'Over the Clouds'
Kasumi looked back to Ranma, who was still avidly in the midst of his contentful gameplay, as she finished up her afternoon chores. She wondered how anyone could be son avidly rapt in the myraid of interactive images for so long; not even Nabiki could stay on the games for more than an hour, even if she was really irritated. That reminded her,any minute her sisters and Shampoo should be arriving home from school, signaling that it would be time for her to start preparing dinner.
As she replace the flower vase back in place after refreshing the water, she mused over what she should prepare. Maybe, since it's Ranma's first evening meal there, she should ask him, while she still had time to run out to the store, or at least send father out to retrieve the needed ingredients.
"Ranma, is there anything you would like for dinner?"
Ranma quickly paused the game, and turned to the older girl, "Shrimp tempura!"
Kasumi twitched a little at that. Shrimp wasn't a bad idea, but with the three added guests, it could be a might higher than she wanted to budget. in the end, she decided that the occasion was special enough, "That's a good suggestion. I'll go ask father to pick-"
Just then, Nabiki and Akane announced their return, Kasumi noted that while the latter was still her usual irritated self, the former sounded a bit more cheerful than usual. Both her sisters entered the hall into view, followed by a disgruntled looking Shampoo.
"Welcome home," Kasumi greeted, before turning a concerned expression to her Amazon houseguest, "Shampoo, is something wrong? I hope your first day at school wasn't upsetting."
"Shampoo made to stand out in hall because of stupid stickboy challenging," the lavender-haired girl grumbled, before continuing past her hostess to greet her husband.
"Kuno's got a new love intrest," Nabiki clarified with her own selfish mirth, "To think, he's dropping my dear younger sister for a foreigner. Whatever is Akane to do?" Nabiki dramatically swooned, only further to irritate her youngest sister.
Akane's face grew red, as her frown deepened, "Wrong, Nabiki, the stupid jerk's now got it in his head that he shall have to date both of us! I honestly didn't think he could get even MORE perverted!"
"So, then he's two-timing you two?" Kasumi asked with a puzzled expression, though behind it, she was laughing almost as hard as Nabiki was. She's told Akane time and time again to just attempt to talk with the young man, and tell him how she feels about it all, but in the end, she always chooses to solve it with fists. Mother would be so upset, if it weren't so humorous. Perhaps she could convince Shampoo to at least refrain from violence, and maybe something would get solved.
As usual, Akane decided to head for her room to change into her gi, and then unwind with a little brick breaking and kata refreshment, and Nabiki headed for the living room. Ranma turned to spot the middle Tendou sister, and greeted her, "Hi!"
Nabiki's expression dropped from sanguine to neutral, which signaled to Kasumi that something had just upset her. "Ranma's been playing your game system for a little while, I hope you don't mind."
"He won't break it, will he?" Nabiki asked with an edge in her voice, which gained an irritated expression from Ranma.
"Hey! I hooked everything up in the first place!" He smiled in victory of his achievement, "It was easy!"
"Well... we assisted with the more complex tasks," Soun interjected from his game with Genma of Shougi.
"Of course," Genma added, "We untangled the wires and everything!"
Nabiki ignored the parents, still looking at Ranma, "Well, as long as nothing's broken." With that, she turned about face, and suddenly decided to go up to her room.
"I wonder what that was all about?" Kasumi asked, before heading to the small cabinet in the hall, pulling out a pen and paper, and preparing a short grocery list of things she knew she needed. Once she was done, she walked over to her father, and handed it to him. "Father, I need you to pick these up for me. I don't want to interrupt your game, but I don't want to finish dinner late this evening."
"Oh, that's quite all right!" Soun replied, not looking up from his game, "Me and Genma will be on our way!"
"Why me?" Soun's old friend asked with an oblivious tone.
Soun kept a hard glare on the shougi table, quite sure a few pieces had been removed and replace at some time when he was otherwise distracted, "I could use the company."
"I suppose," Genma replied with a bit of disappointment. He turned to Shampoo to address her, "This shouldn't take long, but make sure Ranma doesn't get into any trouble, okay?"
"Shampoo Ranma mother, of course she watch Ranma!" the young girl replied, a bit more cheerfully than she had before, after 'convincing' her 'husband' that he may have to defend her honor from the perverted stickboy at school, whom she had told that her husband would under no certain terms render his body utterly lifeless and unrecognizable if he attempted to accoust her again (of course, that's assuming she didn't commit the act herself, but she like the notion of Japanese chivalry). Genma non-committal grunts were obvious pledges of committing to his most sacred duty of defending his wife... at least to Shampoo.
