Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½ or any of the characters from Ranma ½. This is simply a non-profit work for amusement purposes.
ART OF DECEPTION: Chapter 3
Nabiki stood on the third floor balcony just outside her home room as she consulted with her lackeys' about the mornings betting odds. She was truly glad that the populace of Furinkan High were so thoroughly dense, it made it so easy to swindle their money from them. On the topic of idiots, walking her way was her favourite one, i.e. the richest one, Kuno. Waving her underlings away Nabiki queried Kuno "Shouldn't you be preparing for your morning attack?"
"Please refrain from addressing my duel of passion in so vulgar a tongue." Kuno replied with displeasure before stating his business. "I am here seeking the information on the vile sorcerer that I requested from you."
Upon hearing this Nabiki froze, she had, as of yet, been unable to learn anything of Ranma's fighting skills; as far as she knew he had neglected to do any training since he had arrived at the Tendo dojo. Ranko apparently knew next to nothing of his abilities. Genma merely spouted off about him being the best martial artist of his generation, the fact that he said nothing else on the topic prevented his claim from having much merit in her opinion. She was in a pinch, her reputation of being able to find out any and all information was at stake. She had to come up with something fast. Thankfully she had always been a fast thinker and was able to come up with a simple excuse that fit in well with the theme of the week. "I'm sorry Kuno but his black magic has prevented me from being able to gather any information on his abilities."
Kuno scratched his chin as he pondered this in silence for a moment. "Very well, I shall have to confront the sorcerer and learn of his weaknesses myself." Kuno stated as he started to cackle manically.
As Kuno started to walk away another great inspiration struck Nabiki. "Hey Kuno baby," she called. As he turned to face her she continued "don't you think I should be rewarded for my effort? I was risking my life trying to gather information for you."
Kuno took a moment to consider this before walking back to her, pulling out several thousand yen and handing it to her. "Thank you for your efforts Nabiki, I apologise for putting you in a dangerous position." As Kuno walked off Nabiki counted her money glad that the status quo had been maintained and even happier that she had been paid.
Ranko and Akane sighed as they approached the gates to Furinkan High only to be greeted by the swarm of boys armed with various sports equipment charging towards them yelling out various battle cries. After almost a week they were becoming a quite skilled team when it came to beating on the masochists, which is how they chose to see the boys now as it meant they didn't need to feel guilty about beating them a lot harder than necessary. As the horde was dispatched once more the girls were glad to notice that their numbers seemed to be slowly dwindling.
It became evident that Kuno, their main annoyance, was not among the number who had wised up and stopped attacking them as he stepped out from behind his usual tree. As Kuno walked towards them Ranma called out from his usual perch on the school fence "You'd better make this quick or we're going to be late."
"Go on ahead if you want." Akane responded as she took up a fighting stance, it was her turn to trounce the moronic kendoist today and as far as she was concerned getting bucket duty was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of severely beating Kuno.
Akane and Ranko watched in shock as Kuno strode past them without so much as a word and continued on until he was standing in front of the gate post Ranma sat on. "Vile sorcerer, I demand that you release your hold on the fierce tigress, Akane Tendo, and the feisty valkryie, Ranko Saotome, that prevents them from returning my love." He stated as he looked up at Ranma with contempt.
Ranma was rendered speechless by the incredulousness of Kuno's statement, probably a good thing since any intelligent, to him, response would have most likely earned him a severe beating from Ranko and Akane. When his patience drew thin Kuno swung his bokken at Ranma only to miss as Ranma jumped to the side leaving his bokken to cleave through the gate post like a hot knife through butter.
Akane sighed before running towards Ranma and Kuno, deciding that since she and Ranko were planning on stopping Ryoga if he tried to kill Ranma again they may as well extend it to other people trying to kill him, besides it was her turn to pound Kuno. Akane managed to move herself in between Ranma and Kuno as Ranma bounced off a tree trunk just before the tree was cut down by one of Kuno's attacks. "You're supposed to be fighting me." Akane said as she threw a punch at Kuno. The punch sailed through where Kuno's head was a second before as he had already started charging at the spot Ranma had just landed in.
Akane's battle aura flared up as Kuno simply ignored her, temporarily distracting Ranma from Kuno almost allowing the kendoist to strike a blow to his shoulder. Focusing once again he brought his attention to back to Kuno whose strikes were becoming more erratic as he continued to miss Ranma by the narrowest of margins, frustrating him to no end.
Akane moved herself between Ranma and Kuno once again and this time Kuno was forced to pay attention to her as she grabbed hold of his bokken in a vicelike grip as he pulled it back from attempting to skewer Ranma. "Beauteous Akane, why do you defend the vile sorcerer who is forcing you to betray your true feelings towards me?" Kuno asked in a pained voice.
Akane didn't bother to waste her breath on an explanation that had no chance of penetrating Kuno's incredibly thick skull, she instead replied by kicking his hands causing him to release his grip on the bokken. As Kuno's bokken fell to the ground Akane started to beat the living daylights out of Kuno, thus completing the morning ritual. As the beating continued and Kuno neared unconsciousness his mind came up with one of the best thoughts he had had in a long time, the next time he confronted Ranma he would do it when Akane and Ranko were not present, so as the vile sorcerer could not force them to intervene.
It was just past midday and, being a Saturday, school had just been let out for the weekend, for all but one. "I'll meet you guys later, I gotta go to my reading lesson." Ranma said as Ranko and Akane prepared to head back to the dojo.
"I take it this is your first lesson?" Ranko asked amusedly as she picked up her briefcase. "So how long do you think it'll take for your teacher to find out? I think, ten minutes tops."
"You know you could always just tell them, you told me." Akane said with only a faint hope that Ranma would actually even consider it.
"Yeah, but that was cause you were going to repeatedly pound me flat if I didn't." Ranma replied causing Akane to retreat into a silent embarrassment.
