Ranma 1/2 was created by Rumiko Takahashi and its characters belong to her, and her alone. I'm just kinda borrowing them. The story below is for entertainment purposes only, and not to be used commercially. ...Obviously.
"Learning Curve"
Part XI (v1.4)
by: J. Wagner
Nabiki Tendo yawned, and fighting the automatic impulse to simply go back to sleep, looked to her side and checked the time. Predictably, it was morning - another tedious and otherwise uneventful day. Slowly working up the mental discipline to get out of her soft, comfortable, warm bed, she imagined how things would go. Ranma would be training, of course, like he had been doing for weeks. Lately, he'd taken to doing strange things around the house, like sneaking around under the floors, and taking odd things while people were reading or watching them.
Kasumi would be making breakfast, and enjoying it. What she saw in cooking, Nabiki never fully grasped. Of course, with Kasumi around, she'd never had the chance to, but that was aside from the point. Akane would, naturally, either be sleeping or getting ready for school. Her little sister was immensely dull in that respect. She was intelligent, if a bit dim when it came to common sense, but she had little real ambition or drive. Her constant search for shortcuts to doing everything was annoying at times, irresponsible at others, and, coupled with her neediness, was one of the main reasons Nabiki generally kept a reasonable distance from a closer relationship with her. Akane was the youngest sibling, and she acted like it.
As for her father, and Saotome-san... her father would be up, he usually was, reading the morning paper, or taking a long walk. The Panda would be sleeping, seeing as he and Ranma didn't train together anymore. There'd been some sort of fall out between the two, a rather large argument in the training hall, and since then Mr. Saotome had slept until noon, or later, according to Kasumi, after which he generally stalked around, aimlessly. There was something unusual going on between father and son there, but they'd both been strangely tight lipped about things.
Inching out from under the covers, Nabiki went to brush her teeth, her mind still on imminent events. Ukyou was more of a morning person, taking care of the breakfast crowd, (the freaks) and then heading out for school. Occasionally, Mousse walked with her to the gates, and they talked about things only they'd really care about - revenge and martial arts, from what she'd picked up from time to time. They were an odd pair, born of necessity, definitely, and perhaps something else.
They were both Ryouga's friends, and Nabiki wondered if he knew what was going on. She momentarily toyed with the notion that Ryouga more than knew: he'd planned it out beforehand. After all, he had to have known that Ukyou had something for him, and at the same time, had no one of her own. More so, he had introduced them to each other, and he had known about Mousse from Shampoo long before Mousse knew of him.
"Nah." Nabiki washed out her toothbrush and dismissed the thought. It made sense, in a way, but Ryouga just wasn't devious or manipulative enough to do something like that. Not that he couldn't - he just wouldn't. The very thought wouldn't cross his mind. Sighing, she went back to her room to change.
Where was the lost boy?
Nabiki caught herself, and amended that thought. She only cared because he was messing with her timetable by being lost, and causing her grief. Scheduling the event was difficult enough without half the prizefight getting lost for days or weeks at a time. It was a significant loss of control over the situation. It was an irritant and an annoyance, and Tendo Nabiki hated annoyances.
Like the stubble on his chin.
Looking at her fingertips, she remembered the feel of it - rough and unshaved, he'd obviously been on the road for who knew how long. It had felt so different from anything else she could remember. He'd flinched a bit, shyly, and blushed, his eyes wide and surprised, tinged by a little fear. Odd, that of all the people and things to be afraid of, he'd pick her. He was cute, in a shy clueless martial artist kind of way.
"What am I thinking, me and Ryouga?" She spared a quick laugh. "He's probably thinking about Akane, or Ukyou, or Shampoo, or any number of other girls right now."
Opening her drawer, Nabiki gasped.
It was...
A surge of anger and panic came, and then just as easily went, as she realized what had happened. Examining one of the vegetables that had replaced her undergarments, she pursed her lips and checked her drawers. Inside was the family fine china.
"Ranma," she growled. Luckily for the next time she saw him, Nabiki didn't have the anger of her sister. No, Nabiki Tendo had a patient form of the Tendo Rage - she'd wait, and scheme, and come up with something both suitably punishing and entertaining to do to Saotome. She made a quick mental note of it before going downstairs and checking the kitchen.
"Kasumi, have you..." Nabiki skipped down the stairs as a brisk pace. Kasumi was at the bottom, a rather large armful of clothes on hand. "Ah. There they are,"
"Why were these in the kitchen?" Kasumi's voice was just the tiniest bit impatient. The kitchen was her castle, and she disliked intruders who came without notice. It wasn't enough to make her angry, or even really unhappy, but it made her ...less content when people messed with her domain.
A sudden crash from the floor above seemed to answer the question.
"RANMA NO HENTAI!!!"
"Well, Akane's up early at least." Nabiki quickly took the clothes and headed upstairs before the two lovebirds took their fighting downstairs.
***
Ranma felt the pressure of Ryouga's open palm strike graze past his ear, opening a cut in his flesh, and felt a trickle of blood flow. Dismissing it for a moment, he drew on the power of the Happo Dai Karin, and let it coalesce and form in his cupped hands. "Happo Dai Karin ...Revised!!"
Ryouga saw it too, and his eyes widened in realization, as Ranma's cupped hands slammed into his midriff. He looked up at Ranma in surprise just as the bomb went off, blowing the lost boy back and off the ground. Ranma's hands were singed, and felt like he'd held on too long to a box of dynamite (not inaccurate, actually). He was hurting, but the pigtailed one consoled himself with the fact that Ryouga had to be hurting a hell of a lot more than he was.
"Huh. What the hell is going on over there?" Ichiro Nishimura wasn't a martial artist, and he wasn't a resident of Nerima. He was a truck driver. He was happy being a truck driver. It wasn't the most exalted job in the world, but it had to be done, and it allowed him to get out and see a lot of Japan on his way from place to place. It should be noted, here, that Ichiro Nishimura had never been through Nerima before, and so, when he tuned out the radio warning of a 'Disturbance' near Furinkan High School, he ignored it and kept going. He figured it was probably a traffic accident or something.
Ryouga's trajectory took him over the nearby street, through a wall, and into the side of a truck that had been moving down the road. The impact was sudden and brutal, and knocked the vehicle off the pavement and into the metal guard railing on the street. The crunch of metal, and the popping of abused tires sounded as Ryouga's momentum finally came to a stop, and so did the truck that had stopped him. Touching his feet to the ground, Ryouga elbowed back, deforming the metal behind him. Snarling, his battle aura still a personal inferno, Hibiki Ryouga pulled his right arm forward, and then back, letting his forearm carelessly pulverize what he was currently imbedded in.
The truck groaned, tipped back and over and Ryouga fell to the pavement, free. He was about to run in the direction he came, when, almost on a lark, he looked over his shoulder, and saw a man, with a rough moustache and beard, trying to unlock the driver's side door that was currently smashed beyond recovery, courtesy of a certain martial artist (himself). For a moment, he was worried that in his haste, he'd injured the man, but he seemed fine, though panicked - enough innocent people had gotten caught between Ranma and himself to almost make him want to find a better locale to fight in, but it was a little too late to be choosey now.
Ryouga shrugged, and was about to leave, when he smelled leaking gasoline, and saw where his impact had broken one of the fuel lines. Almost without thinking, Ryouga jumped up, and tore the door off. The man started to babble something, but the lost boy just reached down, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and jumped away from the burning wreck. The older man stared at him, mouth still moving but not making any noise. Ryouga pointed in an arbitrary direction.
"Go," The martial artist said, simply.
The man nodded, comprehension making its way through stunned surprise, and he ran. A few seconds later, the fire reached the gas, and the truck exploded. Ryouga ignored it, and focused instead on the blue and yellow streak of fire that was heading his way. So: Ranma had waited for him to help the man before attacking? How kind.
Bringing both arms up, he braced himself for the impact. Looking behind him, Ichiro winced, as the... man that had saved him was damn near run over by something that looked like a blue comet. The titanic crash sent Ichiro to the ground, and the man with the bandanna seemed to struggle, for the blink of an eye, against the blue energy, just long enough for the black image of another man to become visible in its epicenter. And then, just like that, the man's footing gave out, and the two were exchanging blows, faster than Ichiro could follow, the one sheathed in blue driving back the one, the man, who now had a red and black aura around him. They crashed through a fence into a construction yard, and then they were gone.
Go!
Ichiro remembered, and ran like his life depended on it.
Ranma's fist quivered, and he felt like his knuckles had cracked, he'd hit Ryouga so many times, and so hard. The lost boy was stunned, and Ranma pressed the attack, burying his fist into Ryouga's abdomen. He was about to flow into a roundhouse, to the base of the neck, aiming for the nerve clusters, when Ryouga's hand shot up into a vicious uppercut. Ranma felt his head smash through something, probably a couple layers of plywood, and then another, before the ceiling stopped him. Falling to his knees, Ranma looked around, and finally realized where he was. It was a construction site of some kind. And he was in an uncompleted floor, still plain wood paneling and exposed metal supports, and some windowpanes lying around. There was a packed lunch on the floor, and sets of tools. Obviously, the Nerima construction crew had evacuated when they found out about the fight nearby.
Smart.
Righting himself, Ranma looked down the hole he'd made in the floor, courtesy of Ryouga's uppercut. His head was still ringing, and his Ki was starting to waver at its current level. His endurance had improved dramatically over the last few weeks, but he knew Ryouga's was certainly still superior. Throwing all those thousands of punches, and surviving blasts and impacts that would turn the normal human body to jellied mush wasn't exactly very healthy either. Ranma shook his head, and it quickly cleared out the cobwebs. Ryouga was around, somewhere.
Unless he got lost.
No. That seemed unlikely. Ryouga would almost certainly destroy the whole building before...
"Oh shit!" Ranma's eyes widened, and he yelled out and down the hole. "RYOUGA! Hey, P-chan! Here, P-chan, here piggy, piggy! Ssuu-eee!"
The floor began to rumble, and a deep voice yelled up from below. "RAMNA! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!!!"
"Oh... goodie!" Ranma took a few steps back, a moment before Ryouga jumped up, widening the hole, and landed in front of him, steam literally coming out of his ears. Ranma steeled his nerves, set into a fighting stance, and charged, taking the initiative. Ryouga blocked his exploratory blow, and retaliated with his own combination of jabs. Ranma dodged them, and groaned inwardly - Ryouga had altered his style of fighting, again, for about the twentieth time. Every time they broke with each other, Ranma adjusted his tactics and his fighting style slightly, and so, apparently, did Ryouga.
Bare handed blows, predominantly chops, aiming to cripple or break bone, rained down on the pigtailed martial artist like snow falls in a blizzard. Ranma fielded or avoided most of them, and braced his body for the few that connected. They moved, together, back and forth, for what seemed like an eternity on that floor. Sometimes, walls would get in their way, but they were like nothing now - the two men splintered wood and crashed through doors and dented metal supports almost as a sideshow to the main event that was their fight.
Their war.
Ranma heard a drywall behind him shatter, more than felt it. Ryouga's blows were like bullet trains, hitting him at hundreds of miles per hour. To his credit, Ranma had hit the lost boy so many times, he'd lost count, but he was still going. Ryouga was like a runaway bull, driven wild with anger and pain, oblivious to damage or danger or the mundane concerns of the flesh. Ranma got a good look at his foe, as Ryouga recoiled from a hard hundred-blow snap kick to the shoulder. They were both beaten and bleeding, with patches of skin torn off altogether, and burns and scrapes over most of their body. But the lost boy was still sheathed in his battle aura, and showed no signs of slowing down, or weakening, or giving up.