With a smile on her face, and a newfound bounce in the balls of her feet, she skipped over to Ranma, to see what he was doing. Her eyes went wide at the images on the screen. "Aiyaaaa..." she drawled out in slight shock, "Arm no come off too, too easy. Ranma know is no real, yes?"
"Ranma, I thought I told you not to play that violent game," Genma stated in his firmest tone of voice.
"Aw, come on, Pop! It's funner than the other games they got!"
"Is okay, Shampoo make sure Ranma know that is fake!"
Genma grumbled about being undermined, but silently relented. "Don't worry, Saotome," Soun started, acknowledging his friend's change in mood, "I'm pretty sure your son will be fine. Why, I would trust any and all my daughters in his capabilities!"
Genma glanced sideways at Soun, knowing something was amiss, but held his tongue. Feigning returned cheerfulness, Genma finally spoke, "Well, time to get going, Tendou! That shrimp isn't going to bring itself to us, after all!"
"Quite right, Genma!" With that, they both departed.
Ranma's attention returned to the game, while Shampoo's complextion started to become more and more pale, the more she saw of the game. "Is no real," she kept repeating in mantra; it was unspecified if she was telling Ranma this, or herself.
Akane returned from her room, dressed in her favorite yellow gi. At the sight of the other girl dressed to practice martial arts, Ranma's intrest was redirected. He paused the game, and started to pursue the raven-haired girl.
Kasumi had walked out to check on things at that time, and noticed Ranma about to depart, while Shampoo's eyes were frozen at the rather... gory scene that the screen was paused on. "Ranma," Kasumi began to lightly chide, "Please turn off the game if you're done with it. We don't want to waste power."
Ranma stopped, and quickly turned to switch the gamesystem and TV off. He then took off in pursuit of the other girl before he thought she would disappear. Once the disturbing images had disappeared, Shampoo sighed in a shakey tone.
"Shampoo think need fresh air," the Amazon stated with a slight quiver. Kasumi shook her head, long becoming used to having seen some of the gruesome things that had shown up on the game.
"Why don't you go out to the front? I'll bring you some tea if you like, and the fish pond is quite soothing to watch."
"Shampoo no think she can hold tea now," she replied, still thinking of the massive gobs of unrealistic blood coming from characters that looked far too realistic for her own liking, "but thank Nice-girl for offer." Shampoo headed for the front door,to help settle herself.
Kasumi paused for a second, before calling out to Shampoo before she vanished out the door, "Shampoo, if you don't mind, perhaps I can talk with you about a few things later?" Shampoo nodded in reply, and continued on her way.
________________________
Akane went through her warm-up exercises, growing more nervous and more irritated, as Ranma watched with intrest and a bit of hope for something she couldn't decipher.
Coming to a conclusion of her pre training regiment, Akane turned hotly on Ranma, "What?"
"You gonna train?" Ranma asked with hopeful and youthful glee in his voice.
"What does it look like I'm about to do?" Akane snapped, annoyed with the idiocy of the question.
"Oh," Ranma replied with a subdued voice. The youngest Tendou huffed, before going into the starting stance of one of her katas. Right when she was about to slide her foot out for the opening move, "Can I help?"
Akane stopped, and turned to look at Ranma. She realised he probably wanted to train with her, but she wasn't sure about allowing him to do so, "Don't you need supervision, or something?"
"Huh?"
"Doesn't your dad have to watch you?"
Ranma blinked, and tilted his head to the side, "Why would he have to do that?"
Akane growled in fustration, "Whatever, just stay out of my way, alright?"
"Neat!" Ranma took a single leap from where he was standing, and landed in front of Akane in a defensive Kempo stance. Akane blinked, and realized that Ranma had mistaken her 'training' for a sparring session or so. The idea had a bit of appeal to her, as she wanted to really see how good Ranma was... without both Shampoo and his father going easy on him."
"Alright, first one down, or taps out, loses the round." Ranma stared back at Akane with a blank expression, and the girl rolled her eyes. She decided she would have to go light on this. Akane went into stance herself, and announced the match, "Okay, begin!"
She opened with a straight right cross towards Ranma's chest. The pigtailed boy chuckled, and used his index finger and middle finger on his left hand to press against the outside of Akane's outstretched arm, just behind the elbow, to parry it to the right side of his face. At the same time, the index and forefinger of his right hand came up, and pressed against the inside of her wrist to lightly brace her arm. He then rotated his right hand towards him, so his palm was cradling the underside of the other girl's wrist, while lifting his right arm to raise hers. Once she was opened up in defense, he stepped forward with a left handed palm thrust to her face.