"Well, we'll see you back at the dojo, good luck." Ranko said as she and Akane walked away. Ranma hung around the school grounds for a few minutes before heading to the classroom where he was to meet his teacher. Ranma took a seat at one of the desks in the empty classroom as he waited for the teacher to show up.
After around five minutes of waiting the classroom door slid open and a tall, black haired, man wearing a brown suit walked in. "I'm Mr. Itou. I assume you're Ranma." The lesson started with Mr. Itou showing Ranma through the first set of five hiragana symbols with Ranma nodding along in, apparent, understanding. However from there things went rapidly downhill as Ranma was unable to point out any of the symbols he was supposed to have learnt. Mr. Itou became frustrated and pulled Ranma's face from the charts and stared him in the eyes. As he did so his frustration turned into anger and he grabbed Ranma by the ear, pulled him out of his chair and dragged him to the office.
Mr. Itou roughly pushed Ranma down into a chair before continuing through a door into the back of the office. He returned a few minutes later with the vice principal, who was looking rather upset. "Ranma, Mr. Itou claims that you are blind. Is that the case?" He asked dejectedly, already quite sure of the answer. When Ranma nodded in affirmation he sighed and continued. "Why did you lie on your enrolment form?"
"I didn't." Ranma replied, amused with the situation. "I never could read or write even before I became blind and if you want to be technical Ranko lied, she filled out my forms."
Upon hearing this, the vice principle sighed again. "You'll be transferred into one of our special needs classes at the start of next week. Please report to the office on Monday morning, someone will escort you to your new homeroom." As the vice principal walked back to his office he muttered to himself. "Why does this school have to get all of the eccentric students?"
Ranko and Akane walked down one of the backstreets of Nerima on their way back to the Tendo Dojo. As they passed by one of the area's vacant lots they heard heated voices coming from the other side of the large fence bordering the lot. Scrambling up onto the top of the fence, Akane with some slight difficulty, they saw three people of indeterminate gender wearing light blue track pants and long sleeved blue track shirts, their faces were, with the exception of their eyes, completely surrounded by bandages, partially surrounding a black haired girl. The girl was wearing a black knee length skirt and a black long sleeved sailor shirt.
"You're from Furinkan High School are you not?" The girl asked in a haughty voice. In response the three people surrounding her merely pulled out a set of small clubs. "There's no need to rush on my account. If I'm not mistaken we'll be having our match in one week."
"No more talk." Said the apparent leader of the trio.
"We've got you at last." Continued another.
"We're finishing you off here and now." Added the last.
As the last person finished talking the trio charged in with a joint battle cry of "Prepare to die."
The girl dropped the bag that she had been holding and pulled out a gymnasts ribbon from somewhere within her clothes. She pulled a length of the ribbon straight with a small snap before starting to twirl the ribbon around her body. "Please forgive me if I've failed to clearly convey my message." The girl said as she sent the ribbon spiralling in the direction of the three people running at her. "Perhaps this will be clearer." She said before continuing to snap the ribbon at the three of them, each hit sounding like a whip crack.
Akane and Ranko had seen enough, they had no problems with fights but they didn't like senseless beatings, except when it came to the hentai horde and Kuno of course. They jumped down from the fence and hurriedly interposed themselves between the girl and the now cowering trio. Ranko was able to just catch a hold of the ribbon before it made another hit. "Don't you think they've had enough?" Asked Ranko.
The girl dropped her end of the ribbon, somewhat reluctantly. The girl was good to have caught her ribbon and she didn't know the skill of her friend, it would be foolish to start a fight where she would be at a clear disadvantage. "Very well, I shall leave for now. Remember, I'm called the Black Rose of St. Bacchus's School for girls." She said as she drew a single black rose from within her clothes. "Kodachi, the Black Rose. Please don't forget it." She said as she threw the black rose in the direction of Ranko and Akane before turning around and bounding over the fence with a shrill laugh.
When Kodachi had left Akane turned around to check on the three people who sat on the ground behind her. "Are you guys okay?" Akane asked, not seeing any serious injuries.
"Akane? Ranko?" One of the three asked a little nervously. When Akane and Ranko nodded in response she ripped off the bandages surrounding their head revealing that it was one of the girls from their class. The other two quickly followed suit revealing that they were also girls from their class. The three girls moved into a huddle for a few moments and when they broke they said as one. "We have a favour to ask the two of you."
Ranma walked out of the front doors of Furinkan High, a little annoyed at the fact that the school knew about his blindness already, he was hoping to pass as normal for at least a few weeks. As he walked through the grounds towards the main gate he noticed someone following along behind him in the otherwise deserted school grounds. He jumped out of the way just before the person behind him, Kuno if he was not mistaken, launched an attack.
"So vile sorcerer you continue to evade justice by using your black magic." That confirmed it, it was Kuno.
Ranma turned around and sighed "I take it you want something."
"I have come to convince you to release your control over my two loves." Kuno said as he lunged at Ranma once more. He missed, not all that surprising, but he wouldn't let it deter him and so, even less surprising, he followed up with more attacks. As Ranma continually danced around Kuno's, increasingly wild, attacks he couldn't help but wonder why Ranko and Akane felt the need to beat him up when it was so fun to simply dodge his attacks and let him get pissed off, it really was amusing.
"You have a weird way of convincing people." Ranma said before back flipping out of the way of a rather vicious horizontal sweep of Kuno's bokken. "Besides, last time I checked they hated you just fine without me controlling them."
Kuno stood still for a moment to reclaim his breathe, also giving him time to cool his temper. "Since you refuse to voluntarily release my two loves I shall break the spell you cast by taking your life." Kuno said as he closed his eyes and started to focus. When he opened his eyes he attacked once again, though this time with a far greater speed, thrusting his bokken back and forth repeatedly in an attempt to skewer Ranma, a yell of "STRIKE!" denoting every thrust.
