Emiya Clan - Nerima 03
"So..." Ranma began carefully. "Tell me something."
He lounged in the chair provided to him, running a critical eye over the teenaged girl sitting across from him. She was slender, not nearly as built as Shampoo but she certainly had points above Akane. She wore a sleeveless vest over a somewhat baggy t-shirt and shorts, leaving her arms and legs bare. It was a curious choice of wardrobe considering the day had been overcast and somewhat chilly.
Her posture when she had been moving around was tight and constrained, as if she was carefully planning out her motions before she made them. She lacked the fluid grace that suggested a practitioner of The Art, while her exposed limbs lacked any visible muscle definition. She was no fighter, it seemed.
Her face had a sharp profile. Her eyes were almost always half-lidded, combined with her spiky, blue hair and high cheekbones, she presented a rather severe expression. Her mouth was almost always flat, or slightly frowning, which furthered the impression he had of a rather cold personality, but when she spoke her voice was surprisingly warm, although very, very quiet.
"What would you like to know?" Koyuki asked.
Ranma also noticed that whenever she seemed to look at him, though her expression wouldn't change a furious blush would bloom on her cheeks. She seemed to try to avoid this by refusing to look directly at him, her own chair was turned slightly to the side as she sat stiffly in it.
A clinking sound filled the room as the martial artist shifted uneasily. "Well, I guess I should say I'd like to know about your people or country. I'm curious to know your combat skills - how you measure up to the rest of the girls back home. I certainly want to know if you're going to bring any magical princes or monsters coming to rampage around town or kidnap a certain tomboy."
Ranma straightened in his seat and lifted his arms, displaying his manacled wrists chained to the floor. "But I guess I'll start with this: Why am I here? Let me out!"
A small window set in the heavy metal door slid open, revealing a narrow pair of gold eyes. "Not until you've had some happy-fun time with Little Sister there!" Fuuko shouted. The opening slammed shut again.
Ranma dropped his head into his hands and sighed.
"So... you're not Chinese."
"No, my... people are from Japan. Near it, at the very least. I believe our origins lie in an island known as Kamikura."
"Never heard of it."
"Not many people have, it would seem."
Ranma stretched as far as his restraints would let him, which was to say: not much. Rolling his head and popping a few stiff joints, he turned his attention back to his co-captor. "You didn't capture me," he stated flatly. "No offense, but you don't look like somebody I'd even consider sparring against, much less getting into a fight with."
He glanced towards the door. "A friend of yours?" he indicated with a tilt of his head.
"My sister," Koyuki coolly replied. "I do not know the details of how you came to be here, but I admit to being pleasantly surprised when my siblings informed me of this opportunity to speak with you alone. Matsu-kaasan told me such opportunities were extremely rare given your lifestyle."
"Matsu, your mom? She's the one who came with you and your pop to the dojo?"
"Ah, no that was my Mother. Akitsu-kaasan."
"...huh?"
Ranma blinked as he absorbed the info dump he had just received. "You have... quite a large family."
Koyuki nodded. "Nearly all of my family is combat-capable to some degree. However, from watching the videos my mother has compiled of your combat potential, I believe very few of us could keep up with you in a purely physical confrontation."
Ranma nodded, a prideful smirk growing in spite of himself. "I am the best," he boasted. Then he blinked. "Wait, videos?"
The window slammed open again. "We didn't put you in there to speak with him! Make with the happy-time! We're wasting film!"
"You've mentioned 'ashikabi' a few times, tell me about that."
"Ah..." Koyuki's face flushed. "Amongst my family, there are a few of us that have parents that... came from the island. We have a... custom where we find a compatible match for us." She finally turned to face him, her blush growing as she did so. "My father studied our people and found that individuals strong in magic seem to incite a stronger pull for us, what we call a Reaction. We are curious about you; you do not seem to utilize magical enhancements, but raw life force. Yet at the same time you seem almost saturated with magical energies."
"Eh," he made a face. "Curses. More curses than I care to remember or count. Long story." He waved to try to brush her off from that line of questioning. "So you React to someone and then?"