Then, Ryouga simply stopped. Taking a step back, he wiped some dry blood from his broken and cracked lips and chin. "Well, Ranma... it seems we've come to an impasse."
"What are you babbling about?" Ranma kept his fists raised and ready.
"I mean... it's time to end this." Ryouga brought his hands up as well, and slowly circled Ranma. "I can't afford to have you in my life anymore, Saotome."
"What...?"
"You don't understand, do you?"
Ranma almost laughed. "I should be asking you that."
Ryouga frowned. "You're the bane of my existence, Ranma. But... at the same time... you are my goal. My motivation."
"Should I be complimented by that?"
"Maybe." Ryouga sighed. "This fight only proves it. No matter which one of us lives, so long as both of us breathe, this won't end."
"You're delirious, P-chan. Did I hit you one or two hundred too many times?"
Ryouga chuckled, softly. "Listen, Ranma. If I won, here, what would you do?"
"You're not going to win, P-chan. Don't worry about it."
"What IF?"
"If, by some miracle, you ...walk out of this better than I do, I'll just beat ya later anyway!"
"Exactly. And if you win?"
"If I win." Ranma paused. "If I win... you'll just come back again, won't you?"
"Yeah." Ryouga nodded, slowly. "That's about it. There is no way out."
They stood in silence.
"That's why," Ryouga spoke up, voice cold. "That's why you won't walk out of this fight at all, Ranma."
"You...?"
"I would." Ryouga smiled, canines visible. "I will."
"You think Nabiki'll like you after that? You think anyone will?"
"Nabiki," Ryouga said the word slowly, almost softly, before his voice hardened. "Nabiki will get over it. And if she hates me... so what? I'm a loner, Ranma! I've got nothing to lose... except my worst enemy. And the way I see it, I'll be doing Ukyou, Shampoo and Mousse a favor."
"You really hate me, don't you?" Ranma bit his lip. "Why? Why do you... why do so many people hate me?"
"Maybe you should be asking yourself that, Saotome."
"I never wanted anyone to hate me!" Something in Ranma just... cracked, and he yelled, now, without caring who would hear. "I never wanted THIS! I... we could have been friends!"
Ryouga seemed aback by Ranma's sudden outburst. "R... Ranma..."
"Look at us, damnit! Look at what we are! What this... what you're hatred made us! FOR WHAT!?"
"HATRED IS ALL I HAVE!" Ryouga snarled, his fists clenched nearly to the point of drawing blood. "It's all I have! My hatred kept me going... it kept me alive... and damn me to Hell, but I was willing to forgive you! Damn me, but I WANTED to be friends! One kind word! One apology! One moment, and I would have forgiven you! But I got nothing! You mocked me... you humiliated me... you ruined my LIFE! I don't think you'll ever truly understand just why, or how, but you did... and I'll NEVER forgive you! NEVER!!"
Ranma watched, stunned, as Ryouga's Ki went wild, tearing at the walls and the floor, its fury belying that of its master.
"Then... I'm... I'm sorry, man," Ranma said, though his voice was only a whisper. Ryouga's eyes opened, and they burned with an inner fire that no amount of kind words could put out. Ranma wiped blood from his split lower lip, and readied to use his final attack. "I really am."
***
Just two days before the Duel...
"Damn you Ranma. Damn you to hell. Damn you to the darkest, deepest, shit shoveling pits of... hello, what's this?" Ryouga pushed through a thicket of bushes and into an open clearing in the woods where a small wooden house, run down, but serviceable in an emergency, stood in stark contrast to the wilderness around it. Examining it for any external signs of occupation - looking into the boarded windows, and searching the ground around it for trash, Ryouga came to the quick conclusion that it was either totally abandoned, or recently whoever had lived there last (squatters) had just left.
Still, it was the first sign of human habitation since Ranma had gotten him lost, and he'd left Nerima. Knocking first, and careful to reign in his strength and not break down the door, he waited a few seconds, and gently pushed it open a crack. Looking in, he narrowed his eyes and searched the darkness. There was no movement in the open area, and the Lost Boy opened the door wide.
"Hey! Anyone home?" He called out. Smiling a bit, seeing that no one was around to contest his squatter's rights, Ryouga carefully put down his backpack and umbrella. There was no basement, so far as he could tell, but throwing down his stuff hastily could still damage the floor, and cause leaks and other problems. On the far side of the cabin, Ryouga found a dusty cabinet and some empty drawers. The place had obviously been cleaned out long ago of anything really useful.
Reaching for his pack, Ryouga took out a small sports watch, and checked the time. It was late, and about to turn dark. Finding the cabin, in the middle of nowhere, with his terrible direction, had been a godsend. He'd take the opportunity to get some work done, some reading, too, and maybe to write down his thoughts. He'd been toying with the idea of a diary... journal... for years, but had never really gotten around to it. Though, like all Hibiki's, he tended to roll around thoughts in his head until his ears bled, he only felt the need to write anything down sporadically, never consistently.
Arbitrarily, Ryouga took out one of the newer books his parents had left behind for him - a German book on Western Religious Philosophy. It sounded dull, but the lost one made some headway into it before disgust and boredom set in. Putting the text aside, and closing it after dog-earing the page he finished at, Ryouga took out his trusty hot plate and started heating up a cup of instant noodles. He kept a healthy supply with him, and given that he could easily go two days without food before he really started to feel it, supplemented by the occasional hunting foray and dried and smoked foodstuffs kept him fairly well stocked. As it was, Ryouga could afford to eat at least something every day and still last a month by himself in the woods.
While the water boiled, Ryouga took out some paper, and started to write on the hard cover of the German book. Ever since Saotome had gotten him lost, and he'd wandered out of Tokyo, he'd been largely occupying his mind with assorted shades of vengeance. Whether he'd twist Ranma in half clockwise or counter clockwise was one he was just now getting around to. There were benefits to both ways, really, from both a physiological and artistic point of view.
"Damn you, Ranma," Ryouga repeated, and leaned back, sighing deeply. Dismissing thoughts of revenge, at least for the moment, he turned instead to another old standby - Tendo Akane, and his curse. Or at least he tried to focus on Akane.
Nabiki.
"Nabiki... Tendo Nabiki," he spoke the name, and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, he could see her clearly. She was sitting at a desk, in her school clothes, laughing at something he'd said, but not in a mocking way. She understood. She understood him better than anyone, even Ukyou, maybe. Her brown eyes were like pools, and her hair swayed slightly as she smiled at him.
Tendo Nabiki.
She hadn't kissed him. She hadn't even hugged him. She'd hardly showed any real affection, as far as he could remember. They'd talked, and held hands, though that was more because she hadn't wanted him to wander off and get lost. But they'd talked, and enjoyed each other's company. Of course, the same could be said of him and Shampoo, and Ukyou. What made her different? What made her drive all other thoughts from his mind? Was he just easily infatuated?
Slowly, Ryouga began to sketch. He started with the outline of her face, the contours of her high cheekbones, and hints of her hairline. Her eyes, her nose, and her delicate eyebrows... they came from his memory onto the paper unbidden. She was smiling at him, only at him, and in right hand, she had a fresh pencil, just resting on her chin, as if she had been caught in mid-thought. Captured forever. Inspired, Ryouga began to write beneath the picture. He wrote about his travels, about how much he'd enjoyed talking to her, walking with her. It began to pour out, and Ryouga was hard pressed to write as fast as the thoughts translated to words.
Then, slowly, someone started to open the door.
A heartbeat later, Ryouga's eyes were focused entirely on the intrusion. In quick, swift movements, he put the book and paper down, and the pencil, while reaching for his umbrella. His senses expanded, and he reached out with his Ki, trying to predict what or who it was that was making its way inside. He took in a deep breath of air through his nose, and something small and fast darted out of the door and into the cabin. His eyes followed it as it lunged, and he moved to intercept.
...A little girl.
"Hey!" Ryouga stood up, holding his barely-warm instant noodles just out of reach of the young carrot-top. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Food!!"
Ryouga looked from the girl to the noodles. "Yes... food."
"Can... can I have it?"
"Er..." Ryouga groaned. He hated giving starving people food. This girl would almost certainly be like every other starving hermit or old man or bum he'd ever run across, and end up eating his entire supply of rations. Predictably, the little girl got all teary eyed, and the lost boy's resolve dissolved. Handing her the mostly lukewarm cup of instant noodles, Ryouga blinked, and missed her eat the whole thing in one gulp.
"What are you, a land shark?" Ryouga whispered in awe. Even Ranma and himself didn't eat that fast!
"Mmmm!! Got anymore?"
"Excuse me." Ryouga took a step back. "But who are you, anyway?"
"Oh, sorry!" She gave him a quick but polite bow. "I'm Kurumi. Tendo Kurumi."
"T... T..."
"Ten - do. Kurumi."
"Woah." Ryouga shook his head, willing the unreal thoughts out, to be hopefully replaced by something more believable. "Small world. You wouldn't happen to have any sisters, would you?"
"Just one."
"Ah... good." Ryouga nodded slowly, understanding. Tendo wasn't that uncommon a name. It was a simple and almost comical coincidence.
"Kurumi," A voice, female, and older, came from just beyond the door. Ryouga's eyes focused on it, simply on instinct. This girl's first thought had apparently been to go for the food, who knew what this older version would try?
"In here!" Kurumi called out.
A woman walked in, wearing a ragtag jacket, and holding a large rug beater like some form of staff weapon. She had long brown hair, that vaguely reminded Ryouga of Ukyou's, done in a samurai weave. Unlike his first impressions of Ukyou, however, she was defiantly female - her jacket did little to hide her gender. Ryouga reached up quickly and wiped a bit of blood from his upper lip.
"Kurumi, what...?" The woman stopped in mid-sentence, and saw him. "Um... hello."
"Hi." Ryouga felt a bit nervous, suddenly. Luckily, he seized on a bit of depression and defensiveness - after all, he had found this cabin unoccupied and unclaimed, and he wasn't about to get thrown out so easily - and rallied himself against his natural impulse to freeze up around blatant exposure to the female form. "You must be... Karumi's sister."
"Kurumi," Kurumi corrected.
"Yes. Tendo Natsume," The girl's voice was cold, and had a small undercurrent of hostility. "And you are?"
"Hibiki Ryouga."
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing. There was no one here when I wandered in." The lost one crossed his arms defiantly. The two started each other down, and sized each other up for a few tense moments. Such was the way of things on the road. Ryouga, of course, would have to yield to her if she wanted the cabin, as a matter of honor, and Natsume could feel that he wasn't a normal person. His Ki was too strong.
"Martial artist?" Natsume spoke first.
"Something like that." Ryouga closed his eyes, confidently. "You are too, I'd think."
"Both of us are!" Kurumi piped up. "And he's got FOOD!"
"Well... this is a spacious cabin." Natsume gave Ryouga another look over, and deciding he was mostly harmless, propped her rug beater against the wall. "There should be enough room for all of us, Hibiki-san."
"I suppose." Ryouga slowly lowered himself to the ground, cross-legged.
"Natsume..." Kurumi motioned towards the empty Styrofoam cup o' noodles.
"I wonder, Hibiki-san, if you could perhaps share some..."
"Food?" Ryouga shrugged, knowing he'd lost this fight minutes earlier. "Ah, why not?"
Actually, he thought to himself, he could think of more than a few reasons 'why not' but they'd never stand up against that little girl's puppy-eyes anyway, so he dismissed them. He pulled over his pack, and fished out two extra cups of noodles. He also dipped into his supply of fresh, clean water, and started heating it. If Nabiki were here, he suspected, she'd probably call him an idiot for not bargaining the food for favors or pocket change. Anything but for free.