Ranma moved backwards as he dodged all of the strikes, being pressed slightly by the attack. He was surprised at the level of skill Kuno was showing, he was actually feeling the air pressure of each strike. Ranma drew his sword from its sheath and disarmed Kuno with a single well timed swing. "Did you stop to think that killing me may remove the only chance you have of removing the spell?" Ranma asked, attempting to mess with Kuno's already screwed head.
Kuno stopped to ponder this for a moment before his mind rejected the idea, he was set on killing the vile sorcerer to win his loves and this idea went against it. "Nay, that is not the case. You are simply trying to control me but my will is too strong for such trickery to work." Kuno said proudly.
Ranma just shrugged before quickly beating the now practically defenceless Kuno. Now he understood why Ranko and Akane enjoyed beating him up so much, it was just like beating up Genma. As Kuno started to black out Ranma said to Kuno in a, obviously fake, boastful monologue. "Didn't you know that it was foolish to attack me during the day when my magic is at its strongest? You would need a small army of ninja attacking me after dark to be able to defeat me." With that said Ranma walked away unaware that Kuno had taken his words seriously.
Ranko and Akane sat on Akane's bed facing the three girls from their class who were sitting on the floor with a tray of tea and biscuit in front of them. "How did all of you get injured?" Akane asked with concern as she looked at the bandaged, and slightly bruised, faces of the girls in front of her.
"The entire rhythmic gymnastics team was ambushed by Kodachi." Said one as the girls, head now hung in shame.
"Unless we can find a replacement we'll have to forfeit the match." Added the next, looking at Ranko and Akane hopefully.
"So you want one of us to step in for you?" Ranko asked bleakly, she'd had enough experience with Genma railroading her to know that, like it or not, they were almost certainly going to end up doing what they asked.
"Please!" They all begged at once as they started bowing and scrapping. Ranko had hit the nail on the head; they were even using Genma-like technique. "There's no one else we can ask." Said the girl in the centre. "You see. This next match is rhythmic gymnastic wrestling!"
This perked Ranko's attention, it sounded like some form of obscure martial arts and that was certainly an improvement to boring rhythmic gymnastics. "What exactly is rhythmic gymnastics wrestling?" Ranko asked evenly, in her experience showing interest in these situations didn't help when and if you wanted to back out.
The three girls pulled out a poster from nowhere, it was amazing how much that seemed to happen, showing an illustration of two leotard clad girls who were in the process of beating each other up with rhythmic gymnastics equipment. Pointing at the diagram one of the girls explained. "The schools champions fight with the techniques of rhythmic gymnastics."
"I'm not sure I get it but I'm willing to give it a go. How about you Ranko?" Akane said, causing the girls to swarm around her giving them their thanks.
Great, now Akane was helping to pressure her into it. "I guess so. I can help you train if nothing else." Ranko sighed; sometimes she felt she was too nice for her own good.
Ranma sat up against one of the dojo walls as Ranko and Akane sparred against each other using rhythmic gymnastic clubs, the only tool were even moderately good at using, they hadn't even worked out how to use the ribbon yet. "How long did it take for you to get busted?" Ranko asked as she Akane broke off from their latest exchange of blows to take a small break.
"It only took around four minutes for the teacher to work it out. I thought it would've taken them longer to find out but I didn't know that it's supposed to be easy to learn how to read if you already speak the language." Ranma said as he picked up one of the balls lying next to him and started to spin it on his finger.
"Why weren't you just upfront about being blind anyway?" Akane asked, she still couldn't work out why he didn't want people to know about it. He'd gone as far as making her, and apparently Ranko, swear not to tell anyone else, Genma simply didn't tell as he didn't want to depreciate his main bargaining chip.
"Because blindness is a weakness, no martial artist willingly announces they have weaknesses." Ranma said as though it should have been obvious to anyone.
"But your blind fighting technique more than covers the weakness." Akane said, pointing out what she believed to be a flaw in Ranma's argument.
"It covers up one weakness and leaves others in its place. If people knew how I did my blind fighting technique and were skilled enough they could easily take advantage of it and leave me practically defenceless." Ranma said, his tone making it clear that he was not going to elaborate any further.
Before the following silence was allowed to get to awkward Ranko and Akane simultaneously agreed to recommence their sparring match. Ranma sat silently critiquing the girls' abilities for a while but he quickly became bored. It wasn't long before he came up with an amusing idea and a large smile grew on his face. As Akane ran in to try a different combination of attacks Ranma threw the ball straight into Ranko's clubs knocking them out of her hands and leaving Akane, who had already committed herself to the attack, to hit Ranko in the head giving him a small laugh.
As Ranko picked herself up Akane turned and glared at Ranma out of force of habit, knowing it wouldn't have any affect on him. "What did you do that for? We asked you to join us because Ranko thought you might know how to use some of these tools, not so that you could distract us."
"Is that supposed to be an insult?" Ranma asked slightly annoyed and slightly confused, why would they assume he knew how to use the tools for what was a dominantly female sport. "Besides I just showed you two a great way ta use the ball."
"We already know how to use the ball, it's fairly obvious. I was hoping you might be able to workout how to use the ribbon, I'm pretty sure you know a lot more weapon styles than I do. You seem to be a walking book of martial arts knowledge." Ranko said, she was less annoyed than Akane as she had been around Ranma longer and was used to some of his annoying behaviour.
"I'll try and work it out." Ranma said as he picked up and started swirling a ribbon lazily around in the air. "How come you're sparring with these things anyway. Cant use your hands in the fight."
Akane sighed as she watched Ranma twirl the ribbon around with ease, even though it was nothing of great skill she had ended up tying herself up the last time she had tried it. "Bare handed blows are illegal, you can only attack with the tools." She explained.
As Ranko and Akane returned to their sparring Ranma started to experiment with the ribbon to learn the best way to make it move as he wanted. When he was quite confident he had it down pat, roughly ten minutes after he started, he decided to have some fun with Akane, it was only fair to annoy them both evenly. He waited until Akane was practicing parrying with the clubs to snake the ribbon out and wrap it around the clubs in her hands and yank them out of her grip and back to himself.
