Hikaru Gosunkugi, a scrawny brown haired boy with large bags under his eyes, was currently dressed in his Furinkan High sports uniform. Needless to say, he was in gym class. Not that that meant he was actually partaking in any physical activities. He had instead opted to spend his time spying on the girls' gym class through one of the lower windows of the schools gymnasium. As he watched them he was paying attention to one girl in particular, Akane Tendo. He had even brought a camera with him to take pictures of any memorable moments, and judging by how often the shutter was going off he thought there were quite a few.
As he spent his time worshipping his goddess from afar he couldn't help himself from brooding over Ranma Saotome. If only he hadn't come along he may have stood a chance, however slight, with Akane, but now, alas, she was engaged. 'That fool Saotome.' He thought, repeating it over and over in his head as mantra while he tried to think of words to better describe his hatred of Ranma to himself. Why he was trying to think of words so that he could convey his feelings to himself he did not know. The fact that he was going to talk to himself, the first sign of madness, probably wouldn't have bothered him even if he had noticed, in Nerima people waited until way past the second sign of madness, having yourself answer back, before they started to consider you crazy, the Kuno's were a good example.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he failed to notice when three of his fellow classmates walked over to him until they started talking to him. "Hey Gosunkugi. Taking pics of Akane again?" Queried the first, already knowing the answer, it was far from the first time he had done it.
"Make me copies of all of them." The second enthused happily as the three crowded around Gosunkugi.
"Me too." Added the third, the casual way in which he had requested the copies suggesting that it was a rather common practice for him.
As the three of them huddled closer to Gosunkugi and started to badger him so as to ensure they got what they wanted Ranma moved over to find out what was so interesting. Gym may have been his favourite subject but that didn't stop him from getting easily bored without any decent competition or challenging exercises, he would've regretted convincing the staff that he was able to participate in gym class if the alternative wasn't even worse. "Hey what's up?" Ranma asked, directing his question mainly at... Hiroshi, yeah that sounded about right, who he had started to get along fairly well with.
The three boys shuffled their feet nervously, not wanting to tell him they were trying to get pictures of his fiancée. Even though they were among the few who knew that he was blind, they had paid Nabiki an excessive amount to confirm the rumours, they were still fairly sure he could kick their collective asses on a whim, the sword was also rather intimidating. They were sparred the effort of coming up with a decent lie when Gosunkugi yanked a hair off of Ranma's head before running away as fast as his legs would carry him. "Who was that?" Ranma asked, rather confused at what had just transpired.
Gosunkugi continued to run until he was on the opposite side of the school grounds to Ranma before he allowed himself to stop and catch his breath. With air back in his lungs he wasted no time in strapping some candles to his head with a strip of white cloth before pulling a straw voodoo doll from his clothes and tucking Ranma's hair into its chest. "That damn Saotome." He said as he took out a large nail and a small wooden mallet, it had taken a while but he had started talking to himself. As he was about to drive the nail into the voodoo doll someone's voice interrupted him causing him to miss the nail and hit his thumb instead.
He quickly looked around to check who had spoken to him and became worried when it turned out to be Kuno, upperclassmen usually didn't disturb him unless they wanted to beat him up. "What do you want?" he asked nervously.
"You have some knowledge of magic do you not?" Kuno asked, declining to answer Gosunkugi's question. Upon seeing the peasant in front of him using some kind of enchantment he held hope that he would be able to help him discover the vile sorcerer's weakness but now that he was practically cowering at his feet in fear his hopes were lessened, still he likely knew more than most others when it came to various magic.
Gosunkugi merely nodded meekly in response. "Good. You shall assist me in defeating the vile sorcerer that is Ranma Saotome." Kuno stated proudly as he struck a flashy pose, not even considering that Gosunkugi would be unwilling to help him. For once though his view of reality actually aligned with the real world. At the mere mention of defeating Ranma Kuno had ensured Gosunkugi's help, regardless of what Kuno would ask of him.
"What do you want me to do?" Asked Gosunkugi, his voice had slightly more confidence to it now. He wasn't sure he would be able to do what he was asked but he would certainly try if it meant there was a chance of separating Ranma and Akane.
Gosunkugi lay in wait for Ranma to come around the corner of the school hallway that he was currently in. In his hands he carried a large cardboard box that was full of various creatures that many people were phobic of, mainly various types of bugs and reptiles. His plan was simple; throw the contents of the box onto Ranma as he passed by on his way outside after school to see if he was scared of any of them. This was the second of his plans, the first was trying to work out any weaknesses Ranma may have had by secretly photographing him and analysing the pictures. It was a complete failure but it had at least allowed him to learn Ranma's daily schedule which had been useful in planning this attempt.
As Ranma rounded the corner Gosunkugi threw the box, and its contents, at Ranma. As Ranma brushed the various animals off himself he growled, which was more than enough to send Gosunkugi running scared. Ranma needed to find a way to deter Kuno and Gosunkugi from looking for his weakness, until now it had been a mere annoyance but the only weakness of his they could find by following this path was not one that was safe to be toyed with.
