The Phantom and The Silence: Chapter 2
Sweat soaked and panting, Ranma grinned at his opponent. Hotaru was
equally bedraggled and favored her left leg noticeably."You're good,"
Ranma admitted, not in the least perturbed by the girl's skill and
power. Many of his more powerful techniques were crippling in the
best of circumstances and had to be held back in this situation.
Hotaru didn't have such a handicap and used her chi force to her
advantage.
"You're not too bad yourself," Hotaru conceded, using the momentary
break in action to catch her breath and stabilize depleted chi
reserves. Ranma had an entirely too high tolerance to attacks that
should have left him in bed for weeks.
Ah screw it, they hadn't agreed on just using their respective
schools, anyway. Ranma drew up his chi and folded it, wrapping the
air in layers about himself. Once the desired effect was established,
he shunted a portion of his aura several feet to his right. Hotaru
automatically assumed the aura to be Ranma in hiding. She gathered a
chi bolt in either hand, throwing one with the intention of stripping
away Ranma's cloak and lowering his defenses, and following it with a
smaller, but more concentrated one that would hopefully knock the boy
on his ass.
Ranma didn't have much time to build up a significantly powerful
strike, for to gather his chi slowly enough to make a sizable attack
would alert Hotaru to his deception.
A moment passed before Hotaru launched herself after her dual attack.
Ranma would have no way to dodge as she brought the fight in close and
used her slight speed advantage. She was already in the air and
flying at her target when the first strike passed harmlessly and
without effect through where Ranma should have been. Even as she
realized her mistake, Ranma was making his move. Skating around the
dojo's perimeter, Ranma had made no noise, his vacuum soled feet never
touching the mats. His small and relatively harmless chi bolt took
Hotaru in the back of her weakened knee, choking a startled cry from
her as her forward momentum slammed her into the barely padded floor.
Dropping his cloaking field, Ranma did a single-handed running
handstand, using his free hand to tap a series of pressure points
along Hotaru's left torso and breast. As he flipped back over and
skated out of retalliatory range, Ranma could already see the Hotaru's
impressive aura begin to bleed out uncontrollably. She didn't have
any control over her aura, Ranma knew, but it provided her with enough
of a cushion for him to pull off an explosion without hurting her.
Ranma snapped his arms back as if to pull of a double vacuum blade
attack, but instead he used alternating vacuum zones and a small
amount of chi to form two opposing currents. The air filled with a
shreeking roar that shook the dojo to its foundation and a distortion
passed through the space between Ranma and Hotaru.
It would detonate before hitting Hotaru, shredding most of her aura
and leaving her defenseless, or that's at least what would have
happened if Hotaru's aura hadn't formed into a giant hand in the last
fraction of a second before the vacuum bomb went off, grasping it
tightly and redirecting its force. Ranma was amazed that the girl had
managed such a complex manipulation while under the effects of that
shiatsu combination, but amazement was muffled by the realization that
his attack had just lost all controlling factors. He threw himself to
the dojo's floor just as the bomb exploded, throwing omnidirectional
waves of concussive force throughout the dojo.
Hotaru's last ditch effort had succeeded in shielding her from most of
the blast, but her close proximity to it still caused her more than a
comfortable amount of trauma.
****
Hotaru and Ranma had to help one another out of the dojo, neither of
them having enough limbs working at the moment to attempt the effort
unaided. Hotaru supposed that they shouldn't have scared everyone off
in the begginning of the fight or they could be getting some first aid
right then.
"I guess that's a draw," Ranma said. His right eye was swollen shut
and that entire side of his face was black and blue. Ranma had never
fought anyone to a draw before. Even his more viscious 'sparring'
sessions with his father were always decided matches. That Ranma
always won these was a given.
"Yeah," Hotaru agreed, wincing internally as she thought of the fit
her grandfather would likely throw when he discovered his
granddaughter and heir hadn't been able to soundly massacre Genma
Saotome's heir. Happosai may not respect Genma, or his invented
martial art, but Hotaru did. It's hard not to respect an art that
lets it practitioner partially beat the living shit out of you.