"So..." He turned to the two, who were seated on the other side of the cabin. An uncomfortable silence followed. The kind that made most people either want to pass out, or look at some fairly interesting inanimate object. Desperately, Ryouga's eyes darted around, looking for something to distract his mind.
"Is it done yet?"
"Be patient, Kurumi."
Ryouga finally came to the sad realization that there was absolutely nothing interesting at all in the cabin. Lacking options, he turned back to attempting conversation. "So... what're you two doing out here in the middle of Hokkaido?"
"Hokkaido?" Natsume raised a noble eyebrow. "This isn't Hokkaido."
"Of course it isn't." Ryouga sighed. Mentally, he chided himself for not saying 'middle of nowhere.'
"We're searching for someone."
"It wouldn't be Saotome Ranma, would it?"
"No..."
"Oh. Never mind, then. Who?"
"Our father. ...Tendo Soun."
A large sweat drop inched down the side of Ryouga's forehead. "Figures."
***
"Come on! This way!" Akane yelled over her shoulder, as she stopped at the burning wreckage of a medium sized truck. Behind her, Nabiki, Kuno, Mousse, Shampoo and Ukyou all ran, ahead of a small group of other students who were hesitant, now, to be anywhere near the fight they'd all wanted to see just moments before. Akane felt the metal trunk of the overturned vehicle. It was still hot. A nearby fire hydrant was broken and streaming water out and onto the side of the road.
"Talk about property damage! This is SO cool!" A brown haired student said approvingly. Traffic had been cut off, and police were starting to arrive, but even they knew to keep their distance. Already, the streets and roads were clear - no one was getting near the area, and those that were already there were generally wise enough to get the hell out of Dodge while they still could.
"Where are they?" Mousse looked around and grabbed his friend's slender shoulders. "Ukyou! I can't see them anywhere!"
"Idiot!" Ukyou smacked him on the back of the head. "That's a telephone pole."
"Oh." Mousse scratched his head, nervously. "Sorry."
Ukyou just sighed and shook her head. "They should be around here somewhere. I can't tell where, though..."
"There!" Nabiki pointed up, and on cue, the half complete building trembled slightly, and one of the supports seemed to just give out, collapsing part of the third floor, and a greater deal of the fourth and some of the second. Before anyone could say anything else, an explosion rocked the same area.
"Yeah... that's them alright!" Akane was about to head in that direction, when something small and fast cut her off.
"I don't think so, Miss Tendo." Cologne stood on her staff, her voice level and calm. "No one is getting near them. It's too dangerous for any of you."
"That's my... those are my friends in there!" Akane tensed to try and push past the old woman.
"Just try it, little girl." Cologne's voice left little doubt that she was going to follow through with her unspoken threat.
"Vile troll! Thou wouldst dare threaten the beautiful Akane Tendo?" Kuno stepped forward dramatically, bokken raised, his hair catching the breeze. In the background, lightning flashed. "You would dare incur the wrath of the BLUE THUNDER?"
Cologne blinked.
"Well, fiend? Spawn of Ogres? Evil midget? Old... mountain... woman?"
"Are ...you for real?" The Matriarch raised an eyebrow.
Kuno proudly laughed. "Yes, I am the great Blue Thunder, and you would be wise to supplicate yourself and entreat my forgiveness, troll woman, lest you taste the bitter sting of my mighty blade!"
"Stupid stick-boy." Shampoo tapped him on the shoulder. Kuno turned, and came face to face with a set of knuckles, the pride of the Amazon village.
"Truly... thou doest have... a strong punch.... Maiden," The scion of House Kuno mumbled, as he slowly wilted and fell to the ground.
"Oww!" Shampoo rubbed her right hand. "Stick boy have too, too hard head."
"No kidding." Nabiki turned away, towards the building. "Ryouga-kun... Don't..."
"Stand still and DIE!" Ryouga kicked, and his shin smashed into, and through, a metal bracer around an already destroyed door. Ranma took particular care to avoid those blows. Ryouga had, previously, kicked a metal support column, and deformed it enough that the floor above them had given in and come down all around them. Ryouga had somehow, taken it in strike, and kept going, almost like it hadn't happened.
Ranma could feel that he was starting to tire. He suspected Ryouga was more than a little winded, too, but not nearly as badly as he was. The slightly smaller boy's lungs hurt, legs hurt... virtually every muscle hurt, and protested every move, and howled in pain with every blow that made it through his defenses. Even hitting Ryouga was beginning to hurt, and Ranma could see that his knuckles were bloody and raw, from hitting the lost boy. How long had they been fighting? It felt like hours... maybe more than a day...
"Damn you, stand still! You blasted COWARD!" Ryouga's fist plowed into a wall, and Ranma ducked out and away from the enraged Hibiki.
"Come on, you swine," Ranma taunted, hoping the bold words would make up for lacking actions.
Ryouga didn't buy it.
"YOU...!" Ryouga reached to his side, and pulled out a large brick. "Bakusai Tenketsu Tokudan!"
"Special?" Ranma gasped, and watched as Ryouga threw the brick. It was a good throw, but Ranma easily dodged it.
Ryouga reached for another, from a pile of them. "Bakusai Tenketsu Tokudan!"
Ranma dodged it again, and it fell somewhere behind him, missing him by several inches. "What are you doing, P-chan? Wasting time?"
"Baka!" Ryouga's hands moved quickly, throwing one brick after another. Ranma easily dodged them all.
"Che!" Ranma laughed, his cockiness returning full force. There were hastily thrown bricks lying all around him. "Some Special attack! More like the 'Short Bus' Express!"
"Yeah?" Ryouga took a step forward, and draw his belt.
"Yeah!"
"Yeah?" Ryouga smiled, and the belt became a belt sword.
Ranma clenched his teeth, and took a step back... onto one of the bricks. He saw Ryouga step back, an instant before the brick exploded under Ranma's foot. The pigtailed boy fell back, onto three more bricks. In seconds, the entire floor was consumed in a blast of hot air, bits of metal and wood and mortar raining down everywhere. Ranma blinked, having blacked out for a few seconds, and found his whole body numb and unresponsive. He looked up, and saw, behind the stars and pretty dots of light, a massive hole in the ceiling, bits of sparking wires and plaster hanging lazily from its edges.
He also felt... wet.
"Oh no." He groaned, his voice high-pitched and no longer his own. Ranma got to his feet, quickly, remembering that Ryouga was probably only one or two floors up. He looked down, at his chest, and saw them. Jugs. He was female - at the worst possible time. Ranma groaned, and then looked back forward just in time to see a familiar form crash through the ceiling, and land on both feet, still wielding a Ki-blade-sharp belt sword.
"Finally showing your true colors, Saotome?" He smirked, and advanced. "Don't think flashing your goodies will help you either... it's nothing I haven't seen before."
"Shut up!" Ranma looked behind him, quickly, and saw that the puddle of water he'd fallen into, caused by an icebox he'd fell onto, and smashed to bits. It wasn't nearly enough to be of any real use against Ryouga.
"Don't even think about it." Ryouga spat a bit of blood to his left. "No fountain of water is going to save you this time."
"I said shut up!"
"Oh no. This is my party, and I'll talk if I want to." Ryouga took another step forward. "I think I'll stop you with my Yubisaki Ishimi Miketsukan, then either pound you into a fine paste, or..."
His belt sword sliced cleanly through a concrete pillar. "Or... you know."
Ranma's eyes narrowed. "Stupid pig. You still don't get it, do you?"
"What?"
"You think Akane cares about you? You think she's your friend? She only talked to you because I told her to!" Ranma saw Ryouga visibly flinch. "I know about Uuchan, too! Guess what, P-chan? My idea! I told her to be nice to you, but frankly, she's getting kind of tired of playing pretend."
"Y... You.... No!" Ryouga shook his head, and his voice was suddenly very small, and very unsure, and finally... finally, very afraid. "No!"
"You get it now?" Ranma-chan clapped her hands. "Well, good for you, piglet, I can call you piglet, can't I?"
"I..."
Ranma smirked, driving the nail in the coffin, though he wasn't entirely sure whether the coffin was his, or Ryouga's. "As for Nabi-chan... let's just say that she placed her bets where they've always been."
~~Snap~~
"That seemed to do it," Ranma thought, taking a few steps back. There hadn't been room for this technique on the upper floors, but down here, there was just barely enough. "Now... all I need to do is survive for a few seconds..."
"I'm... going... to tear... you apart." Ryouga threw his belt sword aside. "WITH MY BARE HANDS!!!!!!!"
Outside, Shampoo blinked a few times. "Great grandmother?"
Cologne stood watch over the group, her back to the building. Something was prickling the back of her neck and setting off her own well honed danger sense. "Yes, child?"
"Is lower floor supposed to be glowing like that?"
Cologne turned, and saw it a moment before the heat hit her. It was like a tidal wave of raw, red, angry Ki. Overhead, the sky darkened. Cologne grimaced. This was worse than she had imagined.
"What's going on?" Nabiki started to run forward, but Cologne cut her off and kept her back. "What's happening in there? I can feel the heat...!"
"Um..." Mousse started to say something.
"We..." Ukyou blinked away tears, shielding her face with her arms. "We have to do something!"
"There is nothing any of us can do." Cologne could feel it, now; the Ki was coming off in steady waves. "Except stay away."
A spiral was forming.
Ranma moved like he'd never moved before. Ryouga was attacking him in an almost insane fury, with little vestiges of technique or style left. They'd both been long drowned out by the pure hatred and rage boiling out of the lost boy's aura, and crashing into everything nearby. Papers nearby had either burned away, or been blown to ash. Ranma himself, could feel the heat, even protected as he was by his Soul of Ice. Just a few more steps... just a few more.
Behind him, Ranma heard a wall fall apart from the air pressure of Ryouga's blows alone. The lost boy was attacking without true technique, yes, but his speed and power were both at incredibly high levels. A single blow from him, to Ranma's weaker female body, and she'd barely have enough time to scream before he set on her and tore her to bits with his bare hands. Looking at Ryouga, Ranma could barely see any hint of the occasionally friendly, always depressed or shy lost boy that he'd thought, once, that he could have been friends with. There was nothing left of the little boy, who cried tears of bitterness over his 'theft of the curry bread.' Those things seemed like a lifetime ago.
Maybe they were.
It was too late now.
Ranma felt himself near the center of the spiral. He'd trained with Cologne, and he'd seen it in action, but Ranma had never actually executed the Hiryü Shöten Ha. He'd come close to thinking about using it, just to make sure he could actually do it, before he found out Ukyou's secret. Ukyou... he could have, would have, eventually used it on her, before he found out. His thoughts on her, and the past, he hesitated in the present for a fraction of a second. In that instant of indecision, Ranma saw the specter of death, cloaked in the garb of anger-given-form. He hesitated, and saw a fist, Ryouga's, crackling with power, descending on him like the vengeance of an angry god. A sudden chill came, past muscle... past bone... deeper somehow, and touched Saotome Ranma. A dull resignation came and went. Saotome Ranma doesn't lose!
Saotome Ranma doesn't LOSE!
And Saotome Ranma sure as Hell WON'T DIE!!
Strength rose up from where there had been none, and a fist ascended, in defiance of death. And the Spiral... Roared.
Electricity danced from the bottom floor of the building under construction, arching along metal supports, before climbing high to meet the lightning from the sky in a terrible clash that blew out wiring and lights on the entire structure, overloading electronics completely and exploding nearby streetlights. But even the crack of thunder was drowned out by the noise from below. It started low, like a distant rumbling one only felt deep in the pit of one's being. Then, steadily, it rose in power and pitch, from a low base, to a towering howl, like a hundred thousand wolves, crying to the night sky for companionship... or release.
