Chapter 5.1: Of Paper and Spells
AN: By Gaia. Can't you recognize a joke chapter when you see one? And to all those who like this idea…don't worry. Something good is on the way. We're just not up to the twist yet. Oh, yeah. Guys, please kept in mind the title. It usually indicates what the story is going to be like… Thank you.
Ranma sweated through a more difficult movement in tai chi. The leg braces' straps made a slight moaning sound as he shifted to the right After a few seconds of having to hold the middle-way pose trying to finish it, he stopped. He barely made it back to the wheelchair. The cotton tee was soaked with sweat. Ranma shuddered to think what would happened if he had worn silk.
'Why the hell did I wear silk in the first place?' Ranma searched the limited recesses of his mind. No answer. 'Typical.'
Ranma examined the braces for a moment. The straps seemed to be some sort of new elastic leather-ish straps. However they seemed to limit how he moved sometimes. Tofu had given them as a gift, stating he didn't have use for them.
'Now if only I could move without these I'd be fine.' Ranma thought a bit sourly.
Standing was fine. He rarely became tired then. Walking. He could do it for about an hour. But that was about it. He'd collapse within minutes of anything more intense than a fast walk. That was why he was practicing tai chi to help build up to doing simple kata which will lead up to longer periods of walking to running.
Ranma wheeled himself into the room and stripped off his shirt. The cool air prickled the back of his neck. Something warned him of danger. Turning he saw nothing. Gathering his clothes, he wheeled to the bathroom to at least rinse off. When he finally left the bathroom, the sense of impending danger hung like a thick fog.
He returned outside, armed with a set of hidden daggers Nabiki had given him. She had stated that with his luck, he'd need them. Ranma, though he preferred hand to hand, thank Nabiki mentally that she did give him these.
The only warning he had was the rustle of paper, which in itself was odd. Demons seemed to appear out of nowhere, encircling him. Something tugged on the edge of his mind, something important about these demons. Ranma was distracted from remembering when one of the demons lunged. Ranma spun the wheels and it only grazed his shoulder.
'Well, those claws are real.' He thought humorlessly.
The next attack he pulled his dagger out lazily as these creatures moved a bit too slow for him. He cut the third attacker as he ducked. Instead of blood, the demon shrieked and became a bit of fluttering paper.
'Paper puppets.' Ranma thought as he rolled the wheelchair back. "Weakness is water, right? Unless it's water-proof paper.'
Taking out a couple more, he purposely backed himself against the house next to the hose. With a smooth twist of the hand and pointing it, he blasted the puppets with water. The shrieks of the spell canceling filled the air as the puppets became nothing more than bits of soaked paper.
A scream of anger came from the old temple as Akujin watched his trap being foiled by that boy. He was supposed to waste his energy purifying them! Granted Sanzo Xia had been a very bright man, but his reincarnation was rumored to be a village idiot!
Akujin paced back and forth as he tried to think up a new trap or at least the most gullible minion he wanted dead. The old tome on it's own altar reminded him of what power he had at his disposal.
Flipping through the book gave Akujin wonderful ideas to use against the insufferable brat. One in particular though was only as a last resort. He laughed deeply at his next trick.