The cavalry finally arrived. Kasumi, complete in nurses attire, came
out of the house, a medical kit clutched to her chest. She was
followed by an arguing Genma and Happosai.
"You'll see, you incompetent tub of lard!" Happosai crowed."My little
Hotaru will wipe the floor with that pathetic excuse for a martial
artist you call your son!"
Genma's pathological fear of his former master seemed momentarily
forgotten."Ranma is the greatest martial artist ever, you shrivelled
up little pervert! That little trollop of yours probably can't so
much as make a battle aura." That the two men were stupid and
completely ignoring signs they'd both seen went without question.
The tiny man and his one time student caught sight of their heirs at
the exact same time. Their mouths fell open and neither seemed
capable of speech.
"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed, forcing Hotaru and Ranma to seat themselves
on the back steps."You two really shouldn't play so rough. Someone
could get hurt." She opened the tackle box-like first-aid kit and
began extracting bandages and ointments.
"Sorry, Kasumi," they apologized simultaneously. Hotura continued,"We
just got carried away."
"Sure was fun, though," Ranma said, still excited and pumping with
unspent adrenalin.
Genma and Happosai came out of their mental fog within a second of
each other. Genma snatched Ranma up by his pigtail and Happosai used
his pipe, liberally charged with chi, to knock Hotaru a few feet into
the air.
"Boy, how could you let yourself be beaten by a girl?! A girl?!"
Genma shouted. Waving his son around like a rag doll, Genma proceded
to dress Ranma down with every insult to his manhood that he could
remember or create on the spot. Ranma, his body beaten and chi
reserves greatly weakened, was in no position to fight back.
On the other side of the yard, Happosai was tearing into his student,
though with much less violence. He would have copped a feel or ten,
too, if he didn't fear what the girl would do to him when she
recovered."To think that after all these years of diligent effort, my
heir would allow herself to be beaten by a Saotome!" Happosai wailed,
lacing Ranma's family name with as much disgust as his squeaky old
voice would allow."If your grandmother Cologne found out about this
she would have a stroke!"
****
"Stupid old bastard," Ranma muttered to himself."I didn't lose." Not
that he had had time or the energy to inform his father of the fact
while he'd been getting thrashed."When I can move again, I'm gonna
make him beg to die. Better yet, I'm gonna tattle on him to mom."
Hotaru limped into the dojo where Ranma had set up his bedroll. Soun
had reluctantly, through a generous application of force and death
threats, invited Happosai to stay in his home, and with him Hotaru.
Genma and Ranma were, by default, welcome guests, but they were
displaced by Happosai. Genma wisely chose to not sleep within close
range of Ranma, so he found himself all alone in the drafty training
hall.
"I brought you something to eat, since you were unconscious when
Kasumi served dinner," Hotaru said. She sat a tray laden with several
covered dishes and a small pot of tea next to Ranma.
"Thanks." Ranma was pleased to note that Hotaru's aura had begun to
return to its full strength and that the light bruise he'd
accidentally inflicted to her cheek was fading away without lingering
signs. His own face only sported a couple minor bruises now, and
besides a few deep tissue injuries, his only concern now was working
out the nerve disrupting shiatsu attacks Hotaru had used. They were
persistant and interfered with his healing.
Hotaru watched Ranma as he ate, silently observing the careful
manipulations and adjustments he was performing to his aura as he
inhaled Kasumi's cooking. She'd forgotten about those, and was
ashamed to have used the amazon based attacks to make him more
intolerant of her heat based chi attacks.
"Here, do it like this," Hotaru said. She reached out and laid her
hand lightly atop Ranma's forearm. She felt the faint tugging of
Ranma's unusual chi aura that she'd experienced during their fight,
but disregarded it as unimportant at the moment. With skin to skin
contact, and Ranma's willingness to allow her to alter his aura,
Hotaru was able to reverse most of the cat's tongue pressure points.