"You know you could simply tell us that you worked out how to use the ribbon instead of giving us a demonstration." Akane asked as she rubbed her head, Ranma's timing was good and he had elected to let Akane take a similar blow to the one Ranko had from his interference.
"But this way's so much more fun for me." Ranma replied honestly. "When's the match anyway?" Ranma asked, wanting to know how long they had to prepare because if they fought as they were now, and their opponents were used to the tools, he doubted they'd have much chance.
"Next Saturday." Ranko replied simply, thinking along the same lines as Ranma, though she had a more positive outlook.
"Well then, I guess I'd better start showing you how to use the ribbon then." Ranma said as he stood up for the first time since he had entered the dojo almost an hour ago.
Kodachi stood outside the main gate to the Tendo compound, wearing a thick cloak over her leotard to fight of the late night chill. Kodachi had found out about the Furinkan High team organizing replacements for themselves, what sore losers, and so she was here to test the skills of her new opponents, nothing like a midnight surprise attack to do that. Kodachi discarded her cloak, it wouldn't be anything more than a hindrance from here on, revealing one of her trademark black roses in her mouth and a large wooden mallet in her hands.
Leaping over the high wall of the compound she quickly and easily made her way to the house before entering through one of the first story windows. She quickly made her way through all of the rooms of the first floor and upon failing to find either of her opponents, or more appropriately stated, victims, she continued on to the second floor. She passed the second guest room, figuring it more likely that her opponents were in one of the smaller bedrooms, and opened one of the bedroom doors. She had found what she was looking for, lying on the bed was her first opponent, Akane.
She slowly made her way towards the bed and dropped the black rose down onto Akane's sleeping form, it was polite to leave a calling card so people knew you had visited. She hefted her mallet over her head and was preparing to bring it down on Akane's shoulder, just enough damage to ensure Akane forfeited, when someone bumped into her from behind. She turned around silently to find that it was a man wearing a dark blue or black, the moonlight coming in from the window wasn't strong making it hard to tell which, ninja outfit that had bumped into her and that there were two more like him entering the room.
She did not know who they were but didn't want to risk that they were there to stop her from testing her opponents so she clocked the first one over the head, knocking him out in a single blow. Unfortunately for her the other two attacked her, calling out their battle cries as they did so, after she had knocked out their ally waking Akane up.
Akane took exception to waking up with three people brawling in the middle of her room in the middle of the night and so she instantly joined in on the fight. The two ninja were quickly knocked out of the fight by Akane and Kodachi leaving Kodachi to face off against Akane, who was royally pissed about her room being trashed. "What are you doing here? And who are those three?" Akane growled as she indicated at the limp forms of the ninja.
"I'm simply here to test your abilities. I have no idea who those three are." Kodachi replied as she prepared to attack Akane again. Akane found it disturbing that there were at least three ninja sneaking around her house while she slept, not to mention Kodachi. It was also kind of sad that she would have felt more comfortable if the ninja had cameras with them, at least then she could have chalked it up to Nabiki having pictures of her taken, not that that would have been a good thing but at least she would've known why they were there.
Akane pushed those thoughts out of her head as Kodachi attacked her with her mallet. Dodging the attack easily Akane countered with a kick aimed at Kodachi's torso, it missed by a fraction of an inch. Kodachi and Akane exchanged a few more blows, neither of them taking any serious damage, before Akane was able to disarm Kodachi by kicking the mallet out of her hands. Now that Kodachi was disarmed she was at a major disadvantage, her style specialized in the use of weapons, and Akane was able to force her towards her bedroom window.
Akane was about to land a stunning blow on Kodachi when six more ninja, this time with swords drawn, burst into the room, after hearing the commotion, distracting her from Kodachi. Kodachi was no fool, she decided to let the ninja test Akane's skills for her, she didn't have much chance against the group of ninja or Akane without a weapon. She slid open the window and climbed out the window before jumping down to the ground, leaving Akane to fend off the ninja.
Akane was able to quickly dispose of the ninja, while they were more skilled and better equipped than the hentai horde they were easier to beat, the advantages they had couldn't make up for the shear numbers of the hentai horde. With all of the ninja temporarily out of commission Akane left to search the house for any more intruders.
Kuno strode confidently along the streets of Nerima with twenty five ninja silently following him from the rooftops. The vile sorcerer would meet his end tonight, his folly the cause of his own demise, he had spoken of his weakness when he believed Kuno to have passed out. As he arrived at the Tendo compound's main gate he wasted no time in opening the gate and entering the compound. Upon entering the compound he saw a figure entering the house through one of the first floor windows. He would have to make sure his loves were safe from any danger before he faced the vile sorcerer once more.
He indicated for his group of loyal, recently hired, ninja to split up into small groups and sent a majority of them off to find the sorcerer while he, and a small group of ninja, went to check on his loves. He ran to the front door and had one of his ninja pick the lock on the door so as to gain silent entry into the house. Once in he moved slowly through the first floor searching for the intruder. On finding no trace of the intruder on the first floor he quickly headed to the second floor, where Ranko and Akane's rooms were located, he knew this as he had purchased the information from Nabiki, now believing it more likely that his loves were in danger.
He quickly made his way into the upstairs guest room with several ninja following closely behind him. Everything seemed fine but he wanted to move closer to Ranko so as to make sure. It was a mistake. As he stood their looking over her two battle cries sounded from elsewhere on the second floor waking Ranko, who had been forcibly taught to wake up at the slightest disturbance.
Standing over Ranko when she woke up was quite a dangerous place to be as it was where Genma always was when he invoked the Saotome surprise attack. So when Ranko woke, her sleep fogged mind simply registered a figure standing over her and instantly assumed it was Genma. Kuno was sent sailing across the room, through the closed window before landing in the koi pond. Shortly after Kuno touched down in the koi pond Ranko became aware that something was off, it wasn't dawn yet and there were six other people in the room with her.