Ranma headed out of the school building by himself, Ranko and Akane were on cleanup duty today, on his way home. He smiled at that thought, he already thought of the Tendo dojo as home even though he'd only been there a little over three weeks. It wasn't that surprising though, the longest they had stayed anywhere while travelling was little over a month, just enough time to learn the techniques Genma had wanted him to, or wanted Ranko to as the case had been more recently.
He pushed such trivial thoughts away for the time being and returned to thinking of how to deal with his current problem, Kuno and Gosunkugi trying to work out his weaknesses. His train of thought on this topic was short lived. It died the second he heard the sound, the one sound that held the ability to stop him, frozen, in his tracks. After the sound had continued on for what seemed like an eternity to him, he managed to bring his hands up to cover his ears, attempting block out the sound. It failed to completely block out the sound and he soon found himself balled up on the ground shaking as his mind struggled to fight off the memories the sound was resurfacing.
It was roughly three minutes later that the noise finally stopped. The demon that made the sound had been chased off by the sound of the rushing feet of people coming to check on him. With the creature gone he was able to block out the memories and slowly gain control of himself once more. As his breathing started to return to normal he took notice of the people around him. 'Damn, Ranko and Akane would be the ones to see this wouldn't they.' He cursed silently to himself.
"What do you want oyaji?" Ranma asked warily as he entered the dojo where Genma stood in the centre of the large room dressed in his gi waiting for Ranma.
"It seems that as I have been training Ranko you have let your own training slip so far as to be reduced to a snivelling coward. So I am going to train that weakness out of you." Genma stated before leaping at Ranma in a flying sidekick.
Ranma waited until Genma's foot was only a foot away from breaking his nose before he made even the slightest of movements. He didn't even to bother to move his feet from the ground as he leant to the side to dodge the attack before grabbing hold of his father's leg and throwing Genma, effortlessly, face first into the hardwood floor of the dojo. "I take it you've been talking to Ranko or Akane." Ranma said sardonically. As Genma was unable to retort, due to his mouth eating the floor, Ranma took a moment to enjoy the silence before asking "Now, what could make me act like that oyaji?"
Genma righted himself and sat down on the floor before he started to scratch his chin in thought. "Well I guess it could be..." Genma started, leaving Ranma to ponder whether Genma liked playing dumb or was just thoroughly stupid, it was hard to tell sometimes, "...cats?"
The simple mention of the word sent a large shiver down Ranma's spine before he nodded in response. Ranma walked over to Genma and pulled him to his feet by the collar of his gi so that they were faces were level and only inches apart forcing Genma to stare into his vacant eyes. "Do you remember what happened when you tried to get rid of that fear five years ago?" Ranma asked venomously.
As Genma started nodding hastily and Ranma let go of his gi leaving him to fall to the floor with a large thump. "I hope you've reconsidered any training you had planned cause if you try something, well you'd better hope you can stay awake a long time cause I won't be above killing you in your sleep." Ranma said in a cold, honest, voice before walking out of the dojo. Genma may not have been the brightest person but when it came to self preservation he was the expert and so he wisely decided to continue giving Ranko his undivided attention when it came to training.
"Ranma, can you please help us find Hanachiyo?" asked Kasumi as she and Nabiki scoured the dojo grounds.
"Hanachiyo?" Ranma asked, wanting to know what he was being asked to look for.
"She's my friends pet..." Kasumi started only to have Ranma cut her off.
"Never mind I think I've found her." Ranma said when he noticed two ki signatures coming from one of the bushes. He couldn't tell what type of animal Hanachiyo was because it was surrounded by the bushes ki, clouding his perception. It didn't matter he'd find out what type of animal it was soon enough. When he was a few metres from the bush Hanachiyo leapt out of it of her own accord making it easy enough for Ranma to tell it was a cat. Ranma froze for a moment before he started to shake.
Kasumi could tell something was wrong immediately, not that it was all that hard to work out. She quickly walked over and picked up Hanachiyo, which she correctly assumed was the cause of Ranma's odd behaviour, before giving her to Nabiki who stood roughly ten metres away. She was glad to see Ranma start to calm down now that Hanachiyo was away from him. "Are you okay Ranma?" Kasumi asked nervously.
"Y-yeah, I just need to get away from that thing." Ranma said with a small stutter before he headed into the house, still slightly shaking.
"Are you still shaking from earlier? What set you off anyway?" Ranko asked as Ranko sat down in the family room where she and Akane were presently watching TV.
"It seems Ranma here's an ailurophobe." Nabiki stated happily as she entered the family room slightly after Ranma, she had been, and still was, annoyed at Ranma when she had found out that he was blind and had managed to keep it from her for over two weeks.
"You're scared of cats?" Akane asked sceptically, how anyone could be scared of something so cute and cuddly was beyond her.