Ranma himself caught onto the specific procedure and finished.
"What was the purpose of that one, anyway?" Ranma asked, confused
because he hadn't felt any difference in his fighting ability or
perception during the fight after it'd been used on him.
Hotaru looked pensive for a couple seconds, but her face cleared and
she said,"I guess I should tell you, since knowing the procedure
without knowing the effects of a technique can be dangerous." She'd
had 'that' particular belief drilled into her by her adopted
grandmother. "It's called the Full Body Cat's Tongue and it makes a
person super sensitive to heat, especially hot water. I intended to
use it in conjunction with a hot chi attack, but I couldn't hit you
with it, so the effort was wasted."
"Uh, no offense, but that's a pretty silly shiatsu technique," Ranma
said. He could see where it could have lasting consequences if not
cured, especially for someone wanting to actually bath, but in a
fight, the situations for hot water to be used were rare.
Hotaru nodded."A lot of Amazon attacks have dumb names. That really
fast speed manuever I used is called the Chestnuts Roasting Over an
Open Fire, for example." She wasn't even going to mention Mousse's
fist of the white swan. What kind of idiot uses a training pody as a
weapon?
Ranma had wondered about what Hotaru'd called out when she attacked
him with the supersonic punch/kick combo, but his head had still been
ringing from a powerful axe kick he'd taken. He'd never heard of
Amazons, either, but Hotaru probably hadn't heard of the Musk, so they
were on even footing.
"The Musk have something like that. I don't know about yours, but
their variety uses chi to enhance muscle strength and speed." It
wasn't as good as Hotaru's chestnut thing, though. Only by using a
vacuum to help pull his punches forward and reduce air friction had
Ranma been able to keep up with the girl's speed.
An hour passed as the pair discussed complicated and largely esoteric
aspects of their differing arts. Ranma wanted to learn Happosai's chi
temperature and aura manipulation and Hotaru wanted to learn to
control vacuum and air currents like Ranma. Neither of them voiced
their desire. They had just met and it would be impolite to exchange
techniques that belonged to their masters, no matter how stupid,
useless, perverted, etc, etc, etc. their masters were.
****
"What's your problem, Akane?" Nabiki asked as she joined her sister at
the breakfast table. The youngest Tendo was glowing brightly and she
was clutching her chopsticks so tightly that her knuckles had gone
white.
Akane growled,"Those two...phonies! They come here, take over my
dojo, and pretend like they're better than me! So what if they can do
special effects. Fireworks aren't used by 'real' martial artists."
Nabiki nodded absently, choosing not to reinforce her sister's
delusions any farther. The girl was good, a winner of several
tournaments and awards for excellance, and Nabiki didn't want to piss
her off, but she had a tape of Ranma and Hotaru's little sparring
session and what she'd seen had scared her. Akane could smash bricks,
boards, and in some cases, bend metal bars. She sometimes even made a
battle aura like the one she had going at the moment. Those two,
phonies wasn't the word, something more like superhumans, defied
nearly every physical law Nabiki knew of.
Even now, Ranma and Hotaru looked pristine, none of the signs of their
cataclysmic battle remaining from the day before. The characters from
animes she'd seen didn't even heal that fast. What kind of people had
her father got them mixed up with?
"School?!?" came the shout from the living room."Why do I have to go
to school?" Hotaru didn't sound any happier than Ranma had when he'd
been told five minutes earlier.
"Because, granddaughter, I won't allow my heir to be an uneducated
simpleton while Genma's brat recieves a proper education," Happosai
answered calmly.
"Simpleton?!" Not the correct thing to say, not at all. Happosai was
probably thinking the same thing as Hotaru began beating him with her
staff.
The sound of Akane's chopsticks exploding into a miniature cloud of
splinters drew Nabiki's attention to her sister. A large vein had
become prominent in the girl's forehead and was throbbing perceptably.
