Kenshin Hibiki is my personal character based off a BESM Ranma 1/2 game I ran a while back. He's Ryoga's Cousin from the states, and speaks with a bit of a California accent. BTW, you can use him in your own fics (I don't see why you would, but, eh, if you do, let me know. I'd like to see what ya do with him).
Reviews mean more writing, so...you know the drill.
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Chapter zero: Origins
(Hibiki Manshion, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Ryoga stood in front of a mirror, fiddling with his tie. He didn't get a chance to dress up very often, so he was a bit rusty. There was a knock at the door.
"You about done in there? My dad wants us down there in a few minutes, and the servants are waiting."
"I'm kinda having trouble with my tie."
"Alright, just a second." The door opened, and a young man, looking about sixteen, walked in. He was wearing a tux very much like the one Ryoga was wearing, and was carefully maneuvering over to Ryoga, holding a rather attractive woman wearing a french maid outfit's hand. He let go of her hand, smiled at her, then turned back to Ryoga. Ryoga's tie wason rather sloppily, and his top button was unbuttoned. When Ryoga looked in the young man's direction, he got one look at the young woman, and had to clamp his hand down on his nose to avoid spraying blood all over the place.
"Geez, Ryoga, why did you tie this thing into a Gordian knot?" Kenshin grimaced as he undid the tie, and re-did it properly after straighten-
ing the taller boy's collar. He then took both Ryoga's hand, as well as the serving girl's, and the three of them started down the stairs.
At the foot of the stairs, there was a great gathering of people in formal attire. Banquet tables laden with various fingerfoods littered the floor, and a large, exquisitely crafted ice sculpture of an angel stood in the center of the room.
"Wow." Royga breathed. "It's beautiful. It kinda looks like a girl I know." Ryoga blushed, thinking about Akane dressed like that, and had to stifle yet another nosebleed. Then again, just walking around California did that to him, as the women in California were rather pretty.
"Hmm? Oh, the overgrown icecube. Eh, it's alright. The one we had at the last party was a dragon. I don't know why dad always gets those things. They just end up melting. I swear, he has too much money."
"You say that as though it's a bad thing." Ryoga grumbled. 'Having servants drive you to and from school, and another servant lead you around school so you don't get lost would really come in handy back in Nerima. Or, hell, just a GPS device would be good enough.'
"Son," a tall, well dressed man motioned over to Kenshin, "I'd like you to meet Mr. Chandler. He runs the Yacht Club. Mr. Chandler, this is my son, Kenshin."
"An honor, sir." Kenshin almost rolled his eyes when his father turned away again. Instead, he took off his glasses, and cleaned them with his handkerchief. He never liked these social occasions his father was always throwing, and he especially hated being shown off like a trophy from a sporting event. Then again, getting a perfect score on the SATs would make most parents proud. In Kenshin's case, his father only really paid any attention to him when he was getting into trouble. Kenshi looked around, and saw that Ryoga was examining the craftsmanship of the statue. Kenshin sighed. He really wished he could have gone to a boarding school to get out of the house, but his father that idea.
Ryoga leaned a little too close to the statue, and slipped on a chip of loose ice, and smashed into the ice sculpture, causing it to keel over onto a table, launching a pitcher of ice water right at him.
Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.
Apparently, Murphy was right.
Ryoga carefully slid out of his clothes, and noted the fact that every eye in the room was resting on him. Then started the laughter. The gentle tittering became an uproar in Ryoga's mind.
As all of you readers are aware, Ryoga hates being laughed at, or jeered at. This usually made Ryoga so depressed and angry, that he'd resort to the Shi Shi Houkudan to relieve some of his pent up feelings. So, it came as no surprise when the sky darkened a bit. By a bit, I mean that the sky over the ten mile radius that was the Hibiki estate was dark enough to block out the sun, and make it seen as if night had come early. Until one realized that it was 2:00 in the afternoon.
The party guests did what anyone with two brain cells would do in that situation. They ran like hell.
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(Tendo Ke, Nerima, Japan)
"...and in world news tonight A freak gasline explosion that destroyed a large portion of Los Angeles today. It seemed to be centralized on the grounds of the Hibiki Manshion. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the explosion that experts are still baffled as to the cause of.."
Ranma had dropped the manga he had been reading , and was staring slack jawed at the TV, seeing the crater where the Estate used to be.
"Ranma," Akane said as she passed by, "are you trying to attract flies or something?" Ranma snapped his mouth shut, then turned towards the offending woman. She stuck her tongue out at him, and started up the stairs. Ranma blinked a few times, shook his head, and went back to his manga.
'I can't believe that pork but would do something like that. That was definately one of his Houkudans. It was too perfect of a crater for it to be an explosion from a gas main. I wonder what caused it.' Ranma thought as he lost himself in his comic book, 'Heh, silly Naruto.'
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(Crater where the Hibiki Estate used to be, LA, USA)
"My house...my beautiful house..." A dishevelled man stood in the ruins of his home, with a young man standing next to him, boiling over in anger.
'I don't know how he did it, but Ryoga had to have done this. I swear I'll kill him!' Kenshin ground his teeth together in rage. He had just gotten his room just the way he liked it, and that idiot had to go and blow it all away. "Father, I'm sure Ryoga had something to do with this!"
"You mean," Keitaro Hibiki turned on his son, "that your idiot cousin caused this!"