"Nani?" Nabiki held onto the nearest person, in this case Ukyou, for support. The ground was shaking, "Another explosion!"
"Worse!" Ukyou squinted, and pointed at the building. "Look!"
Like the death of a flower, bit-by-bit, the building expanded, and started to simply break apart from the inside. It was almost like nothing was happening at all, when, suddenly and without any prior warning, the uppermost floor erupted like a volcano, spraying wood and panes of broken glass, and metal and even I-beams into the sky. There was total stunned silence, save for the gathering howl of the wind, and the cracking, creaking death throes of the building caught in its epicenter.
"No." Akane seemed ready to run to the building, but Mousse held her shoulder, and she stopped.
"Please, Tendo Akane ..." He said, his voice shaky.
"But." She gulped, fighting back tears. "Ranma... Ryouga..."
Mousse was about to respond, to say something, anything, when the building finally reached its limits, and exploded outward, in a strangely beautiful way, before being drawn inward into the still growing tornado that, by now, stretched from the bottom floor up past the clouds. Clouds that were, even as he watched, fleeing the area like scared sheep. Massive arcs of lightning had free reign, moving from one airborne piece of metal to another, on its way down to the ground. Floor by floor, the building was sucked up, funneled into the tornado effortlessly, and drawn up and away, into apparent oblivion.
"Tendo Akane!" Mousse quickly snaked an arm around the younger girl as she started to rise off the ground. Feeling himself being drawn off his feet as well, the male Amazon threw a chain that wrapped around a nearby telephone pole.
"Hold on!" He gritted his teeth, and looked around. He saw Ukyou, holding onto Nabiki, and Shampoo trying to drag the still unconscious Kuno away. Cologne was nowhere in sight, and before Mousse could try and look for her, his glasses slipped off his face, and he was effectively blind.
"Shampoo!" Ukyou felt herself get lighter. "Shampoo! Get Kuno out of here, damn it!"
"I trying! Stick boy heavy!" Shampoo 'eeped' as she left her feet, still holding Kuno. She screamed, as the gale force winds began to suck her in to the spiral. Already, the Chinese girl could see broken glass, wood, and even massive steel columns spinning around in a dance that promised death to any caught in its embrace.
"SHAMPOO!!!" Mousse roared. "Shampoo! Where...?"
"There!" Mousse heard Akane yell. Firm hands grabbed his chin, and pointed his face in another direction. "There! Hurry!"
"Right!" Mousse drew back his spare hand, and said a silent prayer. He could barely hear Shampoo through the wind. His hand snapped forward, with a heavy weighted yoyo at the end of a firm length of string. He lost sight of it, and for a moment, feared the worst, then, a strong weight tugged at the line.
"Do I have her? Do I?!" Mousse needed to know. Was it her, or...
"You've got them. Both of them!" Akane's voice was joyful, and relieved. Shampoo and Kuno were hardly her best friends, but that hardly mattered right now. Mousse could barely smile, it just didn't seem like enough. Quickly, he and Akane concentrated on taking turns reeling the other two martial artists in.
"Nabiki!" Ukyou felt her grip on the other girl lessen. "Nabiki, hold on, damn it! Don't let go!"
"You... think I want to?" Nabiki held onto Ukyou's hand like a lifeline, which it effectively was. Ukyou's other arm was wrapped around a sturdy concrete telephone pole, which was the only thing keeping her from being swept up into the all-consuming winds.
"Nabiki! Just... just... Nabiki!!! NO!!" Ukyou felt the older girl's hand slip through hers, and saw her form disappear into the blinding wind. "NABIKI!!!"
Nabiki balled her fists and screwed her eyes shut as she fell out of Ukyou's grasp and into the merciless fury of the Hiryü Shöten Ha Tornado. The winds had been raging for some time now, and she knew there was no way it would die down before she was drawn into the funnel and consumed. A sense of total weightlessness came over her, and coupled with a mental distancing from what was happening made the entire experience feel almost ethreal. Tiny bits of... something flew into her, and bit into her flesh, given more than enough kinetic energy by the gusting winds that were, even before she could come to terms with the situation, tearing away at her.
Maybe it was defiance that caused her to open her eyes.
Or simply a lack of caring. If she was to die, she might as well see it coming. Long lashes protected her, somewhat, from being blinded by bits of everything, or even just the wind, caught in the storm. Unexpectedly, her ears popped. Looking below, there was nothing but haze, but up above, she could make out objects, some small, some huge, and some of intermediate size. Her mind realized it for what it was: a killing zone. The height of the tornado had collected a great many things, and it was currently smashing them against each other, like a brutal gladiatorial game at ten... or maybe fifteen thousand feet. She was cold, too.
Awfully cold.
It wouldn't matter in a few seconds. She'd be smashed to paste in the killing zone, anyway. A little cold was only an inconvenience before death. But, then again, Tendo Nabiki had always disliked inconvenience a bit more than one normally did. What a fate! Caught up in some stupid battle between two equally stupid macho idiots. They couldn't have just had a pissing contest or something that wouldn't destroy swaths of the city, could they? No... martial artists who just happened to be boys. Boys who just happened to be capable of razing buildings, and, just by chance, they had to hate each other.
She'd have to remember to haunt them.
Both of them: But especially Ryouga.
At least he could carry a conversation. Besides, he looked a lot goofier when people surprised him. Deciding to make at least a little noise before the Big Crunch, Nabiki inhaled deeply.
Ryouga had had better days. Hell, he'd had better years. And there, indeed, had been a time when he didn't look like he'd been dragged through hell and beaten within an inch of his life. Another impact came, without warning, and Ryouga felt his clothes buckle and give out. He'd been slammed and beaten around by assorted heavy objects for what seemed like hours. He'd quickly used his own Yubisaki Ishimi Miketsukan on his shirt, and tucked in his legs, after the first few had him seeing stars. He was barely holding onto his aura, the only thing keeping him in one piece - the tornado seemed to feed off of it, but finally, at least, it was dying down.
Ryouga had dissolved his shirt, finally, when it was nothing but torn fiber and patches of hardened cloth. The lost boy snarled, as a chunk of steel girder met his back at well over a hundred miles per hour, before slipping to the side and disappearing back into the melee that was the uppermost portion of the Hiryü Shöten Ha. He cursed it mentally, and covered his face only a second before a small hailstorm of glass shards, almost invisible, cut into his arms and legs with a vengeance. Just a little longer... ride it out... survive...
Ryouga's eyes widened and his ears burned.
That was the loudest profanity he'd ever heard.
And... it hadn't come from him...
Ryouga looked down, pin pointing the general area of the voice, and recognizing it after only a second or so yelled out in reply. "Nabiki!! NABIKI!!"
He strained his ears, listening, but didn't get an answer. Taking a deep breath, Ryouga streamlined his body, and plunged steadily downwards in what he hoped was an intercept course. The winds were cutting, now, and not kind to those that struggled against them so actively. A cut slowly formed on a weakened patch of skin on Ryouga's face, spraying a trail of blood over his ear, and onto his bandanna before it was sucked upwards into the maelstrom.
"Ryouga!' Nabiki saw him, just barely, his flickering red and black aura like a beacon in the night. Her voice was hoarse from yelling that one titanic obscenity, but she tried, regardless. "Ryouga! Ryouga!!!"
He seemed to be looking around.
"Ryouga! You better not get lost on me now, damn it!"
The aura shifted slightly, paused, and blazed brighter, like a comet, as he raced down, against the wind. She could see his face now... why was he blushing? Nabiki looked down, and saw that her collar had been shredded, and that she was displaying a fairly generous amount of cleavage. If he passed out now, they'd both be as good as dead. Covering herself with her hands, Nabiki sighed inwardly. The whole situation might have been really funny if not for that imminent and continuing threat of intense bodily harm.
"Nabiki. What are you doing here?" He closed in until they were face to face, his blood flow now back under control. A strong hand reached out, took her by the shoulders, and brought her close to him. Without another word, he seemed to surround her like a glove, or a shield, against the biting wind and shards of debris. His arms encircled her, and pressed her to his chest. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt safe.
"Nabiki." He said again. "Are you all right?"
Nabiki bit back a retort about nearly dying, and instead simply shook her head. No longer constantly battered by the elements, she could feel her wounds, and cuts and scrapes and a hundred other things, vying for attention in her mind with increasing levels of pain. Nabiki wasn't used to it, not at all, and she surprised herself when tears never came. She'd never hurt so badly before, and for some reason, she couldn't cry if her life depended on it.
"Just hold on. I'll get you out of here." He moved, and changed his position so that he was standing straight, and she was on top of him. He angled himself so that the wind hit his back, and still shielded her, as he skimmed down the edge of the tornado. Nabiki saw his arms fold gently over her abdomen, holding her firmly in place. He was up to something, and her ears popped again, as they descended rapidly. The sudden realization of what he planned on doing hit, and she reached down, her hands on his. The air was whizzing by now, and everything was a blur.
Nabiki closed her eyes, and felt his aura around her get stronger until it literally enveloped her completely. It felt like pinpricks on her skin. It felt almost alien, and she resisted it. It was starting to burn, and she had to fight not to shudder. The emotions were coming strong, now, and with will alone, she let the Ki into her all at once. He was giving this to her, giving himself to her, and she could taste the anger, the rage, the depression, every emotion from every fold of Ryouga's mind entered hers. She saw memories, hidden memories, of a boy, barely old enough to tie his shoes, alone in the forest. His first tears... tears of loneliness and abandonment - his only tears for such a thing, and then never again. Never again, because it became all he knew of life.
Hidden memories.
She saw him, only a little older now, with a large man, his face marked with stubble. Ryouga attacked, and the man parried the blows easily. Words of encouragement from his father, especially... so rare as to be more precious and treasured than the most expensive jewels. Hidden memories. Memories of being lost, of searching for days to get to school, only to face quiet mockery at the hands of cowards. The humiliation. The hate... was palpable, directed not so much at his tormentors, as it was at himself. Darkness. She saw a dark sea, with no end, no island, and no hope of rescue.
And Tendo Nabiki cried.
Ryouga found solace from the agony of the descent in his mind. He concentrated on directing his Ki into Nabiki, letting it seep into her body and her bones and her soul, fortifying her. When the impact came, the final impact, she would need it to survive, even as it left him feeling drained, and suddenly, very weak. His mental barriers and controls began to slip, and as they did, he felt the feedback from his charge. He found himself in another body, wracked by the shadow of ever-present demons.
He could see, now.
Brief flashes, like a slide show: a woman and her three girls. He saw himself... herself... watching, from behind the screen of the dojo, as another girl, young, with bluish black hair, sparred with an older man in a white gi. The sadness, the loneliness, the fear of rejection and ...nothingness was like a wave. Failure. It washed into Ryouga, and through him, like an unstoppable tide. Hidden Memories. He saw Kasumi, young, probably only nine, on the tips of her toes, cooking next to a tall woman. Both had their backs to him. Kasumi looked over her shoulder, and he seemed to lock eyes with her for only a fleeting moment, before she turned back to helping her mother, and her mentor.
Hidden Memories.
Then, Ryouga felt something strange, uncomfortable, and yet familiar. He saw a boy, with wavy black hair and a perfect smile. Somehow, this boy was charming and suave, despite his youth. A single red rose in his hand rose to eye level, and things got light. It was, he noted, the sort of lightness at the apogee of a climb, before the inevitability of gravity, and life, brought things crashing back down. The black haired boy turned, tied a white bandanna around his head, and suddenly, the rose became a wooden sword - a bokken. He spun, his back to her, and went towards someone else... a young woman, her hair long. It took a moment for Ryouga to recognize her like that.
Akane.
Hidden Memories.