"Now I have to put up with them at school too?" Nabiki backed away as
her sister's battle aura began to throb in tempo with the vein. That
was just creepy. Oh well, she wasn't really a breakfast person. A
muffin on the way to school would do just fine.
****
"This is so lame," Hotaru complained."Grandfather has turned into such
an idiot since we came to Tokyo." Hotaru was almost certain that Tokyo
wasn't the problem. Soun and Genma, Genma especially, seemed to bring
out the worst in her grandfather.
"My old man is always an idiot, so you're lucky," Ranma said, looking
down at the fighter from his place on the fence. While Hotaru walked
beside Akane, who was wrapped in a grim and brooding silence, Ranma's
feet remained motionless, his aura compressed and inverted along the
bottom of his slippers and causing him to slide along easily.
Hotaru shrugged the matter aside. School wouldn't be too bad. At
least she'd have Ranma to talk to and the last time she'd got a chance
to socialize with girls her own age was back in the Amazon village.
She looked at Ranma curiously, not for the first time wondering why he
chose to travel in such an unorthodox manner."Ranma, why do you do
that?" she asked, pointing to his feet.
Ranma grinned,"Practice. The more I practice the stronger a vacuum I
can create." Hotaru accepted the answer without question, but Akane
grumbled something about showoff con artists.
The clock tower of the school came into view a couple minutes later.
Ranma was about to ask Hotaru if she wanted to race, but Akane began
to chant,"I hate boys," repeatedly and he looked at her. She
continued the litany and charged forward, sprinting full tilt towards
school.
"What do you suppose that's all about?" Hotaru asked. Akane was
weird. Akane was also freakishly hateful and gave off mega jealous
vibes. Hotaru couldn't help that she was better than the girl on
practically every level of the Art, and likely in every other way too.
"Beats me," Ranma replied. Akane was weird. Ranma had taken an
instant dislike to the girl. She just couldn't seem to accept that
there were people in the world mroe talented than her.
"Don't just float there, let's go find out!" Hotaru called, already
jogging towards the school. She sensed Ranma's rapid approach and
stopped, bending her knees slightly, then leaped at the entrance to
the school. Just as she became airborne, Ranma joined her. They
landed on the school's outer wall on either side of the iron gates.
The courtyard of Furinkan High School was littered with the insensient
majority of the school's male population. Standing in the center of
the devastation was Akane. From the girl, radiating in a loose
spiral, were groaning boys, and one girl who had got caught in the
melee before she could escape, or that's what she would tell anyone
who asked.
"She's not too bad on crowd control," Ranma commented lightly.
Everybody has to have at least one good quality and it looked like
they had just found Akane's.
"We might as well go and congratulate her," Hotaru added, though she
didn't know what exactly had prompted Akane's actions. With a nod of
agreement, Ranma jumped from the wall, angling for Akane's right side.
Hotaru landed to her left.
"Nice work, Akane," Hotaru said. Akane didn't hear her, though. She
was still caught up in her 'I hate boys' chant.
Hotaru felt something approaching her at high speed and reflexively
plucked it out of the air. It was a rose. Where in hell had a flying
rose come from?
From the steps of the school someone loudly asked,"And who is this
prime piece of woman flesh that stands before me?"
Hotaru and Ranma turned to see who the new comer was and nearly gagged
when they saw a boy a year or two older than them wearing tiny leather
briefs and nothing else. In one hand he held a leather riding crop.
"No matter!" he cried."I shall give you pleasure through the ecstasy
of pain!" The insane pervert with a death wish jumped the last few
steps to the ground and began running straight for Hotaru, swinging
his crop wildly.
As any good girl would do, Hotaru screamed,"Eeeek, pervert(okay, maybe
all good girls wouldn't do this, but for the sake of the fic, they
do)!" and pulled her staff out of empty space. The boy didn't even
know what hit him as a beam of boiling red chi slammed into him and
threw him into the wall of the school.
****
Author's Notes: Uh, not much to say, sorry. C&C is always nice, and
you can send me some at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
The idea for the displaced aura came from Gogolu(sp?), I think.