"If both parties agree, we perform the Winging Ritual." Koyuki looked at his raised eyebrow and looked away, her blush increasing in intensity. "We, ah, kiss each other. If a Reaction holds true, then my body undergoes a brief but lasting physiological alteration."
"You glow and grow wings."
"Yes."
"And then you said something about forever."
"Yes..." Koyuki looked down contritely. "I apologize, my Reaction to you was very strong and I took away your choice in the matter. I will do my best to serve you so you never have cause for regret."
"Serve me?" the cursed boy choked out.
"You are my ashikabi," Koyuki said simply. "We are bonded for life. For as long as I exist I will protect you with my life. For as long as you live you will have my sole attention and devotion. For as long as either of us live, we will sense the other's feelings and can never be truly alone."
"...Akane's so not gonna like this..."
Koyuki held up a hand and focused her magic above it. A small snowball formed and slowly grew, thin streamers of tiny water and ice crystals arrowing in from the surrounding air. "My Mother has great skill with her ice powers. Unfortunately I am not nearly so strong, my own capabilities limit me to much smaller crystals: snow."
Ranma stared wide-eyed. He knew of magic, that wasn't what was so surprising. It was that he couldn't feel any usage of ki. Up until now, all of the major opponents he'd faced used ki to empower their attacks. While a few did possess elemental abilities of their own, they often 'shaped' their ki to do so. Even the Kinjakan and Gekkaja, the fire and ice treasures of the Phoenix Tribe required a flow of ki from the user to utilize them. This was pure magic, which meant Koyuki could not exhaust herself physically even if she ran through all of her mana.
If the martial artist tried to do the same - and he bet he could...eventually - exhausting his ki would probably knock him out for the better part of the day. If Koyuki or anyone in her family trained themselves in the Art and was able to use both magic and ki, it was entirely possible they'd be able to press continuous attacks for a duration even Ryouga couldn't match.
"It's not very impressive, I know," the snow-girl said in a somewhat resigned tone. She didn't seem to notice his astonished look at the beach-ball sized sphere. "It takes me quite a while to focus even this much snow for just a single attack." She turned and launched the snowball at the far wall, where it exploded and left a very minor chip in the concrete."
She waved her other arm and a swarm of snow flakes began to circle her, each having almost no physical mass but numerous enough to cloud the air between them. "My role in combat has generally been supportive. I can hinder an opponent's vision, deflect minor projectiles, or even create very fragile clones to aid in distractions." As she spoke the minor snow storm dropped to the ground and a very pale facsimile of herself rapidly built itself into place beside her, only to collapse after a few seconds.
She looked at him shyly, then turned away with another blush. "I have always hoped... with the aid of a norito I could aid my family more directly."
Ranma tilted his head as he processed her brief display of her skills. "A what?"
Koyuki simply ducked her head and blushed even more.
Karin was spinning in her chair in front of the monitors showing the room from all corners when Fuuko walked in. The older girl took one look and squealed.
"Did she do it?" the raven-haired girl asked excitedly.
Karin shrugged and took a potato chip...and ate it! "It took her about fifteen minutes to stutter out her explanation. I'm really glad I'm taping this now, 'Yuki-chan never stutters... Then it took her another ten minutes to convince him to even try. And now... they've been sitting there just staring at each other for the last five minutes."
"Oh," Fuuko's shoulders slumped slightly. "But this is still really good for her."
Karin nodded and munched happily. Suddenly she sat up in her seat. "Ah."
All the screens flared into white as their visual pickups were suddenly overloaded. A cold wind blew over the speakers as their sibling's powers manifested themselves. Fuuko pumped a fist.
"Woo-HOO! Happy-fun time! Now we gotta convince her into REALLY-happy-fun time!"
Ranma blinked and turned his eyes from the after-image of delicate looking wings burned into his retinas. He looked up into the suddenly wide eyes of the girl standing over him and waited.
And waited.
He leaned back into his chair as he stared at her immobile face. I think I broke her...
Koyuki jerked with a start as her brain rebooted itself and she stumbled back into the table beside her. Her fingers lifted to her mouth on their own accord and gently traced her lips as she relived the last few moments again... and again.. and.. she shook her head and focused back on her ashikabi staring at her.
