"Speech"
''Non-speech quotes''
"Foreign language(not Japanese)"
'Thoughts'
Sound
Special thanks to SSokolow, my new pre-reader.
- - -
Dr. Tofu Ono's practice was a charming and peaceful place. A felling of calm, quiet, and tranquility flowed into his patients even before they stepped onto the bricks of the front garden patio. The single small waiting room held only a few chairs, an end table, and a single abstract painting done in soothing shades. Indeed, the good Doctor had calculated this effect to help relax his patients, and let their Ki flow in more natural patterns. The calm and quiet of the neighborhood was an essential part of this process.
"Yo! Doc! I got patients for ya!"
Of course, things like calm, quiet, and tranquility never last around Ranma Saotome.
- - -
Dr. Tofu, the youngest Master ever of the Art of Shiatsu and Ki adept, used his fingers and his life energy, or Ki, to feel the injury to Kato's head. Thankfully the break he found in the boys skull was very small, it already seemed to be healing. The doctor used a microscopic portion of his Ki, so small only another Master of Ki manipulation would have been able to detect it, and directed it at a point just below and behind the ear.
"Should you not x-ray the injury?" the girl seated in the corner of the simple examination room asked.
"Miss, I'm sorry but this is a very delicate procedure and I need you to remain quite while I work." Tofu admonished the young girl, "Manipulation of a person's Ki can have a vast array of side effects, and I need to concentrate."
The girl opened her mouth, closed it, sniffed indignantly, and turned her head away.
Tofu resumed is examination of the boy, tracing the Ki paths on his charges head. The boy's concussion was only moderate, and the feeling of nausea and vertigo would where off completely by itself in a few hours. To help speed up that process, and to lower the stress on the boy's body, the doctor had put him to sleep earlier using another point on the boy's upper back.
"I'm done now," the Doctor told his other patient moments later, "you can talk all you like while I re-wash my hands. I'll examine you next."
"What did you do?" the girl who had identified herself as ''Kentaro'' (strictly a boy's name) asked incredulously. "And how did you make my brother sleep?" She had never seen an examination of its kind, let alone a similar practice.
Ranma had taken them to the doorstep of this place that, aside from its sign, seemed like nothing more that a private home, and yelled for a Doctor Tofu. The man before her, who she assumed to be said Doctor, had rushed out immediately, taken one look at her brother in Ranma's arms and herself on his back, and led the martial artist back to this room. After laying the groaning and heaving Kato, as she had identified him, out on the table, and carefully placing her in the chair she currently occupied, Ranma had left the room. The girl felt it unlikely that the young Man would return, considering the fact that she and her brother had underhandedly attempted to follow him back at the market.
After Ranma left, the doctor had spent a few seconds staring at her brother, as if he were scrutinizing a particularly stubborn knot he meant to untie. He then moved forward and touched the boy's back. Kato had instantly relaxed and fallen asleep. The doctor then had placed his hands on the boys head and closed his eyes, not to reopen them for several minutes. His hands had then begun to move in intricate patterns on the boy's head, almost like a dance.
The girl shook her head to clear the daydream, and continued her interrogation of the doctor.
"And do not tell me it's Ki, magic, or any number of fairy-tales," the girl continued, "I am not a little child, nor am I superstitious, I do not believe in that nonsense."
"Then perhaps a demonstration is in order," the young doctor said suddenly smiling with a glint in his eyes.
The sudden change of expression on the young doctor's face made the girl nervous. It wasn't maniacal, just friendly and humorous, but it felt as if he was making fun of her.
"Actually, your attitude is quite refreshing," he continued, as he moved from the sink where he had just finished washing his hands, towards the girl, "most of my new patients just take it at face value, and don't question me at all." The doctor now stood in front of her and crouched down in front of her. "May I?" he asked looking it to her face.
The girl looked askance at him, not sure what he was referring to.
"Your ankle? I believe that's what your here for," the doctor said in a kindly voice.
The girl blushed and hesitantly offered her injured leg. "Be gentle, any amount of pressure at all hurts badly."
"Thank-you," the doctor said as he seized her ankle.
The girl hissed expecting agony, as she had any time she even moved her ankle. Instead it felt numbing, like ice, but warm. Immediately the pressure and light burning sensation she had felt in her ankle from the swelling went away, and when she looked down her ankle seemed normal, if a little flush.
"How did you do that?"