Sweat soaked and panting, Ranma grinned at his opponent. Hotaru was
equally bedraggled and favored her left leg noticeably."You're good,"
Ranma admitted, not in the least perturbed by the girl's skill and
power. Many of his more powerful techniques were crippling in the
best of circumstances and had to be held back in this situation.
Hotaru didn't have such a handicap and used her chi force to her
advantage.
"You're not too bad yourself," Hotaru conceded, using the momentary
break in action to catch her breath and stabilize depleted chi
reserves. Ranma had an entirely too high tolerance to attacks that
should have left him in bed for weeks.
Ah screw it, they hadn't agreed on just using their respective
schools, anyway. Ranma drew up his chi and folded it, wrapping the
air in layers about himself. Once the desired effect was established,
he shunted a portion of his aura several feet to his right. Hotaru
automatically assumed the aura to be Ranma in hiding. She gathered a
chi bolt in either hand, throwing one with the intention of stripping
away Ranma's cloak and lowering his defenses, and following it with a
smaller, but more concentrated one that would hopefully knock the boy
on his ass.
Ranma didn't have much time to build up a significantly powerful
strike, for to gather his chi slowly enough to make a sizable attack
would alert Hotaru to his deception.
A moment passed before Hotaru launched herself after her dual attack.
Ranma would have no way to dodge as she brought the fight in close and
used her slight speed advantage. She was already in the air and
flying at her target when the first strike passed harmlessly and
without effect through where Ranma should have been. Even as she
realized her mistake, Ranma was making his move. Skating around the
dojo's perimeter, Ranma had made no noise, his vacuum soled feet never
touching the mats. His small and relatively harmless chi bolt took
Hotaru in the back of her weakened knee, choking a startled cry from
her as her forward momentum slammed her into the barely padded floor.
Dropping his cloaking field, Ranma did a single-handed running
handstand, using his free hand to tap a series of pressure points
along Hotaru's left torso and breast. As he flipped back over and
skated out of retalliatory range, Ranma could already see the Hotaru's
impressive aura begin to bleed out uncontrollably. She didn't have
any control over her aura, Ranma knew, but it provided her with enough
of a cushion for him to pull off an explosion without hurting her.
Ranma snapped his arms back as if to pull of a double vacuum blade
attack, but instead he used alternating vacuum zones and a small
amount of chi to form two opposing currents. The air filled with a
shreeking roar that shook the dojo to its foundation and a distortion
passed through the space between Ranma and Hotaru.
It would detonate before hitting Hotaru, shredding most of her aura
and leaving her defenseless, or that's at least what would have
happened if Hotaru's aura hadn't formed into a giant hand in the last
fraction of a second before the vacuum bomb went off, grasping it
tightly and redirecting its force. Ranma was amazed that the girl had
managed such a complex manipulation while under the effects of that
shiatsu combination, but amazement was muffled by the realization that
his attack had just lost all controlling factors. He threw himself to
the dojo's floor just as the bomb exploded, throwing omnidirectional
waves of concussive force throughout the dojo.
Hotaru's last ditch effort had succeeded in shielding her from most of
the blast, but her close proximity to it still caused her more than a
comfortable amount of trauma.
****
Hotaru and Ranma had to help one another out of the dojo, neither of
them having enough limbs working at the moment to attempt the effort
unaided. Hotaru supposed that they shouldn't have scared everyone off
in the begginning of the fight or they could be getting some first aid
right then.
"I guess that's a draw," Ranma said. His right eye was swollen shut
and that entire side of his face was black and blue. Ranma had never
fought anyone to a draw before. Even his more viscious 'sparring'
sessions with his father were always decided matches. That Ranma
always won these was a given.
"Yeah," Hotaru agreed, wincing internally as she thought of the fit
her grandfather would likely throw when he discovered his
granddaughter and heir hadn't been able to soundly massacre Genma
Saotome's heir. Happosai may not respect Genma, or his invented
martial art, but Hotaru did. It's hard not to respect an art that
lets it practitioner partially beat the living shit out of you.