"Well, he did write me, telling me aout his adventures in China, and how he and a rival were always trying to one up eachother in martial arts," Kenshi said thoughtfully, "but I never thought that he could actually do some of the things he wrote about. Somthing about turning your emotions into a weapon."
"You mean, " His father begam, "that Ryoga blew up my house because of a temper tantrum? I'll kill him!" Keitaro started tearing at his hair, and bashing the shattered concrete at his feet. Then, suddenly, with an evil gleam in his eye, he stopped. "Kenshin," his father began, "you said you wanted to go to a boarding school, right? See the world?"
"Right...where are you going with this?"
"I want you to find your cousin, and make him pay for this! Do you realize how much our insurance premiums are going to go up? It didn't cover acts of God, or idiot martial artists, for that matter. So, I want you to scour Japan, America, wherever, and beat him into a bloodied pulp, then drag him back here."
"But dad.."
"But nothing. I'll enroll you at that school he drops by in, ah, where was it he usually winds up?"
"Nerima, near Tokyo."
"Nerima. Right. I'll enroll you at that highschool after your summer vaction."
"But dad..."
"No buts! He's your cousin, and besides, I have to work to get this place rebuilt. In the mean time, I'll be staying at one of our safehouses. Now get going!"
Kenshin sighed as he pulled out his GPS, and his credit card. He'd have to go shopping to get some new clothes, a travel pack, a new laptop, replacement games, and then hop on a flight to Japan. He turned on the GPS, thankful he'd planted the tracking device on Ryoga while the lost boy slept. He broke four hypodermic needles trying to inject the device just under the skin, but had succeeded on the fifth try. He could make out Ryoga's location as being in China, of all places. Kenshin sighed. Even with the GPS tracer, Ryoga wasn't going to be easy to catch.
"Better get this show on the road." Kenshin muttered as he pulled out his cell phone and called for a taxi. He had a long trip ahead of him, and
he decided to rest up while he could. 'Damn you Ryoga,' he thought to himself as the taxi pulled up, 'I'll get you if it's the last thing I do'
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(Two months later, Quinhai province, China, Near Jusenkyo.)
"Why cant that idiot sit sill for more than two minutes?" Kenshin grumbled as he hacked through the jungle with his katana. The sheath, a bamboo picnic parasol, was strapped to his pack. Kenshin whiped the sweat from his brow, and pulled out his binoculars. He saw a small campsite off in the distance, near the edge of a cliff overlooking a valley. Kenshin walked over, and studied the site. It had a small tent, a cooking fire, and a large pack that kenshin immediately recognised as being Ryoga's. He waled around the site, and pulled out his GPS. Ryoga was only a few short yards away. Kenshin grinned an evil little grin, and started stalking in the lost boy's general direction.
He was right by the edge of the cliff, and saw movement in the bushes. He creeped forward slowly, so as to not make much noise, which was fruitless, as he snapped a twig under his foot. Suddenly, a black piglet erupted from the bushes, and startled him, causing him to stumble backwards, and off the edge of the cliff. As he fell, he prayed to all the saints he could remember, hoping that God would save him. He turned in mid fall, and saw he was falling right for a deepish spring surrounded by dozens of such springs. "I'm saved!" He thought to himself as he fell, head first into one of the springs.
From inside his hut, the Jusnekyo guide heard a loud splash, and sighed. Many people were falling into the cursed springs nowadays. The day before, some idiot fell into the spring of drowned fish. The guide always wondered how a fish could drown in water. He shook his head, and walked out side.
The water from one of the springs started boiling, intense heat pouring from it as the guide came running over.
Hmm...noone's ever fallen into that one...which one was it again? Spring of drowned Mongoose biting a snake riding a donkey? No, that would be the one next to it...which one... The guide's eyes went wide with fear, Oh, ancestors, please not THAT spring!
"Gah!" Kenshin screamed as...she...exploded from the surface of the water. Kenshin's eyes widened in surprise at the sound of her own voice, her normally baritone voice replaced by more of an alto. She looked down, and noticed the odd mounds protruding from her chest, and stretching her wifebeater to it's limits. She then slid a hand down her pants, and realised something rather important was missing. She did what any sane person would do at that point. She fainted.
Ancestors help us! That unfortunate man! He fell in the most accursed spring of them all Oh, the last person that fall in THAT spring nearly destroyed all of China! I just hope he can control it!
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(Streets of Nerima District, Japan)
Happosai suddenly stopped jumping around, allowing Ranma to smash him with his foot. Happosai felt like someone had just stepped on his grave, a feeling he hadn't had in centuries. He remembered the last time he'd felt that way, and it wasn't pretty. Well, the thing that caused the feeling was, but the feeling itself...Happosai, got up, brushed himself off, and looked up at Ranma.
"Sorry, Ranma m' boy, but this old man's just not in the mood to fight anymore today. Something came up. Bye!" Happosai said, and, with a parting grope of Ranma-chan's breasts, lept off the roof, and made a mad dash for Tokyo International Airport. Ranma's kick against the back of his head helped him clear a good portion of the distance. Happosai suddenly felt as though a nice trip to Hawaii would do him some good. So long as it wasn't Nerima, he didn't care. He knew something malevolent was coming to Nerima, and he really didn't want to be there when it touched down.