tossing his already open umbrella, carving a path through several skeletal creatures before catching it on his way past.
"Ms. Fujimura, run! We've got this!" Ranma thought the teacher would need far more convincing, given her excitable nature and some of what she'd said earlier when they'd been talking about martial arts, but the older woman simply nodded, running at a surprisingly fast pace through the opening Ryoga had created and into the street.
Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ranma charged, lobbing a Moko Takabisha before her. She was pretty much expecting the Servant's deflection by this point, but when the woman's robes billowed open like a bat's wings, magic circles stitched into the interior gathering bolts of power in less than a second, she only barely managed to dodge. The blasts tore past her, ripping up the ground and tearing several sizeable holes in the house's wall.
All Ranma had been doing was distracting, however. Ryoga had used the opportunity to vault into the air, falling with his umbrella before him towards the robed woman. Unfortunately, she noticed in time and turned, generating another blast of magic that slowed the falling Assassin just enough that she could get out of his way.
When Ryoga slammed into the compound wall, demolishing another section of it, Ranma winced. Shiro probably wouldn't be happy about this. She revised that estimate as several patches of ground exploded, over two dozen new skeletal familiars apparently using the material from the holes to take form. He definitely wasn't going to be happy about this.
As the property damage extended to what looked like a burst water main in the kitchen, most of its outer wall now nothing but holes, she decided that thinking about Shiro's reaction was probably no longer a good idea, especially since her current opponent was a bit more important. Unfortunately, said opponent was also hard to deal with. In a way, it was an admirable demonstration of why the Saotome school was so focused on airborne maneuvers. Caster just hovered above them, tossing the occasional magical blast down while her familiars harassed them enough to make it very difficult to retaliate. And unfortunately, Ryoga wasn't very good at finding ways to do that, anyways.
Ranma had managed to get up to her level and twist out of the way of her attacks once, but her hastily thrown amaguriken had almost literally bounced off of the Servant's robe, which was expected, really, but she couldn't do much else. Her attempts at magical attacks were still at a very early stage, and if she switched to magic, it would become even harder to deal with the steady stream of skeletal familiars. Unfortunately, she didn't think she had much of a choice.
Frowning, the pigtailed martial artist opened her magic circuits, immediately reinforcing her body to what she believed was her safe limit. The battle around her seemed to speed up as her reaction time slowed to a pale imitation of what she could manage normally, but it was still enough to dance out of the way of the familiars.
Noticing his master's action, Ryoga moved in more closely, switching his attention from tossing braces of bandanas and the occasional Shishi hokodan at the other Servant to helping keep the familiars clear.
For her part, Ranma took a page from Shiro's book, at least, sort of. Water vapour condensed in her hand, first into water, and then into ice, forming an irregular, jagged shard. It grew longer as her circuits flared, blue mystical energy crawling its way up the makeshift blade, before the pigtailed martial artist vaulted into the air. She twisted her body sideways, the bolt of power that flew past her sending a tingling sensation across her skin as she held the blade over her head, plunging it down at the robed Servent.
It easily penetrated her robe, eliciting a grunt of pain from her as it found flesh, moments before a rapidly fired counter blast smashed into Ranma's chest. The redhead cried in pain, tumbling away from her opponent and landing gracelessly near the demolished kitchen wall. Reinforcement also didn't have anything on chi when it came to taking a blow. Hauling herself to her feet, she closed her circuits just after tossing the blade of ice she'd still clutched away. Some experimentation earlier had shown that the only thing that let her hold the supercooled shard was her mana, and without it her hands would start to freeze in seconds.
Ryoga landed next to her as she let chi flow back into her body, swinging his umbrella like a giant club to clear the area of familiars. "What the hell was that?" Her Servent snarled.
"It hurt her," Ranma shrugged back as several more familiars took form. As Ryoga was rearing back to strike them down as well, his master's eyes widened. "Wait, don't!"