"MY FUTURE SON-IN-LAW IS SCARED OF CATS!" Soun wailed as he entered the room letting everyone within a two block radius to hear the news. Soun then went on to become a small fountain. As Ranko and Akane questioned him on his fear, Soun continued wailing and Nabiki started a running commentary on the situation Ranma's eyebrows started twitching in irritation.
Ranma was eventually saved from the rather annoying situation by an unlikely source... Genma, not that he had done it intentionally. "Alas it's true. Ranma has been scared of cats ever since I..." Genma started only to stop when he realized that what he was about to say would be self-incriminating.
The damage had already done. "You may as well tell us what you did pop. It's not like we'll think less of you for knowing how you got Ranma scared of cats." Ranko said.
"Okay." Genma sighed a little reluctantly. Kasumi entered the room, she had just put Hanachiyo away in her cage, just as Ranma walked out of the room, not wishing to hear what was about to be said.
"It was during the first year of our training voyage when Ranma was just five years old. I wished to train him in a powerful technique called the cat fist." Genma said as he recalled the events from so long ago. "You simply take fish sausages, tie them around the trainee and throw them into a pit full of starving cats."
Upon hearing this the faces' of the sane people in the room, the girls, took on looks of horror. Ranko had been wrong; their opinion of Genma had lessened.
"How rigorous." Soun said he wasn't horrified; he was simply awed at the training Ranma had undergone.
Genma nodded sagely and withdrew a book from inside of his gi. "This is the manual that led me to do it. But it contained a terrible trick." He said as he opened up the manual to the page that contained the start of the relevant section before handing the manual to Soun.
Soun quickly read through the page that Genma had indicated, it detailed the training in a similar manner to that which Genma had. "So Saotome, what's the trick?" Soun asked. Genma indicated for Soun to turn the page so he did so. Soun read through the page, with the girls reading over his shoulder, interested to learn the trick. The gist of the page was that only an idiot would use such a training method, the girls weren't surprised; they agreed with the book, Genma was an idiot.
Nabiki looked up from her desk as Kuno walked over to her during the ten minute break between second and third period. "What can I do for you today Kuno-baby?" Nabiki asked, happily anticipating the money she was about to receive.
"I wish for you to find out the laws of the Chinese Amazons, particularly the ones which relate to marriage." Kuno said tiredly, he had tried for days to convince Shampoo that while he understood her love for his glorious self he could not be her husband as his heart belonged to two others already, even he had his limits.
"Care to tell me why you want this information?" Nabiki asked at the odd, even for Kuno, request.
"It seems an Amazonian maiden has fallen for my manly charms and wishes me to marry her." Kuno said sadly, he hated to break a poor maiden's heart but it needed to be done.
"And this has what to do with their laws?" Nabiki asked knowing that couldn't be the full story, no girl she had ever met considered Kuno charming.
"I defeated her in glorious combat and by her laws that makes us wed." Kuno replied, describing their fight through his rose coloured glasses.
Nabiki decided that it was best to simply let the topic slide and move on to any other business Kuno had. "I'm sure that information can be found. Now, is that all for today?"
"Nay Nabiki that is not all. Regretfully, I have to ask you to put yourself in danger once more. It seems that my loves were not happy with my use of ninja in my fight against the vile sorcerer and so I need to know of a weakness that I may exploit by myself." Replied Kuno.
Something wasn't right with that statement. Ah that was it, Kuno knew that Akane and Ranko were annoyed that he sicked ninja onto Ranma, sure it was a vast understatement but he usually wasn't that insightful. "What gives you the impression that they didn't like you using ninja?" Nabiki asked curiously.
"My feisty valkryie told me so herself." Kuno stated proudly as he thought of his love.
"And when did she tell you this?" Nabiki asked, as far as she knew Ranko hadn't said a word to him in over a week.
"She visited me in my personal chambers late last night. She told me that I should free them of my own strength not someone else's. And that is why I need to know of the sorcerer's weaknesses." Kuno replied happily as he thought back to their wondrous meeting.
This was worrying, it seemed Kuno had gone beyond warping reality and moved on to straight out delusions. Ranko wouldn't have gone to visit kuno late at night and even if she had it would've only been to have the satisfaction of beating him up. But still, she'd check her surveillance footage just to make sure Ranko hadn't left last night. "It just so happens that I can help you out." Nabiki said as she placed her hand out in a common gesture that gave a simple instruction, place money in my hand if you want me to talk.
Kuno wasted no time in whipping out his wallet and forking over a very large, undisclosed, amount of money. "He's afraid of cats." Nabiki said as she counted the money. She and Ranma were now even as far as she was concerned, he withheld information from her and she told a violent lunatic with the intention of killing or severely beating him his weakness. She was being quite generous.
"Thank you Nabiki you have been most helpful. Now I bid you good day." Kuno said before he walked out of the classroom cackling manically. He had to go and have Gosunkugi set up a trap so that he would be able to fight Ranma with the largest advantage he could have.