As they drew out their swords Ranko amended her previous conclusion, there were six other hostile people in the room with her. Deciding to work out what exactly was going on later she prepared to defend herself. She easily dodged all of their initial attacks and knocked two of them out before they were able to prepare another attack. The other four were dropped just as easily as their colleagues, the small amount of time that it took to beat them was a clear indication that fighting the hentai horde had greatly improved her ability to fight groups of people.
It took a little while for her to remember about the person she had thrown out the window on reflex, she wasn't even sure she had done it at first but when she saw the broken window it became obvious that she had. She opened the window, being careful not to cut herself on the scattered broken glass, before hopping down off the roof and finding a dripping wet Kuno, a pretty good indication that he was the one sent out the window, facing off against... Kodachi, with several ninja lying unconscious on the ground surrounding them.
"So brother dear, it was your ninja who interrupted my fun. What are you doing here anyway?" Kodachi asked as she snapped her ribbon at Kuno.
As Kuno dodged her attacks, with more effort than he would have liked. "I could ask you the same thing my twisted sister." Kuno sneered before trying to make his way past her. "Move damn you woman, I need to go help my loyal ninja for surely they are already fighting the vile sorcerer and will need my assistance."
"I could care less about your ninja or your fantasies brother dear." Kodachi said as she blocked Kuno's movements and started attacking him once again. Even though she wanted to stay and beat up the Kuno siblings, Kuno siblings that was a scary thought, Ranko ran off to find Ranma, not liking what she had heard from Kuno, the ninja were after Ranma and she didn't know how many there were, besides she could let them duke it out, come back and beat up the winner.
She quickly ran around the outside of the house looking for Ranma and was about to head in to search the inside of the house when she caught sight of Akane hunched over something just outside the dojo. Rushing over she was shocked to see Akane crouching over Ranma, whose face was contorted in pain, applying pressure to a small number of what she assumed were sword wounds on his arms and torso. When Akane noticed Ranko's presence she looked up at her with a pale face and said in shock. "He needs a doctor."
Ranma was running through various katas in the dojo, all the lights were out so as not to wake anyone else, when he noticed the presence of somebody he didn't know entering the Tendo compound. Deciding that it would be fine to leave them to their own devices, he couldn't sense any bad intentions coming from the person, he started up his workout once again. It wasn't long until he stopped his workout again, over twenty people had just entered the compound, one of which was both familiar and hostile. Kuno.
Ranma took a moment to ponder why Kuno would turn up to the Tendo dojo at midnight with over twenty other people. He smacked himself in the head when he worked it out. Considering Kuno's obviously warped view of reality he may as well have demanded that Kuno come and attack him with ninja, at least he was assuming they were ninja. He must admit though, he was surprised at how fast Kuno had organized a small army of ninja, it was less than twelve hours ago that he had beaten up the deranged kendoist.
He wasn't given much more time to berate himself or ponder how exhaustive Kuno's resources were though as the dojo door slid open and five ninja stepped inside. "Let me guess, you've been sent by Kuno to kill the vile sorcerer?" Ranma asked, his brow creased in irritation. Taking their quiet menacing laugh as a yes Ranma stepped into a casual stance awaiting their attack. He didn't have to wait long, the ninja drew their swords then charged straight at him. The fight had barely lasted five seconds before all the ninja were lying on the ground unconscious.
As the entire Tendo house was in the range of his blind fighting technique he was able to work out that Ranko and Akane were easily defeating the other ninja, Kuno and the person he didn't know. Ranma smiled a smile devoid of happiness as an idea came into his head. He walked over to one of the fallen ninja and picked up his sword. Running his finger along the blade he sighed, he liked the shirt he was wearing.
It had been a week since the Kuno siblings, and Kuno's ninja, had invaded the Tendo compound and that made it the day of the rhythmic gymnastics wrestling match between Furinkan High and St. Bacchus. "So which of us is going to take on Kodachi?" Akane asked, really hoping it would be her. Since Kodachi didn't actually have anything to do with the ninja, Ranko and Akane had, reluctantly, agreed that it wouldn't be right to give her the same treatment they were giving Kuno. The way the had been laying into Kuno every morning was violent enough that the hentai horde, who had taken daily beatings for weeks, had unanimously decided to disband in the interest of their safety.
So since they couldn't hurt Kodachi they both wanted the next best thing, beating her at the rhythmic gymnastics wrestling competition. Both of them were arguing that they had the more valid claim to fight her, Ranko because she was Ranma's sister and Akane because she was Ranma's friend and fiancée, that's how bad she wanted to fight Kodachi, she was actually supporting the engagement for the time being. After another five minutes of their argument going nowhere they turned to Ranma to sort it out. "Ranma, who do you think should fight Kodachi?" they asked in sickeningly sweet voices.
Ranma thought about this seriously for a moment, yes he was capable of being serious when the situation called for it, it was just that it was normally more fun to not be serious. Ranko definitely had more chance of winning against Kodachi and so for that reason he decided the best person to fight Kodachi would be... Akane, she was the one who needed the most practice. He wisely decided to keep his reasons for choosing her quiet though, no need to get pounded, his wounds were still healing, the cuts had been fairly deep, though not life threatening, and he didn't want them opened again, scratch that he simply didn't want to be pounded. "I think Akane should fight Kodachi." Ranma said shortly, earning him a hug from Akane, making him feel rather uncomfortable, he wasn't used to recieving hugs, let alone from girls.
The announcer stepped into the middle of the ring that had been set up in the centre of the St. Bacchus schools gymnasium. "In this corner, from St. Bacchus School for girls. Kodachi Kuno!" The announcer said as she pointed at where Kodachi stood in her corner dressed in a black leotard with a large picture of a rose running around the middle. "And in this corner, from Furinkan High School. Akane Tendo!" She continued, pointing at Akane who was dressed in a plain yellow leotard. After calling both contestants to the centre she had them, grudgingly, shake hands before starting the match.