The cavalry finally arrived. Kasumi, complete in nurses attire, came
out of the house, a medical kit clutched to her chest. She was
followed by an arguing Genma and Happosai.
"You'll see, you incompetent tub of lard!" Happosai crowed."My little
Hotaru will wipe the floor with that pathetic excuse for a martial
artist you call your son!"
Genma's pathological fear of his former master seemed momentarily
forgotten."Ranma is the greatest martial artist ever, you shrivelled
up little pervert! That little trollop of yours probably can't so
much as make a battle aura." That the two men were stupid and
completely ignoring signs they'd both seen went without question.
The tiny man and his one time student caught sight of their heirs at
the exact same time. Their mouths fell open and neither seemed
capable of speech.
"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed, forcing Hotaru and Ranma to seat themselves
on the back steps."You two really shouldn't play so rough. Someone
could get hurt." She opened the tackle box-like first-aid kit and
began extracting bandages and ointments.
"Sorry, Kasumi," they apologized simultaneously. Hotura continued,"We
just got carried away."
"Sure was fun, though," Ranma said, still excited and pumping with
unspent adrenalin.
Genma and Happosai came out of their mental fog within a second of
each other. Genma snatched Ranma up by his pigtail and Happosai used
his pipe, liberally charged with chi, to knock Hotaru a few feet into
the air.
"Boy, how could you let yourself be beaten by a girl?! A girl?!"
Genma shouted. Waving his son around like a rag doll, Genma proceded
to dress Ranma down with every insult to his manhood that he could
remember or create on the spot. Ranma, his body beaten and chi
reserves greatly weakened, was in no position to fight back.
On the other side of the yard, Happosai was tearing into his student,
though with much less violence. He would have copped a feel or ten,
too, if he didn't fear what the girl would do to him when she
recovered."To think that after all these years of diligent effort, my
heir would allow herself to be beaten by a Saotome!" Happosai wailed,
lacing Ranma's family name with as much disgust as his squeaky old
voice would allow."If your grandmother Cologne found out about this
she would have a stroke!"
****
"Stupid old bastard," Ranma muttered to himself."I didn't lose." Not
that he had had time or the energy to inform his father of the fact
while he'd been getting thrashed."When I can move again, I'm gonna
make him beg to die. Better yet, I'm gonna tattle on him to mom."
Hotaru limped into the dojo where Ranma had set up his bedroll. Soun
had reluctantly, through a generous application of force and death
threats, invited Happosai to stay in his home, and with him Hotaru.
Genma and Ranma were, by default, welcome guests, but they were
displaced by Happosai. Genma wisely chose to not sleep within close
range of Ranma, so he found himself all alone in the drafty training
hall.
"I brought you something to eat, since you were unconscious when
Kasumi served dinner," Hotaru said. She sat a tray laden with several
covered dishes and a small pot of tea next to Ranma.
"Thanks." Ranma was pleased to note that Hotaru's aura had begun to
return to its full strength and that the light bruise he'd
accidentally inflicted to her cheek was fading away without lingering
signs. His own face only sported a couple minor bruises now, and
besides a few deep tissue injuries, his only concern now was working
out the nerve disrupting shiatsu attacks Hotaru had used. They were
persistant and interfered with his healing.
Hotaru watched Ranma as he ate, silently observing the careful
manipulations and adjustments he was performing to his aura as he
inhaled Kasumi's cooking. She'd forgotten about those, and was
ashamed to have used the amazon based attacks to make him more
intolerant of her heat based chi attacks.
"Here, do it like this," Hotaru said. She reached out and laid her
hand lightly atop Ranma's forearm. She felt the faint tugging of
Ranma's unusual chi aura that she'd experienced during their fight,
but disregarded it as unimportant at the moment. With skin to skin
contact, and Ranma's willingness to allow her to alter his aura,
Hotaru was able to reverse most of the cat's tongue pressure points.
