Chapter 8: Hello Hibiki
Students were mulling about, putting their shoes on and gathering their bags as the day ended. Ranma was planning out a lesson plan for the evening's martial arts training (wanting to toughen Hibari up some more) when the blonde in question appeared.
"So," Hibari giggled while leaning into Ranma's personal space, "I was thinking, we should go on a proper date soon."
"What? Why would I go on a date with ya?" the pig-tailed boy yelped. "How many times do I have to tell you the engagement thing it temporary."
"Well, obviously it's temporary," Hibari replied, which made Ranma sigh in relief.
Then Hibari winked and said: "We'll be married eventually."
As Hibari lept to hug Ranma he dodged and fled out the school's front doors. Hibari chased after, giggling. The look on Ranma's face was always worth chasing him about.
"Ranma! Prepare to die!" an angry male voice bellowed.
Ranma had only a moment to dodge out of the way, as a boy his age in a rough travel tunic wielding an umbrella came crashing to earth. The impact left a distinct crater as the bandanna wearing boy stood back up. Ranma meanwhile had subconsciously pulled Hibari to safety.
"Dodging and running, like you always do Saotome," the bandanna boy sneered.
Ranma just stared at the boy dumbfounded, and trying to place the face.
"Who's this?" Hibari asked.
"Uh... It's on the tip of my tongue," Ranma mumbled. "He's, uh..."
"Have you had memory loss from concussions?" Hibari asked with honest concern.
"Ranma!" the lad roared. "I just want to know... how dare you run out from out fight!?"
"Uuuhhhh... wait! Ryoga! Hibiki Ryoga!" Ranma said with a snap of his fingers. "Hey! How are ya pal?"
Ryoga just glared at him. "You're ignoring my question."
"Oh, right... but I waited 3 days for ya? You never showed," Ranma replied.
"I got there on the 4th day! And you'd run away to China with your pops!"
"The fight was like what, three or four hundred metres from your house? Even you should have made it in three days." Ranma countered.
"Do you think the four days were a pleasant stroll? I had to sleep on the streets!"
"Well, if you want, we can finish the fight now I guess. Seems a bit stubborn though."
"This isn't just about that fight! As a result of trying to track you through China I've seen hell itself!" Ryoga roared.
Before Ranma could respond Ryoga chucked his now open umbrella at Ranma. The pigtail boy dodged it effectively, though was slightly surprised when it returned like a boomerang. Ryoga then began to wave it about like a sword in his right hand, pushing Ranma onto the defensive.
"Wow, quite the fight," a boy muttered to his friend.
"Looks like Ranma's losing," the friend replied.
"For now. Dude is good at dodging. Bet ya 500 yen Ranma's going to win," the first boy replied.
Hibari noticed a few similar sounding conversations around the fight as Ryoga knocked a tree over. There might be serious money to be made here...
"I bet Suba would know a thing or two about running a betting ring," Hibari whispered under her breath. "If Ranma's going to get into more fights like this might as well turn a profit."
Ranma closed the gap to launch a few kicks at the bandanna boy. Ryoga swung with his umbrella once more. The blow missed Ranma, but left serious cracks in the pavement.
"Ranma! I shall destroy your happiness!" Ryoga shouted.
"Happiness?" Ranma asked as he looked towards Hibari and Tsubame, "I can assure you I'm not happy!"
"If you'd go on an actual date I'd make you happy," Hibari announced.
Glaring at the blonde Ranma dodged a blow from Ryoga. He then bounded off Ryoga's head and landed on top of the school wall. Ryoga was left looking around in confusion, and apparently didn't decide to look up.
"Coward! Running away!" Ryoga shouted and then charged in a seemingly arbitrary direction, while Ranma was left scratching his head.
Annoyed grumbles broke out as people argued what that meant for various bets.
"So, Ranma," Tsugumi began. "Why does this guy want to fight you?"
The pig-tailed boy glared. "I don't know. At least... I don't remember."
"Saotome," the ever slick Suba said as he entered the room. "You've got a letter. From a one Hibiki Ryoga."
Ranma opened it, unsurprised to find it was a challenge letter. "Dated for tomorrow... but with Ryoga's sense of direction, who knows when he'll get here."
Then Ranma's eyes flashed with realisation. "The bread!"
"Bread?" Tsubame asked, as Hibari and Suzume also shuffled over.