"Oh, I just used a pressure point on your lower calf to release the excess blood it had built up to protect your bones from further injury," the doctor said casually. "Normally a little swelling is important to the healing process, but in this case it impedes my ability to detect exactly what's wrong with you. Now, I'm going to examine and manipulate your Ki, so please be calm and quiet."
The doctor closed his eyes and 'felt the force' as one popular American sci-fi movie put it. The flow of Ki through ''Kentaro's'' ankle was a mish-mash of crossed signals and loose ends, like a bowl of noodles. Dr. Tofu's goal was not to fix all the little problem's that arose, but rather to cut through the mess and find the root cause. Once the root problem was fixed, the rest would sort itself out.
- - -
Ranma Saotome sat in the waiting room of Doctor Tofu's practice. He had been here many times before, but the experience from this side of the inner door was new to him. Normally he was the one suffering from some malady, with hangers-on waiting to hear the news. He decided he didn't like this any better.
The thought of employing the Saotome Secret Technique (bravely running), once he had delivered the injured siblings, had been a tempting one, but ultimately impossible for him. There was the possibility that the doctor would just tell his patients where he lived, and Ranma wasn't sure he wanted the kind of people who would trail him for no good reason to have that information.
Also, Ranma had taken it upon himself to get these two kids help, feeling that it was his fault they were injured. While he did believe they had deserved to be startled out of their wits for sneaking around like they had, the injures they had received far outstripped the punishment they deserved.
'Plus they probably don't even know where we are in the city,' Ranma mused, 'and I doubt that ''Kentaro'' will be able to walk back home. I wonder what her real name-'
"Ranma," the doctor's head popped around the door frame leading to the hall of rooms the doctor used for his patients, "you can come back here now."
"Sure Doc," the teenage marital artist replied, following Tofu. 'Now for some answers.'
As Ranma entered the exam room he saw that only one of the twins was conscious. She sat in a chair in the corner of the room with a look on here face of one whose world had just been turned upside down. "So I guess you were a straight, huh?" Ranma asked the girl with a characteristic smirk.
The girl immediately sat up straight in her chair and sent a smoldering look Ranma's way. "Is that supposed to be some kind of insult?"
"Nope... well, not really. Ya see, some people go their entire lives thinking that there are limits to what the human body can do, and that Martial Arts is like a self defense/sport, we call em' straights. Martial Arts are more than that, for me at least." Ranma explained, after getting a nod from the doctor and taking up a position against the wall. Not so coincidentally, his position allowed him to watch everyone in the room, the door, and the window and also offered him a clear path to said window. "In most cases the straights are right. Almost everyone does have a limit, but only because they set it for themselves.
"People see movie stars like Bruce Lee, at least what he does in his movies, and think that is the epitome of the art. Mostly because they don't see anyone better," Ranma smirked again, "like me. Anyway, there will almost always be someone better you can learn from, set the limit higher. But some of us try to train as if there is no limit, like the Doc here, an' me. Almost nobody can.
"In the past, the masters tried to hide their level of skill. They perform the art in front of people, but do it... not poorly, but without the skill that makes them a Master. Now me," Ranma said, pointing a thumb at himself, "I don't see why I should. The people that can't handle it don't see it, they trick themselves, but if they see my skill for what it is they can handle it, so why not."
"So I suppose what your trying to say," the girl said, her face a mask, "is that you think I can ''handle it''?"
"Not necessarily," Ranma said still smiling, "in a few days you might think I pulled one over on you. In the moment of the act or for a few hours or even days afterwards people know what they saw, but give 'em time and they doubt their own senses."
"I couldn't have said it better myself, Ranma," the Doctor said, moving forward and gesturing at the sleeping boy on the examination table, "but I need to interrupt you. I need to tell you about the treatments I've started."
"Hey Doc," Ranma asked, "doesn't that break the rules, something about confidentiality? Not that I mind, but they might," Ranma gestured at the twins.
"Kentaro has given me her permission to tell you. And since their Guardian isn't here, I can tell you, especially since you're their brother."
Ranma nodded for a few moments, but suddenly stopped and looked at the doctor, wide-eyed in shock.
"Say What?"
- - -
A/N: Cliffhanger (kind of), sorry.
Anyway, I wanted say a few things I forgot to in my last notes.
Firstly, the twins are twelve, so while they speak eloquently (cultured upbringing), they can be a little rude at times.
Secondly, this takes place after the Herb story arc, but before Saffron or the failed wedding story arcs. Incidentally I'm only using the Manga continuity, mostly because it's less complicated.
Again please review, and if you say something significant, I'll e-mail you back.