Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, I do not claim any rights to any of the characters or concepts created or owned by Viz Video or Rumiko Takahashi. This is just the work of one fan to the others. The only characters or concepts that I claim are the ones I created or introduced. That said, I bring you:
For Love and Money, the War of the Horse. A Y3 story.
Chapter 7: Take the bull by the horns.
Ranma shifted back slightly as Parsley charged in, and once again slipped just out of the way of yet another powerful blow. Ranma delivered a quick thrust with two fingers into the slight gap between the muscles under Parsley's right arm, then faded away as he gave his fingers a little twist.
Ranma nodded as the big brute just continued to come after him with almost single minded focus. The more that Parsley ignored his strikes, the better. Some of the strikes would have immediate effects, others would be more subtle. It was a matter of just building up the attacks until they overwhelmed the giant meathead.
Just like Khu Lon had taught him.
Ranma focused on moving, evading by the narrowest of margins so he could keep up the precision strikes one by one. He was well aware of just how dangerous a game he had to play with Parsley. The big guy might not be as fast as Ryouga, but Ranma had little doubt he probably had the advantage in power over the eternally lost martial artist. A fact that was proven almost too well when Parsley delivered a hammerfist into the wall just above Ranma's head, and the brick shattered under the impact like a sledgehammer had been taken to it.
Ranma bounced clear for a moment so that he could assess how things were going, and grinned as he saw Parsley flexing his right hand slowly. It would seem that the effects were starting to take hold. Now, he had to just keep hitting the points, without being turned into a grease stain on the walls by a fist or foot that honestly looked about the same size as his head.
It just made the fight more interesting.
Parsley flexed his hand as he tried to work the feeling back into it. The annoying little Japanese man seemed to be up to something, but Parsley wasn't worried yet. A little numbness wasn't anything serious, he just needed to end the fight sooner rather than later.
With a renewed sense of determination, and just a bit of anger, Parsley moved to close the distance with his smaller opponent. They exchanged another series of attacks and counters, and this time Parsley was certain that Ranma had done something with that last series of light attacks. He grimaced and shook his hand as they seperated for a moment, before he waded back in. A series of powerful attacks were evaded by his smaller opponent, then Parsley delivered a fast counter when Ranma went for another quick attack. He felt the cold numbness that spread from where Ranma had struck him, but he had a satisfied look in his eyes as Ranma was forced to slide back as he blocked the strike from the larger fighter.
Ranma flexed his hand as he made sure his arm hadn't broken when he had blocked Parsley's strike. He was perhaps even more powerful than Ranma had thought, and showed a bit more adaptivity than Ranma had hoped for. The nerve strikes were taking effect, but he really couldn't take many more hits like that, not with the Amazon renegade still waiting in the wings.
Ranma moved quickly to engage the larger fighter, not wanting to concede any momentum or give the larger fighter a chance to plan. It was time to drop pretenses and subtlety. It was time to lay Parsley low, so that he could get the information he needed after he broke the rest of the raiders
Parsley sensed the change in his opponent as the smaller fighter seemed to almost appear in front of him. No more games, no more playing around it seemed.
Just how he liked it.
He hadn't had a real challenge since he had parted ways with Mint and Lime. Not that he thought this little gnat was in their league, but at least he seemed to be a bit more competent than those stupid little Amazon whores had been.
This could be entertaining, at least.
Ranma tightened his stance as he moved in closer to Parsley, as he pulled from some of his other training. Ranma threw a series of short, quick jabs as he looked for openings. Parsley had closed most of the more blatant openings in his stance, as he protected his vital points. It would seem that the big guy was a lot smarter than he looked.
Ranma really did prefer stupid opponents.
The pair of combatants felt each other out anew, as Ranma became more and more concerned about the amount of time that had passed. He knew that Parsley only really had to stall and he would win, but he was sure that the big brute would not be satisfied with that. Parsley would certainly prefer to close out the fight himself. Nothing else would be sufficient for the big fighter.
It meant that Ranma still had a chance to get out of this and to resolve this mess in a way that worked out for him.
Ranma narrowed his eyes as he pushed into Parsley's reach. As the larger fighter threw an attack, Ranma ducked and wove under it as he drove a quick strike into the side of the larger fighter, and faded back before the counter strike could land. Instead of opening up distance, Ranma pushed back in once again. He would stay in close and work on ending this fight before he either ran out of time, or took another big hit from Parsley.
Ranma wove past another attack as he drove a strike into the floating ribs of his opponent, and took the moment that Parsley tensed to drive a thumb up into the soft part of the underarm. A quick move to the side made sure that the weakened arm was the one that faced towards Ranma.
As expected, Parsley had to turn to try and strike with his good arm, and that allowed Ranma to use a quick turning sidestep to bring him into the open side of his opponent as Parsley tried to pull himself back into a defensive posture again.
Ranma faded back for a moment before he moved to keep the pressure up on Parsley. A series of strikes that targeted the ribs and other vulnerable areas to keep wearing down the ability of Parsley to fight back effectively. Nerve strikes as the opportunities presented themselves. And a deadly silence.
