Ranma 1/2: Teachers
By: d3jake
Insert standard legal stuff here.
Start Date: 06-24-2005, 01:41 CST
Chapter 5:
Needless to say, the battle was great in intensity. Rod at his full, trying his hardest, while Kuno had his ego feeding him power. That's not to say that Kuno is a crock, he does have great skill as Rod was finding out again.
For a brief moment Rod had overestimated his newly aquired strength and skill, which cost him a blow to the shoulder. Not to be deturred he went as if nothing had happened. He learned quickly Kuno's patterns, every move was random but still followed a general pattern.
Rod was using the strategy coined by Shampoo, knock the person off-balance. And since a kendoist has to use his or her weight behind their blade that meant that for a brief time he or she were vunerable during the transition between attacks. Unfortunetly for Rod, an accomplished kendoistsuch as Kuno had devloped ways to protect against so it threw that idea out the window.
'What's with this guy?!' Rod thought. 'I can't get in too close or he'll have a better chance of knocking me one... and when he is vunerable, by the time I realize it, I'm too late. What oabout his basic pattern though? Hmm...It's a pity I can't boot him in the face and knock him out like Ranma can.'
It seemed too little too late in that he had gotten major hits on Kuno, but not before taking a few, almost too many, himself.
"Argh!" a wave of air shot toward Rod, it impacted, and cut him several times. He fell to the ground.
"Ha! I have beaten him again!" Kuno proclaimed.
"Don't count...me out just yet," he jumped up, back on his considerably weakened legs.
"It seems I'm mistaken."
"One could say."
"Well, I shall not be any longer," he raised his sword and made a larger, more powerful wave that shot at Rod. Again, it impacted and he fell.
"Finally, now we are done."
"Says you," Rod said slowly and carefully stood up. "I ain't even close to being done."
"I shall see this to the end," again Kuno raised his bokkenand charged in, Rod put up a weak defence that bearily stood up to Kuno's assult. As he pulledback for another attack, Rod punched him several times and then kicked him back.
"Just where do you think you're goin'?" Rod asked between ragged breaths.
Kuno looked suprised when he turned back, "You've far excedded my expectations."
Rod shakily stood up, "Me too."
"Why not save yourself the pain and surrender?"
"Why? Why?! You dare ask?! After all the hard training, tears, sweat, and blood I'm not going to just up and say, 'I'm done.'! I've come too damn far for that!" a faint green glow appeared around Rod. "Now, unless you want to be attacked from behind, I suggest you turn fully toward me."
"As you wish," he did as he was requested. "But I shall not give you the chance to recover and beat me!" he took a stance that was a beginning of a very powerful attack.
Rod struggled to come up again, "Bring it on." He closed his eyes.
"As you wish," he did a few gyrations and a few seconds later an extreamly powerful wave of air came screaming toward Rod.
The glow got a slight bit stronger as his eyes flashed open with his arm painfully raised and shouted, "ZEPHYR!!" A wave of air shot toward Kuno.
The two waves of air shot toward each other, the only way they could be seen was by the sand kicked up by them. When they impacted they intermingled, as if they weren't quite sure how to keep procedding with each other in the way. After a few seconds they collapsed in on themselves and exploded in a huge concussion catching Kuno, Ranma and Rod, throwing all of them a fair distance.
"Where is Rod?" Akane asked when after the concussion blew Ranma into their camp, being one of the smart ones to duck.
"Don't know," Ranma said shaking his head. "He got blown back over there," he pointed to where he thought Rod went.
"Thanks," Akane carefully stepped over Ranma and went in search of Rod.
"Oh, sure. Just let me lie here!"
After overhearing Akane and Ranma, Shampoo and Ukyo (who were smart enough to duck) came from the edge of the plateau to check on Ranma. Thereupon they followed Akane.
Ranma picked himself up and took a personal inventory, deciding that every joint was connected to its proper associate and that all fluid transactions were going in the correct directions.
'Geez...' Ranma thought. 'I wasn't expecting that to happen. Great... looks like I got chosen to check on the big nutjob...
"Rod!" Akane called. "Rod! Where are you?" 'Right, I'm calling for somebody that probably got knocked out...brilliant.' After a few minutes of searching, Shampoo found a crumpled shape that she reconized as being her student.
