A New Challenge

-Chiba Hiro

(I do not own Ranma ½ or any of its content, it all belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and other media.)

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Chapter 17: Climactic Battle! Ranma vs. Hikari! Pt 3

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Ranma, now fueled by a new determination, stood tall, despite the wounds she had suffered at the hands of Hikari. The demented, hooded figure stood opposite from her, but he had no scratches on him. It was as if she never attacked him in the first place. Three and a half hours passed, and they still had yet to conclude this ongoing battle.

Hikari leapt forward with a speed equal to Ranma's, but since the battle had waged for as long as it did, she currently was too slow for his skill now. Without even having time to blink, Hikari grabbed Ranma into a hold.

"You're getting slower." Hikari said.

Why am I getting slower? I'm usually faster than this! Ranma thought, but in her present condition, she could not convince herself to overcome this obstacle. I didn't even see him coming! Is it possible that I'm getting weaker with every passing minute? Impossible! Ranma Saotome does not weaken with the growing minutes! She thought fiercely.

"Are you wondering why you're too slow? Why you're so weak? It's because you failed to touch the real me. While you were busy fighting off my shikigami, you were reluctant to include me. It's a shame that one of me wasn't enough to overwhelm you, but since my shikigami served its purpose by weakening you, I have yet to be shamefully defeated!" Hikari explained smugly.

"You think you're so hot that you have that thing fight me, and then interrupt somewhere in the middle, hoping to fight me fresh as a newborn baby! People like you should be left in hell to rot!" Ranma shot back, attempting to break Hikari's hold over her. Thankfully, her arms and legs were the only ones being held behind her.

Hikari bent her forward in an attempt to pull her arms back. Ranma screamed in pain as Hikari pulled her arms back. It felt as if someone was playing tug of war with her, only her arms were the ones being tugged.

"Hurts, doesn't it? I could stop. All you have to do is give up, and let me cook those pitiful animals for dinner." Hikari taunted.

"I…would…rather…DIE!" Ranma roared at the top of her lungs, and hot blood rushed through her body. The affect of adrenalin forced her strength tenfold, and she flipped forward, sending Hikari on the ground.

Ranma broke free, and jumped back about thirty feet.

Hikari got up, still not fazed by the impact. He dusted his shoulders off, and coughed a little, then stood normally. Doesn't this guy ever get hurt? I threw him to the ground with as much force as a boulder, yet he still manages to get up! She thought. Hikari took a step forward, Ranma took a step back, always keeping his movements in check.

Before she knew it, Hikari rushed forward with high speed movement. Ranma forced what little ki she had left to the soles of her feet, and burst forward at the same time. In the space of a second, Ranma launched her chestnut fist at Hikari, and Hikari countered it with a similar technique.

Ryoga and Mousse could not keep up with their movements, they could care less about the high speed fight, at the moment, they were occupied with not trying to get boiled into pork chops and duck stew. Suddenly, an idea came into Ryoga's pig-sized brain, he was nearly a pig leg's distance from the boiling water. With force beyond that of a pig, Ryoga sucked in his courage, and splashed the boiling hot water onto him and Mousse. In a matter of seconds, two teenage boys, one wearing a yellow and black striped bandana, and the other wearing big round glasses, stood totally naked, and red from the boiling water. As they transformed back into human forms, the boiling water left embarrassing red burn marks on them.

However, at the moment, they could care less about their 'situation'. As soon as they broke free from their bonds, they rushed at Ranma to help her. Ranma turned to see that her friends had freed themselves. Light dawned on her, and she immediately thought o running away with them. Now that Ryoga and Mousse had been freed, there was no need to continue a useless fight with Hikari.

"Guys! You're free!" Ranma exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's about time! Now, let's blow this joint, and escape while we can!" Mousse shouted to her.

"Oh, but you can't leave yet." Hikari interrupted. "We have yet to finish this battle of ours. If you don't mind, kindly wait for us."

"We have no intention of sticking around! All we need to do is get out, and that's it! We'll get as far away from this place as possible, and there's no way you can stop us!" Ryoga proclaimed.