"That better not have been a really odd prank designed just to get me to kiss you," he said drolly.
"Ah," Koyuki's mind raced as she struggled to remember what she had to do next. "No," she assured him. It wasn't usually this hard for her to search her memories. Even a kiss shouldn't... a kiss...
aa~ah...
erk.
Her magic came to her rescue then and words spilled out before she could even process the thoughts that suddenly flowed through her. Streams of snow snaked around her and large crystals of ice formed stubby wings on her back.
"The Frozen Heavens hear my pledge
Inundate the foes of my Ashikabi"
Instinctively her arms swept out to her sides, pulling the streamers of snow alongside and shooting them out in all directions.
"Arashi Nadare!" (Tempest Avalanche)
The room exploded under the omnidirectional barrage of heavy snow and piercing icicles.
Fuuko cautiously unbolted the door, then jumped quickly to the side as the pressure from inside blew it open and a waist-high mini-avalanche poured from the doorway. She took note of the ice shards peppering the inside, penetrating even the ten-centimeters thick armor plating and whistled softly. "Not bad," she commented.
"It's too bad she took out the cameras with that," Karin said as she walked up beside her elder sister. "Note for future reference, snow does not mix well with recording equipment."
"Mmm," Fuuko agreed as she gingerly stepped into the room. She took note of the shredded remains of the furniture half buried in the snow drift and winced slightly.
"Hello," she called. "Anybody still alive?"
A noise from across the room drew her attention and she saw Koyuki slowly spinning with her eyes closed and an arm extended out in front of her, as if dowsing. Her sister suddenly paused and flicked an arm, and a plug of snow nearly a meter thick and two meters across lifted out of the floor and flew across the room to create another dent in the compromised wall.
A wet arm rose from the hole and pulled a cold-looking figure upright. Snow still covered Ranma's head and another arm lifted up to brush it clear.
Fuuko couldn't help but notice the chains slashed through, frost coating the edges as they dangled from a set of manacles that seemed oddly loose. I could have sworn I had tightened those properly...
Finally the last of the snow fell from the figure and a shaky Ranma-chan rose to her feet. "That," she proclaimed, "was impressive."
Yum. Fuuko stared at the sudden change that had come over her little sister's ashikabi. Red hair, slender waist, and a figure that was absolutely to die for. She let a catty grin grow on her face and unconsciously shifted into a more provocative stance. "Well well well..."
Ranma-chan's face shot up at her tone and instinctively stepped back, just as Karin peeked her head into the room.
"What's going on- is that Ranma?" She adjusted her glasses which suddenly opaqued with the reflected light. "Fu fu fu.. 'Yuki-chan, gotta say. You sure know how to pick 'em."
Ranma-chan backed up nervously some more, dragging his... her way through the snow in an attempt to get further away from the suddenly predatory siblings. She hit an obstacle and nervously turned around to see Koyuki staring back at her, furiously blushing once more.
"So, I was not mistaken earlier," the snow-girl commented. "Is this one of the curses you mentioned?"
"Er, yeah," the redhead said, relieved that the other girl was not acting like her two siblings. "Just one of many, like I said. Lot's of magic... hehe.." Despite her passive expression, there was something about the girl's eyes that made her wary... and that blush...
Koyuki tilted her head and a light seemed to come on behind her eyes. Suddenly, snow rose up from all around to encircle and pin Ranma-chan in place. The cursed martial artist frantically tried to escape, but the snow was packed in tight and she had no wiggle room or leverage at all.
"I would now like to test if my norito will be altered depending on which form you perform it with," she stated evenly, but heatedly as she leaned down into the trapped figure.
The room flashed with reflected light once again.
"WHOO!" cheered Fuuko again. "Me next!"
(a/n) - so a review made a suggestion that Nodoka was possibly a Sekirei Prime/00 for one of the missing sekirei landing ships, mostly based on a comparison between the Saotome matriarch and Miya. i think the idea has merit, but most of the humor from a lot of these crossovers lies in the invaded universe being completely unaware of what they're getting into. so i'm not sure if i'd ever use that idea.
i admit it sounds intriguing though...