Ranma and Ranko were heading towards their lockers to pick up their shoes before they went outside for lunch. When Ranma reached into his locker and found a note, he instantly scrunched it up and threw it away, it probably wasn't important and he couldn't be bothered to ask Ranko to read it for him. Not that Ranko needed to be asked in order for her to do something. As soon as Ranma had thrown the paper over his shoulder Ranko had gone and picked it up, opened it up and read it. She was quite surprised at what she read. 'Ranma help me. Terrible villains are holding me hostage in the gym. Sincerely Ranko.'
"Let's stop by the gym before we meet Akane okay." Ranko said. Ranma happily followed along behind her, judging by the way Ranko sounded it was likely Ranko was headed off to beat someone up and that was always made great light entertainment.
As Ranma and Ranko entered the gym Gosunkugi, who was currently wearing a school dress with his hands apparently tied up behind his back, called out from up on the stage "Oh Ranma, I'm so happy! You've come to rescue me."
Any other words he may have been about to say died in his throat as Ranko appeared in front of him and grabbed him by the collar so fast that she may have well as just teleported to him. "What do you think you're doing?" She said sharply, insulted by how he was trying to pass as her with such a bad disguise, as Ranma slowly made his way to the stage.
He nervously managed to get out "I can explain." Ranko let go of his collar, she didn't need to have hold of him to beat him up if his explanation was bad, and he slipped the loosely tied ropes over his head just as Ranma made it to the stage and stood close to Ranko. Gosunkugi's mood brightened considerably, it was time to spring his ingenious trap. "Hahaha, you've fallen into my trap Saotome." He said as he pulled a cord that was next to his head causing the trapdoor under Ranko's feet to... damn, wrong Saotome; it was supposed to be Ranma who fell to the room underneath the stage. Oh well, that's why he had a plan b. "Luckily I set up another trap." He said as he pulled a second cord, dropping a large tanuki statue on his head knocking him into the hole in the floor.
Ranma casually jumped into the room after Gosunkugi, it would be amusing listening to Gosunkugi trying to talk his way out of this one. It was a bad mistake. It seemed he should have looked before he leapt, figuratively speaking of course. Inside the room were around fifteen cats, there would have been more but Kuno had only given Gosunkugi a couple of hours notice. Gosunkugi pulled out a string of fish sausages and was going to hand it to Ranma when he noticed that the cats were already moving towards him and that he had already pulled himself into a shaking ball.
Gosunkugi was going to leave the room to inform Kuno that Ranma had fallen into the trap as he had been instructed to do but was unable as Ranko had stopped him before he could reach the exit. "You're not going anywhere, you're going to help me get the cats out of this room." Those words from Ranko drove all thoughts of getting Kuno out of his head, he would probably be beaten up by whoever he didn't help but he'd like to at least delay said beating as long as possible. They paused in their efforts to remove the cats from the room when Ranma suddenly stilled before moving around until he was on all floors.
Things had been bad when Ranma had been cowering on the floor but it became obvious that things had just become a lot worse when they started to feel an immense power radiating from Ranma, strong enough that it caused the air within a couple of centimetres of his body warp as though it were in an intense heat wave.
"Mr. Saotome, can't Ranma's fear of cats be cured?" Kasumi asked inquisitively from where she sat just behind Genma in the family Room facing towards the koi pond. She had been thinking about it since hearing of the cat fist training but had only just worked up the courage to ask Genma about it.
"I don't believe so Kasumi, I attempted to cure his fear of cats a few years ago but it went badly and things ended up worse then they were." Genma said sadly as he recalled the incident in question.
"How did things end up worse?" Kasumi asked before biting on her bottom lip in worry as she tried to think of what could have happened. "Wait, was this the cause of his blindness?" Kasumi asked, this question was asked not because she had a suspicion that it was true but because she hoped Ranma didn't have any more problems.
"Sadly yes." Genma sighed before falling silent as he nervously tried to work out how Kasumi knew about Ranma's blindness.
Kasumi picked up on this and said calmly "Everyone knows about Ranma's blindness now. I worked it out a few days after the three of you arrived, he told Akane, Nabiki worked it out roughly a week ago and I'm fairly certain daddy knows but is in denial about it." Instantly calming Genma's fears of the engagement being called off, thereby destroying his retirement plan. "So how did you try to cure Ranma's fear?"
"Around two years after the cat fist training Ranma's fear of cats started to slowly grow worse. So around five years ago I decided to try and cure Ranma's fear. I gathered up all the friendly cats I could find in the area and put them into a pit with Ranma. Everything was going fine, Ranma even seemed to relax for a while, until something he did set them off and in the chaos that followed his eyes were cut by their claws." Genma explained.
"At least you had good intentions. Is that all there is then?" Kasumi asked, back to her cheerful self.
"Well there is one more thing." He said a little sheepishly, it was amazing how easily Kasumi was able to make him talk. "When his fear of cats reaches its peak he yowls, and at that point he becomes uncontrollable."