"That's a good point, however, you cannot leave, because one, I have your clothes, two, I know the way out, and three, I refuse to see you go without finishing this duel first." Hikari listed.

Remembering their embarrassment, Ryoga and Mousse rushed behind a large stone, and poked their heads out from behind it to conceal their nakedness, however, Ranma and Hikari had already seen it at this point, but neither could care less.

"Right, you wanted to see my skills, well let me show you what it means to be a Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts!" Ranma declared with a new kind of aura. Immediately, her injuries forgotten, she leapt forward with a speed she hadn't been using up till now.

Hikari came at her, and both charged each other with amazing speed. Ranma charged a fist at Hikari, but he dodged it and leapt into the air, as if suspended in midair. Ranma followed suit, and the both continued their suspended fight in the air, both fighters struck with a flurry of jabs and kicks. Neither refused to fall to the ground defeated, then suddenly, time seemed to stand still for a minute, and Hikari struck at Ranma with a speed faster than light itself.

Ranma did not anticipate the act, and was hit in the stomach, chest, and anywhere just imaginable to be hit in. Ranma broke off from the assault, and hurtled to the earth headfirst. She barely swung her body around, but it only made the fall worse.

Time rushed back to play its part, and Ranma hit the ground, side first. Ranma let out a scream of pain, and clutched the aching side of her body. It felt as if she was hit by a truck, trampled by a pack of horses, and hit a couple hundred times by Akane's mallet. Her entire body throbbed, and her limbs refused to move, having to resort to rolling to move, but the very act left her in pain even more.

This was no longer a duel; this had become a fight to the finish. Hikari was definitely not the honorable type of person, despite his acting, and he did not seem to care that he was hurting a female. The code of honor, if you are a martial artist and a man, is that you should never fight a girl with such brutality, and if you end up brining her the amount of pain Ranma's feeling right now, then you have no right to be called a martial artist, or even a code of honor for that matter.

"Ranma! Are you alright?" Ryoga called at her from behind the rock. Ranma immediately shot him a glare, but the pain in her neck refused to allow her to glare for more than a few seconds. "Uh, never mind! Stupid question!" he corrected himself.

Ranma tried to get up again, but the very act of trying to move her arm was excruciatingly difficult to do. When you feel like you've been beaten into a pulp, but have not blacked out yet, that's what she's feeling right now. Her limbs not only screamed in pain, but they also felt a little heavy, right now, the only thing that didn't hurt much was her head, yet she still struggled.

"Feeling the excruciating pain, now have you? I have struck all of your receptive nerves. All I did was punch you a few times, and made you more sensitive to pain. If I were you, I'd just let myself fall into a deep sleep, and never awaken again. But, that's clearly too much to ask of you, after all, your pride refuses you to give into the pressure." Hikari taunted.

"Sh…Shut up!" Ranma shouted, her anger moving toward its boiling point. With all of her might, she hopped to her feet, and ignored the pain altogether. "I've had enough of this!" she shouted, and charged at Hikari, almost like Ryoga.

"You've forgotten to use your stealth and speed in this one, clearly your anger has seeped in and taken control. You have the speed, but you let yourself be overcome by blind frustration, and you come at me like a wild bull. How pitiful!" Hikari reminded her. At this point, she let go all of her sense of cool and grace, and instead replaced it with hot anger and impulse.

Ranma launched a wild, uncontrollable punch at Hikari, but Hikari vanished before the anger could make contact with him, instead of hitting Hikari, she slammed her fist into the wall ahead. Unlike most people, if they punched a wall with as much strength as she put, it would break their hand, but since she infused ki into her fist, the wall was the one that got broken, not her hand. That doesn't mean she didn't feel it.

Hikari reappeared behind Ranma, and she swung her leg at him, attempting to kick him somewhere in the side, but he vanished yet again. She made a one-eighty degree spin kick, and kicked the wall. The wall suffered the blow again, and left a deep depression on it.

"HOLD STILL, WILL YA!" Ranma roared. Her voice was like a dormant volcano erupting for the first time in a thousand years. Ranma and Mousse flinched from her voice, and shrank even further into the rock.