Akane was extremely surprised at the speed Ranma had parried her, and returned the attack, that she only had time to gasp, as Ranma's palm came towards her face. her eyes closed, awaiting the impact, but found none coming. She creaked open her eye, to see Ranma's fist just a millimeter from her face.
The pigtailed boy snickered, as Akane's expression reddened. She twisted her right side forward, bringing her right arm down and away from Ranma, while bringing the left fist up to attack. Ranma twisted his torso back to the left, bringing his left side away from Akane, and bringing his right side towards her. His arm that had been holding Akane's first attack up twisted down, using his inner forearm right near the elbow to parry the other girl again. his right arm then wormed around Akanes, then forced her once again to open her guard up, while doing the same thing to her other arm. When the girl was completely defenseless, Ranma leaned back, and brought a snap kick right to her face.
Once again, the blow stopped short of connecting, and Akane gasped, when Ranma finally jumped away. The smile on his face began to anger her more than she realized, as she decided that Ranma wasn't bad at all, and could probably take a bit of punishment.
Her right side kick towards his stomach was met by him spinning into the kick, jamming the power, and bringing his right knee towards his opponent's stomach, but not delivering punishment. Akane's left cross was countered easily, as Ranma stepped into her personal space, and pressing against her, robbing her of all momentum and distance. Akane jumped back, while attempting a right back fist, which Ranma nullified by shooting his left hand out, and pressing against Akane's right bicep, right at the elbow. She was once again opened up, and Ranma used his free right hand to shoot towards her face; his index and middle fingers aimed right between her eyes.
Akane jumped back, as Ranma began to chuckle again. He was finding it funny, toying with her like that as if she wasn't good enough to fight for real. He was making fun of her, the retard was insulting her!
Akane's vision blurred to everything but her rage, as she lunged forward again. Ranma stood there, oblivious to the fury of his opponent, and ready to counter anything she did.
Akane's fist was stopped cold, about six inches away from her target. "I woulda gotten out of the way!" Ranma whined, turning to look at Shampoo, who had an expression of cold anger on her face.
"Ranma go play game, Mother need talk with too, too violent girl." Ranma shrugged, and nodded. He ran off, not noticing the intense stare Shampoo was giving Akane, and the shocked and nervous one Akane was returning.
Kasumi looked back to Ranma, who was still avidly in the midst of his contentful gameplay, as she finished up her afternoon chores. She wondered how anyone could be son avidly rapt in the myraid of interactive images for so long; not even Nabiki could stay on the games for more than an hour, even if she was really irritated. That reminded her,any minute her sisters and Shampoo should be arriving home from school, signaling that it would be time for her to start preparing dinner.
As she replace the flower vase back in place after refreshing the water, she mused over what she should prepare. Maybe, since it's Ranma's first evening meal there, she should ask him, while she still had time to run out to the store, or at least send father out to retrieve the needed ingredients.
"Ranma, is there anything you would like for dinner?"
Ranma quickly paused the game, and turned to the older girl, "Shrimp tempura!"
Kasumi twitched a little at that. Shrimp wasn't a bad idea, but with the three added guests, it could be a might higher than she wanted to budget. in the end, she decided that the occasion was special enough, "That's a good suggestion. I'll go ask father to pick-"
Just then, Nabiki and Akane announced their return, Kasumi noted that while the latter was still her usual irritated self, the former sounded a bit more cheerful than usual. Both her sisters entered the hall into view, followed by a disgruntled looking Shampoo.
"Welcome home," Kasumi greeted, before turning a concerned expression to her Amazon houseguest, "Shampoo, is something wrong? I hope your first day at school wasn't upsetting."
"Shampoo made to stand out in hall because of stupid stickboy challenging," the lavender-haired girl grumbled, before continuing past her hostess to greet her husband.
"Kuno's got a new love intrest," Nabiki clarified with her own selfish mirth, "To think, he's dropping my dear younger sister for a foreigner. Whatever is Akane to do?" Nabiki dramatically swooned, only further to irritate her youngest sister.
Akane's face grew red, as her frown deepened, "Wrong, Nabiki, the stupid jerk's now got it in his head that he shall have to date both of us! I honestly didn't think he could get even MORE perverted!"
"So, then he's two-timing you two?" Kasumi asked with a puzzled expression, though behind it, she was laughing almost as hard as Nabiki was. She's told Akane time and time again to just attempt to talk with the young man, and tell him how she feels about it all, but in the end, she always chooses to solve it with fists. Mother would be so upset, if it weren't so humorous. Perhaps she could convince Shampoo to at least refrain from violence, and maybe something would get solved.