Akane started the match by asking Ranko, her second, to throw her a ribbon, yes a ribbon, after a week of training she was now able to use the ribbon with a fair amount of skill and barely ever got it caught up. Kodachi had chosen to start with the rope. Akane took up the offensive first, trying to score a direct hit on Kodachi with the ribbon, however Kodachi was able easily block all of Akane's attacks and managed to make the first hit. It turned out that the rope was not rope but was in fact a rod, Akane found that out the hard way when it connected with the top of her head.
Now that she had scored a single hit with the rod she discarded it, not liking her chances of scoring another hit with it now that her opponent knew that it was a rod. Kodachi called for clubs and received them a second later. Akane followed suit, believing herself to have the advantage in a battle of clubs as it was the tool that could be best used with traditional methods of fighting. She was correct in her assumption and she was soon able to take the upper hand of the fight, giving far betting than she was taking.
Kodachi tried to use another one of her tricks to win back the advantage but it ended up working against her. She pressed a button on the handle of the clubs causing the retractable spikes to spring forth, Akane didn't bother to complain as she doubted the referee, who was from St. Bacchus, to do anything about it and as she wanted to beat Kodachi by her own skill not by default. As she went to attack Akane was able to bring up her own clubs in time to block what would've otherwise been a very painful hit. Kodachi was unable to pull her clubs back as the spikes had ended up stuck to the heads of Akane's clubs, putting the two contestants into an arm wrestle. The arm wrestle was won easily by Akane and she was able to dislodge Kodachi's clubs from her own giving her a few seconds to attack a defenceless Kodachi.
Kodachi acted the instant the hoop she had called for landed in her hands, throwing it at near point blank range from Akane. How Akane managed to dodge the attack she would probably never know but she was certainly grateful for it as she saw it cut through the top of one of the corner posts. Akane was forced to dive out of the way as Kodachi sent what she assumed was a ribbon attack in her direction, where she got the ribbon from Akane had no idea, she certainly hadn't called for it. She was given no time to ponder this though as the Razor hoop returned towards her courtesy of Kodachi's ribbon. As the hoop continued on past Kodachi Akane struck at Kodachi's hands causing her to let go of ribbon, leaving it to be carried out of the ring along with the hoop.
Kodachi was loosing the match, haven taken both more and harder hits than Akane, and was starting to get a little desperate. Again pulling tools out from apparently no-where, clubs this time, Kodachi called out, the first time she'd bothered to speak during the match. "Now witness my skill peasant. The blow of a thousand hands. AT FULL FRENZY!" Kodachi's hands started to blur and for the first time during the match she was able to drive Akane back. Akane took numerous blows as she tried to defend the seemingly large amount of clubs. Ranko took up the initiative and threw Akane a ball without her having asked. Akane jumped into the air and batted it back down and into Kodachi's hands, disarming her of the multiple clubs she had been using.
Akane called for a rope, she wanted to end the match soon, she had taken a fair beating from Kodachi's last attack, and the fastest way she could think to do it was through a ring out. Kodachi picked up two of her fallen clubs and charged at Akane. Akane made a loop in the rope and positioned it so that Kodachi's hand passed through it during her attack. When Kodachi's hand entered the loop she pulled the loop tight and used it to throw Kodachi from the ring. Akane was glad, the match should be over now, though Kodachi's manic laughter suggested it probably wasn't. Pulling a whistle from her leotard that was tied around her neck Kodachi blew into it. The result that followed was rather unexpected, instead of Kodachi landing out of the ring, the ring moved to catch her. Kodachi laughed her shrill laugh as she happily claimed. "Out is an impossibility for me."
Akane was annoyed, she wanted to end the match quickly but it didn't seem to be an option. She started to come up with a new strategy when one of the voices from the crowd reached her ears. "Just keep throwing her this way Akane." Looking out into the crowd it became that it was Ranma giving out the command. She decided to go with what Ranma said, she didn't have a new strategy yet and he seemed to know what he was talking about. Akane sighed as she set up the loop again. Kodachi simply laughed at her for using a failed tactic again and ran in and attacked her, this time scoring a few blows before she was thrown from the ring again only to have the ring catch her. This was repeated twice more, with Kodachi getting more hits in each time. Akane was close to exhaustion, if it didn't work this time she was going to lose for sure, why she was still trusting Ranma after his plan failed to change the outcome she didn't know, she just hoped she'd be rewarded for it.
Kodachi came in for another charge knowing that Akane would not be able to take many more hits before she collapsed. She was feeling rather good about herself, she was about to actually win a match through combat instead of default. As she was thrown from the ring once more she blew her whistle and watched the ring following underneath her until all of a sudden it stopped and she continued on, she was going to land out of the ring, that shouldn't have been possible. Focusing on the ring again she noticed the problem, the ring had run into the front row bleachers and was able to go no further. She closed her eyes and awaited the crash that would surely happen any second now. It never came. Opening her eyes nervously she found herself looking into the face of Ranma; he had caught her before she'd crashed into the stands.
"This is just great." Ranma said with a voice that conveyed as much sarcasm as he was possibly able. "Just what I need a psycho lunatic gymnast chasing after me."
"C'mon, it's not that bad. If it helps she's good looking." Ranko snickered, unable to keep a large grin off of her face. "You've also got stuff in common. You're both martial artists." Ranko said, her smile growing larger.
"Yeah, you make a good point Ranko, how's that kendoist working out for you?" Ranma asked evenly. "Just think if I marry her you get Kuno as a brother in law." Ranma replied, dampening Ranko's spirits and considerably brightening his in the process.
"It's your own fault for catching her." Akane said as she came out from behind one of the changing curtains in the St. Bacchus' visitor dressing rooms.
"She was coming right at me. I couldn't just sit there and do nothing as she crashed into the stands." Ranma said, pleading his case in the hopes that it would make his newest problem go away.
"I would've." Replied Ranko and Akane without missing a beat, Akane only wasting her breath, the fact that she would've let Kodachi drop obvious by the fact that she was the one who threw her in the first place. After that the conversation slowly started to become even more mundane.