"Now, now. Mind your temper. We wouldn't want an accident, would we?" Hikari taunted.

"YOU'RE THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS, JERK!" Ranma shouted again, and struck at him again, but she was interrupted.

"Ranma, snap out of it!" Mousse shouted, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

"What do you want, Mousse? I'm busy here!"

"Stop, Ranma! This isn't like you to charge blindly like that! Fight how you usually do! Get him into a tight spot!" Mousse shouted.

Light dawned in Ranma's mind, and she stood absolutely still and closed her eyes. Her red aura dissipated, and a new aura enveloped her. What was once red, became bluish-white, the color of ice.

"What's this?" Hikari stared, confused. Before he could blink, Ranma vanished from where she stood, and kicked him in the stomach with her knee. Ranma landed just short of him, and stood over him.

Hikari doubled over, and clutched his stomach. From behind his hood, Ranma could see Hikari's eyes burning with the anger she felt just moments ago. The Ranma that stood before him was no longer blinded with rage, she was replaced with a hostile, cold eyed warrior.

"Sister!" Hikari shouted, and Ranma was immediately replaced with another girl in his eyes. The girl from his memories had a very big resemblance to the Ranma that faced him.

"Sister? I'm Ranma, you idiot! Come back to reality!" Ranma shouted, and kicked Hikari back into reality.

"I just realized something, Ranma. For a minute there, when you stood before me, string deep into me, like windows to the soul, you looked almost like my sister when she was your age." Hikari said.

"That's good and all, but this is a duel. We're here to finish it, not reminisce about our family members, or whatnot. Get up! I'm not finished yet." Ranma said, and held her palms out cupped in front of her.

In the middle of her cupped hands was the forming of a ki attack. She was serious about ending the duel, literally ending it. If Hikari didn't react fast enough, Ranma would've obliterated him, instead, she waited for him to move.

"You either give up and show me the way out, or I fire." Ranma threatened in an icy tone. Her azure eyes stared daggers at Hikari, the very color alone made anyone shudder.

Hikari grinned. "You would kill me with that, while I'm down? That's not very honorable, Saotome. After all, you've been lecturing me about honor, and fighting fair, but it seems that you're no different from me, huh?"

"You shouldn't talk…you sound stupid." Ranma said without any anger behind the words, only hostility.

The ball grew a few inches bigger, but Ranma still held on to it, not ready to fire it yet. "Let us go, or else…"

"Or else? You really will kill me?" Hikari taunted.

"Do you want to have your funeral so soon? I'd be very happy to oblige. Now choose, our freedom, or being burned to a crisp?" Ranma threatened.

"Hypocrites really do get on my nerves. There's nothing like a hypocritical view from someone like you. You speak of honor and fairness, but now it seems that you do not believe in it either! Come! Strike me!"

"As you wish." Ranma said, and raised her hands behind high above her head. The ball grew two more inches until Ranma could hold it like a real ball between cupped hands.

"Ranma, no!" Ryoga shouted before he could stop himself.

Time seemed to stop for the second time in four hours. Ranma dropped her hands and aimed at Hikari. Ranma let the ki go and envelop Hikari.

"Ranma! What have you done?" Ryoga asked, angry and confused, "Why'd you kill him!"

"Relax, Ryoga. This isn't the last we've seen of Hikari." Ranma said, and what was left of Hikari was his grey cloak and scattered pieces of burnt paper.

Ranma's mood lightened, and she faced Mousse and Ryoga with a genuine smile.

"Let's go home now, shall we?"

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A/N: Is this a sign of another plot growing? Or is it just me? Anyway, sorry I haven't updated for the last three weeks, it's because I've been busy with school, and end of semester is coming up, and I've got finals! Ah! Exams never leave me alone for any length of time, does it? That's just wishful thinking. Please rate, comment, and review! If I don't get back to you in the next weeks or so, it's probably because of finals, my birthday, and Christmas! So, Merry Christmas everyone! And a Happy New Year!