"Hey, over here," Shampoo said to the other two searching girls. "Rod, are you okay?"
Between raggged breaths she heard his reply, "I just hurtled several meters in the air...what do you think?!" The other two girls came into his line of sight.
"Geez, there's no need to be nasty," Ukyo said. "C'mon, let's get you to our camp-"
"No, this isn't over yet."
"But you're so badly hurt," Akane said.
Rod half-laughed, "Tis but a scratch. We have to go and find Kuno," he started to try to get up by himself, failing miserably.
"You're not getting to him by yourself," Akane and Ukyo helped him to his feet and with an arm around each of their necks they started to walk in the general direction of where Kuno landed, with Shampoo at their heels.
"Thanks you two."
"Don't sweat it. Family has to help each other, right?" Akane replied.
"After taking a blow like that one we wouldn't expect you to be able to get up on you own," Ukyo replied winking at him.
"That makes me glad we're on good terms... Did you guys plan this on a day with no rain clouds or was it a fluke?"
"Just a fluke. Though you shouldn't've asked that."
"How's that?"
"Now that you've asked about it, knowing you and Ranma it'll start raining."
"Minor detail." They met up with Ranma who was dragging Kuno by the ankles toward the platau.
"How is he? " Ukyo asked.
Ranma stopped and dropped Kuno's ankles, "He'll live. He landed head first onto a rock."
"Could only have helped him..."
"Rod!" Akane said. "That's mean."
"That's the truth."
"Now that Kuno's offically KO'd can you relax yet?"
"Sure," with that he let his knees buckel, giving The two girls his full weight.
"Oh gee, thanks," Akane said hefting her cousin so she could get a better grip on him.
"What do you suppose we should do with him?" Ukyo asked pointing to Kuno.
"Drag him to camp," Rod said. "The least we can do is patch him up."
They sat around the fire talking, even Kuno joined in... Mostly because he was ingrossed in conversation with Rod complementing each other on a good match.
"Well, even though I don't normally approve of underage drinking," Kuno said to the rest of the group pulling a dusty bottle. "I retrieved two bottles of wine from my family's wine cellar in the unlikely event that Rodney were to
win."
"Thanks Upperclassman," Rod said.
"Hey," Ranma said, "I didn't get anthing like that the first time I beat you."
"That is because of three reasons," Kuno said shortly. "First, on a day to day basis he treats me with the respect I should recieve and he rarely breaks school regulations as you do. Secondly, I estimated that it would take a large amount of trials and tribulations to get to a point at which he could challenge and defeat me. And finally, he, by some supposed arrangement, is not engaged to marry the lovely Akane Tendo."
"It's not like I asked if I wanted to marry her!"
Rod deperatly tried to seal Akane's rift into hammerspace with a roll of duct tape.
"So you wouldn't mind if I were to take her from you?"
Suddenly Ranma felt as if he had three searing stares driving into his skull, one from each girl who was supposed to be wed with him. Which for some reason made it very hard for him to think considering that he was in a lose-lose-lose situation. He could say yes, and have a single short haired girl beat his brains in and make his life living heck, or he could say no and get beaten by the two girls on either side of him, who were pausing their squabble with each other to wait for what his anwser may be.
"Come now Saotome, I'm waiting for an anwser."
"Yes."
"What do you mean 'yes'?"
"Yes I would mind if you were to marry her," he ignored the angary stares from either side of him. "I couldn't stand the thought of her having to live with you for the rest of her life."
"So you would like to marry her then?"
"I didn't say that..."
Despite the second roll of duct tape Rod had applied to Akane's rift in hammerspace, and a bottle of Krazy glue the rift opened as Akane summoned her mallet.
"How dare you cast her aside as if she were a doll, to be cared for one minute and then the other thrown aside?" he reached for his bokken and raised it... well he tried to, in his state it kinda fell off to the side, as he said, "You're lucky, had I not been in combat with Rodney you would have to face my wrath!"
"Please Upperslassman, let me," Akane said as she brought her mallet down onto Ranma's head, summarily knocking him out cold.
"She hath stolen my heart yet again..." Kuno said in wonder.
"Riiiiight," Rod said. "Thank you so much for bring the wine.