Ranma himself caught onto the specific procedure and finished.
"What was the purpose of that one, anyway?" Ranma asked, confused
because he hadn't felt any difference in his fighting ability or
perception during the fight after it'd been used on him.
Hotaru looked pensive for a couple seconds, but her face cleared and
she said,"I guess I should tell you, since knowing the procedure
without knowing the effects of a technique can be dangerous." She'd
had 'that' particular belief drilled into her by her adopted
grandmother. "It's called the Full Body Cat's Tongue and it makes a
person super sensitive to heat, especially hot water. I intended to
use it in conjunction with a hot chi attack, but I couldn't hit you
with it, so the effort was wasted."
"Uh, no offense, but that's a pretty silly shiatsu technique," Ranma
said. He could see where it could have lasting consequences if not
cured, especially for someone wanting to actually bath, but in a
fight, the situations for hot water to be used were rare.
Hotaru nodded."A lot of Amazon attacks have dumb names. That really
fast speed manuever I used is called the Chestnuts Roasting Over an
Open Fire, for example." She wasn't even going to mention Mousse's
fist of the white swan. What kind of idiot uses a training pody as a
weapon?
Ranma had wondered about what Hotaru'd called out when she attacked
him with the supersonic punch/kick combo, but his head had still been
ringing from a powerful axe kick he'd taken. He'd never heard of
Amazons, either, but Hotaru probably hadn't heard of the Musk, so they
were on even footing.
"The Musk have something like that. I don't know about yours, but
their variety uses chi to enhance muscle strength and speed." It
wasn't as good as Hotaru's chestnut thing, though. Only by using a
vacuum to help pull his punches forward and reduce air friction had
Ranma been able to keep up with the girl's speed.
An hour passed as the pair discussed complicated and largely esoteric
aspects of their differing arts. Ranma wanted to learn Happosai's chi
temperature and aura manipulation and Hotaru wanted to learn to
control vacuum and air currents like Ranma. Neither of them voiced
their desire. They had just met and it would be impolite to exchange
techniques that belonged to their masters, no matter how stupid,
useless, perverted, etc, etc, etc. their masters were.
****
"What's your problem, Akane?" Nabiki asked as she joined her sister at
the breakfast table. The youngest Tendo was glowing brightly and she
was clutching her chopsticks so tightly that her knuckles had gone
white.
Akane growled,"Those two...phonies! They come here, take over my
dojo, and pretend like they're better than me! So what if they can do
special effects. Fireworks aren't used by 'real' martial artists."
Nabiki nodded absently, choosing not to reinforce her sister's
delusions any farther. The girl was good, a winner of several
tournaments and awards for excellance, and Nabiki didn't want to piss
her off, but she had a tape of Ranma and Hotaru's little sparring
session and what she'd seen had scared her. Akane could smash bricks,
boards, and in some cases, bend metal bars. She sometimes even made a
battle aura like the one she had going at the moment. Those two,
phonies wasn't the word, something more like superhumans, defied
nearly every physical law Nabiki knew of.
Even now, Ranma and Hotaru looked pristine, none of the signs of their
cataclysmic battle remaining from the day before. The characters from
animes she'd seen didn't even heal that fast. What kind of people had
her father got them mixed up with?
"School?!?" came the shout from the living room."Why do I have to go
to school?" Hotaru didn't sound any happier than Ranma had when he'd
been told five minutes earlier.
"Because, granddaughter, I won't allow my heir to be an uneducated
simpleton while Genma's brat recieves a proper education," Happosai
answered calmly.
"Simpleton?!" Not the correct thing to say, not at all. Happosai was
probably thinking the same thing as Hotaru began beating him with her
staff.
The sound of Akane's chopsticks exploding into a miniature cloud of
splinters drew Nabiki's attention to her sister. A large vein had
become prominent in the girl's forehead and was throbbing perceptably.
"Now I have to put up with them at school too?" Nabiki backed away as
her sister's battle aura began to throb in tempo with the vein. That
was just creepy. Oh well, she wasn't really a breakfast person. A
muffin on the way to school would do just fine.