Either the warning came too late into the swing, or Ryoga simply ignored it. His umbrella once again battered away or destroyed the familiars, but this time a few of them were different. They seemed to be constructed from nearby materials, and apparently, somehow, the water gushing from the burst main nearby qualified. As the translucent creatures exploded, the water that made up their bodies flew into the air and all over the two.
"P-chan… what the hell?!" Ranma asked, gaping at her Servent.
"Oh, this is rich," Caster laughed, from where she still floated in the air in the middle of the yard. "My aunt would definitely like to see this. And even your master is surprised!"
"I ain't surprised he turned into a pig," Ranma shot back, "Just… what the hell?" The reason for this astonishment was the colossal black boar that stood before her. It had to be over six feet tall, with glowing, blood-red eyes and a pair of massive, gleaming white tusks jutting from its muzzle, one snapped and splintered half way up its length.
"Bw▃▄▄▅▄▃▅!"
If that was supposed to be a squeal, it had come out as a rumbling, booming noise that reminded Ranma vaguely of the roaring of Berserker, right down to the feeling that it was rattling the bones of her spine together.
The massive boar slowly turned, digging a foot into the ground before charging forward, bowling over familiars as it moved. The sheer power it wielded was impressive, seeming to shake the ground as it ran, and it cut down the magical constructs effortlessly. Still, Ranma could see a problem. Namely that all of Ryoga's ranged techniques were unavailable to the massive creature. Deciding on a course of action, she ran forward herself, leaping onto the animal's back before shifting from Chi to magic again, solidifying small, razor-edged shards of ice and flinging them at caster.
For her part, the mage Servent deflected the incoming projectiles with conjured walls of force, retaliating with searing bars of purple energy that Ryoga stayed barely ahead of. The fight was, temporarily, at a stalemate while both sides looked for a way to unbalance it in their favor.
"Strike!" The call came from a figure who was descending from above Caster, a blade grasped in their hand ready to land. For half a second, Ranma thought that Saber had shown up before her eyes caught up with her brain.
"Ms. Fujimura?!" She asked herself, as the woman's blade, a wooden bokken with some sort of charm dangling off of it, impacted and skittered off of the Servent's robe as though it weighed nothing. Caster batted her aside, almost contemptuously, the english teacher managing to make a fairly impressive three point landing before standing. "What are you doing here?!"
"I'm not going to let a teenager with a hurt arm fight… whatever this is… alone," the older woman said, falling into a firm kendo stance before bringing her blade around in a rapid arc. Ranma's eyes widened as she spotted an edge of distorted air, a crescent of vacuum flying off of the wooden sword and towards Caster.
Unfortunately, the vacuum wave did as little as every previous physical attack, the mage not even bothering to defend against it. Instead, she stretched out a hand, a crackling bolt of energy appearing within it, and the english teacher brought her sword up.
Ranma realized what she was planning to do, and cursed. Caster was actually preparing this spell, and the ones she just fired off the cuff were bad enough to punch through concrete with ease. There was no way in hell Taiga could block the blast.
Even as she thought this, she leapt off of Ryoga, pushing off of his flank as hard as she could as the glowing lines that covered her body flickered and died. Jerking her left arm violently, the splint that was holding her injured shoulder shredded, pain from the still cracked shoulder blade and barely healed cuts ignored as the martial artist scooped her larger target into her arms. The beam impacted while she was in the middle of vaulting away.
Only the edge skimmed her back, but it was enough to send the two spinning, Ranma desperately trying to control their flight enough that she took the impact with the ground. A grunt of pain escaped as she landed on her bad arm, falling onto her back and sliding over a meter.
"Hmm, I've finally figured something out. Interesting." The voice was Caster's, and it was unnervingly casual. Ranma looked up even as she tried to untangle herself from the still stunned english teacher.