"Are you okay Ranma?" Ranko asked nervously as slowly edged towards him. Ranma arched his back and started to hiss as she approached. When Ranko was just outside of Ranma's reach he lashed out in her general direction with his right hand, which was currently closed and being used like a paw, leaving three parallel cuts at the hem of her dress before leaping backwards. Ranma sniffed the air a few times and apparently didn't like whatever he happened to learn from it as he jumped up, crashed through and landed on the stage floor.
Ranma sniffed the air again before slowly making his way roughly towards the door, stumbling and almost falling over when he reached the end of the stage. Most of the people had moved out of his way as he neared them as he moved around but the few who had been too scared or foolish to move now sported various gashes from when he had lashed out at them, even though he never touched them.
Ranko leapt out of the room and into the gym just before Ranma disappeared out the gym door. As no-one she could see had any injuries needing instant medical attention Ranko ran out of the gym after Ranma. When she caught up to him she cautioned the people in his path to move out of his way as she continued to follow along behind him. When Ranma made it to the school fence he jumped up onto to it before settling down apparently happy to just bask in the midday sunlight.
Word of Ranma's strange behaviour travelled quickly through the school and in a few minutes Akane had arrived at the scene and her brain boggled at the sight. It was understandable; the sight of Ranma casually licking his arm as though he were an animal grooming himself while radiating a power strong enough that even normal people could sense it from fifty metres away would've caused anyone without a Neriman, denial is bliss, attitude to go into shock. "What's going on here?" Akane asked when her brain resumed normal functions.
"I'm not sure but I think this might be the cat fist." Ranko replied slowly as she too tried to think of a logical explanation of what was going on.
They were distracted from their thinking when Kuno ran in between them with his bokken raised over his head ready to attack; it seemed news had spread too quickly. "I have you now vile sorcerer." Kuno called alerting Ranma to his presence. As Kuno brought his sword down towards Ranma's head Ranma swung his arm in a blind sweep once again and cut Kuno's bokken in half.
Ryoga ran through the streets of Nerima. He didn't know where he was going but he knew how to get there, the exact opposite of how it usually was with him. As he ran towards his destination he pulled his umbrella off of his back, judging by the strength of the aura he was heading towards, he was using it as a homing beacon, he was probably going to need it. A cruel smile formed on his lips as he caught first sight of who was generating the aura, it seemed he'd get his revenge earlier than expected and under quite ironic circumstances, Ranma was using the technique that had caused his need for revenge.
As Ranma put Kuno on the defensive, Kuno wasn't taking any damage, his robes got a little torn, as he was able to easily dodge Ranma's ineffectual swipes, Ryoga ran in to attack Ranma in order to give Kuno time to get away. Who was he kidding; he wasn't going to fight Ranma in order to help Kuno this was about revenge. He thrust his umbrella towards Ranma's head just missing as he moved about but the attack was close enough to get Ranma's attention.
As Ryoga now had Ranma's attention Kuno had the chance to pull out a spare bokken from his robes before running back into the fray. Kuno was able to score a direct hit to Ranma's right shoulder blade while Ranma was focused on Ryoga eliciting a sharp hiss of pain from Ranma. Ryoga took the opportunity this presented and kicked Ranma's left shoulder causing him to slump to the ground now that both his arms had been hurt. Ranma managed to roll himself out of the way of Ryoga's downward umbrella strike that would have otherwise left him impaled on the umbrella.
This attack brought Ranko and Akane back to the present, they had been happily daydreaming of seeing Kuno get cut up by Ranma's newly acquired, invisible, claws. They ran the short distance to the fight and started attacking Ryoga, who was the biggest threat. Ryoga was annoyed, he didn't like to fight girls but they were getting in the way of his objective once again. He took a few swings at them but had trouble connecting as he tried to dodge their attacks, Kuno's wild swings and Ranma's thrashing hands. Ranma had become twice as frantic since Ranko and Akane had joined the fight, apparently he couldn't tell the difference between aggression that was directed at him and that which wasn't.
As he took a hit to the side of the head from Kuno's bokken he decided that the girls could wait, he'd take out the kendoist first, he was interfering worse than Ranko and Akane were at the moment. He smashed Kuno in the stomach with the length of his umbrella sending him flying back twenty feet from the force of the impact.
Shampoo ran towards Furinkan High carrying a large platter of delicacies to give to her airen for lunch. She just entered the school grounds when she saw some unknown male attack her airen. She couldn't leave this unpunished, she may not have loved Kuno, if she wanted an idiot she could've had the one from her village, but he was still her airen. She withdrew her twin bonborri and ran into the fray with her battle cry "I kill." Her Japanese still needed work.
As Shampoo called out her battle cry Ranko made the reasonable mistake of assuming it was directed at her so as Shampoo approached she jumped her before she was able to make it to Ryoga. As Shampoo and Ranko started exchanging blows Kuno got back up and entered the fray once more. He was having a little trouble deciding who to attack first the vile sorcerer or the fanged boy who was obviously in league with the vile sorcerer. Luckily he was spared from making a decision that could have taken him hours when he realized he didn't need to attack them individually; he was more than skilled enough to attack them both.
