Ch. 2
Here's
the second excerpt of my fanfic, in which I do not own or blah blah blah,
etc. I guess I'll add on the authors
note at the end this time.
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A lone figure trudged along the
mountainous side of the volcano. By the
trail of toppled trees, and shattered boulders, it was quite evident that this
was no ordinary man. And by the many
twist, turns, and loops in the trail of this single traveler, one could easily
tell that either this young man was either suffering from a major concussion
and was wandering without a clue, or was the king of the lost, one Ryouga
Hibiki.
Although one might wonder just
how he could get so lost without trying (usually until one's head ached), it
had been witnessed that Ryouga's sense of direction was so bad that it actually
affected things around him that usually had very good senses of direction. For
instance, upon passing a flock of homing pigeons that where headed for Kyoto,
his curse caused them to end up in Brazil. GPS systems where known to blow whenever he passed within 30 feet of
them. Some scientist even considered
that he might be the opposite force to balance all the things with good senses
of direction.
Although these interesting
questions are something to ponder, the main thing, is that this figure is
Ryouga, and he is lost. But although
this normally usual, the reason he is wandering around, deep in thought,
isn't. Instead of the usual 'its all
Ranma's fault/ how much do I love Akane' thoughts running through his mind,
something else was there instead. Something, which anyone who knew Ryouga well would be shocked to hear.
Ak-akane doesn't love
me. She loves Ranma. Why else would she marry him? And I can't blame even Ranma for this. He beat me in a something that his martial
skills couldn't do anything to. Hell, I
don't know how they fell in love, with her constantly beating him, and Ranma
always abusing her feelings. But at
least I have Akari. *Sighs* But does she love me, or does she love P-chan. With how pig-obsessed she is, it's almost
impossible to tell, and do I really want to know if which she actually
loves. I don't know if I could stand
being loved only for my curse?
But wasn't that what was
happening with Akane? She loves p-chan,
but as a pet. And she sees me as a
friend. But is she ever found out, she
would understand! No she wouldn't
forgive me that easily, if ever. She
would hate me. What do I do? What should I do?
Ryouga's mind went back into
the loop, with the same problem running through while he wandered
aimlessly. He blindly kept going, not
seeing anything because of his internal struggles.
Ryouga's trek gradually headed
him into the volcanic crater, which just happened to have a pool of lava
covering the floor of the crater. Ryouga was as lost in thought as he was lost when trying to navigate, so
he never even saw the lava, or the smoke, or even the volcano. In fact, for him, it was getting colder as
he got more depressed. It was a cold
and dark place, although the dark might have been accounted for because of the
smoke, not that he noticed.
He stumbled down the slope, not
caring what was in front of him, his feet on autopilot. He got near the lava, and to anyone's
surprise, if any where watching, headed across it. For some reason, the lava a few feet in front of Ryouga
solidified and chilled so quickly, that by the time he got there, the rock was
quite cool. He kept wandering around
for some time, until he came back to reality on the upslope. Looking around, he was surprised by the
hellish scene around him.
Kuso, I really did get lost
enough to wander into hell. Although
it's a lot less crowded than I thought. Must be a vacation day going on or something, like how school's supposed
to be. With that thought, he turned
around, and noticed his path through the lava. Pondering a while at the strange path that seemed to glisten icily the
closer it got to him. Looking down, he
discovered the path ended at his feet, and realized that this was his path
through the place. A thought struck
him, making him wonder where the ice came from.
After shrugging it off as
another weird phenomenon that he happened to witness in his life, he turned
around and found himself in an old forest, with big furry humanoids running
away from him, screaming in extreme terror. Damn sasquatches, beat up one of em for attacking ya, and they won't
even stick around to give a guy directions.
Thinking back to the times he
found himself in weird spacecraft's, with obnoxious aliens, and even the time
he found himself on a planet full of ape-like men, this new oddity was
nothing. Feeling for his ki, he felt
another odd energy that hadn't been there earlier. Feeling it out, he looked down at himself to discover he had a
fine coat of ice on himself.
With some curiosity, and a lot
of concentration, he focused on manipulating the energy. Suddenly, he found himself frozen in a
massive block of ice that had frozen suddenly around him. Heaving mightily, he broke free, and began
to grin wildly.