"Yeah... The cafeteria lady in middle school was always throwing out the last of any bread type into the crowd. Ryoga was the second fastest in the crowd, but I always beat him to it," Ranma declared with a confident smile.
"That sounds like a pretty crazy school," Tsubame replied.
"Well, it was an all boys school. Lots of energy," Ranma shrugged.
"An all boys school?" Tsugumi asked with obvious concern.
It took Ranma a moment to work out why she'd been concerned, and then the boy's face turned red. "That was before the curse! I was always 100% male then. It was a good way to toughen up. Something your pops should have done with Hibari."
"Oh, he tried," Hibari giggled. "It lasted a month and a half. Most of them were convinced I was a girl in disguise. Like half the class asked me out. One guy was pretty cute, if dad hadn't pulled me out I might have made a move. He was a good cook too."
Ranma almost didn't believe it, but then he remembered a few of the blonde's outfits weren't really all that feminine, yet Hibari always looked like a girl. Ranma tried to picture his fiancée in a proper boy's gakuran and the ensuing image seemed rather amusing. Hibari would seem too pretty for even the bishonen look.
It had been a few days since Ryoga had shown up and the lost boy still had not returned. Currently the petite redhead was facing a far more impossible foe. Sighing with frustration he slumped in his chair.
"Romaji characters are annoyin' enough in English class... who gave 'em permission to sneak into math class anyway?" he moaned.
"Would it help to replace them with more familiar Hiragana or Katakana?" Hibari asked from beside Ranma. Tutoring the pig-tailed martial artist was certainly proving a challenge for the blonde.
"Doesn't it have to be those foreign letters?" Ranma asked.
"No, they're just placeholders. You could draw a smiley face if you wanted, as long as you keep it consistent," Hibari told him.
"Huh, I thought they meant specific things," Ranma muttered, fussing with his bright red ponytail.
Ranma dove back into the math homework for a few more minutes, and actually made decent headway. Of course, it was Ranma, so a few more minutes was all he could manage. Having made enough progress he gave a full body stretch that pulled his shirt in a way that made it very clear which body he was in right now. Hibari responded with an envious look at the martial artist's chest. A stare Ranma misinterpreted.
"Like what you see?" Ranma asked in a sultry tone. Ranma figured that if he got the blonde more interested in his girl side than boy side that would make things that much easier to then push the blonde off to real girls. It might weird him out, but it was a step towards victory.
"J-just curious," Hibari replied with just the slightest blush, "But I thought you didn't like that form? So why are you in it currently?"
"Oh... Well, I can concentrate a little better on stuff that needs a lot of sitting around," Ranma shrugged. "I'm not sure why. Maybe it's just that running around hurts my chest a bit, so I don't wanna. I dunno."
'And because you're less prone to invade my personal space when I'm like this,' Ranma added silently in his head.
Hibari thought it over, "Maybe it's the hormonal differences..."
"Dunno," Ranma shrugged, glanced down at the homework, made a funny face, then looked back at Hibari. "Wanna spar?"
Between the tutoring to ensure he did decently in school and the martial arts training (which both Genma and Ibari thought was a good angle to toughen the Oozora heir up) Ranma was beginning to worry he was spending too much time with the 'crossdressing' blonde.
"It's gonna start rubbing off on me, I know it," Ranma muttered as he walked out of school.
"What's going to rub off on you?" Hibari asked, having been rather closer than Ranma realised.
Ranma's mind raced for some sort of explanation when he heard Ken call out.
"Hey, that bandanna guy is back," the raven haired lad was yelling.
"He looks ticked," Haruki added.
"Tell him I need a minute!" Ranma shouted before running back into the school.
Hibari meanwhile ran towards the nearest payphone to call Suba over. She'd been taking bets from other folks at the school about the fight all week (and a few bets about what day Ryoga would actually show up), and had been getting advice from Suba on proper bookie etiquette. Still, Hibari wanted the yakuza enforcer there if payouts went awry. She could handle any violence, but Suba was intimidating enough to flat out prevent it.
Hibari made it to the baseball diamond where Ryoga was standing just before Ranma ran in with a pair of plastic shopping bags filled with food. The pig-tailed boy rushed over with a smile on his face.
"Alright Ryoga, I brought you this to help patch things up," Ranma said as he tossed a curry bread to Ryoga.
"What?" Ryoga mumbled as he stared at the bread confused. "You think this is enough to make up for what you did?"
Ranma sighed and began tossing more foods at Ryoga, who caught them with ever increasing confusion. Finally he was left carrying a large pile of breads and sandwiches, but had grown no calmer.