Ryouga opened his eyes, a tiny sparkle of wetness appearing, and then disappearing into the wind, as if it was never really there.
And then, there was Silence.
"Learning Curve"
Part XI (v1.4)
by: J. Wagner
Nabiki Tendo yawned, and fighting the automatic impulse to simply go back to sleep, looked to her side and checked the time. Predictably, it was morning - another tedious and otherwise uneventful day. Slowly working up the mental discipline to get out of her soft, comfortable, warm bed, she imagined how things would go. Ranma would be training, of course, like he had been doing for weeks. Lately, he'd taken to doing strange things around the house, like sneaking around under the floors, and taking odd things while people were reading or watching them.
Kasumi would be making breakfast, and enjoying it. What she saw in cooking, Nabiki never fully grasped. Of course, with Kasumi around, she'd never had the chance to, but that was aside from the point. Akane would, naturally, either be sleeping or getting ready for school. Her little sister was immensely dull in that respect. She was intelligent, if a bit dim when it came to common sense, but she had little real ambition or drive. Her constant search for shortcuts to doing everything was annoying at times, irresponsible at others, and, coupled with her neediness, was one of the main reasons Nabiki generally kept a reasonable distance from a closer relationship with her. Akane was the youngest sibling, and she acted like it.
As for her father, and Saotome-san... her father would be up, he usually was, reading the morning paper, or taking a long walk. The Panda would be sleeping, seeing as he and Ranma didn't train together anymore. There'd been some sort of fall out between the two, a rather large argument in the training hall, and since then Mr. Saotome had slept until noon, or later, according to Kasumi, after which he generally stalked around, aimlessly. There was something unusual going on between father and son there, but they'd both been strangely tight lipped about things.
Inching out from under the covers, Nabiki went to brush her teeth, her mind still on imminent events. Ukyou was more of a morning person, taking care of the breakfast crowd, (the freaks) and then heading out for school. Occasionally, Mousse walked with her to the gates, and they talked about things only they'd really care about - revenge and martial arts, from what she'd picked up from time to time. They were an odd pair, born of necessity, definitely, and perhaps something else.
They were both Ryouga's friends, and Nabiki wondered if he knew what was going on. She momentarily toyed with the notion that Ryouga more than knew: he'd planned it out beforehand. After all, he had to have known that Ukyou had something for him, and at the same time, had no one of her own. More so, he had introduced them to each other, and he had known about Mousse from Shampoo long before Mousse knew of him.
"Nah." Nabiki washed out her toothbrush and dismissed the thought. It made sense, in a way, but Ryouga just wasn't devious or manipulative enough to do something like that. Not that he couldn't - he just wouldn't. The very thought wouldn't cross his mind. Sighing, she went back to her room to change.
Where was the lost boy?
Nabiki caught herself, and amended that thought. She only cared because he was messing with her timetable by being lost, and causing her grief. Scheduling the event was difficult enough without half the prizefight getting lost for days or weeks at a time. It was a significant loss of control over the situation. It was an irritant and an annoyance, and Tendo Nabiki hated annoyances.
Like the stubble on his chin.
Looking at her fingertips, she remembered the feel of it - rough and unshaved, he'd obviously been on the road for who knew how long. It had felt so different from anything else she could remember. He'd flinched a bit, shyly, and blushed, his eyes wide and surprised, tinged by a little fear. Odd, that of all the people and things to be afraid of, he'd pick her. He was cute, in a shy clueless martial artist kind of way.
"What am I thinking, me and Ryouga?" She spared a quick laugh. "He's probably thinking about Akane, or Ukyou, or Shampoo, or any number of other girls right now."
Opening her drawer, Nabiki gasped.
It was...
A surge of anger and panic came, and then just as easily went, as she realized what had happened. Examining one of the vegetables that had replaced her undergarments, she pursed her lips and checked her drawers. Inside was the family fine china.
"Ranma," she growled. Luckily for the next time she saw him, Nabiki didn't have the anger of her sister. No, Nabiki Tendo had a patient form of the Tendo Rage - she'd wait, and scheme, and come up with something both suitably punishing and entertaining to do to Saotome. She made a quick mental note of it before going downstairs and checking the kitchen.
"Kasumi, have you..." Nabiki skipped down the stairs as a brisk pace. Kasumi was at the bottom, a rather large armful of clothes on hand. "Ah. There they are,"
"Why were these in the kitchen?" Kasumi's voice was just the tiniest bit impatient. The kitchen was her castle, and she disliked intruders who came without notice. It wasn't enough to make her angry, or even really unhappy, but it made her ...less content when people messed with her domain.
A sudden crash from the floor above seemed to answer the question.
"RANMA NO HENTAI!!!"
"Well, Akane's up early at least." Nabiki quickly took the clothes and headed upstairs before the two lovebirds took their fighting downstairs.
***
Ranma felt the pressure of Ryouga's open palm strike graze past his ear, opening a cut in his flesh, and felt a trickle of blood flow. Dismissing it for a moment, he drew on the power of the Happo Dai Karin, and let it coalesce and form in his cupped hands. "Happo Dai Karin ...Revised!!"
Ryouga saw it too, and his eyes widened in realization, as Ranma's cupped hands slammed into his midriff. He looked up at Ranma in surprise just as the bomb went off, blowing the lost boy back and off the ground. Ranma's hands were singed, and felt like he'd held on too long to a box of dynamite (not inaccurate, actually). He was hurting, but the pigtailed one consoled himself with the fact that Ryouga had to be hurting a hell of a lot more than he was.
"Huh. What the hell is going on over there?" Ichiro Nishimura wasn't a martial artist, and he wasn't a resident of Nerima. He was a truck driver. He was happy being a truck driver. It wasn't the most exalted job in the world, but it had to be done, and it allowed him to get out and see a lot of Japan on his way from place to place. It should be noted, here, that Ichiro Nishimura had never been through Nerima before, and so, when he tuned out the radio warning of a 'Disturbance' near Furinkan High School, he ignored it and kept going. He figured it was probably a traffic accident or something.
Ryouga's trajectory took him over the nearby street, through a wall, and into the side of a truck that had been moving down the road. The impact was sudden and brutal, and knocked the vehicle off the pavement and into the metal guard railing on the street. The crunch of metal, and the popping of abused tires sounded as Ryouga's momentum finally came to a stop, and so did the truck that had stopped him. Touching his feet to the ground, Ryouga elbowed back, deforming the metal behind him. Snarling, his battle aura still a personal inferno, Hibiki Ryouga pulled his right arm forward, and then back, letting his forearm carelessly pulverize what he was currently imbedded in.
The truck groaned, tipped back and over and Ryouga fell to the pavement, free. He was about to run in the direction he came, when, almost on a lark, he looked over his shoulder, and saw a man, with a rough moustache and beard, trying to unlock the driver's side door that was currently smashed beyond recovery, courtesy of a certain martial artist (himself). For a moment, he was worried that in his haste, he'd injured the man, but he seemed fine, though panicked - enough innocent people had gotten caught between Ranma and himself to almost make him want to find a better locale to fight in, but it was a little too late to be choosey now.
Ryouga shrugged, and was about to leave, when he smelled leaking gasoline, and saw where his impact had broken one of the fuel lines. Almost without thinking, Ryouga jumped up, and tore the door off. The man started to babble something, but the lost boy just reached down, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and jumped away from the burning wreck. The older man stared at him, mouth still moving but not making any noise. Ryouga pointed in an arbitrary direction.
"Go," The martial artist said, simply.
The man nodded, comprehension making its way through stunned surprise, and he ran. A few seconds later, the fire reached the gas, and the truck exploded. Ryouga ignored it, and focused instead on the blue and yellow streak of fire that was heading his way. So: Ranma had waited for him to help the man before attacking? How kind.
Bringing both arms up, he braced himself for the impact. Looking behind him, Ichiro winced, as the... man that had saved him was damn near run over by something that looked like a blue comet. The titanic crash sent Ichiro to the ground, and the man with the bandanna seemed to struggle, for the blink of an eye, against the blue energy, just long enough for the black image of another man to become visible in its epicenter. And then, just like that, the man's footing gave out, and the two were exchanging blows, faster than Ichiro could follow, the one sheathed in blue driving back the one, the man, who now had a red and black aura around him. They crashed through a fence into a construction yard, and then they were gone.
Go!
Ichiro remembered, and ran like his life depended on it.
Ranma's fist quivered, and he felt like his knuckles had cracked, he'd hit Ryouga so many times, and so hard. The lost boy was stunned, and Ranma pressed the attack, burying his fist into Ryouga's abdomen. He was about to flow into a roundhouse, to the base of the neck, aiming for the nerve clusters, when Ryouga's hand shot up into a vicious uppercut. Ranma felt his head smash through something, probably a couple layers of plywood, and then another, before the ceiling stopped him. Falling to his knees, Ranma looked around, and finally realized where he was. It was a construction site of some kind. And he was in an uncompleted floor, still plain wood paneling and exposed metal supports, and some windowpanes lying around. There was a packed lunch on the floor, and sets of tools. Obviously, the Nerima construction crew had evacuated when they found out about the fight nearby.
Smart.
Righting himself, Ranma looked down the hole he'd made in the floor, courtesy of Ryouga's uppercut. His head was still ringing, and his Ki was starting to waver at its current level. His endurance had improved dramatically over the last few weeks, but he knew Ryouga's was certainly still superior. Throwing all those thousands of punches, and surviving blasts and impacts that would turn the normal human body to jellied mush wasn't exactly very healthy either. Ranma shook his head, and it quickly cleared out the cobwebs. Ryouga was around, somewhere.
Unless he got lost.
No. That seemed unlikely. Ryouga would almost certainly destroy the whole building before...
"Oh shit!" Ranma's eyes widened, and he yelled out and down the hole. "RYOUGA! Hey, P-chan! Here, P-chan, here piggy, piggy! Ssuu-eee!"
The floor began to rumble, and a deep voice yelled up from below. "RAMNA! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!!!"
"Oh... goodie!" Ranma took a few steps back, a moment before Ryouga jumped up, widening the hole, and landed in front of him, steam literally coming out of his ears. Ranma steeled his nerves, set into a fighting stance, and charged, taking the initiative. Ryouga blocked his exploratory blow, and retaliated with his own combination of jabs. Ranma dodged them, and groaned inwardly - Ryouga had altered his style of fighting, again, for about the twentieth time. Every time they broke with each other, Ranma adjusted his tactics and his fighting style slightly, and so, apparently, did Ryouga.
Bare handed blows, predominantly chops, aiming to cripple or break bone, rained down on the pigtailed martial artist like snow falls in a blizzard. Ranma fielded or avoided most of them, and braced his body for the few that connected. They moved, together, back and forth, for what seemed like an eternity on that floor. Sometimes, walls would get in their way, but they were like nothing now - the two men splintered wood and crashed through doors and dented metal supports almost as a sideshow to the main event that was their fight.
Their war.
Ranma heard a drywall behind him shatter, more than felt it. Ryouga's blows were like bullet trains, hitting him at hundreds of miles per hour. To his credit, Ranma had hit the lost boy so many times, he'd lost count, but he was still going. Ryouga was like a runaway bull, driven wild with anger and pain, oblivious to damage or danger or the mundane concerns of the flesh. Ranma got a good look at his foe, as Ryouga recoiled from a hard hundred-blow snap kick to the shoulder. They were both beaten and bleeding, with patches of skin torn off altogether, and burns and scrapes over most of their body. But the lost boy was still sheathed in his battle aura, and showed no signs of slowing down, or weakening, or giving up.
Then, Ryouga simply stopped. Taking a step back, he wiped some dry blood from his broken and cracked lips and chin. "Well, Ranma... it seems we've come to an impasse."