So as it now stood Ryoga was trying to kill Ranma, Kuno was trying to kill or maim, which ever came first, Ryoga and Ranma, Shampoo was trying to kill Ranko, Akane was trying to stop Ryoga from killing Ranma, Ranko was defending herself and Ranma was bouncing around like mad, he was after all, attacking, ineffectually, whoever he happened to be closed to at the time, what he was thinking, who knew, in fact it was hard to tell if he was even thinking.
Kuno was taken out of the fight early when Ranma, during one of his frantic leaps, head-butted him, knocking him out cold. Now that Kuno was out of the way Ryoga was able to start up a decent offensive and land a few blows on Ranma before Akane was able to make him temporarily back off. Ranko and Shampoo were in the process of fighting each other to a standstill, Shampoo's training had decreased as she searched for Ranko and Ranko and Akane's skills had been slowly increasing from the training they were doing in preparation for when Ryoga turned up next.
Ranma managed to destroy Ryoga's umbrella as it passed perilously close to his head causing Ryoga to be more cautious about his attacks on Ranma as he would be fighting hand to hand and risked being cut by Ranma's ki claws. As Ryoga dodged another one of Ranma's random attacks he left himself open to take a powerful side kick to the gut from Akane sending him flying into Shampoo allowing Ranko and herself some respite.
The small breather, and the fact that Ryoga had just crashed into Shampoo, gave Ranko enough of an edge that she was able to take control of the power struggle between her and Shampoo. It took a few minutes but Ranko was able to knock Shampoo out cold effectively ceasing any more interference she may have caused in their effort to stop Ryoga.
Ranko joined in Akane's effort to stop Ryoga's attack on Ranma, she was tired but it still made the fight two on one, or if you included Ranma's sporadic attacks part of the fight two on one on one. Ranko was getting in a few attacks but they were mainly working as distractions to allow Akane to get in some solid attacks as Akane had a lot more strength left than she did. Ryoga was slowly being beaten down, he hadn't been able to get an attack on Ranma since Ranko had started helping Akane again and so he had decided to focus his attack on Ranko and Akane to get them out of the way so he'd have an unhindered attack on Ranma.
Unfortunately just because he had stopped attacking Ranma didn't mean that Ranma had stopped attacking him and he was painfully reminded of this as he felt Ranma claw at his currently open back. He grunted in pain and kicked his foot backwards knocking Ranma away from him temporarily before swinging his elbow at Ranko were she approached from his side. Akane ran forwards and threw a punch aimed in between his eyes, under normal conditions we would have easily dodged or blocked it leisurely but these weren't normal circumstances, the punch connected easily as Ryoga's attention was taken away from Akane when Ranma had bitten his leg.
The punch didn't quite knock him out but it pushed him backwards causing him to trip over Ranma, who still had his leg in his mouth, and smack the back of his head into the hard ground and that did knock him out. As Ranko and Akane calmed down Ranma stopped his erratic movements seemingly satisfied he was no longer in danger. 'At least someone seems happy.' Ranko thought as she looked at herself and the others, they were all covered in some number of cuts from Ranma's claws.
Genma had sensed Ranma's aura spike and so had a fair idea that something was wrong, he would have raced off to help out immediately, but he was in the middle of a game of shogi. Sure he was loosing at the moment but with a little artful cheating he would be able to turn this game around and beat Soun yet.
When the game had ended, it didn't really matter who had won, or so he told himself, he excused himself and headed off towards the school. He arrived roughly ten minutes after Ryoga had been knocked out. "Ranko, Akane, come over here." He called out from what he considered to be a safe distance from Ranma.
Ranko and Akane's tempers went off when the saw Genma and started moving over to him, they wanted answers and knew that they would probably have to beat them out of Genma. "What's going on pop?" Ranko asked as she cracked her knuckles.
"Ranma's currently using the cat fist and he won't stop until he falls asleep." Genma explained, making sure to follow Ranma's movements carefully in case they needed to move out of his way.
"He won't stop until he falls asleep? Is the cat fist a technique or a state of psychosis?" Akane asked, truly feeling like pounding Genma right there and then but that could wait, they needed answers more than anything now.
"Heh heh, I'm fairly certain it's both." Genma admitted abashedly. "I think it's a technique that Ranma can only access under a state of psychosis."
"So he's not in control of his actions when he's like that?" Ryoga asked sternly causing the others to jump from his unexpected question.
"To the best of my knowledge." Genma replied, considering who he was this was probably not the best choice of words Genma could have used but the answer seemed to satisfy Ryoga.
Ryoga picked up his backpack and prepared to walk out the gate. "Uh, since you're leaving without another fight does that mean you've given up on killing Ranma?" Ranko asked hopefully.