"How is this supposed to help?" he seethed. "Plus most of these are past their expiry dates!"
"Well, you did show up a week late," Ranma shrugged.
"Stop treating this like a joke!" Ryoga shouted. "Bah, enough talking! Words can't express my suffering, only pain will make you understand!"
With that Ryoga charged, dropping the food and swinging his umbrella wildly. As Ranma proved once more to be adept at dodging the lost boy's face twisted into ever increasing rage. Snarling he popped the umbrella open and tossed it ruthlessly at his foe. Ranma had to stumble to dodge in the face of such a ferocious blow, and was momentarily distracted as he saw the umbrella swerve off into the crowd watching the fight. As he turned back to his opponent to reprimand Ryoga for endangering non-combatants he felt a piece of cloth wrap around his wrist.
"No running away now, coward!" Ryoga hissed.
"I didn't run!" Ranma countered, and jabbed back with a series of kicks.
As the fighting intensified Ryoga's umbrella continued crashing through the school grounds, before digging a small trench and finally coming to a rest at the feet of Ken and Haruki. The latter boy decided to try to pick it up (who knows why... it just seemed natural) and found himself struggling.
"Yeesh, this thing weighs a ton!"
"Let me try," Ken replied. He had no more luck than his brown-haired friend.
Hibari, who had been collecting some last minute bets, was curious as to just how heavy this umbrella could be and marched over to try it too. After struggling for a few moments the blonde could barely half lift it with both arms.
"Ryoga was waving that thing around with one arm," Haruki muttered. "Ranma's gonna be in trouble."
"I wish I knew he was this strong before starting the betting," Hibari mumbled.
"I told you to do research first," Suba said calmly as his strolled into the crowd (intimidating most of the students who parted around him). The cool gangster just smiled as Hibari lit up on seeing him. "So, will you warn Ranma?"
"That wouldn't be professional would it?" Hibari replied sadly. "I can't interfere and run bets. Maybe this wasn't the best idea..."
"Maybe you can't, but I can," a panicked Ken replied, then turned to the fight to yell towards Ranma. "Get away from that guy! He's got super-human strength!"
Ranma (who was still being held near Ryoga with one of the lost-boy's bandanas) gave Ken an unimpressed stare. "Yeah, real helpful advice while I'm basically handcuffed to the guy."
While Ranma was distracted with talking Ryoga launched an open handed strike which Ranma barely dodged, though Ryoga's thumbnail scratched open Ranma's cheek.
"I'm bleeding," Ranma noticed. "When was the last time you cut your nails? Seriously, letting them grow long enough to cut someone."
"They're not long! It-it was the strength of the blow!" Ryoga stammered.
"Yeah right. Long nails like that... pretty girly of ya," Ranma laughed as he launched a series of kicks.
Ryoga launched a series of punches, which Ranma mostly blocked, though a few painful blows broke though. The Saotome lad countered with a leg sweep, forcing Ryoga to land on his one free hand, letting Ranma leap onto the other boy's head.
"Can I give ya a hand?" Ranma laughed, as Ryoga's arm holding the bandanna twisted awkwardly to prevent Ranma escaping.
"If I needed the other hand I'd use it," bandanna boy growled, before launching them both into the air from his hand on the ground.
"He launched them both with one arm," a boy in the crowd muttered.
"I wanna change my bet!" a girl declared.
Hibari felt a rush of panic and turned to Suba for help.
"Once the fight has started bets are final," Suba replied flatly. "We don't need chaos with every shift in the tide."
The cool gangster cowed any protests from the students. Hibari's family's associates were why most students were happy to admire the cutest girl in school from afar.
Meanwhile, in mid-air Ranma managed to squirm out of Ryoga's grip and batter his for with a number of kicks. Ryoga crashed to the ground and then ran for his umbrella. Ranma launched himself into a flying kick. Ryoga reached the umbrella just before Ranma's kick hit and managed a counter slash. Both blows struck true. The kick to the head left Ryoga stumbling back a bit, while Ranma had a gash on his chest and his shirt was ripped nearly in two from waist to shoulder.
"Hey! That was my favourite shirt!" Ranma roared.
"So upset about a piece of clothing," Ryoga growled. "You're the one who's girly! No man would care about such a trivial thing."
"Girl! Who ya callin' a girl!" Ranma hissed as he lunged recklessly at his foe.