It was as the trio started to leave the room that they heard something colliding with one of the external walls with an increasing intensity. At first small cracks started to form a lattice on the wall but they quickly gave way to larger, deeper, cracks before a large, roughly circular, section of the wall was completely knocked in. Standing in the newly created hole in the wall was a girl with long purple hair. The clothes that she wore, a leather breastplate over silk pants and a silk shirt, and the twin bonborri that she carried, not to mention the fact that she had just partially knocked down a wall, indicated that she was a warrior. When she spoke it became instantly obvious that she was not Japanese. Still her words "Ranko. I kill." clearly stated her business.
"What are you doing in Japan Shampoo?" asked Ranko as she dodged to the side of a bonborri that had just been thrown at her head. As Shampoo pressed her attack it became apparent that they were of roughly equal skill, Shampoo being the slightly better of the two.
Akane was about to go in and help, she had gotten used to working together with Ranko in the short time they had known each other, when Ranma grabbed her by the shoulder. "Ranko can still beat her. You only want to step in if she becomes desperate." Ranma said, projecting a large amount of authority. Akane went to move in anyway but was unable to break free of Ranma's suddenly incredibly strong grip.
Ranko continued to evade Shampoo's attacks as she tried to work out a way to lose Shampoo so that she could get away or at least make it outside where she would have more space to move. She saw her chance as she moved next to one of the changing rooms. Ripping the curtain off its rail she flung it at Shampoo and used the few seconds' distraction it gave her to hide in one of the large lockers.
Shampoo smashed her bonborri against the locker next to the one Ranko was currently hidden in before racing out of the hole she had created in the wall, believing Ranko to have run off through said hole. As Ranko made her way out from the partially damaged locker Akane rounded on Ranma. "Why didn't you let me help her?" Akane demanded of Ranma only to be waved off by Ranma telling her to ask Ranko. Akane wasted a moment trying to work out how someone who was normally nice could be such a big jerk at totally inappropriate times before turning to Ranko for answers to her questions.
"Let's head home. I'll explain on the way." Ranko said as she walked out the door, not using the hole in the wall in case Shampoo was still around.
Ranma, Ranko and Genma tiredly followed their guide, a middle aged Chinese man wearing a communist worker's uniform, into one of the villages located in the Qinghai province of China. "This, Mr. and Miss, customers, is the village of Amazons. This village women very strong" Said the guide in broken Japanese.
As they reached the centre of the village Ranko and the guide stopped to watch as two women, one of them was Shampoo and the other was an extremely large woman who looked to be almost pure muscle, fought on top of a large log that had been elevated off the ground. Shampoo ducked under one of her opponent's attacks and retaliated by uppercutting her with one of her bonborri sending her flying off of the log. Ranma and Genma had continued on, not bothering to pay much attention to the display, and now sat at a table located near the log stuffing their faces of food, Ranma assuming they could pay later and Genma planning on weaselling his way out of paying for it. These ideas were driven out of their minds as one of Shampoo's bonborri crashed down on the table just in between them.
The large crack from Shampoo's bonborri breaking the table in half caught the guide's attention and he ran over with a shocked look on his face, Ranko following behind him, shaking her head at Ranma and Genma's stupidity. "You there. Why you steal my prize? She say." The guide translated, though judging from Shampoo's yelling it was fairly obvious he was cutting out some obscene language from his translation. At Ranma and Genma's blank looks the guide translated Shampoo's explanation. "Every year, this day is martial arts show. I am now champion, this my prize."
As Ranko started to berate Ranma and Genma Shampoo turned on her. "You, why you let stupid males eat my feast? You should have more control over them." The guide translated once more. Ranko sighed, she hated cleaning up after those two, before working out, with help from the guide, that Shampoo wanted a fight with Ranko, the only female and therefore only warrior by Amazon standards, to reclaim her honour.
The fight between Ranko and the now fairly exhausted Shampoo was over quickly, Ranko easily disarming Shampoo before knocking her off of the log. As Shampoo was flying through the air the guide's face took on a look of abject horror. After Shampoo got up and dusted herself off she slowly made her way over to where the judge was holding up Ranko's hand in a show of victory with a hard look in her eyes. Shampoo grabbed hold of Ranko's jaw and kissed her on the cheek causing a shocked gasp to sound out from the crowd.
Their guide wasted no time in grabbing Ranko, Shampoo's intended victim, and Genma, the one paying his fees, by the hands and forcibly leading them out of the village leaving a confused Ranma behind, the guide only had two hands after all. The guide made his explanation on the run. "We must run customers, young Miss just getting the kiss of death."
"Kiss of death? That sounds like something out of a gangster movie." Akane interrupted Ranko's story for the second time. The first interruption being Akane's, blurted out, question about Ranko's sexual preferences, the conversation going completely over Ranma's head, after having heard that Shampoo had kissed her, before falling, almost instantly, into an embarrassed silence. Ranko simply replied that she was straight, silently wondering why Akane was so embarrassed about asking a simple question.
"It pretty much is, it's a promise to track the recipient to the ends of the earth and kill them." Ranko said gloomily as she thought of some of Shampoo's previous attacks.
"All this because you're a girl from outside her village who beat her in a fight?" Akane asked sympathetically.
"Yep, I'm surprised that she turned up here though, I haven't seen her in over a month, and I thought she must've given up too." Ranko replied sadly, now she had a third lunatic to deal with.
Ranko and Akane walked through the corridors of Furinkan high as they made their way outside to where they were going to meet Ranma for lunch. When they heard a large thumping noise and saw cracks forming on one of the walls they had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen. Shampoo burst through the wall a few seconds later and Ranko wondered why she hadn't used the door that was two metres away from her before deciding she didn't care, if Shampoo didn't want to use the element of surprise who was she to suggest it.