Akane sat back down, "Agreed, it's generous of you Upperclassman."
Ukyo examined one of the bottles, "Wow, this stuff's old."
"Older is better, yes?" Shampoo asked.
"That's correct," Kuno responded. "So without further adieu," he janked the cork out, with a corkscrew of course, and poured it into plastic cups that Rod found and passed around.
"Say Upperclassmen," Rod said. "Why do some people smell the cork?"
"Ah, execlent question. The reality is that all they are doing is seeing if the did it's job and didn't rot or anything of that sort."
"Oh, cool."
"Now, if we would all raise our glasses," they all did so. "I would like to propose a toast. To a person that orginally was beaten and put forth all of the effort required to strenghen himself and come back to defeat me."
They nodded and drank, a few of them sputtering the stuff back up.
"Oh, I neglected to tell you that wine this old is a bit strong."
"Gee, thanks for the warning," Ukyo said.
Sunlight filtered into the tent that Rod was in. She woke with a slight senataion that the world was spinning. She also woke up to having Ukyo in one arm and Shampoo in the other, only wearing their skivies.
'Now, how in the heck...' she thought. 'Wait, how am I a she? I don't think we had any cold water with us... I really wish I could remember, stupid head, would you please quit hurting? I guess it could be worse, I could've
woken up with Kuno in my arms,' a shiver ran down Rod's spine, and back up again to make sure that Rod hadn't missed it the first time. 'Yuk! The only problem is how do I get away without being punched, kicked or otherwise launched into the air?' her stomach gave her a five second warning to get somewhere outside before evacuation of her stomach would begin. 'Oh, geez... I'll just slide them out.' And with that simple idea she got lose and scrambled outside to hurl.
"You going to make it?" Ranma asked.
As soon as the wave of nausia passed Rod responded, "Regrettably. Do you remember anything?"
He had to think hard before something popped up, "I got hit in the head by Akane after trying to answer a question that didn't have a correct answer."
"That sounds about right... if I think too hard the memories from last night get a bit fuzzy." She stood up shakily, "Get a load of who I woke up with," she pointed into the tent that she woke up in.
"You're lucky you got up first, otherwise you might end up the center of a crater lake."
"Pity...I can't swim," another wave of nausia hit Rod.
"The only thing we have for breakfast is several granola and cereal bars."
Rod wiped her mouth, "I think I'll try to keep down what I have before challenging myself. By the way, where's Kuno?"
"Dunno, he must've left early."
"He's nice once you get to talk to him."
"Really? He'll still be a conceded fool as far as I'm concerned."
"By the way, where'd your dad get off to?"
"Why? Did you see him yesterday?"'
"Yeah, a little monkey took my food supply and gave it to your dad. A little extortion later, and I got it back."
"Don't you mean 'blackmail'?"
"Nope, I prefer the word 'extortion,' the 'x' makes it sound cool."
"You know when we got hit by water?"
"Naw... Prolly one of those downpours that like to follow us around..."
A hurling sound was heard from the other side of the camp. "It would seem that someone else is up," two
more joined in the chorus after scrambling out of the tent and to its sides..
"Make that the entire camp," Ranma dug around in a duffel bag for something, after a few seconds she pulled out several empty boxes. "What the..." she also pulled out a piece of paper that had a crude picture of a panda drawn on it doing the rude gesture where they lower their lower eyelid and stick out their tonge. "That little-"
"-big."
"He's just askin' for a beating. Looks like were in for a long walk back."
"Not really. You know that kendo-girl that I had to beat?"
"You had to beat a kendo-girl?"
"Yeah, well, anyway I helped patch her up afterward and she might know a faster way down short of jumping."
"If we can find her," the hurling trio came over to where Ranma and Rod were talking.
"You isn't looking too good," Shampoo said to Rod.
"I'll be fine."
"How are you?" Ukyo asked Ranma.
"Hungry."
"What about you Akane?" Rod asked her cousin.
"I've got a headache, but other than that, I'm fine," she responded wondering who in her brain had put in an order for bells, and who was also ringing them.
"That's good."
"I've got some bad news though," Ranma said. "We have no breakfast."
"Your kidding," Ukyo said.
"'Fraid not Ucchan."