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For Ranma, the room came
blurringly back into focus in fits and starts. After the room had quit trembling and spinning for about a minute, he
slowly levered himself up, and began to rub his face with his hands.
I wish that tomboy didn't
mallet me so much. And she didn't hafta
hit me so hard. Damn, that was a freaky
dream. Akane actin' so nice, and all
that other strange stuff. Akane might
not be a uncute tomboy all the time, but she hardly acts nice towards me, much
less listens to me. Akane must have
really hit me hard over the head.
Looking around, Ranma noticed
Akane was kneeling nearby, as if she had been waiting for him to come to. She stayed silent where she was sitting, and
just watched him with a slightly worried look on her face. Ranma looked down for a second, and after
shaking his head to clear some of the cobwebs out, he asked Akane the time worn
question, "What happened?" He looked at
the back of his hands quizzically for a second, then looked back up at
Akane. "The last I remember was us
talking, then ya malleting me. Did I
say something dumb again, like insultin' ya or something? Ya must really have pounded me for it, since
I had a pretty freaky dream."
Now one must understand, that
while Akane wasn't a psychopathic girl, much less a sadistic one, Ranma was
very used to waking up after a malleting due to the old 'foot-in-mouth'
disease. And since he lived at the Tendo-ke,
and hanged out around Akane, she received a rather large share of dumb
comments, and was used to trying to help cure Ranma of his little condition by
ye olde mallet. So it wasn't too much
of a surprise to wake up in the position that he had.
Akane fidgeted a bit but, she stayed
where she was. Then she stilled, and
quietly asked, "What happened in your dream?"
Ranma gave her a odd look, then
paused in thought, gathering the fragments of memory to make sense out of
it. "Well, at the beginning, I was
practicing here in the dojo, tryin' out some new moves. Just after destroying a training dummy,
kinda like how that was destroyed," he gestured at the pile of scrap metal
swept into the corner, with something tugging at the corner of his mind, "ya
came in and we began to talk. We seemed
to talk for a little while, actually listening to one another, then I said
something that set ya off, and ya hammered me. Then there were pink elephants dancing around, then there came a guy
with spiky gold hair fightin a pink blob of a creature, with both flyin
around. The realest was the one with an
odd dragon in it. It wasn't a Chinese
dragon, it had four legs and big wings, but not like bat wings, cause it had a
blue energy glowing between the wing parts. And its color seemed to shift with the light. And it told me in a normal human like voice that I had to gather
my kind together, cause we had to protect, and guide the world, and there was a
great darkness coming we had to help the people through with. Then he roared 'awake' at me, and that's
when I came through. Weird huh?"
Akane gave Ranma a very odd look, then blushed, and then looked down, a little embarrassed. "The first part wasn't a dream, Ranma. Although the elephants, and everything else after was, the first part wasn't. We actually had a real talk and I guess I understand you a little more for it, but that wasn't all that happened."
"Really? What else happened then? Ya didn't do anything to me while I was out,
did ya?" he said with a teasing tone in his voice.
Akane blushed badly, "Baka!
That's not what I meant!" Calming down
after realizing he was only teasing her, she continued. "Sorry, .... anyways, you did something I've
never seen you do before. It happened
just before I connected with my mallet,"
"What, block? It's not like the damn mallet doesn't give
me a headache or anything, ya know? My
head's taken enough damage, thank ya."
Akane fired back a glare. "Actually, that wasn't it, although you did
try to block, it was something even more strange. You somehow made some metal blades shoot....... right out of the
back of you hands, and they sliced through my mallet like it wasn't even
there. They disappeared right after you
where knocked unconscious from the mallet fragments, although you've only been
out for a few minutes."
Ranma looked at Akane
oddly. "You're joking, right? After all, that couldn't possibly have
happened. What would the chances be for
something so strange would happen to me..... oh wait, of course this could
happen. Everything else seems to happen
to me anyways, so why would this be different."
Akane gave a slightly strained
grin, "Well they did pop out of your hands, and they weren't your Nekoken
claws, since they appeared to be metal. Why do you think that you have metal blades?" Akane paused for a second in thought. "I wonder if the blades are a side effect of your curse."