"What are you babbling about?" Ranma kept his fists raised and ready.
"I mean... it's time to end this." Ryouga brought his hands up as well, and slowly circled Ranma. "I can't afford to have you in my life anymore, Saotome."
"What...?"
"You don't understand, do you?"
Ranma almost laughed. "I should be asking you that."
Ryouga frowned. "You're the bane of my existence, Ranma. But... at the same time... you are my goal. My motivation."
"Should I be complimented by that?"
"Maybe." Ryouga sighed. "This fight only proves it. No matter which one of us lives, so long as both of us breathe, this won't end."
"You're delirious, P-chan. Did I hit you one or two hundred too many times?"
Ryouga chuckled, softly. "Listen, Ranma. If I won, here, what would you do?"
"You're not going to win, P-chan. Don't worry about it."
"What IF?"
"If, by some miracle, you ...walk out of this better than I do, I'll just beat ya later anyway!"
"Exactly. And if you win?"
"If I win." Ranma paused. "If I win... you'll just come back again, won't you?"
"Yeah." Ryouga nodded, slowly. "That's about it. There is no way out."
They stood in silence.
"That's why," Ryouga spoke up, voice cold. "That's why you won't walk out of this fight at all, Ranma."
"You...?"
"I would." Ryouga smiled, canines visible. "I will."
"You think Nabiki'll like you after that? You think anyone will?"
"Nabiki," Ryouga said the word slowly, almost softly, before his voice hardened. "Nabiki will get over it. And if she hates me... so what? I'm a loner, Ranma! I've got nothing to lose... except my worst enemy. And the way I see it, I'll be doing Ukyou, Shampoo and Mousse a favor."
"You really hate me, don't you?" Ranma bit his lip. "Why? Why do you... why do so many people hate me?"
"Maybe you should be asking yourself that, Saotome."
"I never wanted anyone to hate me!" Something in Ranma just... cracked, and he yelled, now, without caring who would hear. "I never wanted THIS! I... we could have been friends!"
Ryouga seemed aback by Ranma's sudden outburst. "R... Ranma..."
"Look at us, damnit! Look at what we are! What this... what you're hatred made us! FOR WHAT!?"
"HATRED IS ALL I HAVE!" Ryouga snarled, his fists clenched nearly to the point of drawing blood. "It's all I have! My hatred kept me going... it kept me alive... and damn me to Hell, but I was willing to forgive you! Damn me, but I WANTED to be friends! One kind word! One apology! One moment, and I would have forgiven you! But I got nothing! You mocked me... you humiliated me... you ruined my LIFE! I don't think you'll ever truly understand just why, or how, but you did... and I'll NEVER forgive you! NEVER!!"
Ranma watched, stunned, as Ryouga's Ki went wild, tearing at the walls and the floor, its fury belying that of its master.
"Then... I'm... I'm sorry, man," Ranma said, though his voice was only a whisper. Ryouga's eyes opened, and they burned with an inner fire that no amount of kind words could put out. Ranma wiped blood from his split lower lip, and readied to use his final attack. "I really am."
***
Just two days before the Duel...
"Damn you Ranma. Damn you to hell. Damn you to the darkest, deepest, shit shoveling pits of... hello, what's this?" Ryouga pushed through a thicket of bushes and into an open clearing in the woods where a small wooden house, run down, but serviceable in an emergency, stood in stark contrast to the wilderness around it. Examining it for any external signs of occupation - looking into the boarded windows, and searching the ground around it for trash, Ryouga came to the quick conclusion that it was either totally abandoned, or recently whoever had lived there last (squatters) had just left.
Still, it was the first sign of human habitation since Ranma had gotten him lost, and he'd left Nerima. Knocking first, and careful to reign in his strength and not break down the door, he waited a few seconds, and gently pushed it open a crack. Looking in, he narrowed his eyes and searched the darkness. There was no movement in the open area, and the Lost Boy opened the door wide.
"Hey! Anyone home?" He called out. Smiling a bit, seeing that no one was around to contest his squatter's rights, Ryouga carefully put down his backpack and umbrella. There was no basement, so far as he could tell, but throwing down his stuff hastily could still damage the floor, and cause leaks and other problems. On the far side of the cabin, Ryouga found a dusty cabinet and some empty drawers. The place had obviously been cleaned out long ago of anything really useful.
Reaching for his pack, Ryouga took out a small sports watch, and checked the time. It was late, and about to turn dark. Finding the cabin, in the middle of nowhere, with his terrible direction, had been a godsend. He'd take the opportunity to get some work done, some reading, too, and maybe to write down his thoughts. He'd been toying with the idea of a diary... journal... for years, but had never really gotten around to it. Though, like all Hibiki's, he tended to roll around thoughts in his head until his ears bled, he only felt the need to write anything down sporadically, never consistently.
Arbitrarily, Ryouga took out one of the newer books his parents had left behind for him - a German book on Western Religious Philosophy. It sounded dull, but the lost one made some headway into it before disgust and boredom set in. Putting the text aside, and closing it after dog-earing the page he finished at, Ryouga took out his trusty hot plate and started heating up a cup of instant noodles. He kept a healthy supply with him, and given that he could easily go two days without food before he really started to feel it, supplemented by the occasional hunting foray and dried and smoked foodstuffs kept him fairly well stocked. As it was, Ryouga could afford to eat at least something every day and still last a month by himself in the woods.
While the water boiled, Ryouga took out some paper, and started to write on the hard cover of the German book. Ever since Saotome had gotten him lost, and he'd wandered out of Tokyo, he'd been largely occupying his mind with assorted shades of vengeance. Whether he'd twist Ranma in half clockwise or counter clockwise was one he was just now getting around to. There were benefits to both ways, really, from both a physiological and artistic point of view.
"Damn you, Ranma," Ryouga repeated, and leaned back, sighing deeply. Dismissing thoughts of revenge, at least for the moment, he turned instead to another old standby - Tendo Akane, and his curse. Or at least he tried to focus on Akane.
Nabiki.
"Nabiki... Tendo Nabiki," he spoke the name, and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye, he could see her clearly. She was sitting at a desk, in her school clothes, laughing at something he'd said, but not in a mocking way. She understood. She understood him better than anyone, even Ukyou, maybe. Her brown eyes were like pools, and her hair swayed slightly as she smiled at him.
Tendo Nabiki.
She hadn't kissed him. She hadn't even hugged him. She'd hardly showed any real affection, as far as he could remember. They'd talked, and held hands, though that was more because she hadn't wanted him to wander off and get lost. But they'd talked, and enjoyed each other's company. Of course, the same could be said of him and Shampoo, and Ukyou. What made her different? What made her drive all other thoughts from his mind? Was he just easily infatuated?
Slowly, Ryouga began to sketch. He started with the outline of her face, the contours of her high cheekbones, and hints of her hairline. Her eyes, her nose, and her delicate eyebrows... they came from his memory onto the paper unbidden. She was smiling at him, only at him, and in right hand, she had a fresh pencil, just resting on her chin, as if she had been caught in mid-thought. Captured forever. Inspired, Ryouga began to write beneath the picture. He wrote about his travels, about how much he'd enjoyed talking to her, walking with her. It began to pour out, and Ryouga was hard pressed to write as fast as the thoughts translated to words.
Then, slowly, someone started to open the door.
A heartbeat later, Ryouga's eyes were focused entirely on the intrusion. In quick, swift movements, he put the book and paper down, and the pencil, while reaching for his umbrella. His senses expanded, and he reached out with his Ki, trying to predict what or who it was that was making its way inside. He took in a deep breath of air through his nose, and something small and fast darted out of the door and into the cabin. His eyes followed it as it lunged, and he moved to intercept.
...A little girl.
"Hey!" Ryouga stood up, holding his barely-warm instant noodles just out of reach of the young carrot-top. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Food!!"
Ryouga looked from the girl to the noodles. "Yes... food."
"Can... can I have it?"
"Er..." Ryouga groaned. He hated giving starving people food. This girl would almost certainly be like every other starving hermit or old man or bum he'd ever run across, and end up eating his entire supply of rations. Predictably, the little girl got all teary eyed, and the lost boy's resolve dissolved. Handing her the mostly lukewarm cup of instant noodles, Ryouga blinked, and missed her eat the whole thing in one gulp.
"What are you, a land shark?" Ryouga whispered in awe. Even Ranma and himself didn't eat that fast!
"Mmmm!! Got anymore?"
"Excuse me." Ryouga took a step back. "But who are you, anyway?"
"Oh, sorry!" She gave him a quick but polite bow. "I'm Kurumi. Tendo Kurumi."
"T... T..."
"Ten - do. Kurumi."
"Woah." Ryouga shook his head, willing the unreal thoughts out, to be hopefully replaced by something more believable. "Small world. You wouldn't happen to have any sisters, would you?"
"Just one."
"Ah... good." Ryouga nodded slowly, understanding. Tendo wasn't that uncommon a name. It was a simple and almost comical coincidence.
"Kurumi," A voice, female, and older, came from just beyond the door. Ryouga's eyes focused on it, simply on instinct. This girl's first thought had apparently been to go for the food, who knew what this older version would try?
"In here!" Kurumi called out.
A woman walked in, wearing a ragtag jacket, and holding a large rug beater like some form of staff weapon. She had long brown hair, that vaguely reminded Ryouga of Ukyou's, done in a samurai weave. Unlike his first impressions of Ukyou, however, she was defiantly female - her jacket did little to hide her gender. Ryouga reached up quickly and wiped a bit of blood from his upper lip.
"Kurumi, what...?" The woman stopped in mid-sentence, and saw him. "Um... hello."
"Hi." Ryouga felt a bit nervous, suddenly. Luckily, he seized on a bit of depression and defensiveness - after all, he had found this cabin unoccupied and unclaimed, and he wasn't about to get thrown out so easily - and rallied himself against his natural impulse to freeze up around blatant exposure to the female form. "You must be... Karumi's sister."
"Kurumi," Kurumi corrected.
"Yes. Tendo Natsume," The girl's voice was cold, and had a small undercurrent of hostility. "And you are?"
"Hibiki Ryouga."
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing. There was no one here when I wandered in." The lost one crossed his arms defiantly. The two started each other down, and sized each other up for a few tense moments. Such was the way of things on the road. Ryouga, of course, would have to yield to her if she wanted the cabin, as a matter of honor, and Natsume could feel that he wasn't a normal person. His Ki was too strong.
"Martial artist?" Natsume spoke first.
"Something like that." Ryouga closed his eyes, confidently. "You are too, I'd think."
"Both of us are!" Kurumi piped up. "And he's got FOOD!"
"Well... this is a spacious cabin." Natsume gave Ryouga another look over, and deciding he was mostly harmless, propped her rug beater against the wall. "There should be enough room for all of us, Hibiki-san."
"I suppose." Ryouga slowly lowered himself to the ground, cross-legged.
"Natsume..." Kurumi motioned towards the empty Styrofoam cup o' noodles.
"I wonder, Hibiki-san, if you could perhaps share some..."
"Food?" Ryouga shrugged, knowing he'd lost this fight minutes earlier. "Ah, why not?"
Actually, he thought to himself, he could think of more than a few reasons 'why not' but they'd never stand up against that little girl's puppy-eyes anyway, so he dismissed them. He pulled over his pack, and fished out two extra cups of noodles. He also dipped into his supply of fresh, clean water, and started heating it. If Nabiki were here, he suspected, she'd probably call him an idiot for not bargaining the food for favors or pocket change. Anything but for free.
"So..." He turned to the two, who were seated on the other side of the cabin. An uncomfortable silence followed. The kind that made most people either want to pass out, or look at some fairly interesting inanimate object. Desperately, Ryouga's eyes darted around, looking for something to distract his mind.