As usual, Akane decided to head for her room to change into her gi, and then unwind with a little brick breaking and kata refreshment, and Nabiki headed for the living room. Ranma turned to spot the middle Tendou sister, and greeted her, "Hi!"
Nabiki's expression dropped from sanguine to neutral, which signaled to Kasumi that something had just upset her. "Ranma's been playing your game system for a little while, I hope you don't mind."
"He won't break it, will he?" Nabiki asked with an edge in her voice, which gained an irritated expression from Ranma.
"Hey! I hooked everything up in the first place!" He smiled in victory of his achievement, "It was easy!"
"Well... we assisted with the more complex tasks," Soun interjected from his game with Genma of Shougi.
"Of course," Genma added, "We untangled the wires and everything!"
Nabiki ignored the parents, still looking at Ranma, "Well, as long as nothing's broken." With that, she turned about face, and suddenly decided to go up to her room.
"I wonder what that was all about?" Kasumi asked, before heading to the small cabinet in the hall, pulling out a pen and paper, and preparing a short grocery list of things she knew she needed. Once she was done, she walked over to her father, and handed it to him. "Father, I need you to pick these up for me. I don't want to interrupt your game, but I don't want to finish dinner late this evening."
"Oh, that's quite all right!" Soun replied, not looking up from his game, "Me and Genma will be on our way!"
"Why me?" Soun's old friend asked with an oblivious tone.
Soun kept a hard glare on the shougi table, quite sure a few pieces had been removed and replace at some time when he was otherwise distracted, "I could use the company."
"I suppose," Genma replied with a bit of disappointment. He turned to Shampoo to address her, "This shouldn't take long, but make sure Ranma doesn't get into any trouble, okay?"
"Shampoo Ranma mother, of course she watch Ranma!" the young girl replied, a bit more cheerfully than she had before, after 'convincing' her 'husband' that he may have to defend her honor from the perverted stickboy at school, whom she had told that her husband would under no certain terms render his body utterly lifeless and unrecognizable if he attempted to accoust her again (of course, that's assuming she didn't commit the act herself, but she like the notion of Japanese chivalry). Genma non-committal grunts were obvious pledges of committing to his most sacred duty of defending his wife... at least to Shampoo.
With a smile on her face, and a newfound bounce in the balls of her feet, she skipped over to Ranma, to see what he was doing. Her eyes went wide at the images on the screen. "Aiyaaaa..." she drawled out in slight shock, "Arm no come off too, too easy. Ranma know is no real, yes?"
"Ranma, I thought I told you not to play that violent game," Genma stated in his firmest tone of voice.
"Aw, come on, Pop! It's funner than the other games they got!"
"Is okay, Shampoo make sure Ranma know that is fake!"
Genma grumbled about being undermined, but silently relented. "Don't worry, Saotome," Soun started, acknowledging his friend's change in mood, "I'm pretty sure your son will be fine. Why, I would trust any and all my daughters in his capabilities!"
Genma glanced sideways at Soun, knowing something was amiss, but held his tongue. Feigning returned cheerfulness, Genma finally spoke, "Well, time to get going, Tendou! That shrimp isn't going to bring itself to us, after all!"
"Quite right, Genma!" With that, they both departed.
Ranma's attention returned to the game, while Shampoo's complextion started to become more and more pale, the more she saw of the game. "Is no real," she kept repeating in mantra; it was unspecified if she was telling Ranma this, or herself.
Akane returned from her room, dressed in her favorite yellow gi. At the sight of the other girl dressed to practice martial arts, Ranma's intrest was redirected. He paused the game, and started to pursue the raven-haired girl.
Kasumi had walked out to check on things at that time, and noticed Ranma about to depart, while Shampoo's eyes were frozen at the rather... gory scene that the screen was paused on. "Ranma," Kasumi began to lightly chide, "Please turn off the game if you're done with it. We don't want to waste power."
Ranma stopped, and quickly turned to switch the gamesystem and TV off. He then took off in pursuit of the other girl before he thought she would disappear. Once the disturbing images had disappeared, Shampoo sighed in a shakey tone.
"Shampoo think need fresh air," the Amazon stated with a slight quiver. Kasumi shook her head, long becoming used to having seen some of the gruesome things that had shown up on the game.
"Why don't you go out to the front? I'll bring you some tea if you like, and the fish pond is quite soothing to watch."
"Shampoo no think she can hold tea now," she replied, still thinking of the massive gobs of unrealistic blood coming from characters that looked far too realistic for her own liking, "but thank Nice-girl for offer." Shampoo headed for the front door,to help settle herself.