"Aww man, and I'm so hungry too..."
"Well," Rod said, "unless we want to start grazing, I suggest we pack up camp and get back home."
"There is no need for that," said Kuno walking into the camp carrying a large box.
"What, we get to eat you? But we don't know where you've been," Akane hit Rod on the head.
"Most certainly not. I brought a full meal's worth of freeze dried food packets and a gallon of water."
The group was astounded. "Thanks Upperclassmen," Akane said.
"It was nothing. When I noticed we didn't have any food I went down the mountain and got these from my house and came back(fantasy)." (Reality, he called his house and had an air drop of suppiles drop the food and water a little ways from camp.)
"I don't believe it," Ranma said. "There's no way he coulda done that, I couldn't even do that."
"Oh," Kuno said dropping the box, rushing to Ranma and holding her hand, "it's the pigtailed girl."
'I'd better skee-daddle,' Rod thought tip-toeing away. Ranma shot Kuno into a tree by way of a punch, "Hands off the mechandise."
Kuno, spotting Rod, said, "This must be a dream, the green-twine-girl is here too!"
Everybody's brains jammed into neutral as they tried to figure out who he was referring to, except Rod of course.
'Oh crap..." Rod thought.
"Who do you suppose..." Akane trailed off when she turned to her cousin and spotted the green twine she used to tie back her hair.
"Hey what's got you tounge..Aka..ne.." Ukyo spotted Rod and trailed off as well.
Kuno rushed up to Rod and held her hand, instantly sending a chill up her spine, "Oh green-twine-girl, I have forever waited for the day when I would meet you again."
"Hands off bucko!" she pulled her hand away from Kuno and kicked him into the distance, toward the forest surrounding the mountain...hill thingie.
Everbody was caught between two choices: 1, Laugh her butt off. OR B, do the caring thing and try to console Rod. They chose "B" as that's one of the cruelest thing that a guy who's a girl would have to go through.
"Looks like we have a world record on our hands," Ranma said bearly able to see the speck of Kuno falling into the trees. "I don't think I could've done that."
Ukyo wrapped an arm around Rod's shoulder for both physical and emotional support, "Don't sweat it, he'll forget about it soon enough. And with him running into Akane and Ranma on a daily basis he'll forget soon."
"That or the impact..." Ranma said.
"It's not that. I'm just kinda freaked that I could do that and how creapy that made me feel."
"One reason to get good like me where you can boot him in the face before he touches you."
Rod smiled, "Good point." Rod picked up Kuno's sword, that he dropped, and heaved it about the same distance that Kuno flew. After a several seconds, you could hear a faint scream.
"Rod two, loser-Kendoist zero," Shampoo said.
"Well, he's not completely hopeless. He brought us food."
"True," Ranma said.
"You know what's really neat? That's the same kind of food that the astronauts eat in orbit. Mostly because it's kinda hard to eat soup when it's floating around and getting into the control panels."
"Lovely," Shampoo said. "Can we be eating now?"
"Sure, I've done my civic duty for today."
[End of Chapter]
[End of Story]
Wahhoo!!! I fianally got a second story finished and posted. It's a small chapter I know, but I needed to end the main plot where it did or it was going to drag on forever. I thank all of you for your friendly reviews, they've
shown that my fics aren't POS's that should be thrown into the trash.
Note, after 3-4 years it was about time I got this posted up... I realize that there may be some things that people will scream are impossible, but I wanted to get a conclusion posted so I didn't worry so much about it while I worked on the next story.
Constructive critiques are welcome, any messages confirming that people beside myself find the story is amusing are also welcome. Hopefully on the my next story it'll pay off that I'm actually writing the plot before doing much of the writing...
Thanks y'all!
Credits:
Writer:
d3jake
Pet of the...Story:
Gourd the Pumpkin
People Who Keep Me Laughing Everyday: (the letters in front of the names are clan tags for various online games)
Bagheera
VEX-Boogie
[RIP]FuzzyLogic
[RIP]Guba
[RIP]Kyuubi
VEX-Pakky
My sociology teacher
My Parents and Relatives
Starath-chan
vergessen
And Two Girls From the School Bus
"Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice."
-Major Sidney Freedman - "M*A*S*H"
[End of Document]