"Is it done yet?"
"Be patient, Kurumi."
Ryouga finally came to the sad realization that there was absolutely nothing interesting at all in the cabin. Lacking options, he turned back to attempting conversation. "So... what're you two doing out here in the middle of Hokkaido?"
"Hokkaido?" Natsume raised a noble eyebrow. "This isn't Hokkaido."
"Of course it isn't." Ryouga sighed. Mentally, he chided himself for not saying 'middle of nowhere.'
"We're searching for someone."
"It wouldn't be Saotome Ranma, would it?"
"No..."
"Oh. Never mind, then. Who?"
"Our father. ...Tendo Soun."
A large sweat drop inched down the side of Ryouga's forehead. "Figures."
***
"Come on! This way!" Akane yelled over her shoulder, as she stopped at the burning wreckage of a medium sized truck. Behind her, Nabiki, Kuno, Mousse, Shampoo and Ukyou all ran, ahead of a small group of other students who were hesitant, now, to be anywhere near the fight they'd all wanted to see just moments before. Akane felt the metal trunk of the overturned vehicle. It was still hot. A nearby fire hydrant was broken and streaming water out and onto the side of the road.
"Talk about property damage! This is SO cool!" A brown haired student said approvingly. Traffic had been cut off, and police were starting to arrive, but even they knew to keep their distance. Already, the streets and roads were clear - no one was getting near the area, and those that were already there were generally wise enough to get the hell out of Dodge while they still could.
"Where are they?" Mousse looked around and grabbed his friend's slender shoulders. "Ukyou! I can't see them anywhere!"
"Idiot!" Ukyou smacked him on the back of the head. "That's a telephone pole."
"Oh." Mousse scratched his head, nervously. "Sorry."
Ukyou just sighed and shook her head. "They should be around here somewhere. I can't tell where, though..."
"There!" Nabiki pointed up, and on cue, the half complete building trembled slightly, and one of the supports seemed to just give out, collapsing part of the third floor, and a greater deal of the fourth and some of the second. Before anyone could say anything else, an explosion rocked the same area.
"Yeah... that's them alright!" Akane was about to head in that direction, when something small and fast cut her off.
"I don't think so, Miss Tendo." Cologne stood on her staff, her voice level and calm. "No one is getting near them. It's too dangerous for any of you."
"That's my... those are my friends in there!" Akane tensed to try and push past the old woman.
"Just try it, little girl." Cologne's voice left little doubt that she was going to follow through with her unspoken threat.
"Vile troll! Thou wouldst dare threaten the beautiful Akane Tendo?" Kuno stepped forward dramatically, bokken raised, his hair catching the breeze. In the background, lightning flashed. "You would dare incur the wrath of the BLUE THUNDER?"
Cologne blinked.
"Well, fiend? Spawn of Ogres? Evil midget? Old... mountain... woman?"
"Are ...you for real?" The Matriarch raised an eyebrow.
Kuno proudly laughed. "Yes, I am the great Blue Thunder, and you would be wise to supplicate yourself and entreat my forgiveness, troll woman, lest you taste the bitter sting of my mighty blade!"
"Stupid stick-boy." Shampoo tapped him on the shoulder. Kuno turned, and came face to face with a set of knuckles, the pride of the Amazon village.
"Truly... thou doest have... a strong punch.... Maiden," The scion of House Kuno mumbled, as he slowly wilted and fell to the ground.
"Oww!" Shampoo rubbed her right hand. "Stick boy have too, too hard head."
"No kidding." Nabiki turned away, towards the building. "Ryouga-kun... Don't..."
"Stand still and DIE!" Ryouga kicked, and his shin smashed into, and through, a metal bracer around an already destroyed door. Ranma took particular care to avoid those blows. Ryouga had, previously, kicked a metal support column, and deformed it enough that the floor above them had given in and come down all around them. Ryouga had somehow, taken it in strike, and kept going, almost like it hadn't happened.
Ranma could feel that he was starting to tire. He suspected Ryouga was more than a little winded, too, but not nearly as badly as he was. The slightly smaller boy's lungs hurt, legs hurt... virtually every muscle hurt, and protested every move, and howled in pain with every blow that made it through his defenses. Even hitting Ryouga was beginning to hurt, and Ranma could see that his knuckles were bloody and raw, from hitting the lost boy. How long had they been fighting? It felt like hours... maybe more than a day...
"Damn you, stand still! You blasted COWARD!" Ryouga's fist plowed into a wall, and Ranma ducked out and away from the enraged Hibiki.
"Come on, you swine," Ranma taunted, hoping the bold words would make up for lacking actions.
Ryouga didn't buy it.
"YOU...!" Ryouga reached to his side, and pulled out a large brick. "Bakusai Tenketsu Tokudan!"
"Special?" Ranma gasped, and watched as Ryouga threw the brick. It was a good throw, but Ranma easily dodged it.
Ryouga reached for another, from a pile of them. "Bakusai Tenketsu Tokudan!"
Ranma dodged it again, and it fell somewhere behind him, missing him by several inches. "What are you doing, P-chan? Wasting time?"
"Baka!" Ryouga's hands moved quickly, throwing one brick after another. Ranma easily dodged them all.
"Che!" Ranma laughed, his cockiness returning full force. There were hastily thrown bricks lying all around him. "Some Special attack! More like the 'Short Bus' Express!"
"Yeah?" Ryouga took a step forward, and draw his belt.
"Yeah!"
"Yeah?" Ryouga smiled, and the belt became a belt sword.
Ranma clenched his teeth, and took a step back... onto one of the bricks. He saw Ryouga step back, an instant before the brick exploded under Ranma's foot. The pigtailed boy fell back, onto three more bricks. In seconds, the entire floor was consumed in a blast of hot air, bits of metal and wood and mortar raining down everywhere. Ranma blinked, having blacked out for a few seconds, and found his whole body numb and unresponsive. He looked up, and saw, behind the stars and pretty dots of light, a massive hole in the ceiling, bits of sparking wires and plaster hanging lazily from its edges.
He also felt... wet.
"Oh no." He groaned, his voice high-pitched and no longer his own. Ranma got to his feet, quickly, remembering that Ryouga was probably only one or two floors up. He looked down, at his chest, and saw them. Jugs. He was female - at the worst possible time. Ranma groaned, and then looked back forward just in time to see a familiar form crash through the ceiling, and land on both feet, still wielding a Ki-blade-sharp belt sword.
"Finally showing your true colors, Saotome?" He smirked, and advanced. "Don't think flashing your goodies will help you either... it's nothing I haven't seen before."
"Shut up!" Ranma looked behind him, quickly, and saw that the puddle of water he'd fallen into, caused by an icebox he'd fell onto, and smashed to bits. It wasn't nearly enough to be of any real use against Ryouga.
"Don't even think about it." Ryouga spat a bit of blood to his left. "No fountain of water is going to save you this time."
"I said shut up!"
"Oh no. This is my party, and I'll talk if I want to." Ryouga took another step forward. "I think I'll stop you with my Yubisaki Ishimi Miketsukan, then either pound you into a fine paste, or..."
His belt sword sliced cleanly through a concrete pillar. "Or... you know."
Ranma's eyes narrowed. "Stupid pig. You still don't get it, do you?"
"What?"
"You think Akane cares about you? You think she's your friend? She only talked to you because I told her to!" Ranma saw Ryouga visibly flinch. "I know about Uuchan, too! Guess what, P-chan? My idea! I told her to be nice to you, but frankly, she's getting kind of tired of playing pretend."
"Y... You.... No!" Ryouga shook his head, and his voice was suddenly very small, and very unsure, and finally... finally, very afraid. "No!"
"You get it now?" Ranma-chan clapped her hands. "Well, good for you, piglet, I can call you piglet, can't I?"
"I..."
Ranma smirked, driving the nail in the coffin, though he wasn't entirely sure whether the coffin was his, or Ryouga's. "As for Nabi-chan... let's just say that she placed her bets where they've always been."
~~Snap~~
"That seemed to do it," Ranma thought, taking a few steps back. There hadn't been room for this technique on the upper floors, but down here, there was just barely enough. "Now... all I need to do is survive for a few seconds..."
"I'm... going... to tear... you apart." Ryouga threw his belt sword aside. "WITH MY BARE HANDS!!!!!!!"
Outside, Shampoo blinked a few times. "Great grandmother?"
Cologne stood watch over the group, her back to the building. Something was prickling the back of her neck and setting off her own well honed danger sense. "Yes, child?"
"Is lower floor supposed to be glowing like that?"
Cologne turned, and saw it a moment before the heat hit her. It was like a tidal wave of raw, red, angry Ki. Overhead, the sky darkened. Cologne grimaced. This was worse than she had imagined.
"What's going on?" Nabiki started to run forward, but Cologne cut her off and kept her back. "What's happening in there? I can feel the heat...!"
"Um..." Mousse started to say something.
"We..." Ukyou blinked away tears, shielding her face with her arms. "We have to do something!"
"There is nothing any of us can do." Cologne could feel it, now; the Ki was coming off in steady waves. "Except stay away."
A spiral was forming.
Ranma moved like he'd never moved before. Ryouga was attacking him in an almost insane fury, with little vestiges of technique or style left. They'd both been long drowned out by the pure hatred and rage boiling out of the lost boy's aura, and crashing into everything nearby. Papers nearby had either burned away, or been blown to ash. Ranma himself, could feel the heat, even protected as he was by his Soul of Ice. Just a few more steps... just a few more.
Behind him, Ranma heard a wall fall apart from the air pressure of Ryouga's blows alone. The lost boy was attacking without true technique, yes, but his speed and power were both at incredibly high levels. A single blow from him, to Ranma's weaker female body, and she'd barely have enough time to scream before he set on her and tore her to bits with his bare hands. Looking at Ryouga, Ranma could barely see any hint of the occasionally friendly, always depressed or shy lost boy that he'd thought, once, that he could have been friends with. There was nothing left of the little boy, who cried tears of bitterness over his 'theft of the curry bread.' Those things seemed like a lifetime ago.
Maybe they were.
It was too late now.
Ranma felt himself near the center of the spiral. He'd trained with Cologne, and he'd seen it in action, but Ranma had never actually executed the Hiryü Shöten Ha. He'd come close to thinking about using it, just to make sure he could actually do it, before he found out Ukyou's secret. Ukyou... he could have, would have, eventually used it on her, before he found out. His thoughts on her, and the past, he hesitated in the present for a fraction of a second. In that instant of indecision, Ranma saw the specter of death, cloaked in the garb of anger-given-form. He hesitated, and saw a fist, Ryouga's, crackling with power, descending on him like the vengeance of an angry god. A sudden chill came, past muscle... past bone... deeper somehow, and touched Saotome Ranma. A dull resignation came and went. Saotome Ranma doesn't lose!
Saotome Ranma doesn't LOSE!
And Saotome Ranma sure as Hell WON'T DIE!!
Strength rose up from where there had been none, and a fist ascended, in defiance of death. And the Spiral... Roared.
Electricity danced from the bottom floor of the building under construction, arching along metal supports, before climbing high to meet the lightning from the sky in a terrible clash that blew out wiring and lights on the entire structure, overloading electronics completely and exploding nearby streetlights. But even the crack of thunder was drowned out by the noise from below. It started low, like a distant rumbling one only felt deep in the pit of one's being. Then, steadily, it rose in power and pitch, from a low base, to a towering howl, like a hundred thousand wolves, crying to the night sky for companionship... or release.
"Nani?" Nabiki held onto the nearest person, in this case Ukyou, for support. The ground was shaking, "Another explosion!"