"Maybe, at any rate there are some things I need to think about." He said before he walked out the school gate. He was honestly glad to know that Ranma hadn't been in control of himself when he had attacked him all those years ago. He had sworn on his honour that he would get revenge for the misdeed that had been done to him but since Ranma hadn't been in control of himself he couldn't be held accountable and so he had nothing to get revenge for, he wouldn't need to stain his hands in order to retain his honour. Not that all that meant he wouldn't be trying to beat Ranma up, during their fight he had used some strange technique and he wanted to learn it and whatever other tricks Ranma may have known. That was the reason he hadn't admitted that he wasn't going to try and kill Ranma anymore, he needed Ranma to think that his life was on the line if he wanted to force Ranma to bring out more techniques.
Ranma walked out of the Tendo dojo and down the street. He had decided it would be a good idea to stretch his legs when Akane and Ranko had started pestering with questions about the cat fist and the aura he had generated while under it. He hoped Genma's method of ignoring things until they went away would prove useful to him. when he felt he was far enough from the dojo that he could let loose his abilities a little he dropped his blind fighting technique in order to get the strength to jump up onto a nearby roof.
His blind fighting technique worked by pushing his ki out from his body to force his aura into a roughly cylindrical, he could've made it spherical but that would waste effort on looking below the ground, field of very weak ki and feeling the aura's inside the field of ki. Since the aura of a living thing naturally took on the shape of its body, due to the body's ki flows, he was able to create a mental image of what they looked like. Inanimate objects didn't create their own aura like living things but they generally had small, residual, aura's that they picked up off of nearby auras allowing him to see them in the same way, though more concentration was needed for him to do so. Since over the years he had built up a large ki supply he was able to use this technique to tell what was around him for around fifty metres in all directions quite clearly and up to seventy-five if he was willing to sacrifice some details. Since ki flared up in the body part you were about to move it even gave him warning when someone was about to attack him and told him which part of their body they were going to use to do so. The problem with this was that it was a ki manipulation technique and that meant that while using it he wasn't able to boost his natural abilities with his ki or use any special techniques since he was only able to perform one ki manipulation at a time. Because of this as he started to run along the roof tops he had to systematically drop his blind fighting technique in order to jump the gaps between roofs.
As he brought his blind fighting technique up during one particularly long jump he sensed someone approaching him from behind. Flipping his body around in mid-air he landed on the roof lightly skidding backwards slightly before coming to a halt facing the approaching person in a casual stance. He was quite surprised by the size of the woman who was now balancing on some kind of staff in front of him, she was roughly three feet tall; half the height of the staff she was balanced on. She was a wrinkled old woman with gray hair longer than her body who was wearing green robes with a red Chinese symbol on each sleeve. "What do you want?" Ranma asked gruffly, ready to react instantly if any hostile actions were made.
"Don't you wish to know who I am first?" The old lady asked seemingly amused at Ranma's attitude. When Ranma failed to answer her question she sighed and shook her head. "I'm simply here to talk. My name is Cologne by the way."
"You're from the Amazon village aren't you? What are you doing here?" Ranma asked evenly.
"Yes I am one of the village elders and I have come after my great granddaughter to see what was taking her so long on her quest." Cologne said, trying to gauge the strength of Ranma's feelings on the matter of Shampoo's quest.
"So you're here to help Shampoo kill Ranko?" Ranma asked as he moved into an openly aggressive stance giving Cologne the information she wanted.
"It is her mission and she has to complete it without any assistance from me or the other members of the village. I sensed your aura yesterday and I was quite impressed by it. You even know the cat fist. It is quite obvious that you posses enough strength that you could end Shampoo's life in order to stop her from trying to kill your sister and yet you haven't done so. Why?" Cologne asked, getting to one of her main reasons for talking to Ranma in the first place.
"Having someone trying to kill you isn't necessarily a bad thing, it only becomes a problem if they succeed." Ranma stated factually.
Cologne couldn't help but cackle at this; you learned to appreciate a good sense of humour when you got to her age. "Every curse has its blessings." She nodded sagely after she stopped laughing.
"Hardly," Ranma said a little harsher than he had intended before collecting himself and continuing "some curses merely have their uses."
"So you are happy to leave Shampoo trying to kill your sister for now, but what would happen if she were too succeed? Would you seek to harm our people?" Cologne asked seriously, it always paid to know where you stood with people.
Ranma thought about the question seriously for a minute. "Only if they try to get in between me and Shampoo." He said honestly, he hoped it wouldn't get to that stage but if it did he wouldn't be able to leave a family members death unanswered.
Cologne simply nodded in understanding before spinning around and hoping away into the distance. She would have Shampoo temporarily give up her attempt to kill Ranko until she was able to determine how strong Ranma was. If she found out that he could be a useful ally to her tribe she would have the kiss of death revoked and if not she would let Shampoo resume her quest.
"Can't you swim?" Akane asked as she sat down on one of the towels next to where Ranma sat. It had been a particularly hot week and so the Tendos and Saotomes had headed down to the beach for the day. They couldn't have chosen a much better day to go either; it was a nice sunny day with an almost clear blue sky and a gentle breeze blowing cold air in from over the clear blue ocean.
"I can swim just fine when I want to, oyaji made us swim to China. How come you aren't swimming?" Ranma asked back, everyone else had already entered the water.