****
"This is so lame," Hotaru complained."Grandfather has turned into such
an idiot since we came to Tokyo." Hotaru was almost certain that Tokyo
wasn't the problem. Soun and Genma, Genma especially, seemed to bring
out the worst in her grandfather.
"My old man is always an idiot, so you're lucky," Ranma said, looking
down at the fighter from his place on the fence. While Hotaru walked
beside Akane, who was wrapped in a grim and brooding silence, Ranma's
feet remained motionless, his aura compressed and inverted along the
bottom of his slippers and causing him to slide along easily.
Hotaru shrugged the matter aside. School wouldn't be too bad. At
least she'd have Ranma to talk to and the last time she'd got a chance
to socialize with girls her own age was back in the Amazon village.
She looked at Ranma curiously, not for the first time wondering why he
chose to travel in such an unorthodox manner."Ranma, why do you do
that?" she asked, pointing to his feet.
Ranma grinned,"Practice. The more I practice the stronger a vacuum I
can create." Hotaru accepted the answer without question, but Akane
grumbled something about showoff con artists.
The clock tower of the school came into view a couple minutes later.
Ranma was about to ask Hotaru if she wanted to race, but Akane began
to chant,"I hate boys," repeatedly and he looked at her. She
continued the litany and charged forward, sprinting full tilt towards
school.
"What do you suppose that's all about?" Hotaru asked. Akane was
weird. Akane was also freakishly hateful and gave off mega jealous
vibes. Hotaru couldn't help that she was better than the girl on
practically every level of the Art, and likely in every other way too.
"Beats me," Ranma replied. Akane was weird. Ranma had taken an
instant dislike to the girl. She just couldn't seem to accept that
there were people in the world mroe talented than her.
"Don't just float there, let's go find out!" Hotaru called, already
jogging towards the school. She sensed Ranma's rapid approach and
stopped, bending her knees slightly, then leaped at the entrance to
the school. Just as she became airborne, Ranma joined her. They
landed on the school's outer wall on either side of the iron gates.
The courtyard of Furinkan High School was littered with the insensient
majority of the school's male population. Standing in the center of
the devastation was Akane. From the girl, radiating in a loose
spiral, were groaning boys, and one girl who had got caught in the
melee before she could escape, or that's what she would tell anyone
who asked.
"She's not too bad on crowd control," Ranma commented lightly.
Everybody has to have at least one good quality and it looked like
they had just found Akane's.
"We might as well go and congratulate her," Hotaru added, though she
didn't know what exactly had prompted Akane's actions. With a nod of
agreement, Ranma jumped from the wall, angling for Akane's right side.
Hotaru landed to her left.
"Nice work, Akane," Hotaru said. Akane didn't hear her, though. She
was still caught up in her 'I hate boys' chant.
Hotaru felt something approaching her at high speed and reflexively
plucked it out of the air. It was a rose. Where in hell had a flying
rose come from?
From the steps of the school someone loudly asked,"And who is this
prime piece of woman flesh that stands before me?"
Hotaru and Ranma turned to see who the new comer was and nearly gagged
when they saw a boy a year or two older than them wearing tiny leather
briefs and nothing else. In one hand he held a leather riding crop.
"No matter!" he cried."I shall give you pleasure through the ecstasy
of pain!" The insane pervert with a death wish jumped the last few
steps to the ground and began running straight for Hotaru, swinging
his crop wildly.
As any good girl would do, Hotaru screamed,"Eeeek, pervert(okay, maybe
all good girls wouldn't do this, but for the sake of the fic, they
do)!" and pulled her staff out of empty space. The boy didn't even
know what hit him as a beam of boiling red chi slammed into him and
threw him into the wall of the school.
****
Author's Notes: Uh, not much to say, sorry. C&C is always nice, and
you can send me some at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
The idea for the displaced aura came from Gogolu(sp?), I think.