As Shampoo slowly advanced on her Ranko turned and started to run, hoping to make it outside before Shampoo caught her so she'd have room for movement. Akane turned around and started to follow after her with Shampoo following along soon after her. As Shampoo chased after them she threw her bonborri at Ranko's back, narrowly missing Akane, who was currently between them, and Ranko. As Akane turned one of the corners she came to a stop and waited for Shampoo to near the corner before shoving her foot out and tripping her over allowing them time to get outside, she didn't want to risk being killed by a miss aimed attack.
When Shampoo made it outside Ranko was waiting for her in a fighting stance and Akane was standing away from her, not in a fighting stance but ready to jump in if necessary. Shampoo was not going to risk leaving Akane waiting to help out Ranko but she hadn't done enough that she needed to be killed so she sprung towards Akane, catching her by surprise and moved behind her before dropping a bonborri and tapping a spot at the base of her neck causing her to drop to the ground unconscious. Now that she had removed the threat of someone interfering she picked up her bonborri, turned to face Ranko and prepared to fight her, wishing to get her task over with so that she could return to her village.
Ranko was distracted as she watched Akane fall to the ground without knowing the cause, other than Shampoo had done something to her. As Ranko was distracted Shampoo ran in, she may not have used surprise attacks but she had nothing against taking advantage of a distracted opponent. Ranko took notice of Shampoo moving in a little too late to completely dodge her opening move and ended up with one of Shampoo's bonborri slamming into her left shoulder. It didn't break her shoulder but it sure as hell hurt, she wouldn't be using her left arm if she could avoid it but that was unlikely.
Ranko continued to fend off Shampoo's attacks, only taking two light hits now that her focus was back where it should be. Ranko was able to knock Shampoo's bonborri out of her hands when they were still for a moment after they had just collided together after Shampoo had attempted to crush her head between them. As soon as she had she wished she hadn't because Shampoo drew a large sword out of nowhere, she really needed to learn how to do that trick. Any thoughts of attack slipped from Ranko's mind as she narrowly dodged Shampoo's sword attacks, due to the swords lighter weight the attacks were much faster. Deciding that now would be a good time to retreat and rethink the situation Ranko prepared to make a break for it, feeling no shame in doing so; tactical retreats were a founding principal of the Saotome School.
Ranko ran off in the direction of the place that she and Akane were supposed to meet up with Ranma. Even though she no longer thought much of his fighting skills after how badly he had been hurt the night the ninja invaded she still figured he'd be more useful than anyone else in close proximity to her. As Ranko neared one of the corners of the school building Ranma stepped into her vision and turned so that he was facing her and the oncoming Shampoo. Ranko came to a stop beside Ranma and prepared to fight once more only to have Ranma take a couple of steps in front of her.
Shampoo stopped a few metres away from where Ranma now stood, next to the corner of the building, in between her and her target. "Move or I kill." She stated coldly, she hadn't hurt Akane as she had no grudge against her but Ranma had been a part of her loss of honour. When Ranma refused to move after a few seconds Shampoo became impatient and charged at him, slightly unnerved by the smile on his face. Ranma waited until Shampoo was within two metres of him before stepping to the side in a casual movement allowing the bokken that had been aimed at his neck to miss and continue on to hit the onrushing Shampoo in the forehead. The force of the blow and the fact that Shampoo had run straight into it caused her to drop to the ground unconscious.
Kuno's timing was really something; he always seemed to come along at a time that was most inconvenient for someone, at least it had worked in their favour this time. "You really should watch where you swing that thing Kuno." Ranma said as Kuno went to check out how badly Shampoo's injuries were.
"Vile sorcerer, I shall smite thee." Kuno said in rage as he turned to Ranma, forgetting about Shampoo for the moment.
"You probably should take her to the nurse's office first. It's what a noble samurai would do after all." Ranma said smugly, returning Kuno's attention back to Shampoo.
Kuno had to, grudgingly; admit that Ranma was right; he wouldn't be much of a samurai if he didn't help a maiden in trouble. "Stay here fiend, I shall be right back to deal with you." Kuno said as he picked up Shampoo and started to walk away. As Ranko dragged Ranma off to where she had left Akane Ranma just shrugged, he didn't feel like beating up Kuno today.
A/N: Another chapter finished, yay. I did it, I've gone and made Ranma blind, that's what I was hinting at in the last chapters A/N. Ranma never saw, looked, watched etc, also explains him not being able to read but speaking better, it was also the secret he told Akane and it even relates to his ability to stomach Akane's food, that'll be explained later. Probably kind of disappointing, especially the way it was brought out, but that couldn't be helped it would've been worse the longer I held it off and realistically he'd be found out pretty fast during a reading lesson, not to mention he's living with Nabiki, she hasn't spent much time with him but she'll work it out soon, and Kasumi, I figure she'd keep quiet about it, don't know why I just do. I now know why the handful of other people who have done a Ranma is blind fic always had him upfront about it but I just couldn't see him openly admit it to everyone he met. I would've mentioned it in the summary but figured it wasn't necessary as it's not a major part of the story, it's mainly to help alter people's perception of him, mainly Ranko and Akane's perception, they're rather protective.
As to Ryoga's OOC behaviour in the previous chapter here are some dodgy explanations as to the why of it. Ryoga fighting girls could easily have changed since he was trying to track down Ranma, Ranma's path changed therefore so did his, he could've easily met a female dojo master. When he went to kill Ranma originally he got over excited at the chance to end his quest for vengeance, he'd been trying to find him for years. The second time he went to kill Ranma, he didn't want to waste the opportunity because it could've been years before he found him again. And the third time, he was pumped of adrenaline from the fight. Though probably a better reason for all three attempts on Ranma's life would be author induced temporary insanity. I just needed a reason for Akane and Ranko to step in on the fight.
If anyone wants me to reply to their reviews please put "please respond" or something in the review because otherwise I just take questions as rhetorical ones. Also anyone who was interested about me enough to look at my author's page I updated it, figured I should now that I'm actually writing something.
Again, the next chapter should be out within the next three weeks.