A series of nasty kicks and punches were exchanged between the two before both parted to gather their breath. Both were panting and glaring when Ranma felt the first drop of rain. As more rain followed Ryoga hastily rose his umbrella for shelter. Ranma realised at that moment the umbrella in Ryoga's hand was the only chance to preserve his secret from the rest of the school (shorting of running, which he refused to do) and so launched himself at Ryoga, hoping to reach the other boy while the fight was still one between men.
Ryoga was taken aback by the determination Ranma held in trying to stay under the umbrella, and both boys were once more left fighting while holding awkwardly close. The overall proximity was not helping the rumours many in the audience had heard about Ranma's sexuality. Ranma was so desperate to stay dry neither the rumours Ryoga's similar desperation registered. The scuffling half grapple was broken when Ryoga caught his foe off guard via a punch from the hand holding the umbrella aloft, causing Ranma to stumble back.
While most of the audience had fled in the rain, the few who remained (mostly huddled under their own umbrellas) were filled with confusion as the muscular black haired boy rapidly shrank and had his hair change to red.
"R-Ranma?" Ryoga stuttered with confusion, "You..."
Ranma seethed. "Well thanks! Now the whole school's gonna know about my curse. Like just havin' the dumb thing to begin with wasn't bad enough. Well, we gotta be more than even now, compared to whatever ya think I did."
Ryoga respond with a cold laughter. "You call that a curse? Having an adorable figure like that? That's not suffering... and considering the free show you're giving everyone, I think you're about to be the most popular girl in school."
After a second of confusion Ranma remembered the massive gash in his shirt and scrambled to pull the shirt back together.
"So demure," Ryoga laughed. "That curse really suits you! As guilty as beating up a girl might make me feel, I've got a fight to finish!"
With that Ryoga pulled several bandannas from his head and threw the razor sharp headgear towards Ranma. The redhead dodged as more bandannas swerved and spun through the air, and was forced back as Ryoga's bombardment continued.
"I still think you're bein' silly hidin' under that umbrella like that," Ranma tried to taunt while dodging boomeranging bandannas and holding his shirt closed, "At least I had a reason to fear water."
"I've got my reasons!" Ryoga roared as he launched a flying kick towards the redhead.
The two clashed in a brief blur of fists and knees one more, until Ranma lept back, landing near Hibari, who stood comfortably under an umbrella held by Suba. The blonde was busy trying to ignore the confused stares from those classmates still watching and hadn't noticed just how close the fight got. That left Hibari off guard when another barrage of erratic bandannas flew towards Ranma. Not wanting to have any bystander get hurt (and not wanting to risk Hibari's wrath if the blonde's hair got cut again) Ranma scooped up the blonde and jumped away from the bandannas. Suba however was left to his own devices. He managed to avoid the banadannas himself, but his umbrella was destroyed.
Leaping away to get the blonde safety Ranma eventually set down with his fiancée on the roof of a supply shed. It took a moment for both to realise how tightly they were gripping the other, and both blushed nervously before backing up.
"D-don't think I saved ya because of romance or anythin'," Ranma stumbled. "I just don't like the idea of seein' anyone get hurt 'cause of my fight... except my opponent of course."
"Right," the blonde sighed. Hibari wasn't sure if Ranma's excuse was genuine or not.
As both their eyes fell awkwardly Hibari noticed the redhead's shirt had fallen back open, and blushed with envy once more. Ranma realised where the other teen's eyes went, and clasped his shirt up quickly.
"If you weren't such a pervert ya might know more about the rules of a man to man fight," Ranma jabbed. "Instead you're a weird deviant who don't even know how to be a man."
"How many times do I have to tell people I'm not a pervert or a deviant or anything," Hibari fumed, "I keep thinking that if anyone can understand it'll be you, but you just refuse to clue in."
"I don't want to understand nothin' about your perverted world!" Ranma roared.
Hibari's eye twitched, just as Ryoga came charging into view. The blonde grabbed Ranma angrily by the collar while hissing, "Better get back to your fight then!"
With that the blonde chucked Ranma at his foe, who was caught off guard by the redhead being used as a projectile (as well as certain bits of anatomy highly visible due to the redhead's state of battle damage). Even with how small Ranma's body was at the time the force as the two collided was significant and Ryoga felt his umbrella slide from his hand. Eyes wide in terror the lost boy fled over a fence before Ranma was back on his feet.
"Why did he run off?" a confused Ranma mumbled, rubbing his head.