Ranma had gotten serious.
Parsley grimaced as he took another blow to the exact same spot on his floating ribs. Each strike didn't do much, but they were starting to add up. Worse, none of his counters or strikes seemed to work anymore. Ranma always seemed to know what to expect, and had a counter ready for him. And then there were the eyes of the smaller martial artist. They had gone cold, calculating and reminded him a bit too much of his former lord when he had gotten serious.
For the first time in a long time Parsley thought that he might actually lose this fight.
Ranma parried another bone-crushing strike upward as he avoided the full force of the blow and drove another strike to the left side floating ribs. Fighters like Parsley, and even Ryouga when they had first started to really fight each other, tended to be like arcade fighting game players. They found a combination that worked for them, and stuck to it. They might have a few, but once you had seen them fight for a bit, it was easy to predict what they would do next. Inflexible ways of thought and a reliance on forms and what they knew worked limited a fighter, making them predictable.
And in a real fight with a skilled opponent, that made you dead.
Parsley winced as he felt a crack from his side and took a step back even as Ranma moved a step forward. The inertia of the fight had swung fully in favor of Ranma, and Parsley had become painfully aware of that fact.
Ranma moved forward as he pressed his attack. Parsley had been forced to shift his stance to shield his damaged ribs, but that meant that his weakened arm was the one that was presented. Ranma had worked this set of bad choices, and it was worth the bit of battering that he had endured for it.
At least, so long as he could make Parsley talk.
Parsley found himself being forced to take one step back after another as the smaller and faster fighter delivered one flurry of blows after another into his side, thigh, and the joints of his arm. He felt like he was being methodically dismantled, the parts of him being looked over before they were discarded.
Like a bull at the butcher shop.
Ranma eyed his opponent coldly as he worked him over, every move and strike carefully planned along multiple paths and routes, each one prepared for the most likely responses from his massive opponent. They had entered the end game of their little dance, the final act of their play. And the curtain was set to come down soon.
Ranma palmed a acupuncture needle with smooth, swift motions as he struck the inside of his opponent's knee and smiled a grim smile when he heard the crunch and snap. No matter how big you were, or how strong, their were limits to how much force your joints could withstand against the flow of motion. There were limits to just how much you could push your body before it broke in ways that were not easily fixed.
And he was about to introduce Parsley to a fair number of them.
Parsley grimaced in pain as he forced himself to stay upright, even as his leg tried to buckle in ways that it should not have been able to move. Something that one of the old crones had said before he snapped her neck came back to mind as his good leg was taken out from under him with an almost casual, indifferent motion.
"The Horse of Death shall come for all of you, and he will reap you. He will lay you down like chaff once you have angered him. With this, you have signed your deaths. We will be waiting for you on the other side, but at least we will not suffer as much as you will on our journey." The old woman had said before she coughed up one last bit of blood, and he had snapped her frail little neck.
Now, Parsley understood just what she had warned him of. No, a promise. It had been a promise of what was to come, a dire prophecy that would be fulfilled.
Ranma caught Parsley's good arm as the ground seemed to fall away from underneath the larger fighter, and neatly snapped his arm as he twisted to drive Parsley into the ground even harder. In the moment that Parsley had the wind knocked out of him, Ranma finished their little dance with cold, merciless efficiency.
Ranma followed his larger opponent down to the ground as he forced him face down and slid the needle into the spot that he had chosen on the neck of the brute. After Parsley had gone still, Ranma stood up and brushed off his hands before he met the frantic eyes of the immobilized brute.
"One of the things that a very skilled doctor back home taught me. I don't think he intended me to use it like this, but I don't think he would mind, either. Not to take care of trash that hurt his niece, at least. Now, you just stay there and contemplate what is coming. I have to go collect the other person who gets to play twenty questions." Ranma said before he turned and stalked off, like a great cat on the prowl.
Or Death moving on to reap again.
Parsley watched Ranma go until he moved out of sight and then lay there, only able to move his eyes. A small figure stepped silently into his view and knelt down before she shook her head
For a moment, Parsley felt a surge of relief and hope. This was the strange young girl that had accompanied the old man who had proposed their little joint exercise in the first place.
But his hopes were crushed when she started to speak in that soft, almost lilting voice of hers.
"I had hoped that you would have at least entertained the Master's former student's child a bit more. But, what can really be expected from useless trash like you? At least there are plenty of pretty little darlings, and I'm sure that a couple won't be missed. That should satisfy Him somewhat. Now, it's just a matter of letting Ranma clean up the trash that He no longer has a use for." The tiny figure said as she stood up, and reached down and took Parsley's head between her surprisingly strong hands. A quick twist and a pop, and the tiny figure walked away without looking back.
The final thought that passed through Parsley's mind was that they had all been played. The Amazons, the Renegades, and even the Musk.
All dancing in the palm of the ancient master's hand