"You're using your will, aren't you? Your very life and soul. I never imagined that technique would survive to this era. You keep switching between it and magic in order to harm me." She ran a hand along the cut in her robe, where a small stain of blood was visible. "It really is too bad that your little trick doesn't protect you from magical influence when your circuits aren't active." Ranma's eyes widened as the mage Servant's hand moved in front of her again, revealing several glistening strings that faded into invisibility in mid-air.
That was about when it made itself known. A strange itching, tingling sensation that had previously been overwhelmed by adrenaline and the pain of impact. Desperately, she tried to force open her magic circuits, trying to crowd out Caster's spell with the flow of her own mana. She was too late, of course. As Caster had known when she'd made her comment. The pigtailed martial artist's limbs began to stiffen up, movement becoming slow and sluggish as she staggered away from Ms. Fujimura. Where he'd been left on the other side of the yard, Ryoga stepped towards her, but was stopped as Caster twisted her fingers.
Ranma gurgled as her throat suddenly constricted. It was like someone had tied cables around her neck and was now pulling them tight. She fell forward, her hands instinctively scrabbling at her neck but feeling nothing, save indented flesh.
"Little piggies should stay put," Caster said, her voice far too cheerful for the situation. "Making your master's head just fall off would be easy enough, you know."
The black boar stopped moving, though its low growl could be heard across the yard.
"Wh-what are you doing to her?" Taiga demanded, as she'd finally managed to get back to her feet.
"That's right, you…" Caster grumbled. "So many interruptions. You weren't even involved in this war. If you'd just stayed gone, you could have lived. Now, though…" She turned her hand slightly once more, and the pressure on Ranma's throat lifted. Instead she found herself getting to her feet, even though she didn't want to move.
Turning fluidly towards the english teacher, the pigtailed martial artist's right hand clenched into a fist and she lunged forward at blinding speed. The orange haired woman's eyes widened and she tried to back up, just as her attacker stopped in her tracks, her body surrounded by a softly glowing golden aura. The redhead slowly, jerkily straightened, her hand falling to her side.
"What?" Caster asked, sounding more fascinated than angry. "You're… overriding my control of your muscles with your aura. Are you physically pushing them?" The redhead didn't answer, merely standing, her arms and legs occasionally twitching as the mage Servent attempted to make her move. "You know that if you miscalculate what you're doing, you could completely destroy your body!"
The martial artist admitted internally that she actually had no idea that was a possibility. A lot of the chi techniques she'd worked out had been matters of desperate improvisation, and this was one of them. Then again, since she was countering any attempt of her muscles to move with her aura, she supposed it made sense. Which was bad, because it added the time constraint of 'how long it would take to screw up' to a situation that was already pretty hopeless.
About the only things she could move freely were her eyes. She couldn't even talk.
("P-chan, any ideas?") she sent, but didn't expect a response. She'd actually heard something from him earlier, but even in her head it had come across as a 'bwee'. Then again, P-chan could be it, or at least, part of it. She was fairly clearly stuck for now, but keeping Caster from making her kill Taiga, or doing it herself, was one of her biggest problems at the moment. ("Ryoga, I need you to get Ms. Fujimura outta here.")
The returning angry squealing didn't need any translation, and Ranma frowned. She didn't really have time for reasoning here. She was already fighting a battle with her own body every time the bemused Caster attempted to make her move in a different way and overwhelm her chi control. She also knew that Ryoga had an almost fanatical desire to keep her safe, so the reasoning wouldn't be easy, anyways. She gulped, or tried to. She really hated to do it, but… ("Ryoga Hibiki, as your master I order you to get Taiga Fujimura out of this yard and to safety. Find Shiro and Rin.")
She felt a pulse of magical energy from her leg and heard an enraged\ porcine scream that rattled windows at about the same time. A blur of black thundered past her, scooping Taiga up onto its back with enough force that it probably knocked the breath out of her, and then slamming straight through the Emiya residence on its way out of the yard. Ranma felt cables tighten around her neck for a brief moment, and then loosen again.