Akane pointedly decided not to answer Ranma's question and instead asked one of her own. "Why did he make you swim to China?"
"He said it was good endurance training but he was just too cheap to pay to catch a boat over." Ranma said with a sigh.
"But it was good endurance training wasn't it?" Akane asked, sure it sounded a little over the top but it sounded fairly legitimate to her.
"Not good enough for him to want to do it twice, he was quite happy to catch a boat instead of swimming on the way back when Ranko told him she'd pay the fare." Ranma said seriously. It was hard to believe just how cheap Genma could be at times, Ranma wouldn't have been surprised if some of the times they had stolen food to eat was simply because Genma had been too cheap to pay for it.
After that line of conversation had ended awkwardly Akane looked around for something else to talk about. "Hey, what's going on over there?" Akane asked as she pointed to a place around a hundred metres away where a crowd was starting to form. When Ranma merely tilted his head in her directions and raised his eyebrows she slapped herself in the head, that had been a stupid question to ask a blind person. "Let's go and find out what's going on." Akane said as she got to her feet.
Ranma simply shrugged, got up and followed, it wasn't like there was anything better to do at the moment. As they neared the crowd Akane saw a large banner suspended between two poles and read it aloud, for Ranma's benefit, "Martial Art Melon Splitting."
Soon afterwards a voice rang out from the sound system that had been set up on a small podium nearby. "It's an art. It's a race. It's a war." The announcer took the crowds' murmur of 'What's martial art melon splitting?' as his cue to continue. "The rules are simple, contestants run while trying to split each other's watermelons. The first to reach the finish line with their melon intact wins."
At hearing this the crowd slowly started to dissipate with words along the lines of "What a stupid idea." and "How lame?"
"And the prize is twenty thousand yen!" the announcer continued. The crowd instantly regathered around the podium so that they could enter themselves into the competition.
"Aren't you going to sign up? You're skilled enough that you'll win this easy." Ranma asked, this type of thing seemed to be right up her alley.
"You really think so?" Akane asked with slightly flushed cheeks, she'd noticed in the last few days that Ranma's opinions of her were starting to become more important to her.
"Yeah, the only people on this beach who would stand a chance against you are Ranko, who isn't here, and Nabiki, who also isn't here." Ranma responded, failing to notice anything out of the ordinary.
"Nabiki?" Akane asked incredulously.
"You'd be standing between her and twenty thousand yen." Ranma pointed out.
Akane sighed as she walked over to sign up for the race, it was true, Nabiki would have probably found a way to beat her even if the prize had only a thousand yen. Akane collected her watermelon and bokken and went over to wait at the starting line.
"On your marks. Get set. GO!" The announcer called as he fired the starting gun. The hundred or so contestants started off in a run towards the finish line, the first five contestants being knocked out of the competition in a matter of seconds. Akane was finding this so easy that it was almost boring, sure there were a lot of people but they were all fighting amongst each other and she was used to people trying to dog-pile her in a fight. As the number of contestants had fallen to ten by the time they reached the halfway point Akane decided that she may as well smash the other's watermelons before she finished, she wanted to feel as though she had at least partially earned her prize. She quickly finished off the others before jogging her way to the finish line before heading back to the announcer's podium to collect her prize.
"You know you could've acted like the others had a chance." Ranma said seriously as Akane walked back to where he stood.
Akane looked down at the ground slightly abashed for a short time before she noticed the smile that was creeping onto his face. "Want to get something to eat? It's on me." Akane asked cheerfully already knowing the answer.
A/N: I think this chapter only took me a week and a half to get out, yay. I just want to make it known now that Ranma's power increase isn't because of his blindness as is done in the Ranma is blind fics that I can think of, it's to do with his fear of cats increasing and something else that was subtly, I hope, hinted at last chapter. The reason the cat fist was different, I hope you could tell it was different, is not because the technique is different but a reflection on the changes in Ranma.
I probably should have had Ranma cut himself up, I'm pretty sure everyone caught onto that I think it was fairly obvious, at the end of the last chapter for better effect but that would've made the chapter to short for my tastes. I was going to put this warning, no it's not a bad thing, in the last chapter's A/N but I was sleepy and forgot: If something hasn't been stated in the narrative or the A/N don't take it for granted. I am of course talking about the curses or lack there of, If I can manage, though it's probably unlikely, I'd like to keep people guessing about that for a while.
I'll be coming up with original plots in here somewhere it's just a matter of time until my mind comes up with them, though they are guaranteed as I will need them because of the way I want the central story to go. Ranma will be pawning his problems off on to others for a while but he'll have his (un)fair share of trouble by the time this is through. One of the things that will contribute to Ranma's problems will be an idea I am choosing to blame on the 3 doors down song "Let me go", though it most probably originated in my warped mind, to my knowledge it hasn't been done before.
Hope I alleviated your boredom slightly and/or satisfied your interest in the story. Unfortunately I have three more uni assignments to do so the next chapter will probably take longer than usual, though I'm sure it will be out in less than four weeks.