"Worse!" Ukyou squinted, and pointed at the building. "Look!"
Like the death of a flower, bit-by-bit, the building expanded, and started to simply break apart from the inside. It was almost like nothing was happening at all, when, suddenly and without any prior warning, the uppermost floor erupted like a volcano, spraying wood and panes of broken glass, and metal and even I-beams into the sky. There was total stunned silence, save for the gathering howl of the wind, and the cracking, creaking death throes of the building caught in its epicenter.
"No." Akane seemed ready to run to the building, but Mousse held her shoulder, and she stopped.
"Please, Tendo Akane ..." He said, his voice shaky.
"But." She gulped, fighting back tears. "Ranma... Ryouga..."
Mousse was about to respond, to say something, anything, when the building finally reached its limits, and exploded outward, in a strangely beautiful way, before being drawn inward into the still growing tornado that, by now, stretched from the bottom floor up past the clouds. Clouds that were, even as he watched, fleeing the area like scared sheep. Massive arcs of lightning had free reign, moving from one airborne piece of metal to another, on its way down to the ground. Floor by floor, the building was sucked up, funneled into the tornado effortlessly, and drawn up and away, into apparent oblivion.
"Tendo Akane!" Mousse quickly snaked an arm around the younger girl as she started to rise off the ground. Feeling himself being drawn off his feet as well, the male Amazon threw a chain that wrapped around a nearby telephone pole.
"Hold on!" He gritted his teeth, and looked around. He saw Ukyou, holding onto Nabiki, and Shampoo trying to drag the still unconscious Kuno away. Cologne was nowhere in sight, and before Mousse could try and look for her, his glasses slipped off his face, and he was effectively blind.
"Shampoo!" Ukyou felt herself get lighter. "Shampoo! Get Kuno out of here, damn it!"
"I trying! Stick boy heavy!" Shampoo 'eeped' as she left her feet, still holding Kuno. She screamed, as the gale force winds began to suck her in to the spiral. Already, the Chinese girl could see broken glass, wood, and even massive steel columns spinning around in a dance that promised death to any caught in its embrace.
"SHAMPOO!!!" Mousse roared. "Shampoo! Where...?"
"There!" Mousse heard Akane yell. Firm hands grabbed his chin, and pointed his face in another direction. "There! Hurry!"
"Right!" Mousse drew back his spare hand, and said a silent prayer. He could barely hear Shampoo through the wind. His hand snapped forward, with a heavy weighted yoyo at the end of a firm length of string. He lost sight of it, and for a moment, feared the worst, then, a strong weight tugged at the line.
"Do I have her? Do I?!" Mousse needed to know. Was it her, or...
"You've got them. Both of them!" Akane's voice was joyful, and relieved. Shampoo and Kuno were hardly her best friends, but that hardly mattered right now. Mousse could barely smile, it just didn't seem like enough. Quickly, he and Akane concentrated on taking turns reeling the other two martial artists in.
"Nabiki!" Ukyou felt her grip on the other girl lessen. "Nabiki, hold on, damn it! Don't let go!"
"You... think I want to?" Nabiki held onto Ukyou's hand like a lifeline, which it effectively was. Ukyou's other arm was wrapped around a sturdy concrete telephone pole, which was the only thing keeping her from being swept up into the all-consuming winds.
"Nabiki! Just... just... Nabiki!!! NO!!" Ukyou felt the older girl's hand slip through hers, and saw her form disappear into the blinding wind. "NABIKI!!!"
Nabiki balled her fists and screwed her eyes shut as she fell out of Ukyou's grasp and into the merciless fury of the Hiryü Shöten Ha Tornado. The winds had been raging for some time now, and she knew there was no way it would die down before she was drawn into the funnel and consumed. A sense of total weightlessness came over her, and coupled with a mental distancing from what was happening made the entire experience feel almost ethreal. Tiny bits of... something flew into her, and bit into her flesh, given more than enough kinetic energy by the gusting winds that were, even before she could come to terms with the situation, tearing away at her.
Maybe it was defiance that caused her to open her eyes.
Or simply a lack of caring. If she was to die, she might as well see it coming. Long lashes protected her, somewhat, from being blinded by bits of everything, or even just the wind, caught in the storm. Unexpectedly, her ears popped. Looking below, there was nothing but haze, but up above, she could make out objects, some small, some huge, and some of intermediate size. Her mind realized it for what it was: a killing zone. The height of the tornado had collected a great many things, and it was currently smashing them against each other, like a brutal gladiatorial game at ten... or maybe fifteen thousand feet. She was cold, too.
Awfully cold.
It wouldn't matter in a few seconds. She'd be smashed to paste in the killing zone, anyway. A little cold was only an inconvenience before death. But, then again, Tendo Nabiki had always disliked inconvenience a bit more than one normally did. What a fate! Caught up in some stupid battle between two equally stupid macho idiots. They couldn't have just had a pissing contest or something that wouldn't destroy swaths of the city, could they? No... martial artists who just happened to be boys. Boys who just happened to be capable of razing buildings, and, just by chance, they had to hate each other.
She'd have to remember to haunt them.
Both of them: But especially Ryouga.
At least he could carry a conversation. Besides, he looked a lot goofier when people surprised him. Deciding to make at least a little noise before the Big Crunch, Nabiki inhaled deeply.
Ryouga had had better days. Hell, he'd had better years. And there, indeed, had been a time when he didn't look like he'd been dragged through hell and beaten within an inch of his life. Another impact came, without warning, and Ryouga felt his clothes buckle and give out. He'd been slammed and beaten around by assorted heavy objects for what seemed like hours. He'd quickly used his own Yubisaki Ishimi Miketsukan on his shirt, and tucked in his legs, after the first few had him seeing stars. He was barely holding onto his aura, the only thing keeping him in one piece - the tornado seemed to feed off of it, but finally, at least, it was dying down.
Ryouga had dissolved his shirt, finally, when it was nothing but torn fiber and patches of hardened cloth. The lost boy snarled, as a chunk of steel girder met his back at well over a hundred miles per hour, before slipping to the side and disappearing back into the melee that was the uppermost portion of the Hiryü Shöten Ha. He cursed it mentally, and covered his face only a second before a small hailstorm of glass shards, almost invisible, cut into his arms and legs with a vengeance. Just a little longer... ride it out... survive...
Ryouga's eyes widened and his ears burned.
That was the loudest profanity he'd ever heard.
And... it hadn't come from him...
Ryouga looked down, pin pointing the general area of the voice, and recognizing it after only a second or so yelled out in reply. "Nabiki!! NABIKI!!"
He strained his ears, listening, but didn't get an answer. Taking a deep breath, Ryouga streamlined his body, and plunged steadily downwards in what he hoped was an intercept course. The winds were cutting, now, and not kind to those that struggled against them so actively. A cut slowly formed on a weakened patch of skin on Ryouga's face, spraying a trail of blood over his ear, and onto his bandanna before it was sucked upwards into the maelstrom.
"Ryouga!' Nabiki saw him, just barely, his flickering red and black aura like a beacon in the night. Her voice was hoarse from yelling that one titanic obscenity, but she tried, regardless. "Ryouga! Ryouga!!!"
He seemed to be looking around.
"Ryouga! You better not get lost on me now, damn it!"
The aura shifted slightly, paused, and blazed brighter, like a comet, as he raced down, against the wind. She could see his face now... why was he blushing? Nabiki looked down, and saw that her collar had been shredded, and that she was displaying a fairly generous amount of cleavage. If he passed out now, they'd both be as good as dead. Covering herself with her hands, Nabiki sighed inwardly. The whole situation might have been really funny if not for that imminent and continuing threat of intense bodily harm.
"Nabiki. What are you doing here?" He closed in until they were face to face, his blood flow now back under control. A strong hand reached out, took her by the shoulders, and brought her close to him. Without another word, he seemed to surround her like a glove, or a shield, against the biting wind and shards of debris. His arms encircled her, and pressed her to his chest. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt safe.
"Nabiki." He said again. "Are you all right?"
Nabiki bit back a retort about nearly dying, and instead simply shook her head. No longer constantly battered by the elements, she could feel her wounds, and cuts and scrapes and a hundred other things, vying for attention in her mind with increasing levels of pain. Nabiki wasn't used to it, not at all, and she surprised herself when tears never came. She'd never hurt so badly before, and for some reason, she couldn't cry if her life depended on it.
"Just hold on. I'll get you out of here." He moved, and changed his position so that he was standing straight, and she was on top of him. He angled himself so that the wind hit his back, and still shielded her, as he skimmed down the edge of the tornado. Nabiki saw his arms fold gently over her abdomen, holding her firmly in place. He was up to something, and her ears popped again, as they descended rapidly. The sudden realization of what he planned on doing hit, and she reached down, her hands on his. The air was whizzing by now, and everything was a blur.
Nabiki closed her eyes, and felt his aura around her get stronger until it literally enveloped her completely. It felt like pinpricks on her skin. It felt almost alien, and she resisted it. It was starting to burn, and she had to fight not to shudder. The emotions were coming strong, now, and with will alone, she let the Ki into her all at once. He was giving this to her, giving himself to her, and she could taste the anger, the rage, the depression, every emotion from every fold of Ryouga's mind entered hers. She saw memories, hidden memories, of a boy, barely old enough to tie his shoes, alone in the forest. His first tears... tears of loneliness and abandonment - his only tears for such a thing, and then never again. Never again, because it became all he knew of life.
Hidden memories.
She saw him, only a little older now, with a large man, his face marked with stubble. Ryouga attacked, and the man parried the blows easily. Words of encouragement from his father, especially... so rare as to be more precious and treasured than the most expensive jewels. Hidden memories. Memories of being lost, of searching for days to get to school, only to face quiet mockery at the hands of cowards. The humiliation. The hate... was palpable, directed not so much at his tormentors, as it was at himself. Darkness. She saw a dark sea, with no end, no island, and no hope of rescue.
And Tendo Nabiki cried.
Ryouga found solace from the agony of the descent in his mind. He concentrated on directing his Ki into Nabiki, letting it seep into her body and her bones and her soul, fortifying her. When the impact came, the final impact, she would need it to survive, even as it left him feeling drained, and suddenly, very weak. His mental barriers and controls began to slip, and as they did, he felt the feedback from his charge. He found himself in another body, wracked by the shadow of ever-present demons.
He could see, now.
Brief flashes, like a slide show: a woman and her three girls. He saw himself... herself... watching, from behind the screen of the dojo, as another girl, young, with bluish black hair, sparred with an older man in a white gi. The sadness, the loneliness, the fear of rejection and ...nothingness was like a wave. Failure. It washed into Ryouga, and through him, like an unstoppable tide. Hidden Memories. He saw Kasumi, young, probably only nine, on the tips of her toes, cooking next to a tall woman. Both had their backs to him. Kasumi looked over her shoulder, and he seemed to lock eyes with her for only a fleeting moment, before she turned back to helping her mother, and her mentor.
Hidden Memories.
Then, Ryouga felt something strange, uncomfortable, and yet familiar. He saw a boy, with wavy black hair and a perfect smile. Somehow, this boy was charming and suave, despite his youth. A single red rose in his hand rose to eye level, and things got light. It was, he noted, the sort of lightness at the apogee of a climb, before the inevitability of gravity, and life, brought things crashing back down. The black haired boy turned, tied a white bandanna around his head, and suddenly, the rose became a wooden sword - a bokken. He spun, his back to her, and went towards someone else... a young woman, her hair long. It took a moment for Ryouga to recognize her like that.
Akane.
Hidden Memories.
Ryouga opened his eyes, a tiny sparkle of wetness appearing, and then disappearing into the wind, as if it was never really there.
And then, there was Silence.