"I hope not. And I sorta doubt it. After all, Herb has the same curse as me,
and he don't have blades, or anything. Plus, if this happened before, wouldn't the spring be called 'spring of
drowned girl with blades coming out of her hands'? But still, what caused this...... oh wait, I wonder if the old
man, or mom knows anything about this."
"Well, you could always
ask. One of them might be able to help. And if not, there is always Dr. Tofu."
"And what happens when Nabiki
finds out? I'd be thought of as a bigger freak than they
think of me now."
"Baka! Nabiki wouldn't do such a thing! And how would she find out anyways?"
"Well she has the house
wired! And look at what she did to me
in the past! She's sold pictures of
both of us, as well as sold me out numerous times. I have to wonder if she cares at all or just enjoys tormenting
us, ya dumb tomboy."
Akane's face darkened. "Well all I was doing was suggesting how you
could find out about your problem. My
sister does so care, and she would probably help you look for clues, without
charging you. But the great Ranma is
just a insensitive jerk!"
"I'd rather no-one knew. And I trust Nabiki about as much as I trust
Oyiji, which is I trust her to do what's best for her, ya uncute girl!"
Akane looked pained, and turned
around so he couldn't see the hurt on her face. "Fine, see if I care. Next time, you can go to hell for all I care." Then she started to rise to leave.
Ranma, looking ashamed as he
realized what he did, reached out and stopped her. "Akane, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I'm just frustrated about everything, and
now worried about these blades in my hands. I'll think about going to Nabiki for help, how's that? But right now, though, I'm goin' ta try to
make these blades appear again. Would
ya mind stayin with me for a little while. And maybe after I get the hangs of the things, we can spar for a little
bit. Ok?"
Akane slowly turned back
around. "Ok Ranma, but make sure you go
ask Nabiki. She really does feel bad
about what she did, and I think she's willing to make up for it, perhaps even
for free. Especially if you offer her
some of my 'training' if she refuses.
Ranma nodded, then began to
study his hands. Thinking back to the
last time they appeared he pushed a flow of ki into his hands. Besides glowing hands, no blades emerged. Changing the temperature only seemed to
result in a blazing aura around his hands, then a cold one, with ice gathering
together on his skin. Although the
combinations gave him some ideas, still no blades sprang out.
"Ranma, I don't think there was
any kind of aura around your hands when they appeared. They just appeared to pop right out from
your knuckles."
He took this into consideration,
then tried bunching and relaxing different muscle groups on his hands and
arms. Finally using the right ones, he
felt a spasm, then saw six gleaming claws slide out of the back of his hands
with a sibilant *SNIKT*. Turning his
hand at different angles, he studied the claws on his hands. Each one was around 9 inches long, ended
curving down to points, and where made of a shiny metal. They all came out over the spaces between
the knuckles, giving the fingers some leeway of movement without being cut by
them.
Akane looked in wonder at her
fiancé with his silver claws and felt amazed that he shared another astonishing
talent that the rest of the male population couldn't do. She suddenly felt bad about all the times
she pushed him away, and called him a pervert in the past, especially in the
light of her new discovery (a.k.a. someone finally shoved the truth into her
head about Ryouga). *If that
Ryouga-buta shows up again, grrrrrr... I'm going to mallet him for a while, pause, then mallet him some
more. I'll show him why not to use a
pet to get between Ranma and me. He'll
think the boulders hitting him during Cologne's training were love taps. When I'm done, we just might have bacon for
breakfast. No, I can make breakfast for
him while he's in his pig from, and shove it down his throat. And repeat for ALL the meals. Heh, I can even send P-chan to the vet to
get him neutered. Then lets see what he does. Grrr...*
Ranma stared with worry as Akane
began emitting a fearsome battle aura, glowing a bright blue mixed a little
with an angry red. Occasionally, a
heavy, steel hammer would appear in her twitching hands. As she began to chuckle in a way that was so
evil sounding as to put anything produced by Kodachi to shame, he backed away a
little and noticed she was starting off into space.
Sensing movement, Akane came
back to realize to see that Ranma was staring at her worriedly, and that there
was a small amount of smoke drifting up from the floor she was sitting on. "What?"