"That was a command spell, wasn't it?" Caster asked. "Your Servant seemed very unhappy with you." She allowed Ranma to turn and face her as she lowered herself to the ground. "Rightfully so, I think. Sending him away and leaving yourself alone with me was a very stupid thing to do."
The redhead just glared at the taller woman, though internally she was relieved as most of the strain on her body had been lifted. She still couldn't move under her own power, but was no longer resisting the command to crush Taiga's head.
"Two masters so far, completely obstinate and stubborn. ...Is it the hair?" The servant stopped a couple of feet in front of Ranma and looked her over. "I should kill you now, but… I think I have another idea."
The redhead was barely listening. Instead concentrating all of the power she had left, doing her best to keep any tells from showing. Without being able to aim it through her hands or speak the attack call, the concentration to manifest a coherent, powerful blast of chi was immense, but she managed it, the ball of golden energy suddenly blossoming just in front of her eyes and smashing into her opponent at point blank range.
When the light and sound had faded, Caster still stood, having stepped back and raised an arm to shield her face. The only change was that Ranma had managed to blow her hood back, revealing a cold eyed, pretty older woman with light blue hair and pointed ears. "Cute…" The Servant said, simply, before her eyes began to glow. "Now, sleep."
The hypnotic command was barely necessary. That had been the last card Ranma had to play. As she slumped forward, her eyes reluctantly sliding closed, she hoped Ryoga managed to get Rin, Shiro and their Servants quickly.
END CHAPTER.
Taiga Dojo.
The dojo shows signs of heavy damage, holes and cracked planking visible in the wall behind Taiga and Illya. Illya herself seems shocked, her eyes wide and staring at her cohost.
"Well, I guess this is what happens when you're in a Ranma fic... I liked this Dojo. Anyways, hello everyone, Taiga here, to answer a couple questions we think might get asked. First for the smaller one. If you're wondering what happened to my visit to Kiritsugu's grave, the bridge and everything, those were additions from the UBW anime. They were good additions, honestly, but the author felt that things worked better for his plot using the chain of events from the VN, where Caster shows up at Shiro's house... unfortunately for the repair bills."
"That's not important... Air pressure blades? Jumping off the roof? You can't do that! How did you..."
"Ah, that. That's one of the bigger questions. Illya's right, of course. Fate/Stay Night's Taiga can't do that. On the other hand, I am described in interviews, supplementary material and the VN itself as a very good kendoist. My main disadvantage is a complete and total inability to do magic. On the other hand, I'm described as 'At a national level.' Since this fic is a Ranma crossover, the level of martial skill a non-mage can gain through sheer training is much higher, and so I'm naturally stronger. At my prime I would have been really awesome, but right now, given I only practice occasionally, I'm... about on Tatewaki Kuno's level... stupid, pompous, irritating windbag... gives Kendoists a bad name, the little..."
Taiga exits stage left, muttering and Illya blinks, slowly.
"Um... There was only one more question, but Taiga-sensei seems... a bit annoyed, so I'm just going to give you the skill description from Shiro's statistics display. We hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please let the author know what you think in a review!"
Skill: Innocent Monster/The Wandering Landslide.
During his lifetime, Assassin was inflicted with a curse that causes him to transform into an animal when splashed with cold water. In his case, the animal in question was a small black piglet. Due to his many travels and encounters, this ability was witnessed, and reported, among both the mage's association and the church, as well as adding to his general legend. However, given the sheer number of deadly situations he had survived, the idea that he transformed into such a defenseless animal with something as common as water was considered, by many, as laughable, and the rumors soon began to speak of a monstrous black boar that could smash any obstacles out of its way, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. As a result, when splashed with cold water, the heroic spirit form of this Servent transforms into said giant boar. This raises his strength and endurance by a single letter grade, and lowers his speed by the same due to difficulty maneuvering. In addition, it seals many of his most powerful techniques, including his noble phantasms and major martial abilities. Against an unthinking enemy, or many weaker targets this form is somewhat useful, but against Servants, specifically those who attack at range and thus are hard to close with, it's a massive liability.