Kasumi paused for a second, before calling out to Shampoo before she vanished out the door, "Shampoo, if you don't mind, perhaps I can talk with you about a few things later?" Shampoo nodded in reply, and continued on her way.
________________________
Akane went through her warm-up exercises, growing more nervous and more irritated, as Ranma watched with intrest and a bit of hope for something she couldn't decipher.
Coming to a conclusion of her pre training regiment, Akane turned hotly on Ranma, "What?"
"You gonna train?" Ranma asked with hopeful and youthful glee in his voice.
"What does it look like I'm about to do?" Akane snapped, annoyed with the idiocy of the question.
"Oh," Ranma replied with a subdued voice. The youngest Tendou huffed, before going into the starting stance of one of her katas. Right when she was about to slide her foot out for the opening move, "Can I help?"
Akane stopped, and turned to look at Ranma. She realised he probably wanted to train with her, but she wasn't sure about allowing him to do so, "Don't you need supervision, or something?"
"Huh?"
"Doesn't your dad have to watch you?"
Ranma blinked, and tilted his head to the side, "Why would he have to do that?"
Akane growled in fustration, "Whatever, just stay out of my way, alright?"
"Neat!" Ranma took a single leap from where he was standing, and landed in front of Akane in a defensive Kempo stance. Akane blinked, and realized that Ranma had mistaken her 'training' for a sparring session or so. The idea had a bit of appeal to her, as she wanted to really see how good Ranma was... without both Shampoo and his father going easy on him."
"Alright, first one down, or taps out, loses the round." Ranma stared back at Akane with a blank expression, and the girl rolled her eyes. She decided she would have to go light on this. Akane went into stance herself, and announced the match, "Okay, begin!"
She opened with a straight right cross towards Ranma's chest. The pigtailed boy chuckled, and used his index finger and middle finger on his left hand to press against the outside of Akane's outstretched arm, just behind the elbow, to parry it to the right side of his face. At the same time, the index and forefinger of his right hand came up, and pressed against the inside of her wrist to lightly brace her arm. He then rotated his right hand towards him, so his palm was cradling the underside of the other girl's wrist, while lifting his right arm to raise hers. Once she was opened up in defense, he stepped forward with a left handed palm thrust to her face.
Akane was extremely surprised at the speed Ranma had parried her, and returned the attack, that she only had time to gasp, as Ranma's palm came towards her face. her eyes closed, awaiting the impact, but found none coming. She creaked open her eye, to see Ranma's fist just a millimeter from her face.
The pigtailed boy snickered, as Akane's expression reddened. She twisted her right side forward, bringing her right arm down and away from Ranma, while bringing the left fist up to attack. Ranma twisted his torso back to the left, bringing his left side away from Akane, and bringing his right side towards her. His arm that had been holding Akane's first attack up twisted down, using his inner forearm right near the elbow to parry the other girl again. his right arm then wormed around Akanes, then forced her once again to open her guard up, while doing the same thing to her other arm. When the girl was completely defenseless, Ranma leaned back, and brought a snap kick right to her face.
Once again, the blow stopped short of connecting, and Akane gasped, when Ranma finally jumped away. The smile on his face began to anger her more than she realized, as she decided that Ranma wasn't bad at all, and could probably take a bit of punishment.
Her right side kick towards his stomach was met by him spinning into the kick, jamming the power, and bringing his right knee towards his opponent's stomach, but not delivering punishment. Akane's left cross was countered easily, as Ranma stepped into her personal space, and pressing against her, robbing her of all momentum and distance. Akane jumped back, while attempting a right back fist, which Ranma nullified by shooting his left hand out, and pressing against Akane's right bicep, right at the elbow. She was once again opened up, and Ranma used his free right hand to shoot towards her face; his index and middle fingers aimed right between her eyes.
Akane jumped back, as Ranma began to chuckle again. He was finding it funny, toying with her like that as if she wasn't good enough to fight for real. He was making fun of her, the retard was insulting her!
Akane's vision blurred to everything but her rage, as she lunged forward again. Ranma stood there, oblivious to the fury of his opponent, and ready to counter anything she did.
Akane's fist was stopped cold, about six inches away from her target. "I woulda gotten out of the way!" Ranma whined, turning to look at Shampoo, who had an expression of cold anger on her face.
"Ranma go play game, Mother need talk with too, too violent girl." Ranma shrugged, and nodded. He ran off, not noticing the intense stare Shampoo was giving Akane, and the shocked and nervous one Akane was returning.