"Umm, ya started glowing for a
little bit, and was chuckling evilly as well. Are ya all right? Your not mad
about this are ya?" Ranma said,
gesturing at his claws. "Ya must really
think I'm more of a freak than before. Ya must be really angry to find out that you're engaged to such a freak
like me."
She smiled a small smile at
that. "No, Ranma, that wasn't it. I just found out something disturbing and
was just thinking on how to fix it. I
wasn't mad at you, only at another pervert. Don't worry about it." Akane
said, with the small smile slowly growing into an evil grin.
"Oh, then I would hate to be the
one you're mad at. Ya looked like
you're going to make em sorry for whatever they did. Anyways, how in hell did this happen to me? I don't think I remember anything that would
cause me to have blades popping out of my hands, much less metal ones."
"Don't you think you would
remember something like that happening, or blades just coming out before. That's just too strange not to remember."
"Ummmm, actually, there are
blank spots in my memory. Some are
what's caused from the Neko-ken, just a little while, up to a few days, while a
few are longer, and I know I can't remember anything for a few months after
when I turned 12."
"Oh. How did that happen? Did you have an accident or something"?
"I don't know what
happened. All that I can remember from
it was my father looking relieved outside a strange building, then waking up in
a room we had been staying in before. I
can't remember much from the few weeks after, but I can't remember anything at
all from the 2 or 3 weeks before that. Although, now that I think about it, before I broke bones occasionally
while training, and what not, but afterwards, I never did, no matter what I
did. Even when saving ya from all those
things, the most I've done was pull some muscles."
"It might be that the metal
covers your bones. That would explain
what you've said. Hmmm, we should go to
Dr. Tofu. He could probably help us,
and since we've known him for years, he probably won't freak out."
Ranma looked startled. "No, Akane! I don't want anyone knowing about this! They think I'm a big enough freak as it is!"
Akane lightly bopped Ranma with
her mallet. "Baka! Dr. Tofu's our family doctor and
friend. I don't think he would tell
anyone, even his friends, if we asked him not too."
"I don't know…"
"C'mon, what's knowing more
about this is going to hurt? What,
afraid to know more about what's been done to you?"
Ranma looked down. "Alright Akane, ya win. We can go see Dr. Tofu tomorrow." Funny, and one would think that mysteries
could be solved by an educated person, with a calm and rational (at least most
of the time) mind. Hmmm, funny also how
the ignorant can solve some mysteries better than the old, wise, or educated
can.
Ranma and Akane continued to
learn, not knowing what is in store for their future. While outside, things where beginning to feel the change, which
had only begun during the battle with Saffron. Moreover, a being smiled at the play, and awaited the entrance of the
fool.
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Speaking of which, Ryouga wasn't
too far away, relatively speaking, not for him. And what was he doing, you may ask? Why the same thing we do everyni… err, I mean the same thing he
does every day, which is training. He
was training in the hopes of defeating that supposedly evil Ranma. (Just for a side thought, I wonder if he got
most of his info about Ranma from Kuno. That would explain many things.)
The sounds of cracks, snaps, and
pops filled the air of the big clearing, as Ryouga used the convenient pond for practice. Spectators stood at the edges of the trees, watching as this
strange fellow somehow caused the water to freeze, and in strange formations at
that. Why is there spectators? Because there are bound to be pedestrians in
New York's Central Park.
Ryouga turned around with a
smile on his face, and a frozen, victorious tear in his eye. and found himself outside a small town in
Georgia. Of course, he didn't know, nor
care, as his simple mind stayed focused on one thought. And that thought, as he so eloquently put it
was, "Soon, Ranma, you will know hell!" Although, for some odd reason, he didn't say it with nearly as
much feeling as when he said it many times in the past. And thus, he set out to find Ranma. Which meant he might not show up for a great
while.
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A beautiful day is often a good thing to wake up to. It often brightens ones mood, and gives one self the sense that it will be a GOOD day. On the other hand, waking up, and finding that it is a wet, dreary day often has the opposite effect. Then, the waker usually develops a bad, grouchy mood, and there is often a since of doom floating in the air.
Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case maybe, the Tendo-ke woke up to the to the latter type of day. Fortunately, because this place was the residence of one Kasumi Tendo, and it's well known that such bad feelings flee from her like women from Happosai's touch. Unfortunately, because rainy days are usually considered hellish for Jusenkyo cursed individuals, her attempts didn't meet with much success
today… Ranma slowly crawled out of the pond,
growling all the while at the energetic panda. Said Panda-butt obviously had had a good night, most likely from making
up with his wife half the night.
Grabbing the nearest boulder,
Ranma picked it up, and then played 'whack the panda' with it. He ended the game with an overhead smash
knocking the panda into the wall. Dropping the cracked boulder, Ranma turned away, and quickly turned back
around when Genma bounced back to his feet.
Ranma attacked again, and
although Genma went down, he never stayed down. "Damn it Oyiji, just stay down will ya!" And with that, the red haired girl slipped
briefly up to Amiguriken-speed, and ducked in with a massive uppercut that
ended with a panda flying high into the air, and then splashing down for a
landing in the koi pond to float face up.
As Ranma storms off to go get a
bath, and change, in more in one sense, Nodoko sighs at the actions of her
manly son, and husband. Sipping her
tea, she turns around from her position at the table, to watch Kasumi bring in
dishes, getting ready for the upcoming breakfast. In the kitchen, sounds could
be heard as Akane went about boiling water for tea, and making sure that the
rice cooker would be dealt with when it finished (it goes to prove, that with
Kasumi's help, even Akane can eventually learn to be competent in the
kitchen). With a slight frown, Nodoko
shivered at the thought of what concoctions Akane had turned out in the past.
With another sigh, she got up,
and went to retrieve Genma out of the koi pond by way of talking Soun into
doing it. Meanwhile, the great Ice
Queen formerly known as… err, Nabiki stumbled down the stairs, half dead to the
world. Sitting down at the table, she
poured herself a cup of tea, and took a nap, waiting for breakfast to be
served. All in all, a mostly normal
morning for the Tendo residence, although the energetic panda, and the
satisfied women where both slightly unusual for this household.
Ranma and Akane rushed through
breakfast, and took of in a cloud of dust running for school, in the hopes of
not only being in school before the late bell, but also being early to school,
in the hopes of not being held up by Kuno, since they should be arriving at the
school before he would expect them to. With Ranma doing his normal running of the fence, and Akane with her
sprinting, both took very little time to reach the school, although with no
distractions from either Shampoo or Ukyou, they had no real obstacles to go
through.
As they reached the gate, a
figure in a dusty, yellow tunic, and wearing yellow with black spot headbands
came wandering out from behind the wall. Ranma stopped short of running into the person, and the person, sensing
people nearby, looked up while asking, "Do you know the way to get to
Furinkan High School?" Reorganization washed over the travel worn face, as Ryouga immediately
realized whom he was facing.
"Ranma, prepare for a beating
like you've never received before! I'm
going to pound you so hard, you'll be feeling it for years to come. Ranma, I challenge you to one final
duel!" With that, Ryouga began cackling
evilly, as if he had something new that would let him defeat Ranma once and for
all. He suddenly stopped as he noticed
the odd looks he was receiving from the pair (he had ignored the first weird
looks, but this time, they where even more intense).
"A final duel huh? So that means ya want challenge me again
even if ya lose. That would be
great! We might even be able to be
friends after this. But why don't ya
wait to after school for the fight, since me an Akane don't wanna be late for
class. If ya wait right here besides
the wall, we can come get ya after class."
Ryouga scowled, but with a 'Would you mind?' from Akane, he gave in,
and sat down beside wall, watching the pair run off to class. Getting ready for a long wait, he watched
other students file in, and even saw an idiot kendoist become late waiting for
two people who had already went to class.
Author's
Notes:
First of all, I would like to
thank both HPackrat, and Firethorn for pre-reading this chapter for me. It helped me a lot, and I'm glad there are
people who don't mind doing that for novices like me.
Second, I'm aware that there are
some unanswered things in the story so far, and all I can say is that all will
be answered in time, I think… But I do
have the main plot worked out, as well as who has powers, what powers they do
have, and why. But as I know I don't
know everything, if someone sees some mistake about a power or something, I
would gladly receive it.
Comments and Criticism is always
welcome, as it helps improve my writing. Anyways, enjoy, and hopefully the third chapter will be out soon.